XXXI
The fact of Arthur's sudden blossoming into a full-fledged and emphaticfigure of romance had an unsettling effect upon many of the peacefullydisposed minds in The Camp. It is always so when friends, especially inyouth, come to partings of ways. Clement, who takes the Low road, cannotbut be disturbed at the thought of those possible adventures which liein wait for Covington, who has fared forth by the High. There was thefeeling among many of the young people in the camp that, if they didn'thurry, they might be left behind. Nobody expressed this feeling oracknowledged it or recognized in it anything more than a feeling ofunrest; but it existed, nevertheless, and had its effect upon actionsand affections.
Renier had been leading a life of almost perfect happiness. For thethings that made him happy were the same sort of things that make boyshappy. No school; no parental obstructions or admonitions;green-and-blue days filled from end to end with fishing, sailing,making fires, shooting at marks, and perfecting himself in physicalattainments. Add to these things the digestion and the faculties of ahealthy boy interested neither in drink, tobacco, nor in any book whichfailed to contain exciting and chivalrous adventures, and, above all, acompanion whose tastes and sympathies were such that she might just aswell have been a boy as not.
They were chums rather than sweethearts. It needed a sense of old timescoming to an end and new times beginning to make them realize the fulldepth and significance of their attachment for each other.
There were four of us once "in a kingdom by the sea," and I shall notforget the awful sense of partings and finality, and calamity, for thatmatter, furnished by a sudden sight of the first flaming maple ofautumn.
"I think your mother's a perfect brick," said Renier. "She makes youfeel as if she'd known you all your life, and was kind of grateful toyou for living."
"I'm rather crazy about the prince," said Lee. "Of course, I oughtn't tobe. But I can't help it, and after all he's been awfully good to mamma.Do you believe in divorce?"
"I never did until I saw your mother. She wouldn't ask for anything thatshe didn't really deserve."
"But it's funny, isn't it," said Lee, "that so many people get onfamously together until they are actually married, and then they beginto fight like cats? I knew a girl who was engaged to a man for fiveyears. You'd think they'd get to know each other pretty well in thattime, wouldn't you? But they didn't. They hadn't been married six monthsbefore they hated each other."
"And that proves," said Renier, "that long engagements are a mistake."
"Smarty!" exclaimed Lee.
"I suppose your brother'll be getting married right away, won't he?Haven't they liked each other for ever so long?"
"M'm!" Lee nodded. "But Arthur never does anything right away. He doestoo much mooning and wool-gathering. If a united family can get him tothe altar in less than a year they'll have accomplished wonders. There'sone thing, though--when we do get him married good and proper, he'llstay married. He's like that at all games. It comes natural to him tokeep his eyes in the boat. He's got the finest and sweetest nature ofany man in this world, _I_ think."
"Of course, you except present company?"
"Heavens, yes!" cried Lee, and they both laughed.
Then, suddenly, Lee looked him in the eyes quite solemnly.
"I wasn't fooling," she said, "not entirely. I _do_ think you're fineand sweet. I didn't always, but I do now."
There was levity in Renier's words but not in his voice.
"This," he said, "so far has been a perfectly good Tuesday."
"Whatever we do together," said Lee, "you always give me the best of it.It's been a good summer."
"Do you feel as if summer was over, too?"
She nodded.
"That's funny, isn't it? Because it's nowhere near over, is it? Maybeit's the excitement of the Oducalchis' arrival and your brother'sengagement. It makes you sort of feel as if there wasn't time to settleback into the regular life and get things going again before the leavesfall."
He spoke. And from the fine striped maple under which they sat therefell, and fluttered slowly into Lee's lap, a great yellowing leaf ribbedwith incipient scarlet.
"That only means," said Renier--but there was a kind of awe in hisvoice--"that this particular tree has indigestion."
And they sat for a time in silence and looked at the leaf. And lo!Arthur came upon them, smiling.
"I was looking for you two," he said. "I thought maybe you'd do me agreat favor. I've got to play host, and----"
"Nobody would miss us!" exclaimed Lee.
"They wouldn't?" said Arthur. "I'll bet you anything you like that,during your absence, you will both be mentioned among the missing, byname, at least five times."
