"Chet"

Front matter

"CHET"

by Katherine M. Yates Author of "On the Way There," "At the Door," "Cheery and the Chum," etc.

Illustrated by H. S. De Lay

That Other Girl

HOW do you suppose Chester will take to having a girl living in the same house with him all the time?"

It was Dad's voice. I sat up in the hammock and wondered if there was anything the matter with my ears. Why on earth should Dad say a thing like that?

The hammock was on the veranda just outside of the dining-room window, and I'd been asleep in it. It was a blazing hot day, right in the middle of August, and I had gone out there after dinner to make up my mind what I would do that afternoon. It's funny how quick you'll go to sleep on a hot day! You'll be sitting and swinging your feet and kicking your heels on the floor to see how loud you can make the hooks and staples creak; and then you'll decide, maybe, to go and fix the

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latch on the back gate; and you give a good hard kick and turn over and stretch out, just to let the old cat die,—and the hammock goes slower and slower, and you cover your eyes to shut out the bright light,—and then the next thing you know, you find yourself just waking up and feeling all damp and sticky around your collar, and your hair plastered all over your forehead,—and likely as not you feel cross.

That's the way I felt when I waked up that day; and I was rubbing my face and trying to start the hammock by wriggling, when I heard Dad's voice come through the dining-room window,—

"How do you suppose Chester will take to having a girl living in the same house with him all the time?"

He had been taking a snooze on the wicker couch just inside the window, before going back to the store; and he and Mother must have been talking for some time; but the first I heard was when my name came through the window.

Mother didn't say anything for a minute, and everything was quiet, and I began to think that perhaps I had only had the nightmare; but by and by she spoke, sort of slow and determined. "Well, Frederick, I don't know," she said; "and I can't help whether he likes it or not. That child's mother was my very best friend, and her daughter isn't going to be sent to any boarding-school as long as I have a home. That is, unless you put your foot down against it."

"Oh, I haven't anything against it," said Dad. "Do as you choose, I don't care; she won't bother me; and if Chester doesn't treat her right, just let me know and I 'I'll settle with him."

Mother sort of sighed, and I heard Dad stamping on his shoes. Then Mother spoke again. "You understand, don't you, Frederick, that she is to stay permanently? She isn't to come here until April; but after that, she is to remain until she is grown up; and she's only thirteen now, just Chester's age."

"Yes, I understand," said Dad. "Fix it any way you choose only you 'I'll have to manage her;—I've got my hands full with Chester. And, by the way, when you get ready to tell him, you would better chloroform him and tie him up, before you break the news," and I heard Dad laugh and start for the door.

"Oh, I'm not going to tell him for a while," said Mother, anxiously. "I'm going to wait. He may not like the idea, just at first; but I'm sure her influence will be good and—"

Gee! That was enough! I didn't care how much Dad "settled" with me; but when it came to the girl and her "influence"—I lit out over the veranda rail.

It's queer how hard it is to think when anything big and horrid walks up to you. All you seem to be able to do is to sit and stare, with your mind, at the thing, and watch it make faces at you. I couldn't think at all that afternoon, for more than half an hour; and then the first thing that really came to me was what a fool I had been to come out to the sweet-apple tree when I was feeling that way. Up to then the sweet-apple tree had always meant fun; and when at last I rolled over in the long grass and wiped the perspiration off of my cheeks with my sleeve, and looked up in the branches and—noticed that one of the cleats leading to the crow's-nest was loose; just then it came to me that I had been and spoiled the tree by coming there with something that hurt;—and Bess was coming home that night, too. I rolled over onto my sleeves again. The tree was Bess's and mine, and here that other girl had gone and spoiled it already. Bess lived next door, and we had been chums for five years, ever since her folks moved there; and now to have some other blamed girl hanging around all the time and having to go everywhere, and do everything that we did, whether we wanted her to or not—you see, that was why I cared most. You can stand just about anything when you're in the house; but to have any one tagging everywhere you go—it made me so mad that I sat up all of a sudden and doubled up my fists and opened my eyes,—and there, square in front of me, stood Bess.

My mouth just simply dropped open.

Bess burst out laughing. "Well, for goodness' sake, Chet," she exclaimed, pretending to dodge, "what are you coming at me that way for? You look awfully pleased that I came home. I'm glad I came."

T wasn't much, use," said I, slamming a dried-up apple at a tree.

Bess looked at me with her head on one side. "Trying to be ugly?" she asked.

"Oh, not at you, of course. I just meant that our good times are all spoiled. We can't have any more fun."

