Part 20 (1/2)
”You know, dear,” she said, gently, ”a house is always full of noises at night. Basket chairs creaking----”
Mr. Brown's face grew purple.
”_Basket chairs----!_” he exploded, violently, but allowed himself to be led unresisting from the room.
William finished his bed-making with his usual frown of concentration, then, lying down, fell at once into the deep sleep of childish innocence.
But Cousin Mildred was lying awake, a blissful smile upon her lips.
She, too, was now one of the elect, the chosen. Her rather deaf ears had caught the sound of supernatural thunder as her ghostly visitant departed, and she had beamed with ecstatic joy.
”Honk,” she murmured, dreamily. ”Honk, Yonk, Ponk.”
William felt rather tired the next evening. Cousin Mildred had departed leaving him a handsome present of a large box of chocolates.
William had consumed these with undue haste in view of possible maternal interference. His broken night was telling upon his spirits.
He felt distinctly depressed and saw the world through jaundiced eyes. He sat in the shrubbery, his chin in his hand, staring moodily at the adoring mongrel, Jumble.
”It's a rotten world,” he said, gloomily. ”I've took a lot of trouble over her and she goes and makes me feel sick with chocolates.”
Jumble wagged his tail, sympathetically.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MAY KING
William was frankly bored. School always bored him. He disliked facts, and he disliked being tied down to detail, and he disliked answering questions. As a politician a great future would have lain before him.
William attended a mixed school because his parents hoped that feminine influence might have a mellowing effect upon his character.
As yet the mellowing was not apparent. He was roused from his day-dreams by a change in the voice of Miss Dewhurst, his form mistress. It was evident that she was not talking about the exports of England (a subject in which William took little interest) any longer.
”Children,” she said brightly. ”I want to have a little May Queen for the first of May. The rest of you must be her courtiers. I want you all to vote to-morrow. Put down on a piece of paper the name of the little girl you think would make the sweetest little Queen, and the rest of you shall be her swains and maidens.”
”We're goin' to have a May Queen,” remarked William to his family at dinner, ”an' I'm goin' to be a swain.”
His interest died down considerably when he discovered the meaning of the word swain.
”Isn't it no sort of animal at all?” he asked indignantly.
”Well, I'm not going to be in it, then,” he said when he heard that it was not.
The next morning Evangeline Fish began to canva.s.s for votes methodically. Evangeline Fish was very fair, and was dressed always in that shade of blue that shrieks aloud to the heavens and puts the skies to shame. She was considered the beauty of the form.
”I'll give you two bull's eyes if you'll vote for me,” she said to William.
”_Two!_” said William with scorn.
”Six,” she bargained.
”All right,” he said, ”you can give me six bull's eyes if you want.