Lady (13 page)

We got to the Center later if not sooner, where we bought the Mason jars and divvied them up for carrying. We came out of the hardware store just as Porter Sprague was leaving the barbershop.

By his own admission, Mr. Sprague was important, but not to us. He was, in fact, our archenemy. Even with all Gert Flagler's blustering threats to "get us kids" or to "tell our mother on us," it was difficult to think of her as other than an object of ridicule. Porter Sprague was another case entirely. He was a cheapskate and a grouse, and we sensed the general air of disapproval for him among the older generation, which heightened our own dislike. Mean, arrogant, and given to airs, he was a boy-hater through and through. You never went crosslots through his back yard or he'd set the dogs on you.

He looked like a shorter, fatter Ned Sparks, the movie comic. He always had a cigar butt jammed in the corner of his mouth, and his expression was eternally sour, his clothes were rumpled, his tone one of grating contentiousness. (It always made me think of Shredded Wheat without the milk and bananas.) His dogs, a line of beautiful Irish setters, had long, silky coats of a rare cordovan shade, and those great dark eyes full of love and intelligence, the sort of dogs you yearned to pet -- but of course you didn't, not Porter Sprague's dogs.

Here he came, freshly barbered, strutting out like a bantam rooster, all puffed up in that important way of his, and almost colliding with Harry. "Careful, there!" he snapped out. Then, more jovially, so as to be heard by Mr. Marachek, taking his empty morning mailbag into the post office, "Say, boys, heard the one about the three holes in the ground?" We hadn't. "Well, well, well." He was a card, that Porter Sprague. We snickered politely and watched him strut off to his house, speaking sharply to one of his dogs which was barking on the side lawn.

Next, we headed for Miss Jocelyn-Marie's Gift and Novelty Shoppe where we nosed around the counters, the proprietress, as usual, keeping strict watch and ward over her merchandise. Plump and sly, she wore a flowered smock, and her hair was like a hat of blue sculptured waves, hard as steel, her round baby face blank as a dish -- her mind about as deep -- but she was always ready to cry "Thief!" at any one of us whom she caught stealing. Because of our small depredations, her inventory never balanced at the end of the month, and as customers we were given short shrift, but if you wanted to hear what was going on around the Center, all you had to do was lend an ear to Miss Jocelyn-Marie. As eager a gossip as Ruthie Sparrow, she seldom missed a trick.

Her attention diverted by a loud commotion over at the Spragues', I snitched a wax pipes-of-Pan, while Lew and Harry each lifted a peashooter and some Fleer's Double Bubble Gum, and when we sneaked past Miss Jocelyn-Marie, and out onto the street again, we saw that the noise at the Spragues' centered around the barking dog.

That winter one of Mr. Sprague's bitches had whelped a large litter. The best of them was his particular pride, and he had derived a good deal of amusement by announcing to the boys at the Noble Patriot that he had named the dog Lady, for reasons too obvious to bear mention. The dog, however, proved one of that overly bred strain that, from either nervousness or some other complaint, continually barked. Sitting in church, you could hear it setting up a howl, and at night its cries continued until the whole neighborhood was aroused. And if the townspeople were angry, Mr. Sprague was angrier.

So here he was, out in his side yard, the dog chained to a tree and barking for all it was worth, and Mr. Sprague shouting "Quiet!" for all
he
was worth, while on either side of the street passers-by and loungers were attracted by the racket.

Then, to everyone's horror, Mr. Sprague smacked down his Panama hat on the grass, kicked it into an iris bed, and marched around the comer of the house, reappearing in a flash with the garden hose spraying full blast. He turned the jet on the dog, while the poor animal tried to escape, running this way and that, finally circling the tree until it was hopelessly twisted up in the chain. The water hardly quieted it; she cowered on the ground, shivering and making yipping sounds that were even more painful to the ear. Now Mr. Sprague's notable temper really got the best of him. Angrily throwing away the hose, which snaked and writhed about in the iris bed, and wetting his Panama, he undid his buckle, snicked his belt out, and began belaboring the dog about its rear quarters.

It was a pitiful sight. People were so shocked that no one had even made a move to stop him, until a voice rang out from the steps of the Academy Hall.

