Flamsted quarries
by Mary E. Waller · English · Gutenberg #23664 · 745,940 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Flamsted quarries
Author: Mary E. Waller
Illustrator: G. Patrick Nelson
Release date: November 30, 2007 [eBook #23664]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23664
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLAMSTED QUARRIES ***
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Flamsted Quarries
BY MARY E. WALLER
Author of "The Wood Carver of Lympus," "The Daughter of the Rich," "The
Little Citizen," etc.
WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
BY G. PATRICK NELSON
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
_Copyright, 1910_,
BY MARY E. WALLER
Published September, 1910
Reprinted, September, 1910; November, 1910; December, 1910
TO THOSE WHO TOIL
[Illustration: "She sang straight on, verse after verse without pause"]
Contents
THE BATTERY IN LIEU OF A PREFACE
PART FIRST, A CHILD FROM THE VAUDEVILLE
PART SECOND, HOME SOIL
PART THIRD, IN THE STREAM
PART FOURTH, OBLIVION
PART FIFTH, SHED NUMBER TWO
THE LAST WORD
Illustrations
"She sang straight on, verse after verse without pause"
"Those present loved in after years to recall this scene"
"What a picture she made leaning caressingly against the charmed and
patient Bess"
"'Unworthy--unworthy!' was Champney Googe's cry, as he knelt before
Aileen"
FLAMSTED QUARRIES
"_Abysmal deeps repose
Beneath the stout ship's keel whereon we glide;
And if a diver plunge far down within
Those depths and to the surface safe return,
His smile, if so it chance he smile again,
Outweighs in worth all gold._"
The Battery in Lieu of a Preface
A few years ago, at the very tip of that narrow rocky strip of land that
has been well named "the Tongue that laps the Commerce of the World,"
the million-teeming Island of Manhattan, there was daily presented a
scene in the life-drama of our land that held in itself, as in solution,
a great national ideal. The old heroic "Epic of the Nations" was still
visible to the naked eye, and masquerading here among us of the then
nineteenth century in the guise of the arrival of the immigrant ship.
The scenic setting is in this instance incomparably fine. As we lean on
the coping of the sea wall at the end of the green-swarded Battery, in
the flush of a May sunset that, on the right, throws the Highlands of
the Navesink into dark purple relief and lights the waters of Harbor,
River, and Sound into a softly swelling roseate flood, we may fix our
eyes on the approach to The Narrows and watch the incoming shipping of
the world: the fruit-laden steamer from the Bermudas, the black East
Indiaman heavy with teakwood and spices, the lumberman's barge awash
behind the tow, the old three-masted schooner, low in the water, her
decks loaded with granite from the far-away quarries of Maine. We may
see, if we linger, the swift approach of a curiously foreshortened
ocean steamship, her smokestack belching blackness, and the slower
on-coming of a Norwegian bark, her sails catching the sunset light and
gleaming opaline against the clear blue of the southern horizon. These
last are the immigrant ships.
An hour later in old Castle Garden the North and South of Europe clasp
hands on the very threshold of America. Four thousand feet are planted
on the soil of the New World. Four thousand hands are knocking at its
portals. Two thousand hearts are beating high with hope at prospect of
the New, or palpitating with terror at contact with the Strange.
A thousand tragedies, a thousand comedies are here enacted before our
very eyes: hopes, fears, tears, laughter, shrieks, groans, wailings,
exultant cries, welcoming words, silent all-expressing hand-clasp,
embrace, despairing wide-eyed search, hopeless isolation, the
befriended, the friendless, the home-welcomed, the homeless--all
commingled.
But an official routine soon sorts, separates, pairs, locates; speaks in
Norwegian, speaks in Neapolitan. An hour passes; the dusk falls; the
doors are opened; the two thousand, ticketed, labelled, are to enter
upon the new life. The confusing chatter grows less and less. A child
wails, and is hushed in soft Italian--a Neapolitan lullaby--by its
mother as she sits on a convenient bench and for the first time gives
her little one the breast in a strange land. An old Norwegian, perhaps a
lineal descendant of our Viking visitors some thousand years ago, makes
his way to the door, bent beneath a sack-load of bedding; his right hand
holds his old wife's left. They are the last to leave.
The dusk has fallen. To the sea wall again for air after the thousands
of garlic-reeking breaths in old Castle Garden. The sea is dark. The
heavens are deep indigo; against them flashes the Liberty beacon; within
them are set the Eternal Lights. Upon the waters of the harbor the
illumined cabin windows of a multitude of river craft throw quivering
rays along the slow glassy swell.
For a moment on River, and Harbor, and Sound, there is silence. But
behind us we hear the subdued roar and beat of the metropolis, a sound
comparable to naught else on earth or in heaven: the mighty systole and
dyastole of a city's heart, and the tramp, tramp of a million homeward
bound toilers--the marching tune of Civilization's hosts, to which the
feet of the newly arrived immigrants are already keeping time, for they
have crossed the threshold of old Castle Garden and entered the New
World.
PART FIRST
A Child from the Vaudeville
I
The performance in itself was crude and commonplace, but the
demonstration in regard to it was unusual. Although this scene had been
enacted both afternoon and evening for the past six weeks, the audience
at the Vaudeville was showing its appreciation by an intent silence.
The curtain had risen upon a street scene in the metropolis at night.
Snow was falling, dimming the gas jets at the corner and half-veiling,
half-disclosing the imposing entrance-porch of a marble church. The
doors were closed; the edifice dark. As the eyes of the onlookers became
accustomed to the half-lights, they were aware of a huddle of clothes
against the iron railing that outlined the curve of the three broad
entrance-steps. As vision grew keener the form of a child was
discernible, a little match girl who was lighting one by one a few
matches and shielding the flame with both hands from the draught.
Suddenly she looked up and around. The rose window above the porch was
softly illumined; the light it emitted transfused the thickly falling
snow. Low organ tones became audible, although distant and muffled.
The child rose; came down the centre of the stage to the lowered
footlights and looked about her, first at the orchestra, then around
and up at the darkened house that was looking intently at her--a small
ill-clad human, a spiritual entity, the only reality in this artificial
setting. She grasped her package of matches in both hands; listened a
moment as if to catch the low organ tones, then began to sing.
She sang as a bird sings, every part of her in motion: throat, eyes,
head, body. The voice was clear, loud, full, strident, at times, on the
higher notes from over-exertion, but always childishly appealing. The
gallery leaned to catch every word of "The Holy City."
She sang straight on, verse after verse without pause. There was no
modulation, no phrasing, no interpretation; it was merely a steady
fortissimo outpouring of a remarkable volume of tone for so small an
instrument. And the full power of it was, to all appearance, sent
upwards with intent to the gallery. In any case, the gallery took the
song unto itself, and as the last words, "_Hosanna for evermore_" rang
upward, there was audible from above a long-drawn universal "Ah!" of
satisfaction.
It was followed by a half minute of silence that was expressive of
latent enthusiasm. The child was still waiting at the footlights,
evidently for the expected applause from the higher latitudes. And the
gallery responded--how heartily, those who were present have never
forgotten: roar upon roar, call upon call, round after round of
applause, cries of approbation couched in choice Bowery slang, a genuine
stampede that shook the spectators in their seats. It was an
irresistible, insatiable, unappeasable, overwhelming clamor for more.
The infection of enthusiasm was communicated to floors, balconies,
boxes; they answered, as it were, antiphonally. Faces were seen peeking
from the wings; hands were visible there, clapping frantically. In the
midst of the tumultuous uproar the little girl smiled brightly and ran
off the stage.
The lights were turned on. A drop-scene fell; the stage was transformed,
for, in the middle distance, swelling green hills rose against a soft
blue sky seen between trees in the foreground. Sunshine lay on the
landscape, enhancing the haze in the distance and throwing up the hills
more prominently against it. The cries and uproar continued.
Meanwhile, in the common dressing-room beyond the wings, there was being
enacted a scene which if slightly less tumultuous in expression was
considerably more dangerous in quality. A quick word went the round of
the stars' private rooms; it penetrated to the sanctum of the Japanese
wrestlers; it came to the ear of the manager himself: "The Little
Patti's struck!" It sounded ominous, and, thereupon, the Vaudeville
flocked to the dressing-room door to see--what? Merely a child in a
tantrum, a heap of rags on the floor, a little girl in white petticoats
stamping, dancing, pulling away from an old Italian woman who was trying
to robe her and exhorting, imploring, threatening the child in almost
one and the same breath.
The manager rushed to the rescue for the house was losing its head. He
seized the child by the arm. "What's the matter here, Aileen?"
"I ain't goin' ter dance a coon ter-night--not ter-night!" she cried
defiantly and in intense excitement; "he's in the box again, an' I'm
goin' to give him the Sunday-night song, like as I did before when he
give me the flowers, so now!"
Nonna Lisa, the old Italian, slipped the white dress deftly over the
mutinous head, so muffling the half-shriek. The manager laughed. "Hurry
up then--on with you!" The child sprang away with a bound. "I've seen
this too many times before," he added; "it's an attack of 'the last
night's nerves.'--Hark!"
The tumult was drowning the last notes of the orchestral intermezzo, as
the little girl, clad now wholly in white, ran in upon the stage and
coming again down the centre raised her hand as if to command silence.
With the gallery to see was to obey; the floor and balconies having
subsided the applause from above died away.
The child, standing in the full glare of the footlights with the sunny
skyey spaces and overlapping blue hills behind her, half-faced the
brilliant house as, without accompaniment, she began to sing:
"There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall."
The childish voice sustained the simple melody perfectly, and it was
evident when the little girl began the second verse that she was singing
wholly to please herself and some one in a proscenium box. Before the
close of the first stanza the gallery experienced a turn, the audience
as a whole a sensation. Night after night the gallery gods had made it a
point to be present at that hour of the continuous performance when the
Little Patti--such was the name on the poster--sang either her famous
Irish song "Oh, the praties they are small", or "The Holy City", and
followed them by a coon dance the like of which was not to be seen
elsewhere in New York; for into it the child threw such an abandonment
of enthusiasm that she carried herself and her audience to the verge of
extravagance--the one in action, the other in expression.
And now this!
A woman sobbed outright at the close of the second verse. The gallery
heard--it hated hysterics--and considered whether it should look upon
itself as cheated and protest, or submit quietly to being coerced into
approval. The scales had not yet turned, when someone far aloft drew a
long breath in order to force it out between closed teeth, and this in
sign of disapproval. That one breath was, in truth, indrawn, but whether
or no there was ever an outlet for the same remained a question with the
audience. A woollen cap was deftly and unexpectedly thrust between the
malevolent lips and several pair of hands held it there until the little
singer left the stage.
What appeal, if any, that childish voice, dwelling melodiously on the
simple words, made to the audience as a whole, cannot be stated because
unknown; but that it appealed powerfully by force of suggestion, by the
power of imagination, by the law of association, by the startling
contrast between the sentiment expressed and the environment of that
expression, to three, at least, among the many present is a certainty.
There is such a thing in our national life--a constant process, although
often unrecognized--as social anastomosis: the intercommunication by
branch of every vein and veinlet of the politico-social body, and
thereby the coming into touch of lives apparently alien. As a result we
have a revelation of new experiences; we find ourselves in subjection to
new influences of before unknown personalities; we perceive the
opening-up of new channels of communication between individual and
individual as such. We comprehend that through it a great moral law is
brought into operation both in the individual and the national life. And
in recognition of this natural, though oft hidden process, the fact that
to three men in that audience--men whose life-lines, to all appearance,
were divergent, whose aims and purposes were antipodal--the simple song
made powerful appeal, and by means of that appeal they came in after
life to comprehend something of the workings of this great natural law,
need cause no wonderment, no cavilling at the so-called prerogative of
fiction. The laws of Art are the laws of Life, read smaller on the
obverse.
The child was singing the last stanza in so profound a silence that the
fine snapping of an over-charged electric wire was distinctly heard:
"Oh, dearly, dearly has he loved
And we must love him too,
And trust in his redeeming blood,
And try his works to do."
The little girl waited at the footlights for--something. She had done
her best for an encore and the silence troubled her. She looked
inquiringly towards the box. There was a movement of the curtains at the
back; a messenger boy came in with flowers; a gentleman leaned over the
railing and motioned to the child. She ran forward, holding up the skirt
of her dress to catch the roses that were dropped into it. She smiled
and said something. The tension in the audience gave a little; there was
a low murmur of approval which increased to a buzz of conversation; the
conductor raised his baton and the child with a courtesy ran off the
stage. But there was no applause.
During the musical intermezzo that followed, the lower proscenium box
was vacated and in the first balcony one among a crowd of students rose
and made his way up the aisle.
"Lien's keller, Champ?" said a friend at the exit, putting a hand on his
shoulder; "I'm with you."
"Not to-night." He shook off the detaining hand and kept on his way. The
other stared after him, whistled low to himself and went down the aisle
to the vacant seat.
At the main entrance of the theatre there was an incoming crowd. It was
not late, only nine. The drawing-card at this hour was a famous Parisian
singer of an Elysee _cafe chantant_. The young fellow stepped aside,
beyond the ticket-office railing, to let the first force of the
inrushing human stream exhaust itself before attempting egress for
himself. In doing so he jostled rather roughly two men who were
evidently of like mind with him in their desire to avoid the press. He
lifted his hat in apology, and recognized one of them as the occupant of
the proscenium box, the gentleman who had given the roses to the little
singer. The other, although in citizen's dress, he saw by the tonsure
was a priest.
The sight of such a one in that garb and that environment, diverted for
the moment Champney Googe's thoughts from the child and her song. He
scanned the erect figure of the man who, after immediate and courteous
recognition of the other's apology, became oblivious, apparently, of his
presence and intent upon the passing throng.
The crowd thinned gradually; the priest passed out under the arch of
colored electric lights; the gentleman of the box, observing the look on
the student's face, smiled worldly-wisely to himself as he, too, went
down the crimson-carpeted incline. Champney Googe's still beardless lip
had curled slightly as if his thought were a sneer.
II
The priest, after leaving the theatre, walked rapidly down Broadway past
the marble church, that had been shown on the stage, and still straight
on for two miles at the same rapid gait, past the quiet churchyards of
St. Paul's and Trinity into the comparative silence of Battery Park and
across to the sea wall. There he leaned for half an hour, reliving in
memory not only the years since his seven-year old feet had crossed this
threshold of the New World, but recalling something of his still earlier
childhood in his native France. The child's song had been an excitant to
the memory in recalling those first years in Auvergne.
"There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall."
How clearly he saw that! and his peasant father and mother as laborers
on or about it, and himself, a six-year old, tending the goats on that
same green hill or minding the geese in the meadows at its foot.
All this he saw as he gazed blankly at the dark waters of the bay, saw
clearly as if visioned in crystal. But of subsequent movings and
wanderings there was a blurred reflection only, till the vision
momentarily brightened, the outlines defined themselves again as he saw
his tired drowsy self put to bed in a tiny room that was filled with the
fragrance of newly baked bread. He remembered the awakening in that
small room over a bread-filled shop; it belonged to a distant
great-uncle baker on the mother's side, a personage in the family
because in trade. He could remember the time spent in that same shop and
the brick-walled, brick-floored, brick-ovened room behind it. He
recalled having stood for hours, it might have been days, he could not
remember--for then Time was forever and its passing of no moment--before
the deep ovens with a tiny blue-eyed slip of a girl. _P'tite Truite_,
Little Trout, they called her, the great-uncle baker's one grandchild.
And the shop--he remembered that, so light and bright and sweet and
clean, with people coming and going--men and women and children--and the
crisp yard-long loaves carried away in shallow baskets on many a fine
Norman head in the old seaport of Dieppe. And always the Little Trout
was by his side, even when the great-uncle placed him in one of the huge
flat-bottomed bread baskets and drew the two up and down in front of the
shop. Then all was dim again; so dim that except for the lap and
backward sucking of the waters against the sea wall, whereon he leaned,
he had scarcely recalled a ship at the old pier of Dieppe, and the
Little Trout standing beside her grandfather on the stringer,
frantically waving her hand as the ship left her moorings and the prow
nosed the first heavy channel sea that washed against the bulkhead and
half-drowned her wailing cry:
"Jean--mon Jean!"
The rest was a blank until he landed here almost on this very spot in
old Castle Garden and, holding hard by his father's hand, was bidden to
look up at the flag flying from the pole at the top of the queer round
building--a brave sight even for his young eyes: all the red and white
and blue straining in the freshening wind with an energy of motion that
made the boy dance in sympathetic joy at his father's side--
And what next?
Again a confusion of journeyings, and afterwards quiet settlement in a
red brick box of a house in a mill town on the Merrimac. He could still
hear the clang of the mill-gates, the ringing of the bells, the hum and
whir and roar of a hundred thousand spindles, the clacking crash of the
ponderous shifting frames. He could still see with the inner eye the
hundreds of windows blazing in the reflected fires of the western sun,
or twinkling with numberless lights that cast their long reflections on
the black waters of the canal. There on the bank, at the entrance to the
footbridge, the boy was wont to take his stand regularly at six o'clock
of a winter's day, and wait for the hoisting of the mill-gates and the
coming of his father and mother with the throng of toilers.
So he saw himself--himself as an identity emerging at last from the
confusion of time and place and circumstance; for there followed the
public school, the joys of rivalry, the eager outrush for the boy's Ever
New, the glory of scrimmage and school-boy sports, the battle royal for
the little Auvergnat when taunted with the epithet "Johnny Frog" by the
belligerent youth, American born, and the victorious outcome for the
"foreigner"; the Auvergne blood was up, and the temperament volcanic
like his native soil where subterranean heats evidence themselves in
hot, out-welling waters. And afterwards, at home, there were
congratulations and comfortings, plus applications of vinegar and brown
butcher's paper to the severely smitten nose of this champion of his new
Americanhood. But at school and in the street, henceforth there was due
respect and a general atmosphere of "let bygones be bygones."
Ah, but the pride of his mother in her boy's progress! the joy over the
first English-French letter that went to the great-uncle baker; the
constant toil of both parents that the savings might be sufficient to
educate their one child--that the son might have what the parents
lacked. Already the mother had begun to speak of the priesthood: she
might yet see her son Jean a priest, a bishop, and archbishop. Who could
tell? America is America, and opportunities infinite--a cardinal,
perhaps, and the gift of a red hat from the Pope, and robes and laces!
There was no end to her ambitious dreaming.
But across the day-dreams fell the shadow of hard times: the shutting
down of the mills, the father's desperate illness in a workless winter,
his death in the early spring, followed shortly by that of the worn-out
and ill-nourished mother--and for the twelve-year-old boy the
abomination of desolation, and world and life seen dimly through tears.
Dim, too, from the like cause, that strange passage across the ocean to
Dieppe--his mother's uncle having sent for him to return--a weight as of
lead in his stomach, a fiery throbbing in his young heart, a sickening
craving for some expression of human love. The boyish tendrils, although
touched in truth by spring frosts, were outreaching still for some
object upon which to fasten; yet he shrank from human touch and sympathy
on that voyage in the steerage lest in his grief and loneliness he
scream aloud.
Dieppe again, and the Little Trout with her grandfather awaiting him on
the pier; the Little Trout's arms about his neck in loving welcome, the
boy's heart full to bursting and his eyelids reddened in his supreme
effort to keep back tears. Dependent, an orphan, and destined for the
priesthood--those were his life lines for the next ten years. And the
end? Revolt, rebellion, partial crime, acquittal under the law, but
condemnation before the tribunal of his conscience and his God.
There followed the longing to expiate, to expiate in that America where
he was not known but where he belonged, where his parents' dust mingled
with the soil; to flee to the Church as to a sanctuary of refuge, to be
priest through expiation. And this he had been for years while working
among the Canadian rivermen, among the lumbermen of Maine, sharing their
lives, their toil, their joys and sorrows, the common inheritance of the
Human. For years subsequent to his Canadian mission, and after his
naturalization as an American citizen, he worked in town and city, among
high and low, rich and poor, recognizing in his catholicity of outlook
but one human plane: that which may be tested by the spirit level of
human needs. Now, at last, he was priest by conviction, by inner
consecration.
He stood erect; drew a long full breath; squared his shoulders and
looked around him. He noticed for the first time that a Staten Island
ferryboat had moved into the slip near him; that several passengers were
lingering to look at him; that a policeman was pacing behind him, his
eye alert--and he smiled to himself, for he read their thought. He could
not blame them for looking. He had fancied himself alone with the sea
and the night and his thoughts; had lost himself to his present
surroundings in the memory of those years; he had suffered again the old
agony of passion, shame, guilt, while the events of that pregnant,
preparatory period in France, etched deep with acid burnings into his
inmost consciousness, were passing during that half hour in review
before his inner vision. Small wonder he was attracting attention!
He bared his head. A new moon was sinking to the Highlands of the
Navesink. The May night was mild, the sea breeze drawing in with gentle
vigor. He looked northwards up the Hudson, and southwards to the Liberty
beacon, and eastwards to the Sound. "God bless our Land" he murmured;
then, covering his head, bowed courteously to the policeman and took his
way across the Park to the up-town elevated station.
