WILD OATS
The tenth annual carnival ball, under the auspices of a too-well-known
political organization, was at its midnight worst. It was one of those
conglomerate gatherings, made up of the loose ends of the city--ward
politicians, girls from the department stores, Bohemians with an unsated
thirst for diversion, reporters, ostensibly looking for copy, women just
over the line of respectability, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the
other, and the inevitable sprinkling of well-born youths who regard such
occasions as golden opportunities for seeing that mysterious phantom
termed "life."
It was all cheap and incredibly tawdry, from the festoons of paper roses
on the walls to the flash of paste jewels in make-believe crowns. The big
hall, with its stage flanked by gilded boxes, was crowded with a shifting
throng of maskers in costumes of flaunting discord. Above the noisy
laughter and popping of corks, rose the blaring strains of a brass band.
Through the odor of flowers came the strong scent of musk, which, in
turn, was routed by the fumes of beer and tobacco which were already
making the air heavy.
On the edge of all this stood Nance Molloy, in that magic hour of her
girlhood when the bud was ready to burst into the full-blown blossom. Her
slender figure on tiptoe with excitement, her eyes star-like behind her
mask, she stood poised, waiting with all her unslaked thirst for
pleasure, to make her plunge into the gay, dancing throng. She no longer
cared if her skirts were short, and her arms and neck were bare. She no
longer thought of how she looked or how she acted. There was no Pulatki
in the wings to call her down for extra flourishes; there was no old
white face in the orchestra to disturb her conscience. Her chance for a
good time had come at last, and she was rushing to meet it with arms
outstretched.
"They are getting ready for the grand march!" cried Monte, who, with Mac,
represented the "two _Dromios_." "We separate at the end of the hall, and
when the columns line up again, you dance with your vis-à-vis."
"My who-tee-who?" asked Nance.
"Vis-à-vis--fellow opposite. Come ahead!"
Down the long hall swung the gay procession, while the floor vibrated to
the rhythm of the prancing feet. The columns marched and countermarched
and fell into two long lines facing each other. The leader of the
orchestra blew a shrill whistle, and Nance, marking time expectantly,
saw one of the _Dromios_ slip out of his place and into the one facing
her. The next moment the columns flowed together, and she found herself
in his arms, swinging in and out of the gay whirling throng with every
nerve tingling response to the summoning music.
Suddenly a tender pressure made her glance up sharply at the white mask
of her companion.
"Why--why, I thought it was Mr. Monte," she laughed.
"Disappointed?" asked Mac.
"N-no."
"Then why are you stopping?"
Nance could not tell him that in her world a "High Particular" was not to
be trifled with. In her vigil of the night before she had made firm
resolve to do the square thing by Birdie Smelts.
"Where are the others?" she asked in sudden confusion.
"In the supper room probably. Aren't you going to finish this with me?"
"Not me. I'm going to dance with Mr. Monte."
"Has he asked you?"
"No; I'm going to ask him." And she darted away, leaving Mac to follow at
his leisure.
After supper propriety, which up to now had held slack rein on the
carnival spirit, turned her loose. Masks were flung aside, hundreds of
toy balloons were set afloat and tossed from hand to hand, confetti was
showered from the balcony, boisterous song and laughter mingled with the
music. The floor resembled some gigantic kaleidoscope, one gay pattern
following another in rapid succession. And in every group the most vivid
note was struck by a flashing red bird. Even had word not gone abroad
that the girls in crimson and black were from the "Rag Time Follies",
Birdie's conspicuous charms would have created instant comment and a host
of admirers.
Nance, with characteristic independence, soon swung out of Birdie's orbit
and made friends for herself. For her it was a night of delirium, and her
pulses hammered in rhythm to the throbbing music. In one day life had
caught her up out of an abyss of gloom and swung her to a dizzy pinnacle
of delight, where she poised in exquisite ecstasy, fearing that the next
turn of the wheel might carry her down again. Laughter had softened her
lips and hung mischievous lights in her eyes; happiness had set her
nerves tingling and set roses blooming in cheeks and lips. The smoldering
fires of self-expression, smothered so long, burst into riotous flame.
With utter abandonment she flung herself into the merriment of the
moment, romping through the dances with any one who asked her, slapping
the face of an elderly knight who went too far in his gallantries,
dancing a hornpipe with a fat clown to the accompaniment of a hundred
clapping hands. Up and down the crowded hall she raced, a hoydenish
little tom-boy, drunk with youth, with freedom, and with the pent-up
vitality of years.
