Play the Game! Read online

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  PLAY THE GAME!

  BY

  RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL

  Publisher's logo]

  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  NEW YORK :: LONDON :: 1924

  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  Copyright, 1920, by The Crowell Publishing Company

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  * * * * *

  TO MY BROTHERS

  * * * * *

  Books by

  RUTH COMFORT MITCHELL

  * * * * *

  CORDUROY

  NARRATIVES IN VERSE

  JANE JOURNEYS ON

  PLAY THE GAME

  * * * * *

  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  New York London

  * * * * *

  PLAY THE GAME!

  CHAPTER I

  There was no denying the fact that Honor Carmody liked the boys. No oneever attempted to deny it, least of all Honor herself.

  When she finished grammar school her mother and her gay young stepfathertold her they had decided to send her to Marlborough rather than to theLos Angeles High School.

  The child looked utterly aghast. "Oh," she said, "I wouldn't like thatat all. I don't believe I _could_. I couldn't _bear_ it!"

  "My dear," her mother chided, "don't be silly! It's a quite wonderfulschool, known all over the country. Girls are sent there from Chicagoand New York, and even Boston. You'll be with the best girls, the verynicest----"

  "That's just it," Honor interrupted, forlornly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "_Girls._ Just girls. Oodles and oodles of nothing but girls. Honestly,Muzzie, I don't think I could _stand_ it." She was a large, substantialyoung creature with a broad brow and hearty coloring and candid eyes.Her stepfather was sure she would never have her mother's beauty, but hewas almost equally sure that she would never need it. He studied herclosely and her actions and reactions intrigued him. He laughed, now,and his wife turned mildly shocked eyes on him.

  "Stephen, dear! Don't encourage her in being queer. I don't like her tobe queer." Mrs. Lorimer was not in the least queer herself, unless,indeed, it was queer to be startlingly lovely and girlish and appealingat forty-one, with a second husband and six children. She was not anespecially motherly person except in moments of reproof and then shealways spoke in a remote third person. "Honor, Mother wants you to bemore with girls." Then, as if to make it clear that she was not merelyadvancing a personal whim,--"You need to be more with girls."

  "Why?"

  "Why--why because Mother says you do." Mrs. Lorimer did not like toargue. She always got out of breath and warm-looking.

  Her daughter dropped on the floor at her feet. Mrs. Lorimer had small,happy-looking, lily-of-the-field hands and Honor took one of thembetween her hard brown paws and squeezed it. "I know, but--_why_ do yousay so? I don't know anything about girls. Why should I, when I've hadeight boy cousins and five boy brothers and"--she gave Stephen Lorimer abrief, friendly grin--"and two boy fathers!" Her stepfather was notreally younger than his wife but he was incurably boyish. The girl grewearnest. "Please, _pretty-please_, let me go to L. A. High! I've countedon it so! And"--she was as intent and free from self-consciousness as aterrier at a rat hole--"all the boys I know are going to L. A. High! And_Jimsy's_ going, and he'll _need_ me!"

  Her stepfather laughed again and lighted a cigarette. "She has youthere, Mildred. He will need her."

  "Of course he will." Honor turned a grateful face to him. "I'll have todo all his English and Latin for him, so he can get signed up every weekand play football!"

  Mrs. Lorimer did not see why her daughter's finishing need be curtailedby young James King's athletic activities and she started in to say sowith vigor and emphasis, but her husband held up his long beautifullymodeled hand rather in the manner of a traffic policeman and stoppedher.

  "Look here, Mildred," he said, "suppose you and I convene in specialsession and consider this thing from all angles and then let her knowwhat it comes to,--shall we? Run along, Top Step!"

  "All right, Stepper," said the child, relievedly. "_You_ explain it toher." She went contentedly away and a moment later they heard her robustyoung voice lifted on the lawn next door,--"Jim-_zee_! Oh, Jimsy!Come-mawn-_out_!"

  "You see?" Mrs. Lorimer wanted rather inaccurately to know. "That's whatwe've got to stop, Stephen."

  He smiled. "But--as your eldest offspring just now inquired--why?"

  "_Why?_" She lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap again, palmupward, and regarded him in gentle exasperation. "Stephen, you know,really, sometimes I feel that you are not a bit of help to me with thechildren."

  "Sometimes you do, I daresay," he granted her, serenely, "but most ofthe time you must be simply starry-eyed with gratitude over thebrilliant way I manage them. Come along over here and we'll talk itover!" He patted the place beside him on the couch.

  "You mean," said his wife a little sulkily, going, nevertheless, "thatyou'll talk me over!"

  "That is my secret hope," said Stephen Lorimer.

  It was all quite true. He did manage her children and theirchildren--there were three of each--with astonishing ease and success.They amused him, and adored him. He understood them utterly. Honor wasseven when her own father died and nine when her mother married again.Stephen Lorimer would never forget her first inspection of him.Nursemaids had done their worst on the subject of stepfathers; fairytales had presented the pattern. He knew exactly what was going on inher mind, and--quite as earnestly beneath his persiflage as he had sethimself to woo the widow--he set himself to win her daughter. It was amatter of moments only before he saw the color coming back into hersquare little face and the horror seeping out of her eyes. It was amatter of days only until she sought him out and told him, in hermother's presence, that she believed she liked him better than her firstfather.

