PEEPS.
The uniform row of houses on the other side of a dead waste of snow, to
which the attention of the three friends was ardently directed,
promised, at first sight, a poor return of instruction and
entertainment. The rear view presented one dull stretch of bricks
irregularly set even in those houses which displayed imposing fronts of
brown stone. The blinds were of a faded green color, and broken. The
stoops, the doors opening on them, and the steps leading down to the
dirty, sodden snow, had a generic look of cheapness and frailty.
"Whatever the censorious critic might say of the front, he could not
charge the rear with false pretences; for there was apparent, all over
it, an utter indifference to the opinions of mankind. Perhaps because
the owners of the houses did not expect mankind to study their property
from that point of view.
"Say!" was Mr. Fayette Overtop's first remark, after a moment's
observation; "do not those rustic fences on the roofs remind you of the
sweet, fresh country in summer time?" Mr. Overtop alluded to the
barriers which are erected to keep people from getting into each other's
houses, and which are scaled not without difficulty even by cats.
Neither of his friends answering this remark except by a quiet,
incredulous smile, Overtop continued, a little pettishly:
"And you really mean to tell me that that pastoral object, happily
introduced on the roofs of houses, does not recall the green fields,
daisies, babbling brooks, and cloudless skies of early boyhood? Humbug!"
The speaker flattened his nose still more against the glass by way
of emphasis.
"You look for beauties among the chimney pots, while I search for them
in back-parlor windows," said Matthew Maltboy. "Observe where I throw
my eye now."
Mr. Maltboy threw his eye toward a house near the middle of the block.
His companions followed it, and saw a tall girl with prodigious skirts
standing at a window, and looking, as they thought, at them. The view
which she obtained was evidently not satisfactory, for with her
handkerchief she wiped off the moisture from several of the panes; and,
when the glass was clear to her liking, shook out the folds of her
dress, and peered forth again, this time more decidedly, at the window
occupied by the three friends. Her use of the handkerchief was not lost
upon Maltboy, who straightway pulled out his extensive cambric, and
polished up their window too. This improvement of the medium of vision
on both sides, enabled the three friends to form some idea of the tall
girl's personal charms. Her figure was straight; her hair was black; her
eyes were brilliant; her complexion was healthy; she exhibited jewelry
in her ears, on her neck, her bosom, her wrists, and her fingers; her
dress gave her a great deal of trouble, as she leaned forward to
look out.
"Charming, is she not?" said Maltboy.
"Hard to say, at this distance," returned Overtop, who, feeling
neglected in the matter of the rustic fence, was controversially
disposed.
"You may find it so," said Maltboy; "but as for me, the flash of her
eyes--there, now, for instance!--is convincing enough."
"Perhaps you have seen her before," remarked Marcus Wilkeson.
"Perhaps," was that gentleman's answer, implying, by his accent and
accompanying wink, that he had seen her repeatedly.
"And said nothing about her to us, you inveterate humbug," added Marcus.
Mr. Maltboy felt the compliment conveyed in the word "humbug"--as most
people do when that accusation of shrewdness and deep dissembling is
brought against them--and smiled.
"I confess," he replied, as he polished the window simultaneously with
the performance of that process across the way, "I confess I have
noticed her several times; but what was the use of mentioning it to a
pair of woman haters like you?"
His two companions laughed pleasantly, thereby expressing their
gratification at the return compliment involved in the phrase
"woman haters."
"You are such dull fellows now," continued Maltboy, "that perhaps you
will say this fair stranger is not looking at us; that she does not
desire to be seen by us--that is, by me; and that her rubbing of the
window with a handkerchief is not a signal which she expects to be
answered."
"We say nothing," replied the disputatious Overtop. "We only wait for
proof. It is easy to find out whether a signal is meant or not. Rub the
window now."
Maltboy did so, concluding the act with an unmistakable flourish of the
handkerchief. Whereupon the tall girl averted her face, pulled down the
curtain, and eclipsed herself.
Wilkeson and Overtop laughed, and, with a common impulse, punched
Maltboy triumphantly in the ribs--a friendly salute that was always
vastly amusing to that gentleman.
"Be it understood, at this stage of affairs," said Marcus, solemnly,
"that I reject the Overtop theory, and wash my hands of all
responsibility for Maltboy's misdeeds.--Hallo! There he is again."
"Who? Where?" exclaimed his two friends.
"In the house nearly opposite--the one with the grape arbor. Isn't he a
fine old fellow?"
Overtop and Maltboy looked, and there saw, sitting at a window, and
placidly gazing out of it, an old gentleman with long and thick white
hair, a ruddy face, a white neckcloth, and a large projecting shirt
frill--which were all the peculiarities of person and dress that could
be distinctly made out. He was smoking a long pipe, and placidly rocking
himself to and fro. His appearance, through the two windows, was that
of a finely preserved relic of a past generation,
"He always has a long pipe in his mouth, and looks benignantly into the
open air," said Wilkeson,
"So even _you_ are not wholly devoid of curiosity, and do take some
interest in the people on our block," remarked Matthew Maltboy,
"I have noticed the old gentleman often, when I have been reading near
the window; and own that I should like to know him. I think, too, from
certain signs, that he would not object to knowing me. Unless I am much
mistaken, he has bowed to me several times. But fearing that the
supposed bow might have been nothing more than a sleepy nod, I have
never ventured to answer it. Step back a moment, and see if he
observes me."
Maltboy and Overtop retired a few paces. A moment afterward, the old
gentleman looked over to Wilkeson, and made a bow at him about which
there could be no mistake.
