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[Illustration: See page 7
"WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM"]
[Illustration: Vistas
of
New York]
BY
BRANDER MATTHEWS
AUTHOR OF
"VIGNETTES OF MANHATTAN"
"OUTLINES IN LOCAL COLOR," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PUBLISHED MARCH, 1912
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A YOUNG MAN FROM THE COUNTRY 1
II. ON THE STEPS OF THE CITY HALL 35
III. "SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKINS" 55
IV. UNDER AN APRIL SKY 71
V. AN IDYL OF CENTRAL PARK 99
VI. IN A HANSOM 123
VII. THE FROG THAT PLAYED THE TROMBONE 139
VIII. ON AN ERRAND OF MERCY 159
IX. IN A BOB-TAIL CAR 177
X. IN THE SMALL HOURS 189
XI. HER LETTER TO HIS SECOND WIFE 205
XII. THE SHORTEST DAY IN THE YEAR 229
ILLUSTRATIONS
"WHAT THEY CALL THE FRONT HALL-BEDROOM" _Frontispiece_
"I'M SURE HE'D RATHER TALK TO YOU, MY
DEAR; SO YOU TWO CAN RUN ALONG TOGETHER" _Facing p._ 104
THIS YEAR THE GIRLS WERE PRETTIER THAN
USUAL " 128
"I WENT TO SEE THE WOMAN MY FRIEND
LOVED" " 148
"MY! AIN'T IT AWFUL? IT BLEW HIS LEGS
OFF!" " 170
SHE FLUNG HERSELF INTO HIS ARMS " 226
NOTE
In one of those romances in which Hawthorne caught the color and
interpreted the atmosphere of his native New England, he declared that
"destiny, it may be, the most skillful of stage managers, seldom chooses
to arrange its scenes and carry forward its drama without securing the
presence of at least one calm observer." It is the character of this
calm observer that the writer has imagined himself to be assuming in the
dozen little sketches and stories garnered here into a volume. They are
snapshots or flashlights of one or another of the shifting aspects of
this huge and sprawling metropolis of ours.
In purpose and in method these episodes and these incidents of the urban
panorama are closely akin to the experiments in story-telling which were
gathered a few years ago into the pair of volumes entitled _Vignettes of
Manhattan_ and _Outlines in Local Color_. The earliest of these stories
in this third volume--replevined here from another collection long out
of print--was written more than a quarter of a century ago; and the
latest of them first saw the light only within the past few months. To
each of the dozen sketches the date of composition has been appended as
evidence that it was outlined in accord with the actual fact at the
time it came into being, even if the metropolitan kaleidoscope has
revolved so rapidly that more than one of these studies from life now
records what is already ancient history. The bob-tailed car, for
example, is already a thing of the past; the hansom is fast following it
into desuetude; and no longer is it the fashion for family parties to
bicycle through Central Park in the afternoon.
Slight as these fleeting impressions may seem, this much at least may be
claimed for them--that they are the result of an honest effort to catch
and to fix a vision of this mighty city in which the writer has dwelt
now for more than half a century.
B. M.
_February 21, 1912._
[Illustration: A Young Man from the Country]
I
NEW YORK, Sept. 7, 1894.
MY Dear Miriam,--For you are mine now, all mine, and yet not so much as
you will be some day--soon, I hope. You can't guess how much bolder I
feel now that you are waiting for me. And it won't be so long that you
will have to wait, either, for I am going to make my way here. There's
lots of young fellows come to New York from the country with no better
start than I've got, and they've died millionaires. I'm in no hurry to
die yet, not before I've got the million, anyway; and I'm going to get
it if it can be got honestly and by hard work and by keeping my eyes
open. And when I get it, I'll have you to help me spend it.
I came here all right last night, and this morning I went down to the
store with your father's letter. It's an immense big building Fassiter,
Smith & Kiddle keep store in. Mr. Kiddle was busy when I asked for him,
but he saw me at last and he said anybody recommended by your father
was sure to be just the sort of clerk they wanted. So he turned me over
to one of his assistants and he set me to work at once. As I've come
from the country, he said, and know what country people want, he's put
me in the department where the storekeepers get their supplies. It isn't
easy to get the hang of the work, there's so much noise and confusion;
but when we quit at six o'clock he said he thought I'd do. When night
came I was most beat out, I don't mind telling you. It was the noise
mostly, I think. I've never minded noise before, but here it is all
around you all the time and you can't get away from it. Nights it isn't
so bad, but it's bad enough even then. And there isn't a let-up all day.
It seems as though it kept getting worse and worse; and at one time I
thought there was a storm coming or something had happened. But it
wasn't anything but the regular roar they have here every day, and none
of the New-Yorkers noticed it, so I suppose I shall get wonted to it
sooner or later.
The crowd is 'most as bad as the noise. Of course, I wasn't green enough
to think that there must be a circus in town, but I came near it. Even
on the side streets here there's as many people all day long as there is
in Auburnvale on Main Street when the parade starts--and more, too. And
they say it is just the same every day--and even at night it don't thin
out much. At supper this evening I saw a piece in the paper saying that
summer was nearly over and people would soon be coming back to town. I
don't know where the town is going to put them, if they do come, for it
seems to me about as full now as it will hold. How they can spend so
much time in the street, too, that puzzles me. My feet were tired out
before I had been down-town an hour. Life is harder in the city than it
is in the country, I see that already. I guess it uses up men pretty
quick, and I'm glad I'm strong.