Yes, at last he dared assert it: he was priest by consecration; soul,
heart, mind, body dedicate to the service of God through Humanity. That
service led him always in human ways. A few nights ago he saw the
poster: "The Little Patti". A child then? Thought bridged the abyss of
ocean to the Little Trout. Some rescue work for him here, possibly;
hence his presence in the theatre.
III
That the priest's effort to rescue the child from the artificial life of
the stage had been in a measure successful, was confirmed by the
presence, six months later, of the little girl in the yard of the Orphan
Asylum on ----nd Street.
On an exceptionally dreary afternoon in November, had any one cared to
look over the high board fence that bounds three sides of the Asylum
yard, he might have seen an amazing sight and heard a still more amazing
chorus:
"Little Sally Waters
Sitting in the sun,
Weeping and crying for a young man;
Rise, Sally, rise, Sally,
Wipe away your tears, Sally;
Turn to the east
And turn to the west,
And turn to the one that you love best!"
Higher and higher the voices of the three hundred orphans shrilled in
unison as the owners thereof danced frantically around a small solitary
figure in the middle of the ring of girls assembled in the yard on
----nd Street. Her coarse blue denim apron was thrown over her head; her
face was bowed into her hands that rested on her knees. It was a picture
of woe.
The last few words "you love best" rose to a shriek of exhortation. In
the expectant silence that followed, "Sally" rose, pirouetted in a
fashion worthy of a ballet dancer, then, with head down, fists clenched,
arms tight at her sides, she made a sudden dash to break through the
encircling wall of girls. She succeeded in making a breach by knocking
the legs of three of the tallest out from under them; but two or more
dozen arms, octopus-like, caught and held her. For a few minutes chaos
reigned: legs, arms, hands, fingers, aprons, heads, stockings, hair,
shoes of three hundred orphans were seemingly inextricably entangled. A
bell clanged. The three hundred disentangled themselves with marvellous
rapidity and, settling aprons, smoothing hair, pulling up stockings and
down petticoats, they formed in a long double line. While waiting for
the bell to ring the second warning, they stamped their feet, blew upon
their cold fingers, and freely exercised their tongues.
"Yer dassn't try that again!" said the mate in line with the
obstreperous "Sally" who had so scorned the invitation of the hundreds
of girls to "turn to the one that she loved best".
"I dass ter!" was the defiant reply accompanied by the protrusion of a
long thin tongue.
"Yer dassn't either!"
"I dass t'either!"
"Git out!" The first speaker nudged the other's ribs with her sharp
elbow.
"Slap yer face for two cents!" shrieked the insulted "Sally", the Little
Patti of the Vaudeville, and proceeded to carry out her threat.
Whereupon Freckles, as she was known in the Asylum, set up a howl that
was heard all along the line and turned upon her antagonist tooth and
nail. At that moment the bell clanged a second time. A hush fell upon
the multitude, broken only by a suppressed shriek that came from the
vicinity of Freckles. A snicker ran down the line. The penalty for
breaking silence after the second bell was "no supper", and not one of
the three hundred cared to incur that--least of all Flibbertigibbet, the
"Sally" of the game, who had forfeited her dinner, because she had been
caught squabbling at morning prayers, and was now carrying about with
her an empty stomach that was at bottom of her ugly mood.
"One, two--one, two." The monitor counted; the girls fell into step, all
but Flibbertigibbet--the Asylum nickname for the "Little Patti"--who
contrived to keep out just enough to tread solidly with hobnailed shoe
on the toes of the long-suffering Freckles. It was unbearable,
especially the last time when a heel was set squarely upon Freckles'
latest bunion.
"Ou, ou--oh, au--wau!" Freckles moaned, limping.
"Number 207 report for disorder," said the monitor.
Flibbertigibbet giggled. Number 207 stepped out of the line and burst
into uncontrollable sobbing; for she was hungry, oh, so hungry! And the
matron had chalked on the blackboard "hot corn-cakes and molasses for
Friday". It was the one great treat of the week. The girl behind
Flibbertigibbet hissed in her ear:
"Yer jest pizen mean; dirt ain't in it."
A back kick worthy of a pack mule took effect upon the whisperer's shin.
Flibbertigibbet moved on unmolested, underwent inspection at the
entrance, and passed with the rest into the long basement room which was
used for meals.
Freckles stood sniffing disconsolately by the door as the girls filed
in. She was meditating revenge, and advanced a foot in hope that,
unseen, she might trip her tormentor as she passed her. What, then, was
her amazement to see Flibbertigibbet shuffle along deliberately a little
sideways in order to strike the extended foot! This man[oe]uvre she
accomplished successfully and fell, not forward, but sideways out of
line and upon Freckles. Freckles pushed her off with a vengeance, but
not before she heard a gleeful whisper in her ear:
"Dry up--watch out--I'll save yer some!"
That was all; but to Freckles it was a revelation. The children filed
between the long rows of wooden benches, that served for seats, and the
tables. They remained standing until the sister in charge gave the
signal to be seated. When the three hundred sat down as one, with a thud
of something more than fifteen tons' weight, there broke loose a Babel
of tongues--English as it is spoken in the mouths of children of many
nationalities.
It was then that Freckles began to "watch out."
Flibbertigibbet sat rigid on the bench, her eyes turned neither to right
nor left but staring straight at the pile of smoking corn-meal cakes
trickling molasses on her tin plate. She was counting: "One, two, three,
four, five," and the prospect of more; for on treat nights, which
occurred once a week, there was no stinting with corn-meal cakes, hulled
corn, apple sauce with fried bread or whatever else might be provided
for the three hundred orphans at the Asylum on ----nd Street, in the
great city of New York.
Freckles grew nervous as she watched. What _was_ Flibbertigibbet doing?
Her fingers were busy untying the piece of red mohair tape with which
her heavy braid was fastened in a neat loop. She put it around her
apron, tying it fast; then, blousing the blue denim in front to a pouch
like a fashion-plate shirt waist, she said in an undertone to her
neighbor on the right:
"Gee--look! Ain't I got the style?"
"I ain't a-goin' ter look at yer, yer so pizen mean--dirt ain't in it,"
said 206 contemptuously, and sat sideways at such an angle that she
could eat her cakes without seeing the eyesore next her.
"Stop crowdin'!" was the next command from the bloused bit of "style" to
her neighbor on the left. Her sharp elbow emphasized her words and was
followed by a solid thigh-to-thigh pressure that was felt for the length
of at least five girls down the bench. The neighbor on the left found
she could not withstand the continued pressure. She raised her hand.
"What is the trouble with 205?" The voice from the head of the table was
one of controlled impatience.
"Please 'um--"; but she spoke no further word, for the pressure was
removed so suddenly that she lost her balance and careened with such
force towards her torment of a neighbor that the latter was fain to put
her both arms about her to hold her up. This she did so effectually that
205 actually gasped for breath.
"I'll pinch yer black an' blue if yer tell!" whispered Flibbertigibbet,
relaxing her hold and in turn raising her hand.
"What's wanting now, 208?"
"A second helpin', please 'um."
The tin round was passed up to the nickel-plated receptacle, that
resembled a small bathtub with a cover, and piled anew. Flibbertigibbet
viewed its return with satisfaction, and Freckles, who had been watching
every move of this by-play, suddenly doubled up from her plastered
position against the wall. She saw Flibbertigibbet drop the cakes quick
as a flash into the low neck of her apron, and at that very minute they
were reposing in the paunch of the blouse and held there by the mohair
girdle. Thereafter a truce was proclaimed in the immediate vicinity of
208. Her neighbors, right and left, their backs twisted towards the
tease, ate their portions in fear and trembling. After a while 208's
hand went up again. This time it waved mechanically back and forth as if
the owner were pumping bucketfuls of water.
"What is it now, 208?" The voice at the head of the table put the
question with a note of exasperation in it.
"Please 'um, another helpin'."
The sister's lips set themselves close. "Pass up 208's plate," she said.
The empty plate, licked clean of molasses on the sly, went up the line
and returned laden with three "bloomin' beauties" as 208 murmured
serenely to herself. She ate one with keen relish, then eyed the
remaining two askance and critically. Freckles grew anxious. What next?
Contrary to all rules 208's head, after slowly drooping little by
little, lower and lower, dropped finally with a dull thud on the edge of
the table and a force that tipped the plate towards her. Freckles
doubled up again; she had seen through the man[oe]uvre: the three
remaining cakes slid gently into the open half--low apron neck and were
safely lodged with the other four.
"Number 208 sit up properly or leave the table."
The sister spoke peremptorily, for this special One Three-hundredth was
her daily, almost hourly, thorn in the flesh. The table stopped eating
to listen. There was a low moan for answer, but the head was not
lifted. Number 206 took this opportunity to give her a dig in the ribs,
and Number 205 crowded her in turn. To their amazement there was no
response.
"Number 208 answer at once."
"Oh, please, 'um, I've got an awful pain--oo--au--." The sound was low
but piercing.
"You may leave the table, 208, and go up to the dormitory."
208 rose with apparent effort. Her hands were clasped over the region
where hot corn-meal cakes are said to lie heavily at times. Her face was
screwed into an expression indicative of excruciating inner torment. As
she made her way, moaning softly, to the farther door that opened into
the cheerless corridor, there was audible a suppressed but decided
giggle. It proceeded from Freckles. The monitor warned her, but,
unheeding, the little girl giggled again.
A ripple of laughter started down the three tables, but was quickly
suppressed.
"Number 207," said the much-tried and long-suffering sister, "you have
broken the rule when under discipline. Go up to the dormitory and don't
come down again to-night." This was precisely what Freckles wanted. She
continued to sniff, however, as she left the room with seemingly
reluctant steps. Once the door had closed upon her, she flew up the two
long flights of stairs after Flibbertigibbet whom she found at the
lavatory in the upper dormitory, cleansing the inside of her apron from
molasses.
Oh, but those cakes were good, eaten on the broad window sill where the
two children curled themselves to play at their favorite game of "making
believe about the Marchioness"!
"But it's hot they be!" Freckles' utterance was thick owing to a large
mouthful of cake with which she was occupied.
"I kept 'em so squeezin' 'em against my stommick."
"Where the pain was?"
"M-m," her chum answered abstractedly. Her face was flattened against
the window in order to see what was going on below, for the electric
arc-light at the corner made the street visible for the distance of a
block.
"I've dropped a crumb," said Freckles ruefully.
"Pick it up then, or yer'll catch it--Oh, my!"
"Wot?" said Freckles who was on her hands and knees beneath the window
searching for the crumb that might betray them if found by one of the
sisters.
"Git up here quick if yer want to see--it's the Marchioness an' another
kid. Come on!" she cried excitedly, pulling at Freckles' long arm. The
two little girls knelt on the broad sill, and with faces pressed close
to the window-pane gazed and whispered and longed until the electric
lights were turned on in the dormitory and the noise of approaching feet
warned them that it was bedtime.
Across the street from the Asylum, but facing the Avenue, was a great
house of stone, made stately by a large courtyard closed by wrought-iron
gates. On the side street looking to the Asylum, the windows in the
second story had carved stone balconies; these were filled with bright
blossoms in their season and in winter with living green. There was
plenty of room behind the balcony flower-boxes for a white Angora cat to
take her constitutional. When Flibbertigibbet entered the Asylum in
June, the cat and the flowers were the first objects outside its walls
to attract her attention and that of her chum, Freckles. It was not
often that Freckles and her mate were given, or could obtain, the chance
to watch the balcony, for there were so many things to do, something for
every hour in the day: dishes to wash, beds to make, corridors to sweep,
towels and stockings to launder, lessons to learn, sewing and catechism.
But one day Flibbertigibbet--so Sister Angelica called the little girl
from her first coming to the Asylum, and the name clung to her--was sent
to the infirmary in the upper story because of a slight illness; while
there she made the discovery of the "Marchioness." She called her that
because she deemed it the most appropriate name, and why "appropriate"
it behooves to tell.
Behind the garbage-house, in the corner of the yard near the railroad
tracks, there was a fine place to talk over secrets and grievances.
Moreover, there was a knothole in the high wooden fence that inclosed
the lower portion of the yard. When Flibbertigibbet put her eye to this
aperture, it fitted so nicely that she could see up and down the street
fully two rods each way. Generally that eye could range from butcher's
boy to postman, or 'old clothes' man; but one day, having found an
opportunity, she placed her visual organ as usual to the hole--and
looked into another queer member that was apparently glued to the other
side! But she was not daunted, oh, no!
"Git out!" she commanded briefly.
"I ain't in." The Eye snickered.
"I'll poke my finger into yer!" she threatened further.
"I'll bite your banana off," growled the Eye.
"Yer a cross-eyed Dago."
"You're another--you Biddy!" The Eye was positively insulting; it winked
at her.
Flibbertigibbet was getting worsted. She stamped her foot and kicked the
fence. The Eye laughed at her, then suddenly vanished; and
Flibbertigibbet saw a handsome-faced Italian lad sauntering up the
street, hands in his pockets, and singing--oh, how he sang! The little
girl forgot her rage in listening to the song, the words of which
reminded her of dear Nonna Lisa and her own joys of a four weeks'
vagabondage spent in the old Italian's company. All this she confessed
to Freckles; and the two, under one pretence or another, managed to make
daily visits to the garbage house knothole.
That hole was every bit as good as a surprise party to them. The Eye was
seen there but once more, when it informed the other Eye that it
belonged to Luigi Poggi, Nonna Lisa's one grandson; that it was off in
Chicago with a vaudeville troupe while the other Eye had been with Nonna
Lisa. But instead of the Eye there appeared a stick of candy twisted in
a paper and thrust through; at another time some fresh dates, strung on
a long string, were found dangling on the inner side of the fence--the
knothole having provided the point of entrance for each date; once a
small bunch of wild flowers graced it on the yard side. Again, for three
months, the hole served for a circulating library. A whole story found
lodgement there, a chapter at a time, torn from a paper-covered novel.
Flibbertigibbet carried them around with her pinned inside of her blue
denim apron, and read them to Freckles whenever she was sure of not
being caught. Luigi was their one boy on earth.
_The Marchioness of Isola Bella_, that was the name of the story; and if
Flibbertigibbet and Freckles on their narrow cots in the bare upper
dormitory of the Orphan Asylum on ----nd Street, did not dream of
sapphire lakes and snow-crowned mountains, of marble palaces and
turtledoves, of lovely ladies and lordly men, of serenades and guitars
and ropes of pearl, it was not the fault either of Luigi Poggi or the
_Marchioness of Isola Bella_. But at times the story-book marchioness
seemed very far away, and it was a happy thought of Flibbertigibbet's to
name the little lady in the great house after her; for, once, watching
at twilight from the cold window seat in the dormitory, the two orphan
children saw her ladyship dressed for a party, the maid having forgotten
to lower the shades.
Freckles and Flibbertigibbet dared scarcely breathe; it was so much
better than the _Marchioness of Isola Bella_, for this one was real and
alive--oh, yes, very much alive! She danced about the room, running from
the maid when she tried to catch her, and when the door opened and a
tall man came in with arms opened wide, the real Marchioness did just
what the story-book marchioness did on the last page to her lover: gave
one leap into the outstretched arms of the father-lover.
While the two children opposite were looking with all their eyes at this
unexpected _denouement_, the maid drew the shades, and Freckles and
Flibbertigibbet were left to stare at each other in the dark and cold.
Flibbertigibbet nodded and whispered:
"That takes the cake. The _Marchioness of Isola Bella_ ain't in it!"
Freckles squeezed her hand. Thereafter, although the girls appreciated
the various favors of the knothole, their entire and passionate
allegiance was given to the real Marchioness across the way.
IV
One day, it was just after Thanksgiving, the Marchioness discovered her
opposite neighbors. It was warm and sunny, a summer day that had strayed
from its place in the Year's procession. The maid was putting the Angora
cat out on the balcony among the dwarf evergreens. The Marchioness was
trying to help her when, happening to look across the street, she saw
the two faces at the opposite window. She stared for a moment, then
taking the cat from the window sill held her up for the two little girls
to see. Flibbertigibbet and her mate nodded vigorously and smiled,
making motions with their hands as if stroking the fur.
The Marchioness dropped the cat and waved her hand to them; the maid
drew her back from the window; the two girls saw her ladyship twitch
away from the detaining hand and stamp her foot.
"Gee!" said Flibbertigibbet under her breath, "she's just like us."
"Oh, wot's she up ter now?" Freckles whispered.
Truly, any sane person would have asked that question. The Marchioness,
having gained her point, was standing on the window seat by the open
window, which was protected by an iron grating, and making curious
motions with her fingers and hands.
"Is she a luny?" Freckles asked in an awed voice.
Flibbertigibbet was gazing fixedly at this apparition and made no reply.
After watching this pantomime a few minutes, she spoke slowly:
"She's one of the dumb uns; I've seen 'em."
The Marchioness was now making frantic gestures towards the top of their
window. She was laughing too.
"She's a lively one if she is a dumber," said Freckles approvingly.
Flibbertigibbet jumped to her feet and likewise stood on the window
sill.
"Gee! She wants us to git the window open at the top. Here--pull!" The
two children hung their combined weight by the tips of their fingers
from the upper sash, and the great window opened slowly a few inches;
then it stuck fast. But they both heard the gleeful voice of their
opposite neighbor and welcomed the sound.
"I'm talking to you--it's the only way I can--the deaf and dumb--"
The maid lifted her down, struggling, from the window seat, and they
heard the childish voice scolding in a tongue unknown to them.
Flibbertigibbet set immediately about earning the right to learn the
deaf-and-dumb alphabet; she hung out all monitor Number Twelve's
washing--dish towels, stockings, handkerchiefs--every other day for two
weeks in the bitter December weather. She knew that this special monitor
had a small brother in the Asylum for Deaf Mutes; this girl taught her
the strange language in compensation for the child's time and labor. It
was mostly "give and take" in the Asylum.
"That child has been angelic lately; I don't know what's going to
happen." Long-suffering Sister Agatha heaved a sigh of relief.
"Oh, there is a storm brewing you may be sure; this calm is unnatural,"
Sister Angelica replied, smiling at sight of the little figure in the
yard dancing in the midst of an admiring circle of blue-nosed girls. "I
believe they would rather stand and watch her than to run about and get
warm. She is as much fun for them as a circus, and she learns so
quickly! Have you noticed her voice in chapel lately?"
"Yes, I have"; said Sister Agatha grumpily, "and I confess I can't bear
to hear her sing like an angel when she is such a little fiend."
Sister Angelica smiled. "Oh, I'm sure she'll come out all right; there's
nothing vicious about her, and she's a loyal little soul, you can't deny
that."
"Yes, to those she loves," Sister Agatha answered with some bitterness.
She knew she was no favorite with the subject under discussion. "See her
now! I shouldn't think she would have a whole bone left in her body."
They were playing "Snap-the-whip". Flibbertigibbet was the snapper for a
line of twenty or more girls. As she swung the circle her legs flew so
fast they fairly twinkled, and her hops and skips were a marvel to
onlookers. But she landed right side up at last, although breathless,
her long braid unloosened, hair tossing on the wind, cheeks red as
American beauty roses, and gray eyes black with excitement of the game.
Then the bell rang its warning, the children formed in line and marched
in to lessons.
The two weeks in December in which Flibbertigibbet had given herself to
the acquisition of the new language, proved long for the Marchioness.
Every day she watched at the window for the reappearance of the two
children at the bare upper window opposite; but thus far in vain.
However, on the second Saturday after their first across-street meeting,
she saw to her great joy the two little girls curled up on the window
sill and frantically waving to attract her attention. The Marchioness
nodded and smiled, clapped her hands, and mounted upon her own broad
window seat in order to have an unobstructed view over the iron grating.
"She sees us, she sees us!" Freckles cried excitedly, but under her
breath; "now let's begin."
Flibbertigibbet chose one of the panes that was cleaner than the others
and putting her two hands close to it began operations. The Marchioness
fairly hopped up and down with delight when she saw the familiar symbols
of the deaf-and-dumb alphabet, and immediately set her own small white
hands to work on her first sentence:
"Go slow."
Flibbertigibbet nodded emphatically; the conversation was begun again
and continued for half an hour. It was in truth a labor as well as a
work of love. The spelling in both cases was far from perfect and, at
times, puzzling to both parties; but little by little they became used
to each other's erratic symbols together with the queer things for which
they stood, and no conversation throughout the length and breadth of New
York--yes, even of our United States--was ever more enjoyed than by
these three girls. Flibbertigibbet and the Marchioness did the
finger-talking, and Freckles helped with the interpretation. In the
following translation of this first important exchange of social
courtesies, the extremely peculiar spelling, and wild combinations of
vowels in particular, are omitted: but the questions and answers are
given exactly as they were constructed by the opposite neighbors.
"Go slow." This as a word of warning from the Marchioness.
"You bet."
"Isn't this fun?"
"Beats the band."
"What is your name?"
Flibbertigibbet and her chum looked at each other; should it be nickname
or real name? As they were at present in society and much on their
dignity they decided to give their real names.
"Aileen Armagh." Thereupon Flibbertigibbet beat upon her breast to
indicate first person singular possessive. The Marchioness stared at her
for a minute, then spelled rather quickly:
"It's lovely. We call you something else."
