At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern Part 21

she said, "but with sulphur an' mola.s.ses an' quinine an' plenty of wet-sheet packs it was finally cured."

"You do not understand," said the poet, indulgently. "Your aura is not harmonious with mine."

"Your--what?" demanded Mrs. Dodd, p.r.i.c.king up her ears.

"My aura," explained Mr. Perkins, flus.h.i.+ng faintly. "Each individuality gives out a spiritual vapour, like a cloud, which surrounds one. These are all in different colours, and the colours change with the thoughts we think. Black and purple are the gloomy, morose colours; deep blue and the paler shades show a sombre outlook on life; green is more cheerful, though still serious; yellow and orange show ambition and envy, and red and white are emblematic of all the virtues--red of the n.o.ble, martial qualities of man and white of the angelic disposition of woman," he concluded, with a meaning glance at Elaine, who had been much interested all along.

"What perfectly lovely ideas," she said, in a tone which made d.i.c.k's blood boil. "Are they original with you, Mr. Perkins?"

The poet cleared his throat. "I cannot say that they are wholly original with me," he admitted, reluctantly, "though of course I have modified and amplified them to accord with my own individuality. They are doing wonderful things now in the psychological laboratories. They have a system of tubes so finely constructed that by breathing into one of them a person's mental state is actually expressed. An angry person, breathing into one of these finely organised tubes, makes a decided change in the colour of the vapour."

"Humph!" snorted Mrs. Dodd, pus.h.i.+ng back her chair briskly. "I've been married seven times, an' I never had to breathe into no tube to let any of my husbands know when I was mad!"

The poet crimsoned, but otherwise ignored the comment. "If you will come into the parlour just as twilight is falling," he said to the others, "I will gladly recite my ode on Spring."

Subdued thanks came from the company, though Harlan excused himself on the score of his work, and Mrs. Holmes was obliged to put the twins to bed.

When twilight fell, no one was at the rendezvous but Elaine and the poet.

"It is just as well," he said, in a low tone. "There are several under dear Uncle Ebeneezer's roof who are afflicted with an inharmonious aura.

With yours only am I in full accord. It is a great pleasure to an artist to feel such beautiful sympathy with his work. Shall I say it now?"

"If you will," murmured Elaine, deeply honoured by acquaintance with a real poet.

Mr. Perkins drew his chair close to hers, leaned over with an air of loving confidence, and began:

Spring, oh Spring, dear, gentle Spring, My poet's garland do I bring To lay upon thy s.h.i.+ning hair Where rests a wreath of flowers so fair.

There is a music in the brook Which answers to thy tender look And in thy eyes there is a spell Of soft enchantment too sweet to tell.

My heart to thine shall ever turn For thou hast made my soul to burn With rapture far beyond----

Elaine screamed, and in a twinkling was on her chair with her skirts gathered about her. It was only Claudius Tiberius, dressed in Rebecca's doll's clothes, scooting madly toward the front door, but it served effectually to break up the entertainment.

XIII

A Sensitive Soul

Uncle Israel was securely locked in for the night, and was correspondingly restless. He felt like a caged animal, and sleep, though earnestly wooed, failed to come to his relief. A powerful draught of his usual sleeping potion had been like so much water, as far as effect was concerned.

At length he got up, his lifelong habit of cautious movement a.s.serting itself even here, and with tremulous, withered hands, lighted his candle.

Then he put on his piebald dressing-gown and his carpet slippers, and sat on the declivity of his bed, blinking at the light, as wide awake as any owl.

Presently it came to him that he had not as yet made a thorough search of his own apartment, so he began at the foundation, so to speak, and crawled painfully over the carpet, paying special attention to the edges. Next, he fingered the baseboards carefully, rapping here and there, as though he expected some significant sound to penetrate his deafness. Rising, he went over the wall systematically, and at length, with the aid of a chair, reached up to the picture-moulding. He had gone nearly around the room, without any definite idea of what he was searching for, when his questioning fingers touched a small, metallic object.

A smile of childlike pleasure transfigured Uncle Israel's wizened old face. Trembling, he slipped down from the chair, falling over the bath cabinet in his descent, and tried the key in the lock. It fitted, and the old man fairly chuckled.

