THE SIMPLE LIFERS
I
I suppose there is something in all of us that harks back to the soil.When you come to think of it, what are picnics but outcroppings ofinstinct? No one really enjoys them or expects to enjoy them, but withthe first warm days some prehistoric instinct takes us out into thewoods, to fry potatoes over a strangling wood fire and spend the nextweek getting grass stains out of our clothes. It must be instinct; everyatom of intelligence warns us to stay at home near the refrigerator.
Tish is really a child of instinct. She is intelligent enough, but in acontest between instinct and brains, she always follows her instinct.Aggie under the same circumstances follows her heart. As for me, Igenerally follow Tish and Aggie, and they've led me into some curiousplaces.
This is really a sort of apology, because, whereas usually Tish leadsoff and we follow her, in the adventure of the Simple Life we were allequally guilty. Tish made the suggestion, but we needed no urging. Asyou know, this summer two years ago was a fairly good one, as summersgo,--plenty of fair weather, only two or three really hot spells, andnot a great deal of rain. Charlie Sands, Tish's nephew, went over toEngland in June to report the visit of the French President to Londonfor his newspaper, and Tish's automobile had been sent to the factory tobe gone over. She had been teaching Aggie to drive it, and owing toAggie's thinking she had her foot on the brake when it was really on thegas, they had leaped a four-foot ditch and gone down into a deep ravine,from which both Tish and Aggie had had to be pulled up with ropes.
Well, with no machine and Charlie Sands away, we hardly knew how to planthe summer. Tish thought at first she would stay at home and learn toride. She thought her liver needed stirring up. She used to ride, shesaid, and it was like sitting in a rocking-chair, only perhaps more so.Aggie and I went out to her first lesson; but when I found she hadbought a divided skirt and was going to try a man's saddle, I could notrestrain my indignation.
"I'm going, Tish," I said firmly, when she had come out of thedressing-room and I realized the situation. "I shan't attempt torestrain you, but I shall not remain to witness your shame."
Tish eyed me coldly. "When you wish to lecture me," she snapped, "aboutrevealing to the public that I have two legs, if I do wear a skirt,don't stand in a sunny doorway in that linen dress of yours. I am goingto ride; every woman should ride. It's good for the liver."
I think she rather wavered when they brought the horse, which lookedlarger than usual and had a Roman nose. The instructor handed Tish fourlines and she grabbed them nervously in a bunch.
"Just a moment!" said the instructor, and slipped a line between eachtwo of her fingers.
Tish looked rather startled. "When I used to ride--" she began withdignity.
But the instructor only smiled. "These two are for the curb," hesaid--"if he bolts or anything like that, you know. Whoa, Viper! Still,old man!"
"Viper!" Tish repeated, clutching at the lines. "Is--is he--er--nasty?"
"Not a bit of it," said the instructor, while he prepared to hoist herup. "He's as gentle as a woman to the people he likes. His only fault isthat he's apt to take a little nip out of the stablemen now and then.He's very fond of ladies."
"Humph!" said Tish. "He's looking at me rather strangely, don't youthink? Has he been fed lately?"
"Perhaps he sees that divided skirt," I suggested.
Tish gave me one look and got on the horse. They walked round the ringat first and Tish seemed to like it. Then a stableman put a nickel intoa player-piano and that seemed to be a signal for the thing to trot.Tish said afterward that she never hit the horse's back twice in thesame place. Once, she says, she came down on his neck, and several timesshe was back somewhere about his tail. Every time she landed, whereverit might be, he gave a heave and sent her up again. She tried to say"Whoa," but it came out in pieces, so to speak, and the creature seemedto be encouraged by it and took to going faster. By that time, she said,she wasn't coming down at all, but was in the air all the time, with thehorse coming up at the rate of fifty revolutions a second. She hadpresence of mind enough to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn't bite hertongue off.
After four times round the music stopped and the horse did also. Theywere just in front of us, and Tish looked rather dazed.
"You did splendidly!" said Aggie. "Honestly, Tish, I was frightened atfirst, but you and that dear horse seemed one piece. Didn't they,Lizzie?"
Tish straightened out the fingers of her left hand with her right andextricated the lines. Then she turned her head slowly from right to leftto see if she could.
"Help me down, somebody," she said in a thin voice, "and call anosteopath. There is something wrong with my spine!"
She was in bed three days, having massage and a vibrator and beingrubbed with chloroform liniment. At the end of that time she offered meher divided skirt, but I refused.
"Riding would be good for your liver, Lizzie," she said, sitting up inbed with pillows all about her.
"I don't intend to detach it to do it good," I retorted. "What yourliver and mine and most of the other livers need these days isn't to besent out in a divided skirt and beaten to a jelly: they need rest--lessfood and simpler food. If instead of taking your liver on a horse you'dput it in a tent and feed it nuts and berries, you wouldn't be the coloryou are to-day, Tish Carberry."
That really started the whole thing, although at the time Tish saidnothing. She has a way of getting an idea and letting it simmer on theback of her brain, as you may say, when nobody knows it's been cookingat all, and then suddenly bringing it out cooked and seasoned and readyto serve.
