Standing in the doorway of the Bodega where nightly she accompanied
herself on a battered piano, and sang indecorous songs with the
voice of a seraph, she listened, vastly diverted, to the crap
dealer's flights of fancy.
"Get your money down, boys; six, eight, field or come--play a
favourite. Here comes the lucky man! He throwed nine, Long Liz, the
ham and egg gal."
Rhyolite was booming, and Rhyolite was fortune-mad. It was Saturday
night. Outside on Golden Street crowds surged up and down. There
were miners, promoters, engineers, cooks, crooks, tin horns and
wildcatters; good women, bad women, and boarding-house keepers.
Adventurers all; each confident that to-morrow would bring him
fortune.
The Bodega overflowed with a good-humoured crowd that stood four
deep at the bar. Around the crap table was a restless throng, drawn
by the dealer's recitative, a curious chant detailing the fortunes
of Big Dick from Boston, Little Joe, Miss Phoebe, and many more of
the fanciful folk that indicate the fall of the dice.
Mining booms a-plenty Rose had seen. For five years she had followed
them since she had first appeared in the Klondike a young girl with
a lovely face, a gentle voice, and a consuming passion for Scotch
whiskey. Each year since then had taken some of the innocence from
her face, and set deeper shadows in her eyes; each year found her
growing sadder till evening came, and then very gay, indeed; for by
night Rose's sorrow, whatever it was, had been drowned in a square
bottle.
The pasty-faced crap dealer droned on: "Now and then I earn a small
one," he was saying. "Miss Ada, yore maw wants you----"
He faltered, and came to a pause. A shot had sounded on the street
outside, and almost instantly the saloon was emptied.
Following the crowd, and still smiling, went Rhyolite Rose. She
gathered from snatches of agitated conversation that "Sidewinder,"
the camp's bad man, in shooting at an unbearable acquaintance, had
killed a stranger.
Not dead, but desperately wounded, the man lay on the boardwalk.
Rose pushed her way to his side. As she looked down upon him her
face blanched, the red of her cheeks standing out in odd relief.
"He's a friend of mine," she said to the men around her. "Take him
to my cabin, and send for the doctor."
Rose darted into the saloon, and snatching a decanter of whiskey,
saturated her handkerchief with it. As she ran she rubbed the rouge
from her face. She passed the little procession, and reaching her
cabin made preparations for the man's coming. That done, she dug
into a trunk, taking from it a much-crumpled dress. Hastily she put
it on.
The unconscious man was laid on the bed, and in a few minutes the
doctor came. He gazed at Rose astounded. She was garbed in the habit
of a novitiate of a nursing sisterhood.
"What the----" he began. She interrupted him, and underneath her
flippancy the man saw real misery.
"It's _Sister_ Rose now," the woman said. "I shed my sins with my
scenery. Get me?"
The doctor nodded. Carefully he tended the wounded man.
"There is nothing we can do," he said at length. "He is dying."
"Suits me, Doc," said Rose.
He left, and the woman sat quietly by the bed, her face set, her
body tense, waiting. In a little while the man opened his eyes, and
she saw that he knew her. She leaned over and lifted him into her
arms. His head rested on her thin bosom.
"Little Sister, is it true?" he said in a whisper. "I dream so much.
Every night and every night I dream that I have found you. I have
hunted for you so long, Little Sister; everywhere; up and down the
whole world." His voice died out.
When he spoke again it was with an effort. "The other woman ... she
didn't count. When you left I went mad." He raised himself with a
burst of strength, his face distorted. "It was the uncertainty, the
uncertainty! You were so little," he muttered. "I have looked for
you," he repeated, drearily, "everywhere up and down the whole
world."
"Never mind." Rose spoke serenely. Subtly, indefinably she had
become again a gentlewoman. "Oh, my dearest, _yes_, I forgive you.
God has watched over _me_, honey. There is a typhoid epidemic here.
The sisters sent me."
The man gave a long sigh. "My little girl, unhurt."
She laid him down, and he drowsed awhile. Just before dawn he
stirred.
"Sing, Little Sister," he whispered.
"I am far frae my hame
I am weary aften whiles----"
Rose sang a song of her childhood. Her voice had withstood the
ravages of cigarette smoke, whiskey, and overstrain. It rose clear
and true,
"Like a bairn to its mither,
A wee----"
"Little Sister!" She bent to hear him.
"I have looked for you everywhere; up and down----" he was dead.
Tearless, Rose sat by the bed a long time. She came to herself with
a sudden start.
In the dead man's hands she placed a crucifix; and, kneeling, with
little lapses of memory, she recited the prayer for the dead.
Then, as if moved by some force without herself, with eyes staring,
she rose from her knees and hurried to the kitchen. She took down
from a shelf a bottle of Scotch whiskey. With fingers that trembled
she poured herself out a long drink.
"Now and then I earn a small one," said Rhyolite Rose.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ANSWER
By Harry Stillwell Edwards
The dim lights of the old pawnbroker's shop flickered violently as
the street door opened, letting in a gust of icy wind. The man who
came with the wind closed the door with difficulty, approached the
low desk, took off his thin coat, shook the sleet from it and laid
it on the counter.
"As much as ye can," he said crisply. "'Tis me last!"
The broker measured the garment with a careless glance and tossed
fifty cents on the counter.
"Come wanst more, me friend! 'Tis not enough for the illegant coat."
Pathos did not appeal often to the old dealer, but this time it did.
A vibration in the voice exactly fitted the mystery of something
buried deep in the subconsciousness. He questioned the other with a
swift glance, hesitated, and by the coin laid another like it. The
man nodded.
"'Tis little enough, but 'twill do."
He took a pencil from the desk and with much effort wrote a few
lines on a bit of wrapping paper. Straightening, he fixed a steady
gaze on the old face turned, not unkindly, to his.
"We have known aiche ither more'n a bit. Ye know I'm not th'
drunkard nor th' loafer. I know ye aire a har-r-d man--ye have to
be in this trade, har-r-d but square. I am off for good and all;
'tis for the sake of the gyrul and the little man. She'll not go
home till I lave her. Sind th' money and the line to the place it
spells; 'twill pay her way home--they'll take her, without me; they
have said it. Will ye do it?"
The old man looked away from him and was silent.
"Yes!" he said, at length.
They waited and then shook hands, for no reason, after the fashion
of men.
"What have you been doing of late?" a voice broke in that was
clear-cut, sharp, and almost offensively authoritative. It came from
a third man standing near, unnoticed. The coatless stranger regarded
him steadily, his face hardening. He saw a short, rotund figure,
almost swallowed up in a fur coat now thrown open, a heavy chain
across the prominent paunch, an enormous diamond above, a prominent
curved nose and sweeping black moustache. An elbow on the counter
supported a jewelled hand that poised a fat black cigar with an ash
half an inch long.
The eyes of the two men met, Celt and Hebrew. A moment of strained
silence and something passed. What? Eternity's messages travel many
channels. The Irishman's resentment faded; his lips framed a slow,
sardonic grin.
"Me? Sure, I been searchin' for the Christ! Do ye mind that ye saw
Him along the way ye came?"
"No," said the other simply. "He does not live in New York! You
spoke of going for good. Where--without a coat--by the bridge
route?"
"An' is't your business?" The Irish blood flared.
"Perhaps," replied the Hebrew, coolly flicking the ash. And then:
"Wouldn't you rather put it off and take a job?"
The red faded from the face in front of him, the pale lips parted in
silence, and one hand caught the counter.
"If you would, come to my place, The Star Pool and Billiard Palace,
four blocks above the Bridge, and I'll start you at twelve and a
half a week. One of my men skipped with forty dollars' worth of
billiard balls yesterday--I am looking for them now. You can have
his job. A man who will pawn his coat a night like this for his wife
and baby and don't get drunk won't steal billiard balls. It's a
business proposition."
He drew from his pocket a fat roll of bills and peeled off a five.
"Take this on account," he concluded, studiously avoiding the
other's gaze. "It will loosen up things at home until to-morrow.
Here, take your coat along."
From the door the Irishman rushed back, seized the garment, extended
his hand, but suddenly withdrew it.
"Not now, sor," he stammered brokenly. "Sure, I can't say it! I'll
say it ivery day I work for ye."
"Good! You're all right! Now hustle, my boy!"
* * * * *
The woman in the room sat prone on the floor, her thin shawl
sheltering herself and wailing infant. Not an article of furniture
remained, not even her little charcoal burner--it had been the last
to go. The firm, quick footsteps in the hallway carried a message
that brought her face up and drew her eager gaze to the door. The
man who stepped within carried an armful of packages. With her eyes
riveted on these, her own arms tightened around the emaciated form
she held.
