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diff --git a/39434-h/39434-h.htm b/39434-h/39434-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66c49bb --- /dev/null +++ b/39434-h/39434-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7960 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Vistas of New York, by Brander Matthews. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:4%;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;text-indent:0%;} + +.sans {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-size:50%; +font-family:sans-serif, serif;margin-top:5%; +margin-bottom:5%;} + +small {font-size: 70%;} + +.sml {font-size:80%} + + h2 {margin-top:5%;margin-bottom:2%;text-align:center;clear:both; + font-size:120%;} + + h3 {margin:3% auto 2% auto;text-align:center;clear:both; +font-size:110%;} + + hr.full {width: 50%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin-top:5%;margin-bottom:5%;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:95%;} + + img {border:none;} + +.blockquot {margin-top:2%;margin-bottom:3%;font-size:75%;} + +.blockquotlet {margin-top:3%;margin-bottom:3%; +margin-left:5%;margin-right:5%;} + +.caption {font-weight:bold; font-size:75%;} + +.figcenter {margin-top:5%;margin-bottom:3%; +margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.letra {float:left;clear:left;margin-left:0%; +margin-bottom:0%;margin-top:0%;margin-right:0%;padding:0%;} + +.poem {margin-left:25%;text-indent:0%;} + +.poem .stanza {margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom:1em;} + +.poem span.i0 {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + +.poem span.ist {display: block; margin-left: .3em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vistas of New York, by Brander Matthews + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Vistas of New York + +Author: Brander Matthews + +Release Date: April 12, 2012 [EBook #39434] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISTAS OF NEW YORK *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="360" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="image of the book's cover" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="front" id="front"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/frontis_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/frontis-sml.jpg" width="364" height="550" alt="See page 7 "WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM"" title="See page 7 "WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM"" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">See <a href="#page_007">page 7</a> “WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM”</span> +</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp_title_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp_title_sml.jpg" width="550" height="316" alt="Vistas +of +New York" title="Vistas +of +New York" /></a> +</p> + +<p class="cb">BY<br /> +BRANDER MATTHEWS<br /> +<small>AUTHOR OF<br /> +“VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN”<br /> +“OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR,” ETC.</small><br /> +<br /> +<small>ILLUSTRATED</small><br /> +<br /><br /> +<img src="images/colophon.jpg" width="75" height="92" alt="colophon" title="colophon" /> +<br /><br /> +<small>NEW YORK AND LONDON</small><br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br /> +1912</p> + +<p class="sans">COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS<br /> +———<br /> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> +PUBLISHED MARCH, 1912</p> + +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr valign="top"><td colspan="3" align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">I.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#A_Young_Man_from">A Young Man from the Country</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">II.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#On_the_Steps_of_the">On the Steps of the City Hall</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_035">35</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">III.</td><td> "<span class="smcap"><a href="#Sisters">Sisters Under Their Skins</a></span>"</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_055">55</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">IV.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Under_an_April_Sky">Under an April Sky</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_071">71</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">V.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#An_Idyl">An Idyl of Central Park</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_099">99</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">VI.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#In_a_Hansom">In a Hansom</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_123">123</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">VII.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Frog_that">The Frog that Played the Trombone</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_139">139</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">VIII.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#On_an">On an Errand of Mercy</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_159">159</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">IX.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#In_a_Bob-tail_Car">In a Bob-tail Car</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_177">177</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">X.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#In_the_Small_Hours">In the Small Hours</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_189">189</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">XI.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#Her_Letter">Her Letter to His Second Wife</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_205">205</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td align="right" valign="top">XII.</td><td> <span class="smcap"><a href="#The_Shortest">The Shortest Day in the Year</a></span></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_229">229</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">“WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM”</td><td colspan="2" align="right" class="sml"><a href="#front"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">“I’M SURE HE’D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY +DEAR;<br /> + SO YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG TOGETHER” </td><td align="center" class="sml" valign="bottom"><i>Facing p.</i></td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN +USUAL </td> <td align="center">"</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">“I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND +LOVED” </td> <td align="center">"</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_148">148</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">“MY! AIN’T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS +OFF!” </td> <td align="center">"</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_170">170</a></td></tr> + +<tr valign="top"><td class="sml">SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS </td> <td align="center">"</td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_226">226</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE</h2> + +<p>I<small>N</small> one of those romances in which Hawthorne +caught the color and interpreted the atmosphere of +his native New England, he declared that “destiny, +it may be, the most skillful of stage managers, seldom +chooses to arrange its scenes and carry forward its +drama without securing the presence of at least one +calm observer.” It is the character of this calm +observer that the writer has imagined himself to be +assuming in the dozen little sketches and stories +garnered here into a volume. They are snapshots or +flashlights of one or another of the shifting aspects +of this huge and sprawling metropolis of ours.</p> + +<p>In purpose and in method these episodes and these +incidents of the urban panorama are closely akin to +the experiments in story-telling which were gathered +a few years ago into the pair of volumes entitled +<i>Vignettes of Manhattan</i> and <i>Outlines in Local Color</i>. +The earliest of these stories in this third volume—replevined +here from another collection long out of +print—was written more than a quarter of a century +ago; and the latest of them first saw the light only +within the past few months. To each of the dozen +sketches the date of composition has been appended +as evidence that it was outlined in accord with the +actual fact at the time it came into being, even if +the metropolitan kaleidoscope has revolved so rapidly +that more than one of these studies from life now +records what is already ancient history. The bob-tailed +car, for example, is already a thing of the past; +the hansom is fast following it into desuetude; and no +longer is it the fashion for family parties to bicycle +through Central Park in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>Slight as these fleeting impressions may seem, this +much at least may be claimed for them—that they +are the result of an honest effort to catch and to fix +a vision of this mighty city in which the writer +has dwelt now for more than half a century.</p> + +<p class="r"> +B. M.<br /> +</p> + +<p><i>February 21, 1912.</i></p> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<p><a name="A_Young_Man_from" id="A_Young_Man_from"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp001_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp001_sml.jpg" width="550" height="419" alt="A Young Man from the Country" title="A Young Man from the Country" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Sept. 7, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp003.png"> +<img src="images/ilp003_sml.png" +class="letra" +width="80" +height="90" +alt="M" +title="M" +/></a>Y Dear Miriam,—For you are mine +now, all mine, and yet not so much as +you will be some day—soon, I hope. +You can’t guess how much bolder I feel +now that you are waiting for me. And +it won’t be so long that you will have to wait, either, +for I am going to make my way here. There’s lots +of young fellows come to New York from the country +with no better start than I’ve got, and they’ve died +millionaires. I’m in no hurry to die yet, not before +I’ve got the million, anyway; and I’m going to get it +if it can be got honestly and by hard work and by +keeping my eyes open. And when I get it, I’ll have +you to help me spend it.</p> + +<p>I came here all right last night, and this morning +I went down to the store with your father’s letter. +It’s an immense big building Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle +keep store in. Mr. Kiddle was busy when I asked +for him, but he saw me at last and he said anybody<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> +recommended by your father was sure to be just +the sort of clerk they wanted. So he turned me over +to one of his assistants and he set me to work at once. +As I’ve come from the country, he said, and know +what country people want, he’s put me in the department +where the storekeepers get their supplies. +It isn’t easy to get the hang of the work, there’s so +much noise and confusion; but when we quit at six +o’clock he said he thought I’d do. When night came +I was most beat out, I don’t mind telling you. It was +the noise mostly, I think. I’ve never minded noise +before, but here it is all around you all the time and +you can’t get away from it. Nights it isn’t so bad, +but it’s bad enough even then. And there isn’t a +let-up all day. It seems as though it kept getting +worse and worse; and at one time I thought there was +a storm coming or something had happened. But +it wasn’t anything but the regular roar they have here +every day, and none of the New-Yorkers noticed it, +so I suppose I shall get wonted to it sooner or +later.</p> + +<p>The crowd is 'most as bad as the noise. Of course, +I wasn’t green enough to think that there must be a +circus in town, but I came near it. Even on the side +streets here there’s as many people all day long as +there is in Auburnvale on Main Street when the +parade starts—and more, too. And they say it is just +the same every day—and even at night it don’t thin +out much. At supper this evening I saw a piece in<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> +the paper saying that summer was nearly over and +people would soon be coming back to town. I don’t +know where the town is going to put them, if they do +come, for it seems to me about as full now as it will +hold. How they can spend so much time in the +street, too, that puzzles me. My feet were tired out +before I had been down-town an hour. Life is harder +in the city than it is in the country, I see that already. +I guess it uses up men pretty quick, and I’m glad I’m +strong.</p> + +<p>But then I’ve got something to keep me up to the +mark; I’ve got a little girl up in Auburnvale who is +waiting for me to make my way. If I needed to be +hearted up, that would do it. I’ve only got to shut +my eyes tight and I can see you as you stood by +the door of the school-house yesterday as the cars +went by. I can see you standing there, so graceful +and delicate, waving your hand to me and making +believe you weren’t crying. I know, you are ever +so much too good for me; but I know, too, that +if hard work will deserve you, I shall put in that, +anyhow.</p> + +<p>It is getting late now and I must go out and post +this. I wish I could fold you in my arms again as I +did night before last. But it won’t be long before +I’ll come back to Auburnvale and carry you away +with me.</p> + +<p class="r"> +Your own<br /> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Sept. 16, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAREST</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—I would have written two or +three days ago, but when I’ve had supper I’m too +tired to think even. It isn’t the work at the store, +either. I’m getting on all right there, and I see how +I can make myself useful already. I haven’t been +living in Auburnvale all these years with my eyes +shut, and I’ve got an idea or two that I’m going to +turn to account. No, it’s just the city itself that’s so +tiring. It’s the tramp, tramp, tramp of the people +all the time, day and night, never stopping. And they +are all so busy always. They go tearing through the +streets with their faces set, just as if they didn’t know +anybody. And sometimes their mouths are working, +as if they were thinking aloud. They don’t +waste any time; they are everlastingly doing something. +For instance, I’ve an hour’s nooning; and I +go out and get my dinner in a little eating-house near +the rear of our store—ten cents for a plate of roast +beef; pretty thin the cut is, but the flavor is all right. +Well, they read papers while they are having their +dinner. They read papers in the cars coming down +in the morning, and they read papers in the cars going +up at night. They don’t seem to take any rest. +Sometimes I don’t believe they sleep nights. And +if they do, I don’t see how they can help walking in +their sleep.<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<p>I couldn’t sleep myself first off, but I’m getting to +now. It was the pressure of the place, the bigness of +it, and the roar all round me. I’d wake up with a +start, and, tired as I was, sometimes I wouldn’t get +to sleep again for half an hour.</p> + +<p>I’ve given up the place I boarded when I first come +and I’ve got a room all to myself in a side street just +off Fourth Avenue, between Union Square and the +depot. It’s a little bit of a house, only fifteen feet +wide, I guess. It’s two stories and a half, and I’ve +got what they call the front hall-bedroom on the top +floor. It’s teeny, but it’s clean and it’s comfortable. +It’s quiet, too. The lady who keeps the house is a +widow. Her husband was killed in the war, at +Gettysburg, and she’s got a pension. She’s only +one daughter and no son, so she takes three of us +young fellows to board. And I think I’m going to +like it.</p> + +<p>Of course, I don’t want to spend any more than +I have to, for I’ve got to have some money saved up +if I ever expect to do anything for myself. And the +sooner I can get started the sooner I can come back +and carry away Miriam Chace—Miriam Forthright, +as she will be then.</p> + +<p>It seems a long way off, sometimes, and I don’t +know that it wouldn’t be better to give up the idea +of ever being very rich. Then we could be married +just as soon as I get a raise, which I’m hoping for by +New Year’s, if I can show them that I am worth<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> +it. But I’d like to be rich for your sake, Miriam—very +rich, so that you could have everything you +want, and more too!</p> + +<p class="r"> +Your loving<br /> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Sept. 24, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>M<small>Y DEAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—I’m glad you don’t want me +to give up before I get to the top. I can’t see why +I shouldn’t succeed just as well as anybody else. You +needn’t think I’m weakening, either. I guess I was +longing for you when I wrote that about being satisfied +with what I’ll have if I get my raise.</p> + +<p>But what do you want to know about the people +in this house for? The landlady’s name is Janeway, +and she’s sixty or seventy, I don’t know which. As +for the daughter you’re so curious about, I don’t +see her much. Her name’s Sally—at least that’s +what her mother calls her. And I guess she’s forty +if she’s a day. She don’t pretty much, either. Her +hair is sort of sandy, and I don’t know what color +eyes she has. I never knew you to take such an +interest in folks before.</p> + +<p>You ask me how I like the people here—I suppose +you mean the New-Yorkers generally. Well, I guess +I shall get to like them in time. They ain’t as stuck +up as you’d think. That sassy way of theirs don’t<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> +mean anything half the time. They just mind their +own business and they haven’t got time for anything +else. They don’t worry their heads about anybody. +If you can keep up with the procession, that’s all +right; and they’re glad to see you. If you drop out +or get run over, that’s all right, too; and they don’t +think of you again.</p> + +<p>That’s one thing I’ve found out already. A man’s +let alone in a big city—ever so much more than he is +in a village. There isn’t anybody watching him here; +and his neighbors don’t know whether it’s baker’s +bread his wife buys or what. Fact is, in a big city a +man hasn’t any neighbors. He knows the boys in +the store, but he don’t know the man who lives next +door. That’s an extraordinary thing to say, isn’t it? +I’ve been in this house here for a fortnight and I +don’t even know the names of the folks living opposite. +I don’t know them by sight, and they don’t +know me. The man who sleeps in the next house on +the other side of the wall from me—he’s got a bad +cold, for I can hear him cough, but that’s all I know +about him. And he don’t know me, either. We may +be getting our dinners together every day down-town +and we’ll never find out except by accident that we +sleep side by side with only a brick or two between us. +It’s thinking of things like that that comes pretty +near making me feel lonely sometimes; and I won’t +deny that there’s many a night when I’ve wished +I had only to go down street to see the welcome light<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> +of your father’s lamp—and to find Somebody Else +who was glad to see me, even if she did sometimes +fire up and make it hot for me just because I’d +been polite to some other girl.</p> + +<p>If you were only here you’d have such lots of sharp +things to say about the sights, for there’s always +something going on here. Broadway beats the circus +hollow. New York itself is the Greatest Show on +Earth. You’d admire to see the men, all handsomed +up, just as if they were going to meeting; and you’d +find lots of remarks to pass about the women, dressed +up like summer boarders all the time. And, of course, +they are summer boarders really—New York is where +the summer boarders come from. When they are +up in Auburnvale they call us the Natives—down +here they call us Jays. Every now and then on the +street here I come across some face I seem to recognize, +and when I trace it up I find it’s some summer +boarder that’s been up in Auburnvale. Yesterday, +for instance, in the car I sat opposite a girl I’d seen +somewhere—a tall, handsome girl with rich golden +hair. Well, I believe it was that Miss Stanwood +that boarded at Taylor’s last June—you know, the +one you used to call the Gilt-Edged Girl.</p> + +<p>But the people here don’t faze me any more. +I’m going in strong; and I guess I’ll come out on +top one of these fine days. And then I’ll come back +to Auburnvale and I’ll meet a brown-haired girl +with dark-brown eyes—and I’ll meet her in church<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> +and her father will marry us! Then we’ll go away +in the parlor-car to be New-Yorkers for the rest of +our lives and to leave the Natives way behind us.</p> + +<p>I don’t know but it’s thinking of that little girl +with the dark-brown eyes that makes me lonelier +sometimes. Here’s my love to her.</p> + +<p class="r"> +Your own<br /> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Oct. 7, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—You mustn’t think that I’m lonely +every day. I haven’t time to be lonely generally. +It’s only now and then nights that I feel as if I’d +like to have somebody to talk to about old times. +But I don’t understand what you mean about this +Miss Stanwood. I didn’t speak to her in the car that +day, and I haven’t seen her since. You forget that +I don’t know her except by sight. It was you who +used to tell me about the Gilt-Edged Girl, and her +fine clothes and her city ways, and all that.</p> + +<p>This last week I’ve been going to the Young Men’s +Christian Association, where there’s a fine library and +a big reading-room with all sorts of papers and +magazines—I never knew there were so many before. +It’s going to be a great convenience to me, that +reading-room is, and I shall try to improve myself +with the advantages I can get there. But whenever<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> +I’ve read anything in a magazine that’s at all good, +then I want to talk it over with you as we used to do. +You know so much more about books and history +than I do, and you always make me see the fine side +of things. I’m afraid my appreciation of the ideal +needs to be cultivated. But you are a good-enough +ideal for me; I found that out ages ago, and it didn’t +take me so very long, either. You weren’t meant to +teach school every winter; and it won’t be so very +many winters before you will be down here in New +York keeping house for a junior partner in Fassiter, +Smith & Kiddle—or some firm just as big.</p> + +<p>I can write that way to you, Miriam, but I +couldn’t say anything like that down at the store. +It isn’t that they’d jeer at me, though they would, of +course—because most of them haven’t any ambition +and just spend their money on their backs, or on the +races, or anyhow. No, I haven’t the confidence these +New-Yorkers have. Why, I whisper to the car conductors +to let me off at the corner, and I do it as +quietly as I can, for I don’t want them all looking at +me. But a man who was brought up in the city, +he just glances up from his paper and says “Twenty-third!” +And probably nobody takes any notice of +him, except the conductor. I wonder if I’ll ever be +so at home here as they are.</p> + +<p>Even the children are different here. They have +the same easy confidence, as though they’d seen +everything there was to see long before they were<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> +born. But they look worn, too, and restless, for all +they take things so easy.</p> + +<p>You ask if I’ve joined a church yet. Well, I +haven’t. I can’t seem to make up my mind. I’ve +been going twice every Sunday to hear different +preachers. There’s none of them with the force of +your father—none of them as powerful as he is, either +in prayer or in preaching. I’m going to Dr. Thurston’s +next Sunday; he’s got some of the richest men +in town in his congregation.</p> + +<p>There must be rich men in all the churches I’ve +been to, for they’ve got stained-glass windows, and +singers from the opera, they say, at some of them. +I haven’t heard anybody sing yet whose voice is as +sweet as a little girl’s I know—a little bit of a girl +who plays the organ and teaches in Sunday-school—and +who doesn’t know how much I love her.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Oct. 14, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—Yes, it is a great comfort to me +always to get your bright letters, so full of hope and +love and strength. You are grit, clear through, and +I’m not half good enough for you. Your last letter +came Saturday night; and that’s when I like to get +them, for Sunday is the only day I have time to be +lonely.<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a></p> + +<p>I go to church in the forenoon and in the evening +again; in the afternoon I’ve been going up to Central +Park. There’s a piece of woods there they call the +Ramble, and I’ve found a seat on a cobble up over the +pond. The trees are not very thrifty, but they help +me to make believe I am back in Auburnvale. +Sometimes I go into the big Museum there is in the +Park, not a museum of curiosities, but full of pictures +and statuary, ever so old some of it, and very peculiar. +Then I wish for you more than ever, for that’s the sort +of thing you’d be interested in and know all about.</p> + +<p>Last Sunday night I went to Dr. Thurston’s church, +and I thought of you as soon as the music began. I +remember you said you did wish you were an organist +in a Gothic church where they had a pipe-organ. +Well, the organ at Dr. Thurston’s would just suit +you, it’s so big and deep and fine. And you’d like +the singing, too; it’s a quartet, and the tenor is a +German who came from the Berlin opera; they say +he gets three thousand dollars a year just for singing +on Sunday.</p> + +<p>But I suppose it pays them to have good voices +like his, for the church was crowded; and even if some +of the congregation came for the music, they had +to listen to Dr. Thurston’s sermon afterward. And +it was a very good sermon, indeed—almost as good +as one of your father’s, practical and chockful of +common sense. And Dr. Thurston isn’t afraid of +talking right out in meeting, either. He was speaking<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> +of wealth and he said it had to be paid for just like +anything else, and that many a man buys his fortune +at too high a price, especially if he sacrifices for it +either health or character. And just in front of him +sat old Ezra Pierce, one of the richest men in the city—and +one of the most unscrupulous, so they say. +He’s worth ten or twenty millions at least; I was up +in the gallery and he was in the pew just under me, +so I had a good look at him. I wonder how it must +feel to be as rich as all that.</p> + +<p>And who do you suppose was in the pew just +across the aisle from old Pierce? Nobody but the +Gilt-Edged Girl, as you call her, that Miss Stanwood. +So you see it’s a small world even in a big city, and +we keep meeting the same people over and over again.</p> + +<p>I rather think I shall go to Dr. Thurston’s regularly +now. I like to belong to a church and not feel like +a tramp every Sunday morning. Dr. Thurston is +the most attractive preacher I’ve heard yet, and the +music there is beautiful.</p> + +<p>I don’t suppose I shall ever be as rich as old Ezra +Pierce, although I don’t see why not, but if ever I +am really rich I’ll have a big house, with a great big +Gothic music-room, with a pipe-organ built in one +end of it. I guess I could get Some One to play +on it for me when I come home evenings tired out +with making money down-town. I wonder if she +guesses how much I love her?</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Oct. 28, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—Your account of your rehearsal +of the choir was very amusing. I’m glad you are +having such a good time. But then you always could +make a good story out of anything. You must have +had a hard job managing the choir, and smoothing +them down, and making them swallow their little +jealousies. I wish I had half your tact. I can sell +a man a bill of goods now about as well as any of +the clerks in the store; but if I could rub them down +gently as you handle the soprano and the contralto, +I’d be taken into the firm inside of two years.</p> + +<p>And I never wished for your tact and your skill in +handling children more than I did last Sunday. +I wrote you I’d made up my mind to go to Dr. +Thurston’s, and last Sunday he called for teachers for +the Sunday-school. So I went up and they gave +me a class of street boys, Italians, some of them, and +Swedes. They’re a tough lot, and I guess that some +of them are going to drop by the wayside after the +Christmas tree. I had hard work to keep order, but +I made them understand who was the master before +I got through. All the English they know they pick +up from the gutter, I should say; and yet they want +books to take home. So I told them if they behaved +themselves all through the hour I’d go to the library +with them to pick out a book for each of them. They<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> +don’t call it a book, either—they say, “Give me a +good library, please.”</p> + +<p>And what do you suppose happened when I took +them all up to the library desk? Well, I found that +the librarian was the tall girl you call the Gilt-Edged. +It is funny how I keep meeting her, isn’t it? I was +quite confused at first; but of course she didn’t know +me and she couldn’t guess that you used to make fun +of her. So she was just businesslike and helped me +pick out the books for the boys.</p> + +<p>Considering the hard times, we have been doing a +big business down at the store. Two or three nights +a week now I’ve had to stay down till ten. We get +extra for this, and I don’t mind the work. By degrees +I’m getting an insight into the business. But there +isn’t any short cut to a fortune that I can see. There’s +lots of hard work before me and lots of waiting, too—and +it’s the waiting for you I mind the most.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Nov. 4, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—I was beginning to wonder what +the matter was when I didn’t have a letter for a week +and more. And now your letter has come, I don’t +quite make it out. You write only a page and a half; +and the most of that is taken up with asking about +Miss Stanwood.<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a></p> + +<p>Yes, I see her Sundays, of course, and she is always +very pleasant. Indeed, I can’t guess what it is that +you have against her or why it is you are always +picking at her. I feel sure that she doesn’t dye her +hair, but I will look at the roots as you suggest and +see if it’s the same color there. Her name is Hester—I’ve +seen her write it in the library cards. Her +father is very rich, they say—at least he’s president +of a railroad somewhere down South.</p> + +<p>She strikes me as a sensible girl, and I think you +would like her if you knew her. She has helped me +to get the right kind of books into the hands of the +little Italians and other foreigners I have to teach. +Most Sunday-school books are very mushy, I think, +and I don’t believe it’s a healthy moral when the +good boy dies young. Miss Stanwood says that +sometimes when one of my scholars takes home a +book it is read by every member of the family who +knows how to read, and they all talk it over. So +it’s very important to give them books that will +help to make good Americans of them. She got her +father to buy a lot of copies of lives of Washington +and Franklin and Lincoln. They are not specially +religious, these books, but what of it? Miss Stanwood +says she thinks we must all try first of all to make +men of these rough boys, to make them manly, and +then they’ll be worthy to be Christians. She is +thinking not only of the boys themselves, but of the +parents too, and of the rest of the family; and she<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> +says that a little leaven of patriotism suggested by +one of these books may work wonders. But you are +quite right in saying that I’m not as lonely as I was a +month ago. Of course not, for I’m getting used to +the bigness of the place and the noise no longer wears +on me. Besides, I’ve found out that the New-Yorkers +are perfectly willing to be friendly. They’ll meet +you half-way always, not only in the church, but even +down-town, too. I ain’t afraid of them any more, and +I can tell a conductor to let me out at the corner now +without wishing to go through the floor of the car. +Fact is, I’ve found out how little importance I am. +Up at Auburnvale people knew me; I was old John +Forthright’s only son; I was an individual. Here in +New York I am nobody at all, and everybody is perfectly +willing to let me alone. I think I like it better +here; and before I get through I’ll force these New-Yorkers +to know me when they see me in the street—just +as they touch each other now and whisper +when they pass old Ezra Pierce.</p> + +<p>Write soon and tell me there’s nothing the matter +with you. I’m all right and I’d send you my love—but +you got it all already.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Nov. 16, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—I asked you to write me soon, and +yet you’ve kept me waiting ten days again. Even<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> +now your letter has come I can’t seem to get any +satisfaction out of it. I have never known you to +write so stiffly. Is there anything the matter? Are +you worried at home? Is your mother sick or your +father?</p> + +<p>I wish I could get away for a week at Thanksgiving +to run up and see you. But we are kept pretty busy +at the store. There isn’t one of the firm hasn’t got +his nose down to the grindstone, and that’s where +they keep ours. That’s how they’ve made their +money; it’s all good training for me, of course.</p> + +<p>All the same I’d like to be with you this Thanksgiving, +even if it isn’t as beautiful a day as last +Thanksgiving was. I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed +a dinner as I did your mother’s that night, but I +guess it wasn’t the turkey I liked so much or the +pumpkin pie, but the welcome I got and the sight of +the girl who sat opposite to me and who wouldn’t tell +me what she had wished for when we pulled the wishbone. +I think it was only that morning in church +when I looked across and saw you at the organ that +I found out I had been in love with you for a long +while. You were so graceful, as you sat there and the +sunlight came down on your beautiful brown hair, +that I wanted to get up and go over on the spot +and tell you I loved you. Then at dinner your fiery +eyes seemed to burn right into me, and I wondered if +you could see into my heart that was just full of love +of you.<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a></p> + +<p>It is curious, isn’t it, that I didn’t get a chance +to tell you all these things for nearly six months? +I don’t know how it was, but first one thing and then +another made me put off asking you. I was afraid, +too. I dreaded to have you say you didn’t care for +me. And you were always so independent with me. +I couldn’t guess what your real feelings were. Then +came that day in June when I mustered up courage +at last! Since then I’ve been a different man—a +better man, I hope, too.</p> + +<p>But I don’t know why I should write you this way +in answer to a letter of yours that was too short +almost to be worth the postage!</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Dec. 2, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—You don’t know how much good +it did me to get your long letter last week. You +wrote just like your old self—just like the dear little +girl you are! I was beginning to wonder what had +come over you. I thought you had changed somehow, +and I couldn’t understand it.</p> + +<p>Of course, I wished I was in Auburnvale on Thanksgiving. +I’d like to have seen you sitting in the seats +and singing with your whole soul; and I’d have liked +to hear your father preach one of his real inspiring +sermons that lift up the heart of man.<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a></p> + +<p>To be all alone here in New York was desolate—and +then it rained all the afternoon, too. It didn’t +seem a bit like a real Thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>I went to church, of course, but I didn’t think +Dr. Thurston rose to the occasion. He didn’t tell +us the reasons why we ought to be grateful as strongly +as your father did last year.</p> + +<p>Coming out of church it had just begun to rain, +and so there was a crowd around the doors. As I +was just at the foot of the stairs I tripped over Miss +Stanwood’s dress. I tell you it made me uncomfortable +when I heard it tear. But these New York +girls have the pleasantest manners. She didn’t even +frown. She smiled and introduced me to her father, +who seemed like a nice old gentleman. He was very +friendly, too, and we stood there chatting for quite +a while until the crowd thinned out.</p> + +<p>He said that if I really wanted to understand some +of the Sunday-school lessons I ought to go to the +Holy Land, since there are lots of things there that +haven’t changed in two thousand years. He’s been +there and so has his daughter. He brought back ever +so many photographs, and he’s asked me to drop in +some evening and look at them, as it may help me +in making the boys see things clearly. It was very +kind of him, wasn’t it? I think I shall go up some +night next week.</p> + +<p>I’ve been here nearly three months now, and Mr. +Stanwood’s will be the first private house I shall<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> +have been to—and in Auburnvale I knew everybody +and every door was open to me. I feel it will be a +real privilege to see what the house of a rich man +like Mr. Stanwood is like. I’ll write you all about it.</p> + +<p>And some day I’ll buy you a house just as fine as +his. That some day seems a long way off, sometimes, +don’t it?</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Dec. 4, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—You have never before answered so +promptly, and so I write back the very day I get your +letter.</p> + +<p>I begin by saying I don’t understand it—or at +least I don’t want to understand it. You ask me not +to accept Mr. Stanwood’s invitation. Now that’s +perfectly ridiculous, and you know it is. Why +shouldn’t I go to Mr. Stanwood’s house if he asks +me? He’s a rich man, and very influential, and has +lots of friends. He’s just the kind of man it’s very +useful for me to know. You ought to be able to see +that. I’ve got to take advantage of every chance I +get. If I ever start in business for myself, it will +be very helpful if I could find a man like Mr. Stanwood +who might be willing to put in money as a +special partner.</p> + +<p>Fact is, I’m afraid you are jealous. That’s what<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> +I don’t like to think. But it seems to me I can see +in your letter just the kind of temper you were in last +Fourth of July when I happened to get in conversation +with Kitty Parsons. Your eyes flashed then and +there was a burning red spot on your cheeks, and I +thought I’d never seen you look so pretty. But I +knew you hadn’t any right to be mad clear through. +And you were then, as you are now. I hadn’t done +anything wrong then, and I’m not going to do anything +wrong now. Jealousy is absurd, anyhow, and +it’s doubly absurd in this case! You know how much +I love you—or you ought to know it. And you +ought to know that a rich man like Mr. Stanwood +isn’t going to ask a clerk in Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle’s +up to his house just on purpose to catch a husband +for his daughter.