Hint to those who read with an eye on the clock: skip this chapter! It is made up from notes furnished by Mrs. John Newman King, Judge Walters, Captain Joshua Wilson, the veteran recorder, former-Sheriff Whittlesey and others, and is included merely to satisfy those citizens of Montgomery who think this entire history should be devoted to Phil, to the exclusion of her friends and relations. The historian hopes he is an open-minded person, and he would rather please Montgomery than any other center of thought and industry he knows; but the laws of proportion (as Phil would be the first to point out) may not lightly be ignored. Phil's otherwiseness was always difficult to keep in bounds; it must not tyrannize these pages. Skip and carry thirteen, but don't complain if pilgrims from Montgomery take you to task for denying Phil five minutes of your time.
Phil was on her way to Buckeye Lane the first cold day in November to call on the daughter of a newly enrolled member of the Madison faculty when she saw her Uncle Amzi on the bank steps taking the air. She had on her best walking-suit, and swung a silver cardcase in her hand. The cardcase marked an advance. Formal calls were not to Phil's taste, but her aunts had lately been endeavoring to persuade her that it was no longer seemly for her to "drop in" when and where she pleased, but that there were certain calls of duty and ceremony which required her best togs and the leaving of circumspect bits of cardboard inscribed "Miss Kirkwood." When Phil set forth to call upon a girl friend it was still something of a question whether caller and callee would sit in the parlor and be ladies or seek the open to crack walnuts on the kitchen steps or slide down the cellar door.
As Phil spied her uncle she stopped abruptly, feigned to be looking at the sign over his head, and when his glasses presently focused upon her, pretended suddenly to be intent upon the face of the court-house clock two blocks distant.
"Beg pardon, sir, but is this a bank?"
Thus accosted Mr. Montgomery looked upon his niece with exaggerated surprise.
"A bank, little girl? What on earth do you want with a bank?"
"I thought I might separate it from some of its cash; or if the terms are satisfactory I might leave some money. If the venerable old party I address holds a job inside we might withdraw from the public gaze and commune within the portals. The day is raw and that ice-cream suit invites pneumonia."
Passers-by viewed the pair with an amused smile. Captain Wilson, stumping along at the moment, asked without pausing:—
"Stranger in town, Amzi?"
"Yes, Cap; she's just bought the town and wants the key to the bank vault."
Phil followed her uncle into the bank and waited for him to walk round behind the cages. The dingy old room with its walnut counter and desks seemed at once a brighter place. The four clerks made it convenient to expose themselves to Phil's smile. She planted herself at the paying teller's cage and waited for Amzi's benevolent countenance to appear at the wicket. She held up her cardcase that he might have the full benefit of her splendor, extracted a small bit of paper, and passed it in to him. Seeing that it was not one of the familiar checks of the Montgomery Bank, he scrutinized it closely. It was a check of the "Journey's End" Magazine Company for fifty dollars, drawn upon a New York bank and payable to Phyllis Kirkwood.
Amzi's face expressed no surprise. He threw it back and waved her away.
"It's no good. Worthless!"
"No good, Miss Kirkwood—without your indorsement."
"Why didn't you say so! I don't want to come as near sudden death as that again."
He thrust out a pen so that she need not turn to the tall desk behind her to make the indorsement. He examined the signature carefully and blotted it.
"One of your own efforts, Phil?" he asked carelessly.
"Well, yes, you might say so. I suppose you'd call it that."
"Poetry?"
"A poor guess, Amy, and marks you as an ignorant person. Fifty dollars for a poem out of my green little cantaloupe? That's half what Milton got for 'Paradise Lost.' And the prices haven't gone up much since John died."
She knew that his curiosity was aroused. This play of indifference was an old game of theirs, a part of the teasing to which she subjected him and which he encouraged.
"Story?"
"Absurd! Everybody in this town is writing a novel. Every time I go into the post-office I see scared-looking people getting their manuscripts weighed, and nervously looking round for fear of being caught. Nan says it's a kind of literary measles people have in Indiana. Aunt Josephine's cook writes poetry—burnt up a pan of biscuits the other day when she was trying to find a rhyme for 'Isaiah.'"
