Alice Adams--Booth Tarkington [96]
She departed, while Alice sat at the mirror again, to follow her advice concerning a "tiny bit more colour." Before she had finished, her father knocked at the door, and, when she responded, came in. He was dressed in the clothes his wife had pressed; but he had lost substantially in weight since they were made for him; no one would have thought that they had been pressed. They hung from him voluminously, seeming to be the clothes of a larger man.
"Your mother's gone downstairs," he said, in a voice of distress.
"One of the buttonholes in my shirt is too large and I can't keep the dang thing fastened. I don't know what to do about it! I only got one other white shirt, and it's kind of ruined: I tried it before I did this one. Do you s'pose you could do anything?"
"I'll see," she said.
"My collar's got a frayed edge," he complained, as she examined his troublesome shirt. "It's a good deal like wearing a saw; but I expect it'll wilt down flat pretty soon, and not bother me long. I'm liable to wilt down flat, myself, I expect; I don't know as I remember any such hot night in the last ten or twelve years." He lifted his head and sniffed the flaccid air, which was laden with a heavy odour. "My, but that smell is pretty strong!" he said.
"Stand still, please, papa," Alice begged him. "I can't see what's the matter if you move around. How absurd you are about your old glue smell, papa! There isn't a vestige of it, of course."
"I didn't mean glue," he informed her. "I mean cabbage. Is that fashionable now, to have cabbage when there's company for dinner?"
"That isn't cabbage, papa. It's Brussels sprouts."
"Oh, is it? I don't mind it much, because it keeps that glue smell off me, but it's fairly strong. I expect you don't notice it so much because you been in the house with it all along, and got used to it while it was growing."
"It is pretty dreadful," Alice said. "Are all the windows open downstairs?"
"I'll go down and see, if you'll just fix that hole up for me."
"I'm afraid I can't," she said. "Not unless you take your shirt off and bring it to me. I'll have to sew the hole smaller."
"Oh, well, I'll go ask your mother to----"
"No," said Alice. "She's got everything on her hands. Run and take it off. Hurry, papa; I've got to arrange the flowers on the table before he comes."
He went away, and came back presently, half undressed, bringing the shirt. "There's ONE comfort," he remarked, pensively, as she worked. "I've got that collar off--for a while, anyway. I wish I could go to table like this; I could stand it a good deal better. Do you seem to be making any headway with the dang thing?"
"I think probably I can----"
Downstairs the door-bell rang, and Alice's arms jerked with the shock.
"Golly!" her father said. "Did you stick your finger with that fool needle?"
She gave him a blank stare. "He's come!"
She was not mistaken, for, upon the little veranda, Russell stood facing the closed door at last. However, it remained closed for a considerable time after he rang. Inside the house the warning summons of the bell was immediately followed by another sound, audible to Alice and her father as a crash preceding a series of muffled falls. Then came a distant voice, bitter in complaint.
"Oh, Lord!" said Adams. "What's that?"
Alice went to the top of the front stairs, and her mother appeared in the hall below.
"Mama!"
Mrs. Adams looked up. "It's all right," she said, in a loud whisper. "Gertrude fell down the cellar stairs. Somebody left a bucket there, and----" She was interrupted by a gasp from Alice, and hastened to reassure her. "Don't worry, dearie. She may limp a little, but----"
Adams leaned over the banisters. "Did she break anything?" he asked.
"Hush!" his wife whispered. "No. She seems upset and angry about it, more than anything else; but she's rubbing herself, and she'll be all right in time to bring in the little sandwiches. Alice! Those flowers!"
"I know, mama. But----"
"Hurry!" Mrs. Adams warned her. "Both of you