Butler Ellis Parker
The Cheerful Smugglers

VIII
THE FIELD OF DISHONOR

There was a train from the city at 6:02, and Tom was not likely to be home on one earlier. At 5:48 Kitty and Billy and Mrs. Fenelby were sitting on the porch, and Bobberts was lying in a tilted-back rocking chair, behaving himself. It was a calm and peaceful suburban scene – the stillness and the loneliness and the mosquitoes were all present. It was the idle time when no one cares whether time flies or halts. Mrs. Fenelby had the table set and the cold dinner ready; Kitty was primped; and Billy should have had nothing in the world to do, but he had been opening and closing his watch every minute for the last half hour. He was uneasy. At 5:48 he arose and stretched out his arms.

“I guess,” he said as lazily as he could; “I guess I’ll walk down and meet Tom. I haven’t been out much to-day.”

There was one thing he had to do. He had to see Tom before Mrs. Fenelby could see him, and explain about that box of cigars. If Tom was to be held responsible for the duty on it Tom should at least know that a box of cigars had been brought into the house. It was absolutely necessary for Billy to see Tom, and explain a few things.

“We have none of us been out enough to-day,” said Mrs. Fenelby. “It will do us all good to walk down to the station, and we will take Bobberts.”

Billy stood still. The cheerful expression that had rested on his face faded. There would be a pretty lot of trouble if the whole lot of them went in a group, and he wondered that Kitty did not see this, and why she did not say something to dissuade Mrs. Fenelby from leaving the house. He simply had to get a few words with Tom in private before Mrs. Fenelby could ask her husband about the cigars.

“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Billy, shaking his head. “No, indeed. I wouldn’t take the chance, Laura.” He walked to the end of the porch and peered earnestly at the western sky. It was a singularly clear and cloudless sky. “I’m afraid it will rain,” he explained, boldly. “It wouldn’t do to take Bobberts out and let him get rained on. It looks just like one of those evenings when a rain comes up all of a sudden. I wouldn’t risk it.”

“Nonsense!” said Mrs. Fenelby, shortly, and she gathered the crowing Bobberts into her arms and started. Kitty also arose, but Billy hung back.

“I guess I won’t go,” he declared. “It looks too much like rain.”

“Nonsense!” declared Mrs. Fenelby again. “You come right along. I don’t believe it will rain for a week.”

There was nothing for him to do but to go, and he went. The three of them were standing on the platform when the 6:02 pulled in, and they looked eagerly for Mr. Fenelby, but they did not see him among the alighting commuters. Mr. Fenelby saw them first. He saw them before the train pulled up to the station, for he had been standing on the car platform with a box under his arm, ready to make a dash for home the moment the train stopped, but now he stepped back and, as the train slowed down, he jumped off on the opposite side of the train. There was a small row of evergreens on the little lawn of the station, and he stepped behind one of them and waited. Between the thin branches of the tree he could see his family, when the train pulled out, looking eagerly at the straggling line of commuters. The box he held was heavy, and he hoped the family would soon decide that he had missed the train, and would go home, but he saw Mrs. Fenelby seat herself on the waiting-bench. He saw Kitty take a seat beside her, and he saw Billy, after evident hesitation, take the seat next to Kitty. The evergreen tree was small, and the next tree to it was ten feet distant. He was marooned behind that tree.

Mr. Fenelby instantly saw that he had done a foolish thing. He had that overwhelming sense of foolishness that comes to a man at times, when he thinks he has never done a sane and sound act in his whole silly life. Mr. Fenelby realized that he had been foolish when he had bought, on the subscription plan, a complete set of Eugene Field’s works, bound in three-quarters levant morocco, twelve volumes for thirty-six dollars. He realized that although he had had to pay but five dollars down, to the agent, he would have to pay thirty per cent. of the value of the whole set, in duty, the moment he took the books into the house. He realized that he had been silly to bring the whole heavy set home at one time. He realized that he had been positively childish when he thought of hiding himself behind this miserable little tree, with this heavy box in his arms and six suburban stores staring him full in the face. He wondered what the proprietors of the six stores would think of him if they happened to see him hiding there behind the tree, while his whole family awaited him on the station platform. And then, as he happened to remember that one of the stores was a drug-store with a soda-fountain, he shuddered. Given three suburbanites on a station platform, and a train not due for thirty minutes for which they must wait, and a soda-fountain across the way, and the answer is that the three suburbanites will soon be in the place where the soda-fountain is.

When Mrs. Fenelby arose Mr. Fenelby shifted the box of books into a more secure angle of his arm, and as the trio, and Bobberts, started across the track and lawn Mr. Fenelby edged cautiously around the tree to keep it between him and them. The trade of smuggler has ever been one of wild adventure and excitement.

He peered at them until they entered the drug-store, and then he backed cautiously away, step by step, with the tree as a screen. As he reached the corner of the station he turned and ran, and as he turned he saw Billy hurry out of the drug-store and run, and Mrs. Fenelby and Kitty hurry out after Billy. Mr. Fenelby did not wait to see if they also ran. He ran all the way home, and hurried into the house, and up the stairs to the attic. He felt better about the set of Field now. He had always wanted it, and he deserved it, for he had waited for it long. He could hide it in the attic and bring it into the realm of the tariff duty one volume at a time. He felt his way into the fartherest corner and pushed the box under the rafters. It would not quite go back where he wanted it to go, for something was in the way of it. He pulled the other thing out. It was also a box. It was another box of Eugene Field in twelve volumes, three-quarter levant, and it was addressed to “Mrs. Thomas Fenelby.” There had never been any duty paid on books since the Commonwealth of Bobberts had been established. For a moment Mr. Fenelby frowned angrily; then he smiled. He hid his set of Field in the other corner of the attic, and hurried down stairs.

He expected to find Billy there, for he had seen him start to run when he left the drug-store, but there was no Billy in sight, and Mr. Fenelby seated himself in the hammock and waited. He was ready to receive his returning family with an easy conscience. His box was well hidden. When they appeared in the distance he saw that they were all together, Billy and the two girls and Bobberts, and Mr. Fenelby arose and waved his hand to them. He was ready to be merry and jovial, and to tease them cheerfully because they had not seen him when he got off the train. But Mrs. Fenelby climbed the porch steps with an air of anger.

“Good evening,” she said, coldly. “I see you are home.”

She laid Bobberts in the chair and faced Mr. Fenelby.

“Now, I want to know what all this means!” she declared. “I think there is something peculiar going on in this family. Why did Billy run all the way down to the next station so that he could be the first to meet you as you came home this evening? Why did you avoid us at the station and hurry home this way? You may think I am simple, Thomas Fenelby, but I believe somebody is smuggling things into the house without paying the tariff duty on them! I believe you and Billy are conspiring to rob poor, dear little Bobberts, and I want to know the truth about it! I believe Kitty is in it too!”

“Laura!” exclaimed Kitty, with horror, recoiling from her, while the two men stood sheepishly. “Why, Laura Fenelby! If you say such a thing I shall go right up and pack my clothes and go home!”

“What clothes?” asked Mr. Fenelby, meaningly. Kitty ignored the insinuation.

“You three should not dare to look me in the face and talk about smuggling,” she declared. “You dare to accuse me. I would like to have you explain about that box upstairs first.”

Mr. Fenelby and Billy and Mrs. Fenelby paled. For one moment there was perfect silence while Kitty, with folded arms, looked at them scornfully. Then, with strange simultaneousness, all three opened their mouths and said:

“I’ll explain about that box!”

IX
BOBBERTS INTERVENES

Kitty stood scornfully triumphant awaiting the next words of the guilty trio, and three more cowed and guilt-stricken smugglers never faced an equally guilty accuser with such uncomfortable feelings. Billy was sorry he had ever tried to fabricate the story about Mr. Fenelby having asked him to bring the box of cigars home; Mr. Fenelby wished he had left the set of Eugene Field’s works at the office, and Mrs. Fenelby was, perhaps, the most worried of all, for she did not know whether to admit her guilt and own that she had brought a set of Eugene Field into the house without paying the duty, or to annihilate the accusing Kitty by declaring that Kitty had a whole closet full of smuggled garments. It was a trying situation.

In a drama this would have been the cue for the curtain to fall with a rush, ending the act and leaving the audience a space to wonder how the complication could ever be untangled, but on the Fenelby’s porch there was no curtain to fall. So Bobberts fell instead.

He raised his pink hands and his head, rolled over in the porch rocker in which he had been lying, and fell to the porch floor with a bump. A curtain could not have ended the scene more quickly. Never in his life had he been so cruelly treated as by this faithless rocking-chair. He had reposed his simple faith in it, and it threw him to earth, and then rocked joyously across him. His voice arose in short, piercing yells. He turned purple with rage and pain. He drew up his knees and simply, soulfully screamed. Up and down the street neighbors came out upon their verandas, napkins in hand, and stared wonderingly at the Fenelby porch. Kitty and Billy stood like a wooden Mr. and Mrs. Noah in the toy ark, but Mr. Fenelby and Laura sprang to Bobberts’ aid and gathered him into their arms, ordering each other to do things, and soothing Bobberts at the same time.

The Fenelby Domestic Tariff was entirely forgotten.

“Well!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby, when Bobberts had tapered off from the yells of rage to the steady weeping of injured feelings. “What are you standing there like two sticks for? Can’t you see poor, dear little Bobberts is nearly killed? Why don’t you do something?”

There was really nothing they could do. Mr. and Mrs. Fenelby made such a compact crowd around Bobberts that no one else could squeeze in, but Kitty dropped on her knees and edged up to the crowd, murmuring, “Poor Bobberts! Poor Bobberts!”

Billy stood awkwardly, feeling in his pockets. He had an idea that if he could find something to jingle before Bobberts it might be about the right thing to do, but his hand touched one of the smuggled cigars, and he withdrew it as if his fingers had been burnt. This poor, weeping child was the Bobberts he had been cheating of a few pennies. He touched Kitty diffidently on the shoulder.

“Can’t I do something?” he asked, pleadingly, and Kitty took pity on him.

“Heat some water; very hot!” she said. She was not a baby expert, but she felt that hot water would not be a bad thing to have handy in a case like this. There is one good thing about hot water – if it is not wanted it does no harm, for if allowed to stand it will get cool again – and it pleased her to be able to order Billy to do something. The prompt and eager manner in which he obeyed the order pleased her still more. He ran all the way to the kitchen.

Half an hour later he cautiously carried a dish-pan full of water to the porch and stared in amazement at the place where he had left Bobberts and his parents. They were gone! He felt that he had not been quite as quick with the water as he might have been, for the only burner that had been lighted on the gas range was the “simmerer,” and that had only a flame as large around as a dollar, and not strong, but he had not dared to light another. He had a dim remembrance that stoves of some kind sometimes exploded, and he did not want to risk an explosion by tampering with an unknown stove. He felt that a stove and Bobberts both exploding at the same time would have been more than the Fenelbys could have borne. As he stood holding the pan of hot water well away from him the sound of the click of knives and forks on china came to him through the open window. Only a little of the hot water spilled over the edge of the pan upon his legs as he opened the screen door and entered the hall.

He walked carefully, bent over and holding the pan at arm’s length, and as he entered the dining room the three diners looked up at him in open mouthed surprise. They had forgotten all about Billy.

“Here it is,” said Billy, with modest pride and an air of accomplishment. “It is good and hot. I let it get as hot as it could.”

The blank amazement that had dulled the face of Kitty gave way to a look of understanding and a smile as she remembered having ordered him to get hot water, but the amazement on the faces of Mr. Fenelby and his wife remained as blank as ever.

“It is hot water,” said Billy, explaining. “I heated it. What shall I do with it?”

The sodden surprise on Mr. Fenelby’s face melted away. A dish-pan full of hot water served during the course of a cold dinner had amusing elements, and Mr. Fenelby smiled. So did Mrs. Fenelby. Everybody smiled but Billy. He was serious.

“Well,” he said, with a touch of impatience, “these handles are hot. I can’t stand here holding them all night. What do you want me to do with this hot water?”

“What do you want to do with it?” asked Mr. Fenelby. “What do you usually do with a panful of hot water when you have one? You might take a bath, if you want to. You will find the bath-room at the top of the stairs, first turn to the left. Run along, and don’t stay in the water too long.”

Mrs. Fenelby and Kitty laughed, and Mr. Fenelby smiled broadly at his own humor. Billy blushed.

“I heated it for Bobberts,” he said, stiffly.

“Thank you!” said Mr. Fenelby. “But we won’t boil Bobberts this evening, Billy. Not just now, anyhow. We like to oblige, but we can’t be expected to boil our only son just because you turn up in the middle of a meal with a pan of hot water. If we ever boil him it will not be in the middle of a meal. Please don’t insist.”

Billy reddened to the roots of his hair. Mrs. Fenelby was laughing openly and Tom was pleased with the excellence of his joke. Billy raised his head angrily and strode out of the room, and Kitty, from whose face the smile had fled, started up with blazing eyes.

“I think you are horrid!” she cried, turning to Bobberts’ laughing parents. “I think you ought to thank him instead of making fun of him. I told him to heat the water, because Bobberts was hurt, and I thought you might want it, and because he was trying to be helpful and – and nice, you sit there and laugh at him. If you want to make fun of anyone, make fun of me! I suppose you will!”

“Why, Kitty!” cried Mrs. Fenelby.

“Yes!” cried Kitty. “I suppose you will. That seems to be what you want to do – make your guests as uncomfortable as you can. You don’t want us here. You make up this foolish tariff to make trouble, and you drive away your servants so that we feel that we are imposing on you, and you make fun of us when we try to be helpful – ”

“Why, Kitty!” exclaimed Mrs. Fenelby again.

“You do!” Kitty declared. “I’m surprised at you, Laura Fenelby, I am indeed. I’m surprised that you should let your husband dictate to you, and make you his slave with his tariffs and such things, but you like it. Very well, be his slave if you want to. But I can see one thing – Billy and I are not wanted in this house. You and your husband just want to be alone and enjoy your selfish house. The best thing Billy and I can do is to go. I can see very plainly now, Laura, that you got up that silly tariff just to drive us out of the house. Very well, we will go!”

She turned from the amazed parents of Bobberts to the amazed Billy who was standing in the hall with the inoffensive pan of hot water in his hands, and put her hand on his arm.

“Come!” she said. “I am going up to pack my trunks.”

For a moment after the shock the Fenelbys sat in surprised silence, looking blankly each into the other’s face, and then Laura spoke.

“Tom,” she gasped, “they mustn’t leave this way!”

Mr. Fenelby slowly folded his napkin, and as slowly placed it in the ring. Then he laid the ring gently on the table and arranged his knife and fork side by side on his plate, as prescribed by the guide books to good manners.

“She said she was going up stairs to pack her trunks,” he said with deliberation. “To pack her trunks. If she has enough to pack into trunks, Laura, there has been smuggling going on in this house.”

Mrs. Fenelby folded her napkin as slowly as her husband had just folded his, and she kept her eyes on it as she answered.

“Tom,” she said, “do you think it is quite the time now to talk of smuggling? Wouldn’t it be better if you went up and apologized to Kitty and Billy?”

“Laura,” said Mr. Fenelby, “it is always time to talk of smuggling. The foundation of the home is order; order can only be maintained by living up to such rules as are made; the Fenelby Domestic Tariff is more than a rule, it is a law. If we let the laws of our home be trampled under foot by whoever chooses the whole thing totters, sways and falls. The home is wrecked and sorrow and dissention come. Dissention leads to misunderstanding and divorce. That is why I am strict. That is why I refuse to let two strangers wreck our whole lives by ignoring the Domestic Tariff. If they do not like the laws of our little Commonwealth, they can go. The door is open!”

“Thomas Fenelby,” said his wife, “I think you are horrid! I never knew anything so unhospitable in my life. It isn’t as if no one in this house ever broke that tariff law except Kitty and Billy; you haven’t explained about that box – ”

Mr. Fenelby reddened and he looked at his wife sternly.

“Do you mean the box I found hidden under the eaves in the attic, addressed to you, my dear?” he asked with cutting sweetness, and Mrs. Fenelby, in turn, grew red and gasped.

“You are mean!” she exclaimed. “I think you are not – not nice to go poking around under eaves and things, trying to find some blame to throw up to your wife! I wish you had never thought of your horrid tariff, and – and – ”

She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and a minute later went out of the room and up the stairs. Mr. Fenelby heard her cross the floor above him, and heard the creaking of the bed as she threw herself upon it. He looked sternly out of the dining room window awhile. Never, never had his wife spoken such words to him before. If she wished to act so it was very well – she should be taught a lesson. She was vexed because she had been caught in a palpable case of smuggling herself. Now he —

He arose and took Bobberts’ bank from the mantel; from his pocket he drew a small collection of loose change and one or two small bills, and saving out one dime he fed the rest into Bobberts’ bank. For a few more minutes he looked gloomily from the window, and then he went gloomily forth and dropped into the hammock.

With cautious steps Billy Fenelby stole down the stairs and bending over the rail looked into the dining room. It was empty, and he tip-toed down the rest of the way and, glancing from side to side like one fearing discovery, dropped a handful of loose coins into Bobberts’ bank. As he ascended the stairs his face wore the look of a man who is square with the world.

As she heard the door close upon him when he entered his room Mrs. Fenelby rose from her bed and wiped her eyes. She took her purse from the dresser and opened it, then paused for she heard a door opening slowly. She heard light steps cross the hall and descend the stairs, but she could not see Kitty. She could only hear the faint click of coin dropping upon coin in the dining room below her. She knew that Kitty was feeding Bobberts’ education fund, and she waited until she heard Kitty’s door close again, and then she went down and poured into the opening of the bank the remains of her week’s household allowance, and began the task of clearing the table. As she worked the tears splattered down upon the plates as she bent over them. How could Tom be so cruel and unfeeling? Doubtless he was enjoying the thought of having hurt her feelings, if he had not already forgotten all about her, taking his ease in the hammock.

She glanced out of the window at him. There he lay, but as she looked he raised his hands and struck himself twice on the head with his clenched fists and groaned like a man in misery. For a moment he lay still and then once more he struck himself on the head, and drawing up his legs kicked them out angrily, like a naughty child in a tantrum. He was not having the most blissful moments of his life. Once more he drew up his legs and kicked, and the hammock turned over and dumped him on the floor of the porch.

“Ouch!” he exclaimed quite normally, and looking up he saw his wife, and smiled. She not only smiled, but laughed, somewhat hysterically but forgivingly.