A long reach of coast country, white and smooth, broken by undulating
fences smothered in snowdrifts, only their stakes and bush-tops showing;
farther away, horizontal markings of black pines; still farther away, a
line of ragged dunes bearded with yellow grass bordering a beach flecked
with scurries of foam--mouthings of a surf twisting as if in pain;
beyond this a wide sea, greenish gray, gray and gray-blue, slashed here
and there with white-caps pricked by wind rapiers; beyond this again,
out into space, a leaden sky flat as paint and as monotonous.
Nearer by, so close that I could see their movements from the car
window, spatterings of crows, and higher up circling specks of gulls
glinting or darkening as their breasts or backs caught the light. These
crows and gulls were the only things alive in the wintry waste.
No, one thing more--two, in fact: as I came nearer the depot, a horse
tethered to the section of the undulating fence, a rough-coated,
wind-blown, shackly beast; the kind the great Schreyer always painted
shivering with cold outside a stable door (and in the snow, too), and a
man: Please remember, A MAN! And please continue to remember it to the
end of this story.
Thirty-one years in the service he--this keeper of the Naukashon
Life-Saving Station--twenty-five at this same post. Six feet and an
inch, tough as a sapling and as straight; long-armed, long-legged,
broad-shouldered and big-boned; face brown and tanned as skirt leather;
eye like a hawk's; mouth but a healed scar, so firm is it; low-voiced,
simple-minded and genuine.
If you ask him what he has done in all these thirty-one years of service
he will tell you:
"Oh, I kind o' forget; the Superintendent gets reports. You see, some
months we're not busy, and then ag'in we ain't had no wrecks for
considerable time."
If you should happen to look in his locker, away back out of sight, you
would perhaps find a small paper box, and in it a gold medal--the
highest his government can give him--inscribed with his name and a
record of some particular act of heroism. When he is confronted with the
tell-tale evidence, he will say:
"Oh, yes--they _did_ give me that! I'm keepin' it for my grandson."
If you, failing to corkscrew any of the details out of him, should
examine the Department's reports, you will find out all he
"forgets"--among them the fact that in his thirty-one years of service
he and the crew under him have saved the lives of one hundred and
thirty-one men and women out of a possible one hundred and thirty-two.
He explains the loss of this unlucky man by saying apologetically that
"the fellow got dizzy somehow and locked himself in the cabin, and we
didn't know he was there until she broke up and he got washed ashore."
This was the man who, when I arrived at the railroad station, held out a
hand in hearty welcome, his own closing over mine with the grip of a
cant-hook.
"Well, by Jiminy! Superintendent said you was comin', but I kind o'
thought you wouldn't 'til the weather cleared. Gimme yer bag--Yes, the
boys are all well and will be glad to see ye. Colder than blue blazes,
ain't it? Snow ain't over yet. Well, well, kind o' natural to see ye!"
The bag was passed up; the Captain caught the reins in his crab-like
fingers, and the bunch of wind-blown fur, gathering its stiffened legs
together, wheeled sharply to the left and started in to make
pencil-markings in double lines over the white snow seaward toward the
Naukashon Life-Saving Station.
[Illustration: Over the white snow seaward.]
The perspective shortened: first the smooth, unbroken stretch; then the
belt of pines; then a flat marsh diked by dunes; then a cluster of black
dots, big and little--the big one being the Station house, and the
smaller ones its outbuildings and fishermen's shanties; and then the
hard, straight line of the pitiless sea.
I knew the "boys." I had known some of them for years: ever since I
picked up one of their stations--its site endangered by the scour of the
tide--ran it on skids a mile over the sand to the land side of the
inlet without moving the crew or their comforts (even their wet socks
were left drying on a string by the kitchen stove); shoved it aboard two
scows timbered together, started out to sea under the guidance of a
light-draught tug in search of its new location three miles away, and
then, with the assistance of a suddenly developed north-east gale,
backed up by my own colossal engineering skill, dropped the whole
concern--skids, house, kitchen stove, socks and all--into the sea. When
the surf dogs were through with its carcass the beach was strewn with
its bones picked clean by their teeth. Only the weathercock, which had
decorated its cupola, was left. This had floated off and was found
perched on top of a sand-dune, whizzing away on its ornamental cap as
merry as a jig-dancer. It was still whirling away, this time on the top
of the cupola at Naukashon. I could see it plainly as I drove up, its
arrow due east, looking for trouble as usual.
Hence my friendship for Captain Shortrode and his trusty surfmen. Hence,
too, my welcome when I pushed in the door of the sitting-room and
caught the smell of the cooking: Dave Austin's clam chowder--I could
pick it out anywhere, even among the perfumes of a Stamboul kitchen; and
hence, too, the hearty hand-grasp from the big, brawny men around the
stove.
"Well! Kind o' summer weather you picked out! Here, take this
chair--Gimme yer coat.--Git them legs o' yourn in, Johnny. He's a new
man--John Partridge; guess you ain't met him afore. Where's Captain
Shortrode gone? Oh, yes!--puttin' up old Moth-eaten. Ain't nothin' he
thinks as much of as that old horse. Oughter pack her in camphor. Well,
how's things in New York?--Nelse, put on another shovel of coal--Yes,
colder'n Christmas!... Nothin' but nor'east wind since the moon
changed.... Chowder!--Yes, yer dead right; Dave's cookin' this week, and
he said this mornin' he'd have a mess for ye."
A stamping of feet outside and two bifurcated walruses (four hours out
on patrol) pushed in the door. Muffled in oilskins these, rubber-booted
to their hips, the snow-line marking their waists where they had plunged
through the drifts; their sou'-westers tied under their chins, shading
beards white with frost and faces raw with the slash of the beach wind.
More hand-shakes now; and a stripping of wet outer-alls; a wash-up and a
hair-smooth; a shout of "Dinner!" from the capacious lungs of David the
cook; a silent, reverential grace with every head bowed (these are the
things that surprise you until you know these men), and with one accord
an attack is made upon Dave's chowder and his corn-bread and his fried
ham and his-- Well, the air was keen and bracing, and the salt of the
sea a permeating tonic, and the smell!--Ah, David! I wish you'd give up
your job and live with me, and bring your saucepan and your griddle and
your broiler and--my appetite!
