Out of a Wilderness
A couple of days before Sophy's advertisement appeared in the
_Matrimonial Journal_ a girl rose from her bed in one of the female
wards of the great hospital on the banks of the East River, in New
York. On the day before the visiting physician had stated that she
might be discharged. She was not very strong yet but the hospital
needed every bed badly. Pneumonia and other diseases were rife that
winter.
A kindly nurse carried her little bag for her down the aisle of the
ward and along the wide corridor till they reached the elevator. Madge
Nelson was not yet very steady on her feet; once or twice she stopped
for a moment, leaning against the walls owing to slight attacks of
dizziness. The car shot down to their floor and the girl entered it.
"Good-by and good luck, my dear," said the kindly nurse. "Take good
care of yourself!"
Then she hurried back to the ward, where another suffering woman was
being laid on the bed just vacated.
Madge found herself on the street, carrying the little bag which, in
spite of its light weight, was a heavy burden for her. The air was
cold and a slight drizzle had followed the snow. The chilly dampness
made her teeth chatter. Twice she had to hold on to the iron rails
outside the gates of the hospital, for a moment's rest. After this she
made a brave effort and, hurrying as best she could, reached Third
Avenue and waited for a car. There was room in it, fortunately, and
she did not have to stand up. Further down town she got out, walked
half a block west, and stopped before a tenement-house, opening the
door. The three flights up proved a long journey. She collapsed on a
kitchen chair as soon as she entered. A woman who had been in the
front room hastened to her.
"So you're all right again," she exclaimed. "Last week the doctor said
't was nip and tuck with you. You didn't know me when I stood before
ye. My! But you don't look very chipper yet! I'll make ye a cup of hot
tea."
Madge accepted the refreshment gratefully. It was rather bitter and
black but at least it was hot and comforting. Then she went and sought
the little bed in the dim hall-room, whose frosted panes let in a
yellow and scanty light. For this she had been paying a dollar and a
half a week, and owed for the three she had spent in the hospital.
Fortunately, she still had eleven dollars between herself and
starvation. After paying out four-fifty the remainder might suffice
until she found more work.
She was weary beyond endurance and yet sleep would not come to her, as
happens often to the overtired. Before her closed eyes a vague
panorama of past events unrolled itself, a dismal vision indeed.
There was the coming to the great city, after the widowed mother's
death, from a village up the state. The small hoard of money she
brought with her melted away rather fast, in spite of the most
economical living. But at last she had obtained work in a factory
where they made paper boxes and paid a salary nearly, but not quite,
adequate to keep body and soul together. From this she had drifted to
a place where they made shirts. Here some hundreds of motor-driven
sewing-machines were running and as many girls bent over the work,
feverishly seeking to exceed the day's stint and make a few cents
extra. A strike in this place sent her to another, with different
work, which kept her busy till the hands were laid off for part of the
summer.
And always, in every place, she toiled doggedly, determinedly, and her
pretty face would attract the attention of foremen or even of bosses.
Chances came for improvement in her situation, but the propositions
were nearly always accompanied by smirks and smiles, by hints never so
well covered but that they caused her heart to beat in indignation and
resentment. Sometimes, of course, they merely aroused vague
suspicions. Two or three times she accepted such offers. The result
always followed that she left the place, hurriedly, and sought
elsewhere, trudging through long streets of mercantile establishments
and factories, looking at signs displayed on bits of swinging
cardboard or pasted to dingy panes.
Throughout this experience, however, she managed to escape absolute
want. She discovered the many mysteries which, once revealed, permit
of continued existence of a sort. The washing in a small room, that
had to be done on a Sunday; the making of small and unnutritious
dishes on a tiny alcohol stove; the reliance on suspicious eggs and
milk turned blue; the purchase of things from push-carts. She envied
the girls who knew stenography and typewriting, and those who were
dressmakers and fitters and milliners, all of which trades necessitate
long apprenticeship. The quiet life at home had not prepared her to
earn her own living. It was only after the mother's death that an
expired annuity and a mortgage that could not be satisfied had sent
her away from her home, to become lost among the toilers of a big
city.
