Land! that man he bought everything. Seems though he couldn't buy
enough. Every night the big platter was heaped up an' runnin' over with
everything under the sun, an' she was like another girl. I s'pose the
things give her strength, but I reck'n the cheer helped most. She had
the surprise to look forward to all day, an' there was plenty o' light,
evenin's; an' the stove, that was drove red-hot. The doctor kep' sayin'
she was better, too, an' everything seemed lookin' right up.
"Seems queer I didn't suspect from the first something was wrong. Seems
though I ought to 'a' known money didn't grow out o' green wood the way
he was pretendin'. It wasn't two weeks before he takes me down to the
basement one night when he comes home, an' he owns up.
"'Peleg,' he says, 'I've got to tell somebody, an' God knows maybe it'll
be you that'll hev to tell her. I've stole fifty-four dollars out o' the
tray in the retail department,' says he, 'an' to-day they found me out.
They wasn't no fuss made. Lovett, the assistant cashier, is the only one
that knows. He took me aside quiet,' Mr. Loneway says, 'an' I made a
clean breast. I said what I took it for. He's a married man himself, an'
he told me if I'd make it up in three days, he'd fix it so's nobody
should know. The cashier's off for a week. In three days he's comin'
back. But they might as well ask me to make up fifty-four hundred. I've
got enough to keep on these three days so's she won't know,' he says,
'an' after that--'
"He hunched out his arms, an' I'll never forget his face.
"I says, 'Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says, 'chuck it. Tell her the whole thing
an' give 'em back what you got left, an' do your best.'
"He turned on me like a crazy man.
"'Don't talk to me like that,' he says fierce. 'You don't know what
you're sayin',' he says. 'No man does till he has this happen to him.
The judge on the bench that'll send me to jail for it, he won't know
what he's judgin'. My God--_my God!_' he says, leanin' up against the
door o' the furnace room, 'to see her sick like this--an' _needin'
things_--when she give herself to me to take care of!'
"Course there wa'n't no talkin' to him. An' the nex' night an' the nex'
he come home bringin' her truck just the same. Once he even hed her a
bunch o' pinks. Seems though he was doin' the worst he could.
"The pinks come at the end of the second day of the three days the
assistant cashier had give him to pay the money back in. An' two things
happened that night. I was in the kitchen helpin' him wash up the dishes
while the doctor was in the room with Mis' Loneway. An' when the doctor
come out o' there into the kitchen, he shuts the door. I see right off
somethin' was the matter. He took Mr. Loneway off to the back window,
an' I rattled 'round with the dishes an' took on not to notice. Up until
when the doctor goes out--an' then I felt Mr. Loneway's grip on my arm.
I looked at him, an' I knew. She wasn't goin' to get well. He just
lopped down on the chair like so much sawdust, an' put his face down in
his arm, the way a schoolboy does--an' I swan he wa'n't much more'n a
schoolboy, either. I s'pose if ever hell is in a man's heart,--an' we
mostly all see it there sometime, even if we don't feel it,--why, there
was hell in his then.
"All of a sudden there was a rap on the hall door. He never moved, an'
so I went. I whistled, I rec'lect, so's she shouldn't suspect nothin'
from our not goin' in where she was right off. An' a messenger-boy was
out there in the passage with a letter for Mr. Loneway.
"I took it in to him. He turned himself around an' opened it, though I
don't believe he knew half what he was doin'. An' what do you guess come
tumblin' out o' that envelope? Fifty-four dollars in bills. Not a word
with 'em.
"Then he broke down. 'It's Lovett,' he says, 'it's Lovett's done
this--the assistant cashier. Maybe he's told some o' the other fellows
at the desks next, an' they helped. They knew about her bein' sick. An'
they can't none of 'em afford it,' he says, an' that seemed to cut him
up worst of all. 'I'll give it back to him,' he says resolute. 'I can't
take it from 'em, Peleg.'
"I says, 'Hush up, Mr. Loneway, sir,' I says. 'You got to think o' her.
