IN WHICH MARGARET MUeLLER DWELLS IN MARBLE HALLS AND HENRY FENN AND
KENYON ADAMS WIN NOTABLE VICTORIES
The world into which Kenyon Adams came was a busy and noisy and ruthless
world. The prairie grass was leaving Harvey when Grant Adams came, and
the meadow lark left in the year that Jasper came. When Kenyon entered,
even the blue sky that bent over it was threatened. For Dr. Nesbit
returning from the Adamses the evening that Kenyon came to Harvey found
around the well-drill at Jamey McPherson's a great excited crowd. Men
were elbowing each other and craning their necks, and wagging their
heads as they looked at the core of the drill. For it contained
unmistakably a long worm of coal. And that night saw rising over Harvey
such dreams as made the angels sick; for the dreams were all of money,
and its vain display and power. And when men rose after dreaming those
dreams, they swept little Jamey McPherson away in short order. For he
had not the high talents of the money maker. He had only persistence,
industry and a hopeful spirit and a vague vision that he was discovering
coal for the common good. So when Daniel Sands put his mind to bear upon
the worm of coal that came wriggling up from the drilled hole on Jamey's
lot, the worm crawled away from Jamey and Jamey went to work in the
shaft that Daniel sank on his vacant lot near the McPherson home. The
coal smoke from Daniel Sands's mines began to splotch the blue sky above
the town, and Kenyon Adams missed the large leisure and joyous
comraderie that Grant had seen; indeed the only leisurely person whom
Kenyon saw in his life until he was--Heaven knows how old--was Rhoda
Kollander. The hum and bustle of Harvey did not ruffle the calm waters
of her soul. She of all the women in Harvey held to the early custom of
the town of going out to spend the day.
"So that Margaret's gone," she was saying to Mary Adams sometime during
a morning in the spring after Kenyon was born. "Law me--I wouldn't have
a boarder. I tell John, the sanctity of the home is invaded by boarders
these days; and her going out to the dances in town the way she does, I
sh'd think you'd be glad to be alone again, and to have your own little
flock to do for. And so Grant's going to be a carpenter--well, well! He
didn't take to the printing trade, did he? My, my!" she sighed, and
folded her hands above her apron--the apron which she always put on
after a meal, as if to help with the dishes, but which she never soiled
or wrinkled--"I tell John I'm so thankful our little Fred has such a
nice place. He waits table there at the Palace, and gets all his
meals--such nice food, and can go to school too, and you wouldn't
believe it if I'd tell you all the nice men he meets--drummers and
everything, and he's getting such good manners. I tell John there's
nothing like the kind of folks a boy is with in his teens to make him.
And he sees Tom Van Dorn every day nearly and sometimes gets a dime for
serving him, and now, honest, Mary, you wouldn't believe it, but Freddie
says the help around the hotel say that Mauling girl at the cigar stand
thinks Tom's going to marry her, but law me--he's aiming higher than the
Maulings. The old man is going to die--did you know it? They came for
John to sit up with him last night. John's an Odd Fellow, you know. But
speaking of that Margaret, you know she's a friend of Violet's and slips
into the cigar stand sometimes and Violet introduces Margaret to some
nice drummers. And I heard John say that when Margaret gets this term of
school taught here, the Spring Township people have made Doc Jim get her
a job in the court house--register of deeds office. But I tell John--law
me, you men are the worst gossips! Talk about women!"
Little Kenyon in his crib was restless, and Mary Adams was clattering
the dishes, so between the two evils, Mrs. Kollander picked up the
child, and rocked him and patted him and then went on: "I was over and
spent the day with the Sandses the other day. Poor woman, she's real
puny. Ann's such a pretty child and Mrs. Sands says that Morty's not
goin' back to college again. And she says he just moons around Laura
Nesbit. Seems like the boy's got no sense. Why, Laura's just a
child--she's Grant's age, isn't she--not more than eighteen or nineteen,
and Morty must be nearly twenty-three. My--how they have sprung up. I
tell John--why, I'll be thirty-six right soon now, and here I've worked
and slaved my youth away and I'll be an old woman before we know it."
She laughed good naturedly and rocked the fretting child. "Law me, Mary
Adams, I sh'd think you'd want Grant to stay with George Brotherton
there in the cigar stand, instead of carpentering. Such elegant people
he can meet there, and such refined influences since Mr. Brotherton's
put in books and newspapers, and he could work in the printing office
and deliver the Kansas City and St. Louis and Chicago dailies for Mr.
Brotherton, and do so much better than he can carpentering. I tell John,
if we can just keep our boy among nice people until he's twenty-five,
he'll stay with 'em. Now look at Lide Bowman. Mary Adams, we know she
was a smart woman until she married Dick and now just see her--living
down there with the shanty trash and all those ignorant foreigners, and
she's growing like 'em. She's lost two of her babies, and that seems to
be weighing on her mind, and I can't persuade her to pick up and move
out of there. It's like being in another world. And Mary Adams--let me
tell you--Casper Herdicker has gone into the mine. Yes, sir, he closed
his shop and is going to work in the mine, because he can make three
dollars a day. But law me! you'll not see Hildy Herdicker moving down
there. She'll keep her millinery store and live with the white folks."
The dishes were put away, and in the long afternoon Mary Adams sat
sewing as Rhoda Kollander rambled on. For the third time Rhoda came back
to comment upon the fact that Grant Adams had quit working in the
printing office--a genteel trade, and had stopped delivering papers for
Mr. Brotherton's newspaper stand--a rather high vocation, and was
degrading himself by learning the carpenter's trade, when Mary Adams cut
into the current of the stream of talk.
"Well, my dear, it was this way. There are two reasons why Grant is
learning the carpenter's trade. In the first place, the boy has some
sort of a passion to cast his lot among the poor. He feels they are
neglected and--well, he has a sort of a fierce streak in him to fight
for the under dog, and--"
"Well, law me, Mary--don't I know that? Hasn't Freddie told me time and
again how Grant used to fight for Freddie when he was a little boy and
the big boys plagued him. Grant whipped the whole school for teasing a
little half-witted boy once--did you know that?" Mary Adams shook her
head. "Well, he did, and--well now, isn't that nice. I can see just how
he feels!" And she could. Never lived a more sympathetic soul than
Rhoda. And as she rocked she said: "Of course, if that's the reason--law
me, Mary, you never can tell how these children are going to turn out.
Why, I tell John--"
"And the other reason is, Rhoda, that he is earning two dollars a day as
a carpenter's helper, and since Kenyon came we seem to be miserably hard
pushed for money." Mary Adams stopped and then went on as one carefully
choosing her words: "And since Margaret has gone to board over at the
other side of the school district, and we don't have her board
money--why of course--"
"Why of course," echoed Mrs. Kollander, "of course. I tell John he's
been in a county office now twenty years, drawing all the way from a
thousand to three thousand a year--and what have we got to show for it?
I scrimp and pinch and save, and John does too--but law me--it seems
like the way times are--" Amos Adams, standing at the door, heard her
and cut in:
"I was talking the other night with George Washington about the times,
and they're coming around all right." The man fumbled his sandy beard,
closed his eyes as if to remember something and went on: "Let's see, he
wrote: 'Peas and potatoes preserve the people,' and the next day,
everything in the market dropped but peas and potatoes." He nodded a
wise head. "They think that planchette is nonsense, but how do they
account for coincidences like that! And now tell me some news for the
_Tribune_." The two sat talking well into the twilight and when
Rhoda pulled up her chair to the supper table, the editor's notebook was
full.
Grant appeared, an ox-shouldered, red-haired, bass-voiced boy with
ham-like hands; Jasper came in from school full of the town's adventure
into coal and the industries, and his chatter trickled into the powerful
but slowly spoken insistence of Mrs. Kollander's talk and was lost and
swept finally into silence. After supper Grant retired to a book from
the Sea-side Library, borrowed of Mr. Brotherton from stock--"Sesame and
Lilies" was its title. Jasper plunged into his bookkeeping studies and
by the wood stove in the sitting-room Rhoda Kollander held her levee
until bedtime sent her home.
During the noon hour the next day in Mr. Brotherton's cigar store and
news stand, the walnut bench was filled that he had just installed for
the comfort of his customers. At one end, was Grant Adams who had
hurried up from the mines to buy a paperbound copy of Carlyle's "French
Revolution"; next to him sat deaf John Kollander smoking his noon cigar,
and beside Kollander sat stuttering Kyle Perry, thriftily sponging his
morning Kansas City _Times_ over Dr. Nesbit's shoulder. The absent
brother always was on the griddle at Mr. Brotherton's amen corner, and
the burnt offering of the moment was Henry Fenn. He had just broken over
a protracted drouth--one of a year and a half--and the group was shaking
sad heads over the county attorney's downfall. The doctor was saying,
"It's a disease, just as the 'ladies, God bless 'em' will become a
disease with Tom Van Dorn if he doesn't stop pretty soon--a nervous
disease and sooner or later they will both go down. Poor Henry--Bedelia
and I noticed him at the charity ball last night; he was--"
"A trifle polite--a wee bit too punctilious for these latitudes,"
laughed Brotherton from behind the counter.
