The Cheerful Smugglers Page 3

  III

  KITTY'S TRUNKS

  When Mr. Fenelby went to the city in the morning he gave Kitty'strunk checks to the expressman. When he returned to his home in theevening he found Kitty and Mrs. Fenelby on the porch, and Mrs.Fenelby was explaining to her visitor, for about the tenth time, theworkings of the Fenelby Domestic Tariff. She had explained to Kittyhow the tariff had come to be adopted, how it was to supply aneducation fund for Bobberts--who was at that moment asleep in hiscrib, upstairs--and how every necessity brought into the house hadto pay into Bobberts' bank ten per cent., and every luxury thirtyper cent. Kitty was a dear, as was Mrs. Fenelby, but they were asdifferent as cousins could well be, for while Mrs. Fenelby was theman's ideal of a gentle domestic person, Kitty was the man's idealof a forceful, jolly girl, and as full of liveliness as a wellbehaved young lady could be. She was properly interested in Bobbertsand admired him loudly, but in her heart she was not sorry that Mr.Fenelby's brother Will was to be a visitor at the house during herstay.

  She did not show any unmaidenly curiosity in regard to Brother Will,but between doses of Bobberts and Tariff she managed to learn aboutall Mrs. Fenelby knew regarding Brother Will's past, present andfuture, including a pretty minute description of his appearance,habits and beliefs.

  Brother Will had arrived that very day, and on the way up from thestation the Fenelbys had explained to him all about the DomesticTariff, and also that until a bed could be sent out from the city hewould have to find a bed wherever he could, and so it happened thathe went right back to the city with Mr. Fenelby, and had not metKitty, as he preferred to sleep in the city, rather than in thehammock on the porch.

  There is an admirable natural honesty in women that prevents themfrom claiming that their husbands are perfection. In some this is soabnormally developed that, to be on the safe side, I suppose, theywill not allow that their husbands have any virtues whatever; inothers the trace of this type of honesty is so slight that they willclaim to every one, except their dearest friends, that theirhusbands are the best in the world. The normal wife first announcesthat her husband is as near perfect as any man can be, and thenproceeds to enumerate all his imperfections, bad humors, andannoying habits, under the impression, perhaps, that she is praisinghim. Mrs. Fenelby had been proceeding in somewhat this way in herconversation with Kitty, under the impression that she was showingKitty how lovely and domestically perfect was her life, but Kittygained from it only the impression that Mrs. Fenelby had become theslave of Mr. Fenelby and Bobberts.

  The more Mrs. Fenelby explained the workings of the Domestic Tariffthe more positive of this did Kitty become. It was Laura who paidall the household bills, and so Laura had to pay the tariff duty onwhatever came into the house; it was Laura who had to give up herweekly box of candy because if she received it she had to paytwenty-four cents duty. To Kitty the Fenelby Domestic Tariff seemedto be a scheme concocted by Mr. Fenelby to make Laura provide aneducation fund for Bobberts. Poor Laura was evidently being misusedand did not know it. Poor Laura must be rescued, and given thatwomanly freedom that women are supposed to long for, even when theydon't want it. Poor meek Laura needed some one to put a foot down,and Kitty felt that she had an admirable foot for that or any otherpurpose. She proposed to put it down.

  When Mr. Fenelby entered his yard on his return from the city hestopped short, and then looked up to where the two young women weresitting on the porch.

  "Hello!" he said, "What is the matter with these trunks? Wouldn'tthat expressman carry them upstairs? I declare, those fellows aregetting too independent for comfort. Unless you hold a dollar tipout before them they won't so much as turn around. Now, I distinctlytold this fellow to carry these three trunks upstairs, and I said Iwould make it all right with him, and here he leaves them on thelawn. I hope, dear, you were at home when he came."

  "Yes, dear," said Mrs. Fenelby, "I was, and you should not blame thepoor man. I am sure he tried hard enough to carry them up. Heactually insisted on carrying them up whether we wanted them up ornot. He was quite rude about it. He said you had told him to carrythem up and that he meant to do it whether we let him or not,and--and at last I had to give him a dollar to leave them downhere."

  "You--you gave him a dollar _not_ to carry these trunks upstairs!"exclaimed Mr. Fenelby. "Did you say you _paid_ the man a dollar_not_ to carry them upstairs?"

  "I had to," said Mrs. Fenelby. "It was the only way I could preventhim from doing it. He said you told him to carry them up, and thatup they must go, if he had to break down the front door to do it. Ithink he must have been drinking, Tom, he used such awful language,and at last he got quite maudlin about it and sat down on one of thetrunks and cried, actually cried! He said that for years and yearshe had refused to carry trunks upstairs, and that now, just when hehad joined the Salvation Army, and was trying to lead a better life,and be kind and helpful and earn an extra dollar for his family bycarrying trunks upstairs when gentlemen asked him to, I had to stepin and refuse to let him carry trunks upstairs, and that this wasthe sort of thing that discouraged a poor man who was trying to makeup for his past errors. So I gave him a dollar to leave them downhere."

  Mr. Fenelby looked at the three big trunks ruefully, and shook hishead at them.

  "Well," he said, "I suppose it is all right, Laura, but I can't seewhy you wouldn't let him take them up. You know I don't enjoy thatkind of work, and that I don't think it is good for me."

  "Kitty didn't want them taken up," said Mrs. Fenelby, gently."She--she wanted them left down here."

  "Down here?" asked Mr. Fenelby, as if dazed. "Down here on thegrass?"

  "Yes," said Kitty, lightly. "It was my idea. Laura had nothing to dowith it at all. I thought it would be nice to have the trunks downhere on the lawn. Everywhere I visit they always take my trunks upto my room, and it gets so tiresome always having the same thinghappen, so I thought that this time I would have a variety and leavemy trunks on the lawn. I never in my life left my trunks on a frontlawn, and I wanted to see how it would be. You don't think they willhurt the grass do you, Mr. Fenelby?"

  Kitty asked this with such an air of sincerity that Mr. Fenelbyseated himself on one of the trunks and looked up at her anxiously.He could not recall that he had ever heard of any weakness of mindin Kitty or in her family, but he could not doubt his ears.

  "But--but--" he said, "but you don't mean to leave them here, doyou?"

  Kitty smiled down at him reassuringly.

  "Of course, if it is going to harm the grass at all, Mr. Fenelby, Isha'n't think of it," she said. "I know that sometimes when a boardor anything lies on the grass a long time the grass under the boardgets all white, and if the trunks are going to make white spots onyour lawn, I'll have them removed, but I thought that if we movedthe trunks around to different places every day it would avoid that.But you know more about that than I do. Do you think they will makewhite places on the lawn, Mr. Fenelby?"

  "I don't know," he said, abstractedly. "I mean, yes, of course theywill. But they will get rained on. You don't want your trunks rainedon, you know. Trunks aren't meant to be rained on. It isn't good forthem." A thought came to him suddenly. "You and Laura haven'tquarreled, have you?" he asked, for he thought that perhaps that waswhy Kitty would not have her trunks carried up.

  "Indeed not!" cried Kitty, putting her arm affectionately aroundLaura's waist.

  "I--I thought perhaps you had," faltered Mr. Fenelby. "Ithought--that is to say--I was afraid perhaps you were going awayagain. I thought you were going to make us a good, long visit--"

  "Indeed I am," said Kitty, cheerfully. "I am going to stay weeks,and weeks, and weeks. I am going to stay until you are all tired todeath of me, and beg me to begone."

  "That is good," said Mr. Fenelby, with an attempt at pleasure. "Butdon't you think, since you are going to do what we want you to do,and stay for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, that you had better letyour trunks be taken up to your room? Or--I'll tell you what we'lldo! Suppose we just take the trunks into the lowe
r hall?"

  He felt pretty certainly, now, that Kitty must have had a littletouch of, say, sunstroke, or something of that kind, and he went onin a gently argumentative tone.

  "Just into the lower hall," he said. "That would be different fromhaving them in your room, and it would save my grass. I worked hardto get this lawn looking as it does now, Kitty, and I cannot denythat big trunks like these will not do it any good. Let us say wewill put the trunks in the lower hall. Then they will be safe, too.No one can steal them there. A front lawn is a rather conspicuousplace for trunks. And what will the neighbors say, too, if we leavethe trunks on the lawn? Why shouldn't we put the trunks in the lowerhall?"

  "Well," said Kitty, "I can't afford it, that is why. Really, Mr.Fenelby, I can't afford to have those three trunks brought into thehouse."

  "And yet," said Mr. Fenelby, with just the slightest hint ofimpatience, "you girls could afford to give the man a dollar _not_to take them in! That is woman's logic!"

  "Oh! a dollar!" said Kitty. "If it was only a matter of a dollar! Ihope you don't think, Mr. Fenelby, that I travel with only tendollars' worth of baggage! No, indeed! I simply cannot afford to payten per cent. duty on what is in those trunks, and so I prefer tolet them remain on the lawn. I wrote Laura that I expected to betreated as one of the family while I was visiting her, and if theDomestic Tariff is part of the way the family is treated I certainlyexpect to live up to it. Now, don't blame Laura, for she was notonly willing to have the trunks come in without paying duty, butinsisted that they should."

  Mr. Fenelby looked very grave. He was in a perplexing situation. Hecertainly did not wish to appear inhospitable, and yet Laura had hadno right to say that the trunks could enter the house duty free. Theonly way such an unusual alteration in the Domestic Tariff could bemade was by act of the Family Congress, and he very well knew thatif once the matter of revising the tariff was taken up it was beyondthe ken of man where it would end. He preferred to stand pat on thetariff as it had been originally adopted.

  "I told her," said Kitty, "that she had no right to throw off theduty on my trunks, at all, and that I wouldn't have it, and Ididn't."

  "Well, Tom," said Mrs. Fenelby, "you know perfectly well that wecan't leave those trunks out on the lawn. It would not only beabsolutely foolish to do that, but cruel to Kitty. A girl simplycan't visit away from home without trunks, and it is absolutelynecessary that Kitty should have her trunks."

  "'Necessities, ten per cent.,'" quoted Kitty.

