The Canopy Bed
by
“My great-grandfather slept in it,” Van Alen told the caretaker, as she ushered him into the big stuffy bedroom.
The old woman set her candlestick down on the quaint dresser. “He must have been a little man,” she said; “none of my sons could sleep in it. Their feet would hang over.”
Van Alen eyed the big bed curiously. All his life he had heard of it, and now he had traveled far to see it. It was a lumbering structure of great width and of strangely disproportionate length. And the coverlet and the canopy were of rose-colored chintz.
“I think I shall fit it,” he said slowly.
Mrs. Brand’s critical glance weighed his smallness, his immaculateness, his difference from her own great sons.
“Yes,” she said, with the open rudeness of the country-bred; “yes, you ain’t very big.”
Van Alen winced. Even from the lips of this uncouth woman the truth struck hard. But he carried the topic forward with the light ease of a man of the world.
“My grandfather had the bed sawed to his own length,” he explained; “did you ever hear the story?”
“No,” she said; “I ain’t been here long. They kept the house shut up till this year.”
“Well, I’ll tell you when I come down,” and Van Alen opened his bag with a finality that sent the old woman to the door.
“Supper’s ready,” she told him, “whenever you are.”
At the supper table the four big sons towered above Van Alen. They ate with appetites like giants, and they had big ways and hearty laughs that seemed to dwarf their guest into insignificance.
But the insignificance was that of body only, for Van Alen, fresh from the outside world and a good talker at all times, dominated the table conversationally.
To what he had to say the men listened eagerly, and the girl who waited on the table listened.
She was a vivid personality, with burnished hair, flaming cheeks, eyes like the sea. Her hands, as she passed the biscuits, were white, and the fingers went down delicately to little points. Van Alen, noting these things keenly, knew that she was out of her place, and wondered how she came there.
At the end of the meal he told the story of the Canopy Bed.
“My great-grandfather was a little man, and very sensitive about his height. In the days of his early manhood he spent much time in devising ways to deceive people into thinking him taller. He surrounded himself with big things, had a big bed made, wore high-heeled boots, and the crown of his hat was so tall that he was almost overbalanced.
“But for all that, he was a little man among the sturdy men of his generation, and if it had not been for the Revolution I think he would have died railing at fate. But the war brought him opportunity. My little great-grandfather fought in it, and won great honors, and straight back home he came and had the bed sawed off! He wanted future generations to see what a little man could do, and his will provided that this house should not be sold, and that, when his sons and grandsons had proved themselves worthy of it by some achievement, they should come here and sleep. I think he swaggered a little when he wrote that will, and he has put his descendants in an embarrassing position. We can never sleep in the canopy bed without taking more upon ourselves than modesty permits!”
He laughed, and instinctively his eyes sought those of the girl who waited on the table. Somehow he felt that she was the only one who could understand.
She came back at him with a question: “What have you done?”
“I have written a book,” he told her.
She shook her head, and there were little sparks of light in her eyes. “I don’t believe that was what your grandfather meant,” she said, slowly.