The Foolish Virgin
The Victim
The Southerner
The Sins of the Father
The Leopard’s Spots
The Clansman
The Traitor
The One Woman
Comrades
The Root of Evil
The Life Worth Living
TO GERTRUDE ATHERTON
WITH GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION
I. A FRIENDLY
WARNING.................................1
II.
TEMPTATION........................................18
III.
FATE..............................................33
IV. DOUBTS AND
FEARS..................................57
V. WINGS OF
STEEL....................................62
VI. BESIDE THE
SEA....................................77
VII. A VAIN
APPEAL.....................................88
VIII. JIM’S
TRIAL......................................109
IX. ELLA’S
SECRET....................................127
X. THE
WEDDING......................................139
XI. "UNTIL
DEATH"....................................151
XII. THE
LOTOS-EATERS.................................155
XIII. THE REAL
MAN.....................................173
XIV. UNWELCOME
GUESTS.................................184
XV. A LITTLE BLACK
BAG...............................204
XVI. THE
AWAKENING....................................217
XVII. THE
SURRENDER....................................226
XVIII. TO THE NEW
GOD...................................242
XIX. NANCE’S
STOREHOUSE...............................258
XX.
TRAPPED..........................................266
XXI. THE DEVIL’S
DISCIPLE.............................275
XXII.
DELIVERANCE......................................284
XXIII. THE
DOCTOR.......................................292
XXIV. THE CALL
DIVINE..................................300
XXV. THE
MOTHER.......................................308
XXVI. A SOUL IS
BORN...................................321
XXVII. THE
BABY.........................................328
XXVIII. WHAT IS
LOVE?....................................332
XXIX. THE NEW
MAN......................................348
"‘Don’t forget
that curiosity killed the cat.’" : Frontispiece
"She extended her
third finger, as he pressed the ring slowly on" : 116
"The world went
black and she felt herself sinking" : 238
"‘Look! Look at it
close!’ Her eyes devoured it" : 250
"‘Rubbish, child!
Rubbish! . . . Where did you get all this misinformation? : 312
"‘I’ll show you,
little girl -- I’ll show you!’ he whispered tensely" : 350
MARY ADAMS, An
Old-Fashioned Girl.
JIM ANTHONY, A Modern
Youth.
JANE ANDERSON, An
Artist.
ELLA, A Scrubwoman.
NANCE OWENS, Jim
Anthony’s Mother.
A DOCTOR, Whose Call
was Divine.
THE BABY, A Mascot.
Mary Adams, you’re a
fool!"
The single dimple in a
smooth red cheek smiled in answer.
"You’re repeating
yourself, Jane ---- "
"You won’t give
him one hour’s time for just three sittings?"
"Not a second for
one sitting ---- "
"Hopeless!"
Mary smiled
provokingly, her white teeth gleaming in obstinate good humor.
"He’s the most
distinguished artist in America ---- "
"I’ve heard
so."
"It would be a liberal
education for a girl of your training to know such a man ---- "
"I’ll omit that
course of instruction."
The younger woman was
silent a moment, and a flush of anger slowly mounted her temples. The blue eyes
were fixed reproachfully on her friend.
"You really
thought that I would pose?"
"I hoped so."
"Alone with a man
in his studio for hours?"
Jane Anderson lifted
her dark brows.
"Why, no, I hardly
expected that! I’m sure he would take his easel and palette out into the square
in front of the Plaza Hotel and let you sit on the base of the Sherman
monument. The crowds would cheer and inspire him -- bah! Can’t you have a
little common- sense? There are a few brutes among artists, as there are in all
professions -- even among the superintendents of your schools. Gordon’s a great
creative genius. If you’d try to flirt with him, he’d stop his work and send
you home. You’d be as safe in his studio as in your mother’s nursery. I’ve
known him for ten years. He’s the gentlest, truest man I’ve ever met. He’s
doing a canvas on which he has set his whole heart."
"He can get
professional models."
"For his usual
work, yes -- but this is the head of the Madonna. He saw you walking with me in
the Park last week and has been to my studio a half-dozen times begging me to
take you to see him. Please, Mary dear, do this for my sake. I owe Gordon a
debt I can never pay. He gave me the cue to the work that set me on my feet. He
was big and generous and helpful when I needed a friend. He asked nothing in
return but the privilege of helping me again if I ever needed it. You can do me
an enormous favor -- please."
Mary Adams rose with a
gesture of impatience, walked to her window and gazed on the torrent of
humanity pouring through Twenty-third Street from the beehives of industry that
have changed this quarter of New York so rapidly in the last five years. She
turned suddenly and confronted her friend.
"How could you
think that I would stoop to such a thing?"
"Stoop!"
"Yes," she
snapped, " -- pose for an artist! I’d as soon think of rushing stark naked
through Twenty-third Street at noon!"
The older woman looked
at her flushed face, suppressed a sharp answer, broke into a fit of laughter
and threw her arms around Mary’s neck.
"Honey, you’re
such a hopeless little fool, you’re delicious! You know that I love you -- don’t
you?"
The pretty lips
quivered.
"Yes."
"Could I possibly
ask you to do a thing that would harm a single brown hair of your head?"
The firm hand of the
older girl touched a rebellious lock with tenderness.
"Of course not,
from your point of view, Jane dear," the stubborn lips persisted.
"But you see it’s not my point of view. You’re older than I ---- "
Jane smiled.
"Hoity toity,
Miss! I’m just twenty-eight and you’re twenty-four. Age is not measured by
calendars these days."
"I didn’t mean
that," the girl apologized. "But you’re an artist. You’re established
and distinguished. You belong to a different world."
Jane Anderson laid her
hand softly on her friend’s.
"That’s just it,
dear. I do belong to a different world -- a big new world of whose existence
you are not quite conscious. You are living in the old, old world in which
women have groped for thousands of years. I don’t mind confessing that I
undertook this job of getting you to pose for Gordon for a double purpose. I
wished to do something to repay the debt I owe him -- but I wished far more to
be of help to you. You’re living in the Dark Ages, and it’s a dangerous thing
for a pretty girl to live in the Dark Ages and date her letters from New York
to-day ---- "
"I don’t
understand you in the least."
"And I’m afraid
you never will."
She paused suddenly and
changed her tone.
"Tell me now, are
you happy in your work?"
"I’m earning sixty
dollars a month -- my position is secure ---- "
"But are you happy
in it?"
"I don’t expect to
teach school all my life," was the vague answer.
"Exactly. You
loathe the sight of a school-room. You do the task they set you because your
father’s a clergyman and can’t support his big family. You’re waiting and
longing for the day of your deliverance -- isn’t it so?"
"Perhaps."
"And that day of
deliverance?"
"Will come when I
meet my Fate!"
"You’ll meet him,
too!"
"I will ----
"
Jane Anderson shook her
fine head.
"And may the Lord
have mercy on your poor little soul when you do!"
"And why,
pray?"
"Because you’re
the most helpless and defenseless of all the things He created."
Mary smiled.
"I’ve managed to
take pretty good care of myself so far."
"And you will --
until the thunderbolt falls."
"The
thunderbolt?"
"Until you meet
your Fate."
"I’ll have someone
to look after me then."
"We’ll hope so
anyhow," was the quick retort.
"But can’t you
see, Jane dear, that we look at life from such utterly different angles. You
glory in your work. It’s your inspiration -- the breath you breathe. I don’t
believe in women working for money. I don’t believe God ever meant us to work
when He made us women. He made us women for something more wonderful. I don’t
see anything good or glorious in the fact that half the torrent of humanity you
see down there pouring through the street from those factories and offices is
made up of women. They are wage-earners -- so much the worse. They are forcing
the scale of wages for men lower and lower. They are paying for it in weakened
bodies and sickly, hopeless children. We should not shout for joy; we should
cry. God never meant for woman to be a wage-earner!"
A sob caught her voice
and she paused.
The artist watched her
emotion with keen interest.
"Neither do I
believe that God means to force woman at last to do the tasks of man. But she’s
doing them, dear -- and it must be so until a brighter day dawns for humanity.
The new world that opens before us will never abolish marriage, but it has
opened our eyes to know what it means. You refuse to open yours. You refuse to
see this new world about you. I’ve begged you to join one of my clubs. You
refuse. I beg you to meet and know such men of genius as Gordon ---- "
"As an artist’s
model!"
"It’s the only way
on earth you can meet him. You stick to your narrow, hide-bound conventional
life and dream of the Knight who will suddenly appear some day out of the mists
and clouds. You dream of the Fate God has prepared for you in His mysterious
Providence. It’s funny how that idea persists even today in novels. As a matter
of fact we know that the old-fashioned girl met her Fate because her shrewd
mother planned the meeting -- planned it with cunning and stratagem. You’re
alone in a great modern city, with all the conditions of the life of the old
regime reversed or blotted out. Your mother is not here. And if she were, her
schemes to bring about the mysterious meeting of the Fates would be impossible.
You outgrew the limits of your village life. Your highly trained mind landed
you in New York. You’ve fought your way to a competent living in five years and
kept yourself clean and unspotted from the world. Granted. But how many men
have you met who are your equals in culture and character?"
Jane paused and held
Mary’s gaze with steady persistence.
"How many --
honest?"
"None as
yet," she confessed.
"But you live in
the one fond, imperishable hope! It’s the only thing that keeps you alive and
going -- this idea of your Fate. It’s an obsession -- this mysterious Knight
somewhere in the future riding to meet you ---- "
"I’ll find him,
never fear," the girl laughed.
"Of course you
will. You’ll make him out of whole cloth if it’s necessary. Our ideals are
really the same when you come to analyze my wider outlook."
The artist paused and
laughed softly.
"The same?"
the girl asked incredulously.
"Certainly. Mine
is based on intelligence, however -- yours on blind instinct perverted and
twisted by the idiotic fiction you read morning, noon and night."
"I don’t see
it," Mary answered emphatically. "Your ideal is fame, achievement,
the applause of the world -- mine just a home and a baby ---- "
Jane laughed softly.
"And that’s all
you know about me?"
"Isn’t it
true?"
"You’ve been in
this room five years, haven’t you?" the older girl asked musingly.
"Yes ---- "
"And though you’ve
kept your lamp trimmed and burning, you haven’t yet seen a man whom you could
recognize as your equal."
"I’m only
twenty-four."
"In these five
years I’ve met a hundred men my equal."
"And smashed the
conventions of Society whenever you saw fit."
"Without breaking
a single law of reason or common- sense. In the meantime I’ve met two men who
have really made love to me. I thought I loved one of them -- until I met the
other. The second proved himself to be an unprincipled scoundrel. If I had held
your views of life and hated my work, I would have married this man and lived
to awake in a prison whose only door was Death. But I loved my work. Life meant
more than one man who was not worth an hour’s tears. I turned to my studio and
he slipped back into the gutter where he belonged. I’ll meet my Fate some day,
too, dear. I’m waiting and watching -- but with clear eyes and unafraid. I’ll
know mine when he comes, I shall not be blinded by passion or the fear of
drudgery. Can’t you see this bigger world of realities?"
The dimple flashed
again in the smooth red cheek.
"It’s not for me,
Jane. I’m just a modest little home body. I’ll bide my time ---- "
"And eat your
foolish heart out here between the narrow walls of this cell you’ve built for
yourself. I should think you’d die living here alone."
The girl flushed.
"I’m not lonely
---- "
"Don’t fib! I know
better. Your birds and kitten occupy daily about thirty minutes of the time
that’s your own. What do you do with the rest of it?"
"Sit by my window,
watch the crowds stream through the streets below, read and dream and think
---- "
"Yes -- read love
stories and dream about your Knight."
"Well?"
"It’s morbid and
unhealthy. You’ve hedged yourself about with the old conventions and imagine
you’re safe -- and you are -- until you meet him!"
"I’ll know how to
behave -- never fear."
"You mean you’ll
know how instantly to blindfold, halter and lead him to the Little Church
Around the Corner?"
Mary moved uneasily.
"And what else
should I do with him?"
"Compare him with
other men. Weigh him in the balances of a remorseless common-sense. Study him
under a microscope and keep your reason clear. The girl who rushes into
marriage in a great city under the conditions in which you and I live is a
fool. More girls are ruined in New York by marriage than by any other process.
The thunderbolt out of the blue hasn’t struck you yet, but when it does ----
"
"I’ll tell you,
Jane."
"Will you,
honestly?"
The question was asked
with wistful tenderness.
"I promise. And
you mustn’t think I don’t appreciate this visit and the chance you’ve given
again to enter the ‘big world’ you’re always telling me about. I just can’t do
it, dear. It’s not my world."
"All right, my
little foolish virgin, have it your own way. When you’re lonely, run up to my
studio to see me. I won’t ask you to pose or meet any of the dangerous men of
my circle. We’ll lock the doors and have a snug time all by ourselves."
"I’ll
remember."
The clock in the
Metropolitan Tower chimed the hour of five, and Jane Anderson rose with a
quick, business- like movement.
"Don’t
hurry," Mary protested. "I know I’ve been stubborn, but I’ve been so
happy in your coming. I do get lonely -- frightfully lonely, sometimes -- don’t
think I’m ungrateful ---- "
"You’re
dangerously beautiful, child," the artist said, with enthusiasm. "And
remember that I love you -- no matter how silly you are -- good-by."
"You won’t stay
for a cup of tea? I meant to ask you an hour ago."
"No, I’ve an
engagement with a dreadful man whom I’ve no idea of ever marrying. I’m going to
dinner with him -- just to study the animal at dose range."
With a jolly laugh and
quick, firm step she was gone.
Mary snatched the
kitten from his snug bed between the pillows of the window-seat and pressed his
fuzzy head under her chin.
"She tempted us
terribly, Kitty darling, but we didn’t let her find out -- did we? You know
deep down in your cat’s soul that I was just dying to meet the distinguished
Gordon -- but such high honors are not for home bodies like you and me ----
"
She dropped on the seat
and closed her eyes for a long time. The kitten watched her wonderingly sure of
a sudden outbreak with each passing moment. Two soft paws at last touched her
cheeks and two bright eyes sought in vain for hers. The little nose pressed
closer and kissed the drooping eyelids until they opened. He curled himself on
her bosom and began to sing a gentle lullaby. For a long while she lay and
listened to the music of love with which her pet sought to soothe the ache
within.
The clock in the tower
chimed six.
She lifted her body and
placed her head on a pillow beside the window. The human torrent below was now
at its flood. Two streams of humanity flowed eastward along each broad
sidewalk. Hundreds were pouring in endless procession across Madison Square.
The cars in Broadway north and South were jammed. Every day she watched this
crowd hurrying, hurrying away into the twilight -- and among all its hundreds
of thousands not an eye was ever lifted to hers -- not one man or woman among
them cared whether she lived or died.
It was horrible, this
loneliness of the desert in an ocean of humanity! For the past year it had
become an increasing horror to look into the silent faces of this crowd of men
and women and never feel the touch of a friendly hand or hear the sound of a
human voice in greeting.
And yet this endless
procession held for her a supreme fascination. Somewhere among its myriads of
tramping feet, walked the one man created for her. She no more doubted this
than she doubted God Himself. It was His law. He had ordained it so. She had
grown so used to the throngs below her window and so loved the little park with
its splashing fountain that she had refused to follow her landlady uptown when
the brownstone boarding-house facing the Square had been turned into a studio
building.
Instead of moving she
had wheedled the landlord into allowing her to cut off a small space from her
room for a private bath and kitchenette, built a box couch across the window
large enough for a three- quarter mattress and covered it with velour. For five
dollars a week she had thus secured a little home in which was combined a
sitting-room, bed-room, bath and kitchenette.
It had its drawbacks,
of course. The Professor downstairs who taught music sometimes gave a special
lesson at night, and the Italian sculptor who worked on the top floor used a
hammer at the most impossible hours. But on the whole she liked it better than
the tiresome routine of boarding. She was not afraid at night. The
stamp-and-coin man who occupied the first floor, lived with his wife and baby
in the rear. The janitress had a room on the floor above hers. Two elderly
women workers of ability in the mechanical arts occupied the rear of her floor,
and a dear little fat woman of fifty who drew designs for the New England
weavers of cotton goods lived in the room adjoining hers.
She had never spoken to
any of these people, but Ella, the janitress, who cleaned up her place every
morning, had told her their history. Ella was a sociable soul, her face an
eternal study and an inscrutable mystery. She spoke both German and English and
yet never a word of her own life’s history passed her lips. She had loved Mary
from the moment she cocked her queer drawn face to one side and looked at her
with the one good eye she possessed. She was always doing little things for her
comfort -- and never asked tips for it. If Mary offered to pay she smiled
quietly and spoke in the softest drawl: "Oh, that’s nothing, child -- Ach,
Gott im Himmel -- nein!"
This one-eyed, homely
woman who cleaned up her room for three dollars a month, and Jane Anderson,
were the only friends she had among the six million people whose lives centered
on Manhattan Island.
Man had yet to darken
her door. The little room had been carefully fitted, however, to receive her
Knight when the great event of his coming should be at hand.
The box couch was built
of hard wood paneling and was covered with pillows of soft leather and silk.
The bed-clothes were carefully stored in the locker beneath the mattress
cushion. No one would ever suspect its use as a bed. The bathroom was fitted
with a bureau and no signs of a sleeping apartment disfigured the effect of her
one library, parlor, and reception-room. A desk and bookcase stood at either end
of the box couch. The bookcase was filled with fiction -- love stories
exclusively.
A large birdcage swung
from a staple in the window and two canaries peered cautiously from their
perches at the kitten in her lap. She had trained him to ignore this cage.
The crowds below were
thinning down. A light snow was falling. The girl lifted her pet and kissed his
cold nose.
"We must get our
own dinner tonight, Mr. Thomascat -- it’s snowing outside. And did you hear
what she said, Kitty dear -- ‘More girls are ruined by marriage in New York
than by any other process!’ A good joke, Kitty! -- You and I know better than
that if we do live in our own tiny world! We’ll risk it some day, anyhow, won’t
we?"
The kitten purred his
assent and Mary bustled over the little gas stove humming an old love song her
mother had taught her in a far-off village in Kentucky.
Her kitchenette was a
model of order and cleanliness. The carpenter who built its neat cupboard and
fitted the drawers beneath the tiny gas range, had outdone himself in its
construction. He had given the wood- work four coats of immaculate white paint
without extra charge. Mary had insisted on paying for it, but he waved the
proffered money aside with a gesture that spoke louder than words:
"Pooh! That’s
nothing to what I’d like to do for you."
She was not surprised
when he called the following Saturday and stood at her door awkwardly fumbling
his hat, trying to ask her to spend the afternoon and evening at Coney Island
with him. There was no mistaking the manner in which he made this request.
She had refused him as
gently as possible -- a big, awkward, good-natured, ignorant boy he was, with
the eyes of a St. Bernard dog. He apologized for his presumption and never
repeated the offense.
Somehow her conquests
had all been in this class.
The tall, blushing
German youth from the butcher’s around the corner had been slipping extra cuts
into her bundle and making awkward advances until she caught him red-handed
with a pound of lamb chops which he failed to explain. She read him a lecture
on honesty that discouraged him. It was not so much what she said, as the way
she said it, that wounded his sensitive nature.
The ice man she had not
yet entirely subdued. Tony Bonelli had the advantage of pretending not to
understand her orders of dismissal. He merely smiled in his sad Italian way and
continued to pack her ice- box so full the lid would never close.
She was reminded at
every turn tonight of these futile conquests of the impossible. They all
smelled of the back stairs and the kitchen. Her people had been slaveholders in
the old regime of southern Kentucky. A kindly tolerant contempt for the
pretensions of a servant class was bred in the bone of her being.
And yet their tribute
to her beauty had its compensations. It was the promise of triumph when he for
whom she waited should step from the throng and lift his hat. Just how he was
going to do this without a breach of the proprieties of life, she couldn’t see.
It would come. It must come. It was Fate.
In twenty minutes her
coffee-pot was boiling, the lamb chops broiled to perfection and she was seated
before the dainty, snow-white table, the kitten softly begging at her feet.
Half an hour later, every dish and pot and pan was back in its place in perfect
order. She prided herself on her mastery of the details of cooking and the most
economical administration of every dollar devoted to housekeeping. She studied
cooking in the best schools the city afforded. She meant to show her Knight a
thing or two in this line when the time came. His wife would not be an ignorant
slattern, the victim of incompetent servants. No servant could fool her. She
would know the business of the house down to its minutest detail.
Not that she loved
dish-washing and pot-polishing and scrubbing. It was simply a part of the Game
of Life she must play in the ideal home she would build. There was no drudgery
in it for this reason. She was a soldier on the drill grounds preparing for the
battle on the successful issue of which hung her happiness and the happiness of
the one of whom she dreamed. She might miss some of the dangerous fun which
Jane Anderson could enjoy without a scratch, but she would make sure of the
fundamental things which Jane would never stop to consider.
She threw herself on
the couch in her favorite position against the pillows, drew the kitten into
her arms and hugged him violently.
"It’s all right,
Mr. Thomascat; we’ll show them," she purred softly. "We’ll see who
wins at last, the eagle who soars or the little wren in the hedge close beside
the garden wall -- we’ll see, Kitty -- we’ll see!"
The room was still, the
noise of the street-cars below muffled with the first soft blanket of snow. The
street lamps flickered in the wind with a pale subdued light that scarcely
brought out the furnishings of her nest. She was in the habit of dreaming in
this window for hours with only the light from the lamps on the street.
The Square, deserted by
its tramp lovers, lay white and still and cold. The old battle with the Blue
Devils was on again within. The fight with Jane had been easy. She had always
found it easy to face temptation in the concrete. The moment Satan appeared in
human shape she was up in arms and ready for the fray. It was this silent hour
she dreaded when the defenses of the soul were down.
There was no use to lie
to herself. She was utterly lonely and heartsick.
She had guarded the
portals of life with religious care -- with a care altogether unnecessary as
events had proved. There had been no crush of rude men to assault her. Only an
awkward carpenter, a butcher’s boy and the ice man! It was incredible. Of all
the men whose restless feet pressed the pavements of New York, not one, save
these three, had apparently cared whether she lived or died.
The men whom she met in
her duties in the schoolroom she had found utterly devoid of imagination and
beneath contempt. They had each been obviously on guard against the
machinations of the female of the species. They had, each of them, shown
plainly their fear and hatred of women teachers. The feeling was mutual. God
knows she had no desire to encroach on their domain any longer than absolutely
necessary.
Perhaps she was making
a mistake. The thought was strangling. Only the girl who waived conventions in
the rushing tide of the modern city’s life seemed to live at all. The others
merely existed. Jane Anderson lived! There could be no mistake about that. She
had mastered the ugly mob. Its cruel loneliness was to her a thing unknown. But
Jane was an exception -- the one woman in a thousand who could defy conventions
and yet keep her soul and body clean.
The offer she had made
had proved a terrible temptation. The artist who had asked with such eagerness
to use her head for his portrait of the Madonna on the canvas he was executing
for the new cathedral, had long appealed to her vivid imagination. Two prints
of his famous work hung on her walls. She had always wished to know him. He had
married a Southern girl.
That was just the point
-- he was married!
No girl could afford to
be shut up alone in a studio with a fascinating married man for three hours --
or half an hour. What if she should fall in love with him at first sight! Such
things had happened. They could happen again. Only tragedy could be the end of
such an event. It was too dangerous to consider for a moment.
She would have
consented had it been possible for Jane to chaperon her. That would have been
obviously ridiculous. No artist with any self-respect would tolerate such a
reflection on his honesty. No girl could afford to confess her fears in this
brazen fashion.
The necessity for her
refusal had depressed her beyond any experience she had passed through in the
dreary desert of the past five years.
She lifted the sleeping
kitten and whispered passionately:
"Am I a silly
fool, Kitty? Am I?"
The tears came at last.
She lay back on the pillows and let them pour down her cheeks without protest
or effort at self-control. Every nerve of her strong, healthy body ached for
the love and companionship of men which she had denied herself with an iron
will. At nineteen it had been easy. The sheer animal joy in life had been
enough. With the growth of each year the ache within had become more and more
insistent. With each ripening season of body and mind, the hunger of love had
grown more and more maddening. How long could she keep up this battle with
every instinct of her being?
She rose at last,
determined to go to Jane, confess that she had been a fool, and step out into
the new world, New York’s world, and begin to live.
She seized her hat and
furs and put them on with feverish haste.
"God knows it’s
time I began -- I’ll be an old maid in another year and dry up -- ugh!"
She looked in the
quaint oval mirror that hung beside her door and lifted her head with a touch
of pride.
She had reached the
street and started for the Broadway car before she suddenly remembered that
Jane was "dining with a dangerous man."
She couldn’t turn back to
that little room tonight without new courage. Her decision was instantaneous.
She couldn’t surrender to the flesh and the devil by yielding to Jane.
She would go to
prayer-meeting!
Religion had always
been a very real thing in her life. Her father was a Methodist presiding elder.
She would have gone to the meeting tonight in the first place but for the snow.
Dr. Craddock, the new sensational pastor of the Temple, was giving a series of
Wednesday-night talks that had aroused wide interest and drawn immense crowds.
His theme tonight was
one that promised all sorts of sensations -- "The Woman of the
Future." The only trouble with the Doctor was that the substance of his
discourses sometimes failed to make good the startling suggestions of his
titles. No matter -- she would go. She felt a sense of righteous pride in
fighting her way to the church through the first storm of the winter.
In spite of the snow
the church was crowded. The subject announced had evidently touched a vital
spot in modern life. More people were thinking about "The Woman of the
Future" than she had suspected. The crowd sat with eager, upturned faces.
The first half-hour’s
prayer and song service had just begun. Mary joined in the singing of the
stirring evangelistic hymns with enthusiasm. Something in their battle-cry
melody caught her spirit instantly tonight and her whole being responded. In
ten minutes she was a good shouting Methodist and supremely happy without
knowing why. She never paused to ask. Her nature was profoundly religious and
she had been born and bred in the atmosphere of revivals. Her father was an
aggressive evangelist both in his character and methods of work, and she was
his own daughter -- a child of emotion.
The individuals in the
eager crowd which packed the popular church meant nothing to her personally.
They had passed before her unseeing eyes Sunday after Sunday the past five
years as mere shadows of an unknown world which swallowed them up the moment
they reached the street. She had never seen the inside of one of their homes.
Not one of them had drawn close enough to her to venture an invitation.
Two of the stewards she
knew personally -- one a bricklayer, the other a baker on Eighth Avenue. The
preacher she had met in a purely formal way as the bishop of the flock. She
liked Dr. Craddock. He was known in the ministry as a live wire. He was a man
of vigorous physique -- just turning fifty, magnetic, eloquent and popular with
the masses.
Mary was curious
tonight as to what the preacher would say on "The Woman of the
Future." The Methodist Church had been a pioneer in the modern Feminist
movement, having long ago admitted women to the full ordination of the
ministry. Craddock, however, had been known for his conservatism in the woman
movement. He abhorred the idea of woman’s suffrage as a dangerous revolution
and the fact that he consented to treat the topic at all was a reluctant
confession of its menacing importance.
With keen interest, the
girl saw him rise at last. A breathless hush fell on the crowd. He walked
deliberately to the edge of the platform and gazed into the faces of the
people.
"I have often been
asked," he slowly began, "where I get my sermons." He paused and
laughed. "I’ll be perfectly honest with you. Sometimes I get them from the
Bible -- sometimes from the book of life. The genesis of this talk tonight is
very definite. I found it in the liquid depths of a little girl’s eyes. She
asked a simple question that set me thinking -- not only about the subject of
her query but on the vaster issues that grew out of it. She looked up into my
face the other night after my call for volunteers for the new mission we are
beginning in the slums of the East Side, and asked me if the girls were not
going to be given the chance to do something worth while in this church’s work.
"I couldn’t
honestly answer her off-hand and in my groping I forgot the child and her
question. I saw a vision -- a vision of that broader, nobler future toward
which human civilization is now swiftly moving.
"I say
deliberately that it is swiftly moving, because the progress of the world
during the last fifty years has been greater than in any five hundred years of
the past.
"The older I grow
the stronger becomes my conviction that the problems of the age in which we now
live cannot be solved by masculine brain and brawn alone. The problems of the
city and the nation and the great fundamental social questions that involve the
foundations of modern life will find no solution until the heart and brain of
woman are poured into the crucible of our test.
"They talk about a
woman’s sphere
As though it had a
limit:
There’s not a place in
earth or heaven,
There’s not a task to
mankind given,
There’s not a blessing
or a woe,
There’s not a whisper
yes or no,
There’s not a life, or
death, or birth
That has a feather’s
weight of worth
Without a woman in it!
"The difference
between a man and a woman is one that makes them the complementary parts of a
perfect unit. God made man in His own image -- male and female. The person of
God therefore combines these two elements unseparated. The mind of God is both
male and female. In man we have the strength which lifts and tugs and fights
the elements. This is the aspect turned primarily toward matter. In woman we
have the finer qualities of the Spirit turned toward the source of all spirit
in God. The idea of a masculine deity is a false assumption of the Dark Ages.
God is both male and female.
"I used to wonder
why Jesus Christ was a man, until I realized that the Incarnation expressed the
depth of human need. God stooped lower in assuming the form of man. The form of
the divine revelation through Jesus Christ was determined solely by this depth
of human need ---- "
For half an hour in
impetuous eloquence, in telling incidents wet with tears and winged with hope,
he held his listeners in a spell. It was not until the burst of applause which
greeted his closing sentence had died away that Mary Adams realized that another
landmark had toppled before the onrushing flood of modern Feminism. The
conservatism of Doctor Craddock had yielded at last to the inevitable. He, too,
had joined the ranks of the prophets who preach of a Woman’s Day of
Emancipation.
And yet it never occurred
to her that this fact had the slightest bearing on her personal outlook on
life. On the contrary she felt in the spiritual elation of the triumphant
eloquence of her favorite preacher a renewal of her simple religious faith. At
the bottom of that religion lay the foundation of life itself -- her conception
of marriage as the supreme and only expression of woman’s power in the world.
She walked back to her
home on the Square, in a glow of ecstatic emotion.
Surely God had
miraculously saved her this night from the wiles of the Devil! No matter what
this eloquent discourse had meant to others, it had renewed her faith in the
old-fashioned woman and the old- fashioned ways of the old-fashioned home. Her
vision was once more clear. She was glad Jane Anderson had come to put her to
the test. She had been tried in the fires of hell and came forth unscorched.
She stood beside her
window dreaming again of the home she would build when her Knight should stand
before her revealed in beauty no words could describe. The moon was shining now
in solemn glory on the white- shrouded Square. Temptation had only strengthened
the fiber of her soul. She knelt in the moonlight beside her couch and prayed
that God should ever keep her faith serene. She rose with a sense of peace and
joy. God would hear and answer the cry of her heart. The City might be the
Desert -- it was still God’s world and not a sparrow that twittered in those
bare trees or chattered on her window-ledge in the morning could fall to the
ground without His knowledge. God had put this deathless passion in her heart;
He could not deny it expression. She could bide His time. If the day of her
deliverance were near, it was good. If God should choose to try her faith in
loneliness and tears, it was His way to make the revelation of glory the more
dazzling when it came.
She drew the covering
about her warm young body with the firm faith that her hour was close at hand,
and fell asleep to dream of her Knight.
Mary waked next morning
with the delicious sense of impending happiness. A wonderful dream had come to
thrill her half-conscious moments, repeating itself in increasing vividness and
beauty with each awakening. The vision had been interrupted by the unusual
noise of the snow machines on the car tracks, and yet she had fallen asleep
after each break and picked up the rapturous scene at the exact moment of its
interruption.
She was married and
madly in love with her husband. His face she could never see quite clearly. His
business kept him away from home on long trips. But his baby was always there
-- a laughing, wonderful boy whose chubby hands persisted in pulling her hair
down into her face each time she bent over his cradle to kiss him.
Ella was chattering in
German to someone on the stairs. She wondered again for the hundredth time how
this poor, slovenly, one-eyed, ill-kempt creature, scrub-woman and janitress,
could speak two languages with such ease. Her English, except in excitement,
seemed equally fluent with her German. How did such a woman fall so low? She
was industrious and untiring in her work. She never touched liquor or drugs.
She was kind and thoughtful and watched over her tenants with a motherly care
for which no landlord could pay in dollars and cents. She was on her knees on the
stairs now, scrubbing down the steps to be crowded again with muddy feet from
the street below.
Mary lay for half an
hour snuggling under the warm blankets, weaving a romance about Ella’s life. A
great love for some heroic man who died and left her in poverty could alone
explain the mystery that hung about her. She never spoke of her life or people.
Mary had ventured once to ask her. A wan smile flitted across the haggard face
for a moment, and she answered in low tones that closed the subject.
"I haven’t any
people, dear," she said slowly. "They are dead long ago."
The girl wondered if it
were really true. In her joy this morning she felt her heart go out to the
pathetic, drooping figure on the stairs. She wished that every living creature
might share the secret joy that filled her soul.
She drew the kitten
from his nest beside her pillow and rubbed her cheek against his little cold
nose. He always waked her with a kiss on her eyelids and then coiled himself
back for a tiny cat-nap until she could make up her mind to rise.
She sprang from the
couch with sudden energy and stretched her dainty figure with a prodigious
yawn.
"Gracious, Kitty,
we must hurry!" she cried, thrusting her bare feet into a pair of
embroidered slippers and throwing her blue flannel kimono on over her
night-dress.
The coffee-pot was
boiling busily when she had bathed and dressed. Each detail of her domestic
schedule was given an extra care this morning. The stove was carefully
polished, each pot and pan placed in its rack with a precision that spoke an
unusual joy within the heart of the housewife.
And through it all she
hummed a lullaby that haunted her from the memories of a happy childhood.
Breakfast over, the
kitten fed, the birds given their bath, their sand and seed, she couldn’t stop
until the whole place had been thoroughly cleaned and dusted. Exactly why she
had done this on Thursday morning it was impossible to say. Some hidden force
within had impelled her.
Then back into the
dream world her mind flew on joyous wings. It was a sign from God in answer to
prayer. Why not? The Bible was full of such revelations in ancient times. God
was not dead because the world was modern and we had steam and electricity. The
routine of school was no longer dull. Around each commonplace child hung a halo
of romance. They were love-children today. She wove a dream of tenderness, of
chivalry, and heroic deeds about them all. She searched each face for some line
of beauty caught in the vision of her own baby who had looked into her heart
from the mists of eternity.
Three days passed in a
sort of trance. Never had she felt surer of life and the full fruition of every
hope and faith. Just how this marvelous blossoming would come, she could not
guess. Her chances of meeting her Fate were no better than at any moment of the
past years of drab disillusionment, and yet, for some reason, her foolish heart
kept singing.
Why?
There could be but one
answer. The event was impending. Such things could be felt -- not reasoned out.
She applied herself to
her teaching with a new energy and thoroughness. She must do this work well and
carry into the real life that must soon begin the consciousness of every duty
faithfully performed.
A boy asked her a
question about a little flower which grew in a warm crevice of the stone wall
on which the iron fence of the school yard rested. She blushed at her failure
to enlighten him and promised to tell him on Monday.
Botany was not one of
her tasks but she felt the tribute to her personality in his question, and she
would take pains to make her answer full and interesting.
Saturday afternoon she
hurried to the Public Library, on Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, to look
up every reference to this flower.
The boulevard of the
Metropolis was thronged with eager thousands. Handsome men and beautifully
dressed women passed each other in endless procession on its crowded pavements.
The cabs and automobiles, two abreast on either side, moved at a snail’s pace,
so dense were the throngs at each crossing. Her fancy was busy weaving about
each throbbing tonneau and limousine a story of love. Not a wheel was turning
in all that long line of shining vehicles that didn’t carry a woman or was hurrying
to do a woman’s bidding.
Her hero was coming,
too, somewhere in the crowd with his gloved hand on one of those wheels. She
could feel his breath on her cheek as he handed her into the seat by his side
and then the sudden leap of the car into space and away on the wings of
lightning into the future!
She ascended the broad
steps of the majestic building with quick, springing strength. She loved this
glorious library, with its lofty, arched ceilings. The sense of eternity that
brooded over it and filled the stately rooms rested and inspired her.
Besides, she forgot her
poverty in this temple of all time. Within its walls she belonged to the great
aristocracy of brains and culture of which this palace was the supreme
expression. And it was hers. Andrew Carnegie had given the millions to build it
and the city of New York granted the site on land that was worth many millions
more. But it was all built for her convenience, her comfort and inspiration.
Every volume of its vast and priceless collection was hers -- hers to hold in
her hands, read and ponder and enjoy. Every officer and manager in its
inclosure was her servant -- to come at her beck and call and do her bidding.
The little room on Twenty-third Street was the symbol of the future. This magnificent
building was the realization of the present.
She smiled pleasantly
to the polite assistant who received her order slip, and took her seat on the
waiting line until her books were delivered.
This magnificent room
with its lofty ceilings of golden panels and drifting clouds had always brought
to her a peculiar sense of restful power. The consciousness of its ownership
had from the first been most intimate. No man can own what he cannot
appreciate. He may possess it by legal documents, but he cannot own it unless
he has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to feel its charm. This
appreciation Mary Adams possessed by inheritance from her student father who
devoured books with an insatiate hunger. Nowhere in all New York’s labyrinth
did she feel as perfectly at home as in this reading-room. The quiet which
reigned without apparent sign or warning seemed to belong to the atmosphere of
the place. It was unthinkable that any man or woman should be rude or
thoughtless enough to break it by a loud word.
This room was hers day
or night, winter or summer, always heated and lighted, and a hundred swift,
silent servants at hand to do her bidding. Around the room on serried shelves,
dressed in leather aprons, stood twenty-five thousand more servants of the centuries
of the past ready to answer any question her heart or brain might ask of the
world’s life since the dawn of Time.
In the stack-room
below, on sixty-three miles of shelves, stood a million others ready to come at
her slightest nod. She loved to dream here of the future, in the moments she
must wait for these messengers she had summoned. In this magic room the past
ceased to be. These myriads of volumes made the past a myth. It was all the
living, throbbing present -- with only the golden future to be explored.
Her number flashed in
red letters on the electric blackboard.
She rose and carried
her books to the seat number assigned her near the center of the southern
division of the room on the extreme left beside the bookcases containing the
dictionaries of all languages.
Her seat was on the
aisle which skirted the shelves. She found the full description of the flower
in which she was interested, made her notes and closed the volume with a lazy
movement of her slender, graceful hand.
She lifted her eyes and
they rested on a remarkable-looking young man about her own age who stood
gazing in an embarrassed, helpless sort of way at the row of ponderous volumes
marked "The Century Dictionary."
He was evidently a
newcomer. By his embarrassment she could easily tell that it was the first time
he had ever ventured into this room.
He looked at the books,
apparently puzzled by their number. He raised his hand and ran his fingers
nervously through the short, thick, red hair which covered his well-shaped
head.
The girl’s attention
was first fixed by the strange contrast between his massive jaw and short neck
which spoke the physical strength of an ox, and the slender gracefully tapering
fingers of his small hand. The wrist was small, the fingers almost feminine in
their lines.
He caught her look of
curious interest and to her horror, smiled and walked straight to her seat.
There was no mistaking
his determination to speak. It was useless to drop her eyes or turn aside. He
would certainly follow.
She blushed and gazed
at him in a timid, helpless fashion while he bent over her seat and whispered
awkwardly:
"You look kind and
obliging, miss -- could you help me a little?"
His tone was so genuine
in its appeal, so distressed and hesitating, it was impossible to resent his
question.
