Part 7

The rector noticed with pleasure the seedy-looking man in the back of the church: he was just then smarting a little under the accusation of “aristocratic tendencies”: a body of conservatives had never approved of the boy-choir. He hoped to get the man into the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, if he were allied to no other organization.

Mr. Ogden, as we know, was on business of his own—business that kept him glaring fixedly in the rector’s direction, which encouraged that good man still further. It is to be doubted if the Brotherhood would have appealed to him, however. Not that he would have been hindered by any narrow sectarian tendencies. Mrs. Ogden, who did up the shirt-waists of the Presbyterian minister’s daughter, was by her presented regularly with a missionary bank in the form of a _papier-maché_ cottage with a chimney imitating red brick; and Edgar, employing a Napoleonic strategy, triumphantly attended the Methodist Christmas festivals and the Baptist Sunday-school picnics, the latter society offering a merry-go-round on a larger scale, the former providing the infant faithful with more practicable presents and larger candy-bags. Squealer, moreover, had sung “The Holy City” more than once for the Congregational Christian Endeavor Society, so that Mr. Ogden felt, with a certain justice, that his church connection did him credit on the whole, and excused himself from any undue energy in that direction.

He watched his son keenly, but Edgar’s ecclesiastical demeanor was without a flaw. Moreover, his plans were gradually maturing. He sang _Amen_ at proper intervals and by a process of unconscious cerebration managed to get between the organist and the tenor, who depended on Mr. Fellowes to mark the time for him with his left hand, and in consequence of being unable to see him, bungled his offertory solo; but his thoughts were otherwhere. He had decided to slip out of the south transept door, thus eluding parental pursuit, and fight Howard Potter in his own back yard before he slept. He would practise upon his victim a recent scientific acquisition proudly styled by him “the upper-cut,” which he had learned from an acquaintance at the cost of ten cents and three sugar-cookies.

At this point the anthem-prelude drew him to his feet. He had saved his voice, according to directions, for his solo, and in the waiting hush every word flowed, soft and pure, to the end of the church.

“_Mercy and truth, mercy and truth, mercy—_” Ah, that exquisite soft swoop downward! The organ rippled on contentedly, a continuation of Edgar’s flutelike tones—“_and truth are me-et together_!” There was all the richness of a woman’s voice, all the passionless clearness of a boy’s, all the morning innocence of a child’s.

It occurred to him suddenly that the north transept would be safer—it was on the side farthest from home.

“_Righteousness and peace, righteousness and peace have kissèd each other!_”

He wondered if Howard had learned the upper-cut since their last encounter.

Tim’s face was as the face of an angel; a long slanting ray from the rose-window fell across his curls.

“_Have kissèd each other_,” Edgar sighed softly. “_Have kissèd each other_—” the caressing tones melted into the organ’s, whispered once more, “_each other_,” and died lingeringly. A long breath, an audible “Ah-h-h!” drifted through the church. The choirmaster kicked his feet together under the organ for joy. He little knew that at that very moment the future of his vested choir was swinging lightly in the balance.

But such was the fact. Fate, who links together events seemingly isolated, smoothed Edgar’s way to his fight, but allowed him to be beaten. If this had not happened, his wrath would not have vented itself in hectoring a bad-tempered bass at the Wednesday rehearsal, by scampering in front of him and mimicking with wonderful accuracy his gruff, staccato voice.

“_He taketh up the isles—as a ver-ry—little thing!_” mocked Edgar.

“Shut up!” growled the bass.

“_A ver-ry lit-tle thing!_” Edgar continued malignantly, slipping across his victim’s path.

“Oh, all right, young feller!” called the bass, enraged at the grins and applause of the other men, “all right! Just you wait till Sunday, that’s all!” If Edgar had not teased him so, he would not have added: “I know what’ll happen then, if you don’t.”

“What?” Edgar inquired derisively, catching up with him.

“You’re going to be bounced, that’s what,” said the bass irritably.

“Aw, come off! I ain’t either!”

“Well, you ought to be, the whole pack of you,” the bass continued decidedly. “Bag and baggage! And a good riddance, too. No choirboy camping-out _this_ summer!”

Edgar dropped behind and mused. “Who told yer?” he called.

“Ask Fellowes—and if he don’t lick you, I will!” retorted the bass, making a quick grab, which Edgar easily evaded.

He summoned his mates immediately; the question was laid before them. Had they heard that they were to be bounced? Did they believe that the two weeks’ camping-out, the object of all their endurance and loyalty, the prize of their high calling, was to be discontinued? Tim was deputed to inquire on Saturday afternoon. He returned disconsolate; they shoved each other significantly.

“What’d he say? What’d he say?”

“He says mos’ prob’ly not. Says it costs too much. Says maybe a picnic——”

“Aw! old chump! Goin’ to bounce us, too?”

“I dunno. I guess so. I didn’t ask him that. I just says to him, ‘Aw, say, Mr. Fellowes, ain’t us boys goin’ campin’?’ An’ he says, ‘I guess not this year, Tim, mos’ prob’ly. Maybe a picnic——”

“Well, I bet he don’t bounce me! I betcher that, I betcher, now!”

Edgar strutted before them. They regarded him with interest.

“Whatcher goin’ to do?” they asked respectfully.

“What’ll I do? I’ll—I’ll bounce myself!” he called over his shoulder, as he strode home.

His moody air during supper convinced Mr. Ogden that something was up. Ever since he had discovered Edgar’s demand for an additional ten cents a Sunday, on the ground that his mother thought him worth more, and his later daring strike for five cents further salary, which the choirmaster had innocently considered abundantly justified and paid out of his own pocket, Mr. Ogden, who, having heard rumors of wild dissipations in the peanut and root-beer line, had pounced upon his son returning plethoric from pay day, and promptly annexed the extra fifteen cents, was convinced of the necessity of surveillance for this wily wage-earner, and formed the habit of escorting him regularly on pay nights, alone at first, later assisted by Mrs. Ogden, who accompanied the family group as a self-constituted and final auditor. It has frequently been remarked that a great grief may bind together once disunited members of a family; it is extremely improbable that any affliction whatever could have produced among the Ogdens such a gratifying _esprit de corps_ as resulted from their unfeigned interest in pay day. But when Mr. Ogden had shadowed his son to no more secluded and dangerous spot than the church-yard, and saw him in earnest conclave with his attentive mates, he went, relieved, about his own business, reassured by the words “campin’ out” and “Sunday afternoon,” that he caught from behind a convenient tombstone. He was utterly unconscious that the scene he had left was far more menacing to his household than even the most disfiguring fight of his warlike son’s varied repertoire. But so it was. Haranguing, promising, taunting, threatening, Edgar led them, finally subdued, into one of the most satisfactory rehearsals of the year.

❦

They waited till quarter of eleven on Sunday, and finally the men marched in alone, somewhat conscious and ill at ease, followed by a red-faced, determined rector, and a puzzled visiting clergyman. They sang “_O happy band of pilgrims_,” but it was remarked by the wondering congregation that they did not look happy themselves. There was no music but the hymns, which, as they had been altered to well-known numbers, were chanted lustily by the inhabitants of the pews, thus winning the sincere admiration of the visiting clergyman.

“Really, such well-trained congregational singing is quite rare,” he remarked afterward to the rector, and was somewhat surprised at the short answer: “It shall certainly never occur again.”

It had gone hard with the vested choir but for Mrs. Ogden. Mr. Fellowes pleaded in vain; in vain the Ladies’ Auxiliary passed resolutions; the rector was firm. It was only when Mrs. Ogden swept in upon him in his study, a chastened, still apprehensive boy under one arm, followed by half a dozen women similarly equipped, and made a speech that will adorn the parish annals for many a year, that he yielded, respectfully convinced.

Edgar had met his Waterloo, and lived, so to speak, under a consequent military surveillance, with much of his prestige gone, his pay docked for a month, and the certainty of approaching warm weather, when it would be impossible to take cold, and nothing but a summons to the choir invisible could excuse him from rehearsals here, to render the future all too clear to him. In the words of the processional,

“_His tongue could never tire Of singing with the choir._”

To-day, if you should attend evensong at St. Mark’s, you will beyond a doubt be delighted with a silver voice that appears to proceed from a violet-eyed boy with a sweet expression.

“_It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord!_” the voice declares melodiously, but it is doubtful if its owner is in a thankful frame of mind. He would in all probability prefer to be with his brother Samuel, who is at present touring the West triumphantly with a Methodist revivalist, rendering “_Where is my wandering boy to-night?_” to weeping congregations for ten dollars a week and his traveling expenses. And even this success leaves Squealer dissatisfied; he would far rather be in his father’s position—first tenor in the Denman Thompson Old Homestead Quartette—and sing “The Palms” behind the scenes, when the stereopticon vision of the repentant prodigal thrills the audience.

It would seem that your artistic temperament is doomed to discontent. Whereas Mrs. Ogden, who cannot carry a tune, is perfectly satisfied with fine laundry work.

THE LITTLE GOD AND DICKY

“Where are you going?” said somebody, as he slunk out toward the hatrack.

“Oh, out,” he returned, with what a vaudeville artist would call a good imitation of a person wishing to appear blamelessly forgetful of something he remembered quite distinctly.

“Well, see that you don’t stay long. Remember what it is this afternoon.”

He turned like a stag at bay.

“_What_ is it this afternoon?” he demanded viciously.

“You know very well.”

“_What?_”

“See that you’re here, that’s all. You’ve got to get dressed.”

“I will not go to that old dancing-school again, and I tell you that I won’t, and I won’t. And I won’t!”

“Now, Dick, don’t begin that all over again. It’s so silly of you. You’ve got to go.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the thing to do.”

“Why?”

“Because you must learn to dance.”

“Why?”

“Every nice boy learns.”

“Why?”

“That will do, Richard. Go and find your pumps. Now, get right up from the floor, and if you scratch the Morris chair I shall speak to your father. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? Get right up—you must expect to be hurt, if you pull so. Come, Richard! Now, stop crying—a great boy like you! I am sorry I hurt your elbow, but you know very well you aren’t crying for that at all. Come along!”

His sister flitted by the door in an engaging _déshabillé_, her accordeon-pleated skirt held carefully from the floor, her hair in two glistening blue-knotted pigtails. A trail of rose-scented soap floated through the hall.

“Hurry up, Dick, or we’ll be late,” she called back sweetly, secure in the knowledge that if such virtuous accents maddened him still further, no one could blame her. His rage justified her faith.

“Oh, you shut up, will you!” he snarled.

She looked meek, and listened to his deprivation of dessert for the rest of the week with an air of love for the sinner and hatred for the sin that deceived even her older sister, who was dressing her.

A desperately patient monologue from the next room indicated the course of events there.

“Your necktie is on the bed. No, I don’t know where the blue one is—it doesn’t matter; that is just as good. Yes, it is. No, you can _not_. You will have to wear one. Because no one ever goes without. I don’t know why.

“Many a boy would be thankful and glad to have silk stockings. Nonsense—your legs are warm enough. I don’t believe you. Now, Richard, how perfectly ridiculous! There is no left and right to stockings. You have no time to change. Shoes are a different thing. Well, hurry up, then. Because they are made so, I suppose. I don’t know why.

“Brush it more on that side—no, you can’t go to the barber’s. You went last week. It looks perfectly well. I cut it? Why, I don’t know how to trim hair. Anyway, there isn’t time now. It will have to do. Stop your scowling, for goodness’ sake, Dick. Have you a handkerchief? It makes no difference, you must carry one. You _ought_ to want to use it. Well, you should. Yes, they always do, whether they have colds or not. I don’t know why.

