grandeur that was Rome. She had not expected to be so glad to see him.
Meanwhile Aladdin had turned and was going home.
Margaret caught sight of his back, and the pitiful little droop in the
usually erect shoulders, and she divined like a flash, and called
after him. He pretended not to hear and went on. In his pocket was the
editor’s letter which he had designed to show her. It had lain down and
died.
“Why does that man hate me so?” said Manners.
A little of the joy of meeting had gone. A cloud passed over the sun,
and the earth was darkened. Many drops of rain began to fall, each
making a distinct splash as it struck. One began to smell the disturbed
dust. But the flowers continued to send up their incense to heaven, and
Manners put his light overcoat about Margaret.
XI
Aladdin had a large acquaintance in the town among all sorts of men,
and, as he went home sorrowfully in the rain, he met a youth, older
than himself, who had an evil notoriety; for being born with brains, of
respectable people, and propitiously launched on the world, he had begun
in his early teens, and in the face of the most heartrending solicitude,
to drink himself to death. The miserable part of it was that everybody
loved him when he was sober, and out of consideration to his family
still asked him to the best that the town could do in the way of parties
and entertainments. He was a good-looking young man with a big frame and
a pale face. His real name was William Addison Larch, but he was better
known as “Beau Larch.” He had a nervous, engaging smile, of which he
made frequent use.
“My word, Aladdin,” he said, “you look sick as a dog. Come with me and
take a snifter for it.”
Aladdin hesitated a moment. And as soon as he had thoroughly made up his
mind that it was wrong to say so, he said:
“I believe I will.” The Celt in him was feeling suicidal. They went into
the ground-floor room of a house where liquor was sold.
“For me, whisky,” said Beau Larch.
“The same for me,” said Aladdin, with something suspiciously like a
gulp. The first drink which a man takes against his better judgment is
a grisly epoch in his life. Aladdin realized this, and was at once
miserable and willing that it should be so.
“To those that love us!” said Beau Larch.
Aladdin put down his liquor without grimace or gasp.
Beau Larch paid.
In Aladdin’s pocket were three dollars, the first mile-post on the steep
road to his ideal. He felt, to be sure that they were there.
“Now you ‘ll have one with me,” he said.
When the sudden rain-storm had rained and thundered and lightened itself
out, they went to another saloon, and from there to the Boat Club, of
which Beau Larch was a member and whither he asked Aladdin to supper.
Fishes and lobsters and clams were the staple articles of Boat Club
suppers, and over savory messes of these, helped down with much whisky
and water, Aladdin and Beau Larch made the evening spin. Aladdin,
talking eagerly and with the naivete of a child, wondered why he had
never liked this man so much before. And Larch told the somewhat
abject story of his life three times with an introduction of much racy
anecdote.
Aladdin’s head held surprisingly well. Every now and then he would hand
himself an inward congratulation on the alertness and clearness of
his mind, and think what a fine constitution he must have. They got to
singing after a while, and reciting poems, of which each knew a quantity
by heart. And, oddly enough, Aladdin, though he had been brought up to
speak sound American, developed in his cups, and afterward clung to,
in moments of exhilaration or excitement, an indescribably faint but
perfectly distinct Hibernian accent. It was the heritage to which he
was heir, and made his eager and earnest rendering of “Annabel Lee” so
pathetic that Beau Larch wept, and knocked a glass off the table....
Men came and sat with them, and Aladdin discovered in himself what
he had hitherto never suspected--the power of becoming heart-to-heart
friends with strangers in two seconds.
Aladdin was never able to remember just how or when or with whom they
left the Boat Club. He only remembered walking and walking and talking
and talking, and finally arguing a knotty question, on which all
defended the same side, and then sitting down on the steps of a house
in a low quarter of the town, and pouring the ramifications of all his
troubles into the thoroughly sympathetic if somewhat noncomprehending
ears of Beau Larch. He talked long and became drunker as he talked,
while Larch became soberer. Then Aladdin remembered that the door at the
top of the steps had opened, and a frowzy head had been stuck out, and
that a brassy voice, with something at once pathetic and wheedling in
it, had said:
“Aren’t you coming in, boys?”
Then Aladdin remembered that Beau Larch and he had had angry words,
and that Beau Larch had told him not to make an ass of himself, and for
heaven’s sake to go home. To which Aladdin had retorted that he was old
enough to know what was good for him, and hated the world and didn’t
give a damn who knew it, and wouldn’t go home. Aladdin could swear that
after that he only closed his eyes for a second to shut out something or
other, and that when he opened them, the reverberation of a door closing
was in his ears. But for all that Beau Larch had gone, and was to be
seen neither up the street nor down. Although his own was past mending,
Beau Larch, drunk as he was, had done a good deed that night, for he had
guarded a precious innocence against the assaults of a drunken little
Irish boy who was feeling down about something--a girl named something
or other, Beau Larch thought, and another boy named something or other.
The next day Beau had forgotten even that much.
Aladdin thought that Larch was hiding in jest. He arose unsteadily and
wandered off in search of him. After a time he found himself before
the door of his own house. There were lights in the parlor, and Aladdin
became almost sober. He realized with a thrill of stricken conscience
that Mrs. Brackett was sitting up for him, and he was afraid. He tried
the front door and found it unlocked. He went in. On the right, the door
leading into the parlor stood open. On the table burned a lamp. Beside
the table in the crushed plush rocker sat Mrs. Brackett. Her spectacles
were pushed high up on her forehead. Her eyes were closed, and her mouth
was slightly open. From the corners of her eyes red marks ran down her
cheeks. Her thin gray hair was in disarray. In her lap, open, lay her
huge family Bible; a spray of pressed maidenhair fern marked the place.
Aladdin, somewhat sobered by now, and already stung with the anguish of
remorse, tiptoed into the parlor and softly blew out the light; but the
instant before he did so he glanced down at the Bible in the good lady’s
lap and saw that she had been reading about the prodigal son. Great
tears ran out of Aladdin’s eyes. He went up-stairs, weeping and on
tiptoe, and as he passed the door of his brother’s room he heard a stir
within.
“Is that you, ‘Laddin?”
“Sssh, darlint,” said Aladdin; “you’ll wake Mother Brackett.”
In his own room there was a lamp burning low, and on his bureau was a
note for him from Margaret:
DEAR ALADDIN: Papa wants you to come up and have supper with us.
Peter Manners is here, and I think it will be fun. Please do come, and
remember a lot of foolish songs to sing. Why wouldn’t you speak to me?
It hurts so when you act like that....
Aladdin, kissing the note, went down on his knees and twice began to
pray, “O God--O God!” He could say no more, but all the penitence and
heartburnings of his soul were in his prayer. Later he lay on his bed
staring into a darkness which moved in wheels, and he kept saying to the
darkness:
“Neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”
Late in the still morning he awoke, grieving and hurt, for he did not
see how he should ever face Mrs. Brackett, or his brother, or Margaret,
or himself, or anybody ever again.
