And so I have waited, saying nothing to Norah and Max. But I want to be in the midst of things. I miss the sensation of having my fingers at the pulse of the big old world. I"m lonely for the noise and the rush and the hard work; for a glimpse of the busy local room just before press time, when the lights are swimming in a smoky haze, and the big presses downstairs are thundering their warning to hurry, and the men are breezing in from their runs with the grist of news that will be ground finer and finer as it pa.s.ses through the mill of copy-readers" and editors" hands. I want to be there in the thick of the confusion that is, after all, so orderly. I want to be there when the telephone bells are zinging, and the typewriters are snapping, and the messenger boys are shuffling in and out, and the office kids are scuffling in a corner, and the big city editor, collar off, sleeves rolled up from his great arms, hair bristling wildly above his green eye-shade, is swearing gently and smoking cigarette after cigarette, lighting each fresh one at the dying glow of the last. I would give a year of my life to hear him say:
"I don"t mind tellin" you, Beatrice Fairfax, that that was a darn good story you got on the Millhaupt divorce. The other fellows haven"t a word that isn"t re-hash."
All of which is most unwomanly; for is not marriage woman"s highest aim, and home her true sphere? Haven"t I tried both? I ought to know. I merely have been miscast in this life"s drama. My part should have been that of one who makes her way alone. Peter, with his thin, cruel lips, and his shaking hands, and his haggard face and his smoldering eyes, is a shadow forever blotting out the sunny places in my path. I was meant to be an old maid, like the terrible old Kitty O"Hara. Not one of the tatting-and-tea kind, but an impressive, bustling old girl, with a double chin. The sharp-tongued Kitty O"Hara used to say that being an old maid was a great deal like death by drowning--a really delightful sensation when you ceased struggling.
Norah has pleaded with me to be more like other women of my age, and for her sake I"ve tried. She has led me about to bridge parties and tea fights, and I have tried to act as though I were enjoying it all, but I knew that I wasn"t getting on a bit. I have come to the conclusion that one year of newspapering counts for two years of ordinary, existence, and that while I"m twenty-eight in the family Bible I"m fully forty inside. When one day may bring under one"s pen a priest, a pauper, a prost.i.tute, a philanthropist, each with a story to tell, and each requiring to be bullied, or cajoled, or bribed, or threatened, or tricked into telling it; then the end of that day"s work finds one looking out at the world with eyes that are very tired and as old as the world itself.
I"m spoiled for sewing bees and church sociables and afternoon bridges.
A hunger for the city is upon me. The long, lazy summer days have slipped by. There is an autumn tang in the air. The breeze has a touch that is sharp.
Winter in a little northern town! I should go mad. But winter in the city! The streets at dusk on a frosty evening; the shop windows arranged by artist hands for the beauty-loving eyes of women; the rows of lights like jewels strung on an invisible chain; the glitter of bra.s.s and enamel as the endless procession of motors flashes past; the smartly-gowned women; the keen-eyed, nervous men; the shrill note of the crossing policeman"s whistle; every smoke-grimed wall and pillar taking on a mysterious shadowy beauty in the purple dusk, every unsightly blot obscured by the kindly night. But best of all, the fascination of the People I"d Like to Know. They pop up now and then in the shifting crowds, and are gone the next moment, leaving behind them a vague regret. Sometimes I call them the People I"d Like to Know and sometimes I call them the People I Know I"d Like, but it means much the same.
Their faces flash by in the crowd, and are gone, but I recognize them instantly as belonging to my beloved circle of unknown friends.
Once it was a girl opposite me in a car--a girl with a wide, humorous mouth, and tragic eyes, and a hole in her shoe. Once it was a big, homely, red-headed giant of a man with an engineering magazine sticking out of his coat pocket. He was standing at a book counter reading d.i.c.kens like a schoolboy and laughing in all the right places, I know, because I peaked over his shoulder to see. Another time it was a sprightly little, grizzled old woman, staring into a dazzling shop window in which was displayed a wonderful collection of fashionably impossible hats and gowns. She was dressed all in rusty black, was the little old lady, and she had a quaint cast in her left eye that gave her the oddest, most sporting look. The cast was working overtime as she gazed at the gowns, and the ridiculous old sprigs on her rusty black bonnet trembled with her silent mirth. She looked like one of those clever, epigrammatic, dowdy old d.u.c.h.esses that one reads about in English novels. I"m sure she had cardamon seeds in her shabby bag, and a carriage with a crest on it waiting for her just around the corner. I ached to slip my hand through her arm and ask her what she thought of it all. I know that her reply would have been exquisitely witty and audacious, and I did so long to hear her say it.
No doubt some good angel tugs at my common sense, restraining me from doing these things that I am tempted to do. Of course it would be madness for a woman to address unknown red-headed men with the look of an engineer about them and a book of d.i.c.kens in their hands; or perky old women with nutcracker faces; or girls with wide humorous mouths. Oh, it couldn"t be done, I suppose. They would clap me in a padded cell in no time if I were to say:
"Mister Red-headed Man, I"m so glad your heart is young enough for d.i.c.kens. I love him too--enough to read him standing at a book counter in a busy shop. And do you know, I like the squareness of your jaw, and the way your eyes crinkle up when you laugh; and as for your being an engineer--why one of the very first men I ever loved was the engineer in "Soldiers of Fortune.""
