"DON'T come in
here botherin' me," said the cook, intolerantly. "What with your
mother bein' away on a visit, an' your father comin' home soon to lunch, I have
enough on my mind--and that without bein' bothered with you. The kitchen is no place
for little boys, anyhow. Run away, and don't be interferin' with my work."
She frowned and made a grand pretence of being deep in herculean labors; but
Jimmie did not run away.
"Now--they're
goin' to have a picnic," he said, half audibly.
"What?"
"Now--they're goin'
to have a picnic."
"Who's goin' to
have a picnic?" demanded the cook, loudly. Her accent could have led one
to suppose that if the projectors did not turn out to be the proper parties,
she immediately would forbid this picnic.
Jimmie looked at her
with more hopefulness. After twenty minutes of futile skirmishing, he had at
least succeeded in introducing the subject. To her question he answered,
eagerly:
"Oh, everybody!
Lots and lots of boys and girls. Everybody."
"Who's
everybody?"
According to custom,
Jimmie began to singsong through his nose in a quite indescribable fashion an
enumeration of the prospective picnickers: "Willie Dalzel an' Dan Earl an'
Ella Earl an' Wolcott Margate an' Reeves Margate an' Minnie Phelps
an'--oh--lots more girls an'--everybody. An' their mothers an' big sisters
too." Then he announced a new bit of information: "They're goin' to
have a picnic."
"Well, let
them," said the cook, blandly.
Jimmie fidgeted for a
time in silence. At last he murmured, "I--now--I thought maybe you'd let
me go."
The cook turned from
her work with an air of irritation and amazement that Jimmie should still be in
the kitchen. "Who's stoppin' you?" she asked, sharply. "I ain't
stoppin' you, am I?"
"No,"
admitted Jimmie, in a low voice.
"Well, why don't
you go, then? Nobody's stoppin' you."
"But," said
Jimmie, "I--you--now--each feller has got to take somethin' to eat with
'm."
"Oh ho!"
cried the cook, triumphantly. "So that's it, is it? So that's what you've
been shyin' round here fer, eh? Well, you may as well take yourself off without
more words. What with your mother bein' away on a visit, an' your father comin'
home soon to his lunch, I have enough on my mind--an' that without being
bothered with you."
Jimmie made no reply, but
moved in grief toward the door. The cook continued: "Some people in this
house seem to think there's 'bout a thousand cooks in this kitchen. Where I
used to work b'fore, there was some reason in 'em. I ain't a horse. A
picnic!"
Jimmie said nothing, but
he loitered.
"Seems as if I had
enough to do, without havin' you come round talkin' about picnics. Nobody ever
seems to think of the work I have to do. Nobody ever seems to think of it. Then
they come and talk to me about picnics! What do I care about picnics?"
Jimmie loitered.
"Where I used to
work b'fore, there was some reason in 'em. I never heard tell of no picnics
right on top of your mother bein' away on a visit an' your father comin' home
soon to his lunch. It's all foolishness."
Little Jimmie leaned
his head flat against the wall and began to weep. She stared at him scornfully.
"Cryin', eh? Cryin'? What are you cryin' fer?"
"N-n-nothin',"
sobbed Jimmie.
There was a silence,
save for Jimmie's convulsive breathing. At length the cook said: "Stop
that blubberin', now. Stop it! This kitchen ain't no place fer it. Stop it! . .
. Very well! If you don't stop, I won't give you nothin' to go to the picnic
with-- there!"
For the moment he could
not end his tears. "You never said," he sputtered--"you never
said you'd give me anything."
"An' why would
I?" she cried, angrily. "Why would I--with you in here a-cryin' an'
a-blubberin' an' a-bleatin' round? Enough to drive a woman crazy! I don't see
how you could expect me to! The idea!"
Suddenly Jimmie
announced: "I've stopped cryin'. I ain't goin' to cry no more 'tall."
"Well, then,"
grumbled the cook--"well, then, stop it. I've got enough on my mind."