But then I've got something to keep me up to the mark; I've got a little
girl up in Auburnvale who is waiting for me to make my way. If I needed
to be hearted up, that would do it. I've only got to shut my eyes tight
and I can see you as you stood by the door of the school-house yesterday
as the cars went by. I can see you standing there, so graceful and
delicate, waving your hand to me and making believe you weren't crying.
I know, you are ever so much too good for me; but I know, too, that if
hard work will deserve you, I shall put in that, anyhow.
It is getting late now and I must go out and post this. I wish I could
fold you in my arms again as I did night before last. But it won't be
long before I'll come back to Auburnvale and carry you away with me.
Your own
JACK.
II
NEW YORK, Sept. 16, 1894.
DEAREST MIRIAM,--I would have written two or three days ago, but when
I've had supper I'm too tired to think even. It isn't the work at the
store, either. I'm getting on all right there, and I see how I can make
myself useful already. I haven't been living in Auburnvale all these
years with my eyes shut, and I've got an idea or two that I'm going to
turn to account. No, it's just the city itself that's so tiring. It's
the tramp, tramp, tramp of the people all the time, day and night, never
stopping. And they are all so busy always. They go tearing through the
streets with their faces set, just as if they didn't know anybody. And
sometimes their mouths are working, as if they were thinking aloud. They
don't waste any time; they are everlastingly doing something. For
instance, I've an hour's nooning; and I go out and get my dinner in a
little eating-house near the rear of our store--ten cents for a plate of
roast beef; pretty thin the cut is, but the flavor is all right. Well,
they read papers while they are having their dinner. They read papers in
the cars coming down in the morning, and they read papers in the cars
going up at night. They don't seem to take any rest. Sometimes I don't
believe they sleep nights. And if they do, I don't see how they can help
walking in their sleep.
I couldn't sleep myself first off, but I'm getting to now. It was the
pressure of the place, the bigness of it, and the roar all round me. I'd
wake up with a start, and, tired as I was, sometimes I wouldn't get to
sleep again for half an hour.
I've given up the place I boarded when I first come and I've got a room
all to myself in a side street just off Fourth Avenue, between Union
Square and the depot. It's a little bit of a house, only fifteen feet
wide, I guess. It's two stories and a half, and I've got what they call
the front hall-bedroom on the top floor. It's teeny, but it's clean and
it's comfortable. It's quiet, too. The lady who keeps the house is a
widow. Her husband was killed in the war, at Gettysburg, and she's got a
pension. She's only one daughter and no son, so she takes three of us
young fellows to board. And I think I'm going to like it.
Of course, I don't want to spend any more than I have to, for I've got
to have some money saved up if I ever expect to do anything for myself.
And the sooner I can get started the sooner I can come back and carry
away Miriam Chace--Miriam Forthright, as she will be then.
It seems a long way off, sometimes, and I don't know that it wouldn't be
better to give up the idea of ever being very rich. Then we could be
married just as soon as I get a raise, which I'm hoping for by New
Year's, if I can show them that I am worth it. But I'd like to be rich
for your sake, Miriam--very rich, so that you could have everything you
want, and more too!
Your loving
JACK.
III
NEW YORK, Sept. 24, 1894.
MY DEAR MIRIAM,--I'm glad you don't want me to give up before I get to
the top. I can't see why I shouldn't succeed just as well as anybody
else. You needn't think I'm weakening, either. I guess I was longing for
you when I wrote that about being satisfied with what I'll have if I get
my raise.
But what do you want to know about the people in this house for? The
landlady's name is Janeway, and she's sixty or seventy, I don't know
which. As for the daughter you're so curious about, I don't see her
much. Her name's Sally--at least that's what her mother calls her. And I
guess she's forty if she's a day. She don't pretty much, either. Her
hair is sort of sandy, and I don't know what color eyes she has. I never
knew you to take such an interest in folks before.
You ask me how I like the people here--I suppose you mean the
New-Yorkers generally. Well, I guess I shall get to like them in time.
They ain't as stuck up as you'd think. That sassy way of theirs don't
mean anything half the time. They just mind their own business and they
haven't got time for anything else. They don't worry their heads about
anybody. If you can keep up with the procession, that's all right; and
they're glad to see you. If you drop out or get run over, that's all
right, too; and they don't think of you again.
That's one thing I've found out already. A man's let alone in a big
city--ever so much more than he is in a village. There isn't anybody
watching him here; and his neighbors don't know whether it's baker's
bread his wife buys or what. Fact is, in a big city a man hasn't any
neighbors. He knows the boys in the store, but he don't know the man who
lives next door. That's an extraordinary thing to say, isn't it? I've
been in this house here for a fortnight and I don't even know the names
of the folks living opposite. I don't know them by sight, and they don't
know me. The man who sleeps in the next house on the other side of the
wall from me--he's got a bad cold, for I can hear him cough, but that's
all I know about him. And he don't know me, either. We may be getting
our dinners together every day down-town and we'll never find out except
by accident that we sleep side by side with only a brick or two between
us. It's thinking of things like that that comes pretty near making me
feel lonely sometimes; and I won't deny that there's many a night when
I've wished I had only to go down street to see the welcome light of
your father's lamp--and to find Somebody Else who was glad to see me,
even if she did sometimes fire up and make it hot for me just because
I'd been polite to some other girl.