"If I can --
yes," was the prompt answer.
"You won’t
mind?" he asked, fumbling his hat.
"No -- what is
it?"
Mary had recovered her
composure as his distress had increased and looked steadily into his steel blue
eyes inquiringly.
"You see," he
went on, in low hurried tones, "I’m all worked up about the mountains of
North Carolina -- thinkin’ o’ goin’ down there to Asheville in a car, an’ I
want to look the bloomin’ place up and kind o’ get my bearin’s before I start.
A lawyer friend o’ mine told me to come here and I’d find all the maps in the
Century Dictionary. The man at the desk out there told me to come in this room
and look in the shelves on the left and take it right out. Gee, the place is so
big, I get all rattled. I found the Century Dictionary on that shelf ----
"
He paused and smiled
helplessly.
"I thought a
dictionary was one book -- there’s a dozen of ’em marked alike. I’m afraid to
pull ’em all down an’ I don’t know where to begin -- could you help me --
please?"
"Certainly, with
pleasure," she answered, quickly rising and leading the way back to the
shelf at which he had been gazing.
"You want the
atlas volume," she explained, drawing the book from the shelf and
returning to the seat.
He followed promptly
and bent over her shoulder while she pointed out the map of North Carolina, the
position of Asheville and the probable route he must follow to get there.
"Thanks!" he
exclaimed gratefully.
"Not at all,"
she replied simply. "I’m only too glad to be of service to you."
Her answer emboldened
him to ask another question.
"You don’t happen
to know anything about that country down there, do you?"
"Why, yes. I know
a great deal about it ---- "
"Sure
enough?"
"I’ve been through
Asheville many times and spent a summer there once."
"Did you?"
His tones implied that
he plainly regarded her as a prodigy of knowledge. His whole attitude suggested
at once the mind of an alert, interested boy asking his teacher for information
on a subject near to his heart. It was impossible to resist his appeal.
"Why, yes,"
Mary went on in low, rapid tones. "My people live in the Kentucky
mountains."
He bent low and gently
touched her arm.
"Say, we can’t
talk in here -- I’m afraid. Would it be asking too much of you to come out in
the park, sit down on a bench and tell me about it? I’ll never know how to
thank you, if you will?"
It was absurd, of
course, such a request, and yet his interest was so keen, his deference to her
superior knowledge so humble and appealing, to refuse seemed ungracious. She
hesitated and rose abruptly.
"Just a moment --
I’ll return my books and then we’ll go. You can replace this volume on the
shelf where we got it."
"Thank yoo,
miss," he responded gratefully. "You’re awfully kind."
"Don’t mention
it," she laughed.
In a moment she was
walking by his side down the smooth marble stairs and out through the grand
entrance into Fifth Avenue. The strange part about it was, she was not in the
least excited over a very unconventional situation. She had allowed a
handsomely groomed, young, red-haired adventurer to pick her up without the
formality of an introduction, in the Public Library. She hadn’t the remotest
idea of his name -- nor had he of hers -- yet there was something about him
that seemed oddly familiar. They must have known one another somewhere in
childhood and forgotten each other’s faces.
The sun was shining in
clear, steady brilliancy in a cloudless sky. The snow had quickly melted and it
was unusually warm for early December. They turned into the throng of Fifth
Avenue and at the corner of Forty-second Street he paused and hesitated and
looked at her timidly:
"Say," he
began haltingly, "there’s an awful crowd of bums on those seats in the
Square behind the building -- you know Central Park, don’t you?"
Mary smiled.
"Quite well -- I’ve
spent many happy hours in its quiet walks."
"You know that
place the other side of the Mall -- that ragged hill covered with rocks and
trees and mountain laurel?"
"I’ve been there
often."
"Would you mind
going there where it’s quiet -- I’ve such a lot o’ things I want to ask you --
you won’t mind the walk, will you?"
"Certainly not --
we’ll go there," Mary responded in even, business-like tones.
"Because, if you
don’t want to walk I’ll call a cab, if you’ll let me ---- "
"Not at all,"
was the quick answer. "I love to walk."
It was impossible for
the girl to repress a smile at her ridiculous situation! If any human being had
told her yesterday that she, Mary Adams, an old- fashioned girl with
old-fashioned ideas of the proprieties of life, would have allowed herself to
be picked up by an utter stranger in this unceremonious way, she would have
resented the assertion as a personal insult -- yet the preposterous and
impossible thing had happened and she was growing each moment more and more
deeply interested in the study of the remarkable youth by her side.
He was not handsome in
the conventional sense. His features were too strong for that. An enemy might
have called them coarse. Their first impression was of enormous strength and
exhaustless vitality. He walked with a quick, military precision and planted
his small feet on the pavement with a soft, sure tread that suggested the
strength of a young tiger.
The one feature that
puzzled her was the size of his hands and feet. They were remarkably small and
remarkable for their slender, graceful lines.
His eyes were another
interesting feature. The lids drooped with a careless Oriental languor, as
though he would shut out the glare of the full daylight, and yet the pupils
flashed with a cold steel- blue fire. One look into his eyes and there could be
no doubt that the man behind them was an interesting personality.
She wondered what his
business could be. Not a lawyer or doctor or teacher certainly. His timidity in
handling books was clear proof on that point. He was well groomed. His clothes
were made by a first-class tailor.
Her heart thumped with
a sudden fear. Perhaps he was some sort of criminal. His questions may have
been a trick to lure her away. . . .
They had just crossed
the broad plaza at Fifty- ninth Street and entered the walkway that leads to
the Mall.
She stopped suddenly.
"It’s too far to
the hill beyond the Mall," she began hesitatingly. "We’ll find a seat
in one of the little rustic houses along the Fifty-ninth Street side ----
"
"Sure, if you say
so," he agreed.
He accepted the
suggestion so simply, she regretted her suspicions, instantly changed her mind
and said, smiling:
"No, we’ll go on
where we started. The long walk will do me good."
"All right,"
he laughed; "whatever you say’s the law. I’m the little boy that does just
what his teacher says."
She blushed and shot
him a surprised look.
"Who told you that
I was a teacher?" she asked, with a smile.
"Lord, nobody! I
had no idea of such a thing. It never popped into my head that you do anything
at all. You know, I was awful scared when I spoke to you?"
"Were you?"
she laughed.
"Surest thing you
know! I’d ’a’ never screwed up my courage to do it if you hadn’t ’a’ looked so
kind and gentle and sweet. I just knew you couldn’t turn me down ---- "
There was no mistaking
the genuineness of the apology for his presumption. She smiled a gracious
answer, and threw the last ugly suspicion to the winds.
He broke into a laugh
and lifted his hand in the sudden gesture of a traffic policeman commanding a
halt.
"What is it?"
she asked.
"You know I was so
excited I clean forgot to introduce myself! What do you think o’ that? You’ll
excuse me, won’t you? My name’s Jim Anthony. I’m sorry I can’t give you any
references to my folks. I haven’t any -- I’m a lost sheep in New York -- no
father or mother. That’s why I’m so excited about this trip I’m plannin’ down
South. I hear I’ve got some people down there."
He stopped suddenly as
if absorbed in the thought. Her heart went out to him in sympathy for this
confession of his orphaned life.
"I’m Mary Adams,"
she smiled in answer. "I’m a teacher in the public schools."
"Gee -- that
accounts for it! I thought you looked like you knew everything in those books.
And you’ve been to Asheville, too?"
"Yes."
"Suppose it’s not
as big a burg as New York?"
"Hardly -- it’s
just a hustling mountain town of about twenty-five thousand people."
"Lot o’ swells
from around New York live down there, they tell me."
"Yes, the
Vanderbilts have a beautiful castle just outside."
"Some mountains
near Asheville?"
"Hundreds of
square miles."
"Mountains in
every direction?"
"As far as the eye
can reach, one blue range piled above another until they’re lost in the dim
skies on the horizon."
"Gee, it may be
pretty hard to find your folks if they just live in the mountains near
Asheville?"
"Unless your
directions are more explicit -- I should think so."
"You know, I
thought the mountains near Asheville was a bunch o’ hills off one side like the
Palisades, that you couldn’t miss if you tried. I’ve never been outside of New
York -- since I can remember. I’d love to see real mountains."
The last sentence was
spoken in a wistful pathos that touched Mary with its irresistible appeal. Her
mother instincts responded to it in quick sympathy.
"You’ve missed a
lot," she answered gravely.
"I’ll bet I have.
It’s a rotten old town, this New York ---- "
He paused, and a queer
light flashed from his steel eyes.
"Until you get
your hand on its throat," he added, bringing his square jaws together.
Mary lifted her face
with keen interest.
"And you’ve got it
by the throat?"
"That’s just what
-- little girl!" he cried, with a ring of pride. "You see, I’m an
inventor and I won a little pile on my first trick. I’ve got a machine-shop in
a room eight-by-ten over on the East Side."
"A machine-shop
all your own?"
"Yep."
"I’d like to see
it some day."
He shook his head
emphatically.
"It’s too dirty. I
couldn’t let a pretty girl like you in such a place." He paused and
resumed the tone of his narrative where she interrupted him. "You see, I’ve
just put a new crimp in a carburetor for the automobile folks. They’re tickled
to death over it and I’ve got automobiles to burn. Will you go to ride with me
tomorrow?"
The teacher broke into
a joyous laugh.
"Why do you
laugh?" he asked awkwardly.
"Well, in the
language of New York, that would be going some, wouldn’t it?"
"And why not, I’d
like to know?" he cried with scorn. "Who’s to tell us we can’t? You’ve
no kids to bother you tomorrow. I’m my own boss. You’ve seen Asheville, but you’ve
never seen New York until you sit down beside me in a big six-cylinder racing
car I’m handlin’ next week. Let me show it to you. I’ll swing her around to
your door at eight o’clock. In twenty- five minutes we’ll clear the Bronx and
shoot into New Rochelle. There’ll be no cops out to bother us, and not a wheel
in sight. It’ll do you good. Let me take you! I owe you that much for bein’ so
nice to me today. Will you go with me?"
Mary hesitated.
"I’ll think it
over and let you know."
"Got a
telephone?"
"No."
"Then you’ll have
to tell me before I go -- won’t you?"
"I suppose
so," she answered demurely.
They passed the big
fountain beyond the Mall and skirted the lake to the bridge, crossed, walked
along the water’s edge to the laurel-covered crags and found a seat alone in
the summer house that hides among the trees on its highest point.
The roar of the city
was dim and far away. The only sounds to break the stillness were the laughter
of lovers along the walks below and the distant cry of steamers in the harbor
and rivers.
"You’d almost
think you’re in the mountains up here, now wouldn’t you?" he asked, after
a moment’s silence.
"Yes. I call this
park my country estate. It costs me nothing to keep it in perfect order. The
city pays for it all. But I own it. Every tree and shrub and flower and blade
of grass, every statue and bird and animal in it is mine. I couldn’t get more
joy out of them if I had them inclosed behind an iron fence, and the deed to
the land in my pocket -- not half as much, for I’d be lonely and miserable
without someone to see and enjoy it all with me."
"Gee, that’s so,
ain’t it? I never looked at it like that before."
He gazed at her a long
time in silent admiration, and then spoke briskly.
"Now tell me about
this North Carolina and all those miles and square miles of mountains."
"You’ve a piece of
paper and pencil?"
He lifted his hand
school-boy fashion:
"Johnny on the
spot, teacher!"
A blank-book and pencil
he threw in her lap and leaned close.
"Tear the leaves
out, if you like."
"No, I’ll just
draw the maps on the pages and leave them for you to study."
With deft touch she
outlined in rough on the first page, the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
Delaware, Virginia and North Carolina, tracing his possible route by Trenton,
Philadelphia, Wilmington, Dover, Norfolk and Raleigh, or by Washington,
Richmond, and Danville to Greensboro.
"Either route you
see," she said softly, "leads to Salisbury, where you strike the
foothills of the mountains. It’s about two hundred miles from there to
Asheville and ‘The Land of the Sky.’"
For two hours she
answered his eager, boyish questions about the country and its people, his eyes
wide with admiration at her knowledge.
The sun was sinking in
a sea of scarlet and purple clouds behind the tall buildings beside the Park
before she realized that they had been talking for more than two hours.
She sprang to her feet,
blushing and confused.
"Mercy, I had no
idea it was so late."
"Why -- is it
late?" he asked incredulously.
"We must hurry
---- "
She brushed the stray
ringlets of hair from her forehead, laughed and hurried down the pathway.
They crossed the Park
and took the Madison Avenue line to Twenty-third Street. They were silent in
the car. The roar of the traffic was deafening after the quiet of the summer
house among the trees.
"I can see you
home?" he inquired appealingly.
"We get off at
Twenty-third Street."
They stood on the steps
at her door beside the Square and there was a moment’s awkward silence.
He lifted his hat with
a little chivalrous bow.
"Tomorrow morning
at eight o’clock in my car?"
She smiled and
hesitated.
"You’ll have a
bully time!"
"It’s
Sunday," she stammered.
"Sure, that’s why
I asked you."
"I don’t like to
miss my church."
"You go to church
every Sunday?" he asked in amazement.
"Yes."
"Well, just this
once then. It’ll do you good. And I’ll drive as careful as a farmer."
"All right,"
she said in low tones, and extended her hand:
"Good night ----
"
"Good night,
teacher!" he responded with a boyish wave of his slender hand and quickly
disappeared in the crowd.
She rushed up the
stairs, her cheeks aflame, her heart beating a tattoo of foolish joy.
She snatched the kitten
from sleep and whispered in his tiny ear:
"Oh, Kitty dear, I’ve
had such an adventure! I’ve spent the happiest, silliest afternoon of my life!
I’m going to have a more wonderful day tomorrow. I just feel it. In a big
racing automobile if you please, Mr. Thomascat! Sorry I can’t take you but the
dust would blind you, Kitty dear. I’m sorry to tell you that you’ll have to
stay at home all day alone and keep house. It’s too bad. But I’ll fix your milk
and bread before I go and you must promise me on your sacred Persian cat’s
honor not to look at my birds!"
She hugged him
violently and he purred his soft answer in song.
"Oh, Kitty, I’m so
happy -- so foolishly happy!"
Mary attempted no
analysis of her emotions. It was all too sudden, too stunning. She was content
to feel and enjoy the first overwhelming experience of life. Hour after hour
she lay among the pillows of her couch in the dim light of the street lamps and
lazily watched the passing Saturday evening crowds. The world was beautiful.
She undressed at last
and went to bed, only to toss wide-eyed for hours.
A hundred times she
reenacted the scene in the Library and recalled her first impression of Jim’s
personality. What could such an utterly unforeseen and extraordinary meeting
mean except that it was her Fate? Certainly he could not have planned it.
Certainly she had not foreseen such an event. It had never occurred to her in
the wildest flights of fancy that she could meet and speak to a man under such
conditions, to say nothing of the walk in the Park and the hours she spent in
the little summer house.
And the strangest part
of it all was that she could see nothing wrong in it from beginning to end. It
had happened in the simplest and most natural way imaginable. By the standards
of conventional propriety her act was the maddest folly; and yet she was still
happy over it.
There was one
disquieting trait about him that made her a little uneasy. He used the
catch-words of the street gamins of New York without any consciousness of
incongruity. She thought at first that he did this as the Southern boy of
culture and refinement unconsciously drops into the tones and dialect of the
negro, by daily association. His constant use of the expressive and
characteristic "Gee" was startling, to say the least. And yet it came
from his lips in such a boyish way she felt sure that it was due to his
embarrassment in the unusual position in which he had found himself with her.
His helplessness with
the dictionary was proof, of course, that he was no scholar. And yet a boy
might have a fair education in the schools of today and be unfamiliar with this
ponderous and dignified encyclopedia of words. It was impossible to believe
that he was illiterate. His clothes, his carriage, even his manners made such
an idea preposterous.
Besides, no inventor
could be really illiterate. He may have been forced to work and only attended
night schools. But if he were a mechanic, capable of making a successful improvement
on one of the most delicate and important parts of an automobile, he must have
studied the principles involved in his inventions.
His choice of a
profession appealed to her imagination, too. It showed independence and
initiative. It opened boundless possibilities. He might be an obscure and
poorly educated boy today. In five years he could be a millionaire and the head
of some huge business whose interests circled the world.
The tired brain wore
itself out at last in eager speculations, and she fell into a fitful stupor.
The roar of the street-cars waked her at daylight, and further sleep was out of
the question. She rose, dressed quickly and got her breakfast in a quiver of
nervous excitement over the adventure of the coming automobile.
As the hour of eight
drew nearer, her doubts of the propriety of going became more acute.
"What on earth has
come over me in the past twenty- four hours?" she asked of herself.
"I’ve known this man but a day. I don’t know him at all, and yet I’m going
to put my life in his hands in that racing machine. Have I gone crazy?"
She was not in the
least afraid of him. His face and voice and personality all seemed familiar.
Her brain and common-sense told her that such a trip with an utter stranger was
dangerous and foolish beyond words. In his automobile, unaccompanied by a human
soul and unacquainted with the roads over which they would travel, she would be
absolutely in his power.
She set her teeth
firmly at last, her mind made up.
"It’s too mad a
risk. I was crazy to promise. I won’t go!"
She had scarcely spoken
her resolution when the soft call of the auto-horn echoed below. She stood
irresolute for a moment, and the call was repeated in plaintive, appealing
notes.
She tried to hold fast
to her resolutions, but the impulse to open the window and look out was
resistless. She turned the old-fashioned brass knob, swung her windows wide on
their hinges and leaned out.
His keen eyes were
watching. He lifted his cap and waved. She answered with the flutter of her
handkerchief -- and all resolutions were off.
"Of course, I’ll
go," she cried, with a laugh. "It’s a glorious day -- I may never
have such a chance again."
She threw on her furs
and hurried downstairs. Her surrender was too sudden to realize that she was
being driven by a power that obscured reason and crushed her will.
Reason made one more
vain cry as she paused at the door below to draw on her gloves.
"You have refused
every invitation to see or know the unconventional world into which thousands
of women in New York, clear-eyed and unafraid, enter daily. You’d sooner die
than pose an hour in Gordon’s studio, and on a Sabbath morning you cut your
church and go on a day’s wild ride with a man you have known but fifteen
hours!"
And the voice inside
quickly answered:
"But that’s
different! Gordon’s a married man. My chevalier is not! I have the right to go,
and he has the right."
It was settled anyhow
before this little controversy arose at the street door, but the ready answer
she gave eased her conscience and cleared the way for a happy, exciting trip.
He leaped from the big,
ugly racer to help her in, stopped and looked at her light clothing.
"That’s your
heaviest coat?"
"Yes. It isn’t
cold."
"I’ve one for
you."
He drew an enormous fur
coat from the car and held it up for her arms.
"You think I’ll
need that?" she asked.
His white teeth gleamed
in a friendly smile.
"Take it from me,
Kiddo, you certainly will!"
She winced just a
little at the common expression, but he said it with such a quick, boyish
enthusiasm, she wondered whether he were quoting the expression from the Bowery
boy’s vocabulary or using it in a facetious personal way.
"I knew you’d need
it. So I brought it for you," he added genially.
"Thanks," she
murmured, lifting her arms and drawing the coat about her trim figure.
He helped her into the
car and drew from his pocket a light pair of goggles.
"Now these, and
you’re all hunky-dory!"
"Will I need
these, too?" she asked incredulously.
"Will you!"
he cried. "You wouldn’t ask that question if you knew the horse we’ve got
hitched to this benzine buggy today. He’s got wings -- believe me! It’s all I
can do to hold him on the ground sometimes."
"You’ll drive
carefully?" she faltered.
He lifted his hand.
"With you settin’
beside me, my first name’s ‘Caution.’"
She fumbled the goggles
in a vain effort to lift her arms over her head to fasten them on. He sprang
into the seat by her side and promptly seized them.
"Let me fix ’em."
His slender, skillful
fingers adjusted the band and brushed a stray ringlet of hair back under the
furs. The thrill of his touch swept her with a sudden dizzy sense of
excitement. She blushed and drew her head down into the collar of the shaggy
coat.
He touched the wheel,
and the gray monster leaped from the curb and shot down the street. The single
impulse carried them to the crossing. He had shut off the power as the machine
gracefully swung into Fourth Avenue. The turn made, another leap and the car
swept up the Avenue and swung through Twenty-sixth Street into Fifth Avenue.
Again the power was off as he made the turn into Fifth Avenue at a snail’s
pace.
"Can’t let her out
yet," he whispered apologetically. "Had to make these turns. There’s
no room for her inside of town."
Mary had no time to
answer. He touched the wheel, and the car shot up the deserted Avenue. She
gasped for breath and braced her feet, her whole being tingling with the first
exhilarating consciousness that she too was possessed of the devil of speed
madness. It was glorious! For the first time in her life, space and distance
lost their meaning. She was free as the birds in the heavens. She was flying on
the wings of this gray, steel monster through space. The palaces on the Avenue
whirled by in dim ghost-like flashes. They flew through Central Park into
Seventy-second Street and out into the Drive. The waters of the river, broad
and cool, flashing in the morning sun, rested her eyes a moment and then faded
in a twinkling. They had leaped the chasm beyond Grant’s Tomb, plunged into
Broadway and before she could get her bearings, swept up the hill at One
Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, slipped gracefully across the iron bridge and
in a jiffy were lost in a gray cloud of dust on the Boston Turnpike.
When the first
intoxicating joy of speed had spent itself, she found herself shuddering at the
daring turns he made, missing a curb by a hair’s breadth -- grazing a trolley
by half an inch. Her fears were soon forgotten.
The hand on the wheel
was made of steel, too.
The throbbing demon
encased within the hood obeyed his slightest whim. She glanced at the square,
massive jaw with furtive admiration.
Without turning his
head he laughed.
"You like it,
teacher?"
"I’m in
Heaven!"
"You won’t worry
about church then, will you?"
"Not today."
They stopped at a
road-house, and he put in more gasoline, lifted the casing from the engine,
touched each vital part, examined his tires, and made sure that his machine was
at its best.
She watched him with a
growing sense of his strength of character, his poise and executive ability. He
was an awkward, stammering boy in the Library yesterday. Today with this
machine in his hand he was the master of Time and Space.
She yielded herself
completely to the delicious sense of his protection. The extraordinary care he
was giving the machine was a plain avowal of his deep regard for her comfort
and happiness. She had been in one or two moderately moving cars driven by
careful chauffeurs through Central Park. She had always felt on those trips
with Jane Anderson like a poor relation from the country imposing on a rich
friend.
This trip was all her
own. The car and its master were there solely for her happiness. Her slightest
whim was law for both. It was sweet, this sense of power. She began to lift her
body with a touch of pride.
She laughed now at
fears. What nonsense! No Knight of the Age of Chivalry could treat her with
more deference. He had tried already to get her to stop for a bite of lunch.
"Don’t you want a
thing to eat?" he persisted.
"Not a thing. I’ve
just had my breakfast. It’s only nine o’clock ---- "
"I know, but we’ve
come thirty miles and the air makes you hungry. We ought to eat about six good
meals a day."
She shook her head.
"No -- not yet. I’m
too happy with these new wings. I want to fly some more -- come on ---- "
He lifted his hand in
his favorite gesture of obedience.
"’Nuff said -- we’ll
streak it back now by another road, hump it through town and jump over the
Brooklyn Bridge. I’ll show you Coney Island and then I know you’ll want a hot
dog anyhow."
He crossed the country
and darted into Broadway. Before she could realize it, the last tree and field
were lost behind in a cloud of dust, and they were again in the crowded streets
of the city. The deep growl of his horn rang its warnings for each crossing and
Mary watched the timid women scramble to the sidewalks five and six blocks
ahead.
It was delicious. She
had always been the one to scramble before. Her heart went out in a wave of
tenderness to the man by her side, strong, daring, masterful, her chevalier,
her protector and admirer.
Yes, her admirer! There
was no doubt on that point. The moment he relaxed the tension of his hand on
the wheel, his deep, mysterious eyes beneath the drooping lids were fixed on
hers in open, shameless admiration. Their cold fire burned into her heart and
thrilled to her finger-tips.
In spite of his
deference and his obedience to her whim, she felt the iron grip of his
personality on her imagination. Whatever his education, his origin or his
environment, he was a power to be reckoned with.
No other type of man
had ever appealed to her. Her conception of a real man had always been one who
did his own thinking and commanded rather than asked the respect of others.
She had thrown the
spell of her beauty over this headstrong, masterful man. He was wax in her
hands. A delicious sense of power filled her. She had never known what
happiness meant before. She floated through space. The spinning lines of
towering buildings on Broadway passed as mists in a dream.
As the velvet feet of
the car touched the great bridge she lazily opened her eyes for a moment and
gazed through the lace-work of steel at the broad sweep of the magnificent
harbor. The dark blue hills of Staten Island framed the picture.
He was right. She had
never seen New York before. Never before had its immense panorama been swept
within two hours. Never before had she realized its dimensions. She had always
felt stunned and crushed in the effort to conceive it. Today she had wings. The
city lay at her feet, conquered. She was mistress of Time and Space.
Again her sidelong
glance swept the lines of Jim Anthony’s massive jaw. She laughed softly.
"What’s the
matter?" he asked.
"Nothing. I’m just
happy."
She blushed and
wondered if he had read her thoughts by some subtle power of clairvoyance. She
was speculating on the effects of love at first sight on such a man. Would he
hesitate, back and fill and hang on for months trying in vain to gain the
courage to speak? Or would he spring with the leap of a young tiger the moment
he realized what he wanted?
Her own attitude was
purely one of joyous expectancy. It would, of course, be a long time before her
feelings could take any definite attitude toward a man. For the moment she was
supremely happy. It was enough. She made no effort to probe her feelings. She
might return to earth tomorrow. Today she was in Heaven. She would make the
most of it.
They skimmed the wooded
cliffs of Bay Ridge, her heart beating in ecstasy at the revelation of beauty
of whose existence she had not dreamed.
"I bet you never
saw this drive before, now did you?" he asked with boyish enthusiasm.
"No -- it’s
wonderful."
"Some view --
eh?"
"Entrancing!"
"You know when I
make my pile, I’d like a palace of white marble perched on this cliff with the
windows on the south looking out over Sandy Hook, and the windows on the west
looking over that fort on the top of Staten Island with its black eyes gazing
over the sea. How would you like that?"
She turned away to mask
the smile she couldn’t repress.
"That would be
splendid, wouldn’t it?"
"I like the water,
don’t you?"
"I love it."
"Water and hills
both right together! I reckon my father must ’a’ been a sea-captain and my
mother from the mountains ---- "
He said this with a
pathos that found the girl’s heart. What a pitiful, lonely life, a boy’s
without even the memory of a mother or father! The mother instinct rose in a
resistless flood of pity. Her eyes grew suddenly dim.
"Well," he
said briskly, "now for the dainty job! I’ve got to jump my way through
that Coney Island bunch. You see my low speed’s a racing pace for an everyday
car. All I can do in a crowd is to jump from one crossing to the next and cut
her power off every time. You can bet I’ll make a guy or two jump with me ----
"
"You won’t hurt
anyone?" she pleaded.
"Lord, no! I
wouldn’t dare to put her through that mob in the afternoon. I’d kill a regiment
of ’em. But it’s early -- just the shank of the morning. There’s nobody down
here yet."
The car suddenly leaped
into the Avenue that runs through the heart of Coney Island, the deep-throated
horn screaming its warning. The crowd scattered like sheep before a lion.
The girl laughed in
spite of her effort at self- control.
"Watch ’em
hump!" Jim grunted.
"It’s funny, isn’t
it?"
"When you’re in
the car -- yes. It don’t seem so funny when you’re on foot. Well, some people
were made to walk and some to ride. I had to hoof it at first. I like riding
better -- don’t you?"
"To be perfectly
honest -- yes!"
The car leaped forward
again, the horn screaming. The wheel passed within a foot of a fat woman’s
skirt. With a cry of terror she fled to the sidewalk and shook her fist at Jim,
her face purple with anger.
He waved his hand back
at her:
"Never touched
you, dearie! Never touched you!"
Mary lost all fear of
accident and watched him handle the machine with the skill of a master. She
could understand now the spirit of deviltry in a chauffeur who knows his
business. It seemed a wicked, cruel thing from the ground -- this swift plunge
of a car as if bent on murder. But now that she felt the sure, velvet grip of
the brake in a master’s hand, she saw that the danger was largely a myth.
It was fun to see
people jump at the approach of an avalanche of steel that always stopped just
short of harm. Of course, it took a steady nerve and muscle to do the trick.
The man by her side had both. He was always smiling. Nothing rattled him.
Her trust was now
implicit. She relaxed the tension of the first two hours of doubt and fear, and
yielded to the spell of his strength. It seemed inseparable from the throbbing
will of the giant machine. He was its incarnate spirit. She was being swept through
space now on the wings of omnipotent power -- but power always obedient to her
whim.
With steady, even pulse
they glided down the long, broad Avenue to Prospect Park, swung through its
winding lanes, on through the streets of Brooklyn and once more into the open
road.
"Now for Long
Beach and a good lunch!" he cried. "I’ll show you something -- but
you’ll have to shut your eyes to see it."
With a sudden bound,
the car leaped into the air, and shot through the sky with the hiss and shriek
of a demon.
The girl caught her
breath and instinctively gripped his arm.
"Look out,
Kiddo!" he shouted. "Don’t touch me -- or we’ll both land in Kingdom
Come. I ain’t ready for a harp just yet. I’d rather fool with this toy for a
while down here."
She braced her feet and
gripped the sides of the car, gasping for breath, steadied herself at last and
crouched low among the furs to guard her throat from the icy daggers of the
wind.
The landscape whirled
in a circle of trees and sky, while above the dark line of hills hung the
boiling cauldron of cloud-banked heavens.
"Are you
game?" he called above the roar.
"Yes," she
gasped. "Don’t stop ---- "
Her soul had risen at
last to the ecstasy of the mania for speed that fired the man’s spirit and
nerved his hand. It was inconceivable until experienced -- this awful joy! Her
spirit sank with childish disappointment as he slowly lowered the power.
"Got to take a
sharp curve down there," he explained. "We turn to the right for the
meadows and the Beach -- how was that?"
"Wonderful,"
she cried, with dancing eyes. "Let her go again if you want to -- I’m game
-- now."
Jim laughed.
"A little rattled
at first?"
"Yes ---- "
"Well, we can’t
let her out on this road. It’s too narrow -- have to take a ditch sometimes to
pass. That wouldn’t do for an eighty-mile clip, you know -- now would it?"
"Hardly."
"I might risk it
alone -- but my first name’s ‘Old Man Caution’ today -- you get me?"
Mary nodded and turned
her head away again.
"I got you the
first time, sir," she answered playfully taking his tone.
He ran the car into the
garage at the Beach, sprang out and lifted Mary to the ground with quick, firm
hand. They threw off their heavy coats and left them.
"Look out for this
junk now, sonny," he cried to the attendant, tossing him a half dollar.
"Sure, Mike!"
"Fill her up to
the chin by the time we get back."
"Righto!"
Quickly they walked to
the hotel and in five minutes were seated beside a window in the dining-room,
watching the lazy roll of the sea sweep in on the sands at low tide.
"I’m hungry as a
wolf!" he whispered.
"So am I ----
"
"We’ll eat
everything in sight -- start at the top and come down."
He handed her the menu
card and watched her from the depths beneath the drooping eyelids.
Conscious of his gaze
and rejoicing in its frank admiration, she ordered the dinner with instinctive
good taste. No effort at conversation was made by either. They were both too
hungry. As Jim lighted his cigarette when the coffee was served, he leaned back
in his chair and watched the breakers in silence.
"That’s the best
dinner I ever had in my life," he said slowly.
"It was good. We
were hungry."
"I’ve been hungry
before, many a time. It was something else, too." He paused and rose
abruptly. "Let’s walk up the Beach."
"I’d love
to," she answered, slowly rising.
They strolled leisurely
along the board-walk, found the sand, walked in the firm, dry line of the
high-water mark for a mile to the east, and sat down on a clump of sea-grass on
the top of a sand dune.
"I like
this!" she cried joyously.
"So do I," he
answered soberly, and lapsed into silence.
The sun was warm and
genial. The wind had died, and the waves of the rising tide were creeping up
the long, sloping stretches of the sand with a lazy, soothing rush. A winter
gull poised above their heads and soared seaward. The smoke of an ocean liner
streaked the horizon as she swept toward the channel off Sandy Hook.
Jim looked at the girl
by his side and tried to speak. She caught the strained expression in his
strong face and lowered her eyes.
He began to trace
letters in the sand.
She knew with unerring
instinct that he had made his first desperate effort to speak his love and
failed. Would he give it up and wait for weeks and possibly months -- or would
he storm the citadel in one mad rush at the beginning?
He found his voice at
last. He had recovered from the panic of his first impulse.
"Well, how do you
like my idea of a good day as far as you’ve gone?" he asked lightly.
She met his gaze with
perfect frankness. "The happiest day I ever spent in my life," she
confessed.
"Honest?"
"Honest."
"Oh, shucks --
what’s the use!" he cried, with sudden fierce resolution. "You’ve got
me, Kiddo, you’ve got me! I’ve been eatin’ out of your hand since the minute I
laid my eyes on you in that big room. I’m all yours. You can do anything you
want with me. For God’s sake, tell me that you like me a little."
The blood slowly
mounted to her cheeks in red waves of tremulous emotion.
"I like you very
much," she said in low tones.
He seized her hand and
held it in a desperate grip.
"I love you,
Kiddo," he went on passionately. "You don’t mind me calling you
Kiddo? You’re so dainty and pretty and sweet, and that dimple keeps coming in
your cheek, it just seems like that’s the word -- you don’t mind?"
"No ---- "
"You don’t know
how I’ve been starvin’ all my life for the love of a pure girl like you. You’re
the first one I ever spoke to. I was scared to death yesterday when I saw you.
But I’d ’a’ spoke to you if it killed me in my tracks. I couldn’t help it. It
just looked like an angel had dropped right down out of the gold clouds from
that ceilin’. I was afraid I’d lose you in the crowd and never see you again.
It didn’t seem you were a stranger anyhow -- I didn’t seem strange to you, did
I?"
Her lips quivered, and
she was silent.
"Didn’t you feel
like you’d known me somewhere before?" he pleaded.
"Yes."
"I just felt you
did, and that’s what give me courage. Oh, Kiddo, you’ve got to love me a little
-- I’ve never been loved by a human soul in all my life. The first thing I
remember was hidin’ under a stoop from a brute who beat me every night. I ran
away and slept in barrels and crawled into coal shutes till I was big enough to
earn a livin’ sellin’ papers. For years I never knew what it meant to have
enough to eat. I just scratched and fought my way through the streets like a
little hungry wolf till I got in a blacksmith’s shop down on South Street and
learned to handle tools. I was quick and smart, and the old man liked me and
let me sleep in the shop. I had enough to eat then and got strong as an ox. I went
to the night schools and learned to read and write. I don’t know anything, but
I’m quick and you can teach me -- you will, won’t you?"
"I’ll try,"
was the low answer.
"You do like me,
Kiddo? Say it again!"
She rose to her feet
and looked out over the sea, her face scarlet.
"Yes, I do,"
she said at last.
With a sudden
resistless sweep he clasped her in his arms and kissed her lips.
Her heart leaped in mad
response to the first kiss a lover had ever given. Her body quivered and
relaxed in his embrace. It was sweet -- it was wonderful beyond words.
He kissed her again,
and she clung to him, lifting her eyes to his at last in a long, wondering gaze
and then pressed her own lips to his.
"Oh, my God,
Kiddo, you love me! It beats the world, don’t it? Love at first sight for both
of us!
I’ve heard about it,
but I didn’t think it would ever happen to me like this -- did you?"
She shook her head and
bit her lips as the tears slowly dimmed her eyes.
"It takes my
breath," she murmured. "I can’t realize what it all means. It seems
too wonderful to be true."
"And you won’t
turn me down because I don’t know who my father and mother was?"
"No -- my heart
goes out to you in a great pity for your lonely, wretched boyhood."
"I couldn’t help
that -- now could I?"
"Of course not. It’s
wonderful that you’ve made your way alone and won the fight of life."
He gripped her hands
and held her at arms’ length, devouring her with his deep, slumbering eyes.
"Gee, but you’re a
brick, little girl! I thought you were an angel when I first saw you. Now I
know it. Just watch me work for you! I’ll show you a thing or two. You’ll marry
me right away, won’t you?"
He bent close, his
breath on her lips.
Her eyes drooped under
his passionate gaze, and the tears slowly stole down her cheeks. Her hour of
life had struck! So suddenly, so utterly unexpectedly, it rang a thunderbolt
from the clear sky.
"You will, won’t
you?" he pleaded.
She smiled at him
through her tears and slowly said:
"I can’t say yes
today."
"Why -- why?"
"You’ve swept me
off my feet -- I -- I can’t think."
"I don’t want you
to think -- I want you to marry me right now."
"I must have a
little time."
His face fell in
despair.
"Say, little girl,
don’t turn me down -- you’ll kill me."
"I’m not turning
you down," she protested tenderly. "I only want time to see that I’m
not crazy. I have to pinch myself to see if I’m awake. It all seems a
dream" -- she paused and lifted her radiant face to his -- "a
beautiful dream -- the most wonderful my soul has ever seen. I must be sure it’s
real!"
He drew her into his
arms, and her body again relaxed in surrender as his lips touched hers.
"Isn’t that the
real thing?" he laughed.
She lay very still, her
eyes closed, her face a scarlet flame. She was frightened at the swift
realization of its overwhelming reality. The touch of his hand thrilled to the
last fiber and nerve of her body. Her own trembling fingers clung to him with
desperate longing tenderness. She roused herself with an effort and drew away.
"That’s enough
now. I must have a little common- sense. Let’s go ---- "
He clung to her hand.
"You’ll let me
come to see you, tomorrow night?"
"Yes ---- "
"And the next
night -- and every night this week -- what’s the difference? There’s nobody to
say no, is there?"
"No one."
"You’ll let
me?"
"Tomorrow sure.
Maybe you won’t want to come the next night."
"Maybe I won’t!
Just wait and see!"
He seized both hands
again and held her at arms’ length.
"Don’t go yet -- just
let me look at you a minute more! The only girl I ever had in my life -- and
she’s the prettiest thing God ever made on this earth. Ain’t I the lucky
boy?"
"We must go
now," she cried, blushing again under his burning eyes.
He dropped her hands suddenly
and saluted military fashion.
"All right,
teacher! I’m the little boy that does exactly what he’s told."
They strolled leisurely
along the shining sands in silence. Now and then his slender hand caught hers
and crushed it. The moment he touched her a living flame flashed through her
body -- and through every moment of contact her nerves throbbed and quivered as
if a musician were sweeping the strings of a harp. If this were not love, what
could it be?
Her whole being, body
and soul, responded to his. Her body moved instinctively toward his, drawn by
some hidden, resistless power. Her hands went out to meet his; her lips leaped
to his.
She must test it with
time, of course. And yet she knew by a deep inner sense that time could only
fan the flame that had been kindled into consuming fire that must melt every
barrier between them.
She had asked him
nothing of himself, his business or his future, and knew nothing except what he
had told her in the first impetuous rush of his confession of love. No matter.
The big thing today was the fact of love and the new radiance with which it was
beginning to light the world. The effect was stunning. Their conversation had
been the simplest of commonplace questions and answers -- and yet the day was
the one miracle of her life -- her happiness something unthinkable until
realized.