Take it,' I told him, 'an' thank God it ain't as bad as it was. Who
knows,' I ask' him, 'but what the doctor might turn out wrong?'
"Pretty soon I got him to pull himself together some, an' I shoved him
into the other room, an' I went with him, an' talked on like an idiot so
nobody'd suspect--I didn't hev no idea what.
"She was settin' up in the same black waist, with a newspaper hung
acrost the head o' the iron bed to keep the draught out. All of a
sudden,--
"'John!' says she.
"He went close by the bed.
"'Is everything goin' on good?' she ask' him.
"'Everything,' he told her right off.
"'Splendid, John?' she ask' him, pullin' his hand up by her cheek.
"'Splendid, Linda,' he says after her.
"'We got a little money ahead?' she goes on.
"'Bless me, if he didn't do just what I had time to be afraid of. He
hauls out them fifty-four dollars an' showed her.
"She claps her hands like a child.
"'Oh, _goodey_!' she says; 'I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Now I can tell
you,' she says to him.
"He took her in his arms an' kneeled down by the bed, an' I tried to
slip out, but she called me back. So I stayed, like an' axe in the
parlour.
"'John,' she says to him, 'do you know what Aunt Nita told me before I
was married? "You must always look the prettiest you know how," Aunt
Nita says,' she tells him, '"for your husband. Because you must always
be prettier for him than anybody else is." An', oh, dearest,' she says,
'you know I'd 'a' looked my best for you if I could--but I never
had--an' it wasn't your fault!' she cries out, 'but things didn't go
right. It wasn't anybody's fault. Only--I _wanted_ to look nice for you.
An' since I've been sick,' she says, 'it's made me wretched, wretched to
think I didn't hev nothin' to put on but this black waist--this homely
old black waist. You never liked me to wear black,' I rec'lect she says
to him, 'an' it killed me to think--if anything should happen--you'd be
rememberin' me like this. You think you'd remember me the way I was when
I was well--but you wouldn't,' she says earnest; 'people never, never
do. You'd remember me here like I look now. Oh--an' so I thought--if
there was ever so little money we could spare--won't you get me
somethin'--somethin' so's you could remember me better? Somethin' to
wear these few days,' she says.
"He breaks down then an' cries, with his face in her pillow.
"'Don't--why, don't!' she says to him; 'if there wasn't any money, you
might cry--only then I wouldn't never hev told you. But
now--to-morrow--you can go an' buy me a little dressing-sacque--the kind
they have in the windows on Broadway. Oh, _Jack_!' she says, 'is it
wicked an' foolish for me to want you to remember me as nice as you can?
It ain't--it _ain't_!' she says.
"Then I give out. I felt like a handful o' wet sawdust that's been
squeezed. I slid out an' downstairs, an' I guess I chopped wood near all
night. The Tomato Ketchup's husband he pounded the floor for me to shut
up, an' I told him--though I never was what you might call a impudent
janitor--that if he thought he could chop it up any more soft, he'd
better engage in it. But then the kid woke up, too, an' yelled some, an'
I's afraid she'd hear it an' remember, an' so I quit.
"Nex' mornin' I laid for Mr. Loneway in the hall.
"'Sir,' I says to him when he come down to go out, 'you won't do nothin'
foolish?' I ask' him.
"'Mind your business,' he says, his face like a patch o' poplar ashes.
"I was in an' out o' their flat all day, an' I could see't Mis' Loneway
she's happy as a lark. But I knew pretty well what was comin'. Mind you,
this was the third day.
"That night I hed things goin' in the kitchen an' the kettle on, an' I's
hesitatin' whether to put two eggs in the omelet or three, when he comes
home. He laid a eternal lot o' stuff on the kitchen table, without one
word, an' went in where she was. I heard paper rustlin', an' then I
heard her voice--an' it wasn't no cryin', lemme say. An' so I says to
myself, 'Well,' I says, 'she might as well hev a four-egg omelet,
because it'll be the last.' I knew if they's to arrest him she wouldn't
never live the day out. So I goes on with the omelet, an' when he come
out where I was, I just told him if he'd cut open the grapefruit I hed
ever'thing else ready. An' then he quit lookin' defiant, an' he calmed
down some; an' pretty soon we took in the dinner.
