As jocund Summer merged into placid Autumn, Gustavius throve mightily and waxed fat. His shoulders broadened, his voice deepened, his sharp-pointed horns acquired a high polish through painstaking friction upon every available object, and became rigidly embedded in his thickening skull. He could summon the red glow to his eyes in moments of anger, and he exulted in the knowledge that his stout heart was bursting with courage. Gustavius was putting bull-calfhood forever behind him, and each day brought him increased yearnings for valorous deeds.
In view of this physical and moral transformation, Gustavius wondered at his tolerance of 158the familiarities still recklessly practiced by his comrades. But how could he stoop so low as to enforce respect from a pig or a goat? The dog was eliminated from the problem, because it was a dog’s natural prerogative to nip at the heels of superiority and avoid punishment by flight. As for the mare, she was uniformly courteous, and the playfulness of the colt disarmed him.
Concerning the two-legged members of the family, Gustavius felt himself the victim of hereditary respect for the sternly authoritative person called Gabe, and there was something so soothing in the manner of the lank, long-limbed man who spent most of his time lounging about the veranda that it was impossible to offer him any sort of challenge. The red-headed girl—ah! Gustavius was not ashamed to confess to himself that the bare sight of her made him glow with docile affection.
“And yet,” said Reginald impudently,—for 159Gustavius’s later reflections had unconsciously resolved themselves into speech, as he stood with his comrades in the afternoon shade of the willows,—“and yet a bit of anything else as red as that girl’s hair sends you into convulsions of rage. Talk about inconsistency—”
“Shut up, pig!” said Clarence. “You’re jealous.”
Suddenly Gustavius began to bellow and paw the earth.
“What disturbs you, my son?” inquired Mrs. Cowslip, between the finish of one cud and the beginning of another.
“It’s that rank outsider again, who is forever butting in with that vile-smelling red wagon,” said Gustavius, lifting his nose toward the lawn. “He angers me beyond words. I’ve laid for him a hundred times, but he hasn’t a drop of sporting blood in his body; he’s forever 160hanging on to the skirts of the red-headed girl.”
Galatea and the Artist, carrying a long, flat box between them, were walking about the lawn midway between the house and the willows. Presently they found a smooth, level space, opened the box, and proceeded to drive into the ground two gaudily painted stakes and some arches of wire.
“It’s very annoying the way that chap’s always about nowadays,” admitted Reginald. “I was just thinking of going up to get my back scratched, but it’s no use now.”
“My time will come one of these days,” said Gustavius. “Just let me catch that chap alone once, that’s all!” And he began industriously sharpening his horns on the stone fence.
It was nothing short of wonderful, the influence unconsciously exerted by the Poet’s sister 161over these four-legged comrades whom she had captivated on the very day of her arrival, as you cannot fail to remember. Now Mrs. Cowslip, Cleopatra, Clarence, Reginald, and William, who ordinarily prided himself on his independence of action, left the grateful shade of the willows, and, with perfunctory nibblings at grass, of which they were already over-full, slowly approached the scene of preparations for that ancient and honorable game called croquet. Soon that influence was too powerful even to be resisted by Gustavius, notwithstanding the hated presence of the Artist, and he moved sulkily after the others.
The Artist was pensive, and occasionally, as his adoring glance rested on Galatea’s graceful figure, he sighed. His attention being thus divided, it was not strange that he should miss the second arch.
“How foolish of you!” she said. “I can 162now save you further exertions by taking your ball around with me.”
Being already past the first side arch and in position for the middle one, with the Artist’s ball an easy victim, she was able to make good her promise. The Artist could not regret his inevitable defeat; it left him free to follow Galatea about and pour into her ears a lover’s woes.
“Sweetheart, why do you continue so cold and distant to me? One would suppose that when a girl is engaged—”
“Arthur, take your foot away from that arch!”
With beautiful precision she made the long “split” stroke, and was safe for the first stake.
“As I was saying, dear, when a girl is engaged—”
“Arthur! you are trying to make me miss the stake! Can’t you play fair?”
163“I’m not playing at all, darling. I can’t play. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. One would expect a little mercy from a girl who wears his engagement—”
“There! you moved your ball just as I was about to strike for it!”
The Artist groaned and replaced the ball. She plumped her own into it dexterously from half-way across the field, and proceeded on the home stretch.
“I don’t know how long I’m going to stand this suspense,” sighed the Artist, “and yet you resist all my pleadings to name the day—”
“Arthur, I am playing croquet. Will you kindly stand one side?”
She played safely up to the last arch.
“If the date was fixed, dear, I think I could bear your lack of—enthusiasm; that is, if the date were reasonably near—”
“Can’t you keep away from the handle of 164my mallet, Arthur? Now I’m staked on your ball, and must risk all on one last stroke.”
“Oh, you’ll make it,” groaned the Artist. “I wish that ball was my head. Any sort of attention would be better than none at all. I’ve lost all hope of getting another kiss—”
“Ha! Whitewashed! whitewashed!” sang the girl, dancing about the stake. “Perhaps there’s some other game you play?”
The Artist sat down on the grass with his head in his hands.
