THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1917
EDITED BY EDWARD J. O'BRIEN
contents
1.The Excursion by Edwina Stanton Badcork
2.Onnie by Thomas Beer
3.A Cup of Tea by Maxwell Struthers Burt
4.Lonely Places by Francis Buzzell
5.Boys Will Be Boys by Irvin S. Cobb
6.Laughter by Charles Caldwell Dobie
7.The Emperor of Elam by H. G. Dwight
8.The Gay Old Dog by Edna Ferber
9.The Knight’s Move by Katharine Fullerton
Gerould
10.A Jury of her Peers by Susan Glaspell
11.The Bunker Mouse by Frederick Stuart
Greene
12.Rainbow Pete by Richard Matthews Hallet
13.Get Ready the Wreaths by Fannie Hurst
14.The Strange-looking Man by Fanny Kemble
Johnson 1
15.The Caller in the Night by Burton Kline
16.The Interval by Vincent O’Sullivan
17.A Certain Rich Man by Lawrence Perry
18.The Path of Glory by Mary Brecht Pulver
19.Ching, Ching, Chinaman by Wilbur Daniel
Steele
20.Not
So Blind by Mary Synon
By EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK
From The
Pictorial Review
Mrs. Tuttle arrived
breathless, bearing a large gilt parrot-cage. She swept up the gangway of
the Fall of Rome and was enthusiastically received. There
were, however, concealed titterings and suppressed whispers. "My sakes!
She's went and brought that bird."
"I won't believe it till I see it."
"There he sets in his gold coop."
Mrs. Turtle brought Romeo to the excursion with the same assurance
that a woman of another stamp brings her Pekingese dog to a restaurant table.
While the Fall of Rome sounded a warning whistle, and hawsers
were loosed she adjusted her veil and took cognizance of fellow passengers.
In spite of wealth and "owning her own automobile," Mrs.
Turtle's fetish was democratic popularity. She greeted one after another.
"How do, Mis' Bridge, and Mister, too! Who's keeping store
while you're away?
"Carrie Turpin! You here? Where's Si? Couldn't come? Now
that's too bad!" After a long stare, "You're some fleshier, ain't
you, Carrie?"
A large woman in a tan-colored linen duster came slowly down the
deck, a camp-stool in either hand. Her portly advance was intercepted by Mrs.
Tuttle.
"Mis' Tinneray! Same as ever!"
Mrs. Tinneray dropped the camp-stools and adjusted her smoked
glasses; she gave a start and the two ladies embraced.
Mrs. Tuttle said that "it beat all," and Mrs. Tinneray
said "she never!"
Mrs. Tuttle, emerged from the embrace, re-adjusting her hat with
many-ringed fingers, inquiring, "How's the folks?"
Up lumbered Mr. Tinneray, a large man with a chuckle and pale
eyes, who was introduced by the well-known formula, "Mis' Tuttle, Mr.
Tinneray, Mr. Tinneray, Mis' Tuttle."
The Tinnerays said, "So you brought the bird along,
hey?" Then, without warning, all conversation ceased. The Fall of
Rome, steaming slowly away from the pier, whistled a sodden whistle, the
flags flapped, every one realized that the excursion had really begun.
This excursion was one of the frank displays of human hopes,
yearnings, and vanities, that sometimes take place on steamboats. Feathers had
a hectic brilliancy that proved secret, dumb longings. Pendants known as
"lavaleers" hung from necks otherwise innocent of the costly fopperies
of Versailles. Old ladies clad in princess dresses with yachting caps worn
rakishly on their grey hair, vied with other old ladies in automobile bonnets,
who, with opera glasses, searched out the meaning of every passing buoy. Young
girls carrying "mesh-bags," that subtle connotation of the feminine
character, extracted tooth-picks from them or searched for bits of chewing gum
among their over scented treasures.
As it was an excursion, the Fall of Rome carried
a band and booths laden with many delicious superfluities such as pop-corn and
the misleading compound known as "salt-water taffy." There were,
besides, the blue and red pennants that always go on excursions, and the yellow
and pink fly-flappers that always come home from them; also there were stacks
of whistle-whips and slender canes with ivory heads with little holes
pierced through. These canes were bought only by cynical young men whose new
straw hats were fastened to their persons by thin black strings. Each young
man, after purchasing an ivory-headed cane retired to privacy to squint through
it undisturbed. Emerging from this privacy the young man would then confer with
other young men. What these joyless young men saw when they squinted they never
revealed. But among their elders they spread the strong impression that it was
the Capital at Washington or Bunker Hill Monument.
Besides bottled soda and all soft drinks the Fall of Rome carried
other stimuli in the shape of comic gentlemen—such beings, as, more or less
depressed in their own proper environment, on excursions suddenly see
themselves in their true light, irresistibly facetious. These funny gentlemen,
mostly husbands, seated themselves near to large groups of indulgent women and
kept up an exquisite banter directed at each other's personal defects, or upon
the idiosyncrasies of any bachelor or spinster near. These funny gentlemen kept
alluding to the excursion as the "Exertion." If the boat rolled a
little they said, "Now, Mother, don't rock the boat."
"Here, girls, sit up close, we'll all go down together."
"Hold on to yer beau, Minnie. He'll fall overboard and
where'll you git another?"
The peals of laughter at these sallies were unfailing. The crunch
of peanuts was unfailing. The band, with a sort of plethoric indulgence, played
slow waltzes in which the bass instruments frequently misapplied notes, but to
the allure of which came youthful dancers lovely in proud awkward poses.
Mrs. Tuttle meanwhile was the social center, demonstrating that
mysterious psychic force known as being the "life of the party." She
advanced upon a tall sallow woman in mourning, challenging, "Now Mis'
Mealer, why don't you just set and take a little comfort, it won't cost
you nothing? Ain't that your girl over there by the coffee fountain? I should
ha' known her by the reesemblance to you; she's rill refined lookin'."
Mrs. Mealer, a tall, sallow widow with carefully maintained
mourning visage, admitted that this was so. Refinement, she averred, was in the
family, but she hinted at some obscure ailment which, while it made Emma
refined, kept her "mizzable."
"I brought her along," sighed Mrs. Mealer, "tain't
as if neither of us could take much pleasure into it, both of us being so deep
in black fer her Popper, but the styles is bound to do her good. Emma is such a
great hand for style."
"Yuess?" replied Mrs. Tuttle blandly. This lady in blue
was not nearly so interested in Emma as in keeping a circle of admirers hanging
around her cerulean presence, but even slightly encouraged, Mrs. Mealer warmed
to her topic.
"Style?" she repeated impressively, "style? Seems
like Emma couldn't never have enough of it. Where she got it I don't know. I
wasn't never much for dress, and give her Popper coat and pants, twuz all he wanted.
But Emma—ef you want to make her happy tie a bow onto suthin'."
Mrs. Tuttle nodded with ostentatious understanding. Rising, she
seized Romeo's cage and placed it more conspicuously near her. She was
critically watched by the older women. They viewed the thing with mingled
feelings, one or two going so far as to murmur darkly, "Her and her
parrot!"
Still, the lady's elegance and the known fact that she owned and
operated her own automobile cast a spell over most of her observers, and many
faces, as Mrs. Tuttle proceeded to draw out her pet, were screwed into watchful
and ingratiating benevolence.
Romeo, a blasé bird with the air of having bitter memories,
affected for a long time not to hear his mistress's blandishments. After
looking contemptuously into his seed-cup, he crept slowly around the sides
of his cage, fixing a cynical eye upon all observers.
"How goes it, Romeo?" appealed Mrs. Tuttle. Making
sounds supposed to be appreciated by birds, the lady put her feathered head
down, suggesting, "Ah there, Romeo?"
"Rubberneck," returned Romeo sullenly. To show general
scorn, the bird revolved on one claw round and round his swing; he looked
dangerous, repeating, "Rubberneck."
At this an interested group gathered around Mrs. Tuttle, who,
affable and indulgent, attempted by coaxings and flirtings of a fat bediamonded
finger to show Romeo off, but the pampered bird saw further opportunity to
offend.
"Rubberneck," screamed Romeo again. He ruffled up his
neck feathers, repeating "Rubberneck, I'm cold as the deuce; what's the
matter with Hannah; let 'em all go to grass."
Several of the youths with ivory-headed canes now forsook their
contemplations to draw near, grinning, to the parrot-cage.
Stimulated by these youths, Romeo reeled off more ribald remarks,
things that created a sudden chill among the passengers on the Fall of
Rome. Mrs. Tinneray, looked upon as a leader, called up a shocked face and
walked away; Mrs. Mealer after a faint "Excuse me," also
abandoned the parrot-cage; and Mrs. Bean, a small stout woman with a brown
false front, followed the large lady with blue spectacles and the tan linen
duster. On some mysterious pretext of washing their hands, these two left the
upper deck and sought the calm of the white and gold passenger saloon. Here
they trod as in the very sanctities of luxury.
"These carpets is nice, ain't they?" remarked Mrs. Bean.
Then alluding to the scene they had just left: "Ain't it
comical how she idolizes that there bird?"[Pg 6]
Mrs. Tinneray sniffed. "And what she spends on him! 'Nitials
on his seed-cup—and some says the cage itself is true gold."
Mrs. Bean, preparing to wash her hands, removed her black skirt
and pinned a towel around her waist. "This here liquid soap is
nice"—turning the faucets gingerly—"and don't the boat set good onto
the water?" Then returning to the rich topic of Mrs. Tuttle and her
pampered bird, "Where's she get all her money for her ottermobile and her
gold cage?"
Mrs. Tinneray at an adjacent basin raised her head sharply,
"You ain't heard about the Tuttle money? You don't know how Mabel Hutch
that was, was hair to everything?"
Mrs. Bean confessed that she had not heard, but she made it
evident that she thirsted for information. So the two ladies, exchanging
remarks about sunburn and freckles, finished their hand-washing and proceeded
to the dark-green plush seats of the saloon, where with appropriate looks of
horror and incredulity Mrs. Bean listened to the story of the hairs to the
Hutches' money.
"Mabel was the favorite; her Pa set great store by her. There
was another sister—consumpted—she should have been a hair, but she died. Then
the youngest one, Hetty, she married my second cousin Hen Cronney—well it
seemed like they hadn't nothing but bad luck and her Pa and Mabel sort of took
against Hetty."
Mrs. Bean, herself chewing calculatingly, handed Mrs. Tinneray a
bit of sugared calamus-root.
"Is your cousin Hen dark-complexioned like your folks?"
she asked scientifically.
Mrs. Tinneray, narrowing both eyes, considered. "More
auburn-inclined, I should say—he ain't rill smart, Hen ain't, he gets took with
spells now and then, but I never held that against him."
"Uh-huh!" agreed Mrs. Bean sympathetically.
"Well, then, Mabel Hutch and her Popper took against poor
little Hetty. Old man Hutch he died and left everything to Mabel, and she
never goes near her own sister!"
Mrs. Bean raised gray-cotton gloved hands signifying horror.
"St—st—st——!" she deplored. She searched in her reticule
for more calamus-root. "He didn't leave her nothing?"
"No, ma'am! This one!" With a jerk of the head, Mrs.
Tinneray indicated a dashing blue feather seen through a distant saloon window.
"This one's got it all; hair to everything."
"And what did she do—married a traveling salesman and built a
tony brick house. They never had no children, but when he was killed into a
railway accident she trimmed up that parrot's cage with crape—and
now,"—Mrs. Tinneray with increasing solemnity chewed her
calamus-root—"now she's been and bought one of them
ottermobiles and runs it herself like you'd run your sewin'-machine, just
as shameless—"
Both of the ladies glared condemnation at the distant blue
feather.
Mrs. Tinneray continued, "Hetty Cronney's worth a dozen of
her. When I think of that there bird goin' on this excursion and Hetty Cronney
stayin' home because she's too poor, I get nesty, Mrs. Bean, yes, I
do!"
"Don't your cousin Hetty live over to Chadwick's
Harbor," inquired Mrs. Bean, "and don't this boat-ride stop there to
take on more folks?"
Mrs. Tinneray, acknowledging that these things were so, uncorked a
small bottle of cologne and poured a little of it on a handkerchief embroidered
in black forget-me-nots. She handed the bottle to Mrs. Bean who took three
polite sniffs and closed her eyes. The two ladies sat silent for a moment. They
experienced a detachment of luxurious abandon filled with the poetry of the
steamboat saloon. Psychically they were affected as by ecclesiasticism. The
perfume of the cologne and the throb of the engines swept them with a sense of
esthetic reverie, the thrill of travel, and the atmosphere of elegance. Moreover,
the story of the Hutch money and the Hutch hairs had in some undefined way
affiliated the two. At last by tacit consent they rose, went out on deck and,
holding their reticules tight, walked majestically up and down. When they
passed Mrs. Turtle's blue feathers and the gold parrot-cage they smiled
meaningly and looked at each other.
As the Fall of Rome approached Chadwick's Landing
more intimate groups formed. The air was mild, the sun warm and inviting, and
the water an obvious and understandable blue. Some serious-minded excursionists
sat well forward on their camp-stools discussing deep topics over half-skinned
bananas.
"Give me the Vote," a lady in a purple raincoat was
saying, "Give me the Vote and I undertake to close up every rum-hole in God's
World."
A mild-mannered youth with no chin, upon hearing this, edged away.
He went to the stern, looking down for a long time upon the white path of foam
left in the wake of the Fall of Rome and taking a harmonica
from his waistcoat pocket began to play, "Darling, I Am Growing Old."
This tune, played with emotional throbbings managed by spasmodic movements of
the hands over the sides of the mouth, seemed to convey anything but age to
Miss Mealer, the girl who was so refined. She also sat alone in the stern, also
staring down at the white water. As the wailings of the harmonica ceased, she
put up a thin hand and furtively controlled some waving strands of hair.
Suddenly with scarlet face the mild-mannered youth moved up his camp-stool to
her side.
"They're talkin' about closing up the rum-holes." He
indicated the group dominated by the lady in the purple raincoat. "They
don't know what they're talking about. Some rum-holes is real refined and
tasty, some of them have got gramophones you can hear for nothin'."
"Is that so?" responded the refined Miss Mealer. She
smoothed her gloves. She opened her "mesh" bag and took out an
intensely perfumed handkerchief. The mild-mannered youth put his harmonica in
his pocket and warmed to the topic.
"Many's the time I've set into a saloon listening to that
Lady that sings high up—higher than any piano can go. I've set and listened
till I didn't know where I was settin'—of course I had to buy a drink, you
understand, or I couldn't 'a' set."
"And they call that vice," remarked Miss
Mealer with languid criticism.
The mild-mannered youth looked at her gratefully. The light of
reason and philosophy seemed to him to shine in her eyes.
"You've got a piano to your house," he said boldly,
"can you—ahem—play classic pieces, can you play—ahem—'Asleep on the
Deep'?"
In another group where substantial sandwiches were being eaten,
the main theme was religion and psychic phenomena with a strong leaning toward
death-bed experiences.
"And then, my sister's mother-in-law, she set up, and she
says, 'Where am I?' she says, like she was in a store or somethin', and she
told how she seen all white before her eyes and all like gentlemen in high silk
hats walkin' around."
There were sighs of comprehension, gasps of dolorous interest.
"The same with my Christopher!"
"Just like my aunt's step-sister afore she went!"
Mrs. Tuttle did not favor the grave character of these symposia.
With the assured manner peculiar to her, she swept into such
circles bearing a round box of candy, upon which was tied a large bow of satin
ribbon of a convivial shade of heliotrope. Opening this box she handed it
about, commanding, "Help yourself."
At first it was considered refined to refuse. One or two
excursionists, awed by the superfluity of heliotrope ribbon, said feebly,
"Don't rob yourself."
But Mrs. Tuttle met this restraint with practised raillery.
"What you all afraid of? It ain't poisoned! I got more where this come
from." She turned to the younger people. "Come one, come all! It's
French-mixed."
Meanwhile Mrs. Bean and Mrs. Tinneray, still aloof and enigmatic,
paced the deck. Mrs. Tuttle, blue feathers streaming, teetered on her high
heels in their direction. Again she proffered the box. One of the cynical
youths with the ivory-headed canes was following her, demanding that the parrot
be fed a caramel. Once more the sky-blue figure bent over the ornate cage; then
little Mrs. Bean looked at Mrs. Tinneray with a gesture of utter repudiation.
"Ain't she terrible?"
As the steamboat approached the wharf and the dwarf pines and
yellow sand-banks of Chadwick's Landing, a whispered consultation between these
two ladies resulted in one desperate attempt to probe the heart of Mabel Hutch
that was. Drawing camp-stools up near the vicinity of the parrot's cage, they began
with what might to a suspicious nature have seemed rather pointed speculation,
to wonder who might or might not be at the wharf when the Fall of Rome got
in.
Once more the bottle of cologne was produced and handkerchiefs
genteelly dampened. Mrs. Bean, taking off her green glasses, polished them and
held them up to the light, explaining, "This here sea air makes 'em all of
a muck."
Suddenly she leaned over to Mrs. Tuttle with an air of sympathetic
interest.
"I suppose—er—your sister Hetty'll be comin' on board when we
get to Chadwick's Landing—her and her husband?"
Mrs. Tuttle fidgeted. She covered Romeo's cage with a curious
arrangement like an altar-cloth on which gay embroidered parrakeets of all
colors were supposed to give Romeo, when lonely, a feeling of congenial
companionship.
Mrs. Bean, thus evaded, screwed up her eyes tight, then opened
them wide at Mrs. Tinneray, who sat rigid, her gaze riveted upon far-off
horizons, humming between long sighs a favorite hymn. Finally, however, the
last-named lady leaned past Mrs. Bean and touched Mrs. Turtle's silken knee,
volunteering,
"Your sister Hetty likes the water, I know. You remember them
days, Mis' Tuttle, when we all went bathin' together down to old Chadwick's
Harbor, afore they built the new wharf?"
Mrs. Tinneray continued reminiscently.
"You remember them old dresses we wore—no classy
bathin'-suits then—but my—the mornings used to smell good! That path to the
shore was all wild roses and we used to find blueberries in them woods. Us
girls was always teasin' Hetty, her bathin'-dress was white muslin and when it
was wet it stuck to her all over, she showed through—my, how we'd laugh, but
yet for all," concluded Mrs. Tinneray sentimentally, "she looked
lovely—just like a little wet angel."
Mrs. Tuttle carefully smoothed her blue mitts, observing
nervously, "Funny how Mis' Tinneray could remember so far back."
"Is Hetty your sister by rights," suavely inquired Mrs.
Bean, "or ony by your Pa's second marriage, as it were?"
The owner of the overestimated parrot roused herself.
"By rights," she admitted indifferently, "I don't
see much of her—she married beneath her."
The tip of Mrs. Tinneray's nose, either from cologne inhalings or
sunburn, grew suddenly scarlet. However she still regarded the far-off horizons
and repeated the last stanza of her hymn, which stanza, sung with much
quavering and sighing was a statement to the effect that Mrs. Tinneray would
"cling to the old rugged cross." Suddenly, however, she remarked
to the surrounding Summer air,
"Hen Cronney is my second cousin on the mother's side. Some
thought he was pretty smart until troubles come and his wife was done out of
her rights."
The shaft, carefully aimed, went straight into Mrs. Turtle's blue
bosom and stuck there. Her eyes, not overintelligent, turned once in her
complacent face, then with an air of grandiose detachment, she occupied herself
with the ends of her sky-blue automobile veil.
"I'll have to fix this different," she remarked
unconcernedly, "or else my waves'll come out. Well, I presume we'll soon
be there. I better go down-stairs and primp up some." The high heels
clattered away. Mrs. Bean fixed a long look of horror on Mrs. Tinneray, who
silently turned her eyes up to heaven!
As the Fall of Rome churned its way up to the
sunny wharf of Chadwick's Landing, the groups already on the excursion bristled
with excitement. Children were prepared to meet indulgent grandparents, lovers
their sweethearts, and married couples old school friends they had not seen for
years. From time to time these admonished their offspring.
"Hypatia Smith, you're draggin' your pink sash, leave Mommer
fix it. There now, don't you dare to set down so Grammer can see you lookin'
good."
"Lionel Jones, you throw that old pop-corn overboard. Do you
want to eat it after you've had it on the floor?"
"Does your stomach hurt you, dear? Well, here don't cry
Mommer'll give you another cruller."
With much shouting of jocular advice from the male passengers
the Fall of Rome was warped into Chadwick's Landing and the
waiting groups came aboard. As they streamed on, bearing bundles and boxes and
all the impedimenta of excursions, those already on board congregated on the
after-deck to distinguish familiar faces. A few persons had come down to the
landing merely to look upon the embarkation.
These, not going themselves on the excursion, maintained an air of
benevolent superiority that could not conceal vivid curiosity. Among them,
eagerly scanning the faces on deck was a very small thin woman clad in a gingham
dress, on her head a battered straw hat of accentuated by-gone mode, and an
empty provision-basket swinging on her arm. Mrs. Tinneray peering down on her
through smoked glasses, suddenly started violently. "My sakes," she
ejaculated, "my sakes," then as the dramatic significance of the
thing gripped her, "My—my—my, ain't that terrible?"
Solemnly, with prunella portentousness, Mrs. Tinneray stole back
of the other passengers leaning over the rail up to Mrs. Bean, who turned to
her animatedly, exclaiming,
"They've got a new schoolhouse. I can just see the
cupola—there's some changes since I was here. They tell me there's a flag
sidewalk in front of the Methodist church and that young Baxter the express
agent has growed a mustache, and's got married."
Mrs. Tinneray did not answer. She laid a compelling hand on Mrs.
Bean's shoulder and turned her so that she looked straight at the small group
of home-stayers down on the wharf. She pointed a sepulchral finger,
"That there, in the brown with the basket, is Hetty Cronney,
own sister to Mis' Josiah Tuttle."
Mrs. Bean clutched her reticule and leaned over the rail, gasping
with interest.
"Ye don't say—that's her? My! My! My!"
In solemn silence the two regarded the little brown woman so
unconscious of their gaze. By the piteous wizened face screwed up in the
sunlight, by the faded hair, nut-cracker jaws, and hollow eyes they utterly
condemned Mrs. Tuttle, who, blue feathers floating, was also absorbed in
watching the stream of embarking excursionists.
Mrs. Tinneray, after a whispered consultation with Mrs. Bean
went up and nudged her; without ceremony she pointed,
"Your sister's down there on the wharf," she announced
flatly, "come on over where we are and you can see her."
Frivolous Mrs. Tuttle turned and encountered a pair of eyes steely
in their determination. Re-adjusting the gold cage more comfortably on its
camp-stool and murmuring a blessing on the hooked-beak occupant, the azure lady
tripped off in the wake of her flat-heeled friend.
Meanwhile Mr. Tinneray, standing well aft, was calling cheerfully
down to the little figure on the wharf.
"Next Summer you must git your nerve up and come along.
Excursions is all the rage nowadays. My wife's took in four a'ready."
But little Mrs. Cronney did not answer. Shading her eyes from the
sun glare, she was establishing recognizance with her cerulean relative who,
waving a careless blue-mitted hand, called down in girlish greeting,
"Heigho, Hetty, how's Cronney? Why ain't you to the
excursion?"
The little woman on the wharf was seen to wince slightly. She
shifted her brown basket to the other arm, ignoring the second question.
"Oh, Cronney's good—ony he's low-spirited—seems as tho he
couldn't get no work."
"Same old crooked stick, hey?" Mrs. Tuttle called down
facetiously.
Mrs. Bean and Mrs. Tinneray stole horrified glances at each other.
One planted a cotton-gloved hand over an opening mouth. But little Mrs.
Cronney, standing alone on the pier was equal to the occasion. She shook out a
small and spotless handkerchief, blowing her nose with elegant deliberation
before she replied,
"Well—I don't know as he needs to work all the
time; Cronney is peculiar, you know, he's one of them that is
high-toned and nifty about money—he ain't like some, clutching onto
every penny!"
By degrees, other excursionists, leaning over the railing, began
to catch at something spicy in the situation of these two sisters brought face
to face. At Mrs. Cronney's sally, one of the funny men guffawed his approval.
Groups of excursionists explained to each other that that lady down there, her
on the wharf, in the brown, was own sister to Mrs. Josiah Tuttle!
The whistle of the Fall of Rome now sounded for
all aboard. It was a dramatic moment, the possibilities of which suddenly
gripped Mrs. Tinneray. She clasped her hands in effortless agony. This lady, as
she afterward related to Mrs. Bean, felt mean! She could see in her mind's eye,
she said, how it all looked to Hetty Cronney, the Fall of Rome with
its opulent leisurely class of excursionists steaming away from her lonely
little figure on the wharf; while Mabel Tuttle, selfish devourer of the
Hutches' substance and hair to everything, would still be handing aroun' her
boxes of French-mixed and talking baby talk to that there bird!
At the moment, Mrs. Tinneray's mind, dwelling upon the golden cage
and its over-estimated occupant, became a mere boiling of savage desires.
Suddenly the line of grim resolution hardened on her face. This look, one that
the Tinneray children invariably connected with the switch hanging behind the
kitchen door, Mr. Tinneray also knew well. Seeing it now, he hastened to his
wife.
"What's the matter, Mother, seasick? Here I'll git you a
lemon."
Mrs. Tinneray, jaw set, eyes rolling, was able to intimate that
she needed no lemon, but she drew her husband mysteriously aside. She fixed him
with a foreboding glare, she said it was a wonder the Lord didn't sink the
boat! Then she rapidly sketched the tragedy—Mrs. Tuttle serene and pampered on
the deck, and Hetty Cronney desolate on the wharf! She pronounced verdict.
"It's terrible—that's what it is!"
Mr. Tinneray with great sagacity said he'd like to show Mabel
Tuttle her place—then he nudged his wife and chuckled admiringly,
"But yet for all, Hetty's got her tongue in her head yet—say,
ain't she the little stinger?"
Sotto voce Mr.
Tinneray related to his spouse how Mabel Tuttle was bragging about her brick
house and her shower-bath and her automobile and her hired girl, and how she'd
druv herself and that there bird down to Boston and back.
"Hetty, she just stands there, just as easy, and hollers back
that Cronney has bought a gramophone and how they sets by it day and night
listening, and how it's son and daughter to 'em. Then she calls up to Mabel
Tuttle, 'I should think you'd be afraid of meddlin' with them
ottermobiles, your time of life.'"
Mr. Tinneray choked over his own rendition of this audacity, but
his wife sniffed hopelessly.
"They ain't got no gramophone—her, with
that face and hat?—Cronney don't make nothing; they two could live on
what that Blue Silk Quilt feeds that stinkin' parrot."
But Mr. Tinneray chuckled again, he seemed to be possessed with
the humor of some delightful secret. Looking carefully around him and seeing
every one absorbed in other things he leaned closer to his wife.
"She's liable to lose that bird," he whispered.
"Them young fellers with the canes—they're full of their devilment—well,
they wanted I shouldn't say nothing and I ain't sayin' nothing—only—"
Fat Mr. Tinneray, pale eyes rolling in merriment, pointed to the
camp-stool where once the parrot's cage had rested and where now no parrot-cage
was to be seen.
"As fur as I can see," he nudged his wife again,
"that bird's liable to get left ashore."
For a moment Mrs. Tinneray received this news stolidly, then a
look of comprehension flashed over her face. "What you talkin' about,
Henry?" she demanded. "Say, ain't you never got grown up? Where's
Manda Bean?"
Having located Mrs. Bean, the two ladies indulged in a rapid
whispered conversation. Upon certain revelations made by Mrs. Bean, Mrs.
Tinneray turned and laid commands upon her husband.
"Look here," she said, "that what you told me is
true—them young fellers—" she fixed Mr. Tinneray with blue-glassed
significant eyes, adding sotto voce, "You keep Mabel Tuttle
busy."
Fat Mr. Tinneray, chuckling anew, withdrew to the after-rail where
the azure lady still stood, chained as it were in a sort of stupor induced by
the incisive thrusts of the forlorn little woman on the wharf. He joined in the
conversation.
"So yer got a gramophone, hey," he called down
kindly—"Say, that's nice, ain't it?—that's company fer you and
Cronney." He appealed to Mrs. Tuttle in her supposed part of interested
relative. "Keeps 'em from gettin' lonesome and all," he explained.
That lady looking a pointed unbelief, could not, with the other
excursionists watching, but follow his lead.
"Why—er—ye-ess, that's rill nice," she agreed, with all
the patronage of the wealthy relative.
Little Mrs. Cronney's eyes glittered. The steamboat hands had
begun lifting the hawsers from the wharf piles and her time was short. She was
not going to be pitied by the opulent persons on the excursion. Getting as it
were into her stride, she took a bolder line of imagery.
"And the telephone," looking up at Mr. Tinneray. "I
got friends in Quahawg Junction and Russell Center—we're talkin' sometimes till
nine o'clock at night. I can pick up jelly receipts and dress-patterns just so
easy."
But Mrs. Tuttle now looked open incredulity. She turned to such
excursionists as stood by and registered emphatic denial. "Uh-huh?"
she called down in apparent acceptance of these lurid statements, at the same
time remarking baldly to Mr. Tinneray, who had placed himself at her side,
"She ain't got no telephone!"
At this moment something seemed to occur to little Mrs. Cronney.
As she gave a parting defiant scrutiny to her opulent sister her black eyes
snapped in hollow reminiscence and she called out,
"Say—how's your parrot? How's your beau—Ro-me-o?"
At this, understood to be a parting shot, the crowd strung along
the rail of the Fall of Rome burst into an appreciative
titter. Mrs. Tuttle, reddening, made no answer, but Mr. Tinneray, standing by
and knowing what he knew, seized this opportunity to call down vociferously,
"Oh—he's good, Romeo is. But your sister's had him to the
excursion and he's got just a little seasick comin' over. Mis' Tuttle, yer
sister, is going to leave him with you, till she can come and take him home, by
land, ye know, in her ottermobile—she's coming to get you too, fer a visit, ye
know."
There was an effect almost as of panic on the Fall of Rome.
Not only did the big whistle for "all aboard" blow, but some one's
new hat went overboard and while every one crowded to one side to see it
rescued, it was not discovered that Romeo's cage had disappeared! In the
confusion of a band of desperadoes composed of the entire group of cynical
young men with ivory-headed canes, seized upon an object covered with something
like an altar-cloth and ran down the gangplank with it.
Going in a body to little Mrs. Cronney, these young men deposited
a glittering burden, the gold parrot-cage with the green bird sitting within,
in her surprised and gratified embrace. Like flashes these agile young men
jumped back upon the deck of the Fall of Rome just before the
space between wharf and deck became too wide to jump. Meanwhile on the upper
deck, before the petrified Mrs. Tuttle could open her mouth, Mr. Tinneray
shouted instructions,
"Your sister wants you should keep him," he roared, "till
she comes over to see you in her
ottermobile—to—fetch—him—and—git—you—for—a—visit!"
Suddenly the entire crowd of excursionists on the after-deck of
the Fall of Rome gave a rousing cheer. The gratified young men
with the ivory-headed canes suddenly saw themselves of the age of chivalry and
burst into ragtime rapture; the excursion, a mass of waving flags and hats and
automobile veils, made enthusiastic adieu to one faded little figure on the
wharf, who proud and happy gently waved back a gleaming parrot's cage!
It was Mr. Tinneray, dexterous in all such matters, that caught at
a drooping cerulean form as it toppled over.
"I know'd she'd faint," the pale-eyed gentleman
chuckled. He manfully held his burden until Mrs. Tinneray and Mrs. Bean relieved
him. These ladies, practised in all smelling-bottle and cologne soothings,
supplied also verbal comfort.
"Them young fellows," they explained to Mrs. Tuttle,
"is full of their devilment and you can't never tell what they'll do next.
But ain't it lucky, Mis' Tuttle, that it's your own sister has
charge of that bird?"
When at last a pale and interesting lady in blue appeared feebly
on deck, wiping away recurrent tears, she was received with the most perfect
sympathy tempered with congratulations. There may have been a few winks and one
or two nods of understanding which she did not see, but Mrs. Tuttle herself was
petted and soothed like a queen of the realm, only, to her mind was brought a
something of obligation—the eternal obligation of those who greatly possess—for
every excursionist said,
"My, yes! No need to worry—your sister will take care of that
bird like he was one of her own, and then you can go over in yer ottermobile to
git him—and when you fetch him you can take her home with yer—fer a
visit."
By THOMAS BEER
From The Century
Magazine
Mrs. Rawling ordered
Sanford to take a bath, and with the clear vision of seven years Sanford noted
that no distinct place for this process had been recommended. So he retired to
a sun-warmed tub of rain-water behind the stables, and sat comfortably armpit
deep therein, whirring a rattle lately worn by a snake, and presented to him by
one of the Varian tribe, sons of his father's foreman. Soaking happily, Sanford
admired his mother's garden, spread up along the slope toward the thick cedar
forest, and thought of the mountain strawberries ripening in this hot
Pennsylvania June. His infant brother Peter yelled viciously in the big
gray-stone house, and the great sawmill snarled half a mile away, while he
waited patiently for the soapless water to remove all plantain stains from his
brown legs, the cause of this immersion.
A shadow came between him and the sun, and Sanford abandoned the
rattles to behold a monstrous female, unknown, white-skinned, moving on majestic
feet to his seclusion. He sat deeper in the tub, but she seemed unabashed, and
stood with a red hand on each hip, a grin rippling the length of her mouth.
"Herself says you'll be comin' to herself now, if it's you
that's Master San," she said.
Sanford speculated. He knew that all things have an office in this
world, and tried to locate this preposterous, lofty creature while she beamed
upon him.
"I'm San. Are you the new cook?" he asked.
"I am the same," she admitted.
"Are you a good cook?" he continued.
"Aggie wasn't. She drank."
"God be above us all! And whatever did herself do with a cook
that drank in this place?"
"I don't know. Aggie got married. Cooks do,"
said Sanford, much entertained by this person. Her deep voice was soft,
emerging from the largest, reddest mouth he had ever seen. The size of her feet
made him dubious as to her humanity. "Anyhow," he went on, "tell
mother I'm not clean yet. What's your name?"
"Onnie," said the new cook. "An' would this be the
garden?"
"Silly, what did you think?"
"I'm a stranger in this place, Master San, an' I know not
which is why nor forever after."
Sanford's brain refused this statement entirely, and he blinked.
"I guess you're Irish," he meditated.
"I am. Do you be gettin' out of your tub now, an' Onnie'll
dry you," she offered.
"I can't," he said firmly; "you're a lady."
"A lady? Blessed Mary save us from sin! A lady? Myself? I'm
no such thing in this world at all; I'm just Onnie Killelia."
She appeared quite horrified, and Sanford was astonished. She seemed
to be a woman, for all her height and the extent of her hands.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"As I am a Christian woman," said Onnie. "I never
was a lady, nor could I ever be such a thing."
"Well," said Sanford, "I don't know, but I suppose
you can dry me."
He climbed out of his tub, and this novel being paid kind
attention to his directions. He began to like her, especially as her hair was
of a singular, silky blackness, suggesting dark mulberries, delightful to the
touch. He allowed her to kiss him and to carry him, clothed, back to the house
on her shoulders, which were as hard as a cedar trunk, but covered with green
cloth sprinkled with purple dots.
"And herself's in the libr'y drinkin' tea," said his
vehicle, depositing him on the veranda. "An' what might that be you'd be
holdin'?"
"Just a rattle off a snake."
She examined the six-tiered, smoky rattle with a positive light in
her dull, black eyes and crossed herself.
"A queer country, where they do be bellin' the snakes! I
heard the like in the gover'ment school before I did come over the west water,
but I misbelieved the same. God's ways is strange, as the priests will be
sayin'."
"You can have it," said Sanford, and ran off to inquire
of his mother the difference between women and ladies.
Rawling, riding slowly, came up the driveway from the single lane
of his village, and found the gigantic girl sitting on the steps so absorbed in
this sinister toy that she jumped with a little yelp when he dismounted.
"What have you there?" he asked, using his most engaging
smile.
"'Tis a snake's bell, your Honor, which Master San did be
givin' me. 'Tis welcome indeed, as I lost off my holy medal, bein' sick,
forever on the steamship crossin' the west water."
"But—can you use a rattle for a holy medal?" said Rawling.
"The gifts of children are the blessin's of Mary's
self," Onnie maintained. She squatted on the gravel and hunted for one of
the big hair-pins her jump had loosened, then used it to pierce the topmost
shell. Rawling leaned against his saddle, watching the huge hands, and Pat
Sheehan, the old coachman, chuckled, coming up for the tired horse.
"You'll be from the West," he said, "where they
string sea-shells."
"I am, an' you'll be from Dublin, by the sound of your
speakin'. So was my father, who is now drowned forever, and with his wooden
leg," she added mournfully, finding a cord in some recess of her pocket,
entangled there with a rosary and a cluster of small fishhooks. She patted the
odd scapular into the cleft of her bosom and smiled at Rawling. "Them in
the kitchen are tellin' me you'll be ownin' this whole country an' sixty miles
of it, all the trees an' hills. You'll be no less than a President's son, then,
your Honor."
Pat led the horse off hastily, and Rawling explained that his
lineage was not so interesting. The girl had arrived the night before, sent on
by an Oil City agency, and Mrs. Rawling had accepted the Amazon as manna-fall.
The lumber valley was ten miles above a tiny railroad station, and servants had
to be tempted with triple wages, were transient, or married an employee before
a month could pass. The valley women regarded Rawling as their patron, heir of
his father, and as temporary aid gave feudal service on demand; but for the six
months of his family's residence each year house servants must be kept at any
price. He talked of his domain, and the Irish girl nodded, the rattles whirring
when she breathed, muffled in her breast, as if a snake were crawling somewhere
near.
"When my father came here," he said, "there wasn't
any railroad, and there were still Indians in the woods."
"Red Indians? Would they all be dead now? My brother Hyacinth
is fair departed his mind readin' of red Indians. Him is my twin."
"How many of you are there?"
"Twelve, your Honor," said Onnie, "an' me the first
to go off, bein' that I'm not so pretty a man would be marryin' me that
day or this. An' if herself is content, I am pleased entirely."
"You're a good cook," said Rawling, honestly. "How
old are you?"
He had been puzzling about this; she was so wonderfully ugly that
age was difficult to conjecture. But she startled him.
"I'll be sixteen next Easter-time, your Honor."
"That's very young to leave home," he sympathized.
"Who'd be doin' the like of me any hurt? I'd trample the face
off his head," she laughed.
"I think you could. And now what do you think of my big
son?"
The amazing Onnie gurgled like a child, clasping her hands.
"Sure, Mary herself bore the like among the Jew men, an' no
one since that day, or will forever. An' I must go to my cookin', or Master San
will have no dinner fit for him."
Rawling looked after her pink flannel petticoat, greatly touched
and pleased by this eulogy. Mrs. Rawling strolled out of the hall and laughed
at the narrative.
"She's appalling to look at, and she frightens the other
girls, but she's clean and teachable. If she likes San, she may not marry one
of the men—for a while."
"He'd be a bold man. She's as big as Jim Varian. If we run
short of hands, I'll send her up to a cutting. Where's San?"
"In the kitchen. He likes her. Heavens! if she'll only stay,
Bob!"
Onnie stayed, and Mrs. Rawling was gratified by humble obedience
and excellent cookery. Sanford was gratified by her address, strange to him. He
was the property of his father's lumbermen, and their wives called him
everything from "heart's love" to "little cabbage," as
their origin might dictate; but no one had ever called him "Master
San." He was San to the whole valley, the first-born of the owner who gave
their children schools and stereopticon lectures in the union chapel, as his
father had before him. He went where he pleased, safe except from blind nature
and the unfriendly edges of whirling saws. Men fished him out of the dammed
river, where logs floated, waiting conversion into merchantable planking, and
the Varian boys, big, tawny youngsters, were his body-guard. These perplexed
Onnie Killelia in her first days at Rawling's Hope.
"The agent's lads are whistlin' for Master San," she
reported to Mrs. Rawling. "Shall I be findin' him?"
"The agent's lads? Do you mean the Varian boys?"
"Them's them. Wouldn't Jim Varian be his honor's agent? Don't
he be payin' the tenantry an' sayin' where is the trees to be felled? I forbid
them to come in, as Miss Margot—which is a queer name!—is asleep sound, an' Master
Pete."
"Jim Varian came here with his honor's father, and taught his
honor to shoot and swim, also his honor's brother Peter, in New York, where we
live in winter. Yes, I suppose you'd call Jim Varian his honor's agent. The
boys take care of Master San almost as well as you do."
Onnie sniffed, balancing from heel to heel.
"Fine care! An' Bill Varian lettin' him go romping by the
poison-ivy, which God lets grow in this place like weeds in a widow's garden.
An' his honor, they do be sayin', sends Bill to a fine school, and will the
others after him, and to a college like Dublin has after. An' they callin'
himself San like he was their brother!"
As a volunteer nurse-maid Onnie was quite miraculous to her
mistress. Apparently she could follow Sanford by scent, for his bare soles left
no traces in the wild grass, and he moved rapidly, appearing at home exactly
when his stomach suggested. He was forbidden only the slate ledges beyond the
log basin, where rattlesnakes took the sun, and the trackless farther
reaches of the valley, bewildering to a small boy, with intricate brooks and
fallen cedar or the profitable yellow pine. Onnie, crying out on her saints,
retrieved him from the turn-table-pit of the narrow-gauge logging-road, and
pursued his fair head up the blue-stone crags behind the house, her vast feet
causing avalanches among the garden beds. She withdrew him with railings from
the enchanting society of louse-infested Polish children, and danced
hysterically on the shore of the valley-wide, log-stippled pool when the
Varians took him to swim. She bore him off to bed, lowering at the actual
nurse. She filled his bath, she cut his toe-nails. She sang him to sleep with
"Drolien" and the heart-shattering lament for Gerald. She prayed all
night outside his door when he had a brief fever. When trouble was coming, she
said the "snake's bells" told her, talking loudly; and petty
incidents confirmed her so far that, after she found the child's room ablaze
from one of Rawling's cigarettes, they did not argue, and grew to share
half-way her superstition.
Women were scarce in the valley, and the well-fed, well-paid men
needed wives; and, as time went on, Honora Killelia was sought in marriage by
tall Scots and Swedes, who sat dumbly passionate on the back veranda, where she
mended Sanford's clothes. Even hawk-nosed Jim Varian, nearing sixty, made
cautious proposals, using Bill as messenger, when Sanford was nine.
"God spare us from purgatory!" she shouted. "Me to
sew for the eight of you? Even in the fine house his honor did be givin' the
agent I could not stand the noise of it. An' who'd be mendin' Master San's
clothes? Be out of this kitchen, Bill Varian!"
Rawling, suffocated with laughter, reeled out of the pantry and
fled to his pretty wife.
"She thinks San's her own kid!" he gasped.
"She's perfectly priceless. I wish she'd be as careful of
Margot and Pete. I wish we could lure her to New York. She's worth twenty city
servants."
"Her theory is that if she stays here there's some one to see
that Pat Sheehan doesn't neglect—what does she call San's pony?" Rawling
asked.
"The little horse. Yes, she told me she'd trample the face
off Pat if Shelty came to harm. She keeps the house like silver, too; and it's
heavenly to find the curtains put up when we get here. Heavens! listen!"
They were in Rawling's bedroom, and Onnie came up the curved
stairs. Even in list house-slippers she moved like an elephant, and Sanford had
called her, so the speed of her approach shook the square upper hall, and the
door jarred a little way open with the impact of her feet.
"Onnie, I'm not sleepy. Sing Gerald," he commanded.
"I will do that same if you'll be lyin' down still, Master
San. Now, this is what Conia sang when she found her son all dead forever in
the sands of the west water."
By the sound Onnie sat near the bed crooning steadily, her soft
contralto filling both stories of the happy house. Rawling went across the hall
to see, and stood in the boy's door. He loved Sanford as imaginative men can
who are still young, and the ugly girl's idolatry seemed natural. Yet this was
very charming, the simple room, the drowsy, slender child, curled in his
sheets, surrounded with song.
"Thank you, Onnie," said Sanford. "I suppose she
loved him a lot. It's a nice song. Goo' night."
As Onnie passed her master, he saw the stupid eyes full of tears.
"Now, why'll he be thankin' me," she muttered—"me
that 'u'd die an' stay in hell forever for him? Now I must go mend up the
fish-bag your Honor's brother's wife was for sendin' him an' which no decent
fish would be dyin' in."
"Aren't you going to take Jim Varian?" asked Rawling.
"I wouldn't be marryin' with Roosyvelt himself, that's
President, an' has his house built all of gold! Who'd be seein' he gets his
meals, an' no servants in the sufferin' land worth the curse of a heretic? Not
the agent, nor fifty of him," Onnie proclaimed, and marched away.
Sanford never came to scorn his slave or treat her as a servant.
He was proud of Onnie. She did not embarrass him by her all-embracing attentions,
although he weaned her of some of them as he grew into a wood-ranging, silent
boy, studious, and somewhat shy outside the feudal valley. The Varian boys were
sent, as each reached thirteen, to Lawrenceville, and testified their gratitude
to the patron by diligent careers. They were Sanford's summer companions, with
occasional visits from his cousin Denis, whose mother disapproved of the valley
and Onnie.
"I really don't see how Sanford can let the poor creature
fondle him," she said. "Denny tells me she simply wails outside San's
door if he comes home wet or has a bruise. It's rather ludicrous, now that
San's fourteen. She writes to him at Saint Andrew's."
"I told her Saint Andrew's wasn't far from Boston, and she
offered to get her cousin Dermot—he's a bellhop at the Touraine—to valet him.
Imagine San with a valet at Saint Andrew's!" Rawling laughed.
"But San isn't spoiled," Peter observed, "and he's
the idol of the valley, Bob, even more than you are. Varian, McComas,
Jansen—the whole gang and their cubs. They'd slaughter any one who touched
San."
"I don't see how you stand the place," said Mrs. Peter.
"Even if the men are respectful, they're so familiar. And anything could
happen there. Denny tells me you have Poles and Russians—all sorts of dreadful
people."
Her horror tinkled prettily in the Chinese drawing-room, but
Rawling sighed.
"We can't get the old sort—Scotch, Swedes, the good Irish.
We get any old thing. Varian swears like a trooper, but he has to fire them
right and left all summer through. We've a couple of hundred who are there to
stay, some of them born there; but God help San when he takes it over!"
Sanford learned to row at Saint Andrew's, and came home in June
with new, flat bands of muscle in his chest, and Onnie worshiped with loud
Celtic exclamations, and bade small Pete grow up like Master San. And Sanford
grew two inches before he came home for the next summer, reverting to bare
feet, corduroys, and woolen shirts as usual. Onnie eyed him dazedly when he
strode into her kitchen for sandwiches against an afternoon's fishing.
"O Master San, you're all grown up sudden'!"
"Just five foot eight, Onnie. Ling Varian's five foot nine;
so's Cousin Den."
"But don't you be goin' round the cuttin' camps up valley,
neither. You're too young to be hearin' the awful way these news hands do talk.
It's a sin to hear how they curse an' swear."
"The wumman's right," said Cameron, the smith, who was
courting her while he mended the kitchen range. "They're foul as an
Edinburgh fishwife—the new men. Go no place wi'out a Varian, two Varians, or
one of my lads."
"Good Lord! I'm not a kid, Ian!"
"Ye're no' a mon, neither. An' ye're the owner's first,"
said Cameron grimly.
Rawling nodded when Sanford told him this.
"Jim carries an automatic in his belt, and we've had
stabbings. Keep your temper if they get fresh. We're in hot water constantly,
San. Look about the trails for whisky-caches. These rotten stevedores who come
floating in bother the girls and bully the kids. You're fifteen, and I
count on you to help keep the property decent. The boys will tell you the
things they hear. Use the Varians; Ling and Reuben are clever. I pay high
enough wages for this riffraff. I'll pay anything for good hands; and we get
dirt!"
Sanford enjoyed being a detective, and kept the Varians busy.
Bill, acting as assistant doctor of the five hundred, gave him advice on the
subject of cocaine symptoms and alcoholic eyes. Onnie raved when he trotted in
one night with Ling and Reuben at heel, their clothes rank with the evil
whiskey they had poured from kegs hidden in a cavern near the valley-mouth.
"You'll be killed forever with some Polack beast! O Master
San, it's not you that's the polis. 'Tis not fit for him, your Honor. Some
Irish pig will be shootin' him, or a sufferin' Bohemyun."
"But it's the property, Onnie," the boy faltered.
"Here's his honor worked to death, and Uncle Jim. I've got to do
something. They sell good whisky at the store, and just smell me."
But Onnie wept, and Rawling, for sheer pity, sent her out of the
dining-room.
"She—she scares me!" Sanford said. "It's not
natural, Dad, d' you think?"
He was sitting on his bed, newly bathed and pensive, reviewing the
day.
"Why not? She's alone here, and you're the only thing she's
fond of. Stop telling her about things or she'll get sick with worry."
"She's fond of Margot and Pete, but she's just idiotic about
me. She did scare me!"
Rawling looked at his son and wondered if the boy knew how
attractive were his dark, blue eyes and his plain, grave face. The younger children
were beautiful; but Sanford, reared more in the forest, had the forest depth in
his gaze and an animal litheness in his hard young body.
"She's like a dog," Sanford reflected. "Only she's
a woman. It's sort of—"
"Pathetic?"
"I suppose that's the word. But I do love
the poor old thing. Her letters are rich. She tells me about all the new babies
and who's courting who and how the horses are. It is pathetic."
He thought of Onnie often the next winter, and especially when she
wrote a lyric of thanksgiving after the family had come to Rawling's Hope in
April, saying that all would be well and trouble would cease. But his father
wrote differently:
"You know there is a strike in the West Virginia mines, and
it has sent a mass of ruffians out looking for work. We need all the people we
can get, but they are a pestiferous outfit. I am opening up a camp in Bear Run,
and our orders are enormous already, but I hate littering the valley with these
swine. They are as insolent and dirty as Turks. Pete says the village smells,
and has taken to the woods. Onnie says the new Irish are black scum of
Limerick, and Jim Varian's language isn't printable. The old men are
complaining, and altogether I feel like Louis XVI in 1789. About every day I
have to send for the sheriff and have some thug arrested. A blackguard from Oil
City has opened a dive just outside the property, on the road to the station,
and Cameron tells me all sorts of dope is for sale in the hoarding-houses. We
have cocaine-inhalers, opium-smokers, and all the other vices."
After this outburst Sanford was not surprised when he heard from
Onnie that his father now wore a revolver, and that the overseers of the
sawmill did the same.
On the first of June Rawling posted signs at the edge of his
valley and at the railroad stations nearest, saying that he needed no more
labor. The tide of applicants ceased, but Mrs. Rawling was nervous. Pete
declared his intention of running away, and riding home in the late
afternoon, Margot was stopped by a drunken, babbling man, who seized her pony's
bridle, with unknown words. She galloped free, but next day Rawling sent his
wife and children to the seaside and sat waiting Sanford's coming to cheer his
desolate house, the new revolver cold on his groin.
Sanford came home a day earlier than he had planned, and drove in
a borrowed cart from the station, furious when an old cottage blazed in the
rainy night, just below the white posts marking his heritage, and shrill women
screamed invitation at the horse's hoof-beats. He felt the valley smirched, and
his father's worn face angered him when they met.
"I almost wish you'd not come, Sonny. We're in rotten shape
for a hard summer. Go to bed, dear, and get warm."
"Got a six-shooter for me?"
"You? Who'd touch you? Some one would kill him. I let Bill
have a gun, and some other steady heads. You must keep your temper. You always
have. Ling Varian got into a splendid row with some hog who called Uncle
Jim—the usual name. Ling did him up. Ah, here's Onnie. Onnie, here's—"
The cook rushed down the stairs, a fearful and notable bed-gown
covering her night-dress, and the rattles chattering loudly.
"God's kind to us. See the chest of him! Master San! Master
San!"
"Good Lord, Onnie. I wasn't dead, you know! Don't kill a
fellow!"
For the first time her embrace was an embarrassment; her mouth on
his cheek made him flush. She loved him so desperately, this poor stupid woman,
and he could only be fond of her, give her a sort of tolerant affection.
Honesty reddened his face.
"Come on and find me a hard-boiled egg, there's a—"
"A hard-boiled egg? Listen to that, your Honor! An' it's
near the middle of the night! No, I'll not be findin' hard-boiled eggs for
you—oh, he's laughin' at me! Now you come into the dinin'-room, an' I'll be
hottin' some milk for you, for you're wet as any drowned little cat. An' the
mare's fine, an' I've the fishin'-sticks all dusted, an' your new bathin'-tub's
to your bath-room, though ill fate follow that English pig Percival that put it
in, for he dug holes with his heels! An' would you be wantin' a roast-beef
sandwidge?"
"She's nearly wild," said Rawling as the pantry door
slammed. "You must be careful, San, and not get into any rows. She'd have
a fit. What is it?"
"What do you do when you can't—care about a person as much as
they care about you?"
"Put up with it patiently." Rawling shrugged. "What
else can you do?"
"I'm sixteen. She keeps on as if I were six. S-suppose she
fell in love with me? She's not old—very old."
"It's another sort of thing, Sonny. Don't worry," said
Rawling, gravely, and broke off the subject lest the boy should fret.
Late next afternoon Sanford rode down a trail from deep forest,
lounging in the saddle, and flicking brush aside with a long dog-whip. There
was a rain-storm gathering, and the hot air swayed no leaf. A rabbit, sluggish
and impertinent, hopped across his path and wandered up the side trail toward
Varian's cottage. Sanford halted the mare and whistled. His father needed
cheering, and Ling Varian, if obtainable, would make a third at dinner. His
intimate hurtled down the tunnel of mountain ash directly and assented.
"Wait till I go back and tell Reuben, though. I'm cooking
this week. Wish Onnie 'd marry dad. Make her, can't you? Hi, Reu! I'm eating at
the house. The beef's on, and dad wants fried onions. Why won't she have
dad? You're grown up."
He trotted beside the mare noiselessly, chewing a birch spray, a
hand on his friend's knee.
"She says she won't get married. I expect she'll stay here as
long as she lives."
"I suppose so, but I wish she'd marry dad," said Ling.
"All this trouble's wearing him out, and he won't have a hired girl if we
could catch one. There's a pile of trouble, San. He has rows every day. Had a
hell of a row with Percival yesterday."
"Who's this Percival? Onnie was cursing him out last
night," Sanford recollected.
"He's an awful big hog who's pulling logs at the runway. Used
to be a plumber in Australia. Swears like a sailor. He's a—what d' you call
'em? You know, a London mucker?"
"Cockney?"
"Yes, that's it. He put in your new bath-tub, and Onnie
jumped him for going round the house looking at things. Dad's getting ready to
fire him. He's the worst hand in the place. I'll point him out to you."
The sawmill whistle blew as the trail joined open road, and they
passed men, their shirts sweat-stained, nodding or waving to the boys as they
spread off to their houses and the swimming-place at the river bridge.
A group gathered daily behind the engine-yard to play horseshoe
quoits, and Sanford pulled the mare to a walk on the fringes of this
half-circle as old friends hailed him and shy lads with hair already
sun-bleached wriggled out of the crowd to shake hands, Camerons, Jansens,
Nattiers, Keenans, sons of the faithful. Bill Varian strolled up, his medical
case under an arm.
"I'm eating with you. The boss asked me. He feels better
already. Come in and speak to dad. He's hurt because he's not
seen you, and you stopped to see Ian at the forge. Hi, Dad!" he called
over the felt hats of the ring, "here's San."
"Fetch him in, then," cried the foreman.
Bill and Ling led the nervous mare through the group of
pipe-smoking, friendly lumbermen, and Varian hugged his fosterling's son.
"Stop an' watch," he whispered. "They'll like
seein' you, San. Onnie's been tellin' the women you've growed a yard."
Sanford settled to the monotony of the endless sport, saluting
known brown faces and answering yelps of pleasure from the small boys who
squatted against the high fence behind the stake.
"That's Percival," said Ling, as a man swaggered out to
the pitching-mark.
"Six foot three," Bill said, "and strong as an ox.
Drinks all the time. Think he dopes, too."
Sanford looked at the fellow with a swift dislike for his vacant,
heavy face and his greasy, saffron hair. His bare arms were tattooed boldly and
in many colors, distorted with ropes of muscle. He seemed a little drunk, and
the green clouds cast a copper shade into his lashless eyes.
"Can't pitch for beans," said Ling as the first shoe
went wide. When the second fell beside it, the crowd laughed.
"Now," said Ian Cameron, "he'll be mad wi'
vainglory. He's a camstearlie ring' it an' a claverin' fu'."
"Ho! larf ahead!" snapped the giant. "'Ow's a man
to 'eave a bloody thing at a bloody stike?"
The experts chuckled, and he ruffled about the ring, truculent,
sneering, pausing before Varian, with a glance at Sanford.
"Give me something with some balance. Hi can show yer.
Look!"
"I'm looking," said the foreman; "an' I ain't deaf,
neither."
"'Ere's wot you blighters carn't 'eave. Learned it in
Auckland, where there's real men." He fumbled in his
shirt, and the mare snorted as the eight-inch blade flashed out of its handle
under her nose. "See? That's the lidy! Now watch! There's a knot-'ole up
the palings there."
The crowd fixed a stare on the green, solid barrier, and the
knife soared a full twenty yards, but missed the knot-hole and rattled down.
There was flat derision in the following laughter, and Percival dug his heel in
the sod.
"Larf ahead! Hany one else try 'er?"
"Oh, shut up!" said some one across the ring.
"We're pitchin' shoes."
Percival slouched off after his knife, and the frieze of small
boys scattered except a lint-haired Cameron who was nursing a stray cat busily,
cross-legged against the green boarding.
"Yon's Robert Sanford Cameron," said the smith. "He
can say half his catechism."
"Good kid," said Sanford. "I never could get
any—"
Percival had wandered back and stood a yard off, glaring at Bill
as the largest object near.
"Think I can't, wot?"
"I'm not interested, and you're spoiling the game," said
Bill, who feared nothing alive except germs, and could afford to disregard most
of these. Sanford's fingers tightened on his whip.
"Ho!" coughed the cockney. "See! You—there!"
Robert Cameron looked up at the shout. The blade shot between the
child's head and the kitten and hummed gently, quivering in the wood.
"Hi could 'a' cut 'is throat," said Percival so
complacently that Sanford boiled.
"You scared him stiff," he choked. "You hog!
Don't—"
"'Ello, 'oo's the young dook?"
"Look out," said a voice. "That's San, the—"
"Ho! 'Im with the Hirish gal to 'elp 'im tike 'is bloody
barth nights? 'Oo's he? She's a—"
A second later Sanford knew that he had struck the man over the
face with his whip, cutting the phrase. The mare plunged and the whole crowd
congested about the bellowing cockney as Bill held Cameron back, and huge
Jansen planted a hand on Rawling's chest.
"No worry," he said genially. "Yim an' us, Boss,
our job."
Varian had wedged his hawk face close to the cockney's, now purple
blotched with wrath, and Rawling waited.
"Come to the office an' get your pay. You hear? Then you
clear out. If you ain't off the property in an hour you'll be dead. You
hear?"
"He ought to," muttered Ling, leading the mare away.
"Dad hasn't yelled that loud since that Dutchman dropped the kid in
the—hello, it's raining!"
"Come on home, Sonny," said Rawling, "and tell us
all about it. I didn't see the start."
But Sanford was still boiling, and the owner had recourse to his
godson. Ling told the story, unabridged, as they mounted toward the house.
"Onnie'll hear of it," sighed Rawling. "Look, there
she is by the kitchen, and that's Jennie Cameron loping 'cross lots. Never
mind, San. You did the best you could; don't bother. Swine are swine."
The rain was cooling Sanford's head, and he laughed awkwardly.
"Sorry I lost my temper."
"I'm not. Jennie's telling Onnie. Hear?"
The smith's long-legged daughter was gesticulating at the kitchen
trellis, and Onnie's feet began a sort of war-dance in the wet grass as Rawling
approached.
"Where is this sufferin' pig, could your honor be tellin' me?
God be above us all! With my name in his black, ugly mouth! I knew there'd
be trouble; the snake's bells did be sayin' so since the storm was comin'. An'
him three times the bigness of Master San! Where'd he be now?"
"Jim gave him an hour to be off the property, Onnie."
"God's mercy he had no knife in his hand, then, even with the
men by an' Master San on his horse. Blessed Mary! I will go wait an' have speech
with this Englishman on the road."
"You'll go get dinner, Onnie Killelia," said Rawling.
"Master San is tired, Bill and Ling are coming—and look there!"
The faithful were marching Percival down the road to the
valley-mouth in the green dusk. He walked between Jansen and Bill, a dozen men
behind, and a flying scud of boys before.
"An' Robbie's not hurt," said Miss Cameron, "an'
San ain't, neither; so don't you worry, Onnie. It's all right."
Onnie laughed.
"I'd like well to have seen the whip fly, your Honor. The arm
of him! Will he be wantin' waffles to his dinner? Heyah! more trouble
yet!" The rattles had whirred, and she shook her head. "A forest fire
likely now? Or a child bein' born dead?"
"Father says she's fëy," Jennie observed as the big
woman lumbered off.
"You mean she has second sight? Perhaps. Here's a dollar for
Robbie, and tell Ian he's lucky."
Bill raced up as the rain began to fall heavily in the windless
gray of six o'clock. He reported the cockney gone and the men loud in
admiration of Sanford; so dinner was cheerful enough, although Sanford felt
limp after his first attack of killing rage. Onnie's name on this animal's
tongue had maddened him, the reaction made him drowsy; but Ling's winter at
Lawrenceville and Bill's in New York needed hearing. Rawling left the three at
the hall fireplace while he read a new novel in the library. The rain
increased, and the fall became a continuous throbbing so steady that he hardly
heard the telephone ring close to his chair; but old Varian's voice came clear
along the wire.
"Is that you, Bob? Now, listen. One of them girls at that
place down the station road was just talkin' to me. She's scared. She rung me
up an' Cameron. That dam' Englishman's gone out o' there bile drunk, swearin'
he'll cut San's heart out, the pup! He's gone off wavin' his knife. Now, he
knows the house, an' he ain't afraid of nothin'—when he's drunk. He might get
that far an' try breakin' in. You lock up—"
"Lock up? What with?" asked Rawling. "There's not a
lock in the place. Father never had them put in, and I haven't."
"Well, don't worry none. Ian's got out a dozen men or so with
lights an' guns, an' Bill's got his. You keep Bill an' Ling to sleep
down-stairs. Ian's got the men round the house by this. The hog'll make noise
enough to wake the dead."
"Nice, isn't it, Uncle Jim, having this whelp out gunning for
San! I'll keep the boys. Good-night," he said hastily as a shadow on the
rug engulfed his feet. The rattles spoke behind him.
"There's a big trouble sittin' on my soul," said Onnie.
"Your Honor knows there's nothing makes mortal flesh so wild mad as a
whipping, an' this dog does know the way of the house. Do you keep the agent's
lads to-night in this place with guns to hand. The snake's bells keep ringin'."
"My God! Onnie, you're making me believe in your rattles!
Listen. Percival's gone out of that den down the road, swearin' he'll kill San.
He's drunk, and Cameron's got men out."
"That 'u'd be the why of the lanterns I was seein' down by
the forge. But it's black as the bowels of purgatory, your Honor, an' him a
strong, wicked devil, cruel an' angry. God destroy him! If he'd tread on a
poison snake! No night could be so black as his heart."
"Steady, Onnie!"
"I'm speakin' soft. Himself's not able to hear," she
said, her eyes half shut. She rocked slowly on the amazing feet. "Give me
a pistol, your Honor. I'll be for sleepin' outside his door this night."
"You'll go to bed and keep your door open. If you hear a
sound, yell like perdition. Send Bill in here. Say I want him. That's all.
There's no danger, Onnie; but I'm taking no chances."
"We'll take no chances, your Honor."
She turned away quietly, and Rawling shivered at this cool fury.
The rattles made his spine itch, and suddenly his valley seemed like a place of
demons. The lanterns circling on the lawn seemed like frail glow-worms,
incredibly useless, and he leaned on the window-pane listening with fever to
the rain.
"All right," said Bill when he had heard. "'Phone
the sheriff. The man's dangerous, sir. I doctored a cut he had the other day,
and he tells me he can see at night. That's a lie, of course, but he's light on
his feet, and he's a devil. I've seen some rotten curs in the hospitals, but
he's worse."
"Really, Billy, you sound as fierce as Onnie. She wanted a
gun."
The handsome young man bit a lip, and his great body shook.
"This is San," he said, "and the men would kill any
one who touched you, and they'd burn any one who touched San. Sorry if I'm
rude."
"We mustn't lose our heads." Rawling talked against his
fear. "The man's drunk. He'll never get near here, and he's got four miles
to come in a cold rain. But—"
"May I sleep in San's room?"
"Then he'll know. I don't want him to, or Ling, either;
they're imaginative kids. This is a vile mess, Billy."
"Hush! Then I'll sleep outside his door. I will,
sir!"
"All right, old man. Thanks. Ling can sleep in Pete's room.
Now I'll 'phone Mackintosh."
But the sheriff did not answer, and his deputy was ill. Rawling
shrugged, but when Varian telephoned that there were thirty men searching,
he felt more comfortable.
"You're using the wires a lot, Dad," said Sanford,
roaming in. "Anything wrong? Where's Ling to sleep?"
"In Pete's room. Good-night, Godson. No, nothing wrong."
But Sanford was back presently, his eyes wide.
"I say, Onnie's asleep front of my door and I can't get over
her. What's got into the girl?"
"She's worried. Her snake's bells are going, and she thinks
the house'll burn down. Let her be. Sleep with me, and keep my feet warm,
Sonny."
"Sure," yawned Sanford. "'Night, Billy."
"Well," said Bill, "that settles that, sir. She'd
hear anything, or I will, and you're a light sleeper. Suppose we lock up as
much as we can and play some checkers?"
They locked the doors, and toward midnight Cameron rapped at the
library window, his rubber coat glistening.
"Not a print of the wastrel loon, sir; but the lads will bide
out the night. They've whusky an' biscuits an' keep moving."
"I'll come out myself," Rawling began, but the smith
grunted.
"Ye're no stirrin' oot yer hoos, Robert Rawling! Ye're daft!
Gin you met this ganglin' assassinator, wha'd be for maister? San's no to lack
a father. Gae to yer bit bed!"
"Gosh!" said Bill, shutting the window, "he's in
earnest. He forgot to try to talk English even. I feel better. The hog's fallen
into a hole and gone to sleep. Let's go up."
"I suppose if I tell Onnie San's with me, she'll just change
to my door," Rawling considered; "but I'll try. Poor girl, she's
faithful as a dog!"
They mounted softly and beheld her, huddled in a blanket,
mountainous, curled outside Sanford's closed door, just opposite the head of
the stairs. Rawling stooped over the heap and spoke to the tangle of
blue-shadowed hair.
"Onnie Killelia, go to bed."
"Leave me be, your Honor. I'm—"
Sleep cut the protest. The rattles sounded feebly, and Rawling
stood up.
"Just like a dog," whispered Bill, stealing off to a
guest-room. "I'll leave my door open." He patted the revolver in his
jacket and grinned affectionately. "Good-night, Boss."
Rawling touched the switch inside his own door, and the big globe
set in the hall ceiling blinked out. They had decided that, supposing the
cockney got so far, a lightless house would perplex his feet, and he would be
the noisier. Rawling could reach this button from his bed, and silently
undressed in the blackness, laying the automatic on the bedside table,
reassured by all these circling folk, Onnie, stalwart Bill, and the loyal men
out in the rain. Here slept Sanford, breathing happily, so lost that he only
sighed when his father crept in beside him, and did not rouse when Rawling
thrust an arm under his warm weight to bring him closer, safe in the perilous
night.
The guest-room bed creaked beneath Bill's two hundred pounds of
muscle, and Ling snored in Peter's room. Rawling's nerves eased on the
mattress, and hypnotic rain began to deaden him, against his will. He saw
Percival sodden in some ditch, his knife forgotten in brandy's slumbers. No
shout came from the hillside. His mind edged toward vacancy, bore back when the
boy murmured once, then he gained a mid-state where sensation was not, a mist.
He sat up, tearing the blankets back, because some one moved in
the house, and the rain could be heard more loudly, as if a new window were
open. He swung his legs free. Some one breathed heavily in the hall.Rawling
clutched his revolver, and the cold of it stung. This might be Onnie, any one;
but he put his finger on the switch.
"Straight hover—hover the way it was," said a thick,
puzzled voice. "There, that one! 'Is bloody barth!"
The rattles whirred as if their first owner lived. Rawling pressed
the switch.
"Your Honor!" Onnie screamed. "Your Honor! Master
San! Be lockin' the door inside, Master San! Out of this, you! You!"
Rawling's foot caught in the doorway of the bright hall, and he
stumbled, the light dazzling on the cockney's wet bulk hurling itself toward
the great woman where she stood, her arms flung cruciform, guarding the empty
room. The bodies met with a fearful jar as Rawling staggered up, and there came
a crisp explosion before he could raise his hand. Bill's naked shoulder
cannoned into him, charging, and Bill's revolver clinked against his own.
Rawling reeled to the stair-head, aiming as Bill caught at the man's shirt; but
the cockney fell backward, crumpling down, his face purple, his teeth
displayed.
"In the head!" said Bill, and bent to look, pushing the
plastered curls from a temple. The beast whimpered and died; the knife rattled
on the planks.
"Dad," cried Sanford, "what on—"
"Stay where you are!" Rawling gasped, sick of this
ugliness, dizzy with the stench of powder and brandy. Death had never seemed so
vile. He looked away to the guardian where she knelt at her post, her hands
clasped on the breast of her coarse white robe as if she prayed, the hair
hiding her face.
"I'll get a blanket," Bill said, rising. "There
come the men! That you, Ian?"
The smith and a crowd of pale faces crashed up the stairs.
"God forgie us! We let him by—the garden, sir. Alec thought
he—"
"Gosh, Onnie!" said Bill, "excuse me!
I'll get some clothes on. Here, Ian—"
"Onnie," said Sanford, in the doorway—"Onnie,
what's the matter?"
As if to show him this, her hands, unclasping, fell from the dead
bosom, and a streak of heart's blood widened from the knife-wound like the
ribbon of some very noble order.
By MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT
From Scribner's
Magazine.
Young Burnaby was late.
He was always late. One associated him with lateness and certain eager,
impossible excuses—he was always coming from somewhere to somewheres, and his
"train was delayed," or his huge space-devouring motor "had
broken down." You imagined him, enveloped in dust and dusk, his face
disguised beyond human semblance, tearing up and down the highways of the
world; or else in the corridor of a train, biting his nails with poorly
concealed impatience. As a matter of fact, when you saw him, he was beyond
average correctly attired, and his manner was suppressed, as if to conceal the
keenness that glowed behind his dark eyes and kept the color mounting and
receding in his sunburnt cheeks. All of which, except the keenness, was a
strange thing in a man who spent half his life shooting big game and exploring.
But then, one imagined that Burnaby on the trail and Burnaby in a town were two
entirely different persons. He liked his life with a thrust to it, and in a
great city there are so many thrusts that, it is to be supposed, one of
Burnaby's temperament hardly has hours enough in a day to appreciate all of
them and at the same time keep appointments.
On this February night, at all events, he was extremely late, even
beyond his custom, and Mrs. Malcolm, having waited as long as she possibly
could, sighed amusedly and told her man to announce dinner. There were only
three others besides herself in the drawing-room, Masters—Sir John Masters, the
English financier—and his wife, and Mrs. Selden, dark, a little silent, with a
flushed, finely cut face and a slightly sorrow-stricken mouth. And already
these people had reached the point where talk is interesting. People did in
Mrs. Malcolm's house. One went there with anticipation, and came away with the
delightful, a little vague, exhilaration that follows an evening where the
perfection of the material background—lights, food, wine, flowers—has been almost
forgotten in the thrill of contact with real persons, a rare enough
circumstance in a period when the dullest people entertain the most. In the
presence of Mrs. Malcolm even the very great forgot the suspicions that grow
with success and became themselves, and, having come once, came again vividly,
overlooking other people who really had more right to their attentions than had
she.
This was the case with Sir John Masters. And he was a very great
man indeed, not only as the world goes but in himself: a short, heavy man, with
a long, heavy head crowned with vibrant, still entirely dark hair and pointed
by a black, carefully kept beard, above which arose—"arose" is the
word, for Sir John's face was architectural—a splendid, slightly curved nose—a
buccaneering nose; a nose that, willy-nilly, would have made its possessor
famous. One suspected, far back in the yeoman strain, a hurried, possibly
furtive marriage with gypsy or Jew; a sudden blossoming into lyricism on the
part of a soil-stained Masters. Certainly from somewhere Sir John had inherited
an imagination which was not insular. Dangerous men, these Sir Johns, with
their hooked noses and their lyric eyes!
Mrs. Malcolm described him as fascinating. There was about him
that sense of secret power that only politicians, usually meretriciously, and
diplomats, and, above all, great bankers as a rule possess; yet he seldom
talked of his own life, or the mission that had brought him to New York;
instead, in his sonorous, slightly Hebraic voice, he drew other people on to
talk about themselves, or else, to artists and writers and their sort,
discovered an amazing, discouraging knowledge of the trades by which they
earned their living. "One feels," said Mrs. Malcolm, "that one
is eyeing a sensitive python. He uncoils beautifully."
They were seated at the round, candle-lit table, the rest of the
room in partial shadow, Sir John looking like a lost Rembrandt, and his blonde
wife, with her soft English face, like a rose-and-gray portrait by Reynolds,
when Burnaby strode in upon them ... strode in upon them, and then, as if
remembering the repression he believed in, hesitated, and finally advanced
quietly toward Mrs. Malcolm. One could smell the snowy February night still
about him.
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I—"
"You broke down, I suppose," said Mrs. Malcolm, "or
the noon train from Washington was late for the first time in six years. What
do you do in Washington, anyway? Moon about the Smithsonian?"
"No," said Burnaby, as he sank into a chair and unfolded
his napkin. "Y'see—well, that is—I ran across a fellow—an Englishman—who
knew a chap I met last summer up on the Francis River—I didn't exactly meet
him, that is, I ran into him, and it wasn't the Francis River really, it was
the Upper Liara, a branch that comes in from the northwest. Strange, wasn't
it?—this fellow, this Englishman, got to talking about tea, and that reminded
me of the whole thing." He paused on the last word and, with a peculiar
habit that is much his own, stared across the table at Lady Masters, but over
and through her, as if that pretty pink-and-white woman had entirely
disappeared,—and the warm shadows behind her,—and in her place were no one
could guess what vistas of tumbling rivers and barren tundras.
"Tea!" ejaculated Mrs. Malcolm.
Burnaby came back to the flower-scented circle of light.
"Yes," he said soberly, "tea. Exactly."
Mrs. Malcolm's delicate eyebrows rose to a point.
"What," she asked, in the tones of delighted motherhood overlaid with
a slight exasperation which she habitually used toward Burnaby, "has tea
got to do with a man you met on the Upper Liara last summer and a man you met
this afternoon? Why tea?"
"A lot," said Burnaby cryptically, and proceeded to
apply himself to his salad, for he had refused the courses his lateness had
made him miss. "Y'see," he said, after a moment's reflection,
"it was this way—and it's worth telling, for it's queer. I ran into this
Terhune this afternoon at a club—a big, blond Englishman who's been in the
army, but now he's out making money. Owns a tea house in London. Terhune &
Terhune—perhaps you know them?" He turned to Sir John.
"Yes, very well. I imagine this is Arthur Terhune."
"That's the man. Well, his being in tea and that sort of
thing got me to telling him about an adventure I had last summer, and, the
first crack out of the box, he said he remembered the other chap perfectly—had
known him fairly well at one time. Odd, wasn't it, when you come to think of
it? A big, blond, freshly bathed Englishman in a club, and that other man away
up there!"
"And the other man? Is he in the tea business too?"
asked Mrs. Selden. She was interested by now, leaning across the table, her
dark eyes catching light from the candles. It was something—to interest Mrs.
Selden.
"No," said Burnaby abruptly. "No. He's in no
business at all, except going to perdition. Y'see, he's a squaw-man—a big,
black squaw-man, with a nose like a Norman king's. The sort of person you
imagine in evening clothes in the Carleton lounge. He might have been anything
but what he is."
"I wonder," said Sir John, "why we do that sort of
thing so much more than other nations? Our very best, too. It's odd."
"It was odd enough the way it happened to me, anyhow,"
said Burnaby. "I'd been knocking around up there all summer, just an Indian
and myself—around what they call Fort Francis and the Pelly Lakes, and toward
the end of August we came down the Liara in a canoe. We were headed for Lower
Post on the Francis, and it was all very lovely until, one day, we ran into a
rapid, a devil of a thing, and my Indian got drowned."
"How dreadful!" murmured Lady Masters.
"It was," agreed Burnaby; "but it might have been
worse—for me, that is. It couldn't have been much worse for the poor devil of
an Indian, could it? But I had a pretty fair idea of the country, and had only
about fifty miles to walk, and a little waterproof box of grub turned up out of
the wreck, so I wasn't in any danger of starving. It was lonely, though—it's
lonely enough country, anyhow, and of course I couldn't help thinking about
that Indian and the way big rapids roar. I couldn't sleep when night came—saw
black rocks sticking up out of white water like the fangs of a mad dog. I was
pretty near the horrors, I guess. So you can imagine I wasn't sorry when, about
four o'clock of the next afternoon, I came back to the river again and a teepee
standing up all by itself on a little pine-crowned bluff. In front of the
teepee was an old squaw—she wasn't very old, really, but you know how Indians
get—boiling something over a fire in a big pot. 'How!' I said, and she grunted.
'If you'll lend me part of your fire, I'll make some tea,' I continued. 'And if
you're good, I'll give you some when it's done.' Tea was one of the things
cached in the little box that had been saved. She moved the pot to one side, so
I judged she understood, and I trotted down to the river for water and set to
work. As you can guess, I was pretty anxious for any kind of conversation by
then, so after a while I said brightly: 'All alone?' She grunted again and pointed
over her shoulder to the teepee. 'Well, seeing you're so interested,' said I,
'and that the tea's done, we'll all go inside and ask your man to a
party—if you'll dig up two tin cups. I've got one of my own.' She raised the
flap of the teepee and I followed her. I could see she wasn't a person who
wasted words. Inside a little fire was smouldering, and seated with his back to
us was a big, broad-shouldered buck, with a dark blanket wrapped around him.
'Your good wife,' I began cheerily—I was getting pretty darned sick of
silence—'has allowed me to make some tea over your fire. Have some? I'm
shipwrecked from a canoe and on my way to Lower Post. If you don't understand
what I say, it doesn't make the slightest difference, but for God's sake
grunt—just once, to show you're interested.' He grunted. 'Thanks!' I said, and
poured the tea into the three tin cups. The squaw handed one to her buck. Then
I sat down.
"There was nothing to be heard but the gurgling of the river
outside and the rather noisy breathing we three made as we drank; and then—very
clearly, just as if we'd been sitting in an English drawing-room—in the silence
a voice said: 'By Jove, that's the first decent cup of tea I've had in ten
years!' Yes, just that! 'By Jove, that's the first decent cup of tea I've had
in ten years!' I looked at the buck, but he hadn't moved, and then I looked at
the squaw, and she was still squatting and sipping her tea, and then I said,
very quietly, for I knew my nerves were still ragged, 'Did any one speak?' and
the buck turned slowly and looked me up and down, and I saw the nose I was
talking about—the nose like a Norman king's. I was rattled, I admit; I forgot
my manners. 'You're English!' I gasped out; and the buck said very sweetly:
'That's none of your damned business.'"
Burnaby paused and looked about the circle of attentive faces.
"That's all. But it's enough, isn't it? To come out of nothing, going
nowheres, and run into a dirty Indian who says: 'By Jove, that's the first
decent cup of tea I've had in ten years!' And then along comes this
Terhune and says that he knows the man."
Mrs. Malcolm raised her chin from the hand that had been
supporting it. "I don't blame you," she said, "for being
late."
"And this man," interrupted Sir John's sonorous voice,
"this squaw-man, did he tell you anything about himself?"
Burnaby shook his head. "Not likely," he answered.
"I tried to draw him out, but he wasn't drawable. Finally he said: 'If
you'll shut your damned mouth I'll give you two dirty blankets to sleep on. If
you won't, I'll kick you out of here.' The next morning I pulled out, leaving
him crouched over the little teepee fire nursing his knees. But I hadn't gone
twenty yards when he came to the flap and called out after me: 'I say!' I
turned about sullenly. His dirty face had a queer, cracked smile on it. 'Look
here! Do you—where did you get that tea from, anyway? I—there's a lot of skins
I've got; I don't suppose you'd care to trade, would you?' I took the tea out
of the air-tight box and put it on the ground. Then I set off down river.
Henderson, the factor at Lower Post, told me a little about him: his name—it
wasn't assumed, it seems; and that he'd been in the country about fifteen
years, going from bad to worse. He was certainly at 'worse' when I saw him."
Burnaby paused and stared across the table again with his curious, far-away
look. "Beastly, isn't it?" he said, as if to himself. "Cold up
there now, too! The snow must be deep." He came back to the present.
"And I suppose, you know," he said, smiling deprecatingly at Mrs.
Selden, "he's just as fond of flowers and lights and things as we
are."
Mrs. Selden shivered.
"Fonder!" said Sir John. "Probably fonder. That
sort is. It's the poets of the world who can't write poetry who go to smash
that way. They ought to take a term at business, and"—he
reflected—"the business men, of course, at poetry." He regarded
Burnaby with his inscrutable eyes, in the depths of which danced little
flecks of light.
"What did you say this man's name was?" asked Lady Masters,
in her soft voice. She had an extraordinary way of advancing, with a timid
rush, as it were, into the foreground, and then receding again, melting back
into the shadows. She rarely ever spoke without a sensation of astonishment
making itself felt. "She is like a mist," thought Mrs. Malcolm.
"Bewsher," said Burnaby—"Geoffrey Boisselier
Bewsher. Quite a name, isn't it? He was in the cavalry. His family are rather
swells in an old-fashioned way. He is the fifth son—or seventh, or whatever it
is—of a baronet and, Terhune says, was very much in evidence about London
twenty-odd years ago. Terhune used to see him in clubs, and every now and then
dining out. Although he himself, of course, was a much younger man. Very
handsome he was, too, Terhune said, and a favorite. And then one day he just
disappeared—got out—no one knows exactly why. Terhune doesn't. Lost his money,
or a woman, or something like that. The usual thing, I suppose. I—You didn't
hurt yourself, did you?"...
He had paused abruptly and was looking across the table; for there
had been a little tinkle and a crash of breaking glass, and now a pool of
champagne was forming beside Lady Masters's plate, and finding its way in a
thin thread of gold along the cloth. There was a moment's silence, and then she
advanced again out of the shadows with her curious soft rush. "How clumsy
I am!" she murmured. "My arm—My bracelet! I—I'm so sorry!" She
looked swiftly about her, and then at Burnaby. "Oh, no! I'm not cut,
thanks!" Her eyes held a pained embarrassment. He caught the look, and her
eyelids flickered and fell before his gaze, and then, as the footman repaired
the damage, she sank back once more into the half-light beyond the radiance of
the candles. "How shy she is!" thought Burnaby. "So many of
these English women are. She's an important woman in her own right, too."
He studied her furtively.
Into the soft silence came Sir John's carefully modulated voice.
"Barbara and I," he explained, "will feel this very much. We
both knew Bewsher." His eyes became somber. "This is very
distressing," he said abruptly.
"By Jove!" ejaculated Burnaby, and raised his head like
an alert hound.
"How odd it all is!" said Mrs. Malcolm. But she was
wondering why men are so queer with their wives—resent so much the slightest
social clumsiness on their part, while in other women—provided the offense is
not too great—it merely amuses them. Even the guarded manners of Sir John had
been disturbed. For a moment he had been very angry with the shadow that bore
his name; one could tell by the swift glance he had cast in her direction.
After all, upsetting a glass of champagne was a very natural sequel to a story
such as Burnaby had told, a story about a former acquaintance—perhaps friend.
Sir John thoughtfully helped himself to a spoonful of his dessert
before he looked up; when he did so he laid down his spoon and sat back in his
chair with the manner of a man who has made a sudden decision. "No,"
he said, and an unexpected little smile hovered about his lips, "it isn't
so odd. Bewsher was rather a figure of a man twenty years ago. Shall I tell you
his history?"
To Mrs. Malcolm, watching with alert, humorous eyes, there came a
curious impression, faint but distinct, like wind touching her hair; as if,
that is, a door into the room had opened and shut. She leaned forward,
supporting her chin in her hand.
"Of course," she said.
Sir John twisted between his fingers the stem of his
champagne-glass and studied thoughtfully the motes of at the heart of the amber
wine. "You see," he began thoughtfully, "it's such a
difficult story to tell—difficult because it took twenty-five—and, now that Mr.
Burnaby has furnished the sequel, forty-five years—to live; and difficult
because it is largely a matter of psychology. I can only give you the high
lights, as it were. You must fill in the rest for yourselves. You must imagine,
that is, Bewsher and this other fellow—this Morton. I can't give you his real
name—it is too important; you would know it. No, it isn't obviously dramatic.
And yet—" his voice suddenly became vibrant—"such things compose, as
a matter of fact, the real drama of the world. It—" he looked about the
table swiftly and leaned forward, and then, as if interrupting himself,
"but what was obviously dramatic," he said—and the
little dancing sparks in the depths of his eyes were peculiarly
noticeable—"was the way I, of all people, heard it. Yes. You see, I heard
it at a dinner party like this, in London; and Morton—the man himself—told the
story." He paused, and with half-closed eyes studied the effect of his
announcement.
"You mean—?" asked Burnaby.
"Exactly." Sir John spoke with a certain cool eagerness.
"He sat up before all those people and told the inner secrets of his life;
and of them all I was the only one who suspected the truth. Of course, he was
comparatively safe, none of them knew him well except myself, but think of it!
The bravado—the audacity! Rather magnificent, wasn't it?" He sank back
once more in his chair.
Mrs. Malcolm agreed. "Yes," she said. "Magnificent
and insulting."
Sir John smiled. "My dear lady," he asked, "doesn't
life consist largely of insults from the strong to the weak?"
"And were all these people so weak, then?"
"No, in their own way they were fairly important, I suppose,
but compared to Morton they were weak—very weak—Ah, yes! I like this custom of
smoking at table. Thanks!" He selected a cigarette deliberately, and
stooped toward the proffered match. The flame illumined the swarthy curve of
his beard and the heavy lines of his dark face. "You see," he began,
straightening up in his chair, "the whole thing—that part of it, and the
part I'm to tell—is really, if you choose, an allegory of strength, of strength
and weakness. On the one side Morton—there's strength, sheer, undiluted power,
the thing that runs the world; and on the other Bewsher, the ordinary man, with
all his mixed-up ideas of right and wrong and the impossible, confused thing he
calls a 'code'—Bewsher, and later on the girl. She too is part of the allegory.
She represents—what shall I say? A composite portrait of the ordinary young
woman? Religion, I suppose. Worldly religion. The religion of most of my good
friends in England. A vague but none the less passionate belief in a heaven
populated by ladies and gentlemen who dine out with a God who resembles
royalty. And coupled with this religion the girl had, of course, as have most
of her class, a very distinct sense of her own importance in the world; not
that exactly—personally she was over-modest; a sense rather of her importance
as a unit of an important family, and a deep-rooted conviction of the
fundamental necessity of unimportant things: parties, and class-worship, and
the whole jumbled-up order as it is. The usual young woman, that is, if you lay
aside her unusual beauty. And, you see, people like Bewsher and the girl
haven't much chance against a man like Morton, have they? Do you remember the
girl, my dear?" he asked, turning to his wife.
"Yes," murmured Lady Masters.
"Well, then," continued Sir John, "you must imagine
this Morton, an ugly little boy of twelve, going up on a scholarship to a great
public school—a rather bitter little boy, without any particular prospects
ahead of him except those his scholarship held out; and back of him a poor,
stunted life, with a mother in it—a sad dehumanized creature, I gathered,
who subsisted on the bounty of a niggardly brother. And this, you can
understand, was the first thing that made Morton hate virtue devoid of
strength. His mother, he told me, was the best woman he had ever known. The
world had beaten her unmercifully. His earliest recollection was hearing her
cry at night.... And there, at the school, he had his first glimpse of the
great world that up to then he had only dimly suspected. Dramatic enough in
itself, isn't it?—if you can visualize the little dark chap. A common enough
drama, too, the Lord knows. We people on top are bequeathing misery to our
posterity when we let the Mortons of the world hate the rich. And head and
shoulders above the other boys of his age at the school was Bewsher; not that
materially, of course, there weren't others more important; Bewsher's family
was old and rich as such families go, but he was very much a younger son, and
his people lived mostly in the country; yet even then there was something about
him—a manner, an adeptness in sports, an unsought popularity, that picked him
out; the beginnings of that Norman nose that Mr. Burnaby has mentioned. And
here"—Sir John paused and puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette—"is
the first high light.
"To begin with, of course, Morton hated Bewsher and all he
represented, hated him in a way that only a boy of his nature can; and then,
one day—I don't know exactly when it could have been, probably a year or two
after he had gone up to school—he began to see quite clearly what this hate
meant; began to see that for such as he to hate the Bewshers of the world was
the sheerest folly—a luxury far beyond his means. Quaint, wasn't it? In a boy
of his age! You can imagine him working it out at night, in his narrow dormitory
bed, when the other boys were asleep. You see, he realized, dimly at first,
clearly at last, that through Bewsher and his kind lay the hope of Morton and
his kind. Nice little boys think the same thing, only they are trained not to
admit it. That was the first big moment of Morton's life, and with the
determination characteristic of him he set out to accomplish what he had
decided. In England we make our future through our friends, in this country you
make it through your enemies. But it wasn't easy for Morton; such tasks never
are. He had a good many insults to swallow. In the end, however, from being
tolerated he came to be indispensable, and from being indispensable eventually
to be liked. He had planned his campaign with care. Carefulness, recklessly
carried out, has been, I think, the guiding rule of his life. He had modelled
himself on Bewsher; he walked like Bewsher; tried to think like Bewsher—that
is, in the less important things of life—and, with the divination that marks
his type of man, the little money he had, the little money that as a schoolboy
he could borrow, he had spent with precision on clothes and other things that
brought him personal distinction; in what people call necessities he starved
himself. By the time he was ready to leave school you could hardly have told
him from the man he had set out to follow: he was equally well-mannered;
equally at his ease; if anything, more conscious of prerogative than Bewsher.
