"You a doctor?"
He performed a great flourish. "I ain't in the profesh, missy. I'm only
chief clerk and bottle-washer round here; but--"
"Where is the doctor? That him reading down there? Can I ask him? I--Oh!
Ain't I scared!"
He placed his big, cool hand over her wrist and his face had none of its
smile. "I know you are, little missy. I seen it in you last night when
you and--and--"
"My--my friend."
"--your friend was in here. There's thousands come in here with the
scare on, and most of 'em with a reason; but I picked you out last night
from the gang. Funny thing, but right away I picked you. 'A pretty
little thing like her'--if you'll excuse me for saying it--'a pretty
little thing like her,' I says to myself. 'And I bet she 'ain't got
nobody to steer her!'"
"Honest, did you?"
"Gee! it ain't none of my put-in; but when I seen you last night--funny
thing--but when I seen you, why, you just kinda hit me in the eye; and,
with all that gang round me, I says to myself: 'Gee! a pretty little
thing like her, scared as a gazelle, and so pretty and all; and no one
to give her the right steer!'"
"Aw, you seen me?"
"Sure! Wasn't it me reached out the pamphlet to you? You had on that
there same cutey little hat and jacket and all."
"Does it cost anything to talk to the doctor down there?"
"Forget it! Go right down and he'll give you a card to the Victoria
Clinic. I know them all over there and they'll look you over right,
little missy, and steer you. Aw, don't be scared; there ain't nothing
much wrong with you--maybe a sore spot, that's all. That cough ain't a
double-lunger. You run over to the clinic."
"I gotta go back to the store now."
"After store, then?"
"Free?"
"Sure! Old Doc Strauss is on after five, too. If I ain't too nervy I'm
off after six myself. I could meet you after and we could talk over what
he tells you--if I ain't too nervy?"
"I--"
"Blaney's my name--Eddie Blaney. Ask anybody round here about me. I--I
could meet you, little missy, and--"
"I can't to-night, Mr. Blaney. I gotta go somewheres."
"Aw!"
"I gotta."
"To-morrow? To-morrow's Sunday, little missy. There's a swell lot of
country I bet you 'ain't never seen, and Old Doc Strauss is going to
tell you to get acquainted with it pretty soon."
"Country?"
"Yes. That's what you need--outdoors; that's what you need. You got a
color like all indoors--pretty, but putty."
"You--you don't think there's nothing much the matter with me, do you,
Mr. Blaney?"
"Sure I don't. Why, I got a bunch of Don'ts for you up my sleeve that'll
color you up like drug-store daub."
Tears and laughter trembled in her voice. "You mean that the outdoor
stuff will do it, Mr. Blaney?"
"That's the talk!"
"But you--you ain't the doctor."
"I ain't, but I 'ain't been deaf and dumb and blind round here for three
years. I can pick 'em every time. You're taking your stitch in time. You
'ain't even got a wheeze in you. Why, I bet you 'ain't never seen red!"
"No!" she cried, with quick comprehension.
"Sure you 'ain't!"
More tears and laughter in her voice. "I'm going to-night, then--at six,
Mr. Blaney."
"Good! And to-morrow? There's a lot of swell country and breathing-space
round here I'd like to introduce you to. I bet you don't know whether
Ingleside Woods is kindling or a breakfast food. Now do you?"
"No."
"Ever had a chigger on you?"
"Huh?"
"Ever sleep outdoors in a bag?"
"Say, whatta you think I am?"
"Ever seen the sun rise, or took the time to look up and see several
dozen or a couple of thousand or so stars glittering all at once?"
"Aw, come off! We ain't doing team-work in vaudeville."
"Gee! wouldn't I like to take you out and be the first one to make you
acquainted with a few of the things that are happening beyond Sixth
Avenue--if I ain't too nervy, little missy?"
"I gotta go somewhere at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon, Mr.--Mr.
Blaney; but I can go in the morning--if it ain't going to look like I'm
a freshie."