"What'll you bet?" asked Lee eagerly. "Nobody ever thinks of _us_.Nobody ever mentions _us_. Nobody even loves _us_. What'll you bet?"
"Anything you like," said Arthur, "and if necessary I will take chargeof the five personal mentionings and make them myself!"
Lee shook her head sadly, and said: "Once an accepted lover, always asure thing, man. Oh, Arthur, how low you have fallen! You used toengineer bets with me for the sheer joy of seeing me win them. But nowyou are on the make, and it looks as if there was no justice underheaven-- Where do you want us to go and what do you want us to do whenwe get there? Of course, we'll go; we always do. Everybody sends us onerrands, and we always go. The longer the errands the oftener we go. Butnobody seems to realize that we might enjoy spending one single solitaryafternoon sitting under a striped maple and watching the green leavesturn yellow. Nobody even loves us! But when we are dead there will bethe most frightful remorse and sorrow."
Arthur leaned heavily against the stem of the striped maple.
"Your sad case," he said, "certainly cries aloud for justice andredress----"
"'Kid us along, Bo,'" said Lee; "we love it!"
"I want two people," said Arthur, "for whom I have affection and in whomI have confidence, to go at once to Carrytown in the _Streak_ andconsult a lawyer upon a matter of paramount importance and delicacy--"He hesitated, and Lee said:
"I pray you, without further ado, continue your piquant narrative."
Then Arthur, in a tone of solemn, confidential eagerness:
"Look here, you two, go to Carrytown, will you, and find out how quicklytwo people can get married in the State of New York, and what they haveto do about licenses and things? Will you? I'll be eternally obliged."
"Of course, we will," exclaimed Lee in sudden excitement. "Are yougame?"
"You bet your sweet life I'm game!" cried the vulgar Renier. And a fewminutes later the two inseparable school-boyesque chums, whom nobodymentioned, whom everybody sent on errands, and whom nobody even loved,were streaking across the lake in the _Streak_.
There was but the one lawyer in Carrytown and the one stenographer.Their shingles hang one above the other on the face of the one brickbuilding.
At the door of this building Lee suddenly drew back.
"Look here!" she said. "Won't it look rather funny if we march in handin hand and say: 'Beg pardon, sir, but how do you get married in theState of New York?'"
"It _would_ look funny," said Renier, "and I shouldn't wonder if it madeus feel funny. But the joke would really be on the lawyer. We could say'_Honi soit qui mal y pense_' to him. Of course, if it would reallyembarrass you----"
"It wouldn't," said Lee, "_really_."
So they went up a narrow flight of stairs and knocked on the door ofroom Number Five. There was no answer. So they pushed open the door andentered a square room bound in sheepskin with red-and-black labels.There was nobody in the room, and Lee exclaimed:
"Nobody even loves us."
"He'll be in the back room," said Renier. "I know. Once I swiped amuskmelon from a lawyer's melon-patch, and had to see him about it. _He_was in the back room----"
"'Counting out his money'?"
"No; he was drinking whiskey with a judge and a livery-stable keeper,and they were all spitting on a red-hot stove
."
"What did he do about the melon?"
"He told me to can the melon and have a drink. I had already canned themelon as well as I could (I wasn't educated along scientific lines) andmy grandmother had promised me any watch I wanted if I didn't drink tillI was twenty-one."
"Did you?"
"I did not."
"Did you get the watch?"
"I did not."
"Why not?"
"Grandma reneged. She said she didn't remember making any such promise."
They pushed open a swinging door and entered the back room.
Here, in a revolving chair, sat a stout young man with a red face. Uponhis knees sat a stout young woman with a red face. And with something ofthe consistency with which a stamp adheres to an envelope so the one redface appeared glued to the other red face.
The red face of the stout young man had one free eye which detected thepresence of intruders. And the stout young man said:
"Caught with the goods! Jump up, Minnie, and behave yourself!"
Minnie's upspring was almost a record-breaker.
Renier began to stammer:
"I b-b-beg your pardon," he said, "but I thought you might b-b-be ableto tell me how to g-g-get married in New York State."