He had come to spend most of his holidays at Bewsher's great old house in
Gloucestershire. That, too, was an illumination. It showed him what money was
made for—the sunny quiet of the place, the wheels of a spacious living that ran
so smoothly, the long gardens, the inevitableness of it all. Some day, he told
himself, he would have just such a house. He has. It is his mistress. The world
has not allowed him much of the poetry that, as you must already see, the man
has in him; he takes it out on his place.
"It was in Morton's last year at Oxford, just before his
graduation, that the second great moment of his life occurred. He had done well
at his college, not a poor college either; and all the while, you must
remember, he was borrowing money and running up bills. But this didn't bother
him. He was perfectly assured in his own mind concerning his future. He
had counted costs. In that May, Bewsher, who from school had gone to Sandhurst,
came up on a visit with two or three other fledgling officers, and they had a
dinner in Morton's rooms. It turned into rather a 'rag,' as those things do,
and it was there, across a flower-strewn, wine-stained table, that Morton had
his second revelation. He wasn't drunk—he never got drunk; the others were. The
thing came in upon him slowly, warmingly, like the breeze that stirred the
curtains. He felt himself, as never before, a man. You can see him sitting back
in his chair, in the smoke and the noise and the foolish singing, cool, his
eyes a little closed. He knew now that he had passed the level of these men;
yes, even the shining mark Bewsher had set. He had gone on, while they had
stood still. To him, he suddenly realized, and to such as he, belonged the
heritage of the years, not to these men who thought they held it. These old
gray buildings stretching away into the May dusk, the history of a thousand
years, were his. These sprawled young aristocrats before him—they, whether they
eventually came to know it or not, they, and Bewsher with them—would one day do
his bidding: come when he beckoned, go when he sent. It was a big thought,
wasn't it, for a man of twenty-two?" Sir John paused and puffed at his
cigarette.
"That was the second high light," he continued,
"and the third did not come until fifteen years later. Bewsher went into
the Indian army—his family had ideas of service—and Morton into a banking-house
in London. And there, as deliberately as he had taken them up, he laid aside
for the time being all the social perquisites which he had with so much pains
acquired. Do you know—he told me that for fifteen years not once had he dined
out, except when he thought his ambitions would be furthered by so doing, and
then, as one turns on a tap, he turned on the charm he now knew himself to
possess. It is not astonishing, is it, when you come to think of it, that
eventually he became rich and famous? Most people are unwilling to
sacrifice their youth to their future. He wasn't. But it wasn't a happy time.
He hated it. He paid off his debts, however, and at the end of the fifteen
years found himself a big man in a small way, with every prospect of becoming a
big man in a big way. Then, of course—such men do—he began to look about him.
He wanted wider horizons, he wanted luxury, he wanted a wife; and he wanted
them as a starved man wants food. He experienced comparatively little difficulty
in getting started. Some of his school and university friends remembered him,
and there was a whisper about that he was a man that bore watching. But
afterward he stuck. The inner citadel of London is by no means as assailable as
the outer fortifications lead one to suppose.
"They say a man never has a desire but there's an angel or a
devil to write it down. Morton had hardly made his discovery when Bewsher
turned up from India, transferred to a crack cavalry regiment; a sunburnt,
cordial Bewsher, devilishly determined to enjoy the fulness of his prime. On
his skirts, as he had done once before, Morton penetrated farther and farther
into the esoteric heart of society. I'm not sure just how Bewsher felt toward
Morton at the time; he liked him, I think; at all events, he had the habit of
him. As for Morton, he liked Bewsher as much as he dared; he never permitted
himself to like any one too much.
"I don't know how it is with you, but I have noticed again
and again that intimate friends are prone to fall in love with the same woman:
perhaps it is because they have so many tastes in common; perhaps it is
jealousy—I don't know. Anyhow, that is what happened to these two, Morton
first, then Bewsher; and it is characteristic that the former mentioned it to no
one, while the latter was confidential and expansive. Such men do not deserve
women, and yet they are often the very men women fall most in love with. At
first the girl had been attracted to Morton, it seems; he intrigued her—no
doubt the sense of power about him; but the handsomer man, when he entered
the running, speedily drew ahead. You can imagine the effect of this upon her
earlier suitor. It was the first rebuff that for a long time had occurred to
him in his ordered plan of life. He resented it and turned it over in his mind,
and eventually, as it always does to men of his kind, his opportunity came. You
see, unlike Bewsher and his class, all his days had been an exercise in the
recognition and appreciation of chances. He isolated the inevitable fly in the
ointment, and in this particular ointment the fly happened to be Bewsher's lack
of money and the education the girl had received. She was poor in the way that
only the daughter of a great house can be. To Morton, once he was aware of the
fly, and once he had combined the knowledge of it with what these two people
most lacked, it was a simple thing. They lacked, as you have already guessed,
courage and directness. On Morton's side was all the dunder-headism of an
aristocracy, all its romanticism, all its gross materialism, all its confusion
of ideals. But you mustn't think that he, Morton, was cold or objective in all
this: far from it; he was desperately in love with the girl himself, and he was
playing his game like a man in a corner—all his wits about him, but fever in
his heart.
"There was the situation, an old one—a girl who dare not
marry a poor man, and a poor man cracking his brains to know where to get money
from. I dare say Bewsher never questioned the rightness of it all—he was too much
in love with the girl, his own training had been too similar. And Morton,
hovering on the outskirts, talked—to weak people the most fatal doctrine in the
world—the doctrine of power, the doctrine that each man and woman can have just
what they want if they will only get out and seek it. That's true for the big
people; for the small it usually spells death. They falter on methods. They are
too afraid of unimportant details. His insistence had its results even more
speedily than he had hoped. Before long the girl, too, was urging Bewsher
on to effort. It isn't the first time goodness has sent weakness to the devil.
Meanwhile the instigator dropped from his one-time position of tentative lover
to that of adviser in particular. It was just the position that at the time he
most desired.
"Things came to a head on a warm night in April. Bewsher
dropped in upon Morton in his chambers. Very handsome he looked, too, I dare
say, in his evening clothes, with an opera-coat thrown back from his shoulders.
I remember well myself his grand air, with a touch of cavalry swagger about it.
I've no doubt he leaned against the chimney-piece and tapped his leg with his
stick. And the upshot of it was that he wanted money.
"Oh, no! not a loan. It wasn't as bad as that. He had enough
to screw along with himself; although he was frightfully in debt. He wanted a
big sum. An income. To make money, that was. He didn't want to go into business
if he could help it; hadn't any ability that way; hated it. But perhaps Morton
could put him in the way of something? He didn't mind chances."
"Do you see?" Sir John leaned forward. "And he
never realized the vulgarity of it—that product of five centuries, that English
gentleman. Never realized the vulgarity of demanding of life something for
nothing; of asking from a man as a free gift what that man had sweated for and
starved for all his life; yes, literally, all his life. It was an illumination,
as Morton said, upon that pitiful thing we call 'class.' He demanded all this
as his right, too; demanded power, the one precious possession. Well, the other
man had his code as well, and the first paragraph in it was that a man shall
get only what he works for. Can you imagine him, the little ugly man, sitting
at his table and thinking all this? And suddenly he got to his feet. 'Yes,' he
said, 'I'll make you a rich man.' But he didn't say he would keep him one. That
was the third high light—the little man standing where all through the ages had
stood men like him, the secret movers of the world, while before them,
supplicating, had passed the beauty and the pride of their times. In the end
they all beg at the feet of power—the kings and the fighting men. And yet,
although this was the great, hidden triumph of his life, and, moreover, beyond
his hopes a realization of the game he had been playing—for it put Bewsher, you
see, utterly in his power—Morton said at the moment it made him a little sick.
It was too crude; Bewsher's request too unashamed; it made suddenly too cheap,
since men could ask for it so lightly, all the stakes for which he, Morton, had
sacrificed the slow minutes and hours of his life. And then, of course, there
was this as well: Bewsher had been to Morton an ideal, and ideals can't die,
even the memory of them, without some pain."
Mrs. Malcolm, watching with lips a little parted, said to herself:
"He has uncoiled too much."
"Yes"—Sir John reached out his hand and, picking up a
long-stemmed rose from the table, began idly to twist it in his fingers.
"And that was the end. From then on the matter was simple. It was like a
duel between a trained swordsman and a novice; only it wasn't really a duel at
all, for one of the antagonists was unaware that he was fighting. I suppose
that most people would call it unfair. I have wondered. And yet Bewsher, in a
polo game, or in the game of social life, would not have hesitated to use all
the skill and craft he knew. But, you say, he would not have played against
beginners. Well, he had asked himself into this game; he had not been invited.
And so, all through that spring and into the summer and autumn the
three-cornered contest went on, and into the winter and on to the spring
beyond. Unwittingly, the girl was playing more surely than ever into Morton's
hand. The increasing number of Bewsher's platitudes about wealth, about keeping
up tradition, about religion, showed that. He even talked vaguely about giving
up the army and going into business. 'It must have its fascinations, you know,'
he remarked lightly. In the eyes of both of them Morton had become sort of
fairy godfather—a mysterious, wonderful gnome at whose beck gold leaped from
the mountainside. It was just the illusion he wished to create. In the final
analysis the figure of the gnome is the most beloved figure in the rotten class
to which we belong.
"And then, just as spontaneously as it had come, Bewsher's
money began to melt away—slowly at first; faster afterward until, finally, he
was back again to his original income. This was a time of stress, of hurried
consultations, of sympathy on the part of Morton, of some rather ugly funk on
the part of Bewsher; and Morton realized that in the eyes of the girl he was
rapidly becoming once more the dominant figure. It didn't do him much
good"—Sir John broke the stem of the rose between his fingers.
"Soon there was an end to it all. There came, finally, a very
unpleasant evening. This too was in April; April a year after Bewsher's visit
to Morton's chambers, only this time the scene was laid in an office. Bewsher
had put a check on the desk. 'Here,' he said, 'that will tide me over until I
can get on my feet,' and his voice was curiously thick; and Morton, looking
down, had seen that the signature wasn't genuine—a clumsy business done by a
clumsy man—and, despite all his training, from what he said, a little cold
shiver had run up and down his back. This had gone farther than he had planned.
But he made no remark, simply pocketed the check, and the next day settled out
of his own pockets Bewsher's sorry affairs; put him back, that is, where he had
started, with a small income mortgaged beyond hope. Then he sent a note to the
girl requesting an interview on urgent business. She saw him that night in her
drawing-room. She was very lovely. Morton was all friendly sympathy. It wasn't
altogether unreal, either. I think, from what he told me, he was genuinely
touched. But he felt, you know—the urge, the goad, of his own career. His kind
do. Ultimately they are not their own masters. He showed the girl the check—not
at first, you understand, but delicately, after preliminary discussion;
reluctantly upon repeated urging. 'What was he to do? What would she advise?
Bewsher was safe, of course; he had seen to that; but the whole unintelligible,
shocking aspect of the thing!' He tore the check up and threw it in the fire.
He was not unaware that the girl's eyes admired him. It was a warm night. He
said good-by and walked home along the deserted street. He remembered, he told
me, how sweet the trees smelled. He was not happy. You see, Bewsher had been the
nearest approach to a friend he had ever had.
"That practically finished the sordid business. What the girl
said to Bewsher Morton never knew; he trusted to her conventionalized religion
and her family pride to break Bewsher's heart, and to Bewsher's sentimentality
to eliminate him forever from the scene. In both surmises he was correct; he
was only not aware that at the same time the girl had broken her own heart. He
found that out afterward. And Bewsher eliminated himself more thoroughly than
necessary. I suppose the shame of the thing was to him like a blow to a
thoroughbred, instead of an incentive, as it would have been to a man of
coarser fibre. He went from bad to worse, resigned from his regiment, finally
disappeared. Personally, I had hoped that he had begun again somewhere on the
outskirts of the world. But he isn't that sort. There's not much of the Norman
king to him except his nose. The girl married Morton. He gave her no time to
recover from her gratitude. He felt very happy, he told me, the day of his
wedding, very elated. It was one of those rare occasions when he felt that the
world was a good place. Another high light, you see. And it was no mean thing,
if you consider it, for a man such as he to marry the daughter of a peer, and
at the same time to love her. He was not a gentleman, you understand, he could
never be that—it was the one secret thing that always hurt him—no amount of
brains, no amount of courage could make him what he wasn't; he never lied
to himself as most men do; so he had acquired a habit of secretly triumphing
over those who possessed the gift. The other thing that hurt him was when, a
few months later, he discovered that his wife still loved Bewsher and always
would. And that"—Sir John picked up the broken rose again—"is, I
suppose, the end of the story."
There was a moment's silence and then Burnaby lifted his pointed
chin. "By George!" he said, "it is interesting
to know how things really happen, isn't it? But I think—you have, haven't you,
left out the real point. Do you—would you mind telling just why you imagine
Morton did this thing? Told his secret before all those people? It wasn't like
him, was it?"
Sir John slowly lighted another cigarette, and then he turned to
Burnaby and smiled. "Yes," he said, "it was extremely like him.
Still, it's very clever of you, very clever. Can't you guess? It isn't so very
difficult."
"No," said Burnaby, "I can't guess at all."
"Well, then, listen." And to Mrs. Malcolm it seemed as
if Sir John had grown larger, had merged in the shadows about him; at least he
gave that impression, for he sat up very straight and threw back his shoulders.
For a moment he hesitated, then he began, "You must go back to the dinner
I was describing," he said—"the dinner in London. I too was intrigued
as you are, and when it was over I followed Morton out and walked with him
toward his club. And, like you, I asked the question. I think that he had known
all along that I suspected; at all events, it is characteristic of the man that
he did not try to bluff me. He walked on for a little while in silence, and
then he laughed abruptly. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'll tell you. Yes. Just this. What
there is to be got, I've got; what work can win I've won; but back of it all
there's something else, and back even of that there's a careless god who gives
his gifts where they are least deserved. That's one reason why I talked as I
did to-night. To all of us—the men like me—there comes in the end a time
when we realize that what a man can do we can do, but that love, the touch of
other people's minds, these two things are the gifts of the careless god. And
it irritates us, I suppose, irritates us! We want them in a way that the
ordinary man who has them cannot understand. We want them as damned souls in
hell want water. And sometimes the strain's too much. It was to-night. To touch
other minds, even for a moment, even if they hate you while you are doing it,
that's the thing! To lay yourself, just once, bare to the gaze of ordinary
people! With the hope, perhaps, that even then they may still find in you
something to admire or love. Self-revelation! Every man confesses sometime. It
happened that I chose a dinner party. Do you understand?'" It was almost
as if Sir John himself had asked the question.
"And then"—he was speaking in his usual calm tones
again—"there happened a curious thing, a very curious thing, for Morton
stopped and turned toward me and began to laugh. I thought he would never stop.
It was rather uncanny, under the street lamp there, this usually rather quiet
man. 'And that,' he said at length, 'that's only half the story. The cream of
it is this: the way I myself felt, sitting there among all those soft, easily
lived people. That's the cream of it. To flout them, to sting them, to laugh at
them, to know you had more courage than all of them put together, you who were
once so afraid of them! To feel that—even if they knew it was about yourself
you were talking—that even then they were afraid of you, and would to-morrow
ask you back again to their houses. That's power! That's worth doing! After
all, you can keep your love and your sympathy and your gentlemen; it's only to
men like me, men who've sweated and come up, that moments arise such as I've
had to-night.' And then, 'It's rather a pity,' he said, after a pause, 'that of
them all you alone knew of whom I was talking. Rather a pity, isn't it?'"
Sir John hesitated and looked about the table. "It was unusual, wasn't
it?" he said at length gently. "Have I been too dramatic?"
In the little silence that followed, Mrs. Malcolm leaned forward,
her eyes starry. "I would rather," she said, "talk to Bewsher in
his teepee than talk to Morton with all his money."
Sir John looked at her and smiled—his charming smile. "Oh,
no, you wouldn't," he said. "Oh, no! We say those things, but we
don't mean them. If you sat next to Morton at dinner you'd like him; but as for
Bewsher you'd despise him, as all right-minded women despise a failure. Oh, no;
you'd prefer Morton."
"Perhaps you're right," sighed Mrs. Malcolm; "pirates
are fascinating, I suppose." She arose to her feet. Out of the shadows
Lady Masters advanced to meet her. "She is like a
mist," thought Mrs. Malcolm. "Exactly like a rather faint mist."
Burnaby leaned over and lit a cigarette at one of the candles.
"And, of course," he said quietly, without raising his head,
"the curious thing is that this fellow Morton, despite all his talk of
power, in the end is merely a ghost of Bewsher, after all, isn't he?"
Sir John turned and looked at the bowed sleek head with a puzzled
expression. "A ghost!" he murmured. "I don't think I quite
understand."
"It's very simple," said Burnaby, and raised his head.
"Despite all Morton has done, in the things worth while, in the things he
wants the most, he can at best be only a shadow of the shadow Bewsher has
left—a shadow of a man to the woman who loves Bewsher, a shadow of a friend to
the men who liked Bewsher, a shadow of a gentleman to the gentlemen about him.
A ghost, in other words. It's the inevitable end of all selfishness. I think
Bewsher has rather the best of it, don't you?"
"I—I had never thought of it in quite that light," said
Sir John, and followed Mrs. Malcolm.
They went into the drawing-room beyond—across a hallway, and
up a half-flight of stairs, and through glass doors. "Play for us!"
said Mrs. Malcolm, and Burnaby, that remarkable young man, sat down to the
piano and for perhaps an hour made the chords sob to a strange music, mostly
his own.
"That's Bewsher!" he said when he was through, and had
sat back on his stool, and was sipping a long-neglected cordial.
"Br-r-r-!" shivered Mrs. Selden from her place by the
fire. "How unpleasant you are!"
Sir John looked troubled. "I hope," he said, "my
story hasn't depressed you too much. Burnaby's was really worse, you know.
Well, I must be going." He turned to Mrs. Malcolm. "You are one of
the few women who can make me sit up late."
He bade each in turn good-night in his suave, charming, slightly
Hebraic manner. To Burnaby he said: "Thank you for the music. Improvisation
is perhaps the happiest of gifts."
But Burnaby for once was awkward. He was watching Sir John's face
with the curious, intent look of a forest animal that so often possessed his
long, dark eyes. Suddenly he remembered himself. "Oh, yes," he said
hastily, "I beg your pardon. Thanks, very much."
"Good-night!" Sir John and Lady Masters passed through
the glass doors.
Burnaby paused a moment where he had shaken hands, and then, with
the long stride characteristic of him, went to the window and, drawing aside
the curtain, peered into the darkness beyond. He stood listening until the purr
of a great motor rose and died on the snow-muffled air. "He's gone!"
he said, and turned back into the room. He spread his arms out and dropped them
to his sides. "Swastika!" he said. "And God keep us from the
evil eye!"
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Malcolm.
"Sir John," said Burnaby. "He has 'a bad
heart.'"
"Stop talking your Indian talk and tell us what you
mean."
Burnaby balanced himself on the hearth. "Am I to understand
you don't know?" he asked. "Well, Morton's Masters, and 'the girl's'
Lady Masters, and Bewsher—well, he's just a squaw-man."
"I don't believe it!" said Mrs. Malcolm. "He
wouldn't dare."
"Wouldn't dare?" Burnaby laughed shortly. "My dear
Minna, he'd dare anything if it gave him a sense of power."
"But why—why did he choose us? We're not so important as all
that?"
"Because—well, Bewsher's name came up. Because, well, you
heard what he said—self-revelation—men who had sweated. Because—" suddenly
Burnaby took a step forward and his jaw shot out—"because that shadow of
his, that wife of his, broke a champagne-glass when I said Geoffrey Boisselier
Bewsher; broke her champagne-glass and, I've no doubt, cried out loud in her
heart. Power can't buy love—no; but power can stamp to death anything that
won't love it. That's Masters. I can tell a timber-wolf far off. Can you see
him now in his motor? He'll have turned the lights out, and she—his wife—will
be looking out of the window at the snow. All you can see of him would be his
nose and his beard and the glow of his cigar—except his smile. You could see
that when the car passed a corner lamp, couldn't you?"
"I don't believe it yet," said Mrs. Malcolm. "It's
too preposterous."
By FRANCIS BUZZELL
From The
Pictorial Review
She was not quite forty
years old, but so aged was she in appearance that another twenty-five years
would not find her perceptibly older. And to the people of Almont she was still
Abbie Snover, or "that Snover girl." Age in Almont is not reckoned in
years, but by marriage, and by children, and grandchildren.
Nearly all the young men of Abbie's generation had gone to the
City, returning only in after years, with the intention of staying a week or
two weeks, and leaving at the end of a day, or two days. So Abbie never
married.
It had never occurred to Abbie to leave Almont because all the
young men had gone away. She had been born in the big house at the foot of
Tillson Street; she had never lived anywhere else; she had never slept anywhere
but in the black walnut bed in the South bedroom.
At the age of twenty-five, Abbie inherited the big house, and with
it hired-man Chris. He was part of her inheritance. Her memory of him, like her
memory of the big house, went back as far as her memory of herself.
Every Winter evening, between seven and eight o'clock, Abbie
lighted the glass-handled lamp, placed it on the marble-topped table in the
parlor window, and sat down beside it. The faint light of this lamp, gleaming
through the snow-hung, shelving evergreens, was the only sign that the big
house was there, and occupied. When the wind blew from the West she could occasionally
hear a burst of laughter from the boys and girls sliding down Giddings's Hill;
the song of some young farmer driving home. She thought of the Spring, when the
snow would disappear, and the honeysuckle would flower, and the wrens would
again occupy the old teapots hung in the vines of the dining-room porch.
The things that made the people of Almont interesting to each other
and drew them together meant nothing to Abbie Snover. When she had become too
old to be asked in marriage by any one, she had stopped going to dances and to
sleigh-rides, and no one had asked her why. Then she had left the choir.
Except when she went to do her marketing, Abbie was never seen on
the streets.
For fifteen years after Amos Snover died, Abbie and Old Chris
lived alone in the big house. Every Saturday morning, as her mother had done
before her, Abbie went to the grocery store, to the butcher shop, and to
"Newberry's." She always walked along the East side of Main Street,
Old Chris, with the market-basket, following about three feet behind her. And
every Saturday night Old Chris went down-town to sit in the back of Pot
Lippincott's store and visit with Owen Frazer, who drove in from the sixty
acres he farmed as a "renter" at Mile Corners. Once every week Abbie
made a batch of cookies, cutting the thin-rolled dough into the shape of leaves
with an old tin cutter that had been her mother's. She stored the cookies in
the shiny tin pail that stood on the shelf in the clothes-press of the
downstairs bedroom, because that was where her mother had always kept them, to
be handy and yet out of reach of the hired help. And when Jennie Sanders's
children came to her door on their way home from school she gave them two
cookies each, because her mother had always given her two.
Once every three months "the Jersey girls," dressed in
black broadcloth, with black, fluted ruffles around their necks, and black-flowered
bonnets covering their scanty hair, turned the corner at Chase's Lane,
walked three blocks to the foot of Tilson Street, and rang Abbie Snover's
door-bell.
As Old Chris grew older and less able, Abbie was compelled to
close off first one room and then another; but Old Chris still occupied the
back chamber near the upstairs woodroom, and Abbie still slept in the South
bedroom.
Early one October afternoon, Jim East, Almont's express agent and
keeper of the general store, drove his hooded delivery cart up to the front
steps of the big house. He trembled with excitement as he climbed down from the
seat.
"Abbie Snover! Ab—bie!" he called. "I got somethin'
for you! A package all the way from China! Just you come an' look!"
Jim East lifted the package out of the delivery cart, carried it
up the steps, and set it down at Abbie's feet.
"Just you look, Abbie! That there crate's made of little
fishin' poles, an' what's inside's all wrapped up in Chinee mats!"
Old Chris came around from the back of the house. Jim East grabbed
his arm and pointed at the bamboo crate:
"Just you put your nose down, Chris, an' smell. Ain't that
foreign?"
Abbie brought her scissors. Carefully she removed the red and
yellow labels.
"There's American writin' on 'em, too," Jim East hastened
to explain, "'cause otherwise how'd I know who it was for,
hey?"
Abbie carried the labels into the parlor and looked for a safe
place for them. She saw the picture-album and put them in it. Then she hurried
back to the porch. Old Chris opened one end of the crate.
"It's a plant," Jim East whispered; "a Chinee
plant."
"It's a dwarf orange-tree," Old Chris announced.
"See, it says so on that there card."
Abbie carried the little orange-tree into the parlor. Who could
have sent it to her? There was no one she knew, away off there in China!
"You be careful of that bamboo and the wrappings," she
warned Old Chris. "I'll make something decorative-like out of them."
Abbie waited until Jim East drove away in his delivery cart. Then
she sat down at the table in the parlor and opened the album. She found her
name on one of the labels—Abbie Snover,
Almont, Michigan, U. S. A. It seemed queer to her that her name had come
all the way from China. On the card that said that the plant was a dwarf
orange-tree she found the name—Thomas J. Thorington. Thomas? Tom? Tom
Thorington! Why, the last she had heard of Tom had been fifteen years back. He
had gone out West. She had received a picture of him in a uniform, with a gun
on his shoulder. She dimly recollected that he had been a guard at some
penitentiary. How long ago it seemed! He must have become a missionary or
something, to be away off in China. And he had remembered her! She sat for a
long time looking at the labels. She wondered if the queer Chinese letters spelled Abbie Snover, Almont, Michigan. She
opened the album again and hunted until she found the picture of Tom Thorington
in his guard's uniform. Then she placed the labels next to the picture, closed
the album, and carefully fastened the adjustable clasp.
Under Abbie's constant attention, the little orange-tree thrived.
A tiny green orange appeared. Day by day she watched it grow, looking forward
to the time when it would become large and yellow. The days grew shorter and
colder, but she did not mind; every week the orange grew larger. After the
first snow, she moved the tree into the down-stairs bedroom. She placed it on a
little stand in the South window. The inside blinds, which she had always kept
as her mother liked them best—the lower blinds closed, the top blinds opened a
little to let in the morning light—she now threw wide open so that the tree
would get all of the sun. And she kept a fire in the small sheet-iron stove,
for fear that the old, drafty wood furnace might not send up a steady enough
heat through the register. When the nights became severe, she crept down the
narrow, winding stairs, and through the cold, bare halls, to put an extra chunk
of hardwood into the stove. Every morning she swept and dusted the room; the
ashes and wood dirt around the stove gave her something extra to do near the
orange-tree. She removed the red and white coverlet from the bed, and put in
its place the fancy patch-quilt with the green birds and the yellow flowers, to
make the room look brighter.
"Abbie Snover loves that orange-tree more'n anything in the
world," Old Chris cautioned the children when they came after cookies,
"an' don't you dare touch it, even with your little finger."
The growing orange was as wonderful to the children as it was to
Abbie. Instead of taking the cookies and hurrying home, they stood in front of
the tree, their eyes round and big. And one day, when Abbie went to the
clothes-press to get the cookie-pail, Bruce Sanders snipped the orange from the
tree.
The children were unnaturally still when Abbie came out of the
clothes-press. They did not rush forward to get the cookies. Abbie looked
quickly at the tree; the pail of cookies dropped from her hands. She grabbed
the two children nearest and shook them until their heads bumped together. Then
she drove them all in front of her to the door and down the path to the gate,
which she slammed shut behind them.
Once outside the gate the children ran, yelling: "Ab-bie
Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!"
Abbie, her hands trembling, her eyes hot, went back into the
house. That was what came of letting them take fruit from the trees and
vines in the yard; of giving them cookies every time they rang her door-bell.
Well, there would be no more cookies, and Old Chris should be told never to let
them come into the yard again.
That evening, when the metallic hiccough of the well pump on the
kitchen porch told her that Old Chris was drawing up fresh water for the night,
Abbie went out into the kitchen to make sure that he placed one end of the prop
under the knob of the kitchen door and the other end against the leg of the
kitchen table.
"It'll freeze afore mornin'," said Old Chris.
"Yes," Abbie answered.
But she did not get up in the night to put an extra chunk of wood
in the stove of the down-stairs bedroom.
"Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah! Ab-bie Sno-ver, na—aa—ah!"
Old Chris stopped shoveling snow to shake his fist at the yelling
children.
"Your Mas'll fix you, if you don't stop that
screechin'!"
And they answered: "Ab-bie Sno-ver, an' old Chris! Ab-bie
Sno-ver, an' old Chris!"
Every day they yelled the two names as they passed the big house.
They yelled them on their way to and from school, and on their way to
Giddings's Hill to slide. The older boys took it up, and yelled it when they
saw Abbie and Old Chris on Main Street Saturday mornings. And finally they
rimed it into a couplet,
"Ab-bie Sno-ver,
an' Old Chris—
We saw Chris an' Ab-bie kiss!"
It was too much. Abbie went to Hugh Perry's mother.
Mrs. Perry defended her young son. "He couldn't have done
it," she told Abbie. "He ain't that kind of a boy, and you can just
tell that Old Chris I said so. I guess it must be true, the way you're
fussin' round!"
Mrs. Perry slammed the door in Abbie's face. Then she whipped her
young son, and hated Abbie and Old Chris because they were responsible for it.
"That Abbie Snover came to my house," Mrs. Perry told
Mrs. Rowles, "an' said my Hugh had been a-couplin' her name with Old
Chris's in a nasty way. An' I told her—"
"The idea! the idea!" Mrs. Rowles interrupted.
"An' I told her it must be so, an' I guess it is," Mrs.
Perry concluded.
Mrs. Rowles called upon Pastor Lucus's wife.
"Abbie Snover an' Old Chris was seen kissin'."
"It's scandalous," Mrs. Lucas told the pastor. "The
town shouldn't put up with it a minute longer. That's what comes of Abbie
Snover not coming to church since her Ma died."
On Saturday mornings when Abbie went down-town followed by Old
Chris, the women eyed her coldly, and the faces of the men took on quizzical,
humorous expressions. Abbie could not help but notice it; she was disturbed.
The time for "the Jersey girls" to call came around. Every afternoon
Abbie sat in the window and watched for them to turn the corner at Chase's
Lane. She brought out the polished apples which she kept in the clothes-press
all ready for some one, but "the Jersey girls" did not come.
"You haven't heard of anybody being sick at the Jersey house,
have you, Chris?"
"Um? Nope!"
"Haven't seen Josie or Em Jersey anywhere lately?"
"Seen 'em at the post-office night afore last."
"H'mp!"
Abbie pushed the kettle to the front of the kitchen stove, poked
up the fire, and put in fresh sticks of wood. When the water boiled she poured
it into a blue-lacquered pail with yellow bands around the rim, carried it up
the steep back stairs, and got out fresh stockings.
An hour later Old Chris saw her climbing up Tillson street. He
scratched his head and frowned.
Abbie turned the corner at Chase's Lane. The snow, driven by the
wind, blinded her. She almost bumped into Viny Freeman.
"My, Viny! What you doing out on such a day?"
Viny Freeman passed her without answering.
"Seems she didn't see me," Abbie muttered. "What
can she be doing away down here on such a day? Must be something special to
bring her out of her lonely old house with her lame side. My! I almost bumped
that hand she's always holding up her pain with. My!"
Abbie turned into the Jersey gate and climbed the icy steps,
hanging onto the railing with both hands. She saw Em Jersey rise from her chair
in the parlor and go into the back sitting-room. Abbie pulled the bell-knob and
waited. No one answered. She pulled it again. No answer. She rapped on the door
with her knuckles. Big Mary, the Jersey hired girl, opened the door part way.
"They ain't to home."
"Ain't to home?" exclaimed Abbie. "My land! Didn't
I just see Em Jersey through the parlor window?"
"No'm, you never did. They ain't to home."
"Well, I never! And their Ma and mine was cousins! They ain't
sick or nothing? Well!"
The snow melted; the streets ran with water and then froze. Old
Chris no longer came into the parlor in the evening to sit, his hands clasped
over his thin stomach, his bald head bent until his chin rested upon the
starched neckband of his shirt.
They ate in silence the meals which Abbie prepared: Old Chris at
one end of the long table, and Abbie at the other end.
In silence they went about their accustomed tasks.
Abbie, tired with a new weariness, sat in her chair beside
the marble-topped table. The village was talking about her; she knew it; she
felt it all around her. Well, let them talk!
But one day Almont sent a committee to her. It was composed of one
man and three women. Abbie saw them when they turned in at her gate—Pastor
Lucus Lorina Inman, Antha Ewell, and Aunt Alphie Newberry.
Abbie walked to the center of the parlor and stood there, her
hands clenched, her face set. The door-bell rang; for a moment her body swayed.
Then she went into the bay window and drew the blinds aside. Antha Ewell saw
her and jerked Pastor Lucus's arm. Pastor Lucus turned and caught sight of
Abbie; he thought that she had not heard the bell, so he tapped the door panel
with his fingers and nodded his head at her invitingly, as if to say:
"See, we're waiting for you to let us in." Abbie's expression
did not change. Pastor Lucus tapped at the door again, this time hesitantly,
and still she looked at them with unseeing eyes. He tapped a third time, then
turned and looked at the three women. Aunt Alphie Newberry tugged, at his arm,
and the committee of four turned about without looking at Abbie, and walked
down the steps.
A few minutes later Abbie heard the door between the parlor and
dining-room open. Old Chris came in. For a moment or two neither spoke. Old
Chris fingered his cap.
"Abbie, I lived here forty-two years. I was here when you was
born. I carried you around in my arms a little bit of thing an' made you
laugh."
Abbie did not turn away from the window.
"I know what they came for," Old Chris continued.
"Your Ma—your Ma, she'd never thought I'd have to go away from here."
Abbie could not answer him.
"I don't know who'll keep the furnace a-goin' when I'm gone,
nor fill the up-stairs woodroom."
Still no answer.
"I'm old now—I'll go to Owen Frazer's farm—down to Mile
Corners. He'll have some work I can do."
Old Chris stroked his baggy cheeks with trembling hands. Abbie
still looked out of the window.
"I'm a-goin' down to the post-office now," said Old
Chris, as he turned and went to the door. "Be there anything you
want?"
Abbie shook her head; she could not find words. As Old Chris went
down the hall she heard him mumble, "I don't know what she'll do when I'm
gone."
That night Abbie sat in the parlor window longer than usual. It
was a white night; wet snow had been falling heavily all day. Some time between
eight and nine o'clock she arose from her chair and went into the long, narrow
dining-room. The pat-pat of her slippered feet aroused Old Chris from his
nodding over the Farm Herald. Finding that the hot air was not
coming up strong through the register over which he sat, the old man slowly
pushed his wool-socked feet into felt-lined overshoes and tramped down into the
cellar, picking up the kitchen lamp as he went. Abbie followed as far as the
kitchen. The pungent dry-wood smell that came up the stairs when Old Chris
swung open the door of the wood cellar made her sniff. She heard the sounds as
he loaded the wheelbarrow with the sticks of quartered hardwood; the noise of
the wheel bumping over the loose boards as he pushed his load into the
furnace-room. She went back into the parlor and stood over the register. Hollow
sounds came up through the pipe as Old Chris leveled the ashes in the fire-box
and threw in the fresh sticks.
When Old Chris came up from the cellar and went out onto the porch
to draw up fresh water for the night, Abbie went back into the kitchen.
"It's snowin' hard out," said Old Chris.
"Yes," Abbie answered.
She led the way back into the dining-room. Old Chris placed the
kitchen lamp on the stand under the fruit picture and waited. For a few moments
they stood in the blast of hot air rising from the register. Then Abbie took up
the larger of the two lamps. Through the bare, high-ceilinged rooms she went,
opening and closing the heavy doors; on through the cold, empty hall, up the
stairs, into the South bedroom. While she was closing the blinds she heard Old
Chris stumble up the back stairs and into the chamber he had occupied ever
since she could remember.
The night after Old Chris had gone, Abbie took the brass dinner-bell
from the pantry shelf and set it on the chair beside her bed. Over the back of
the chair she placed her heavy, rabbit-lined coat; it would be handy if any one
disturbed her. Once or twice when she heard sounds, she put out her hand and
touched the bell; but the sounds did not recur. The next night she tried
sleeping in the down-stairs bedroom. The blue-and-gray carpet, the blue fixings
on the bureau and commode, the blue bands around the wash-bowl and pitcher—all
faded and old-looking—reminded her of her mother and father, and would not let
her sleep. On the wall in front of her was a picture in a black frame of a
rowboat filled with people. It was called "From Shore to Shore."
Trying not to see it, her eyes were caught by a black-and-white print in a gilt
frame, called "The First Steps." How she had loved the picture when
she was a little girl; her mother had explained it to her many times—the bird
teaching its little ones to fly; the big, shaggy dog encouraging its waddling
puppies; the mother coaxing her baby to walk alone.
At midnight Abbie got out of bed, picked up the dinner-bell by the
clapper, and went back up-stairs to the South bedroom.
The tall, bare walls of the big house, the high ceilings with
their centerpieces of plaster fruits and flowers, the cold whiteness, closed
her in. Having no one to talk to, she talked to herself: "It's
snowin' hard out——why! that was what Old Chris said the night before he went
away." She began to be troubled by a queer, detached feeling; she knew
that she had mislaid something, but just what she could not remember.
Forebodings came to her, distressing, disquieting. There would never be any one
for her to speak to—never! The big house grew terrible; the rooms echoed her
steps. She would have given everything for a little house of two or three
small, low-ceilinged rooms close to the sidewalk on a street where people
passed up and down.
A night came when Abbie forgot that Old Chris had gone away. She
had been sitting in her chair beside the marble-topped table, staring out into
the night. All day the wind had blown; snow was piled high around the porch.
Her thoughts had got back to her childhood. Somehow they had centered around
the old grandfather who, years before, had sat in the same window. She saw him in
his chair; heard his raspy old voice, "I married Jane sixty-eight an' a
half years ago, an' a half year in a man's life is something, I'll bet you. An'
I buried her thirty years ago, an' that's a long time, too. We never tore each
other's shirts. Jane wanted to live a quiet life. She wanted one child, an' she
was tenacious 'bout that. She never wanted any more, an' she had three, an' one
of 'em was your Ma. She never wanted to be seen out with a baby in her arms,
Jane didn't. I made her get bundled up once or twice, an' I hitched up the
horse an' took her ridin' in my phaeton that cost two hundred dollars.—You'll
be in your dotage some day, Abbie. I've been in my dotage for years now.—Oh, I
altered my life to fit Jane's. I expected I had a wife to go out and see the
neighbors with. By gosh! we never went across the street—I'll take on goodness
some day, Abbie. By goll! that's all I'm good for to take on now.—Oh, it beat
all what a boy I was. I and Mother broke our first team of oxen. When you get
children, Abbie, let them raise themselves up. They'll do better at it
than a poor father or mother can. I had the finest horses and the best phaeton
for miles around, but you never saw a girl a-ridin' by the side of me.—Some men
can't work alone, Abbie. They got to have the women around or they quit. Don't
you get that kind of a man, Abbie.—Oh, she was renowned was my old mare, Kit.
You never got to the end of her. She lived to be more'n thirty year, an' she
raised fourteen colts. She was a darned good little thing she was. I got her
for a big black mare that weighed fourteen hundred pound, an' I made 'em give
me ten dollars, too, an' I got her colt with her—"
Abbie suddenly realized that she was shivering; that her feet were
cold; that it was long after nine o'clock. Old Chris must have fallen asleep in
his chair. She went to the dining-room door and opened it; the dining-room was
dark. Why?—why, of course! Old Chris had been gone for more than three weeks.
She took hold of the door to steady herself; her hands shook. How could she
have forgotten? Was she going crazy? Would the loneliness come to that?
Abbie went to bed. All night she lay awake, thinking. The thoughts
came of themselves. What the town had to say didn't matter after all; the town
had paid her no attention for years; it was paying her no attention now. Why,
then, should she live without any one to speak to? "I'll go and get Old
Chris, that's what I'll do. I won't live here alone any longer." And with
this decision she went to sleep.
In the morning when Abbie opened the kitchen door and stepped out
onto the porch, frost lay thick upon the well pump.
She drew her shawl close around her and took hold of the
pump-handle with her mittened hands. When she had filled the pail she went back
into the kitchen. The sound of the wind made her shiver. To walk all the way to
Mile Corners on such a day required green tea, so Abbie drank three cupfuls.
Then, as on the day when she went out to call upon "the Jersey
girls," she carried hot water up-stairs and got out fresh stockings.
About nine o'clock three women of Pastor Lucus's church, standing
on the front steps of Aunt Alphie Newberry's house, saw Abbie struggling
through a drift.
"Why, there's Abbie Snover," said Jennie Chipman.
"She's turnin' down the road to Mile Corners," added
Judie Wing.
Aunt Alphie Newberry opened the door to the three women:
"Whatever's the matter to be bringin' you callin' so
early?"
"Ain't you heard yet?"
"We come to tell you."
"My! my! my! What can have happened?" Aunt Alphie exclaimed.
"Old Chris died last night—"
"Just after bein' middlin' sick for a day an'—"
"An' they say," Judie Wing interrupted, "that it
was 'cause Abbie Snover turned him out."
Abbie reached the end of the town sidewalk. Lifting her skirts
high, she waded through the deep snow to the rough-rutted track left by the
farmers' sleighs. Every little while she had to step off the road into the deep
snow to let a bob-sled loaded high with hay or straw pass on its way into town.
Some of the farmers recognized her; they spoke to her with kindly voices, but
she made no answer. Walking was hard; Owen Frazer's farm was over the hill;
there was a steep climb ahead of her. And besides, Owen Frazer's house was no
place for Old Chris. No one knew anything about Owen Frazer and that woman of
his; they hadn't been born in Almont. How could she have let Old Chris go down
there, anyway?
"Whoa up! Hey! Better climb in, Abbie, an' ride with me. This
ain't no day for walkin'. Get up here on the seat. I'll come down an' help
you."
Abbie looked up at Undertaker Hopkins. In the box of his funeral
wagon was a black coffin with a sprinkling of snow on its top. Abbie shook her
head, but did not speak.
"Guess I shouldn't have asked you," Undertaker Hopkins
apologized. "Sorry! Get along as fast as you can, Abbie. It's gettin'
mighty, all-fired cold. It'll be a little sheltered when you get over the
hill."
Undertaker Hopkins drove on. Abbie tried to keep her feet in the
fresh track made by the runners. She reached the top of the hill. Owen Frazer's
red barn stood up above the snow. Undertaker Hopkins and his funeral wagon had
disappeared.
"He must have turned down the Mill Road," Abbie
muttered.
She reached the gate in front of the low, one-story farmhouse. A
shepherd dog barked as she went up the path. She rapped at the front door. A
woman appeared at the window and pointed to the side of the house. Abbie's face
expressed surprise and resentment. She backed down the steps and made her way
to the back door. The woman, Owen Frazer's wife, let her into the kitchen.
"Owen! Here be Abbie Snover!"
Owen Frazer came in from the front of the house.
"Good day! Didn't expect you here. Pretty cold out, ain't it?
Have a chair."
Abbie did not realize how numb the cold had made her body until
she tried to sit down.
"Maggie, give her a cup of that hot tea," Owen Frazer
continued. "She's been almost froze, an' I guess she'll have a cup of tea.
Hey! Miss Snover?"
"I want to talk to Old Chris."
"Talk to Old Chris! Talk to Old Chris, you want to?"
Owen Frazer looked at his wife. Abbie Snover didn't know, yet she
had walked all the way to Mile Corners in the cold. He couldn't understand it.
"What'd you come for, anyhow, Abbie Snover?"
"Now, Owen, you wait!" Owen Frazer's wife turned to
Abbie:
"Got lonesome, did you, all by yourself in that big barn of a
house?"
"I want to talk to Old Chris," Abbie repeated.
"Was you so fond of him, then?"
Abbie made no answer. Owen Frazer went over to the sink and looked
out of the window at the bed-tick smoldering on the rubbish heap. Owen Frazer's
wife pushed open the door of the sitting-room, then stood back and turned to
Abbie:
"You may be fine old family, Abbie Snover, but we're better.
You turned Old Chris out, an' now you want to talk to him. All right, talk to him
if you want to. He's in the parlor. Go on in now. Talk to him if you want to—go
on in!"
The animosity in Mrs. Frazer's voice shook Abbie; she was
disturbed; doubt came to her for the first time. As she went through the
sitting-room, fear slowed her steps. Perhaps they had turned Old Chris away
from her and she would have to go back alone, to live alone, for all the
remaining years of her life, in that big house.
By IRVIN S. COBB
From The
Saturday Evening Post
When Judge Priest, on
this particular morning, came puffing into his chambers at the courthouse,
looking, with his broad beam and in his costume of flappy, loose white ducks, a
good deal like an old-fashioned full-rigger with all sails set, his black
shadow, Jeff Poindexter, had already finished the job of putting the quarters
to rights for the day. The cedar water bucket had been properly replenished;
the jagged flange of a fifteen-cent chunk of ice protruded above the rim of the
bucket; and alongside, on the appointed nail, hung the gourd dipper that the
master always used. The floor had been swept, except, of course, in the corners
and underneath things; there were evidences, in streaky scrolls of fine grit
particles upon various flat surfaces, that a dusting brush had been more or
less sparingly employed. A spray of trumpet flowers, plucked from the vine that
grew outside the window, had been draped over the framed steel engraving of
President Davis and his Cabinet upon the wall; and on the top of the big square
desk in the middle of the room, where a small section of cleared green-blotter
space formed an oasis in a dry and arid desert of cluttered law journals and
dusty documents, the morning's mail rested in a little heap.
Having placed his old cotton umbrella in a corner, having removed
his coat and hung it upon a peg behind the hall door, and having seen to it
that a palm-leaf fan was in arm's reach should he require it, the Judge,
in his billowy white shirt, sat down at his desk and gave his attention to his
letters. There was an invitation from the Hylan B. Gracey Camp of Confederate
Veterans of Eddyburg, asking him to deliver the chief oration at the annual
reunion, to be held at Mineral Springs on the twelfth day of the following
month; an official notice from the clerk of the Court of Appeals concerning the
affirmation of a judgment that had been handed down by Judge Priest at the
preceding term of his own court; a bill for five pounds of a special brand of
smoking tobacco; a notice of a lodge meeting—altogether quite a sizable batch
of mail.
At the bottom of the pile he came upon a long envelope addressed
to him by his title, instead of by his name, and bearing on its upper
right-hand corner several foreign-looking stamps; they were British stamps, he
saw, on closer examination.
To the best of his recollection it had been a good long time since
Judge Priest had had a communication by post from overseas. He adjusted his
steel-bowed spectacles, ripped the wrapper with care and shook out the
contents. There appeared to be several inclosures; in fact, there were
several—a sheaf of printed forms, a document with seals attached, and a letter
that covered two sheets of paper with typewritten lines. To the letter the
recipient gave consideration first. Before he reached the end of the opening
paragraph he uttered a profound grunt of surprise; his reading of the rest was
frequently punctuated by small exclamations, his face meantime puckering up in
interested lines. At the conclusion, when he came to the signature, he indulged
himself in a soft low whistle. He read the letter all through again, and after
that he examined the forms and the document which had accompanied it.
Chuckling under his breath, he wriggled himself free from the snug
embrace of his chair arms and waddled out of his own office and down the long
bare empty hall to the office of Sheriff Giles Birdsong. Within, that
competent functionary, Deputy Sheriff Breck Quarles, sat at ease in his shirt
sleeves, engaged, with the smaller blade of his pocketknife, in performing upon
his finger nails an operation that combined the fine deftness of the manicure
with the less delicate art of the farrier. At the sight of the Judge in the
open doorway he hastily withdrew from a tabletop, where they rested, a pair of
long thin legs, and rose.
"Mornin', Breck," said Judge Priest to the other's
salutation. "No, thank you, son. I won't come in; but I've got a little
job for you. I wisht, ef you ain't too busy, that you'd step down the street
and see ef you can't find Peep O'Day fur me and fetch him back here with you.
It won't take you long, will it?"
"No, suh—not very." Mr. Quarles reached for his hat and
snuggled his shoulder holster back inside his unbuttoned waistcoat. "He'll
most likely be down round Gafford's stable. Whut's Old Peep been doin',
Judge—gettin' himself in contempt of court or somethin'?" He grinned,
asking the question with the air of one making a little joke.
"No," vouchsafed the Judge; "he ain't done nothin'.
But he's about to have somethin' of a highly onusual nature done to him. You
jest tell him I'm wishful to see him right away—that'll be sufficient, I
reckin."
Without making further explanation, Judge Priest returned to his
chambers and for the third time read the letter from foreign parts. Court was
not in session, and the hour was early and the weather was hot; nobody
interrupted him. Perhaps fifteen minutes passed. Mr. Quarles poked his head in
at the door.
"I found him, suh," the deputy stated. "He's
outside here in the hall."
"Much obliged to you, son," said Judge Priest.
"Send him on in, will you, please?"
The head was withdrawn; its owner lingered out of sight of His
Honor, but within earshot. It was hard to figure the presiding judge of
the First Judicial District of the State of Kentucky as having business with
Peep O'Day; and, though Mr. Quarles was no eavesdropper, still he felt a
pardonable curiosity in whatsoever might transpire. As he feigned an absorbed
interest in a tax notice, which was pasted on a blackboard just outside the
office door, there entered the presence of the Judge a man who seemingly was
but a few years younger than the Judge himself—a man who looked to be somewhere
between sixty-five and seventy. There is a look that you may have seen in the
eyes of ownerless but well-intentioned dogs—dogs that, expecting kicks as their
daily portion, are humbly grateful for kind words and stray bones; dogs that
are fairly yearning to be adopted by somebody—by anybody—being prepared to give
to such a benefactor a most faithful doglike devotion in return.
This look, which is fairly common among masterless and homeless
dogs, is rare among humans; still, once in a while you do find it there too.
The man who now timidly shuffled himself across the threshold of Judge Priest's
office had such a look out of his eyes. He had a long simple face, partly
inclosed in gray whiskers. Four dollars would have been a sufficient price to
pay for the garments he stood in, including the wrecked hat he held in his
hands and the broken, misshaped shoes on his feet. A purchaser who gave more
than four dollars for the whole in its present state of decrepitude would have
been but a poor hand at bargaining.
The man who wore this outfit coughed in an embarrassed fashion and
halted, fumbling his ruinous hat in his hands.
"Howdy do?" said Judge Priest heartily. "Come
in!"
The other diffidently advanced himself a yard or two.
"Excuse me, suh," he said apologetically; "but this
here Breck Quarles he come after me and he said ez how you wanted to see me.
'Twas him ez brung me here, suh."
Faintly underlying the drawl of the speaker was just a suspicion—a
mere trace, as you might say—of a labial softness that belongs solely and
exclusively to the children, and in a diminishing degree to the grandchildren,
of native-born sons and daughters of a certain small green isle in the sea. It
was not so much a suggestion of a brogue as it was the suggestion of the ghost
of a brogue; a brogue almost extinguished, almost obliterated, and yet
persisting through the generations—South of Ireland struggling beneath south of
Mason and Dixon's Line.
"Yes," said the Judge; "that's right. I do want to
see you." The tone was one that he might employ in addressing a bashful
child. "Set down there and make yourself at home."
The newcomer obeyed to the extent of perching himself on the
extreme forward edge of a chair. His feet shuffled uneasily where they were
drawn up against the cross rung of the chair.
The Judge reared well back, studying his visitor over the tops of
his glasses with rather a quizzical look. In one hand he balanced the large
envelope which had come to him that morning.
"Seems to me I heared somewheres, years back, that your
regular Christian name was Paul—is that right?" he asked.
"Shorely is, suh," assented the ragged man, surprised
and plainly grateful that one holding a supremely high position in the
community should vouchsafe to remember a fact relating to so inconsequent an
atom as himself. "But I ain't heared it fur so long I come mighty nigh
furgittin' it sometimes, myself. You see, Judge Priest, when I wasn't nothin'
but jest a shaver folks started in to callin' me Peep—on account of my last
name bein O'Day, I reckin. They been callin' me so ever since. Fust off, 'twas
Little Peep, and then jest plain Peep; and now it's got to be Old Peep. But my
real entitled name is Paul, jest like you said, Judge—Paul Felix O'Day."
"Uh-huh! And wasn't your father's name Philip and your
mother's name Katherine Dwyer O'Day?"
"To the best of my recollection that's partly so, too, suh.
They both of 'em up and died when I was a baby, long before I could remember
anything a-tall. But they always told me my paw's name was Phil, or Philip.
Only my maw's name wasn't Kath—Kath—wasn't whut you jest now called it, Judge.
It was plain Kate."
"Kate or Katherine—it makes no great difference,"
explained Judge Priest. "I reckin the record is straight this fur. And now
think hard and see ef you kin ever remember hearin' of an uncle named Daniel
O'Day—your father's brother."
The answer was a shake of the tousled head.
"I don't know nothin' about my people. I only jest know they
come over frum some place with a funny name in the Old Country before I was
born. The onliest kin I ever had over here was that there no-'count triflin'
nephew of mine—Perce Dwyer—him that uster hang round this town. I reckin you
call him to mind, Judge?"
The old Judge nodded before continuing:
"All the same, I reckin there ain't no manner of doubt but
whut you had an uncle of the name of Daniel. All the evidences would seem to p'int
that way. Accordin' to the proofs, this here Uncle Daniel of yours lived in a
little town called Kilmare, in Ireland." He glanced at one of the papers
that lay on his desktop; then added in a casual tone: "Tell me, Peep, whut
are you doin' now fur a livin'?"
The object of this examination grinned a faint grin of
extenuation.
"Well, suh, I'm knockin' about, doin' the best I kin—which
ain't much. I help out round Gafford's liver' stable, and Pete Gafford he lets
me sleep in a little room behind the feed room, and his wife she gives me my
vittles. Oncet in a while I git a chancet to do odd jobs fur folks round
town—cuttin' weeds and splittin' stove wood and packin' in coal, and sech ez
that."
"Not much money in it, is there?"
"No, suh; not much. Folks is more prone to offer me old
clothes than they are to pay me in cash. Still, I manage to git along. I don't
live very fancy; but, then, I don't starve, and that's more'n some kin
say."
"Peep, whut was the most money you ever had in your life—at
one time?"
Peep scratched with a freckled hand at his thatch of faded whitish
hair to stimulate recollection.
"I reckin not more'n six bits at any one time, suh. Seems
like I've sorter got the knack of livin' without money."
"Well, Peep, sech bein' the case, whut would you say ef I was
to tell you that you're a rich man?"
The answer came slowly:
"I reckin, suh, ef it didn't sound disrespectful, I'd say you
was prankin' with me—makin' fun of me, suh."
Judge Priest bent forward in his chair.
"I'm not prankin' with you. It's my pleasant duty to inform
you that at this moment you are the rightful owner of eight thousand
pounds."
"Pounds of whut, Judge?" The tone expressed a heavy
incredulity.
"Why, pounds in money."
Outside, in the hall, with one ear held conveniently near the
crack in the door, Deputy Sheriff Quarles gave a violent start; and then, at
once, was torn between a desire to stay and hear more and an urge to hurry
forth and spread the unbelievable tidings. After the briefest of struggles the
latter inclination won; this news was too marvelously good to keep; surely a
harbinger and a herald were needed to spread it broadcast.
Mr. Quarles tiptoed rapidly down the hall. When he reached the
sidewalk the volunteer bearer of a miraculous tale fairly ran. As for the man
who sat facing the Judge, he merely stared in a dull bewilderment.
"Judge," he said at length, "eight thousand pounds
of money oughter make a powerful big pile, oughten it?"
"It wouldn't weigh quite that much ef you put it on the
scales," explained His Honor painstakingly. "I mean pounds
sterlin'—English money. Near ez I kin figger offhand, it comes in our money to
somewheres between thirty-five and forty thousand dollars—nearer forty than
thirty-five. And it's yours, Peep—every red cent of it."
"Excuse me, suh, and not meanin' to contradict you, or
nothin' like that; but I reckin there must be some mistake. Why, Judge, I don't
scursely know anybody that's ez wealthy ez all that, let alone anybody that'd
give me sech a lot of money."
"Listen, Peep: This here letter I'm holdin' in my hand came
to me by to-day's mail—jest a little spell ago. It's frum Ireland—frum the town
of Kilmare, where your people came frum. It was sent to me by a firm of
barristers in that town—lawyers we'd call 'em. In this letter they ask me to
find you and to tell you what's happened. It seems, from whut they write, that
your uncle, by name Daniel O'Day, died not very long ago without issue—that is
to say, without leavin' any children of his own, and without makin' any will.
"It appears he had eight thousand pounds saved up. Ever since
he died those lawyers and some other folks over there in Ireland have been
tryin' to find out who that money should go to. They learnt in some way that
your father and your mother settled in this town a mighty long time ago, and
that they died here and left one son, which is you. All the rest of the family
over there in Ireland have already died out, it seems; that natchelly makes you
the next of kin and the heir at law, which means that all your uncle's money
comes direct to you.
"So, Peep, you're a wealthy man in your own name. That's the
news I had to tell you. Allow me to congratulate you on your good
fortune."
The beneficiary rose to his feet, seeming not to see the hand the
old Judge had extended across the desktop toward him. On his face, of a sudden,
was a queer, eager look. It was as though he foresaw the coming true of
long-cherished and heretofore unattainable visions.
"Have you got it here, suh?"
He glanced about him as though expecting to see a bulky bundle.
Judge Priest smiled.
"Oh, no; they didn't send it along with the letter—that
wouldn't be regular. There's quite a lot of things to be done fust. There'll be
some proofs to be got up and sworn to before a man called a British consul; and
likely there'll be a lot of papers that you'll have to sign; and then all the
papers and the proofs and things will be sent across the ocean. And, after some
fees are paid out over there—why, then you'll git your inheritance."
The rapt look faded from the strained face, leaving it downcast.
"I'm afeared, then, I won't be able to claim that there money," he
said forlornly.
"Why not?"
"Because I don't know how to sign my own name. Raised the way
I was, I never got no book learnin'. I can't neither read nor write."
Compassion shadowed the Judge's chubby face; and compassion was in
his voice as he made answer:
"You don't need to worry about that part of it. You can make
your mark—- just a cross mark on the paper, with witnesses present—like
this."
He took up a pen, dipped it in the inkwell and illustrated his
meaning.
"Yes, suh; I'm glad it kin be done thataway. I always wisht I
knowed how to read big print and spell my own name out. I ast a feller oncet to
write my name out fur me in plain letters on a piece of paper. I was aimin' to
learn to copy it off; but I showed it to one of the hands at the liver' stable
and he busted out laughin'. And then I come to find out this here feller had
tricked me fur to make game of me. He hadn't wrote my name out a-tall—- he'd
wrote some dirty words instid. So after that I give up tryin' to educate
myself. That was several years back and I ain't tried sence. Now I reckin I'm
too old learn.... I wonder, suh—I wonder ef it'll be very long before that
there money gits here and I begin to have the spendin' of it?"
"Makin' plans already?"
"Yes, suh," O'Day answered truthfully; "I am."
He was silent for a moment, his eyes on the floor; then timidly he advanced the
thought that had come to him. "I reckin, suh, it wouldn't be no more'n
fair and proper ef I divided my money with you to pay you back fur all this
trouble, you're fixin' to take on my account. Would—would half of it be enough?
The other half oughter last me fur what uses I'll make of it."
"I know you mean well and I'm much obliged to you fur your
offer," stated Judge Priest, smiling a little; "but it wouldn't be
fittin' or proper fur me to tech a cent of your money. There'll be some court
dues and some lawyers' fees, and sech, to pay over there in Ireland; but after
that's settled up everything comes direct to you. It's goin' to be a pleasure
to me to help you arrange these here details that you don't understand—a
pleasure and not a burden."
He considered the figure before him.
"Now here's another thing, Peep; I judge it's hardly fittin'
fur a man of substance to go on livin' the way you've had to live durin' your
life. Ef you don't mind my offerin' you a little advice I would suggest that
you go right down to Felsburg Brothers when you leave here and git yourself
fitted out with some suitable clothin'. And you'd better go to Max Biederman's,
too, and order a better pair of shoes fur yourself than them you've got on.
Tell 'em I sent you and that I guarantee the payment of your bills. Though I
reckin that'll hardly be necessary—when the news of your good luck gits noised
round I misdoubt whether there's any firm in our entire city that wouldn't be
glad to have you on their books fur a stiddy customer.
"And, also, ef I was you I'd arrange to git me regular board
and lodgin's somewheres round town. You see, Peep, comin' into a property
entails consider'ble many responsibilities right frum the start."
"Yes, suh," assented the legatee obediently. "I'll
do jest ez you say, Judge Priest, about the clothes and the shoes, and all
that; but—but, ef you don't mind, I'd like to go on livin' at Gafford's. Pete
Gafford's been mighty good to me—him and his wife both; and I wouldn't like fur
'em to think I was gittin' stuck up jest because I've had this here streak of
luck come to me. Mebbe, seein' ez how things has changed with me, they'd be
willin' to take me in fur a table boarder at their house; but I shorely would
hate to give up livin' in that there little room behind the feed room at the
liver' stable. I don't know ez I could ever find any place that would seem ez
homelike to me ez whut it is."
"Suit yourself about that," said Judge Priest heartily.
"I don't know but whut you've got the proper notion about it after
all."
"Yes, suh. Them Gaffords have been purty nigh the only real
true friends I ever had that I could count on." He hesitated a moment.
"I reckin—I reckin, suh, it'll be a right smart while, won't it, before
that money gits here frum all the way acrost the ocean?"
"Why, yes; I imagine it will. Was you figurin' on investin' a
little of it now?"
"Yes, suh; I was."
"About how much did you think of spendin' fur a
beginnin'?"
O'Day squinted his eyes, his lips moving in silent calculation.
"Well, suh," he said at length, "I could use ez
much ez a silver dollar. But, of course, sence—"
"That sounds kind of moderate to me," broke in Judge
Priest. He shoved a pudgy hand into a pocket of his white trousers. "I
reckin this detail kin be arranged. Here, Peep"—he extended his
hand—"here's your dollar." Then, as the other drew back, stammering a
refusal, he hastily added: "No, no, no; go ahead and take it—it's
yours. I'm jest advancin' it to you out of whut'll be comin' to you shortly.
"I'll tell you whut: Until sech time ez you are in position
to draw on your own funds you jest drap in here to see me when you're in need
of cash, and I'll try to let you have whut you require—in reason. I'll keep a
proper reckinin' of whut you git and you kin pay me back ez soon ez your
inheritance is put into your hands.
"One thing more," he added as the heir, having thanked
him, was making his grateful adieu at the threshold: "Now that you're
wealthy, or about to be so, I kind of imagine quite a passel of fellers will
suddenly discover themselves strangely and affectionately drawed toward you.
You're liable to find out you've always had more true and devoted friends in
this community than whut you ever imagined to be the case before.
"Now friendship is a mighty fine thing, takin' it by and
large; but it kin be overdone. It's barely possible that some of this here new
crop of your well-wishers and admirers will be makin' little business
propositions to you—desirin' to have you go partners with 'em in business, or
to sell you desirable pieces of real estate; or even to let you loan 'em various
sums of money. I wouldn't be surprised but whut a number of sech chances will
be comin' your way durin' the next few days, and frum then on. Ef sech should
be the case I would suggest to you that, before committin' yourself to anybody
or anything, you tell 'em that I'm sort of actin' as your unofficial adviser in
money matters, and that they should come to me and outline their little schemes
in person. Do you git my general drift?"
"Yes, suh," said Peep. "I won't furgit; and thank
you ag'in, Judge, specially fur lettin' me have this dollar ahead of
time."
He shambled out with the coin in his hand; and on his face was
again the look of one who sees before him the immediate fulfillment of a
delectable dream.
With lines of sympathy and amusement crosshatched at the
outer corners of his eyelids, Judge Priest, rising and stepping to his door,
watched the retreating figure of the town's newest and strangest capitalist
disappear down the wide front steps of the courthouse.
Presently he went back to his chair and sat down, tugging at his
short chin beard.
"I wonder now," said he, meditatively addressing the
emptiness of the room, "I wonder whut a man sixty-odd-year old is goin' to
do with the fust whole dollar he ever had in his life!"
It was characteristic of our circuit judge that he should have
voiced his curiosity aloud. Talking to himself when he was alone was one of his
habits. Also, it was characteristic of him that he had refrained from betraying
his inquisitiveness to his late caller. Similar motives of delicacy had kept
him from following the other man to watch the sequence.
However, at secondhand, the details very shortly reached him. They
were brought by no less a person than Deputy Sheriff Quarles, who, some twenty
minutes or possibly half an hour later, obtruded himself upon Judge Priest's
presence.
"Judge," began Mr. Quarles, "you'd never in the
world guess whut Old Peep O'Day done with the first piece of money he got his
hands on out of that there forty thousand pounds of silver dollars he's come
into from his uncle's estate."
The old man slanted a keen glance in Mr. Quarles' direction.
"Tell me, son," he asked softly, "how did you come
to hear the glad tidin's so promptly?"
"Me?" said Mr. Quarles innocently. "Why, Judge
Priest, the word is all over this part of town by this time. Why, I reckin
twenty-five or fifty people must 'a' been watchin' Old Peep to see how he was
goin' to act when he come out of this courthouse."
"Well, well, well!" murmured the Judge blandly.
"Good news travels almost ez fast sometimes ez whut bad news
does—don't it, now? Well, son, I give up the riddle. Tell me jest whut our
elderly friend did do with the first installment of his inheritance."
"Well, suh, he turned south here at the gate and went down
the street, a-lookin' neither to the right nor the left. He looked to me like a
man in a trance, almost. He keeps right on through Legal Row till he comes to
Franklin Street, and then he goes up Franklin to B. Weil & Son's
confectionery store; and there he turns in. I happened to be followin' 'long
behind him, with a few others—with several others, in fact—and we-all sort of
slowed up in passin' and looked in at the door; and that's how I come to be in
a position to see what happened.
"Old Peep, he marches in jest like I'm tellin' it to you,
suh; and Mr. B. Weil comes to wait on him, and he starts in buyin'. He buys
hisself a five-cent bag of gumdrops; and a five-cent bag of jelly beans; and a
ten-cent bag of mixed candies—kisses and candy mottoes, and sech ez them, you
know; and a sack of fresh-roasted peanuts—a big sack, it was, fifteen-cent
size; and two prize boxes; and some gingersnaps—ten cents' worth; and a
cocoanut; and half a dozen red bananas; and half a dozen more of the plain
yaller ones. Altogether I figger he spent a even dollar; in fact, I seen him
hand Mr. Weil a dollar, and I didn't see him gittin' no change back out of it.
"Then he comes on out of the store, with all these things
stuck in his pockets and stacked up in his arms till he looks sort of like some
new kind of a summertime Santy Klaws; and he sets down on a goods box at the
edge of the pavement, with his feet in the gutter, and starts in eatin' all
them things.
"First, he takes a bite off a yaller banana and then off a
red banana, and then a mouthful of peanuts; and then maybe some mixed
candies—not sayin' a word to nobody, but jest natchelly eatin' his fool head
off. A young chap that's clerkin' in Bagby's grocery, next door, steps up to
him and speaks to him, meanin', I suppose, to ast him is it true he's
wealthy. And Old Peep, he says to him, 'Please don't come botherin' me now,
sonny—I'm busy ketchin' up,' he says; and keeps right on a-munchin' and
a-chewin' like all possessed.
"That ain't all of it, neither, Judge—not by a long shot it
ain't! Purty soon Old Peep looks round him at the little crowd that's gathered.
He didn't seem to pay no heed to the grown-up people standin' there; but he
sees a couple of boys about ten years old in the crowd, and he beckons to them
to come to him, and he makes room fur them alongside him on the box and divides
up his knick-knacks with them.
"When I left there to come on back here he had no less'n six
kids squatted round him, includin' one little nigger boy; and between 'em all
they'd jest finished up the last of the bananas and peanuts and the candy and
the gingersnaps, and was fixin' to take turns drinkin' the milk out of the
cocoanut. I s'pose they've got it all cracked out of the shell and et up by
now—the cocoanut, I mean. Judge, you oughter stepped down into Franklin Street
and taken a look at the picture whilst there was still time. You never seen
sech a funny sight in all your days, I'll bet!"
"I reckin 'twould be too late to be startin' now," said
Judge Priest. "I'm right sorry I missed it.... Busy ketchin' up, huh? Yes;
I reckin he is.... Tell me, son, whut did you make out of the way Peep O'Day
acted?"
"Why, suh," stated Mr. Quarles, "to my mind, Judge,
there ain't no manner of doubt but whut prosperity has went to his head and
turned it. He acted to me like a plum' distracted idiot. A grown man with forty
thousand pounds of solid money settin' on the side of a gutter eatin' jimcracks
with a passel of dirty little boys! Kin you figure it out any other way,
Judge—except that his mind is gone?"
"I don't set myself up to be a specialist in mental
disorders, son," said Judge Priest softly; "but, sence you ask
me the question, I should say, speakin' offhand, that it looks to me more ez ef
the heart was the organ that was mainly affected. And possibly"—he added
this last with a dry little smile—"and possibly, by now, the stomach
also."
Whether or not Mr. Quarles was correct in his psychopathic
diagnosis, he certainly had been right when he told Judge Priest that the word
was already all over the business district. It had spread fast and was still
spreading; it spread to beat the wireless, traveling as it did by that
mouth-to-ear method of communication which is so amazingly swift and generally
so tremendously incorrect. Persons who could not credit the tale at all,
nevertheless lost no time in giving to it a yet wider circulation; so that, as
though borne on the wind, it moved in every direction, like ripples on a pond;
and with each time of retelling the size of the legacy grew.
The Daily Evening News, appearing on the streets at
five P. M., confirmed the
tale; though by its account the fortune was reduced to a sum far below the
gorgeously exaggerated estimates of most of the earlier narrators. Between
breakfast and supper-time Peep O'Day's position in the common estimation of his
fellow citizens underwent a radical and revolutionary change. He
ceased—automatically, as it were—to be a town character; he became, by
universal consent, a town notable, whose every act and every word would
thereafter be subjected to close scrutiny and closer analysis.
The next morning the nation at large had opportunity to know of
the great good fortune that had befallen Paul Felix O'Day, for the story had
been wired to the city papers by the local correspondents of the same; and the
press associations had picked up a stickful of the story and sped it broadcast
over leased wires. Many who until that day had never heard of the fortunate
man, or, indeed, of the place where he lived, at once manifested a concern in
his well-being.
Certain firms of investment brokers in New York and Chicago
promptly added a new name to what vulgarly they called their "sucker"
lists. Dealers in mining stocks, in oil stocks, in all kinds of attractive
stocks showed interest; in circular form samples of the most optimistic and
alluring literature the world has ever known were consigned to the post,
addressed to Mr. P. F. O'Day, such-and-such a town, such-and-such a state, care
of general delivery.
Various lonesome ladies in various lonesome places lost no time in
sitting themselves down and inditing congratulatory letters; object matrimony.
Some of these were single ladies; others had been widowed, either by death or
request. Various other persons of both sexes, residing here, there, and
elsewhere in our country, suddenly remembered that they, too, were descended
from the O'Days of Ireland, and wrote on forthwith to claim proud and fond
relationship with the particular O'Day who had come into money.
It was a remarkable circumstance, which speedily developed, that
one man should have so many distant cousins scattered over the Union, and a
thing equally noteworthy that practically all these kinspeople, through no
fault of their own, should at the present moment be in such straitened circumstances
and in such dire need of temporary assistance of a financial nature. Ticker and
printer's ink, operating in conjunction, certainly did their work mighty well;
even so, several days were to elapse before the news reached one who, of all
those who read it, had most cause to feel a profound personal sensation in the
intelligence.
This delay, however, was nowise to be blamed upon the tardiness of
the newspapers; it was occasioned by the fact that the person referred to was
for the moment well out of contact with the active currents of world affairs,
he being confined in a workhouse at Evansville, Indiana.
As soon as he had rallied from the shock this individual set about
making plans to put himself in direct touch with the inheritor. He had
ample time in which to frame and shape his campaign, inasmuch as there remained
for him yet to serve nearly eight long and painfully tedious weeks of a
three-months' vagrancy sentence. Unlike most of those now manifesting their
interest, he did not write a letter; but he dreamed dreams that made him forget
the annoyances of a ball and chain fast on his ankle and piles of stubborn
stones to be cracked up into fine bits with a heavy hammer.
We are getting ahead of our narrative, though—days ahead of it.
The chronological sequence of events properly dates from the morning following
the morning when Peep O'Day, having been abruptly translated from the masses of
the penniless to the classes of the wealthy, had forthwith embarked upon the
gastronomic orgy so graphically detailed by Deputy Sheriff Quarles.
On that next day more eyes probably than had been trained in Peep
O'Day's direction in all the unremarked and unremarkable days of his life put
together were focused upon him. Persons who theretofore had regarded his existence—if
indeed they gave it a thought—as one of the utterly trivial and inconsequential
incidents of the cosmic scheme, were moved to speak to him, to clasp his hand,
and, in numerous instances, to express a hearty satisfaction over his altered
circumstances. To all these, whether they were moved by mere neighborly good
will, or perchance were inspired by impulses of selfishness, the old man
exhibited a mien of aloofness and embarrassment.
This diffidence or this suspicion—or this whatever it was—protected
him from those who might entertain covetous and ulterior designs upon his
inheritance even better than though he had been brusque and rude; while those
who sought to question him regarding his plans for the future drew from him
only mumbled and evasive replies, which left them as deeply in the dark as they
had been before. Altogether, in his intercourse with adults he appeared shy and
very ill at ease.
It was noted, though, that early in the forenoon he attached to
him perhaps half a dozen urchins, of whom the oldest could scarcely have been
more than twelve or thirteen years of age; and that these youngsters remained
his companions throughout the day. Likewise the events of that day were such as
to confirm a majority of the observers in practically the same belief that had
been voiced of Mr. Quarles—namely, that whatever scanty brains Peep O'Day might
have ever had were now completely addled by the stroke of luck that had
befallen him.
In fairness to all—to O'Day and to the town critics who sat in judgment
upon his behavior—it should be stated that his conduct at the very outset was
not entirely devoid of evidences of sanity. With his troupe of ragged juveniles
trailing behind him, he first visited Felsburg Brothers' Emporium to exchange
his old and disreputable costume for a wardrobe that, in accordance with Judge
Priest's recommendation, he had ordered on the afternoon previous, and which
had since been undergoing certain necessary alterations.
With his meager frame incased in new black woolens, and wearing,
as an incongruous added touch, the most brilliant of neckties, a necktie of the
shade of a pomegranate blossom, he presently issued from Felsburg Brothers' and
entered M. Biederman's shoe store, two doors below. Here Mr. Biederman fitted
him with shoes, and in addition noted down a further order, which the purchaser
did not give until after he had conferred earnestly with the members of his
youthful entourage.
Those watching this scene from a distance saw—and perhaps marveled
at the sight—that already, between these small boys, on the one part, and this
old man, on the other, a perfect understanding appeared to have been
established.
After leaving Biederman's, and tagged by his small escorts, O'Day
went straight to the courthouse and, upon knocking at the door, was admitted to
Judge Priest's private chambers, the boys meantime waiting outside in the
hall. When he came forth he showed them something he held in his hand and told
them something; whereupon all of them burst into excited and joyous whoops.
It was at that point that O'Day, by the common verdict of most
grown-up onlookers, began to betray the vagaries of a disordered intellect. Not
that his reason had not been under suspicion already, as a result of his
freakish excess in the matter of B. Weil & Son's wares on the preceding
day; but the relapse that now followed, as nearly everybody agreed, was even
more pronounced, even more symptomatic than the earlier attack of aberration.
In brief, this was what happened: To begin with, Mr. Virgil
Overall, who dealt in lands and houses and sold insurance of all the commoner
varieties on the side, had stalked O'Day to this point and was lying in wait
for him as he came out of the courthouse into the Public Square, being anxious
to describe to him some especially desirable bargains, in both improved and
unimproved realty; also, Mr. Overall was prepared to book him for life,
accident and health policies on the spot.
So pleased was Mr. Overall at having distanced his professional
rivals in the hunt that he dribbled at the mouth. But the warmth of his
disappointment and indignation dried up the salivary founts instantly when the
prospective patron declined to listen to him at all and, breaking free from Mr.
Overall's detaining clasp, hurried on into Legal Row, with his small convoys
trotting along ahead and alongside him.
At the door of the Blue Goose Saloon and Short Order Restaurant
its proprietor, by name Link Iserman, was lurking, as it were, in ambush. He
hailed the approaching O'Day most cordially; he inquired in a warm voice
regarding O'Day's health; and then, with a rare burst of generosity, he
invited, nay urged, O'Day to step inside and have something on the house—wines,
ales, liquors or cigars; it was all one to Mr. Iserman. The other merely shook
his head and, without a word of thanks for the offer, passed on as though
bent upon a important mission.
Mark how the proofs were accumulating: The man had disdained the
company of men of approximately his own age or thereabout; he had refused an
opportunity to partake of refreshment suitable to his years; and now he stepped
into the Bon Ton toy store and bought for cash—most inconceivable of
acquisitions!—a little wagon that was painted bright red and bore on its sides
in curlicued letters, the name Comet.
His next stop was made at Bishop & Bryan's grocery, where,
with the aid of his youthful compatriots, he first discriminatingly selected,
and then purchased on credit, and finally loaded into the wagon, such purchases
as a dozen bottles of soda pop, assorted flavors; cheese, crackers—soda and
animal; sponge cakes with weather-proof pink icing on them; fruits of the
season; cove oysters; a bottle of pepper sauce; and a quantity of the extra
large sized bright green cucumber pickles known to the trade as the Fancy Jumbo
Brand, Prime Selected.
Presently the astounding spectacle was presented of two small
boys, with string bridles on their arms, drawing the wagon through our town and
out of it into the country, with Peep O'Day in the rôle of teamster walking
alongside the laden wagon. He was holding the lines in his hands and shouting
orders at his team, who showed a colty inclination to shy at objects, to kick
up their heels without provocation, and at intervals to try to run away. Eight
or ten small boys—for by now the troupe had grown in number and in volume of
noise—trailed along, keeping step with their elderly patron and advising him
shrilly regarding the management of his refractory span.
As it turned out, the destination of this preposterous procession
was Bradshaw's Grove, where the entire party spent the day picnicking in the
woods and, as reported by several reliable witnesses, playing games. It was not
so strange that holidaying boys should play games; the amazing feature of
the performance was that Peep O'Day, a man old enough to be grandfather to any
of them, played with them, being by turns an Indian chief, a robber baron, and
the driver of a stagecoach attacked by Wild Western desperadoes.
When he returned to town at dusk, drawing his little red wagon
behind him, his new suit was rumpled into many wrinkles and marked by dust and
grass stains; his flame-colored tie was twisted under one ear; his new straw
hat was mashed quite out of shape; and in his eyes was a light that sundry citizens,
on meeting him, could only interpret for a spark struck from inner fires of
madness.
Days that came after this, on through the midsummer, were, with
variations, but repetitions of the day I have just described. Each morning Peep
O'Day would go to either the courthouse or Judge Priest's home to turn over to
the Judge the unopened mail which had been delivered to him at Gafford's
stables; then he would secure from the Judge a loan of money against his
inheritance. Generally the amount of his daily borrowing was a dollar; rarely
was it so much as two dollars; and only once was it more than two dollars.
By nightfall the sum would have been expended upon perfectly
useless and absolutely childish devices. It might be that he would buy toy
pistols and paper caps for himself and his following of urchins; or that his
whim would lead him to expend all the money in tin flutes. In one case the
group he so incongruously headed would be for that one day a gang of
make-believe banditti; in another, they would constitute themselves a
fife-and-drum corps—with barreltops for the drums—and would march through the
streets, where scandalized adults stood in their tracks to watch them go by,
they all the while making weird sounds, which with them passed for music.
Or again, the available cash resources would be invested in
provender; and then there would be an outing in the woods. Under Peep
O'Day's captaincy his chosen band of youngsters picked dewberries; they went
swimming together in Guthrie's Gravel Pit, out by the old Fair Grounds, where
his spare naked shanks contrasted strongly with their plump freckled legs as
all of them splashed through the shallows, making for deep water. Under his
leadership they stole watermelons from Mr. Dick Bell's patch, afterward eating
their spoils in thickets of grapevines along the banks of Perkins' Creek.
It was felt that mental befuddlement and mortal folly could reach
no greater heights—or no lower depths—than on a certain hour of a certain day,
along toward the end of August, when O'Day came forth from his quarters in
Gafford's stables, wearing a pair of boots that M. Biederman's establishment
had turned out to his order and his measure—not such boots as a sensible man
might be expected to wear, but boots that were exaggerated and monstrous
counterfeits of the red-topped, scroll-fronted, brass-toed, stub-heeled,
squeaky-soled bootees that small boys of an earlier generation possessed.
Very proudly and seemingly unconscious of, or, at least, oblivious
to, the derisive remarks that the appearance of these new belongings drew from
many persons, the owner went clumping about in them, with the rumply legs of
his trousers tucked down in them, and ballooning up and out over the tops in
folds which overlapped from his knee joints halfway down his attenuated calves.
As Deputy Sheriff Quarles said, the combination was a sight fit to
make a horse laugh. It may be that small boys have a lesser sense of humor than
horses have, for certainly the boys who were the old man's invariable shadows
did not laugh at him, or at his boots either. Between the whiskered senior and
his small comrades there existed a freemasonry that made them all sense a thing
beyond the ken of most of their elders. Perhaps this was because the elders,
being blind in their superior wisdom, saw neither this thing nor the communion
that flourished. They saw only the farcical joke. But His Honor, Judge
Priest, to cite a conspicuous exception, seemed not to see the lamentable
comedy of it.
Indeed, it seemed to some almost as if Judge Priest were aiding
and abetting the befogged O'Day in his demented enterprises, his peculiar
excursions and his weird purchases. If he did not actually encourage him in
these constant exhibitions of witlessness, certainly there were no evidences
available to show that he sought to dissuade O'Day from his strange course.
At the end of a fortnight one citizen, in whom patience had ceased
to be a virtue and to whose nature long-continued silence on any public topic
was intolerable, felt it his duty to speak to the Judge upon the subject. This
gentleman—his name was S. P. Escott—held, with many, that, for the good name of
the community, steps should be taken to abate the infantile, futile activities
of the besotted legatee.
Afterward Mr. Escott, giving a partial account of the conversation
with Judge Priest to certain of his friends, showed unfeigned annoyance at the
outcome.
"I claim that old man's not fittin' to be runnin' a court any
longer," he stated bitterly. "He's too old and peevish—that's what
ails him! For one, I'm certainly not never goin' to vote fur him again. Why,
it's gettin' to be ez much ez a man's life is worth to stop that there spiteful
old crank in the street and put a civil question to him—that's whut's the
matter!"
"What happened S. P.?" inquired some one.
"Why, here's what happened!" exclaimed the aggrieved Mr.
Escott. "I hadn't any more than started in to tell him the whole town was
talkin' about the way that daffy Old Peep O'Day was carryin' on, and that
somethin' had oughter be done about it, and didn't he think it was beholdin' on
him ez circuit judge to do somethin' right away, sech ez havin' O'Day tuck up
and tried fur a lunatic, and that I fur one was ready and willin' to testify to
the crazy things I'd seen done with my own eyes—when he cut in on me and jest
ez good ez told me to my own face that ef I'd quit tendin' to other
people's business I'd mebbe have more business of my own to tend to.
"Think of that, gentlemen! A circuit judge bemeanin' a
citizen and a taxpayer"—he checked himself slightly—"anyhow, a
citizen, thataway! It shows he can't be rational his ownself. Personally I
claim Old Priest is failin' mentally—he must be! And ef anybody kin be found to
run against him at the next election you gentlemen jest watch and see who gits
my vote!"
Having uttered this threat with deep and significant emphasis Mr.
Escott, still muttering, turned and entered the front gate of his boarding
house. It was not exactly his boarding house; his wife ran it. But Mr. Escott
lived there and voted from there.
But the apogee of Peep O'Day's carnival of weird vagaries of
deportment came at the end of two months—two months in which each day the man
furnished cumulative and piled-up material for derisive and jocular comment on
the part of a very considerable proportion of his fellow townsmen.
Three occurrences of a widely dissimilar nature, yet all closely
interrelated to the main issue, marked the climax of the man's new rôle in his
new career. The first of these was the arrival of his legacy; the second was a
one-ring circus; and the third and last was a nephew.
In the form of sundry bills of exchange the estate left by the
late Daniel O'Day, of the town of Kilmare, in the island of Ireland, was on a
certain afternoon delivered over into Judge Priest's hands, and by him, in
turn, handed to the rightful owner, after which sundry indebtednesses,
representing the total of the old Judge's day-to-day cash advances to O'Day,
were liquidated.
The ceremony of deducting this sum took place at the Planters'
Bank, whither the two had journeyed in company from the courthouse. Having,
with the aid of the paying teller, instructed O'Day in the technical details requisite
to the drawing of personal checks, Judge Priest went home and had his bag packed,
and left for Reelfoot Lake to spend a week fishing. As a consequence he missed
the remaining two events, following immediately thereafter.
The circus was no great shakes of a circus; no grand, glittering,
gorgeous, glorious pageant of education and entertainment, traveling on its own
special trains; no vast tented city of world's wonders and world's champions,
heralded for weeks and weeks in advance of its coming by dead walls emblazoned
with the finest examples of the lithographer's art, and by half-page
advertisements in the Daily Evening News. On the contrary, it was a
shabby little wagon show, which, coming overland on short notice, rolled into
town under horse power, and set up its ragged and dusty canvases on the vacant
lot across from Yeiser's drug store.
Compared with the street parade of any of its great and famous
rivals, the street parade of this circus was a meager and disappointing thing.
Why, there was only one elephant, a dwarfish and debilitated-looking creature,
worn mangy and slick on its various angles, like the cover of an old-fashioned
haircloth trunk; and obviously most of the closed cages were weather-beaten
stake wagons in disguise. Nevertheless, there was a sizable turnout of people
for the afternoon performance. After all, a circus was a circus.
Moreover, this particular circus was marked at the afternoon
performance by happenings of a nature most decidedly unusual. At one o'clock
the doors were opened; at one-ten the eyes of the proprietor were made glad and
his heart was uplifted within him by the sight of a strange procession, drawing
nearer and nearer across the scuffed turf of the Common, and heading in the
direction of the red ticket wagon.
At the head of the procession marched Peep O'Day—only, of course,
the proprietor didn't know it was Peep O'Day—a queer figure in his rumpled
black clothes and his red-topped brass-toed boots, and with one hand
holding fast to the string of a captive toy balloon. Behind him, in an uneven
jostling formation, followed many small boys and some small girls. A census of
the ranks would have developed that here were included practically all the
juvenile white population who otherwise, through a lack of funds, would have
been denied the opportunity to patronize this circus or, in fact, any circus.
Each member of the joyous company was likewise the bearer of a toy
balloon—red, yellow, blue, green, or purple, as the case might be. Over the
line of heads the taut rubbery globes rode on their tethers, nodding and
twisting like so many big iridescent bubbles; and half a block away, at the
edge of the lot, a balloon vender, whose entire stock had been disposed of in
one splendid transaction, now stood, empty-handed but full-pocketed, marveling
at the stroke of luck that enabled him to take an afternoon off and rest his
voice.
Out of a seemingly bottomless exchequer Peep O'Day bought tickets
of admission for all. But this was only the beginning. Once inside the tent he
procured accommodations in the reserved-seat section for himself and those who
accompanied him. From such superior points of vantage the whole crew of them
witnessed the performance, from the thrilling grand entry, with spangled ladies
and gentlemen riding two by two on broad-backed steeds, to the tumbling bout
introducing the full strength of the company, which came at the end.
They munched fresh-roasted peanuts and balls of sugar-coated
popcorn, slightly rancid, until they munched no longer with zest but merely
mechanically. They drank pink lemonade to an extent that threatened absolute
depletion of the fluid contents of both barrels in the refreshment stand out in
the menagerie tent. They whooped their unbridled approval when the wild Indian
chief, after shooting down a stuffed coon with a bow and arrow from somewhere
up near the top of the center pole while balancing himself jauntily erect upon
the haunches of a coursing white charger, suddenly flung off his feathered
headdress, his wig and his fringed leather garments, and revealed himself in
pink fleshings as the principal bareback rider.
They screamed in a chorus of delight when the funny old clown, who
had been forcibly deprived of three tin flutes in rapid succession, now
produced yet a fourth from the seemingly inexhaustible depths of his baggy
white pants—a flute with a string and a bent pin attached to it—and, secretly
affixing the pin in the tail of the cross ringmaster's coat, was thereafter
enabled to toot sharp shrill blasts at frequent intervals, much to the chagrin
of the ringmaster, who seemed utterly unable to discover the whereabouts of the
instrument dangling behind him.
But no one among them whooped louder or laughed longer than their
elderly and bewhiskered friend, who sat among them, paying the bills. As his
guests they stayed for the concert; and, following this, they patronized the
side show in a body. They had been almost the first upon the scene; assuredly
they were the last of the audience to quit it.
Indeed, before they trailed their confrère away from the spot the
sun was nearly down; and at scores of supper tables all over town the tale of
poor old Peep O'Day's latest exhibition of freakishness was being retailed,
with elaborations, to interested auditors. Estimates of the sum probably
expended by him in this crowning extravagance ranged well up into the hundreds
of dollars.
As for the object of these speculations, he was destined not to
eat any supper at all that night. Something happened that so upset him as to
make him forget the meal altogether. It began to happen when he reached the
modest home of P. Gafford, adjoining the Gafford stables, on Locust Street, and
found sitting on the lower-most step of the porch a young man of untidy and
unshaved aspect, who hailed him affectionately as Uncle Paul, and who showed
deep annoyance and acute distress upon being rebuffed with chill words.
It is possible that the strain of serving a three-months'
sentence, on the technical charge of vagrancy, in a workhouse somewhere in
Indiana, had affected the young man's nerves. His ankle bones still ached where
the ball and chain had been hitched; on his palms the blisters induced by the
uncongenial use of a sledge hammer on a rock pile had hardly as yet turned to
calluses. So it is only fair to presume that his nervous system felt the stress
of his recent confining experiences also.
Almost tearfully he pleaded with Peep O'Day to remember the ties
of blood that bound them; repeatedly he pointed out that he was the only known
kinsman of the other in all the world, and, therefore, had more reason than any
other living being to expect kindness and generosity at his uncle's hands. He
spoke socialistically of the advisability of an equal division; failing to make
any impression here he mentioned the subject of a loan—at first hopefully, but
finally despairingly.
