place in the circle with his long arm. “Here, look and tell me what you
think of this.”
“Edward!”
“Lined throughout with taffeta, gores on every frill—why, _Jo_! Bring
your mother a chair, Josephine.”
Before the eyes of Mrs. Atwood lay the rich folds of a cloth skirt,
surmounted by a jacket trimmed with fur.
She lay back in the armchair with the family clustered around her, their
tongues loosened.
“We all knew about it—” “We promised not to tell—” “We wanted to _see_
you get it—” “There won’t be anybody as pretty as you, mamma.” “You left
out that letter of measurements, and papa and I took it to Aunt
Cynthia”—this from Josephine—“and she helped us. She says you’re
_disgracefully_ unselfish.” The girl emphasized her remark with a sudden
and strangling hug. “There isn’t anybody in the _world_ as good as you
are. I was watching you all last week; I knew you wouldn’t buy a
_thing_. But it was papa who thought of doing it, when I told him. Feel
the stuff—isn’t it lovely? so thick and soft. He and Aunt Cynthia said
you should have the best; she _can_ spend money! And you’re to go uptown
to-morrow with me to buy a hat with red in it, and if the suit needs
altering it can be done then. _Don’t_ you like it, mamma?”
“It’s perfectly beautiful,” said the mother, her hands clasped in those
of her three darlings, but her eyes sought her husband’s.
He alone said nothing, but stood regarding her with twinkling eyes,
through a suspicion of moisture. What did she see in them? The love and
kindness that clothed her not only with silk and wool, but with honor;
that made of this new raiment a vesture wherein she entered that special
and exquisite heaven of the woman whose husband and children arise up
and call her blessed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fairy Gold
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fairy Gold
WHEN Mr. William Belden walked out of his house one wet October evening
and closed the hall door carefully behind him, he had no idea that he
was closing the door on all the habits of his maturer life and entering
the borders of a land as far removed from his hopes or his imagination
as the country of the Gadarenes.
He had not wanted to go out that evening at all, not knowing what the
fates had in store for him, and being only too conscious of the comfort
of the sitting-room lounge, upon which, after the manner of the suburban
resident who traveleth daily by railways, he had cast himself
immediately after the evening meal was over. The lounge was in
proximity—yet not too close proximity—to the lamp on the table; so that
one might have the pretext of reading to cover closed eyelids and a
general oblivion of passing events. On a night when a pouring rain
splashed outside on the pavements and the tin roofs of the piazzas, the
conditions of rest in the cozy little room were peculiarly attractive to
a man who had come home draggled and wet, and with the toil and wear of
a long business day upon him. It was therefore with a sinking of the
heart that he heard his wife’s gentle tones requesting him to wend his
way to the grocery to purchase a pound of butter.
“I hate to ask you to go, William dear, but there really is not a scrap
in the house for breakfast, and the butter-man does not come until
to-morrow afternoon,” she said deprecatingly. “It really will only take
you a few minutes.”
Mr. Belden smothered a groan, or perhaps something worse. The butter
question was a sore one, Mrs. Belden taking only a stated quantity of
that article a week, and always unexpectedly coming short of it before
the day of replenishment, although no argument ever served to induce her
to increase the original amount for consumption.
“Cannot Bridget go?” he asked weakly, gazing at the small, plump figure
of his wife, as she stood with meek yet inexorable eyes looking down at
him.
“Bridget is washing the dishes, and the stores will be closed before she
can get out.”
“Can’t one of the boys—” He stopped. There was in this household a god
who ruled everything in it, to whom all pleasures were offered up, all
individual desires sacrificed, and whose Best Good was the greedy and
unappreciative Juggernaut before whom Mr. Belden and his wife prostrated
themselves daily. This idol was called The Children. Mr. Belden felt
that he had gone too far.
“William!” said his wife severely, “I am surprised at you. John and
Henry have their lessons to get, and Willy has a cold; I could not think
of exposing him to the night air; and it is so damp, too!”
Mr. Belden slowly and stiffly rose from his reclining position on the
sofa. There was a finality in his wife’s tone before which he succumbed.