If you were only here you'd have such lots of sharp things to say about
the sights, for there's always something going on here. Broadway beats
the circus hollow. New York itself is the Greatest Show on Earth. You'd
admire to see the men, all handsomed up, just as if they were going to
meeting; and you'd find lots of remarks to pass about the women, dressed
up like summer boarders all the time. And, of course, they are summer
boarders really--New York is where the summer boarders come from. When
they are up in Auburnvale they call us the Natives--down here they call
us Jays. Every now and then on the street here I come across some face I
seem to recognize, and when I trace it up I find it's some summer
boarder that's been up in Auburnvale. Yesterday, for instance, in the
car I sat opposite a girl I'd seen somewhere--a tall, handsome girl with
rich golden hair. Well, I believe it was that Miss Stanwood that boarded
at Taylor's last June--you know, the one you used to call the Gilt-Edged
Girl.
But the people here don't faze me any more. I'm going in strong; and I
guess I'll come out on top one of these fine days. And then I'll come
back to Auburnvale and I'll meet a brown-haired girl with dark-brown
eyes--and I'll meet her in church and her father will marry us! Then
we'll go away in the parlor-car to be New-Yorkers for the rest of our
lives and to leave the Natives way behind us.
I don't know but it's thinking of that little girl with the dark-brown
eyes that makes me lonelier sometimes. Here's my love to her.
Your own
JACK.
IV
NEW YORK, Oct. 7, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--You mustn't think that I'm lonely every day. I haven't
time to be lonely generally. It's only now and then nights that I feel
as if I'd like to have somebody to talk to about old times. But I don't
understand what you mean about this Miss Stanwood. I didn't speak to her
in the car that day, and I haven't seen her since. You forget that I
don't know her except by sight. It was you who used to tell me about the
Gilt-Edged Girl, and her fine clothes and her city ways, and all that.
This last week I've been going to the Young Men's Christian Association,
where there's a fine library and a big reading-room with all sorts of
papers and magazines--I never knew there were so many before. It's going
to be a great convenience to me, that reading-room is, and I shall try
to improve myself with the advantages I can get there. But whenever
I've read anything in a magazine that's at all good, then I want to talk
it over with you as we used to do. You know so much more about books and
history than I do, and you always make me see the fine side of things.
I'm afraid my appreciation of the ideal needs to be cultivated. But you
are a good-enough ideal for me; I found that out ages ago, and it didn't
take me so very long, either. You weren't meant to teach school every
winter; and it won't be so very many winters before you will be down
here in New York keeping house for a junior partner in Fassiter, Smith &
Kiddle--or some firm just as big.
I can write that way to you, Miriam, but I couldn't say anything like
that down at the store. It isn't that they'd jeer at me, though they
would, of course--because most of them haven't any ambition and just
spend their money on their backs, or on the races, or anyhow. No, I
haven't the confidence these New-Yorkers have. Why, I whisper to the car
conductors to let me off at the corner, and I do it as quietly as I can,
for I don't want them all looking at me. But a man who was brought up in
the city, he just glances up from his paper and says "Twenty-third!" And
probably nobody takes any notice of him, except the conductor. I wonder
if I'll ever be so at home here as they are.
Even the children are different here. They have the same easy
confidence, as though they'd seen everything there was to see long
before they were born. But they look worn, too, and restless, for all
they take things so easy.
You ask if I've joined a church yet. Well, I haven't. I can't seem to
make up my mind. I've been going twice every Sunday to hear different
preachers. There's none of them with the force of your father--none of
them as powerful as he is, either in prayer or in preaching. I'm going
to Dr. Thurston's next Sunday; he's got some of the richest men in town
in his congregation.
There must be rich men in all the churches I've been to, for they've got
stained-glass windows, and singers from the opera, they say, at some of
them. I haven't heard anybody sing yet whose voice is as sweet as a
little girl's I know--a little bit of a girl who plays the organ and
teaches in Sunday-school--and who doesn't know how much I love her.
JACK.
V
NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--Yes, it is a great comfort to me always to get your bright
letters, so full of hope and love and strength. You are grit, clear
through, and I'm not half good enough for you. Your last letter came
Saturday night; and that's when I like to get them, for Sunday is the
only day I have time to be lonely.
I go to church in the forenoon and in the evening again; in the
afternoon I've been going up to Central Park. There's a piece of woods
there they call the Ramble, and I've found a seat on a cobble up over
the pond. The trees are not very thrifty, but they help me to make
believe I am back in Auburnvale. Sometimes I go into the big Museum
there is in the Park, not a museum of curiosities, but full of pictures
and statuary, ever so old some of it, and very peculiar. Then I wish for
you more than ever, for that's the sort of thing you'd be interested in
and know all about.
Last Sunday night I went to Dr. Thurston's church, and I thought of you
as soon as the music began. I remember you said you did wish you were an
organist in a Gothic church where they had a pipe-organ. Well, the organ
at Dr. Thurston's would just suit you, it's so big and deep and fine.
And you'd like the singing, too; it's a quartet, and the tenor is a
German who came from the Berlin opera; they say he gets three thousand
dollars a year just for singing on Sunday.
