That golden Spring! Clandestine dinners at an obscure French cafe in
an obscure court, where one went because, though the food was
something less than so-so, the sauces were exotic; "clandestine"
because, behind closed shutters, they served _vin ordinaire_ without a
license. Our parties, to the disgust of Jacques, were teetotal, the
real attraction being that the joint might be pinched any minute.
On May afternoons in the Fenway, disguised in a baseball suit of gray
flannel, Fritz rejoiced as a strong man to swat the pill. The pill
swatted him one day, broke his thumb, and in the end he had to have it
rebroken and reset under ether. His first words on coming to were:
"Give me my paint box." All the nurses of his ward fell for him with a
loud crash. In all innocence he told what a lot of extra trouble they
went to for him. His friends smiled in their sleeves.
As often as there was a play of Shaw or Ibsen or Galsworthy or
Maeterlinck or Shakespeare or Synge there were expeditions to peanut
heaven. Knoblauch's _Kismet_ happened along and Fritz appropriated the
cry: "Alms! for the love of Allah" for occasions choicely
inappropriate.
When a fine May morning of blue and gold came winging over the city on
the northwest wind he would get up extra early, hustle through his
shave and cold tubbing and join me in the tramp over Beacon Hill,
across the Common, and down into Newspaper Row for breakfast at the
celebrated Spa. On the way up Chestnut Street, where the Brahmin
pundits live, the favorite sport was to crack jokes at the expense of
the sources of income which sustained these Georgian fronts and
mahogany-and-brocade interiors: here, a famous brand of ale; there,
notorious industrial nose-grinding in Fall River spinning mills--merry
clank of dividend skeleton in genteel closet.... On the Common, jocund
morning, fresh green of turf and tree, sweet breath of the earth;
sunshine, bird-song, youth, ... Spring!
And on a stool at the Spa, Fritz's provoking grin and sly banter of a
waitress who, after a good look at him, would conclude that if she was
being kidded she liked it and was cheerfully ready for more. After
which breakfast he trudged the mile and a half to the Art Museum to
see the morning and to save his father carfares.
* * * * *
It appeared that he was a walker, and not afraid of rain. He proved
it. On a May evening brewing thunder we did a dissolving view out of
the city on a train for Cape Ann. At the end of the shore road around
the Cape awaited lodgings at an inn and a midnight supper. At
Gloucester he was introduced to one of Wonson's clam chowders and we
set off at dusk.
That evening came the first inkling of his larger purpose--his higher
than personal ambition: what he would paint after his portraits
assured him a livelihood. Something was said about Pittsburgh and the
mills.
"They ought to be painted," said he, "exactly as they are. Not
sentimentalized like the magazine covers; not made romantic, as Joseph
Pennell has made them; but painted in all their horror. Some day. I
don't know enough yet."
Thunder had been muttering distantly. The night had turned pitch
black. There were sullen flashes, and drops began to patter. Would he
be for turning back? Not he! Then the storm came crashing and pelting
across the granite moors of the Cape. Gorgeous flashes which flushed
the winding tidal inlets and the rocky hills a brilliant rose pink.
Flash! Crash! Swish went the rain. And the harder it stormed the
better he liked it. He strode along intoxicated with color and sound.
Near Annisquam is a double shade-row of willows overarching the road.
Not far beyond, yellow lamplight was streaming from the windows of a
tiny cottage. Wading knee-deep in wet grass we knocked.
Now it is a complicated process explaining to two aged New England
spinsters on a lonely road at nine o'clock of a stormy night what your
errand is, especially when you haven't any. They listened; lifted the
lamp on us for an inspection--particularly on Fritz; one soon got used
to seeing people inspect him furtively--and invited us in.
"Walkin' round the Cape to Rockport, be ye? And in the rain? For the
fun of it! Well, come in and set down. I'd like to get a good look at
someone who'd walk to Rockport in the rain for the fun of it. Set
down, young gentlemen."
We set. They were sisters. One was small and timid: she was of the
sort that remain naive to the end. The other was tall, angular and
sardonic, with a mother wit smacking of the soil and the salt water.
She addressed herself to Fritz:
"You ain't an escaped murderer, be ye?"
Fritz cackled lustily.
"How do you know I'm not?" said he.
"You look like that fella who's on trial in Boston now. I see his
pictures in the paper ... and you come knockin' on the door at dead o'
night in a thunder squall like in a story book."
"Would you say I looked like a murderer?" inquired Fritz with relish.
"You might look worse 'n him," replied our free-speech hostess. "By
his pictures he's a good-lookin' fella. I says to Saide whiles we was
weedin' garden this morning, 't wouldn't be safe to let him go now,
for half the women in New England are ready to fall in love with
him--he's been that advertised." She eyed us with her sardonic grin. I
looked at Fritz. He was blushing.
To her shrewd Yankee wits we were clearly two lunatics, but harmless;
and the object was to extract as much entertainment from us as the law
allowed. Such was the tone of her farewell, half an hour later.
"If anyone asks who was here," said she, "I'll tell them it was two
young fellas walkin' to Rockport in the rain for the fun of it.--And
then they'll think _I'm_ one!"
* * * * *
Past midnight, stumping dog-tired into the inn; cold meat and bread,
ravenously devoured; bed, and the sleep of the just.
... Morning; and such a morning as never was. Quite forgetting to
dress, Fritz lost himself staring out of the open window at the quaint
harbor, the fishing fleet, the blue bay and the gaunt headlands until
it was suggested to him that passers by might be enjoying him as much
as he was enjoying the morning.
There was an hour for soaking it in before the train left for the
city, and soak it in he did. A sea of pale blue, like molten glass,
untroubled by a breeze; sky the deep blue of a morning after storms;
air sweet with the scent of blossoming orchards and dooryard lilacs
and tart with the tang of salt brine; merry twitter of robins; lazy
splash of surf; the long headlands tapering down to the sea; the squat
white tower of Straitsmouth light solitary on its rocky islet, "and
overhead the lovely skies of May."
In the midst of it stood a young artist, dumb with delight. His eyes
drank.
Oh brethren of the possessing class, ye who must own this and that
before you can enjoy, this world can never give the bliss for which ye
sigh. That pilgrimage cost less than $3.00 per.
* * * * *
Evening. Above the tiny grass-plat and spindling poplars in Mount
Vernon Square floats the magic of a night in mid-June. The windows of
the fifth-floor-back in 94 Charles are lighted and open to the
breeze. From those of the Advent come gusts of music,--rumbles of
organ and the fresh voices of boys: choir rehearsal. But I think the
sounds which float down from the windows of 94 are more in tune with
the night: peal after peal of infectious laughter. It was clear to the
meanest order of intellect that Sisson was telling stories which were
more joyous than dutiful: also that he had Fritz going. There was no
mistaking that laugh.
A belated delivery man, basket on arm, pauses beside me to listen and
grin.
"I bet that was a good one," says he. "Say, but can't that guy laugh!"