She had not asked time
in order to know him better. She had only asked time to see herself more
clearly in the new experience. Not for a moment did she raise the question of
the worthiness of the man she loved. It was inconceivable that she should love
a man not worthy of her. The only questions asked were soul-searching ones put
to herself.
Through the sweet, cool
drive homeward, a hundred times she asked within:
"Is this love?"
And each time the
answer came from the depths:
"Yes -- yes -- a
thousand times yes. It’s the voice of God. I feel it and I know it."
He throttled the racer
down to the lowest speed and took the longest road home.
Again and again he
slipped his left hand from the wheel and pressed hers.
"You won’t let
anybody knock me behind my back, now will you, little girl?"
She pressed his hand in
answer.
"I ain’t got a
single friend in all God’s world to stand up for me but just you."
"You don’t need
anyone," she whispered.
"You’ll give me a
chance to get back at ’em if any of your friends knock me, won’t you?"
"Why should they
dislike you?"
He shrugged his
shoulders.
"Well, I ain’t
exactly one o’ the high-flyers now am I?"
"I’m glad you’re
not."
"Sure
enough?"
"Yes."
"Then it’s me for
you, Kiddo, for this world and the next."
The car swung suddenly
to the curb and Mary lifted her eyes with a start to find herself in front of
her home.
Jim sprang to the
ground and lifted her out.
"Keep this
coat," he whispered. "We’ll need it tomorrow. What time is your
school out?"
"At three o’clock."
"I can come at
four?"
"You don’t have to
work tomorrow?"
He hesitated a moment.
"No, I’m on a
vacation till after Christmas. They’re putting through my new patent."
He followed her inside
the door and held her hand in the shadows of the hall.
"All right, at
four," she said.
"I’ll be
here."
He stooped and kissed
her, turned and passed quickly out.
She stood for a moment
in the shadows and listened to the throb of the car until it melted into the
roar of the city’s life, her heart beating with a joy so new it was pain.
A week passed on the
wings of magic.
Every day at four o’clock
the car was waiting at her door. The drab interior of the school-room had lost
its terror. No annoyance could break the spell that reigned within. Her
patience was inexhaustible, her temper serene.
Walking with swift step
down the Avenue to her home she wondered vaguely how she could have been lonely
in all the music and the wonder of New York’s marvelous life. The windows of
the stores were already crowded with Christmas cheer, and busy thousands passed
through their doors. Each man or woman was a swift messenger of love. Somewhere
in the shadows of the city’s labyrinth a human heart would beat with quickened
joy for every step that pressed about these crowded counters. Love had given
new eyes to see, new ears to hear and a new heart to feel the joys and sorrows
of life.
She hadn’t given her
consent yet. She was still asking her silly heart to be sure of herself. Of her
lover, the depth and tenderness, the strength and madness of his love, there
could be no doubt. Each day he had given new tokens.
For Saturday afternoon
she had told him not to bring the car.
When they reached Fifth
Avenue, across the Square, he stopped abruptly and faced her with a curious,
uneasy look:
"Say, tell me why
you wanted to walk?"
"I had a good
reason," she said evasively.
"Yes, but why? It’s
a sin to lay that car up a day like this. Look here ---- "
He stopped and tried to
gulp down his fears.
"Look here -- you’re
not going to throw me down after leading me to the very top of the roof, are
you?"
She looked up with
tender assurance.
"Not today ----
"
"Then why hoof it?
Let me run round to the garage and shoot her out. You can wait for me at the
Waldorf. I’ve always wanted to push my buzz-wagon up to that big joint and wait
for my girl to trip down the steps."
"No. I’ve a plan
of my own today. Let me have my way."
"All righto --
just so you’re happy."
"I am happy,"
she answered soberly.
At the foot of the
broad stairs of the Library she paused and looked up smilingly at its majestic
front.
"Come in a
moment," she said softly.
He followed her
wonderingly into the vaulted hall and climbed the grand staircase to the
reading-room. She walked slowly to the shelf on which the Century Dictionary
rested and looked laughingly at the seat in which she sat Saturday afternoon a
week ago at exactly this hour.
Jim smiled, leaned
close and whispered:
"I got you, Kiddo
-- I got you! Get out of here quick or I’ll grab you and kiss you!"
She started and
blushed.
"Don’t you
dare!"
"Beat it then --
beat it -- or I can’t help it!"
She turned quickly and
they passed through the catalogue room and lightly down the stairs.
He held her soft, round
arm with a grip that sent the blood tingling to the roots of her brown hair.
"You understand
now?" she whispered.
"You bet! We walk
the same way up the Avenue, through the Park to the little house on the laurel
hill. And you’re goin’ to be sweet to me today, my Kiddo -- I just feel it. I
---- "
"Don’t be too
sure, sir!" she interrupted, solemnly.
He laughed aloud.
"You can’t fool me
now -- and I’m crazy as a June bug! You know I like to walk -- if I can be with
you!"
At the Park entrance
she stopped again and smiled roguishly.
"We’ll find a seat
in one of the summer houses along the Fifty-ninth Street side."
"All right,"
he responded.
"No -- we’ll go on
where we started!"
With a laugh, she
slipped her hand through his arm.
"You were a little
scared of me last Saturday about this time, weren’t you?"
"Just a little
---- "
"It hurt me, too,
but I didn’t let you know."
"I’m sorry."
"It’s all right
now -- it’s all right. Gee I but we’ve traveled some in a week, haven’t
we?"
"I’ve known you
more than a week," she protested gayly.
"Sure -- I’ve
known you since I was born."
They walked through the
stately rows of elms on the Mall in joyous silence. Crowds of children and
nurses, lovers and loungers, filled the seats and thronged the broad promenade.
Scarcely a word was
spoken until they reached the rustic house nestling among the trees on the
hill.
"Just a week by
the calendar," she murmured. "And I’ve lived a lifetime."
"It’s all right
then -- little girl? You’ll marry me right away? When -- tonight?"
"Hardly!"
"Tomorrow,
then?"
She drew the glove from
her hand and held the slender fingers up before him.
"You can get the
ring ---- "
"Gee! I do have to
get a ring, don’t I?"
"Yes ---- "
"Why didn’t you
tell me? You know I never got married before."
"I should hope
not!"
He seized her hand and
kissed it, drew her into his arms, held her crushed and breathless and released
her with a quick, impulsive movement.
"You’ll help me
get it?" he asked eagerly.
"If you
like."
"A big white
sparkler?"
"No -- no ----
"
"No?"
"A plain little
gold band."
"Let me get you a
big diamond!"
"No -- a plain
gold band."
"It’s all settled
then?"
"We’re engaged.
You’re my fiance."
"But for God’s
sake, Kiddo -- how long do I have to be a fiance?"
A ripple of laughter
rang through the trees.
"Don’t you think
we’ve done pretty well for seven days?"
"I could have
settled it in seven minutes after we met," he answered complainingly.
"You won’t tell me the day yet?"
"Not yet ----
"
"All right, we’ll
just have to take blessings as they come, then."
Through the beautiful
afternoon they sat side by side with close-pressed hands and planned the future
which love had given. A modest flat far up among the trees on the cliffs
overlooking the Hudson, they decided on.
"We’ll begin with
that," he cried enthusiastically, "but we won’t stay there long. I’ve
got big plans. I’m going to make a million. The white house down by the sea for
me, a yacht out in the front yard and a half-dozen thundering autos in the
garage. If this deal I’m on now goes through, I’ll make my pile in a year ----
"
They rose as the
shadows lengthened.
"I must go home
and feed my pets," she sighed.
"All right,"
he responded heartily. "I’ll get the car and be there in a jiffy. We’ll
take a spin out to a road-house for dinner."
She lifted her eyes
tenderly.
"You can come
right up to my room -- now that we’re engaged."
He swept her into his
arms again, and held her in unresisting happiness.
It was dark when he
swung the gray car against the curb and sprang out. He didn’t blow his horn for
her to come down. The privilege she had granted was too sweet and wonderful. He
wouldn’t miss it for the world.
The stairs were dark.
Ella was late this afternoon getting back to her work. His light footstep
scarcely made a sound. He found each step with quick, instinctive touch. The
building seemed deserted. The tenants were all on trips to the country and the
seashore. The day was one of rare beauty and warmth. Someone was fumbling in
the dark on the third floor back.
He made his way quickly
to her room, and softly knocked, waited a moment and knocked again. There was
no response. He couldn’t be mistaken. He had seen her lean out of that window
every day the past week.
Perhaps she was busy in
the kitchenette and the noise from the street made it impossible to hear.
He placed his hand on
the doorknob.
From the darkness of
the hall, in a quick, tiger leap, Ella threw herself on him and grappled for
his throat.
"What are you
doing at that door, you dirty thief?" she growled.
"Here! Here! What’ell
-- what’s the matter with you?" he gasped, gripping her hands and tearing
them from his neck. "I’m no thief!"
"You are! You are,
too!" she shrieked. "I heard you sneak in the door downstairs --
heard you slippin’ like a cat upstairs! Get out of here before I call a
cop!"
She was savagely
pushing him back to the landing of the stairs. With a sudden lurch, Jim freed
himself and gripped her hands.
"Cut it! Cut it!
Or I’ll knock your block off! I’ve come to take my girl to ride ---- "
He drew a match and
quickly lighted the gas as Mary’s footstep echoed on the stairs below.
"Well, she’s
coming now -- we’ll see," was the sullen answer.
Ella surveyed him from
head to foot, her one eye gleaming in angry suspicion.
Mary sprang up the last
step and saw the two confronting each other. She had heard the angry voices
from below.
"Why, Ella, what’s
the matter?" she gasped.
"He was trying to
break into your room ---- "
Jim threw up his hands
in a gesture of rage, and Mary broke into a laugh.
"Why, nonsense,
Ella, I asked him to come! This is Mr. Anthony," -- her voice dropped, --
"my fiance."
Ella’s figure relaxed
with a look of surprise.
"Oh, ja?" she
murmured, as if dazed.
"Yes -- come
in," she said to Jim. "Sorry I was out. I had to run to the grocer’s
for the Kitty."
Ella glared at Jim,
turned and began to light the other hall lamps without any attempt at apology.
Jim entered the room
with a look of awe, took in its impression of sweet, homelike order and
recovered quickly his composure.
"Gee, you’re the
dandy little housekeeper! I could stay here forever."
"You like
it?"
"It’s a bird’s
nest " He glanced in the mirror and saw the print of Ella’s fingers on his
collar. "Will you look at that?" he growled.
"It’s too
bad," she said, sympathetically.
"You know I
thought a she-tiger had got loose from the Bronx and jumped on me."
"I’m awfully
sorry," she apologized. "Ella’s very fond of me. She was trying to
protect me. She couldn’t see who it was in the dark."
"No; I reckon
not," Jim laughed.
"I’ve changed our
plans for the evening," she announced. "We won’t go to ride tonight.
I want you to bring my best friend to dinner with us at Mouquin’s. Go after her
in the car. I want to impress her ---- "
"I got you, Kiddo!
She’s goin’ to look me over -- eh? All right, I’ll stop at the store and get a
clean collar. I wouldn’t like her to see the print of that tiger’s claw on my
neck."
"There’s her
address the Gainsborough Studios. Drop me at Mouquin’s and I’ll have the table
set in one of the small rooms upstairs. I’ll meet you at the door."
Jim glanced at the
address, put it in his pocket and helped her draw on her heavy coat.
"You’ll be nice to
Jane? I want her to like you. She’s the only real friend I’ve ever had in New
York."
"I’ll do my best
for you, little girl," he promised.
He dropped her at the
wooden cottage-front on Sixth Avenue near Twenty-eighth Street, and returned in
twenty minutes with Jane.
As the tall artist led
the way upstairs, Jim whispered:
"Say, for God’s
sake, let me out of this!"
"Why?"
"She’s a frost. If
I have to sit beside her an hour I’ll catch cold and die. I swear it; save me!
Save my life!"
"Sh! It’s all
right. She’s fine and generous when you know her."
They had reached the
door and Mary pushed him in. There was no help for it. He’d have to make the
most of it.
The dinner was a dismal
failure.
Jane Anderson was
polite and genial, but there was a straight look of wonder in her clear gray
eyes that froze the blood in Jim’s veins.
Mary tried desperately
for the first half-hour to put him at his ease. It was useless. The attack of
Ella had upset his nerves, and the unexpressed hostility of Jane had completely
crushed his spirits. He tried to talk once, stammered and lapsed into a sullen
silence from which nothing could stir him.
The two girls at last
began to discuss their own affairs and the dinner ended in a sickening failure
that depressed and angered Mary.
The agony over at last,
she rose and turned to Jim:
"You can go now,
sir -- I’ll take Jane home with me for a friendly chat."
"Thank God!"
he whispered, grinning in spite of his effort to keep a straight face.
"Tomorrow?"
he asked in low tones.
"At eight o’clock."
Jim bowed awkwardly to
Jane, muttered something inarticulate and rushed to his car.
The two girls walked in
silence through Twenty- eighth Street to Broadway and thence across the Square.
Seated in her room,
Mary could contain her pent-up rage no longer.
"Jane Anderson, I’m
furious with you! How could you be so rude -- so positively insulting!"
"Insulting?"
"Yes. You stared
at him in cold disdain as if he were a toad under your feet!"
"I assure you,
dear ---- "
"Why did you do
it?"
The artist rose, walked
to the window, looked out on the Square for a moment, extended her hand and
laid it gently on Mary’s shoulder.
"You’ve made up
your mind to marry this man, honey?"
"I certainly
have," was the emphatic answer.
Jane paused.
"And all in seven
days?"
"Seven days or
seven years -- what does it matter? He’s my mate -- we love -- it’s Fate."
"It’s
incredible!"
"What’s
incredible?"
"Such
madness."
"Perhaps love is
madness -- the madness that makes life worth the candle. I’ve never lived
before the past week."
"And you, the
dainty, cultured, pious little saint, will marry this -- this ---- "
"Say it! I want
you to be frank ---- "
"Perfectly
frank?"
"Absolutely."
"This coarse,
ugly, illiterate brute ---- "
"Jane Anderson,
how dare you!" Mary sprang to her feet, livid with rage.
"I asked if I
might be frank. Shall I lie to you? Or shall I tell you what I think?"
"Say what you
please; it doesn’t matter," Mary interrupted angrily.
"I only speak at
all because I love you. Your common-sense should tell you that I speak with
reluctance. But now that I have spoken, let me beg of you for your father’s
sake, for your dead mother’s sake, for my sake -- I’m your one disinterested
friend and you know that my love is real -- for the sake of your own soul’s
salvation in this world and the next -- don’t marry that brute! Commit suicide
if you will -- jump off the bridge -- take poison, cut your throat, blow your brains
out -- but, oh dear God, not this!"
"And why, may I
ask?" was the cold question.
"He’s in no way
your equal in culture, in character, in any of the essentials on which the
companionship of marriage must be based ---- "
"He’s a diamond in
the rough," Mary staunchly asserted.
"He’s in the
rough, all right! The only diamond about him is the one in his red scarf -- ‘Take
it from me, Kiddo! Take it from me!’"
Her last sentence was a
quotation from Jim, her imitation of his slang so perfect Mary’s cheeks flamed
anew with anger.
"I’ll teach him to
use good English -- never fear. In a month he’ll forget his slang and his red
scarf."
"You mean that in
a month you’ll forget to use good English and his style of dress will be yours.
Oh, honey, can’t you see that such a man will only drag you down, down to his
level? Can it be possible that you -- that you really love him?"
"I adore him and I’m
proud of his love!"
"Now listen! You
believe in an indissoluble marriage, don’t you?"
"Yes ---- "
"It’s the first
article of your creed -- that marriage is a holy sacrament, that no power on
earth or in hell can ever dissolve its bonds? Fools rush in where angels fear
to tread, my dear! They always have -- they always will, I suppose. This is
peculiarly true of your type of woman -- the dainty, clinging girl of religious
enthusiasm. You’re peculiarly susceptible to the physical power of a brutal
lover. Your soul glories in submission to this force. The more coarse and
brutal its attraction the more abject and joyful the surrender. Your religion
can’t save you because your religion is purely emotional -- it is only another
manifestation of your sex emotions."
"How can you be so
sacrilegious!" the girl interrupted with a look of horror.
"It may shock you,
dear, but I’m telling you one of the simplest truths of Nature. You’d as well
know it now as later. The moment you wake to realize that your emotions have
been deceived and bankrupted, your faith will collapse. At least keep, your
grip on common- sense. Down in the cowardly soul of every weak woman -- perhaps
of every woman -- is the insane desire to be dominated by a superior brute
force. The woman of the lower classes -- the peasant of Russia, for example,
whose sex impulses are of all races the most violent -- refuses with scorn the
advances of the man who will not strike her. The man who can’t beat his wife is
beneath contempt -- he is no man at all ---- "
Mary broke into a
laugh.
"Really, Jane, you
cease to be serious you’re a joke. For Heaven’s sake use a little common-sense
yourself. You can’t be warning me that my lover is marrying me in order to use
his fists on me?"
"Perhaps not,
dear," -- the artist smiled; "there might be greater depths for one
of your training and character. I’m just telling you the plain truth about the
haste with which you’re rushing into this marriage. There’s nothing divine in
it. There’s no true romance of lofty sentiment. It’s the simplest and most
elemental of all the brutal facts of animal life. That it is resistless in a
woman of your culture and refinement makes it all the more pathetic ---- "
The girl rose with a
gesture of impatience.
"It’s no use, Jane
dear; we speak a different language. I don’t in the least know what you’re
talking about, and what’s more, I’m glad I don’t. I’ve a vague idea that your
drift is indecent. But we’re different. I realize that. I don’t sit in judgment
on you. You’re wasting your breath on me. I’m going into this marriage with my
eyes wide open. It’s the fulfillment of my brightest hopes and aspirations.
That I shall be happy with this man and make him supremely happy I know by an
intuition deeper and truer than reason. I’m going to trust that intuition
without reservation."
"All right,
honey," the artist agreed with a smile. "I won’t say anything more,
except that you’re fooling yourself about the depth of this intuitive
knowledge. Your infatuation is not based on the verdict of your deepest and
truest instincts."
"On what,
then?"
"The crazy ideals
of the novels you’ve been reading -- that’s all."
"Ridiculous!"
"You’re absolutely
sure, for instance, that God made just one man the mate of one woman, aren’t
you?"
"As sure as that I
live."
"Where did you
learn it?"
"So long ago I can’t
remember."
"Not in your
Bible?"
"No."
"The Sunday
school?"
"No."
"Craddock didn’t
tell you that, did he?"
"Hardly ----
"
"I thought not. He
has too much horse-sense in spite of his emotional gymnastics. You learned it
in the first dime-novel you read."
"I never read a
dime-novel in my life," she interrupted, indignantly.
"I know -- you
paid a dollar and a quarter for it -- but it was a dime-novel. The philosophy
of this school of trash you have built into a creed of life. How can you be so
blind? How can you make so tragic a blunder?"
"That’s just it,
Jane: I couldn’t if your impressions of his character were true. I couldn’t
make a mistake about so vital a question. I couldn’t love him if he really were
a coarse, illiterate brute. What you see is only on the surface. He hasn’t had
his chance yet ---- "
"Who is he? What
does he do? Who are his people?"
"He has no people
---- "
"I thought
not."
"I love him all
the more deeply," she went on firmly, "because of his miserable
childhood. I’ll do my best to make up for the years of cruelty and hunger and
suffering through which he passed. What right have you to sit in judgment on
him without a hearing? You’ve known him two hours ---- "
Jane shrugged her
shoulders.
"Two minutes was
quite enough."
"And you judge by
what standard?"
"My five senses,
and my sixth sense above all. One look at his square bulldog jaw, his massive
neck and the deformity of his delicate hands and feet! I hear the ignorant
patois of the East Side underworld. I smell the brimstone in his suppressed
rage at my dislike. There’s something uncanny in the sensuous droop of his
heavy eyelids and the glitter of his steel-blue eyes. There’s something
incongruous in his whole personality. I was afraid of him the moment I saw
him."
Mary broke into
hysterical laughter.
"And if my five
senses and my intuitions contradict yours? Who is to decide? If I loved him on
sight ---- If I looked into his eyes and saw the soul of my mate? If their cold
fires thrill me with inexpressible passion? If I see in his massive neck and
jaw the strength of an irresistible manhood, the power to win success and to
command the world? If I see in his slender hands and small feet lines of
exquisite beauty -- am I to crush my senses and strangle my love to please your
idiotic prejudice?"
Jane threw up her hands
in despair.
"Certainly not! If
you’re blind and deaf I can’t keep you from committing suicide. I’d lock you up
in an asylum for the insane if I had the power to save you from the clutches of
the brute."
Mary drew herself erect
and faced her friend.
"Please don’t
repeat that word in my hearing -- there’s a limit to friendship. I think you’d
better go ---- "
Jane rose and walked
quickly to the door, her lips pressed firmly.
"As you like --
our lives will be far apart from tonight. It’s just as well."
She closed the door
with a bang and reached the head of the stairs before Mary threw her arms
around her neck.
"Please, dear,
forgive me -- don’t go in anger."
The older woman kissed
her tenderly, glad of the dim light to hide her own tears.
"There, it’s all
right, honey -- I won’t remember it. Forgive me for my ugly words."
"I love him, Jane
-- I love him! It’s Fate. Can’t you understand?"
"Yes, dear, I
understand, and I’ll love you always -- good-by."
"You’ll come to my
wedding?"
"Perhaps ----
"
"I’ll let you know
---- "
Another kiss, and Jane
Anderson strode down the stairs and out into the night with a sickening,
helpless fear in her heart.
The quarrel had left Mary
in a quiver of exalted rage. How dare a friend trample her most sacred
feelings! She pitied Jane Anderson and her tribe -- these modern feminine
leaders of a senseless revolution against man -- they were crazy. They had all
been disappointed in some individual and for that reason set themselves up as
the judges of mankind.
"Thank God my soul
has not been poisoned!" she exclaimed aloud with fervor. "How strange
that these women who claim such clear vision can be so stupidly blind!"
She busied herself with
her little household, and made up her mind once and for all time to be done
with such friendships. The friendship of such women was a vain thing. They were
vicious cats at heart -- not like her gentle Persian kitten whose soul was full
of sleepy sunlight. These modern insurgents were wild, half- starved stray cats
that had been hounded and beaten until they had lapsed into their elemental
brute instincts. They were so aggravating, too, they deserved no sympathy.
Again she thanked God
that she was not one of them -- that her heart was still capable of romantic
love -- a love so sudden and so overwhelming that it could sweep life before it
in one mad rush to its glorious end.
She woke next morning
with a dull sense of depression. The room was damp and chilly. It was storming.
The splash of rain against the window and the muffled roar from the street
below meant that the wind was high and the day would be a wretched one outside.
They couldn’t take
their ride.
It was a double
disappointment. She had meant to have him dash down to Long Beach and place the
ring on her finger seated on that same bright sand-dune overlooking the sea.
Instead, they must stay indoors. Jim was not at his best indoors. She loved him
behind the wheel with his hand on the pulse of that racer. The machine seemed a
part of his being. He breathed his spirit into its steel heart, and together
they swept her on and on over billowy clouds through the gates of Heaven.
There was no help for
it. They would spend the time together in her room planning the future. It
would be sweet -- these intimate hours in her home with the man she loved.
Should she spend a
whole day alone there with him? Was it just proper? Was it really safe?
Nonsense! The vile thoughts which Jane had uttered had poisoned her, after all.
She hated her self that she could remember them. And yet they filled her heart
with dread in spite of every effort to laugh them off.
"How could Jane
Anderson dare say such things?" she muttered angrily. "‘A coarse,
illiterate brute!’ It’s a lie! a lie! a lie!" She stamped her foot in
rage. "He’s strong and brave and masterful -- a man among men -- he’s my
mate and I love him!"
And yet the frankness
with which her friend had spoken had in reality disturbed her beyond measure.
Through every hour of the day her uneasiness increased. After all she was
utterly alone and her life had been pitifully narrow. Her knowledge of men she
had drawn almost exclusively from romantic fiction.
It was just a little
strange that Jim persisted in living so completely in the present and the
future. He had told her of his pitiful childhood. He had told her of his
business. It had been definite -- the simple statement he made -- and she
accepted it without question until Jane Anderson had dropped these ugly
suspicions. She hated the meddler for it.
In the light of such
suspicions the simplest, bravest man might seem a criminal. How could her
friend be blind to the magnetism of this man’s powerful personality? Bah! She
was jealous of their perfect happiness. Why are women so contemptible?
She began a careful
study of every trait of her lover’s character, determined to weigh him by the
truest standards of manhood. Certainly he was no weakling. The one abomination
of her soul was the type of the city degenerate she saw simpering along
Broadway and Fifth Avenue at times. Jim was brave to the point of rashness. No
man with an ounce of cowardice in his being could handle a car in every crisis
with such cool daring and perfect control. He was strong. He could lift her
body as if it were a feather. His arms crushed her with terrible force. He
could earn a living for them both. There could be no doubt about that. His
faultless clothes, the ease with which he commanded unlimited credit among the
automobile manufacturers and dealers -- every supply store on Broadway seemed
to know him -- left no doubt on that score.
There was just a bit of
mystery and reserve about his career as an inventor. His first success that had
given him a start he had not explained. The big deal about the new carburetor
she could, of course, understand. He had a workshop all his own. He had told
her this the first day they met. She would ask him to take her to see it this
afternoon. The storm would prevent the trip to the Beach. She would ask this,
not because she doubted his honesty, but because she really wished to see the
place in which he worked. It was her workshop now, as well as his.
For a moment her suspicions
were sickening. Suppose he had romanced about his workshop and his room?
Supposed he lived somewhere in the squalid slums of the lower East Side and his
people, after all, were alive? Perhaps a drunken father and a coarse, brutal
mother -- and sisters ----
She stopped with a
frown and clenched her fists.
She would ask Jim to
show her his workshop. That would be enough. If he had told her the truth about
that she would make up to him in tender abandonment of utter trust for every
suspicion she harbored.
The car was standing in
front of her door. He waved for her to come down.
"Jump right
in!" he called gayly. "I’ve got an extra rubber blanket for
you."
"In the storm,
Jim?" she faltered.
"Surest thing you
know. It’s great to fly through a storm. You can just ride on its wings. Throw
on your raincoat and come on quick! I’m going to run down to the Beach. Who’s
afraid of an old storm with this thing under us?"
Her heart gave a bound.
Her longing had reached her lover and brought him through the storm to do her
bidding. It was wonderful -- this oneness of soul and body.
She was happy again --
supremely, divinely happy. The man by her side knew and understood. She knew
and understood. She loved this daring spirit that rose to the wind -- this iron
will that brooked no interference with his plans, even from Nature, when it
crossed his love.
The sting of the
raindrops against her cheek was exhilarating. The car glided over the swimming
roadway like a great gray gull skimming the beach at low tide. Her soul rose.
The sun of a perfect faith and love was shining now behind the clouds.
She nestled close to
his side and watched him tenderly from the corners of her half-closed eyes, her
whole being content in his strength. The idea of dashing through a blinding
rain to the Beach on such a day would have been to her mind an unthinkable
piece of madness. She was proud of his daring. It would be hers to shield from
the storms of life. She loved the rugged lines of his massive jaw in profile.
How could Jane be such a fool as to call him ugly!
The weather, of course,
prevented them from walking up the Beach to their sand-dune. The walk would
have been all right -- but it was out of the question to sit down there and
give her the ring in the pouring rain. She knew this as well as he. She knew,
too, that he had the ring in his pocket, though he had carefully refrained from
referring to it in any way.
He led her to a
secluded nook behind a pillar in the little parlor. The hotel was deserted.
They had the building almost to themselves. A log fire crackled in the open
fireplace, and he drew a settee close. The wind had moderated and the rain was
pouring down in straight streams, rolling in soft music on the roof.
He drew the ring from
his pocket. "Well, Kiddo, I got it. The fellow said this was all
right."
He held the tiny gold
band before her shining eyes.
"Slip it on!"
she whispered.
"Which one?"
"This one,
silly!"
She extended her third
finger, as he pressed the ring slowly on.
"Seems to me a
mighty little one and a mighty cheap one, but he said it was the thing."
"It’s all right,
dear," she whispered. "Kiss me!"
He pressed his lips to
hers and held them until she sank back and lifted her hand in warning.
"Be careful!"
"Whose
afraid?" Jim muttered, glancing over his shoulder toward the door.
"Now tell me what day -- tomorrow?"
"Nonsense,
man!" she cried. "Give me time to breathe ---- "
"What for?"
"Just to realize
that I’m engaged -- to plan and think and dream of the wonderful day."
"We’re losing time
---- "
"We’ll never live
these wonderful hours over again, dear."
Jim’s face fell and his
voice was pitiful in its funereal notes: "Lord, I thought the ring settled
it."
"And so it does,
dear -- it does -----"
"Not if that
long-legged spider that took dinner with us the other night gets in her fine
work. I’ll bet that she handed me a few when you got home?"
Mary was silent.
"Now didn’t
she?"
"To the best of
her ability -- yes -- but I didn’t mind her silly talk."
"Gee, but I’d love
to give her a bouquet of poison ivy!"
"We had an awful
quarrel ---- "
"And you stood up
for me?"
"You know I
did!"
"All right, I don’t
give a tinker’s damn what anybody says if you stand by me! In all this world
there’s just you -- for me. There’s never been anybody else -- and there never
will be. I’m that kind."
"And I love you
for it!" she cried, with rapture pressing his hand in both of hers.
"What did she say
about me, anyhow?"
"Nothing worth
repeating. I’ve forgotten it."
Jim held her gaze.
"It’s funny how
you love anybody the minute you lay eyes on ’em -- or hate ’em the same way. I
wanted to choke her the minute she opened her yap to me."
"Forget it,
dear," she broke in briskly. "I want you to take me to see your
workshop tomorrow -- will you?"
A flash of suspicion
shot from the depths of his eyes.
"Did she tell you
to ask me that?"
"Of course not! I’m
just interested in everything you do. I want to see where you work."
"It’s no place for
a sweet girl to go -- that part of town."
"But I’ll be with
you."
"I don’t want you
to go down there," he sullenly maintained.
"But why,
dear?"
"It’s a low, dirty
place. I had to locate the shop there to get the room I needed for the rent I
could pay. It’s not fit for you. I’m going to move uptown in a little
while."
"Please let me
go," she pleaded.
He shook his head
emphatically.
"No."
She turned away to hide
the tears. The first real, hideous fear she had ever had about him caught her
heart in spite of every effort to fight it down. His workshop might be a myth
after all. He had failed in the first test to which she had put him. It was
horrible. All the vile suggestions of Jane Anderson rushed now into her memory.
She struggled bravely
to keep her head and not break down. It was beyond her strength. A sob
strangled her, and she buried her face in her hands.
Jim looked at her in
helpless anguish for a moment, started to gather her in his arms and looked
around the room in terror.
He leaned over her and
whispered tensely:
"For God’s sake,
Kiddo -- don’t -- don’t do that! I didn’t mean to hurt you -- honest, I didn’t.
Don’t cry any more and I’ll take you right down to the black hole, and let you
sleep on the floor if you want to. Gee! I’ll give you the whole place, tools,
junk and all ---- "
She lifted her head.
"Will you,
Jim?"
"Sure I will! We
start this minute if you want to go."
She glanced over his
shoulder to see that no one was looking, threw her arms around his neck and
kissed him again and again.
"It was the first
time you ever said no, dear, and it hurt. I’m happy again now. If you’ll just
let me see you in the shop for five minutes I’ll never ask you again."
"All right --
tomorrow when you get out of school. I’ll take you down. Holy Mike, that was a
dandy kiss! Let’s quarrel again -- start something else."
She rose laughing and
brushed the last trace of tears from her eyes.
"Let’s eat dinner
now -- I’m hungry."
"By George, I’d
forgot all about the feed!"
By eight o’clock the
storm had abated; the rain suddenly stopped, and the moon peeped through the
clouds.
He drove the big racer
back at a steady, even stride on her lowest notch of speed -- half the time
with only his right hand on the wheel and his left gripping hers.
As the lights of
Manhattan flashed from the hills beyond the Queensborough Bridge, he leaned
close and whispered:
"Happy?"
"Perfectly."
The car was waiting the
next day at half-past three.
"It’s not
far," he said, nodding carelessly. "You needn’t put on the coat. Be
there in a jiffy."
Down Twenty-third
Street to Avenue A, down the avenue to Eighteenth Street, and then he suddenly
swung the machine through Eighteenth into Avenue B and stopped below a low, red
brick building on the corner.
He set his brakes with
a crash, leaped out and extended his hands.
"I didn’t like to
take you up these stairs at the back of that saloon, little girl, but you would
come. Now don’t blame me ---- "
She pressed his arm
tenderly.
"Of course I won’t
blame you. I’m proud and happy to share your life and help you. I’m surprised
to see everything so quiet down here. I thought all the East Side was packed
with crowded tenements."
"No," he
answered, in a matter-of-fact way. "About the only excitement we have in
this quarter is an occasional gas explosion in the plant over there, and the
noise of the second-hand material men unloading iron. The tenements haven’t
been built here yet."
He led her quickly past
the back door of the saloon and up two narrow flights of stairs to the top of
the building, drew from his pocket the key to a heavy padlock and slipped the
crooked bolt from the double staples. He unlocked the door with a second key
and pushed his way in.
"All righto,"
he cried.
The straight, narrow
hall inside was dark. He fumbled in his pocket and lit the gas.
"The workshop
first, or my sleeping den?"
"The workshop
first!" she whispered excitedly.
She had made the
reality of this shop the supreme test of Jim’s word and character. She was in a
fever of expectant uncertainty as to its equipment and practical use.
He unlocked the door
leading to the front.
"That’s my den --
we’ll come back here."
He passed quickly to
the further end of the hall and again used two keys to open the door, and held
it back for her to enter.
"I’m sorry it’s so
dirty -- if you get your pretty dress all ruined -- it’s not my fault, you
know."
Mary surveyed the room
with an exclamation of delight.
"Oh, what a wonderful
place! Why, Jim, you’re a magician!"
There could be no doubt
about the practical use to which the shop was being put. Its one small window
opened on a fire escape in the narrow court in the rear. A skylight in the
middle opened with a hinge on the roof and flooded the space with perfect
light. An iron ladder swung from the skylight and was hooked up against the
ceiling by a hasp fastened to a staple over a work-bench. On one side of the
room was a tiny blacksmith’s forge, an anvil, hammers and a complete set of
tools for working in rough iron. A small gasoline engine supplied the power
which turned his lathe and worked the drills, saw and plane. On the other side
of the room was arranged a fairly complete chemical laboratory with several
retorts, and an oxyhydrogen blow-pipe capable of developing the powerful heat
used in the melting and brazing of metals. Beneath the benches were piled
automobile supplies of every kind.
"You know how to
use all these machines, Jim?" she asked in wonder.
"Sure, and then
some!" he answered with a wave of his slender hand.
"You’re a wizard
---- "
"Now the
den?" he said briskly.
She followed him
through the hall and into the large front corner room overlooking Avenue B and
Eighteenth Street. The morning sun flooded the front and the afternoon sun
poured into the side windows. The furniture was solid mahogany -- a bed,
bureau, chiffonier, couch and three chairs. The windows were fitted with
wood-paneled shutters, shades and heavy draperies. A thick, soft carpet of faded
red covered the floor.
"It’s a nice room,
Jim, but I’d like to dust it for you," she said with a smile.
"Sure. I’m for
giving you the right to dust it every morning, Kiddo, beginning now. Let’s find
a preacher tonight!"
She blushed and moved a
step toward the door.
"Just a little
while. You know it’s been only ten days since we met ---- "
"But we’ve lived
some in that time, haven’t we?"
"An eternity, I
think," she said reverently.
"I want to marry
right now, girlie!" he pleaded desperately. "If that spider gets you
in her den again, I just feel like it’s good night for me."
"Nonsense. You can’t
believe me such a silly child. I’m a woman. I love you. Do you think the
foolish prejudice of a friend could destroy my love for the man whom I have
chosen for my mate?"
"No, but I want it
fixed and then it’s fixed -- and they can say what they please. Marry me
tonight! You’ve got the ring. You’re going to in a little while, anyhow. What’s
the use to wait and lose these days out of our life? What’s the sense of it?
Don’t you know me by this time? Don’t you trust me by this time?"
She slipped her hand
gently into his.
"I trust you
utterly. And I feel that I’ve known you since the day I was born ---- "
"Then why -- why
wait a minute?"
"You can’t
understand a girl’s feelings, dear -- only a little while and it’s all
right."
He sat down on the
couch in silence, rose and walked to the window. She watched him struggling
with deep emotion.
He turned suddenly.
"Look here, Kiddo,
I’ve got to leave on that trip to the mountains of North Carolina. I’ve got to
get down there before Christmas. I must be back here by the first of the year.
Gee -- I can’t go without you! You don’t want to stay here without me, do
you?"
A sudden pallor
overspread her face. For the first time she realized how their lives had become
one in the sweet intimacy of the past ten days.
"You must go
now?" she gasped.
"Yes. I’ve made my
arrangements. I’ve business back here the first of the year that can’t wait.
Marry me and go with me. We’ll take our honeymoon down there. By George, we’ll
go together in the car! Every day by each other’s side over hundreds and
hundreds of miles! Say, ain’t you game? Come on! It’s a crime to send me away
without you. How can you do it?"
"I can’t -- I’m
afraid," she faltered.
"You’ll marry me,
then?"
"Yes!" she
whispered. "What is the latest day you can start?"
"Next Saturday, if
we go in the car ---- "
"All right,"
-- she was looking straight into the depths of his soul now -- "next
Saturday."
He clasped her in his
arms and held her with desperate tenderness.
The consummation of her
life’s dream was too near, too sweet and wonderful for Jane’s croakings to distress
Mary Adams beyond the moment. She had, of course, wished her friend to be
present at the wedding -- yet the curt refusal had only aroused anew her pity
at stupid prejudices. It was out of the question to ask her father to leave his
work in the Kentucky mountains and come all the way to New York. She would
surprise him with the announcement. After all, she was the one human being
vitally concerned in this affair, and the only one save the man whose life
would be joined to hers.
In five minutes after
the painful scene with Jane she had completely regained her composure, and her
face was radiant with happiness when she waved to Jim. He was standing before
the door in the car, waiting to take her to the City Hall to get the marriage
license.
"Gee!" he
cried, "you’re the prettiest, sweetest thing that ever walked this earth,
with those cheeks all flaming like a rose! Are you happy?"
"Gloriously."
She motioned him to
keep his seat and sprang lightly to his side.
"Aren’t you happy,
sir?" she added gayly.
"I am, yes -- but
to tell you the truth, I’m beginning to get scared. You know what to do, don’t
you, when we get before that preacher?"
"Of course, silly
---- "
"I never saw a
wedding in my life."
She pressed his hand
tenderly.
"Honestly,
Jim?"
"I swear it. You’ll
have to tell me how to behave."
"We’ll rehearse it
all tonight. I’ll show you. I’ve seen hundreds of people married. My father’s a
preacher, you know."
"Yes, I know
that," he went on solemnly; "that’s what gives me courage. I knew you’d
understand everything. I’m counting on you, Kiddo -- if you fall down, we’re
gone. I’ll run like a turkey."
"It’s easy,"
she laughed.
"And this license
business -- how do we go about that? What’ll they do to us?"
"Nothing, goose!
We just march up to the clerk and demand the license. He asks us a lot of
questions ---- "
"Questions! What
sort of questions?"
