“Blest if I can tell or he either. He hails from a poorhouse. He was ‘bound out’ to a woman truck farmer. He’s been ‘taken up’ by Mrs. Cecil Somerset-Calvert, of Baltimore, and lots of other places. A lady that’s so rich she has homes in ever so many different parts of the country. But better than that he’s a ‘trump,’ a life-saver, a scholar, and—a gentleman! One of ‘Nature’s’ you know. Would like to have you meet him because he’s my present chum; that is, he would be if—if we lived in the same house and could be. But unfortunately, he has agreed to do ‘chores’ for a parson in payment for his instruction in Greek and all the ‘ologies.’ He’s off on a tramp now, ‘hoofing it,’ as he elegantly expresses it, for a vacation. He’s taken the parson and a couple of dogs along for company. The parson’s a trotting tramper, too. Maybe you’ve read some of his delightful articles in the magazines. Eh? What? Too much for you, Mamma? Well, never mind. I’ll quit now, for there goes the last bell for dinner. Allow me?”
Bowing and offering his arm Monty conducted his richly clad mother toward the dining-room, whither a crowd of tourists were hastening. These were garbed in any sort of comfortable traveling clothes, the women mostly in white shirt-waists such as Mrs. Stark would have disdained even for morning wear at home. The men looked as if they had just come from a dusty train, a too-fragrant fishing boat, or a rough camp in the woods; and at the foot of the stairs the fashionable Mrs. Stark paused in a sort of dismay.
For an instant, too, she had an odd feeling as if it were she who had made a mistake, not those groups of merry, hungry holiday-makers, who elbowed one another good naturedly, in order to find a seat at the crowded tables. Mrs. Stark wasn’t used to elbowing or being elbowed, and she gathered her silken train in her hand to preserve it from contact with the oil-cloth covered floor of the lobby, while her face gathered an expression of real alarm.
“Why, my dear son! We can’t stay here, you know! It is simply impossible to hobnob with such—such queer persons. We must seek another hotel at once. I’ll step into that room yonder which is the ‘parlor’ probably, and you summon the proprietor. I—I am not accustomed to this want of courtesy and—indeed, dear, I am greatly displeased with you. You painted the trip in such glowing colors I—”
“But, Mamma, don’t the colors glow? Did you ever see anything in your life lovelier than this glimpse of the Annapolis Basin, with the moonlight on it, the great peaks and cliffs beyond? I’m sorry if you’re disappointed but you didn’t seem to be up in your room, looking out. As for changing hotels we’d simply ‘hop out of the frying pan into the fire,’ since this is the best one in the town. Else Judge Breckenridge wouldn’t have come here.”
“Monty, dear! Such phrases again! Is that another lesson learned from the poorhouse boy?”
“No, indeedy! I caught that from Alfaretta Babcock. She of the retroussé nose and simple speech. A royal sort of girl, too, is Alfy; first of the alphabetical Babcock sisters. The second is—But come, Mamma. We’re in for it and I don’t want to go to bed hungry, even if you do. I’m afraid, Mother mine, that there’s been too much ‘de luxe’ in your life and I shall have to reconstruct you.”
His mirthful face provoked her to laughter despite her real vexation and fortunately, at that moment, Mrs. Hungerford entered the room and advanced to Mrs. Stark with extended hand and the warmest of greetings.
“This is Monty’s mother, I’m sure. I am Molly’s Auntie Lu. We exist I fancy, for our respective youngsters and mine discovered you through the doorway of the dining-room and commissioned me to fetch you. We’ve had seats reserved for you at our table in the corner and I apologize for not hunting you up earlier. The truth is we were out driving until the last moment and were greatly hurried ourselves. So, of course, we were none of us here when the train came in and I did not know you had arrived. Shall we go now? You will find that people grow desperately hungry when they first come into this bracing air, and with the best intentions in the world, the proprietor isn’t always able to provide enough for such clamorous appetites. My brother says that explains the rather rude crowding to get ‘first table,’ and that our remedy lies in doing a bit of crowding ourselves. I rather enjoy it, already, though we only came here yesterday. Did you have a pleasant trip?”
“No, I did not. I was never on such a poor steamer before. Fortunately I wasn’t ill and it’s not a long sail from Boston across. Is it really true, as Montmorency tells me, that there is no better hotel than this?” returned the other, rising to follow Auntie Lu.