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A Bicycle of Cathay: A Novel, a novel by Frank R Stockton |
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Chapter 11. The Three Mckennas |
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_ CHAPTER XI. THE THREE McKENNAS I was in advance, and as I entered the door-way through which the bear had disappeared, I found myself in the kitchen where I had seen the three women at their dinner. Wild confusion had been brought about in a second. A table had been over-turned, broken dishes and tin things were scattered on the floor, a wooden chair lay upon its back, and the room seemed deserted. The rest of the party quickly rushed in behind me, and great were their exclamations at the scene of havoc. "I hope nothing has happened to the McKenna sisters," cried Mr. Larramie. "They must have been in here!" I did not suppose that anything serious had occurred, for the bear's jaws were securely strapped, but with anxious haste I went into the other part of the house. Across a hallway I saw an open door, and from the room within came groans, or perhaps I should call them long-drawn wails of woe. I was in the room in a moment, and the others crowded through the door-way behind me. It was a good-sized bedroom, probably the "spare-room" of the first floor. In one corner was a tall and wide high-posted bedstead, and in the very middle of it sat an elderly woman drawn up into the smallest compass into which she could possibly compress herself. Her eyes were closed, her jaws were dropped, her spectacles hung in front of her mouth, her gray hair straggled over her eyes, and her skin was of a soapy whiteness. She paid no attention to the crowd of people in the room. Evidently she was frightened out of her senses. Every moment she emitted a doleful wail. As we stood gazing at her, and before we had time to speak to her, she seemed to be seized by an upheaving spasm, the influence of which was so great that she actually rose in the air, and as she did so her wail intensified itself into a shriek, and as she came down again with a sudden thump all the breath in her body seemed to be bounced out in a gasp of woe. "It's Susan McKenna!" exclaimed Walter. "What in the world is the matter with her? Miss Susan, are you hurt?" She made no answer, but again she rose, again she gave vent to a wild wail, and again she came down with a thump. Percy was now on his knees near the bed. "It's the bear!" he cried. "He's under there, and he's humping himself!" "Sacking bottom!" cried the practical Genevieve "There isn't room enough for him!" Stooping down I saw the bear under the bed, now crowding himself back as far as possible into a corner. No part of his chain was exposed to view, and for a moment I did not see how I was going to get him out. But the first thing was to get rid of the woman. "Come, Miss Susan," said Mr. Larramie, "let me help you off the bed, and you can go into another room, and then we will attend to this animal. You need not be afraid to get down. He won't hurt you." But the McKenna sister paid no attention to these remarks. She kept her eyes closed; she moaned and wailed. So long as that horrible demon was under the bed she would not have put as much as one of her toes over the edge for all the money in the world! In every way I tried to induce the bear to come out, but he paid no attention to me. He had been frightened, and he was now in darkness and security. Suddenly a happy thought struck me. I glanced around the room, and then I rushed into the hall. Genevieve followed me. "What do you want?" she said. "I am looking for some overshoes!" I cried. "India-rubber ones!" Instantly Genevieve began to dash around. In a few moments she had opened a little closet which I had not noticed. "Here is one!" she cried, "but it's torn--the heel is nearly off! Perhaps the other one--" "Give me that!" I exclaimed. "It doesn't matter about its being torn!" With the old overshoe in my hand I ran back into the room, where Mr. Larramie was still imploring the McKenna sister to get down from the bed. I stooped and thrust the shoe under as far as I could reach. Almost immediately I saw a movement in the shaggy mass in the corner. I wriggled the shoe, and a paw was slightly extended. Then I drew it away slowly from under the bed. Now, Miss Susan McKenna rose in the air higher than she had yet gone. A maddening wail went up, and for a moment she tottered on the apex of an elevation like a wooden idol upheaved by an earthquake. Before she had time to tumble over she sank again with a thump. The great hairy bear, looking twice as large in that room as he appeared in the open air, came out from under the foot of the bed, and as I dangled the old rubber shoe in front of his nose he would have seized upon it if his jaws had not been strapped together. I got hold of the chain and conducted