Chapter 19

Prue and Idalene and Bertha he would have sentenced to deportation if he had had the jurisdiction. He could at least send them home. He threatened his wife with dire punishments if she ever took another step of the abominable dance.

Prue was afraid of the judge, but she was not afraid of her own father. She told him that she was going to use the parlor, and he told her that she wasn't. The next day he came home to find the class installed.

He peeked into the parlor and saw Bertha Appleby dancing with Idalene Brearley. Prue was in the arms of old "Tawm" Kinch, the town scoundrel, a bald and wealthy old bachelor who had lingered uncaught like a wise old trout in a pool, though generations of girls had tried every device, from whipping the' stream to tickling his sides. He had refused every bait and lived more or less alone in the big old mansion he had inherited from his skinflint mother.

At the sight of Tawm Kinch in his parlor embracing his daughter and bungling an odious dance with her, William Pepperall saw red. He would throw the old brute out of his house. As he made his temper ready Mrs. Judge Hippisley hurried up the hall. She had walked round the block, crossed two back yards and climbed the kitchen steps to throw the judge off the scent. William could hardly make a scene before these women. He could only protest by leaving the house.

He found that, having let the outrage go unpunished, once, it was hard to work up steam to drive it out the second day. Also he remembered that he had asked Tawm Kinch for a position in his sash-and-blind factory and Tawm had said he would see about it. Attacking Tawm Kinch would be like assaulting his future bread and butter. He kept away from the house as much as he could, sulking like a punished boy. One evening as he went home to supper, purposely delaying as long as possible, he saw Tawm Kinch coming from the house. He ran down the steps like an urchin and seized William's hand as if he had not seen him for a long time.

"Take a walk with me, Bill," he said, and led William along an unfrequented side street. After much hemming and hawing he began: "Bill, I got a proposition to make you. I find there's a possibility of a p'sition openin' up in the works and maybe I could fit you into it if you'd do something for me."

William tried not to betray his overweening joy.

"I'd always do anything for you, Tawm," he said. "I always liked you, always spoke well of you, which is more 'n I can say of some of the other folks round here."

Tawm was flying too high to note the raw tactlessness of this; he went right on:

"Bill--or Mr. Pepperall, I'd better say--I'm simply dead gone on that girl of yours. She's the sweetest, smartest, gracefulest thing that ever struck this town, and when I--Well, I'm afraid to ask her m'self, but I was thinkin' if you could arrange it."

"Arrange what?"

"I want to marry her. I know I'm no kid, but she could have the big house, and I can be as foolish as anybody about spending money when I've a mind to. Prue could have 'most anything she wanted and I could give you a good job. And then ever'body would be happy."

X

Papa did his best to be dignified and not turn a handspring or shout for joy. He was like a boy trying to look sad when he learns that the school-teacher is ill. He managed to hold back and tell Tawm Kinch that this was kind of sudden like and he'd have to talk to the wife about it, and o' course the girl would have to be considered.

He was good salesman enough not to leap at the first offer, and he left Tawm Kinch guessing at the gate of the big house. To Tawm it looked as lonely and forlorn as it looked majestic and desirable to Papa Pepperall, glancing back over his shoulder as he sauntered home with difficult deliberation. His heart was singing, "What a place to eat Sunday dinners at!"

Once out of Tawm Kinch's range, he broke into a walk that was almost a lope, and he rounded a corner into the portico that Judge Hippisley carried ahead of him. When the judge had regained his breath he seized papa by both lapels and growled:

"Look here, Pepperall, I told you to keep your daughter away from my boy, and you didn't; and now Ort has lost his job. Beadle fired him to-day. And jobs ain't easy to get in this town, as you know. And now what's going to happen?"

William Pepperall was so exultant that he tried to say two things at the same time; that Orton's job or loss of it was entirely immaterial and a matter of perfect indifference. What he said was, "It's material of perfect immaterence to me."

He spurned to correct himself and stalked on, leaving the judge gaping. A few paces off William's knees weakened at the thought of how he had jeopardized Ollie's position; but he tossed that aside with equal "immaterence," for when Prue became Mrs. Kinch she could take Ollie to live with her, or send her to school, or something.

When he reached home he drew his wife into the parlor to break the glorious news to her. She was more hilarious than he had been. All their financial problems were solved and their social position enhanced, as if the family had suddenly been elevated to the peerage.

She was on pins and needles of impatience because Prue was late for supper. She came down at last when the others had heard all about it and nearly finished their food. She had her hat on, and she was in such a hurry that she paid no attention to the fluttering of the covey, or the prolonged throat-clearing of her father, who had difficulty in keeping Serina from blurting out the end of the story first. At length he said:

"Well, Prue, I guess the tango ain't as bad as I made out."

"You going to join the class, poppa?" said Prue, round the spoonful of preserved pears she checked before her mouth.

Her father went on: "I guess you're one of those daughters of Shiloh like you said you was. And the son of Benjamin has come right out after you. And he's the biggest son of a gun in the whole tribe."

Prue put down the following spoonful and turned to her mother: "What ails poppa, momma? He talks feverish."

Serina fairly gurgled: "Prepare yourself for the grandest surprise. You'd never guess."

And William had to jump to beat her to the news: "Tawm Kinch wants to marry you."

"What?"

"Yep."

"What makes you think so?"

"He asked me."

"Asked you!"

Serina clasped her hands and her eyes filled with tears of the rescued. "Oh, Prue, ain't it wonderful? Ain't the Lord good to us?"

Prue did not catch fire from the blaze. She sniffed, "He wasn't very good to Tawm Kinch."

William, bitter with disappointment, snapped: "What do you mean? He's the richest man in town. Some folks say he's as good as worth a hundred thousand dollars."

"Well, what of it? He'll never learn to dance. His feet interfere."

"What's dancing got to do with it? You'll stop all that foolishness after you've married Tawm."

"Oh, will I? Ort Hippisley can dance better with one foot than Tawm Kinch could dance if he was a centipede."

"Ort Hippisley! Humph! He's lost his job and he'll never get another. You couldn't marry him."

"I'm not in any hurry to marry anybody."

The reaction from hope to confusion, the rejection of the glittering gift he proffered, infuriated the hen-pecked, chickpecked father. He shrieked:

"Well, you're going to marry Tawm Kinch or you're going to get out of my house!"

"Papa!" gasped Ollie.

"Here, dad!" growled Horace.

"William!" cried Serina.

William thumped the table and rose to his full height. He had not often risen to it. And his voice had an unsuspected timbre:

"I mean it. I've been a worm in this house long enough. Here's where I turn. This girl has made me a laughing-stock and a despising-stock long enough. She can take this grand opportunity I got for her or she can pack up her duds and clear out--for good!"

He thumped the table again and sat down trembling with spent rage. Serina was so crushed under the crumbled wall of her air-castles that she could not protest. Olive and Horace felt that since Prue was so indifferent to their happiness they need not consider hers. There was a long, long silence.

The sound of a low whistle outside stole into the silence. Prue rose and said, quietly:

"Ollie, would you mind packing my things for me? I'll send over for them when I know where I'll be."

Ollie tried to answer, but her lips made no sound. Prue kissed each of the solemn faces round the table, including her father's. They might have been dead in their chairs for all their response. She paused with prophetic loneliness. That low whistle shrilled again.

She murmured a somber, "Good-by, everybody," and went out.

The door closed like a dull "Good-by." They heard her swift feet slowly crossing the porch and descending the steps. They imagined them upon the walk. They heard the old gate squeal a rusty, "Good-by-y--Prue-ue!"

XI

It was Ort Hippisley, of course, that waited for Prue outside the gate. They swapped bad news. She had heard that he had lost his job, but not that his father had forbidden him to speak to Prue.

Her evil tidings that she had been compelled to choose between marrying Tawm Kinch and banishment from home threw Ort into a panic of dismay. He was a natural-born dancer, but not a predestined hero. He had no inspirations for crises like these. He was as graceful as a manly man could be, but he was not at his best when the hour was darkest. He was at his best when the band was playing.