"The names of your
father and mother -- whether you’ve been married before and where you live and
how old you are ---- "
"Ask you about
your business?" he interrupted, sharply.
"No. They think if
you can pay the license fee you can support your wife, I suppose."
"How much is
it?"
"I don’t know,
here. It used to be two dollars in Kentucky."
"That’s cheap --
must come higher in this burg. I brought along a hundred."
"Nonsense."
"There’s a lot of
graft in this town. I’ll be ready. I’ve got to get ’em -- don’t care how high
they come."
"There’ll be no
graft in this, Jim," she protested gayly.
"Well, it’ll be
the first time I ever got by without it -- believe me!"
The ease with which the
license was obtained was more than Jim could understand. All the way back from
the City Hall he expected to be held up at every corner. He kept looking over his
shoulder to see if they were being followed.
Arrived in her room,
they discussed their plans for the day of days.
"I’ll come round
soon in the morning, and we’ll spend the whole day at the Beach," he
suggested.
She lifted her hands in
protest.
"No -- no!"
"No?"
"Not on our
wedding-day, Jim!"
"Why?"
"It’s not good
form. The groom should not see the bride that day until they meet at the
altar."
"Let’s change
it!"
"No, sir, the old
way’s the best. I’ll spend the day in saying good-by to the past. You’ll call
for me at six o’clock. We’ll go to Dr. Craddock’s house and be married in time
for our wedding dinner."
The lover smiled, and
his drooping eyelids fell still lower as he watched her intently.
"I want that
dinner here in this little place, Kiddo ---- "
She blushed and
protested.
"I thought we’d go
to the Beach and spend the night there."
"Here, girlie,
here! I love this little place -- it’s so like you. Get the old wild-cat who
cleans up for you to fix us a dinner here all by ourselves -- wouldn’t
she?"
"She’d do anything
for me -- yes."
"Then fix it here
-- I want to be just with you -- don’t you understand?"
"Yes," she
whispered. "But I’d rather spend that first day of our new life in a
strange place -- and the Beach we both love -- hadn’t you just as leave go
there, Jim?"
"No. The waiters
will stare at us, and hear us talk ---- "
"We can have our
meals served in our room.
"This is
better," he insisted. "I want to spend one day here alone with you,
before we go -- just to feel that you’re all mine. You see, if I walk in here
and own the place, I’ll know that better than any other way. I’ve just set my
heart on it, Kiddo -- what’s the difference?"
She lifted her lips to
his.
"All right, dear.
It shall be as you wish. Tomorrow I will be all yours -- in life, in death, in
eternity. Your happiness will be the one thing for which I shall plan and
work."
Ella was very happy in
the honor conferred on her. She was given entire charge of the place, and spent
the day in feverish preparation for the dinner. She insisted on borrowing a
larger table from the little fat woman next door, to hold the extra dishes. She
dressed herself in her best. Her raven black hair was pressed smooth and shining
down the sides of her pale temples.
The work was completed
by three o’clock in the afternoon, and Mary lay in her window lazily watching
the crowds scurrying home. The offices closed early on Saturday afternoons.
Ella was puttering
about the room, adding little touches here and there in a pretense of still
being busy. As a matter of fact, she was watching the girl from her one eye
with a wistful tenderness she had not dared as yet to express in words. Twice
Mary had turned suddenly and seen her thus. Each time Ella had started as if
caught in some act of mischief and asked an irrelevant question to relieve her
embarrassment.
Mary could feel her
single eye fixed on her now in a deep, brooding look. It made her
uncomfortable.
She turned slowly and
spoke in gentle tones.
"You’ve been so
sweet to me today, Ella -- father and mother and best friend. I’ll never forget
your kindness. You’d better rest awhile now until we go to Dr. Craddock’s. I
want you to be there, too ---- "
"To see the
marriage -- ja?" she asked softly.
"Yes."
"Oh, no, my dear,
no -- I stay here and wait for you to come. I keep the lights burning bright. I
welcome the bride and groom to their little home -- ja."
A quick glance of
suspicion shot from Mary’s blue eyes. Could it be possible that this forlorn
scrubwoman would carry her hostility to her lover to the same point of
ungracious refusal to witness the ceremony? It was nonsense, of course. Ella
would feel out of place in the minister’s parlor, that was all. She wouldn’t
insist.
"All right, Ella;
you can receive us here with ceremony. You’ll be our maid, butler, my father,
my mother and my friends!"
There was a moment’s
silence and still no move on Ella’s part to go. The girl felt her single eye
again fixed on her in mysterious, wistful gaze. She would send her away if it
were possible without hurting her feelings.
Mary lifted her eyes
suddenly, and Ella stirred awkwardly and smiled.
"I hope you are very
happy, meine liebe -- ja?
"I couldn’t be
happier if I were in Heaven," was the quick answer.
"I’m so glad ----
"
Again an awkward pause.
"I was once young
and pretty like you, meine liebe," she began dreamily, " -- slim and
straight and jolly -- always laughing."
Mary held her breath in
eager expectancy. Ella was going to lift the veil from the mystery of her life,
stirred by memories which the coming wedding had evoked.
"And you had a
thrilling romance -- Ella? I always felt it."
Again silence, and then
in low tones the woman told her story.
"Ja -- a romance,
too. I was so young and foolish -- just a baby myself -- not sixteen. But I was
full of life and fun, and I had a way of doing what I pleased.
"The man was older
than me -- Oh, a lot older -- with gray hairs on the side of his head. I was
wild about him. I never took to kids. They didn’t seem to like me ---- "
She paused as if
hesitating to give her full confidence, and quickly went on:
"My folks were
German. They couldn’t speak English. I learned when I was five years old. They
didn’t like my lover. We quarrel day and night. I say they didn’t like him
because they could not speak his language. They say he was bad. I fight for
him, and run away and marry him ---- "
Again she paused and
drew a deep breath.
"Ah, I was one
happy little fool that year! He make good wages on the docks -- a stevedore.
They had a strike, and he got to drinking. The baby came ---- "
She stopped suddenly.
"You had a little
baby, Ella?" the girl asked in a tender whisper.
"Ja -- ja"
she sobbed -- "so sweet, so good -- so quiet -- so beautiful she was. I
was very happy -- like a little girl with a doll -- only she laugh and cry and
coo and pull my hair! He stop the drink a little while when she come, and he
got work. And then he begin worse and worse. It seem like he never loved me any
more after the baby. He curse me, he quarrel. He begin to strike me sometimes.
I laugh and cry at first and make up and try again ---- "
Again she paused as if
for courage to go on, and choked into silence.
"Yes -- and
then?" the girl asked.
"And then he come
home one night wild drunk. He stumble and fall across the cradle and hurt my
baby so she never cry -- just lie still and tremble -- her eyes wide open at first
and then they droop and close and she die!
"He laugh and
curse and strike me, and I fight him like a tiger. He was strong -- he throw me
down on the floor and gouge my eye out with his big claw ---- "
"Oh, my God,"
Mary sobbed.
Ella sprang to her feet
and bent over the girl with trembling eagerness.
"You keep my
secret, meine liebe?"
"Yes -- yes ----
"
"I never tell a
soul on earth what I tell you now -- I just eat my heart out and keep still all
the years, I can tell you -- ja?"
"Yes, I’ll keep it
sacred -- go on ---- "
"When I know he
gouge my eye out, I go wild. I get my hand on his throat and choke him still. I
drag him to the stairs and throw him head first all the way down to the bottom.
He fall in a heap and lie still. I run down and drag him to the door. I kick
his face and he never move. He was dead. I kick him again -- and again. And
then I laugh -- I laugh -- I laugh in his dead face -- I was so glad I kill
him!"
She sank in a paroxysm
of sobs on the floor, and the girl touched her smooth black hair tenderly,
strangled with her own emotions.
Ella rose at last and
brushed the tears from her hollow cheeks.
"Now, you know,
meine liebe! Why I tell you this today, I don’t know -- maybe I must! I dream
once like you dream today ---- "
The girl slipped her
arms around the drooping, pathetic figure and stroked it tenderly.
"The sunshine is
for some, maybe," Ella went on pathetically; "for some the clouds and
the storms. I hope you are very, very happy today and all the days ---- "
"I will be, Ella,
I’m sure. I’ll always love you after this."
"Maybe I make you
sad because I tell you ---- "
"No -- no! I’m
glad you told me. The knowledge of your sorrow will make my life the sweeter. I
shall be more humble in my joy."
It never occurred to
the girl for a moment that this lonely, broken woman had torn her soul’s
deepest secret open in a last pathetic effort to warn her of the danger of her
marriage. The wistful, help less look in her eye meant to Mary only the anguish
of memories. Each human heart persists in learning the big lessons of life at
first hand. We refuse to learn any other way. The tragedies of others interest
us as fiction. We make the application to others -- never to ourselves.
Jim’s familiar footstep
echoed through the hall, and Mary sprang to the door with a cry of joy.
Ella hurried into the
kitchenette and busied herself with dinner. Jim’s unexpectedly early arrival
broke the spell of the tragedy to which Mary had listened with breathless
sympathy. Her own future she faced without a shadow of doubt or fear.
Her reproaches to Jim
were entirely perfunctory, on the sin of his early call on their wedding-day.
"Naughty
boy!" she cried with mock severity. "At this unseemly hour!"
He glanced about the
room nervously.
"Anybody in
there?"
He nodded toward the
kitchenette.
"Only Ella ----
"
"Send her
away."
"What’s the
matter?"
"Quick, Kiddo --
quick!"
Mary let Ella out from
the little private hall without her seeing Jim, and returned.
"For heaven’s
sake, man, what ails you?" she asked excitedly.
"Say -- I forgot
that thing already. We got to go over it again. What if I miss it?"
"The
ceremony?"
"Yep ---- "
He mopped his brow and
looked at his watch.
"By the time we
get to that preacher’s house, I won’t know my first name if you don’t help
me."
Mary laughed softly and
kissed him.
"You can’t miss
it. All you’ve got to do is say, ‘I will’ when he asks you the question, put
the ring on my finger when he tells you, and repeat the words after him -- he
and I will do the rest."
"Say my question
over again."
"‘Wilt thou have
this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance, in the
holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her
in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her,
so long as ye both shall live?’"
She looked at him and
laughed.
"Why don’t you
answer?"
"Now?"
"Yes -- that’s the
end of the question. Say, ‘I will.’"
"Oh, I will all
right! What scares me is that I’ll jump in on him and say ‘I will’ before he
gets halfway through. Seems to me when he says, ‘Wilt thou have this woman to
be thy wedded wife?’ I’ll just have to choke myself there to keep from saying, ‘You
bet your life I will, Parson!’"
"It won’t hurt
anything if you say, ‘I will’ several times," she assured him.
"It wouldn’t queer
the job?"
"Not in the least.
I’ve often heard them say, ‘I will’ two or three times. Wait until you hear the
words, ‘so long as ye both shall live ---- ’"
"‘So long as ye
both shall live,’" he repeated solemnly.
"The other speech
you say after the minister."
"He won’t bite off
more than I can chew at one time, will he?"
"No, silly -- just
a few words ---- "
"Because if he
does, I’ll choke."
Jim drew his watch
again, mopped his brow, and gazed at Mary’s serene face with wonder.
"Say, Kiddo, you’re
immense -- you’re as cool as a cucumber!"
"Of course. Why
not? It’s my day of joy and perfect peace -- the day I’ve dreamed of since the
dawn of maidenhood. I’m marrying the man of my choice -- the one man God made
for me of all men on earth. I know this -- I’m content."
"Let me hang
around here till time -- won’t you?" he asked helplessly.
"We must have Ella
come back to fix the table."
"Sure. I just didn’t
want her to hear me tell you that I had cold feet. I’m better now."
Ella moved about the
room with soft tread, watching Jim with sullen, concentrated gaze when he was
not looking.
The lovers sat on the
couch beside the window, holding each other’s hands and watching in silence the
hurrying crowds pass below. Now that his panic was over, Jim began to breathe
more freely, and the time swiftly passed.
As the shadows slowly
fell, they rang the bell at the parson’s house beside the church, and his good
wife ushered them into the parlor. The little Craddocks crowded in -- six of
them, two girls and four boys, their ages ranging from five to nineteen.
Sweet memories crowded
the girl’s heart from her happy childhood. She had never missed one of these
affairs at home. Her father was a very popular minister and his home the Mecca
of lovers for miles around.
Craddock, like her
father, was inclined to be conservative in his forms. Marriage he held with the
old theologians to be a holy sacrament. He never used the new-fangled marriage
vows. He stuck to the formula of the Book of Common Prayer.
When she stood before
the preacher in this beautiful familiar scene which she had witnessed so many
times at home, Mary’s heart beat with a joy that was positively silly. She
tried to be serious, and the dimple would come in her cheek in spite of every
effort.
As Craddock’s musical
voice began the opening address, the memory of a foolish incident in her father’s
life flashed through her mind, and she wondered if Jim in his excitement had
forgotten his pocket-book and couldn’t pay the preacher.
"Dearly
beloved," he began, "we are gathered together here in the sight of
God ---- "
Mary tried to remember
that she was in the sight of God, but she was so foolishly happy she could only
remember that funny scene. A long-legged Kentucky mountain bridegroom at the
close of the ceremony had turned to her father and drawled:
"Well, parson, I
ain’t got no money with me -- but I want to give ye five dollars. I’ve got a
fine dawg. He’s worth ten. I’ll send him to ye fur five -- if it’s all
right?"
The children had
giggled and her father blushed.
"Oh, that’s all
right," he had answered. "Money’s no matter. Forget the five. I hope
you’ll be very happy."
Two weeks later a crate
containing the dog had come by express. On the tag was scrawled:
Dear Parson: -- I like
Nancy so well, I send ye the hole dawg, anyhow.
She hadn’t a doubt that
Jim would feel the same way -- but she hoped he hadn’t forgotten his
pocketbook.
The scene had flashed
through her mind in a single moment. She had bitten her lips and kept from
laughing by a supreme effort. Not a word of the solemn ceremonial, however, had
escaped her consciousness.
"And in the face
of this company," the preacher’s rich voice was saying, "to join
together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is commended of St.
Paul to be honorable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be entered
into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly,
and in the fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons present come
now to be joined. If any man can show just cause, why they may not lawfully be
joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his
peace."
Craddock paused, and
his piercing eyes searched the man and woman before him.
"I require to
charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the
secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any
impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, ye do now
confess it ---- "
Again he paused. The
perspiration stood in beads on Jim’s forehead, and he glanced uneasily at Mary
from the corners of his drooping eyes. A smile was playing about her mouth, and
Jim was cheered.
"For be ye well
assured," the preacher continued, "that if any persons are joined
together otherwise than as God’s Word doth allow, their marriage is not
lawful."
He turned with
deliberation to Jim and transfixed him with the first question of the ceremony.
The groom was hypnotized into a state of abject terror. His ears heard the
words; the mind recorded but the vaguest idea of what they meant.
"Wilt thou have
this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the
holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her
in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her,
so long as ye both shall live?"
Jim’s mouth was open;
his lower jaw had dropped in dazed awe, and he continued to stare straight into
the preacher’s face until Mary pressed his arm and whispered:
"Jim!"
"I will -- yes, I
will -- you bet I will!" he hastened to answer.
The children giggled,
and the preacher’s lips twitched.
He turned quickly to
Mary.
"Wilt thou have
this Man to thy wedded husband, to live together after God’s ordinance, in the
holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and
keep him in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only
unto him, so long as ye both shall live?"
With quick, clear
voice, Mary answered:
"I will."
"Please join your
right hands and repeat after me:"
He fixed Jim with his
gaze and spoke with deliberation, clause by clause:
"I, James, take
thee, Mary, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for
better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love
and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and
thereto I plight thee my troth."
Jim’s throat at first
was husky with fear, but he caught each clause with quick precision and
repeated them without a hitch.
He smiled and
congratulated himself: "I got ye that time, old cull!"
The preacher’s eyes
sought Mary’s:
"I, Mary, take
thee, James, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward,
for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love,
cherish, and to obey, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance;
and thereto I give thee my troth."
In the sweetest musical
voice, quivering with happiness, the girl repeated the words.
Again the preacher’s
eyes sought Jim’s:
And the Man shall give
unto the Woman a ring ----
The groom fumbled in
his pocket and found at last the ring, which he handed to Mary. The minister at
once took it from her hand and handed it back to Jim.
The bride lifted her
left hand, deftly extending the fourth finger, and the groom slipped the ring
on, and held it firmly gripped as he had been instructed.
"With this ring I
thee wed ---- "
"With this ring I
thee wed ---- " Jim repeated firmly.
" ---- and with
all my worldly goods I thee endow ---- "
" ---- and with
all my worldly goods I thee endow ---- "
"In the Name of
the Father ---- "
"In the Name of
the Father ---- "
" ---- and of the
Son ---- "
" ---- and of the
Son ---- "
" ---- and of the
Holy Ghost ---- "
" ---- and of the
Holy Ghost ---- "
"Amen!"
"Amen!"
The voice of the
preacher’s prayer that followed rang far-away and unreal to the heart of the
girl. Her vivid imagination had leaped the years. Her spirit did not return to
earth and time and place until the minister seized her right hand and joined it
to Jim’s.
"Those whom God
hath joined together let no man put asunder!
"Forasmuch as
James Anthony and Mary Adams have consented together in holy wedlock, and have
witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and
pledged their troth, each to the other, and have declared the same by giving
and receiving a Ring, and by joining hands; I pronounce that they are Man and
Wife, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."
The preacher lifted his
hands solemnly above their heads.
"God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you; the Lord
mercifully with His favor look upon you, and fill you with all spiritual
benediction and grace; that ye may so live together in this life, that in the
world to come ye may have life everlasting. Amen."
The preacher took Mary’s
hand.
"Your father is my
friend, child. This is for him ---- "
He bent quickly and
kissed her lips, while Jim gasped in astonishment.
The minister’s wife
congratulated them both. The two older children smilingly advanced and added
their voices in good wishes.
Mary whispered to Jim:
"Don’t forget the
preacher’s fee!"
"Lord, how much?
Will fifty be enough? It’s all I’ve got."
"Give him twenty.
We’ll need the rest."
It was not until they
were seated in the waiting cab and sank back among the shadows, that Jim
crushed her in his arms and kissed her until she cried for mercy.
"The gall of that
preacher, kissing you!" he muttered savagely. "You know, I come
within an ace of pasting him one on the nose!"
The lights burned in
the hall with unusual brightness. Ella stood in the open door of the room,
through which the light was streaming. With its radiance came the perfume of
roses -- the scrub-woman’s gift of love. The room was a bower of gorgeous
flowers. She had spent her last cent in this extravagance. Mary swept the place
with a look of amazement.
"Oh, Ella,"
she cried, "how could you be so silly!"
"You like them,
ja?" Ella asked softly.
"They’re glorious
-- but you should not have made such a sacrifice for me."
"For myself,
maybe, I do it -- all for myself to make me happy, too, tonight."
She dismissed the
subject with a wave of her hand and placed the chairs beside the beautifully
set table.
"Dinner is all
ready," she announced cheerfully. "And shall I go now and leave you?
Or will you let me serve your dinner first?"
A sudden panic seized
the bride.
"Stay and serve
the dinner, Ella, if you will," she quickly answered.
Jim frowned, but seated
himself in business-like fashion.
"All right; I’m
ready for it, old girl!"
With soft tread and
swift, deft touch, Ella served the dinner, standing prim and stiff and
ghost-like behind Jim’s chair between the courses.
The bride watched her,
fascinated by the pallor of her haggard face and the queer suggestion of Death
which her appearance made in spite of the background of flowers. She had
dressed herself in a simple skirt and shirtwaist of spotless white. The
material seemed to be draped on her tall figure, thin to emaciation. The
chalk-like pallor of her face brought out with startling sharpness the deep,
hollow caverns beneath her straight eyebrows. Her single eye shone unusually
bright.
Gradually the grim
impression grew that Death was hovering over her bridal feast -- a foolish
fancy which persisted in her highly-wrought nervous state. Yet the idea, once
fixed, could not be crushed. In vain she used her will to bring her wandering
mind back to the joyous present. Each time she lifted her eyes they rested upon
the silent, white figure with its single eye piercing the depths of her soul.
She could endure it no
longer. She nodded and smiled wanly at Ella.
"You may go
now!"
The woman gazed at the
bride in surprise.
"I shall come
again -- yes?"
"Tomorrow morning,
Ella, you may help me."
The white figure paused
uncertainly at the door, and her drawling voice breathed her parting word
tenderly:
"Good night!"
The bride closed her
eyes and answered.
"Good night,
Ella!"
The door closed. Jim
rose quickly and bolted it.
"Thank God!"
he exclaimed fervently. He fixed his slumbering eyes on his wife for a moment,
saw the frightened look, walked quickly back to the table and took his seat.
"Now, Kiddo, we
can eat in peace."
"Yes, I’d rather
be alone," she sighed.
"I must say,"
Jim went on briskly, "that parson of yours did give us a run for our
money."
"I like the old,
long ceremony best."
"Well, you see, I
ain’t never had much choice -- but do you know what I thought was the best
thing in it?"
"No -- what?"
"Until death do us
part! Gee how he did ring out on that! His voice sounded to me like a big bell
somewhere away up in the clouds. Did you hear me sing it back at him?"
Mary smiled nervously.
"You had found
your voice then."
"You bet I had! I
muffed that first one, though, didn’t I?"
"A little. It didn’t
matter." She answered mechanically.
He fixed his eyes on
her again.
"Hungry,
Kiddo?"
"No," she
gasped.
"What’s the
use!" he cried in low, vibrant tones, springing to his feet. "I don’t
want to eat this stuff -- I just want to eat you!"
Mary rose tremblingly
and moved instinctively to meet him.
He clasped her form in
his arms and crushed with cruel strength.
"Until death do us
part!" he whispered passionately.
She answered with a
kiss.
It was eleven o’clock
next morning before Ella ventured to rap softly on the door. They had just
finished breakfast. The bride was clearing up the table, humming a song of her
childhood.
Jim caught her in his
arms.
"Once more before
she comes!"
"Don’t kill
me!" she laughed.
Jim lounged in the
window and smoked his cigarette while Ella and Mary chattered in the
kitchenette.
In half an hour the
scrub-woman had made her last trip with the extra dishes, and the little home
was spick and span.
Mary sprang on the couch
and snuggled into Jim’s arms.
"I’ve changed our
plans ---- " he began thoughtfully.
"We won’t give up
our honeymoon trip?" she cried in alarm. "That’s one dream we must
live, Jim, dear. I’ve set my heart on it."
"Sure we will --
sure," he answered quickly. "But not in that car."
"Why?"
Jim grinned.
"Because I like
you better -- you get me, Kiddo?"
She pressed close and
whispered:
"I think so."
"You see, that
fool car might throw a tire or two. Believe me, it’ll be a job to have her on my
hands for a thousand miles. Of course, if I didn’t know you, little girl, it
would be all sorts of fun. But, honest to God, this game beats the world."
He bent low and kissed
her again.
"Where’ll we go,
then?" she murmured.
"That’s what I’m
tryin’ to dope out. I like the sea. It lulls me just like whisky puts a
drunkard to sleep. I wish we could get where it’s bright and warm and the sun
shines all the time. We could stay two weeks and then jump on the train and be
in Asheville the day before Christmas."
Mary sprang up
excitedly.
"I have it! We’ll
go to Florida -- away down to the Keys. It’s the dream of my life to go
there!"
"The Keys what’s
that?" he asked, puzzled.
"The Keys are
little sand islands and reefs that jut out into the warm waters of the Gulf of
Mexico. The railroad takes us right there."
"It’s warm and
sunny there now?"
"Just like summer
up here. We can go in bathing in the surf every day."
Jim sprang to his feet.
"Got a bathing
suit?"
Yes -- a beauty. I’ve
never worn it here."
"Why?"
"It seemed so
bold."
"All right. Maybe
we can get a Key all by ourselves for two weeks."
"Wouldn’t it be
glorious!"
"We’ll try it,
anyhow. I’ll buy the doggoned thing if they don’t ask too much. Pack your
traps. I’ll go down to the shop and get my things. We’ll be ready to start in
an hour."
By four o’clock they
were seated in the drawing- room of a Pullman car on the Florida Limited,
gazing entranced at the drab landscape of the Jersey meadows.
Three days later, Jim
had landed his boat on a tiny sand reef a half-mile off the coast of Florida
with a tent and complete outfit for camping. Like two romping children, they
tied the boat to a stake and rushed over the sand-dunes to the beach. They
explored their domain from end to end within an hour. Not a tree obscured the
endless panorama of sea and bay and waving grass on the great solemn marshes.
Piles of soft, warm seaweed lay in long, dark rows along the high-tide mark.
Mary selected a
sand-dune almost exactly the height and shape of the one on which they sat at
Long Beach the day he told her of his love.
"Here’s the spot
for our home!" she cried. "Don’t you recognize it?"
"Can’t say I’ve
ever been here before. Oh, I got you -- I got you! Long Beach -- sure! What do
you think of that?"
He hurried to the boat
and brought the tent. Mary carried the spade, the pole and pegs.
In half an hour the
little white home was shining on the level sand at the foot of their favorite
dune. The door was set toward the open sea, and the stove securely placed
beneath an awning which shaded it from the sun’s rays.
"Now, Kiddo, a
plunge in that shining water the first thing. I’ll give you the tent. I’ll
chuck my things out here."
In a fever of joyous
haste she threw off her clothes and donned the dainty, one-piece bathing suit.
She flew over the sand and plunged into the water before Jim had finished
changing to his suit.
She was swimming and
diving like a duck in the lazy, beautiful waters of the Gulf when he reached
the beach.
"Come on! Come
on!" she shouted.
He waved his hand and
finished his cigarette.
"It’s glorious! It’s
mid-summer!" she called.
With a quick plunge he
dived into the water, disappeared and stayed until she began to scan the
surface uneasily. With a splash he rose by her side, lifting her screaming in
his arms. Her bathing-cap was brushed off, and he seized her long hair in his
mouth, turned and with swift, strong beat carried her unresisting body to the
beach.
He drew her erect and
looked into her smiling face.
"That’s the way I’d
save you if you had called for help. How’d you like it?"
"It was sweet to
give up and feel myself in your power, dear!"
His drooping eyes were
devouring her exquisite figure outlined so perfectly in the clinging suit.
"I was afraid to
wear this in New York," she said demurely.
"I can’t blame
you. If you’d ever have gone on the beach at Coney Island in that, there’d have
been a riot."
He lifted her in his
arms and kissed her.
"And you’re all
mine, Kiddo! It’s too good to be true! I’m afraid to wake up mornings now for
fear I’ll find I’ve just been dreaming."
They plunged again in
the water, and side by side swam far out from the shore, circled gracefully and
returned.
Hours they spent
snuggling in the warm sand. Not a sound of the world beyond the bay broke the
stillness. The music of the water’s soft sighing came on their ears in sweet,
endless cadence. The wind was gentle and brushed their cheeks with the softest
caress. Far out at sea, white-winged sails were spread -- so far away they
seemed to stand in one spot forever. The deep cry of an ocean steamer broke the
stillness at last.
"We must dress for
dinner, Jim!" she sighed.
"Why, Kiddo?"
"We must eat, you
know."
"But why dress? I
like that style on you. It’s too much trouble to dress."
"All right!"
she cried gayly. "We’ll have a little informal dinner this evening. I love
to feel the sand under my feet."
He gathered the wood
from the dry drifts above the waterline and kindled a fire. The salt-soaked
sticks burned fiercely, and the dinner was cooked in a jiffy -- a fresh chicken
he had bought, sweet potatoes, and delicious buttered toast.
They sat in their
bathing suits on camp-stools beside the folding table and ate by moonlight.
The dinner finished,
Mary cleared the wooden dishes while Jim brought heaps of the dry, spongy sea
grass and made a bed in the tent. He piled it two feet high, packed it down to
a foot, and then spread the sheets and blankets.
"All ready for a
stroll down the avenue, Kiddo?" he called from the door.
"Fifth Avenue or
Broadway?" she laughed.
"Oh, the Great
White Way -- you couldn’t miss it! Just look at the shimmer of the moon on the
sands! Ain’t it great?"
Hand in hand, they
strolled on the beach and bathed in the silent flood of the moonlit night -- no
prying eyes near save the stars of the friendly southern skies.
"The moon seems
different down here, Jim!" she whispered.
"It is
different," he answered with boyish enthusiasm. "It’s all so still
and white!"
"Could we stay
here forever?"
He shook his head
emphatically.
"Not on your life.
This little boy has to work, you know. Old man John D. Rockefeller might, but
it’s early for a young financier to retire."
"A whole week,
then?"
"Sure! For a week
we’ll forget New York."
They sat down on the
sand-dune behind the tent and watched the waters flash in the silvery light,
the world and its fevered life forgotten.
"You’re the only
thing real tonight, Jim!" she sighed.
"And you’re the
world for me, Kiddo!"
She waked at dawn, with
a queer feeling of awe at the weird, gray light which filtered through the
cotton walls. A sense of oneness with Nature and the beat of Her eternal heart
filled her soul. The soft wash of the water on the sands seemed to be keeping
time to the throb of her own pulse.
She peered curiously
into the face of her sleeping lover. She had never seen him asleep before. She
started at the transformation wrought by the closing of his heavy eyelids and
the complete relaxation of his features. The strange, steel-blue coloring of
his eyes had always given his face an air of mystery and charm. The complete
closing of the heavy lids and the slight droop of the lower jaw had worked a
frightful change. The romance and charm had gone, and instead she saw only the
coarse, brutal strength.
She frowned like a
spoiled child, put her dainty hand under his chin and pressed his mouth
together.
"Wake up,
sir!" she whispered. "I don’t like your expression!"
He refused to stir, and
she drew the tips of her fingers across his ears and eyelids.
He rubbed his eyes and
muttered:
"What t’ell?"
"Let’s take a bath
in the sea before sunrise -- come on!"
The sleeper groaned
heavily, turned over, and in a moment was again dead to the world.
Mary’s eyes were wide
now with excitement. The hours were too marvelous to be lost in sleep. She
could sleep when they must return to the tiresome world with its endless crowds
of people.
She rose softly, ran
barefoot to the beach, threw her night-dress on the sand and plunged, her
white, young body trembling with joy, into the water.
It was marvelous --
this wonderful hush of the dawn over the infinite sea. The air and water melted
into a pearl gray. Far out toward the east, the waters began to blush at the
kiss of the coming sun. The pearl gray slowly turned into purple. So startling
was the vision, she swam in-shore and stood knee-deep in the shallows to watch
the magic changes. In breathless wonder she saw the sea and sky and shore turn
into a trembling cloud of dazzling purple. A moment before, she had caught the
water up in her hand and poured it out in a stream of pearls. She lifted a
handful and poured it out now, each drop a dazzling amethyst. And even while
she looked, the purple was changing to scarlet -- the amethyst into rubies!
A great awe filled her
in the solemn hush. She stood in Nature’s vast cathedral, close to God’s heart
-- her life in harmony with His eternal laws.
How foolish and
artificial were the ways of the far-away, drab, prosaic world of clothes and
houses and furnishings! If she could only live forever in this dream-world!
Even while the thought
surged through her heart, she lifted her head and saw the red rim of the sun
suddenly break through the sea, and started lest the white light of day had
revealed her to some passing boatman hurrying to his nets.
Her keen eye quickly
swept the circle of the wide, silent world of sand-dunes, marsh and waters. No
prying eye was near. Only the morning star still gleaming above saw. And they
were twin sisters.
Four days flew on
velvet wings before the first cloud threw its shadow across her life. Jim
always slept until nine o’clock, and refused with dogged good- natured
indifference to stir when she had asked him to get the wood for breakfast. It
was nothing, of course, to walk a hundred yards to the beach and pick up the
wood, and she did it. The hurt that stung was the feeling that he was growing
indifferent.
She felt for the first
time an impulse to box his lazy jaws as he yawned and turned over for the
dozenth time without rising. He looked for all the world like a bulldog curled
up on his bed of grass.
She shook him at last.
"Jim, dear, you
must get up now! Breakfast is almost ready and it won’t be fit to eat if you
don’t come on."
He opened his heavy
eyelids and gazed at her sleepily.
"All righto ---- !
Just as you say -- just as you say."
"Hurry! Breakfast
will be ready before you can dress."
"Gee! Breakfast
all ready! You’re one smart little wifie, Kiddo."
The compliment failed
to please. She was sure that he had been fully awake twice before and pretended
to be asleep from sheer laziness and indifference.
The thought hurt.
When they sat down at
last to breakfast, she looked into his half-closed eyes with a sudden start.
"Why, Jim, your
eyes are red!"
"Yes?"
"What’s the
matter?"
"Nothing."
"You’re ill --
what is it?"
He grinned sheepishly.
"You couldn’t
guess now, could you?"
"You haven’t been
drinking!" she gasped.
"No," he
drawled lazily, "I wouldn’t say drinking -- I just took one big swallow
last night -- makes you sleep good when you’re tired. Good medicine! I always
carry a little with me."
A sickening wave went
over her. Not that she felt that he was going to be a drunkard. But the utter
indifference with which he made the announcement was a painful revelation of
the fact that her opinion on such a question was not of the slightest importance.
That he was now master of the situation he evidently meant that she should see
and understand at once.
She refused to accept
the humiliating position without a struggle and made up her mind to try at once
to mold his character. She would begin by getting him to cut the slang from his
conversation.
"You remember the
promise you made me one day before we were married, Jim?" she asked
brightly.
"Which one? You
know a fellow’s not responsible for what he promises to get his girl. All’s
fair in love and war, they say ---- "
"I’m going to hold
you to this one, sir," she firmly declared.
"All right, little
bright eyes," he responded cheerfully as he lit a cigarette and sent the
smoke curling above his red head.
She sat for a while in
silence, studying the man before her. The task was delicate and difficult. And
she had thought it a mere pastime of love! As her fiance, he had been wax in
her hands. As her husband, he was a lazy, headstrong, obstinate young animal
grinning good-naturedly at her futile protests. How long would he grin and bear
her suggestions with patience? The transition from this lazy grin to the growl
of an angry bulldog might be instantaneous.
She would move with the
utmost caution -- but she would move and at once. It would be a test of
character between them. She edged her chair close to his, drew his head down in
her lap and ran her fingers through his thick, red hair.
"Still love me,
Jim?" she smiled.
"Crazier over you
every day -- and you know it, too, you sly little puss," he answered
dreamily.
"You will make
good your promises?"
"Sure, I will --
surest thing you know!"
"You see, Jim
dear," she went on tenderly, "I want to be proud of you ---- "
"Well, ain’t
you?"
"Of course I am,
silly. I know you and understand you. But I want all the world to respect you
as I do." She paused and breathed deeply. "They’ve got to do it, too,
they’ve got to ---- "
"Sure, I’ll knock
their block off -- if they don’t!" he broke in.
She raised her finger
reprovingly and shook her head.
"That’s just the
trouble: you can’t do it with your fists. You can’t compel the respect of
cultured men and women by physical force. We’ve got to win with other
weapons."
"All right, Kiddo
-- dope it out for me," he responded lazily. "Dope it out ---- "
Her lips quivered with
the painful recognition of the task before her. Yet when she spoke, her voice
was low and sweet and its tones even. She gave no sign to the man whose heavy
form rested in her arms.
"Then from today
we must begin to cut out every word of slang -- it’s a bargain?"
"Sure, Mike -- I
promised!"
"Cut ‘Sure Mike!’"
She raised her finger
severely.
"All right,
teacher," he drawled. "What’ll we put in Sure Mike’s place? I’ve
found him a handy man!"
"Say ‘certainly.’"
Jim grinned
good-naturedly.
"Aw hell, Kiddo --
that sounds punk!"
"And hell, Jim,
isn’t a nice word ---- "
"Gee, Kid, now
look here -- can’t get along with out hell -- leave me that one just a little
while."
She shook her head.
"No."
"No?"
"And punk is
expressive, but not suited to parlor use."
"All right -- t’ell
with punk!" He turned and looked. "What’s the matter now?" he
asked.
"Don’t you realize
what you’ve just said?"
"What did I
say?"
She turned away to hide
a tear.
He threw his arms
around her neck and drew her lips down to his.
"Ah, don’t worry,
Kiddo -- I’ll do better next time. Honest to God, I will. That’s enough for
today. Just let’s love now. T’ell with the rest."
She smiled in answer.
"You promise to
try honestly?"
He raised his hand in
solemn vow.
"S’help me!"
Each day’s trial ended
in a laugh and a kiss until at last Jim refused to promise any more. He grinned
in obstinate, good-natured silence and let her do the worrying.
She watched him with
growing wonder and alarm. He gradually lapsed into little coarse, ugly habits
at the table. She tried playfully to correct them. He took it good-naturedly at
first and then ignored her suggestions as if she were a kitten complaining at
his feet.
She studied him with
baffling rage at the mystery of his personality. The long silences between them
grew from hour to hour. She could see that he was restless now at the isolation
of their sand-island home. The queer lights and shadows that played in his cold
blue eyes told only too plainly that his mind was back again in the world of
battle. He was fighting something, too.
She was glad of it. She
could manage him better there. She would throw him into the company of educated
people and rouse his pride and ambition. She heard his announcement of their
departure on the eighth day with positive joy.
"Well,
Kiddo," he began briskly, "we’ve got to be moving. Time to get back
to work now. The old town and the little shop down in Avenue B have been
calling me."
"Today, Jim?"
she asked quickly.
"Right away. We’ll
catch the first train north, stop two days, Christmas Eve and Christmas, in
Asheville, and then for old New York!"
The journey along the
new railroad built on concrete bridges over miles of beautiful waters was one
of unalloyed joy. They had passed over this stretch of marvelous engineering at
night on their trip down and had not realized its wonders. For hours the train
seemed to be flying on velvet wings through the ocean.
She sat beside her
lover and held his hand. In spite of her enthusiasm, he would doze. At every
turn of entrancing view she would pinch his arm:
"Look, Jim!
Look!"
He would lift his heavy
eyelids, grunt good- naturedly and doze again.
In the dining-car she
was in mortal terror at first lest he should lapse into the coarse table
manners into which he had fallen in camp. She laid his napkin conspicuously on
his plate and saw that he had opened and put it in place across his lap before
ordering the meals.
The moment he found
himself in a crowd, the lights began to flash in his eyes, his broad shoulders
lifted and his whole being was at once alert and on guard. He followed his wife’s
lead with unerring certainty.
She renewed her faith
in his early reformation, though his character was a puzzle. He seemed to be
forever watching out of the corners of his slumbering eyes. She wondered what
it meant.
They arrived in
Asheville the night before Christmas Eve. Jim listened to his wife’s prattle
about the wonderful views with quiet indifference.
They stopped at the
Battery Park Hotel, and she hoped the waning moon would give them at least a
glimpse of the beautiful valley of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers and
the dark, towering ranges of mountains among the stars. She made Jim wait on
the balcony of the room for half an hour, but the clouds grew denser and he
persisted in nodding.
His head dipped lower
than usual, and she laughed.
"Poor old sleepy-head!"
"For the love o’
Mike, Kiddo -- me for the hay. Won’t them mountains wait till morning?"
"All right!"
she answered cheerily. "I’ll pull you out at sunrise. The sunrise from our
window will be glorious."
He rose and stretched
his body like a young, well fed tiger.
"I think it’s
prettier from the bed. But have it your own way -- have it your own way. I’ll
agree to anything if you lemme go to sleep now."
