"NEEDLES AND PINS"
None of his business associates, not even his head clerk, knew just
when John Ryder would return to New York. He had gone across for a
rest--a pleasure trip; but he had struck some splendid
contracts--"the woods were full of them," he said--and he cabled
orders until his agents in America fairly begged him to stop. Prices
for raw material had not yet risen to top-notch, and they were
skimming the cream of the manufacturing situation.
He arrived on the _Minnequago_ with none aware of his coming. Nor
did he propose to tell anybody of the change he now contemplated to
make in his private life.
Had he done so, he knew that certain "good fellows" of his
acquaintance would undertake to make existence an agony for him and
for this beautiful girl whom he was to marry. It seems to be the
delight of a certain order of mankind to make the sweetest, most
intimate hours of a newly-married couple a Saturnalia upon which they
can only look back with horror.
Ryder was practically free to do as he pleased, and what he pleased
to do was to take time to get acquainted with the charming woman at
his side. They must go somewhere for their honeymoon where he would
not be likely to run into people he knew, and where he and his wife
could be quiet and undisturbed.
Getting the license was neither a long nor troublesome matter, for
they were the first at the clerk's office. He signed his name "John
Ryder," knowing that there were probably a dozen of the same name in
the directory and the publication of it would scarcely warn his
friends of what he was doing. The girl signed after him, and surely
nobody--unless it was that detestable Sam Marks--would realize who
she was.
"Who will marry us?" she asked, leaving all the details to him very
prettily.
"We could be married right here in the chapel," he told her. "But if
you would rather, I know of an old dominie on Bank Street."
"How funny!"
"Why?"
"That you should know anybody in that part of New York. That is
Greenwich Village, isn't it?"
"Yes. You seem to have studied your map of the town."
"Oh, I have learned a little something about New York," she
responded, smiling slightly.
Aside from this brief interchange of remarks, there was very little
said as the taxicab rolled uptown to a quiet hotel. Both were doing
some very serious thinking. It was not a situation to provoke
trifling conversation.
Ryder arranged for a parlor where Miss Mont could remain quietly
during his absence. He did not delay for luncheon himself, but did
not forget to send up a dainty repast for his bride-to-be. He walked
into the offices of John Ryder & Company about noon and cast the
whole force into first a state of confusion, and then of wonder.
He was usually the most methodical of persons and went through with
any business--even the routine work of the day--in a most exemplary
manner. There was seldom any friction in John Ryder's offices when
he was there. From his chief clerk and his personal stenographer
down through the strata of employees to the very porter, system was
inculcated into their daily lives both by precept and the example of
the "boss."
Today he literally tore what little system there was left in his
force to shreds. He started several people on the same errand; he
dictated the same letter three times and in as many different ways.
His stenographer, a very severe young woman, came closer to him than
she ever had before in her life and sniffed his breath. Drink was
the only explanation she could think of.
He gave Brumby, his chief clerk, orders which absolutely antagonized
each other, and when the man tremblingly pointed out this fact to
Ryder the latter actually lost his temper.
"Well, confound it!" ejaculated John Ryder, "you know what I mean,
don't you? There's only one sensible way to do that thing. Do it,
and don't bother me!"
Inexplicable! Nobody had ever seen Ryder in such a state of mind
before. He was one minute as snappy as a mud turtle; the next he ran
his hand through the curly red mop of hair on the errand boy's head,
gave him a dollar, and told him to take in the next ball game at the
Polo Grounds without troubling himself to tell Brumby that his
grandmother had died.
But to capsheaf his entire performance on this occasion, Ryder sat
down again to dictate a few notes on personal matters and began the
first one by saying:
"Ahem! Are you ready, Miss Nelson? Here goes: 'My dear Rose'--Good
Lord! that isn't it. Er--er--Write Hallett and Mayes about the
renewal of the lease of my apartment. Tell them--er---- Well, write
it yourself, Miss Nelson," he concluded in much confusion and
beginning to perspire. "I shall not renew it. It runs out the first
of November and I shall make--er--ahem!--a change."
