BILL CRONK'S TOAST
After all, it was a long day to Christine. Tears would start from her
eyes at the thought of her father, but she realized that the only thing
for her to do was to shroud his memory in a great, forgiving pity, and
put it away forever. She could only turn from the mystery of his life
and death--the mystery of evil--to Him who taketh away the sin of the
world. There was no darkness in that direction. She busied herself
with Mrs. Leonard, and the distribution of food to others, till six
o'clock, and then she stood near the door to watch till her true knight
should appear in his shirt-sleeves, with a shovel on his shoulder, and
an old burned, tattered felt hat on his head, instead of jewelled crest
and heron plume.
Dennis had gone to his work not very hopeful. He knew Christine would
be his grateful friend while she lived, and would perhaps even regard
him as a brother, but all this might be and still she be unable to
respond to his deeper feelings. Moreover, he knew she was Baroness
Ludolph, and might be heiress of such titles and estates in Germany
as would require that she should go at once to secure them; and so she
seemed clearly to pass beyond his sphere.
As he shovelled the hot bricks and cinders hour after hour among other
laborers, the distance between himself and the Baroness Ludolph seemed
to increase; and when, begrimed and weary, he sat down to eat his
dinner of a single sandwich saved from breakfast (for as yet he had
no money), the ruins around him were quite in keeping with his feelings.
He thought most regretfully of his two thousand dollars and burned
picture. The brave, resolute spirit of the morning had deserted him.
He did not realize that few men have lived who could be brave and
hopeful when weary and hungry, and fewer still, when, in addition,
they doubted the favor of the lady of their love.
The work of the afternoon seemed desperately hard and long, but with
dogged persistency Dennis held his own with the others till six, and
in common with them received his two dollars. Whether Christine would
accept the supper he brought or not, he determined to fulfil his promise
and bring one. Wearily he trudged off to the west side, in order to
find a store. No one who met him would have imagined that this plodding
laborer was the artist who the week before had won the prize and title
of genius.
If he had been purchasing a supper for himself, he would doubtless
have been sensible about it; but one that the Baroness Ludolph might
share was a different matter. He bought some very rich cake, a can of
peaches, a box of sardines, some fruit, and then his money gave out!
But, with these incongruous and indigestible articles made up into one
large bundle, he started for the church. He had gone but a little way
when some one rushed upon him, and little Ernst clasped him round the
neck and fairly cried for joy. Sitting on the sidewalk near were the
other little Bruders, looking as forlorn and dirty as three motherless
children could. Dennis stopped and sat down beside them (for he was
too tired to stand), while Ernst told his story--how their mother had
left them, and how she had been found so burned that she was recognized
only by a ring (which he had) and a bit of the picture preserved under
her body. They had been looking ever since to find him, and had slept
where they could.
As Ernst sobbingly told his story the other children cried in doleful
chorus, and Dennis's tears fell fast too, as he realized how his humble
friend had perished. He remembered her kindness to his mother and
little sisters, and his heart acknowledged the claim of these poor
little orphans. Prudence whispered, "You cannot afford to burden
yourself with all these children," and pride added, "What a figure you
will make in presenting yourself before the Baroness Ludolph with all
these children at your heels!" But he put such thoughts resolutely
aside, and spoke like a brother; and when one of the children sobbed,
"We so hungry!" out came the Baroness Ludolph's fruit and cake, and
nothing remained for Christine but the sardines and peaches, since
these could not well be opened in the street. The little Bruders having
devoured what seemed to them the ambrosia of the gods, he took the
youngest in his arms, Ernst following with the others; and so they
slowly made their way to the church where Christine was now anxiously
waiting, with many surmises and forebodings at Dennis's delay.
At last, in the dusk, the little group appeared at the church-door,
and she exclaimed, "What has kept you so, Mr. Fleet?"
He determined to put the best face on the situation, and indulge in
no heroics, so he said, "You could not expect such a body of infantry
as this to march rapidly."