"In the morning! Swell! But where--who--" She scribbled on a slip of
paper and fluttered it into his hand. "Sara Juke! Some little name. Gee!
I know right where you live. I know a lot of cases that come from round
there. I used to live near there myself, round on Third Avenue. I'll
call round at nine, little missy. I'm going to introduce you to the
country, eh?"
"They won't hurt at the clinic, will they, Mr. Blaney? I'm losing my
nerve again."
"Shame on a pretty little thing like you losing her nerve! Gee! I've
seen 'em come in here all pale round the gills and with nothing but the
whooping-cough. There was a little girl in here last week who thought
she was ready for Arizona on a canvas bed; and it wasn't nothing but her
rubber skirtband had stretched. Shame on you, little missy! Don't you
get scared! Wait till you see what I'm going to show you out in the
country to-morrow--leaves turning red and all. We're going to have a
heart-to-heart talk out there--eh? A regular lung-to-lung talk!"
"Aw, Mr. Blaney! Ain't you killing!" She hurried down the room,
laughing.
* * * * *
At Sharkey's on Saturday night the entire basement cafe and dance-hall
assumed a hebdomadal air of expectancy; extra marble-topped tables were
crowded about the polished square of dancing-space; the odor of hops and
sawdust and cookery hung in visible mists over the bar.
Girls, with white faces and red lips and bare throats, sat alone at
tables or tête-à-tête with men too old or too young, and ate; but drank
with keener appetite.
A self-playing piano performed beneath a large painting of an undraped
Psyche; a youth with yellow fingers sang of Love. A woman whose
shame was gone acquired a sudden hysteria at her lone table over her
milky-green drink, and a waiter hustled her out none too gently.
In the foyer at seven o'clock Sara Juke met Charley Chubb, and he slid
up quite frankly behind her and kissed her on the lips. At Sharkey's a
miss is as good as her kiss!
"You--you quit! You mustn't!"
She sprang back, quivering, her face cold-looking and blue; and he
regarded her with his mouth quirking.
"Huh! Hoity-toity, ain't you? Hoity-toity and white-faced and late, all
at once, ain't you? Say, them airs don't get across with me. Come on!
I'm hungry."
"I didn't mean to yell, Charley--only you scared me. I thought maybe
it was one of them fresh guys that hang round here; all of 'em look so
dopey and all. I--You know I never was strong for this place, Charley."
"Beginning to nag, are you?"
"No, no, Charley. No, no!"
They drew up at a small table.
"No fancy keeling act to-night, kiddo. I ain't taking out a hospital
ward, you know. Gad! I like you, though, when you're white-looking like
this! Why'd you dodge me at noon to-day and to-night after closing? New
guy? I won't stand for it, you know, you little white-faced Sweetness,
you!"
"I hadda go somewheres, Charley. I came near not coming to-night,
neither, Charley."
"What'll you eat?"
"I ain't hungry."
"Thirsty, eh?"
"No."
He regarded her over the rim of the smirchy bill of fare. "What are you,
then, you little white-faced, big-eyed devil?"
"Charley, I--I got something to--to tell you. I--"
"Bring me a lamb stew and a beer, light. What'll you have, little
white-face?"
"Some milk and--"
"She means with suds on, waiter."
"No--no; milk, I said--milk over toast. Milk toast--I gotta eat it. Why
don't you lemme talk, Charley? I gotta tell you."
He was suddenly sober. "What's hurting you? One milk toast, waiter. Tell
them in the kitchen the lady's teeth hurt her. What's up, Sweetness?"
And he leaned across the table to imprint a fresh kiss on her lips.
"Don't--don't--don't! For Gawd's sake, don't!"
She covered her face with her hands; and such a trembling seized her
that they fell pitifully away again and showed her features, each
distorted. "You mustn't, Charley! Mustn't do that again, not--not for
three months--you--you mustn't."
He leaned across the table; his voice was like sleet--cold, thin,
cutting: "What's the matter--going to quit?"
"No--no--no!"
"Got another guy you like better?"