"Maery!" said the newcomer gently. "Ye have been telling me I'd be
finding the Christ Child if I tried hard--I do remember ye said He
always came to the pooer an' sick first; to the honest an' thrue!
Ye knew, Maery, me girl! Sure, it's in the holy name of ye--the
faith. Well, I found Him to-night!"
He stood silent, his lips twitching and his face drawn against an
emotion that shamed him.
A wordless cry came from the woman. She struggled to her knees and
leaned toward him, her eyes shining with the light that ever is on
land and sea where angels pass.
"Mike! Where?"
The packages slipped from Mike's arms to the floor, and his lifted
face blanched with the wonder of some far-away scene, and a
revelation undreamed of in his hard, narrow life. And then with a
twinkle in his Irish eyes:
"In the heart of a Jew," he whispered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
PATCHES
By Francis E. Norris
Van Gilder, although worth an easy million in his own name, was
proud to be able to write M. D. after it. He had a practice, to be
sure, but it was mostly upon poor dumb beasts made sick or otherwise
to suit his passing purpose. This engrossed most of his time and
attention. "It was so fascinating." This pastime was called
research, and, being a man of means, he could devote himself at will
to it.
And so it happened that one day when on his way to the laboratories
he chanced to see the very specimen he "needed" for the day's
investigation. It was indeed a poor, wretched beast by the side of a
still more wretched human who was on the corner begging. This was
luck. Van Gilder usually was lucky.
He stopped his electric alongside the curb and approached the pair.
"Mister, would y' be kind enough----"
"Yes, surely, I can help you. Here's ten dollars for your dog."
"Ten dollars? For Patches? Oh, no."
"Well, then, make it twenty-five. You need the money, and the dog
will be out of your way."
"Patches? Sell him for twenty-five? To get him out of the way?" The
wretched, shrivelled soul seemed dazed. "Why, sir, not for a
thousand could you have that dog."
It was now Van Gilder's turn to be puzzled. Nay, more; he was
interested. Here was a man wretched, destitute, in the clutches of
poverty, yet he said that not for a thousand dollars would he part
with a mere useless dog. _Could_ he mean it? Could a dog mean that
much to any one? Or was he merely speaking in hyperbole? The
question held Van Gilder. A thousand dollars. What would he do if
actually offered a thousand dollars? This was research along a new
line, but Van Gilder was determined to find out. A trip to the bank,
and he returned with ten one-hundred-dollar bills.
"You say you wouldn't sell that cur for a thousand dollars?"
"Not for a thousand dollars--would I, Patches?"
"Y' sure? Here's a thousand dollars. Can I take the dog?"
The sad, drawn face looked at the ten crisp golden bills as if in a
trance, but never for a moment did the owner waver.
"No, not for a thousand. Patches and I have seen better days,
comrades we've been for years; he is as loyal to me to-day as ever,
and we'll not part till death does it. I could not sell my best
friend, could I, Patches? All the rest have left me, but _you_ have
never once complained, have you, old fellow? No, my friend, I'm
pretty low, but I'll never be as low as that. I thank you for the
offer, but I can't accept."
Van Gilder, a puzzled, thoughtful man, got into his car and drove
off. But not to the laboratories. Like Saul on the road to Damascus,
a new light had burst upon him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ARM AT GRAVELOTTE
By William Almon Wolff
He was an old man, with snow-white hair and a patriarch's beard. One
sleeve of his coat was empty. He had lived in the village for many
years--since five years after the great war, men said. He had
prospered; when the new war of 1914 broke out he was the largest
landholder for miles around.
It was not far from the French border, this village of which Hans
Schmidt was patriarch. It had no railway station, but a line of rail
came to it and ended in long platforms in open fields. Twice, of
late years, trains had rolled up beside those platforms, discharging
soldiers of the Fatherland, engaged in manœuvres. Now, in the first
week of August, there was real use for the platforms. For three days
trains rolled up in a never-ending procession, discharging their
living freight of men in a misty, gray-green uniform that melted
into the background of grass and shrubs at a hundred paces, with
even the spikes of their helmets covered with cloth.
Westward moved the soldiers, like a swarm of locusts. But they left
something behind, an integral part of themselves, their collective
brain. About the house of Hans Schmidt sentries were posted.