It chanced that she was making for luncheon some salmon croquettes. A tin still
half full of pinky prepared fish was beside her on the table. Still grumbling,
she seized a loaf of bread and, wielding a knife, she cut from this loaf four
slices, each of which was as big as a six-shilling novel. She profligately
spread them with butter, and jabbing the point of her knife into the
salmon-tin, she brought up bits of salmon, which she flung and flattened upon
the bread. Then she crashed the pieces of bread together in pairs, much as one
would clash cymbals. There was no doubt in her own mind but that she had
created two sandwiches.
"There," she
cried. "That'll do you all right. Lemme see. What'll I put 'em in?
There--I've got it." She thrust the sandwiches into a small pail and jammed
on the lid. Jimmie was ready for the picnic. "Oh, thank you, Mary!"
he cried, joyfully, and in a moment he was off, running swiftly.
The picnickers had
started nearly half an hour earlier, owing to his inability to quickly attack
and subdue the cook, but he knew that the rendezvous was in the grove of tall,
pillarlike hemlocks and pines that grew on a rocky knoll at the lake shore. His
heart was very light as he sped, swinging his pail. But a few minutes
previously his soul had been gloomed in despair; now he was happy. He was going
to the picnic, where privilege of participation was to be bought by the
contents of the little tin pail.
When he arrived in the
outskirts of the grove he heard a merry clamor, and when he reached the top of
the knoll he looked down the slope upon a scene which almost made his little
breast burst with joy. They actually had two camp fires! Two camp fires! At one
of them Mrs. Earl was making something--chocolate, no doubt--and at the other a
young lady in white duck and a sailor hat was dropping eggs into boiling water.
Other grown-up people had spread a white cloth and were laying upon it things
from baskets. In the deep cool shadow of the trees the children scurried,
laughing. Jimmie hastened forward to join his friends.
Homer Phelps caught
first sight of him. "Ho!" he shouted; "here comes Jimmie
Trescott! Come on, Jimmie; you be on our side!" The children had divided
themselves into two bands for some purpose of play. The others of Homer
Phelps's party loudly endorsed his plan. "Yes, Jimmie, you be on our
side." Then arose the usual dispute. "Well, we got the weakest
side."
"'Tain't any
weaker'n ours."
Homer Phelps suddenly
started, and looking hard, said, "What you got in the pail, Jim?"
Jimmie answered
somewhat uneasily, "Got m' lunch in it."
Instantly that brat of
a Minnie Phelps simply tore down the sky with her shrieks of derision.
"Got his lunch in it! In a pail!" She ran screaming to her mother.
"Oh, mamma! Oh, mamma! Jimmie Trescott's got his picnic in a pail!"
Now there was nothing
in the nature of this fact to particularly move the others--notably the boys,
who were not competent to care if he had brought his luncheon in a coal-bin;
but such is the instinct of childish society that they all immediately moved
away from him. In a moment he had been made a social leper. All old intimacies
were flung into the lake, so to speak. They dared not compromise themselves. At
safe distances the boys shouted, scornfully: "Huh! Got his picnic in a
pail!" Never again during that picnic did the little girls speak of him as
Jimmie Trescott. His name now was Him.
His mind was dark with
pain as he stood, the hang-dog, kicking the gravel, and muttering as defiantly
as he was able, "Well, I can have it in a pail if I want to." This
statement of freedom was of no importance, and he knew it, but it was the only
idea in his head.
He had been baited at
school for being detected in writing a letter to little Cora, the angel child,
and he had known how to defend himself, but this situation was in no way
similar. This was a social affair, with grown people on all sides. It would be
sweet to catch the Margate twins, for instance, and hammer them into a state of
bleating respect for his pail; but that was a matter for the jungles of childhood,
where grown folk seldom penetrated. He could only glower.
The amiable voice of
Mrs. Earl suddenly called: "Come, children! Everything's ready!" They
scampered away, glancing back for one last gloat at Jimmie standing there with
his pail.
He did not know what to
do. He knew that the grown folk expected him at the spread, but if he
approached he would be greeted by a shameful chorus from the children--more
especially from some of those damnable little girls. Still, luxuries beyond all
dreaming were heaped on that cloth. One could not forget them. Perhaps if he
crept up modestly, and was very gentle and very nice to the little girls, they
would allow him peace. Of course it had been dreadful to come with a pail to
such a grand picnic, but they might forgive him.
