hard from his run up hill. “That pie was the best I ever closed teeth
on, better even than ever the old lady made and _she_ took three prizes
for mince pie running at the Oldfield Fair;” then, before Miranda’s arms
could drop, Jim had grasped her in a swift but complete embrace, landing
a kiss at random that all the same fell squarely upon her lips, and fled
down hill through the night without another word.
When Miranda returned to the kitchen this evening, she did not join her
mother where she sat sewing by the reading lamp, but dropped on a bench
before the open wood stove and began following the pictures the embers
painted, with eyes that really took no note of outward happenings.
Widow Banks glanced at her daughter anxiously, then caught a glimpse of
the smile that was hovering about her usually rather set lips, noticed
the ruddy mane from which the hairpins rose in various attitudes of
resentment, and glancing at the untouched task upon the table, gave a
contented sigh and began to knit reminiscences of her own youth into the
muffler she was fashioning for a missionary box. To be sure, she had
planned a theological career for her only daughter. She was to have
married a young theologue who had occupied the pulpit of the Pound Rock
Church for a year and then gone to India, where by virtue of her
experience as a teacher, Miranda was to help him convince the heathen,
do credit to her religious training, and become a factor in the world.
This plan belonged to seven years before when the girl was twenty, and
it had not happened because the stubborn streak inherited from the
deacon, stiffened Randy’s neck and perverted her judgment to the extent
of preferring Hattertown to India, and declaring to her suitor and
mother in one breath that if she ever felt a hankering for the heathen
she could find plenty without leaving home.
* * * * *
When February comes the romance of winter is over in the hill country,
and this long short month brings only the reality. It is a betwixt and
between month, fully as trying as its opposite, August, that time of
general stuffiness, flies, and limp linen.
January had been a month of even snow and good sleighing, but a sleet
storm had made the many downhill roads that converged at Hattertown
well-nigh impassable with glittering ice; while in February, coughing
and snuffling, as much a part of the month as St. Valentine’s Day, sadly
interfered with discipline at the Crossroads Schoolhouse. Miranda, under
pressure, allowed herself to confess for the first time, that seven
years was quite long enough for a woman to sit upon the selfsame wooden
chair, or wrestle with the constitutional peculiarities of a sheet-iron
stove. This stove, having been second-hand upon its arrival, was now
wearing three patches through the ill-fitted rivets of which smoke and
gas filtered, obscuring the wall map of North America that was at least
three states behind the times.
The season and bad weather of course had some effect upon her point of
view, for given June, open doors and windows, and a glimpse of the
Moosatuck to draw the eye from the faded map, the most pressing of
grievances would have vanished.
Somehow Miranda had never realized until now what an exasperating month
February was; formerly she had used the evenings for her spring sewing
and was really glad of the forced cessation of the small events that
made Hattertown’s social life, but now the ice crust upon the hill slope
above calf pastures made walking impossible between the house and the
station siding, so that two or three and in one week five evenings went
by and only the greeting of lantern signals passed between Jim Bradley
and Miranda.
The next afternoon on her return from school, Miranda found a letter in
the box, directed in a round, bold, and unfamiliar hand; moreover, it
was for her. Therefore, as it was a man’s writing it must be from Jim.
Instead of opening it as she walked along, half a dozen children
struggling on before or at her side, she dropped it in her pocket and
then smiled to find, a few minutes later, when she reached her gate and
needed a hand to open it with (the other carrying books) that it had
remained inside the pocket caressing the square of paper.
Widow Banks was then “accommodating” at the house of the new ticket
agent and telegraph operator, who had pneumonia, as his wife was obliged
to fill his place. The Banks’ house was empty save for the cat who
purred before the stove, there was no necessity for seeking privacy; yet
Miranda went through the kitchen and shut herself into the little storm
porch before she opened the envelope, and held the sheet close to the
single diamond pane in the outer door that she might read.
“Respected Friend—” the words ran, “This has been the deuce of a month
with ice and tie-ups. I need to see you _Special_ to-morrow night. If
the run is close so I can’t get up, I’ll fix to have Sweezy’s boy go
fetch you to the depot with a team, so come _down_ sure.
“Yours with Compliments,
“JIM BRADLEY.”