"Oh! Oh!"
"A queenie can't quit me first and get away with it, kiddo. I may be a
soft-fingered sort of fellow, but a queenie can't quit me first and get
away with it. Ask 'em about me round here; they know me. If anybody in
this little duet is going to do the quitting act first it ain't going to
be you. What's the matter? Out with it!"
"Charley, it ain't that--I swear it ain't that!"
"What's hurting you, then?"
"I gotta tell you. We gotta go easy for a little while. We gotta quit
doing the rounds for a while till--only for a little while. Three months
he said would fix me. A grand old doc he was!
"I been to the clinic, Charley. I hadda go. The cough--the cough was
cutting me in two. It ain't like me to go keeling like I did. I never
said much about it; but, nights and all, the sweats and the cough and
the shooting pains was cutting me in two. We gotta go easy for a while,
Charley; just--"
"You sick, Sara?" His fatty-white face lost a shade of its animation.
"Sick?"
"But it ain't, Charley. On his word he promised it ain't! A grand old
doc, with whiskers--he promised me that. I--I am just beginning; but the
stitch was in time. It ain't a real case yet, Charley. I swear on my
mother's curl of hair it ain't."
"Ain't what? Ain't what?"
"It ain't! Air, he said, right living--early hours and all. I gotta get
out of the basement. He'll get me a job. A grand old man! Windows open;
right living. No--no dancing and all, for a while, Charley. Three months
only, Charley; and then--"
"What, I say--"
"It ain't, Charley! I swear it ain't. Just one--the left one--a little
sore down at the base--the bottom. Charley, quit looking at me like
that! It ain't a real case--it ain't; it ain't!"
"It ain't what?"
"The--the T.B. Just the left one; down at--"
"You--you--" An oath as hot as a live coal dropped from his lips, and
he drew back, strangling. "You--you got it, and you're letting me down
easy. You got it, and it's catching as hell! You got it, you white
devil, and--and you're trying to lie out of it--you--you--"
"Charley! Charley!"
"You got it, and you been letting me eat it off your lips! You devil,
you! You devil, you! You devil, you!"
"Charley, I--"
"I could kill you! Lemme wash my mouth! You got it; and if you got it I
got it! I got it! I got it! I--I--"
He rushed from the table, strangling, stuttering, staggering; and his
face was twisted with fear.
For an hour she sat there, waiting, her hands folded in her lap and her
eyes growing larger in her face. The dish of stew took on a thin coating
of grease and the beer died in the glass. The waiter snickered. After a
while she paid for the meal out of her newly opened wage-envelope and
walked out into the air.
Once on the street, she moaned audibly into her handkerchief. There is
relief in articulation. Her way lay through dark streets where figures
love to slink in the shadows. One threw a taunt at her and she ran. At
the stoop of her rooming-house she faltered, half fainting and breathing
deep from exhaustion, her head thrown back and her eyes gazing upward.
Over the narrow street stars glittered, dozens and myriads of them.
* * * * *
Literature has little enough to say of the heartaches and the heartburns
of the Sara Jukes and the Hattie Krakows and the Eddie Blaneys. Medical
science concedes them a hollow organ for keeping up the circulation. Yet
Mrs. Van Ness's heartbreak over the death of her Chinese terrier, Wang,
claims a first-page column in the morning edition; her heartburn--a
complication of midnight terrapin and the strain of her most recent rôle
of corespondent--obtains her a _suite de luxe_ in a private sanitarium.
Vivisectionists believe the dog is less sensitive to pain than man; so
the social vivisectionists, in problem plays and best sellers, are
more concerned with the heartaches and heartburns of the classes. But
analysis would show that the sediment of salt in Sara Juke's and Mrs.
Van Ness's tears is equal.
Indeed, when Sara Juke stepped out of the streetcar on a golden Sunday
morning in October, her heart beat higher and more full of emotion than
Mrs. Van Ness could find at that breakfast hour, reclining on her fine
linen pillows, an electric massage and a four-dollars-an-hour masseuse
forcing her sluggish blood to flow.
