THE CRISIS.
I was at work as a veneerer in a piano-forte factory at Attica, when
some tariff or other was passed or repealed; there came a great
financial explosion, and our boss, among the rest, failed. He owed us
all six months' wages, and we were all very poor and very blue. Jonathan
Whittemore--a real good fellow, who used to cover the hammers with
leather--came to me the day the shop was closed, and told me he was
going to take the chance to go to Europe. He was going to the Musical
Conservatory at Leipsic, if he could. He would work his passage out as a
stoker. He would wash himself for three or four days at Bremen, and then
get work, if he could, with Voightlander or Von Hammer till he could
enter the Conservatory. By way of preparation for this he wanted me to
sell him my Adler's German Dictionary.
"I've nothing to give you for it, Felix, but this foolish thing,--it is
one of Burrham's tickets,--which I bought in a frolic the night of our
sleigh-ride. I'll transfer it to you."
I told Jonathan he might have the dictionary and welcome. He was doing a
sensible thing, and he would use it twenty times as much as I should. As
for the ticket, he had better keep it. I did not want it. But I saw he
would feel better if I took it,--so he indorsed it to me.
Now the reader must know that this Burrham was a man who had got hold of
one corner of the idea of what the Public could do for its children. He
had found out that there were a thousand people who would be glad to
make the tour of the mountains and the lakes every summer if they could
do it for half-price. He found out that the railroad companies were glad
enough to put the price down if they could be sure of the thousand
people. He mediated between the two, and so "cheap excursions" came into
being. They are one of the gifts the Public gives its children. Rising
from step to step, Burrham had, just before the great financial crisis,
conceived the idea of a great cheap combination, in which everybody was
to receive a magazine for a year and a cyclopædia, both at half-price;
and not only so, but the money that was gained in the combination was to
be given by lot to two ticket-holders, one a man and one a woman, for
their dowry in marriage. I dare say the reader remembers the prospectus.
It savors too much of the modern "Gift Enterprise" to be reprinted in
full; but it had this honest element, that everybody got more than he
could get for his money in retail. I have my magazine, the old _Boston
Miscellany_, to this day, and I just now looked out Levasseur's name in
my cyclopædia; and, as you will see, I have reason to know that all the
other subscribers got theirs.
One of the tickets for these books, for which Whittemore had given five
good dollars, was what he gave to me for my dictionary. And so we
parted. I loitered at Attica, hoping for a place where I could put in my
oar. But my hand was out at teaching, and in a time when all the world's
veneers of different kinds were ripping off, nobody wanted me to put on
more of my kind,--so that my cash ran low. I would not go in debt,--that
is a thing I never did. More honest, I say, to go to the poorhouse, and
make the Public care for its child there, than to borrow what you cannot
pay. But I did not come quite to that, as you shall see.
I was counting up my money one night,--and it was easily done,--when I
observed that the date on this Burrham order was the 15th of October,
and it occurred to me that it was not quite a fortnight before those
books were to be delivered. They were to be delivered at Castle Garden,
at New York; and the thought struck me that I might go to New York, try
my chance there for work, and at least see the city, which I had never
seen, and get my cyclopædia and magazine. It was the least offer the
Public ever made to me; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and
the least was better than nothing. The plan of so long a journey was
Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it a good deal. Finally I came to
this resolve: I would start in the morning to walk to the lock-station
at Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that night where they would
give me my fare for any work I could do for them, I would go to Albany.
If not, I would walk back to Lockport the next day, and try my fortune
there. This gave me, for my first day's enterprise, a foot journey of
about twenty-five miles. It was out of the question, with my finances,
for me to think of compassing the train.
Every point of life is a pivot on which turns the whole action of our
after-lives; and so, indeed, of the after-lives of the whole world. But
we are so pur-blind that we only see this of certain special enterprises
and endeavors, which we therefore call critical. I am sure I see it of
that twenty-five miles of fresh autumnal walking. I was in tiptop
spirits. I found the air all oxygen, and everything "all right." I did
not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with the feeling that
every nerve and muscle drew, as in the trades a sailor feels of every
rope and sail. And so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook
appeared where I was to drink; nor hungry till twelve o'clock came, when
I was to dine. I called myself as I walked "The Child of Good Fortune,"
because the sun was on my right quarter, as the sun should be when you
walk, because the rain of yesterday had laid the dust for me, and the
frost of yesterday had painted the hills for me, and the northwest wind
cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads just in time to
meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him. And when my walk
was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which is a
drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing boat, instead of
the moment after. Because I was all right I felt myself and called
myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a
loving Father, we are all of us children of good fortune, if we only
have wit enough to find it out, as we stroll along.
The last stroke of good fortune which that day had for me was the
solution of my question whether or no I would go to Babylon. I was to go
if any good-natured boatman would take me. This is a question, Mr.
Millionnaire, more doubtful to those who have not drawn their dividends
than to those who have. As I came down the village street at Brockport,
I could see the horses of a boat bound eastward, led along from level to
level at the last lock; and, in spite of my determination not to hurry,
I put myself on the long, loping trot which the St. Regis Indians taught
me, that I might overhaul this boat before she got under way at her new
speed. I came out on the upper gate of the last lock just as she passed
out from the lower gate. The horses were just put on, and a reckless boy
gave them their first blow after two hours of rest and corn. As the
heavy boat started off under the new motion, I saw, and her skipper saw
at the same instant, that a long new tow-rope of his, which had lain
coiled on deck, was suddenly flying out to its full length. The outer
end of it had been carried upon the lock-side by some chance or blunder,
and there some idle loafer had thrown the looped bight of it over a
hawser-post. The loafers on the lock saw, as I did, that the rope was
running out, and at the call of the skipper one of them condescended to
throw the loop overboard, but he did it so carelessly that the lazy rope
rolled over into the lock, and the loop caught on one of the valve-irons
of the upper gate. The whole was the business of an instant, of course.
But the poor skipper saw, what we did not, that the coil of the rope on
deck was foul, and so entangled round his long tiller, that ten seconds
would do one of three things,--they would snap his new rope in two,
which was a trifle, or they would wrench his tiller-head off the rudder,
which would cost him an hour to mend, or they would upset those two
horses, at this instant on a trot, and put into the canal the rowdy
youngster who had started them. It was this complex certainty which gave
fire to the double cries which he addressed aft to us on the lock, and
forward to the magnet boy, whose indifferent intelligence at that moment
drew him along.
I was stepping upon the gate-head to walk across it. It took but an
instant, not nearly all the ten seconds, to swing down by my arms into
the lock, keeping myself hanging by my hands, to catch with my right
foot the bight of the rope and lift it off the treacherous iron, to kick
the whole into the water, and then to scramble up the wet lock-side
again. I got a little wet, but that was nothing. I ran down the
tow-path, beckoned to the skipper, who sheered his boat up to the shore,
and I jumped on board.