"I was going to say decorative--what Mrs. Nesbit calls ornate--kind of
rococco in manner," squeaked the doctor, and sighed. "And yet I can see
he's still fighting his devil--still trying to keep from going clear
under."
"It's a sh-sh-sh-a-ame that ma-a-an should have th-that kind of a
d-d-d-devil in him--is-isis-n't it?" said Kyle Perry, and John
Kollander, who had been smoking in peace, blurted out, "What else can be
expected under a Democratic administration? Of course, they'll return
the rebel flags. They'll pension the rebel soldiers next!" He looked
around for approval, and the smiles of the group would have lured him
further but Tom Van Dorn came swinging through the door with his
princely manner, and the Doctor rose to go. He motioned George
Brotherton to the rear of the room and said gently:
"George--old man Mauling died an hour ago; John Dexter and I were there
at the last. And John sent word for me to have you get your choir
out--so I'll notify Mrs. Nesbit. Dexter said he was a lodge member with
you--what lodge, George?"
"Odd Fellow," returned the big man, then asked, "Pall-bearer?"
"Yes," returned the Doctor. "There's no one else much but the lodge in
his case. You will sing him to sleep with your choir and tuck him in as
pall-bearer as you've been doing for the dead folks ever since you came
to town." The Doctor turned to go, "Meet to-night at the house for choir
practice, I suppose?"
Brotherton nodded, and turned to take a bill from Tom Van Dorn, who had
pocketed a handful of cigars and a number of papers.
"We were just talking about Henry, Tom," remarked Mr. Brotherton, as he
handed back the change.
"He's b-back-sl-slidden," prompted Perry.
"Oh, well--it's all right. Henry has his weaknesses--we all have our
failings. But drunk or sober he danced a dozen times last night with
that pretty school teacher from Prospect Township." Grant looked up from
his book, as Van Dorn continued, "Gorgeous creature--" he shut his eyes
and added: "Don't pity Henry when he can get a woman like that to favor
him!"
As John Kollander thundered back some irrelevant comment on the moment's
politics, Van Dorn led Brotherton to the further end of the counter and
lowering his voice said:
"You know that Mauling girl at the Palace cigar counter?"
As Brotherton nodded, Van Dorn, dropping his voice to a whisper, said:
"Her father's dead--poor child--she's been spending her money--she
hasn't a cent. I know; I have been talking to her more or less for a
year or so. Which one of your lodges does the old man belong to,
George?"
When the big man said: "Odd Fellows," Van Dorn reached into an inner
coat pocket, brought out some bills and slipping them to Brotherton, so
that the group on the bench in the corner could not see, Van Dorn
mumbled:
"Tell her folks this came from the lodge--poor little creature, she's
their sole support."
As Van Dorn lighted his cigar at the alcohol burner Henry Fenn turned
into the store. Fenn stood among them and smiled his electric smile,
that illumined his lean, drawn face and said, "Here," a pause, then, "I
am," another pause, and a more searching smile, "I am again!"
Mr. Brotherton looked up from the magazine counter where he was sorting
out _Centurys_, and _Harpers_ and _Scribners_ from a
pile: "Say--" he roared at the newcomer, "Well--say, Henry--this won't
do. Come--take a brace; pull yourself together. We are all for you."
"Yes," answered Fenn, smiling out of some incandescence in his heart,
"that's just it: You're all for me. The boys over at Riley's saloon are
all for me. Mother--God bless her, down at the house is for me so strong
that she never flinches or falters. I can get every vote in the
delegation, but my own!"
"Oh, Henry, why these tears?" sneered Van Dorn. "We've all got to have
our fun."
"I presume, Tom," snapped Fenn, "that you've got your little affairs of
the heart so that you can take 'em or let 'em alone!" But to the group
in the amen corner, Fenn lifted up his head in shame. He looked like a
whipped dog. One by one the crowd disappeared, all but Grant, who was
bending over his book, and deaf John Kollander.