In him Prue found somebody to support, not to lean on. But his distress at her distress was so complete that it endeared him to her war-like soul more than a braver quality might have done. They stood awhile thus in each other's arms like a Pierrot and his Columbine with winter coming on. Finally Orton sighed:

"What in Heaven's name is goin' to become of us? What you goin' to do, Prue? Where can you go?"

Prue's resolution asserted itself. "The first place to go is Mrs. Prosser's boardin'-house and get me a room. Then we can go on to the dance and maybe that'll give us an idea."

"But maybe Mrs. Prosser won't want you since your father's turned you out."

"In the first place it was me that turned me out. In the second place Mrs. Prosser wants 'most anybody that's got six dollars a week comin' in. And I've got that, provided I can find a room to teach in."

Mrs. Prosser welcomed Prue, not without question, not without every question she could get answered, but she made no great bones of the family war. "The best o' families quar'ls," she said. "And half the time they take their meals with me till they quiet down. I'll be losin' you soon."

Prue broached the question of a room to teach in. To Mrs. Prosser, renting a room had always the joy of renting a room. She said that her "poller" was not used much and she'd be right glad to get something for it. She would throw in the use of the pianna. Prue touched the keys. It was an old boarding-house piano and sounded like a wire fence plucked; but almost anything would serve.

So Prue and Orton hastened away to the party, and danced with the final rapture of doing the forbidden thing under an overhanging cloud of menace. Several more pupils enlisted themselves in Prue's classes. Another problem was solved and a new danger commenced by Mr. Norman Maugans.

The question of music had become serious. It was hard to make progress when the dancers had to hum their own tunes. Prue could not buy a phonograph, and the Prosser piano dated from a time when pianos did not play themselves. Prue could "tear off a few rags," as she put it, but she could not dance and teach and play her own music all at once. Mrs. Hippisley was afraid to lend her phonograph lest the judge should notice its absence.

And now like a sent angel came Mr. Norman Maugans, who played the pipe-organ at the church, and offered to exchange his services as musician for occasional lessons and the privilege of watching Prue dance, for which privilege, he said, "folks in New York would pay a hundred dollars a night if they knew what they was missin'."

Prue grabbed the bargain, and the next morning began to teach him to play such things as "Some Smoke" and "Leg of Mutton."

At first he played "Girls, Run Along" so that it could hardly be told from "Where Is My Wandering Boy To-night?" and his waltzes were mostly hesitation; but by and by he got so that he fairly tangoed on the pedals, and he was so funny bouncing about on the piano-stool to "Something Seems Tingle-ingle-ingle-ingling So Queer" that the pupils stopped dancing to watch him.

The tango was upon the world like a Mississippi at flood-time. The levees were going over one by one; or if they stood fast they stood alone, for the water crept round from above and backed up from below.

In Carthage, as in both Portlands, Maine and Oregon, and the two Cairos, Illinois and Egypt, the Parises of Kentucky and France, the Yorks and Londons, old and new; in Germany, Italy, and Japan, fathers, monarchs, mayors, editors stormed against the new dance; societies passed resolutions; police interfered; ballet-girls declared the dances immoral and ungraceful. The army of the dance went right on growing.

Doctor Brearley called a meeting of the chief men of his congregation to talk things over and discipline, if not expel, all guilty members. Deacon Luxton was in a state of mind. He dared not vote in favor of the dance and he dared not vote against it. He and his wife were taking lessons from Prue surreptitiously at their own home. Judge Hippisley's voice would have been louder for war if he had not discovered that his wife was secretly addicted to the one-step. Old Doctor Brearley was walking about rehearsing a sermon against it when he happened to enter a room where Idalene was practising. He wrung from her a confession of the depth of her iniquity. This knowledge paralyzed his enthusiasm.

Sour old Deacon Flugal was loudly in favor of making an example of Prue. His wife was even more violent. She happened to mention her disgust to Mrs. Deacon Luxton:

"I guess this'll put an end to the tango in Carthage!"

"Oh, I hope not!" Mrs. Luxton cried.

"You hope not!"