him quietly outside, amid the cheers and hand-clapping of Percy and Genevieve. I chained Orso to a post of the fence, and, removing his muzzle, I gave him the old rubber shoe. "Shall I bring him some more?" cried Genevieve, full of zeal in good works. But I assured her that one would do for the present. I now hurried into the house to find out what had happened to the persons and property of the McKenna sisters. "Where are the other two?" cried Genevieve, who was darting from one room to another; "the bear can't have swallowed them." It was not long before Percy discovered the two missing sisters in the cellar. They were seated on the ground with their aprons over their heads. It was some time before quiet was restored in that household. To the paralyzing terror occasioned by the sudden advent of the bear succeeded wild lamentations over the loss of property. I assured them that I was perfectly willing to make good the loss, but Mr. Larramie would not allow me to say anything on the subject. "It is not your affair," said he. "The bear would have done no damage whatever had it not been for the folly of Percy in bringing his gun--I suppose the animal has been shot at some time or other--and my weakness in allowing him to keep it. I will attend to these damages. The amount is very little, I imagine, principally cheap crockery, and the best thing you can do is to start off slowly with your bear. The women will not be able to talk reasonably until it is off the premises. I will catch up with you presently." When the bear and I, with the rest of the party, were fairly out of sight of the house, we stopped and waited for Mr. Larramie, and it was not long before he joined us. When we reached the hay-barn we were met by the rest of the Larramie family, all anxious to see the bear. Even Miss Edith, who had had one glimpse of the beast, was very glad indeed to assure me that she did not wonder in the least that I had supposed there would be no harm in leaving such a mild creature for a little while by the side of the road, and I was sure from the exclamations of the rest of the family that Orso would not suffer for want of care and attention during his stay in the hay-barn. I was immensely relieved to get rid of the bear and to leave him in such good quarters, for it now appeared to me quite reasonable that I might have had difficulty in lodging him anywhere on the premises of the Cheltenham, and under any circumstances I very much preferred appearing at that hotel without an ursine companion. As soon as we reached the house I told Mr. Larramie that it was now necessary for me to hurry on, and asked if there were not some way to the hotel which would not make it necessary for me to go back to the main road. The good gentleman fairly shouted at me. "You aren't going to any hotel!" he declared. "Do you suppose we are heathens, to let you start off at this late hour in the afternoon for a hotel? You have nothing to do with hotels--you spend the night with us, sir! If you are thinking about your clothes, pray dismiss the subject from your mind. If it will make you feel better satisfied, we will all put on golf suits. In the morning we will get your machine from the Holly Sprig, and when you want to go on we will send you and it to Waterton in a wagon. It is not a long drive, and it is much the pleasanter way to manage your business." The family showed themselves delighted when they heard that I was to spend the night with them, and I did not object to the plan, for I had not the slightest desire to go to a summer hotel. Just before I went up to my room to get ready for supper, the young Genevieve came to me upon the porch. "Would you mind," she said, "letting me feel your muscle?" Very much surprised, I reached out my arm for her inspection, and she clasped her long thin fingers around my _biceps flexor cubiti._ Apparently, the inspection was very satisfactory to her. "I would give anything," she said, "if I had muscle like that!" I laughed heartily. "My dear little girl," said I, "you would be sorry, indeed, if you had anything of the sort. When you grow up and go to parties, how would you like to show bare arms shaped like mine? You would be a spectacle, indeed." "Well," said she, "perhaps you are right. I might not care to have them bulge, but I would like to have them hard." It was a lively supper and an interesting evening. Miss Edith sat opposite to me at table--I gave her this title because I was informed that there was an elder sister who was away on a visit. I could see that she regarded me as her especial charge. She did not ask me what I would have, but she saw that every possible want was attended to. As the table was lighted by a large hanging-lamp, I had a better view of her features than I had yet obtained. She was not handsome. Her eyes were too wide apart, her nose needed perhaps an eighth of an inch