questions, gave way to a moment of uncontrollable emotion. Then she
called together the other children, and again heard the story. It came
disjointedly from each in turn, but most fluently, most picturesquely,
most convincingly, from the lips of Augustus Adolphus Schmidtt and the
fair Josephine. When they had finished their artless recital, Miss
Clarkson sought Fraulein von Hoffman. That afternoon, beside the big
open fire in the children's winter play-room, Fraulein von Hoffman
addressed her young charges in words brief but pointed, and as she
talked the mission of Ivan at Locust Hall took on a new significance,
clear to the dullest mind.
"You were very cruel to Ivan--ach, most cruel! And he is not to fall
any more, anywhere, on anything, you understand," explained the German,
clearly. "He has no tasks any more. He is but to be happy, and you
should love him and take care of him, because he is so small. That is
all."
Ivan exhaled a sigh of deep contentment. Then he looked around him. The
great logs on the andirons were blazing merrily. In the hands of
Josephine a corn-popper waved above them, the corn inside burning
unobserved as she lent her ears to Fraulein's earnest words. Ten
apples, suspended on strings, swung from the mantel, spinning slowly as
they roasted. It was a restful and agreeable scene to the eyes of
little Ivan.
Josephine felt called upon to defend her friends.
"We didn't mean to be cruel," she explained, earnestly, answering the
one of Fraulein's charges which had most impressed her. "We love Ivan.
We love him lots. We like to see him to be a sunbeam, an' we thought he
liked to be one. He never said he didn't."
The faces of his little companions were all around him. Ivan surveyed
them in turn. They loved him--lots. Had not Josephine just said so? And
only yesterday Augustus Adolphus had played marbles with him. It was
very good to be loved, to have a home, and not to be a little sunbeam
any longer. Then his eyes met those of Miss Clarkson, fixed upon him
sympathetically.
"Would you like to go away, Ivan?" she asked, quietly. "Would you be
happier somewhere else?"
The eyes of Ivan widened with sudden fear. To have this and to lose
it!--now, if ever, he must speak! "Oh _no_," he cried, earnestly; "no,
_no_, madam!"
Reassured, she smiled at him, and as she did so something in her look,
in the atmosphere, in the moment, opened the boy's closed heart. He
drew a long breath and smiled back at her--a shy, hesitant,
unaccustomed smile, but one very charming on his serious little face.
Miss Clarkson's heart leaped in sudden triumph. It was his first smile,
and it was for her.
"I like it here," he said. "I like it very much, madam."
Miss Clarkson had moments of wisdom.
"Then you shall stay, my boy," she said. "You shall stay as long as you
wish. But, remember, you must not be a sunbeam any more."
Ivan responded in one word--a simple, effective word, much used by his
associates in response to pleasing announcements of holidays and
vacations, but thus far a stranger on his lips. He threw back his head
and straightened his shoulders.
"Hurray!" he cried, with deep fervor. This was enough for Augustus
Adolphus and the fair Josephine. "Hurray!" they shrieked, in jubilant
duet--"Hurray! Hurray!"
The others joined in. "Hur-ray!" cried the nine small companions of
Ivan. He looked at them for a moment, his thin mouth twitching. They
were glad, too, then, that he was to stay! He walked straight to Miss
Clarkson, buried his face in her lap, and burst into tears. For a
moment she held him close, smoothing his black head with a tender hand.
Almost immediately he straightened himself and returned to the side of
Josephine, shy, shamefaced, but smiling again--a new Ivan.
"What did you cry for?" demanded that young lady, obtusely. "Because
you feel bad?"
Augustus Adolphus replied for his friend, with an insight beyond his
years.
"You let him alone," he said, severely. "He don't never cry when he
feels bad; _he_ only cries when he feels good!"
VII
IN MEMORY OF HANNAH'S LAUGH
His name was "'Rastus Calhoun Breckenridge," he announced the morning
that he began his new duties as janitor of the Adelaide apartments, and
he at once gave the tenants to understand that no liberties were to be
taken with it. He preferred it _all_ when he was addressed in ordinary
conversation, he explained to them, but he had no objections to the
title, "Mistah Breckenridge," when they felt hurried. This interested
every inmate of the Adelaide, and for a few days amazingly amused
several, who gave play to their fancy in the use of abbreviations which
struck them as humorous. Their jokes lost point, subsequently, when it
was discovered that on no occasion did "Mistah Breckenridge" respond to
their calls nor meet their demands--whereas his service to all others
was swift, expert, phenomenally perfect. Thereafter the jokers forswore
indulgence of their sense of humor and addressed the janitor at full
length and with fuller deference, to reap their reward with those whose
apartments were warm, whose reasonable requests were met, whose halls
were clean, and whose door-knobs shone even as the rare smile of
"Mistah Breckenridge" himself.