The night air _was_ damp. As he walked along the street the water
slopped around his feet, and ran in rills down his rubber coat. He did
not feel as contented as usual. When he was a youngster, he reflected
with exaggerated bitterness, boys were boys, and not treated like
precious pieces of porcelain. He did not remember, as a boy, ever having
any special consideration shown him; yet he had been both happy and
healthy, healthier perhaps than his over-tended brood at home. In his
day it had been popularly supposed that nothing could hurt a boy. He
heaved a sigh over the altered times, and then coughed a little, for he
had a cold as well as Willy.
The streets were favorable to silent meditation, for there was no one
out in them. The boughs of the trees swished backward and forward in the
storm, and the puddles at the crossings reflected the dismal yellow
glare of the street lamps. Everyone was housed to-night in the pretty
detached cottages he passed, and he thought with growing wrath of the
trivial errand on which he had been sent. “In happy homes he saw the
light,” but none of the high purpose of the youth of “Excelsior” fame
stirred his heart—rather a dull sense of failure from all high things.
What did his life amount to, anyway, that he should count one thing more
trivial than another? He loved his wife and children dearly, but he
remembered a time when his ambition had not thought of being satisfied
with the daily grind for a living and a dreamless sleep at night.
“‘Our life is but a sleep and a forgetting,’” he thought grimly, “in
quite a different way from what Wordsworth meant.” He had been one of
the foremost in his class at college, an orator, an athlete, a favorite
in society and with men. Great things had been predicted for him. Then
he had fallen in love with Nettie; a professional career seemed to place
marriage at too great a distance, and he had joyfully, yet with some
struggles in his protesting intellect, accepted a position that was
offered to him—one of those positions which never change, in which men
die still unpromoted, save when a miracle intervenes. It was not so good
a position for a family of six as it had been for a family of two, but
he did not complain. He and Nettie went shabby, but the children were
clothed in the best, as was their due.
He was too wearied at night to read anything but the newspapers, and the
gentle domestic monotony was not inspiring. He and Nettie never went out
in the evenings; the children could not be left alone. He met his
friends on the train in that diurnal journey to and from the great city,
and she occasionally attended a church tea; but their immediate and
engrossing world seemed to be made up entirely of persons under thirteen
years of age. They had dwelt in the place almost ever since their
marriage, respected and liked, but with no real social life. If Mr.
Belden thought of the years to come, he may be pardoned an unwonted
sinking of the heart.
It was while indulging in these reflections that he mechanically
purchased the pound of butter, which he could not help comparing with
Shylock’s pound of flesh, so much of life had it taken out of him, and
then found himself stepping up on the platform of the station, led by
his engrossing thoughts to pass the street corner and tread the path
most familiar to him. He turned with an exclamation to retrace his way,
when a man pacing leisurely up and down, umbrella in hand, caught sight
of him.
“Is that you, Belden?” said the stranger. “What are you doing down here
to-night?”
“I came out on an errand for my wife,” said Mr. Belden sedately. He
recognized the man as a young lawyer much identified with politics; a
mere acquaintance, yet it was a night to make any speaking animal seem a
friend, and Mr. Belden took a couple of steps along beside him.
“Waiting for a train?” he said.
“Oh, thunder, yes!” said Mr. Groper, throwing away the stump of a cigar.
“I have been waiting for the last half hour for the train; it’s late, as
usual. There’s a whole deputation from Barnet on board, due at the
Reform meeting in town to-night, and I’m part of the committee to meet
them here.”
“Where is the other part of the committee?” asked Mr. Belden.
“Oh, Jim Crane went up to the hall to see about something, and Connors
hasn’t showed up at all; I suppose the rain kept him back. What kind of
a meeting we’re going to have I don’t know. Say, Belden, I’m not up to
this sort of thing. I wish you’d stay and help me out—there’s no end of
swells coming down, more your style than mine.”
“Why, man alive, I can’t do anything for you,” said Mr. Belden. “These
carriages I see are waiting for the delegation, and here comes the train
now; you’ll get along all right.”
He waited as the train slowed into the station, smiling anew at little
Groper’s perturbation. He was quite curious to see the arrivals. Barnet
had been the home of his youth, and there might be some one whom he
knew. He had half intended, earlier in the day, to go himself to the
Reform meeting, but a growing spirit of inaction had made him give up
the idea. Yes, there was quite a carload of people getting out—ladies,
too.