The next night the Captain was seated at the table working over his
monthly report, the kerosene lamp lighting up his bronzed face and
falling upon his open book. There is nothing a keeper hates to do so
much as making out monthly reports; his hard, horny hand is shaped to
grasp an oar, not a pen. Four other men were asleep upstairs in their
bunks, waiting their turns to be called for patrol. Two were breasting a
north-east gale howling along the coast, their Coston signals tightly
buttoned under their oilskins.
Tom Van Brunt and I--Tom knew all about the little kitchen stove and the
socks--he had forgiven me my share in their loss--were tilted back
against the wall in our chairs. The slop and rattle of Dave's dishes
came in through the open door leading to the kitchen. Outside could be
heard the roar and hammer of the surf and the shriek of the baffled wind
trying to burglarize the house by way of the eaves and the shutters.
The talk had drifted to the daily life at the Station; the dreariness of
waiting for something to come ashore (in a disappointed tone from Tom,
as if he and his fellow surfmen had not had their share of wrecks this
winter); of the luck of Number 16, in charge of Captain Elleck and his
crew, who had got seven men and a woman out of an English bark last week
without wetting the soles of their feet.
"Fust shot went for'd of her chain plates," Tom explained, "and then
they made fast and come off in the breeches-buoy. Warn't an hour after
she struck 'fore they had the hull of 'em up to the Station and supper
ready. Heavy sea runnin' too."
Tom then shifted his pipe and careened his head my way, and with a tone
in his voice that left a ring behind it which vibrated in me for days,
and does now, said:
"I've been here for a good many years, and I guess I'll stay here long
as the Guv'ment'll let me. Some people think we've got a soft snap, and
some people think we ain't. 'Tis kind o' lonely, sometimes--then
somethin' comes along and we even up; but it ain't that that hurts me
really--it's bein' so much away from home."
Tom paused, rapped the bowl of his pipe on his heel to clear it, twisted
his body so that he could lay the precious comfort on the window-sill
behind him safe out of harm's way, and continued:
"Yes, bein' so much away from home. I've been a surf man, you know,
goin' on thirteen years, and out o' that time I ain't been home but two
year and a half runnin' the days solid, which they ain't. I live up in
Naukashon village, and you know how close that is. Cap'n could 'a'
showed you my house as you druv 'long through--it's just across the way
from his'n."
I looked at Tom in surprise. I knew that the men did not go home but
once in two weeks, and then only for a day, but I had not summed up the
vacation as a whole. Tom shifted his tilted leg, settled himself firmer
in his chair, and went on:
"I ain't askin' no favors, and I don't expect to git none. We got to
watch things down here, and we dasn't be away when the weather's rough,
and there ain't no other kind 'long this coast; but now and then
somethin' hits ye and hurts ye, and ye don't forgit it. I got a little
baby at home--seven weeks old now--hearty little feller--goin' to call
him after the Cap'n," and he nodded toward the man scratching away with
his pen. "I ain't had a look at that baby but three times since he was
born, and last Sunday it come my turn and I went up to see the wife and
him. My brother Bill lives with me. He lost his wife two year ago, and
the baby she left didn't live more'n a week after she died, and so
Bill, not havin' no children of his own, takes to mine--I got three."
Again Tom stopped, this time for a perceptible moment. I noticed a
little quiver in his voice now.
"Well, when I got home it was 'bout one o'clock in the day. I been on
patrol that mornin'--it was snowin' and thick. Wife had the baby up to
the winder waitin' for me, and they all come out--Bill and my wife and
my little Susie, she's five year old--and then we all went in and sat
down, and I took the baby in my arms, and it looked at me kind o'
skeered-like and cried; and Bill held out his hands and took the baby,
and he stopped cryin' and laid kind o' contented in his arms, and my
little Susie said, 'Pop, I guess baby thinks Uncle Bill's his father.'
... _I--tell--you--that--hurt!_"
As the last words dropped from Tom's lips two of the surfmen--Jerry
Potter and Robert Saul, who had been breasting the north-east
gale--pushed open the door of the sitting-room and peered in, looking
like two of Nansen's men just off an ice-floe. Their legs were clear of
snow this time, the two having brushed each other off with a broom on
the porch outside. Jerry had been exchanging brass checks with the
patrol of No. 14, three miles down the beach, and Saul had been setting
his clock by a key, locked in an iron box bolted to a post two miles and
a half away and within sight of the inlet. Tramping the beach beside a
roaring surf in a north-east gale blowing fifty miles an hour, and in
the teeth of a snow-storm each flake cutting like grit from a whirling
grindstone, was to these men what the round of a city park is to a
summer policeman.
Jerry peeled off his waterproofs from head, body, and legs; raked a pair
of felt slippers from under a chair; stuck his stocking-feet into their
comforting depths; tore a sliver of paper from the end of a worn-out
journal, twisted it into a wisp, worked the door of the cast-iron stove
loose with his marlin-spike of a finger, held the wisp to the blaze,
lighted his pipe carefully and methodically; tilted a chair back, and
settling his great frame comfortably between its arms, started in to
smoke. Saul duplicated his movements to the minutest detail, with the
single omission of those connected with the pipe. Saul did not smoke.
Up to this time not a word had been spoken by anybody since the two men
entered. Men who live together so closely dispense with "How d'yes" and
"Good-bys." I was not enough of a stranger to have the rule modified on
my account after the first salutations.
Captain Shortrode looked up from his report and broke the silence.
"That sluice-way cuttin' in any, Jerry?"
Jerry nodded his head and replied between puffs of smoke:
"'Bout fifty feet, I guess."
The grizzled Captain took off his eye-glasses--he only used them in
making up his report--laid them carefully beside his sheet of paper,
stretched his long legs, lifting his body to the perpendicular, dragged
a chair to my side of the room, and said with a dry chuckle:
"I've got to laugh every time I think of that sluice-way. Last month--
Warn't it last month, Jerry?" Jerry nodded, and sent a curl of smoke
through his ragged mustache, accompanied by the remark, "Yes--last
month."