It required no unusual powers of observation to discover that as a
janitor the new man was the rare and perfect specimen who keeps alive
in a chilly world the tender plant of faith. Long before the sun was up
his busy mop and broom were heard in the land, and the slip-slap of his
carpet slippers, flopping along the halls as he made his nightly round,
was the lullaby of dissipated souls who "retired" at eleven. Results
followed with gratifying promptness. Apartments long empty were soon
rented, and envious neighbors came to gaze in awe upon the Adelaide and
its presiding genius, beholding in it the fine essence of New England
neatness and in him a small, thin, nervous, insignificant-looking
"colored gemman," who gazed past the sides of their faces with cold
aloofness. Often, neighbors, passing the impressive entrance, heard
from the lower regions of the building the sound of a high chuckle,
deepening rapidly to a contralto gurgle, and then broadening out into a
long, rich, velvety laugh as smooth as a flowing stream. No one could
hear that laugh unmoved. It rippled, it lilted, it died away, and
rolled forth again until the most _blase_ listener smiled in sympathy,
and children in the streets haw-hawed in mindless glee. It was the
laugh of Hannah--_Mrs._ 'Rastus Calhoun Breckenridge, as her husband
was careful to explain; and he once so far forgot his dignity as to
add, expansively, "We got de stifkit dat prove hit, Hannah an' me. We
got mah'd, _real_ mah'd, by a pahson."
Hannah--stout, indolent, good-looking, good-natured, large enough to
make two small persons like her husband--chuckled and gurgled into her
fruity laugh.
"Dat's de mos' pahtickler man," she volunteered, artlessly. Then,
seeing with wifely insight the first traces of gloom on her lord's
brow, she winked, trembled like a jelly-fish in a fresh convulsion of
her exhaustless mine of mirth, and disappeared into the lower regions,
to which, it was said, her husband devoted much more housewifely care
than she did. Usually he cooked his meals--and hers. Invariably he
scrubbed and swept the floors.
Not infrequently he washed and ironed. But whatever he did and whatever
he was, the ripple of his wife's easy laughter followed him like the
wave in the wake of a puffing tug; and as he listened, the weazened
face of "Mistah Breckenridge" took on the expression of a small dog who
hears his master's footsteps at the end of a dragging day.
The strenuousness of life left 'Rastus little time for the society of
his wife, but occasionally on a Sunday afternoon a rainbow-hued
apparition appeared at the entrance of the Adelaide, which, being
resolved into its elements, was recognized as "Mistah" and Mrs.
Breckenridge attired for a walk. Richly red were the hats of Hannah,
brilliantly blue her gown, glaringly yellow her new kid gloves. Like a
rubber-tired automobile she rolled along the street, while, not a bad
second--immaculate, silent, spatted, creased, silk-hatted, gloved, and
lavender-tied--pattered her small husband. He rarely spoke and never
laughed; but there was no evidence that Hannah missed these attentions;
if she did, there were numerous compensations, one of which she
confided to the cook of the newly married Browns, on the first floor.
"'Rastus suttinly do pay mah bills," she murmured, appreciatively. And
then, with her unctuous laugh, "An' ah suttinly does keep dat man busy
at hit!"
Quite possibly it was this and his other occupations which for a long
time made "Mistah Breckemidge" seemingly oblivious of a situation which
deeply impressed many others. It was the frequent presence in his home
of another "colored gemman"--large, brilliantly attired, loud-voiced,
and cheerful--who called upon Hannah three or four times a week and
whiled away many hours in her stimulating society. Occasionally her
husband found him there, but if the fact annoyed him he gave no
evidence of it. It was observed, too, that the manner of the visitor
was gingerly deferential toward his host; he evidently desired no
trouble with "Mistah Breckenridge." Occasionally he took Hannah for a
walk; several times he brought her simple offerings of chickens and
melons, heartening her to their consumption by participating in the
same. One evening he presented her with a rhine stone belt-buckle. The
next morning "Mistah Breckenridge" sought young Haddon Brown, the newly
married, who happened to be a lawyer as well as a happy groom. Without
preface or apology, 'Rastus came to the point. He wished a divorce from
Hannah. He wished it to be procured as cheaply as possible, but economy
was not to interfere with its being riveted as strongly as the law
permitted. He had his facts neatly tabulated. There was no emotion on
his little black face. At the door, after young Brown had promised to
do what he could for him, "Mistah Breckenridge" paused.
