I
The base-ball season had closed, and we were walking down Fifth avenue,
Larry Moore and I. We were discussing the final series for the
championship, and my friend was estimating his chances of again pitching
the Giants to the top, when a sudden jam on the avenue left us an
instant looking face to face at a woman and a child seated in a
luxurious victoria.
Larry Moore, who had hold of my arm, dropped it quickly and wavered in
his walk. The woman caught her breath and put her muff hastily to her
face; but the child saw us without surprise. All had passed within a
second, yet I retained a vivid impression of a woman of strange
attraction, elegant and indolent, with something in her face which left
me desirous of seeing it again, and of a pretty child who seemed a
little too serious for that happy age. Larry Moore forgot what he had
begun to say. He spoke no further word, and I, in glancing at his face,
comprehended that, incredible as it seemed, there was some bond between
the woman I had seen and this raw-boned, big-framed, and big-hearted
idol of the bleachers.
Without comment I followed Larry Moore, serving his mood as he
immediately left the avenue and went east. At first he went with excited
strides, then he slowed down to a profound and musing gait, then he
halted, laid his hand heavily on my shoulder, and said:
"Get into the car, Bob. Come up to the rooms."
I understood that he wished to speak to me of what had happened, and I
followed. We went thus, without another word exchanged, to his rooms,
and entered the little parlor hung with the trophies of his career,
which I looked at with some curiosity. On the mantel in the center I saw
at once a large photograph of the Hon. Joseph Gilday, a corporation
lawyer of whom we reporters told many hard things, a picture I did not
expect to find here among the photographs of the sporting celebrities
who had sent their regards to my friend of the diamond. In some
perplexity I approached and saw across the bottom written in large firm
letters: "I'm proud to know you, Larry Moore."
I smiled, for the tribute of the great man of the law seemed incongruous
here to me, who knew of old my simple-minded, simple-hearted friend
whom, the truth be told, I patronized perforce. Then I looked about more
carefully, and saw a dozen photographs of a woman, sometimes alone,
sometimes holding a pretty child, and the faces were the faces I had
seen in the victoria. I feigned not to have seen them; but Larry, who
had watched me, said:
"Look again, Bob; for that is the woman you saw in the carriage, and
that is the child."
So I took up a photograph and looked at it long. The face had something
more dangerous than beauty in it--the face of a Cleopatra with a look in
the deep restless eyes I did not fancy; but I did not tell that to Larry
Moore. Then I put it back in its place and turned and said gravely:
"Are you sure that you want to tell me, Larry Moore?"
"I do," he said. "Sit down."
He did not seek preliminaries, as I should have done, but began at once,
simply and directly--doubtless he was retelling the story more to
himself than to me.
"She was called Fanny Montrose," he said, "a slip of a girl, with
wonderful golden hair, and big black eyes that made me tremble, the day
I went into the factory at Bridgeport, the day I fell in love. 'I'm
Larry Moore; you may have heard of me,' I said, going straight up to her
when the whistle blew that night, 'and I'd like to walk home with you,
Fanny Montrose.'
"She drew back sort of quick, and I thought she'd been hearing tales of
me up in Fall River; so I said: 'I only meant to be polite. You may have
heard a lot of bad of me, and a lot of it's true, but you never heard
of Larry Moore's being disrespectful to a lady,' and I looked her in the
eye and said: 'Will you let me walk home with you, Fanny Montrose?'
"She swung on her foot a moment, and then she said: 'I will.'
"I heard a laugh go up at that, and turned round, with the bit in my
teeth; but it was only the women, and you can't touch them. Fanny
Montrose hurried on, and I saw she was upset by it, so I said humbly:
'You're not sorry now, are you?'
"'Oh, no,' she said.
"'Will you catch hold of my arm?' I asked her.
"She looked first in my face, and then she slipped in her hand so
prettily that it sent all the words from my tongue. 'You've just come to
Bridgeport, ain't you?' she said timidly.
"'I have,' I said, 'and I want you to know the truth. I came because I
had to get out of Fall River. I had a scrap--more than one of them.'
"'Did you lick your man?' she said, glancing at me.
"'I licked every one of them, and it was good and fair fighting--if I
was on a tear,' I said; 'but I'm ashamed of it now.'
"'You're Larry Moore, who pitched on the Fall Rivers last season?' she
said.
"'I am.'
"'You can pitch some!' she said with a nod.
"'When I'm straight I can.'
"'And why don't you go at it like a man then? You could get in the
Nationals,' she said.
"'I've never had anyone to work for--before,' I said.
"'We go down here; I'm staying at Keene's boarding-house,' she said at
that.
"I was afraid I'd been too forward; so I kept still until we came to the
door. Then I pulled off my hat and made her a bow and said: 'Will you
let me walk home with you steady, Fanny Montrose?'
"And she stopped on the door-step and looked at me without saying a
word, and I asked it again, putting out my hand, for I wanted to get
hold of hers. But she drew back and reached for the knob. So I said:
"'You needn't be frightened; for it's me that ought to be afraid.'
"'And what have you to be afraid of, you great big man?' she said,
stopping in wonder.
"'I'm afraid of your big black eyes, Fanny Montrose, 'I said, 'and I'm
afraid of your slip of a body that I could snap in my hands,' I said;
'for I'm going to fall in love with you, Fanny Montrose.'
"Which was a lie, for I was already. With that I ran off like a fool. I
ran off, but from that night I walked home with Fanny Montrose.
"For a month we kept company, and Bill Coogan and Dan Farrar and the
rest of them took my notice and kept off. The women laughed at me and
sneered at her; but I minded them not, for I knew the ways of the
factory, and besides there wasn't a man's voice in the lot--that I
heard.
"But one night as we were wandering back to Keene's boarding-house,
Fanny Montrose on my arm, Bill Coogan planted himself before us, and
called her something to her face that there was no getting around.
"I took her on a bit, weeping and shaking, and I said to her: 'Stand
here.'
"And I went back, and caught Bill Coogan by the throat and the belt, and
swung him around my head, and flung him against the lamp-post. And the
post broke off with a crash, and Coogan lay quiet, with nothing more to
say.
"I went back to Fanny Montrose, who had stopped her crying, and said,
shaking with anger at the dirty insult: 'Fanny Montrose, will you be my
wife? Will you marry me this night?'
"She pushed me away from her, and looked up into my face in a frightened
way and said: 'Do you mean to be your wife?'
"'I do,' I said, and then because I was afraid that she didn't trust in
me enough yet to marry me I said solemnly: 'Fanny Montrose, you need
have no fear. If I've been drunk and riotous, it's because I wanted to
be, and now that I've made up my mind to be straight, there isn't a
thing living that could turn me back again. Fanny Montrose, will you say
you'll be my wife?'
"Then she put out her two hands to me and tumbled into my arms, all
limp."