“Does your head ache, Arthur?”
“My heart aches. Darling, have pity on me and name the day when we two—”
“Why, certainly—Wednesday.”
The Artist leaped to his feet.
“Day after to-morrow—how happy you make me!”
“Oh, I haven’t decided on any particular Wednesday.”
165He threw himself back on the grass.
“But I’ve a feeling that it will be some Wednesday, Arthur, dear.”
Then she stooped over quickly and kissed him.
“I wondered whether Arthur would have sufficient diplomacy to let you win, Galatea,” said the Poet, with a perfectly straight face, his approach having been unobserved; “but it seems that I did him an injustice.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Galatea with dignity; “but if you want to make it a three-handed game, I’ll undertake to whitewash you both.”
“Oh, there’s nothing in it for me,” drawled the Poet aggravatingly; “however, I’m obliging by nature; I don’t mind simplifying things for Arthur.”
Galatea, with her nose in the air, sent her ball through the first two arches with a single 166stroke, and with the two thus gained took position, made the third arch, and with a swift safe drive for the middle one, which she missed, found herself well out of the way of hostile balls.
“There,” she said; “I don’t mind giving you the advantage by starting first.”
“Your generosity deserves a better reward,” said the Poet, as he selected a mallet with great care, “but some twenty years’ observation of the game has taught me that the croquet field is where friendship ceases.”
The Poet’s lank, knobby figure was about as symmetrical as that of a daddy-longlegs, but he had the eye of a champion marksman, and no nerves at all. He followed his sister’s tactics, and improved upon them. He took his position at the third arch with such nicety that in striking through it he sent his ball to within a yard of where Galatea’s lay.
167“Any odds?” he asked coolly, as he clicked them together.
Galatea was scornfully silent. The Poet’s “split” for position at the centre arch was defective, and with brutal disregard of the Artist’s feelings he took position directly in line with the two first arches.
“Arthur,” ordered Galatea, “come straight through and use your two strokes to get George’s ball.”
“Oh, well, if you’re going to play partners against me!” And the Poet threw down his mallet.
“There’s no rule against coaching,” snapped Galatea.
But the Artist’s mind was not on croquet. The game resolved itself into a contest between the Poet and his sister as to which should take the greatest liberties with his ball. Thus they were neck and neck at the centre arch on the 168home stretch, with the Artist still at his second arch. Galatea missed, and the Poet found himself in cocksure position for the last two arches and the stake.
By this time all the four-legged members of the firm of Bos, Equus and Co. had drawn near and were watching the progress of the game with lively curiosity. Reginald, with his customary assurance, now advanced with ingratiating grunts out of the side of his mouth, and rubbed his side against the Poet’s leg, who had a sudden inspiration.
“Two to one I can make it with the pig’s legs for arches,” he said.
Galatea experienced renewed hope. The Poet cajoled Reginald into standing between the two arches with his kinked tail resting upon the one nearest the stake. There was a narrow, though clear, space between his legs, in line with the arches.
169
ALL THE FOUR-LEGGED MEMBERS OF THE FIRM HAD DRAWN NEAR
171“Attention, Reginald!” and the Poet struck his ball with just the requisite force to send it through the two arches.
Unfortunately, at that instant Reginald sat down, and the ball, striking his fat stomach, bounced hopelessly out of position. Galatea dropped on the grass and shrieked.
“I’ll give you the game,” said the Poet. “It’s an antiquated pastime, anyhow.”
“Sour grapes,” laughed Galatea.
“Not at all. I’ve thought of an improvement, that’s all,” said the Poet. “Stay where you are, Reginald. William, come here.”
The goat put his nose in the Poet’s hand and followed him to the other end of the field, where he suffered himself to be stationed between the two arches opposite the pig. Over the two arches on one side the Poet stationed Cleopatra and Clarence, and opposite them Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius. The bull-calf wrinkled 172his yellow nose and looked mutinous, while his comrades seemed much gratified. Then the Poet went calmly around the field and pulled up all the arches, except the centre one, and said:—
“There, all we lack is a camel or an elephant for the centre—but nothing is perfect in this world, at the start.”
“George,” said Galatea, wiping her eyes, “for out-and-out idiocy you certainly take the prize.”
“Not at all. That’s what’s said at first about every great discoverer. There hasn’t been a single improvement in this game in seven hundred years. Now for the first time in history you’re going to see croquet played with living arches—Ouch!”
Clarence had made a sudden playful leap from his position and nipped the Poet’s lean thigh. He was led back and admonished so 173severely that he meekly refrained from making any further demonstrations.
With perfect gravity the Poet led Galatea and the Artist in a game of croquet calculated to make history. If Mrs. Cowslip had not kicked the Poet’s ball clear off the field when it bounced smartly against her tenderest pastern, and if Gustavius had not destroyed the Artist’s nerve by bellowing hoarsely in his ear at a critical moment, it would have been a bewildering success.
“Anyway,” said the Poet, when Galatea had won through rank favoritism on the part of Reginald, who refrained from sitting down in her critical moment, “anyway, we’ve given one more demonstration that all are ............