``DON'T FORGET!''
Up-stairs, Mrs.Baxter moved to the door of her son's room, pretending to be unconscious of the gaze he maintained upon her.Mustering courage to hum a little tune and affecting inconsequence, she had nearly crossed the threshold when he said, sternly:
``And this is all you intend to say to that child?''
``Why, yes, Willie.''
``And yet I told you what she said!'' he cried.
``I told you I HEARD her stand there and tell that dirty-faced little girl how that idiot boy that's always walkin' past here four or five times a day, whistling and looking back, was in `love of' her! Ye gods! What kind of a person will she grow up into if you don't punish her for havin' ideas like that at her age?''
Mrs.Baxter regarded him mildly, not replying, and he went on, with loud indignation:
``I never heard of such a thing! That Worm walkin' past here four or five times a day just to look at JANE! And her standing there, calmly tellin' that sooty-faced little girl, `He's in love of me'! Why, it's enough to sicken a man! Honestly, if I had my way, I'd see that both she and that little Freddie Banks got a first-class whipping!''
``Don't you think, Willie,'' said Mrs.Baxter--``don't you think that, considering the rather noncommittal method of Freddie's courtship, you are suggesting extreme measures?''
``Well, SHE certainly ought to be punished!'' he insisted, and then, with a reversal to agony, he shuddered.``That's the least of it!'' he cried.
``It's the insulting things you always allow her to say of one of the noblest girls in the United States--THAT'S what counts! On the very last day--yes, almost the last hour--that Miss Pratt's in this town, you let your only daughter stand there and speak disrespectfully of her--and then all you do is tell her to `go and play somewhere else'! I don't understand your way of bringing up a child,'' he declared, passionately.``I do NOT!''
``There, there, Willie,'' Mrs.Baxter said.
``You're all wrought up--''
``I am NOT wrought up!'' shouted William.
``Why should I be charged with--''
``Now, now!'' she said.``You'll feel better to-morrow.''
``What do you mean by that?'' he demanded, breathing deeply.
For reply she only shook her head in an odd little way, and in her parting look at him there was something at once compassionate, amused, and reassuring.
``You'll be all right, Willie,'' she said, softly, and closed the door.
Alone, William lifted clenched hands in a series of tumultuous gestures at the ceiling; then he moaned and sank into a chair at his writing-
table.Presently a comparative calm was restored to him, and with reverent fingers he took from a drawer a one-pound box of candy, covered with white tissue-paper, girdled with blue ribbon.
He set the box gently beside him upon the table;
then from beneath a large, green blotter drew forth some scribbled sheets.These he placed before him, and, taking infinite pains with his handwriting, slowly copied:
DEAR LOLA--I presume when you are reading these lines it will be this afternoon and you will be on the train moving rapidly away from this old place here farther and farther from it all.As I sit here at my old desk and look back upon it all while I am writing this farewell letter I hope when you are reading it you also will look back upon it all and think of one you called (Alias) Little Boy Baxter.As I sit here this morning that you are going away at last I look back and I cannot rember any summer in my whole life which has been like this summer, because a great change has come over me this summer.If you would like to know what this means it was something like I said when John Watson got there yesterday afternoon and interupted what I said.May you enjoy this candy and think of the giver.I will put something in with this letter.It is something maybe you would like to have and in exchange I would give all I possess for one of you if you would send it to me when you get home.Please do this for now my heart is braking.
Yours sincerely, WILLIAM S.BAXTER (ALIAS) LITTLE BOY BAXTER.
William opened the box of candy and placed the letter upon the top layer of chocolates.Upon the letter he placed a small photograph (wrapped in tissue-paper) of himself.Then, with a pair of scissors, he trimmed an oblong of white cardboard to fit into the box.Upon this piece of cardboard he laboriously wrote, copying from a tortured, inky sheet before him:
IN DREAM BY WILLIAM S.BAXTER
The sunset light Fades into night But never will I forget The smile that haunts me yet Through the future four long years I hope you will remember with tears Whate'er my rank or station Whilst receiving my education Though far away you seem I will see thee in dream.
He placed his poem between the photograph and the letter, closed the box, and tied the tissue-paper about it again with the blue ribbon.
Throughout these rites (they were rites both in spirit and in manner) he was subject to little catchings of the breath, half gulp, half sigh.
But the dolorous tokens passed, and he sat with elbows upon the table, his chin upon his hands, reverie in his eyes.Tragedy had given way to gentler pathos;--beyond question, something had measurably soothed him.Possibly, even in this hour preceding the hour of parting, he knew a little of that proud amazement which any poet is entitled to feel over each new lyric miracle just wrought.
Perhaps he was helped, too, by wondering what Miss Pratt would think of him when she read ``In Dream,'' on the train that afternoon.For reasons purely intuitive, and decidedly without foundation in fact, he was satisfied that no rival farewell poem would be offered her, and so it may be that he thought ``In Dream'' might show her at last, in one blaze of light, what her eyes had sometimes fleetingly intimated she did perceive in part--the difference between William and such every-day, rather well-meaning, fairly good-