She rose as the first
gray fires of dawn began to warm the cloud-banks on the eastern horizon, stood
beside her window and watched in silent ecstasy. Jim was sleeping heavily. She
would not wake him until the glory of the sunrise was at its height. She loved
to watch the changing lights and shadows in sky and valley and on distant
mountain peaks as the light slowly filtered over the eastern hills.
She had recovered from
the depression of the last days of their camp. The journey back into the world
had improved Jim’s manners. There could be no doubt about his ambitions. His
determination to be a millionaire was the lever she now meant to work in
raising his social aspirations.
Why should she feel
depressed?
Their married life had
just begun. The two weeks they had passed on their honeymoon had been happy
beyond her dreams of happiness. Somehow her imagination had failed to give any
conception of the wonder and glory of this revelation of life. His little
lapses of selfishness on their sand island no doubt came from ignorance of what
was expected of him.
For one thing she felt
especially thankful. There had been no ugly confessions of a shady past to
cloud the joy of their love. Her lover might be ignorant of the ways of polite
society. He was equally free of its sinister vices. She thanked God for that.
The soul of the man she had married was clean of all memories of women. The
love he gave was fierce in its unrestrained passion -- but it was all hers. She
gloried in its strength.
She made up her mind,
standing there in the soft light of the dawn, that she would bend his iron will
to her own in the growing, sweet intimacy of their married life and threw her
fears to the winds.
The thin, fleecy clouds
that hung over the low range of the eastern foreground were all aglow now, with
every tint of the rainbow, while the sun’s bed beyond the hills was flaming in
scarlet and gold.
She clapped her hands
in ecstasy.
"Jim! Jim,
dear!"
He made no response,
and she rushed to his side and whispered:
"You must see this
sunrise -- get up quick, quick, dear. It’s wonderful."
"What’s the
matter?" he muttered.
"The sunrise over
the mountains -- quick -- it’s glorious."
His heavy eyelids
drooped and closed. He dropped on the pillow and buried his face out of sight.
"Ah, Jim dear, do
come -- just to please me."
"I’m dead, Kiddo
-- dead to the world," he sighed. "Don’t like to see the sun rise. I
never did. Come on back and let’s sleep ---- "
His last words were
barely audible. He was breathing heavily as his lips ceased to move.
She gave it up,
returned to the window and watched the changing colors until the white light
from the sun’s face had touched with life the last shadows of the valleys and
flashed its signals from the farthest towering peaks.
Her whole being
quivered in response to the beauty of this glorious mountain world. The air was
wine. She loved the sapphire skies and the warm, lazy, caressing touch of the
sun of the South.
A sense of bitterness
came, just for a moment, that the man she had chosen for her mate had no eye to
see these wonders and no ear to hear their music. During the madness of his
whirlwind courtship she had gotten the impression that his spirit was sensitive
to beauty -- to the waters of the bay, the sea and the wooded hills. She must
face the facts. Their stay on the island had convinced her that he had eyes
only for her. She must make the most of it.
It was ten o’clock
before Jim could be persuaded to rise and get breakfast. She literally pulled
him up the stairs to the observatory on the tower of the hotel.
"What’s the game,
Kiddo? What’s the game?" he grumbled.
"Ask me no
questions. But do just as I tell you; come on!"
Her face was radiant,
her hair in a tangle of riotous beauty about her forehead and temples, her eyes
sparkling.
"Don’t look till I
tell you!" she cried, as they emerged on the little minaret which crowns
the tower.
"Now open and see
the glory of the Lord!" she cried with joyous awe.
The day was one of
matchless beauty. The clouds that swung low in the early morning had floated
higher and higher till they hung now in shining billows above the highest
balsam-crowned peaks in the distance.
In every direction, as
far as the eye could reach, north, south, east, west, the dark ranges mounted
in the azure skies until the farthest dim lines melted into the heavens.
"Oh, Jim dear, isn’t
it wonderful! We’re lucky to get this view on our first day. It’s such a good
omen."
Jim opened his eyes
lazily and puffed his cigarette in a calm, patronizing way.
"Tough sledding we’d
have had with an automobile over those hills," he said. "We’ll try it
after lunch, though."
"We’ll go for a
ride?" she cried joyfully.
"Yep. Got to hunt
up the folks. The mountains near Asheville!" he said with disgust. "I
should say they are near -- and far, too. Holy smoke, I’ll bet we get
lost!"
"Nonsense ----
"
"Where’s the Black
Mountains, I wonder?" he asked suddenly.
"Over there!"
She pointed to the giant peaks projecting here and there in dim, blue waves
beyond the Great Craggy Range in the foreground.
"Holy Moses! Do we
have to climb those crags before we start?"
"To go to Black
Mountain?"
"Yes. That’s where
the lawyer said they lived, under Cat-tail Peak in the Black Mountain Range --
wherever t’ell that is."
"No, no! You don’t
climb the Great Craggy; you go around this end of it and follow the Swannanoa
River right up to the foot of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak this side of the
Rockies. The Cat-tail is just beyond Mount Mitchell."
"You’ve been
there?" he asked in surprise.
"Once, with a
party from Asheville. We spent three days and slept in caves."
"Suppose you’d
know the way now?"
"We couldn’t miss
it. We follow the bed of the Swannanoa to its source ---- -"
"Then that settles
it. We’ll go by ourselves. I don’t want any mutt along to show us the way. We
couldn’t get lost nohow, could we?"
"Of course not --
all the roads lead to Asheville. We can ask the way to the house you want, when
we reach the little stopping place at the foot of Mount Mitchell."
"Gee, Kid, you’re
a wonder!" he exclaimed admiringly. "Couldn’t get along without you,
now could I?"
"I hope not,
sir!"
"You bet I couldn’t!
We’ll start right away. The roads will give us a jolt ---- "
He turned suddenly to
go.
"Wait -- wait a
minute, dear," she pleaded. "You haven’t seen this gorgeous view to
the southwest, with Mount Pisgah looming in the center like some vast cathedral
spire -- look, isn’t it glorious?"
"Fine! Fine!"
he responded in quick, businesslike tones.
"You can look for
days and weeks and not begin to realize the changing beauty of these mountains,
clothed in eternal green! Just think, dear, Mount Pisgah, there, is forty miles
away, and it looks as if you could stroll over to it in an hour’s walk. And
there are twenty-three magnificent peaks like that, all of them more than six
thousand feet high ---- "
She paused with a
frown. He was neither looking nor listening. He had fallen into a brown study;
his mind was miles away.
"You’re not
listening, Jim -- nor seeing anything," she said reproachfully.
"No -- Kiddo, we
must get ready for that trip. I’ve got a letter for a lawyer downtown. I’ll
find him and hire a car. I’ll be back here for you in an hour. You’ll be
ready?"
"Right away, in
half an hour ---- "
"Just pack a
suit-case for us both. We’ll stay one night. I’ll take a bag, too, that I have
in my trunk."
It was noon before he
returned with a staunch touring car ready for the trip. He opened the little
steamer trunk which he had always kept locked and took from it a small leather
bag. He placed it on the floor, and, in spite of careful handling, the ring of
metal inside could be distinctly heard.
"What on earth
have you got in that queer black bag?" she asked in surprise.
"Oh, just a lot o’
junk from the shop. I thought I might tinker with it at odd times. I don’t want
to leave it here. It’s got one of my new models in it."
He carried the bag in
his hand, refusing to allow the porter who came for the suit-case to touch it.
He threw the suit-case
in the bottom of the tonneau. The bag he stowed carefully under the cushions of
the rear seat. The moment he placed his hand on the wheel of the machine, he
was at his best. Every trace of the street gamin fell from him. Again he was
the eagle-eyed master of time and space. The machine answered his touch with
more than human obedience. He knew how to humor its mood. He conserved its
power for a hill with unerring accuracy and threw it over the grades with
rarely a pause to change his speeds. He could turn the sharp curves with such
swift, easy grace that he scarcely caused Mary’s body to swerve an inch. He
could sense a rough place in the road and glide over it with velvet touch.
A tire blew out, five
miles up the stream from Asheville, and the easy, business-like deliberation
with which he removed the old and adjusted the new, was a revelation to Mary of
a new phase of his character.
He never once grunted,
or swore, or lost his poise, or manifested the slightest impatience. He set
about his task coolly, carefully, skillfully, and finished it quickly and
silently.
His long silences at
last began to worry her. An invisible barrier had reared itself between them.
The impression was purely mental -- but it was none the less real and
distressing.
There was a look of
aloof absorption about him she had never seen before. At first she attributed
it to the dread of meeting his kinsfolk for the first time, his fear of what
they might be like or what they might think of him.
He answered her
questions cheerfully but mechanically. Sometimes he stared at her in a cold,
impersonal way and gave no answer, as if her questions were an impertinence and
she were not of sufficient importance to waste his breath on.
Unable at last to
endure the strain, she burst out impatiently:
"What on earth’s
the matter with you, Jim?"
"Why?" he
asked softly.
"You haven’t
spoken to me in half an hour, and I’ve asked you two questions."
"Just studying
about something, Kiddo, something big. I’ll tell you sometime, maybe -- not
now."
Slowly a great fear
began to shape itself in her heart. The real man behind those slumbering eyes
she had never known. Who was he?
While she was yet
puzzling over the strange mood of absorbed brooding into which Jim had fallen,
his face suddenly lighted, and he changed with such rapidity that her
uneasiness was doubled.
They had reached the
stretches of deep forest at the foot of the Black Mountain ranges. The
Swannanoa had become a silver thread of laughing, foaming spray and deep, still
pools beneath the rocks. The fields were few and small. The little clearings
made scarcely an impression in the towering virgin forests.
"Great guns,
Kiddo!" he exclaimed, "this is some country! By George, I had no idea
there was such a place so close to New York!"
She looked at him with
uneasy surprise. What could be in his mind? The solemn gorge through which they
were passing gave no entrancing views of clouds or sky or towering peaks. Its
wooded cliffs hung ominously overhead in threatening shadows. The scene had
depressed her after the vast sunlit spaces of sky, of shining valleys and
cloud-capped, sapphire peaks on which they had turned their backs.
"You like this,
Jim?" she asked.
"It’s great --
great!"
"I thought that
waterfall we just passed was very beautiful."
"I didn’t see it.
But this is something like it. You’re clean out of the world here -- and there
ain’t a railroad in twenty miles!"
The deeper the shadows
of tree and threatening crag, the higher Jim’s strange spirit seemed to rise.
She watched him with
increasing fear. How little she knew the real man! Could it be possible that
this lonely, unlettered boy of the streets of lower New York, starved and
stunted in childhood, had within him the soul of a great poet? How else could
she explain the sudden rapture over the threatening silences and shadows of
these mountain gorges which had depressed her? And yet his utter indifference
to the glories of beautiful waters, his blindness at noon before the most
wonderful panorama of mountains and skies on which she had ever gazed,
contradicted the theory of the poetic soul. A poet must see beauty where she
had seen it -- and a thousand wonders her eyes had not found.
His elation was
uncanny. What could it mean?
He was driving now with
a skill that was remarkable, a curious smile playing about his drooping,
Oriental eyelids. A wave of fierce resentment swept her heart. She was a mere
plaything in this man’s life. The real man she had never seen. What was he
thinking about? What grim secret lay behind the mysterious smile that flickered
about the corners of those eyes? He was not thinking of her. The mood was new
and cold and cynical, for all the laughter he might put in it.
She asked herself the
question of his past, his people, his real life-history. The only answer was
his baffling, mysterious smile.
A frown suddenly
clouded his face.
"Hello! Ye’re
running right into a man’s yard!"
Mary lifted her head
with quick surprise.
"Why yes, it’s the
stopping place for the parties that climb Mount Mitchell. I remember it. We
stayed all night here, left our rig, and started next morning at sunrise on
horseback to climb the trail."
"Pretty near the
jumping-off place, then," he remarked. "We’ll ask the way to Cat-tail
Peak."
He stopped the car in
front of the low-pitched, weather-stained frame house and blew the horn.
A mountain woman with
three open-eyed, silent children came slowly to meet them.
She smiled pleasantly,
and without embarrassment spoke in a pleasant drawl:
"Won’t you ’light
and look at your saddle?"
The expression caught
Jim’s fancy, and he broke into a roar of laughter. The woman blushed and
laughed with him. She couldn’t understand what was the matter with the man. Why
should he explode over the simple greeting in which she had expressed her
pleasure at their arrival?
Anyhow, she was an
innkeeper’s wife, and her business was to make folks feel at home -- so she
laughed again with Jim.
"You know that’s
the funniest invitation I ever got in a car," he cried at last. "We
fly in these things sometimes. And when you said, ‘Won’t you ’light,’" --
he paused and turned to his wife -- "I could just feel myself up in the
air on that big old racer’s back."
"Won’t you-all
stay all night with us?" the soft voice drawled again.
"Thank you, not
tonight," Mary answered.
She waited for Jim to
ask the way.
"No -- not
tonight," he repeated. "You happen to know an old woman by the name
of Owens who lives up here?"
"Nance
Owens?"
"That’s her
name."
"Lord, everybody
knows old Nance!" was the smiling answer.
"She ain’t got
good sense!" the tow-headed boy spoke up.
"Sh!" the
mother warned, boxing his ears.
"She’s a little
queer, that’s all. Everybody knows her in Buncombe and Yancey counties. Her
house is built across the county line. She eats in Yancey and sleeps in
Buncombe ---- "
"Yes," broke
in the boy joyously, "an’ when the Sheriff o’ Yancey comes, she moves back
into Buncombe. She’s some punkin’s on a green gourd vine, she is -- if she ain’t
got good sense."
His mother struck at
him again, but he dodged the blow and finished his speech without losing a
word.
"Could you tell us
the way to her house?"
"Keep right on
this road, and you can’t miss it."
"How far is
it?"
"Oh, not
far."
"No; right at the
bottom o’ the Cat’s-tail," the boy joyfully explained.
"He means the foot
o’ Cat-tail Peak!" the mother apologized.
"How many
miles?"
"Just a little
ways -- ye can’t miss it; the third house you come to on this road."
"You’ll be there
in three shakes of a sheep’s tail -- in that thing!" the boy declared.
Jim waved his thanks,
threw in his gear, and the car shot forward on the level stretch of road beyond
the house. He slowed down when out of sight.
"Gee! I’d love to
have that kid in a wood-shed with a nice shingle all by ourselves for just ten
minutes."
"The people spoil
him," Mary laughed. "The people who stop there for the Mount Mitchell
climb. He was a baby when I was there six years ago" -- she paused and a
rapt look crept into her eyes -- "a beautiful little baby, her first-born,
and she was the happiest thing I ever saw in my life."
Her voice sank to a
whisper.
A vision suddenly
illumined her own soul, and she forgot her anxiety over Jim’s queer moods.
Deeper and deeper grew
the shadows of crag, gorge, and primeval forest. The speedometer on the
foot-board registered five miles from the Mount Mitchell house. They had passed
two cabins by the way, and still no sign of the third.
"Why couldn’t she
tell us how many miles, I’d like to know?" Jim grumbled.
"It’s the way of
the mountain folk. They’re noncommittal on distances."
He stopped the car and
lighted the lamps.
"Going to be dark
in a minute," he said. "But I like this place," he added.
He picked his way with
care over the narrow road. They crossed the little stream they were trailing,
and the car crawled over the rocks along the banks at a snail’s pace.
An owl called from a
dead tree-top silhouetted against an open space of sky ahead.
"Must be a
clearing there," Jim muttered.
He stopped the car and
listened for the sounds of life about a house.
A vast, brooding
silence filled the world. A wolf howled from the edge of a distant crag
somewhere overhead.
"For God’s
sake!" Jim shivered. "What was that?"
"Only a mountain
wolf crying for company."
"Wolves up
here?" he asked in surprise.
"A few --
harmless, timid, lonesome fellows. It makes me sorry for them when I hear
one."
"Great country! I
like it!" Jim responded.
Again she wondered why.
What a queer mixture of strength and mystery -- this man she had married!
He started the car,
turned a bend in the road, and squarely in front, not more than a hundred yards
away, gleamed a light in a cabin window -- four tiny panes of glass.
"By Geeminy, we
come near stopping in the front yard without knowing it!" he exclaimed.
"Didn’t we?"
"I’m glad she’s at
home!" Mary exclaimed. "The light shines with a friendly glow in
these deep shadows."
"Afraid,
Kiddo?" he asked lightly.
"I don’t like
these dark places."
"All right when
you get used to ’em -- safer than daylight."
Again her heart beat at
his queer speech. She shivered at the thought of this uncanny trait of
character so suddenly developed today. She made an effort to throw off her
depression. It would vanish with the sun tomorrow morning.
He picked his way
carefully among the trees and stopped in front of the cabin door. The little
house sat back from the road a hundred feet or more.
He blew his horn twice
and waited.
A sudden crash inside,
and the light went out. He waited a moment for it to come back.
Only darkness and dead
silence.
"Suppose she
dropped dead and kicked over the lamp?" Jim laughed.
"She probably took
the lamp into another room."
"No; it went out
too quick -- and it went out with a crash."
He blew his horn again.
Still no answer.
"Hello!
Hello!" he called loudly.
Someone stirred at the
door. Jim’s keen ear was turned toward the house.
"I heard her bar
the door, I’ll swear it."
"How foolish,
Jim!" Mary whispered. "You couldn’t have heard it."
"All the same I
did. Here’s a pretty kettle of fish! The old hellion’s not even going to let us
in."
He seized the lever of
his horn and blew one terrific blast after another, in weird, uncanny sobs and
wails, ending in a shriek like the last cry of a lost soul.
"Don’t, Jim!"
Mary cried, shivering. "You’ll frighten her to death."
"I hope so."
"Go up and speak
to her -- and knock on the door."
He waited again in
silence, scrambled out of the car, and fumbled his way through the shadows to
the dark outlines of the cabin. He found the porch on which the front door
opened.
His light foot touched
the log with sure step, and he walked softly to the cabin wall. The door was
not yet visible in the pitch darkness. His auto lights were turned the other
way and threw their concentrated rays far down into the deep woods.
He listened intently
for a moment and caught the cat-like tread of the old woman inside.
"I say -- hello,
in there!" he called.
Again the sound of her
quick, furtive step told him that she was on the alert and determined to defend
her castle against all comers. What if she should slip an old rifle through a
crack and blow his head off?
She might do it, too!
He must make her open
the door.
"Say, what’s the
matter in there?" he asked persuasively.
A moment’s silence, and
then a gruff voice slowly answered:
"They ain’t nobody
at home!"
"The hell they ain’t!"
Jim laughed.
"No!"
"Who are
you?"
She hesitated and then
growled back:
"None o’ your
business. Who are you?"
"We’re strangers
up here -- lost our way. It’s cold -- we got to stop for the night."
"Ye can’t -- they’s
nobody home, I tell ye!" she repeated with sullen emphasis.
Jim broke into a genial
laugh.
"Ah! Come on, old
girl! Open up and be sociable. We’re not revenue officers or sheriffs. If you’ve
got any good mountain whiskey, I’ll help you drink it."
"Who are ye?"
she repeated savagely.
"Ah, just a couple
o’ gentle, cooing turtle-doves -- a bride and groom. Loosen up, old girl; it’s
Christmas Eve -- and we’re just a couple o’ gentle cooin’ doves ---- "
Jim kept up his
persuasive eloquence until the light of the candle flashed through the window,
and he heard her slip the heavy bar from the door.
He lost no time in
pushing his way inside.
Nance threw a startled
look at his enormous, shaggy fur coat -- at the shining aluminum goggles almost
completely masking his face. She gave a low, breathless scream, hurled the
door-bar crashing to the floor and stared at him like a wild, hunted animal at
bay, her thin hands trembling, the iron-gray hair tumbling over her forehead.
"Oh, my God!"
she wailed, crouching back.
Jim gazed at her in
amazement. He had forgotten his goggles and fur coat.
"What’s the
matter?" he asked in high-keyed tones of surprise.
Nance made no answer
but crouched lower and attempted to put the table between them.
"What t’ell Bill
ails you -- will you tell me?" he asked with rising wrath.
"I thought you wuz
the devil," the old woman panted. "Now I know it!"
Jim suddenly remembered
his goggles and coat, and broke into a laugh.
"Oh!"
He removed his goggles
and cap, threw back his big coat and squared his shoulders with a smile.
"How’s that?"
Nance glowered at him
with ill-concealed rage, looked him over from head to foot, and answered with a
snarl:
"’Tain’t much
better -- ef ye ax me!"
"Gee! But you’re a
sociable old wild-cat!" he exclaimed, starting back as if she had struck
him a blow.
His eye caught the
dried skin of a young wildcat hanging on the log wall.
"No wonder you
skinned your neighbor and hung her up to dry," he added moodily.
He took in the room
with deliberate insolence while the old woman stood awkwardly watching him,
shifting her position uneasily from one foot to the other.
In all his miserable
life in New York he could not recall a room more bare of comforts. The rough
logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed with red clay. The door was
made of rough boards, the ceiling of hewn logs with split slabs laid across
them. An old-fashioned, tall spinning wheel, dirty and unused, sat in the
corner. A rough pine table was in the middle of the floor and a smaller one
against the wall. On this side table sat two rusty flat-irons, and against it
leaned an ironing board. A dirty piece of turkey-red calico hung on a string
for a portiere at the opening which evidently led into a sort of kitchen
somewhere in the darkness beyond.
The walls were
decorated at intervals. A huge bunch of onions hung on a wooden peg beside the
wild- cat skin. Over the window was slung an old-fashioned muzzle-loading
musket. The sling which held it was made of a pair of ancient home-made
suspenders fastened to the logs with nails. Beneath the gun hung a cow’s horn,
cut and finished for powder, and with it a dirty game-bag. Strings of red
peppers were strung along each of the walls, with here and there bunches of
popcorn in the ears. A pile of black walnuts lay in one corner of the cabin and
a pile of hickory nuts in another.
A three-legged wooden
stool and a split-bottom chair stood beside the table, and a haircloth couch,
which looked as if it had been saved from the Ark, was pushed near the wall
beside the door.
Across this couch was
thrown a ragged patchwork quilt, and a pillow covered with calico rested on one
end, with the mark of a head dented deep in the center.
Jim shrugged his
shoulders with a look of disgust, stepped quickly to the door and called:
"Come on in,
Kid!"
Nance fumbled her thin
hands nervously and spoke with the faintest suggestion of a sob in her voice.
"I ain’t got
nothin’ for ye to eat ---- "
"We’ve had
dinner," he answered carelessly.
He stepped to the door
and called:
"Bring that little
bag from under the seat, Kiddo."
He held the door open,
and the light streamed across the yard to the car. He watched her steadily
while she raised the cushion of the rear seat, lifted the bag and sprang from
the car. His keen eye never left her for an instant until she placed it in his
hands.
"Mercy, but it’s
heavy!" she panted, as she gave it to him.
He took it without a
word and placed it on the table in the center of the room.
Nance glared at him
sullenly.
"There’s no place
for ye, I tell ye ---- "
Jim faced her with mock
politeness.
"For them kind
words -- thanks!"
He bowed low and swept
the room with a mocking gesture.
"There ain’t no
room for ye," the old woman persisted.
Jim raised his voice to
a squeaking falsetto with deliberate purpose to torment her.
"I got ye the
first time, darlin’!" he exclaimed, lifting his hands above her as if to
hold her down. "We must linger awhile for your name -- anyhow, we mustn’t
forget that. This is Mrs. Nance Owens?"
The old woman started
and watched him from beneath her heavy eyebrows, answering with sullen
emphasis:
"Yes."
Again Jim lifted his
hands above his head and waved her to earth.
"Well! Don’t blame
me! I can’t help it, you know ---- "
He turned to his wife
and spoke with jolly good humor.
"It’s the place,
all right. Set down, Kiddo -- take off your hat and things. Make yourself at
home."
Nance flew at him in a
sudden frenzy at his assumption of insolent ownership of her cabin.
"There’s no place
for ye to sleep!" she fairly shrieked in his face.
Again Jim’s arms were
over her head, waving her down.
"All right,
sweetheart! We’re from New York. We don’t sleep. We’ve come all the way down
here to the mountains of North Carolina just to see you. And we’re goin’ to sit
up all night and look at ye ---- "
He sat down
deliberately, and Nance fumbled her hands with a nervous movement.
Mary’s heart went out
in sympathy to the forlorn old creature in her embarrassment. Her dress was
dirty and ragged, an ill-fitting gingham, the elbows out and her bare, bony
arms showing through. The waist was too short and always slipping from the belt
of wrinkled cloth beneath which she kept trying to stuff it.
Mary caught her
restless eye at last and held it in a friendly look.
"Please let us
stay!" she pleaded. "We can sleep on the floor -- anywhere."
"You bet!"
Jim joined in. "Married two weeks -- and I don’t care whether it rains or
whether it pours or how long I have to stand outdoors -- if I can be with you,
Kid."
The old woman hesitated
until Mary’s smile melted its way into her heart.
Her lips trembled, and
her watery blue eyes blinked.
"Well," she
began grumblingly, "thar’s a little single bed in that shed-room thar for
you -- ef he’ll sleep in here on the sofy."
Jim leaped to his feet.
"What do ye think
of that? Bully for the old gal! Kinder slow at first. As the poet sings of the
little bed-bug, she ain’t got no wings -- but she gets there just the
same!"
He drew the electric
torch from his pocket and advanced on Nance.
"By Golly -- I’ll
have another look at you."
Nance backed in terror
at the sight of the revolver-like instrument.
"What’s
that?" she gasped.
"Just a little
Gatlin’ gun!" he cried jokingly. He pressed the button, and the light
flashed squarely in the old woman’s eyes.
"God ’lmighty --
don’t shoot!" she screamed.
Jim doubled with
laughter.
"For the love o’
Mike!"
Nance leaned against
the side table and wiped the perspiration from her brow.
"Lord! I thought
you’d kilt me!" she panted, still trembling.
"Ah, don’t be
foolish!" Jim said persuasively. "It can’t hurt you. Here, take it in
your hand -- I’ll show you how to work it. It’s to nose round dark places under
the buzz-wagon."
He held it out to
Nance.
"Here, take it and
press the button."
The old woman drew
back.
"No -- no -- I’m
skeered! No ---- "
Jim thrust the torch
into her hand and forced her to hold it.
"Oh, come on, it’s
easy. Push your finger right down on the button."
Nance tried it gingerly
at first, and then laughed at the ease with which it could be done. She flashed
it on the floor again and again.
"Why, it’s like a
big lightnin’ bug, ain’t it?"
She turned the end of
it up to examine more closely, pushed the button unconsciously, and the light
flashed in her eyes. She jumped and handed it quickly to Jim.
"Or a jack o’
lantern -- here, take it," she cried, still trembling.
Jim threw his hands up
with a laugh.
"Can you beat
it!"
Backing quickly to the
door, Nance called nervously to Mary:
"I’ll get your
room ready in a minute, ma’am." She paused and glanced at Jim.
"And thar’s a shed
out thar you can put your devil wagon in ---- "
She slipped through the
dirty calico curtains, and Mary saw her go with wondering pity in her heart.
Mary watched Nance,
with a quick glance at Jim. Again he had forgotten that he had a wife. She had
studied this strange absorption with increasing uneasiness. During the long,
beautiful drive of the afternoon beside laughing waters, through scenes of unparalleled
splendor, through valleys of entrancing peace, the still, sapphire skies
bending above with clear, Southern Christmas benediction, he had not once
pressed her hand, he had not once bent to kiss her.
Each time the thought
had come, she fought back the tears. She had made excuses for him. He was
absorbed in the memories of his miserable childhood in New York, perhaps. The
approaching meeting with his relatives had awakened the old hunger for a mother’s
love that had been denied him. The scenes through which they were passing had
perhaps stirred the currents of his subconscious being.
And yet why should such
memories estrange his spirit from hers? The effect should be the opposite. In
the remembrance of his loneliness and suffering, he should instinctively turn
to her. The love with which she had unfolded his life should redeem the past.
He was standing now
with his heavy chin silhouetted against the flickering light of the candle on
the table. His hand closed suddenly on the handle of the bag with the swift
clutch of an eagle’s claw. She started at the ugly picture it made in the dim
rays of the candle.
What were the thoughts
seething behind the mask of his face? She watched him, spellbound by his
complete surrender to the mood that had dominated him from the moment he had
touched the deep forests of the Black Mountain range. A grim elation ruled even
his silences. The man standing there rigid, his face a smiling, twitching mask,
was a stranger. This man she had never known, or loved. And yet they were bound
for life in the tenderest and strongest ties that can hold the human soul and
body.
She tossed her head and
threw off the ugly thought. It was morbid nonsense! She was just hungry for a
kiss, and in his new environment he had forgotten himself as many thoughtless
men had forgotten before and would forget again.
"Jim!" she
whispered tenderly.
He made no answer. His
thick lips were drawn in deep, twisted lines on one side, as if he had suddenly
reached a decision from which there could be no appeal.
She raised her voice
slightly.
"Jim?"
Not a muscle of his
body moved. The drawn lines of the mouth merely relaxed. His answer was
scarcely audible.
"Yep ---- "
"She’s gone!"
"Yep ---- "
She moved toward him
wistfully.
"Aren’t you forgetting
something?"
His square jaw still
held its rigid position silhouetted in sharp profile against the candle’s
light. He answered slowly and mechanically.
"What?"
His indifference was
more than the sore heart could bear. The pent-up tears of the afternoon dashed
in flood against the barriers of her will.
"You -- haven’t --
kissed -- me -- today," she stammered, struggling with each word to save a
break.
Still he stood
immovable. This time his answer was tinged with the slightest suggestion of
amusement.
"No?"
She staggered against
the table beside the door and gripped its edge desperately.
"Oh -- " she
gasped. "Don’t you love me any more?"
With his sullen head
still holding its position of indifference, his absorption in the idea which
dominated his mind still unbroken, he threw out one hand in a gesture of
irritation.
"Cut it, Kid! Cut
it!"
His tones were not only
indifferent; they were contemptuously indifferent.
With a sob, she sank
into the chair and buried her face in her arms.
"You’re tired! I
see it now; you’ve tired of me. Oh -- it’s not possible -- it’s not
possible!"
The torrent came at
last in a flood of utter abandonment.
Jim turned, looked at
her and threw up his hands in temporary surrender.
"Oh, for God’s
sake!" he muttered, crossing deliberately to her side. He stood and let
her sob.
With a quick change of
mood, he drew her to her feet, swept her swaying form into his arms, crushed
her and covered her lips with kisses.
"How’s that?"
She smiled through her
tears.
"I feel better
---- "
Jim laughed.
"For better or
worse -- ‘until Death do us part’ -- that’s what you said, Kid, and you meant
it, too, didn’t you?"
He seized both of her arms,
held them firmly and gazed into her eyes with steady, stern inquiry.
She looked up with
uneasy surprise.
"Of course -- I
meant it," she answered slowly.
He held her arms
gripped close and said:
"Well -- we’ll
see!"
His hands relaxed, and
he turned away, rubbing his square chin thoughtfully.
She watched him in
growing amazement. What could be the mystery back of this new twist of his
elusive mind?
He laid his hand on the
black bag again, smiled, and turned and faced her with expanding good humor.
"Great scheme,
this marryin’, Kid! And you believe in it exactly as I do, don’t you?"
"How do you
mean?" she faltered.
"That it binds and
holds both our lives as only Almighty God can bind and hold?"
"Yes -- nothing
else is marriage."
"That’s what I
say, too!"
He placed his hands on
her shoulders.
"Great
scheme!" he repeated. "I get a pretty girl to work for me for nothing
for the balance of my life." He paused and lifted the slender forefinger
of his right hand. "And you pledged your pious soul -- I memorized the
words, every one of them: ‘I, Mary, take thee, James, to my wedded husband --
to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish and obey, till death do
us part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereunto I give thee my troth
---- ’"
He paused, lifted his
head and smiled grimly: "That’s some promise, believe me, Kiddo! ‘And obey’
-- you meant it all, didn’t you?"
She would have hedged lightly
over that ugly old word which still survived in the ceremony Craddock had used,
but for the sinister suggestion in his voice back of the playful banter. He had
asked it half in jest, half in earnest. She had caught by the subtle sixth
sense the tragic idea in that one word that he was going to hold her to it. The
thought was too absurd!
"Obey -- you meant
it, didn’t you?" he repeated grimly.
A smile played about
the corners of her mouth as she answered dreamily:
"Yes -- I -- I --
promised!"
"That’s why I set
my head on you from the first -- you’re good and sweet -- you’re the real
thing."
Again she caught the
sinister suggestion in his tone and threw him a startled look.
"What has come
over you today, Jim?" she asked.
He hesitated and answered
carelessly.
"Oh, nothing,
Kiddo -- just been thinking a little about business. Got to go to work, you
know." He returned to the table and touched the bag lightly.
"Watch out now for
this bag while I put up the car -- and don’t forget that curiosity killed the
cat."
Quick as a flash, she
asked:
"What’s in
it?"
Jim threw up his hands
and laughed.
"Didn’t I tell you
that curiosity killed a cat?" He pointed to the skin on the wall.
"That’s what stretched that wild-cat’s hide up there! She got too near the
old musket!"
"Anyhow, I’m not
afraid of her end -- what’s in it?"
Jim scratched his red
head and looked at her thoughtfully.
"You asked me that
once before today, didn’t you?"
"Yes ---- "
"Well, it’s a
little secret of mine. Take my advice -- put your hand on it, but not in
it."
Again the sinister look
and tone chilled her.
"I don’t like
secrets between us, Jim," she said.
She looked at the bag
reproachfully, and he watched her keenly -- then laughed.
"I’d as well tell
you and be done with it; you’ll go in it anyhow."
She tossed her head
with a touch of angry pride. He took her hand, led her across the room and
placed it on the valise.
"I’ve got five
thousand dollars in gold in that bag."
She drew back,
surprised beyond the power of speech.
"And I’m going to
give it to this old woman ---- "
To her -- why?"
she gasped.
"She’s my
mother."
"Your
mother?"
"Yes."
"I -- I -- thought
-- you told me she was dead."
"No. I said that I
didn’t know who she was."
He paused, and a queer
brooding look crept into his face.
"I haven’t seen
her since I was a little duffer three years old. This room and these wild crags
and trees come back to me now -- just a glimpse of them here and there. I’ve
always remembered them. I thought I’d dreamed it ---- "
"You remember --
how wonderful!" she breathed reverently. She understood now, and the
clouds lifted.
"The skunk I
called my daddy," Jim went on thoughtfully, "took me to New York. He
said that my mother deserted me when I was a kid. I believed him at first. But
when he beat me and kicked me into the streets, I knew he was a liar. When I
got grown I began to think and wonder about her. I hired a lawyer that knew my
daddy, and he found her here ---- "
With a cry of joy, she
seized his arms:
"Tell her quick!
Oh, you’re big and fine and generous, Jim -- and I knew it! They said that you
were a brute. I knew they lied. Tell her quick!"
He lifted his hand in
protest.
"Nope -- I’m going
to put up a little job on the old girl -- show her the money tonight, get her
wild at the sight of it -- and give it to her Christmas morning. We’ve only a
few hours to wait ---- "
"Oh, give it to
her now -- Jim! Give it to her now!"
He shook his head and
walked to the door.
"I want to say
something to her first and give her time to think it over. Look out for the
bag, and I’ll bring in the things."
He swung the rough
board door wide, slammed it and disappeared in the darkness.
The young wife watched
the bag a moment with consuming curiosity. She had fiercely resented his
insulting insinuations at her curiosity, and yet she was wild to look at that
glowing pile of gold inside and picture the old woman’s joyous surprise.
Her hand touched the
lock carelessly and drew back as if her finger had been burned. She put her
hands behind her and crossed the room.
"I won’t be so
weak and silly!" she cried fiercely.
She heard Jim cranking
the car. It would take him five minutes more to start it, get it under the shed
and bring in the suit-case and robes.
"Why shouldn’t I
see it!" she exclaimed. "He has told me about it." She hesitated
and struggled for a moment, quickly walked back to the bag and touched the
spring. It yielded instantly.
"Why, it’s not
even locked!" she cried in tones of surprise at her silly scruples.
Her hand had just
touched the gold when Nance entered.
She snapped the bag and
smiled at the old woman carelessly. What a sweet surprise she would have
tomorrow morning!
Nance crossed slowly,
glancing once at the girl wistfully as if she wanted to say something friendly,
and then, alarmed at her presumption, hurried on into the little shed-room.
Mary waited until she
returned.
"Room’s all ready
in thar, ma’am," she drawled, passing into the kitchen without a pause.
"All right --
thank you," Mary answered.
She quickly opened the
bag, thrust her hand into the gold and withdrew it, holding a costly green-
leather jewelry-case of exquisite workmanship. There could be no mistake about
its value.
With a cry of joy, she
started back, staring at the little box.
"Another surprise!
And for me! Oh, Jim, man, you’re glorious! My Christmas present, of course! I
mustn’t look at it -- I won’t!"
She pushed the case
from her toward the bag and drew it back again.
"What’s the
difference? I’ll take one little, tiny peep."
She touched the spring
and caught her breath. A string of pearls fit for the neck of a princess lay
shining in its soft depths. She lifted them with a sigh of delight. Her eye
suddenly rested on a stanza of poetry scrawled on the satin lining in the
trembling hand of an old man she had known.
She dropped the pearls
with a cry of terror. Her face went white, and she gasped for breath. The
jewel- case in her hand she had seen before. It had belonged to the old
gentleman who lived in the front room on the first floor of her building in the
days when it was a boarding house. The wife he had idolized was long ago dead.
This string of pearls from her neck the old man had worshiped for years. The
stanza from "The Rosary" he had scrawled in the lining one day in
Mary’s presence. He had moved uptown with the landlady. Two months ago a
burglar had entered his room, robbed and shot him.
"It’s impossible
-- impossible!" she gasped. "Oh, dear God -- it’s impossible! Of
course the burglar pawned them, and Jim bought them without knowing. Of course!
My nerves are on edge today -- how silly of me ---- "
Jim’s footsteps
suddenly sounded on the porch, and she thrust the jewel-case back into the bag
with desperate effort to pull herself together.
For a moment she felt
the foundations of the moral and physical world sinking beneath her feet.
Dizziness swept her senses. She gripped the table, leaning heavily against it,
her eye watching the door with feverish terror for Jim’s appearance.
She had never fainted
in her life. It was absurd, but the room was swimming now in a dim blur. Again
she gripped the table and set her teeth. She simply would not give up. Why
should she leap to the worst possible explanation of the jewels? The hatred of
old Ella for Jim and the furious antagonism of Jane Anderson had poisoned her
mind, after all. It was infamous that she could suspect her husband of crime
merely because two silly women didn’t like him.
He could explain the
jewels. He, of course, asked no questions of the pawn-broker. They were
probably sold at auction and he bought them.
It seemed an eternity
from the time Jim’s foot step echoed on the little porch until he pushed the
door open and hastily entered, his arms piled with lap- robes, coats and the
dress-suit case in his hand.
He walked with quick,
firm step, threw the coats and robes on the couch and placed the suit-case at
its head. He hadn’t turned toward her and his face was still in profile while
he removed the gloves from his pockets, threw them on the robes, and drew the
scarlet woolen neckpiece from his throat.
She was studying him
now with new terror-stricken eyes. Never had she seen his jaw look so big and
brutal. Never had the droop of his eyelids suggested such menace. Never had the
contrast of his slender hands and feet suggested such hideous possibilities.
