She ran down the steps and put out one of her hands. He took both of them. For quite a long moment he looked into her face. Then she gave her mirthful, explosive little chuckle.
“Do you feel as fussed as I do?” she asked.
“I do,” he answered. And she saw the crooked smile she remembered. They both laughed.
Bonnie and Tom, who had been looking the other way, came up when they heard the laugh. Bonnie, beaming, shook Larry’s hand. The Sibley car stopped in front of the house. Hunter was bringing his mother home from the Ladies’ Aid. Mrs. Sibley got out and walked toward Larry, her slight figure impressively erect.
He said just what Bonnie had said.
“Any doughnuts in the doughnut jar?”
“Plenty,” Mrs. Sibley answered, and some of her frosty doubts must have melted for her eyes began to sparkle in the Hunter family way. “Unless the house party has eaten them all up. Can’t you and Tom stay for supper and find out?”
Carney called the girls, and during the ensuing melee of greetings she watched Larry. Without being exactly handsome, he was even more attractive than he had been as a boy. That crooked teasing smile was full of charm. He seemed, as Betsy had said, to be laughing at you, but he was also laughing at himself.
He was immaculately groomed. His thick dark hair was parted on one side and smoothly combed. His suit was a light oatmeal mixture, very well tailored; his shirt was white, his bow tie exact. Carney thought suddenly of Sam, unshaven and unkempt.
To her delight she didn’t feel nervous any more. She just felt happy as she had the first night she knew he was coming. Betsy asked about Herbert. Mr. Sibley came in and asked about his parents. Jerry and Bobbie came up from the basement.
“Play baseball?” asked Bobbie. “I’m going to get a baseball suit.”
Through all the excitement, Larry was completely poised. Nothing hurried his slow speech or deliberate manner. Now and then his smiling gaze went to Carney.
“He’s very nice,” she thought.
Bonnie carried her off upstairs to change for supper. Carney put on her pink sprigged dimity dress with black velvet ribbon run in the neck and sleeves, and the abalone shell pendant Larry had sent her.
“How do you like him?” Bonnie asked.
“Why, he’s just the same. And that’s what I’d been hoping.”
Bonnie hugged her.
After supper Sam dropped in, himself shaved and immaculate.
“How about it?” he asked, when Carney answered the door. “Has Young Lochinvar shown up?”
“Out of the west,” responded Carney, smiling. She didn’t feel embarrassed by his teasing now.
“‘There never was knight like the young Lochinvar,’” quoted Sam. He too was smiling brightly.
He smiled when he was introduced to Larry. They shook hands firmly. But as the evening wore on Sam grew restless. Winona and Dennie, Alice and Cab dropped in. Talk was given over to the old days, the old Crowd. Sam stalked about, examining the articles on the “what-in-ell,” staring up at Grandfather Sibley’s portrait, smoking cigarettes. At last he went over to Isobel.
“How about you and me going out for a spin?”
“I’d love it. The East doesn’t belong in this gathering.”
Isobel kissed fingertips, and they departed.
Carney waved good-by happily. “I wish Isobel would hook Sam Hutchinson,” she thought. “Maybe she’s planning to. Maybe she came to the Middle West looking for money.”
Larry didn’t have money but he was very, very nice.
They began to make plans like busy spiders weaving webs. Tomorrow was Saturday; it would be a good day for a picnic.
“Let’s go see the new dam at Orono,” Cab suggested. This engineering marvel was new and exciting.
“I’d rather go to Two Falls Park,” Carney replied. The Crowd had often gone to the Two Falls in the old days. She and Larry had gone there together.
He remembered. She could tell from the halfteasing smile he turned upon her.
“Yes, let’s go to Two Falls,” he said. “Let’s save Orono for some special occasion.”
12
Baseball for Bobbie
THE NEXT MORNING Carney woke so early that there was still color in the east. Slipping out of bed she tiptoed to the railing. A dewy freshness lay on lawn and garden. The flowers were standing straight and eager. Everything was still except for a gray cat down in the shrubbery going off on an adventure of his own.
Larry had come, and he was everything she wanted him to be. He was so manly and well-mannered, so full of fun. They were already good friends.
“And that’s the way to begin,” Carney thought. She felt happy from her head to her toes, and she looked up at the sky with a feeling of gratitude that was almost like a prayer. Then she began to plan about the picnic.
During the morning she and Bonnie helped Olga prepare the lunch. Bonnie stuffed eggs while Carney baked a chocolate cake. She remembered from the old days that Larry liked chocolate cake; and she made good ones.
Isobel and Betsy had accepted with alacrity Carney’s assurance that they didn’t need to help. They were writing letters which they wanted to give to the postman. They were always writing letters, Carney remarked.
“It isn’t so strange about Betsy,” she said, watching syrup drip from a fork. “She and Joe are practically engaged. But I can’t make Isobel out. I don’t believe she cares a thing for this Howard Sedgwick.”
“Neither do I,” Bonnie replied. “She’s having too much fun with the boys around here. Those looks she gives Sam Hutchinson!”
“They’re as sweet as this frosting.”
“And she looks the same way at Tom, almost.”
“And if Tom isn’t around she looks that way at Hunter. Poor Hunter has it awfully bad!” Carney’s smile was rueful. Hunter’s crush was hard on him, she thought, and hard on Ellen too.
Her boiling sugar spun a thread, and she poured it slowly over beaten white of egg. Bonnie glanced out the side kitchen window.
“Here comes the postman!” she called lifting her voice. “Have you finished those letters?” She looked out the window again. “There’s time for one postscript. He’s stopped to talk to Bobbie. No, here comes Bobbie now, running like mad, with a package!”
“Maybe it’s the baseball suit,” said Carney.
It was! And Larry’s arrival the day before had been as nothing compared to the arrival of the baseball suit. Bobbie burst in with his face shining, threw the package on the back parlor floor and began to tear off papers frantically.
“It’s my baseball suit!” he shouted. “It’s my prize!”
The ecstasy in his voice brought his mother from the second floor, Isobel and Betsy from the library, Carney, Bonnie and Olga from the kitchen, even Jerry from the porch and Hunter from the garage.
“It’s my baseball suit! It’s my prize!” Perspiring, Bobbie wrenched and pulled at a bundle of flannel.
The shirt and bloomers were gray, with narrow red stripes. There were two big red letter B’s lying loose in the box.
“They stand for Baseball,” Bobbie chattered. “Will you sew them on for me, Mother?”
“I certainly will, right on the front. Run get my sewing basket.”
When he was gone she lifted the sleazy suit. “Isn’t this disgraceful?”
“It’ll tear to pieces the first time he slides into first base,” Carney said.
“But I’ll go over these buttonholes,” said Mrs. Sibley, “and tighten the buttons. Don’t say a word. He’s so happy.”
He was beside himself with joy. He waited radiantly while his mother sewed on the B’s. But when she began on the buttons and buttonholes he shifted from foot to foot.
“Hurry up, Mother! Those are all right!”
“I’m hurrying. I’ll be done in a minute.”
Betsy and Bonnie brought out the baseball bat and mitt which they had purchased earlier. These were greeted with shouts. Hunter contributed an old c
ap with a visor and Jerry offered some heavy, ribbed, red stockings.
Bobbie seized the loot and as soon as the suit was ready clattered upstairs. When he reappeared, his big front teeth were shining, and his hair seemed to be standing on end with delight. The elastic in one bloomer leg had already given out. No matter how often he pulled it up, it kept sliding down. But he wouldn’t wait for his mother to put in new elastic. He rushed out to show his glory to the neighborhood boys.
That afternoon he showed it to the Crowd gathering for the picnic.
“How do you like it, Sam?” he called before Sam was out of the Locomobile. He planted his feet wide apart, spat vigorously, swung with his bat at an imaginary ball.
“Say!” said Sam. “It’s swell!”
“Pretty flossy!” said Bobbie and dropped his bat to pull up the sagging bloomer leg, picked up the bat again, and swung with unabated joy.