"She was sittin' up in front of her two pillows, pretty as a picture.
An' she was in one o' the things I ain't ever see outside a store
window. Lord! it was all the colour o' roses, with craped-up stuff like
the bark on a tree, an' rows an' rows o' lace, an' long, flappy ribbon.
She was allus pretty, but she looked like an angel in that. An' I says
to myself then, I says: 'If a woman _knows_ she looks like that in them
things, an' if she loves somebody an', livin' or dead, wants to look
like that for him, I want to know who's to blame her? I ain't--Peleg
Bemus, he ain't.' Mis' Loneway was as pretty as I ever see, not barrin'
the stage. An' she was laughin', an' her cheeks was pink-like, an' she
says,--
"'Oh, Mr. Bemus,' she says, 'I feel like a queen,' she says, 'an' you
must stay for dinner.'
"I never seen Mr. Loneway gayer. He was full o' fun an' funny sayin's,
an' his face had even lost its chalky look an' he'd got some colour, an'
he laughed with her an' he made love to her--durned if it wasn't enough
to keep a woman out o' the grave to be worshipped the way that man
worshipped her. An' when she ask' for the guitar, I carried out the
platter, an' I stayed an' straightened things some in the kitchen.
An' all the while I could hear 'em singin' soft an' laughin'
together ... an' all the while I knew what was double sure to come.
"Well, in about an hour it did come. I was waitin' for it. Fact, I had
filled up the coffee-pot expectin' it. An' when I heard the men comin'
up the stairs I takes the coffee an' what rolls there was left an' I
meets 'em in the hall, on the landing. They was two of 'em--constables,
or somethin'--with a warrant for his arrest.
"'Gentlemen,' says I, openin' the coffee-pot careless so's the smell
could get out an' circ'late--'gentlemen, he's up there in that room.
There's only these one stairs, an' the only manhole's right here over
your heads, so's you can watch that. You rec'lect that there ain't a
roof on that side o' the house. Now, I'm a lonely beggar, an' I wish't
you'd let me invite you to a cup o' hot coffee an' a hot buttered roll
or two, right over there in that hall window. You can keep your eye
peeled towards that door all the while,' I reminds 'em.
"Well, it was a bitter night, an' them two was flesh an' blood. They
'lowed that if he hadn't been there they'd 'a' had to wait for him,
anyway, so they finally set down. An' I doled 'em out the coffee. I
'lowed I could keep 'em an hour if I knew myself. Nobody could 'a' done
any different, with her an' him settin' up there singin' an' no manner
o' doubt but what it was for the last time.
"I'd be'n 'round consid'able in my time an' I knew quite a batch o'
stories. I let 'em have 'em all, an' poured the coffee down 'em. They
was willin' enough--it wa'n't cold in the halls to what it was outside,
an' the coffee was boilin' hot. An' if anybody wants to blame me, they'd
hev to see her first, all fluffed up same as a kitten in that pink
jacket-thing, afore I'd give 'em a word o' hearin'.
"In the midst of it all I heard the Tomato Ketchup's kid yell. I
remembered that this'd be my last chanst fer _her_ to see the kid when
she could get any happiness out of it. I didn't think twice--I just
filled up the cups o' them two, an' then I sails downstairs, two at a
time, an' opened the door o' first floor front without rappin'. The kid
was there in its little nightgown, howlin' fer fair because it had be'n
left alone with its boy brother. The Tomato Ketchup an' her husband was
to a wake. I picked up the kid, rolled it in a blanket, grabbed brother
by the arm, an' started up the stairs.
"'Is the house on f-f-fire?' says the boy brother.
"'Yes,' says I, 'it is. An' we're goin' upstairs to hunt up a
fire-escape,' I told him.
