Whenever Plooie went shuffling by my bench, I used to think of an oldand melancholy song that my grandfather sang:
"And his skin was so thin You could almost see his bones As he ran, hobble--hobble--hobble Over the stones."
Before I could wholly recapture the quaint melody, my efforts wouldinvariably be nullified by the raucous shriek of his trade which hadforever fixed the nickname whereby Our Square knew Plooie:
"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder!" He would then recapitulatein English, or rather that unreproducible dialect which was hissubstitute for it. "Oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella for mend?"
So he would pass on his way, shattering the peaceful air at half-minuteintervals with his bilingual disharmonies. He was pallid, meagerlybuilt, stoop-shouldered, bristly-haired, pock-marked, and stiff-gaited,with a face which would have been totally insignificant but for anobstinate chin and a pair of velvet-black, pathetically questioningeyes; and he was incurably an outlander. For five years he had livedamong us, occupying a cubbyhole in Schepstein's basement full of ribs,handles, crooks, patches, and springs, without appreciably improving hisspeech or his position. It was said that his name was Garin--nobodyreally knew or cared--and it was assumed from his speech that hewas French.
Few umbrellas came his way. Those of us affluent enough to maintain suchnon-essentials patch them ourselves until they are beyond reclamation.Why Plooie did not starve is one of the mysteries of Our Square, thoughby no means the only one of its kind. I have a notion that the BonnieLassie, to whom any variety of want or helplessness is its ownsufficient recommendation, drummed up trade for him among her uptownfriends. Something certainly enlisted his gratitude, for he invariablytook off his frowsy cap when he passed her house, whether or not she wasthere to see, and he once unbosomed himself to me to the extent ofdeclaring that she was a kind lady. This is the only commentary I everheard him make upon any one in Our Square, which in turn completelyignored him until the development of his love affair stimulated ourcondescending and contemptuous interest.
The object of Plooie's addresses was a little Swiss of unknownderivation and obscure history. She appeared to be as detached from thesurrounding world as the umbrella-mender himself. An insignificant bitof a thing she was, anaemic and subdued, with a sad little face, softhazel eyes slightly crossed, and the deprecating manner of those whoscrub other people's doorsteps at fifteen cents an hour.
For a year their courtship, if such it might be termed, ran anuneventful course. I had almost said unromantic. But who shall tellwhere is fancy bred or wherein romance consists? Whenever Plooie saw thedrabbled little worker busy on a doorstep, he would cross over and openthe conversation according to an invariable formula.
"Annie oombrella for mend? Annie oombrella?" Thereby the little Swissbecame known as, and ever will be called locally, "Annie Oombrella."Like most close-knit, centripetal communities, we have a fatal penchantfor nicknames in Our Square.
She would look up and smile wanly, and shake her head. Where, indeed,should the like of her get an umbrella to be mended!
Then would he say--I shall not attempt to torture the good Englishalphabet into a reproduction of his singular phonetics: "It makes fineto-day, it do!"
And she would reply "Yes, a fine day"; and look as if the sun were alittle warmer upon her pale skin because of Plooie's greeting, as,perhaps, indeed, it was.
After that he would nod solemnly, or, if feeling especially loquacious,venture some prophecy concerning the morrow, before resuming hisunproductive rounds and his lugubrious yawp. One day he discovered thatshe spoke French. From that time the relationship advanced rapidly. OnChristmas he gave her a pair of red woolen gloves. On New Year's he tookher walking among the tombstones in God's Acre, which is a serious andsentimental, not to say determinative, social step. Twice in thefollowing week he carried her bucket from house to house. And in theglowing dusk of a crisp winter afternoon they sat together hand in hand,on a bench back of my habitual seat, and looked in each other's eyes,and spoke, infrequently, in their own language, forgetful of the rest ofthe world, including myself, who was, perhaps, supposed not tounderstand. But even without hearing their words, I could have guessed.It was very simple and direct, and rather touching. Plooie said:
"If one marries themselves?"
And she replied: "I believe it well."
They kissed solemnly, and their faces, in the gleam of the electriclight which at that moment spluttered into ill-timed and tactlessactivity, were transfigured so that I marveled at the dim splendorof them.
But the Bonnie Lassie was scandalized. On general principles shemistrusts that any marriage is really made in heaven unless she acts asearthly agent of it. What had those two poverty-stricken littlecreatures to marry on? She put the question rhetorically to Our Squarein general and to the two people most concerned in particular. Courts oflaw might have rejected their replies as irrelevant. Humanly, however,they were convincing enough.
Said Plooie: "Who will have a care of that little one if I have not?"
Said Annie Oombrella: "He is so lonely!"