Fenn and Brotherton went back to Brotherton's desk and Fenn asked, "Did
I--George, was it pretty bad last night? God she--she--that Mueller
girl--what a wonderful woman she is. George, do you suppose--" Fenn
caught Grant's eyes wandering toward them. The name of Margaret Mueller
had reached his ears. But Fenn went on, lowering his voice: "I honestly
believe she could, if any one could." Fenn put his lean, tapering hand
upon Brotherton's broad fat paw, and smiled a quaint, appreciative
smile, frank and gentle. It was one of those smiles that carried
agreement with what had been said, and with everything that might be
said. Brotherton took up the hallelujah chorus for Margaret with: "Fine
girl--bright, keen--well say, did you know she's buying the books here
of me for the chautauqua course and is trying for a degree--something in
her head besides hairpins--well, say!"
He stopped in the middle of the sentence, and brought down his great
hand on his knee. "Well, say--observe me the prize idiot! Get the blue
ribbon and pin it on your Uncle George. Look here at me overlooking the
main bet. Well, say, Henry--here are the specifications of one large
juicy plan. Funeral to-morrow--old man Mauling; obliging party to die.
Uncle George and the angel choir to officiate with Uncle George doubling
in brass as pall-bearer. The new Mrs. Sands, our bell-voiced contralto,
is sick: also obliging party to be sick. Need new contralto: Mueller girl
has voice like morning star, or stars, as the case may be." Fenn flashed
on his electric smile, and rose, looking a question.
"That's the idea, Henry, that finally wormed its way into my master
mind," cried Brotherton, laughing his big laugh. "That's what I said
before I spoke. You are to drive into Prospect Township this
evening--Hey, Grant," called Brotherton to the boy on the bench in the
Amen corner, "Does that pretty school ma'am board with you people?" And
when Grant shook his head, Brotherton went on: "Yes--she's moved across
the district I remember now. Well, anyway, Henry, you're to drive into
Prospect Township this evening and produce one large, luscious brunette
contralto for choir practice at General Nesbit's piano at eight o'clock
sharp." He stood facing Fenn whose eyes were glowing. The lurking devil
seemed to slink away from him. Brotherton, seeing the change, again
burst into his laugh and bringing Fenn to the front of the store roared:
"Well, say--Hennery--are there any flies on your Uncle George's scheme?"
Grant began buttoning his coat. Fenn, free for the moment of his devil,
was happy, and Brotherton looked at the two and cried, "Now get out of
here--the both of you: you're spiling trade. And say," called Brotherton
to Fenn, "bring her up to the Palace Hotel for supper, and we'll fill
her full of rich food, so's she can sing--well, say!"
That evening going home Grant met Margaret and Fenn at a turn of the
road, and before they noticed him, he saw a familiar look in her eyes as
she gazed at the man, saw how closely they were sitting in the buggy,
saw a score of little things that sent the blood to his face and he
strode on past them without speaking. That night he slipped into the
room where the baby lay playing with his toes, and there, standing over
the little fellow, the youth's eyes filled with tears and for the first
time he felt the horror of the baby lifting from him. He did not touch
the child, but tiptoed from the room ashamed to be seen.
To Margaret Mueller, the baby's mother, that night opened a new world. To
begin with, it marked her entrance through the portals of the Palace
Hotel as a guest. She had sometimes flitted into the office with its
loose, tiled floors and shabby, onyx splendor to speak to Miss Mauling
of the news stand; then she came as a fugitive and saw things only
furtively. But this night Margaret walked in through the "Ladies
Entrance," sat calmly in the parlor, while Mr. Fenn wrote her name upon
the register, and after some delirious moments of grand conversation
with Mr. Fenn in the gilded hall of pleasure with its chenille draperies
and its apoplectic furniture all puffed to the bursting point, she had
walked with Mr. Fenn through the imposing halls of the wonderful
edifice, like a rescued princess in a fairy tale, to the dining room,
there to meet Mr. Brotherton, and the eldest Miss Morton, who recently
had been playing the cabinet organ at funerals to guide Mr. Brotherton's
choir. Now the eldest Miss Morton was not antique, being only a scant
fifteen in short dresses and pig tails. But at the urgent request of Mr.