The Captain continued:
"Last month, I say, we were havin' some almighty high tides, and when
they git to cuttin' round that sluice-way it makes it bad for our
beach-cart, 'specially when we've got to keep abreast of a wreck that
ain't grounded so we can git a line to her; so I went down after supper
to see how the sluice-way was comin' on. It was foggy, and a heavy sea
runnin'--the surf showin' white, but everythin' else black as pitch.
Fust thing I knew I heared somethin' like the rattle of an oar-lock, or
a tally-block, and then a cheer come just outside the breakers. I run
down to the swash and listened, and then I seen her comin' bow on, big
as a house; four men in her holdin' on to the gunnels, hollerin' for all
they was worth. I got to her just as the surf struck her and rolled her
over bottom-side up."
"Were you alone?" I interrupted.
"Had to be. The men were up and down the beach and the others was
asleep in their bunks. Well, when I had 'em all together I run 'em up on
the beach and in here to the Station, and when the light showed 'em up--
Well, I tell ye, one of 'em--a nigger cook--was a sight! 'Bout seven
feet high, and thick round as a flag-pole, and blacker'n that stove, and
skeered so his teeth was a-chatterin'. They'd left their oyster schooner
a-poundin' out on the bar and had tried to come ashore in their boat.
Well, we got to work on 'em and got some dry clo'es on 'em, and----"
"Were you wet, too?" I again interrupted.
"Wet! Soppin'! I'd been under the boat feelin' 'round for 'em. Well, the
King's Daughters had sent some clo'es down, and we looked over what we
had, and I got a pair of high-up pants, and Jerry, who wears Number
12--Don't you, Jerry?" (Jerry nodded and puffed on)--"had an old pair of
shoes, and we found a jacket, another high-up thing big 'nough to fit a
boy, that come up to his shoulder-blades, and he put 'em on and then he
set 'round here for a spell dryin' out, with his long black legs
stickin' from out of his pants like handle-bars, and his hands, big as
hams, pokin' out o' the sleeves o' his jacket. We got laughin' so we had
to go out by ourselves in the kitchen and have it out; didn't want to
hurt his feelin's, you know."
The Captain leaned back in his chair, laughed quietly to himself at the
picture brought back to his mind, and continued, the men listening
quietly, the smoke of their pipes drifting over the room.
"Next mornin' we got the four of 'em all ready to start off to the depot
on their way back to Philadelphy--there warn't no use o' their stayin',
their schooner was all up and down the beach, and there was oysters
'nough 'long the shore to last everybody a month. Well, when the feller
got his rig on he looked himself all over, and then he said he would
like to have a hat. 'Bout a week before Tom here [Tom nodded now, and
smiled] had picked up on the beach one o' these high gray stovepipe hats
with a black band on it, blowed overboard from some o' them yachts,
maybe. Tom had it up on the mantel there dryin', and he said he didn't
care, and I give it to the nigger and off he started, and we all went
out on the back porch to see him move. Well, sir, when he went up 'long
the dunes out here toward the village, steppin' like a crane in them
high-up pants and jacket and them Number 12s of Jerry's and that hat of
Tom's 'bout three sizes too small for him, I tell ye he was a _show_!"
Jerry and Saul chuckled, and Tom broke into a laugh--the first smile I
had seen on Tom's face since he had finished telling me about the little
baby at home.
I laughed too--outwardly to the men and inwardly to myself with a
peculiar tightening of the throat, followed by a glow that radiated heat
as it widened. My mind was not on the grotesque negro cook in the
assorted clothes. All I saw was a man fighting the surf, groping around
in the blackness of the night for four water-soaked, terrified men until
he got them, as he said, "all together." That part of it had never
appealed to the Captain, and never will. Pulling drowning men,
single-handed, from a boiling surf, was about as easy as pulling
gudgeons out of a babbling brook.
Saul now piped up:
"Oughter git the Cap'n to tell ye how he got that lady ashore last
winter from off that Jamaica brig."
At the sound of Saul's voice Captain Shortrode rose quickly from his
chair, picked up his report and spectacles, and with a deprecating wave
of his hand, as if the story would have to come from some other lips
than his own, left the room--to "get an envelope," he said.
"He won't come back for a spell," laughed Jerry. "The old man don't like
that yarn." "Old man" was a title of authority, and had nothing to do
with the Captain's fifty years.
I made no comment--not yet. My ears were open, of course, but I was not
holding the tiller of conversation and preferred that someone else
should steer.
Again Saul piped up, this time to me, reading my curiosity in my eyes:
"Well, there warn't nothin' much to it, 'cept the way the Cap'n got her
ashore," and again Saul chuckled quietly, this time as if to himself.
"The beach was full o' shipyard rats and loafers, and when they heared
there was a lady comin' ashore in the breeches-buoy, more of 'em kept
comin' in on the run. We'd fired the shot-line and had the anchor buried
and the hawser fast to the brig's mast and the buoy rigged, and we were
just goin' to haul in when Cap'n looked 'round on the crowd, and he see
right away what they'd come for and what they was 'spectin' to see. Then
he ordered the buoy hauled back and he got into the breeches himself,
and we soused him through the surf and off he went to the brig. He
showed her how to tuck her skirts in, and how to squat down in the
breeches 'stead o' stickin' her feet through, and then she got skeered
and said she couldn't and hollered, and so he got in with her and got
his arms 'round her and landed her, both of 'em pretty wet." Saul
stopped and leaned forward in his chair. I was evidently expected to say
something.
"Well, that was just like the Captain," I said, mildly, "but where does
the joke come in?"
"Well, there warn't no joke, really," remarked Saul with a wink around
the room, "'cept when we untangled 'em. She was 'bout seventy years
old, and black as tar. That's all!"
It seemed to be my turn now--"the laugh" being on me. Captain Shortrode
was evidently of the same opinion, for, on reentering the room, he threw
the envelope on the table, and settling himself again in his chair
looked my way, as if expecting the next break in the conversation to be
made by me. Two surfmen, who had been asleep upstairs, now joined the
group, the laughter over Saul's story of the "lady" having awakened them
half an hour ahead of their time. They came in rubbing their eyes, their
tarpaulins and hip-boots over their arms. Jerry, Tom, and Saul still
remained tilted back in their chairs. They should have been in bed
resting for their next patrol (they went out again at four A.M.), but
preferred to sit up in my honor.