The stout young man rose from his revolving chair; he was embarrassedalmost to the point of paralysis, but his mind and mouth continued towork.
"You've come to just the right man," he said, "at just the right time,for information of that sort. First, you hire a stenographer; then youget a mash on her. Then she sits in your lap--she _will_ do it--and thenyou kiss her. And then you get a license, and then you curse laws andred tape for a while, and then you wed. Now, what you want is alicense?"
"Exactly," said Renier. "It--it's for another fellow."
"Friend of yours?" queried the stout young man.
"Yes."
"And you want a license for him, not for yourself?"
Renier nodded.
"At this moment," said the stout young man, "there are assembled on thelong wharf, chewin' tobacco and cursin', some twenty-five or thirtymarines. Would you mind just stepping down and telling that to them?"
"I am quite serious," said Renier. "It is my friend who wants to getmarried."
"And _you_ don't?"
Renier stammered ineffectually.
"Then," said the stout young man, with a glance at Lee (of the highestadmiration), "you're a gol-darn fool."
And forthwith he was so vulgar as to burst into a sudden snatch ofsong:
"Old man Rule was a gol-darn fool, For he couldn't see the water in the gol-darn pool!"
At the finish of this improvisation the dreadfully confused Minnie went,"Tee-hee!"
And, horror of horrors, that charming boylike companion, Lee Darling,behind whom were well-bred generations, also went suddenly, "Tee-hee."
"Licenses," said the stout young man, "are applied for in room Five.After you, sir; after you, miss."
And, with a waggish expression, he turned to Minnie.
"Be back in five minutes," he said; "try not to forget me, my flightyone."
When they were in the front room, he said:
"Before a license is issued, the licensor must be satisfied as to thepreliminaries. Now, then, what can you tell me as to lap sitting andkissings?"
"You," cried Lee, in a sudden blaze of indignation, "are the freshest,most objectionable American I ever set eyes on."
The stout young man turned appealingly to Renier.
"You wouldn't say that," he said; "you'd say I was just typical,wouldn't you, now? And I wish you would tell her that, though in thesebackwoods I have been obliged to eschew my Chesterfield, I've got agreat big heart in me and mean well."
During the last words of this speech he became appealingly wistful.
"Why," said he to Lee, "just because Minnie and me is stout, don't youthink we know heaven when we see it--the empyrean! Yesterday she threwme down, and I says to her: 'Since all my life seems meant for"fails"--since this was written and needs must be--my whole soul risesup to bless your name in pride and thankfulness. Who knows but the worldmay end to-night?' To-day she sits in my lap and we see which can hugthe hardest. Ever try that?"
And suddenly the creature's voice melted and shook. He was a genuineorator, as we Americans understand it, having that within his powers ofvoice that defies logic and melts the heart.
"Wouldn't you," he said, "even _like_ to sit in his lap? Wouldn't you_love_ to sit in his lap and be hugged?"
Lee looked to Renier for help, as he to her. And they took a step apiecedirectly toward each other, and another step. It was as if they had beenhypnotized. Suddenly Renier caught Lee's hand in his, and after amoment of looking into his eyes she turned to the stout man, and sang inmiraculous imitation of him:
"Young Miss Mule is a gol-darn fool, But you made her see the water in the gol-darn pool."
"I'll just get a license blank," said the stout young man. "They're inthe back room."
"Thank you," said Renier--"if you will, Mr.----"
"Heartbeat!" flashed the stout young man, and left them. And he wasn'tlying or making fun that time. For that was his really truly name. Andin northern New York people are beginning to think that he is by way ofbeing up to it.
Suddenly Lee quoted from a joke that she and Renier had in common. Shesaid, as if surprised:
"'Why, there's a table over there!'"
And Renier, his voice suddenly breaking and melting, answered:
"'Why, so there is--and here's a chair!'"
And Mr. Heartbeat, making a supreme effort to live up to his name, didnot return with the license blank for nearly eight minutes. Duringthose minutes, Renier resolved that in every room in his home thereshould be at least one revolving chair. And they came out of Mr.Heartbeat's office no longer boyish companions but lovers, a littlestartled, engaged, and licensed to be married.