People of the Whirlpool, Mabel Osgood Wright [sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt] 📗

began at once to unwrap the various bundles they were hugging, prizes, it seemed, for every game they played, that represented enough plunder to deck a small Christmas tree. After these had been duly admired, with some misgivings on my part, Ian jumped up suddenly, clapping his hand to his pocket, and coming close, so that he could rest upon my knee, he began pulling out shining new dimes and quarters, until his hands, moist and trembling with excitement, could hold no more, and he poured the coins into my lap.

"Count them please, Barbara, vely quick, 'cause I can't say so many," he begged, standing with his curly head a little on one side, and his eyes flashing with eagerness.

Wondering what new form of extravagance it was, I counted, "One, two, three dollars and a half."

"Then we can go and buy the red harness for Corney to-morrow, without bothering to dig up any more dandies, 'cause Dick's got some too," he fairly shouted. "It was all bully fun, but that swizzle game where the marble ran round was the bestest of all, only some numbers it sat on took the pennies and some gave them back," and he indicated something flying round in a circle as he capered about. Ian's slightest gestures, like his father's, are very realistic, and I turned sick as I realized the game by which the silver had been won was probably roulette! Could it be possible? How had Mr. Vanderveer dared? No, there must be some mistake.

At that instant my attention was attracted by Richard, who, after unpacking his toys, had curled up in a deep piazza chair, where he sat without saying a word, but looking flushed and heavy-eyed.

"Do you feel sick? Perhaps you ate too much cream, and then ran too fast. Come and let mother feel of your hands," I said. His hands were cold and his head burning.

"It wasn't the cweam," he replied finally, as if not quite sure what was the matter, "it was the lemonade with the bitter currant jelly in it that made the cweam and all swell up,--and I guess it's going to spill pretty soon."

"Lemonade with bitter jelly in it?" queried father, coming out, "what sort of a mess have they given him?" Father stooped, smelled his breath, saying, "Astringent wine of some sort, unless my nose fails me. Did you have any, Ian?"

"Not pink, only yellow. I was all full up by then."

"When?"

"Why, when the big boys caught some of us and said we must drink pink lemonade to make us grow quick."

Father gave me a keen glance of intelligence, and I took the boys upstairs, where Richard's trouble soon righted itself, and, early as it was, they went quickly to sleep with the precious money under their pillows, fatigue conquering even their excitement.

Evan came home rather late, and at dinner we talked of other things. As far back as I remember anything, I can hear father's voice saying alike to Aunt Lot, myself, or a complaining servant, "The family board is sacred; meals are not the time for disagreeables."

Immediately after dinner, and before I had a chance to tell Evan, Mrs. Jenks-Smith stopped on her way home from a drive, the Whirlpoolers not dining until eight, to ask father if she might take some friends in to see the hospital to-morrow, an appeal having been recently made for new bedding, etc., saying: "We're going to have smashing strawberries and roses this year; they'll come on before the crowd moves along in July, and we might as well shake up a fete for the hospital as anything else, as we're bound to keep moving.

"Were you up at Vanderveers this afternoon? Oh, yes, to be sure, I saw you going down hill as I drove in. Quite a chic affair for a little between-season place like this; but after all, it's the people, not the place, that make the pace, isn't it, Miss Dorman? And a swell New Yorker can leave a wake that'll show the way anywhere.

"You don't look happy, though, Mrs. Evan. The boys ate too much? No? Roulette a little too high for you?

"Well, my dear, I half agree with you. I think things were a little too stiff this afternoon for such youngsters; but Vandy is such a liberal fellow he couldn't do enough,--nor tell when to stop,--actually lugged up half a dozen bags of new silver and dealt it to the kids in handfuls. Harm? Why, he didn't see any, I dare say. He wasn't robbing anybody; besides, I'll bet Monty Bell put him up to it. I know how you feel, though. I wouldn't play for money myself, if I'd young boys; but as I haven't, it doesn't matter, and one must be amused. That's the way Mrs. Latham jogged poor Carthy off and began the gap with her husband. Latham gambles on change, of course, but drew the line at his house. Didn't know it? You poor innocent, you're as bad as Sylvia herself. Why, yes, they're as good as divorced, by mutual agreement, though; he's kept away all of two years. I expect that they will announce it any time now.

"Won't let the boys keep the money? Don't be silly now and make a fuss; change it to bills and put it on the church plate; that's what all the really conscientious women always do with their Lenten winnings anyway,--that is, when they can afford it.

"I'll allow, though, they didn't manage the drinks well this afternoon. The lemonade was for the youngsters, and their spread was in the pergola; the next age had claret cup in the tea house back of the tennis court, and there was also a spread there with champagne cup for the elders.

"Claret cup? Oh, yes, nowadays you insult a boy over twelve if you offer him lemonade. But the trouble was, the big boys tumbled to the champagne cup, got hold of a bowl of it, grew excited, and fed the youngsters with the claret stuff, and made a lot of them sick. Your Richard one of them? I see,--I don't wonder you're put out, my dear, indeed I don't. I should be too, that is, if it mattered; but one person disapproving won't turn the wheel the other way, it only means to lose your own footing." So saying, the Lady of the Bluffs rustled away, promising to call for father in her 'bus in the morning.

"Is this true?" asked Evan, presently, and I had never seen his eyes look so steely cold.

"Yes, I'm afraid so," I answered, meeting his gaze.

"Where is the money?"

"Under their pillows; they expect to buy the red goat harness to-morrow."

"It's a crying shame, the whole thing. The poor little babies!"

"What shall I do?"

"You? Nothing. I shall return the money. This is my business; man to man. As a woman you inevitably must be emotional and make a doubtful issue of it. You mother the boys well, God knows; this is my chance to father them."

"But the money,--shall I get it now?"

"No, in the morning; they will bring it to me, and I will make them understand, as far as babies may. In one way, I fear, we are unwittingly somewhat to blame ourselves. Every one who is drawn toward a social and financial class a little beyond his depth, and yields, though feeling the danger, is unwise. I think, sweetheart, this commuter, his wife, and babies had better be content to wade in safe shallows and not go within touch of the Whirlpool current."

Then Evan and I went and stood silently by the two white beds, and now he is walking up and down in the garden smoking quietly, while I am writing up here, and unhappy because I think of to-morrow and the boys' disappointment about the little red harness.


XI

REARRANGED FAMILIES

_June_ 10. Sylvia Latham has returned alone. Her father came with her as far as Chicago, where, having business that would detain him for perhaps ten days, and warm weather having set in, he insisted that Sylvia should at once proceed eastward. At least that is what Miss Lavinia tells me; but she has suddenly turned quite reticent in everything that concerns the Lathams, which, together with Mrs. Jenks-Smith's random remarks, have inevitably set me to thinking.

I had hoped to form a pleasant friendship with Sylvia, for though I have only met her two or three times, I feel as if I really knew her; but there will be little chance now, as they go on to Newport the first of July, and the continual procession of house parties, for golf, tennis, etc., at the Bluffs, even though they are called informal, necessarily stand in the way of intimate neighbourly relations between us. Monty Bell has been dividing his week ends between the Ponsonby, Vanderveer, and Jenks-Smith households, yet he always is in the foreground when I have been to see Sylvia, even though I have tried to slip in between times in the morning.

I do not like this Monty Bell; he seems to be merely an eater of dinners and a cajoler of dames, such superficial chivalry of speech as he exhibits being only one of the many expedients that gain him the title of "socially indispensable" that the Whirlpoolers accord him.

Personally anything but attractive, he seems able to organize and control others in a most singular way. Perhaps it is because he has a genius for taking pains and planning successful entertainments for his friends, even to the minutest detail, and giving them the subtle distinction of both originality and finish, without troubling their givers to think for themselves. Miss Lavinia-says that he has the entree of the two or three very exclusive New York houses that have never yet opened their doors to Mrs. Latham and several more aspiring Whirlpoolers, Mrs. Jenks-Smith having penetrated the sacred precincts, only by right of having been presented at the English Court in the last reign through the influence of her stepdaughter, who married a poverty-stricken title.

"I don't know what it all amounts to," said the outspoken Lady of the Bluffs on her return, "except that I'm in it now with both feet, which is little enough pay for the trouble I took and the money Jenks-Smith put out.

"Our son-in-law? No, he's not exactly English, he's Irish, blood of the old kings, they say; but all the good it does him is, that he can wear his hat with a feather in it, or else his shoes, I can never remember which, in the presence of royalty, when if it wasn't for good American money he'd have neither one or the other.

"Money? Oh yes, that's all they want of us over there; we've no cause to stick up our noses and think it's ourselves. We know, Jenks-Smith and I, for haven't we been financial mother and father in law to a pair of them for ten years? Jenks-Smith was smart, though; he wouldn't give a lump sum down, but makes them an allowance, and we go over every year or so and bail them out of some sort of a mess to boot, have the plumbing fixed up, and start the children all over with new clothes. That's what we're doing when the papers say, 'Mr. and Mrs. Jenks-Smith, who went to Carlsbad for the waters, are now in Ireland, being entertained in regal style by their daughter and son-in-law at Bally-whack House.'"

Miss Lavinia says with a shiver that whoever marries Monty Bell, and it