Another “Cuthbert” tale, from the Improvement Era, August 1937 –

When Duty Whispers Low

By Estelle Webb Thomas

Cuthbert sat on the running board of his car and thought about Life. From a mere jumble of bright, unrelated pictures and sensations, as it had once appeared, he now began to perceive that Life has a pattern, that acts have consequences, and that every trial has its compensation. Shudderingly, he recalled a soul-searing experience when, as a Second-Grader, he was forced to strip off his winter underwear and prance about the stage, during a Christmas program, clad only in tights and several yards of tulle, tied about his pudgy middle, shooting silly little arrows at the other children. It was this painful affair that had taught him about compensations. He had caught a terrible cold and had to remain in bed for a week or so. His mother and grandmother had danced attendance and even his father had been worried, and the contrite teacher had fairly showered him with visits and toys. The awful memory of himself as Cupid had faded considerably in the glory of these rewards. Cupid! The word brought his thoughts back to the present with a bang. It seemed, he thought grimly, he had been selected by Fate to be forever filling the role of Cupid, despite all his natural inclinations to the contrary.

Morosely, he pulled a crumpled letter from his pocket and, lips moving soundlessly, re-read it for the third time in the vain hope that he had misunderstood it the first two times. Here was something for which there could be no possible compensation, he was sure.

“Dear Coppy: Well, Coppy, dear old pal, I guess you know all the news about me and the old appendix by now. It got me down and I got it out. Result — Tubby Inc. down and out for the present. This gently leads up to the subject I coaxed the prettiest nurse out of paper and pencil to write to you about. So now, old kid, here is what I want you to do. And do it in Friendship’s name for a pal. You’ll say right off you can’t, but remember what Miss Black used to write up on the blackboard, “When Duty whispers low Thou must, the youth replies I can!” And also remember, Coppy, that a disappointment may cause me to have a terrible relapse, and then how would you feel?

“Well, Coppy, you know how it is with me and Aline. Well, with me, anyhow. Trouble is, I’m not quite sure who’s the best man there, me or Rudy Graham. Now, kid, what I want you to do is hold her for me, see? Just step in and show her a time till your old side-kick gets back on the job. Now Coppy, this may change your plans a little, but I know you’ll do it for a friend. And I know there won’t be no danger of Aline falling for you on account you are not the type of man girls fall for. Which is nothing against your character you understand, but you just haven’t got what it takes.

“The nurse is looking daggers at me and I got to quit. Well, Cop, what you are out in real money I will pay back if you will keep her for me and beat Rudy’s time. Now be a good guy and play John Alden for me, only, for Pete’s sake, don’t speak for yourself, John! Here’s hoping you will recognize me without my appendix.

“Your true friend Harold (Tubby) ( Miles Standish ) Meredith.

“P. S. This nurse wants to kill me, but take Aline riding in Lady G. a lot, as that won’t cost real money and you can always get Jim Brady to charge the gas. It would of been bad enough to be in the hospital at home but of course it was just my luck to have the old app. go back on me while we were here at Grandma’s.

“Answer soon and favorable, “Tubby.”

Scowling deeply, Cuthbert stuffed this pitiful appeal back into his pocket and producing a smudgy notebook and stub of pencil from the inner recesses of his greasy corduroys, laboriously indited a reply.

“Dear Tubby:

“Well Tubby, I sure sympathise with you in your trouble and wish I could see my way clere to do what you ask. But here is my situashun. Jim Brady has given me part of 2 cans of paint, one green and one yellow and I am going over Lady Godiva, painting what there is of her. I would of liked aluminum paint better but you can’t look a gift can of paint in the mouth and this will make people sit up and take notice if I know what I am talking about.

“Now about that little business. I sure do hate to refuse a friend, but you know I am off women for life. Besides, I am not the type for that John Alden stuff. Besides, I can’t ask Jim Brady to charge the gas to take Aline Webster around when he gave me this paint right out of a clere sky. And when did it get to be my duty to run around with Aline Webster just on account your crazy about the girl? I am sorry you had to lose your apendix but maybe now you are used to losing things it won’t be so hard to lose Aline.

“Your hard-boiled friend,

“C. Carter.”

Still scowling, he marched into the house and ransacked his mother’s desk for envelope and stamp. Returning to the street, he espied a barefoot urchin idling along the sidewalk. Cuthbert hailed him, “Hi, Kid! Give you a nickel if you’ll take this to the Post Office! I gotta work on my car, see!”

His gloom lessened somewhat as he decked Lady Godiva’s aged frame in the bright spring colors. Poor old Tubby, it was a shame to let him down, but after all, a feller had to live his own life. He couldn’t go around playing Cupid forever. Anyway, what Tubby could see in a big fatty like Aline — well, as Tubby always said, a guy had to decide those things for himself.

An hour or so later, his mother, hurrying home from a neighbor’s, spoke suddenly and startled him into sprinkling both her and himself with a spray of yellow paint. “Cuthbert, did you know that Harold is not doing so well? Mrs. Meredith phoned Mrs. Bromley that he had bounced around too much, written a letter, or something — ”

“Good Friday, Mother, I gotta go!” Cuthbert jumped into the partly painted car, scattering paint and brushes as he did so. “I gotta catch that kid!” “Poor old Tubby!” he was thinking, as he frantically started the engine, “Maybe I’ve refused his dying request! Writing that letter was what made him worse! Hurry, hurry, old lady, don’t let me miss that kid!”

Down the street dashed Lady Godiva, an aged steed, half clad in gorgeous raiment, Cuthbert, wild-eyed and reckless, urging her to greater speed. “Good Friday, what if he gets that letter and dies of disappointment!” he muttered, deftly missing a startled pedestrian by a hair’s breadth. ‘Course it’d turn out this way! Conscience has to get the best of me every time I try to please myself for once! Gives me more trouble than all the rest of my insides put together!”

With a suddenness that almost drove him through the windshield, he shoved on the brakes and Lady Godiva stopped with a protesting squeal. His freckled messenger squatted among a crowd of cronies in the middle of the street, leisurely preparing to shoot a marble. “Hi there, Bill! How long ago you post that letter?” shouted Cuthbert above the car’s asthmatic wheezing. Bill squinted along his grubby fist and took careful aim, “Letter?” he then said blankly. “Oh, that letter?”

“Yes, letter! How long?”

Bill fumbled in his pocket and brought forth a dirty, dog-eared missive. “Well, I ain’t got down to the Post Office yet, hardly,” he apologized, “I was going as soon as this game was over.”

Saved! Cuthbert thankfully grabbed the letter and tore it into fragments before the astonished eyes of Bill and his fellow idlers. But speeding homeward, his elation suffered a sudden deflation. Saved, yes — but at what a sacrifice to himself! He gathered up and cleaned his scattered paint brushes, he retrieved his paint buckets and set to work, but his heart was not in it, his spirits were heavy with the ordeal before him. Doggedly he slapped on vivid green, alternating with zebra stripes of yellow, but no smile lightened his features, no unmusical whistle issued from his lips.

“My, it’s going to be bright, isn’t it?” Cuthbert squinted toward the voice. Helen Ward, dainty and immaculate, stood surveying his handiwork. It ain’t human for anybody to be that clean all the time, thought Cuthbert, resentfully. Viciously, he slapped on a brushful of green paint. Helen gave a squeal of dismay, “Oh, Cuthbert, look! Look at my dress!”

“Sorry!” muttered Cuthbert, flushing. “Honest, I am, Helen.Guess I wasn’t thinking — or thinking too much!”

“Oh, that’s all right! I think it will come out!” Helen said quickly, “Did you — are you going to the M.I.A. Ball Friday night?”

“No. That is, yes. I guess I gotta go. Wonder — do you know if Aline’s going with Rudy, or not?”

“No. Why?” Helen looked at him curiously. Cuthbert got up, absently wiping his paint brush on his long-suffering trousers.

“I’ll walk along as far as the house with you? I gotta phone to Aline, I guess.”

“Why — what — ”

“I’m ‘fraid I’ve put it off too long. I gotta take Aline to that dance!”

“Oh!” said Helen, faintly.

The M.I.A. dance was merely the beginning. Aline was a lively girl and loved excitement. She “adored” dancing, she was “crazy” about boating, she was a “tennis shark” and “nuts about ball games.” Cuthbert found himself launched into a giddy whirl of pleasure that made a jaded rake of him in a week, viewing his breakfast with a jaundiced eye, dropping asleep in Sunday School with his mouth unbecomingly open. Like a striped demon Lady Godiva dashed about the country-side, a menace to the life and peace of mind of man and beast. Daily the gasoline bill mounted up on Jim Brady’s books. But in spite of this, Aline always managed that they were back in time for the tennis, the ball game or the dance, and worst of all was her appetite! I don’t wonder she’s a fatty, thought Cuthbert, viciously breaking the little iron pig bank he had had since babyhood. “Tubby ‘s welcome to keep her in ice-cream and candy and hot dogs for all me, I ain’t no Rockyfeller!”

At the end of the third week he wrote desperately to Tubby:

“Dear Tubby:

“Well Tubby, you going to take the rest of your life off, getting over a little thing like an appendix? I looked it up in the Physiology and it isn’t more than a few inches long. I could of had my leg cut off and been home quicker than this. Well Tubby, I have always liked you as a friend, but if I have to sport Aline much longer I will be so broke there won’t be no use trying to put the pieces together again! Boy, can that girl eat. And she uses it all up in energy to play and dance so she can eat some more so she can play and dance some more so she can eat some more so she can play — oh, you finish it! She’s a nice girl, but I guess she ain’t my type. I have sure stretched the truth telling her what a grand guy you are, but you are taking the chance of her falling for me account of being in my company practically constant day and night, at your own risk. And it won’t make any difference with what you owe me in acshul cash spent. Jim Brady said he would take Lady Godiva in part payment for gas only she would start a riot in his garage. Well, Tubby, I only hope I can forget you have recked my vacation and get back my old feeling of friendship for you when this is over, if ever.

“As ever your true friend,

“C. Carter.”

“P. S. Let me know when you are coming and I will meet the train with Lady Godiva also Aline. Boy. is she a beaut now she’s painted.

“C.C.

“P. S. Again. I mean Lady G.”

That evening Cuthbert duly escorted Aline to a party at Mary Wright’s home, for the BeeHive Girls and partners. He was amazed when Helen Ward, demure in blue organdy, came in followed by Rudy Graham. “Well, Good Friday!” he thought, with disgust, “I thought Helen had more sense! Of course, if that’s what she admires, it’s nothing to me, but Good Friday!” But even while he reflected it was none of his affair, it unaccountably depressed him to see Helen in the company of the uncouth Rudy; and this, coupled with the fact that he had been short on sleep for the past three weeks, caused a marked lack of interest in the lively games Mary had provided.

Presently he slipped quietly out to the garden, planning to walk around a bit and wake himself up, but as he still stood in the shadow by the door, a voice from beyond the rose hedge arrested his steps. He instantly recognized Aline’s familiar voice and her words held him spellbound. “Well, I haven’t got the heart to shake him! He’s simply crazy about me! Why, he practically spends every waking hour with me! The folks pretend to faint when they hear him coming, and you can hear him a mile! Why, honest, Rudy, sometimes when I see that horrid old — old striped monster stopping at our gate, I could simply scream! Oh, I know it’s just awful of me to talk this way about the poor boy when he’s tried to be so nice to me, but when you come to think of it, he sure isn’t a very true friend to Tubby! He brags about him all the time, but poor old Tubby was hardly in the hospital before he stepped in and tried to take me away from him. He knew Tubby and I were — ”

“Oh, forget it!” Rudy’s deep voice cut in on the seemingly endless monologue, “You don’t care anything about either of them! Why not step out with a real guy for a change?”

At the sound of Aline’s too familiar giggle, Cuthbert roused front his trance and slipped quietly back into the house. How gay it looked! He was never so glad to see his dear old crowd before! He felt a great warmth and friendliness toward everyone, even Rudy — especially Rudy! His unwitting eavesdropping had lifted a load from his spirits that even he had not known the weight of until it was gone.

It was only on the way home, with Aline unaccustomedly silent at his side, wondering uneasily how best she could break the bad news, that the thought of Tubby’s disappointment reared its head. “Good Friday, what will Tuby say? All this perfectly good money and time spent and nothing to show for it! Rudy better a had her in the first place!”

When he had finally broken away from Aline’s tactful dismissal and repeated assurances of undying friendship and had driven home, he fully intended to lie awake and study out some scheme whereby she still might be saved for Tubby. But he had time for a mere muttered, “Poor old Tub—” before unconsciousness claimed him, and in his dreams he roared down endless driveways in Lady Godiva, while Aline floated taunting ahead, laughing when he implored her to wait and let him take her to Tubby.

The bright sunshine of late morning woke him, and he sat up suddenly with the light, happy feeling that some way this day was different, though he could not for the moment, remember why. Then his eye fell upon a letter propped up on his dresser. His mother must have placed it there after the morning mail had arrived. Springing out of bed he seized it, Tubby’s familiar scrawl was on the envelope. His soaring spirits sank as he slowly tore it open and began to read:

“Dear old Coppy:

“Well, Coppy, prepare for a shock. I got your letter and judging by the way you feel about Aline, maybe it won’t be such a shock at that. You can jar loose from Aline any time you want to. I don’t wish her any harm, but if she wants Rudy she can have him with my blessing. Now, Coppy, I know you can’t wait to find out what has changed me. I ought to have told you before, but it really slipped my mind. Well, Coppy, don’t tell this, but I am in love with the prettiest nurse here. She is the one who gave me the writing material which made me worse. She is sure pretty. She is ten years older than I am, but she looks young, and you know I am not a kiddish kid like you, Coppy, but am old for my years. I only hope to live to be worthy of such a wonderful girl. She does not know how I feel yet, but I will tell her all in good time. Well, Coppy, now you know how it is with me. I know you will not hold any feelings about trying to hold Aline for me. If she has fallen for you, as you hinted, it is all right anyway. If not, I hope you won’t be too hard on me about expenses, as I will be saving up for a college education to be worthy of Maud. (That is the nurse’s name. It is sure a lot prettier name than Aline.) Well, Coppy, be good to yourself. I would of been home before now, but they don’t think I’m doing well, account of I haven’t any appetite. This shows how much in love I am when I will deliberately starve myself so I can stay here where Maud is. But I am afraid any time I will break down and eat a square meal and then it’s goodbye, Maud. I will let you know when I am coming and you can meet the train with Lady G. but do not bring Aline, as it might hurt her to see what she has lost. This experience has aged me. Coppy, be prepared for a changed man.

“Hoping you’re the same.

“H. Meredith.”

Smiling broadly, Cuthbert laid down the letter, and going to the closet, hunted out his paint-smeared corduroys, sweat-shirt ane sneakers. As in the days of his carefree youth he descended the stairs in three, well-timed leaps. Delighted, his mother stood over the stove and cooked stack after stack of golden brown pancakes, urging more gold in the form of butter and syrup upon her beaming son. It was so good to see Cuthbert really eat again!

Replete at last, he strolled out into the sunny garden. How sweet his mother’s roses smelled! It was a pretty good old world after all. And one of the best guys in it — good old Tubby would soon be home again! Very soon, Cuthbert knew, if starving was the only condition under which he could remain at the hospital.

Good old Tubby! Even if he was an awful pain in the neck at times. Cuthbert realized that he had missed him dreadfully. And suddenly he knew that just the way he felt this morning was full compensation for all the ordeal of the past three weeks, and his faith in his old philosophies was renewed.

Down the street from the Post Office came Helen Ward, fresh as the morning itself. Impulsively he stepped to the hedge and hailed her. “Hi, Helen, how’d you like to ride home in Lady Godiva? You haven’t had a ride I her since she was painted, have you? I’m going to be pretty busy today, making p for a lot of lost time, but I guess I can take you for a small spin if you’re a good girl!” Helen gave him a startled smile. “Oh, Cuthbert,” she said breathlessly, “Can you, really?”

“The youth replies, ‘I can!’” said Cuthbert, grandly.