Dozens of stories flashed into my mind--the kind I would tell at a club
dinner, or with the coffee and cigarettes--and were as instantly
dropped. Such open-air, breezy giants, full of muscle and ozone, would
find no interest in the adventures of any of my characters; the cheap
wit of the cafés, the homely humor of the farm, the chatter of the
opera-box, or whisperings behind the palms of the conservatory--nothing
of this could possibly interest these men. I would have been ashamed to
offer it. Tom's simple, straightforward story of his baby and his
brother Bill had made it impossible for me to attempt to match it with
any cheap pathos of my own; just as the graphic treatment of the fitting
out of the negro cook by the Captain, and of the rescue of the "lady" by
Saul, had ended all hopes of my entertaining the men around me with any
worm-eaten, hollow-shelled chestnuts of my own. What was wanted was some
big, simple, genuine yarn: strong meat for strong men, not milk for
babes: something they would know all about and believe in and were part
of. The storming of a fort; the flagging of a train within three feet of
an abyss; the rescue of a child along a burning ledge five stories above
the sidewalk: all these themes bubbled up and sank again in my mind.
Some of them I only knew parts of; some had but little point; all of
them were hazy in my mind. I remembered, with regret, that I could only
repeat the first verse of the "Charge of the Light Brigade," and but two
lines of "Horatius," correctly.
Suddenly a great light broke in upon me. What they wanted was something
about their own life: some account of the deeds of other life-savers up
and down the coast, graphically put with proper dramatic effect,
beginning slowly and culminating in the third act with a blaze of
heroism. These big, brawny heroes about me would then get a clearer idea
of the estimation in which they were held by their countrymen; a clearer
idea, too, of true heroism--of the genuine article, examples of which
were almost nightly shown in their own lives. This would encourage them
to still greater efforts, and the world thereby be the better for my
telling.
That gallant rescue of the man off Quogue was just the thing!
The papers of the week before had been full of the bravery of these
brother surfmen on the Long Island coast. This, and some additional
information given me by a reporter who visited the scene of the
disaster after the rescue, could not fail to make an impression, I
thought. Yes, the rescue was the very thing.
"Oh! men," I began, "did you hear about that four-master that came
ashore off Shinnecock last week?" and I looked around into their faces.
"No," remarked Jerry, pulling his pipe from his mouth. "What about it?"
"Why, yes, ye did," grunted Tom; "Number 17 got two of 'em."
"Yes, and the others were drowned," interrupted Saul.
"Thick, warn't it?" suggested one of the sleepy surfmen, thrusting his
wharf-post of a leg into one section of his hip-boots preparatory to
patrolling the beach.
"Yes," I continued, "dense fog; couldn't see five feet from the shore.
She grounded about a mile west of the Station, and all the men had to
locate her position by was the cries of the crew. They couldn't use the
boat, the sea was running so heavy, and they couldn't get a line over
her because they couldn't see her. They stood by, however, all night,
and at daylight she broke in two. All that day the men of two stations
worked to get off to them, and every time they were beaten back by the
sea and wreckage. Then the fog cleared a little and two of the crew of
the schooner were seen clinging to a piece of timber and some floating
freight. Shot after shot was fired at them, and by a lucky hit one fell
across them, and they made fast and were hauled toward the shore."
At this moment the surfman who had been struggling with his hip-boots
caught my eye, nodded, and silently left the room, fully equipped for
his patrol. I went on:
"When the wreckage, with the two men clinging to it, got within a
hundred yards of the surf, the inshore floatage struck them, and smash
they went into the thick of it. One of the shipwrecked men grabbed the
line and tried to come ashore, the other poor fellow held to the
wreckage. Twice the sea broke his hold, and still he held on."
The other surfman now, without even a nod, disappeared into the night,
slamming the outer door behind him, the cold air finding its way into
our warm retreat. I ignored the slight discourtesy and proceeded:
"Now, boys, comes the part of the story I think will interest you." As I
said this I swept my glance around the room. Jerry was yawning behind
his hand and Tom was shaking the ashes from his pipe.
"On the beach" (my voice rose now) "stood Bill Halsey, one of the Quogue
crew. He knew that the sailor in his weakened condition could not hold
on through the inshore wreckage; and sure enough, while he was looking,
a roller came along and tore the man from his hold. In went Bill
straight at the combers, fighting his way. There was not one chance in a
hundred that he could live through it, but he got the man and held on,
and the crew rushed in and hauled them clear of the smother, both of
them half-dead, Bill's arms still locked around the sailor. Bill came to
soonest, and the first words he said were, 'Don't mind me, I'm all
right: take care of the sailor!'"
I looked around again; Captain Shortrode was examining the stubs of his
horny fingers with as much care as if they would require amputation at
no distant day; Jerry and Saul had their gaze on the floor. Tom was
still tilted back, his eyes tight shut. I braced up and continued:
"All this, of course, men, you no doubt heard about, but what the
reporter told me may be new to you. That night the 'Shipping News' got
Bill on the 'phone and asked him if he was William Halsey."
"'Yes.'"
"'Are you the man who pulled the sailor out of the wreckage this morning
at daybreak?'"
"'Yes.'"
"'Well, we'd like you to write some little account of----'"
"'Well, I ain't got no time.'"
"'If we send a reporter down, will you talk to him and----'"
"'No, for there ain't nothin' to tell----'"
"'You're Halsey, aren't you?'"
"'Yes.'"
"'Well, we should like to get some of the details; it was a very heroic
rescue, and----'"
"'Well, there ain't no details and there ain't no heroics. I git paid
for what I do, and I done it,'" and he rang off the 'phone.
A dead silence followed--one of those uncomfortable silences that often
follows a society break precipitating the well-known unpleasant quarter
of an hour. This silence lasted only a minute. Then Captain Shortrode
remarked calmly and coldly, and, I thought, with a tired feeling in his
voice:
"Well, what else _could_ he have said?"
The fur-coated beast was taken out of camphor, hooked up to the buggy,
and the Captain and I ploughed our way back through the snow to the
depot, the men standing in the door-way waving their hands Good-by.