  "Honor, _dear_! You--you mustn't, really----" Mildred Lorimer insistedwith herself on being shocked.

  "Don't _you_, Muzzie? Don't you like him better?" the child wantedpersistently to know. "He was very nice, of course; I did like himawfully. But he was always 'way off Down Town ... at The Office. Wedidn't have any fun with him. Stepper's always home. I'm glad we marrieda newspaper one this time."

  "Stephen, that dreadful name.... What will people think?"

  Her new husband didn't in the least care. He and Honor had gravelyconsidered on that first day what they should call each other. It seemedto Stephen Lorimer that it was hardly fair to the gentleman who hadstayed so largely at The Office to have his big little daughter and histiny sons calling his successor Father or Dad, and _Papa_ with all itsshades and shifts of accent left him cold. "Let's see, Honor.'Stepfather' as a salutation sounds rather accusing, doesn't it?'Step-pa,' now, is less austere, but----"

  "Oh, Stephen, _dear_!" They were not consulting Mrs. Lorimer at all.

  "I've got it! It's an inspiration! 'Stepper!' Neat, crisp, brisk. Means,if any one should ask you, 'Step-pa' and also, literally, stepper; astepper; one who steps--into another's place."

  "_Stephen_----"

  "Well, haven't I, my dear?" He considered the three young Carmodys,nine, seven, and five. "Steps yourselves, aren't you? Honor's the topstep and----"

  "Oh, Stepper, call me Top Step! I like that."

  "Right. And Billy's Bottom Step and Ted's the Tweeny! Now we're allset!"

  "Yes," said Honor, conte
ntedly. She herded her little brothers out ofthe room and came back alone. "But--what'll I tell people you _are_?"

  "Why, I think," he considered, "you're young enough and trusting enoughto call me A Writer."

  "I mean, are you Muzzie's step-husband, too?"

  It was the first time she had seen the lightness leave his eyes. "No._No._ I am your moth--I am her husband. There is no step there." He gotup and walked over to where his wife was sitting and towered over her.He was a tall man and he looked especially tall at that moment. "Herplain--husband. Extremely plain, as it happens"--he was himself againfor an instant--"but--_her husband_." It seemed to the child that he hadforgotten which one of them had asked him the question and wasaddressing himself to her mother by mistake. He seemed at once angry anddemanding and anxious, and she had never seen her mother so pink.However, her question had been answered and she had affairs of her own.She went away without a backward glance so she did not see herstepfather drop to his knees beside the chair and gather the quiet womanroughly into his arms, nor hear his insistent voice. "Her husband. The_first--husband--she--ever had. Say it, Mildred. Say it._"

  And now Honor was thirteen and a half, and tardily ready for HighSchool, and there were three little Lorimers, twins and a six months'old single. Stephen Lorimer, who had been a singularly footloose worldrover, had settled down securely in the old Carmody house on SouthFigueroa Street. He was intensely proud of his paternity, personal andvicarious, and took it not seriously but joyously. He was dramaticcritic and special writer for the leading newspaper of Los Angeles, andtheoretically he worked by night and slept by day, but as a matter ofpuzzling fact he did not sleep at all, unless one counted his briefmorning naps. His eyes, in consequence, seemed never to be quite open,but nothing, nevertheless, escaped them.

  An outsider, looking in on them now, the erect, hot-cheeked, imperiouswoman, a little insolent always of her beauty, and the lolling, loungingman with the drooping lids, would have placed his odds unhesitatinglyon her winning of any point she might have in mind. Even Mildred Lorimerherself, after four years and a half of being married to him, thoughtshe would win out over him this time. Honor was the only daughter shehad, the only daughter she would ever have, for she had definitelydecided, at forty-one, to cease her dealings with the long-legged birdwho had flapped six times to her roof, and it seemed intolerable to herthat--with five boys--her one girl should be so robustly ungirlish.

  "Now, then, let's have it. You want Honor to go to Marlborough. As sheherself asked and I myself repeated,--why?"

  "And as I answered you both," said his wife, trying hard to keep theconversation spinning lightly in the air as he did, "it's because I wanther to be more like other girls."

  "And I," said her husband, "do not." This was the place for MildredLorimer to fling her own _why_ but her husband was too quick for her."Because she is so much finer and sounder and saner and sweeter as sheis. Mildred, I have never seen any living creature so selfless. What wasthe word they coined in that play about Mars?--'_Otherdom?_' That's it,yes; otherdom. That's Honor Carmody. She could have finished grammarschool at twelve, but Jimsy needed her help."

  "That's just it! Can't you see how wrong that is?"