"Git it jes' as quick as yuh kin, Mistah Brown," he suggested, "foh ef
yuh don't, I'se feared Hannah ain't a-gwine tuh stay tell hit comes.
Hannah am mighty sudden sometimes in huh ways." With this final tribute
to his spouse, he shut the door quietly and departed.
In due time Haddon Brown handed "Mistah Breckenridge" the documentary
evidence of his freedom, and immediately on its receipt Hannah rose,
donned her most radiant attire, shook out a few farewell peals of
laughter, and departed, closely followed by the friend of the family,
beautiful in patent-leather shoes, new gray spats, and a tie to match.
Left alone, 'Rastus rearranged his household possessions, watered the
geraniums blooming in his basement windows, scrubbed, washed, answered
bells as scrupulously as of yore, and each night, when the work of the
day was done, donned his best clothes, oiled his crinkly hair, and
departed, returning in time for his usual inspection of the halls at
eleven o'clock.
At the end of one month he set a fresh geranium in the window,
purchased a generous supply of provisions, went forth attired like
Solomon, and came back holding in one hand the hand of a blushing
bride, and in the other the "stifkit," signed by the negro minister who
had just married them.
No two human beings could have been more unlike than the former and the
present Mrs. 'Rastus Calhoun Breckenridge. The bride was tall, thin,
chocolate-colored, serious, and hard-working. She toiled as steadily
and as indefatigably as her husband, and to the most cynical observer
it was plain that she loved him and valued him even at his worth. She
cooked appetizing meals for him, to which he did full justice; she
mended his old clothes and saw to it that he bought new ones; she saved
his money; and at the end of the year she presented him with a small,
fat, black son, over which 'Rastus hung in pathetic wonder.
He himself had begun to grow stout. He put on more flesh as three
additional years passed. He seemed well-fed, happy, and prosperous. He
had money in the bank. His wages had been twice increased, and one
Christmas the enthusiastic tenants of the Adelaide had solemnly
presented him with a watch, with his name and the value of his services
inscribed in the case. His little boy flourished, his silent wife still
adored him. The world seemed good to 'Rastus.
One day a dirty note was put into his hand by a small black youth he
had never seen before. It was brief but pointed:
"I am sik. Com to Sharty Hospitl. He ain't duin nuthen fer me. HANNAH."
"Mistah Breckenridge" carefully placed the note in his pocket, put his
hat on his head, and went to the Charity Hospital. It was not hard to
find Hannah. She had not been there long, but the doctors and nurses
liked her and seemed to have been expecting him.
"She's the life of the place," said one of them. "She's got a lot of
pluck, too, and laughs when we hurt her. She thinks she's going to get
well, but she isn't."
The little round face of 'Rastus changed expression.
"She gwine tuh die?" he asked, quickly.
"Sure," was the terse reply.
"How--how soon?"
The doctor hesitated. "In about a month, I think," he said, finally.
'Rastus carried the memory of the words into the ward where she lay,
and then felt a quick sense of reaction. Die? Why, this was the
old-time Hannah, the Hannah of his youth, the Hannah he had married.
She was thinner, but the lines had smoothed out of her face and her big
black eyes looked up at him as confidingly as the eyes of a baby. She
laughed, too, a little--a ghost of the old, fat, comfortable chuckle;
but there was nothing of death nor even of suffering about Hannah that
day. Her spirit was not yet overthrown.
"Ahm awful glad tuh see yuh, honey," she said. "Ah knew yuh'd cum."
'Rastus sat down on the wooden chair beside her and fixed his little
black eyes unwinkingly upon her face. In his hands he held his hat,
which he twisted nervously between his knees at first, but finally
forgetfully dropped on the floor as his embarrassment passed. Propped
up on her pillows, Hannah chatted incessantly, telling him the small
details of her hospital life and such few facts of her illness as she
had been permitted to know.
"I ain' got no pain," she assured him--"des now, I mean. Bimeby hit'll
cum, like hit do ebery aftahnoon, but doctah he come, too, an' he git
de better ub hit, ebery time. He sure am good to me, dat man!"
Her white teeth flashed in a smile as she talked, but the eyes she kept
on the man's face had a curious look of wonder in them.
