Produced by Al Haines
[Illustration: Cover]
[Illustration: The Mother
[Frontispiece: The Mother]
[Illustration: Title page]
The Mother
by
Norman Duncan
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers
[Illustration: Copyright]
Copyright 1905
by
Fleming H. Revell Company
New York -- Chicago -- Toronto
[Illustration: Dedication]
To
E. H. D.
[Illustration: Decorations]
The Decorations
In This Book Were
Designed by H. E. Fritz
[Illustration: Decoration]
Contents
BY PROXY
THE RIVER
A GARDEN OF LIES
THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE
AT MIDNIGHT
A MEETING BY CHANCE
RENUNCIATION
IN THE CURRENT
THE CHORISTER
ALIENATION
A CHILD'S PRAYER
[Illustration: Decoration]
MR. PODDLE'S FINALE
HIS MOTHER
NEARING THE SEA
THE LAST APPEAL
[Illustration: Headpiece to _By Proxy_]
_BY PROXY_
It will be recalled without effort--possibly, indeed, without
interest--that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a
distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the
young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted
without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily
agreed. At the Church of the Lifted Cross, the incident of the child,
the blonde lady and the mysteriously veiled man, who sat in awe and
bewildered amazement where the shadows gave deepest seclusion, escaped
notice. Not that the late Senator Boligand was in life aware of the
existence of the child or the lady or the strange fellow with the veil.
Nothing of the sort. The one was the widow of Dick Slade, the other
his son, born in wedlock; and the third was the familiar counsellor and
intimate of them all. The Senator was for once turned to good account:
was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfort of the
humble. That was all. And I fancy that the shade of the grim old
robber, lurking somewhere in the softly coloured gloom of the chancel,
was not altogether averse to the farce in which his earthly tabernacle
was engaged....
When Dick Slade died in the big red tenement of Box Street, he died as
other men die, complaining of the necessity; and his son, in the way of
all tender children, sorely wept: not because his father was now lost
to him, which was beyond his comprehension, but because the man must be
put in a grave--a cold place, dark and suffocating, being underground,
as the child had been told.
"I don't want my father," he woefully protested, "to be planted!"
"Planted!" cried the mother, throwing up her hands in indignant denial.
"Who told you he'd be planted?"
"Madame Lacara."
"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment. "We'll
cut the _planting_ out of _this_ funeral." Her ingenuity, her
resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was
concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency. "Why, darling!"
she exclaimed. "Your father will be taken right up into the sky. He
won't be put in no grave. He'll go right straight to a place where
it's all sunshine--where it's all blue and high and as bright as day."
She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises.
She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but
she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas
not her habit to take fainthearted measures. "They been lying to you,
dear," she complained. "Don't you fret about graves. You just wait,"
she concluded, significantly, "and see!"
The boy sighed.
"Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him,
"will show you where your father goes."
"I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead."
"Don't you do it!" she flashed. "It don't make no difference to him.
It's a good thing. I bet he's glad to be dead."
The boy shook his head.
"Yes, he is! Don't you think he isn't. There ain't nothing like being
dead. Everybody's happy--when they're dead."
"He's so still!" the boy whispered.
"It feels fine to be still--like that."
"And he's so cold!"
"No!" she scorned. "He don't feel cold. You think he's cold. But he
ain't. That's just what you _think_. He's comfortable. He's glad to
be dead. Everybody's glad to be dead."
The boy shuddered.
"Don't you do that no more!" said the woman. "It don't hurt to be
dead. Honest, it don't! It feels real good to be that way."
"I--I--I don't think I'd like--to be dead!"
"You don't have to if you don't want to," the woman replied, thrown
into a confusion of pain and alarm. To comfort him, to shield him from
agony, to keep the shadow of fear from falling upon him: she desired
nothing more; and she was content to succeed if but for the moment. "I
tell you," she continued, "you never will be dead--if you don't want
to. Your father wanted to be dead. 'I think, Millie,' says he, 'I'd
like to be dead.' 'All right, Dick,' says I. 'If you want to, I won't
stand in your way. But I don't know about the boy.' 'Oh,' says he,
'the boy won't stand in my way.' 'I guess that's right, Dick,' says I,
'for the boy loves you.' And so," she concluded, "he died. But _you_
don't have to die. You'll never die--not unless you want to." She
kissed him. "Don't you be afraid, dear!" she crooned.
"I'm not--afraid."
"Well, then," she asked, puzzled, "what _are_ you?"
"I don't know," he faltered. "I think it makes me--sick at
the--stomach."
He had turned white. She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten
him--an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close
embrace; he was by these always consoled....
Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his
mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross,
where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place. It was sad
weather--a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad
and dripping and sour of countenance. The veiled man said never a
word; he held the boy's hand tight, and strode gloomily on--silent of
melancholy, of protest, of ill temper: there was no knowing, for his
face was hid. The woman, distinguished by a mass of blinding blonde
hair and a complexion susceptible to change by the weather, was dressed
in the ultra-fashionable way--the small differences of style all
accentuated: the whole tawdry and shabby and limp in the rain. The
child, a slender boy, delicately white of skin, curly headed, with
round, dark eyes, outlooking in wonder and troubled regard, but yet
bravely enough, trotted between the woman and the man, a hand in the
hand of each.... And when they came to the Church of the Lifted Cross;
and when the tiny, flickering lights, and the stained windows, and the
shadows overhead, and the throbbing, far-off music had worked their
spell upon him, he snuggled close to his mother, wishing himself well
away from the sadness and mystery of the place, but glad that its
solemn splendour honoured the strange change his father had chosen to
undergo.
"Have they brought papa yet?" he whispered.
"Hush!" she answered. "He's come."
For a moment she was in a panic--lest the child's prattle, being
perilously indiscreet, involve them all in humiliating difficulties.
Scandal of this sort would be intolerable to the young Boligand widow.
"Where is he?"
"Don't talk so loud, dear. He's down in front--where all the lights
are."
"Can't we go there?'
"No, no!" she whispered, quickly. "It isn't the way. We must sit
here. Don't talk, dear; it isn't the way."
"I'd like to--kiss him."
"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "It isn't allowed. We got to sit right here.
That's the way it's always done. Hush, dear! Please don't talk."
With prayer and soulful dirges--employing white robes and many lights
and the voices of children--the body of Senator Boligand was dealt
with, in the vast, dim church, according to the forms prescribed, and
with due regard for the wishes of the young widow. The Senator was an
admirable substitute; Dick Slade's glorious ascension was accomplished.
And the heart of the child was comforted by this beauty: for then he
knew that his father was by some high magic admitted to the place of
which his mother had told him--some place high and blue and ever light
as day. The fear of death passed from him. He was glad, for his
father's sake, that his father had died; and he wished that he, too,
might some day know the glory to which his father had attained.
But when the earthly remains of the late distinguished Senator were
borne down the aisle in solemn procession, the boy had a momentary
return of grief.
"Is that papa in the box?" he whimpered.
His mother put her lips to his ear. "Yes," she gasped. "But don't
talk. It isn't allowed."
The veiled man turned audibly uneasy. "Cuss it!" he fumed.
"Oh, father!" the boy sobbed.
With happy promptitude the veiled man acted. He put a hand over the
boy's mouth. "For God's sake, Millie," he whispered to the woman,
"let's get out of here! We'll be run in."
"Hush, dear!" the woman commanded: for she was much afraid.
After that, the child was quiet.
From the room in the Box Street tenement, meantime, the body of Dick
Slade had been taken in a Department wagon to a resting-place befitting
in degree.
"Millie," the veiled man protested, that night, "you didn't ought to
fool the boy."
"It don't matter, Poddle," said she. "And I don't want him to feel
bad."
"You didn't ought to do it," the man persisted. "It'll make trouble
for him."
"I can't see him hurt," said the woman, doggedly. "I love him so much.
Poddle, I just can't! It hurts _me_."
The boy was now in bed. "Mother," he asked, lifting himself from the
pillow, "when will I die?"
"Why, child!" she ejaculated.
"I wish," said the boy, "it was to-morrow."
"There!" said the woman, in triumph, to the man. "He ain't afraid of
death no more."
"I told you so, Millie!" the man exclaimed, at the same instant.
"But he ain't afraid to die," she persisted. "And that's all I want."
"You can't fool him always," the man warned.
The boy was then four years old....
[Illustration: Tailpiece to _By Proxy_]
[Illustration: Headpiece to _The River_]
_THE RIVER_
Top floor rear of the Box Street tenement looked out upon the river.
It was lifted high: the activities of the broad stream and of the
motley world of the other shore went silently; the petty noises of
life--the creak and puff and rumble of its labouring
machinery,--straying upward from the fussy places below, were lost in
the space between.
Within: a bed, a stove, a table--the gaunt framework of home. But the
window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old,
unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his
life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of
his mother--her voice and touch and brooding love.
It was a magic window--a window turned lengthwise, broad, low,
small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite
changes. There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and
beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat,
puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty
hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.
But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs. From the
window--and from the love in the room--the boy looked out upon an alien
world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and
day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....
In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window. Together
they watched the shadows gather--the hills and the city and the river
dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling,
flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf. Nor would she fail to
watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but
there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her
hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.
The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights,
wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were
a spell upon her.
"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.
"The ships, mother?"
She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might
touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.
"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go
out there."
"Why?"
"The river takes them."
He was made uneasy: being conscious of the deeper meaning--acutely
aware of some strange dread stirring in her heart.
"Maybe," he protested, "they're glad to go away."
She shook her head. "One night," she said, leaning towards the window,
seeming now to forget the boy, "I seen the sea. All the lights on the
river go different ways--when they get out there. It is a dark and
lonesome place--big and dark and lonesome."