The next day I wrote this to the Superintendent at headquarters:
"These men fear nothing but God!"
"OLD SUNSHINE"
It was when pulling in his milk one morning that Dalny first made the
acquaintance of "Old Sunshine." The cans had become mixed, Dalny's pint
having been laid at the old man's door and the old man's gill at
Dalny's, and the rectifying of the mistake--"Old Sunshine" did the
rectifying--laid the basis of the acquaintance.
Everybody, of course, in the Studio Building knew the old man and his
old sister by sight, but only one or two well enough to speak to him;
none of them to speak to the poor, faded woman, who would climb the
stairs so many times a day, always stopping for her breath at the
landing, and always with some little package--a pinch of tea, or a loaf
of bread, or fragment of chop--which she hid under her apron if she
heard anyone's steps. She was younger than her brother by a few years,
but there was no mistaking their relationship; their noses were exactly
alike--long, semi-transparent noses, protruding between two wistful,
china-blue eyes peering from under eyebrows shaded by soft gray hair.
The rooms to which the sister climbed, and where the brother worked,
were at the top of the building, away up under the corridor skylight,
the iron ladder to its trap being bolted to the wall outside their very
door. It was sunnier up there, the brother said. One of the rooms he
used for his studio, sleeping on a cot behind a screen; the other was
occupied by his sister. What little housekeeping was necessary went on
behind this door. Outside, on its upper panel, was tacked a card bearing
his name:
_Adolphe Woolfsen._
When he had moved in, some years before--long before Dalny arrived in
the building--the agent had copied the inscription in his book from this
very card, and had thereafter nailed it to the panel to identify the
occupant. It had never been removed, nor had any more important
name-plate been placed beside it.
Sometimes the janitor, in addressing him, would call him "Mr. Adolphe,"
and sometimes "Mr. Woolfsen"; sometimes he would so far forget himself
as to let his tongue slip half-way down "Old Sunshine," bringing up at
the "Sun" and substituting either one of the foregoing in its place.
The agent who collected his rent always addressed him correctly. "If it
was agreeable to Mr. Woolfsen, he would like to collect," etc. Sometimes
it was agreeable to Mr. Woolfsen, and sometimes it was not. When it was
agreeable--this the janitor said occurred only when a letter came with a
foreign postmark on it--the old painter would politely beg the agent to
excuse him for a moment, and shut the door carefully in the agent's
face. Then would follow a hurried moving of easels and the shifting of a
long screen across his picture. Then the agent would be received with a
courteous bow and handed to a chair--a wreck of a chair, with the legs
unsteady and the back wobbly, while the tenant would open an old desk,
take a china pot from one of the cubby-holes, empty it of the contents,
and begin to count out the money, smiling graciously all the time. When
it was not agreeable to pay, the door was closed gently and silently in
the agent's face, and no amount of pounding opened it again--not that
day, at least.
Only Dalny knew what was behind that screen, and only Dalny divined the
old man's reasons for concealing his canvas so carefully; but this was
not until after weeks of friendly greeting, including certain attentions
to the old sister, such as helping her up the stairs with a basket--an
unusual occurrence for her, and, of course, for him. This time it was a
measure of coal and a bundle of wood that made it so heavy.
"Thank you, sir," she had said in her sweet, gentle voice, her pale
cheeks and sad eyes turned toward him; "my brother will be so pleased.
No, I can't ask you in, for he is much absorbed these days, and I must
not disturb him."
This little episode occurred only a few days after the incident of the
interchange of the portions of milk, and was but another step to a
foregone intimacy--so far as Dalny was concerned. Not that he was
curious, or lacked society or advice. It was Dalny's way to be gracious,
and he rarely had cause to repent it. He did not pretend to any system
of friendliness when meeting any fellow-lodger on the stairs. It began
with a cheery "Good-morning," or some remark about the weather, or a
hope that the water didn't get in through the skylight and spoil any of
his sketches. If a pleasant answer came in response, Dalny kept on, and
in a week was lending brushes or tubes of color or a scuttle of coal,
never borrowing anything in return; if only a gruff "Yes" or a nod of
the head came in reply, he passed on down or up the stairs whistling as
usual or humming some tune to himself. This was Dalny's way.
At first the painter's sobriquet of "Old Sunshine" puzzled Dalny; he saw
him but seldom, but never when his face had anything sunny about it. It
was always careworn and earnest, an eager, hungry look in his eyes.
Botts, who had the next studio to Dalny, solved the mystery.
"He's crazy over a color scheme; gone daft on purples and yellows. I
haven't seen it--nobody has except his old sister. He keeps it covered
up, but he's got a 50X60 that he's worked on for years. Claims to have
discovered a palette that will make a man use smoked glass when his
picture is hung on the line. That's why he's called 'Old Sunshine.'"
Dalny made no reply, none that would encourage Botts in his flippant
view of the old painter. He himself had been studying that same problem
all his life; furthermore, he had always believed that sooner or later
some magician would produce three tones--with harmonies so exact that a
canvas would radiate light like a prism.
The next day he kept his studio-door open and his ear unbuttoned, and
when the old man's steps approached his door on his return from his
morning walk--the only hour he ever went out--Dalny threw it wide and
stepped in front of him.
"Don't mind coming in, do you?" Dalny laughed. "I've struck a snag in a
bit of drapery and can't get anything out of it. I thought you might
help--" And before the old fellow could realize where he was, Dalny had
him in a chair before his canvas.
"I'm not a figure-painter," the old man said, simply.
"That don't make any difference. Tell me what's the matter with that
shadow--it's lumpy and flat," and Dalny pointed to a fold of velvet
lying across a sofa, on which was seated the portrait of a stout
woman--one of Dalny's pot-boilers--the wife of a rich brewer who wanted
a picture at a poor price--one which afterward made Dalny's reputation,
so masterful was the brushwork. The old Studio Building was full of just
such customers, but not of such painters.
"It's of the old school," said the painter. "I could only criticise it
in one way, and that might offend you."
"Go on--what is the matter with it?"
The old man rubbed his chin slowly and looked at Dalny under his bushy
eyebrows.
"I am afraid to speak. You have been very kind. My sister says you are
always polite, and so few people are polite nowadays."
