Califo'nia for his health. I'm in New Yo'k all alone."
"I'm sorry for you, my child," said the elder woman, taking the girl's
hand. "I've been alone myself a great deal, and I know what it means.
But you must do as I did--make friends with yourself, and cultivate a
liking for your own society."
The younger woman laughed lightly, and answered, "But I haven't as
cha'ming a companion as you had."
Miss Marlenspuyk smiled back. "Yes, you have, my child. I'm not an
ill-looking old woman now, I know, but I was a very plain girl; and I
know it isn't good for any one's character to be conscious that she's
almost ugly. But I set out to make the best of it, and I did. I thought
it likely I should have a good deal of my own society, and so I made
friends with this forced acquaintance. Now, I'm very good company for
myself. I'm rarely dull, for I find myself an amusing companion, and we
have lots of interests in common. And if you choose you can also
cultivate a friendship for yourself. But it won't be as necessary for
you as for me, because you are a pretty girl, you see. That glint of
gold in your fair hair is really very fetching. And what are you doing
here in New York all alone?"
"I'm writing," Miss Peters replied.
"Writing?" echoed Miss Marlenspuyk.
"My father's in ve'y bad health, as I told you," the younger woman
explained, "and I have to suppo't myself. So I write."
"But I don't think I've seen anything signed Peters in the magazines,
have I?" asked the old maid.
"Oh, the magazines!" Miss Peters returned--"the magazines! I'm not old
enough to have anything in the magazines yet. You have to wait so long
for them to publish an article, even if they do accept it. But I get
things into the weeklies sometimes. The first time I have a piece
printed that I think you'd like, I'll send it to you, if I may."
"I will read it at once and with pleasure," Miss Marlenspuyk declared,
cordially.
"I don't sign my own name yet," continued Miss Peters; "I use a
pen-name. So perhaps you have read something of mine without knowing
it."
"Perhaps I have, my child," said Miss Marlenspuyk. "I shall be on the
lookout for you now. It must be delightful to be able to put your
thoughts down in black and white, and send them forth to help make the
world brighter and better."
Little Miss Peters laughed again, disclosing a fascinating dimple.
"I don't believe I shall ever write anything that will make the world
better," she said; "and if I did, I don't believe the editor would take
it. I don't think that is just what editors are after nowadays--do you?
They're on the lookout for stuff that'll sell the paper."
"Sad stuff it is, too, most of it," the old maid declared. "When I was a
girl the newspapers were violent enough, and the editors abused each
other like pickpockets, and sometimes they called each other out, and
sometimes somebody else horsewhipped them. But the papers then weren't
as silly and as cheap and as trivial as the papers are now. It seems as
though the editors to-day had a profound contempt for their readers, and
thought anything was good enough for them. Why, I had a letter from a
newspaper last week--a printed form it was, too--stating that they were
'desirous of obtaining full and correct information on Society Matters,
and would appreciate the kindness if Miss Marlenspuyk would forward to
the Society Editor any information regarding entertainments she may
purpose giving during the coming winter, and the Society Editor will
also be happy to arrange for a full report when desired.' Was there ever
such impudence? To ask me to describe my own dinners, and to give a list
of my guests! As though any lady would do a thing like that!"
"There are ladies who do," ventured Miss Peters.
"Then they are not what you and I would call ladies, my child," returned
Miss Marlenspuyk.
The face of the Southern girl flushed suddenly, and she bit her lip in
embarrassment. Then she mustered up courage to ask, "I suppose you do
not read the _Daily Dial_, Miss Marlenspuyk?"
"I tried it for a fortnight once," the old maid answered. "They told me
it had the most news, and all that. But I had to give it up. Nobody that
I knew ever died in the _Dial_. My friends all died in the _Gotham
Gazette_."
"The _Gazette_ has a larger family circulation," admitted the younger
woman.
"Besides," Miss Marlenspuyk continued, "I could not stand the vulgarity
of the _Dial_. I'm an old woman now, and I've seen a great deal of the
world, but the _Dial_ was too much for me. It seemed to be written down
to the taste of the half-naked inhabitants of an African kraal."
"Oh," protested the other, "do you really think it is as bad as that?"
"Indeed I do," the old maid affirmed. "It's worse than that, because the
poor negroes wouldn't know better. And what was most offensive, perhaps,
in the _Dial_ was the unwholesome knowingness of it."
