"PINK" OR DIAMOND ROW
The long hot summer was followed by a September so dry and dusty that
the town lay parched in the sweltering heat.
"Doesn't it make you feel like a wilted lettuce leaf?" Mary said to
Sandford Berry one noon when they met at the boarding-house gate on
their way in to dinner. "I've been down to Myrtle Street all morning,
and some of those crowded rooms are so stifling that I don't see how the
inmates breathe."
"You ought to keep away from them," advised Sandford with a critical
glance at her. "They're making you pale and thin. They're getting on
your nerves."
"I know it," admitted Mary, "but the more they get on my nerves, the
more I feel obliged to go."
She took her place at the table languidly, and merely tasted the iced
bouillon which the waitress put before her. She felt faint and needed
food, but it was hard to force herself to swallow while the smell of
the unwholesome places she had visited seemed still in her nostrils. The
remembrance of some of them rose sickeningly before her and she pushed
her plate aside.
"You take my advice and stay away from those places," said Sandford
again, noticing the movement. "What's the use of wearing your sympathies
to a frazzle over what can't be helped? They're sapping the life out of
you, and you're doing them no good--that is, no lasting good. It only
affords temporary relief."
"You know nothing about what I am doing," retorted Mary, irritated by
his comments and provoked at herself for feeling irritation over what
she knew was prompted by friendly interest. Yet when she went to her
room after having barely tasted her dinner, she stood a moment in front
of the mirror, recalling his remarks. She had to admit that the first
was true. There were blue shadows under her eyes. All the fresh color
and the sparkle was gone from her face. She looked as she felt, worn and
exhausted.
"But I _am_ doing them some good," she protested to herself, and in
proof of it took from a drawer the little memorandum book in which she
set down her daily expenses. She went back over the accounts of the
month just past. Nothing for herself except board and carfare, but the
other entries filled several pages: "Ice, fresh eggs, cream, beef juice,
ice, alcohol, towels, ice--"
Each time the word ice met her eye she recalled the parched lips that
had moaned for it, the feverish hands that had clutched it so greedily
when she brought it, and she thought if Sandford Berry could only see
what she had done for some of the poor souls who "got on her nerves"
he'd change his opinion about her efforts to help them being of no
avail. But the next moment a mood of depression seized her, weighing
down on her so heavily that hot tears started to her eyes.
"He's right! It isn't of any lasting good," she thought. "It's like the
ice that brings relief for a moment, but is melted and gone the next!
And my salary is all gone, and so is nearly everything that I saved the
month before. There isn't a dollar left to my credit in the savings
bank. What _is_ the use of going on this way, when all one can do
amounts to no more than a drop in the bucket?"
Mary had sat up late the night before, finishing a lot of letters that
Mrs. Blythe was anxious to have mailed as soon as possible. It was
midnight when she covered her typewriter, and the heat and a stray
mosquito which had eluded both Mrs. Crum and the screens, made her
wakeful and restless. That accounted for her physical exhaustion, while
the experiences of the morning were enough to send her spirits to the
lowest ebb.
She told herself over and over, as she lay across the bed and tried to
reason herself into a more cheerful frame of mind, that it was only
natural that she should feel as she did, and that when she was rested
the world would look as bright as usual. On account of her late work the
night before, Mrs. Blythe had given her nothing to do to-day. It was to
see protégés of her own that Mary had gone to the tenements. She might
have passed the morning with a book, down on the bank of the river under
the willows, where there was a cooling breath now and then from the
water. But, haunted by Elsie Whayne's hollow-eyed little face, she could
not go off and enjoy her holiday alone in comfort.
For weeks Elsie had seemed burning up with a slow fever, and it was for
her Mary had spent the last of her salary on alcohol for cooling rubs,
and for ice and for some thin, soft ready-made gowns. Poor little
country-bred Elsie, who had cried over her line of gray clothes because
she could not wash them clean in the scanty amount of water allotted to
each room in the crowded house, cried again over the snowy whiteness of
the new gowns. They were such a joy to her that it was pitiful to hear
her exclamations over them.
And Mary, seeing the wreck that fever had made of the pretty child, who
had come to the tenement abloom with health, wrote down one more black
crime against the man who was responsible for the fever, because he
would not clean up the plague-infested spots on which it fed and grew.
It is bad enough to be ill when one has every luxury in a quiet room to
oneself, where deft-fingered nurses keep noiseless watch to minister to
the slightest need; but to suffer as the children of the tenements must,
with not even a whole bed to oneself sometimes, oh, the pity of it! And
to have to lie as some of them do, all through the stifling days,
panting and gasping in the fumes of an ill-smelling lamp, because the
four dark walls have not a single window--oh, the shame of it!
Mary never encountered the first sight without wishing impulsively that
her eyes had never been opened to such things. She was so much happier
before she knew that such conditions existed in the world. But she never
came across the second that a sort of fierce joy did not take possession
of her at the thought that she _did_ know, and that she was helping in
a fight to wipe out such dreadful holes, which are all that some
families have to call home.
She fell asleep presently, and lay motionless until a banana man went by
in the street below, with loud cries of his wares underneath her window.
Then she roused up with a start, to find herself cramped from long lying
in one position with her clothes on.
"I might as well make myself comfortable and spend the whole afternoon
resting," she concluded; so slipping off her dress, she opened the
closet door to take down a long white kimono which hung on one of the
back hooks. In reaching around to get it she upset a pile of boxes on
the corner shelf, and one of them tumbled open at her feet. It was full
of odds and ends which she did not use often, and as she replaced them
her attention was called to the box itself. It was the big one that
Lieutenant Boglin had brought to the train filled with candy, the
morning that they left San Antonio.
How far away that time seemed, and how far Bogey had dropped out of her
life: Bogey and Gay and Roberta and all those other good friends who had
filled such a big place in her thoughts. She hadn't heard from any of
them for months, and lately she had scarcely thought of them. For that
matter Jack and Norman and Joyce and Phil had dropped far into the
background. They were no longer her first thought on waking, and the
most constant thought throughout the day. It was a different world she
was living in now. She wondered what old Captain Doane would think of
it; and Pink Upham-- Then she smiled, remembering that it had been weeks
since she had given a thought to either of them. And yet, only three
months before they had been a part of her daily living and thinking at
Lone-Rock.
All at once a longing for the clean, quiet little haven up in the hills
came over her like an ache. She was homesick for the restful mountains,
where there were no slums, no fever-infested spots such as she had been
in all morning, no loathsome mouldy walls, no dank, foul odors. She
pictured the little home not as it stood when last she saw it,
brightened with all Betty's bridal gifts, with Betty as mistress, but as
it was at that last Christmas reunion, in all its dear shabby
homeliness. The sun shone in across the clean faded carpet, and every
old chair held out its arms in friendly welcome.
She could see herself stepping around the kitchen getting supper. How
shiningly clean everything was! What peace brooded over the place, and
what a deep sense of calm and well-being and contentment pervaded it.
And her mother sat by the window, looking up from her sewing now and
then to smile or speak. Sometimes she hummed softly to herself some old
tune like Hebron:
"Thus far the Lord hath led me on--
Thus far His power prolongs my days!"
Burying her face in the pillow, Mary cried softly for what could never
be again. It seemed to her, for that heart-breaking little while, that
all the heaven she could ever ask would be just to go back to the little
home and find it as it used to be, with her mother there, and Jack and
Norman, nothing changed. She longed to spend the rest of her life right
there in that cottage which she had once been so anxious to get away
from, doing the same tasks, day after day, that had once seemed so
trivial and monotonous. She lay there picturing the whole scene, making
herself more miserable every instant, yet finding a sorrowful sort of
pleasure in thus torturing herself.
She could recall the very pattern of the oil-cloth on the kitchen floor,
the brown crocks, the yellow mixing-bowl, the little black-handled knife
she always pared the vegetables with. One by one she took them up. She
went the whole narrow round of things, from kindling the fire in the
stove with the fresh-smelling pine chips in the box, to putting the tea
to brew in the fat little earthenware pot that had been one of
Grandmother Ware's treasures. She drew the biscuits from the oven, and
brought up the cream and butter from the spotless white cellar. How good
and fresh they looked! How good and fresh they tasted!
Faint from having eaten no dinner, it made her sob to think how hungry
she was, with a hunger that nothing could appease, since what she wanted
most existed only in memory now. She went on with her pictures,
summoning the family to the table, hearing Norman's answering whoop from
the woodshed, and Jack's hearty "All right! I'll be there in a jiffy,
Sis!" Then she sobbed harder than ever, remembering that her summons
could never again be answered by an unbroken circle.