"Then," said he, quickly, "you would not like to be there."
"No," she answered. "I do not like the sky," she continued; "it is so
big and empty. I do not like the sea; it is so big and dark. And
black winds are always blowing there; and the lights go different ways.
The lights," she muttered, "go different ways! I am afraid of the
dark. And, oh!" she moaned, suddenly crushing him to her breast,
rocking him, in an agony of tenderness, "I am afraid of something else.
Oh, I am afraid!"
"Of what?" he gasped.
"To be alone!" she sobbed.
He released himself from her arms--sat back on her knee: quivering from
head to foot, his hands clenched, his lips writhing. "Don't, mother!"
he cried. "Don't cry. We will not go to the sea. We _will_ not!"
"We must," she whispered.
"Oh, why?"
She kissed him: her hand slipped under his knees; and she drew him
close again--and there held him until he lay quiet in her arms.
"We are like the lights on the river," she said. "The river will take
us to a place where the lights go different ways."
"We will not go!"
"The river will take us."
The boy was puzzled: he lifted his head, to watch the lights drift
past, far below; and he was much troubled by this mystery. She tried
to gather his legs in her lap--to hold him as she used to do, when he
was a child at her breast; but he was now grown too large for that, and
she suffered, again, the familiar pain: a perception of alienation--of
inevitable loss.
"When?" he asked.
She let his legs fall. "Soon," she sighed. "When you are older; it
won't be long, now. When you are a little wiser; it will be very soon."
"When I am wiser," he pondered, "we must go. What makes me wiser?"
"The wise."
"Are you wise?"
"God help me!" she answered.
He nestled his head on her shoulder--dismissing the mystery with a
quick sigh. "Never mind," he said, to comfort her. "You will not be
alone. I will be with you."
"I wonder!" she mused.
For a moment more she looked out; but she did not see the river--but
saw the wide sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the great multitude of
lights went apart, each upon its mysterious way.
"Mother," he repeated, reproachfully, mystified by her hesitation, "I
will always be with you."
"I wonder!" she mused.
To this doubt--now clear to him beyond hope--there was instant
response: strangely passionate, but in keeping with his nature, as she
knew. For a space he lay rigid on her bosom: then struggled from her
embrace, brutally wrenching her hands apart, flinging off her arms. He
stood swaying: his hands clenched, his slender body aquiver, as before,
his dark eyes blazing reproach. It gave her no alarm, but, rather,
exquisite pleasure, to watch his agony. She caught him by the
shoulders, and bent close, that by the night-light, coming in at the
window, she might look into his eyes: wherein, swiftly, the flare of
reproach turned to hopeless woe. And she was glad that he suffered:
exalted, so that she, too, trembled.
"Oh," he pleaded, "say that I will always be with you!"
She would not: but continued to exult in his woeful apprehension.
"Tell me, mother!" he implored. "Tell me!"
Not yet: for there was no delight to be compared with the proved
knowledge of his love.
"Mother!" he cried.
"You do not love me," she said, to taunt him.
"Oh, don't!" he moaned.
"No, no!" she persisted. "You don't love your mother any more."
He was by this reduced to uttermost despair; and he began to beat his
breast, in the pitiful way he had. Perceiving, then, that she must no
longer bait him, she opened her arms. He sprang into them. At once
his sobs turned to sighs of infinite relief, which continued, until, of
a sudden, he was hugged so tight that he had no breath left but to gasp.
"And you will always be with me?" he asked.
"It is the way of the world," she answered, while she kissed him, "that
sons chooses for themselves."
With that he was quite content....
For a long time they sat silent at the window. The boy dreamed
hopefully of the times to come--serenity restored. For the moment the
woman was forgetful of the foreshadowed days, happy that the warm,
pulsing little body of her son lay unshrinking in her arms: so
conscious of his love and life--so wishful for a deeper sense of
motherhood--that she slipped her hand under his jacket and felt about
for his heart, and there let her fingers lie, within touch of its
steady beating. The lights still twinkled and flashed and aimlessly
wandered in the night; but the spell of the river was lifted.
[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
_A GARDEN OF LIES_
Withal it was a rare mood: nor, being wise, was she given to expressing
it in this gloomy fashion. It was her habit, rather, assiduously to
woo him: this with kisses, soft and wet; with fleeting touches; with
coquettish glances and the sly display of her charms; with rambling,
fantastic tales of her desirability in the regard of men--thus
practicing all the familiar fascinations of her kind, according to the
enlightenment of the world she knew. He must be persuaded, she
thought, that his mother was beautiful, coveted; convinced of her wit
and gaiety: else he would not love her. Life had taught her no other
way.... And always at break of day, when he awoke in her arms, she
waited, with a pang of anxiety, pitilessly recurring, lest there be
some sign that despite her feverish precautions the heedless world had
in her nightly absence revealed that which she desperately sought to
hide from him....