What did the _Special_ mean? Was her hero going to leave the Milk
Freight for a better job? That meant a passenger or possibly a through
train, and neither of these would pause on the side track at Hattertown.
Or—well, there was no use in guessing; “to-morrow night” was exactly
twenty-eight hours away and that was all there was to it. So Randy put
wood on the fire, skimmed a saucer of cream which she gave to the cat as
if in some way propitiating a powerful domestic idol, lit the lamp,
though it was broad daylight, and began the preparation of curling the
feathers in her best hat by holding them in the steam of the tea-kettle,
and then realized that as the morrow was Saturday, she would have plenty
of time for both housework and preparation.
* * * * *
The last Saturday morning of February did not really dawn, for the
discouraged light merely struggled with a snowstorm so dense that the
rays only penetrated by refraction. A little before noon the fall
ceased, but the sky would not relax, and scowled dark and sullen as if
with the pain of its recent effort, the snow lay heavy on hill and
lowland, covering land and water alike; and, lodging on the ice,
completely obliterated the boundary of the usually assertive Moosatuck.
A few crows, cawing dismally, straggled toward what had been down stream
from their cedar roosts, but all other sounds were muffled. It was
almost noon before the village, headed by the first selectman with two
yokes of oxen and as many ploughs, dug itself out; and a great
snow-plough bound north cleared the rails for the morning mail train,
now hours late. Meanwhile Mr. Sweezy, the host of the “Depot Hotel,” the
wit of the reconstructed Hattertown, did a thriving trade with many
usually abstemious citizens exhausted by the wielding of snow shovels,
in beverages that did not bear the label “soft drinks,” and the ticket
agent’s wife in the little booth struggled with and made more incoherent
the reports that came over the snow-laden wires.
In spite of the storm and the desirability of daylight, there were four
souls under the magnetic influence, as it were, of those bands of steel
rails, that wished it were night. Two that they might meet once more,
and two in order that a distance might reach between them that it seemed
likely would end in a more complete separation.
Neither couple had ever seen or heard of the other, and yet the strands
were fast weaving to draw them together and make it impossible to blot
either from the other’s memory.
The first couple were man and maid, the second, man and wife.
Jim Bradley,—working his way slowly on the morning trip from New York
in dire apprehension that the return trip would be hopelessly delayed as
far as the interval at Hattertown within visiting hours was
concerned,—and Miranda Banks, who looked from her watch-tower of the
kitchen window over the snow waves that had enveloped all below, through
which the various hay-ricks and chimney stacks emerged and seemed to
drift like bits of wreckage in an Arctic sea. As she gazed she brought
New England thrift to bear, and decided that hat and feathers would be
an unseemly head covering on such a night, even if the meeting should be
possible, and straightway put it by and began the freshening of an old
hood with scraps of ribbon.
The second couple, John Hasleton and Helen, his wife, stood looking at
each other across a table in the richly furnished library of one of the
best modern houses of the city that was the Sky Line Railroad’s eastern
terminal.
Everything about the room indicated a soothing combination of good taste
augmented by money; the soft but not too profuse draperies and rugs,
black oak shelves holding books of enticing title and suitably clothed,
unique specimens of bronze and porcelain on table and shelf, prints upon
the walls that through skill of dry point and gravers’ tools reflected
the faces of the past,—poet, king, warrior, gallant, and court beauty,
all given an added touch of reality and animation by the glowing colours
the hearth fire flashed upon them. But on the two faces that gazed
across the table lay an expression of animal hatred,—no, not animal,
for that is direct and primitive, while human hatred is so compounded
that one unimportant ingredient is often the yeast that ferments the
whole inert bulk.
The man was openly furious, both in speech and mien; the woman held
herself verbally within that purely technical and outward quality of
self-control that is so exasperating to the opposite side, who feels
that something is at stake besides success or defeat in argument.
This couple, of the relative ages of twenty-seven and thirty odd, had
been married five years, spent largely in travel and social pleasures,
satisfying their various tastes by acquisitions, and passing brief
winters in the city house given by an indulgent father to his only
daughter on her marriage.
Until this time, no great responsibility had fallen on either to say you
must or must not do this or that. But now circumstances called the
husband to give his time to various interests in New York, necessitating
a permanent removal.
