it was saturday afternoon on a busy street in the city. moses wopp and clarence crump, at whose home the former was spending the week end, were on their way to the skating-rink. if they had wanted to skate there, the streets would have accommodated them with a sufficiently smooth surface, as an early frost had rimed the pavement.
a tall, lean, loose-jointed, large-limbed man was enjoying the frosty air and walked briskly humming a gay tune. all at once he found his face upturned to the glorious blue sky and a youthful voice reached his ear, “did you see the telegraph pole sail over that icy spot?” then another voice equally youthful, but with a distinct absence of city polish, answered, “betcher life i seen him, wouldn’t of missed it fer a punkin pie, he’s lookin’ fer gopher holes in the ground yet.”
the loose-jointed one at last regained his feet and turning in the direction of the witnesses of his ignominy gave them a resentful glare. moses was leaning against a fence and laughing till it seemed as though his eyes must remain indefinitely imbedded in their sockets.
“i’ll give you spalpeens something to laugh over!” threatened the injured one, as he brushed the snow and dust from his hat. then he slowly went on looking back at the unyielding glacier-like surface of the sidewalk.
he had not gone far when moses caught up to him, “please, mister, here is three buttings orff yer vest, i guess.” his hilarity was not under strict control and again he broke into uproarious laughter.
“none of your nonsense,” replied the long-limbed pedestrian, his thankyou’s cut short by moses’ cheerfulness.
in a few minutes moses again touched the man’s elbow, “say, mister, i come to arsk yer parding fer larfin’ at yer, but, glory be! i couldn’t help it. my curtings never rolled up on a funnier sight.”
here his laughter became a series of concussions decidedly menacing to his well-being.
“i’ll lick you good and plenty,” answered the man, his face purple with indignation. whereupon moses, overcome utterly with mirth, lost his own balance and rubbed his freckled nose along a shining streak of slippery pavement.
presently clarence caught up to him and bore him down a side street lest further attempts at apology should cause him to again accost the irate stranger.
at the rink the enthusiastic country boy enjoyed the vast expanse of ice with no snags to interrupt his skating. a little girl wearing a bright red cap was enraptured to find her hand caught in moses’ strong grasp and to feel herself, still a learner, whirled giddily over the ice feeling as safe as on a carpeted floor.
the band struck up and, intoxicated with the rhythm of the music, moses skated as he had never done before. at first an object of amusement to the city boys he became the centre of an admiring throng. his spirals and figure eight’s were such as to call forth envious remarks. even clarence egerton crump thawed and admitted to several school mates that moses wopp was a pretty solid pal, only a bit gawky in his get-up.
moses returned to the crump home with a prodigious appetite.
“i c’d eat a rhindoceros,” he confided to clarence.
“well, moses,” queried his genial host at the supper table, “did the skating go pretty good to-day?”
“it was shore a wonder, with the band playin’ an’ all. i never heard sich moosic, not sence the circus.”
at this moment the dining-room door opened and the daughter of the house entered the room.
“here is isobel. what kept you so late, young lady?” as mr. crump spoke he viewed the young girl with justifiable pride.
“o, dadsie,” was the reply, “this is recital afternoon, you know.”
“my eye!” exclaimed clarence, mockingly shading his eyes from his sister’s radiance, “she’s got her joy-bells on, what’s the stunt?”
a haughty toss of the head was all the reply vouchsafed to this brotherly jibe.
“are you hungry, isobel?” questioned her mother.
“i’m ever so hungry, mumsie.” as she spoke, isobel glanced at moses who was sitting dumbfounded before the dainty girl he was meeting for the first time. his face was scarlet; his ears were by nature stiffly folded forward and the light shining through them from an electric globe on the wall made them now glow like red shells.
suddenly a light, as a blinding flash of lightning, seemed to reveal to the boy his deficiencies. he stroked into place the strand of red hair that always stood upright on the crown of his head, untwisted his left leg from around his right and otherwise tried to attain the ideal of knightliness which on the moment crystallized in his mind.
notwithstanding moses’ endeavors to be attractive, isobel crump’s voice, as she addressed her brother’s friend was so frigid that her words penetrated his ear like sharply-pointed icicles.
later in the evening, as isobel moved about the drawing-room in a flounced white frock, her shimmering hair falling over her shoulders, and her dainty high-heeled silver-buckled shoes skimming the roses on the carpet, moses’ eyes followed her in wonderment. never before had he seen a creature so dainty, so airy, and so altogether like a princess. betty was just plain betty, straight hair plaited stiffly and tied with red ribbon, tanned face and hands, and big brown eyes “looking like they loved everybody.” but here was a girl who could turn disdainful hazel eyes on one and could make one feel like an ignoble worm. somehow moses liked feeling like a worm, isobel crump was so immeasureably above him that he might as well feel like a worm as like any other more noble inhabitant of this terrestrial globe.
clarence brought out his high-school books to display before the simple country boy the profundity of his learning. he opened his “euclid” and moses, sitting at the table, was vastly impressed with the sight of angles and triangles, and rash but interesting statements about abc being equal to bed. his attitude toward clarence became one of utter abasement as that budding archimedes produced his exercise book covered with squat-shaped triangles gleefully pursuing circles whose rims were horribly mangled by reason of defective compasses.
clarence had crossed the pons asinorum; a series of intoxicated circles, with sharp-cornered triangles piercing their fat sides, bore eloquent testimony to his faltering steps.
to further impress the unsophisticated guest, a latin grammar was exhumed from a pile of books, and totally careless of how moses was smarting under such an exhibition of scholarship, clarence recited loudly “amo, amas, amat.”