"I wondered what caused me so much pain the last time I ate supper at Josie's. I must have swallowed a sonnet. What's your line, Phil?"
"Zoölogy."
"Possible?"
"It was this way, Amy. You know that piece I read at the high-school commencement—'The Dogs of Main Street'?"
"I do, Phil, I do; I nearly laughed myself to death."
"Well, it did seem to tickle the folks. I was about to kindle the fire with it one day when I happened to think that if it would make a high-school commencement laugh it ought to raise a laugh out of 'most anybody. So I touched it up and put in a few new dogs I've got the boys in Landers's livery-stable taking care of, and sent it to three magazines. The first two regretted, but the third fell for it. They want pictures of the dogs, though, and will give me twenty more round iron dollars for a full set, so if you see me on the hike with the camera in the morning, don't ring up the town marshal."
"Well, well," said Amzi; "it sounds like easy money. Going to keep it up?"
"I have said nothing," replied Phil, holding up her cardcase and swinging it by its short chain. "Just credit me with the fifty and I'll bring in my book the next time I find it."
In front of the theater she ran into her Uncle Lawrence, gloomily posed before the entrance with his astrakhan collar drawn up about his ears. He had once seen Richard Mansfield in just such a coat and had been moved to imitation.
"Divinity!" breathed Hastings tragically, noting Phil's glowing cheeks and satisfying raiment.
"Forget it!" said Phil. "How about a box for the Saturday matinee? I think I'll pull off a party for a bunch of girls at your expense. What is that on the boards? You don't mean that 'Her Long Road Home' threatens this town again? Why rub it in, Lawrince?"
"They've canceled," said Hastings with a sigh. "That booking-office is a den of thieves. No honor, no feeling, no ideals of art!"
His tones were unusually abysmal. He stood with his back to the door of his theater as though shielding it from Philistine assaults upon the drama's divine temple.
"By the way, Lawrince—" Her Aunt Kate had rebuked her at least a thousand times for calling him "Lawrince." He had asked her to call him "Uncle Larry," which was her main reason for not doing so. Her standard of uncles was high. She had never admitted her aunts' husbands to a share in a relationship that was ennobled by Amzi Montgomery. Fosdick was usually "Paul" to Phil; Waterman she always called "Judge," which he hated. "Lawrince, what became of that play you wrote yourself and put on in Chicago? Why don't you bring it here and give the town a treat?"
Hastings bent upon her the grieved look of a man who suffers mutely the most unkindest cut of all. Et tu, Brute! was in his reproachful glance.
"I didn't think this of you, Phil. Of course you knew the piece closed Saturday night at Peoria."
She had not known. Her aunt had spoken largely of the venture. The theatrical powers of New York having frowned upon Hastings's play, he had produced it himself, sending it forth from Chicago to enlighten the West before carrying it to Broadway, there to put to rout and confusion the lords of the drama who had rejected it. Five thousand dollars had been spent and the play had failed dismally. Nor was this the first of Hastings's misadventures of the same sort. Phil analyzed her uncle's gloom and decided that it was sincere, and she was sorry for him as was her way in the presence of affliction. Hastings was an absurd person, intent upon shining in a sphere to which the gods had summoned him only in mockery. Phil lingered to mitigate his grief as far as possible.
"I'm sorry; but I suppose if a play won't go, it won't."
"A play of merit won't! My aim was to advance the ideal of American drama; that was all. The same money put into musical comedy would have nailed S. R. O. on the door all winter."
"Lawrince," said Phil, glancing up at the façade of The Hastings, "I'll tell you how you can make a barrel of money out of this brick building."
He looked at her guardedly. Phil was a digger of pits, as he knew by experience, and he was in no humor for trifling. His own balance at the bank was negligible, and his wife had warned him that no more money would be forthcoming for the encouragement of the American drama.