</p> + +<p>I guess I’ve got a pretty good opinion of myself. +You told me once I was dreadfully stuck up—it was +the same Fourth of July you said it, too. But I’m +not conceited enough to think that a New York girl +like Miss Stanwood would ever look at me. I don’t +trot in her class. And a railroad president isn’t so +hard up for a son-in-law that he has to pick one up +on the church steps. So you needn’t be alarmed +about me.</p> + +<p>But if it worries you I’ll go some night this week +and get it over. Then I’ll write you all about it. +I guess there’s lots of things in Mr. Stanwood’s house +you would like to see.<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> + +<p>So sit down and write me a nice letter soon, and get +over this jealousy as quick as you can. It isn’t +worthy of the little girl I love so much.</p> + +<p class="r"> +Your only<br /> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Dec. 9, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—I haven’t had a line from you since +I wrote you last, but according to promise I write at +once to tell you about my visit to the Stanwoods.</p> + +<p>I went there last night. They live on the top of +Murray Hill, just off Madison Avenue. It’s a fine +house, what they call a four-story, high-stooped, +brownstone mansion. The door was opened by a +man in a swallow-tail coat, and he showed me into the +sitting-room, saying they hadn’t quite finished dinner +yet—and it was almost eight o’clock! That shows +you how different things are here in New York, don’t +it? The sitting-room was very handsome, with +satin furniture, and hand-painted pictures on the +walls, and a blazing soft-coal fire. There were magazines +and books on the center-table, some of them +French.</p> + +<p>In about ten minutes they came in, Mr. Stanwood +and his daughter; and they begged my pardon for +keeping me waiting. Then Mr. Stanwood said he +was sorry but he had to attend a committee meeting<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> +at the club. Of course, I was for going, too, but he +said to Hester—that’s Miss Stanwood’s name; pretty, +isn’t it?—she’d show me the photographs. So he +stayed a little while and made me feel at home and +then he went.</p> + +<p>He’s a widower, and his daughter keeps house for +him; but I guess housekeeping’s pretty easy if +you’ve got lots of money and don’t care how fast you +spend it. I felt a little awkward, I don’t mind +telling you, in that fine room, but Miss Stanwood +never let on if she saw it, and I guess she did, for she’s +pretty sharp, too. She sent for the photographs; and +she gave me a wholly new idea of the Holy Land, and +she told me lots of things about their travels abroad. +When you called her the Gilt-Edged Girl I suppose +you thought she was stiff and stuck up. But she +isn’t—not a bit. She’s bright, too, and she was very +funny the way she took off the people they’d met +on the other side. She isn’t as good a mimic as you, +perhaps, but she can be very amusing. She’s very +well educated, I must say; she’s read everything and +she’s been everywhere. In London two years ago +she was presented to the Queen—it was the Princess +of Wales, really, but she stood for the Queen—and +she isn’t set up about it either.</p> + +<p>So I had an enjoyable evening in spite of my +being so uncomfortable; and when Mr. Stanwood +came back and I got up to go, he asked me to come +again.<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p> + +<p>Now I’ve told you everything, as I said I would, so +that you can judge for yourself how fortunate in +having made friends in a house like Mr. Stanwood’s. +You can’t help seeing that, I’m sure.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Dec. 18, 1894.<br /> +</p> + +<p>M<small>Y DEAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—What is the matter with you? +What have I done to offend you? You keep me +waiting ten days for a letter, and then when it comes +it’s only four lines and it’s cold and curt; and there +isn’t a word of love in it.</p> + +<p>If it means you are getting tired of me and want +to break off, say so right out, and I’ll drop everything +and go up to Auburnvale on the first train and make +love to you all over again and just insist on your +marrying me. You needn’t think I’ve changed. +Distance don’t make any difference to me. If anybody’s +changed it’s you. I’m just the same. I love +you as much as ever I did; more, too, I guess. Why, +what would I have to look forward to in life if I +didn’t have you?</p> + +<p>Now, I simply can’t stand the way you have been +treating me.</p> + +<p>First off I thought you might be jealous, but I +knew I couldn’t give you any cause for that, so I saw +that wasn’t it. The only thing I can think of is<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +that separation is a strain on you. I know it is on +me, but I felt I just had to stand it. And if I could +stand it when what I wanted was you, well, I guessed +you could stand it when all you had to do without +was me.</p> + +<p>Now, I tell you what I’ll do, if you say so. I’ll +drop everything here and give up trying. What’s +the use of a fortune to me if I don’t have you to share +it with me? Of course, I’d like to be rich some day, +but that’s because I want you to have money and to +hold your own with the best of them. Now, you +just say the word and I’ll quit. I’ll throw up my +job with Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle, though they are +going to give me a raise at New Year’s. Mr. Smith +told me yesterday. I’ll quit and I’ll go back to +Auburnvale for the rest of my life. I don’t care if +it is only a little country village—<i>you</i> live in it, and +that’s enough for me. I’ll clerk in the store, if I can +get the job there, or I’ll farm it, or I’ll do anything +you say. Only you must tell me plainly what it is +you want. What I want most in the world is you!</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Jan. 1, 1895.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAREST</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—That was a sweet letter you +wrote me Christmas—just the kind of letter I hope +you will always write.<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a></p> + +<p>And so you have decided that I’m to stay here +and work hard and make a fortune and you will +wait for me and you won’t be cold to me again. +That’s the way I thought you would decide; and +I guess it’s the decision that’s best for both of +us.</p> + +<p>What sets me up, too, is your saying you may be +able to come down here for a little visit. Come as +soon as you can. If the friend you’re going to stay +with is really living up at One Hundredth Street, +she’s a long way off, but that won’t prevent my +getting up to see you as often as I can.</p> + +<p>I shall like to show you the town and take you to +see the interesting places. It will amuse me to +watch the way you take things here. You’ll find out +that Auburnvale is a pretty small place, after you’ve +seen New York.</p> + +<p>Of course, you’ll come to Dr. Thurston’s on Sunday +with me. I wonder if you wouldn’t like to help in +the Sunday-school library while you are in town? +Mr. Stanwood’s going down to Florida to see about +his railroad there, and he’s to take his daughter +with him, so there’s nobody to give out books on +Sunday.</p> + +<p>But no matter about that, so long as you come +soon. You know who will be waiting for you on the +platform, trying to get a sight of you again after all +these months.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, Feb. 22, 1895.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—Do be reasonable! That’s all I +ask. Don’t get excited about nothing! I confess +I don’t understand you at all. I’ve heard of women +carrying on this way, but I thought <i>you</i> had more +sense! You can’t think how you distress me.</p> + +<p>After a long month in town here, when I’d +seen you as often as I could and three or four times +a week most always, suddenly you break out as you +did yesterday after church; and then when I go +to see you this evening you’ve packed up and gone +home.</p> + +<p>Now, what had I done wrong yesterday? I can’t +see. After Sunday-school you were in the library +and Miss Stanwood came in unexpectedly, just back +from Florida. I introduced you to her, and she was +very pleasant indeed. She wouldn’t have been if +she’d known how you made fun of her and called her +the Gilt-Edged and all that—but then she didn’t +know. She was very friendly to you and said she +hoped you were to be in town all winter, since Auburnvale +must be so very dull. Well, it <i>is</i> dull, and you +know it, so you needn’t have taken offense at that. +Then she said the superintendent had asked her to +get up a show for the Sunday-school—a sort of magic-lantern +exhibition of those photographs of the Holy +Land, and she wanted to know if I wouldn’t help her.<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> +Of course, I said I would, and then you said the library +was very hot and wouldn’t I come out at once.</p> + +<p>And when we got out on the street you forbid my +having anything to do with the show. Now, that’s +what I call unreasonable; and I’m sure you will say +so, too, when you’ve had time to think it over. And +why have you run away, so that I can’t talk things +over with you quietly and calmly?</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, March 3, 1895.<br /> +</p> + +<p>M<small>Y DEAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—Your letter is simply absurd. +You say you “don’t believe in that Miss +Stanwood,” and you want me to promise never to +speak to her again. Now you can’t mean that. It +is too ridiculous. I confess you puzzle me more and +more. I don’t pretend to understand women, but +you go beyond anything I ever heard of. What you +ask is unworthy of you; it’s unworthy of me. It’s +more—it’s unchristian.</p> + +<p>But I’ll do what I can to please you. Since you +have taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, +I’ll agree not to go to her house again—although that +will be very awkward if Mr. Stanwood asks me, won’t +it? However, I suppose I can trump up some excuse. +I’ll agree not to go to her house, I say; but of course, +I’ve got to be polite to her when I meet her in the<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> +Sunday-school—that is, unless you want me to give +up the Sunday-school, too! And I’ve got to help in +the show for the boys and girls. To give up now +after I’ve said I would, that would make me feel as +mean as pusley. Besides, that show is going to +attract a great deal of attention. All the prominent +people in the church are going to come to it—people +you don’t know, of course, but high-steppers, all of +them. It wouldn’t really be fair to back out +now.</p> + +<p>Now that’s what I’ll do. I’ll meet you half-way. +Since you seem to have taken such a violent dislike +to Miss Stanwood, for no reason at all that I can see—excepting +jealousy, and that’s out of the question, of +course—but since you don’t like her, I’ll agree not to +go to her house again. But I must go on with the +photographs, and I can’t help passing the time of day +when I meet her on Sunday in the library.</p> + +<p>Will that satisfy you?</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, March 17, 1895.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAR</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—It’s two weeks now since I wrote +you in answer to your letter saying you would break +off our engagement unless I promised never to speak +to Miss Stanwood again—and you have never sent +me a line since. You seemed to think I cared for<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> +her—but I don’t. How could I care for any other +girl, loving you as I do? Besides, even if I did care +for her, I’d have to get over it now—since she is +going to marry an officer in the navy. The wedding +is set for next June, and then he takes her with him +to Japan. For all you are so jealous of her, I think +she is a nice girl and I hope she will be happy.</p> + +<p>And I want to be happy, too—and I’ve been miserable +ever since I got that letter of yours, so cold and so +hard. I don’t see how a little bit of a girl like you can +hold so much temper! But I love you in spite of it, +and I don’t believe I’d really have you different if +I could. So sit right down as soon as you get this +and write me a good long letter, forgiving me for all +I haven’t done and saying you still love me a little +bit. You do, don’t you, Miriam? And if you do +what’s the use of our waiting ever so long? Why +shouldn’t we be married in June, too?</p> + +<p>I’m getting on splendidly in the store and guess I’ll +get another raise soon; and even now I have enough +for two, if you are willing to start in with a little flat +somewhere up in Harlem. We’d have to try light +housekeeping at first, maybe, and perhaps table-board +somewhere. But I don’t care what I eat or +where I eat if only I can have you sitting at the table +with me. Say you will, Miriam dear, say you will! +There’s no use in our putting it off and putting it off +till we’ve both got gray hair, is there?</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a></p> + +<h3>XVII</h3> + +<p class="r"> +N<small>EW</small> Y<small>ORK</small>, March 19, 1895.<br /> +</p> + +<p>D<small>EAREST</small> M<small>IRIAM</small>,—You don’t know how happy +your letter has made me. I felt sure you would get +over your tantrums sooner or later. Now you are +my own little girl again, and soon you’ll be my own +little wife!</p> + +<p>But why must we put it off till June? The store +closes on Decoration Day, you know, and I guess I +can get the firm to let me have a day or two. So make +it May 30th, won’t you?—and perhaps we can take +that trip to Niagara as you said you’d like to.</p> + +<p class="r"> +J<small>ACK</small>.<br /> +</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1895)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a></p> + +<p><a name="On_the_Steps_of_the" id="On_the_Steps_of_the"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp035_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp035_sml.jpg" width="550" height="411" alt="On the Steps of the City Hall" title="On the Steps of the City Hall" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp037.png"> +<img src="images/ilp037_sml.png" +width="85" +height="88" +class="letra" +alt="A" +title="A" +/></a> thin inch of dusty snow littered the +frozen grass-plots surrounding the municipal +buildings, and frequent scurries +of wind kept swirling it again over the +concrete walks whence it had been swept. +The February sun—although it was within an hour +of noon—could not break through the ashen clouds +that shut out the sky.</p> + +<p>It was a depressing day, and yet there was no +relaxation of energy in the men who were darting here +and there eagerly, each intent on his errand, with eyes +fixed on the goal and with lips set in stern determination. +As Curtis Van Dyne thrust himself through +the throng on the Broadway sidewalk, leaving the +frowning Post-office behind him, and passing before +the blithe effigy of Nathan Hale, he almost laughed +aloud as it suddenly struck him how incongruous it +was that a statue of a man who had gladly died for +his country should be stuck there between two buildings +filled with men who were looking to their country, +to the nation or to the city, to provide them with a living. +But he was in no mood for laughter, even saturnine; +and if anything could have aroused his satire, +it would have been not a graven image, but himself.<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>He was in the habit of having a good opinion of +himself, and he clung to his habits, especially to this +one. Yet he was then divided between self-pity and +self-contempt. For a good reason, so it seemed to +him—and he was pleased to be able to think that it +was an unselfish reason—he was going to take a step +he did not quite approve of. He went all over the +terms of the situation again as he turned from Broadway +toward the City Hall; and the pressure of +circumstances as he saw them brought him again to +the same conclusion. Then he resolved not to let +himself be worried by his own decision; if it was for +the best, then there was no sense in not making the +best of it.</p> + +<p>So intent was he on his own thought that he did +not observe the expectant smile of an older man who +was walking across the park in front of the City Hall, +and who slackened his gait, supposing that the young +lawyer would greet him.</p> + +<p>When Van Dyne passed on unseeing, the other +man waited for a second and then called, +“Curtis!”</p> + +<p>The young man had already begun to mount the +steps. He turned sharply, as though any conversation +would then be unwelcome, but when he saw who +had hailed him he smiled cheerfully and held out his +hand cordially.</p> + +<p>“Why, Judge,” he began, “I didn’t know you + were home again! I’m glad you are better. They<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> +told me you might have to go away for the rest of the +winter.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what they told me, too,” answered Judge +Jerningham; “and I told them I wouldn’t go. I’m +paid for doing my work here, and I don’t intend to +shirk it. I expect to take my seat again next week.”</p> + +<p>There was a striking contrast between the two +men as they stood there on the steps of the City Hall. +Judge Jerningham was nearly sixty; he had a stalwart +frame, almost to be called stocky; his black +hair was grizzled only, and his full beard was only +streaked with white. He had large, dark eyes, deep-set +under cavernous brows. His clothes fitted him +loosely, and, although not exactly out of style, they +were not to be called modish in either cut or material. +Curtis Van Dyne was full thirty years younger; he +was fair and slight, and he wore a drooping mustache. +He was dressed with obvious care, and his garments +suited him. He looked rather like a man of fashion +than like a young fellow who had his way to make +at the bar.</p> + +<p>“By the way,” said the Judge, after a little pause, +which gave Van Dyne time to wonder why it was +that the elder man had called him—“by the way, +how is your sister? I saw her in church on Sunday, +and she looked a little pale and peaked, I thought.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Martha’s all right,” the young man answered, +briskly. “Aunt Mary attends to that.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know what struck me on Sunday as I<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> +looked at Martha?” asked the Judge. “It was her +likeness to her mother at the same age.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Van Dyne replied, “Aunt Mary says +Martha’s very like mother as a girl.”</p> + +<p>“And your mother was never very hearty,” pursued +the Judge. “Don’t you think it might be well to +get the girl out of town for a little while next month? +March is very hard on those whose bronchial tubes +are weakened.”</p> + +<p>“I guess Martha can stand another March in New +York,” the young man responded. “She’s all right +enough. I don’t say it wouldn’t be good for her to +go South for a few weeks, but—Well, you know I +can’t telephone for my steam-yacht to be brought +round to the foot of Twenty-third Street, and I don’t +own any stock in Jekyll Island.”</p> + +<p>The Judge made no immediate answer, and again +there was an awkward silence.</p> + +<p>The younger man broke it. He held out his hand +once more. “It’s pleasant to see you looking so +fit,” he said, cordially.</p> + +<p>The other took his hand and held it. “Curtis,” +he began, “it isn’t any of my business, I suppose, and +yet I don’t know. Who is to speak if I don’t?”</p> + +<p>“Speak about what?” asked Van Dyne, as the +Judge released his hand.</p> + +<p>The elder man did not answer this question. Apparently +he found it difficult to say what he wished.</p> + +<p>“I happened to see a paragraph in the political<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +gossip in the <i>Dial</i> this morning,” he began again; “I +don’t often read that sort of stuff, but your name +caught my eye. It said that the organization was +enlisting recruits from society as an answer to the +slanderous attacks that had been made on it, and that +people could see how much there was in these +malignant assaults when they found the better element +eager to be enrolled. And then it gave half a dozen +names of men who had just joined, including yours and +Jimmy Suydam’s. I suppose there is no truth in it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s about as near to the truth as a newspaper +ever gets, I fancy,” Van Dyne answered. His color +had risen a little, and his speech had become a little +more precise. “I haven’t joined yet, but I’m going +to join this week. Pat McCann is to take us in hand, +Jimmy and me; he’s our district leader.”</p> + +<p>“Pat McCann!” and the Judge spoke the name +with horrified contempt.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” responded the young man. “Pat McCann +has taken quite a shine to Jimmy and me. He gives +us the glad hand and never the marble heart.”</p> + +<p>“It’s no matter about Suydam,” said the Judge, +with an impatient gesture; “he’s a foolish young +fellow and he doesn’t know any better. I suppose he +expects to be a colonel on the staff of the first governor +they elect. But you—”</p> + +<p>It was with a hint of bravado that Van Dyne +returned: “I don’t see that I’m any better than +Jimmy. He hasn’t committed any crime that I<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> +know of—except the deadly sin of inheriting a fortune. +And as far as that goes, I wish old man Suydam had +adopted me and divided his money between us. +Then I could have that steam-yacht and take Martha +down to Jekyll Island next month.”</p> + +<p>The Judge hesitated again, and then he said: +“Curtis, I suppose you think I have no right to speak +to you about this, and perhaps I haven’t. But I +have known you since you were born, and I went to +school with your father. We were classmates in +college, and I was his best man when he married your +mother. You know his record in the war, and you +are proud of it, of course. He left you—you will +excuse my putting it plainly?—he left you an honorable +name.”</p> + +<p>“And that was about all he did leave me!” the +young man returned. “I want to leave my children +something more.”</p> + +<p>“If you join the organization, if you are a hail-fellow-well-met +with all the Pat McCanns of the city,” +retorted the Judge, sternly—“if you sink to that level, +you would certainly leave your children something +very different from what your father left you. If +you do, I doubt whether the organization will go out +of its way to offer inducements to your son. It will +expect to get him cheap.”</p> + +<p>The young lawyer flushed again, and then he +laughed uneasily.</p> + +<p>“You are hard on me, Judge,” he said at last.<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p> + +<p>“I want you to be hard on yourself now,” the older +man returned. “I know you, Curtis; I know the +stock you come of, and I am sure you will be hard +enough on yourself—when it is too late.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not going to rob a bank, am I?” urged the +younger man.</p> + +<p>“You are going to rob yourself,” was the swift +answer. “You are going to rob your children, if +you ever have any, of what your father left you—the +priceless heritage of an honored name.”</p> + +<p>“Come, now, Judge,” said Van Dyne, “is that +quite fair? You speak as if I were going to enroll +in the Forty Thieves.”</p> + +<p>“If I thought you capable of doing that I should +not be speaking to you at all,” was the reply.</p> + +<p>“Pat McCann isn’t a bad fellow really,” the young +man declared. “He means well enough. And the +rest of them are not rascals, either; they are not the +crew of pirates the papers call them. They are giving +the city as good a government now as our mixed population +will stand. They have their ambition to do +right; and I sincerely believe that they mean to do +the best they know how.”</p> + +<p>“That’s it precisely,” the Judge asserted. “They +mean to do the best they know how. But how much +do they know?”</p> + +<p>“Well, they are not exactly fools, are they?” was +the evasive answer.</p> + +<p>“Don’t misunderstand me,” the elder man continued.<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> +“I am perfectly aware that the organization +is not so black as it is painted. The men at the +head of it are not a crew of pirates, as you say—of +course not; if they were they would have been made +to walk the plank long ago. Probably they mean +well, as you say again. I should be sorry to believe +that they do not.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then—” returned Van Dyne.</p> + +<p>But the Judge went on, regardless of what the +young lawyer was going to say:</p> + +<p>“They may mean well, but what of it if the result +is what we see? The fact is that the men at the head +of the organization are of an arrested type of civilization. +They are two or three hundred years behind +the age. They have retained the methods—perhaps +not of Claude Duval, as their enemies allege, but of +Sir Robert Walpole, as their friends could not deny. +Here in America to-day they are anachronisms. +They stand athwart our advance. I have no wish +to call them names or to think them worse than they +are; but I know that association with them is not +good for you or for me. It is our duty—your duty +and mine, and the duty of all who have a little +enlightenment—to arouse the public against these +survivals of a lower stage, and to fight them incessantly, +and now and then to beat them, so that they +may be made to respect our views. You say they +are giving the city as good a government as our +mixed population will stand. Well, that may be<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +true; I don’t think it is quite true; but even if it is, +what of it? Are we to be satisfied with that? The +best way to educate our mixed population to stand +a better government is to fight these fellows steadily. +Nothing educates them more than an election, followed +by an object lesson.”</p> + +<p>“That’s all very well,” responded Van Dyne, when +the Judge had made an end of his long speech. “But +I don’t believe the organization leaders are really so +far behind other people, or so much worse. They’re +not hypocrites, that’s all. They know what they +want, and they take it the easiest way they can.”</p> + +<p>“If that is the best defense you can make for them, +they are worse than I thought,” retorted the Judge. +“Sometimes the easiest way to take what you want +is to steal it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t claim that they are perfect, all of them,” +the younger man declared. “I suppose they are all +sorts—good, bad, and indifferent. But we are all +miserable sinners, you know—at least we say so +every Sunday. And I have known bad men in the +church.”</p> + +<p>“Come, come, Curtis,” the Judge replied, “that’s +unworthy of you, isn’t it? You would not be apologizing +to me for joining the church, would you?”</p> + +<p>Van Dyne was about to answer hastily, but he +checked the words on his lips. He looked away and +across the frozen park to the pushing crowd on +Broadway; but he did not really see the huge wagons<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> +rumbling in and out of Mail Street, nor did he hear +the insistent clang of the cable-car.</p> + +<p>His tone was deprecatory when he spoke at last.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you are right,” he began, “and I don’t +quite see myself in that company. I’ll be frank, +Judge, for you are an old friend, and I know you wish +me well, and I’d be glad to stand well in your eyes. +I don’t really want to join the organization; I don’t +like the men in it any more than you do; and I don’t +know that I approve of their ways much more than +you do. But I’ve got to do it.”</p> + +<p>“Got to?” echoed the Judge, in surprise. “Why +have you got to? They can’t force you to join if you +don’t wish it.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to do it because I’ve got to have money,” +was the young man’s explanation.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean that you are to be paid for associating +with these people?” the Judge asked.</p> + +<p>“That’s about it,” was the answer. “I wouldn’t +do it if I wasn’t going to make something out of it, +would I? Not that there is any bargain, of course; +but Pat McCann has dropped hints, and I know how +easy it will be for them to throw things my way.”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know you needed money so badly,” said +the Judge. “I thought you were doing well at the +bar.”</p> + +<p>“I’m doing well enough, I suppose,” Van Dyne +explained; “but I could do better. In fact, I must +do better. I must have money. There’s—well,<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> +there’s Martha. She came out last fall, and I gave +her a coming-out tea, of course. Well, I want her +to have a good time. Mother had a good time when +she was a girl, and why shouldn’t Martha? She won’t +be nineteen again.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the Judge, “your mother had a good +time when she was a girl. Your father and I saw to +that.”</p> + +<p>“Martha’s just got her first invitation to the Assembly,” +Van Dyne went on. “You should have +seen how delighted she was, too; it did me good to +see it. Mrs. Jimmy Suydam sent it to her. But +all that will cost money; of course, she’s got to have +a new gown and gloves and flowers and a carriage and +so on. I don’t begrudge it to her. I’m only too glad +to give it to her. But I’m in debt now for that +coming-out tea and for other things. I ran behind +last year, and this year I shall spend more. That’s +why I’ve got to join the organization and pick up a +reference now and then, and maybe a receivership +by and by; and perhaps they’ll elect me to an office, +sooner or later. I know I’m too young yet, but I’d +like to be a judge, too.”</p> + +<p>“So it is for your sister you are selling yourself, +is it?” asked the elder man. “Do you think she +would be willing if she knew?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not selling myself!” declared the young man, +laughing a little nervously. “I haven’t signed any +compact with my own blood amid a blaze of red fire.”<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a></p> + +<p>“Do you think your sister would approve if she +knew?” persisted the Judge.</p> + +<p>“Oh, but she won’t know!” was the answer. “I’ll +admit she wouldn’t like it overmuch. She takes +after father, and she has very strict ideas. You +ought to hear her talk about the corruption of our +politics!”</p> + +<p>“Curtis,” said the Judge, earnestly, “if <i>you</i> take +after your father, you ought to be able to look things +in the face. That’s what I want you to do now. +Have you any right to sacrifice yourself for your +sister’s sake in a way she would not like?”</p> + +<p>“I’m not sacrificing myself at all,” the young man +declared. “I want some of the good things of life +for myself. Besides, what do girls know about +politics? They are always dreamy and impracticable. +If they had their noses down to the grindstone of +life for a little while it would sharpen their eyes, and +they would see things differently.”</p> + +<p>“It will be a sad world when women like your +sister and your mother see things differently, as you +put it,” the elder man retorted.</p> + +<p>“If I want more money, I don’t admit that it is +any of Martha’s business how I make it,” Van Dyne +asserted. “I’ll let her have the spending of some of +it—that will be her duty. I want her to have a +summer in Europe, too. She knows that mother +was abroad a whole year when she was eighteen.”</p> + +<p>“I know that, too,” said the Judge. “It was in<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> +Venice that your father and I first met her; she was +feeding the pigeons in front of St. Mark’s, and—”</p> + +<p>The Judge paused a moment, and then he laid his +hand on Van Dyne’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>“Curtis,” he continued, “if a thousand dollars +now will help you out, or two thousand, or even five, +if you need it, I shall be glad to let you have the +money.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Judge,” was the prompt reply. “I +can’t take your money, because I don’t know how or +when I could pay you back.”</p> + +<p>“What matter about that?” returned the other. +“I have nobody to leave it to.”</p> + +<p>“You were my father’s friend and my mother’s,” +said Van Dyne. “I would take money from you if +I could take it from anybody. But I can’t do that. +You wouldn’t in my place, would you?”</p> + +<p>The Judge did not answer this directly. “It is +not easy to say what we should do if one were to +stand in the other’s place,” he declared. “And if +you change your mind, the money is ready for you +whenever you want it.”</p> + +<p>“You are very good to me, Judge,” said the young +man, “and I appreciate your kindness—”</p> + +<p>“Then don’t say anything more about it,” the +elder man interrupted. “And you must forgive me +for my plain speaking about that other matter.”</p> + +<p>“About my joining the organization?” said Van +Dyne. “Well, I’ll think over what you have said.<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> +I don’t want you to believe that I don’t understand +the kindness that prompted you to say what you did. +I haven’t really decided absolutely what I had best +do.”</p> + +<p>“It is a decision you must make for yourself, after +all,” the Judge declared. “I will not urge you +further.”</p> + +<p>He held out his hand once more, and the young +man grasped it heartily.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you and Martha and ‘Aunt Mary’ could +come and dine with me some night next week,” the +Judge suggested. “I should like to hear about your +sister’s first experience in society.”</p> + +<p>“Of course we will all come, with pleasure,” said +Van Dyne.</p> + +<p>As the elder man walked away, the younger followed +him with his eyes. Then he turned and went +up the steps of the City Hall.</p> + +<p>Almost at the top of the flight stood two men, who +parted company as Van Dyne drew near. One of +them waited for him to come up. The other started +down, smiling at the young lawyer as they met, and +saying: “Good morning, Mr. Van Dyne. It’s rain +we’re going to have, I’m thinking.”</p> + +<p>“Good morning, Mr. O’Donnell,” returned Van +Dyne, roused from his reverie.</p> + +<p>“There’s Mr. McCann waiting to have a word +with you,” cried O’Donnell over his shoulder, as he +passed.<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a></p> + +<p>The young lawyer looked up and saw the other +man at the top of the steps. He wanted time to +think over his conversation with Judge Jerningham, +and he had no desire for a talk just then with the +district leader. Perhaps he unconsciously revealed +this feeling in the coolness with which he returned +the other’s greeting, courteous as he always was, +especially toward those whom he did not consider +his equal.</p> + +<p>“It’s glad I am to see you, Mr. Van Dyne,” said +the politician, patting the young man on the shoulder +as they shook hands.</p> + +<p>Van Dyne drew back instinctively. Never before +had Pat McCann’s high hat seemed so very +shiny to him, or Pat McCann’s fur overcoat so very +furry. The big diamond in Pat McCann’s shirt-front +was concealed by the tightly buttoned coat; +but Van Dyne knew that it was there all the same, +and he detested it more than ever before.</p> + +<p>“It’s a dark morning it is,” said McCann. “Will +we take a little drop of something warm?”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” returned the young lawyer, somewhat +stiffly; “I never drink in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“No more do I,” declared the other; “but it’s a +chill day this is. Well, and when are you coming +round to see the boys? Terry O’Donnell and me, we +was just talking about you and Mr. Suydam.”</p> + +<p>Van Dyne did not see why it should annoy him to +know that he had been the subject of conversation<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> +between Pat McCann and Terry O’Donnell, but he +was instantly aware of the annoyance. If he intended +to throw in his lot with these people, he must +look forward to many intimacies not quite to his +liking.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you were talking about me, were you?” he said.</p> + +<p>“We was that,” continued the district leader. +“We want you to meet the boys and let them know +you, don’t you see? We want you to give them the +glad hand.”</p> + +<p>When Van Dyne had used this slang phrase to the +Judge, it had seemed to him amusing; now it struck +him as vulgar.</p> + +<p>“We want you to jolly them up a bit,” McCann +went on. “The boys will be glad to know you better.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” was the monosyllabic response to this invitation.</p> + +<p>The district leader looked at the young lawyer, +and his manner changed.</p> + +<p>“We’d like to get acquainted with you, Mr. Van +Dyne,” he said, “if you’re going to be one of us.”</p> + +<p>“If I’m going to be one of you,” Van Dyne repeated. +“That’s just the question. Am I going to +be one of you?”</p> + +<p>“I thought we had settled all that last week,” +cried McCann.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I told you that I would join you,” +Van Dyne declared, wondering just how far he had +committed himself at that last interview.<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a></p> + +<p>“You told me you thought you would,” McCann +declared.</p> + +<p>“Oh, maybe I thought so then,” Van Dyne answered.</p> + +<p>The district leader was generally wary and tactful. +Among people of his own class he was a good +judge of men; and he owed his position largely to +his persuasive powers. But on this occasion he made +a mistake, due perhaps in some measure to his perception +of the other’s assumption of superiority.</p> + +<p>“And now you don’t think so?” he retorted, swiftly. +“Is that what it is? Well, it’s for you to say, +not me. I’m not begging any man to come into the +organization if they don’t want. But I can’t waste +my time any more on them that don’t want. It’s +for you to say the word, and it’s now or never.”</p> + +<p>“Since you put it that way, Mr. McCann,” said +Van Dyne, “it’s never.”</p> + +<p>“Then you don’t want to join the organization?” +asked the district leader, a little taken aback by the +other’s sudden change of determination.</p> + +<p>“No,” Van Dyne replied, “I don’t.”</p> + +<p>And when he was left alone on the top of the City +Hall steps, the young lawyer was puzzled to know +whether it was Judge Jerningham or Pat McCann +that had most influenced his decision.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1898)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a></p> + +<p><a name="Sisters" id="Sisters"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp055_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp055_sml.jpg" width="550" height="416" alt=""Sisters Under Their Skins"" title=""Sisters Under Their Skins"" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp057.png"> +<img src="images/ilp057_sml.png" +width="85" +height="86" +class="letra" +alt="T" +title="T" +/></a>HE light March rain, which had been intermittent +all the morning, ceased falling +before Minnie Henryson and her +mother had reached Sixth Avenue. The +keen wind sprang up again, and a patch +of blue sky appeared here and there down the vista +of Twenty-third Street, as they were walking westward. +There was even a suggestion of sunshine far +away over the Jersey hills.</p> + +<p>The two ladies closed their umbrellas, which the +west wind had made it hard for them to hold.</p> + +<p>“I believe we are going to have a pleasant afternoon, +after all,” said Mrs. Henryson. “Perhaps we +had better lunch down here and get all our shopping +done to-day.”</p> + +<p>“Just as you say, mamma,” the daughter answered, +a little listlessly, accustomed to accept all +her mother’s sudden changes of plans.</p> + +<p>They turned the corner and went a little way down +the avenue, as the brakes of an up-town train scraped +and squeaked when it stopped at the station high +above their heads.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Henryson paused to look into one of the +broad windows of a gigantic store.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p> + +<p>“Minnie,” she said, solemnly, “I don’t believe hats +are going to be any smaller this summer, in spite of +all they say in the papers.”</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t seem like it,” responded her daughter, +perfunctorily. She had already bought her own hat +for the spring, and just then her mind was wandering +far afield. She was dutifully accompanying her +mother for a morning’s shopping, although she would +rather have had the time to herself, so that she could +think out the question that was puzzling her.</p> + +<p>Her mother continued to peer into the window, +comparing the hats with one another, and Minnie’s +attention was arrested by a little girl of eight who +stopped almost at her side and stamped three times +on the iron cover of an opening in the sidewalk, nearly +in front of the window where the two ladies were +standing. After giving this signal the child drew +back; and in less than a minute the covers opened +wide, and then an elevator began to rise, bringing +up a middle-aged man begrimed with oil and coal-dust.</p> + +<p>“Hello, dad,” cried the child.</p> + +<p>“Hello, kid!” he answered. “How’s mother?”</p> + +<p>“She’s better,” the girl answered. “Not so much +pain.”</p> + +<p>“That’s good,” the man responded.</p> + +<p>“An’ the doctor’s been, an’ he says she’s doin' +fine,” the child continued. “Maybe she can get up +for good next week.”<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a></p> + +<p>“That’ll be a sight for sore eyes, won’t it, kid?” +the father asked. “What you got for me to-day?”</p> + +<p>Minnie was listening, although she was apparently +gazing intently at the shop-window. Out of the +corner of her eye she saw the child hand a tin dinner-pail +to the man who had risen from the depths below. +Then she heard the young voice particularize its +contents.</p> + +<p>“There’s roast-beef sandwiches—I made 'em myself—and +pie, apple pie—I got that at the bakery—and +coffee.”</p> + +<p>“Coffee, eh?” said the man. “That’s what I want +most of all. My throat’s all dried up with the dust. +Guess I’d better begin on that now.” He opened the +dinner-pail and took a long drink out of it. “That’s +pretty good, that coffee. That went right to the +spot!”</p> + +<p>“I made it,” the child explained, proudly.</p> + +<p>“Did you now?” he answered. “Well, it’s as good +as your mother’s.” Then a bell rang down below; +he pulled on one of the chains and the elevator began +to go down slowly.</p> + +<p>“So-long, kid,” he called, as his head sank to the +level of the sidewalk.</p> + +<p>“Good-by, dad,” she answered, leaning forward; +“come home as early as you can. Mother’ll be so +glad to see you.”</p> + +<p>The child waited until the covers had again closed +over her father, and then she started away. Minnie<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> +Henryson turned and watched her as she slipped +across the avenue, avoiding the cars and the carts +with the skill born of long experience.</p> + +<p>At last Mrs. Henryson tore herself away from the +window with its flamboyant head-gear. “No,” she +said, emphatically, “I don’t believe really they’re +going to be any smaller.”</p> + +<p>The daughter did not answer. She was thinking +of the little domestic episode she had just witnessed; +and her sympathy went out to the sick woman, laid +up in some dark tenement and waiting through the +long hours for her husband’s return. Her case was +sad; and yet she had a husband and a child and a +home of her own; her life was fuller than the empty +existence of a girl who had nothing to do but to go +shopping with her mother and to gad about to teas, +with now and then a dinner or a dance or the theater. +A home of her own and a husband!—what was a +woman’s life without them? And so it was that what +Minnie had just seen tied itself at once into the subject +of her thoughts as she walked silently down the +avenue by the side of her mother.</p> + +<p>The trains rattled and ground on the Elevated +almost over their heads; the clouds scattered and a +faint gleam of pale March sunshine at last illumined +the grayness of the day. The noon-hour rush was +at its height, and the sidewalks were often so thronged +that mother and daughter were separated for a moment +as they tried to pick their way through the crowd.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a></p> + +<p>When they came to the huge department-store +they were seeking, Mrs. Henryson stood inside the +vestibule as though deciding on her plan of campaign.</p> + +<p>“Minnie,” she promulgated at last, “you had better +try and match those ribbons, and I’ll go and pick +out the rug for your father.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I wait for you at the ribbon-counter?” the +daughter asked.</p> + +<p>“Just sit down, and I’ll come back as soon as I +can. You look a little tired this morning, anyhow.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not the least tired, I assure you—but I didn’t +sleep well last night,” she answered, as she went with +her mother to the nearest elevator.</p> + +<p>When she was left alone, she had a little sigh of +relief, as though she was glad to be able to let her +thoughts run where they would without interruption. +She walked slowly to the ribbon-counter in a far +corner of the store, unconscious of the persons upon +whom her eyes rested. She was thinking of herself +and of her own future. She wondered whether that +future was then hanging in the balance.</p> + +<p>She had early discovered that she was not very +pretty, although her mother was always telling her +that she had a good figure; and she had reached the +age of twenty-two without having had any particular +attention from any man. She had begun to ask +herself whether any man ever would single her out +and make her interested in him and implore her to +be his wife. And now in the past few months it<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> +seemed to her as if this dream might come true. +There was no doubt that Addison Wyngard had been +attentive all through the winter. Other girls had +noticed it, too, and had teased her about it. He had +been her partner three times at the dances of the +Cotillion of One Hundred. And when some of the +men of that wide circle had got up the Thursday +Theater Club, he had joined only after he had found +out that she was going to be a member. She recalled +that he had told her that he did not care for the +theater, and that he was so busy he felt he had no +right to go out in the evening. The managing clerk +of a pushing law firm could not control his own time +even after office hours; and there had been one night +when he was to be her escort at the Theater Club +a box of flowers had come at six o’clock, with a note +explaining that unexpected business forced him to +break the engagement. And the seat beside her had +been vacant all the evening.</p> + +<p>Even when she came to the ribbon-counter she +did what she had to do mechanically, with her +thoughts ever straying from her duty of matching +widths and tints. Her mind kept escaping from the +task in hand and persisted in recalling the incidents +of her intimacy with him.</p> + +<p>After she had made her purchases she took a seat +at the end of the counter, which happened to be more +or less deserted just then. Three shop-girls, who had +gathered to gossip during the noon lull in trade,<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> +looked at her casually as she sat down, and then went +on with their own conversation, which was pitched +in so shrill a key that she could not help hearing it.</p> + +<p>“She says to him, she says, ‘Willy, I’ll report you +every time I catch you, see?’ and she’s reported him +three times this morning already. That ain’t what +a real lady ought to do, I don’t think.”</p> + +<p>“Who’d she report him to?” one of the other +salesladies asked.</p> + +<p>“Twice to Mr. Maguire. Once she reported him to +Mr. Smith, and he didn’t take no notice. He just +laughed. But Mr. Maguire, he talked to Willy somethin' +fierce. And you know Willy’s got to stand it, +for he’s got that cross old mother of his to keep; +he has to get her four quarts of paralyzed milk every +day, Sundays too.”</p> + +<p>Then the third of the group broke in: “Mr. +Maguire tried it on me once, but I gave it to him +back, straight from the shoulder. I ain’t going to have +him call me down; not much. I know my business, +don’t I? I don’t need no little snip of a red-headed +Irishman to tell me what to do. I was born here, I +was, and I’m not taking any back talk from him, +even if he has a front like the court-house!”</p> + +<p>The second girl, whose voice was gentler, then remarked: +“Well, I wouldn’t be too hard on Mr. +Maguire to-day. I guess he’s got troubles of his +own.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” cried the first of the three, whose<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> +voice was the sharpest. “Has Sadie Jones thrown +him down again?”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know a thing about it till this mornin’, +when I saw the ring on her other finger,” the second +saleslady explained, delighted to be the purveyor of +important information. “Mazie says Sadie didn’t +break it off again till last night after he’d brought her +back from the Lady Dazzlers’ Mask and Civic. And +she waited till they got into the trolley comin’ home. +An’ he’d taken her in to supper, too.”</p> + +<p>“That’s so,” the third girl said, “and Mr. Maguire’s +takin’ it terrible. He came across the street this +morning just before me, and he had his skates on. +I was waitin’ to see him go in the mud-gutter. Then +he saw the copper on the beat, and he made an +awful brace. Gee, but I thought he was pinched +sure!”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Smith caught on to him,” said the first, with +her sharp voice, “and Willy heard him say he’d be +all right again, and he had only the fill of a pitcher.”</p> + +<p>“And Sadie’s going to keep the ring, too. She says +she earned it trying to keep him straight,” the third +girl went on. “It’s a dead ringer for a diamond, even +if it ain’t the real thing. He says it is.”</p> + +<p>Two customers came up at this juncture, and the +group of salesladies had to dissolve. A series of +shrill whistles came in swift succession and a fire-engine +rushed down the avenue, followed by a hook-and-ladder +truck; and the girl with the kindly voice<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> +went over toward the door to look at them, leaving +Minnie Henryson again to her own thoughts.</p> + +<p>She asked herself if she was really getting interested +in Addison Wyngard. And she could not +answer her own question. Of course it had been +very pleasant to feel that he was interested in her. +And she thought he really was interested. He had +told her that he did not like his position with Smyth, +Mackellar & Hubbard, and a classmate at Columbia +had offered him a place with a railroad company down +in Texas. But he had said that he hated to give up +the law and to leave New York—and all his friends. +And as he said that, he looked at her. She had felt +that he was implying that she was the reason why he +was unwilling to go. She remembered that she had +laughed lightly as she rejoined that she would feel +homesick herself if she went out of sight of the +Madison Square Tower. He had answered that +there were other things in New York besides the +Diana, things just as distant and just as unattainable. +And to that she had made no response.</p> + +<p>Then he had told her that he had another classmate +in the office of the Corporation Counsel, Judge +McKinley; there was a vacancy there, and his name +had been suggested to the judge. She had smiled and +expressed the hope that he might get the appointment. +And now, as she sat there alone, with the stir and +bustle of the department-store all about her, she +felt certain as never before that if he did get the<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> +place he would be assured that he had at last money +enough to marry on, and that he would ask her to +be his wife. If she accepted him she would have a +husband and a home of her own. She would have +her chance for the fuller life that can come to a woman +only when she is able to fulfil her destiny.</p> + +<p>Later he had found a chance to say that he was +going to stick it out in New York a little longer—and +then, if the Texas offer was still open, he’d have to +take it. He had paused to hear what she would say to +that. And all she had said was that Texas did seem +a long way off. She had given him no encouragement; +she had been polite—nothing more. If he did ever +propose, and if she should refuse him, he could never +reproach her for having lured him on.</p> + +<p>Suddenly it seemed to her that this chilly attitude +of hers was contemptible. The man wanted her—and +for the first time she began to suspect that all the +woman in her wanted him to want her. She hated +herself for having been so unresponsive, so discouraging, +so cold. She knew that he was a man of character +and of ability, a clean man, a man his wife might be +proud of. And she had looked ahead sharply and +realized how desolate the Cotillion of One Hundred +and the Thursday Theater Club would be for her +if Addison Wyngard should go to Texas, after all. +She began to fear that, if he did decide to leave New +York, he would never dare to ask her to marry him.</p> + +<p>Then she looked around her and began to wonder<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> +what could be keeping her mother so long. She +happened to see the door of the store open, as a tall +girl came in with a high pompadour and an immense +black hat adorned with three aggressive silver +feathers.</p> + +<p>The new-comer advanced toward the ribbon-counter, +where she was greeted effusively by two of +the salesladies.</p> + +<p>“For pity’s sake,” cried one of them, “I ain’t +seen you for a month of Sundays!”</p> + +<p>“Addie Brown!” said the other. “And you haven’t +been back here to see us old friends since I don’t +know when.”</p> + +<p>“Addie Cameron now, if you please,” and the new-comer +bridled a little as she gave herself her married +name. “An’ I was comin’ in last Saturday, but I +had to have my teeth fixed first, and I went to dentist +after dentist and they were all full, and I was tired +out.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it’s Addie, any way you fix it,” responded +one of the salesladies, “and we’re glad to see you +back, even if we did think you’d shook us for keeps. +Is this gettin’ married all it’s cracked up to be?”</p> + +<p>“It’s fine,” the bride replied, “an’ I wouldn’t +never come back here on no account. Not but what +things ain’t what I’d like altogether. I went to the +Girls’ Friendly last night, and there was that Miss +Van Antwerp that runs our class, and she was so +interested, for all she’s one of the Four Hundred.<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> +An’ she wanted to know about Sam, an’ I told her he +was a good man an’ none better, an’ I was perfectly +satisfied. ‘But, Miss Van Antwerp,’ I says to her, I +says, ‘don’t you never marry a policeman—their +hours are so inconvenient. You can’t never tell +when he’s comin’ home.’s That’s what I told her, +for she’s always interested.”</p> + +<p>The other two salesladies laughed, and one of them +asked, “What did Miss Van Antwerp say to that?”</p> + +<p>“She just said that she wasn’t thinkin’ of gettin' +married, but she’d remember my advice.”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t thinkin’ of gettin’ married, either,” said +one of the salesladies, the one with the gentler voice, +“but I’ve had a dream an’ it may come true. I +dreamed there was a young feller, handsome he was, +too, and the son of a charge customer. You’ve seen +her, the old stiff with those furs and the big diamond +ear-rings, that’s so fussy always and so partic’lar, for +all she belongs to the Consumers’ League.”</p> + +<p>“I know who you mean; horrid old thing she is, +too,” interrupted the other; “but I didn’t know she +had a son.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know it, either,” was the reply. “But +that’s what I dreamed—and I dreamed it three +nights runnin’, too. Fierce, wasn’t it? An’ he kept +hangin’ round and wantin’ to make a date to take me +to the opera. Said he could talk French an’ he’d tell +me what it was all about. An'—”</p> + +<p>Just then the floor-walker called “Forward!” as<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> +a customer came to the other end of the counter; +and the girl with the gentle voice moved away.</p> + +<p>Minnie Henryson wondered whether this floor-walker +was Mr. Maguire or Mr. Smith. Under the +suggestion of his stare, whichever he was, Addie +Cameron and the other shop-girl moved away toward +the door, and the rest of their conversation was +lost to the listener.</p> + +<p>She did not know how long she continued to sit +there, while customers loitered before the ribbon-counter +and fingered the stock and asked questions. +She heard the fire-engines come slowly back; and +above the murmur which arose all over the store she +caught again the harsh grinding of the brakes on the +Elevated in the avenue. Then she rose, as she saw +her mother looking for her.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting so long,” Mrs. +Henryson explained; “but I couldn’t seem to find just +the rug I wanted for your father. You know he’s +always satisfied with anything, so I have to be particular +to get something he’ll really like. And then +I met Mrs. McKinley, and we had to have a little +chat.”</p> + +<p>Minnie looked at her mother. She had forgotten +that the wife of the Corporation Counsel was a friend +of her mother’s; and she wondered whether she +could get her mother to say a good word for Addison +Wyngard.</p> + +<p>Mother and daughter threaded their way through<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> +the swarm of shoppers toward the door of the +store.</p> + +<p>“By the way, Minnie,” said her mother, just as +they came to the entrance, “didn’t you tell me that +young Mr. Wyngard sat next you at the theater the +other night at that Thursday Club of yours? That’s +his name, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Wyngard did sit next to me one evening,” +the daughter answered, not looking up.</p> + +<p>“Well, Mrs. McKinley saw you, and so did the +Judge. He says that this young Wyngard is a clever +lawyer—and he’s going to take him into his office.”</p> + +<p>And then they passed out into the avenue flooded +with spring sunshine.</p> + +<p>Minnie took a long breath of fresh air and she +raised her head. It seemed to her almost as though +she could already feel a new ring on the third finger +of her left hand.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1910)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p> + +<p><a name="Under_an_April_Sky" id="Under_an_April_Sky"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp071_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp071_sml.jpg" width="550" height="404" alt="Under an April Sky" title="Under an April Sky" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp073.png"> +<img src="images/ilp073_sml.png" +width="85" +height="87" +class="letra" +alt="T" +title="T" +/></a>HE swirling rain bespattered the window +as the fitful April wind changed about; +and the lonely woman, staring vacantly +upon the plumes of steam waving from +the roofs below her, saw them violently +twisted and broken and scattered. The new hotel +towered high above all the neighboring buildings, +and she could look down on the private houses that +filled block after block, until the next tall edifice rose +abruptly into view half a mile to the northward. +Through the drizzle the prospect seemed to her +drearier than ever, and the ugly monotony of it +weighed on her like a nightmare. With an impatient +sigh she turned from the window, but as her eye +traveled around the walls she saw nothing that might +relieve her melancholy.</p> + +<p>It was not a large room, this private parlor on an +upper story of the immense hotel; and its decorations, +its ornaments, its furniture, its carpets, had the +characterless commonplace befitting an apartment +which might have a score of occupants in a single +month. Yet she had spent the most of the winter +in it; those were her pretty cushions (on the hard +sofa), and that was her tea equipage on the low table<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> +by the fireplace (with its gas-log). The photographs +in their silver frames were hers also, and so were the +violets that filled a Rookwood bowl on the top of +the writing-desk near the window. But as she +glanced about in search of something that might +make her feel at home, she found nothing to satisfy +her longing. The room was a room in a hotel, after +all; and she had failed wholly to impress her own +individuality upon it. To recall her vain efforts +only intensified her loneliness.</p> + +<p>The hotel was full, so they said, and it held a +thousand souls and more; and as she walked aimlessly +to and fro within her narrow space, she wondered +whether any one of the thousand felt as detached +and as solitary as she did then—as she had +felt so often during the long winter. She paused at +the window again, and gazed at the houses far down +below her on the other side of the narrow street; +they were at least homes, and the women who dwelt +there had husbands or sons or fathers—had each of +them a man of some sort for her to lean on, for her +to cling to, for her to love, for her to devote herself +to, and for her to sacrifice herself for.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she had delighted in the loftiness of her +position, lifted high in air; she had fancied almost +that she was on another plane from the people in +the thick of the struggle down below. Now as she +pressed her forehead against the chill pane and peered +down to watch the umbrellas that crawled here and<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> +there on the sidewalk, more than a hundred feet beneath +her, she had a fleeting vision of her own mangled +body lying down there on the stones, if she should +ever yield to the temptation that came to her in these +moments of depression. She shuddered at the sight, +and turned away impetuously, while the rain again +rattled against the window, as though demanding +instant admission.</p> + +<p>An observer would have declared that this woman, +weary as she might be with solitude, was far too +young for life already to have lost its savor. Her +figure was slight and girlish yet. Her walk was +brisk and youthful. Her thick, brown hair was +abundant, and untouched by gray. Her dark-brown +eyes kept their freshness still, although they were +older than they might seem at first. She was perhaps +a scant thirty years of age, although it might +well be that she was three or four years younger. +No doubt the observer would have found her ill at +ease and restless, as though making ready for an +ordeal that she was anxious to pass through as soon +as possible.</p> + +<p>The clock on the mantelpiece began to strike, +and she looked up eagerly; but when she saw that +it was only three, she turned away petulantly, +almost like a spoiled child who cannot bear to +wait.</p> + +<p>Her eye fell on the desk with an unfinished letter +lying on it. With her usual impulsive swiftness she<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +sat herself down and hastily ran over what she had +written.</p> + +<p>“Dear Margaret,” the letter began, “it was a +surprise, of course, to hear from you again, for it +must be three or four years since last we corresponded. +But your kindly inquiries were very welcome, and it +did me good to feel that there was a woman really +interested in me, even though she was thousands of +miles away. It is with a glow of gratitude that I +think of you and your goodness to me when I was +suddenly widowed. You took pity on my loneliness +then, and you can’t guess how often I have longed +for a friend like you in these last years of bitter +solitude—a friend I could go to for sympathy, a +friend I could unburden my heart to.”</p> + +<p>Having read this almost at a glance, she seized her +pen and continued:</p> + +<p>“I feel as if I simply must talk out to somebody—and +so I’m going to write to you, sure you will not +misunderstand me, for your insight and your perceptions +were always as kindly as they were keen.</p> + +<p>“You ask me what I am going to do. And I +answer you frankly. I am going to marry a man +I don’t love—and who doesn’t love me. So we shall +swindle each other!</p> + +<p>“I can see your shocked look as you read this—but +you don’t know what has brought me to it. I’ve come +to the end of my tether at last. My money has +nearly all gone. I don’t know how I can support<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +myself—and so I’m going to let somebody support +me, that’s all!</p> + +<p>“The settlement of poor George’s affairs has +dragged along all these years, and it was only last +December that I got the few hundred dollars that +were coming to me. I took the cash and I came here +to New York to see if something wouldn’t turn up. +What—well, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just +hoped that the luck might change at last—and perhaps +I did dream of a Prince Charming at the end +of the perspective; not a mere boy, of course, not +the pretty little puppet Cinderella married, but a +Prince Charming of middle age, with his hair dashed +with gray at the temples, a man of position and +sound judgment and good taste, who might still find +his ideal in a thin little widow like me. Of course the +dream hasn’t come true; it’s only the nightmares that +are realized. I haven’t seen any Prince Charmings, +either pretty little puppets or mature men of the +world. I guess the race is extinct, like the dodo. +At any rate, nothing has turned up, and the winter +is over, and my money is nearly all gone.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t regret the past few months. New +York is very interesting, and I’d dearly love to talk +it over with you. It is a sort of a stock-pot; everything +goes in—good meat, and bones, and scraps of +all sorts—and you never know just what the flavor +will be like, but it’s sure to be rich and stimulating +and unexpected. I’ve been to very exclusive houses<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> +here sometimes, and I enjoyed that immensely; I +think I could learn easily to live up to any income, +no matter how big it was. I’ve been mostly in the +society absurdly called the Four Hundred; it used +to be called the Upper Ten Thousand; there are +pleasant men and women there, and dull ones too, +just as there are everywhere else, I suppose. And +I’ve even gone a little into artistic and literary +circles—but I don’t really like untidy people.</p> + +<p>“You see, I am here at the newest and swellest +hotel. It’s true I have only a tiny little parlor and +a teeny little bedroom, 'way up near the top of the +house, with a room in the attic somewhere for my +maid Jemima—you remember Jemima? Well, she’s +watching over me still, and she’s the only real friend +I have in all New York! She’d give me all her +savings gladly if I was mean enough to take them; +but I couldn’t live on that pittance, could I?</p> + +<p>“I brought very good letters, and I had very good +advice from an old maid who knew George’s father +when he was a boy—Miss Marlenspuyk; dear old +soul she is. Then, as it happened, somebody remembered +that poor George had been interested in +that strike in Grass Valley, and had received one-third +of the stock when the Belinda and the Lone +Star were consolidated. I’ve got that stock still, +and I could paper a house with it—if I had one. At +any rate, somebody started the story that I was +immensely rich, and of course I didn’t contradict it,<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> +I hope I’ve too much tact to refuse any help that +chance throws in my way. I don’t know whether it +was the reported wealth, or the excellent letters I +brought, or Miss Marlenspuyk’s good advice, or +even my own personal attractiveness—but, whatever +the cause, I just walked into Society here almost +without an effort; so easily, indeed, that the social +strugglers who have seen doors open wide for me +where they have been knocking in vain for years—well, +they are mad enough to die! It’s enough to +make us despise ourselves even more than we do +when we see the weeping and wailing and gnashing +of teeth there is among the outsiders who are peeking +over the barbed-wire fence of Society! I’m afraid +I’ve been horrid enough to get a good deal of +satisfaction out of the envy of those outside the +pale.</p> + +<p>“And I’ve enjoyed the thing for its own sake, too. +I like to give a little dinner here to a woman from +whom I expect favors and to a couple of agreeable +men. I like to go to other people’s dinners, and to a +ball now and then. Why is it I haven’t really the half-million +or more that they think I have? I’m sure +I could spend it better than most of those I know who +have it. As it is, I’ve about enough money left +in the bank at the corner to carry me another month—and +then? And then I wonder sometimes whether +I hadn’t better take the last half-dollar for a poison +of some sort—painless, of course. Jemima would see<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> +me decently buried. But of course I sha’n’t do anything +of the sort; I’m too big a coward!</p> + +<p>“And the winter has almost gone, and nothing has +turned up. Oh yes, I forgot—poor George’s brother, +who doesn’t like me, and never did; he knows how +poor I am, and he wouldn’t give me a dollar out of his +own pocket. But he wrote me last week, asking if I +would like a place as matron in a girl’s boarding-school +in Milwaukee. Of course I haven’t answered +him! I don’t exactly see myself as a matron. What +a hideous word it is!</p> + +<p>”<i>Mais il faut faire un fin</i>, and my end is matrimony, +I suppose. There’s a man here called Stone; +he’s a lieutenant-commander in the navy, and I +think he’s going to ask me to marry him—and I’m +going to accept the proposal promptly!</p> + +<p>“He’s not the mature Prince Charming of my +dreams, but he is really not ill-looking. He’s a manly +fellow, and I confess I thought he was rather nice, +until I discovered that he was after me for my money—which +was a shock to my vanity, too. Little Mat +Hitchcock—you must remember that withered little +old beau? Well, he is still extant, and as detestable +as ever; he told me that John Stone had proposed to +half the wealthy girls in New York. Of course, I +don’t believe that, but I thought it was very suspicious +when he took me in to dinner a month ago +and tried to question me about my stock in the +Belinda and Lone Star. I told him I had the stock<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a>—and +I have, indeed!—and I let him believe that +it was worth anything you please. It wasn’t what +I said, of course, for I was careful not to commit +myself; but I guess he got the right impression. +And since then he has been very attentive; so it +must be the money he is after and not me. I rather +liked him, till I began to suspect; and even now I +find it hard to have the thorough contempt I ought +to have for a fortune-hunter.</p> + +<p>“Why is it that we think a man despicable who +marries for money, and yet it is what we expect a +woman to do? I’ve asked Miss Marlenspuyk about +Mr. Stone, and she knows all about him, as she does +about everybody else. She says he has three or four +or five thousand dollars a year besides his pay—and +yet he wants to marry me for my money! It will +just serve him right if I marry him for his. He’s at +the Brooklyn Navy-Yard for a few months more, and +then his shore duty will be up; so that if we are +married, he’ll be ordered to sea soon, and I shall be +free from him for three years. When I write like that +I don’t know whether I have a greater contempt for +him or for myself. <i>Mais il faut vivre, n’est-ce pas?</i> +And what am I to live on next month? I can’t be a +matron in Milwaukee, can I? The world owes me a +living, after all, and I’ve simply got to collect the debt +from a man. And how I hate myself for doing it!</p> + +<p>“He sent me flowers this morning—a big bunch +of violets—and of course he will come in this afternoon<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> +to get thanked. If I am engaged before dinner +I’ll put in a postscript to tell you—so that you can +get your wedding-present ready!”</p> + +<p>As she wrote this last sentence she gave a hard +little laugh.</p> + +<p>Then she heard a brisk rattle from the telephone-box +near the door.</p> + +<p>She dropped her pen and went across the room and +put the receiver to her ear.</p> + +<p>“Yes—I’m Mrs. Randolph,” she said. “Yes—I’m +at home. Yes. Have Mr. Stone shown up to my +parlor.”</p> + +<p>Then she replaced the receiver and stood for a +moment in thought. She went back to the desk +and closed her portfolio, with the unfinished letter +inside. She changed the position of the bowl of +violets and brought it into the full light. She +glanced about the room to see if it was in order; +and she crossed to the fireplace and looked at herself +in the mirror above.</p> + +<p>“I do wish I had slept better last night,” she said +to herself. “I always show it so round the eyes.”</p> + +<p>She crossed swiftly to the door which opened into +the next room.</p> + +<p>“Jemima!” she called.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss Evelyn,” responded a voice from within.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Stone is coming up—and my hair is all +wrong. I simply must do it over. You tell him I’ll +be here in a minute.”<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p> + +<p>“Yes, Miss Evelyn,” was the answer.</p> + +<p>“And after Mr. Stone comes you get the water +ready for the tea,” said Mrs. Randolph, as she went +into the bedroom. “Be sure that you have a fresh +lemon. The last time Mr. Stone was here his slice +was all dried up—and men don’t like that sort of +thing.”</p> + +<p>A minute or two after she had disappeared there +was a rap at the door, and Jemima came from the +bedroom and admitted Mr. Stone. She told him that +Mrs. Randolph would see him at once, and then she +went back to her mistress, after giving him a curiously +inquisitive look.</p> + +<p>Mr. Stone had the walk of a sailor, but he carried +himself like a soldier. His eyes were blue and penetrating; +his ashen mustache curled over a firm mouth; +his clean-shaven chin was square and resolute.</p> + +<p>He stood near the door for a moment, and then +he went toward the window. The rain had dwindled, +and as he looked out he thought he saw a break in +the clouds.</p> + +<p>It was full five minutes before Mrs. Randolph returned.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Stone,” she began, in voluble apology, +“it’s a shame to keep you waiting so, but honestly +I couldn’t help it. You took me by surprise so, I +really wasn’t fit to be seen!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Stone gallantly expressed a doubt as to this +last statement of hers.<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p> + +<p>“It’s very good of you to think that,” she responded, +“but I hardly hoped to see any one this afternoon, +in this awful weather. How did you ever +have the courage to venture out? It’s so kind of +you to come and visit a lonely woman, for it has +been such a long day!”</p> + +<p>Mr. Stone informed her that it looked as though +it was about to clear up.</p> + +<p>“Of course you sailors have to know all about the +weather, don’t you?” she replied. “That’s the advantage +of being a man—you can do things. Now +a woman can’t do anything—she can’t even go out +in the rain for fear of getting her skirts wet!”</p> + +<p>In her own ears her voice did not ring quite true. +She knew that her liveliness was a little factitious. +She wondered whether he had detected it. She looked +up at him, and found that he was gazing full at her. +She had never before recognized how clear his eyes +were and how piercing.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t thanked you yet for those lovely violets,” +she began again, hastily. “They are exquisite! +But then you have always such good taste in flowers. +They have made the day less dreary for me—really +they have. They were company in my loneliness.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her in surprise. “You lonely?” he +asked. “How can that be?”</p> + +<p>“Why not?” she returned.</p> + +<p>“You have made yourself a home here,” he answered, +looking about the room. “You have hosts<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a> +of friends in New York. Whenever I see you in +society you are surrounded by admirers. How can +you be lonely?”</p> + +<p>She was about to make an impetuous reply, but +she checked herself.</p> + +<p>“I am not really a New-Yorker, you know,” she +said at last. “I am a stranger in a strange city. +You don’t know what that means.”</p> + +<p>“I think I do,” he responded. “The city is even +stranger to me than it can be to you.”</p> + +<p>“I doubt it,” she responded.</p> + +<p>“I was once at sea alone in an open boat for three +days,” he went on, “and—it must seem absurd to you, +very absurd, I suppose—but I was not as lonely as I +am, now and then, in the midst of the millions of people +here in New York.”</p> + +<p>“So you have felt that way too, have you?” she +asked. “You have been overwhelmed by the immensity +of the metropolis? You have known what +it is to sink into the multitude, knowing that nobody +cares who you are, or where you are going, or what +you are doing, or what hopes and desires and dreams +fill your head? You have found out that it is only +in a great city that one can be really isolated—for +in a village nobody is ever allowed to be alone. But +in a human whirlpool like this you can be sucked +down to death and nobody will answer your outcry.”</p> + +<p>He gave her another of his penetrating glances.<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> +“It surprises me that you can have such feelings—or +even that you can know what such feelings are,” +he said, “you who lead so brilliant a life, with dinners +every day, and parties, and—”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she interrupted, with a hard little laugh, +“but I have been lonely even at a dinner of twenty-four. +I go to all these things, as you say—I’ve had +my share of gaiety this winter, I’ll admit—and then +I come back here to this hideous hotel, where I don’t +know a single soul. Why, I haven’t a real friend—not +what I call a <i>friend</i>—in all New York.”</p> + +<p>She saw that he had listened to her as though somewhat +surprised, not only by what she was saying, +but also by the tone in which she said it. She observed +that her last remark struck him as offering +an opening for the proposal which she felt certain +he had come to make that afternoon.</p> + +<p>“You must not say that, Mrs. Randolph,” he began. +“Surely you know that I—”</p> + +<p>Then he broke off suddenly as the door of the next +room opened and Jemima entered with a tray in +her hands.</p> + +<p>“You will let me give you a cup of tea, won’t +you?” the widow asked, as Jemima poured out the +steaming water.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” the sailor answered. “Your tea +is always delicious.”</p> + +<p>Jemima lighted the lamp under the silver kettle. +Then she left the room, silently, and Stone was about<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +to take up the conversation where she had interrupted +it, when she came back with a plate of thin bread-and-butter, +and a little glass dish with slices of lemon.</p> + +<p>He checked himself again, not wanting to talk +before the servant. Jemima stole a curious glance +at him, as though wondering what manner of man he +was. Then she turned down the flame of the little +lamp and left the room.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Randolph was glad that the conversation had +been interrupted at that point. She had made up her +mind to accept Stone’s offer when he should ask her +to marry him, but her immediate impulse was to +procrastinate. She did not doubt that he would +propose before he left her that afternoon, and yet +she wanted to keep him at arm’s-length as long as +she could. There were imperative reasons, she +thought, why she should marry him; but she knew +she would bitterly regret having to give up her +liberty—having to surrender the control of herself.</p> + +<p>“You don’t take sugar, I remember,” she said, as +she poured out his cup of tea. “And only one slice +of lemon, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Only one,” he answered, as he took the cup. +“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>There was a change of tone in his voice, and she +knew that it was hopeless for her to try to postpone +what he had to say. But she could not help making +the effort.</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad you like this tea,” she said, hastily.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> +“It is part of a chest Miss Marlenspuyk had sent to +her from Japan, and she let me have two or three +pounds. Wasn’t it nice of her?”</p> + +<p>But the attempt failed. The sailor had gulped +his tea, and now he set the cup down.</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Randolph—” he began, with a break in his +voice.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Stone!” she answered, laughingly; “that’s a +solemn way of addressing me, isn’t it? At least it’s +serious, if it isn’t solemn.”</p> + +<p>“Mrs. Randolph,” he repeated, “what I have to +say is serious—very serious to me, at least.”</p> + +<p>Then she knew that it was idle to try to delay +matters. She drew a long breath and responded as +lightly as she could:</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“I hope I am not going to take you by surprise, +Mrs. Randolph,” he went on. “You are so bright +and so quick that you must have seen that I admired +you.”</p> + +<p>He waited for her response, and she was forced to +say something. Even though the man was trying +to marry her for the money he thought she had, he +was at least exhibiting a most becoming ardor.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she declared, “I didn’t suppose you were +very much bored in my society.”</p> + +<p>“I have never before seen a woman in whose +society I have taken so much pleasure,” he answered. +"You cannot imagine how great a joy it has been for<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> +me to know you, and how much I have enjoyed the +privilege of coming to see you here in your charming +home.”</p> + +<p>She glanced at the commonplace parlor of the hotel +she hated, but she said nothing.</p> + +<p>“You spoke just now of loneliness,” he continued. +“I hope you don’t know what that really is—at least +that you don’t know it as I know it. But if you have +felt it at all, I shall have the less hesitation in asking +if you—if you are willing to consider what it would +mean to me if you could put an end to my loneliness.”</p> + +<p>“Mr. Stone!” she said, as she dropped her eyes.</p> + +<p>“It is not your beauty alone that has drawn me +to you,” he urged, “not your charm, although I have +felt that from the first day I met you. No; it is more +than that, I think—it is your goodness, your gentleness, +your kindness, your womanliness. I don’t +know how to find words for what I want to say, but +you must know what I mean. I mean that I love +you, and I beg you to be my wife.”</p> + +<p>“This is very sudden, Mr. Stone,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“Is it?” he asked, honestly. “I thought everybody +must have seen how I felt toward you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I supposed you liked me a little,” she went on.</p> + +<p>“I love you with all my heart,” he said, and she +wondered at the sincerity with which he said it. +She wished she had never heard that little Mat +Hitchcock talk against him.</p> + +<p>“Of course, I can’t expect that you should love<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> +me all at once,” he continued; “no; that’s too much +to hope. But if you only like me a little now, and if +you will only let me love you, I shall be satisfied.” +And he leaned forward and took her hand.</p> + +<p>“I do like you, Mr. Stone,” she forced herself to +answer. She thrilled a little at his fervor, doubtful +as she was as to the reason for his wooing. And as +his eyes were fixed on her she thought that she had +never before done justice to his looks. He was a +strong figure of a man. His mouth was masterful; +but the woman who yielded herself to him was likely +to have a satisfactory defender.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he asked, when she said nothing, “is it +to be yes or no?” And his voice trembled.</p> + +<p>“Will you be satisfied if I do not say ‘no’—even if +I do not say ‘yes,’ all at once?” she returned.</p> + +<p>“I shall have to be, I suppose,” he answered, and +there was a ring of triumph in his voice. “But I +shall never let go of you till I get you to say ‘yes.’” +And he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.</p> + +<p>She made no resistance; she would have made none +had he clasped her in his arms; she was even a little +surprised that he did not. She was irritatingly conscious +that his warmth was not displeasing to her—that +she seemed not to resent his making love to her +although she suspected him of a base motive.</p> + +<p>For a moment or more nothing was said. He still +held her hand firmly clasped in his.</p> + +<p>At last he spoke: “You have granted me so much<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> +that I have no right to ask for more. But I have not +a great deal of time now to persuade you to marry +me. Some day this summer I expect to be ordered +to sea again—some day in July or August; and I +want to have you for my wife before I go.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr. Stone,” she cried, “that is very soon!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you call me John?” he asked, following up +his advantage. “Can’t I call you Evelyn?”</p> + +<p>She smiled, and did not deny him, and he kissed her +hand again. He kept hold of it now as though he +felt sure of it. She acknowledged to herself that he +was making progress.</p> + +<p>They talked for a while about his term of sea +service. He thought that he might be assigned to the +Mediterranean squadron, and, if he were, she could +come to Europe to him and spend the next winter at +Villefranche. Then they discussed travel in France +and in Italy, and the places they had visited.</p> + +<p>With her delicate feminine perceptions she soon +discovered that there was something he wished to +say but did not know how to lead up to. Curious +to learn what this might be, she let the conversation +drop, so that he could make a fresh start in his blunt +fashion.</p> + +<p>Finally he came to the point. “Evelyn,” he began, +abruptly, “do you know the Pixleys in San Francisco—Tom +Pixley, I mean?”</p> + +<p>“I think I have met him,” she answered, wondering +what this might lead to.<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p> + +<p>“He is an old friend of mine,” Stone continued. +“He was here a fortnight ago, and I had a long talk +with him. He knows all about those Grass Valley +mines.”</p> + +<p>She smiled a little bitterly and withdrew her hand. +She thought that perhaps the stock was worth more +than she had supposed, and that Stone had been told +so by Pixley. All her contempt for a man who +could marry a woman for money rose hot within +her.</p> + +<p>“Does he?” she asked, carelessly, not trusting herself +to say more.</p> + +<p>“You have—it’s not my business, I know,” urged +the sailor, “but I don’t mind, if I can spare you any +worry in the future—you have a lot of stock in the +Belinda and Lone Star, haven’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she replied.</p> + +<p>“It does not pay at all, does it?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She looked at him coldly as she responded, “I have +not received any dividends this year.”</p> + +<p>“But you spoke to me once as if you counted on +this stock,” he returned—“as if you thought that the +dividends were only deferred.”</p> + +<p>“Did I?” she said, distantly, as though the matter +interested her very little.</p> + +<p>“That was why I took the liberty of getting the +facts out of Tom Pixley,” Stone continued. “It +wasn’t my business, I know, but, loving you as I did, +I was afraid you might be bitterly disappointed.”<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<p>“No,” she interrupted, “I am not likely to be +bitterly disappointed.”</p> + +<p>“Then you were aware already that the Belinda +and Lone Star is a failure?” he asked. “I am very +glad you were, for I was afraid I might be the bearer +of bad news.”</p> + +<p>She gazed at him in intense astonishment. “Do +you mean to say that my stock is worthless?” she +inquired.</p> + +<p>“I fear it is worth very little,” he answered. +“Tom Pixley told me he believed that they were +going to abandon the workings, and that the interest +on the mortgage had not been paid for two +years.”</p> + +<p>“So you knew all along that I was poor?” she +asked. “Then why did you ask me to marry you?”</p> + +<p>John Stone looked at her for a moment in amazement, +while his cheeks flamed. Then he rose to his +feet and stood before her.</p> + +<p>“Did you suppose that I wanted to marry you for +your money?” he said, making an obvious effort for +self-control.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered, lowering her eyes. “And +that is why I was going to accept you.”</p> + +<p>She felt that the man was still staring at her, +wholly unable to understand.</p> + +<p>“I am poor, very poor,” she went on, hurriedly. +"I don’t know how I am going to live next month. I +believed that you thought I was wealthy. It seemed<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> +to me a mean thing for a man to do, to marry a woman +for her money, so I didn’t mind deceiving you.”</p> + +<p>He stood silently gazing at her for a minute, and +she could not but think that a man was very slow +to understand.</p> + +<p>Then he sat down again, and took her hand once +more, and petted it.</p> + +<p>“You must have been sadly tried if you were willing +to do a thing like that,” he said, with infinite pity in +his voice. “You poor child!”</p> + +<p>It was her turn then to be astonished, but she was +swifter of comprehension.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say that you still want to marry +me,” she asked, looking him full in the face, “even +after I have insulted you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he answered. “I want to marry you—and +more than ever now, so that you may never again +be exposed to a temptation like this.”</p> + +<p>“But now I refuse to marry you,” she returned, +forcibly, as she withdrew her hand. “I say ‘no’ now—without +hesitation this time.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Because it isn’t fair now,” she responded.</p> + +<p>“Fair?” he repeated, puzzled.</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t do it now; it would be too mean for +anything,” she explained. “As long as I supposed +you thought I was rich and were going to marry me +for my money, I didn’t mind cheating you. I could +let you marry me even if I didn’t love you, and it<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> +would only be serving you right. But now!—now I +couldn’t! It wouldn’t be fair to you. I am pretty +mean, I confess, but I’m not mean enough for that, +I hope.”</p> + +<p>Again he took a moment to think before he spoke.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what to make of you,” he began. +“Am I to understand that you were going to marry +me, though you did not love me, so long as you thought +I did not love you, but that now, when you know +that I really do love you, for that very reason you +refuse to marry me?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it,” she cried. “You must see how I feel +about it. It wouldn’t be fair to marry you now I +know you are in earnest, would it?”</p> + +<p>“But if I am willing,” he urged; “if I want you +as much as ever; if I feel confident that I can get +you to love me a little in time; if you will only let +me hope—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I couldn’t,” she answered. “I couldn’t cheat +you now I really know you—now that I like you a +great deal better than I did.”</p> + +<p>He was about to protest again, when she interrupted +him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t let’s talk about it any more,” she said, +impetuously; “it has given me a headache already.”</p> + +<p>Forbidden to speak upon the one subject about +which he had something to say, the man said nothing, +and for a minute or more there was silence.<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<p>They could hear the patter of the rain as it pelted +against the window near which they were sitting. +Then there was a slight flash of lightning, followed by +a distant growl of thunder.</p> + +<p>A shiver ran through Mrs. Randolph, and she gave +a little nervous laugh.</p> + +<p>“I hate lightning,” she explained, “and I detest +a storm—don’t you? I don’t see how any one can +ever choose to be a sailor.”</p> + +<p>He smiled grimly. “I am a sailor,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“And are you going to sea again soon?” she returned. +“I shall miss you dreadfully. I’m glad I +sha’n’t be here in New York when you are gone. +Perhaps I shall leave first.”</p> + +<p>“Where are you going?” he asked, eagerly.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got to go somewhere,” she answered, “now +that I’ve had to change all my plans. I’m going to +Milwaukee.”</p> + +<p>“To Milwaukee?” he repeated. “I did not know +you had any friends there.”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t,” she answered, with a repetition of +the hard little laugh. “Not a friend in Milwaukee, +and not a friend in New York.”</p> + +<p>“Then why are you going?”</p> + +<p>“I must earn my living, somehow,” she responded, +"and I can’t paint, and I can’t embroider, and I can’t +teach whist, and I’m not young enough to go on the +stage—so I’m to settle down as the matron of a girl’s<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> +school in Milwaukee. The place has been offered +to me, and I intend to accept it.”</p> + +<p>“When must you be there?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered. “Next week +some time, or perhaps not till next month. I’m not +sure when.”</p> + +<p>John Stone rose to go. “Then I may come to see +you again—Evelyn?” he asked.</p> + +<p>Her heart throbbed a little as she heard her name +from his lips.</p> + +<p>“Oh yes,” she replied, cordially. “Come and see +me as often as you can. I hate to be as lonely as I +was this afternoon.”</p> + +<p>And she held out her hand.</p> + +<p>“Good-by, then,” he responded, and he raised +her hand again and kissed it.</p> + +<p>When he had gone she walked restlessly to and fro +for several minutes. At last she opened her desk and +took out the unfinished letter and tore it up impatiently. +Then she went to the window and peered +out.</p> + +<p>Twilight was settling down over the city, but the +sky was leaden, with not a gleam of sunset along the +horizon. Lights were already twinkling here and +there over the vast expanse of irregular roofs across +which she was looking. The rain was heavier than +ever, and it fell in sheets, now, as though it would +never cease.</p> + +<p>Yet the solitary woman looking out at the dreary<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> +prospect did not feel so lonely as she had felt two +hours earlier. She had meant to accept John Stone, +and she had rejected him. But it was a comfort to +her to know that somewhere in the immense city +that spread out before her there was a man who +really loved her.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1898)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a></p> + +<p><a name="An_Idyl" id="An_Idyl"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp099_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp099_sml.jpg" width="550" height="422" alt="An Idyl of Central Park" title="An Idyl of Central Park" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp101.png"> +<img src="images/ilp101_sml.png" +width="93" +height="93" +class="letra" +alt="I" +title="I" +/></a>T was nearly five o’clock on an afternoon +early in May when Dr. Richard Demarest +bicycled up Fifth Avenue and into +Central Park. He looked at his watch +to make sure of the hour, and then he +dismounted on the western side of the broad drive, +whence he could see everybody who might seek to +enter the Park long before they were likely to discover +him. He had reason to believe that Miss +Minnie Contoit, who had refused to marry him only +a fortnight before, and whom he had not seen since, +was going to take a little turn on her wheel in the +Park that afternoon.</p> + +<p>As it had happened, he had gone into the club to +lunch that morning, and he had met her only brother, +with whom he had always carefully maintained the +most pleasant relations. By ingeniously pumping +Ralph Contoit he had ascertained that the girl he +loved was going out at five with her father and her +grandfather. The brother had been even franker than +brothers usually are.</p> + +<p>“I say,” he had declared, “I don’t know what has +come over Minnie this last ten days; she’s been as +cross as two sticks, and generally she’s pretty even-tempered<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> +for a girl, you know. But she’s been so +touchy lately; she nearly took my head off this +morning! I guess you had better have Dr. Cheever +come around and prescribe for her. Cocaine for a +bad temper is what she needs now, I can tell you!”</p> + +<p>Although he was a rejected lover, he was not melancholy. +In the springtime youth feels the joy of +living, and Richard Demarest took delight in the +beauty of the day. The foliage was everywhere +fresh and vigorous after the persistent rains of April, +and a scent of young blossoms came to him from a +clump of bushes behind the path. A group of half +a dozen girls flashed past him on their wheels, laughing +lightly as they sped along home, each of them +with a bunch of fragrant lilacs lashed to her handle-bar.</p> + +<p>He followed them with his eye till they turned out +of the Park; and then at the entrance he saw the +girl he was waiting for riding her bicycle carefully +across the car-tracks in Fifty-ninth Street. Her +father and grandfather were with her, one on each +side.</p> + +<p>Dr. Demarest sprang on his wheel and sped on +ahead. When he came to the foot of the Mall he +swerved to the westward. Then he turned and retraced +his path, reaching the branching of the ways +just as General Contoit with his son and granddaughter +arrived there.</p> + +<p>The General was nearly seventy, but he sat his<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> +wheel with a military stiffness, holding himself far +more carefully than his son, the Professor. Between +them came Miss Minnie Contoit, a slim slip of a +girl, in a light-brown cloth suit, with her pale, blond +hair coiled tightly under a brown alpine hat. They +had just come up a hill, and the General’s face was +ruddy, but the girl’s was as colorless as ever. Demarest +had often wondered why it was that no exercise +ever brought a flush to her ivory cheeks.</p> + +<p>He watched her now as her grandfather caught +sight of him, and cried out: “Hello, Doctor! Out +for a spin?”</p> + +<p>He saw her look up, and then she glanced away +swiftly, as though to choose her course of conduct +before she acknowledged his greeting.</p> + +<p>“Good afternoon, General; how well you are looking +this spring!” said Demarest. “Good afternoon, +Professor. And you, too, Miss Contoit. Going +round the Park, are you? May I join you?” He +looked at her as he asked the question.</p> + +<p>It was her grandfather who answered: “Come +along, come along! We shall be delighted to have +you!”</p> + +<p>She said nothing. They were all four going up on +the east side of the Mall, and they had already left +behind them the bronze mass-meeting of misshapen +celebrities which disfigures that broad plateau. A +Park omnibus was loitering in front of them, and they +could not pass it four abreast.<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> + +<p>“Come on, papa,” cried the girl; “let’s leave +grandpa and Dr. Demarest to take care of each +other! We had better go ahead and show them the +way!”</p> + +<p>It struck Dr. Demarest that she was glad to get +away from him, as though her sudden flight was an +instinctive shrinking from his wooing. He smiled +and held this for a good sign. He was in no hurry +to have his talk out with her, and he did not mean +to begin it until a proper opportunity presented itself. +He was glad to have her in front of him, where +he could follow her movements and get delight out +of the play of the sunshine through the branches as +it fell molten on her fine, light hair. It pleased him +to watch her firm strokes as they came to a hill and +to see that she rode with no waste of energy.</p> + +<p>The General had done his duty in the long years +of the war, and he liked to talk about what he had +seen. Dr. Demarest was a good listener, and perhaps +this was one reason why the old soldier was +always glad of his company. The young doctor was +considerate, also, and he never increased his pace +beyond the gait most comfortable for his elder companion; +and as they drew near to the Metropolitan +Museum he guided the General away to the Fifth +Avenue entrance and thence back to the main road, +by which excursion they avoided the long and steep +hill at the top of which stands Cleopatra’s Needle. +And as they had ridden on the level rather rapidly<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> +they almost caught up with the General’s son and +granddaughter.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp104_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp104-sml.jpg" width="416" height="550" alt=""I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY DEAR, SO YOU CAN RUNALONG TOGETHER"" title=""I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY DEAR, SO YOU CAN RUNALONG TOGETHER"" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">"I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY DEAR, SO YOU CAN RUNALONG TOGETHER"</span> +</p> + +<p>The two couples were close to each other as they +went around the reservoir, along the shaded road on +the edge of the Park, with the sidewalk of Fifth +Avenue down below. Everywhere the grass was +fresh and fragrant; and everywhere the squirrels +were frequent and impertinent, cutting across the +road almost under the wheels, or sitting up on the +narrow sward in impudent expectation of the nuts +gently thrown to them from the carriages.</p> + +<p>When they came to McGowan’s Pass he saw the +Professor suddenly dismount, and he thought that +Minnie was going on alone and that her father had +to call her back.</p> + +<p>“Shall we rest here for a while, father?” asked the +Professor, as the General and the Doctor dismounted.</p> + +<p>“Just as you say,” the old soldier answered; “just +as you say. I’m not at all fatigued, not at all. But +don’t let us old fogies keep you young folks from your +exercise. Minnie, you and the Doctor can ride on—”</p> + +<p>“But, grandpa—” she began, in protest.</p> + +<p>“I’ll stay here a minute or two with your father,” +the General continued. “The Doctor is very kind +to let me talk to him, but I’m sure he’d rather talk +to you, my dear; so you two can run along together.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be delighted to accompany Miss Contoit +if she cares to have a little spin,” said Dr. Demarest, +turning to her.<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a></p> + +<p>“Oh, well,” she answered, a little ungraciously; +then she smiled swiftly, and added: “I always do +what grandpa wants. Don’t you think I’m a very +good little girl?” And with that she started forward, +springing lightly to her seat after her bicycle +was in motion.</p> + +<p>Demarest was jumping on his wheel to follow, +when her father called out, “Don’t let her ride up-hill +too fast, Doctor!”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t papa absurd?” she asked, laughing; “and +grandpa, too? They are always wanting me to take +care of myself, just as if I didn’t!”</p> + +<p>They overtook and passed a woman weighing two +hundred pounds and full forty years of age, who was +toiling along on a bicycle, dressed in a white skirt, +a pink shirt-waist, and a straw sailor-hat. The +Doctor turned and bowed to this strange apparition, +but the plump lady was too fully occupied in her +arduous task to be able to do more than gasp out: +“Good—after—noon—Doctor.”</p> + +<p>When they had gone one hundred yards ahead the +Doctor’s companion expressed her surprise. “You +do know the funniest people!” she cried. “Who on +earth was that?”</p> + +<p>“That?” he echoed. “Oh, that’s a patient of +Dr. Cheever’s. He advised her to get a bicycle if +she wanted to be thinner—”</p> + +<p>“And he told me to get one if I wanted to be a little +fatter!” the girl interrupted. “Isn’t that inconsistent?”<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a></p> + +<p>“I don’t think so,” the young man answered, glad +that the conversation had taken this impersonal turn, +and yet wondering how he could twist it to the point +where he wanted it. “Outdoor exercise helps people +to health, you see, and if they are unhealthily +fat it tends to thin them down, and if they are very +thin it helps them to put on flesh.”</p> + +<p>“I’d bike fourteen hours a day if I was a porpoise +like that,” said the girl, glancing back at the plump +struggler behind them.</p> + +<p>Just then a horn tooted and a coach came around +the next turn. There were on it three or four girls +in gay spring costumes, and two of them bowed to +Dr. Demarest.</p> + +<p>Behind the four-in-hand followed a stylish victoria, +in which sat a handsome young woman alone. She +was in black. Her somber face lighted with a smile +as she acknowledged the young doctor’s bow.</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen her somewhere,” said the girl by his +side. “Who is she?”</p> + +<p>“That’s Mrs. Cyrus Poole,” he answered; “the +widow of the Wall Street operator who died two +years ago.”</p> + +<p>“What lots of people you know,” she commented.</p> + +<p>“How is a young doctor to get on unless he knows +lots of people?” was his answer.</p> + +<p>She said nothing for a minute or two, as they +threaded their way through a tangle of vehicles +stretching along the northernmost drive of the Park.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p>Then she asked: “Why is it that most of the +women we have passed this afternoon sitting back +in their carriages look bored to death?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose it’s because they’ve got all they want,” +the Doctor responded. “They have nothing left +to live for; they have had everything. That’s +what makes them so useful to our profession. They +send for us because they are bored, and they want +sympathy. I suppose everybody likes to talk about +himself, especially when he’s out of sorts; now, you +see, the family doctor can always be sent for, and it’s +his business to listen to your account of your symptoms. +That’s what he’s paid for.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think that’s a nice way of earning a living, +do you?” returned the girl.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “Why not? +It’s our duty to relieve suffering, and these women +are just suffering for a chance to describe all their +imaginary ailments.”</p> + +<p>“Women?” she cried, indignantly. “Are all these +old fools women?”</p> + +<p>“There must be men sometimes, I suppose,” he +replied; “but most of a family physician’s work is +with the women, of course.”</p> + +<p>Then it seemed to him that he saw before him the +opportunity he had been awaiting. They were now +climbing the hill at the northwestern corner of the +Park. He slowed up so that she should not be +tempted to overexert herself. He even went so far<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> +as to lag a little behind. When they began to go +down again gently, he came alongside.</p> + +<p>“By the way,” he began, “speaking of what a +family physician has to do reminds me that I want +to ask your advice.”</p> + +<p>“My advice?” she echoed, with the light little +laugh that thrilled through him always. “Why, I +don’t know anything about medicine.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t a professional consultation I want,” he +answered, laughing himself, “it’s friendly counsel. +Don’t you remember that when you told me you +couldn’t love me you went on to say you hoped we +should always be good friends?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she responded, calmly, “I remember that. +And I hope that if I can really show any friendliness +in any way, you will let me.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I am coming to,” he returned. “You +know, I’ve been helping Dr. Cheever as a sort of +third man while Dr. Aspinwall has been ill? Well, +Dr. Aspinwall isn’t getting any better, and he’s got +to quit for a year, anyhow. So Dr. Cheever is going +to take me with him—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so glad!” she broke in, heartily. “That’s +splendid for you, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“It will be splendid for me if I can keep the place +and do the work to his satisfaction,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I guess Dr. Cheever knows what he is about,” +retorted the girl, gaily. “He knows how clever you +are.”<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a></p> + +<p>“Thank you,” the young man returned. “I felt +sure you would be pleased, because you have always +been so kind to me.”</p> + +<p>He hesitated for a moment, and then continued: +“I feel as if I owe you an apology—”</p> + +<p>“What for?” she asked, in surprise.</p> + +<p>“For the way I behaved last time we—we had a +talk,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>then</i>,” she commented; and it seemed +to him that she had almost made an effort to retain +the non-committal expression she was affecting.</p> + +<p>“You may remember,” he went on, “that I asked +you to marry me, and that you refused, and that +you told me you didn’t love me at all, but you did +like me—”</p> + +<p>“What’s the use of going over all that again?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“I must make myself right with you, Miss Minnie,” +he urged. “You said we could be friends, and I was +all broke up then, and I didn’t know just what I was +saying, and I told you friendship wasn’t any good to +me, and if I couldn’t have you there wasn’t anything +else I wanted. I must have been rude, indeed, +and it has worried me ever since.”</p> + +<p>“I’ll forgive you, if that’s what you mean,” she +responded. “I hadn’t really thought about it twice. +It isn’t of any consequence.”</p> + +<p>“It is to me,” he returned. “Now I’ve changed<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> +my mind, and if you will offer the friendship again +I’ll accept it gladly.”</p> + +<p>“Why, Dr. Demarest!” she said, smiling, but with +a flash in her gray eyes, “of course we can be good +friends, just as we have always been. And now you +needn’t talk any more about this foolish misunderstanding.”</p> + +<p>So saying she started ahead. They had been +climbing a hill, and now they had on their left a +broad meadow, gay with groups of tennis-players. +At an opening on the right a mounted policeman sat +his horse as immovable as an equestrian statue. Just +before them were two gentlemen with impatient +trotters trying to get a clear space; and there was +also a double file of young men and girls from some +riding-school, under the charge of a robust German +riding-master.</p> + +<p>It was not for two or three minutes that Dr. Demarest +was able to resume his position by the side of +Miss Contoit.</p> + +<p>“I had to set myself right,” he began, abruptly, +“because if we really are friends I want you to help +me.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be very glad, I’m sure,” she replied. +“I’ve told you so already.”</p> + +<p>“But what I want is something very serious,” he +continued.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she asked, drawing away from him +a little.<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a></p> + +<p>“It’s advice,” he explained.</p> + +<p>She gave a light laugh of relief. “Oh, <i>advice</i>,” +she repeated; “anybody can give advice.”</p> + +<p>“Not the advice I want,” he responded, gravely. +“It’s a very solemn thing for me, I can assure you.”</p> + +<p>“And what is this very solemn thing?” she inquired, +airily.</p> + +<p>“It’s marriage,” he answered. “I’ve got to get +married, and—and—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t let’s go back to that again,” she said, with +frank impatience. “I thought we had settled that +once for all.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t mean you,” he returned, apologetically.</p> + +<p>“You didn’t mean me?” she repeated, in amazement. +“Why, I thought—well, it’s no matter what +I thought, of course.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid I’m getting things all mixed up,” he +said, calmly. “Of course, you are the only woman +I love, and the only woman I ever shall love. I told +you that the last time we met, and you told me that +you didn’t love me—so that settled it.”</p> + +<p>“Well?” she interrogated.</p> + +<p>“Well, if I can’t have what I want,” he explained, +“I’d better get what I need.”</p> + +<p>“I confess I do not know what you are talking +about,” she declared.</p> + +<p>“It’s simple enough,” he returned. “I’m a doctor, +and I’m young—I’m only thirty—and I haven’t a<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> +bald spot yet, so people think I’m even younger than +I am, and they haven’t confidence in it. So I’ve +got to get married.”</p> + +<p>The girl laughed out merrily. “Can’t you get a +bald spot any other way?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“If I have a wife I don’t need a bald spot,” he +responded. “A wife is a warrant of respectability. +Every doctor will tell you that’s the way patients +feel. I’m tired of going to see some old woman for +Dr. Cheever, and sending up my card and overhearing +her say: ‘I won’t see him! I don’t want +Dr. Demarest! I sent for Dr. Cheever, and it’s Dr. +Cheever I want to see!’ That has happened to me, +and not only once or twice, either.”</p> + +<p>“How could any woman be so unlady-like?” the +girl asked, indignantly. “She must have been a +vulgar old thing!”</p> + +<p>“There’s more than one of her in New York,” the +young doctor asserted, “and that’s one reason why +I’ve got to get married. And between you and me, +I think my chance of staying with Dr. Cheever would +be better if I had a wife. Of course, he doesn’t say +so, but I can’t help knowing what he thinks.”</p> + +<p>The girl made no comment on this, and they rode +along side by side. They were now on the crest of +a hill, and they overlooked the broad expanse of the +reservoir. The almost level rays of the sinking sun +thrust themselves through the leafy branches and +made a rosy halo about her fair head.<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a></p> + +<p>“So that’s why I’ve come to you for advice,” he +began again.</p> + +<p>“But I don’t see what good my advice will be to +you,” she returned. “You don’t expect me to pick +out a wife for you, do you?”</p> + +<p>“Well, that’s about it!” he admitted.</p> + +<p>“The idea!” she retorted. “Why, it’s perfectly +absurd!”</p> + +<p>“So long as I cannot get the girl I love, marriage +ceases to be a matter of sentiment with me,” he went +on, stolidly. “I come to you as a friend who knows +girls—knows them in a way no man can ever know +them. I want your help in selecting a woman who +will make a good wife for a doctor.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know she will have you?” she thrust +at him.</p> + +<p>“Of course, I don’t know,” he admitted. “I can’t +know till I try, can I? And if at first I don’t succeed +I must try, try again. If the one you pick out refuses +me I’ll have to get you to pick out another.”</p> + +<p>“So it’s a mere marriage of convenience you are +after?” the girl asked. “That’s all very well for +you, no doubt; but how about the woman who +marries you? I don’t think it’s a very nice lookout +for her, do you? That’s just the way with you men +always! You never think about the woman’s feelings!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll do my duty to her,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“Your <i>duty</i>!” sniffed the girl, indignantly.<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a></p> + +<p>“I’ll be so attentive to her that she will never guess +my heart is given to another,” he went on.</p> + +<p>“Don’t be too sure of that,” she returned. “Women +have very sharp eyes—sharper than you men think—especially +about a thing like that!”</p> + +<p>“I am not going to borrow trouble,” the Doctor +declared, suavely. “I shall always be as nice to +her as I can, and if it is in my power to make her +happy, then she will be happy. But we needn’t +anticipate. What I want you to do now is to help +me to find the right woman. It will be my business +to take care of her afterward.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well,” said the girl, rather sharply. +“Have you anybody in particular in view?”</p> + +<p>“I haven’t really fixed on anybody yet,” he explained. +“I wanted your advice first, for I’m going +to rely on that. I feel sure you won’t let me make +a mistake about a matter so important to me.”</p> + +<p>“Then don’t let’s waste any time!” she cried, peremptorily.</p> + +<p>“Really,” he declared, “it’s astonishing how a little +bit of a thing like you can be so bossy.” She +looked at him fiercely, so he made haste to add, +“But I like it—I like it!”</p> + +<p>The girl laughed, but with a certain constraint, so +it seemed to him.</p> + +<p>“Come, now,” she said, “if I must help you, let +me see your list of proposed victims!”</p> + +<p>“Do you know Dr. Pennington, the rector of St.<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +Boniface’s, in Philadelphia?” he began. “Well, he +has two daughters—nice girls, both of them—”</p> + +<p>“Which one do you want?” asked the girl. “The +tall one who squints, or the fat one with red hair?”