“It’s the air,” he explained as they entered the open door and walked through the entrance-hall and turned into the library. Jerry had taken her documents to her room, and Mrs. Wells was busy among the perennials. “I felt it coming on me the moment I got a sniff of the waters of Lake Keuka. It’s like hay-fever, you know.” They seated themselves in the library.
There have been waves of limericks in America, but it is questionable if the loping doggerel will ever go quite out of style. The Irish never tire of the monotonous rhythm. In the twilight summer evenings along the hedges, or in winter around the huge kitchen fire, the young Irish lad is for ever contributing impromptu limericks. The verses are usually of a low tone morally, and so local in their application that the stranger needs much explanation, but their popularity is perennial. Jawn had his gift straight from the father, but the son had raised them a tone or two to fit American taste.
Jawn’s bad lines were covered by exquisite acting. The purse of the lip, the ecstatic roll of the eye, and the sudden flash of big teeth—these were enough to bring laughter to the face of his most superior critic. So Phœbe was compelled to break through a forced reserve and let her own laughter loose. And hers was of the vaulting kind.
“Go on with you, man!” she cried. “It’s a movie actor you’d make with that face! And what was your next fit like?”
Mrs. Wells, with a great bunch of phlox, was entering the rear hall when “Jawn” began; she came to the door of the library in time to hear the conclusion.
Jawn was a good fellow and an expert psychologist, but, alas, his humour was not always refined. He took a huge interest in the rough side of life, wherein he was not only true to type but true to his early training on the West Side. The Celtic flavour saved the dish, however. And he never went beyond the bounds set by his instinctively good sense.
Phœbe, who secretly loved many of those proper coarse things of life on which a Puritan world has set a superstitious taboo, mingled her shrill peal with Jawn’s heavy laughter when Mrs. Wells appeared.
It was the first time Phœbe had seen Mrs. Wells since her return from abroad, and although she had been prepared in advance she was not ready for the extraordinary physical transformation. Mrs. Wells was not only greyer, but she had grown puffy and weak; an amiable softness had settled in her eyes and in the lines about the mouth. But Phœbe covered her surprise in effusive greetings.
“Phœbe!” Mrs. Wells had exclaimed.
“Mother Wells!” Phœbe had shrilled, a pet name, the private privilege of Phœbe.