THE LOST CAMEO
In spite of the fact that the Opera House was dark on the following
night, adventure came to Petite Jeanne, adventure and excitement
a-plenty. It came like the sudden rush of an ocean's wave. One moment she
and Florence were strolling in a leisurely manner down the center of
State Street; the next they were surrounded, completely engulfed and
carried whither they knew not by a vast, restless, roaring, surging sea
of humanity.
For many days they had read accounts of a great autumn festival that was
to occur on this night. Having never witnessed such a fete, save in her
native land, Petite Jeanne had been eager to attend. So here they were.
And here, too, was an unbelievable multitude.
Petite Jeanne cast a startled look at her companion.
Florence, big capable Florence, smiled as she bent over to speak in the
little French girl's ear.
"Get in front of me. I'll hold them back."
"But why all this?" Petite Jeanne tried to gesture, only to end by
prodding a fat man in the stomach.
"This," laughed Florence, "is Harvest Jubilee Night. A city of three
million invited all its citizens to come down and enjoy themselves in six
city blocks. Bands are to play. Radio stars are to be seen. Living models
will be in all the store windows.
"The three million are here. They will hear no bands. They will see no
radio stars, nor any living models either. They will see and hear only
themselves."
"Yes. And they will feel one another, too!" the little French girl cried,
as the crush all but pressed the breath from her lungs. The look on her
face was one of pure fright. Florence, too, was thinking serious
thoughts. That which had promised only a bit of adventure in the
beginning bade fair to become a serious matter. Having moved down the
center of a block, they had intended turning the corner. But now, caught
in the tremendous crush of humanity, by the thousands upon thousands of
human beings who thronged the streets, carried this way and that by
currents and counter-currents, they were likely to be carried anywhere.
And should the crush become too great, they might well be rendered
unconscious by the vise-like pressure of the throng.
This indeed was Harvest Jubilee Night. The leading men of this city had
made a great mistake. Wishing to draw thousands of people to the trading
center of the city, they had staged a great fete. As Florence had said,
men and women of note, actors, singers, radio stars were to be found on
grand stands erected at every street crossing. All this was wonderful, to
be sure! Only one fact had been lost sight of: that hundreds of thousands
of people cannot move about freely in the narrow space of six city
blocks.
Now, here were the laughing, shouting, crowding, groaning, weeping
thousands. What was to come of it all? Petite Jeanne asked herself this
question, took one long quivering breath, then looked up at her stout
companion and was reassured.
"We came here for a lark," she told herself. "We must see it through.
"I only hope," she caught her breath again, "that I don't see anyone in
this crowd who makes me trouble. Surely I cannot escape him here!" She
was thinking of the dark-faced man with the evil eye.
"Keep up courage," Florence counseled. "We'll make it out of here safe
enough."
But would they? Every second the situation became more tense. Now they
were carried ten paces toward Wabash Avenue; now, like some dance of
death, the crowd surged backward toward Dearborn Street. And now, caught
in an eddy, they whirled round and round.
In such a time as this the peril is great. Always, certain persons,
deserting all caution, carried away by their own exuberance, render
confusion worse confounded. Bands of young men, perhaps from high school
or college, with hands on shoulders, built up flying wedges that shot
through the crowd like bullets through wood.
Just such a group was pressing upon the stalwart Florence and all but
crushing the breath out of her, when for the first time she became
conscious of a little old lady in a faded shawl who fairly crouched at
her feet.
"She's eighty if a day," she thought, with a sudden shock. "She'll be
killed unless--
"Petite Jeanne," she screamed, "there are times when human beings have
neither eyes, ears nor brains. They can always feel. You have sharp
elbows. Use them now to the glory of God and for the life of this dear
old lady in her faded shawl."
Suiting actions to her own words, she kicked forth lustily with her
square-pointed athletic shoe. The shoe made contact with a grinning
youth's shins. The look of joy on the youth's face changed to one of
sudden pain. He ceased to shove and attempted a retreat. One more
grinning face was transformed by an elbow thrust in the stomach. This one
doubled up and did his best to back away.
Jeanne added her bit. As Florence had said, her elbows were sharp and
effective.
In an incredibly short time there was space for breathing. One moment the
little old lady, who was not five feet tall and did not weigh ninety
pounds, was in peril of her life; the next she was caught in Florence's
powerful arms and was being borne to safety. And all the time she was
screaming:
"Oh! Oh! Oh! It is gone! It is lost! It is lost!"
"Yes," Florence agreed, as she dropped her to the curbing, well out of
the crush, "you have lost a shoe. But what's a shoe? You would have lost
your life. And, after all, how is one to find a shoe in such a place of
madness?"
The little old lady made no answer. She sat down upon the curb and began
silently to sob while her slight body rocked from side to side and her
lips whispered words that could not be heard.
"Was there ever such another night?" Petite Jeanne cried, in real
distress. She was little and quick, very emotional and quite French.
"We came here for a gay time," she went on. "And now, see how it is! We
have been tossed about from wave to wave by the crowd, which is a sea,
and now it has washed us ashore with a weeping old lady we have never
seen before and may never see again."
"Hush!" Florence touched her lips. "You will distress her. You came here
to find joy and happiness. Joy and happiness may be found quite as often
by serving others less fortunate than ourselves as in any other way. We
will see if this is not true.
"Come!" She placed gentle hands beneath the bent form of the little, old
lady on the curb. "Come, now. There is a bright little tea room right
over there. A good cup of black tea will cheer you. Then you must tell us
all about it."
A look of puzzled uncertainty gave way to a smile on the wrinkled face as
this strange derelict of the night murmured:
"Tea. Yes, yes, a good cup of black tea."
The tea room was all but deserted. On this wild night of nights people
did not eat. Vendors of ice cream sandwiches found no customers. Baskets
of peanuts were more likely to be tumbled into the street than eaten. The
throng had indeed become a wild, stormy sea. And a stormy sea neither
eats nor sleeps.
"Tell me," said Florence, as the hot tea warmed the white-haired one's
drowsy blood, "why did you weep at the loss of a shoe?"
"A shoe?" The little old lady seemed puzzled. She looked down at her
feet. "A shoe? Ah, yes! It is true. One shoe is gone.
"But it is not that." Her voice changed. Her dull blue eyes took on fresh
color. "I have lost more--much more. My purse! Money? No, my children. A
little. It is nothing. I have lost my cameo, my only treasure. And, oh, I
shall never see it again!" She began wringing her hands and seemed about
to give way once more to weeping.
"Tell us about it," Petite Jeanne put in eagerly. "Perhaps we can help
you."
"Tell you? Help me?" The old eyes were dreamy now. "My cameo! My one
great treasure. It was made in Florence so many, many years ago. It was
my own portrait done in onyx, pink onyx. I was only a child, sixteen,
slight and fair like you." She touched Jeanne's golden hair. "He was
young, romantic, already an artist. He became very famous when he was
older. But never, I am sure, did he carve such a cameo, for,
perhaps--perhaps he loved me--just a little.
"But now!" This was a cry of pain. "Now it is gone! And I have kept it
all these long years. I should not have come to-night. I had not been to
the heart of the city for ten years. But this night they told me I was to
see 'Auld Sandy' himself. He's on the radio, you know. He sings old
Scotch songs so grandly and recites Burns' poems with so much feeling. I
wanted to see him. I did not dare leave the cameo in my poor room. My
cameo! So I brought it, and now--
"But you said you would help me." Once again her face brightened.
"Yes." Florence's tone was eager, hopeful. "We will help you. Someone
will find your purse. It will be turned in. The police will have it. We
will get it for you in the morning. Only give us your address and we will
bring it, your treasure, your cameo."
"Will you?"
Florence heard that cry of joy, and her heart smote her. Could they find
it?
They wrote down the little old lady's address carefully; then escorting
her to the elevated platform, they saw her safely aboard a train.
"Now why did I do that?" Florence turned a face filled with consternation
to Petite Jeanne. "Why did I promise so much?"
She was to wonder this many times during that night of mysterious and
thrilling adventure.
"Let us go back," said Petite Jeanne. "See! The trains are loaded with
people returning home. The crowd must not be so great. The little lady's
purse must have been kicked about; but we may yet find it."
"That," replied Florence, "would seem too good to be true. Yes, let us go
back. We must not hope too much, for all that. Many are going, but others
are coming. Surely this is one wild night in a great city."
And so it was. Hardly had they descended the iron steps to the street and
walked half a block than the waves of humanity were upon them again.
"The tide is set against us." Florence urged her companion into the
momentary security of a department store entrance. There, from a vantage
point of safety, they watched the crowds surging by. They were at a point
where the pressure of the throng was broken. It was interesting to study
the faces of those who emerged into a place of comparative quiet. Some
were exuberant over the struggle they had waged and won, others crushed.
Here was one in tears and there was one who had fainted, being hurried
away by others to a place of first aid.
"They are poor," Petite Jeanne murmured. "At least they are not rich, nor
even well-to-do. They are working people who came for a good time. Are
they having it? Who can tell? Surely, never before have they seen so many
people. And perhaps they never will see so many again. To-morrow they
will talk. How they will talk of this night's adventure! As for me," she
sighed, "I prefer a quiet place beneath the stars."
"Do you?" Florence spoke up quickly. "Then we will go to just such a
place."
"Surely not in this great city."
"Ten minutes by elevated train, ten minutes walk after that, and we are
there. Come! We can never hope to reach the spot where the cameo was
lost. Come!"
Nor did she fail to make good her promise. Twenty minutes later they were
walking in a spot where, save for the low swish of water against rocks,
silence reigned supreme.
"How strange! How fascinating! What stillness!" Petite Jeanne gripped her
companion's arm hard. "Here are silence, starlight, moonlight, grass
beneath one's feet and the gleam of distant water in our eyes."
"Yes." Florence's tone was low like the deep notes of a cello. "And only
a short time ago, perhaps a year ago, the waters of the lake lay ten feet
deep at the very spot on which we stand. Such is the wondrous achievement
of man when inspired by a desire to provide a quiet place for a weary
multitude. This is 'made land' a park in the making. Great squares of
limestone were dumped in the lake. With these as a barrier to hold back
the onrush of the lake waters, men have hauled in sand, clay, ashes, all
the refuse of a great city. Nature has breathed upon that ugly pile of
debris. The sun has caressed it, the wind smoothed it, rain beat down
upon it, birds brought seeds, and now we have soft earth, grass, flowers,
a place of beauty and quiet peace."
The place they had entered is strange. A great city, finding itself
cramped for breathing space, has reached out a mighty hand to snatch land
from the bottom of the lake. Thirty blocks in length, as large as an
ordinary farm, this space promises to become, in the near future, a place
of joy forever.
At the time of our story it was half a field of tangled grass and half a
junk pile. As the two girls wandered on they found themselves flanked on
one side by a tumbled line of gigantic man-made boulders and on the other
by a curious jumble of waste. Steel barrels, half rusted away, lay among
piles of cement blocks and broken plaster.
"Come," said Florence, "let us go out upon the rocks."
A moment of unsteady leaping from spot to spot, and they sat looking out
on a band of gold painted across the waters by the moon.
"How still it is!" Jeanne whispered. "After all the shouting of the
throng, I feel that I may have gone suddenly deaf."
"It _is_ still," Florence replied. "No one here. Not a soul. Only you and
I, the moon and the night."
And yet, even as she spoke, a sudden chill gripped her heart. She had
caught a sound. Someone was among the rocks close at hand; there could be
no mistaking that. Who could it be?
Her heart misgave her. Had she committed a dangerous blunder? She had
been here before, but never at night. The city, with all its perils, its
evil ones, was but a few steps away. As she listened she even now caught
indistinctly the murmur of it. Someone was among the rocks. He might be
advancing. Who could it be, at this hour of the night?
Strangely enough at this instant one thought entered her mind: "Nothing
must happen to me. I have a sacred duty to perform. I have pledged myself
to return that priceless cameo to that dear little old lady."
At the same instant the light from a distant automobile, making a turn on
the drive, fell for a space of seconds upon the tumbled pile of rocks. It
lit up not alone the rocks but a face; a strangely ugly face, not ten
paces away.
One second the light was there. The next it was gone. And in that same
second the moon went under a cloud. The place was utterly dark.