"Merciful God! No!
No!" she kept repeating in her soul while her dilated eyes stared at him
in sheer horror of the suggestion which the jewels had roused.
She drew a deep breath
and strangled the idea by her will.
"I’ll at least be
as fair as a jury," she thought grimly. "I’ll not condemn him without
a hearing."
Jim suddenly became
aware of the menace of her silence. She had not moved a muscle, spoken or made
the slightest sound since he had entered. He had merely taken in the room at a
glance and had seen her standing in precisely the same place beside the table.
He saw now that she was
leaning heavily against it.
He raised his head and
faced her with a sudden, bold stare, and his voice rang in tones of sharp
command.
"Well?"
She tried to speak and
failed. She had not yet sufficiently mastered her emotions.
"What’s the
matter?" he growled.
"Jim ---- "
she gasped.
He took a step toward
her with set teeth.
"You’ve been in
that bag -- Well?"
Her face was white, her
voice husky.
"Those jewels, Jim
---- "
A cunning smile played
about his mouth and he shook his head.
"I tried to keep
my little secret from you till Christmas morning; but you’re on to my curves
now, Kiddo, and I’ll have to ’fess up ---- "
"You bought them
for me?" she asked with trembling eagerness.
"Who else do you
reckon I’d buy ’em for? I was going to surprise you, too, tomorrow morning. You’ve
spoiled the fun."
She had slipped close
to his side and he could hear her quick intake of breath.
"That’s -- so --
sweet of you, Jim. I’m sorry -- I -- spoiled the surprise -- you’d -- planned
---- "
"Oh, what’s the
difference!" he broke in carelessly. "It’s all the same five minutes
after, anyhow. Well, don’t you like ’em? Why don’t you say something?"
"They’re
wonderful, Jim. Where -- where -- did you buy them?"
He held her gaze in
silence for an instant and fenced.
"Isn’t that a
funny question, Kiddo?" he said in low tones. "I once heard the old
man I worked with in the shop say that you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the
mouth."
"I just want to
know," she insisted.
"I’m not going to
tell you!" he said with a dry laugh.
"Why not?"
"Because you keep
asking."
"You wish to tease
me?"
"Maybe."
"Please!"
"Why do you want
to know? Are you afraid they’re fakes?"
"No, they’re
beautiful -- they’re wonderful."
"Well, if you don’t
want them," he broke in angrily, "I’ll keep them. I’ll sell
them."
"Don’t tease me,
Jim!" she begged. "I don’t mind if you bought them at a pawn-shop --
if that’s why you won’t tell me. That is the reason, isn’t it? Honestly, isn’t
it?"
She asked the question
with eager intensity. She had persuaded herself that it was so and the horror
had been lifted. She pressed close with smiling, trembling lips:
"I don’t mind
that, Jim! You got them from a pawn- broker, of course, didn’t you?"
He looked at her with a
puzzled expression and hesitated.
"Didn’t you?"
she repeated.
"No -- I didn’t!"
was the curt answer.
"You didn’t?"
she echoed feebly.
"No!"
With a quick breath she
unconsciously drew back and he glared at her angrily.
"Say, what’ell’s
the matter with you, anyhow? Have you gone crazy?"
"You -- won’t --
tell me -- where you bought them?" she asked slowly.
He faced her squarely
and spoke with deliberate contempt:
"It’s -- none --
of your business!"
She held his gaze with
steady determination.
"That string of
pearls belongs to the man who once lived in the front room of my old building
in New York. He moved uptown with my landlady. A few months ago a burglar
robbed and shot him ---- "
She stopped, seized his
arm and cried with strangling horror:
"Jim! Jim! Where
did you get them?"
"Now I know you’ve
gone crazy! You don’t suppose that’s the only string of pearls in the world, do
you? Did you count ’em? Did you weigh ’em?"
"Where did you get
them?" she demanded.
"What put it into
your head that that string of pearls belonged to your old boarder?"
"I saw him write
the stanza of poetry on the satin lining of that case. I’ve heard him recite it
over and over again in his piping voice: ‘Each bead a pearl -- my rosary!’ I
know that they belonged to him!"
His mouth twitched
angrily and he faced her, speaking with cold, brutal frankness.
"I might keep on
lying to you, Kiddo, and get away with it. But what’s the use? You’ve got to
know. It’s just as well now -- I did that job ---- Yes!"
Her face blanched.
"You -- a --
burglar -- a murderer!"
Jim followed her with
quick, angry gestures.
"All I wanted was
his money! He fought -- it was his life or mine ---- "
"A murderer!"
"I just went after
his money -- I tell you -- besides, he didn’t die; he got well. If he’d kept
still he wouldn’t have lost his pearls and he wouldn’t have been hurt ----
"
"And I stood up
for you against them all!" she answered in a dazed whisper. "They
told me -- Jane Anderson with brutal frankness, Ella with the heart- rending,
timid confession of her own tragic life -- they told me that you were bad. I
said they were liars. I said that they envied our happiness. I believed that
you were big and brave and fine. I stood by you and married you!"
She paused and looked
at him steadily. In a rush of suppressed passion she seized his arm with a
violence that caused his heavy eyelids to lift in amused surprise.
"Oh, Jim -- it’s
not true! It’s not true -- it’s not true! For God’s sake, tell me that you’re
joking! -- that you’re teasing me! You can’t mean it! I won’t believe it -- I
won’t believe it!"
Her head sank until it
rested piteously against his breast. He stood with his face turned awkwardly
away and then moved his body until she was forced to stand erect.
He touched her shoulder
gently and spoke soothingly:
"Come, now, Kid,
don’t take on so. I’ll quit the business when I make my pile."
She drew back
instinctively and he followed:
"I’ll never touch
another penny of yours. There’s blood on it!"
"Rot!" he
went on soothingly. "It’s good Wall Street cash -- got it exactly like
they got theirs -- got it because I was quicker and smarter than the fellow
that had it. I use a jimmy, they use a ticker -- that’s all the
difference."
She drew her figure to
its full height.
"I’m going -- Jim
---- "
"Where?"
His voice rasped like a
file against steel.
"Home!"
"Your home’s with
me."
"I won’t live with
a thief!"
He stepped squarely
before her and spoke with deliberate menace.
"You’re -- not --
going!"
"Get out of my
way!" she cried defiantly.
His big jaw closed with
a snap and his figure became rigid. The candle’s yellow light threw a strange
glare on his face, convulsed. The blue flames of hell were in the glitter of his
steel eyes.
Her heart sank in a
dull wave of terror. She tried to gauge the depth of his brutal rage. There was
no standard by which to measure it. She had never seen that look in his face
before. His whole being was transformed by some sinister power.
She was afraid to move,
but her mind was alert in this moment of supreme trial. She hadn’t used her
last weapon yet. The fact that he held her with such terrible determination was
proof of the spell she had cast over him. She might save him. He couldn’t have
been a criminal long. She formed her new battle-line with quick decision.
How long she gazed into
the convulsed face of the man who had squared himself before her, mattered
little measured by the tick of the watch in her belt. Into the mental anguish
endured a life’s agony had been pressed. It could not have been more than
twenty seconds, and yet it marked the birth of a new being within the soul of a
woman. She had been searching only for her own happiness. The search had
entangled another in the meshes of her life. Too much had been lived in the
past two weeks to be undone by a word and forgotten in a day. She had
attempted, coward-like, to run.
She saw now in the
consuming flame of a great sorrow that the man before her had some rights which
the purest woman must reckon with. He might be a burglar. At least it was her
duty to try to save him from himself. Her surrender of the past weeks was a tie
that would bind them through all eternity. There was no chemistry of earth or
heaven or hell that could erase its memories. Her life was no longer her own --
this man’s was bound with hers. She must face the facts. She would make one
honest, brave effort to save him. To do this she would give all without
reservation -- pride must be cast to the winds.
Her voice suddenly
changed to tears.
"Oh, Jim, you do
love me, don’t you?"
His body slowly
relaxed, his eyes shifted, and he shrugged his square shoulders.
"What’ell did I
marry you for?"
"Tell me -- do
you?" she demanded.
"You know that I
love you. What do you ask me such a fool question for? I love you with a love
that can kill. Do you hear me? That’s why you’re not going anywhere without
me."
There was no mistaking
the depth of his passion. She trembled to realize its power and yet it was the
lever by which she must move him.
"Then you’ve got
to give this life up. You’re young and brave and strong. You can earn an honest
living. You haven’t been in this long -- I feel it, I know it. Have you?"
"No!"
"How long?"
"Eight
months."
"Oh, Jim, dear,
you must give it up now for my sake. I’ll work with you and work for you. I’ll
teach, I’ll sew, I’ll scrub, I’ll slave for you day and night -- if you’re only
clean and honest."
He turned on her
fiercely.
"Cut it, Kid --
cut it! I’m out for the stuff now. I’m going to get rich and I’m going to get
rich quick -- that’s all that’s the matter with me!"
"But, Jim,"
she broke in tenderly -- "you did earn an honest living. Your workshop
proves that."
"I’ve used that to
improve my tools and melt the swag the past year. The shop’s all right."
"But you did make
a successful invention?"
"You bet I
did," he answered savagely, "and that’s why I quit the business.
Three years ago I took down a big automobile and worked out an improvement in
the transmission that settled the question of heavy draft machines. I took it
to a lawyer in Wall Street and he took it to a man that had money. Between the
two of ’em, they didn’t do a thing to me! They were going to put my patent on
the market and make me a millionaire. God, I was crazy ---- "
He paused and squared
his shoulders with a deep breath.
"They put it on
the market all right and they made some millionaires -- but I wasn’t one of ’em,
Kiddo! They got me to sign a paper that skinned me out of every dollar as slick
as you can pull an eel through your fingers. I hired another lawyer and gave
him half he could get to beat ’em. He fought like a tiger and two days before I
met you he got his verdict and they paid it -- just ten thousand dollars. Think
of it -- ten thousand dollars! And each of them got a million cash. They sold
it outright for two millions and a half. My lawyer got five thousand dollars,
and I got five thousand dollars. That’s mine, anyhow. It’s in that bag there. I’m
working on a new set of tools now in my shop. I’m going to get that money back
from the two thieves who stole it from me by law. I’ll take it by force, the
way they took it. If I can croak them both in the fight -- well, there’ll be
two thieves less to rob honest men and women, that’s all."
"Oh, Jim!"
Mary gasped, lifting a trembling hand to her throat as if to tear open her
collar. "You’re mad. You don’t know what you’re saying ---- "
"Don’t fool
yourself, Kiddo," he interrupted fiercely. "My eyes are open now, and
I’ve got a level head back of ’em, too. I’ve doped it all out. You ought to ’a’
heard that lawyer give me a few lessons in business when he’d skinned me and
salted my hide. He was good-natured and confidential. He seemed to love me. ‘Business
is war, sonny,’ he piped, between the puffs of the big Havana cigar he was
smoking -- ‘war! war to the knife! We got you off your guard and put the knife
into you at the right minute -- that’s all. Don’t take it so hard! Invent
something else and keep your eyes peeled. You ought to love us for giving you
an education in business early in life. You’re young. You won’t have to learn
your lesson again. Go to work, sonny, in your shop, and turn out another new
tool for the advancement of trade!’"
He paused and smiled
grimly.
"I’ve done it,
too! I’ve just finished a little invention that’ll crack any safe in New York
in twenty minutes after I touch it."
He broke into a dry
laugh, sat down and deliberately lighted a fresh cigarette.
She studied his face with
beating heart. Was he lost beyond all hope of reformation? Or was this the
boyish bravado of an amateur criminal poisoned by the consciousness of wrong?
She tried to think. She felt the red blood pounding through her heart and
beating against her brain in suffocating waves of despair.
In vivid flashes the
scene of her marriage but two weeks ago, came back in tormenting memories. The
solemn words she had spoken kept ringing like the throb of a funeral bell far
up in the star-lit heavens ----
"I, Mary Adams,
take thee, James Anthony, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold . . . for
better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love,
cherish, and to obey, till death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance;
and thereto I give thee my troth."
The last solemn prayer
kept ringing its deep-toned message over all ----
"God the Father,
God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you; the Lord
mercifully with his favor look upon you, and fill you with all spiritual
benediction and grace; that ye may so live together in this life, that in the
world to come ye may have life everlasting. Amen."
In a sudden rush of
desperate pity for herself and the man to whom she was bound, she dropped on
her knees by his side, slipped her arms about his neck and clung to him,
sobbing.
"Oh, Jim, Jim,
man," she whispered hoarsely. "I can’t see you sink into hell like
this! Have you no real love in your heart for the woman who has given all? Have
mercy on me! Have mercy! You can’t mean the hideous things you’ve just said!
You’ve been crazed by your losses. You’re just a boy yet. Life is all before
you. You’re only twenty-four. I’m just twenty-four. We can both begin anew. I’ve
never lived until these past weeks -- neither have you. You couldn’t drag me
down into a life of crime ---- "
Her head sank and her
voice choked into silence. He made no movement of his hand to soothe her. His
voice was not persuasive. It was hard and cold.
"I’m not asking
you to help me on any of my jobs," he said. "I’m the financier of the
family. You can say the prayers and keep house."
"Knowing that you
are a criminal? That your hands are stained with human blood?"
"Why not?" he
snapped, the blue blaze flashing again in his eyes. "Suppose you were the
wife of the gentlemanly lawyer-thief who robbed me, using the law instead of a
jimmy -- would you bother your little head about my business? Does his wife ask
him where he got it? Does anybody know or care? He lives on Fifth Avenue now.
He bought a palace up there the day after he got my money. We passed it on the
way to the Park the day I met you. A line of carriages was standing in front
and finely dressed women were running up the red carpet that led down the stoop
and under the canopy to the curb. Did any of the gay dames who smiled and
smirked at that thief’s wife ask how he got the money to buy the house? Not
much. Would they have cared if they had known? They’d have called him a shrewd
lawyer -- that’s all! Do you reckon his wife worries about such tricks of
trade? Why should mine worry?"
She gripped his hand
with desperate pleading.
"Oh, Jim, dear,
you can’t be a criminal at heart! I wouldn’t have loved you if it had been
true. I can’t believe it! I won’t believe it. You’re posing. You don’t mean
this. You can’t mean it. You’re going to return every dishonest dollar that you’ve
taken."
"You don’t know
what you’re talking about!"
He closed his jaw with
a snap and leaned close in eager, tense excitement.
"Do you know how
much junk I’ve piled into a little box in my shop the past three months?"
"I don’t care -- I
don’t want to know!"
"You’ve got to
care -- you’ve got to know now! It’s worth a hundred thousand dollars, do you
hear? A hundred thousand dollars! It would take me a life-time to earn that on
a salary. In two weeks after we get back to New York with my new invention that
lawyer advised me to make, I’ll go through his house -- I’ll open his safe, I’ll
take every diamond, every pearl and every scrap of stolen jewelry his wife’s
wearing. And I won’t leave a fingerprint on the window sill. I’ve got two of
his servants working for me.
"In six months I’ll
be worth half a million. In a year I’ll pull off the big haul I’m planning and
I’ll be a millionaire. We’ll retire from business then -- just like they did.
We’ll build our marble palace down at Bay Ridge and our yacht will nod in the
harbor. We’ll spend our summers in Europe when we like and every snob and fool
in New York will fall over himself to meet me. And every woman will envy my
wife. I’m young, Kiddo, but I’ve cut my eye teeth. You’ve just been born. I’m
running the business end of this thing. You think you can reform me. You can --
after I’ve made our pile. I’ll join the church then and sing louder than that
lawyer. But if you think you’re going to stop my business career at this stage
of the game -- forget it, forget it!"
He sprang up with a
quick movement of his tense body and threw her off. She rose and watched his
restless steps as he paced the floor. Her mind was numb as if from a mortal
blow. She brushed the tangled ringlets of brown hair back from her forehead,
drew the handkerchief from her belt and wiped the perspiration from her brow.
Before she could gather
the strength to speak, he wheeled suddenly and confronted her:
"I’ve known from
the first, Kiddo, that you’re not the kind to help in this business. I don’t
expect it. I don’t ask it. I need a ranch like this down here for storage. I’m
going to take the old woman into partnership with me."
She started back in an
instinctive recoil of horror.
"Your
mother?"
He nodded.
"Yep!"
She drew a step nearer
and peered into his set face.
"You will make
your own mother a criminal?"
"Sure!" he
growled. "That’s what I came down here for."
"She won’t do
it!"
"She won’t,
eh?" he sneered. "Look at this hog pen!"
He swept the bare,
wretched cabin with a gesture of contempt and shrugged his shoulders.
"Look at the rags
she’s wearing," he went on savagely. "When we talk it over tonight
with that five thousand dollars in gold shining in her eyes -- I’m going to
show her a lot o’ things she never saw before, Kiddo -- take it from me!"
She answered in slow,
even tones:
"I can’t live with
you, Jim."
The blue flames beneath
the drooping eyelids were leaping now in the yellow glare of the candle’s rays.
The muscles of his body were knotted. His voice came from his throat a low
growl.
"Do you know who
you’re fooling with?"
The blood of a clean
life flamed in her cheeks and nerved her with reckless daring. Her figure
stiffened and her voice rang with defiant scorn:
"Yes. I know at
last -- a thief who would drag his own mother down to hell with him!"
Not a muscle of his
powerful body moved; his face was a stolid mask. He threw his words slowly
through his teeth:
"Now you listen to
me. You’re my wife. I didn’t invent this marriage game. I played it as I found
it. And that’s the way you’re going to play it. You’re good and sweet and clean
-- I like that kind, and I won’t have no other. You’re mine. Mine, do you hear!
Mine for life -- body and soul -- ‘for better for worse, for richer for poorer,
in sickness and in health, to love, cherish’ ---- "
He paused and thrust
his massive jaw squarely into her face:
"‘ ---- and obey!’"
he hissed, "‘until death do us part, according to God’s holy ordinance’ --
you said it, didn’t you?"
"Yes ---- "
"Well?"
She turned from him
with sudden aversion:
"I didn’t know
what you were ---- "
"Nobody ever knows
before they’re married!" he broke in savagely. "You took your
chances. I took mine -- ‘for better for worse.’ We’ll just say now it’s for
worse and let it go at that!"
The little body
stiffened.
"I’ll die
first!"
He held her gaze
without words, searching the depths of her being with the cold, blue flame in
his drooping eyes. If she were bluffing, it was easy. She could talk her head
off for all he cared. If she meant it, he might have his hands full unless he
mastered the situation at once and for all time.
There was no sign of
yielding to his iron will. An indomitable soul had risen in her frail body and
defied him. His decision was instantaneous.
"Oh, you’ll die
sooner than live with me -- eh?"
There was something
hideous in the cold venom with which he drawled the words. Her heart fairly
stopped its beating. With the last ounce of courage left, she held her place
and answered:
"Yes!"
With the sudden crouch
of a tiger he drew his clenched fist to strike.
"Forget it!"
She sprang back with
terror, her body trembling in pitiful weakness.
"You snivelling
little coward!" he growled.
"Oh, Jim,
Jim," she faltered, -- "you -- you -- couldn’t strike me!"
A step nearer and he
stood over her, his big, flat head thrust forward, his eyes gleaming, his muscles
knotted in blind rage.
"No -- I won’t
strike you," he whispered. "I’ll just kill you -- that’s all!"
With the leap of an
infuriated beast he sprang on her and his sharp fingers gripped her throat.
The world went black
and she felt herself sinking into a bottomless abyss. With maniac energy she
tore his hands from her throat and the warm blood streamed from the gash his
nails had torn.
Jim! Jim! For God’s
sake!" she moaned in abject terror.
With a sullen growl,
his fingers, sharp as a leopard’s claw, found her neck again and closed with a
grip that sent the blood surging to her brain and her eyes starting from their
sockets.
The one hideous thought
that flashed through her mind was that he was going to plunge his claws into
her eyes and blind her for life. He could hold her his prisoner then. She made
a last desperate struggle for breath, her hands relaxed, she drooped and sank
to the couch toward which he had hurled her in the first rush of his assault.
He lifted her and
choked the slender neck again to make sure, loosed his hands and the limp body
dropped on the couch and was still.
He stood watching her
in silence, his arms at his side.
"Damned little
fool!" he muttered. "I had to give you that lesson. The sooner the
better!"
He waited with
contemptuous indifference until she slowly recovered consciousness. She lay
motionless for a long time and then slowly opened her eyes.
Thank God! They had not
been gouged out as poor Ella’s. She didn’t mind the warm blood that soaked her
collar and ran down her neck. If he would only spare her eyes. Blindness had
been her one unspeakable terror. She closed her eyes again and silently prayed
for strength. Her strength was gone. Wave after wave of sickening, cowardly
terror swept her prostrate soul. She could feel his sullen presence -- his body
with its merciless strength towering above her. She dared not look. She knew
that he was watching her with cruel indifference. A single cry, a single word
and he might thrust his claw into her eyes and the light of the world would go
out forever.
Her terror was too
hideous; she could endure it no longer. She must move. She must try to save
herself. She lifted her head and caught his steady, venomous gaze.
A quick, sliding
movement of abject fear and she was erect, facing him and backing away
silently.
He followed with even
step, his gaze holding her as the eyes of a snake its victim. She would not let
him know her terror of blindness. She preferred death a thousand times. If he
would only kill her outright it was all the mercy she would ask.
"You -- won’t --
kill -- me -- Jim!" she sobbed. "Please -- please, don’t kill
me!"
He lifted his sharp
finger and followed her toward the shed-room door, his voice the triumphant cry
of an eagle above his prey.
"‘For better, for
worse -- until death do us port!’"
Her heart gave a bound
of cowardly joy. He had relented. He would not blind her. She could live. She
was young and life was sweet.
She tried to smile her
surrender through her tears as she backed slowly away from his ominous finger.
"Yes, I’ll try --
Jim. I’ll try -- ‘until death do us part -- until death -- until death ---- ’"
Her voice broke into a
flood of tears as she blindly felt her way through the door and into the
darkened room.
He paused on the
threshold, held the creaking board shutter in his hand and broke into a laugh.
"The world ain’t
big enough for you to get away from me, Kiddo. Good night -- a good little wife
now and it’s all right!"
Jim closed the door of
the little shed-room with a bang, and stood listening a moment to the sobs
inside.
"‘Until death do
us part,’ Kiddo!" he laughed grimly.
He turned back into the
room and saw Nance standing at the opposite entrance between the calico
curtains, an old, battered, flickering lantern in her hand. A white wool shawl
was thrown over the gray head and fell in long, filmy waves about her thin
figure. Her deep- sunken eyes were exaggerated in the dim light of lantern and
candle. She smiled wanly.
He stopped short at the
apparition; a queer shiver of superstitious fear shook him. The white form of
Death suddenly and noiselessly appearing from the darkness could not have been
more uncanny. He had wondered vaguely while the quarrel with his wife was
progressing, what had become of his mother. As the fight had reached its
height, he had forgotten her.
She looked at him,
blinking her eyes and trying to smile.
"Where the devil
have you been, old gal?" he asked nervously.
"Nowhere,"
she answered evasively.
"You’ve been
mighty quiet on the trip anyhow. I see you’ve brought something back from
nowhere."
Nance glanced down at
the jug she carried in her left hand and laughed.
"What is it?"
he asked.
"Nothin’ ---- "
"Nothin’ from
nowhere sounds pretty good to me when I see it in a brown jug on Christmas Eve.
You’re all right, old gal! I was just going to ask if you had a little mountain
dew. You’re a mind reader. I’ll bet the warehouse you keep that stored in is some
snug harbor -- eh?"
"They ain’t never
found it yit!" she giggled.
"And I’ll bet they
won’t -- bully for you!"
She took down a tin cup
from a shelf and placed it beside the jug.
"Another glass,
sweetheart ---- "
The old woman stared at
him in surprise, walked to the shelf and brought another tin cup.
"What do ye want
with two?" she asked in surprise.
Jim moved toward the
stool beside the table.
"Sit down."
"Me?"
"Sure. Let’s be
sociable. It’s Christmas Eve, isn’t it?"
"Yeah!" Nance
answered cheerfully, taking her seat and glancing timidly at her guest.
Jim seized the jug,
poured out two drinks of corn whiskey, handed her one and raised his:
"Well, here’s
lookin’ at you, old girl."
He paused, lowered his
cup and smiled.
"But say, give me
a toast." He nodded toward the shed-room. "I’m on my honeymoon, you
know."
His hostess laughed
timidly and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. She wished to be
sociable and make up as best she could for her rudeness on their arrival.
"I ain’t never
heard but one fur honeymooners," she said softly.
"Let’s have it. I’ve
never heard a toast for honeymooners in my life. It’ll be new to me -- fire
away!"
Nance fumbled her faded
dress with her left hand and laughed again.
"’May ye live long
and prosper an’ all yer troubles be little ones!’"
She laughed aloud at
the old, worm-eaten joke and Jim joined.
"Bully! Bully, old
girl -- bully!"
He lifted his cup and
drained it at one draught and Nance did the same.
He seized the jug and
poured another drink for each.
"Once more ----
"
He leaned across the
table.
"And here’s one
for you." He squared his body and lifted his cup:
"To all your
little ones -- no matter how big they are!"
Jim drained his liquor
without apparently noticing her agitation, though he was watching her keenly
from the corner of his eye.
The cup she held was
lowered slowly until the whiskey poured over her dress and on the floor. Her
thin figure drooped pathetically and her voice was the faintest sob:
"I -- I -- ain’t
got -- none!"
"I heard you had a
boy," Jim said carelessly.
The drooping figure
shot upright as if a bolt of lightning had swept her. She stared at him in
tense silence, trying to gather her wits before she answered.
"Who told you
anything about me?" she demanded sternly.
"A fellow in New
York," Jim continued with studied carelessness -- "said he used to
live down here."
"He lived down
here?" she repeated blankly.
"Yep -- come now,
loosen up and tell us about the kid."
"There ain’t
nuthin’ ter tell -- he’s dead," she cried pathetically.
"He said you deserted
the child and left him to starve."
"He said
that?" she growled.
"Yep."
He was silent again and
watched her keenly.
She fumbled her dress
and glanced nervously across the table as if afraid to ask more. Unable to wait
for him to speak, she cried nervously at last:
"Well -- well --
what else did he say?"
"That he took the
little duffer to New York and raised him."
"Raised him?"
She fairly screamed the
words, springing to her feet trembling from head to foot.
"Till he was big
enough to kick into the streets to shuffle for himself."
"The scoundrel
said he was dead."
Her voice was far away
and sank into dreamy silence. She was living the hideous, lonely years again
with a heart starved for love.
Jim’s voice broke the
spell:
"Then you didn’t
desert him?" The man’s eyes held hers steadily.
She stared at him
blankly and spoke with rushing indignation:
"Desert him -- my
baby -- my own flesh and blood? There’s never been a minute since I looked into
his eyes that I wouldn’t ’a’ died fur him."
She paused and sobbed.
"He had such
pretty eyes, stranger. They looked like your’n -- only they wuz puttier and
bluer."
She lifted her faded
dress, brushed the tears from her cheeks and went on rapidly:
"When I found his
drunken brute of a daddy was a liar and had another wife, I wouldn’t live with
him. He tried to make me but I kicked him out of the house -- and he stole the
boy to get even with me." Her voice broke, she dropped her head and choked
back the tears. "He did get even with me, too -- he did," she sobbed.
Jim watched her in
silence until the paroxysm had spent itself.
"You think you’d
know this boy now if you found him?"
She bent close, her
breath coming in quick gasps.
"My God, mister,
do you think I could find him?"
"He lives in New
York; his name is Jim Anthony."
"Yes -- yes?"
she said in a dazed way. "He called hisself Walter Anthony -- he wuz a
stranger from the North and my boy’s name was Jim." She paused and bent
eagerly across the table. "New York’s an awful big place, ain’t it?"
"Some town, old
gal, take it from me."
"Could I find
him?"
"If you’ve got
money enough. You said you’d know him. How?"
"I’d know
him!" she answered eagerly. "The last quarrel we had was about a mark
on his neck. He wuz a spunky little one. You couldn’t make him cry. His devil
of a daddy used to stick pins in him and laugh because he wouldn’t cry. The
last dirty trick he tried was what ended it all. He pushed a live cigar agin
his little neck until I smelled it burnin’ in the next room. I knocked him down
with a chair, drove him from the house and told him I’d kill him if he ever put
his foot inside the door agin.
He stole my boy the
next night -- but he’ll carry that scar to his grave."
"You’d love this
boy now if you found him in New York as bad as his father ever was?" Jim
asked with a curious smile.
"Yes -- he’s
mine!" was the quick, firm answer.
Jim watched her
intently.
"I looked Death in
the face for him," she went on fiercely. "I’d dive to the bottom o’
hell to find him if I knowed he wuz thar ---- But what’s the use to talk; that
devil killed him! I’ve waked up many a night stranglin’ with a dream when I
seed the drunken brute burnin’ an’ beatin’ an’ torturin’ him to death. The
feller you’ve heard about ain’t him. ’Tain’t no use to make me hope an’ then
kill me ---- "
"He’s not dead, I
tell you. I know."
Jim’s voice rang with
conviction so positive the old woman’s breath came in quick gasps and she
smiled through her eager tears.
"And I might find
him?"
"If you’ve got
money enough! Money can do anything in this world."
He opened the black
bag, thrust both hands into it and threw out a handful of yellow coin which he
allowed to pour through his fingers and rattle into a tin plate which had been
left on the table.
Her eyes sparkled with
avarice.
"It’s your’n --
all your’n?" she breathed hungrily.
"I’m taking it
down South to invest for a fool who thinks" -- he stopped and laughed --
"who thinks it’s bad luck to keep money that’s stained with blood ---- "
Nance started back.
"Got blood on
it?"
Jim spoke in
confidential appeal.
"That wouldn’t
make any difference to you, would it?"
She shook her gray
locks and glanced at the pile of yellow metal, hungrily.
"I -- I wouldn’t
like it with blood marks!"
He lifted a handful of
coin, clinked it musically in his hands and held it in his open palms before
her.
"Look! Look at it
close! You don’t see any blood marks on it, do you?"
Her eyes devoured it.
"No."
He seized her hand,
thrust a half-dozen pieces into it and closed her thin fingers over it.
"Feel of it --
look at it!"
Her hands gripped the
gold. She breathed quickly, broke into a laugh, caught herself in the middle of
it, and lapsed suddenly into silence.
"Feels good, don’t
it?" he laughed.
Nance grinned, her
uneven, discolored gleaming ominously in the flicker of the candle.
"Don’t it?"
he repeated.
"Yeah!"
He lifted another
handful and threw it in the air, catching it again.
"That’s the stuff
that makes the world go ’round. There’s your only friend, old girl! Others
promise well -- but in the scratch they fail."
"Yeah -- when the
scratch comes they fail!" Nance echoed.
"Money never
fails!" Jim continued eagerly. "It’s the god that knows no right or
wrong ---- "
He touched the pile in
the plate and drew the bag close for her to see.
"How much do you
guess is there?"
Nance gazed greedily
into the open bag and looked again at the shining heap in the plate.
"I dunno -- a
million, I reckon."
The man laughed.
"Not quite that
much! But enough to make you rich for life -- if you had it."
The old woman turned
away pathetically and shook her gray head.
"I wouldn’t have
to work no more, would I?"
Her thin hands touched
the faded, dirty dress.
"And I could buy
me a decent dress," her voice sank to a whisper, "and I could find my
boy."
"You bet you
could!" Jim exclaimed. "There’s just one god in this world now, old
girl -- the Almighty Dollar!"
He paused and leaned
close, persuasively:
"Suppose now, the
man that got that money had to kill a fool to take it -- what of it? You don’t
get big money any other way. A burglar watches his chance, takes his life in
his hands and drills his way into a house. He finds a fool there who fights. It’s
not his fault that the man was born a fool, now is it?"
"Mebbe not ----
"
"Of course not. A
burglar kills but one to get his pile, and then only because he must, in
self-defence. A big gambling capitalist corners wheat, raises the price of
bread and starves a hundred thousand children to death to make his. It’s not
stained with blood. Every dollar is soaked in it! Who cares?"
"Yeah -- who
cares?" Nance growled fiercely.
Jim smiled at his easy
triumph.
"It’s dog eat dog
and the devil take the hindmost now!"
"That’s so -- ain’t
it?" she agreed.
"You bet! Business
is business and the best man’s the man that gets there. Steal a hundred
dollars, you go to the penitentiary -- foolish! Don’t do it. Steal a million
and go to the Senate!"
"Yeah!" Nance
laughed.
"Money -- money
for its own sake," he rushed on savagely -- "right or wrong. That’s
all there is in it today, old girl -- take it from me!"
He paused and his smile
ended in a sneer.
"Man shall eat bread
in the sweat of his brow? Only fools sweat!"
Nance turned her face
away, sighed softly, glancing back at Jim furtively.
"I reckon that’s
so, too. Have another drink, stranger?"
She poured another cup
of whiskey and one for herself. She raised hers as if to drink and deftly threw
the contents over her shoulder.
Jim seized the jug and
poured again.
"Once more. Come,
I’ve another toast for you. You’ll drink this one I know."
He lifted his cup and
rose a little unsteadily. Nance stood with uplifted cup watching him.
"As the poet
sings," he began with a bow to the old woman:
"France has her
lily, England the rose,
Everybody knows where
the shamrock grows --
Scotland has her
thistle flowerin’ on the hill,
But the American Emblem
-- is a One Dollar Bill!"
He broke into a
boisterous laugh.
"How’s that, old
girl?"
"That’s bully,
stranger!"
He lifted high his cup.
"We drink to the
Almighty Dollar!"
"To the Almighty
Dollar!" Nance echoed, clinking her cup against his."
He drained it while she
again emptied hers over her shoulder.
"By golly, you’re
all right, old girl. You’re a good fellow!" he cried jovially.
"Yeah -- have
another?" she urged.
She filled his cup and
placed it on his side of the table. His eye had rested on the gold. He ignored
the invitation, lifted a handful of gold and dropped it with musical clinking
into the plate.
"Blood marks --
tommyrot!" he sneered.
"Yeah --
tommyrot!" she echoed. "That’s what I say, too!"
Jim wagged his head
sagely:
"Now you’re
talking sense, old girl!"
He leaned across the
table and pointed his finger straight into her face.
"And don’t you
forget what I’m tellin’ ye tonight -- get money, get money!"
He stopped suddenly and
a sneer curled his lips.
"Oh I Get it ‘fairly’
-- get it ‘squarely’ -- but whatever you do -- by God! -- Get it!"
His uplifted hand
crashed downward and gripped the gold. His fingers slowly relaxed and the coin
clinked into the plate.
Nance watched him
eagerly.
"Yeah, that’s it
-- get it," she breathed slowly.
Jim lifted his drooping
eyes to hers.
"If you’ve got it,
you’re a god -- you can do no wrong. Nobody’s goin’ to ask you how you got it;
all they want to know is have you got it!"
"Yeah, nobody’s
goin’ to ask you how you got it, Nance repeated, "they just want to know
have you got it! Yeah -- yeah!"
"You bet!"
Jim’s head sank in the
first stupor of liquor and he dropped into the chair.
The old woman leaned
eagerly over the plate of gold and clutched the coin with growing avarice. Her
fingers opened and closed like a bird of prey. She touched it lovingly and held
it in her hands a long time watching Jim’s nodding head with furtive glances.
She dropped a handful of coin into the plate and watched its effect on the
drooping head.
He looked up and his
eyes fell again.
"Bed-time, I
reckon," Nance said.
"Yep -- pretty
tired. I’ll turn in."
The old woman glided
sidewise to the table near the kitchen door, picked up the lantern and started
to feel her way backwards through the calico curtains.
"See you in the
mornin’, old gal," Jim drawled -- "Christmas mornin’ -- an’ I got
somethin’ else to tell ye in the mornin’ ---- "
Again his head sank to
the table.
"All right, mister
-- good night!" Nance answered, slowly feeling her way through the
opening, watching him intently.
Jim lifted his head and
nodded heavily for a moment. His hand slipped from the table and he drew
himself up sharply and rose, holding to the table for support.
He picked up the plate
of coin, poured it back in the bag, snapped the lock and walked with the bag
unsteadily to the couch. He placed the bag under the pillow and pressed the
soft feathers down over it, turned back to the table and extinguished the
candle by a quick, square blow of his open palm on the flame.
He staggered to the
couch, pushed the coats to the floor, dropped heavily, drew the lap-robe over
him and in five minutes was sound asleep.
The cabin was still.
Only the broken sobbing of the woman in the little shed-room came faint and low
on old Nance’s ears.
She slipped from the
kitchen into the shadows of a tree near the house and listened until the
sobbing ceased.
She crept close to the
shed and stood silent and ghost-like beside its daubed walls. Immovable as a
cat crouching in the hedge to spring on her prey, she waited until the waning
moon had sunk behind the crags. She laid her ear close to a crack in the logs
from which she had once pushed the red mud to let in the light. All was still
at last. The sobbing had stopped. The young wife was sound asleep.
She had wondered
vaguely at first about the crying, but quickly made up her mind that it was
only a lover’s quarrel. She was glad of it. The girl would bar her door and
sulk all night. So much the better. There would be no danger of her entering
the living- room where Jim slept.
She would wait a little
longer to make sure she was asleep. A half hour passed. The white-shrouded figure
stood immovable, her keen ears tuned for the slightest sounds from within.
The stars were shining
in unusual brilliance. She could see her way through the shadows even better
than in full moon. A wolf was crying again for his mate from a distant crag.
She had grown used to his howls. He had come close to her cabin once in the
day-time. She had tried to creep on him and show her friendliness. But he had
fled in terror at the first glimpse of her dress through the parting
underbrush.
An owl was calling from
his dead tree-top down the valley. She smiled at his familiar, tremulous call.
Her own eyes were wide as his tonight. No sight or sound of Nature among the
crags about her cabin had for her spirit any terror. The night was her mantle.
She added to the meager
living which she had wrung from her mountain farm by trading with the illicit
distillers of the backwoods of Yancey County. Too ignorant to run a distillery
of her own, she had stored their goods with such skill that the hiding- place
had never been discovered. She loved good whiskey herself. She had tried to
find in its fiery depths the dreams of happiness life had so cruelly denied
her.
The hiding-place of
this whiskey had puzzled the revenue officers of every administration for
years. They had watched her house day and night. Not one of them had ever
struck the trail to her storehouse.
The game had excited
her imagination. She loved its daring and danger. That there was the slightest
element of wrong or crime in her association with the moonshiners of her native
heath had never for a moment entered her mind. It was no crime to make whiskey.
This was the first article of the creed of the true North Carolina mountaineer.
They had from the first declared that the tax levied by the Federal Government
on the product of their industry was an infamous act of tyranny. They had
fought this tyranny for two generations. They would fight it as long as there
was breath in their bodies and a single load of powder and buckshot for their
rifles.
Nance considered
herself a heroine in the pride of her soul for the shrewd and successful
defiance she had given the revenue officers for so many years.
She had been too
cunning to even allow one of her own people to know the secret of her store
house. For that reason it had never been discovered. She always stored the
whiskey temporarily in the potato shed or under the cabin floor until night and
then alone carried it to the place she had discovered.
She laughed softly at
the thought of this deep hiding-place tonight. Its temperature never varied
winter or summer. Not a track had ever been left at its door. She might live a
hundred years and, unless some spying eye should see her enter, its existence
could never be suspected.
She tipped softly into
the kitchen, walked to the door of the living-room and listened to the even,
heavy breathing of the man on the couch.
