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Innocents, A Story for Lovers, The

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<h2> CHAPTER XVI</h2> THEY were in Indiana, now. They had saved up six dollars and twenty cents, despite the fact that Father had overborne her caution and made her dine at a lunch-room, now and then, or sleep at a hotel, while he cheerfully scavenged in the neighborhood. The shoes he had bought in West Virginia were impossible. They had been mended and resoled, but the new soles had large concentric holes. Mother discovered the fact, and decisively took the problem out of his hands. He was going to take that six dollars and twenty cents, he was, and get new shoes. It was incredible luxury. He left Mother at a farm-house. He stood meditatively before the window of a shoe-store in Lipsittsville, Indiana. Lawyer Vanduzen, who read the papers, guessed who he was, and imparted the guess to the loafers in front of the Regal Drug Store, who watched him respectfully. Inside the shoe-store, the proprietor was excited. “Why,” he exclaimed to his assistant, “that must be Appleby, the pedestrian—fellow you read so much about—the Indianapolis paper said just this morning that he was some place in this part of the country—you know, the fellow who’s tramped all over Europe and Asia with his wife, and is bound for San Francisco now.” His one lone clerk, a youth with adenoids, gaped and grunted. It was incredible to him that any one should walk without having to. Father was aware of the general interest, and as he was becoming used to his rôle as public character, he marched into the store like the Lord Mayor of London when he goes shopping in his gold coach with three men and a boy in powdered wigs carrying his train. The proprietor bowed and ventured: “Glad to see you with us, Mr. Appleby. It is Mr. Appleby, isn’t it?” “Uh-huh,” growled Father. “Well, well! Tramping like yours is pretty hard on the footgear, and that’s a fact! Well, well! Believe me, you’ve come to just the right store for sport shoes. We got a large line of smart new horsehide shoes. Dear me! Tut, tut, tut, tut! What a pity, the way the tramping has worn out yours—fine shoe, too, I can see that. Well, well, well, well! how it surely does wear out the shoes, this long tramping. Peter, bring a pair of those horsehide shoes for Mr. Appleby. Nice, small, aristocratic foot, Mr. Appleby. If you worked in a shoe-store you’d know how uncommon—” “Huh! Don’t want horsehide. Try a pair o’ those pigskin shoes over there that you got a sale on.” “Well, well, you do know what you want,” fawned the shoeman. “Those pigskins are a very fine grade of shoe, and very inexpensive, very good for tramping—” “Yump. They’ll do.” “Going to be with us long?” inquired the shoeman, after trying on the shoes and cursing out Peter, the adenoidic clerk, in an abstracted, hopeless manner. “Nope.” Father was wonderfully bored and superior. Surely not this Seth Appleby but a twin of his, a weak-kneed inferior twin, had loafed in Tompkins Square and wavered through the New York slums, longing for something to do. He didn’t really mean to be curt, but his chief business in life was to get his shoes and hurry back to Mother, who was waiting for him, a mile from town, at a farm where the lordly Father had strung fence-wire and told high-colored stories for his breakfast. The fascinated shoeman hated to let him go. The shoeman knew few celebrities, and a five-mile motor ride was his wildest adventure. But by the light of a secret lamp in the bathroom, when his wife supposed him to have gone to bed, he breathlessly read the Back o’ the Beyond Magazine, and slew pirates with a rubber sponge, and made a Turkish towel into a turban covered with quite valuable rubies, and coldly defied all the sharks in the bathtub. He was an adventurer and he felt that Father Appleby would understand his little-appreciated gallantry. He continued, “The madam with you?” “Yump.” “Say—uh—if I may be so bold and just suggest it, we’d be honored if you and the madam could take dinner at our house and tell us about your trip. The wife and me was talking about it just this morning. The wife said, guessed we’d have to pike out and do the same thing! Hee, hee! And Doc Schergan—fine bright man the doc, very able and cultured and educated—he’s crazy to meet you. We were talking about you just this morning—read about your heading this way, in the Indianapolis paper. Say,” he leaned forward and whispered, after a look at his clerk which ought to have exterminated that unadventurous youth—“say, is it true what they say, that you’re doing this on a ten-thousand-dollar bet?” “Well,” and Father thawed a little, “that’s what they’re all saying, but, confidentially, and don’t let this go any further, it isn’t as much as that. This is between you and I, now.” “Oh yessss,” breathed the flattered shoeman. “There’s your shoes, Mr. Appleby. Four dollars, please. Thank you. And let me tell you, confidentially, you got the best bargain in the store. I can see with half an eye you’ve learned a lot about shoes. I suppose it’s only natural, tramping and wearing them out so fast and visiting the big burgs and all—” “Huh! Ought to know shoes. Used to be in business. Pilkings & Son’s, little old New York. Me and old Pilky practically started the business together, as you might say.” “Well, well, well, well!” The shoeman stared in reverent amazement. Then, as he could think of nothing further to say, he justly observed, “Well!” “Yump. That reminds me. Make that boy of yours rearrange that counter case there. Those pink-satin evening slippers simply lose all their display value when you stick those red-kid bed-slippers right up ferninst them that way. “Yes, yes, that’s so. I’m much obliged to you for the tip, Mr. Appleby. That’s what it is to be trained in a big burg. But I’ll have to rearrange it myself. That boy Peter is no good. I’m letting him go, come Saturday.” “That so?” said Father; then, authoritatively: “Peter, my boy, you ought to try to make good here. Nothing I’d like better—if I had the time—than to grow up in a shoe-store in a nice, pretty village like this.” “Yes, that’s what