At that moment, reader, Fausta was sitting in a yellow chair on the
deck of that musty old boat, crocheting from a pattern in _Grodey's
Lady's Book_. I remember it as I remember my breakfast of this morning.
Not that I fell in love with her, nor did I fall in love with my
breakfast; but I knew she was there. And that was the first time I ever
saw her. It is many years since, and I have seen her every day from that
evening to this evening. But I had then no business with her. My affair
was with him whom I have called the skipper, by way of adapting this
fresh-water narrative to ears accustomed to Marryat and Tom Cringle. I
told him that I had to go to New York; that I had not time to walk, and
had not money to pay; that I should like to work my passage to Troy, if
there were any way in which I could; and to ask him this I had come on
board.
"Waal," said the skipper, "'taint much that is to be done, and Zekiel
and I calc'late to do most of that and there's that blamed boy beside--"
This adjective "blamed" is the virtuous oath by which simple people, who
are improving their habits, cure themselves of a stronger epithet, as
men take to flagroot who are abandoning tobacco.
"He ain't good for nothin', as you see," continued the skipper
meditatively, "and you air, anybody can see that," he added. "Ef you've
mind to come to Albany, you can have your vittles, poor enough they are
too; and ef you are willing to ride sometimes, you can ride. I guess
where there's room for three in the bunks there's room for four. 'Taint
everybody would have cast off that blamed hawser-rope as neat as you
did."
From which last remark I inferred, what I learned as a certainty as we
travelled farther, that but for the timely assistance I had rendered him
I should have plead for my passage in vain.
This was my introduction to Fausta. That is to say, she heard the whole
of the conversation. The formal introduction, which is omitted in no
circle of American life to which I have ever been admitted, took place
at tea half an hour after, when Mrs. Grills, who always voyaged with her
husband, brought in the flapjacks from the kitchen. "Miss Jones," said
Grills, as I came into the meal, leaving Zekiel at the tiller,--"Miss
Jones, this is a young man who is going to Albany. I don't rightly know
how to call your name, sir." I said my name was Carter. Then he said,
"Mr. Carter, this is Miss Jones. Mrs. Grills, Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter,
Mrs. Grills. She is my wife." And so our _partie carrée_ was established
for the voyage.
In these days there are few people who know that a journey on a canal is
the pleasantest journey in the world. A canal has to go through fine
scenery. It cannot exist unless it follow through the valley of a
stream. The movement is so easy that, with your eyes shut, you do not
know you move. The route is so direct, that when you are once shielded
from the sun, you are safe for hours. You draw, you read, you write, or
you sew, crochet, or knit. You play on your flute or your guitar,
without one hint of inconvenience. At a "low bridge" you duck your head
lest you lose your hat,--and that reminder teaches you that you are
human. You are glad to know this, and you laugh at the memento. For the
rest of the time you journey, if you are "all right" within, in elysium.
I rode one of those horses perhaps two or three hours a day. At locks I
made myself generally useful. At night I walked the deck till one
o'clock, with my pipe or without it, to keep guard against the
lock-thieves. The skipper asked me sometimes, after he found I could
"cipher," to disentangle some of the knots in his bills of lading for
him. But all this made but a little inroad in those lovely autumn days,
and for the eight days that we glided along,--there is one blessed level
which is seventy miles long,--I spent most of my time with Fausta. We
walked together on the tow-path to get our appetites for dinner and for
supper. At sunrise I always made a cruise inland, and collected the
gentians and black alder-berries and colored leaves, with which she
dressed Mrs. Grill's table. She took an interest in my wretched
sketch-book, and though she did not and does not draw well, she did show
me how to spread an even tint, which I never knew before. I was working
up my French. She knew about as much and as little as I did, and we
read Mad. Reybaud's Clementine together, guessing at the hard words,
because we had no dictionary.
Dear old Grill offered to talk French at table, and we tried it for a
few days. But it proved he picked up his pronunciation at St.
Catherine's, among the boatmen there, and he would say _shwo_ for
"horses," where the book said _chevaux_. Our talk, on the other hand,
was not Parisian,--but it was not Catherinian,--and we subsided into
English again.
So sped along these blessed eight days. I told Fausta thus much of my
story, that I was going to seek my fortune in New York. She, of course,
knew nothing of me but what she saw, and she told me nothing of her
story.
But I was very sorry when we came into the basin at Troy, for I knew
then that in all reason I must take the steamboat down. And I was very
glad,--I have seldom in my life been so glad,--when I found that she
also was going to New York immediately. She accepted, very pleasantly,
my offer to carry her trunk to the Isaac Newton for her, and to act as
her escort to the city. For me, my trunk,
"in danger tried,"
Swung in my hand,--"nor left my side."
My earthly possessions were few anywhere. I had left at Attica most of
what they were. Through the voyage I had been man enough to keep on a
working-gear fit for a workman's duty. And old Grills had not yet grace
enough to keep his boat still on Sunday. How one remembers little
things! I can remember each touch of the toilet, as, in that corner of a
dark cuddy where I had shared "Zekiel's" bunk with him. I dressed myself
with one of my two white shirts, and with the change of raiment which
had been tight squeezed in my portmanteau. The old overcoat was the best
part of it, as in a finite world it often is. I sold my felt hat to
Zekiel, and appeared with a light travelling-cap. I do not know how
Fausta liked my metamorphosis. I only know that, like butterflies, for a
day or two after they go through theirs, I felt decidedly cold.
As Carter, the canal man, I had carried Fausta's trunk on board. As Mr.
Carter, I gave her my arm, led her to the gangway of the Newton, took
her passage and mine, and afterwards walked and sat through the splendid
moonlight of the first four hours down the river.
Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast on the boat. Be it
observed that I did not then know her by any other name. She was to go
to an aunt's house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its early
arrival in New York, she would disturb that lady by a premature ringing
at her bell. I had no reason for haste, as the reader knows. The
distribution of the cyclopædias was not to take place till the next day,
and that absurd trifle was the only distinct excuse I had to myself for
being in New York at all. I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not
be her escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it would be hard to
break off our pleasant journey before I had seen where she lived, and I
thought she seemed relieved to know that she should not be wholly a
stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her aunt would send no
one to meet her.
These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our respective cabins. And
when, the next morning, at that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia
trains and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I rejoiced that
breakfast was not till seven o'clock, that I had two hours more of the
berth, which was luxury compared to Zekiel's bunk,--I turned upon my
other side and slept on.
Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the next thirty-six hours.
For when I went on deck, and sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones
that I was waiting for her, and then took from her the check for her
trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in that treacherous two
hours, some pirate from the pier had stepped on board, had seized the
waiting trunk, left almost alone, while the baggage-master's back was
turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not return to
Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell had long passed and the
breakfast was very cold. I did not then tell it to her till I had seen
her eat her breakfast with an appetite much better than mine. I had
already offered up stairs the largest reward to anybody who would bring
it back which my scanty purse would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who
had sent for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did not choose
to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed news. The officer came before
breakfast was over, and called me from table.
On the whole, his business-like way encouraged one. He had some clews
which I had not thought possible. It was not unlikely that they should
pounce on the trunk before it was broken open. I gave him a written
description of its marks; and when he civilly asked if "my lady" would
give some description of any books or other articles within, I readily
promised that I would call with such a description at the police
station. Somewhat encouraged, I returned to Miss Jones, and, when I led
her from the breakfast-table, told her of her misfortune. I took all
shame to myself for my own carelessness, to which I attributed the loss.
But I told her all that the officer had said to me, and that I hoped to
bring her the trunk at her aunt's before the day was over.
Fausta took my news, however, with a start which frightened me. All her
money, but a shilling or two, was in the trunk. To place money in trunks
is a weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere seen accounted
for. Worse than this, though,--as appeared after a moment's examination
of her travelling _sac_,--her portfolio in the trunk contained the
letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her her address in
the city. To this address she had no other clew but that her aunt was
Mrs. Mary Mason, had married a few years before a merchant named Mason,
whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of whose name and business this was
all she knew. They lived in a numbered street, but whether it was Fourth
Street, or Fifty-fourth, or One Hundred and Twenty-fourth, or whether it
was something between, the poor child had no idea. She had put up the
letter carefully, but had never thought of the importance of the
address. Besides this aunt, she knew no human being in New York.
"Child of the Public," I said to myself, "what do you do now?" I had
appealed to my great patron in sending for the officer, and on the whole
I felt that my sovereign had been gracious to me, if not yet hopeful.
But now I must rub my lamp again, and ask the genie where the unknown
Mason lived. The genie of course suggested the Directory, and I ran for
it to the clerk's office. But as we were toiling down the pages of
"Masons," and had written off thirteen or fourteen who lived in numbered
streets, Fausta started, looked back at the preface and its date, flung
down her pencil in the only abandonment of dismay in which I ever saw
her, and cried, "First of May! They were abroad until May. They have
been abroad since the day they were married!" So that genie had to put
his glories into his pocket, and carry his Directory back to the office
again.
The natural thing to propose was, that I should find for Miss Jones a
respectable boarding-house, and that she should remain there until her
trunk was found, or till she could write to friends who had this fatal
address, and receive an answer. But here she hesitated. She hardly liked
to explain why,--did not explain wholly. But she did not say that she
had no friends who knew this address. She had but few relations in the
world, and her aunt had communicated with her alone since she came from
Europe. As for the boarding-house, "I had rather look for work," she
said bravely. "I have never promised to pay money when I did not know
how to obtain it; and that"--and here she took out fifty or sixty cents
from her purse--"and that is all now. In respectable boarding-houses,
when people come without luggage, they are apt to ask for an advance.
Or, at least," she added with some pride, "I am apt to offer it."
I hastened to ask her to take all my little store; but I had to own that
I had not two dollars. I was sure, however, that my overcoat and the
dress-suit I wore would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly up
some spout. I was sure that I should be at work within a day or two. At
all events, I was certain of the cyclopædia the next day. That should go
to old Gowan's,--in Fulton Street it was then,--"the moral centre of the
intellectual world," in the hour I got it. And at this moment, for the
first time, the thought crossed me, "If mine could only be the name
drawn, so that that foolish $5,000 should fall to me." In that case I
felt that Fausta might live in "a respectable boarding-house" till she
died. Of this, of course, I said nothing, only that she was welcome to
my poor dollar and a half, and that I should receive the next day some
more money that was due me.
"You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, as proudly as
before,--"you forget that I cannot borrow of you any more than of a
boarding-house-keeper. I never borrow. Please God, I never will. It must
be," she added, "that in a Christian city like this there is some
respectable and fit arrangement made for travellers who find themselves
where I am. What that provision is I do not know; but I will find out
what it is before this sun goes down."
I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been fascinated by this
lovely girl before, I now bowed in respect before her dignity and
resolution; and, with my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of
self-respect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as principles
of her life, two principles on which I had always myself tried to live.
The half-expressed habits of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for
me as axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but right and
truth.
I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I expressed my regret that she
would not let me help her,--joined with my certainty that she was in the
right in refusing,--and then it the only stiff speech I ever made to
her, I said:--
"I am the 'Child of the Public.' If you ever hear my story, you will
say so too. At the least, I can claim this, that I have a right to help
you in your quest as to the way in which the public will help you. Thus
far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom he has intrusted you.
Are you ready, then, to go on shore?"
Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, as if it were the
last link holding her to her old safe world.
"Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain,
As what she ne'er might see again."
Then she looked right through me; and if there had been one mean thought
in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she said,
sadly,--
"I have perfect confidence in you, though people would say we were
strangers. Let us go."
And we left the boat together. We declined the invitations of the noisy
hackmen, and walked slowly to Broadway.
We stopped at the station-house for that district, and to the attentive
chief Fausta herself described those contents of her trunk which she
thought would be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her mother's
Bible, at which the chief shook his head; Bibles, alas! brought nothing
at the shops; a soldier's medal, such as were given as target prizes by
the Montgomery regiment; and a little silver canteen, marked with the
device of the same regiment, seemed to him better worthy of note. Her
portfolio was wrought with a cipher, and she explained to him that she
was most eager that this should be recovered. The pocketbook contained
more than one hundred dollars, which she described, but he shook his
head here, and gave her but little hope of that, if the trunk were once
opened. His chief hope was for this morning.
"And where shall we send to you then, madam?" said he.
I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the impression Fausta had
made upon the officer, in her quiet, simple, ladylike dress and manner.
For myself, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or bearing,
a scrap of gold or of pinchbeck, would have ruined both of us in our
appeal. But, fortunately, I did not disgrace her, and the man looked at
her as if he expected her to say "Fourteenth Street." What would she
say?
"That depends upon what the time will be. Mr. Carter will call at noon,
and will let you know."
We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more she begged my pardon, almost
with tears; but I told her that if she also had been a "Child of the
Public," she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her father's
officers. I begged her to use me as her protector, and not to apologize
again. Then we laid out the plans which we followed out that day.
The officer's manner had reassured her, and I succeeded in persuading
her that it was certain we should have the trunk at noon. How much
better to wait, at least so far, before she entered on any of the
enterprises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering herself as a
nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoever would employ her, if only she
could thus secure an honest home till money or till aunt were found.
Once persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I told her that we
must go on, as we did on the canal, and first we must take our
constitutional walk for two hours.
