the edge. Eenstantly that can-ooo make revolution, preceepeetating
Señor Córdova eento the ocean. Ah, what confusion! What disturbance!
How mooch different from America! There, when I have to overthrow
myself in that can-ooo, the hardy cour-rrage of those people mek them
to cry, ‘Ha, ha, goood eye! Pool for the shore!’ But now! Señora
Córdova and Señoritas Córdova three mek lamentable outcry, ‘Papa is to
drown!’ And those naygrose which are there run around like stoopeed
fellows. Eet ees to me that the responseebeelity falls that my friend
Córdova do not perish. There he ees, pushing the water with hees hands,
and speaking as one should not before ladies.
“What to do? I can reach heem with my arm, but that ees not nautical.
I have by the--the--_como se llaman_ thees pole with the iron? Ah,
bo-at-hoook! si, si, si! The bo-at-hoook, and by that I hook heem.
“‘A Dios!’ he cry, ‘I am assassinated!’
“‘Be still, foolish person!’ I say. ‘Is not your life to be saved?’
“‘Si,’ he say. ‘Tiene usted razón, but I shall walk.’ So he place his
legs upon the ground beneath the water, which is not extensive in that
place, and coom to shore.
“‘Will you try heem again?’ I say.
“‘Causa admiración!’ he say, ‘I theenk not. No sé the habeets of the
little can-ooo.’
“So he send a naygro for stimulant, the which I eembibe, while he mek
change of hees attire at hees house.
“When he has returned he say to me: ‘Let us behold you master thees
bo-at of eenstabeelity. Can you mek heem go?’
“By thees time those stimulant have made my heart strong, my cour-rrage
severe. Am I not American citizen? What ees eet? I tell heem that
moment:
“‘I can pool eet with the stick; I can put in the sail and fly over the
water like a sheep. Do you wish to see?’
“All the ladies and Señor Córdova cry out they will not let me be so
dangerous. But I am resolved. Señorita Margarita Córdova is a yoong
lady ver-ree beautiful. I am an American citizen. I tek anuzzer glass
of aguardiente--brandee. What do I care for one can-ooo? Two? Three? I
send the naygro for the sail in a steady voice: ‘Pepe, go at once and
get the sail.’
“Señor Córdova says he will resist, but I pay no attencion. I place the
pole; I feex the strings; I adjoost the ruddle; I put een three large
stone for ballass.
“‘Once more,’ say the ladies, ‘let us intreat--’
“‘At your feet, ladies,’ I say, ‘but I go!’
“So I go, and then for the first eet is pleasant: the weend blow
carefully; the little can-ooo jump oopon the water. But now there comes
a large cloud. The weend he blow not so carefully. I am far from home.
On the shore, Señor Córdova and hees ladies make observacion with a
telescope. It is sad, I think, that they can see me so plain, yet am
I upon thees stormy ocean. Of what avail is the telescope, if I am to
shipwreck the can-ooo? Ah! I would not at that time that I had the
ancestors of so cour-rrageous. Eet ees one of them who make Rolando
see hees feeneesh. Out oopon these violent water I am cara á cara with
the ma’neefeecent past. Shall I to turn the back upon the perilous?
Die, then, the thought! Beside, that moment may the Señorita Margarita
be with the beautiful eye at the telescope. So I am gay; I smile,
as though I mek enjoyment of the terrrible bouncing of that little
can-ooo; I sing areea from _Fra Diavolo_--ti-ti-tee-tum-te-tee! But
at heart I regret mooch. What is a can-ooo, for the most? Eet ees not
so strong as paper; eet ees a small, little boat that thees wave who
shake hees teeth at me may devour at a bite. And then, alas! comes in a
wave--ta! Ah, veree cold! Veree damp! With my hat I mek attempt to hurl
the water outdoors. Comes another wave--another. I labor desperate; eet
weel not do. Eet ees not enough. The can-ooo is sinking. Bimeby I am
to sit in the water. It happen. Then I am to clasp the can-ooo with my
arm, for in the both end of eet exists an air-tink--a box made of iron
which hold the air, that the can-ooo may remain upon the water.
“The stern of that can-ooo go down first; glides the large rocks for
ballass to where I am sitting. Thees I am to t’row out. Pah! When I
bend to catch heem, comes a large wave right down my neck.
“There am I, then, clasping that can-ooo passionately, only hees end
sticking up from the water. Those large stone hold the other end
downright.
“At once I think, ‘Córdova shall survey t’rough hees telescope, and
send to me assistance.’ But on the second thought I see eet ees not to
be. I have mek sooch large talk of what I may do with that can-ooo that
Córdova shall think: ‘Thees ees novelty American. My friend shows me
all! What devils are thees Americans, to swim in a boat standing oop in
the water? Who shall presentiment their leemitaciones?’ And he shall
call hees neighbors to see the es-pectacle. Everybody shall come and
remark, ‘Ah! Meeracoolous!’ and shake hees head.
“When I think that, I am almost to weep. My friends to see me fish for
fish with myself before their eyes! Behold the beautiful Margarita!
Will it not to melanchate her days of youth to rrrremember, ‘Through
a telescope I saw my dear friend dissolve een the water?’ Sad, thees.
Well, then, eet ees unavoiadabble. So to mek en end manful--strong.
Therefore I smile again. But that smile he take all my strength. I
wish not to show disrespec’ for thees so noble country, yet eet ees
the coostom for to mek the dollar. On that account some work is not so
well done. That air-tink, on which depend my life, he leak. The can-ooo
ees sinking, sinking. My ear against hees side, I can hear that little
noise--shhhh!--where the water run in and the air run out. Eet ees the
hour-glass marking how long I shall remain een the country. When he
feel oop--pop! A Dios, el mundo!
“And eet ees so slow! I am of eempatient deesposeecion. With the
long waiting I am not simpatico. I look how fast the water come up
on that can-ooo, and I esteemate that I have to sit in those cold
water for five hours. And my friends observe t’rough the telescope!
Misericordia! Eet ees too dam mooch! For five hours must I smile and
sink!
“And when I think that Córdova shall say, ‘Ah, but he ees not
eenteresting, thees fellow! Eet ees a pairformance monotonoose to sit
there in the water! He ees not really an American! Not sooch do they,
I give my word!’ then I geenash my tooth, and I shall to tear my hair,
but how may I unclasp that little can-ooo?
“Now, to any man thees would seem suffeecent--a meesery plenty for the
heart to hold. Yet listen! Here am I, three miles from shore in the
stormy ocean, grasping a sinking can-ooo, while eet ees necessary that
I seem to enjoy myself, to compensate my friends who witness t’rough
the telescope--ees eet not the leemit? Hear me! Now comes the shark!
Madre de Dios! How shall I now perform? Shall I make a great splash
with my feet to enfrighten that wrrretched repteel away?
“And Margarita mek observation of me in the actions of the little
playful child. Ah, my heart shall burst! In her eyes to become
reediculous! Si, yet here comes the shark to bite me by the leg. To
splash eet ees reediculous, but what can be so mooch reediculous as a
man without some legs? Eet ees time I splash. Vigorosely I the water
spatter. The shark, that cowardly insect, run away--only to get hees
friends. Around me they circulate, each one putting oopon me the
obstruction of hees cold, unfeeling eye. And it rains. In the air ees
water! in the ocean ees water; in the water ees sharks. I am tire of
water; I regret that I have not brought the ball of the foot or the
boxer-glove to eenvigorate thees island.
“I am think to be missionary; I am become martyr. One consolación I
obtain. The rain eet has obscured the view. From the shore they can
not see. I am to smile no longer. That ees joy. A little joy, not too
mooch, for now ees but a trifle of that can-ooo left elevated over the
water, and I am fatigue with splashing. I am deciding shall I omit to
splash, and thus allow thees beeest of shark to bite me queeck, or
shall I to drown, when--ta! A hand on the stern of my t’roat, and a
voice t’rough the nose, a voice so beautiful, a voice American, saying
(eef you pairmeet eemeetacion), ‘Hallo, bosss! Do yer cum out here for
thees exercise evvereee Saturday?’ and I am lift into a boat.
“So they tek me to Córdova. My clothes he ees shorten by the water;
also hees color ees not all in the same place as when I mek purchase
of heem. He ees the flannel clothes with the rrred, white, and blue
straps. Now he ees the rainbow, and from the hat has come color to my
nose, to my cheeek.
“I land calm, coomposséd--eet ees like I have made the same each day.
Córdova he ees perplex; the ladies they know not what to say.
“‘Have you petroleum?’ I ask Córdova.
“He mek reply, ‘Yes, I have.’
“‘Of your kindness, obtain me some,’ I say and retire unto the house.
“When I retoorn, the old clothes repose upon my arm; I smoke the
cigarillo. With the cold blood I walk to that can-ooo. I poot the old
clothes upon heem. With the petrol I es-sprinkle all. I strike the
match, first to light the cigarillo--then so carelessly, I light the
little can-ooo.
“‘Pardon,’ I say. ‘Coostom American.’
