Mrs. Sheridan, in a wrapper, noiselessly opened the door of her
husband's room at daybreak the next morning, and peered within the
darkened chamber. At the “old” house they had shared a room, but the
architect had chosen to separate them at the New, and they had not known
how to formulate an objection, although to both of them something seemed
vaguely reprehensible in the new arrangement.
Sheridan did not stir, and she was withdrawing her head from the
aperture when he spoke.
“Oh, I'm AWAKE! Come in, if you want to, and shut the door.”
She came and sat by the bed. “I woke up thinkin' about it,” she
explained. “And the more I thought about it the surer I got I must
be right, and I knew you'd be tormentin' yourself if you was awake,
so--well, you got plenty other troubles, but I'm just sure you ain't
goin' to have the worry with Bibbs it looks like.”
“You BET I ain't!” he grunted.
“Look how biddable he was about goin' back to the Works,” she continued.
“He's a right good-hearted boy, really, and sometimes I honestly have to
say he seems right smart, too. Now and then he'll say something sounds
right bright. 'Course, most always it doesn't, and a good deal of the
time, when he says things, why, I have to feel glad we haven't got
company, because they'd think he didn't have any gumption at all. Yet,
look at the way he did when Jim--when Jim got hurt. He took right hold
o' things. 'Course he'd been sick himself so much and all--and the rest
of us never had, much, and we were kind o' green about what to do in
that kind o' trouble--still, he did take hold, and everything went off
all right; you'll have to say that much, papa. And Dr. Gurney says he's
got brains, and you can't deny but what the doctor's right considerable
of a man. He acts sleepy, but that's only because he's got such a large
practice--he's a pretty wide-awake kind of a man some ways. Well, what
he says last night about Bibbs himself bein' asleep, and how much he'd
amount to if he ever woke up--that's what I got to thinkin' about. You
heard him, papa; he says, 'Bibbs'll be a bigger business man than what
Jim and Roscoe was put together--if he ever wakes up,' he says. Wasn't
that exactly what he says?”
“I suppose so,” said Sheridan, without exhibiting any interest.
“Gurney's crazier'n Bibbs, but if he wasn't--if what he says was
true--what of it?”
“Listen, papa. Just suppose Bibbs took it into his mind to get married.
You know where he goes all the time--”
“Oh, Lord, yes!” Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall,
leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair. “You
better go back to sleep. He runs over there--every minute she'll let
him, I suppose. Go back to bed. There's nothin' in it.”
“WHY ain't there?” she urged. “I know better--there is, too! You wait
and see. There's just one thing in the world that'll wake the sleepiest
young man alive up--yes, and make him JUMP up--and I don't care who he
is or how sound asleep it looks like he is. That's when he takes it
into his head to pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and
chuldern of his own. THEN, I guess, he'll go out after the money! You'll
see. I've known dozens o' cases, and so've you--moony, no-'count young
men, all notions and talk, goin' to be ministers, maybe or something;
and there's just this one thing takes it out of 'em and brings 'em right
down to business. Well, I never could make out just what it is
Bibbs wants to be, really; doesn't seem he wants to be a minister
exactly--he's so far-away you can't tell, and he never SAYS--but I know
this is goin' to get him right down to common sense. Now, I don't say
that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet--'r else he wouldn't be
talkin' that fool-talk about nine dollars a week bein' good enough for
him to live on. But it's COMIN', papa, and he'll JUMP for whatever you
want to hand him out. He will! And I can tell you this much, too: he'll
want all the salary and stock he can get hold of, and he'll hustle to
keep gettin' more. That girl's the kind that a young husband just goes
crazy to give things to! She's pretty and fine-lookin', and things look
nice on her, and I guess she'd like to have 'em about as well as the
next. And I guess she isn't gettin' many these days, either, and she'll
be pretty ready for the change. I saw her with her sleeves rolled up at
the kitchen window the other day, and Jackson told me yesterday their
cook left two weeks ago, and they haven't tried to hire another one. He
says her and her mother been doin' the housework a good while, and now
they're doin' the cookin,' too. 'Course Bibbs wouldn't know that
unless she's told him, and I reckon she wouldn't; she's kind o'
stiffish-lookin', and Bibbs is too up in the clouds to notice anything
like that for himself. They've never asked him to a meal in the house,
but he wouldn't notice that, either--he's kind of innocent. Now I was
thinkin'--you know, I don't suppose we've hardly mentioned the girl's
name at table since Jim went, but it seems to me maybe if--”
Sheridan flung out his arms, uttering a sound half-groan, half-yawn.
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree! Go on back to bed, mamma!”
“Why am I?” she demanded, crossly. “Why am I barkin' up the wrong tree?”
“Because you are. There's nothin' in it.”