"At least," she said, "our good papa, the Public, gives us wonderful
sights to see, and good walking to our feet, as a better Father has
given us this heavenly sky and this bracing air."
And with those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face for
that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring a new
city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in
print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as
residents always forget to do, and laying up, in short, with those
streets, nearly all the associations which to this day we have with
them.
Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course. I do not know what
she meant to do next; but at ten I said, "Time for French, Miss Jones."
"_Ah oui_" said she, "_mais où_?" and I had calculated my distances, and
led her at once into Lafayette Place; and, in a moment, pushed open the
door of the Astor Library, led her up the main stairway, and said,
"This is what the Public provides for his children when they have to
study."
"This is the Astor," said she, delighted. "And we are all right, as you
say, here?" Then she saw that our entrance excited no surprise among the
few readers, men and women, who were beginning to assemble.
We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and began to revel in the
luxuries for which we had only to ask that we might enjoy. I had a
little memorandum of books which I had been waiting to see. She needed
none; but looked for one and another, and yet another, and between us we
kept the attendant well in motion. A pleasant thing to me to be finding
out her thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was happy enough to
interest her in some of my pet readings; and, of course, for she was a
woman, to get quick hints which had never dawned on me before. A very
short hour and a half we spent there before I went to the station-house
again. I went very quickly. I returned to her very slowly.
The trunk was not found. But they were now quite sure they were on its
track. They felt certain it had been carried from pier to pier and taken
back up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The particular
rascal who was supposed to have it would certainly stop either at
Piermont or at Newburg. They had telegraphed to both places, and were in
time for both. "The day boat, sir, will bring your lady's trunk, and
will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, I hope," said the officer. But at the same
moment, as he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch had yet been
received from either of the places named. I did not feel so certain as
he did.
But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my news. "Thus far," said she,
"the Public serves me well. I will borrow no trouble by want of faith."
And I--as Dante would say--and I, to her, "will you let me remind you,
then, that at one we dine, that Mrs. Grills is now placing the salt-pork
upon the cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing; and, as this
is the only day when I can have the honor of your company, will you let
me show you how a Child of the Public dines, when his finances are low?"
Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than before, "I have
perfect confidence in you,"--little thinking how she started my blood
with the words; but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand
upon my arm, as we walked down the street together.
If we had been snobs, or even if I had been one, I should have taken her
to Taylor's, and have spent all the money I had on such a luncheon as
neither of us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am not a snob
of that sort. I show my colors. I led her into a little cross-street
which I had noticed in our erratic morning pilgrimage. We stopped at a
German baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble table, and I
bought two rolls. She declined lager, which I offered her in fun. We
took water instead, and we had dined, and had paid two cents for our
meal, and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock struck two.
"And now, Mr. Carter," said she, "I will steal no more of your day. You
did not come to New York to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or
to dinner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read French. I
insist on your going to your affairs, and leaving me to mine. If you
will meet me at the Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank
you; till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a merry laugh,
"adieu!"
I knew very well that no harm could happen to her in two hours of an
autumn afternoon. I was not sorry for her _congé_, for it gave me an
opportunity to follow my own plans. I stopped at one or two
cabinet-makers, and talked with the "jours" about work, that I might
tell her with truth that I had been in search of it;--then I sedulously
began on calling upon every man I could reach named Mason. O, how often
I went through one phase or another of this colloquy:--
"Is Mr. Mason in?"
"That's my name, sir."
"Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who returned from Europe last
May?"
"Know no such person, sir."
The reader can imagine how many forms this dialogue could be repeated
in, before, as I wrought my way through a long line of dry-goods cases
to a distant counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No, madam, I
know no such person as you describe"; and from the recess Fausta emerged
and met me. Her plan for the afternoon had been the same with mine. We
laughed as we detected each other; then I told her she had had quite
enough of this, that it was time she should rest, and took her, _nolens
volens_, into the ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade her wait
there through the twilight, with my copy of Clementine, till I should
return from the police-station. If the reader has ever waited in such a
place for some one to come and attend to him, he will understand that
nobody will be apt to molest him when he has not asked for attention.
Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which there the Public had
provided for her. Then I returned, sadly enough. No tidings of Rowdy
Rob, none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or anything. Still was
my district sergeant hopeful, and, as always, respectful. But I was
hopeless this time, and I knew that the next day Fausta would be
plunging into the war with intelligence-houses and advertisements. For
the night, I was determined that she should spend it in my ideal
"respectable boarding-house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one
or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself where I would take
her. Still I thought it wisest that we should go after tea; and another
cross-street baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the
Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told Fausta of the
respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say
no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there. "There
must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a
church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."
So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the sexton by arriving an
hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that
Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat, she
at one end, I at the other; and, if the whole truth be told, each of us
fell asleep at once, and slept till the heavy organ tones taught us that
the service had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled in then,
and the preacher, good soul, he took for his text, "Doth not God care
for the ravens?" I cannot describe the ineffable feeling of home that
came over me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never been in so
large a church before. I had never heard so heavy an organ before.
Perhaps I had heard better preaching, but never any that came to my
occasions more. But it was none of these things which moved me. It was
the fact that we were just where we had a right to be. No impudent
waiter could ask us why we were sitting there, nor any petulant
policeman propose that we should push on. It was God's house, and,
because his, it was his children's.
All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it proved, upon Fausta
also. For when the service was ended, and I ventured to ask her whether
she also had this sense of home and rest, she assented so eagerly, that
I proposed, though with hesitation, a notion which had crossed me, that
I should leave her there.
"I cannot think," I said, "of any possible harm that could come to you
before morning."
"Do you know, I had thought of that very same thing, but I did not dare
tell you," she said.
Was not I glad that she had considered me her keeper! But I only said,
"At the 'respectable boarding-house' you might be annoyed by questions."
"And no one will speak to me here. I know that from Goody Two-Shoes."
"I will be here," said I, "at sunrise in the morning." And so I bade her
good by, insisting on leaving in the pew my own great-coat. I knew she
might need it before morning. I walked out as the sexton closed the door
below on the last of the down-stairs worshippers. He passed along the
aisles below, with his long poker which screwed down the gas. I saw at
once that he had no intent of exploring the galleries. But I loitered
outside till I saw him lock the doors and depart; and then, happy in the
thought that Miss Jones was in the safest place in New York,--as
comfortable as she was the night before, and much more comfortable than
she had been any night upon the canal, I went in search of my own
lodging.
"To the respectable boarding-house?"
Not a bit, reader. I had no shillings for respectable or disrespectable
boarding-houses. I asked the first policeman where his district station
was. I went into its office, and told the captain that I was green in
the city; had got no work and no money. In truth, I had left my purse in
Miss Jones's charge, and a five-cent piece, which I showed the chief,
was all I had. He said no word but to bid me go up two flights and turn
into the first bunk I found. I did so; and in five minutes was asleep in
a better bed than I had slept in for nine days.