“The ladies all cry, ‘Ah!’ and Córdova he knock hees feest with hees
head and mek outcry: ‘Ah! What devils are thees Americanos! What care
they for expense!’
“So I am veen-dickateed. And that end my little can-ooo.”
V
THE REVERSE OF A MEDAL
AN ACCOUNT OF THE MAKING OF MARY ELLEN’S HERO
Mary Ellen Darragh was a strange girl. Her life may have had something
to do with that. Left fatherless at sixteen, with a mother and three
little Darraghs on her hands, she at once jumped into the breach,
which in this case was the breeches, and by the use of good taste, a
ready tongue, pleasant manners and plenty of hard work, performed her
stint so well that now, at two-and-twenty, she was sole proprietor of
a millinery establishment which employed four girls besides herself.
Carriage-folk came to the door of Mary Ellen’s establishment, she was
so good--and so cheap.
Mary Ellen was born with both gray eyes wide open; she absorbed the
deportment of the ladies of her clientele with the unfailing surety
of grasp that made her a success. She had the “business” of polite
intercourse down as fine as the most pronouncedly mannered of her
patrons--even to the English. The objective case received all that was
due it from Mary Ellen when she had “her airs on,” as her detractors
put it. Now, these were no airs; they were the girl’s standard. More
than the tilt of the head and a shade of the voice were in them. There
was the hope of something above the buying and selling, and wheedling
of cross-grained customers.
Yet the effect on her acquaintances was bad. They thought it buncombe,
and although Mary Ellen was trim, pretty and stylish, she had never
kept company with any young man until Fireman Carter appeared on the
scene. Other young men had come, seen and left, saying that kind of
gait was too swift for them. Mary Ellen wanted to sit at a reasonable
distance from her caller and converse. It must be added that Mary
Ellen’s conversational powers were limited--there was a measure of
justification in the course of the young men.
However, Fireman Carter was of another breed. He, too, had inner
aspirations toward gentility. Let me at once confute any suspicion
that Dick Carter was snob or prig. By no means. Indeed, in his effort
not to be superior he sometimes exceeded the most ungentle actions of
his companions. The war between his inner monitor and his desire to
be rated a good fellow played havoc with Dick’s peace of mind. When
he first put his cap under the sofa in Mary Ellen’s little parlor he
recognized a quality in his hostess for which he long had yearned.
For one thing, he had an opportunity to hold forth at length on that
subject so dear to the heart of man--himself.
[Illustration: Mary Ellen was trim, pretty and stylish. Page 105]
Mary Ellen was smitten at first sight, and why not? A mighty agreeable
picture of young manhood was Fireman Carter: thin, clean, dark,
handsome in face; tall, strong and supple in body; alert and ready
in mind; an ideal type of the finest corps of men in the world, the
firemen. He looked especially distinguished in his uniform. So Mary
Ellen listened to the song of Richard Carter. Again, I must interfere.
Dick didn’t blow and bluster about his prowess; he merely took out his
soul and explained its works to Mary Ellen. He left that night feeling
he was understood at last. And he went again every time he had a chance.
Mrs. Darragh, worthy old lady, chaperoned the visits, an acquired idea
of Mary Ellen’s. She enjoyed her evening nap in the parlor almost as
much as the young folk did their discussions. Little was she needed;
Dick appreciated his lady’s dignity too much to do aught to invalidate
it. In fact, he studied for those evenings, reading up by stealth and
artfully leading the talk to the subject on which he was prepared, and
then it would do your heart good to see Fireman Carter, with extended
hand explaining the primal causes of things, to Mary Ellen’s cooing
obligato of admiration. Solomon, in all his glory was a poor fool to
Dick Carter, in one person’s estimation.
This was all very well, but Mary Ellen, like most young women in
love, would have liked a more forceful demonstration of her idol’s
regard. She understood at last why her friends preferred action to
conversation. This long-distance courtship might have been fatal
to another man than handsome, daredevil Dick; as it was it added a
piquancy; but it made trouble, nevertheless, and here’s how that came.
Under the softening influence of Mary Ellen’s eyes, Carter had grown
an intimacy with a man of his company by the name of Holtzer. Holtzer
was German by parentage and sentimental by nature. Especially did
Holtzer deplore the fact that he knew no nice young women--those who
liked music and poetry. Dick gave him a “knock-down” to Mary Ellen,
and Holtzer also became a constant visitor. The fact that it is bad
policy to introduce one’s best friend to one’s best girl can be proved
either by cold reasoning or by experience. Carter tried experience. You
see, he would acknowledge to no emotional interest in Mary Ellen when
questioned by Holtzer--he scouted the idea--so Holtzer wasn’t to blame.
