Alice Adams - Booth Tarkington (chrome ebook reader .TXT) 📗

them carefully, loosening the earth round each tiny plant, so as to bring the roots up with it, that it might live the longer; and she had brought a napkin, which she drenched at a hydrant, and kept loosely wrapped about the stems of her collection.

The turf was too damp for her to kneel; she worked patiently, stooping from the waist; and when she got home in a drizzle of rain at five o’clock her knees were tremulous with strain, her back ached, and she was tired all over, but she had three hundred violets. Her mother moaned when Alice showed them to her, fragrant in a basin of water.

“Oh, you poor child! To think of your having to work so hard to get things that other girls only need lift their little fingers for!”

“Never mind,” said Alice, huskily. “I’ve got ’em and I am going to have a good time tonight!”

“You’ve just got to!” Mrs. Adams agreed, intensely sympathetic. “The Lord knows you deserve to, after picking all these violets, poor thing, and He wouldn’t be mean enough to keep you from it. I may have to get dinner before I finish the dress, but I can get it done in a few minutes afterward, and it’s going to look right pretty. Don’t you worry about that! And with all these lovely violets⁠—”

“I wonder⁠—” Alice began, paused, then went on, fragmentarily: “I suppose⁠—well, I wonder⁠—do you suppose it would have been better policy to have told Walter before⁠—”

“No,” said her mother. “It would only have given him longer to grumble.”

“But he might⁠—”

“Don’t worry,” Mrs. Adams reassured her. “He’ll be a little cross, but he won’t be stubborn; just let me talk to him and don’t you say anything at all, no matter what he says.”

These references to Walter concerned some necessary manoeuvres which took place at dinner, and were conducted by the mother, Alice having accepted her advice to sit in silence. Mrs. Adams began by laughing cheerfully. “I wonder how much longer it took me to cook this dinner than it does Walter to eat it?” she said. “Don’t gobble, child! There’s no hurry.”

In contact with his own family Walter was no squanderer of words.

“Is for me,” he said. “Got date.”

“I know you have, but there’s plenty of time.”

He smiled in benevolent pity. “You know, do you? If you made any coffee⁠—don’t bother if you didn’t. Get some downtown.” He seemed about to rise and depart; whereupon Alice, biting her lip, sent a panic-stricken glance at her mother.

But Mrs. Adams seemed not at all disturbed; and laughed again. “Why, what nonsense, Walter! I’ll bring your coffee in a few minutes, but we’re going to have dessert first.”

“What sort?”

“Some lovely peaches.”

“Doe’ want ’ny canned peaches,” said the frank Walter, moving back his chair. “G’night.”

“Walter! It doesn’t begin till about nine o’clock at the earliest.”

He paused, mystified. “What doesn’t?”

“The dance.”

“What dance?”

“Why, Mildred Palmer’s dance, of course.”

Walter laughed briefly. “What’s that to me?”

“Why, you haven’t forgotten it’s tonight, have you?” Mrs. Adams cried. “What a boy!”

“I told you a week ago I wasn’t going to that ole dance,” he returned, frowning. “You heard me.”

“Walter!” she exclaimed. “Of course you’re going. I got your clothes all out this afternoon, and brushed them for you. They’ll look very nice, and⁠—”

“They won’t look nice on me,” he interrupted. “Got date downtown, I tell you.”

“But of course you’ll⁠—”

“See here!” Walter said, decisively. “Don’t get any wrong ideas in your head. I’m just as liable to go up to that ole dance at the Palmers’ as I am to eat a couple of barrels of broken glass.”

“But, Walter⁠—”

Walter was beginning to be seriously annoyed. “Don’t ‘Walter’ me! I’m no s’ciety snake. I wouldn’t jazz with that Palmer crowd if they coaxed me with diamonds.”

“Walter⁠—”

“Didn’t I tell you it’s no use to ‘Walter’ me?” he demanded.

“My dear child⁠—”

“Oh, Glory!”

At this Mrs. Adams abandoned her air of amusement, looked hurt, and glanced at the demure Miss Perry across the table. “I’m afraid Miss Perry won’t think you have very good manners, Walter.”

“You’re right she won’t,” he agreed, grimly. “Not if I haf to hear any more about me goin’ to⁠—”

But his mother interrupted him with some asperity: “It seems very strange that you always object to going anywhere among our friends, Walter.”

“Your friends!” he said, and, rising from his chair, gave utterance to an ironical laugh strictly monosyllabic. “Your friends!” he repeated, going to the door. “Oh, yes! Certainly! Good-night!”

And looking back over his shoulder to offer a final brief view of his derisive face, he took himself out of the room.

Alice gasped: “Mama⁠—”

“I’ll stop him!” her mother responded, sharply; and hurried after the truant, catching him at the front door with his hat and raincoat on.

“Walter⁠—”

“Told you had a date downtown,” he said, gruffly, and would have opened the door, but she caught his arm and detained him.

“Walter, please come back and finish your dinner. When I take all the trouble to cook it for you, I think you might at least⁠—”

“Now, now!” he said. “That isn’t what you’re up to. You don’t want to make me eat; you want to make me listen.”

“Well, you must listen!” She retained her grasp upon his arm, and made it tighter. “Walter, please!” she entreated, her voice becoming tremulous. “Please don’t make me so much trouble!”

He drew back from her as far as her hold upon him permitted, and looked at her sharply. “Look here!” he said. “I get you, all right! What’s the matter of Alice goin’ to that party by herself?”

“She just can’t!”

“Why not?”

“It makes things too mean for her, Walter. All the other girls have somebody to depend on after they get there.”

“Well, why doesn’t she have somebody?” he asked, testily. “Somebody besides me, I mean! Why hasn’t somebody asked her to go? She ought to be that popular, anyhow, I sh’d think⁠—she tries enough!”

“I don’t understand how you can be so hard,” his mother wailed, huskily. “You know why they don’t run after her the way they do the other girls she