"Who's we?"
"Aunt Ruth and I."
"What do you call me?"
"Flibbertigibbet."
"Git off!" cried Flibbertigibbet, recklessly shoving Freckles on to the
floor. "Gee, how'd she know!" And thereupon she jumped to her feet and,
having the broad window sill to herself, started upon a rather
restricted coon dance in order to prove to her opposite neighbor that
the nickname belonged to her by good right. Oh, but it was fun for the
Marchioness! She clapped her hands to show her approval and catching up
the skirt of her dainty white frock, slowly raised one leg at a right
angle to her body and stood so for a moment, to the intense admiration
of the other girls.
"That's what they call me here," said Flibbertigibbet when they got down
to conversation again.
"What is hers?" asked the Marchioness, pointing to Freckles.
"Margaret O'Dowd, but we call her Freckles."
How the Marchioness laughed! So hard, indeed, that she apparently
tumbled off the seat, for she disappeared entirely for several minutes,
much to the girls' amazement as well as chagrin.
"It's like she broke somethin'," whimpered Freckles; "a bone yer
know--her nose fallin' that way when she went over forrard."
"She ain't chany, I tell yer; she's jest Injy rubber," said
Flibbertigibbet scornfully but with a note of anxiety in her voice. At
this critical moment the Marchioness reappeared and jumped upon the
seat. She had a curious affair in her hand; after placing it to her
eyes, she signalled her answer:
"I can see them."
"See what?"
"The freckles."
"Wot's she givin' us?" Freckles asked in a perplexed voice.
"She's all right," said Flibbertigibbet with the confidence of superior
knowledge; "it's a tel'scope; yer can see the moon through, an' yer
freckles look to her as big as pie-plates."
Freckles crossed herself; it sounded like witches and it had a queer
look.
"Ask her wot's her name," she suggested.
"What's your name?" Flibbertigibbet repeated on her fingers.
"Alice Maud Mary Van Ostend."
"Gee whiz, ain't that a corker!" Flibbertigibbet exclaimed delightedly.
"How old are you?" She proceeded thus with her personal investigation
prompted thereto by Freckles.
"Most ten;--you?"
"Most twelve."
"And Freckles?" The Marchioness laughed as she spelled the name.
"Eleven."
"Ask her if she's an orphant," said Freckles.
"Are you an orphan, Freckles says."
"Half," came the answer. "What are you?"
"Whole," was the reply. "Which is your half?"
"I have only papa--I'll introduce him to you sometime when--"
This explanation took fully five minutes to decipher, and while they
were at work upon it the maid came up behind the Marchioness and,
without so much as saying "By your leave", took her down struggling from
the window seat and drew the shades. Whereupon Flibbertigibbet rose in
her wrath, shook her fist at the insulting personage, and vowed
vengeance upon her in her own forceful language:
"You're an old cat, and I'll rub your fur the wrong way till the sparks
fly."
At this awful threat Freckles looked alarmed, and suddenly realized that
she was shivering, the result of sitting so long against the cold
window. "Come on down," she pleaded with the enraged Flibbertigibbet;
and by dint of coaxing and the promise of a green woollen watch-chain,
which she had patiently woven, and so carefully, with four pins and an
empty spool till it looked like a green worm, she succeeded in getting
her away from the dormitory window.
V
If the _Marchioness of Isola Bella_ had filled many of Flibbertigibbet's
dreams during the last six months, the real Alice Maud Mary Van Ostend
now filled all her waking hours. Her sole thought was to contrive
opportunities for more of this fascinating conversation, and she and
Freckles practised daily on the sly in order to say more, and quickly,
to the real Marchioness across the way.
By good luck they were given a half-hour for themselves just before
Christmas, in reward for the conscientious manner in which they made
beds, washed dishes, and recited their lessons for an entire week. When
Sister Angelica, laying her hand on Flibbertigibbet's shoulder, had
asked her what favor she wanted for the good work of that week, the
little girl answered promptly enough that she would like to sit with
Freckles in the dormitory window and look out on the street, for maybe
there might be a hurdy-gurdy with a monkey passing through.
"Not this cold day, I'm sure," said Sister Angelica, smiling at the
request; "for no monkey could be out in this weather unless he had an
extra fur coat and a hot water bottle for his toes. Yes, you may go but
don't stay too long in the cold."
But what if the Marchioness were to fail to make her appearance! They
could not bear to think of this, and amused themselves for a little
while by blowing upon the cold panes and writing their names and the
Marchioness' in the vapor. But, at last--oh, at last, there she was! The
fingers began to talk almost before they knew it. In some respects it
proved to be a remarkable conversation, for it touched upon many and
various topics, all of which proved of equal interest to the parties
concerned. They lost no time in setting about the exchange of their
views.
"I'm going to a party," the Marchioness announced, smoothing her gown.
"What time?"
"Five o'clock, but I'm all ready. I am going to dance a minuet."
This was a poser; but Flibbertigibbet did not wish to be outdone,
although there was no party for her in prospect.
"I can dance too," she signalled.
"I know you can--lovely; that's why I told you."
"I wish I could see you dance the minute."
The Marchioness did not answer at once. Finally she spelled "Wait a
minute," jumped down from the broad sill and disappeared. In a short
time she was back again.
"I'm going to dance for you. Look downstairs--when it is dark--and
you'll see the drawing-room lighted--I'll dance near the windows."
The two girls clapped their hands and Flibbertigibbet jumped up and down
on the window sill to express her delight.
"When do you have to go to bed?" was the next pointed question from
Alice Maud Mary.
"A quarter to eight."
"Who puts you in?"
This was another poser for even Flibbertigibbet's quick wits.
"Wot does she mane?" Freckles demanded anxiously.
"I dunno; anyhow, I'll tell her the sisters."
"The sisters," was the word that went across the street.
"Oh, how nice! Do you say your prayers to them too?"
Freckles groaned. "Wot yer goin' to tell her now?"
"Shut up now till yer hear me, an' cross yerself, for I mane it." Such
was the warning from her mate.
"No; I say them to another lady--Our Lady."
"Oh gracious!" Freckles cried out under her breath and began to snicker.
"What lady?" The Marchioness looked astonished but intensely interested.
"The Holy Virgin. I'll bet she don't know nothin' 'bout Her," said
Flibbertigibbet in a triumphant aside to Freckles. The Marchioness' eyes
opened wider upon the two children across the way.
"That is the mother of Our Lord, isn't it?" she said in her dumb way.
The two children nodded; no words seemed to come readily just then, for
Alice Maud Mary had given them a surprise. They crossed themselves.
"I never thought of saying my prayers to His mother before, but I shall
now. He always had a mother, hadn't he?"
Flibbertigibbet could think of nothing to say in answer, but she did the
next best thing: she drew her rosary from under her dress waist and held
it up to the Marchioness who nodded understandingly and began to fumble
at her neck. In a moment she brought forth a tiny gold chain with a
little gold cross hanging from it. She held it up and dangled it before
the four astonished eyes opposite.
"Gee! Yer can't git ahead of _her_, an' I ain't goin' to try. She's just
a darlint." Flibbertigibbet's heart was very full and tender at that
moment; but she giggled at the next question.
"Do you know any boys?"
One finger was visible at the dormitory window. The Marchioness laughed
and after telling them she knew ever so many began to count on her
fingers for the benefit of her opposite neighbors.
"One, two, three, four, five," she began on her right hand--
"I don't believe her," said Freckles with a suspicious sniff.
Flibbertigibbet turned fiercely upon her. "I'd believe her if she said
she knew a thousand, so now, Margaret O'Dowd, an' yer hold yer tongue!"
she cried; but in reprimanding Freckles for her want of faith she lost
count of the boys.
"I must go now," said the Marchioness; "but when the drawing-room
downstairs is lighted, you look in--there'll be one boy there to dance
with me. Be sure you look." Suddenly the Marchioness made a sign that
both girls understood, although it was an extra one and the very
prettiest of all in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet of the affections: she
put her fingers to her lips and blew them a kiss.
"Ain't she a darlint!" murmured Flibbertigibbet, tossing the same sign
across the street. When the Marchioness had left the window, the two
girls spent the remaining minutes of their reward in planning how best
to see the dance upon which they had set their hearts. They thought of
all the places available, but were sure they would not be permitted to
occupy them. At last Flibbertigibbet decided boldly, on the strength of
a good conscience throughout one whole week, to ask at headquarters.
"I'm goin' straight to Sister Angelica an' ask her to let us go into the
chapel; it's the only place. Yer can see from the little windy in the
cubby-hole where the priest gits into his other clothes."
Freckles looked awestruck. "She'll never let yer go in there."
Her mate snapped her fingers in reply, and catching Freckles' hand raced
her down the long dormitory, down the two long flights of stairs to the
schoolroom where Sister Angelica was giving a lesson to the younger
girls.
"Well, Flibbertigibbet, what is it now?" said the sister smiling into
the eager face at her elbow. When Sister Angelica called her by her
nickname instead of by the Asylum number, Flibbertigibbet knew she was
in high favor. She nudged Freckles and replied:
"I want to whisper to you."
Sister Angelica bent down; before she knew it the little girl's arms
were about her neck and the child was telling her about the dance at the
stone house across the way. The sister smiled as she listened to the
rush of eager words, but she was so glad to find this madcap telling her
openly her heart's one desire, that she did what she had never done
before in all her life of beautiful child-consecrated work: she said
"Yes, and I will go with you. Wait for me outside the chapel door at
half-past four."
Flibbertigibbet squeezed her around the neck with such grateful vigor
that the blood rushed to poor Sister Angelica's head. She was willing,
however, to be a martyr in such a good cause. The little girl walked
quietly to the door, but when it had closed upon her she executed a
series of somersaults worthy of the Madison Square Garden acrobats.
"What'd I tell yer, what'd I tell yer!" she exclaimed, pirouetting and
somersaulting till the slower-moving Freckles was a trifle dizzy.
Within a quarter of an hour the three were snugly ensconced in the
window niche of the "cubby-hole," so Flibbertigibbet termed the
robing-room closet, and looking with all their eyes across the street.
They were directly opposite what Sister Angelica said must be the
drawing-room and on a level with it. As they looked, one moment the
windows were dark, in the next they were filled with soft yet brilliant
lights. The lace draperies were parted and the children could see down
the length of the room.
There she was! Hopping and skipping by the side of her father-lover and
drawing him to the central window. Behind them came the lovely young
lady and the Boy! The two were holding hands and swinging them freely as
they laughed and chatted together.
"That's the Boy!" cried Flibbertigibbet, wild with excitement.
"And that must be the Aunt Ruth she told about--oh, ain't she just
lovely!" cried Freckles.
"Watch out now, an' yer'll see the minute!" said Flibbertigibbet,
squeezing Sister Angelica's hand; Sister Angelica squeezed back, but
kept silence. She was learning many things before unknown to her. The
four came to the middle window and looked out, up, and all around. But
although the two children waved their hands wildly to attract their
attention, the good people opposite failed to see them because the
little window suffered eclipse in the shadow of the large electric
arc-light's green cap.
"She's goin' to begin!" cried Flibbertigibbet, clapping her hands.
The young lady sat down at the piano and began to play. Whether
Flibbertigibbet expected a variation of a "coon dance" or an Irish jig
cannot be stated with certainty, but that she was surprised is a fact;
so surprised, indeed, that for full two minutes she forgot to talk. To
the slow music, for such it was--Flibbertigibbet beat time with her
fingers on the pane to the step--the Marchioness and the Boy, pointing
their daintily slippered feet, moved up and down, back and forth,
swinging, turning, courtesying, bowing over the parquet floor with such
childishly stately yet charming grace that their rhythmic motions were
as a song without words.
The father-lover stood with his back to the mantel and applauded after
an especially well executed flourish or courtesy; Aunt Ruth looked over
her shoulder, smiling, her hands wandering slowly over the keys. At
last, the final flourish, the final courtesy. The Marchioness' dress
fairly swept the floor, and the Boy bowed so low that--well,
Flibbertigibbet never could tell how it happened, but she had a warm
place in her heart for that boy ever after--he quietly and methodically
stood head downwards on his two hands, his white silk stockings and
patent leathers kicking in the air.
The Marchioness was laughing so hard that she sat down in a regular
"cheese" on the floor; the father-lover was clapping his hands like mad;
the lady swung round on the piano stool and shook her forefinger at the
Boy who suddenly came right side up at last, hand on his heart, and
bowed with great dignity to the little girl on the floor. Then he, too,
laughed and cut another caper just as a solemn-faced butler came in with
wraps and furs. But by no means did he remain solemn long! How could he
with the Boy prancing about him, and the Marchioness playing at
"Catch-me-if-you-can" with her father-lover, and the lady slipping and
sliding over the floor to catch the Boy who was always on the other side
of the would-be solemn butler? Why, he actually swung round in a circle
by holding on to that butler's dignified coat-tails!
Nor were they the only ones who laughed. Across the way in one of the
Orphan Asylum windows, Sister Angelica and the children laughed too, in
spirit joining in the fun, and when the butler came to the window to
draw the shades there were three long "Ah's," both of intense
disappointment and supreme satisfaction.
"Watch out, now," said Flibbertigibbet excitedly on the way down into
the basement for supper and dishwashing, for it was their turn this
week, "an' yer'll see me dance yer a minute in the yard ter-morrow."
"Yer can't dance it alone," replied doubting Freckles; "yer've got to
have a boy."
"I don't want one; I'll take you, Freckles, for a boy." Clumsy Freckles
blushed with delight beneath her many beauty-spots at such promise of
unwonted graciousness on the part of her chum, and wondered what had
come over Flibbertigibbet lately.
* * * * *
A few hours afterwards when they went up to bed, they whispered together
again concerning the dance, and begged Sister Angelica to let them have
just one peep from the dormitory window at their house of delight--a
request she was glad to grant. They opened one of the inside blinds a
little way, and exclaimed at the sight. It was snowing. The children
oh'ed and ah'ed under their breath, for a snowstorm at Christmas time in
the great city is the child's true joy. At their opposite neighbor's a
faint light was visible in the balcony room; the wet soft flakes had
already ridged the balustrade, powdered the dwarf evergreens, topped the
cap of the electric arc-light and laid upon the concrete a coverlet of
purest white.
The long bare dormitory filled with the children--the fatherless and
motherless children we have always with us. Soon each narrow cot held
its asylum number; the many heads, golden, brown, or black, busied all
of them with childhood's queer unanchored thoughts, were pillowed in
safety for another night.
And without the snow continued to fall upon the great city. It graced
with equal delicacy the cathedral's marble spires and the forest of
pointed firs which made the numberless Christmas booths that surrounded
old Washington Market. It covered impartially, and with as pure a white,
the myriad city roofs that sheltered saint and sinner, whether among the
rich or the poor, among the cherished or castaways. It fell as thickly
upon the gravestones in Trinity's ancient churchyard as upon the freshly
turned earth in a corner of the paupers' burying ground; and it set upon
black corruption wherever it was in evidence the seal of a transient
stainlessness.
VI
"Really, I am discouraged about that child," said Sister Agatha just
after Easter. She was standing at one of the schoolroom windows that
overlooked the yard; she spoke as if thoroughly vexed.
"What is it now--208 again?" Sister Angelica looked up from the copybook
she was correcting.
"Oh, yes, of course; it's always 208."
"Oh, she doesn't mean anything; it's only her high spirits; they must
have some vent."
"It's been her ruin being on the stage even for those few weeks, and
ever since the Van Ostends began to make of her and have her over for
that Christmas luncheon and the Sunday nights, the child is neither to
have nor to hold. What with her 'make believing' and her 'acting' she
upsets the girls generally. She ought to be set to good steady work; the
first chance I get I'll put her to it. I only wish some one would adopt
her--"
"I heard Father Honore--"
"Look at her now!" exclaimed Sister Agatha interrupting her.
Sister Angelica joined her at the window. They could not only see but
hear all that was going on below. With the garbage house as a
stage-setting and background to the performance, Flibbertigibbet was
courtesying low to her audience; the skirt of her scant gingham dress
was held in her two hands up and out to its full extent. The orphans
crouched on the pavement in a triple semi-circle in front of her.
"All this rigmarole comes of the theatre," said Sister Agatha grimly.
"Well, where's the harm? She is only living it all over again and giving
the others a little pleasure at the same time. Dear knows, they have
little enough, poor things."
Sister Agatha made no reply; she was listening intently to 208's orders.
The little girl had risen from her low courtesy and was haranguing the
assembled hundreds:
"Now watch out, all of yer, an' when I do the minute yer can clap yer
hands if yer like it; an' if yer want some more, yer must clap enough to
split yer gloves if yer had any on, an' then I'll give yer the coon
dance; an' then if yer like _that_, yer can play yer gloves are busted
with clappin' an' stomp yer feet--"
"But we can't," Freckles entered her prosaic protest, "'cause we're
squattin'."
"Well, get up then, yer'll have to; an' then if you stomp awful, an'
holler 'On-ko--on-ko!'--that's what they say at the thayertre--I'll give
yer somethin' else--"
"Wot?" demanded 206 suspiciously.
"Don't yer wish I'd tell!" said 208, and began the minuet.
It was marvellous how she imitated every graceful movement, every turn
and twist and bow, every courtesy to the imaginary partner--Freckles had
failed her entirely in this role--whose imaginary hand she held clasped
high above her head; her clumsy shoes slid over the flagging as if it
had been a waxed floor under dainty slippers. There was an outburst of
applause; such an outburst that had the audience really worn gloves,
every seam, even if French and handsewed, must have cracked under the
healthy pressure.
208 beamed and, throwing back her head, suddenly flung herself into the
coon dance which, in its way, was as wild and erratic as the minuet had
been stately and methodical. Wilder and wilder grew her gyrations--head,
feet, legs, shoulders, hair, hands, arms, were in seemingly perpetual
motion. The audience grew wildly excited. They jumped up, shouting
"On-ko--on-ko!" and accompanied their shouts with the stamping of feet.
A dexterous somersault on the dancer's part ended the performance; her
cheeks were flushed with exercise and excitement, her black mane was
loosened and tossed about her shoulders. The audience lost their heads
and even 206 joined in the prolonged roar:
"On-ko, 208--on-ko-o-o-oor! On-ko, Flibbertigibbet--some more--some
more!"
"It's perfectly disgraceful," muttered Sister Agatha, and made a
movement to leave the window; but Sister Angelica laid a gently
detaining hand on her arm.
"No, Agatha, not that," she said earnestly; "you'll see that they will
work all the better for this fun--Hark!"
There was a sudden and deep silence. 208 was evidently ready with her
encore, a surprise to all but the performer. She shook back the hair
from her face, raised her eyes, crossed her two hands upon her chest,
waited a few seconds until a swift passenger train on the track behind
the fence had smothered its roar in the tunnel depths, then began to
sing "The Holy City." Even Sister Agatha felt the tears spring as she
listened. A switch engine letting off steam drowned the last words, and
there was no applause. Flibbertigibbet looked about her inquiringly; but
the girls were silent. Such singing appeared to them out of the
ordinary--and so unlike 208! It took them a moment to recover from their
surprise; they gathered in groups to whisper together concerning the
performance.
Meanwhile Flibbertigibbet was waiting expectantly. Where was the well
earned applause? And she had reserved the best for the last! Ungrateful
ones! Her friends in the stone house always praised her when she did her
best,--but these girls--
She stamped her foot, then dashed through the broken ranks, making faces
as she ran, and crying out in disgust and anger:
"Catch me givin' yer any more on-kos, yer stingy things!" and with that
she ran into the basement followed by Freckles who was intent upon
appeasing her.
The two sisters, pacing the dim corridor together after chapel that
evening, spoke again of their little wilding.
"I didn't finish what I was going to tell you about 208," said Sister
Angelica. "I heard the Sister Superior tell Father Honore when he was
here the other day that Mr. Van Ostend had been to see her in regard to
the child. It seems he has found a place for her in the country with
some of his relations, as I understand it. He said his interest in her
had been roused when he heard her for the first time on the stage, and
that when he found Flibbertigibbet was the little acquaintance his
daughter had made, he determined to further the child's interests so far
as a home is concerned."
"Then there is a prospect of her going," Sister Agatha drew a breath of
relief. "Did you hear what Father Honore said?"
"Very little; but I noticed he looked pleased, and I heard him say,
'This is working out all right; I'll step across and see Mr. Van Ostend
myself.'--I shall miss her so!"
Sister Agatha made no reply. Together the two sisters continued to pace
the dim corridor, silent each with her thoughts; and, pacing thus, up
and down, up and down, the slender, black-robed figures were soon lost
in the increasing darkness and became mere neutral outlines as they
passed the high bare windows and entered their respective rooms.
Even so, a few weeks later when Number 208 left the Orphan Asylum on
----nd Street, they passed quietly out of the child's actual life and
entered the fitfully lighted chambers of her childish memory wherein, at
times, they paced with noiseless footsteps as once in the barren halls
of her orphanage home.
PART SECOND
Home Soil
I
A land of entrancing inner waters, our own marvellous Lake Country of
the East, lies just behind those mountains of Maine that sink their
bases in the Atlantic and are fitly termed in Indian nomenclature
_Waves-of-the-Sea_. Bight and bay indent this mountainous coast, in
beauty comparable, if less sublime yet more enticing, to the Norwegian
fjords; within them are set the islands large and small whereon the
sheep, sheltered by cedar coverts, crop the short thick turf that is
nourished by mists from the Atlantic. Above bight and bay and island
tower the mountains. Their broad green flanks catch the earliest eastern
and the latest western lights. Their bare summits are lifted boldly into
the infinite blue that is reflected in the waters which lap their
foundations.
Flamsted lies at the outlet of Lake Mesantic, on the gentle northward
slope of these _Waves-of-the-Sea_, some eighteen miles inland from
Penobscot Bay. Until the last decade of the nineteenth century it was
unconnected with the coast by any railroad; but at that time a branch
line from Hallsport on the Bay, encouraged by the opening of a small
granite quarry in the Flamsted Hills, made its terminus at The
Corners--a sawmill settlement at the falls of the Rothel, a river that
runs rapidly to the sea after issuing from Lake Mesantic. A mile beyond
the station the village proper begins at its two-storied tavern, The
Greenbush.
From the lower veranda of this hostelry, one may look down the shaded
length of the main street, dignified by many an old-fashioned house, to
The Bow, an irregular peninsula extending far into the lake and
containing some two hundred acres. This estate is the ancestral home of
the Champneys, known as Champ-au-Haut, in the vernacular "Champo." At
The Bow the highway turns suddenly, crosses a bridge over the Rothel and
curves with the curving pine-fringed shores of the lake along the base
of the mountain until it climbs the steep ascent that leads to Googe's
Gore, the third division of the town of Flamsted.
As in all New England towns, that are the possessors of "old families,"
so in Flamsted;--its inhabitants are partisans. The result is, that it
has been for years as a house divided against itself, and heated
discussion of the affairs of the Googes at the Gore and the Champneys at
The Bow has been from generation to generation an inherited interest.
And from generation to generation, as the two families have ramified and
intermarriages occurred more and more frequently, party spirit has run
higher and higher and bitter feelings been engendered. But never have
the factional differences been more pronounced and the lines of
separation drawn with a sharper ploughshare in this mountain-ramparted
New England town, than during the five years subsequent to the opening
of the Flamsted Quarries which brought in its train the railroad and the
immigrants. This event was looked upon by the inhabitants as the
Invasion of the New.
The interest of the first faction was centred in Champ-au-Haut and its
present possessor, the widow of Louis Champney, old Judge Champney's
only son. That of the second in the Googes, Aurora and her son Champney,
the owners of Googe's Gore and its granite outcrop.
The office room of The Greenbush has been for two generations the
acknowledged gathering place of the representatives of the hostile
camps. On a cool evening in June, a few days after the departure of
several New York promoters, who had formed a syndicate to exploit the
granite treasure in The Gore and for that purpose been fully a week in
Flamsted, a few of the natives dropped into the office to talk it over.
When Octavius Buzzby, the factotum at Champ-au-Haut and twin of Augustus
Buzzby, landlord of The Greenbush, entered the former bar-room of the
old hostelry, he found the usual Saturday night frequenters. Among them
was Colonel Milton Caukins, tax collector and assistant deputy sheriff
who, never quite at ease in the presence of his long-tongued wife,
expanded discursively so soon as he found himself in the office of The
Greenbush. He was in full flow when Octavius entered.
"Hello, Tave," he cried, extending his hand in easy condescension,
"you're well come, for you're just in time to hear the latest; the
deal's on--an A. 1 sure thing this time. Aurora showed me the papers
to-day. We're in for it now--government contracts, state houses, battle
monuments, graveyards; we've got 'em all, and things'll begin to hum in
this backwater hole, you bet!"
Octavius looked inquiringly at his brother. Augustus answered by raising
his left eyebrow and placidly closing his right eye as a cautionary
signal to lie low and await developments.
It was the Colonel's way to boom everything, and simply because he could
not help it. It was not a matter of principle with him, it was an affair
of temperament. He had boomed Flamsted for the last ten years--its
climate, its situation, its scenery, its water power, its lake-shore
lands as prospective sites for mansion summer cottages, and the
treasures of its unopened quarries. So incorrigible an optimist was
Milton Caukins that any slight degree of success, which might attend the
promotion of any one of his numerous schemes, caused an elation that
amounted to hilarity. On the other hand, the deadly blight of
non-fulfilment, that annually attacked his most cherished hopes for the
future development of his native town, failed in any wise to depress
him, or check the prodigal casting of his optimistic daily bread on the
placid social waters where, as the years multiplied, his enthusiasms
scarce made a ripple.
"I see Mis' Googe yisterd'y, an' she said folks hed been down on her so
long for sellin' thet pass'l of paster for the first quarry, thet she
might ez well go the hull figger an' git 'em down on her for the rest of
her days by sellin' the rest. By Andrew Jackson! she's got the grit for
a woman--and the good looks too! She can hold her own for a figger with
any gal in this town. I see the syndicaters a-castin' sheeps' eyes her
ways the day she took 'em over The Gore prospectin'; but, by A. J.! they
hauled in their lookin's when she turned them great eyes of her'n their
ways.--What's the figger for the hull piece? Does anybody know?"
It was Joel Quimber, the ancient pound-master, who spoke, and the
silence that followed proved that each man present was resenting the
fact that he was not in a position to give the information desired.
"I shall know as soon as they get it recorded, that is, if they don't
trade for a dollar and if they ever do get it recorded." The speaker was
Elmer Wiggins, druggist and town clerk for the last quarter of a
century. He was pessimistically inclined, the tendency being fostered by
his dual vocation of selling drugs and registering the deaths they
occasionally caused.
Milton Caukins, or the Colonel, as he preferred to be called on account
of his youthful service in the state militia and his present connection
with the historical society of The Rangers, took his cigar from his lips
and blew the smoke forcibly towards the ceiling before he spoke.
"She's got enough now to put Champ through college. The first forty
acres she sold ten years ago will do that."
"I ain't so sure of thet." Joel Quimber's tone implied obstinate
conviction that his modestly expressed doubt was a foregone conclusion.
"Champ's a devil of a feller when it comes to puttin' through anything.
He's a chip off the old block. He'll put through more 'n his mother can
git out if he gits in any thicker with them big guns--race hosses, steam
yachts an' fancy fixin's. He could sink the hull Gore to the foundations
of Old Time in a few of them suppers I've heerd he gin arter the show. I
heerd he gin ten dollars a plate for the last one--some kind of
primy-donny, I heerd. But Champ's game though. I heerd Mr. Van Ostend
talkin' 'bout him to one of the syndicaters--mebbe they're goin' to work
him in with them somehow; anyway, I guess Aurory don't begrutch him a
little spendin' money seein' how easy it come out of the old sheep
pasters. Who'd 'a' thought a streak of granite could hev made sech a
stir!"
"It's a stir that'll sink this town in the mud." Mr. Wiggins' voice was
what might be called thorough-bass, and was apt to carry more weight
with his townspeople than his opinions, which latter were not always
acceptable to Colonel Caukins. "Look at it now! This town has never been
bonded; we're free from debt and a good balance on hand for
improvements. Now along comes three or four hundred immigrants to begin
with--trade following the flag, I suppose _you_ call it, Colonel," (he
interpolated this with cutting sarcasm)--"a hodge-podge of Canucks, and
Dagos, and Polacks, and the Lord knows what--a darned set of foreigners,
foreign to our laws, our ways, our religion; and behind 'em a lot of men
that would be called windbags if it wasn't for their money-bags. And
between 'em our noses are going to be held right down on the grindstone.
I tell you we'll have to bond this town to support the schooling for
these foreign brats, and there's a baker's dozen of 'em every time; and
there'll be tooting and dancing and singing and playing on Sunday with
their foreign gimcranks,--mandolin-banjos and what-all--"
"Good heavens, my dear fellow!" the Colonel broke in with an air of
impatience, "can't you see that it's this very 'stir,' as you term it,
that is going to put this town into the front rank of the competing
industrial thousands of America?"
The Colonel, when annoyed at the quantity of cold water thrown upon his
redhot enthusiasm, was apt to increase the warmth of his patronizing
address by an endearing term.
"I see farther than the front ranks of your 'competing industrial
thousands of America,' Milton Caukins; I see clear over 'em to the very
brink, and I see a struggling wrestling mass of human beings slipping,
sliding to the bottomless pit of national destitution, helped downwards
by just such darned boomers of what you call 'industrial efficiency' as
you are, Milton Caukins." He paused for breath.
Augustus Buzzby, who was ever a man of peace, tried to divert this
raging torrent of speech into other and personal channels.
"I ain't nothin' 'gainst Mis' Googe as a woman, but she played me a mean
trick when she sold that first quarry. It killed my trade as dead as a
door nail. You can't hire them highflyers to put themselves into a town
their money's bankin' on to ruin in what you might call a summer-social
way. I found _that_ out 'fore they left this house last week."
"Yes, and she's played a meaner one now." Mr. Wiggins made the assertion
with asperity and looked at the same time directly at Octavius Buzzby.
"I know all about their free dispensaries that'll draw trade away from
my very counter and take the bread and butter out of my mouth; and as
for the fees--there won't be a chance for recording a homestead site;
there isn't any counting on such things, for they're a homeless lot,
always moving from pillar to post with free pickings wherever they
locate over night, just like the gypsies that came through here last
September."
"It's kinder queer now, whichever way you've a mind to look at it," Joel
Quimber remarked meditatively. His eyes were cast up to the ceiling; his
fore-fingers and thumbs formed an acute triangle over the bridge of his
nose; the arms of his chair supported his elbows. "Queer thet it's allus
them upper tens an' emigrants thet keep a-movin' on, fust one place then
t'other. Kinder looks ez if, arter all, there warn't no great real
difference when it comes to bein' restless. Take us home folks now,
we're rooted in deep, an' I guess if we was to be uprooted kinder
suddin', p'raps we'd hev more charity for the furriners. There's no
tellin'; I ain't no jedge of sech things, an' I'm an out-an-out
American. But mebbe my great-great-great-granther's father could hev'
told ye somethin' wuth tellin'; he an' the Champneys was hounded out of
France, an' was glad 'nough to emigrate, though they called it
refugeein' an' pioneerin' in them days."
Augustus Buzzby laid his hand affectionately on the old man's shoulder.
"You're a son of the soil, Joel; I stand corrected. I guess the less any
of us true blue Americans say 'bout flinging stones at furriners the
safer 'twill be for all on us."
But Mr. Wiggins continued his diatribe: "There ain't no denying it, the
first people in town are down on the whole thing. Didn't the rector tell
me this very day that 'twas like ploughing up the face of nature for the
sake of sowing the seeds of political and social destruction--his very
words--in this place of peace and happy homes? He don't blame Mrs.
Champney for feeling as she does 'bout Aurora Googe. He said it was a
shame that just as soon as Mrs. Champney had begun to sell off her lake
shore lands so as her city relatives could build near her, Mrs. Googe
must start up and balk all her plans by selling two hundred acres of old
sheep pasture for the big quarry."
"Humph!" It was the first sound that Octavius Buzzby had uttered since
his entrance and general greeting. Hearing it his brother looked
warningly in his direction, for he feared that the factional difference,
which had come to the surface to breathe in his own and Elmer Wiggins'
remarks, might find over-heated expression in the mouth of his twin if
once Tave's ire should be aroused. But his brother gave no heed and,
much to Augustus' relief, went off at a tangent.
"I heard old Judge Champney talk on these things a good many times in
his lifetime, an' he was wise, wiser'n any man here." He allowed himself
this one thrust at Mr. Wiggins and the Colonel. "He used to say: 'Tavy,
it's all in the natural course of things, and it's got to strike us here
sometime; not in my time, but in my boy's. No man of us can say he owns
God's earth, an' set up barriers an' fences, an' sometimes breastworks,
an' holler "hands off" to every man that peeks over the wall, "this here
is mine or that is ours!" because 't isn't in the natural order of
things, and what isn't in the natural order isn't going to be, Tavy.'
That's what the old Judge said to me more'n once."
"He was right, Tavy, he was right," said Quimber eagerly and earnestly.
"I can't argify, an' I can't convince; but I know he was right. I've
lived most a generation longer'n any man here, an' I've seen a thing or
two an' marked the way of nater jest like the Jedge. I've stood there
where the Rothel comes down from The Gore in its spring freshet, rarin',
tearin' down, bearin' stones an' rocks along with its current till it
strikes the lowlands; then a racin' along, catchin' up turf an' mud an'
sand, an' foamin' yaller an' brown acrost the medders, leavin' mud a
quarter of an inch thick on the lowlands; and then a-rushin' into the
lake ez if 't would turn the bottom upside down--an' jest look what
happens! Stid of kickin' up a row all along the banks it jest ain't
nowhere when you look for it! Only the lake riled for a few furlongs off
shore an' kinder humpin' up in the middle. An' arter a day or two ye
come back an' look agin, an' where's the rile? All settled to the
bottom, an' the lake as clear as a looking-glass. An' then ye look at
the medders an' ye see thet, barrin' a big boulder or two an' some stuns
thet an ox-team can cart off, an' some gullyin' out long the highroad,
they ain't been hurt a mite. An' then come 'long 'bout the fust of July,
an' ye go out an' stan' there and look for the silt--an' what d' ye see?
Why, jest thet ye're knee deep in clover an' timothy thet hez growed
thet high an' lush jest on account of thet very silt!
"Thet's the way 't is with nateral things; an' thet's what the old Jedge
meant. This furrin flood's a-comin'; an' we've got to stan' some scares
an' think mebbe The Gore dam'll bust, an' the boulders lay round too
thick for the land, an' the mud'll spile our medders, an' the lake show
rily so's the cattle won't drink--an' we'll find out thet in this great
free home of our'n, thet's lent us for a while, thet there's room 'nough
for all, an', in the end--not in my time, but in your'n--our Land, like
the medders, is goin' to be the better for it."
"Well put, well put, Quimber," said the Colonel who had been showing
signs of restlessness under the unusual and protracted eloquence of the
old pound-master. "We're making the experiment that every other nation
has had to make some time or other. Take old Rome, now--what was it
started the decay, eh?"
As no one present dared to cope with the decline of so large a subject,
the Colonel had the floor. He looked at each man in turn; then waved the
hand that held his cigar airily towards the ceiling. "Just inbreeding,
sir, inbreeding. That's what did it. We Americans, are profiting by the
experience of the centuries and are going to take in fresh blood just as
fast as it can attain to an arterial circulation in the body politic,
sir; an arterial circulation, I say--" the Colonel was apt to roll a
fine phrase more than once under his tongue when the sound thereof
pleased him,--"and in the course of nature--I agree perfectly with the
late Judge Champney and our friend, Quimber--there may be, during the
process, a surcharge of blood to the head or stomach of the body politic
that will cause a slight attack of governmental vertigo or national
indigestion. But it will pass, gentlemen, it will pass; and I assure you
the health of the Republic will be kept at the normal, with nothing more
than passing attacks of racial hysteria which, however undignified they
may appear in the eyes of all right-minded citizens, must ever remain
the transient phenomena of a great nation in the making."
The Colonel, having finished his peroration with another wave of his
cigar towards the ceiling, lowered his feet from their elevated position
on the counter, glanced anxiously at the clock, which indicated a
quarter of nine, and remarked casually that, as Mrs. Caukins was
indisposed, he felt under obligations to be at home by half-past nine.
Joel Quimber, whom such outbursts of eloquence on the Colonel's part in
the usual town-meeting left in a generally dazed condition of mind and
politics, remarked that he heard the whistle of the evening train about
fifteen minutes ago, and asked if Augustus were expecting any one up on
it.
"No, but the team's gone down to meet it just the same. Maybe there'll
be a runner or two; they pay 'bout as well as the big guns after all;
and then there's a chance of one of the syndicaters coming in on me at
any time now.--There's the team."
He went out on the veranda. The men within the office listened with
intensified interest, strengthened by that curiosity which is shown by
those in whose lives events do not crowd upon one another with such
overwhelming force, that the susceptibility to fresh impressions is
dulled. They heard the land-lord's cordial greeting, a confusion of
sounds incident upon new arrivals; then Augustus Buzzby came in,
carrying bags and travelling shawl, and, following him, a tall man in
the garb of a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. Close at his side was
a little girl. She was far from appearing shy or awkward in the presence
of strangers, nodding brightly to Octavius, who sat nearest the door,
and smiling captivatingly upon Joel Quimber, whereupon he felt
immediately in his pockets for a peppermint which, to his
disappointment, was not there.
The Colonel sprang to his feet when the guests entered, and quickly
doffed his felt hat which was balancing in a seemingly untenable
position on the side of his head. The priest, who removed his on the
threshold, acknowledged the courtesy with a bow and a keen glance which
included all in the room; then he stepped to the desk on the counter to
enter his name in the ponderous leather-backed registry which Augustus
opened for him. The little girl stood beside him, watching his every
movement.
The Flamstedites saw before them a man in the prime of life, possibly
forty-five. He was fully six feet in height, noticeably erect, with an
erectness that gave something of the martial to his carriage, spare but
muscular, shoulders high and square set, and above them a face deeply
pock-marked, the features large but regular, the forehead broad and
bulging rather prominently above the eyes. The eyes they could not see;
but the voice made itself heard, and felt, while he was writing. The men
present unconsciously welcomed it as a personality.
"Can you tell me if Mrs. Louis Champney lives near here?" he said,
addressing his host.
"Yes, sir; just about a mile down the street at The Bow."
"Oh, please, yer Riverence, write mine too," said the child who, by
standing on tiptoe at the high counter, had managed to follow every
stroke of the pen.
The priest looked at the landlord with a frankly interrogatory smile.
"To be sure, to be sure. Ain't you my guest as long as you're in my
home?" Augustus replied with such whole-souled heartiness that the child
beamed upon him and boldly held out her hand for the pen.
"Let me write it," she said decidedly, as if used to having her way.
Colonel Caukins sprang to place a high three-legged stool for the little
registree, and was about to lift her on, but the child, laughing aloud,
managed to seat herself without his assistance, and forthwith gave her
undivided attention to the entering of her name.
Those present loved in after years to recall this scene: the old bar,
the three-legged stool, the little girl perched on top, one foot twisted
over the round--so busily intent upon making a fine signature that a tip
of her tongue was visible held tightly against her left cheek--the
coarse straw hat, the clean but cheap blue dress, the heavy shoes that
emphasized the delicacy of her ankles and figure; and above her the
leaning priest, smiling gravely with fatherly indulgence upon this
firstling of his flock in Flamsted.
[Illustration: "Those present loved in after years to recall this
scene"]
The child looked up for approval when she had finished and shaken, with
an air of intense satisfaction, a considerable quantity of sand over the
fresh ink. Evidently the look in the priest's eyes was reward enough,
for, although he spoke no word, the little girl laughed merrily and in
the next moment hopped down rather unexpectedly from her high place and
busied herself with taking a survey of the office and its occupants.
The priest took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Augustus,
saying as he did so:
"This is Mr. Buzzby, I know; and here is a letter from Mr. Van Ostend in
regard to this little girl. Her arrival is premature; but the matron of
the institution, where she has been, wished to take advantage of my
coming to Flamsted to place her in my care. Mr. Van Ostend would like to
have her remain here with you for a few days if Mrs. Champney is not
prepared to receive her just now."
There was a general movement of surprise among the men in the office,
and all eyes, with a question-mark visible in them, were turned towards
Octavius Buzzby. Upon him, the simple announcement had the effect of a
shock; he felt the need of air, and slipped out to the veranda, but not
before he received another bright smile from the little girl. He waited
outside until he saw Augustus show the newcomers upstairs; then he
re-entered the office and went to the register which was the speculative
focus of interest for all the others. Octavius read:
June 18, 1889--FR. JOHN FRANCIS HONORE, NEW YORK. AILEEN ARMAGH,
ORPHAN ASYLUM, NEW YORK CITY.
The Colonel was in a state of effervescing hilarity. He rubbed his hands
energetically, slapped Octavius on the back, and exclaimed in high
feather:
"How's this for the first drops of the deluge, eh, Tave?"
Octavius made no reply. He waited, as usual, for the evening's mail. The
carrier handed him a telegram from New York for Mrs. Champney. It had
just come up on the train from Hallsport. He wondered what connection
its coming might have with the unexpected arrival of this orphan child?
II
On his way home Octavius Buzzby found himself wondering, as he had
wondered many times before on occasion, how he could checkmate this
latest and most unexpected move on the part of the mistress of
Champ-au-Haut. His mind was perturbed and he realized, while making an
effort to concentrate his attention on ways and means, that he had been
giving much of his mental strength during the last twenty years to the
search for ulterior motives on the part of Mrs. Louis Champney, a woman
of sixty now, a Googe by birth (the Googes, through some genealogical
necromancy, traced their descent from Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The name
alone, not the blood, had, according to family tradition, suffered
corruption with time), and the widow of Louis Champney, the late Judge
Champney's only son.
The Champneys had a double strain of French blood in their veins, Breton
and Flemish; the latter furnished the collateral branch of the Van
Ostends. This intermixture, flowing in the veins of men and women who
were Americans by the birthright of more than two centuries' enjoyment
of our country's institutions, had produced for several generations as
fine a strain of brains and breeding as America can show.
Louis Champney, the last of the line in direct descent, was looked upon
from his boyhood up as the culmination of these centuries' flowering.
When, at forty, he died without having fulfilled in any wise the great
expectations of his townspeople and relations, the interest of the
community, as well as of the family, centred in the prospects of Louis
Champney Googe, his namesake, and nephew on his wife's side. Here,
again, numerous family interests as well as communal speculations were
disappointed. The Champney estate was left entire to the widow, Almeda
Googe Champney, to dispose of as she might deem fit. Her powers of
administratrix were untrammelled save in one respect: Octavius Buzzby
was to remain in his position as factotum on the Champney estate and
adviser for its interests.
It was at this juncture, when Louis Champney died without remembering
his nephew-in-law by so much as a book from his library and the boy was
ten years old, that a crisis was discovered to be imminent in the
fortunes of the Googe-Champney families, the many ramifications of which
were intricately interwoven in the communal life of Flamsted. This
crisis had not been averted; for Aurora Googe, the sister-in-law of Mrs.
Champney and mother of young Champney, sold a part of her land in The
Gore for the first granite quarry, and in so doing changed for all time
the character and fortunes of the town of Flamsted.
For many years Octavius Buzzby had championed openly and in secret the
cause of Aurora Googe and her only son. To-night, while walking slowly
homewards, he was pondering what attitude of mind he must assume, before
he could deal adequately with the momentous event which had been
foreshadowed from the moment he learned from the priest's lips that Mr.
Van Ostend was implicated in the coming of this orphan child. He
recalled that little Alice Van Ostend prattled much about this same
child during the week she had spent recently with her father at
Champ-au-Haut.
Was the mistress of Champ-au-Haut going to adopt her?
Almeda Champney had never wanted the blessing of a child, and, contrary
to her young husband's wishes--he was her junior by twelve years--she
had had her way. Her nature was so absorbingly tenacious of whatever
held her narrow interests, that a child at Champ-au-Haut would have
broken, in a measure, her domination of her weaker-willed husband,
because it would have centred in itself his love and ambition to "keep
up the name." That now, eleven years after Louis Champney's death, she
should contemplate the introduction into her perfectly ordered household
of a child, an alien, was a revelation of appalling moment to Octavius.
He scouted the idea that she would enter the house as an assistant. None
was needed; and, moreover, those small hands could accomplish little in
the next ten years. She meant to adopt her then! An alien was to inherit
the Champney property! Octavius actually shivered at the thought.
Was it, could it be an act of spite against Aurora Googe? Was it a final
answer to any expectations of her nephew, Champney Googe, her husband's
namesake and favorite? Was this little alien waif to be made a catspaw
for her revenge? She was capable of such a thing, was Almeda Champney.
_He_ knew her; none better! Had not her will, thus far in her life, bent
everything with which it had come in contact; crushed whatever had
opposed it; broken irrevocably whosoever for a while had successfully
resisted it?
His thin lips drew to a straight line. All his manhood's strength of
desire for fair play, a desire he had been fated to see unfulfilled
during the last twenty years, rose in rebellion to champion the cause of
the little newcomer who smiled on him so brightly in the office of The
Greenbush. Nor did he falter in his resolution when he presented himself
at the library door with the telegram in his hand.
"Come in, Octavius; was there any mail?"
"Only a telegram from New York." He handed it to her.
She opened and read it; then laid it on the table. She removed her
eyeglasses, for she had grown far-sighted with advancing years, in order
to look at the back of the small man who was leaving the room. If he had
seen the smile that accompanied the action, he might well have faltered
in his resolution to champion any righteous cause on earth.
"Wait a moment, Octavius."
"Now it's coming!" he thought and faced her again; he was bracing
himself mentally to meet the announcement.
"Did you see the junk man at The Corners to-day about those shingle
nails?"
In the second of hesitation before replying, he had time inwardly to
curse her. She was always letting him down in this way. It was a trick
of hers when, to use his own expression, she had "something up her
sleeve."
"Yes; but he won't take them off our hands."
"Why not?" She spoke sharply as was her way when she suspected any
thwarting of her will or desire.
"He says he won't give you your price for they ain't worth it. They
ain't particular good for old iron anyway; most on 'em's rusty and
crooked. You know they've been on the old coach house for good thirty
years, and the Judge used to say--"
"What will he give?"
"A quarter of a cent a pound."
"How many pounds are there?"
"Fifty-two."
"Fifty-two--hm-m; he sha'n't have them. They're worth a half a cent a
pound if they're worth anything. You can store them in the workshop till
somebody comes along that does want them, and will pay." He turned again
to leave her.
"Just a moment, Octavius." Once more he came back over the threshold.
"Were there any arrivals at The Greenbush to-night?"
"I judged so from the register."
"Did you happen to see a girl there?"
"I saw a child, a little girl, smallish and thin; a priest was with
her."
"A priest?" Mrs. Champney looked nonplussed for a moment and put on her
glasses to cover her surprise. "Did you learn her name, the girl's?"
"It was in the register, Aileen Armagh, from an orphan asylum in New
York."
"Then she's the one," she said in a musing tone but without the least
expression of interest. She removed her glasses. Octavius took a step
backwards. "A moment more, Octavius. I may as well speak of it now; I am
only anticipating by a week or two, at the most, what, in any case, I
should have told you. While Mr. Van Ostend was here, he enlisted my
sympathy in this girl to such an extent that I decided to keep her for a
few months on trial before making any permanent arrangement in regard to
her. I want to judge of her capability to assist Ann and Hannah in the
housework; Hannah is getting on in years. What do you think of her? How
did she impress you? Now that I have decided to give her a trial, you
may speak freely. You know I am guided many times by your judgment in
such matters."
Octavius Buzzby could have ground his teeth in impotent rage at this
speech which, to his accustomed ears, rang false from beginning to end,
yet was cloaked in terms intended to convey a compliment to himself.
But, instead, he smiled the equivocal smile with which many a speech of
like tenor had been greeted, and replied with marked earnestness:
"I wouldn't advise you, Mrs. Champney, to count on much assistance from
a slip of a thing like that. She's small, and don't look more 'n nine,
and--"
"She's over twelve," Mrs. Champney spoke decidedly; "and a girl of
twelve ought to be able to help Ann and Hannah in some of their work."
"Well, I ain't no judge of children as there's never been any of late
years at Champo." He knew his speech was barbed. Mrs. Champney carefully
adjusted her glasses to the thin bridge of her straight white nose. "And
if there had been, I shouldn't want to say what they could do or what
they couldn't at that age. Take Romanzo, now, he's old enough to work if
you watch him; and now he's here I don't deny but what you had the
rights of it 'bout my needing an assistant. He takes hold handy if you
show him how, and is willing and steady. But two on 'em--I don't know;"
he shook his head dubiously; "a growing boy and girl to feed and train
and clothe--seems as if--" Octavius paused in the middle of his
sentence. He knew his ground, or thought he knew it.
"You said yourself she was small and thin, and I can give her work
enough to offset her board. Of course, she will have to go to school,
but the tuition is free; and if I pay school taxes, that are increasing
every year, I might as well have the benefit of them, if I can, in my
own household."
There seemed no refutation needed to meet such an argument, and Octavius
retreated another step towards the door.
"A moment more, Octavius," she said blandly, for she knew he was longing
to rid her of his presence; "Mr. Emlie has been here this evening and
drawn up the deeds conveying my north shore property to the New York
syndicate. Mr. Van Ostend has conducted all the negotiations at that
end, and I have agreed to the erection of the granite sheds on those
particular sites and to the extension of a railroad for the quarries
around the head of the lake to The Corners. The syndicate are to control
all the quarry interests, and Mr. Van Ostend says in a few years they
will assume vast proportions, entailing an outlay of at least three
millions. They say there is to be a large electric plant at The Corners,
for the mill company have sold them the entire water power at the
falls.--I hope Aurora is satisfied with what she has accomplished in so
short a time. Champney, I suppose, comes home next month?"
Octavius merely nodded, and withdrew in haste lest his indignation get
the upper hand of his discretion. It behooved him to be discreet at this
juncture; he must not injure Aurora Googe's cause, which he deemed as
righteous a one as ever the sun shone upon, by any injudicious word that
might avow his partisanship.
Mrs. Champney smiled again when she saw his precipitous retreat. She had
freighted every word with ill will, and knew how to raise his silent
resentment to the boiling point. She rose and stepped quickly into the
hall.
"Tavy," she called after him as he was closing the door into the back
passage. He turned to look at her; she stood in the full light of the
hall-lamp. "Just a moment before you go. Did you happen to hear who the
priest is who came with the girl?"
"His name was in the ledger. The Colonel said he was a father--Father
Honore, I can't pronounce it, from New York."
"Is he stopping at The Greenbush?"
"He's put up there for to-night anyway."
"I think I must see this priest; perhaps he can give me more detailed
information about the girl. That's all."
She went back into the library, closing the door after her. Octavius
shut his; then, standing there in the dimly lighted passageway, he
relieved himself by doubling both fists and shaking them vigorously at
the panels of that same door, the while he simulated, first with one
foot then with the other, a lively kick against the baseboard, muttering
between his set teeth:
"The devil if it's all, you devilly, divelly, screwy old--"
The door opened suddenly. Simultaneously with its opening Octavius had
sufficient presence of mind to blow out the light. He drew his breath
short and fumbled in his pocket for matches.
"Why, Tavy, you here!" (How well she knew that the familiar name "Tavy"
was the last turn of the thumbscrew for this factotum of the Champneys!
She never applied it unless she knew he was thoroughly worsted in the
game between them.) "I was coming to find you; I forgot to say that you
may go down to-morrow at nine and bring her up. I want to look her
over."
She closed the door. Octavius, without stopping to relight the lamp,
hurried up to his room in the ell, fearful lest he be recalled a fifth
time--a test of his powers of mental endurance to which he dared not
submit in his present perturbed state.
Mrs. Champney walked swiftly down the broad main hall, that ran through
the house, to the door opening on the north terrace whence there was an
unobstructed view up the three miles' length of Lake Mesantic to the
Flamsted Hills; and just there, through a deep depression in their
midst, the Rothel, a rushing brook, makes its way to the calm waters at
their gates. At this point, where the hills separate like the opening
sepals of a gigantic calyx, the rugged might of Katahdin heaves head and
shoulder into the blue.
The irregular margin of the lake is fringed with pines of magnificent
growth. Here and there the shores rise into cliffs, seamed at the top
and inset on the face with slim white lady birches, or jut far into the
waters as rocky promontories sparsely wooded with fir and balsam spruce.
Mrs. Champney stepped out upon the terrace. Her accustomed eyes looked
upon this incomparable, native scene that was set in the full beauty of
mid-summer's moonlight. She advanced to the broad stone steps, that
descend to the level of the lake, and, folding her arms, her hands
resting lightly upon them, stood immovable, looking northwards to the
Flamsted Hills--looking, but not seeing; for her thoughts were leaping
upwards to The Gore and its undeveloped resources; to Aurora Googe and
the part she was playing in this transitional period of Flamsted's life;
to the future years of industrial development and, in consequence, her
own increasing revenues from the quarries. She had stipulated that
evening that a clause, which would secure to her the rights of a first
stockholder, should be inserted in the articles of conveyance.
The income of eight thousand from the estate, as willed to her, had
increased under her management, aided by her ability to drive a sharp
bargain and the penuriousness which, according to Octavius, was capable
of "making a cent squeal", to twelve thousand. The sale of her north
shore lands would increase it another five thousand. Within a few years,
according to Mr. Van Ostend--and she trusted him--her dividends from her
stock would net her several thousands more. She was calculating, as she
stood there gazing northwards, unseeing, into the serene night and the
hill-peace that lay within it, how she could invest this increment for
the coming years, and casting about in her mathematically inclined mind
for means to make the most of it in interest per cent. She felt sure the
future would show satisfactory results.--And after?
That did not appeal to her.
She unfolded her arms, and gathering her skirt in both hands went down
the steps and took her stand on the lowest. She was still looking
northwards. Her skirt slipped from her left hand which she raised half
mechanically to let a single magnificent jewel, that guarded the plain
circlet of gold on her fourth finger, flash in the moonlight. She held
it raised so for a moment, watching the play of light from the facets.
Suddenly she clinched her delicate fist spasmodically; shook it forcibly
upwards towards the supreme strength of those silent hills, which, in
comparison with the human three score and ten, may well be termed
"everlasting", and, muttering fiercely under her breath, "_You_ shall
never have a penny of it!", turned, went swiftly up the steps, and
entered the house.
III
Had the mistress of Champ-au-Haut stood on the terrace a few minutes
longer, she might have seen with those far-sighted eyes of hers a dark
form passing quickly along the strip of highroad that showed white
between the last houses at The Bow. It was Father Honore. He walked
rapidly along the highway that, skirting the base of the mountain,
follows the large curve of the lake shore. Rapid as was the pace, the
quickened eyes were seeing all about, around, above. In passing beneath
a stretch of towering pines, he caught between their still indefinite
foliage the gleam of the lake waters. He stopped short for a full minute
to pommel his resonant chest; to breathe deep, deep breaths of the night
balm. Then he proceeded on his way.
That way led northwards along the lake shore; it skirted the talus that
had fallen from the cliff which rose three hundred feet above him. He
heard the sound of a rolling stone gathering in velocity among the
rubble. He halted in order to listen; to trace, if possible, its course.
The dull monotone of its rumbling rattle started a train of thought:
perhaps his foot, treading the highway lightly, had caused the sensitive
earth to tremble just sufficiently to jar the delicately poised stone
and send it from its resting place! He went on. Thoughts not to be
uttered crowded to the forefront of consciousness as he neared the cleft
in the Flamsted Hills, whence the Rothel makes known to every wayfarer
that it has come direct from the heart of The Gore, and brought with it
the secrets of its granite veins.
The road grew steeper; the man's pace did not slacken, but the straight
back was bent at an angle which showed the priest had been accustomed to
mountain climbing. In the leafy half-light, which is neither dawn nor
twilight, but that reverential effulgence which is made by moonlight
sifting finely through midsummer foliage, the Rothel murmured over its
rocky bed; once, when in a deep pool its babble wholly ceased, an owl
broke the silence with his "witti-hoo-hoo-hoo".
Still upwards he kept his way and his pace until he emerged into the
full moonlight of the heights. There he halted and looked about him. He
was near the apex of The Gore. To the north, above the foreground of the
sea of hilltops, loomed Katahdin. At his right, a pond, some five acres
in extent, lay at the base of cliff-like rocks topped with a few
primeval pines. Everywhere there were barren sheep pastures alternating
with acres of stunted fir and hemlock, and in sheltered nooks, adjacent
to these coverts, he could discern something which he judged to be stone
sheepfolds. Just below him, on the opposite side of the road and the
Rothel, which was crossed by a broad bridging of log and plank, stood a
long low stone house, to the north of which a double row of firs had
been planted for a windbreak. Behind him, on a rise of ground a few rods
from the highway, was a large double house of brick with deep granite
foundations and white granite window caps. Two shafts of the same stone
supported the ample white-painted entrance porch. Ancestral elms
over-leafed the roof on the southern side. One light shone from an upper
window. Beyond the elms, a rough road led still upwards to the heights
behind the house.
The priest retraced his steps; turned into this road, for which the
landlord of The Greenbush had given him minute instructions, and
followed its rough way for an eighth of a mile; then a sudden turn
around a shoulder of the hill--and the beginning of the famous Flamsted
granite quarries lay before him, gleaming, sparkling in the moonlight--a
snow-white, glistening patch on the barren hilltop. Near it were a few
huts of turf and stone for the accommodation of the quarrymen. This was
all. But it was the scene, self-chosen, of this priest's future labors;
and while he looked upon it, thoughts unutterable crowded fast, too fast
for the brain already stimulated by the time and environment. He turned
about; retraced his steps at the same rapid pace; passed again up the
highroad to the head of The Gore, then around it, across a barren
pasture, and climbed the cliff-like rock that was crowned by the ancient
pines. He stood there erect, his head thrown back, his forehead to the
radiant heavens, his eyes fixed on the pale twinklings of the seven
stars in the northernmost constellation of the Bear--rapt, caught away
in spirit by the intensity of feeling engendered by the hour, the place.
Then he knelt, bowing his head on a lichened rock, and unto his Maker,
and the Maker of that humanity he had elected to serve, he consecrated
himself anew.
Ten minutes afterwards, he was coming down The Gore on his way back to
The Greenbush. He heard the agitated ringing of a bell-wether; then the
soft huddling rush of a flock of sheep somewhere in the distance. A
sheep dog barked sharply; a hound bayed in answer till the hills north
of The Gore gave back a multiple echo; but the Rothel kept its secrets,
and with inarticulate murmuring made haste to deposit them in the quiet
lake waters.
IV
"But, mother--"
There was an intonation in the protest that hinted at some irritation.
Champney Googe emptied his pipe on the grass and knocked it clean
against the porch rail before he continued.
"Won't it make a lot of talk? Of course, I can see your side of it; it's
hospitable and neighborly and all that, to give the priest his meals for
a while, but,--" he hesitated, and his mother answered his thought.
"A little talk more or less after all there has been about the quarry
won't do any harm, and I'm used to it." She spoke with some bitterness.
"It _has_ stirred up a hornet's nest about your ears, that's a fact. How
does Aunt Meda take this latest move? Meat-axey as usual? I didn't see
her when I went there yesterday; she's in Hallsport for two days on
business, so Tave says."
His mother smiled. "I haven't seen her since the sale was concluded, but
I hear she has strengthened the opposition in consequence. I get my
information from Mrs. Caukins."
At the mention of that name Champney laughed out. "Good authority,
mother. I must run over and see her to-night. Well, we don't care, do
we? I mean about the feeling. Mother, I just wish you were a man for one
minute."
"Why?"
"Because I'd like to go up to you, man fashion, grip your hand, slap you
on the back, and shout 'By Jove, old man, you've made a deal that would
turn the sunny side of Wall Street green with envy!' How did you do it,
mother? And without a lawyer! I'll bet Emlie is mad because he didn't
get a chance to put his finger in your pie."
"I was thinking of you, of your future, and how you have been used by
Almeda Champney; and that gave me the confidence, almost the push of a
man--and I dealt with them as a man with men; but I felt unsexed in
doing it. I've wondered what they think of me."
"Think of you! I can tell you what one man thinks of you, and that's Mr.
Van Ostend. I had a note from him at the time of the sale asking me to
come to his office, an affidavit was necessary, and I found he had had
eyes in his head for the most beautiful woman in the world--"
"Champney!"
"Fact; and, what's more, I got an invitation to his house on the
strength of his recognition of that fact. I dined with him there; his
sister is a stunning girl."
"I'm glad such homes are open to you; it is your right and--it
compensates."
"For what, mother?"
"Oh, a good many things. How do they live?"
"The Van Ostends?"
"Yes."
Champney Googe hugged his knees and rocked back and forth on the step
before he answered. His merry face seemed to lengthen in feature, to
harden in line. His mother left her chair and sewing to sit down on the
step beside him. She looked up inquiringly.
"Just as _I_ mean to live sometime, mother,"--his fresh young voice rang
determined and almost hard; his mother's eyes kindled;--"in a way that
expresses Life--as you and I understand it, and don't live it, mother;
as you and I have conceived of it while up here among these sheep
pastures." He glanced inimically for a moment at the barren slopes above
them. "I have you to thank for making me comprehend the difference." He
continued the rocking movement for a while, his hands still clasping his
knees. Then he went on:
"As for his home on the Avenue, there isn't its like in the city, and as
a storehouse of the best in art it hasn't its equal in the country; it's
just perfect from picture gallery to billiard room. As for adjuncts,
there's a shooting box and a _bona fide_ castle in the Scottish
Highlands, a cottage at Bar Harbor with the accessory of a steam yacht,
and a racing stud on a Long Island farm. As a financier he's great!"
He sat up straight, and freely used his fists, first on one knee then on
the other, to emphasize his words; "His right hand is on one great lever
of interstate traffic, his left on the other of foreign trade, and two
continents obey his manipulations. His eye exacts trained efficiency
from thousands; his word is a world event; Wall Street is his automaton.
Oh, the power of it all! I can't wait to get out into the stream,
mother! I'm only hugging the shore at present; that's what has made me
kick against this last year in college; it has been lost time, for I
want to get rich quick."
His mother laid her hand on his knee. "No, Champney, it's not lost time;
it's one of your assets as a gentleman."
He looked up at her, his blue eyes smiling into her dark ones.
"I can be a gentleman all right without that asset; you said father
didn't go."
"No, but the man for whom you are named went, and he told me once a
college education was a 'gentleman's asset.' That expression was his."
"Well, I don't see that the asset did him much good. It didn't seem to
discount his liabilities in other ways. Queer, how Uncle Louis went to
seed--I mean, didn't amount to anything along any business or
professional line. Only last spring I met the father of a second-year
man who remembers Uncle Louis well, said he was a classmate of his. He
told me he was banner man every time and no end popular; the others
didn't have a show with him."