"Wait till I tell Belinda," he muttered, delightedly. Then a crafty second thought suggested that it might be wiser to keep "Belinda" in the dark, lest she might in some way gain possession of the duplicate key.

"Lor'," he thought, "but how I pity them husbands of her'n. Bet their graves felt good when they got into 'em, the hull seven graves. What with sneerin' at medicines and things a person eats, it must have been awful, not to mention stealin' of keys and a-lockin' 'em in nights. S'pose the house had got afire, where'd I be now?" Grasping his treasure closely, Uncle Israel blew out his candle and tottered to bed, thereafter sleeping the sleep of the just.

Mrs. Dodd detected subdued animation in his demeanour when he appeared at breakfast the following morning, and wondered what had occurred.

"You look 's if sunthin' pleasant had happened, Israel," she began in a sprightly manner.

"Sunthin' pleasant has happened," he returned, applying himself to his imitation coffee with renewed vigour. "I disremember when I've felt so good about anythin' before."

"Something pleasant happens every day," put in Elaine. The country air had made roses bloom on her pale cheeks. Her blue eyes had new light in them, and her golden hair fairly shone. She was far more beautiful than the sad, frail young woman who had come to the Jack-o'-Lantern not so many weeks before.

"How optimistic you are!" sighed Mr. Perkins, who was eating Mrs.

Smithers's crisp, hot rolls with a very unpoetic appet.i.te. "To me, the world grows worse every day. It is only a few n.o.ble souls devoted to the Ideal and holding their heads steadfastly above the mire of commercialism that keep our so-called civilisation from becoming an absolute hotbed of greed--yes, a hotbed of greed," he repeated, the words sounding unexpectedly well.

"Your aura seems to have a purple tinge this morning," commented Dorothy, slyly.

"What's a aura, ma?" demanded Willie, with an unusual thirst for knowledge.

"Something that goes with a soft person, Willie, dear," responded Mrs.

Holmes, quite audibly. "You know there are some people who have no backbone at all, like the jelly-fish we saw at the seash.o.r.e the year before dear papa died."

"I've knowed folks," continued Mrs. Dodd, taking up the wandering thread of the discourse, "what was so soft when they was little that their mas had to carry 'em around in a pail for fear they'd slop over and spile the carpet."

"And when they grew up, too," d.i.c.k ventured.

"Some people," said Harlan, in a polite attempt to change the conversation, "never grow up at all. Their minds remain at a fixed point.

We all know them."

"Yes," sighed Mrs. Dodd, looking straight at the poet, "we all know them."

At this juncture the sensitive Mr. Perkins rose and begged to be excused.

It was the small Ebeneezer who observed that he took a b.u.t.tered roll with him, and gratuitously gave the information to the rest of the company.

Elaine flushed painfully, and presently excused herself, following the crestfallen Mr. Perkins to the orchard, where, entirely unsuspected by the others, they had a trysting-place. At intervals, they met, safely screened by the friendly trees, and communed upon the old, idyllic subject of poetry, especially as represented by the unpublished works of Harold Vernon Perkins.

"I cannot tell you, Mr. Perkins," Elaine began, "how deeply I appreciate your fine, uncommercial att.i.tude. As you say, the world is sordid, and it needs men like you."

The soulful one ran his long, bony fingers through his mane of auburn hair, and a.s.sented with a pleased grunt. "There are few, Miss St. Clair,"

he said, "who have your fine discernment. It is almost ideal."

"Yet it seems too bad," she went on, "that the world-wide appreciation of your artistic devotion should not take some tangible form. Dollars may be vulgar and sordid, as you say, but still, in our primitive era, they are our only expression of value. I have even heard it said," she went on, rapidly, "that the amount of wealth honestly acquired by any individual was, after all, only the measure of his usefulness to his race."

"Miss St. Clair!" exclaimed the poet, deeply shocked; "do I understand that you are actually advising me to sell a poem?"

"Far from it, Mr. Perkins," Elaine rea.s.sured him. "I was only thinking that by having your work printed in a volume, or perhaps in the pages of a magazine, you could reach a wider audience, and thus accomplish your ideal of uplifting the mult.i.tude."

"I am pained," breathed the poet; "inexpressibly pained."

"Then I am sorry," answered Elaine. "I was only trying to help."