Part 7 (1/2)

Mrs. Tyarck's head darted forward like a snake's. At last in the back of the store the girl's head fell forward, her weak shoulders were shaken by helpless sobs.

The hands of the old shopkeeper fumbling with the package trembled, but Miss Frenzy appeared outwardly calm. Before counting out change, however, she paused, regarding the shopper musingly.

”Pardon me. Did I rightly hear you use the word 'cruelties'?” she questioned. To an onlooker her manner might have seemed suspiciously tranquil.

”Yes-cruelties,” repeated the other, patronizingly. ”There's no use denying it, Frenzy-there's that fly-paper loomin' up before you! There's them cat-traps and killin' devices, and, as if it wasn't bad enough, what must you do but go and take up with a girl that the whole town says is-”

There was a sudden curious cessation of the speaker's words. This was caused by a very sudden action on the part of Miss Giddings. Desperately seizing on a pair of the hanging black stockings, she darted with incredible swiftness around the end of the counter. With a curious sweep of her long arms she pa.s.sed the black lengths around the shopper's mouth, effectively m.u.f.fling her.

”Cruelties!” gasped the old shopkeeper. ”Cruelties indeed! You will [gasp] be so good [gasp] as to take the word cruelties and go home and reflect upon it.”

”Hey?” gasped Mrs. Tyarck. ”Hey? Now, now, now!” Over the black gag her eyes looked frightened and uncomprehending. She suddenly saw herself in the grasp of the heaver and squeezer, of the chewers and suckers, and was full of consternation. ”You've no call to get excited, Frenzy,” she mumbled through the cottony thicknesses of stocking; then, as she worked her mouth out of its leash, ”I'll have the law on you, Frenzy Giddings!”

”Leave the store!” was Miss Frenzy's sole response. She said it between set jaws. She suddenly let go of the stockings and they dropped to the floor. She picked up the parcel of purple veiling and cast it through the door into the gutter. She stood, tall and withering, pointing with inexorable finger; then, as Mrs. Tyarck, the gag removed, began to chatter fierce intimations of reprisal the old shopkeeper's eyes again flashed.

”Cruelties!” repeated Miss Frenzy, dwelling scornfully upon the word-”cruelties! Yes, I understand your reference.” She kept on pointing to the open door. ”You refer to the worms, to those creatures that ate and defaced helpless roses; tender young things that couldn't help themselves.... Very well. I am still, as it were, inexorable toward worms! So,” with a shrill, excited laugh, ”I still heave them and squeeze them. Therefore depart-worm! Leave the store!”

”_Worm?_” questioned Mrs. Tyarck, faintly. This lady had suddenly lost all her a.s.surance, the very upstanding wing in her hat became spiritless. She looked aghast, puzzled. Her eyes, like those of a person in a trance, wandered to the package of purple veiling lying outside in the gutter, and she tried to rally. ”Worm! Now look here, Frenzy Giddings, I don't know whether it's a.s.sault and battery to call a person such names, or whether it's slander, but I tell you the law has had people up for saying less than 'worm.'”

”But I said 'worm,'” repeated the old shopkeeper, firmly-”worms, contemptible and crawling, chewers and suckers of reputations; you and Mrs. Cap.r.o.n, the whole town (with lamentably few exceptions) are a nest of small, mean, crawling, contemptible worms.... Worms, I repeat, worms!”

”Frenzy Giddings!” whispered the shocked Mrs. Tyarck. She stood frozen in horror under the last hissing, unsparing indictment, then turned and fled. As she scuttled, almost whimpering, through the door she was followed by the ceaseless, unsparing epithet, ”Worm!”

The shopkeeper's protegee found her stiff and still unyielding, bowed over the counter, her forehead reddened with shame, her hands twisted together in self-loathing.

”Get me some hot tea, my dear,” gasped Miss Frenzy. She still shook and her voice was as the voice of a dying person. The fine raiment of courtesy and punctilious speech that she had all her life worn had been torn from her by her own fierce old hands; in her own gentle eyes she was hopelessly degraded. Yet she smiled triumphantly at the anxious young face of the girl as she proffered the steaming tea. ”Young,”

muttered Miss Frenzy, her eyes following the movements of the other.

”Young.”

At last she roused herself and went slowly toward the door of the little private room, the girl hurrying to a.s.sist her. She paused, took the dark young head between her wrinkled hands, and kissed it. ”I called her a 'worm,' my dear,” said Miss Frenzy. ”It was a regrettable circ.u.mstance, but she accused me of cruelties-cruelties?... I called her a 'worm.'”

The old shopkeeper's eyes twinkled. ”On the whole, I am glad I did so.”

Later, when the roses came again and the two sat with their sewing in the little garden, Miss Frenzy cheerfully remarked upon the entire absence of rose-worms. ”Without conceit,” she remarked-”without conceit, I should be inclined to say that the Lord has endorsed my activities.”

She looked affectionately at the slender figure sewing near the honeysuckle and called attention to the young cherry-tree shooting up in green a.s.surance.

”My mystery!” announced Miss Frenzy. ”Not planted by human hands. The seed doubtless dropped by a bird in flight. Whether the fruit will be sweet or bitter is to me a matter of pleasing conjecture.”

BUSTER

_By_ KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN From _Scribner's Magazine_ _Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's Sons._ _Copyright, 1919, by Katharine Holland Brown._

Lucien, Mrs. Bellamy's impeccable chauffeur, brought me home from Mrs.

Bellamy's bridge that green-gold summer afternoon of 1914. Looking down from the cliff road, all Gloucester Harbor was a floor of rippled amethyst. When we turned into the forest drive the air breathed deep of pine fragrance, heady as new wine.

”How few people are driving to-day, Lucien! Yet it's so perfect-”

”One driver approaches, mademoiselle.” Lucien's solid gray shape bore hard on the wheel. The big car swerved, shot half-way up the bank. I screamed. Past us like a streak of white lightning tore a headlong white monster, m.u.f.fler cut out, siren whooping. Its huge wheels grazed our hubs; with a roar, it shot round the curve, plunged down the steep grade toward Gloucester, and vanished. Its shriek rang back to us like the shriek of a lost soul.