Tish Plays the Game Read online

  “Four-seven,” he said despondently. “Just on time, like a train! You can’t beat it.”

  “What is on time?” Tish asked.

  “It’s a personal matter,” he observed, and lapsed into a gloomy silence.

  Aggie went to the window, and I followed. The pretty girl had sent her ball neatly onto the green and, trotting over after it, proceeded briskly to give it a knock and drop it into the cup. He looked up at us with hopeless eyes.

  “Holed in one, I suppose?” he inquired.

  “She only knocked it once and it went in,” Aggie said.

  “It would.” His voice was very bitter. “She’s the champion of this part of the country. She’s got fourteen silver cups, two salad bowls, a card tray and a soup tureen, all trophies. She’s never been known to slice, pull or foozle. When she gets her eye on the ball it’s there for keeps. Outside of that, she’s a nice girl.”

  “Why don’t you learn the game yourself?” Tish demanded.

  “Because I can’t. I’ve tried. You must have heard me trying. I can’t even caddie for her. I look at her and lose the ball, and it has got to a stage now where the mere sight of me on the links costs her a stroke a hole. I’ll be frank with you,” he added after a slight pause. “I’m in love with her. Outside of golf hours she likes me too. But the damned game—sorry, I apologize—the miserable game is separating us. If she’d break her arm or something,” he finished savagely, “I’d have a chance.”

  There was a thoughtful gleam in Tish’s eye when he fell into gloomy silence.

  “Isn’t there any remedy?” she asked.

  “Not while she’s champion. A good beating would help, but who’s to beat her?”

  “You can’t?”

  “Listen,” he said. “In the last few months, here and at home, I’ve had ninety golf lessons, have driven three thousand six hundred balls, of which I lost four hundred and ninety-six, have broken three drivers, one niblick and one putter. I ask you,” he concluded drearily, “did you ever hear before of anyone breaking a putter?”

  The thoughtful look was still in Tish’s eye when he left, but she said nothing. A day or two after, we watched him with Mr. McNab, and although he was standing with his back to the house when he drove, we heard a crash overhead and the sheet-iron affair which makes the stove draw was knocked from the chimney and fell to the ground.

  He saw us and waved a hand at the wreckage.

  “Sorry,” he called. “I keep a roofer now for these small emergencies and I’ll send him over.” Then he looked at Mr. McNab, who had sat down on a bunker and had buried his face in his hands.

  “Come now, McNab,” he said. “Cheer up; I’ve thought of a way. If I’m going to drive behind me, all I have to do is to play the game backwards.”

  Mr. McNab said nothing. He got up, gave him a furious glance, and then with his hands behind him and his head bent went back toward the clubhouse. Mr. Anderson watched him go, teed another ball and made a terrific lunge at it. It rose, curved and went into the lake.

  “Last ball!” he called to us cheerfully. “Got one to lend me?”

  I sincerely hope I am not doing Tish an injustice, but she certainly said we had not. Yet Mrs. Ostermaier’s ball—But she may have lost it. I do not know.

  It was Aggie who introduced us to Nettie Lynn, the girl in the case. Aggie is possibly quicker than the rest of us to understand the feminine side of a love affair, for Aggie was at one time engaged to a Mr. Wiggins, a gentleman who had pursued his calling as master roofer on and finally off a roof. [More than once that summer Tish had observed how useful he would have been to us at that time, as we were constantly having broken slates, and as the water spout was completely stopped with balls.] And Aggie maintained that Nettie Lynn really cared for Mr. Anderson.

  “If Mr. Wiggins were living,” she said gently, “and if I played golf, if he appeared unexpectedly while I was knocking the ball or whatever it is they do to it, if I really cared—and you know, Tish, I did—I am sure I should play very badly.”

  “You don’t need all those ifs to reach that conclusion,” Tish said coldly.

  A day or two later Aggie stopped Miss Lynn and offered her some orangeade, and she turned out to be very pleasant and friendly. But when Tish had got the conversation switched to Mr. Anderson she was cool and somewhat scornful.

