IDLENESS
When one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down
diversions wherever they are offered. The necessity of draining the
dregs of life before the wine is savored does not cultivate a
discriminating taste. Nance saw in Birdie Smelts her one chance of
escape from the deadly monotony of life, and she seized it with both
hands. Birdie might not be approved of her seniors, but she was a
disturbingly important person to her juniors. To them it seemed nothing
short of genius for a girl, born as they were in the sordid environs of
Calvary Alley, to side-step school and factory and soar away into the
paradise of stage-land. When such an authority gives counsel, it is not
to be ignored. Birdie's advice had been to quit the factory, and Nance
had taken the plunge without any idea of what she was going to put in
its place.
For some reason best known to herself, she never mentioned that episode
in the factory yard to either Birdie or Dan Lewis. There were many things
about Birdie that she did not like, and she knew only too well what Miss
Stanley would have said. But then Miss Stanley wouldn't have approved of
Mr. Demry and his dope, or Mrs. Snawdor and her beer, or Mag Gist, with
her loud voice and coarse jokes. When one lives in Calvary Alley, one has
to compromise; it is seldom the best or the next best one can afford,
even in friends.
When Mrs. Snawdor heard that Nance had quit work, she was furious. Who
was Nance Molloy, she wanted to know, to go and stick up her nose at a
glass factory? There wasn't a bloomin' thing the matter with Clarke's.
_She'd_ begun in a factory an' look at her! What was Nance a-goin' to do?
Run the streets with Birdie Smelts? It was bad enough, God knew, to have
Snawdor settin' around like a tombstone, an' Fidy a-havin' a fit if you
so much as looked at her, without havin' Nance eatin' 'em out of house
an' home an' not bringin' in a copper cent. If she stayed at home, she'd
have to do the work; that was all there was to it!
"Anybody'd think jobs happened around as regerlar as the rent man," she
ended bitterly. "You'll see the day when you're glad enough to go back to
the factory."
Before the month was over, Nance began to wonder if Mrs. Snawdor was
right. With unabating zeal she tramped the streets, answering
advertisements, applying at stores, visiting agencies. But despite the
fact that she unblushingly recommended herself in the highest terms,
nobody seemed to trust so young and inexperienced an applicant.
Meanwhile Birdie Smelts's thrilling prospect of joining her company at
an early date threw other people's sordid possibilities into the shade.
Every night she practised gymnastics and dance steps, and there being
no room in the Smelts' flat, she got into the habit of coming up to
Nance's room.
One of the conditions upon which Nance had been permitted to return to
Calvary Alley, was that she should not sleep in the same bed with Fidy
Yager, a condition which enraged Mrs. Snawdor more than all the rest.
"Annybody'd think Fidy's fits was ketchin'," she complained indignantly
to Uncle Jed.
"That there front room of mine ain't doin' anybody no good," suggested
Uncle Jed. "We might let Nance have that."
So to Nance's great joy she was given a big room all to herself. The slat
bed, the iron wash-stand, the broken-legged chair, and the wavy mirror
were the only articles that Mrs. Snawdor was willing to part with, but
Uncle Jed donated a battered stove, which despite its rust-eaten top and
sagging door, still proclaimed itself a "Little Jewel".
No bride, adorning her first abode, ever arranged her possessions with
more enthusiasm than did Nance. She scrubbed the rough floor, washed the
windows, and polished the "Little Jewel" until it shone. The first money
she could save out of her factory earnings had gone to settle that
four-year-old debt to Mr. Lavinski for the white slippers; the next went
for bedclothes and cheese-cloth window curtains. Her ambition was no
longer for the chintz hangings and gold-framed fruit pieces of Mrs.
Purdy's cottage, but looked instead toward the immaculate and austere
bedroom of Miss Stanley, with its "Melodonna" over the bed and a box of
blooming plants on the window-sill.
Such an ideal of classic simplicity was foredoomed to failure. Mrs.
Snawdor, like nature, abhorred a vacuum. An additional room to her was a
sluice in the dyke, and before long discarded pots and pans, disabled
furniture, the children's dilapidated toys, and, finally, the children
themselves were allowed to overflow into Nance's room. In vain Nance got
up at daybreak to make things tidy before going to work. At night when
she returned, the washing would be hung in her room to dry, or the twins
would be playing circus in the middle of her cherished bed.