"At the top o' the stairs I sets him down on the floor an' promises him
an orange, an' then I opens the door, with the kid on my arm. It had
stopped yellin' by then, an' it was settin' up straight, with its eyes
all round an' its cheeks all pinked-up with havin' just woke up, an' it
looked awful cute, in spite of its mother. Mis' Loneway was leanin'
back, laughin', an' tellin' him what they was goin' to do the minute she
got well; but when she see the baby she drops her husband's hand and
sorter screams out, weak, an' holds out her arms. Mr. Loneway, he hardly
heard me go in, I reckon--leastwise, he looks at me clean through me
without seein' I was there. An' she hugs the kiddie up in her arms an'
looks at me over the top of its head as much as to say she understood
an' thanked me.
"'Its ma is went off,' I told 'em apologetic, 'an' I thought maybe you'd
look after it awhile,' I told 'em.
"Then I went out an' put oranges all around the boy brother on the hall
floor, an' I hustled back downstairs.
"'Gentlemen,' says I, brisk, 'I've got two dollars too much,' says
I--an' I reck'n the cracks in them walls must 'a' winked at the notion.
'What do you say to a game o' dice on the bread-plate?' I ask' 'em.
"Well, one way an' another I kep' them two there for two hours. An'
then, when the game was out, I knew I couldn't do nothin' else. So I
stood up an' told 'em I'd go up an' let Mr. Loneway know they was
there--along o' his wife bein' sick an' hadn't ought to be scared.
"I started up the stairs, feelin' like lead. Little more'n halfway up I
heard a little noise. I looked up, an' I see the boy brother a-comin',
leakin' orange-peel, with the kid slung over his shoulder, sleepin'. I
looked on past him, an' the door o' Mr. Loneway's sittin' room was open,
an' I see Mr. Loneway standin' in the middle o' the floor. I must 'a'
stopped still, because something stumbled up against me from the back,
an' the two constables was there, comin' close behind me. I could hear
one of 'em breathin'.
"Then I went on up, an' somehow I knew there wasn't nothin' more to wait
for. When we got to the top I see inside the room, an' she was layin'
back on her pillow, all still an' quiet. An' the little new pink jacket
never moved nor stirred, for there wa'n't no breath.
"Mr. Loneway, he come acrost the floor towards us.
"'Come in,' he says. 'Come right in,' he told us--an' I see him smilin'
some."
XIV
AN EPILOGUE
When Peleg had gone back to the woodshed, Calliope slipped away too. I
sat beside the fire, listening to the fine, measured fall of Peleg's
axe--so much more vital with the spirit of music than his flute; looking
at Calliope's brown earthen baking dishes--so much purer in line than
the village bric-a-brac; thinking of Peleg's story and of the life that
beat within it as life does not beat in the unaided letter of the law.
But chiefly I thought of Linda Loneway. Linda Loneway. I made a picture
of her name.
So, Calliope having come from above stairs where I had heard her moving
about as if in some search, I think that I recognized, even before I
lifted my eyes to it, the photograph which she gave me. It was as if the
name had heard me, and had come.
"It's Linda," Calliope said. "It's Linda Proudfit. An' I'm certain,
certain sure it's the Linda that Peleg knew."
"Surely not, Calliope," I said--obedient to some law.
Calliope nodded, with closed eyes, in simple certainty.
"I _know_ it was her that Peleg meant about," she said. "I thought of it
first when he said about her looks--an' her husband a clerk--an' he said
he called her Linda. An' then when he got to where she mentioned Aunt
Nita--that's what her an' Clementina always calls Mis' Ordway, though
she ain't by rights--oh, it is--it is...."
Calliope sat down on the floor before me, cherishing the picture. And
all natural doubts of the possibility, all apparent denial in the real
name of Linda Proudfit's poor young husband were for us both presently
overborne by something which seemed viewlessly witnessing to the truth.