XII
There was in town at this time what passed for a comic-opera troupe, and
Margaret and her father, by way of doing honor to their guest, invited
all the young people to go to the performance and attend a supper
afterward. The party occupied the three foremost rows in the music-hall,
and Aladdin sat next to Margaret, and Manners sat upon the other side.
The hero of the piece was a jovial big rascal with a spirited voice, and
much byplay which kept his good-natured audience in titters--from the
young gentlemen and little shrieks--from the young ladies. Mr. Blythoe,
the hero, when the curtain had fallen upon what the management was
pleased to call the second act, consented, in response to continued
applause, due to a double back somersault and two appropriate remarks
fired off in midair (this was his great psychic moment), to make a
little speech and sing a song. His speech, though syntactically erratic,
was delivered in a loud, frank way that won everybody’s heart, and in
closing he said:
“Three nights ago I met with a young feller in this tow--city
[applause], and when we had taken one together for luck [titters from
the young gentlemen, who wanted one another to know that they knew what
he meant], he made me the loan of the song I’m a-going to sing. He made
up the words and the tune of this song hisself, and he’s right here in
this audience.” This gave an opportunity for some buffoonery among the
young gentlemen. Mr. Blythoe looked for one instant straight at Aladdin,
and Aladdin went into a cold sweat, for he began to recollect that
somewhere on a certain awful night he had taken drinks with Mr. Blythoe
and had sung him songs. Mr. Blythoe went on:
“This young gentleman said I specially wasn’t to mention his name, and
I won’t, but I want all you ladies and gentlemen to know that this here
beautiful ballad was composed right here in this tow--city [applause] by
a citizen of this city. And here goes.”
Then Mr. Blythoe did a wonderful thing. Much was owing to the words and
air, but a little something to the way in which Mr. Blythoe sang. He
took his audience with the first bar, and had some of them crying when
he was through. And the song should have been silly. It was about a gay,
gay young dog of a crow, that left the flock and went to a sunny land
and lived a mad, mad life; and finally, penitent and old, came home to
the north country and saw his old playmates in the distance circling
about the old pine-tree, but was too weak to reach them, or to call loud
enough for them to hear, and so lay down and died, died, died. The tune
was the sweetest little plaintive wail, and at the end of each stanza it
died, died, till you had to cry.
Mr. Blythoe received tremendous applause, but refused to encore. He
winked to Aladdin and bowed himself off. Then Aladdin executed an
unparalleled blush. He could feel it start in the small of his back and
spread all over him--up under the roots of his hair to the top of his
head. He should have felt proud, instead of which he was suffused with
shame. Margaret caught sight of his face.
“What is it, Aladdin?” she said in a whisper.
“Nothing.”
“Won’t you tell me?”
“It’s nothing.” He got redder and redder.
“Please.”
With downcast eyes he shook his head. She looked at him dubiously and
a little pathetically for a moment. Then she said, “Silly goose,” and
turned to Manners.
“Poor old crow!” said Manners. “I had one, Margaret, when I was little;
he had his wings clipped and used to follow me like a dog, and one day
he saw some of his old friends out on the salt-marsh, and he hopped out
to talk it over with them, and they set upon him and killed him. And
I couldn’t get there quick enough to help him--I beg your pardon.” He
picked up a fan and handed it to the girl on his left, and she, having
dropped it on purpose, blushed, thanked him, and giggled. Manners turned
to Margaret again. “Ever since then,” he said, “when I have a gun in my
hand and see a crow, I want to kill him for the sake of the crows that
killed mine, and to let him go for the sake of mine, who was such a nice
old fellow. So it’s an awful problem.”
Aladdin sat and looked straight before him. “Is real fame as awful as
this?” he thought.
Somebody clapped him on the shoulder, and a hearty voice, something the
worse for wear, said loudly in his ear, “Bully, Aladdin, bully!”
Aladdin looked up and recognized that bad companion, Beau Larch.
“That’s all right,” Aladdin tried to say, but Mr. Larch would not be
downed.
“Wasn’t it bully, Margaret?” he said.
“Oh--hallo--hallo, Beau!” said she, starting and turning round and
collecting her wits. “What? Wasn’t what bully?”
Aladdin frowned at Larch with all the forbiddingness that he could
muster, but Larch was imperturbable.
“Why, Aladdin’s song!” he said. “You know, the one about the old
crow--the one the man just sang.”
Here a young lady, over whom Beau Larch was leaning, confided to her
escort in an audible, nervous voice that she knew Beau Larch had been
drinking, but she wouldn’t say why she knew--anybody could see he had;
and then she sniffed with her nose by way of indicating that seeing was
not the only or best method of telling.
“You don’t mean to say--” said Margaret to Aladdin, and looked him in the
eyes. “Why, Aladdin!” she said. And then: “Peter--Peter--‘Laddin wrote
it, he did. Isn’t it gr-reat!”
And Peter, rising to the occasion, said, “Bully,” and “I thought it was
great,” with such absolute frankness and sincerity that Aladdin’s heart
almost warmed toward him. It was presently known all over the house that
Aladdin had written the song. And some of the more clownish of the young
people called for Author, Author. Aladdin hung his head.
At supper at the St. Johns’ later was a crisp, brisk gentleman with
grayish hair, who talked in a pleasant, dry way. Aladdin learned that it
was Mr. Blankinship, editor and proprietor of the Portland “Spy.” Almost
immediately on learning this important item, he saw Mr. Blankinship
exchange a word with Margaret and come toward him.
“Mr. O’Brien?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The same that sent us three poems a while ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you wrote that song we heard to-night?”
“Yes, sir.” Aladdin was now fiery red.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I’ve just finished school,” said Aladdin. “And I don’t know what to
do.”
“Newspaper work appeal to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Timid as a coot,” thought Mr. Blankinship.
“Write easily?” he said. “Fast--short words?”
Aladdin thought a moment. “Yes, sir,” he said coolly.
“Less timid than a coot,” thought Mr. Blankinship.
“Willing to live in Portland?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll give you five dollars a week and give you a trial.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Can you get moved and start work Monday?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mr. Blankinship smiled cheerfully.
“Pretty entertainment, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, O’Brien, see you Monday; hope we get on.” Mr. Blankinship nodded
pleasantly and passed up the room to the punch, muttering as he went,
“Writes better than talks--dash of genius--more or less timid than a
coot.”
Aladdin went quickly to find Margaret. He traced her to the pantry,
where she was hurrying the servant who had charge of the ice-cream.
Aladdin waited until the servant had gone out with a heaping tray.
“Margaret,” he said, “I’m going away to live.”
He spoke in the flat, colorless voice with which a little child
announces that it has hurt itself.
“What do you mean, Aladdin?” She changed color slightly.
“Only that I’ve got to make a living, Margaret, and it’s on a paper, so
I ought to be glad.”
“Aren’t you glad, Aladdin?”
“A little.”
“Aladdin--”
“Margaret--O Margaret--”
She read in his eyes what was coming.
“Not now, Aladdin,” she said.
“Not now--dear Aladdin.”
“Then you know?”
“I’ve always known, Aladdin, and been grateful and that proud.”
“Will there never be any chance for me, Margaret?”
“Aladdin, I think I like you better than anybody else in the world--”
“Darling--” he had never supposed that it could be said so easily; he
leaned toward her.
“No,” she said suddenly; “I’ve got to go and see after all those foolish
people.”
“Just for the sake of old times, and now, and new times--”
She hesitated, reddened a little, and then, as sweetly and innocently as
a child, put up her lips for him to kiss.
XIII
Hannibal St. John’s campaign for reelection to the senatorship was,
owing to a grievous error in tact, of doubtful issue. A hue and cry
arose against him among his constituents, and things in general fell
out so unhappily that it looked toward the close of the contest as if he
would be obliged to sit idle and dangle his heels, while the two halves
of the country, pushing against each other, were rising in the middle
like the hinge of a toggle-joint into the most momentous crisis in
the nation’s history. It looked as if the strong man, with his almost
blasphemous intolerance of disunion, his columnlike power of supporting,
and his incomparable intellect, was to stand in the background and watch
the nightmare play from afar. He fought for his place in the forefront
of the battle with a great fervor of bitterness, and the possibility of
defeat weighed upon his glowering soul like a premature day of judgment.
He knew himself to be the one man for the opportunity, and could his
true feelings have found utterance, they would have said, “Damn us
everlastingly in hell, but don’t shelve us now!”
Opposed to St. John was a Mr. Bispham, of about quarter his height
intellectually and integrally--a politician, simple, who went to war for
loot. But he was blessed with a tremendous voice and an inexhaustible
store of elemental, fundamental humor, upon the waves of which the ship
bearing his banner floated high. It seemed that because of one glaring
exhibition of tactlessness, and a lack of humor, a really important,
valuable, and honest man was to lose the chance of serving his country
to a designing whipper-snapper, who was without even the saving grace of
violent and virulent prejudices. And so the world goes. It seemed at one
time that St. John’s chance was a ghost of a chance, and his friends,
sons, and relatives, toiling headstrong by night and day, were brought
up at the verge of despair. To make the situation even more difficult,
St. John himself was prostrated with the gout, so that his telling
oratory and commanding personality could not be brought to bear.
Margaret was never far from her father’s side, and she worked like a dog
for him, writing to dictation till her hands became almost useless, and
when the spasms of pain were great, leaving her work to kiss his old
brow.
It was at this time that people all over the State began to take up a
song with an inimitably catching tune. The words of this song held up
Mr. Bispham in so shrewdly true and farcically humorous a light that
even his own star began to titter and threatened to slip from its high
place in the heavens. The song fell so absolutely on the head of
the nail that Mr. Bispham, when he heard it for the first time, was
convulsed with anger and talked of horse-whips. The second time he heard
it, he drew himself up with dignity and pretended not to notice, and
the third time he broke into a cold sweat, for he began to be afraid of
those words and that tune. At a mass-meeting, while in the midst of a
voluble harangue, somebody in the back of the hall punctuated--an absurd
statement, which otherwise might have passed unnoticed, by whistling the
first bar of the song. Mr. Bispham faced the tittering like a man, and
endeavored to rehabilitate himself. But his hands had slipped on the
handle of the audience, and the forensic rosin of Demosthenes would not
have enabled him to regain his grip. He was cruelly assured of the fact
by the hostile and ready-witted whistler. Again Mr. Bispham absurded.
This time the tune broke out in all parts of the hall and was itself
punctuated by catcalls and sotto-voce insults delivered with terrific
shouts. Mr. Bispham’s speech was hurriedly finished, and the peroration
came down as flat as a skater who tries a grape-vine for the first time.
He left the hall hurriedly, pale and nervous. The tune followed him down
the street and haunted him to his room. The alarming takingness of it
had gotten in at his ear, and as he was savagely undressing he caught
himself in the traitorous act of humming it to himself.
Among others to leave the hall was a tall, slim young man with freckles
across the bridge of his nose and very bright blue eyes. A party of
young men accompanied him, and all were a little noisy, and, as they
made the street, broke lustily into the campaign song. People said,
“That’s him,” “That’s O’Brien,” “That’s Aladdin O’Brien,” “That’s the
man wrote it,” and the like. The young men disappeared down the street
singing at the tops of their voices, with interlardations of turbulent,
mocking laughter.
Aladdin’s song went all over the North, and his name became known in the
land.
Hannibal St. John was not musical. There were only four tunes, and three
of them were variations of “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,” that he
recognized when he heard them. As he lay on his bed of pain, he
heard the shrill whistle of his gardener piping in the garden below.
Unconsciously the senator’s well hand marked the time. All day, as he
came and went about his business, the gardener kept whistling that tune,
and the senator heard and reheard ever with increasing pleasure. And
this was an extraordinary thing, for it was as difficult or nearly so
to move Hannibal St. John with music as it must have been for Orpheus
to get himself approached by rocks and stones and trees, and far more
difficult than it ever was for the Pied Piper to achieve a following of
brats and rats.
Margaret had been for a drive with a girl friend. She came home and to
her father’s side in great spirits.
“Oh, papa,” she cried, “will you do me a favor?”
She read consent.
“Claire has got the wonderfulest song, and I want you to let her come in
and sing it for you.”
“A song?” said the senator, doubtfully.
“Papa de-e-ear, please.”
He smiled grimly.
“If Claire will not be shocked by my appearance,” he said against hope.
“Rubbish,” cried Margaret, and flew out of the room.
There were a few preliminary gasps and giggles in the hall, and the
two maidens, as sedate and demure as mice, entered. Claire was a little
party, with vivacious manners and a comical little upturned face.
“How do you do, senator?” she said. “I’m so sorry you’re laid up. Isn’t
it lovely out?” She advanced and shook his well hand.
“Won’t you take a chair?” said the senator.
“I just ran in for a moment. Margaret and I thought maybe you’d like to
hear the new campaign song that everybody’s singing. My brother brought
it up from Portland--” she paused, out of breath.
“It would afford me great pleasure,” said the senator.
And forthwith Claire sang in a rollicking voice. The tune was the same
as that which the gardener had been whistling. St. John recognized it
in spite of the difference in the mediums and smiled. Then he smiled
because of the words, and presently he laughed. It was the first real
pleasure he had had in many a day.
“Everybody is wild about it,” said Claire, when she had finished.
The senator was shaking with laughter.
“That’s good,” he said, “that’s good.”
“Papa,” said Margaret, when Claire had gone, “who do you think wrote
that song?”
“I don’t know,” said the senator. “But it’s good.”
“Aladdin wrote it,” said Margaret.
“Upon my word!” said the senator.
Margaret knelt and threw her arms about her father’s neck and blushed a
lovely blush.
“Isn’t it splendid?”
There was a ring at the front door, and a telegram was brought in.
“Read it, Peggy,” said the senator. He used that name only when moved
about something. The despatch was from the senator’s youngest son,
Hannibal, and read:
Do not worry; we are singing Bispham up a tree.
“And Aladdin wrote the song!” cried Margaret. “Aladdin wrote it!”
The senator’s face clouded for a moment. He forced the cloud to pass.
“We must thank him,” he said. “We must thank him.”
Senator St. John was reelected by a small majority. Everybody admitted
that it was due to Aladdin O’Brien’s song. It was impossible to disguise
the engaging childishness of the vote.
XIV
As he went to his desk in the back room of the Portland “Spy” offices
the morning after the election, Aladdin had an evil headache, and a
subconscious hope that nobody would speak to him suddenly. He felt that
his arms and legs might drop off if anybody did, and he could have sworn
that he saw a gray sparrow with blue eyes run into a dark corner, and
turn into a mouse. But he was quite free from penitence, as the occasion
of this last offense had been joy and triumph, whereas that of his first
had been sorrow. He lighted a bad cigar, put off his editorial till
later, and covered a whole sheet of paper with pictures like these:
(Transcriber’s note: These are simple sketches of birds and animals.)
He looked back with a certain smug satisfaction upon a hilarious evening
beginning with a dinner at the club, which some of the older adherents
of St. John had given him in gratitude for the part he had taken in the
campaign. He remembered that he had not given a bad exhibition, and that
noble prophecies had been made of his future by gentlemen in their cups,
and that he himself, when just far enough gone to be courageous without
being silly, had made a snappy little speech of thanks which had been
received with great applause, and that later he had sung his campaign
song and others, and that finally, in company with an ex-judge, whose
hat was also decorated with a wreath of smilax, he had rolled amiably
about the town in a hack, going from one place where drinks could be
gotten to another, and singing with great fervor and patriotism:
Zhohn Brownzh bozhy liezh a mole-ring in zhe grave.
Aladdin thought over these things with pleasure, for he had fallen
under the dangerous flattery of older men, and with less pleasure of the
editorial which it was his immediate business to write. His brisk,
crisp chief, Mr. Blankinship, came in for a moment, walking testily and
looking like the deuce.
“So you’ve showed up, Aladdin, have you?” he said. “That’s young
blood. If any question of politics--I mean policy--arises, I leave it
absolutely to you. I’m going back to bed. Can’t you stop smoking that
rotten cigar?”
Aladdin laughed aloud, and Mr. Blankinship endeavored to smile.
“Somewhere,” he said, “in this transcendentally beautiful continent,
Aladdin, there may be some one that feels worse than I do, but I doubt
it.” He turned to go.
“Won’t Mr. Orde be here either?” said Aladdin.
“No; he’s home in bed. You’re editor-in-chief and everything else for
the day, see? And I wish I was dead.” Mr. Blankinship nodded, very
slightly, for it hurt, and went out.
The misery of others is a great cure: with the first sight of Mr.
Blankinship, Aladdin’s headache had gone, and he now pounced upon fresh
paper, got a notion out of the God-knows-where, wrote his editorial at
full speed, and finished it without once removing the cigar from his
mouth.
He had just done when the shrewd, inky little boy, who did everything
about the “Spy” offices which nobody else would do, entered and said
that a gentleman wanted to speak with Mr. O’Brien. Aladdin had the
gentleman shown up, and recognized the oldest of Hannibal St. John’s
sons; he knew them well by sight, but it so happened that he had never
met them. They were the three biggest and most clean-cut young men
in Maine, measuring between six feet three and four; erect, massive,
utterly composed, and, if anything, a little stronger than so many
dray-horses. They were notable shots, great fishermen, and the whole
State was beginning to speculate with excitement about their respective
futures and the present almost glittering success of the law firm which
they composed. The oldest was the tallest and the strongest. He had been
known to break horseshoes and to tear a silver dollar in two. Iron was
as sealing-wax in his huge hands. His habits were Spartan. The second
son was almost a replica of the first--a little darker and a little less
vivid. The third was like the others; but his face was handsomer, and
not so strong. He was of a more gentle and winning disposition, for his
life was not ignorant of the frailties. The girl to whom he had
been engaged had died, and that had left a kind of sweetness, almost
beseechingness, in his manner, very engaging in so tall and strong a
man.
“Mr. O’Brien?” said John St. John.
Aladdin arose and held out his long, slender hand.
Aladdin had a way of moving which was very individual to himself, a
slight, ever so slight, exaggeration of stride and gesture, a kind of
captivating awkwardness and diffidence that was on the borderland of
grace and assurance. Like all slender people who work much with
their heads, he had a strong grip, but he felt that his hand was as
inconsistent as an eel when St. John’s closed over it.
“I came in for a moment,” said St. John, “to say that we are all
exceedingly grateful to you. Your song was a great factor in my father’s
reelection to the Senate. But we do not hold so much by the song as
by the good will which you showed us in writing it. I want you to
understand and believe that if I can ever be of the slightest service to
you, I will go very far to render it.”
“I’m as obliged as I can be,” said Aladdin. “It’s mighty good of you
to come and talk to me like this, and except for the good will I have
toward all your family, I don’t deserve it a bit.”
When John St. John had gone, the inky boy came to announce that another
gentleman wished to speak with Mr. O’Brien.
The second gentleman proved to be the second brother, Hamilton St. John.
“Mr. O’Brien?” said he.
Aladdin shook hands with him.
“I came in for a moment,” said Hamilton St. John, “for the pleasure of
telling you how tremendously grateful we all are to you for your song,
which was such a big factor in my father’s redirection to the Senate.
But I want to say, too, that we’re more grateful for your good will than
for the song, and if I can ever do you a service, I want you to feel
perfectly free to come and ask it of me, whatever it is.”
Aladdin could have laughed for joy. Margaret did not seem so far away as
sometimes.
“I’m as obliged as I can be,” he said. “It’s mighty good of you to come
and talk to me like this, and except for the good will I have toward
all your family, I don’t deserve it a bit, but I appreciate it just the
same.”
Presently Hamilton St. John departed.
Again the inky boy, and this time grinning.
“There’s a gentleman would like to speak with you, sir,” he said.
“Show him in,” said Aladdin.
Hannibal St. John, Jr., entered.
“O’Brien,” he said, “I’ve often heard my sister Margaret speak about
you, and I’ve been meaning for ever so long to look you up. And I wish
I’d done it before I had such an awfully good excuse as that song of
yours, because I don’t know how to thank you, quite. But I want you to
understand that if at any time--rubbish, you know what I mean. Come up
to the club, and we’ll make a drink and talk things over.”
He drew Aladdin’s arm into his, and they went out.