For a year she had worked, and her clothing was mended to the verge of
impending ruin, and her boots leaked, and she had grown thin, but life
still held out hope of a sort, a vague promise of better things, some
day, at some dim period that would be reached later, ever so much
later, perhaps. For she had still her youth, her courage, her
indomitable tendency towards the things that were decent and honest
and fair.
At last she got a better position as saleswoman in one of the big
stores, whereupon her sky became bluer and the world took on rosier
tints. She was actually able to save a little money, cent by cent and
dime by dime, and her cheerfulness and courage increased apace.
It was at this time that typhoid struck her down and the big hospital
saw her for the first time. For seven long weeks she remained there,
and when finally she was able to return to the great emporium she
found that help was being laid off, owing to small trade after the
holidays. She sought further but the same conditions prevailed and she
was thankful to find harder and more scantily paid work in another
factory, in which she packed unending cases with canned goods that
came in a steady flow, over long leather belts.
So she became thinner again, and wearier, but held on, knowing that
the big stores would soon seek additional help. The winter had come
again, and with it a bad cough which, perforce, she neglected. One day
she could not rise from her bed and the woman who rented a room to her
called in the nearest doctor who, after a look at the patient and a
swift, understanding gaze at the surroundings, ordered immediate
removal to the hospital.
So now she was out of the precincts of suffering again, but the world
had become a very hard place, an evil thing that grasped bodies and
souls and churned them into a struggling, crying, weeping mass for
which nothing but despair loomed ahead. She would try again, however.
She would finish wearing out the soles of her poor little boots in a
further hunt for work. At last sleep came to her, and the next morning
she awoke feeling hungry, and perhaps a bit stronger. Some sort of
sunlight was making its way through the murky air. She breakfasted on
a half-bottle of milk and a couple of rolls and went out again,
hollow-eyed, weary looking, to look for more work.
For the best part of three days she staggered about the streets of the
big city, answering advertisements found in a penny paper, looking up
the signs calling for help, that were liberally enough displayed in
the manufacturing district.
Then, one afternoon, she sank down upon a bench in one of the smaller
parks, utterly weary and exhausted. Beside her, on the seat, lay a
paper which she picked up, hoping to find more calls for willing
workers. But despair was clutching at her heart. In most of the places
they had looked at her and shaken their heads. No! They had just found
the help they wanted. The reason of her disappointments, she realized,
lay in the fact that she looked so ill and weary. They did not deem
her capable of doing the needed work, in spite of her assurances.
So she held up the paper and turned over one or two pages, seeking the
title. It was the _Matrimonial Journal_! It seemed like a scurrilous
joke on the part of fate. What had she to do with matrimony; with
hopes for a happy, contented home and surcease of the never-ending
search for the pittance that might keep her alive? She hardly knew why
she folded it and ran the end into the poor little worn plush muff she
carried. When she reached her room again she lighted the lamp and
looked it over. It was merely something with which to pass a few
minutes of the long hours. She read some of those advertisements and
the keen instinct that had become hers in little less than two years
of hard city life made her feel the lack of genuineness and honesty
pervading those proposals and requests. When she chanced to look at
that far demand from Canada, however, she put the paper down and began
to dream.
Her earlier and blessed years had been spent in a small place. Her
memory went back to wide pastures and lowing cattle, to gorgeously
blossoming orchards whose trees bent under their loads of savory
fruit, long after the petals had fallen. She felt as if she could
again breathe unpolluted air, drink from clear springs and sit by the
edges of fields and watch the waves of grain bending with flashes of
gold before the breezes. Time and again she had longed for these
things; the mere thought of them brought a hunger to her for the open
country, for the glory of distant sunsets, for the sounds of farm and
byre, for the silently flowing little river, bordered with woodlands
that became of gold and crimson in the autumn. She could again see the
nesting swallows, the robins hopping over grasslands, the wild doves
pairing in the poplars, the chirping chickadees whose tiny heads shone
like black diamonds, as they flitted in the bushes. The memory of it
all brought tears to her eyes.