"But little Linda," Calliope said, "to think o' her. To think o'
_her_--like Peleg said. Why, I hardly ever see her excep' in all silk,
or imported kinds. None of us did. I hardly ever 'see her walk--it was
horses and carriages and dance in a ballroom till I wonder she
remembered how to walk at all. Everything with her was cut good, an'
kid, an' handwork, an' like that--the same way the Proudfits is now. But
yet she wasn't a bit like Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina. They're both
sweet an' rule-lovin' an' ladies born, but--" Calliope hesitated,
"they's somethin' they _ain't_. An' Linda was."
Calliope looked about the room, seeking a way to tell me. And her eyes
fell on the flame on her cooking-stove hearth.
"Linda had a little somethin' in her that lit her up," she said. "She
didn't say much of anything that other folks don't say, but somehow she
meant the words farther in. In where the light was, an' words mean
differ'nt an' better. I use' to think I didn't believe that what she saw
or heard or read was exactly like what her mother an' Clementina an'
most folks see an' hear an' read. Somehow, she got the inside out o'
things, an' drew it in like breathin', an' lit it up, an' lived it more.
I donno's you know what I'm talkin' about. But Mis' Proudfit an'
Clementina don't do that way. They're dear an' good an' generous, an'
lots gentler than they was before Linda left 'em--an' yet they just wear
things' an' invite folks in an' see Europe an' keep up their French an'
serve God, an' never get any of it rill lit up. But Linda, she _knew_.
An' she use' to be lonesome. I know she did--I know she did.
"I use' to look at her an' wish an' wish I wa'n't who I am, so's I could
a' let her know I knew too. I use' to go to mend her lace an' sell orris
root to her--an' Madame Proudfit an' Clementina would be there, buyin'
an' livin' on the outside, judicious an' refined an' rill right about
everything; but when Linda come in, she sort o' reached somewheres,
deep, or up, or out, or like that, an' got somethin' that meant it all
instead o' gnawin' its way through words. It was like other folks was
the recipe an' Linda was the rill dish. They was the way to be, but she
was the one that was.
"Well, then one year, when she come home from off to school, this young
clerk followed her. I only see 'em together once--he only stayed a day
an' had his terrible time with Jason Proudfit an' everybody knew it--but
even with seein' 'em that once, I knew about him. I don't care who he
was or what he was worth--he was lit up, too. I donno why he was a clerk
nor anything of him--excep' that the lit kind ain't always the
money-makers--but he could talk to her her way. An' when I see the four
of 'em drive up in front of the post-office the day he come, Mis'
Proudfit an' Clementina talkin' all soft an' interested an' regular
about the foreign postage stamps they was buyin', an' Linda an' him
sittin' there with foreign lands fair livin' in their eyes--I knew how
it would be. An' so it was. They went off, Linda with only the clothes
she was wearin' an' none of her stone rings or like that with her. An'
see what it all done--see what it done. Jason Proudfit, he wouldn't
forgive 'em nor wouldn't hear a word from 'em, though they say Mis'
Linda wrote, at first, an' more than once. An' then when he died two
years or so afterwards, an' Mis' Proudfit tried everywhere--they wa'n't
no trace. An' no wonder, with a differ'nt name so's nobody should find
out how poor they was--an' death--an' like enough prison...."
Calliope stood up, and in the pause Peleg's axe went rhythmically on.
"I'm goin' to be sure," she said. "I hate to--but o' course I've got to
be rill certain, in words."
She went out to the shed, taking with her the photograph, and closed the
door. Peleg's axe ceased. And when she came back, she said nothing at
all for a little, and the axe did not go on.
"We mustn't tell Mis' Proudfit--yet," she put it, presently, "not till
we can think. I donno's we ever can tell her. The dyin'--an' the
disgrace--an' the other name--an' the hurt about Linda's _needin'
things_ ... Peleg thinks not tell her, too."
"At least," I said, "we can wait, for a little. Until they come home."
I listened while, her task long disregarded, Calliope fitted together
the dates and the meagre facts she knew, and made the sad tally
complete. Then she laid the picture by and stood staring at the
cooking-range flame.