Close after her, snatching her away from the other dancers only to have
her snatched away from him in turn, was Mac Clarke, equally flushed and
excited, refusing to listen to Monte's insistent reminder that a storm
was brewing and they ought to go home.
"Hang the storm!" cried Mac gaily. "I'm in for it with the governor,
anyhow. Let's make a night of it!"
At the end of a dance even wilder than the rest, Nance found herself with
Mac at the entrance to one of the boxes that flanked the stage.
"I've got you now!" he panted, catching her wrists and pulling her within
the curtained recess. "You've got to tell me why you've been running away
from me all evening."
"I haven't," said Nance, laughing and struggling to free her hands.
"You have, too! You've given me the slip a dozen times. Don't you know
I'm crazy about you?"
"Much you are!" scoffed Nance. "Go tell that to Birdie."
"I'll tell it to Birdie and every one else if you like," Mac cried. "It
was all up with me the first time I saw you."
With his handsome, boyish face and his frilled shirt, he looked so
absurdly like the choir boy, who had once sat on the fence flinging rocks
at her, that she threw back her head and laughed.
"You don't even know the first time you saw me," she challenged him.
"Well, I know I've seen you somewhere before. Tell me where?"
"Guess!" said Nance, with dancing eyes.
"Wait! I know! It was on the street one night. You were standing in a
drug store. A red light was shining on you, and you smiled at me."
"I smiled at you because I knew you. I'd seen you before that. Once when
you didn't want me to. In the factory yard--behind the gas-pipe--"
"Were you the little girl that caught me kissing Bird that day?"
"Yes! But there was another time even before that."
He searched her face quizzically, still holding her wrists.
Nance, no longer trying to free her hands, hummed teasingly, half under
her breath:
"Do ye think the likes of ye
Could learn to like the likes o' me?
Arrah, come in, Barney McKane, out of the rain!"
A puzzled look swept his face; then he cried exultantly:
"I've got it. It was you who let my pigeons go! You little devil! I'm
going to pay you back for that!" and before she knew it, he had got both
of her hands into one of his and had caught her to him, and was kissing
her there in the shadow of the curtain, kissing her gay, defiant eyes and
her half-childish lips.
And Nance, the independent, scoffing, high-headed Nance, who up to this
time had waged successful warfare, offensive as well as defensive,
against the invading masculine, forgot for one transcendent second
everything in the world except the touch of those ardent lips on hers and
the warm clasp of the arm about her yielding shoulders.
In the next instant she sprang away from him, and in dire confusion fled
out of the box and down the corridor.
At the door leading back into the ball-room a group of dancers had
gathered and were exchanging humorous remarks about a woman who was being
borne, feet foremost, into the corridor by two men in costume.
Nance, craning her neck to see, caught a glimpse of a white face with a
sagging mouth, and staring eyes under a profusion of tumbled red hair.
With a gasp of recognition she pushed forward and impulsively seized one
of the woman's limp hands.
"Gert!" she cried, "what's the matter? Are you hurt?"
The monk gave a significant wink at Mac, who had joined them, and the
by-standers laughed.
"She's drunk!" said Mac, abruptly, pulling Nance away. "Where did you
ever know that woman?"
"Why, it's Gert, you know, at the factory! She worked at the bench
next to mine!"
Her eyes followed the departing group somberly, and she lingered despite
Mac's persuasion.
Poor Gert! Was this what she meant by a good time? To be limp and silly
like that, with her dress slipping off her shoulder and people staring at
her and laughing at her?
"I don't want to dance!" she said impatiently, shaking off Mac's hand.
The steaming hall, reeking with tobacco smoke and stale beer, the men and
women with painted faces and blackened eyes leering and languishing at
each other, the snatches of suggestive song and jest, filled her with
sudden disgust.
"I'm going home," she announced with determination.
"But, Nance!" pleaded Mac, "you can't go until we've had our dance."
But for Nance the spell was broken, and her one idea was to get away.
When she found Birdie she became more insistent than ever.
"Why not see it out?" urged Mac. "I don't want to go home."
"You are as hoarse as a frog now," said Monte.
"Glad of it! Let's me out of singing in the choir to-morrow--I mean
to-day! Who wants another drink?"
Birdie did, and another ten minutes was lost while they went around to
the refreshment room.
The storm was at its height when at four o'clock they started on that mad
drive home. The shrieking wind, the wet, slippery streets, the lightning
flashing against the blurred wind-shield, the crashes of thunder that
drowned all other sounds, were sufficient to try the nerves of the
steadiest driver. But Mac sped his car through it with reckless
disregard, singing, despite his hoarseness, with Birdie and Monte, and
shouting laughing defiance as the lightning played.