What a wonderful outlook this thing presented, as she read it again. A
home by a beautiful river! A prosperous youth who needed but
kindliness and affection to make him happy! Why had he not found a
suitable mate in that country? She remembered hearing, or reading
somewhere, that women are comparatively few in the lands to which men
rush to settle in wildernesses. And perhaps the women he had met were
not of the education or training he had been accustomed to.
The idea of love, as it had been presented by the men she had been
thrown with, in factory and office, was repugnant to her. But, if this
was true, the outlook was a different one. Not for a moment did she
imagine that it was a place wherein a woman might live in idleness and
comparative luxury. No! Such a man would require a helpmeet, one who
would do the work of his house, one who would take care of the home
while he toiled outside. What a happy life! What a wondrous change
from all that she had experienced! There were happy women in the
world, glorying in maternity, watching eagerly for the home-coming of
their mates, blessed with the love of a good man and happy to return
it in full measure. It seemed too good to be true. She stared with
moistened eyes. If this was really so the man had doubtless already
received answers and chosen. There must be so many others looking like
herself for a haven of safety, for deliverance from lives that were
unendurable. Who was she that she should aspire to this thing? To such
a man she could bring but health impaired, but the remnants of her
former strength. In a bit of looking-glass she saw her dark-rimmed
eyes and deemed that she had lost all such looks as she had once
possessed.
Yet something kept urging her. It was some sort of a fraud, doubtless.
The man was probably not in earnest. A letter from her would obtain no
attention from him. A minute later she was seated at the table, in
spite of all these misgivings, and writing to this man she had never
seen or heard of. She stated candidly that life had been too hard for
her and that she would do her best to be a faithful and willing helper
to a man who would treat her kindly. It was a poor little despairing
letter whose words sounded like a call for rescue from the deep. After
she had finished it she threw it aside, deciding that it was useless
to send it. An hour later she rushed out of the house, procured a
stamp at the nearest drug-store, and threw the letter in a box at the
street-corner. As soon as it was beyond her reach she would have given
anything to recall it. Her pale face had become flushed with shame. A
postman came up just then, who took out a key fastened to a brass
chain. She asked him to give her back her letter. But he swept up all
the missives and locked the box again, shaking his head.
"Nothing doing, miss," he told her, gruffly.
Before her look of disappointment he halted a few seconds to explain
some measure, full of red-tape, by which she might perhaps obtain the
letter again from the post-office. To Madge it seemed quite beyond the
powers of man to accomplish such a thing. And, moreover, the die was
cast. The thing might as well go. She would never hear from it again.
The next day she found work in a crowded loft, poorly ventilated and
heated, and came home to throw herself upon her bed, exhausted. Her
landlady's children were making a terrible noise in the next room, and
the racket shot pains through her head. On the morrow she was at work
again, and kept it up to the end of the week. When she returned on
Saturday, late in the afternoon, with her meagre pay-envelope in her
ragged muff, she had forgotten all about her effort to obtain
freedom.
"There's a letter for ye here, from foreign parts," announced Mrs.
MacRae. "Leastwise 't ain't an American stamp."
Madge took it from her, wondering. A queer tremor came over her. The
man had written!
Once in her room she tore the envelope open. The handwriting was queer
and irregular. But a man may write badly and still be honest and true.
And the words she read were wonderful. This individual, who merely
signed A. B. C., was eager to have her come to him. She would be
treated with the greatest respect. If the man and the place were not
suited to her she would naturally be at liberty to return immediately.
It was unfortunate that his occupations absolutely prevented his
coming over at once to New York to meet her. If she would only come he
felt certain that she would be pleased. The hosts of friends he had
would welcome her.
Thus it ran for three pages and Madge stared at the light, a
tremendous longing tearing at her soul, a great fear causing her heart
to throb.
She forgot the meagre supper she had brought with her and finally sat
down to write again. Like the first letter it was a sort of
confession. She acknowledged again that life no longer offered any
prospect of happiness to her. After she looked again in the little
glass she wrote that she was not very good-looking. To her own eyes
she now appeared ugly. But she said she knew a good deal about
housekeeping, which was true, and was willing to work and toil for a
bit of kindness and consideration. Her face was again red as she
wrote. There was something in all this that shocked her modesty, her
inborn sense of propriety and decency. But, after all, she reflected
that men and women met somehow, and became acquainted. And the
acquaintance, in some cases, became love. And the love eventuated in
the only really happy life a man or a woman could lead.