"Say what you please; don't worry about me. I learn something every
day."
"No; I cannot. It would be cruel to tell you what I think, and Louise
would not like it when she knew I had told you, and I must tell her. We
tell each other everything."
"Is the color wrong?" persisted Dalny. "I've got the gray-white of the
sky, as you see, and the reflected light from the red plush of the sofa;
but the shadows between-- Would you try a touch of emerald green here?"
The old man had risen from his seat now and was backing away toward the
door, his hat in his hand, his bald head and the scanty gray hairs about
his temples glistening in the overhead light of the studio.
"It would do you no good, my dear Mr. Dalny. Paint is never color. Color
is an essence, a rhythm, a blending of tones as exquisite as the
blending of sounds in the fall of a mountain-brook. Match each sound and
you have its melody. Match each tone and you have light. I am
working--working. Good-morning."
His hand was now on the door-knob, his face aglow with an enthusiasm
which seemed to mingle with his words.
"Stop! Don't go; that's what I think myself," cried Dalny. "Talk to me
about it."
The old man dropped the knob and looked at Dalny searchingly.
"You are honest with me?"
"Perfectly."
"Then when I triumph you shall see!--and you shall see it first. I will
come for you; not yet--not yet--perhaps to-morrow, perhaps next
month--but I will come!" and he bowed himself out.
The faded sister was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She had
seen her brother mount the first flight and the fourth, all this by
peering down between the banisters. Then he had disappeared. This, being
unusual, had startled her.
"You must have stopped somewhere, Adolphe," she said, nervously.
"Yes, Louise; the painter on the floor below called me."
"Is he poor, like us?"
"Poorer. We have the light beyond. He has nothing, and never will have."
"What did he want?"
"A criticism."
"And you gave it?"
"No, I could not. I had not the heart to tell him. He tries so hard. He
is honest, but his work is hopeless."
"Like the man on the first floor, who uses the calcium light to show his
pictures by?"
"No, no; Mr. Dalny is a gentleman, not a cheat. He thinks, and would
learn--he told me so. But he cannot see. Ah, not to see, Louise! Did you
grind the new blue, dear? Yes--and quite smooth."
He had taken off his coat now, carefully, the lining being out of one
sleeve. The sister hung it on a nail behind the door, and the painter
picked up his palette and stood looking at a large canvas on an easel.
Louise tiptoed out of the room and closed the door of her own
apartment. When her brother began work she always left him alone.
Triumph might come at any moment, and even a word wrongly spoken might
distract his thoughts and spoil everything. She had not forgotten--nor
ever would--how, two years before, she had come upon him suddenly just
as an exact tint had been mixed, and, before he could lay it on his
canvas, had unconsciously interrupted him, and all the hours and days of
study had to be done over again. Now they had a system: when she must
enter she would cough gently; then, if he did not hear her, she would
cough again; if he did not answer, she would wait, sometimes without
food, until far into the afternoon, when the daylight failed him. Then
he would lay down his palette, covering his colors with water, and begin
washing his brushes. This sound she knew. Only then would she open the
door.
Botts had given Dalny the correct size of the canvas, but he had failed
to describe the picture covering it. It was a landscape showing the sun
setting behind a mountain, the sky reflected in a lake; in the
foreground was a stretch of meadow. The sky was yellow and the mountain
purple; the meadow reddish brown. In the centre of the canvas was a
white spot the size of a pill-box. This was the sun, and the centre of
the color scheme. Radiating from this patch of white were thousands of
little pats of chrome yellow and vermilion, divided by smaller pats of
blue. The exact gradations of these tints were to produce the vibrations
of light. One false note would destroy the rhythm; hence the hours of
thought and of endless trying.
These colors were not to be bought at the ordinary shops. Certain rare
oxides formed the basis of the yellows, while the filings of bits of
turquoise pounded to flour were used in the blues. Louise did this,
grinding the minerals by the hour, her poor thin hands moving the glass
pestle over the stone slab. When some carefully thought-out tint was
laid beside another as carefully studied, the combination meeting his
ideal, he would spring from his seat, crying out:
"Louise! Louise! Light! Light!"
Then the little woman would hurry in and stand entranced.
"Oh! so brilliant, Adolphe! It hurts my eyes to look at it. See how it
glows! Ah, it will come!" and she would shade her wistful eyes with her
hand as if the light from the flat canvas dazzled her. These were gala
hours in the musty rooms at the top of the old Studio Building.
Then there would come long days of depression. The lower range of color
was correct, but that over the right of the mountain and near the zenith
did not pulsate. The fault lay in the poor quality of the colors or in
the bad brushes or the sky outside. The faded sister's face always fell
when the trouble lay with the colors. Even the small measure of milk
would then have to be given up until the janitor came bearing another
letter with a foreign stamp.
Dalny knew nothing of all this, nor did anyone else in the
building--nothing positively of their home life--except from such
outside indications as the size of the can of milk and the increasing
shabbiness of their clothes. Dalny had suspected it and had tried to
win their confidence in his impulsive way; but all his advances had been
met by a gentle, almost pathetic, reserve which was more insurmountable
than a direct repulse. He also wanted to learn something more of the old
man's methods. He had in his own earlier student days known an old
professor in Heidelberg who used to talk to him about violet and green,
but he never got any farther than talk. Here was a man, a German, too,
perhaps--or perhaps a Swede--he could not tell from the name--some
foreigner, anyhow--who was putting his theories into practice, and, more
convincing still, was willing to starve slowly until they materialized.
Once he had cornered the old man on the stairs, and, throwing aside all
duplicity, had asked him the straight question:
"Will you show me your picture? I showed you mine."
"Old Sunshine" raised his wide-brimmed hat from his head by the
crown--it was too limp to be lifted in any other way--and said in a low
voice:
"Yes, when it is a picture; it is now only an experiment."
"But it will help me if I can see your work. I am but a beginner; you
are a master."
The good-natured touch of flattery made no impression on the old man.
"No," he answered, replacing his hat and keeping on his way downstairs,
"I am not a master. I am a man groping in the dark, following a light
that beckons me on. It will not help you; it will hurt you. I will come
for you; I have promised, remember. Neither my sister nor I ever break a
promise. Good-morning!" And again the shabby hat was lifted.