“I'll bet you,” she said, rising--“I'll bet you he goes to church with
her this morning. What you want to bet?”
“Go back to bed,” he commanded. “I KNOW what I'm talkin' about; there's
nothin' in it, I tell you.”
She shook her head perplexedly. “You think because--because Jim was
runnin' so much with her it wouldn't look right?”
“No. Nothin' to do with it.”
“Then--do you know something about it that you ain't told me?”
“Yes, I do,” he grunted. “Now go on. Maybe I can get a little sleep. I
ain't had any yet!”
“Well--” She went to the door, her expression downcast. “I thought
maybe--but--” She coughed prefatorily. “Oh, papa, something else I
wanted to tell you. I was talkin' to Roscoe over the 'phone last night
when the telegram came, so I forgot to tell you, but--well, Sibyl wants
to come over this afternoon. Roscoe says she has something she wants to
say to us. It'll be the first time she's been out since she was able to
sit up--and I reckon she wants to tell us she's sorry for what happened.
They expect to get off by the end o' the week, and I reckon she wants to
feel she's done what she could to kind o' make up. Anyway, that's
what he said. I 'phoned him again about Edith, and he said it wouldn't
disturb Sibyl, because she'd been expectin' it; she was sure all
along it was goin' to happen; and, besides, I guess she's got all that
foolishness pretty much out of her, bein' so sick. But what I thought
was, no use bein' rough with her, papa--I expect she's suffered a
good deal--and I don't think we'd ought to be, on Roscoe's account.
You'll--you'll be kind o' polite to her, won't you, papa?”
He mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had
pulled over his head.
“What?” she said, timidly. “I was just sayin' I hoped you'd treat Sibyl
all right when she comes, this afternoon. You will, won't you, papa?”
He threw the coverlet off furiously. “I presume so!” he roared.
She departed guiltily.
But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to
church with Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs. Sheridan would have lost.
Nevertheless, Bibbs and Mary did certainly set out from Mr. Vertrees's
house with the purpose of going to church. That was their intention, and
they had no other. They meant to go to church.
But it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation
as they came to the church; and though Mary was looking to the right and
Bibbs was looking to the left, Bibbs's leftward glance converged with
Mary's rightward glance, and neither was looking far beyond the other
at this time. It also happened that, though they were a little jostled
among groups of people in the vicinity of the church, they passed this
somewhat prominent edifice without being aware of their proximity to it,
and they had gone an incredible number of blocks beyond it before
they discovered their error. However, feeling that they might be
embarrassingly late if they returned, they decided that a walk would
make them as good. It was a windless winter morning, with an inch of
crisp snow over the ground. So they walked, and for the most part they
were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned back at noon,
they began to be talkative again.
“Mary,” said Bibbs, after a time, “am I a sleep-walker?”
She laughed a little, then looked grave. “Does your father say you are?”
“Yes--when he's in a mood to flatter me. Other times, other names. He
has quite a list.”
“You mustn't mind,” she said, gently. “He's been getting some pretty
severe shocks. What you've told me makes me pretty sorry for him, Bibbs.
I've always been sure he's very big.”
“Yes. Big and--blind. He's like a Hercules without eyes and without any
consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow
stronger. Stronger for what? For nothing.”
“Are you sure, Bibbs? It CAN'T be for nothing; it must be stronger for
something, even though he doesn't know what it is. Perhaps what he and
his kind are struggling for is something so great they COULDN'T see
it--so great none of us could see it.”
“No, he's just like some blind, unconscious thing heaving underground--”
“Till he breaks through and leaps out into the daylight,” she finished
for him, cheerily.
“Into the smoke,” said Bibbs. “Look at the powder of coal-dust already
dirtying the decent snow, even though it's Sunday. That's from the
little pigs; the big ones aren't so bad, on Sunday! There's a fleck of
soot on your cheek. Some pig sent it out into the air; he might as well
have thrown it on you. It would have been braver, for then he'd have
taken his chance of my whipping him for it if I could.”
“IS there soot on my cheek, Bibbs, or were you only saying so
rhetorically? IS there?”
“Is there? There ARE soot on your cheeks, Mary--a fleck on each. One
landed since I mentioned the first.”
She halted immediately, giving him her handkerchief, and he succeeded in
transferring most of the black from her face to the cambric. They were
entirely matter-of-course about it.
An elderly couple, it chanced, had been walking behind Bibbs and Mary
for the last block or so, and passed ahead during the removal of the
soot. “There!” said the elderly wife. “You're always wrong when
you begin guessing about strangers. Those two young people aren't
honeymooners at all--they've been married for years. A blind man could
see that.”
