house: "Smooth Ally," she said they called her; but she would not give
me her name or her address. She would have her killed, she feared, if
she did so. Here she gradually had yielded to her fate and had lived in
company with her other slaves, some willing, some as unwilling as
herself, until finally her place was needed for one more useful to her
owner, when she had been handed on from one owner to another, always
sinking in the scale lower and lower, until at last she had been turned
into the street with her choice limited only to the river or the gutter.
Long before she had finished her story I had made up my mind that life
still held for me something which I might do, however poor and useless I
knew myself to be. The only person I could think of who might help her
was Miss Leigh. How could I reach her? Could I write her of this poor
creature? She could not go back to her home, she said, for she knew that
they had heard of her life, and they were "good and Christian people."
She used to write to and hear from them, but it had been two years and
more since she had written or heard now. Still she gave me what she said
was her father's address in another State, and I told her I would find
out how they felt about her and would let her know. I gave her a part of
what I had. It was very little, and I have often wished since then that
I had had the courage to give her all.
I was walking on with her, trying to think of some place where she might
find a shelter and be taken care of until her friends could be informed
where she was, when, in one of the streets in front of a bar-room, we
heard mingled laughter and singing and found a group of young men,
ruffians and loafers, standing on the sidewalk, laughing at the singers
who stood in the street. As we drew near, I saw that the latter were a
small group of the Salvation Army, and it appeared to me a providence.
Here were some who might help her. At the moment that we approached they
ended the dirge-like hymn they had been singing, and kneeling down in
the street one of them offered a prayer, after which a woman handed
around something like a tambourine, asking for a collection. The jeers
that she encountered might have daunted a much bolder spirit than mine,
and as each man either put in or pretended to put something in, one a
cent, another a button or a cigarette-stump, she responded, "Thank you
and God bless you." I was ashamed to make an appeal to them there for
the poor girl, so I walked with her a little further on and waited until
the blue-clad detachment came along and their tormentors retired to warm
themselves, without and within, in the saloon in front of which they had
been standing. I accosted the woman who had taken up the collection and
asked her if she could take care of a poor girl who needed help badly,
and I was struck by the kindness with which she turned and, after a
moment's glance, held out her hand to the girl.
"Come with us," she said, "and we will take you where you will find
friends."
Even then the young woman appeared too frightened to accept her
invitation. She clung to me and seemed to rely upon me, asking me to go
with her, but partly from shame and partly from what may possibly have
been a better motive, I told her my way led elsewhere, and, after
persuasion, she went with the Salvationists, and I walked home happier
than I had been in some time.
I even took some steps to call public attention to the horrible story
the poor Magdalen had told me of her frightful experience, and actually
wrote it up; but when I took it to a paper--the one that had published
my first article--I was given to understand that the account was quite
incredible. The editor, a fox-faced man of middle age, with whom my
paper secured me the honor of an interview, informed me that the story
was an old one, and that they had investigated it thoroughly, and found
it without the slightest foundation. If I wanted further proof of this,
he said, he would refer me to Mr. Collis McSheen, one of the leading
lawyers in the city, who had conducted the investigation.
XVIII
THE DRUMMER
I believe Mrs. Kale would have let me stay on free almost indefinitely;
for she was a kind-hearted soul, much imposed on by her boarders. But I
had been playing the gentleman there, and I could not bring myself to
come down in her esteem. I really did not know whether I should be able
to continue to pay her; so when my time was up, I moved again, to my
landlady's great surprise, and she thought me stuck up and ungrateful,
and was a little hurt over it, when, in fact, I only did not want to
cheat her, and was moving out to the poorest part of the city, to a
little house on which I had observed, one afternoon during one of my
strolls, the notice of a room for rent at a dollar a week. I think a
rose-bush carefully trained over the door decided me to take it. It gave
me a bit of home-feeling. The violet, of course, is in color and
delicacy the half-ethereal emblem of the tenderest sentiment of the
heart. "The violets all withered when my father died," sighed poor
Ophelia. And next to violets, a rose-bush, growing in the sun and dew,
has ever stood to me for the purest sentiment that the heart can hold.
I heard shortly afterward of the engagement of Miss Lilian Poole to the
man she used to laugh at; but after a single wave of mortification that
Peck should have won where I had lost, I did not mind it. I went out to
look at the sunny house with the trees and the rose-bushes about it and
wonder how I could meet Miss Leigh.
