Miss Lulu Bett | Page 3

she was at Jenny Plow's at a tea party, for at noon they had talked of nothing else; but this was his way. And Ina played his game, always. She informed him, dutifully.
"Oh, ho," said he, absently. How could he be expected to keep his mind on these domestic trifles.
"We told you that this noon," said Lulu.
He frowned, disregarded her. Lulu had no delicacy.
"How much is salmon the can now?" he inquired abruptly--this was one of his forms of speech, the can, the pound, the cord.
His partner supplied this information with admirable promptness. Large size, small size, present price, former price--she had them all.
"Dear me," said Mr. Deacon. "That is very nearly salmoney, isn't it?"
"Herbert!" his Ina admonished, in gentle, gentle reproach. Mr. Deacon punned, organically. In talk he often fell silent and then asked some question, schemed to permit his vice to flourish. Mrs. Deacon's return was always automatic: "_Her_bert!"
"Whose Bert?" he said to this. "I thought I was your Bert."
She shook her little head. "You are a case," she told him. He beamed upon her. It was his intention to be a case.
Lulu ventured in upon this pleasantry, and cleared her throat. She was not hoarse, but she was always clearing her throat.
"The butter is about all gone," she observed. "Shall I wait for the butter-woman or get some creamery?"
Mr. Deacon now felt his little jocularities lost before a wall of the matter of fact. He was not pleased. He saw himself as the light of his home, bringer of brightness, lightener of dull hours. It was a pretty r?le. He insisted upon it. To maintain it intact, it was necessary to turn upon their sister with concentrated irritation.
"Kindly settle these matters without bringing them to my attention at meal-time," he said icily.
Lulu flushed and was silent. She was an olive woman, once handsome, now with flat, bluish shadows under her wistful eyes. And if only she would look at her brother Herbert and say something. But she looked in her plate.
"I want some honey," shouted the child, Monona.
"There isn't any, Pet," said Lulu.
"I want some," said Monona, eyeing her stonily. But she found that her hair-ribbon could be pulled forward to meet her lips, and she embarked on the biting of an end. Lulu departed for some sauce and cake. It was apple sauce. Mr. Deacon remarked that the apples were almost as good as if he had stolen them. He was giving the impression that he was an irrepressible fellow. He was eating very slowly. It added pleasantly to his sense of importance to feel that some one, there in the parlour, was waiting his motion.
At length they rose. Monona flung herself upon her father. He put her aside firmly, every inch the father. No, no. Father was occupied now. Mrs. Deacon coaxed her away. Monona encircled her mother's waist, lifted her own feet from the floor and hung upon her. "She's such an active child," Lulu ventured brightly.
"Not unduly active, I think," her brother-in-law observed.
He turned upon Lulu his bright smile, lifted his eyebrows, dropped his lids, stood for a moment contemplating the yellow tulip, and so left the room.
Lulu cleared the table. Mrs. Deacon essayed to wind the clock. Well now. Did Herbert say it was twenty-three to-night when it struck the half hour and twenty-one last night, or twenty-one to-night and last night twenty-three? She talked of it as they cleared the table, but Lulu did not talk.
"Can't you remember?" Mrs. Deacon said at last. "I should think you might be useful."
Lulu was lifting the yellow tulip to set it on the sill. She changed her mind. She took the plant to the wood-shed and tumbled it with force upon the chip-pile.
The dining-room table was laid for breakfast. The two women brought their work and sat there. The child Monona hung miserably about, watching the clock. Right or wrong, she was put to bed by it. She had eight minutes more--seven--six--five--
Lulu laid down her sewing and left the room. She went to the wood-shed, groped about in the dark, found the stalk of the one tulip flower in its heap on the chip-pile. The tulip she fastened in her gown on her flat chest.
Outside were to be seen the early stars. It is said that if our sun were as near to Arcturus as we are near to our sun, the great Arcturus would burn our sun to nothingness.
* * * * *
In the Deacons' parlour sat Bobby Larkin, eighteen. He was in pain all over. He was come on an errand which civilisation has contrived to make an ordeal.
Before him on the table stood a photograph of Diana Deacon, also eighteen. He hated her with passion. At school she mocked him, aped him, whispered about him, tortured him. For two years he