Still Jim Part 7

"Make 'em a speech, Jim!" cried Sara, as the boat got under way again.

"Make the eagle scream. It's a bully place for a speech. The poor devils can't get away from you."

Jim grinned. Pen, her eyes twinkling, joined in with Sara. "He's too lazy. He's a typical American. He'll roast the immigrants but he won't do anything. It's a dare, Jim."

Sara shouted, "It's a dare, Still! Go to it! Pen and I dare you to make the boat a speech."

Jim was still smiling but his eyes narrowed. The old boyhood code still held in college. The "taker" of a dare was no sportsman. And there was something deeper than this that suddenly spoke; the desire of his race to force his ideas on others, the same desire that had made his father talk to the men in the quarry at Exham. With a sudden swing of his long legs he mounted a pile of camp chairs and balanced himself with a hand on Sara's shoulder.

"Shut up!" he shouted. "Everybody shut up and listen to me!"

It was the old dominating note. Those of the crowd that heard his voice turned to look. It was a vivid group they saw; the tall boy, with thin, eager face, fine gray eyes and a flas.h.i.+ng wistful smile that caught the heart, and with a steadying arm thrown round Jim's thighs, the Greek lad, with his uncovered hair liquid gold in the June sun, his beautiful brown face flushed and laughing, while crowded close to Sara was the pink-cheeked girl, her face upturned to look at Jim.

"Hey! Everybody! Keep still and listen to me!" repeated Jim.

In the hush that came, the chatter in the cabin below and the rear deck sounded remote.

"I've been appointed a committee of one to welcome you to America!"

cried Jim. "Welcome to our land. And when you get tired of New York, remember that it's not in America. America lies beyond the Hudson. Enjoy yourselves. Take everything that isn't nailed down."

"Who gave the country to you, kid?" asked a voice in the crowd.

"My ancestors who, three hundred years ago, stole it from the Indians,"

answered Jim with a smile.

A roar of laughter greeted this. "How'd you manage to keep it so long?"

asked someone else.

"Because you folks hadn't heard of it," replied the boy.

Another roar of laughter and someone else called, "Good speech. Take up a collection for the young fellow to get his hair cut with."

Jim tossed the hair out of his eyes and gravely pointed back to the marvelous outline of the statue of Liberty, black against the sky. "Take a collection and drink hope to that, my friends. It is the most magnificent experiment in the world's history, and you have taken it out of our hands."

There was a sudden hush, followed by hand clapping, during which Jim slipped down. Sara gave him a bear hug. "Oh, Still Jim, you're the light of my weary eyes! Did he call our bluff, Pen, huh?"

There was something more than laughter in Pen's eyes as she replied:

"I'm never sure whether Still was cut out to be an auctioneer or a politician."

"Gos.h.!.+" exclaimed Jim, "let's get some ginger ale."

The day rushed on as if in a wild endeavor to keep up with the June wind which beat up and down the ocean and across Coney Island, urging the trio on to its maddest. They shot the chutes until, maudlin with laughter, they took to a merry-go-round. When they were ill from whirling, Sara led the way to the bucking staircase. This was a style of several steps arranged to buck at unexpected intervals. The movement so befuddled the climber that he consistently took a step backward for every step forward until at last, goaded by the huge laughter of the watching crowd, he fairly fell to the opposite side of the staircase.

It was before this seductive phenomenon that the three paused. The crowd was breathlessly watching the struggles of a very fat, very red-headed woman who chewed gum in exact rhythm with the bucking of the staircase, while she firmly marked time on the top of the stairs.

Sara gave a chuckle and, closely followed by Jim and Pen, he mounted the stile. He was balked by the red-headed woman who towered high above him.

Sara reached up and touched her broad back.

"Walk right ahead, madam," he urged. "You're holding us back."

The fat woman obediently took a wild step forward, the stair bucked and she stepped firmly backward and sat down violently on Sara's head. Pen and Jim roared with the crowd. The red-headed woman scrambled to the topmost stair again, then turned and shook her fist in Sara's face.

"Don't you touch me again, you brute!" she screamed. Then she summoned all her energies and took another dignified step upward. Again the stairs bucked. Again the fat woman sat down on Sara's hat. Again the onlookers were overwhelmed with laughter. Pen and Jim feebly supported each other as they rode up and down on the lower step. Sara pushed the woman off his head and again she turned on him.

"There! You made me swallow my gum! And I'll bet you call yourself a gentleman!"

Sara, red-faced but grinning, took a mighty step upward, gripped the woman firmly around the waist and lifted her down the opposite side of the stile. Pen and Jim followed with a mad scramble. For a moment it looked as if the red-headed woman would murder Sara. But as she looked at his young beauty her middle-aged face was etched by a gold-toothed smile.

"Gee, that's more fun than I've had for a year!" she exclaimed and she melted into helpless laughter.

Coney Island is of no value to the fastidious or the lazy. Coney Island belongs to those who have the invaluable gift of knowing how to be foolish, who have felt the soul-purging quality of huge laughter, the revivifying power of play. Lawyers and pickpockets, speculators and laborers, poets and butchers, chorus girls and housewives at Coney Island find one common level in laughter. Every wholesome human being loves the clown.

Spent with laughing, Pen finally suggested lunch, and Jim led the way to an open-air restaurant.

"Let's," he said with an air of inspiration, "eat lunch backward. Begin with coffee and cheese and ice cream and pie and end with clam chowder and pickles."

"Nothing could be more perfect!" exclaimed Pen enthusiastically, and as nothing surprises a Coney Islander waiter, they reversed the menu.

When they could hold no more, they strolled down to the beach and sat in the sand. The crowd was very thick here. Nearly everyone was in a bathing suit. Women lolled, half-naked in the sand, while their escorts, still more scantily clad, sifted sand over them. Unabashed couples embraced each other, rubbing elbows with other embracing pairs. The wind blew the smell of hot, wet humans across Jim's face. He looked at Pen's sweet face, now a little round-eyed and abashed in watching the unashamed crowd. It was the first time that Mrs. Manning had allowed Pen to go to Coney Island without her careful eye.

Jim said, with a slow red coming into his cheeks, "Let's get out of here, Sara."

"Why, we just got here," replied Sara. "Let's get into our suits and have some fun."

"Pen'll not get into a bathing suit with these muckers," answered Jim, slowly.

Pen, who had been thinking the same thing, immediately resented Jim's tone. "Of course I shall," she replied airily. "You can't boss me, Jim."

"That's right, Pen," agreed Sara. "Let old Prunes sit here and swelter.

You and I will have a dip."

Pen rose and she and Sara started toward the bath house. Jim took a long stride round in front of the two.

"Sara, do as you please," he drawled. "Penelope will stay here with me."

CHAPTER V

THE SIGN AND SEAL

"The river forever flows yet she sees no farther than I who am forever silent, forever still."

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

"Jim Manning, you've no right to speak to me that way," said Penelope.