MANY WATERS.
As the day faded away it began to rain. The next morning the water was
coming down in torrents. Richling, looking out from a door in Prieur
street, found scant room for one foot on the inner edge of the sidewalk;
all the rest was under water. By noon the sidewalks were completely
covered in miles of streets. By two in the afternoon the flood was
coming into many of the houses. By three it was up at the door-sill on
which he stood. There it stopped.
He could do nothing but stand and look. Skiffs, canoes, hastily
improvised rafts, were moving in every direction, carrying the unsightly
chattels of the poor out of their overflowed cottages to higher ground.
Barrels, boxes, planks, hen-coops, bridge lumber, piles of straw that
waltzed solemnly as they went, cord-wood, old shingles, door-steps,
floated here and there in melancholy confusion; and down upon all still
drizzled the slackening rain. At length it ceased.
Richling still stood in the door-way, the picture of mute helplessness.
Yes, there was one other thing he could do; he could laugh. It would
have been hard to avoid it sometimes, there were such ludicrous
sights,--such slips and sprawls into the water; so there he stood in
that peculiar isolation that deaf people content themselves with, now
looking the picture of anxious waiting, now indulging a low, deaf man's
chuckle when something made the rowdies and slatterns of the street
roar.
Presently he noticed, at a distance up the way, a young man in a canoe,
passing, much to their good-natured chagrin, a party of three in a
skiff, who had engaged him in a trial of speed. From both boats a shower
of hilarious French was issuing. At the nearest corner the skiff party
turned into another street and disappeared, throwing their lingual
fireworks to the last. The canoe came straight on with the speed of a
fish. Its dexterous occupant was no other than Narcisse.
There was a grace in his movement that kept Richling's eyes on him, when
he would rather have withdrawn into the house. Down went the paddle
always on the same side, noiselessly, in front; on darted the canoe;
backward stretched the submerged paddle and came out of the water
edgewise at full reach behind, with an almost imperceptible swerving
motion that kept the slender craft true to its course. No rocking; no
rush of water before or behind; only the one constant glassy ripple
gliding on either side as silently as a beam of light. Suddenly, without
any apparent change of movement in the sinewy wrists, the narrow shell
swept around in a quarter circle, and Narcisse sat face to face with
Richling.
Each smiled brightly at the other. The handsome Creole's face was aglow
with the pure delight of existence.
"Well, Mistoo Itchlin, 'ow you enjoyin' that watah? As fah as myseff am
concerned, 'I am afloat, I am afloat on the fee-us 'olling tide.' I
don't think you fine that stweet pwetty dusty to-day, Mistoo Itchlin?"
Richling laughed.
"It don't inflame my eyes to-day," he said.
"You muz egscuse my i'ony, Mistoo Itchlin; I can't 'ep that sometime'.
It come natu'al to me, in fact. I was on'y speaking i'oniously juz now
in calling allusion to that dust; because, of co'se, theh is no dust
to-day, because the g'ound is all covvud with watah, in fact. Some
people don't understand that figgah of i'ony."
"I don't understand as much about it myself as I'd like to," said
Richling.
"Me, I'm ve'y fon' of it," responded the Creole. "I was making seve'al
i'onies ad those fwen' of mine juz now. We was 'unning a 'ace. An' thass
anotheh thing I am fon' of. I would 'ather 'un a 'ace than to wuck faw a
livin'. Ha! ha! ha! I should thing so! Anybody would, in fact. But thass
the way with me--always making some i'onies." He stopped with a sudden
change of countenance, and resumed gravely: "Mistoo Itchlin, looks to me
like you' lookin' ve'y salad." He fanned himself with his hat. "I dunno
'ow 'tis with you, Mistoo Itchlin, but I fine myseff ve'y oppwessive
thiz evening."
"I don't find you so," said Richling, smiling broadly.
And he did not. The young Creole's burning face and resplendent wit were
a sunset glow in the darkness of this day of overpowering adversity. His
presence even supplied, for a moment, what seemed a gleam of hope. Why
wasn't there here an opportunity to visit the hospital? He need not tell
Narcisse the object of his visit.
"Do you think," asked Richling, persuasively, crouching down upon one of
his heels, "that I could sit in that thing without turning it over?"
"In that pee-ogue?" Narcisse smiled the smile of the proficient as he
waved his paddle across the canoe. "Mistoo Itchlin,"--the smile passed
off,--"I dunno if you'll billiv me, but at the same time I muz tell you
the tooth?"--
He paused inquiringly.
"Certainly," said Richling, with evident disappointment.
"Well, it's juz a poss'bil'ty that you'll wefwain fum spillin' out
fum yeh till the negs cawneh. Thass the manneh of those who ah not
acquainted with the pee-ogue. 'Lost to sight, to memo'y deah'--if you'll
egscuse the maxim. Thass Chawles Dickens mague use of that egspwession."
Richling answered with a gay shake of the head. "I'll keep out of it."
If Narcisse detected his mortified chagrin, he did not seem to. It was
hard; the day's last hope was blown out like a candle in the wind.