Bess sat down on the grass. "What you been doing?" she asked. "Did you have to go without your dinner?"

I gritted my teeth. A girl always thinks you're hungry if you don't grin.

"No, I didn't," I said. "I'm not just blue. It's real trouble,—trouble for both of us."

Bess shook her head soberly and didn't say anything for a while.

"Want to tell me about it, Chet?" she asked, by and by.

I was gnawing the bark off of a little twig of apple-tree. It sort of relieved me to do it. After a while I got it all chewed off. The bark was kind of bitter, and it was hard to get my mouth fixed so I was sure I could tell Bess about things.

By and by I spoke, real steady. "There's a girl coming here," I said.

"A girl," said Bess. "Coming where?"

"Here. To our house."

Bess stared. "How long's she going to stay?"

"Forever."

"No, but really, Chet?"

"That's it. 'Permanently' they said. Until she's grown up."

Bess gasped. "Who is she? What's she coming for?"

"I don't know."

Bess sat and looked at me. "Chet," she said, almost crossly. "Tell me about it."

"That's all I know," I said.

Bess chewed her lower lip. "Who told you about it?" she asked at last.

"Nobody."

"Oh, Chet!" she exclaimed, suddenly, out of all patience; "why don't you tell me what you know about it, instead of sitting there like a—like a—" she stopped.

"Why don't you say it?" said I, savagely.

"I don't want to," said Bess. "It doesn't do any good to call names;—but I think you might:; tell me, Chester, after saying this much."

"Well, I'll try to," said I. You see, I wasn't meaning to be ugly to Bess; but sometimes you are afraid to go into particulars about things that hurt, because you don't know exactly how your voice is going to act. I tried mine once or twice, and then I said: "Let's knock down some apples first."

Bess said "All right," and after we had thrown a lot of kindlings into the tree, I felt better, and we went back and sat down and I told Bess all about what I had heard.

She looked sober enough when I got through. "I wonder what she's like," she said, jabbing the sod with a little stick. "Don't you know a thing about her, Chet?"

"Not a thing more than I've told you."

I could see that Bess had one of her "moods" coming on, and I was glad of it. Bess's moods are just as ugly as mine, and it was a sort of relief to see the wrinkles coming between her eyes.

"I don't see the sense to it," she said at last, jabbing the stick so hard that it broke. "Why don't they let her go to boarding-school? If she hasn't got any home, that's the place for her, instead of coming boring other people."

"How'd you like to go to boarding-school?" I asked. I didn't want the girl to come; but I wanted Bess to see that she was as ugly as I was.

"I wouldn't go," said Bess. "What's the sense of saying anything like that, anyway? You only said it to be unkind. I'd a lot rather go to boarding-school than to go poking around where I wasn't wanted; I can tell you that."

"She can't help it," I said.

Bess got up and stood in front of me stiffly. "Well, all right, Chester Williams," she said; "If you want her to come, why, have her come,—I don't care. I probably sha'n't see much of either of you, so it won't bother me any," and she turned to walk off.

Gee! Here I had been just about holding my breath for two months, waiting for Bess to get home, and now, in half an hour we were squabbling worse than we ever had in our lives before. It made me mad.

"Bess," I said, "what's the use of your being so blamed unpleasant? You know I don't want her to come,—I've told you so enough times,—so there isn't anything for us to quarrel about;—but what are we going to do about it? That's the question. Can't we boycott her? We haven't either of us any use for her; do you suppose we could make it disagreeable enough so she wouldn't want to stay?"

Bess sat down again and broke off some long stems of grass, and began twisting them together in her fingers and thinking. Bess is a dandy at planning things, and I began to have hopes.

"Maybe we could," she said at last, "if we are just real polite, but don't pay any attention to her,—treat her as if she didn't interest us at all."

"Which she doesn't," I put in. "That's the thing. We'll just say 'good-morning' and 'good-night,' and the rest of the time we simply won't know she's living. Nobody can make a fuss with us, as long as we are polite to her."

"Over-polite," said Bess, smoothing out the grass stems over her knee. "And if they make us take her with us anywhere, we'll treat her like company every minute of the time."

"Good!" said I.

Bess sort of stared, and looked at me suddenly, as if she had just waked up, sort of opening her eyes wide, and blinking them.

"What's the matter now?" I asked.

Bess pressed her lips together and turned her face away and stared off at the hills far over on the West Virginia side, and her eyes looked as if she wanted to cry.

"What's the matter?" I asked again, feeling cross. Bess never cries.