"Yes, I do. It has done my husband no end of good. It's taken pounds and pounds of fat off him. It brings out the prespiration on him something wonderful. And it's taken years off his age. He's that spry and full of jokes and he's gettin' right spoony. He used to be a tumble cut-up, and then he settled down so there was no livin' with him. But now he keeps at me to buy some new clothes and he's thinkin' of gettin' a tuxeda. His old disp'sition seems to have come back and he's as cheerful and, oh, so affectionate! It's like a second honeymoon."

Mrs. Luxton gazed off into space with rapture. Mrs. Flugal was so silent that Mrs. Luxton turned to see if she had walked away in disgust. But there was in her eyes that light that lies in woman's eyes, and she turned a delicious tomato-red as she murmured:

"How much, do you s'pose, would a term of lessons cost for my husband?"

XII

Somehow the church failed to take official action. There was loud criticism still, but phonographs that had hitherto been silent or at least circumspect were heard to blare forth dance rhythms, and not always with the soft needle on.

Mrs. Prosser's boarders were mainly past the age when they were liable to temptation. At first the presence and activities of Prue had added a tang of much-needed spice to this desert-island existence. They loved to stare through the door or even to sit in at the lessons. But at the first blast of the storm that the church had set up they scurried about in consternation. Mrs. Prosser was informed that her boarding-house was no longer a fit place for church-fearing ladies. She was warned to expurgate Prue or lose the others. Mrs. Prosser regretfully banished the girl.

And now Prue felt like the locust turned away from ant-hill after ant-hill. She walked the streets disconsolately. Her feet from old habit led her past her father's door. She paused to gaze at the dear front walk and the beloved frayed steps, the darling need of paint, the time-gnawed porch furniture, the empty hammock hooks. She sighed and would have trudged on, but her mother saw her and called to her from the sewing-room window, and ran out bareheaded in her old wrapper.

They embraced across the gate and Serina carried on so that Prue had to go in with her to keep the neighbors from having too good a time. Prue told her story, and Serina's jaw set in the kind of tetanus that mothers are liable to. She sent Horace to fetch Prue's baggage from "old Prosser's," and she re-established Prue in her former room.

When William came slumping up the steps, still jobless, he found the doors locked, front and back, and the porch windows fastened. Serina from an upper sill informed him that Prue was back, and he could either accept her or go somewhere else to live.

William yielded, salving his conscience by refusing to speak to the girl. Prue settled down with the meekness of returned prodigals for whom fatted calves are killed. According to the old college song, "The Prod.," when he got back, "sued father and brother for time while away." That was the sort of prodigal Prue was. Prue brought her classes with her.

Papa Pepperall gave up the battle. He dared not lock his daughter in or out or up. He must not beat her or strangle her with a bowstring or drop her into the Bosporus. He could not sell her down the river. A modern father has about as much authority as a chained watch-dog. He can jump about and bark and snap, but he only abrades his own throat.

There were Pepperall feuds all over town. One by one the most conservative were recruited or silenced.

William Pepperall, however, still fumed at home and abroad, and Judge Hippisley would have authorized raids if there had been any places to raid. Thus far the orgies had been confined to private walls. There was, indeed, no place in Carthage for public dancing except the big room in the Westcott Block over Jake Meyer's restaurant, and that room was rented to various secret societies on various nights.

Prue's class outgrew the parlor, spread to the dining-room, and trickled into the kitchen. Here the growth had to stop, till it was learned that if Mr. Maugans played very loud he could be heard in the bedrooms up-stairs. And there a sort of University Extension was practised for ladies only.

And still the demand for education increased. The benighted held out hands pleading for help. Young men and old offered fabulous sums, a dollar a lesson, two dollars! Prue decided that if her mother would stay up-stairs as a chaperon it would be proper to let the men dance there, too.

"But how am I going to cook the meals?" said mamma.

"We'll hire a cook," said Prue. And it was done. She even bought mamma a new dress, and established her above-stairs as a sort of grand duenna.

Mamma watched Prue with such keenness that now and then, when Prue had to rush down-stairs, mamma would sometimes solve a problem for one of Prue's "scholars," as she called them.

