Part 31 (2/2)
Ramrod, the Misses Blind-Staggers, Professor Trask, Dr. Murchison, Wong, Indian Jim, and, finally, each of the other's tenderest folly--till a living caricature too true or too cutting precipitated an appeal to arms, and the Lighthouse, which was always in the way, was tipped over in the melee, and had to be thrown out of the window, there to burn itself into darkness innocuously.
Old Mother Gibson was given by a full cast the night of the savior's arrival. Though Jane Cody had been merciless, Jack, tempted beyond his powers of resistance by the sounds of revelry upon the hill, was stalking about in melancholy masquerade among its personnel. Bombey Forrest, her delicate head looking like a surprised sunflower upon its masculine stalk, had come in, and Crosby Pemberton, looking as much out of place in his immaculate linen and small Tuxedo as either of these, was joyous at being among Madigans again.
You might have heard--if you'd stood out on the piazza looking in, and happened to have the key to the riddle--a hint in verse of every Madigan escapade, of every Madigan failing, of all the Madigan jokes, on Old Mother Gibson nights. You would have seen even Kate--young-lady Kate, who had once subst.i.tuted in a school--join in this mad revel, with an appet.i.te for fun that showed how much of a child she still was.
An impressionable young Irishman, who had come out upon the piazza to smoke a cigar and think himself back into his usual poise after a day full of new experiences, had his attention attracted by the strumming on the piano; and glancing in through the open window, he saw a slender, graceful girl, her dark head rising lightly from the sailor collar of a pink gingham blouse. She was balancing lightly as she walked, keeping time to the rhythm, and followed by a procession of children in single file. (A belief in the efficacy of motion to stimulate one's power of improvisation made Old Mother Gibson the liveliest of games.) And arriving at the center of the stage, she delivered herself in a singsong of the following:
”Old Mother Gibson, be on your best behavior, Or you'll surely fail to satisfy the savior.”
It didn't seem a very funny or apposite ditty to Miles Morgan, but, to judge by its effect upon those within, it was exquisitely witty. The whole company doubled up with laughter. It giggled till its collective sides must have ached; then it slowly and gaspingly subsided. When it had quieted down, the piano began again, and a red-headed Madigan, intoxicated by the music, the license of the time, and the excitement accompanying creative work, danced a fantastic _pas seul_, as she flew about in the Mother Gibson merry-go-round.
”Old Mother Gibson's savior was a dandy-- He thought he'd buy the Madigans with a stick of candy!”
sang Split, and the parlor yelled itself hoa.r.s.e with uproarious delight.
The fat little girl at the piano began to play, and stopped several times, that she might wipe the tears of laughter from her eyes and get her breath. At last, with a squaring of her shoulders and a stiffening of backbone that seemed queerly familiar to Morgan, watching outside, she half drawled, half sang, with an unmistakable accent:
”Old Mother Gibson was angry at the Fates; My word! They sent the savior 'way out to the States!”
A sudden enlightenment came to Miles Morgan. For a moment the red flamed up in his cheek, and if Split could have seen his face she might have fancied that some imp had caught her likeness, when her temper had got beyond her control, and set it on this man's body.
”The impudent little beggars!” Morgan cried furiously. ”My word!” He stopped, remembering the use to which his favorite exclamation had been put. ”But what a saucy lot!” He was laughing before he had finished wording his thought.
He was interested now, and listened with a grin to Fom's declaration that
”Old Mother Gibson ought to 've known better Then to come in answer to Aunt Anne's letter.”
He saw even Frank strutting in the ring, though she was capable only of a repet.i.tion of the cla.s.sic phrase with which each couplet began. And he laughed with the rest at Bep,--poor, unready Bep, set as by a musical time-lock and bound to go off,--getting slower and slower in motion as well as utterance, the accompaniment r.e.t.a.r.ding sympathetically as the critical moment approached when she must be delivered of her rhyme.
”Old Mother Gibson, why do you--”
she began her singsong. ”No, no! Wait. I know another. 'T ain't fair,”
she stammered in a prose parenthesis.
”Old Mother Gibson had a--
”Stop laughing, now; wait a minute. You don't give me a chance, Sissy.
You play faster for me than for anybody else! You do it a-purpose, too, just 'cause you know it's easy to bl.u.s.ter me.
”Old Moth-er--Gib-son--”
Bep stopped suddenly, for through the gla.s.s doors came the subject of her lay. He had a finger to his lips as he glanced at Sissy's back--a hint that the rest of the company seized delightedly. And when the music began again, he was not ashamed to make this contribution:
”Old Mother Gibson, take pity on a cousin Left to the tender mercies of the other half-dozen!”
At first the accompanist, accustomed to the rodomontade of voice as well as gesture of the excited performers, was not aware of the interloper.
When she finally spun around and saw the savior singing in the midst of his libelers, she let him finish the couplet unaccompanied, and sat, a fat, shocked statue glued to the piano-stool, staring at him.
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