So those two unfortunates united their misfortunes, and lo! happinesscame of it. Luckily that is all that did come of it. What dispositionthe pair would have made of children, had any arrived, it is difficultto conjecture. Only by miraculous compression of ribs, handles, andfabrics was space contrived in the basement cubbyhole for AnnieOombrella to squeeze in. However, she set up housekeeping cheerily as abird, with an odd lot of pots and pans which Schepstein had picked up atan auction and resold to them at not more than two hundred per centprofit, plus a kerosene stove, the magnificent wedding gift of theBonnie Lassie and her husband, Cyrus the Gaunt. Twice a week they hadmeat. They were rising in the social scale.
Habitude is the real secret of tolerance. As we became accustomed toPlooie, Our Square ceased to resent his invincible outlandishness; weendured him with equanimity, although it would be exaggeration to saythat we accepted him, and we certainly did not patronize himprofessionally. Nevertheless, in a minor degree, he nourished. AnnieOombrella must have lavished care upon him. His pinched-in shouldersbroadened perceptibly. His gait, still a halting shuffle, grewnoticeably brisker. There was even a heartier note in his lamentabletrade cry:
"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder!"
As for Annie Oombrella, having some one to look after quite transformedher. She grew plump and chirpy, and bustling as a blithe little sparrow,though perhaps duck would be a happier comparison, for she was dabblingand splashing in water all the day long, making the stairs and porchesof her curatorship fairly glisten with cleanliness. Her rates went up totwenty cents an hour. There were rumors that she had started a savingsaccount. Life stretched out before the little couple, smooth andpeaceful and sunny with companionship.
Then came the war.
The calamitous quality of a great world tragedy is that it brings to somany helpless little folk bitter and ignoble tragedies of shame andhumiliation and misunderstanding. With a few racial exceptions, OurSquare was vehemently pro-Ally. In spirit we fought with valiant Franceand prayed for heroic Belgium. What a Godspeed we gave to the few sonsof Gaul who, in those early days, left us to fight the good fight! Howsourly we looked upon Plooie continuing his peaceful rounds. Whencearose the rumor, I cannot say, but it was noised about just at that timeof wrath and tension that Plooie was born in Liege. Liege, that city offire and slaughter and heroism, upon which the eyes and hopes of theworld were turned in wonder and admiration. Somebody had seen the entryon the marriage register! The Bonnie Lassie told me of it, pausing at mybench with a little furrow between her bright eyes.
"Dominie, you know Emile Garin pretty well?"
"Not at all," I replied, failing to identify the rickety Plooie by hisrightful name.
"Of course you do! Never a morning but he stops at your bench and asksif you have an umbrella to mend."
"I never have. What of him?"
"Have you any influence with him?"
"Not compared with yours."
The Bonnie Lassie made a little gesture of despair. "I can't find him.And Annie Oombrella won't tell me where he is. She only cries."
"That's bad. You think he--he is--"
"Why don't you say it outright, Dominie? You think he's hiding."
"Really!" I expostulated. "You come to me with accusations against thepoor fellow and then undertake to make me responsible for them."
"I don't believe it's true at all," averred the Bonnie Lassie loyally."I don't believe Plooie is a coward. There's some reason why he doesn'tgo over and help! I want to know what it is."
Perceiving that I was expected to provide excuses for the erring one, Idid my best. "Over age," I suggested.
"He's only thirty-two."
"Bless me! He looks sixty. Well--physical infirmity."
"He can carry a load all day."
"He won't leave Annie Oombrella, then. Or perhaps she won't let him."
"When I asked her, she cried harder than ever and said that her motherwas French and she would go and fight herself, if they'd have her."
"Then I give it up. What does your Olympian wisdom make of it?"
"I don't know. But I'm afraid the Garins are going to have trouble."
Within a few days Plooie reappeared and his strident falsetto appeal fortrade rang shrill in the space of Our Square. Trouble developed at once.Small boys booed at him, called him "yellow," and advised him to gocarefully, there was a German behind the next tree. Henri Dumain, ourlittle old French David who fought the tragic duel of tooth and clawwith his German Jonathan in Thornsen's Elite Restaurant, stung him withthat most insulting word in any known tongue--"Lache!"--and threatenedhim with uplifted cane; and poor Plooie slunk away. But I think it wasthe fact that he who stayed at home when others went forward had set apicture of Albert of Belgium in the window of his cubbyhole that mostexasperated us against him. Tactless, to say the least! His call grewquavery and furtive. Annie Oombrella ceased to sing at work. Matterslooked ill for the Garins.
The evil came to a head the week after David and Jonathan broke off allrelations. Perhaps that tragedy of shattered friendship (afterwardrejoined through the agency of the great peacemaker, Death) had got onour nerves. Ordinarily, had Plooie chased a small boy who had tipped abarrel down his basement steps, nothing would have come of it. But thechase took him into the midst of a group of the younger and moreboisterous element, returning from a business meeting of the Gentlemen'sSons of Avenue B, and before he could turn, they had surrounded him.
"Here's our little 'ee-ro!" "Looka the Frenchy that won't fight!""Safety first, hey, Plooie?" "Charge umbrellas--backward, march!"
Plooie did his best to break for a run through, which was the worstthing he could have tried. They collared him. By that contact he becametheir captive, their prey. What to do with him? To loose a prisoner,once in the hand, is an unthinkable anti-climax. Somebody developed aninspirational thought: "Ride him on a rail!"
Near by, a house front under repair supplied a scantling. Plooie washustled upon it. He fell off. They jammed him back again. He clung,wide-eyed, white-faced, and silent. The mob, for it was that now, borehim with jeers and jokes and ribaldry along the edge of the park.
When they came within my ken he was riding high, and the mob was beingaugmented momentarily from every quarter. I looked about for Terry theCop. But Terry was elsewhere. It is not beyond the bounds of reasonableprobability that he had absented himself on purpose. "God hates acoward" is a tenet of Terry's creed. I confess to a certain sympathywith it myself. After all, a harsh lesson might not be amiss for Plooie,the recusant. Composing my soul to a non-intervention policy, I leanedback on my bench, when a pitiful sight ruined my neutrality.
Along the outer edge of the compact mob trotted little Annie Oombrella.From time to time she dashed herself blindly against that human wall,which repulsed her not too roughly and with indulgent laughter. Theirconcern was not with her. It was with the coward; their prisoner,delivered by fate to the stern decrees of mob justice. I could hear hisvoice now, calling out to her in their own language across thesupervening heads:
"Do not have fear, my little one. They do me no harm. Go you home,little cat. Soon I come also. Do not fear."
From his forehead ran a little stream of blood. But there was that inhis face which told me that if he was fearful it was only for her. Hisvoice, steady and piercing, overrode the clamor of the crowd. I began toentertain doubts as to his essential cowardice.
Annie Oombrella, dumb with misery and terror, only dashed herself themore hopelessly against the barrier of bodies.
Even the delight of rail-riding a victim becomes monotonous in time. Themany-headed sought further measures of correction and reprobation.
"Le's tar-and-feather him."
"White feathers!"
"Where'll we gettum?"
"Satkins's kosher shop on the Av'noo."
"Where's yer tar?"
This was a poser; Satkins was saved from a raid. A more practicalexpedient now evolved from the collective brain.
"Duck'm in the fountain!"
"Drown him in the fountain!" amended an enthusiast.
Whooping with delight, the mob turned toward the gate. This was becomingdangerous. That there was no real intent to drown the unfortunateumbrella-mender I was well satisfied. But mob intent is subject to mobimpulse. If they once got him into the water, the temptation of theplayful to push his head under just once more might be too strong.Plainly the time was ripe for intervention.
Owing to some enthusiastically concerted but ill-directed engineering,the scantling with its human burden had jammed crosswise of the posts.Now, if ever, was the opportunity for eloquence of dissuasion.
For the heroic role of Horatius at the Bridge I am ill-fitted both bytemperament and the fullness of years. Nevertheless, I advanced into theimminent deadly breach and raised the appeal to reason.
The result was unsatisfactory. Some hooted. Others laughed.
"Never mind the Dominie," yelled Inky Mike, laying hold of the rail byan end and hauling it around. "He don't mean nothin'."
Old bones are no match for young barbarism. The rush through the gatebrushed me aside like a feather. I saw the tragi-comic parade go by, asI leaned against a supporting tree: the advance guard of clamorousurchins, the rail-bearers, the white-faced figure of Plooie, joltedaloft, bleeding but calm, self-forgetful, and still calling outreassurances to his wife; the jostling rabble, and upon the edge of it afrantic woman, clawing, sobbing, imploring. On they swept. I listenedfor the splash.
It did not come.
A lion had risen in the path. To be more accurate, a lioness. To myunsuccessful role of Horatius, a Horatia better fitted for the fray hadsucceeded, in the austere and superb person of Madame Rachel PinckneyPemberton Tallafferr, aforetime of the sovereign State of Virginia.
Where all my eloquence had failed, she checked that joyouslyanticipative rabble by the simple query, set in the chillest and mostperemptory of aristocratic tones, as to what they were doing.
I like to think--the Bonnie Lassie says that I am flattering myselfthereby--that it was the momentary halt caused by my abortive effort tohold the gate, which gave time for a greater than my humble self tointervene.
Madame Tallafferr, in the glory of black silk, the Pinckney lace, thePemberton diamond, and accompanied by that fat relic of slavery, BlackSally, had been taking the air genteelly on a bench when the disturbancegrated upon her sensitive ear.
"What is that rabble about, Sally?" she inquired.
The aged negress reconnoitered. "Reckon dey's ridin' a gentmun on arail," she reported.
"A gentleman, Sally? Impossible. No gentleman would endure such anaffront. Look again."
"Yessum. It's dat po' white trash dey call Plooie. Mainded yo' umbrellaoncet."
"My umbrella-mender!" (The mere fact that the victim had once tinkeredfor her a decrepit parasol entitled him in her feudal mind to the highprotection of the Tallafferr tradition.) "Tell them to desist at once."
Apologetically but shrewdly Sally opined that the neighborhood of theadvancing mob was "no place foh a niggah."
With perfect faith in the powers of her superior she added: "You desist'em, mist'ess."
Sally's confidence in her mistress was equaled or perhaps even excelledby her mistress's confidence in herself.
Leaning upon her cane and attended by the faithful though terrifiedservitor, Madame Tallafferr rustled forward. She took her stand upon thebrink of the fountain in almost the exact spot where she had disarmedMacLachan, the tailor, drunk, songful, and suicidal, two years before.Since that feat an almost mythologic awe had attached itself toher locally.
She waited, small and thin, hawk-eyed, imperious, and tempered likesteel. The ring of tempered steel, too, was in her voice when, at theproper moment, she raised it.
"What are you doing?"
The clamor of the mob died down. The sight of Horatia (I beg her pardonhumbly, Madame Tallafferr) in the path smote them with misgivings. As inMacaulay's immortal, if somewhat jingly epic, "those behind cried'Forward' and those before cried 'Back'!" That single hale and fiery oldlady held them. No more could those two hundred ruffians have defied thechallenge of her contemptuous eyes than they could have advanced intothe flaming doors of a furnace.
A cautious voice from the rear inquired: "Who's the dame?"
"She's a witch," conjectured some one.
"It's the Duchess," said another, giving her the local title ofveneration.
"It's the lady that shot the tailor," proclaimed an awe-strickenbystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.)Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, prescribed in amalevolent squeak:
"T'row 'er in the drink."
"Who spoke?" said Madame Tallafferr, crisp and clear.
Silence. Then the sound of objurgations as the advocate franticallyresisted well-meant efforts to thrust him into undesirable prominence.Finally a miniature eruption outward from the mob's edge, followed by aglimpse of a shadowy figure departing at full speed. The Duchess leveleda bony finger at Inky Mike, the nearest figure personally known to her,who began a series of contortions suggestive of a desire to crawl intohis own pocket.
"Michael," said the Duchess.
"Yessum," said Inky Mike, whose name happens to be Moe Sapperstein.
"What are you doing to that unfortunate person?"
"J-j-just a little j-j-joke," replied the other in what was doubtlessintended for a light-hearted and care-free tone.
"Let him down." Inky Mike hesitated. "At once!" snapped the Duchess andstamped her foot.
"Yessum," said Inky Mike meekly.
Loosing his hold on the scantling, he retreated upon the feet of thosebehind. They let go also. Plooie slid forward to the ground. MadameTallafferr's bony finger (backed by the sparkle of an authoritativediamond) swept slowly around a half-circle, with very much the easy andsignificant motion of a machine gun and something of the effect. Asubtle suggestion of limpness manifested itself in the mass before her.Addressing them, she raised her voice not a whit. She had no need to.
"Go about your business," she said. "Rabble!" she added in precisely thetone which one might expect of a well-bred but particularlydeadly snake.
The mob wilted to a purposeless and abashed crowd. The crowddisintegrated into individuals. The individuals asked themselves whatthey were doing there, and, finding no sufficient answer, slunk away.Plooie was triumphantly escorted by Madame Tallafferr and Black Sally,and (less triumphantly) by my limping self, to the nearest haven, whichchanced to be the Bonnie Lassie's house. Annie Oombrella pattered alongbeside him, fumbling his hand and trying not to cry.
But when the Bonnie Lassie saw the melancholy wreck, she cried, asmuch from fury as from pity, and said that men were brutes and bulliesand cowards and imbeciles--and why hadn't her Cyrus been at home to stopit? Whereto Madame Tallafferr complacently responded that Mr. CyrusStaten had not been needed: the canaille would always respect a propershow of authority from its superiors; and so went home, rustling andsparkling.