Once more the faint
echo of a sob in the shed beyond came to her keen ears. She stood for five
minutes. It was not repeated. She had only imagined it. The girl was still
asleep.
She turned noiselessly
back into the kitchen, put a box of matches in her pocket, felt her way to the
low shelf on which she had placed the battered lantern, picked it up and shook
it to make sure the oil was sufficient.
She stepped lightly
into the yard, pushed open the gate of the split-board garden fence, walked
along the edge to the corner and selected a spade from the tools that leaned
against the boards.
Carrying the spade and
unlighted lantern in her left hand, she glided from the yard into the woods.
Her right hand before her to feel for underbrush or overhanging bough, she made
her way rapidly to the swift-flowing mountain brook.
Arrived at the water
whose musical ripple had guided her steps, she removed her shoes and placed
them beside a tree. She wore no stockings. The faded skirt she raised and
tucked into her belt. She could wade knee deep now without hindrance.
Seizing the spade and
lantern, she made her way slowly and carefully downstream for three hundred
yards and paused beside a shelving ledge which projected half-way across the
brook.
She paused and listened
again for full ten minutes, immovable as the rock on which her thin, bony hand
rested. The stars were looking, but they could only peep through the network of
overhanging trees.
Feeling her way along
the rock until the ledge rose beyond her reach, she bent low and waded through
a still pool of eddying water straight under the mountain-side for more than a
hundred feet. Her extended right hand had felt for the stone ceiling above her
head until it ran abruptly out of reach.
She straightened her
body and took a deep breath. Ten steps she counted carefully and placed her
bare feet on the dry rock beyond the water.
Carefully picking her
way up the sloping bank until she reached a stretch of soft earth, she sank to
her hands and knees and crawled through an opening less than three feet in
height.
"Thar now!"
she laughed. "Let ’em find me if they can!"
She lighted her lantern
and seated herself on a boulder to rest -- one hundred and fifty feet in the
depths of a mountain. The cavern was ten feet in height and fifty feet in
length. The projecting ledges of rock made innumerable shelves on which a
merchant might have displayed his wares.
The old woman was too
shrewd for that. Her jugs were carefully planted in the ground behind two
fallen boulders, and their hiding-place concealed by a layer of drift which she
had gathered from the edge of the water. She had taken this precaution against
the day when some curious explorer might stumble on her secret as she had found
it hunting ginsing roots in the woods overhead. Her foot had slipped suddenly
through a hole in the soft mould. She peered cautiously below and could see no
bottom. She dropped a stone and heard it strike in the depths. She made her way
down the side of the crag and found the opening through the still eddying
waters. The hole through the roof she had long ago plugged and covered with
earth and dry leaves.
She carried her lantern
and spade to the further end of her storehouse and dug a hole in the earth
about two feet in depth. The earth she carefully placed in a heap.
"That’s the
place!" she giggled excitedly.
She left her lantern
burning, dropped again on the soft, mould-covered earth and quickly emerged on
the stone banks of the wide, still pool. Her hand high extended above her head,
she waded through the water until she touched the heavy ceiling, lowered her
body again to a stooping position and rapidly made her way out into the bed of
the brook.
She passed eagerly
along the babbling path and stopped with sure instinct at the tree beside whose
trunk she had placed her shoes.
In five minutes she had
made her way through the woods and reached the house. She tipped into the
kitchen and stood in the doorway or the living-room watching her sleeping
guest. The even breathing assured her that all was well. Her plan couldn’t
fail. She listened again for the sobs in the shed- room.
She was sure once that she
heard them. Five minutes passed and still she was uncertain. To avoid any
possible accident she tipped back through the kitchen, circled the house and
placed her ear against the crack in the logs.
The girl was sobbing --
or was she praying? She crouched beside the wall, waited and listened. The
night wind stirred the dead leaves at her feet. She lifted her head with a
sudden start, laughed softly and bent again to listen.
The sobbing in the
little room was the only sound that came from one of the grimmest battle-fields
from which the soul of a woman ever emerged alive.
To the first rush of
cowardly tears Mary had yielded utterly. She had fallen across the high-puffed
feather mattress of the bed, shivering in humble gratitude at her escape from
the horror of blindness. The grip of his claw-like fingers on her throat came
back to her now in sickening waves. The blood was still trickling from the
wound which his nails had made when she tore them loose in her first mad fight
for breath.
She lifted her body and
breathed deeply to make sure her throat was free. God in heaven! Could she ever
forget the hideous sinking of body and soul down into the depths of the black
abyss! She had seen the face of Death and it was horrible. Life, warm and throbbing,
was sweet. She loved it. She hated Death.
Yes -- she was a
coward. She knew it now, and didn’t care.
She sprang to her feet
with sudden fear. He might attack her again to make sure that her soul had been
completely crushed.
She crept to the door
and felt its edges.
"Yes, thank God,
there’s a place for the bar!" She shivered.
She ran her trembling
fingers carefully along the rough logs and found it in the corner. She slipped
it cautiously into the iron sockets, staggered to the bed and dropped in
grateful assurance of safety for the moment. She buried her face in the pillow
to fight back the sobs. How great her fall! She could crawl on her hands and
knees to Jane Anderson now and beg for protection. The last shred of pretense
was gone. The bankrupt soul stood naked and shivering, the last rag torn from
pride.
What a miserable fight
she had made, too, when put to the test! Ella had at least proved herself
worthy to live. The scrub-woman had risen in the strength of desperation and
killed the beast who had maimed her. She had only sunk a limp mass of
shivering, helpless cowardice and fled from the room whining and pleading for
mercy.
She could never respect
herself again. The scene came back in vivid flashes. His eyes, glowing like two
balls of blue fire, froze the blood in her veins -- his voice the rasping cold
steel of a file. And this coarse, ugly beast had held her in the spell of love.
She had clung to him, kissed him in rapture and yielded herself to him soul and
body. And he had gripped her delicate throat and choked her into insensibility,
dropping her limp form from his hands like a strangled rat. She could remember
the half- conscious moment that preceded the total darkness as she felt his
grip relax.
He would choke and beat
her again, too. He had said it in the sneering laughter at the door.
"A good little
wife now and it’s all right!"
And if you’re not
obedient to my whims I’ll choke you until you are! That was precisely what he
meant. That he was capable of any depth of degradation, and that he meant to
drag her with him, there could be no longer the shadow of a doubt.
She could not endure
another scene like that. She sprang to her feet again, shivering with terror.
She could hear the hum of the conversation in the next room. He was persuading
his mother to join in his criminal career. He was busy with his oily tongue
transforming the simple, ignorant, lonely old woman into an avaricious fiend
who would receive his blood-stained booty and rejoice in it.
He was laughing again.
She put her trembling hands over her ears to shut out the sound. He had laughed
at her shame and cowardice. It made her flesh creep to hear it.
She would escape. The
mountain road was dark and narrow and crooked. She would lose her way in the
night, perhaps. No matter. She could keep warm by walking. At dawn she would
find her way to a cabin and ask protection. If she could reach Asheville, a
telegram would bring her father. She wouldn’t lose a minute. Her hat and coat
were in the living-room. She would go bareheaded and without a coat. In the
morning she could borrow one from the woman at the Mount Mitchell house.
She crept cautiously
along the walls of the room searching for a door or window. There must be a way
out. She made the round without discovering an opening of any kind. There must
be a window of some kind high up for ventilation. There was no glass in it, of
course. It was closed by a board shutter -- if she could reach it.
She began at the door,
found the corner of the room and stretched her arms upward until they touched
the low, rough joist. Over every foot of its surface she ran her fingers,
carefully feeling for a window. There was none!
She found an open crack
and peered through. The stars were shining cold and clear in the December sky.
The twinkling heavens reminded her that it was Christmas Eve. The dawn she
hoped to see in the woods, if she could escape, would be Christmas morning.
There was no time for idle tears of self-pity.
The one thought that
beat in every throb of her heart now was to escape from her cell and put a
thousand miles between her body and the beast who had strangled her. She might
break through the roof! As a rule the shed-rooms of these rude mountain cabins were
covered with split boards lightly nailed to narrow strips eighteen inches
apart. If there were no ceiling, or if the ceiling were not nailed down and she
should move carefully, she might break through near the eaves and drop to the
ground. The cabin was not more than nine feet in height.
She raised herself on
the footrail of the bed and felt the ceiling. There could be no mistake. It was
there. She pressed gently at first and then with all her might against each
board. They were nailed hard and fast.
She sank to the bed
again in despair. She had barred herself in a prison cell. There was no escape
except by the door through which the beast had driven her. And he would
probably draw the couch against it and sleep there.
And then came the
crushing conviction that such flight would be of no avail in a struggle with a
man of Jim’s character. His laughing words of triumph rang through her soul now
in all their full, sinister meaning.
"The world ain’t
big enough for you to get away from me, Kiddo!"
It wasn’t big enough.
She knew it with tragic and terrible certainty. In his blind, brutal way he
loved her with a savage passion that would halt at nothing. He would follow her
to the ends of the earth and kill any living thing that stood in his way. And
when he found her at last he would kill her.
How could she have been
so blind! There was no longer any mystery about his personality. The slender
hands and feet, which she had thought beautiful in her infatuation, were merely
the hands and feet of a thief. The strength of jaw and neck and shoulders had
made him the most daring of all thieves -- a burglar.
His strange moods were
no longer strange. He laughed for joy at the wild mountain gorges and crags
because he saw safety for the hiding-place of priceless jewels he meant to
steal.
There could be no
escape in divorce from such a brute. He was happy in her cowardly submission.
He would laugh at the idea of divorce. Should she dare to betray the secrets of
his life of crime, he would kill her as he would grind a snake under his heel.
A single clause from
the marriage ceremony kept ringing its knell -- "until death do us
part!"
She knelt at last and
prayed for Death.
"Oh, dear God, let
me die, let me die!"
Suicide was a crime
unthinkable to her pious mind. Only God now could save her in his infinite
mercy.
She lay for a long time
on the floor where she had fallen in utter despair. The tears that brought
relief at first had ceased to flow. She had beaten her bleeding wings against
every barrier, and they were beyond her strength.
Out of the first stupor
of complete surrender, her senses slowly emerged. She felt the bare boards of
the floor and wondered vaguely why she was there.
The hum of voices again
came to her ears. She lay still and listened. A single terrible sentence she
caught. He spoke it with such malignant power she could see through the
darkness the flames of hell leaping in his eyes.
"Nobody’s going to
ask you how you got it -- all they want to know is have you got it!"
She laughed
hysterically at the idea of reformation that had stirred her to such desperate
appeal in the first shock of discovery. As well dream of reforming the Devil as
the man who expressed his philosophy of life in that sentence! Blood dripped
from every word, the blood of the innocent and the helpless who might
consciously or unconsciously stand in his way. The man who had made up his mind
to get rich quick, no matter what the cost to others, would commit murder
without the quiver of an eyelid. If she had ever had a doubt of this fact, she
could have none after her experience of tonight.
She wondered vaguely of
the effects he was producing on his ignorant old mother. Her words were too low
and indistinct to be heard. But she feared the worst. The temptation of the
gold he was showing her would be more than she could resist.
She staggered to her
feet and fell limp across the bed. The iron walls of a life prison closed about
her crushed soul. The one door that could open was Death and only God’s hand
could lift its bars.
Hour after hour Nance
stood beside the wall of the shed-room and with the patience of a cat waited
for the sobs to cease and the girl to be quiet.
Mary had risen from the
bed once and paced the floor in the dark for more than an hour, like a
frightened, wild animal, trapped and caged for the first time in life. With
growing wonder, Nance counted the beat of her foot-fall, five steps one way and
five back -- round after round, round after round, in ceaseless repetition.
"Goddlemighty, is
she gone clean crazy!" she exclaimed.
The footsteps stopped
at last and the low sobs came once more from the bed. The old woman crouched
down on a stone beside the log wall and drew the shawl about her shoulders.
A rooster crowed for midnight.
Still the restless thing inside was stirring. Nance rose uneasily. Her lantern
was still burning in her storehouse under the cliff. The wick might eat so low
it would explode. She had heard that such things happened to lamps. It was
foolish to have left it burning, anyhow.
She glided noiselessly
from the house into the woods, entered her hidden door exactly as she had done
before, extinguished the lantern, placed it on a shelving rock and put a dozen
matches beside it.
In ten minutes she had
returned to the house and crouched once more against the wall of the shed.
The low, pleading voice
was praying. She pressed her ear to the crack and heard distinctly. She must be
patient. Her plan was sure to succeed if she were only patient. No woman could
sob and pray and walk all night. She must fall down unconscious from sheer
exhaustion before day.
The old woman slipped
into the kitchen, took up the quilt which she had spread on the floor for her
bed, wrapped it about her thin shoulders and returned to her watch.
Again and again she
rose, believing her patience had won, and placed her ear to the crack only to
hear a sound within which told her only too plainly that the girl was yet
awake. Sometimes it was a sigh, sometimes she cleared her throat, sometimes she
tossed restlessly. One spoken sentence she heard again and again:
"Oh, dear God,
have mercy on my lost soul!"
"What can be the
matter with the fool critter!" Nance muttered. "Is she moanin’ for
sin? To be shore, they don’t have no revival meetings this time o’ year!"
She had known sinners
to mourn through a whole summer sometimes, but never in all her experience in
religious revivals had a mourner carried it over into winter. The dancing had
always eased the tension and brought a relapse to sinful thoughts.
The hours dragged until
the roosters began to crow for day. It would soon be light.
She must act now. There
was no time to lose. She pressed her ear to the crack once more and held it
five minutes.
Not a sound came from
within. The broken spirit had yielded to the stupor of exhaustion at last.
With swift, cat’s tread
Nance circled the cabin and entered the kitchen. The quilt she carefully spread
on the floor leading to the entrance to the living-room, crossed it softly and
stood in the doorway with her long hands on the calico hangings.
For five minutes she
remained immovable and listened to the deep, regular breathing of the sleeping
man. Her wits were keen, her eyes wide. She could see the dim outlines of the
furniture by the starlight through the window. Small objects in the room were,
of course, invisible. To light a candle was not to be thought of. It might wake
the sleeper.
She knew how to make
the light without a noise or its rays reaching his face. He had startled her
with the electric torch because of its novelty. She was no longer afraid. She
would know how to press the button. He had left the thing lying on the table
beside the black bag. He might have hidden the gold. He would not remember in his
drunken stupor to move the electric torch.
She glided ghost-like
into the room. Her bare feet were velvet. She knew every board in the floor.
There was one near the table that creaked. She counted her steps and cleared
the spot without a sound.
Her thin fingers found
the edge of the table and slipped with uncanny touch along its surface until
her hand closed on the rounded form of the torch.
Without moving in her
tracks she turned the light on the table and in every nook and corner of the
room beyond. She slowly swung her body on a pivot, flashing the light into each
shadow and over every inch of floor, turning always in a circle toward the
couch.
Satisfied that the
object she sought was nowhere in the circle she had covered, she moved a step
from the table and winked the light beneath it. She squatted on the floor and
flashed it carefully over every inch of its boards from one corner of the room
to the other and under the couch.
She rose softly, glided
behind the head of the sleeping man and stood back some six feet, lest the
flash of the torch might disturb him. She threw its rays behind the couch and
slowly raised them until they covered the dirty pillow on which Jim was
sleeping. There beneath the pillow lay the bag with its precious treasure. He
was sleeping on it. She had feared this, but felt sure that the whiskey he had
drunk would hold him in its stupor until late next morning.
She crouched low and
fixed the light’s ray slowly on the bag that her hand might not err the
slightest in its touch. She laid her bony fingers on it with a slow,
imperceptible movement, held them there a moment and moved the bag the
slightest bit to test the sleeper’s wakefulness. To her surprise he stirred
instantly.
"What’ell!"
he growled sleepily.
She stood motionless
until he was breathing again with deep, even, heavy throb. Gliding back to the
table, she flashed the light again on the bag and studied its position. His big
neck rested squarely across it. To move it without waking him was a physical
impossibility.
Here was a dilemma she
had not fully faced. She had not believed it possible for him to place the bag
where she could not get it. Her only purpose up to this moment had been to take
it and store it safely beneath the soft earth in the inner recess of the cave.
He would miss it in the morning, of course. She would express her amazement.
The bar would be down from the front door. Someone had robbed him. The money
could never be found.
She had made up her
mind to take it the moment he had convinced her that his philosophy of life was
true. His eloquence had transformed her from an ignorant old woman, content
with her poverty and dirt, into a dangerous and daring criminal.
There was no such thing
as failure to be thought of now for a moment. The spade in the inner room of
her store-house could be put to larger use if necessary. With the strength of
the madness now on her she could carry his body on her back through the woods.
The world would be none the wiser. He had quarreled with his wife, and left her
in a rage that night. That was all she knew. The sheriff of neither county
could afford to bother his head long over an insolvable mystery. Besides, both
sheriffs were her friends.
Her decision was
instantaneous when once she saw that it was safe.
She smiled over the
grim irony of the thing -- his words kept humming in her ears, his voice, low
and persuasive:
"Suppose now the
man that got that money had to kill a fool to take it -- what of it? You don’t
get big money any other way!"
On the shelf beside the
door was a butcher knife which she also used for carving. She had sharpened its
point that night to carve her Christmas turkey next day.
She raised the torch
and flashed its rays on the shelf to guide her hand, crept to the wall, took
down the knife and laid the electric torch in its place.
Steadying her body
against the wall, her arms outspread, she edged her way behind the couch and
bent over the sleeping man until by his breathing she had located his heart.
She raised her tall
figure and brought the knife down with a crash into his breast. With a sudden
wrench she drew it from the wound and crouched among the shadows watching him
with wide-dilated eyes.
The stricken sleeper
gasped for breath, his writhing body fairly leaped into the air, bounded on the
couch and stood erect. He staggered backward and lurched toward her. The
crouching figure bent low, gripping the knife and waiting for her chance to
strike the last blow.
Strangling with blood,
Jim opened his eyes and saw the old woman creeping nearer through the gray
light of the dawn.
He threw his hands
above his head and tried to shout his warning. She was on him, her trembling
hand feeling for his throat, before he could speak.
Struggling, in his weakened
condition, to tear her fingers away, he gasped:
"Here! Here! Great
God! Do you know what you’re doing?"
"I just want yer
money," she whispered. "That’s all, and I’m a-goin’ ter have
it!"
Her fingers closed and
the knife sank into his neck.
She sprang back and
watched him lurch and fall across the couch. His body writhed a moment in agony
and was still.
Holding the knife in
her hand, she tore open the bag and thrust her itching fingers into the gold,
gripping it fiercely.
"Nobody’s goin’ to
ask ye how ye got it -- they just want to know have ye got it -- yeah! Yeah
---- "
The last word died on
her lips. The door of the shed-room suddenly opened and Mary stood before her.
The first dim noises of
the tragedy in the living-room Mary’s stupefied senses had confused with a
nightmare which she had been painfully fighting.
The torch in Nance’s
hand had flashed through a crack into her face once. It was the flame of a
revolver in the hands of a thief in Jim’s den in New York. She merely felt it.
Her eyes had been gouged out and she was blind. A gang of his coarse companions
were holding a council, cursing, drinking, fighting. Jim had sprung between two
snarling brutes and knocked the revolver into the air. The flame had scorched
her face.
With an oath he had
slapped her.
"Get out, you
damned little fool!" he growled. "You’re always in the way when you’re
not wanted. Nobody can ever find you when there’s work to be done ---- "
"But I can’t see,
Jim dear," she pleaded. "I do not know when things are out of place
---- "
"You’re a
liar!" he roared. "You know where every piece of junk stands in this
room better than I do. I can’t bring a friend into that door that you don’t
know it. You can hear the swish of a woman’s skirt on the stairs four stories
below ---- "
"I only asked you
who the woman was who came in with you, Jim ---- "
His fingers gripped her
throat and stopped her breath. Through the roar of surging blood she could
barely hear the vile words he was dinning into her ears.
"I know you just
asked me, you nosing little devil, and it’s none of your business! She’s a pal
of mine, if you want to know, the slickest thief that ever robbed a flat. She’s
got more sense in a minute than you’ll ever have in a lifetime. She’s going to
live here with me now. You can sleep on the cot in the kitchen. And you come
when she calls, if you know what’s good for your lazy hide. I’ve told her to
thrash the life out of you if you dare to give her any impudence."
She had cowered at his
feet and begged him not to beat her again. The fumes of whiskey and stale beer
filled the place.
Jim turned from her to
quell a new fight at the other end of the room. Another woman was there,
coarse, dirty, beastly. She drew a knife and demanded her share of the night’s
robberies. She was trying to break from the men who held her to stab Jim. They
were all fighting and smashing the furniture ----
She sprang from the bed
with a cry of horror. The noise was real! It was not a dream. The beast inside
was stumbling in the dark. His passions fired by liquor, he was fumbling to
find his way into her room.
She rushed to the door
and put her shoulder against the bar, panting in terror.
She heard his
strangling cry:
"Here! Here! Great
God! Do you know what you’re doing?"
And then his mother’s
voice, mad with greed, cruel, merciless:
"I just want yer
money -- that’s all, an’ I’m goin’ to have it!"
She heard the clinch in
the struggle and the dull blow of the knife. In a sudden flash she saw it all.
He had succeeded in rousing Nance’s avarice and transforming her into a fiend.
Without knowing it she was stabbing her own son to death in the room in which
he had been born!
She tried to scream and
her lips refused to move. She tried to hurry to the rescue and her knees turned
to water.
Gasping for breath, she
drew the bar from her prison door and walked slowly into the room.
Nance’s tall, bony
figure was still crouched over the open bag, her left hand buried in the gold,
her right gripping the knife, her face convulsed with greed -- avarice and
murder blended into perfect hell-lit unity at last.
Jim lay on his back,
limp and still, obliquely across the couch, his breast bared in the struggle,
the blood oozing a widening scarlet blot on his white shirt. His head had
fallen backward over the edge and could not be seen.
Without moving a
muscle, her body crouching, Nance spoke:
"You wuz awake --
you heered?"
"Yes!"
The gleaming eyes
burned through the gray dawn, two points of scintillating, hellish light fixed
in purpose on the intruder.
She had only meant to
take the money. The fool had fought. She killed him because she had to. And now
the sobbing, sniveling little idiot who had kept her waiting all night had
stuck her nose into some thing that didn’t concern her. If she opened her
mouth, the gallows would be the end.
She would open it too.
Of course she would. She was his wife. They had quarreled, but the simpleton
would blab. Nance knew this with unerring instinct. It was no use to offer her
half the money. She didn’t have sense enough to take it. She knew those pious,
baby faces -- well, there was room for two in the cave under the cliff. It was
daylight now. No matter; it was Christmas morning. No man or woman ever
darkened her door on Christmas day. She could hide their bodies until dark, and
then it was easy. She would be in New York herself before anyone could suspect
the meaning of that automobile in the shed or the owners would trouble
themselves to come after it.
Again her decision was
quick and fierce. Her hand was on the bag. She would hold it against the world,
all hell and heaven.
With the leap of a
tigress she was on the girl, the bag gripped in her left hand, the knife in her
right.
To her amazement the
trembling figure stood stock still gazing at her with a strange look of pity.
"Well!" Nance
growled. "I ain’t goin’ ter be took now I’ve got this money -- I’m goin’
to New York ter find my boy!"
She lifted the knife
and stopped in sheer stupor of surprise at the girl’s immovable body and
staring eyes. Had she gone crazy? What on earth could it mean? No girl of her
youth and beauty could look death in the face without a tremor. No woman in her
right senses could see the body of her dead husband lying there red and yet
quivering without a sign. It was more than even Nance’s nerves could endure.
She lowered the knife
and peered into the girl’s set face and glanced quickly about the room. Could
she have called help? Was the house surrounded? It was impossible. She couldn’t
have escaped. What did it mean?
The old woman drew back
with a terror she couldn’t understand.
"What are you
looking at me like that for?" she panted.
Mary held her gaze in
lingering pity. Her heart went out now to the miserable creature trembling in
the presence of her victim. The blow must fall that would crush the soul out of
her body at one stroke. The gray hair had tumbled over her distorted features,
the ragged dress had been torn from her throat in the struggle and her flat,
bony breast was exposed.
"You don’t -- have
-- to -- go -- to -- New York -- to -- find -- your -- boy!" the strained
voice said at last.
Nance frowned in
surprise and flew back at her in rage.
"Yes I do, too --
he lives thar!"
The little figure
straightened above the crouching form.
"He’s here!"
Nance sank slowly
against the table and rested the bag on the edge of the chair. Its weight was
more than she could bear. She tried to glance over her shoulder at the body on the
couch and her courage failed. The first suspicion of the hideous truth flashed
through her stunned mind. She couldn’t grasp it at once.
"Whar?" she
whispered hoarsely.
Mary lifted her arm
slowly and pointed to the couch.
"There!"
Nance glared at her a
moment and broke into a hysterical laugh.
"It’s a lie -- a
lie -- a lie!"
"It’s true ----
"
"Yer’re just a
lyin’ ter me ter get away an give me up -- but ye won’t do it -- little Miss --
old Nance is too smart for ye this time. Who told you that?"
"He told me
tonight!"
"He told
you?" she repeated blankly.
"Yes."
"You’re a
liar!" she growled. "And I’ll prove it -- you move out o’ your tracks
an’ I’ll cut your throat. My boy’s got a scar on his neck -- I know right whar
to look for it. Don’t you move now till I see -- I know you’re a liar ----
"
She turned and with the
quick trembling fingers of her right hand tore the shirt back from the neck and
saw the scar. She still held the bag in her left hand. The muscles slowly
relaxed and the bag fell endwise to the floor, the gold crashing and rolling
over the boards. She stared in stupor and threw both hands above her streaming
gray hair.
"Lord God
Almighty!" she shrieked. "Why didn’t I think that he wuz somebody
else’s boy if he weren’t mine!"
The thin body trembled
and crumpled beside the couch.
The girl lifted her
head in a look of awe as if in prayer.
"And God has set
me free! free! free!"
Mary stood overwhelmed
by the tragedy she had witnessed. For the time her brain refused to record
sensations. She had seen too much, felt too much in the past eight hours. Soul
and body were numb.
The first impressions
of returning consciousness were fixed on Nance. She had risen suddenly from the
floor and smoothed the hair back from Jim’s forehead with tender touch as if
afraid to wake him. She drew the quilt from the kitchen floor, spread it over
the body, and lifted her eyes to Mary’s. It was only too plain.
Reason had gone.
She tipped close and
put her fingers on her lips.
"Sh! We mustn’t
wake him. He’s tired. Let him sleep. It’s my boy. He’s come home. We’ll fix him
a fine Christmas dinner. I’ve got a turkey. I’ll bake a cake ---- " she
paused and laughed softly. "I’ve got eggs too, fresh laid yesterday. We’ll
make egg- nog all day and all night. I ain’t had no Christmas since that devil
stole him. We’ll have one this time, won’t we?"
The girl’s wits were
again alert. She must run for help. A minute to humor the old woman’s delusion
and she might return before any harm came to her. Jim had not moved a muscle.
It was plain that he was beyond help.
"Yes," Mary
answered cheerfully. "You fix the cake -- and I’ll get the wood to make a
fire."
Nance laughed again.
"We’ll have the
dinner all ready for him when he wakes, won’t we?"
"Yes. I’ll be back
in a few minutes."
Nance hurried into the
kitchen humming an old song in a faltering voice that sent the cold chills down
the girl’s spine.
Mary slipped quietly
through the door and ran with swift, sure foot down the narrow road along which
the machine had picked its way the afternoon before. The cabin they had passed
last could not be more than a mile.
She made no effort to
find the logs for pedestrians when the road crossed the brook. She plunged
straight through the babbling waters with her shoes, regardless of skirts.
Panting for breath, she
saw the smoke curling from the cabin chimney a quarter of a mile away.
"Thank God!"
she cried. "They’re awake!"
She was so glad to have
reached her goal, her strength suddenly gave way and she dropped to a boulder
by the wayside to rest. In two minutes she was up and running with all her
might.
She rushed to the door
and knocked.
A mountaineer in
shirt-sleeves and stockings answered with a look of mild wonder.
"For God’s sake
come and help me. I must have a doctor quick. We spent the night at Mrs. Owens’.
She’s lost her mind completely -- a terrible thing has happened -- you’ll help
me?"
"Cose I will,
honey," the mountaineer drawled. "Jest ez quick ez I get on my
shoes."
"Is there a doctor
near?" she asked breathlessly.
He answered without
looking up:
"The best one that
God ever sent to a sick bed. He don’t charge nobody a cent in these parts. He
just heals the sick because hit’s his callin’. Come from somewhar up North and
built hisself a fine log house up on the side of the mountains. Hit’s full of
all the medicines in the world, too ---- "
"Will you ask him
to come for me?" Mary broke in.
"I’ll jump on my
hoss an’ have him thar in half a’ hour. You can run right back, honey, and look
out for the po’ ole critter till we get thar."
"Thank you! Thank
you!" she answered grate fully.
"Not at all, not
at all!" he protested as he swung through the door and hurried to the
low-pitched sheds in which his horse and cow were stabled. "Be thar in no
time!"
When Mary returned,
Nance was still busy in the kitchen. She had built a fire and put the turkey in
the oven.
Mary was counting the
minutes now until the doctor should come. The old woman’s prattle about the
return of her lost boy, so big and strong and handsome, had become unendurable.
She felt that she should scream and collapse unless help came at once. She
looked at her watch. It was just thirty-five minutes from the time she had left
the cabin in the valley below.
She sprang to her feet
with a smothered cry of joy. The beat of a horse’s hoof at full gallop was
ringing down the road.
In two minutes the
Doctor’s firm footstep was heard at the kitchen door.
Nance turned with a
look of glad surprise.
"Well, fur the
land sake, ef hit ain’t Doctor Mulford! Come right in!" she cried.
The Doctor seized her
hand.
"And how is my
good friend, Mrs. Owens, this morning?" he asked cheerfully.
Mary was studying him
with deep interest. She had asked herself the question a hundred times how much
she could tell him -- what to say and what to leave unsaid. One glance at his
calm, intellectual face was enough. He was a man of striking appearance, six
feet tall, forty-five years of age, hair prematurely gray and a slight stoop to
his broad shoulders. His brown eyes seemed to enfold the old woman in their
sympathy.
Nance was chattering
her answer to his greeting.
"Oh, I’m feelin’
fine, Doctor -- " she dropped her voice confidentially -- "and you’re
just in time for a good dinner. My boy that was lost has come home. He’s a
great big fellow, wears fine clothes and come up the mountain all the way in a
devil wagon." She put her hand to her mouth. "Sh! He’s asleep! We won’t
wake him till dinner! He’s all tired out."
The Doctor nodded
understandingly and turned toward Mary.
"And this young
lady?"
"Oh, that’s his
wife from New York -- ain’t she purty?"
The Doctor saw the
delicate hands trembling and extended his.
No word was spoken.
None was needed. There was healing in his touch, healing in his whole being. No
man or woman could resist the appeal of his personality. Their secrets were
yielded with perfect faith.
"Come with me
quickly," Mary whispered.
"I
understand," he answered carelessly.
Turning again to Nance,
he said with easy confidence:
"I’ll not disturb
you with your cooking, Mrs. Owens. Go right on with it. I’ll have a little chat
with your son’s wife. If she’s from New York I want to ask her about some of my
people up there ---- "
"All right,"
Nance answered, "but don’t you wake him! Go with her inter the
shed-room."
"We’ll go on
tip-toe!" the Doctor whispered.
Nance nodded, smiled
and bent again over the oven.
Mary led him quickly
through the living-room, head averted from the couch, and into the prison cell
in which she had passed the night. The physician glanced with a startled look
at the gold still scattered on the floor.
She seized his hand and
swayed.
He touched the brown
hair of her bared head gently and pressed her hand.
"Steady, now,
child, tell me quickly."
"Yes, yes,"
she gasped, "I’ll tell you the truth ---- "
He held her gaze.
"And the whole
truth -- it’s best."
Mary nodded, tried to
speak and failed. She drew her breath and steadied herself, still gripping his
hand.
"I will," she
began faintly. "He’s dead ---- "
She paused and nodded
toward the living-room.
"The man -- her
son?"
"Yes. We came last
night from Asheville. We were on our honeymoon. We haven’t been married but
three weeks. I never knew the truth about his life and character until last
night when he told me that this old woman was his mother. I found a case of
jewels in the bag he carried -- jewels that belonged to a man in New York who
was robbed and shot. I recognized the case. He confessed to me at last in cold,
brutal words that he was a thief. I couldn’t believe it at first. I tried to
make him give up his criminal career. He laughed at me. He gloried in it. I
tried to leave him. He choked me into insensibility and drove me into this
cell, where I spent the night. He brought the gold that you saw on the floor
which he had honestly made to give to his old mother -- but for a devilish
purpose. He showed it to her last night to rouse her avarice and make her first
agree to hide his stolen goods. He succeeded too well. Before he had revealed
himself she slipped into the room at daylight while he slept in a drunken
stupor, murdered him and took the money. The struggle waked me and I rushed in.
She gripped her knife to kill me. I told her that she had murdered her own son
and she went mad ---- "
She paused for breath
and her lips trembled piteously.
"You know what to
do, Doctor?"
"Yes!"
"And you’ll help
me?"
He smiled tenderly and
nodded his head.
"God knows you
need it, child!"
The nerves snapped at
last, and she sank a limp heap at his feet.
The Doctor threw off
his coat and took charge of the stricken house. He sent his waiting messenger
for a faithful nurse, a mountain woman whom he had trained, and began the fight
for Mary’s life. The collapse into which she had fallen would require weeks of
patient care. There was no immediate danger of death, and while he awaited the
arrival of help, he turned into the living-room to examine the body of the
slain husband.
The head had fallen
backward over the side of the lounge and a pool of blood, still warm and red,
lay on the floor in a widening circle beneath it. His quick eye took in its
significance at a glance. He sprang forward, ripped the shirt wide open and
applied his ear to the breast.
"He’s still
alive!" he cried excitedly.
He examined the ugly
wound in the left side and found that the knife had penetrated the lung. The
heart had not been touched. The blow on the neck had not been fatal. The shock
of the final stroke had merely choked the wounded man into collapse from the
hemorrhage of the left lung. The position into which the body had fallen across
the couch had gradually cleared the accumulated blood. There was a chance to
save his life.
In ten minutes he had
applied stimulants and restored respiration, but the deep wheeze from the stricken
lung told only too plainly the dangerous character of the wound. It would be a
bitter fight. His enormous vitality might win. The chances were against him.
Jim’s lips moved and he
tried to speak.
The Doctor placed his
hand on his mouth and shook his head. The drooping eyelids closed in grateful
obedience.
The beat of horses’
hoofs echoed down the mountain road. His nurse and messenger were coming. He
decided at once to move Mary to his own house. She must regain consciousness in
new surroundings or her chance of survival would be slender. To awake in this
miserable cabin, the scene of the tragedy she had witnessed, might be instantly
fatal. Besides she must not yet know that the brute who had choked her was
alive and might still hold the power of life and death over her frail body. She
believed him dead. It was best so. He might be dead and buried before she
recovered consciousness. The fever that burned her brain would completely cloud
reason for days.
He hastily improvised a
stretcher with a blanket and two strong quilting-poles which stood in the
corner of the room. Nance helped him without question. She obeyed his slightest
suggestion with childlike submission.
He placed Mary on the
stretcher, wrapped her body in another warm blanket and turned to his nurse and
messenger:
"Carry her to my
house. Walk slowly and rest whenever you wish. Don’t wake her. Tell Aunt Abbie
to put her to bed in the south room overlooking the valley. Don’t leave her a
minute, Betty. She’s in the first collapse of brain fever. You know what to do.
I’ll be there in an hour. You come back here, John. I want you."
The mountaineer nodded
and seized one end of the stretcher. The nurse took up the other and the Doctor
held wide the cabin door as they passed out.
For three weeks he
fought the grim battle with Death for the two young lives the Christmas tragedy
had thrust into his hands. He gave his entire time day and night to the
desperate struggle.
When pneumonia had
developed and Jim’s life hung by a hair, he slept on the couch in the
living-room of the cabin and had Nance make for herself a bed on the floor of
the kitchen.
The old woman remained
an obedient child. She cooked the Doctor’s meals and did the work about the
house and yard as if nothing had disturbed her habits of lonely plodding. She
believed implicitly all that was told her. Her son had pneumonia from cold he
had taken in the long drive from Asheville. The house must be kept quiet. John
Sanders was helping her nurse him. She was sure the Doctor would save him.
Even the knife with
which she had stabbed him made no impression on her numbed senses. The Doctor
had scoured every trace of blood from the blade and put it back in its place on
the shelf, lest she should miss it and ask questions. She used it daily without
the slightest memory of the frightful story it might tell.
Each morning before
going to the cabin the Doctor watched with patience for the first signs of
returning consciousness in Mary’s fever-wracked body. The day she lifted her
grateful eyes to his and her lips moved in a tremulous question he raised his
hand gently.
"Sh! Child -- don’t
talk! It’s all right. You’re getting better. I’ve been with you every day. You’re
in my house now. You’ll soon be yourself again."
She smiled wanly, put
her delicate hand on his and pressed it gratefully.
"I understand. You
thank me -- you say that I am good to you. But I’m not. This is my life. I heal
the sick because I must. I love this battle royal with Death. He beats me
sometimes -- but I never quit. I’m always tramping on his trail, and I’ve won
this fight!"
The calm brown eyes
held her in a spell and she smiled again.
"Sleep now,"
he said soothingly. "Sleep day and night. Just wake to take a little food
-- that’s all and Nature will do the rest."
He stroked her hand
gently until her eyelids closed.
Two days later Jim
clung to the Doctor’s hand and insisted on talking.
"Better wait a
little longer, boy," the physician answered kindly. "You’re not out
of the woods yet ---- "
"I can’t wait --
Doc ---- " Jim pleaded. "I’ve just got to ask you something."
"All right. You
can talk five minutes."
"My wife, Doc, how
is she? You took her to your house, John told me. She’ll get well?"
"Yes. She’s
rapidly recovering now."
"What does she say
about me?"
"She thinks you’re
dead."
"You haven’t told
her?"
"No."
"Why?"
"She had all she
could stand ---- "
Jim stared in silence.
"You think she’d
be sorry to know I am alive?" he asked slowly.
"It would be a
great shock."
The steel blue eyes
slowly filled with tears.
"God! I am rotten,
ain’t I?"
"There’s no doubt
about that, my son," was the firm answer.
"Why did you fight
so hard to save me -- I wonder?"
"An old feud
between Death and me."
Jim suddenly seized the
Doctor’s hand.
"Say, you can’t
fool me -- you’re a good one, Doc. You’ve been a friend to me and you’ve got to
help now -- you’ve just got to. You’re the only one on earth who can. You’ve a
great big heart and you can’t go back on a fellow that’s down and out. Give me
a chance! You will -- won’t you?"
The hot fingers gripped
the Doctor’s hand with pleading tenderness.
The brown eyes searched
Jim’s soul.
"If you can show
me it’s worth while ---- "
The fingers tightened
their grip in silence.
"Just give me a
chance, Doc," he said at last, "and I’ll show you! I ain’t never had
a chance to really know what was right and what was wrong. If I’d a lived here
with my old mother she’d have told me. You know what it is to be a stray dog on
the streets of New York? Even then, I’d have kept straight if I hadn’t been
robbed by a lawyer and his pal. I didn’t know what I was doin’ till that night
here in this cabin -- honest to God, I didn’t ---- "
He paused for breath
and a tear stole down his cheek. He fought for control of his emotions and went
on in low tones.