  “Bobby?” she said, lifting her eyebrows. “Isn’t he screamingly funny on the links!”

  “He’s a very fine young man,” Tish observed, eying her steadily.

  “He has no temperament.”

  “He has a good disposition. That’s something.”

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted carelessly. “He’s as gentle as a lamb.”

  Tish talked it over after she had gone. She said that the girl was all right, but that conceit over her game had ruined her, and that the only cure was for Bobby to learn and then beat her to death in a tournament or something, but that Bobby evidently couldn’t learn, and so that was that. She then fell into one of those deep silences during which her splendid mind covers enormous ranges of thought, and ended by saying something to the effect that if one could use a broom one should be able to do something else.

  We closed up the cottage soon after and returned to town.

  Now and then we saw Nettie Lynn on the street, and once Tish asked us to dinner and we found Bobby Anderson there. He said he had discovered a place in a department store to practice during the winter, with a net to catch the balls, but that owing to his unfortunate tendencies he had driven a ball into the well of the store, where it had descended four stories and hit a manager on the back. He was bent over bowing to a customer or it would have struck his head and killed him.

  “She was there,” he said despondently. “She used to think I was only a plain fool. Now she says I’m dangerous, and that I ought to take out a license for carrying weapons before I pick up a club.”

  “I don’t know why you want to marry her,” Tish said in a sharp voice.

  “I don’t either,” he agreed. “But I do. That’s the hell—I beg your pardon—that’s the deuce of it.”

  It was following this meeting that the mysterious events occurred with which I commenced this narrative. And though there may be no connection it was only a day or two later that I read aloud to Aggie an item in a newspaper stating that an elderly woman who refused to give her name had sent a golf ball through the practice net in a downtown store and that the ball had broken and sent off a fire alarm, with the result that the sprinkling system, which was a new type and not dependent on heat, had been turned on in three departments. I do know, however, that Tish’s new velvet hat was never seen from that time on, and that on our shopping excursions she never entered that particular store.

  In coming now to the events which led up to the reason for Nettie Lynn cutting us, and to Charlie Sands’ commentary that his wonderful aunt, Letitia Carberry, should remember the commandment which says that honesty is the best policy—I am sure he was joking, for that is not one of the great Commandments—I feel that a certain explanation is due. This explanation is not an apology for dear Tish, but a statement of her point of view.

  Letitia Carberry has a certain magnificence of comprehension. If in this magnificence she loses sight of small things, if she occasionally uses perhaps unworthy methods to a worthy end, it is because to her they are not important. It is only the end that counts.

  She has, too, a certain secrecy. But that is because of a nobility which says in effect that by planning alone she assumes sole responsibility. I think also that she has little confidence in Aggie and myself, finding us but weak vessels into which she pours in due time the overflow from her own exuberant vitality and intelligence.

  With this in mind I shall now relate the small events of the winter. They were merely straws, showing the direction of the wind of Tish’s mind. And I dare say we were not observant. For instance, we reached Tish’s apartment one afternoon to find the janitor there in a very ugly frame of mind. �
�You threw something out of this window, Miss Carberry,” he said, “and don’t be after denying it.”

  “What did I throw out of the window?” Tish demanded loftily. “Produce it.”

  “If it wasn’t that it bounced and went over the fence,” he said, “I’d be saying it was a flat-iron. That parrot just squawked once and turned over.”

  “Good riddance, too,” Tish observed. “The other tenants ought to send me a vote of thanks.”

  “Six milk bottles on Number Three’s fire escape,” the janitor went on, counting on his fingers; “the wash line broke for Number One and all the clothes dirty, and old Mr. Ferguson leaning out to spit and almost killed—it’s no vote of thanks you’ll be getting.”