"Yuh look well, honey," she said, finally, "an' yit yuh doan look well.
How come dat? You-all ain' got nuffin' tuh trouble yuh, is yuh?"
'Rastus hurriedly assured her that he had not. He did not mention his
wife nor child, of whose existence she was, of course, perfectly aware;
but he dilated on the glories of his position, the size of his income,
and the gift of the watch. He pulled the last from his pocket as he
spoke of it, and she wagged her head proudly over it and shamelessly
boasted to the nurse who happened to come to her side.
"Dey give dat to mah husban'," she said. Then she mentioned casually,
with all her old naivete, "Leaseways, he wuz mah husban' oncet."
"Mistah Breckenridge" ignored this little incident. His mind was on
practical things.
"Yuh got all yuh want, Hannah?" he asked. "'Caze ahm gwine tuh git hit
foh yuh ef yuh ain't."
Hannah, who seemed prepared for this inquiry, responded to it with much
promptness. She needed a wrapper, she said, and some cologne, and three
new night-gowns, and "a lil chicking." 'Rastus wrote down each item
painstakingly and somewhat ostentatiously in a hand suited to unruled
paper. Then he bowed to the nurse, touched Hannah's hand with his
sinewy little paw, and trotted out with an air of vast importance.
For several weeks the Adelaide was almost neglected, and puzzled
tenants sought the janitor in vain. He was rarely home, but Dinah,
dark-browed, sullen, red-lidded, and with a look of suffering on her
plain face, responded to their demands and did, so far as she could,
her husband's work and her own. She made no explanation of his absence,
and the last one which would have been accepted was the truth--that day
after day "Mistah Breckenridge" sat by the bedside of Hannah, talking
to her, cheering her, nursing her, feeding her with the fruit he had
brought her. He had almost superseded the nurse; and the doctors,
watching the pair, let them do much as they pleased, on the dreary
theory that nothing Hannah did could hurt her now. Sometimes she had
hours of severe pain, during which he remained with her, holding her
hand, soothing her, and lifting her still great bulk in his thin arms
with unexpected strength. In her better hours she talked to him,
telling him stories about the other patients, anecdotes of nurses and
doctors, and mimicking several luckless victims to the life.
It was six weeks before Hannah died, very suddenly, and in one of her
paroxysms of suffering. 'Rastus was with her at the end, as he had been
during the hard weeks preceding it. When he realized that all was over,
he left the room, sought an undertaker, had a brief but pregnant
interview with him, and then disappeared from the hospital and from the
city as well. Where he went no one knew, though Dinah, wellnigh
frantic, strove distractedly to learn. On the morning of Hannah's
funeral he returned and assumed a leading part in that melancholy
procession, long after referred to as "de mos' scrumptuous bury-in'" in
colored circles. Nothing had been omitted that she would have wished.
Tall plumes nodded on the hearse, many carriages gathered in the
mourners, and close behind the silver-trimmed coffin which held all
that was left of Hannah. "Mistah Breckenridge" walked with leaden
steps, his small face drawn with grief. Subsequently he drew most of
his savings from the bank to pay the bills, and, having paid them,
returned once more to his anxious family and the monotonous routine of
life at the Adelaide.
Dinah welcomed him coldly, and went about her duties with her head
high. She said no word of reproach, and it was not until several weeks
had passed that it was borne in upon her that 'Rastus remained
oblivious not only to her just wifely resentment, but to most other
things and emotions in life as well. He did his work, but he ate little
and slept less, and the flesh of his prosperous years seemed to drop
from him even as the startled beholder gazed. In despair Dinah sought
Haddon Brown and laid the case before him.
"Dat man am suttinly gwine lose his min'," she sobbed, "ef he keep on
like he doin'. Den what gwine become of me and dat in'cen' chile!"
Young Brown casually and unostentatiously looked 'Rastus over, and was
not satisfied with the survey. The janitor's lips were drawn, his eyes
were glassy, his clothes hung loosely on his shrunken little figure. He
did his work as a manikin wound up for the purpose might have done it.
There was no spring, no energy, no snap. Mr. Brown waited a fortnight,
expecting some change. None coming, one Sunday morning he urged 'Rastus
to go with him on a fishing trip, carry bait, fish if he wanted to, and
make himself generally useful. With unrelieved gloom "Mistah
Breckenridge" accepted the invitation, and the two left the city behind
them, and sought the peace of wood and stream and broad, overarching
sky.