“what does that mean?” queried moses.
“i love, thou lovest, he loves,” said clarence, scornfully, in answer to this preposterous question.
moses blushed deeply and dared not raise his eyes from the ground lest isobel should see his embarrassment.
in the crump household, clarence stood for all that was brilliant and intellectual, while isobel stood for all that was fairy-like and charming. moses felt himself a cipher, of no account whatever, in this wonderful home. he would need an extra administration of sympathy from betty on his return. he thought at that moment very tenderly of the great brown eyes that “looked like they loved everybody.”
“isobel, play one of your pieces, let’s see how your recital helped you to-day.”
as isobel seated herself on the piano-stool in compliance with her father’s wishes, her white-flounced dress billowed up around her, reminding moses, even in his chaotic state of mind, of the delicious creamy meringue on a lemon pie.
the captivating music of grieg’s “butterfly” floated through the room and moses watched the white supple fingers of the player with breathless eagerness.
“gosh!” he exclaimed, as isobel closed on the last startlingly unexpected note, “that’s where some feller planks his strawr hat on a beauty butterfly!”
covered with confusion at his outburst, moses sank into his chair and remained silent till mr. crump, by adroit conversation, caused him to once again lose his self-consciousness. he called moses’ attention to a few musical instruments in the corner of the room and led him over to view them more closely.
mr. crump indulged in an unusual hobby, the collection of old musical instruments, and a motley group it was that moses eyed with growing wonder.
“this here thing looks like a mule with his ribs druv in an’ stan’in’ on his haunches. what d’ye call it?”
“that’s a string bass.”
“an orful good-natured tied-in-at-the-waist critter, aint it?” commented moses.
“this is a lyre, very old,” said mr. crump, handling an ancient instrument tenderly. moses looked up suddenly, he hoped nothing he had said called forth the remark.
“this is a xylophone, take this little wooden hammer and play a few notes.” moses took the hammer held out to him and striking a wooden bar brought out a weird but sweet sound. he struck several bars in succession and was enraptured to find that they produced a sort of veiled silvery music. “sounds like the moon looks when you carnt see it fer clouds,” he mused, “mar thinks i’d make a moosican, mebbe she’s right.”
“did clarence show you the sights of the city this morning?” asked mr. crump, trying to repress a smile.
“yeh, we went to the shootin’ gallery, an’ the amuseum, an’ got inter a little square cage an’ shot away up to the top of an orful high buildin’ an’ got a sparrer’s eye view of the city.”
“would you like to live in the city?”
“sometimes yes an’ orftener no. i’d hate to leave betty an’ the pinto.”
“what is betty like?”
“hev you ever hed a toothache an’ orl at onct it bust an’ stopped achin’? well, no matter what trouble yer in, jist a sight o’ betty’s like that.”
“she must come to visit us sometime.”
“she’d like fust-rate to come, but glory be! she’d want ter fetch her pet turkey and jethro.”
“whose jethro?”
“he’s jist the plainest gorl-darndest dorg in the worl’, but me an’ betty thinks heaps of him, an’ job’s lorst one eye but he’s a dandy live feather duster orl right.” gestures and grins illuminated this earnest speech.
“now, clarence, recite william tell for us.” mrs. crump put her hand on her son’s shoulder and turned him away from the bookcase which had been serving as a screen for the boy’s laughing countenance, “you must help moses enjoy his visit.”
“o, that chestnut!” scornfully ejaculated isobel.
“yes, i s’pose we can listen to you scramble up and down the piano keys all night, but if i do anything it’s another story.”
“no quarreling now. come, clarence, do as your mother asks.”
thus adjured by his father the elocutionist began in a loud dramatic voice:
“william tell.
“‘place there the boy,’ the tyrant said
‘fix me the apple on his head’.”
as clarence depicted the terror of the father, lest his arrow miss the mark and kill his son, moses rose from his chair in breathless suspense. however, the arrow cleft the apple and left the boy unscathed, and the relieved moses, sinking back in his chair, recovered himself sufficiently to murmur “what an orful chanct fer anyone ter take!”
mrs. crump smiled kindly at the impressionable boy, and lest her son’s evident amusement should wound his feelings, she asked, “do you like hearing of other countries and of other people?”
“yeh, mar says i’m a reglar jographer i like it so much.”