</p> + +<p>“Come, now,” he returned, “she doesn’t really +squint, you know.”</p> + +<p>“Call it a cast in her eye if you like; I don’t mind. +It isn’t anything to me,” she asserted. “Is it the +tall one you want?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t care,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“You don’t care?” she repeated.</p> + +<p>“No,” he returned; “that’s why I’ve come to +you. I don’t care. Which one do you recommend?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t recommend either of them!” she responded, +promptly. “I shouldn’t be a true friend if I let +you throw yourself away on one of those frights!”</p> + +<p>“I’ll give them up, if you say so,” said he; “but +I’ve always heard that they are good, quiet girls—domesticated, +you know—and—”</p> + +<p>“Who is next?” she pursued, with a return of her +arbitrary manner.</p> + +<p>“Well,” he suggested, bashfully, “I haven’t any +reason to suppose she would look at me, and it sounds +so conceited in me to suggest that such a handsome +woman—and so rich, too—would listen to me, but—”</p> + +<p>“Who is this paragon?” his companion demanded.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t I mention her name?” he responded. “I +thought I had. We passed her only a little while +ago—Mrs. Poole.”<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a></p> + +<p>“Mrs. Poole?” the girl replied. “That was the +sick-looking creature in black lolling back in a victoria, +wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“She isn’t sick, really,” he retorted; “but I don’t +think mourning is becoming to her. Of course, if +we are married she will wear colors and—”</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know you were willing to take up with +a widow!” she interrupted, with a slight touch of +acerbity. “I thought it was a girl you were looking +for!”</p> + +<p>“It was a wife of some sort,” he replied. “I don’t +know myself what would suit me best. That’s why +I am consulting you. I’m going to rely on your +judgment—”</p> + +<p>“But you mustn’t do that!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“It is just what I’ve got to do!” he insisted. “And +if you think it would be a mistake for me to marry +a widow, why—it’s for you to say.”</p> + +<p>“I must say that I think it would be a great mistake +for a doctor to marry a woman who looks as +if she couldn’t live through the week,” she responded. +“I should suppose it would ruin any physician’s +practice to have a wife as woebegone as that Mrs. +Poole! Of course, I don’t know her, and I’ve nothing +to say against her, and she may be as beautiful +and as charming as you say she is.”</p> + +<p>“I give her up at once,” he declared, laughing. +“She shall never even know how near she came to +having a chance to reject me.”<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a></p> + +<p>“Is that all?” the girl asked, a little spitefully. +“Have you anybody else on your list?”</p> + +<p>“I have only just one more,” he replied.</p> + +<p>“Who is she?” was the girl’s quick question.</p> + +<p>“I’m not sure that you have met her,” he returned. +“She’s from the South somewhere, or the Southwest, +I don’t know—”</p> + +<p>“What’s her name?” was the impatient query.</p> + +<p>“Chubb,” he answered. “It’s not a pretty name, +is it? But that doesn’t matter if I’m to persuade +her to change it.”</p> + +<p>“Chubb?” the girl repeated, as though trying to +recall the name. “Chubb? Not Virgie Chubb?”</p> + +<p>“Her name is Virginia,” he admitted.</p> + +<p>The girl by his side laughed a little shrilly. “Virgie +Chubb?” she cried. “That scrawny thing?”</p> + +<p>The Doctor confessed that Miss Chubb was not +exactly plump.</p> + +<p>“Not plump? I should think not, indeed,” the +girl declared. “Do you know what Miss Marlenspuyk +said about her? She said that Virgie Chubb +looked like a death’s-head on a toothpick! That’s +what she said!”</p> + +<p>They were approaching the Mall, and the Doctor +knew that his time was now very brief. They had to +slow up just then, as a policeman was conveying +across the broad road three or four nurses with a +baby-carriage or two, and then they had to steer +clear of half a dozen working-men going home across<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> +the Park, with pipes in their mouths and dinner-pails +swinging in their hands.</p> + +<p>“So you don’t think Miss Chubb would be a good +wife for me?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“I have nothing to say at all! It isn’t really any +of my business!” she replied. “It is simply absurd +of you to ask me!”</p> + +<p>“But you must help me out,” he urged. “So far +you have only told me that I mustn’t marry any +of the girls I had on my list.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t want to see you throw yourself away,” +she returned. “A pretty kind of a friend I should +be if I encouraged you to marry your Virgie Chubb +and your Widow Poole!”</p> + +<p>“That’s it, precisely,” he asserted; “that’s why +I’ve come to you. Of course, I don’t want to throw +myself away. Your advice has been invaluable to +me—simply invaluable. But so far you have only +shown me how it is that none of these girls will suit. +That brings me no nearer my object. I’ve simply +got to have a wife.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see why you need be in such a hurry,” +she replied.</p> + +<p>“I must, I must!” he retorted. “And there’s one +more girl I haven’t mentioned so far—”</p> + +<p>“You’ve kept her to the last!” she snapped.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I’ve kept her to the last, because I haven’t +any right even to hope that she would have me. +She is not a widow, and she hasn’t a cast in her eye,<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> +and she is neither fat nor scrawny; she is just a +lovely young girl—”</p> + +<p>“You speak of her with more enthusiasm than you +did of any of the others,” she broke in. “Do I +know her?”</p> + +<p>“You ought to know her,” he answered; “but I +doubt if you think as well of her as I do.”</p> + +<p>“Who is she?” was her swift question.</p> + +<p>“You won’t be offended?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Of course not! How absurd! Why should I +be offended?” she responded. “Who is she? Who +is she?”</p> + +<p>The Doctor answered seriously, and with a quaver +of emotion in his voice, “She is the girl I have loved +for a long time, and her name is Minnie Contoit!”</p> + +<p>The girl did not say anything. Her face was as +pale as ever, but there was a light in the depths of +her cool gray eyes.</p> + +<p>“Listen to me once more, Minnie!” implored the +young fellow by her side. “You say that none of +these other girls will suit me, and I knew that before +you said it. I knew that you are the only girl I +ever wanted. You promised me your friendship the +last time we talked this over, and now I’ve had a +chance to tell you how much I need a wife I have +hoped you would look at the matter in a clearer +light.”</p> + +<p>She said nothing. He gave a hasty glance backward +and he saw that her father and her grandfather<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> +were only a hundred yards or so behind them. The +reddening sunset on their right cast lengthening shadows +across the road. The spring day was drawing +to an end, and the hour had come when he was to +learn his fate forever.</p> + +<p>“Minnie,” he urged once more, “don’t you think +it is your duty—as a friend, you know—to give me +the wife I ought to have?”</p> + +<p>She looked at him, and laughed nervously, and +then dropped her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>well</i>,” she said at last, “if I must!”</p> + +<p><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1900)</p></div> + +<p><a name="In_a_Hansom" id="In_a_Hansom"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp123_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp123_sml.jpg" width="550" height="415" alt="In a Hansom" title="In a Hansom" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp125.png"> +<img src="images/ilp125_sml.png" +width="84" +height="93" +class="letra" +alt="T" +title="T" +/></a>HERE were two men in the cab as it +turned into Fifth Avenue and began to +skirt the Park on its way down-town. +One of them was perhaps fifty; he had +grizzled hair, cold, gray eyes, and a square +jaw. The other appeared to be scant thirty; he had +soft brown eyes, and a soft brown mustache drooped +over his rather irresolute mouth. The younger man +was the better-looking of the two, and the better +dressed; and he seemed also to be more at home in +New York, while the elder was probably a stranger in +the city—very likely a Westerner, if the black slouch +hat was a true witness.</p> + +<p>They sat side by side in silence, having nothing to +say, the one to the other. The shadows that were +slowly stretching themselves across the broad walk +on the Park side of the Avenue shivered as the spring +breeze played with the tender foliage of the trees that +spread their ample branches almost over the wall. +The languid scent of blossoming bushes was borne +fitfully beyond the border of the Park. To the eyes +of the younger of the two men in the hansom the +quivering play of light and shade brought no pleasure; +and he had no delight in the fragrance of the springtime<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a>—although +in former years he had been wont +to thrill with unspoken joy at the promise of summer.</p> + +<p>The elder of the two took no thought of such things; +it was as though he had no time to waste. Of course, +he was aware that winter followed the fall, and that +summer had come in its turn; but this was all in the +day’s work. He had the reputation of being a good +man in his business; and although the spring had +brought no smile to his firm lips, he was satisfied with +his success in the latest task intrusted to him. He had +in his pocket a folded paper, signed by the Governor +of a State in the Mississippi Valley, and sealed with +the seal of that commonwealth; and in the little bag +on his knees he carried a pair of handcuffs.</p> + +<p>As the hansom approached the Plaza at the entrance +to the Park, the gray-eyed Westerner caught +sight of the thickening crowd, and of the apparent +confusion in which men and women and children +were mixed, bicycles and electric cabs, carriages and +cross-town cars, all weltering together; and he wondered +for a moment whether he had done wisely in +allowing so much apparent freedom to his prisoner. +He looked right and left swiftly, as though sizing up +the chances of escape, and then he glanced down at +the bag on his knees.</p> + +<p>“You needn’t be afraid of my trying to run,” said +the younger man. “What good would it do me? +You’ve caught me once, and I don’t doubt you could +do it again.”<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a></p> + +<p>“That’s so,” returned the other, with just a tinge +of self-satisfaction in his chilly smile. “I shouldn’t +wonder if I could.”</p> + +<p>“Besides, I don’t want to get away now,” insisted +the first speaker. “I’ve got to face the music sooner +or later, and I don’t care how quick the brass band +strikes up. I want to take my punishment and have +it over. That’s what I want. I’m going to plead +guilty and save the State the trouble of trying me, +and the expense, too. That ought to count in cutting +down the sentence, oughtn’t it? And then I shall +study the rules of—of that place, and I mean to learn +them by heart. There won’t be anybody there in a +greater hurry to get out than I, and so I’m going to +be a model of good conduct.”</p> + +<p>“It ain’t every fellow that talks like that who’s +able to keep it up,” commented the officer of the law.</p> + +<p>“I guess I can, anyhow,” replied his prisoner. +“I’ve made up my mind to get this thing over as +soon as possible, and to have a little life left for me +when I’m let out.”</p> + +<p>The elder man made no answer. He thought that +his companion was sincere and that there would be +no attempt to escape, whatever the opportunity. +But his experience trained him to take no chances, +and he did not relax his vigilance.</p> + +<p>A horn sounded behind him; and a minute later a +four-in-hand passed with tinkling chains and rumbling +wheels. The top of the coach was filled with elaborately<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> +attired men and with girls in all the gayety +of their spring gowns; and they seemed to be having +a good time. They did not mean to hurt the younger +of the two men in the hansom; they did not know, +of course; but just then their mirth smote him to +the heart.</p> + +<p>Fifth Avenue is an alluring spectacle late in the +afternoon of the first Saturday in June; and when the +hansom-cab topped the crest of a hill, the two men +could see far down the vista of the broad street. +The roadway was a solid mass of vehicles in ceaseless +motion; and the sidewalks were filled with humanity. +To the man who was being taken to his trial the +bright color and the brisk joyousness of the scene +were actually painful. Of the countless men and +women scattered up and down the Avenue in the +glaring sunshine, how many knew him to call him by +name and to take him by the hand? More than +a hundred, no doubt, for he had been popular. And +how many of them would give him a second thought +after they had read of his arrest and of his trial and +his sentence?</p> + +<p>How many of them would miss him?—would be +conscious even of his absence? And he recalled the +disgust of a friend who had gone around the world, +and had come back after a year or more with picturesque +stories of his wanderings in far countries, +only to have the first man he met in his club ask him +casually where he’d been “for the last week or so.”</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp128_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp128-sml.jpg" width="342" height="550" alt="THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL" title="THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN USUAL</span> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a></p> + +<p>And now he, too, was going to a strange land; and he +foresaw that when he returned—if he ever got back +alive!—he would not know what to answer if any one +should inquire where he had been for the last week +or so. The world was a bitterly selfish place where +men had no time to think except of themselves. If a +fellow could not keep up with the procession, he had to +drop out of the ranks and be glad if the rest of them +did not tramp over him. He knew how hard he had +tried not to be left behind, and how little the effort +had profited him.</p> + +<p>With an aggressive movement that made his +companion even more alert than usual, the brown-eyed +young man shook himself erect, as though to +cast behind him these evil thoughts. It was a beautiful +day, and flowers blazed in the broad windows +of the florists—roses and carnations and lilacs. +There were lilacs also in the arbitrary hats the women +were wearing, and the same tint was often echoed +in their costumes. He had always been attentive +to the changes of fashion—always subject to the +charm of woman. As he was borne down the Avenue +by the side of the man in whose custody he was, it +struck him that this year the girls were prettier than +usual—younger, more graceful, more fascinating, more +desirable. He followed with his eyes first one and +then another, noting the sweep of the skirt, the curve +of the bodice, the grace of gesture, the straggling tendril +of hair that had escaped upon the neck. For a<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> +brief moment the pleasure of his eye took his thoughts +away from his future; and then swiftly his mind +leaped forward to the next spring, when no woman’s +face would chance within the range of his vision, and +when the unseen blossoming of nature would bring +only impotent desire. What zest could there be in +life when life was bounded in a whitewashed cell?</p> + +<p>At Thirty-fourth Street the hansom was halted to +let a funeral cross the current of the Avenue. An +open carriage came first, its seats covered with +flowers, tortured into stiff set pieces; the white hearse +followed, with a satin-covered coffin visible through +its plate-glass sides; and then half a dozen carriages +trailed after. The prisoner in the hansom noticed +that the shades were drawn in the one that followed +the hearse; it bore a grief too sacred for observation—a +mother’s, no doubt. He was suddenly glad that +his parents had both died when he was yet a boy. +To be alone in the world, with no family to keep him +warm with tolerant affection—this had often saddened +him; now at last he rejoiced at it. When a +man is on his way to prison to serve a term of years, +the fewer those who cherish him, the luckier for +them. That he loved a woman—that, indeed, he was +going to jail because of his love for her—this might +add poignancy to his pain; but he felt himself manly +for once in trying to believe it was better now that +she did not love him, that she did not even know of +his love for her.<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a></p> + +<p>In time the hansom turned from Fifth Avenue into +Broadway; it went on down-town past Union Square, +with its broad trees, and past Grace Church, with +its grateful greenery; but the younger of the two men +was no longer taking note of what sped before his +gaze. He was wondering what the woman he loved +would think when she would hear of his going to +prison—whether she would care very much—whether +she would suspect that his crime was due to his passion +for her. That, of course, she could not guess—that +he had yielded to the temptation to lay hands on what +was not his, solely because he wanted more money +to place at her feet. For himself, he had been making +enough; but for her he must have more. He could +not have ventured to invite her to give up anything +for his sake. He wanted to be able to offer her all +she had been accustomed to have—and more too, +were that possible. He was conceited enough ordinarily, +he feared; and yet when he thought of her +he felt so humble that he had never dared to dream +of going to her empty-handed—of asking her to make +any sacrifice in loving him. He had never told her +of his love, and perhaps she did not even guess it; +and yet women are swift to discover a thing like that. +It might be that she had seen it; and that when +others should speak of him as he knew he deserved to +be spoken of, she might come to his defence and find +some word of extenuation for his misdeed. This +possibility, remote as it was, gave him pleasure;<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> +and he smiled at the suggestion as it came to +him.</p> + +<p>From this day-dream he was aroused as the driver +of the hansom jerked the horse back on his haunches +to avoid running down a little old woman who was +trying to cross Broadway with a bundle of sticks +balanced on her head. As the animal almost touched +her she looked up, and her glance crossed that of the +prisoner. He perceived instantly that she was an +Italian, that she was not so old as she looked, and +that she had been beautiful not so long ago. Then +he wondered whether any man had done wrong for +her sake—whether or not two of her lovers had fought +in the soft Sicilian moonlight and one had done the +other to death. Well, why not? There were worse +things than death, after all.</p> + +<p>As they went on farther and farther down-town, +Broadway began to seem emptier. It was the first +Saturday in June, and most of the stores were +closed. When they drew near to the City Hall, the +great street, although not so desolate as it is on a +Sunday, lacked not a little of its week-day activity. +It was as though a truce had been proclaimed in the +battle of business; but the forts were guarded, and +the fight would begin again on the Monday morning.</p> + +<p>After the hansom passed the Post Office the buildings +on the right and the left raised themselves higher +and higher, until the cab was at last rolling along +what might be the bottom of a canyon. And it<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> +seemed to him that the cliff-dwellers who inhabited +the terraces of this man-made gorge, and who spent +the best part of their lives a hundred feet above the +level of the sidewalk, were no peaceable folk withdrawn +from the strife of the plains; they were relentless +savages ever on the war-path, and always +eager to torture every chance captive. Wars may +be less frequent than they were and less cruel, but +the struggle for existence is bitterer than ever, and +as meanly waged as any Apache raid.</p> + +<p>The young man in the hansom felt his hatred hot +within him for those with whom he had meant to +match himself. He had been beaten in the first +skirmish, and yet—but for the one thing—he could +hold himself as good as the best of them. How +many of the men under the shadow of Trinity were +more honest than he? Some of them, no doubt—but +how many? How many names now honorable +would be disgraced if the truth were suddenly made +known? How many of those who thought themselves +honest, and who were honest now, had in the +past yielded to a temptation once, as he had done, +and having been luckier than he in escaping detection +then, had never again risked it? That was what he +had intended to do; he knew himself not to be dishonest, +although the alluring opportunity had been +too much for him. If only he could have held on +for another day, all would have been well—no one +would have had cause ever to suspect him; and never<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +again would he have stepped aside from the narrow +path of rectitude.</p> + +<p>There was no use in repining. Luck had been +against him, that was all. Some men had been +guilty of what he had done, and they had been able +to bluff it out. His bluff had been called, and he +was now going to jail to pay his debt of honor. +Perhaps the copy-book was right when it declared +honesty to be the best policy. And yet he could +not help feeling that fate had played him a mean +trick. To put in his possession at the same moment +a large sum of money and the information that the +most powerful group of capitalists in America had +determined to take hold of a certain railroad and +re-establish it, and to have thus the possibility put +before him at the very hour when he had discovered +that perhaps he had a chance to win the woman he +loved, if only he could approach her on an equality +of fortune—this temptation just then was too great +to withstand. He had yielded, and for a little while +it had seemed as though he was about to succeed. +Twenty-four hours more and he could have put back +the money he had borrowed—for so he liked to look +on his act. That money once restored, he would +have waited patiently for the rest of his profit. +Thereafter he could have afforded to be honest; he +was resolved never to overstep the law again; he +would have kept the letter of it vigorously—if only +he had escaped detection that once.<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a></p> + +<p>But blind chance smote him down from behind. +Suddenly, without an hour’s warning, the leader of +the group of sustaining capitalists dropped dead; +his heart had failed, worn out by the friction and +the strain. The market broke; and all who had +bought stocks on a margin were sold out instantly +and inexorably. Then the supporting orders came +in and prices were pushed up again; but it was too +late. Two days before, or a day after, that capitalist +might have died without having by his death unwittingly +caused an arrest. And as the hansom +rolled on toward the Battery the prisoner had again +a resentment against the capitalist for choosing so +unfortunate a day to die.</p> + +<p>Now the end had come; of course, he had been +unable to replace the money he had taken, and there +was nothing for him to do but to fly. But instead of +going to Canada, and hiding his trail, and then +slipping across to Europe, he had been foolish enough +to come here to New York to have another glimpse of +the woman for the love of whom he had become a thief. +Once more luck had been against him; as it happened, +she had gone out of town for Decoration Day; and +instead of taking ship to Europe, he had waited. +Only that Saturday morning he had met her brother +and had been told of her return to town. But when +he was about to call on her that afternoon, the gray-eyed +man had called on him; and here he was on his +way to his trial, and he had not seen her, after all.<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a></p> + +<p>Then he went back to the last time he had had +speech with her. It was during one of his frequent +visits to New York, and he had dined at the club with +her brother, who had told him that she was going +to the play that night with her mother. So he had +betaken himself to the theater also, and he had +gazed at her across the house; and then he had put +her and her mother into their carriage, and the old +lady had asked him to dinner the next evening. He +had supposed it was an eleventh-hour invitation and +that he was to fill the seat of some man who had +unexpectedly backed out; but none the less he had +accepted with obvious pleasure. And it was from a +few casual words of her father’s, after dinner, that +he got the first inkling of the railroad deal; and then, +before the time came for him to go, he had been +fortunate enough to have her to himself for a quarter +of an hour. She had been graciousness itself, and +for the first time he had begun to have hope. He +could not recall what he had said, but his memory +was clear as to how she had looked. He could not +remember whether he had allowed her even a glimpse +of his deep passion. It might be that she had guessed +it, although she had made no sign; he knew that +women were as keen as they were inscrutable.</p> + +<p>The hansom was at last under the ugly framework +of the Elevated almost at the South Ferry gate. +The tide was coming in strongly, and there was a salt +savor in the breeze that blew up from the lower bay.<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> +The prisoner relished it as he filled his lungs with the +fresh air; and then he asked himself how long it +would be before that saline taste would touch his +nostrils again.</p> + +<p>As the cab drew up, the elder of the two men in it +laid his hand on the arm of the younger.</p> + +<p>“I can trust you without the wristlets, can’t I?” +he asked.</p> + +<p>The other flushed. “Put them on if you want,” he +answered, “but you needn’t. I’m not going to make +a fool of myself again. I’ve told you I’m going to +plead guilty and do everything else I can to get the +thing over as soon as possible.”</p> + +<p>The gray-eyed man looked at him firmly.</p> + +<p>“You’re talking sense,” he declared. “I’ll trust +you.”</p> + +<p>As they were about to step out, their horse was +somewhat startled by an electric automobile that +rolled past clumsily and drew up immediately in front +of them.</p> + +<p>The prisoner stood stock-still, with his foot vainly +reaching out for the sidewalk, as he saw the brother +of the woman he loved help her out of the vehicle. +Then the brother asked a newsboy to point the way +to the boat for Governors Island; and she went with +him as the urchin eagerly guided them. She did not +look around; she never saw the man who loved her; +and in a minute she turned the corner and was out of +sight.<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a></p> + +<p>The officer of the law tapped his prisoner on the +arm again.</p> + +<p>“Come on,” he said. “What’s the matter with +you? Have you seen a ghost?”<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1899)</p></div> + +<p><a name="The_Frog_that" id="The_Frog_that"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp139_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp139_sml.jpg" width="550" height="412" alt="The Frog that Played the Trombone" title="The Frog that Played the Trombone" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp141.png"> +<img src="images/ilp141_sml.png" +width="86" +height="88" +class="letra" +alt="O" +title="O" +/></a>N a corner of my desk there stands a +china shell; its flat and oval basin is +about as broad as the palm of my +hand; it is a spotted brownish-yellow +on the outside, and a purply-pinkish +white on the inside; and on the crinkled edge of +one end there sits a green frog with his china mouth +wide open, thus revealing the ruddy hollow of his +interior. At the opposite end of the shell there is a +page of china music, purporting to be the first four +bars of a song by Schubert. Time was when the +frog held in his long greenish-yellow arms a still +longer trombone made of bright brass wire, bent into +shape, and tipped with a flaring disk of gilded porcelain. +In the days when the china frog was young he +pretended to be playing on the brass trombone. +Despite its musical assertiveness, the function of the +frog that played the trombone was humble enough: the +shell was designed to serve as a receiver for the ashes +of cigars and cigarettes. But it is a score of years at +least since the china frog has held the brass trombone +to its open lips. Only a few months after he gave +his first mute concert on the corner of my table the +carelessness of a chance visitor toppled him over on<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> +the floor, and broke off both his arms and so bent the +trombone that even the barren pretense of his solo +became an impossibility. A week or two later the +battered musical instrument disappeared; and ever +since then the gaping mouth of the frog has seemed +to suggest that he was trying to sing Schubert’s song. +His open countenance, I am sorry to say, has often +tempted my friends to make sport of him. They +have filled the red emptiness of his body with the +gray ashes of their cigars; they have even gone so +far as to put the stump of a half-smoked cigarette +between his lips, as though he were solacing himself +thus for the loss of his voice.</p> + +<p>Although the frog is no longer playing an inaudible +tune on an immovable instrument, I keep it on a +corner of my desk, where it has been for nearly +twenty years. Sometimes of a winter’s night, when +I take my seat at the desk before the crackling and +cheerful hickory fire, the frog that played the trombone +catches my eye, and I go back in memory to the +evening when it performed its first solo in my presence, +and I see again the beautiful liquid eyes of the friend +who brought it to me. We were very young then, +both of us, that night before Christmas, and our +hearts kept time with the lilt of the tune that the +frog played silently on his trombone. Now I am +young no longer, I am even getting old, and my +friend has been dead this many a year. Sometimes, +as I look at the gaping frog, I know that if I could<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> +hear the song he is trying to sing I should hate it for +the memories it would recall.</p> + +<p>He who gave it to me was not a school fellow, a +companion of my boyhood, but he was the friend of +my youth and a classmate in college. It was in our +Junior year that he joined us, bringing a good report +from the fresh-water college where he had been for +two years. I can recall his shy attitude the first +morning in chapel when we were wondering what +sort of a fellow the tall, dark, handsome new-comer +might be. The accidents of the alphabet put us +side by side in certain class-rooms, and I soon learned +to know him, and to like him more and more with +increasing knowledge. He was courteous, gentle, +kindly, ever ready to do a favor, ever grateful for help +given him, and if he had a fault it was this, that he +was jealous of his friends. Although his nature was +healthy and manly, he had a feminine craving for +affection, and an almost womanly unreason in the +exactions he made on his friends. Yet he was ever +ready to spend himself for others, and to do to all as +he would be done by.</p> + +<p>Although fond of out-door sports, his health was +not robust. He lacked stamina. There was more +than a hint of consumption in the brightness of his +eye, in the spot of color on his cheek, in the hollowness +of his chest, and in the cough which sometimes +seized him in the middle of a recitation. Toward +the end of our senior year he broke down once, and<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +was kept from college a week; but the spring came +early, and with the returning warmth of the sunshine +he made an effort and took his place with us again. +He was a good scholar, but not one of the best in +the class. He did his work faithfully in the main, +having no relish for science, but enjoying the flavor +of the classics. He studied German that year, and +he used to come to me reciting Heine’s poems with enthusiasm, +carried away by their sentiment, but shocked +by the witty cynicism which served as its corrective. +He wrote a little verse now and then, as young men +do, immature, of course, and individual only in so +far as it was morbid. I think that he would have +liked to devote himself to literature as a career, but +it had been decided that he was to study law.</p> + +<p>After Class Day and Commencement the class +scattered forever. In September, when I returned +to New York and settled down to my profession, I +found my friend at the Columbia Law School. His +father had died during the summer, leaving nothing +but a life-insurance policy, on the income of which +the mother and son could live modestly until he +could get into a law office and begin to make his way +in the world. They had taken a floor in a little +boarding-house in a side street, and they were very +comfortable; their money had been invested for them +by one of his father’s business associates, who had +so arranged matters that their income was much +larger than they had expected. In this modest home<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> +he and his mother lived happily. I guessed that the +father had been hard and unbending, and that my +friend and his mother had been drawn closer together. +Of a certainty I never saw a man more devoted than +he was to her, or more tender, and she was worthy +of the affection he lavished on her.</p> + +<p>In those days the Law School course extended +over two years only, and it did not call for very hard +work on the part of the student, so he was free to +pass frequent evenings in my library. I used to go +and see him often, for I liked his mother, and I liked +to see them sitting side by side, he holding her hand +often as he debated vehemently with me the insoluble +questions which interested us then. During the +second winter I sometimes saw there a brown-eyed +girl of perhaps twenty, pretty enough, but with a +sharp, nervous manner I did not care for. This was +the daughter of the lady who kept the boarding-house; +and my friend was polite to her, as he was to +all women; he was attentive even, as a young man is +wont to be toward a quick-witted girl. But nothing +in the manner led me to suppose that he was interested +in her more than in any other woman. I did +not like her myself, for she struck me as sharp-tongued.</p> + +<p>It is true that I saw less of my friend that second +winter, being hard at work myself. It was in the +spring, two years after our graduation, that I received +a letter from him announcing his engagement<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> +to the young lady I had seen him with, his landlady’s +daughter. My first thought, I remember, was to +wonder how his mother would feel at the prospect of +another woman’s coming between them. His letter +was a long dithyramb, and it declared that never +had there been a man so happy, and that great as was +his present joy, it was as nothing compared with the +delight in store for him. He wrote me that each had +loved the other from the first, and each had thought +the other did not care, until at last he could bear it +no longer; so he had asked her, and got his answer. +“You cannot know,” he wrote, “what this is to me. +It is my life—it is the making of my life; and if I +should die to-night, I should not have lived in vain, +for I have tasted joy, and death cannot rob me of +that.”</p> + +<p>Of course the engagement must needs be long, +because he was as yet in no position to support a wife; +but he had been admitted to the bar, and he could +soon make his way, with the stimulus he had now.</p> + +<p>I was called out of town suddenly about that time, +and I saw him for a few minutes only before I left +New York. He was overflowing with happiness, and +he could talk about nothing but the woman he loved—how +beautiful she was! how clever! how accomplished! +how devoted to his mother! In the midst +of his rhapsody he was seized by a fit of violent +coughing, and I saw the same danger signal in his +cheeks which had preceded the break-down in his<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> +senior year. I begged him to take care of himself. +With a light laugh he answered that he intended to +do so—it was his duty to do so, now that he did not +belong to himself.</p> + +<p>In the fall, when I came back to the city, I found +him in the office of a law firm, the head of which had +been an intimate of his father’s. The girl he was to +marry went one night a week to dine with her grandmother, +and he came to me that evening and talked +about her. As the cold weather stiffened, his cough +became more frequent, and long before Christmas +I was greatly alarmed by it. He consulted a distinguished +doctor, who told him that he ought to +spend the winter in a drier climate—in Colorado, for +example.</p> + +<p>It was on Christmas eve that year that he brought +me the frog that played the trombone. Ever since +the first Christmas of our friendship we had made +each other little presents.</p> + +<p>“This is hardly worth giving,” he said, as he +placed the china shell on the corner of my desk, +where it stands to this day. “But it is quaint and +it caught my fancy. Besides, I’ve a notion that it +is the tune of one of Heine’s lyrics set by Schubert +that the fellow is trying to play. And then I’ve a +certain satisfaction in thinking that I shall be represented +here by a performer of marvelous force of +lung, since you seem to think my lungs are weak.”</p> + +<p>A severe cough seized him then, but, when he had<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> +recovered his breath, he laughed lightly, and said: +"That’s the worst one I’ve had this week. However, +when the spring warms me up again I shall be +all right once more. It wasn’t on me that the spring +poet wrote the epitaph:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'It was a cough<br /></span> +<span class="ist">That carried him off;<br /></span> +<span class="ist">It was a coffin<br /></span> +<span class="ist">They carried him off in.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>“You ought to go away for a month at least,” I +urged. “Take a run down South and fill your lungs +with the balsam of the pines.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what my mother wants me to do,” he +admitted; “and I’ve half promised to do it. If +I go to Florida for January, can you go with me?”</p> + +<p>I knew how needful it was for him to escape from +the bleakness of our New York winter, so I made +a hasty mental review of my engagements. “Yes,” +I said, “I will go with you.”</p> + +<p>He held out his hand and clasped mine firmly. +“We’ll have a good time,” he responded, “just we +two. But you must promise not to object if I insist +on talking about her all the time.”