  "But, my dear," said Mr. Fenelby, softly, "we really can't break allour household rules just because Kitty has brought three trunks, canwe? Kitty does not expect us to do that, and I think she looks at itin a very rational manner. I like the spirit she has evinced."

  "Very well, then," said Mrs. Fenelby, "you must find some way totake care of those trunks, for we cannot leave them on the lawn."

  "Why can't we take them to some neighbor's house?" asked Kitty. "Iam sure some neighbor would be glad to store them for me for awhile.Aren't you on good terms with your neighbors, Laura?"

  "The Rankins might take them," said Laura, thoughtfully. "They havethat vacant room, you know, Tom. They might not mind letting us putthem in there."

  "I don't know the Rankins," said Kitty, "but I am sure they areperfectly lovely people, and that they would not mind in the least."

  "I know they wouldn't," said Mr. Fenelby. "Rankin would be glad todo something of that sort to repay me for the number of times he hasborrowed my lawn-mower. I will step over after dinner and ask him."

  "Are you sure, very sure, that you do not mind, Kitty?" asked Mrs.Fenelby. "You will not feel hurt, or anything?"

  "Oh, no!" said Kitty, lightly. "It will be a lark. I never in mylife went visiting with three trunks, and then had them stored inanother house. It will be quite like being shipwrecked on a desertisland, to get along with one shirt-waist and one handkerchief."

  "It will not be quite that bad, you know," said Mr. Fenelby, withthe air of a man stating a great discovery, "because, don't you see,you can open your trunks at the Rankins', and bring over just asmany things as you think you can afford to pay on."

  For some reason that Mr. Fenelby could not fathom Kitty laughedmerrily at this, and then they all went in to dinner. It was a verygood dinner, of the kind that Bridget could prepare when she was inthe humor, and they sat rather longer over it than usual, and thenMr. Fenelby proposed that he should step over to the Rankins' andarrange about the storage of Kitty's trunks, and on thinking it overhe decided that he had better step down to the station and see if hecould not get a man to carry the trunks across the street and up theRankins' stairs. As they filed out of the house upon the porch,Kitty suddenly decided that it was a beautiful evening for a littlewalk, and that nothing would please her so much as to walk to thestation with Mr. Fenelby, if Laura would be one of the party, andafter running up to see that Bobberts was all right, Laura saidthat she would go, and they started. As they were crossing thestreet to the Rankins' Kitty suddenly turned back.

  "Never in the history of trunks was the act ofunpacking done so quickly or so recklessly"]

  "You two go ahead," she said. "The air will do you good, Laura. Ihave something I want to do," and she ran back.

  She entered the house, and looked out of the window until she sawthe Fenelbys go into the Rankins' and come out again, and saw themstart to the station, but as soon as they were out of sight shedashed down the porch steps and threw open the lids of her trunks.Never in the history of trunks was the act of unpacking done soquickly or so recklessly. She dived into the masses of fluffinessand emerged with great armfuls, and hurried them into the house, upthe stairs, and into her closet, and was down again for anotherload. If she had been looting the trunks she could not have workedmore hurriedly, or more energetically, and when the last armful hadbeen carried up she slammed the lids and turned the keys, and sankin a graceful position on the lower porch step.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby returned with leisurely slowness of pace, thestation loafer and man-of-little-work slouching along at arespectful distance behind them. Kitty greeted them with a cheerfulfrankness of face. The man-of-little-work looked at the three bigtrunks as if their size was in some way a personal insult to him. Hetried to assume the look of a man who had been cozened away from hisneeded rest on false pretences.

  "I didn't know as the trunks was as big as them," he drawled. "IfI'd knowed they was, I wouldn't of walked all the way over here.Fifty cents ain't no fair price for carryin' three trunks, the sizeand heft of them, across--well, say this is a sixty footstreet--say, eighty feet, and up a flight of stairs. I don't saynothin', but I'll leave it to the ladies."

  "Fifty cents!" cried Kitty. "I should think not! Why, I didn'timagine you would do it for less than a dollar. I mean to pay you adollar."

  "That's right," said the man. "You see I have to walk all the wayback to the station when I git through, too. My time goin' andcomin' is worth something."

  "With all the grace of a Sandow"]

  He bent down and took the largest trunk by one handle, to heave itto his back, and as he touched the handle the trunk almost aroseinto the air of its own accord. The man straightened up and lookedat it, and a strange look passed across his face, but he closedhis mouth and said nothing.

  "Would you like a lift?" asked Mr. Fenelby.

  "No," said the man shortly. "I know _how_ to handle trunks, I do,"and it certainly seemed that he did, for he swung it to his backwith all the grace of a Sandow, and started off with it. Mr. Fenelbylooked at him with surprise.

  "Now, isn't that one of the oddities of nature?" said Mr. Fenelby."That fellow looks as if he had no strength at all, and see how hecarries off that trunk as if there was not a thing in it. I supposeit is a knack he has. Now, see how hard it is for me merely to liftone end of this smallest one."

  But before he could touch it Kitty had grasped him by the arm.

  "Oh, don't try it!" she cried. "Please don't! You might hurt yourback."