Oh no, they would not!
He knew them better. And then suddenly he remembered with what delightful
expectations he had raced to this grove, and self-pity overwhelmed him, and he
thought he wanted to die and make every one feel sorry.
The young lady in white
duck and a sailor hat looked at him, and then spoke to her sister, Mrs. Earl.
"Who's that hovering in the distance, Emily?"
Mrs. Earl peered.
"Why, it's Jimmie Trescott! Jimmie, come to the picnic! Why don't you come
to the picnic, Jimmie?" He began to sidle toward the cloth.
But at Mrs. Earl's call
there was another outburst from many of the children. "He's got his picnic
in a pail! In a pail! Got it in a pail!"
Minnie Phelps was a
shrill fiend. "Oh, mamma, he's got it in that pail! See! Isn't it funny?
Isn't it dreadful funny?"
"What ghastly
prigs children are, Emily!" said the young lady. "They are spoiling
that boy's whole day, breaking his heart, the little cats! I think I'll go over
and talk to him."
"Maybe you had
better not," answered Mrs. Earl, dubiously. "Somehow these things
arrange themselves. If you interfere, you are likely to prolong
everything."
"Well, I'll try,
at least," said the young lady.
At the second outburst
against him Jimmie had crouched down by a tree, half hiding behind it, half
pretending that he was not hiding behind it. He turned his sad gaze toward the
lake. The bit of water seen through the shadows seemed perpendicular, a slate-
colored wall. He heard a noise near him, and turning, he perceived the young
lady looking down at him. In her hands she held plates. "May I sit near
you?" she asked, coolly.
Jimmie could hardly
believe his ears. After disposing herself and the plates upon the pine needles,
she made brief explanation. "They're rather crowded, you see, over there.
I don't like to be crowded at a picnic, so I thought I'd come here. I hope you
don't mind."
Jimmie made haste to
find his tongue. "Oh, I don't mind! I like to have you here." The
ingenuous emphasis made it appear that the fact of his liking to have her there
was in the nature of a law-dispelling phenomenon, but she did not smile.
"How large is that
lake?" she asked.
Jimmie, falling into
the snare, at once began to talk in the manner of a proprietor of the lake.
"Oh, it's almost twenty miles long, an' in one place it's almost four
miles wide! an' it's deep, too--awful deep--an' it's got real steamboats on it,
an'--oh--lots of other boats, an'--an'--an'--"
"Do you go out on
it sometimes?"
"Oh, lots of
times! My father's got a boat," he said, eying her to note the effect of
his words.
She was correctly
pleased and struck with wonder. "Oh, has he?" she cried, as if she
never before had heard of a man owning a boat.
Jimmie continued:
"Yes, an' it's a grea' big boat, too, with sails, real sails; an'
sometimes he takes me out in her, too; an' once he took me fishin', an' we had
sandwiches, plenty of 'em, an' my father he drank beer right out of the
bottle--right out of the bottle!"
The young lady was
properly overwhelmed by this amazing intelligence. Jimmie saw the impression he
had created, and he enthusiastically resumed his narrative: "An' after, he
let me throw the bottles in the water, and I throwed 'em 'way, 'way, 'way out.
An' they sank, an'--never comed up," he concluded, dramatically.
His face was glorified;
he had forgotten all about the pail; he was absorbed in this communion with a
beautiful lady who was so interested in what he had to say.
She indicated one of
the plates, and said, indifferently: "Perhaps you would like some of those
sandwiches. I made them. Do you like olives? And there's a deviled egg. I made
that also."
"Did you
really?" said Jimmie, politely. His face gloomed for a moment because the
pail was recalled to his mind, but he timidly possessed himself of a sandwich.
"Hope you are not
going to scorn my deviled egg," said his goddess. "I am very proud of
it." He did not; he scorned little that was on the plate.
Their gentle intimacy
was ineffable to the boy. He thought he had a friend, a beautiful lady, who
liked him more than she did anybody at the picnic, to say the least. This was
proved by the fact that she had flung aside the luxuries of the spread cloth to
sit with him, the exile. Thus early did he fall a victim to woman's wiles.