The room I took when I left Mrs. Kale's was only a cupboard some nine
feet by six in the little house I have mentioned; but it was spotlessly
clean, like the kind-looking, stout, blue-eyed Teuton woman who, with
skirt tucked up, came to the door when I applied for lodging, and, as
the price was nearer my figure than any other I had seen, I closed with
Mrs. Loewen, and the afternoon I left Mrs. Kale's sent my trunk over in
advance. It held the entire accumulation of my life. There was something
about the place and the woman that attracted me. As poor as the house
was, it was beyond the squalid quarter and well out in the edge of the
city, with a bit of grass before it, and there were not only plants in
the windows well cared for; but there was even a rose-bush beside the
door making a feeble attempt to clamber over it with the aid of strings
and straps carefully adjusted.
The only question my landlady asked me was whether I was a musician, and
when I told her no, but that I was very fond of music, she appeared
satisfied. Her husband, she said, was a drummer.
I asked if I might bring my dog, and she assented even to this.
"Elsa was fond of animals," she said.
When I bade good-by to Mrs. Kale and my friends at the boarding-house, I
was pleased at the real regret they showed at my leaving. Miss Pansy and
Miss Pinky came down to the drawing-room in their "best" to say
good-by; Miss Pinky with her "scratch" quite straight. And Miss Pansy
said if they ever went back home she hoped very much I would honor them
by coming to see them, while Miss Pinky, with a more practical turn,
hoped I would come and see them "there--and you may even bring your dog
with you," she added, with what I knew was a proof of real friendship. I
promised faithfully to come, for I was touched by the kindness of the
two old ladies who, like myself, had slipped from the sphere in which
they had belonged, and I was rather grim at the reflection that they had
been brought there by others, while I had no one to blame but myself--a
solemn fact I was just beginning to face.
When I walked out of the house I was in a rather low state of mind. I
felt that it was the last day when I could make any pretension to being
a gentleman. I had been slipping down, down, and now I was very near the
bottom. So I wandered on in the street with Dix at my heels and my
pistol in my pocket.
Just then a notice of a concert, placarded on a wall, caught my eye, and
I gave myself a shake together as an unmitigated ass, and determined
suddenly that I needed some amusement and that a better use for the
pistol would be to sell it and go to the concert. I would, at least, be
a gentleman once more, and then to-morrow I could start afresh. So I
hunted up a pawnshop and raising from the villain who kept it a few
dollars on my pistol, had a good supper and then took Dix home and went
to the symphony. As it happened, I got one of the best seats in the
house. It was a revelation to me--a revolution in my thoughts and
feelings: the great audience, gay with silks and flowers and jewels,
filling up all the space about and above me rising up to the very top of
the vast auditorium. I did not have time at first to observe them, I
only felt them; for just as I entered the Director came out and the
audience applauded. It exhilarated me like wine; I felt as if it had
been myself they were applauding. Then the music began: The "Tannhauser
Overture." It caught me up and bore me away: knighthood, and glory, and
love were all about me; the splendor of the contest; the struggle in
which a false step, a cowardly weakness might fling away the world; the
reward that awaited the victor, and the curse if he gave way, till I
found myself dazzled, amazed, and borne down by the deluge of harmonious
sound--and could do nothing but lie drifting at the mercy of the
whelming tide, and watch, half-drowned, whatever object caught my eye.
The first thing I took in was the tall old Drummer who towered above the
great bank of dark bodies with swaying arms. Still and solemn he
appeared out of the mist, and seemed like some landmark which I must
hold on to if I would not be swept away. No one appeared to pay much
attention to him, and he appeared oblivious of all but his drums. Now he
leant over them and listened to their throbbing, now he beat as if the
whole world depended on it. I held on to him and felt somehow as if he
were the one to whom the Director looked--the centre of all the music
and pomp and mystery, and I must keep him in sight.
I don't know much of what came on the programme after that; for I was
wakened by the storm of applause which followed and during the
intermission I looked about at the audience around me. They filled the
house from floor to roof; every seat was occupied, and the boxes looked
like banks of flowers. All the faces were strange to me, though, and I
was beginning to feel lonely again, and was turning to my old Drummer,
when, sweeping the boxes, my eye fell on a girl who caught me at once.