“I wish I did know who threw that soot on you,” said Bibbs, looking up
at the neighboring chimneys, as they went on. “They arrest children for
throwing snowballs at the street-cars, but--”
“But they don't arrest the street-cars for shaking all the pictures in
the houses crooked every time they go by. Nor for the uproar they make.
I wonder what's the cost in nerves for the noise of the city each year.
Yes, we pay the price for living in a 'growing town,' whether we have
money to pay or none.”
“Who is it gets the pay?” said Bibbs.
“Not I!” she laughed.
“Nobody gets it. There isn't any pay; there's only money. And only some
of the men down-town get much of that. That's what my father wants me to
get.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling to him, and nodding. “And you don't want it,
and you don't need it.”
“But you don't think I'm a sleep-walker, Mary?” He had told her of his
father's new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor and
picturesqueness of their setting forth. “You think I'm right?”
“A thousand times!” she cried. “There aren't so many happy people in
this world, I think--and you say you've found what makes you happy. If
it's a dream--keep it!”
“The thought of going down there--into the money shuffle--I hate it as
I never hated the shop!” he said. “I hate it! And the city itself, the
city that the money shuffle has made--just look at it! Look at it in
winter. The snow's tried hard to make the ugliness bearable, but the
ugliness is winning; it's making the snow hideous; the snow's getting
dirty on top, and it's foul underneath with the dirt and disease of the
unclean street. And the dirt and the ugliness and the rush and the noise
aren't the worst of it; it's what the dirt and ugliness and rush and
noise MEAN--that's the worst! The outward things are insufferable, but
they're only the expression of a spirit--a blind embryo of a spirit, not
yet a soul--oh, just greed! And this 'go ahead' nonsense! Oughtn't it
all to be a fellowship? I shouldn't want to get ahead if I could--I'd
want to help the other fellow to keep up with me.”
“I read something the other day and remembered it for you,” said Mary.
“It was something Burne-Jones said of a picture he was going to paint:
'In the first picture I shall make a man walking in the street of
a great city, full of all kinds of happy life: children, and lovers
walking, and ladies leaning from the windows all down great lengths of
a street leading to the city walls; and there the gates are wide open,
letting in a space of green field and cornfield in harvest; and all
round his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing from a
little walled graveyard.”
“And if I painted,” Bibbs returned, “I'd paint a lady walking in the
street of a great city, full of all kinds of uproarious and futile
life--children being taught only how to make money, and lovers hurrying
to get richer, and ladies who'd given up trying to wash their windows
clean, and the gates of the city wide open, letting in slums and
slaughter-houses and freight-yards, and all round this lady's head a
great rain of swirling soot--” He paused, adding, thoughtfully: “And yet
I believe I'm glad that soot got on your cheek. It was just as if I were
your brother--the way you gave me your handkerchief to rub it off for
you. Still, Edith never--”
“Didn't she?” said Mary, as he paused again.
“No. And I--” He contented himself with shaking his head instead of
offering more definite information. Then he realized that they were
passing the New House, and he sighed profoundly. “Mary, our walk's
almost over.”
She looked as blank. “So it is, Bibbs.”
They said no more until they came to her gate. As they drifted slowly
to a stop, the door of Roscoe's house opened, and Roscoe came out with
Sibyl, who was startlingly pale. She seemed little enfeebled by her
illness, however, walking rather quickly at her husband's side and not
taking his arm. The two crossed the street without appearing to see Mary
and her companion, and entering the New House, were lost to sight. Mary
gazed after them gravely, but Bibbs, looking at Mary, did not see them.
“Mary,” he said, “you seem very serious. Is anything bothering you?”
“No, Bibbs.” And she gave him a bright, quick look that made him
instantly unreasonably happy.
“I know you want to go in--” he began.
“No. I don't want to.”
“I mustn't keep you standing here, and I mustn't go in with you--but--I
just wanted to say--I've seemed very stupid to myself this morning,
grumbling about soot and all that--while all the time I--Mary, I think
it's been the very happiest of all the hours you've given me. I do.
And--I don't know just why--but it's seemed to me that it was one I'd
always remember. And you,” he added, falteringly, “you look so--so
beautiful to-day!”
“It must have been the soot on my cheek, Bibbs.”
“Mary, will you tell me something?” he asked.
“I think I will.”
“It's something I've had a lot of theories about, but none of them
ever just fits. You used to wear furs in the fall, but now it's so much
colder, you don't--you never wear them at all any more. Why don't you?”
Her eyes fell for a moment, and she grew red. Then she looked up gaily.
“Bibbs, if I tell you the answer will you promise not to ask any more
questions?”
“Yes. Why did you stop wearing them?”
“Because I found I'd be warmer without them!” She caught his hand
quickly in her own for an instant, laughed into his eyes, and ran into
the house.