Raintree County (29 page)

The Perfessor signed all the keepsake books. In Johnny's he wrote:

To John Wickliff Shawnessy, the budding bard of Raintree County,

Life's eternal young American,

Ave atque vale

J. W. Stiles

The Reverend Mrs. Gray came around sniffling and wrote in Johnny's book a wistfully inappropriate sentiment:

Many the changes since last we met.

Blushes have brightened and tears have been wept.

Friends have been scattered like roses in bloom,

Some to the bridal and some to the tomb.

Johnny retaliated with:

Lydia, now I've heard your accents please,

I know what is meant by Lydian melodies.

In Garwood Jones's book, Johnny wrote:

This is tew surtyfie that I Seth Twigs of the County of Raintree, State of Injianny, in the Yewnited States of Amerikee, am acwainted with the owner of this book, and I have no hezzitation in sayin to all and sundry that he kin read, spel, and rite (tho not ellygant like myself). Single men without funds can employ him with the utmost confidents that they hev nuthin to Iooze by the transackshun.

Signed,        Seth Twigs

Garwood, always a fast man with a comeback, wrote in Johnny's book:

Tew hoom it may consurn:

The owner of this book is wun of my closest pursonal ennumies. I hev no reluctuntz in recommending him fer enny kind of ordeenary
household work, inclooding ginneral carpentry (his fabreekations are noomerous and unsurpassed), but vurgins over fiftee wood dew well to keep him out of there drawers.

Signed,        Rube Shucks

After a half-hour or so, Johnny found that he had collected the following additional posies in his keepsake book or on the backs of photographs:

Remember me as your friend

From now until time shall end.                                   Sarah Peters

A place in thy memory, Johnny, is all that I claim.

Wilt thou pause and look back when thou hearest the sound

of my name!                                      Matilda Thackett

Forget me not.

Bob Fraser

Remember well and bear in mind

A constant friend is hard to find.

And when you find one that is true,

Change not the old one for the new.                 Cassius Carney

Remember me, when this you see,

Your righthand man at old Pedee.                Thomas Smith

The weakest scholar in the graduating class had polished a special gem for the occasion which he inscribed in all the keepsake books:

O, may your pathway ever gleam

With sincere love and joy supreme.

May Him whose eye is felt, not seen,

Bless you with thousand blessings e'en,

With all that fairest love could dream.

Such is the wish of your friend, T. F. Greene.

Then by prearrangement all the graduates gathered in a ring around Professor Stiles, and Mrs. Lydia Gray blushingly presented him with an ornamental cigarbox, which Johnny and Garwood had
driven all the way to Middletown to buy. The graduating class had pooled its resources and paid thirteen dollars for it. Lydia's presentation speech started out bravely enough:

—We the members of the First Graduating Class of Pedee Academy wish to tender to you, Professor Stiles, our beloved mentor and friend, this little token of our deep admiration and abiding esteem. May . . .

From here on Lydia's voice steadily diminished in strength so that Johnny never heard the concluding words.

—Madame and members of the First Graduating Class of the Pedee Academy, the Perfessor said, accepting the box and gingerly peeping into it like Pandora expecting troubles, I am deeply touched by this manifestation of your affection, which I hope I may have deserved. Let me only say . . .

The Perfessor went on with a shameless collection of clichés and delighted everyone with the classic roundness of his periods and the aptness of his sentiments. The applause was loud when he finally concluded his remarks and began to pass out the cigars.

At that moment, standing in the shade of the Academy Yard, a tall youthful form, his brilliant black eyes glancing about him, Professor Jerusalem Webster Stiles reached the summit of his popularity in Raintree County.

In a short time, Johnny himself had collected the following gifts: four beautifully bound and illustrated gift books entitled
Friendship's Album, Autumn Leaves, The Heart's Treasure,
and
Pearls of Memory;
a framed picture of a farmhouse with a mother standing in the doorway and waving to her departing boy, whose earthly belongings were bundled to a stick on his shoulder; a framed picture of a farmhouse with a mother standing in the doorway and waving to her returning boy, whose good success in the world was reflected in the neat city clothes and fine suitcase he held in his hand; a handful of
carte de visite
photographs variously inscribed on the back; and a large blue bowtie. He had also been kissed violently by a young girl graduate, whose great passion had kept itself in hiding until then, and by a dozen female relatives from various corners of the County, some of whom he had never seen before in his life. Most of the girl graduates were weeping here and there on the Academy grounds from emotions of farewell.