After all, Plooie was not much hurt. Perhaps more frightened thananything else. Panic was, in fact, the reason generally ascribed in OurSquare for his quiet departure, with his Annie, of course, on thefollowing Sunday. Only the Bonnie Lassie dissented. But as the BonnieLassie reasons with her heart instead of her head, we accept hertheories with habitual and smiling indulgence rather than respect--untilthe facts bear them out. She had, it appeared, called on the Plooies toinquire as to their proposed course, and had rather more than hintedthat if the head of the house wished to respond to his country's call,Our Square would look after Annie Oombrella. To this he returned only astubborn and somber silence. The Bonnie Lassie said afterward that heseemed ashamed. She added that he had left good-bye for me and hoped theDominie would not think too hard of him. Recalling that I had rathermarkedly failed to acknowledge his salute on the morning before hisdeparture, I felt a qualm of misgiving. After all, judging yourneighbor's soul is a kittle business. There is such an insufficiencyof data.
So Schepstein lost a renter. The basement cubbyhole remained vacant,with only the picture of Albert of the Kingdom of Sorrows in the windowas a memento. Nothing further was seen or heard of Plooie. ButSchepstein, wandering far afield in search of tenement sales a full yearafter, encountered Annie Oombrella washing down the steps of an officefar over in Lewis Street, nearly to the river. All the plumpness whichshe had taken on in the happy days was gone. She looked wistfuland haggard.
Schepstein, doing the polite (which, as he accurately states, costsnothing and might get you something some time), asked after Plooie.Where was he? Annie Oombrella shook her head.
"Left you, has he?" asked Schepstein, astonished at this evidence ofiniquity.
"Yes," said Annie Oombrella. But there was a ring in her voice thatSchepstein failed to understand. It sounded almost like defiance. Hereyes were deep-hollowed and sorrowful, but they met his as squarely asthey could, considering their cast. Schepstein was quite shocked toobserve that there was no shame in them. I suppose the shock temporarilyunbalanced his principles, for, having caught sight of one of her shoes,he offered to lend her three dollars, indefinitely and without interest,on her bare note-of-hand. (When he saw the other shoe, he made it five.)She looked at the money anxiously, but shook her head.
"Well, if you ever need a home, the basement's vacant and there ain't abetter basement in Our Square."
Annie Oombrella began to cry quietly, and Schepstein went on about hisbusiness.
Through the ensuing years many women cried quietly or vehemently,according to their natures, and many men went away from places that hadknown them, to be no more known of those places; and the little Kingdomof Sorrows, shattered, blood-soaked, and unconquerable, stood fast, abulwark between the ravager of the world and his victory until theresped across the death-haunted seas the army that was to turn the scales.Our Square gave to that sacrifice what it can never recover: witness thesimple memorials in Our Square.
Many people see ghosts; Our Square is well haunted, as befits itsancient and diminished glories. Few hear ghosts. This is as it ought tobe. In their very nature, ghosts should be seen, not heard. Yet, in theyear of grace, 1919, under a blazing September sun, with a cicada,vagrant from heaven knows whence, frying his sizzling sausages in ourlilac bush, and other equally insistent sounds of reality filling theair, my ears were smitten with a voice from the realm of wraiths.
"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees," it cried on a faint and cluttering note."Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees a raccommoder."
Over in the far corner of the park an apparition moved into my visualrange. It looked like Plooie. It moved like Plooie. It was loaded likePlooie. It opened a mouth like Plooie's and emitted again the familiarthough diminished falsetto shriek. No doubt of it now; it was Plooie.He had come back to us who never thought to see him again, who neverwished to see him again, still unpurged of his stigma.
As he passed me, I acknowledged his greeting, somewhat stiffly, I fear,and walked over to Schepstein's. There in the basement, amid thefamiliar wreckage as of a thousand umbrellas, sat little Annie.
"Bonjour, Dominie," said she wistfully.
"Good-morning, Annie. So you are back."
"Yes, Dominie. Is there need that one wash the step at your house?"
"There is need that one explain one's self. What have you been doingthese three years?"
"I work. I work hard."
"And your husband? What has he been doing?" I asked sternly.
Annie Oombrella's soft face drooped. "Soyez gentil, Dominie," sheimplored. "Be a kind, good man and ask him not. That make him sotriste--so sad."
"He doesn't look well, Annie."
"He have been ver' seeck. Now we come home he is already weller."
"But do you think it is wise for you to come back here?" I demanded,feeling brutal as I put the question. Annie Oombrella's reply did notmake me feel any less so. She sent a quivering look around thatunspeakably messy, choked-up little hole in the wall that was home toPlooie and her.
"We have loved each other so much here," said she.