"I see what you mean," said Miss Peters, and again the color rose in her
cheeks.
"There was that Lightfoot divorce case," Miss Marlenspuyk went on. "The
way the _Dial_ dwelt on that was unspeakable. I'm willing to allow that
Mrs. Lightfoot was not exactly a nice person; I'll admit that she may
have been divorced more times than she had been married--"
"That's admitting a good deal!" said the young woman, as the elder
paused.
"But it is going altogether too far to say that, like Cleopatra, she had
the manners of a kitten and the morals of a cat--isn't it?"
Miss Peters made no response. Her eyes were fixed on the carpet, and her
face was redder than ever.
"Of course it isn't likely you saw the article I mean," the old maid
continued.
"Yes," the younger responded, "I saw it."
"I'm sorry for that," said Miss Marlenspuyk. "I may be old-fashioned--I
suppose I must be at my age--but I don't think that is the kind of thing
a nice girl like you should read."
Again Miss Peters made no response.
"I happen to remember that phrase," Miss Marlenspuyk continued, "because
the article was signed 'Polly Perkins.' Very likely it was a man who
wrote it, after all, but it may have been a woman. And if it was I felt
ashamed for her as I read it. How could one woman write of another in
that way?"
"Perhaps the writer was very poor," pleaded Miss Peters.
"That would not be a good reason, and it is a bad excuse," the old maid
declared. "Of course I don't know what I should do if I were desperately
poor--one never knows. But I think I'd live on cold water and a dry
crust sooner than earn my bread and butter that way--wouldn't you?"
Miss Peters did not answer this direct question. For a moment she said
nothing. Then she raised her head, and there was a hint of high resolve
in the emphasis with which she said, "It is a mean way to make a
living."
Before Miss Marlenspuyk could continue the conversation she was greeted
by two ladies who had just arrived. Miss Peters drew back and stood by
herself in a corner for a few minutes as the throng in front of her
thickened. She was gazing straight before her, but she was not conscious
of the people who encompassed her about. Then she aroused herself, and
went into the dining-room and had a cup of tea and a thin slice of
buttered bread, rolled up and tied with a tiny ribbon. And perhaps
fifteen minutes later she found herself in front of the hostess.
She told the hostess that she had had such a very good time, that she
didn't know when she had met such very agreeable people, and that she
was specially delighted with an old friend of her grandfather's, Miss
Marlenspuyk. "Such a very delightful old maid, with none of the flavor
of desiccated spinsterhood. She does her own thinking, too. She gave me
some of her ideas about modern journalism."
"She is a brilliant conversationalist," said the hostess. "You might
have interviewed her."
"Oh, she talked freely enough," Miss Peters responded. "But I could
never write her up properly. Besides, I'm thinking of giving up
newspaper wo'k."
Three ladies here came towards the hostess, who stepped forward with
extended hand, saying, "So good of you to come on such a nasty day."
Miss Peters availed herself of the opportunity, and made her escape.
It might be half an hour afterwards when Miss Marlenspuyk, having had
her cup of tea and her roll of bread-and-butter, returned to the front
parlor in time to overhear a bashful young man take leave of the
hostess, and wish the hostess's daughter "many happy returns of the
day."
As it happened, there was a momentary stagnation of the flood of guests
when Miss Marlenspuyk went up to say farewell, and she had a chance to
congratulate the daughter of the house on the success of her coming-out
tea.
"Then I must tell you, Miss Marlenspuyk," said the hostess, "that you
completely fascinated little Miss Peters."
"She's a pretty little thing," the old maid returned, "with excellent
manners. That comes with the blood, I suppose; she told me she was a
granddaughter of the Bishop, you know. She isn't like so many of the
girls here, who take what manners they have out of a book. They get them
up overnight, but she was born with them. And she has the final sign of
breeding, which is so rare nowadays--she listens when her elders are
talking."
"Yes," the hostess replied, "Pauline Peters has pleasant manners, for
all she is working on a newspaper now."
"On a newspaper?" repeated Miss Marlenspuyk. "She told me she was
writing for her living, but she didn't say she was on a newspaper."
"She said something about giving it up as she went out," the hostess
remarked; "but I shouldn't think she would, for she has been doing very
well. Some of her articles have made quite a hit. You know she is the
'Polly Perkins' of the _Daily Dial_?"
"No," said Miss Marlenspuyk--"no, I didn't know that."
