"_Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm._"
Gray
Jim scarcely felt the jolting of the ambulance over the city stones, and
his impatience and eagerness to get across the intervening space made
dust, and heat, and weariness of travel seem but as feather weights, not
to be cared for, nor indeed considered at all; though, in fact, his arm
complained, and his leg ached distressingly, and he was faint and weak
without confessing it long before the tiresome journey reached its end.
"No matter," he said to himself; "it'll be all well, or forgotten, at
least, when I see Sallie once more; and so, what odds?"
The end was gained at last, and he would have gone to her fast as
certain Rosinantes, yclept hackhorses, could carry him, but, stopping
for a moment to consider, he thought, "No, that will never do! Go to
her looking like such a guy? Nary time. I'll get scrubbed, and put on a
clean shirt, and make myself decent, before she sees me. She always used
to look nice as a new pin, and she liked me to look so too; so I'd
better put my best foot foremost when she hasn't laid eyes on me for
such an age. I'm fright enough, anyway, goodness knows, with my
thinness, and my old lame leg; so--" sticking his head out of the
window, and using his lungs with astonishing vigor--"Driver! streak like
lightning, will you, to the 'Merchants'? and you shall have extra fare."
"Hold your blab there," growled the driver; "I ain't such a pig yet as
to take double fare from a wounded soldier. You'll pay me well at
half-price,--when we get where you want to go,"--which they did soon.
"No!" said Jehu, thrusting back part of the money, "I ain't agoin' to
take it, so you needn't poke it out at me. I'm all right; or, if I
ain't, I'll make it up on the next broadcloth or officer I carry; never
you fear! us fellows knows how to take care of ourselves, you'd better
believe!" which statement Jim would have known to be truth, without the
necessity of repetition, had he been one of the aforesaid "broadcloths,"
or "officers," and thus better acquainted with the genus hack-driver in
the ordinary exercise of its profession.
As it was; he shook hands with the fellow, pocketed the surplus change,
made his way into the hotel, was in his room, in his bath, under the
barber's hands, cleaned, shaved, brushed, polished, shining,--as he
himself would have declared, "in a jiffy" Then, deciding himself to be
presentable to the lady of his heart, took his crutch and sallied forth,
as good-looking a young fellow, spite of the wooden appendage, as any
the sun shone upon in all the big city, and as happy, as it was bright.
He knew where to go, and, by help of street-cars and other legs than his
own, he was there speedily. He knew the very room towards which to turn;
and, reaching it, paused to look in through the half-open
door,--delighted thus to watch and listen for a little space unseen.
Sallie was sitting, her handsome head bent over her sewing,--Frankie
gambolling about the floor.
"O sis, _don't_ you wish Jim would come home?" queried the youngster. "I
do,--I wish he'd come right straight away."
"Right straight away? What do _you_ want to see Jim for?"
"O, 'cause he's nice; and 'cause he'll take me to the Theayter; and
'cause he'll treat,--apples, and peanuts, and candy, you know,
and--and--ice-cream," wiping the beads from his little red face,--the
last desideratum evidently suggested by the fiery summer heat. "I say,
Sallie!"--a pause--"won't you get me some ice-cream this evening?"
"Yes, Bobbity, if you'll be a good boy."
Frankie looked dubious over that proposition. Jim never made any such
stipulations: so, after another pause, in which he was probably
considering the whole subject with due and becoming gravity,--evidently
desiring to hear his own wish propped up by somebody else's
seconding,--he broke out again, "Now, Sallie, don't you just wish Jim
would come home?"
"O Frankie, don't I?" cried the girl, dropping her work, and stretching
out her empty arms as though she would clasp some shape in the air.
Frankie, poor child! innocently imagining the proffered embrace was for
him, ran forward, for he was an affectionate little soul, to give Sallie
a good hug, but found himself literally left out in the cold; no arms to
meet, and no Sallie, indeed, to touch him. Something big, burly, and
blue loomed up on his sight,--something that was doing its best to crush
Sallie bodily, and to devour what was not crushed; something that could
say nothing by reason of its lips being so much more pleasantly engaged,
and whose face was invisible through its extraordinary proximity to
somebody else's face and hair.