As for Mary Ellen, Cupid had pounded her heart into a jelly. She was
tender to Dick’s friend to a degree that put the none too modest
German in possession of facts that were not so. All the overflow of
regard he received as Dick’s friend he attributed to his own personal
charms, and, unlike Carter, he didn’t hesitate to talk about it. It
was Carter’s pleasant duty to listen to Holtzer’s joyful expounding of
the reasons why the latter felt he had made a hit with Mary Ellen, and
not only to listen, but to indorse. It shows the stuff Fireman Carter
was made of to tell that he stood this vicious compound of insult and
injury with a tranquil face. The serpent had entered Eden, and utilized
Adam to support his position, but Adam smiled and took his medicine
like a man.
Several times he intended to question Mary Ellen concerning Holtzer,
yet, when in her presence, a certain feeling of surety and a very big
slice of pride forbade it.
In the meantime he was regaled with Mary Ellen, per Holtzer, until
violent thoughts entered his mind.
Dick yearned for the first time in his life to do something heroic.
He sweated to stand out the one man of the day; to be held up to the
public gaze on the powerful pen of the reporter. He wanted to swagger
into Mary Ellen’s little parlor covered and rustling with metaphorical
wreaths, and with an actual disk of engraved metal on his broad chest,
and thus extinguish Holtzer beyond doubt--not Carter’s doubt, nor Mary
Ellen’s doubt, but Holtzer’s doubt.
In this frame of mind he went to sleep one night, to be awakened in
the early hours of the morning by a singular prescience born of long
experience, which told him the gong was about to ring. For years the
alarm had not wakened Dick. No matter how deep his slumber, he was
always alert and strained to catch the first note of it.
The metallic cry for help vibrated through the engine-house. It threw
each inmate into action, like an electric shock. The dark winter
morning was savagely cold, with a wind like an auger. The heroic cord
was busted. “Damn the luck!” cried Dick as he took the pole; and it was
no solo.
The two most picturesque feats of civilization are the handling of a
field-piece and the charge of a fire-engine. Very fine was the old-time
chariot race, but what was the driver’s risk on the smooth hippodrome
track compared to that of the man who guides a fire-engine through city
streets? The chariot driver could, at least, see what was before him;
the man who holds the lines on an engine little knows what’s around
the corner. But it’s a tale told too often already. A rush, a clamor
of hoofs, a roar, and they were rattling over the pavement, the stream
of sparks from the engine stack and the constant lightnings from the
horses’ shoes making one think of the old adage of fighting fire with
fire.
“I suppose,” said Dick, clinging tightly with one hand and waving the
other in wild circles as he got into his coat--“I suppose some old lady
has left the cat to play with the lamp.”
“Yah,” assented Holtzer, “or else some Mick has taken his pipe to bed
with him.”
Then they cursed the old lady and the Mick or whoever it might be.
“The worst of it is that I’m scart now,” confided Holtzer. “I didn’t
ust to care much, except for the trouble, but now, when I think of Mary
Ellen, I hate to go shinning around taking chances.”
General Bonaparte, the worst-mannered conqueror in history, said that
no man was courageous at three o’clock in the morning, an unmerited
slight to the vanity of his soldiery. However it may be as to courage,
certainly no man was ever philosophical when hauled from his bed at
that hour. It was in Fireman Carter’s mind that a small movement of
his foot would put his erstwhile friend in violent contact with the
cold world below. However, civilization isn’t impotent. He restrained
the action and replied: “You want to leave your girl at home--fires is
no place for ’em.”
“You don’t understand,” retorted Holtzer, full of sentiment. “You can’t
get away from it. It ain’t thinking what’s going to happen to _me_, so
much, as thinking how Mary Ellen will feel about it when she hears.”
“You’re awful dead certain on that part of it,” said Dick, and now
he hated his friend. The last vestige of humor had left the theme.
“Perhaps she won’t care a cuss--how do you know?”
Holtzer started to answer, while Dick listened, his hands clenched
tight--maybe there was something he didn’t know about?
There was no more time for conversation. As they turned the corner
they saw their destination, an eight-storied storage warehouse,
standing alone, with boarded vacant lots at each side of it.
The watchman was there with the keys; it was he who had turned in the
alarm. Without delay the firemen, hauling the hose up after them,
swarmed to the roof where the flames were beginning to curl.
The fire was in the back of the upper story. While some fought it
on that level, the others cut holes through the roof and turned the
streams down upon it.
The hose leaked and slippery ponds formed in an instant where the water
fell. The wind sawed into one’s marrow in this utterly exposed position.
