In a Little Town Part 47

"But look here, Em--"

"Amelie."

"This is carrying things too blamed far."

He was not entirely heedless of her own welfare. He had felt the animosity and ridicule that had gathered like sultry electricity in the atmosphere when Emma had murmured at the station those words that Orson had not heard.

Orson, seated with Tudie at one end of the porch, heard them now at the other end of the porch as they were quoted with mockery by Arthur. Orson and Tudie forgot their own quarrel in the supernal rapture of eavesdropping somebody's else wrangle.

"When you got off the train," Arthur groaned, "you knocked me off my pins by what you said to your father and mother."

"And what did I say?" said Em in innocent wonder.

"You said, 'Oh, my dolling m'mah, I cahn't believe it's you'!"

"What was wrong with that?"

"You used to call her 'momma' and you called me 'darrling.' And you wouldn't have dared to say 'cahn't'! When I heard you I wanted to die.

Then you grabbed your father and gurgled, 'Oh, p'pah, you deah old angel!' I nearly dropped in my tracks, and so did your father. And then you turned to me and I knew what was coming! I tried to stop you, but I couldn't. And you said it! You called me 'Ahthuh'!"

"Isn't that your name, deah?"

"No, it is not! My name is 'Arrthurr' and you know it! 'Ahthuh'! what do you think I am? My name is good honest 'Arrthurr.'" He said it like a good honest watch-dog, and he gnarred the "r" in the manner that made the ancients call it the canine letter.

Amelie, born Emma, laughed at his rage. She tried to appease him. "I think 'Ahthuh' is prettiah. It expresses my tendah feelings bettah. The way you say it, it sounds like garrgling something."

But her levity in such a crisis only excited her lover the more.

"Everybody at the station was laughing at you. To-night when you traipsed down the stairs, looking so pretty in your new dress, you had to spoil everything by saying: 'What a chahming pahty. Shall we dahnce, Ahthuh?' I just wanted to die."

The victim of his tirade declined to wither. She answered: "I cahn't tell you how sorry I am to have humiliated you. But if it's a sin to speak correctly you'll have to get used to it."

"No, I won't; but you'll get over it. You can live it down in time; but don't you dare try to change your name to Amelie. They'd laugh you out of Carthage."

"Oh, would they now? Well, Amelie is my name for heahaftah, and if you don't want to call me that you needn't call me anything."

"Look here, Em."

"Amelie."

"Emamelie! for Heaven's sake don't be a sn.o.b!"

"You're the sn.o.b, not I. There's just as much sn.o.bbery in sticking to misp.r.o.nunciation as there is in being correct. And just as much affectation in talking with a burr as in dropping it. You think it's all right for me to dress as they do in New York. Why shouldn't I talk the same way? If it's all right for me to put on a pretty gown and weah my haiah the most becoming way, why cahn't I improve my name, too? You cahn't frighten me. I'm not afraid of you or the rest of your backwoods friends. Beauty is my religion, and if necessary I'll be a mahtah to it."

"You'll be a what?"

"A mahtah."

"Do you mean a motto?"

"I mean what you'd call a marrtyrr. But I won't make you one. I'll release you from our engagement, and you can go back to Liddy Sovey. I understand you've been rus.h.i.+ng her very hahd. And you needn't take me home. I'll get back by the gahden pahth."

She rose and swept into the house, followed by her despairing swain.

Orson and Tudie eavesdropped in silence. Tudie was full of scorn.

Amelie's arguments were piffle or worse to her, and her willingness to undergo "martyrdom" for them was the most arrant pigheadedness, as the martyrdom of alien creeds usually is.

Orson, the alien, was full of amazement. Here was a nice young man in love with a beautiful young woman. He had been devoted for years, and now, because she had slightly altered her habits in one vowel and one consonant, their love was curdled.

IV

Greater wars have begun from less causes and been waged more fiercely.

They say that an avalanche can be brought down from a mountain by a whispered word. Small wonder, then, that the murmur of a vowel and the murder of a consonant should precipitate upon the town of Carthage the stored-up snows of tradition. Business was dull in the village and any excitement was welcome. Before Emma's return there had been a certain slight interest in p.r.o.nunciation.

Orson Carver had for a time stimulated amus.e.m.e.nt by his droll talk. He had been suspected for some time of being an impostor because he spoke of his university as "Havvad." The Carthaginians did not expect him to call it "Harrvarrd," as it was spelled, but they had always understood that true graduates called it "Hawvawd," and local humorists won much laughter by calling it "Haw-haw-vawd." Orson had bewildered them further by a sort of c.o.c.kneyism of misappropriated letters. He used the flat "a"

in words where Carthaginians used the soft, as in his own name and his university's. He saved up the "r" that he dropped from its rightful place and put it on where it did not belong, as in "idear." He had provoked roars of laughter one evening when a practical joker requested him to read a list of the books of the Bible, and he had mentioned "Numbas, Joshuar, Ezrar, Nehemiar, Estha, Provubbs, Isaiar, Jeremiar."

Eventually he was eclipsed by another young man sent to a post in the C., T. & R. Railroad by an ambitious parent--Jefferson Digney, of Yale.

Digney, born and raised in Virginia and removed to Georgia, had taken his accent to New Haven and taken it away with him unsullied. His Southern speech had given Carthage acute joy for a while.

Arthur Litton had commented once on the contrast between Orson and Jefferson. "Neither of you can p.r.o.nounce the name of his State," said Arthur. "He calls it 'Jawja' and you call it 'Jahjar.'"

"What should it be?"

"Jorrjuh."

"Really!"

"You can't p.r.o.nounce your own name."

"Oh, cahn't I?"

"No, you cahn't I. You call it 'Cavveh.' He calls it 'Cyahvah.'"

"What ought it to be?"

"Carrvurr--as it's spelt."

Yet another new-comer to the town was an Englishman, Anthony Hopper, a younger son of a stock-holder abroad. He was not at all the Englishman of the stage, and the Carthaginians were astonished to find that he did not drop his "h's" or misapply them. And he never once said "fawncy,"

but flat "fancy." He did not call himself "Hanthony 'Opper," as they expected. But he did take a "caold bahth in the mawning."

With a New Englander, an old Englander, and an Atlantan in the town, Carthage took an astonis.h.i.+ng interest in p.r.o.nunciation that winter. When conversation flagged anybody could raise a laugh by referring to their outlandish p.r.o.nunciations. Quoting their remarks took the place of such parlor games as trying to say "She sells sea sh.e.l.ls," or "The sea ceaseth and it sufficeth us."

The foreigners entered into the spirit of it and retorted with burlesques of Carthagese. They were received with excellent sportsmans.h.i.+p. One might have been led to believe that the Carthaginians took the matter of p.r.o.nunciation lightly, since they could laugh tolerantly at foreigners. This, however, was because the foreigners had missed advantages of Carthaginian standards.

Emma Terriberry's crime was not in her p.r.o.nunciation, but in the fact that she had changed it. Having come from Carthage, she must forever remain a Carthagenian or face down a storm of wrath. Her quarrel with her lover was the beginning of a quarrel with the whole town.

Arthur Litton became suddenly a hero, like the first man wounded in a war. The town rallied to his support. Emma was a heartless wretch, who had insulted a faithful lover because he would not become as abject a toady to the hateful East as she was. Her new name became a byword. Her p.r.o.nunciations were heard everywhere in the most ruthless parody. She was accused of things that she never had said, things that n.o.body could ever say.