A LETTER OF FAREWELL
There had been a hesitating fall of snow in the morning, but before noon
it had turned to a mild and fitful rain that had finally modified itself
into a clinging mist as evening drew near. The heavy snow-storm of the
last week in January had left the streets high on both sides with banks
that thawed swiftly whenever the sun came out again, the water running
from them into the broad gutters, and then freezing hard at night, when
the cold wind swept across the city. Now, at nightfall, after a muggy
day, a sickening slush had spread itself treacherously over all the
crossings. The shop-girls going home had to pick their way cautiously
from corner to corner under the iron pillars supporting the station of
the elevated railroad. Train followed train overhead, each close on the
other's heels; and clouds of steam swirled down as the engines came to a
full stop with a shrill grinding of the brakes. From the skeleton spans
of the elevated road moisture dripped on the cable-cars below, as they
rumbled along with their bells clanging sharply when they neared the
crossings. The atmosphere was thick with a damp haze; and there was a
halo about every yellow globe in the windows of the bar-rooms at the
four corners of the avenue. More frequent, as the dismal day wore to an
end, was the hoarse and lugubrious tooting of the ferryboats in the East
River.
Under the steps of the stairs leading up to the aerial station of the
railroad overhead, an Italian street vender had wheeled the barrow
whereon he proffered for sale bananas and apples and nuts. At one end of
this stand was the cylinder in which he was roasting peanuts, and which
he ground as conscientiously as though he were turning a hand-organ. A
scant quarter past six o'clock it might have been, when he opened his
fire-box to throw in a stick or two more of fuel and to warm his
stiffened fingers in the flame. The sudden red glare, glowing through
the drizzle, caught the eye of a middle-aged man who was crossing the
avenue. So insecure was his footing that this momentary relaxation of
his attention was sufficient cause for a false step. His feet slipped
from under him and he fell flat on his back, striking just below the
right shoulder-blade upon a compact mass of snow, hardened by the chilly
breeze, and yet softer than the stone pavement.
The concussion knocked the breath out of him; and he lay there for a
minute almost, gasping again and again, wholly unable to raise himself.
As he struggled to get to his feet and to refill his lungs with air, he
heard a shop-girl cry, "Oh, Liz, did you see him fall? Wasn't it
awful?" And then he heard her companion respond, "I say, Mame, you ask
him if he's hurt bad." Then two men stepped from the sidewalk and lifted
him to his feet, while a boy picked up his hat and handed it to him.
"That's all right," said one of the men; "there ain't no bones broke, is
there?"
The man who had fallen was getting his breath back slowly. "No," he
panted, "there's nothing broke"--and he cautiously moved his limbs to
make sure.
"Ye've knocked the wind out of ye," the other man returned, "but ye'll
get it again in a jiffy. Come into Pat M'Cann's here and have a drink;
that'll put the life into ye again."
"That's it," agreed the man who had been helped to his feet--"that's it;
get me into Pat M'Cann's--they know me there--I can rest a bit--then
I'll be all right again in a little." He broke his sentences short, but
even thus he was able to speak only with effort.
Taking him each by one arm, the two men helped him into the saloon
almost at the door of which he had slipped. They led him straight up to
the bar.
"Good-evenin', Mr. Malone," was the barkeeper's greeting. "The boss was
after askin' for ye." Then seeing the ashen face of the new-comer, he
added, "It's not well ye're lookin'. What can I give ye?"
The man addressed as Malone was plainly attired; his clothes were tidy
but shiny; his overcoat was thin, and it was now thickly stained down
the back by the slush into which he had fallen. The bronze button of the
Grand Army was in the buttonhole of his threadbare coat.
He steadied himself by the railing before the bar. "Ye may give me--a
little whiskey, Tom," he said, still gasping, "and ask these
gentlemen--what they'll take."
These gentlemen joined him in taking whiskey. Then they again assured
him he would be all right in a jiffy; and with that they left him
standing before the bar, and went their several ways.
There was nobody else in the saloon, for the moment, as it chanced; and
Tom, the barkeeper, was able to give undivided attention to Mr. Malone.
"It's sorry the boss'll be to hear of yer fallin' here at his door, an'
he not there to pick ye up," he remarked. "But ye'd better bide till he
comes in again. Ye'll not get your breath back so easy either--I've been
knocked out myself, an' I know--though it wa'n't no ice that downed me."
"So Pat M'Cann wanted to see me, did he?" asked Malone, trying to draw a
long breath and finding it impossible, as the bruised muscles of his
back refused to yield. "Oh--well, then I'll sit me down here and wait."
"There's yer old place in the corner," Tom responded.
"I'll smoke a pipe," said Malone, moving away, "if I haven't broke it in
my fall. No; I've got it right enough," he added, taking the brier-wood
from the breast-pocket of his coat.
As Malone was shuffling slowly forward towards a table in a corner of
the saloon, the street-door was pushed open and the owner of the barroom
entered--a tall man, with a high hat and a fur-trimmed overcoat. M'Cann
went straight to the bar.
"Tom," he asked, "how many of those labor-tickets have I now in the
glass there?"
Tom looked in a tumbler on the top shelf of a rack against the wall
behind him. "There's five of 'em left," he answered.
"Barry M'Cormack will be in before we close and he'll ask ye for them,
and ye'll give him three of them," said the owner of the saloon. "Tell
him it's all I have. An' if Jerry O'Connor is here again wantin' me to
go bail for his brother in the Tombs, ye must stand him off. I don't
want to do it, ye see, an' I don't want neither to tell him I don't want
to."
"An' what will I tell him, then?" asked the barkeeper. "Hadn't I better
say ye've gone to Washington to see the Sinator?"
"Tell him what you please," responded M'Cann, "but be easy with him."
"I'll do what I can," Tom promised. "Ye was askin' for Danny Malone
before ye went out. That's him now in the corner. It's a bad fall he had
out there on the ice. The drop knocked him out--but there's no bones
broken."
"What I've got to tell him won't make him feel easier," returned M'Cann.
"But I'll get it over as soon as I can." And with that he crossed the
saloon to the farther corner, where Malone had taken his seat before a
little table.
Looking up as M'Cann came towards him, Malone recognized the owner of
the saloon and tried to rise to his feet; but the suddenness of his
movement was swiftly resented by the strained muscles of his back, and
he dropped sharply on the seat, his face wincing with the pain, which
also took his breath away again.
"Well, Dan, old man," said M'Cann, "so ye've had a bad fall, sure. I'm
sorry for that. Don't get up!--rest yerself there, and brace up."
The tall frame of the saloon-keeper towered stiffly beside the bent
figure of the man who had had the fall, and who now looked up in the
face of the other in the hope of seeing good news written there.
"Well, Pat," he began, getting his breath again, "I've had a fall--but
it's nothin'--I'll be over it--in an hour or two. I'm strong enough
yet--for any place ye can get me--"
He had fixed his gaze hungrily on the eyes of the other, and he was
waiting eagerly for a word of hope.
The saloon-keeper lowered his glance and then cleared his throat. He had
unbuttoned his overcoat and the large diamond in his shirt-front was now
exposed.
Before he made answer to this appeal the elder man spoke again,
overmastered by anxiety.
"Did ye see him?" he asked.
"Yes," was the response, "I saw him."
"An' will he do it for ye?" was the next passing question.
"He'd do it for me if he could, but he can't," returned M'Cann.
"He can't?" asked Malone. "An' why not?"
"Because the appointment isn't his, he says," the saloon-keeper
explained. "He'd be glad to give the place to a friend of mine if he
could, he told me--but there's the civil-service. He's got to follow
that, he says, more by token that they raised such a row the last time
he tried to beat the law."
"But I'm a veteran," pleaded the other, "I served my three years. The
civil-service has got to count that, hasn't it?"
"Ye might be on the list this very minute, and it wouldn't do any good,"
the saloon-keeper responded; "there's veterans to burn on the list now!"
"My post will recommend me, if I ask 'em--won't that help?"
"Nothing will help, he says," M'Cann explained. "It isn't a pull
that'll do ye any good, or I could get ye the job myself, couldn't I?"
"There ain't no influence that'll help me, then?" was the elder man's
next question.
"As I'm tellin' ye, I done what I could, and I don't believe any man in
the district couldn't do more," the saloon-keeper answered. "He says
he'd rather give ye the job than not, but he can't. He's got to take the
civil-service man."
"Then there ain't nothin' else you can do?" asked Malone, hopelessly.
"I'd do anythin' I could," M'Cann replied. "But I don't see nothin' more
to be done. That dog won't fight, that's all. The jig's up, there ain't
no two ways about it. Of course, if I hear of anythin' else I'll tell
ye--and I'll get it for ye, if I can. But it's been a pretty cold winter
for the boys, so far; you know that well enough."
