The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories. Charles Weathers Bump
in my cozy corner."
Edwin's reply was suspended while the machine passed them. The two men who were in it craned their necks most industriously at the sight of a pair of lovers out so early and seated in such an unusual spot for sentimental couples.
When he turned to make the explanations she had asked, he found it a harder task than he had imagined. Her knowledge of human inventions, of worldly means of locomotion, was not extensive, and he had to begin with the A B C of it and go through a course in elementary mechanics. After the forty-second paragraph of instructions the damsel clapped her hands gleefully and cried:
"It would be great fun to take a trip in one!"
"It is great fun," declared Edwin, for a moment forgetting to whom he was talking.
"But then I couldn't do it!" she exclaimed in disappointment. "I couldn't leave the lake."
The unshed tears in her eyes made him ardent.
"You could do it if you are willing," he avowed, earnestly. "You can take the water with you." Visions of a tank lady in the "Greatest Circus on Earth" came to him.
"You are fooling me," murmured the mermaid. And she pouted.
Edwin rose to the occasion. "I am not fooling," he protested. "It would not be difficult to put a tank of water in the machine for you to put your" – He was going to say feet, but he ended his sentence, stumblingly, "your other half in."
In her joy the Lady of the Lake took his cheeks in her hands and gave him an impulsive kiss. "You are the loveliest being on earth," she said, enthusiastically.
That settled it. The rest of the conversation that morning was about automobiles, and when they parted it was with a definite assurance on his part that Edwin would be on hand the next morning with a motor car suitably equipped for her use. It was only when he had gotten away that he realized the ridiculous side of the job he had undertaken. He could get an automobile all right. Tom Reese was a good friend, and a willing one, and his car had a tonneau capacious enough to accommodate the ex-naiad and her movable pool. But he would have to tell Tom the whole peculiar adventure to get him to take his auto out at such an unearthly hour.
"He'll think me clean daft when I unfold it to him," said Edwin to himself.
And Tom did, too. He laughed loud and long when Edwin chose what he thought to be a propitious moment and began his confession. "What are you stuffing me with?" Tom demanded, with tears in his eyes. Edwin renewed his explanations, only to bring on another explosion. "You'll be the death of me yet, old fellow," asserted Tom. "You'd better cut out those absinthes." Edwin added details most earnestly. "You're crazy, boy," was the only reply he got. He grew angry and hurt. "Now, Tom Reese," he demanded, "have I ever failed you when you wanted my help?" Tom apologized and began to study Edwin with intentness. "Look here, Edwin Horton," he said, "if there is any such girl at Druid lake as you describe, she's a 'fake' and she's got you strung mightily." Edwin swallowed this dig at his intelligence peacefully. He saw he had won. "All I ask, Tom," he rejoined, "is that you will take me out in the car and see for yourself." Tom gave him his hand. "I'm from Missouri, and you'll have to show me," he chuckled.
A wash tub from Mrs. Reese's cellar was requisitioned at 3 A. M. for use as a tank. After it had been lifted into the tonneau a hose supplied the needed water. "Climb into the water wagon," ordered Tom, and he threw on the lever and spun out to Druid Hill Park.
The day was still in embryo when the lake tower was reached. But the nymph was there. Her trim blue blouse was still wet after her swim ashore. The morning was summery, but Edwin had appreciated that the ride might be cold for the water lady, and had thoughtfully brought his sister's raincoat.
Tom's astonishment at seeing a bona-fide mermaid was balm to Edwin. The lad stood open-mouthed after Edwin had introduced them. In fact, he was so dumfounded that he failed to notice the hand the damsel had extended to him.
"Come on, Tom," said Edwin; "there isn't much time."
One on each side, the two boys supported the nymph as she cavorted as gracefully as possible up the rocks. They hadn't thought of the iron railing. "Caesar's ghost!" muttered Tom in dismay. "How are we going to get her over that?" Edwin turned to the mermaid. "If you don't mind," said he, "we will have to lift you." "I don't mind," she said, simply, "if you don't drop me."
At Edwin's suggestion he clambered over first, and then Tom raised the young creature boldly until she was clear of the iron spikes. There Edwin took hold of her and carried her to the auto. She was not a heavy burden, but her wet condition and her combination shape increased the difficulties.
From the moment she was once in the auto her joy was a pleasure to observe. She began by expressing her delight at their thoughtfulness in supplying the wash tub. When the machine began to move she clapped her hands in childish glee. From glee to wonderment her mood changed as they spun along the park roads. A hundred naive questions were asked about the objects unfamiliar to a lady whose habitat was at the bottom of a big pond. Edwin answered faithfully, and had his reward in his enjoyment of her artlessness and winsomeness. Occasionally Tom looked round to share in it.
At a good clip the auto was run out Park Heights avenue and back. The dawn seemed most kindly disposed to the trio, for it was long in coming. And when they had reached Pimlico, Tom proposed a detour by way of Roland Park, to return to the lake across Cedar-avenue bridge. The damsel hailed it with glee, only stipulating that she must be back by "sun-up."
They showed her the turf tracks on either side as they bowled along Belvidere avenue eastward, and they were still engaged in explaining to her the methods of horse racing when Tom started down the long hill beside the Tyson place, Cylburn, leading down to the bridge across Jones' Falls. The girl was asking questions, with her bewitching face in close proximity to Edwin's, when there came a startling interruption to their fun. Tom, again greatly interested in the talk, failed to notice a large boulder in the road, and the auto shot over it with a jolt that caused him to lose control of the wheel. The big machine regained its balance, but not its course. Instead, it careened to the right and bumped into the ditch before the alarmed occupants had scarcely grasped their peril. Tom was tossed out on the roadway. Edwin was pitched into the front seat, the mermaid shot past him and fell on a clump of green turf and the tub of water upset, and, in seeking an outlet, poured over the car, drenching Edwin.
"Look out for a gasoline explosion!" shrieked Tom, raising himself from the road, apparently unhurt. Edwin knew he could do nothing to prevent such a catastrophe, so he followed the other two out of the auto as quickly as he could. For a moment he and Tom paid no attention to the mermaid, so absorbed were they in the possibility of a blow-up. But when this danger had apparently passed they discovered that she had lifted herself from the grassy sward and was flip-flopping awkwardly in the direction of the brook that runs through Cylburn near the road.
"Come back! Come back! There's no danger!" called Edwin, as he started after her.
The damsel paid no heed. She was intent on getting to that stream of running water.
Again Edwin called, this time more sharply. The mermaid stopped not, but turned a tearful and much convulsed face to him.
Edwin raced after her. So did Tom. But when they got to the edge of the brook the only sign of her was an increasing ripple on the surface of a little pool. The stream was not so deep but that the bottom could be studied. And yet they saw nothing of her. Evidently she had the enchanted gift of being invisible in water.
Tom looked at Edwin. Edwin looked at Tom.
"That beats the Dutch!" said Tom.
"It's worse than that," replied Edwin, an odd catch in his voice. "We certainly have queered her for good. We must find her and get her back to the Park somehow."
For hours they moved up and down alongside the stream, calling pleadingly, but without response, for their quondam friend. Edwin made a little oration to her in absentia, in which he humbly begged her pardon and swore by all the gods of Mount Olympus – by the great Jupiter, the chaste Diana and all the rest of them, as far as he could remember their names – that he would restore her safely to the lake. But she came not. Tom added his entreaties, but she heeded not. Then Tom suggested that perhaps she had worked her way down the brook and into