But I suppose it pays them to have good voices like his, for the church
was crowded; and even if some of the congregation came for the music,
they had to listen to Dr. Thurston's sermon afterward. And it was a very
good sermon, indeed--almost as good as one of your father's, practical
and chockful of common sense. And Dr. Thurston isn't afraid of talking
right out in meeting, either. He was speaking of wealth and he said it
had to be paid for just like anything else, and that many a man buys his
fortune at too high a price, especially if he sacrifices for it either
health or character. And just in front of him sat old Ezra Pierce, one
of the richest men in the city--and one of the most unscrupulous, so
they say. He's worth ten or twenty millions at least; I was up in the
gallery and he was in the pew just under me, so I had a good look at
him. I wonder how it must feel to be as rich as all that.
And who do you suppose was in the pew just across the aisle from old
Pierce? Nobody but the Gilt-Edged Girl, as you call her, that Miss
Stanwood. So you see it's a small world even in a big city, and we keep
meeting the same people over and over again.
I rather think I shall go to Dr. Thurston's regularly now. I like to
belong to a church and not feel like a tramp every Sunday morning. Dr.
Thurston is the most attractive preacher I've heard yet, and the music
there is beautiful.
I don't suppose I shall ever be as rich as old Ezra Pierce, although I
don't see why not, but if ever I am really rich I'll have a big house,
with a great big Gothic music-room, with a pipe-organ built in one end
of it. I guess I could get Some One to play on it for me when I come
home evenings tired out with making money down-town. I wonder if she
guesses how much I love her?
JACK.
VI
NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--Your account of your rehearsal of the choir was very
amusing. I'm glad you are having such a good time. But then you always
could make a good story out of anything. You must have had a hard job
managing the choir, and smoothing them down, and making them swallow
their little jealousies. I wish I had half your tact. I can sell a man a
bill of goods now about as well as any of the clerks in the store; but
if I could rub them down gently as you handle the soprano and the
contralto, I'd be taken into the firm inside of two years.
And I never wished for your tact and your skill in handling children
more than I did last Sunday. I wrote you I'd made up my mind to go to
Dr. Thurston's, and last Sunday he called for teachers for the
Sunday-school. So I went up and they gave me a class of street boys,
Italians, some of them, and Swedes. They're a tough lot, and I guess
that some of them are going to drop by the wayside after the Christmas
tree. I had hard work to keep order, but I made them understand who was
the master before I got through. All the English they know they pick up
from the gutter, I should say; and yet they want books to take home. So
I told them if they behaved themselves all through the hour I'd go to
the library with them to pick out a book for each of them. They don't
call it a book, either--they say, "Give me a good library, please."
And what do you suppose happened when I took them all up to the library
desk? Well, I found that the librarian was the tall girl you call the
Gilt-Edged. It is funny how I keep meeting her, isn't it? I was quite
confused at first; but of course she didn't know me and she couldn't
guess that you used to make fun of her. So she was just businesslike and
helped me pick out the books for the boys.
Considering the hard times, we have been doing a big business down at
the store. Two or three nights a week now I've had to stay down till
ten. We get extra for this, and I don't mind the work. By degrees I'm
getting an insight into the business. But there isn't any short cut to a
fortune that I can see. There's lots of hard work before me and lots of
waiting, too--and it's the waiting for you I mind the most.
JACK.
VII
NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--I was beginning to wonder what the matter was when I
didn't have a letter for a week and more. And now your letter has come,
I don't quite make it out. You write only a page and a half; and the
most of that is taken up with asking about Miss Stanwood.
Yes, I see her Sundays, of course, and she is always very pleasant.
Indeed, I can't guess what it is that you have against her or why it is
you are always picking at her. I feel sure that she doesn't dye her
hair, but I will look at the roots as you suggest and see if it's the
same color there. Her name is Hester--I've seen her write it in the
library cards. Her father is very rich, they say--at least he's
president of a railroad somewhere down South.
She strikes me as a sensible girl, and I think you would like her if you
knew her. She has helped me to get the right kind of books into the
hands of the little Italians and other foreigners I have to teach. Most
Sunday-school books are very mushy, I think, and I don't believe it's a
healthy moral when the good boy dies young. Miss Stanwood says that
sometimes when one of my scholars takes home a book it is read by every
member of the family who knows how to read, and they all talk it over.
So it's very important to give them books that will help to make good
Americans of them. She got her father to buy a lot of copies of lives of
Washington and Franklin and Lincoln. They are not specially religious,
these books, but what of it? Miss Stanwood says she thinks we must all
try first of all to make men of these rough boys, to make them manly,
and then they'll be worthy to be Christians. She is thinking not only of
the boys themselves, but of the parents too, and of the rest of the
family; and she says that a little leaven of patriotism suggested by
one of these books may work wonders. But you are quite right in saying
that I'm not as lonely as I was a month ago. Of course not, for I'm
getting used to the bigness of the place and the noise no longer wears
on me. Besides, I've found out that the New-Yorkers are perfectly
willing to be friendly. They'll meet you half-way always, not only in
the church, but even down-town, too. I ain't afraid of them any more,
and I can tell a conductor to let me out at the corner now without
wishing to go through the floor of the car. Fact is, I've found out how
little importance I am. Up at Auburnvale people knew me; I was old John
Forthright's only son; I was an individual. Here in New York I am nobody
at all, and everybody is perfectly willing to let me alone. I think I
like it better here; and before I get through I'll force these
New-Yorkers to know me when they see me in the street--just as they
touch each other now and whisper when they pass old Ezra Pierce.
Write soon and tell me there's nothing the matter with you. I'm all
right and I'd send you my love--but you got it all already.
JACK.
VIII
NEW YORK, Nov. 16, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--I asked you to write me soon, and yet you've kept me
waiting ten days again. Even now your letter has come I can't seem to
get any satisfaction out of it. I have never known you to write so
stiffly. Is there anything the matter? Are you worried at home? Is your
mother sick or your father?
I wish I could get away for a week at Thanksgiving to run up and see
you. But we are kept pretty busy at the store. There isn't one of the
firm hasn't got his nose down to the grindstone, and that's where they
keep ours. That's how they've made their money; it's all good training
for me, of course.
All the same I'd like to be with you this Thanksgiving, even if it isn't
as beautiful a day as last Thanksgiving was. I don't know when I've
enjoyed a dinner as I did your mother's that night, but I guess it
wasn't the turkey I liked so much or the pumpkin pie, but the welcome I
got and the sight of the girl who sat opposite to me and who wouldn't
tell me what she had wished for when we pulled the wishbone. I think it
was only that morning in church when I looked across and saw you at the
organ that I found out I had been in love with you for a long while. You
were so graceful, as you sat there and the sunlight came down on your
beautiful brown hair, that I wanted to get up and go over on the spot
and tell you I loved you. Then at dinner your fiery eyes seemed to burn
right into me, and I wondered if you could see into my heart that was
just full of love of you.
It is curious, isn't it, that I didn't get a chance to tell you all
these things for nearly six months? I don't know how it was, but first
one thing and then another made me put off asking you. I was afraid,
too. I dreaded to have you say you didn't care for me. And you were
always so independent with me. I couldn't guess what your real feelings
were. Then came that day in June when I mustered up courage at last!
Since then I've been a different man--a better man, I hope, too.
But I don't know why I should write you this way in answer to a letter
of yours that was too short almost to be worth the postage!
JACK.
IX
NEW YORK, Dec. 2, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--You don't know how much good it did me to get your long
letter last week. You wrote just like your old self--just like the dear
little girl you are! I was beginning to wonder what had come over you. I
thought you had changed somehow, and I couldn't understand it.
Of course, I wished I was in Auburnvale on Thanksgiving. I'd like to
have seen you sitting in the seats and singing with your whole soul; and
I'd have liked to hear your father preach one of his real inspiring
sermons that lift up the heart of man.
To be all alone here in New York was desolate--and then it rained all
the afternoon, too. It didn't seem a bit like a real Thanksgiving.
I went to church, of course, but I didn't think Dr. Thurston rose to the
occasion. He didn't tell us the reasons why we ought to be grateful as
strongly as your father did last year.
Coming out of church it had just begun to rain, and so there was a crowd
around the doors. As I was just at the foot of the stairs I tripped over
Miss Stanwood's dress. I tell you it made me uncomfortable when I heard
it tear. But these New York girls have the pleasantest manners. She
didn't even frown. She smiled and introduced me to her father, who
seemed like a nice old gentleman. He was very friendly, too, and we
stood there chatting for quite a while until the crowd thinned out.
He said that if I really wanted to understand some of the Sunday-school
lessons I ought to go to the Holy Land, since there are lots of things
there that haven't changed in two thousand years. He's been there and so
has his daughter. He brought back ever so many photographs, and he's
asked me to drop in some evening and look at them, as it may help me in
making the boys see things clearly. It was very kind of him, wasn't it?
I think I shall go up some night next week.
I've been here nearly three months now, and Mr. Stanwood's will be the
first private house I shall have been to--and in Auburnvale I knew
everybody and every door was open to me. I feel it will be a real
privilege to see what the house of a rich man like Mr. Stanwood is like.
I'll write you all about it.
And some day I'll buy you a house just as fine as his. That some day
seems a long way off, sometimes, don't it?
JACK.
X
NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--You have never before answered so promptly, and so I write
back the very day I get your letter.
I begin by saying I don't understand it--or at least I don't want to
understand it. You ask me not to accept Mr. Stanwood's invitation. Now
that's perfectly ridiculous, and you know it is. Why shouldn't I go to
Mr. Stanwood's house if he asks me? He's a rich man, and very
influential, and has lots of friends. He's just the kind of man it's
very useful for me to know. You ought to be able to see that. I've got
to take advantage of every chance I get. If I ever start in business for
myself, it will be very helpful if I could find a man like Mr. Stanwood
who might be willing to put in money as a special partner.
Fact is, I'm afraid you are jealous. That's what I don't like to think.
But it seems to me I can see in your letter just the kind of temper you
were in last Fourth of July when I happened to get in conversation with
Kitty Parsons. Your eyes flashed then and there was a burning red spot
on your cheeks, and I thought I'd never seen you look so pretty. But I
knew you hadn't any right to be mad clear through. And you were then, as
you are now. I hadn't done anything wrong then, and I'm not going to do
anything wrong now. Jealousy is absurd, anyhow, and it's doubly absurd
in this case! You know how much I love you--or you ought to know it. And
you ought to know that a rich man like Mr. Stanwood isn't going to ask a
clerk in Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle's up to his house just on purpose to
catch a husband for his daughter.
I guess I've got a pretty good opinion of myself. You told me once I was
dreadfully stuck up--it was the same Fourth of July you said it, too.
But I'm not conceited enough to think that a New York girl like Miss
Stanwood would ever look at me. I don't trot in her class. And a
railroad president isn't so hard up for a son-in-law that he has to pick
one up on the church steps. So you needn't be alarmed about me.
But if it worries you I'll go some night this week and get it over. Then
I'll write you all about it. I guess there's lots of things in Mr.
Stanwood's house you would like to see.
So sit down and write me a nice letter soon, and get over this jealousy
as quick as you can. It isn't worthy of the little girl I love so much.
Your only
JACK.
XI
NEW YORK, Dec. 9, 1894.
DEAR MIRIAM,--I haven't had a line from you since I wrote you last, but
according to promise I write at once to tell you about my visit to the
Stanwoods.
I went there last night. They live on the top of Murray Hill, just off
Madison Avenue. It's a fine house, what they call a four-story,
high-stooped, brownstone mansion. The door was opened by a man in a
swallow-tail coat, and he showed me into the sitting-room, saying they
hadn't quite finished dinner yet--and it was almost eight o'clock! That
shows you how different things are here in New York, don't it? The
sitting-room was very handsome, with satin furniture, and hand-painted
pictures on the walls, and a blazing soft-coal fire. There were
magazines and books on the center-table, some of them French.
In about ten minutes they came in, Mr. Stanwood and his daughter; and
they begged my pardon for keeping me waiting. Then Mr. Stanwood said he
was sorry but he had to attend a committee meeting at the club. Of
course, I was for going, too, but he said to Hester--that's Miss
Stanwood's name; pretty, isn't it?--she'd show me the photographs. So he
stayed a little while and made me feel at home and then he went.
He's a widower, and his daughter keeps house for him; but I guess
housekeeping's pretty easy if you've got lots of money and don't care
how fast you spend it. I felt a little awkward, I don't mind telling
you, in that fine room, but Miss Stanwood never let on if she saw it,
and I guess she did, for she's pretty sharp, too. She sent for the
photographs; and she gave me a wholly new idea of the Holy Land, and she
told me lots of things about their travels abroad. When you called her
the Gilt-Edged Girl I suppose you thought she was stiff and stuck up.
But she isn't--not a bit. She's bright, too, and she was very funny the
way she took off the people they'd met on the other side. She isn't as
good a mimic as you, perhaps, but she can be very amusing. She's very
well educated, I must say; she's read everything and she's been
everywhere. In London two years ago she was presented to the Queen--it
was the Princess of Wales, really, but she stood for the Queen--and she
isn't set up about it either.
So I had an enjoyable evening in spite of my being so uncomfortable; and
when Mr. Stanwood came back and I got up to go, he asked me to come
again.
Now I've told you everything, as I said I would, so that you can judge
for yourself how fortunate in having made friends in a house like Mr.
Stanwood's. You can't help seeing that, I'm sure.
JACK.
XII
NEW YORK, Dec. 18, 1894.
MY DEAR MIRIAM,--What is the matter with you? What have I done to offend
you? You keep me waiting ten days for a letter, and then when it comes
it's only four lines and it's cold and curt; and there isn't a word of
love in it.
If it means you are getting tired of me and want to break off, say so
right out, and I'll drop everything and go up to Auburnvale on the first
train and make love to you all over again and just insist on your
marrying me. You needn't think I've changed. Distance don't make any
difference to me. If anybody's changed it's you. I'm just the same. I
love you as much as ever I did; more, too, I guess. Why, what would I
have to look forward to in life if I didn't have you?
Now, I simply can't stand the way you have been treating me.
First off I thought you might be jealous, but I knew I couldn't give you
any cause for that, so I saw that wasn't it. The only thing I can think
of is that separation is a strain on you. I know it is on me, but I
felt I just had to stand it. And if I could stand it when what I wanted
was you, well, I guessed you could stand it when all you had to do
without was me.
Now, I tell you what I'll do, if you say so. I'll drop everything here
and give up trying. What's the use of a fortune to me if I don't have
you to share it with me? Of course, I'd like to be rich some day, but
that's because I want you to have money and to hold your own with the
best of them. Now, you just say the word and I'll quit. I'll throw up my
job with Fassiter, Smith & Kiddle, though they are going to give me a
raise at New Year's. Mr. Smith told me yesterday. I'll quit and I'll go
back to Auburnvale for the rest of my life. I don't care if it is only a
little country village--_you_ live in it, and that's enough for me. I'll
clerk in the store, if I can get the job there, or I'll farm it, or I'll
do anything you say. Only you must tell me plainly what it is you want.
What I want most in the world is you!
JACK.
XIII
NEW YORK, Jan. 1, 1895.
DEAREST MIRIAM,--That was a sweet letter you wrote me Christmas--just
the kind of letter I hope you will always write.
And so you have decided that I'm to stay here and work hard and make a
fortune and you will wait for me and you won't be cold to me again.
That's the way I thought you would decide; and I guess it's the decision
that's best for both of us.
What sets me up, too, is your saying you may be able to come down here
for a little visit. Come as soon as you can. If the friend you're going
to stay with is really living up at One Hundredth Street, she's a long
way off, but that won't prevent my getting up to see you as often as I
can.
