CHICAGO
Almost 6 o'clock, and the train due in Chicago at 6:30! The city grew
more formidable to Rose as she approached it. She wondered how it would
first appear on the plain. There was little sign of it yet.
As she looked out of the car window she saw men stacking grain, and
plowing. It was supper time at home, and John was just rising from the
table. The calves were bleating for their pails of milk; the guinea-hens
were clacking, and the little turkeys crying in the grass, the bees were
homing, heavy with honey, and here she sat, rushing toward that
appalling and unimaginable presence--Chicago.
Somewhere just ahead it sat, this mighty hive of a million and a half of
people. The thought of it made her heart beat quick, and her throat
filled. She was going there; the lake was there; art was there, and
music and the drama--and love! Always under each emotion, always behind
every success, was the understanding that love was to be the woman's
reward and recompense. It was not articulate nor feverish, this thought;
it was a deep, pure emotion, streaming always toward the unknown.
She dreamed as the train rumbled on. She would succeed, she _must_
succeed. She gripped the seat-rail with her broad, strong hands, and
braced herself like one entering a flood.
It was this wonderful thing again, a fresh, young and powerful soul
rushing to a great city, a shining atom of steel obeying the magnet, a
clear rivulet from the hills hurrying to the sea. On every train at that
same hour, from every direction, others, like her, were entering on the
same search to the same end.
"See that cloud?" some one said; "that's Chicago."
Rose looked--far to the south-east a gigantic smoke-cloud soared above
the low horizon line, in shape like an eagle, whose hovering wings
extended from south to east, trailing mysterious shadows upon the earth.
The sun lighted its mighty crest with crimson light, and its gloom and
glow became each moment more sharply contrasted. Towards this portentous
presence the train rushed, uttering an occasional shrill neigh, like a
stallion's defiance.
The brazen bell upon the engine began to clang and clang; small towns of
scattered wooden houses came into view and were left behind. Huge,
misshapen buildings appeared in flat spaces, amid hundreds of cars. Webs
of railway tracks spread out dangerously in acres of marvelous
intricacy, amid which men moved, sooty, grimy, sullen and sickly.
Terrors thickened. Smells assaulted her sensitive nostrils,
incomprehensible and horrible odors. Everywhere men delved in dirt and
murk, and all unloveliness. Streets began to stretch away on either
side, interminable, squalid, filled with scowling, squaw-like women and
elfish children. The darkness grew, making the tangle and tumult a
deadly struggle.
Was this the city of her dreams? This the magnificent, the home of
education and art.
The engine's bell seemed to call back "_Good cheer! Good cheer!_" The
buildings grew mightier but not less gloomy; the freight cars grew
fewer, and the coaches more numerous. It was an illimitable jungle
filled with unrecognizable forms, over which night was falling.
The man with a hoop of clinking checks came through. He was a handsome,
clean and manly fellow, and his calm, kindly voice helped Rose to choke
down her dread.
"Baggage checked!--Baggage--Baggage checked to any part of the
city--Baggage!"
In him she saw the native denizen to whom all these horrors were
commonplace sensations, and it helped her. It couldn't be so bad as it
looked to her.
"Chicago, _She-caw-go_!" called the brakeman, and her heart for a moment
stood still, and a smothering sensation came upon her. She was at the
gate of the city, and life with all its terrors and triumphs seemed just
before her.
At that moment the most beautiful thing in the world was the smooth
pasture by the spring, where the sheep were feeding in the fading light,
and if she could, she would have turned back, but she was afloat, and
retreat was impossible. She pressed on with the rest, wondering what she
could do if Mary did not meet her.
Mary had hardly been more than an acquaintance at school, but now she
seemed a staff to lean upon. Rose looked to her as a guide to a refuge,
a hiding-place from all these terrors.
Out under the prodigious arching roof she stepped, into the tumult of
clanging bells, of screeching, hissing steam and of grinding wheels. The
shouts of men echoed here and there in the vaulted roof, mysteriously as
in a cavern. Up the long walk, streams of people moved, each one laden,
like herself, with a valise. Electric lamps sputtered overhead. She
hurried on, with sensitive ears tortured by the appalling tumult, her
eyes wide and apprehensive.
Her friend was not to be seen, and she moved on mechanically with the
rest, keeping step beside an old man who seemed to be familiar with the
station, and who kept off (without knowing it), the attentions of two
human vultures, in wait for such as Rose.
They moved up the steps into the waitingroom before Rose gave up hope of
her friend. So far she had gone securely, but could she find the house
which was to be her home, alone?
