REGULAR WORK.
When they were once home, both of them were too much excited and quite
too tired to think of a second round trip, even to catch the theatres.
Glad enough were they to shut the paint-shop. Bertha held the lantern
while Max rubbed down the horses and put them up for the night. Then
she disappeared in the harness-room, re-appeared in her own character
in a time incredibly short, and ran into the house at once to see how
the baby was.
Baby! Dear little chit, she had not moved a hand since her mother left
her. So, with a light heart, Bertha joined her husband in the kitchen.
They counted up the money, and subtracted what Bertha had started with.
Happily for them, the Cosmopolitan had not then introduced the
bell-punch, nor did it ever, so far as I know, introduce the bother of
tickets. Max and Bertha followed in all regards the customs of the
Cosmopolitan. The freight down town had been very large, the freight up
had been light; but they were seven dollars and fifty-five cents richer
than they were three hours before.
"How much money it looks like!" said Bertha. "Even with that old man's
five-dollar bill, it makes so big a pile. I never saw two dollars in
nickels before."
"I hope you may see a great many before you are done, my sweet," said
Max cheerily.
"But is it fairly ours? Are you troubled about that?"
"I am sure we have worked for it," said Max, laughing. "I know I never
worked so hard in my life, and I do not believe you ever did."
"No: if that were all."
"And is it not all? The car is bought with your money. The horses and
their hay were bought with mine."
"But the rails," persisted Bertha, a little unfairly, as she had
planned the whole.
"The rails," said Max coolly, "belong to the public. They are a part of
the pavement of the street, as has been determined again and again. If
I chose to have a coach built to run in the track, nobody could hinder
me. This is my hackney-coach, and you and I are friends of the people."
So Bertha's conscience was appeased, and they went happily to bed.
The next morning Max came home in great glee. He had seen Mr.
Federshall, his old foreman, who always was cordial and sympathetic. He
had told Mr. Federshall where he lived; that he had an old stable on
the premises, and that, for a little, he was keeping a pair of horses
there; that he had no other regular employment. And Mr. Federshall, of
his own accord, had asked him to keep his covered buggy. "I have had to
sell my horses long ago," he said, laughing. And Max was to store the
buggy, and take his pay in the use of it for nothing.
So they might go to ride that living morning with the span, take the
baby, and have no end of a "good time."
A lovely day, and a lovely ride they had of it. The baby chirruped, and
was delighted, and pretended to know cows when they were pointed out to
her, as if, in fact, the poor wretch knew a cow from a smoke-stack. All
the same, they enjoyed their new toy--and freedom.
With this bright omen "regular work" began. But they soon found that as
"regular work" meant two round trips every evening, they must not often
take the horses out in the morning. As Max pointed out to Bertha, they
had better hire a horse for three dollars and a half than lose one
round trip. So, in the long run, they only treated themselves to a
drive on a birthday or other anniversary.
A good deal of the work was a mere dragging grind, as is true of most
work. Bertha declared that it came by streaks. Some nights the
passengers were all crazy: women would stop the car when they did not
want to get out; people would come rushing down side-streets to come on
board, who found they wanted to be put out as soon as they had entered;
a sweet-faced little woman would discover, after she was well in, that
she was going into town when she should be going out; another would
make a great row, and declare she had paid a fare, and afterward find
that she had it in her glove. And all these things would happen on the
same night. On another night everything would be serene, and the people
as regular as if they were checker-men or other puppets. They would sit
where they ought, stand where they should, enter at the right place,
leave where they meant to; and Bertha would have as little need to
bother herself about them as about that dear little baby who was
sleeping at home so sweetly.
The night which she now looks back upon with most terror, perhaps, was
the night when a director of the Cosmopolitan came on board. She was
frightened almost beyond words when the tidy old gentleman nodded and
smiled with a patronizing air. Did he mean to insult her? She just
turned to the passenger opposite, and then, with her utmost courage,
she turned to him, and said firmly, "Fare sir."
"Fare? Why, my man, I am a director. I am Mr. Siebenhold."
The passengers all grinned, as if to say not to know Mr. Siebenhold was
to argue one's self unknown. Bertha had to collect all her powers. What
would the stiffest martinet do in her place? She gulped down her
terror.
"I can't help that, sir. If you are a director, you have a director's
pass, I suppose?"
Magnificent instinct of a woman! For Bertha had never heard of a
director's pass nor contemplated the exigency.
"Pass?" said the great man. "Well, yes--pass? I suppose I have." And
from the depths of an inside pocket a gigantic pocket-book appeared.
From its depths, with just the least unnecessary display of greenbacks,
a printed envelope appeared. From its depths a pink ticket, large and
clean, appeared. "How will that do, my man?"
For all Bertha could see, the pass might have been in Sanskrit. Her
eyes, indeed, were beginning to brim over. But she walked to the light,
looked at the pass, said "All right" as she gave it back, and took out
her own note-book to enter the free passenger.
"You've not been long on the line?" said the old gentleman fussily.
"Not very long, sir."
"Well, my lad"--more fussily--"you have done perfectly
right--perfectly. I hope all the conductors are as careful. I shall
name you to Mr. Beal. What is your number?"
Bertha pointed to her jaunty cap, and said "537" at the same moment.
The old gentleman took down the number, and did not forget his promise.
The next day he talked to the superintendent an hour, to that worthy's
great disgust. When Mr. Siebenhold left the office at last, the
superintendent said to the cashier, "The old fool wanted 'to recommend
No. 537.' I did not tell him that we only have three hundred and thirty
men."
So Bertha passed her worst trial, as she thought it then. But a harder
test was in store.