CHAPTER XIX

FRANCES GOES TO THE COUNTRY

I am very fond of my room on the top floor of Mrs. Milliken's house, but, as regards privacy, I might nearly as well have lodgings in a corner grocery. I had finally arranged that Frances was to go to a hilly part of New Jersey, near a very pretty lake, and gather health and a coat of tan for herself and Baby Paul. I was to leave with her on the one forty-five, in order to help her on the journey and see her safely installed. The noon hour had struck and the whistles of a few thousand factories were confirming the announcement, when a vision presented itself at my door. It was very prettily clad, with a love of a hat and a most becoming gown, and smiled engagingly. She had fluffy hair and first rate teeth. Also, she immediately developed a slight lisp that did not lack attractiveness.

"Mr. Cole!" she exclaimed. "May I come in? I am from the _New York Banner_. I should like to have you tell me all about your novels and your impressions of modern literary activities, and something as to your views upon the war, and----"

She was already in the middle of my room, and I could do no otherwise than to advance a chair for her.

"Pray take a seat, Miss----"

"I am Cordelia."

"Cordelia!"

"Yes, privately Josie Higgins. I hope that you can give me a photograph of yourself that we can publish. The public is dying to hear all about you. I must interview you or die in the attempt, which would be very inconvenient as I have an appointment to see Gretz at two-thirty, fellow who killed his mother-in-law. Thanks, I will take the chair. It is getting quite warm again, isn't it?"

She pulled out a small note book and a business-like pencil from a frivolous handbag, as my heart sank within me. I shared the feelings of a small boy haled before the princ.i.p.al of his school. She looked small and inoffensive, but I knew that pencil of hers to be sharper than the serpent's tooth. Heavens! She was looking at the slouchy slippers I still wore and at the bed, yet undone, since I had told the landlady she might as well have it attended to after my departure. Her eyes wandered swiftly from the inkspot on the carpet to the bundle of collars and shirts Eulalie had deposited on my trunk. She also picked up my fragrant calabash from the desk close at hand and contemplated it, curiously. All this quick as a flash.

After this, she scrutinized my countenance, with her head c.o.c.ked a little to one side, and jotted down something.

"That's good," she declared, apparently much gratified. "I think I know what you would say, but you had better tell it yourself. For nothing on earth would I fake an interview, and anyway you look very kind and obliging. Now tell me how you ever happened to think of 'Land o' Love.'"

"I'm sure I don't know," I answered truthfully.

"Undoubtedly," she acquiesced. "Ideas like that just worm themselves into one's head and one puts them down. But, of course, that won't quite do. Don't you think we had better say that you have long been impressed by the sadness of most lives, in the end, and were anxious to show how, from unpromising beginnings, an existence may turn from dross into refined gold by the exercise of will, of human sympathy, of tolerance of foibles and love for one's fellow man? That will do very nicely!"

She was putting down her words with lightning speed.

"Now tell me. Did you ever really know a counterpart of Jennie Frisbie?"

she asked again. "She has become a sort of cla.s.sic, you know. Women are weeping with her and love her to distraction. They wonder how a mere man can have so penetrated the inwardness of their s.e.x and painted such a beautiful picture of it at its best."

"Don't know that I ever did, my dear young lady," I replied reluctantly.

"Of course you didn't. They're not really made that way. For my part, I think that a lot of women are cats," said the famed Cordelia. "But naturally we can't say it in print. Your answer should be that beneath the surface every woman holds the potentialities of a Jennie Frisbie.

'No, I have never known my heroine in person,' said Mr. Cole, looking dreamily out of the window, 'but I have known a thousand of her. She is a composite photograph, the final impression gathered by one who has done his best to obtain definite colors wherewith to paint a type, accurately and truthfully.' Yes, I think that'll do."

Her pencil was flying, as I looked at her, aghast.

"Miss Cordelia," I said, "you're a very attractive and bewitching young fraud."

She showed her pretty teeth, laughing heartily.

"I'm not at all a fraud," she disclaimed. "I deliver the goods, at least to my paper, and I never hurt people who are decently civil. How about your views on the Great American Novel?"

"It will probably be written by a Frenchman or a j.a.p," I answered, "for no man can do perfect justice to his own people."

"That's not so bad," she approved, "I think I'll put that down."

She asked me a few more questions, which I mostly answered with my usual confession of ignorance and which she replied to in her own fashion.

"Well, that's a tip-top interview," she declared. "I'm ever so much obliged to you and delighted to have met you. I don't think you look much like one's idea of the writer of that book. I think I will say that your eyes have a youthful look. It will please the women. Why don't you live somewhere else?"

"Don't know," I said again, with little candor.

"I had better put down that in this bit of old New York you find an outlook more in sympathy with your lovable and homely characters.

Wisteria blooming in the backyard," she observed, rising and leaning out of the window. "Geraniums on the sills opposite and an old granny darning socks, her white-capped head bending over her work and framed by the scarlet of the flowers. Neat little touch. Hope you'll like my article. Look for it in the number for Sunday week. My murderer goes in day after to-morrow. He won't keep much longer, people have already stopped sending him flowers. Well, good-by and thank you."

I pressed the little hand she laughingly proffered, and she tripped out, meeting Frances in the hallway.

"Isn't that a duck of a baby!" she exclaimed, smiling at the mother and running downstairs.