Frankie, finding he could gain neither sight nor sound of notice, began
to howl. But as neither of the hard-hearted creatures seemed to care for
the poor little chap's howling, he fell upon the coat-tails of the big
blue obstruction, and pulled at them lustily,--not to say
viciously,--till their owner turned, and beheld him panting and fiery.
"Helloa, youngster! what's to pay now?"
"Wow! if 'tain't Jim. Hooray!" screeched the youngster, first embracing
the blue legs, and then proceeding to execute a dance upon his head.
"Te, te, di di, idde i-dum," he sang, coming feet down, finally.
Evidently the bad boy's language had been corrupted by his street
_confrères_; it was a missionary ground upon which Sallie entered, more
or less faithfully, every day to hoe and weed; but of this last
specimen-plant she took no notice, save to laugh as Jim, catching him
up, first kissed him, then gave him a shake and a small spank, and,
thrusting a piece of currency into his hand, whisked him outside the
door with a "Come, shaver, decamp, and treat yourself to-day," and had
it shut and fastened in a twinkling.
"O Jim!" she cried then, her soul in her handsome eyes.
"O Sallie!"--and he had her fast and tight once more.
An ineffable blank, punctuated liberally with sounding exclamation
points, and strongly marked periods,--though how or why a blank should
be punctuated at all, only blissful lovers could possibly define.
"Jim, dear Jim!" whispering it, and snuggling her blushing face closer
to the faded blue, "can you love me after all that has happened?"
"Come now! _can_ I love you, my beauty? Slightly, I should think. O, te,
te, di di, idde i-dum,"--singing Frank's little song with his big, gay
voice,--"I'm happy as a king."
Happy as a king, that was plain enough. And what shall be said of her,
as he sat down, and, resting the wounded leg--stiff and sore yet,--held
Sallie on his other knee,--then fell to admiring her while she stroked
his mustache and his crisp, curling hair, looking at both and at him
altogether with an expression of contented adoration in her eyes.
Frank, tired of prowling round the door, candy in hand, here thrust his
head in at the window, and, unfortunately for his plans, sneezed.
"Mutual-admiration society!" he cried at that, seeing that he was
detected in any case, and running away,--his run spoiled as soon as it
began.
"We are a handsome couple," laughed Jim, holding back her face between
both hands,--"ain't we, now?"
Yes, they were,--no mistake about that, handsome as pictures.
And merry as birds, through all of his short stay. They would see no
danger in the future: Jim had been scathed in time past so often, yet
come out safe and sound, that they would have no fear for what was to
befall him in time to come. If they had, neither showed it to the other.
Jim thought, "Sallie would break her heart, if she knew just what is
down there,--so it would be a pity to talk about it"; and Sallie
thought, "It's right for Jim to go, and I won't say a word to keep him
back, no matter how I feel."
The furlough was soon--ah! how soon--out, the days of happiness over;
and Jim, holding her in a last close embrace, said his farewell: "Come,
Sallie, you're not to cry now, and make me a coward. It'll only be for a
little while; the Rebs _can't_ stand it much longer, and then--"
"Ah, Jim! but if you should--"
"Yes, but I sha'n't, you see; not a bit of it; don't you go to think it.
'I bear'--what is it? O--'a charmed life,' as Mr. Macbeth says, and
you'll see me back right and tight, and up to time. One kiss more, dear.
God bless you! good by!" and he was gone.
She leaned out of the window,--she smiled after him, kissed her hand,
waved her handkerchief, so long as he could see them,--till he had
turned a corner way down the street,--and smile, and hand, and
handkerchief were lost to his sight; then flung herself on the floor,
and cried as though her very heart would break. "God send him
home,--send him safe and soon home!" she implored; entreaty made for how
many loved ones, by how many aching hearts, that speedily lost the need
of saying amen to any such petition,--the prayer for the living lost in
mourning for the dead. Heaven grant that no soul that reads this ever
may have the like cause to offer such prayer again!