Mechanics, working quietly, swiftly, as if they had known long since
what they must do, laid wires into his modest parlour, connected it
by telephone and telegraph with Berlin, with the ever-moving forces
to the west. In Hans Schmidt's bed slept a corps commander; the
whole house was given up to the staff. He himself was allowed a cot
in the kitchen. His house was chosen for headquarters.
From the parlour the general ordered the movements of forty thousand
men, playing their part, like a piece in a game of chess, in the
plan of invasion of the Great Headquarters Staff. Vastly important
were these movements; each corps must coördinate absolutely with
every other. Confusion here might ruin the whole great plan.
The high-born general was very busy. But on the second day he
deigned to notice Hans Schmidt, who had drawn back, his one arm
raised in the salute, as the general passed him.
"_Ach!_" said the general. "You have lost an arm! An old soldier,
_nicht wahr_?"
"Yes, my general. I left my arm at Gravelotte."
"So! I was in that business, too. I got my company that day, when
Steinmetz lost half his corps. _Ach!_ This time we shall finish them
even more quickly! Von Kluck is halfway through Belgium; the Crown
Prince is hammering at Verdun! We shall be in Paris within the
month!"
Hans Schmidt listened respectfully, as became him. The general went
to his desk. Hans Schmidt, in his garden, looked at the western sky.
Flying low, nearby, was an aeroplane, blunt, snub-nosed. He knew it
for a Taube, though no monoplanes had circled over Gravelotte. It
turned, and flew eastward, out of sight. Still he peered into the
west. High in the air something flashed gold in the rays of the sun,
shining upward from behind a cloud. Hans Schmidt went slowly into
the kitchen.
There a hot, smokeless fire of hard coal burned to roast two
suckling pigs for the dinner of the general and the high-born
officers of the staff. He sent out a maid whose duty it was to watch
the pigs. Hans Schmidt took a bag from his pocket, emptied it into
the fire, added a pile of kindling wood. He went back into the
garden. Thoughtfully he looked at the chimney, from which there rose
suddenly a thick column of oily black smoke. Straight up it went,
higher and higher.
"In Berlin you would be fined for that," said a young staff officer,
coming up beside him.
"The maids are careless," answered the patriot.
The officer gaped at the smoke. Hans Schmidt looked to the west.
Again he caught the gleam of the sun on metal. From the west a
monoplane was coming, flying like a hawk. It took shape. A mile away
a gun spoke; another, and another. Above, below the monoplane, hung
three fleecy balls of white smoke, where shells had burst. Followed
a volley. Other officers came from the house to stare upward. On
came the monoplane.
"A French flyer!" cried one.
It was overhead. It paused in its flight, circled. A tiny black
thing hurtled down. The side wall of Hans Schmidt's house vanished.
In a moment more there was no house--only a heap of smoking ruins.
Amid fused wires a thing that had been a man, in the uniform of a
general, dragged itself, shrieking, till it died.
"The smoke!" cried an officer. "It was a signal! Headquarters was
betrayed!"
"Fools!" cried Hans Schmidt, as they turned on him. "The arm I left
at Gravelotte carried a French _chassepôt_! _Vive la France! Vive
Alsace--jamais plus Elsass! Vive la rep_----"
A revolver spat in his face. But as he lay his staring eyes were
turned to the west, to a monoplane that was flying home to France.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BAD MAN
By Harry C. Goodwin
"Prisoner to the bar," called the Clerk of the Court.
The prisoner came forward, closely followed by a dog, which, because
it had been evidence during the trial, had become known as Exhibit
A. In one hand the man held what might have been a hat when new. The
other hand hung at his side so the dog could reach up and give it an
affectionate lick now and then--when the man needed sympathy and
encouragement.
In answer to questions put, the prisoner said he was John Brent,
twenty-seven years old, and his mother's name was Mary.
"And your father's name?" asked the clerk, thinking Brent had
overlooked this detail.
"Never had none."
The judge looked up, glanced in sympathy at the prisoner, then
looked down again.
The famous Von Betz, who had caused Brent's arrest and trial,
sneered.
Some women present, attracted by the high social and professional
standing of the great Von Betz, looked shocked.
Possibly they were shocked.
Exhibit A moved closer and gave the hand of his master two or three
encouraging licks and wagged his tail joyfully in recognition of the
prisoner's friendly smile.