Thus, by and by, when the lamp was alight--when the shadows were all
chased out of the window, driven back to the raw fall night, whence
they had crept in--she lapsed abruptly into her natural manner and
practices. She spread a newspaper on the table, whistling in a cheery
fashion, the while covertly observing the effect of this lively
behaviour. With a knowing smile, promising vast gratification, she got
him on her knee; and together, cheek to cheek, her arm about his waist,
they bent over the page: whereon some function of the rich, to which
the presence of the Duchess of Croft and of the distinguished Lord
Wychester had given sensational importance, was grotesquely pictured.
"Now, mother," said he, spreading the picture flat, "show me you."
"This here lady," she answered, evasively, "is the Duchess of Croft."
"Is it?" he asked, without interest. "She is very fat. Where are you?"
"And here," she proceeded, "is Lord Wychester."
"Mother," he demanded, "where are _you_?"
She was disconcerted; no promising evasion immediately occurred to her.
"Maybe," she began, tentatively, "this lady here----"
"Oh, no!" he cried, looking up with a little laugh. "It is not like
you, at all!"
"Well," she said, "it's probably meant for me."
He shook his head; and by the manner of this she knew that he would not
be deceived.
"Perhaps," she said, "the Duchess told the man not to put me in the
picture. I guess that's it. She was awful jealous. You see, dear,"
she went on, very solemnly, "Lord Wychester took a great fancy to me."
He looked up with interest.
"To--my shape," she added.
"Oh!" said he.
"And that," she continued, noting his pleasure, "made the Duchess hot;
for _she's_ too fat to have much of a figure. Most men, you know," she
added, as though reluctant in her own praise, "do fancy mine." She
brushed his cheek with her lips. "Don't you think, dear," she asked,
assuming an air of girlish coquetry, thus to compel the compliment,
"that I'm--rather--pretty?"
"I think, mother," he answered, positively, "that you're very, very
pretty."
It made her eyes shine to hear it. "Well," she resumed, improvising
more confidently, now, "the Duchess was awful mortified because Lord
Wychester danced with me seventeen times. 'Lord Wychester,' says she,
'what _do_ you see in that blonde with the diamonds?' 'Duchess,' says
he, 'I bet the blonde don't weigh over a hundred and ten!'"
There was no answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the
wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the
Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and
amiable qualities, all the world knows.
"What did she say?" he asked.
"'Oh, dear me, Lord Wychester!' says she. 'If you're looking for
bones,' says she, 'that blonde is a regular glue-factory!'"
He caught his breath.
"'A regular glue-factory,'" she repeated, inviting sympathy. "That's
what she said."
"Did you cry?"
"Not me!" she scorned. "Cry? Not me! Not for no mountain like her!"
"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"
"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester. 'You're too
fat for decent company. My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial
to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but _my_ taste runs to slim
blondes.'"
No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally. In the
world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter. The boy's
gravity disquieted her.
"Did you laugh?" he asked.
"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."
He sighed--somewhat wistfully. "I wish," he said, "that _you_ hadn't."
"Why not!" she wondered, in genuine surprise.
"I don't know."
"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice. "It isn't
bad manners! Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't
laugh much. I hardly laughed at all. I don't believe I _did_ laugh."
"I'm glad," he said.
Then, "I'm sure of it," she ventured, boldly; and she observed with
relief that he was not incredulous.
"Did the Duchess cry?"
"Oh, my, no! 'Waiter,' says the Duchess, 'open another bottle of that
wine. I feel faint.'"
"What did Lord Wychester do then?"
"He paid for the wine." It occurred to her that she might now surely
delight him. "Then he wanted to buy a bottle for me," she continued,
eagerly, "just to spite the Duchess. 'If _she_ can have wine,' says
he, 'there isn't no good reason why _you_ got to go dry.' But I
couldn't see it. 'Oh, come on!' says he. 'What's the matter with you?
Have a drink.' 'No, you don't!' says I. 'Why not?' says he." She
drew the boy a little closer, and, in the pause she patted his hand.
"'Because,' says I," she whispered, tenderly, "'I got a son; and I
_don't want him to do no drinking when he grows up_!'" She paused
again--that the effect of the words and of the caress might not be
interrupted. "'Come off!' says Lord Wychester," she went on; "'you
haven't got no son.' 'You wouldn't think to look at me,' says I, 'that
I got a son seven years old the twenty-third of last month.' 'To the
tall timber!' says he. 'You're too young and pretty. I'll give you a
thousand dollars for a kiss.' 'No, you don't!' says I. 'Why not?'
says he. 'Because,' says I, 'you don't.' 'I'll give you two
thousand,' says he."
She was interrupted by the boy; his arms were anxiously stealing round
her neck.
"'Three thousand!' says he."
"Mother," the boy whispered, "did you give it to him?"
Again, she drew him to her: as all mothers will, when, in the twilight,
they tell tales to their children, and the climax approaches.
"'Four thousand!' says he."
"Mother," the boy implored, "tell me quick! What did you say?"
"'Lord Wychester,' says I, 'I don't give kisses,' says I, 'because my
son doesn't want me to do no such thing! No, sir! Not for a million
dollars!'"
She was then made happy by his rapturous affection; and she now first
perceived--in a benighted way--that virtue was more appealing to him
than the sum of her physical attractions. Upon this new thought she
pondered. She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but
she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew
not why. Later--at the crisis of their lives--the perception returned
with sufficient strength to illuminate her way....
Presently the boy broke in upon her musing. "It was blondes Lord
Wychester liked," he remarked, with pride; "wasn't it, mother?"
"Slim blondes," she corrected.
"Bleached blondes?"
She was appalled by the disclosure; and she was taken unaware: nor did
she dare discover the extent, the significance, of this new
sophistication, nor whence it came, lest she be all at once involved in
a tangle of explanation, from which there could be no sure issue. She
sighed; her head drooped, until it rested on his shoulder, her wet
lashes against his cheek--despairing, helpless.
"What makes you sad?" he asked.
Then she gathered impetuous courage. She must be calm, she knew; but
she must divert him. "See," she began, "what it says about your mother
in the paper!" She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome
description of the great Multon ball--the list of fashionables, the
costumes. "Here it is! 'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.'
That's me. 'All the men said so. What if she is a bleached blonde?
Some people says that bleached blondes is no good. It's a lie!'" she
cried, passionately, to the bewilderment of the boy. "'God help them!
There's honest people everywhere.' Are you listening? Here's more
about me. 'She does the best she can. Maybe she _don't_ amount to
much, maybe she _is_ a bleached blonde; but she does the best she can.
She never done no wrong in all her life. She loves her son too much
for that. Oh, she loves her son! She'd rather die than have him feel
ashamed of her. There isn't a better woman in the world, There isn't a
better mother----'"
He clapped his hands.
"Don't you believe it?" she demanded. "Don't you believe what the
paper says?"
"It's true!" he cried. "It's all true!"
"How do you know," she whispered, intensely, "that it's all true?"
"I--just--_feel_ it!"
They were interrupted by the clock. It struck seven times....
In great haste and alarm she put him from her knee; and she caught up
her hat and cloak, and kissed him, and ran out, calling back her
good-night, again and again, as she clattered down the stairs.... In
the streets of the place to which she hurried, there were flaming
lights, the laughter of men and flaunting women, the crash and rumble
and clang of night-traffic, the blatant clamour of the pleasures of
night; shuffling, blear-eyed derelicts of passion, creeping beldames,
peevish children, youth consuming itself; rags and garish jewels,
hunger, greasy content--a confusion of wretchedness, of greed and grim
want, of delirious gaiety, of the sins that stalk in darkness....
Through it all she brushed, unconscious--lifted from it by the magic of
this love: dwelling only upon the room that overlooked the river, and
upon the child within; remembering the light in his eyes and the
tenderness of his kiss.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Celebrity in Love_]
_THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE_
While the boy sat alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the
door--a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once
and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt. The door
was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus
impressively heralded. And a most extraordinary head it was--of
fearsome aspect; nothing but long and intimate familiarity could resign
the beholder to the unexpected appearance of it. Long, tawny hair, now
sadly unkempt, fell abundantly from crown to shoulders; and hair as
tawny, as luxuriantly thick, almost as long, completely covered the
face, from every part of which it sprang, growing shaggy and rank at
the eyebrows, which served to ambush two sharp little eyes: so that the
whole bore a precise resemblance to an ill-natured Skye terrier. It is
superfluous to add that this was at once the face and the fortune of
Toto, the Dog-faced Man, known in private life, to as many intimates as
a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present
disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to
the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself
expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."
"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.
"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."
"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.
"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily. "You always
say, 'Oh!'"
"Do I? 'Oh!' Like that?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment,
"is not accountable. Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."
"Oh!" said the boy.
Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to
catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of
indignation it was impossible to determine. Having by these violent
means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he
trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers,
listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat,
heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon--and by this strange
occupation the boy was quite fascinated--he drew a little comb, a
little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the
mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with
particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly
braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he
looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.
"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the
middle of his nose, "has came!"
With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words
charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.
"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before. A man in the
clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist
to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"
"Oh!" the boy muttered.
"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to
make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.' Git
me? The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."
"Does it--hurt?"
"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously. "It's perfectly excrugiating!
Hurt? Why----"
"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your
mustache."
"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, promptly. "Glad to know it. Can't afford
to lose no more hirsute adornment. And I'm give to ravagin' it in
moments of excitement, especially sorrow. Always tell me."
"I will," the boy gravely promised.
"The Pink-eyed Albino," Mr. Poddle continued, now released from the
necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of
his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was
fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue
tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, with a
melancholy wag, "is----"
"Mr. Poddle," the boy warned, "you are--at it again."
