The Greatest Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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possible. And Baker's is too expensive. The church rooms they won't let for dancing—I don't know what I am to do, Mrs. Pettigrew!"
"Why don't you ask Orella Elder to rent you her dining-room—it's big enough. They could move the tables——"
Miss Peeder's eyes opened in hopeful surprise. "Oh, if she would! Do you think she would? It would be ideal."
Miss Elder being called upon, was quite fluttered by the proposition, and consulted Dr. Bellair.
"Why not?" said that lady. "Dancing is first rate exercise—good for us all. Might as well have the girls dance here under your eye as going out all the time—and it's some addition to the income. They'll pay extra for refreshments, too. I'd do it."
With considerable trepidation Miss Orella consented, and their first "class night" was awaited by her in a state of suppressed excitement.
To have music and dancing—"with refreshments"—twice a week—in her own house—this seemed to her like a career of furious dissipation.
Vivian, though with a subtle sense of withdrawal from a too general intimacy, was inwardly rather pleased; and Susie bubbled over with delight.
"Oh what fun!" she cried. "I never had enough dancing! I don't believe anybody has!"
"We don't belong to the Class, you know," Vivian reminded her.
"Oh yes! Miss Peeder says we must all come—that she would feel very badly if we didn't; and the boarders have all joined—to a man!"
Everyone seemed pleased except Mrs. Jeaune. Dancing she considered immoral; music, almost as much so—and Miss Elder trembled lest she lose her. But the offer of extra payments for herself and son on these two nights each week proved sufficient to quell her scruples.
Theophile doubled up the tables, set chairs around the walls, waxed the floor, and was then sent to bed and locked in by his anxious mother.
She labored, during the earlier hours of the evening, in the preparation of sandwiches and coffee, cake and lemonade—which viands were later shoved through the slide by the austere cook, and distributed as from a counter by Miss Peeder's assistant. Mrs. Jeaune would come no nearer, but peered darkly upon them through the peep-hole in the swinging door.
It was a very large room, due to the time when many "mealers" had been accommodated. There were windows on each side, windows possessing the unusual merit of opening from the top; wide double doors made the big front hall a sort of anteroom, and the stairs and piazza furnished opportunities for occasional couples who felt the wish for retirement. In the right-angled passages, long hat-racks on either side were hung with "Derbies," "Kossuths" and "Stetsons," and the ladies took off their wraps, and added finishing touches to their toilettes in Miss Elder's room.
The house was full of stir and bustle, of pretty dresses, of giggles and whispers, and the subdued exchange of comments among the gentlemen. The men predominated, so that there was no lack of partners for any of the ladies.
Miss Orella accepted her new position with a half-terrified enjoyment. Not in many years had she found herself so in demand. Her always neat and appropriate costume had blossomed suddenly for the occasion; her hair, arranged by the affectionate and admiring Susie, seemed softer and more voluminous. Her eyes grew brilliant, and the delicate color in her face warmed and deepened.
Miss Peeder had installed a pianola to cover emergencies, but on this opening evening she had both piano and violin—good, lively, sole-stirring music. Everyone was on the floor, save a few gentlemen who evidently wished they were.
Sue danced with the gaiety and lightness of a kitten among wind-blown leaves, Vivian with gliding grace, smooth and harmonious, Miss Orella with skill and evident enjoyment, though still conscientious in every accurate step.
Presently Mrs. Pettigrew appeared, sedately glorious in black silk, jet-beaded, and with much fine old lace. She bore in front of her a small wicker rocking chair, and headed for a corner near the door. Her burden was promptly taken from her by one of the latest comers, a tall person with a most devoted manner.
"Allow me, ma'am," he said, and placed the little chair at the point she indicated. "No lady ought to rustle for rockin' chairs with so many gentlemen present."
He was a man of somewhat advanced age, but his hair was still more black than white and had a curly, wiggish effect save as its indigenous character was proven by three small bare patches of a conspicuous nature.
He bowed so low before her that she could not help observing these distinctions, and then answered her startled look before she had time to question him.
"Yes'm," he explained, passing his hand over head; "scalped three several times and left for dead. But I'm here yet. Mr. Elmer Skee, at your service."
"I thought when an Indian scalped you there wasn't enough hair left to make Greeley whiskers," said Grandma, rising to the occasion.
"Oh, no, ma'am, they ain't so efficacious as all that—not in these parts. I don't know what the ancient Mohawks may have done, but the Apaches only want a patch—smaller to carry and just as good to show off. They're collectors, you know—like a phil-e-a-to-lol-o-gist!"
"Skee, did you say?" pursued the old lady, regarding him with interest and convinced that there was something wrong with the name of that species of collector.
"Yes'm. Skee—Elmer Skee. No'm, not pronounced 'she.' Do I look like it?"
Mr. Skee was an interesting relic of that stormy past of the once Wild West which has left so few surviving. He had crossed the plains as a child, he told her, in the days of the prairie schooner, had then and there lost his parents and his first bit of scalp, was picked up alive by a party of "movers," and had grown up in a playground of sixteen states and territories.
Grandma gazed upon him fascinated. "I judge you might be interesting to talk with," she said, after he had given her this brief sketch of his youth.
"Thank you, ma'am," said Mr. Skee. "May I have the pleasure of this dance?"
"I haven't danced in thirty years," said she, dubitating.
"The more reason for doing it now," he calmly insisted.
"Why not?" said Mrs. Pettigrew, and they forthwith executed a species of march, the gentleman pacing with the elaborate grace of a circus horse, and Grandma stepping at his side with great decorum.
Later on, warming to the occasion, Mr. Skee frisked and high-stepped with the youngest and gayest, and found the supper so wholly to his liking that he promptly applied for a room, and as soon as one was vacant it was given to him.
Vivian danced to her heart's content and enjoyed the friendly merriment about her; but when Fordham Greer took her out on the long piazza to rest and breathe a little, she saw the dark bulk of the house across the street and the office with its half-lit window, and could not avoid thinking of the lonely man there.
He had not come to the dance, no one expected that, of course; but all his boys had come and were having the best of times.
"It's his own fault, of course; but it's a shame," she thought.
The music sounded gaily from within, and young Greer urged for another dance.
She stood there for a moment, hesitating, her hand on his arm, when a tall figure came briskly up the street from the station, turned in at their gate, came up the steps——
The girl gave a little cry, and shrank back for an instant, then eagerly came forward and gave her hand to him.
It was Morton.
CHAPTER VI NEW FRIENDS AND OLD
'Twould be too bad to be true,