  When she had got rid of him Tish was her usual cool and dignified self. She offered no explanation and we asked for none. And for a month or so nothing happened. Tish distributed her usual list of improving books at the Sunday-school Christmas treat, and we packed our customary baskets for the poor. On Christmas Eve we sang our usual carols before the homes of our friends, and except for one mischance, owing to not knowing that the Pages had rented their house, all was symbolic of the peace and good will of the festive period. At the Pages’, however, a very unpleasant person asked us for — sake to go away and let him sleep.

  But shortly after the holidays Tish made a proposition to us, and stated that it was a portion of a plan to bring about the happiness of two young and unhappy people.

  “In developing this plan,” she said, “it is essential that we all be in the best of physical condition; what I believe is known technically as in the pink. You two, for instance, must be able to walk for considerable distances, carrying a weight of some size.”

  “What do you mean by ‘in the pink’?” Aggie asked suspiciously.

  “What you are not,” Tish said with a certain scorn. “How many muscles have you got?”

  “All I need,” said Aggie rather acidly.

  “And of all you have, can you use one muscle, outside of the ordinary ones that carry you about?”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “Have you ever stood up, naked to the air, and felt shame at your flaccid muscles and your puny strength?”

  “Really, Tish!” I protested. “I’ll walk if you insist. But I don’t have to take off my clothes and feel shame at my flabbiness to do it.”

  She softened at that, and it ended by our agreeing to fall in with her mysterious plan by going to a physical trainer. I confess to a certain tremor when we went for our first induction into the profundities of bodily development. There was a sign outside, with a large picture of a gentleman with enormous shoulders and a pigeon breast, and beneath it were the words: “I will make you a better man.” But Tish was confident and calm.

  The first day, however, was indeed trying. We found, for instance, that we were expected to take off all our clothing and to put on one-piece jersey garments, without skirts or sleeves, and reaching only to the knees. As if this were not enough, the woman attendant said when we were ready “In you go, dearies,” and shoved us into a large bare room where a man was standing with his chest thrown out, and wearing only a pair of trousers and a shirt which had shrunk to almost nothing. Aggie clutched me by the arm.

  “I’ve got to have stockings, Lizzie!” she whispered. “I don’t feel decent.”

  But the woman had closed the door, and Tish was explaining that we wished full and general muscular development.

  “The human body,” she said, “instantly responds to care and guidance, and what we wish is simply to acquire perfect coordination. ‘The easy slip of muscles underneath the polished skin,’ as some poet has put it.”

  “Yeah,” said the man. “All right. Lie down in a row on the mat, and when I count, raise the right leg in the air and drop it. Keep on doing it. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  “Lizzie!” Aggie threw at me in an agony. “Lizzie, I simply can’t!”

  “Quick,” said the trainer. “I’ve got four pounds to take off a welterweight this afternoon. Right leg, ladies. Up, down; one, two—”

  Never since the time in Canada when Aggie and I were taking a bath in the lake, and a fisherman came and fished from a boat for two hours while we sat in the icy water to our necks, have I suffered such misery.

  “Other leg,” said the trainer. And later: “Right leg up, cross, up, down. Left leg up, cross, up, down.” Aside from the lack of dignity of the performance came very soon the excruciating ache of our weary flesh. Limb by limb and muscle by muscle he made us work, and when we were completely exhausted on the mat he stood us up on our feet in a row and looked us over.

  “You’ve got a long way to go, ladies,” he said sternly. “It’s a gosh-awful shame the way you women neglect your bodies. Hold in the abdomen and throw out the chest. Balance easily on the ball of the foot. Now touch the floor with the finger tips, as I do.”

  “Young man,” I protested, “I haven’t been able to do that since I was sixteen.”

  “Well, you’ve had a long rest,” he said coldly. “Put your feet apart. That’ll help.”

  When the lesson was over we staggered out, and Aggie leaned against a wall and moaned. “It’s too much, Tish,” she said feebly. “I’m all right with my clothes on, and anyhow, I’m satisfied as I am. I’m the one to please, not that wretch in there.”