“Why, Will Belden!” called out a voice from the party. A tall fellow in
a long ulster sprang forward to grasp his hand. “You don’t say it’s
yourself come down to meet us. Here we all are, Johnson, Clemmerding,
Albright, Cranston—all of the old set. Rainsford, you’ve heard of my
cousin, Will Belden. My wife and Miss Wakeman are behind here; but we’ll
do all the talking afterward, if you’ll only get us off for the hall
now.”
“Well, I am glad to see you, Henry,” said Mr. Belden heartily. He thrust
the pound of butter hastily into a large pocket of his mackintosh, and
found himself shaking hands with a score of men. He had only time to
assist his cousin’s wife and the beautiful Miss Wakeman into a carriage,
and in another moment they were all rolling away toward the town hall,
with little Mr. Groper running frantically after them, ignored by the
visitors, and peacefully forgotten by his friend.
The public hall of the little town—which called itself a city—was all
ablaze with light as the party entered it, and well filled,
notwithstanding the weather. There were flowers on the platform where
the seats for the distinguished guests were placed, and a general air of
radiance and joyful import prevailed. It was a gathering of men from all
political parties, concerned in the welfare of the State. Great measures
were at stake, and the election of governor of immediate importance. The
name of Judge Belden of Barnet was prominently mentioned. He had not
been able to attend on this particular occasion, but his son had come
with a delegation from the county town, twenty miles away, to represent
his interests. On Mr. William Belden devolved the task of introducing
the visitors; a most congenial one, he suddenly found it to be.
His friends rallied around him as people are apt to do with one of their
own kind when found in a foreign country. They called him Will, as they
used to, and slapped him on the shoulder in affectionate abandon. Those
among the group who had not known him before were anxious to claim
acquaintance on the strength of his fame, which, it seemed, still
survived him in his native town. It must not be supposed that he had not
seen either his cousin or his friends during his sojourn away from them;
on the contrary, he had met them once or so in two or three years, in
the street, or on the ferry-boat—though they traveled by different
roads—but he had then been but a passing interest in the midst of
pressing business. To-night he was the only one of their kind in a
strange place—his cousin loved him, they all loved him. The expedition
had the sentiment of a frolic under the severer political aspect.
In the welcome to the visitors by the home committee Mr. Belden also
received his part, in their surprised recognition of him, almost
amounting to a discovery.
“We had no idea that you were a nephew of Judge Belden,” one of them
said to him, speaking for his colleagues, who stood near.
Mr. William Belden bowed, and smiled; as a gentleman, and a rather
reticent one, it had never occurred to him to parade his family
connections. His smile might mean anything. It made the good
committeeman, who was rich and full of power, feel a little
uncomfortable, as he tried to cover his embarrassment with effusive
cordiality. In the background stood Mr. Groper, wet, and breathing hard,
but plainly full of admiration for his tall friend, and the position he
held as the center of the group. The visitors referred all arrangements
to him.
At last they filed on to the platform—the two cousins together.
“You must find a place for the girls,” said Henry Belden, with the
peculiar boyish giggle that his cousin remembered so well. “By George,
they _would_ come; couldn’t keep ’em at home, after they once got Jim
Shore to say it was all right. Of course, Marie Wakeman started it; she
said she was bound to go to a political meeting and sit on the platform;
arguing wasn’t a bit of use. When she got Clara on her side I knew that
I was doomed. Now, you couldn’t get them to do a thing of this kind at
home; but take a woman out of her natural sphere, and she ignores
conventionalities, just like a girl in a bathing-suit. There they are,
seated over in that corner. I’m glad that they are hidden from the
audience by the pillar. Of course, there’s that fool of a Jim, too, with
Marie.”
“You don’t mean to say she’s at it yet?” said his cousin William.
“‘At it yet!’ She’s never stopped for a moment since you kissed her that
night on the hotel piazza after the hop, under old Mrs. Trelawney’s
window—do you remember that, Will?”
Mr. William Belden did indeed remember it; it was a salute that had
echoed around their little world, leading, strangely enough, to the
capitulation of another heart—it had won him his wife. But the little
intimate conversation was broken off as the cousins took the places
allotted to them, and the business of the meeting began.