Dalny stood outside his own door listening to the old man's steps
growing fainter until they reached the street; then he resumed his work
on the green dress and puffy red face of the brewer's wife, correcting
the errors he had made when she last sat for him, his mind unsatisfied,
his curiosity all the more eager.
As the winter came on, Dalny began to miss the tread of the old man
outside his door. The old sister never made any noise, so he never knew
when she went up and down unless he happened to be on the stairs at the
same moment. He knew the old man was at work, because he could hear his
ceaseless tramp before his easel--walking up to his picture, laying on a
pat of color, and walking back again. He himself had walked miles--had
been doing it the day before in his efforts to give "carrying" quality
to the shadow under the nose of the brewer's better half.
"I do not see your brother any more," Dalny had said to her one morning,
after meeting her by accident outside his door carrying a basket with a
cloth over it.
"No," she answered; "no; he cannot spare a moment these days. He hardly
takes time to eat, and I do all the errands. But he is very happy." Here
her face broke into a smile. "Oh, so happy! We both are----"
"And is the great picture finished?" he interrupted, with a movement as
if to relieve her of the weight of the basket.
"Almost.... Almost.... Adolphe will tell you when it is ready.
No--please, good Mr. Dalny--it is not heavy. But I thank you all the
same for wanting to help me. It is a little hot soup for Adolphe. He is
very fond of hot soup, and they make it very nice at the corner."
The day following this interview Dalny heard strange noises overhead.
The steady tramping had ceased; the sounds were as if heavy furniture
was being moved. Then there would come a pattering of lighter feet
running in and out of the connecting room. Then a noise as if scrubbing
was being done; he thought at one time he heard the splash of water, and
even looked up at his own ceiling as if expecting a leak.
Suddenly these unusual sounds ceased, the old man's door was flung open,
a hurried step was heard on the upper stairway, and a sharp knock fell
upon his own door.
Dalny opened it in the face of the old man. He was bareheaded, his eyes
blazing with excitement, his face flushed as if by some uncontrollable
joy.
"Come--quick!" he cried; "we are all ready. It was perfected this
morning. We have been putting things in order for you, for we do not
ever have guests. But you must be careful--your eyes are not accustomed,
perhaps, and----"
Dalny darted back without listening to the old man's conclusion, and
threw on his coat. The faded sister was upstairs, and he must be
presentable.
"And you like your picture," burst out Dalny, as he adjusted his collar
and cuffs--part of the old man's happiness had reached his own heart
now.
"Like it? It is not something to _like_, Mr. Dalny. It is not a meal; it
is a religion. You are in a fog, and the sun bursts through; you are in
a tunnel, and are swept out into green fields; you grope in the dark,
and an angel leads you to the light. You do not 'like' things then--you
thank God on your knees. Louise has done nothing but cry."
These words came in shortened sentences divided by the mounting of each
step, the two hurrying up the stairs, "Old Sunshine" ahead, Dalny
following.
The sister was waiting for them at the open door. She had a snow-white
kerchief over her shoulders and a quaint cap on her head, evidently her
best. Her eyes, still red from weeping, shone like flashes of sunshine
through falling rain.
"Keep him here, Louise, until I get my umbrella--I am afraid. No; stay
till I come for you--" this to Dalny, who was, in his eagerness, peering
into the well-swept, orderly looking room. "Shut your eyes until I tell
you--quick! under this umbrella" (he had picked it up just inside the
door).
Dalny suffered himself to be led into the room, his head smothered under
the umbrella, the old man's hand firmly grasping his as if the distance
between the door and the masterpiece was along the edge of an abyss.
"Now!" cried the old man, waving the umbrella aside.
Dalny raised his eyes, and a feeling of faintness came over him. Then a
peculiar choking sensation crept into his throat. For a moment he did
not and could not speak. The thousands of little patches of paint
radiating from the centre spot were but so many blurs on a flat canvas.
The failure was pathetic, but it was complete.
The old man was reading his face. The faded sister had not taken her
eyes from his.
"It does not dazzle you! You do not see the vibrations?"
"I am getting my eyes accustomed to it," stammered Dalny. "I cannot take
it all in at once." He was hunting around in his mind for something to
say--something that would not break the old man's heart.
"No! You cannot deceive me. I had hoped better things of you, Mr. Dalny.
It is not your fault that you cannot see."
The old man had crossed to the door of his studio, had thrown it open,
and stood as if waiting for Dalny to pass out.
"Yes, but let me look a little longer," protested Dalny. The situation
was too pathetic for him to be offended.
"No--no--please excuse us--we are very happy, Louise and I, and I would
rather you left us alone. I will come for you some other time--when my
picture has been sent away. Please forgive my sister and me, but
_please_ go away."
Weeks passed before Dalny saw either one of the old people again. He
watched for them, his door ajar, listening to every sound; but if they
passed up and down the stairs, they did so when he was out or asleep. He
had noticed, too, that all was still overhead, except a light tread
which he knew must be the faded sister's. The heavier footfall, however,
was silent.
One morning the janitor opened Dalny's door without knocking and closed
it softly behind him. He seemed laboring under some excitement.
"He's up at St. Luke's Hospital; they took him there last night," he
said in a whisper, jerking his thumb toward the ceiling.
"Who?"
"'Old Sunshine.'"
"Crazy?"
"No; ill with fever; been sick for a week. Not bad, but the doctor would
not let him stay here."
"Did the sister go?" There was a note of alarm in Dalny's voice.
"No, she is upstairs. That's why I came. I don't think she has much to
eat. She won't let me in. Maybe you can get her to talk to you; she
likes you--she told me so."
Dalny laid down his palette, tiptoed hurriedly up the stairs and knocked
gently. There was no response. Then he knocked again, this time much
louder, and waited. He heard the rustling of a skirt, but there was no
other sound.
"It's Mr. Dalny, madam," he said in the kindest, most sympathetic voice
that ever came out of his throat.
The door opened softly, and her face peered through the crack. Tears
were in her eyes--old and new tears--following one another down her
furrowed cheeks.