When he was done Peep O'Day, in a perfectly colorless and
unsympathetic voice, bade him good-by—not good-night but good-by! And, going
inside the house, he closed the door behind him, leaving his newly returned
relative outside and quite alone.
At this the young man uttered violent language; but, since there
was nobody present to hear him, it is likely he found small satisfaction in his
profanity, rich though it may have been in metaphor and variety. So presently
he betook himself off, going straight to the office in Legal Row of H. B.
Sublette, Attorney-at-law.
From the circumstance that he found Mr. Sublette in, though it was
long past that gentleman's office hours, and, moreover, found Mr. Sublette
waiting in an expectant and attentive attitude, it might have been adduced by
one skilled in the trick of putting two and two together that the pair of them
had reached a prior understanding sometime during the day; and that the visit
of the young man to the Gafford home and his speeches there had all been parts
of a scheme planned out at a prior conference.
Be this as it may, so soon as Mr. Sublette had heard his caller's
version of the meeting upon the porch he lost no time in taking certain legal
steps. That very night, on behalf of his client, denominated in the documents
as Percival Dwyer, Esquire, he prepared a petition addressed to the circuit
judge of the district, setting forth that, inasmuch as Paul Felix O'Day had by
divers acts shown himself to be of unsound mind, now, therefore, came his
nephew and next of kin praying that a committee or curator be appointed to take
over the estate of the said Paul Felix O'Day, and administer the same in
accordance with the orders of the court until such time as the said Paul Felix
O'Day should recover his reason, or should pass from this life, and so forth
and so on; not to mention whereases in great number and aforesaids abounding
throughout the text in the utmost profusion.
On the following morning the papers were filed with Circuit Clerk
Milam. That vigilant barrister, Mr. Sublette, brought them in person to the
courthouse before nine o'clock, he having the interests of his client at heart
and perhaps also visions of a large contingent fee in his mind. No retainer had
been paid. The state of Mr. Dwyer's finances—or, rather, the absence of any
finances—had precluded the performance of that customary detail; but to Mr.
Sublette's experienced mind the prospects of future increment seemed large.
Accordingly he was all for prompt action. Formally he said he
wished to go on record as demanding for his principal a speedy hearing of the
issue, with a view to preventing the defendant named in the pleadings from
dissipating any more of the estate lately bequeathed to him and now fully in
his possession—or words to that effect.
Mr. Milam felt justified in getting into communication with Judge
Priest over the long-distance 'phone; and the Judge, cutting short his vacation
and leaving uncaught vast numbers of bass and perch in Reelfoot Lake, came
home, arriving late that night.
Next morning, having issued divers orders in connection with the
impending litigation, he sent a messenger to find Peep O'Day and to direct
O'Day to come to the courthouse for a personal interview.
Shortly thereafter a scene that had occurred some two months
earlier, with his Honor's private chamber for a setting, was substantially
duplicated: there was the same cast of two, the same stage properties, the same
atmosphere of untidy tidiness. And, as before, the dialogue was in Judge
Priest's hands. He led and his fellow character followed his leads.
"Peep," he was saying, "you understand, don't you,
that this here fragrant nephew of yours that's turned up from nowheres in
particular is fixin' to git ready to try to prove that you are feeble-minded?
And, on top of that, that he's goin' to ask that a committee be app'inted fur
you—in other words, that somebody or other shall be named by the court, meanin'
me, to take charge of your property and control the spendin' of it frum now
on?"
"Yes, suh," stated O'Day. "Pete Gafford he set down
with me and made hit all clear to me, yestiddy evenin', after they'd done
served the papers on me."
"All right, then. Now I'm goin' to fix the hearin' fur
to-morrow mornin' at ten. The other side is askin' fur a quick decision; and I
rather figger they're entitled to it. Is that agreeable to you?"
"Whutever you say, Judge."
"Well, have you retained a lawyer to represent your interests
in court? That's the main question that I sent fur you to ast you."
"Do I need a lawyer, Judge?"
"Well, there have been times when I regarded lawyers ez bein'
superfluous," stated Judge Priest dryly. "Still, in most cases
litigants do have 'em round when the case is bein' heard."
"I don't know ez I need any lawyer to he'p me say whut I've
got to say," said O'Day. "Judge, you ain't never ast me no questions
about the way I've been carryin' on sence I come into this here money; but
I reckin mebbe this is ez good a time ez any to tell you jest why I've been
actin' the way I've done. You see, suh—"
"Hold on!" broke in Judge Priest. "Up to now, ez my
friend, it would 'a' been perfectly proper fur you to give me your confidences
ef you were minded so to do; but now I reckin you'd better not. You see, I'm
the judge that's got to decide whether you are a responsible person—whether
you're mentally capable of handlin' your own financial affairs, or whether you
ain't. So you'd better wait and make your statement in your own behalf to me
whilst I'm settin' on the bench. I'll see that you git an opportunity to do so
and I'll listen to it; and I'll give it all the consideration it's deservin'
of.
"And, on second thought, p'raps it would only be a waste of
time and money fur you to go hirin' a lawyer specially to represent you. Under
the law it's my duty, in sech a case ez this here one is, to app'int a member
of the bar to serve durin' the proceedin's ez your guardian ad litem.
"You don't need to be startled," he added, as O'Day
flinched at the sound in his ears of these strange and fearsome words. "A
guardian ad litem is simply a lawyer that tends to your
affairs till the case is settled one way or the other. Ef you had a dozen
lawyers I'd have to app'int him jest the same. So you don't need to worry about
that part of it.
"That's all. You kin go now ef you want to. Only, ef I was
you, I wouldn't draw out any more money from the bank 'twixt now and the time
when I make my decision."
All things considered, it was an unusual assemblage that Judge
Priest regarded over the top rims of his glasses as he sat facing it in his
broad armchair, with the flat top of the bench intervening between him and the
gathering. Not often, even in the case of exciting murder trials, had the old
courtroom held a larger crowd; certainly never had it held so many boys.
Boys, and boys exclusively, filled the back rows of benches downstairs. More
boys packed the narrow shelf-like balcony that spanned the chamber across its
far end—mainly small boys, barefooted, sunburned, freckle-faced, shock-headed
boys. And, for boys, they were strangely silent and strangely attentive.
The petitioner sat with his counsel, Mr. Sublette. The petitioner
had been newly shaved, and from some mysterious source had been equipped with a
neat wardrobe. Plainly he was endeavoring to wear a look of virtue, which was a
difficult undertaking, as you would understand had you known the petitioner.
The defending party to the action was seated across the room,
touching elbows with old Colonel Farrell, dean of the local bar and its most
florid orator.
"The court will designate Col. Horatio Farrell as
guardian ad litem for the defendant during these
proceedings," Judge Priest had stated a few minutes earlier, using the
formal and grammatical language he reserved exclusively for his courtroom.
At once old Colonel Farrell had hitched his chair up alongside
O'Day; had asked him several questions in a tone inaudible to those about them;
had listened to the whispered answers of O'Day; and then had nodded his huge
curly white dome of a head, as though amply satisfied with the responses.
Let us skip the preliminaries. True, they seemed to interest the
audience; here, though, they would be tedious reading. Likewise, in touching
upon the opening and outlining address of Attorney-at-Law Sublette let us, for
the sake of time and space, be very much briefer than Mr. Sublette was. For our
present purposes, I deem it sufficient to say that in all his professional
career Mr. Sublette was never more eloquent, never more forceful never more
vehement in his allegations, and never more convinced—as he himself stated, not
once but repeatedly—of his ability to prove the facts he alleged by
competent and unbiased testimony. These facts, he pointed out, were common
knowledge in the community; nevertheless, he stood prepared to buttress them
with the evidence of reputable witnesses, given under oath.
Mr. Sublette, having unwound at length, now wound up. He sat down,
perspiring freely and through the perspiration radiating confidence in his
contentions, confidence in the result, and, most of all, unbounded confidence
in Mr. Sublette.
Now Colonel Farrell was standing up to address the court. Under
the cloak of a theatrical presence and a large orotund manner, and behind a
Ciceronian command of sonorous language, the colonel carried concealed a shrewd
old brain. It was as though a skilled marksman lurked in ambush amid a tangle
of luxuriant foliage. In this particular instance, moreover, it is barely
possible that the colonel was acting on a cue, privily conveyed to him before
the court opened.
"May it please Your Honor," he began, "I have just
conferred with the defendant here; and, acting in the capacity of his
guardian ad litem, I have advised him to waive an opening address
by counsel. Indeed, the defendant has no counsel. Furthermore, the defendant,
also acting upon my advice, will present no witnesses in his own behalf. But,
with Your Honor's permission, the defendant will now make a personal statement;
and thereafter he will rest content, leaving the final arbitrament of the issue
to Your Honor's discretion."
"I object!" exclaimed Mr. Sublette briskly.
"On what ground does the learned counsel object?"
inquired Judge Priest.
"On the grounds that, since the mental competence of this man
is concerned—since it is our contention that he is patently and plainly a
victim of senility, an individual prematurely in his dotage—any utterances by
him will be of no value whatsoever in aiding the conscience and intelligence of
the court to arrive at a fair and just conclusion regarding the defendant's mental
condition."
Mr. Sublette excelled in the use of big words; there was no doubt
about that.
"The objection is overruled," said Judge Priest. He
nodded in the direction of O'Day and Colonel Farrell. "The court will hear
the defendant. He is not to be interrupted while making his statement. The
defendant may proceed."
Without further urging, O'Day stood up, a tall, slab-sided rack of
a man, with his long arms dangling at his sides, half facing Judge Priest and
half facing his nephew and his nephew's lawyer. Without hesitation he began to
speak. And this was what he said:
"There's mebbe some here ez knows about how I was raised and
fetched up. My paw and my maw died when I was jest only a baby; so I was brung
up out here at the old county porehouse ez a pauper. I can't remember the time
when I didn't have to work for my board and keep, and work hard. While other
boys was goin' to school and playin' hooky, and goin' in washin' in the creek,
and playin' games, and all sech ez that, I had to work. I never done no playin'
round in my whole life—not till here jest recently, anyway.
"But I always craved to play round some. I didn't never say
nothin' about it to nobody after I growed up, 'cause I figgered it out they
wouldn't understand and mebbe'd laugh at me; but all these years, ever sence I
left that there porehouse, I've had a hankerin' here inside of me"—he
lifted one hand and touched his breast—"I've had a hankerin' to be a boy
and to do all the things a boy does; to do the things I was chiseled out of doin'
whilst I was of a suitable age to be doin' 'em. I call to mind that I uster
dream in my sleep about doin' 'em; but the dream never come true—not till jest
here lately. It didn't have no chancet to come true—not till then.
"So, when this money come to me so sudden and unbeknownstlike
I said to myself that I was goin' to make that there dream come true; and I
started out fur to do it. And I done it! And I reckin that's the cause of my
bein' here to-day, accused of bein' feeble-minded. But, even so, I don't regret
it none. Ef it was all to do over ag'in, I'd do it jest the very same way.
"Why, I never knowed whut it was, till here two months or so
ago, to have my fill of bananas and candy and gingersnaps, and all sech
knickknacks ez them. All my life I've been cravin' secretly to own a pair of
red-topped boots with brass toes on 'em, like I used to see other boys wearin'
in the wintertime when I was out yonder at that porehouse wearin' an old pair
of somebody else's cast-off shoes—mebbe a man's shoes, with rags wropped round
my feet to keep the snow frum comin' through the cracks in 'em, and to keep 'em
from slippin' right spang off my feet. I got three toes frostbit oncet durin' a
cold spell, wearin' them kind of shoes. But here the other week I found myself
able to buy me some red-top boots with brass toes on 'em. So I had 'em made to
order and I'm wearin' 'em now. I wear 'em reg'lar even ef it is summertime. I
take a heap of pleasure out of 'em. And, also, all my life long I've been
wantin' to go to a circus. But not till three days ago I didn't never git no
chancet to go to one.
"That gentleman yonder—Mister Sublette—he 'lowed jest now
that I was leadin' a lot of little boys in this here town into bad habits. He
said that I was learnin' 'em nobody knowed whut devilment. And he spoke of my
havin' egged 'em on to steal watermelons frum Mister Bell's watermelon patch
out here three miles frum town, on the Marshallville gravel road. You-all
heared whut he jest now said about that.
"I don't mean no offense and I beg his pardon fur
contradictin' him right out before everybody here in the big courthouse; but,
mister, you're wrong. I don't lead these here boys astray that I've been
runnin' round with. They're mighty nice clean boys, all of 'em. Some of 'em are
mighty near ez pore ez whut I uster be; but there ain't no real harm in any of
'em. We git along together fine—me and them. And, without no preachin',
nor nothin' like that, I've done my best these weeks we've been frolickin' and
projectin' round together to keep 'em frum growin' up to do mean things. I use
chawin' tobacco myself; but I've told 'em, I don't know how many times, that ef
they chaw it'll stunt 'em in their growth. And I've got several of 'em that was
smokin' cigarettes on the sly to promise me they'd quit. So I don't figger ez
I've done them boys any real harm by goin' round with 'em. And I believe ef you
was to ast 'em they'd all tell you the same, suh.
"Now about them watermelons: Sence this gentleman has brung
them watermelons up, I'm goin' to tell you-all the truth about that too."
He cast a quick, furtive look, almost a guilty look, over his
shoulder toward the rear of the courtroom before he went on:
"Them watermelons wasn't really stole at all. I seen Mister
Dick Bell beforehand and arranged with him to pay him in full fur whutever
damage mout be done. But, you see, I knowed watermelons tasted sweeter to a boy
ef he thought he'd hooked 'em out of a patch; so I never let on to my little
pardners yonder that I'd the same ez paid Mister Bell in advance fur the melons
we snuck out of his patch and et in the woods. They've all been thinkin' up
till now that we really hooked them watermelons. But ef that was wrong I'm
sorry fur it.
"Mister Sublette, you jest now said that I was fritterin'
away my property on vain foolishment. Them was the words you used—'fritterin''
and 'vain foolishment.' Mebbe you're right, suh, about the fritterin' part; but
ef spendin' money in a certain way gives a man ez much pleasure ez it's give me
these last two months, and ef the money is his'n by rights, I figger it can't
be so very foolish; though it may 'pear so to some.
"Excusin' these here clothes I've got on and these here
boots, which ain't paid fur yet, but is charged up to me on Felsburg Brothers'
books and Mister M. Biederman's books, I didn't spend only a dollar a day, or
mebbe two dollars, and once three dollars in a single day out of whut was
comin' to me. The Judge here, he let me have that out of his own pocket; and I
paid him back. And that was all I did spend till here three days ago when that
there circus come to town. I reckin I did spend a right smart then.
"My money had come frum the old country only the day before;
so I went to the bank and they writ out one of them pieces of paper which is
called a check, and I signed it—with my mark; and they give me the money I
wanted—an even two hundred dollars. And part of that there money I used to pay
fur circus tickets fur all the little boys and little girls I could find in
this town that couldn't 'a' got to the circus no other way. Some of 'em are
settin' back there behind you-all now—some of the boys, I mean; I don't see
none of the little girls.
"There was several of 'em told me at the time they hadn't
never seen a circus—not in their whole lives. Fur that matter, I hadn't,
neither; but I didn't want no pore child in this town to grow up to be ez old
ez I am without havin' been to at least one circus. So I taken 'em all in and
paid all the bills; and when night come there wasn't but 'bout nine dollars
left out of the whole two hundred that I'd started out with in the mornin'. But
I don't begredge spendin' it. It looked to me like it was money well invested.
They all seemed to enjoy it; and I know I done so.
"There may be bigger circuses'n whut that one was; but I
don't see how a circus could 'a' been any better than this here one I'm tellin'
about, ef it was ten times ez big. I don't regret the investment and I don't
aim to lie about it now. Mister Sublette, I'd do the same thing over ag'in ef
the chance should come, lawsuit or no lawsuit. Ef you should win this here case
mebbe I wouldn't have no second chance.
"Ef some gentleman is app'inted ez a committee to handle my
money it's likely he wouldn't look at the thing the same way I do; and it's
likely he wouldn't let me have so much money all in one lump to spend
takin' a passel of little shavers that ain't no kin to me to the circus and to
the side show, besides lettin' 'em stay fur the grand concert or after show,
and all. But I done it once; and I've got it to remember about and think about
in my own mind ez long ez I live.
"I'm 'bout finished now. There's jest one thing more I'd like
to say, and that is this: Mister Sublette he said a minute ago that I was in my
second childhood. Meanin' no offense, suh, but you was wrong there too. The way
I look at it, a man can't be in his second childhood without he's had his first
childhood; and I was cheated plum' out of mine. I'm more'n sixty years old, ez
near ez I kin figger; but I'm tryin' to be a boy before it's too late."
He paused a moment and looked round him.
"The way I look at it, Judge Priest, suh, and you-all, every
man that grows up, no matter how old he may git to be, is entitled to 'a' been
a boy oncet in his lifetime. I—I reckin that's all."
He sat down and dropped his eyes upon the floor, as though ashamed
that his temerity should have carried him so far. There was a strange little
hush filling the courtroom. It was Judge Priest who broke it.
"The court," he said, "has by the words just spoken
by this man been sufficiently advised as to the sanity of the man himself. The
court cares to hear nothing more from either side on this subject. The petition
is dismissed."
Very probably these last words may have been as so much Greek to
the juvenile members of the audience; possibly, though, they were made aware of
the meaning of them by the look upon the face of Nephew Percival Dwyer and the
look upon the face of Nephew Percival Dwyer's attorney. At any rate, His Honor
hardly had uttered the last syllable of his decision before, from the rear of
the courtroom and from the gallery above, there arose a shrill, vehement,
sincere sound of yelling—exultant, triumphant, and deafening. It continued
for upward of a minute before the small disturbers remembered where they were
and reduced themselves to a state of comparative quiet.
For reasons best known to himself, Judge Priest, who ordinarily
stickled for order and decorum in his courtroom, made no effort to quell the
outburst or to have it quelled—not even when a considerable number of the
adults present joined in it, having first cleared their throats of a slight
huskiness that had come upon them, severally and generally.
Presently the Judge rapped for quiet—and got it. It was apparent
that he had more to say; and all there hearkened to hear what it might be.
"I have just this to add," quoth His Honor: "It is
the official judgment of this court that the late defendant, being entirely
sane, is competent to manage his own affairs after his preferences.
"And it is the private opinion of this court that not only is
the late defendant sane but that he is the sanest man in this entire
jurisdiction. Mister Clerk, this court stands adjourned."
Coming down the three short steps from the raised platform of the
bench, Judge Priest beckoned to Sheriff Giles Birdsong, who, at the tail of the
departing crowd, was shepherding its last exuberant members through the
doorway.
"Giles," said Judge Priest in an undertone, when the
worthy sheriff had drawn near, "the circuit clerk tells me there's an
indictment for malicious mischief ag'in this here Perce Dwyer knockin' round
amongst the records somewheres—an indictment the grand jury returned several
sessions back, but which was never pressed, owin' to the sudden departure frum
our midst of the person in question.
"I wonder ef it would be too much trouble fur you to sort of
drap a hint in the ear of the young man or his lawyer that the said indictment is apt to be revived, and that the said Dwyer
is liable to be tuck into custody by you and lodged in the county jail sometime
during the ensuin' forty-eight hours—without he should see his way clear durin'
the meantime to get clean out of this city, county and state! Would it?"
"Trouble? No, suh! It won't be no trouble to me," said
Mr. Birdsong promptly. "Why, it'll be more of a pleasure, Judge."
And so it was.
Except for one small added and purely incidental circumstance, our
narrative is ended. That same afternoon Judge Priest sat on the front porch of
his old white house out on Clay Street, waiting for Jeff Poindexter to summon
him to supper. Peep O'Day opened the front gate and came up the graveled walk
between the twin rows of silver-leaf poplars. The Judge, rising to greet his
visitor, met him at the top step.
"Come in," bade the Judge heartily, "and set down a
spell and rest your face and hands."
"No, suh; much obliged, but I ain't got only a minute to
stay," said O'Day. "I jest come out here, suh, to thank you fur whut
you done to-day on my account in the big courthouse, and—and to make you a
little kind of a present."
"It's all right to thank me," said Judge Priest;
"but I couldn't accept any reward fur renderin' a decision in accordance
with the plain facts."
"'Tain't no gift of money, or nothin' like that," O'Day
hastened to explain. "Really, suh, it don't amount to nothin' at all,
scursely. But a little while ago I happened to be in Mr. B. Weil & Son's
store, doin' a little tradin', and I run acrost a new kind of knickknack, which
it seemed like to me it was about the best thing I ever tasted in my whole
life. So, on the chancet, suh, that you might have a sweet tooth, too, I taken
the liberty of bringin' you a sack of 'em and—and—and here they are, suh; three
flavors—strawberry, lemon and vanilly."
Suddenly overcome with confusion, he dislodged a large-sized
paper bag from his side coat pocket and thrust it into Judge Priest's hands;
then, backing away, he turned and clumped down the graveled path in great and
embarrassed haste.
Judge Priest opened the bag and peered down into it.
It contained a sticky sugary dozen of flattened confections, each
molded round a short length of wooden splinter. These sirupy articles, which
have since come into quite general use, are known, I believe, as all-day suckers.
When Judge Priest looked up again, Peep O'Day was outside the
gate, clumping down the uneven sidewalk of Clay Street with long strides of his
booted legs. Half a dozen small boys, who, it was evident, had remained hidden
during the ceremony of presentation, now mysteriously appeared and were
accompanying the departing donor, half trotting to keep up with him.
By CHARLES CALDWELL DOBIE
From Harper's
Magazine
As Suvaroff neared his
lodgings, he began to wonder whether the Italian who had the room next him
would continue to grind out tunes all night upon his accordion. The thought
made Suvaroff shudder. What in Heaven's name possessed people to grind out
tunes, Suvaroff found himself inquiring, unless one earned one's living that
way? Certainly this weather-beaten Italian was no musician; he smelled too
strongly of fish for any one to mistake his occupation. He tortured melody from
choice, blandly, for the pure enjoyment of the thing. With Suvaroff it was
different; if he did not play, he did not eat.
Suvaroff's head had ached all day. The café where he scraped his
violin from early afternoon until midnight had never seemed so stuffy, so
tawdry, so impossible! All day he had sat and played and played, while people
ate and chattered and danced. No, that did not describe what people did; they
gorged and shrieked and gyrated like decapitated fowls, accomplishing
everything with a furious energy, primitive, abandoned, disgusting. He wondered
if he would ever again see people eat quietly and simply, like normal human
beings.
If only the Italian would go away, or decide to sleep, or die!
Yes, Suvaroff would have been glad to have found his neighbor quite
dead—anything to still that terrible accordion, which had been pumping out
tunes for over a week at all hours of the day and night! The music did not have
the virtue of an attempt at gaiety; instead it droned out prolonged wails,
melancholy and indescribably discordant.
The night was damp, a typical San Francisco midsummer night. A
drizzling fog had swept in from the ocean and fell refreshingly on the gray
city. But the keenness of the air irritated Suvaroff's headache instead of
soothing it; he felt the wind upon his temples as one feels the cool cut of a
knife. In short, everything irritated Suvaroff—his profession, the café where
he fiddled, the strident streets of the city, the evening mist, the Hôtel des
Alpes Maritimes, where he lodged, and the Italian fisherman and his doleful
accordion.
Turning off Kearny Street into Broadway, he had half a notion not
to go home, but his dissatisfaction was so inclusive that home seemed, at once,
quite as good and as hopeless a place to go as any other. So he pushed open the
door of his lodging-house and stamped rather heavily up-stairs.
Although midnight, the first sound which greeted Suvaroff was the
wheezing of the Italian's accordion.
"Now," muttered Suvaroff, "I shall suffer in
silence no longer. Nobody in this city, much less in these wretched lodgings,
has an ear for anything but the clink of money and the shrill laughter of
women. If fifty men were to file saws in front of the entrance of any one of
these rooms, there would be not the slightest concern. Every one would go on
sleeping as if they had nothing more weighty on their conscience than the theft
of a kiss from a pretty girl."
He tossed his hat on the bed and made for the Italian's door. He
did not wait to knock, but broke in noisily. The accordion stopped with a
prolonged wail; its owner rose, visibly frightened.
"Ah!" cried the Italian, "it is you! I am glad of
that. See, I have not left the house for three days."
There was a genial simplicity about the man; Suvaroff felt
overcome with confusion. "What is the matter? Are you ill?" he
stammered, closing the door.
"No. I am afraid to go out. There is somebody waiting for me.
Tell me, did you see a cripple standing on the corner, near Bollo's Wine Shop,
as you came in?"
Suvaroff reflected. "Well, not a cripple, exactly. But I saw
a hunchback with—with—"
"Yes! yes!" cried the other, excitedly. "A
hunchback with a handsome face! That is he! I am afraid of him. For three days
he has sat there, waiting!"
"For you? How absurd! Why should any one do such a ridiculous
thing?"
The Italian slipped his hands from the accordion and laid it
aside. "Nobody but one who is mad would do it, but he is mad. There is no
doubt about that!"
Suvaroff began to feel irritated. "What are you talking
about? Have you lost your senses? If he is waiting for you, why do you not go
out and send him away? Go out and pay him what you owe him."
The Italian rose and began to shudder. "I owe him nothing. He
is waiting for me—to kill me!"
"Nonsense!" cried Suvaroff. "What is his
reason?"
"He is waiting to kill me because I laughed at him."
"That is ridiculous!" said Suvaroff.
"Nevertheless, it is true," replied the Italian.
"He kills every one who laughs at him. Three days ago I laughed at him.
But I ran away. He followed me. He does not know where I lodge, but he has wit
enough to understand that if he waits long enough he will find me out. In
Heaven's name, my friend, can you not help me? See, I am a simple soul. I
cannot think quickly. I have prayed to the Virgin, but it is no use. Tell me,
what can I do to escape?"
"Why do you not see a policeman?"
The Italian let his hands fall hopelessly. "A policeman? What
good would that do? Even you do not believe me!"
A chill seized Suvaroff. He began to shake, and in the next
instant a fever burned his cheeks. His head was full of little darting pains.
He turned away from the Italian, impatiently. "You must be a pretty sort
of man to let a little hunchback frighten you! Good night."
And with that Suvaroff went out, slamming the door.
When Suvaroff got to his room he felt dizzy. He threw himself on
the bed and lay for some time in a stupor. When he came to his senses again the
first sound to greet him was the wail of his neighbor's accordion.
"What a fool I am!" he muttered. "Here I go
bursting into this Italian's room for the purpose of asking him to quit his
abominable noise, and I listen like a dumb sheep to his bleatings,
and so forget my errand!"
The noise continued, grew more insistent, became unbearable.
Suvaroff covered his ears with a comforter. His head was throbbing so violently
that even the ticking of a clock upon the table by his bed cut his senses like
a two-edged sword. He rose, stumbling about with a feeling of indescribable
weakness. What was the matter? Why did he feel so ill? His eyes burned, his
legs seemed weighted, his throat was so dry that there was no comfort when he
swallowed. All this he could have stood if it had not been for the fiendish
noise which, he began to feel, was being played merely for his torture.
He put on his hat and stumbled down-stairs, out into the night.
Crossing the street, he went at once to Bollo's Wine Shop. The hunchback was
sitting on a garbage-can, almost at the entrance. At the sight of this
misshapen figure, the irritating memory of the Italian and his impossible music
recurred to Suvaroff. A sudden sinister cruelty came over him; he felt a wanton
ruthlessness that the sight of ugliness sometimes engenders in natures
sensitive to beauty. He went up to the hunchback and looked searchingly into
the man's face. It was a strangely handsome face, and its incongruity struck Suvaroff.
Had Nature been weary, or merely in a satirical mood, when she fashioned such a
thing of horror?—for Suvaroff found that the handsome face seemed even more
horrible than the twisted body, so sharp and violent was the contrast.
The hunchback returned Suvaroff's stare with almost insulting
indifference, but there was something in the look that quickened the beating of
Suvaroff's heart.
"You are waiting here," began Suvaroff, "for an
Italian who lodges across the street. Would you like me to tell you where he may
be found?"
The hunchback shrugged. "It does not matter in the slightest,
one way or another. If you tell me where he lodges, the inevitable will happen
more quickly than if I sat and waited for the rat to come out of his hole.
Waiting has its own peculiar interest. If you have ever waited, as I wait now,
you know the joy that a cat feels—expectation is two-thirds of any game."
Suvaroff shuddered. He had an impulse to walk away, but the eyes
of the other burned with a strange fascination.
"Nevertheless," said Suvaroff, "I shall tell—"
The hunchback waved him to silence. "Do whatever you wish, my
friend, but remember, if you do tell me this thing, you and I will be forever
bound by a tie that it will be impossible to break. With me it does not matter,
but you are a young man, and all your life you will drag a secret about like a
dead thing chained to your wrist. I am Flavio Minetti, and I kill every one who
laughs at me! This Italian of whom you speak has laughed at me. I may wait a
week—a month. It will be the same. No one has yet escaped me."
An exquisite fear began to move Suvaroff.
"Nevertheless," he repeated again, "I shall tell you where he
lodges. You will find him upon the third landing of the Hôtel des Alpes
Maritimes. There are no numbers on the doors, but it will be impossible for you
to mistake his room. All day and night he sits playing an accordion."
Flavio Minetti took a cigarette from his pocket. "Remember,
my young friend, I gave you fair warning."
"I shall not forget," replied Suvaroff.
Suvaroff climbed back to his room. He sat upon his bed holding his
head in his hands. The sound of the accordion seemed gruesome now.
Presently he heard a step on the landing. His heart stood still.
Sounds drifted down the passageway. The noise was not heavy and clattering, but
it had a pattering quality, like a bird upon a roof. Above the wailing of the
music, Suvaroff heard a door opened—slowly, cautiously. There followed a moment
of silence; Suvaroff was frightened. But almost immediately the playing began
again.
"Now," thought Suvaroff, "why is the Italian not
frightened? The door has been opened and he goes on playing, undisturbed.... It
must be that he is sitting with his back to the door. If this is so, God help
him!... Well, why need I worry? What is it to me? It is not my fault if a fool
like that sits with his door unlocked and his face turned from the face of
danger."
And, curiously, Suvaroff's thoughts wandered to other things, and
a picture of his native country flashed over him—Little Russia in the languid
embrace of summer—green and blue and golden. The soft notes of the balalaika at
twilight came to him, and the dim shapes of dancing peasants, whirling like
aspen-leaves in a fresh breeze. He remembered the noonday laughter of skylarks;
the pear-trees bending patiently beneath their harvest; the placid river
winding its willow-hedged way, cutting the plain like a thin silver knife.
Now, suddenly, it came upon him that the music in the next room
had stopped. He waited. There was not a sound!... After a time the door banged
sharply. The pattering began again, and died away. But still there was no
music!...
Suvaroff rose and began to strip off his clothes. His teeth
were chattering. "Well, at last," he muttered, "I shall have
some peace!" He threw himself on the bed, drawing the coverings up over
his head.... Presently a thud shook the house. "He has slipped from his
seat," said Suvaroff aloud. "It is all over!" And he drew the
bedclothes higher and went to sleep.
Next morning, Suvaroff felt better. To be sure, he was weak, but
he rose and dressed.
"What strange dreams people have when they are in a
fever!" he exclaimed, as he put on his hat. Nevertheless, as he left the
house, he did not so much as glance at the Italian's door.
It was a pleasant morning, the mist had lifted and the sky was a
freshly washed blue. Suvaroff walked down Kearny Street, and past Portsmouth
Square. At this hour the little park was cleared of its human wreckage, and
dowdy sparrows hopped unafraid upon the deserted benches. A Chinese woman and
her child romped upon the green; a weather-beaten peddler stooped to the
fountain and drank; the three poplar-trees about the Stevenson monument
trembled to silver in the frank sunshine. Suvaroff could not remember when the
city had appeared so fresh and innocent. It seemed to him as if the gray, cold
drizzle of the night had washed away even the sins of the wine-red town. But an
indefinite disquiet rippled the surface of his content. His peace was filled
with a vague suggestion of sinister things to follow, like the dead calm of
this very morning, which so skilfully bound up the night wind in its cool,
placid air. He would have liked to linger a moment in the park, but he passed
quickly by and went into a little chop-house for his morning meal.
As he dawdled over his cup of muddy coffee he had a curious sense
that his mind was intent on keeping at bay some half-formulated fear. He felt
pursued, as by an indistinct dream. Yet he was cunning enough to pretend that
this something was too illusive to capture outright, so he turned his
thoughts to all manner of remote things. But there are times when it is almost
as difficult to deceive oneself as to cheat others. In the midst of his
thoughts he suddenly realized that under the stimulating influence of a second
cup of coffee he was feeling quite himself again.
"That is because I got such a good night's sleep," he
muttered. "For over a week this Italian and his wretched accordion—"
He halted his thoughts abruptly. "What am I thinking about?" he
demanded. Then he rose, paid his bill, and departed.
He turned back to his lodgings. At Bollo's Wine Shop he hesitated.
A knot of people stood at the entrance of the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes, and a
curious wagon was drawn up to the curb.
He stopped a child. "What is the trouble?" he inquired.
The girl raised a pair of mournful eyes to him. "A man has
been killed!" she answered.
Suvaroff turned quickly and walked in another direction. He went
to the café where he fiddled. At this hour it was like an empty cavern. A smell
of stale beer and tobacco smoke pervaded the imprisoned air. He sat down upon
the deserted platform and pretended to practise. He played erratically,
feverishly. The waiters, moving about their morning preparations with an almost
uncanny quiet, listened attentively. Finally one of them stopped before him.
"What has come over you, Suvaroff?" questioned the man.
"You are making our flesh creep!"
"Oh, pardon me!" cried Suvaroff. "I shall not
trouble you further!"
And with that he packed up his violin and left. He did not go back
to the café, even at the appointed hour. Instead, he wandered aimlessly about.
All day he tramped the streets. He listened to street-fakirs, peered into
shop-windows, threw himself upon the grass of the public squares and stared up
at the blue sky. He had very little personal consciousness; he seemed to
have lost track of himself. He had an absurd feeling that he had come away from
somewhere and left behind a vital part of his being.
"Suvaroff! Suvaroff!" he would repeat over and over to
himself, as if trying to recall the memory of some one whose precise outline
had escaped him.
He caught a glimpse of his figure in the mirror of a shop-window.
He went closer, staring for some moments at the face opposite him. There
followed an infinitesimal fraction of time when his spirit deserted him as
completely as if he were dead. When he recovered himself he had a sense that he
was staring at the reflection of a stranger. He moved away, puzzled. Was he
going mad? Then, suddenly, everything grew quite clear. He remembered the
Italian, the accordion, the hunchback. Characters, circumstances, sequences—all
stood out as sharply as the sky-line of a city in the glow of sunset.... He put
his fingers to his pulse. Everything seemed normal; his skin was moist and
cool. Yet last night he had been very ill. That was it! Last night he had been
ill!
"What strange dreams people have when they are in a
fever!" he exclaimed for the second time that day. He decided to go home.
"I wonder, though," thought he, "whether the Italian is still
playing that awful instrument?" Curiously enough, the idea did not disturb
him in the least. "I shall teach him a Russian tune or two!" he
decided, cheerfully. "Then, maybe his playing will be endurable."
When he came again to his lodgings he was surprised to find a knot
of curious people on the opposite side of the street, and another before the
entrance. He went up the stairs. His landlady came to meet him.
"Mr. Suvaroff," she began at once, "have you not
heard what has happened? The man in the next room to you was found this
morning—dead!"
He did not pretend to be surprised. "Well," he
announced, brutally, "at least we shall have no more of dreadful music!
How did he kill himself?"
The woman gave way to his advance with a movement of flattering
confusion. "The knife was in his side," she answered. "In his
side—toward the back."
"Ah, then he was murdered!"
"Yes."
He was mounting the second flight of stairs when his landlady
again halted him. "Mr. Suvaroff," she ventured, "I hope you will
not be angry! But his mother came early this morning. All day she has sat in
your room, weeping. I cannot persuade her to go away. What am I to do?"
Suvaroff glared at her for a moment. "It is nothing!" he
announced, as he passed on, shrugging.
The door of his room was open; he went in. A gnarled old woman sat
on the edge of the bed; a female consoler was on either side. At the sight of
Suvaroff the mourner rose and stood trembling before him, rolling a gaudy
handkerchief into a moist bundle.
"My good woman," said Suvaroff, kindly, "do not
stand; sit down."
"Kind gentleman!" the old woman began. "Kind
gentleman—"
She got no further because of her tears. The other women rose and
sat her down again. She began to moan. Suvaroff, awkward and disturbed, stood
as men do in such situations.
Finally the old woman found her voice. "Kind gentleman,"
she said, "I am a poor old woman, and my son—Ah! I was washing his socks
when they came after me.... You see what has happened! He was a good son. Once
a week he came to me and brought me five dollars. Now—What am I to do, my kind
gentleman?"
Suvaroff said nothing.
She swayed back and forth, and spoke again. "Only last week
he said: 'There is a man who lodges next me who plays music.' Yes, my son
was fond of you because of that. He said: 'I have seen him only once. He plays
music all day and night, so that he may have money enough to live on. When I
hear him coming up the stairs I take down my accordion and begin to play. All
day and night he plays for others. So I think, Now it will be nice to give him
some pleasure. So I take down my accordion and play for him!'...
Yes, yes! He was like that all his life. He was a good son. Now what am I to
do?"
A shudder passed over Suvaroff. There was a soft tap upon the
door. The three women and Suvaroff looked up. Flavio Minetti stood in the
doorway.
The three women gave the hunchback swift, inclusive glances, such
as women always use when they measure a newcomer, and speedily dropped their
eyes. Suvaroff stared silently at the warped figure. Minetti leaned against the
door; his smile was at once both cruel and curiously touching. At length
Minetti spoke. The sound of his voice provoked a sort of terror in the breast
of Suvaroff.
"I have just heard," he said, benevolently, "from
the proprietor of the wine-shop across the way, that your neighbor has been
murdered. The landlady tells me that his mother is here."
The old woman roused herself. "Yes—you can see for yourself
that I am here. I am a poor old woman, and my son—Ah! I was washing his socks
when—"
"Yes, yes!" interrupted the hunchback, advancing into
the room. "You are a poor old woman! Let me give you some money in all
charity."
He threw gold into her lap. She began to tremble. Suvaroff saw her
hands greedily close over the coins, and the sight sickened him.
"Why did you come?" Suvaroff demanded of Minetti.
"Go away! You are not wanted here!"
The three women rose. The old woman began to mumble a blessing.
She even put up her hand in the fashion of bestowing a benediction.
Suvaroff fancied that he saw Minetti wince.
"He was a good son," the old woman began to mutter they
led her out. At the door she looked back. Suvaroff turned away. "Once a
week he came to me and brought me five dollars," she said, quite calmly.
"He was a good son. He even played his music to give pleasure to others.
Yes, yes! He was like that all his life...."
When the women were gone, Suvaroff felt the hunchback's hand upon
his. Suvaroff turned a face of dry-eyed hopelessness toward his tormentor.
"Did you not sleep peacefully last night, my friend?"
Minetti inquired, mockingly.
"After the thud I knew nothing," replied Suvaroff.
"The thud?"
"He fell from his chair."
"Of course. That was to be expected. Just so."
"You see for yourself what you have done? Fancy, this man has
a mother!"
"See, it is just as I said. Already you are dragging this
dead thing about, chained to your wrist. Come, forget it. I should have killed
him, anyway."
"That is not the point. The point is—My God! Tell me, in what
fashion do these people laugh at you? Tell me how it is done."
"Laughter cannot be taught, my friend."
"Then Heaven help me! for I should like to laugh at you. If I
could but laugh at you, all would be over."
"Ah!" said the hunchback. "I see."
At the end of the week Minetti came to Suvaroff one evening and
said, not unkindly: "Why don't you leave? You are killing yourself. Go
away—miles away. It would have happened, anyway."
Suvaroff was lying upon his bed. His face was turned toward the
wall. He did not trouble to look at Minetti.
"I cannot leave. You know that as well as I do. When I
am absent from this room I am in a fever until I get back to it again. I lie
here and close my eyes and think.... Whenever a thud shakes the house I leap
up, trembling. I have not worked for five days. They have given up sending for
me from the café. Yesterday his mother came and sat with me. She drove me mad.
But I sat and listened to her. 'Yes, he was a good son!' She repeats this by
the hour, and rolls and unrolls her handkerchief.... It is bad enough in the
daytime. But at night—God! If only the music would play again! I cannot endure
such silence."
He buried his face in the pillow. Minetti shrugged and left.
In about an hour Suvaroff rose and went out. He found a squalid
wine-shop in the quarter just below the Barbary Coast. He went in and sat alone
at a table. The floors had not been freshly sanded for weeks; a dank mildew
covered the green wall-paper. He called for brandy, and a fat, greasy-haired
man placed a bottle of villainous stuff before him. Suvaroff poured out a drink
and swallowed it greedily. He drank another and another. The room began to
fill. The lights were dim, and the arrival and departure of patrons threw an endless
procession of grotesque silhouettes upon the walls. Suvaroff was fascinated by
these dancing shadows. They seemed familiar and friendly. He sat sipping his
brandy, now, with a quieter, more leisurely air. The shadows were indescribably
fascinating; they were so horrible and amusing! He began to wonder whether
their antics would move him to laughter if he sat and drank long enough. He had
a feeling that laughter and sleep went hand in hand. If he could but laugh
again he was quite sure that he would fall asleep. But he discovered a truth
while he sat there. Amusement and laughter were often strangers. He had known
this all his life, of course, but he had never thought of it. Once, when he was
a child, an old man had fallen in the road before him, in a fit. Suvaroff had
stood rooted to the spot with amusement, but he had not laughed. Yet the
man had gone through the contortions of a clown.... Well, then he was not to be
moved to laughter, after all. He wearily put the cork back in the bottle of brandy.
The fat bartender came forward. Suvaroff paid him and departed.
He went to the wine-shop the next night—and the next. He began to
have a hope that if he persisted he would discover a shadow grotesque enough to
make him laugh. He sat for hours, drinking abominable brandy. The patrons of
the shop did not interest him. They were squalid, dirty, uninteresting. But
their shadows were things of wonder. How was it possible for such drab people
to have even interesting shadows? And why were these shadows so familiar?
Suvaroff recognized each in turn, as if it were an old friend that he
remembered but could not name. After the second night he came to a definite
conclusion.
"They are not old friends at all," he said to himself.
"They are not even the shadows of these people who come here. They are
merely the silhouettes of my own thoughts.... If I could but draw my thoughts,
they would be as black and as fantastic."
But at another time he dismissed this theory.
"No," he muttered, "they are not the shadows of my
thoughts at all. They are the souls of these men. They are the twisted, dark,
horrible souls of these men, that cannot crawl out except at nightfall! They
are the souls of these men seeking to escape, like dogs chained to their
kennels!... I wonder if the Italian had such a soul?..."
He rose suddenly. "I am wasting my time here," he said,
almost aloud. "One may learn to laugh at a shadow. One may even learn to
laugh at the picture of one's thoughts. But to laugh at a soul—No! A man's soul
is too dreadful a thing to laugh at." He staggered out into the night.
On his way home he went into a pawn-shop and bought a pistol.
He was in a fever to get back to his lodgings. He found Minetti waiting for
him. He tried to conceal the pistol, but he knew that Minetti had seen it.
Minetti was as pleasant as one could imagine. He told the most droll stories of
his life in London. It appeared that he had lived there in a hotbed of exiled
radicals; but he, himself, seemed to have no convictions. Everything he described
was touched with a certain ironic humor. When he rose to go he said, quite
simply:
"How are things? Do you sleep nights now?"
"No. I never expect to sleep again."
Minetti made no comment. "I see you have bought a
pistol," he observed.
"Yes," replied Suvaroff.
"You have wasted your money, my young friend," declared
the hunchback. "You will never use it."
With that Minetti left the room. Suvaroff laid the pistol on the
table and threw himself upon the bed. He lay there without moving until
morning.... Toward six o'clock he rose. He went over to the table and
deliberately put the pistol to his temple. The coldness of the muzzle sent a
tremor through him.... He put down the weapon in disgust.
Suvaroff stayed away from the wine-shop for two nights, but finally
the memory of its fascinating shadows lured him back. The fat bartender saw him
enter, and came forward with a bottle of brandy. Suvaroff smiled grimly and
said nothing. He turned his back upon the company and began to watch the
shadows enter and disappear. To-night the puppets seemed more whimsical than
grotesque, and once he nearly laughed. A shadow with an enormous nose appeared;
and a fly, as big as a bumblebee, lit upon the nose and sat rubbing its legs
together in insolent content. A hand, upraised, struck at the fly. The nose
disappeared as if completely annihilated by the blow, while the fly hovered
safely aloof. Feeling encouraged, Suvaroff took another drink. But the
more he drank the less genial were the shadows, and by midnight they all had
become as sinister and terrible as ever.
On the way home to his room Suvaroff suddenly remembered that he
had a friend who was a druggist.
"Perhaps he can give me something to make me sleep,"
Suvaroff muttered.
But the drug-store was closed. Suvaroff climbed wearily up the
stairs of the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes. Minetti was sitting on the steps near
the third landing.
"I was preparing to go home," said the hunchback.
"What kept you so late?"
"I went around another way," answered Suvaroff. "I
thought I might get something from a druggist friend to help me sleep."
They stood before the door of Suvaroff's room. Suvaroff opened the
door and they went in.
"Sleeping-powders are dangerous," observed Minetti,
throwing his hat upon the bed.
"So I fancied," replied Suvaroff, dryly.
"Where do you spend your nights?" Minetti demanded
suddenly.
Suvaroff sat down. "Watching shadows in a wine-shop."
"Ah—a puppet show!"
"No, not exactly. I will explain.... No; come to think of it,
there is no explanation. But it is extremely amusing. To-night, for instance, I
nearly laughed.... Have you ever watched shadows upon a wall? Really, they are
diverting beyond belief."
"Yes. I have watched them often. They are more real to me
than actual people, because they are uglier. Beauty is a lie!"
A note of dreadful conviction crept into the hunchback's voice.
Suvaroff looked at him intently, and said, quite simply:
"What a bitter truth you are, my
friend!"
Minetti stared at Suvaroff, and he rose. "Perhaps I shall
see you at your puppet show some evening," he said. And, without waiting
for a reply, he left the room.
Suvaroff lay again all night upon his bed staring in a mute agony
at the ceiling. Once or twice he fancied he heard the sounds of music from the
next room. His heart leaped joyfully. But almost instantly his hopes sank back,
like spent swimmers in a relentless sea. It seemed as if his brain were
thirsting. He was in a pitiless desert of white-heated thought, and there was
not a cloud of oblivion upon the horizon of his despair. Remembrance flamed
like a molten sun, greedily withering every green, refreshing thing in its
path. How long before this dreadful memory would consume him utterly?
"If I could only laugh!" he cried in his agony. "If
I could only laugh!"
All next day Suvaroff was in a fever; not a physical fever, but a
mental fever that burned with devastating insistence. He could not lie still
upon his bed, so he rose and stumbled about the city's streets. But nothing
diverted him. Before his eyes a sheet of fire burned, and a blinding light
seemed to shut out everything else from his vision. Even his thoughts crackled
like dry faggots in a flame.
"When evening comes," he said, "a breeze will
spring up and I shall have some relief." But almost at once he thought:
"A breeze will do no good. It will only make matters worse! I have heard
that nothing puts out a fire so quickly as a shower. Let me see—It is now the
middle of August.... It does not rain in this part of the world until October.
Well, I must wait until October, then. No; a breeze at evening will do no good.
I will go and watch the shadows again. Shadows are cool affairs if one sits in
them, but how...."
And he began to wonder how he could contrive to sit in shadows
that fell only on a wall.
How he got to the wine-shop he did not know, but at a late hour he
found himself sitting at his accustomed seat. His bottle of brandy stood
before him. To-night the shadows were blacker than ever, as if the fury of the
flames within him were providing these dancing figures with a brighter
background.
"These shadows are not the pictures of my thoughts," he
said to himself. "Neither are they chained souls seeking to escape. They
are the smoke from the fire in my head. They are the black smoke from my brain
which is slowly burning away!"
He sat for hours, staring at the wall. The figures came and went,
but they ceased to have any form or meaning. He merely sat and drank, and
stared.... All at once a strange shadow appeared. A shadow? No; a phantom—a
dreadful thing! Suvaroff leaned forward. His breath came quickly, his body
trembled in the grip of a convulsion, his hands were clenched. He rose in his
seat, and suddenly—quite suddenly, without warning—he began to laugh.... The
shadow halted in its flight across the wall. Suvaroff circled the room with his
gaze. In the center of the wine-shop stood Flavio Minetti. Suvaroff sat down.
He was still shaking with laughter.
Presently Suvaroff was conscious that Minetti had disappeared. The
fire in his brain had ceased to burn. Instead his senses seemed chilled, not
disagreeably, but with a certain pleasant numbness. He glanced about. What was
he doing in such a strange, squalid place? And the brandy was abominable! He
called the waiter, paid him what was owing, and left at once.
There was no mist in the air to-night. The sky was clear and a
wisp of moon crept on its disdainful way through the heavens.
"I shall sleep to-night," muttered Suvaroff, as he
climbed up to his room upon the third story of the Hôtel des Alpes Maritimes.
He undressed deliberately. All his former frenzy was gone. Shortly
after he had crawled into bed he heard a step on the landing. Then, as usual,
sounds began to drift down the passageway, not in heavy and clattering fashion,
but with a pattering quality like a bird upon a roof. And, curiously,
Suvaroff's thoughts wandered to other things, and a picture of his native
country flashed over him—Little Russia in the languid embrace of summer—green
and blue and golden. The soft notes of the balalaika at twilight came to him,
and the dim shapes of dancing peasants, whirling like aspen-leaves in a fresh
breeze. He remembered the noonday laughter of skylarks; the pear-trees bending
patiently beneath their harvest; the placid river winding its willow-hedged way,
cutting the plain like a thin silver knife.
A fresh current of air began to blow upon him. He heard the creak
of a rusty hinge.
"He has opened the door," Suvaroff whispered. His teeth
began to chatter. "Nevertheless, I shall sleep to-night," he said to
himself reassuringly.
A faint footfall sounded upon the threshold.... Suvaroff drew the
bedclothes higher.
By H. G. DWIGHT
From The Century
Magazine.
I returned, and saw
under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet
favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Ecclesiastes, ix, 11.
I
The first of the two boats to arrive at this unappointed
rendezvous was one to catch the eye even in that river of strange craft. She
had neither the raking bow nor the rising poop of the local mehala,
but a tall incurving beak, not unlike those of certain Mesopotamian sculptures,
with a windowed and curtained deck-house at the stern. Forward she carried a
short mast. The lateen sail was furled, however, and the galley was propelled
at a fairly good gait by seven pairs of long sweeps. They flashed none too
rhythmically, it must be added, at the sun which had just risen above the
Persian mountains. And although the slit sleeves of the fourteen oarsmen, all
of them young and none of them ill to look upon, flapped decoratively enough
about the handles of the sweeps, they could not be said to present a shipshape
appearance. Neither did the black felt caps the boatmen wore, fantastically
tall and knotted about their heads with gay fringed scarves.
This barge had passed out of the Ab-i-Diz and was making its
stately enough way across the basin of divided waters below Bund-i-Kir, when from
the mouth of the Ab-i-Gerger—the easterly of two turbid threads into which
the Karun above this point is split by a long island—there shot a trim white
motor-boat. The noise she made in the breathless summer sunrise, intensified
and reechoed by the high clay banks which here rise thirty feet or more above
the water, caused the rowers of the galley to look around. Then they dropped
their sweeps in astonishment at the spectacle of the small boat advancing so
rapidly toward them without any effort on the part of the four men it
contained, as if blown by the breath of jinn. The word Firengi,
however, passed around the deck—that word so flattering to a great race, which
once meant Frank but which now, in one form or another, describes for the
people of western Asia the people of Europe and their cousins beyond the seas.
Among the friends of the jinn, of whom as it happened only two were Europeans,
there also passed an explanatory word. But although they pronounced the strange
oarsmen to be Lurs, they caused their jinni to cease his panting, so struck
were they by the appearance of the high-beaked barge.
The two craft drifted abreast of each other about midway of the
sunken basin. As they did so, one of the Europeans in the motor-boat, a stocky
black-moustached fellow in blue overalls, wearing in place of the regulation
helmet of that climate a greasy black béret over one ear,
lifted his hand from the wheel and called out the Arabic salutation of the
country:
"Peace be unto you!"
"And to you, peace!" responded a deep voice from the
doorway of the deck-house. It was evident that the utterer of this friendly
antiphon was not a Lur. Fairer, taller, stouter, and older than his
wild-looking crew, he was also better dressed—in a girdled robe of gray silk,
with a striped silk scarf covering his hair and the back of his neck in the
manner of the Arabs. A thick brown beard made his appearance more imposing,
while two scars across his left cheek, emerging from the beard, suggested or
added to something in him which might on occasion become formidable. As it was
he stepped forward with a bow and addressed a slim young man who sat in
the stern of the motor-boat. "Shall we pass as Kinglake and the Englishman
of Eothen did in the desert," asked the stranger, smiling,
in a very good English, "because they had not been introduced? Or will you
do me the honor to come on board my—ark?"
The slim young man, whose fair hair, smooth face, and white
clothes made him the most boyish looking of that curious company, lifted his
white helmet and smiled in return.
"Why not?" he assented. And, becoming conscious that his
examination of this surprising stranger, who looked down at him with odd light
eyes, was too near a stare, he added: "What on earth is your ark made of,
Mr. Noah?"
What she was made of, as a matter of fact, was what heightened the
effect of remoteness she produced—a hard dark wood unknown to the lower Karun,
cut in lengths of not more than two or three feet and caulked with reeds and
mud.
"'Make thee an ark of gopher wood,'" quoted the
stranger. "'Rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and thou shalt pitch it
within and without with pitch.'"
"Bitumen, eh?" exclaimed the slim young man. "Where
did you get it?"
"Do you ask, you who drill oil at Meidan-i-Naft?"
"As it happens, I don't!" smiled the slim young man.
"At any rate," continued the stranger, after a scarcely
perceptible pause, "let me welcome you on board the Ark." And when
the unseen jinni had made it possible for the slim young man to set foot on the
deck of the barge, the stranger added, with a bow: "Magin is my name—from
Brazil."
If the slim young man did not stare again, he at least had time to
make out that the oddity of his host's light eyes lay not so much in the fact
of their failing to be distinctly brown, gray, or green, as that they had a
translucent look. Then he responded briefly, holding out his hand:
"Matthews. But isn't this a long way from Rio de
Janeiro?"
"Well," returned the other, "it's not so near
London! But come in and have something, won't you?" And he held aside the
reed portière that screened the door of the deck-house.
"My word! You do know how to do yourself!" exclaimed
Matthews. His eye took in the Kerman embroidery on the table in the centre of
the small saloon, the gazelle skins and silky Shiraz rugs covering the two
divans at the sides, the fine Sumak carpet on the floor, and the lion pelt in
front of an inner door. "By Jove!" he exclaimed again. "That's a
beauty!"
"Ha!" laughed the Brazilian. "The Englishman spies
his lion first!"
"Where did you find him?" asked Matthews, going behind
the table for a better look. "They're getting few and far between around
here, they say."
"Oh, they still turn up," answered the Brazilian, it
seemed to Matthews not too definitely. Before he could pursue the question
farther, Magin clapped his hands. Instantly there appeared at the outer door a
barefooted Lur, whose extraordinary cap looked to Matthews even taller and more
pontifical than those of his fellow-countrymen at the oars. The Lur, his hands
crossed on his girdle, received a rapid order and vanished as silently as he
came.
"I wish I knew the lingo like that!" commented Matthews.
Magin waved a deprecatory hand.
"One picks it up soon enough. Besides, what's the use—with a
man like yours? Who is he, by the way? He doesn't look English."
"Who? Gaston? He isn't. He's French. And he doesn't know too
much of the lingo. But the blighter could get on anywhere. He's been all over
the place—Algiers, Egypt, Baghdad. He's been chauffeur to more nabobs in
turbans than you can count. He's a topping mechanic, too. The wheel hasn't been
invented that beggar can't make go 'round. The only trouble he has is with
his own. He keeps time for a year or two, and then something happens to his
mainspring and he gets the sack. But he never seems to go home. He always moves
on to some place where it's hotter and dirtier. You should hear his stories!
He's an amusing devil."
"And perhaps not so different from the rest of us!"
threw out Magin. "What flea bites us? Why do you come here, courting
destruction in a cockleshell that may any minute split on a rock and spill you
to the sharks, when you might be punting some pretty girl up the backwaters of
the Thames? Why do I float around in this old ark of reeds and bulrushes, like
an elderly Moses in search of a promised land, who should be at home wearing
the slippers of middle age? What is it? A sunstroke? This is hardly the country
where Goethe's citrons bloom!"
"Damned if I know!" laughed Matthews. "I fancy we
like a bit of a lark!"
The Brazilian laughed too.
"A bit of a lark!" he echoed.
Just then the silent Lur reappeared with a tray.
"I say!" protested Matthews. "Whiskey and soda at
five o'clock in the morning, in the middle of July—"
"1914, if you must be so precise!" added Magin jovially.
"But why not?" he demanded. "Aren't you an Englishman? You
mustn't shake the pious belief in which I was brought up, that you are all
weaned with Scotch! Say when. It isn't every day that I have the pleasure of so
fortunate an encounter." And, rising, he lifted his glass, bowed, and
said: "Here's to a bit of a lark, Mr. Matthews!"
The younger man rose to it. But inwardly he began to feel a little
irked.
"By the way," he asked, nibbling at a biscuit, "can
you tell me anything about the Ab-i-Diz? I dare say you must know something
about it—since your men look as if they came from up that way. Is there a
decent channel as far as Dizful?"
"Ah!" uttered Magin slowly. "Are you thinking of
going up there?" He considered the question, and his guest, with a flicker
in his lighted eyes. "Well, decent is a relative word, you know. However,
wonders can be accomplished with a stout rope and a gang of natives, even
beyond Dizful. But here you see me and my ark still whole—after a night journey,
too. The worst thing is the sun. You see I am more careful of my skin than you.
As for the shoals, the rapids, the sharks, the lions, the nomads who pop at you
from the bank, et cetera—you are an Englishman! Do you take an
interest in antiques?" he broke off abruptly.
"Yes—though interest is a relative word too, I expect."
"Quite so!" agreed the Brazilian. "I have rather a
mania for that sort of thing, myself. Wait. Let me show you." And he went
into the inner cabin. When he came back he held up an alabaster cup. "A
Greek kylix!" he cried. "Pure Greek! What an outline, eh? This is
what keeps me from putting on my slippers! I have no doubt Alexander left it
behind him. Perhaps Hephaistion drank out of it, or Nearchus, to celebrate his return
from India. And some rascally Persian stole it out of a tent!"
Matthews, taking the cup, saw the flicker brighten in the
Brazilian's eyes.
"Nice little pattern of grape leaves, that," he said.
"And think of picking it up out here!"
"Oh you can always pick things up, if you know where to
look," said Magin. "Dieulafoy and the rest of them didn't take
everything. How could they? The people who have come and gone through this
country of Elam! Why just over there, at Bund-i-Kir, Antigonus fought Eumenes
and the Silver Shields for the spoils of Susa—and won them! I have
discovered—But come in here." And he pushed wider open the door of the
inner cabin.
Matthews stepped into what was evidently a stateroom. A broad
bunk filled one side of it, and the visitor could not help remarking a second
interior door. But his eye was chiefly struck by two, three, no four, chests,
which took up more space in the narrow cabin than could be convenient for its
occupant. They seemed to be made of the same mysterious dark wood as the "ark,"
clamped with copper.
"I say! Those aren't bad!" he exclaimed. "More of
the spoils of Susa?"
"Ho! My trunks? I had them made up the river, like the rest.
But I wonder what would interest you in my museum. Let's see." He bent
over one of the chests, unlocked it, rummaged under the cover, and brought out
a broad metal circlet which he handed to Matthews. "How would that do for
a crown, eh?"
The young man took it over to the porthole. The metal, he then
saw, was a soft antique gold, wrought into a decoration of delicate spindles,
with a border of filigree. The circlet was beautiful in itself, and
astonishingly heavy. But what it chiefly did for Matthews was to sharpen the
sense of strangeness, of remoteness, which this bizarre galley, come from
unknown waters, had brought into the familiar muddy Karun.
"As a matter of fact," went on the Brazilian, "it's
an anklet. But can you make it out? Those spindles are Persian, while the
filigree is more Byzantine than anything else. You find funny things up there,
in caves—"
He tossed a vague hand, into which Matthews put the anklet,
saying:
"Take it before I steal it!"
"Keep it, won't you?" proposed the astonishing
Brazilian.
"Oh, thanks. But I could hardly do that," Matthews
replied.
"Why not?" protested Magin. "As a souvenir of a
pleasant meeting! I have a ton of them." He waved his hand at the chests.
"No, really, thanks," persisted the young man. "And I'm
afraid we must be getting on. I don't know the river, you see, and I'd like to
reach Dizful before dark."
The Brazilian studied him a moment.
"As you say," he finally conceded. "But you will at
least have another drink before you go?"
"No, not even that, thanks," said Matthews. "We
really must be off. But it's been very decent of you."
He felt both awkward and amused as he backed out to the deck,
followed by his imposing host. At sight of the two the crew scattered to their
oars. They had been leaning over the side, absorbed in admiration of the white
jinn-boat. Matthews' Persian servant handed up to Magin's butler a tray of tea
glasses—on which Matthews also noted a bottle. In honor of that bottle Gaston
himself stood up and took off his greasy cap.
"A thousand thanks, Monsieur," he said. "I have
tasted nothing so good since I left France."
"In that case, my friend," rejoined Magin in French as
good as his English, "it is time you returned!" And he abounded in
amiable speeches and ceremonious bows until the last au revoir.
"Au plaisir!" called back Gaston, having invoked
his jinni. Then, after a last look at the barge, he asked over his shoulder in
a low voice: "Who is this extraordinary type, M'sieu Guy? A species of an
Arab, who speaks French and English and who voyages in a galley from a
museum!"
"A Brazilian, he says," imparted M'sieu Guy—whose
surname was beyond Gaston's gallic tongue.
"Ah! The uncle of America! That understands itself! He sent
me out a cognac, too! And did he present you to his dame de compagnie?
She put her head out of a porthole to look at our boat. A Lur, like the others,
but with a pair of blistering black eyes! And a jewel in her nose!"
"It takes you, Gaston," said Guy Matthews, "to
discover a dame of company!"
II
When the white motor-boat had disappeared in the glitter of the
Ab-i-Diz, Senhor Magin, not unlike other fallible human beings when released
from the necessity of keeping up a pitch, appeared to lose something of his
gracious humor. So, it transpired, did his decorative boatmen, who had not
expected to row twenty-five miles upstream at a time when most people in that climate
seek the relief of their serdabs—which are underground chambers
cooled by running water, it may be, and by a tall badgir, or air
chimney. The running water, to be sure, was here, and had already begun to
carry the barge down the Karun. If the high banks of that tawny stream
constituted a species of air chimney, however, such air as moved therein was
not calculated for relief. But when Brazilians command, even a Lur may obey.
These Lurs, at all events, propelled their galley back to the basin of Bund-i-Kir,
and on into the Ab-i-Shuteit—which is the westerly of those two halves of the
Karun. Before nightfall the barge had reached the point where navigation ends.
There Magin sent his majordomo ashore to procure mounts. And at sunset the two
of them, followed by a horse boy, rode northward six or seven miles, till the
city of Shuster rose dark above them in the summer evening, on its rock that
cleaves the Karun in two.
The Bazaar by which they entered the town was deserted at that
hour, save by dogs that set up a terrific barking at the sight of strangers.
Here the charvadar lighted a vast white linen lantern, which
he proceeded to carry in front of the two riders. He seemed to know where he
was going, for he led the way without a pause through long blank silent streets
of indescribable filth and smells. The gloom of them was deepened by jutting
balconies, and by innumerable badgirs that cut out a strange
black fretwork against amazing stars. At last the three stopped in front of a
gate in the vicinity of the citadel. This was not one of the gateways that
separate the different quarters of Shuster, but a door in a wall, recessed
in a tall arch and ornamented with an extraordinary variety of iron clamps,
knobs, locks, and knockers.
Of one of the latter the charvadar made repeated
use until someone shouted from inside. The horse-boy shouted back, and
presently his lantern caught a glitter of two eyes in a slit. The eyes belonged
to a cautious doorkeeper, who after satisfying himself that the visitors were
not enemies admitted the Brazilian and the Lur into a vaulted brick vestibule.
Then, having looked to his wards and bolts, he lighted Magin through a corridor
which turned into a low tunnel-like passage. This led into a sort of cloister,
where a covered ambulatory surrounded a dark pool of stars. Thence another
passage brought them out into a great open court. Here an invisible jet of
water made an illusion of coolness in another, larger, pool, overlooked by a
portico of tall slim pillars. Between them Magin caught the glow of a cigar.
"Good evening, Ganz," his bass voice called from the
court.
"Heaven! Is that you?" replied the smoker of the cigar.
"What are you doing here, in God's name? I imagined you at Mohamera, by
this time, or even in the Gulf." This remark, it may not be irrelevant to
say, was in German—as spoken in the trim town of Zurich.
"And so I should have been," replied the polyglot Magin
in the same language, mounting the steps of the portico and shaking his
friend's hand, "but for—all sorts of things. If we ran aground once, we
ran aground three thousand times. I begin to wonder if we shall get through the
reefs at Ahwaz—with all the rubbish I have on board."
"Ah, bah! You can manage, going down. But why do you waste
your time in Shuster, with all that is going on in Europe?"
"H'm!" grunted Magin. "What is going on in Europe?
A great family is wearing well cut mourning, and a small family is beginning to
turn green! How does that affect two quiet nomads in Elam—especially when
one of them is a Swiss and one a Brazilian?" He laughed, and lighted a
cigar the other offered him. "My dear Ganz, it is an enigma to me how a
man who can listen to such a fountain, and admire such stars, can perpetually
sigh after the absurdities of Europe! Which reminds me that I met an Englishman
this morning."
"Well, what of that? Are Englishmen so rare?"
"Alas, no—though I notice, my good Ganz, that you do your
best to thin them out! This specimen was too typical for me to be able to
describe him. Younger than usual, possibly; yellow hair, blue eyes, constrained
manner, everything to sample. He called himself Mark, or Matthew. Rather their
apostolic air, too—except that he was in the Oil Company's motor-boat. But he
gave me to understand that he was not in the Oil Company."
"Quite so."
"I saw for myself that he knows nothing about archæology. Who
is he? Lynch? Bank? Telegraph?"
"He's not Lynch, and he's not Bank, and he's not Telegraph.
Neither is he consul, or even that famous railroad. He's—English!" And
Ganz let out a chuckle at the success of his own characterization.
"Ah! So?" exclaimed Magin elaborately. "I hear, by
the way, that that famous railroad is not marching so fast. The Lurs don't like
it. But sometimes even Englishmen," he added, "have reasons for doing
what they do. This one, at any rate, seemed more inclined to ask questions than
to answer them. I confess I don't know whether it was because he had nothing to
say or whether he preferred not to say it. Is he perhaps a son of Papa, making
the grand tour?"
"More or less. Papa gave him no great letter of credit,
though. He came out to visit some of the Oil people. And he's been here long
enough to learn quite a lot of Persian."
"So he starts this morning, I take it, from Sheleilieh. But
why the devil does he go to Dizful, by himself?"
"And why the devil shouldn't he? He's out here, and he wants
to see the sights—such as they are. So he's going to take a look at the ruins
of Susa, and at your wonderful unspoiled Dizful. Shir Ali Khan will be delighted
to get a few tomans for his empty house by the river. Then the
21st, you know, is the coronation. So I gave him a letter to the Father of
Swords, who—"
"Thunder and lightning!" Magin's heavy voice resounded
in the portico very like a bellow. "You, Ganz, sent this man to the Father
of Swords? He might be one of those lieutenants from India who go smelling
around in their holidays, so pink and innocent!"
"What is that to me?" demanded the Swiss, raising his
own voice. "Or to you either? After all, Senhor Magin, are you the Emperor
of Elam?"
The Brazilian laughed.
"Not yet! And naturally it's nothing to you, when you cash
him checks and sell him tinned cows and quinine. But for a man who perpetually
sighs after Europe, Herr Ganz, and for a Swiss of the north, you strike me as
betraying a singular lack of sensibility to certain larger interests of your
race. However—What concerns me is that you should have confided to this young
man, with such a roll of sentimental eyes as I can imagine, that Dizful is still
'unspoiled'! If Dizful is unspoiled, he might spoil it. I've found some very
nice things up there, you know. I was even fool enough to show him one or
two."
"Bah! He likes to play tennis and shoot! You know these
English boys."
Magin considered those English boys in silence for a moment.
"Yes, I know them. This one told me he liked a bit of a lark!
I know myself what a lark it is to navigate the Ab-i-Diz, at the end of July!
But what is most curious about these English boys is that when they go out for
a bit of a lark they come home with Egypt or India in their pocket. Have you
noticed that, Ganz? That's their idea of a bit of a lark. And with it all they
are still children. What can one do with such people? A bit of a lark!
Well, you will perhaps make me a little annoyance, Mr. Adolf Ganz, by sending
your English boy up to Dizful to have a bit of a lark. However, he'll either
give himself a sunstroke or get himself bitten in two by a shark. He asked me
about the channel, and I had an inspiration. I told him he would have no
trouble. So he'll go full speed and we shall see what we shall see. Do you sell
coffins, Mr. Ganz, in addition to all your other valuable merchandise?"
"Naturally, Mr. Magin," replied the Swiss. "Do you
need one? But you haven't explained to me yet why you give me the pain of
saying good-bye to you a second time."
"Partly, Mr. Ganz, because I am tired of sleeping in an oven,
and partly because I—the Father of Swords has asked me to run up to Bala Bala
before I leave. But principally because I need a case or two more of your
excellent vin de champagne—manufactured out of Persian petroleum,
the water of the Karun, the nameless abominations of Shuster, and the ever
effervescing impudence of the Swiss Republic!"
"What can I do?" smiled the flattered author of this
concoction. "I have to use what I can get, in this Godforsaken
place."
"And I suppose you will end by getting a million, eh?"
"No such luck! But I'm getting a piano. Did I tell you? A
Blüthner. It's already on the way up from Mohamera."
"A Blüthner! In Shuster! God in heaven! Why did you wait
until I had gone?"
"Well, aren't you still here?" The fact of Magin's being
still there, so unexpectedly, hung in his mind. "By the way, speaking of
the Father of Swords, did you give him an order?"
"I gave him an order. Didn't you pay it?"
"I thought twice about it. For unless you have struck oil, up
in that country of yours where nobody goes, or gold—"
"Mr. Adolf Ganz," remarked the Brazilian with some
pointedness, "all I ask of you is to respect my signature and to keep
closed that many-tongued mouth of yours. I sometimes fear that in you the
banker is inclined to exchange confidences with the chemist—or even with the
son of Papa who cashes a check. Eh?"
Ganz cleared his throat.
"In that case," he rejoined, "all you have to do is
to ask him, when you meet him again at Bala Bala. And the English bank will no
doubt be happy to accept the transfer of your account."
Magin began to chuckle.
"We assert our dignity? Never mind, Adolf. As a matter of
fact I have a high opinion of your discretion—so high that when I found the
Imperial Bank of Elam I shall put you in charge of it! And you did me a real
service by sending that motor-boat across my bow this morning. For in it I
discovered just the chauffeur I have been looking for. I am getting tired of my
galley, you know. You will see something when I come back."
"But," Ganz asked after a moment, "do you really
expect to come back?"
"But what else should I do? End my days sneezing and sniffling
by some polite lake of Zurich like you, my poor Ganz, when you find in your
hand the magic key that might unlock for you any door in the world? That, for
example, is not my idea of a lark, as your son of Papa would say! Men are
astounding animals, I admit. But I never could live in Europe, where you can't
turn around without stepping on some one else's toes. I want room! I want air!
I want light! And for a collector, you know, America is after all a little
bare. While here—!"
"O God!" cried Adolf Ganz out of his dark Persian
portico.
III
As Gaston very truly observed, there are moments in Persia when
even the most experienced chauffeur is capable of an emotion. And an
unusual number of such moments enlivened for Gaston and his companions their
journey up the Ab-i-Diz. Indeed Matthews asked himself more than once why he
had chosen so doubtful a road to Dizful, when he might so much more easily have
ridden there, and at night. It certainly was not beautiful, that river of brass
zigzagging out of sight of its empty hinterland. Very seldom did anything so
visible as a palm lift itself against the blinding Persian blue. Konar trees
were commoner, their dense round masses sometimes shading a white-washed tomb
or a black tent. Once or twice at sight of the motor-boat a bellam,
a native canoe, took refuge at the mouth of one of the gullies that scarred the
bank like sun-cracks. Generally, however, there was nothing to be seen between
the water and the sky but two yellow walls of clay, topped by endless thickets
of tamarisk and nameless scrub. Matthews wondered, disappointed, whether a
jungle looked like that, and if some black-maned lion walked more softly in it,
or slept less soundly, hearing the pant of the unknown creature in the river.
But there was no lack of more immediate lions in the path. The sun, for one
thing, as the Brazilian had predicted, proved a torment against which double
awnings faced with green were of small avail. Then the treacheries of a crooked
and constantly shallowing channel needed all the attention the travelers could
spare. And the rapids of Kaleh Bunder, where a rocky island flanked by two
reefs threatened to bar any further progress, afforded the liveliest moments of
their day.
The end of that day, nevertheless, found our sight-seer smoking
cigarettes in Shir Ali Khan's garden at Dizful and listening to the camel bells
that jingled from the direction of certain tall black pointed arches straddling
the dark river. When Matthews looked at those arches by sunlight, and at the
queer old flat-topped yellow town visible through them, he regretted that he
had made up his mind to continue his journey so soon. However, he was coming
back. So he packed off Gaston and the Bakhtiari to Sheleilieh, where they
and their motor-boat belonged. And he himself, with his servant Abbas and
the charvadar of whom they hired horses, set out at nightfall
for the mountain citadel of Bala Bala. For there the great Salman Taki Khan,
chieftain of the lower Lurs, otherwise known as the Father of Swords, was to
celebrate as became a redoubtable vassal of a remote and youthful suzerain the
coronation of Ahmed Shah Kajar.
It was nearly morning again when, after a last scramble up a
trough of rocks and gravel too steep for riding, the small cavalcade reached a
plateau in the shadow of still loftier elevations. Here they were greeted by a
furious barking of dogs. Indeed it quickly became necessary to organize a
defence of whips and stones against the guardians of that high plateau. The
uproar soon brought a shout out of the darkness. The charvadar shouted
back, and after a long-distance colloquy there appeared a figure crowned by the
tall kola of the Brazilian's boatmen, who drove the dogs away.
The dialect in which he spoke proved incomprehensible to Matthews. Luckily it
was not altogether so to Abbas, that underling long resigned to the
eccentricities of the Firengi, whose accomplishments included even
a sketchy knowledge of his master's tongue. It appeared that the law of Bala
Bala forbade the door of the Father of Swords to open before sunrise. But the
tall-hatted one offered the visitor the provisional hospitality of a black
tent, of a refreshing drink of goats' buttermilk, and of a comfortable felt
whereon to stretch cramped legs.
When Matthews returned to consciousness he first became aware of a
blinding oblong of light in the dark wall of the tent. He then made out a
circle of pontifical black hats, staring at him, his fair hair, and his
indecently close-fitting clothes, in the silence of unutterable curiosity. It
made him think, for a bewildered instant, that he was back on the barge he had
met in the river. As for the black hats, what astonished them not least was the
stranger's immediate demand for water, and his evident dissatisfaction
with the quantity of it they brought him. There happily proved to be no lack of
this commodity, as Matthews' ears had told him. He was not long in pursuing the
sound into the open, where he found himself at the edge of a village of black
tents, pitched in a grassy hollow between two heights. The nearer and lower was
a detached cone of rock, crowned by a rude castle. The other peak, not quite so
precipitous, afforded foothold for scattered scrub oaks and for a host of
slowly moving sheep and goats. Between them the plateau looked down on two
sides into two converging valleys. And the clear air was full of the noise of a
brook that cascaded between the scrub oaks of the higher mountain, raced past
the tents, and plunged out of sight in the narrower gorge.
"Ripping!" pronounced Matthews genially to his
black-hatted gallery.
He was less genial about the persistence of the gallery, rapidly
increased by recruits from the black tents, in dogging him through every detail
of his toilet. But he was rescued at last by Abbas and an old Lur who, putting
his two hands to the edge of his black cap, saluted him in the name of the
Father of Swords. The Lur then led the way to a trail that zigzagged up the
lower part of the rocky cone. He explained the quantity of loose boulders
obstructing the path by saying that they had been left there to roll down on
whomever should visit the Father of Swords without an invitation. That such an
enterprise would not be too simple became more evident when the path turned
into a cave. Here another Lur was waiting with candles. He gave one each to the
newcomers, leading the way to a low door in the rock. This was opened by an
individual in a long red coat of ceremony, carrying a heavy silver mace, who
gave Matthews the customary salutation of peace and bowed him into an irregular
court. An infinity of doors opened out of it—chiefly of the stables, the old
man said, pointing out a big white mule or two of the famous breed of Bala
Bala. Thence the visitor was led up a steep stone stair to a terrace giving
entrance upon a corridor and another, narrower stone stair. From its
prodigiously high steps he emerged into a hall, carpeted with felt. At this
point, the Lurs took off their shoes. Matthews followed suit, being then
ushered into what was evidently a room of state. It contained no furniture, to
be sure, save for the handsome rugs on the floor. The room did not look bare,
however, for its lines were broken by a deep alcove, and by a continuous
succession of niches. Between and about the niches the walls were decorated
with plaster reliefs of flowers and arabesques. Matthews wondered if the black
hats were capable of that! But what chiefly caught his eye was the terrace
opening out of the room, and the stupendous view.
The terrace hung over a green chasm where the two converging
gorges met at the foot of the crag of Bala Bala. Matthews looked down as from
the prow of a ship into the tumbled country below him, through which a river
flashed sinuously toward the faraway haze of the plains. The sound of water filling
the still clear air, the brilliance of the morning light, the wildness and
remoteness of that mountain eyrie, so different from anything he had yet seen,
added a last strangeness to the impressions of which the young man had been
having so many.
"What a pity to spoil it with a railroad!" he could not
help thinking, as he leaned over the parapet of the terrace.
"Sahib!" suddenly whispered Abbas behind him.
Matthews turned, and saw in the doorway of the terrace a personage
who could be none other than his host. In place of the kola of
his people this personage wore a great white turban, touched with gold. The
loose blue aba enveloping his ample figure was also
embroidered with gold. Not the least striking detail of his appearance however,
was his beard, which had a pronounced tendency toward scarlet. His nails were
likewise reddened with henna, reminding Matthews that the hands belonging to
the nails were rumored to bear even more sinister stains. And the
bottomless black eyes peering out from under the white turban lent surprising
credibility to such rumors. But there was no lack of graciousness in the
gestures with which those famous hands saluted the visitor and pointed him to a
seat of honor on the rug beside the Father of Swords. The Father of Swords
furthermore pronounced his heart uplifted to receive a friend of Ganz Sahib,
that prince among the merchants of Shuster. Yet he did not hesitate to express
a certain surprise at discovering in the friend of the prince among the
merchants of Shuster one still in the flower of youth, who at the same time
exhibited the features of good fortune and the lineaments of prudence. And he
inquired as to what sorrow had led one so young to fold the carpet of enjoyment
and wander so far from his parents.
Matthews, disdaining the promptings of Abbas—who stood apart like
a statue of obsequiousness, each hand stuck into the sleeve of the
other—responded as best he might. In the meantime tea and candies were served
by a black hat on bended knee, who also produced a pair of ornate pipes. The
Father of Swords marvelled that Matthews should have abandoned the delights of
Shuster in order to witness his poor celebrations of the morrow, in honor of
the coronation. And had he felt no fear of robbers, during his long night ride
from Dizful? But what robbers were there to fear, protested Matthews, in the
very shadow of Bala Bala? At that the Father of Swords began to make bitter
complaint of the afflictions Allah had laid upon him, taking his text from
these lines of Sadi: "If thou tellest the sorrows of thy heart, let it be
to him in whose countenance thou mayst be assured of prompt consolation."
The world, he declared, was fallen into disorder, like the hair of an
Ethiopian. Within the city wall was a people well disposed as angels; without,
a band of tigers. After which he asked if the young Firengi were
of the company of those who dug for the poisoned water of Bakhtiari Land, or
whether perchance he were of the People of the Chain.
These figures of speech would have been incomprehensible to
Matthews, if Abbas had not hinted something about oil rigs. He accordingly
confessed that he had nothing to do with either of the two enterprises. The
Father of Swords then expatiated on those who caused the Lurs to seize the hand
of amazement with the teeth of chagrin, by dragging through their valleys a
long chain, as if they meant to take prisoners. These unwelcome Firengis were
also to be known by certain strange inventions on three legs, into which they
would gaze by the hour. Were they warriors, threatening devastation? Or were
they magicians, spying into the future and laying a spell upon the people of
Luristan? Their account of themselves the Father of Swords found far from
satisfactory, claiming as they did that they proposed to build a road of iron,
whereby it would be possible for a man to go from Dizful to Khorremabad in one
day. For the rest, what business had the people of Dizful, too many of whom
were Arabs, in Khorremabad, a city of Lurs? Let the men of Dizful remain in
Dizful, and those of Khorremabad continue where they were born. As for him, his
white mules needed no road of iron to carry him about his affairs.
Matthews, recalling his own thoughts as he leaned over the parapet
of the terrace, spoke consolingly to the Father of Swords concerning the People
of the Chain. The Father of Swords listened to him, drawing meditatively at his
waterpipe. He thereupon inquired if Matthews were acquainted with another
friend of the prince among the merchants of Shuster, himself a Firengi by
birth, though recently persuaded of the truths of Islam; and not like this
visitor of good omen, in the bloom of youth, but bearded and hardened in
battles, bearing the scars of them on his face.
Matthews began to go over in his mind the short list of Europeans
he had met on the Karun, till suddenly he bethought him of that extraordinary
barge he had encountered—could it be only a couple of days ago?
"Magin Sahib?" he asked. "I know him—if he is the
one who travels in the river in a mehala not like other mehalas,
rowed by Lurs."
"'That is a musk which discloses itself by its scent, and not
what the perfumers impose upon us,'" quoted the Father of Swords.
"This man," he continued, "our friend and the friend of our
friend, warned me that they of the chain are sons of oppression, destined to
bring misfortune to the Lurs. Surely my soul is tightened, not knowing whom I
may believe."
"Rum bounder!" said Matthews to himself, as his mind
went back to the already mythic barge, and its fantastic oarsmen from these
very mountains, and its antique-hunting, history-citing master from oversea,
who quoted the Book of Genesis and who carried mysterious passengers with
nose-jewels. But our not too articulate young man was less prompt about what he
should say aloud. He began to find more in this interview than he had expected.
He was tickled at his host's flowery forms of speech, and after all rather
sympathized with the suspicious old ruffian, yet it was not for him to fail in
loyalty toward the "People of the Chain." Several of them he knew, as
it happened, and they had delighted him with their wild yarns of surveying in
Luristan. So he managed no more than to achieve an appearance of slightly
offended dignity.
Considering which, out of those opaque eyes, the Father of Swords
clapped those famous hands and commanded a responsive black hat to bring him
his green chest. At that Matthews pricked up interested ears indeed. The chest,
however, when set down in front of the Father of Swords, proved to be nothing
at all like the one out of which the Brazilian had taken his gold anklet. It
was quite small and painted green, though quaintly enough provided with triple
locks of beaten iron. The Father of Swords unlocked them deliberately, withdrew
from an inner compartment a round tin case, and from that a roll of parchment
which he pressed to his lips with infinite solemnity. He then handed it to
Matthews.
He was one, our not too articulate young man, to take things as
they came and not to require, even east of Suez, the spice of romance with his
daily bread. His last days, moreover, had been too crowded for him to ruminate
over their taste. But it was not every day that he squatted on the same rug
with a scarlet-bearded old cutthroat of a mountain chief. So it was that his
more or less casual lark visibly took on, from the perspective of this castle
in Luristan, as he unrolled a gaudy emblazonment of eagles at the top of the
parchment, a new and curious color. For below the eagle he came upon what he
darkly made out to be a species of treaty, inscribed neither in the Arabic nor
in the Roman but in the German character, between the Father of Swords and a
more notorious War Lord. And below that was signed, sealed, and imposingly
paraphed the signature of one Julius Magin. Which was indeed a novel aspect for
a Brazilian, however versatile, to reveal.
He permitted himself, did Guy Matthews, a smile.
"You do not kiss it?" observed the Father of Swords.
"In my country," Matthews began—
"But it is, may I be your sacrifice," interrupted the
Father of Swords, "a letter from the Shah of the Shahs of the Firengis."
It was evident that he was both impressed and certain of impressing his hearer.
"He has promised eternal peace to me and to my people."
The Englishman in Matthews permitted him a second smile.
"The Father of Swords," he said, "speaks a word
which I do not understand. I am a Firengi, but I have never heard
of a Shah of the Shahs of the Firengis. In the house of Islam are
there not many who rule? In Tehran, for instance, there is the young Ahmed
Shah. Then among the Bakhtiaris there is an Ilkhani, at Mohamera there is the
Sheikh of the Cha'b, and in the valleys of Pusht-i-Kuh none is above the Father
of Swords. I do not forget, either, the Emirs of Mecca and Afghanistan, or
the Sultan in Stambul. And among them what Firengi shall say
who is the greatest? And so it is in Firengistan. Yet as for this
paper, it is written in the tongue of a king smaller than the one whose subject
I am, whose crown has been worn by few fathers. But the name at the bottom of
the paper is not his. It is not even a name known to the Firengis when
they speak among themselves of the great of their lands. Where did you see
him?"
The Father of Swords stroked his scarlet beard, looking at his
young visitor with more of a gleam in the dull black of his eyes than Matthews
had yet noticed.
"Truly is it said: 'Fix not thy heart on what is transitory,
for the Tigris will continue to flow through Baghdad after the race of Caliphs
is extinct!' You make it clear to me that you are of the People of the
Chain."
"If I were of the People of the Chain," protested
Matthews, "there is no reason why I should hide it. The People of the
Chain do not steal secretly through the valleys of Pusht-i-Kuh, telling the
Lurs lies and giving them papers in the night. I am not one of the People of
the Chain. But the king of the People of the Chain is also my king. And he is a
great king, lord of many lands and many seas, who has no need of secret
messengers, hostlers and scullions of whom no one has heard, to persuade
strangers of his greatness."
"Your words do not persuade me!" cried the Father of
Swords. "A wise man is like a jar in the house of the apothecary, silent
but full of virtues. If the king who sent me this letter has such hostlers and
such scullions, how great must be his khans and viziers! And why do the Turks
trust him? Why do the other Firengis allow his ships in Bushir
and Basra? Or why do not the People of the Chain better prove the character of
their lord? But the hand of liberality is stronger than the arm of power. This
king, against whom you speak, heard me draw the sigh of affliction from the
bosom of uncertainty. He deigned to regard me with the eye of patronage,
sending me good words and promises of peace and friendship. He will not permit
the house of Islam to be troubled. From many we have heard it."
"Ah!" exclaimed Matthews. "Now I understand why you
have not kept your promises to the People of the Chain!" And he rubbed his
thumb against his forefinger, in the gesture of the East that signifies the
payment of money.
"Why not?" demanded the Father of Swords, angrily.
"The duty of a king is munificence. Or why should there be a way to pass
through my mountains? Has it ever been said of the Lur that he stepped back
before a stranger? That is for the Shah in Tehran, who has become the servant
of the Russian! Let the People of the Chain learn that my neck does not know
how to bow! And what guest are you to sprinkle my sore with the salt of harsh
words? A boy, who comes here no one knows why, on hired horses, with only one
follower to attend him!"
Matthews flushed.
"Salman Taki Khan," he retorted, "it is true that I
come to you humbly, and without a beard. And your beard is already white, and
you can call out thirty thousand men to follow you. Yet a piece of gold will
make you believe a lie. And I swear to you that whether I give you back this
paper to put in your chest, or whether I spit on it and tear it in pieces and
throw it to the wind of that valley, it is one."
To which the Father of Swords made emphatic enough rejoinder by
snatching the parchment away, rising to his feet, and striding out of the room
without a word.
IV
The festivities in honor of the Shah's coronation took place at
Bala Bala with due solemnity. Among the black tents there was much plucking of
plaintive strings, there was more stuffing of mutton and pilau,
and after dark many a little rockets, improvized out of gunpowder and baked
clay, traced brief arabesques of gold against the black of the underlying
gorges. The castle celebrated in the same simple way. The stuffing, to be sure,
was more prolonged and recondite, while dancers imported from Dizful swayed and
snapped their fingers, singing for the pleasure of the Father of Swords. The
eyes of that old man of the mountain remained opaque as ever, save when he
rebuked the almoner who sat at meat with him for indecorously quoting the lines
of Sadi, when he says: "Such was this delicate crescent of the moon, and
fascination of the holy, this form of an angel, and decoration of a peacock,
that let them once behold her, and continence must cease to exist in the
constitutions of the chaste."
This rebuke might have been called forth by the presence of
another guest at the board. Be that as it may, the eyes of the Father of Swords
glimmered perceptibly when they rested on the unannounced visitor for whom he
fished out, with his own henna'ed fingers, the fattest morsels of mutton and
the juiciest sweets. I hasten to add that the newcomer was not the one whose
earlier arrival and interview with the Father of Swords has already been
recorded. He was, nevertheless, a personage not unknown to this record, whether
as Senhor Magin of Brazil or as the emissary of the Shah of the Shahs of Firengistan.
For not only had he felt impelled to bid good-by a second time to his friend
Adolf Ganz, prince among the merchants of Shustar. He had even postponed his
voyage down the Karun long enough to make one more journey overland to Bala
Bala. And he heard there, not without interest, the story of the short visit
and the sudden flight of the young Englishman he had accidentally met on the
river.
As for Matthews, he celebrated the coronation at Dizful, in bed.
And by the time he had slept off his fag, Bala Bala and the Father of Swords
and the green chest and the ingenious Magin looked to him more than ever
like figures of myth. He was too little of the timber out of which journalists,
romancers, or diplomats are made to take them very seriously. The world he
lived in, moreover, was too solid to be shaken by any such flimsy device as the
one of which he had happened to catch a glimpse. What had been real to him was
that he, Guy Matthews, had been suspected of playing a part in story-book
intrigues, and had been treated rudely by an old barbarian of whom he expected
the proverbial hospitality of the East. His affair had therefore been to show
Mr. Scarlet Beard that if a Lur could turn his back, an Englishman could do
likewise. He now saw, to be sure, that he himself had not been altogether the
pattern of courtesy. But the old man of the mountain had got what was coming to
him. And Matthews regretted very little, after all, missing what he had gone to
see. For Dizful, peering at him through the arches of the bridge, reminded that
there was still something to see.
It must be said of him, however, that he showed no impatience to
see the neighboring ruins of Susa. He was not one, this young man who was out
for a bit of a lark, to sentimentalize about antiquity or the charm of the
unspoiled. Yet even such young men are capable of finding the rumness of
strange towns a passable enough lark, to say nothing of the general
unexpectedness of life. And Dizful turned out to be quite as unexpected, in its
way, as Bala Bala. Matthews found that out before he had been three days in the
place, when a sudden roar set all the loose little panes tinkling in Shir Ali
Khan's garden windows.
Abbas explained that this was merely a cannon shot, announcing the
new moon of Ramazan. That loud call of the faith evidently made Dizful a rummer
place than it normally was. Matthews soon got used to the daily repetitions of
the sound, rumbling off at sunset and before dawn into the silence of the
plains. But the recurring explosion became for him the voice of the particular rumness
of the fanatical old border town—of fierce sun, terrific smells, snapping dogs,
and scowling people. When the stranger without the gate crossed his bridge of a
morning for a stroll in the town, he felt like a discoverer of some lost desert
city. He threaded alleys of blinding light, he explored dim thatched bazaars,
he studied tiled doorways in blank mud walls, he investigated quaint
water-mills by the river, and scarce a soul did he see, unless a stork in its
nest on top of a tall badgir or a naked dervish lying in a scrap of shade
asleep under a lion skin. It was as if Dizful drowsed sullenly in that July
blaze brewing something, like a geyser, and burst out with it at the end of the
unendurable day.
The brew of the night, however, was a different mixture, quite the
rummiest compound of its kind Matthews had ever tasted. The bang of the sunset
gun instantly brought the deserted city back to life. Lights began to
twinkle—in tea houses, along the river, among the indigo plantations—streets
filled with ghostly costumes and jostling camels, and everywhere voices would
celebrate the happy return of dusk so strangely and piercingly that they made
Matthews think of "battles far away." This was most so when he listened
to them, out of sight of unfriendly eyes, from his own garden. Above the
extraordinary rumor that drifted to him through the arches of the bridge he
heard the wailing of pipes, raucous blasts of cow horns, the thumping of drums;
while dogs barked incessantly, and all night long the caravans of Mesopotamia
jingled to and fro. Then the cannon would thunder out its climax, and the city
would fall anew under the spell of the sun.
The moon of those Arabian nights was nearing its first quarter and
Matthews was waiting for it to become bright enough for him to fulfill his true
duty as a sightseer by riding to the mounds of Susa, when Dizful treated
Matthews to fresh discoveries as to what an unspoiled town may contain. It
contained, Abbas informed him with some mystery after one of his prolonged
visits to the bazaar, another firengi. This firengi's servant,
moreover, had given Abbas explicit directions as to the whereabouts of
the firengi's house, in order that Abbas might give due
warning, as is the custom of the country, of a call from Matthews. Whereat
Matthews made the surprising announcement that he had not come to Dizful to
call on firengis. The chief charm of Dizful for him, as a matter of
fact, was that there he felt himself free of the social obligations under which
he had lain rather longer than he liked. But if Abbas was able to resign
himself to this new proof of the eccentricity of his master, the unknown firengi apparently
was not. At all events, Matthews soon made another discovery as to the
possibilities of Dizful. An evening or two later, as he loitered on the bridge
watching a string of loaded camels, a respectable-looking old gentleman in a
black aba addressed him in French. French in Dizful! And it
appeared that this remarkable Elamite was a Jew, who had picked up in Baghdad
the idiom of Paris! He went on to describe himself as the "agent" of
a distinguished foreign resident, who, the linguistic old gentleman gave
Matthews to understand, languished for a sight of the new-comer, and was unable
to understand why he had not already been favored with a call. His pain was the
deeper because the newcomer had recently enjoyed the hospitality of this
distinguished foreign resident on a little yacht on the river.
"The unmitigated bounder!" exclaimed Matthews, unable to
deliver himself in French of that sentiment, and turning upon the stupefied old
gentleman a rude Anglo-Saxon back. "He has cheek enough for
anything."
He had enough, at any rate, to knock the next afternoon,
unannounced, on Matthews' gate, to follow Matthews' servant into the house
without waiting to hear whether Matthews would receive him, to present himself
at the door of the dim underground serdab where Matthews
lounged in his pajamas till it should be cool enough to go out, to make
Matthews the most ceremonious of bows, and to give that young man a
half-amused, half-annoyed consciousness of being put at his ease. The advantage
of position, Matthews had good reason to feel, was with himself. He knew more
about the bounder than the bounder thought, and it was not he who had knocked
at the bounder's gate. Yet the sound of that knock, pealing muffled through the
hot silence, had been distinctly welcome. Nor could our incipient connoisseur
of rum towns pretend that the sight of Magin bowing in the doorway was wholly
unwelcome, so long had he been stewing there in the sun by himself. What
annoyed him, what amused him, what in spite of himself impressed him, was to
see how the bounder ignored advantages of position. Matthews had forgotten,
too, what an imposing individual the bounder really was. And measuring his tall
figure, listening to his deep voice, looking at his light eyes and his two
sinister scars and the big shaved dome of a head which he this time uncovered,
our cool enough young man wondered whether there might be something more than
fantastic about this navigator of strange waters. It was rather odd, at all
events, how he kept bobbing up, and what a power he had of quickening—what? A
school-boyish sense of the romantic? Or mere vulgar curiosity? For he suddenly
found himself aware, Guy Matthews, that what he knew about his visitor was less
than what he desired to know.
The visitor made no haste, however, to volunteer any information.
Nor did he make of Matthews any but the most perfunctory inquiries.
"And Monsieur—What was his name? Your Frenchman?" he
continued.
"Gaston. He's not my Frenchman, though," replied
Matthews. "He went back long ago."
"Oh!" uttered Magin. He declined the refreshments which
Abbas at that point produced, even to the cigarette Matthews offered him. He
merely glanced at the make. Then he examined, with a flicker of amusement in
his eyes, the bare white-washed room. A runnel of water trickled across it in a
stone channel that widened in the centre into a shallow pool. "A bit of a
lark, eh? I remember that mot of yours, Mr. Matthews. To sit
steaming, or perhaps I should say dreaming, in a sort of Turkish bath in the
bottom of Elam while over there in Europe—"
"Is there anything new?" asked Matthews, recognizing his
caller's habit of finishing a sentence with a gesture. "Archdukes and that
sort of thing don't seem to matter much in Dizful. I have even lost track of
the date."
"I would not have thought an Englishman so—dolce far
niente," said Magin. "It is perhaps because we archæologists feed
on dates! I happen to recollect, though, that we first met on the eighteenth of
July. And to-day, if you would like to know, is Saturday, the first of August,
1914." The flicker of amusement in his eyes became something more
inscrutable. "But there is a telegraph even in Elam," he went on.
"A little news trickles out of it now and then. Don't you ever catch,
perhaps, some echo of the trickle?"
"That's not my idea of a lark," laughed Matthews.
Magin regarded him a moment.
"Well," he conceded, "Europe does take on a new
perspective from the point of view of Susa. I see you are a philosopher,
sitting amidst the ruins of empires and wisely preferring the trickle of your
fountain to the trickle of the telegraph. If Austria falls to pieces, if Serbia
reaches the Adriatic, what is that to us? Nothing but a story that in Elam has
been told too often to have any novelty! Eh?"
"Why," asked Matthews, quickly, "is that on
already?"
Magin looked at him again a moment before answering.
"Not yet! But why," he added, "do you say
already?"
His voice had a curious rumble in the dim stone room. Matthews
wondered whether it were because the acoustic properties of a serdab in
Dizful differ from those of a galley on the Karun, or whether there really were
something new about him.
"Why, it's bound to come sooner or later, isn't it? If it's
true that all the way from Nish to Ragusa those chaps speak the same language
and belong to the same race, one can hardly blame them for wanting to do what
the Italians and the Germans have already done. And, as a philosopher sitting
amidst the ruins of empires, wouldn't you say yourself that Austria has bitten
off rather more than she can chew?"
"Very likely I should." Magin took a cigar out of his
pocket, snipped off the end with a patent cutter, lighted it, and regarded the
smoke with a growing look of amusement. "But," he went on, "as a
philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of empires, I would hardly confine that
observation to Austria-Hungary. For instance, I have heard"—and his look
of amusement verged on a smile—"of an island in the Atlantic Ocean not
much larger than the land of Elam, an island of rains and fogs whose people,
feeling the need of a little more sunlight perhaps, or of pin-money and
elbow-room, sailed away and conquered for themselves two entire continents, as
well as a good part of a third. I have also heard that the inhabitants of this
island, not content with killing and enslaving so many defenseless
fellow-creatures, or with picking up any lesser island, cape, or bay that
happened to suit their fancy, took it upon themselves to govern several hundred
million unwilling individuals of all colors and religions in other parts of the
world. And, having thus procured both sunlight and elbow-room, those
enterprising islanders assumed a virtuous air and pushed the high cries—as our
friend Gaston would say—if any of their neighbors ever showed the slightest
symptom of following their very successful example. Have you ever heard of such
an island? And would you not say—as a philosopher sitting amidst the ruins of
empires—that it had also bitten off rather more than it could chew?"
Matthews, facing the question and the now open smile, felt that he
wanted to be cool, but that he did not altogether succeed.
"I dare say that two or three hundred years ago we did things
we wouldn't do now. Times have changed in all sorts of ways. But we never set
out like a Cæsar or a Napoleon or a Bismarck to invent an empire. It all came
about quite naturally. Anybody else could have done the same. But nobody else
thought of it—at the time. We simply got there first."
"Ah?" Magin smiled more broadly. "It seems to me
that I have heard of another island, not so far from here, which is no more
than a pin-point, to be sure, but which happens to be the key of the Persian
Gulf. I have also heard that the Portuguese got there first, as you put it. But
you crushed Portugal, you crushed Spain, you crushed Holland, you crushed
France—or you meant to. And I must say it looks to me as if you would not mind
crushing Germany. Why do you go on building ships, building ships, building
ships, always two to Germany's one? Simply that you and your friends can go on
eating up Asia and Africa—and perhaps Germany too!"
Matthews noticed that the elder man ended, at any rate, not quite
so coolly as he began.
"Nonsense! The thing's so simple it isn't worth repeating. We
have to have more ships than anybody else because our empire is bigger than
anybody else's—and more scattered. As for eating, it strikes me that Germany
has done more of that lately than any one. However, if you know so much about
islands, you must also know how we happened to go into India—or Egypt. In the
beginning it was pure accident. And you know very well that if we left them
to-morrow there would be the devil to pay. Do we get a penny out of them?"
"Oh, no!" laughed Magin. "You administer them purely
on altruistic principles, for their own good and that of the world at
large—like the oil-wells of the Karun!"
"Well, since you put it that way," laughed Matthews in
turn, "perhaps we do!"
Magin shrugged his shoulders.
"Extraordinary people! Do you really think the rest of the
world so stupid? Or it is that the fog of your island has got into your brains?
You always talk about truth as if it were a patented British invention, yet no
one is less willing to call a spade a spade. Look at Cairo, where you pretend
to keep nothing but a consul-general, but where the ruler of the country can't
turn over in bed without his permission. A consul-general! Look at your novels!
Look at what you yourself are saying to me!"
Matthews lighted a pipe over it.
"In a way, of course, you are right," he said. "But
I am not sure that we are altogether wrong. Spades exist, but there's no
inherent virtue in talking about them. In fact it's often better not to mention
them at all. There's something very funny about words, you know. They so often
turn out to mean more than you expected."
At that Magin regarded his companion with a new interest.
"I would not have thought you knew that, at your age! But
after all, if you will allow me to say so, it is a woman's point of view. A man
ought to say things out—and stick by them. He is less likely to get into
trouble afterward. For example, it would have been not only more honest but
more advantageous for your country if you had openly annexed Egypt in the
beginning. Now where are you? You continually have to explain, and to watch
very sharply lest some other consul-general tell the Khedive to turn over in
bed. And since you and the Russians intend to eat up Persia, why on earth don't
you do it frankly, instead of trying not to frighten the Persians, and
talking vaguely about spheres of influence, neutral zones, and what not? I'm
afraid the truth is that you're getting old and fat. What?" He glanced
over his cigar at Matthews, who was regarding the trickle of the water beside
them. "Those Russians, they are younger," he went on. "They have
still to be reckoned with. And they aren't so squeamish, either in novels or in
life. Look at what they have done in their 'sphere.' They have roads, they have
Cossacks, they have the Shah under their thumb. And whenever they choose they
shut the Baghdad train against your caravans—yours, with whom they have an
understanding! A famous understanding! You don't even understand how to make
the most of your own sphere. You have had the Karun in your hands for three
hundred years, and what have you done with it? Why, in heaven's name, didn't
you blast out that rock at Ahwaz long ago? Why haven't you made a proper road
to Isfahan? Why don't you build that railroad to Khorremabad that you are
always talking about, and finish it before the Germans get to Baghdad? Ah! If
they had been here in your place you would have seen!"
"It strikes me," retorted Matthews, with less coolness
than he had yet shown, "that you are here already—from what the Father of
the Swords told me." And he looked straight at the man who had told him
that an Englishman couldn't call a spade a spade. But he saw anew how that man
could ignore an advantage of position.
Magin returned the look—frankly, humorously, quizzically. Then he
said:
"You remind me, by the way, of a question I came to ask you.
Would you object to telling me what you are up to here?"
"What am I up to?" queried Matthews, in astonishment.
The cheek of the bounder was really beyond everything! "What do you
mean?"
Magin smiled.
"I am not an Englishman. I mean what I say."
"No you're not!" Matthews threw back at him. "No Englishman
would try to pass himself off for a Brazilian."
Magin smiled again.
"Nor would a German jump too hastily at conclusions. If I
told you I was from Brazil, I spoke the truth. I was born there, as were many
Englishmen I know. That makes them very little less English, and it has perhaps
made me more German. Who knows? As a philosopher sitting with you amidst the
ruins of empires I am at least inclined to believe that we take our mother
country more seriously than you do yours! But to return to our point: what are
you doing here?"
"I'm attending to my business. Which seems to me more than
you are doing, Mr. Magin."
Matthews noticed, from the reverberation of the room, that his
voice must have been unnecessarily loud. He busied himself with the bowl of his
pipe. As for Magin, he got up and began walking to and fro, drawing at his
cigar. The red of it showed how much darker the room had been growing. It
increased, too, the curious effect of his eyes. They looked like two empty
holes in a mask.
"Eh, too bad!" sighed the visitor at last. "You
disappoint me. Do you know? You are, of course, much younger than I; but you
made me hope that you were perhaps—how shall I put it?—a spirit of the first
class. I hoped that without padding, without rancor, like true philosophers, we
might exchange our points of view. However—Since it suits you to stand on your
dignity, I must say that I am very distinctly attending to my business. And I
am obliged to add that it does not help my business, Mr. Matthews, to have you
sitting so mysteriously in Dizful—and refusing to call on me, but occasionally
calling on nomad chiefs. I confess that you don't look to me like a spy. Spies
are generally older men than you, more cooked, as Gaston would say, more fluent
in languages. It does not seem to me, either, that even an English spy
would go about his affairs quite as you have done. Still, I regret to have to
repeat that I dislike your idea of a lark. And not only because you upset nomad
chiefs. You upset other people as well. You might even end up by upsetting
yourself."
"Who the devil are you?" demanded Matthews, hotly.
"The Emperor of Elam?"
"Ha! I see you are acquainted with the excellent Adolf
Ganz!" laughed Magin. "No," he went on in another tone.
"His viceroy, perhaps. But as I was saying, it does not suit me to have
you stopping here. I can see, however, that you have reason to be surprised,
possibly annoyed, at my telling you so. I am willing to be reasonable about it.
How much do you want—for the expenses of your going away?"
Matthews could hardly believe his ears. He got up in turn.
"What in hell do you mean by that?"
"I am sorry, Mr. Matthews," answered the other, slowly,
"that my knowledge of your language does not permit me to make myself
clear to you. Perhaps you will understand me better if I quote from yourself. I
got here first. Did you ever put your foot into this country until two weeks
ago? Did your countrymen ever trouble themselves about it, even after Layard
showed them the way? No! They expressly left it outside of their famous
'sphere,' in that famous neutral zone. And all these centuries it has been
lying here in the sun, asleep, forgotten, deserted, lost, given over to nomads
and to lions—until I came. I am the first European since Alexander the Great
who has seen what it might be. It is not so impossible that I might open again
those choked-up canals which once made these burnt plains a paradise. In those
mountains I have found—what I have found. What right have you to interfere with
me, who are only out for a lark? Or what right have your countrymen? They
have already, as you so gracefully express it, bitten off so much more than
they can chew. The Gulf, the Karun, the oil-wells—they are yours. Take them.
But Baghdad is ours: if not today, then tomorrow. And if you will exercise that
logical process of which your British mind appears to be not altogether
destitute, you can hardly help seeing that this part of your famous neutral
zone, if not the whole of it, falls into the sphere of Baghdad. You know, too,
that we do things more thoroughly than you. Therefore I must very respectfully
but very firmly ask you, at your very earliest convenience, to leave Dizful. I
am quite willing to believe, however, that your interference with my
arrangements was accidental. And I dislike to put you to any unnecessary
trouble. So I shall be happy to compensate you, in marks, tomans,
or pounds sterling, for any disappointment you may feel in bringing this
particular lark to an end. Do you now understand me? How much do you
want?"
He perceived, Guy Matthews, that his lark had indeed taken an
unexpected turn. He was destined, far sooner than he dreamed, to be asked of
life, and to answer, questions even more direct than this. But until now life
had chosen to confront him with no problem more pressing than one of cricket or
hunting. He was therefore troubled by an unwonted confusion of feelings. For he
felt that his ordinary vocabulary—made up of such substantives as lark, cheek,
and bounder, and the comprehensive adjective "rum"—fell short of
coping with this extraordinary speech. He even felt that he might possibly have
answered in a different way, but for that unspeakable offer of money. And the
rumble of Magin's bass in the dark stone room somehow threw a light on the
melancholy land without, somehow gave him a dim sense that he did not answer
for himself alone—that he answered for the tradition of Layard and Rawlinson
and Morier and Sherley, of Clive and Kitchener, of Drake and Raleigh and
Nelson, of all the adventurous young men of that beloved foggy island at which
this pseudo-Brazilian jeered.
"When I first met you in the river, Mr. Magin," he said,
quietly, "I confess I did not realize how much of the spoils of Susa you
were carrying away in your chests. And I didn't take your gold anklet as a
bribe, though I didn't take you for too much of a gentleman in offering it to
me. But all I have to say now is that I shall stay in Dizful as long as I
please—and that you had better clear out of this house unless you want me to
kick you out."
"Heroics, eh? You obstinate little fool! I could choke you
with one hand!"
"You'd better try!" shouted Matthews.
He started in spite of himself when a muffled boom suddenly
answered him, jarring even the sunken walls of the room. Then he remembered
that voice of the drowsing city, bursting out with the pent-up brew of the day.
"Ah!" exclaimed Magin strangely—"The cannon speaks
at last! You will hear, beside your fountain, what it has to say. That, at any
rate, you will perhaps understand—you and the people of your island." He
stopped a moment. "But," he went on, "if some fasting dervish
knocks you on the head with his mace, or sticks his knife into your back, don't
say I didn't warn you!"
And the echo of his receding stamp in the corridor drowned for a
moment the trickle of the invisible water.
V
The destiny of some men lies coiled within them, invisible as the
blood of their hearts or the stuff of their will, working darkly, day by day
and year after year, for their glory or for their destruction. The destiny of
other men is an accident, a god from the machine or an enemy in ambush. Such
was the destiny of Guy Matthews, as it was of how many other unsuspecting young
men of his time. It would have been inconceivable to him, as he stood in
his dark stone room listening to Magin's receding stamp, that anything could
make him do what Magin demanded. Yet something did it—the last drop of the
strange essence Dizful had been brewing for him.
The letter that accomplished this miracle came to him by the hand
of a Bakhtiari from Meidan-i-Naft. It said very little. It said so little, and
that little so briefly, that Matthews, still preoccupied with his own quarrel,
at first saw no reason why a stupid war on the Continent, and the consequent impossibility
of telegraphing home except by way of India, should affect the oil-works, or
why his friends should put him in the position of showing Magin the white
feather. But as he turned over the Bakhtiari's scrap of paper the meaning of it
grew, in the light of the very circumstances that made him hesitate, so
portentously that he sent Abbas for horses. And before the Ramazan gun boomed
again he was well on his way back to Meidan-i-Naft.
There was something unreal to him about that night ride eastward
across the dusty moonlit plain. He never forgot that night. The unexpectedness
of it was only a part of the unreality. What pulled him up short was a new
quality in the general unexpectedness of life. Life had always been, like the
trip from which he was returning, more or less of a lark. Whereas it suddenly
appeared that life might, perhaps, be very little of a lark. So far as he had
ever pictured life to himself he had seen it as an extension of his ordered
English countryside, beset by no hazard more searching than a hawthorne hedge.
But the plain across which he rode gave him a new picture of it, lighted
romantically enough by the moon, yet offering a rider magnificent chances to
break his neck in some invisible nullah, if not to be waylaid by marauding Lurs
or lions. It even began to come to this not too articulate young man that
romance and reality might be the same thing, romance being what happens to the
other fellow and reality being what happens to you. He looked up at the moon of
war that had been heralded to him by cannon and tried to imagine what,
under that same moon far away in Europe, was happening to the other fellow. For
it was entirely on the cards that it might also happen to him, Guy Matthews,
who had gone up the Ab-i-Diz for a lark! That his experience had an
extraordinary air of having happened to some one else, as he went back in his
mind to his cruise on the river, his meeting with the barge, his first glimpse
of Dizful, the interlude of Bala Bala, the return to Dizful, the cannon, Magin.
Magin! He was extraordinary enough, in all conscience, as Matthews tried to
piece together, under his romantic-realistic moon, the various unrelated
fragments his memory produced of that individual, connoisseur of Greek kylixes
and Lur nose-jewels, quoter of Scripture and secret agent.
The bounder must have known, as he sat smoking his cigar and
ironizing on the ruins of empires, that the safe and settled little world to
which they both belonged was already in a blaze. Of course he had known it—and
he had said nothing about it! But not least extraordinary was the way the
bounder, whom after all Matthews had only seen twice, seemed to color the whole
adventure. In fact, he had been the first speck in the blue, the forerunner—if
Matthews had only seen it—of the more epic adventure into which he was so
quickly to be caught.
At Shuster he broke his journey. There were still thirty miles to
do, and fresh horses were to be hired—of some fasting charvadar who
would never consent in Ramazan, Matthews very well knew, to start for
Meidan-i-Naft under the terrific August sun. But he was not ungrateful for a
chance to rest. He discovered in himself, too, a sudden interest in all the
trickle of the telegraph. And he was anxious to pick up what news he could from
the few Europeans in the town. Moreover, he needed to see Ganz about the
replenishing of his money-bag; for not the lightest item of the traveler's pack
in Persia is his load of silver krans.
At the telegraph office Matthews ran into Ganz himself. The
Swiss was a short, fair, faded man, not too neat about his white clothes, with
a pensive mustache and an ambiguous blue eye that lighted at sight of the young
Englishman. The light, however, was not one to illuminate Matthews' darkness in
the matter of news. What news trickled out of the local wire was very meager
indeed. The Austrians were shelling Belgrade, the Germans, the Russians, and
the French had gone in. That was all. No, not quite all; for the bank-rate in
England had suddenly jumped sky-high—higher, at any rate, than it had ever
jumped before. And even Shuster felt the distant commotion, in that the bazaar
had already seen fit to put up the price of sugar and petroleum. Not that
Shuster showed any outward sign of commotion as the two threaded their way
toward Ganz's house. The deserted streets reminded Matthews strangely of
Dizful. What was stranger was to find how they reminded him of a chapter that
is closed. He hardly noticed the blank walls, the archways of brick and tile,
the tall badgirs, even the filth and smells. But strangest was it
to listen to the hot silence, to look up at the brilliant stripe of blue
between the adobe walls, while over there—!
The portentous uncertainty of what might be over there made his
answers to Ganz's questions about his journey curt and abstracted. He gave no
explanation of his failure to see the celebration at Bala Bala and the ruins of
Susa, which Ganz supposed to be the chief objects of his excursion. Yet he
found himself looking with a new eye at the anomalous exile whom the Father of
Swords called the prince among the merchants of Shuster, noting the faded
untidy air as he had never noted it before, wondering why a man should bury
himself in such a hole as this. Was one now, he speculated, to look at everybody
all over again? He was not the kind of man, Ganz, to interest the Guy Matthews
who had gone to Dizful. But it was the Guy Matthews who came back from Dizful
who didn't like Ganz's name or Ganz's good enough accent. Nevertheless he
yielded to Ganz's insistence, when they reached the office and the
money-bag had been restored to its normal portliness, that the traveler should
step into the house to rest and cool off.
"Do come!" urged the Swiss. "I so seldom see a
civilized being. And I have a new piano!" he threw in as an added
inducement. "Do you play?"
He had no parlor tricks, he told Ganz, and he told himself that he
wanted to get on. But Ganz had been very decent to him, after all. And he began
to perceive that he himself was extremely tired. So he followed Ganz through
the cloister of the pool to the court where the great basin glittered in the
sun, below the pillared portico.
"Who is that?" exclaimed Ganz suddenly. "What a
tone, eh? And what a touch!"
Matthews heard from Ganz's private quarters a welling of music so
different from the pipes and cow-horns of Dizful that it gave him a sudden stab
of homesickness.
"I say," he said, brightening, "could it be any of
the fellows from Meidan-i-Naft?"
The ambiguous blue eye brightened too.
"Perhaps! It is the river music from Rheingold.
But listen," Ganz added with a smile. "There are sharks among the
Rhine maidens!"
They went on, up the steps of the portico, to the door which Ganz
opened softly, stepping aside for his visitor to pass in. The room was so dark,
after the blinding light of the court, that Matthews saw nothing at first. He
stepped forward eagerly, feeling his way among Ganz's tables and chairs toward
the end of the room from which the music came. They gave him, the cluttering
tables and chairs, after the empty rooms he had been living in, a sharper
renewal of his stab. And even a piano—! It made him think of Kipling and
the Song of the Banjo:
"I am memory and
torment—I am Town!
I am all that ever went with evening dress!"
But what mute inglorious Paderewski of the restricted circle he
had moved in for the past months was capable of such parlor tricks as
this? Then, suddenly, he saw. He saw, swaying back and forth against the dark
background of the piano, a domed shaven head that made him stop short—that head
full of so many astounding things! He saw, traveling swiftly up and down the
keys, rising above them to an extravagant height and pouncing down upon them
again, those predatory hands that had pounced on the spoils of Susa! They began,
in a moment, to flutter lightly over the upper end of the keyboard. It was
extraordinary what a ripple poured as if out of those hands. Magin himself bent
over to listen to the ripple, partly showing his face as he turned his ear to
the keys. He showed, too, in the lessening gloom, a smile Matthews had never
seen before, more extraordinary than anything. Yet even as Matthews watched it,
in his stupefaction, the smile changed, broadened, hardened. And Magin, sitting
up straight again with his back to the room, began to execute a series of
crashing chords.
After several minutes he stopped and swung around on the
piano-stool. Ganz clapped his hands, shouting "Bis! Bis!" At that
Magin rose, bowed elaborately, and kissed his hands right and left. He ended by
pulling up a table-cover near him, gazing intently under the table.
"Have you lost something?" inquired Ganz.
"I seem," answered Magin, "to have lost half my
audience. What has become of our elusive English friend? Am I so unfortunate as
to have been unable to satisfy his refined ear? Or can it be that his emotions
were too much for him?"
"He was in a hurry," explained Ganz. "He is just
back from Dizful, you know."
"Ah?" uttered Magin. "He is a very curious young
man. He is always in a hurry. He was in a hurry the first time I had the
pleasure of meeting him. He was in such a hurry at Bala Bala that he didn't
wait to see the celebration which you told me he went to see. He also left
Dizful in a surprising hurry, from what I hear. I happen to know that the
telegraph had nothing to do with it. I can only conclude that some one
frightened him away. Where do you suppose he hurries to? And do you think he
will arrive in time?"
Ganz opened his mouth; but if he intended to say something, he
decided instead to draw his hand across his spare jaw. However, he did speak
after all.
"I notice that you at least do not hurry, Majesty! Do you
fiddle while Rome burns?"
"Ha!" laughed Magin. "It is not Rome that burns!
And I notice, Mr. Ganz, that you seem to be of a forgetful as well as of an
inquiring disposition. I would have been in Mohamera long ago if it had not
been for your son of Papa, with his interest in unspoiled towns. I will thank
you to issue no more letters to the Father of Swords without remembering me. Do
you wish to enrich the already overstocked British Museum at my expense? But I
do not mind revealing to you that I am now really on my way to Mohamera."
"H'm," let out Ganz slowly. "My dear fellow,
haven't you heard that there is a war in Europe?"
"I must confess, my good Ganz, that I have. But what has
Europe to do with Mohamera?"
"God knows," said Ganz. "I should think, however,
since you are so far from the Gulf, that you would prefer the route of
Baghdad—now that French and Russian cruisers are seeking whom they may
devour."
"You forget, Mr. Ganz, that I am so fortunate as to possess a
number of valuable objects of virtue. I would think twice before attempting to
carry those objects of virtue through the country of our excellent friends the
Beni Lam Arabs!"
Ganz laughed.
"Your objects of virtue could very well be left with me. What
if the English should go into the war?"
"The English? Go into the war? Never fear! This is not their
affair. And if it were, what could they do? Sail their famous ships up the Rhine
and the Elbe? Besides, that treacherous memory of yours seems to fail you
again. This is Persia, not England."
"Perhaps," answered Ganz. "But the English are very
funny people. There is a rumor, you know, of pourparlers. What if you were to sail
down to the gulf and some little midshipman were to fire a shot across your
bow?"
"Ah, bah! I am a neutral! And Britannia is a fat old woman!
Also a rich one, who doesn't put her hand into her pocket to please her
neighbors. Besides, I have a little affair with the Sheikh of Mohamera—objects
of virtue, indigo, who knows what? As you know, I am a versatile man." And
swinging around on his stool, Magin began to play again.
"But even fat old women sometimes know how to bite,"
objected Ganz.
"Not when their teeth have dropped out," Magin threw
over his shoulder—"or when strong young men plug their jaws!"
VI
Two days later, or not quite three days later, the galley and the
motor-boat whose accidental encounter brought about the events of this
narrative met again. This second meeting took place in the Karun, as before,
but at a point some fifty or sixty miles below Bund-i-Kir. And now the moon,
not the sun, cast its paler glitter between the high dark banks of the stream.
It was a keen-eared young Lur who first heard afar the pant of the mysterious
jinni. Before he or his companions descried the motor-boat, however, Gaston,
rounding a sharp curve above the island of Umm-un-Nakhl, caught sight of the
sweeps of the barge flashing in the moonlight. The unexpected view of that
flash was not disagreeable to Gaston. For, as Gaston put it to himself, he was
sad—despite the efforts of his friend, the telegraph operator at Ahwaz, to
cheer him up. It is true that the operator, who was Irish and a man of
heart, had accorded him but a limited amount of cheer, together with hard words
not a few. Recalling them, Gaston picked up a knife that lay on the seat beside
him—an odd curved knife of the country, in a leather sheath. There is no reason
why I should conceal the fact that this knife was a gift from Gaston's
Bakhtiari henchman, who had presented it to Gaston, with immense solemnity, on
hearing that there was a war in Firengistan and that the young men of the oil
works were going to it. What had become of that type of a Bakhtiari, Gaston
wondered? Then, spying the flash of those remembered oars, he bethought him of
the seigneur of a Brazilian whose hospitable yacht, he had reason to know, was
not destitute of cheer.
When he was near enough the barge to make out the shadow of the
high beak on the moonlit water he cut off the motor. The sweeps forthwith
ceased to flash. Gaston then called out the customary salutation. It was
answered, as before, by the deep voice of the Brazilian. He stood at the rail
of the barge as the motor-boat glided alongside.
"Ah, mon vieux, you are alone this time?"
said Magin genially. "Where are the others?"
"I do not figure to myself," answered Gaston, "that
you derange yourself to inquire for my sacred devil of a Bakhtiari, who has
taken the key of the fields. As for Monsieur Guy, the Englishman you saw the
other time, whose name does not pronounce itself, he has gone to the war. I
just took him and three others to Ahwaz, where they meet more of their friends
and all go together on the steamer to Mohamera."
"Really! And did you hear any news at Ahwaz?"
"The latest is that England has declared war."
"Tiens!" exclaimed Magin. His voice was extraordinarily
loud and deep in the stillness of the river. It impressed Gaston, who sat
looking up at the dark figure in front of the ghostly Lurs. What types, with
their black hats of a theater! He hoped the absence of M'sieu Guy and the
Brazilian's evident surprise would not cloud the latter's hospitality. He was
accordingly gratified to hear the Brazilian say, after a moment: "And they
tell us that madness is not catching! But we, at least, have not lost our
heads. Eh? To prove it, Monsieur Gaston, will you not come aboard a moment, if
you are not in too much of a hurry, and drink a little glass with me?"
Gaston needed no urging. In a trice he had tied his boat to the
barge and was on the deck. The agreeable Brazilian was not too much of a
seigneur to shake his hand in welcome, or to lead him into the cabin where a
young Lur was in the act of lighting candles.
"It is so hot, and so many strange beasts fly about this
river," Magin explained, "that I usually prefer to travel without a
light. But we must see the way to our mouths! What will you have? Beer?
Bordeaux? Champagne?"
Gaston considered this serious question with attention.
"Since Monsieur has the goodness to inquire, if Monsieur has
any of that fine champagne I tasted before—"
"Ah yes! Certainly." And he gave a rapid order to the
Lur. Then he stood silent, his eyes fixed on the reed portière. Gaston was more
impressed than ever as he stood too, béret in hand, looking
around the little saloon, so oddly, yet so comfortably fitted out with rugs and
skins. Presently the Lur reappeared through the reed portière, which aroused
the Brazilian from his abstraction. He filled the two glasses himself, waving
his attendant out of the cabin, and handed one to Gaston. The other he raised
in the air, bowing to his guest. "To the victor!" he said. "And
sit down, won't you? There is more than one glass in that bottle."
Gaston was enchanted to sit down and to sip another cognac.
"But, Monsieur," he exclaimed, looking about again,
"you travel like an emperor!"
"Ho!" laughed Magin, with a quick glance at Gaston.
"I am well enough here. But there is one difficulty." He looked
at his glass, holding it up to the light. "I travel too slowly."
Gaston smiled.
"In Persia, who cares?"
"Well, it happens that at this moment I do. I have affairs at
Mohamera. And in this tub it will take me three days more at the best—without
considering that I shall have to wait till daylight to get through the rocks at
Ahwaz." He lowered his glass and looked back at Gaston. "Tell me: Why
shouldn't you take me down, ahead of my tub? Eh? Or to Sablah, if Mohamera is
too far? It would not delay you so much, after all. You can tell them any story
you like at Sheleilieh. Otherwise I am sure we can make a satisfactory
arrangement." He put his hand suggestively into his pocket.
Gaston considered it between sips. It really was not much to do
for this uncle of America who had been so amiable. And others had suddenly
become so much less amiable than their wont. Moreover that Bakhtiari—he might
repent when he heard the motor again. At any rate one could say that one had
waited for him. And the Brazilian would no doubt show a gratitude so handsome
that one could afford to be a little independent. If those on the steamer asked
any questions when the motor-boat passed, surely the Brazilian, who was more of
a seigneur than any employee of an oil company, would know how to answer.
"Allons! Why not?" he said aloud.
"Bravo!" cried the Brazilian, withdrawing his hand from
his pocket. "Take that as part of my ticket. And excuse me a moment while
I make arrangements."
He disappeared through the reed portière, leaving Gaston to admire
five shining napoleons. It gave him an odd sensation to see, after so long,
those coins of his country. When Magin finally came back, it was through the
inner door.
"Tell me: how much can you carry?" he asked. "I
have four boxes I would like to take with me, besides a few small things.
These fools might wreck themselves at Ahwaz and lose everything in the river.
It would annoy me very much—after all the trouble I have had to collect my
objects of virtue! Besides, the tub will get through more easily without them.
Come in and see."
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Gaston, scratching his
head, when he saw. "My boat won't get through more easily with them,
especially at night." He looked curiously around the cozy stateroom.
"But it will take them, eh? If necessary, we can land them at
Ahwaz and have them carried around the rapids."
The thing took some manoeuvering; but the Lurs, with the help of
much fluent profanity from the master, finally accomplished it without sinking
the motor-boat. Gaston, sitting at the wheel to guard his precious engine
against some clumsiness of the black-hatted mountaineers, looked on with
humorous astonishment at this turn of affairs. He was destined, it appeared, to
be disappointed in his hope of cheer. That cognac was really very good—if only
one had had more of it. Still, one at least had company now; and he was not the
man to be insensible to the fine champagne of the unexpected. Nor was he
unconscious that of many baroque scenes at which he had assisted, this was not
the least baroque.
When the fourth chest had gingerly been lowered into place, Magin
vanished again. Presently he reappeared, followed by his majordomo, to whom he
gave instructions in a low voice. Then he stepped into the stern of the boat.
The majordomo, taking two portmanteaux and a rug from the Lurs behind him,
handed them down to Gaston. Having disposed of them, Gaston stood up, his eyes
on the Lurs who crowded the rail.
"Well, my friend," said Magin gaily, "for whom are
you waiting? We shall yet have opportunities to admire the romantic scenery of
the Karun!"
"Ah! Monsieur takes no—other object of virtue with him?"
"Have you so much room?" laughed Magin. "It is a
good thing there is no wind to-night. Go ahead."
Gaston cast off, backed a few feet, reversed, and described a wide
circle around the stern of the barge. It made a strange picture in the
moonlight, with its black-curved beak and its spectral crew. They shifted to
the other rail as the motor-boat came about, watching silently.
"To your oars!" shouted Magin at them. "Row, sons
of burnt fathers! Will you have me wait a month for you at Mohamera?"
They scattered to their places, and Gaston caught the renewed
flash of the sweeps as he turned to steer for the bend. It was a good thing, he
told himself, that there was no wind to-night. The gunwale was nearer the water
than he or the boat cared for. She made nothing like her usual speed. However,
he said nothing. Neither did Magin—until the dark shadow of Umm-un-Nakhl
divided the glitter in front of them.
"Take the narrower channel," he ordered then. And when
they were in it he added: "Stop, will you, and steer in there, under the
shadow of the shore? I think we would better fortify ourselves for the work of
the night. I at least did not forget the cognac, among my other objects of
virtue."
They fortified themselves accordingly, the Brazilian producing
cigars as well. He certainly was an original, thought Gaston, now hopeful of
experiencing actual cheer. That originality proved itself anew when, after a
much longer period of refreshment than would suit most gentlemen in a hurry,
the familiar flash became visible in the river behind them.
"Now be quiet," commanded the extraordinary uncle of
America. "Whatever happens we mustn't let them hear us. If they take this
channel, we will slip down, and run part way up the other. We shall give them a
little surprise."
Nearer and nearer came the flash, which suddenly went out
behind the island. A recurrent splash succeeded it, and a wild melancholy singing.
The singing and the recurrent splash grew louder, filled the silence of the
river, grew softer; and presently the receding oars flashed again, below the
island. But not until the last glint was lost in the shimmer of the water, the
last sound had died out of the summer night, did the Brazilian begin to unfold
his surprise.
"Que diable allait-on faire dans cette galère!"
he exclaimed. "It's the first time I ever knew them to do the right thing!
Let us drink one more little glass to the good fortune of their voyage. And
here, by the way, is another part of my ticket." He handed Gaston five
more napoleons. "But now, my friend, we have some work. I see we shall
never get anywhere with all this load. Let us therefore consign our objects of
virtue to the safe keeping of the river. He will guard them better than
anybody. Is it deep enough here?"
It was deep enough. But what an affair, getting those heavy chests
overboard! The last one nearly pulled Magin in with it. One of the clamps
caught in his clothes, threw him against the side of the boat, and jerked
something after it into the water. He sat down, swearing softly to himself, to
catch his breath and investigate the damage.
"It was only my revolver," he announced. "And we
have no need of that, since we are not going to the war! Now, my good Gaston, I
have changed my mind. We will not go down the river, after all. We will go
up."
Gaston, this time, stared at him.
"Up? But, Monsieur, the barge—"
"What is my barge to you, dear Gaston? Besides, it is no
longer mine. It now belongs to the Sheikh of Mohamera—with whatever objects of
virtue it still contains. He has long teased me for it. And none of them can
read the note they are carrying to him! Didn't I tell you I was going to give
them a little surprise? Well, there it is. I am not a man, you see, to be
tied to objects of virtue. Which reminds me: where are my portmanteaux?"
"Here, on the tank."
"Fi! And you a chauffeur! Give them to me. I will arrange
myself a little. As for you, turn around and see how quickly you can carry me
to the charming resort of Bund-i-Kir—where Antigonus fought Eumenes and the
Silver Shields for the spoils of Susa, and won them. Did you ever hear, Gaston,
of that interesting incident?"
"Monsieur is too strong for me," replied Gaston,
cryptically. He took off his cap, wiped his face, and sat down at the wheel.
"If a man is not strong, what is he?" rejoined Magin.
"But you will not find this cigar too strong," he added amicably.
Gaston did not. What he found strong was the originality of his
passenger—and the way that cognac failed, in spite of its friendly warmth, to
cheer him. For he kept thinking of that absurd Bakhtiari, and of the telegraph
operator, and of M'sieu Guy, and the others, as he sped northward on the silent
moonlit river.
"This is very well, eh, Gaston?" uttered the Brazilian
at last. "We march better without our objects of virtue." Gaston felt
that he smiled as he lay smoking on his rug in the bottom of the boat.
"But tell me," he went on presently, "how is it, if I may ask,
that you didn't happen to go in the steamer too, with your Monsieur Guy? You do
not look to me either old or incapable."
There it was, the same question, which really seemed to need no
answer at first, but which somehow became harder to answer every time! Why was
it? And how could it spoil so good a cognac?
"How is it?" repeated Gaston. "It is, Monsieur,
that France is a great lady who does not derange herself for a simple vagabond
like Gaston, or about whose liaisons or quarrels it is not for Gaston to
concern himself. This great lady has naturally not asked my opinion about
this quarrel. But if she had, I would have told her that it is very stupid for
everybody in Europe to begin shooting at each other. Why? Simply because it
pleases ces messieurs the Austrians to treat ces
messieurs the Serbs de haut en bas! What have I to do with
that? Besides, this great lady is very far away, and by the time I arrive she
will have arranged her affair. In the meantime there are many others, younger
and more capable than I, whose express business it is to arrange such affairs.
Will one piou-piou more or less change the result of one
battle? Of course not! And if I should lose my hand or my head, who would buy
me another? Not France! I have seen a little what France does in such cases. My
own father left his leg at Gravelotte, together with his job and my mother's
peace. I have seen what happened to her, and how it is that I am a
vagabond—about whom France has never troubled herself." He shouted it over
his shoulder, above the noise of the motor, with an increasing loudness.
"Also," he went on, "I have duties not so far away as France. Up
there, at Sheleilieh, there will perhaps be next month a little Gaston. If I go
away, who will feed him? I have not the courage of Monsieur, who separates
himself so easily from objects of virtue. Voilà!"
Magin said nothing for a moment. Then:
"Courage, yes! One needs a little courage in this curious
world." There was a pause, as the boat cut around a dark curve. "But
do not think, my poor Gaston, that it is I who blame you. On the contrary, I
find you very reasonable—more reasonable than many ministers of state. If
others in Europe had been able to express themselves like you, Gaston, Monsieur
Guy and his friends would not have run away so suddenly. It takes courage, too,
not to run after them." He made a sound, as if changing his position, and
presently he began to sing softly to himself.
"Monsieur would make a fortune in the café-chantant," commented
Gaston. He began to feel, at last, after the favorable reception of his speech,
a little cheered. He felt cooler, too, in this quiet rushing moonlight of the
river. "What is it that Monsieur sings? It seems to me that I have heard
that air."
"Very likely you have, Gaston. It is a little song of
sentiment, sung by all the sentimental young ladies of the world. He who wrote
it, however, was far from sentimental. He was a fellow countryman of mine—and
of the late Abraham!—who loved your country so much that he lived in it and
died in it." And Magin sang again, more loudly, the first words of the
song:
"Ich weiss nicht,
was soll es bedeuten,
Dass ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn."
Gaston listened with admiration, astonishment, and perplexity. It
suddenly came back to him how this original Brazilian had sworn when the chest
caught his clothes.
"But, Monsieur, I thought—Are you, then, a German?"
Magin, after a second, laughed.
"But Gaston, am I then an enemy?"
Gaston examined him in the moonlight.
"Well," he answered slowly, "if your country and
mine are at war—"
"What has that to do with us, as you just now so truly said?
You have found that your country's quarrel was not cause enough for you to
leave Persia, and so have I. Voilà tout!" He examined Gaston
in turn. "But I thought you knew all the time. Such is fame! I flattered
myself that your Monsieur Guy would leave no one untold. Whereas he has left us
the pleasure of a situation more piquant, after all, than I supposed. We enjoy
the magnificent moonlight of the south, we admire a historic river under its
most successful aspect, and we do not exalt ourselves because our countrymen,
many hundreds of miles away, have lost their heads." He smiled over
the piquancy of the situation. "Strength is good," he went on in his
impressive bass, "and courage is better. But reason, as you so justly say,
is best of all. For which reason," he added, "allow me to recommend
to you, my dear Gaston, that you look a little where you are steering."
Gaston looked. But he discovered that his moment of cheer had been
all too brief. A piquant situation, indeed! The piquancy of that situation
somehow complicated everything more darkly than before. If there were reasons
why he should not go away with the others, as they had all taken it for granted
that he would do, was that a reason why he, Gaston, whose father had lost a leg
at Gravelotte, should do this masquerading German a service? All the German's
amiability and originality did not change that. Perhaps, indeed, that explained
the originality and amiability. The German, at any rate, did not seem to
trouble himself about it. When Gaston next looked over his shoulder, Magin was
lying flat on his back in the bottom of the boat, with his hands under his head
and his eyes closed. And so he continued to lie, silent and apparently asleep,
while his troubled companion, hand on wheel and béret on ear,
steered through the waning moonlight of the Karun.
VII
The moon was but a ghost of itself, and a faint rose was beginning
to tinge the pallor of the sky behind the Bakhtiari mountains, when the motor
began to miss fire. Gaston, stifling an exclamation, cut it off, unscrewed the
cap of the tank, and measured the gasolene. Then he stepped softly forward to
the place in the bow where he kept his reserve cans. Magin, roused by the
stopping of the boat, sat up, stretching.
"Tiens!" he exclaimed. "Here we are!"
He looked about at the high clay banks enclosing the tawny basin of the
four rivers. In front of him the konar trees of Bund-i-Kir showed their dark
green. At the right, on top of the bluff of the eastern shore, a solitary
peasant stood white against the sky. Near him a couple of oxen on an inclined
plane worked the rude mechanism that drew up water to the fields. The creak of
the pulleys and the splash of the dripping goatskins only made more intense the
early morning silence. "Do you remember, Gaston?" asked Magin.
"It was here we first had the good fortune to meet—not quite three weeks
ago."
"I remember," answered Gaston, keeping his eye on the
mouth of the tank he was filling, "that I was the one who wished you
peace, Monsieur; and that no one asked who you were or where you were
going."
Magin yawned.
"Well, you seem to have satisfied yourself now on those
important points. I might add, however, for your further information, that I
think I shall not go to Bund-i-Kir, which looks too peaceful to disturb at this
matinal hour, but there—on the western shore of the Ab-i-Shuteit. And that
reminds me. I still have to pay you the rest of my ticket."
He reached forward and laid a little pile of gold on Gaston's
seat. Gaston, watching out of the corner of his eye as he poured gasolene, saw
that there were more than five napoleons in that pile. There were at least ten.
"What would you say, Monsieur," he asked slowly,
emptying his tin, "if I were to take you instead to Sheleilieh—where there
are still a few of the English?"
"I would say, my good Gaston, that you had more courage than
I thought. By the way," he went on casually, "what is this?"
He reached forward again toward Gaston's seat, where lay the
Bakhtiari's present. Gaston dropped his tin and made a snatch at it. But Magin
was too quick for him. He retreated to his place at the stern of the boat,
where he drew the knife out of its sheath.
"Sharp, too!" he commented, with a smile at Gaston.
"And my revolver is gone!"
Gaston, very pale, stepped to his seat.
"That, Monsieur, was given me by my Bakhtiari
brother-in-law—to take to the war. When he found I had not the courage to go,
he ran away from me."
"But you thought there might be more than one way to make
war, eh? Well, I at least am not an Apache. Perhaps the sharks will know what
to do with it." The blade glittered in the brightening air and splashed
out of sight. And Magin, folding his arms, smiled again at Gaston.
"Another object of virtue for the safe custody of the Karun!"
"But not all!" cried Gaston thickly, seizing the little
pile of gold beside him and flinging it after the knife.
Magin's smile broadened.
"Have you not forgotten something, Gaston?"
"But certainly not, Monsieur," he replied, putting his
hand into his pocket. The next moment a second shower of gold caught the light.
And where the little circles of ripples widened in the river, a sharp fin
suddenly cut the muddy water.
"Oho! Mr. Shark loses no time!" cried Magin. He stopped
smiling, and turned back to Gaston. "But we do. Allow me to say, my
friend, that you show yourself really too romantic. This is no doubt an
excellent comedy which we are playing for the benefit of that gentleman on the
bluff. But even he begins to get tired of it. See? He starts to say his morning
prayer. So be so good as to show a little of the reason which you know how to
show, and start for shore. But first you might do well to screw on the cap of
your tank—if you do not mind a little friendly advice."
Gaston looked around absent-mindedly, and took up the nickel cap.
But he suddenly turned back to Magin.
"You speak too much about friends, Monsieur. I am not your
friend. I am your enemy. And I shall not take you there, to the
Ab-i-Shuteit. I shall take you into the Ab-i-Gerger—to Sheleilieh and the
English."
Magin considered him, with a flicker in his lighted eyes.
"You might perhaps have done it if you had not forgotten
about your gasolene—And you may yet. We shall see. But it seems to me,
my—enemy!—that you make a miscalculation. Let us suppose that you take me to
Sheleilieh. It is highly improbable, because you no longer have your knife to
assist you. I, it is true, no longer have my revolver to assist me; but I have
two arms, longer and I fancy stronger than yours. However, let us make the
supposition. And let us make the equally improbable supposition that I fall
into the hands of the English. What can they do to me? The worst they can do is
to give me free lodging and nourishment till the end of the war! Whereas you,
Gaston—you do not seem to have reflected that life will not be so simple for
you, after this. There is a very unpleasant little word by which they name
citizens who do not respond to their country's call to arms. In other words,
Mr. Deserter, you have taken the road which, in war time, ends between a
firing-squad and a stone wall."
Gaston, evidently, had not reflected on that. He stared at his
nickel cap, turning it around in his fingers.
"You see?" continued Magin. "Well then, what about
that little Gaston? I do not know what has suddenly made you so much less
reasonable than you were last night; but I, at least, have not changed. And I
see no reason why that little Gaston should be left between two horns of a
dilemma. In fact I see excellent reasons not only why you should take me that
short distance to the shore, but why you should accompany me to Dizful. There I
am at home. I am, more than any one else, emperor. And I need a man like you. I
am going to have a car, I am going to have a boat, I am going to have a place
in the sun. There will be many changes in that country after the war. You will
see. It is not so far, either, from here. It is evident that your heart, like
mine, is in this part of the world. So come with me. Eh, Gaston?"
"Heart!" repeated Gaston, with a bitter smile. "It
is you who speak of the heart, and of—— But you do not speak of the little
surprise with which you might some day regale me, Mr. Enemy! Nor do you say
what you fear—that I might take it into my head to go fishing at
Umm-un-Nakhl!"
"Ah bah!" exclaimed Magin impatiently. "However,
you are right. I am not like you. I do not betray my country for a little savage
with a jewel in her nose! It is because of that small difference between us,
Gaston, between your people and my people, that you will see such changes here
after the war. But you will not see them unless you accept my offer. After all,
what else can you do?" He left Gaston to take it in as he twirled his
metal cap. "There is the sun already," Magin added presently.
"We shall have a hot journey."
Gaston looked over his shoulder at the quivering rim of gold that
surged up behind the Bakhtiari mountains. How sharp and purple they were,
against what a deepening blue! On the bluff the white-clad peasant stood with
his back to the light, his hands folded in front of him, his head bowed.
"You look tired, Gaston," said Magin pleasantly.
"Will you have this cigar?"
"No, thank you," replied Gaston. He felt in his own
pockets, however, first for a cigarette and then for a match. He was indeed
tired, so tired that he no longer remembered which pocket to fumble in or what
he held in his hand as he fumbled. Ah, that sacred tank! Then he suddenly
smiled again, looking at Magin. "There is something else I can do!"
"What?" asked Magin as he lay at ease in the stern,
enjoying the first perfume of his cigar. "You can't go back to France,
now, and I should hardly advise you to go back to Sheleilieh. At least until
after the war. Then there will be no more English there to ask you
troublesome questions!"
Gaston lighted his cigarette. And, keeping his eyes on Magin, he
slowly moved his hand, in which were both the nickel cap and the still-burning
match, toward the mouth of the tank.
"This!" he answered.
Magin watched him. He did not catch the connection at first. He
saw it quickly enough, however. In his pale translucent eyes there was
something very like a flare.
"Look out—or we shall go together after all!"
"We shall go together, after all," repeated Gaston.
"And here is your place in the sun!"
Magin still watched, as the little flame flickered through the
windless air. But he did not move.
"It will go out! And you have not the courage Apache!"
"You will see, Prussian!" The match stopped, at last,
above the open hole; but the hand that held it trembled a little, and so did
the strange low voice that said: "This at least I can do—for that great
lady, far away."
The peasant on the bluff, prostrated toward Mecca with his
forehead in the dust, was startled out of his prayer by a roar in the basin
below him. There where the trim-white jinn-boat of the Firengi had
been was now a blazing mass of wreckage, out of which came fierce cracklings,
hissings, sounds not to be named. As he stared at it the wreckage fell apart,
began to disappear in a cloud of smoke and steam that lengthened toward the
southern gateway of the basin. And in the turbid water, cut by swift sharks'
fins, he saw a sudden bright trail of red, redder than any fire or sunrise. It
paled gradually, the smoke melted after the steam, the current caught the last
charred fragments of wreckage and drew them out of sight.
The peasant watched it all silently, as if waiting for some new
magic of the Firengi, from his high bank of the Karun—that
snow-born river bound for distant palms, that had seen so many generations of
the faces of men, so many of the barks to which men trust their hearts, their
hopes, their treasures, as it wound, century after century, from the mountains
to the sea. Then, at last, the peasant folded his hands anew and bowed his head
toward Mecca.
By EDNA FERBER
From The
Metropolitan Magazine
Those of you who have
dwelt—or even lingered—in Chicago, Illinois (this is not a humorous story), are
familiar with the region known as the Loop. For those others of you to whom
Chicago is a transfer point between New York and San Francisco there is
presented this brief explanation:
The Loop is a clamorous, smoke-infested district embraced by the
iron arms of the elevated tracks. In a city boasting fewer millions, it would
be known familiarly as downtown. From Congress to Lake Street, from Wabash
almost to the river, those thunderous tracks make a complete circle, or loop.
Within it lie the retail shops, the commercial hotels, the theaters, the
restaurants. It is the Fifth Avenue (diluted) and the Broadway (deleted) of
Chicago. And he who frequents it by night in search of amusement and cheer is
known, vulgarly, as a loop-hound.
Jo Hertz was a loop-hound. On the occasion of those sparse first
nights granted the metropolis of the Middle West he was always present, third
row, aisle, left. When a new loop café was opened, Jo's table always commanded
an unobstructed view of anything worth viewing. On entering he was wont to say,
"Hello, Gus," with careless cordiality to the head-waiter, the while
his eye roved expertly from table to table as he removed his gloves. He ordered
things under glass, so that his table, at midnight or thereabouts,
resembled a hot-bed that favors the bell system. The waiters fought for him. He
was the kind of man who mixes his own salad dressing. He liked to call for a
bowl, some cracked ice, lemon, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, vinegar and oil,
and make a rite of it. People at near-by tables would lay down their knives and
forks to watch, fascinated. The secret of it seemed to lie in using all the oil
in sight and calling for more.
That was Jo—a plump and lonely bachelor of fifty. A plethoric,
roving-eyed and kindly man, clutching vainly at the garments of a youth that
had long slipped past him. Jo Hertz, in one of those pinch-waist belted suits
and a trench coat and a little green hat, walking up Michigan Avenue of a bright
winter's afternoon, trying to take the curb with a jaunty youthfulness against
which every one of his fat-encased muscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or
pity, depending on one's vision.
The gay-dog business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He
had been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother of
three unwed and selfish sisters is an under dog. The tale of how Jo Hertz came
to be a loop-hound should not be compressed within the limits of a short story.
It should be told as are the photoplays, with frequent throw-backs and many
cut-ins. To condense twenty-three years of a man's life into some five or six
thousand words requires a verbal economy amounting to parsimony.
At twenty-seven Jo had been the dutiful, hard-working son (in the
wholesale harness business) of a widowed and gummidging mother, who called him
Joey. If you had looked close you would have seen that now and then a double
wrinkle would appear between Jo's eyes—a wrinkle that had no business there at
twenty-seven. Then Jo's mother died, leaving him handicapped by a death-bed
promise, the three sisters and a three-story-and-basement house on Calumet
Avenue. Jo's wrinkle became a fixture.
Death-bed promises should be broken as lightly as they are seriously
made. The dead have no right to lay their clammy fingers upon the living.
"Joey," she had said, in her high, thin voice,
"take care of the girls."
"I will, ma," Jo had choked.
"Joey," and the voice was weaker, "promise me you
won't marry till the girls are all provided for." Then as Jo had
hesitated, appalled: "Joey, it's my dying wish. Promise!"
"I promise, ma," he had said.
Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a
completely ruined life.
They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style,
too. That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught school over on
the West Side. In those days it took her almost two hours each way. She said
the kind of costume she required should have been corrugated steel. But all three
knew what was being worn, and they wore it—or fairly faithful copies of it.
Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim the State
Street windows and come away with a mental photograph of every separate tuck,
hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of departments showed her the things they kept in
drawers, and she went home and reproduced them with the aid of a
two-dollar-a-day seamstress. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called
her Babe. She wasn't really a beauty, but some one had once told her that she
looked like Janice Meredith (it was when that work of fiction was at the height
of its popularity). For years afterward, whenever she went to parties, she
affected a single, fat curl over her right shoulder, with a rose stuck through it.
Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the
household leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva
kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe's profession was being the family beauty,
and it took all her spare time. Eva always let her sleep until ten.
This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But it
was an empty title. The three women dominated his life. They weren't
consciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they would have put you down
as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, it means that you must
constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most
men of Jo's age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night,
whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue polka-dot for a
maroon tie, whipped off the maroon for a shot-silk, and at the last moment
decided against the shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white, because she
had once said she preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening
his feathers for conquest, was saying:
"Well, my God, I am hurrying! Give a man
time, can't you? I just got home. You girls have been laying around the house
all day. No wonder you're ready."
He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a
time when he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and brilliant-hued
socks, according to the style of that day, and the inalienable right of any
unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those rare occasions when his business
necessitated an out-of-town trip, he would spend half a day floundering about
the shops selecting handkerchiefs, or stockings, or feathers, or fans, or
gloves for the girls. They always turned out to be the wrong kind, judging by
their reception.
From Carrie, "What in the world do I want of a fan!"
"I thought you didn't have one," Jo would say.
"I haven't. I never go to dances."
Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his
way when disturbed. "I just thought you'd like one. I thought every girl
liked a fan. Just," feebly, "just to—to have."
"Oh, for pity's sake!"
And from Eva or Babe, "I've got silk
stockings, Jo." Or, "You brought me handkerchiefs the last
time."
There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in
any gift freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the exquisite pleasure
it gave him to select these things; these fine, soft, silken things. There were
many things about this slow-going, amiable brother of theirs that they never
suspected. If you had told them he was a dreamer of dreams, for example, they
would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o'clock, after a hard day
downtown, he would doze over the evening paper. At intervals he would wake,
red-eyed, to a snatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue
you can wear it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet,
too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new
spring dress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed old
smoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; had banished
himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather
dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening clothes. The kind
of a man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose a toast, or give an order
to a man-servant, or whisper a gallant speech in a lady's ear with equal ease.
The shabby old house on Calumet Avenue was transformed into a brocaded and
chandeliered rendezvous for the brilliance of the city. Beauty was there, and
wit. But none so beautiful and witty as She. Mrs.—er—Jo Hertz. There was wine,
of course; but no vulgar display. There was music; the soft sheen of satin;
laughter. And he the gracious, tactful host, king of his own domain—
"Jo, for heaven's sake, if you're going to snore go to
bed!"
"Why—did I fall asleep?"
"You haven't been doing anything else all evening. A person
would think you were fifty instead of thirty."
And Jo Hertz was again just the dull, gray, commonplace brother of
three well-meaning sisters.
Babe used to say petulantly, "Jo, why don't you ever bring
home any of your men friends? A girl might as well not have any brother, all
the good you do."
Jo, conscience-stricken, did his best to make amends. But a man
who has been petticoat-ridden for years loses the knack, somehow, of
comradeship with men. He acquires, too, a knowledge of women, and a distaste
for them, equaled only, perhaps, by that of an elevator-starter in a department
store.
Which brings us to one Sunday in May. Jo came home from a late
Sunday afternoon walk to find company for supper. Carrie often had in one of
her school-teacher friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, or even Eva
a staid guest of the old-girl type. There was always a Sunday night supper of
potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo rather
enjoyed it, being a hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests with the
undazzled eyes of a man to whom they were just so many petticoats, timid of the
night streets and requiring escort home. If you had suggested to him that some
of his sisters' popularity was due to his own presence, or if you had hinted
that the more kittenish of these visitors were palpably making eyes at him, he
would have stared in amazement and unbelief.
This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends.
"Emily," said Carrie, "this is my brother,
Jo." Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking women
in the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted downward.
"Happy to meet you," said Jo, and looked down at a
different sort altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of
Carrie's friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed,
and sort of—well, crinkly looking. You know. The corners of her mouth when
she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair, which was
brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of being golden.
Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and soft,
so that you were afraid of crushing it, until you discovered she had a firm
little grip all her own. It surprised and amused you, that grip, as does a
baby's unexpected clutch on your patronizing forefinger. As Jo felt it in his
own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him. Something inside Jo Hertz
stopped working for a moment, then lurched sickeningly, then thumped like mad.
It was his heart. He stood staring down at her, and she up at him, until the
others laughed. Then their hands fell apart, lingeringly.
"Are you a school-teacher, Emily?" he said.
"Kindergarten. It's my first year. And don't call me Emily,
please."
"Why not? It's your name. I think it's the prettiest name in
the world." Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he was perfectly
aghast to find himself saying it. But he meant it.
At supper he passed her things, and stared, until everybody
laughed again, and Eva said acidly, "Why don't you feed her?"
It wasn't that Emily had an air of helplessness. She just made you
feel you wanted her to be helpless, so that you could help her.
Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night he began to strain at
the leash. He took his sisters out, dutifully, but he would suggest, with a
carelessness that deceived no one, "Don't you want one of your girl
friends to come along? That little What's-her-name—Emily, or something. So
long's I've got three of you, I might as well have a full squad."
For a long time he didn't know what was the matter with him. He
only knew he was miserable, and yet happy. Sometimes his heart seemed to ache
with an actual physical ache. He realized that he wanted to do things for
Emily. He wanted to buy things for Emily—useless, pretty, expensive things that
he couldn't afford. He wanted to buy everything that Emily needed, and everything
that Emily desired. He wanted to marry Emily. That was it. He discovered that
one day, with a shock, in the midst of a transaction in the harness business.
He stared at the man with whom he was dealing until that startled person grew
uncomfortable.
"What's the matter, Hertz?"
"Matter?"
"You look as if you'd seen a ghost or found a gold mine. I
don't know which."
"Gold mine," said Jo. And then, "No. Ghost."
For he remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And the
harness business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, as the
automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But he was
not that kind of business man. It never occurred to him to jump out of the
down-going vehicle and catch the up-going one. He stayed on, vainly applying
brakes that refused to work.
"You know, Emily, I couldn't support two households now. Not
the way things are. But if you'll wait. If you'll only wait. The girls
might—that is, Babe and Carrie—"
She was a sensible little thing, Emily. "Of course I'll wait.
But we mustn't just sit back and let the years go by. We've got to help."
She went about it as if she were already a little matchmaking
matron. She corraled all the men she had ever known and introduced them to
Babe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, and en masse. She arranged parties
at which Babe could display the curl. She got up picnics. She stayed home while
Jo took the three about. When she was present she tried to look as plain and
obscure as possible, so that the sisters should show up to advantage. She
schemed, and planned, and contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo's despairing
eyes.
And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still taught
school, and hated it. Eva kept house, more and more complainingly as prices
advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, the family beauty; but
even she knew that the time was past for curls. Emily's hair, somehow, lost its
glint and began to look just plain brown. Her crinkliness began to iron out.
"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night.
"We could be happy, anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of
people begin that way. Of course, I couldn't give you all I'd like to at first.
But maybe, after a while—"
No dreams of salons, and brocade, and velvet-footed servitors, and
satin damask now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and Emily to work
for. That was his dream. But it seemed less possible than that other absurd one
had been.
You know that Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked
fluffy. She knew women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and Babe. She
tried to imagine herself taking the household affairs and the housekeeping
pocketbook out of Eva's expert hands. Eva had once displayed to her a sheaf of
aigrettes she had bought with what she saved out of the housekeeping money. So
then she tried to picture herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in
Eva's hands. And everything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew
she'd want to put away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat
it. She was that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightful
haggling with butcher and vegetable peddler. She knew she'd want to muss Jo's
hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, without the
awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden eyes and ears.
"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't
object. And they would, Jo. Wouldn't they?"
His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me,
don't you, Emily?"
"I do, Jo. I love you—and love you—and love you. But, Jo,
I—can't."
"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just
thought, maybe, somehow—"
The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped.
Then they both shut their eyes, with a little shudder, as though what they saw
was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny hand that was so unexpectedly
firm, tightened its hold on his, and his crushed the absurd fingers until she
winced with pain.
That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it.
Emily wasn't the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There are
too many Jo's in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and then thump at
the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip. One year
later Emily was married to a young man whose father owned a large, pie-shaped
slice of the prosperous state of Michigan.
That being safely accomplished, there was something grimly
humorous in the trend taken by affairs in the old house on Calumet. For Eva
married. Of all people, Eva! Married well, too, though he was a great deal
older than she. She went off in a hat she had copied from a French model at
Fields's, and a suit she had contrived with a home dressmaker, aided by
pressing on the part of the little tailor in the basement over on Thirty-first
Street. It was the last of that, though. The next time they saw her, she had on
a hat that even she would have despaired of copying, and a suit that sort of
melted into your gaze. She moved to the North Side (trust Eva for that), and
Babe assumed the management of the household on Calumet Avenue. It was rather a
pinched little household now, for the harness business shrank and shrank.
"I don't see how you can expect me to keep house decently on
this!" Babe would say contemptuously. Babe's nose, always a little
inclined to sharpness, had whittled down to a point of late. "If you knew
what Ben gives Eva."
"It's the best I can do, Sis. Business is something
rotten."
"Ben says if you had the least bit of—" Ben was Eva's
husband, and quotable, as are all successful men.
"I don't care what Ben says," shouted Jo, goaded into
rage. "I'm sick of your everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your own, why
don't you, if you're so stuck on the way he does things."
And Babe did. She made a last desperate drive, aided by Eva, and
she captured a rather surprised young man in the brokerage way, who had made up
his mind not to marry for years and years. Eva wanted to give her her wedding
things, but at that Jo broke into sudden rebellion.
"No, sir! No Ben is going to buy my sister's wedding clothes,
understand? I guess I'm not broke—yet. I'll furnish the money for her things,
and there'll be enough of them, too."
Babe had as useless a trousseau, and as filled with extravagant pink-and-blue
and lacy and frilly things as any daughter of doting parents. Jo seemed to find
a grim pleasure in providing them. But it left him pretty well pinched. After
Babe's marriage (she insisted that they call her Estelle now) Jo sold the house
on Calumet. He and Carrie took one of those little flats that were springing
up, seemingly over night, all through Chicago's South Side.
There was nothing domestic about Carrie. She had given up teaching
two years before, and had gone into Social Service work on the West Side. She
had what is known as a legal mind, hard, clear, orderly, and she made a great
success of it. Her dream was to live at the Settlement House and give all her
time to the work. Upon the little household she bestowed a certain amount of grim,
capable attention. It was the same kind of attention she would have given
a piece of machinery whose oiling and running had been entrusted to her care.
She hated it, and didn't hesitate to say so.
Jo took to prowling about department store basements, and
household goods sections. He was always sending home a bargain in a ham, or a
sack of potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a window clamp, or a new kind of
paring knife. He was forever doing odd little jobs that the janitor should have
done. It was the domestic in him claiming its own.
Then, one night, Carrie came home with a dull glow in her leathery
cheeks, and her eyes alight with resolve. They had what she called a plain
talk.
"Listen, Jo. They've offered me the job of first assistant
resident worker. And I'm going to take it. Take it! I know fifty other girls
who'd give their ears for it. I go in next month."
They were at dinner. Jo looked up from his plate, dully. Then he
glanced around the little dining-room, with its ugly tan walls and its heavy
dark furniture (the Calumet Street pieces fitted cumbersomely into the
five-room flat).
"Away? Away from here, you mean—to live?"
Carrie laid down her fork. "Well, really, Jo! After all that
explanation."
"But to go over there to live! Why, that neighborhood's full
of dirt, and disease, and crime, and the Lord knows what all. I can't let you
do that, Carrie."
Carrie's chin came up. She laughed a short little laugh. "Let
me! That's eighteenth-century talk, Jo. My life's my own to live. I'm
going."
And she went. Jo stayed on in the apartment until the lease was
up. Then he sold what furniture he could, stored or gave away the rest, and
took a room on Michigan Avenue in one of the old stone mansions whose decayed
splendor was being put to such purpose.
Jo Hertz was his own master. Free to marry. Free to come and go.
And he found he didn't even think of marrying. He didn't even want to come
or go, particularly. A rather frumpy old bachelor, with thinning hair and a
thickening neck. Much has been written about the unwed, middle-aged woman; her
fussiness, her primness, her angularity of mind and body. In the male that same
fussiness develops, and a certain primness, too. But he grows flabby where she
grows lean.
Every Thursday evening he took dinner at Eva's, and on Sunday noon
at Stell's. He tucked his napkin under his chin and openly enjoyed the
home-made soup and the well-cooked meats. After dinner he tried to talk
business with Eva's husband, or Stell's. His business talks were the
old-fashioned kind, beginning:
"Well, now, looka here. Take, f'rinstance your raw hides and
leathers."
But Ben and George didn't want to take f'rinstance your raw hides
and leathers. They wanted, when they took anything at all, to take golf, or
politics, or stocks. They were the modern type of business man who prefers to
leave his work out of his play. Business, with them, was a profession—a finely
graded and balanced thing, differing from Jo's clumsy, downhill style as
completely as does the method of a great criminal detective differ from that of
a village constable. They would listen, restively, and say, "Uh-uh,"
at intervals, and at the first chance they would sort of fade out of the room,
with a meaning glance at their wives. Eva had two children now. Girls. They treated
Uncle Jo with good-natured tolerance. Stell had no children. Uncle Jo
degenerated, by almost imperceptible degrees, from the position of honored
guest, who is served with white meat, to that of one who is content with a leg
and one of those obscure and bony sections which, after much turning with a
bewildered and investigating knife and fork, leave one baffled and unsatisfied.
Eva and Stell got together and decided that Jo ought to marry.
"It isn't natural," Eva told him. "I never saw a
man who took so little interest in women."
"Me!" protested Jo, almost shyly. "Women!"
"Yes. Of course. You act like a frightened school boy."
So they had in for dinner certain friends and acquaintances of
fitting age. They spoke of them as "splendid girls." Between
thirty-six and forty. They talked awfully well, in a firm, clear way, about
civics, and classes, and politics, and economics, and boards. They rather
terrified Jo. He didn't understand much that they talked about, and he felt
humbly inferior, and yet a little resentful, as if something had passed him by.
He escorted them home, dutifully, though they told him not to bother, and they
evidently meant it. They seemed capable, not only of going home quite
unattended, but of delivering a pointed lecture to any highwayman or brawler
who might molest them.
The following Thursday Eva would say, "How did you like her,
Jo?"
"Like who?" Jo would spar feebly.
"Miss Matthews."
"Who's she?"
"Now, don't be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl
who was here for dinner. The one who talked so well on the emigration
question."
"Oh, her! Why, I liked her, all right. Seems to be a smart
woman."
"Smart! She's a perfectly splendid girl."
"Sure," Jo would agree cheerfully.
"But didn't you like her?"
"I can't say I did, Eve. And I can't say I didn't. She made
me think a lot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I
recall her, she must have been a fine woman. But I never thought of her as a
woman at all. She was just Teacher."
"You make me tired," snapped Eva impatiently. "A man
of your age. You don't expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!"
"I don't expect to marry anybody," Jo had answered.
And that was the truth, lonely though he often was.
The following year Eva moved to Winnetka. Any one who got the
meaning of the Loop knows the significance of a move to a north shore suburb,
and a house. Eva's daughter, Ethel, was growing up, and her mother had an eye
on society.
That did away with Jo's Thursday dinner. Then Stell's husband
bought a car. They went out into the country every Sunday. Stell said it was
getting so that maids objected to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides, they were
unhealthy, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask Jo to come along, but
by the time their friends were placed, and the lunch, and the boxes, and
sweaters, and George's camera, and everything, there seemed to be no room for a
man of Jo's bulk. So that eliminated the Sunday dinners.
"Just drop in any time during the week," Stell said,
"for dinner. Except Wednesday—that's our bridge night—and Saturday. And,
of course, Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for me to 'phone."
And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of
those you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped up against
the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and with indifference to the
stare of the passer-by surveying them through the brazen plate-glass window.
And then came the War. The war that spelled death and destruction
to millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo Hertz, and transformed him,
over night, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor whose business was a failure to a
prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was the shortage in hides for the
making of his product—leather! The armies of Europe called for it.
Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions of straps! More! More!
The musty old harness business over on Lake Street was magically
changed from a dust-covered, dead-alive concern to an orderly hive that hummed
and glittered with success. Orders poured in. Jo Hertz had inside information
on the War. He knew about troops and horses. He talked with French and English
and Italian buyers—noblemen, many of them—commissioned by their countries to
get American-made supplies. And now, when he said to Ben or George, "Take
f'rinstance your raw hides and leathers," they listened with respectful
attention.
And then began the gay dog business in the life of Jo Hertz. He
developed into a loop-hound, ever keen on the scent of fresh pleasure. That
side of Jo Hertz which had been repressed and crushed and ignored began to
bloom, unhealthily. At first he spent money on his rather contemptuous nieces.
He sent them gorgeous fans, and watch bracelets, and velvet bags. He took two
expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, and there was something more
tear-compelling than grotesque about the way he gloated over the luxury of a
separate ice-water tap in the bathroom. He explained it.
"Just turn it on. Ice-water! Any hour of the day or
night."
He bought a car. Naturally. A glittering affair; in color a bright
blue, with pale-blue leather straps and a great deal of gold fittings and wire
wheels. Eva said it was the kind of a thing a soubrette would use, rather than
an elderly business man. You saw him driving about in it, red-faced and rather
awkward at the wheel. You saw him, too, in the Pompeiian room at the Congress
Hotel of a Saturday afternoon when doubtful and roving-eyed matrons in kolinsky
capes are wont to congregate to sip pale amber drinks. Actors grew to recognize
the semi-bald head and the shining, round, good-natured face looming out at
them from the dim well of the parquet, and sometimes, in a musical show,
they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out the critics as
they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding acquaintance with two of them.
"Kelly, of the Herald," he would say
carelessly. "Bean, of the Trib. They're all afraid of
him."
So he frolicked, ponderously. In New York he might have been
called a Man About Town.
And he was lonesome. He was very lonesome. So he searched about in
his mind and brought from the dim past the memory of the luxuriously furnished
establishment of which he used to dream in the evenings when he dozed over his
paper in the old house on Calumet. So he rented an apartment, many-roomed and
expensive, with a man-servant in charge, and furnished it in styles and periods
ranging through all the Louis. The living room was mostly rose color. It was
like an unhealthy and bloated boudoir. And yet there was nothing sybaritic or
uncleanly in the sight of this paunchy, middle-aged man sinking into the
rosy-cushioned luxury of his ridiculous home. It was a frank and naïve
indulgence of long-starved senses, and there was in it a great resemblance to
the rolling-eyed ecstasy of a school-boy smacking his lips over an all-day
sucker.
The War went on, and on, and on. And the money continued to roll
in—a flood of it. Then, one afternoon, Eva, in town on shopping bent, entered a
small, exclusive, and expensive shop on Michigan Avenue. Exclusive, that is, in
price. Eva's weakness, you may remember, was hats. She was seeking a hat now.
She described what she sought with a languid conciseness, and stood looking
about her after the saleswoman had vanished in quest of it. The room was
becomingly rose-illumined and somewhat dim, so that some minutes had passed
before she realized that a man seated on a raspberry brocade settee not five
feet away—a man with a walking stick, and yellow gloves, and tan spats, and a
check suit—was her brother Jo. From him Eva's wild-eyed glance leaped to
the woman who was trying on hats before one of the many long mirrors. She was
seated, and a saleswoman was exclaiming discreetly at her elbow.
Eva turned sharply and encountered her own saleswoman returning,
hat-laden. "Not to-day," she gasped. "I'm feeling ill.
Suddenly." And almost ran from the room.
That evening she told Stell, relating her news in that telephone
pidgin-English devised by every family of married sisters as protection against
the neighbors and Central. Translated, it ran thus:
"He looked straight at me. My dear, I thought I'd die! But at
least he had sense enough not to speak. She was one of those limp, willowy
creatures with the greediest eyes that she tried to keep softened to a baby
stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to get her hands on those hats. I saw it
all in one awful minute. You know the way I do. I suppose some people would
call her pretty. I don't. And her color! Well! And the most expensive-looking
hats. Aigrettes, and paradise, and feathers. Not one of them under
seventy-five. Isn't it disgusting! At his age! Suppose Ethel had been with
me!"
The next time it was Stell who saw them. In a restaurant. She said
it spoiled her evening. And the third time it was Ethel. She was one of the
guests at a theater party given by Nicky Overton II. You know. The North Shore
Overtons. Lake Forest. They came in late, and occupied the entire third row at
the opening performance of "Believe Me!" And Ethel was Nicky's partner.
She was glowing like a rose. When the lights went up after the first act Ethel
saw that her uncle Jo was seated just ahead of her with what she afterward
described as a Blonde. Then her uncle had turned around, and seeing her, had
been surprised into a smile that spread genially all over his plump and
rubicund face. Then he had turned to face forward again, quickly.
"Who's the old bird?" Nicky had asked. Ethel had
pretended not to hear, so he had asked again.
"My uncle," Ethel answered, and flushed all over her
delicate face, and down to her throat. Nicky had looked at the Blonde, and his
eyebrows had gone up ever so slightly.
It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her mother
of it later, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her life.
Ethel talked it over with her husband in that intimate, kimonoed
hour that precedes bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hair brush.
"It's disgusting, that's what it is. Perfectly disgusting.
There's no fool like an old fool. Imagine! A creature like that. At his time of
life."
There exists a strange and loyal kinship among men. "Well, I
don't know," Ben said now, and even grinned a little. "I suppose a
boy's got to sow his wild oats some time."
"Don't be any more vulgar than you can help," Eva
retorted. "And I think you know, as well as I, what it means to have that
Overton boy interested in Ethel."
"If he's interested in her," Ben blundered, "I
guess the fact that Ethel's uncle went to the theater with some one who wasn't
Ethel's aunt won't cause a shudder to run up and down his frail young frame,
will it?"
"All right," Eva had retorted. "If you're not man
enough to stop it, I'll have to, that's all. I'm going up there with Stell this
week."
They did not notify Jo of their coming. Eva telephoned his apartment
when she knew he would be out, and asked his man if he expected his master home
to dinner that evening. The man had said yes. Eva arranged to meet Stell in
town. They would drive to Jo's apartment together, and wait for him there.
When she reached the city Eva found turmoil there. The first of
the American troops to be sent to France were leaving. Michigan Boulevard
was a billowing, surging mass: Flags, pennants, bands, crowds. All the elements
that make for demonstration. And over the whole—quiet. No holiday crowd, this.
A solid, determined mass of people waiting patient hours to see the khaki-clads
go by. Three years of indefatigable reading had brought them to a clear
knowledge of what these boys were going to.
"Isn't it dreadful!" Stell gasped.
"Nicky Overton's only nineteen, thank goodness."
Their car was caught in the jam. When they moved at all it was by
inches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were flushed, nervous,
apprehensive. But he had not yet come in. So they waited.
No, they were not staying to dinner with their brother, they told
the relieved houseman. Jo's home has already been described to you. Stell and
Eva, sunk in rose-colored cushions, viewed it with disgust, and some mirth.
They rather avoided each other's eyes.
"Carrie ought to be here," Eva said. They both smiled at
the thought of the austere Carrie in the midst of those rosy cushions, and
hangings, and lamps. Stell rose and began to walk about, restlessly. She picked
up a vase and laid it down; straightened a picture. Eva got up, too, and
wandered into the hall. She stood there a moment, listening. Then she turned
and passed into Jo's bedroom. And there you knew Jo for what he was.
This room was as bare as the other had been ornate. It was Jo, the
clean-minded and simple-hearted, in revolt against the cloying luxury with
which he had surrounded himself. The bedroom, of all rooms in any house,
reflects the personality of its occupant. True, the actual furniture was
paneled, cupid-surmounted, and ridiculous. It had been the fruit of Jo's first
orgy of the senses. But now it stood out in that stark little room with an air
as incongruous and ashamed as that of a pink tarleton danseuse who finds
herself in a monk's cell. None of those wall-pictures with which bachelor
bedrooms are reputed to be hung. No satin slippers. No scented notes. Two
plain-backed military brushes on the chiffonier (and he so nearly hairless!). A
little orderly stack of books on the table near the bed. Eva fingered their
titles and gave a little gasp. One of them was on gardening. "Well, of all
things!" exclaimed Stell. A book on the War, by an Englishman. A detective
story of the lurid type that lulls us to sleep. His shoes ranged in a careful
row in the closet, with shoe-trees in every one of them. There was something
speaking about them. They looked so human. Eva shut the door on them, quickly.
Some bottles on the dresser. A jar of pomade. An ointment such as a man uses
who is growing bald and is panic-stricken too late. An insurance calendar on
the wall. Some rhubarb-and-soda mixture on the shelf in the bathroom, and a
little box of pepsin tablets.
"Eats all kinds of things at all hours of the night,"
Eva said, and wandered out into the rose-colored front room again with the air
of one who is chagrined at her failure to find what she has sought. Stell
followed her, furtively.
"Where do you suppose he can be?" she demanded.
"It's—" she glanced at her wrist, "why, it's after six!"
And then there was a little click. The two women sat up, tense.
The door opened. Jo came in. He blinked a little. The two women in the rosy
room stood up.
"Why—Eve! Why, Babe! Well! Why didn't you let me know?"
"We were just about to leave. We thought you weren't coming
home."
Jo came in, slowly. "I was in the jam on Michigan, watching
the boys go by." He sat down, heavily. The light from the window fell on
him. And you saw that his eyes were red.
And you'll have to learn why. He had found himself one of the
thousands in the jam on Michigan Avenue, as he said. He had a place near the
curb, where his big frame shut off the view of the unfortunates behind
him. He waited with the placid interest of one who has subscribed to all the
funds and societies to which a prosperous, middle-aged business man is called
upon to subscribe in war time. Then, just as he was about to leave, impatient
at the delay, the crowd had cried, with a queer dramatic, exultant note in its
voice, "Here they come! here come the boys!"
Just at that moment two little, futile, frenzied fists began to
beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in the crowd, all
indignant resentment. "Say, looka here!"
The little fists kept up their frantic beating and pushing. And a
voice—a choked, high little voice—cried, "Let me by! I can't see! You man,
you! You big fat man! My boy's going by—to war—and I can't see! Let me
by!"
Jo scrooged around, still keeping his place. He looked down. And
upturned to him in agonized appeal was the face of little Emily. They stared at
each other for what seemed a long, long time. It was really only the fraction
of a second. Then Jo put one great arm firmly around Emily's waist and swung
her around in front of him. His great bulk protected her. Emily was clinging to
his hand. She was breathing rapidly, as if she had been running. Her eyes were
straining up the street.
"Why, Emily, how in the world!—"
"I ran away. Fred didn't want me to come. He said it would
excite me too much."
"Fred?"
"My husband. He made me promise to say good-by to Jo at
home."
"Jo's my boy. And he's going to war. So I ran away. I had to
see him. I had to see him go."
She was dry-eyed. Her gaze was straining up the street.
"Why, sure," said Jo. "Of course you want to see him."
And then the crowd gave a great roar. There came over Jo a feeling of weakness.
He was trembling. The boys went marching by.
"There he is," Emily shrilled, above the din.
"There he is! There he is! There he—" And waved a futile little hand.
It wasn't so much a wave as a clutching. A clutching after something beyond her
reach.
"Which one? Which one, Emily?"
"The handsome one. The handsome one. There!" Her voice
quavered and died.
Jo put a steady hand on her shoulder. "Point him out,"
he commanded. "Show me." And the next instant. "Never mind. I
see him."
Somehow, miraculously, he had picked him from among the hundreds.
Had picked him as surely as his own father might have. It was Emily's boy. He
was marching by, rather stiffly. He was nineteen, and fun-loving, and he had a
girl, and he didn't particularly want to go to France and—to go to France. But
more than he had hated going, he had hated not to go. So he marched by, looking
straight ahead, his jaw set so that his chin stuck out just a little. Emily's
boy.
Jo looked at him, and his face flushed purple. His eyes, the
hard-boiled eyes of a loop-hound, took on the look of a sad old man. And
suddenly he was no longer Jo, the sport; old J. Hertz, the gay dog. He was Jo
Hertz, thirty, in love with life, in love with Emily, and with the stinging
blood of young manhood coursing through his veins.
Another minute and the boy had passed on up the broad street—the
fine, flag-bedecked street—just one of a hundred service-hats bobbing in
rhythmic motion like sandy waves lapping a shore and flowing on.
Then he disappeared altogether.
Emily was clinging to Jo. She was mumbling something over and
over. "I can't. I can't. Don't ask me to. I can't let him go. Like that. I
can't."
Jo said a queer thing.
"Why, Emily! We wouldn't have him stay home, would we? We
wouldn't want him to do anything different, would we? Not our boy. I'm glad he
volunteered. I'm proud of him. So are you, glad."
Little by little he quieted her. He took her to the car that was
waiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said good-by, awkwardly. Emily's
face was a red, swollen mass.
So it was that when Jo entered his own hallway half an hour later
he blinked, dazedly, and when the light from the window fell on him you saw
that his eyes were red.
Eva was not one to beat about the bush. She sat forward in her
chair, clutching her bag rather nervously.
"Now, look here, Jo. Stell and I are here for a reason. We're
here to tell you that this thing's got to stop."
"Thing? Stop?"
"You know very well what I mean. You saw me at the milliner's
that day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must go
about with people like that, please have some sense of decency."
Something gathering in Jo's face should have warned her. But he
was slumped down in his chair in such a huddle, and he looked so old and fat
that she did not heed it. She went on. "You've got us to consider. Your
sisters. And your nieces. Not to speak of your own—"
But he got to his feet then, shaking, and at what she saw in his
face even Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the face of a fat,
middle-aged sport. It was a face Jovian, terrible.
"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!"
He raised a great fist high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me,
twenty years ago. You come to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You
killed him, you two, twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else.
Where's my son that should have gone marching by to-day?" He flung his
arms out in a great gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his
forehead. "Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable
women. Where's my son!" Then as they huddled together, frightened,
wild-eyed. "Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!"
They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them.
Jo stood, shaking, in the center of the room. Then he reached for
a chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand over his
forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still, it sounded far
away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think he did not even hear it
with his conscious ear. But it rang and rang insistently. Jo liked to answer
his telephone when at home.
"Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end.
"That you, Jo?" it said.
"Yes."
"How's my boy?"
"I'm—all right."
"Listen, Jo. The crowd's coming over to-night. I've fixed up
a little poker game for you. Just eight of us."
"I can't come to-night, Gert."
"Can't! Why not?"
"I'm not feeling so good."
"You just said you were all right."
"I am all right. Just kind of tired."
The voice took on a cooing note. "Is my Joey tired? Then he
shall be all comfy on the sofa, and he doesn't need to play if he don't want
to. No, sir."
Jo stood staring at the black mouth-piece of the telephone. He was
seeing a procession go marching by. Boys, hundreds of boys, in khaki.
"Hello! Hello!" the voice took on an anxious note.
"Are you there?"
"Yes," wearily.
"Jo, there's something the matter. You're sick. I'm coming
right over."
"No!"
"Why not? You sound as if you'd been sleeping. Look
here—"
"Leave me alone!" cried Jo, suddenly, and the receiver
clacked onto the hook. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone." Long after
the connection had been broken.