"Frances, I am famous," I said. "Sunday after next I'll be in the _Banner_, three times the size of life, in at least three columns. That chit of a girl who just went out is the celebrated Cordelia. She has interviewed me and written down a thousand beautiful things I never said. She's a bright little creature."

"She wears nice hats," commented Frances. "I hope she will do justice to you. It is time we went down to lunch, if we are to catch that train. Is your suitcase packed?"

"Never thought of it!" I exclaimed. "You go right down and begin. I'll follow in a moment."

A half an hour later we were in a taxicab, speeding to the station.

Eulalie was with us; I had insisted on her being brought along. How could Frances obtain the full rest she needed, unless some of the details of existence were attended to for her? She had objected strenuously and even threatened to unpack her little trunk and remain in New York, but I successfully bullied her into acceptance by commenting on the alleged peaked look of Baby Paul. Maternal fears, despite the infant's appearance of excellent health, prevailed at last. A man, I discover, needs a firm hand in dealing with the opposite s.e.x.

My dear sister had indicated to me a small farm near the lake, where three rooms were to be rented. According to her the cows gave absolutely genuine milk and b.u.t.ter, while the hens laid undeniable eggs. Vegetables grew in profusion, the post office was but a half-mile away and the railway station within twenty minutes' walk. Privacy was also insured by the fact that the big hotel and boarding houses were reasonably far away. Mrs. Gobbins, who bossed the farm and its lord and master, was exceedingly particular as to the occupants of her spare rooms, requiring on their parts qualifications, which appeared to range between the Christian virtues and appet.i.tes that would not crave too strongly for city fleshpots.

I was agreeably disappointed by the place. The lake was within a short walk; centenarian elms grew at the sides of the wide main street of the village close at hand; the hills were clad in tender greens, only streaked here and there by the trunks of blight-killed chestnuts. On the road a pair of bluebirds had flitted in front of our chariot, like two racing sapphires, and swallows perched on the telephone wires, twittering. Holstein cows in a pasture envisaged us with a melancholy air, deeming us harbingers of the summering crowd that would compel them to work overtime to supply the dairies. But for the snarling of a couple of dogs having a misunderstanding, far away, the atmosphere was one of peace. Also, we pa.s.sed a small forge where the blacksmith paused in the shoeing of a sleepy and spavined steed, the better to gaze at us. He nodded to our driver and resumed his occupation, unhurried.

"This, Frances, holds some advantage over Washington Square as a place wherein to enjoy ease with dignity," I commented. "View the pretty house at the turning of the road. One side is nearly smothered in climbing vines and the picket fence has the silvery look of ancient split chestnut. The cherry trees, I should judge, are ready to awaken the ambitions of youthful climbers. I hope your domicile will prove half as pretty."

She a.s.sented, smilingly, and a.s.sured Baby Paul, sleeping in her arms, that he would be very happy and comfy and grow fat. At this moment our Jehu stopped before the very house I had pointed out and turned the horse's head into a gra.s.sy driveway. Then he drove on by the side of the house and swept, at a mile and a half an hour, in front of the back door. A large and beaming mongrel rose on the small porch, wagging a remnant of tail. Chickens had been fleeing before us, suspecting the purity of our intentions in regard to broilers, and three fat ducks waddled off, greatly disturbed. An ancient turkey-c.o.c.k uplifted his fan and gobbled a protest, but Mrs. Gobbins appeared, smiling and clad in highly respectable black, relieved by a little white at her neck.

"Welcome, ma'am," she said. "Just hand me that there baby and then ye can get out handy. Look out for that dust on the buggy wheels. That's right! Howdy, Mr. Cole, I'm glad to see ye. I can see you favor your sister some, not but what she's a good lookin' woman. When she wrote as 'twas her brother wanted to come I knew ye'd be all right. Walk in."

We trooped into the kitchen, neat as a pin, whereat Eulalie smiled in approval, and were shown upstairs. A large room facing the north was papered with a design of roses about the size of prize cabbages. The windows were shaded by a couple of the big cherry trees.

"In a few days you will be able to pick ripe fruit by merely putting your hand out," I told Frances.

"Yes," Mrs. Gobbins informed us. "Your sister's two boys was always at them and filled theirselves so full they couldn't hardly eat no decent victuals, let alone havin' stomach ache. This here small room will do for the other lady and yours is over on the other side of the house, sir."

My own residence was also spick and span, and I decided that we had fallen into an oasis of delight. A few minutes sufficed me to repair the damage done by the journey, and I went downstairs. The front door was now open. To one side of it there was a dining-room adorned with chromos advertising gigantic vegetables and fruit, apparently imported from the Promised Land. Opposite this was a parlor where bottle-green plush reigned in unsunned violence of hue and aggressive gilt frames surrounded works of art of impetuous tints. On going out I was met by the dog, who accepted my advances with the greatest urbanity. Towser had still a touching faith in human nature and deemed me inoffensive and fully competent to scratch the back of his head.

Presently, arrived an elderly gentleman in blue jeans, his chin ornamented with whisker and his mouth with a corncob pipe.

"How be ye?" he asked. "Gettin' real hot and the corn's comin' up fine.

Wonderful year for strawberries an' sparrer-gra.s.s. How's things in the city?"