Presently, exhausted by the heat, her long fast and her crying spell,
she fell into a deep sleep. The banana man passed back again under her
window, calling his wares as loudly as before, but she did not hear him.
An Italian with a hand-organ stopped in front of the house and ground
out several popular noisy airs, but no note of it reached her. There
was a dog fight on the corner, a terrific pow-wow of yelps and snarls;
still she did not stir. Two, three hours went by. Then she was aroused
by a rustling sound at her door, and opening her eyes, saw that some one
was slipping a letter under it.
She lay blinking at it lazily for a moment, then, hanging over the side
of the bed as far as she could without falling out, tried to pick it up.
It was just beyond her reach, but with the aid of a slipper she managed
to touch it and drag it near enough to get her fingers on to it.
Doubling up the pillow under her head, she lay back, leisurely scanning
the envelope. It was post-marked Lone-Rock, and she knew by a glance at
the heavily shaded flourishes of the address that it was from Pink
Upham.
Earlier in the week, when Riverville was the boundary of her interests,
a letter from him would have had scant attention. But coming at this
time, when a homesick mood brought the old life so vividly before her
that it had suddenly become very dear and desirable, she opened it
eagerly. It was the first one she had received from him, for she had
told him on leaving Lone-Rock that she could not correspond with him;
that she would be too busy with Mrs. Blythe's letters to write many of
her own.
As she glanced down the first page she saw why he had disregarded her
wishes. He had news of such great importance to himself that he
naturally expected her to take a friendly interest in it. She smiled
with pleasure as she read. Good old Pink! He deserved to have things
come his way. If she hadn't spent so much for the relief of Diamond Row,
she would have been tempted to send him a telegram of congratulation. It
would please him immensely, she knew. A mine in which he had a small
amount of stock that was regarded as almost worthless, had suddenly
proved to be valuable, and he had been offered so much for his shares
that he could buy out the Company's store at Lone-Rock and build a house
bigger and better in every way than Mr. Moredock's. He had closed the
deal and bought the store, and he would build the house if--here Mary
turned another page--_if she would consent to become Mrs. Pinckney
Upham_.
Mary sat straight up in bed, the better to reread this startling
paragraph. Her face colored slowly as she rapidly scanned what followed.
It was a manly letter, although here and there it sounded as if phrases
and whole sentences had been copied from some Guide to Etiquette and
Social Correspondence. She had filled his life entirely from the first
day of their acquaintance, he told her. She had been an inspiration, a
guiding star to all that was high and noble. He loved her devotedly,
humbly and more greatly than any woman had ever been loved before, and
his whole life should be given to making her happy.
When she had finished, Mary lay back on the pillow and stared out of the
window into the branches of a sycamore tree that leaned across it. A
very tender feeling crept up into her heart for this man who was
offering her so much. She had not realized before what a beautiful, what
a solemn thing it was to be counted first in somebody's life; to know
that she really was its guiding star, its inspiration. At this distance
Pink's little mannerisms, which had always annoyed her, shrank out of
sight, and she remembered only how considerate he was, how carefully he
remembered every wish, how important he regarded her slightest word. It
would be lovely to be taken care of always by one who would do it in
such fashion; to be shielded and considered, and surrounded with every
comfort that a boundless affection could suggest.
Again it came over Mary with overwhelming force how good it would be to
go back to the clean, sweet life of the hills; the simple, wholesome
country life that she loved, and never again have to help lift the
burden of other people's poverty, or puzzle over the problem of their
wrongs. For a little space she lay and imagined what it would be like to
be back in Lone-Rock, in the new house Pink would build for her. She
could picture that, for she knew that every detail would be planned to
accord with her wishes, and she could see just the way it would be
furnished, and how she would make it the centre of hospitality and good
cheer for all of Lone-Rock; and how she and Betty would visit back and
forth, and the family celebrations they'd have on anniversaries and
holidays. All this she could see quite clearly and pleasantly. She could
even see Pink on the other side of a little table spread for two,
praising her muffins, and carefully cutting out the choicest parts of
the tenderloin for her. She was positive he would do both.
That might be very pleasant for a few times, but suppose they should
live to celebrate their silver wedding? Alack for Pink, that a mental
arithmetic problem suddenly popped into her mind!