That was what the Public did for me that night. I, too, was safe!
I am making this story too long. But with that night and its anxieties
the end has come. At sunrise I rose and made my easy toilet. I bought
and ate my roll,--varying the brand from yesterday's. I bought another,
with a lump of butter, and an orange, for Fausta. I left my portmanteau
at the station, while I rushed to the sexton's house, told his wife I
had left my gloves in church the night before,--as was the truth,--and
easily obtained from her the keys. In a moment I was in the
vestibule--locked in--was in the gallery, and there found Fausta, just
awake, as she declared, from a comfortable night, reading her morning
lesson in the Bible, and sure, she said, that I should soon appear. Nor
ghost, nor wraith, had visited her. I spread for her a brown paper
tablecloth on the table in the vestibule. I laid out her breakfast for
her, called her, and wondered at her toilet. How is it that women always
make themselves appear as neat and finished as if there were no
conflict, dust, or wrinkle in the world.
[Here Fausta adds, in this manuscript, a parenthesis, to say that she
folded her undersleeves neatly, and her collar, before she slept, and
put them between the cushions, upon which she slept. In the morning they
had been pressed--without a sad-iron.]
She finished her repast. I opened the church door for five minutes. She
passed out when she had enough examined the monuments, and at a
respectable distance I followed her. We joined each other, and took our
accustomed morning walk; but then she resolutely said, "Good by," for
the day. She would find work before night,--work and a home. And I must
do the same. Only when I pressed her to let me know of her success, she
said she would meet me at the Astor Library just before it closed. No,
she would not take my money. Enough, that for twenty-four hours she had
been my guest. When she had found her aunt and told her the story, they
should insist on repaying this hospitality. Hospitality, dear reader,
which I had dispensed at the charge of six cents. Have you ever treated
Miranda for a day and found the charge so low? When I urged other
assistance she said resolutely, "No." In fact, she had already made an
appointment at two, she said, and she must not waste the day.
I also had an appointment at two; for it was at that hour that Burrham
was to distribute the cyclopædias at Castle Garden. The Emigrant
Commission had not yet seized it for their own. I spent the morning in
asking vainly for Masons fresh from Europe, and for work in
cabinet-shops. I found neither, and so wrought my way to the appointed
place, where, instead of such wretched birds in the bush, I was to get
one so contemptible in my hand.
Those who remember Jenny Lind's first triumph night at Castle Garden
have some idea of the crowd as it filled gallery and floor of that
immense hall when I entered. I had given no thought to the machinery of
this folly, I only know that my ticket bade me be there at two P.M. this
day. But as I drew near, the throng, the bands of policemen, the long
queues of persons entering, reminded me that here was an affair of ten
thousand persons, and also that Mr. Burrham was not unwilling to make it
as showy, perhaps as noisy, an affair as was respectable, by way of
advertising future excursions and distributions. I was led to seat No.
3,671 with a good deal of parade, and when I came there I found I was
very much of a prisoner. I was late, or rather on the stroke of two.
Immediately, almost, Mr. Burrham arose in the front and made a long
speech about his liberality, and the public's liberality, and
everybody's liberality in general, and the method of the distribution in
particular. The mayor and four or five other well-known and respectable
gentlemen were kind enough to be present to guarantee the fairness of
the arrangements. At the suggestion of the mayor and the police, the
doors would now be closed, that no persons might interrupt the ceremony
till it was ended. And the distribution of the cyclopædias would at once
go forward, in the order in which the lots were drawn,--earliest numbers
securing the earliest impressions; which, as Mr. Burrham almost
regretted to say, were a little better than the latest. After these had
been distributed two figures would be drawn,--one green and one red, to
indicate the fortunate lady and gentleman who would receive respectively
the profits which had arisen from this method of selling the
cyclopædias, after the expenses of printing and distribution had been
covered, and after the magazines had been ordered.
Great cheering followed this announcement from all but me. Here I had
shut myself up in this humbug hall, for Heaven knew how long, on the
most important day of my life. I would have given up willingly my
cyclopædia and my chance at the "profits," for the certainty of seeing
Fausta at five o'clock. If I did not see her then, what might befall
her, and when might I see her again. An hour before this certainty was
my own, now it was only mine by my liberating myself from this prison.
Still I was encouraged by seeing that everything was conducted like
clock-work. From literally a hundred stations they were distributing the
books. We formed ourselves into queues as we pleased, drew our numbers,
and then presented ourselves at the bureaux, ordered our magazines, and
took our cyclopædias. It would be done, at that rate, by half past four.
An omnibus might bring me to the Park, and a Bowery car do the rest in
time. After a vain discussion for the right of exit with one or two of
the attendants, I abandoned myself to this hope, and began studying my
cyclopædia.
It was sufficiently amusing to see ten thousand people resign themselves
to the same task, and affect to be unconcerned about the green and red
figures which were to divide the "profits." I tried to make out who were
as anxious to get out of that tawdry den as I was. Four o'clock struck,
and the distribution was not done. I began to be very impatient. What if
Fausta fell into trouble? I knew, or hoped I knew, that she would
struggle to the Astor Library, as to her only place of rescue and
refuge,--her asylum. What if I failed her there? I who had pretended to
be her protector! "Protector, indeed!" she would say, if she knew I was
at a theatre witnessing the greatest folly of the age. And if I did not
meet her to-day, when should I meet her? If she found her aunt, how
should I find her? If she did not find her,--good God? that was
worse,--where might she not be before twelve hours were over? Then the
fatal trunk! I had told the police agent he might send it to the St.
Nicholas, because I had to give him some address. But Fausta did not
know this, and the St. Nicholas people knew nothing of us. I grew more
and more excited, and when at last my next neighbor told me that it was
half past four, I rose and insisted on leaving my seat. Two ushers with
blue sashes almost held me down; they showed me the whole assembly
sinking into quiet. In fact, at that moment Mr. Burrham was begging
every one to be seated. I would not be seated. I would go to the door. I
would go out. "Go, if you please!" said the usher next it,
contemptuously. And I looked, and there was no handle! Yet this was not
a dream. It is the way they arrange the doors in halls where they choose
to keep people in their places. I could have collared that grinning blue
sash. I did tell him I would wring his precious neck for him, if he did
not let me out. I said I would sue him for false imprisonment; I would
have a writ of _habeas corpus_.
"_Habeas corpus_ be d----d!" said the officer, with an irreverent
disrespect to the palladium. "If you are not more civil, sir, I will
call the police, of whom we have plenty. You say you want to go out; you
are keeping everybody in."
And, in fact, at that moment the clear voice of the mayor was announcing
that they would not go on until there was perfect quiet; and I felt that
I was imprisoning all these people, not they me.