Brotherton, and "to fill out the table, and to take the wrinkles out of
her apron by a square meal at the Palace," as Mr. Brotherton explained
to the Captain, she had been primped and curled and scared by her
sisters and her father, and sent along with Mr. Brotherton--possibly in
his great ulster pocket, and she sat breathing irregularly and looking
steadily into her lap in great awe and trepidation.
Margaret Mueller, in the dining-room whose fame had spread to the
outposts of Spring township and to the fastnesses of Prospect, behaved
with scarcely less constraint than the eldest Miss Morton. She gazed at
the beamed ceiling, the high wainscoting, the stenciled walls, the
frescoes upon the panels, framed by the beams, the wide sideboard, the
glittering glass and the plated silver service, and if her eyes had not
been so beautiful they would have betrayed her wonder and admiration. As
it was, they showed an ecstasy of delight that made them shine and when
Henry Fenn saw them he looked at Mr. Brotherton, and Mr. Brotherton
looked at Mr. Fenn, and the moon in Mr. Brotherton's face beamed a
lively approval. Moreover the cigar salesman from Leavenworth and a
hardware drummer from St. Louis and a dry-goods salesman from Chicago
and a travelling auditor for the Midland saw Margaret's eyes and they
too looked at one another and gave their unqualified approval. In other
years--in later years--when she was at Bertolini's Grand Palace in
Naples or in some of the other Grand Palaces of other effete and
luxurious capitals of Europe, Margaret used to think of that first meal
at the Palace house in Harvey and wonder what in the world really did
become of the dozen fried oysters that she so innocently ordered. She
could see them looming up, a great pyramid of brown batter, garnished
with cress, and she knew that she had blundered. But she did not see the
wink that Mr. Brotherton gave Mr. Fenn nor the glare that Mr. Fenn gave
Mr. Brotherton; so she faced it out and whether she ate them or left
them, she never could recall.
But it was a glorious occasion in spite of the fried oysters. What
though the tiles of the floor of the Palace were cracked; what though
the curtains sagged, and the furniture was shabby, and the walls were
faded and dingy; what though the great beams in the dining-room were
dirty and the carpets in the halls bedraggled, and the onyx gapping in
great cracks upon the warped walls of the office; what though the paint
had faded and the varnish cracked all over the house! To Margaret Mueller
and also to the eldest Miss Morton, who only managed to breathe below
her locket when they were under the stars, it was a dream of marble
halls, and the frowsy Freddie Kollander and the other waiter who brought
in the food on thick, cracked oblong dishes were vassals and serfs by
their sides.
When they started up Sixth Avenue, the eldest Miss Morton was trying to
think of everything that had happened to tell the younger Misses Morton,
Martha and Ruth--what they ate and what Miss Mueller wore, and what
Freddie Kollander who waited on them, and also went to high school, did
when he saw her, and how Mr. Fenn acted when Miss Mueller got the big
platter of oysters, and what olives tasted like and if anything had been
cooked in the Peerless Cooker that father had just sold Mr. Paxton and
in general why the spirit of mortal should be proud.
But Miss Mueller entertained no such thoughts. She was treading upon the
air of some elysium, and she took and held Mr. Fenn's arm with an
unnecessary tightness and began humming the tune that told of the girl
who dreamed she dwelt in marble halls; and then, as they left the thick
of the town and were walking along the board sidewalks that lead to Elm
Crest on Elm Street, they all fell to singing that tune; and as one good
tune deserved another, and as they were going to practice the funeral
music that evening, they sang other tunes of a highly secular nature
that need not be enumerated here. And as Miss Mueller had a substantial
dinner folded snugly within her, and the ambition of her life was
looming but a few blocks ahead of her, she walked closer to Mr. Fenn,
county attorney in and for Greeley county, than was really necessary. So
when Mr. Brotherton walked alongside with the eldest Miss Morton
stumbling intermittently over the edge of the sidewalk and walking in
the dry weeds beside it, Miss Mueller put some feeling into her singing
voice and they struck what Mr. Brotherton was pleased to call a
barbershop chord, and held it to his delight. And the frosty air rang
with their voices, and the rich tremulous voice of the young woman
thrilled with passion too deep for words. So deep was it that it might
have stirred the hovering soul of the dead whose dirges they were to
sing and brought back to him the time when he too had thrilled with
youth and its inexpressible joy.