"He is gone away; they took him last night, Mr. Dalny." Her voice broke,
but she still kept the edge of the door in her trembling hand.
"Yes; I have just heard about it. Let me come in, please; I want to help
you. You are all alone."
Her grasp slackened, and Dalny stepped in. The room was in some
confusion. The bed where her brother had been ill was still in disorder,
the screen that had concealed it pushed to one side. On a table by his
easel were the remains of a meal. The masterpiece still stared out from
its place. The sister walked to a lounge and sat down.
"Tell me the truth," Dalny said, seating himself beside her. "Have you
any money?"
"No; our letter has not come."
"What do you expect to do?"
"I must sell something."
"Let me lend you some money. I have plenty, for I shall get paid for my
picture to-morrow; then you can pay it back when yours comes."
"Oh, you are so kind, but we must sell something of our own. We owe a
large sum; the rent is two months due, and there are other things, and
Adolphe must have some comforts. No, I am not offended, but Adolphe
would be if he knew."
Dalny looked into space for a moment, and asked, thoughtfully, "How much
do you owe?"
"Oh, a great deal," she answered, simply.
"What things will you sell?" At least he could help her in this.
The faded old lady looked up at Dalny and pointed to the masterpiece.
"It breaks our heart to send it away, but there is nothing else to do.
It will bring, too, a great price; nothing else we possess will bring as
much. Then we will have no more poverty, and someone may buy it who will
love it, and so my brother will get his reward."
Dalny swept his eye around. The furniture was of the shabbiest; pictures
and sketches tacked to the wall, but experiments in "Old Sunshine's" pet
theories. Nothing else would bring anything. And the masterpiece! That,
he knew, would not bring the cost of its frame.
"Where will you send it to be sold--to an art dealer?" Dalny asked. He
could speak a good word for it, perhaps, if it should be sent to some
dealer he knew.
"No; to a place in Cedar Street, where Adolphe sold some sketches his
brother painters gave him in their student days. One by
Achenbach--Oswald, not Andreas--brought a large sum. It was a great
help to us. I have written the gentleman who keeps the auction-room, and
he is to send for the picture to-morrow, and it will be sold in his next
picture sale. Adolphe was willing; he told me to do it. 'Someone will
know,' he said; 'and we ought not to enjoy it all to ourselves.' Then
again, the problem has been solved. All his pictures after this will be
full of beautiful light."
The auction-room was crowded. There was to be a sale of French pictures,
some by the men of '30 and some by the more advanced impressionists.
Many out-of-town buyers were present, a few of them dealers. Dalny
rubbed his hands together in a pleased way when he looked over the
audience and the collection. It was quite possible that some connoisseur
newly made would take a fancy to the masterpiece, confounding it with
some one of the pictures of the Upside-down School--pictures looking
equally well whichever way they might be hung.
The selling began.
A Corot brought $2,700; a Daubigny, $940; two examples of the reigning
success in Paris, $1,100. Twenty-two pictures had been sold.
Then the masterpiece was placed on the easel.
"A Sunrise. By Adolphe Woolfsen of Düsseldorf," called out the
auctioneer. "What am I offered?"
There came a pause, and the auctioneer repeated the announcement.
A man sitting by the auctioneer, near enough to see every touch of the
brush on "Old Sunshine's" picture, laughed, and nudged the man next to
him. Several others joined in.
Then came a voice from behind:
"Five dollars!"
The auctioneer shrank a little, a pained, surprised feeling
overspreading his face, as if someone had thrown a bit of orange-peel at
him. Then he went on:
"Five dollars it is, gentlemen. Five--five--five!" Even he, with all the
tricks of his trade at his fingers' ends, could not find a good word to
say for "Old Sunshine's" masterpiece.
Dalny kept shifting his feet in his uneasiness. His hands opened and
shut; his throat began to get dry. Then he broke loose:
"One hundred dollars!"
The auctioneer's face lighted up as suddenly as if the calcium light of
the painter whom "Old Sunshine" despised had been thrown upon it.
"I have your bid, Mr. Dalny [he knew him]--one
hundred--hundred--hundred--one--one--third and last call!"
Dalny thought of the gentle old face waiting at the top of the stairs,
and of the old man's anxious look as he lay on his pillow. The
auctioneer had seen Dalny's eager expression and at once began to
address an imaginary bidder on the other side of the room--his clerk,
really.
"Two hundred--two hundred--two--two--two----"
"Three hundred!" shouted Dalny.
Again the clerk nodded:
"Four--four!"
"Five!" shouted Dalny. This was all the money he would get in the
morning excepting fifty dollars--and that he owed for his rent.
"Five--five--five!--third and last call! SOLD! and to you, Mr. Dalny!
Gentlemen, you seem to have been asleep. One of the most distinguished
painters of our time is the possessor of this picture, which only shows
that it takes an artist to pick out a good thing!"
She was waiting for him in her room, her own door ajar this time. He had
promised to come back, and she was then to go to the hospital and tell
the good news to her brother.
With his heart aglow with the pleasure in store for her, he bounded up
the stairs, both hands held out, his face beaming:
"Wonderful success! Bought by a distinguished connoisseur who won't let
the auctioneer give his name."
"Oh, I am so happy!" she answered. "That is really better than the
money; and for how much, dear Mr. Dalny?"
"Five hundred dollars!"
The faded sister's face fell.
"I thought it would bring a great deal more, but then Adolphe will be
content. It was the lowest sum he mentioned when he decided to sell it.
Will you go with me to tell him? Please do."
In the office of the hospital Dalny stopped to talk to the doctor, the
sister going on up to the ward where "Old Sunshine" lay.
"Is he better?" asked Dalny. "He is a friend of mine."
The doctor tapped his forehead significantly with his forefinger.
"Brain trouble?" asked Dalny in a subdued tone.
"Yes."
"Will he get well?"
The doctor shook his head discouragingly.
"How long will he last?"
"Perhaps a week--perhaps not twenty-four hours."
The faded sister now entered. Her face was still smiling--no one had yet
told her about her brother.
"Oh, he is so happy, Mr. Dalny."
"And you told him?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"And what did he say?"
"He put his arms around me and kissed me, and then he whispered, 'Oh!
Louise, Louise! the connoisseur knew!'"