I shall like to show you the town and take you to see the interesting
places. It will amuse me to watch the way you take things here. You'll
find out that Auburnvale is a pretty small place, after you've seen New
York.
Of course, you'll come to Dr. Thurston's on Sunday with me. I wonder if
you wouldn't like to help in the Sunday-school library while you are in
town? Mr. Stanwood's going down to Florida to see about his railroad
there, and he's to take his daughter with him, so there's nobody to give
out books on Sunday.
But no matter about that, so long as you come soon. You know who will be
waiting for you on the platform, trying to get a sight of you again
after all these months.
JACK.
XIV
NEW YORK, Feb. 22, 1895.
DEAR MIRIAM,--Do be reasonable! That's all I ask. Don't get excited
about nothing! I confess I don't understand you at all. I've heard of
women carrying on this way, but I thought _you_ had more sense! You
can't think how you distress me.
After a long month in town here, when I'd seen you as often as I could
and three or four times a week most always, suddenly you break out as
you did yesterday after church; and then when I go to see you this
evening you've packed up and gone home.
Now, what had I done wrong yesterday? I can't see. After Sunday-school
you were in the library and Miss Stanwood came in unexpectedly, just
back from Florida. I introduced you to her, and she was very pleasant
indeed. She wouldn't have been if she'd known how you made fun of her
and called her the Gilt-Edged and all that--but then she didn't know.
She was very friendly to you and said she hoped you were to be in town
all winter, since Auburnvale must be so very dull. Well, it _is_ dull,
and you know it, so you needn't have taken offense at that. Then she
said the superintendent had asked her to get up a show for the
Sunday-school--a sort of magic-lantern exhibition of those photographs
of the Holy Land, and she wanted to know if I wouldn't help her. Of
course, I said I would, and then you said the library was very hot and
wouldn't I come out at once.
And when we got out on the street you forbid my having anything to do
with the show. Now, that's what I call unreasonable; and I'm sure you
will say so, too, when you've had time to think it over. And why have
you run away, so that I can't talk things over with you quietly and
calmly?
JACK.
XV
NEW YORK, March 3, 1895.
MY DEAR MIRIAM,--Your letter is simply absurd. You say you "don't
believe in that Miss Stanwood," and you want me to promise never to
speak to her again. Now you can't mean that. It is too ridiculous. I
confess you puzzle me more and more. I don't pretend to understand
women, but you go beyond anything I ever heard of. What you ask is
unworthy of you; it's unworthy of me. It's more--it's unchristian.
But I'll do what I can to please you. Since you have taken such a
violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, I'll agree not to go to her house
again--although that will be very awkward if Mr. Stanwood asks me, won't
it? However, I suppose I can trump up some excuse. I'll agree not to go
to her house, I say; but of course, I've got to be polite to her when I
meet her in the Sunday-school--that is, unless you want me to give up
the Sunday-school, too! And I've got to help in the show for the boys
and girls. To give up now after I've said I would, that would make me
feel as mean as pusley. Besides, that show is going to attract a great
deal of attention. All the prominent people in the church are going to
come to it--people you don't know, of course, but high-steppers, all of
them. It wouldn't really be fair to back out now.
Now that's what I'll do. I'll meet you half-way. Since you seem to have
taken such a violent dislike to Miss Stanwood, for no reason at all that
I can see--excepting jealousy, and that's out of the question, of
course--but since you don't like her, I'll agree not to go to her house
again. But I must go on with the photographs, and I can't help passing
the time of day when I meet her on Sunday in the library.
Will that satisfy you?
JACK.
XVI
NEW YORK, March 17, 1895.
DEAR MIRIAM,--It's two weeks now since I wrote you in answer to your
letter saying you would break off our engagement unless I promised never
to speak to Miss Stanwood again--and you have never sent me a line
since. You seemed to think I cared for her--but I don't. How could I
care for any other girl, loving you as I do? Besides, even if I did care
for her, I'd have to get over it now--since she is going to marry an
officer in the navy. The wedding is set for next June, and then he takes
her with him to Japan. For all you are so jealous of her, I think she is
a nice girl and I hope she will be happy.
And I want to be happy, too--and I've been miserable ever since I got
that letter of yours, so cold and so hard. I don't see how a little bit
of a girl like you can hold so much temper! But I love you in spite of
it, and I don't believe I'd really have you different if I could. So sit
right down as soon as you get this and write me a good long letter,
forgiving me for all I haven't done and saying you still love me a
little bit. You do, don't you, Miriam? And if you do what's the use of
our waiting ever so long? Why shouldn't we be married in June, too?
I'm getting on splendidly in the store and guess I'll get another raise
soon; and even now I have enough for two, if you are willing to start in
with a little flat somewhere up in Harlem. We'd have to try light
housekeeping at first, maybe, and perhaps table-board somewhere. But I
don't care what I eat or where I eat if only I can have you sitting at
the table with me. Say you will, Miriam dear, say you will! There's no
use in our putting it off and putting it off till we've both got gray
hair, is there?
JACK.
XVII
NEW YORK, March 19, 1895.
DEAREST MIRIAM,--You don't know how happy your letter has made me. I
felt sure you would get over your tantrums sooner or later. Now you are
my own little girl again, and soon you'll be my own little wife!