He stood staring at the instrument with unseeing eyes. Then he
turned and walked into the front room. All the light had gone out of it. Dusk
had come on. All the light had gone out of everything. The zest had gone out of
life. The game was over—the game he had been playing against loneliness and
disappointment. And he was just a tired old man. A lonely, tired old man in a
ridiculous, rose-colored room that had grown, all of a sudden, drab.
By KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD
From The
Atlantic Monthly.
I
Havelock the Dane settled himself back in his chair and set his
feet firmly on the oaken table. Chantry let him do it, though some
imperceptible inch of his body winced. For the oak of it was neither fumed nor
golden; it was English to its ancient core, and the table had served in the
refectory of monks before Henry VIII decided that monks shocked him. Naturally
Chantry did not want his friends' boots havocking upon it. But more important
than to possess the table was to possess it nonchalantly. He let the big man
dig his heel in. Any man but Havelock the Dane would have known better. But
Havelock did as he pleased, and you either gave him up or bore it. Chantry did
not want to give him up.
Chantry was a feminist; a bit of an æsthete but canny at affairs;
good-looking, and temperate, and less hipped on the matter of sex than feminist
gentlemen are wont to be. That is to say, while he vaguely wanted l'homme
moyen sensuel to mend his ways, he did not expect him to change
fundamentally. He rather thought the women would manage all that when they got
the vote. You see, he was not a socialist: only a feminist.
Havelock the Dane, on the other hand, was by no means a feminist,
but was a socialist. What probably brought the two men together—apart from
their common likableness—was that each, in his way, refused to "go
the whole hog." They sometimes threshed the thing out together, unable to
decide on a programme, but always united at last in their agreement that things
were wrong. Havelock trusted Labor, and Chantry trusted Woman; the point was
that neither trusted men like themselves, with a little money and an inherited
code of honor. Havelock wanted his money taken away from him; Chantry desired
his code to be trampled on by innumerable feminine feet. But each was rather
helpless, for both expected these things to be done for them.
Except for this tie of ineffectuality, they had nothing special in
common. Havelock's life had been adventurous in the good old-fashioned sense:
the bars down and a deal of wandering. Chantry had sown so many crops of
intellectual wild oats that even the people who came for subscriptions might be
forgiven for thinking him a mental libertine, good for subscriptions and not
much else. Between them, they boxed the compass about once a week. Havelock had
more of what is known as "personality" than Chantry; Chantry more of
what is known as "culture." They dovetailed, on the whole, not badly.
Havelock, this afternoon, was full of a story. Chantry wanted to
listen, though he knew that he could have listened better if Havelock's heel
had not been quite so ponderous on the sæcular oak. He took refuge in a cosmic
point of view. That was the only point of view from which Havelock (it was, by
the way, his physical type only that had caused him to be nicknamed the Dane:
his ancestors had come over from England in great discomfort two centuries
since), in his blonde hugeness, became negligible. You had to climb very high
to see him small.
"You never did the man justice," Havelock was saying.
"Justice be hanged!" replied Chantry.
"Quite so: the feminist slogan."
"A socialist can't afford to throw stones."
The retorts were spoken sharply, on both sides. Then both men
laughed. They had too often had it out seriously to mind; these little insults
were mere convention.
"Get at your story," resumed Chantry. "I suppose
there's a woman in it: a nasty cat invented by your own prejudices. There
usually is."
"Never a woman at all. If there were, I shouldn't be asking
for your opinion. My opinion, of course, is merely the rational one. I don't
side-step the truth because a little drama gets in. I am appealing to you
because you are the average man who hasn't seen the light. I honestly want to
know what you think. There's a reason."
"What's the reason?"
"I'll tell you that later. Now, I'll tell you the
story." Havelock screwed his tawny eyebrows together for a moment before
plunging in. "Humph!" he ejaculated at last. "Much good anybody
is in a case like this—What did you say you thought of Ferguson?"
"I didn't think anything of Ferguson—except that he had a big
brain for biology. He was a loss."
"No personal opinion?"
"I never like people who think so well of themselves as all
that."
"No opinion about his death?"
"Accidental, as they said, I suppose."
"Oh, 'they said'! It was suicide, I tell you."
"Suicide? Really?" Chantry's brown eyes lighted for an
instant. "Oh, poor chap; I'm sorry."
It did not occur to him immediately to ask how Havelock knew. He
trusted a plain statement from Havelock.
"I'm not. Or—yes, I am. I hate to have a man
inconsistent."
"It's inconsistent for any one to kill himself. But it's
frequently done."
Havelock, hemming and hawing like this, was more nearly a bore
than Chantry had ever known him.
"Not for Ferguson."
"Oh, well, never mind Ferguson," Chantry yawned.
"Tell me some anecdote out of your tapestried past."
"I won't."
Havelock dug his heel in harder. Chantry all but told him to take
his feet down, but stopped himself just in time.
"Well, go on, then," he said, "but it doesn't sound
interesting. I hate all tales of suicide. And there isn't even a woman in
it," he sighed maliciously.
"Oh, if it comes to that, there is."
"But you said—"
"Not in it exactly, unless you go in for post hoc,
propter hoc."
"Oh, drive on." Chantry was pettish.
But at that point Havelock the Dane removed his feet from the
refectory table. He will probably never know why Chantry, just then, began to
be amiable.
"Excuse me, Havelock. Of course, whatever drove a man like
Ferguson to suicide is interesting. And I may say he managed it awfully well.
Not a hint, anywhere."
"Well, a scientist ought to get something out of it for
himself. Ferguson certainly knew how. Can't you imagine him sitting up there,
cocking his hair" (an odd phrase, but Chantry understood), "and
deciding just how to circumvent the coroner? I can."
"Ferguson hadn't much imagination."
"A coroner doesn't take imagination. He takes a little hard,
expert knowledge."
"I dare say." But Chantry's mind was wandering through
other defiles. "Odd, that he should have snatched his life out of the very
jaws of what-do-you-call-it, once, only to give it up at last, politely, of his
own volition."
"You may well say it." Havelock spoke with more
earnestness than he had done. "If you're not a socialist when I get
through with you, Chantry, my boy—"
"Lord, Lord! don't tell me your beastly socialism is mixed up
with it all! I never took to Ferguson, but he was no syndicalist. In
life or in death, I'd swear to that."
"Ah, no. If he had been! But all I mean is that, in a
properly regulated state, Ferguson's tragedy would not have occurred."
"So it was a tragedy?"
"He was a loss to the state, God knows."
Had they been speaking of anything less dignified than death and
genius, Havelock might have sounded a little austere and silly. As it
was—Chantry bit back, and swallowed, his censure.
"That's why I want to know what you think," went on
Havelock, irrelevantly. "Whether your damned code of honor is worth
Ferguson."
"It's not my damned code any more than yours," broke in
Chantry.
"Yes, it is. Or, at least, we break it down at different
points—theoretically. Actually, we walk all round it every day to be sure it's
intact. Let's be honest."
"Honest as you like, if you'll only come to the point. Whew,
but it's hot! Let's have a gin-fizz."
"You aren't serious."
Havelock seemed to try to lash himself into a rage. But he was so
big that he could never have got all of himself into a rage at once. You felt
that only part of him was angry—his toes, perhaps, or his complexion.
Chantry rang for ice and lemon, and took gin, sugar, and a siphon
out of a carved cabinet.
"Go slow," he said. He himself was going very slow, with
a beautiful crystal decanter which he set lovingly on the oaken table. "Go
slow," he repeated, more easily, when he had set it down. "I can
think just as well with a gin-fizz as without one. And I didn't know Ferguson
well; and I didn't like him at all. I read his books, and I admired him. But he
looked like the devil—the devil, you'll notice, not a devil.
With a dash of Charles I by Van Dyck. The one standing by a horse. As you say,
he cocked his hair. It went into little horns, above each eyebrow. I'm sorry
he's lost to the world, but it doesn't get me. He may have been a saint,
for all I know; but there you are—I never cared particularly to know. I am
serious. Only, somehow, it doesn't touch me."
And he proceeded to make use of crushed ice and lemon juice.
"Oh, blow all that," said Havelock the Dane finally,
over the top of his glass. "I'm going to tell you, anyhow. Only I wish you
would forget your prejudices. I want an opinion."
"Go on."
Chantry made himself comfortable.
II
"You remember the time when Ferguson didn't go down on
the Argentina?"
"I do. Ferguson just wouldn't go down, you know. He'd turn up
smiling, without even a chill, and meanwhile lots of good fellows would be at
the bottom of the sea."
"Prejudice again," barked Havelock. "Yet in point
of fact, it's perfectly true. And you would have preferred him to drown."
"I was very glad he was saved." Chantry said it in a
stilted manner.
"Why?"
"Because his life was really important to the world."
Chantry might have been distributing tracts. His very voice
sounded falsetto.
"Exactly. Well, that is what Ferguson thought."
"How do you know?"
"He told me."
"You must have known him well. Thank heaven, I never
did."
Havelock flung out a huge hand. "Oh, get off that ridiculous
animal you're riding, Chantry, and come to the point. You mean you don't think
Ferguson should have admitted it?"
Chantry's tone changed. "Well, one doesn't."
The huge hand, clenched into a fist, came down on the table. The
crystal bottle was too heavy to rock, but the glasses jingled and a spoon slid
over the edge of its saucer.
"There it is—what I was looking for."
"What were you looking for?" Chantry's wonder was not
feigned.
"For your hydra-headed prejudice. Makes me want to play
Hercules."
"Oh, drop your metaphors, Havelock. Get into the game. What
is it?"
"It's this: that you don't think—or affect not to think—that
it's decent for a man to recognize his own worth."
Chantry did not retort. He dropped his chin on his chest and
thought for a moment. Then he spoke, very quietly and apologetically.
"Well—I don't see you telling another man how wonderful you
are. It isn't immoral, it simply isn't manners. And if Ferguson boasted to you
that he was saved when so many went down, it was worse than bad manners. He
ought to have been kicked for it. It's the kind of phenomenal luck that it
would have been decent to regret."
Havelock set his massive lips firmly together. You could not say
that he pursed that Cyclopean mouth.
"Ferguson did not boast. He merely told me. He was, I think,
a modest man."
Incredulity beyond any power of laughter to express settled on
Chantry's countenance. "Modest? And he told you?"
"The whole thing." Havelock's voice was heavy enough for
tragedy. "Listen. Don't interrupt me once. Ferguson told me that, when the
explosion came, he looked round—considered, for fully a minute, his duty. He
never lost control of himself once, he said, and I believe him. The Argentina was
a small boat, making a winter passage. There were very few cabin passengers. No
second cabin, but plenty of steerage. She sailed, you remember, from Naples. He
had been doing some work, some very important work, in the Aquarium. The only
other person of consequence—I am speaking in the most literal and un-snobbish
sense—in the first cabin, was Benson. No" (with a lifted hand), "don't
interrupt me. Benson, as we all know, was an international figure. But
Benson was getting old. His son could be trusted to carry on the House of Benson.
In fact, every one suspected that the son had become more important than the
old man. He had put through the last big loan while his father was taking a
rest-cure in Italy. That is how Benson père happened to be on
the Argentina. The newspapers never sufficiently accounted for
that. A private deck on the Schrecklichkeit would have been
more his size. Ferguson made it out: the old man got wild, suddenly, at the
notion of their putting anything through without him. He trusted his gouty
bones to the Argentina."
"Sounds plausible, but—" Chantry broke in.
"If you interrupt again," said Havelock, "I'll hit
you, with all the strength I've got."
Chantry grunted. You had to take Havelock the Dane as you found
him.
"Ferguson saw the whole thing clear. Old Benson had just gone
into the smoking-room. Ferguson was on the deck outside his own stateroom. The
only person on board who could possibly be considered as important as Ferguson
was Benson; and he had good reason to believe that every one would get on well
enough without Benson. He had just time, then, to put on a life-preserver, melt
into his stateroom, and get a little pile of notes, very important ones, and
drop into a boat. No, don't interrupt. I know what you are going to say. 'Women
and children.' What do you suppose a lot of Neapolitan peasants meant to
Ferguson—or to you and me, either? He didn't do anything outrageous; he just
dropped into a boat. As a result, we had the big book a year later.
No" (again crushing down a gesture of Chantry's), "don't say anything
about the instincts of a gentleman. If Ferguson hadn't been perfectly cool, his
instincts would have governed him. He would have dashed about trying to save
people, and then met the waves with a noble gesture. He had time to be
reasonable; not instinctive. The world was the gainer, as he jolly well knew it
would be—or where would have been the reasonableness? I don't believe Ferguson
cared a hang about keeping his individual machine going for its own sake. But
he knew he was a valuable person. His mind was a Kohinoor among minds. It
stands to reason that you save the Kohinoor and let the little stones go. Well,
that's not the story. Only I wanted to get that out of the way first, or the
story wouldn't have meant anything. Did you wish," he finished graciously,
"to ask a question?"
Chantry made a violent gesture of denial. "Ask a question
about a hog like that? God forbid!"
"Um-m-m." Havelock seemed to muse within himself.
"You will admit that if a jury of impartial men of sense could have sat,
just then, on that slanting deck, they would have agreed that Ferguson's life
was worth more to the world than all the rest of the boiling put
together?"
"Yes, but—"
"Well, there wasn't any jury. Ferguson had to be it. I am
perfectly sure that if there had been a super-Ferguson on board, our Ferguson
would have turned his hand to saving him first. In fact, I honestly believe he
was sorry there hadn't been a super-Ferguson. For he had all the instincts of a
gentleman; and it's never a pleasant job making your reason inhibit your
instincts. You can't look at this thing perfectly straight, probably. But if
you can't, who can? I don't happen to want an enlightened opinion; I've got
one, right here at home. You don't care about the State: you want to put it into
white petticoats and see it cross a muddy street."
"I don't wonder the socialists won't have anything to do with
you."
"Because I'm not a feminist? I know. Just as the feminists
won't have anything to do with you because you're so reactionary. We're both
out of it. Fifty years ago; either of us could have been a real prophet, for
the price of a hall and cleaning the rotten eggs off our clothes. Now we're too
timid for any use. But this is a digression."
"Distinctly. Is there anything more about Ferguson?"
"I should say there was. About a year ago, he became engaged.
She's a very nice girl, and I am sure you never heard of her. The engagement
wasn't to be announced until just before the marriage, for family reasons of
some sort—cockering the older generation somehow. I've forgotten; it's not
important. But they would have been married by now, if Ferguson hadn't stepped
out."
"You seem to have been very intimate with Ferguson."
"He talked to me once—just once. The girl was a distant
connection of my own. I think that was why. Now I've got some more things to
tell you. I've let you interrupt a good lot, and if you're through, I'd like to
start in on the next lap. It isn't easy for me to tell this thing in bits. It's
an effort."
Havelock the Dane set down his second emptied glass and drew a
long breath. He proceeded, with quickened pace.
III
"He didn't see the girl very often. She lives at some little
distance. He was busy,—you know how he worked,—and she was chained at home,
more or less. Occasionally he slipped away for a week-end, to see her. One
time—the last time, about two months ago—he managed to get in a whole week. It
was as near happiness as Ferguson ever got, I imagine; for they were able to
fix a date. Good heaven, how he loved that girl! Just before he went, he told
me of the engagement. I barely knew her, but, as I said, she's some sort of
kin. Then, after he came back, he sent for me to come and see him. I didn't
like his cheek, but I went as though I had been a laboratory boy. I'm not like
you. Ferguson always did get me. He wanted the greatest good of the greatest
number. Nothing petty about him. He was a big man.
"I went, as I say. And Ferguson told me, the very first
thing, that the engagement was off. He began by cocking his hair a good deal.
But he almost lost control of himself. He didn't cock it long: he ruffled it
instead, with his hands. I thought he was in a queer state, for he seemed to
want to give me, with his beautiful scientific precision—as if he'd been
preparing a slide—the details of a country walk he and she had taken the day
before he left. It began with grade-crossings, and I simply couldn't imagine
what he was getting at. It wasn't his business to fight grade-crossings—though
they might be a very pretty symbol for the kind of thing he was fighting, tooth
and nail, all the time. I couldn't seem to see it, at first; but finally it
came out. There was a grade-crossing, with a 'Look out for the Engine' sign,
and there was a tow-headed infant in rags. They had noticed the infant before.
It had bandy legs and granulated eyelids, and seemed to be dumb. It had started
them off on eugenics. She was very keen on the subject; Ferguson, being a big
scientist, had some reserves. It was a real argument.
"Then everything happened at once. Tow-head with the sore
eyes rocked onto the track simultaneously with the whistle. They were about
fifty yards off. Ferguson sprinted back down the hill, the girl screaming
pointlessly meanwhile. There was just time—you'll have to take my word for this;
Ferguson explained it all to me in the most meticulous detail, but I can't
repeat that masterpiece of exposition—for Ferguson to decide. To decide again,
you understand, precisely as he had decided on the Argentina.
Rotten luck, wasn't it? He could just have flung tow-head out of the way by
getting under the engine himself. He grabbed for tow-head, but he didn't roll
onto the track. So tow-head was killed. If he had got there ten seconds
earlier, he could have done the trick. He was ten seconds too late to save both
Ferguson and tow-head. So—once more—he saved Ferguson. Do you get the
situation?"
"I should say I did!" shouted Chantry. "Twice in a
man's life—good Lord! I hope you walked out of his house at that point."
"I didn't. I was very much interested. And by the way,
Chantry, if Ferguson had given his life for tow-head, you would have been the
first man to write a pleasant little article for some damned highbrow review,
to prove that it was utterly wrong that Ferguson should have exchanged his life
for that of a little Polish defective. I can even see you talking about the
greatest good of the greatest number. You would have loved the paradox of it;
the mistaken martyr, self-preservation the greatest altruism, and all the rest
of it. But because Ferguson did exactly what you would have said in your
article that he ought to have done, you are in a state of virtuous chill."
"I should have written no such article. I don't see how you
can be so flippant."
"Flippant—I? Have I the figure of a flippant man? Can't you
see—honestly, now, can't you see?—that it was a hideous misfortune for that
situation to come to Ferguson twice? Can't you see that it was about as hard
luck as a man ever had? Look at it just once from his point of view."
"I can't," said Chantry frankly. "I can understand
a man's being a coward, saving his own skin because he wants to. But to save
his own skin on principle—humph! Talk of paradoxes: there's one for you.
There's not a principle on earth that tells you to save your own life at
some one's else expense. If he thought it was principle, he was the bigger
defective of the two. Of course it would have been a pity; of course we should
all have regretted it; but there's not a human being in this town, high or low,
who wouldn't have applauded, with whatever regret—who wouldn't have said he did
the only thing a self-respecting man could do. Of course it's a shame; but that
is the only way the race has ever got on: by the strong, because they were
strong, going under for the weak, because they were weak. Otherwise we'd all be
living, to this day, in hell."
"I know; I know." Havelock's voice was touched with
emotion. "That's the convention—invented by individualists, for
individualists. All sorts of people would see it that way, still. But you've
got more sense than most; and I will make you at least see the other point of
view. Suppose Ferguson to have been a good Catholic—or a soldier in the ranks.
If his confessor or his commanding officer had told him to save his own skin,
you'd consider Ferguson justified; you might even consider the priest or the
officer justified. The one thing you can't stand is the man's giving himself
those orders. But let's not argue over it now—let's go back to the story. I'll
make you 'get' Ferguson, anyhow—even if I can't make him 'get' you.
"Well, here comes in the girl."
"And you said there was no girl in it!"
Chantry could not resist that. He believed that Havelock's
assertion had been made only because he didn't want the girl in it—resented her
being there.
"There isn't, as I see it," replied Havelock the Dane
quietly. "From my point of view, the story is over. Ferguson's decision:
that is the whole thing—made more interesting, more valuable, because the
repetition of the thing proves beyond a doubt that he acted on principle, not
on impulse. If he had flung himself into the life-boat because he was a coward,
he would have been ashamed of it; and whatever he might have done afterwards, he
would never have done that thing again. He would have been sensitive: not
saving his own life would have turned into an obsession with him. But there is
left, I admit, the murder. And murders always take the public. So I'll give you
the murder—though it throws no light on Ferguson, who is the only thing in the whole
accursed affair that really counts."
"The murder? I don't see—unless you mean the murdering of the
tow-headed child."
"I mean the murder of Ferguson by the girl he loved."
"You said 'suicide' a little while ago," panted Chantry.
"Technically, yes. She was a hundred miles away when it
happened. But she did it just the same. Oh, I suppose I've got to tell you, as
Ferguson told me."
"Did he tell you he was going to kill himself?"
Chantry's voice was sharp.
"He did not. Ferguson wasn't a fool. But it was plain as day
to me after it happened, that he had done it himself."
"How—"
"I'm telling you this, am I not? Let me tell it, then. The
thing happened in no time, of course. The girl got over screaming, and ran down
to the track, frightened out of her wits. The train managed to stop, about
twice its own length farther down, round a bend in the track, and the conductor
and brakeman came running back. The mother came out of her hovel, carrying
twins. The—the—thing was on the track, across the rails. It was a beastly mess,
and Ferguson got the girl away; set her down to cry in a pasture, and then went
back and helped out, and gave his testimony, and left money, a lot of it, with
the mother, and—all the rest. You can imagine it. No one there considered that
Ferguson ought to have saved the child; no one but Ferguson dreamed that he
could have. Indeed, an ordinary man, in Ferguson's place, wouldn't have
supposed he could. It was only that brain, working like lightning, working as
no plain man's could, that had made the calculation and seen.
There were no preliminary seconds lost in surprise or shock, you see.
Ferguson's mind hadn't been jarred from its pace for an instant. The thing had
happened too quickly for any one—except Ferguson—to understand what was going
on. Therefore he ought to have laid that super-normal brain under the wheels,
of course!
"Ferguson was so sane, himself, that he couldn't understand,
even after he had been engaged six months, our little everyday madnesses. It
never occurred to him, when he got back to the girl and she began all sorts of
hysterical questions, not to answer them straight. It was by way of describing
the event simply, that he informed her that he would just have had time to pull
the creature out, but not enough to pull himself back afterwards. Ferguson was
used to calculating things in millionths of an inch; she wasn't. I dare say the
single second that had given Ferguson time to turn round in his mind, she
conceived of as a minute, at least. It would have taken her a week to turn
round in her own mind, no doubt—a month, a year, perhaps. How do I know? But
she got the essential fact: that Ferguson had made a choice. Then she rounded
on him. It would have killed her to lose him, but she would rather have lost
him than to see him standing before her, etc., etc. Ferguson quoted a lot of
her talk straight to me, and I can remember it; but you needn't ask me to soil
my mouth with it. 'And half an hour before, she had been saying with a good
deal of heat that that little runt ought never to have been born, and that if
we had decent laws it never would have been allowed to live." Ferguson
said that to me, with a kind of bewilderment. You see, he had made the mistake
of taking that little fool seriously. Well, he loved her. You can't go below
that: that's rock-bottom. Ferguson couldn't dig any deeper down for his way
out. There was no deeper down.
"Apparently Ferguson still thought he could argue it out with
her. She so believed in eugenics, you see—a very radical, compared with
Ferguson. It was she who had had no doubt about tow-head. And the love-part of
it seemed to him fixed: it didn't occur to him that that was debatable. So he
stuck to something that could be discussed. Then—and this was his moment of
exceeding folly—he caught at the old episode of the Argentina. That had
nothing to do with her present state of shock. She had seen tow-head; but she
hadn't seen the sprinkled Mediterranean. And she had accepted that. At least,
she had spoken of his survival as though it had been one of the few times when
God had done precisely the right thing. So he took that to explain with. The
fool! The reasonable fool!
"Then—oh, then she went wild. (Yet she must have known there
were a thousand chances on the Argentina for him to throw his
life away, and precious few to save it.) She backed up against a tree and
stretched her arms out like this"—Havelock made a clumsy stage-gesture of
aversion from Chantry, the villain. "And for an instant he thought she was
afraid of a Jersey cow that had come up to take part in the discussion. So he
threw a twig at its nose."
IV
Chantry's wonder grew, swelled, and burst.
"Do you mean to say that that safety-deposit vault of a
Ferguson told you all this?"
"As I am telling it to you. Only much more detail, of
course—and much, much faster. It wasn't like a story at all: it was like—like a
hemorrhage. I didn't interrupt him as you've been interrupting me. Well, the
upshot of it was that she spurned him quite in the grand manner. She found the
opposites of all the nice things she had been saying for six months, and said
them. And Ferguson—your cocky Ferguson—stood and listened, until she had talked
herself out, and then went away. He never saw her again; and when he sent for
me, he had made up his mind that she never intended to take any of it
back. So he stepped out, I tell you."
"As hard hit as that," Chantry mused.
"Just as hard hit as that. Ferguson had had no previous
affairs; she was very literally the one woman; and he managed, at forty, to
combine the illusions of the boy of twenty and the man of sixty."
"But if he thought he was so precious to the world, wasn't it
more than ever his duty to preserve his existence? He could see other people
die in his place, but he couldn't see himself bucking up against a broken
heart. Isn't that what the strong man does? Lives out his life when he doesn't
at all like the look of it? Say what you like, he was a coward, Havelock—at the
last, anyhow."
"I won't ask for your opinion just yet, thank you. Perhaps if
Ferguson had been sure he would ever do good work again, he wouldn't have taken
himself off. That might have held him. He might have stuck by on the chance.
But I doubt it. Don't you see? He loved the girl too much."
"Thought he couldn't live without her," snorted Chantry.
"Oh, no—not that. But if she was right, he was the meanest
skunk alive. He owed the world at least two deaths, so to speak. The only
approach you can make to dying twice is to die in your prime, of your own
volition." Havelock spoke very slowly. "At least, that's the way I've
worked it out. He didn't say so. He was careful as a cat."
"You think"—Chantry leaned forward, very eager at
last—"that he decided she was right? That I'm right—that we're all of us
right?"
Havelock the Dane bowed his head in his huge hands. "No. If
you ask me, I think he kept his own opinion untarnished to the end. When I told
him I thought he was right, he just nodded, as if one took that for granted.
But it didn't matter to him. I am pretty sure that he cared only what she thought."
"If he didn't agree with her? And if she had treated him like
a criminal? He must have despised her, in that case."
"He never said one word of her—bar quoting some of her words—that
wasn't utterly gentle. You could see that he loved her with his whole soul.
And—it's my belief—he gave her the benefit of the doubt. In killing himself, he
acted on the hypothesis that she had been right. It was the one thing he could
do for her."
"But if no one except you thinks it was suicide—and you can't
prove it—"
"Oh, he had to take that chance—the chance of her never
knowing—or else create a scandal. And that would have been very hard on her and
on his family. But there were straws she could easily clutch at—as I have
clutched at them. The perfect order in which everything happened to be
left—even the last notes he had made. His laboratory was a scientist's
paradise, they tell me. And the will, made after she threw him over, leaving
everything to her. Not a letter unanswered, all little bills paid, and little
debts liquidated. He came as near suggesting it as he could, in decency. But I
dare say she will never guess it."
"Then what did it profit him?"
"It didn't profit him, in your sense. He took a very long
chance on her guessing. That wasn't what concerned him."
"I hope she will never guess, anyhow. It would ruin her life,
to no good end."
"Oh, no." Havelock was firm. "I doubt if she would
take it that way. If she grasped it at all, she'd believe he thought her right.
And if he thought her right, of course he wouldn't want to live, would he? She
would never think he killed himself simply for love of her."
"Why not?"
"Well, she wouldn't? She wouldn't be able to conceive of
Ferguson's killing himself merely for that—with his notions
about survival."
"As he did."
"As he did—and didn't."
"Ah, she'd scarcely refine on it as you are doing, Havelock.
You're amazing."
"Well, he certainly never expected her to know that he did it
himself. If he had been the sort of weakling that dies because he can't have a
particular woman, he'd have been also the sort of weakling that leaves a letter
explaining."
"What then did he die for? You'll have to explain to me. Not
because he couldn't have her; not because he felt guilty. Why, then? You
haven't left him a motive."
"Oh, haven't I? The most beautiful motive in the whole world,
my dear fellow. A motive that puts all your little simple motives in the
shade."
"Well, what?"
"Don't you see? Why, I told you. He simply assumed, for all
practical purposes, that she had been right. He gave himself the fate he knew
she considered him to deserve. He preferred—loving her as he did—to do what she
would have had him do. He knew she was wrong; but he knew also that she was
made that way, that she would never be right. And he took her for what she was,
and loved her as she was. His love—don't you see?—was too big. He couldn't
revolt from her: she had the whole of him—except, perhaps, his excellent
judgment. He couldn't drag about a life which she felt that way about. He
destroyed it, as he would have destroyed anything she found loathsome. He was
merely justifying himself to his love. He couldn't hope she would know. Nor, I
believe, could he have lied to her. That is, he couldn't have admitted in words
that she was right, when he felt her so absolutely wrong; but he could make
that magnificent silent act of faith."
Chantry still held out. "I don't believe he did it. I hold
with the coroner."
"I don't. He came as near telling me as he could without
making me an accessory before the fact. There were none of the loose ends that
the most orderly man would leave if he died suddenly. Take my word for it, old
man."
A long look passed between them. Each seemed to be trying to find
out with his eyes something that words had not helped him to.
Finally Chantry protested once more. "But Ferguson couldn't
love like that."
Havelock the Dane laid one hand on the arm of Chantry's chair and
spoke sternly. "He not only could, but did. And there I am a better
authority than you. Think what you please, but I will not have that fact
challenged. Perhaps you could count up on your fingers the women who are loved
like that; but, anyhow, she was. My second cousin once removed, damn her!"
He ended with a vicious twang.
"And now"—Havelock rose—"I'd like your
opinion."
"About what?"
"Well, can't you see the beautiful sanity of Ferguson?"
"No, I can't," snapped Chantry. "I think he was
wrong, both in the beginning and in the end. But I will admit he was not a
coward. I respect him, but I do not think, at any point, he was right—except
perhaps in 'doing' the coroner."
"That settles it, then," said Havelock. And he started
towards the door.
"Settles what, in heaven's name?"
"What I came to have settled. I shan't tell her. If I could
have got one other decent citizen—and I confess you were my only chance—to
agree with me that Ferguson was right,—right about his fellow passengers on
the Argentina, right about tow-head on the track,—I'd have gone
to her, I think. I'd rather like to ruin her life, if I could."
A great conviction approached Chantry just then. He felt the rush
of it through his brain.
"No," he cried. "Ferguson loved her too much. He
wouldn't like that—not as you'd put it to her."
Havelock thought a moment. "No," he said in turn; but
his "no" was very humble. "He wouldn't. I shall never do it.
But, my God, how I wanted to!"
"And I'll tell you another thing, too." Chantry's tone
was curious. "You may agree with Ferguson all you like; you may admire him
as much as you say; but you, Havelock, would never have done what he did. Not
even"—he lifted a hand against interruption—"if you knew you had the
brain you think Ferguson had. You'd have been at the bottom of the sea, or
under the engine wheels, and you know it."
He folded his arms with a hint of truculence.
But Havelock the Dane, to Chantry's surprise, was meek.
"Yes," he said, "I know it. Now let me out of here."
"Well, then,"—Chantry's voice rang out
triumphant,—"what does that prove?"
"Prove?" Havelock's great fist crashed down on the
table. "It proves that Ferguson's a better man than either of us. I can
think straight, but he had the sand to act straight. You haven't even the sand
to think straight. You and your reactionary rot! The world's moving, Chantry.
Ferguson was ahead of it, beckoning. You're an ant that got caught in the
machinery, I shouldn't wonder."
"Oh, stow the rhetoric! We simply don't agree. It's happened
before." Chantry laughed scornfully. "I tell you I respect him; but
God Almighty wouldn't make me agree with him."
"You're too mediæval by half," Havelock mused.
"Now, Ferguson was a knight of the future—a knight of Humanity."
"Don't!" shouted Chantry. His nerves were beginning to
feel the strain. "Leave chivalry out of it. The Argentina business
may or may not have been wisdom, but it certainly wasn't cricket."
"No," said Havelock. "Chess, rather. The game where
chance hasn't a show—the game of the intelligent future. That very irregular
and disconcerting move of his.... And he got taken, you might say. She's an
irresponsible beast, your queen."
"Drop it, will you!" Then Chantry pulled himself
together, a little ashamed. "It's fearfully late. Better stop and
dine."
"No, thanks." The big man opened the door of the room
and rested a foot on the threshold. "I feel like dining with some one who
appreciates Ferguson."
"I don't know where you'll find him." Chantry smiled and
shook hands.
"Oh, I carry him about with me. Good-night," said
Havelock the Dane.
By SUSAN GLASPELL
From Every Week
When Martha Hale opened
the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen
scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized
sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away—it was
probably farther from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson
County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for
leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half
unsifted.
She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when
the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running
in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too—adding, with a grin, that he
guessed she was getting scarey and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped
everything right where it was.
"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice.
"Don't keep folks waiting out here in the cold."
She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three
men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy.
After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at
the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year
before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that
she didn't seem like a sheriff's wife. She was small and thin and didn't have a
strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff's wife before Gorman went out and Peters
came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every
word. But if Mrs. Peters didn't look like a sheriff's wife, Peters made it up
in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get
himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly
genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference
between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale's
mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of
them was going to the Wrights' now as a sheriff.
"The country's not very pleasant this time of year,"
Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well
as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a
little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her
feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had
always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar
trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and
talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of
the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously,
as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the
knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross that threshold.
And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it now was simply because she
hadn't crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, "I
ought to go over and see Minnie Foster"—she still thought of her as Minnie
Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was
always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she
could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by
the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said,
"Come up to the fire, ladies."
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm
not—cold," she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much
as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the
sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then
Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and
leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the
beginning of official business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of
semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson
just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning."
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
"By the way," he said, "has anything been
moved?" He turned to the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them
yesterday?"
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn
rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
"It's just the same."
"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said
the county attorney.
"Oh—yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little
gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of.
"When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy—let
me tell you, I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get
back from Omaha by to-day, George, and as long as I went over everything here
myself—"
"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of
letting what was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when you came
here yesterday morning."
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking
feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often
wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this
straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things
harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she noticed that he
looked queer—as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen
there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded.
"Harry and I had started to town with a load of
potatoes," Mrs. Hale's husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the
very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was
taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff stopped to
say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county
attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale's
other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn't dressed warm
enough—they hadn't any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a
motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, "and as we
got in sight of the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get
John Wright to take a telephone.' You see," he explained to Henderson,
"unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won't come out this
branch road except for a price I can't pay. I'd spoke to
Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much
anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—guess you know about how much he
talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it
before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and
that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing—well, I said to
Harry that that was what I was going to say—though I said at the same time that
I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—"
Now, there he was!—saying things he didn't need to say. Mrs. Hale
tried to catch her husband's eye, but fortunately the county attorney
interrupted with:
"Let's talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to
talk about that, but I'm anxious now to get along to just what happened when
you got here."
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
"I didn't see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And
still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up—it was past eight
o'clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come
in.' I wasn't sure—I'm not sure yet. But I opened the door—this door,"
jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood, "and there,
in that rocker"—pointing to it—"sat Mrs. Wright."
Every one in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs.
Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least like Minnie Foster—the
Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up
the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side.
"How did she—look?" the county attorney was inquiring.
"Well," said Hale, "she looked—queer."
"How do you mean—queer?"
As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did
not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if
to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book
and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
"Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next.
And kind of—done up."
"How did she seem to feel about your coming?"
"Why, I don't think she minded—one way or other. She didn't
pay much attention. I said, 'Ho' do, Mrs. Wright? It's cold, ain't it?' And she
said, 'Is it?'—and went on pleatin' at her apron.
"Well, I was surprised. She didn't ask me to come up to the
stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin' at me. And so I
said: 'I want to see John.'
"And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
"I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little
sharp, 'Can I see John?' 'No,' says she—kind of dull like. 'Ain't he home?'
says I. Then she looked at me. 'Yes,' says she, 'he's home.' 'Then why can't I
see him?' I asked her, out of patience with her now. ''Cause he's dead,' says
she, just as quiet and dull—and fell to pleatin' her apron. 'Dead?' says I,
like you do when you can't take in what you've heard.
"She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but
rockin' back and forth.
"'Why—where is he?' says I, not knowing what to
say.
"She just pointed upstairs—like this"—pointing to the
room above.
"I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this
time I—didn't know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: 'Why,
what did he die of?'
"'He died of a rope round his neck,' says she; and just went
on pleatin' at her apron."
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he
were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke;
it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning
before.
"And what did you do then?" the county attorney at last
broke the silence.
"I went out and called Harry. I thought I might—need help. I
got Harry in, and we went upstairs." His voice fell almost to a whisper.
"There he was—lying over the—"
"I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs," the
county attorney interrupted, "where you can point it all out. Just go on
now with the rest of the story."
"Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It
looked—"
He stopped, his face twitching.
"But Harry, he went up to him, and he said, 'No, he's dead
all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So we went downstairs.
"She was still sitting that same way. 'Has anybody been
notified?' I asked. 'No,' says she, unconcerned.
"'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it
businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't know,' she says.
'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with
him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was on the inside.' 'Somebody slipped a rope
round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I
didn't wake up,' she said after him.
"We may have looked as if we didn't see how that could be,
for after a minute she said, 'I sleep sound.'
"Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe
that weren't our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to
the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High
Road—the Rivers' place, where there's a telephone."
"And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the
coroner?" The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
"She moved from that chair to this one over here"—Hale
pointed to a small chair in the corner—"and just sat there with her hands
held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some
conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a
telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at
me—scared."
At sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story
looked up.
"I dunno—maybe it wasn't scared," he hastened; "I
wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and
you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't."
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing.
Every one moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
"I guess we'll go upstairs first—then out to the barn and
around there."
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
"You're convinced there was nothing important here?" he
asked the sheriff. "Nothing that would—point to any motive?"
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself.
"Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a
little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard—a peculiar,
ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being
built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard.
As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and
looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
"Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff's wife spoke.
"Oh—her fruit," she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for
sympathetic understanding. She turned back to the county attorney and
explained: "She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She
said the fire would go out and her jars might burst."
Mrs. Peters' husband broke into a laugh.
"Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worrying
about her preserves!"
The young attorney set his lips.
"I guess before we're through with her she may have something
more serious than preserves to worry about."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Hale's husband, with good-natured
superiority, "women are used to worrying over trifles."
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them
spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners—and think of
his future.
"And yet," said he, with the gallantry of a young
politician, "for all their worries, what would we do without the
ladies?"
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and
began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel—whirled it
for a cleaner place.
"Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say,
ladies?"
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
"There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm,"
said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
"To be sure. And yet"—with a little bow to her—"I
know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such roller
towels." He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
"Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always
as clean as they might be."
"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see," he laughed. He stopped
and gave her a keen look. "But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I
suppose you were friends, too."
Martha Hale shook her head.
"I've seen little enough of her of late years. I've not been
in this house—it's more than a year."
"And why was that? You didn't like her?"
"I liked her well enough," she replied with spirit.
"Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then—" She
looked around the kitchen.
"Yes?" he encouraged.
"It never seemed a very cheerful place," said she, more
to herself than to him.
"No," he agreed; "I don't think any one would call
it cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the home-making instinct."
"Well, I don't know as Wright had, either," she
muttered.
"You mean they didn't get on very well?" he was quick to
ask.
"No; I don't mean anything," she answered, with
decision. As she turned a little away from him, she added: "But I don't
think a place would be any the cheerfuler for John Wright's bein' in it."
"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs.
Hale," he said. "I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs
now."
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?"
the sheriff inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, you
know—and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday."
The county attorney looked at the two women whom they were leaving
alone there among the kitchen things.
"Yes—Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the
woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the
sheriff's wife. "Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said,
in a manner of entrusting responsibility. "And keep your eye out Mrs. Peters,
for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue
to the motive—and that's the thing we need."
Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a show man getting
ready for a pleasantry.
"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon
it?" he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed the
others through the stair door.
The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps,
first upon the stairs, then in the room above them.
Then, as if releasing herself from something strange, Mrs. Hale
began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which the county attorney's
disdainful push of the foot had deranged.
"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said
testily—"snoopin' round and criticizin'."
"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the
sheriff's wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence.
"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but
I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might have got a
little of this on." She gave the roller towel a pull. "Wish I'd
thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk about her for not having things
slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry."
She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked
up." Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was
off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag—half full.
Mrs. Hale moved toward it.
"She was putting this in there," she said to
herself—slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home—half sifted, half
not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had
interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made
a move as if to finish it,—unfinished things always bothered her,—and then she
glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her—and she didn't want
Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then—for some
reason—not finished.
"It's a shame about her fruit," she said, and walked
toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on the chair,
murmuring: "I wonder if it's all gone."
It was a sorry enough looking sight, but "Here's one that's
all right," she said at last. She held it toward the light. "This is
cherries, too." She looked again. "I declare I believe that's the
only one."
With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and
wiped off the bottle.
"She'll feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot
weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last summer."
She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started
to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. Something kept her from
sitting down in that chair. She straightened—stepped back, and, half turned
away, stood looking at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at
her apron."
The thin voice of the sheriff's wife broke in upon her: "I
must be getting those things from the front room closet." She opened the
door into the other room, started in, stepped back. "You coming with me, Mrs.
Hale?" she asked nervously. "You—you could help me get them."
They were soon back—the stark coldness of that shut-up room was
not a thing to linger in.
"My!" said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table
and hurrying to the stove.
Mrs. Hale stood examining the clothes the woman who was being
detained in town had said she wanted.
"Wright was close!" she exclaimed, holding up a shabby
black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. "I think maybe that's
why she kept so much to herself. I s'pose she felt she couldn't do her part;
and then, you don't enjoy things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty
clothes and be lively—when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls,
singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was twenty years ago."
With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded
the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of the table. She looked up at
Mrs. Peters and there was something in the other woman's look that irritated
her.
"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much
difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when she
was a girl."
Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't
at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. She had that shrinking manner,
and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things.
"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale.
"No," said the sheriff's wife; "she said she wanted
an apron. Funny thing to want," she ventured in her nervous little way,
"for there's not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I
suppose just to make her feel more natural. If you're used to wearing an
apron—. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes—here they
are. And then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door."
She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading
upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it.
Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman.
"Mrs. Peters!"
"Yes, Mrs. Hale?"
"Do you think she—did it?"
A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to
shrink away from the subject.
"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale
stoutly. "Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about her
fruit."
"Mr. Peters says—." Footsteps were heard in the room
above; she stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: "Mr.
Peters says—it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech,
and he's going to make fun of her saying she didn't—wake up."
For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, "Well, I guess
John Wright didn't wake up—when they was slippin' that rope under his
neck," she muttered.
"No, it's strange," breathed Mrs. Peters.
"They think it was such a—funny way to kill a man."
She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped.
"That's just what Mr. Hale said," said Mrs. Hale, in a
resolutely natural voice. "There was a gun in the house. He says that's
what he can't understand."
"Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the
case was a motive. Something to show anger—or sudden feeling."
"Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here," said
Mrs. Hale. "I don't—"
She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye
was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved
toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her
eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half
empty bag beside it. Things begun—and not finished.
After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of
releasing herself:
"Wonder how they're finding things upstairs? I hope she had
it a little more red up up there. You know,"—she paused, and feeling
gathered,—"it seems kind of sneaking: locking her up in town
and coming out here to get her own house to turn against her!"
"But, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife, "the law
is the law."
"I s'pose 'tis," answered Mrs. Hale shortly.
She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not
being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened
up she said aggressively:
"The law is the law—and a bad stove is a bad stove. How'd you
like to cook on this?"—pointing with the poker to the broken lining. She
opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she
was swept into her own thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after
year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie Foster trying
to bake in that oven—and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie
Foster—.
She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: "A person gets
discouraged—and loses heart."
The sheriff's wife had looked from the stove to the sink—to the
pail of water which had been carried in from outside. The two women stood there
silent, above them the footsteps of the men who were looking for evidence
against the woman who had worked in that kitchen. That look of seeing into
things, of seeing through a thing to something else, was in the eyes of the
sheriff's wife now. When Mrs. Hale next spoke to her, it was gently:
"Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. We'll not feel
them when we go out."
Mrs. Peters went to the back of the room to hang up the fur tippet
she was wearing. A moment later she exclaimed, "Why, she was piecing a
quilt," and held up a large sewing basket piled high with quilt pieces.
Mrs. Hale spread some of the blocks out on the table.
"It's log-cabin pattern," she said, putting several of
them together. "Pretty, isn't it?"
They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the
footsteps on the stairs. Just as the stair door opened Mrs. Hale was saying:
"Do you suppose she was going to quilt it or just knot
it?"
The sheriff threw up his hands.
"They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot
it!"
There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over
the stove, and then the county attorney said briskly:
"Well, let's go right out to the barn and get that cleared
up."
"I don't see as there's anything so strange," Mrs. Hale
said resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three men—"our
taking up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the
evidence. I don't see as it's anything to laugh about."
"Of course they've got awful important things on their
minds," said the sheriff's wife apologetically.
They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs.
Hale was looking at the fine, even sewing, and preoccupied with thoughts of the
woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff's wife say, in a
queer tone:
"Why, look at this one."
She turned to take the block held out to her.
"The sewing," said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way.
"All the rest of them have been so nice and even—but—this one. Why, it
looks as if she didn't know what she was about!"
Their eyes met—something flashed to life, passed between them;
then, as if with an effort, they seemed to pull away from each other. A moment
Mrs. Hale sat her hands folded over that sewing which was so unlike all
the rest of the sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the threads.
"Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?" asked the sheriff's
wife, startled.
"Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very
good," said Mrs. Hale mildly.
"I don't think we ought to touch things," Mrs. Peters
said, a little helplessly.
"I'll just finish up this end," answered Mrs. Hale,
still in that mild, matter-of-fact fashion.
She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good.
For a little while she sewed in silence. Then, in that thin, timid voice, she
heard:
"Mrs. Hale!"
"Yes, Mrs. Peters?"
"What do you suppose she was so—nervous about?"
"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Hale, as
if dismissing a thing not important enough to spend much time on. "I don't
know as she was—nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I'm just tired."
She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at
Mrs. Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff's wife seemed to have
tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next moment
she moved, and said in her thin, indecisive way:
"Well, I must get those clothes wrapped. They may be through
sooner than we think. I wonder where I could find a piece of paper—and
string."
"In that cupboard, maybe," suggested Mrs. Hale, after a
glance around.
One piece of the crazy sewing remained unripped. Mrs. Peters' back
turned, Martha Hale now scrutinized that piece, compared it with the dainty,
accurate sewing of the other blocks. The difference was startling. Holding this
block made her feel queer, as if the distracted thoughts of the woman who had
perhaps turned to it to try and quiet herself were communicating
themselves to her.
Mrs. Peters' voice roused her.
"Here's a bird-cage," she said. "Did she have a
bird, Mrs. Hale?"
"Why, I don't know whether she did or not." She turned
to look at the cage Mrs. Peter was holding up. "I've not been here in so
long." She sighed. "There was a man round last year selling canaries
cheap—but I don't know as she took one. Maybe she did. She used to sing real
pretty herself."
Mrs. Peters looked around the kitchen.
"Seems kind of funny to think of a bird here." She half
laughed—an attempt to put up a barrier. "But she must have had one—or why
would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it."
"I suppose maybe the cat got it," suggested Mrs. Hale,
resuming her sewing.
"No; she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some
people have about cats—being afraid of them. When they brought her to our house
yesterday, my cat got in the room, and she was real upset and asked me to take
it out."
"My sister Bessie was like that," laughed Mrs. Hale.
The sheriff's wife did not reply. The silence made Mrs. Hale turn
round. Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage.
"Look at this door," she said slowly. "It's broke.
One hinge has been pulled apart."
Mrs. Hale came nearer.
"Looks as if some one must have been—rough with it."
Again their eyes met—startled, questioning, apprehensive. For a
moment neither spoke nor stirred. Then Mrs. Hale, turning away, said brusquely:
"If they're going to find any evidence, I wish they'd be
about it. I don't like this place."
"But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale," Mrs.
Peters put the bird-cage on the table and sat down. "It would be lonesome
for me—sitting here alone."
"Yes, it would, wouldn't it?" agreed Mrs. Hale, a
certain determined naturalness in her voice. She had picked up the sewing, but
now it dropped in her lap, and she murmured in a different voice: "But I
tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over
sometimes when she was here. I wish—I had."
"But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale. Your house—and
your children."
"I could've come," retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. "I
stayed away because it weren't cheerful—and that's why I ought to have come.
I"—she looked around—"I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's
down in a hollow and you don't see the road. I don't know what it is, but it's
a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster
sometimes. I can see now—" She did not put it into words.
"Well, you mustn't reproach yourself," counseled Mrs.
Peters. "Somehow, we just don't see how it is with other folks
till—something comes up."
"Not having children makes less work," mused Mrs. Hale,
after a silence, "but it makes a quiet house—and Wright out to work all
day—and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs.
Peters?"
"Not to know him. I've seen him in town. They say he was a
good man."
"Yes—good," conceded John Wright's neighbor grimly.
"He didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and paid his
debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with
him—." She stopped, shivered a little. "Like a raw wind that gets to
the bone." Her eye fell upon the cage on the table before her, and she
added, almost bitterly: "I should think she would've wanted a bird!"
Suddenly she leaned forward, looking intently at the cage.
"But what do you s'pose went wrong with it?"
"I don't know," returned Mrs. Peters; "unless it
got sick and died."
But after she said it she reached over and swung the broken door.
Both women watched it as if somehow held by it.
"You didn't know—her?" Mrs. Hale asked, a gentler note
in her voice.
"Not till they brought her yesterday," said the
sheriff's wife.
"She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird
herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery.
How—she—did—change."
That held her for a long time. Finally, as if struck with a happy
thought and relieved to get back to every-day things, she exclaimed:
"Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in
with you? It might take up her mind."
"Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale,"
agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the atmosphere
of a simple kindness. "There couldn't possibly be any objection to that,
could there? Now, just what will I take? I wonder if her patches are in
here—and her things."
They turned to the sewing basket.
"Here's some red," said Mrs. Hale, bringing out a roll
of cloth. Underneath that was a box. "Here, maybe her scissors are in
here—and her things." She held it up. "What a pretty box! I'll
warrant that was something she had a long time ago—when she was a girl."
She held it in her hand a moment; then, with a little sigh, opened
it.
Instantly her hand went to her nose.
"Why—!"
Mrs. Peters drew nearer—then turned away.
"There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk,"
faltered Mrs. Hale.
"This isn't her scissors," said Mrs. Peters, in a
shrinking voice.
Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. "Oh,
Mrs. Peters!" she cried. "It's—"
Mrs. Peters bent closer.
"It's the bird," she whispered.
"But, Mrs. Peters!" cried Mrs. Hale. "Look at
it! Its neck—look at its neck! It's all—other side to."
She held the box away from her.
The sheriff's wife again bent closer.
"Somebody wrung its neck," said she, in a voice that was
slow and deep.
And then again the eyes of the two women met—this time clung
together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing horror. Mrs. Peters
looked from the dead bird to the broken door of the cage. Again their eyes met.
And just then there was a sound at the outside door.
Mrs. Hale slipped the box under the quilt pieces in the basket, and
sank into the chair before it. Mrs. Peters stood holding to the table. The
county attorney and the sheriff came in from outside.
"Well, ladies," said the county attorney, as one turning
from serious things to little pleasantries, "have you decided whether she
was going to quilt it or knot it?"
"We think," began the sheriff's wife in a flurried
voice, "that she was going to—knot it."
He was too preoccupied to notice the change that came in her voice
on that last.
"Well, that's very interesting, I'm sure," he said
tolerantly. He caught sight of the bird-cage. "Has the bird flown?"
"We think the cat got it," said Mrs. Hale in a voice
curiously even.
He was walking up and down, as if thinking something out.
"Is there a cat?" he asked absently.
Mrs. Hale shot a look up at the sheriff's wife.
"Well, not now," said Mrs. Peters.
"They're superstitious, you know; they leave."
She sank into her chair.
The county attorney did not heed her. "No sign at all of any
one having come in from the outside," he said to Peters, in the manner of
continuing an interrupted conversation. "Their own rope. Now let's go
upstairs again and go over it, piece by piece. It would have to have been some
one who knew just the—"
The stair door closed behind them and their voices were lost.
The two women sat motionless, not looking at each other, but as if
peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they spoke now
it was as if they were afraid of what they were saying, but as if they could
not help saying it.
"She liked the bird," said Martha Hale, low and slowly.
"She was going to bury it in that pretty box."
"When I was a girl," said Mrs. Peters, under her breath,
"my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—before I
could get there—" She covered her face an instant. "If they hadn't
held me back I would have"—she caught herself, looked upstairs where
footsteps were heard, and finished weakly—"hurt him."
Then they sat without speaking or moving.
"I wonder how it would seem," Mrs. Hale at last began,
as if feeling her way over strange ground—"never to have had any children
around?" Her eyes made a slow sweep of the kitchen, as if seeing what that
kitchen had meant through all the years. "No, Wright wouldn't like the
bird," she said after that—"a thing that sang. She used to sing. He
killed that too." Her voice tightened.
Mrs. Peters moved uneasily.
"Of course we don't know who killed the bird."
"I knew John Wright," was Mrs. Hale's answer.
"It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs.
Hale," said the sheriff's wife. "Killing a man while he
slept—slipping a thing round his neck that choked the life out of him."
Mrs. Hale's hand went out to the bird-cage.
"His neck. Choked the life out of him."
"We don't know who killed him,"
whispered Mrs. Peters wildly. "We don't know."
Mrs. Hale had not moved. "If there had been years and years
of—nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still—after the bird
was still."
It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found
in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as herself.
"I know what stillness is," she said, in a queer,
monotonous voice. "When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby
died—after he was two years old—and me with no other then—"
Mrs. Hale stirred.
"How soon do you suppose they'll be through looking for the
evidence?"
"I know what stillness is," repeated Mrs. Peters, in
just that same way. Then she too pulled back. "The law has got to punish
crime, Mrs. Hale," she said in her tight little way.
"I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster," was the answer,
"when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in the
choir and sang."
The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to
that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for lack of life, was suddenly
more than she could bear.
"Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a
while!" she cried. "That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going
to punish that?"
"We mustn't take on," said Mrs. Peters, with a
frightened look toward the stairs.
"I might 'a' known she needed help! I tell
you, it's queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live
far apart. We all go through the same things—it's all just a different kind of
the same thing! If it weren't—why do you and I understand? Why do
we know—what we know this minute?"
She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit
on the table, she reached for it and choked out:
"If I was you I wouldn't tell her her fruit
was gone! Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right—all of it.
Here—take this in to prove it to her! She—she may never know whether it was
broke or not."
She turned away.
Mrs. Peters reached out for the bottle of fruit as if she were
glad to take it—as if touching a familiar thing, having something to do, could
keep her from something else. She got up, looked about for something to wrap
the fruit in, took a petticoat from the pile of clothes she had brought from
the front room, and nervously started winding that round the bottle.
"My!" she began, in a high, false voice, "it's a
good thing the men couldn't hear us! Getting all stirred up over a little thing
like a—dead canary." She hurried over that. "As if that could have
anything to do with—with—My, wouldn't they laugh?"
Footsteps were heard on the stairs.
"Maybe they would," muttered Mrs. Hale—"maybe they
wouldn't."
"No, Peters," said the county attorney incisively;
"it's all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you know
juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing—something to
show. Something to make a story about. A thing that would connect up with this
clumsy way of doing it."
In a covert way Mrs. Hale looked at Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters was
looking at her. Quickly they looked away from each other. The outer door opened
and Mr. Hale came in.
"I've got the team round now," he said. "Pretty
cold out there."
"I'm going to stay here awhile by myself," the county
attorney suddenly announced. "You can send Frank out for me, can't
you?" he asked the sheriff. "I want to go over everything. I'm not
satisfied we can't do better."
Again, for one brief moment, the two women's eyes found one
another.
The sheriff came up to the table.
"Did you want to see what Mrs. Peters was going to take
in?"
The county attorney picked up the apron. He laughed.
"Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies
have picked out."
Mrs. Hale's hand was on the sewing basket in which the box was
concealed. She felt that she ought to take her hand off the basket. She did not
seem able to. He picked up one of the quilt blocks which she had piled on to
cover the box. Her eyes felt like fire. She had a feeling that if he took up
the basket she would snatch it from him.
But he did not take it up. With another little laugh, he turned
away, saying:
"No; Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a
sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it that way, Mrs.
Peters?"
Mrs. Peters was standing beside the table. Mrs. Hale shot a look
up at her; but she could not see her face. Mrs. Peters had turned away. When
she spoke, her voice was muffled.
"Not—just that way," she said.
"Married to the law!" chuckled Mrs. Peters' husband. He
moved toward the door into the front room, and said to the county attorney:
"I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought
to take a look at these windows."
"Oh—windows," said the county attorney scoffingly.
"We'll be right out, Mr. Hale," said the sheriff to the
farmer, who was still waiting by the door.
Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the
county attorney into the other room. Again—for one final moment—the two women
were alone in that kitchen.
Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that
other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could not see her eyes, for the
sheriff's wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of
being married to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made
her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes
met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other
in a steady, burning look in which there was no evasion nor flinching. Then
Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which was hidden the thing
that would make certain the conviction of the other woman—that woman who was
not there and yet who had been there with them all through that hour.
For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a
rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got the box, tried to put it in
her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the
bird out. But there she broke—she could not touch the bird. She stood there
helpless, foolish.
There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha
Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got it in the pocket of her
big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the
kitchen.
"Well, Henry," said the county attorney facetiously,
"at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was
going to—what is it you call it, ladies?"
Mrs. Hale's hand was against the pocket of her coat.
"We call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson."
By FREDERICK STUART
GREENE
From The Century
Magazine
Larry
Walsh slowly climbed the
stairs of a house near the waterfront, in a run-down quarter of old New York.
He halted on the top floor, blinking in the dim light that struggled through the
grime-coated window of the hallway. After a time he knocked timidly on the door
before him.
There was nothing in the pleasant "Come in" to alarm the
small man; he started to retreat, but stopped when the door was thrown wide.
"Then it's yourself, Mouse! It's good for the eyes just to
look at you."
The woman who greeted Walsh was in striking contrast to her shabby
surroundings. Everything about the old-fashioned house, one floor of which was
her home, spoke of neglected age. This girl, from the heavy, black braids
encircling her head to the soles of her shoes, vibrated youth. Her cheeks
glowed with the color of splendid health; her blue Irish eyes were bright with
it. Friendliness had rung in the tones of her rich brogue, and showed now in
her smile as she waited for her visitor to answer.
Larry stood before her too shy to speak.
"Is it word from Dan you're bringin' me?" she
encouraged. "But there, now, I'm forgettin' me manners! Come in, an' I'll
be makin' you a cup of tea." She took his arm impulsively, with the
frank comradeship of a young woman for a man much older than herself, and led
him to a chair.
Larry sat ready for flight, his cap held stiffly across his knees.
He watched every movement of the girl, a look of pathetic meekness in his eyes.
"You're right, Mrs. Sullivan," he said after an effort;
"Dan was askin' me to step in on my way to the ship."
She turned quickly from the stove.
"You're not tellin' me now Dan ain't comin' himself, an' the
boat leavin' this night?"
Larry was plainly uneasy.
"Well, you see—it's—now it's just like I'm tellin' you, Mrs.
Sullivan; he's that important to the chief, is Dan, they can't get on without
him to-day at all."
"Then bad luck, I say, to the chief! Look at the grand supper
I'm after fixin' for Dan!"
"Oh, Mary—Mrs. Sullivan, don't be speakin' disrespectful' of
the chief, an' him thinkin' so highly of Dan!"
Mary's blue eyes flashed.
"An' why wouldn't he! It's not every day he'll find the likes
of Dan, with the strong arms an' the great legs of him, not to mention his
grand looks." She crossed to Larry, her face aglow. "Rest easy now
while you drink your tea," she urged kindly, "an' tell me what the
chief be wantin' him for."
She drew her chair close to Larry, but the small man turned shyly
from her searching gaze.
"Well, you see, Mrs.—"
"Call me Mary. It's a year an' more now since the first time
you brought Dan home to me." A sudden smile lighted her face. "Well I
remember how frightened you looked when first you set eyes on me. Was you
thinkin' to find Dan's wife a slip of a girl?"
"No; he told me you was a fine, big lass." He looked
from Mary to the picture of an older woman that hung above the mantel.
"That'll be your mother, I'm thinkin'." Then, with abrupt
change, "When did you leave the old country, Mary?"
"A little more'n a year before I married Dan. But tell me,
Mouse, about the chief wantin' him."
"We'll you see, Dan's that handy-like—"
"That's the blessed truth you're speakin'," she
interupted, her face lovely with its flush of pride. "But tell me more,
that's a darlin'."
Larry thought rapidly before he spoke again.
"Only the last trip I was hearin' the chief say: 'Dan,' says
he, 'it's not long now you'll be swingin' the shovel. I'll be makin' you
water-tender soon.'"
Mary leaned nearer, and caught both of Larry's hands in hers.
"Them's grand words you're sayin'; they fair makes my heart
jump." She paused; the gladness faded quickly from her look. "Then
the chief don't know Dan sometimes takes a drop?"
"Ain't the chief Irish himself? Every man on the boilers
takes his dram." Her wistful eyes spurred him on. "Sure's I'm sittin'
here, Dan's the soberest of the lot."
Mary shook her head sadly.
"Good reason I have to fear the drink; 't was that spoiled my
mother's life."
Larry rose quickly.
"Your mother never drank!"
"No; the saints preserve us!" She looked up in surprise
at Larry's startled face. "It was my father. I don't remember only what
mother told me; he left her one night, ravin' drunk, an' never come back."
Larry hastily took up his cap.
"I must be goin' back to the ship now," he said
abruptly. "An' thank you, Mary, for the tea." He hurried from the
room.
When Larry reached the ground floor he heard Mary's door open
again.
"Can I be troublin' you, Mouse, to take something to Dan?"
She came down the stairs, carrying a dinner-pail. "I'd thought to be
eatin' this supper along with him," Mary said, disappointment in her tone.
She followed Larry to the outer landing. "It's the true word you was
sayin', he'll be makin' Dan water-tender?"
Larry forced himself to look into her anxious eyes.
"Sure; it's just as I said, Mary."
"Then I'll pray this night to the Mother of God for that
chief; for soon"—Mary hesitated; a light came to her face that lifted the
girl high above her squalid surroundings—"the extra pay'll be comin' handy
soon," she ended, her voice as soft as a Killarney breeze.
Larry, as he looked at the young wife standing between the scarred
columns of the old doorway, was stirred to the farthest corner of his heart.
"They only smile like that to the angels," he thought.
Then aloud: "Bad cess to me! I was forgettin' entirely! Dan said to leave
this with you." He pushed crumpled, coal-soiled money into her hand, and
fled down the steps.
When Larry heard the door close creakily behind him, he looked
back to where Mary had stood, his eyes blinking rapidly. After some moments he
walked slowly on toward the wharves. In the distance before him the spars and
funnels of ships loomed through the dusk, their outlines rapidly fading into
the sky beyond—a late September sky, now fast turning to a burned-out sheet of
dull gray.
Larry went aboard his ship, and, going to the forecastle, peered
into an upper bunk.
"Your baby's not to home, Mouse," a voice jeered.
"I saw him over to Flanagan's awhile ago."
A hopeless look crossed Larry's face.
"Give me a hand up the side, like a good lad, Jim, when I
come aboard again."
A few minutes later the little man was making his way back to the
steamer, every step of his journey harassed by derisive shouts as he dodged
between the lines of belated trucks that jammed West Street from curb to
string-piece. He pushed a wheelbarrow before him, his knees bending under the
load it held. Across the barrow, legs and head dangling over the sides, lay an
unconscious heap that when sober answered to the name of Dan Sullivan.
Larry Walsh, stoker on the coastwise freighter San Gardo,
was the butt of the ship; every man of the crew imposed on his good nature. He
was one of those persons "just fool enough to do what he's told to
do." For thirty of his fifty years he had been a seaman, and the marks of
a sailor's life were stamped hard on his face. His weathered cheeks were plowed
by wrinkles that stretched, deep furrowed, from his red-gray hair to the
corners of his mouth. From under scant brows he peered out on the world with
near-sighted eyes; but whenever a smile broadened his wide mouth, his eyes
would shine with a kindly light.
Larry's defective sight had led to his banishment as a sailor from
the decks. During a storm off Hatteras a stoker had fallen and died on the
boiler-room plates.
"It don't take no eyes at all to see clean to the back of a
Scotch boiler," the boatswain had told the chief engineer. "I can
give you that little squint-eyed feller." So, at the age of forty or
thereabouts, Larry left the cool, wind-swept deck to take up work new to him in
the superheated, gas-stifling air of the fire-room. Though entered on the
ship's papers as a sailor, he had gone without complaint down the straight
ladders to the very bottom of the hull. Bidden to take the dead stoker's place,
"he was just fool enough to do what he was told to do."
Larry was made the coal-passer of that watch, and began at once
the back-breaking task of shoveling fuel from the bunkers to the floor outside,
ready for the stokers to heave into the boilers. He had been passing less than
an hour during his first watch when the coal ran short in the lower
bunker. He speared with a slice-bar in the bunker above. The fuel rested at a
steeper angle than his weak eyes could see, and his bar dislodged a wedged
lump; an instant later the new passer was half buried under a heap of sliding
coal. Bewildered, but unhurt, he crawled to the boiler-room, shaking the coal
from his back and shoulders. Through dust-filled ears he heard the general
laugh at his plight.
"Look at the nigger Irishman!" a stoker called.
"Irishman!" came the answer. "It's no man at all;
it's a mouse you're seein'—a bunker mouse."
From that moment the name Larry Walsh was forgotten.
The San Gardo was late getting away that night;
two bells of the evening watch had sounded when at last she backed from her
pier into the North River and began the first mile of her trip to Galveston.
Though she showed a full six inches of the red paint below her water-line, the
loading of her freight had caused the delay. In the hold lay many parts of
sawmill machinery. When the last of this clumsy cargo had settled to its
allotted place, there was left an unusual void of empty blackness below the
deck hatches.
"It's up to you now, Matie," the stevedore had said to
the impatient first officer. "My job's done right, but she'll roll her
sticks out if it's rough outside."
"That's nice; hand me all the cheerful news you have when you
know they hung out storm-warnings at noon," the officer had growled as the
stevedore went ashore.
Signs that both the Government and the stevedore had predicted
correctly began to show as soon as the vessel cleared the Hook. The wind was
blowing half a gale from the southeast and had already kicked up a troublesome
sea. The ship, resenting her half-filled hold, pitched with a viciousness new
to the crew.
There was unusual activity on board the San Gardo that
night. Long after the last hatch-cover had been placed the boatswain
continued to inspect, going over the deck from bow to stern to see that every
movable thing was lashed fast.
In the engine-room as well, extra precautions were taken. It was
Robert Neville's watch below; he was the first of the three assistant
engineers. Neville, a young man, was unique in that most undemocratic
institution, a ship's crew, for he apparently considered the stokers under him
as human beings. For one of his fire-room force he had an actual liking.
"Why do you keep that fellow they call Bunker Mouse in your
watch?" the chief once asked.
"Because he's willing and the handiest man I have,"
Neville answered promptly.
"Well, suit yourself; but that brute Sullivan will kill him
some day, I hear."
"I don't know about that, Chief. The Mouse is game."
"So's a trout; but it's got a damn poor show against a
shark," the chief had added with a shrug.
Neville's watch went on duty shortly after the twin lights above
Sandy Hook had dropped astern. The ship was then rolling heavily enough to make
walking difficult on the oily floor of the engine-room; in the boiler-room,
lower by three feet, to stand steady even for a moment was impossible. Here, in
this badly lighted quarter of the ship, ill humor hung in the air thicker than
the coal-gas.
Dan Sullivan, partly sobered, fired his boiler, showing ugly
readiness for a fight. Larry, stoking next to him, kept a weather-eye
constantly on his fellow-laborer.
Neville's men had been on duty only a few minutes when the
engineer came to the end of the passage and called Larry.
"That's right," Dan growled; "run along, you
engineer's pet, leavin' your work for me to do!"
Larry gave him no answer as he hurried away.
"Make fast any loose thing you see here," Neville
ordered.
Larry went about the machinery-crowded room securing every object
that a lurching ship might send flying from its place. When he returned to the
fire-room he heard the water-tender shouting:
"Sullivan, you're loafin' on your job! Get more fire under
that boiler!"
"An' ain't I doin' double work, with that damn Mouse forever
sneakin' up to the engine-room?"
Larry, giving no sign that he had heard Dan's growling answer,
drove his scoop into the coal, and with a swinging thrust spread its heaped
load evenly over the glowing bed in the fire-box. He closed the fire-door with
a quick slam, for in a pitching boiler-room burning coal can fall from an open
furnace as suddenly as new coal can be thrown into it.
"So, you're back," Dan sneered. "It's a wonder you
wouldn't stay the watch up there with your betters."
Larry went silently on with his work.
"Soft, ain't it, you jellyfish, havin' me do your job? You
eel, you—." Dan poured out a stream of abusive oaths.
Still Larry did not answer.
"Dan's ravin' mad," a man on the port boilers said.
"Will he soak the Mouse to-night, I wonder."
"Sure," the stoker beside him answered. "An' it's a
dirty shame for a big devil like him to smash the little un."
"You're new on this ship; you don't know 'em. The Mouse is a
regular mother to that booze-fighter, an' small thanks he gets. But wait, an'
you'll see somethin' in a minute."
Dan's temper, however, was not yet at fighting heat. He glared a
moment longer at Larry, then turned sullenly to his boiler. He was none too
steady on his legs, and this, with the lurching of the ship, made his work
ragged. After a few slipshod passes he struck the door-frame squarely with his
scoop, spilling the coal to the floor.
"Damn your squint eyes!" he yelled. "You done that,
Mouse! You shoved ag'in' me. Now scrape it all up, an' be quick about it!"
Without a word, while his tormentor jeered and cursed him, Larry
did as he was told.
"Ain't you got no fight at all in your shriveled-up
body?" Dan taunted as Larry finished. "You're a disgrace to Ireland,
that's what you are."
Larry, still patient, turned away. Dan sprang to him and spun the
little man about.
"Where's the tongue in your ugly mouth?" Dan was shaking
with rage. "I'll not be havin' the likes of you followin' me from ship to
ship, an' sniffin' at my heels ashore. I won't stand for it no longer, do you
hear? Do you think I need a nurse? Now say you'll leave this ship when we makes
port, or I'll break every bone in you."
Dan towered above Larry, his arm drawn back ready to strike. Every
man in the room stopped work to watch the outcome of the row.
At the beginning of the tirade Larry's thin shoulders had
straightened; he raised his head; his lower jaw, undershot, was set hard. The
light from the boiler showed his near-sighted eyes steady on Sullivan,
unafraid.
"Get on with your work, an' don't be a fool, Dan," he
said quietly.
"A fool, am I!"
Dan's knotted fist flashed to within an inch of Larry's jaw. The
Bunker Mouse did not flinch. For a moment the big stoker's arm quivered to
strike, then slowly fell.
"You ain't worth smashin'," Sullivan snarled, and turned
away.
"Well, what d'yer know about that!" the new stoker
cried.
"It's that way all the time," he was answered;
"there ain't a trip Dan don't ball the Mouse out to a fare-you-well; but
he never lays hand to 'im. None of us knows why."
"You don't? Well, I do. The big slob's yeller, an' I'll
show 'im up." The stoker crossed to Sullivan. "See here, Bo, why
don't you take on a man your size?" He thrust his face close to Dan's and
shouted the answer to his question: "I'll tell you why. You ain't got sand
enough."
Dan's teeth snapped closed, then parted to grin at his challenger.
"Do you think you're big enough?" The joy of battle was
in his growl.
"Yes, I do." The man put up his hands.
Instantly Dan's left broke down the guard; his right fist landed
squarely on the stoker's jaw, sending him reeling to the bunker wall, where he
fell. It was a clean knock-out.
"Go douse your friend with a pail of water, Mouse." Dan,
still grinning, picked up his shovel and went to work.
When Neville's watch went off duty, Larry found the sea no rougher
than on countless other runs he had made along the Atlantic coast. The wind had
freshened to a strong gale, but he reached the forecastle with no great
difficulty.
Without marked change the San Gardo carried the
same heavy weather from Barnegat Light to the Virginia capes. Beyond Cape Henry
the blow began to stiffen and increased every hour as the freighter plowed
steadily southward. Bucking head seas every mile of the way, she picked up
Diamond Shoals four hours behind schedule. As she plunged past the tossing
light-ship, Larry, squinting through a forecastle port, wondered how long its
anchor chains would hold. The San Gardo was off Jupiter by
noon the third day out, running down the Florida coast; the wind-bent palms
showed faintly through the driving spray.
Neville's watch went on duty that night at eight. As his men left
the forecastle a driving rain beat against their backs, and seas broke over the
port bow at every downward plunge of the ship. To gain the fire-room door,
they clung to rail or stanchion to save themselves from being swept overboard.
They held on desperately as each wave flooded the deck, watched their chance,
then sprang for the next support. On freighters no cargo space is wasted below
decks in passageways for the crew.
When Larry reached the fire-room there was not a dry inch of cloth
covering his wiry body. He and his fellow-stokers took up immediately the work
of the men they had relieved, and during the first hours of their watch fired
the boilers with no more difficulty than is usual in heavy weather.
At eleven o'clock the speaking-tube whistled, and a moment later
Neville came to the end of the passage.
"What are you carrying?" he shouted to the water-tender.
"We've got to keep a full head of steam on her to-night."
"We've got it, Mr. Neville—one hundred and sixty, an' we've
held between that and sixty-five ever since I've been on."
"The captain says we've made Tortugas. We lost three hours on
the run from Jupiter," Neville answered, and went back to his engine.
During the next hour no one on deck had to tell these men, toiling
far below the water-line, that wind and sea had risen. They had warnings
enough. Within their steel-incased quarters every bolt and rivet sounded the
overstrain forced upon it. In the engine-room the oiler could no longer move
from the throttle. Every few minutes now, despite his watchfulness, a jarring
shiver spread through the hull as the propeller, thrown high, raced wildly in
mid-air before he could shut off steam.
At eleven-thirty the indicator clanged, and its arrow jumped to
half-speed ahead. A moment later the men below decks "felt the
rudder" as the San Gardo, abandoning further attempts to hold
her course, swung about to meet the seas head on.
Eight bells—midnight—struck, marking the end of the shift;
but no one came down the ladders to relieve Neville's watch. The growls of the
tired men rose above the noise in the fire-room. Again Neville came through the
passage.
"The tube to the bridge is out of commission," he
called, "but I can raise the chief. He says no man can live on deck; one's
gone overboard already. The second watch can't get out of the forecastle. It's
up to us, men, to keep this ship afloat, and steam's the only thing that'll do it."
For the next hour and the next the fire-room force and the two men
in the engine-room stuck doggedly to their work. They knew that the San
Gardo was making a desperate struggle, that it was touch and go
whether the ship would live out the hurricane or sink to the bottom. They knew
also, to the last man of them, that if for a moment the ship fell off broadside
to the seas, the giant waves would roll her over and over like an empty barrel
in a mill-race. The groaning of every rib and plate in the hull, the crash of
seas against the sides, the thunder of waves breaking on deck, drowned the
usual noises below.
The color of the men's courage began to show. Some kept grimly at
their work, dumb from fear. Others covered fright with profanity, cursing the
storm, the ship, their mates, cursing themselves. Larry, as he threw coal
steadily through his fire-doors, hummed a broken tune. He gave no heed to Dan,
who grew more savage as the slow hours of overtoil dragged by.
About four in the morning Neville called Larry to the engine-room.
On his return Dan blazed out at him:
"Boot-lickin' Neville ag'in, was you? I'd lay you out, you
shrimp, only I want you to do your work."
Larry took up his shovel; as usual his silence enraged Sullivan.
"You chicken-livered wharf-rat, ain't you got no spunk to
answer wid?" Dan jerked a slice-bar from the fire and hurled it to the
floor at Larry's feet. The little man leaped in the air; the white-hot end
of the bar, bounding from the floor, missed his legs by an inch.
Larry's jaw shot out; he turned on Sullivan, all meekness gone.
"Dan," he cried shrilly, "if you try that
again—"
"Great God! what's that!"
Dan's eyes were staring; panic showed on every face in the room.
The sound of an explosion had come from the forward hold. Another followed, and
another, a broadside of deafening reports. The terrifying sounds came racing
aft. They reached the bulkhead nearest them, and tore through the fire-room,
bringing unmasked fear to every man of the watch. The crew stood for a moment
awed, then broke, and, rushing for the ladder, fought for a chance to escape
this new, unknown madness of the storm.
Only Larry kept his head.
"Stop! Come back!" His shrill voice carried above the
terrifying noise. "It's the plates bucklin' between the ribs."
"Plates! Hell! she's breakin' up!"
Neville rushed in from the engine-room.
"Back to your fires, men, or we'll all drown! Steam, keep
up—" He was shouting at full-lung power, but his cries were cut short.
Again the deafening reports started at the bows. Again, crash after crash, the
sounds came tearing aft as if a machine-gun were raking the vessel from bow to
stern. At any time these noises would bring terror to men locked below decks;
but now, in the half-filled cargo spaces, each crashing report was like the
bursting of a ten-inch shell.
Neville went among the watch, urging, commanding, assuring them
that these sounds meant no real danger to the ship. He finally ended the panic
by beating the more frightened ones back to their boilers.
Then for hours, at every plunge of the ship, the deafening boom of
buckling plates continued until the watch was crazed by the sound.
This new terror began between four and five in the morning, when
the men had served double time under the grueling strain. At sunrise another
misery was added to their torture: the rain increased suddenly, and fell a
steady cataract to the decks. This deluge and the flying spray sent gallons of
water down the stack; striking the breeching-plates, it was instantly turned to
steam and boiling water. As the fagged stokers bent before the boilers, the hot
water, dripping from the breeching, washed scalding channels through the
coal-dust down their bare backs. They hailed this new torment with louder
curses, but continued to endure it for hours, while outside the hurricane
raged, no end, no limit, to its power.
Since the beginning of the watch the bilge-pumps had had all they
could do to handle the leakage coming from the seams of the strained hull.
Twice Neville had taken the throttle and sent his oiler to clear the suctions.
The violent lurching of the ship had churned up every ounce of sediment that
had lain undisturbed beneath the floor-plates since the vessel's launching.
Sometime between seven and eight all the bilge-pumps clogged at the same
moment, and the water began rising at a rate that threatened the fires. It
became a question of minutes between life and death for all hands. Neville,
working frantically to clear the pumps, yelled to the oiler to leave the
throttle and come to him. The water, gaining fast, showed him that their
combined efforts were hopeless. He ran to the boiler-room for more aid. Here
the water had risen almost to the fires; as the ship rolled, it slushed up
between the floor-plates and ran in oily streams about the men's feet. Again
panic seized the crew.
"Come on, lads!" Sullivan shouted above the infernal
din. "We'll be drowned in this hell-hole!"
In the next second he was half-way up the ladder, below him,
clinging to the rungs like frightened apes, hung other stokers.
"Come back, you fool!" Neville shouted. "Open that
deck-door, and you'll swamp the ship!"
Dan continued to climb.
"Come down or I'll fire!"
"Shoot an' be damned to you!" Dan called back.
The report of Neville's revolver was lost in the noise; but the
bullet, purposely sent high, spattered against the steel plate above Dan's
head. He looked down. Neville, swaying with the pitching floor, was aiming true
for his second shot. Cursing at the top of his voice, Dan scrambled down the
ladder, pushing the men below him to the floor.
"Back to your boilers!" Neville ordered; but the
stokers, huddled in a frightened group, refused to leave the ladder.
It was only a matter of seconds now before the fires would be
drenched. Bilge-water was splashing against the under boiler-plates, filling
the room with dense steam. Neville left the men and raced for the engine-room.
He found Larry and the oiler working desperately at the valve-wheel of the
circulating pump. Neville grasped the wheel, and gave the best he had to open
the valve. This manifold, connecting the pump with the bilges, was intended
only for emergency use. It had not been opened for months, and was now rusted
tight. The three men, straining every muscle, failed to budge the wheel. After
the third hopeless attempt, Larry let go, and without a word bolted through the
passage to the fire-room.
"You miserable quitter!" Neville screamed after him, and
bent again to the wheel.
As he looked up, despairing of any chance to loosen the rusted
valve, Larry came back on the run, carrying a coal-pick handle. He thrust it
between the spokes of the wheel.
"Now, Mr. Neville, all together!" His Celtic jaw was set
hard.
All three threw their weight against the handle. The wheel
stirred.
As they straightened for another effort, a louder noise of hissing
steam sounded from the boilers, and the fire-room force, mad with fright, came
crowding through the passage to the higher floor of the engine-room.
"Quick! Together!" Neville gasped.
The wheel moved an inch.
"Once more! Now!"
The wheel turned and did not stop. The three men dropped the
lever, seized the wheel, and threw the valve wide open.
"Good work, men!" Neville cried, and fell back
exhausted.
The centrifugal pump was thrown in at the last desperate moment.
When the rusted valve finally opened, water had risen to the lower grate-bars
under every boiler in the fire-room. But once in action, the twelve-inch
suction of the giant pump did its work with magic swiftness. In less than
thirty seconds the last gallon of water in the bilges had been lifted and sent,
rushing through the discharge, overboard.
Neville faced the boiler-room crew sternly.
"Now, you cowards, get to your fires!" he said.
As the men slunk back through the passage Dan growled:
"May that man some day burn in hell!"
"Don't be wishin' him no such luck," an angry voice
answered; "wish him down here wid us."
The morning dragged past; noon came, marking the sixteenth hour
that the men, imprisoned below the sea-swept decks, had struggled to save the
ship. Sundown followed, and the second night of their unbroken toil began. They
stuck to it, stood up somehow under the racking grind, their nerves quivering,
their bodies craving food, their eyes gritty from the urge of sleep, while
always the hideous noises of the gale screamed in their ears. The
machine-gun roar of buckling plates, raking battered hull, never ceased.
With each crawling minute the men grew more silent, more
desperate. Dan Sullivan let no chance pass to vent his spleen on Larry. Twice
during the day his fellow-stokers, watching the familiar scene, saw the big man
reach the point of crushing the small one; but the ever-expected blow did not
fall.
Shortly after midnight the first hope came to the exhausted men
that their fight might not be in vain. Though the buckling plates still
thundered, though the floor under their feet still pitched at crazy angles,
there was a "feel" in the fire-room that ribs and beams and rivets
were not so near the breaking-point.
Neville came to the end of the passage.
"The hurricane's blowing itself to death," he shouted.
"Stick to it, boys, for an hour longer; the second watch can reach us by
then."
The hour passed, but no relief came. The wind had lost some force,
but the seas still broke over the bows, pouring tons of water to the deck. The
vessel pitched as high, rolled as deep, as before.
As the men fired their boilers they rested the filled scoops on
the floor and waited for the ship to roll down. Then a quick jerk of the
fire-door chain, a quick heave of the shovel, and the door was snapped shut
before the floor rolled up again. Making one of these hurried passes, Larry
swayed on tired legs. He managed the toss and was able to close the door before
he fell hard against Dan. His sullen enemy instantly launched a new tirade,
fiercer, more blasphemous, than any before. He ended a stream of oaths, and
rested the scoop ready for his throw.
"I'll learn yuh, yuh snivelin'—" The ship rolled deep.
Dan jerked the fire-door open—"yuh snivelin' shrimp!" He glared at
Larry as he made the pass. He missed the opening. His shovel struck hard
against the boiler front. The jar knocked Dan to the floor, pitched that moment
at its steepest angle. He clutched desperately to gain a hold on the
smooth-worn steel plates, his face distorted by fear as he slid down to the
fire.
Larry, crying a shrill warning, sprang between Sullivan and the
open furnace. He stooped, and with all the strength he could gather shoved the
big stoker from danger. Then above the crashing sounds a shriek tore the
steam-clouded air of the fire-room. Larry had fallen!
As his feet struck the ash-door, the ship rolled up. A cascade
falling from Dan's fire had buried Larry's legs to the knees under a bed of
white-hot coals. He shrieked again the cry of the mortally hurt as Dan dragged
him too late from before the open door.
"Mouse! Mouse!" Horror throbbed in Sullivan's voice.
"You're hurted bad!" He knelt, holding Larry in his arms, while
others threw water on the blazing coals.
"Speak, lad!" Dan pleaded. "Speak to me!"
The fire-room force stood over them silenced. Accident, death
even, they always expected; but to see Dan Sullivan show pity for any living
thing, and above all, for the Bunker Mouse—
The lines of Larry's tortured face eased.
"It's the last hurt I'll be havin', Dan," he said before
he fainted.
"Don't speak the word, Mouse, an' you just after savin' me
life!" Then the men in the fire-room saw a miracle: tears filled the big
stoker's eyes.
Neville had heard Larry's cry and rushed to the boiler-room.
"For God's sake! what's happened now?"
Dan pointed a shaking finger. Neville looked once at what only a
moment before had been the legs and feet of a man. As he turned quickly from
the sight the engineer's face was like chalk.
"Here, two of you," he called unsteadily, "carry
him to the engine-room."
Dan threw the men roughly aside.
"Leave him be," he growled. "Don't a one of you put
hand on him!" He lifted Larry gently and, careful of each step, crossed
the swaying floor.
"Lay him there by the dynamo," Neville ordered when they
had reached the engine-room.
Dan hesitated.
"'T ain't fittin', sir, an' him so bad' hurt. Let me be
takin' him to the store-room."
Neville looked doubtfully up the narrow stairs.
"We can't get him there with this sea running."
Sullivan spread his legs wide, took both of Larry's wrists in one
hand, and swung the unconscious man across his back. He strode to the iron
stairs and began to climb. As he reached the first grating Larry groaned. Dan
stopped dead; near him the great cross-heads were plunging steadily up and
down.
"God, Mr. Neville, did he hit ag'in' somethin'?" The
sweat of strain and fear covered his face.
The vessel leaped to the crest of a wave, and dropped sheer into
the trough beyond.
"No; but for God's sake, man, go on! You'll pitch with him to
the floor if she does that again!"
Dan, clinging to the rail with his free hand, began climbing the
second flight.
At the top grating Neville sprang past him to the store-room door.
"Hold him a second longer," he called, and spread an
armful of cotton waste on the vise bench.
Dan laid Larry on the bench. He straightened his own great body
for a moment, then sat down on the floor and cried.
Neville, pretending not to see Dan's distress, brought more waste.
As he placed it beneath his head Larry groaned. Dan, still on the floor, wrung
his hands, calling on the saints and the Virgin to lighten the pain of this man
it had been his joy to torture.
Neville turned to him.
"Get up from there!" he cried sharply. "Go see what
you can find to help him."
Dan left the room, rubbing his red-flanneled arm across his eyes.
He returned quickly with a can of cylinder oil, and poured it slowly over the
horribly burned limbs.
"There ain't no bandages, sir; only this." He held out a
shirt belonging to the engineer; his eyes pleaded his question. Neville nodded,
and Dan tore the shirt in strips. When he finished the task, strange to his
clumsy hands, Larry had regained consciousness and lay trying pitifully to
stifle his moans.
"Does it make you feel aisier, Mouse?" Dan leaned close
to the quivering lips to catch the answer.
"It helps fine," Larry answered, and fainted again.
"You'll be leavin' me stay wid him, sir?" Dan begged.
"'T was for me he's come to this."
Neville gave consent and left the two men together.
Between four and five in the morning, when Neville's watch had
lived through thirty-three unbroken hours of the fearful grind, a shout that
ended in a screaming laugh ran through the fire-room. High above the
toil-crazed men a door had opened and closed. A form, seen dimly through the
smoke and steam, was moving backward down the ladder. Again the door opened;
another man came through. Every shovel in the room fell to the steel floor;
every man in the room shouted or laughed or cried.
The engine-room door, too, had opened, admitting the chief and his
assistant. Not until he had examined each mechanical tragedy below did the
chief give time to the human one above.
"Where's that man that's hurt?" he asked as he came,
slowly, from an inspection of the burned-out bearings down the shaft alley.
Neville went with him to the store-room. Dan, sagging under
fatigue, clung to the bench where Larry lay moaning.
"You can go now, Sullivan," Neville told him.
Dan raised his head, remorse, entreaty, stubbornness in his look.
"Let me be! I'll not leave him!"
The chief turned to Neville.
"What's come over that drunk?" he asked.
"Ever since the Mouse got hurt, Sullivan's acted queer, just
like a woman."
"Get to your quarters, Sullivan," the chief ordered.
"We'll take care of this man."
Dan's hands closed; for an instant he glared rebellion from
blood-shot eyes. Then the iron law of sea discipline conquering, he turned to
Larry.
"The Blessed Virgin aise you, poor Mouse!" he mumbled
huskily and slouched out through the door.
At midday the San Gardo's captain got a shot at
the sun. Though his vessel had been headed steadily northeast for more than
thirty hours, the observation showed that she had made twenty-eight miles
sternway to the southwest. By two in the afternoon the wind had dropped to half
a gale, making a change of course possible. The captain signaled full speed
ahead, and the ship, swinging about, began limping across the gulf, headed once
more toward Galveston.
Neville, who had slept like a stone, came on deck just before
sunset. The piled-up seas, racing along the side, had lost their breaking
crests; the ship rose and fell with some degree of regularity. He called the
boatswain and went to the store-room.
They found Larry in one of his conscious moments.
"Well, Mouse, we're going to fix you in a better place,"
the engineer called with what heart he could show.
"Thank you kindly, sir," Larry managed to answer; "but
't is my last voyage, Mr. Neville." And the grit that lay hidden in the
man's soul showed in his pain-twisted smile.
They carried him up the last flight of iron stairs to the deck.
Clear of the engine-room, the boatswain turned toward the bow.
"No. The other way, Boson," Neville ordered.
The chief, passing them, stopped.
"Where are you taking him, Mr. Neville?"
"The poor fellow's dying, sir," Neville answered in a
low voice.
"Well, where are you taking him?" the chief persisted.
"I'd like to put him in my room, sir."
"A stoker in officers' quarters!" The chief frowned.
"Sunday-school discipline!" He disappeared through the engine-room
door, slamming it after him.
They did what they could, these seamen, for the injured man; on
freighters one of the crew has no business to get hurt. They laid Larry in
Neville's berth and went out, leaving a sailor to watch over him.