"I didn’t know --
till I saw my old mother creepin’ on me in the shadows with that big knife
gleamin’ in her hand! I tried to stop her and I couldn’t. I tried to yell and
strangled with blood. I saw the flames of hell in her eyes and I had kindled
them there -- God! I never knew until that minute! I’m broken and bruised lyin’
on the rocks now in the lowest pit ---- Give me your hand, Doc! You’re my only
friend -- I’m goin’ straight from now on -- so help me God!"
He paused again for
breath and sought the actor’s eyes.
"You’ll stand by
me, won’t you?"
A friendly grip closed
on the trembling fingers.
"Yes -- I’ll help
you -- if I can."
Mary was resting in the
chair beneath the southern windows of the sun-parlor of the Doctor’s bungalow.
He had built his home of logs cut from the mountainside. Its rooms were
supplied with every modern convenience and comfort. Clear spring water from the
cliff above poured into the cypress tank constructed beneath the roof. An
overflow pipe sent a sparkling, bubbling and laughing through the lawn,
refreshing the wild flowers planted along its edges.
The view from the
window looking south was one of ravishing beauty and endless charm. Perched on
a rising spur of the Black Mountain the house commanded a view of the long
valley of the Swannanoa opening at the lower end into the wide, sunlit sweep of
the lower hills around Asheville. Upward the balsam-crowned peaks towered among
the clouds and stars.
No two hours of the day
were just alike. Some times the sun was raining showers of diamonds on the
trembling tree-tops of the valleys while the blackest storm clouds hung in
ominous menace around Mount Mitchell and the Cat-tail. Sometimes it was raining
in the valley -- the rain cloud a level sheet of gray cloth stretching from the
foot of the lawn across to the crags beyond, while the sun wrapped the little
bungalow in a warm, white mantle.
Mary had never tired of
this enchanted world during the days of her convalescence. The Doctor, with
firm will, had lifted every care from her mind. She had gratefully submitted to
his orders, and asked no questions.
She began to wonder
vaguely about his life and people and why he had left the world in which a man
of his culture and power must have moved, to bury himself in these mountain
wilds. She wondered if he had married, separated from his wife and chosen the
life of a recluse. He volunteered no information about himself.
When not attending his
patients he spent his hours in the greenhouse among his flowers or in the long
library extension of the bungalow. More than five thousand volumes filled the
solid shelves. A massive oak table, ten feet in length and four feet wide,
stood in the center of the room, always generously piled with books, magazines
and papers. At the end of this table he kept the row of books which bore
immediately on the theme he was studying.
Beside the window
opening on the view of the valley stood his old-fashioned desk -- six feet
long, its top a labyrinth of pigeon-holes and tiny drawers.
He pursued his studies
with boyish enthusiasm and chattered of them to Mary by the hour -- with never
a word passing his lips about himself.
Aunt Abbie, the cook,
brought her a cup of tea, and Mary volunteered a question.
"Do you know the
Doctor’s people, Auntie?" she asked hesitatingly.
"Lord, child, he’s
a mystery to everybody! All we know is that he’s the best man that ever walked
the earth. He won’t talk and the mountain folks are too polite to nose into his
business. He saved my boy’s life one summer, and when he was strong and well
and went back to Asheville to his work, I had nothin’ to do but to hold my
hands, and I come here to cook for him. He tries to pay me wages but I laugh at
him. I told him if he could save my boy’s life for nothin’ I reckon I could
cook him a few good meals without pay ---- "
Her eyes filled with
tears. She brushed them off, laughed and added:
"He lets me alone
now and don’t pester me no more about money."
Her tea and toast
finished, Mary placed the tray on the table, rose with a sudden look of pain,
and made her way slowly to the library.
A warm fire of hardwood
logs sparkled in the big stone fireplace. The Doctor was out on a visit to a
patient. He had given her the freedom of the place and had especially insisted
that she use his books and make his library her resting place whenever her mind
was fagged. She had spent many quiet hours in its inspiring atmosphere.
She seated herself at
his desk and studied the calendar which hung above it. A sudden terror
overwhelmed her; she buried her face in her arms and burst into tears.
She was still lying
across the desk, sobbing, when the Doctor walked into the room.
He touched her hair
reproachfully with his firm hand.
"Why, what’s this?
My little soldier has disobeyed orders?"
"I don’t want to
live now," she sobbed.
"And why
not?"
"I -- I -- am
going to be a mother," she whispered.
"So?"
"The mother of a
criminal! Oh, Doctor, it’s horrible! Why did you let me live? The hell I passed
through that night was enough -- God knows! This will be unendurable. I’ve made
up my mind -- I’ll die first ---- "
"Rubbish, child!
Rubbish!" he answered with a laugh. "Where did you get all this
misinformation?"
"You know what my
husband was. How can you ask?"
"Because I happen
to know also his wife -- the mother-to-be of this supposed criminal who has
just set sail for the shores of our planet -- and I know that she is one of the
purest and sweetest souls who ever lost her way in the jungles of the world. If
you were the criminal, dear heart, the case might be hopeless. But you’re not.
You are only the innocent victim of your own folly. That doesn’t count in the
game of Nature ---- "
"What do you
mean?" she asked breathlessly.
"Simply this: The
part which the male plays in the reproduction of the race is small in
comparison with the role of the female. He is merely a supernumerary who steps
on the stage for a moment and speaks one word announcing the arrival of the
queen. The queen is the mother. She plays the star role in the drama of
Heredity. She is never off the stage for a single moment. We inherit the most
obvious physical traits from our male ancestors but even these may be modified
by the will of the mother."
"Modified by the
will of the mother?" she repeated blankly.
"Certainly. There
are yet long days and weeks and months before your babe will be born -- at
least seven months. There’s not a sight or sound of earth or heaven that can
reach or influence this coming human being save through your eyes and ears and
touch and soul. Almighty God can speak His message only through you. You are
his ambassador on earth in this solemn hour. What your husband was, is of
little importance. There is not a moment, waking or sleeping, day or night,
that does not bring to you its divine opportunity. This human life is yours --
absolutely to mold and fashion in body and mind as you will."
"You’re just saying
this to keep me from suicide," Mary interrupted.
"I am telling you
the simplest truth of physical life. You can even change the contour of your
baby’s head if you like. You think in your silly fears that the bull neck and
jaw of the father will reappear in the child. It might be so unless you see fit
to change it. All any father can do is to transmit general physical traits
unless modified by the will of the mother."
"You mean that I
can choose even the personal appearance of my child?" she asked in blank
amazement.
"Exactly that.
Choose the type of man you wish your babe to be and it shall be so. Who in all
the world would you prefer that he resemble?"
"You," she
answered promptly.
He smiled gently.
"That pays me for
all my trouble, child! No doctor ever got a bigger fee than that. Banks may
fail, but I’ll never lose it. Your choice simplifies that matter very much. You
won’t need a picture in your room ---- "
"A picture could
determine the features of an unborn babe?" she asked incredulously.
"Beyond a doubt,
and it will determine character sometimes. I knew a mother in the mountains of
Vermont who hung the picture of a ship under full sail in her living-room. She
bore seven sons. Not one of them ever saw the ocean until he was grown and yet
all of them became sailors. This was not an accident. In her age and loneliness
she blamed God for taking her children from her. Yet she had made sailors of
them all by the selection of a single piece of furniture in her room. Nature
has a way of starting her children on their journey through this world very
nearly equal -- each a bundle of possibilities in the hands of a mother. A
father may transmit physical disease, if his body is unsound. Such marriages
should be prohibited by law. But nine-tenths of the spiritual traits out of
which character is formed are the work of the mother. A criminal mother will
bring into the world only criminals. A criminal male may be the father of a
saint. The responsibility of shaping the destiny of the race rests with the
mother ---- "
The Doctor sprang to
his feet and paced the floor, his arms gripped behind his back in deep thought.
He paused before the enraptured listener and hesitated to speak the thought in
his mind.
He lifted his hand
suddenly, his decision apparently made.
"It is of the
utmost importance to the race that our mothers shall be pure. Better certainly
if both father and mother are so. It is indispensable that the mother shall be!
On this elemental fact rests the dual standard of sex morals. On this fact
rests the hope of a glorified humanity through the development of an
intelligent motherhood. Stay here with me until your child is born and I’ll
prove the truth of every word I’ve spoken ---- "
"Oh, if I only
could!"
"Why not?"
"I couldn’t impose
such a burden on you!" she faltered.
"You would confer
on me the highest honor, if you will allow me to direct you in this
experiment."
There was no mistaking
his honesty and earnestness. There was no refusing the appeal.
"You really wish
me to stay?" she asked.
"I beg of you to
stay! You will bring to me a new inspiration -- new faith -- new courage to
fight. Will you?"
She extended her hand.
"Yes."
"And you will
agree to follow my instructions?"
"Absolutely."
"Good. We begin
from this moment. I give you my first orders. Forget that James Anthony ever
lived. Forget the tragedy of Christmas Eve. You are going to be a mother. All
other events in life pale before this fact. God has conferred on you the highest
honor He can give to mortal. Keep your soul serene, your body strong. You are
to worry about nothing ---- "
"I must pay you
for this extra expense I impose, Doctor. I have a thousand dollars in bank in
New York," she interrupted.
"Certainly, if you
will be happier. My home is now your sanitarium. You are my patient. Your board
will cost me about eight dollars a week. All right. You can pay that if you
wish.
"Take no thought
now except on the business of being a mother. I will make myself your father,
your brother, your guardian, your physician, your friend and companion. I will
give you at once a course of reading. You are to think only beautiful thoughts,
see beautiful things, dream beautiful dreams, hear beautiful music. I’m going
to make you climb these mountain peaks with me for the next three months and
live among the clouds. I’m going to refit your room with new furniture and
pictures and place in it a phonograph with the best music. When you are strong
enough you can work for me three hours a day as my secretary. You use the
typewriter?"
"I’m an expert
---- "
"Good! I’m writing
a book which I’m going to call ‘The Rulers of the World.’ It is a study of
Motherhood. I am one who believes that the redemption of humanity awaits the
realization by woman of her divine call. When woman knows that she is really a
co- creator with God in the reproduction of the race, a new era will dawn for
mankind. You promise me faithfully to obey my instructions?"
"Faithfully."
"You’re a
wonderful subject on which to make an experiment. You are young -- in the first
dawn of the glory of womanhood. Your body is beautiful, your mind singularly
pure and sweet. You must give me at once the full power of your will in its
concentration on Truth and Beauty. The success or failure of this experiment
will depend almost entirely on your mentality and the use you make of it during
these months in which your babe is being formed. Whatever the shape of the body
there is one eternal certainty -- only your mind can reach the soul of this
child. If the father were the veriest fiend who ever existed and should
concentrate his mind to the task, not one thought from his darkened soul could
reach your babe! Your mind will be the ever-brooding, enfolding spirit forming
and fashioning character."
He paused and his deep
brown eyes flashed with enthusiasm.
"Think of it! You
are now creating an immortal being whose word may bend a million wills to his.
And you are doing this mighty work solely by your mind. The physical processes
are simple and automatic.
"The first lesson
you must learn and hold with deathless grip is that thoughts are things. A
thought can kill the body. A thought can heal the body. If I am successful as a
physician it is because I use this power with my patients. With some I use
drugs, with others none. With all I use every ounce of mental power which God
has given me. You will remember this?"
"Yes."
He walked to the
shelves and drew down a volume of poetry.
"Read these poems
until you are tired today -- then sleep. I’ll give you a good novel tomorrow
and when you’ve read it, a volume of philosophy. When we climb the peaks, I’ll
give you a study of these rocks that will tell you the story of their birth,
their life, and their coming death. We’ll learn something of the birds and
flowers next spring. We’ll dream great dreams and think great thoughts -- you
and I -- in these wonderful days and weeks and months which God shall give us
together."
She looked up at him
through her tears:
"Oh, Doctor, you
have not only saved a miserable life: you have saved my soul!"
It was more than a
month after the experiment began before the Doctor ventured to hint of Jim’s
survival. He had waited patiently until Mary’s strength had been fully restored
and her mind filled with the new enthusiasm for motherhood. He could tell her
now with little risk. And yet he ventured on the task with reluctance. He found
her seated at her favorite window overlooking the deep blue valley of the
Swannanoa, a volume of poetry in her lap.
He touched her shoulder
and she smiled in cheerful response.
"You are
content?" he asked.
"A strange peace
is slowly stealing into my heart," she responded reverently. "I shall
learn to love life again when my baby comes to help me."
"You remember your
solemn promise?"
"Have I not kept
it?" she murmured.
"Faithfully -- and
I remind you of it that you may not forget today for a moment that your work is
too high and holy to allow a shadow to darken your spirit even for an hour. I
have something to tell you that may shock a little unless I warn you ----
"
She lifted her eyes
with a quick look of uneasiness, and studied his immovable face.
"You couldn’t
guess?" he laughed.
She shook her head in
puzzled silence.
"Suppose I were to
tell you," he went on evenly, "that I found a spark of life in your
husband’s body that morning and drew him back from the grave?"
Her eyes closed and she
stretched her hand toward the Doctor.
He clasped the fingers
firmly between both his palms, held and stroked them gently.
"You did save
him?" she breathed.
"Yes."
"Thank God his
poor old mother is not a murderer! But he is dead to me. I shall never see him
again -- never!"
"I thought you
would feel that way," the Doctor quietly replied.
"You won’t let him
come here?" she asked suddenly.
"He won’t try
unless you consent ---- "
Mary shuddered.
"You don’t know
him ---- "
The Doctor smiled.
"I’m afraid you
don’t know him now, my child."
"He has
changed?"
"The old, old
miracle over again. He has been literally born again -- this time of the
spirit."
"It’s
incredible!"
"It’s true. He’s a
new man. I think his reformation is the real thing. He’s young. He’s strong. He
has brains. He has personality ---- "
Mary lifted her hand.
"All I ask of him
is to keep out of my sight. The world is big enough for us both. The past is
now a nightmare. If I live to be a hundred years old, with my dying breath I
shall feel the grip of his fingers on my throat ---- "
She paused and closed
her eyes.
"Forget it! Forget
it!" the Doctor laughed. "We have more important things to think of
now."
"He wishes to see
me?"
"Begs every day
that I ask you."
"And you have
hesitated these long weeks?"
"Your strength and
peace of mind were of greater importance than his happiness, my dear. Let him
wait until you please to see him."
"He’ll wait
forever," was the firm answer.
Jim smiled grimly when
his friend bore back the message.
"I’ll never give
up as long as there’s breath in my body," he cried, bringing his square
jaws together with a snap.
"That’s the way to
talk, my boy," the Doctor responded.
"Anyhow you
believe in me, Doc, don’t you?"
"Yes."
"And you’ll help
me a little on the way if it gets dark -- won’t you?"
"If I can -- you
may always depend on me."
Jim clasped his
outstretched hand gratefully.
"Well, I’m going
to make good."
There was something so
genuine and manly in the tones of his voice, he compelled the Doctor’s respect.
A smaller man might have sneered. The healer of souls and bodies had come to
recognize with unerring instinct the true and false note in the human voice.
His heart went out in a
wave of sympathy for the lonely, miserable young animal who stood before him
now, trembling with the first sharp pains of the immortal thing that had awaked
within. He slipped his arm about Jim’s shoulders and whispered:
"I’ll tell you
something that may help you when the way gets dark -- the wife is going to bear
you a child."
"No!"
"Yes."
"God! ---- That’s
great, ain’t it?"
Jim choked into silence
and looked up at the Doctor with dimmed eyes.
"Say, Doc, you hit
me hard when you brought what she said -- but that’s good news! Watch me work
my hands to the bone -- you know it’s my kid and she can’t keep me from workin’
for it if she tries now can she?"
"No."
"There’s just one
thing that’ll hang over me like a black cloud," he mused sorrowfully.
"I know, boy --
your mother’s darkened mind."
Jim nodded.
"When I see that
queer glitter in her eyes it goes through me like a knife. Will she ever get
over it?"
"We can’t tell
yet. It takes time. I believe she will."
"You’ll do the
best you can for her, Doc?" he pleaded pathetically. "You won’t
forget her a single day? If you can’t cure her, nobody can."
"I’ll do my level
best, boy."
Jim pressed his hand
again.
"Gee, but you’ve
been a friend to me! I didn’t know that there were such men in the world as
you!"
For six months the
Doctor watched the transplanted child of the slums grow into a sturdy manhood
in his new environment. He snapped at every suggestion his friend gave and with
quick wit improved on it. He not only discovered and developed a mica mine on
his mother’s farm, he invented new machinery for its working that doubled the
market output. Within six weeks from the time he began his shipments the mine
was paying a steady profit of more than five hundred dollars a month. He had
made just one trip to New York and secretly returned to the police every stolen
jewel and piece of plunder taken, with a full confession of the time and place
of the crime. He had shipped his tools and machinery from the workshop on the
east side before his sensational act and made good his departure for the South.
The tools and machinery
he installed in a new workshop which he built in the yard of Nance’s cabin.
Here he worked day and night at his blacksmith forge making the iron hinges,
and irons, shovels, tongs, fire sets and iron work complete for a log bungalow
of seven rooms which he was building on the sunny slope of the mountain which
overlooks the valley toward Asheville.
The Doctor had lent Jim
the blue-prints of his own home and he was quietly duplicating it with loving
care. His wife might refuse to see him but he could build a home for their boy.
For his sake she couldn’t refuse it.
With childlike
obedience Nance followed him every day and watched the workmen rear the
beautiful structure under Jim’s keen eyes and skillful hands. The man’s
devotion to his mother was pathetic. Only the Doctor knew the secret of his
pitiful care, and he kept his own counsel.
The last roses of
summer were bursting their topmost buds into full bloom on the lawn of the
Doctor’s bungalow. The martins that built each year in the little boxes he had
set on poles around his garden were circling and chattering far up in the
sapphire skies of a late September day. Their leaders had sensed the coming
frost and were drilling for their long march across the world to their winter
home. The chestnut burrs were bursting in the woods. The silent sun- wrapped
Indian Summer had begun. Not a cloud flecked the skies.
A quiet joy filled the
soul of the woman who smiled and heard her summons.
"You are not
afraid?" the Doctor asked.
She turned her grateful
eyes to his.
"The peace of God
fills the world -- and I owe it all to you."
"Nonsense. Your
sturdy will and cultivated mind did the work. I merely made the
suggestion."
"You are not going
to give me an anesthetic, are you?" she said evenly.
"Why did you ask
that?"
"Because I wish to
feel and know the pain and glory of it all."
"You don’t wish to
take it?"
"Not unless you
say I should."
"What a wonderful
patient you are, child! What a beautiful spirit!" He looked at her
intently. "Well, I’m older and wiser in experience than you. I’m glad you
added that clause ‘unless you say I should.’ I’m going to say it. After all my
talks to you on our return to the truths and simplicity of Nature you are
perhaps surprised. You needn’t be. I’m going to put you into a gentle sleep.
Nature will then do her physical work automatically. I do this because our
daughters are the inheritors of the sins of their mothers for centuries. The
over-refinement of nerves, the hothouse methods of living, and the maiming of
their bodies with the inventions of fashion have made the pains of this supreme
hour beyond endurance. This should not be. It will not be so when our race has
come into its own. But it will take many generations and perhaps many centuries
before we reach the ideal. No physician who has a soul could permit a woman of
your physique, your culture and refinement to walk barefoot and blindfolded
into such a hell of physical torture. I will not permit it."
He walked quietly into
his laboratory, prepared the sleeping powders and gave them to her.
Six hours later she
opened her eyes with eager wonder. Aunt Abbie was busy over a bundle of fluffy
clothes. The Doctor was standing with his arms folded behind his back, his fine,
clean-shaven face in profile looking thoughtfully over the sun-lit valley.
There was just one moment of agonized fear. If they had failed! If her child
were hideous -- or deformed! Her lips moved in silent prayer.
"Doctor?" she
whispered.
In a moment he was
bending over her, a look of exaltation in his brown eyes.
"Tell me
quick!"
"A wonderful boy,
little mother! The most beautiful babe I have ever seen. He didn’t even cry --
just opened his big, wide eyes and grunted contentedly."
"Give him to
me."
Aunt Abbie laid the
warm bundle in her arms and she pressed it gently until the sweet, red flesh
touched her own. She lay still for a moment, a smile on her lips.
"Lift him and let
me look!"
"What a funny
little pug nose," she laughed.
"Yes -- exactly
like his mother’s!" the Doctor replied.
She gazed with
breathless reverence.
"He is beautiful,
isn’t he?" she sighed.
"And you have
observed the chin and mouth?"
"Exactly like
yours. It’s wonderful!"
Eighteen months swiftly
passed with the little mother and her boy still in Dr. Mulford’s sanitarium.
She had allowed herself to be persuaded that he had the right to be her guide
and helper in the first year’s training of the child.
The boy had steadily grown
in strength and beauty of body and mind. The Doctor persuaded her to spend one
more winter basking in his sun-parlor and finishing the final chapters of his
book. Her mind was singularly clever and helpful in the interpretation of the
experiences and emotions of motherhood.
She had stubbornly
resisted every suggestion to see her husband or allow him to see the child. The
Doctor had managed twice to give Jim an hour with the baby while she had gone
to Asheville on shopping trips. He was rewarded for his trouble in the devotion
with which the young father worshiped his son. The Doctor watched the
slumbering fires kindle in the man’s deep blue eyes with increasing wonder at
the strength and tenderness of his newfound soul.
Jim had completed the
furnishing of the bungalow with the advice and guidance of his friend, and
every room stood ready and waiting for its mistress. He had insisted on making
every piece of furniture for Mary’s room and the nursery adjoining. The Doctor
was amazed at the mechanical genius he displayed in its construction. He had
taken a month’s instruction at a cabinet maker’s in Asheville and the bed,
bureau, tables and chairs which he had turned out were astonishingly beautiful.
Their lines were copied from old models and each piece was a work of art. The
iron work was even more tastefully and beautifully wrought. He had toiled day
and night with an enthusiasm and patience that gave the physician a new
revelation in the possibility of the development of human character.
His friend came at last
with a cheering message. He began smilingly:
"I’m going to make
the big fight today, boy, to get her to see you."
"You think she
will?"
"There’s a good
chance. Her savings have all been used up from her bank account in New York.
She is determined to go to her father in Kentucky. I’ll have a talk with her,
bring her over to the bungalow, show her through it on the pretext of its model
construction and then you can tell her that you built it with your own hands
for her and the baby. You might be loafing around the place about that
time."
Jim’s hand was suddenly
lifted.
"I got ye, Doc, I
got ye! I’ll be there -- all day."
"Don’t let her see
you until I give the signal."
"Caution’s my
name."
"We’ll see what
happens."
Jim pressed close.
"Say, Doc, if you
know how to pray, I wish you’d send up a little word for me while you’re talkin’
to her. Could ye now?"
"I’ll do my best
for you, boy -- and I think you’ve got a chance. She’s been watching the blue
eyes of that baby lately with a rather curious look of unrest."
"They’re just like
mine, ain’t they?" Jim broke in with pride.
"Time has softened
the old hurt," the Doctor went on. "The boy may win for you ----
"
The square jaw came
together with a smash.
"Gee -- I hope so.
I’ll wait there all day for you and I’m goin’ to try my own hand at a little
prayer or two on the side while I’m waiting. Maybe God’ll think He’s hit me
hard enough by this time to give me another trial."
With a friendly wave of
his hand the Doctor hurried home.
He found Mary seated
under the rose trellis beside the drive, watching for his coming. The day was
still and warm for the end of April. Birds were singing and chattering in every
branch and tree. A quail on the top fence-rail of the wheat field called loudly
to his mate.
The boy was screaming
his joy over a new wagon to which Aunt Abbie had hitched his goat. He drove by
in style, lifted his chubby hand to his mother and shouted:
"Dood-by,
Doc-ter!"
The Doctor waved a
smiling answer, and lapsed into a long silence.
He waked at last from
his absorption to notice that Mary was day-dreaming. The fair brow was drawn
into deep lines of brooding.
"Why shadows in
your eyes a day like this, little mother?" he asked softly.
"Just thinking
---- "
"About a past that
you should forget?"
"Yes and no,"
she answered thoughtfully. "I was just thinking in this flood of spring
sunlight of the mystery of my love for such a man as the one I married. How
could it have been possible to really love him?"
"You are sure that
you loved him?"
"Sure."
"How did you
know?"
"By all the signs.
I trembled at his footstep. The touch of his hand, the sound of his voice
thrilled me. I was drawn by a power that was resistless. I was mad with
happiness those wonderful days that preceded our marriage. I was madder still
during our honeymoon -- until the shadows began to fall that fatal Christmas
Eve." She paused and her lips trembled. "Oh, Doctor, what is love?"
The drooping shoulders
of the man bent lower. He picked up a pebble from the ground and flicked it
carelessly across the drive, lifted his head at last and asked earnestly:
"Shall I tell you
the truth?"
"Yes -- your own
particular brand, please -- the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth."
"I’ll try,"
he began soberly. "If I were a poet, naturally I would use different
language. As I’m only a prosaic doctor and physiologist I may shock your ideals
a little."
"No matter,"
she interrupted. "They couldn’t well get a harder jolt than they have had
already."
He nodded and went on:
"There are two
elemental human forces that maintain life -- hunger and love. They are both
utterly simple, otherwise they could not be universal. Hunger compels the race
to live. Love compels it to reproduce itself. There has never been anything
mysterious about either of these forces and there never will be -- except in
the imagination of sentimentalists.
"Nature begins
with hunger. For about thirteen years she first applies this force to the
development of the body before she begins to lay the foundation of the second.
Until this second development is complete the passion known as love cannot be
experienced.
"What is this
second development? Very simple again. At the base of the brain of every child
there is a vacant space during the first twelve or fifteen years. During the
age of twelve to fourteen in girls, thirteen to fifteen in boys, this vacant
space is slowly filled by a new lobe of the brain and with its growth comes the
consciousness of sex and the development of sex powers.
"This new nerve
center becomes on maturity a powerful physical magnet. The moment this magnet
comes into contact with an organization which answers its needs, as certain
kinds of food answer the needs of hunger, violent desire is excited. If both
these magnets should be equally powerful, the disturbance to both will be
great. The longer the personal association is continued the more violent
becomes this disturbance, until in highly sensitive natures it develops into an
obsession which obscures reason and crushes the will.
"The meaning of
this impulse is again very simple -- the unconscious desire of the male to be a
father, of the female to become a mother."
"And there is but
one man on earth who could thus affect me?" Mary asked excitedly.
"Rubbish! There
are thousands."
"Thousands?"
"Literally
thousands. The reason you never happen to meet them is purely an accident of
our poor social organization. Every woman has thousands of true physical mates
if she could only meet them. Every man has thousands of true physical mates if
he could only meet them. And in every such meeting, if mind and body are in
normal condition, the same violent disturbance would result -- whether married
or single, free or bound.
"Marriage
therefore is not based merely on the passion of love. It is a crime for any man
or woman to marry without love. It is the sheerest insanity to believe that
this passion within itself is sufficient to justify marriage. All who marry
should love. Many love who should not marry.
"The institution
of marriage is the great social ordinance of the race. Its sanctity and
perpetuity are not based on the violence of the passion of love, but something
else."
He paused and listened to
the call of the quail again from the field.
"You hear that bob
white calling his mate?"
"Yes -- and she’s
answering him now very softly. I can hear them both."
"They have mated
this spring to build a home and rear a brood of young. Within six months their
babies will all be full grown and next spring a new alignment of lovers will be
made. Their marriage lasts during the period of infancy of their offspring.
This is Nature’s law.
"It happens in the
case of man that the period of infancy of a human being is about twenty-four
years. This is the most wonderful fact in nature. It means that the capacity of
man for the improvement of his breed is practically limitless. A quail has a
few months in which to rear her young. God gives to woman a quarter of a
century in which to mold her immortal offspring. Because the period of infancy
of one child covers the entire period of motherhood capacity, marriage binds
for life, and the sanctity of marriage rests squarely on this law of
Nature."
He paused again and
looked over the sunlit valley.
"I wish our boys
and girls could all know these simple truths of their being. It would save much
unhappiness and many tragic blunders.
"You were swept
completely off your feet by the rush of the first emotion caused by meeting a
man who was your physical mate. You imagined this emotion to be a mysterious
revelation which can come but once. Your imagination in its excited condition,
of course, gave to your first-found mate all sorts of divine attributes which
he did not possess. You were ‘in love’ with a puppet of your own creation, and
hypnotized yourself into the delusion that James Anthony was your one and only
mate, your knight, your hero.
"In a very
important sense this was true. Your intuitions could not make a mistake on so
vital an issue. But you immediately rushed into marriage and your union has
been perfected by the birth of a child. Whether you are happy or unhappy in
marriage does not depend on the reality of love. Happiness in marriage is based
on something else."
"On what?"
"The joy and peace
that comes from oneness of spirit, tastes, culture and character. I know this
from the deepest experiences of life and the widest observation."
"You have
loved?" she asked softly.
"Twice ---- "
A silence fell between
them.
"Shall I tell you,
little mother?" he finally asked quietly.
"Please."
He seated himself and
looked into the skies beyond the peaks across the valley.
"Ten years ago I
met my first mate. The meeting was fortunate for both. She was a woman of
gentle birth, of beautiful spirit. Our courtship was ideal. We thought alike,
we felt alike, she loved my profession even -- an unusual trait in a woman. She
thought it so noble in its aims that the petty jealousy that sometimes wrecks a
doctor’s life was to her an unthinkable crime. The first year was the nearest
to heaven that I had ever gotten down here.
"And then, little
mother, by one of those inexplicable mysteries of nature she died when our baby
was born. For a while the light of the world went out. I quit New York, gave up
my profession and came here just to lie in the sun on this mountainside and try
to pull myself together. I didn’t think life could ever be worth living again.
But it was. I found about me so much of human need -- so much ignorance and
helplessness -- so much to pity and love, I forgot the ache in my own heart in
bringing joy to others.
"I had money
enough. I gave up the ambitions of greed and strife and set my soul to higher
tasks. For nine years I’ve devoted my leisure hours to the study of Motherhood
as the hope of a nobler humanity. But for the great personal sorrow that came
to me in the death of my wife and baby I should never have realized the truths
I now see so clearly.
"And then the
other woman suddenly came into my life. I never expected to love again -- not
because I thought it impossible, but because I thought it improbable in my
little world here that I could ever again meet a woman I would ask to be my
wife. But she dropped one day out of the sky."
He paused and took a
deep breath.
"I recognized her
instantly as my mate, gentle and pure and capable of infinite joy or infinite
pain. She did not realize the secret of my interest in her. I didn’t expect it.
I knew that under the conditions she could not. But I waited."
He paused and searched
for Mary’s eyes.
"And you married
her?" she asked in even tones.
"I have never
allowed her to know that I love her."
"Why?"
"She was
married."
Mary threw him a
startled look and he went on evenly:
"I could have used
my power over mind and body to separate her from her husband. I confess that I
was tempted. But there was a child. Their union had been sealed with the strongest
tie that can bind two human beings. I have never allowed her to realize that
she might love me. Had I chosen to break the silence between us I could have
revealed this to her, taken her and torn her from the man to whom she had borne
a babe. I had no right to commit that crime, no matter how deep the love that
cried for its own. Marriage is based on the period of infancy of the child
which spans the maternal life of woman. God had joined these two people
together and no man had the right to put them asunder!"
"And you gave her
up?"
"I had to, little
mother. On the recognition of this eternal law the whole structure of our
civilization rests."
Mary bent her gaze
steadily on his face for a moment in silence.
"And you are
telling me that I should be reconciled to the man who choked me into
insensibility?"
"I am telling you
that he is the father of your son -- that he has rights which you cannot deny;
that when you gave yourself to him in the first impulse of love a deed was done
which Almighty God can never undo. Your tragic blunder was the rush into
marriage with a man about whose character you knew so little. It’s the timid,
shrinking, home-loving girl that makes this mistake. You must face it now. You
are responsible as deeply and truly as the man who married you. That he
happened at that moment to be a brute and a criminal is no more his fault than
yours. It was your business to know before you made him the father of your
child."
"I tried to appeal
to his better nature that awful night," Mary interrupted, "but he
only laughed at me!"
"You owe him
another trial, little mother -- you owe it to his boy, too."
Mary shook her head
bitterly.
"I can’t -- I just
can’t!"
"You won’t see him
once?"
She sprang to her feet
trembling.
"No -- no!"
"I don’t think it’s
fair."
"I’m afraid of
him! You can’t understand his power over my will."
"Come, come, this
is sheer cowardice -- give the devil his dues. Face him and fight it out. Tell
him you’re done forever with him and his life, if you will -- but don’t hedge
and trim and run away like this. I’m ashamed of you."
"I won’t see him
-- I’ve made up my mind."
The Doctor threw up
both hands.
"All right. If you
won’t, you won’t. We’ll let it go at that."
He paused and changed
his tones to friendly personal interest.
"And you’re
determined to leave me and take my kid away tomorrow?"
"We must go. I’ve
no money to pay my board. I can’t impose on you ---- "
"It’s going to be
awfully lonely."
He looked at her with a
strange, deep gaze, lifted his stooping shoulders with sudden resolution and
changed his manner to light banter.
"I suppose I
couldn’t persuade you to give me that boy?"
She smiled tenderly.
"You know his
father did leave his mark on him after all! The eyes are all his. Of course, I
will admit that those drooping lids have often been the mark of genius --
perhaps a genius for evil in this case. If you don’t want to take the risk --
now’s your chance. I will ---- "
Mary shook her head in
reproachful protest.
"Don’t tease me,
dear doctor man. I’ve just this one day more with you. I’m counting each
precious hour."
"Forgive me!"
he cried gayly. "I won’t tease you any more. Come, we’ll run over now and
see our neighbor’s new bungalow before you go. You admire this one and threaten
to duplicate it. He has built a better one."
"I don’t believe
it."
"You’ll go?"
"If you wish it
---- "
"Good. We’ll take
the boy, too. He can drive his new wagon the whole way. It’s only half a mile.
The door of the
bungalow stood wide open. Mary paused in rapture over the rich beds of wood
violets that carpeted the spaces between the drive and the log walls.
"Aren’t they
beautiful!" she cried. "A perfect carpet of dazzling green and purple!"
"Come right
in," the Doctor urged from the steps. "My neighbor’s a patient of
mine. He hasn’t moved in yet but he told me always to make myself at
home."
Mary lifted the boy
from his wagon, tied the goat and led the child into the house. The Doctor
showed her through without comment. None was needed. The woman’s keen eye saw
at a glance the perfection of care with which the master builder had wrought
the slightest detail of every room. The floors were immaculate native hard-wood
-- its grain brought out through shining mirrors of clean varnish. There was
not one shoddy piece of work from the kitchen sink to the big open fireplace in
the spacious hall and living-room.
"It’s
exquisite!" she exclaimed at last. "It seems all hand-made -- doesn’t
it?"
"It is, too. The
owner literally built it with his own hands -- a work of love."
"For
himself?" Mary asked with a smile.
"For the woman he
loves, of course! My neighbor’s a sort of crank and insisted on expressing
himself in this way. Come, I want you to see two rooms upstairs."
He led her into the
room Jim had built for his wife.
"Observe this
furniture, if you please."
"Don’t tell me
that he built that too?" she laughed.
"That’s exactly
what I’m going to tell you."
"Impossible!"
she protested. "Why, the line and finish would do credit to the finest
artisan in America."
"So I say. Look at
the perfect polish of that table! It’s like the finish of a rosewood
piano." He touched the smooth surface.
"Of course you’re
joking?" Mary answered. "No amateur could have done such work."
"So I’d have said
if I had not seen him do it."
"What on earth
possessed him to undertake such a task?"
"The love of a
beautiful woman -- what else?"
"He learned a
trade -- just to furnish this room with his own hand?"
"Yes."
"His love must be
the real thing," she mused.
"That’s what I’ve
said. Look at this iron work, too -- the stately andirons in that big
fireplace, the shovel, the tongs, and the massive strop-hinges on the
doors."
"He did that, too?"
she asked in amazement.
"Every piece of
iron on the place he beat out with his own hand at his forge."
"And all for the
love of a woman? The age of romance hasn’t passed after all, has it?"
"No."
Mary paused before the
window looking south.
"What a glorious
view!" she cried. "It’s even grander than yours, Doctor."
"Yes. I claim some
of the credit, though, for that. I helped him lay out the grounds."
"Who is this
remarkable man?" she asked at last.
"A friend of mine.
I’ll introduce him directly. He should be here at any moment now."
"We’re
intruding," Mary whispered. "We must go. I mustn’t look any more. I’ll
be coveting my neighbor’s house."
[Illustration missing
from print text, titled, "‘I’ll show you, little girl -- I’ll show you!"
he whispered tensely."]
The doctor turned to
the window and signaled to someone on the lawn, as Mary hurried down the
stairs.
She fairly ran into
Jim, who was being pulled into the house by the boy.
"’Ook, Mamma! ’Ook!
I found a Daddy! He says he be my Daddy if you let him. Please let him. I want
a Daddy, an’ I like him. Please!"
Jim blushed and
trembled and lifted his eyes appealingly, while Mary stood white and still
watching him in a sort of helpless terror.
The child moved on to
his wagon.
"Say, little
girl," Jim began in low tones, "it’s been a thousand years since I
saw you. Don’t drive me away -- just give me one chance for God’s sake and this
baby’s that He sent us! I’ve gone straight. I’ve sent back every dishonest
dollar. I’m earning a clean living down here and a good one. I’ve practiced for
two years cutting out the slang, too."
He paused for breath
and she turned her head away.
"Just listen a
minute! I know I was a beast that night. I’m not the same now. I’ve been
through the fires of hell and I’ve come out a cleaner man. Let me show you how
much I love you! Life’s too short, but just give me a chance. If I could undo
that awful hour when I hurt you so, I’d crawl ’round the world on my hands and
knees -- and I’ll show you that I mean it! I built this house for you and the
baby."
Mary turned suddenly
with wide dilated eyes.
"You -- you built
this house?" she gasped.
"I’ve worked on it
every hour, day and night, the past two years when I wasn’t earning a living in
the mine. I made every stick of that furniture in the rooms up there -- for you
and my boy. The house is yours -- whether you let me stay or not."
"I -- I can’t take
it, Jim," she faltered.
"You’ve got to,
girlie. You can’t throw a gift like this back in a fellow’s face -- it cost too
much! Your money’s all gone. You’ve got to bring up that kid. He’s mine, too. I’m
man enough to support my wife and baby and I’m going to do it. I don’t care
what you say. You’ve got to let me. I’m going to work for you, live for you and
die for you -- whether you stay with me or not. I’ve got the right to do that,
you know."
She lifted her head and
faced him squarely for the first time, amazed at the new dignity and strength
of his quiet bearing.
"You have changed,
Jim ---- "
Her eyes sought the
depths of his soul in a moment’s silence, and she slowly extended her hand:
"We’ll try
again!"
He bent and kissed the
tips of her fingers reverently.
They stood for a moment
hand in hand and looked over the sunlit valley of the Swannanoa shimmering in
peace and beauty between its sheltering walls of blue mountains. The bees were
humming spring music among the flowers at their feet and the faint odor of
fruit trees in blossom came from the orchard Jim had planted two years before.
"I’ll show you,
little girl -- I’ll show you!" he whispered tensely. THE END