</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp148_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp148-sml.jpg" width="550" height="416" alt=""I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND LOVED"" title=""I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND LOVED"" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">"I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND LOVED"</span> +</p> + +<p>As it turned out, I was able to keep all my engagements, +for we never went away together. Before +the new year came there was a change in my friend’s +fortunes. The man who had pretended to invest for +them the proceeds of his father’s life-insurance policy +absconded, leaving nothing behind but debts. For<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> +the support of his mother and himself my friend had +only his own small salary. A vacation, however +necessary, became impossible, and the marriage, +which had been fixed for the spring, was postponed +indefinitely. He offered to release the girl, but she +refused.</p> + +<p>Through a classmate of ours I was able to get my +friend a place in the law department of the Denver +office of a great insurance company. In the elevated +air of Colorado he might regain his strength, and in a +new city like Denver he might find a way to mend his +fortunes. His mother went with him, of course, and +it was beautiful to see her devotion to him. I saw +them off.</p> + +<p>“She bore the parting very bravely,” he said to me. +“She is braver than I am, and better in every way. I +wish I were more worthy of her. You will go and +see her, won’t you? There’s a good fellow and a +good friend. Go and see her now and then, and +write and tell me all about her—how she looks and +what she says.”</p> + +<p>I promised, of course, and about once a month I +went to see the woman my friend loved. He wrote +me every fortnight, but it was often from her that I +got the latest news. His health was improving; his +cough had gone; Denver agreed with him, and he +liked it. He was working hard, and he saw the +prospect of advancement close before him. Within +two years he hoped to take a month off, and return<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> +to New York and marry her, and bear his bride back +to Colorado with him.</p> + +<p>When I returned to town the next October I expected +to find two or three letters from my friend +awaiting me. I found only one, a brief note, telling +me that he had been too busy to write the month +before, and that he was now too tired with overwork +to be able to do more than say how glad he was that I +was back again in America, adding that a friend at +hand might be farther away than one who was on +the other side of the Atlantic. The letter seemed +to me not a little constrained in manner. I did not +understand it; and with the hope of getting some +light by which to interpret its strangeness, I went to +call on her. She refused to see me, pleading a +headache.</p> + +<p>It was a month before I had a reply to my answer +to his note, and the reply was as short as the note, +and quite as constrained. He told me that he was +well enough himself, but that his mother’s health +worried him, since Denver did not agree with her, +and she was pining to be back in New York. He +added a postscript, in which he told me that he had +dined a few nights before with the local manager of +the insurance company, and that he had met the +manager’s sister, a wealthy widow from California, +a most attractive woman, indeed. With needless +emphasis he declared that he liked a woman of the +world old enough to talk sensibly.<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> + +<p>Another month passed before I heard from him +again, and Christmas had gone and the new year +had almost come. The contents of this letter, written +on Christmas eve, when the frog that played the +trombone had been sitting on the corner of my desk +for just a year, was as startling as its manner was +strange. He told me that his engagement was +broken off irrevocably.</p> + +<p>If my own affairs had permitted it, I should have +taken the first train to Denver to discover what had +happened. As it was I went again to call on the +landlady’s daughter. But she refused to see me +again. Word was brought me that she was engaged, +and begged to be excused.</p> + +<p>About a fortnight later I chanced to meet on a +street corner the classmate who had got my friend the +Denver appointment. I asked if there was any news.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t there!” was the response. “I should think +there was, and lots of it! You know our friend in +Denver? Well, we have a telegram this morning: +his health is shaky, and so he has resigned his position.”</p> + +<p>“Resigned his position!” I echoed. “What does +that mean?”</p> + +<p>“That’s what we wanted to know,” replied my +classmate, “so we telegraphed to our local manager, +and he gave us an explanation right off the reel. The +manager has a sister who is the widow of a California +millionaire, and she has been in Denver for the winter,<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> +and she has met our friend; and for all she is a good +ten years older than he is, she has been fascinated by +him—you know what a handsome fellow he is—and +she’s going to marry him next week, and take him +to Egypt for his health.”</p> + +<p>“He’s going to marry the California widow?” I +asked, in astonishment. “Why, he’s enga—” Then +I suddenly held my peace.</p> + +<p>“He’s going to marry the California widow,” was +the answer,—“or she’s going to marry him; it’s all +the same, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>Two days later I had a letter from Denver confirming +this report. He wrote that he was to be married +in ten days to a most estimable lady, and that they +were to leave his mother in New York as they passed +through. Fortunately he had been able to make +arrangements whereby his mother would be able to +live hereafter where she pleased, and in comfort. He +invited me to come out to Colorado for the wedding, +but hardly hoped to persuade me, he said, knowing +how pressing my engagements were. But as their +steamer sailed on Saturday week they would be at a +New York hotel on the Friday night, and he counted +on seeing me then.</p> + +<p>I went to see him then, and I was shocked by his +appearance. He was thin, and his chest was hollower +than ever. There were dark lines below his liquid +eyes, brighter then than I had ever seen them before. +There were two blazing spots on his high cheek-bones.<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> +He coughed oftener than I had ever known him, and +the spasms were longer and more violent. His hand +was feverishly hot. His manner, too, was restless. +To my surprise, he seemed to try to avoid being alone +with me. He introduced me to his wife, a dignified, +matronly woman with a full figure and a cheerful +smile. She had a most motherly manner of looking +after him and of anticipating his wants; twice she +jumped up to close a door which had been left open +behind him. He accepted her devotion as a matter +of course, apparently. Once, when she was telling +me of their projects—how they were going direct to +Egypt to remain till late in the spring, and then to +return to Paris for the summer, with a possible run +over to London before the season was over—he interrupted +her to say that it mattered little where he +went or what he did—one place was as good as +another.</p> + +<p>When I rose to go he came with me out into the +hotel corridor, despite his wife’s suggestion that there +was sure to be a draught there.</p> + +<p>He thrust into my hand a note-book. “There,” +he said, “take that; it’s a journal I started to keep, +and never did. Of course you can read it if you like. +In the pocket you will find a check. I want you to +get some things for me after I’ve gone; I’ve written +down everything. You will do that for me, I know.”</p> + +<p>I promised to carry out his instructions to the +letter.<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a></p> + +<p>“Then that’s all right,” he answered.</p> + +<p>At that moment his wife came to the door of their +parlor. “I know it must be chilly out in the hall +there,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m coming,” he responded.</p> + +<p>Then he grasped my fingers firmly in his hot hand. +“Good-by, old man,” he whispered. “You remember +how I used to think the frog that played the +trombone was trying to execute a Heine-Schubert +song? Well, perhaps it is—I don’t know; but what +I do know is that it has played a wedding march, after +all. And now good-by. God bless you! Go and +see my mother as often as you can.”</p> + +<p>He gave my hand a hearty shake, and went back +into the parlor, and his wife shut the door after him.</p> + +<p>I had intended to go down to the boat and see him +off the next morning, but at breakfast I received a +letter from his wife saying that he had passed a very +restless night, and that she thought it would excite +him still more if I saw him again, and begging me, +therefore, not to come to the steamer if such had been +my intention. And so it was that he sailed away and +I never saw him again.</p> + +<p>In the note-book I found a check for five hundred +dollars, and a list of the things he wished me to get +and to pay for. They were for his mother mostly, +but one was a seal-ring for myself. And there was +with the check a jeweler’s bill, “To articles sent as +directed,” which I was also requested to pay.<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a></p> + +<p>The note-book itself I guarded with care. It was a +pocket-journal, and my friend had tried to make it +a record of his life for the preceding year. There +were entries of letters received and sent, of money +earned and spent, of acquaintances made, of business +appointments, of dinner engagements, and of visits +to the doctor. Evidently his health had been failing +fast, and he had been struggling hard to keep the +knowledge not only from his mother, but even from +himself. While he had set down these outward facts +of his life, he had also used the note-book as the record +of his inward feelings. To an extent that he little +understood, that journal, with its fragmentary entries +and its stray thoughts, told the story of his +spiritual experience.</p> + +<p>Many of the entries were personal, but many were +not; they were merely condensations of the thought +of the moment as it passed through his mind. Here +are two specimens:</p> + +<p>“We judge others by the facts of life—by what we +hear them say and see them do. We judge ourselves +rather by our own feelings—by what we intend and +desire and hope to do some day in the future. Thus +a poor man may glow with inward satisfaction at the +thought of the hospital he is going to build when he +gets rich. And a wealthy man can at least pride +himself on the fortitude with which he would, if need +be, bear the deprivations of poverty.”</p> + +<p>“To pardon is the best and the bitterest vengeance.”<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a></p> + +<p>Toward the end of the year the business entries +became fewer and fewer, as though he had tired of +keeping the record of his doings. But the later pages +were far fuller than the earlier of his reflections—sometimes +a true thought happily expressed, sometimes, +more often than not perhaps, a mere verbal +antithesis, such as have furnished forth many an +aphorism long before my friend was born. And +these later sentiments had a tinge of bitterness lacking +in the earlier.</p> + +<p>“There are few houses,” he wrote, in October, +apparently, “where happiness is a permanent boarder; +generally it is but a transient guest; and sometimes, +indeed, it is only a tramp that knocks at the side +door and is refused admittance.”</p> + +<p>“Many a man forgets his evil deeds so swiftly that +he is honestly surprised when any one else recalls +them.”</p> + +<p>Except the directions to me for the expenditure +of the five hundred dollars, the last two entries in the +book were written on Christmas morning. One of +these was the passage which smote me most when I +first read it, for it struck me as sadness itself when +written by a young man not yet twenty-five:</p> + +<p>“If we had nothing else to wish, we should at least +wish to die.”</p> + +<p>At the time I did not seize the full significance of +the other passage, longer than this, and far sadder +when its meaning was finally grasped.<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p> + +<p>“The love our parents gave us we do not pay back, +nor a tithe of it, even. We may bestow it to our +children, but we never render it again to our father +and our mother. And what can equal the love +of a woman for the son she has borne? No peak is +as lofty, and no ocean is as wide; it is fathomless, +boundless, immeasurable; it is poured without stint, +unceasing and unfailing. And how do we men meet +it? We do not even make a pretense of repaying +it, most of us. Now and again there may be a son +here and there who does what he can for his mother, +little as it is, and much as he may despise himself for +doing it: and why not? Are there not seven swords +in the heart of the Mater Dolorosa? And what sort +of a son is he who would add another?”</p> + +<p>Although I had already begun to guess at the +secret of my friend’s conduct, a mystery to all others, +it was the first of these two final entries in his note-book +which came flashing back into my memory one +evening toward the end of March, ten weeks or so +after he had bidden me good-by and had gone away +to Egypt. I was seated in my library, smoking, when +there came a ring at the door, and a telegram was +handed to me. I laid my cigar down on the brownish-yellow +shell, at the crinkled edge of which the green +frog was sitting, reaching out his broken arms for the +trombone whereon he had played in happier days. I +saw that the despatch had come by the cable under +the ocean, and I wondered who on the other side of<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> +the Atlantic had news for me that would not keep +till a letter could reach me.</p> + +<p>I tore open the envelope. The message was dated +Alexandria, Egypt, and it was signed by my friend’s +widow. He had died that morning, and I was asked +to break the news to his mother.<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1893)</p></div> + +<p><a name="On_an" id="On_an"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp159_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp159_sml.jpg" width="550" height="409" alt="On an Errand of Mercy" title="On an Errand of Mercy" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp161.png"> +<img src="images/ilp161_sml.png" +width="86" +height="89" +class="letra" +alt="T" +title="T" +/></a>HE ambulance clanged along, now under +the elevated railroad, and now wrenching +itself outside to get ahead of a cable-car.</p> + +<p>With his little bag in his hand, the +young doctor sat wondering whether he +would know just what to do when the time came. +This was his first day of duty as ambulance surgeon, +and now he was going to his first call. It was three +in the afternoon of an August day, when the hot +spell had lasted a week already, and yet the young +physician was chill with apprehension as he took +stock of himself, and as he had a realizing sense of +his own inexperience.</p> + +<p>The bullet-headed Irishman who was driving the +ambulance as skilfully as became the former owner +of a night-hawk cab glanced back at the doctor and +sized up the situation.</p> + +<p>“There’s no knowin’ what it is we’ll find when we +get there,” he began. “There’s times when it’s no +aisy job the doctor has. Say you give the man ether, +now, or whatever it is you make him sniff, and maybe +he’s dead when he comes out of it. Where are you +then?”</p> + +<p>The young man decided instantly that if anything<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> +of that sort should happen to him that afternoon, he +would go back to Georgia at once and try for a place +in the country store.</p> + +<p>“But nothing ever fazed Dr. Chandler,” the +driver went on. “It’s Dr. Chandler’s place you’re +takin’ now, ye know that?”</p> + +<p>It seemed to the surgeon that the Irishman was +making ready to patronize him, or at least to insinuate +the new-comer’s inferiority to his predecessor, +whereupon his sense of humor came to his rescue, +and a smile relieved the tension of his nerves as he +declared that Dr. Chandler was an honor to his +profession.</p> + +<p>“He is that!” the driver returned, emphatically, +as with a dextrous jerk he swung the ambulance just +in front of a cable-car, to the sputtering disgust of +the gripman. “An’ it’s many a dangerous case we’ve +had to handle together, him and me.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t doubt that you were of great assistance,” +the young Southerner suggested.</p> + +<p>“Many’s the time he’s tould me he never knew +what he’d ha’ done without me,” the Irishman responded. +"There was that night, now—the night +when the big sailor come off the Roosian ship up in +the North River there, an’ he got full, an’ he fell down +the steps of a barber shop, an’ he bruck his leg into +three paces, so he did; an’ that made him mad, the +pain of it, an’ he was just wild when the ambulance +come. Oh, it was a lovely jag he had on him, that<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> +Roosian—a lovely jag! An’ it was a daisy scrap we +had wid him!”</p> + +<p>“What did he do?” asked the surgeon.</p> + +<p>“What didn’t he do?” the driver replied, laughing +at the memory of the scene. “He tried to do the +doctor—Dr. Chandler it was, as I tould you. He’d +a big knife—it’s mortial long knives, too, them +Roosians carry—an’ he was so full he thought it was +Dr. Chandler that was hurtin’ him, and he med offer +to put his knife in him, when, begorra, I kicked it +out of his hand.”</p> + +<p>“I have often heard Dr. Chandler speak of you,” +said the doctor, with an involuntary smile, as he +recalled several of the good stories that his predecessor +had told him of the driver’s peculiarities.</p> + +<p>“An’ why w’u’dn’t he?” the Irishman replied. +“It’s more nor wanst I had to help him out of trouble. +An’ never a worrd we had in all the months he drove +out wid me. But it ’sll be some aisy little job we’ll +have now, I’m thinkin‘s—a sun-stroke, maybe, or a +kid that’s got knocked down by a scorcher, or a +thrifle of that kind; you’ll be able to attend to that +yourself aisy enough, no doubt.”</p> + +<p>To this the young Southerner made no response, +for his mind was busy in going over the antidotes +for various poisons. Then he aroused himself and +shook his shoulders, and laughed at his own preoccupation.</p> + +<p>The Irishman did not approve of this. “An’ of<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> +coorse," he continued, “it may be a scrap 'twixt a +ginny and a Polander; or maybe, now, a coon has +gone for a chink wid a razzer, and sliced him most +in two, I dunno'.”</p> + +<p>Then he clanged the bell unexpectedly, and swerved +off the track and down a side street toward the river.</p> + +<p>The doctor soon found a curious crowd flattening +their noses against the windows of a drug-store on a +corner of the Boulevard. He sprang off as the driver +slowed down to turn and back up.</p> + +<p>A policeman stood in the doorway of the pharmacist’s, +swinging his club by its string as he kept +the children outside. He drew back to let the young +surgeon pass, saying, as he did so: “It’s no use now, +I think, Doctor. You are too late.”</p> + +<p>The body of the man lay flat on the tile pavement +of the shop. He was decently dressed, but his shoes +were worn and patched. He was a very large man, +too, stout even for his length. His cravat had been +untied and his collar had been opened. His face was +covered with a torn handkerchief.</p> + +<p>As the doctor dropped on his knees by the side of +the body, the druggist’s clerk came from behind the +prescription counter—a thin, undersized, freckled +youngster, with short red hair and a trembling voice.</p> + +<p>“He’s dead, ain’t he?” asked this apparition.</p> + +<p>The doctor finished his examination of the man on +the floor, and then he answered, as he rose to his +feet: “Yes, he’s dead. How did it happen?”<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a></p> + +<p>The delivery of the young druggist was hesitating +and broken. “Well, it was this way, you see. The +boss was out, and I was in charge here, and there +wasn’t anything doing except at the fountain. Then +this man came in; he was in a hurry, and he told me +he was feeling faint—kind of suffocated, so he said—and +couldn’t I give him something. Well, I’m a +graduate in pharmacy, you know, and so I fixed him +up a little aromatic spirits of ammonia in a glass +of soda-water. You know that won’t hurt anybody. +But just as he took the glass out of my hand his +knees gave way and he squashed down on the floor +there. The glass broke, and he hadn’t paid for the +spirits of ammonia, either; and when I got round to +him he was dead—at least I thought so, but I rang +you up to make sure.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” the doctor returned, “apparently he died +at once—heart failure. Probably he had fatty +degeneration, and this heat has been too much for +him.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think any man has a right to come in +here and die like that without warning, heart failure +or no heart failure, do you?” asked the red-headed +assistant. “I don’t know what the boss will say. +That’s the kind of thing that spoils trade, and it +ain’t any too good here, anyway, with a drug-store +'most every block.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know who he is?” the doctor inquired.</p> + +<p>“I went through his pockets, but he hadn’t any<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> +watch nor any letters," the druggist answered; +“but he’s got about a dollar in change in his pants.”</p> + +<p>The doctor looked around the shop. The policeman +was still in the doorway, and a group of boys and +girls blocked the entrance.</p> + +<p>“Does anybody here know this man?” asked the +surgeon.</p> + +<p>A small boy twisted himself under the policeman’s +arm and slipped into the store. “I know him,” he +cried, eagerly. “I see him come in. I was here all +the time, and I see it all. He’s Tim McEcchran.”</p> + +<p>“Where does he live?” the doctor asked, only to +correct himself swiftly—“where did he live?”</p> + +<p>“I thought he was dead when I saw him go down +like he was sandbagged,” said the boy. “He lives +just around the corner in Amsterdam Avenue—at +least his wife lives there.”</p> + +<p>The doctor took the address, and with the aid of +the policeman he put the body on the stretcher and +lifted it into the ambulance. The driver protested +against this as unprecedented.</p> + +<p>“Sure it’s none of our business to take a stiff +home!” he declared. “That’s no work at all, at all, +for an ambulance. Dr. Chandler never done the +like in all the months him an’ me was together. +Begob, I never contracted to drive hearses.”</p> + +<p>The young Southerner explained that this procedure +might not be regular, but it revolted him to +leave the body of a fellow-mortal lying where it had<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> +fallen on the floor of a shop. The least he could do, +so it seemed to him, was to take it to the dead man’s +widow, especially since this was scarcely a block out +of their way as they returned to the hospital.</p> + +<p>The driver kept on grumbling as they drove off. +“Sure he give ye no chance at all, at all, Doctor, to +go and croak afore iver ye got at him, and you only +beginnin’ yer work! Dr. Chandler, now, he’d get +‘em into the wagon ennyway, an’ take chances of +there bein’ breath in ‘em. Three times, divil a less, +they died on us on the stretcher there, an’ me whippin' +like the divil to get ’sem into the hospital ennyhow, +where it was their own consarn whether they lived +or died. That’s the place for ‘em to die in, an’ not +in the wagon; but the wagon’s better than dyin‘s +before we can get to ‘em, an’ the divil thank the +begrudgers! It’s unlucky, so it is; an’ by the same +token, to-day’s Friday, so it is!”</p> + +<p>The small boy who had identified the dead man +ran alongside of them, accompanied by his admiring +mates; and when the ambulance backed up again +before a pretentious tenement-house with a brownstone +front and beveled plate-glass doors, the small +boy rang Mrs. McEcchran’s bell.</p> + +<p>“It’s the third floor she lives on,” he declared.</p> + +<p>The janitor came up from the basement and he and +the driver carried the stretcher up to Mrs. McEcchran’s +landing.</p> + +<p>The doctor went up before them, and found an<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> +insignificant little old woman waiting for him on the +landing.</p> + +<p>“Is this Mrs. McEcchran?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered; then, as she saw the burden +the men were carrying, she cried: “My God! What’s +that? What are they bringing it here for?”</p> + +<p>The young Southerner managed to withdraw her +into the front room of the flat, and he noticed that it +was very clean and very tidy.</p> + +<p>“I am a doctor,” he began, soothingly, “and I am +sorry to say that there has been an accident—”</p> + +<p>“An accident?” she repeated. “Oh, my God! And +is it Tim?”</p> + +<p>“You must summon all your courage, Mrs. +McEcchran,” the doctor returned. “This is a +serious matter—a very serious matter.”</p> + +<p>“Is he hurt very bad?” she cried. “Is it dangerous?”</p> + +<p>“I may as well tell you the truth, Mrs. McEcchran,” +said the physician. “I cannot say that your husband +will ever be able to be out again.”</p> + +<p>By that time the stretcher had been brought into +the room, with the body on it entirely covered by a +blanket.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean to tell me that he is going to +die?” she shrieked, wringing her hands. “Don’t say +that, Doctor! don’t say that!”</p> + +<p>The bearers set the stretcher down, and the woman +threw herself on her knees beside it.<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a></p> + +<p>“Tim!” she cried. “Speak to me, Tim!”</p> + +<p>Getting no response, she got to her feet and turned +to the surgeon. “You don’t mean he’s dead?” And +the last word died away in a wail.</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid there is no hope for him,” the doctor +replied.</p> + +<p>“He’s dead! Tim’s dead! Oh, my God!” she +said, and then she dropped into a chair and threw +her apron over her head and rocked to and fro, +sobbing and mourning.</p> + +<p>The young Southerner was not yet hardened to +such sights, and his heart was sore with sympathy. +Yet it seemed to him that the woman’s emotion was +so violent that it would not last long.</p> + +<p>While he was getting ready to have the body +removed from the stretcher to a bed in one of the +other rooms, Mrs. McEcchran unexpectedly pulled the +apron from her head.</p> + +<p>“Can I look at him?” she asked, as she slipped to +the side of the body and stealthily lifted a corner of +the covering to peek in. Suddenly she pulled it +back abruptly. “Why, this ain’t Tim!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“That is not your husband?” asked the doctor, in +astonishment. “Are you sure?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I’m sure!” she answered, laughing +hysterically. “Of course I’m sure! As if I didn’t +know Tim, the father of my children! Why, this +ain’t even like him!”</p> + +<p>The doctor did not know what to say. “Allow me<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> +to congratulate you, madam," he began. “No doubt +Mr. McEcchran is still alive and well; no doubt he +will return to you. But if this is not your husband, +whose husband is he?”</p> + +<p>The room had filled with the neighbors, and in the +crowd the small boy who had brought them there +made his escape.</p> + +<p>“Can any one tell me who this is?” the surgeon +asked.</p> + +<p>“I knew that weren’t Mr. McEcchran as soon as +I see him,” said another boy. “That’s Mr. Carroll.”</p> + +<p>“And where does—did Mr. Carroll live?” the +doctor pursued, repenting already of his zeal as he +foresaw a repetition of the same painful scene in some +other tenement-house.</p> + +<p>“It’s only two blocks off—on the Boulevard,” +explained the second boy. “It’s over a saloon on the +corner. I’ll show you if I can ride on the wagon.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” agreed the doctor; and the body was +carried down and placed again in the ambulance.</p> + +<p>As the ambulance started he overheard one little +girl say to another: “He was killed in a blast! My! +ain’t it awful? It blew his legs off!”</p> + +<p>To which the other little girl answered, “But I +saw both his boots as they carried him out.”</p> + +<p>And the first little girl then explained: “Oh, I +guess they put his legs back in place so as not to hurt +his wife’s feelings. Turrible, ain’t it?”</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp170_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp170-sml.jpg" width="351" height="550" alt=""MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS OFF!"" title=""MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS OFF!"" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">"MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS OFF!"</span> +</p> + +<p>When the ambulance started, the driver began<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> +grumbling again: “It’s not Dr. Chandler that ‘ud +have a thing like this happen to him. Him an’ me +never went traipsing round wid a corp that didn’t +belong to nobody. We knew enough to take it +where the wake was waitin'.”</p> + +<p>The boy on the box with the driver guided the +ambulance to a two-story wooden shanty with a +rickety stairway outside leading up to the second +floor.</p> + +<p>He sprang down as the ambulance backed up, and +he pointed out to the doctor the sign at the foot of +these external steps—“Martin Carroll, Photographer.”</p> + +<p>“That’s where he belongs,” the boy explained. +“He sleeps in the gallery up there. The saloon +belongs to a Dutchman that married his sister. This +is the place all right, if it really is Mr. Carroll.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?” shouted the doctor. +“Are you not sure about it?”</p> + +<p>“I ain’t certain sure,” the fellow replied. “I +ain’t as sure as I was first off. But I think it’s Mr. +Carroll. Leastways, if it ain’t, it looks like him!”</p> + +<p>It was with much dissatisfaction at this doubtfulness +of his guide that the doctor helped the driver +slide out the stretcher.</p> + +<p>Then the side door of the saloon under the landing +of the outside stairs opened and a stocky little +German came out.</p> + +<p>“What’s this? What’s this?” he asked.<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a></p> + +<p>The young surgeon began his explanation again. +“This is where Mr. Carroll lived, isn’t it? Well, I +am sorry to say there has been an accident, and—”</p> + +<p>“Is that Martin there?” interrupted the German.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” the Southerner replied, “and I’m afraid +it is a serious case—a pretty serious case—”</p> + +<p>“Is he dead?” broke in the saloon-keeper again.</p> + +<p>“He is dead,” the doctor answered.</p> + +<p>“Then why didn’t you say so?” asked the short +man harshly. “Why waste all that time talking +if he’s dead?”</p> + +<p>The Southerner was inclined to resent this rudeness, +but he checked himself.</p> + +<p>“I understand that you are Mr. Carroll’s brother-in-law,” +he began again, “so I suppose I can leave +the body in your charge—”</p> + +<p>The German went over to the stretcher and turned +down the blanket.</p> + +<p>“No, you don’t leave him here,” he declared. +“I’m not going to take him. This ain’t my sister’s +husband!”</p> + +<p>“This is not Mr. Carroll?” and this time the doctor +looked around for the boy who had misinformed him. +“I was told it was.”</p> + +<p>“The man who told you was a liar, that’s all. +This ain’t Martin Carroll, and the sooner you take +him away the better. That’s what I say,” declared +the saloon-keeper, going back to his work.</p> + +<p>The doctor looked around in disgust. What he<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> +had to do now was to take the body to the morgue, +and that revolted him. It seemed to him an insult +to the dead and an outrage toward the dead man’s +family. Yet he had no other course of action open +to him, and he was beginning to be impatient to have +done with the thing. The week of hot weather had +worn on his nerves also, and he wanted to be back +again in the cool hospital out of the oven of the +streets.</p> + +<p>As he and the driver were about to lift up the +stretcher again, a man in overalls stepped up to the +body and looked at it attentively.</p> + +<p>“It’s Dick O’Donough!” he said at once. “Poor +old Dick! It’s a sad day for her—and her that +excitable!”</p> + +<p>“Do you know him?” asked the doctor.</p> + +<p>“Don’t I?” returned the man in overalls, a thin, +elderly man, with wisps of hair beneath his chin and +a shrewd, weazened face. “It’s Dick O’Donough!”</p> + +<p>“But are you sure of it?” the young surgeon insisted. +“We’ve had two mistakes already.”</p> + +<p>“Sure of it?” repeated the other. “Of course I’m +sure of it! Didn’t I work alongside of him for five +years? And isn’t that the scar on him he got when the +wheel broke?” And he lifted the dead man’s hair and +showed a cicatrix on the temple.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said the doctor. “If you are sure, +where did he live?”</p> + +<p>“It’s only a little way.”<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a></p> + +<p>“I’m glad of that. Can you show us?”</p> + +<p>“I can that,” replied the man in overalls.</p> + +<p>“Then jump in front,” said the doctor.</p> + +<p>As they started again, the driver grumbled once +more. “Begorra, April Day’s a fool to ye,” he began. +“Them parvarse gossoons, now, if I got howld of 'em, +they’d know what it was hurt 'em, I’m thinkin'.”</p> + +<p>The man in overalls directed them to a shabby +double tenement in a side street swarming with +children. There was a Chinese laundry on one side +of the doorway, and on the other side a bakery. +The door stood open, and the hallway was dark and +dirty.</p> + +<p>“It’s a sad day it’ll be for Mrs. O’Donough,” +sighed the man in overalls. “I don’t know what it +is she’s got, but she’s very queer, now, very queer.”</p> + +<p>He went into the bakery and got a man to help +the driver carry up the stretcher. Women came out +of the shops on both sides of the street, and leaned +out of their windows with babies in their arms, and +stepped out on the fire-escapes. There were banana +peelings and crumpled newspapers and rubbish of +one sort or another scattered in the street, and the +savor of it all was unpleasant even to a man who was +no stranger to the casual ward of a hospital.</p> + +<p>The man in overalls went up-stairs with the doctor, +warning him where a step was broken or where a bit +of the hand-rail was missing. They groped their way +along the passage on the first floor and knocked.<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a></p> + +<p>The door opened suddenly, and they saw an ill-furnished +room, glaring with the sun reflected from +its white walls. Two women stood just within the +door. One was tall and spare, with gray streaks in +her coal-black hair, and with piercing black eyes; +the other was a comfortable body with a cheerful +smile.</p> + +<p>“That’s Mrs. O’Donough,” said the doctor’s guide—“the +tall one. See the eyes of her now! The other’s +a neighbor woman, who’s with her a good deal, she’s +that excitable.”</p> + +<p>The doctor stepped into the room, and began once +more to break the news. “This is Mrs. O’Donough, +is it not?” he said. “I’m a doctor, and I am sorry +to have to say there has been an accident, and Mr. +O’Donough is—is under treatment.”</p> + +<p>Here the driver and the man from the bakery +brought in the stretcher.</p> + +<p>When the tall woman saw this she gripped the arm +of the other and hissed out, “Is it <i>it</i>?” Then she +turned her back on the body and sank her head on +her friend’s shoulder.</p> + +<p>The other woman made signs to the doctor to say +little or nothing.</p> + +<p>The driver and the baker took a thin counterpane +off the bed, which stood against the wall. Then they +lifted the body from the stretcher to the bed, and +covered it with the counterpane.</p> + +<p>The doctor did not know what to say in the face<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> +of the signals he was receiving from the widow’s +friend.</p> + +<p>“In case I can be of any assistance at any time,” +he suggested—and then Mrs. O’Donough lifted her +head and looked at him with her burning eyes—“if +I can be of service, do not hesitate to call on me. +Here is my card.”</p> + +<p>As he felt his way down-stairs again he heard a +hand-organ break out suddenly into a strident waltz.</p> + +<p>When he came out into the street a few little +children were dancing in couples, although most of +them stood around the ambulance, gazing with morbid +curiosity at the driver as he replaced the stretcher. +At the door of the baker’s shop stood a knot of women +talking it over; but in the Chinese laundry the irons +went back and forth steadily, with no interest in +what might happen in the street outside.</p> + +<p>As the doctor took his seat in the vehicle a shriek +came from the room he had just left—a shuddering, +heartrending wail—then another—and then there +was silence.</p> + +<p>The ambulance started forward, the bell clanged +to clear the way, the horse broke into a trot, and in a +minute or two they turned into the broad avenue.</p> + +<p>Then the driver looked at the doctor. “The +widdy’s takin’ it harrd, I’m thinkin’, but she’ll get +over it before the wake,” he said. “An’ it’s good +lungs she has, ennyhow.”<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1898)</p></div> + +<p><a name="In_a_Bob-tail_Car" id="In_a_Bob-tail_Car"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp177_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp177_sml.jpg" width="550" height="416" alt="In a Bob-tail Car" title="In a Bob-tail Car" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp179.png"> +<img src="images/ilp179_sml.png" +width="95" +height="89" +class="letra" +alt="I" +title="I" +/></a>T was about noon of a dark day late in +September, and a long-threatened drizzle +of hail chilled the air, as Harry Brackett +came out of the Apollo House and stood +on the corner of Fourth Avenue, waiting +for a cross-town car. He was going down-town to +the office of the <i>Gotham Gazette</i> to write up an interview +he had just had with the latest British invader +of these United States, Lady Smith-Smith, the fair +authoress of the very popular novel <i>Smile and be a +Villain Still</i>, five rival editions of which were then for +sale everywhere in New York. Harry Brackett intended +to ride past Union Square to Sixth Avenue in +the cross-town car, and then to go to the <i>Gotham +Gazette</i> by the elevated railway, so he transferred ten +cents for the fare of the latter and five cents for the +fare of the former from his waistcoat pocket to a +little pocket in his overcoat. Then he buttoned the +overcoat tightly about him, as the raw wind blew +harshly across the city from river to river. He +looked down the street for the car; it was afar off, +on the other side of Third Avenue, and he was standing +on the corner of Fourth Avenue.</p> + +<p>“A bob-tail car,” said Harry Brackett to himself, +"is like a policeman: it is never here just when it is<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> +wanted. And yet it is a necessary evil—like the +policeman again. Perhaps there is here a philosophical +thought that might be worked up as a comic +editorial article for the fifth column. ‘The Bob-tail +Car’—why, the very name is humorous. And there +are lots of things to be said about it. For instance, +I can get something out of the suggestion that the +heart of a coquette is like a bob-tail car, there is +always room for one more; but I suppose I must not +venture on any pun about ‘ringing the belle.’ Then +I can say that the bob-tail car is a one-horse concern, +and is therefore a victim of the healthy American +hatred of one-horse concerns. It has no past; no +gentleman of the road ever robbed its passengers; +no road-agent nowadays would think of ‘holding it +up.’ Perhaps that’s why there is no poetry about a +bob-tail car, as there is about a stage-coach. Even +Rudolph Vernon, the most modern of professional +poets, wouldn’t dream of writing verses on ‘Riding +in a Bob-tail Car.’ Wasn’t it Heine who said that +the monks of the Middle Ages thought that Greek +was a personal invention of the devil, and that he +agreed with them? That’s what the bob-tail car is—a +personal invention of the devil. The stove-pipe +hat, the frying-pan, the tenement-house, and the +bob-tail car—these are the choicest and the chief of +the devil’s gifts to New York. Why doesn’t that car +come? confound it! Although it cannot swear itself, +it is the cause of much swearing!"<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a></p> + +<p>Just then the car came lumbering along and bumping +with a repeated jar as its track crossed the tracks +on Fourth Avenue. Harry Brackett jumped on it as +it passed the corner where he stood. His example +was followed by a stranger, who took the seat opposite +to him.</p> + +<p>As the car sped along toward Broadway, Harry +Brackett mechanically read, as he had read a dozen +times before, the printed request to place the exact +fare in the box. “Suppose I don’t put it in?” he +mused; “what will happen? The driver will ask +for it—if he has time and happens to think of it. This +is very tempting to a man who wants to try the Virginian +plan of readjusting his debts. Here is just the +opportunity for any one addicted to petty larceny. I +think I shall call that article ‘The Bob-tail Car as a +Demoralizer.’ It is most demoralizing for a man to +feel that he can probably evade the payment of his +fare, since there is no conductor to ask for it. However, +I suppose the main reliance of the company is +on the honesty of the individual citizen who would +rather pay his debts than not. I doubt if there is +any need to dun the average American for five +cents.”</p> + +<p>Harry Brackett lowered his eyes from the printed +notice at which he had been staring unconsciously for +a minute, and they fell on the man sitting opposite to +him—the man who had entered the car as he did.</p> + +<p>“I wonder if he is the average American?” thought<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> +Brackett. “He hasn’t paid his fare yet. I wonder if +he will? It isn’t my business to dun him for it, and +yet I’d like to know whether his intentions are +honorable or not.”</p> + +<p>The car turned sharply into Broadway, and then +came to a halt to allow two young ladies to enter. A +third young lady escorted them to the car, and kissed +them affectionately, and said:</p> + +<p>“Good-by! You will be <i>sure</i> to come again! I +have enjoyed your visit so much.”</p> + +<p>Then the two young ladies kissed her, and they said, +both speaking at once, and very rapidly:</p> + +<p>“Oh yes. We’ve had <i>such</i> a good time! We’ll +write you! And you <i>must</i> come out to Orange and +see us soon! Good-by! Good-by! Remember us +to your mother! <i>Good-by!</i>”</p> + +<p>At last the sweet sorrow of this parting was over; +the third young lady withdrew to the sidewalk; the +two young ladies came inside the car; the other passengers +breathed more freely; the man opposite to +Harry Brackett winked at him slyly, and the car went +on again.</p> + +<p>There was a vacant seat on the side of the car +opposite to Harry Brackett—or, at least, there would +have been one if the ladies on that side had not, with +characteristic coolness, spread out their skirts so as to +occupy the whole space. The two young ladies stood +for a moment after they had entered the car; they +looked for a seat, but no one of the other ladies made<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> +a sign of moving to make room for them. The man +opposite to Harry Brackett rose and proffered his +seat. They did not thank him, or even so much as +look at him.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> take it, Nelly,” said one.</p> + +<p>“I sha’n’t do anything of the sort. I’m not a bit +tired!” returned the other. “I <i>insist</i> on your sitting +down!”</p> + +<p>“But I’m not tired <i>now</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Louise Valeria Munson,” her friend declared, with +humorous emphasis, “if you don’t sit right down, I’ll +call a <i>policeman!</i>”</p> + +<p>“Well, I guess there’s room for us both,” said +Louise Valeria Munson; “I’m sure there ought to +be.”</p> + +<p>By this time some of the other ladies on the seat +had discovered that they were perhaps taking up a +little more than their fair share of space, and there was +a readjustment of frontier. The vacancy was slightly +broadened, and both young ladies sat down.</p> + +<p>The man who had got in just after Harry Brackett +and who had given up his seat stood in the center of +the car with his hand through a strap. But he made +no effort to pay his fare. The driver rang his bell, the +passengers looked at each other inquiringly, and one +of the two young ladies who had just seated themselves +produced a dime, which was passed along and +dropped into the fare-box in accordance with the +printed instructions of the company.<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a></p> + +<p>Three ladies left the car just before it turned into +Fourteenth Street; and after it had rounded the curve +two elderly gentlemen entered and sat down by the +side of Harry Brackett. The man who had not paid +his fare kindly volunteered to drop their money into +the box, but did not put in any of his own. Harry +Brackett was certain of this, for he had watched him +closely.</p> + +<p>The two elderly gentlemen continued a conversation +began before they entered the car. “I’ll tell +you,” said one of them, so loudly that Harry Brackett +could not help overhearing, “the most remarkable +thing that man Skinner ever did. One day he got +caught in one of his amusing little swindles; by some +slip-up of his ingenuity he did not allow himself quite +rope enough, and so he was brought up with a round +turn in the Tombs. He got two years in Sing Sing, +but he never went up at all—he served his time by +substitute!”</p> + +<p>“What?” cried his companion, in surprise.</p> + +<p>“He did!” answered the first speaker. “That’s +just what he did! He had a substitute to go to State’s +Prison for him, while he went up to Albany to work +for his own pardon!”</p> + +<p>“How did he manage that?” asked the other, in +involuntary admiration before so splendid an audacity.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no idea how fertile Skinner was in devices +of all kinds,” replied the gentleman who was telling +the story. “He got out on bail, and he arranged for a<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> +light sentence if he pleaded guilty. Then one day, +suddenly, a man came into court, giving himself up as +Skinner, pleading guilty, and asking for immediate +sentence. Of course, nobody inquired too curiously +into the identity of a self-surrendered prisoner who +wanted to go to Sing Sing. Well—”</p> + +<p>The car stopped at the corner of Fifth Avenue, +several passengers alighted, and a party of three ladies +came in. There were two vacant seats by the side of +Harry Brackett, and as he thought these three ladies +wished to sit together, he gave up his place and took +another farther down the car. Here he found himself +again opposite the man who had entered the car +almost simultaneously with him, and who had not +yet paid his fare. Harry Brackett wondered whether +this attempt to steal a ride was intentional or whether +it was merely inadvertent. His consideration of this +metaphysical problem was interrupted by another +conversation. His right-hand neighbor, who was +apparently a physician, was telling the friend next to +him of the strange desires of convalescents.</p> + +<p>“I think,” said he, “that the queerest request I +ever heard was down in Connecticut. There was a +man there, a day-laborer, but a fine young fellow, +who had a crowbar driven clean through his head by +a forgotten blast. Well, I happened to be the first +doctor on the spot, and it was nip-and-tuck whether +anything could be done for him; it was a most interesting +case. But he was in glorious condition physically.<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> +I found out afterward that he was the champion +sprint-runner of the place. I got him into the +nearest hotel, and in time I managed to patch him up +as best I could. At last we pulled him through, and +the day came when I was able to tell him that I +thought he would recover, and that he was quite out +of danger, and that all he had to do was to get his +strength back again as fast as he could, and he would +be all right again soon. He was lying in bed, emaciated +and speechless, when I said this, and when I +added that he could have anything to eat he might +fancy, his eyes brightened and his lips moved. ‘Is +there anything in particular you would prefer?’ I +asked him, and his lips moved again as though he had +a wish to express. You see, he hadn’t spoken once +since the accident, but he seemed to be trying to find +his tongue; so I bent over the bed and put my head +over his mouth, and finally I heard a faint voice saying, +‘Quail on toast!’ and as I drew back in surprise, +he gave me a wink. Feeble as his tones were, there +was infinite gusto in the way he said the words. I +suppose he had never had quail on toast in all his +life; probably he had dreamed of it as an unattainable +luxury.”</p> + +<p>“Did he get it?” asked the doctor’s friend.</p> + +<p>“He got it every day,” answered the doctor, “until +he said he didn’t want any more. I remember +another man who—”</p> + +<p>But now, with many a jolt and jar, the car was<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> +rattling noisily across Sixth Avenue under the dripping +shadow of the station of the elevated railway. Harry +Brackett rose to his feet, and as he did so he glanced +again at the man opposite to him, to see if, even then, +at the eleventh hour, he did intend to pay his fare. +But the man caught Harry Brackett’s eye hardily, and +looked him in the face, with a curiously knowing +smile.</p> + +<p>There was something very odd about the expression +of the man’s face, so Harry Brackett thought, as +he left the car and began to mount the steps which +led to the station of the elevated railroad. He could +not help thinking that there was a queer suggestion +in that smile—a suggestion of a certain complicity +on his part: it was as though the owner of the smile +had ventured to hint that they were birds of a feather.</p> + +<p>“Confound his impudence!” said Harry Brackett +to himself, as he stood before the window of the +ticket-agent.</p> + +<p>Then he put his fingers into the little pocket in his +overcoat and took from it a ten-cent piece and a five-cent +piece. And he knew at once why the man +opposite had smiled so impertinently—it was the smile +of the pot at the kettle.</p> + +<p><a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1886)</p></div> + +<p><a name="In_the_Small_Hours" id="In_the_Small_Hours"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp189_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp189_sml.jpg" width="550" height="417" alt="In the Small Hours" title="In the Small Hours" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp191.png"> +<img src="images/ilp191_sml.png" +width="94" +height="92" +class="letra" +alt="S" +title="S" +/></a>UDDENLY he found himself wide awake. +He had been lost in sleep, dreamless and +spaceless; and now, without warning, his +slumber had left him abruptly and for no +reason that he could guess. Although he +strained his ear, he caught the echo of no unusual +sound. He listened in vague doubt whether there +might not be some one moving about in the apartment; +but he could hear nothing except the shrill +creak of the brakes of a train on the elevated railroad +nearly a block away. Wilson Carpenter was in the +habit of observing his own feelings, and he was surprised +to note that he did not really expect to detect +any physical cause for his unexpected awakening. +Sleep had left him as inexplicably as it had swiftly.</p> + +<p>He lay there in bed with no restlessness; he heard +the regular breathing of his wife, who was sleeping at +his side; he saw the faint illumination from the door +open into the next room where the baby was also +asleep. He looked toward the window, but no ray +of light was yet visible; and he guessed it to be about +four o’clock in the morning, perhaps a little earlier. +In that case he had not been in bed more than two +or three hours at the most. He wondered why he<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> +had waked thus unexpectedly, since he had had a +fatiguing day. Perhaps it was the excitement—there +was no doubt that he had had his full share of +excitement that evening—and he thrilled again as he +recalled the delicious sensation of dull dread yielding +at last to the certainty of success.</p> + +<p>He had played for a heavy stake and he had won. +That was just what he had been doing—gambling +with fate, throwing dice with fortune itself. That was +what every dramatic author had to do every time he +brought out a new play. The production of a piece +at an important New York theater was a venture as +aleatory almost as cutting a pack of cards, and the +odds were always against the dramatist. And as the +young man quietly recalled the events of the evening +it seemed to him that the excitement of those who +engineer corners in Wall Street must be like his own +anxiety while the future of his drama hung in the +balance, only theirs could not but be less keen than +his, less poignant, for he was playing his game with +men and women, while what they touched were but +inanimate stocks. His winning depended upon the +actors and actresses who had bodied forth his conception. +A single lapse of memory or a single slip +of the tongue, and the very sceptical audience of the +first night might laugh in the wrong place, and so cut +themselves off from sympathy; and all his labor +would shrivel before his eyes. Of a truth it is the +ordeal by fire that the dramatist must undergo; and<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> +there had been moments that long, swift evening when +he had felt as though he were tied to the stake and +awaiting only the haggard squaw who was to apply +the torch.</p> + +<p>Now the trial was over and the cause was gained. +There had been too many war-pieces of late, so the +croakers urged, and the public would not stand +another drama of the Rebellion. But he had not been +greatly discouraged, for in his play the military scenes +were but the setting for a story of everyday heroism, +of human conflict, of man’s conquest of himself. +It was the simple strength of this story that had +caught the spectators before the first act was half +over and held them breathless as situation followed +situation. At the adroitly spaced comic scenes the +audience had gladly relaxed, joyously relieving the +emotional strain with welcome laughter. The future +of the play was beyond all question; of that the +author felt assured, judging not so much by the mere +applause as by the tensity of the interest aroused, +and by the long-drawn sigh of suspense he had heard +so often in the course of the evening. He did not +dread the acrid criticisms he knew he should find in +some of the morning papers, the writers of which +would be bitterer than usual, since the writer of the +new play had been a newspaper man himself.</p> + +<p>The author of <i>A Bold Stroke</i> knew what its success +meant to him. It meant a fortune. The play would +perhaps run the season out in New York, and this<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> +was only the middle of October. With matinées on +Wednesday as well as on Saturday, two hundred +performances in the city were not impossible. Then +next season there would be at least two companies +on the road. He ought to make $25,000 by the +piece, and perhaps more. The long struggle just to +keep his head above water, just to get his daily bread, +just to make both ends meet—that was over forever. +He could move out of the little Harlem flat to which +he had brought his bride two years before; and he +could soon get her the house she was longing for somewhere +in the country, near New York, where the +baby could grow up under the trees.</p> + +<p>The success of the play meant more than mere +money, so the ambitious young author was thinking +as he lay there sleepless. It meant praise, too—and +praise was pleasant. It meant recognition—and +recognition was better than praise, for it would open +other opportunities. The money he made by the +play would give him a home, and also leisure for +thought and for adequate preparation before he +began his next piece. He had done his best in writing +the war-drama; he had spared no pains and neglected +no possibility of improvement; it was as good as he +could make it. But there were other plays he had +in mind, making a different appeal, quieter than his +military piece, subtler; and these he could now risk +writing, since the managers would believe in him +after the triumph of A Bold Stroke.<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a></p> + +<p>It would be possible for him hereafter to do what +he wanted to do and what he believed himself best +fitted to do. It had always seemed to him that New +York opened an infinity of vistas to the dramatist. +He intended to seize some of this opulent material +and to set on the stage the life of the great city +as he had seen it during his five years of journalism. +He knew that it did a man good to be a reporter for +a little while, if he had the courage to cut himself +loose before it was too late, before journalism had +corroded its stigma. His reporting had taken him +into strange places now and again; but it had also +taken him into the homes of the plain people who +make New York what it is. Society, as Society was +described in the Sunday papers, he knew little about, +and he cared less; he was not a snob, if he knew +himself. But humanity was unfailingly interesting +and unendingly instructive; and it was more interesting +and more instructive in the factories and in the +tenements than it was in the immense mansions on +Lenox Hill.</p> + +<p>His work as a reporter had not only sharpened his +eyes and broadened his sympathies; it had led him +to see things that made him think. He had not +inherited his New England conscience for nothing; +and his college studies in sociology, that seemed so +bare to him as an undergraduate, had taken on a new +aspect since he had seen for himself the actual working +of the inexorable laws of life. To sneer at the reformers<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> +who were endeavoring to make the world better +had not been easy for him, even when he was straining +to achieve the false brilliance of the star reporter; +and now that he was free to say what he thought, he +was going to seize the first opportunity to help along +the good cause, to show those rich enough to sit in the +good seat in the theater that the boy perched up in +the gallery in his shirt-sleeves was also a man and a +brother.</p> + +<p>The young playwright held that a play ought to be +amusing, of course, but he held also that it might +give the spectators something to think about after +they got home. He was going to utilize his opportunity +to show how many failures there are, and how +many there must be if the fittest is to survive, and +how hard it is to fail, how bitter, how pitiful! With +an effort he refrained from saying out loud enough +to waken his wife the quotation that floated back +to his memory:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whether at Naishápúr or Babylon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>His own success, now it had come, found him +wondering at it. He was a modest young fellow at +bottom, and he really did not know why he had +attained the prize so many were striving to grasp. +Probably it was due to the sturdiness of the stock he<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> +came from; and he was glad that his ancestors had +lived cleanly and had left him a healthy body and a +sober mind. His father and his mother had survived +long enough to see him through college and started in +newspaper work in New York. They had been old-fashioned +in their ways, and he was aware that they +might not have approved altogether of his choice of a +profession, since it would have seemed very strange to +them that a son of theirs should earn his living by +writing plays. Yet he grieved that they had gone +before he was able to repay any of the sacrifices they +had made for him; it was the one blot on his good-fortune +that he could not share it with them in the +future.</p> + +<p>The future! Yes, the future was in his power at +last. As he lay there in the darkness he said to himself +that all his ambitions were now almost within +his grasp. He was young and well educated; he had +proved ability and true courage; he had friends; he +had a wife whom he loved and who loved him; his +first-born was a son, already almost able to walk. +Never before had his prospects appeared so smiling, +and never before had he foreseen how his hopes might +be fulfilled. And yet now, as he thought of the future, +for the first time his pulse did not beat faster. When +it was plain to him that he might soon have the most +of the things he cared for, he found himself asking +whether, after all, he really did care for them so much. +He was happy, but just then his happiness was passive.<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> +The future might be left to take care of itself +all in good time. He was wide awake, yet he had +almost the languor of slumber; it surprised him to +find himself thus unenergetic and not wanting to be +roused to battle, even if the enemy were in sight. +He thought of the Nirvana that the Oriental philosophers +sought to gain as the final good; and he asked +himself if perhaps the West had not still something +to learn from the East.</p> + +<p>Afar, in the silence of the night, he heard the faint +clang of an ambulance-bell, and he began to think +of the huge city now sunk in slumber all around him. +He had nearly four million fellow-citizens; and in an +hour or two or three they would awaken and go forth +to labor. They would fill the day with struggle, +vying one with another, each trying to make his footing +secure; and now and again one of them would +fall and be crushed to the ground. They would +go to bed again at night, wearied out, and they would +sleep again, and waken again, and begin the battle +again. Most of them would take part in the combat +all in vain, since only a few of them could hope to +escape from the fight unvanquished. Most of them +would fall by the wayside or be trampled under foot +on the highroad. Most of them would be beaten in +the battle and would drop out of the fight, wounded +unto death. And for the first time all this ceaseless +turmoil and unending warfare seemed to him futile +and purposeless.<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a></p> + +<p>What was victory but a chance to engage again in +the combat? To win to-day was but to have a right +to enter the fray again to-morrow. His triumph that +evening in the theater only opened the door for him; +and if he was to hold his own he must make ready to +wrestle again and again. Each time the effort would +be harder than the last. And at the end, what? He +would be richer in money, perhaps, but just then +money seemed to have no absolute value. He would +do good, perhaps; but perhaps also he might do harm, +for he knew himself not to be infallible. He would +not be more contented, he feared, for he had discovered +already that although success is less bitter than +failure, it rarely brings complete satisfaction. If it +were contentment that he really was seeking, why not +be satisfied now with what he had won? Why not +quit? Why not step out of the ranks and throw down +his musket and get out of the way and leave the +fighting to those who had a stomach for it?</p> + +<p>As he asked himself these questions a gray shroud +of melancholy was wrapped about him and all the +brightness of youth was quenched in him. Probably +this was the inevitable reaction after the strain of his +long effort. But none the less it left him looking +forward to the end of his life, and he saw himself +withered and racked with pain; he saw his young +wife worn and ugly, perhaps dead—and the ghastly +vision of the grave glimpsed before him; he saw his +boy dead also, dead in youth; and he saw himself<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> +left alone and lonely in his old age, and still struggling, +struggling, struggling in vain and forever.</p> + +<p>Then he became morbid even, and he felt he was +truly alone now, as every one of us must be always. +He loved his wife and she loved him, and there was +sympathy and understanding between them; but he +doubted if he really knew her, for he felt sure she did +not really know him. There were thoughts in his +heart sometimes that he was glad she did not guess; +and no doubt she had emotions and sentiments she +did not reveal to him. After all, every human being +must be a self-contained and repellent entity; and +no two of them can ever feel alike or think alike. He +and his wife came of different stocks, with a different +training, with a different experience of life, with +different ideals; and although they were united in +love, they could not but be separate and distinct to +all eternity. And as his wife was of another sex from +his, so his boy was of another generation, certain to +grow up with other tastes and other aspirations.</p> + +<p>Wilson Carpenter’s marriage had been happy, and +his boy was all he could wish,—and yet—and yet—Is +this all that life can give a man? A little joy for +the few who are fortunate, a little pleasure, and then—and +then—For the first time he understood how +it was that a happy man sometimes commits suicide. +And he smiled as he thought that if he wished to +choose death at the instant of life when the outsider +would suppose his future to be brightest, now was the<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> +moment. He knew that there ought to be a revolver +in the upper drawer of the table at the side of the bed. +He turned gently; and then he lay back again, smiling +bitterly at his own foolishness.</p> + +<p>A heavy wagon rumbled along down the next +street, and he heard also the whistle of a train on the +river-front. These signs of returning day did not +interest him at that moment when—so it seemed to +him, although he was aware this was perfectly unreasonable—when +he was at a crisis in his life.</p> + +<p>Then there came to him another quatrain of +Omar’s, a quatrain he had often quoted with joy in +its stern vigor and its lofty resolve:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So when the Angel of the darker Drink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At last shall find you by the river-brink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, offering his Cup, invite your Soul<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forth to your Lips to quaff—you shall not shrink.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And youth came to his rescue again, and hope rose +within him once more; and his interest in the eternal +conflict of humanity sprang up as keen as ever.</p> + +<p>The mood of craven surrender passed from him +as abruptly as it had come, leaving him older, and +with a vague impression as though he had had a +strange and unnatural experience. He knew again +that life is infinitely various, and that it is worth +while for its own sake; and he wondered how it was +that he had ever doubted it. Even if struggle is +the rule of our existence in this world, the fight is its<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> +own reward; it brings its own guerdon; it gives a +zest to life; and sometimes it even takes the sting +from defeat. The ardor of the combat is bracing; +and fate is a foeman worthy of every man’s steel.</p> + +<p>So long as a man does his best always, his pay is +secure; and the ultimate success or failure matters +little after all, for, though he be the sport of circumstance, +he is the master of himself. To be alone—in +youth or in age—is not the worst thing that can +befall, if the man is not ashamed of the companionship +of his own soul. If his spirit is unafraid and ready to +brave the bludgeon of chance, then has man a stanch +friend in himself, and he can boldly front whatever +the future has in store for him. Only a thin-blooded +weakling casts down his weapons for nothing and +flees around the arena; the least that a man of even +ordinary courage can do is to stand to his arms and +to fight for his life to the end.</p> + +<p>Wilson Carpenter had no idea how long it was that +he had been lying awake motionless, staring at the +ceiling. There were signs of dawn now, and he +heard a cart rattle briskly up to the house next +door.</p> + +<p>Perhaps his wife heard this also, for she turned and +put out one arm caressingly, smiling at him in her +sleep. He took her hand in his gently and held it. +Peace descended upon him, and his brain ceased to +torment itself with the future or with the present +or with the past.<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a></p> + +<p>He was conscious of no effort not to think, nor +indeed of any unfulfilled desire on his part. It +seemed to him that he was floating lazily on a summer +sea, not becalmed, but bound for no destination. +And before he knew it, he was again asleep.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1899)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a></p> + +<p><a name="Her_Letter" id="Her_Letter"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp205_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp205_sml.jpg" width="550" height="415" alt="Her Letter to His Second Wife" title="Her Letter to His Second Wife" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp207.png"> +<img src="images/ilp207_sml.png" +width="86" +height="85" +class="letra" +alt="S" +title="S" +/></a>HE was gayly humming a lilting tune as +she flitted about the spacious sitting-room, +warm with the mellow sunshine of +the fall. From the broad bow-window +she looked down on the reddened maples +in Gramercy Park, where a few lingering leaves were +dancing in the fitful autumn breeze. Turning away +with a graceful, bird-like movement, she floated across +to the corner and glanced again into a tall and narrow +mirror set in the door of a huge wardrobe. She smiled +back at the pretty face she saw there reflected. Then +she laughed out merrily, that she had caught herself +again at her old trick. Yet she did not turn away +until she had captured two or three vagrant wisps of +her pale-gold hair, twisting them back into conformity +with their fellows. When at last she glided off with +a smile still lingering on her dainty little mouth, the +whole room seemed to be illuminated by her exuberant +happiness.</p> + +<p>And this was strong testimony to the brightness of +the bride herself, for there was nothing else attractive +in that sitting-room or in the rest of the house. The +furniture was stiff and old-fashioned throughout, and +the hangings were everywhere heavy and somber.<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> +The mantelpiece was of staring white marble; and +on each side of this was a tall bookcase of solid black +walnut highly varnished and overladen with misplaced +ornament. The rectangular chairs were +covered with faded maroon reps. The window curtains +were of raw silk, thickly lined and held back by +cords with black-walnut tassels. The least forbidding +object in the room was a shabby little desk, of which +the scratched white paint contrasted sharply with the +dull decorum of the other furniture.</p> + +<p>The bride had brought this desk from the home of +her youth to her husband’s house, and she cherished +it as a possession of her girlhood. By the side of it +was a low, cane-backed rocking-chair, and in this she +sat herself down at last. A small rectangular package +was almost under her hand on the corner of the desk; +and she opened it eagerly and blushed prettily as she +discovered it to contain her new visiting-cards—“Mrs. +John Blackstock.” She repeated the name +to herself with satisfaction at its sonorous dignity. +<i>John Blackstock</i> seemed to her exactly the name that +suited her husband, with his gentleness and his +strength. Next to the cards was another package, +a belated present from a schoolmate; it contained a +silver-mounted calendar. She held it in her hand and +counted back the days to her wedding—just twenty, +and it seemed to her hardly a week. Then she remarked +that in less than a fortnight it would be +Thanksgiving; and she thought at once of the many<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> +blessings she would have to give thanks for this year, +many more than ever before—above all, for John!</p> + +<p>Suddenly it struck her that a year could make +startling changes in a woman’s life—or even half a +year. Twelve months ago in the New England mill-town +where her parents lived she had no thought of +ever coming to New York to stay or of marrying soon. +Last Thanksgiving she had never seen John; and +indeed, it was not till long after Decoration Day that +she had first heard his name; and now there was a +plain gold ring on her finger, and John and she were +man and wife. If she had not accepted Mary Morton’s +invitation she might never have met John! +She shuddered at the fatal possibility; and she marveled +how the long happiness of a woman’s life might +hang on a mere chance. When the Mortons had +asked her to go to Saratoga with them to spend the +Fourth of July she had hesitated, and she came near +refusing after Mary had said that Mr. Blackstock was +going to be there, and that he was a widower now, and +that there was a chance for her. She detested that +kind of talk and thought it was always in bad taste. +But then Mary Morton was a dear, good girl; and it +was natural that Mr. Morton should be interested +in Mr. Blackstock, since Mr. Blackstock was the head +of the New York house that took all the output of +the Morton mills. She had decided to go to Saratoga +at last, partly because her father thought it would +amuse her, and partly just to show Mary Morton<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> +that she was not the kind of girl to be thrown at a +man’s head.</p> + +<p>The morning after their arrival in Saratoga, when +they were walking in Congress Park, Mary had +pointed out John to her, and she remembered that +he had seemed to her very old. Of course, he was not +really old; she knew now that he was just forty; +but she was only twenty herself, and at first sight he +had impressed her as an elderly man. That evening +he came over to their hotel to call on Mr. Morton, and +he was presented to her. Mary had been telling her +how his wife had died the summer before, and how +he had been inconsolable; and so she could not help +sympathizing with him, nor could she deny that he +had seemed to be taken with her from the beginning. +Instead of talking to Mr. Morton or to Mary, he kept +turning to her and asking her opinion. Before he +got up to go he had invited them all to go down to +the lake with him the next day for a fish dinner. +Twenty-four hours later he had asked her to drive +with him alone, and while she was wavering Mary +had accepted for her; and really she did not see +why she should not go with him. She had liked +him from the first, he was so quiet and reserved, +and then he had been so lonely since the death of +his wife. On Sunday he had taken her to church; and +the next morning he had moved over to their hotel. +She had been afraid that Mary might tease her; but +she did not care, for she was getting to like to have<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> +him attentive to her. She had made up her mind +not to pay any regard to anything Mary might say. +What Mary did say was to ask her to stay on another +fortnight. She wondered now what would have +happened if her father had refused his permission. +As it was, she remained in Saratoga two weeks longer—and +so did John, though Mr. Morton said that the +senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron had +lots of things to do in New York. Then Mary used +to smile and to tell her husband that Mr. Blackstock +had more pressing business on hand in Saratoga than +in New York.</p> + +<p>At last they all started for home again, and John +had come with them as far as Albany. When he held +her hand just as the car was going and said good-by, +it was rather abruptly that he asked her if he might +come and see her at Norwich—and he had blushed as +he explained that he might be called there soon on +important business.</p> + +<p>As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes +of the young bride she smiled again. She knew now +what she had guessed then—that she was the important +business that was bringing the senior partner +of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. +When he came up the next Saturday and had made +the acquaintance of her father and mother she began +to think that perhaps he was really interested in her. +She spent the next twenty-four hours in a strange +dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> +after the evening service she knew that she had +found her fate most unexpectedly. As they neared +her father’s door he had asked her if she were willing +to trust her future to him, and she had answered +solemnly that she was his whenever he might choose +to claim her.</p> + +<p>Although she had said this, she was taken aback +when he had wished her to be married early in September. +She had had to beg to have the wedding +postponed till the end of October, assuring him that +she could not be ready before then. Now, as she sat +there rocking silently in the sitting-room of his +house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving +her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time’s +flight during the few weeks of her engagement, she +did not regret that his neglected business would keep +him in town all winter and that the promised trip to +Europe was postponed until next summer. They had +gone on their brief wedding journey to Niagara and +Montreal and Quebec; and they had returned only +the day before. Last night for the first time had she +sat at the head of his table as the mistress of his +house. For the first time that morning had she +poured out his coffee in their future home, smiling +at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room +with its black horsehair chairs.</p> + +<p>Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on +her coming down to the office with him. It was the +first time that she had seen the immense building<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a> +occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with +the packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with +half a dozen drays unloading the goods just received +from Europe. Although two or three of the clerks +were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had +kissed her; and although she supposed she must have +blushed, she did not really object. She was John’s +wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He +had called to the driver to come back so that he might +tell her to stop anywhere she pleased on her way up-town +and to buy anything she fancied. She had +come straight home without buying anything, for, of +course, she was not going to waste John’s money.