"First time in twenty years," I says, and went off, with her face
a-following me, and me a-chiding myself energetic: What was the matter
with me to spring that onto her all of a sudden that way, and clean
forget that her and Nick used to keep company for a year or more before
he went off to town?
"Paper? Paper, Miss Marsh? As soon's we get 'em off the train?" says
somebody. And there I saw from four to six little boys, getting orders
for the city paper before the train had come in. But it was just
whistling down by the gas works, and I was so excited I dunno if I
answered them.
My gracious, what do you s'pose? On the back of the Dick Dasher
accommodation train--we called it that because Dick Dasher was the
conductor--came rolling in a special car, and a black porter bounced
off and set down a step, and out of the car got one lonely, solitary
man.
"Is that a show car hitched on there, or what?" I says to Mis' Sturgis,
that got off the train.
"That's what we was wondering," says she.
Dick Dasher, he was lifting off bundles of laundry and stuff that's
intrusted to him to bring home all along the line, and he heard me. "If
you're to meet somebody, that's the man-you're-looking-for's private
car," says he. "He's the only other one off here."
Land, there he was! As soon as I faced the man the porter had bowed off
the step, I knew him. Stockier, redder in the face, with blunt gray hair
and blunt gray mustache, and clothes that fit him like a label round a
bottle--sure as could be, it was him!
"Well, Nick!" I'd been going to say; but instead of it what I did say
was, "Is this Mr. Nordman?"
He lifted his hat in the hand with his glove on. "It's Calliope Marsh,
isn't it?" says he. "_I am_ glad to see you. Mighty good of you to meet
me, you know."
I don't know how it was, but the way he was and the way he spoke shut me
up tighter than a clamshell. It had never entered my head to feel
embarrassed or stiff with him until I saw him, and heard him being so
formal. My land, he looked rich and acted rich! The other women stood
there, so I managed to introduce them. "You meet Mis' Arnet. You meet
Mis' Sturgis. You meet Mis' Hubbelthwait," I says. "Them that was Hetty
Parker and Mamie Bain and Cassie White--I guess you remember them, don't
you?"
"Perfectly! Perfectly!" says he; and he done his heartiest, it seemed to
me. But to bow quite low, and lift his hat higher and higher to each
one--well, I dunno. It wasn't the way I thought it'd be.
"I thought we'd walk down," I says. "I thought mebbe you'd like to see
the town--" But I kind of wavered off. All of a sudden the town didn't
seem so much to me as it had.
"By all means," says he.
But just then there was above six-seven of them little boys found him.
They'd got their papers now and they were bound to make a sale. "Paper?
Buy a paper? Buy a newspaper, mister?" they says, most of them running
backward in their bare feet right in front of him.
"Sure," he says, "I'll buy a paper. Give me one of _all_ your papers.
"Now let's see," he says then. "Where's the pop-corn wagon?"
There wasn't any. None of the boys had ever heard of one.
"No pop-corn wagon? Bless me," he says, "you don't mean to say you don't
have a circus every year--with pop-corn wagons and--"
A groan broke out from every boy. "No!" they says in chorus. "Aw, it
ain't comin'. Pitcairn's wanted to show here. But the town struck 'em
for high license."
Mr. Nordman looked at the boys a minute. Then he rapped his cane down
hard on the platform. "It's a burning shame!" he says out, indignant and
human. "Ain't they even any ice-cream cones in this town?" he cries.
Oh, yes, there was them. The boys set up a shout. Mr. Nordman--he give
them a nickel apiece, and the next instant the platform was swept clean
of every boy of them. And him and me begun walking down the street.
"Bless me," he says. "What a nice little town it's grown! What a _very_
nice little town!" And the way he said it shut me right up again.
I dunno how it was, but this was no more the way I'd imagined showing
Nick Nordman over the village than anything on earth. I'd been going to
tell him about old Harvey Myers' hanging himself in the garret we were
then passing, but I hadn't the heart nor the interest.