If there are three meals in one day, and three hundred and sixty-five
days in one year, in twenty-five years through how many meals would they
have to sit opposite each other? She did not try to multiply the
numbers, only whispered in a sort of groan, "there'd be thousands and
thousands! I don't believe I could stand it, for no matter how good and
kind he is, there's no denying it, his visits always begin to bore me
before they're half over!"
[Illustration: "GAZING INTO THE SWEET FACE THAT SEEMED TO SMILE
HELPFULLY BACK AT HER."]
She got up and began to dress presently, stopping twice in the process
to reread the letter, once with her hair hanging, once with her dress
slipped half way on. She wanted to make sure of some sentences which she
could not entirely recall.
"I wonder what mamma would say," she thought, wistfully. She walked over
to the mantel, where a photograph of Mrs. Ware stood in a silver frame.
It was one which Joyce had colored, and was so life-like that Mary's
eyes often sought it questioningly. Now she leaned towards it, gazing
into the sweet face that seemed to smile helpfully back at her until she
found the answer to her own question.
"You always liked him," she whispered. "You always saw the best in him
and made excuses for him. You would have been so happy to have had me
settle in Lone-Rock if you had been there. But I _couldn't_ care for him
as you did for papa, and it wouldn't be right unless I did."
She did not answer the letter then. Just as she was sitting down to
supper a telephone message came from Mrs. Blythe, saying that they would
call for her in a little while to take her out on the river for a
moonlight ride. Mary was glad that the excursion was on one of the big
steamboats instead of a little launch, for in the larger party gathered
on it, no one noticed when she wandered off by herself and sat apart,
leaning against the deck railing, and gazing dreamily over the shining
water. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to think of some way to answer
Pink, which would hurt him as little as possible. She knew just how he
would stride into the post-office and unlock the drawer that held her
letter, and how his face would brighten when he saw it. He always did
show so plainly everything he felt. And then the grim hurt look would
come into his eyes, and she knew just how his mouth would straighten
into a grim line when he read it. Oh, for his sake she wished that she
didn't have to tell him that what he wanted with all his good, big,
generous heart could never be.
Was it the band playing _Kathleen Mavourneen_, or was it something else
that suddenly made her think of Phil and her parting promise to him at
Bauer. Some one _had_ come asking her to join his trail, just as Phil
had prophesied, but she needn't keep her promise in this case, because
there was only one answer possible. She would stick to her own trail and
go on her way alone. But--there was a queer little thrill of comfort in
the thought--somehow it was nice to know that somebody wanted you, and
that you didn't _have_ to be an old maid. She would keep that letter
always, her first and, probably, her last proposal.
Again the band was repeating that refrain of _Kathleen Mavourneen_, and
the notes rang out tremulously sweet over the water:
"Oh, why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?"
She recalled the scrap of music Phil had torn out and sent to her with
that question on it, and that suggested the other song, _Bonnie Eloise_,
whose name he had given to the girl with the greyhound. She wondered if
Phil ever wrote to her now. Maybe at this very moment he was sitting in
his bachelor quarters down in Mexico, looking out at the moonlight and
dreaming about Eloise. She hoped not, for somehow, without cause or
reason, she had conceived a strong dislike for her.
Some friends of Mrs. Blythe's came hunting Mary just then, to carry her
off to the hurricane deck, where something of especial interest was
going on. There was no more time for serious meditation, and the
combination of youth and mirth and moonlight worked its magical charm.
By the time the boat had made its return trip, Mary was restored to her
usual normal self, and to the equanimity that the heat and the slums and
Pink's letter had upset. When the lights of the town streamed out across
the river to meet them, she was rested and refreshed, ready to take up
the next day's work with her usual enthusiasm.
It was late when she reached home, but her long sleep in the afternoon
made her wakeful, and she sat up till after midnight trying to compose a
satisfactory answer to Pink's letter. It was a depressing task, and she
tore up page after page, in her effort to make her refusal as kind as
possible, and yet to make him understand that it was final.
When it was finished and sealed she drew another envelope towards her,
intending to address it to Phil. Then she hesitated and pushed it aside,
saying:
"I'd better wait until I'm in a more cheerful frame of mind. If I write
now it'll be so full of slums and disappointments that it'll give him
the doldrums."