If he were not the chairman, he was appealed to so often as to almost
serve in that capacity. He became interested in the proceedings, and in
the speeches that were made; none of them, however, quite covered the
ground as he understood it. His mind unconsciously formulated
propositions as the flow of eloquence went on. It therefore seemed only
right and fitting toward the end of the evening, when it became evident
that his Honor the Mayor was not going to appear, that our distinguished
fellow-citizen, Mr. William Belden, nephew of Judge Belden of Barnet,
should be asked to represent the interests of the county in a speech,
and that he should accept the invitation.
He stood for a moment silent before the assembly, and then all the old
fire that had lain dormant for so long blazed forth in the speech that
electrified the audience, was printed in all the papers afterward, and
fitted into a political pamphlet.
He began with a comprehensive statement of facts, he drew large and
logical deductions from them, and then lit up the whole subject with
those brilliant flashes of wit and sarcasm for which he had been famous
in bygone days. More than that, a power unknown before had come to him;
he felt the real knowledge and grasp of affairs which youth had denied
him, and it was with an exultant thrill that his voice rang through the
crowded hall, and stirred the hearts of men. For the moment they felt as
he felt, and thought as he thought, and a storm of applause arose as he
ended—applause that grew and grew until a few more pithy words were
necessary from the orator before silence could be restored.
He made his way to the back of the hall for some water, and then, half
exhausted, yet tingling still from the excitement, dropped into an empty
chair by the side of Miss Wakeman.
“Well done, Billy,” she said, giving him a little approving tap with her
fan. “You were just fine.” She gave him an upward glance from her large
dark eyes. “Do you know you haven’t spoken to me to-night, nor shaken
hands with me?”
“Let us shake hands now,” he said, smiling, flushed with success, as he
looked into the eyes of this very pretty woman.
“I shall take off my glove first—such old friends as we are! It must be
a real ceremony.”
She laid a soft, white, dimpled hand, covered with glistening rings, in
his outstretched palm, and gazed at him with coquettish plaintiveness.
“It’s so _lovely_ to see you again! Have you forgotten the night you
kissed me?”
“I have thought of it daily,” he replied, giving her hand a hearty
squeeze. They both laughed, and he took a surreptitious peep at her from
under his eyelids. Marie Wakeman! Yes, truly, the same, and with the
same old tricks. He had been married for nearly fourteen years, his
children were half grown, he had long since given up youthful
friskiness, but she was “at it” still. Why, she had been older than he
when they were boy and girl; she must be for—He gazed at her soft,
rounded, olive cheek, and quenched the thought.
“And you are very happy?” she pursued, with tender solicitude. “Nettie
makes you a perfect wife, I suppose.”
“Perfect,” he assented gravely.
“And you haven’t missed me at all?”
“Can you ask?” It was the way in which all men spoke to Marie Wakeman,
married or single, rich or poor, one with another. He laughed inwardly
at his lapse into the expected tone. “I feel that I really breathe for
the first time in years, now that I’m with you again. But how is it that
you are not married?”
“What, after I had known you?” She gave him a reproachful glance. “And
you were so cruel to me—as soon as you had made your little Nettie
jealous you cared for me no longer. Look what I’ve declined to!” She
indicated Jim Shore, leaning disconsolately against the cornice, chewing
his moustache. “Now don’t give him your place unless you really want to;
well, if you’re tired of me already—thank you ever so much, and I _am_
proud of you to-night, Billy!”
Her lustrous eyes dwelt on him lingeringly as he left her; he smiled
back into them. The lines around her mouth were a little hard; she
reminded him indefinably of “She”; but she was a handsome woman, and he
had enjoyed the encounter. The sight of her brought back so vividly the
springtime of life; his hopes, the pangs of love, the joy that was his
when Nettie was won; he felt an overpowering throb of tenderness for the
wife at home who had been his early dream.
The last speeches were over, but Mr. William Belden’s triumph had not
ended. As the acknowledged orator of the evening he had an ovation
afterward; introductions and unlimited hand-shakings were in order.
He was asked to speak at a select political dinner the next week; to
speak for the hospital fund; to speak for the higher education of woman.