Nance sat very straight beside him with her eyes on the road ahead. She
hated Birdie for having taken enough wine to make her silly like that;
she hated the boys for laughing at her. She saw nothing funny in the fact
that somebody had lost the latch-key and that they could only get in by
raising the landlady, who was sharp of tongue and free with her comments.
"You girls better come on over to my rooms," urged Monte. "We'll cook
your breakfast on the chafing-dish, won't we, Mac?"
"Me for the couch!" said Birdie. "I'm cross-eyed, I'm so sleepy."
"I'm not going," said Nance, shortly.
"Don't be a short-sport, Nance," urged Birdie, peevishly. "It's as good
as morning now. We can loaf around Monte's for a couple of hours and then
go over to my room and change our clothes in time to get to the station
by seven. Less time we have to answer questions, better it'll be for us."
"I tell you I ain't going!" protested Nance, hotly.
"Yes, you are!" whispered Mac softly. "You are going to be a good little
girl and do whatever I want you to."
Nance grew strangely silent under his compelling look, and under the
touch of his hand as it sought hers in the darkness. Why wasn't she angry
with Mr. Mac as she was with the others? Why did she want so much to do
whatever he asked her to? After all perhaps there was no harm in going to
Mr. Monte's for a little while, perhaps--
She drew in her breath suddenly and shivered. For the first time in her
life she was afraid, not of the storm, or the consequences of her
escapade, but of herself. She was afraid of the quick, sweet shiver that
ran over her whenever Mac touched her, of the strange weakness that came
over her even now, as his hands claimed hers.
"Say, I'm going to get out," she said suddenly.
"Stop the car! Don't you hear me? I want to get out!"
"Nonsense!" said Mac, "you don't even know where you are! You are coming
with us to Monte's; that's what you are going to do."
But Nance knew more than he thought. In the last flash of lightning she
had seen, back of them on the left, startlingly white for the second
against the blackness, the spire of Calvary Cathedral. She knew that they
were rapidly approaching the railroad crossing where Uncle Jed's signal
tower stood, beyond which lay a region totally unfamiliar to her.
She waited tensely until Mac had sped the car across the gleaming tracks,
just escaping the descending gates. Then she bent forward and seized the
emergency brake. The car came to a halt with a terrific jerk, plunging
them all forward, and under cover of the confusion Nance leapt out and,
darting under the lowered gate, dashed across the tracks. The next moment
a long freight train passed between her and the automobile, and when it
was done with its noisy shunting backward and forward, and had gone
ahead, the street was empty.
Watching her chance between the lightning flashes, she darted from cover
to cover. Once beyond the signal tower she would be safe from Uncle Jed's
righteous eye, and able to dash down a short cut she knew that led into
the street back of the warehouse and thence into Calvary Alley. If she
could get to her old room for the next two hours, she could change her
clothes and be off again before any one knew of her night's adventure.
Just as she reached the corner, a flash more blinding than the rest
ripped the heavens. A line of fire raced toward her along the steel
rails, then leapt in a ball to the big bell at the top of the signal
tower. There was a deafening crash; all the electric lights went out, and
Nance found herself cowering against the fence, apparently the one living
object in that wild, wet, storm-racked night.
The only lights to be seen were the small red lamps suspended on the
slanting gates. Nance waited for them to lower when the freight train
that had backed into the yards five minutes before, rushed out again. But
the lamps did not move.
She crept back across the tracks, watching with fascinated horror the
dark windows of the signal tower. Why didn't Uncle Jed light his lantern?
Why hadn't he lowered the gates? All her fear of discovery was suddenly
swallowed up in a greater fear.
At the foot of the crude wooden stairway she no longer hesitated.
"Uncle Jed!" she shouted against the wind, "Uncle Jed, are you there?"
There was no answer.
She climbed the steep steps and tried the door, which yielded grudgingly
to her pressure. It was only when she put her shoulder to it and pushed
with all her strength that she made an opening wide enough to squeeze
through. There on the floor, lying just as he had fallen, was the old
gate-tender, his unseeing eyes staring up into the semi-darkness.
Nance looked at him in terror, then at the signal board and the levers
that controlled the gates. A terrible trembling seized her, and she
covered her eyes with her hands.
"God tell me quick, what must I do?" she demanded, and the next instant,
as if in answer to her prayer, she heard herself gasp, "Dan!" as she
fumbled wildly for the telephone.