Our Square is too poor to be enduringly uncharitable, either in deed orthought. War's resentments died out quickly in us. No longer was Plooiein danger of mob violence. By common consent we let him alone; he madehis rounds unmolested, but also unpatronized. But for Annie Oombrella'sprodigies of industry with pail and brush, the little couple inSchepstein's basement would have fared ill.
Annie earned for both. In the process, happiness came back to her face.
To the fat Rosser twin accrues the credit of a pleasurable discoveryabout Plooie. This was that, if you sneaked softly up behind him andshouted: "Hey, Plooie! What was you doing in the war?" his jaw woulddrop and his whole rackety body begin to quiver, and he would heave hisburden to his shoulder and break into a spavined gallop, muttering andsobbing like one demented. As the juvenile sense of humor is highlydeveloped in Our Square, Plooie got a good deal of exercise, firstand last.
Eventually he foiled them by coming out only in school hours. Thisdidn't help his trade. But then his trade had dwindled to the vanishingpoint anyway. Even Madame Tallafferr had dropped him. She preferred notto deal with a poltroon, as she put it.
On the day of the great exodus, Plooie put in some extra hours. He wasin no danger from his youthful persecutors, because they had all gone upto line Fifth Avenue and help cheer the visiting King of the Belgians.So had such of the rest of Our Square as were not at work. The place waspractically deserted. Nevertheless, Plooie prowled about, uttering hiscracked and lugubrious cry in the forlorn hope of picking up a parapluieto raccommode. I was one of the few left to hear him, because Mendel,the jeweler, had most inconsiderately gone to view royalty, leaving myunrepaired glasses locked in his shop; otherwise I, too, would have beenon the Fifth Avenue curb shouting with the best of them. Do notmisinterpret me. For the divinity that doth hedge a king I care aslittle as one should whose forbears fought in the Revolution. But forthe divinity of high courage and devotion that certifies to the image ofGod within man, I should have been proud to take off my old but stillglossy silk hat to Albert of the Belgians. So I was rather cross, and itwas well for my equanimity that the Bonnie Lassie, who had remained athome for reasons which are peculiarly her own affair and that of Cyrusthe Gaunt, should have come over to my favorite bench to cheer me up.Said the Bonnie Lassie:
"I wonder why Plooie didn't go to see his king."
"Sense of shame," I suggested acidly.
"Yes?" said the Bonnie Lassie in a tone which I mistrusted.
"It is no use," I assured her, "for you to favor me with that pityingand contemptuous smile of yours, for I can't see it. Mendel has mynearer range of vision locked in his shop."
"I was just thinking," said the Bonnie Lassie in ruminant accents, "hownice it must be to look back on a long life of unspotted correctnesswith not an item in it to be ashamed of. It gives one such a comfortablebasis for sitting in judgment."
"Her lips drip honey," I observed, "and the poison of asps is under hertongue."
"Your quotations are fatally mixed," retorted my companion.
From across the park sounded Plooie's patient falsetto:"Parapluie-ee-ee-ee-ees! Annie Oombrella for mend? Parapluie-ee-ee-" Thecall broke off in a kind of choke.
"What's happened to Plooie?" I asked. "The youngsters can't have gotback from the parade already, have they?"
"A very tall man has stopped him," said the Bonnie Lassie. "Plooie hasdropped his kit.... He's trying to salute.... It must be one of theBelgian officers.... Oh, Dominie!"
"Well, what?" I demanded impatiently and cursed the recreant Mendel inmy heart.
"It can't be ... you don't think they can be arresting poor Plooie atthis late day for evading service?"
"Serve him right if they did," said I.
"I believe they are. The big man has taken him by the arm and is leadinghim along. Poor Plooie! He's all wilted down. It's a shame!" cried theBonnie Lassie, beginning to flame. "It ought not to be allowed."
"Probably they're taking him away. Do you see an official-lookingautomobile anywhere about?"
"There's a strange car over on the Avenue. Oh, dear! Poor AnnieOombrella! But--but they're not going there. They're going intoSchepstein's basement."
I could feel the Bonnie Lassie fidgeting on the bench. For a moment Iendured it. Then I said:
"Well, Lassie, why don't you?"
"Why don't I what?"
"Take your usual constitutional, over by the railings. OppositeSchepstein's."
"That isn't my usual constitutional, and you know it, Dominie," said theBonnie Lassie with dignity.
"Isn't it? Well, curiosity killed a cat, you know."
"How shamelessly you garble! It was--"
"Never mind; the quotation is erroneous, anyway. It should be:suppressed curiosity killed a cat."
The Bonnie Lassie sniffed.
"Rather than be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench," Ipursued, "through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to theback to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should almostprefer that you would go--and peek."
"Dominie," said the Bonnie Lassie, "you are a despicable old man....I'll be back in a minute."
"Don't stay long," I pleaded. "Pity the blind."
