Mrs.Baxter looked a little startled, and her husband frowned.Jane mistook their expressions for incredulity.``They DID, mamma,'' she protested.``That's just the way they talked to each other.I heard 'em this afternoon, when Willie had papa's cane.''
``Maybe they were doing it to tease you, if you were with them,'' Mr.Baxter suggested.
``I wasn't with 'em.I was sailin' my boat, an' they came along, an' first they never saw me, an' Willie looked--oh, papa, I wish you'd seen him!'' Jane rose to her feet in her excitement.
``His face was so funny, you never saw anything like it! He was walkin' along with it turned sideways, an' all the time he kept walkin' frontways, he kept his face sideways--like this, papa.Look, papa!'' And she gave what she considered a faithful imitation of William walking with Miss Pratt.``Look, papa! This is the way Willie went.He had it sideways so's he could see Miss.
Pratt, papa.An' his face was just like this.
Look, papa!'' She contorted her features in a terrifying manner.``Look, papa!''
``Don't, Jane!'' her mother exclaimed.
``Well, I haf to show papa how Willie looked, don't I?'' said Jane, relaxing.``That's just the way he looked.Well, an' then they stopped an' talked to me, an' Miss Pratt said, `It's our little sister.' ''
``Did she really?'' Mrs.Baxter asked, gravely, ``Yes'm, she did.Soon as she saw who I was, she said, `Why, it's our little sister!' Only she said it that way she talks--sort of foolish.`It's our ittle sissy'--somep'm like that, mamma.
She said it twice an' told me to go home an' get washed up.An' Miss Pratt told Willie--Miss Pratt said, `It isn't mamma's fault Jane's so dirty,' just like that.She--''
``Are you sure she said `our little sister'?''
said Mrs.Baxter.
``Why, you can ask Willie! She said it that funny way.`Our 'ittle sissy'; that's what she said.An' Miss Pratt said, `Ev'rybody would love our little sister if mamma washed her in soap an' water!' You can ask Willie; that's exackly what Miss Pratt said, an' if you don't believe it you can ask HER.If you don't want to believe it, why, you can ask--''
``Hush, dear,'' said Mrs.Baxter.``All this doesn't mean anything at all, especially such nonsense as Willie's thinking of being married.
It's your bedtime.''
``Well, but MAMMA--''
``Was that all they said?'' Mr.Baxter inquired.
Jane turned to him eagerly.``They said all lots of things like that, papa.They--''
``Nonsense!'' Mrs.Baxter in interrupted.``Come, it's bedtime.I'll go up with you.You mustn't think such nonsense.''
``But, mamma--''
``Come along, Jane!''
Jane was obedient in the flesh, but her spirit was free; her opinions were her own.Disappointed in the sensation she had expected to produce, she followed her mother out of the room wearing the expression of a person who says, ``You'll SEE--some day when everything's ruined!''
Mr.Baxter, left alone, laughed quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again.Frowning, he began to tap the floor with his shoe.
He was trying to remember what things were in his head when he was seventeen, and it was difficult.It seemed to him that he had been a steady, sensible young fellow--really quite a man --at that age.Looking backward at the blur of youthful years, the period from sixteen to twenty-
five appeared to him as ``pretty much all of a piece.'' He could not recall just when he stopped being a boy; it must have been at about fifteen, he thought.
All at once he sat up stiffly in his chair, and the paper slid from his knee.He remembered an autumn, long ago, when he had decided to abandon the educational plans of his parents and become an actor.He had located this project exactly, for it dated from the night of his seventeenth birthday, when he saw John McCullough play ``Virginius.''
Even now Mr.Baxter grew a little red as he remembered the remarkable letter he had written, a few weeks later, to the manager of a passing theatrical company.He had confidently expected an answer, and had made his plans to leave town quietly with the company and afterward reassure his parents by telegraph.In fact, he might have been on the stage at this moment, if that manager had taken him.Mr.Baxter began to look nervous.
Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting married.``I don't know, though!'' Mr.Baxter thought.``And Willie's certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was.'' He wished his wife would come down and reassure him, though of course it was all nonsense.
But when Mrs.Baxter came down-stairs she did not reassure him.``Of course Jane's too absurd!'' she said.``I don't mean that she `made it up'; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say about what Jane thought she said.But it all amounts to nothing.''
``Of course!''
``Willie's just going through what several of the other boys about his age are going through--like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace Banks.They all seem to be frantic over her.''
``I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea.She's rather pretty.''
``Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic than the others.''
``He certainly seems in a queer state!''