The other said nothing; his head had fallen, and his eyes were staring
vacantly at a box of sand across the saloon.
The saloon-keeper drew a breath of relief that the interview was over.
"Well," he said, turning away, "I must be goin' now. I've got to see the
new man who's got that contract for fillin' in up on the Harlem."
"Don't think I ain't beholden to you, Pat," Malone declared, raising his
head again. "Ye know I am that, and I know ye've done yer best for me."
"I did that," M'Cann admitted, taking the hand the other held out; "an'
it's better I hope I can do some other time, maybe."
With that he shook Malone's hand gently and left the saloon, calling to
the barkeeper as he passed, "I'll be back in an hour, if there's anybody
wants me. An' make Danny Malone as comfortable as ye can. It's a bad
shock he's had."
As the owner of the saloon left it three customers came in, and were
served, and tossed off their drinks standing, and went out again; and
the dank night-air was blown in as they swung open the outer door.
Then the barkeeper went down to the corner where Malone was sitting,
with his pipe in his fingers, unlighted and unfilled, gazing fixedly at
vacancy.
"Mr. Malone," he said, "is it better ye're feelin' now? Have ye got yer
breath again?"
"Yes, yes," answered Malone, rousing himself, "I'm better now." And he
tried to rise again; and again he sat down suddenly, seized with
muscular pangs. "I'm better--but I'd best--stay here a while yet--I'm
thinking."
"That's it," responded Tom, cheerfully, "get a rest here. Let me fill
yer pipe for ye. There ain't nothin' so soothin' as a pipe, I don't
think. An' I don't believe a drop of old ale would hurt ye, would it
now?"
Five minutes later Dan Malone had his pipe alight in his mouth and a
glass of ale before him on the table. He drank the liquid slowly,
barely a mouthful at a time; and he smoked irregularly also, scarcely
keeping the pipe alight. He sat there by himself, limp on the seat, with
his last hope washed out of him.
Half an hour afterwards the saloon happened again to be empty, and
seeing the barkeeper at liberty, Malone asked for the loan of an
inkstand and a pen, and for a sheet of paper and an envelope. When the
table had been wiped off, and these things were placed on it before him,
he ordered another glass of ale, and he filled his pipe again.
After he had taken a sip or two of the ale and pulled four or five times
at the pipe, he squared himself painfully to the task of writing.
First, he addressed the envelope to "Hon. Terence O'Donnell, Assembly,
Albany"; then he thrust this on one side to dry, and began on the letter
itself. His handwriting was more irregular than usual; it had always
been cramped and straggling, but now it was shaky also.
"FRIEND TERRY,--Ime writing you this at Pat M'Canns, and its the
last letter you will ever have from me. I slipped at the corner
here and I fell flat on my shoulders and I knocked all the wind out
of me like I was a shut bellows. I aint got it back yet. I will
never have any strength again. Ime only fifty, but I had three
years in the Army of the Potomac; and fighting and sleeping in the
swamp and laying out all day and all night with a wound in your
leg--thats fun you got to pay for sooner or later. Ime paying for
mine now. Ime feeling very old to-night and old men ain't no good.
If Ide been younger I doubt Mary would have shook me for Jack. Your
young yet Terry and you got a good wife, God Bless her, and youll
thrive, for your square and a good friend. But you wont never know
what it is to have the woman you loved shake you. That hurts and it
hurts just as hard even if it is your brother she marries. Jacks
only my half brother you know but it hurt all the same. Mary
married him and hes never forgive me for the wrong he did me then.
And Mary she sides with him. Thats natural enough I suppose--hes
the father of her children--but that hurts too. Hes been doing me
dirt all this winter. I know it but I aint never let on. Now I
caught him setting the kids against me too. And theyve been
friendly, both of Marys kids have. The one named for me is a good
boy and, Terry, if you can give him a helping hand any day do it
for my sake. Ime going to pawn my watch when I leave here to buy a
pistol with. But Ill put the ticket in the envelope with this, and
some day when your feeling flush I wish you would take it out and
give it to little Danny. I always meant him to have it.
"I ask you now for this is the last letter I will write you and I
wont never see you again. Ime smoking the last pipe I will ever
smoke and Ive drunk half of my last glass of beer. I shall think of
you when I finish it, and it will be drinking your health and
Maggies and the baby boy your expecting.