His mother was silent. Champney, apparently unheeding her
unresponsiveness, rose quickly, shook himself together, and suddenly
burst into a mighty laughter that is best comparable to the
inextinguishable species of the blessed gods. He laughed in arpeggios,
peal on peal, crescendo and diminuendo, until, finally, he flung himself
down on the short turf and in his merriment rolled over and over. He
brought himself right side up at last, tears in his eyes and a sigh of
satisfying exhaustion on his lips. To his mother's laughing query:
"What is it now, Champney?" He shook his head as if words failed him;
then he said huskily:
"It's Aunt Meda's _protegee_. Oh, Great Scott! She'll be the death by
shock of some of the Champo people if she stays another three months. I
hear Aunt Meda has had her Waterloo. Tavy buttonholed me out in the
carriage house yesterday, and told me the whole thing--oh, but it's
rich!" He chuckled again. "He got me to feel his vest; says he can lap
it three inches already and she has only been here two weeks; and as
for Romanzo, he's neither to have nor to hold when the girl's in
sight--wits topsy-turvy, actually, oh, Lord!"--he rolled over again on
the grass--"what do you think, mother! She got Roman to scour down
Jim--you know, the white cart-horse, the Percheron--with Hannah's
cleaning powder, and the girl helped him, and together they got one side
done and then waited for it to dry to see how it worked. Result: Tave
dead ashamed to drive him in the cart for fear some one will see the
yellow-white calico-circus horse, that the two rapscallions have left on
his hands, and doesn't want Aunt Meda to know it for fear she'll turn
down Roman. He says he's going to put Jim out to grass in the Colonel's
back sheep pasture, and when Aunt Meda comes home lie about sudden
spavin or something. And the joke of it is Roman takes it all as a part
of the play, and has owned up to Tave that, by mistake, he blacked Aunt
Meda's walking boots, before she went to Hallsport, with axle grease,
while the girl was 'telling novels' to him! Tave said Roman told him she
knew a lot of the nobility, marchionesses and 'sich'; and now Roman
struts around cocksure, high and mighty as if he'd just been made
K.C.B., and there's no getting any steady work out of him. You should
have seen Tave's face when he was telling me!"
His mother laughed. "I can imagine it; he's worried over this new move
of Almeda's. I confess it puzzles me."
"Well, I'm off to see some of the fun--and the girl. Tave said he didn't
expect Aunt Meda before to-morrow night, and it's a good time for me to
rubber round the old place a little on my own hook;--and, mother,"--he
stooped to her; Aurora Googe raised her still beautiful eyes to the
frank if somewhat hard blue ones that looked down into hers; a fine
color mounted into her cheeks,--"take the priest for his meals, for all
me. It's an invasion, but, of course, I recognize that we're responsible
for it on account of the quarry business. I suppose we shall have to
make some concessions to all classes till we get away from here for good
and all--then we'll have our fling, won't we, mother?"
He was off without waiting for a reply. Aurora Googe watched him out of
sight, then turned to her work, the flush still upon her cheeks.
V
Champney leaned on the gate of the paddock at Champ-au-Haut and looked
about him. The estate at The Bow had been familiar to him throughout his
childhood and boyhood. He had been over every foot of it, and at all
seasons, with his Uncle Louis. He was realizing that it had never seemed
more beautiful to him than now, seen in the warm light of a July sunset.
In the garden pleasance, that sloped to the lake, the roses and lilies
planted there a generation ago still bloomed and flourished, and in the
elm-shaded paddock, on the gate of which he was leaning, filly and foal
could trace their pedigree to the sixth and seventh generation of
deep-chested, clean-flanked ancestors.
The young man comprehended in part only, the reason of his mother's
extreme bitterness towards Almeda Champney. His uncle had loved him; had
kept him with him much of the time, encouraging him in his boyish aims
and ambitions which his mother fostered--and Louis Champney was
childless, the last in direct descent of a long line of fine
ancestors--.
Here his thought was checked; those ancestors were his, only in a
generation far removed; the Champney blood was in his mother's veins.
But his father was Almeda Champney's only brother--why then, should not
his mother count on the estate being his in the end? He knew this to
have been her hope, although she had never expressed it. He had gained
an indefinite knowledge of it through old Joel Quimber and Elmer Wiggins
and Mrs. Milton Caukins, a distant relative of his father's. To be sure,
Louis Champney might have left him his hunting-piece, which as a boy he
had coveted, just for the sake of his name--
He stopped short in his speculations for he heard voices in the lane.
The cows were entering it and coming up to the milking shed. The lane
led up from the low-lying lake meadows, knee deep with timothy and
clover, and was fenced on both sides from the apple orchards which
arched and overshadowed its entire length. The sturdy over-reaching
boughs hung heavy with myriads of green balls. Now and then one dropped
noiselessly on the thick turf in the lane, and a noble Holstein mother,
ebony banded with ivory white, her swollen cream-colored bag and
dark-blotched teats flushed through and through by the delicate rose of
a perfectly healthy skin, lowered her meek head and, snuffing largely,
caught sideways as she passed at the enticing green round.
At the end of this lane there swung into view a tall loose-jointed
figure which the low strong July sunshine threw into bold relief. It was
Romanzo Caukins, one of the Colonel's numerous family, a boy of sixteen
who had been bound out recently to the mistress of Champ-au-Haut upon
agreement of bed, board, clothes, three terms of "schooling" yearly, and
the addition of thirty dollars to be paid annually to the Colonel.
The payment of this amount, by express stipulation, was to be made at
the end of each year until Romanzo should come into his majority. By
this arrangement, Mrs. Champney assured to herself the interest on the
aforesaid thirty dollars, and congratulated herself on the fact that
such increment might be credited to Milton Caukins as a minus quantity.
Champney leaped the bars and went down the lane to meet him.
"Hello, Roman, how are you?"
The boy's honest blue eyes, that seemed always to be looking forward in
a chronic state of expectancy for the unexpected, beamed with goodness
and goodwill. He wiped his hands on his overalls and clasped Champney's.
"Hullo, Champ, when'd you come?"
"Only yesterday. I didn't see you about when I was here in the
afternoon. How do you like your job?"
The youth made an uncouth but expressive sign towards the milk shed.
"Sh--Tave'll hear you. He and I ain't been just on good terms lately;
but 'tain't my fault," he added doggedly.
At that moment a clear childish voice called from somewhere below the
lane:
"Romanzo--Romanzo!"
The boy started guiltily. "I've got to go, Champ; she wants me."
Champney seized him with a strong hand by the suspenders. "Here, hold
on! Who, you gump?"
"The girl--le' me go." But Champney gripped him fast.
"No, you don't, Roman; let her yell."
"Ro--man--zo-o-o-o!" The range of this peremptory call was two octaves
at least.
"By gum--she's up to something, and Tave won't stand any more
fooling--le' me go!" He writhed in the strong grasp.
"I won't either. I haven't been half-back on our team for nothing; so
stand still." And Romanzo stood still, perforce.
Another minute and Aileen came running up the lane. She was wearing the
same heavy shoes, the same dark blue cotton dress, half covered now with
a gingham apron--Mrs. Champney had not deemed it expedient to furnish a
wardrobe until the probation period should have decided her for or
against keeping the child. She was bareheaded, her face flushed with the
heat and her violent exercise. She stopped short at a little distance
from them so soon as she saw that Romanzo was not alone. She tossed back
her braid and stamped her foot to emphasize her words:
"Why didn't yer come, Romanzo Caukins, when I cried ter yer!"
"'Coz I couldn't; he wouldn't let me." He spoke anxiously, making signs
towards the shed. But Aileen ignored them; ignored, also, the fact that
any one was present besides her slave.
Champney answered for himself. He promptly bared his head and advanced
to shake hands; but Aileen jerked hers behind her.
"I'm Mr. Champney Googe, at your service. Who are you?"
The little girl was sizing him up before she accepted the advance;
Champney could tell by the "East-side" look with which she favored him.
"I'm Miss Aileen Armagh, and don't yer forget it!--at your service." She
mimicked him so perfectly that Champney chuckled and Romanzo doubled up
in silent glee.
"I sha'n't be apt to, thank you. Come, let's shake hands, Miss Aileen
Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, for we've got to be friends if you're to
stay here with my aunt." He held out both hands. But the little girl
kept her own obstinately behind her and backed away from him.
"I can't."
"Why not?"
"'Coz they're all stuck up with spruce gum and Octavius said nothing
would take it off but grease, and--" she turned suddenly upon Romanzo,
blazing out upon him in her wrath--"I hollered ter yer so's yer could
get some for me from Hannah, and you was just dirt mean not to answer
me."
"Champ wouldn't let me go," said Romanzo sulkily; "besides, I dassn't
ask Hannah, not since I used the harness cloth she gave to clean down
Jim."
"Yer 'dassn't!' Fore I'd be a boy and say 'I dassn't!'" There was
inexpressible scorn in her voice. She turned to Champney, her eyes
brimming with mischief and flashing a challenge:
"And yer dassn't shake hands with me 'coz mine are all stuck up, so
now!"
Champney had not anticipated this _pronunciamento_, but he accepted the
challenge on the instant. "Dare not! You can't say that to me! Here,
give me your hands." Again he held out his shapely well-kept members,
and Aileen with a merry laugh brought her grimy sticky little paws into
view and, without a word, laid them in Champney's palms. He held them
close, purposely, that they might adhere and provide him with some fun;
then, breaking into his gay laugh he said:
"Clear out, Roman; Tave 'll be looking for the milk pails. As for you,
Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, you can't pull away from me
now. So, come on, and we'll get Hannah to give us some lard and then
we'll go down to the boat house where it is cool and cleanup. Come on!"
Holding her by both hands he raced her down the long lane, through the
vegetable garden, all chassez, down the middle, swing your
partner--Aileen wild with the fun--up the slate-laid kitchen walk to the
kitchen door. His own laughter and the child's, happy, merry, care-free,
rang out peal on peal till Ann and Hannah and Octavius paused in their
work to listen, and wished that such music might have been heard often
during their long years of faithful service in childless Champ-au-Haut.
"I hear you are acquainted with some of the nobility, marchionesses and
so forth," said Champney; the two were sitting in the shadow of the boat
house cleaning their fingers with the lard Hannah had provided. "Where
did you make their acquaintance?"
Aileen paused in the act of sliding her greasy hands rapidly over and
over in each other, an occupation which afforded her unmixed delight, to
look up at him in amazement. "How did yer know anything 'bout her?"
"Oh, I heard."
"Did Romanzo Caukins tell yer?" she demanded, as usual on the defensive.
"No, oh no; it was only hearsay. Do tell me about her. We don't have any
round here."
Aileen giggled and resumed the rapid rotary motion of her still unwashed
hands. "If I tell yer 'bout her, yer'll tell her I told yer. P'raps
sometime, if yer ever go to New York, yer might see her; and she
wouldn't like it."
"How do you know but what I have seen her? I've just come from there."
Aileen looked her surprise again. "That's queer, for I've just landed
from New York meself."
"So I understood; does the marchioness live there too?"
She shook her head. "I ain't going to tell yer; but I'll tell yer 'bout
some others I know."
"That live in New York?"
"Wot yer giving me?" She laughed merrily; "they live where the Dagos
live, in Italy, yer know, and--"
"Italy? What are they doing over there?"
"--And--just yer wait till I'll tell yer--they live on an island in a
be-ee-u-tiful lake, like this;" she looked approvingly at the liquid
mirror that reflected in its rippleless depths the mountain shadow and
sunset gold; "and they live in great marble houses, palaces, yer know,
and flower gardens, and wear nothing but silks and velvet and pearls,
ropes,--yer mind?--ropes of 'em; and the lords and ladies have concerts,
yer know, better 'n in the thayertre--"
"What do you know about the theatre?" Champney was genuinely surprised;
"I thought you came from an orphan asylum."
"Yer did, did yer!" There was scorn in her voice. "Wot do I know 'bout
the thayertre?--Oh, but yer green!" She broke into another merry laugh
which, together with the patronage of her words and certain unsavory
memories of his own, nettled Champney more than he would have cared to
acknowledge.
"Better 'n the thayertre," she repeated emphatically; "and the lords
serenade the ladies--Do yer know wot a serenade is?" She interrupted
herself to ask the question with a strong doubt in the interrogation.
"I've heard of 'em," said Champney meekly; "but I don't think I've ever
seen one."
"I'll tell yer 'bout 'em. The lords have guitars and go out in the
moonlight and stand under the ladies' windys and play, and the ladies
make believe they haven't heard; then they look up all round at the moon
and sigh _awful_,--" she sighed in sympathy,--"and then the lords begin
to sing and tell 'em they love 'em and can't live without a--a token.
I'll bet yer don't know wot that is?"
"No, of course I don't; I'm not a lord, and I don't live in Italy."
"Well, I'll tell yer." Her tone was one of relenting indulgence for his
ignorance. "Sometimes it's a bow that they make out of the ribbon their
dresses is trimmed with, and sometimes it's a flower, a rose, yer know;
and the lord sings again--can yer sing?"
Her companion repressed a smile. "I can manage a tune or two at a
pinch."
"And the lady comes out on the balcony and leans over--like this, yer
know;" she jumped up and leaned over the rail of the float, keeping her
hands well in front of her to save her apron; "and she listens and keeps
looking, and when he sings he's going to die because he loves her so,
she throws the token down to him to let him know he mustn't die 'coz she
loves him too; and he catches it, the rose, yer know, and smells it and
then he kisses it and squeezes it against his heart--" she forgot her
greasy hands in the rapture of this imaginative flight, and pressed them
theatrically over her gingham apron beneath which her own little organ
was pulsing quick with the excitement of this telling moment; "--and
then the moon shines just as bright as silver and--and she marries him."
She drew a deep breath. During the recital she had lost herself in the
personating of the favorite characters from her one novel. While she
stood there looking out on the lake and the Flamsted Hills with eyes
that were still seeing the gardens and marble terraces of Isola Bella,
Champney Googe had time to fix that picture on his mental retina and,
recalling it in after years, knew that the impression was "more lasting
than bronze."
She came rather suddenly to herself when she grew aware of her larded
hands pressed against her clean apron.
"Oh, gracious, but I'll catch it!" she exclaimed ruefully. "Wot'll I do
now? She said I'd got to keep it clean till she got back, and she'll
fire me and--and I want to stay awful; it's just like the story, yer
know." She raised her gray eyes appealingly to his, and he saw at once
that her childish fear was real. He comforted her.
"I'll tell you what: we'll go back to Hannah and she'll fix it for you;
and if it's spoiled I'll go down and get some like it in the village and
my mother will make you a new one. So, cheer up, Miss Aileen Armagh
and-don't-yer-forget-it! And to-morrow evening, if the moon is out,
we'll have a serenade all by ourselves; what do you say to that?"
"D' yer mane it?" she demanded, half breathless in her earnestness.
He nodded.
Aileen clapped her hands and began to dance; then she stopped suddenly
to say: "I ain't going to dance for yer now; but I will sometime," she
added graciously. "I've got to go now and help Ann. What time are yer
coming for the serenade?"
"I'll be here about eight; the moon will be out by then and we must have
a moon."
She started away on the run, beckoning to him with her unwashed hands:
"Come on, then, till I show yer my windy. It's the little one over the
dining-room. There ain't a balcony, but--see there! there's the top of
the bay windy and I can lean out--why didn't yer tell me yer could play
the guitar?"
"Because I can't."
"A harp, belike?"
"No; guess again."
"Yer no good;--but yer'll come?"
"Shurre; an' more be token it's at eight 'o the clock Oi'll be under yer
windy." He gave the accent with such Celtic gusto that the little girl
was captivated.
"Ain't you a corker!" she said admiringly and, waving her hand again to
him, ran to the house. Champney followed more slowly to lay the case
before Ann and Hannah.
On his way homeward he found himself wondering if he had ever seen the
child before. As she leaned on the rail and looked out over the lake, a
certain grace of attitude, which the coarse clothing failed to conceal,
the rapt expression in the eyes, the _timbre_ of her voice, all awakened
a dim certainty that he had seen her before at some time and place
distinctly unusual; but where? He turned the search-light of
concentrated thought upon his comings and goings and doings during the
last year and more. Where had he seen just such a child?
He looked up from the roadway, on which his eyes had been fixed while
his absent thought was making back tracks over the last twelve months,
and saw before him the high pastures of The Gore. In the long afterglow
of the July sunset they enamelled the barren heights with a rich,
yellowish green. In a flash it came to him: "The green hill far away
without a city wall"; the child singing on the vaudeville stage; the
hush in the audience. He smiled to himself. He was experiencing that
satisfaction which is common to all who have run down the quarry of a
long-hunted recollection.
"She's the very one," he said to himself; "I wonder if Aunt Meda
knows."
VI
That which proves momentous in our lives is rarely anticipated, seldom
calculated. Its factors are for the most part unknown quantities; if not
prime in themselves they are, at least, prime to each other. It cannot
be measured in terms of time, for often it lies between two infinities.
But the momentous decision, event, action, which reacts upon the life of
a man or woman and influences that life so long as it is lived here on
earth, is on the surface sufficiently finite for us to say: It was on
such a day I made my decision; to such and such an event I can look back
as the cause of all that has followed. The How thereof remains traceable
to our purblind eyes for a month, a term of years, one generation,
possibly two; the Where and When can generally be defined; but the _Why_
we ask blindly, and are rarely answered satisfactorily.
Had young Googe been told, while he was walking homewards up The Gore,
that his life line, like the antenna of the wireless, was even then the
recipient and transmitter of multiple influences that had been, as it
were, latent in the storage batteries of a generation; that what he was
to be in the future was at this very hour in germ for development, he
would have scouted the idea. His young self-sufficiency would have
laughed the teller to scorn. He would have maintained as a man his
mastership of his fate and fortunes, and whistled as carelessly as he
whistled now for the puppy, an Irish terrier which he had brought home
with him, for training, to come and meet him.
And the puppy, whose name was Ragamuffin and called Rag for short, came
duly, unknowing, like his young master, to meet his fate. He wriggled
broad-side down the walk as a puppy will in his first joy till,
overpowered by his emotions, he rolled over on his back at Champney's
feet, the fringes of his four legs waving madly in air.
"Champney, I'm waiting for you." It was his mother calling from the
door. He ran in through the kitchen, and hurried to make himself
presentable for the table and their guest whom he saw on the front
porch.
As he entered the dining-room, his mother introduced him: "Father
Honore, my son, Champney."
The two men shook hands, and Mrs. Googe took her seat. The priest bowed
his head momentarily to make the sign of the cross. Champney Googe shot
one keen, amazed look in his direction. When that head was lifted
Champney "opened fire," so he termed it to himself.
"I think I've seen you before, sir." It was hard for him to give the
title "Father." "I got in your way, didn't I, at the theatre one evening
over a year ago?"
His mother looked at him in amazement and something of anxiety. Was her
son in his prejudice forgetting himself?
"Indeed, I think it was the other way round, I was in your way, for I
remember thinking when you ran up against me 'that young fellow has been
half-back on a football team.'"
Champney laughed. There was no withstanding this man's voice and the
veiled humor of his introductory remarks.
"Did I hit hard? I didn't think for a moment that you would recognize
me; but I knew you as soon as mother introduced us. I see by your face,
mother, that you need enlightening. It was only that I met Father
Honore"--he brought that out with no hesitation--"at the entrance to one
of the New York theatres over a year ago, and in the crowd nearly ran
him down. No wonder, sir, you sized me up by the pressure as a football
fiend. That's rich!" His merry laugh reassured his mother; she turned to
Father Honore.
"I don't know whether all my son's acquaintances are made at the theatre
or not, but it is a coincidence that the other day he happened to
mention the fact that the first time he saw Mr. Van Ostend he saw him
there."
"It's my strong impression, Mrs. Googe, that Mr. Googe saw us both at
the same place, at the same time. Mr. Van Ostend spoke to me of your son
just a few days before I left New York."
"Did he?" Champney's eager blue eyes sought the priest's. "Do you know
him well?"
"As we all know him through his place in the world of affairs.
Personally I have met him only a few times. You may know, perhaps, that
he was instrumental in placing little Aileen Armagh, the orphan
child,--you know whom I mean?--at Mrs. Champney's, your aunt, Mrs. Googe
tells me."
"I was just going to ask you if you would be willing to tell us
something about her," said Mrs. Googe. "I've not seen her, but from all
I hear she is a most unusual child, most interesting--"
"Interesting, mother!" Champney interrupted her rather explosively;
"she's unique, the only and ever Aileen Armagh." He turned again to
Father Honore. "Do tell us about her; I've been so blockheaded I
couldn't put two and two together, but I'm beginning to see daylight at
last. I made her acquaintance this afternoon. That's why I was a little
late, mother."
How we tell, even the best of us, with reserves! Father Honore told of
his interest being roused, as well as his suspicions, by the wording of
the poster, and of his determination to see for himself to what extent
the child was being exploited. But of the thought-lever, the "Little
Trout", that raised that interest, he made no mention; nor, indeed, was
it necessary.
"You see there is a class of foreigners on the East side that receive
commissions for exploiting precocious children on the stage; they are
very clever in evading the law. The children themselves are helpless. I
had looked up a good many cases before this because it was in my line of
work, and in this particular one I found that the child had been
orphaned in Ireland almost from her birth; that an aunt, without
relatives, had emigrated with her only a few months before I saw her on
the stage, and the two had lived in an east side tenement with an old
Italian. The child's aunt, a young woman about twenty-eight, developed
quick consumption during the winter and died in the care of the Italian,
Nonna Lisa they call her. This woman cared for the little girl, and
began to take her out with her early in March on the avenues and streets
of the upper west side. The old woman is an itinerant musician and plays
the guitar with real feeling--I've heard her--and, by the way, makes a
decent little living of her own. She found that Aileen had a good voice
and could sing several Irish songs. She learned the accompaniments, and
the two led, so far as I can discover, a delightful life of vagabondage
for several weeks. It seems the old Italian has a grandson, Luigi, who
sings in vaudeville with a travelling troop. He was in the west and
south during the entire time that Aileen was with his grandmother; and
through her letters he learned of the little girl's voice. He spoke of
this to his manager, and he communicated with the manager of a Broadway
vaudeville--they are both in the vaudeville trust--and asked him to
engage her, and retain her for the troop when they should start on their
annual autumn tour. But Nonna Lisa was shrewd.--It's wonderful, Mrs.
Googe, how quickly they develop the sixth sense of cautious speculation
after landing! She made a contract for six weeks only, hoping to raise
her price in the autumn. So I found that the child was not being
exploited, except legitimately, by the old Italian who was caring for
her and guarding her from all contamination. But, of course, that could
not go on, and I had the little girl placed in the orphan asylum on
----nd Street--" He interrupted himself to say half apologetically:
"I am prolix, I fear, but I am hoping you will be personally interested
in this child whose future life will, I trust, be spent here far away
from the metropolitan snares. I am sure she is worth your interest."
"I know she is," said Champney emphatically; "and the more we know of
her the better. You'll laugh at my experience when you have heard it;
but first let us have the whole of yours."
"You know, of course, where Mr. Van Ostend lives?" Champney nodded. "Did
you happen to notice the orphan asylum just opposite on ----nd Street?"
"No; I don't recall any building of that sort."
He smiled. "Probably not; that is not in your line and we men are apt to
see only what is in the line of our working vision. It seems that Mr.
Van Ostend has a little girl--"
"I know, that's the Alice I told you of, mother; did you see her when
she was here last month?"
"No; I only met Mr. Van Ostend on business. You were saying--?" She
addressed Father Honore.
"His little daughter told him so much about two orphan children, with
whom she had managed to have a kind of across-street-and-window
acquaintance, that he proposed to her to have the children over for
Christmas luncheon. The moment he saw Aileen, he recognized in her the
child on the vaudeville stage to whom he had given the flowers--You
remember that incident?"
"Don't I though!"
"--Because she had sung his wife's favorite hymn. He was thoroughly
interested in the child after seeing her, so to say, at close range, and
took the first opportunity to speak with the Sister Superior in regard
to finding for her a suitable and permanent home. The Sister Superior
referred him to me. As you know, he came to Flamsted recently with this
same little daughter; and the child talked so much and told so many
amusing things about Aileen to Mrs. Champney, that Mr. Van Ostend saw at
once this was an opportunity to further his plans, although he confided
to me his surprise that his cousin, Mrs. Champney, should be willing to
have so immature a child, in her house. Directly on getting home, he
telephoned to me that he had found a home for her with a relation of his
in Flamsted. You may judge of my surprise and pleasure, for I had
received the appointment to this place and the work among the quarrymen
only a month before. This is how the little girl happened to come up
with me. I hear she is making friends."
"She can't help making them, and a good deal more besides; for Romanzo
Caukins, our neighbor's son, and Octavius Buzzby, my aunt's _charge
d'affaires_, are at the present time her abject slaves," said Champney,
rising from the table at a signal from his mother. "Let's go out on the
porch, and I'll tell you of the fun I've had with her--poor Roman!" He
shook his head and chuckled.
He stepped into the living-room as he passed through the hall and
reached for his pipe in a rack above the mantel. "Do you smoke," he
asked half-hesitatingly, but with an excess of courtesy in his voice as
if he were apologizing for asking such a question.
"Sometimes; a pipe, if you please." He held out his hand; Champney
handed him a sweetbrier and a tobacco pouch. "You permit, Madam?" He
spoke with old world courtesy. Aurora Googe smiled permission. She saw
with satisfaction her son's puzzled look of inquiry as he noted the
connoisseurship with which Father Honore handled his after-supper tools.
Mrs. Milton Caukins, their neighbor in the stone house across the bridge
over the Rothel, stood for several minutes at her back door listening to
Champney's continued arpeggios and wondered whose was the deep hearty
laugh that answered them. In telling his afternoon's experience
Champney, also, had his reserves: of the coming serenade he said never a
word to the priest.
"He's O.K. and a man, mother," was his comment on their guest, as he
bade her good night. Aurora Googe answered him with a smile that
betokened content, but she was wise enough not to commit herself in
words. Afterwards she sat long in her room, planning for her son's
future. The twenty thousand she had just received for the undeveloped
quarry lands should serve to start him well in life.
VII
On the following day, mother and son constituted themselves a committee
of ways and means as to the best investment of the money in furtherance
of Champney's interests. Her ambition was gratified in that she saw him
anxious to take his place in the world of affairs, to "get on" and, as
he said, make his mark early in the world of finance.
The fact that, during his college course, he had spent the five thousand
received from the sale of the first quarry, plus the interest on the
same without accounting for a penny of it, seemed to his mother
perfectly legitimate; for she had sold the land and laid by the amount
paid for it in order to put her son through college. Since he was twelve
years old she had brought him up in the knowledge that it was to be his
for that purpose. From the time he came, through her generosity, into
possession of the property, she always replied to those who had the
courage to criticise her course in placing so large a sum at the
disposal of a youth:
"My son is a man. I realize I can suggest, but not dictate; moreover I
have no desire to."
She drew the line there, and rarely had any one dared to expostulate
further with her. When they ventured it, Aurora Googe turned upon them
those dark eyes, in which at such times there burned a seemingly
unquenchable light of self-feeding defiance, and gave them to
understand, with a repelling dignity of manner that bordered hard on
haughtiness, that what she and her son might or might not do was no
one's concern but their own. This self-evident truth, when it struck
home to her well-wishers, made her no friends. Nor did she regret this.
She had dwelt, as it were, apart, since her marriage and early
widowhood--her husband had died seven months before Champney was
born--on the old Googe estate at The Gore. But she was a good neighbor,
as Mrs. Caukins could testify; paid her taxes promptly, and minded her
flocks, the source of her limited income, until wool-raising in New
England became unprofitable. An opportunity was presented when her boy
was ten years old to sell a portion of the barren sheep pastures for the
first quarry. She counted herself fortunate in being able thus to
provide for Champney's four college years.
In all the village, there were only three men, whom Aurora Googe named
friend. These men, with the intimacy born of New England's community of
interest, called her to her face by her Christian name; they were
Octavius Buzzby, old Joel Quimber, and Colonel Caukins. There had been
one other, Louis Champney, who during his lifetime promised to do much
for her boy when he should have come of age; but as the promises were
never committed to black and white, they were, after his death, as
though they had never been.
"If only Aunt Meda would fork over some of hers!" Champney exclaimed
with irritation. They were sitting on the porch after tea. "All I want
is a seat in the Stock Exchange--and the chance to start in. I believe
if I had the money Mr. Van Ostend would help me to that."
"You didn't say anything to him about your plans, did you?"
"Well, no; not exactly. But it isn't every fellow gets a chance to dine
at such a man's table, and I thought the opportunity was too good to be
wasted entirely. I let him know in a quiet way that I, like every other
fellow, was looking for a job." Champney laughed aloud at the shocked
look on his mother's face. He knew her independence of thought and
action; it brooked no catering for favors.
"You see, mother, men _have_ to do it, or go under. It's about one
chance in ten thousand that a man gets what he wants, and it's downright
criminal to throw away a good opportunity to get your foot on a round.
Run the scaling ladder up or down, it doesn't much matter--there are
hundreds of applicants for every round; and only one man can stand on
each--and climb, as I mean to. You don't get this point of view up here,
mother, but you will when you see the development of these great
interests. Then it will be each for himself and the devil gets the
hindermost. Shouldn't I take every legitimate means to forge ahead? You
heard what the priest said about Mr. Van Ostend's mentioning me to him?
Let me tell you such men don't waste one breath in mentioning anything
that does not mean a big interest per cent, _not one breath_. They
can't, literally, afford to; and I'm hoping, only hoping, you know--",
he looked up at her from his favorite seat on the lowest step of the
front porch with a keen hard expectancy in his eyes that belied his
words, "--that what he said to Father Honore means something definite.
Anyhow, we'll wait a while till we see how the syndicate takes hold of
this quarry business before we decide on anything, won't we, mother?"
"I'm willing to wait as long as you like if you will only promise me one
thing."
"What's that?" He rose and faced her; she saw that he was slightly on
the defensive.
"That you will never, _never_, in any circumstances, apply to your Aunt
Almeda for funds, no matter how much you may want them. I couldn't bear
that!"
She spoke passionately in earnest, with such depth of feeling that she
did not realize her son was not giving her the promise when he said
abruptly, the somewhat hard blue eyes looking straight into hers:
"Mother, why are you so hard on Aunt Meda? She's a stingy old screw, I
know, and led Uncle Louis round by the nose, so everybody says; but why
are you so down on her?"
He was insistent, and his insistence was the one trait in his character
which his mother had found hardest to deal with from his babyhood; from
it, however, if it should develop happily into perseverance, she hoped
the most. This trait he inherited from his father, Warren Googe, but in
the latter it had deteriorated into obstinacy. She always feared for her
self-control when she met it in her son, and just now she was under the
influence of a powerful emotion that helped her to lose it.
"Because," she made answer, again passionately but the earnestness had
given place to anger, "I am a woman and have borne from her what no
woman bears and forgets, or forgives! Are you any the wiser now?" she
demanded. "It is all that I shall tell you; so don't insist."
The two continued to look into each other's eyes, and something, it
could hardly be called inimical, rather an aloofness from the tie of
blood, was visible to each in the other's steadfast gaze. Aurora Googe
shivered. Her eyes fell before the younger ones.
"Don't Champney! Don't let's get upon this subject again; I can't bear
it."
"But, mother," he protested, "you mentioned it first."
"It was what you said about Almeda's furnishing you with money that
started it. Don't say anything more about it; only promise me, won't
you?"
She raised her eyes again to his, but this time in appeal. At forty-one
Aurora Googe was still a very beautiful woman, and her appeal, made
gently as if in apology for her former vehemence, rendered that beauty
potent with her son's manhood.
"Let me think it over, mother, before I promise." He answered her as
gently. "It's a hard thing to exact of a man, and I don't hold much with
promises. What did Uncle Louis' amount to?"
The blood surged into his mother's face, and tears, rare ones, for she
was not a weak woman neither was she a sentimental one, filled her eyes.
Her son came up the steps and kissed her. They were seldom demonstrative
to this extent save in his home-comings and leave-takings. He changed
the subject abruptly.
"I'm going down to the village now. You know I have the serenade on my
program, at eight. Afterwards I'll run down to The Greenbush for the
mail and to see my old cronies. I haven't had a chance yet." He began to
whistle for the puppy, but cut himself short, laughing. "I was going to
take Rag, but he won't fit in with the serenade. Keep him tied up while
I'm gone, please. Anything you want from the village, mother?"
"No, not to-night."
"Don't sit up for me; I may be late. Joel is long-winded and the Colonel
is booming The Gore for all it is worth and more too; I want to hear the
fun. Good night."
VIII
The afterglow of sunset was long. The dilated moon, rising from the
waters of the Bay, shone pale at first; but as it climbed the shoulder
of the mountain _Wave-of-the-Sea_ and its light fell upon the farther
margin of the lake, its clear disk was pure argent.
Champney looked his approval. It was the kind of night he had been
hoping for. He walked leisurely down the road from The Gore for the
night was warm. It was already past eight, but he lingered, purposely, a
few minutes longer on the lake shore until the moonlight should widen on
the waters. Then he went on to the grounds.
He entered by the lane and crossed the lawn to an arching rose-laden
trellis near the bay window; beneath it was a wooden bench. He looked up
at the window. The blinds were closed. So far as he could see there was
no light in all the great house. Behind the rose trellis was a group of
stately Norway spruce; he could see the sheen of their foliage in the
moonlight. He took his banjo out of its case and sat down on the bench,
smiling to himself, for he was thoroughly enjoying, with that enjoyment
of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic
adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary thrumming. It
was a toss-up between "Annie Rooney" and "Oft in the stilly night." He
decided for the latter. Raising his eyes to the closed blinds, behind
which he knew the witch was hiding, he began the accompaniment. The soft
_thrum-thrum_, vibrating through the melody, found an echo in the
whirring wings of all that ephemeral insect life which is abroad on such
a night. The prelude was almost at an end when he saw the blinds begin
to separate. Champney continued to gaze steadily upwards. A thin bare
arm was thrust forth; the blinds opened wide; in the dark window space
he saw Aileen, listening intently and gazing fixedly at the moon as if
its every beam were dropping liquid music.
He began to sing. His voice was clear, fine, and high, a useful first
tenor for two winters in the Glee Club. When he finished Aileen deigned
to look down upon him, but she made no motion of recognition. He rose
and took his stand directly beneath the window.
"I say, Miss Aileen Armagh-and-don't-yer-forget-it, that isn't playing
fair! Where's my token?"
There was a giggle for answer; then, leaning as far out as she dared,
both hands stemmed on the window ledge, the child began to sing. Full,
free, joyously light-hearted, she sent forth the rollicking Irish melody
and the merry sentiment that was strung upon it; evidently it had been
adapted to her, for the words had suffered a slight change:
"Och! laughin' roses are my lips,
Forget-me-nots my ee,
It's many a lad they're drivin' mad;
Shall they not so wi' ye?
Heigho! the morning dew!
Heigho! the rose and rue!
Follow me, my bonny lad,
For I'll not follow you.
"Wi' heart in mout', in hope and doubt,
My lovers come and go:
My smiles receive, my smiles deceive;
Shall they not serve you so?
Heigho! the morning dew!
Heigho! the rose and rue!
Follow me, my bonny lad,
For I'll not follow you."
It was a delight to hear her.
"There now, I'll give yer my token. Hold out yer hands!"
Champney, hugging his banjo under one arm, made a cup of his hands.
Carefully measuring the distance, she dropped one rosebud into them.
"Put it on yer heart now," was the next command from above. He obeyed
with exaggerated gesture, to the great delight of the serenadee. "And
yer goin' to keep it?"
"Forever and a day." Champney made this assertion with a
hyper-sentimental inflection of voice, and, lifting the flower to his
nose, drew in his breath--
"Confound you, you little fiend--" he sneezed rather than spoke.
The sneeze was answered by a peal of laughter from above and a
fifteen-year-old's cracked "Haw-haw-haw" from the region of the Norway
spruces. Every succeeding sneeze met with a like response--roars of
laughter on the one hand and peal upon peal on the other. Even the
kitchen door began to give signs of life, for Hannah and Ann made their
appearance.
The strong white pepper, which Romanzo managed to procure from Hannah,
had been cunningly secreted by Aileen between the imbricate petals, and
then tied, in a manner invisible at night, with a fine thread of pink
silk begged from Ann. It was now acting and re-acting on the lining of
the serenader's olfactory organ in a manner to threaten final
decapitation. Champney was still young enough to resent being made a
subject of such practical joking by a little girl; but he was also
sufficiently wise to acknowledge to himself that he had been worsted
and, in the end, to put a good face on it. It is true he would have
preferred that Romanzo Caukins had not been witness to his defeat.
The sneezing and laughter gradually subsided. He sat down again on the
bench and taking up his banjo prepared, with somewhat elaborate effort,
to put it into its case. He said nothing.
"Say!" came in a sobered voice from above; "are yer mad with me?"
Ignoring both question and questioner, he took out his handkerchief,
wiped his face and forehead and, returning it to his pocket, heaved a
sigh of apparent exhaustion.
"I say, Mr. Champney Googe, are yer mad with me?"
To Champney's delight, he heard an added note of anxiety. He bowed his
head lower over the banjo case and in silence renewed his simulated
struggle to slip that instrument into it.
"Champney! Are yer _rale_ mad with me?" There was no mistaking the
earnestness of this appeal. He made no answer, but chuckled inwardly at
the audacity of the address.
"Champ!" she stamped her foot to emphasize her demand; "if yer don't
tell me yer ain't mad with me, I'll lave yer for good and all--so now!"
"I don't know that I'm mad with you," he spoke at last in an aggrieved,
a subdued tone; "I simply didn't think you could play me such a mean
trick when I was in earnest, dead earnest."
"Did yer mane it?"
"Why, of course I did! You don't suppose a man walks three miles in a
hot night to serenade a girl just to get an ounce of pepper in his nose
by way of thanks, do you?"
"I thought yer didn't mane it; Romanzo said yer was laughing at me for
telling yer 'bout the lords and ladies a-making love with their
guitars." The voice indicated some dejection of spirits.
"He did, did he! I'll settle with Romanzo later." He heard a soft
brushing of branches in the region of the Norway spruces and knew that
the youth was in retreat. "And I'll settle it with you, too, Miss Aileen
Armagh-and-don't-you-forget-it, in a way that'll make you remember the
tag end of your name for one while!"
This threat evidently had its effect.
"Wot yer going to do?"
He heard her draw her breath sharply.
"Come down here and I'll tell you."
"I can't. She might catch me. She told me I'd got to stay in my room
after eight, and she's coming home ter-night. Wot yer going to do?"
Champney laughed outright. "Don't you wish you might know, Aileen
Armagh!" He took his banjo in one hand, lifted his cap with the other
and, standing so, bareheaded in the moonlight, sang with all the
simulated passion and pathos of which he was capable one of the few love
songs that belong to the world, "Kathleen Mavoureen"; but he took pains
to substitute "Aileen" for "Kathleen." Even Ann and Hannah, listening
from the kitchen porch, began to feel sentimentally inclined when the
clear voice rendered with tender pathos the last lines:
"Oh! why art thou silent, thou voice of my heart?
Oh! why art thou silent, Aileen Mavoureen?"
Without so much as another glance at the little figure in the window, he
ran across the lawn and up the lane to the highroad.
IX
On his way to The Greenbush he overtook Joel Quimber, and without
warning linked his arm close in the old man's. At the sudden contact
Joel started.
"Uncle Jo, old chap, how are you? This seems like home to see you
round."
"Lord bless me, Champ, how you come on a feller! Here, stan' still till
I get a good look at ye;--growed, growed out of all notion. Why, I
hain't seen ye for good two year. You warn't to home last summer?"
"Only for a week; I was off on a yachting cruise most of the time.
Mother said you were up on the Bay then at your grandniece's--pretty
girl. I remember you had her down here one Christmas."
The old man made no definite answer, but cackled softly to himself:
"Yachting cruise, eh? And you remember a pretty girl, eh?" He nudged him
with a sharpened elbow and whispered mysteriously: "Devil of a feller,
Champ! I've heerd tell, I've heerd tell--chip of the old block, eh?" He
nudged him knowingly again.
"Oh, we're all devils more or less, we men, Uncle Jo; now, honor bright,
aren't we?"
"You've hit it, Champ; more or less--more or less. I heerd you was
a-goin' it strong: primy donny suppers an' ortermobillies--"
"Now, Uncle Jo, you know there's no use believing all you hear, but you
can't plunge a country raised boy into a whirlpool like New York for
four years and not expect him to strike out and swim with the rest.
You've got to, Uncle Jo, or you're nobody. You'd go under."
"Like 'nough you would, Champ; I can't say, fer I hain't ben thar. Guess
twixt you an' me an' the post, I won't hev ter go thar sence Aurory's
sold the land fer the quarries. I hear it talked thet it'll bring half
New York right inter old Flamsted; I dunno, I dunno--you 'member 'bout
the new wine in the old bottles, Champ?--highflyers, emigrants, Dagos
and Polacks--Come ter think, Mis' Champney's got one on 'em now. Hev you
seen her, Champ?"
Champney's hearty laugh rang out with no uncertain sound. "Seen her! I
should say so. She's worth any 'primy donny', as you call them, that
ever drew a good silver dollar out of my pockets. Oh, it's too good to
keep! I must tell you; but you'll keep mum, Uncle Jo?"
"Mum's the word, ef yer say so, Champ." They turned from The Greenbush
and arm in arm paced slowly up the street again. From time to time, for
the next ten minutes, Augustus Buzzby and the Colonel in the tavern
office heard from up street such unwonted sounds of hilarity and so long
continued, that Augustus looked apprehensively at the Colonel who was
becoming visibly uneasy lest he fail to place the joke.
When the two appeared at the office door they bore unmistakable signs of
having enjoyed themselves hugely. Augustus Buzzby gave them his warmest
welcome and seated Uncle Joel in his deepest office chair, providing him
at the same time with a pipe and some cut leaf. The Colonel was in his
glory. With one arm thrown affectionately around young Googe's neck, he
expatiated on the joy of the community as a whole in again welcoming
its own.
