"This life of yours must be wonderfully conducive to seeing things from
a new angle. A world of chill and pure half-shadows; the happiest time
of the twenty-four hours; the roisterers gone to bed and the
factory-workers not stirring for a good hour. I should imagine that men
in your line would all be philosophers."
"It does get a bit lonely," he said. "But I always carry an evening
paper with me and read a few lines from house to house. Do you think
they'll let Thaw off?"
"What do _you_ think about it?" I said. "I haven't been following up the
case."
"I have read every bit of the story," he said. "He isn't any more crazy
than you or me. He's been punished enough; what's the use of persecuting
a man like that?"
If Thaw were as sound in mind as my friend the milkman, there would be
no doubt that he deserved his freedom. My new acquaintance was so well
set up, so clear-eyed, with that ruddy glow which comes from shaving and
washing in cold water before dawn, with the quiet air of peace and
strength which comes from working in the silent hours. I thought what an
upright, independent life a milkman's must be, so free from the petty
chaffering and meanness that make up the ordinary tradesman's routine.
He has no competition to contend with. He is no one's servant. He
deposits his wares at your doorstep and you take them or leave them as
you please. He can work in the dark because he does not need the light
to study your face and overreach you. With no one to watch him, with no
one to criticise him, with leisure and silence in which to work out his
problems--I envied him.
(Here another editor had written: "Tedious; chance for an excellent bit
of characterisation in dialogue entirely missed.")
"You're an early riser," he said.
"Can't fall asleep," I said. "This air will do me good."
"A brisk walk," he suggested.
"I'm too tired," I said.
He turned on the wagon step. "Jump in," he said; and when I was seated
beside him he clucked to the horse, who raised his drooping head and
started off diagonally across the street, apparently confident that he
would find another cobblestone to contemplate, eighteen inches in front
of his fore-legs.
"A good many more people find it hard to sleep nowadays than ever
before," he said. "You can tell by the windows that are lit up. Though
very often it's diphtheria or something of the sort. You hear the little
things whimper, and sometimes a man will run down the street and pull
the night-bell at the drug-store."
"Then you don't read all the time while you are driving?"
"Oh, you notice those things and keep on reading. It isn't very noisy
about this time of the day." He laughed.
"I should think you'd be tired," I said.
He said they did not work them too hard in his line. The hours were
reasonable. At one time there was an attempt on the part of the dairy
companies to make the hours longer; but the milkmen have some union of
their own, and there was a strike which ended in the companies agreeing
to pay for over-time from 7 to 9 A.M. Their association was more of a
social and benefit society than a trade union. Once a month in summer
they had an outing with lunch and some kind of a cabaret show and
dancing. They were a contented lot. The work was not too exacting. He
could read the evening paper when it got light enough, or sometimes he
could just sit still and think.
Think what?
Again I envied him. What extraordinary facilities this man had for
thinking straight, for seeing things clearly in this crisp morning air,
and around him silence and everything as fresh, as frank, as fragrant as
when the world was still young.
He blushed and hesitated, but finally confessed that for more than a
year he had been carrying about in his head a scenario for a
moving-picture play. His story was naturally interrupted at frequent
intervals as he went about the distribution of his milk bottles. But
stripped of repetitions and ambiguities the plot he had evolved in the
course of more than a year's driving through the silent streets was
about as follows:
The infant daughter of an extremely wealthy Mexican mine-owner is stolen
by the gipsies. When she grows up she is chosen by the gipsy king for
his bride. Before the wedding takes place the gipsies plan to rob the
house of a Mexican millionaire who is no other than the girl's father.
She volunteers to gain entrance into the house by posing as a celebrated
Spanish dancer. At night she opens the door to her confederates. Leaving
the girl to keep watch over their prisoner, the gipsies go about
ransacking the house. The unhappy man groans and cries out, "Ah, if only
I could see my little Juanita before I die." Father and daughter
recognise each other, she releases him from big bonds, and arming
themselves with Browning revolvers they shoot down the gipsy marauders
as they enter the room in single file. Juanita marries the young
overseer whom the childless old man has designated as his heir.
(Here one editor wrote: "An ordinary plot; nothing in it to show that it
was written by a milkman instead of a clergyman or a structural iron
worker.")