She was sitting a little forward looking across toward the orchestra
with so serious an expression on her lovely face that I felt drawn to
her even before I took in that she was the girl I had seen on the train
and whom I had handed into her carriage. As I gazed at her this came to
me--and with it such a warm feeling about my heart as I had not had in a
long time. I looked at the men about her, one of whom was the
good-looking clergyman, Dr. Capon, and the next instant all my blood was
boiling--there, bending down over her, talking into her ear, so close to
her that she had to sit forward to escape his polluting touch, was the
gambler whom I had heard say not three weeks before that every American
girl was open to a proposal from him. I don't know really what happened
after that. I only remember wishing I had my pistol back--and being glad
that I had pawned it, not sold it; for I made up my mind anew in that
theatre that night to live and succeed, and preserve that girl from that
adventurer. When the concert was over I watched the direction they took,
and made my way through the crowd to the exit by which they would go
into the foyer. There I waited and presently they came along. She was
surrounded by a little party and was laughing heartily over something
one of them had just said, and was looking, in the rich pink wrap which
enveloped her, like a rich pink rosebud. I was gazing at her intently,
and caught her eye, and no doubt struck by my look of recognition, she
bowed. She had not really thought of me, she was still thinking of what
had been said, and it was only a casual bow to some one in a crowd who
knows you and catches your eye; but it was a bow, and it was a smiling
one, and again that warm feeling surged about my heart which had come
when I met her on the street. The next second that fellow came along. He
was taller than most of the crowd, and well dressed, was really a
handsome enough fellow but for his cold eyes and hard look. The eyes
were too bold and the chin not bold enough. He was walking beside a
large, blondish girl with shallow blue eyes, who appeared much pleased
with herself or with him, but at the moment he was bowing his adieux to
her while she was manifestly trying to hold on to him.
"I don't think you are nice a bit," I heard her say, petulantly, as they
came up to me. "You have not taken the least notice of me to-night."
This he evidently repudiated, for she pouted and smiled up at him.
"Well, then, I'll excuse you this time, but you needn't be running after
her. She won't----"
I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the girl before me.
He was looking over the heads of the people before him, and the next
moment was elbowing his way to overtake my young lady. Close to him in
the crowd, as he came on, stood Mrs. Starling's daughter, painted, and
in her best finery, and I saw her imploring eyes fastened on him
eagerly. He glanced at her and she bowed with a gratified light dawning
in her face. I saw his face harden. He cut her dead. Poor girl! I saw
her pain and the look of disappointment as she furtively followed him
with her eyes. He pushed on after my young lady. But I was ahead of him.
Just before he reached her, I slipped in, and when he attempted to push
by I stood firm before him.
"Beg pardon," he said, trying to put me aside to step ahead of me. I
turned my head and over my shoulder looked him in the face.
"I beg _your_ pardon."
"Oh!" he said. "How do? Let me by."
"To ply your old trade?" I asked, looking into his eyes, over my
shoulder.
"Ah!" I saw the rage come into his face and he swore some foreign oath.
He put his hand on my shoulder to push me aside; but I half turned and
looked him straight in the eyes and his grasp relaxed. He had felt my
grip once--and he knew I was not afraid of him, and thought I was a
fool. And his hand fell.
I walked in front of him and kept him back until the party with my young
lady in it had passed quite out of the door, and then I let him by. For
that evening, at least, I had protected her.
I walked to my lodging with a feeling of more content than I had had in
a long time. My heart had a home though I had none. It was as if the
shell in which I had been cramped so long were broken and I should at
last step out into a new world. I had a definite aim, and one higher
than I ever had had before. I was in love with that girl and I made up
my mind to win her. As I walked along through the gradually emptying
streets my old professor's words came to me. They had been verified. I
reviewed my past life and saw as clearly as if in a mirror my failures
and false steps. I had moped and sulked with the world; I had sat in my
cubby-hole of an office with all my talents as deeply buried as if I had
been under the mounds of Troy, and had expected men to unearth me as
though I had been treasure.
It may appear to some that I exaggerated my feeling for a girl whom I
scarcely knew at all. But love is the least conventional of passions;
his victory the most unexpected and unaccountable. He may steal into the
heart like a thief or burst in like a robber. The zephyr is not so
wooing, the hurricane not so furious. Samson and Hercules lose their
strength in his presence and, shorn of their power, surrender at
discretion. Mightier than Achilles, wilier than Ulysses, he leads them
both captive, and, behind them in his train, the long line of captains
whom Petrarch has catalogued as his helpless slaves. Why should it then
be thought strange that a poor, weak, foolish, lonely young man should
fall before him at his first onset! I confess, I thought it foolish,
and yet so weak was I that I welcomed the arrow that pierced my heart,
and as I sauntered homeward through the emptying streets, I hugged to my
breast the joy that I loved once more.
As I was on the point of ringing the door-bell there was a heavy step
behind me, and there was my old Drummer coming along. He turned in at
the little gate. And I explained that I was his new lodger and had been
to hear him play.
"Ah! You mean to hear the orchestra?"
"No, I don't. I meant, to hear you--I went to the concert, but I enjoyed
you most."
"Ah!" he chuckled at the flattery, and let me in, and taking a survey of
me, invited me to come and have a bit of supper with him, which I
accepted. His wife came in and waited on us, and he told her what I had
said, with pleasure, and she laughed over it and rallied him and
accepted it, and accepted me instantly as an old friend. It gave me a
new feeling.