"The jury," said the judge, "has found you guilty of assault, with
intent to kill, on the person of Dr. Enrich Von Betz. You have had a
fair trial. The evidence seems to justify the verdict. Have you
anything to say why sentence should not be passed?"
"I would like to say something, judge, 'cause I got a hunch you'll
understand. I got a feelin' you'd done the same thing I did. I never
had a father, and the world seems to blame me. But it wasn't my
fault, and I've never blamed my mother, neither. She was a good
girl. I've had a pretty tough time--nobody but my mother, the dog,
and God has given me a square deal. Sometimes God forgot, I guess."
The judge leaned forward, interested. The dog licked the prisoner's
hand and wagged his tail. Thus encouraged, Brent continued:
"There ain't been a day since my mother died that some one ain't
come along and made me feel in the way. Every time I'd get a new
start some one would say I didn't have a father, an' back I'd go.
"I got to thinkin' I must be a pretty bad man until Yip, the dog,
fell in with me three years ago. Guess he saw somethin' in me others
didn't. He didn't ask if I had a father. He's stuck by me, he's
starved fer me, an I've starved fer him. Just see how he looks at
me, judge. A dog don't look at a man like that unless he sees some
good in all the bad.
"I pulled Yip out from under a trolley car and went under myself.
They took me to the hospital and sent Yip to the pound. I was in for
a long time, and on the day I left I did this thing I'm going up
for.
"I was passing a building on the grounds when I heard a dog yelp. It
was Yip. I don't know how I got in, but I did. I don't know exactly
what I did when I got in. I guess I did come near killing the
doctor.
"But judge," and his voice grew thick from anger, "when I got in I
saw Yip stretched out on his back. They had straps pulling his legs
one way and his head another way so he couldn't move. All he could
do was cry--cry just like a baby that knows he's being hurt but
don't know why.
"And the doctor, judge, was standing over Yip and the knife in his
hand was all bloody."
"Go on," said the judge.
"I ain't got anything more to say, except that I want you to send
Yip along when you send me away. If you don't, judge, and the doctor
gets Yip and kills him, I'll kill the doctor when I gets out,
because I've got just as much right fer killin' the doctor as he's
got to kill Yip. That's all I got to say, judge."
"I know how you feel, Brent," said the judge, in a rather husky
voice. "I've got a dog at home--a dog like Yip. And--and--but
duty compels me to sentence you to ten years at hard labour, and I
impose a similar sentence on the dog Yip----"
"Thanks, judge, thanks, fer sending Yip along. You know, judge. You
got a heart, you got feelings, just like Yip and your dog has.
You----"
"But in view of the circumstances that provoked the assault,"
interrupted the judge, "I'll suspend your sentence during good
behaviour."
"But Yip," begged the man without a father.
"I'll suspend Yip's sentence, too," smiled the judge.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
NEMESIS
By Mary Clark
The Little White Mare stirred uneasily in the narrow stall, and
shifted her weight from one three-legged balance to another. There
was no room to lie down, and the warm stench of ankle-deep manure
could not rise as far as the small opening where, occasionally,
penetrated a flickering beam from the arc light at the corner.
The day's work had been hard, and supper inadequate; in her dreams
there came the taste of a carrot, succulent, crunchy, tender, but
solid, a carrot such as the little boy used to give her--the little
boy who lived on the long street of the hard pavement and the many
car-tracks. That was in the days when Estevan and she had carried
fruit and vegetables in the old cart, and pleasantly, had stopped
before many houses, often three and four times in a block. By her
association memory (the only memory psychologists allow her kind)
she recognized that street whenever she crossed it in her
journeys--the Street of the Carrots.
But, latterly, they carried other things in the cart, heavy, jangly
things, queer, knobby sacks that Estevan gathered hastily, a few at
a time, at strange hours, in quiet places. In night journeys to dark
alleys and courtyards the loads were transferred to other Mexicans,
who counted small jingling pieces into Estevan's ready palm.
Nowadays there were no carrots, no rest under spreading cottonwoods
and chinaberries. With Estevan there never had been anything to
associate but work and blows. Such is life--far too little dirty
water from a dirty pail; roughage for food, with, now and then, a
grudging heap of cheapest grain; a galling harness; a filthy stall;
work--never-ending work; a child and a carrot the only memory of a
kindness!