“You forget that I have not refused to leave my home and assured social
position here, and if I am willing to begin again elsewhere, you have no
right to forbid this visit that will not only make everything plain, but
amuse me greatly as well.” The words were reasonable, but the voice was
hard, and the pointed white fingers, heavy with rings that seemed to
touch the table top lightly, but in reality supported the swaying
figure, were tense and cold.
“Social position be damned! I’ve had enough of it these three years and
over, but if not a soul should ever again speak to you in the street,
I’ll not have it said that you have spent a single night in Tom Barney’s
house, much less passed two weeks there and been thrown into the arms of
the crowd they travel with!”
“Don’t be coarse. Mr. and _Mrs._ Barney’s house,” corrected the woman’s
voice; “and when I know that you spent innumerable week-ends before our
marriage at one or more of their country places and that he proposed
your name for the difficult Cosmopolitan Club and engineered your
election. I wish to make this visit, I have accepted the invitation, and
I am going.”
“I repeat, I will not allow my wife to sleep under the Barneys’ roof.
If, with your sharp insight, you cannot grasp the reason, then you must
yield obedience to what I consider seemly.”
“If that is all, the matter is possible of arrangement,” replied the
woman’s voice, growing colder than the February sleet outside.
“Then you will yield this point?”
“Yes, I will yield the point of being your wife,” and the woman,
suddenly feeling the need of greater support than the touch of finger
tips upon the table gave her, moved slowly toward a deep chair before
the fire and dropped from view behind its screening back.
For a full minute the man stood staring at the place where she was not,
then turned and crashed from the room, overturning a porcelain jar in
his blind haste.
Ten minutes later the front door shut.
An hour later, Mrs. Hasleton’s maid was packing a suit case while her
mistress, dressed in a street gown and seated at her desk, wrote half a
dozen notes. Presently looking up, she said: “Elise, you will follow me
on Tuesday, as I had arranged, with the trunks packed for a two weeks’
visit. I have written the directions for you.” Then, glancing through
some time-tables, “Tell Peter to be here at two to drive me to the
station.”
“A bad day for travel? Not at all; the snow packs in the streets, that
in the open country blows off and amounts to nothing.”
Why she did it, she could not have told, but Mrs. Hasleton chose the
least direct way of reaching her destination; and, instead of going as
usual to the parlour car, entered a day coach, where she sat tapping her
foot nervously, waiting for the train to pull out, without so much as
lifting her heavy brown veil.
It was in itself a novel sensation, this leaving with no one to say
good-by, to go to a city where no one expected her; for she had
determined to spend the next two days at a woman’s club to which she
belonged, going to the Barneys’ on the following Tuesday, that being the
time of the invitation. She had not yet told her change of destination
to Elise.
The man strode about the half-cleared streets until he was physically
almost exhausted, and then entered his club, where he hid himself in a
corner, curling up like a half-sick and surly dog who both craves and
resents sympathy. A group of younger men entered, joking each other and
harmlessly boisterous. Spying Hasleton, they proceeded to unearth him
from his lair. Shouted one, “We have a scheme afoot for Sunday, and we
want a steady head like yours to come along and collect us and see that
we start for home straight on Monday morning.”
“Grumpy and got a cold? Nonsense, you want some lunch.”
* * * * *
The Milk Freight crawled in on the slippery rails at the Hattertown
siding only an hour late, which was doing very well, as sleet had
followed the snow and everything was a glare of ice. But now the
threatening snow clouds had vanished and the stars were piercingly
clear.
The Sweezy boy had gone up for Miranda Banks in a sleigh before eight
o’clock, and she waited patiently in the little room outside the ticket
booth, with only the two benches and the air-tight stove for company.
The natives who usually gathered at the station on winter evenings were
mostly in bed, tired out by snow shovelling, the few remaining having
collected at Sweezy’s Hotel to listen to his accounts of other February
storms he had known.
Inside the booth the sick operator’s wife, who was waiting until the
freight and express had passed safely through before closing up,
alternately dozed and started to listen to the tick-tickety-tick, that
sounded to the girl outside as mysterious as the death-watch beetle in a
wall.
Then the milk train came in. Jim Bradley crossed the little room and
inquired the whereabouts of the through express before he saw Miranda.