  Tish, however, had got her breath and said that she felt like a new woman, and that blood had got to parts of her it had never reached before. But Aggie went sound asleep in the cabinet bath and had to be assisted to the cold shower. I mention this tendency of hers to sleep, as it caused us some trouble later on.

  In the meantime Tish was keeping in touch with the two young people. She asked Nettie Lynn to dinner one night, and seemed greatly interested in her golf methods. One thing that seemed particularly to interest her was Miss Lynn’s device for keeping her head down and her eye on the ball.

  “After I have driven,” she said, “I make it a rule to count five before looking up.”

  “How do you see where the ball has gone?” Tish asked.

  “That is the caddie’s business.”

  “I see,” Tish observed thoughtfully, and proceeded for some moments to make pills of her bread and knock them with her fork, holding her head down as she did so.

  Another thing which she found absorbing was Miss Lynn’s statement that a sound or movement while she drove was fatal, and that even a shadow thrown on the ball while putting decreased her accuracy.

  By the end of February we had become accustomed to the exercises and now went through them with a certain sprightliness, turning back somersaults with ease, and I myself now being able to place my flat hand on the floor while standing. Owing to the cabinet baths I had lost considerable flesh and my skin seemed a trifle large for me in places, while Aggie looked, as dear Tish said, like a picked spare rib.

  At the end of February, however, our training came to an abrupt end, owing to a certain absent-mindedness on Tish’s part. Tish and Aggie had gone to the gymnasium without me, and at ten o’clock that night I telephoned Tish to ask if Aggie was spending the night with her. To my surprise Tish said nothing for a moment, and then asked me in a strained voice to put on my things at once and meet her at the door to the gymnasium building.

  Quick as I was, she was there before me, hammering at the door of the building, which appeared dark and deserted. It appeared that the woman had gone home early with a cold, and that Tish had agreed to unfasten the bath cabinet and let Aggie out at a certain time, but that she had remembered leaving the electric iron turned on at home and had hurried away, leaving Aggie asleep and helpless in the cabinet.

  The thought of our dear Aggie, perspiring her life away, made us desperate, and on finding no response from within the building Tish led the way to an alleyway at the side and was able to reach the fire escape. With mixed emotions I watched her valiant figure disappear, and then returned to the main entrance, through which I expected her to reappea
r with our unhappy friend.

  But we were again unfortunate. A few moments later the door indeed was opened, but to give exit to Tish in the grasp of a very rude and violent watchman, who immediately blew loudly on a whistle. I saw at once that Tish meant to give no explanation which would involve taking a strange man into the cabinet room, where our hapless Aggie was completely disrobed and helpless; and to add to our difficulties three policemen came running and immediately placed us under arrest.

  Fortunately the station house was near, and we were saved the ignominy of a police wagon. Tish at once asked permission to telephone Charlie Sands, and as he is the night editor of a newspaper he was able to come at once. But Tish was of course reticent as to her errand before so many men, and he grew slightly impatient.

  “All right,” he said. “I know you were in the building. I know how you got in. But why? I don’t think you were after lead pipe or boxing gloves, but these men do.”

  “I left something there, Charlie.”

  “Go a little further. What did you leave there?”

  “I can’t tell you. But I’ve got to go back there at once. Every moment now—”

  “Get this,” said Charlie Sands sternly: “Either you come over with the story or you’ll be locked up. And I’m bound to say I think you ought to be.”

  In the end Tish told the unhappy facts, and two reporters, the sergeant and the policemen were all deeply moved. Several got out their handkerchiefs, and the sergeant turned quite red in the face. One and all they insisted on helping to release our poor Aggie, and most of them escorted us back to the building, only remaining in the corridor at our request while we entered the cabinet room.

  Although we had expected to find Aggie in a parboiled condition the first thing which greeted us was a violent sneeze.

  “Aggie!” I called desperately.

  She sneezed again, and then said in a faint voice, “Hurry up. I’b dearly frozed.”