The sun rose the next day in a cloudless sky, and shone on a
brilliant sea of tumbling, white-capped waves. Far off the starboard bow
floated a thin line of smoke from a tug's funnel, the first sign to the crew since
the hurricane that the world was not swept clean of ships. Two hours later the
tug was standing by, her captain hailing the San Gardo through
a megaphone.
"Run in to New Orleans!" he shouted.
"I cleared for Galveston, and I'm going there,"
the San Gardo's captain called back.
"No, you ain't neither."
"I'd like to know why, I won't."
"Because you can't,"—the answer carried distinctly
across the waves,—"there ain't no such place. It's been washed clean off
the earth."
The San Gardo swung farther to the west and with her
engine pounding at every stroke, limped on toward the Mississippi.
At five o'clock a Port Eads pilot climbed over the side, and
taking the vessel through South Pass, straightened her in the smooth, yellow
waters of the great river for the hundred-mile run to New Orleans.
When the sun hung low over the sugar plantations that stretch in
flat miles to the east and west beyond the levees, when all was quiet on land
and water and ship, Neville walked slowly to the forecastle.
"Sullivan," he called, "come with me."
Dan climbed down from his bunk and came to the door; the big
stoker searched Neville's face with a changed, sobered look.
"I've been wantin' all this time to go to 'im. How's he now,
sir?"
"He's dying, Sullivan, and has asked for you."
Outside Neville's quarters Dan took off his cap and went quietly
into the room.
Larry lay with closed eyes, his face ominously white.
Dan crept clumsily to the berth and put his big hand on Larry's
shoulder.
"It's me, Mouse. They wouldn't leave me come no sooner."
Larry's head moved slightly; his faded eyes opened.
Dan stooped in awkward embarrassment until his face was close to
Larry.
"I come to ask you—" Dan stopped. The muscles of his
thick neck moved jerkily—"to ask you, Mouse, before—to forgit the damn
mean things—I done to you, Mouse."
Larry made no answer; he kept his failing sight fixed on Dan.
After a long wait Sullivan spoke again.
"An' to think you done it, Mouse, for me!"
A light sprang to Larry's eyes, flooding his near-sighted gaze
with sudden anger.
"For you!" The cry came from his narrow chest with
jarring force. "You! You!" he repeated in rising voice.
"It's always of yourself you're thinkin', Dan Sullivan!" He stopped,
his face twitching in pain; then with both hands clenched he went on, his
breast heaving at each word hurled at Dan:
"Do you think I followed you from ship to ship, dragged you
out of every rum-hole in every port, for your own sake!"
He lay back exhausted, his chest rising and falling painfully, his
eyelids fluttering over his burning eyes.
Dan stepped back, and, silenced, stared at the dying man.
Larry clung to his last moments of life, fighting for strength to
finish. He struggled, and raised himself on one elbow.
"For you!" he screamed. "No, for Mary! For Mary, my
own flesh and blood—Mary, the child of the woman I beat when I was drunk an'
left to starve when I got ready!"
Through the stateroom door the sun's flat rays struck full on
Larry's inspired face. He swayed on his elbow; his head fell forward. By a final
effort he steadied himself. His last words came in ringing command.
"Go back! Go—" he faltered, gasping for breath—"go
home sober to Mary an' the child that's comin'!"
The fire of anger drifted slowly from Larry's dying gaze. The
little man fell back. The Bunker Mouse went out, all man, big at the end.
By RICHARD MATTHEWS HALLET
From The
Pictorial Review
In pursuance of a policy
to detain us on the island at Sick Dog until the arrival of his daughter, Papa
Isbister thought fit to tell us the fate of Rainbow Pete, of whose physical
deformity and thirst for gold we knew something already. Rainbow Pete had come
to Mushrat Portage, playing his flute, at a time when preparations were being
made to blast a road-bed through the wilderness for the railroad.
Mushrat Portage had been but recently a willow clump, and a black
rock ledge hanging over a precipitous valley: the hand of the Indian could be
seen one day parting the leaves of the trail, and on the next, drills came and
tins of black powder, and hordes of greedy men, blind with a burning zeal for
"monkeying with powder" as our host of Sick Dog said. They were
strange men, hoarse men, unreasonable men who cast sheep's-eyes at the dark
woman from Regina, whose shack, rented of Scarecrow Charlie, crowned the high
point of the ledge. She was the only woman on Mushrat, and at a time just
before the blasting began, when Rainbow Pete sauntered over the trail with his
pick and his flute and his dirty bag of rock specimens, she was hungrily
watched and waited on by the new inhabitants of that ancient portage—Mushrat,
whose destinies were soon to be so splendid, and whose skies were to be rocked
and rent by the thunders of men struggling with reluctant nature, monkeying
with powder.
When Pete laid down his tools and guns on the table at Scarecrow
Charlie's, where the woman was employed, had he in his heart some foreshadowing
presentiment of the peril he was in, of the sharp destroying fire of a resolute
woman's eyes, which he was subjecting himself to, in including her in his
universal caress? Who knows? Perhaps his flute had whispered tidings to him. He
was, said Papa Isbister, immensely proud of his plaything, this huge gaunt
sailor, who had been bent into the shape of a rainbow—the foot of a rainbow—by
a chance shot, which shattered his hip and gave him an impressive forward cant,
which appeared to women, it seemed—I quote my old friend—in the light of an
endearing droop.
The romantic visitation of this musical sailorman made the efforts
of all Mushrat as nothing. But Rainbow Pete seemed unaware of the fiery
jealousies glowing in the night on all sides of him when he fixed his eyes on
her for the first time—with that mellow assurance of a careless master of the
hearts and whims of women.
"What's this he said to her?" said our old friend.
"It was skilful; it was put like a notable question if she took it
so."
"You don't want to go out to-night," he said to her,
with his guns on the table.
"No, I do not," she said to the man.
"There you will be taking the words out of my mouth to suit
your heart," he went on saying to her. "Mark this, I'm making this a
command to you. You don't want to go out to-night. Do not do it."
This he told her was on account of stray bullets, because he was
meaning to shoot up that place.
Heh! It was a trick of his, to trap her into denying him when he
had made no offer.
Old Isbister laughed heartily at this picture of Pete in the days
of his triumph.
He was a captivating man, it appeared. He was tattooed. On his
arms were snakes and the like of that, daggers and the like of that, dragons
and the like of that. This was a romantic skin to the man; and his blue
eyes were like the diamond drills they were bringing to Mushrat.
"Oh my," said the woman, leaning at his table, "this
is what will be keeping me from mass, I shouldn't wonder."
This was a prairie woman from Regina; now mark, it was whispered
to be no credit to human nature that she had had to leave that town. No. She
was a full woman, very deep, with burning eyes. It was hard talking with her,
because of her lingering speech. Oh, she was a massive woman, for the small
shoes she wore. She was tall, as high as Rainbow Pete's shoulder. She purchased
scent for her hair. This I know, having seen it standing in the bottles. She
was a prairie woman.
This was a wild night we spent on Mushrat, after Pete's reproving
the woman there in Scarecrow Charlie's place. Smash McGregor, the little
doctor, was sitting between us in his yellow skull-cap; and Willis Countryman
was reading and drinking in one corner, listening to the laughing men there.
They were laughing, thinking of the fortunes there would be here when blasting
begun.
But Rainbow Pete was not one of the rockmen. No. He told them
strange tales of gold. Heh! He was athirst for gold. Strange tales he told of
gold. Once how in Australia he had hold of a lump of it as big as poor
McGregor's skull, but isn't it a perishing pity, oh my, this was just a desert
where he was, there was no water, he grew faint carrying the nugget. Our mouths
were open when the man told us he had dropped it in the desert, with his name
carved on it.
"There it is to this day, sinking in the sands," he
said. Oh, the proud woman from Regina. There she turned her dark eyes over our
heads, never looking at the plausible man at all; but she had heard him.
"Gold?" said Smash McGregor. "Why, there's gold
enough in the world."
"Ay, there's comfort too, if you know where to take it,"
said Rainbow Pete, twirling here at his mustache and looking at the woman.
"There's gold," said McGregor, "for any man."
"Yes, my hearty," said Pete, "it's twinkling in the
river-beds, it shines in the sands under your feet, but still it's hard to get
in your two fisties."
"Why," said Smash McGregor, "did you never hear
there's a pot of gold at the foot of every rainbow?"
Oh, my friend, as he went mentioning the rainbow, there was a
thunder-cap on the brow of that great sailor.
"So they call me—Rainbow Pete," he said.
"Look then," said McGregor, "take the pick, and
strike the ground at your feet."
Rainbow Pete was not hearing them.
"This is a man I have been following on many trails," he
muttered, "This man who made a rainbow of me. Mark this, he shall thirst,
if I meet him. Ay! He shall burn with these fingers at his throat. He shall
have gold poured into him like liquid, however."
It was plain he had no love for this man who had fashioned him in
the form of a rainbow.
"What is this man called?" said the little doctor.
"It's a dark man wearing a red cap, called Pal Yachy,"
said Rainbow Pete. "He spends his time escaping me. Look, where he shot me
in the hip."
Now we shielded him, and he drew out his shirt showing the wound
in the thigh which made a rainbow of him; but stop, didn't McGregor discover
the strange business on his spine?
"What's this, however?" he said.
"This is a palm-tree," said the man. "Stand close
about me."
Oh my, we stood close, watching the man twisting up his shirt, and
here we saw the palm-tree going up his spine, and every joint of his spine was
used for a joint of the tree, like; and the long blue leaves were waving on his
shoulder-blade when he would be rippling the skin. This was a fine broad back
like satin to be putting a palm-tree on. Look, as I am lifting my head,
here I see the dark woman silent at the bar, burning up with curiosity at what
we are hiding here. Listen, it's the man's voice, under his shirt.
"This was done in the South Seas, when I was young," he
said to us, "and the bigger I grow, the bigger the tree is. And now what
next?" Then he put his shirt back, and stood up to be fixing an eye on the
woman from Regina.
He was first to be waited on at Scarecrow Charlie's. Yes, he was
first. This was a mystery of a man to that dark woman from Regina.
Now in these days before blasting began, they were fond of talking
marriage on Mushrat, thinking of this woman from Regina, who was at the
disposal of no man there. They were full of doubts and wonderments, when they
would be idling together in Scarecrow Charlie's. But now one morning when they
were idling there, Shoepack Sam must be yawning and saying to them,
"Oh, my, this is the time now, before the sun is up, I'm glad
I am not married. It's a pleasure to be a single man at this hour."
Heh! Heh! As a usual thing we are not gratified at all for this
favor of heaven. A single man, Shoepack Sam was saying, would not have to be
looking at the wreck of his wife in the morning; and this is when women were
caught unawares in the gill-nets time is lowering for them.
"They are pale about the gills then," he said.
"They are just drowned fish. They have stayed in the nets too long."
"No, it's not certain," said Rainbow Pete. "She
might be pleasant-looking on the pillow with her hair adrift."
Then Shoepack told him that the salt water had leaked into his
brains, what with his voyages.
"Still, this is a beautiful cheek," said Pete, speaking
low, because she was moving about beyond the boards.
"These things are purchased," said Shoepack, scraping
his feet together in yellow moosehides. "Listen to me, I have seen them in
a long line, on her shelf, with many odors."
So they were talking together, and Rainbow Pete was putting his
fingers to the flute and staring down the valley, where Throat River was
twisting like a rag.
"I could have had a wife for speaking at Kicking Horse,"
he said.
"There is one for speaking now," said Shoepack.
"In a few days I go North," Rainbow Pete went muttering.
"There is gold at Dungeon Creek. I have seen samples of this vein."
"She will be the less trouble to you then, if you are not
satisfied on this question," said Shoepack Sam.
Then Rainbow Pete said he was not so certain of her, on
questioning himself. He was a modest man.
"This palm-tree and the other designs you have not been
speaking about will be enticing her," said Shoepack Sam. "But do not
speak to her of going away at the time of asking her."
"This is wisdom," said Rainbow Pete, and he put his lips
to the flute, to be giving us a touch of music.
This was a light reason for marriage, disn't it seem? This was
what Willis Countryman called a marriage of convenience, in the fashion of
frogs. Ay! It was convenient to them to be married. He was a great
reader—Willis.
So they were married, I'm telling you, but it's impossible to know
what he said to her in speaking about it. They were married by the man called
Justice of the Peace on Mushrat. This was before the blasting, and it was the
first marriage on Mushrat.
Then they lived together in the little house she had chosen,
sitting on the black ledge above Scarecrow Charlie's eating-place. Now it was a
wonderment to Mushrat, to hear the sound of Rainbow Pete's old flute dropping
from the dark ledge, by night, when they were taking their opinion of
matrimony up there together, with a candle at the window.
But now look here, when Shoepack Sam came plucking him at the
elbow, saying, "Was I right or was I wrong?" then Rainbow Pete stared
at him with his eyes like drills, and he said to him, "You were curious
and nothing more." Oh my, isn't this the perversity of married men.
They bore him a grudge on Mushrat, for his silence, because,
disn't it seem, this was like a general marriage satisfying all men's souls. It
was treasonable. Oh my, it was sailor's mischief to be living on that ledge,
and dropping nothing but notes from his greasy flute. These are sweet but they
are hard to be turning into language.
Now one morning, when I saw him coming from the ledge with his bag
of specimens over his shoulder, I saw without speaking to him that he was
parching with his thirst for gold. He was going away into the bush, thinking no
more of his new wife. Oh, he was a casual man.
"How is this?" I said. "Can she be left alone on
the ledge?"
"Can she not?" said Rainbow Pete. "Old fellow, this
is a substantial woman. She was alone before I came."
"This is not the same thing," I said.
"It is the same woman," said Rainbow Pete, "she
will be missing nothing but the flute."
Oh my, wasn't the flute a little thing to reckon with. He went
North, dreaming of gold, and here the matter they were thinking about was
locked in his heart. They were angry with the man on Mushrat. This was not what
they were looking for between friends. They were hoping to learn the result of
the experiment; but this was vain.
When he was gone, I saw her looking down into the valley, where
the first shots were being fired in the rock. Ay, the sun was dazzling her
eyes, but she dis not move, sitting as if her arms have been chopped from
the shoulders.
Now it was not many days after this that the blasting was begun on
Mushrat. Men came with instruments stamped by the government; these they
pointed down the trail and drove stakes into the ground. These were great days
on Mushrat. Oh yes, numbers of Swedes and Italians were in a desperate way
monkeying with powder. It's a fetching business. In a week, look here,
Scarecrow Charlie left his eating-place to go monkeying with powder like the
others, and disn't he get a bolt of iron through his brain one morning? Oh,
it's very much as if some one had pushed a broom-handle through his skull.
That dark woman from Regina was not dismayed. She ran the
eating-place herself. This was a famous place: they heard of this as far West
as Regina and they came here to work and eat, attracted by her. She was
valuable to the contractors, bringing labor here. Disn't it seem an achievement
for a married woman? Still, Rainbow Pete was not remembered after a time; and
she was a dark beauty, with a reputation for not saying much.
My, my, these were golden days for Smash McGregor. I ponder over
them, thinking what a business he had. He was paid by the contractors to be
sorting out arms and legs, putting the short ones together in one box, and the
long ones in another, marked with charcoal to be shipped. Oh, they were just
gathering up parts of mortals in packing cases, dispatching them to Throat
River Landing; and blood was leaking on the decks every way in little lines.
They were unlikely consignments.
Then, my friend, there came one night a dark man wearing a red cap
and here under his arm he had the instrument with strings. This was the Chief
Contractor under the Government in this region. He was rich; at Winnipeg he had
stabled many blood horses. Then they were clustering about him at Scarecrow
Charlie's, asking him his name. This, he said, was Pal Yachy.
Oh my, now we knew him. This was the man who had given Pete
his shape of a rainbow. Disn't it seem an unfortunate thing for him to be
coming here? Still he did not know at first that this dark woman standing there
was the wife of Rainbow Pete.
He went flashing at her with his teeth, the dark musician. Ay, he
was better with the music than Rainbow Pete's old flute. He sang, plucking this
instrument, with a jolly face. Heh! Heh! She leaned over the bar, looking at
him, and dreaming of the prairies.
Then they told him that this woman was the wife of Rainbow Pete.
"Aha," he said, "but, my friends, a rainbow is not
for very long. It is beautiful, but look, it vanishes in air."
Was he afraid, without saying so? That I can not tell you. Still
he stayed on Mushrat. He was the destroyer of his countrymen. They blew
themselves to pieces in his service, coming in great numbers when he crooked
his finger.
Then my friend, he made himself noticeable to that dark woman. He
took his instrument to the ledge and sang to her.
This I know from Willis Countryman who lived near that place. He
told me that the man sang in the night a soft song and that the woman listened.
Ay, she listened in the window, looking down into the valley where Throat River
went roaring and the great Falls were like rags waving in the dark. Ay, she sat
watching the River come out of the North, where Rainbow Pete was cruising after
gold.
This Willis Countryman I'm telling you about was a fine man in his
old age for reading. Oh, it was not easy talking to the man, with his muttering
and muttering and his chin down firm intil the book. When he had his shack on
Mouse Island the fire jumped over from the wind-rows they were burning in a
right of way. What next? Disn't he put his furs in a canoe to sink in the lee
of the island, and there he went on reading in the night with his chin out
of water, and the light from his house blazing and lighting up the book in his
fist. Oh my, he was great for reading, Willis.
Well, here, one night he came telling me about some queer women on
a beach, singing. "Ay! It was impossible to keep away from them while they
were at it. What is their name again?"
He made a prolonged effort to remember, sighed painfully, fixed
his gaze. I brought him back as if from a fit of epilepsy by the interjection
of the word, "Siren."
"Ay," he said, slowly and sadly. "The men put wax
in their ears—" Now mark this. The day after I was hearing this of Willis,
the woman put her hand on my arm as I was passing the ledge.
"You are a friend of my husband's," she whispered to me.
"What now?" I said.
"Will he come back to me, I wonder?" she said, looking
in the valley.
"This is a long business, searching for gold," I went
muttering.
"No man can say I have been unfaithful to him," she said
to me, the fierce woman, breathing through her teeth. "I have been
speaking to no man."
"This is certain," I said to her.
"If he dis not come according to my dream I am a lost woman,
by this way of going on," she said to me.
How is this? There were tears flowing on the face, while she was
telling me she was bewitched by the singing of Pal Yachy.
Oh, at first she would just lie listening there, but now the man
with his sweet voice was drawing her from her bed, to come putting aside the
scented bottles and leaning in the window.
Now I said, "My good woman, I am an old man with knowledge of
the world. This man is a—what's this again—siren. He has a fatal voice. You
must simply put wax in your ears not to hear it when he comes."
What next? Disn't she confess to me that she has listened to him
too many times to be deaf to him. No, she must watch the valley when he comes
singing his rich song; her cheeks were wet then, and the wind went shaking her.
No, this was not a moment for wax. I was an old man. She prevailed upon me to
sit outside her window in a chair, watching for him.
"Oh, I am afraid," she whispered to me, "being
alone so high out of the valley."
There I sat by night, hearing sounds of thunder below this crag.
Pebbles came rattling on the window, the rapid was choked with flying rock.
They were growing rich, these madmen monkeying with powder. The government sent
them gold in sacks, to pay those who were left for the lives that had been
lost.
They were mad; they tumbled champagne out of bottles into tubs,
frisking about in it. They had heard that this was done with money.
But Pal Yachy was more foolish. He came singing; oh my, this was a
powerful song, ringing against the ledges. This was a fantastic Italian,
singing like an angel to the deserted woman. Her eyes were dark; the breast
heaved. Oh, these sweet notes were never lost on her.
Now at this time, too, Pal Yachy offered a great prize for the
first child to be born on Mushrat. He came grinning under his red cap, saying
to us, "There are so many dying, should there not be a prize offered for
new life?"
He had learned what manner the woman had of surprising Rainbow
Pete. It was a great prize he offered. When the child was born, he stopped the
monkeying with powder in the valley for that day, though this too was a great
loss in money. The woman pleased him.
Then, my friend, on the night of the day when this child was born,
Rainbow Pete came back into the valley. Oh my, it's plain to us, looking at the
man under the stars, he has been toughing it. Ay! His beard was tangled,
the great bones were rising on his bare chest, his fingers twitched as he was
drooping over us. Now I'm telling you his eyes were dim, and the sun had
bleached his mustache the color of a lemon. There he stood before us, holding
the bag over his shoulder, while he went scratching his bold nose like the
picture of a pirate. Still he was gentle in the eye; he was mild in misfortune.
Oh, this sailorman was just used to toughing it.
Look here, there he stopped, in the shadow of this great rock I'm
speaking of, and these men of Mushrat came asking him if he had made the grade.
They were fresh from dipping their carcasses in champagne. They were sparkling
men, not accountable to themselves.
"Have you made the grade?" they went bawling to him.
This is to say, had he struck gold?
"Oh, there's gold enough," Pete went rumbling at them,
"but it's too far to the North, mate. There's no taickle made for getting
purchase on it."
"So I am thinking," said the little medicine-man,
McGregor. "It lies still at the foot of the rainbow."
"Ay," said Rainbow Pete; but with this word we went
thinking of Pal Yachy. Still we did not speak the name of that Italian. No,
this would be stronger in the ear of that sailorman than gunpowder in the
valley.
"Look you here," said Rainbow Pete. "I am starving.
I have not eaten in two days. This is the curse falling on me for hunting
gold."
Then they laughed, these mad rockmen, mocking him with their eyes.
Their eyes were twitching; there was powder in the corners of them.
"Are you not master of the eating-place?" they howled at
him. "Look, there it stands; is not your wife alone in it?"
"Oh my, oh my, he stood looking at them with a ghastly face.
Disn't he seem the casual man? It's as if he had forgotten that woman. He had
no memories at all.
"My wife," said the rainbow-man.
"Look," said Shoepack Sam—oh, he remembered treason
well—"he is forgetful that he has a wife on Mushrat."
This was so appearedly. There he stood in the blue star-shine,
fingering his flute to bring her back to mind. Now, I thought, he will be
asking what description of wife is this answering to my name on Mushrat? Oh,
man is careless in appointing himself among various women.
Now, my friend, Rainbow Pete, blew a note on his flute to settle
the thing clear in his mind. Oh, he was not too brisk in looking up at the
black ledge, with the candle in the window. Now he was taken by the knees. This
is not the convenient part of a marriage of convenience. No. But Shoepack Sam
was waving a hand to us to be telling the man nothing of destiny at that
moment.
"Come," he said, "the flute is nothing now. There
must be more song than this, by what is going on."
Here he took Rainbow by the elbow, telling him to come and eat at
Scarecrow Charlie's, for he will need his strength.
"I am in charge here for the day," said Shoepack.
"How is this?" said Rainbow, whispering.
They went laughing on all sides of him. Oh the demons, they were
cackling while he sat devouring a great moose joint, until he was close to
braining them with the yellow ball of the joint. He went eating like a
timber-wolf from Great Bear.
"This is the palm-tree man," they sang in his ear.
"Oh, why is it he grew no cocoanuts stumbling on that lost trail? Isn't it
convenient for the man he is married this night?"
Oh, they were full of mischief with him, remembering the secret
face he had for them in the days of his experiment.
"Drink this," said Shoepack Sam. There he put champagne
in a glass before him. Oh, they were careful of the man.
"Here, take my hand, and let me see if strength is coming
back," said Shoepack. "What is a rainbow without colors?"
Then the little medicine-man took his pulse, kneeling on the floor
beside him. Oh, the great sailor was puzzled. Still he drank what was in the
glass before him and after this he put his mustache into his mouth, sipping it
by chance.
"What is this you are preparing?" he said, pointing his
bold nose to them. Oh, the eyes were like a dreamer's: he was a child to
appearances.
Then they went speaking to him of the stringed instrument they had
heard humming on the ledge, speaking another language than his own.
"This is a wife to be defended," said Shoepack Sam,
padding there with his yellow shoepacks bringing another drink. But still there
was no word of Pal Yachy. That black Italian was not popular at Throat River.
"Now I see you are speaking of another man," said
Rainbow Pete. Then Shoepack Sam went roaring, it was time for honest men to
speak, when an honest woman was being taken by a voice.
"Wait," said Rainbow Pete, with his thumb in the foam,
"this is unlikely she will want me cruising in, with another man singing
in her ear."
Oh my, he was a considerate man, he was a natural husband,
thinking of his wife's feelings.
"Are you a man?" said Smash McGregor. "Here she has
fed you when you were starving—this is her food you have been eating. Will you
pass this ledge, leaving her to fortune?"
Rainbow Pete went putting the edge of the cruiser's ax to his
twisted thumb.
"I come to her in my shoes only," he said. "This is
not what she will be wanting. I have no gold."
They were shouting to him to have no thought of that, those mad
rockmen. There would be gold in plenty. There would be gold. Only go up on the
ledge.
"Heard you nothing of the prize?" they bawled to him,
the mischief makers. "Oh, there will be no lack of money."
"How is this?" said Rainbow Pete. But they would not be
answering him. No! No! They went tumbling him out of Scarecrow Charlie's place,
and making for the ledge with him. Oh my, the mystified man. This was a great
shameface he had behind his mustache.
"I am much altered for the worse," he went muttering to
us. "She will think nothing of me now."
"There is still time for constancy," said Shoepack Sam.
"Do not lose hope."
Then he told them to be quiet, looking up at the dark ledge where
the woman lay.
"Old Greyback," said Rainbow Pete, whispering to me,
"I am mistrustful of this moment."
"Hist!" said McGregor, "that was the sound of his
string. He will be beginning now."
Ay, the voice began. We were wooden men, in rows, listening to
this Italian singing here a golden dream between his teeth.
"Who is this man?" said Rainbow Pete. Heh! Heh! Had he
not heard this voice before? We were dumb. Oh, this was wild, this was sweet,
the long cry of the man over the deep valley. He sang in his throat, saying to
the woman there would be no returning. The night was blue. I'm telling you. He
was a cunning beggar, Pal Yachy, for making the stars burn in their sockets.
Now I saw him lift his arm to his head, the wicked sailor,
listening to the tune of his enemy. Ay, this was the man who had fashioned him
in the form of a rainbow. Still he did not know it, dreaming on his feet. He
went swaying like a poplar.
Look, I am an old man, but I stood thinking of my airly days. Yes,
yes. My brain was heavy. Oh, it was a sweet dagger here twisting in the soul of
man. I went picturing the deep snow to me, and the dark spruces of the
North; oh, the roses are speaking to me again from this cheek that has been
gone from me so long.
Heh! Heh! I should not be speaking of this. It was a sorrowful
harp, the voice of that fiend. It was like the wind following the eddy into
Lookout Cavern. Now it went choking that great sailor at the throat; look, he
was mild, he was a simple man for crying. The tears rolled in his cheek, they
sparkled there like the champagne.
Oh my, the song was done.
He was dumb, the great sailor, twisting his mustache.
"Come now," said McGregor, "quick, he will be going
into the house."
They were gulls for diving at the ledge; but Rainbow Pete held out
his arm, stopping them.
"Stand away," he said, "I will be going into my
house with old Greyback here and no other."
This arm was not yet withered he had. No! They stayed in their
tracks, as we were going up the ledge.
The door was open of that house; the stringed instrument was laid
against it. Ay, the strings were humming still, the song was spinning round
like a leaf in the cavern of it; but the black Italian was inside.
Yes, he had gone before into the chamber where she was lying, with
his beautiful smile.
The door here was open. Look, by candle-light I saw her lying in a
red blanket, staring at the notable singer. Yes, I saw the bottles containing
odors standing in a row. There was scent in the room. Now she closed her eyes,
this prairie woman, lying under him like death. My friend, there is no doubt
she was beautiful upon the pillow without the aid of scented bottles.
Heh! I felt him quiver, this great sailor, when he saw Pal Yachy
standing there, but I put my arms about him whispering to him to wait. It was
dark where we were, there was a light from the stove only.
Oh my, there the dark Italian was glittering and heaving; he went
holding in his fist a canvas sack stamped by the Government, containing the
proper weight of gold.
"This is his weight in gold," he said, and there he laid
it at her knees. Still her eyes were closed against that demon of a singer, as
he went saying, "But now my dear one, there must be no more talk of
husbands. Ha! ha! they are like smoke, these husbands. When it has drifted,
there must be new fire. So they say in my country."
She lay, not speaking to him, with the sack of gold heavy against
her knees.
"Is this plain?" said that Italian. Look now, Rainbow
Pete is in his very shadow. Ay, in the shadow of this man who had fashioned him
like a rainbow.
"This is a great sum," said Pal Yachy, never looking
behind him. "To this must be added the silence of one day in the
valley."
"The silence," she went whispering, "the
silence."
Ha! ha! this was not so dangerous as song. She was leaning on her
elbow, clutching the red blanket to her throat, with her long fingers twisting
at the bag. Now my heart stumbled. Oh now, I thought, the gold is heavy against
her; this is a misfortunate time to be forsaking her husband, isn't it? Look,
the shadow was deeper in the cheek of this sailor. He saw nothing, I fancied,
but the gold lying on the blanket.
What next I knew? Here was McGregor in his yellow skull,
whispering,
"Is this the gold then at the foot of the rainbow? This is
fool's gold where the heart is concerned."
Then, my friend, she threw it clear of the bed. Ay! I heard it
falling on the ledge there, but at this time she did not know that Rainbow Pete
was in the room.
When she had thrown it, then she saw him, standing behind that
demon of a singer. Her eyes were strange then. By the expression of her eyes
Pal Yachy saw that he was doomed. He was like a frozen man.
"Wait now," said Rainbow Pete, "am I in my house
here?"
"Am I not your wife?" cried the dark woman from Regina.
Oh, the pleasant sailor. The song had touched him.
"Look now," he said to Pal Yachy, "you made a
rainbow of me in the beginning. Do you bring gold here now to plant at my feet,
generous man?"
My, my, this fantastic Italian knew that words were wasted now. He
was like a snake with his sting. But Rainbow Pete was not an easy man. He broke
the arm with one twist, look, the knife went spinning on the ledge. And at this
moment the blasting in the rock began again below the ledge. They were at it
again, monkeying with powder. Oh, it was death they were speaking to down
there. It was like a battle between giants going on, there were thunders and
red gleams in the black valley; and the candle-flame went shivering with the
great noises.
"Here," said Rainbow Pete, "I will scatter you like
the rocks of the valley."
Oh, the righteous man. Isn't it a strange consideration, the voice
of Pal Yachy moving this crooked sailor to good deeds? Ay! He was a noble man,
hurling the Italian from the house by his ears. Oh, it's a circumstance to be
puzzling over. He threw the gold after him. Ay, the gold after—like dirt; and
here the clothes hung loose on his own body where he had been starving in the
search for bags like that.
Now, as he went kneeling by his wife, he discovered his son, by
the crowing under the blanket.
"Look here at the little nipper, old Greyback," he said,
"come a little way into the room. Look now, at the fat back for putting a
little palm-tree on, while he is young. This is truth, old fellow, here is true
gold lying at the foot of the rainbow, according to the prophecy."
Our old friend stopped to breathe and blink.
"He had staked this claim but he had never worked it,"
he said solemnly. But isn't it strange, the same man who had been fashioning
him like a rainbow, should be pointing out the gold to him. Oh, there's no
doubt Pal Yachy was defeated in the end by his own voice—
He went away that night, leaving all to the sub-contractors. Heh!
He was not seen on Mushrat again. Still he had a remarkable voice. Many times
afterward I have heard Rainbow Pete playing on his flute—this is in the evening
when the ledge is quiet—but this is not the same thing. No, no, he could never
bewitch her with his music, she must love him for his intention only, to be
charming her. Ay! This is safer.
By FANNIE HURST
From The
Cosmopolitan Magazine
Where St. Louis begins to peter out into
brick-and limestone-kilns and great scars of unworked and overworked quarries,
the first and more unpretentious of its suburbs take up—Benson, Maplehurst, and
Ridgeway Heights intervening with one-story brick cottages and two-story
packing-cases—between the smoke of the city and the carefully parked Queen Anne
quietude of Glenwood and Croton Grove.
Over Benson hangs a white haze of limestone, gritty with train and
foundry smoke. At night, the lime-kilns, spotted with white deposits, burn
redly, showing through their open doors like great, inflamed diphtheretic
throats, tongues of flame bursting and licking-out.
Winchester Road, which runs out from the heart of the city to
string these towns together, is paved with brick, and its traffic, for the most
part, is the great tin-tired dump-carts of the quarries and steel interurban
electric cars, which hum so heavily that even the windows of outlying cottages
titillate.
For blocks, from Benson to Maplehurst and from Maplehurst to
Ridgeway Heights, Winchester Road repeats itself in terms of the butcher, the
baker, the corner saloon. A feed store. A monument-and stone-cutter. A
confectioner. A general-merchandise store, with a glass case of men's collars
outside the entrance. The butcher, the baker, the corner saloon.
At Benson, where this highway cuts through, the city, wreathed
in smoke, and a great oceanic stretch of roofs are in easy view, and at closer
range, an outlying section of public asylums for the city's discard of its
debility and its senility.
Jutting a story above the one-storied march of Winchester Road,
The Convenience Merchandise Corner, Benson, overlooks, from the southeast
up-stairs window, a remote view of the City Hospital, the Ferris wheel of an
amusement-park, and on clear days, the oceanic waves of roof. Below, within the
store, that view is entirely obliterated by a brace of shelves built across the
corresponding window and brilliantly stacked with ribbons of a score of colors
and as many widths. A considerable flow of daylight thus diverted, The
Convenience Merchandise Corner, even of early afternoon, fades out into half-discernible
corners; a rear-wall display of overalls and striped denim coats crowded back
into indefinitude, the haberdashery counter, with a giant gilt shirt-stud
suspended above, hardly more outstanding.
Even the notions and dry-goods, flanking the right wall in stacks
and bolts, merge into blur, the outline of a white-sateen and corseted woman's
torso surmounting the top-most of the shelves with bold curvature.
With spring sunshine even hot against the steel rails of
Winchester Road, and awnings drawn against its inroads into the window display,
Mrs. Shila Coblenz, routing gloom, reached up tiptoe across the haberdashery
counter for the suspended chain of a cluster of bulbs, the red of exertion
rising up the taut line of throat and lifted chin.
"A little light on the subject, Milt."
"Let me, Mrs. C."
Facing her from the outer side of the counter, Mr. Milton Bauer
stretched also, his well-pressed, pin-checked coat crawling up.
All things swam out into the glow. The great suspended stud; the
background of shelves and boxes; the scissors-like overalls against the wall; a
clothes-line of children's factory-made print frocks; a center-bin of women's
untrimmed hats; a headless dummy beside the door, enveloped in a long-sleeved
gingham apron.
Beneath the dome of the wooden stud, Mrs. Shila Coblenz, of not
too fulsome but the hour-glass proportions of two decades ago, smiled, her
black eyes, ever so quick to dart, receding slightly as the cheeks lifted.
"Two twenty-five, Milt, for those ribbed assorted sizes and
reenforced heels. Leave or take. Bergdorff & Sloan will quote me the whole
mill at that price."
With his chest across the counter and legs out violently behind,
Mr. Bauer flung up a glance from his order-pad.
"Have a heart, Mrs. C. I'm getting two forty for that
stocking from every house in town. The factory can't turn out the orders fast
enough at that price. An up-to-date woman like you mustn't make a noise like
before the war."
"Leave or take."
"You could shave an egg," he said.
"And rush up those printed lawns. There was two in this
morning, sniffing around for spring dimities."
"Any cotton goods? Next month this time, you'll be paying an
advance of four cents on percales."
"Stocked."
"Can't tempt you with them wash silks, Mrs. C.? Neatest little
article on the market to-day."
"No demand. They finger it up, and then buy the cotton
stuffs. Every time I forget my trade hacks rock instead of clips bonds for its
spending-money, I get stung."
"This here wash silk, Mrs. C., would—"
"Send me up a dress-pattern off this coral-pink sample for
Selene."
"This here dark mulberry, Mrs. C., would suit you something
immense."
"That'll be about all."
He flopped shut his book, snapping a rubber band about it and
inserting it in an inner coat pocket.
"You ought to stick to them dark, winy shades, Mrs. C.
With your coloring and black hair and eyes, they bring you out like a Gipsy.
Never seen you look better than at the Y. M. H. A. entertainment."
Quick color flowed down her open throat and into her shirtwaist.
It was as if the platitude merged with the very corpuscles of a blush that sank
down into thirsty soil.
"You boys," she said, "come out here and throw in a
jolly with every bill of goods. I'll take a good fat discount instead."
"Fact. Never seen you look better. When you got out on the
floor in that stamp-your-foot kind of dance with old man Shulof, your hand on
your hip and your head jerking it up, there wasn't a girl on the floor, your
own daughter included, could touch you, and I'm giving it to you straight."
"That old thing! It's a Russian folk-dance my mother taught
me the first year we were in this country. I was three years old then, and,
when she got just crazy with homesickness, we used to dance it to each other
evenings on the kitchen floor."
"Say, have you heard the news?"
"No."
"Guess."
"Can't."
"Hammerstein is bringing over the crowned heads of Europe for
vaudeville."
Mrs. Coblenz moved back a step, her mouth falling open.
"Why—Milton Bauer—in the old country a man could be strung up
for saying less than that!"
"That didn't get across. Try another. A Frenchman and his
wife were traveling in Russia, and—"
"If—if you had an old mother like mine upstairs, Milton,
eating out her heart and her days and her weeks and her months over a husband's
grave somewhere in Siberia and a son's grave somewhere in Kishinef, you
wouldn't see the joke, neither."
Mr. Bauer executed a self-administered pat sharply against the
back of his hand.
"Keeper," he said, "put me in the brain-ward. I—I'm
sorry, Mrs. C., so help me! Didn't mean to. How is your mother, Mrs. C.? Seems
to me, at the dance the other night, Selene said she was fine and dandy."
"Selene ain't the best judge of her poor old grandmother.
It's hard for a young girl to have patience for old age sitting and chewing all
day over the past. It's right pitiful the way her grandmother knows it, too,
and makes herself talk English all the time to please the child and tries to
perk up for her. Selene, thank God, ain't suffered, and can't sympathize!"
"What's ailing her, Mrs. C.? I kinda miss seeing the old lady
sitting down here in the store."
"It's the last year or so, Milt. Just like all of a sudden, a
woman as active as mamma always was, her health and—her mind kind of went off
with a pop."
"Thu! Thu!"
"Doctor says with care she can live for years, but—but it
seems terrible the way her—poor mind keeps skipping back. Past all these thirty
years in America to—even weeks before I was born. The night they—took my father
off to Siberia, with his bare feet in the snow—for distributing papers they
found on him—papers that used the word 'svoboda'—'freedom.' And the
time, ten years later—they shot down my brother right in front of her for—the
same reason. She keeps living it over—living it over till I—could die."
"Say, ain't that just a shame, though!"
"Living it, and living it, and living it! The night with me,
a heavy three-year-old, in her arms that she got us to the border, dragging a
pack of linens with her! The night my father's feet were bleeding in the snow,
when they took him! How with me a kid in the crib, my—my brother's face was
crushed in—with a heel and a spur—all night, sometimes, she cries in her
sleep—begging to go back to find the graves. All day she sits making
raffia wreaths to take back—making wreaths—making wreaths!"
"Say, ain't that tough!"
"It's a godsend she's got the eyes to do it. It's wonderful
the way she reads—in English, too. There ain't a daily she misses. Without them
and the wreaths—I dunno—I just dunno. Is—is it any wonder, Milt, I—I can't see
the joke?"
"My God, no!"
"I'll get her back, though."
"Why, you—she can't get back there, Mrs. C."
"There's a way. Nobody can tell me there's not. Before the
war—before she got like this, seven hundred dollars would have done it for both
of us—and it will again, after the war. She's got the bank-book, and every week
that I can squeeze out above expenses, she sees the entry for herself. I'll get
her back. There's a way lying around somewhere. God knows why she should eat
out her heart to go back—but she wants it. God, how she wants it!"
"Poor old dame!"
"You boys guy me with my close-fisted buying these last two
years. It's up to me, Milt, to squeeze this old shebang dry. There's not much
more than a living in it at best, and now with Selene grown up and naturally
wanting to have it like other girls, it ain't always easy to see my way clear.
But I'll do it, if I got to trust the store for a year to a child like Selene.
I'll get her back."
"You can call on me, Mrs. C., to keep my eye on things while
you're gone."
"You boys are one crowd of true blues, all right. There ain't
a city salesman comes out here I wouldn't trust to the limit."
"You just try me out."
"Why, just to show you how a woman don't know many real
friends she has got, why—even Mark Haas, of the Mound City Silk Company, a firm
I don't do two hundred dollars' worth of business with a year, I wish you
could have heard him the other night at the Y. M. H. A., a man you know for
yourself just comes here to be sociable with the trade."
"Fine fellow, Mark Haas!"
"'When the time comes, Mrs. Coblenz,' he says, 'that you want
to make that trip, just you let me know. Before the war there wasn't a year I
didn't cross the water twice, maybe three times, for the firm. I don't know
there's much I can do; it ain't so easy to arrange for Russia, but, just the
same, you let me know when you're ready to make that trip.' Just like that he
said it. That from Mark Haas!"
"And a man like Haas don't talk that way if he don't mean
it."
"Mind you, not a hundred dollars a year business with him. I
haven't got the demands for silks."
"That wash silk I'm telling you about though, Mrs. C., does
up like a—"
"There's ma thumping with the poker on the upstairs floor.
When it's closing-time, she begins to get restless. I—I wish Selene would come
in. She went out with Lester Goldmark in his little flivver, and I get nervous
about automobiles."
Mr. Bauer slid an open-face watch from his waistcoat.
"Good Lord, five-forty, and I've just got time to sell the
Maplehurst Emporium a bill of goods!"
"Good-night, Milt; and mind you put up that order of assorted
neckwear yourself. Greens in ready-tieds are good sellers for this time of the
year, and put in some reds and purples for the teamsters."
"No sooner said than done."
"And come out for supper some Sunday night, Milt. It does
mamma good to have young people around."
"I'm yours."
"Good-night, Milt."
He reached across the counter, placing his hand over hers.
"Good-night, Mrs. C.," he said, a note lower in his throat;
"and remember, that call-on-me stuff wasn't just conversation."
"Good-night, Milt," said Mrs. Coblenz, a coating of husk
over her own voice and sliding her hand out from beneath, to top his.
"You—you're all right!"
Upstairs, in a too tufted and too crowded room directly over the
frontal half of the store, the window overlooking the remote sea of city was
turning taupe, the dusk of early spring, which is faintly tinged with violet,
invading. Beside the stove, a base-burner with faint fire showing through its
mica, the identity of her figure merged with the fat upholstery of the chair,
except where the faint pink through the mica lighted up old flesh, Mrs. Miriam
Horowitz, full of years and senile with them, wove with grasses, the écru of
her own skin, wreaths that had mounted to a great stack in a bedroom cupboard.
A clock, with a little wheeze and burring attached to each chime,
rang six, and upon it, Mrs. Coblenz, breathing from a climb, opened the door.
"Ma, why didn't you rap for Katie to come up and light the
gas? You'll ruin your eyes, dearie."
She found out a match, immediately lighting two jets of a
center-chandelier, turning them down from singing, drawing the shades of the
two front and the southeast windows, stooping over the upholstered chair to
imprint a light kiss.
"A fine day, mamma. There'll be an entry this week. Fifty
dollars and thirteen cents and another call for garden implements. I think I'll
lay in a hardware line after we—we get back. I can use the lower shelf of the
china-table, eh, ma?"
Mrs. Horowitz, whose face, the color of old linen in the
yellowing, emerged rather startling from the still black hair strained back
from it, lay back in her chair, turning her profile against the upholstered
back, half a wreath and a trail of raffia sliding to the floor. It was as if
age had sapped from beneath the skin, so that every curve had collapsed to
bagginess, the cheeks and the underchin sagging with too much skin. Even the
hands were crinkled like too large gloves, a wide, curiously etched marriage
band hanging loosely from the third finger.
Mrs. Coblenz stooped, recovering the wreath.
"Say, mamma, this one is a beauty! That's a new weave, ain't
it? Here, work some more, dearie—till Selene comes with your evening
papers."
With her profile still to the chair-back, a tear oozed down the
corrugated surface of Mrs. Horowitz's cheek. Another.
"Now, mamma! Now, mamma!"
"I got a heaviness—here—inside. I got a heaviness—"
Mrs. Coblenz slid down to her knees beside the chair.
"Now, mamma; shame on my little mamma! Is that the way to act
when Shila comes up after a good day? Ain't we got just lots to be thankful
for, the business growing and the bank-book growing, and our Selene on top?
Shame on mamma!"
"I got a heaviness—here—inside—here."
Mrs. Coblenz reached up for the old hand, patting it.
"It's nothing, mamma—a little nervousness."
"I'm an old woman. I—"
"And just think, Shila's mamma, Mark Haas is going to get us
letters and passports and—"
"My son—my boy—his father before him—"
"Mamma—mamma, please don't let a spell come on! It's all
right. Shila's going to fix it. Any day now, maybe—"
"You'm a good girl. You'm a good girl, Shila." Tears
were coursing down to a mouth that was constantly wry with the taste of them.
"And you're a good mother, mamma. Nobody knows better than me
how good."
"You'm a good girl, Shila."
"I was thinking last night, mamma, waiting up for Selene—just
thinking how all the good you've done ought to keep your mind off the spells,
dearie."
"My son—"
"Why, a woman with as much good to remember as you've got
oughtn't to have time for spells. I got to thinking about Coblenz to-day,
mamma, how—you never did want him, and when I—I went and did it anyway, and
made my mistake, you stood by me to—to the day he died. Never throwing anything
up to me! Never nothing but my good little mother, working her hands to the
bone after he got us out here to help meet the debts he left us. Ain't that a
satisfaction for you to be able to sit and think, mamma, how you helped—"
"His feet—blood from my heart in the snow—blood from my
heart!"
"The past is gone, darling. What's the use tearing yourself
to pieces with it? Them years in New York, when it was a fight even for bread,
and them years here trying to raise Selene and get the business on a footing,
you didn't have time to brood then, mamma. That's why, dearie, if only you'll
keep yourself busy with something—the wreaths—the—"
"His feet—blood from my—"
"But I'm going to take you back, mamma. To papa's grave. To
Aylorff's. But don't eat your heart out until it comes, darling. I'm going to
take you back, mamma, with every wreath in the stack; only, you mustn't eat out
your heart in spells. You mustn't, mamma; you mustn't."
Sobs rumbled up through Mrs. Horowitz, which her hand to her mouth
tried to constrict.
"For his people he died. The papers—I begged he should burn
them—he couldn't—I begged he should keep in his hate—he couldn't—in the square
he talked it—the soldiers—he died for his people—they got him—the soldiers—his
feet in the snow when they took him—the blood in the snow—O my
God—my—God!"
"Mamma, darling, please don't go over it all again. What's
the use making yourself sick? Please!"
She was well forward in her chair now, winding her dry hands one
over the other with a small rotary motion.
"I was rocking—Shila-baby in my lap—stirring on the fire
black lentils for my boy—black lentils—he—"
"Mamma!"
"My boy. Like his father before him. My—"
"Mamma, please! Selene is coming any minute now. You know how
she hates it. Don't let yourself think back, mamma. A little will-power, the
doctor says, is all you need. Think of to-morrow, mamma; maybe, if you want,
you can come down and sit in the store awhile and—"
"I was rocking. O my God, I was rocking, and—"
"Don't get to it—mamma, please! Don't rock yourself that way!
You'll get yourself dizzy. Don't, ma; don't!"
"Outside—my boy—the holler—O God, in my ears all my life! My
boy—the papers—the swords—Aylorff—Aylorff—"
"Shh-h-h—mamma—"
"It came through his heart out the back—a blade with two
sides—out the back when I opened the door—the spur in his face when he
fell—Shila—the spur in his face—the beautiful face of my boy—my Aylorff—my
husband before him—that died to make free!" And fell back, bathed in the
sweat of the terrific hiccoughing of sobs.
"Mamma, mamma—my God! What shall we do? These spells! You'll
kill yourself, darling. I'm going to take you back, dearie—ain't that enough? I
promise. I promise. You mustn't, mamma! These spells—- they ain't good for a
young girl like Selene to hear. Mamma, ain't you got your own Shila—your own
Selene? Ain't that something? Ain't it? Ain't it?"
Large drops of sweat had come out and a state of exhaustion
that swept completely over, prostrating the huddled form in the chair.
With her arms twined about the immediately supporting form of her
daughter, her entire weight relaxed, and footsteps that dragged without lift,
one after the other, Mrs. Horowitz groped out, one hand feeling in advance,
into the gloom of a room adjoining.
"Rest! O my God, rest!"
"Yes, yes, mamma; lean on me."
"My—bed."
"Yes, yes, darling."
"Bed."
Her voice had died now to a whimper that lay on the room after she
had passed out of it.
When Selene Coblenz, with a gust that swept the room, sucking the
lace curtains back against the panes, flung open the door upon that chromatic
scene, the two jets of gas were singing softly into its silence, and, within
the nickel-trimmed base-burner, the pink mica had cooled to gray. Sweeping open
that door, she closed it softly, standing for the moment against it, her hand
crossed in back and on the knob. It was as if standing there with her head
cocked and beneath a shadowy blue sailor-hat, a smile coming out, something
within her was playing, sweetly insistent to be heard. Philomela, at the first
sound of her nightingale self, must have stood thus, trembling with melody.
Opposite her, above the crowded mantelpiece and surmounted by a raffia wreath,
the enlarged-crayon gaze of her deceased maternal grandparent, abetted by a
horrible device of photography, followed her, his eyes focusing the entire room
at a glance. Impervious to that scrutiny, Miss Coblenz moved a tiptoe step or
two further into the room, lifting off her hat, staring and smiling through a
three-shelved cabinet of knick-knacks at what she saw far beyond. Beneath the
two jets, high lights in her hair came out, bronze showing through the
brown waves and the patches of curls brought out over her cheeks.
In her dark-blue dress with the row of silver buttons down what
was hip before the hipless age, the chest sufficiently concave and the
silhouette a mere stroke of hard pencil, Miss Selene Coblenz measured up and
down to America's Venus de Milo, whose chief curvature is of the spine.
Slim-etched, and that slimness enhanced by a conscious kind of collapse beneath
the blue-silk girdle that reached up halfway to her throat, hers were those
proportions which strong women, eschewing the sweetmeat, would earn by the
sweat of the Turkish bath.
When Miss Coblenz caught her eye in the square of mirror above the
mantelpiece, her hands flew to her cheeks to feel of their redness. They were
soft cheeks, smooth with the pollen of youth, and hands still casing them, she
moved another step toward the portièred door.
"Mamma!"
Mrs. Coblenz emerged immediately, finger up for silence, kissing
her daughter on the little spray of cheek-curls.
"Shh-h-h! Gramaw just had a terrible spell."
She dropped down into the upholstered chair beside the
base-burner, the pink and moisture of exertion out in her face, took to fanning
herself with the end of a face-towel flung across her arm.
"Poor gramaw!" she said. "Poor gramaw!"
Miss Coblenz sat down on the edge of a slim, home-gilded chair,
and took to gathering the blue-silk dress into little plaits at her knee.
"Of course—if you don't want to know where I've been—or
anything—"
Mrs. Coblenz jerked herself to the moment.
"Did mamma's girl have a good time? Look at your dress all
dusty! You oughtn't to wear you best in that little flivver."
Suddenly Miss Coblenz raised her eyes, her red mouth bunched, her
eyes all iris.
"Of course—if you don't want to know—anything."
At that large, brilliant gaze, Mrs. Coblenz leaned forward,
quickened.
"Why, Selene!"
"Well, why—why don't you ask me something?"
"Why I—I dunno, honey, did—did you and Lester have a nice
ride?"
There hung a slight pause, and then a swift moving and
crumpling-up of Miss Coblenz on the floor beside her mother's knee.
"You know—only, you won't ask."
With her hand light upon her daughter's hair, Mrs. Coblenz leaned
forward, her bosom rising to faster breathing.
"Why—Selene—I why—"
"We—we were speeding along and—all of a sudden—out of a clear
sky—he—he popped. He wants it in June—so we can make it our honeymoon to his
new territory out in Oklahoma. He knew he was going to pop, he said, ever since
the first night he saw me at the Y. M. H. A. He says to his uncle Mark, the
very next day in the store, he says to him, 'Uncle Mark,' he says, 'I've
met the little girl.' He says he thinks more of my little finger
than all of his regular crowd of girls in town put together. He wants to live
in one of the built-in-bed flats on Wasserman Avenue, like all the swell young
marrieds. He's making twenty-six hundred now, mamma, and if he makes good in
the new Oklahoma territory, his uncle Mark is—is going to take care of him
better. Ain't it like a dream, mamma—your little Selene all of a sudden in
with—the somebodys?"
Immediately tears were already finding staggering procession down
Mrs. Coblenz' face, her hovering arms completely encircling the slight figure
at her feet.
"My little girl! My little Selene! My all!"
"I'll be marrying into one of the best families in town, ma.
A girl who marries a nephew of Mark Haas can hold up her head with the
best of them. There's not a boy in town with a better future than Lester. Like
Lester says, everything his uncle Mark touches turns to gold, and he's already
touched Lester. One of the best known men on Washington Avenue for his
blood-uncle, and on his poor dead father's side related to the Katz &
Harberger Harbergers. Was I right, mamma, when I said if you'd only let me stop
school, I'd show you? Was I right, momsie?"
"My baby! It's like I can't realize it. So young!"
"He took the measure of my finger, mamma, with a piece of
string. A diamond, he says, not too flashy, but neat."
"We have 'em, and we suffer for 'em, and we lose 'em."
"He's going to trade in the flivver for a chummy roadster,
and—"
"Oh, darling, it's like I can't bear it!"
At that, Miss Coblenz sat back on her tall wooden heels, mauve
spats crinkling.
"Well, you're a merry little future mother-in-law,
momsie."
"It ain't that, baby. I'm happy that my girl has got herself
up in the world with a fine upright boy like Lester; only—you can't understand,
babe, till you've got something of your own flesh and blood that belongs to
you, that I—I couldn't feel anything except that a piece of my heart was going
if—if it was a king you was marrying."
"Now, momsie, it's not like I was moving a thousand miles
away. You can be glad I don't have to go far, to New York or to Cleveland, like
Alma Yawitz."
"I am! I am!"
"Uncle—Uncle Mark, I guess, will furnish us up like he did
Leon and Irma—only, I don't want mahogany—I want Circassian walnut. He gave
them their flat-silver, too, Puritan design, for an engagement present. Think
of it, mamma, me having that stuck-up Irma Sinsheimer for a relation! It
always made her sore when I got chums with Amy at school and got my nose in it
with the Acme crowd, and—and she'll change her tune now, I guess, me marrying
her husband's second cousin."
"Didn't Lester want to—to come in for a while, Selene, to—to
see—me?"
Sitting there on her heels, Miss Coblenz looked away, answering
with her face in profile.
"Yes; only—I—well if you want to know it, mamma, it's no fun
for a girl to bring a boy like Lester up here in—in this crazy room all hung up
with gramaw's wreaths and half the time her sitting out there in the dark
looking in at us through the door and talking to herself."
"Gramaw's an old—"
"Is—it any wonder I'm down at Amy's half the time. How—do you
think a girl feels to have gramaw keep hanging onto that old black wig of hers
and not letting me take the crayons or wreaths down off the wall. In Lester's
crowd, they don't know—nothing about Revolutionary stuff and—and persecutions.
Amy's grandmother don't even talk with an accent, and Lester says his
grandmother came from Alsace-Lorraine. That's French. They think only tailors
and old-clothes men and—"
"Selene!"
"Well, they do. You—you're all right, mamma, as up to date as
any of them, but how do you think a girl feels with gramaw always harping right
in front of everybody the—the way granpa was a revolutionist and was—was
hustled off barefooted to Siberia like—like a tramp. And the way she was
cooking black beans when—my uncle—died. Other girls' grandmothers don't tell
everything they know. Alma Yawitz's grandmother wears lorgnettes, and you told
me yourself they came from nearly the same part of the Pale as gramaw. But you
don't hear them remembering it. Alma Yawitz says she's Alsace-Lorraine on both
sides. People don't—tell everything they know. Anyway—where a girl's got
herself as far as I have."
Through sobs that rocked her, Mrs. Coblenz looked down upon her
daughter.
"Your poor old grandmother don't deserve that from you! In
her day, she worked her hands to the bone for you. With—the kind of father you
had, we—we might have died in the gutter but—for how she helped to keep us out,
you ungrateful girl—your poor old grandmother that's suffered so
terrible!"
"I know it, mamma, but so have other people suffered."
"She's old, Selene—old."
"I tell you it's the way you indulge her, mamma. I've seen
her sitting here as perk as you please, and the minute you come in the room,
down goes her head like—like she was dying."
"It's her mind, Selene—that's going. That's why I feel if I
could only get her back. She ain't old, gramaw ain't. If I could only get her
back where she—could see for herself—the graves—is all she needs. All old
people think of—the grave. It's eating her—eating her mind. Mark Haas is going
to fix it for me after the war—maybe before—if he can. That's the only way poor
gramaw can live—or die—happy, Selene. Now—now that my—my little girl ain't any
longer my responsibility, I—I'm going to take her back—my little—girl"—her
hand reached out, caressing the smooth head, her face projected forward and the
eyes yearning down—"my all."
"It's you will be my responsibility now, ma."
"No! No!"
"The first thing Lester says was a flat on Wasserman and a
spare room for mother Coblenz when she wants to come down. Wasn't it sweet for
him to put it that way right off, ma. 'Mother Coblenz,' he says."
"He's a good boy, Selene. It'll be a proud day for me
and gramaw. Gramaw mustn't miss none of it. He's a good boy and a fine
family."
"That's why, mamma, we—got to—to do it up right."
"Lester knows, child, he's not marrying a rich girl."
"A girl don't have to—be rich to get married right."
"You'll have as good as mamma can afford to give it to her
girl."
"It—it would be different if Lester's uncle and all wasn't in
the Acme Club crowd, and if I hadn't got in with all that bunch. It's the last
expense I'll ever be to you, mamma."
"Oh, baby, don't say that!"
"I—me and Lester—Lester and me were talking, mamma—when the
engagement's announced next week—a reception—"
"We can clear out this room, move the bed out of gramaw's
room into ours, and serve the ice-cream and cake in—"
"Oh, mamma, I don't mean—that!"
"What?"
"Who ever heard of having a reception here!
People won't come from town way out to this old—cabbage patch. Even Gertie Wolf
with their big house on West Pine Boulevard had her reception at the Walsingham
Hotel. You—we—can't expect Mark Haas and all the relations—the
Sinsheimers—and—all to come out here. I'd rather not have any."
"But, Selene, everybody knows we ain't millionaires, and that
you got in with that crowd through being friends at school with Amy Rosen. All
the city salesmen and the boys on Washington Avenue, even Mark Haas himself,
that time he was in the store with Lester, knows the way we live. You don't
need to be ashamed of your little home, Selene, even if it ain't on West Pine
Boulevard."
"It'll be—your last expense, mamma. The Walsingham, that's
where the girl that Lester Goldmark marries is expected to have her
reception."
"But, Selene, mamma can't afford nothing like that."
Pink swam up into Miss Coblenz's face, and above the sheer-white
collar there was a little beating movement at the throat, as if something were fluttering
within.
"I—I'd just as soon not get married as—as not to have it like
other girls."
"But, Selene—"
"If I—can't have a trousseau like other girls and the things
that go with marrying into a—a family like Lester's—I—then—there's no use. I—I
can't! I—wouldn't!"
She was fumbling now for a handkerchief against tears that were
imminent.
"Why, baby, a girl couldn't have a finer trousseau than the
old linens back yet from Russia that me and gramaw got saved up for our
girl—linen that can't be bought these days. Bed-sheets that gramaw herself
carried to the border, and—"
"Oh, I know. I knew you'd try to dump that stuff on me. That
old worm-eaten stuff in gramaw's chest."
"It's hand-woven, Selene, with—"
"I wouldn't have that yellow old stuff—that old-fashioned
junk—if I didn't have any trousseau. If I can't afford monogrammed up-to-date
linens, like even Alma Yawitz, and a—a pussy-willow-taffeta reception dress, I
wouldn't have any. I wouldn't." Her voice crowded with passion and tears
rose to the crest of a sob. "I—I'd die first!"
"Selene, Selene, mamma ain't got the money. If she had it,
wouldn't she be willing to take the very last penny to give her girl the kind
of a wedding she wants? A trousseau like Alma's cost a thousand dollars if it
cost a cent. Her table-napkins alone they say cost thirty-six dollars a dozen,
unmonogrammed. A reception at the Walsingham costs two hundred dollars if it
costs a cent. Selene, mamma will make for you every sacrifice she can
afford, but she ain't got the money."
"You—have got the money!"
"So help me God, Selene! You know, with the quarries shut
down, what business has been. You know how—sometimes even to make ends meet, it
is a pinch. You're an ungrateful girl, Selene, to ask what I ain't able to do
for you. A child like you that's been indulged, that I ain't even asked ever in
her life to help a day down in the store. If I had the money, God knows you
should be married in real lace, with the finest trousseau a girl ever had. But
I ain't got the money—I ain't got the money."
"You have got the money! The book in gramaw's drawer is seven
hundred and forty. I guess I ain't blind. I know a thing or two."
"Why Selene—that's gramaw's—to go back—"
"You mean the bank-book's hers?"
"That's gramaw's to go back—home on. That's the money for me
to take gramaw and her wreaths back home on."
"There you go—talking loony."
"Selene!"
"Well, I'd like to know what else you'd call it, kidding
yourself along like that."
"You—"
"All right. If you think gramaw, with her life all lived, comes
first before me, with all my life to live—all right!"
"Your poor old—"
"It's always been gramaw first in this house, anyway. I
couldn't even have company since I'm grown up because the way she's always
allowed around. Nobody can say I ain't good to gramaw; Lester say it's
beautiful the way I am with her, remembering always to bring the newspapers and
all, but just the same I know when right's right and wrong's wrong. If my life
ain't more important than gramaw's, with hers all lived, all right. Go
ahead!"
"Selene, Selene, ain't it coming to gramaw, after all her
years' hard work helping us that—she should be entitled to go back with her
wreaths for the graves? Ain't she entitled to die with that off her poor old
mind? You bad, ungrateful girl, you, it's coming to a poor old woman that's
suffered as terrible as gramaw that I should find a way to take her back."
"Take her back. Where—to jail? To prison in Siberia
herself—"
"There's a way—"
"You know gramaw's too old to take a trip like that. You know
in your own heart she won't ever see that day. Even before the war, much less
now, there wasn't a chance for her to get passports back there. I don't say it
ain't all right to kid her along, but when it comes to—to keeping me out of
the—the biggest thing that can happen to a girl—when gramaw wouldn't know the
difference if you keep showing her the bank-book—it ain't right. That's what it
ain't. It ain't right!"
In the smallest possible compass, Miss Coblenz crouched now upon
the floor, head down somewhere in her knees, and her curving back racked with
rising sobs.
"Selene—but some day—"
"Some day nothing! A woman like gramaw can't do much more
than go down-town once a year, and then you talk about taking her to Russia!
You can't get in there, I—tell you—no way you try to fix it after—the way
gramaw—had—to leave. Even before the war, Ray Letsky's father couldn't get back
on business. There's nothing for her there even after she gets there. In thirty
years do you think you can find those graves? Do you know the size of Siberia?
No! But I got to pay—I got to pay for gramaw's nonsense. But I won't. I won't
go to Lester, if I can't go right. I—"
"Baby, don't cry so—for God's sake don't cry so!
"I wish I was dead."
"Sh-h-h—you'll wake gramaw."
"I do!"
"O God, help me to do the right thing!"
"If gramaw could understand, she'd be the first one to tell
you the right thing. Anybody would."
"No! No! That little bank-book and its entries are her
life—her life."
"She don't need to know, mamma. I'm not asking that. That's
the way they always do with old people to keep them satisfied. Just humor 'em.
Ain't I the one with life before me—ain't I, mamma?"
"O God, show me the way!"
"If there was a chance, you think I'd be spoiling things for
gramaw? But there ain't, mamma—not one."
"I keep hoping if not before, then after the war. With the
help of Mark Haas—"
"With the book in her drawer like always, and the entries
changed once in a while, she'll never know the difference. I swear to God
she'll never know the difference, mamma!"
"Poor gramaw!"
"Mamma, promise me—your little Selene. Promise me?"
"Selene, Selene, can we keep it from her?"
"I swear we can, mamma."
"Poor, poor gramaw!"
"Mamma? Mamma darling?"
"O God, show me the way!"
"Ain't it me that's got life before me? My whole life?"
"Yes—Selene."
"Then, mamma, please—you will—you will—darling?"
"Yes, Selene."
In a large, all-frescoed, seventy-five dollars an evening with
lights and cloak-room service ballroom of the Hotel Walsingham, a family
hostelry in that family circle of St. Louis known as its West End, the
city holds not a few of its charity-whists and benefit musicales; on a dais
which can be carried in for the purpose, morning readings of "Little
Moments from Little Plays," and with the introduction of a throne-chair,
the monthly lodge-meetings of the Lady Mahadharatas of America. For weddings
and receptions, a lane of red carpet leads up to the slight dais; and, lined
about the brocade and paneled walls, gilt-and-brocade chairs, with the crest of
Walsingham in padded embroidery on the backs. Crystal chandeliers, icicles of
dripping light, glow down upon a scene of parquet floor, draped velours, and
mirrors wreathed in gilt.
At Miss Selene Coblenz's engagement reception, an event properly
festooned with smilax and properly jostled with the elbowing figures of waiters
tilting their plates of dark-meat chicken salad, two olives, and a finger-roll
in among the crowd, a stringed three-piece orchestra, faintly seen and still
more faintly heard, played into the babel.
Light, glitteringly filtered through the glass prisms, flowed down
upon the dais; upon Miss Selene Coblenz, in a taffeta that wrapped her flat
waist and chest like a calyx and suddenly bloomed into the full inverted petals
of a skirt; upon Mr. Lester Goldmark, his long body barely knitted yet to man's
estate, and his complexion almost clear, standing omnivorous, omnipotent,
omnipresent, his hair so well brushed that it lay like black japanning, a white
carnation at his silk lapel, and his smile slightly projected by a rush of very
white teeth to the very front. Next in line, Mrs. Coblenz, the red of a fervent
moment high in her face, beneath the maroon-net bodice the swell of her bosom
fast, and her white-gloved hands constantly at the opening and shutting of a
lace-and-spangled fan. Back, and well out of the picture, a potted hydrangea
beside the Louis Quinze armchair, her hands in silk mitts laid out along the
gold-chair sides, her head quavering in a kind of mild palsy, Mrs. Miriam
Horowitz, smiling and quivering her state of bewilderment.
With an unfailing propensity to lay hold of to whomsoever he
spake, Mr. Lester Goldmark placed his white-gloved hand upon the white-gloved
arm of Mrs. Coblenz.
"Say, mother Coblenz, ain't it about time this little girl of
mine was resting her pink-satin double A's? She's been on duty up here from
four to seven. No wonder uncle Mark bucked."
Mrs. Coblenz threw her glance out over the crowded room, surging
with a wave of plumes and clipped heads like a swaying bucket of water which
crowds but does not lap over its sides.
"I guess the crowd is finished coming in by now. You tired,
Selene?"
Miss Coblenz turned her glowing glance.
"Tired! This is the swellest engagement-party I ever
had."
Mrs. Coblenz shifted her weight from one slipper to the other, her
maroon-net skirts lying in a swirl around them.
"Just look at gramaw, too! She holds up her head with the
best of them. I wouldn't have had her miss this, not for the world."
"Sure one fine old lady! Ought to have seen her shake my
hand, mother Coblenz. I nearly had to holler, 'Ouch!'"
"Mamma, here comes Sara Suss and her mother. Take my arm,
Lester honey. People mamma used to know." Miss Coblenz leaned forward
beyond the dais with the frail curve of a reed.
"Howdado, Mrs. Suss.... Thank you. Thanks. Howdado, Sara.
Meet my fiancé, Lester Haas Goldmark; Mrs. Suss and Sara Suss,
my fiancé.... That's right; better late than never. There's plenty
left.... We think he is, Mrs. Suss. Aw, Lester honey, quit! Mamma, here's Mrs.
Suss and Sadie."
"Mrs. Suss! Say—if you hadn't come, I was going to lay it up
against you. If my new ones can come on a day like this, it's a pity my old
friends can't come, too.
"Well, Sadie, it's your turn next, eh?... I know better than
that. With them pink cheeks and black eyes, I wish I had a dime for every
chance." (Sotto.) "Do you like it, Mrs. Suss? Pussy-willow
taffeta.... Say, it ought to be. An estimate dress from Madame
Murphy—sixty-five with findings. I'm so mad, Sara, you and your mamma couldn't
come to the house that night to see her things. If I say so myself, Mrs. Suss,
everybody who seen it says Jacob Sinsheimer's daughter herself didn't have a
finer. Maybe not so much, but every stitch, Mrs. Suss, made by the same sisters
in the same convent that made hers.... Towels! I tell her it's a shame to
expose them to the light, much less wipe on them. Ain't it?... The goodness
looks out from his face. And such a love-pair! Lunatics, I call them. He can't
keep his hands off. It ain't nice, I tell him.... Me? Come close. I dyed the
net myself. Ten cents' worth of maroon color. Don't it warm your heart, Mrs.
Suss? This morning, after we got her in Lester's uncle Mark's big automobile, I
says to her, I says, 'Mamma, you sure it ain't too much.' Like her old self for
a minute, Mrs. Suss, she hit me on the arm. 'Go 'way,' she said, 'on my
grandchild's engagement-day anything should be too much? Here, waiter, get
these two ladies some salad. Good measure, too. Over there by the window, Mrs.
Suss. Help yourselves."
"Mamma, sh-h-h, the waiters know what to do."
Mrs. Coblenz turned back, the flush warm to her face.
"Say, for an old friend, I can be my own self."
"Can we break the receiving-line now, Lester honey, and go
down with everybody? The Sinsheimers and their crowd over there by themselves,
we ought to show we appreciate their coming."
Mr. Goldmark twisted high in his collar, cupping her small bare
elbow in his hand.
"That's what I say, lovey; let's break. Come, mother Coblenz,
let's step down on high society's corns."
"Lester!"
"You and Selene go down with the crowd, Lester. I want to
take gramaw to rest for a while before we go home. The manager says we can have
room fifty-six by the elevator for her to rest in."
"Get her some newspapers, ma, and I brought her a wreath down
to keep her quiet. It's wrapped in her shawl."
Her skirts delicately lifted, Miss Coblenz stepped down off the
dais. With her cloud of gauze scarf enveloping her, she was like a
tulle-clouded "Springtime," done in the key of Botticelli.
"Oop-si-lah, lovey-dovey!" said Mr. Goldmark, tilting
her elbow for the downward step.
"Oop-si-lay, dovey-lovey!" said Miss Coblenz, relaxing
to the support.
Gathering up her plentiful skirts, Mrs. Coblenz stepped off, too,
but back toward the secluded chair beside the potted hydrangea. A fine line of
pain, like a cord tightening, was binding her head, and she put up two fingers
to each temple, pressing down the throb.
"Mrs. Coblenz, see what I got for you!" She turned,
smiling. "You don't look like you need salad and green ice-cream. You look
like you needed what I wanted—a cup of coffee."
"Aw, Mr. Haas—now where in the world—aw, Mr. Haas!"
With a steaming cup outheld and carefully out of collision with
the crowd, Mr. Haas unflapped a napkin with his free hand, inserting his foot
in the rung of a chair and dragging it toward her.
"Now," he cried, "sit and watch me take care of
you!"
There comes a tide in the affairs of men when the years lap
softly, leaving no particular inundations on the celebrated sands of time.
Between forty and fifty, that span of years which begin the first slight
gradations from the apex of life, the gray hair, upstanding like a
thick-bristled brush off Mr. Haas's brow, had not so much as whitened, or
the slight paunchiness enhanced even the moving-over of a button. When Mr. Haas
smiled, his mustache, which ended in a slight but not waxed flourish, lifted to
reveal a white-and-gold smile of the artistry of careful dentistry, and when,
upon occasion, he threw back his head to laugh, the roof of his mouth was his
own.
He smiled now, peering through gold-rimmed spectacles attached by
a chain to a wire-encircled left ear.
"Sit," he cried, "and let me serve you!"
Standing there with a diffidence which she could not crowd down,
Mrs. Coblenz smiled through closed lips that would pull at the corners.
"The idea, Mr. Haas—going to all that trouble!"
"'Trouble,' she says! After two hours hand-shaking in a
swallowtail, a man knows what real trouble is!"
She stirred around and around the cup, supping up spoonfuls
gratefully.
"I'm sure much obliged. It touches the right spot."
He pressed her down to the chair, seating himself on the low edge
of the dais.
"Now you sit right here and rest your bones."
"But my mother, Mr. Haas. Before it's time for the ride home,
she must rest in a quiet place."
"My car'll be here and waiting five minutes after I
telephone."
"You—sure have been grand, Mr. Haas!"
"I shouldn't be grand yet to my—let's see what relation is it
I am to you?"
"Honest, you're a case, Mr. Haas—always making fun!"
"My poor dead sister's son marries your daughter. That makes
you my—nothing-in-law."
"Honest, Mr. Haas, if I was around you, I'd get fat
laughing."
"I wish you was."
"Selene would have fits. 'Never get fat, mamma,' she
says, 'if you don't want——'"
"I don't mean that."
"What?"
"I mean I wish you was around me."
She struck him then with her fan, but the color rose up into the
mound of her carefully piled hair.
"I always say I can see where Lester gets his comical ways.
Like his uncle, that boy keeps us all laughing."
"Gad, look at her blush! I know women your age would give
fifty dollars a blush to do it that way."
She was looking away again, shoulders heaving to silent laughter,
the blush still stinging.
"It's been so—so long, Mr. Haas, since I had compliments made
to me—you make me feel so—silly."
"I know it, you nice, fine woman, you, and it's a darn
shame!"
"Mr.—Haas!"
"I mean it. I hate to see a fine woman not get her dues.
Anyways, when she's the finest woman of them all!"
"I—the woman that lives to see a day like this—her daughter
the happiest girl in the world with the finest boy in the world—is getting her
dues all right, Mr. Haas."
"She's a fine girl, but she ain't worth her mother's little
finger nail."
"Mr.—Haas!"
"No, sir-ee!"
"I must be going now, Mr. Haas—my mother—"
"That's right. The minute a man tries to break the ice with
this little lady, it's a freeze-out. Now, what did I say so bad? In business,
too. Never seen the like. It's like trying to swat a fly to come down on you at
the right minute. But now, with you for a nothing-in-law, I got rights."
"If—you ain't the limit, Mr. Haas!"
"Don't mind saying it, Mrs. C., and, for a bachelor, they
tell me I'm not the worst judge in the world, but there's not a woman on the
floor stacks up like you do."
"Well—of all things!"
"Mean it."
"My mother, Mr. Haas, she—"
"And if anybody should ask you if I've got you on my mind or
not, well I've already got the letters out on that little matter of the
passports you spoke to me about. If there's a way to fix that up for you, and
leave it to me to find it, I—"
She sprang now, trembling, to her feet, all the red of the moment
receding.
"Mr. Haas, I—I must go now. My—mother—"
He took her arm, winding her in and out among crowded-out chairs
behind the dais.
"I wish it to every mother to have a daughter like you, Mrs.
C."
"No! No!" she said, stumbling rather wildly through the
chairs. "No! No! No!"
He forged ahead, clearing her path of them.
Beside the potted hydrangea, well back and yet within an easy
view, Mrs. Horowitz, her gilt armchair well cushioned for the occasion, and her
black grenadine spread decently about her, looked out upon the scene, her
slightly palsied head well forward.
"Mamma, you got enough? You wouldn't have missed it, eh? A
crowd of people we can be proud to entertain, not? Come; sit quiet in another
room for a while, and then Mr. Haas, with his nice big car, will drive us all
home again. You know Mr. Haas, dearie—Lester's uncle that had us drove so
careful in his fine big car. You remember, dearie—Lester's uncle?"
Mrs. Horowitz looked up, her old face cracking to smile.
"My grandchild! My grandchild! She'm a fine one. Not? My
grandchild! My grandchild!"
"You—mustn't mind, Mr. Haas. That's—the way she's done
since—since she's—sick. Keeps repeating—"
"My grandchild! From a good mother and a bad father
comes a good grandchild. My grandchild! She'm a good one. My—"
"Mamma, dearie, Mr. Haas is in a hurry. He's come to help me
walk you into a little room to rest before we go home in Mr. Haas's big fine
auto. Where you can go and rest, mamma, and read the newspapers. Come."
"My back—ach—my back!"
"Yes, yes, mamma; we'll fix it. Up! So—la!"
They raised her by the crook of each arm, gently.
"So! Please, Mr. Haas, the pillows. Shawl. There!"
Around a rear hallway, they were almost immediately into a blank,
staring hotel bedroom, fresh towels on the furniture-tops only enhancing its
staleness.
"Here we are. Sit her here, Mr. Haas, in this rocker."
They lowered her almost inch by inch, sliding down pillows against
the chair-back.
"Now, Shila's little mamma, want to sleep?"
"I got—no rest—no rest."
"You're too excited, honey, that's all."
"No rest."
"Here—here's a brand-new hotel Bible on the table, dearie.
Shall Shila read it to you?"
"Aylorff—"
"Now, now, mamma. Now, now; you mustn't! Didn't you promise
Shila? Look! See, here's a wreath wrapped in your shawl for Shila's little
mamma to work on. Plenty of wreaths for us to take back. Work awhile, dearie,
and then we'll get Selene and Lester, and, after all the nice company goes
away, we'll go home in the auto."
"I begged he should keep in his hate—his feet in the——"
"I know! The papers. That's what little mamma wants. Mr.
Haas, that's what she likes better than anything—the evening papers."
"I'll go down and send 'em right up with a boy, and telephone
for the car. The crowd's beginning to pour out now. Just hold your horses
there, Mrs. C., and I'll have those papers up here in a jiffy."
He was already closing the door after him, letting in and shutting
out a flare of music.
"See, mamma, nice Mr. Haas is getting us the papers. Nice
evening papers for Shila's mamma." She leaned down into the recesses of
the black grenadine, withdrawing from one of the pockets a pair of
silver-rimmed spectacles, adjusting them with some difficulty to the nodding
head. "Shila's—little mamma! Shila's mamma!"
"Aylorff, the littlest wreath for—Aylorff—Meine Kräntze—"
"Yes, yes."
"Mein Mann. Mein Sühn."
"Ssh-h-h, dearie!"
"Aylorff—der klenste Kranz far ihm!"
"Ssh-h-h, dearie—talk English, like Selene wants. Wait till
we get on the ship—the beautiful ship to take us back. Mamma, see out the
window! Look! That's the beautiful Forest Park, and this is the fine Hotel
Walsingham just across—see out—Selene is going to have a flat on—"
"Sey hoben gestorben far Freiheit. Sey hoben—"
"There, that's the papers!"
To a succession of quick knocks, she flew to the door, returning
with the folded evening editions under her arm.
"Now," she cried, unfolding and inserting the first of
them into the quivering hands, "now, a shawl over my little mamma's knees
and we're fixed!"
With a series of rapid movements, she flung open one of the
black-cashmere shawls across the bed, folding it back into a triangle. Beside
the table, bare except for the formal, unthumbed Bible, Mrs. Horowitz rattled
out her paper, her near-sighted eyes traveling back and forth across the page.
Music from the ferned-in orchestra came in drifts, faint, not so
faint. From somewhere, then immediately from everywhere, beyond, below,
without, the fast shouts of newsboys mingling.
Suddenly and of her own volition, and with a cry that shot up
through the room, rending it like a gash, Mrs. Horowitz, who moved by inches, sprang
to her supreme height, her arms, the crooks forced out, flung up.
"My darlings—what died—for it! My darlings what died for
it—my darlings—Aylorff—my husband!" There was a wail rose up off her
words, like the smoke of incense curling, circling around her. "My
darlings what died to make free!"
"Mamma—darling—mamma—Mr. Haas! Help! Mamma! My God!"
"Aylorff—my husband—I paid with my blood to make free—my
blood—my son—my—own—" Immovable there, her arms flung up and tears so
heavy that they rolled whole from her face down to the black grenadine, she was
as sonorous as the tragic meter of an Alexandrian line; she was like Ruth,
ancestress of heroes and progenitor of kings. "My boy—my own—they died for
it! Mein Mann! Mein Sühn!"
On her knees, frantic to press her down once more into the chair,
terrified at the rigid immobility of the upright figure, Mrs. Coblenz paused
then, too, her clasp falling away, and leaned forward to the open sheet of the
newspaper, its black headlines facing her:
RUSSIA
FREE
bans down
100,000 siberian prisoners liberated
In her ears a ringing silence, as if a great steel disk had
clattered down into the depths of her consciousness. There on her knees,
trembling seized her, and she hugged herself against it, leaning forward to
corroborate her gaze.
most rigid autocracy in the world
overthrown
RUSSIA
REJOICES
"Mamma! Mamma! My God, Mamma!"
"Home, Shila; home! My husband who died for it—Aylorff! Home
now, quick! My wreaths! My wreaths!"
"O my God, Mamma!"
"Home!"
"Yes—darling—yes—"
"My wreaths!"
"Yes, yes, darling; your wreaths. Let—let me think.
Freedom!—O my God, help me to find a way! O my God!"
"My wreaths!"
"Here—darling—here!"
From the floor beside her, the raffia wreath half in the making,
Mrs. Coblenz reached up, pressing it flat to the heaving old bosom.
"There, darling, there!"
"I paid with my blood—"
"Yes, yes, mamma; you—paid with your blood. Mamma—sit,
please. Sit and—let's try to think. Take it slow, darling—it's like we can't
take it in all at once. I—we—sit down, darling. You'll make yourself terrible
sick. Sit down, darling, you—you're slipping."
"My wreaths—"
Heavily, the arm at the waist gently sustaining, Mrs. Horowitz
sank rather softly down, her eyelids fluttering for the moment. A smile had
come out on her face, and, as her head sank back against the rest, the eyes
resting at the downward flutter, she gave out a long breath, not taking it in
again.
"Mamma! You're fainting!" She leaned to her, shaking the
relaxed figure by the elbows, her face almost touching the tallowlike one with
the smile lying so deeply into it. "Mamma! My God, darling, wake up!
I'll take you back. I'll find a way to take you. I'm a bad girl, darling, but
I'll find a way to take you. I'll take you if—if I kill for it. I promise
before God I'll take you. To-morrow—now—nobody can keep me from taking you. The
wreaths, mamma! Get ready the wreaths! Mamma, darling, wake up. Get ready the
wreaths! The wreaths!" Shaking at that quiet form, sobs that were full of
voice, tearing raw from her throat, she fell to kissing the sunken face,
enclosing it, stroking it, holding her streaming gaze closely and burningly
against the closed lids. "Mamma, I swear to God I'll take you! Answer me,
mamma! The bank-book—you've got it! Why don't you wake up—mamma? Help!"
Upon that scene, the quiet of the room so raucously lacerated,
burst Mr. Haas, too breathless for voice.
"Mr. Haas my mother—help—my mother! It's a faint, ain't it? A
faint?"
He was beside her at two bounds, feeling of the limp wrists,
laying his ear to the grenadine bosom, lifting the reluctant lids, touching the
flesh that yielded so to touch.
"It's a faint, ain't it, Mr. Haas? Tell her I'll take her
back. Wake her up, Mr. Haas! Tell her I'm a bad girl, but I—I'm going to take
her back. Now! Tell her! Tell her, Mr. Haas, I've got the bank-book. Please!
Please! O my God!"
He turned to her, his face working to keep down compassion.
"We must get a doctor, little lady."
She threw out an arm.
"No! No! I see! My old mother—my old mother—all her life a
nobody—she helped—she gave it to them—my mother—a poor little widow nobody—she
bought with her blood that freedom—she—"
"God, I just heard it downstairs—it's the tenth wonder of the
world. It's too big to take in. I was afraid—"
"Mamma darling, I tell you, wake up! I'm a bad girl, but I'll
take you back. Tell her, Mr. Haas, I'll take her back. Wake up, darling! I
swear to God—I'll take you!"
"Mrs. Coblenz, my—poor little lady—your mother don't need you
to take her back. She's gone back where—where she wants to be. Look at her
face, little lady; can't you see she's gone back?"
"No! No! Let me go. Let me touch her. No! No! Mamma
darling!"
"Why, there wasn't a way, little lady, you could have fixed
it for that poor—old body. She's beyond any of the poor fixings we could do for
her. You never saw her face like that before. Look!"
"The wreaths—- the wreaths!"
He picked up the raffia circle, placing it back again against the
quiet bosom.
"Poor little lady!" he said. "Shila—that's left for
us to do. You and me, Shila—we'll take the wreaths back for her."
"My darling—my darling mother! I'll take them back for you!
I'll take them back for you!"
"We'll take them back for her—Shila."
"I'll—"
"We'll take them back for her—Shila."
"We'll take them back for you, mamma. We'll take
them back for you, darling!"
By FANNY KEMBLE JOHNSON
From The Pagan
A
tiny village lay among
the mountains of a country from which for four years the men had gone forth to
fight. First the best men had gone, then the older men, then the youths, and
lastly the school boys. It will be seen that no men could have been left in the
village except the very aged, and the bodily incapacitated, who soon died,
owing to the war policy of the Government which was to let the useless perish
that there might be more food for the useful.
Now it chanced that while all the men went away, save those left
to die of slow starvation, only a few returned, and these few were crippled and
disfigured in various ways. One young man had only part of a face, and had to
wear a painted tin mask, like a holiday-maker. Another had two legs but no
arms, and another two arms but no legs. One man could scarcely be looked at by
his own mother, having had his eyes burned out of his head until he stared like
Death. One had neither arms nor legs, and was mad of his misery besides, and
lay all day in a cradle like a baby. And there was a quite old man who strangled
night and day from having sucked in poison-gas; and another, a mere boy, who
shook, like a leaf in a high wind, from shell-shock, and screamed at a sound.
And he too had lost a hand, and part of his face, though not enough to warrant
the expense of a mask for him.
All these men, except he who had been crazed by horror of himself,
had been furnished with ingenious appliances to enable them to be partly
self-supporting, and to earn enough to pay their share of the taxes which
burdened their defeated nation.
To go through that village after the war was something like going
through a life-sized toy-village with all the mechanical figures wound up and
clicking. Only instead of the figures being new, and gay, and pretty, they were
battered and grotesque and inhuman.
There would be the windmill, and the smithy, and the public house.
There would be the row of cottages, the village church, the sparkling
waterfall, the parti-colored fields spread out like bright kerchiefs on the
hillsides, the parading fowl, the goats and cows,—though not many of these
last. There would be the women, and with them some children; very few, however,
for the women had been getting reasonable, and were now refusing to have sons
who might one day be sent back to them limbless and mad, to be rocked in
cradles—for many years, perhaps.
Still the younger women, softer creatures of impulse, had borne a
child or two. One of these, born the second year of the war, was a very blonde
and bullet-headed rascal of three, with a bullying air, and of a roving
disposition. But such traits appear engaging in children of sufficiently tender
years, and he was a sort of village plaything, here, there, and everywhere, on
the most familiar terms with the wrecks of the war which the Government of that
country had made.
He tried on the tin mask and played with the baker's mechanical
leg, so indulgent were they of his caprices; and it amused him excessively to
rock the cradle of the man who had no limbs, and who was his father.
In and out he ran, and was humored to his bent. To one he seemed
the son he had lost, to another the son he might have had, had the world gone
differently. To others he served as a brief escape from the shadow of a future
without hope; to others yet, the diversion of an hour. This last was especially
true of the blind man who sat at the door of his old mother's cottage binding
brooms. The presence of the child seemed to him like a warm ray of sunshine
falling across his hand, and he would lure him to linger by letting him try
on the great blue goggles which he found it best to wear in public. But no
disfigurement or deformity appeared to frighten the little fellow. These had
been his playthings from earliest infancy.
One morning, his mother, being busy washing clothes, had left him
alone, confident that he would soon seek out some friendly fragment of soldier,
and entertain himself till noon and hunger-time. But occasionally children have
odd notions, and do the exact opposite of what one supposes.
On this brilliant summer morning the child fancied a solitary
ramble along the bank of the mountain-stream. Vaguely he meant to seek a pool
higher up, and to cast stones in it. He wandered slowly straying now and then
into small valleys, or chasing wayside ducks. It was past ten before he gained
the green-gleaming and foam-whitened pool, sunk in the shadow of a tall gray
rock over whose flat top three pine-trees swayed in the fresh breeze. Under
them, looking to the child like a white cloud in a green sky, stood a beautiful
young man, poised on the sheer brink for a dive. A single instant he stood
there, clad only in shadow and sunshine, the next he had dived so expertly that
he scarcely splashed up the water around him. Then his dark, dripping head rose
in sight, his glittering arm thrust up, and he swam vigorously to shore. He
climbed the rock for another dive. These actions he repeated in pure sport and
joy in life so often that his little spectator became dizzy with watching.
At length he had enough of it and stooped for his discarded
garments. These he carried to a more sheltered spot and rapidly put on, the
child still wide-eyed and wondering, for indeed he had much to occupy his
attention.
He had two arms, two legs, a whole face with eyes, nose, mouth,
chin, and ears, complete. He could see, for he had glanced about him as he
dressed. He could speak, for he sang loudly. He could hear, for he had turned
quickly at the whir of pigeon-wings behind him. His skin was smooth all
over, and nowhere on it were the dark scarlet maps which the child found so
interesting on the arms, face, and breast of the burned man. He did not
strangle every little while, or shiver madly, and scream at a sound. It was
truly inexplicable, and therefore terrifying.
The child was beginning to whimper, to tremble, to look wildly
about for his mother, when the young man observed him.
"Hullo!" he cried eagerly, "if it isn't a
child!"
He came forward across the foot-bridge with a most ingratiating
smile, for this was the first time that day he had seen a child and he had been
thinking it remarkable that there should be so few children in a valley, where,
when he had travelled that way five years before, there had been so many he had
scarcely been able to find pennies for them. So he cried "Hullo,"
quite joyously, and searched in his pockets.
But, to his amazement, the bullet-headed little blond boy screamed
out in terror, and fled for protection into the arms of a hurriedly approaching
young woman. She embraced him with evident relief, and was lavishing on him
terms of scolding and endearment in the same breath, when the traveler came up,
looking as if his feelings were hurt.