She stared at him in amazement. John Ryder had occupied the same
chambers on the north side of Gramercy Park for ten years and was
considered as permanent a fixture in that neighborhood as the fenced
and locked garden in the middle of the square.
"Well, hang it!" he demanded, catching her wondering eye and losing
patience again. "Can't I make a change? I hope I'm not _married_ to
those rooms?"
And then he reddened furiously. Miss Nelson gazed upon him with
dawning understanding. She was not a young woman whose thoughts
lingered much upon the tender passion; but she was by no means a
fool. She knew now that her employer was not intoxicated.
Brumby might think Mr. Ryder suddenly bereft of his senses; the
bookkeeper could say that "the old man" was about to "bust"; and the
red-headed office boy could declare that the boss had felt the change
before death when he gave up the dollar, but Miss Nelson knew now
what the matter was. _Mr. Ryder was in love!_
When she went out for her lunch she--the frigid Miss
Nelson--sentimentally bought a flower from a street vender and
brought it back to the office. But by that time John Ryder had
cleared up all the matters he considered really vital, had given
Brumby a nervous shock by telling him to expect no word from him,
Ryder, for at least a fortnight, and had left the offices.
All these petty details of business were the "needles and pins" of
life. For the first time in his business career Ryder found that he
hated business. He fairly walked on air as he hurried to the subway,
crowded himself into an already crowded train, and was transported
uptown.
A few steps to the hotel--then the elevator--then the carpeted
corridor to the door of the parlor where he had left his bride. A
knock, a swift patter of feet in answer, the turning of the key,
and----
She was there--a vision of delight to him! Her coat and hat were
already on. His heart glowed. She had been as eager for his return
as he had been to get back to her.
"Are--are you ready?" was all he could say.
"Yes," she murmured, quite as embarrassed.
Ryder remembered the old parsonage on Bank Street very well. He had
been wont to go to the church hard by when he was a boy. The same
minister was not there now, but the present incumbent had a peaceful,
old-world face, was silver-haired and kindly spoken, and might have
been the same whom Ryder remembered.
The clergyman welcomed them as though he were well used to such calls.
Miss Mont was shy and kept her veil down until the clergyman's wife
and a servant were brought in to witness the ceremony. Then she
plucked up courage, raised her veil, and if her cheeks were
tear-stained nobody remarked it. The old man stood before them and
pronounced the simply worded ritual with grace and kindliness.
Ryder himself felt confused. It was really the first time he had
ever been present at such a ceremony.
"With a ring?" the minister asked him softly before he began, and
Ryder knew just enough to nod and then fumble in his inner pocket for
a tiny leather case which he always carried.
Out of this he brought forth, happily at the right moment, a plain
gold band, worn rather thin, and with letters engraved on the inner
side that were almost indecipherable. It had been his mother's
wedding ring--the one keepsake that had come into his possession as a
boy from the parent he scarcely remembered.
The girl evidently understood when he produced the ring. She smiled
at him tremulously and, before the band was slipped on her finger,
she touched her lips to it.
Then: "You, John, do take this woman, Ruth--" and so on to the end.
Ryder responded as though in a dream. It all seemed unreal. Serious
as was the moment, the undercurrent of his thought was: "'Ruth?'
That is a pretty name. But I got the idea somehow that her name was
Rose."
They were married. Ryder feed the minister with a liberality that
made his withered cheeks flush with pleasure. The clergyman's wife
kissed Ruth heartily, and the servant, who was sentimentally
inclined, wiped her eyes furtively on the corner of her kitchen
apron, which she had forgotten to take off when she came into the
study.
They went out to the taxicab again, the chauffeur of which was
grinning knowingly.
"Now, dear, where shall we drive?" asked John Ryder.
"My trunks are at the Pennsylvania station by this time I am sure.
May I choose where we shall go?"
"Of course," he answered, though he felt some surprise.
"Then let it be Pinewood."
"Why--why," Ryder cried, "you must have studied this business all
out. Ah, you sly girl! What put Pinewood in your head?"
"They say it is very nice there--and quiet--at this time of year. It
will remind us of old times," she added dreamily.