"Lawrince, what you ought to do is to hire that blind piano-pounder who thumps for the fraternity dances, put a neat red-haired girl in a box on the sidewalk, get one of the football team who's working his way through college to turn the crank, and put on a fil-lum."
This was, indeed, rubbing salt in his wounds. He flinched at the thought.
"Turn my house over to the 'movies'! Phil, I didn't think this of you. After all I've tried to do to lift this dingy village to a realizing sense of what drama is—what it should mean—"
"Trim it, Hector. You can break all the banks in town uplifting the drama and never put it over. About once a winter you have a good piece; the rest of the time the folks who want to see real actors go to Indianapolis or sneak up to Chicago for a week and beat you to it. That fil-lum show down by the court-house is rotten. Coarse and stupid. Why not spend a few dollars changing the front of this joint and put on good pictures? The people who keep the pictures moving in Indianapolis sit around the fire Sunday evenings and burn money—it comes in so fast the banks haven't room for it. Call this 'The Home Fireside'—no nickelodeon business—and get the Center Church quartette to sing. It will sound just like prayer-meeting to people who think a real theater a sinful place. If you don't tackle it, I'll throw Bernstein out and take it up myself. There's a new man in town right now trying to locate a screen; beat him to the wire, Lawrince."
"By Jove, Phil—!"
She started off briskly and a little farther on met Jack Whittlesey the sheriff, who grinned and touched his coonskin cap.
"Got an engagement, Phil? Hope not. Uncle Alec is goin' to holler in a few minutes."
"I'm out calling, Sheriff, but if you're sure the judge is going to act up, I'll take a look in."
She crossed the street to the court-house. To Phil nothing was funnier than Alec Waterman in the throes of oratory. Waterman was big and burly, with a thunderous voice; and when he addressed a jury he roared and shook his iron-gray mane in a manner truly terrifying. In warm weather when the windows were open, he could be plainly heard in any part of the court-house square. When Phil reached the circuit court-room Judge Walters, with his feet on the judicial desk, was gazing at the ceiling, as was his habit when trials grew tedious. As Phil entered, he jerked down his feet, sat erect, snapped his fingers at the bailiff, and directed the placing of a chair within the space set apart for the bar. Phil smiled her thanks, and made herself comfortable with her back to the clerk's desk. The case in progress was a suit for personal injuries against the Sycamore Traction Company, brought by Waterman for a farmer, who, on the preceding Fourth of July, had been tossed a considerable distance toward Chicago by a violent contact with one of the defendant's cars. The motorman and the conductor had both testified that the car was running empty and that the proper signals had been given at the required crossings.
The judge left the bench and lounged about the clerk's desk, hoping to catch Phil's eye and draw her aside for one of the parleys in which he delighted; but Phil had immediately become absorbed in the testimony. Waterman's voice rose louder and louder as he sought to befuddle the motorman as to the time of the accident, the place where the collision occurred and the signaling, but without avail. The attorney for the company looked on with an amused smile of unconcern. Both the motorman and the conductor had been carefully rehearsed in their testimony and there was little likelihood that plaintiff's counsel would be able to trap them. Waterman was going back and forth over the time of day, attempting to show that the car was behind its schedule, and exceeding the speed limit, but the man clung to his story stubbornly. It was at exactly five minutes past three; he was running slowly, and had whistled at all the earlier stops; and when he saw the plaintiff driving upon the right of way ahead of him he put on the brakes as quickly as possible.
Phil moved to a chair just behind Waterman. He was so deeply engrossed that he did not notice her. He was making no headway, and was about to drop the witness when Phil bent over and whispered. Without turning round he rose and renewed the attack.
"I will ask you, sir, to state to this jury whether it is not a fact that the brake of your car was out of order and whether it had not given you trouble before you struck the plaintiff?"
The witness stammered and glanced at counsel for the defendant, who rose and objected to the question as not proper cross-examination. The judge returned to the bench with renewed interest and overruled the objection. The witness admitted that there had been some slight trouble with the brake, and Waterman roared another question that drowned the explanation.