I’ve told him many’s the time. Do you hear what Mr. Appleby says, Peter?... Say, Mr. Appleby, does this town really strike you as having the future for the shoe business?” “Why, sure.” “Are you ever likely to think about going back into the shoe business again, some day? ’Course,” apologetically, “you wouldn’t ever want to touch anything in as small a burg as this, but in a way it’s kind of a pity. I was just thinking of how the youngsters here would flock to have you give ’em your expert advice as a sporting gentleman, instead of hanging around that cheap-John shoe-store that those confounded worthless Simpson boys try to run.” Father carefully put down the bundle of his new shoes, drew a long breath, then tried to look bored again. Cautiously: “Yes, I’ve thought some of going back into business. ’Course I’d hate to give up my exploring and all, but— Progress, you know; hate to lay down the burden of big affairs after being right in the midst of them for so long.” Which was a recollection of some editorial Father had read in a stray roadside newspaper. “And you mustn’t suppose I’d be sniffy about Lipsittsville. No, no; no, indeed. Not at all. I must say I don’t know when I’ve seen a more wide-awake, pretty town—and you can imagine how many towns I must have seen. Maples and cement walks and nice houses and—uh—wide-awake town.... Well, who knows! Perhaps some day I might come back here and talk business with you. Ha, ha! Though I wouldn’t put in one cent of capital. No, sir! Not one red cent. All my money is invested with my son-in-law—you know, Harris Hartwig, the famous chemical works. Happen to know um?” “Oh yes, indeed! Harry Sartwig. I don’t know him personally, but of course I’ve heard of him. Well, I do wish you’d think it over, some day, Mr. Appleby. Indeed I understand about the capital. If you and me ever did happen to come to terms, I’d try to see my way clear to giving you an interest in the business, in return for your city experience and your expert knowledge and fame and so on as an explorer—not that we outfit so many explorers here. Hee, hee!” “Well, maybe I’ll think it over, some day. Well—well, maybe I’ll see you again before I get out of town. I’m kind of planning to stick around here for a day or two. I’ll talk over the suggestion with Mrs. Appleby. Me, I could probably call off my wager; but she is really the one that you’d have to convince. She’s crazy for us to hike out and tramp clear down into Mexico and Central America. Doesn’t mind bandits and revolutions no more than you and I would a mouse.” In his attempt to let people bluff themselves and accept him as a person to be taken seriously, Father kept on trying to adhere to the truth. But certainly this last statement of his was the grossest misrepresentation of Mother’s desires. Mother Appleby, with her still unvanquished preference for tea and baths, did not have the slightest desire to encounter bandits, snakes, deserts, or cacti of any variety. “Well, look here, Mr. Appleby; if you are going to be around, couldn’t you and the madam come to dinner, as I was so bold as to suggest awhile ago? That would give us a chance to discuss things. Aside from any future business dicker between you and me personally, I’d like to show you just why Lipsittsville is going to be a bigger town than Freiburg or Taormina or Hongkong or Bryan or any of the other towns in the county, let ’em say what they like! Or couldn’t you come to supper to-night? Then we could let the ladies gossip, and I’ll have Doc Schergan come in, and maybe him and me between us could persuade you to think of taking a partnership with me—wouldn’t cost you a cent of capital, neither. Why, the doc was saying, just this morning, when we was speaking of having read about you in the paper—he was saying that you were the kind of man we need for president of our country club, instead of some dude like that sissified Buck Simpson. Buck is as punk an athlete as he is a shoeman, and, believe me, Mr. Appleby, we’ve got the makings of a fine country club. We expect to have a club-house and tennis-courts and golluf-links and all them things before long. We got a croquet-ground right now! And every Fourthajuly we all go for a picnic. Now can’t the madam come? Make it supper this evening. But, say, I want to warn you that if we ever did talk business, I don’t see how I could very well offer you more than a forty-per-cent. interest, in any case.” “No,” growled Father, “wouldn’t take over a third interest. Don’t believe in demanding too much. Live and let live, that’s my motto.” “Yes, sir, and a fine motto it is, too,” admired the shoeman. “What time is supper?” <hr class="hr2" /> “... and before I get through with it I’ll own a chain of shoe-stores from here to Indianapolis,” said Father. “I’ll be good for twenty years’ more business, and I’ll wake this town up.” “I do believe you will, Father. But I just can’t believe yet that you’ve actually signed the contract and are a partner,” Mother yearned. “Why, it ain’t possible.” “Guess it is possible, though, judging by this hundred dollar advance,” Father chuckled. “Nice fellow, that shoeman—or he will be when he gets over thinking I’m a tin god and sits down and plays crib like I was an ordinary human being.... We ought to have larger show-windows. We’ll keep Peter on—don’t want to make the boy lose his job on account of me. Give him another chance.... I’m just wambling, Mother, but I’m so excited at having a job again—” With tiny pats of her arm, he stalked the street, conscious of the admiring gaze of the villagers, among whom ran the news that the famous explorer was going to remain with them. When the landlord himself had preceded them up-stairs to the two rooms which the shoeman had engaged for the Applebys at the Star Hotel, Father chuckled: “Does it look more possible, now, with these rooms, eh? Let’s see, we must get a nice little picture of a kitten in a basket, to hang over that radiator. Drat the landlord, I thought he’d stick here all evening, and—I want to kiss you, my old honey, my comrade!” Back to contents <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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