Richling dared not risk the wetting of his suit of clothes; they were
his sole letter of recommendation and capital in trade.
"Well, _au 'evoi'_, Mistoo Itchlin." He turned and moved off--dip,
glide, and away.
* * *
Dr. Sevier stamped his wet feet on the pavement of the hospital porch.
It was afternoon of the day following that of the rain. The water still
covering the streets about the hospital had not prevented his carriage
from splashing through it on his double daily round. A narrow and
unsteady plank spanned the immersed sidewalk. Three times, going and
coming, he had crossed it safely, and this fourth time he had made half
the distance well enough; but, hearing distant cheers and laughter, he
looked up street; when--splatter!--and the cheers were redoubled.
"Pretty thing to laugh at!" he muttered. Two or three bystanders,
leaning on their umbrellas in the lodge at the gate and in the porch,
where he stood stamping, turned their backs and smoothed their mouths.
"Hah!" said the tall Doctor, stamping harder. Stamp!--stamp! He shook
his leg.--"Bah!" He stamped the other long, slender, wet foot and looked
down at it, turning one side and then the other.--"F-fah!"--The first
one again.--"Pshaw!"--The other.--Stamp!--stamp!--"_Right_--_into_
it!--up to my _ankles!_" He looked around with a slight scowl at one
man, who seemed taken with a sudden softening of the spine and knees,
and who turned his back quickly and fell against another, who, also with
his back turned, was leaning tremulously against a pillar.
But the object of mirth did not tarry. He went as he was to Mary's room,
and found her much better--as, indeed, he had done at every visit. He
sat by her bed and listened to her story.
"Why, Doctor, you see, we did nicely for a while. John went on getting
the same kind of work, and pleasing everybody, of course, and all he
lacked was finding something permanent. Still, we passed through one
month after another, and we really began to think the sun was coming
out, so to speak."
"Well, I thought so, too," put in the Doctor. "I thought if it didn't
you'd let me know."
"Why, no, Doctor, we couldn't do that; you couldn't be taking care of
well people."
"Well," said the Doctor, dropping that point, "I suppose as the busy
season began to wane that mode of livelihood, of course, disappeared."
"Yes,"--a little one-sided smile,--"and so did our money. And then, of
course,"--she slightly lifted and waved her hand.
"You had to live," said Dr. Sevier, sincerely.
She smiled again, with abstracted eyes. "We thought we'd like to," she
said. "I didn't mind the loss of the things so much,--except the little
table we ate from. You remember that little round table, don't you?"
The visitor had not the heart to say no. He nodded.
"When that went there was but one thing left that could go."
"Not your bed?"
"The bedstead; yes."
"You didn't sell your bed, Mrs. Richling?"
The tears gushed from her eyes. She made a sign of assent.
"But then," she resumed, "we made an excellent arrangement with a good
woman who had just lost her husband, and wanted to live cheaply, too."
"What amuses you, madam?"
"Nothing great. But I wish you knew her. She's funny. Well, so we moved
down-town again. Didn't cost much to move."
She would smile a little in spite of him.
"And then?" said he, stirring impatiently and leaning forward. "What
then?"
"Why, then I worked a little harder than I thought,--pulling trunks
around and so on,--and I had this third attack."
The Doctor straightened himself up, folded his arms, and muttered:--
"Oh!--oh! _Why_ wasn't I instantly sent for?"
The tears were in her eyes again, but--
"Doctor," she answered, with her odd little argumentative smile, "how
could we? We had nothing to pay with. It wouldn't have been just."
"Just!" exclaimed the physician, angrily.
"Doctor," said the invalid, and looked at him.
"Oh--all right!"
She made no answer but to look at him still more pleadingly.
"Wouldn't it have been just as fair to let me be generous, madam?" His
faint smile was bitter. "For once? Simply for once?"
"We couldn't make that proposition, could we, Doctor?"
He was checkmated.
"Mrs. Richling," he said suddenly, clasping the back of his chair as if
about to rise, "tell me,--did you or your husband act this way for
anything I've ever said or done?"
"No, Doctor! no, no; never! But"--
"But kindness should seek--not be sought," said the physician, starting
up.
"No, Doctor, we didn't look on it so. Of course we didn't. If there's
any fault it's all mine. For it was my own proposition to John, that as
we _had_ to seek charity we should just be honest and open about it. I
said, 'John, as I need the best attention, and as that can be offered
free only in the hospital, why, to the hospital I ought to go.'"
She lay still, and the Doctor pondered. Presently he said:--
"And Mr. Richling--I suppose he looks for work all the time?"
"From daylight to dark!"
"Well, the water is passing off. He'll be along by and by to see you, no
doubt. Tell him to call, first thing to-morrow morning, at my office."
And with that the Doctor went off in his wet boots, committed a series
of indiscretions, reached home, and fell ill.
In the wanderings of fever he talked of the Richlings, and in lucid
moments inquired for them.
"Yes, yes," answered the sick Doctor's physician, "they're attended to.
Yes, all their wants are supplied. Just dismiss them from your mind." In
the eyes of this physician the Doctor's life was invaluable, and these
patients, or pensioners, an unknown and, most likely, an inconsiderable
quantity; two sparrows, as it were, worth a farthing. But the sick man
lay thinking. He frowned.
"I wish they would go home."
"I have sent them."
"You have? Home to Milwaukee?"
"Yes."
"Thank God!"
He soon began to mend. Yet it was weeks before he could leave the house.
When one day he reentered the hospital, still pale and faint, he was
prompt to express to the Mother-Superior the comfort he had felt in his
sickness to know that his brother physician had sent those Richlings to
their kindred.
The Sister shook her head. He saw the deception in an instant. As best
his strength would allow, he hurried to the keeper of the rolls. There
was the truth. Home? Yes,--to Prieur street,--discharged only one week
before. He drove quickly to his office.
"Narcisse, you will find that young Mr. Richling living in Prieur
street, somewhere between Conti and St. Louis. I don't know the house;
you'll have to find it. Tell him I'm in my office again, and to come and
see me."
Narcisse was no such fool as to say he knew the house. He would get the
praise of finding it quickly.
"I'll do my mose awduous, seh," he said, took down his coat, hung up his
jacket, put on his hat, and went straight to the house and knocked. Got
no answer. Knocked again, and a third time; but in vain. Went next door
and inquired of a pretty girl, who fell in love with him at a glance.
"Yes, but they had moved. She wasn't _jess ezac'ly_ sure where they
_had_ moved to, _unless-n_ it was in that little house yondeh between
St. Louis and Toulouse; and if they wasn't there she didn't know _where_
they was. People ought to leave words where they's movin' at, but they
don't. You're very welcome," she added, as he expressed his thanks; and
he would have been welcome had he questioned her for an hour. His
parting bow and smile stuck in her heart a six-months.
He went to the spot pointed out. As a Creole he was used to seeing very
respectable people living in very small and plain houses. This one was
not too plain even for his ideas of Richling, though it was but a little
one-street-door-and-window affair, with an alley on the left running
back into the small yard behind. He knocked. Again no one answered. He
looked down the alley and saw, moving about the yard, a large woman,
who, he felt certain, could not be Mrs. Richling.
Two little short-skirted, bare-legged girls were playing near him. He
spoke to them in French. Did they know where Monsieu' Itchlin lived? The
two children repeated the name, looking inquiringly at each other.
"_Non, miche._"--"No, sir, they didn't know."
"_Qui reste ici?_" he asked. "Who lives here?"
"_Ici? Madame qui reste la c'est Mizziz Ri-i-i-ly!_" said one.
"Yass," said the other, breaking into English and rubbing a musquito off
of her well-tanned shank with the sole of her foot, "tis Mizziz
Ri-i-i-ly what live there. She jess move een. She's got a lill
baby.--Oh! you means dat lady what was in de Chatty Hawspill!"
"No, no! A real, nice _lady_. She nevva saw that Cha'ity Hospi'l."
The little girls shook their heads. They couldn't imagine a person who
had never seen the Charity Hospital.
"Was there nobody else who had moved into any of these houses about here
lately?" He spoke again in French. They shook their heads. Two boys came
forward and verified the testimony. Narcisse went back with his report:
"Moved,--not found."
"I fine that ve'y d'oll, Doctah Seveeah," concluded the unaugmented,
hanging up his hat; "some peop' always 'ard to fine. I h-even notiz that
sem thing w'en I go to colic' some bill. I dunno 'ow' tis, Doctah, but I
assu' you I kin tell that by a man's physio'nomie. Nobody teach me that.
'Tis my own in_geen_u'ty 'as made me to discoveh that, in fact."
The Doctor was silent. Presently he drew a piece of paper toward him
and, dipping his pen into the ink, began to write:--
"Information wanted of the whereabouts of John Richling"--
"Narcisse," he called, still writing, "I want you to take an
advertisement to the 'Picayune' office."
"With the gweatez of pleazheh, seh." The clerk began his usual shifting
of costume. "Yesseh! I assu' you, Doctah, that is a p'oposition moze
enti'ly to my satizfagtion; faw I am suffe'ing faw a smoke, and
deztitute of a ciga'ette! I am aztonizh' 'ow I did that, to egshauz them
unconsciouzly, in fact." He received the advertisement in an envelope,
whipped his shoes a little with his handkerchief, and went out. One
would think to hear him thundering down the stairs, that it was
twenty-five cents' worth of ice.
"Hold o--" The Doctor started from his seat, then turned and paced
feebly up and down. Who, besides Richling, might see that notice? What
might be its unexpected results? Who was John Richling? A man with a
secret at the best; and a secret, in Dr. Sevier's eyes, was detestable.
Might not Richling be a man who had fled from something? "No! no!" The
Doctor spoke aloud. He had promised to think nothing ill of him. Let the
poor children have their silly secret. He spoke again: "They'll find out
the folly of it by and by." He let the advertisement go; and it went.