in length, and her well-shaped mouth would not have suffered by a slight reduction. But there was a cheerful honesty in her expression and in her words which gave me the idea that she was a girl to believe in. After supper we played round games, and the nervous young lady talked. She could not keep her mind on cards, and therefore played no game. In the course of the evening Mrs. Larramie took occasion to say to me, and her eyes were very full as she spoke, that she did not want me to think she had forgotten that that day I had given her her daughter, and although the others--greatly to my satisfaction--did not indulge in any such embarrassing expressions of gratitude, they did not fail to let me know the high estimation in which they held me. The little girl, Clara, sat close to me while I was playing, every now and then gently stroking my arm, and when she was taken off to bed she ran back to say to me that the next time I brought a bear to their house she hoped I would also bring some little ones. Even Percy took occasion to let me know that, under the circumstances, he was willing to overlook entirely the fact of my being a school-master. After the games, when the family was scattering--not to their several bed-chambers, but apparently to various forms of recreation or study which seemed to demand their attention--Miss Edith asked me if I would not like to take a walk and look at the stars. As this suggestion was made in the presence of her parents, I hesitated a moment, expecting some discreet objection. But none came, and I assented most willingly to a sub-astral promenade. There was a long, flagged walk which led to the road, and backward and forward upon this path we walked many, many times. "I like starlight better than moonlight," said Miss Edith, "for it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is. You cannot do anything by starlight except simply walk about, and if there are any trees, that isn't easy. You know this, you don't expect anything more, and you're satisfied. But moonlight is different. Sometimes it is so bright out-of-doors when the moon is full that you are apt to think you could play golf or croquet, or even sit on a bench and read. But it isn't so. You can't do any of these things--at least, you can't do them with any satisfaction. And yet, month after month, if you live in the country, the moon deceives you into thinking that for a great many things she is nearly as good as the sun. But all she does is to make the world beautiful, and she doesn't do that as well as the sun does it. The stars make no pretences, and that is the reason I like them better. "But I did not bring you out here to tell you all this," she continued, offering me no opportunity of giving my opinions on the stars and moon. "I simply wanted to say that I am so glad and thankful to be walking about on the surface of the earth with whole bones and not a scratch from head to foot"--at this point my heart began to sink: I never do know what to say when people are grateful to me--"that I am going to show you my gratitude by treating you as I know you would like to be treated. I shall not pour out my gratitude before you and make you say things which are incorrect, for you are bound to do that if you say anything--" "I thank you from the bottom of my heart," I said; "but now let us talk some more about the stars." "Oh, bother the stars!" said she. "But I will drop the subject of gratitude as soon as I have said that if you ever come to know me better than you do now, you will know that in regard to such things I am the right kind of a girl." I had not the slightest doubt that she was entirely correct. And then she began to talk about golf, and after that of croquet. "I consider that the finest out-door game we have," she said, "because there is more science in it than you find in any of the others. Your brains must work when you play croquet with intelligent opponents." "The great trouble about it is," I said, "that it is often so easy." "But you can get rid of that objection," she replied, "if you have a bad ground. Croquet needs hazards just as much as golf does. The finest games I have ever seen were played on a bad ground." So we talked and walked until some of the lights in the upper windows of the house had gone out. We ascended to the porch, and just before entering the front door she turned to me. "I wish I could go to sleep to-night with the same right to feel proud, self-confident, superior, that you have. Good-night." And she held out her hand and gave mine a strong, hearty shake. I smiled as she left me standing on the porch. This was the same spot on which her sister Genevieve had felt my muscle. "This is an appreciative family," I said, and, guided by the sound of voices, I found Mr. Larramie and his son Walter in the billiard-room. _ |
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