Just as we got along down to the main block of Daphne Street, the
council meeting was out and Silas and Eppleby and Timothy Toplady and
the rest came streaming out of the engine house. Mis' Toplady and Mame
Holcomb were sitting outside, waiting for their husbands, and so of
course I marched Mr. Nicholas Nordman right up to the lot of them and
named them to him. Every one of them had known him over twenty years
before.
Off came the gray hat, and to each one of the ladies he bowed low, and
he says: "Delighted--_delighted_ to see you again. Indeed we remember,
don't we? And Timothy! Eppleby! Silas! I _am_ delighted."
Then there was a long pause. We all just stood there.
Then Silas, as the chief leading citizen, he clears his throat and he
says: "Do you--ah--remain long?" I don't know a better sample of what
Mr. Nicholas Nordman's manner done to us all. "_Remain!_" Silas never
said "remain" in his life before. Always, always he would, under any
real other circumstances, have said "stay."
The whole few minutes was like that, while we just stood there. And
perhaps it was like that most of all in the minute when it ought to have
been like that the least. This was when Mr. Nordman told a plan he had.
"I want you all," he said, "and a few more whom I well remember, to do
me the honor to lunch with me to-morrow in my car. We can have a fine
time to talk over the--ah--old days."
There was a dead pause. I guess everybody was figgering on the same
thing; finally Eppleby asked about it. "Much obliged," says he. "What
car?"
"My private car," says Mr. Nordman, "somewhere on the siding. You'll
recognize her. She's gray."
"Much obliged," "Pleased, I'm sure," "Pleased to come," says everybody.
And we broke up and he walked along with me. Halfway down the block, who
should I see ahead of me but Lucy Hackett. I never said anything till we
overtook her. When I spoke she wheeled and flushed up like a girl, and
put out her hand so nice and eager, and with her pretty way that was a
glad way and was a grand lady way too.
I says: "Mr. Nordman, you meet Miss Lucy Hackett, that I guess you can
remember each other."
He took off his hat and bowed. "Ah, Miss Lucy," says he, "this _is_ a
pleasure. How _good_ to see you again!"
"I'm glad to see you, too, Nick," she says, and walked along on the
inside of the walk with us, just _drooping_!
Yes, you might as well have tried to greet a fountain in full play as to
greet him. He invited her to come to his luncheon next day. She said she
would, with a nice little catch of pleasure in her tone; and he left her
at her gate, him bowing tremendous. And it was the same gate he used to
take her to when they were boy and girl....
He said the same kind of a formal good night to me at my gate; and I was
just going to go into my house, feeling sick and lonesome all rolled
into one, because there wasn't a mite of Nick Nordman about him at all;
but all of a sudden, like an explosion out of a clear sky and all points
of the earth, there came down onto us the most tremendous, outrageous
racket that ever blasted a body's ears. It seemed to come from sky,
earth, air and sea, at one and the same instants. And it went like this:
S----s----s!
Yow! Yow! Yow!
Who's----all----right?
Mr. N----o----rdm----a----n!
And then there was a great burst of yelling, and the whole seven boys
came dropping out of trees and scrambling up from under the fence, and
they ran off down the street, still yelling about him. Seems the
ice-cream cones had made a hit.
Then--just for one little minute--I saw the real Nick Nordman that I
remembered. His face broke into a broad, pleased grin, and he shoved his
hat onto the back of his head, and he slapped his leg so that you could
hear it. "Why," says he, "the durn little kids!"
We all dressed up in the best we had for the luncheon. Lucy Hackett come
for me. She had on a clean, pretty print dress, and she looked awful
nice.
"Oh, Lucy," I says to her right off, "ain't it too bad about Nick? He
ain't no more like he use' to be than a motor is like a mule."
Lucy, she flushed up instant. "I thought," says she, "he was real
improved."
"Land, yes, improved!" I says. "Improved out of all recognizing him."
She staggered me some by giving a superior smile. "Of course," she says,
"he's all city ways now. Of course he is."