Her golden laughter floated back to me. But there was no mirth in hervoice when she returned.
"It's so dark in there I can hardly see. But the big man is sitting on apile of ribs talking to Plooie, and Annie Oombrella's face is allswollen with crying. I saw it in the window for a minute."
Pro and con we argued what the probable event might be and how we couldbest meet it. So intent upon our discussion did we become that we didnot note the approach of a stranger until he was within a few paces ofthe bench. With my crippled vision I apprehended him only as very talland straight and wearing a loose cape. The effect upon the Bonnie Lassieof his approach was surprising. I heard her give a little gasp. She gotup from the bench. Her hand fell upon my shoulder. It was trembling.Where, I wondered, had those two met and in what circumstances, that themere sight of the stranger caused such emotion in the unusuallyself-controlled wife of Cyrus Staten. The man spoke quickly in a deepand curiously melancholy voice:
"Madame perhaps does me the honor to remember me?"
"I--I--I--" began the Bonnie Lassie.
"The Comte de Tournon. At Trouville we met, was it not? Several yearssince?"
"Y-yes. Certainly. At Trouville."
(Now I happen to know that the Bonnie Lassie has never been atTrouville, which did not assuage my suspicions.)
"You are friends of my--countryman, Emile Garin, are you not?" hepursued in his phraseology of extreme precision, with only the faintecho of an accent.
"Who?" I said. "Oh, Plooie, you mean. Friends? Well, acquaintances wouldbe more accurate."
"He tells me that you, Monsieur, befriended him when he had great needof friends. And you, Madame, always. So I have come to thank you."
"You are interested in Plooie?" I asked.
"Plooie?" he repeated doubtfully. I explained to him and he laughedgently. "Profoundly interested," he said. "I have here one of his finestumbrellas which his good wife presented to me. There was also a lady ofwhom he speaks, a grande dame, of very great authority." For all thesadness of the deep voice, I felt that his eyes were twinkling.
"Madame Tallafferr," supplied the Bonnie Lassie. "She is away on avisit."
"I should like to have met that queller of mobs. She ought to beknighted."
"Knighthood would add nothing to her status," said I, dryly. "She is aPinckney and a Pemberton besides being a Tallafferr, with two fs, twols, and two rs."
"Doubtless. I do not comprehend the details of your American orders ofmerit," said the big sad-voiced man courteously. "But I should have beenproud to meet her."
"May I tell her that?" asked the Bonnie Lassie eagerly.
"By all means--when I am gone." Again I felt the smile that must be inthe eyes. "But there were others here, not so friendly to the littleGarin. That is true, is it not?"
"Yes," said the Bonnie Lassie.
"There is at least a strong suspicion that he is not a deserving case,"I pointed out defensively.
"Then it is only because he does not explain himself well," returned theBelgian quickly.
"He does not explain himself at all," I corrected. "Nor does AnnieOom--his wife."
"Ah? That will clarify itself, perhaps, in time. If you will bear withme, I should like to tell you a little story to be passed on to thosewho are not his friends. Will you not be seated, Madame?"
The Bonnie Lassie resumed her place on the bench. Standing before us,the big man began to speak. Many times since have I wished that I mighthave taken down what he said verbatim; so gracious it was, so simple, sostraightly the expression of a great and generous personality.
"Emile Garin," he said, "was a son of Belgium. He was poor and hispeople were little folk of nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. Sohe came to your great country to make his living. When our enemiesinvaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, thelittle Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfitfor military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the morningsthey must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps herebecause otherwise he would not--You spoke, Monsieur?"
"Nothing. I only said, 'God forgive us!'"
"Amen," said the narrator gravely. "Everywhere they rejected him asunfit. So he became morbid. He hid himself away. Is it not so?"
"That is why they left Our Square so mysteriously," confirmed the BonnieLassie.
"After that he hung about the docks. He saw his chance and crawled intothe hold of a vessel as a stowaway. He starved. It did not matter. Hewas kicked. It did not matter. He was arrested. It did not matter.Nothing mattered except that he should reach Belgium. And he did reachmy country at the darkest hour, the time when Belgium needed every man,no matter who he was. But he could not be a soldier, the little Garin,because he was unable to march. He had weak legs."
At this point the eternal feminine asserted itself in the Bonnie Lassie."I told you there was something," she murmured triumphantly.
"Hush!" said I.
"I am glad to find that he had one true defender here," pursued thebiographer of Plooie. "Though he could not fight in the ranks there wasuse for him. There was use for all true sons of Belgium in those blackdays. He was made driver of a--a charette; I do not know if you havethem in your great city?" He paused, and I guessed that the rumble ofheavy wheels on the asphalt, heard near by, had come opportunely. "Ah,yes; there is one."
"A dump-cart," supplied the Bonnie Lassie.
"Merci, Madame. A dump-cart. It is perhaps not an evidently gloriousthing to drive a dump-cart for one's country--unless one makes it so.But it was the best the little Garin could do. His legs were what youcall quaint--I have already told you. He was faithful and hard-working.They helped build roads near the front, the little Garin and hisbig cart."
"Not precisely safety-first," whispered the Bonnie Lassie to me,maliciously.
"You are interrupting the story," said I with dignity.
"One day he was driving a load of mud through a village street. Here onthis side is a hospital. There on that side is another hospital. Downthe middle of the road walks an idiot of a sergeant carrying a new typeof grenade with which we were experimenting. One moves a littlelever--so. One counts; one, two, three, four, five. One throws thegrenade, and at the count of ten, all about it is destroyed, for it isof terrible power. The idiot sergeant sets down the grenade in themiddle of the road between the two hospitals full of the helplesslywounded. For what? Perhaps to sneeze. Perhaps to light a cigarette.Heaven only knows, for the sergeant has the luck to be killed next dayby a German shell, before he can be court-martialed. As he sets down thegrenade, the little lever is moved. The sergeant loses his head. Heruns, shouting to everybody to run also.
"But the hospitals, they cannot run. And the wounded, they cannot run.They can only be still and wait. In the nearest hospital there is avisitor. A great lady. A great and greatly loved lady." The sad voicedeepened and softened.
"I know," whispered the Bonnie Lassie; "I can guess."
"Yes. But the little Garin, approaching on his big dump-cart, does notknow. He knows the danger, for he hears the shouts and sees the peopleescaping. He sees the grenade, too. A man running past him shouts, 'Turnyour cart, you fool, and save yourself.' Oh, yes; he can save himself.That is easy. But what of the people in the hospitals? Who can savethem? The little Garin thinks hard and swiftly. He drives his bigdump-cart over the grenade. He pulls the lever which dumps the mud. Themud buries the grenade; much mud, very soft and heavy. The grenadeexplodes, nevertheless.
"One mule blows through one hospital, one through another. Everythingnear is covered with mud. The great lady is thrown to the floor, but sheis not hurt. She rises and attends the injured and calms the terrified.The hospitals are saved. It is a glorious thing to have driven adump-cart for one's country--so."
"But what became of our Plooie?" besought the Bonnie Lassie.
The big man spread his arms in a wide, Gallic gesture. "They looked forhim everywhere. No sign. But by and by some one saw a quite large pieceof mud on the hospital roof begin to wriggle. The little Garin was thatlarge piece of mud. They brought him down and put him in the hospitalwhich he had saved. For a long time he had shell-shock. Even now hecannot speak of the war without his nerves being affected. When he gotout of hospital, he did not seem to know who he was. Or perhaps he didnot care. Shell-shock is a strange thing. He went away, and his recordswere lost in the general confusion. Afterward we sought for him. Thegreat lady wished very much to see him. But we could find nothing exceptthat he had come back to this country. Official inquiry was made hereand he was traced to Our Square. So I came to see him. Because he cannotspeak for himself and will not allow his wife to tell his story--it ispart of the shell-shock which will wear off in time--I came to speakfor him."
"Does your--do you do this sort of thing often?" asked the Bonnie Lassiewith a queer sort of resonance in her voice.
The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling:"One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But thereis a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved ladywhom the little Garin saved."
"I see," said the Bonnie Lassie softly.
After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes.Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice.
"Plooie!" she said, and that was all.
"You are crying," I said.
"I'm not," she retorted indignantly. "But you ought to be. For yourinjustice."
"If we all bewept our injustices," said I oracularly, "Noah would haveto come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his."
"What do you think of him?" said the Bonnie Lassie.
"As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder,his selections were at times ill-advised."
"Don't be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I'm not interested in Noah."
"As to our romantic visitant," I said, "I think that Cyrus the Gauntwould better be watchful. I've never known anyone else except Cyrus toproduce such an emotional effect upon you."
"Don't be school-girlish!" admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. "Poorold Dominie! He doesn't know what's going on under his very nose. Whereare your eyes?"
"In Mendel's top drawer, I suppose.... The question is how are we goingto make it up to Plooie?"
"I don't think you need worry about that," returned the Bonnie Lassieloftily.
Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred anirruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in theirpockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I wassubsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city'sreportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with hisimportant notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder anddisdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted signacross the front of Plooie's basement, was the magnet that drew them:
Emile Garin & Wife Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser to His Majesty The King of the Belgians (By Royal Warranty)
No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Theirwell-deserved fortune is made.