“I haven’t heard since Oldfield,” replied the tired woman, “but I reckon
you’re good for an hour’s holdup anyway.”
The milk supply was low that night and quickly loaded, then Jim Bradley,
throwing off his outer coat and pitching his cap at it, wholly relaxed
and stretched luxuriously on the bench behind the stove, regardless of
chilblains. For a few moments the unusually bad weather of the month,
the present storm, and various bits of local news held their attention;
then Bradley sat up erect, folded his arms, and said: “Now for my news.
No, I won’t let you guess, for if you hit it, you’d knock half the wind
out of the story. I’m promoted,—first of March I’m boss of the through
morning local No. 11 and can pick my own crew!”
Randy’s heart sank, though she knew that this meant progress. “It’s very
nice,” she stammered, looking down; “they must think a lot of you.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?” and Bradley fixed his eyes
upon her face so that she could not avoid them.
“I guess so. What do you want me to say?”
“Which end of the line you’d rather live at; that’s what’s concerning me
now.”
When Jim Bradley’s arm was free once more, the breathing from the ticket
office was audible and regular, and the instrument also seemed asleep
for a time and ceased its ticking. In fifteen minutes life plans were on
their way to being settled, when in the midst of optimistic happiness
arose a ghost called Theoretical New England Conscience.
Ten long, slender fingers were linked between ten short, heavy ones,
when a few harmless words severed the conjunction. “Tell me, Jim, are
you Methodist or Congregational? Ma heard up Telford way that your uncle
on your father’s side was a Congregational preacher, and it would seem
real suitable, ’cause my father was a deacon.”
Jim Bradley started as if a broken rail had suddenly confronted his
engine on a curve, then he answered quietly: “Yes, uncle was. I’m not
either, Randy, I’m a Roman Catholic. You see mother was out of Irish
stock and she kept to her religion, and I, well, I held to it as long as
she lived, and after because _it_ held to me. It’s a good religion for
us knock-about men,” he added half-appealingly. “It never forgets you
and it’s always there.” But Miranda sat silent and drooping, white to
the lips.
Jim Bradley looked at her and tried to give her time; he well knew from
his early life just what his statement meant to this girl with the rigid
ideas of the hill country; but because he understood, he would not say a
word to force his creed upon her if she would do the same, and he told
her so. Still she crouched on the bench and the only words that he could
get from her were, “What would they all say?” and “Ma would never look
at me again,” repeated over and over.
Suddenly the instrument began a vigorous ticking. The woman started and,
grasping the key, answered the sounds.
“Anything for me?” asked Bradley, glad to move and break the spell that
had fallen over both.
“No—yes—wait a minute,” said the operator, with a puzzled expression
on her face, looking at Bradley with eyes that seemed only half awake.
“You are to go right on to Bridgeton and take further orders there.”
Putting on coat and hat and turning up the wick of his lantern, Jim once
more faced Randy, who stood with her hands clenched in the fringe of her
long cape.
“Well, it’s good-night for now,” he said cheerfully; then as her eyes
met his he added, “Don’t say it’s good-by, girl; for God’s sake, think
it over.”
“It’s—it ought—it must be good-by,” she whispered; “but oh, Jim, I do
care, care _so_ much; if only something stronger than either of us could
decide and say it would be right.”
“Good-night, Randy,” said Jim, and the swing of his lantern was answered
by the train’s whistle. When it left the siding, Randy stood on the edge
of the platform watching it go out over the trestles and gain speed on
the level bit before the bridge, the red and green signal lights
blinking at her like harlequin stars.
Sweezy’s boy, who had gone into the hotel for shelter, emerged slowly
and then disappeared in the barn to get the horse and sleigh. Still
Randy lingered out on the platform end.
The lights were disappearing around the curve and the village lay as
silent and dead as if no railway pierced it, few houses showing any
light. Suddenly three shrill whistles pierced the air, the signal for
down brakes, followed swiftly by a splitting noise, a vibrating crash,
and a roar that was muffled almost immediately.
For a brief second Miranda waited for another whistle. None came.