Aladdin had never before felt so near Margaret.
He returned to the office in half an hour, happy and a slave. Hannibal
St. John, Jr., had won the heart right out of him in ten minutes. He sat
musing and dreaming. Was he to be one of those chosen?
“Gentleman to see you, sir.”
“Show him in.”
The inky snickered and hurried out. He could be heard saying with
importance, “This way, sir. Look out for that press, sir. It’s very dark
in here, sir.” And then, like a smart flunky in a house of condition, he
appeared again at the door and announced
“Senator Hannibal St. John.”
Aladdin sprang up.
The senator, still suffering from the gout, and leaning heavily on his
whalebone cane, limped majestically in. There was an amiability on his
face, which Aladdin had never seen there before. He placed a chair for
his distinguished guest. The senator removed his high hat and stood it
upon the edge of Aladdin’s desk.
“My boy,” he said,--the word tingled from Aladdin’s ears to his heart,
for it was a word of great approachment and unbending,--“I am very
grateful for your efforts in my behalf. I will place honor where honor
is due, and say that I owe my recent reflection to the United States
Senate not so much to my more experienced political friends as to you.
The present crisis in the affairs of the nation calls for men of feeling
and honor, and not for politicians. I hope that you will not misconstrue
me into a braggart if I say from the bottom of my heart I believe
that, in returning a man of integrity and tradition to his seat in the
Congress of the nation, you have rendered a service to the nation.”
The senator paused, and Aladdin, still standing, waited for him to
finish.
“After a week,” said the senator, “I shall return to my duties in
Washington. In the meanwhile, Margaret” (he had hitherto always referred
to her before Aladdin as “my daughter”) “and I are keeping open house,
and if it will give you pleasure we shall be charmed” (the word fell
from the senator’s lips like a complete poem) “to have you make us a
visit. Two of my sons will be at home, and other young people.”
“Indeed, and it will give me pleasure!” cried Aladdin, falling into the
least suspicion of a brogue.
“I will write a line to your chief,” continued the senator, “and I have
reason to believe that he will see you excused. We shall expect you
to-morrow by the fourthirty.”
“I’m ever so much obliged, sir,” said Aladdin.
“My boy,” said the senator, gravely, after a full minute’s pause, “we
are all concerned in your future, which promises to be a brilliant
one. It rests with you. But, if an old man may be permitted a word of
caution, it would be this: Let your chief recreation lie in your work;
leave the other things. Do I make myself clear enough?” (Aladdin nodded
guiltily.) “Leave the frailties to the dullards of this world.”
He rose to go.
“My young friend,” said the senator, “you have my best wishes.”
Grimacing with the pain in his foot, limping badly, but always stately
and impressive,--almost superimpending,--Hannibal St. John moved slowly
out of the office.
XV
The weather turned suddenly gusty and cold, and that afternoon it began
to snow, and it kept on snowing. All night fine dry flakes fell in
unexampled profusion, and by morning the face of the land was many
inches deep. Nor did the snow then cease. All the morning it continued
to fall with vigor. The train by which Aladdin was to go to the St.
Johns’ left at two-thirty, arriving there two hours later; and it was
with numb feet and stinging ears that he entered the car reserved for
smokers, and, bundling in a somewhat threadbare over coat, endeavored
to make himself comfortable for the journey. As the train creaked and
jerked out of the protecting station, the storm smote upon the windows
with a noise like thrown sand, and a back draft down the chimney of
the iron stove in one end of the car sent out puffs of smutty smoke at
whatever points the various castings of the stove came together with
insufficient snugness. There were but half a dozen people in the whole
train.
“Troubles, old man,” said Aladdin, for so he was in the habit of
addressing himself at moments of self-communication, “this is going to
be the slowest kind of a trip, but we’re going to enjoy every minute
of it, because it’s taking us to the place where we would be-God bless
her!”
Aladdin took a cigar from his breast pocket.
“Troubles,” said he, “may I offer you a smoke? What? Oh, you’re very
much obliged and don’t mind if you do. There you are, then.” Aladdin
sent out a great puff of white smoke; this turned into a blue wraith,
drifted down the aisle, between the seats, gathering momentum as it
went, and finally, with the rapidity of a mint julep mounting a sucked
straw (that isn’t split) and spun long and fine, it was drawn through a
puncture of the isinglass in the stove door and went up the chimney
in company with other smoke, and out into the storm. Aladdin, full of
anticipation and glee, smoked away with great spirit. Presently, for the
car was empty but for himself, Aladdin launched into the rollicking air
of “Red Renard”
“Three scarlet huntsmen rode up to White Plains
With a carol of voices and jangle of chains,
For the morning was blue and the morning was fair,
And the word ran, “Red Renard” is waiting us there.”
He puffed at his cigar a moment to be sure that its fire should not
flag, and sang on:
“The first scarlet huntsman blew into his horn,
Lirala, Lovely Morning, I’m glad I was born”;
The second red huntsman he whistled an air,
And the third sang, “Red Renard” is waiting us there.”
“Just such weather as this, Troubles,” he said, looking out into the
swirl of snow. “Just the beautifulest kind of cross-country weather!” He
sang on:
Three lovely ladies they met at the meet,
With whips in their hands and with boots on their feet;
And the gentlemen lifted their hats with a cheer,
As the girls said, “Red Renard is waiting you here.”
He quickened into the stanza he liked best:
Three scarlet huntsmen rode off by the side
Of three lovely ladies on horses of pride.
Said the first, “Call me Ellen”; the second, “I’m Claire”;
Said the third, “I’m Red Renard--so called from my hair.”
The train, which had been running more slowly, drew up with a chug, and
some minutes passed before it again gathered itself and lurched on.
“That’s all right,” said Aladdin. He was quite warm now, and thoroughly
happy.
Three scarlet huntsmen rode home from White Plains,
With its mud on their boots, and its girls on their brains;
And the first sang of Ellen, the second of Claire,
But the third sang, “Red Renard is waiting back there.”
He made a waggish face to finish with:
Three scarlet huntsmen got into frock-coats,
And they pinched their poor feet, and they tortured their throats;
And the first married Ellen, the second wed Claire,
While the third said, “Re Renar izh waishing back zhere.”
He assumed the expression for a moment of one astutely drunk.
“A bas!” he said, for this much of the French language was his to
command, and no more. He turned and attempted to look out. He yawned.
Presently he threw away the reeking butt of his cigar, closed his eyes,
and fell asleep.
The water below the veranda was alive with struggling fishes in high
hats and frock-coats. Each fish had a label painted across his back with
his name and address neatly printed on it, and each fish was struggling
to reach a tiny minnow-hook, naked of bait, which dangled just out of
reach above the water. The baitless hook was connected by a fine line
(who ever heard of baiting a line at the wrong end?) with Margaret’s
hand. She had on a white dress stamped with big pink roses, and there
was a pale-green ribbon round the middle of it; her hair was done up for
the first time, and she was leaning over the railing, which was made of
safety-lamps and stranglers alternately, painted light blue, regarding
the struggling fishes with a look at once full of curiosity and pity.
Presently one of the fishes’ labels soaked off, and went hurtling out
to sea, with the fish weeping bitterly and following at express speed,
until in less than one moment both label and fish were hull down
below the horizon. Then another label washed off, and then another and
another, and fish after fish, in varying states of distraction, followed
after and disappeared, until all you could see were two, whereof the one
was labeled Manners and the other O’Brien (these continued to fight for
the hook), and all you could hear was Neptune, from down, down, down in
the sea, saying coquettishly to Cleopatra, “I’m Red Renard--so
called from my hair.” And then all of a sudden valiant Captain
Kissed-by-Margaret went by on a log writing mottos for the wives of
famous men. And then Manners and O’Brien, struggling desperately to
drown each other, sank down, down, down, and Cleopatra could be heard
saying perfectly logically to Neptune, “You didn’t!” And then there was
a tremendous shower of roses, and the dream went out like a candle.
Aladdin opened his eyes and stroked his chin. He was troubled about the
dream. The senator had spoken to him of “others.” Could Peter Manners
possibly be there? Was that the especial demolishment that fate held in
store for him? He was very wide awake now.
At times, owing to the opaqueness of the storm, it was impossible to see
out of the car window. But there were moments when a sudden rush of wind
blew a path for the eye, and by such occasional pictures--little long
of the instantaneous--one could follow the progress of the blizzard.
Aladdin saw a huddle of sheep big with snow; then a man getting into a
house by the window; an ancient apple-tree with a huge limb torn off;
two telegraph poles that leaned toward each other, like one man fixing
another’s cravat; and he caught glimpses of wires broken, loosened,
snarled, and fuzzy with snow. Then the train crawled over a remembered
trestle, and Aladdin knew that he was within four miles of his station,
and within three of the St. Johns’ house by the best of short cuts
across country. He looked precisely in its direction, and kissed his
fingers to Margaret, and wondered what she was doing. Then there was a
rumbling, jumping jar, and the train stopped. Minute after minute went
by. Aladdin waited impatiently for the train to start. The conductor
passed hurriedly through.
“What’s up?” called Aladdin after him.
“Up!” cried the conductor. “We’re off the track.”
“Can’t we go on to-night?”
“Nup!” The conductor passed out of the car and banged the door.
“Got to sit here all night!” said Aladdin. “Not much! Get up, Troubles!
If you don’t think I know the way about here, you can stay by the stove.
I’m going to walk.”
Aladdin and Troubles rose, buttoned their coat, left the car, and set
out in the direction of the St. Johns’. Aladdin’s watch at starting read
five o’clock.
“Our luggage is all checked, Troubles,” he said, “and all we’ve got
to face is the idea of walking three miles through very disagreeable
weather, over a broad path that we know like the palm of our hand (which
we don’t know as well as we might), arriving late, wet to the skin, and
without a change of clothes. On the other hand, we shall deserve a long
drink and much sympathy. As for you, Troubles, you’re the best company I
know, and all is well.”
The first scarlet huntsman blew into his horn,
“Lirala, Lovely Morning, I’m glad I was born.”
XVI
At first the way, lying through waist-high fir scrub, was pretty bad
underfoot, but beyond was a stretch of fine timber, where the trees had
done much to arrest the snow, and the going was not so severe. Aladdin
calculated that he should make the distance in an hour and a half; and
when the wood ended, he looked at his watch and found that the first
mile, together with only twenty-five minutes, was behind him.
“That’s the rate of an hour and a quarter, Troubles,” he said. “And
that’s good time. Are you listening?”
But following the wood was a great open space of country pitched up from
the surrounding levels, and naked to every fury of nature. Across that
upland the wind blew a wicked gale, scarifying the tops of knolls to the
brown, dead grass, and filling the hollows flush with snow. At times, to
keep from being blown over, it was necessary to lean against the gusts.
Aladdin was conscious of not making very rapid progress, but there was
something exhilarating in the wildness, the bitter cold, and the roar of
the wind; it had an effect as of sea thundering upon beach, great
views from mountain-tops, black wild nights, the coming of thunder and
freshness after intense heat, or any of the thousand and one vaster
demonstrations of nature. Now and again Aladdin sang snatches of song:
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight
In sunshine and shadow
Journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of El Dorado.
Or from “The Mole of Marimolena”
I was turning fifty-odd when the everlasting God
Smote a path of molten gold across the blue,
Says, “There’s many million men would have done the like again,
But you didn’t, and, my man, there’s hope for you.
“Start sheets and sail for the Mole--
For the old rotten Mole of Marimolena;
There’s maybe some one there
That you’re longing to treat fair,
On the dismal, woeful Mole of Marimolena.”
And other deep-sea chanteys,--the one in which the pirate found the Lady
in the C-a-a-bin and slivered off her head, or back to Red Renard, or
further to his own campaign song, and furthest of all to the bad, bad
young dog of a crow. Then he got quite out of breath, and pausing for a
moment to catch it, noted for the first time the extreme bitterness of
the cold. It stung the face like insects. “Woof!” he said. “And now for
lost time.”
Again he stepped out, but with each step the snow became deeper, and
presently he floundered in to his waist. “Must be a ditch!” he said,
turning a little to the right and exclaiming, “Thought so!” as the
wading got shallower. Whereupon he stepped into a deep hole and fell.
After plunging and plowing about, it was brought home to him that he had
lost the path. Even at that the difficulty remained one of hard walking
alone, for he had been familiar with that country since childhood,
and knew the precise direction in which it was necessary for him to
locomote. It was a pity that the only structure in the vicinity was an
ancient and deserted house,--it lay just off there,--as he should have
liked to have warmed himself by a good fire before going farther. He
remembered that there were a partly preserved stove in the deserted
house, broken laths, and naily boards, and swathes of curious old
wall-papers, layer upon layer, which, dampening and rotting from the
wall, hung raggedly down. He had once explored the house with Margaret,
and it seemed almost wise to go to the place and make a fire. But on
account of the delay involved and the approach of darkness, he
discarded the notion, and, a little impatient at being badly used by a
neighborhood he knew so well, struggled on.
“Troubles,” he said, “what sort of a storm is this anyway? Did you ever
see anything quite like it round here? Because I never did. It must
be like those things they have out West, when millions of poor little
baa-sheeps and horses and cattles freeze to death. I’d hate to be a
horse out in this, but I wish I had one. I--”
If, as a child, you have ever slipped, though only an inch, while
climbing over roofs, you will know that sudden, stabbing, sinking
feeling that came to Aladdin and stopped the beating of his heart by the
hairbreadth of a second. He had been proceeding chin on breast, and head
bent against the wind, or he would have seen it before, for it was a
notable landmark in that part of the world, and showed him that he had
been making way, not toward his destination, but toward the wilderness.
He gazed up at the great black blasted pine, its waist the height of a
tall tree, and its two lonely lightning-scathed and white arms stretched
out like a malediction; and for a moment he had to take himself in hand.
After a little he mastered the fear that had seized him.
“It’s only a poor old lonely vegetable out in the cold,” he said. “And
it shows us exactly where we are and exactly which way we have to go.”
He set himself right, and, with head lowered and hands clenched, again
started on. But he was beginning to be very much bored, and sensible
that his legs were not accustomed to being used so hard. Furthermore,
there was a little difficulty--not by any means an insurmountable
one--in steering straight, because of the constantly varying point of
the compass in which the wind blew. He went on for a long time....
He began to look for the high ground to decline, as it should, about
now, if it was the high ground he took it for. “I ought to be getting
somewhere,” he said.
And, God help him! tired out, half frozen and very foot-sore, he was
getting somewhere, for, glancing up, he again beheld the gigantic and
demoniac shape of the blasted pine.
It is on prairies and among mountains, far from the habitations of
men, that man is most readily terrified before nature, and not on the
three-mile primrose way from a railway accident to a house-party. But
for a moment cold terror struck at Aladdin like a serpent, and the
marrow in his bones froze. Before he could succeed in reducing this
awful feeling to one of acute anxiety alone, he had to talk to himself
and explain things as to a child.
“Then it is true, Troubles, old man,” he said, “about a person’s
tendency to go to the left. That’s interesting, isn’t it? But what do we
care? Being gifted with a certain (flighty, it is true) intelligence, we
will simply take pains, and every step pull a little to the right; and
that will make us go straight. Come now-keep thinking about it-every
step!”
As the end of the day approached, a lull came in the gale, and the
snow fell less freely. The consequently widened horizon of vision was
eminently comforting, and Aladdin’s unpleasant feeling of anxiety almost
disappeared.
Suddenly he was aware of a red horse.
XVII
It was standing almost leg-clear, in an angle of what seemed a
drifted-over snake-fence. Its ugly, Roman-nosed head was thrown up and
out, as if about to neigh.
“Poor beastie,” said Aladdin, after a start. “You must be direfful cold,
but we’ll ride you, and that will make you warm, and us cold, and we’ll
all get along faster.”
Drawing near, he began to gentle the horse and call it pet names. It was
a huge brute, over seventeen hands high, and Aladdin, aided only by a
rickety fence, and a pair of legs that would hardly support him, was
appalled by the idea of having to climb to that lofty eminence, its
back. Without doubt he was dreadfully tired.
“The fence will help, old man” he said. “Here, you, pay attention and
get over.” He tried to insinuate himself between the horse and the
fence, but the horse did not seem inclined to move.
“Get over, you!” he said, and gave a shove. The horse moved a little,
very unwillingly. “Farther yet,” said Aladdin: “Get over, you, get
over.” Again he shoved; this time harder. He slapped the great shoulder
with his open hand. And again the horse moved, but very slowly. “You’re
an unwilling brute, aren’t you?” he said angrily.
For answer the thing tottered, and, to his horror, began to fall, at
first slowly, but ever with accelerating speed, until, in the exact
attitude in which it had stood by the fence,--the great Roman-nosed head
thrown up and out, as if to neigh,--he beheld the horse stretched before
him on the ground, and noted for the first time the awful death-like
glint of the yellow teeth through the parting of the lips.
He went very gravely from that place, for he had been looking upon death
by freezing, and he himself was terribly cold, terribly tired, and--he
admitted it now--completely lost.
But he went on for a long time--four or five hundred years. And it grew
darker and colder.
He began to talk to himself, to try and steady himself, as he had done
ever since childhood at forsaken times.
“Troubles,” he said, “You’re full of troubles, aren’t you, old man? You
always were. But this is the worst. You can’t walk very much farther,
can you? I can’t. And if you don’t get helped by some one pretty soon,
you’re going to come to the end of your troubles. And, Troubles, do you
know, I think that’s what’s going to happen to you and me, and I want
you to stand up to it if it comes [gulp] and face it like a man. Now
let’s rest a little, Troubles, will we?”
Troubles and Aladdin rested a little. When the rest was over they could
hardly move, and they began to see the end of a young man that they had
hoped would live a long time and be very happy. They went on.
“Troubles,” said Aladdin, “do you suppose she knows that we are out
here, perhaps dying? We would know if she were, wouldn’t we? And do you
think she cares? Liar, you know she cares, and a lot. She wouldn’t
be she if she didn’t care. But we didn’t think that all the years of
waiting and hoping and loving and trying to be something would end like
this, did we, Troubles? We thought that it might end with the godlike
Manners (whom we wouldn’t help if he were freezing to death, would we?),
but not like this--O Lord God, not like this!... And we weren’t sure it
would end with Manners; we were going to fight it out to a mighty good
finish, weren’t we, Troubles? But now it’s going to end in a mighty good
storm, and you’re going to die for all your troubles, Troubles... And
I’m talking to you so that we won’t lose our sand, even if we are afraid
to die, and there’s no one looking on.”
Though Aladdin stopped making talk in his head, the talk kept going on
by itself; and he suddenly shouted aloud for it to stop. Then he began
to whimper and shiver, for he thought that his mind was going.
Presently he shook himself.
“Troubles,” he said, “we’ve only a little farther to go--just as far as
our feet will carry us, and no farther. That’s the proper way to finish.
And for God’s sake keep sane. We won’t give her up yet!”
Ten steps and years passed.
“Troubles,” said Aladdin, “we’re going to call for help, and if it don’t
come, which it won’t, we’re going to try and be calm. It seems simplest
and looks best to be calm.”
Aladdin stood there crying aloud for the help of man, but it did
not come. And then he cried for the help of God. And he stood there
waiting--waiting for it to come.
“We must help ourselves, Troubles,” he said, with a desperate effort to
be calm. “We’ve got ten steps left in us. Now, then, one--two--”
During the taking of those ten steps the snow ceased entirely to fall,
and black night enveloped the earth.
Aladdin was all numb, and he wished to sleep, but he made the ten steps
into eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, before his limbs refused to
act, and he fell forward in the snow. He managed to raise himself and
crawl a little way. He saw a light afar off, and guessing that it must
be an angel, held out his hands to it--and one of them encountered a
something in the dark.
Even through his thick mitten it felt round and smooth and colder than
his fingers, like a ball of ice. Then Aladdin laughed aloud, for he knew
that his last walk upon earth had been in the form of a silly circle. He
had returned to the dead horse, and his gloved hand was resting upon its
frozen eye. He shrieked with laughter and became heavy with a desire to
sleep.
He sank deliciously down, and began to see showers of roses, when it
flashed upon him that this was not sleep, but death.
It was like lifting prodigious dumb-bells to get his eyes to open, and
a return to consciousness was like the stabbing of knives. But he opened
his eyes and roused himself.
“I won’t give her up yet,” he cried.
And then, by the help of God Almighty, he crawled the whole length of
the horse.
And fell asleep.
XVIII
It was a miserable, undressed thing wrapped in a horse-blanket and a
buffalo-robe that woke up in front of a red-hot stove and remembered
that it used to be Aladdin O’Brien. It had a dreadful headache, and
could smell whisky and feel warm, and that for a long time was about
all. Then it noticed that the wall opposite was ragged with loosened
wall-paper and in places stripped of plaster, so that the lathing showed
through, and that in its own head--no, in the room beyond the wall--an
impatient stamping noise of iron on wood was occurring at intervals.
Then it managed to turn its head, and it saw a big, beautiful man
sitting on the end of an old soapbox and smoking a pipe. Then it was
seized with a wrenching sickness, and the big man came quickly and held
its head and was very good to it, and it felt better and went to sleep.
After a while it descended into the Red Sea, with the avowed intention
of calling Neptune Red Renard to his face, and when it got to the
bottom, which was of red brick sprinkled with white door-knobs that
people kept diving for, it became frightened and ran and ran until it
came to the bottom of an iceberg, that had roots like a hyacinth bulb
and was looking for a place to plant itself, and it climbed up to the
top of the iceberg, which was all bulrushes, and said, “I beg your
pardon, but I forgot; I must go back and make my apologies.” Then it
woke up and spoke in a weak voice.
“Peter Manners,” said Aladdin, “come here.”
Manners came and sat on the floor beside him.
“Feel better now?” he said.
“Tell me--” said Aladdin.
“Oh, stuff!” said Manners.
“Manners,” said Aladdin, “you don’t look as if you hated me any more.”
“You sleep,” said Manners. “That’s what you need.”
Aladdin thought for a long time and tried to remember what he wanted to
say, and shutting his eyes, to think better, fell asleep.
For the third time he awoke. Manners was back on the soap-box, still as
a sphinx, and smoking his pipe.
“Please come and talk some more,” said Aladdin.
Again Manners came.
“Tell me about it,” said Aladdin.
“You be good and go to sleep,” said Manners.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly morning.”
“Still storming?”
“No; stars out and warmer.”
Aladdin thought a moment.
“Manners,” he said, “please talk to me. How did you find me?”
“Simply enough,” said Manners. “I took the senator’s cutter out for
a little drive, and got lost. Then I heard somebody laughing, and I
stumbled over you and your horse; that’s all. How the devil did you
manage to lose your saddle and bridle?”
“It was a dead horse,” said Aladdin, and he shivered at the
recollection.
“Quite so,” said Manners.
“It was the funniest thing,” said Aladdin, and again he shuddered with
a kind of reminiscent revolt. “I pushed it, and it fell over frozen to
death.” He was conscious of talking nonsense.
“Wait a minute, Manners,” he said. “I’ll be sensible in a minute.”
Presently he told Manners about the horse.
“I saw alight just then,” he said, “and I thought it was an angel.”
“It was I,” said Manners, naively.
“Yes, Manners, it was you,” said Aladdin.
He thought about an angel turning out to be Manners for a long time.
Then a terrible recollection came to him, and, in a voice shaking with
remorse and self-incrimination, he cried:
“God help me, Manners, I would have let you freeze.”
Manners pulled at his pipe.
“Manners,” said Aladdin, “it’s true I know it’s true, because, for all I
knew, I was dying when I said it.”
Manners shook his head.
“Oh, no,” said Manners.
“Make me think that,” said Aladdin, with a quaver. “Please make me think
that if you can, for, God help me, I think I would have let you freeze.”
“When I found you,” said Manners, “I--I was sorry that the Lord hadn’t
sent somebody else to you, and me to somebody else. That was because you
always hated me with no very good reason, and a man hates to be hated,
and so, to be quite honest, I hated you back.”
“Right,” said Aladdin, “right.”
Light began to come in through the windows, whose broken panes Manners
had stopped with crumpled wall-paper.
“But when I got you here,” said Manners, “and began to work over you,
you stopped being Aladdin O’Brien, and were just a man in trouble.”
“Yes,” said Aladdin, “it must be like that. It’s got to be like that.”
“At first,” said Manners, “I worked because it seemed the proper thing
to do, and then I got interested, and then it became terrible to think
that you might die.”
“Yes,” said Aladdin. His face was ghastly in the pre-sunrise light.
“You wouldn’t get warm for hours,” said Manners, “and I got so tired
that I couldn’t rub any more, and so I stripped and got into the
blankets with you, and tried to keep you as warm as I could that way.”
He paused to relight his pipe.
Aladdin stared up at the tattered ceiling with wide, wondering eyes.
“When you got warm,” said Manners, “I gave you all the rest of the
whisky, and I’m sorry it made you sick, and now you’re as fit as a
fiddle.”
“Fit-as-a-fiddle,” said Aladdin, slowly, as the wonder grew. And then he
began to cry like a little child. Manners waited till he had done, and
then wiped his face for him.
“So you see,” said Manners, simply, though with difficulty,--for he was
a man shy, to terror, of discussing his own feelings,--“I can’t help
liking you now, and--and I hope you won’t feel so hard toward me any
more.”
“I feel hard toward you!” said Aladdin. “Oh, Manners!” he cried. “I
thought all along that you were just a man that knew about horses and
dogs, but I see, I see; and I’m not going to worship anybody any more
except you and God, I’m not!”
Then he had another great long, hot cry. Manners waited patiently till
it was over.
“Manners,” said Aladdin, in a choky, hoarse voice, “I think you’re
different from what you used to be. You look as if--as if you ‘d got the
love of mankind in you.”
Manners did not answer. He appeared to be thinking of something
wonderful.
“Do you think that’s it?” cried Aladdin.
Manners did not answer.
“Can’t I get it, too?” Aladdin cried. “Have I got to be little and mean
always? So help me, Manners, I don’t love any one but you and her.”
“You ‘re not fit to talk,” said Manners, with great gentleness. “You
go to sleep.” He arose, and going to the door of the house, opened it a
little way and looked out.
“It’s warm as toast out, Aladdin,” he called. “There’s going to be a big
thaw.” He closed the door and went into the next room, and Aladdin could
hear him talking to the horse. After a little he came back.
“Greener says that she never was better stalled,” he said.
“Manners,” said Aladdin, “have I been raving?”
“Not been riding quite straight,” said Manners.
“How soon are we going to start?” said Aladdin.
“We’ve got to wait till the snow’s pretty well melted,” said Manners.
“About noon, I think.”
Then, because he was very tired and sick and weak, and perhaps a trifle
delirious, Aladdin asked Manners if he would mind holding his hand.
Manners took the hand in his, and a thrill ran up Aladdin’s arm and all
over him, till it settled deliciously about his heart, and he slept.
The sun rose, and dazzling beams of light filled the room.