Yes, of course he was. I thought of her words over and over again during
that lunch. His private car had a little table fitted in most every seat
and laid, all white, with pretty dishes and silver and flowers. Electric
fans were going here and there. The lights were lighted, though it was
broad day and broader. The porter, in a white coat, was frisking round
with ice and glasses. But, most magnificent of all, was Mr. Nicholas
Nordman, standing in the middle of the aisle in pure white serge.
"So pleased," says he. "So very pleased. Now this _is_ good of you all
to come."
I s'pose what we done was to chat; that, I figger, would be the name of
it. But when he set us all down to the little tables, four and four, a
deathlike silence fell on the whole car. It was hard enough to talk
anyhow. Add to that the interestingness of all this novelty, and not one
of us could work up a thing to say.
Mr. Nordman took the minister and Lucy Hackett and me to his table,
being we were all odd ones, and begun to talk benevolent about the
improvements that a little town of this size ought to have.
"I s'pose they have grand parks and buildings in the cities, Nick?" says
Lucy.
"Haven't you ever been to see them?" says he--oh, so kind!
"Never," says she. "But I've heard about them."
He sat staring out the car window across the Pump pasture, where the
shadows were all laying nice. "City life is intensely interesting," says
he. "Intensely so."
"As interesting as the time you stole Grandpa Toplady's grapes?" I says.
I couldn't help it.
He tapped on the table. "Let us be in order for a few minutes," he says.
He needn't of. We were in order already; we hadn't been anything else.
Nobody was speaking a word hardly. But everybody twisted round and
looked at him as he got onto his feet.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, and looked at us once round. "I have
summoned you here for a purpose. On this, the occasion of my first visit
back to my boyhood's home, I feel that I should--and, indeed, I most
earnestly desire to--mark the time by some small token. Therefore, after
some conversation about the matter during the forenoon, and much thought
before my coming, I have decided to set aside ten thousand dollars from
to-day to be used for your town in a way which a committee--of which I
hope that you, my guests of the day, will be appointed members--may
decide. For park purposes, playgrounds, pavements--what you will; I
desire to make this little acknowledgment to my native town, to this the
home of my boyhood. I thank you."
He set down and, after a minute, everybody burst out and spatted their
hands.
And then Silas Sykes, that is our professional leading citizen, got to
his feet and accepted in the name of the town. Some of the other men
said a little about the needs of the town; and Eppleby Holcomb, he got
up and proposed a toast to the host. And by that time, the sun had got
around considerable and it was blazing hot there on the side track, and
us ladies in our black silks begun to think, longing, of our side
piazzas and our palm-leaf fans.
We filed down the aisle and shook the hand of Mr. Nicholas Nordman and
thanked him, individual and formal, both for the lunch and the big gift,
and got out. But Lucy Hackett burst out talking, with the tears in her
eyes. "Nick!" she says. "Oh, Nick, it was wonderful! Oh, it was the most
wonderful time I ever had in my life--the luncheon with everything so
pretty--prettier'n I ever saw things before; and then the present to the
town. Ten thousand dollars! Oh, none of us can be happy and grateful
enough. And to think it's you that's done it, Nick--to think it's you!"
"Thank you, Miss Lucy," says he, "thank you; you are very good, I'm
sure."
But I noticed that he wasn't so much formal now as he was lifeless; and
I was wondering if he hadn't had a good time to his own luncheon party
or what, when I heard something out on the platform, and then there come
a-walking in a regular procession. It was all seven of the small boys
again, and from seven to fourteen more besides, done up clean, with
shoes on and here and there a collar.
"Is it time?" they says.
Nick Nordman stood with his hands in his pockets and grinned down on
them. And it came to me to be kind of jealous of the boys, because he
was with them just the way he ought to have been with us--and wasn't.
But he was going off that night, with his car to be hitched onto the
Through; and there wasn't any time for anybody to say any more, or be
any different. So Lucy and I said good-by to him and left him there with
the boys, dragging out together an ice-cream freezer into the middle of
the gray private car.
I'd just got the door locked up that night about nine o'clock, and was
seeing to the window catches before I went upstairs, when there come a
rap to my front door.