Led by a passing remark of Henry Belden’s to infer that his cousin was a
whist player of parts, a prominent social magnate at once invited him to
join the party at his house on one of their whist evenings.
“My wife, er—will have great pleasure in calling on Mrs. Belden,” said
the magnate. “We did not know that we had a good whist player among us.
This evening has indeed been a revelation in many ways—in many ways. You
would have no objection to taking a prominent part in politics, if you
were called upon? A reform mayor is sadly needed in our city—sadly
needed. Your connection with Judge Belden would give great weight to any
proposition of that kind. But, of course, all this is in the future.”
Mr. Belden heard his name whispered in another direction, in connection
with the cashiership of the new bank which was to be built. The
cashiership and the mayoralty might be nebulous honors, but it _was_
sweet, for once, to be recognized for what he was—a man of might; a man
of talent, and of honor.
There was a hurried rush for the train at the last on the part of the
visitors. Mr. William Belden snatched his mackintosh from the peg
whereon it had hung throughout the evening, and went with the crowd,
talking and laughing in buoyant exuberance of spirits. The night had
cleared, the moon was rising, and poured a flood of light upon the wet
streets. It was a different world from the one he had traversed earlier
in the evening. He walked home with Miss Wakeman’s exaggeratedly tender
“Good-by, dear Billy!” ringing in his ears, to provoke irrepressible
smiles. The pulse of a free life, where men lived instead of vegetating,
was in his veins. His footstep gave forth a ringing sound from the
pavement; he felt himself stalwart, alert, his brain rejoicing in its
sense of power. It was even with no sense of guilt that he heard the
church clocks striking twelve as he reached the house where his wife had
been awaiting his return for four hours.
She was sitting up for him, as he knew by the light in the parlor
window. He could see her through the half-closed blinds as she sat by
the table, a magazine in her lap, her attitude, unknown to herself,
betraying a listless depression. After all, is a woman glad to have all
her aspirations and desires confined within four walls? She may love her
cramped quarters, to be sure, but can she always forget that they are
cramped? To what does a wife descend after the bright dreams of her
girlhood! Does she really like above all things to be absorbed in the
daily consumption of butter, and the children’s clothes, or is she
absorbed in these things because the man who was to have widened the
horizon of her life only limits it by his own decadence?
She rose to meet her husband as she heard his key in the lock. She had
exchanged her evening gown for a loose, trailing white wrapper, and her
fair hair was arranged for the night in a long braid. Her husband had a
smile on his face.
“You look like a girl again,” he said brightly, as he stooped and kissed
her. “No, don’t turn out the light; come in and sit down a while longer,
I’ve ever so much to tell you. You can’t guess where I’ve been this
evening.”
“At the political meeting,” she said promptly.
“How on earth did you know?”
“The doctor came here to see Willy, and he told me he saw you on the
way. I’m glad you did go, William; I was worrying because I had sent you
out; I did not realize until later what a night it was.”
“Well, I am very glad that you did send me,” said her husband. He lay
back in his chair, flushed and smiling at the recollection. “You ought
to have been there, too; you would have liked it. What will you say if I
tell you that I made a speech—yes, it is quite true—and was applauded to
the echo. This town has just waked up to the fact that I live in it. And
Henry said—but there, I’ll have to tell you the whole thing, or you
can’t appreciate it.”
His wife leaned on the arm of his chair, watching his animated face
fondly, as he recounted the adventures of the night. He pictured the
scene vividly, and with a strong sense of humor.
“And you don’t say that Marie Wakeman is the same as ever?” she
interrupted with a flash of special interest. “Oh, William!”
“_She_ called me Billy.” He laughed anew at the thought. “Upon my word,
Nettie, she beats anything I ever saw or heard of.”
“Did she remind you of the time you kissed her?”
“Yes!” Their eyes met in amused recognition of the past.
“Is she as handsome as ever?”
“Um—yes—I think so. She isn’t as pretty as you are.”
“Oh, Will!” She blushed and dimpled.
“I declare, it is true!” He gazed at her with genuine admiration. “What
has come over you to-night, Nettie?—you look like a girl again.”
“And you were not sorry when you saw her, that—that—”