On the day Tish sat up for the first time, Aggie and I went over to seeher. Hannah, the maid, had got her out of bed to a window, and Tish wassitting there with books all about her. It is in times of enforcedphysical idleness that most of Tish's ideas come to her, and Aggie hadreminded me of that fact on the way over.
"You remember, Lizzie," she said, "how last winter when she was gettingover the grippe she took up that correspondence-school course inswimming. She's reading, watch her books. It'll probably be suffrage orairships."
Tish always believes anything she reads. She had been quite sure shecould swim after six correspondence lessons. She had all the movementsexactly, and had worried her trained nurse almost into hysteria for aweek by turning on her face in bed every now and then and trying theoverhand stroke. She got very expert, and had decided she'd swimregularly, and even had Charlie Sands show her the Australian crawlbusiness so she could go over some time and swim the Channel. It was amatter of breathing and of changing positions, she said, and was up tointelligence rather than muscle.
Then when she was quite strong, she had gone to the natatorium. Aggieand I went along, not that we were any good in emergency, but becauseTish had convinced us there would be no emergency. And Tish went in atthe deep end of the pool, head first, according to diagram, and _did notcome up_.
Well, there seemed to be nothing threatening in what Tish was readingthis time. She had ordered some books for Maria Lee's children and waslooking them over before she sent them. The "Young Woods-man" was oneand "Camper Craft" was another. How I shudder when I recall those names!
Aggie had baked an angel cake and I had brought over a jar of cookies.But Tish only thanked us and asked Hannah to take them out. Even then wewere not suspicious. Tish sat back among her pillows and said verylittle. The conversation was something like this:--
_Aggie_: Well, you're up again: I hope to goodness it will be a lesson to you. If you don't mind, I'd like Hannah to cut that cake. It fell in the middle.
_Tish_: Do you know that the Indians never sweetened their food and that they developed absolutely perfect teeth?
_Aggie_: Well, they never had any automobiles either, but they didn't develop wings.
_Lizzie_: Don't you want that window closed? I'm in a draft.
_Tish_: Air in motion never gave any one a cold. We do not catch cold; we catch heat. It's ridiculous the way we shut o
urselves up in houses and expect to remain well.
_Aggie_: Well, I'b catchig sobethig.
_Lizzie_ (_changing the subject_): Would you like me to help you dress? It might rest your back to have your corset on.
_Tish_ (_firmly_): I shall never wear a corset again.
_Aggie_ (_sneezing_): Why? Didn't the Iddiads wear theb?
Tish is very sensitive to lack of sympathy and she shut up like a clam.She was coldly polite to us for the remainder of our visit, but she didnot again refer to the Indians, which in itself was suspicious.
Fortunately for us, or unfortunately, Tish's new scheme was one shecould not very well carry out alone. I believe she tried to induceHannah to go with her, and only when Hannah failed her did she turn tous. Hannah was frightened and came to warn us.
I remember the occasion very well. It was Mr. Wiggins's birthdayanniversary, and we usually dine at Aggie's and have a cake with thirtycandles on it. Tish was not yet able to be about, so Aggie and I atetogether. She always likes to sit until the last candle is burned out,which is rather dispiriting and always leaves me low in my mind.
Just as it flickered and went out, Hannah came in.
"Miss Tish sent over Mr. Charlie's letter from London," said Hannah, andput it in front of Aggie. Then she sat down on a chair and commenced tocry.
"Why, Hannah!" said Aggie. "What in the world has happened?"
"She's off again!" sniveled Hannah; "and she's worse this time than she'sever been. No sugar, no tea, only nuts and fruit, and her windows openall night, with the curtains getting black. I wisht I had Mr. Charlie bythe neck."
I suppose it came over both of us at the same time--the "YoungWoodsman," and the "Camper Craft," and no stays, and all that. I reachedfor Charlie Sands's letter, which was always sent to Tish and meant forall of us. He wrote:--
_Dear Three of a Kind_: Well, the French President has came and went, and London has taken down all the brilliant flags which greeted him, such tactful bits as bore Cressy and Agincourt, and the pretty little smallpox and "plague here" banners, and has gone back to such innocent diversions as baiting cabinet ministers, blowing up public buildings, or going out into the woods seeking the Simple Life.
The Simple Lifers travel in bands--and little else. They go barefooted, barearmed, bareheaded and barenecked. They wear one garment, I believe, let their hair hang and their beards grow, eat only what Nature provides, such as nuts and fruits, sleep under the stars, and drink from Nature's pools. Rather bully, isn't it? They're a handsome lot generally, brown as nuts. And I saw a girl yesterday--well, if you do not hear from me for a time it will be because I have discarded the pockets in which I carry my fountain pen and my stamps and am wandering barefoot through the Elysian fields.
Yours for the Simple Life,
CHARLIE SANDS.
As I finished reading the letter aloud, I looked at Aggie in dismay."That settles it," I said hopelessly. "She had some such idea before,and now this young idiot--" I stopped and stared across the table atAggie. She was sitting rapt, her eyes fixed on the smouldering wicks ofMr. Wiggins's candles.
"Barefoot through the Elysian fields!" she said.