William saw that sentence had been passed and all appeals for a new trial denied.He choked, and rushed into the house without more ado.
``Poor boy!'' his mother said.
``Poor boy nothing!'' fumed Mr.Baxter.
``He's about lost his mind over that Miss Pratt.
Think of his coming out here and starting a regular debating society declamation before his mother and father! Why, I never heard anything like it in my life! I don't like to hurt his feelings, and I'd give him anything I could afford that would do him any good, but all he wants it for now is to splurge around in at this party before that little yellow-haired girl! I guess he can wear the kind of clothes most of the other boys wear--the kind _I_ wore at parties--and never thought of wearing anything else.
What's the world getting to be like? Seventeen years old and throws a fit because he can't have a dress-suit!''
Mrs.Baxter looked thoughtful.``But--but suppose he felt he couldn't go to the dance unless he wore one, poor boy--''
``All the better,'' said Mr.Baxter, firmly.``Do him good to keep away and get his mind on something else.''
``Of course,'' she suggested, with some timidity, ``forty dollars isn't a great deal of money, and a ready-made suit, just to begin with--''
Naturally, Mr.Baxter perceived whither she was drifting.``Forty dollars isn't a thousand,''
he interrupted, ``but what you want to throw it away for? One reason a boy of seventeen oughtn't to have evening clothes is the way he behaves with ANY clothes.Forty dollars! Why, only this summer he sat down on Jane's open paint-box, twice in one week!''
``Well--Miss Pratt IS going away, and the dance will be her last night.I'm afraid it would really hurt him to miss it.I remember once, before we were engaged--that evening before papa took me abroad, and you--''
``It's no use, mamma,'' he said.``We were both in the twenties--why, _I_ was six years older than Willie, even then.There's no comparison at all.I'll let him order a dress-suit on his twenty-first birthday and not a minute before.
I don't believe in it, and I intend to see that he gets all this stuff out of his system.He's got to learn some hard sense!''
Mrs.Baxter shook her head doubtfully, but she said no more.Perhaps she regretted a little that she had caused Mr.Baxter's evening clothes to be so expansively enlarged--for she looked rather regretful.She also looked rather incomprehensible, not to say cryptic, during the long silence which followed, and Mr.Baxter resumed his rocking, unaware of the fixity of gaze which his wife maintained upon him--a thing the most loyal will do sometimes.
The incomprehensible look disappeared before long; but the regretful one was renewed in the mother's eyes whenever she caught glimpses of her son, that day, and at the table, where William's manner was gentle--even toward his heartless father.
Underneath that gentleness, the harried self of William was no longer debating a desperate resolve, but had fixed upon it, and on the following afternoon Jane chanced to be a witness of some resultant actions.She came to her mother with an account of them.
``Mamma, what you s'pose Willie wants of those two ole market-baskets that were down cellar?''
``Why, Jane?''
``Well, he carried 'em in his room, an' then he saw me lookin'; an' he said, `G'way from here!'
an' shut the door.He looks so funny! What's he want of those ole baskets, mamma?''
``I don't know.Perhaps he doesn't even know, himself, Jane.''
But William did know, definitely.He had set the baskets upon chairs, and now, with pale determination, he was proceeding to fill them.When his task was completed the two baskets contained:
One ``heavy-weight winter suit of clothes.''
One ``light-weight summer suit of clothes.''
One cap.
One straw hat.
Two pairs of white flannel trousers.
Two Madras shirts.
Two flannel shirts.
Two silk shirts.
Seven soft collars.
Three silk neckties.
One crocheted tie.
Eight pairs of socks.
One pair of patent-leather shoes.
One pair of tennis-shoes.
One overcoat.
Some underwear.
One two-foot shelf of books, consisting of several sterling works upon mathematics, in a damaged condition; five of Shakespeare's plays, expurgated for schools and colleges, and also damaged; a work upon political economy, and another upon the science of physics; Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; How to Enter a Drawing-
Room and Five Hundred Other Hints; Witty Sayings from Here and There; Lorna Doone; Quentin Durward; The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a very old copy of Moths, and a small Bible.