Johnny himself had distributed various keepsakes, pictures of himself, and gifts. But the most important sentimental remembrance had not yet been exchanged.

He had watched Nell Gaither all the time after the Exercises were over. It was essential for his plan that he catch her alone and suggest that she come with him to the library where he had something to give her. She had been peculiarly quiet and pale as if she hadn't yet recovered from the emotion that had betrayed her while she was giving her Graduation Composition. At last she walked away from the crowd and stopped under an elm in a remote corner of the yard, but before Johnny could react, Garwood Jones walked across the lawn to join her.

Garwood had something in his hand which he presented with a courtly motion. In her white graduation gown and bonnet trimmed in green, Nell seemed untouchably aloof. Yet she smiled up at Garwood in a very lovely way. Garwood fastened a necklace around her neck, and she gave something to him which Johnny couldn't make out; but whatever it was, he could imagine Garwood's voice mellowly throbbing with gratitude.

At that moment, a relative came up and hit Johnny on the back and shook his hand, and Johnny didn't see the climax of the scene. When next he looked, Nell was alone, walking along the fence. Then abruptly, as if remembering something, she turned and went swiftly to the porch of the Academy. Just before entering, she swept the yard with her eyes, which rested finally on Johnny Shawnessy. She looked at him a long moment with lifted brows, lips parted. Then she turned and went into the Academy Building.

—Excuse me, Johnny said, rudely leaving the group he had been with.

His chance had come, the moment he had rehearsed in fancy so often that the actuality became many times more exciting than an improvisation. Heart pounding, he followed Nell into the building and down the dim corridor to the library. She was inside, sitting at the table with her head on her hands. He picked up a big book which some hours before he had carefully hidden in a corner of a bookshelf. He put the book on the table in front of her.

—Here's a little graduation remembrance, Nell.

It was a brandnew leatherbound giltedged copy of
The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare.
It had cost Johnny seven dollars and fifty cents and weighed six pounds.

—Sort of
in memoriam,
he recited in a hoarse voice, for all the good times studying together, Nell.

Nell raised her head. Her eyes were wet. She picked up the huge book and held it helplessly. It struck Johnny that he had done a touchingly brave and also quite pitiable thing. Nell ran her hands wordlessly a few times over the big book, looking up at Johnny and then down at the gilt words on the cover. She tugged at the book, and it opened suddenly, the pages, newly gilded, sticking. Where it opened, the picture of a young man looked out from a
carte de visite
photograph which had been inserted in the book under the printed words

VENUS AND ADONIS

It was the picture of a youth of twenty in a dandy suit. The shoulders were well back, the chest well forward, the arms fixed at the sides but thrust a little back, the left foot slightly advanced. The head was held high as if forced up by the bowtie at the throat. The eyes were steeped in visions. The mouth was firm but gentle, as if about to smile. The heavy eyebrows were slightly raised as if touched upward with a mild surprise. The whole image had a quality of youthful, affectionate charm.

Johnny winced as he saw this sudden image of himself planted in the immense book of William Shakespeare.

—Please don't let anyone else see what I wrote on the back of that picture, Nell, he said.

Then he walked swiftly out of the door and down the corridor.

On the back of the picture he had written:

ACTAEON

One day a vision was vouchsafed to me,

That filled my burning heart with bright emotion,

A sight more fair than Venus was when she

Came streamingly from the Ionian ocean.

I had been lying by a riverside

And as I lay, I slept and dreamed a dream,

And then awaking, from my covert spied

A girl—and beautiful—bathed in the stream.

Like one enchanted, swooningly I lay

And watched her. She was naked. And her bare,

Brightlimbed, and slender body was at play

With the green water dropping from her hair.

Her name, which even now I dare not tell,

Rang in my stricken heart a lovely kNELL.

John Wickliff Shawnessy,
June 1, 1859.

No one else had yet seen this sonnet, upon which Johnny had expended all his technical resources, except Professor Stiles, who had remarked,

—Shall the Shawmucky be another Avon? I see our rural bard has been
sleeping, by a virgin hand disarmed.
You may get your face slapped for that poem. Undressing Raintree County damsels even in pentameters is a pretty risky business.