"Child of the Public," said my mourning genius, "are you better than
other men?" So I sneaked back to seat No. 3,671, amid the contemptuous
and reproachful looks and sneers of my more respectable neighbors, who
had sat where they were told to do. We must be through in a moment, and
perhaps Fausta would be late also. If only the Astor would keep open
after sunset! How often have I wished that since, and for less reasons!
Silence thus restored, Mr. A----, the mayor, led forward his little
daughter, blindfolded her, and bade her put her hand into a green box,
from which she drew out a green ticket. He took it from her, and read,
in his clear voice again, "No. 2,973!" By this time we all knew where
the "two thousands" sat. Then "nine hundreds" were not far from the
front, so that it was not far that that frightened girl, dressed all in
black, and heavily veiled, had to walk, who answered to this call. Mr.
A---- met her, helped her up the stair upon the stage, took from her her
ticket, and read, "Jerusha Stillingfleet, of Yellow Springs, who, at her
death, as it seems, transferred this right to the bearer."
The disappointed nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine joined in a
rapturous cheer, each man and woman, to show that he or she was not
disappointed. The bearer spoke with Mr. Burrham, in answer to his
questions, and, with a good deal of ostentation, he opened a check-book,
filled a check and passed it to her, she signing a receipt as she took
it, and transferring to him her ticket. So far, in dumb show, all was
well. What was more to my purpose, it was rapid, for we should have been
done in five minutes more, but that some devil tempted some loafer in a
gallery to cry, "Face! face!" Miss Stillingfleet's legatee was still
heavily veiled.
In one horrid minute that whole amphitheatre, which seemed to me then
more cruel than the Coliseum ever was, rang out with a cry of "Face,
face!" I tried the counter-cry of "Shame! shame!" but I was in disgrace
among my neighbors, and a counter-cry never takes as its prototype does,
either. At first, on the stage, they affected not to hear or understand;
then there was a courtly whisper between Mr. Burrham and the lady; but
Mr. A----, the mayor, and the respectable gentlemen, instantly
interfered. It was evident that she would not unveil, and that they were
prepared to indorse her refusal. In a moment more she courtesied to the
assembly; the mayor gave her his arm, and led her out through a
side-door.
O, the yell that rose up then! The whole assembly stood up, and, as if
they had lost some vested right, hooted and shrieked, "Back! back! Face!
face!" Mr. A---- returned, made as if he would speak, came forward to
the very front, and got a moment's silence.
"It is not in the bond, gentlemen," said he. "The young lady is
unwilling to unveil, and we must not compel her."
"Face! face!" was the only answer, and oranges from up stairs flew
about his head and struck upon the table,--an omen only fearful from
what it prophesied. Then there was such a row for five minutes as I hope
I may never see or hear again. People kept their places fortunately,
under a vague impression that they should forfeit some magic rights if
they left those numbered seats. But when, for a moment, a file of
policemen appeared in the orchestra, a whole volley of cyclopædias fell
like rain upon their chief, with a renewed cry of "Face! face!"
At this juncture, with a good deal of knowledge of popular feeling, Mr.
A---- led forward his child again. Frightened to death the poor thing
was, and crying; he tied his handkerchief round her eyes hastily, and
took her to the red box. For a minute the house was hushed. A cry of
"Down! down!" and every one took his place as the child gave the red
ticket to her father. He read it as before, "No. 3,671!" I heard the
words as if he did not speak them. All excited by the delay and the row,
by the injustice to the stranger and the personal injustice of everybody
to me, I did not know, for a dozen seconds, that every one was looking
towards our side of the house, nor was it till my next neighbor with the
watch said, "Go, you fool," that I was aware that 3,671 was I! Even
then, as I stepped down the passage and up the steps, my only feeling
was, that I should get out of this horrid trap, and possibly find Miss
Jones lingering near the Astor,--not by any means that I was invited to
take a check for $5,000.
There was not much cheering. Women never mean to cheer, of course. The
men had cheered the green ticket, but they were mad with the red one. I
gave up my ticket, signed my receipt, and took my check, shook hands
with Mr. A---- and Mr. Burrham, and turned to bow to the mob,--for mob I
must call it now. But the cheers died away. A few people tried to go out
perhaps, but there was nothing now to retain any in their seats as
before, and the generality rose, pressed down the passages, and howled,
"Face! face!" I thought for a moment that I ought to say something, but
they would not hear me, and, after a moment's pause, my passion to
depart overwhelmed me. I muttered some apology to the gentlemen, and
left the stage by the stage door.
I had forgotten that to Castle Garden there can be no back entrance. I
came to door after door, which were all locked. It was growing dark.
Evidently the sun was set, and I knew the library door would be shut at
sunset. The passages were very obscure. All around me rang this horrid
yell of the mob, in which all that I could discern was the cry, "Face,
face!" At last, as I groped round, I came to a practicable door. I
entered a room where the western sunset glare dazzled me. I was not
alone. The veiled lady in black was there. But the instant she saw me
she sprang towards me, flung herself into my arms, and cried:--
"Felix, is it you?--you are indeed my protector!"
It was Miss Jones! It was Fausta! She was the legatee of Miss
Stillingfleet. My first thought was, "O, if that beggarly usher had let
me go! Will I ever, ever think I have better rights than the Public
again?"
I took her in my arms. I carried her to the sofa. I could hardly speak
for excitement. Then I did say that I had been wild with terror; that I
had feared I had lost her, and lost her forever; that to have lost that
interview would have been worse to me than death; for unless she knew
that I loved her better than man ever loved woman, I could not face a
lonely night, and another lonely day.
"My dear, dear child," I said, "you may think me wild; but I must say
this,--it has been pent up too long."
"Say what you will," she said after a moment, in which still I held her
in my arms; she was trembling so that she could not have sat upright
alone,--"say what you will, if only you do not tell me to spend another
day alone."
And I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I kissed her, and I said,
"Never, darling, God helping me, till I die!"
How long we sat there I do not know. Neither of us spoke again. For one,
I looked out on the sunset and the bay. We had but just time to
rearrange ourselves in positions more independent, when Mr. A----came
in, this time in alarm, to say:--
"Miss Jones, we must get you out of this place, or we must hide you
somewhere. I believe, before God, they will storm this passage, and pull
the house about our ears."
He said this, not conscious as he began that I was there. At that
moment, however, I felt as if I could have met a million men. I started
forward and passed him, saying, "Let me speak to them." I rushed upon
the stage, fairly pushing back two or three bullies who were already
upon it. I sprang upon the table, kicking down the red box as I did so,
so that the red tickets fell on the floor and on the people below. One
stuck in an old man's spectacles in a way which made the people in the
galleries laugh. A laugh is a great blessing at such a moment. Curiosity
is another. Three loud words spoken like thunder do a good deal more.