"Where do you
live?" he asked, suddenly.
"Oh, a long way
from here! In New York."
His next question was
put very bluntly. "Are you married?"
"Oh, no!" she
answered, gravely.
Jimmie was silent for a
time, during which he glanced shyly and furtively up at her face. It was
evident that he was somewhat embarrassed. Finally he said, "When I grow up
to be a man--"
"Oh, that is some
time yet!" said the beautiful lady.
"But when I do,
I--I should like to marry you."
"Well, I will
remember it," she answered; "but don't talk of it now, because it's
such a long time, and--I wouldn't wish you to consider yourself bound."
She smiled at him.
He began to brag.
"When I grow up to be a man, I'm goin' to have lots an' lots of money, an'
I'm goin' to have a grea' big house an' a horse an' a shotgun, an' lots an'
lots of books 'bout elephants an' tigers, an' lots an' lots of ice-cream an'
pie an'-- caramels." As before, she was impressed; he could see it.
"An' I'm goin' to have lots an' lots of children--'bout three hundred, I
guess--an' there won't none of 'em be girls. They'll all be boys--like
me."
"Oh, my!" she
said.
His garment of shame
was gone from him. The pail was dead and well buried. It seemed to him that
months elapsed as he dwelt in happiness near the beautiful lady and trumpeted
his vanity.
At last there was a
shout. "Come on! we're going home." The picnickers trooped out of the
grove. The children wished to resume their jeering, for Jimmie still gripped
his pail, but they were restrained by the circumstances. He was walking at the
side of the beautiful lady.
During this journey he
abandoned many of his habits. For instance, he never travelled without skipping
gracefully from crack to crack between the stones, or without pretending that
he was a train of cars, or without some mumming device of childhood. But now he
behaved with dignity. He made no more noise than a little mouse. He escorted
the beautiful lady to the gate of the Earl home, where he awkwardly, solemnly,
and wistfully shook hands in good-by. He watched her go up the walk; the door
clanged.
On his way home he
dreamed. One of these dreams was fascinating. Supposing the beautiful lady was
his teacher in school! Oh, my! wouldn't he be a good boy, sitting like a
statuette all day long, and knowing every lesson to perfection,
and--everything. And then supposing that a boy should sass her. Jimmie painted
himself waylaying that boy on the homeward road, and the fate of the boy was a
thing to make strong men cover their eyes with their hands. And she would like
him more and more--more and more. And he--he would be a little god.
But as he was entering
his father's grounds an appalling recollection came to him. He was returning
with the bread-and- butter and the salmon untouched in the pail! He could
imagine the cook, nine feet tall, waving her fist. "An' so that's what I
took trouble for, is it? So's you could bring it back? So's you could bring it
back?" He skulked toward the house like a marauding bush- ranger. When he
neared the kitchen door he made a desperate rush past it, aiming to gain the
stables and there secrete his guilt. He was nearing them, when a thunderous
voice hailed him from the rear:
"Jimmie Trescott,
where you goin' with that pail?"
It was the cook. He
made no reply, but plunged into the shelter of the stables. He whirled the lid
from the pail and dashed its contents beneath a heap of blankets. Then he stood
panting, his eyes on the door. The cook did not pursue, but she was bawling,
"Jimmie Trescott,
what you doin' with that pail?"
He came forth, swinging
it. "Nothin'," he said, in virtuous protest.
"I know
better," she said, sharply, as she relieved him of his curse.
In the morning Jimmie
was playing near the stable, when he heard a shout from Peter Washington, who
attended Dr. Trescott's horses:
"Jim! Oh,
Jim!"
"What?"
"Come yah."
Jimmie went reluctantly
to the door of the stable, and Peter Washington asked,
"Wut's dish yere
fish an' brade doin' unner dese yer blankups?"
"I don't know. I
didn't have nothin' to do with it," answered Jimmie, indignantly.
"Don' tell
me!" cried Peter Washington as he flung it all away--"don' tell me!
When I fin' fish an' brade unner dese yer blankups, I don' go an' think dese
yer ho'ses er yer pop's put 'em. I know. An' if I caitch enny more dish yer
fish an' brade in dish yer stable, I'll tell yer pop."