She swallowed hard. "I can't do it, Chet," she said.

"Can't do what?"

"Snub her."

"Well, for goodness' sake, Bess!" I said; "what changed you so quick? 'Two seconds ago you were figuring how you could do it, and now—What struck you?"

"You said 'good, said Bess, very low.

"Well," I said, "it is a good plan. What's the matter with it?"

"It isn't good," said Bess. "It's everything but good. It's selfish and mean and unkind,—and we haven't any right to do it."

"Well, she hasn't any right to come here."

"She can't help it."

They were the very words I had used five minutes before; but it was different when she said them, and my temper was up in a second.

"All right," I said; "take her part if you want to,—I don't care,—only you needn't expect me to be traipsing around with you two all the time. There's lots of boys in town. Bob Stevens and I can always have plenty of fun."

"Oh, Chet!" Bess thinks Bob Stevens is about the worst there is, and so does Mother. I don't like him so awfully well, myself, he's too rowdy, and it's catching; but we do have fun, such as it is.

"Well," I said, "what else is there for me to do? If you're going to make a chum of that other girl, I've got to go with somebody, haven't I? I'm not going to flock by myself, and I'm not going to play gooseberry all the time, either. I know how it is when two girls get together."

Bess sat still, nibbling the end of her thumb, a little habit she has when she's thinking. "Chet," she said at last; "let's be right down honest and sensible. You know I don't want her to come here any more than you do;—but we can't help her coming, just the same. Here we've been ugly and quarrelling, and that certainly isn't the other girl's fault; so we'd better look at ourselves and find out what there is in us that makes things seem horrid."

I stared at Bess hard. She was always a great hand to think, and to dig out reasons and causes; and I always liked to hear her talk things out of a tangle; but I couldn't see how we were the least bit to blame in this case, not the least bit. Why, anybody would feel the way we did about it. It was perfectly natural. "What do you mean," I asked.

"Well," said Bess, "when there is inharmony, we have to look to ourselves for the reason."

Inharmony'! Gee, where'd you get the big word?"

Bess flushed. "I can use it if I want to, I guess," she said, putting up her chin. Then she laughed. "But 'harmony' is a nicer one, isn't it?" she asked.

"Been studying the dictionary in Boston?"

"No," Bess laughed again, "not the dictionary. But say, Chet, really, you can see that this is all our own fault. It's just because we're selfish."

I got up.

"What are you going to do?" asked Bess.

"Going to see Bob Stevens: What are you going to do?"

"Going to love that other girl," said Bess, sturdily; and we walked off in opposite directions.

Bess and I Do Some Entertaining

I WENT and sat in the hammock again. It seemed a week since I had stretched out there after dinner; and here it was only four o'clock, and Bess had got back, and she and I had squabbled, and that other girl was coming, and everything was at logger-heads,—whatever they are. I swung, and kicked the railing, and yanked the hammock, and jabbed at the clematis frame with my feet. It's funny how you feel like smashing something when things go wrong! Of course my face was dirty and streaked and so was my blouse, and my necktie was untied. Bess must have thought I looked nice! I kicked the railing harder than ever. There was no use in going over to Bob Stevens' that late in the afternoon;—and I didn't want to see him anyway. Just to think of him, made me feel like punching him. Bess had no right to say I was selfish.

Just then a young man came around the corner of the house. He was about twenty, and his eyes were nice. "Hello, Chet!" he said.

"Hello," I said, sort of weak; for I'd never set eyes on him before in my life.

He laughed. "Want an introduction, do you?" he said, still grinning. "I didn't need one—I knew you at a glance."

I tried to grin, too. He sat down on the upper step and leaned back against the pillar.

"Want a job?" he said.

"Sure," said I, "if it isn't working."

He laughed again. "All right," he said; "There's no work within ten miles of it—but it doesn't begin until after supper, and all you get out of it is this," and he tossed me a little package.

It was a hard, flat package, wrapped in blue paper. I untied the string, and there was a thin wooden box. I knew what was in it, right at a glance. "Gee!" I said, as I unhooked the fastenings and saw the set of compasses that I had been simply aching to have, for a year. There was the compass with two sharp points, and one of the points could be taken off and you could put in another section that had a sort of a pen on the end of it, or one that had a place for a pencil, and there was an extra piece to put in to make one arm longer than the other;—and there was a little ruler with sixteenths of an inch marked on it; and a wooden triangle; and a brass circle; and a china cup for indelible ink; and a pen; and a brush; and even a little key to be used in putting on and taking off the sections. It was the finest set I ever saw, and I just sat and stared at it and began to think that I was still dreaming,—had been asleep ever since dinner.