One day papa came home to his pandemonium, jostled through the couple-cluttered hall, stamped up-stairs, and found mamma showing Deacon Flugal how to do the drop-step.

"You trot four short steps backward," mamma was saying, "then you make a little dip; but don't swing your shoulders. Prue says if you want to dance refined you mustn't swing your shoulders or your--your--the rest of you."

Papa was ready to swing his shoulders and drop the deacon through the window, but as he was about to protest the deacon caught mamma in his arms and swept backward, dropping his fourth step incisively on papa's instep, rendering papa _hors de combat_.

By the time William had rubbed witch-hazel into the deacon's heel-mark, the deacon in a glorious "prespiration" had gone home with his own breathless wife ditto. William dragged Serina into the bathroom, the only room where dancing was not in progress. He warned her not to forget that she had sworn to be a faithful wife. She pooh-poohed him and said:

"You'd better learn to dance yourself. Come on, I'll show you the Jedia Luna. It's very easy and awful refined. Do just like I do."

She put her hands on her hips and began to sidle. She had him nearly sidled into the bathtub before he could escape with the cry of a hunted animal. At supper he thumped the table with another of his resolutions, and cried:

"My house was not built for a dance-hall!"

"That's right, poppa," said Prue; "and it shakes so I'm afraid it'll come down on us. I've been thinking that you'll have to hire me the lodge-room in the Westcott Block. I can give classes there all day."

He refused flatly. So she persuaded Deacon Flugal and several gentlemen who were on the waiting-list of her pupils to arrange it for her.

And now all day long she taught in the Westcott Block. The noise of her music interfered with business--with lawyers and dentists and insurance agents. At first they were hostile, then they were hypnotized. Lawyer and client would drop a title discussion to quarrel over a step. The dentist's forceps would dance along the teeth, and many an uncomplaining bicuspid was wrenched from its happy home, many an uneasy molar assumed a crown. The money Prue made would have been scandalous if money did not tend to become self-sterilizing after it passes certain dimensions.

By and by the various lodge members found their meetings and their secret rites to be so stupid, compared with the new dances, that almost nobody came. Quorums were rare. Important members began to resign. Everybody wanted to be Past Grand Master of the Tango.

The next step was the gradual postponement of meetings to permit of a little informal dancing in the evening. The lodges invited their ladies to enter the precincts and revel. Gradually the room was given over night and day to the worship of Saint Vitus.

XIII

The solution of every human problem always opens another. People danced themselves into enormities of appetite and thirst. It was not that food was attractive in itself. Far from it. It was an interruption, a distraction from the tango; a base streak of materialism in the bacon of ecstasy. But it was necessary in order that strength might be kept up for further dancing.

Deacon Flugal put it happily: "Eating is just like stoking. When I'm giving a party at our house I hate to have to leave the company and go down cellar and throw coal in the furnace. But it's got to be did or the party's gotter stop."

Carthage had one good hotel and two bad ones, but all three were "down near the deepo." Almost the only other place to eat away from home was "Jake Meyer's Place," an odious restaurant where the food was ill chosen and ill cooked, and served in china of primeval shapes as if stone had been slightly hollowed out.

Prue was complaining that there was no place in Carthage where people could dance with their meals and give "teas donsons." Horace was smitten with a tremendous idea.

"Why not persuade Jake Meyer to clear a space in his rest'runt like they do in Chicawgo?"

Prue was enraptured, and Horace was despatched to Jake with the proffer of a magnificent opportunity. Horace cannily tried to extract from Jake the promise of a commission before he told him. Jake promised. Then Horace sprang his invention.

Now Jake was even more bitter against the tango than Doctor Brearley, Judge Hippisley, or Mr. Pepperall. The bar annex to his restaurant, or rather the bar to which his restaurant was annexed, had been almost deserted of evenings since the vicious dance mania raged. The bowling-alley where the thirst-producing dust was wont to arise in clouds was mute. Over his head he heard the eternal Maugans and the myriad-hoofed shuffle of the unceasing dance. When he understood what Horace proposed he emitted the roar of an old uhlan, and the only commission he offered Horace was the commission of murder upon his person.