EDITH AND JOHN
_A Story of Pittsburgh_
_By_ FRANKLIN S. FARQUHAR
Copyright 1912
by
Franklin S. Farquhar
Published May, 1912
Type set by Rush G. Faler & Co.,
Linotypers
Printed by
Commercial Bindery & Printing Co.,
Tacoma, Wash.
EDITH AND JOHN
_A Story of Pittsburgh_
CHAPTER I.
THE WRECKED UMBRELLA.
Fog and smoke and grime hung over the city of Pittsburgh: a thickening
blanket, soggy in its cumbrous pall. The rain came down like gimlets;
the air was savage, miserably embracing; the streets were sodden, muddy,
filthy, with dirty streams babbling along the gutters; the lights
gleamed ghastly, ghostly, hideously, in radiating through the gloom;
water dripped from eave, awning, wire, sign, lamppost--from everything,
spattering, trickling, everlastingly dripping, till the whole world
seemed to be in an advanced stage of the diabetes. It was a gray, grim,
medieval night--a cold, raw, nerve-racking night in November.
The gleaming forges, the ponderous hammers, the monstrous rolls of the
mills boomed in the distance, sullenly, ceaselessly, like unto the
grumblings of a maddened Tubal Cain irritated beyond endurance. Mill and
factory and boat and shop whistles tooted and screeched and howled
demoniacally, with little agreement as to rhythm. Trains rumbled, cars
rattled, and all manner of conveyances bumped along, over crossings and
grades and Y's, through tunnels, under sheds, through yards, beneath
buildings, over streets, across bridges; some rapidly, some slowly, some
cautiously, some recklessly--all going, coming, hither and yon, with a
remorseless energy, and for an inexorable purpose. A medley of bells
smote the air with a harshness, a sweetness, a madness, that was
startling enough to drive the nervous into a wild panic. The rumble of
cart, the thud of horse, the crack of whip, the tread of feet, the
sound of voice, was a confused mass of noises added to the greater
roaring of the turbulent city of iron and steel.
Tired, wan women, coarsely dressed; proud, haughty women, fashionably
attired; strips of boys and girls, shivering and chattering, bedraggled
and humped up; horny-handed men, roughly clothed; kid-gloved men,
faultlessly groomed: some with bundles, baskets, dinner-buckets, or
nothing--all hurrying through the elemental dreariness, bending their
way from office, from store, from shop, from mill, from factory to home,
to hotel, to palace, to mansion, to hovel, to downy beds, to straw
pallets, to bunk, to bench, or doorstep; or to place of nightly service,
or to pleasure; to rest and refresh themselves, and await the coming of
another day of toil, or leisure.
* * * * *
John Winthrope was a strapping young man but a few months from the
country--aged twenty-two. He had quit his pen and ink and account sheets
at his high desk in the office of Jarney & Lowman as the clock in the
court house tower pealed out six deliberately solemn strokes. He put on
his coat and hat, took up a bundle of reading matter selected for its
quality from that which daily cumbered the desks and waste-baskets,
procured an umbrella from the many that had been left in a rack in one
corner, and went out the door, down the elevator, and into the street.
As rain was falling, he turned up his pantaloons, turned up his coat
collar, raised the umbrella, and joined the throng of hurrying
pedestrians, homeward bound.
Home! John had no home in the city. He had left his home behind--the
modest, cheaply builded, scantily furnished and illy appointed home of
his parents in the mountains--to come to the city to make his fortune.
His home now was a "room"--merely a room among a multiplicity of similar
rooms, in between the four angles of plastered walls. His remuneration
as the lowest bookkeeper in the line of such functionaries was
insufficient to purchase more than the most meager accommodations in a
cheap boarding house up Diamond Alley way.
This room in question was in an ancient brick and timber building, that,
in its earlier days, was an architectural ornament in its stateliness
compared to other business blocks; but by reason of the rapid striding
of modern prosperity, it was long ago left in the vast shades that great
fortunes had reared into iron and concrete, standing by.
There were only two sides open to the light and air in this low and aged
building--one in front and one on top. In between were three tiers of
small dark rooms, one tier above the other, resembling very much the
little cubes of a concentrated egg case. Two small paned windows looked
drearily into them from the street, on each floor, with a smaller
time-stained window in each resounding hallway.