"Isn't it a fact that you ran past Stop 7 just south of the scene of this collision, and did not stop your car because it was out of control by reason of a crippled brake?"
The witness was plainly disturbed, and the defendant's counsel was unable to protect him. He admitted that the brake might not have been in perfect order, but it was an old car—
"It was an old car," boomed Waterman, "and the brake was worn out and you couldn't have stopped at that crossing even if you had wanted to! Isn't that the fact?"
The motorman telegraphed appealingly to the company's lawyer. The judge ordered him to answer the question.
"There were no passengers on the car," the man, now thoroughly confused, murmured inconsequently.
Waterman bent his head and took another cue from Phil, then strode majestically toward the witness.
"There were no passengers on your car? Why not?" he thundered.
"Why not what?" faltered the witness.
"I ask you, sir, if it isn't true that there was a passenger waiting at Stop 7 and that you ran by that crossing because your brake wouldn't work?"
The witness looked at Phil and involved himself in difficulty by admitting that the car's speed was such that he was unable to see clearly whether any passenger was waiting at Stop 7. After sparring between counsel, Phil was placed upon the stand and sworn to tell the whole truth. Main Street had heard that something unusual was happening in the circuit court and the room filled.
Her name, she testified, was Phil Kirkwood. (She always signed herself Phil at school, distrusting Phyllis as high-falutin'.)
"Otherwise Phyllis," interposed the judge soberly. "It is essential that the record identify all witnesses beyond per-adventure."
The audience tittered. Phil began her story. She had been spending the Fourth of July at her Uncle Amzi's farm, but wanted to return home before her uncle was ready, to attend a party. There was no question of the time, as she had walked across the fields to that particular stop to meet the car on its scheduled hour. She had stood upon the track and waved the flag placed in the shed at the stop for that purpose, but to her disgust the car had rushed by at full speed. She had heard the hissing of the air as the car whirled by, and there being no other car for an hour she had been obliged to return to the farm and wait for her uncle to drive her in.
Counsel for defendant, a stranger to the ways of Montgomery, who had come from Indianapolis to try the case, asked Phil ironically if she were an expert in the management of a trolley car.
"Oh, I shouldn't say that," said Phil; "but I used to ride with motormen sometimes, back and forth to the farm, and they let me stop and start the car."
She explained that she knew from the sound as the air went on that the brake was out of order. The twelve good men and true in the jury box bent forward attentively as she met the lawyer's questions. He was a young man and Phil was undeniably pretty. In her calling clothes she did not look like a girl who would chum with motormen. His manner was elaborately deferential.
"Miss Kirkwood, may I trouble you to tell the jury whether you ever rode in the car of this particular motorman?" he asked.
"No, sir," replied Phil.
"You never saw him before, and after all you're not sure he's the man who was in charge of that car that day, are you?"
Phil dangled the cardcase from her white-gloved fingers carelessly.
"Perfectly confident of it," she answered.
"If you are sure of it, will you kindly tell the jury just how it is you remember him—how you identify him as the motorman on this car on that particular afternoon?"
"Oh! Do you really want me to tell that?" asked Phil.
"Answer the question!" the attorney returned sharply, misreading her apparent reluctance.
"Why," began Phil, speaking rapidly and distinctly and turning toward the jurors,—"why, it's because I had noticed him all that summer passing our house and he always ran faster than the other motormen,—you could tell his car at night if you didn't see it because it ran so fast,—and he's the same man who ran into Bernstein's delivery wagon—the one with the lame horse—at the corner of Monon Street about a week before the Fourth of July. I saw that, too!"
"If Your Honor please," said Waterman, rising as the court ruled that Phil's last answer, which the defendant's counsel had sought vainly to interrupt, should be stricken out, "the plaintiff rests. We will waive argument in this case," he added impressively, putting from him, with unprecedented self-denial, the chance of pillorying the unfeeling defendant corporation.
Judge Walters looked down at Phil solemnly.
"The court is unable to determine whether the witness is also associate counsel for plaintiff, but in any event, I suggest that she claim the usual witness fee at the clerk's office."
Phil left the court-room and resumed her walk toward Buckeye Lane.
Paul Fosdick, just coming down from his office, arrested her. Fosdick, whose blithe spirit was never greatly disturbed by the failure of his enterprises, greeted Phil gayly. He entertained a high opinion of Phil. At family gatherings, which his wife and sisters-in-law made odious by petty bickerings, Phil was always a refuge. It was nothing to Phil which of her aunts wore the best hat, or that Mrs. Hastings had been abroad and to New York while the others had been denied these recreations and delights. If his wife's faith in him had been shaken by his inability to grasp the fortune which always seemed just within reach; and if, on Christmas and New Year's and Thanksgiving Day, when they met at Amzi's, he was a bit uncomfortable, knowing that his wife's share of the Montgomery money had gone into many ventures without ever coming out again, Phil could be depended upon to infuse cheer into those somber occasions. He frequently discussed his schemes with Phil, who was usually sympathetic; and now and then she made a suggestion that was really worth considering. Where other members of the family criticized him harshly behind his back, Phil delivered her criticisms face to face.
"Lo, Phil!"
"Lo, Paul!"
"Phil, what's new about Sycamore Traction? They say your pa's going to have a receiver appointed."
"If he does they will print it in the papers. How do you like my hat?"
"It's a dream, but I hope you're not going to make trouble for your dear aunts' husbands by going in for clothes. The competition in the family is hot enough now without you butting in. Hastings is in mourning at the bank and Waterman is sad over his last political licking and my billions are coming by slow freight."
"By the way, Paul, I fell over that busted brickyard of yours out by the flour mill the other day when I was walking for my health. There ought to be money in bricks," she ended meditatively.
"There ought, Phil, but there ain't. I'm still hoping to pull that scheme out, but it takes time. You know this town doesn't know how to back up its enterprises."
"Cease knocking! What you want to do is to stop trying to organize an undertakers' trust in this town where everybody lives to a green old age and get busy with brick. The last time I was in Indianapolis I saw a lot of new houses built out of brick that looked just about like those pink-and-yellow effects you started in on. They came from over in Illinois somewhere, and I guess the clay's off the very same stratum. What you ought to do is to nail close to some of the city architects and hypnotize them into using your goods."
"We tried all that, Phil; but they wouldn't listen."
"Let me see; what name did you give those bricks?"
"We called 'em the 'Gold Finish.' Nothing the matter with that, is there?"
"'Most everything's the matter with that name. Anything that suggests a gold brick is bound to scare sensible people. Think of living in a house that people would laugh at and call the 'gold-brick' house! You've got to get a lot better, Paul. Try once more and call 'em the 'Daffodil' or the 'Crocus'—something that sounds springlike and cheerful. And play up local pride—a Hoosier product for Hoosier people. Then when you've done that, fly to Chicago and give away enough to build a house in one of the new suburbs and daffodils will spring up all over the prairie. Am I lucid?"
"There may be something in giving an old dog a new name. I've a good notion to give it a try, and if—"
"Oh, there's no charge! You might send me up a couple of those brick; I can use 'em for nut-crackers."
Judge Walters once said of Phil that if she would keep a diary and write down honestly everything that happened to her if would some day put Pepys to the blush. Not every day was as rich in adventure as this; but this is not a bad sample. If Phil had been a prig or fresh or impertinent, she would not have been the idol of Main Street. A genius for being on the spot when events are forward must be born in one, and her casual, indifferent air contributed to a belief in Main Street that she was leagued with supernatural agencies. If there was a fire, Phil arrived ahead of the department; and if a prisoner broke out of jail, Phil knew it before the "Evening Star" could print the fact.
"Some one told me," Captain Wilson would begin, addressing Judge Walters; and the judge would answer, "Otherwise Phyllis." And the judge would say, "I'm going to quit taking the 'Star' and subscribe for Phil."
Phil had, on the whole, a pretty good time.