"It's lots harder when you know how things ought to be, than when you
just go on living in the mess, and don't know the difference," she
complained bitterly to Birdie.
"I've had my fill of it," said Birdie, "I kiss my hand to the alley for
good this time. What do you reckon the fellers would think of me if they
knew I hung out in a hole like this?"
"Does he know?" asked Nance in an unguarded moment.
"Who?"
"Mac Clarke."
Birdie shot a glance of swift suspicion at her.
"What's he got to do with me?" she asked coldly.
"Ain't he one of your fellers?"
"Well, if he is, it ain't anybody's business but mine." Then evidently
repenting her harshness, she added, "I got tickets to a dance-hall
up-town to-night. I'll take you along if you want to look on. You wouldn't
catch me dancing with any of those roughnecks."
Nance found looking on an agonizing business. Not that she wanted to
dance with the roughnecks any more than Birdie did. Their common
experience at Forest Home had given them certain standards of speech and
manner that lifted them just enough above their kind to be scornful. But
to sit against the wall watching other people dance was nothing short of
agony to one of Nance's temperament.
"Come on and have a try with me, Birdie," she implored. "I'll pay the
dime." And Birdie, with professional disdain, condescended to circle the
room with her a few times.
That first dance was to Nance what the taste of blood is to a young
tiger. For days after she could think of nothing else.
"Never you mind," Birdie promised her. "When I get back on the road, I'm
going to see what I can do for you. Somebody's always falling out of the
chorus, and if you keep up this practising with me, you'll be dancing as
good as any of 'em. Ask old man Demry; he played in the orchestra last
time we was at the Gaiety."
But when Nance threw out a few cautious remarks to Mr. Demry, she met
with prompt discouragement:
"No, no, my dear child," he said uneasily. "You must put that idea out of
your head. The chorus is no place for a nice girl."
"That's what Dan says about the factory, and what Mrs. Snawdor says about
housework, and what somebody says about everything I start to do. Looks
like being a nice girl don't pay!"
Mr. Demry took her petulant little chin in his thin old hand, and turned
her face up to his.
"Nancy," he said, "these old eyes have seen a good deal over the fiddle
strings. I would rather see you go back to the glass factory, bad as it
is, than to go into the chorus."
"But I do dance as good as some of the girls, don't I, Mr. Demry?" she
teased, and Mr. Demry, whose pride in an old pupil was considerable, had
to acknowledge that she did.
Uncle Jed's attitude was scarcely more encouraging.
"No; I wouldn't be willin' to see you a playactor," he said, "walkin'
round in skin tights, with your face all painted up."
Nance knew before asking that Dan would disapprove, but she couldn't
resist mentioning the matter to him.
"That Birdie Smelts has been putting notions in your head," he said
sternly. "I wish you'd quit runnin' with girls older than you. Besides,
Birdie ain't your kind."
"I'd like to know why?" Nance challenged him in instant loyalty to her
friend. "Besides, who else have I got to run with? Maybe you think it
ain't stupid drudging around home all day and never having a cent to call
my own. I want to get out and do something."
Dan looked down at her in troubled silence.
"Mrs. Purdy's always asking me why I don't bring you to some of the
meetings at the church. They have real nice socials."
"I don't want to pray and sing silly old hymns!" cried Nance. "I want
to dance."
"I don't believe in dancing," said Dan, firmly; then with a side-glance
at her unhappy face, he added, "I can't take you to the swimming school,
because they don't allow girls, but I might take you to the new
skating-rink some Saturday."
In an instant Nance was all enthusiasm.
"Will you, Dan? I'm just crazy about skating. We used to do it out at the
home. You ought to see Birdie and me do a Dutch roll. Say, let's take her
along. What do you say?"
Dan was not at all in favor of it, but Nance insisted.
"I think we ought to be nice to Birdie on account of Mr. Smelts' stiff
leg. Not that it ever did him any good when it was limber, but I always
feel mean when I see it sticking out straight when he sits down."