</p> + +<p>All the same the house was very old-fashioned, +and it sadly needed to be refurnished. John was +rich, and John was generous with his money; and she +felt sure he would let her do over the house just as she +pleased. Then her thoughts went back to the days +when she had been sent to a boarding-school in New +York to finish her education and to the afternoon +walks when she and the other girls, two by two, had +again and again passed in front of that very house; +and now it was her home for the rest of her life. It +was hers to brighten and to beautify and to make +over to suit herself. She did not want to say a word +against John’s first wife, but it did seem to her that +the elder woman had lacked taste at least. The wall-papers +and the hangings were all hopeless, and the +furniture was simply prehistoric. The drawing-room<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> +looked as though nobody had ever dared to sit in it; +and it was so repellent that she did not wonder everybody +kept out of it.</p> + +<p>Probably his first wife was a plain sort of person +who did not care to entertain at all; perhaps she was +satisfied with the narrow circle of church work. The +young woman remarked how her mind kept on returning +to her predecessor. She was ready to confess +that this was natural enough, and yet it made her a +little impatient nevertheless. Her eyes filled with +tears when she thought of the swiftness with which +a woman is forgotten when once she is dead.</p> + +<p>She went to the window of the sitting-room and +looked down on Gramercy Park again. The November +twilight was settling down, and the rays of +the setting sun were obscured by a heavy bank of +gray clouds. The wind had risen and was whirling +the dead leaves in erratic circles. Rain was threatened +and might come at any minute. The day that +had begun in glorious sunshine was about to end in +gloom. The young bride was conscious of a vague +feeling of loneliness and homesickness; she found +herself longing for John’s return.</p> + +<p>As she turned away she heard the front door close +heavily. With the swift hope that her husband might +have come home earlier than he had promised, she +flew to the head of the stairs. She was in time to +see the butler gravely bowing an elderly gentleman +into the drawing-room.<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a></p> + +<p>Disappointed that it was not John, she went back +to the sitting-room and dropped into the rocking-chair +by her old desk. She wondered who it was that +hastened to call on her the day after her home-coming.</p> + +<p>A minute later the butler was standing before her +with the salver in his hand and a card on it.</p> + +<p>She took it with keen curiosity.</p> + +<p>“Dr. Thurston!” she cried. “Did you tell him +Mr. Blackstock was not home yet?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, m’am,” the butler responded; “and he said +it was Mrs. Blackstock he wished to see particularly.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, very well,” she returned. “Say I will be +down in a minute.”</p> + +<p>When the butler had gone, she ran to the tall +mirror and readjusted her hair once more and felt to +make sure that her belt was in position on her lithe +young waist. She was glad that she happened to +have on a presentable dress, so that she need not +keep the minister waiting.</p> + +<p>As she slowly went down-stairs she tried in vain to +guess why it was that Dr. Thurston wanted to see her +particularly. She knew that John had had a pew in +Dr. Thurston’s church for years and that he was accustomed +to give liberally to all its charities. She +had heard of the beautiful sermon the doctor had +preached when John was left a widower, and so she +almost dreaded meeting the minister for the first +time all alone. She lost a little of her habitual +buoyancy at the fear lest he should not like her.<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> +When she entered the drawing-room—which seemed +so ugly in her eyes then that she was ready to apologize +for it—the minister greeted her with a reserved smile.</p> + +<p>“I trust you will pardon this early visit, Mrs. +Blackstock—” he began.</p> + +<p>“It is very good of you to come and see me so soon, +Dr. Thurston,” she interrupted, a little nervously, as +she dropped into a chair.</p> + +<p>“It is a privilege no less than a duty, my dear young +lady,” he returned, affably, resuming his own seat, +“for me to be one of the first to welcome to her new +home the wife of an old friend. There is no man in +all my congregation for whom I have a higher regard +than I have for John Blackstock.”</p> + +<p>The young wife did not quite like to have her +husband patronized even by the minister of his +church, but smiled sweetly as she replied, “It is so +kind of you to say that—and I am sure that there is +no one whose friendship John values more than he +does yours, Doctor.”</p> + +<p>The minister continued gravely, as though putting +this compliment aside. “Yes, I think I have a right +to call your husband an old friend. He joined my +church only a few months after I was called to New +York, and that is nearly fifteen years ago—a large part +of a man’s life. I have observed him under circumstances +of unusual trial, and I can bear witness that +he is made of sterling stuff. I was with him when he +had to call upon all his fortitude to bear what is perhaps<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> +the hardest blow any man is required to submit +to—the unexpected loss of the beloved companion +of his youth.”</p> + +<p>Dr. Thurston paused here; and the bride did not +know just what to say. She could not see why the +minister should find it necessary to talk to her of the +dead woman, who had been in her thoughts all the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it may seem strange to you, Mrs. Blackstock,” +he went on, after an awkward silence, “that I +should at this first visit and at this earliest opportunity +of speech with you—that I should speak to you +of the saintly woman who was John Blackstock’s +first wife. I trust that you will acquit me of any +intention of offending you, and I beg that you will +believe that I have mentioned her only because I +have a solemn duty before me.”</p> + +<p>With wide-open eyes the bride sat still before him. +She could not understand what these words might +mean. When her visitor paused for a moment, all +she could say was, “Certainly—certainly,” and she +would have been greatly puzzled to explain just what +it was she wished to convey by the word. A vague +apprehension thrilled her, for which she could give +no reason.</p> + +<p>“I will be brief,” the doctor began again. “Perhaps +you are aware that the late Mrs. Blackstock died +of heart failure?”</p> + +<p>The bride nodded and answered, “Yes, yes.”<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> +She wanted to say “What of it? And what have I +to do with her now? She is dead and gone; and I +am alive. Why cannot she leave me alone?”</p> + +<p>“But it may be you do not know,” Dr. Thurston +continued, “that she herself was aware of the nature +of her disease? She learned the fatal truth two or +three years before she died. She kept it a secret from +her husband, and to him she was always cheerful and +hopeful. But she made ready for death, not knowing +when it might come, but feeling assured that it could +not long delay its call. She was a brave woman and +a devout Christian; and she could face the future +fearlessly. Then, as ever, her first thought was for +her husband, and she grieved at leaving him alone +and lonely whom she had cared for so many years. +If she were to die soon her husband would not be +an old man, and perhaps he might take another wife. +This suggestion was possibly repugnant to her at +first; but in time she became reconciled to it.”</p> + +<p>The bride was glad to hear this. Somehow this +seemed a little to lighten the gloom which had been +settling down upon her.</p> + +<p>“Then it was that the late Mrs. Blackstock, dwelling +upon her husband’s second marriage, decided to +write a letter to you,” and as the minister said this he +took an envelope from his coat pocket.</p> + +<p>“To me?” cried the young wife, springing to her +feet, as though in self-defense. Her first fear was +that she was about to learn some dread mystery.<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a></p> + +<p>“To you,” Dr. Thurston answered calmly—“at +least to the woman, whoever she might be, whom +John Blackstock should take to wife.”</p> + +<p>“Why—” began the bride, with a little hysteric +laugh, “why, what could she possibly have to say to +me?” And her heart was chilled within her.</p> + +<p>“That I cannot tell you,” the minister answered; +“she did not read the letter to me. She brought it +to me one dark day the winter before last; and she +besought me to take it and to say nothing about it +to her husband; and to hand it myself to John +Blackstock’s new wife whenever they should return +from their wedding trip and settle down in this house.”</p> + +<p>Then Dr. Thurston rose to his feet and tendered +her the envelope.</p> + +<p>“You want me to read that?” the bride asked, in +a hard voice, fearful that the dead hand might be +going to snatch at her young happiness.</p> + +<p>“I have fulfilled my promise in delivering the +letter to you,” the minister responded. “But if +you ask my advice, I should certainly recommend you +to read it. The writer was a good woman, a saintly +woman; and whatever the message she has sent you +from beyond the grave, as it were, I think it +would be well for you to read it.”</p> + +<p>The young wife took the envelope. “Very well,” +she answered, “since I must read it, I will.”</p> + +<p>“I am conscious that this interview cannot but +have been somewhat painful to you, Mrs. Blackstock,”<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> +said the minister, moving toward the door. +“Certainly the situation is strangely unconventional. +But I trust you will forgive me for my share in the +matter—”</p> + +<p>“Forgive you?” she rejoined, finding phrases +with difficulty. “Oh yes—yes, I forgive you, of +course.”</p> + +<p>“Then I will bid you good afternoon,” he returned.</p> + +<p>“Good afternoon,” she answered, automatically.</p> + +<p>“I beg that you will give my regards to your +husband.”</p> + +<p>“To my husband?” she repeated. “Of course, of +course.”</p> + +<p>When Dr. Thurston had gone at last, the bride +stood still in the center of the drawing-room with the +envelope gripped in her hand. Taking a long breath, +she tore it open with a single motion and took out +the half-dozen sheets that were folded within it. She +turned it about and shook it suspiciously, but nothing +fell from it. This relieved her dread a little, for she +feared that there might be some inclosure—something +that she would be sorry to have seen.</p> + +<p>With the letter in her hand at last, she hesitated +no longer; she unfolded it and began to read.</p> + +<p>The ink was already faded a little, for the date was +nearly two years old. The handwriting was firm +but girlishly old-fashioned; it was perfectly legible, +however. This is what the bride read:<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a></p> + +<div class="blockquotlet"><p>"<span class="smcap">My Dear Young Friend</span>,—I must begin by +begging your pardon for writing you this letter. I +hope you will forgive it as the strange act of a foolish +old woman who wants to tell you some of the things +her heart is full of.</p> + +<p>“You do not know me—at least, I think it most +likely you do not, although I cannot be sure of this, +for you may be one of the girls I have seen growing +up. And I do not know you for sure; but all the +same I have been thinking of you very often in the +past few weeks. I have thought about you so often +that at last I have made up my mind to write you +this letter. When I first had the idea, I did not want +to, but now I have brooded over it so long that I +simply must.</p> + +<p>“I have been wondering how you will take it, but +I can’t help that now. I have something to say, and +I am going to say it. I have been wondering, too, +what you will be like. I suppose that you are young, +very young perhaps, for John has always been fond +of young people. You are a good woman, I am sure, +for John could never have anything to do with a +woman who was not good. Young and good I feel +sure you will be; and that is all I know about you.</p> + +<p>“I cannot even guess how you have been brought up +or what your principles are or your ideas of duty. I +wish I could. I am very old-fashioned myself, I find, +and so very few young people nowadays seem to have +the same opinion about serious things that I have. I<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> +wish I could be sure you were a sincere Christian. I +wish I were certain you held fast to the old ideas of duty +and self-sacrifice that have been the honor and the glory +of the good women of the past. But I have no right +to expect that you will think about all these things +just as I do. And I know only too well how weak I +am myself and how neglectful I have been in improving +my own opportunities. The most I can do is +to hope that you will do what I have always tried to +do ever since I married John—and long before, too—and +that is to make him happy and to watch over +him.</p> + +<p>“If you are very young perhaps you do not yet +know that men are not like us women; they need to +be taken care of just like children. It is a blessed +privilege to be a mother, but a childless wife can at +least be a mother to her husband. That is what I +have been trying to do all these years. I have tried +to watch over John as though he were my only son. +Perhaps if our little girl had lived to grow up I might +have seen a divided duty before me. But it pleased +God to take her to Himself when she was only a +baby in arms, and He has never given me another. +Many a night I have lain awake with my arms aching +to clasp that little body again; but the Lord gave and +the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of +the Lord! So I have had nothing to draw me away +from my duty to John. If you have children some +day—and God grant that you may, for John’s heart<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> +is set on a boy—if you have children, don’t let your +love for them draw you away from John. Remember +that he was first in your love, and see that he is last +also. He will say nothing, for he is good and generous; +but he is quick to see neglect, and it would be bitter +if he were left alone in his old age.</p> + +<p>“You will find out in time that he is very sensitive, +for all he is a man and does not complain all the time. +So be cheerful always, as it annoys him to see anybody +in pain or suffering in any way. It is a great comfort +to me now that the disease that is going to take me +away from him sooner or later, I cannot know when—that +it is sudden and not disfiguring, and that he need +not know anything at all about it until it is all over. +I have made the doctor promise not to tell him till +I am dead.</p> + +<p>“You see, John has his worries down-town—not +so many now as he used to have, I am thankful to +say; and I have tried always to make his home +bright for him so that he could forget unpleasant +things. I hope you will always do that, too; it is +a wife’s duty, I think. You will forgive my telling +you these things, won’t you? You see I am so much +older than you are, and I have known John for so +many years. I have found that it relieves his feelings +sometimes to tell me his troubles and to talk over +things with me. Of course, I don’t know much about +business, and I suppose that what I say is of no value; +but it soothes him to have sympathy. So I hope<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> +you will never be impatient when he wants to tell you +about his partners and the clerks and things of that +sort. I have seen women foolish enough not to want +to listen when their husbands talked about business. +I do hope that you are wiser, or, at any rate, that you +will take advice from an old woman like me, thinking +only of the happiness of the man you have promised +to love, honor, and obey. You will learn in time +how good John is. Perhaps you may think you know +now—but you can’t know that as well as I do.</p> + +<p>“You see I am older than John—not so much older, +either, only a little more than two years. He doesn’t +like me to admit it, but it is true; and of late I have +been afraid that everybody could see it, for I am past +forty now and I feel very old sometimes, while John +is as young as ever. He looks just as he did twenty +years ago; he has not a gray hair in his head yet. +He comes up-stairs to me, after he gets back from the +office, with the same boyish step I know so well.</p> + +<p>“He was only a boy when I first saw him in the +little village school-house. His family had just moved +into our neighborhood, and the school he had been to +before was not very good, and so I was able to help him +with his lessons. The memory of that first winter +when we were boy and girl together has always been +very precious to me; and I can see him now as he +used to come into the school, panting with his hard +run to get there in time.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know when it was that I began to love<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> +him, but it was long before he had grown to be a +man. That early love of mine gave me many a +sorrowful hour in those days, for there were other +girls who saw how handsome John was. One girl +there was he used to say was pretty, but I never +could see it, for she had red hair and freckles—but +perhaps John said this to tease me, for he was always +fond of a joke. This girl made up to him, and John +came near marrying her; but fortunately a new minister +came to town and she gave up John and took +him. So John came back to me, and that spring +we were married.</p> + +<p>“John was not rich then; he had his way to make, +but when an old family friend offered him a place in +New York City he hesitated. He did not want to +take me away from my mother; he has always been +so good to me. But mother would not hear of it; +and so we came to this big city, and John succeeded +from the very first. It was not ten years before he +was taken into the firm; and now for two years he has +been at the head of it. I doubt if there is another +man as young as he is in all New York at the head of +so large a business.</p> + +<p>“When we first came to New York we boarded; +and then after a while we found a little house in +Grove Street. It was there baby was born and there +she died; and perhaps that is why I was so ungrateful +as to be sorry when John bought this big house here +on Gramercy Park. He said he wanted his wife to have<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> +as good a house as anybody else. Of course, I ought +to have known that a man of John’s prominence +could not go on living in Grove Street; he had to +take his position in the world. He let me have my +own way about furnishing this house, although he did +pretend to scold me for not spending enough money. +I have been very happy here, although I will not say +that I have never regretted the little house where my +only child died; but, of course, I never told this to +John, and it has always pleased me to see the pride +he took in this handsome house. And now in a few +weeks or a few months I shall leave it forever, and I +leave him also.</p> + +<p>“But I must not talk about myself any more. It +is about John I wanted to speak. I meant to tell you +how good he is and how he deserves to be loved with +your whole heart. I intended to ask you to take +care of him as I have tried to do, to watch over him, +to comfort him, to sympathize with him, to be truly +his helpmate.</p></div> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp226_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp226-sml.jpg" width="367" height="550" alt="SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS" title="SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS" /></a> +<br /> +<span class="caption">SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS</span> +</p> + +<div class="blockquotlet"><p>“Especially must you watch over him, for he will +not take care of himself. For instance, he is so busy +all day that he will forget to eat any luncheon unless +you keep at him; and if he goes without his lunch +sometimes he has bad attacks of indigestion. And +even when it is raining he does not always think to +take his overshoes or even his umbrella; and he +ought to be particular, because he is threatened with +rheumatism. If he has a cold, send for Dr. Cheever<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> +at once, and John seems to catch cold very easily; +once, three years ago, he came near having pneumonia. +You must see that he changes his flannels early in the +fall; he will never do it unless you get them out for +him. You will have to look after him as if he were a +baby; and that is one reason why I am writing this +long, long letter, just to tell you what you will have +to do.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I had another reason, too—the joy I +take always in talking about him and in praising +him and in telling how good he is. I hope he has +been happy with me all these years, and I know I have +been very happy with him. It may be very fanciful +in me, but I like the idea that these words of mine +praising him will be read after my death. If you +love him, as I hope you do, with your whole heart and +soul, you will understand why I have written this +and you will forgive me.</p> + +<p class="r">"Yours sincerely,<br /> +“S<small>ARAH</small> B<small>LACKSTOCK</small>.”</p></div> + +<p>Before the young bride had read the half of this +unexpected communication her eyes had filled with +tears, and when she came to the end her face was +wet.</p> + +<p>She stood silently in the center of the room where +the minister had left her, and she held the open sheets +of the letter in her hand. Then the front door was +closed with a jar to be felt all over the house; and in<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> +a moment she had heard her husband’s footsteps in +the hall.</p> + +<p>“John!” she cried.</p> + +<p>When he came to the door she flung herself into his +arms, sobbing helplessly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, John,” she managed to say, at last. “Your +first wife was an angel! I don’t believe I can ever +be as good as she was. But you will love me too—won’t +you, dear?”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1897)</p></div> + +<p><a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a></p> + +<p><a name="The_Shortest" id="The_Shortest"></a></p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/ilp229_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/ilp229_sml.jpg" width="550" height="417" alt="The Shortest Day in the Year" title="The Shortest Day in the Year" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><a href="images/ilp231.png"><img src="images/ilp231_sml.png" +width="85" +height="87" +class="letra" +alt="T" +title="T" +/></a>HE snow was still falling steadily, although +it had already thickly carpeted the avenue. +It was a soft, gentle snow, sifting down +calmly and clinging moistly to the bare +branches of the feeble trees, which stood +out starkly sheathed in white, spectral in the grayness +of the late afternoon. Gangs of men were clearing +the cross-paths at the corners and shoveling the +sodden drifts into carts of various sizes, impressed +into sudden service. It was not yet dusk, but the +street-lamps had been lighted; and the tall hotel +almost opposite was already illuminated here and +there by squares of yellow.</p> + +<p>Elinor stood at the window of her aunt’s house, +gazing out, and yet not seeing the occasional carriages +and the frequent automobiles that filled the broad +avenue before her. The Christmas wreath that hung +just over her head was scarcely more motionless than +she was, as she stared straight before her, unconscious +of anything but the deadness of her own outlook on +life.</p> + +<p>She looked very handsome in her large hat and her +black furs, which set off the pallor of her face, relieved +by the deep eyes, now a little sunken, and with a dark<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> +line beneath them. She took no notice of the laborers +as they stood aside to allow her aunt’s comfortable +carriage to draw up before the door. She did not +observe the laughing children at an upper window of +the house exactly opposite, highly excited at the +vision of a huge Christmas tree which towered aloft +in a cart before the door. She was waiting for Aunt +Cordelia to take her to a tea, and then to a studio, +where her portrait was to be shown to a few of her +friends.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts were not on any of these things; they +were far away from wintry New York. Her thoughts +were centered on the new-made grave in distant +Panama, in which they had buried the man she loved +less than a week ago.</p> + +<p>And it was just a year ago to-day, on the twenty-second +of December, the shortest day in the year, +that she had promised to be his wife. Only a year—and +it seemed to her that those twelve months had +made up most of her life. What were the score of +years that had gone before in comparison with the +richness of those happy twelve months, when life had +at last seemed worth while?</p> + +<p>As a girl she had wondered sometimes what life +was for, and why men and women had been sent on +this earth. What was the purpose of it all? But +this question had never arisen again since she had met +him; or, rather, it had been answered, once for all. +Life was love; that was plain enough to her. At<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> +last her life had taken on significance, since she had +yielded herself to his first kiss, and since the depth of +her own passion had been revealed to her swiftly and +unexpectedly.</p> + +<p>As she looked back at his unexpected appeal to +her, and as she remembered that when he had told +her his love and asked her to be his they had met +only ten days before and had spoken to each other +less than half a dozen times, she realized that it was +her fate which had brought them together. Although +she did not know it, she had been waiting for +him, as he had been waiting for her. She was his +mate, and he was hers, chosen out of all others—a +choice foreordained through all eternity.</p> + +<p>Their wooing was a precious secret, shared by no +one else. They knew it themselves, and that was +enough; and perhaps the enforced mystery made the +compact all the sweeter. Ever since they had plighted +their troth she had gone about with joy in her heart +and with her head in a heaven of hope, hardly aware +that she was touching the earth. All things were +glad around her; and a secret song of happiness was +forever caroling in her ears.</p> + +<p>And yet she knew that it might be years before he +could claim her, for he was only now beginning his +professional career as an engineer. He had just +been appointed to a good place on the canal. His +chief was encouraging, and put responsibilities on him; +he had felt sure that he would have a chance to show<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> +what he could do. And she had been almost angry +how any one could ever doubt that he would rise to the +head of his profession. She had told him that she +would wait seven years, and twice seven years, if +need be.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia was hoping that she would make a +splendid match. Within a week after John Grant +had said good-by she had rejected Reggie Eames, +whom her aunt had been encouraging for a year or +two. She liked Reggie well enough; he was a good +fellow. When he had asked her if there was another +suitor standing in his way, she had looked him in the +face and told him that there was; and Reggie had +taken it like a man, and had made a point of being +nice to her ever since, whenever they met in society.</p> + +<p>As she stood there at the window she gave a slight +start and nodded pleasantly to Reggie, who had +bowed as he passed the house on the way to the +Union Club. And then the avenue, with all its +passers-by, its carriages and automobiles, its shoveling +laborers and its falling snow, its Christmas greens +and its lighted windows, faded again from her vision, +as she tried to imagine that unseen grave far away in +Panama.</p> + +<p>She wished that she could have been with him—that +they could have had those last few hours together. +She had had so little of him, after all. An +unexpected summons had come to him less than a +week after they were engaged; and he had gone at<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> +once. Of course, he had written by every steamer, +but what were letters when she was longing for the +clasp of his arms? And every month, on the twenty-second, +there had come a bunch of violets, with the +single word “Sweetheart.” He had laughed when +he told her that the twenty-second of December was +the shortest day in the year—which was not very +promising if they expected to be “as happy as the +day is long"!</p> + +<p>The months had gone, one after another; she had +not seen him again; and now she would never see him +again. He had been hoping for leave of absence +early in the spring; and she had been looking forward +to it. He had written that he did not know how the +work would get along without him, but he did know +that he could not get along without her. Hereafter +she would have to get along without him; and she had +never longed for him so much, wanted him, needed +him.</p> + +<p>The long years to come stretched out before her +vision, as she stood there in the window, lovely in +her youthful beauty; and she knew that for her they +would be desolate, barren, and empty years. The +flame of love burned within her as fiercely as ever; +but there was now nothing for it to feed on but a +memory; yet the fire was hot in its ashes.</p> + +<p>She opened her heavy furs, for she felt as if they +were stifling her. She knew that they had been +admired by her friends, and even envied by some of<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> +them. Aunt Cordelia had given them to her for +Christmas, insisting on her wearing them as soon as +they came home, since they were so becoming.</p> + +<p>Aunt Cordelia meant to be kind; she had always +meant to be kind, ever since Elinor had come to her +as an orphan of ten. Her kindness was a little +exacting at times; and her narrow matrimonial ambitions +Elinor could not help despising. What did +it profit a girl to make a splendid match, if she did +not marry the one man she was destined to love?</p> + +<p>The furs were beautiful, and they were costly. +Were they the price of her freedom? Was it due to +these expensive things she did not really want that +she had not been able to take John Grant for her +husband a month or a week after he had asked her?</p> + +<p>Everything in this world had to be paid for; and +perhaps she had sold her liberty too cheap. If it +had not been for the furs, and for all the other things +that her aunt had accustomed her to, she might have +gone with him to Panama and nursed him when he +fell ill. She felt sure that she could have saved him. +She would have tried so hard! She would have put +her soul into it. Her soul? She felt as if the sorrow +of the past week had made her acquainted with her +own soul for the first time. And she confessed herself +to be useless and feeble and weak.</p> + +<p>That was what made it all so strange. Why could +she not have died in his place? Why could not she +have died for him? She had lived, really lived, only<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> +since she had known him; and it was only since he +had gone that she had known herself. She had +meant to help him—not that he needed any assistance +from anybody. Now she could help no one in all the +wide world. She was useless again—a girl, ignorant +and helpless.</p> + +<p>Why could she not have been taken, and why could +not he have been spared? He had a career before +him; he would have been able to do things—strong +things, brave things, noble things, delicate things. +And he was gone before he had been able to do anything, +with all his possibilities of honor and fame, +with all his high hope of honest, hard work in the +years of his manly youth, with everything cut short, +just as if a candle had been blown out by a chance +wind.</p> + +<p>She marveled how it was that she had been able +to live through the long days since she had read the +brief announcement of his death. She did not see how +it was that she had not cried out, how it was that +she had not shouted aloud the news of her bereavement. +She supposed it must be because she had +inherited self-control, because she had been trained +to keep her feelings to herself, and never to make a +scene.</p> + +<p>Fortunately she was alone when she learned that +he was dead. She had been up late at a ball the +night before, and, as usual, Aunt Cordelia had insisted +on her staying in bed all the morning to rest.<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> +When she had finished her chocolate, Aunt Cordelia +had brought in the morning paper, and had raised the +window-shade for her to read, before going down for +a long talk with the lawyer who managed their +affairs.</p> + +<p>Elinor had glanced over the society reporter’s +account of the ball and his description of her own +gown; she had read the announcement of the engagement +of a girl she knew to a foreign count; and then +she was putting the paper down carelessly when her +eye caught the word “Panama” at the top of a +paragraph. Then, at a flash, she had read the inconspicuous +paragraph which told how John Grant, a +very promising young engineer in charge of a section +of the work on the canal, had died suddenly +of pneumonia, after only two days’ illness, to the +great grief of all his associates, especially of the +chief, who had thought very highly of him.</p> + +<p>The words danced before her eyes in letters of fire; +and she felt as if an icy hand had clutched her heart. +She was as stunned as if the end of the world had +come; and it was the end of her world.</p> + +<p>She did not recall how long she had held the paper +clutched in her hand; and she did not know why she +had not wept. It seemed to her as if her tears would +be a profanation of her grief, too deep to be washed +away by weeping. She had not cried once. Perhaps +it would have been a relief if she could have had +a good cry, petty and pitiful as it would be.<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a></p> + +<p>When Aunt Cordelia had called her, at last, to +get ready for luncheon, she had arisen as if she had +been somebody else. She had dressed and gone down-stairs +and sat opposite her aunt and chatted about +the ball. She recalled that her aunt had said that +there was nothing in the paper that morning except +the account of the ball. Nothing in the paper! She +had kept her peace, and made no confession. It +seemed to her that it could not have been herself +who sat there calmly and listened and responded. It +seemed as if she was not herself, but another girl—a +girl she did not know before.</p> + +<p>So the days had gone, one after another, and so +they would continue to go in the future. She was +young, and she came of a sturdy stock; she might +live to be three-score and ten.</p> + +<p>As she stood there at the window, staring straight +before her, she saw herself slowly changing into an +old maid like Aunt Cordelia, well meaning and a +little fidgety, a little fussy, and quite useless. She +recoiled as she surveyed the long vista of time, with +no husband to take her into his arms, and with no +children for her to hold up to him when he came back +from his work. And she knew that she was fit to be +a wife and a mother; and now she would never be +either.</p> + +<p>What was there left for her to do in life? She +could not go into a convent, and she could not study +to be a trained nurse. There she was at twenty-one,<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> +a broken piece of driftwood washed up on an unknown +island. She had no hope any more; the light +of her life had gone out.</p> + +<p>She asked herself whether she had any duty +toward others—duty which would make life worth +living once more. She wished that there was something +for her to do; but she saw nothing. She +set her teeth and resolved that she would go +through life, whatever it might bring, and master +it for his sake, as he would have expected her +to do. He was dead, and lying alone in that distant, +lonely grave; and she would have to live on +and on—but at least she would live as he would +approve.</p> + +<p>But whatever her life might be, it would not be +easy without him. She had lived on his letters; and +she had taken a new breath of life every month when +his violets came. And now nothing would come any +more—no message, no little words of love, nothing +to cheer her and to sustain her. Never before had +she longed so much for a message from him—a line +only—a single word of farewell.</p> + +<p>It was again the shortest day of the year, and it +was to her the longest of all her life. But all the days +would be long hereafter, and the nights would be +long, and life would be long; and all would be empty, +since he would never again be able to communicate +with her. If only she believed in spiritualism, if +only she could have even the dimmest hope that some<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> +day, somehow, some sort of communication might +come to her from him, from the shadowy realm where +he had gone, and where she could not go until the +summons came to join him!</p> + +<p>So intent was she upon her own thoughts that she +did not hear the ring of the door-bell; and a minute +later she started when the butler entered the room +with a small parcel in his hand.</p> + +<p>“What is it, Dexter?” she asked, mechanically.</p> + +<p>“This has just come for you, Miss,” he answered, +handing her the parcel.</p> + +<p>She held it without looking at it until Dexter had +left the room. Probably it was a Christmas present +from one of her friends; and she loosened the strings +listlessly.</p> + +<p>It was a box from a florist; and she wondered who +could have sent her any flowers on the day sacred to +him. It might be Reggie, of course; but he had not +done that for nearly a year now.</p> + +<p>She opened the box carelessly, and found a bunch +of violets. There was a card with it.</p> + +<p>She took it nearer to the window, to read it +in the fading light. It bore the single word, +“Sweetheart.”</p> + +<p>She stood for a moment, silent and trembling.</p> + +<p>“John!” she cried aloud. “From you!”</p> + +<p>She sank into a chair, with the violets pressed<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> +against her heart, sobbing; and the tears came at +last, plentifully.</p> + +<p>Then she heard footsteps on the stairs; and in a +moment more her aunt was standing at the door and +calling:</p> + +<p>“Elinor, are you ready? We are late.”</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1910)</p></div> + +<p class="c">THE END</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Vistas of New York, by Brander Matthews + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISTAS OF NEW YORK *** + +***** This file should be named 39434-h.htm or 39434-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/4/3/39434/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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