The inner rooms were lighted by abbreviated wells dug in from a skylight
on the side adjoining the blank walls of a dizzy skyscraper. And cloudy
and shadowy and dim and cheerless, indeed, was the light let in on the
brightest of days, while on dull days it was nothing more than the
semblance of a waning twilight; so that, if used in day time at all, a
light were needed to make out and clearly discern any object within.
In one of these dark and inodorous rooms, John Winthrope had his
temporary abiding place. There were in it a cheap iron bed, with musty
smelling tick, sheet and coverlets; a small oak-grained pine washstand,
with such a wavy little mirror hanging over it, that one could not tell,
in looking at himself in it, whether he were a Chinaman, a Greaser, or a
crooked-faced Irishman toiling in the streets; a small bowl, for
washing, and a correspondingly small pitcher, with water in it, sat upon
the shaky stand; a cheap chair, a weak imitation of quartered oak, with
many marks of usage all over it, stood by a little table, also with many
marks of usage on it; a flowered carpet, faded, worn and fretted by the
sure hand of wearing time, covered the floor, with here and there ragged
spots of bareness to enhance the room's impoverishment.
Leaving the office of Jarney & Lowman on that very disagreeable evening,
as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, John pushed down the
foggy thoroughfares, with a rain: which seemed to be coming from a
reservoir in the infinite space above: pouring down. The streets were
crowded with people, going in various directions, and jostling each
other with little regard as to manners. Everybody had, apparently, but
one motive, and that was to get somewhere out of the terrors of the
elements. Nobody went with any precision as to plan of action, aiming
only to reach a near or remote destination.
John pressed along the best he could, with what care that the rain, the
umbrellas and the crowd permitted. He drew his shoulders downward, and
bent forward, leaning against the driving rain, with his umbrella in
front of him. He hugged the buildings closely, stepped rapidly, dodged
from right to left of the other pedestrians, who were attempting the
same artful measures as himself, to keep out of the rain, if that were
possible.
So absorbed was he in his own behalf, that he did not observe a young
lady approaching, in line with him, with the same absorbing carefulness
as to herself. She had but a moment before stepped from a store, not
perceiving that it was raining hard till she was plodding along through
it. She was also bending forward slightly, picking her way with dainty
but quickly executed steps to get where everybody else was aiming
for--home. Like John, she was unobserving as to the actions of the
fleeing people about her; and it is difficult to tell just how she
expected to keep her feet dry, considering how the water fell, and how
it splashed about.
Howsoever, the lady, all of a sudden, came to a stop; two ribs of her
umbrella snapped with a loud click, one side flapping down over her
shoulders; her hat flew off as if it had been kicked by an athlete, and
rolled across the swimming pavement into the gutter. She uttered a
little cry of distress, and was in the act of turning around, and
repairing to the store whence she came, when she beheld a young man
performing an ungraceful act in attempting the recovery of her hat. He
was fleeing after it, with upspread umbrella over him, and running and
stopping and reaching for the piece of headgear that seemed determined
to evade his efforts to secure it. Seeing him thus, in his ludicrous
movements, she half smiled, and then decided to await further
developments.
Securing the hat, finally, after it had started to float away on the
tide of the gutter, John (for that is whom the young man was) returned
with it to her, he himself showing some moiling, like the hat, as a
result of his gallant endeavors. When he approached her, with it in his
hand, she exhibited such an air of respectability and unfeigned
independence that John was fairly startled.
"Beg your pardon, lady," he said, handing her the hat, bowing as he did
so; "it was an unavoidable accident--or rather the result of my
heedlessness. I beg your pardon."
The lady stood a short moment confused, hesitating as to whether she
should deign to answer a stranger in the street, any more than to say
"thank you," and acknowledge, lady-like, that she was partly in the
blame, and ask his pardon also; or accept his blunder in good nature, as
he seemed to take it, and go her way. But John's voice was so mild, and
his manner so gentlemanly, that she felt as soon as he had spoken that
she need have no fear of him.
"Oh, sir," she said, pleasantly, with a laugh; "as much my fault as
yours. Thank you."
"May I hold your umbrella while you adjust your hat?" he asked, seeing
her dilapidated rain shade, with water streaming off of it on her
shoulders, falling about her head.
"If you wish, you may," she replied, shyly. "I fear it is about done
for."
"You may have mine," he returned. "May I take yours?"
"You may hold it," she answered, as she began to lower it, having her
hat now also in her hand. "My, what a predicament I am in!"
"Pardon me," he said; "but you will be left in the rain, if I take yours
and you do not accept mine."
"Why, yes, indeed, I forgot it was raining," she responded, with a laugh
that indicated her confusion.
"Give it me," he said, as her umbrella shut up tightly. "Will you accept
the protection of mine? The rain is falling hard," he continued, as he
took hers; and then reached as far as possible, without going closer,
holding his over her, and standing himself in the rain.
"Oh, my, this hat is so soiled and nasty from the street," she said, as
she held it before her in the light of a fog enshrouded street lamp.
"If you will give it me a moment, I will make an effort to remove some
of the grime," he said, in such a deferential tone that she was moved to
reply:
"Indeed, sir, I find now I need your assistance, or perhaps I would be
doing a wrong in standing here in the rain with you. I find most men are
gentlemen, though, when a lady is in trouble."
"Thank you," he returned. "May I take the hat for a moment?"
She hesitated a second time about accepting his proffered aid, but
finally, becoming more convinced of the futility of aiding herself
alone, said: "You may."
He then took the hat to clean, and she took the umbrella to hold, and
they both stood together, closely, under his rain protector. While he
cleaned the hat of its smutage, she watched him with some trepidation as
to the propriety of the act.
When she saw him draw forth his pocket handkerchief and begin, with
delicate carefulness, to mop the slimy accretions from the rich
material, she breathed more easily, and stood as silent noting the
performance as the street lamp that gave forth such an haloic light.
They were both facing the light, he holding the hat in his left hand,
whirling it round and round as he diligently soaked up, with his
handkerchief, the water from it. His head was bent forward, with his
eyes cast directly upon the object of his attention. She glanced up into
his face from time to time, wondering at the strange situation she was
in, and seeing how good a face he had. She was very careful that he did
not catch her throwing furtive glances at him, fearful that he might
think her very bold. John paid no heed to her for the time, so bent was
he in attempting to make courteous amends for his awkwardness. But when
he had so soiled his handkerchief that it would not absorb any more of
the hat's defilement, he raised his eyes to her and said:
"There!"
"Thank you," she returned, taking the hat, and handing him his umbrella.
"Will you be so kind as to hold the umbrella while I put on my hat?"
"With your permission," he replied, with condign simplicity. "I am
delighted to be of service to you for the grievous work I have done this
night," and he took the umbrella again, and held it over her.
After a few minutes of prodding about her head with two long silver
pins, with something sparkling like diamonds on one end of each, she
said, as she lowered her hands:
"Now, my umbrella, if you please?"
"You may have mine," he answered. "Yours is so desolate looking that you
might as well go on your way without one as to attempt to use it again."
"You are kind, indeed," she replied, with reserve, as she was making an
effort to hoist her wrecked umbrella, which he had turned over to her,
but still standing under his.
She was now facing the lamp that was feebly radiating down upon them,
and he could see, plainly enough, that she was pretty. He had divined as
much, however, basing his divination upon her beautifully modulated and
sweet voice, which he thought could accompany no other than blue eyes,
rosy cheeks and cupid lips.
"Will you accept mine?" he asked again, seeing she was having trouble in
raising her own to a due and rigid uprightness.
"To whom shall I return it, should I accept it?" she asked.
"Oh, never mind its return," he replied.
"Then I shall not accept it," she insisted.
"If you insist on returning it, then to the office of Jarney & Lowman,"
he answered.
"Why, what have you to do with that firm?" she asked, with surprise.
"I am one of the bookkeepers in the office of that firm," he answered,
hesitatingly, for her tone of surprise was such that he could not guess
its meaning.
"Ha, ha, ha!" she laughed. "It seems so ridiculous in me standing here
this soggy night, feeling so fearful all the while that I might have
fallen into the hands of a ruffian! Ha, ha, ha! I must tell papa as soon
as I get home. Such a strange coincidence one never heard of before!"
The pleasant demeanor of the young lady, so suddenly taken on, set John
to staring at her, now in a great quandary, now in mingled confusion and
hesitancy as to what to say further.
"To whom have I the honor of being so unceremoniously introduced on such
an aqueous night?" he asked.
"Why, I am Edith Jarney, daughter of Hiram Jarney," she replied, with so
much more confidence in herself that she felt she would not now hesitate
to be on friendly terms with this humble worker in her father's office.
"And your name?" she was emboldened to ask.
"John Winthrope," he blurted out, a little flustrated over the turn the
accidental meeting had taken.