"Porter Sprague -- govern your temper!" It was Miss Berry, our neighbor, coming out of the library. With some books in her arm, and wearing a straw hat with a little red bird perched on the front, she marched across the lawn and seized Mr. Sprague's upraised arm before it could descend on the dog again. "For shame," she said, stepping back and inviting him with her look to strike another blow. Astonished, Mr. Sprague began a series of furious gestures, loudly proclaiming that Miss Berry was trespassing on private property, and ordering her to remove herself or he would call the constable. Meanwhile, a window flew up and Spouse's head popped out and immediately disappeared. Mr. Sprague's choleric tirade continuing, Miss Berry stepped to the irises, retrieved the hose, and turned it on Mr. Sprague, dousing him from head to foot. At that moment Spouse shot out the door and came flying from the porch.

"How dare you!" she cried, bristling, as she advanced on Miss Berry, who was now calmly watering the portulacas. "Porter Sprague is a Selectman, if you don't know it. That is my hose -- give it to me instantly."

"Very well," Miss Berry was heard to murmur mildly, obliging Mrs. Sprague by handing her the hose -- full in the face. Quite dry and in utter tranquillity, she stepped to the curb as Gert Flagler's Chevy swooped out from the post
office
. Miss Berry got in, and off they went together, in a trail of exhaust.

"Damn morphadite!" Mr. Sprague did everything but shake his fist after them, then turned as his wife spoke.

"Mind your tongue," she said shortly, trying to kink the hose and stop the flow of water. Mr. Sprague, soaked to the skin, started up the front steps.

"Porter Sprague!" snapped Spouse, also drenched, "not in my front hall you don't! Use the back door!"

He did, obediently, like a little boy being punished, but he managed to give the screen door a good whack which everyone heard out on the street.

Things quieted down after that, and nothing more was thought about the dog until some weeks later, when the sequel to the story took place, a sequel which involved Lady Harleigh herself. She treated Porter Sprague as little more than a joke, and we knew she had small regard for him and his pretensions -- and not without reason. Porter Sprague had once asked Lady to marry him, and people still laughed about it. We'd all heard the story, not from Lady but from Ruthie Sparrow, over the fence to Nonnie while they were hanging out the wash. After the first Mrs. Sprague had died, P.J. cast his greedy eye on Lady Harleigh as a likely marital successor. Having decided that joining his large fortune with her larger one would be a clever financial ploy, and always having coveted the house she lived in, he pressed his suit. Later he declared that Lady had been leading him on, but of course she hadn't, was only being polite. Mr. Sprague came to call several times, and hinted that, considering the fact he was now a widower and she a widow, matrimony might be of mutual benefit. Lady turned him down cold, and, his suit rejected, he found solace among the de Saleses of Talcottville, and brought his horse-like bride back to Pequot, but since that time he harbored a grudge against the snippety upstart from Knobb Street who'd spurned him.

But to get back to the matter of the dog, Lady's namesake. We'd heard through Jesse and Elthea that her ire had been aroused at hearing of Mr. Sprague's maltreatment of the poor animal; she could never bear to see any living thing hurt or injured. I hadn't been across the Green for some days, but I had an idea that things were about to return to normal as far as Lady was concerned, because with the windows up and the doors open behind the screens, you could hear the vacuum running, could hear Elthea laughing, and, finally, could hear Lady calling. Sometimes it sounded almost as if they were having a party over there, such was the merriment within doors, though these genial scenes were being played offstage, as it were, since we still hadn't actually seen Lady.

One morning Jesse rolled out the Minerva, and I thought we'd get to see her then, but no, he was just taking the car over to Orcutt's Garage to have it serviced. He gave us a ride to the Center, and asked us to buy a pack of playing cards at Miss Jocelyn-Marie's and take them back to Elthea. She and Missus were going to play pinochle that afternoon. We thought pinochle was a step in the right direction, and when we'd bought the cards, we saw Porter Sprague hanging around in the barbershop doorway, regaling Mr. Pellegrino with a story. At his side was Lady, the Irish setter. It was a curious thing about the dog. Mr. Sprague's terrible notions of training must have been effective, because the word had since gone around that the animal had ceased its yowling, had, in fact, not uttered a sound. She still shivered whenever her master came near her, and he kept her close to heel on a tight leash when he paraded her on the walk, taking palpable pride in having so mastered the poor beast.