But why must we put it off till June? The store closes on Decoration
Day, you know, and I guess I can get the firm to let me have a day or
two. So make it May 30th, won't you?--and perhaps we can take that trip
to Niagara as you said you'd like to.
JACK.
(1895)
[Illustration: On the Steps of the
City Hall]
A thin inch of dusty snow littered the frozen grass-plots surrounding
the municipal buildings, and frequent scurries of wind kept swirling it
again over the concrete walks whence it had been swept. The February
sun--although it was within an hour of noon--could not break through the
ashen clouds that shut out the sky.
It was a depressing day, and yet there was no relaxation of energy in
the men who were darting here and there eagerly, each intent on his
errand, with eyes fixed on the goal and with lips set in stern
determination. As Curtis Van Dyne thrust himself through the throng on
the Broadway sidewalk, leaving the frowning Post-office behind him, and
passing before the blithe effigy of Nathan Hale, he almost laughed aloud
as it suddenly struck him how incongruous it was that a statue of a man
who had gladly died for his country should be stuck there between two
buildings filled with men who were looking to their country, to the
nation or to the city, to provide them with a living. But he was in no
mood for laughter, even saturnine; and if anything could have aroused
his satire, it would have been not a graven image, but himself.
He was in the habit of having a good opinion of himself, and he clung to
his habits, especially to this one. Yet he was then divided between
self-pity and self-contempt. For a good reason, so it seemed to him--and
he was pleased to be able to think that it was an unselfish reason--he
was going to take a step he did not quite approve of. He went all over
the terms of the situation again as he turned from Broadway toward the
City Hall; and the pressure of circumstances as he saw them brought him
again to the same conclusion. Then he resolved not to let himself be
worried by his own decision; if it was for the best, then there was no
sense in not making the best of it.
So intent was he on his own thought that he did not observe the
expectant smile of an older man who was walking across the park in front
of the City Hall, and who slackened his gait, supposing that the young
lawyer would greet him.
When Van Dyne passed on unseeing, the other man waited for a second and
then called, "Curtis!"
The young man had already begun to mount the steps. He turned sharply,
as though any conversation would then be unwelcome, but when he saw who
had hailed him he smiled cheerfully and held out his hand cordially.
"Why, Judge," he began, "I didn't know you were home again! I'm glad you
are better. They told me you might have to go away for the rest of the
winter."
"That's what they told me, too," answered Judge Jerningham; "and I told
them I wouldn't go. I'm paid for doing my work here, and I don't intend
to shirk it. I expect to take my seat again next week."
There was a striking contrast between the two men as they stood there on
the steps of the City Hall. Judge Jerningham was nearly sixty; he had a
stalwart frame, almost to be called stocky; his black hair was grizzled
only, and his full beard was only streaked with white. He had large,
dark eyes, deep-set under cavernous brows. His clothes fitted him
loosely, and, although not exactly out of style, they were not to be
called modish in either cut or material. Curtis Van Dyne was full thirty
years younger; he was fair and slight, and he wore a drooping mustache.
He was dressed with obvious care, and his garments suited him. He looked
rather like a man of fashion than like a young fellow who had his way to
make at the bar.
"By the way," said the Judge, after a little pause, which gave Van Dyne
time to wonder why it was that the elder man had called him--"by the
way, how is your sister? I saw her in church on Sunday, and she looked a
little pale and peaked, I thought."
"Oh, Martha's all right," the young man answered, briskly. "Aunt Mary
attends to that."
"Do you know what struck me on Sunday as I looked at Martha?" asked the
Judge. "It was her likeness to her mother at the same age."
"Yes," Van Dyne replied, "Aunt Mary says Martha's very like mother as a
girl."
"And your mother was never very hearty," pursued the Judge. "Don't you
think it might be well to get the girl out of town for a little while
next month? March is very hard on those whose bronchial tubes are
weakened."
"I guess Martha can stand another March in New York," the young man
responded. "She's all right enough. I don't say it wouldn't be good for
her to go South for a few weeks, but--Well, you know I can't telephone
for my steam-yacht to be brought round to the foot of Twenty-third
Street, and I don't own any stock in Jekyll Island."
The Judge made no immediate answer, and again there was an awkward
silence.
The younger man broke it. He held out his hand once more. "It's pleasant
to see you looking so fit," he said, cordially.
The other took his hand and held it. "Curtis," he began, "it isn't any
of my business, I suppose, and yet I don't know. Who is to speak if I
don't?"
"Speak about what?" asked Van Dyne, as the Judge released his hand.
The elder man did not answer this question. Apparently he found it
difficult to say what he wished.
"I happened to see a paragraph in the political gossip in the _Dial_
this morning," he began again; "I don't often read that sort of stuff,
but your name caught my eye. It said that the organization was enlisting
recruits from society as an answer to the slanderous attacks that had
been made on it, and that people could see how much there was in these
malignant assaults when they found the better element eager to be
enrolled. And then it gave half a dozen names of men who had just
joined, including yours and Jimmy Suydam's. I suppose there is no truth
in it?"
"It's about as near to the truth as a newspaper ever gets, I fancy," Van
Dyne answered. His color had risen a little, and his speech had become a
little more precise. "I haven't joined yet, but I'm going to join this
week. Pat McCann is to take us in hand, Jimmy and me; he's our district
leader."
"Pat McCann!" and the Judge spoke the name with horrified contempt.