This was a bit of feminine wile on Nance's part, and it had the desired
effect. Dan, always vulnerable when his sympathy was roused, reluctantly
included Birdie in the invitation.
On the Saturday night appointed, the three of them set out for the
skating rink. Dan, with his neck rigid in a high collar and his hair
plastered close to his head, stalked somberly beside the two girls, who
walked arm in arm and giggled immoderately at each other's witticisms.
"Wake up, Daniel!" said Birdie, giving his hat a tilt. "We engaged you
for a escort, not a pallbearer."
The rink was in an old armory, and the musicians sat at one end of the
room on a raised platform under two drooping flags. It was dusty and
noisy, and the crowd was promiscuous, but to Nance it was Elysium. When
she and Birdie, with Dan between them, began to circle the big room to
the rhythm of music, her joy was complete.
"Hullo! Dan Lewis is carrying two," she heard some one say as they
circled past the entrance. Glancing back, she saw it was one of the boys
from the factory. A sudden impulse seized her to stop and explain the
matter to him, but instead she followed quite a contrary purpose and
detaching herself from her companions, struck out boldly for herself.
Before she had been on the floor ten minutes people began to watch her.
Her plain, neat dress setting off her trim figure, and her severe, black
sailor hat above the shining bands of fair hair, were in sharp contrast
to the soiled finery and draggled plumes of the other girls. But it was
not entirely her appearance that attracted attention. It was a certain
independent verve, a high-headed indifference, that made her reject even
the attentions of the rink-master, a superior person boasting a pompadour
and a turquoise ring.
No one could have guessed that behind that nonchalant air Nance was
hiding a new and profoundly disturbing emotion. The sight of Birdie,
clinging in affected terror to Dan Lewis, filled her with rage. Couldn't
Dan see that Birdie was pretending? Didn't he know that she could skate
by herself quite as well as he could? Never once during the evening did
Dan make his escape, and never once did Nance go to his rescue.
When they were taking off their skates to go home, Birdie
whispered to her:
"I believe I got old slow-coach going. Watch me make him smoke up
for a treat!"
"No, you sha'n't," Nance said. "Dan's spent enough on us for one night."
"Another quarter won't break him," said Birdie. "I'm as dry as a piece
of chalk."
Ten minutes later she landed the little party in a drug store and entered
into a spirited discussion with the soda-water boy as to the comparative
merits of sundry new drinks.
"Me for a cabaret fizz," she said. "What'll you have, Nance?"
"Nothing," said Nance, sullenly, turning and taking up her stand
at the door.
"What do you want, Dan?" persisted Birdie, adding, with a mischievous
wink at the white-coated clerk, "Give him a ginger ale; he needs
stimulating."
While Birdie talked for the benefit of the clerk, and Dan sat beside her,
sipping his distasteful ginger, Nance stood at the door and watched the
people pouring out of the Gaiety Theater next door. Ordinarily the
bright evening wraps, the glimpses of sparkling jewels, the gay confusion
of the scene would have excited her liveliest interest, but to-night she
was too busy hating Birdie Smelts to think of anything else. What right
had she to monopolize Dan like that and order him about and laugh at him?
What right had she to take his arm when they walked, or put her hand on
his shoulder as she was doing this minute?
Suddenly Nance started and leaned forward. Out there in the crowded
street a tall, middle-aged man, with grizzled hair and mustache, was
somewhat imperiously making way for a pretty, delicate-looking lady
enveloped in white furs, and behind them, looking very handsome and
immaculate in his evening clothes, walked Mac Clarke.
Nance's eager eyes followed the group to the curbing; she saw the young
man glance at her with a puzzled expression; then, as he stood aside to
allow the lady to enter the motor, he looked again. For the fraction of a
second their eyes held each other; then an expression of amused
recognition sprang into his face, and Nance met it instantly with a flash
of her white teeth.
The next instant the limousine swallowed him; a door slammed, and the car
moved away. But Nance, utterly forgetful of her recent discomfort, still
stood in the door of the drug store, tingling with excitement as she
watched a little red light until it lost itself in the other moving
lights on the broad thoroughfare.