"Are you sure she said 'our little sister'?" said Mrs. Baxter.

"Why, you can ask Willie! She said it that funny way. 'Our 'ittle sissy'; that's what she said. An' Miss Pratt said, 'Ev'rybody would love our little sister if mamma washed her in soap an' water!' You can ask Willie; that's exackly what Miss Pratt said, an' if you don't believe it you can ask HER. If you don't want to believe it, why, you can ask--"

"Hush, dear," said Mrs. Baxter. "All this doesn't mean anything at all, especially such nonsense as Willie's thinking of being married. It's your bedtime."

"Well, but MAMMA--"

"Was that all they said?" Mr. Baxter inquired.

Jane turned to him eagerly. "They said all lots of things like that, papa. They--"

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Baxter in interrupted. "Come, it's bedtime. I'll go up with you. You mustn't think such nonsense."

"But, mamma--"

"Come along, Jane!"

Jane was obedient in the flesh, but her spirit was free; her opinions were her own. Disappointed in the sensation she had expected to produce, she followed her mother out of the room wearing the expression of a person who says, "You'll SEE--some day when everything's ruined!"

Mr. Baxter, left alone, laughed quietly, lifted his neglected newspaper to obtain the light at the right angle, and then allowed it to languish upon his lap again. Frowning, he began to tap the floor with his shoe.

He was trying to remember what things were in his head when he was seventeen, and it was difficult. It seemed to him that he had been a steady, sensible young fellow--really quite a man--at that age. Looking backward at the blur of youthful years, the period from sixteen to twenty-five appeared to him as "pretty much all of a piece." He could not recall just when he stopped being a boy; it must have been at about fifteen, he thought.

All at once he sat up stiffly in his chair, and the paper slid from his knee. He remembered an autumn, long ago, when he had decided to abandon the educational plans of his parents and become an actor. He had located this project exactly, for it dated from the night of his seventeenth birthday, when he saw John McCullough play "Virginius."

Even now Mr. Baxter grew a little red as he remembered the remarkable letter he had written, a few weeks later, to the manager of a pa.s.sing theatrical company. He had confidently expected an answer, and had made his plans to leave town quietly with the company and afterward rea.s.sure his parents by telegraph. In fact, he might have been on the stage at this moment, if that manager had taken him. Mr. Baxter began to look nervous.

Still, there is a difference between going on the stage and getting married. "I don't know, though!" Mr. Baxter thought. "And Willie's certainly not so well balanced in a GENERAL way as I was." He wished his wife would come down and rea.s.sure him, though of course it was all nonsense.

But when Mrs. Baxter came down-stairs she did not rea.s.sure him. "Of course Jane's too absurd!" she said. "I don't mean that she 'made it up'; she never does that, and no doubt this little Miss Pratt did say about what Jane thought she said. But it all amounts to nothing."

"Of course!"

"Willie's just going through what several of the other boys about his age are going through--like Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and Wallace Banks. They all seem to be frantic over her."

"I caught a glimpse of her the day you had her to tea. She's rather pretty."

"Adorably! And perhaps Willie has been just a LITTLE bit more frantic than the others."

"He certainly seems in a queer state!"

At this his wife's tone became serious. "Do you think he WOULD do as crazy a thing as that?"

Mr. Baxter laughed. "Well, I don't know what he'd do it ON! I don't suppose he has more than a dollar in his possession."

"Yes, he has," she returned, quickly. "Day before yesterday there was a second-hand furniture man here, and I was too busy to see him, but I wanted the storeroom in the cellar cleared out, and I told Willie he could have whatever the man would pay him for the junk in there, if he'd watch to see that they didn't TAKE anything. They found some old pieces that I'd forgotten, underneath things, and altogether the man paid Willie nine dollars and eighty-five cents."

"But, mercy-me!" exclaimed Mr. Baxter, "the girl may be an idiot, but she wouldn't run away and marry a boy just barely seventeen on nine dollars and eighty-five cents!"

"Oh no!" said Mrs. Baxter. "At least, I don't THINK so. Of course girls do as crazy things as boys sometimes--in their way. I was thinking--"

She paused. "Of COURSE there couldn't be anything in it, but it did seem a little strange."

"What did?"

"Why, just before I came down-stairs, Adelia came for the laundry; and I asked her if she'd seen Willie; and she said he'd put on his dark suit after dinner, and he went out through the kitchen, carrying his suit-case."

"He did?"

"Of course," Mrs. Baxter went on, slowly, "I COULDN'T believe he'd do such a thing, but he really is in a PREPOSTEROUS way over this little Miss Pratt, and he DID have that money--"

"By George!" Mr. Baxter got upon his feet. "The way he talked at dinner, I could come pretty near believing he hasn't any more brains LEFT than to get married on nine dollars and eighty-five cents! I wouldn't put it past him! By George, I wouldn't!"

"Oh, I don't think he would," she remonstrated, feebly. "Besides, the law wouldn't permit it."

Mr. Baxter paced the floor. "Oh, I suppose they COULD manage it. They could go to some little town and give false ages and--" He broke off.

"Adelia was sure he had his suit-case?"

She nodded. "Do you think we'd better go down to the Parchers'? We'd just say we came to call, of course, and if--"

"Get your hat on," he said. "I don't think there's anything in it at all, but we'd just as well drop down there. It can't HURT anything."

"Of course, I don't think--" she began.

"Neither do I," he interrupted, irascibly. "But with a boy of his age crazy enough to think he's in love, how do WE know what 'll happen?

We're only his parents! Get your hat on."

But when the uneasy couple found themselves upon the pavement before the house of the Parchers, they paused under the shade-trees in the darkness, and presently decided that it was not necessary to go in.

Suddenly their uneasiness had fallen from them. From the porch came the laughter of several young voices, and then one silvery voice, which pretended to be that of a tiny child.

"Oh, s'ame! S'ame on 'oo, big Bruvva Josie-Joe! Mus' be polite to Johnny Jump-up, or tant play wiv May and Lola!"

"That's Miss Pratt," whispered Mrs. Baxter. "She's talking to Johnnie Watson and Joe Bullitt and May Parcher. Let's go home; it's all right.

Of course I knew it would be."

"Why, certainly," said Mr. Baxter, as they turned. "Even if Willie were as crazy as that, the little girl would have more sense. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, if you hadn't told me about the suit-case. That looked sort of queer."

She agreed that it did, but immediately added that she had thought nothing of it. What had seemed more significant to her was William's interest in the early marriage of Genesis's father, and in the Iowa beard story, she said. Then she said that it WAS curious about the suit-case.

And when they came to their own house again, there was William sitting alone and silent upon the steps of the porch.

"I thought you'd gone out, Willie," said his mother, as they paused beside him.

"Ma'am?"

"Adelia said you went out, carrying your suit-case."

"Oh yes," he said, languidly. "If you leave clothes at Schwartz's in the evening they have 'em pressed in the morning. You said I looked damp at dinner, so I took 'em over and left 'em there."

"I see." Mrs. Baxter followed her husband to the door, but she stopped on the threshold and called back: