could pay it back, you know, soon, if you would. You
wouldn’t need to pay me anything for your room until you
had.”
She looked at Clyde so tensely, so urgently, that he felt
quite shaken by the force of the cogency of the request.
And before he could add anything to the nervous gloom
which shadowed her face, she added: “That other money
was for her, you know, to bring her back here after her—
her”—she hesitated over the appropriate word but finally
added—“husband left her there in Pittsburgh. I suppose she
told you that.”
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“Yes, she did,” replied Clyde, heavily and sadly. For after
all, Esta’s condition was plainly critical, which was
something that he had not stopped to meditate on before.
“Gee, Ma,” he exclaimed, the thought of the fifty dollars in
his pocket and its intended destination troubling him
considerably—the very sum his mother was seeking. “I
don’t know whether I can do that or not. I don’t know any of
the boys down there well enough for that. And they don’t
make any more than I do, either. I might borrow a little
something, but it won’t look very good.” He choked and
swallowed a little, for lying to his mother in this way was not
easy. In fact, he had never had occasion to lie in connection
with anything so trying—and so despicably. For here was
fifty dollars in his pocket at the moment, with Hortense on
the one hand and his mother and sister on the other, and
the money would solve his mother’s problem as fully as it
would Hortense’s, and more respectably. How terrible it
was not to help her. How could he refuse her, really?
Nervously he licked his lips and passed a hand over his
brow, for a nervous moisture had broken out upon his face.
He felt strained and mean and incompetent under the
circumstances.
“And you haven’t any money of your own right now that you
could let me have, have you?” his mother half pleaded. For
there were a number of things in connection with Esta’s
condition which required immediate cash and she had so
little.
“No, I haven’t, Ma,” he said, looking at his mother
shamefacedly, for a moment, then away, and if it had not
been that she herself was so distrait, she might have seen
the falsehood on his face. As it was, he suffered a pang of
commingled self-commiseration and self-contempt, based
on the distress he felt for his mother. He could not bring
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179
himself to think of losing Hortense. He must have her. And
yet his mother looked so lone and so resourceless. It was
shameful. He was low, really mean. Might he not, later, be
punished for a thing like this?
He tried to think of some other way—some way of getting a
little money over and above the fifty that might help. If only
he had a little more time—a few weeks longer. If only
Hortense had not brought up this coat idea just now.
“I’ll tell you what I might do,” he went on, quite foolishly and
dully the while his mother gave vent to a helpless “Tst! Tst!
Tst!”“Will five dollars do you any good?”
“Well, it will be something, anyhow,” she replied. “I can use
it.”
“Well, I can let you have that much,” he said, thinking to
replace it out of his next week’s tips and trust to better luck
throughout the week. “And I’ll see what I can do next week.
I might let you have ten then. I can’t say for sure. I had to
borrow some of that other money I gave you, and I haven’t
got through paying for that yet, and if I come around trying
to get more, they’ll think—well, you know how it is.”
His mother sighed, thinking of the misery of having to fall
back on her one son thus far. And just when he was trying
to get a start, too. What would he think of all this in after
years? What would he think of her—of Esta—the family?
For, for all his ambition and courage and desire to be out
and doing, Clyde always struck her as one who was not any
too powerful physically or rock-ribbed morally or mentally.
So far as his nerves and emotions were concerned, at
times he seemed to take after his father more than he did
after her. And for the most part it was so easy to excite him
—to cause him to show tenseness and strain—as though
he were not so very well fitted for either. And it was she,
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180
because of Esta and her husband and their joint and
unfortunate lives, that was and had been heaping the
greater part of this strain on him.
“Well, if you can’t, you can’t,” she said. “I must try and think
of some other way.” But she saw no clear way at the
moment.
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Chapter 17
IN CONNECTION with the automobile ride suggested and
arranged for the following Sunday by Hegglund through his
chauffeur friend, a change of plan was announced. The car
—an expensive Packard, no less—could not be had for that
day, but must be used by this Thursday or Friday, or not at
all. For, as had been previously explained to all, but not with
the strictest adherence to the truth, the car belonged to a
certain Mr. Kimbark, an elderly and very wealthy man who
at the time was traveling in Asia. Also, what was not true
was that this particular youth was not Mr. Kimbark’s
chauffeur at all, but rather the rakish, ne’er-do-well son of
Sparser, the superintendent of one of Mr. Kimbark’s stock
farms. This son being anxious to pose as something more
than the son of a superintendent of a farm, and as an
occasional watchman, having access to the cars, had
decided to take the very finest of them and ride in it.
It was Hegglund who proposed that he and his hotel friends
be included on some interesting trip. But since the general
invitation had been given, word had come that within the
next few weeks Mr. Kimbark was likely to return. And
because of this, Willard Sparser had decided at once that it
might be best not to use the car any more. He might be
taken unawares, perhaps, by Mr. Kimbark’s unexpected
arrival. Laying this difficulty before Hegglund, who was
eager for the trip, the latter had scouted the idea. Why not
use it once more anyhow? He had stirred up the interest of
all of his friends in this and now hated to disappoint them.
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The following Friday, between noon and six o’clock, was
fixed upon as the day. And since Hortense had changed in
her plans she now decided to accompany Clyde, who had
been invited, of course.
But as Hegglund had explained to Ratterer and Higby since
it was being used without the owner’s consent, they must
meet rather far out—the men in one of the quiet streets
near Seventeenth and West Prospect, from which point
they could proceed to a meeting place more convenient for
the girls, namely, Twentieth and Washington. From thence
they would speed via the west Parkway and the Hannibal
Bridge north and east to Harlem, North Kansas City,
Minaville and so through Liberty and Moseby to Excelsior
Springs. Their chief objective there was a little inn—the
Wigwam—a mile or two this side of Excelsior which was
open the year around. It was really a combination of
restaurant and dancing parlor and hotel. A Victrola and
Wurlitzer player-piano furnished the necessary music. Such
groups as this were not infrequent, and Hegglund as well as
Higby, who had been there on several occasions, described
it as dandy. The food was good and the road to it excellent.
There was a little river just below it where in the summer
time at least there was rowing and fishing. In winter some
people skated when there was ice. To be sure, at this time
—January—the road was heavily packed with snow, but
easy to get over, and the scenery fine. There was a little
lake, not so far from Excelsior, at this time of year also
frozen over, and according to Hegglund, who was always
unduly imaginative and high-spirited, they might go there
and skate.
“Will you listen to who’s talkin’ about skatin’ on a trip like
this?” commented Ratterer, rather cynically, for to his way
of thinking this was no occasion for any such side athletics,
but for love-making exclusively.
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“Aw, hell, can’t a fellow have a funny idea even widout bein’
roasted for it?” retorted the author of the idea.
The only one, apart from Sparser, who suffered any qualms
in connection with all this was Clyde himself. For to him,
from the first, the fact that the car to be used did not belong