“in that case, clarence must take you to the sunday-school hall to-morrow afternoon to hear a talk on china. there will be all sorts of curious things shown and you are sure to enjoy it.”
in his anticipation of the sunday afternoon treat in store for him, moses dreamed all that night of little dark-skinned men running round after him with bowls of rice and jabbing him with chop-sticks.
early on the following afternoon the two boys found their way into front seats in the sunday-school hall. the address was fairly well under way when the excitement of absorbing so much information in so short a space of time told on moses’ constitution. his nose began to bleed. with a handkerchief like a small-sized counterpane applied to the offending nasal organ the boy tiptoed squeakily out of the room.
vainly he explored the corridors seeking a tap for water to bathe his bleeding nose. the more doors moses went through the more doors seemed to beckon him on through their portals. he reflected that if he had only had the good fortune to bring the key of the pantry door at home, that large piece of cold steel applied to the back of his neck would speedily have stopped the sanguinary flood.
turning to the right he entered a short dark corridor and noticed at the end of the passageway a brass knob gleaming. with renewed hope he approached the shining mark and extended his hand to open the door.
it was dark and the handkerchief over his nose rendered one eye ineffective so that he could not see more than a few inches ahead of him. on opening the door he found himself on what seemed a short flight of steps which he proceeded to descend. all at once he tripped and down he went struggling for breath into the font that had been filled with water for the evening baptismal service.
“holy smoke! be this the river jording i’ve come ter?”
dim religious lights from stained glass windows shone through the church and falling on the boy chilled him to the marrow.
“gosh! wisht betty was here right this minute. mebbe i’m dyin’. hope nobody starts twangin’ a harp. my nose is worser’n ever!”
moses regained his equilibrium and as the water came just to his hips he turned to retrace his way to the steps down which he had wandered.
“where is my cap?” with his free hand he felt his bare head. looking around the luckless boy saw his headgear in the middle of the font and turned to rescue it. the water became deeper, until he stood in it almost to his arm-pits.
as he reached for his cap a door opposite the one through which he had passed opened, and the grey head of the sexton appeared.
“shade of beelzebub! where did you spring from?” shouted the astonished man.
“please, mister, my nose was bleedin’ an’ i lorst my way lookin’ fer warter, an’ here i am on jording’s stormy banks.”
“you young scamp, you found water, didn’t you, more than you needed? for the love of st. patrick, if it isn’t the spalpeen that split his sides laughing at me falling on the ice yesterday!”
the old man peered over the steps, and moses recognized the loose-jointed long-limbed individual who had provided him with such mirth on the previous day.
“just to think i’ve got to heat up more water and fill this tank again for a good-for-nothing urchin like you! begorra! it’s worth it though to see you get a good ducking!”
through the open door could be heard the strains of “pull for the shore” sung with heart and soul by the intermediate class, and to that lively air moses made for the exit as expeditiously as his sodden garments would allow.
“my religion’s purty well wartered now, i guess,” said moses, sheepishly, to clarence, who met him at the end of the fateful corridor. that youth had followed his country friend from the sunday-school hall, but not in time to direct his erring steps.
“you are one simp,” he comforted, at the same time putting his own overcoat about the shivering boy.
at the door of the crump household, moses stood before the daughter of the house who answered the bell, burning hot with the fever of an overwhelming embarrassment. his body glowed so that steam might have been seen arising from his dripping garments. he almost yearned for incarceration in an ice-house. his personal pulchritude had not been enhanced by the experience and the critical eyes of the young girl failed to express any degree of admiration or sympathy. more than ever moses longed for the encircling arms of betty.
on the morrow, before returning home, he made several purchases with the money his mother had slipped into his hand as she whispered, “hev a good time, mosey, but don’t fergit to say yer prayers reglar.”
he arrived home monday evening, and was received as though a visit of several months’ duration had torn him from the bosom of the family.
ebenezer wopp became the grateful recipient of a quire of paper for notes. miss gordon was enabled to add to the decorations of her bureau a celluloid pictureframe on which were painted vivid blue and pink forget-me-nots. mrs. wopp reckoned “to git great comfort fer her corns an’ bungions” in a pair of soft house-shoes.
it was evident that great care had been exercised over betty’s gift. she exclaimed joyously over a cyclamen, whose pale pink blooms brought the flush of delight to her cheeks; a bag of peppermint bulls’ eyes elicited a like degree of appreciation.
“this here flower aint a mornin’-glory, but the leaves is mighty like it, an’ the flowers is jist as purty.” moses explained.
“o, mosey, these leaves is lovely, an’ jist look here roun’ the edge, looks like the fairies has left footprints!”
another gift moses brought his little sister was a small shell purse containing a new silver coin. this largess was in a way expiatory. he had not yet regained his self-respect since his refusal to grant betty’s request for a quarter, and it seemed as though the act of expiation must repeat itself indefinitely.
betty said her prayers that night before her cyclamen. it seemed to her a “mornin’-glory that had been growed by an angel, its petals sparkled so, an’ it smelled so pure.” she breathed very softly her thanksgiving, with a vague feeling that it had wings and could find its way better than she knew.
as she thought how dear and kind moses had been to her, bringing this wonderful plant and the shell purse, not forgetting the peppermint bulls’ eyes, she went to sleep with the conviction that she must be the happiest girl in the world.