Eddie Blaney gently helped Sara to alight, cupping the point of her
elbow in his hand; and they stood huddled for a moment by the roadway
while the car whizzed past, leaving them in the yellow and ocher,
saffron and crimson, countryside.
"Gee! Gee whiz!"
"See! I told you. And you not wanting to come when I called for you this
morning--you trying to dodge me and the swellest Indian-summer Sunday on
the calendar!"
"Looka!"
"Wait! We 'ain't started yet, if you think this is swell."
"Oh! Let's go over in them woods. Let's." Her lips were apart and pink
crept into her cheeks, effacing the dark rims of pain beneath her eyes.
"Let's hurry."
"Sure; that's where we're going--right over in there, where the woods
look like they're on fire; but, gee! this ain't nothing to the country
places I know round here. This ain't nothing. Wait!"
The ardor of the inspired guide was his, and with each exclamation from
her the joy of his task doubled itself.
"If you think this is great, wait--just you wait. Gee! if you like this,
what would you have said to the farm? Wait till we get to the top of the
hill."
Fallen leaves, crisp as paper, crackled pleasantly under their feet; and
through the haze that is October's veil glowed a reddish sun, vague as
an opal. A footpath crawled like a serpent through the woods and they
followed it, kicking up the leaves before them, pausing, darting,
exclaiming.
"I--Honest, Mr. Blaney, I--"
"Eddie!"
"Eddie, I--I never did feel so--I never was so--so--Aw, I can't say it."
Tears sprang to her eyes.
"Sure you never was. I never was, neither, before--before--"
"Before what?"
"Before I had to."
"Had to?"
"Yeh; both of them. Bleeding all the time. Didn't see nothing but red
for 'leven months."
"You!"
"Yeh; three years ago. Looked like Arizona on a stretcher for me."
"You--so big and strong and all!"
He smiled at her and his teeth flashed. "Gad! little girl, if you got a
right to be scared, whatta you think I had? I seen your card over at the
clinic last night, and you 'ain't got no right to have that down-and-out
look on you had this morning. If you think you got something to be
scared at you looka my old card at the clinic some day; they keep it for
show. You oughtta seen me the day I quit the shipping-room, right over
at the Titanic, too, and then see whether you got something to be scared
at."
"You--you used to work there?"
"Six years."
"I--I ain't scared no more, Eddie; honest, I ain't!"
"Gee! I should say not! They ain't even sending you up to the farm."
"No, no! They're going to get me a job. A regular outdoor, on-the-level
kind of a job. A grand old doc, with whiskers! I ain't a regular one,
Eddie; just the bottom of one lung don't make a regular one."
"Well, I guess not, poor little missy. Well, I guess not."
"Three months, he said, Eddie. Three months of right living like this,
and air and all, and I'll be as round as a peach, he said. Said it
hisself, without me asking--that's how scared I was. Round as a peach!"
"You can't beat that gang over there at the clinic, little missy. They
took me out of the department when all the spring-water I knew about ran
out of a keg. Even when they got me out on the farm--a grown-up guy like
me--for a week I thought the crow in the rooster was a sidewalk faker.
You can't beat that, little missy."
"He's a grand old man, with whiskers, that's going to get me the job.
Then in three months I--"
"Three months nothing! That gang won't let you slip back after the three
months. They took a extra shine to me because I did the prize-pupil
stunt; but they won't let anybody slip back if they give 'em half a
chance. When they got me sound again, did they ship me back to the
shipping department in the subbasement? Not muchy! Looka me now, little
missy! Clerk in their biggest display; in three months a raise to
ninety dollars. Can you beat it? Ninety dollars would send all the
shipping-clerks of the world off in a faint."
"Gee! it--it's swell!"
"And--"
"Look! Look!"
"Persimmons!" A golden mound of them lay at the base of a tree, piled up
against the hole, bursting, brown. "Persimmons! Here; taste one. They're
fine."
"Eat 'em?"
"Sure!"