"Champney, my dear boy,--you still permit me the freedom of old
friendship?--this town is already looking to you as to its future
deliverer; I may say, as to a Moses who will lead us into the industrial
Canaan which is even now, thanks to my friend, your honored mother,
beckoning to us with its promise of abundant plenty. Never, in my
wildest dreams, my dear boy, have I thought to see such a consummation
of my long-cherished hopes."
It was always one of Champney's prime youthful joys to urge the Colonel,
by judiciously applied excitants, to a greater flowering of eloquence;
so, now, as an inducement he wrung his neighbor's hand and thanked him
warmly for his timely recognition of the new Flamsted about to be.
"Now," he said, "the thing is for all of us to fall into line and forge
ahead, Colonel. If we don't, we'll be left behind; and in these times to
lag is to take to the backwoods."
"Right you are, my dear fellow; deterioration can only set in when the
members of a community, like ours, fail to present a solid front to the
disintegrating forces of a supine civilization which--"
"At it again, Milton Caukins!" It was Mr. Wiggins who, entering the
office, interrupted the flow,--"dammed the torrent", he was wont to say.
He extended a hand to young Googe. "Glad to see you, Champney. I hear
there is a prospect of your remaining with us. Quimber tells us he heard
something to the effect that a position might be offered you by the
syndicate."
"It's the first I've heard of it. How did you hear, Uncle Jo?" He
turned upon the old man with a keen alertness which, taken in connection
with the Colonel's oratory, was both disconcerting and confusing.
"How'd I hear? Le' me see; Champ, what was we just talking 'bout up the
street, eh?"
"Oh, never mind that now," he answered impatiently; "let's hear what you
heard. I'm the interested party just now." But the old man looked only
the more disturbed and was not to be hurried.
"'Bout that little girl--" he began, but was unceremoniously cut short
by Champney.
"Oh, damn the girl, just for once, Uncle Jo. What I want to know is, how
you came to hear anything about me in connection with the quarry
syndicate."
The old man persisted: "I'm a-tryin' to get a-holt of that man's name
that got her up here--"
"Van Ostend," Champney suggested; "is that the name you want?"
"That's him, Van Ostend; that's the one. He an' the rest was hevin' a
meetin' right here in this office 'fore they went to the train, an' I
was settin' outside the winder an' heerd one on 'em say: 'Thet Mis'
Googe's a stunner; what's her son like, does any one know?' An' I heerd
Mr. Van Ostend say: 'She's very unusual; if her son has half her
executive ability'--them's his very words--'we might work him in with
us. It would be good business policy to interest, through him, the land
itself in its own output, so to speak, besides being something of a
courtesy to Mis' Googe. I've met him twice.' Then they fell to
discussin' the lay of The Gore and the water power at The Corners."
"Bully for you, Uncle Jo!" Champney slapped the rounded shoulders with
such appreciative heartiness that the old man's pipe threatened to be
shaken from between his toothless gums. "You have heard the very thing
I've been hoping for. Tave never let on that he knew anything about it."
"He didn't, only what I told him." Old Quimber cackled weakly. "I guess
Tave's got his hands too full at Champo to remember what's told him;
what with the little girl an' Romanzo--no offence, Colonel." He looked
apologetically at the Colonel who waved his hand with an airiness that
disposed at once of the idea of any feeling on his part in regard to
family revelations. "I heerd tell thet the little girl hed turned his
head an' Tave couldn't git nothin' in the way of work out of him."
"In that case I must look into the matter." The Colonel spoke with stern
gravity. "Both Mrs. Caukins and I would deplore any undue influence that
might be brought to bear upon any son of ours at so critical a period of
his career."
Mr. Wiggins laughed; but the laugh was only a disguised sneer. "Perhaps
you'll come to your senses, Colonel, when you've got an immigrant for a
daughter-in-law. Own up, now, you didn't think your 'competing
industrial thousands' might be increased by some half-Irish
grandchildren, now did you?"
Champney listened for the Colonel's answer with a suspended hope that he
might give Elmer Wiggins "one," as he said to himself. He still owed the
latter gentleman a grudge because in the past he had been, as it were,
the fountain head of all in his youthful misery in supplying ample
portions of the never-to-be-forgotten oil of the castor bean and dried
senna leaves. He felt at the present time, moreover, that he was
inimical to his mother and her interests. And Milton Caukins was his
friend and hers, past, present, and future; of this he was sure.
The Colonel took time to light his cigar before replying; then, waving
it towards the ceiling, he said pleasantly:
"My young friend here, Champney, to whom we are looking to restore the
pristine vigor of a fast vanishing line of noble ancestors, is both a
Googe _and_ a Champney. _His_ ancestors counted themselves honored in
making alliances with foreigners--immigrants to our all-welcoming
shores; 'a rose', Mr. Wiggins, 'by any other name'; I need not quote."
His chest swelled; he interrupted himself to puff vigorously at his
cigar before continuing: "My son, sir, is on the spindle side of the
house a _Googe_, and a _Googe_, sir, has the blood of the Champneys and
the Lord knows of how many noble _immigrants_" (the last word was
emphasized by a fleeting glance of withering scorn at the small-headed
Wiggins) "in his veins which, fortunately, cannot be said of you, sir.
If, at any time in the distant future, my son should see fit to ally
himself with a scion of the noble and long-suffering Hibernian race, I
assure you"--his voice was increasing in dimensions--"both Mrs. Caukins
and myself would feel honored, sir, yes, honored in the breach!"
After this wholly unexpected ending to his peroration, he lowered his
feet from their accustomed rest on the counter of the former bar and,
ignoring Mr. Wiggins, remarked to Augustus that it was time for the
mail. Augustus, glad to welcome any diversion of the Colonel's and Mr.
Wiggins's asperities, said the train was on time and the mail would be
there in a few minutes.
"Tave's gone down to meet Mis' Champney," he added turning to Champney.
"She's been in Hallsport for two days. I presume you ain't seen her."
"Not yet. If you can give me my mail first I can drive up to
Champ-au-Haut with her to-night. There's the mail-wagon."
"To be sure, to be sure, Champney; and you might take out Mis'
Champney's; Tave can't leave the hosses."
"All right." He went out on the veranda to see if the Champ-au-Haut
carriage was in sight. A moment later, when it drove up, he was at the
door to open it.
"Here I am, Aunt Meda. Will this hold two and all those bundles?"
"Why, Champney, you here? Come in." She made room for him on the ample
seat; he sprang in, and bent to kiss her before sitting down beside her.
"Now, I call this luck. This is as good as a confessional, small and
dark, and 'fess I've got to, Aunt Meda, or there'll be trouble for
somebody at Campo."
Had the space not been so "small and dark" he might have seen the face
of the woman beside him quiver painfully at the sound of his cheery
young voice and, when he kissed her, flush to her temples.
"What devilry now, Champney?"
"It's a girl, of course, Aunt Meda--your girl," he added laughing.
"So you've found her out, have you, you young rogue? Well, what do you
think of her?"
"I think you'll have a whole vaudeville show at Champ-au-Haut for the
rest of your days--and gratis."
"I've been coming to that conclusion myself," said Mrs. Champney,
smiling in turn at the recollection of some of her experiences during
the past three weeks. "She amuses me, and I've concluded to keep her.
I'm going to have her with me a good part of the time. I've seen enough
since she has been with me to convince me that my people will amount to
nothing so long as she is with them." There was an edge to her words the
sharpness of which was felt by Octavius on the front seat.
"I can't blame them; I couldn't. Why Tave here is threatened already
with a quick decline--sheer worry of mind, isn't it Tave?" Octavius
nodded shortly; "And as for Romanzo there's no telling where he will
end; even Ann and Hannah are infected."
"What do you mean, Champney?" She was laughing now.
"Just wait till I run in and get the mail for us both, and I'll tell
you; it's my confession."
He sprang out, ran up the steps and disappeared for a moment. He
reappeared thrusting some letters into his pocket. Evidently he had not
looked at them. He handed the other letters and papers to Octavius, and
so soon as the carriage was on the way to The Bow he regaled his aunt
with his evening's experience under the bay window.
"Serves you right," was her only comment; but her laugh told him she
enjoyed the episode. He went into the house upon her invitation and sat
with her till nearly eleven, giving an account of himself--at least all
the account he cared to give which was intrinsically different from that
which he gave his mother. Mrs. Champney was what he had once described
to his mother as "a worldly woman with the rind on," and when he was
with her, he involuntarily showed that side of his nature which was best
calculated to make an impression on the "rind." He grew more worldly
himself, and she rejoiced in what she saw.
X
While walking homewards up The Gore, he was wondering why his mother had
shown such strength of feeling when he expressed the wish that his aunt
would help him financially to further his plans. He knew the two women
never had but little intercourse; but with him it was different. He was
a man, the living representative of two families, and who had a better
right than he to some of his Aunt Meda's money? A right of blood,
although on the Champney side distant and collateral. He knew that the
community as a whole, especially now that his mother had become a factor
in its new industrial life, was looking to him, as once they had looked
to his Uncle Louis, to "make good" with his inheritance of race. To this
end his mother had equipped him with his university training. Why
shouldn't his aunt be willing to help him? She liked him, that is, she
liked to talk with him. Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to him that
his room was better than his company; this was especially noticeable in
his young days when he was much with his aunt's husband whom he called
"Uncle Louis." Since his death he had never ceased to visit her at
Champ-au-Haut--too much was at stake, for he was the rightful heir to
her property at least, if not Louis Champney's. She, as well as his
father, had inherited twenty thousand from the estate in The Gore. His
father, so he was told, had squandered his patrimony some two years
before his death. His aunt, on the contrary, had already doubled hers;
and with skilful manipulation forty thousand in these days might be
quadrupled easily. It was wise, whatever might happen, to keep on the
right side of Aunt Meda; and as for giving that promise to his mother he
neither could nor would. His mind was made up on this point when he
reached The Gore. He told himself he dared not. Who could say what unmet
necessity might handicap him at some critical time?--this was his
justification.
In the midst of his wonderings, he suddenly remembered the evening's
mail. He took it out and struck a match to look at the hand-writing.
Among several letters from New York, he recognized one as having Mr. Van
Ostend's address on the reverse of the envelope. He tore it open; struck
another match and, the letter being type-written, hastily read it
through with the aid of a third and fourth pocket-lucifer; read it in a
tumult of expectancy, and finished it with an intense and irritating
sense of disappointment. He vehemently voiced his vexation: "Oh, damn it
all!"
He did not take the trouble to return the letter to its cover, but kept
flirting it in his hand as he strode indignantly up the hill, his arms
swinging like a young windmill's. When he came in sight of the house, he
looked up at his mother's bedroom window. Her light was still burning;
despite his admonition she was waiting for him as usual. He must tell
her before he slept.
"Champney!" she called, when she heard him in the hall.
"Yes, mother; may I come up?"
"Of course." She opened wide her bedroom door and stood there, waiting
for him, the lamp in her hand. Her beauty was enhanced by the
loose-flowing cotton wrapper of pale pink. Her dark heavy hair was
braided for the night and coiled again and again, crown fashion, on her
head.
"Aunt Meda never could hold a candle to mother!" was Champney
Googe's thought on entering. The two sat down for the usual
before-turning-in-chat.
He was so full of his subject that it overflowed at once in abrupt
speech.
"Mother, I've had a letter from Mr. Van Ostend--"
"Oh, Champney!" There was the joy of anticipation in her voice.
"Now, mother, don't--don't expect anything," he pleaded, "for you'll be
no end cut up over the whole thing. Now, listen." He read the letter;
the tone of his voice indicated both disgust and indignation.
"Now, look at that!" He burst forth eruptively when he had finished.
"Here we've been banking on an offer for some position in the syndicate,
at least, something that would help clear the road to Wall Street where
I should be able to strike out for myself without being dependent on any
one--I didn't mince matters that day of the dinner when I told him what
I wanted, either! And here I get an offer to go to Europe for five years
and study banking systems and the Lord knows what in London, Paris, and
Berlin, and act as a sort of super in his branch offices. Great Scott!
Does he think a man is going to waste five years of his life in Europe
at a time when twenty-four hours here at home might make a man! He's a
donkey if he thinks that, and I'd have given him credit for more common
sense--"
"Now, Champney, stop right where you are. Don't boil over so." She
repressed a smile. "Let's talk business and look at matters as they
stand."
"I can't;" he said doggedly; "I can't talk business without a business
basis, and this here,"--he shook the letter much as Rag shook a
slipper,--"it's just slop! What am I going to do over there, I'd like to
know?" he demanded fiercely; whereupon his mother took the letter from
his hand and, without heeding his grumbling, read it carefully twice.
"Now, look here, Champney," she said firmly; "you must use some reason.
I admit this isn't what you wanted or I expected, but it's something;
many would think it everything. Didn't you tell me only yesterday that
in these times a man is fortunate to get his foot on any round of the
ladder--"
"Well, if I did, I didn't mean the rung of a banking house fire-escape
over in Europe." He interrupted her, speaking sulkily. Then of a sudden
he laughed out. "Go on, mother, I'm a chump." His mother smiled and
continued the broken sentence:
"--And that ten thousand fail where one succeeds in getting even a
foothold--to climb, as you want to?"
"But how can I climb? That's the point. Why, I shall be twenty-six in
five years--if I live," he added lugubriously.
His mother laughed outright. The splendid specimen of health, vitality,
and strength before her was in too marked contrast to his words.
"Well, I don't care," he muttered, but joining heartily in her laugh;
"I've heard of fellows like me going into a decline just out of pure
homesickness over there."
"I don't think you will be homesick for Flamsted; I saw no traces of
that malady while you were in New York. On the contrary, I thought you
accepted every opportunity to stay away."
"New York is different," he replied, a little shamefaced in the presence
of the truth he had just heard. "But, mother, you would be alone here."
"I'm used to it, Champney;" she spoke as it were perfunctorily; "and I
am ambitious to see you succeed as you wish to. I want to see you in a
position which will fulfil both your hopes and mine; but neither you nor
I can choose the means, not yet; we haven't the money. For my part, I
think you should accept this offer; it's one in ten thousand. Work your
way up during these five years into Mr. Van Ostend's confidence, and I
am sure, _sure_, that by that time he will have something for you that
will satisfy even your young ambition. I think, moreover, it is a
necessity for you to accept this, Champney."
"You do; why?"
"Well, for a good many reasons. I doubt, in the first place, if these
quarries can get under full running headway for the next seven years,
and even if you had been offered some position of trust in connection
with them, you haven't had an opportunity to prove yourself worthy of it
in a business way. I doubt, too, if the salary would be any larger; it
is certainly a fair one for the work he offers." She consulted the
letter. "Twelve hundred for the first year, and for every succeeding
year an additional five hundred. What more could you expect,
inexperienced as you are? Many men have to give their services gratis
for a while to obtain entrance into such offices and have their names,
even, connected with such a financier. This opportunity is a business
asset. I feel convinced, moreover, that you need just this discipline."
"Why?"
"For some other good reasons. For one, you would be brought into daily
contact with men, experienced men, of various nationalities--"
"You can be that in New York. There isn't a city in the world where you
can gain such a cosmopolitan experience." He was still protesting, still
insisting. His mother made no reply, nor did she notice the
interruption.
"--Learn their ways, their point of view. All this would be of infinite
help if, later on, you should come into a position of great
responsibility in connection with the quarry syndicate.--It does seem so
strange that hundreds will make their livelihood from our barren
pastures!" She spoke almost to herself, and for a moment they were
silent.
"And look at this invitation to cross in his yacht with his family!
Champney, you know perfectly well nothing could be more courteous or
thoughtful; it saves your passage money, and it shows plainly his
interest in you personally."
"I know; that part isn't half bad." He spoke with interest and less
reluctance. "I saw the yacht last spring lying in North River; she's a
perfect floating palace they say. Of course, I appreciate the
invitation; but supposing--only supposing, you know,"--this as a warning
not to take too much for granted,--"I should accept. How could I live on
twelve hundred a year? He spends twice that on a cook. How does he think
a fellow is going to dress and live on that? 'T was a tight squeeze in
college on thirteen hundred."
His mother knew his way so well, that she recognized in this insistent
piling of one obstacle upon another the budding impulse to yield. She
was willing to press the matter further.
"Oh, clothes are cheaper abroad and living is not nearly so dear. You
could be quite the gentleman on your second year's salary, and, of
course, I can help out with the interest on the twenty thousand. You
forget this."
"By George, I did, mother! You're a trump; but I don't want you to think
I want to cut any figure over there; I don't care enough about 'em. But
I want enough to have a ripping good time to compensate for staying away
so long."
"You need not stay five consecutive years away from home. Look here,
Champney; you have read this letter with your eyes but not with your
wits. Your boiling condition was not conducive to clear-headedness."
"Oh, I say mother! Don't rap a fellow too hard when he's down."
"You're not down; you're up,"--she held her ground with him right
sturdily,--"up on the second round already, my son; only you don't know
it. Here it is in black and white that you can come home for six weeks
after two years, and the fifth year is shortened by three months if all
goes well. What more do you want?"
"That's something, anyway."
"Now, I want you to think this over."
"I wish I could run down to New York for a day or two; it would help a
lot. I could look round and possibly find an opening in the direction I
want. I want to do this before deciding."
"Champney, I shall lose patience with you soon. You know you, can't run
down to New York for even a day. Mr. Van Ostend states the fact baldly:
'Your decision I must have by telegraph, at the latest, by Thursday
noon.' That's day after to-morrow. 'We sail on Saturday.' Mr. Van Ostend
is not a man to waste a breath, as you have said."
Champney had no answer ready. He evaded the question. "I'll tell you
to-morrow, mother. It's late; you mustn't sit up any longer." He looked
at his watch. "One o'clock. Good night."
"Good night, Champney. Leave your door into the hall wide open; it's so
close."
She put out her light and sat down by the window. The night was
breathless; not a leaf of the elm trees quivered. She heard the Rothel
picking its way down the rocky channel of The Gore. She gave herself up
to thought, far-reaching both into the past and the future. Soon,
mingled with the murmur of the brook, she heard her son's quiet measured
breathing. She rose, walked noiselessly down the hall and stood at his
bedroom door, to gaze--mother-like, to worship. The moonlight just
touched the pillow. He lay with his head on his arm; the full white
chest was partly bared; the spare length of the muscular body was
outlined beneath the sheet. Her eyes filled with tears. She turned from
the door, and, noiselessly as she had come, went back to her room and
her couch.
* * * * *
How little the pending decision weighed on his mind was proven by his
long untroubled sleep; but directly after a late breakfast he told his
mother he was going out to prospect a little in The Gore; and she,
understanding, questioned him no further. He whistled to Rag and turned
into the side road that led to the first quarry. There was no work going
on there. This small ownership of forty acres was merged in the
syndicate which had so recently acquired the two hundred acres from the
Googe estate. He made his way over the hill and around to the head of
The Gore. He wanted to climb the cliff-like rocks and think it out under
the pines, landmarks of his early boyhood. He picked his way among the
boulders and masses of sheep laurel; he was thinking not of the quarries
but of himself; he did not even inquire of himself how the sale of the
quarries might be about to affect his future.
Champney Googe was self-centred. The motives for all his actions in a
short and uneventful life were the spokes to his particular hub of self;
the tire, that bound them and held them to him, he considered merely the
necessary periphery of constant contact with people and things by which
his own little wheel of fortune might be made to roll the more easily.
He was following some such line of thought while turning Mr. Van
Ostend's plan over and over in his mind, viewing it from all sides. It
was not what he wanted, but it might lead to that. His eyes were on the
rough ground beneath him, his thoughts busy with the pending decision,
when he was taken out of himself by hearing an unexpected voice in his
vicinity.
"Good morning, Mr. Googe. Am I poaching on your preserve?"
Champney recognized the voice at once. It was Father Honore's hailing
him from beneath the pines. He was sitting with his back against one; a
violin lay on its cover beside him; on his lap was a drawing-board with
rule and compass pencil. Champney realized on the instant, and with a
feeling of pleasure, that the priest's presence was no intrusion even at
this juncture.
"No, indeed, for it is no longer my preserve," he answered cheerily, and
added, with a touch of earnestness that was something of a surprise to
himself, "and it wouldn't be if it were still mine."
"Thank you, Mr. Googe; I appreciate that. You must find it hard to see a
stranger like myself preempting your special claim, as I fancy this one
is."
"It used to be when I was a youngster; but, to tell the truth, I haven't
cared for it much of late years. The city life spoils a man for this. I
love that rush and hustle and rubbing-elbows with the world in general,
getting knocked about--and knocking." He laughed merrily, significantly,
and Father Honore, catching his meaning at once, laughed too. "But I'm
not telling you any news; of course, you've had it all."
"Yes, all and a surfeit. I was glad to get away to this hill-quiet."
Champney sat down on the thick rusty-red matting of pine needles and
turned to him, a question in his eyes. Father Honore smiled. "What is
it?" he said.
"May I ask if it was your own choice coming up here to us?"
"Yes, my deliberate choice. I had to work for it, though. The superior
of my order was against my coming. It took
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