Nearly another week went by before the second answer arrived. It again
urged her to come. It spoke of the wonderful place Carcajou was, of
the marvel that was Roaring Falls, of the greatness of the woodlands
of Ontario. Indeed, for one of her limited attainments, Sophy's letter
was a remarkable effort. This time the missive was signed in printed
letters: HUGO ENNIS. This seemed queer. But some men signed in very
puzzling fashion and this one had used this method, in all likelihood,
in order that she might be sure to get the name right. And it was a
pleasant-sounding name, rather manly and attractive.
The letter did not seem to require another answer. Madge stuffed it
under her pillow and spent a restless night. On the next day her head
was in a whirl of uncertainty. She went as far as the Grand Central
Station and inquired about the price of a ticket to Carcajou. The man
had to look for some time before he could give her the information. It
was very expensive. The few dollars in her pocket were utterly
inadequate to such a journey, and she returned home in despair.
On the Monday morning, at the usual hour, she started for the factory.
She was about to take the car when she turned back and made her way to
her room again. Her mind was made up. She would go!
She opened a tiny trunk she had brought with her from her country home
and searched it, swiftly, hurriedly. She was going. It would not do to
hesitate. It was a chance. She must take it!
She pulled out a little pocketbook and opened it swiftly. Within it
was a diamond ring. It had been given to her mother by her father, in
times of prosperity, as an engagement ring. And she had kept it
through all her hardships, vaguely feeling that a day might come when
it might save her life. She had gone very hungry, many a time, with
that gaud in her possession. She had felt that she could not part with
it, that it was something that had been a part of her own dear mother,
a keepsake that must be treasured to the very last. And now the moment
had come. She placed the little purse in her muff, clenched her hand
tightly upon it, and went out again into the street.
She looked out upon the thoroughfare in a new, impersonal way. She
felt as if now she were only passing through the slushy streets on her
way to new lands. From the tracks of the Elevated Road dripped great
drops of turbid water. The sky was leaden and an easterly wind, in
spite of the thaw, brought the chill humidity that is more penetrating
than colder dry frost.
She hastened along the sidewalk flooded with the icy grime of the last
snowfall. It went through the thin soles of her worn boots. Once she
shivered in a way that was suggestive of threatened illness and
further resort to the great hospital. Before crossing the avenue she
was compelled to halt, as the great circular brooms of a monstrous
sweeper shot forth streams of brown water and melting snow. Then she
went on, casting glances at the windows of small stores, and finally
stopped before a little shop, dark and uninviting, whose soiled glass
front revealed odds and ends of old jewelry, watches, optical goods
and bric-a-brac that had a sordid aspect. She had long ago noticed the
ancient sign disposed behind the panes. It bore the words:
"We buy Old Gold and Jewelry"
For a moment only she hesitated. Her breath came and went faster as if
a sudden pain had shot through her breast. But at once she entered the
place. From the back of the store a grubby, bearded, unclean old man
wearing a black skullcap looked at her keenly over the edge of his
spectacles.
"I--I want to sell a diamond," she told him, uneasily.
He stared at her again, studying her poor garb, noticing the gloveless
hands, appraising the worn garments she wore. He was rubbing thin
long-fingered hands together and shaking his head, in slow assent.
"We have to be very careful," his voice quavered. "We have to know the
people."
"Then I'll go, of course," she answered swiftly, "because you don't
know me."
The atmosphere of the place was inexpressibly distasteful to her and
the old man's manner was sneaking and suspicious. She felt that he
suspected her of being a thief. Her shaking hand was already on the
doorknob when he called her back, hurrying towards her.
"What's your hurry? Come back!" he called to her. "Of course I can't
take risks. There's cases when the goods ain't come by honest. But you
look all right. Anyway 't ain't no trouble to look over the stuff. Let
me see what you've got. There ain't another place in New York where
they pay such good prices."