"What!" she exclaimed, "have you brought all the lost children in the
city back with you?"
"No, only those that fell properly to my care;" and in a few words he
told their story.
"And do you, without a cent in the world, mean to assume the burden
of these four children?" she asked, in accents of surprise.
He could not see her face, but his heart sank within him, for he thought
that to her it would seem quixotic and become another barrier between
them; but he answered, firmly: "Yes, till God, who has imposed the
burden, removes it, and enables me to place them among friends in a
good home. Mrs. Bruder, before she died, wrote to her family in Germany,
telling her whole story. Relatives may take the children; if not, some
way will be provided."
"Mr. Fleet, I wonder at you," was her answer. "Give me that child, and
you bring the others."
He wondered at her as he saw her take the child and imprint a kiss on
the sleepy, dirty face; and Ernst, who had been eying her askance,
crept timidly nearer when he saw the kiss, and whispered, "Perhaps her
old outside heart has been burned away."
They followed to a lobby of the lecture-room, and here she procured
a damp towel and proceeded to remove the tear and dust stains from the
round and wondering faces of the children. Having restored them to
something of their original color, she took them away to supper, saying
to Dennis, with a decided nod, "You stay here till I come for you."
Something in her manner reminded him of the same little autocrat who
had ordered him about when they arranged the store together. She soon
returned with a basin of water and a towel, saying: "See what a luxury
you secure by obeying orders. Now give an account of yourself, as every
lady's knight should on his return. How have you spent the day?"
He could not forbear laughing as he said: "My employment has been
almost ludicrously incongruous with the title by which you honor me.
I have been shovelling brick and mortar with other laborers."
"All day?"
"All day."
Her glance became so tender and wistful that he forgot to wash his
hands in looking at her, and felt for the moment as if he could shovel
rubbish forever, if such could be his reward.
Seemingly by an effort, she regained her brusque manner, which he did
not know was but the mask she was trying to wear, and said, quickly:
"What is the matter? Why don't you wash your face?"
"You told me to give an account of myself," he retorted, at the same
time showing rising color in his dust-begrimed face.
"Well, one of your ability can do two things at once. What have you
got in that bundle?"
"You may have forgotten, but I promised to bring you home something
that you chose to regard as charity."
"If I was so ungracious, you ought to have rewarded me by bringing me
a broken brick. Will you let me see what you brought?" but without
waiting for permission she pounced upon the bundle and dragged out the
peaches and sardines.
He, having washed and partially wiped his face, was now able to display
more of his embarrassment, and added, apologetically: "That is not all
I had. I also bought some cake and fruit, and then my money gave out."
"And do you mean to say that you have no money left?"
"Not a penny," he answered, desperately.
"But where are the cake and fruit?"
"Well," he said, laughingly, "I found the little Bruders famishing on
the sidewalk, and they got the best part of your supper."
"What an escape I have had!" she exclaimed. "Do you think I should
have survived the night if I had eaten those strangely assorted
dainties, as in honor bound I would have done, since you brought them?"
Then with a face of comical severity she turned upon him and said:
"Mr. Fleet, you need some one to take care of you. What kind of economy
do you call this, sir, especially on the part of one who has burdened
himself with four helpless children?"
There was a mingling of sense and seriousness in her raillery, which
he recognized, and he said, with a half-vexed laugh at himself: "Well,
really, Miss Ludolph, I suppose that I have not wholly regained my
wits since the fire. I throw myself on your mercy." (The same expression
he had used once before. She remembered it, and her face changed
instantly.) Turning hastily away to hide her feelings, she said, in
a rather husky voice, "When I was a wicked fool, I told you I had none;
but I think I am a little changed now." Then she added, sharply, "Please
don't stand there keeping our friends waiting"; and she led the way
into the lecture-room, now filled with tables and hungry people.
Dennis was in a maze, and could scarcely understand her, she was so
different from the pensive lady, shrinking from rude contact with the
world, that he had expected to meet. He did not realize that there was
not a particle of weak sentimentality about her, and that, since now
pride was gone, her energetic spirit would make her as truly a leader
in scenes like these as in those with which she had been familiar.