"Answer him." "Answer him," said his two friends. Acting upon this
advice, Marcus Wilkeson, blushing, returned a courtly salute, which was
immediately reciprocated by a still lower bow, and a pleasant smile from
the old gentleman. Wilkeson bowed again, and added a smile. The old
gentleman did the same; and this odd exchange of civilities was
beginning to get awkward for Wilkeson, when the old gentleman's
attention was suddenly called off.
A slender young man, whose broad black mustache contrasted unpleasantly
with the sallow whiteness of his face, dressed in the jauntiest costume
of the period, and bearing in one hand a black cane with a large ivory
handle, which looked, even in the distance, like a human leg, stood by
the old gentleman's side. The old gentleman put down his pipe, seized
the young man's disengaged hand, and gazed affectionately at him (so the
three observers thought). Some conversation then took place between
them, during which the old gentleman repeatedly pressed the young man's
hand, and sometimes reached up and softly patted him on the shoulder.
The young man appeared to receive the words and caresses of the old
gentleman with a sullen indifference. Several times he pettishly drew
his hand away, and at last shook his head fiercely, folded his arms, and
seemed (though the spectators could only conjecture that) to stamp the
floor with his foot. At this, the old gentleman bowed his head in his
hands. The young man held his defiant attitude unmoved, until, glancing
out of the window, he saw for the first time that he was watched. "With
a jerk, he pulled down the curtain, and cut off a scene which the three
observers had begun to find profoundly interesting.
"Well," said Marcus Wilkeson, "though I have given up making calls as a
business, I shall certainly take the New-Year's privilege of dropping in
on the venerable unknown over the way."
"Two things are plain," said Fayette Overtop. "One is, that the pale,
rascally looking young man is the old man's son. Now, I don't suppose
either of you will dispute that?" (Overtop paused a moment to receive
and dispose of objections, but none were made.) "The other is, that the
old fellow is immensely rich--worth a million or two, maybe. Perhaps you
_would_ like to argue that point." Overtop smiled, as if nothing would
give him greater pleasure than to annihilate a few dozen opinions to
the contrary.
"To save argument, as usual, we admit everything," responded Wilkeson.
"But, pray condescend to tell us how you know this fine old boy to be
superlatively rich."
Overtop smiled upon his ignorant friends, and answered:
"Because he wears a white cravat. The man isn't a clergyman, is he? Do
clergymen smoke pipes? He isn't a Quaker, is he? Do Quakers, or those of
them who indulge in white cravats, wear their coat collars turned down?
Consult your own experience, now, and tell me whether you ever saw
anybody but a very rich man (with the exceptions already stated) wearing
a white cravat. I leave it to your candor."
Wilkeson and Maltboy nodded their heads, as if stricken dumb with
conviction.
Overtop, gratified with this ready acquiescence, modestly went on to say
that he would not undertake to explain the phenomenon; that task he left
to some more philosophical mind. He contented himself with making a
humble record of facts.
"And now that each of you have made a discovery in the row of houses,
let me try my luck." Overtop rubbed the window, looked out, and
carefully surveyed the row from end to end, and back again. "Ah, I have
it!" he said. "A real mystery, too. Look at that four-story house near
the western end of the block, the one a trifle shabbier than its
neighbors. Do you see, in the open window, a man with a pale,
intellectual face, gray hair, and arms bare to the elbows, filing away
at something held in a vise before him? Now he stops to examine a
paper--a plan, probably--which he holds in his hand. Now he wipes the
perspiration from his forehead. Can't you see him?"
"Distinctly," was the joint reply.
"What do you suppose he is doing?" asked Overtop.
"No idea," said Wilkeson. "Perhaps mending a teakettle."
"Or repairing an umbrella," suggested Maltboy.
Overtop smiled, and said:
"A person with the slightest powers of observation, would see that that
man has genius in his face; that his thin arm is not used to hard
mechanical labor; that his brain is so heated with great ideas, that he
tries to cool it by opening the window. The tinkering of an umbrella or
teakettle would not make a man sweat in midwinter. You won't deny the
force of that suggestion."
As he spoke, a young girl advanced from the back part of the room, and
stood by the pale workman's side. She wore a bonnet, and a shawl
tightly wrapped around her. Though the features of her face could not be
distinguished in the distance, it was not hard to detect a pleasant
expression in her eyes, a smile on her lips, and a high color on her
cheeks, as if she had just come in from the street. She held up a little
basket for the workman's inspection.
He paused in his labor, took the girl's head between his hands, and
kissed her fondly on the brow. Then he opened the little basket, and
drew from it a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese, which he began
eating hurriedly. He also seemed, by signs, to press the girl to eat;
but she shook her head, smiled more than before, and looked up
affectionately into his face. Having bolted a few mouthfuls, the workman
placed the remains of the repast on the bench or table before him,
kissed the young girl, and resumed his work. She watched every motion of
his hand with eager eyes. Once she moved as if to close the window, but
he shook his head, and again wiped the sweat from his brow.
He had consulted the paper, and attacked his task with fresh energy for
the third or fourth time, when his eyes happened to rest upon the window
full of scrutinizing faces. His lips moved in some sudden exclamation,
and then he shut the window with vehemence, and drew the curtain which
obscured the lower half of it.
"Not a very kind reception of your theory, so far," said Marcus.
"Prejudice--nothing more," said Overtop. "When they see that we have no
wish to pry into their private affairs, but are animated with a
neighborly regard for them, they will not repel our advances. It isn't
human nature."