Afterward when he was attending to the checking of her baggage and
arranging for his own to be sent on from the steamship dock, it
suddenly smote Ryder that her remark about Pinewood reminding them
"of old times" was peculiar.
This was Ruth's first visit to America and surely he had never been
at Pinewood in all his life! Later he forgot to speak about it.
Indeed, he was too busy and too happy to be curious.
He telephoned ahead for a suite of rooms at the only hotel which, he
understood, was open at this time of year at Pinewood. This was the
Pinewood Inn, one of the oldest and best-known hotels on the coast.
Somehow there is a "newness" sticking to bridal couples that no
amount of deception can hide--from the eagle eye of the railroad
porter least of all! The colored functionary on their car hovered
about them as though they had been especially placed in his care, and
his attentions were so marked that they might as well have come
aboard showered with rice and old shoes. Everybody in the coach very
soon knew that they were newly wed.
To tell the truth, John Ryder was inordinately proud of it. He was
as delighted as a boy. It was an effort for him to retain his usual
dignified bearing. A smile was continually breaking through the calm
of his features. He wanted to shout or sing--and he sang like a crow!
From a heretofore modest and retiring man socially he suddenly became
bold and daring. He secretly wished to strut about and brag of
himself, and show off his wife. He would have liked to distribute
"largess" (whatever that might be) to the people at the stations
where the train stopped; and he tipped the porter three separate
times before the train was ten miles on its way.
He had reason, good reason, for being proud. When Ruth removed her
veil and hat she was startlingly beautiful. Somehow there had come a
new expression into her face that increased her attractiveness. She
had never seemed so sweet, so gentle and modest, so altogether
adorable before.
They reached their railroad destination just as dusk was falling.
Pinewood Inn was exclusive--so exclusive, indeed, that it was back
among the pines quite twelve miles from the station. A motor bus met
all trains and transferred the arriving guests to the hotel.
"Just a pleasant half hour's run," Ryder told his bride, helping her
into the vehicle and getting in himself with several other arrivals.
"We shall have an appetite for dinner I fancy."
He was just then reminded that he had eaten nothing since a modest
breakfast in his stateroom on the _Minnequago_--not even on the
train. The bus rumbled away from the hamlet that surrounded the
railroad station. They swept into the brown shadows of the pines and
rolled almost silently over the velvet carpet of the needles.
"Needles and pins, needles and pins! When a man marries----" The
old rhyme came into his mind again. But he had thrown off all petty
details. The needles and pins of business, or of anything else,
should not rankle in his mind. This was the beginning of his
honeymoon.
And just then the motor bus slid down a slight slope to a long bridge
that crossed the salt creek dividing the island, which the railroad
crossed, from the higher ground where the hotel was located. Ryder,
glancing ahead, thought he saw the flash of a red light.
Then a woman screamed and the forward truck of the motor bus crashed
through the loosened planking of the bridge. The passengers were
tumbled together, but nobody was hurt. Ryder found himself holding
Ruth in his arms--and somehow he did not care to let her go.
Men and women began to scramble out of the bus, having hastily
gathered together what hand baggage they had taken inside with them.
It was a time of confusion. A handbag was dropped, calling forth a
grunt of protest from someone whose toes had been hurt. An umbrella,
caught crosswise in the door, caused delay and more confusion.
"I--I fancy we shall have to get out with the rest of them," Ruth
whispered.
"Oh, I suppose so," Ryder admitted.
They were the last to leave the stalled bus. The driver was
explaining:
"I didn't suppose these country fools would begin to repair the
bridge flooring tonight. I didn't see the light. 'Twas all right
when I came down from the hotel. Guess you'll hafter walk. It'll
take half the night to jack this old car up out of the hole. And
see! they've left only a footpath the length of the bridge. I bet
they'll leave it that way till over Sunday. Just like 'em."
The guests, already in sight of the hotel lights, went on with
laughter or grumbling, as their dispositions dictated. The incident
seemed quite unimportant to John Ryder, bemused as he was in the very
first quarter of his honeymoon.