Much less could he understand that she was hiding a heart brimming
over with love to him.
He followed her, however, with much assumed humility. When in the
middle of the room, who should meet him squarely but Bill Cronk?
"Hello!" he roared, giving Dennis a slap on his back that startled
even the hungry, apathetic people at the tables.
Dennis was now almost desperate. Glad as he was to see Cronk, he felt
that he was gathering around him a company as incongruous as was the
supper he had brought home. If Yahcob Bunk or even the red-nosed
bartender had appeared, to claim him as brother, he would scarcely
have been surprised. He naturally thought that the Baroness Ludolph
might hesitate before entering such a circle of intimates. But he was
not guilty of the meanness of cutting a humble friend, even though he
saw the eyes of Christine resting on him. In his embarrassment, however,
he held out the washbasin in his confused effort to shake hands, and
said, heartily, "Why, Cronk, I am glad you came safely out of it."
"Is this gentleman a friend of yours?" asked Christine, with inimitable
grace.
"Yes!" said Dennis, firmly, though coloring somewhat. "He once rendered
me a great kindness--"
"Well, miss, you bet your money on the right hoss that time,"
interrupted Bill. "If I hain't a friend of his'n, I'd like to know where
you'll find one; though I did kick up like a cussed ole mule
when he knocked the bottle out of my hand. Like enough if he hadn't
I wouldn't be here."
"Won't you present me, Mr. Fleet?" said Christine, with an amused
twinkle in her eye.
"Mr. Cronk," said Dennis (who had now reached that state of mind when
one becomes reckless), "this lady is Miss Ludolph, and, I hope I may
venture to add, another friend of mine."
She at once put out her hand, that seemed like a snowflake in the great
horny paw of the drover, and said, "Indeed, Mr. Cronk, I will permit
no one to claim stronger friendship to Mr. Fleet than mine."
"I can take any friend of Mr. Fleet's to my buzzom at once," said Bill,
speaking figuratively, but Christine instinctively shrank nearer Dennis.
In talking with men, Bill used the off-hand vernacular of his calling,
but when addressing ladies, he evidently thought that a certain style
of metaphor bordering on sentiment was the proper thing. But Christine
said, "As a friend of Mr. Fleet's you shall join our party at once";
and she led them to the further end of the room, where at a table sat
Dr. Arten, Professor and Mrs. Leonard, Ernst, and the little Bruders,
who at the prospect of more eating were wide awake again. After the
most hearty greetings they were seated, and she took her place by the
side of the little children in order to wait on them. Few more
remarkable groups sat down together, even in that time of chaos and
deprivation. Professor Leonard was without vest or collar, and sat
with coat buttoned tight up to his chin to hide the defect. He had
lost his scholarly gold-rimmed spectacles; and a wonderful pair of
goggles bestrode his nose in their place. Mrs. Leonard was lost in the
folds of an old delaine dress that was a mile too large, and her face
looked as if she had assisted actively in an Irish wake. Dr. Arten did
the honors at the head of the table in his dress coat and vest that
had once been white, though he no longer figured around in red flannel
drawers as he had done on the beach. The little round faces of the
Bruders seemed as if protruding from animated rag babies, while nothing
could dim the glory of Ernst's great spiritual eyes, as they gratefully
and wistfully followed Dennis's every movement. Cronk was in a very
dilapidated and famished state, and endured many and varied tortures
in his efforts to be polite while he bolted sandwiches at a rate that
threatened famine. Christine still wore the woollen dress she had so
hastily donned with Dennis's assistance on Sunday night, and the marks
of the fire were all over it. Around her neck the sparks had burned
a hole here and there, through which her white shoulders gleamed. While
she was self-possessed and assiduous in her attention to the little
children, there was a glow of excitement in her eyes which perhaps
Mrs. Leonard understood better than any one else, though the shrewd
old doctor was anything but blind.