We said hello to Colonel Blatchley as he came out of the drugstore and went in the barbershop, passing between Mr. Pellegrino and Mr. Sprague, who followed the barber and his customer, still chortling over whatever joke or tale it was he was telling.

When we brought the cards back to Lady's, Elthea came to the door and took them. Lady was baking -- always a good sign -- and the smell of fresh crullers hung in the air. But the usual invitation to treats and ginger ale was not forthcoming, though I could hear Lady's voice from the kitchen, calling a thank-you. She sounded perfectly fine, but not a glimpse did we have of her, until later, and then her disposition was quite another matter.

We were out on the Green, having a game of one-o'cat, when, running back for one of Lew's fly balls, I saw Colonel Blatchley hurrying down the walk from the Center. He didn't answer when I yelled, nor did he stop at his house, but went directly to Lady's door, where Elthea admitted him. Moments later, Lady appeared in her apron, her hands still floury, and clutching the shotgun we knew had belonged to Edward Harleigh.

At first we thought it was a joke; she looked like something out of the pageant, a Colonial wife taking out after marauding Indians. But angry was not the word for Lady Harleigh at that moment; she was on fire. Lew struck Harry out and we let the ball roll while we followed close behind her, with Colonel Blatchley also coming along, protesting feebly.

Ruthie Sparrow, who hardly ever left her bay window, came hurrying down her steps to catch up with him, her Seiss-Altags clutched in her hand. Near the Center several others joined them. They clustered around the Colonel, wondering what Lady was doing in her apron with a gun. We retarded our steps enough to hear the Colonel's response: Lady was going to kill Porter Sprague. Was going to call him out and shoot him dead on his own doorstoop. For what Mr. Sprague had told the barber and what the barber had told the Colonel and what the Colonel had told Lady Harleigh was that the dog no longer barked because Mr. Sprague had surgically severed its vocal cords.

"Jeez," Lew muttered under his breath as we started off after Lady again, she marching on in magnificent fury, her head held high, apron strings flying. As luck -- ill, in this case -- would have it, who should be coming out of the A. & P. bearing their quotidian allotment of chopped beef, but P. J. Sprague and Spouse, with the maimed dog on its leash.

Without an instant's pause Lady halted where she stood, hiked the stock of the shotgun to her shoulder, and, feet spread, called out in a voice terrible to hear: "
Porter Sprague
."

P.J. and Spouse turned at the same time and saw the gun raised against them, Spouse crying out, then wilting to the sidewalk in a faint, P.J. dropping the butcher's parcel of chopped meat and the dog's leash and putting out a fumbling hand as though to stave off the shell marked for him. His other hand joined the outstretched one and he clasped it in a dumb show of entreaty, and in this reverent attitude (he who never went to church) he sank to the sidewalk in abject terror. He removed his stained fedora and clutched it to his bosom while his wrinkled mouth tried wordlessly to articulate an appeal, yet no words came.

But: "Stand up, you
puny
man," ordered Lady Harleigh, the sights of her shotgun still trained on him. No printed page could possibly transmit the contempt in that word "puny." Mr. Sprague arose, cringed, wheedled, again became speechless. By this time a considerable crowd had gathered to witness his ignominy, and just then Constable Keep's tin lizzy was seen chugging up to the curb. He got out, calling sharply to Lady. When she looked at him, Mr. Sprague turned tail and ran, abandoning Spouse, prostrate on the sidewalk.

The gun went off. A single sharp report thundered, and before it died away Mr. Sprague cried out. He gave a little leap in the air, faltered, but did not drop. Another shot. Another cry, another leap, slightly higher, and this time he clasped his crushed fedora over his rear as he tottered on, stumbling up the walk to his house and disappearing inside.

"Holy God, Lady Harleigh, what the hell're you doing?" demanded Constable Keep.

Lady, who had lowered her gun, turned to him and swooped her eyebrows in that elegant way of hers. "Good day, Constable Keep. I am out shooting varmints, if that be the phrase. Perhaps you and some of these gentlemen would like to see Mrs. Sprague home. She seems to have fallen to the pavement." With that she shouldered the shotgun like a militiaman, took the setter's leash in her hand -- the crowd parting as she passed the astonished Colonel Blatchley and his group -- then swept gloriously down the walk, the dog trotting docilely at her side.