When he had found the shaded nook that seemed most promising, young
Brown baited his hook, dropped it into the water, and gave himself up
to pleasant reveries in which poor "Mistah Breckenridge" had no part.
He had good-naturedly brought him out here for rest and change and
sport and pure air, he told himself, but it was hardly to be expected
that he should do more. He yawned, dozed, and surveyed his line without
curiosity; beside him sat "Mistah Breckenridge," every muscle of him
tense, and a light in his eyes that was not nice to see.
The spot they had chosen was a not infrequented one in the Bronx woods,
and at intervals the sound of human voices came to them and the light
colors of a woman's gown showed through the trees. Suddenly a laugh was
borne to their ears--a woman's laugh; light, happy, irrepressible.
Young Brown opened one eye. It sounded like the laugh of a nice girl.
He looked lazily in the direction whence it came. Then close by his
side he heard a thud, a groan. His companion had pitched full length on
the ground, and lay there crying with great, gasping sobs, and tearing
up the grasses by the roots. Brown gazed aghast, startled, sympathetic,
understanding dimly, yet repelled by this unmasculine outburst. He
began to speak, but changed his mind and waited, his eyes again on the
bobbing cork of his line.
"Mistah Breckenridge" cried a long time--a very long time, indeed, it
seemed to young Brown, ill at ease and wholly unused to such
demonstrations. Then he sat up, pulled himself together, and turned a
distorted face toward the young man who had been so good a friend to
him.
"You-all know, Mr. Brown, ah sure is ashamed," he said, quietly, "but
ah feel bettah, an' ah guess hit done me good. Ah felt like ah could
kill someone when we come yeah, but ah feel differnt now."
His voice trailed into silence. He restlessly pulled up dandelions and
blades of grass around him, but his face had relaxed and he seemed
calm. Haddon Brown murmured something about a nervous strain, but the
other did not seem to hear him.
"Hit wuz dat lady laffin'," he said, suddenly. "You-all know how mah
Hannah use tuh laff. Mah gracious! Yuh could heah dat woman a mile! An'
yuh know," he proceeded, slowly, "hit done me lots o' good, Mistah
Brown, des to heah huh. Ahm a silen' man, an' ah doan laff much, but ah
liked hit in Hannah, ah suttinly did--mighty well. Hit des made dis
mo'nful ole wurl' seem a chee'ful place--hit did indeed."
Brown said nothing. There was nothing in his mind that quite fitted the
occasion. "Mistah Breckenridge" ripped a few more dandelions off their
stems and went on.
"W'y, when dat woman lef me--when mah Hannah went away--ah use tuh go
aftah night to de place whah she lived, jes' to heah huh laff again.
Ah'd stan' out in d' dahk, an' ah'd see huh shadow on de cu'tin, an'
den ah'd heah huh laff an' laff lak she always done, an' den--ah'd come
home! Ah done dat all dese yeahs sense mah Hannah lef me. Dinah's all
right. Ah ain' complainin' none 'bout Dinah. Ah mah'd huh caze ah wuz
lonesome, an' she suttinly bin a good wife to me. Ahm goin' to wuk foh
huh tell ah git back all the money ah spent on Hannah. Hit wus Dinah's
money, too. But"--he burst out again with a sudden long wail--"ah jes'
doan see how ahm goin' tuh keep on livin in a worl' whah dey ain't no
Hannah!"
His grief gathered force as he gave it rein. He hurled himself down on
the ground again and tore at the grasses with his thin black hands.
"Oh, ah want, ah want, _ah want tuh heah mah Hannah laff again!_" he
cried, frenziedly.
A fish nibbled at the bait on Brown's hook, changed his mind, flirted
his fins, and swam away--a proof of the proverb about second thoughts.
A bird in the branches of the tree above the two men burst into
ecstatic song. But neither heard him. "Mistah Breckenridge" had buried
his black face in the cool grass, his hot tears falling fast upon it.
Beside him young Brown, brought face to face with elemental conditions,
sat silent and thought hard.
VIII
THE QUEST OF AUNT NANCY
It was in a stuffy compartment of a night train approaching Paris that
Jessica and I were privileged to look upon Aunt Nancy for the first
time. Her obvious age would soon have attracted our attention, no
doubt, and certainly the gallantry with which she carried her eighty
years could not long have escaped the observation of two such earnest
students of humanity as we believed ourselves to be. But the
characteristic in her which at once caught my eye was her expression--a
look of such keen alertness, such intense vitality, that even in the
mental stagnation that accompanies night travel I wondered what, in her
surroundings, could explain it.