"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, hastily eliminating the danger. "What I was
about to remark," was his lame conclusion, "was that the Mexican Sword
Swallower is _love_."
"Oh!"
The Dog-faced Man snapped a sigh in two. "Richard," he insinuated
suspiciously, "what you sayin', 'Oh!' for?"
"Wasn't the Bearded Lady, love?"
"Love!" laughed Mr. Poddle. "Ha, ha! Far from it! Not so! The
Bearded Lady was the snare of ambition. 'Marriage Arranged Between the
Young Duke of Blueblood and the Daughter of the Clothes-pin King.
Millions of the Higgleses to Repair the Duke's Shattered Fortunes.'
Git me? 'Wedding of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-faced Man. Sunday
Afternoon at Hockley's Popular Musee. No Extra Charge for Admission.
Fabulous Quantity of Human Hair on Exhibition At the Same Instant.
Hirsute Wonders To Tour the Country at Enormous Expense.' Git me?
Same thing. Love? Ha, ha! Not so! There's no more love in _that_,"
Mr. Poddle concluded, bitterly, "than----"
"Mr. Poddle, you are----"
"Thanks," faltered Mr. Poddle. "As I was about to remark when
you--ah--come to the rescue--love is froze out of high life. Us
natural phenomenons is the slaves of our inheritages."
"But you said the Bearded Lady was love at last!"
"'Duke Said To Be Madly In Love With the American Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle
composedly replied.
"I don't quite--get you?"
"Us celebrities has our secrets. High life is hollow. Public must be
took into account. 'Sacrificed On His Country's Altar.' Git me?
'Good of the Profession.' Broken hearts--and all that."
"Would you have broken the Bearded Lady's heart?"
Mr. Poddle was by this recalled to his own lamentable condition. "I've
gone and broke my own," he burst out; "for I'm give to understand that
the lovely Sword Swallower is got entangled with a tattooed man. Not,"
Mr. Poodle hastily added, "with a _real_ tattooed man! Not by no
means! Far from it! _He's only half done!_ Git me? His legs is
finished; and I'm give to understand that the Chinese dragon on his
back is gettin' near the end of its tail. There _may_ be a risin' sun
on his chest, and a snake drawed out on his waist; of that I've heard
rumors, but I ain't had no reports. Not," said Mr. Poddle,
impressively, "what you might call undenigeable reports. And Richard,"
he whispered, in great excitement and contempt, "that there half-cooked
freak won't be done for a year! He's bein' worked over on the
installment plan. And I'm give to understand that she'll wait! Oh,
wimmen!" the Dog-faced Man apostrophized. "Took by shapes and
complexions----"
"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, diffidently, "but your
eyebrow----"
"Thanks," Mr. Poddle groaned, his frenzy collapsing. "As I was about
to say, wimmen is like arithmetic; there ain't a easy sum in the book."
"Mr. Poddle!"
"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, in deep disgust. "Am I at it again?
O'erwhelming grief! This here love will be the ruin of me. 'Bank
Cashier Defaulted For a Woman.' I've lost more priceless strands since
I seen that charming creature than I'll get back in a year. I've bit
'em off! I've tore 'em out! If this here goes on I'll be a Hairless
Wonder in a month. 'Suicided For Love.' Same thing exactly. And
what's worse," he continued, dejectedly, "the objeck of my adoration
don't look at it right. She takes me for a common audience. No regard
for talent. No appreciation for hair in the wrong place. 'Genius
Jilted By A Factory Girl.' And she takes that manufactured article of
a tattooed man for a regular platform attraction! Don't seem to
_know_, Richard, that freaks is born, not made. What's fame, anyhow?"
The boy did not know.
"Why, cuss me!" the Dog-faced Man exploded, "she treats me as if I was
dead-headed into the Show!"
"Excuse me, but----"
"Thanks. God knows, Richard, I ain't in love with her throat and
stummick. It ain't because the one's unequalled for resistin'
razor-edged steel and the other stands unrivalled in its capacity for
holdin' cold metal. It ain't her talent, Richard. No, it ain't her
talent. It ain't her beauty. It ain't even her fame. It ain't so
much her massive proportions. It's just the way she darns stockings.
Just the way she sits up there on the platform darnin' them stockings
as if there wasn't no such thing as an admirin' public below. It's
just her _self_. Git me? 'Give Up A Throne To Wed A Butcher's
Daughter.' Understand? Why, God bless you, Richard, if she was a Fiji
Island Cannibal I'd love her just the same!"
"I think, Mr. Poddle," the boy ventured, "that I'd tell her."
"I did," Mr. Poddle replied. "Much to my regrets I did. I writ.
Worked up a beautiful piece out of 'The Lightning Letter-writer for
Lovers.' 'Oh, beauteous Sword-Swallower,' I writ, 'pet of the public,
pride of the sideshow, bright particular star in the constellation of
natural phenomenons! One who is not unknown to fame is dazzled by your
charms. He dares to lift his stricken eyes, to give vent to the
tumultuous beatings of his manly bosom, to send you, in fact, this
note. And if you want to know who done it, wear a red rose to-night.'
Well," Mr. Poddle continued, "she seen me give it to the peanut-boy.
And knowin' who it come from, she writ back. She writ," Mr. Poddle
dramatically repeated, "right back."
The pause was so long, so painful, that the boy was moved to inquire
concerning the answer.
"It stabs me," said Mr. Poddle.
"I think I'd like to know," said the boy.
"'Are you much give,' says she, 'to barkin' in your sleep?'"
A very real tear left the eye of Mr. Poddle, ran down the hair of his
cheek, changed its course to the eyebrow, and there hung glistening....
It was apparent that the Dog-faced Man's thoughts must immediately be
diverted into more cheerful channels. "Won't you please read to me,
Mr. Poddle," said the boy, "what it says in the paper about my mother?"
The ruse was effective. Mr. Poddle looked up with a start. "Eh?" he
ejaculated.
"Won't you?" the boy begged.
"I been talkin' so much, Richard," Mr. Poddle stammered, turning hoarse
all at once, "that I gone and lost my voice."
He decamped to his room across the hall without another word.
[Illustration: Headpiece to _At Midnight_]
_AT MIDNIGHT_
At midnight the boy had long been sound asleep in bed. The lamp was
turned low. It was very quiet in the room--quiet and shadowy in all
the tenement.... And the stair creaked; and footfalls shuffled along
the hall--and hesitated at the door of the place where the child lay
quietly sleeping; and there ceased. There was the rumble of a man's
voice, deep, insistent, imperfectly restrained. A woman protested.
The door was softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on
tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.
"Hist!" she whispered, angrily. "Don't speak so loud. You'll wake the
boy."
"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted. "Aw, come on, now!"
"I can't, Jim. You know I can't. Go on home now. Stop that! I won't
marry you. Let go my arm. You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"
There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still
barred the door.
"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained. "And you
won't let me in. That ain't right, Millie. It ain't kind to an old
friend like me. You didn't used to be that way."
"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change. I
ain't the same as I used to be."
"You ain't changed for the better, Millie. No, you ain't."
"I don't know," she mused. "Sometimes I think not. It ain't because I
don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I
don't let you in. God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----"
It was sufficient. The man gently took her arm from the way. He
stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded
from the lamp--and turned again to the woman.
"Don't wake him!" she said.
They were still standing. The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad
at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of
feature--handsome enough, withal. He was an acrobat. Even in the dim
light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace
and agility. For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body:
then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy
on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded
him watchfully.
"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained. "The boy
knows me."
"But he don't like you."
"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach. "Come off!"
"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.
The man softly laughed.
"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed. "You can't tell a mother what
she sees in her own baby's eyes. I tell you, Jim, he don't like you.
He never did."
"That's all fancy, Millie. Why, he ain't seen me in three year! And
you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid. You're too
fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly. "What's got
into you? You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have
you? Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night? You said
Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember? Remember the doctor
coming to the hotel? I'll never forget how you went on. Never heard a
woman swear like you before. Never seen one go on like you went on.
And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad
for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him.
Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what
was coming. You didn't want no kid, then!"
"Don't!" she gasped. "I ain't forgot. But I'm changed, Jim--since
then."
He moved a step nearer.
"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring
at the window, and through the window to the starry night. "And Dick's
dead, now. I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different."
"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"
"I ain't the same!" she repeated.
"What's changed you?"
"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"
In the pause, he took her hand. She seemed not to know it--but let it
lie close held in his great palm.
"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.
"I can't," she answered. "I don't think of myself no more. And the
boy--wouldn't like it."
"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here
no more. There ain't no harm in loving me now." He tried to draw her
to him. "Aw, come on!" he pleaded. "You know you like me."
She withdrew her hand--shrank from him. "Don't!" she said. "I like
you, Jim. You know I always did. You was always good to me. I never
cared much for Dick. Him and me teamed up pretty well. That was all.
It was always you, Jim, that I cared for. But, somehow, now, I wish
I'd loved Dick--more than I did. I feel different, now. I wish--oh, I
wish--that I'd loved him!"
The man frowned.
"He's dead," she continued. "I can't tell him nothing, now. The
chance is gone. But I wish I'd loved him!"
"He never done much for you."
"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly. "He done all a man can do
for a woman!"
She was smiling--but in an absent way. The man started. There was a
light in her eyes he had never seen before.
"He give me," she said, "the boy!"
"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted
whisper. "You're gone out of your mind."
"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly. "I'm different since I got him.
That's all. And I'd like Dick to know that I look at him different
since he died. I can't love Dick. I never could. But I could thank
him if he was here. Do you mind what I called the boy? I don't call
him Claud now. I call him--Richard. It's all I can do to show Dick
that I'm grateful."