She returned, hesitatingly, and handed to him a small worn case that
had once been covered with red morocco. He opened it, taking out the
ring and moving nearer the window, where he examined it carefully.
"Yes. It's a diamond all right," he admitted, paternally, as if he
thus conferred a great favor upon her. "But of course it's very old
and the mounting was done years and years ago, and it's worn awful
thin. Maybe a couple of dollars worth of gold, that's all."
"But the stone?" she asked, anxiously.
"One moment, just a moment, I'm looking at it," he replied, screwing a
magnifying glass in the socket of one of his eyes. "Diamonds are awful
hard to sell, nowadays--very hard, but let me look some more."
He was turning the thing around, estimating the depth of the gem and
studying the method of its cutting.
"Very old," he told her again. "They don't cut diamonds that way
now."
"It belonged to my mother," she said.
"Of course, of course," he quavered, repellently, so that her cheeks
began to feel hot again. She was deeply hurt by his tone of suspicion.
The sacrifice was bad enough--the implication was unbearable.
"I don't think you want it," she said, coldly. "Give it back to me. I
can perhaps do better at a regular pawnshop."
But he detained her again, becoming smooth and oily. He first offered
her fifty dollars. She truthfully asserted that her father had paid a
couple of hundred for it. After long bargaining and haggling he
finally agreed to give her eighty-five dollars and, worn out, the girl
accepted. She was going out of the shop, with the money, when she
stopped again.
"It seems to me that I used to see pistols, or were they revolvers, in
your show window," she said.
He lifted up his hands in alarm.
"Pistols! revolvers! Don't you know there's the Sullivan law now? We
ain't allowed to sell 'em--and you ain't allowed to buy 'em without a
license--a license from the police."
"Oh! That's a pity," said Madge. "I'm going away from New York and I
thought it might be a good idea to have one with me."
The old man looked keenly at her again, scratching one ear with
unkempt nails. Finally he drew her back of a counter, placing a finger
to his lips.
"I'm taking chances," he whispered. "I'm doing it to oblige. If ye
tell any one you got it here I'll say you never did. My word's as good
as yours."
"I tell you I'm going away," she repeated. "I--I'm never coming to
this city again--never as long as I live. But I want to take it with
me."
When she finally went out she carried a cheap little weapon worth
perhaps four dollars, and a box of cartridges, for which she paid him
ten of the dollars he had handed out to her. It was with a sense of
inexpressible relief that she found herself again on the avenue, in
spite of the drizzle that was coming down. The air seemed purer after
her stay in the uninviting place. Its atmosphere as well as the old
man's ways had made her feel as if she had been engaged in a very
illicit transaction. She met a policeman who was swinging his club,
and the man gave her an instant of carking fear. But he paid not the
slightest heed to her and she went on, breathing more freely. It was
as if the great dark pall of clouds hanging over the city was being
torn asunder. At any rate the world seemed to be a little brighter.
She went home and deposited her purchase, going out again at once. She
stopped at a telegraph office where the clerk had to consult a large
book before he discovered that messages could be accepted for Carcajou
in the Province of Ontario, and wrote out the few words announcing her
coming. After this she went into other shops, carefully consulting a
small list she had made out. Among other things she bought a pair of
stout boots and a heavy sweater. With these and a very few articles of
underwear, since she could spare so little, she returned to the Grand
Central and purchased the needed ticket, a long thing with many
sections to be gradually torn off on the journey. Berths on sleepers,
she decided, were beyond her means. Cars were warm, as a rule, and as
long as she wasn't frozen and starving she could endure anything. Not
far from the house she lived in there was an express office where a
man agreed to come for her trunk, in a couple of hours.
Then she climbed up to Mrs. MacRae's.
"I'm going to leave you," announced the girl. "I--I have found
something out of town. Of course I'll pay for the whole week."
The woman expressed her regret, which was genuine. Her lodger had
never been troublesome and the small rent she paid helped out a very
poor income mostly derived from washing and scrubbing.
"I hope it's a good job ye've found, child," she said. "D'ye know for
sure what kind o' place ye're goin' to? Are you certain it's all
right?"
"Oh! If it isn't I'll make it so," answered Madge, cryptically, as she
went over to her room. Here, from beneath the poor little iron bed,
she dragged out a small trunk and began her packing. For obvious
reasons this did not take very long. It was a scanty trousseau the
bride was taking with her to the other wilderness. After her clothes
and few other possessions had been locked in, the room looked very
bare and dismal. She sat on the bed, holding a throbbing head that
seemed very hot with hands that were quite cold. After a time the
expressman came and removed the trunk. There was a lot of time to
spare yet and Madge remained seated. Thoughts by the thousand crowded
into her brain--the gist of them was that the world was a terribly
harsh and perilous place.
"I--I can't stay here any longer!" she suddenly decided, "or I'll get
too scared to go. I--I must start now! I'll wait in the station."
So she bade Mrs. MacRae good-by, after handing her a dollar and a
half, and received a tearful blessing. Then, carrying out a small
handbag, she found herself once more on the sidewalk and began to
breathe more freely. The die was cast now. She was leaving all this
mud and grime and was gambling on a faint chance of rest and comfort,
with her dead mother's engagement ring, the very last thing of any
value that she had hitherto managed to keep. It was scarcely happiness
that she expected to find. If only this man might be good to her, if
only he placed her beyond danger of immediate want, if only he treated
her with a little consideration, life would become bearable again!
As she walked along the avenue the pangs of hunger came to her,
keenly. For once she would have a sufficient meal! She entered a
restaurant and ordered lavishly. Hot soup, hot coffee, hot rolls, a
dish of steaming stew with mashed potatoes, and finally a portion of
hot pudding, furnished her with a meal such as she had not tasted for
months and months. A sense of comfort came to her, and she placed five
cents on the table as a tip to the girl who had waited on her. She was
feeling ever so much better as she went out again. She had spent fifty
cents for one meal, like a woman rolling in wealth. At a delicatessen
shop she purchased a loaf of bread and a box of crackers, with a
little cold meat. She knew that meals on trains were very expensive.
As she reached the station she felt that she had burned her bridges
behind her. She could never come back, since the few dollars that were
left would never pay for her return.
"But I'm not coming back," she told herself grimly. "I'm my own master
now."
She felt the bottom of her little bag. Yes, the pistol was there, a
protector from insult or a means towards that end she no longer
dreaded.
"No! I'll never come back!" she repeated to herself. "I'll never see
this city again. It--it's been too hard, too cruelly hard!"
The girl was glad to sit down at last on one of the big benches in the
waiting-room. It was nice and warm, at any rate, and the seat was
comfortable enough. Her arm had begun to ache from carrying the bag,
and she had done so much running about that her legs felt weary and
shaky. A woman sitting opposite looked at her for an instant and
turned away. There was nothing to interest any one in the garments
just escaping shabbiness, or in the pale face with its big dark-rimmed
eyes. People are very unconscious, as a rule, of the tragedy, the
drama or the comedy being enacted before their eyes.
Gradually Madge began to feel a sense of peace stealing over her. She
was actually beginning to feel contented. It was a chance worth
taking, since things could never be worse. And then there was that
thing in her bag. Presently a woman came to sit quite close to her
with a squalling infant in her arms and another standing at her knee.
She was a picture of anxiety and helplessness. But after a time a man
came, bearing an old cheap suit-case tied up with clothes-line, who
spoke in a foreign tongue as the woman sighed with relief and a smile
came over her face.
Yes! That was it! The coming of the man had solved all fears and
doubts! There was security in his care and protection. With a catch in
her breathing the girl's thoughts flew over vast unknown expanses and
went to that other man who was awaiting her. Her vivid imagination
presented him like some strange being appearing before her under forms
that kept changing. The sound of his voice was a mystery to her and
she had not the slightest idea of his appearance. That advertisement
stated that he was young and the first letter had hinted that he
possessed fair looks. Yet moments came in which the mere idea of him
was terrifying, and this, in swiftly changing moods, changed to forms
that seemed to bring her peace, a surcease of hunger and cold, of
unavailing toil, of carking fear of the morrow.