I wonder what the girl in the car would have said if I had crossed over to her, and put my hand on her arm and spoken, thus:
"Girl with the wide, humorous mouth, and the tragic eyes, and the hole in your shoe, I think you must be an awfully good sort. I"ll wager you paint, or write, or act, or do something clever like that for a living.
But from that hole in your shoe which you have inked so carefully, although it persists in showing white at the seams, I fancy you are stumbling over a rather stony bit of Life"s road just now. And from the look in your eyes, girl, I"m afraid the stones have cut and bruised rather cruelly. But when I look at your smiling, humorous mouth I know that you are trying to laugh at the hurts. I think that this morning, when you inked your shoe for the dozenth time, you hesitated between tears and laughter, and the laugh won, thank G.o.d! Please keep right on laughing, and don"t you dare stop for a minute! Because pretty soon you"ll come to a smooth easy place, and then won"t you be glad that you didn"t give up to lie down by the roadside, weary of your hurts?"
Oh, it would never do. Never. And yet no charm possessed by the people I know and like can compare with the fascination of those People I"d Like to Know, and Know I Would Like.
Here at home with Norah there are no faces in the crowds. There are no crowds. When you turn the corner at Main street you are quite sure that you will see the same people in the same places. You know that Mamie Hayes will be flapping her duster just outside the door of the jewelry store where she clerks. She gazes up and down Main street as she flaps the cloth, her bright eyes keeping a sharp watch for stray traveling men that may chance to be pa.s.sing. You know that there will be the same lounging group of white-faced, vacant-eyed youths outside the pool-room.
Dr. Briggs"s patient runabout will be standing at his office doorway.
Outside his butcher shop a.s.semblyman Schenck will be holding forth on the subject of county politics to a group of red-faced, badly dressed, prosperous looking farmers and townsmen, and as he talks the circle of brown tobacco juice which surrounds the group closes in upon them, nearer and nearer. And there, in a roomy chair in a corner of the public library reference room, facing the big front window, you will see Old Man Randall. His white hair forms a halo above his pitiful drink-marred face. He was to have been a great lawyer, was Old Man Randall. But on the road to fame he met Drink, and she grasped his arm, and led him down by-ways, and into crooked lanes, and finally into ditches, and he never arrived at his goal. There in that library window nook it is cool in summer, and warm in winter. So he sits and dreams, holding an open volume, unread, on his knees. Some times he writes, hunched up in his corner, feverishly scribbling at ridiculous plays, short stories, and novels which later he will insist on reading to the t.i.ttering schoolboys and girls who come into the library to do their courting and reference work. Presently, when it grows dusk, Old Man Randall will put away his book, throw his coat over his shoulders, sleeves dangling, flowing white locks sweeping the frayed velvet collar. He will march out with his soldierly tread, humming a bit of a tune, down the street and into Vandermeister"s saloon, where he will beg a drink and a lunch, and some man will give it to him for the sake of what Old Man Randall might have been.
All these things you know. And knowing them, what is left for the imagination? How can one dream dreams about people when one knows how much they pay their hired girl, and what they have for dinner on Wednesdays?
CHAPTER V. THE ABSURD BECOMES SERIOUS
I can understand the emotions of a broken-down war horse that is. .h.i.tched to a vegetable wagon. I am going to Milwaukee to work! It is a thing to make the G.o.ds hold their sides and roll down from their mountain peaks with laughter. After New York--Milwaukee!
Of course Von Gerhard is to blame. But I think even he sees the humor of it. It happened in this way, on a day when I was indulging in a particularly greenery-yallery fit of gloom. Norah rushed into my room.
I think I was mooning over some old papers, or letters, or ribbons, or some such truck in the charming, knife-turning way that women have when they are blue.
"Out wid yez!" cried Norah. "On with your hat and coat! I"ve just had a wire from Ernst von Gerhard. He"s coming, and you look like an under-done dill pickle. You aren"t half as blooming as when he was here in August, and this is October. Get out and walk until your cheeks are so red that Von Gerhard will refuse to believe that this fiery-faced puffing, bouncing creature is the green and limp thing that huddled in a chair a few months ago. Out ye go!"
And out I went. Hatless, I strode countrywards, leaving paved streets and concrete walks far behind. There were drifts of fallen leaves all about, and I scuffled through them drearily, trying to feel gloomy, and old, and useless, and failing because of the tang in the air, and the red-and-gold wonder of the frost-kissed leaves, and the regular pump-pump of good red blood that was coursing through my body as per Norah"s request.
In a field at the edge of the town, just where city and country begin to have a bowing acquaintance, the college boys were at football practice.