The man caught his breath--in angry impatience. "Millie," he warned,
"the boy'll grow up."
She put her hands to her eyes.
"He'll grow up and leave you. What you going to do then?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "Just--go along."
"You'll be all alone, Millie."
"He loves me!" she muttered. "He'll never leave me!"
"He's got to, Millie. He's got to be a man. You can't keep him."
"Maybe I _can't_ keep him," she replied, in a passionate undertone.
"Maybe I _do_ love you. Maybe he'd get to love you, too. But look at
him, Jim! See where he lies?"
The man turned towards the bed.
"It's on my side, Jim! Understand? He lies there always till I come
in. Know why?"
He watched her curiously.
"He'll wake up, Jim, when I lift him over. That's what he wants.
He'll wake up and say, 'Is that you, mother?' And he'll be asleep
again, God bless him! before I can tell him that it is. My God! Jim,
I can't tell you what it means to come in at night and find him lying
there. That little body of a man! That clean, white soul! I can't
tell you how I feel, Jim. It's something a man can't know. And do you
think he'd stand for you? He'd say he would. Oh, he'd say he would!
He'd look in my eyes, Jim, and he'd find out what I wanted him to say;
and he'd _say_ it. But, Jim, he'd be hurt. Understand? He'd think I
didn't love him any more. He's only a child--and he'd think I didn't
love him. Where'd he sleep, Jim? Alone? He couldn't do it. Don't
you _see_? I can't live with nobody, Jim. And I don't want to. I
don't care for myself no more. I used to, in them days--when you and
me and Dick and the crowd was all together. But I don't--no more!"
The man stooped, picked a small stocking from the floor, stood staring
at it.
"I'm changed," the woman repeated, "since I got the boy."
"I don't know what you'll do, Millie, when he grows up."
She shook her head.
"And when he finds out?"
"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered, hoarsely. "Somebody'll
tell him--some day. He don't know, now. And I don't want him to know.
He ain't our kind. Maybe it's because I keep him here alone. Maybe
it's because he don't see nobody. Maybe it's just because I love him
so. I don't know. But he ain't like us. It would hurt him to know.
And I can't hurt him. I can't!"
The man tossed the stocking away. It fell upon a heap of little
under-garments, strewn upon the floor.
"You're a fool, Millie," said he. "I tell you, he'll leave you. He'll
leave you cold--when he grows up--and another woman comes along."
She raised her hand to stop him. "Don't say that!" she moaned. "There
won't be no other woman. There can't be. Seems to me I'll want to
kill the first that comes. A woman? What woman? There won't be none."
"There's _got_ to be a woman."
"What woman? There ain't a woman in the world fit to--oh," she broke
off, "don't talk of _him_--and a woman!"
"It'll come, Millie. He's a man--and there's got to be a woman. And
she won't want you. And you'll be too old, then, to----"
The boy stirred.
"Hist!" she commanded.
They waited. An arm was tossed--the boy smiled--there was a sigh. He
was sound asleep again.
"Millie!" The man approached. She straightened to resist him. "You
love me, don't you?"
She withdrew.
"You want to marry me?"
Still she withdrew; but he overtook her, and caught her hand. She was
now driven to a corner--at bay. Her face was flushed; there was an
irresolute light in her eyes--the light, too, of fear.
"Go 'way!" she gasped. "Leave me alone!"
He put his arm about her.
"Don't!" she moaned. "You'll wake the boy."
"Millie!" he whispered.
"Let me go, Jim!" she protested, weakly. "I can't. Oh, leave me
alone! You'll wake the boy. I can't. I'd like to. I--I--I want to
marry you; but I----"
"Aw, come on!" he pleaded, drawing her close. And he suddenly found
her limp in his arms. "You got to marry me!" he whispered, in triumph.
"By God! you can't help yourself. I got you! I got you!"
"Oh, let me go!"
"No, I won't, Millie. I'll never let you go."
"For God's sake, Jim! Jim--oh, don't kiss me!"
The boy stirred again--and began to mutter in his sleep. At once the
woman commanded herself. She stiffened--released herself--pushed the
man away. She lifted a hand--until the child lay quiet once more.
There was meantime breathless silence. Then she pointed imperiously to
the door. The man sullenly held his place. She tiptoed to the
door--opened it; again imperiously gestured. He would not stir.
"I'll go," he whispered, "if you tell me I can come back."
The boy awoke--but was yet blinded by sleep; and the room was dim-lit.
He rubbed his eyes. The man and the woman stood rigid in the shadow.
"Is it you, mother?"
There was no resisting her command--her flashing eyes, the passionate
gesture. The man moved to the door, muttering that he would come
back--and disappeared. She closed the door after him.
"Yes, dear," she answered. "It is your mother."
"Was there a man with you?"
"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the
party."
"Oh!" he yawned.
"Go to sleep."
He fell asleep at once. The stair creaked. The tenement was again
quiet....