Dennis sat next to Christine in shirt-sleeves once white, but now,
through dust and smoke, of as many colors as Joseph's coat. He was too
weary to eat much, and there was a weight upon his spirits that he
could not throw off--the inevitable despondency that follows great
fatigue when the mind is not at rest.
Christine darted away and brought him a huge mug of hot coffee.
"Really, Miss Ludolph," he remonstrated, "you should not wait on me
in this style."
"You may well feel honored, sir," said Mrs. Leonard. "It is not every
man that is waited on by a baroness."
"The trouble with Christine is that she is too grateful," put in the
old doctor.
"Now I should say that was scarcely possible in view of--" commenced
the professor, innocently.
"I really hope Miss Ludolph will do nothing more from gratitude,"
interrupted Dennis, in a low tone that showed decided annoyance.
The doctor and Mrs. Leonard were ready to burst with suppressed
amusement, and Cronk, seeing something going on that he did not
understand, looked curiously around with a sandwich half-way to his
open mouth, while Ernst, believing from Dennis's tone that he was
wronged, turned his great eyes reproachfully from one to another. But
Christine was equal to the occasion. Lifting her head and looking round
with a free, clear glance she said, "And I say that men who meet this
great disaster with courage and fortitude, and hopefully set about
retrieving it, possess an inherent nobility such as no king or kaiser
could bestow, and, were I twenty times a baroness, I should esteem it
an honor to wait upon them."
A round of applause followed this speech, in which Cronk joined
vociferously, and Mrs. Leonard whispered: "Oh, Christine, how
beautifully I learn from your face the difference between dignity and
pride! That was your same old proud look, changed and glorified into
something so much better."
Dennis also saw her expression, and could not disguise his admiration,
but every moment he increasingly felt how desperately hard it would
be to give her up, now that she seemed to realize his very ideal of
womanhood.
And Cronk, having satisfied the clamors of his appetite, began to be
fascinated in his rough way with her grace and beauty. Nudging Dennis
he asked in a loud whisper heard by all, which nearly caused Dr. Arten
to choke, "The young filly is a German lady, ain't she?"
Dennis, much embarrassed, nodded assent.
A happy thought struck Bill. Though impeded by the weight of an
indefinite number of sandwiches, he slowly rose and looked solemnly
round on the little group. Dennis trembled, for he feared some dreadful
bull on the part of his rough, though well-meaning friend, but Dr.
Arten, in a state of intense enjoyment, cried, "Mr. Cronk has the
floor."
Lifting a can of coffee containing about a quart, the drover said
impressively, and with an attempt at great stateliness:
"Beautiful ladies and honorable gentlemen here assembled, I would
respectfully ask you to drink to a toast in this harmless beverage:
_The United States of Ameriky!_ When the two great elemental
races--the sanguinary Yankee and the phlegmatic German--become one,
and, as represented in the blooded team before me" (waving his hand
majestically over the heads of Dennis and Christine), "pull in the
traces together, how will the ship of state go forward!" and his face
disappeared behind his huge flagon of coffee in the deepest pledge.
Bill thought he had uttered a very profound and elegant sentiment, but
his speech fell like a bombshell in the little company.
"The very spirit of mischief is abroad to-day," Dennis groaned. And
Christine, with a face like a peony, snatched up the youngest little
Bruder, saying, "It is time these sleepy children were in bed"; but
the doctor and the Leonards went off again and again in uncontrollable
fits of laughter, in which Dennis could not refrain from joining,
though he wished the unlucky Cronk a thousand miles away. Bill put
down his mug, stared around in a surprised and nonplussed manner, and
then said, in a loud whisper, "I say, Fleet, was there any hitch in
what I said?"
This set them off again, but Dennis answered good-naturedly, slapping
his friend on the shoulder, "Cronk, you would make a man laugh in the
face of fate."
Bill took this as a compliment, and the strange party, thrown together
by an event that mingled all classes in the community, broke up and
went their several ways.