Amazing Grace, Who Proves That Virtue Has Its Silver Lining. Kate Trimble Sharber
"The tale records that two of our 'acknowledged leaders' met him in Pittsburgh last winter—and they're at daggers' points now for the privilege of killing the fatted calf for him.—The one that does it first is IT, of course, and Jane Lassiter's scared to death! The calf is fat and the knife is sharp—but no report of the killing has come in."
I laughed. It always makes me laugh when I think how hard some people work to get rid of their fatted calves, and how much harder others have to labor to acquire a veal cutlet.
"Of course he was born in a cabin?" I turned back to the poet and asked, after a little while devoted to my own work, in which I learned that my mind wouldn't concentrate sufficiently for me to embroider my story of an embryo Michaelangelo the Carnegie Art Club had just discovered. "A cabin in the Cornish hills—don't you know?"
The sporting editor pulled himself viciously away from his typewriter.
"Ty Cobb—Dry sob—By mob—"
"Oh, I beg your pardon!"
"Can't you see when a poem is about to die a-borning?" he asked furiously.
"I am sorry—and perhaps I might help you a little," I suggested with becoming meekness. "How's this?—High job—Nigh rob—"
I paused and he began writing hurriedly. Looking up again he threw me a smile.
"Bully! Grace Christie, you're the light o' my life," he announced, "and—and of course that blamed Englishman was born in a cabin, if that's what you want to know."
"It's not that I care, but—they always are," I explained. "They're born in a cabin, come across in the steerage amid terrific storms—Why is it that everybody's story of steerage crossing is stormy?—It seems to me it would be bad enough without that—then he sold papers for two years beneath the cart-wheels around the Battery, and by sheer strength of brain and brawn, has elevated himself into the proud privilege of being able to die in a 'carstle' when it suits his convenience."
The sporting editor looked solicitous.
"And now, if I were you, to keep from wearing myself out with talking, I'd get on the car and ride out to Glendale Park," he advised.
But I shook my head.
"I can't."
"You really owe it to yourself," he insisted. "You are showing symptoms of a strange excitement to-day. You look as if you were talking to keep from doing something more annoying—if such a thing were possible."
"I'm not going to weep—either from excitement or the effects of your rudeness," I returned, then wheeling around and facing my desk again I let my dual personality take up its song.
"I can and I can't;
I will and I won't;
I'll be damned if I do—
I'll be damned if I don't!"
The story goes that a queen of Sweden composed this classic many years ago, but it's certainly the national song of every one who has two people living in his skin that are not on speaking terms with each other.
Then, partly to keep from annoying the poet again, partly because it's the thing a woman always does, I took out the letter and read it over once more.
"Coburn-Colt—Philadelphia!"
The paper was a creamy satin, the embossing severely correct, the typing so neat and businesslike that I could scarcely believe the letter was meant for me when I looked at the outside only.
"Wonder what 'Julien J. Dutweiler' would call a small fortune?" I muttered. "Five thousand dollars? Ten thousand dollars!—Good heavens, then mother could have all the crepe meteor gowns she wanted without my ever—ever having to marry Guilford Blake for her sake!"
But as I sat there thinking, grandfather took up the cudgels bravely—even though the people most concerned were Christies and not Moores.
"Think well, Grace! That 'best-selling' clause means not only Maine to California, but England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Berwick-on-the-Tweed!" he warned. "Everybody who had ever heard of either of these two unfortunate people will buy a copy of the book and read it to find out what really happened!"
"But the letters are hers!" Uncle Lancelot reminded him. "If people don't want posterity to know the truth about them they ought to confine themselves to wireless communications."
"And—what would your Aunt Patricia say?" grandfather kept on. "What would James Christie say? What would Lady Frances Webb say?"
Thinking is certainly a bad habit—especially when your time belongs to somebody else and you are not being paid to think! Nevertheless, I sat there all the afternoon, puzzling my brain, when my brain was not supposed to wake up and rub its eyes at all inside the Herald office. I was being paid to come there and write airy little nothings for the Herald's airy little readers, yet I added to my sin of indecision by absorbing time which wasn't mine.
"Of course the possession of these letters in a way connects you with greatness," grandfather would say once in a while, in a lenient, musing sort of way. "But I trust that you are not going to let this fly to your head. Anyway, as the family has always known, your Uncle James Christie didn't leave his letters and papers to his great-niece; he merely left them! True, she was very close to him in his last days and he had always loved and trusted her—"
"But there's a difference between trusting a woman and trusting her with your desk keys!" Uncle Lancelot interrupted. "Uncle James ought to have known a thing or two about women by that time!"
"Yet we must realize that the value of the possession was considerable, even in those days," grandfather argued gently. "We must not blame his great-niece for what she did. James Mackenzie Christie had caught the whole fashionable world on the tip of his camel's-hair brush and pinioned it to canvases which were destined to get double-starred notices in guide-books for many a year to come, and the correspondence of kings and queens, lords and ladies made a mighty appeal to the young girl's mind."
"Then, that's a sure sign they'd be popular once again," said Uncle Lancelot. "Of course there's a degree of family pride to be considered, but that shouldn't make much difference. The Christies have always had pride to spare—now's the time to let some of it slide!"
Thus, after hours of time and miles of circling tentatively around the battlements of Colmere Abbey—the beautiful old place which had been the home of Lady Frances Webb—I was called back with a stern suddenness to my place in the Herald office.
"Can you think of anything else?" the poet's voice begged humbly. "I'm trying to match up just plain 'Ty' this time—but I'm dry."
I turned to him forgivingly. I welcomed any diversion.
"Rye, lie, die, sky—why, what's the matter with your think tank?" I asked him. "They swarm!"
But before he could thank me, or apologize, the voice of the city editor was in the doorway. He himself followed his rasping tones, and as he came in he looked backward over his shoulder at a forlorn dejected face outside. He looked at his watch viciously, then snapped the case as if it were responsible for his spleen.
"Get to work then on something else," he growled. "There's no use spending car fare again to Loomis to-day that I can see! He's an Englishman—and of course he kisses a teacup at this time of the afternoon."
CHAPTER III
NIP AND TUCK
When I reached home late that afternoon I was in that state of spring-time restlessness which clamors for immediate activity—when the home-keeping instinct tries to make you believe that you'll be content if you spend a little money for garden seeds—but a reckless demon of extravagance notifies you that nothing short