"Like it?" asked the young man.

"You bet," said I. "Say, whose is it? What'd you bring it here for?"

The young man fanned himself with his hat and looked at me, still grinning. "Well, now, Chet, I'll tell you about it," he said. "I just arrived this afternoon and I want to see the town. I want to see the Ohio River, and the Muskingum, and the earth-works, and a few things like that; and I don't want the bother of hunting them up, and not knowing which is which. So I said to a young lady I know:—'Since you have to stay at home and get acquainted with your father all over again, do you suppose that the "Chet" who has been dinned into my ears for two months would show me the sights of the city?

I began to see light.

Well,' said she, 'Chet can do it if anybody can; only he'll walk your legs off.'

I'll take the chances,' said I; and then she brought out that affair and asked me to deliver it for her, and tell you that it is for the civil engineer that you are going to be."

That was just like Bess. She always remembered what I really wanted, at birthdays and Christmas; and here she had brought me this from Boston, and she had sent it over, just the same, after I had been so ugly to her!

The young man was looking off, over the town. The part where we live is up on a hill,—they've called it the "stockade," ever since Indian times. He pointed to the bluffs more than a mile away, across the Muskingum. "Is that West Virginia?" he asked.

"No," I said. "That's Harmar Hill. Are you Bess's uncle?"

"Yes. Why isn't it West Virginia?"

"Because it's Ohio. That's West Virginia over there, across the Ohio River. How long you going to stay?"

"Maybe a week,—maybe all winter. There doesn't seem to be much but trees in this town,—all I can see is trees and church-steeples."

"It does look like woods, from here, doesn't it?" I said. "I never noticed that before. There's such a lot of hard maples, that you can't see much else."

"That isn't a hard maple in front of your house."

"No. That's a Tree of Heaven."

"A what?"

"Tree of Heaven. That's what they call it."

He shook his head and looked thoughtfully at his hands. "I broke off some leaves to examine them," he said.

I giggled.

"—And you can never make me believe there's any tree like that in Heaven."

"Why didn't you smell of the leaves before you broke them off?" I asked.

"Didn't know it was the proper thing to do. I'll guarantee that no one ever does both. Really, what is it?"

"Everybody calls it 'Tree of Heaven'; but I've heard some one say its other name is 'lanthus'—or something like that."

"Oh, that's the article, is it?—ailantus—Tree of New Haven!"

"They call it 'Tree of Heaven' here," I insisted; "and if you think it smells bad now, you ought to be here when it's in blossom."

"No, thank you," said he. "I shouldn't care for anything stronger." He sniffed at his hands and put them behind him and got up. "I think I'll take these home and soak them until suppertime," he said; "and then, after supper, we 'I'll begin our exploring expedition."

"All right," said I, and he turned to go. "Say," I called after him; "tell Bess I've got this and! I'll—I'll thank her when I see her."

"All O. K." said the young man, and walked off around the house.

I kept on swinging in the hammock. I'd heard Bess talk about Uncle Rob, ever since she came here, and I knew she had been visiting his folks in Boston; but I didn't know he was coming back with her. It wouldn't have hurt her to have told me,—but then, of course, she didn't have much—chance to while we were under the sweet-apple tree; things were moving too fast! I liked him. He didn't seem "grown-up" at all; and his eyes had a way of looking as if he liked you, and was interested in what you said.

I was just finishing supper when I heard Bess whistle out in front of the house. I was awfully surprised, for always before, when Bess and I had had a tiff, she had waited for me to come three-thirds of the way towards making up, no matter who was in the wrong; so when I heard her whistle, I hurried out, and there she was with her uncle. "Hello, Chet!" she called; "You don't have to be introduced to Uncle Rob, do you? He said he was talking to you before supper. Father had to go down town on business, and so I'm going walking with you two, if you don't mind."

"We sure don't mind," said I. "Where shall we go first?"

"Let's take him up and show him where we go to school," said Bess; so off we started, up the street.

It was only about four blocks, and when we got there, we pointed out the building, and Uncle Rob tried to look interested, and Bess and I did a little talking; but, someway, everything seemed awfully flat. I didn't know quite what was the matter; but Bess did in a minute, and she began to laugh. "Now," she said, turning to Uncle Rob and folding her hands primly, "we've entertained ourselves by showing you what interests us most; what shall we do to entertain you?"

Isn't it odd how selfish people are, without even thinking of it?