And after three words the house was hushed to hear me. I said:--
"Be fair to the girl. She has no father nor mother She has no brother
nor sister. She is alone in the world, with nobody to help her but the
Public--and me!"
The audacity of the speech brought out a cheer and we should have come
off in triumph, when some rowdy--the original "face" man, I
suppose--said,--
"And who are you?"
If the laugh went against me now I was lost, of course. Fortunately I
had no time to think. I said without thinking,--
"I am the Child of the Public, and her betrothed husband!"
O Heavens! what a yell of laughter, of hurrahings, of satisfaction with
a _dénouement_, rang through the house, and showed that all was well.
Burrham caught the moment, and started his band, this time
successfully,--I believe with "See the Conquering Hero." The doors, of
course, had been open long before. Well-disposed people saw they need
stay no longer; ill-disposed people dared not stay; the blue-coated men
with buttons sauntered on the stage in groups, and I suppose the worst
rowdies disappeared as they saw them. I had made my single speech, and
for the moment I was a hero.
I believe the mayor would have liked to kiss me. Burrham almost did.
They overwhelmed me with thanks and congratulations. All these I
received as well as I could,--somehow I did not feel at all
surprised,--everything was as it should be. I scarcely thought of
leaving the stage myself, till, to my surprise, the mayor asked me to go
home with him to dinner.
Then I remembered that we were not to spend the rest of our lives in
Castle Garden. I blundered out something about Miss Jones, that she had
no escort except me, and pressed into her room to find her. A group of
gentlemen was around her. Her veil was back now. She was very pale, but
very lovely. Have I said that she was beautiful as heaven? She was the
queen of the room, modestly and pleasantly receiving their felicitations
that the danger was over, and owning that she had been very much
frightened.
"Until," she said, "my friend, Mr. Carter, was fortunate enough to guess
that I was here. How he did it," she said, turning to me, "is yet an
utter mystery to me."
She did not know till then that it was I who had shared with her the
profits of the cyclopædias.
As soon as we could excuse ourselves, I asked some one to order a
carriage. I sent to the ticket-office for my valise, and we rode to the
St. Nicholas. I fairly laughed as I gave the hackman at the hotel door
what would have been my last dollar and a half only two hours before. I
entered Miss Jones's name and my own. The clerk looked, and said,
inquiringly,--
"Is it Miss Jones's trunk which came this afternoon?"
I followed his finger to see the trunk on the marble floor. Rowdy Rob
had deserted it, having seen, perhaps, a detective when he reached
Piermont. The trunk had gone to Albany, had found no owner, and had
returned by the day boat of that day.
Fausta went to her room, and I sent her supper after her. One kiss and
"Good night" was all that I got from her then.
"In the morning," said she, "you shall explain."
It was not yet seven, I went to my own room and dressed, and tendered
myself at the mayor's just before his gay party sat down to dine. I met,
for the first time in my life, men whose books I had read, and whose
speeches I had by heart, and women whom I have since known to honor;
and, in the midst of this brilliant group, so excited had Mr. A---- been
in telling the strange story of the day, I was, for the hour, the lion.
I led Mrs. A---- to the table; I made her laugh very heartily by telling
her of the usher's threats to me, and mine to him, and of the disgrace
into which I fell among the three thousand six hundreds. I had never
been at any such party before. But I found it was only rather simpler
and more quiet than most parties I had seen, that its good breeding was
exactly that of dear Betsy Myers.
As the party broke up, Mrs. A---- said to me,--
"Mr. Carter, I am sure you are tired, with all this excitement. You say
you are a stranger here. Let me send round for your trunk to the St.
Nicholas, and you shall spend the night here. I know I can make you a
better bed than they."
I thought as much myself, and assented. In half an hour more I was in
bed in Mrs. A----'s "best room."
"I shall not sleep better," said I to myself, "than I did last night."
That was what the Public did for me that night. I was safe again!
CHAPTER LAST.
FAUSTA'S STORY.
Fausta slept late, poor child. I called for her before breakfast. I
waited for her after. About ten she appeared, so radiant, so beautiful,
and so kind! The trunk had revealed a dress I never saw before, and the
sense of rest, and eternal security, and unbroken love had revealed a
charm which was never there to see before. She was dressed for walking,
and, as she met me, said,--
"Time for constitutional, Mr. Millionnaire."
So we walked again, quite up town, almost to the region of pig-pens and
cabbage-gardens which is now the Central Park. And after just the first
gush of my enthusiasm, Fausta said, very seriously:--
"I must teach you to be grave. You do not know whom you are asking to be
your wife. Excepting Mrs. Mason, No. 27 Thirty-fourth Street, sir, there
is no one in the world who is of kin to me, and she does not care for me
one straw, Felix," she said, almost sadly now. "You call yourself 'Child
of the Public.' I started when you first said so, for that is just what
I am.
"I am twenty-two years old. My father died before I was born. My mother,
a poor woman, disliked by his relatives and avoided by them, went to
live in Hoboken over there, with me. How she lived, God knows, but it
happened that of a strange death she died, I in her arms."
After a pause, the poor girl went on:--
"There was a great military review, an encampment. She was tempted out
to see it. Of a sudden by some mistake, a ramrod was fired from a
careless soldier's gun, and it pierced her through her heart. I tell
you, Felix, it pinned my baby frock into the wound, so that they could
not part me from her till it was cut away.
"Of course every one was filled with horror. Nobody claimed poor me, the
baby. But the battalion, the Montgomery Battalion, it was, which had, by
mischance, killed my mother, adopted me as their child. I was voted
'Fille du Regiment.' They paid an assessment annually, which the colonel
expended for me. A kind old woman nursed me."
"She was your Betsy Myers," interrupted I.
"And when I was old enough I was sent into Connecticut, to the best of
schools. This lasted till I was sixteen. Fortunately for me, perhaps,
the Montgomery Battalion then dissolved. I was finding it hard to answer
the colonel's annual letters. I had my living to earn,--it was best I
should earn it. I declined a proposal to go out as a missionary. I had
no call. I answered one of Miss Beecher's appeals for Western teachers.
Most of my life since has been a school-ma'am's. It has had ups and
downs. But I have always been proud that the Public was my godfather;
and, as you know," she said, "I have trusted the Public well. I have
never been lonely, wherever I went. I tried to make myself of use. Where
I was of use I found society. The ministers have been kind to me. I
always offered my services in the Sunday schools and sewing-rooms. The
school committees have been kind to me. They are the Public's high
chamberlains for poor girls. I have written for the journals. I won one
of Sartain's hundred-dollar prizes--"
"And I another," interrupted I.
"When I was very poor, I won the first prize for an essay on bad boys."