"Who's there?" says I, with my hand on the bolt.
"It's Nick Nordman, Calliope."
"Land!" says I, letting him in. "I thought you'd gone off hitched to the
Through."
"I was," he says, "but I ain't. I'm going to wait till five in the
morning. And I'm going to talk over something with you."
Sheer through being flabbergasted, I led him past the parlor and out
into the dining room and lit the lamp there. I'd been sewing there and
things were spread on every chair. Think of receiving a millionaire in a
place like that! But he never seemed to notice. He dropped right down on
the machine cover that was standing up on end. And he put his elbow on
the machine, and his head on his hand.
"Calliope," he says, "it ain't the way I thought it'd be. I wanted to
come back here," he says. "I been thinking about it and planning on it
for years. But it ain't like what I thought."
"Well," I says, soothing, "of course that's always the way when anybody
comes back. They's changes. Things ain't the same. Folks has gone
away--"
He cut me short off. "Oh," he says, "it ain't that. I expected that.
There were enough folks here. It's something else. When I went away from
here twenty years ago, I had just thirty-six dollars to go on. Now I've
come back, and I don't mind telling you that I've got not far from six
hundred thousand invested. Well, from the time I went off, I used to
plan how I'd come back some day, just about like I have come back, and
see folks, and give something to the town, and give a lunch like I did
to-day. I've laid awake nights planning it. And I liked to think about
it."
"Well," I says, "and you've done it."
He didn't pay attention. "You remember," he says, "how I used to live
over on the Slew with my uncle in the house that wasn't painted? He'd
got together a cow somehow, and I use' to carry the milk. I never owned
a pair of shoes till I was fifteen and earned them, and I never went to
school after I was twelve. And when I went to the city I begun at the
bottom and lived on nothing and went to night school and got through the
whole works up to pardner for them I used to sweep out for. When I got
my first ten thousand I thought: 'That's what I'm going to give that
little old town--when I get enough more.' Well, I've done it, and I
ain't got no more satisfaction out of it than if I'd thrown it in the
gutter. And that"--he looked at me solemn--"was," says he, "the
durndest, stiffest luncheon I ever et at."
"Well," I says, "of course--"
"When I think," he says, "of the way I planned it--with the men all
coming around me, and slapping me on the back, and being glad to see
me--"
"Oh, Nick!" I says. "Nick Nordman! _Was_ that what you wanted?"
He looked at me in perfect astonishment. "Why," says he, "ain't that
what anybody wants?"
I rose right up on my feet and I went over and put out my hand to him.
"Why, Nick," I says, "don't you see? We was afraid of you. _I_ was
afraid of you. I froze right up and give up telling you about folks
hanging themselves and all sorts of interesting things because I thought
you wouldn't care. Why, they don't know you care!"
"Don't know I care?" says he. "But ain't I showed 'em--ten thousand
dollars' worth?"
"Oh," I says, "that way! Yes, they know that way. In dollars they know;
but they don't know in feelings. It's them," I says, "that counts." I
set down by him, right on a pile of my new sewing. "Look here," I says,
"Nick Nordman, if that's the way you feel about coming back and about
the village, let's you and me fix up some way to make folks know you
feel that way."
His face lit up. "How?" says he, doubting.
I thought a minute. I don't know why it was, but all at once there
flashed into my head the way he had been with the boys, and the way the
boys had been to him; that was what he was wanting, and that was what
had been lacking, and that was what he didn't know how to make come. And
he was lonesome for it.
"It ought to be," says I, feeling my way in my own head, "some way
that'll make folks--Oh, Nick," I says, jumping up, "I know the very
thing!"
Pitcairn's Circus that wintered not twenty miles from us, and that had
got so big and successful that it hadn't been to Friendship Village
before in twenty years! And this year, when they'd wanted to come, the
council had put the license so high that they refused it. And yet, one
morning, we woke up to find the town plastered up and down with the big
flaming bill posters of Pitcairn's Circus itself. The town had all it
could do to believe in its own good luck. But there was no room to
doubt. There they were: