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.