"It ain't enough," she said, "bein'--lit up--ain't enough for folks, is
it? Not without they're some made out o' iron, too, to hold it--like
stoves. An' yet--"
She looked at me with one of her infrequent, passionate doubtings in her
eyes.
"--if Mis' Proudfit an' Clementina had just of been lit too," she said,
"mebbe--"
She got no farther, though I think it was not the opening of the door by
Peleg Bemus that interrupted her. Peleg did not come in. He said
something of the snow on his shoes, and spoke through the door's
opening.
"I'm a-goin to quit work for to-day, Mis' Marsh," he told her. "Seems
like I'm too dead tired to chop."
XV
THE TEA PARTY
As spring came on, and I found myself fairly identified with the life of
Friendship,--or, at any rate, "more one of us," as they said,--I
suggested to Calliope something which had been for some time pleasantly
in my mind: might I, I asked one day, give a tea for her?
"A tea!" she repeated. "For _me_? You know they give me a benefit once
in the basement of the Court House. But a private tea, for me?"
And when she understood that this was what I meant,
"Oh," she said earnestly, "I'd be so glad to come. An' you an' I can
know the tea is for me--if you rilly mean it--but it won't do to say it
so'd it'd get out around. Oh, no, it won't. Not one o' the rest'll come
near if you give it _for_ me--nor if you give it _for_ anybody. Mis'
Proudfit, now, she tried to give a noon lunch on St. Patrick's day for
Mis' Postmaster Sykes, an' the folks she ask' to it got together an'
sent in their regrets. 'We're just as good as Mis' Postmaster Sykes,'
they give out to everybody, 'an' we don't bow down to her like that.' So
Mis' Proudfit she calls it a Shamrock Party an' give it a day later. An'
every one of 'em went. It won't do to say it's _for_ me."
So I contented myself with planning to seat Calliope at the foot of my
table, and I found a kind of happiness in her child-like content, though
only we two knew that the occasion would do her honour. If Delia had
been available we would have told her, but Delia was still in Europe,
and would not return until June.
Calliope was quite radiant when, on the afternoon of the tea, she
arrived in advance of the others. She was wearing her best gray
henrietta, and I noted that she had changed her cameo ring from her
first to her third finger. ("First-finger rings seem to me more
everyday," she had once said to me, "but third-finger I always think
looks real dressy.") She was carrying a small parcel.
"You didn't ask to borrow anything," she said shyly; "I didn't know how
you'd feel about that, a stranger so. An' we all got together--your
company, you know--an' found out you hadn't borrowed anything from any
of us, an' we thought maybe you hesitated. So we made up I should bring
my spoons. They was mother's, an' they're thin as weddin' rings--an'
solid. Any time you want to give a company you're welcome to 'em."
When I had laid the delicate old silver in its place, I found Calliope
standing in the middle of my living-room, looking frankly about on my
simple furnishings, her eyes lingering here and there almost lovingly.
"Bein' in your house," she said, "is like bein' somewheres else. I don't
know if you know what I mean? Most o' the time I'm where I belong--just
common. But now an' then--like a holiday when we're dressed up an'
sittin' 'round--I feel differ'nt an' _special_. It was the way I felt
when they give the William Shakespeare supper in the library an' had it
lit up in the evenin' so differ'nt--like bein' somewheres else. It'll be
that way on Market Square next month when the Carnival comes. I guess
that's why I'm a extract agent," she added, laughing a little. "When I
set an' smell the spices I could think it wasn't me I feel so _special_.
An' I feel that way now--I do' know if you know what I mean--"
She looked at me, measuring my ability to comprehend, and brightening at
my nod.
"Well, most o' Friendship wouldn't understand," she said. "To them
vanilla smells like corn-starch pudding an' no more. An' that reminds
me," she added slowly, "you know Friendship well enough by this time,
don't you, to find we're apt to say things here this afternoon?"
"Say things?" I repeated, puzzling.