A few minutes later there was another arrival. A knock on the street
door, and the mother, smiling and winking at her husband, went and let
in the newcomers: a plump, round-cheeked girl, the mingled likeness of
her two parents, with red cheeks, blue eyes, smooth flaxen hair and that
heifer-like look of shyness and content which Teuton maidens have, and
behind her a strapping looking young fellow with powerful shoulders, and
a neck cased in a net of muscles, a clear pink skin and blue eyes, and
with a roll in his gait partly the effect of his iron muscles and
partly of mere bashfulness. I was introduced and the first thing the
mother did was to repeat delightedly the compliment I had paid the
father. It had gone home, and the simple way the white teeth shone
around that little circle and the pride the whole family took in this
poor bit of praise, told their simplicity and warmed my heart. The
father and mother were evidently pleased with their daughter's young
man--for the mother constantly rallied the daughter about Otto and Otto
about her, drawing the father in with sly looks and knowing tosses of
her head, and occasionally glancing at me to see if I too took in the
situation. Although I did not yet know a word of their language, I could
understand perfectly what she was saying, and I never passed an evening
that gave me a better idea of family happiness, or greater satisfaction.
When I went up to my little room I seemed, somehow, to have gotten into
a world of reality and content: a new world.
I awaked in a new world--the one I had reached the night before: the
land of hope and content--and when I came down-stairs I was as fresh as
a shriven soul, and I walked out into the street with Dix at my heel, as
though I owned the earth.
The morning was as perfect as though God had just created light. The sky
was as blue and the atmosphere as clear as though the rain that had
fallen had washed away with the smoke all impurity whatsoever, and
scoured the floor of Heaven afresh.
Elsa, with her chequered skirt turned back and a white apron about her
comely figure, was singing as she polished the outer steps, before going
to her work in a box factory, and the sun was shining upon her bare head
with its smooth hair, and upon the little rose-bush by the door, turning
the rain-drops that still hung on it into jewels. She stopped and petted
Dix, who had followed me down-stairs, and Dix, who, like his master,
loved to be petted by a pretty woman, laid back his ears and rubbed his
head against her. And, an hour later, a group of little muddy boys with
their books in their hands had been beguiled by a broad puddle on their
way to school and were wading in the mud and laughing over the spatters
and splotches they were getting on their clothes and ruddy faces. As I
watched them, one who had been squeezed out of the fun and stood on the
sidewalk looking on and laughing, suddenly seized with fear or envy
shouted that if they did "not come on, Mith Thelly would keep them in";
and, stricken with a sudden panic, the whole flock of little sand-pipers
started off and ran as hard as their dumpy legs would carry them around
the corner. I seemed to be emancipated.
I made my breakfast on a one-cent loaf of bread, taking a little street
which, even in that section, was a back street, to eat it in, and for
butter amused myself watching a lot of little children (among the last
of whom I recognized my muddy boys, who must have found another puddle)
lagging in at the door of a small old frame building, which I knew must
be their school, though I could not understand why it should be in such
a shanty when all the public schools I had seen were the most palatial
structures.
I took the trouble to go by that day and look at the house on the
corner. It was as sunny as ever. And when on my way back to my office I
passed Miss Leigh, the central figure of a group of fresh looking girls,
I felt that the half shy smile of recognition which she gave me was a
shaft of light to draw my hopes to something better than I had known.
Dix was with me, and he promptly picked out his friend and received from
her a greeting which, curiously enough, raised my hopes out of all
reason. I began to feel that the dog was a link between us.
XIX
RE-ENTER PECK
It happened that the building in which I had taken an office bore a
somewhat questionable reputation. I had selected it because it was
cheap, and it was too late when I discovered its character. I had no
money to move. The lawyers in it were a nondescript lot--criminal
practitioners, straw-bail givers, haunters of police courts, etc.; and
the other occupants were as bad--adventurers with wild-cat schemes,
ticket-scalpers, cranks, visionaries with fads, frauds, gamblers, and
thieves in one field or another, with doubtless a good sprinkling of
honest men among them.
It was an old building and rather out of the line of the best growth of
the city, but in a convenient and crowded section. The lower floor was
occupied with bucket-shops and ticket-scalpers' offices, on the street;
and at the back, in a sort of annex on an alley, was a saloon known as
Mick Raffity's; the owner being a solid, double-jointed son of Erin,
with blue eyes as keen as tacks; and over this saloon was the gambling
house where I had been saved by finding Pushkin.
On the second floor, the best offices were a suite occupied by a lawyer
named McSheen, a person of considerable distinction, after its own kind,
as was the shark created with other fish of the sea after its kind: a
lawyer of unusual shrewdness, a keen political boss, and a successful
business man. I had, as happened, rented a cubby-hole looking out on a
narrow well opposite the rear room of his suite.