Uncle Rob laughed. "Don't let me interfere with your pleasure," he said. "If you want to take me over into the school-yard and show me where you cut your names on the fence, and where you sharpen your pencils on the , and the marks outside of the windows where you pound the black-board erasers to get the chalk out, why come along. Maybe we can climb up and look in the windows and you can show me just where you sit, and tell me who sits everywhere else in the room. Come on," and he started toward the building.

And, do you know, those were just about the things that I'd been thinking that I wished we could do!

"No," I said, "we'll leave that for the next trip."

"Not much," said Uncle Rob. "Never leave for the future a woe that you can put into the past real quickly."

I thought that he was going to make us do it in spite of ourselves; but Bess knew that he was only fooling, and so she grabbed his arm; "Stop teasing, Uncle Rob," she said, "and tell us what you most want to see."

"Some mound-builders' works," said Uncle Rob.

"All right," said I. "Look at 'em."

"Where?" said Uncle Rob, craning his neck and looking up and down the street and then up into the tree-tops.

"Right beside you," I said.

And then Uncle Rob drew in his neck and looked at the corner lot, where we were standing. "H'm!" he said. "Isn't that just the way! When we're looking for something wonderful, we always stretch our necks and look a long way off, when, if we'd shorten the focus of our eyes and look close beside us, we'd find something wonderful all the time."

And then he went up the steep, grassy bank, from the sidewalk, onto the raised square of earth with the slanting approaches at each side, and then across the flat surface of it, and up onto the second raised square, which stood on top of the first. And then he paced off the sides to see how long they were, and sighted to see how high, and had the best time you ever saw, without saying a word or asking a question.

Bess and I sat down on the grassy bank while he was looking about, and I thanked her for the compasses, and we talked about the things that had happened to each of us while she had been away; and by and by the talk drifted around to that other girl again. That is, I brought up the subject. Always before, when we had had tiffs and had got 'em straightened up, Bess had to keep Fletcherizing on them for a long time afterward, and so I was rather surprised that she didn't start in right off, to making a cud of the matter; but she didn't say a word, although I gave her several chances, and so I had to;—and at the same time I had to acknowledge to myself that while I had always blamed her for wanting: to talk about things when they were all over and settled, the fact was that I had really wanted to talk about them myself,—and thought I didn't.

"Well," I said at last, "what have you decided about that other girl?"

Bess tossed a little handful of grass into the air.

"Going to love her," she said.

"What nonsense!" I exclaimed. You can't, just because you say you're going to. We don't love people because we want to; but because we can't help it. It's because they are nice, that we love them."

"Is that so!" said Bess.

"Yes, it is," said I, beginning to feel very much like a philosopher, and swelling up some, in both feelings and words. "We love people because they possess qualities that make them lovable; and we dislike them because they are—are—cranks."

"H'm!" said Bess. "What is a 'crank'? Be honest, Chet."

I looked at the word with my mind,—and looked—

"Be honest, Chet," said Bess, again.

I grinned. "Bess," I said, "a crank is some one who thinks differently from what I do, and doesn't hesitate to say so."

Bess laughed and clapped her hands together. "Good, Chet! Good! I'm proud of you. Now listen. You say that we like people because of their good qualities?"

"Yep."

"Well, there's Bob Stevens;—Fred Walker likes him awfully well, you like him some, and I don't like him at all."

"That's so," I said.

"Well, Fred Walker is one of the very nicest boys in our school, isn't he?"

"He sure is," I said.

"And he knows Bob better than either of us does."

"He ought to; he's lived next door to him for two years."

"And you know Bob better than I do."

"Yep. What are you driving at?"

"Now wait. Here are three of us looking at the same fellow in three different ways. Is that because of Bob,—or us?"

I had to stop and think things over. "It's queer, isn't it?" I said. "Why, there are as many different opinions of him as there are pupils in school,—and some of the teachers have liked him, and some haven't, and have nagged him dreadfully,—and he was mean to those."

"Well, then what do you think?"

I was still puzzled. "It looks as if it were the attitudes of people," I said; "but still there are a lot of unpleasant things about Bob. I don't know what to say."

"Well, I've been thinking it over, and this is the way that I've figured it out," said Bess. "It's something as if we held up a pair of scales, and weighed a person's attributes, without knowing that we did it. A pair of scales with two scoops, you know; and we throw into one or the other scoop, our impressions of him; the ideas we get from what we see him do and hear him say, the good things into one scoop and the bad things into the other. And then, if the good things weigh heaviest, we like him; and if the bad things make that side go down,—we don't."