Glancing toward the station she saw a couple of lighted lanterns, one
red and one plain, that were partly hidden by a baggage truck. Seizing
one in either hand, she started down the track, springing lightly
between the ice-coated ties. When she reached the beginning of the
trestles across the low calf-pastures, she stopped long enough to shake
off her heavy cape, that risked her balance, and then flew on.
The bright starlight showed the outline of the bridge ahead, but where
was the train with its winking lights? Only one dark hump broke the
outline of the trestles. On again over the perilous ice-coated footing
that a man in daylight would have hesitated to traverse. What was that?
A cry? Yes, a halloo, repeated as continuously as breath would allow.
As the girl drew near, she saw that the obstacle in front was the
freight caboose, lying on its side on the bank at the very beginning of
the bridge, and from beside or under it, Jim Bradley’s voice was
calling.
Feeling her way more carefully now, she answered, “I’m coming, Jim;
where are you?” and finding solid earth beneath her feet once more she
crept around the end of the car.
An endless minute told it all; _something_ had caused the engine to
leave the track when halfway across the bridge, the brakes had not
answered, and the six cars had followed their leader into the river, the
caboose alone breaking free—wedging and overturning on the bridge.
Bradley had sprung from the rear steps only to be pinned fast below the
knees, body prone on the frozen earth.
“Oh, Jim! Jim! tell me what to do first! How can I get you out before it
kills you?” she cried, for though Conductor Bradley did not groan, in
spite of himself his arms would twist in his agony.
“Turn the light under here and see what holds me,” he gasped; “there’s
an axe in the caboose if it should be anything you could chop.” Then as
she started for the sidewise door he half raised himself on his elbow to
clutch her dress, and then dropped, ear to ground.
“No, don’t mind me; take that red lantern and run back as far as you can
go above the depot and signal the express—it’s coming—I can hear the
growl of it along the ground!”
“But, Jim, it can’t come this half hour yet; it was to pass you at
Bridgeton.”
“That woman operator’s made a mistake. It’s coming, I tell you, go!”
“I don’t want to leave you, Jim, I can’t,” wailed the girl.
“’Tain’t what we want, Randy, it’s what’s got to be. Go, or if you
won’t, don’t come near me, I couldn’t bear you to touch me!” and the man
threw one twisting arm across his face, for turn away he could not.
Back over trestles and track flew the girl; past the station, from which
suddenly awakened men were stumbling up the track calling; past the
overtasked wife of the station master, who was wringing her hands, but
all seemed unconscious of any danger save the wrecked freight.
Then a broad pathway of light streamed down the track, almost blinding
Randy, who, gaining a firm footing on the side bank and clinging to a
telegraph pole, waved the lantern to and fro—to and fro, until a
whistle answered the signal and the train came to an abrupt stop, with
Randy, her red lantern, and the great, panting engine almost side by
side.
* * * * *
In an instant the track was swarming with people; the conductor of the
express, by chance an operator, went to the telegraph key to summon help
of various kinds, the poor woman who had made the error having utterly
collapsed. The crew, armed with pails and axes, hurried to the wrecked
freight, for now the smell of burning wood came on the air, while the
passengers of the express, satisfied that they had nothing further than
a night’s discomfort to fear, were scattered about, filling the little
waiting room at the station and Sweezy’s Hotel to overflowing, while
looking up the possibilities of food and lodging; fortunately, owing to
the storm, the train was but scantily filled.
A woman from one of the day coaches, evidently a lady from quiet mien
and tone, dressed in a plain cloth travelling suit, went to the bare and
formal hotel parlour, and asked if she could have a room, as she was
travelling alone and did not care to pass the night upon the train.
“I’ll fix yer out if possible,” said Sweezy, “but you’ll have to wait a
bit in here; I’ve got a lot ter tend to first, and most like there’ll
have to be some doubling up.” So saying, he threw open the door between
the long “parlour” and a little office in an alcove where there was a
stove, leaving Helen Hasleton sitting in the dim light of a single
candle, for lamps were at a premium in Hattertown just then.
Choosing the least uncomfortable of the chairs, the woman threw herself
back in it, taking off her veil and hat to ease the strain upon her
aching head.
People passed to and fro in groups, occasionally glancing in, but she
seemed neither to see nor to hear them. At last a familiar voice
speaking her name startled her, and she looked up, facing the door; it
said: