The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection. Booth Tarkington
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whom!"
"All these other girls that----"
"Not I!" Alice laughed shortly, shaking her head. "I've quit dressing at them, and if they saw me they wouldn't think what you want 'em to. It's funny; but we don't often make people think what we want 'em to, mama. You do thus and so; and you tell yourself, 'Now, seeing me do thus and so, people will naturally think this and that'; but they don't. They think something else--usually just what you DON'T want 'em to. I suppose about the only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody."
"Well, but it wouldn't be pretending. You ought to let people see you're still holding your head up because you ARE. You wouldn't want that Mildred Palmer to think you're cast down about--well, you know you wouldn't want HER not to think you're holding your head up, would you?"
"She wouldn't know whether I am or not, mama." Alice bit her lip, then smiled faintly as she said:
"Anyhow, I'm not thinking about my head in that way--not this morning, I'm not."
Mrs. Adams dropped the subject casually. "Are you going down-town?" she inquired.
"Yes."
"What for?"
"Just something I want to see about. I'll tell you when I come back. Anything you want me to do?"
"No; I guess not to-day. I thought you might look for a rug, but I'd rather go with you to select it. We'll have to get a new rug for your father's room, I expect."
"I'm glad you think so, mama. I don't suppose he's ever even noticed it, but that old rug of his--well, really!"
"I didn't mean for him," her mother explained, thoughtfully. "No; he don't mind it, and he'd likely make a fuss if we changed it on his account. No; what I meant--we'll have to put your father in Walter's room. He won't mind, I don't expect--not much."
"No, I suppose not," Alice agreed, rather sadly. "I heard the bell awhile ago. Was it somebody about that?"
"Yes; just before I came upstairs. Mrs. Lohr gave him a note to me, and he was really a very pleasant-looking young man. A VERY pleasant-looking young man," Mrs. Adams repeated with increased animation and a thoughtful glance at her daughter. "He's a Mr. Will Dickson; he has a first-rate position with the gas works, Mrs. Lohr says, and he's fully able to afford a nice room. So if you and I double up in here, then with that young married couple in my room, and this Mr. Dickson in your father's, we'll just about have things settled. I thought maybe I could make one more place at table, too, so that with the other people from outside we'd be serving eleven altogether. You see if I have to pay this cook twelve dollars a week--it can't be helped, I guess--well, one more would certainly help toward a profit. Of course it's a terribly worrying thing to see how we WILL come out. Don't you suppose we could squeeze in one more?"
"I suppose it COULD be managed; yes."
Mrs. Adams brightened. "I'm sure it'll be pleasant having that young married couple in the house and especially this Mr. Will Dickson. He seemed very much of a gentleman, and anxious to get settled in good surroundings. I was very favourably impressed with him in every way; and he explained to me about his name; it seems it isn't William, it's just 'Will'; his parents had him christened that way. It's curious." She paused, and then, with an effort to seem casual, which veiled nothing from her daughter: "It's QUITE curious," she said again. "But it's rather attractive and different, don't you think?"
"Poor mama!" Alice laughed compassionately. "Poor mama!"
"He is, though," Mrs. Adams maintained. "He's very much of a gentleman, unless I'm no judge of appearances; and it'll really be nice to have him in the house."
"No doubt," Alice said, as she opened her door to depart. "I don't suppose we'll mind having any of 'em as much as we thought we would. Good-bye."
But her mother detained her, catching her by the arm. "Alice, you do hate it, don't you!"
"No," the girl said, quickly. "There wasn't anything else to do."
Mrs. Adams became emotional at once: her face cried tragedy, and her voice misfortune. "There MIGHT have been something else to do! Oh, Alice, you gave your father bad advice when you upheld him in taking a miserable little ninety-three hundred and fifty from that old wretch! If your father'd just had the gumption to hold out, they'd have had to pay him anything he asked. If he'd just had the gumption and a little manly COURAGE----"
"Hush!" Alice whispered, for her mother's voice grew louder. "Hush! He'll hear you, mama."
"Could he hear me too often?" the embittered lady asked. "If he'd listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking in boarders and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our lives, instead of going UP? You were both wrong; we didn't need to be so panicky--that was just what that old man wanted: to scare us and buy us out for nothing! If your father'd just listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd just been half a MAN----"
Alice put her hand over her mother's mouth. "You mustn't! He WILL hear you!"
But from the other side of Adams's closed door his voice came querulously. "Oh, I HEAR her, all right!"
"You see, mama?" Alice said, and, as Mrs. Adams turned away, weeping, the daughter sighed; then went in to speak to her father.
He was in his old chair by the table, with a pillow behind his head, but the crocheted scarf and Mrs. Adams's wrapper swathed him no more; he wore a dressing-gown his wife had bought for him, and was smoking his pipe. "The old story, is it?" he said, as Alice came in. "The same, same old story! Well, well! Has she gone?"
"Yes, papa."
"Got your hat on," he said. "Where you going?"
"I'm going down-town on an errand of my own. Is there anything you want, papa?"
"Yes, there is." He smiled at her. "I wish you'd sit down a while and talk to me unless your errand----"
"No," she said, taking a chair near him. "I was just going down to see about some arrangements I was making for myself. There's no hurry."
"What arrangements for yourself, dearie?"
"I'll tell you afterwards--after I find out something about 'em myself."
"All right," he said, indulgently. "Keep your secrets; keep your secrets." He paused, drew musingly upon his pipe, and shook his head. "Funny--the way your mother looks at things! For the matter o' that, everything's pretty funny, I expect, if you stop to think about it. For instance, let her say all she likes, but we were pushed right spang to the wall, if J. A. Lamb hadn't taken it into his head to make that offer for the works; and there's one of the things I been thinking about lately, Alice: thinking about how funny they work out."
"What did you think about it, papa!"
"Well, I've seen it happen in other people's lives, time and time again; and now it's happened in ours. You think you're going to be pushed right up against the wall; you can't see any way out, or any hope at all; you think you're GONE--and then something you never counted on turns up; and, while maybe you never do get back to where you used to be, yet somehow you kind of squirm out of being right SPANG against the wall. You keep on going--maybe you can't go much, but you do go a little. See what I mean?"
"Yes. I understand, dear."
"Yes, I'm afraid you do," he said. "Too bad! You oughtn't to understand it at your age. It seems to me a good deal as if the Lord really meant for the young people to have the good times, and for the old to have the troubles; and when anybody as young as you has trouble there's a big mistake somewhere."
"Oh, no!" she protested.
But he persisted whimsically in this view of divine error: "Yes, it does look a good deal that way.