Their scarlet sweaters made gay patches of color against the dull gray-brown of the autumn gra.s.s.
"Seven-eighteen-two-four!" called a voice. There followed a scuffle, a creaking of leather on leather, a thud. I watched them, a bit enviously, walking backwards until a twist in the road hid them from view. That same twist transformed my path into a real country road--a brown, dusty, monotonous Michigan country road that went severely about its business, never once stopping to flirt with the blushing autumn woodland at its left, or to dally with the dimpling ravine at its right.
"Now if that were an English country road," thought I, "a sociably inclined, happy-go-lucky, out-for-pleasure English country road, one might expect something of it. On an English country road this would be the psychological moment for the appearance of a blond G.o.d, in gray tweed. What a delightful time of it Richard Le Gallienne"s hero had on his quest! He could not stroll down the most innocent looking lane, he might not loiter along the most out-of-the-way path, he never ambled over the barest piece of country road, that he did not come face to face with some witty and lovely woman creature, also in search of things unconventional, and able to quote charming lines from Chaucer to him."
Ah, but that was England, and this is America. I realize it sadly as I step out of the road to allow a yellow milk wagon to rattle past. The red letters on the yellow milk cart inform the reader that it is the property of August Schimmelpfennig, of Hickory Grove. The Schimmelpfennig eye may be seen staring down upon me from the bit of gla.s.s in the rear as the cart rattles ahead, doubtless being suspicious of hatless young women wandering along country roads at dusk, alone.
There was that in the staring eye to which I took exception. It wore an expression which made me feel sure that the mouth below it was all a-grin, if I could but have seen it. It was bad enough to be stared at by the fishy Schimmelpfennig eye, but to be grinned at by the Schimmelpfennig mouth!--I resented it. In order to show my resentment I turned my back on the Schimmelpfennig cart and pretended to look up the road which I had just traveled.
I pretended to look up the road, and then I did look in earnest.
No wonder the Schimmelpfennig eye and mouth had worn the leering expression. The blond G.o.d in gray tweed was swinging along toward me! I knew that he was blond because he wore no hat and the last rays of the October sun were making a little halo effect about his head. I knew that his-gray clothes were tweed because every well regulated hero on a country road wears tweed. It"s almost a religion with them. He was not near enough to make a glance at his features possible. I turned around and continued my walk. The yellow cart, with its impudent Schimmelpfennig leer, was disappearing in a cloud of dust. Shades of the "d.u.c.h.ess" and Bertha M. Clay! How does one greet a blond G.o.d in gray tweed on a country road, when one has him!
The blond G.o.d solved the problem for me.
"Hi!" he called. I did not turn. There was a moment"s silence. Then there came a shrill, insistent whistle, of the kind that is made by placing four fingers between the teeth. It is a favorite with the gallery G.o.ds. I would not have believed that gray tweed G.o.ds stooped to it.
"Hi!" called the voice again, very near now. "Lieber Gott! Never have I seen so proud a young woman!"
I whirled about to face Von Gerhard; a strangely boyish and unprofessional looking Von Gerhard.
"Young man," I said severely, "have you been a-follerin" of me?"
"For miles," groaned he, as we shook hands. "You walk like a grenadier.
I am sent by the charming Norah to tell you that you are to come home to mix the salad dressing, for there is company for supper. I am the company."
I was still a bit dazed. "But how did you know which road to take? And when--"
"Wunderbar, nicht wahr?" laughed Von Gerhard. "But really quite simple.
I come in on an earlier train than I had expected, chat a moment with sister Norah, inquire after the health of my patient, and am told that she is running away from a horde of blue devils!--quote your charming sister--that have swarmed about her all day. What direction did her flight take? I ask. Sister Norah shrugs her shoulders and presumes that it is the road which shows the reddest and yellowest autumn colors. That road will be your road. So!"
"Pooh! How simple! That is the second disappointment you have given me to-day."
"But how is that possible? The first has not had time to happen."
"The first was yourself," I replied, rudely.
"I had been longing for an adventure. And when I saw you "way up the road, such an unusual figure for our Michigan country roads, I forgot that I was a disappointed old gra.s.s widder with a history, and I grew young again, and my heart jumped up into my throat, and I sez to mesilf, sez I: "Enter the hero!" And it was only you."
Von Gerhard stared a moment, a curious look on his face. Then he laughed one of those rare laughs of his, and I joined him because I was strangely young, light, and happy to be alive.
"You walk and enjoy walking, yes?" asked Von Gerhard, scanning my face.
"Your cheeks they are like--well, as unlike the cheeks of the German girls as Diana"s are unlike a dairy maid"s. And the nerfs? They no longer jump, eh?"
"Oh, they jump, but not with weariness. They jump to get into action again. From a life of too much excitement I have gone to the other extreme. I shall be dead of ennui in another six months."
"Ennui?" mused he, "and you are--how is it?--twenty-eight years, yes?
H"m!"
There was a world of exasperation in the last exclamation.
"I am a thousand years old," it made me exclaim, "a million!"