Up the hill they go, arm in arm, with fondling voices uttering the
unutterable. And now they turn into a long, broad avenue of elms, of
high, plumey elms trimmed and tended, mulched and cultivated for nearly
twenty years, the apple of one man's eye; great elms set in blue grass,
branching only at the tops, elms that stand in a grove around an
irregular house, elms that shade a broad stone walk leading up to a
wide, hospitable door. The young people ring. There is a stirring in the
house, Margaret Mueller's heart is a-flutter--and the eldest Miss Morton
wonders whether Laura or the hired girl will open the door, and in a
moment--enter Margaret Mueller into the home of the Nesbits.
As the wide door opens, a glow of light and life falls upon the young
people. Standing in the broad reception room is Doctor Nesbit, with his
finger in a book--a poetry book if you please--and before him with his
arm about her and her head beneath his chin stands his daughter. Coming
down the stairs is Mrs. Bedelia Satterthwaite Nesbit--of the Maryland
Satterthwaites--tall, well-upholstered, with large features and a Roman
nose and with the makings of a double chin, if she ever would deign to
bend her queenly head, and finally with the pomp of a major general in
figure and mien.
She ignores the debris of the carpenters who have been putting in the
hardwood floors, without glancing at it, and walking to her guests,
welcomes them with regal splendor, receiving Miss Mueller with rather
obvious dignity. Mrs. Nesbit in those days was a woman of whom the
doctor said, "There is no foolishness about Bedelia." The jovial Mr.
Brotherton attempts some pleasant hyperbole of speech, which the hostess
ignores and the Doctor greets with a smile. Mrs. Nesbit leads the way to
the piano, being a woman of purpose, and whisks the eldest Miss Morton
upon a stool and has the hymn book opened in less time than it takes to
tell how she did it. The Doctor and Laura stand watching the company,
and perhaps they stand awkwardly; which prompts Mr. Brotherton in the
goodness of his heart to say, "Doctor, won't you sit and hear the
music?"
Mrs. Nesbit looks around, sees the two figures standing near the fire
and replies, "No, the Doctor won't."
To which he chirps a mocking echo--"No, the Doctor won't."
Mr. Brotherton glances at Mr. Fenn, and the Doctor sees it. "That's all
right, boys--that's all right; I may be satrap of Harvey and have the
power of life and death over my subjects, but that's down town. Out
here, I'm the minority report."
Mrs. Nesbit opens the hymn book, smooths the fluttering leaves and says
without looking toward the Doctor: "I suppose we may as well begin now."
And she begins beating the time with her index finger and marking the
accents with her foot.
As they sing they can hear the gentle drone of the Doctor's soft voice
in the intervals in the music, reading in some nearby room to his
daughter. They are reading Tennyson's "Maud" and sometimes in the
emotional passages his voice breaks and his eyes fill up and he cannot
go on. At such times, the daughter puts her head upon his shoulder and
often wipes her tears away upon his coat and they are silent until he
can begin again. When his throat cramps, she pats his cheek and they sit
dreaming for a time and the dreams they dream and the dreams they read
differ only in that the poetry is made with words.
It is a proud night for Margaret Mueller. She has come into a new
world--the world of her deep desire. Mrs. Nesbit sees the girl's
wandering eyes, taking note of the furniture, as one making an
inventory. No article of the vast array of vases and jars and plaques
and jugs and statuettes and grotesque souvenirs of far journeys across
the world, nor etchings nor steel engravings nor photographs of Roman
antiquities nor storied urns nor animated busts escapes the wandering,
curious brown eyes of the girl. But in her vast wonderment, though her
eyes wander far and wide, they never are too far to flash back betimes
at Henry Fenn's who drinks from the woman's eyes as from a deep and
bewitching well. He does not see that she is staring. But as the minutes
speed, he knows that he is electrified with alternating currents from
her glowing face and that they bring to him a rapture that he has never
known before.
But you may be sure of one thing: Mrs. Nesbit--she that was
Satterthwaite of the Maryland Satterthwaites--she sees what is in the
wind. She is not wearing gold-rimmed nose glasses for her health. Her
health is exceptionally good. And what is more to the point, as they are
singing, Mrs. Nesbit gives George Brotherton a look--one of the genuine
old Satterthwaite looks that speak volumes, and in effect it tells him
that if he has any sense, he will take Henry Fenn home before he makes a
fool of himself. And the eldest Miss Morton, swinging her legs under the
piano stool and drumming away to Mrs. Nesbit's one- and two- and
three- and four-ands, peeps out of the corners of her eyes and sees Miss
Mueller gobbling Mr. Fenn right down without chewing him, and whoopee but
Mrs. Nesbit is biting nails, and Mr. Brotherton, he can't hardly keep his
face straight from laughing at all, and if Ruth and Martha ever tell she
will never tell them another thing in the world. And she mustn't forget
to ask Mrs. Nesbit if she's used the Peerless Cooker and if she has,
will she please say something nice about it to Mrs. Ahab Wright, for
Papa is so anxious to sell one to the Wrights!
