XVIII. MORE FUNNY CATS
NEW YORK, being a great mill that grinds off rough corners and operates, as it seems, for no other purpose than to make each New York inhabitant and each New York creation a facsimile of every other New York inhabitant and creation, loves those who introduce the quaint, the strange and the outlandish—which is to say, anything not after the conventional New York model. Women have become rich with the discovery of a rag rug or a corn-husk door-mat.
To Mrs. Montgomery the trip to Peter Lane's shanty-boat was a path to fame. Her quick perception grasped every detail and saw its value or, to put it most crudely, its advertising potency. As she, with Mr. and Mrs. Vandyne, whirled down the smooth bluff road in the Vandyne barouche, she said: “Anna, I do wish we could have come in an ox-cart, or a-straddle little donkeys, or in a hay-wagon, at least.”
“My dear! Isn't this comfortable enough?”
“Oh, I was thinking of my talk before the Arts and Crafts Club. It makes such a difference. It is so conventional to be taken in a carriage. And probably I'll find your Peter Lane just an ordinary man, and his shanty-boat nothing but a common houseboat.”
But when the carriage ran into the farmer's yard—it was Sunday—and the farmer volunteered to show the route to Peter's shanty-boat, and warned Mrs. Montgomery, after a glance at her handsome furs, that it would be a rough tramp, her spirits rose again. Perhaps there would be some local color after all. The event fully satisfied her.
In single file they tramped the long path to the boat, stooping under low boughs, climbing over fallen tree trunks, dipping into hollows. Rabbits turned and stared at them and scurried away. Great grapevine swings hung from the water elms, and when the broad expanse of Big Tree Lake came into view Mrs. Montgomery stood still and absorbed the scene. It represented absolute loneliness—acres of waving rice straw, acres of snow-covered ice and, close under the bank, the low, squat shanty-boat overshadowed by the leafless willows. It was a romantic setting for her hermit.
The farmer had brought them by the shorter route, so that they had to cross the lake, and Peter, gathering driftwood, was amazed to see the procession issue from the rice and come toward him across the lake.
“That's Peter,” said the farmer. “He acts like he didn't expect comp'ny.”
Peter was standing at the edge of the willows, his arms full of driftwood, the gray blanket serape with its brilliant red stripes hanging to his ankles, and a home-made blanket cap pulled down over his ears. He stood like a statue until they reached him, then doffed his cap politely, and Mrs. Montgomery saw his eyes and knew this was the artist.