She sat down for an instant on the long seat by the wall, and listened
to the obscure thunder of the street outside. It was terrifying,
confusing. Shrill screams and hoarse shouts rose above a hissing,
scraping sound, the clang of gongs and the click of shoe-heels.
Every voice was pitched to an unnatural key, like that of men in a mill.
The noise seemed hot, some way, like smitten iron and brass. No sound
was familiar to her, nothing cool and reposeful. Her head throbbed and
her tongue was dry. She had eaten little since early morning and she
felt weak.
She looked far more composed and self-reliant than she was, and when her
friend came swinging up to her she cried out: "O, Mary!" and her friend
realized a little of her relief and gratitude.
"O, here you are! I got delayed--forgive me. I'm all out o' breath."
(Here she kissed her.) "How well you look! Your complexion is
magnificent. Give me your valise. We'll send for your trunk. Save
twenty-five cents by having it done up town. This way--I'm glad to see
you. How is Wisconsin?"
Mary Compton was tall, red-haired and strong. Her eyes were keen and
laughing, and the tip of her chip hat and the swing of her skirts let
everybody know how able she was to take care of herself--thank you! She
had been the smart girl of a small town near Madison, and had come to
the city, as her brother Dan had gone to Idaho, for the adventure of it.
It was quite like hunting bears.
"Shall we take the grip?"
Rose didn't know what she meant, but she said:
"Just as you like."
"I like to take the grip; it gives a fellow a little fresh air, if there
is any at all."
A train of cable-cars came nosing along like vicious boars, with snouts
close to the ground. Mary helped Rose upon the open forward car, which
had seats facing outward. A young man lifted his hat and made room for
them.
"Hello, John!" said Mary, "aren't you a little early tonight? Rose, my
friend Mr. Hardy. Mr. Hardy, Miss Dutcher."
The young fellow raised his hat again and bowed. He was a pleasant-faced
young man in round straw hat and short coat. Mary paid no further
attention to him.
"I've got you a room right next to mine," she said to Rose, who was
holding to the seat with one hand and clinging to her hat with the
other. The car stopped and started with vicious suddenness.
"You'd better hang on; the gripman is mad tonight," Mary explained.
"We're most to our street, anyway."
To Rose it was all a wild ride. The noise, the leaping motion of the
cars and the perilous passage of drays made it as pleasant to her as a
ride behind a running team on a corduroy road.
They came at last to quieter spaces, and alighted finally at a cross
street.
"I'm pretty far up," said Mary, "but I want it decently quiet where I
live. I have noise enough at the office."
Rose thought it indecently noisy. Peddlers were crying out strange
sing-song cries; children romped, screaming in high-pitched furious
voices; laundry wagons and vegetable wagons clattered about. There was a
curious pungent odor in the air.
On the steps of the houses groups of young people, like Mary and John,
sat on strips of carpet, and laughed and commented on the passers-by.
Mary turned upon one fool who called a smart word at her:
"Left your manners in Squashville, didn't you, little man?"
They came at last to an imposing block of houses, situated at the
corner. They entered the door and climbed a gas-lit stairway, which went
round and round a sort of square well. They came at last to a door which
closed all passage, and Mary got out her key and opened it.
"Here we are!" she said cheerily.
The main hall was carpeted and ran past several doors, which were open.
In one room a young man in his shirt sleeves was shaving before a glass.
In another a girl was reading.
"Hello!" called Mary.
"Hello!" said the girl, without looking up.
"Here's my room, and this's yours." Mary pushed open a door at the end
of the hall. It was a small room, papered in light buff and blue. It had
an oak dresser and mirror, a couple of chairs and a mantel bed. It
looked cheerful and clean, but very small. Mary put down her valise.
"I guess you'll find everything all right, water and towels. Wash up
right off--dinner'll be ready soon."
Rose removed her hat and sat down, her head throbbing with the heat and
noise. She heard the man at the glass whistling, and Mary was thumping
about in her vigorous way.
The dash of cold water cleared her brain, but did not remove her
headache. Her face was still flushed and her eyes expanded.
Mary coming back, looked at her a moment and then rushed upon her and
hugged her.
"O what a beauty you are! I wish I had half what you've got."
Rose smiled faintly; she didn't care just that moment whether she looked
well or ill.
"The boys will all be dead in love with you before dinner is over. Let
me tell you about them." She softened her reed-like voice down and
glanced at the transom furtively: "Never forget the transom when you're
talking secrets," she explained.
"First, there's Mr. Taylor; he's from Colorado somewhere. He's a lawyer.
He's a fine fellow too--you'll like him. Then there's Mr. Simons; he's a
Jew, but he's not _too much_ of a Jew. There's Alice Fletcher; she's
queer and grumpy, but she reads a lot and she can talk when she wants
to, and there's you and myself."
"I don't feel like meeting them tonight," Rose said; "if I had a cup of
tea I'd stay in my room."
"All right! I'll bring it."
The bell rang and then the movement of feet and the banging of doors
told of the rush to dinner.
Mary came back with a cup of tea and a biscuit and some pudding.
"Have more, if you wish," she said.
"This will do nicely. You're very kind, Mary Compton. I don't deserve
it."
"You deserve the world," cried the adoring girl. "If I had your figure
and complexion I'd make the universe wait on me."
In spite of all this fervor of praise Rose felt herself to be a very
dejected and spiritless beauty. She was irritated and angry with the
nagging of strange sights and sounds and smells. The air seemed laden
with disease and filth. It was all so far from the coolly with its
purple hills looming against the sapphire sunset sky.
But this she came for--to see the city; to plunge into its life. She
roused herself therefore with a blush of shame at her weakness. She had
appeared to be a child before this girl who had always been her inferior
at school.
It was a very dignified young woman who arose to greet Mrs. Wilcox, the
landlady, whom Mary brought back. This dignity was not needed. Mrs.
Wilcox was a sweet-voiced, smiling woman of fifty--being of those
toilers who smile when they are tired enough to drop. She was flushed
with fatigue and moved languidly, but her kind, patient, pathetic smile
touched Rose almost to tears.
"I'm glad to have you come here," the landlady said. "We're all nice
people here, aren't we, Miss Compton?" Her eyes twinkled with humorous
self-analysis.
"Every one of us," corroborated Mary.
"I hope you'll rest well. If there's anything we can do for you, my
dear, let me know." Such was the spirit in which the over-worked woman
served her boarders. They all called her "mother." She had no children
of her own, and her husband was "not at all well," yet nothing could
sour her sweet kindliness, which included all the world. She was a
familiar type, and Rose loved her at once.
Miss Fletcher came in and was introduced. She was a teacher in a school
near by.
"What anybody should come to this town for I can't understand. I stay
here because I'm obliged to. I'm just back from the country to my work."
"The country is all right for a vacation," quoted Rose.
Mary broke in, "That's what I say. I lived on a farm and I lived in
Castle Rock. When I lived on the farm I wanted to get to Castle Rock.
When I got to Castle Rock I wanted to get to Madison. Madison made me
hone for Chicago, and when I had a chance to come, I just dropped my
work at the University and put for the city, and here I am and glad of
it."
"I can't understand such folly," murmured Miss Fletcher.
"You could if you'd stayed on the farm the year round, with nobody to
talk to and mighty little to read. It's all right for you to go up for a
couple of months and lie about in a hammock, but you take a place like
Castle Rock all the year round! It's worse than the farm. Gossip! They
talk every rag of news to smithereens, don't they, Rose?"
Rose nodded.
"And then the people! They're the cullin's. All the bright boys and
girls go to Madison and Chicago or Dakota, and then the rest marry and
intermarry, and have idiot boys and freckle-faced girls!"
They all laughed. Mary was always extreme, no matter what her subject.
Miss Fletcher sighed resignedly.
"Well, it's fate. Here this big city sits and swallows you bright people
like a great dragon, and the old folks are left alone in these dull
places you talk about."
Rose felt her eyes filling with tears. The figure of her lonely old
father came before her. She saw him sitting beside the kitchen table,
his head on his palm, and all the new house empty and dark.
Mary jumped up. "Here now, stop that talk, we must leave Rose alone and
let her go to sleep."
They left her alone, but sleep was impossible. The tramp of feet, the
sound of pianos, the slam of doors, the singing, laughing of the other
boarders made sleep impossible. The cars jangled by, the click-clack of
horses' hoofs and the swift rattle of wagons kept up long after the
house was silent. Between midnight and four o'clock she got a little
sleep, out of which she awoke while a booming, clattering wagon
thundered by. Other wagons clattered viciously along up the alleys, and
then some early riser below began to sing, and Rose wearily dressed and
sat down by the window to listen.
Far to the south a low, intermittent, yet ever deepening, crescendo bass
note began to sound. It was Chicago waking from the three hours' doze,
which is its only sleep. It grew to a raucous, hot roar; and then to the
north she heard the clear musical cry of a fruit vendor,--then another:
"_Black-berries! Fine fresh black-berries!_"
The cars thickened, the sun grew hot and lay in squares of blinding
light across her carpet. That curious pungent smell came in with the
wind. Newsboys cried their morning papers. Children fought and played in
the street. Distant whistles began to sound, and her first morning in
Chicago came to Rose, hot, brazen, unnatural, and found her blinded,
bruised, discouraged, abased, homesick.