“When are we going to have a game?” asked Sam. “Why don’t you and Jerry come along on this picnic? There’s a diamond out at Two Falls Park.”
“Can we? Can we?” Bobbie rushed off in search of his mother. Jerry stood where he was, but a smile broke over his calm face.
Carney smiled at Sam. “Go tell Mother there’s plenty of lunch for you,” she said to Jerry. She thought to herself, “Sam certainly likes those boys!”
Three cars were soon full to overflowing. Carney and Larry were somewhat pointedly assigned seats together. Larry looked as well by morning light as he had the night before; his thick hair was as glossy, his bow tie as neat. He had taken off his coat and his shirt was like snow.
Sam, of course, was thoroughly unshaven and untidy.
“I thought this was a picnic,” he said in mock scorn, slapping Larry on the back. He swung his arms around the shoulders of Lloyd and Tom, pushing them about as though to rumple them.
“It is a picnic!” Carney cried. “Wait till you see my chocolate cake!”
“Did you make a chocolate cake?” asked Larry. “That’s my favorite kind.”
She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t known it. Her eyes and dimple twinkled.
“Such devotion! It’s touching!” Sam remarked to Isobel who gave him a lingering smile.
Larry seemed to enjoy the ride which took them out of Deep Valley to the west, over the slough, across the red iron Cutbank River bridge. The Cutbank, which joined the Minnesota shortly, curved through a deep green valley. That green looked beautiful, Larry said, after California where grass must be irrigated. But he loved California, just as Betsy did.
“You would, too,” he said, turning to Carney.
Beyond the Cutbank the road ran along a serried hilltop which now and then rose high enough to give a glimpse of the distant Minnesota curling through its spacious valley.
They passed a cluster of crumbling stone buildings. Tiger lilies glowed in ancient house foundations.
“There used to be a town here,” Carney explained. “There was even a three-story hotel. Then the railroad went to Deep Valley and it all fell into ruins.”
“Ruins in the young Middle West!” Isobel cried.
At last a line of cottonwoods and willows showed them Two Falls Creek. Inside the park they ran at once to the falls. First the creek took a downward jump of about the height of a man. Then, as though it had gained courage, it took a truly heroic leap, fifty feet or more, through a wild gorge. Trees and bushes leaned out dangerously from rocky slopes to watch.
Lloyd had brought his Kodak, of course. The party took snapshots of one another at the little falls and at the big ones and on the rustic bridge between. Larry and Carney were snapped together, smiling.
They went down under the big falls braving the noise and the spray.
“We used to do this when we were kids,” Larry said, and Carney remembered. She used to be afraid, and glad of his protecting presence.
In the picnic grove tall trees provided green-gold shade. The party dropped their baskets on a table and ran for the swings. Carney and Larry “pumped up” together as they used to do when they were children. They had a “pumping up” match with Betsy and Cab.
Bobbie went out to inspect the baseball diamond and he came back howling for a game. Hunter had found a crowd of high school boys, more than ready to oblige.
“There are plenty to make up two nines if you really want to play,” he said.
“Of course we want to play.” Sam dropped his hand to Bobbie’s shoulder. “What position would you like, Larry?”
“Why, I don’t care. I pitch a little with the Stanford team.”
Tom guffawed. “Pitch a little! A little! The last week of school he pitched a three-hit shutout, got three hits out of five times at bat and won his own game with a triple.”
“That settles it,” said Sam. “Larry pitches on the Lochinvar Nine. Bobbie and I are going to play center field on the World’s Best Bluing Nine. Bobbie is assistant center fielder.”
“What’s assistant center fielder?” Bobbie wanted to know.
“You’ll see. It’s important.”
Two teams were quickly organized. Winona said hopefully that if they were short a player she was good at almost any spot.
“You sit in the shade and cheer for me,” said Dennie.
“I don’t see why I can’t play if Bobbie can.”
“Have you got a baseball suit?”
Winona took her place with the girls in a grove of poplars near the diamond. Carney leaned back against a tree trunk and brought out her tatting.