  "No. I'm too much occupied with seeing how right it is. Good Lord, mydear, in a world given over to the first person perpendicular, can't yousee the amazing beauty and rarity of your child's soul? Every day andall day long she gives herself,--to you, to me, to the kiddies, to herfriends. She is the eternal mother." Mildred Lorimer was not the eternalmother. She was not in fact a mother at all. The physical fact ofmotherhood had six times descended upon her and she was doing hergentle, well-bred, conscientious best in six lively directions, butunder it all she was forever Helen, forever the best beloved. She wasgetting rather beyond her depth but she was not giving up. Stephen, indiscussion, had an elusive way of soaring into hazy generalities. Shebrought him down.

  "I can't see why it should make her any less unselfish to attend thebest girls' school than to--to run with the boys." She brought out thelittle vulgarism with a faint curl of her lovely lip.

  "'Run with the boys!' That has a positively Salem flavor, hasn't it?Almost as deadly, that 'with,' as 'after,'" He loved words, StephenLorimer; he played with them and juggled them. "Yet isn't that exactlywhat the girls of to-day must and should do? Isn't it what the girls ofto-morrow--naturally, unrebuked--will do? Not running after them, slylyor brazenly; not sitting at home, crimped and primped and curled,waiting to be run after. No," he said hotly, getting up and beginning toswallow up the room from wall to wall with his long strides, "_no_! Withthem. Running with them, chin in, chest out, sound, conditioned,unashamed!" He believed that he meant to write a tremendous book, oneday, Honor's stepfather. He often reeled off whole chapters in his mind,warm and glowing. It was only when he got it down on paper that itcooled and congealed. "Running with them in the race--for the race----"his hurtling promenade took him to the window and he paused for aninstant. "Come here, Mildred. Look at her!"

  Mildred Lorimer came to join him. On the shabby, rusty lawn of the Kingplace, next door, all the rustier for its nearness to their own emeraldturf, sat Honor Carmody and Jimsy King, jointly and severally lacing upa football.

  "Yes, look at her!" said her mother with feeling.

  "Leave her alone, Mildred. Leave her alive!"

  The two children were utterly absorbed. The boy was half a head tallerthan the girl, heavier, sturdier, of a startling beauty. There was astubborn, much reviled wave in his bronze hair and his eyes were a darkhazel flecked with black. His skin was bronze, too, bronzed by manyCatalina summer and winter swims at Ocean Park. It made his teeth seemvery white and flashing.

  The window was open to the soft Southern California air, and the voicescame across to the watchers.

  "_Hold_ it!"

  "I _am_ holding it!"

  A handsome man of forty came up the tree-shaded street, not quitesteadily, and turned into the King's walk. His hat was pulled low overhis eyes and the collar of his coat was turned up in spite of themildness of the day. He nodded to the boy and girl as he went past themand on into the house.

  "_Again!_" said Mrs. Lorimer, tragically. "That's the second time thisweek!"

  "Rough on the kid," said her husband. "See him now."

  Jimsy King had turned his head and was following his father's slowprogress up the steps and across the porch and into the house. "Be in ina minute, Dad!" he called after him.

  "Loyal little beggar. I saw him steering him up Broadway one morning,just at school time. Pluck."

  Honor had looked after James King, the elder, too, and then at his son,and then at the football in her hands again. "Hurry up," she commanded."Pull it tighter! _Tighter!_ Do you call that pulling?" Inexorably shegot his attention back to the subject in hand.

  "That makes it all the worse," said Mrs. Lorimer. "Of course they'reonly children--babies, really--but I couldn't have anything.... It's badblood, Stephen. I _couldn't_ have my child interested in one of the'Wild Kings'!"

  "Well, you won't have, if you're wise. Let 'em alone. Let 'em lacefootballs on the front lawn ... and they won't hold hands on the sideporch! Why, woman dear, like the well-known Mr. Job, the thing yougreatly fear you'll bring to pass! Shut her up in a girls' school--eventhe best and sanest--and you'll make boys suddenly into creatures ofromance, remote, desirable. Don't emphasize and underline for her. She'sas clean as a star and as unself-conscious as a puppy! Don't hurry herinto what one of those English play-writing chaps calls--GranvilleBarker, isn't it?--Yes,--_Madras House_--'the barnyard drama of sex....Male and female created He them ... but men and women are a long timein the making!'"

  The lacing of the football was finished. The boy lifted his head andlooked soberly at the door through which his father had entered, notquite steadily. Then he drew a long breath, threw back his shiningbronze head, said something in a low tone to the girl, and ran into thehouse.

  Honor Carmody got to her feet and stood looking after him,
the oddmothering look in her square child's face. She stood so for longmoments, without moving, and her mother and her stepfather watched her.

  Suddenly Stephen Lorimer flung the window up as far as it would go andleaned out.

  "It's all right, Top Step," he called, meeting the leaping gladness ofher glance. "We've decided, your mother and I. You're going to L. A.High! You're going----" but now he dropped his voice and spoke only forthe woman beside him, slipping a penitent and conciliatory arm abouther, his eyes impish, "you're going to run with the boys!"