A head popped up and called off all the men but Holtzer and Dick.
“You fellers hold her down as best you can!” it shouted. “Keep a watch
and don’t let it break through--come on, the rest of yer!”
They worked in silence on Dick’s part, and with a continued rattle of
what Mary Ellen would think of this from Holtzer. It wrought harder and
harder on his companion’s nerves, this prattle--indeed, such waves of
rage came over him that he entirely forgot where he was.
Meanwhile the crowd below--gathered in strong numbers in spite of the
weather and the hour--were wondering what must be the thoughts of those
men standing over a furnace, a hundred feet from the ground. What could
either man think of but the danger? The danger of one’s daily work?
There is no such thing.
This was a commonplace fire which soon would be well in hand. It had
not in the least turned the current of the thoughts of the two men
aloft who formed the spectacle, while the household gods below made
burnt-offerings of themselves. Then, as if to show that no fire is
commonplace, a giant flare sprang from the corner of the building,
poised in the air for a moment, then, overthrown by the wind, toppled
toward the firemen. They leaped back--one to safety; the other,
slipping on a treacherous skin of ice, to fight vainly for his balance
for a second, and then to plunge down the mansard roof, speeding for
that hard ground so far away. It was a trained man who fell, though.
He turned as he went, instinctively gripping with his hands, and they
caught--the edge of the cornice--an ice-covered edge to which they
clung miraculously, while his body dangled in the wind.
So Dick, safe, looked down at Holtzer, for whom it was a question of
seconds, while the roar of pity from the crowd buzzed in his ears.
He might well have done nothing. No man could go down the steep slant
unsupported. Nothing was to be seen of Holtzer but his hands, lighted
by the flames; hands that could not clench even, as to grip would be to
force loose, but which could only make stiff angles of themselves. It
would all be over in ten heart-beats, for to take it as we are doing is
like examining the moving pictures one by one at leisure, instead of as
they live upon the screen.
Then Dick moved. He ripped off his coat, soaked the arm of it in the
hose stream, pressed it to the roof, where it froze fast on touching,
and slid down his improvised cloth ladder, held only by the strength of
the ice-film that bound the sleeve to the tin.
Before his frantic fellow-firemen below could scale the fence with the
jumping-sheet he had hold of Holtzer’s wrist with one strong hand.
The strain was terrible; he felt the coat yield with a soft, tearing
sound, his head spun, yet somehow he managed it, and there they stood
on the cornice together.
Then, while the crowd that had been as silent as death cracked their
throats with applause, Dick spoke to Holtzer on a private matter.
It so happened that a young man who did “space” for a morning paper
lived on the top floor of the flat-house opposite, and saw the whole
thing through an opera-glass. He hustled into his clothes and got down
to the street, working a talk out of Dick by the plea that he needed
the money.
The reporter was delighted. The incident had the two elements of daring
and mother-wit that can be made into the long story of profit.
“How did you ever come to think of using your coat like that?” he asked.
“Why, a feller I knew when I was a kid in the country saved himself
from drownding that way,” replied Carter. “He fell through the ice
miles from anybody, and if he hadn’t froze the end of his muffler fast,
and so anchored himself, he’d ’a’ been a gone gosling all right. That
thing come back to me on the minute.”
That is why the first thing Fireman Carter saw in his morning paper
was his own name. He started guiltily at the sight and threw the sheet
away. No maiden caught _en déshabillé_ could have been more abashed;
and, as the maiden afterward might wonder how she _did_ look--was it
so _very_ awful?--so did Dick. He picked the paper up again stealthily
and read all about it, lost in wonder at the end. To the applause that
came his way he turned an inattentive ear, thus giving further life
to the old idea that the bravest are always the most modest, which
looks like a double superlative and is no more true than that they
are always the fattest, or anything else. The bravest are usually the
most courageous, and there ends deduction. Dick was busy with his own
thoughts--something troubled him. A strange thing was the fact that
though his friend Holtzer scrupulously gave him every credit he did not
seek his society.
The frown of hard thinking was on Dick’s brow all day. At night he
asked for a few hours off and got them.
Mary Ellen met him at the door. “Oh, Dick!” she cried and gulped.
“Ain’t you just grand, though!” she said, and looked at him with
beatified gray eyes.
Here was golden opportunity. The proper play for Fireman Carter was to
reach out his strong arms and gather Mary Ellen then and there, but he
did nothing of the sort. He seemed distrait and worried.
To her anxiety, he seated himself on the sofa and fumbled his hat.
“You ain’t mad at me, are you, Dick?” she asked tremulously.