"I assure you, Madam," said he, "that I only meant
to give your little boy these pennies." He examined himself with an air of
wonder. "What on earth is there about me to frighten a child?" he
queried plaintively.
The young peasant-woman smiled indulgently on them both, on the
child now sobbing, his face buried in her skirt, and on the boyish, perplexed,
and beautiful young man.
"It is because he finds the Herr Traveler so
strange-looking," she said, curtsying. "He is quite small," she
showed his smallness with a gesture, "and it is the first time he has even
seen a whole man."
By BURTON KLINE
From The
Stratford Journal
By the side of a road which wanders in
company of a stream across a region of Pennsylvania farmland that is called
"Paradise" because of its beauty, you may still mark the ruins of a
small brick cabin in the depths of a grove. In summertime ivy drapes its jagged
fragments and the pile might be lost to notice but that at dusk the trembling
leaves of the vine have a way of whispering to the nerves of your horse and
setting them too in a tremble. And the people in the village beyond have a
belief that three troubled human beings lie buried under those ruins, and that
at night, or in a storm, they sometimes cry aloud in their unrest.
The village is Bustlebury, and its people have a legend that on a
memorable night there was once disclosed to a former inhabitant the secret of
that ivied sepulchre.
All the afternoon the two young women had chattered in the parlor,
cooled by the shade of the portico, and lost to the heat of the day, to the few
sounds of the village, to the passing hours themselves. Then of a sudden Mrs.
Pollard was recalled to herself at the necessity of closing her front windows
against a gust of wind that blew the curtains, like flapping flags, into the
room.
"Sallie, we're going to get it again," she said, pausing
for a glance at the horizon before she lowered the sash.
"Get what?" Her visitor walked to the other front window
and stooped to peer out.
Early evening clouds were drawing a black cap over the fair face
of the land.
"I think we're going to have some more of Old Screamer Moll
this evening. I knew we should, after this hot—"
"There! Margie, that was the expression I've been trying to
remember all afternoon. You used it this morning. Where did you get such a
poetic nickname for a thunder—O-oh!"
For a second, noon had returned to the two women. From their feet
two long streaks of black shadow darted back into the room, and vanished.
Overhead an octopus of lightning snatched the whole heavens in its grasp, shook
them, and disappeared.
The two women screamed, and threw themselves on the sofa. Yet in a
minute it was clear that the world still rolled on, and each looked at the
other and laughed at her fright—till the prospect of an evening of storm
sobered them both.
"Mercy!" Mrs. Pollard breathed in discouragement.
"We're in for another night of it. We've had this sort of thing for a
week. And to-night of all nights, when I wanted you to see this wonderful
country under the moon!"
Mrs. Pollard, followed by her guest, Mrs. Reeves, ventured to the
window timidly again, to challenge what part of the sky they could see from
under the great portico outside, and learn its portent for the night.
An evil visage it wore—a swift change from a noon-day of beaming
calm. Now it was curtained completely with blue-black cloud, which sent out
mutterings, and then long brooding silences more ominous still in their very
concealment of the night's intentions.
There was no defence against it but to draw down the blinds and
shut out this angry gloom in the glow of the lamps within. And, with a half
hour of such glow to cozen them, the two women were soon merry again over
their reminiscences, Mrs. Pollard at her embroidery, Mrs. Reeves at the piano,
strumming something from Chopin in the intervals of their chatter.
"The girl" fetched them their tea. "Five
already!" Mrs. Pollard verified the punctuality of her servant with a
glance at the clock. "Then John will be away for another night. I do hope he
won't try to get back this time. Night before last he left his assistant with a
case, and raced his horse ten miles in the dead of the night to get home,"
Mrs. Pollard proudly reported, "for fear I'd be afraid in the storm."
"And married four years!" Mrs. Reeves smilingly shook
her head in indulgence of such long-lived romance.
In the midst of their cakes and tea the bell announced an
impatient hand at the door.
"Well, 'speak of angels!'" Mrs. Pollard quoted, and flew
to greet her husband. But she opened the door upon smiling old Mr. Barber,
instead, from the precincts across the village street.
Mr. Barber seemed to be embarrassed. "I—I rather thought you
mought be wanting something," he said in words. By intention he was making
apology for the night. "I saw the doctor drive away, but I haven't seen
him come back. So I—I thought I'd just run over and see—see if there wasn't
something you wanted." He laughed uneasily.
Mr. Barber's transparent diplomacy having been rewarded with tea,
they all came at once to direct speech. "It ain't going to amount to
much," Mr. Barber insisted. "Better come out, you ladies, and have a
look around. It may rain a bit, but you'll feel easier if you come and get
acquainted with things, so to say." And gathering their resolution the two
women followed him out on the portico.
They shuddered at what they saw.
Night was at hand, two hours before its time. Nothing stirred, not
a vocal chord of hungry, puzzled, frightened chicken or cow. The whole
region seemed to have caught its breath, to be smothered under a pall of
stillness, unbroken except for some occasional distant earthquake of thunder
from the inverted Switzerland of cloud that hung pendant from the sky.
Mr. Barber's emotions finally ordered themselves into speech as he
watched. "Ain't it grand!" he said.
The two women made no reply. They sat on the steps to the portico,
their arms entwined. The scene beat their more sophisticated intelligences back
into silence. Some minutes they all sat there together, and then again Mr.
Barber broke the spell.
"It do look fearful, like. But you needn't be afraid. It's
better to be friends with it, you might say. And then go to bed and fergit
it."
They thanked him for his goodness, bade him good-by, and he
clinked down the flags of the walk and started across the street.
He had got midway across when they all heard a startling sound, an
unearthly cry.
It came out of the distance, and struck the stillness like a blow.
"What is it? What is it, Margie?" Mrs. Reeves whispered
excitedly.
Faint and quavering at its beginning, the cry grew louder and more
shrill, and then died away, as the breath that made it ebbed and was spent. It
seemed as if this unusual night had found at last a voice suited to its mood.
Twice the cry was given, and then all was still as before.
At its first notes the muscles in Mrs. Pollard's arm had
tightened. But Mr. Barber had hastened back at once with reassurance.
"I guess Mrs. Pollard knows what that is," he called to
them from the gate. "It's only our old friend Moll, that lives down there
in the notch. She gets lonesome, every thunderstorm, and let's it off like
that. It's only her rheumatiz, I reckon. We wouldn't feel easy ourselves
without them few kind words from old Moll!"
The two women applauded as they could his effort toward humor.
Then, "Come on, Sallie, quick!" Mrs. Pollard cried to her guest, and
the two women bolted up the steps of the portico and flew like girls through
the door, which they quickly locked between themselves and the disquieting night.
Once safe within, relief from their nerves came at the simple
effort of laughter, and an hour later, when it was clear that the stars still
held to their courses, the two ladies were at their ease again, beneath the
lamp on the table, with speech and conversation to provide an escape from
thought. The night seemed to cool its high temper as the hours wore on, and
gradually the storm allowed itself to be forgotten.
Together, at bed time, the two made their tour of the house,
locking the windows and doors, and visiting the pantry on the way for an apple.
Outside all was truly calm and still, as, with mock and exaggerated caution,
they peered through one last open window. A periodic, lazy flash from the far
distance was all that the sky could muster of its earlier wrath. And they
tripped upstairs and to bed, with that hilarity which always attends the
feminine pursuit of repose.
But in the night they were awakened.
Not for nothing, after all, had the skies marshalled that
afternoon array of their forces. Now they were as terribly vociferous as they
had been terrifyingly still before. Leaves, that had drooped melancholy and
motionless in the afternoon, were whipped from their branches at the snatch of
the wind. The rain came down in a solid cataract. The thunder was a steady
bombardment, and the frolic powers above, that had toyed and practised with
soundless flashes in the afternoon, had grown wanton at their sport, and hurled
their electric shots at earth in appallingly accurate marksmanship. Between the
flashes from the sky, the steady glare of a burning barn here and there
reddened the blackness. The village dead, under the pelted sod, must have
shuddered at the din. Even the moments of lull were saturate with terrors. In
them rose audible the roar of waters, the clatter of frightened animals, the
rattle of gates, the shouts of voices, the click of heels on the flags of the
streets, as the villagers hurried to the succor of neighbors fighting fires out
on the hills. For long afterward the tempest of that night was remembered. For
hours while it lasted, trees were toppled over, and houses rocked to the blast.
And for as long as it would, the rain beat in through an open
window and wetted the two women where they lay in their bed, afraid to stir,
even to help themselves, gripped in a paralysis of terror.
Their nerves were not the more disposed to peace, either, by
another token of the storm. All through the night, since their waking, in
moments of stillness sufficient for it to be heard, they had caught that cry of
the late afternoon. Doggedly it asserted itself against the uproar. It insisted
upon being heard. It too wished to shriek relievingly, like the inanimate
night, and publish its sickness abroad. They heard it far off, at first. But it
moved, and came nearer. Once the two women quaked when it came to them, shrill
and clear, from a point close at hand. But they bore its invasion along with
the wind and the rain, and lay shameless and numb in the rude arms of the
night.
They lay so till deliverance from the hideous spell came at last,
in a vigorous pounding at the front door.
"It's John!" Mrs. Pollard cried in her joy. "And
through such a storm!"
She slipped from the bed, threw a damp blanket about her, and
groped her way out of the room and down the stair, her guest stumbling after.
They scarcely could fly fast enough down the dark steps. At the bottom Mrs.
Pollard turned brighter the dimly burning entry lamp, shot back the bolt
with fingers barely able to grasp it in their eagerness, and threw open the
door.
"John!" she cried.
But there moved into the house the tall and thin but heavily
framed figure of an old woman, who peered about in confusion.
In a flash of recognition Mrs. Pollard hurled herself against the
intruder to thrust her out.
"No!" the woman said. "No, you will not, on such a
night!" And the apparition herself, looking with feverish curiosity at her
unwilling hostesses, slowly closed the door and leaned against it.
Mrs. Pollard and her friend turned to fly, in a mad instinct to be
anywhere behind a locked door. Yet before the instinct could reach their
muscles, the unbidden visitor stopped them again.
"No!" she said. "I am dying. Help me!"
The two women turned, as if hypnotically obedient to her command.
Their tongues lay thick and dead in their mouths. They fell into each other's
arms, and their caller stood looking them over, with the same fevered
curiosity. Then she turned her deliberate scrutiny to the house itself.
In a moment she almost reassured them with a first token of being
human and feminine. On the table by the stairs lay a book, and she went and
picked it up. "Fine!" she mused. Then her eye travelled over the
pictures on the walls. "Fine!" she said. "So this is the inside
of a fine house!" But suddenly, as her peering gaze returned to the two
women, she was recalled to herself. "But you wanted to put me out—on a
night like this! Hear it!"
For a moment she looked at them in frank hatred. And on an impulse
she revenged herself upon them by sounding, in their very ears, the shrill cry
they had heard in the afternoon, and through the night, that had mystified the
villagers for years from the grove. The house rang with it, and with the
hard peal of laughter that finished it.
All three of them stood there, for an instant, viewing each other.
But at the end of it the weakest of them was the partly sibylline, partly
mountebank intruder. She swayed back against the wall. Her head rolled limply
to one side, and she moaned, "O God, how tired I am to-night!"
Frightened as they still were, their runaway hearts beating a
tattoo that was almost audible, the two other women made a move to support her.
But she waved them back with a suddenly returning air of command.
"No!" she said. "You wanted to put me out!"
The creature wore some sort of thin skirt whose color had vanished
in the blue-black of its wetness. Over her head and shoulders was thrown a
ragged piece of shawl. From under it dangled strands of grizzled gray hair. Her
dark eyes were hidden in the shadows of her impromptu hood. The hollows of her
cheeks looked deeper in its shadows.
She loosed the shawl from her head, and it dropped to the floor,
disclosing a face like one of the Fates. She folded her arms, and there was a
rude majesty in the massive figure and its bearing as she tried to command
herself and speak.
"I come here—in this storm. Hear it! Hear that! I want
shelter. I want comfort. And what do you say to me!... Well, then I take
comfort from you. You thought I was your husband. You called his name. Well, I
saw him this afternoon. He drove out. I called to him from the roadside. 'Let
me tell your fortune! Only fifty cent!' But he whipped up his horse and drove
away. You are all alike. But I see him now—in Woodman's Narrows. It rains
there, same as here. Thunder and lightning, same as here. Trees fall. The wind
blows. The wind blows!"
The woman had tilted her head and fixed her eyes, shining and
eager, as if on some invisible scene, and she half intoned her words as if in a
trance.
"I see your husband now. His wagon is smashed by a tree. The
horse is dead. Your husband lies very still. He does not move. There!"—she
turned to them alert again to their presence—"there is the husband that
you want. If you don't believe me, all I say is, wait! He is there. You will
see!"
She ended in a peal of laughter, which itself ended in a weary
moan. "Oh, why can't you help me!" She came toward them, her arms
outstretched. "Don't be afraid of me. I want a woman to know
me—to comfort me. I die to-night. It's calling me, outside. Don't you hear?...
"Listen to me, you women!" she went on, and tried to
smile, to gain their favor. "I lied to you, to get even with you. You want
your husband. Well, I lied. He isn't dead. For all you tried to shut me out. Do
you never pity? Do you never help? O-oh—"
Her hand traveled over her brow, and her eyes wandered.
"No one knows what I need now! I got to tell it, I got to
tell it! Hear that?" There had been a louder and nearer crash outside.
"That's my warning. That says I got to tell it, before it's too late. No
storm like this for forty years—not since one night forty years ago. My God,
that night!" Another heavy rumble interrupted her. "Yes, yes!"
she turned and called. "I'll tell it! I promise!"
She came toward her audience and said pleadingly,
"Listen—even if it frightens you. You've got to listen. That night, forty
years ago"—she peered about her cautiously—"I think—I think I hurt
two people—hurt them very bad. And ever since that night—"
The two women had once again tried to fly away, but again she
halted them. "Listen! You have no right to run away. You got to comfort
me! You hear? Please, please, don't go."
She smiled, and so seemed less ugly. What could her two auditors
do but cling to each other and hear her through, dumb and helpless beneath her
spell?
"Only wait. I'll tell you quickly. Oh, I was not always like
this. Once I could talk—elegant too. I've almost forgotten now. But I never
looked like this then. I was not always ugly—no teeth—gray hair. Once I was
beautiful too. You laugh? But yes! Ah, I was young, and tall, and had long
black hair. I was Mollie, then. Mollie Morgan. That's the first time I've said
my name for years. But that's who I was. Ask Bruce—he knows."
She had fallen back against the wall again, her eyes roaming as
she remembered. Here she laughed. "But Bruce is dead these many years. He
was my dog." A long pause. "We played together. Among the flowers—in
the pretty cottage—under the vines. Not far from here. But all gone now, all
gone. Even the woods are gone—the woods where Bruce and I hunted berries. And
my mother!"
Again the restless hands sought the face and covered it.
"My mother! Almost as young as I. And how she could
talk! A fine lady. As fine as you. And oh, we had good times together. Nearly
always. Sometimes mother got angry—in a rage. She'd strike me, and say I was an
idiot like my father. The next minute she'd hug me, and cry, and beg me to
forgive her. It all comes back to me. Those were the days when she'd bake a
cake for supper—the days when she cried, and put on a black dress. But mostly
she wore the fine dresses—all bright, and soft, and full of flowers. Oh, how
she would dance about in those, sometimes. And always laughed when I stared at
her. And say I was Ned's girl to my finger-tips. I never understood what she
meant—then."
The shrill speaker of a moment before had softened suddenly. The
creature of the woods sniffed eagerly this atmosphere of the house, and faint
vestiges of a former personage returned to her, summoned along with the scene
she had set herself to recall.
"But oh, how good she was to me! And read to me. And taught
me to read. And careful of me? Ha! Never let me go alone to the village. Said I
was too good for such a place. Some day we would go back to the world—whatever
she meant by that. Said people there would clap the hands when they saw me—more
than they had clapped the hands for her. Once she saw a young man walk along
the road with me. Oh, how she beat my head when I came home! Nearly killed me,
she was so angry. Said I mustn't waste myself on such trash. My mother—I never
understood her then.
"She used to tell me stories—about New York, and Phil'delph.
Many big cities. There they applaud, and clap the hands, when my mother was a
queen, or a beggar girl, in the theatre, and make love and kill and fight. Have
grand supper in hotel afterward. And I'd ask my mother how soon I too may be a
queen. And she'd give me to learn the words they say, and I'd say them. Then
she'd clap me on the head again and tell me, 'Oh, you're Ned's girl. You're a
blockhead, just like your father!' And I'd say, 'Where is my father? Why does
he never come?' And after that my mother would always sit quiet, and never
answer when I talked.
"And then she'd be kind again, and make me proud, and tell me
I'm a very fine lady, and have fine blood. And she'd talk about the day when
we'd go back to the world, and she'd buy me pretty things to wear. But I
thought it was fine where we were—there in the cottage, I with the flowers, and
Bruce. In those days, yes," the woman sighed, and left them to silence for
a space,—for silent seemed the wind and rain, on the breaking of her speech.
A rumble from without started her on again.
"Yes, yes! I'm telling! I'll hurry. Then I grow big.
Seventeen. My mother call me her little giantess, her handsome darling,
her conceited fool, all at the same time. I never understood my mother—then.
"But then, one day, it came!"
The woman pressed her fingers against her eyes, as if to shut out
the vision her mind was preparing.
"Everything changed then. Everything was different. No more
nights with stories and books. No more about New York and Phil'delph. Never
again.
"I was out in the yard one day, on my knees, with the
flowers. It was Springtime, and I was digging and fixing. And I heard a horse's
hoofs on the road. A runaway, I thought at first. I stood up to look,
and—" She faltered, and then choked out, "I stood up to look, and the
man came!" And with the words came a crash that rocked the house.
"Hear that!" the woman almost shrieked. "That's
him—that's the man. I hear him in every storm!...
"He came," she went, more rapidly. "A tall
man—fine—dressed in fine clothes—brown hair—brown eyes! Oh, I often see those
brown eyes. I know what they are like. He came riding along the bye-road. When
he caught sight of my mother he almost fell from his horse. The horse nearly
fell, the man pulled him in so sharp. 'Good God!' the man said. 'Fanny! Is this
where you are! Curse you, old girl, is this where you are!' Funny, how I
remember his words. And then he came in.
"And he talked to my mother a long time. Then he looked round
and said, 'So this is where you've crawled to!' And he petted Bruce. And then
he came to me, and looked into my face a long time, and said, 'So this is his
girl, eh? Fanny junior, down to the last eyelash! Come here, puss!' he said.
And I made a face at him. And he put his hands to his sides and laughed and
laughed at me. And he turned to my mother and said, 'Fanny, Fanny, what a
queen!' I thought he meant be a queen in the theatre. But he meant something
else. He came to me again, and squeezed me and pressed his face against
mine. And my mother ran and snatched him away. And I ran behind the house.
"And by-and-by my mother came to find me, and said, 'Oho, my
little giantess! So here you are! What are you trembling for!' And she kicked
me. 'Take that!' she said.
"And I didn't understand—not then. But I understand now.
"Next day the man came again, and talked to my mother. But I
saw him look and look at me. And by-and-by he reached for my hand. And my
mother said, 'Stop that! None of that, my little George! One at a time, if you
please!' And he laughed and let me go. And they went out and sat on a bench in
the yard. And the man stroked my mother's hair. And I watched and listened.
They talked a long time till it was night. And I heard George say, 'Well,
Fanny, old girl, we did for him, all right, didn't we?' I've always remembered
it. And they laughed and they laughed. Then the man said, 'God, how it does
scare me, sometimes!' And my mother laughed at him for that. And George said,
'Look what I've had to give up. And you penned up here! But never mind. It will
blow over. Then we'll crawl back to the old world, eh, Fanny?'"
All this the woman had rattled off like a child with a recitation,
as something learned long ago and long rehearsed against just this last
contingency of confession.
"Oh, I remember it!" she said, as if her volubility
needed an explanation. "It took me a long time to understand. But one day
I understood.
"He came often, then—George did. And I was not afraid of him
any more. He was fine, like my mother. Every time I saw him come my stomach
would give a jump. And I liked to have him put his face against mine, the way
I'd seen him do to mother. And every time he went away I'd watch him from the
hilltop till I couldn't see him any more. And at night I couldn't sleep.
And George came very often—to see me, he told me, and not my mother.
"And my mother was changed then. She never hit me again,
because George said he'd kill her if she did. But she acted very strange when
he told her that, and looked and looked at me. And didn't speak to me for days
and days. But I didn't mind—I could talk to George. And we'd go for long walks,
and he'd tell me more about New York and Phil'delph—more than my mother could
tell. Oh, I loved to hear him talk. And he said such nice things to me—such
nice things to me! Bruce—I forgot all about Bruce. Oh, I was happy!... But that
was because I knew nothing....
"Yes, I pleased George. But by-and-by he changed too. Then I
couldn't say anything that he liked. 'Stupid child!' he called me. I tried,
ever so hard, to please him. But it was like walking against a wind, that you
can't push aside. You women, you just guess how I felt then! You just guess!
You want your husband. It was the same with me. I want George. But he wouldn't
listen to me no more."
The woman seemed to sink, to shrivel, under the weight of her
recollection. Finding her not a monster but a woman after all, her two hearers
were moved to another slight token of sympathy. They were "guessing,"
as she commanded. But still, with a kind of weary magnanimity, she waved them
back, away from the things she had yet to make clear.
"But one day I saw it. One day I saw something. I came home
with my berries, and George was there. His breath was funny, and he talked
funny, and walked funny. I'd seen people in the village that way. But—my mother
was that way, too. She looked funny—had very red cheeks, and talked very fast.
Very foolish. And her breath was the same as George's. And she laughed and
laughed at me, and made fun of me.
"I said nothing. But I didn't sleep that night. I wondered
what would happen. Many days I thought of what was happening. Then I knew.
My mother was trying to get George away from me. That was what had happened.
"Another day I came back with my berries, and my mother was
not there. Neither was George there. So! She had taken George away. My George.
Well! I set out to look. No rest for me till I find them. I knew pretty well
where they might be. I started for George's little brick house down in the
hollow. That's where he had taken to living—hunting and fishing. It was
late—the brick house was far away—I was very tired. But I went. And—"
She had been speaking more rapidly. Here she stopped to breathe,
to swallow, to collect herself for the final plunge.
"I heard a runaway horse. 'George's horse!' I said. 'George
is coming back to me, after all! George is coming back to me! She can't keep
him!' And, yes, it was George's horse. But nobody on him. I was so scared I
could hardly stand. Something had happened to George. Only then did I know how
much I wanted him—when something had happened to him. I almost fell down in the
road, but I crawled on. And presently I came to him, to George. He was walking
in the road, limping and stumbling and rolling—all muddy—singing to himself. He
didn't know me at first. I ran to him—to my George. And he grabbed me, and
stumbled, and fell. And he grabbed my ankle. 'Come to me, li'l' one!' he said.
'Damn the old hag!' he said. 'It's the girl I want—Ned's own!' he said. 'Come
here to me, Ned's own. I want you!' And he pinched me. He bit my hand. And—and
I—all of a sudden I was afraid.
"And I snatched myself loose. 'George!' I screamed. 'No!' I
said—I don't know why. I was very scared. I was wild. I kicked away—and
ran—ran, ran—away—I don't know where—to the woods. And oh, a long time I heard
George laugh at me. 'Just like the very old Ned!' I heard him shout. But I
ran, till I fell down tired. And there I sat and thought.
"And all of a sudden I understood. All at once I knew many
things. I knew then what my mother had said about Ned sometimes. He was my
father. He was dead. Somebody had killed him, I knew—I knew it from what they
said. George knew my father, then, too. What did he know? That was it! He—he
was the man that killed my father. He was after my mother then—he had been
after her before, and made her breathe funny, made a fool of her. That was why
my beautiful mother was so strange to me sometimes. That's why there was no
more New York and Phil'delph. George did that—spoiled everything. Now he was
back—making a fool of her again—my mother! And wanted to make a fool of me. Oh,
then I knew! That man! And I had liked him. His brown hair, his brown eyes! But
oh, I understood, I understood.
"I got up from the ground. Everything reeled and fell apart.
There was nothing more for me. Everything spoiled. Our pretty cottage—the
stories—all gone. Spoiled. So I ran back. Maybe I could bring my mother back.
Maybe I could save something. Oh, I was sick. The trees, they bent and rolled
the way George walked. The wind bent them double. They held their stomachs, as
if they were George, laughing at me. They seemed to holler 'Ned's girl!' at me.
I was dizzy, and the wind nearly blew me over. But I had to hurry home.
"I got near. No one there. Not even George. But I had to find
my beautiful little mother. All round I ran. The brambles threw me down. I fell
over a stump and struck my face. I could feel the blood running down over my
cheeks. It was warmer than the rain. No matter, I had to find my mother. My
poor little mother.
"Bruce growled at me when I got to the house. He didn't know
me. That's how I looked! But there was a light in the house. Yes, my
mother was there! But George was there, too. That man! They had bundles all
ready to go away. They weren't glad to see me. I got there too soon. George
said, 'Damn her soul! Always that girl of Ned's! I'll show her!' And he kicked
me.
"George kicked me!...
"But my mother—she didn't laugh when she saw me. She was very
scared. She shook George, and said, 'George! Come away, quick! Look at her
face! Look at her eyes!' she said.
"Oh, my mother, my little mother. She thought I would hurt
her. Even when she'd been such a fool. I was the one that had to take care of
her, then. But she wanted to go away—with that man! That made me wild.
"'You, George!' I said, 'You've got to go! You've—you've done
too much to us!' I said. 'You go!' And 'Mother!' I said. 'You've got to leave
him! He's done too much to us!' I said.
"She only answered, 'George, come, quick!' And she dragged
George toward the door. And George laughed at me. Laughed and laughed—till he
saw my eyes. He didn't laugh then. Nor my mother. My mother screamed when she
saw my eyes. 'Shut up, George!' she screamed. 'She's not Ned's girl now!' And
George said, 'No, by God! She's your brat now, all right!
She's the devil's own!'
"And they ran for the door. I tried to get there first, to
catch my little mother. My mother only screamed, as if she were wild. And they
got out—out in the dark. 'Mother!' I cried. 'Mother! Come back, come back!' No
answer. My mother was gone.
"Oh, that made me feel, somehow, very strong. 'I'll bring you
back!' I shouted. 'You, George! I'll send you away. Wait and see!' They never
answered. Maybe they never heard. The wind was blowing, like to-night.
"But I knew where I could find them. I knew where to go to
find George. And I ran to my loft, for my knife. But, O my God, when I saw poor
Mollie in the glass! Teeth gone. I wasn't beautiful any more. And my eyes!—they
came out of the glass at me, like two big dogs jumping a fence. I ran from
them. I didn't know myself. I ran out of the door, in the night. I went after that
man. He had done too much. That storm—the lightning that night! Awful! But no
storm kept me back. Rain—hail—but I kept on. Trees fell—but I went on. I called
out. I laughed then, myself. I'll get him! I say, 'Look out for Ned's girl!
Look out for Ned's girl!' I say...."
Unconsciously the woman was re-enacting every gesture, repeating
every phrase and accent of her journey through the night, that excursion out of
the world, from which there had been no return for her. "Look out for
Ned's girl!"—the house rang with the cry. But this second journey, of the
memory, ended in a moan and a faint.
"I said I would tell it! Help me!" she said.
In some fashion they worked her heavy bulk out of its crazy
wrappings and into a bed. John arrived, to help them. Morning peered timidly
over the eastern hills, as if fearful of beholding what the night had wrought.
In its smiling calm the noise of the storm was already done away. But the storm
in the troubled mind raged on.
For days it raged, in fever and delirium. Then they buried the
rude minister of justice in the place where she commanded—under the pile of
broken stones and bricks among the trees in the hollow. And it is said that the
inquisitive villagers who had a part in the simple ceremonies stirred about
till they made the discovery of two skeletons under the ruins. And to this day
there are persons in Bustlebury with a belief that at night, or in a storm,
they sometimes hear a long-drawn cry issuing from that lonely little hollow.
By VINCENT O'SULLIVAN
From The Boston
Evening Transcript
Mrs. Wilton passed
through a little alley leading from one of the gates which are around Regent's
Park, and came out on the wide and quiet street. She walked along slowly,
peering anxiously from side to side so as not to overlook the number. She
pulled her furs closer round her; after her years in India this London damp
seemed very harsh. Still, it was not a fog to-day. A dense haze, gray and
tinged ruddy, lay between the houses, sometimes blowing with a little wet kiss
against the face. Mrs. Wilton's hair and eyelashes and her furs were powdered
with tiny drops. But there was nothing in the weather to blur the sight; she
could see the faces of people some distance off and read the signs on the
shops.
Before the door of a dealer in antiques and second-hand furniture
she paused and looked through the shabby uncleaned window at an unassorted heap
of things, many of them of great value. She read the Polish name fastened on
the pane in white letters.
"Yes; this is the place."
She opened the door, which met her entrance with an ill-tempered
jangle. From somewhere in the black depths of the shop the dealer came forward.
He had a clammy white face, with a sparse black beard, and wore a skull cap and
spectacles. Mrs. Wilton spoke to him in a low voice.
A look of complicity, of cunning, perhaps of irony, passed through
the dealer's cynical and sad eyes. But he bowed gravely and respectfully.
"Yes, she is here, madam. Whether she will see you or not I
do not know. She is not always well; she has her moods. And then, we have to be
so careful. The police—Not that they would touch a lady like you. But the poor
alien has not much chance these days."
Mrs. Wilton followed him to the back of the shop, where there was
a winding staircase. She knocked over a few things in her passage and stooped
to pick them up, but the dealer kept muttering, "It does not matter—surely
it does not matter." He lit a candle.
"You must go up these stairs. They are very dark; be careful.
When you come to a door, open it and go straight in."
He stood at the foot of the stairs holding the light high above
his head as she ascended.
The room was not very large, and it seemed very ordinary. There
were some flimsy, uncomfortable chairs in gilt and red. Two large palms were in
corners. Under a glass cover on the table was a view of Rome. The room had not
a business-like look, thought Mrs. Wilton; there was no suggestion of the
office or waiting-room where people came and went all day; yet you would not
say that it was a private room which was lived in. There were no books or
papers about; every chair was in the place it had been placed when the room was
last swept; there was no fire and it was very cold.
To the right of the window was a door covered with a plush
curtain. Mrs. Wilton sat down near the table and watched this door. She thought
it must be through it that the soothsayer would come forth. She laid her hands
listlessly one on top of the other on the table. This must be the tenth seer
she had consulted since Hugh had been killed. She thought them over. No, this
must be the eleventh. She had forgotten that frightening man in Paris who
said he had been a priest. Yet of them all it was only he who had told her
anything definite. But even he could do no more than tell the past. He told of
her marriage; he even had the duration of it right—twenty-one months. He told
too of their time in India—at least, he knew that her husband had been a
soldier, and said he had been on service in the "colonies." On the
whole, though, he had been as unsatisfactory as the others. None of them had
given her the consolation she sought. She did not want to be told of the past.
If Hugh was gone forever, then with him had gone all her love of living, her
courage, all her better self. She wanted to be lifted out of the despair, the
dazed aimless drifting from day to day, longing at night for the morning, and
in the morning for the fall of night, which had been her life since his death.
If somebody could assure her that it was not all over, that he was somewhere,
not too far away, unchanged from what he had been here, with his crisp hair and
rather slow smile and lean brown face, that he saw her sometimes, that he had
not forgotten her....
"Oh, Hugh, darling!"
When she looked up again the woman was sitting there before her.
Mrs. Wilton had not heard her come in. With her experience, wide enough now, of
seers and fortune-tellers of all kinds, she saw at once that this woman was
different from the others. She was used to the quick appraising look, the
attempts, sometimes clumsy, but often cleverly disguised, to collect some
fragments of information whereupon to erect a plausible vision. But this woman
looked as if she took it out of herself.
Not that her appearance suggested intercourse with the spiritual
world more than the others had done; it suggested that, in fact, considerably
less. Some of the others were frail, yearning, evaporated creatures, and the ex-priest
in Paris had something terrible and condemned in his look. He might well sup
with the devil, that man, and probably did in some way or other.
But this was a little fat, weary-faced woman about fifty, who only
did not look like a cook because she looked more like a sempstress. Her black
dress was all covered with white threads. Mrs. Wilton looked at her with some
embarrassment. It seemed more reasonable to be asking a woman like this about
altering a gown than about intercourse with the dead. That seemed even absurd
in such a very commonplace presence. The woman seemed timid and oppressed; she
breathed heavily and kept rubbing her dingy hands, which looked moist, one over
the other; she was always wetting her lips, and coughed with a little dry
cough. But in her these signs of nervous exhaustion suggested overwork in a
close atmosphere, bending too close over the sewing-machine. Her uninteresting
hair, like a rat's pelt, was eked out with a false addition of another color.
Some threads had got into her hair too.
Her harried, uneasy look caused Mrs. Wilton to ask
compassionately: "Are you much worried by the police?"
"Oh, the police! Why don't they leave us alone? You never
know who comes to see you. Why don't they leave me alone? I'm a good woman. I
only think. What I do is no harm to any one."...
She continued in an uneven querulous voice, always rubbing her
hands together nervously. She seemed to the visitor to be talking at random,
just gabbling, like children do sometimes before they fall asleep.
"I wanted to explain—" hesitated Mrs. Wilton.
But the woman, with her head pressed close against the back of the
chair, was staring beyond her at the wall. Her face had lost whatever little
expression it had; it was blank and stupid. When she spoke it was very slowly
and her voice was guttural.
"Can't you see him? It seems strange to me that you can't
see him. He is so near you. He is passing his arm round your shoulders."
This was a frequent gesture of Hugh's. And indeed at that moment
she felt that somebody was very near her, bending over her. She was enveloped
in tenderness. Only a very thin veil, she felt, prevented her from seeing. But
the woman saw. She was describing Hugh minutely, even the little things like the
burn on his right hand.
"Is he happy? Oh, ask him does he love me?"
The result was so far beyond anything she had hoped for that she
was stunned. She could only stammer the first thing that came into her head.
"Does he love me?"
"He loves you. He won't answer, but he loves you. He wants me
to make you see him; he is disappointed, I think, because I can't. But I can't
unless you do it yourself."
After a while she said:
"I think you will see him again. You think of nothing else.
He is very close to us now."
Then she collapsed, and fell into a heavy sleep and lay there
motionless, hardly breathing. Mrs. Wilton put some notes on the table and stole
out on tip-toe.
She seemed to remember that downstairs in the dark shop the dealer
with the waxen face detained her to shew some old silver and jewellery and such
like. But she did not come to herself, she had no precise recollection of
anything, till she found herself entering a church near Portland Place. It was
an unlikely act in her normal moments. Why did she go in there? She acted like
one walking in her sleep.
The church was old and dim, with high black pews. There was nobody
there. Mrs. Wilton sat down in one of the pews and bent forward with her face
in her hands.
After a few minutes she saw that a soldier had come in noiselessly
and placed himself about half-a-dozen rows ahead of her. He never turned
round; but presently she was struck by something familiar in the figure. First
she thought vaguely that the soldier looked like her Hugh. Then, when he put up
his hand, she saw who it was.
She hurried out of the pew and ran towards him. "Oh, Hugh,
Hugh, have you come back?"
He looked round with a smile. He had not been killed. It was all a
mistake. He was going to speak....
Footsteps sounded hollow in the empty church. She turned and
glanced down the dim aisle.
It was an old sexton or verger who approached. "I thought I
heard you call," he said.
"I was speaking to my husband." But Hugh was nowhere to
be seen.
"He was here a moment ago." She looked about in anguish.
"He must have gone to the door."
"There's nobody here," said the old man gently.
"Only you and me. Ladies are often taken funny since the war. There was
one in here yesterday afternoon said she was married in this church and her
husband had promised to meet her here. Perhaps you were married here?"
"No," said Mrs. Wilton, desolately. "I was married
in India."
It might have been two or three days after that, when she went
into a small Italian restaurant in the Bayswater district. She often went out
for her meals now: she had developed an exhausting cough, and she found that it
somehow became less troublesome when she was in a public place looking at
strange faces. In her flat there were all the things that Hugh had used; the
trunks and bags still had his name on them with the labels of places where they
had been together. They were like stabs. In the restaurant, people came and
went, many soldiers too among them, just glancing at her in her corner.
This day, as it chanced, she was rather late and there was nobody
there. She was very tired. She nibbled at the food they brought her. She could
almost have cried from tiredness and loneliness and the ache in her heart.
Then suddenly he was before her, sitting there opposite at the
table. It was as it was in the days of their engagement, when they used
sometimes to lunch at restaurants. He was not in uniform. He smiled at her and
urged her to eat, just as he used in those days....
I met her that afternoon as she was crossing Kensington Gardens,
and she told me about it.
"I have been with Hugh." She seemed most happy.
"Did he say anything?"
"N-no. Yes. I think he did, but I could not quite hear. My
head was so very tired. The next time——"
I did not see her for some time after that. She found, I think,
that by going to places where she had once seen him—the old church, the little
restaurant—she was more certain to see him again. She never saw him at home.
But in the street or the park he would often walk along beside her. Once he
saved her from being run over. She said she actually felt his hand grabbing her
arm, suddenly, when the car was nearly upon her.
She had given me the address of the clairvoyant; and it is through
that strange woman that I know—or seem to know—what followed.
Mrs. Wilton was not exactly ill last winter, not so ill, at least,
as to keep to her bedroom. But she was very thin, and her great handsome eyes
always seemed to be staring at some point beyond, searching. There was a look
in them that seamen's eyes sometimes have when they are drawing on a coast of
which they are not very certain. She lived almost in solitude: she hardly ever
saw anybody except when they sought her out. To those who were anxious
about her she laughed and said she was very well.
One sunny morning she was lying awake, waiting for the maid to
bring her tea. The shy London sunlight peeped through the blinds. The room had
a fresh and happy look.
When she heard the door open she thought that the maid had come
in. Then she saw that Hugh was standing at the foot of the bed. He was in
uniform this time, and looked as he had looked the day he went away.
"Oh, Hugh, speak to me! Will you not say just one word?"
He smiled and threw back his head, just as he used to in the old
days at her mother's house when he wanted to call her out of the room without
attracting the attention of the others. He moved towards the door, still
signing to her to follow him. He picked up her slippers on his way and held
them out to her as if he wanted her to put them on. She slipped out of bed
hastily....
It is strange that when they came to look through her things after
her death the slippers could never be found.
By LAWRENCE PERRY
From Scribner's
Magazine.
Evelyn Colcord glanced
up the table with the appraising eye of a young hostess who had already
established a reputation for her dinners. The room had been decorated with a
happy effect of national colors, merged with those of the allied nations, and
neither in the table nor its appointments was a flaw revealed—while the low,
contented murmur of conversation and light laughter attending completion of the
first course afforded assurance that the company was well chosen and the
atmosphere assertive in qualities that made for equanimity and good cheer.
She smiled slightly, nodding at the butler, who had been watching
her anxiously, and then glanced out the corner of her eye at Professor Simec,
seated at her right. She had entertained doubts concerning him, had, in fact,
resented the business necessity which had brought him thither as guest of
honor, not through any emotion approximating inhospitality but wholly because
of her mistrust as to the effect of this alien note upon her dinner, which was
quite impromptu, having been arranged at the eleventh hour in deference to the
wishes of Jerry Dane, a partner of Colcord's, who was handling the firm's
foreign war patents.
She had done the best she could as to guests, had done exceedingly
well, as it chanced, fortune having favored her especially in the cases of
several of those who sat about the table. And now Simec was fully involved in
conversation with Bessie Dane, who seemed deeply interested. As for the man,
weazened and attenuate, she could catch only his profile—the bulging, hairless
brow, and beard curling outward from the tip, forming sort of a crescent, which
she found hardly less sinister than the cynical twist where grizzled whiskers
and mustaches conjoined and the cold, level white eyes that she had noted as
dominant characteristics when he was presented.
Simec was a laboratory recluse who had found his métier in
the war. Rumor credited to him at least one of the deadliest chemical
combinations employed by the allied armies. But it was merely rumor; nothing
definite was known. These are things of which little is hinted and less said.
None the less, intangible as were his practical achievements—whatever they
might be—his reputation was substantial, enhanced, small doubt, by the very
vagueness of his endeavors. The element of mystery, which his physical
appearance tended not to allay, invested him, as it were, with a thaumaturgic
veil through which was dimly revealed the man. It was as though his personality
was merely a nexus to the things he stood for and had done, so that he appeared
to Evelyn less a human entity than a symbol. But at least Bessie Dane was
interested and the fine atmosphere of the table was without a taint.
Shrugging almost imperceptibly, she withdrew her eyes and looked
across the table with an expression which Nicholas Colcord could have
interpreted had he not been engrossed with Sybil Latham. Evelyn studied him
with admiring tenderness as he lounged in his chair, toying idly with a fork,
smiling at something his partner was saying, while her mind ran lovingly over
the dominant traits of a personality which was so strong, so keenly alive, so
sensitive to decent, manly things, so perfectly balanced.
Failing to catch his eye, Evelyn turned to her plate filled with a
subtle melancholy. When would there be another dinner like this? Not, at all
events, until the war was over. Nick had spoken about this—very definitely;
there would be no more entertaining. She had agreed with him, of course, not,
however, escaping the conviction that her husband's viewpoint was more or less
in keeping with a certain unusual sombreness which she had caught creeping into
his mood in the past year or so.
Still, everybody who amounted to anything was pulling up on the
bit and doing something or talking of doing something or other for the country.
It was already assured that the season would be insufferably dull—from a social
standpoint at least. Evelyn could not suppress a certain resentment. She was not
one of those who had found an element of thrill in the suddenly altered
perspectives. Her plans for the spring season had been laid; engagements had
been accepted or declined, as functions promised to be worth while or
uninteresting; all the delicate interlocking machinery of the life in which
Evelyn Colcord moved, somewhat prominently, was in motion—then the sudden
checking of the wheels: war.
Now there were memories of her husband's sober words; now there
was young Jeffery Latham at her elbow—he had been almost shot to pieces in
France—now there was Simec, the genius of diabolical achievement.... What were
things coming to? Even the weather had gone wrong. Outside, an unseasonable
cold rain, lashed by a northeast gale, was driving against the panes of the French
windows, and the sizzling effulgence of an arc-lamp revealed pools of water
lying on the asphalt of the avenue....
The dry, softly modulated voice of Captain Latham at her left
lifted Evelyn from her trend of sombre revery.
"Nick is looking uncommonly fit—he'll go in for the cavalry,
I suppose."
The young British officer spoke more with a half-humorous effort
at conversation than any other motive, but she turned to him with a gesture of
appeal.
"Jeffery," she said, "you make me shiver!"
The man stared at her curiously.
"Why, I—I'm sorry. I'm sure I didn't—"
"Oh, of course," she interrupted, "I know you
didn't. Don't be silly. As for me, I'm perfectly foolish, don't you know.
Only"—she paused—"I detest war talk. It's so fearfully upsetting. It seems
only yesterday that it was a subject to drag in when conversation lagged. But
now—"
Latham's quizzical reply was almost upon his lips, when, evidently
changing his mind, he spoke dryly.
"No doubt you'll become used to it in time.... By the by, I
was in fun about old Nick. His objection to grouse coverts and deer-stalking—I
can't fancy him in war."
As she didn't reply he picked up his fork, adding: "Yet he's
a tremendous athlete—polo and all that sort of thing. Do you know, I suspect
that when the real pull comes he won't object to potting at Germans.... Did you
do these menu cards, Evelyn? They're awfully well done."
She nodded, eying him eagerly.
"Yes, I painted them this afternoon. You see, it was a rush
order.... As to Nick, I don't think it will come to his enlisting. I've never
considered it, really. He's awfully mixed up in government finances, don't you
know. We all tell him he's more valuable where he is."
Latham smiled faintly.
"What does Nick say to that?"
"Oh, I don't know." She shrugged. "Nothing very
definite. War has been a taboo subject with him—I mean from the first when you
all went in. I know he has strong feelings about it, terribly strong. But he
never talks about them."
"He went in strong on the financial end, didn't he?"
asked the Englishman. "Some one in London told me he'd made a lot of
oof."
She nodded, coloring.
"Yes, oceans of money.... Not that we needed it," Evelyn
added, a trifle defensively.
"I know; it just came," was Latham's comment.
"Well, it all helped us out of a nasty mess."
Evelyn was thinking and did not reply immediately. When she did
speak it was apparent that in changing the subject she had followed a natural
impulse without intention or design.
"Jeffery," she said, "do you know I haven't been
able to make you out since you arrived here—nor Sybil either," she added,
nodding toward Latham's wife, whose classic, flaxen-haired profile was turned
toward them.
The man was smiling curiously.
"I didn't realize we had changed so."
"Well, you have, both of you. You talk the same and act the
same—except a—a sort of reserve; something; I don't know just what.... Somehow,
you, and Sybil, too, seem as though you felt strange, aloof, out of place. You
used to be so absolutely—well, natural and at home with us all—"
"My word!" Latham laughed but made no further comment.
"Of course," Evelyn went on, "you've been through a
lot, I can appreciate that. When I got Sybil's letter I simply wept:
twenty-four hours in a muddy shell-hole; invalided for good, with an arm you
can't raise above your shoulder; a horrid scar down your face...."
"It does make rather a poor face to look at, doesn't
it?" Latham flushed and hurried on. "Well, I've no complaint."
She glanced at the cross on his olive-drab coat.
"Of course not! How absurd, Jeffery! But how did Sybil ever
stand it? How did she live through it? I mean the parting, the
months of suspense, word that you were missing, then mortally wounded?... Her
brother killed by gas?"
Latham glanced at his wife, a soft light in his eyes.
"Poor Sybil," he replied. "She was a brick,
Evelyn—a perfect brick. I don't know how she got through it. But one does, you
know."
"Yes, one does, I suppose." Evelyn sighed. "But
how? I couldn't; I simply couldn't. Why, Jeffery, I can't bear
even to think of it."
Latham shook his head negatively at the footman, who stood at his
side, and then turned smiling to Evelyn. "Oh, come! Of course you could.
You don't understand now, but you will. There's a sort of grace given, I
fancy."
"Jeffery, I don't want to understand, and I don't want any
grace, and I think you're horrid and unsympathetic." She tapped him
admonishingly on the arm, laughing lightly. But the gloom was still in her
dark-gray eyes. "But, after all, you are right. We are in
for it, just as you have been.... God grant there are women more Spartan than
I."
Latham grimaced and was raising a deprecating hand when she caught
it impulsively.
"Please let's talk about something else."
"Very well." He smiled mockingly and lowered his voice.
"Your friend at your right there—curious beggar, don't you think?"
Evelyn glanced at Simec, turning again to Latham.
"He gives me the creeps," she confessed. "It seems
absurd, but he does."
"Really!" The Englishman stared at the man a moment.
"Do you know," he resumed, "he does seem a bit uncanny. Where'd
Nick pick him up?"
"It was Jerry Dane," she replied. "He's done some
tremendous things on the other side. Jerry met him in Washington the other day
and seems to regard him as a find. He has no business sense and has given away
practically everything. Now we are going to capitalize him; I believe that's
the word. I never saw him before tonight"—her voice sank to a
whisper—"and, do you know, I hope I never shall again." She shrugged.
"Listen to him."
Several of the guests were already doing that. His toneless voice
rose and fell monotonously, and he appeared so detached from what he was
saying that as Evelyn gazed at him she seemed to find difficulty in relating
words that were said to the speaker; only the slight movement of the lips and
an occasional formless gesture made the association definite.
"Doctor Allison," he was saying, "has missed the
distinction between hostia honoraria and hostia
piacularis. In the former case the deity accepts the gift of a life; in the
latter he demands it."
"What in the world are you all talking about now?" asked
Evelyn plaintively. "Not war—?"
"Sacrifice, Mrs. Colcord." Simec inclined his head
slightly in her direction.
"I was saying," explained Doctor Allison, "that we
do well if we send our young men to battle in the spirit of privileged
sacrifice, as—as something that is our—our—yes—our proud privilege, as I say,
to do."
Simec shook his head in thoughtful negation.
"That is sentiment, excellent sentiment; unfortunately, it
doesn't stand assay. Reaction comes. We do better if we make our gift of blood
as a matter of unalterable necessity. We make too much of it all, in any event.
The vast evil of extended peace is the attachment of too great value to
luxuries and to human life—trite, but true. We know, of course, that the world
has progressed chiefly over the dead bodies of men and, yes, women and
children."
Some new element had entered into the voice. Whether it was
herself or whether it was Simec, Evelyn was in no mood to determine.... She was
aware only of a certain metallic cadence which beat cruelly upon her nerves.
Silence had followed, but not of the same sort as before. As though seeking
complete withdrawal, Evelyn turned her eyes out of the window. A wayfarer, head
down, was struggling through the nimbus of watery electric light; a horse-drawn
vehicle was plodding by. Colcord's voice brought her back; it was strained.
"I don't feel as Allison does," he said. "And I
certainly have no sympathy with Simec." He leaned forward, his elbows on
the table. "You see," he went on, "I—I—well, maybe, I'm a
product of extended peace, as Simec puts it. No doubt I'm soft. But this
war—I've never talked nor let myself think much about the war—but this whole
thing of sacrifice got under me from the very first.... Young men, thousands,
hundreds of thousands of them, yes, millions, torn from their homes, from their
mothers, their fathers—their wives, for what? To be blown into shapeless,
unrecognizable clay, to be maimed, made useless for life. My God! It has kept
me awake nights!"
"Colcord"—Simec's white eyes rested professionally upon
the host—"let us get to the root of your state of mind; your brief is for
the individual as against the common good, is it not?"
Colcord frowned.
"Oh, I haven't any brief, Simec; I've never reasoned about
the thing, that is, in a cold, scientific way. It's a matter of heart, I
suppose—of instinct. I just can't seem to stand the calculating, sordid wastage
of young life and all that it involves. Now, of course, it has come closer
home. And it's terrible."
"You never would shoot anything for sport, would you, old
fellow?" said Latham, sympathetically, "not even pheasants."
Colcord tossed his beautifully modelled head.
"Latham, I tell you, I'm soft; I'm the ultimate product of
peace and civilization."
"Yes, you're soft, terribly so," smiled Dane. "I
ought to know; I played opposite you at tackle for two years."
"Stuff! You understand what I mean, Jerry; I guess you all
do. I've never talked this way before; as I say, I've always kept the war in
the background, tried to gloss it over, forget it. But I couldn't; I've done a
heap of thinking." He sat bolt upright, his clinched fist upon the table.
"All these young chaps herded together and suddenly turned loose from
all they've known and done and thought—I tell you I can't duck it any
more."
"I know, old chap." Arnold Bates, who wrote light
society novels, spoke soothingly. "It is—rotten. But what are you going to
do about it?"
Colcord's fine brow was wrinkled painfully.
"Nothing, Arnold, nothing. That's the trouble; you have to
sit still and watch this wrecking of civilization or else get out and take a
hack at the thing yourself. I can't do that; not unless I have to." He
paused. "I've had a good time in this life; things have always come
easily—"
Sybil Latham was regarding him contemplatively.
"Yes," she murmured, "I don't know a man who has
impressed me as so thoroughly enjoying life as you, Nick—"
Colcord stared at her a moment.
"Well, I do," he replied at length. "But I want to
say this right here: if some person or presence, some supernatural being, say,
should come here to-night, at this table, and tell me that by giving up my life
right now I would, through that act, bring an end to—"
"Nick!" Evelyn Colcord's voice was poignantly sharp.
"If through that little sacrifice the blood glut in Europe
would end, I'd do it cheerfully, joyfully, in a minute."
Simec was gazing at the speaker with half-closed eyes; the others,
in thrall of his words, were staring at the table or at one another.
"What a thought!" Mrs. Allison glanced at him curiously.
"Coming from you, of all men, Nick!"
"I wonder if I could say that?" Jerry Dane sank down in
his chair, put his hands in his pockets, and gazed sombrely up at the ceiling.
"By George! I wish I could—but I can't."
Bates shifted uneasily. He shrugged.
"It's too hypothetical. And yet—of course it's
absurd—yet if the thing could happen, I think I'd stick with
Colcord."
"In other words"—Simec's voice now had a sibilant
hiss—"if you could end war through your death you'd be willing to die—now,
or at any specified time?"
"If you're talking to me," said Colcord, "I'm on
record. Those who know me well know I don't have to say a thing twice."
"I was talking to Mr. Bates," replied the inventor.
"He seemed doubtful."
"Well, I'm not now," retorted the writer sharply.
"I'm with Nick absolutely."
Doctor Allison was shaking his head.
"Theoretically, I would make the same assertion," he
confessed, "but I wish to be honest; I don't know whether I could do it or
not."
"Neither do I," said Dane. "A certainty like that
and taking a chance on the battlefield are two different things. What do you
say, Latham; you've been through the mill?"
"Well, you know," shrugged the soldier, "I fancy
I'm a bit hardened. I'd like to see the thing through now. We've gone so far,
don't you know."
There was a momentary silence broken only by the soft movements of
the butler and footman. One of the windows rattled in a gust of wind and rain.
Under the flickering candle-lights the company seemed to draw to-gether in a
fellowship that was not the bond of gustatory cheer—which Evelyn could so
infallibly establish at her table—but a communion of sympathetic feeling as of
one drawing to another in the common thrall of subdued emotion. The prevailing
mood impressed Evelyn Colcord strongly, and, glancing down the table, she
started at her accuracy in divining the cause. Simec's place was vacant. She
recalled now that but a moment before he had been summoned to the telephone.
She had noted his temporary departure only as one notices the lifting of a
saffron mist.
Unquestionably, the absorbing topic had gripped the imagination of
all. It was sufficiently theoretical, so absolutely hypothetical, in fact, so
utterly impossible, that Evelyn's alert intellect found pleasure in grappling
with it.
"I wonder—!" Her elbows were on the table, her chin upon
her hands. "Of course, it's awfully easy to say; but I wonder how it would
be if we really faced such a question. Just consider, Arnold,"—she was
smiling at Bates—"the superhuman firing squad is outside the door; the
superhuman agent stands at your side ready to push the button and end the war
as the shots ring out. You picture it, of course, with your imagination. Well,
sir, what do you say?"
Bates grimaced, twisting the stem of his wine-glass in his
fingers.
"Well, one can say only what he thinks he
would do. It's so absurd that I can't visualize your picture—not even with my
imagination. But it seems to me—it seems that I would gladly
make the sacrifice."
Doctor Allison, who had been scowling at the ceiling, passing his
fingers thoughtfully through his sparse gray hair, sighed deeply.
"That's just it; how could one possibly tell? The mind adapts
itself to situations, I suppose; in fact, of course it does. It's altogether
difficult, sitting at this table with its food and color and light and
excellent company, to place yourself in the position Nicholas has devised. It's
simply flying from the very comfortable and congenial and normal present into a
dark limbo that is deucedly uncomfortable, uncongenial, and abnormal. I can't
go beyond what I've already said; I don't know whether I'd do it or not."
"You'd like to, of course," suggested Mrs. Dane.
"Oh, of course I'd like to," was the
reply. "The point I make is whether I could or not; I don't know."
"Well"—the young woman paused—"I'm not going to
put the question to my husband because I wouldn't let Jerry do it, even if he
were willing."
"Oh, come now, Bess!" grinned Dane.
"Well, I wouldn't, and I imagine I'd have some rights in the
matter."
"Now we're getting back to Simec's hostia honoraria and hostia
piacularis," laughed Bates.
"It is a new viewpoint," sighed Evelyn. "Curiously,
I hadn't thought of that."
She smiled across the table at her husband, but he was slouched in
his chair, his eyes staring vacantly over her head.
"Of course you'd all do it, every one," he said
presently. "The trouble now is that you are attempting to visualize the
tragic part of it and not considering the humanitarian side—the great good that
would come of the sacrifice. When you look at it that way you would be willing
to do it—and think it a mighty darn cheap exchange."
"Well, perhaps so," grumbled Allison. "But I can't
help thinking I'm glad I don't have to face the alternative."
Evelyn turned swiftly toward Sybil Latham, under the impression
that she had made some little exclamation or that she had checked one. But her
face was hard and inscrutable.
"Let's change the subject." Evelyn laughed self-consciously.
"It's so far-fetched; it's getting a bit on my nerves."
Even as she spoke she knew that Simec had resumed his seat,
although he had made no sound and her eyes were upon her husband. She was thus
not surprised to hear his voice.
"I gather, then," he said, as though picking up a
conversational thread, "that there are two of you who would be willing to
make the gift of sacrifice—Colcord and Bates."
His manner was such as to draw them all from their mood of
idle, comfortable speculation to rigidity. Turning to him, searching him, they
saw, as it seemed to them, a new being divested of vagueness—dominant,
commanding, remorseless. Sitting rigid, his thin, hairy neck stretched outward,
he suggested some sinister bird of prey. Thus poised for an instant he regarded
the two men whom he had named.
"Suppose," he proceeded, "that I could make this
absurd condition—as Bates terms it—exist. Would you gentlemen still hold your
position? Believe me, I ask this in the utmost good faith—"
Evelyn Colcord spoke before either man could make reply.
"Nick, this is getting a bit unpleasant, really." She
laughed nervously. "Don't you think we could turn to something more
cheerful? I adore a joke—"
"But this is not a joke, Mrs. Colcord," rejoined Simec
gravely.
"Well, in any event—" began Evelyn, but her husband
interrupted.
"I told you I was on record, Simec," he said. "You
show me a way to end this carnival of murder—and I'm your man."
"I, too." Bates chuckled. "Perhaps, after all,
we've been dining closer to the supernatural than we realized. Well, I'm game.
Life, after all, is only a few more summers and a few more winters, even if we
live it out. Go to it, Simec." There was sort of a reckless ring in the
writer's voice which was taken as a sign that he was seriously impressed. But
Bates would be; he had imagination and was temperamental.
"I wish you all would stop." Bessie Dane's voice was
childishly plaintive.
"Nick, please!" cried Evelyn. "This is not at all
funny."
"I don't see the joke, I must confess," grumbled
Allison.
Evelyn wished that Latham or his wife would add weight to the
protest, but they remained silent, staring curiously at the inventor, as,
indeed, they had throughout. Now she thought of it, she realized that the two
had remained practically aloof from the discussion that had preceded
Simec's dénouement.
"I'm afraid, Simec," said Colcord crisply, "that
we're getting a bit unpopular. We'd better drop the subject. It was rather a
cheap play, I'll admit, stacking myself up as a martyr in a wholly impossible
situation. You called me—and Bates there—rather cleverly.... The drinks are on
us.... At the same time I meant what I said, even if it was far-fetched; I mean
I was sincere."
Simec threw out his arm in a long, bony gesture.
"I am perfectly convinced of that. That is why I am going to
ask you to make your offer good."
Had it come from any one else there would have been derisive
laughter. But Simec, a man to whom had been credited so much of mystery and
achievement, was speaking. In the soft crimson glow of the table he stood,
reducing to practical application the very situation which they had found so
attractive, only because of its utter grotesque impossibility. It was
startling, grimly thrilling. There was the sense among some about the table of
struggling mentally to break the spell which this coldly unemotional creature
of science had cast. At length Dane spoke as though by sheer physical effort.
"Simec—we—we all know you're a genius. But just now you don't
quite get over."
The inventor turned his head slowly toward the speaker.
"I don't think I quite understand."
"Rats," said Dane roughly. "Here Nick says he'd
give up his life if the war could be stopped and you bob up and tell him to
make good, throwing sort of a Faust effect over the whole dinner. All right for
Nick and Arnold Bates—but how about you, Simec? How will you stop the war if
they shuffle off? I'll bite once on anything; how will you do it?" There
was a general movement of the diners. Dane's wife laughed a trifle hysterically.
Simec arose and stood leaning forward, his hands upon the table.
"The situation which Colcord devised, as it happens, is not
so impossible as you think. In fact, it may prove to be quite feasible—"
He paused, but no voice rose to break the silence. The candle-lights were
flickering softly in an entering breath of wind. Evelyn looked appealingly at
her husband, who grimaced and shrugged slightly.
"I imagine I have some sort of a reputation in the way of
physical formula as applied to war," Simec went on presently. "Dane
is about to handle a rather extraordinary gun of mine in the foreign market.
But one gun differs from another only inasmuch as it is somewhat more
deadly—its destructiveness is not total." He raised a thin forefinger and
levelled it along the table.
"Let us assume," he said, "that there has been
devised and perfected an apparatus which will release a destructive energy
through the medium of ether waves. If you understand anything about the
wireless telegraph you will grasp what I mean; in itself the wireless, of
course, involves transmitted power. Let us transform and amplify that power and
we encompass—destruction. The air is filled with energy. A sun-ray is energy;
you will recall that Archimedes concentrated it through immense burning-glasses
which set fire to Roman ships."
His voice had grown clear and strong, as though he was lecturing
to a class of students.
"Now, then, assume an instrument such as I have roughly
described be placed in the hands of our allied nations, an instrument which
releases and propels against the enemy energy so incomprehensibly enormous that
it destroys matter instantaneously, whether organic or inorganic; assume that
in a few hours it could lay the greatest host the world ever saw in death,
whether they were concealed in the earth or were in the air, or wherever
they were; assume it could level a great city. Assuming all this, can you
conceive that the nations holding this mighty force in their hands could bring
about peace which would not only be instant but would be permanent?"
There was silence for a moment. The footman, obeying a significant
glance from the butler, withdrew; the butler himself went softly out of the
room. Latham looked up with the expression of a man emerging from a trance.
"I don't fancy any one could doubt that," he said.
"No, indeed. Certainly not." Allison gestured in playful
salute. "Let me congratulate you upon a fine flight of imagination,
Professor Simec."
"Thank you—but it isn't imagination, Doctor Allison."
The man's voice had again become flat and unemotional, with the effect of
withdrawal of personality. "I have reason to think I have perfected some
such device.... At least I believe I now possess the means of destroying human
life on a wholesale scale. There is yet more to do before we may successfully
assail inorganic matter. The waves penetrate but do not as yet destroy, so that
while we should easily bring dissolution to human beings we cannot yet
disintegrate the walls behind which they lurk. That, however, is a detail—"
"Just like that, eh?" No one smiled at Jerry Dane's
comment. Bates leaned forward.
"Where do Colcord and I come in?"
Simec, who had resumed his seat, turned to him.
"Of course—I beg your pardon. I should have explained at the
outset that the discovery has never had adequate practical test. One of my
assistants lost his life a month or so ago, to be sure; an extremely promising
man. The incident was of value in demonstrating practically a theoretical
deadliness; unfortunately, it proved also that the power energized ether waves
in all directions, whereas obviously it should be within the power of the
operator to send it only in a given direction."
"Otherwise," remarked Latham, "it would be as fatal
to the side using it as to the army against whom it was directed."
"Precisely." Simec lifted his wine-glass and sipped
slowly. "For a time," he went on, "this drawback seemed
insuperable, just as it has been in wireless telegraphy. Within the past week,
however, I am convinced that a solution of that difficulty has been reached. In
theory and in tests on a minor scale it certainly has. My assistants, however,
refuse to serve in the demonstrations at full power—which, of course, are
vitally necessary—even though I engage to share a part, but not, of course, the
major part, of the risk. I have been equally unfortunate in enlisting others,
to whom, naturally, I was in duty bound to designate possible—in fact,
extremely probable—dangers."
"In more precise words," snapped Bates, "if your
invention is what you think it is your assistants are bound to die."
Simec hesitated a moment, his gleaming brow wrinkled thoughtfully.
"Well, not precisely," he said at length. "That is,
not necessarily. There is, of course, as I have said, that possi—that
probability. I cannot be certain. Assuming the more serious outcome
materializes, there will be no further danger for those who operate; I shall
have learned all that it is necessary to know." He paused. "Then war
will cease; either before or immediately after the initial field
application."
"But this is absurd." Allison smote the table in
agitation. "Why don't you secure condemned convicts?"
"Even were that possible, I should not care to proceed in
that way. Again, I must have one or more men of keen intelligence."
"But neither Colcord nor Bates is a scientist!"
"That is not at all necessary," was the composed reply.
"I am the scientist."
"And Nick the victim," flashed Evelyn Colcord.
"Well, I most decidedly and unalterably object, Professor Simec."
"Your husband and Mr. Bates, inspired by humanitarian
motives, named a condition under which they would give—not
risk—their lives. I meet their condition, at least so far as it lies within
human agency to do.... Of course they can withdraw their offer—"
Bates, who had left his seat and was walking up and down the room,
turned suddenly, standing over the scientist with upraised hand.
"Simec, I withdraw right here. I'm no fool. The whole spirit
of this—this situation is not in keeping with the original idea. Not at all.
Whether you are joking, serious, or simply insane, I'm out. Try it on
yourself."
"I have already assumed great risks. In furtherance of my
device—which, as you may imagine, will have far-reaching effects—I must
survive, if I can."
Evelyn, who had suppressed an exclamation of approval of Arnold
Bates's stanch words, turned to her husband. His jaws were bulging at the
corners, his eyes alight. In a species of panic she tried to speak but could
not.
"And you, Colcord?" Simec's colorless delivered question
came as from afar.
Colcord had arisen and was staring at the inventor with the face
of one exalted.
"If you have what you say you have, Simec, you meet my
condition to the letter. At the very least, it will be a most important asset
to the cause of my country. In either case the least I can give to help it
along is my life—if that proves necessary.... When do you want me?"
In the silence that followed Evelyn Colcord, sitting like a
statue, unable to move nor to speak, passed through a limbo of nameless
emotion. Through her mind swept a flashing filament of despair, hope, craven
fear, and sturdy resolution. Tortured in the human alembic, she was at length
resolved, seeing with a vision that pierced all her horizons. And then,
trembling, tense, there came—a thought? A vision? She knew not what it was, nor
was she conscious of attempting to ascertain. She knew only that for a fleeting
instant the veil had been lifted and that she had gazed upon serenity and that
all was well. Further, she had no inclination to know. Not that she feared
complete revelation; for that matter, some subconscious conviction that all
would be well illumined her senses. This she spurned, or rather ignored, in a
greater if nameless exaltation. Stern with the real fibre of her womanhood, she
lifted her head in pride.
Then, moved by initiative not her own, her face turned, not to her
husband, but to her guests, each in turn. Arnold Bates was crushing a napkin in
his sensitive fingers, flushed, angry, rebellious, perhaps a trifle
discomfited. Dane was smiling foolishly; Bessie was leaning forward on the
table, dead white, inert. Doctor Allison's head was shaking; he was clicking
his tongue and his wife was twisting her stout fingers one around another. So
her gaze wandered, and then, as though emerging from a dream, revivified, calm,
she studied each intently. She knew not why, but something akin to contempt
crept into her mind.
It was as though seeking relief that her eyes rested upon Sybil
Latham. The Englishwoman's face was turned to Colcord; her color was heightened
only slightly, but in her blue eyes was the light of serene stars, and about
her lips those new lines of self-sacrifice, anxiety, sorrow, which Evelyn had
resented as marring the woman's delicate beauty, now imparted to her face vast strength,
ineffable dignity, nobility.
Evelyn Colcord's throat clicked; for a moment she did not breathe,
while a vivid flash of jealous emotion departed, leaving in its place a
great peace, an exaltation born of sudden knowing. Instinctively seeking
further confirmation, her eyes, now wide and big and flaming, swept to Latham.
His face, too, was turned toward her husband. It was the grimly triumphant
visage of the fighter who knows his own kind, of the friend and believer whose
faith, suddenly justified, has made him proud.
Evelyn rose and stood erect, staring into vacancy. Here were two
who knew, who understood—who had been through hell and found it
worth while.
Voices, expostulatory voices, roused her. Allison was at her side
and Dane, whose wife, weeping, was pulling at her bare arm. Colcord and Simec
stood to one side, aloof, as though already detached from the world.
"Evelyn!" Allison's voice was peremptory. "I
command you! You're the only one who has the right to check this damn
foolishness. I command you to speak."
"Evelyn—" Dane's voice trailed into nothingness.
Again her eyes turned to Sybil Latham, and then, rigidly as an
automaton, she walked swiftly to her husband's side. For a moment the two stood
facing each other, eye riveted to eye. Her beautiful bare arms flew out
swiftly, resting upon his shoulders, not encircling his neck.
"Nick—" Her voice was low, guttural. "I—I didn't
help you much, did I, dear heart? I didn't understand. They've been saying it
would all come home to us. But I didn't think so quickly—nor to us. I—I wasn't
ready. I am now. I want to help; I—I—" Her fingers clutched his shoulders
convulsively. "When—when do you go?"
Colcord stood a moment, his eyes smouldering upon her.
"To-morrow morning at seven," he replied. "That was
the hour, Professor Simec?" he added with a side-wise inclination of his
head.
"Yes." The scientist looked away, hesitated, and then
joined in the little procession to the dimly lighted hall. Evelyn started as
she felt her fingers locked together in a firm hand.
"You know, dear girl, don't you?" There was
a mist in Latham's eyes.
But Evelyn's face was light.
"Yes, Jeffery," she said proudly, "I know
now."
By MARY BRECHT PULVER
From The
Saturday Evening Post.
It was so poor a place—a
bitten-off morsel "at the beyond end of nowhere"—that when a February
gale came driving down out of a steel sky and shut up the little lane road and
covered the house with snow a passer-by might have mistaken it all, peeping
through its icy fleece, for just a huddle of the brown bowlders so common to
the country thereabouts.
And even when there was no snow it was as bad—worse, almost, Luke
thought. When everything else went brave and young with new greenery; when the
alders were laced with the yellow haze of leaf bud, and the brooks got out of
prison again, and arbutus and violet and buttercup went through their rotation
of bloom up in the rock pastures and maple bush—the farm buildings seemed only
the bleaker and barer.
That forlorn unpainted little house, with its sagging blinds! It
squatted there through the year like a one-eyed beggar without a friend—lost in
its venerable white-beard winters, or contemplating an untidy welter of rusty
farm machinery through the summers.
When Luke brought his one scraggy little cow up the lane he always
turned away his head. The place made him think of the old man who let the birds
build nests in his whiskers. He preferred, instead, to look at the glories of
Bald Mountain or one of the other hills. There was nothing wrong with the back
drop in the home stage-set; it was only home itself that hurt one's feelings.
There was no cheer inside, either. The sagging old floors, though
scrubbed and spotless, were uncarpeted; the furniture meager. A pine table, a
few old chairs, a shabby scratched settle covered by a thin horse blanket as
innocent of nap as a Mexican hairless—these for essentials; and for embellishment
a shadeless glass lamp on the table, about six-candle power, where you might
make shift to read the Biweekly—times when there was enough money
to have a Biweekly—if you were so minded; and window shelves full of corn and
tomato cans, still wearing their horticultural labels, where scrawny one-legged
geraniums and yellowing coleus and begonia contrived an existence of sorts.
And then, of course, the mantelpiece with the black-edged funeral
notice and shiny coffin plate, relics of Grampaw Peel's taking-off; and the
pink mug with the purple pansy and "Woodstock, N.Y.," on it; the
photograph of a forgotten cousin in Iowa, with long antennæ-shaped mustaches;
the Bible with the little china knobs on the corners; and the pile of medicine
testimonials and seed catalogues—all these contributed something.
If it was not a beautiful place within, it was, also, not even a
pleasant place spiritually. What with the open door into his father's room,
whence you could hear the thin frettings made by the man who had lain these ten
years with chronic rheumatism, and the untuneful whistlings of whittling Tom,
the big brother, the shapely supple giant whose mind had never grown since the
fall from the barn room when he was eight years old, and the acrid complaints
of the tall gaunt mother, stepping about getting their inadequate supper, in
her gray wrapper, with the ugly little blue shawl pinned round her shoulders,
it was as bad a place as you might find in a year's journeying for anyone to
keep bright and "chirk up" in.
Not that anyone in particular expected "them poor
Hayneses" to keep bright or "chirk up." As far back as he could
remember, Luke had realized that the hand of God was laid on his family.
Dragging his bad leg up the hill pastures after the cow, day in and day
out, he had evolved a sort of patient philosophy about it. It was just
inevitable, like a lot of things known in that rock-ribbed and fatalistic
region—as immutably decreed by heaven as foreordination and the damnation of
unbaptized babes. The Hayneses had just "got it hard."
Yet there were times, now he was come to a gangling fourteen, when
Luke's philosophy threatened to fail him. It wasn't fair—so it wasn't! They
weren't bad folks; they'd done nothing wicked. His mother worked like a
dog—"no fair for her," any way you looked at it. There were times
when the boy drank in bitterly every detail of the miserable place he called
home and knew the depths of an utter despair.
If there was only some way to better it all! But there was no
chance. His father had been a failure at everything he touched in early life,
and now he was a hopeless invalid. Tom was an idiot—or almost—and himself a
cripple. And Nat! Well, Nat "wa'n't willin'"—not that one should
blame him. Times like these, a lump like a roc's egg would rise in the boy's
throat. He had to spit—and spit hard—to conquer it.
"If we hain't the gosh-awfulest lot!" he would gulp.
To-day, as he came up the lane, June was in the land. She'd done
her best to be kind to the farm. All the old heterogeneous rosebushes in the
wood-yard and front "lawn" were pied with fragrant bloom. Usually
Luke would have lingered to sniff it all, but he saw only one thing now with a
sudden skipping at his heart—an automobile standing beside the front porch.
It was not the type of car to cause cardiac disturbance in a
connoisseur. It was, in fact, of an early vintage, high-set, chunky, brassily
æsthetic, and given to asthmatic choking on occasion; but Luke did not know
this. He knew only that it spelled luxury beyond all dreams. It belonged, in
short, to his Uncle Clem Cheesman, the rich butcher who lived in the village
twelve miles away; and its presence here signaled the fact that Uncle Clem and Aunt
Mollie had come to pay one of their detestable quarterly visits to their poor
relations. They had come while he was out, and Maw was in there now, bearing it
all alone.
Luke limped into the house hastily. He was not mistaken. There was
a company air in the room, a stiff hostile-polite taint in the atmosphere.
Three visitors sat in the kitchen, and a large hamper, its contents partly
disgorged, stood on the table. Luke knew that it contained gifts—the hateful,
merciful, nauseating charity of the better-off.
Aunt Mollie was speaking as he entered—a large, high-colored,
pouter-pigeon-chested woman, with a great many rings with bright stones, and a
nodding pink plume in her hat. She was holding up a bifurcated crimson garment,
and greeted Luke absently.
"Three pair o' them underdrawers, Delia—an' not a break in
one of 'em! I sez, as soon as I see Clem layin' 'em aside this spring, 'Them
things'll be jest right fur Delia's Jere, layin' there with the rheumatiz.'
They may come a little loose; but, of course, you can't be choicey. I've b'en
at Clem fur five years to buy him union suits; but he's always b'en so stuck on
red flannen. But now he's got two aut'mobiles, countin' the new delivery, I
guess he's gotta be more tony; so he made out to spare 'em. And now that hat,
Delia—it ain't a mite wore out, an' fur all you'll need one it's plenty good
enough. I only had it two years and I guess folks won't remember; an' what if
they do—they all know you get my things. Same way with that collarette. It's a
little moth-eaten, but it won't matter fur you.... The gray suit you can easy
cut down fur Luke, there—"
She droned on, the other woman making dry automatic sounds of
assent. She looked cool—Maw—Luke thought; but she wasn't. Not by a darn sight!
There was a spot of pink in each cheek and she stared hard every little bit at
Grampaw Peel's funeral plate on the mantel. Luke knew what she was thinking
of—poor Maw! She was burning in a fire of her own lighting. She had
brought it all on herself—on the whole of them.
Years ago she had been just like Aunt Mollie. The daughters of a
prosperous village carpenter, they had shared beads, beaux and bangles until
Maw, in a moment's madness, had chucked it all away to marry poor Paw. Now she
had made her bed, she must lie in it. Must sit and say "Thank you!"
for Aunt Mollie's leavings, precious scraps she dared not refuse—Maw, who had a
pride as fierce and keen as any! It was devilish! Oh, it was kind of Aunt
Mollie to give; it was the taking that came so bitter hard. And then they
weren't genteel about their giving. There was always that air of superiority,
that conscious patronage, as now, when Uncle Clem, breaking off his
conversation with the invalid in the next room about the price of mutton on the
hoof and the chances of the Democrats' getting in again, stopped fiddling with
his thick plated watch chain and grinned across at big Tom to fling his
undeviating flower of wit:
"Runnin' all to beef, hain't ye, Tom, boy? Come on down to
the market an' we'll git some A-1 sirloins outen ye, anyway. Do your folks that
much good."
It was things like this that made Luke want to burn, poison, or
shoot Uncle Clem. He was not a bad man, Uncle Clem—a thick sandy chunk of a
fellow, given to bright neckties and a jocosity that took no account of
feelings. Shaped a little like a log, he was—back of his head and back of his
neck—all of a width. Little lively green eyes and bristling red mustaches. A
complexion a society bud might have envied. Why was it a butcher got so pink
and white and sleek? Pork, that's what Uncle Clem resembled, Luke thought—a
nice, smooth, pale-fleshed pig, ready to be skinned.
His turn next! When crops and politics failed and the joke at poor
Tom—Tom always giggled inordinately at it, too—had come off, there was sure to
be the one about himself and the lame duck next. To divert himself of bored
expectation, Luke turned to stare at his cousin, S'norta.
S'norta, sitting quietly in a chair across the room, was seldom
known to be emotional. Indeed, there were times when Luke wondered whether she
had not died in her chair. One had that feeling about S'norta, so motionless
was she, so uncompromising of glance. She was very prosperous-looking, as
became the heiress to the Cheesman meat business—a fat little girl of twelve,
dressed with a profusion of ruffles, glass pearls, gilt buckles, and thick tawny
curls that might have come straight from the sausage hook in her papa's shop.
S'norta had been consecrated early in life to the unusual. Even
her name was not ordinary. Her romantic mother, immersed in the prenatal period
in the hair-lifting adventures of one Señorita Carmena, could think of no
lovelier appellation when her darling came than the first portion of that
sloe-eyed and restless lady's title, which she conceived to be baptismal; and
in due course she had conferred it, together with her own pronunciation, on her
child. A bold man stopping in at Uncle Clem's market, as Luke knew, had once
tried to pronounce and expound the cognomen in a very different fashion; but he
had been hustled unceremoniously from the place, and S'norta remained in undisturbed
possession of her honors.
Now Luke was recalled from his contemplation by his uncle's voice
again. A lull had fallen and out of it broke the question Luke always dreaded.
"Nat, now!" said Uncle Clem, leaning forward, his thick
fingers clutching his fat knees. "You ain't had any news of him since
quite a while ago, have you?" The wit that was so preponderate a feature
of Uncle Clem's nature bubbled to the surface. "Dunno but he's landed in
jail a spell back and can't git out again!" The lively little eyes
twinkled appreciatively.
Nobody answered. It set Maw's mouth in a thin, hard line. You
wouldn't get a rise out of old Maw with such tactics—Maw, who believed in
Nat, soul and body. Into Luke's mind flashed suddenly a formless half prayer:
"Don't let 'em nag her now—make 'em talk other things!"
The Lord, in the guise of Aunt Mollie, answered him. For once, Nat
and Nat's character and failings did not hold her. She drew a deep breath and
voiced something that claimed her interest:
"Well, Delia, I see you wasn't out at the Bisbee's funeral.
Though I don't s'pose anyone really expected you, knowin' how things goes with
you. Time was, when you was a girl, you counted in as big as any and traveled
with the best; but now"—she paused delicately, and coughed politely with
an appreciative glance round the poor room—"they ain't anyone hereabouts
but's talkin' about it. My land, it was swell! I couldn't ask no better for my
own. Fourteen cabs, and the hearse sent over from Rockville—all pale gray, with
mottled gray horses. It was what I call tasty.
"Matty wasn't what you'd call well-off—not as lucky as some I
could mention; but she certainly went off grand! The whole Methodist choir was
out, with three numbers in broken time; and her cousin's brother-in-law from
out West—some kind of bishop—to preach. Honest, it was one of the grandest
sermons I ever heard! Wasn't it, Clem?"
Uncle Clem cleared his throat thoughtfully.
"Humiliatin'!—that's what I'd call it. A strong maur'l sermon
all round. A man couldn't hear it 'thout bein' humiliated more ways'n
one." He was back at the watch-chain again.
"It's a pity you couldn't of gone, Delia—you an' Matty always
was so intimate too. You certainly missed a grand treat, I can tell you;
though, if you hadn't the right clothes—"
"Well, I haven't," Maw spoke dryly. "I don't go
nowheres, as you know—not even church."
"I s'pose not. Time was it was different, though, Delia.
Ain't nobody but talks how bad off you are. Ann Chester said she seen you in
town a while back and wouldn't of knowed it was you if it hadn't of b'en you
was wearin' my old brown cape, an' she reconnized it. Her an' me got 'em both
alike to the same store in Rockville. You was so changed, she said she couldn't
hardly believe it was you at all."
"Sometimes I wonder myself if it is," said Maw grimly.
"Well, 's I was sayin', it was a grand funeral. None better!
They even had engraved invites, over a hundred printed—and they had folks from
all over the state. They give Clem, here, the contract fur the supper meat—"
"The best of everything!" Uncle Clem broke in.
"None o' your cheap graft. Gimme a free hand. Jim Bisbee tole me himself.
'I want the best ye got,' he sez; an' I give it. Spring lamb and prime ribs,
fancy hotel style—"
"An' Em Carson baked the cakes fur 'em, sixteen of 'em; an'
Dickison the undertaker's tellin' all over they got the best quality shroud he
carries. Well, you'll find it all in the Biweekly, under Death's
Busy Sickle. Jim Bisbee shore set a store by Matty oncet she was dead. It was a
grand affair, Delia. Not but what we've had some good ones in our time
too."
It was Aunt Mollie's turn to stare pridefully at the Peel plate on
the chimney shelf.
"A thing like that sets a family up, sorta."
Uncle Clem had taken out a fat black cigar with a red-white-and-blue
band. He bit off the end and alternately thrust it between his lips or felt of
its thickness with a fondling thumb and finger. Luke, watching, felt a sudden
compassion for the cigar. It looked so harried.
"I always say," Aunt Mollie droned on, "a person
shows up what he really is at the last—what him and his family stands fur. It's
what kind of a funeral you've got that counts—who comes out an' all. An' that
was true with Matty. There wa'n't a soul worth namin' that wasn't out to hers."
How Aunt Molly could gouge—even amicably! And funerals! What a
subject, even in a countryside where a funeral is a social event and the manner
of its furniture marks a definite social status! Would they never go? But it
seemed at last they would. Incredibly, somehow, they were taking their leave,
Aunt Mollie kissing Maw good-by, with the usual remark about "hopin' the
things would help some," and about being "glad to spare somethin'
from my great plenty."
She and Señorita were presently packed into the car and Tom had
gone out to goggle at Uncle Clem cranking up, the cold cigar still between his
lips. Now they were off—choking and snorting their way out of the wood-yard and
down the lane. Aunt Mollie's pink feather streamed into the breeze like a pennon
of triumph.
Maw was standing by the stove, a queer look in her eyes; so queer
that Luke didn't speak at once. He limped over to finger the spilled treasures
on the table.
"Gee! Lookit, Maw! More o' them prunes we liked so; an' a bag
o' early peaches; an' fresh soup meat fur a week—"
A queer trembling had seized his mother. She was so white he was
frightened.
"Did you sense what it meant, Luke—what Aunt Molly told us
about Matty Bisbee? We was left out deliberate—that's what it meant. Her an' me
that was raised together an' went to school and picnics all our girlhood
together! Never could see one 'thout the other when we was growin' up—Jim
Bisbee knew that too! But"—her voice wavered miserably—"I didn't get
no invite to her funeral. I don't count no more, Lukey. None of us,
anywheres.... We're jest them poor Gawd-forsaken Hayneses."
She slipped down suddenly into a chair and covered her face,
her thin shoulders shaking. Luke went and touched her awkwardly. Times he would
have liked to put his arms round Maw—now more than ever; but he didn't dare.
"Don't take on, Maw! Don't!"
"Who's takin' on?" She lifted a fierce, sallow, tear-wet
face. "Hain't no use makin' a fuss. All's left's to work—to work, an' die
after a while."
"I hate 'em! Uncle Clem an' her, I mean."
"They mean kindness—their way." But her tears started
afresh.
"I hate 'em!" Luke's voice grew shriller. "I'd
like—I'd like—Oh, damn 'em!"
"Don't swear, boy!"
It was Tom who broke in on them. "It's a letter from Rural
Free Delivery. He jest dropped it."
He came up, grinning, with the missive. The mother's fingers
closed on it nervously.
"From Nat, mebbe—he ain't wrote in months."
But it wasn't from Nat. It was a bill for a last payment on the
"new harrow," bought three years before.
II
One of the earliest memories Luke could recall was the big blurred
impression of Nat's face bending over his crib of an evening. At first flat,
indefinite, remote as the moon, it grew with time to more human, intimate
proportions. It became the face of "brother," the black-haired,
blue-eyed big boy who rollicked on the floor with or danced him on his knee to—
This is the way the lady
rides!
Tritty-trot-trot; tritty-trot-trot!
Or who, returning from school and meeting his faltering feet in
the lane, would toss him up on his shoulder and canter him home with mad, merry
scamperings.
Not that school and Nat ever had much in common. Even as a little
shaver Luke had realized that. Nat was the family wilding, the migratory bird
that yearned for other climes. There were the times when he sulked long days by
the fire, and the springs and autumns when he played an unending round of
hookey. There were the days when he was sent home from school in disgrace; when
protesting notes, and sometimes even teacher, arrived.
"It's not that Nat's a bad boy, Mrs. Haynes," he
remembered one teacher saying; "but he's so active, so full of restless
animal spirits. How are we ever going to tame him?"
Maw didn't know the answer—that was sure. She loved Nat best—Luke
had guessed it long ago, by the tone of her voice when she spoke to him, by the
touch of her hand on his head, or the size of his apple turnover, so much
bigger than the others'. Maw must have built heavily on her hopes of Nat those
days—her one perfect child. She was so proud of him! In the face of all ominous
prediction she would fling her head high.
"My Nat's a Peel!" she would say. "Can't never tell
how he'll turn out."
The farmers thereabouts thought they could tell her. Nat was into
one scrape after another—nothing especially wicked; but a compound of the
bubbling mischief in a too ardent life—robbed orchards, broken windows,
practical jokes, Halloween jinks, vagrant whimsies of an active imagination.
It was just that Nat's quarters were too small for him, chiefly.
Even he realized this presently. Luke would never forget the sloppy March
morning when Nat went away. He was wakened by a flare of candle in the room he
shared with his brothers. Tom, the twelve-year-old, lay sound asleep; but Nat,
the big man of fifteen, was up, dressed, bending over something he was writing
on a paper at the bureau. There was a fat little bundle beside him, done up in
a blue-and-white bandanna.
Day was still far off. The window showed black; there was the
sound of a thaw running off the eaves; the white-washed wall was painted with
grotesque leaping shadows by the candle flame. At the first murmur, Nat had
come and put his arms about him.
"Don't ye holler, little un; don't ye do it! 'Tain't
nothin'—on'y Natty's goin' away a spell; quite a spell, little un. Now kiss
Natty.... That's right!... An' you lay still there an' don't holler. An' listen
here, too: Natty's goin' to bring ye somethin'—a grand red ball, mebbe—if
you're good. You wait an' see!"
But Natty hadn't brought the ball. Two years had passed without a
scrap of news of him; and then—he was back. Slipped into the village on a
freighter at dusk one evening. A forlorn scarecrow Nat was; so tattered of
garment, so smeared of coal dust, you scarcely knew him. So full of strange
sophistications, too, and new trails of thought—so oddly rich of experience. He
gave them his story. The tale of an exigent life in a great city; a piecework
life made of such flotsam labors as he could pick up, of spells of loafing, of
odd incredible associates, of months tagging a circus, picking up a task here
and there, of long journeyings through the country, "riding the
bumpers"—even of alms asked at back doors!
"Oh, not a tramp, Nat!"
The hurt had quivered all through Maw.
But Nat only laughed.
"Jiminy Christmas, it was great!"
He had thrown back his head, laughing. That was Nat all
through—sipping of life generously, no matter in what form.
He had stayed just three weeks. He had spent them chiefly
defeating Maw's plans to keep him. Wanderlust kept him longer the next time.
That was eight years ago. Since then he had been back home three times. Never
so poor and shabby as at first—indeed, Nat's wanderings had prospered more or
less—but still remote, somewhat mysterious, touched by new habits of life,
new ways of speech.
The countryside, remembering the manner of his first return, shook
its head darkly. A tramp—a burglar, even. God knew what! When, on his third
visit home, he brought an air of extreme opulence, plenty of money, and a
sartorial perfection undreamed of locally, the heads wagged even harder. A
gambler probably; a ne'er-do-well certainly; and one to break his mother's
heart in the end.
But none of this was true, as Luke knew. It was just that Nat
hated farming; that he liked to rove and take a floater's fortune. He had a
taste for the mechanical and followed incomprehensible quests. San Francisco
had known him; the big races at Cincinnati; the hangars of Mineola. He was
restless—Nat; but he was respectable. No one could look into his merry blue
eyes and not know it. If his labors were uncertain and sporadic, and his
address that of a nomad, it all sufficed, at least for himself.
If at times Luke felt a stirring doubt that Nat was not acquitting
himself of his family duty, he quenched it fiercely. Nat was different. He was
born free; you could tell it in his talk, in his way of thinking. He was like
an eagle and hated to be bound by earthly ties. He cared for them all in his
own way. Times when he was back he helped Maw all he could. If he brought money
he gave of it freely; if he had none, just the look of his eye or the ready
jest on his lip helped.
Upstairs in a drawer of the old pine bureau lay some of Nat's
discarded clothing—incredible garments to Luke. The lame boy, going to them
sometimes, fingered them, pondering, reconstructing for himself the fabric of
Nat's adventures, his life. The ice-cream pants of a bygone day; the pointed,
shriveled yellow Oxfords! the silk-front shirt; the odd cuff link or stud—they
were like a genie-in-a-bottle, these poor clothes! You rubbed them and a whole
Arabian Night's dream unfurled from them.
And Nat lived it all! But people—dull stodgy people like Uncle
Clem and Aunt Mollie, and old Beckonridge down at the store, and a dozen
others—these criticized him for not "workin' reg'lar" and giving a
full account of himself.
Luke, thinking of all this, would flush with impotent anger.
"Oh, let 'em talk, though! He'll show 'em some day! They
dunno Nat. He'll do somethin' big fur us all some day."
III
Midsummer came to trim the old farm with her wreaths. It was the
time Luke loved best of all—the long, sweet, loam-scented evenings with Maw and
Tom on the old porch; and sometimes—when there was no fog—Paw's cot, wheeled
out in the stillness. But Maw was not herself this summer. Something had
fretted and eaten into her heart like an acid ever since Aunt Mollie's visit
and the news of Matty Bisbee's funeral.
When, one by one, the early summer festivities of the neighborhood
had slipped by, with no inclusion of the Hayneses, she had fallen to brooding
deeply,—to feeling more bitterly than ever the ignominy and wretchedness of
their position.
Luke tried to comfort her; to point out that this summer was like
any other; that they "never had mattered much to folks." But Maw
continued to brood; to allude vaguely and insistently to "the straw that
broke the camel's back." It was bitter hard to have Maw like that—home was
bad enough, anyway. Sometimes on clear, soft nights, when the moon came out all
splendid and the "peepers" sang so plaintively in the Hollow, the
boy's heart would fill and grow enormous in his chest with the intolerable
sadness he felt.
Then Maw's mood lifted—pierced by a ray of heavenly sunlight—for
Nat came home!
Luke saw him first—heard him, rather; for Nat came up the lane—oh,
miraculous!—driving a motor car. It was not a car like Uncle Clem's—not even a
stepbrother to it. It was low and almost noiseless, and shaped like one of
those queer torpedoes they were fighting with across the water. It was colored
a soft dust-gray and trimmed with nickel; and, huge and powerful though it was,
it swung to a mere touch of Nat's hand.
Nat stood before them, clad in black leather Norfolk and visored
cap and leggings.
"Look like a fancy brand of chauffeur, don't I?" he
laughed, with the easy resumption of a long-broken relation that was so
characteristically Nat.
But Nat was not a chauffeur. Something much bigger and grander.
The news he brought them on top of it all took their breaths away. Nat was a
special demonstrator, out on a brand-new high-class job for a house handling a
special line of high-priced goods. And he was to go to Europe in another
week—did they get it straight? Europe! Jiminy! He and another fellow were
taking cars over to France and England.
No; they didn't quite get it. They could not grasp its
significance, but clung humbly, instead, to the mere glorious fact of his
presence.
He stayed two days and a night; and summer was never lovelier. Maw
was like a girl, and there was such a killing of pullets and extravagance with
new-laid eggs as they had never known before. At the last he gave them all
presents.
"Tell the truth," he laughed, "I'm stony broke.
'Tisn't mine, all this stuff you see. I got some kale in advance—not much, but
enough to swing me; but of course, the outfit's the company's. But I'll tell
you one thing: I'm going to bring some long green home with me, you can bet!
And when I do"—Nat had given Maw a prodigious nudge in the ribs—"when
I do—I ain't goin' to stay an old bachelor forever! Do you get that?"
Maw's smile had faded for a moment. But the presents were
fine—a new knife for Tom, a book for Luke, and twenty whole round dollars for
Maw, enough to pay that old grocery bill down at Beckonridge's and Paw's new
invoice of patent medicine.
They all stood on the porch and watched him as far they could see;
and Maw's black mood didn't return for a whole week.
Evenings now they had something different to talk about—journeys
in seagoing craft; foreign countries and the progress of the
"Ee-ropean" war, and Nat's likelihood—he had laughed at this—of
touching even its fringe. They worked it all up from the boiler-plate war news
in the Bi-weekly and Luke's school geography. Yes; for a
little space the blackness was lifted.
Then came the August morning when Paw died. This was an unexpected
and unsettling contingency. One doesn't look for a "chronic's" doing
anything so unscheduled and foreign to routine; but Paw spoiled all precedent.
They found him that morning with his heart quite still, and Luke knew they
stood in the presence of imminent tragedy.
It's all very well to peck along, hand-to-mouth fashion. You can
manage a living of sorts; and farm produce, even scanty, unskillfully
contrived, and the charity of relatives, and the patience of tradesmen, will
see you through. But a funeral—that's different! Undertaker—that means money.
Was it possible that the sordid epic of their lives must be capped by the
crowning insult, the Poormaster and the Pauper's Field? If only poor Paw could
have waited a little before he claimed the spotlight—until prices fell a little
or Nat got back with that "long green"!
Maw swallowed her bitter pill.
She went to see Uncle Clem and ask! And Uncle Clem was kind.
"He'll buy a casket—he's willin' fur that—an' send a wreath
and pay fur notices, an' even half on a buryin' lot; but he said he couldn't do
no more. The high cost has hit him too.... An' where are we to git the
rest? He said—at the last—it might be better all round fur us to take what
Ellick Flick would gimme outen the Poor Fund—" Maw hadn't been able to go
on for a spell.
A pauper's burial for Paw! Surely Maw would manage better than
that! She tried to find a better way that very night.
"This farm's mortgaged to the neck; but I calculate Ben Travis
won't care if I'm a mind to put Paw in the south field. It hain't no mortal
good fur anything else, anyhow; an' he can lay there if we want. It's a real
pleasant place. An' I can git the preacher myself—I'll give him the rest o' the
broilers; an' they's seasoned hickory plankin' in the lean-to. Tom, you come
along with me."
All night Luke had lain and listened to the sound of big Tom's saw
and hammer. Tom was real handy if you told him how—and Maw would be showing him
just how to shape it all out. Each hammer blow struck deep on the boy's heart.
Maw lined the home-made box herself with soft old quilts, and
washed and dressed her dead herself in his faded outlawed wedding clothes. And
on a morning soft and sweet, with a hint of rain in the air, they rode down in
the farm wagon to the south field together—Paw and Maw and Luke—with big Tom
walking beside the aged knobby horse's head.
Abel Gazzam, a neighbor, had seen to the grave; and in due course
the little cavalcade reached the appointed spot inside the snake fence—a quiet
place in a corner, under a graybeard elm. As Maw had said, it was "a
pleasant place for Paw to lay in."
There were some old neighbors out in their own rigs, and Uncle
Clem had brought his family up in his car, with a proper wreath; and Reverend
Kearns came up and—declining all lien on the broilers—read the burial service,
and spoke a little about poor Paw. But it wasn't a funeral, no how. No
supper; no condolence; no viewing "the remains"—not even a handshake!
Maw didn't even look at her old friends, riding back home between Tom and Luke,
with her head fiercely high in the air.
A dull depression settled on Luke's heart. It was all up with the
Hayneses now. They had saved Paw from charity with their home-made burial; but
what had it availed? They might as well have gone the whole figure. Everybody
knew! There wasn't any comeback for a thing like this. They were just
nobodies—the social pariahs of the district.
IV
Somehow, after the fashion of other years, they got their meager
crops in—turnips, potatoes and Hubbard squashes put up in the vegetable cellar;
oats cradled; corn husked; the buckwheat ready for the mill; even Tom's crooked
furrows for the spring sowings made. Somehow, Maw helping like a man and Tom
obeying like a docile child, they took toll of their summer. And suddenly
September was at their heels—and then the equinox.
It seemed to Luke that it had never rained so much before. Brown
vapor rose eternally from the valley flats; the hilltops lay lost entirely in
clotted murk. By periods hard rains, like showers of steel darts, beat on the
soaking earth. Gypsy gales of wind went ricocheting among the farm buildings,
setting the shingles to snapping and singing; the windows moaned and rattled.
The sourest weather the boy could remember!
And on the worst day of all they got the news. Out of the mail box
in the lane Luke got it—going down under an old rubber cape in a steady
blinding pour. It got all damp—the letter, foreign postmark, stamp and all—by
the time he put it into Maw's hand.
It was a double letter—or so one judged, first opening it. There
was another inside, complete, sealed, and addressed in Nat's hand; but one must
read the paper inclosed with it first—that was obvious. It was just a strip,
queer, official looking, with a few lines typed upon it and a black heading
that sprang out at one strangely. They read it together—or tried to. At first
they got no sense from it. Paris—from clear off in France—and then the words
below—and Maw's name at the top, just like the address on the newspaper:
Mrs.
Jere Haynes,
Stony Brook, New York.
It was for Maw all right. Then quite suddenly the words came clear
through the blur:
Mrs.
Jere Haynes,
Stony Brook, New York.
Dear Madam: We
regret to inform you that the official communiqué for
September sixth contains the tidings that the writer of the enclosed letter,
Nathaniel Haynes, of Stony Brook, New York, U. S. A., was killed while on duty
as an ambulance driver in the Sector of Verdun, and has been buried in that
region. Further details will follow.
The American Ambulance, Paris.
Even when she realized, Maw never cried out. She sat wetting her
lips oddly, looking at the words that had come like evil birds across the wide
spaces of earth. It was Luke who remembered the other letter:
"My dear kind folks—Father, Mother and Brothers: I
guess I dare call you that when I get far enough away from you. Perhaps you
won't mind when I tell you my news.
"Well we came over from England last Thursday and struck into
our contract here. Things was going pretty good; but you might guess yours
truly couldn't stand the dead end of things. I bet Maw's guessed already. Well
sir it's that roving streak in me I guess. Never could stick to nothing steady.
It got me bad when I got here any how.
"To cut it short I throwed up my job with the firm yesterday
and have volunteered as an Ambulance driver. Nothing but glory; but I'm going
to like it fine! They're short-handed anyhow and a fellow likes to help what he
can. Wish I could send a little money; but it took all I had to outfit me. Had
to cough up eight bucks for a suit of underclothes. What do you know about
that?
"You can write me in care of the Ambulance, Paris.
"Now Maw don't worry! I'm not going to fight. I did try to
get into the Foreign Legion but had no chance. I'm all right. Think of me as a
nice little Red Cross boy and the Wise Willie on the gas wagon. And won't I
have the hot stuff to make old Luke's eyes pop out! Hope Paw's legs are better.
And Maw have a kiss on me. Mebbe you folks think I don't appreciate you. If I
was any good at writing I'd tell you different.
"Your Son and
Brother,
"Nat Haynes."
The worst of it all was about Maw's not crying—just sitting there
staring at the fire, or where the fire had been when the wood had died out of
neglect. It's not in reason that a woman shouldn't cry, Luke felt. He tried
some words of comfort:
"He's safe, anyhow, Maw—'member that! That's a whole lot too.
Didn't always know that, times he was rollin' round so over here. You worried a
whole lot about him, you know."
But Maw didn't answer. She seldom spoke at all—moved about as
little as possible. When she had put out food for him and Tom she always went
back to her corner and stared into the fire. Luke had to bring a plate to her
and coax her to eat. Even the day Uncle Clem and Aunt Mollie came up she
did not notice them. Only once she spoke of Nat to Luke.
"You loved him the most, didn't ye, Maw?" he asked
timidly one dreary evening.
She answered in a sort of dull surprise.
"Why, lad, he was my first!" she said; and after a bit
as though to herself: "His head was that round and shiny when he was a
little fellow it was like to a little round apple. I mind, before he ever come,
I bought me a cap fur him over to Rockville, with a blue bow onto it. He looked
awful smart an' pretty in it."
Sometimes in the night Luke, sleeping ill and thinking long, lay
and listened for possible sounds from Maw's room. Perhaps she cried in the
nights. If she only would—it would help break the tension for them all. But he
never heard anything but the rain—steadily, miserably beating on the sodden
shingles overhead.
It was only Luke who watched the mail box now. One morning his
journey to it bore fruit. No sting any longer; no fear in the thick foreign
letter he carried.
"It'll tell ye all's to it, I bet!" he said eagerly.
Maw seemed scarcely interested. It was Luke who broke the seal and
read it aloud.
It was written from the Ambulance Headquarters, in Paris—written
by a man of rare insight, of fine and delicate perception. All that Nat's
family might have wished to learn he sought to tell them. He had himself
investigated Nat's story and he gave it all fully and freely. He spoke in
praise of Nat; of his friendly associations with the Ambulance men; of his good
nature and cheerful spirits; his popularity and ready willingness to serve.
People, one felt, had loved Nat over there.
He wrote of the preliminary duties in Paris, the preparations—of
Nat's final going to join one of the three sections working round Verdun. It
wasn't easy work that waited for Nat there. It was a stiff contract guiding the
little ambulance over the shell-rutted roads, with deftness and precision,
to those distant dressing stations where the hurt soldiers waited for him. It
was a picture that thrilled Luke and made his pulses tingle—the blackness of
the nights; the rumble of moving artillery and troops; the flash of starlights;
the distant crackling of rifle fire; the steady thunder of heavy guns.
And the shells! It was mighty close they swept to a fellow,
whistling, shrieking, low overhead; falling to tear out great gouges in the
earth. It was enough to wreck one's nerve utterly; but the fellows that drove
were all nerve. Just part of the day's work to them! And that was Nat too. Nat hadn't
known what fear was—he'd eaten it alive. The adventurer in him had gone out to
meet it joyously.
Nat was only on his third trip when tragedy had come to him. He
and a companion were seeking a dressing station in the cellar of a little
ruined house in an obscure French village, when a shell had burst right at
their feet, so to speak. That was all. Simple as that. Nat was dead instantly
and his companion—oh, Nat was really the lucky one....
Luke had to stop for a little time. One couldn't go on at once
before a thing like that.... When he did, it was to leave behind the darkness,
the shell-torn houses, the bruised earth, the racked and mutilated humans....
Reading on, it was like emerging from Hades into a great Peace.
"I wish it were possible to convey to you, my dear Mrs.
Haynes, some impression of the moving and beautiful ceremony with which your
son was laid to rest on the morning of September ninth, in the little village
of Aucourt. Imagine a warm, sunny, late-summer day, and a village street sloping
up a hillside, filled with soldiers in faded, dusty blue, and American
Ambulance drivers in khaki.
"In the open door of one of the houses, the front of which
was covered with the tri-color of France, the coffin was placed, wrapped
in a great French flag, and covered with flowers and wreaths sent by the
various American sections. At the head a small American flag was placed, on
which was pinned the Croix de Guerre—a gold star on a red-and-green
ribbon—a tribute from the army general to the boy who gave his life for France.
"A priest, with six soldier attendants, led the procession
from the courtyard. Six more soldiers bore the coffin, the Americans and
representatives of the army branches following, bearing wreaths. After these
came the General of the Army Corps, with a group of officers, and a detachment
of soldiers with arms reversed. At the foot of the hill a second detachment
fell in and joined them....
"The scene was unforgettable, beautiful and impressive. In
the little church a choir of soldiers sang and a soldier-priest played the
organ, while the Chaplain of the Army Division held the burial service. The
chaplain's sermon I have asked to have reproduced and sent to you, together
with other effects of your son's....
"The chaplain spoke most beautifully and at length, telling
very tenderly what it meant to the French people that an American should give
his life while trying to help them in the hour of their extremity. The name of
this chaplain is Henri Deligny, Aumônier Militaire, Ambulance 16-27,
Sector 112; and he was assisted by the permanent curé of the little church,
Abbé Blondelle, who wishes me to assure you that he will guard most reverently
your son's grave, and be there to receive you when the day may come that you
shall wish to visit it.
"After leaving the church the procession marched to the
military cemetery, where your son's body was laid beside the hundreds of others
who have died for France. Both the lieutenant and general here paid tributes of
appreciation, which I will have sent to you. The general, various officers of
the army, and ambulance assisted in the last rites....
"I have brought back and will send you the Croix de
Guerre...."
Oh, but you couldn't read any further—for the great lump of pride
in your throat, the thick mist of tears in your eyes. A sob escaped the boy. He
looked over at Maw and saw the miraculous. Maw was awake at last and crying—a
new-fledged pulsating Maw emerged from the brown chrysalis of her sorrows.
"Oh, Maw!... Our Nat!... All that—that—funeral!... Some
funeral, Maw!" The boy choked.
"My Nat!" Maw was saying. "Buried like a king!...
Like a King o' France!" She clasped her hands tightly.
It was like some beautiful fantasy. A Haynes—the despised and
rejected of earth—borne to his last home with such pomp and ceremony!
"There never was nothin' like it heard of round here, Maw....
If folks could only know—"
She lifted her head as at a challenge.
"Why, they're goin' to know, Luke—for I'm goin' to tell 'em.
Folks that have talked behind Nat's back—folks that have pitied us—when they
see this—like a King o' France!" she repeated softly. "I'm goin' down
to town to-day, Luke."
V
It was dusk when Maw came back; dusk of a clear day, with a rosy
sunset off behind the hills. Luke opened the door for her and he saw that she
had brought some of the sun along in with her—its colors in her worn face; its
peace in her eyes. She was the same, yet somehow new. Even the tilt of her
crazy old bonnet could not detract from a strange new dignity that clothed her.
She did not speak at once, going over to warm her gloveless
hands at the stove, and staring up at the Grampaw Peel plate; then:
"When it comes—my Nat's medal—it's goin' to set right up
here, 'stead o' this old thing—an' the letters and the sermons in my shell box
I got on my weddin' trip.... Lawyer Ritchie told me to-day what it means, the
name o' that medal—Cross o' War! It's a decoration fur soldiers and earned by
bravery."
She paused; then broke out suddenly:
"I b'en a fool, settin' here grievin'. My Nat was a hero, an'
I never knew it!... A hero's folks hadn't ought to cry. It's a thing too big
for that. Come here, you little Luke! Maw hain't b'en real good to you an'
Tommy lately. You're gittin' all white an' peaked. Too much frettin' 'bout Nat.
You an' me's got to stop it, I tell you. Folks round here ain't goin' to let us
fret—"
"Folks! Maw!" The words burst from the boy's heart.
"Did they find out?... You showed it to 'em? Uncle Clem—"
Maw sniffed.
"Clem! Oh, he was real took aback; but he don't count in on
this—not big enough." Then triumph hastened her story. "It's the big
ones that's mixin' into this, Lukey. Seems like they'd heard somethin' a spell
back in one o' the county papers, an' we didn't know.... Anyhow, when I first
got into town I met Judge Geer. He had me right into his office in Masonic Hall
'fore I could git my breath almost—had me settin' in his private room, an' sent
his stenugifer out fur a cup o' cawfee fur me. He had me give him the letter to
read, an' asked dare he make some copies. The stenugifer took 'em like
lightnin', right there.
"The judge had a hard time of it, coughin' an' blowin' over
that letter. He's goin' to send some copies to the New York papers right off.
He took me acrost the hall and interduced me to Lawyer Ritchie. Lawyer Ritchie,
he read the letter too. 'A hero!' they called Nat; an' me 'A hero's mother!'
"'We ain't goin' to forgit this, Mis' Haynes,' Lawyer Ritchie
said. 'This here whole town's proud o' your Nat.'... My land! I couldn't sense
it all!... Me, Delia Haynes, gettin' her hand wrung, 'count o' anything Nat'd
b'en doin', by the big bugs round town! Judge Geer, he fetched 'em all out o'
their offices—Slade, the supervisor, and Fuller Brothers, and old Sumner
Pratt—an' all! An' Ben Watson asked could he have a copy to put in the Bi-weekly.
It's goin' to take the whole front page, with an editor'al inside. He said the
Rockville Center News'd most likely copy it too.
"I was like in a dream!... All I'd aimed to do was to let
some o' them folks know that those people acrost the ocean had thought well of
our Nat, an' here they was breakin' their necks to git in on it too!... Goin'
down the street they was more of it. Lu Shiffer run right out o' the hardware
store an' left the nails he was weighin' to shake hands with me; and Jem Brand
came; and Lan'lord Peters come out o' the Valley House an' spoke to me.... I
felt awful public. An' Jim Beckonridge come out of the Emporium to shake too.
"'I ain't seen you down in town fur quite a spell,' he sez.
'How are you all up there to the farm?... Want to say I'm real proud o' Nat—a
boy from round here!' he sez.... Old Beckonridge, that was always wantin' to
arrest Nat fur takin' his chestnuts or foolin' down in the store!
"I just let 'em drift—seein' they had it all fixed fur me.
All along the street they come an' spoke to me. Mame Parmlee, that ain't b'en
able to see me fur three years, left off sweepin' her porch an' come down an'
shook my hand, an' cried about it; an' that stylish Mis' Willowby, that's president
o' the Civil Club, followed me all over the Square and asked dare she read a
copy o' the letter an' tell about Nat to the schoolhouse next Wednesday.
"It seems Judge Geer had gone out an' spread it broadcast
that I was in town, for they followed me everywhere. Next thing I run into
Reverend Kearns and Reverend Higby, huntin' me hard. They both had one idee.
"'We wanted to have a memor'al service to the churches 'bout
Nat,' they sez; 'then it come over us that it was the town's affair really. So,
Mis' Haynes,' they sez, 'we want you should share this thing with us. You
mustn't be selfish. You gotta give us a little part in it too. Are you
willin'?'"
"It knocked me dumb—me givin' anybody anything! Well, to
finish, they's to be a big public service in the Town Hall on Friday. They'll
have it all flags—French ones, an' our'n too. An' the ministers'll preach; an'
Judge Geer'll tell Nat's story an' speak about him; an' the Ladies' Guild'll
serve a big hot supper, because they'll probably be hundreds out; an' they'll
read the letters an' have prayers for our Nat!" She faltered a moment.
"An' we'll be there too—you an' me an' Tom—settin' in the seat o' honor,
right up front!... It'll be the greatest funeral service this town's ever seen,
Luke."
Maw's face was crimson with emotion.
"An' Uncle Clem an' Aunt Mollie—"
"Oh—them!" Maw came back to earth and smiled tolerantly.
"They was real sharp to be in it too. Mollie took me into the parlor an'
fetched a glass o' wine to stren'then me up." Maw mused a moment; then
spoke with a touch of patronage: "I'm goin' to knit Clem some new socks
this winter. He says he can't git none like the oldtime wool ones; an' the
market floors are cold. Clem's done what he could, an' I'll be real glad to
help him out.... Oh, I asked 'em to come an' set with us at the service—S'norta
too. I allowed we could manage to spare 'em the room."
She dreamed again, launched on a sea of glory; then roused to her
final triumph:
"But that's only part, Luke. The best's comin'. Jim
Beckonridge wants you to go down an' see him. 'That lame boy o' yours,' he sez,
'was in here a spell ago with some notion about raisin' bees an' buckwheat
together, an' gittin' a city market fur buckwheat honey. Slipped my mind,' he
sez, 'till I heard what Nat'd done; an' then it all come back. City party this
summer had the same notion an' was lookin' out for a likely place to invest
some cash in. You send that boy down an' we'll talk it over. Shouldn't wonder
if he'd get some backin'. I calculate I might help him, myself,' he sez, 'I
b'en thinkin' of it too.'... Don't seem like it could hardly be true."
"Oh, Maw!" Luke's pulses were leaping wildly. Buckwheat
honey was the dear dream of many a long hour's wistful meditation. "If we
could—I could study up about it an' send away fur printed books. We could make
some money—"
But Maw had not yet finished.
"An' they's some about Tom, too, Luke! That young Doctor
Wells down there—he's on'y b'en there a year—he come right up, an' spoke to me,
in the midst of several. 'I want to talk about your boy,' he sez. 'I've wanted
to fur some time, but didn't like to make bold; but now seem's as good a time
as any.' 'They're all talkin' of him,' I sez. 'Well,' he sez, 'I don't mean the
dead, but the livin' boy—the one folks calls Big Tom. I've heard his story, an'
I got a good look over him down here in the store a while ago. Woman'—he sez it
jest like that—'if that big boy o' your'n had a little operation, he'd be as
good as any.'
"I answered him patient, an' told him what ailed Tom an' why
he couldn't be no different—jest what old Doc Andrews told us—that they was a
little piece o' bone druv deep into his skull that time he fell. He spoke real
vi'lent then. 'But—my Lord!—woman,' he sez, 'that's what I'm talkin' about. If
we jack up that bone'—trepannin', he called it too—'his brains'd git to be like
anybody else's.' Told me he wants fur us to let him look after it. Won't cost
anything unless we want. They's a hospital to Rockville would tend to it, an'
glad to—when we git ready.... My poor Tommy!... Don't seem's if it could be
true."
Her face softened, and she broke up suddenly.
"I got good boys all round," she wept. "I always
said it; an' now folks know."
Luke lay on the old settle, thinking. In the air-tight stove the
hickory fagots crackled, with jeweled color-play. On the other side Tom sat
whittling silently—Tom, who would presently whittle no more, but rise to be a
man.
It was incredible! Incredible that the old place might some day
shake off its shackles of poverty and be organized for a decent struggle with
life! Incredible that Maw—stepping briskly about getting the supper—should be
singing!
Already the room seemed filled and warmed with the odors of
prosperity and self-respect. Maw had put a red geranium on the table; there was
the crispy fragrance of frying salt pork and soda biscuit in the air.
These the Hayneses! These people, with hope and self-esteem once
more in their hearts! These people, with a new, a unique place in the
community's respect! It was all like a beautiful miracle; and, thinking of its
maker, Luke choked suddenly and gulped.
There was a moist spot on the old Mexican hairless right under his
eyes; but it had been made by tears of pride, not sorrow. Maw was right! A
hero's folks hadn't ought to cry. And he wouldn't. Nat was better off than
ever—safe and honored. He had trod the path of glory. A line out of the boy's
old Reader sprang to his mind: "The paths of glory lead but to the
grave." Oh, but it wasn't true! Nat's path led to life—to hope; to help for
all of them, for Nat's own. In his death, if not in his life, he had
rehabilitated them. And Nat—who loved them—would look down and call it good.
In spite of himself the boy sobbed, visioning his brother's face.
"Oh, Nat!" he whispered. "I knew you'd do it! I
always said you'd do somethin' big for us all."
By WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
From The
Pictorial Review
How gaily we used to
chant it over Yen Sin's scow when I was a boy on Urkey water-front, and how
unfailingly it brought the minister charging down upon us. I can see him now,
just as he used to burst upon our vision from the wharf lane, face paper-white,
eyes warm with a holy wrath, lips moving uncontrollably. And I can hear his
voice trembling at our heels as we scuttled off:
"For shame, lads! Christ died for him, lads! For shame!
Shame!"
And looking back I can see him there on the wharf above the scow,
hands hanging, shoulders falling together, brooding over the unredeemed.
Minister Malden had seen "the field" in a day of his
surging youth—seen it, and no more. He had seen it from the deck of the steamer
by which he had come out, and by which he had now to return, since his seminary
bride had fallen sick on the voyage. He perceived the teeming harbor clogged
with junks and house-boats, the muddy river, an artery out of the heart of
darkness, the fantastic, colored shore-lines, the vast, dull drone of
heathendom stirring in his ears, the temple gongs calling blindly to the blind,
the alluring and incomprehensible accents of the boatmen's tongue which he was
to have made his own and lightened with the fierce sweet name of the Cross—and
now could not.
Poor young Minister Malden, he turned his face away. He gave
up "the field" for the bride, and when the bride went out in
mid-ocean, he had neither bride nor field. He drifted back to New England,
somehow or other, and found Yen Sin.
He found another bride too; Minister Malden was human. It was a
mercy of justice, folks said, when Widow Gibbs got a man like Minister Malden.
Heaven knows she had had bad enough luck with Gibbs, a sallow devil of a whaler
who never did a fine act in his life till he went down with his vessel and all
hands in the Arctic one year and left Sympathy Gibbs sitting alone in the
Pillar House on Lovett's Court, pretty, plump, and rather well-to-do as Urkey
goes.
Everybody in the island was glad enough when those two undertook
to mend each other's blasted life—everybody but Mate Snow. He had been thinking
of Sympathy Gibbs himself, they said; and they said he stood behind the
prescription screen in his drug-store far into the night, after the betrothal
was given out in Center Church, his eyes half-closed, his thin lips bluish
white, and hell-fire smouldering out of sight in him. And they said Mate was
the kind that never forget. That was what made it so queer.
It seems to me that I must remember the time when the minister
lived in the Pillar House with Sympathy Gibbs.
Back there in the mists of youth I seem to see them walking home
together after the Sunday morning preaching, arm in arm and full of a sedate
joy; turning in between the tubbed box-trees at Lovett's Court, loitering for a
moment to gaze out over the smooth harbor and nod to the stragglers of the
congregation before they entered the big green door flanked by the lilac panes.
Perhaps it was told me. There can be no question, though, that I
remember the night when Minister Malden came home from the Infield Conference,
a father of two days' standing. Urkey village made a festival of that
homecoming to the tiny daughter he had never seen, and to Sympathy Gibbs,
weak and waiting and radiant. Yes, I remember.
We were all at the landing, making a racket. The minister looked
ill when he came over the packet's side, followed by Mate Snow, who had gone to
Conference with him as lay delegate from Center Church. Our welcome touched him
in a strange and shocking way; he staggered and would have fallen had it not
been for Mate's quick hand. He had not a word to say to us; he walked up the
shore street between the wondering lines till he came to the Pillar House, and
there he stood for a moment, silhouetted against the open door, a drooping,
hunted figure, afraid to go in.
We saw his shadow later, moving uncertainly across the shades in
the upper chamber where Sympathy Gibbs lay with her baby, his hand lifted once
with the fingers crooked in mysterious agony. Some one started a hymn in the
street below and people took it up, bawling desperately for comfort to their
souls. Mate Snow didn't sing. He stood motionless between the box-trees,
staring up at the lighted window shades, as if waiting. By-and-by Minister
Malden came down the steps, and moving away beside him like a drunken man, went
to live in the two rooms over the drugstore. And that was the beginning of it.
Folks said Mate Snow was not the kind to forget an injury, and yet
it was Mate who stood behind the minister through those first days of shock and
scandal, who out-faced the congregation with his stubborn, tight lips, and who
shut off the whisperings of the Dorcas Guild with the sentence which was
destined to become a sort of formula on his tongue through the ensuing years:
"You don't know what's wrong, and neither do I; but we can
all see the man's a saint, can't we?"
"But the woman?" some still persisted.
"Sympathy Gibbs? You ought to know Sympathy Gibbs by this
time."
And if there was a faint curling at the corners of his lips, they
were all too dull to wonder at it. As for me, the boy, I took the changing
phenomena of life pretty well for granted, and wasted little of my golden time
speculating about such things. But as I look back now on the blunt end of those
Urkey days, I seem to see Minister Malden growing smaller as he comes nearer,
and Mate Snow growing larger—Mate Snow browbeating the congregation with a more
and more menacing righteousness—Minister Malden, in his protecting shadow,
leaner, grayer, his eyes burning with an ever fiercer zeal, escaping Center
Church and slipping away to redeem the Chinaman.
"There is more joy in heaven over one sinner," was his
inspiration, his justification, and, I suspect, his blessed opiate.
But it must have been hard on Yen Sin. I remember him now, a
steam-blurred silhouette, earlier than the earliest, later than the latest,
swaying over his tubs and sad-irons in the shanty on the stranded scow by
Pickett's wharf, dreaming perhaps of the populous rivers of his birth, or of
the rats he ate, or of the opium he smoked at dead of night, or of those weird,
heathen idols before which he bowed down his shining head—familiar and
inscrutable alien.
An evening comes back to me when I sat in Yen Sin's shop and
waited for my first "stand up" collar to be ironed, listening with a
kind of awe to the tide making up the flats, muffled and unfamiliar, and
inhaling the perfume compounded of steam, soap, hot linen, rats, opium, tea,
idols and what-not peculiar to Yen Sin's shop and to a thousand lone shops in a
thousand lone villages scattered across the mainland. When the precious collar
was at last in my hands, still limp and hot from its ordeal, Yen Sin hung over
me in the yellow nimbus of the lamp, smiling at my wonder. I stared with a
growing distrust at the flock of tiny bird-scratches inked on the band.
"What," I demanded suspiciously, "is that?"
"Lat's Mista You," he said, nodding his head and
summoning another hundred of wrinkles to his damp, polished face.
"That ain't my name. You don't know my name," I accused
him.
"Mista Yen Sin gottee name, allee light."
The thing fascinated me, like a serpent.
"Whose name is that, then?" I demanded,
pointing to a collar on the counter between us. The band was half-covered with
the cryptic characters, done finely and as if with the loving hand of an
artist.
Yen Sin held it up before his eyes in the full glow of the lamp.
His face seemed incredibly old; not senile, like our white-beards mumbling on
the wharves, but as if it had been a long, long time in the making and was
still young. I thought he had forgotten me, he was so engrossed in his
handiwork.
"Lat colla?" he mused by-and-by. "Lat's Mista
Minista, boy."
"Mister Minister Malden?"
And there both of us stared a little, for there was a voice at the
door.
"Yes? Yes? What is it?"
Minister Malden stood with his head and shoulders bent, wary of
the low door-frame, and his eyes blinking in the new light. I am sure he did
not see me on the bench; he was looking at Yen Sin.
"How is it with you to-night, my brother?"
The Chinaman straightened up and faced him, grave, watchful.
"Fine," he said. "Mista Yen Sin fine. Mista Minista
fine, yes?"
He bowed and motioned his visitor to a rocker, upholstered with a
worn piece of Axminster and a bit of yellow silk with half a dragon on it. The
ceremony, one could see, was not new. Vanishing into the further mysteries of
the rear, he brought out a bowl of tea, steaming, a small dish of
heathenish things, nuts perhaps, or preserves, deposited the offering on the
minister's pointed knees, and retired behind the counter to watch and wait.
An amazing change came over the minister. Accustomed to seeing him
gentle, shrinking, illusively non-resisting, I scarcely knew this white flame
of a man, burning over the tea-bowl!
"You are kind to me," he cried, "and yet your heart
is not touched. I would give up my life gladly, brother, if I could only go up
to the Throne and say to Jesus, 'Behold, Lord, Thy son, Yen Sin, kneeling at
the foot of the Cross. Thou gavest me the power, Lord, and the glory is thine!'
If I could say that, brother, I—I—"
His voice trailed off, though his lips continued to move
uncertainly. His face was transfigured, his eyes filmed with dreams. He was
looking beyond Yen Sin now, and on the lost yellow millions. The tea, untasted,
smoked upward into his face, an insidious, narcotic cloud. I can think of him
now as he sat there, wresting out of his easeless years one moment of those
seminary dreams; the color of far-away, the sweet shock of the alien and the
bizarre, the enormous odds, the Game. The walls of Yen Sin's shop were the
margins of the world, and for a moment the missionary lived.
"He would soften your heart," he murmured. "In a
wondrous way. Have you never thought, Yen Sin, 'I would like to be a good
man'?"
The other spread his right hand across his breast.
"Mista Yen Sin velly humble dog. Mista Yen Sin no good. Mista
Yen Sin's head on le glound. Mista Yen Sin velly good man. Washy colla
fine."
It was evidently an old point, an established score for the
heathen.
"Yes, I must say, you do do your work. I've brought you that
collar for five years now, and it still seems new." The minister's face
fell a little. Yen Sin continued grave and alert.
"And Mista Matee Snow, yes? His colla allee same like new,
yes?"
"Yes, I must say!" The other shook himself. "But
it's not that, brother. We're all of us wicked, Yen Sin, and unless we—"
"Mista Minista wickee?"
For a moment the minister's eyes seemed fascinated by the
Chinaman's; pain whitened his face.
"All of us," he murmured uncertainly, "are weak.
The best among us sins in a day enough to blacken eternity. And unless we
believe, and have faith in the Divine Mercy of the Father, and
confess—confession—" His voice grew stronger and into it crept the rapt
note of one whose auditor is within. "Confession! A sin confessed is no
longer a sin. The word spoken out of the broken and contrite heart makes all
things right. If one but had faith in that! If—if one had Faith!"
The life went out of his voice, the fire died in his eyes, his
fingers drooped on the tea-bowl. The Chinaman's clock was striking the half
after seven. He stared at the floor, haggard with guilt.
"Dear me, I'm late for prayer-meeting again. Snow will be
looking for me."
I slipped out behind him, glad enough of Urkey's raw air after
that close chamber of mysteries. I avoided the wharf-lane, however, more than a
little scared by this sudden new aspect of the Minister, and got myself out to
the shore street by Miah White's yard and the grocery porch, and there I found myself
face to face with Mate Snow. That frightened me still more, for the light from
Henny's Notions' window was shining oddly in his eyes.
"You're lookin' for the minister," I stammered, ducking
my head.
He stopped and stared down at me, tapping a sole on the cobbles.
"What's this? What's this?"
"He—he says you'd be lookin' for 'im, an' I seen 'im to
the Chinaman's an' he's comin' right there, honest he is, Mr. Snow."
"Oh! So? I'd be looking for him, would I?"
"Y—y—yessir."
I sank down on the grocery steps and studied my toes.
"He was there, though!" I protested in
desperation, when we had been waiting in vain for a long quarter-hour. The dark
monitor lifted his chin from his collar and looked at his watch.
"It's hard," I heard him sigh, as he turned away down
Lovett's Court, where Center Church blossomed with its prayer-meeting lamps.
Shadows of the uneasy flock moved across the windows; Emsy Nickerson, in his
trustee's black, peered out of the door into the dubious night, and beyond him
in the bright vestry Aunt Nickerson made a little spot of color, agitated,
nursing formless despairs, an artist in vague dreads.
I was near enough, at the church steps, to hear what Mate told
them.
"I'll lead to-night. He's gone out in the back-country to
pray alone."
Aunt Nickerson wept quietly, peeping from the corners of her eyes.
Reverent awe struggled with an old rebellion in Emsy's face, and in others as
they came crowding. The trustee broke out bitterly:
"Miah White's took to the bottle again, along o' him. If only
he'd do his prayin' at Miah's house a spell, 'stead o' the back-country—"
"There was a back-country in Judea," Mate cried him
down. "And some one prayed there, not one night, but forty nights and
days!"
What a far cry it was from the thwarted lover behind the
prescription screen, fanning the flames of hell-fire through the night, to the
Seer thundering in the vestry—had there been any there with heads enough to
wonder at it.
It happened from time to time, this mysterious retreat into
the moors, more frequently as the Infield Conference drew on and the hollows
deepened in the minister's cheeks and his eyes shone brighter with foreboding.
Nor was this the first time the back-country had been mentioned in the same
breath with the Wilderness of Judea. I can remember our Miss Beedie, in Sunday
School, lifting her eyes and sighing at the first verse of the fourth chapter
of the Book of Luke.
And to-night, while I crept off tingling through the dark of
Lovett's Court, he was in the Wilderness again, and I had seen him last.
I brought up by one of the tubbed box-trees and peered in at the
Pillar House with a new wonder. I was so used to it there, dead on the outside
and living on the inside, that I had never learned to think of it as a strange
thing. Perhaps a dozen times I had seen little Hope Gibbs (they still said
"Gibbs") playing quietly among the lilacs in the back yard. It was
always at dusk when the shadows were long there, and she a shadow among them,
so unobtrusive and far away. As for her mother, no one ever saw Sympathy Gibbs.
Crouching by the box-tree, I found myself wondering what they were
doing in there, Sympathy Gibbs and the little girl; whether they were sleeping,
or whether they were sitting in the dark, thinking, or whispering about the
husband and father who was neither husband nor father, or whether, in some
remote chamber, there might not be a lamp or a candle burning.
The dead hush of the place oppressed me. I turned my head to look
back at the comfortable, bumbling devotion of Center Church, and this is what I
saw there.
The door was still open, a blank, bright rectangle giving into the
deserted vestry, and it was against this mat of light that I spied Minister
Malden's head and shoulders thrust furtively, as he peeped in and seemed to
harken to the muffled unison of the prayer.
You may imagine me startled enough at that, but what of my
emotion when, having peeped and listened and reassured himself for a dozen
seconds, Minister Malden turned and came softly down the Court toward the gate
and the box-trees and me, a furtive silhouette against the door-light, his face
turned back over one shoulder.
I couldn't bolt; he was too close for that. The wonder was that he
failed to see me, for he stopped within two yards of where I cowered in the
shadow and stood for a long time gazing in between the trees at the pillared
porch, and I could hear his breathing, uneven and laborious, as though he had
been running or fighting. Once I thought he struck out at something with a
vicious fist. Then his trouble was gone, between two winks, and he was gone
too, up the walk and up the steps, without any to-do about it. I don't know
whether he tapped on the door or not. It was open directly. I caught a passing
glimpse of Sympathy Gibbs in the black aperture; the door closed on them both,
and the Pillar House was dead again.
Now this was an odd way for Minister Malden to fast and pray in
the Wilderness—odd enough, one would say, to keep me waiting there a while to
see what would come of it all. But it didn't. I had had enough of mysteries for
one Summer's night, or at any rate I had enough by the time I got my short
legs, full tilt, into the shore street. For I had caught a fleeting glimpse, on
the way, of a watcher in the shadow behind the other box-tree—Yen
Sin, the heathen, with a surprised eyeball slanting at me over one shoulder.
Among the most impressive of the phenomena of life, as noted in my
thirteenth year, is the amazing way in which a community can change while one
is away from it a month. Urkey village at the beginning of my 'teens seemed to
me much the same Urkey village upon which I had first opened my eyes. And then
I went to make a visit with my uncle Orville Means in Gillyport, just across
the Sound, and when I came back on the packet I could assure myself with
all the somber satisfaction of the returning exile that I would scarcely have
known the old place.
Gramma Pilot's cow had been poisoned. There had been a fire in the
Selectmen's room at Town Hall. Amber Matheson had left Mrs. Wharf's Millinery
and set up for herself, opposite the Eastern School. And Mate Snow, all of a
sudden, had bought the old Pons house, on the hill hanging high over the town,
and gone to live there. With a leap, and as it were behind my back, he sat there
dominating the village and the harbor and the island—our Great Man.
He took Minister Malden with him, naturally, out of the two rooms
over the store, into one room in the third story of the house on the hill—where
Sympathy Gibbs could see him if she chose to look that way, as frankly and
ignominiously a dependent as any baron's chaplain in the Golden Days.
"She'd have done better with Mate, after all," folks
began to say.
But of all the changes in the village, the most momentous to me
was the change in Yen Sin. I don't know why it should have been I, out of all
the Urkey youth, who went to the Chinaman's; perhaps it was the spiritual itch
left from that first adventure on the scow. At any rate, I had fallen into a
habit of dropping in at the cabin, and not always with a collar to do.
I had succeeded in worming out of him the meaning of that first
set of bird-scratches on my collar-band—"The boy who throws
clam-shells"—and of a second and more elaborate writing—"The boy who
is courageous in the face of all the water of the ocean, yet trembles before so
much of it as may be poured in a wash-basin." There came a third
inscription in time, but of that he would not tell me, nor of Mate Snow's, nor
the minister's. It was a queer library he had, those fine-written collars of
Urkey village.
He had been growing feebler so long and so gradually that I
had made nothing of it. Once, I remember, it struck me queer that he wasn't
working so hard as he had used to. Still earliest of all and latest of all, he
would sometimes leave his iron cooling on the board now and stand for minutes
of the precious day, dreaming out of the harbor window. When the sun was
sinking, the shaft through the window bathed his head and his lean neck with a
quality almost barbaric, and for a moment in the gloom made by the bright
pencil, the new, raw things of Urkey faded out, leaving him alone in his
ancient and ordered civilization, a little wistful, I think, and perhaps a
little frightened, as a child waking from a long, dreaming sleep, to find his
mother gone.
He had begun to talk about China, too, and the river where he was
born. And I made nothing of it, it came on so gradually, day by day. Then I
went away, as I have said, and came back again. I dropped in at the scow the
second day after the packet brought me home.
"Hello, there!" I cried, peeping over the counter,
"I got a collar for you to—to—" I began to stumble. "Mr. Yen
Sin, dear me, what's the matter of you?"
"Mista Yen Sin fine," he said in a strengthless voice,
smiling and nodding from the couch where he lay, half propped up by a gorgeous,
faded cushion. "Mista Yen Sin go back China way pletty quick now,
yes."
"Honest?"
He made no further answer, but took up the collar I had brought.
"You been gone Gillypo't, yes? You take colla China boy,
yes?"
"Yessir!"
"He pletty nice man, Sam Low, yes?"
"Oh, you know him, then? Oh, he's all right, Yen Sin."
It was growing dark outside, and colder, with a rising wind from
landward to seaward against the tide. A sense of something odd and wrong came
over me; it was a moment before I could make it out. The fire was dead in
the stove for the first time in memory and the Vestal irons were cold. Yen Sin
asked me to light the lamp. In the waxing yellow glow he turned his eyes to
mine, and mine were big.
"You know Mista God?" he questioned.
"Oh, yes," I answered soberly. "Yes, indeed."
"Mista God allee same like Mista Yen Sin, yes?"
I felt myself paling at his blasphemy, and thought of lightning.
"Mista God," he went on in the same speculative tone,
"Mista God know allee bad things, allee same like Mista Yen Sin,
yes?"
"Where is the minister?" I demanded in desperation.
"Mista Yen Sin likee see Mista Minista." When he added,
with a transparent hand fluttering over his heart: "Like see pletty quick
now," I seemed to fathom for the first time what was happening to him.
"Wait," I cried, too full of awe to know what I said.
"Wait, wait, Yen Sin. I'll fetch 'im."
It was dark outside, the sky overcast, and the wind beginning to
moan a high note across the roofs as it swept in from the moors and out again
over the graying waters. In the shore street my eyes chanced upon the light of
Center Church, and I remembered that it was meeting-night.
There was only a handful of worshippers that evening, but a thousand
could have had no more eyes it seemed to me as I tiptoed down the aisle with
the scandalized pad-pad of Emsy Nickerson's pursuing soles behind my back.
Confusion seized me; I started to run, and had come almost up to Mister Malden
before I had wit enough to discover that it wasn't Minister Malden at all, but
Mate Snow in the pulpit, standing with an open hymn-book in one hand and
staring down at me with grim, inquiring eyes. After a time I managed to
stammer:
"The Chinaman, you know—he's goin' to die—the minister—"
Then I fled, dodging Emsy's legs. Confused voices followed me;
Aunt Nickerson's full of a nameless horror; Mate Snow's, thundering:
"Brother Hemans, you will please continue the meeting. I will go and see
what I can do. But your prayers are needed here."
Poor Minister Malden! His hour had struck—the hour so long
awaited—and now it was Mate Snow who should go to answer it. Perhaps the night
had something to do with it, and the melancholy disaster of the wind. Perhaps
it was the look of Mate Snow's back as he passed me, panting on the steps, his
head bowed with his solemn and triumphant stewardship. But all of a sudden I
hated him, this righteous man. He had so many things, and Minister Malden had
nothing—nothing but the Chinaman's soul—and he was going to try and get that
too.
I had to find Minister Malden, and right away. But where was he,
and on prayer-meeting night too? My mind skipped back. The
"Wilderness."
I was already ducking along the Court to reconnoiter the Pillar
House, black and silent beyond the box-trees. And then I put my hands in my
pockets, my ardor dimmed by the look of that vacant, staring face. What was I,
a boy of thirteen, against that house? I could knock at the door, to be sure,
as the minister had done that other night. Yes; but when I stood, soft-footed,
on the porch, the thought that Sympathy Gibbs might open it suddenly and find
me there sent the hands back again into the sanctuary of my pockets. What did I
know of her? What did any one know of her? To be confronted by her, suddenly,
in the dark behind a green door—I tiptoed down the steps.
If only there were a cranny of light somewhere in the dead place!
I began to prowl around the yard, feeling adventurous enough, you may believe,
for no boy had ever scouted that bit of Urkey land before. And I did find
a light, beneath a drawn shade in the rear. Approaching as stealthily as a red
Indian, I put one large, round eye to the aperture.
If I had expected a melodramatic tableau, I was disappointed. I
had always figured the inside of the Pillar House as full of treasures, for
they told tales of the old whaler's wealth. My prying eyes found it bare, like
a deserted house gutted by seasons of tramps. A little fire of twigs and a
broken butter-box on the hearth made a pathetic shift at domestic cheer.
Minister Malden sat at one side of it, his back to me, his face half-buried in
his hands. Little Hope Gibbs played quietly on the floor, building pig-pens
with a box of matches, a sober, fire-lined shade. Sympathy Gibbs was not in the
picture, but I heard her voice after a moment, coming out from an invisible
corner.
"How much do you want this time, Will?"
"Want?" There was an anguished protest in the man's cry.
"Need, then." The voice was softer.
The minister's face dropped back in his hands, and after a moment
the words came out between his tight fingers, hardly to be heard.
"Five hundred dollars, Sympathy."
I thought there was a gasp from the corner, suppressed. I caught
the sound of a drawer pulled open and the vague rustling of skirts as the woman
moved about. Her voice was as even as death itself.
"Here it is, Will. It brings us to the end, Will. God knows
where it will come from next time."
"It—it—you mean—" An indefinable horror ran though the
minister's voice, and I could see the cords shining on the hands which gripped
the chair-arms. "Next time—next year—" His eyes were fixed on the
child at his feet. "God knows where it will come from. Perhaps—before
another time—something will happen. Dear little Hope—little girl!"
The child's eyes turned with a preoccupied wonder as the
man's hand touched her hair; then went back to the alluring pattern of the
matches.
Sympathy Gibbs spoke once more.
"I've found out who holds the mortgage, Will. Mr. Dow told
me."
His hand slid from Hope's hair and hung in the air. During the
momentary hush his head, half-turned, seemed to wait in a praying suspense.
"It's Mate Snow," the voice went on. The man covered his
face.
"Thank God!" he said. I thought he shivered. "Then
it's all—all right," he sighed after a moment. "I was afraid it might
be somebody who would—who might make trouble." He took out a handkerchief
and touched his forehead with it. "Thank—God!"
"Why do you thank God?" A weariness, like anger, touched
her words.
"Why? Why do I thank God?" He faced her, wondering.
"Because he has given me a strong man to be my friend and stand behind me.
Because Mate Snow, who might have hated me, has—"
"Has sucked the life out of you!" It came out of the
corner like a blade. "Yes, yes, he has sucked the life out of you in his
hate, and thrown the dry shell of you to me; and that makes him feel good on
his hill there. No, no, no; I'm going to say it now. Has he ever tried to find
out what was wrong with us? No. He didn't need to. Why? Because no matter what
it was, we were given over into his hands, body and soul. And now it's Mate
Snow who is the big man of this island, and it's the minister that eats the
crumbs that fall from his table, and folks pity you and honor him because he's
so good to you, and—"
And this was Urkey village, and night, and Yen Sin was dying.
"And he's down to the Chinaman's now!" I
screamed, walking out of my dream. "An' the Chinaman's dyin' an'
wants the minister, an' Mate Snow he got there first."
The light went out in the room; I heard a chair knocked over, and
then Minister Malden's voice: "God forgive me! God forgive me!"
I ran, sprawling headlong through the shrubs.
Out in the dark of Lovett's Court I found people all about me, the
congregation, let out, hobbling and skipping and jostling shoreward, a curious
rout. Others were there, not of the church; Kibby Baker, the atheist, who had
heard the news through the church window where he peeped at the worshipers;
Miah White's brother, the ship-calker, summoned by his sister; a score of
others, herding down the dark wind. At the shore street, folks were coming from
the Westward. It was strange to see them all and to think it was only a heathen
dying.
Or, perhaps, it wasn't so strange, when one remembered Minister
Malden coming down the years with that light in his eyes, building his slow
edifice, like one in Israel prophesying the coming of the Messiah.
I shall never forget the picture I saw that night from the deck of
the Chinaman's scow. The water here in the lee was as smooth as black glass,
save for the little ground-swell that rocked the outer end of the craft. The
tide was rising; the grounded end would soon be swimming. There were others on
the deck with me, and more on the dock overhead, their faces picked out against
the sky by the faint irradiations from the lighted shanty beneath. And over and
behind it all ran the tumult of the elements; behind it the sea, where it
picked up on the Bight out there beyond our eyes; above it the wind, scouring
the channels of the crowded roofs and flinging out to meet the waters, like a
ravening and disastrous bride.
Mate Snow stood by the counter in the little cabin, his
close-cropped head almost to the beams, his voice, dry austere, summoning the
Chinaman to repentance. "Verily, if a man be not born again, he shall
not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." His eyes skipped to the door.
"And to be born again," he went on with a hint of haste,
"you must confess, Yen Sin, and have faith. That is enough. The outer and
inner manifestations—confession and faith."
"Me, Mista Yen Sin—confessee?"
A curious and shocking change had come over the Chinaman in the
little time I had been away. He lay quite motionless on his couch, with a bit
of silken tapestry behind his head, like a heathen halo protecting him at last.
He was more alive than he had been, precisely because the life had gone out of
him, and he was no longer bothered with it. His face was a mask, transparent
and curiously luminous, and there for the first time I saw the emotion of
humor, which is another name for perception.
His unclouded eyes found me by the door and he moved a hand in a
vague gesture. I went, walking stiff-legged, awe mingling with self-importance.
"Mista Boy, please," he whispered in my ear. "The
collas on the shelf theah. Led paypah—"
Wondering, I took them down and piled them on the couch beside
him, one after another, little bundles done up carefully in flaring tissue with
black characters inked on them.
"That one!" he whispered, and I undid the one under his
finger, discovering half a dozen collars, coiled with their long imprisonment.
"And that one, and that one—"
They covered his legs and rose about his thin shoulders, those
treasured soiled collars of his, gleaming under the lamp like the funeral-pyre
of some fantastic potentate. Nothing was heard in the room save the faint
crackling of the paper, and after a moment Lem Pigeon murmuring in amazement to
his neighbor, over in a corner.
"Look a-there, will ye? He's got my collar with the blood
spot onto it where the Lisbon woman's husband hit me that time down to New
Bedford. What ye make o' that now?"
Yen Sin lifted his eyes to Mate Snow's hanging over him in wonder.
"Mista Matee Snow confessee, yes?"
There was a moment of shocked silence while our great man stared
at Yen Sin. He took his weight from the counter and stood up straight.
"I confess my sins to God," he said.
The other moved a fluttering hand over his collars. "Mista
Yen Sin allee same like Mista God, yes."
In the hush I heard news of the blasphemy whispering from lip to
lip, out the door and up the awe-struck dock. Mate Snow lifted a hand.
"Stop!" he cried. "Yen Sin, you are standing in the
Valley of the Shadow of Death—"
"Mista Matee Snow wickee man? No? Yes? Mista Matee Snow
confessee?"
The Chinaman was making a game of his death-bed, and even the
dullest caught the challenge. Mate Snow understood. The yellow man had asked
him with the divine clarity of the last day either to play the game or not to
play the game. And Mate Snow wanted something enough to play.
"Yes," he murmured, "I am weak. All flesh is
weak." He faltered, and his brow was corded with the labor of memory. It
is hard for a good man to summon up sins enough to make a decent confession;
nearly always they fall back in the end upon the same worn and respectable
category.
"I confess to the sin of pride," he pronounced slowly.
"And to good deeds and kind acts undone; to moments of harshness and
impatience—"
"Mista Matee Snow confessee?" Yen Sin shook a weary protest
at the cheater wasting the precious moments with words. Mate Snow lifted his
eyes, and I saw his face whiten and a pearl of sweat form on his forehead. A
hush filled the close cave of light, a waiting silence, oppressive and struck
with a new expectancy. Little sounds on the dock above became important—young
Gilman Pilot's voice, cautioning: "Here, best take my hand on that ladder,
Mr. Malden. Last rung's carried away."
It was curious to see Mate Snow's face at that; it was as if one
read the moving history of years in it as he leaned over the counter and
touched the dying man's breast with a passion strange in him.
"I will tell you how wicked I am, Yen Sin. Three years ago I
did Ginny Silva out of seventy dollars wages in the bogs; and if he's here
tonight I'll pay him the last cent of it. And—and—" He appealed for mercy
to the Chinaman's unshaken eyes. Then, hearing the minister on the deck behind,
he cast in the desperate sop of truth. "And—and I have coveted my
neighbor's wife!"
It was now that Minister Malden cried from the doorway: "That
is nothing, Yen Sin—nothing—when you think of me!"
You may laugh. But just then, in that rocking death-chamber, with
the sea and the dark and the wind, no one laughed. Except Yen Sin, perhaps; he
may have smiled, though the mask of his features did not move. Minister Malden
stepped into the room, and his face was like new ivory.
"Look at me! I have wanted to bring your soul to Christ
before I died. That is white, but all the rest of me is black. I have lived a
lie; I have broken a law of God; to cover that I have broken another,
another—"
His voice hung in the air, filled with a strange horror of itself.
The Chinaman fingered his collars. Without our consent or our understanding, he
had done the thing which had so shocked us when he said it with his lips; the
heathen sat in judgment, weighing the sins of our little world.
"Yes?" he seemed to murmur. "And then?"
The minister's eyes widened; pain lifted him on his toes.
"I am an adulterer," he cried. "And my child is
a—a—bastard. Her mother's husband, Joshua Gibbs, didn't go down with his vessel
after all. He was alive when I married her. He is alive today, a wanderer. He
learned of things and sent me a letter; it found me at the Infield Conference
the day before I came home that time to see my baby. Since that day it has
seemed to me that I would suffer the eternity of the damned rather than that
that stain should mar my child's life, and in the blackness of my heart I have
believed that it wouldn't if it weren't known. I have kept him quiet; I have
hushed up the truth. I have paid him money, leaving it for him where he wrote
me to leave it. I have gone hungry and ragged to satisfy him. I have begged my
living of a friend. I have drained the life of the woman I love. And yet he is
never content. And I have betrayed even him. For he forbade me to
see his wife ever again, or even to know the child I had begotten, and I have
gone to them, in secret, by night. I have sinned not alone against God, but
against the devil. I have sinned against—everything!"
The fire which had swept him on left him now of a sudden, his arms
hung down at his sides, his head drooped. It was Mate Snow who broke the
silence, falling back a step, as if he had been struck.
"God forgive me," he said in awe. "And I have
kept you here. You! To preach the word of God to these people. God
forgive me!"
"I think Mista God laugh, yes."
Yen Sin wasn't laughing himself; he was looking at his collars.
Mate Snow shrugged his shoulders fiercely, impatient of the interruption.
"I have kept you here," he pursued bitterly, "for
the good of my own soul, which would have liked to drive you away. I have
kept you here, even when you wanted to go away—"
"Little mousie want to go away. Little cat say, 'no—no.'"
Yen Sin's head turned slowly and he spoke on to the bit of yellow silk, his
words clear and powerless as a voice in a dream. "No—no, Mousie, stay with
little cat. Good little cat. Like see little mousie jump. Little cat!"
Mate Snow wheeled on him, and I saw a queer sight on his face for
an instant; the gray wrinkles of age. My cousin Duncan was there, constable of
Urkey village, and he saw it too and came a step out of his corner. It was all
over in a wink; Mate Snow lifted his shoulders with a sigh, as much as to say:
"You can see how far gone the poor fellow is."
The Chinaman, careless of the little by-play, went on.
"Mista Sam Kow nice China fella. Mista Minista go to Mista
Sam Kow in Infield, washy colla. Mista Yen Sin lite a letta to Mista Sam Kow,
on Mista Minista colla-band. See? Mista Sam Kow lite a letta back on
colla-band. See?"
We saw—that the yellow man was no longer talking at random, but
slowly, with his eyes on the collar he held in his hand, like a scholar in his
closet, perusing the occult pages of a chronicle.
"Mista Sam Kow say: 'This man go night-time in Chestnut
Stleet; pickee out letta undah sidewalk, stickee money-bag undah sidewalk, cly,
shivah, makee allee same like sick fella. Walkee all lound town allee night.
Allee same like Chlistian dlunk man. No sleepee. That's all—Sam Kow.' Mista Yen
Sin keepee colla when Mista Minista come back; give new colla: one, two, five,
seven time; Mista Minista say: 'You washy colla fine, Yen Sin: this colla,
allee same like new.' Mista Matee Snow, his colla allee same like new,
too—"
Something happened so suddenly that none of us knew what was going
on. But there was my cousin Duncan standing by the counter, his arm and
shoulder still thrust forward with the blow he had given; and there was our
great man of the hill flung back against the wall with a haggard grimace set on
his face.
"No, you don't!" Duncan growled, his voice shivering a
little with excitement. "No, you don't, Mate!"
Mate Snow screamed, and his curse was like the end of the world in
Urkey island.
"Curse you! The man's a thief, I tell you. He's stolen my
property! I demand my property—those collars there in his hand now. You're
constable, you say. Well, I want my—"
He let himself down on the bench, as if the strength had left his
knees.
"He's going to tell you lies," he cried. "He's
making fools of you all with his—his—Duncan, boy! Don't listen to the black
liar. He's going to try and make out 'twas me put the letter
under the walk in Chestnut Street, up there to Infield; that it was me,
all these years, that went back and got out money he put there. Me!
Mate Snow. Duncan, boy; he's going to tell you a low, black-hearted
lie!"
"How do you know?" That was all my cousin Duncan
said.
To the dying man, nothing made much difference. It was as if he
had only paused to gather his failing breath, and when he spoke his tone was
the same, detached, dispassionate, with a ghost of humor running through it.
"How many times?" He counted the collars with a finger
tip. "One two, tlee, six, seven time. Seven yeahs. Too bad. Any time Mista
Minista wantee confessee, Mista God makee allee light. Mista Yen Sin allee same
like Mista God. Wait. Wait. Wait. Laugh. Cly inside!"
Mate Snow was leaning forward on the bench in a queer, lazy
attitude, his face buried in his hands and his elbows propped on his knees. But
no one looked at him, for Minister Malden was speaking in the voice of one risen
from the dead, his eyes blinking at the Chinaman's lamp.
"Then you mean—you mean that he—isn't alive? After all? That
he wasn't alive—then? You mean it was all a—a kind of a—joke?
I—I—Oh, Mate! Mate Snow!"
It was queer to see him turning with his news to his traditional
protector. It had been too sudden; his brain had been so taken up with the
naked miracle that Gibbs was not alive that all the rest of it, the drawn-out
and devious revenge of the druggist, had somehow failed to get into him as yet.
"Mate Snow!" he cried, running over to the sagging
figure. "Did you hear, Mate? Eh? It isn't true! It was all a—a joke,
Mate!" He shook Snow's shoulder with a pleading ecstasy. "It's been a
mistake, Mate, and I am—she is—little Hope is—"
He fell back a step, letting the man lop over suddenly on his
doubled knees, and stared blankly at a tiny drug-phial, uncorked and empty,
rolling away across the floor. He passed a slow hand across his eyes.
"Why—why—I—I'm afraid Mate is—isn't very—well."
Urkey had held its tongue too long. Now it was that the dam gave
way and the torrent came whirling down and a hundred voices were lifted. Crowds
and shadows distracted the light. One cried. "The man's dead, you fools;
can't you see?" A dozen took it up and it ran out and away along the
rumbling dock. "Doctor!" another bawled. "He's drank poison!
Where's the doctor at?" And that, too, went out, and a faint shout
answered from somewhere shoreward that the doctor was out at Si Pilot's place
and Miah White was after him, astraddle of the tar-wagon horse. Through it all
I can remember Aunt Nickerson's wail continuing, undaunted and unquenchable,
"God save our souls! God save our souls!"
And then, following the instinct of the frightened pack, they were
all gone of a sudden, carrying the dead man to meet the doctor. I would
have gone, too, and I had gotten as far as the door at their heels, when I
paused to look back at the Chinaman.
He lay so still over there on the couch—the thought came to me
that he, too, was dead. And of a sudden, leaning there on the door-frame, the
phantom years trooped back to me, and I saw the man for the first time moving
through them—a lone, far outpost of the thing he knew, one yellow man against
ten thousand whites, unshaken, unappalled, facing the odds, working so early,
so late, day after day and year after year, and smiling a little, perhaps, as
he peeped behind the scenes of the thing which we call civilization. Yes, cry
as he might inside, he must have smiled outside, sometimes, through those years
of terror, at the sight of Minister Malden shrinking at the shadow of the ghost
of something that was nothing, to vanish at a touch of light.
And now his foreign service was ended; his post was to be
relieved; and he could go wherever he wanted to go.
Not quite yet. He had been dreaming, that was all. His eyes
opened, and rested, not on me, but to the right of me. Then I saw for the first
time that I wasn't alone in the room with him after all, but that Minister
Malden was standing there, where he had stood through all the din like a little
boy struck dumb before a sudden Christmas tree.
And like a little boy, he went red and white and began to stammer.
"I—I—Yen Sin—" He held his breath a moment. Then it came
out all together. "I'll run and fetch them—both!" With that he
was past me, out of the door and up the ladder, and I heard his light feet
drumming on the dock, bearing such news as never was.
The Chinaman's eyes had come to me now, and there was a queer
light in them that I couldn't understand. An adventure beyond my little
comprehension was taking shape behind them, and all I knew enough to do was to sneak
around behind the counter and take hold of one of his fingers and shake it up
and down, like one man taking a day's leave of another. His eyes thanked me for
my violence; then they were back again to their mysterious speculations. An
overweening excitement gathered in them. He frightened me. Quite abruptly, as
if an unexpected reservoir of energy had been tapped, the dying man lifted on
an elbow and slid one leg over the edge of the couch. Then he glanced at me
with an air almost furtive.
"Boy," he whispered. "Run quick gettee Mista
Minista, yes."
"But he's coming himself," I protested.
"You better lay back."
"Mista Yen Sin askee please! Please, boy."
What was there for me to do? I ran. Once on the dock above,
misgivings assailed me. I was too young, and the night was too appalling. I had
forgotten the wind, down in the cabin, but in the open here I felt its weight.
It grew all the while; its voice drowned the world now, and there was spindrift
through it, picked from the back shore of the island and flung all the way
across. Objects were lost in it; ghostly things, shore lights, fish-houses,
piers, strained seaward. I heard the packet's singing masts at the next wharf,
but I saw no packet. The ponderous scow below me became a thing of life and light,
an eager bird fluttering at its bonds and calling to the wide spaces. To my
bewildered eyes it seemed to move—it was moving, shaking off
the heavy hands of bondage, joining itself with the wind. I got down on my
knees of a sudden and peered at the deck.
"Yen Sin!" I screamed. "What you doin'
out there?"
I saw him dimly in the open air outside his door, fumbling and
fumbling at something. This was his great adventure, the thing that had gleamed
in his eyes and had tapped that unguessed reservoir of strength. His voice
crept back to me, harassed by the wind,
"This velly funny countly, Mista Boy. Mista Yen Sin go back
China way."
His bow-line was fast to an iron ring on the wharf. I wanted to
hold him back, and I clutched at the rope with my hands as if my little
strength were something against that freed thing. The line came up to me
easily, cast off from the scow at the other end.
He was waning. His window and door and the little fan-light before
the door were all I could see now, and even that pattern blurred and became
uncertain and ghostly on the mat of the night. He was clear of the wharves now,
and the wind had him—sailing China way—so peaceful, so dreamless, surrounded by
his tell-tale cargo of Urkey's unwashed collars.
I don't know how long it was I crouched there on the timbers,
staring out into the havoc of that black night, and listening to the hungry
clamor of the Bight. I must have been crying for the minister, over and over,
without knowing it, for when my cousin Duncan's hand fell on my shoulder and I
started up half out of my wits, he pointed a finger toward the outer edge of
the wharf.
And there they were in a little close group, Sympathy Gibbs
standing straight with the child in her arms, and Minister Malden down on his
knees. There were many people on the pier, all with their eyes to sea, all
except Sympathy Gibbs; hers were up-shore, where Mate Snow lay in state on his
own counter, all his sweet revenge behind him and gone.
I thought little Hope was asleep in the swathing shawl, till I saw
the dark round spots of her eyes. If it was a strange night for the others, it
was stranger still to her.
The wind and the rain beat on Minister Malden's bended back. He
loved it that way. The missionary was praying for the soul of the heathen.
By MARY SYNON
From Harper's
Magazine
We were listening to
Leila Burton's music—her husband, and Dick Allport, and I—with the throb of London
beating under us like the surge of an ocean in anger, when there rose above the
smooth harmonies of the piano and the pulsing roar of the night a sound more
poignant than them both, the quavering melody of a street girl's song.
Through the purpling twilight of that St. John's Eve I had been
drifting in dreams while Leila had gone from golden splendors of chords which
reflected the glow on westward-fronting windows into somber symphonies which
had seemed to make vocal the turbulent soul of the city—for Dick Allport and I
were topping the structure of that house of life that was to shelter the love
we had long been cherishing. With Leila playing in that art which had dowered
her with fame, I was visioning the glory of such love as she and Standish Burton
gave each other while I watched Dick, sensing rather than seeing the dearness
of him as he gave to the mounting climaxes the tense interest he always
tendered to Leila's music.
I had known, before I came to love Dick Allport, other loves and
other lovers. Because I had followed will-o'-the-wisps of fancy through marshes
of sentiment I could appreciate the more the truth of that flame which he and I
had lighted for our guidance on the road. A moody boy he had been when I first
met him, full of a boy's high chivalry and of a boy's dark despairs. A moody
man he had become in the years that had denied him the material success toward
which he had striven; but something in the patience of his efforts, something
in the fineness of his struggle had endeared him to me as no triumph could have
done. Because he needed me, because I had come to believe that I meant to him
belief in the ultimate good of living, as well as belief in womanhood, I
cherished in my soul that love of him which yearned over him even as it longed
for him.
Watching him in the dusk while he lounged in that concentrated
quiet of attention, I went on piling the bricks of that wide house of happiness
we should enter together; and, although I could see him but dimly, so well did
I know every line of his face that I could fancy the little smile that quivered
around his lips and that shone from the depths of his eyes as Leila played the
measures we both loved. I must have been smiling in answer when the song of the
girl outside rose high.
Not until that alien sound struck athwart the power and beauty of
the spell did I come to know how high I had builded my castles; but the
knocking at the gate toppled down the dreams as Leila swept a discord over the
keyboard and crossed to the open window.
In the dusk, as she flung back the heavy curtains, I could see the
bulk of Brompton Oratory set behind the houses like the looming back-drop of a
painted scene. Nearer, in front of a tall house across the way, stood the
singer, a thin girl whose shadowy presence seemed animated by a curious
bravery. In a nasal, plaintive voice she was singing the words of a ballad of
love and of loving that London, as only London can, had made curiously its own
that season. The insistence of her plea—for she sang as if she cried out her
life's longing, sang as if she called on the passing crowd not for alms, but
for understanding—made her for the moment, before she faded back into
oblivion, an artist, voicing the heartache and the heartbreak of womankind; and
the artist in Leila Burton responded to the thrill.
Until the ending of the song she stood silent in front of the
window, unconscious of the fact that she, and not the scene beyond her, held
the center of the stage. Not for her beauty, although at times Leila Burton gave
the impression of being exquisitely lovely, was she remarkable, but rather for
that receptive attitude that made her an inspired listener. In me, who had
known her for but a little while, she awakened my deepest and drowsiest
ambition, the desire to express in pictures the light and the shade of the
London I knew. With her I could feel the power, and the glory, and the fear,
and the terror of the city as I never did at other times. It was not alone that
she was all things to all men; it was that she led men and women who knew her
to the summits of their aspirations.
Even Standish Burton, big, sullen man that he was, immersed in his
engineering problems, responded to his wife's spiritual charm with a readiness
that always aroused in Dick and myself an admiration for him that our other
knowledge of him did not justify. He was, aside from his relationship to Leila,
a man whose hardness suggested a bitter knowledge of dark ways of life. Now,
crouched down in the depths of his chair, he kept watching Leila with a gaze of
smouldering adoration, revealing that love for her which had been strong enough
to break down those barriers which she had erected in the years while he had
worked for her in Jacob's bondage. In her he seemed to be discovering, all over
again, the vestal to tend the fires of his faith.
Dick Allport, too, bending forward over the table on which his
hands fell clenched, was studying Leila with an inscrutable stare that seemed
to be of query. I was wondering what it meant, wondering the more because my
failure to understand its meaning hung another veil between my vision and my
shrine of belief in the fullness of love, when the song outside came to an
end and Leila turned back to us.
Her look, winging its way to Standish, lighted her face even
beyond the glow from the lamps which she switched on. For an instant his heavy
countenance flared into brightness. Dick Allport sighed almost imperceptibly as
he turned to me. I had a feeling that such a fire as the Burtons kindled for
each other should have sprung up in the moment between Dick and me, for we had
fought and labored and struggled for our love as Standish and Leila had never
needed to battle. Because of our constancy I expected something better than the
serene affectionateness that shone in Dick's smile. I wanted such stormy
passion of devotion as Burton gave to Leila, such love as I, remembering a
night of years ago, knew that Dick could give. It was the old desire of earth,
spoken in the street girl's song, that surged in me until I could have cried
out in my longing for the soul of the sacrament whose substance I had been
given; but the knowledge that we were, the four of us, conventional people in a
conventional setting locked my heart as it locked my lips until I could mirror
the ease with which Leila bore herself.
"I have been thinking," she said, lightly, "that I
should like to be a street singer for a night. If only a piano were not so
cumbersome, I should go out and play into the ears of the city the thing that
girl put into her song."
"Why not?" I asked her, "It would be an adventure,
and life has too few adventures."
"It might have too many," Dick said.
"Not for Leila," Standish declared. "Life's for her
a quest of joy."
"That's it," Dick interposed. "Her adventures have
all been joyous."
"But they haven't," Leila insisted. "I'm no spoiled
darling of the gods. I've been poor, poor as that girl out there. I've had
heartaches, and disappointments, and misfortunes."
"Not vital ones," Dick declared. "You've never had
a knock-out blow."
"She doesn't know what one is," Standish laughed, but
there sounded a ruefulness in his laughter that told of the kind of blow he
must once have suffered to bring that note in his voice. Standish Burton took
life lightly, except where Leila was concerned. His manner now indicated,
almost mysteriously, that something threatened his harbor of peace, but the
regard Leila gave to him proved that the threat of impending danger had not
come to her.
"Oh, but I do know," she persisted.
"Vicariously," I suggested. "All artists do."
"No, actually," she said.
"You're wrong," said Standish. "You're the sort of
woman whom the world saves from its own cruelties."
There was something so essentially true in his appraisal of his
wife that the certainty covered the banality of his statement and kept Dick and
myself in agreement with him. Leila Burton, exquisitely remote from all things
commonplace, was unquestionably a woman to be protected. Without envy—since my
own way had its compensations in full measure—I admitted it.
"I think that you must have forgotten, if you ever
knew," she said, "how I struggled here in London for the little
recognition I have won."
"Oh, that!" Dick Allport deprecated. "That isn't
what Stan means. Every one in the world worth talking about goes through that
sort of struggle. He means the flinging down from a high mountain after you've
seen the glories, not of this world, but of another, the casting out from
paradise after you've learned what paradise may mean. He spoke with an odd
timbre of emotion in his voice, a quality that puzzled me for the moment.
"That's it," said Standish, gratefully. "Those are
the knock-out blows."
"Well, then, I don't know them"—Leila admitted her
defeat—"and I hope that I shall not."
Softly she began to play the music of an accompaniment. There
was a familiar hauntingness in its strains that puzzled me until I associated
them with the song that Burton used to whistle so often in the times when Leila
was in Paris and he had turned for companionship to Dick and to me.
"I've heard Stan murder that often enough to be able to try
it myself," I told her.
"I didn't know he knew it," she said. "I heard it
for the first time the other day. A girl—I didn't hear her name—sang it for an
encore at the concert of the Musicians' Club. She sang it well, too. She was a
queer girl," Leila laughed, "a little bit of a thing, with all the
air of a tragedy queen. And you should have heard how she sang that! You know
the words?"—she asked me over her shoulder:
"And because I,
too, am a lover,
And my love is far from me,
I hated the two on the sands there,
And the moon, and the sands, and the sea."
"And the moon, and the sands, and the sea," Dick
repeated. He rose, going to the window where Leila had stood, and looking
outward. When he faced us again he must have seen the worry in my eyes, for he
smiled at me with the old, endearing fondness and touched my hair lightly as he
passed.
"What was she like—the girl?" Standish asked, lighting
another cigarette.
"Oh, just ordinary and rather pretty. Big brown eyes that
seemed to be forever asking a question that no one could answer, and a little
pointed chin that she flung up when she sang." Dick Allport looked quickly
across at Burton, but Stan gave him no answering glance. He was staring at Leila
as she went on: "I don't believe I should have noticed her at all if she
hadn't come to me as I was leaving the hall. 'Are you Mrs. Standish Burton?'
she asked me. When I told her that I was, she stared me full in the face, then
walked off without another word. I wish that I could describe to you,
though, the scorn and contempt that blazed in her eyes. If I had been a singer
who had robbed her of her chance at Covent Garden, I could have understood. But
I'd never seen her before, and my singing wouldn't rouse the envy of a
crow!" She laughed light-heartedly over the recollection, then her face
clouded. "Do you know," she mused, "that I thought just now,
when the girl was singing on the street, that I should like to know that other
girl? There was something about her that I can't forget. She was the sort that
tries, and fails, and sinks. Some day, I'm afraid, she'll be singing on the
streets, and, if I ever hear her, I shall have a terrible thought that I might
have saved her from it, if only I had tried!"
"Better let her sort alone," Burton said, shortly. He
struck a match and relit his cigarette with a gesture of savage annoyance.
Leila looked at him in amazement, and Dick gave him a glance that seemed to
counsel silence. There was a hostility about the mood into which Standish
relapsed that seemed to bring in upon us some of the urgent sorrows of the city
outside, as if he had drawn aside a curtain to show us a world alien to the
place of beauty and of the making of beauty through which Leila moved. Even she
must have felt the import of his mood, for she let her hands fall on the keys
while Dick and I stared at each other before the shock of this crackle that
seemed to threaten the perfection of their happiness.
From Brompton came the boom of the bell for evensong. Down
Piccadilly ran the roar of the night traffic, wending a blithesome way to
places of pleasure. It was the hour when London was wont to awaken to the
thrill of its greatness, its power, its vastness, its strength, and its glory,
and to send down luminous lanes its carnival crowd of men and women. It was the
time when weltering misery shrank shrouded into merciful gloom; when the East
End lay far from our hearts; when poverty and sin and shame went skulking into
byways where we need never follow; when painted women held back in the shadows;
when the pall of night rested like a velvet carpet over the spaces of that
floor that, by daylight, gave glimpses into loathsome cellars of humanity. It
was, as it had been so often of late, an hour of serene beauty, that first hour
of darkness in a June night with the season coming to an end, an hour of dusk
to be remembered in exile or in age.
There should have come to us then the strains of an orchestra
floating in with the fragrance of gardenias from a vendor's basket, symbols of
life's call to us, luring us out beneath stars of joy. But, instead, the bell
of Brompton pealed out warningly over our souls, and, when its clanging died,
there drifted in the sound of a preaching voice.
Only phrases clattering across the darkness were the words from
beyond—resonant through the open windows: "The Cross is always ready, and
everywhere awaiteth thee.... Turn thyself upward, or turn thyself downward;
turn thyself inward, or turn thyself outward; everywhere thou shalt find the
Cross;... if thou fling away one Cross thou wilt find another, and perhaps a
heavier."
Like sibylline prophecy the voice of the unseen preacher struck
down on us. We moved uneasily, the four of us, as he cried out challenge to the
passing world before his voice went down before the surge of a hymn. Then, just
as the gay whirl of cars and omnibuses beat once more upon the pavements, and
London swung joyously into our hearts again, the bell of the telephone in the
hall rang out with a quivering jangle that brought Leila to her feet even as
Standish jumped to answer its summons.
She stood beside the piano as he gave answer to the call, watching
him as if she expected evil news. Dick, who had moved back into the shadow from
a lamp on the table, was staring with that same searching gaze he had bestowed
on her when she had lingered beside the window. I was looking at him, when a
queer cry from Standish whirled me around.
In the dim light of the hall he was standing with the instrument
in his hands, clutching it with the stupidity of a man who has been struck by
an unexpected and unexplainable missile. His face had gone to a grayish white,
and his hands trembled as he set the receiver on the hook. His eyes were
bulging from emotion and he kept wetting his lips as he stood in the doorway.
"What is it?" Leila cried. "What's happened, Stan?
Can't you tell me? What is it?"
Not to her, but to Dick Allport, he made answer. "Bessie Lowe
is dead!"
I saw Dick Allport's thunderstruck surprise before he arose. I saw
his glance go from Standish to Leila with a questioning that overrode all other
possible emotion in him. Then I saw him look at Burton as if he doubted his
sanity. His voice, level as ever, rang sharply across the other man's distraction.
"When did she die?" he asked him.
"Just now." He ran his hand over his hair, gazing at
Dick as if Leila and I were not there. "She—she killed herself down in the
Hotel Meynard."
"Why?" Leila's voice, hard with terror, snapped off the
word.
"She—she—I don't know." He stared at his wife as if he
had just become conscious of her presence. The grayness in his face deepened,
and his lips grew livid. Like a man condemned to death, he stared at the world
he was losing.
"Who is Bessie Lowe?" Leila questioned. "And why
have they called you to tell of her?" Her eyes blazed with a fire that
seemed about to singe pretense from his soul.
His hand went to his throat, and I saw Leila whiten. Her hand,
resting on the piano, trembled, but her face held immobile, although I knew
that all the happiness of the rest of her life hung upon his answer. On what
Standish Burton would tell her depended the years to come. In that moment I
knew that she loved him even as I loved Dick, even as women have always loved
and will always love the men whom fate had marked for their caring; and in
a sudden flash of vision I knew, too, that Burton, no matter what Bessie Lowe
or any other girl had ever been to him, worshiped his wife with an intensity of
devotion that would make all his days one long reparation for whatever wrong he
might have done her. I knew, though, that, if he had done the wrong, she would
never again be able to give him the eager love he desired, and I, too, an
unwilling spectator, waited on his words for his future, and Leila's; but his
voice did not make answer. It was Dick Allport who spoke.
"Bessie Lowe is a girl I used to care for," he said.
"She is the girl who sang at the Musicians' Club, the girl who spoke to
you. She heard that I was going to be married. She wanted me to come back to
her. I refused."
He was standing in the shadow, looking neither at Leila nor at me,
but at Standish Burton. Burton turned to him.
"Yes," he muttered thickly, "they told me to tell
you. They knew you'd be here."
"I see," said Leila. She looked at Standish and then at
Dick Allport, and there came into her eyes a queer, glazed stare that filmed
their brightness. "I am sorry that I asked questions, Mr. Allport, about
something that was nothing to me. Will you forgive me?"
"There is nothing to be forgiven," he said. He turned to
her and smiled a little. She tried to answer his smile, but a gasp came from
her instead.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, "so sorry for
her!"
It was Standish's gaze that brought to me sudden realization that
I, too, had a part in the drama. Until I found his steady stare on me I had
felt apart from the play that he and Dick and Leila were going through, but
with his urgent glare I awoke into knowledge that the message he had taken for
Dick held for me the same significance that Leila had thought it bore for her.
Like a stab from a knife came the thought that this girl—whoever she
was—had, in her dying, done what she had not done in life, taken Dick Allport
from me. There went over me numbing waves of a great sense of loss, bearing me
out on an ocean of oblivion. Against these I fought desperately to hold myself
somewhere near the shore of sensibility. As if I were beholding him from a
great distance, I could see Dick standing in the lamplight in front of Leila Burton.
Understanding of how dear he was to me, of how vitally part of me he had grown
in the years through which I had loved him—sometimes lightly, sometimes
stormily, but always faithfully—beaconed me inshore; and the plank of faith in
him, faith that held in itself something of forgiving charity, floated out to
succor my drowning soul. I moved across the room while Standish Burton kept his
unwinking gaze upon me, and Leila never looked up from the piano. I had come
beside Dick before he heard me.
He looked at me as if he had only just then remembered that I was
there. Into his eyes flashed a look of poignant remorse. He shrank back from me
a little as I touched his hand, and I turned to Leila, who had not stirred from
the place where she had listened to Standish's cry when he took the fateful
message. "We are going," I said, "to do what we can—for
her."
She moved then to look at me, and I saw that her eyes held not the
compassion I had feared, but a strange speculativeness, as if she questioned
what I knew rather than what I felt. Their contemplating quiet somehow
disturbed me more than had her husband's flashlight scrutiny, and with eyes
suddenly blinded and throat drawn tight with terror I took my way beside Dick
Allport out from the soft lights of the Burtons' house into the darkness of the
night.
Outside we paused a moment, waiting for a cab. For the first time
since he had told Leila of Bessie Lowe, Dick spoke to me. "I think,"
he said, "that it would be just as well if you didn't come."
"I must," I told him, "It isn't curiosity. You
understand that, don't you? It is simply that this is the time for me to stand
by you, if ever I shall do it, Dick."
"I don't deserve it." There was a break in his voice.
"But I shall try to, my dear. I can't promise you much, but I can promise
you that."
Down the brightness of Piccadilly into the fuller glow of Regent
Street we rode without speech. Somewhere below the Circus we turned aside and
went through dim cañons of houses that opened a way past the Museum and let us
into Bloomsbury. There in a wilderness of cheap hotels and lodging-houses we
found the Meynard.
A gas lamp was flaring in the hall when the porter admitted us. At
a desk set under the stairway a pale-faced clerk awaited us with staring
insolence that shifted to annoyance when Dick asked him if we might go to
Bessie Lowe's room. "No," he said, abruptly. "The officers won't
let any one in there. They've taken her to the undertaker's."
He gave us the location of the place with a scorn that sent us out
in haste. I, at least, felt a sense of relief that I did not have to go up to
the place where this unknown girl had thrown away the greatest gift. As we
walked through the poorly lighted streets toward the Tottenham Court Road I
felt for the first time a surge of that emotion that Leila Burton had voiced, a
pity for the dead girl. And yet, stealing a look at Dick as he walked onward
quietly, sadly, but with a dignity that lifted him above the sordidness of the
circumstances, I felt that I could not blame him as I should. It was London, I
thought, and life that had tightened the rope on the girl.
Strangely I felt a lightness of relief in the realization that the
catastrophe having come, was not really as terrible as it had seemed back there
in Leila's room. It was an old story that many women had conned, and since,
after all, Dick Allport was yet young, and my own, I condoned the sin for the
sake of the sinner; and yet, even as I held the thought close to my aching
heart, I felt that I was somehow letting slip from my shoulders the cross
that had been laid upon them, the cross that I should have borne, the burden of
shame and sorrow for the wrong that the man I loved had done to the girl who
had died for love of him.
The place where she lay, a gruesome establishment set in behind
that highway of reeking cheapness, the Tottenham Court Road, was very quiet
when we entered. A black-garbed man came to meet us from a room in which we saw
two tall candles burning. Dick spoke to him sharply, asking if any one had come
to look after the dead girl.
"No one with authority," the man whined—"just a
girl as lived with her off and on."
He stood, rubbing his hands together as Dick went into hurried
details with him, and I went past them into the room where the candles burned.
For an instant, as I stood at the door, I had the desire to run away from it
all, but I pulled myself together and went over to the place where lay the girl
they had called Bessie Lowe.
I had drawn back the sheet and was standing looking down at the white
face when I heard a sob in the room. I replaced the covering and turned to see
in the corner the shadowy form of a woman whose eyes blazed at me out of the
dark. While I hesitated, wondering if this were the girl who had lived
occasionally with Bessie Lowe, she came closer, staring at me with scornful
hate. Miserably thin, wretchedly nervous as she was, she had donned for the
nonce a mantle of dignity that she seemed to be trailing as she approached,
glaring at me with furious resentment. "So you thought as how you'd come
here," she demanded of me, her crimsoned face close to my own, "to
see what she was like, to see what sort of a girl had him before you took him
away from her? Well, I'll tell you something, and you can forget it or remember
it, as you like. Bessie Lowe was a good girl until she ran into him, and she'd
have stayed good, I tell you, if he'd let her alone. She was a fool, though,
and she thought that he'd marry her some day—and all the time he was only
waiting until you'd take him! You never think of our kind, do you, when you're
living out your lives, wondering if you care enough to marry the men who're
worshipping you while they're playing with us? Well, perhaps it won't be
anything to you, but, all the same, there's some kind of a God, and if He's
just He'll punish you when He punishes Standish Burton!"
"But I—" I gasped. "Did you think that I—?"
"Aren't you his wife?" She came near to me, peering at
me in the flickering candle-light. "Aren't you Standish Burton's
wife?"
"No," I said.
"Oh, well"—she shrugged—"you're her sort, and it'll
come to the same thing in the end."
She slouched back to the corner, all anger gone from her. Outside
I heard Dick's voice, low, decisive. Swiftly I followed the girl. "You
must tell me," I pleaded with her, "if she did it because of Standish
Burton."
"I thought everybody knew that," she said, "even
his wife. What's it to you, if you're not that?"
"Nothing," I replied, but I knew, as I stood where she
kept vigil with Bessie Lowe, that I lied. For I saw the truth in a
lightning-flash; and I knew, as I had not known when Dick perjured himself in
Leila's music-room, that I had come to the place of ultimate understanding, for
I realized that not a dead girl, but a living woman, had come between us. Not Bessie
Lowe, but Leila Burton, lifted the sword at the gateway of my paradise.
With the poignancy of a poisoned arrow reality came to me. Because
Dick had loved Leila Burton he had laid his bond with me on the altar of his
chivalry. For her sake he had sacrificed me to the hurt to which Standish would
not sacrifice her. And the joke of it—the pity of it was that she hadn't
believed them! But because she was Burton's wife, because it was too late for
facing of the truth, she had pretended to believe Dick; and she had known, she
must have known, that he had lied to her because he loved her.
The humiliation of that knowledge beat down on me, battering me
with such blows as I had not felt in my belief that Dick had not been true to
me in his affair with this poor girl. Her rivalry, living or dead, I could have
endured and overcome—for no Bessie Lowe could ever have won from Dick, as she
could never have given to him, that thing which was mine. But against Leila
Burton I could not stand, for she was of my world, of my own people, and the
crown a man would give to her was the one he must take from me.
There in that shabby place I buried my idols. Not I, but a power
beyond me, held the stone on which was written commandment for me. By the light
of the candles above Bessie Lowe I knew that I should not marry Dick Allport.
I found him waiting for me at the doorway. I think that he knew
then that the light of our guiding lantern had flickered out, but he said
nothing. We crossed the garishly bright road and went in silence through quiet
streets. Like children afraid of the dark we went through the strange ways of
the city, two lonely stragglers from the procession of love, who, with our own
dreams ended, saw clearer the world's wild pursuit of the fleeing vision.
We had wandered back into our own land when, in front of the
darkened Oratory and almost under the shadow of Leila Burton's home, there came
to us through the soft darkness the ominous plea that heralds summer into town.
Out of the shadows an old woman, bent and shriveled, leaned toward us.
"Get yer lavender tonight," she pleaded. "'Tis the first of the
crop, m'lidy."
"That means—" Dick Allport began as I paused to buy.
I fastened the sprigs at my belt, then looked up at the distant
stars, since I could not yet bear to look at him. "It means the end of the
season," I said, "when the lavender comes to London."
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