9. IX
Mr. Kronborg considered Thea a remarkable child;
but so were all his children remarkable. If one of the
business men downtown remarked to him that he "had
a mighty bright little girl, there," he admitted it, and
at once began to explain what a "long head for business"
his son Gus had, or that Charley was "a natural
electrician," and had put in a telephone from the house to the
preacher's study behind the church.
Mrs. Kronborg watched her daughter thoughtfully. She
found her more interesting than her other children, and
she took her more seriously, without thinking much about
why she did so. The other children had to be guided,
directed, kept from conflicting with one another. Charley
and Gus were likely to want the same thing, and to quarrel
about it. Anna often demanded unreasonable service from
her older brothers; that they should sit up until after
midnight to bring her home from parties when she did not like
the youth who had offered himself as her escort; or that
they should drive twelve miles into the country, on a winter
night, to take her to a ranch dance, after they had been
working hard all day. Gunner often got bored with his own
clothes or stilts or sled, and wanted Axel's. But Thea, from
the time she was a little thing, had her own routine. She
kept out of every one's way, and was hard to manage only
when the other children interfered with her. Then there
was trouble indeed: bursts of temper which used to alarm
Mrs. Kronborg. "You ought to know enough to let Thea
alone. She lets you alone," she often said to the other
children.
One may have staunch friends in one's own family, but
one seldom has admirers. Thea, however, had one in the
person of her addle-pated aunt, Tillie Kronborg. In older
countries, where dress and opinions and manners are not
so thoroughly standardized as in our own West, there is a
belief that people who are foolish about the more obvious
things of life are apt to have peculiar insight into what lies
beyond the obvious. The old woman who can never learn
not to put the kerosene can on the stove, may yet be able
to tell fortunes, to persuade a backward child to grow, to
cure warts, or to tell people what to do with a young girl
who has gone melancholy. Tillie's mind was a curious
machine; when she was awake it went round like a wheel
when the belt has slipped off, and when she was asleep
she dreamed follies. But she had intuitions. She knew,
for instance, that Thea was different from the other
Kronborgs, worthy though they all were. Her romantic
imagination found possibilities in her niece. When she was
sweeping or ironing, or turning the ice-cream freezer at a
furious rate, she often built up brilliant futures for Thea,
adapting freely the latest novel she had read.
Tillie made enemies for her niece among the church
people because, at sewing societies and church suppers, she
sometimes spoke vauntingly, with a toss of her head, just
as if Thea's "wonderfulness" were an accepted fact in
Moonstone, like Mrs. Archie's stinginess, or Mrs. Livery
Johnson's duplicity. People declared that, on this subject,
Tillie made them tired.
Tillie belonged to a dramatic club that once a year
performed in the Moonstone Opera House such plays as
"Among the Breakers," and "The Veteran of 1812." Tillie
played character parts, the flirtatious old maid or the
spiteful intrigante. She used to study her parts up in the
attic at home. While she was committing the lines, she
got Gunner or Anna to hold the book for her, but when
she began "to bring out the expression," as she said,
she used, very timorously, to ask Thea to hold the book.
Thea was usually—not always—agreeable about it. Her
mother had told her that, since she had some influence
with Tillie, it would be a good thing for them all if she could
tone her down a shade and "keep her from taking on any
worse than need be." Thea would sit on the foot of Tillie's
bed, her feet tucked under her, and stare at the silly text.
"I wouldn't make so much fuss, there, Tillie," she would
remark occasionally; "I don't see the point in it"; or,
"What do you pitch your voice so high for? It don't carry
half as well."
"I don't see how it comes Thea is so patient with
Tillie," Mrs. Kronborg more than once remarked to her
husband. "She ain't patient with most people, but it seems
like she's got a peculiar patience for Tillie."
Tillie always coaxed Thea to go "behind the scenes"
with her when the club presented a play, and help her with
her make-up. Thea hated it, but she always went. She
felt as if she had to do it. There was something in Tillie's
adoration of her that compelled her. There was no family
impropriety that Thea was so much ashamed of as Tillie's
"acting" and yet she was always being dragged in to assist
her. Tillie simply had her, there. She didn't know why,
but it was so. There was a string in her somewhere that
Tillie could pull; a sense of obligation to Tillie's misguided
aspirations. The saloon-keepers had some such feeling of
responsibility toward Spanish Johnny.
The dramatic club was the pride of Tillie's heart, and her
enthusiasm was the principal factor in keeping it together.
Sick or well, Tillie always attended rehearsals, and was
always urging the young people, who took rehearsals
lightly, to "stop fooling and begin now." The young men
—bank clerks, grocery clerks, insurance agents—played
tricks, laughed at Tillie, and "put it up on each other"
about seeing her home; but they often went to tiresome
rehearsals just to oblige her. They were good-natured
young fellows. Their trainer and stage-manager was young
Upping, the jeweler who ordered Thea's music for her.
Though barely thirty, he had followed half a dozen
professions, and had once been a violinist in the orchestra of
the Andrews Opera Company, then well known in little
towns throughout Colorado and Nebraska.
By one amazing indiscretion Tillie very nearly lost her
hold upon the Moonstone Drama Club. The club had
decided to put on "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," a very
ambitious undertaking because of the many supers needed
and the scenic difficulties of the act which took place in
Andersonville Prison. The members of the club consulted
together in Tillie's absence as to who should play the part
of the drummer boy. It must be taken by a very young
person, and village boys of that age are self-conscious and
are not apt at memorizing. The part was a long one, and
clearly it must be given to a girl. Some members of the
club suggested Thea Kronborg, others advocated Lily
Fisher. Lily's partisans urged that she was much prettier
than Thea, and had a much "sweeter disposition."
Nobody denied these facts. But there was nothing in the
least boyish about Lily, and she sang all songs and played
all parts alike. Lily's simper was popular, but it seemed
not quite the right thing for the heroic drummer boy.
Upping, the trainer, talked to one and another: "Lily's
all right for girl parts," he insisted, "but you've got to
get a girl with some ginger in her for this. Thea's got
the voice, too. When she sings, `Just Before the Battle,
Mother,' she'll bring down the house."
When all the members of the club had been privately
consulted, they announced their decision to Tillie at the
first regular meeting that was called to cast the parts.
They expected Tillie to be overcome with joy, but, on the
contrary, she seemed embarrassed. "I'm afraid Thea
hasn't got time for that," she said jerkily. "She is always
so busy with her music. Guess you'll have to get somebody
else."
The club lifted its eyebrows. Several of Lily Fisher's
friends coughed. Mr. Upping flushed. The stout woman
who always played the injured wife called Tillie's attention
to the fact that this would be a fine opportunity for her
niece to show what she could do. Her tone was
condescending.
Tillie threw up her head and laughed; there was
something sharp and wild about Tillie's laugh—when it was
not a giggle. "Oh, I guess Thea hasn't got time to do any
showing off. Her time to show off ain't come yet. I expect
she'll make us all sit up when it does. No use asking her to
take the part. She'd turn her nose up at it. I guess they'd
be glad to get her in the Denver Dramatics, if they could."
The company broke up into groups and expressed their
amazement. Of course all Swedes were conceited, but they
would never have believed that all the conceit of all the
Swedes put together would reach such a pitch as this.
They confided to each other that Tillie was "just a little
off, on the subject of her niece," and agreed that it would be
as well not to excite her further. Tillie got a cold reception
at rehearsals for a long while afterward, and Thea had a
crop of new enemies without even knowing it.