“Don’t you ever move without tatting?” asked Betsy, who was stretched on the grass.
“Bonnie’s got crochet work, and so has Alice.”
“So have I,” said demure little Ellen, opening a sewing bag.
Betsy groaned. “I wish Tacy were here.”
“Do you know,” said Bonnie, “it seems strange to see you around without Tacy.”
“She’s engaged,” said Betsy. “She’s going to get married. But she’ll never tat, and neither will I.”
Alice poked her with a reproving foot. “You’re just plain lazy.”
“My mind is working,” Betsy explained. “Maybe I’m making up a story that I’ll sell for ten dollars…maybe. This is an awfully romantic situation, Larry coming back.”
Carney snorted.
She tatted busily but she watched the diamond, too. She watched Larry’s tall, lean, muscular figure on the mound. When he wound up and threw the ball, he was the personification of athletic grace and strength.
“He ought to make Sam want to lose a few pounds,” she thought, and looked around to see whether Sam was impressed. But he was fooling with Jerry and Bobbie.
To the girls’ amusement Sam was as good as his word and took Bobbie with him out in center field. Every time Sam caught a fly ball and there was no opposing runner on base threatening to advance, he would throw the ball to Bobbie who was stationed about ten yards nearer to second base. Bobbie would throw it as far toward second as he could manage, and then, happily hitching up the slipping bloomer leg, he would run and recover it and throw it farther.
Carney laughed until tears came to her eyes.
“Sam’s team is putting up with a lot,” she said to Bonnie.
“Everyone likes Sam,” Bonnie replied. “And it isn’t just that he shares those charge accounts at ice cream parlors all over the county. He really is a dear.”
“Well, it’s awfully good-natured of all the boys,” said Carney. The rest of them were playing a serious game. And Larry’s skill became more and more evident.
Once an opposing batter hit one of Larry’s pitches sharply and lined it straight back at the pitcher’s box. Larry caught the ball as easily and casually, Carney thought, as Sam would have picked up a bat.
At bat, too, Larry was grace and strength personified. Watching him it was easy to believe that he had got three hits including a triple in the Stanford game.
At Two Falls Park he met the ball fairly every time he came to bat. Once he slashed a tw
o-base ground ball between first and second. Once he drove a line single into right field; and once, meeting the ball squarely and with every ounce of his strength, he electrified his audience by hitting a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool home run. Even Sam’s assistant center fielder swallowed chagrin and cheered as the triumphant ball soared overhead.
Sam was only a fair player. He caught without a fumble the fly balls hit to him in distant center field, but he ran ponderously and with none of Larry’s grace. Nor was he any great shakes at bat. Once he struck out; once he popped a feeble little fly to the third baseman, and only once did he get a solid hit. But he got that with the bases full, and it was a double which brought in three scores, momentarily tying the game.
He was thoroughly enjoying himself, Carney observed. And he was a good loser. He grinned cheerfully at Larry when the Lochinvar Nine won, 8 to 6.
Larry brushed off compliments. “Football’s my game.”
“Tell us about the Stanford team,” said Tom. They had returned to the picnic grove where long rays now slanted through the trees gilding the grass. Jerry and Bobbie had brought water. The boys had made a fire and Carney had put the coffee to boil. The girls were spreading a long rustic table with a cloth and dishes, knives, forks, and spoons.
But Larry was genuinely modest. He wouldn’t be drawn out on the subject of his football prowess. He gave some amusing accounts of gridiron battles but omitted his own exploits.
Sam listened attentively. In his one year at the University he hadn’t gone in for athletics, but he loved sports just as he loved tinkering with a car or playing low-stakes poker.
How endlessly men could talk about sports, Carney thought, as they passed from a discussion of football and baseball teams to wrestlers and championship matches. And what a bond it was between them! She knew instinctively that Sam didn’t like Larry and she suspected that Larry didn’t like Sam, but personalities were forgotten in their earnest consideration of Jack Johnson’s murderous skill. Jerry and Bobbie hung on every word.