It is nearly nine o'clock. Mr. Fenn has been eaten up these twenty
times. The wandering eyes have caressed the bric-a-brac over and over.
Mrs. Nesbit's tireless index finger has marked the time while the great
hands of the tall hall clock have crept around and halfway around again.
They are upon the final rehearsal of it.
"Other refuge have I none," says the voice and the eyes say even more
and are mutely answered by another pair of eyes.
"Hangs my helpless soul on thee," says the deep passionate voice, and
the eyes say things even more tender to eyes that falter only because
they are faint with joy. In the short interval the moving finger of Mrs.
Nesbit goes up, and then comes a rattling of the great front door. A
moment later it is opened and the flushed face of Grant Adams is seen.
He is collarless, and untidy; he rushes into the room crying, "O,
doctor--doctor, come--our baby--he is choking." The youth sees Margaret,
and with passion cries: "Kenyon--Kenyon--the baby, he is dying; for
God's sake--Mag, where is the Doctor?"
In an instant the little figure of the Doctor is in the room. He stares
at the red-faced boy, and quick as a flash he sees the open mouth, the
dazed, gaping eyes, the graying face of Margaret as she leans heavily
upon George Brotherton. In another instant the Doctor sees her rally,
grapple with herself, bring back the slow color as if by main strength,
and smile a hard forced smile, as the boy stands in impotent anguish
before them.
"I have the spring wagon here, Doctor--hurry--hurry please,"
expostulates the youth, as the Doctor climbs into his overcoat, and then
looking at Margaret the boy exclaims wildly--"Wouldn't you like to go,
too, Maggie? Wouldn't you?"
She has hold of herself now and replies: "No, Grant, I don't think your
mother will need me," but she almost loses her grip as she asks weakly,
"Do you?"
In another second they are gone, the boy and the Doctor, out into the
night, and the horse's hoofs, clattering fainter and fainter as they
hurry down the road, bring to her the sound of a little heart beating
fainter and fainter, and she holds on to her soul with a hard hand.
Before long Margaret Mueller and Henry Fenn are alone in a buggy driving
to Prospect township.
She sees above her on the hill the lights in the great house of her
desire. And she knows that down in the valley where shimmers a single
light is a little body choking for breath, fighting for life.
"Hangs my helpless soul on thee," swirls through her brain, and she is
cold--very cold, and sits aloof and will not talk, cannot talk. Ever the
patter of the horse's feet in the valley is borne upward by the wind,
and she feels in her soul the faltering of a little heart. She dares not
hope that it will start up again; she cannot bear the fear that it will
stop.
So she leaves the man who knew her inmost soul but an hour ago; hardly a
word she speaks at parting; hardly she turns to him as she slips into
the house, cold and shivering with the sound of every hoof-beat on the
road in the night, bringing her back to the helpless soul fluttering in
the little body that once she warmed in hers.
Thus the watchers watched the fighting through the night, the child
fighting so hard to live. For life is dear to a child--even though its
life perpetuates shame and brings only sorrow--life still is dear to
that struggling little body there under that humble roof, where even
those that love it, and hover in agony over it in its bed of torture,
feel that if it goes out into the great mystery from whence it came, it
will take a sad blot from the world with it. And so hope and fear and
love and tenderness and grief are all mingled in the horror that it may
die, in the mute question that asks if death would not be merciful and
kind. And all night the watchers watched, and the watcher who was absent
was afraid to pray, and as the daylight came in, wan and gray, the child
on the rack of misery sank to sleep, and smiled a little smile of peace
at victory.
Then in the pale dawn, a weary man, trudging afoot slowly up the hill
into Harvey, met another going out into the fields. The Doctor looked up
and was astonished to see Henry Fenn, with hard drawn features,
trembling limbs, hollow eyes and set lips. He too had been fighting hard
and he also had won his victory. The Doctor met the man's furtive,
burning eyes and piped out softly:
"Stick to it, Henry--by God, stick hard," and trudged on into the
morning gloaming.