"And I the second," answered I.
"I think I know one bad boy better than he knows himself," said she. But
she went on. "I watched with this poor Miss Stillingfleet the night she
died. This absurd 'distribution' had got hold of her, and she would not
be satisfied till she had transferred that strange ticket, No. 2,973, to
me, writing the indorsement which you have heard. I had had a longing to
visit New York and Hoboken again. This ticket seemed to me to beckon me.
I had money enough to come, if I would come cheaply. I wrote to my
father's business partner, and enclosed a note to his only sister. She
is Mrs. Mason. She asked me, coldly enough, to her house. Old Mr. Grills
always liked me,--he offered me escort and passage as far as Troy or
Albany. I accepted his proposal, and you know the rest."
When I told Fausta my story, she declared I made it up as I went along.
When she believed it,--as she does believe it now,--she agreed with me
in declaring that it was not fit that two people thus joined should ever
be parted. Nor have we been, ever!
She made a hurried visit at Mrs. Mason's. She prepared there for her
wedding. On the 1st of November we went into that same church which was
our first home in New York; and that dear old raven-man made us
ONE!
THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET.
BY J. THOMAS DARKAGH (LATE C.C.S.).
[This paper was first published in the "Galaxy," in 1866.]
* * * * *
I see that an old chum of mine is publishing bits of confidential
Confederate History in Harper's Magazine. It would seem to be time,
then, for the pivots to be disclosed on which some of the wheelwork of
the last six years has been moving. The science of history, as I
understand it, depends on the timely disclosure of such pivots, which
are apt to be kept out of view while things are moving.
I was in the Civil Service at Richmond. Why I was there, or what I did,
is nobody's affair. And I do not in this paper propose to tell how it
happened that I was in New York in October, 1864, on confidential
business. Enough that I was there, and that it was honest business. That
business done, as far as it could be with the resources intrusted to me,
I prepared to return home. And thereby hangs this tale, and, as it
proved, the fate of the Confederacy.
For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to my family. Very little
question was there what these presents should be,--for I had no boys nor
brothers. The women of the Confederacy had one want, which overtopped
all others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had from
Columbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands;
snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern." But we
had no hoop-skirts,--skeletons, we used to call them. No ingenuity had
made them. No bounties had forced them. The Bat, the Greyhound, the
Deer, the Flora, the J.C. Cobb, the Varuna, and the Fore-and-Aft all
took in cargoes of them for us in England. But the Bat and the Deer and
the Flora were seized by the blockaders, the J.C. Cobb sunk at sea, the
Fore-and-Aft and the Greyhound were set fire to by their own crews, and
the Varuna (our Varuna) was never heard of. Then the State of Arkansas
offered sixteen townships of swamp land to the first manufacturer who
would exhibit five gross of a home-manufactured article. But no one ever
competed. The first attempts, indeed, were put to an end, when Schofield
crossed the Blue Lick, and destroyed the dams on Yellow Branch. The
consequence was, that people's crinoline collapsed faster than the
Confederacy did, of which that brute of a Grierson said there was never
anything of it but the outside.
Of course, then, I put in the bottom of my new large trunk in New York,
not a "duplex elliptic," for none were then made, but a "Belmonte," of
thirty springs, for my wife. I bought, for her more common wear, a good
"Belle-Fontaine." For Sarah and Susy each, I got two "Dumb-Belles." For
Aunt Eunice and Aunt Clara, maiden sisters of my wife, who lived with us
after Winchester fell the fourth time, I got the "Scotch Harebell," two
of each. For my own mother I got one "Belle of the Prairies" and one
"Invisible Combination Gossamer." I did not forget good old Mamma Chloe
and Mamma Jane. For them I got substantial cages, without names. With
these, tied in the shapes of figure eights in the bottom of my trunk, as
I said, I put in an assorted cargo of dry-goods above, and, favored by a
pass, and Major Mulford's courtesy on the flag-of-truce boat, I arrived
safely at Richmond before the autumn closed.
I was received at home with rapture. But when, the next morning, I
opened my stores, this became rapture doubly enraptured. Words cannot
tell the silent delight with which old and young, black and white,
surveyed these fairy-like structures, yet unbroken and unmended.
Perennial summer reigned that autumn day in that reunited family. It
reigned the next day, and the next. It would have reigned till now if
the Belmontes and the other things would last as long as the
advertisements declare; and, what is more, the Confederacy would have
reigned till now, President Davis and General Lee! but for that great
misery, which all families understand, which culminated in our great
misfortune.
I was up in the cedar closet one day, looking for an old parade cap of
mine, which I thought, though it was my third best, might look better
than my second best, which I had worn ever since my best was lost at the
Seven Pines. I say I was standing on the lower shelf of the cedar
closet, when, as I stepped along in the darkness, my right foot caught
in a bit of wire, my left did not give way in time, and I fell, with a
small wooden hat-box in my hand, full on the floor. The corner of the
hat-box struck me just below the second frontal sinus, and I fainted
away.
When I came to myself I was in the blue chamber; I had vinegar on a
brown paper on my forehead; the room was dark, and I found mother
sitting by me, glad enough indeed to hear my voice, and to know that I
knew her. It was some time before I fully understood what had happened.
Then she brought me a cup of tea, and I, quite refreshed, said I must go
to the office.
"Office, my child!" said she. "Your leg is broken above the ankle; you
will not move these six weeks. Where do you suppose you are?"
Till then I had no notion that it was five minutes since I went into the
closet. When she told me the time, five in the afternoon, I groaned in
the lowest depths. For, in my breast pocket in that innocent coat, which
I could now see lying on the window-seat, were the duplicate despatches
to Mr. Mason, for which, late the night before, I had got the
Secretary's signature. They were to go at ten that morning to
Wilmington, by the Navy Department's special messenger. I had taken them
to insure care and certainty. I had worked on them till midnight, and
they had not been signed till near one o'clock. Heavens and earth, and
here it was five o'clock! The man must be half-way to Wilmington by this
time. I sent the doctor for Lafarge, my clerk. Lafarge did his prettiest
in rushing to the telegraph. But no! A freshet on the Chowan River, or a
raid by Foster, or something, or nothing, had smashed the telegraph wire
for that night. And before that despatch ever reached Wilmington the
navy agent was in the offing in the Sea Maid.
"But perhaps the duplicate got through?" No, breathless reader, the
duplicate did not get through. The duplicate was taken by Faucon, in the
Ino. I saw it last week in Dr. Lieber's hands, in Washington. Well, all
I know is, that if the duplicate had got through, the Confederate
government would have had in March a chance at eighty-three thousand two
hundred and eleven muskets, which, as it was, never left Belgium. So
much for my treading into that blessed piece of wire on the shelf of the
cedar closet, up stairs.
"What was the bit of wire?"