"Mr. Winthrope," she said, extending her hand; "I am very glad to know
you, and to know that you are an employe of my father." As he took her
gloved hand, she continued, "yes, with your permission, I will accept
your umbrella; but it seems so ungracious for me to do so. What will you
do without one, and the rain coming down so?"
"I have not far to go," he answered.
He pressed her hand lightly, while she held his firmly and sincerely in
her effort to impress upon him how very thankful she was for his
kindness.
"It gives me pleasure, indeed, Miss Jarney," he returned, looking
steadily at her, "to assist you. I hope I may have the further pleasure
of seeing you again, some day; but I can hardly expect that--"
"Why not?" she interrupted.
"--unless it should be by chance," he finished, releasing her hand.
"Mr. Winthrope, really, I have enjoyed our accidental tete-a-tete," she
pursued. "When we first ran together, I was somewhat angered, as I had a
right to be, at your awkwardness; but when I saw you running for my hat,
and when I heard you speak, and when you offered to aid me in my
distress, all fear left me. I felt that a gentleman was at hand to
mollify the grievous circumstance. Now, you know what I think of you."
"Thank you," he replied, bowing, with considerable condescension, for
her praiseworthy remarks.
"I would like to prolong our now quite interesting little episode, were
it possible," she said, with more earnestness in her feelings than he
could believe; "but this horrid night is already sending the shivers
through me, and I am beginning to realize that, should we stand here
longer, the rain will have, soaked us through and through."
John gasped at this reassuring confidence and interest in himself. He
would have asked her, as a matter of continuing his courtesy, to
accompany her to her home, or to some convenient point for her to take a
taxicab; but recognizing his station in life was not on a plain with
hers, he could not conscientiously attempt to ingratiate himself into
her favor, let alone asking the pleasure of her company homeward. He
felt it would be exceedingly bold and entirely out of place for him,
being as he was poor, to make such a dubious request of her. But still
she remained continuing the conversation. And the rain still came
pouring down.
"I assure you, Miss Jarney," he did say at last, "I have, since I came
to know you, never enjoyed anything so monumentally humorous as this
affair; and I would have been greatly disappointed on it, and weightily
embarrassed over it, had you not have taken my umbrella, even though I
had not learned your name, nor ever expected to see you again."
"That is very clever in you," she replied, with the sweetest little
chuckle, being amused at the simplicity of his manner and loftiness of
his speech. "The eloquence of your deportment cannot be improved on."
"Thank you, Miss Jarney, for your kind opinion," he answered.
Still Edith Jarney stood, on this cold, gloomy, miserable November
evening, talking to this young man from the mountains, who was without
money, or fame, or glory, or name, except that which his good parents
had bestowed upon him--this young man alone in a big city, with a
multitude of others in the struggle for existence, and she so rich.
And still she talked on with this unassuming country youth, emboldened
to the act by the strange hand of chance that should bring her to it,
and by the novelty of the situation, and by some other unfathomable
mystery that caused her to see in him something more than usual,
continuing to intimate the while that she was loath to forego further
indulgence in their very entertaining meeting; and she so rich, and he
so poor. But as all happy events in one's life must have an ending, she
at length said, while the rain still kept pouring down:
"Mr. Winthrope, I must express my sincere regret that the time and place
are inappropriate for a continuance of our very, very pleasant talk on
this highly felicitous event, as it has turned out to be."
Again she extended her hand, and still the rain came beating down as
before. He took it, and pressed it more firmly, and she permitted him to
hold it as he said:
"The pleasure is not all yours, Miss Jarney, I assure you. Were I--were
I equal to the occasion, which I can never hope to be, I might ask the
pleasure of accompanying you--part way at least--through this soaking
night to your home, or to your nearest friends. But I shall not ask it
of you."
"Good bye," she replied, with some disappointment, it appeared to him,
as he released her hand.
"Good bye," he returned; and they parted.
She turned, and disappeared, like a spectre, into the depths of the
grayish shroud of the melancholy night.
He turned a corner, lost his way in the hurrying crowd, and drew up
eventually at a restaurant. After refreshing himself, he returned to the
street again, and plodded on, with the broken umbrella over him, through
the dampage to his cold and dimly lighted chamber--there to sleep, and
dream, perhaps, of a fair young face, miles and miles above his station
in life.
And the rain beat down above him with the same homely sound, it seemed,
as it did in the past, upon the roof above his chamber in his mountain
home.