Seventeen | Page 9

with pink-ribboned throat
and a cottony head bobbing gently over a filmy sleeve. ``He doesn't
come within a mile of ME, no matter what his name is!''
``Name Clem fer short,'' said Genesis, amiably. ``I trade in a mandoline

fer him what had her neck kind o' busted off on one side. I couldn' play
her nohow, an' I found her, anyways. Yes- suh, I trade in 'at mandoline
fer him 'cause always did like to have me a good dog--but I d'in' have
me no name fer him; an' this here Blooie Bowers, what I trade in the
mandoline to, he say HE d'in have no name fer him. Say nev' did know
if WAS a name fer him 'tall. So I'z spen' the evenin' at 'at lady's house,
Fanny, what used to be cook fer Miz Johnson, nex' do' you' maw's; an' I
ast Fanny what am I go'n' a do about it, an' Fanny say, `Call him
Clematis,' she say. ` 'At's a nice name!' she say. `Clematis.' So 'at's
name I name him, Clematis. Call him Clem fer short, but Clematis his
real name. He'll come, whichever one you call him, Clem or Clematis.
Make no diff'ence to him, long's he git his vittles. Clem or Clematis,
HE ain' carin'!''
William's ear was deaf to this account of the naming of Clematis; he
walked haughtily, but as rapidly as possible, trying to keep a little in
advance of his talkative companion, who had never received the
training as a servitor which should have taught him his proper distance
from the Young Master. William's suffering eyes were fixed upon
remoteness; and his lips moved, now and then, like a martyr's,
pronouncing inaudibly a sacred word. ``Milady! Oh, Milady!''
Thus they had covered some three blocks of their journey--the
too-democratic Genesis chatting companionably and William burning
with mortification--when the former broke into loud laughter.
``What I tell you?'' he cried, pointing ahead. ``Look ayonnuh! NO, suh,
Pres'dent United States hisse'f ain' go tell 'at dog stay home!''
And there, at the corner before them, waited Clematis, roguishly lying
in a mud-puddle in the gutter. He had run through alleys parallel to
their course--and in the face of such demoniac cunning the wretched
William despaired of evading his society. Indeed, there was nothing to
do but to give up, and so the trio proceeded, with William unable to
decide which contaminated him more, Genesis or the loyal Clematis.
To his way of thinking, he was part of a dreadful pageant, and he
winced pitiably whenever the eye of a respectable passer-by fell upon
him. Everybody seemed to stare--nay, to leer! And he felt that the
whole world would know his shame by nightfall.
Nobody, he reflected, seeing him in such company, could believe that
he belonged to ``one of the oldest and best families in town.'' Nobody

would understand that he was not walking with Genesis for the
pleasure of his companionship --until they got the tubs and the wash-
boiler, when his social condition must be thought even more degraded.
And nobody, he was shudderingly positive, could see that Clematis was
not his dog (Clematis kept himself humbly a little in the rear, but how
was any observer to know that he belonged to Genesis and not to
William?
And how frightful that THIS should befall him on such a day, the very
day that his soul had been split asunder by the turquoise shafts of
Milady's eyes and he had learned to know the Real Thing at last!
``Milady! Oh, Milady!''
For in the elder teens adolescence may be completed, but not by
experience, and these years know their own tragedies. It is the time of
life when one finds it unendurable not to seem perfect in all outward
matters: in worldly position, in the equipments of wealth, in family, and
in the grace, elegance, and dignity of all appearances in public. And yet
the youth is continually betrayed by the child still intermittently
insistent within him, and by the child which undiplomatic people too
often assume him to be. Thus with William's attire: he could ill have
borne any suggestion that it was not of the mode, but taking care of it
was a different matter. Also, when it came to his appetite, he could and
would eat anything at any time, but something younger than his years
led him--often in semi-secrecy--to candy-stores and soda-water
fountains and ice- cream parlors; he still relished green apples and
knew cravings for other dangerous inedibles. But these survivals were
far from painful to him; what injured his sensibilities was the
disposition on the part of people especially his parents, and frequently
his aunts and uncles--to regard him as a little boy. Briefly, the
deference his soul demanded in its own right,