At times she would look about her, and the surroundings would become
blurred, as if she had been weeping. The hastening people moved as if
through a heavy mist and the announcer's voice, at intervals, boomed
out loudly and called names that suggested nothing to her. Again her
vision might clear and she would notice little trivial things, a
bewildered woman dragging a pup that was most unwilling, a child
hauling a bag too heavy for him, a big negro with thumbs in the
armholes of his vest, yawning ponderously. For the hundredth time she
looked at the big clock and found that she still had over an hour to
wait for her train. Again she lost sight of the ever-changing throngs,
of the massive structure in which she seemed to be lost, and the roar
of the traffic faded away in the long backward turning of her brain,
delving into the past. There was the first timid yet hopeful coming to
the big city and the discovery that a fair high-school education, with
some knowledge of sewing and fancywork, was but poor merchandise to
exchange for a living. Her abundance of good looks, at that time, had
proved nothing but a hindrance and a danger. Then had come the bitter
toil for a pittance, and sickness, and the hospital, and the long
period of convalescence during which everything but the ring had been
swept away. She had met the sharp tongues of slatternly, disappointed
landladies, while she looked far and wide for work. At first she had
been compelled to ask girls on the street for the meaning of cards
pasted on windows or hanging in doorways. Words such as "Bushel girls
on pants" or "Stockroom assistants" had signified nothing to her.
Month by month she had worked in shops and factories where the work
she exacted from her ill-nourished body sapped her strength and
thinned her blood. Nor could she compete with many of the girls,
brought up to such labor, smart, pushing, inured to an existence
carried on with the minimum of food and respirable air.
The red came to her cheeks again as she remembered insults that had
been proffered to her. It deepened further as she thought of that
paper picked up on a bench of a little city square. The fear of having
made a terrible mistake returned to her, more strongly than ever. Her
efforts towards peace now seemed immodest, bold, unwomanly. But that
first vision had been so keen of a quiet-voiced man extending a strong
hand to welcome and protect as he smiled at her in pleasant greeting!
Her vague notions of a far country in which was no wilderness of brick
and mortar but only the beauty of smiling fields or of scented forests
had filled her heart with a passionate longing. And the last thing the
doctor had told her, in the hospital, was that she ought to live far
away from the city, in the pure air of God's country. It was with a
hot face and a throbbing heart that she now remembered the poor little
letters she had written. Even the sending of that telegram now filled
her with shame. And yet....
With clamorous voice the man was announcing her train. After a
heart-rending moment's hesitation she hastened to where a few people
were waiting. The gates opened and she was pushed along. It was as if
her own will could no longer lead her, as if she were being carried by
a strong tide, with other jetsam, towards shores unknown.
At last she was seated in an ordinary coach, than which man has never
devised sorrier accommodation for a long journey. Finally the train
started and she sought to look out of the window but obtained only a
blurred impression of columns and pillars lighted at intervals by
flickering bulbs. They made her eyes ache. But presently she made out,
to her left, the dark surface of a big river. A few more lights were
glinting upon it, appearing and disappearing. Vaguely she made out the
outlines of a few vessels that were battling against the drifting ice,
for she could see myriad sparks flying from what must have been the
smokestacks of tugs or river steamers.
Her fellow passengers were mostly laborers or emigrants going north or
west. The air was tainted with the scent of garlic. Children began to
cry and later grew silent or merely fretful. Finally the languor of
infinite weariness came over the girl and she lay back, uncomfortably,
and tried to sleep. At frequent intervals she awoke and sat up again,
with terror expressed in her face and deep blue eyes. Once she fell
into a dream and was so startled that she had to restrain herself from
rushing down the aisle and seeking to escape from some unknown danger
that seemed to be threatening her.
Again she passed a finger over the blurred glass and sought to look
out. The train seemed to be plunging into strange and grisly horrors.
Overwrought as she was a flood of tears came to her eyes and seemed to
bring her greater calm, so that at last she fell into a deeper sleep,
heavy, visionless, no longer attended with sudden terrors.