“Your Golden Text! The idea! No, you cannot. You can learn that Sunday before church. This is not the time to learn Golden Texts. I never saw such a child. Now take your pumps and find the plush bag. Why not? Put them right with Ruth’s. That’s what the bag was made for. Well, how do you want to carry them? Why, I never heard of anything so silly! You will knot the strings. I don’t care if they do carry skates that way—skates are not slippers. You’d lose them. Very well, then, only hurry up. I should think you’d be ashamed to have them dangling around your neck that way. Because people never _do_ carry them so. I don’t know why.

“Now, here’s your coat. Well, I can’t help it, you have no time to hunt for them. Put your hands in your pockets—it’s not far. And mind you don’t run for Ruth every time. You don’t take any pains with her, and you hustle her about, Miss Dorothy says. Take another little girl. Yes, you must. I shall speak to your father if you answer me in that way, Richard. Men don’t dance with their sisters. Because they don’t. I don’t know why.”

He slammed the door till the piazza shook, and strode along beside his scandalized sister, the pumps flopping noisily on his shoulders. She tripped along contentedly—she liked to go. The personality capable of extracting pleasure from the hour before them baffled his comprehension, and he scowled fiercely at her, rubbing his silk stockings together at every step, to enjoy the strange smooth sensation thus produced. This gave him a bow-legged gait that distressed his sister beyond words.

“I think you might stop. Everybody’s looking at you! Please stop, Dick Pendleton; you’re a mean old thing. I should think you’d be ashamed to carry your slippers that way. If you jump in that wet place and spatter me I shall tell papa—you _will_ care, when I tell him, just the same! You’re just as bad as you can be. I shan’t speak with you to-day!”

She pursed up her lips and maintained a determined silence. He rubbed his legs together with renewed emphasis. Acquaintances met them and passed, unconscious of anything but the sweet picture of a sister and a brother and a plush bag going daintily and dutifully to dancing-school; but his heart was hot at the injustice of the world and the hypocritical cant of girls, and her thoughts were busy with her indictment of him before the family tribunal—she hoped he would be sent to bed. Life is full and running over with just such rosy deceits.

He jumped over the threshold of the long room and aimed his cap at the head of a boy he knew, who was standing on one foot to put on a slipper. This destroyed his friend’s balance, and a cheering scuffle followed. Life assumed a more hopeful aspect. In the other dressing-room his sister had fluttered into a whispering, giggling, many-colored throng; buzzing and chuckling with the rest, she adjusted her slippers, and perked out her bows, her braids quivering with sociability.

A shrill whistle called them out in two crowding bunches to the polished floor.

Hoping against hope, he had clung to the beautiful thought that Miss Dorothy would be sick, that she had missed her train—but no! there she was, with her shiny high-heeled slippers, her pink skirt that pulled out like a fan, and her silver whistle on a chain. The little clicking castanets that rang out so sharply were in her hand beyond a doubt.

“Ready, children! Spread out. Take your lines. First position. Now!”

The large man at the piano, who always looked half asleep, thundered out the first bars of the latest waltz, and the business began.

Their eyes were fixed solemnly on Miss Dorothy’s pointed shoes. They slipped and slid and crossed their legs and arched their pudgy insteps; the boys breathed hard over their gleaming collars. On the right side of the hall thirty hands held out their diminutive skirts at an alluring angle. On the left, neat black legs pattered diligently through mystic evolutions.

The chords rolled out slower, with dramatic pauses between; sharp clicks of the castanets rang through the hall; a line of toes rose gradually towards the horizontal, whirled more or less steadily about, crossed behind, bent low, bowed, and with a flutter of skirts resumed the first position.

A little breeze of laughing admiration circled the row of mothers and aunts.

“Isn’t that too cunning! Just like a little ballet! Aren’t they graceful, really, now!”

“_One_, two, three! _One_, two, three! Slide, slide, cross; _one_, two, three!”

There are those who find pleasure in the aimless intricacies of the dance; self-respecting men even have been known voluntarily to frequent assemblies devoted to this nerve-racking attitudinizing futility. Among such, however, you shall seek in vain in future years for Richard Carr Pendleton.

“_One_, two, three! _Reverse_, two, three!” If you want your heels clipped, step back inadvertently into Master Pendleton’s domain. No matter how pure your purposes, you will illustrate the inevitable doom of the transgressor against nature’s immutable limitations; you will be severely nipped. And it will be just—he is triumphantly following the rules.

The whistle shrilled.

“Ready for the two-step, children!”

A mild tolerance grew on him. If dancing must be, better the two-step than anything else. It is not an alluring dance, your two-step; it does not require temperament. Any one with a firm intention of keeping the time and a strong arm can drag a girl through it very acceptably. It was Dicky’s custom to hurl himself at the colored bunch nearest him, seize a Sabine, so to speak, and plunge into the dance. He had his eye on Louise Hetherington, a large, plump girl, with a tremendous braid of hair. She was a size too big for the class, but everybody liked to dance with her, for she knew how, and piloted her diminutive partners with great skill. But she had been snapped up by the six-year-old Harold, and was even now guiding his infant steps around the hall.

Dicky skirted the row of mothers and aunts cautiously. Heaven send Miss Dorothy was not looking at him! She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head, that woman.

“Oh, look! Did you ever see anything so sweet!” said somebody. Involuntarily he turned. There in a corner, all by herself, a little girl was gravely performing a dance. He stared at her curiously. For the first time, free from all personal connection with them, he discovered that those motions were pretty.

She was ethereally slender, brown eyed, brown haired, brown skinned. A little fluffy white dress spread fan-shaped above her knees; her ankles were bird-like. The foot on which she poised seemed hardly to rest on the ground; the other, pointed outward, hovered easily—now here, now there. Her eyes were serious, her hair hung loose. She swayed lightly; one little gloved hand held out her skirt, the other marked the time. Her performance was an apotheosis of the two-step: that metronomic dance would not have recognized itself under her treatment.

Dicky admired. But the admiration of his sex is notoriously fatal to the art that attracts it. He advanced and bowed jerkily, grasped one of the loops of her sash in the back, stamped gently a moment to get the time, and the artist sank into the partner, the pirouette grew coarse to sympathize with clay.

“Don’t they do it well, though! See those little things near the door!” he caught as they went by, and his heart swelled with pride.

“What’s your name?” he asked abruptly after the dance.

“Thethelia,” she lisped, and shook her hair over her cheek. She was very shy.

“Mine’s Richard Carr Pendleton. My father’s a lawyer. What’s yours?”

“I—I don’t know!” she gasped, obviously considering flight.

He chuckled delightedly. Was ever such engaging idiocy? She didn’t know. Well, well!

“Pooh!” he said grandly, “I guess you know. Don’t you, really?”

She looked hopelessly at her fan, and shook her head. Suddenly a light dawned in her big eyes.

“Maybe I know,” she murmured. “I gueth I know. He—he’th a really thtate!”

“A really state? That isn’t anything—nothing at all. A really state?” he frowned at her judicially. Her lip quivered; she turned and ran away.

“Here, come back!” he called, but she was gone.

“Ready for the cotillion, children!” and Miss Dorothy, her arms full of long, colored ribbons, was upon him.

There was a rumbling chord from the piano, a mad rush for the head of the line. A rosy blonde, with big, china blue eyes, dragged her protesting sailor-suited partner to the front, and glared triumphantly at the roly-poly couple behind her. They stared at each other desperately—they had had their dreams of precedence—and suddenly, as the robbers stood far apart and swung their arms carelessly high, the roly-poly couple crouched down, slipped between them, and emerged at the head of the procession!

The march began. Dicky, linked to a tomboy in white duck, who whistled the march correctly as she swung along, had fought for a place behind his late partner, and as they clambered into adjacent chairs he nudged her violently and whispered, “I’m going to choose you!”

She smiled shyly.

“All right,” she said.

Miss Dorothy approached with the favors. A violent hissing and snapping of fingers burst out from the line. They wriggled on their chairs. Miss Dorothy paused, threateningly.

“Perhaps we had better not have any cotillion,” she said sternly. “If I hear another hiss—” There was a dead silence.