For the first day or two I was noticed with indifference on the part of some, resentment on the part of others, but on the third day, as I took my place in the pushing, laughing, growling crowd that made its way up several flights of stairs to the big room where shabby clothes are changed for yet shabbier working ones, my good-mornings were greeted with less grudging acknowledgments, and now we are quite friendly, these "Hands" and I, and through their eyes I am seeing myself and others like me--seeing much and many things from an angle never used before.
They nodded to me less hesitatingly as the days went by, and at the noon hour, when I have my lunch with first one group and then another, I find them, on the whole, frank and outspoken, find they have as decided opinions concerning what they term people like that--which term is usually accompanied by a gesture in the direction where I once lived--as said people have concerning them, to whom, as a rule, they also refer in much the same manner and with the same words. With each group on either side of its separating gulf the conviction is firm that little is to be hoped for or expected from the other, and common qualities are forgotten in the realization of distinctive differences.
"What"s the most you ever made a week?" The girl who asked the question moved up for me to sit on the bench beside her, and, unwrapping a newspaper parcel, took from it a large cuc.u.mber pickle, a piece of cheese, a couple of biscuits, and half of a cocoanut pie, and laid them on a table in front of her. "Help yourself." She pushed the paper serving as tray and cloth toward me. "I ain"t had much appet.i.te lately. h.e.l.lo, Mamie! Come over here and sit on our bench. What you got good for lunch? My stomach"s turned back on pie. I"d give ten cents for a cup of coffee."
"Everywhere else but this old hothouse sells it for two cents a cup without, and three cents with." The girl called Mamie nodded to me and took her seat on the bench. "I don"t like milk nohow, and I"d give the money glad for something hot in the middle of the day.
Don"t nothing do your insides as much good as something piping hot.
Say--I saw Barker last night." Her voice lowered but little. "He and I are going to see "Some Girl" at the Bijou next week. It"s all make-up--his being sweet on Ceeley Bayne! That knock-kneed, slew-footed, pop-eyed Gracie Jones got that off. I"m going to get one them lace-and-chiffon waists at Plum"s for $2.98 if don"t n.o.body get sick and need medicine between now and Wednesday. Seems like somebody"s always sick at our house."
The question asked me had been forgotten, and, glad to escape the acknowledgment that I had never earned a dollar in my life, I got up on the plea that I must see a girl at the other end of the room, and walked across it. As I went I scanned each face I saw. Consciously or subconsciously I had been hoping for days that I would see a face which ever haunts me, a face I wanted to forget and could not forget.
Everywhere I go, in factories or mills or shops or homes; in the streets, and at my windows, I am always wondering if I shall see her.
She was very unhappy. Who is she? Why was Selwyn with her? It is my last thought at night, my first in the morning.
Yesterday I was at the box-factory where Jimmy Gibbons works. It is his last week there. On the fifteenth he starts again to school.
Knowing the president of the company well, I asked that Jimmy should be my guide through the various departments, and permission was given. I wish Jimmy were mine.
"Miss High-Spy "ain"t got any love for on-lookers, and we"d better not stay in here long." Jimmy"s voice was cautious, but his eyes merry, and, glancing in the direction of the sour and snappy person watching each movement of each worker, I agreed with him that it was not well to linger. The room was big and bare, its benches filled with white-faced workers, and the autocrat who presided over it seemed unconscious of its stifling, steamy heat and sickening smells of glue and paste. Going out into the hall, Jimmy and I went to a window, opened it, and gave our lungs a bath.
"What does she do it for? Is she crazy?"
"Not asylum-crazy--mean-crazy." Jimmy"s head nodded first negatively, then with affirmation. "She"s come up from the beginning place, and used to be a fire-eater before she got to be boss of our bunch, and the men say people like that, people who ain"t used to driving, drive harder than any other kind when they get the chance.
She"s a bully to the under ones, but the uppers--" Jimmy"s eyes were lifted to mine and his lips made a whistling sound. "If Mr.
Pritchard kicked her in the face, she"d lick the soles of his shoes when he was doing it, if she could. She wants to be boss of the room up-stairs and Mr. Pritchard can put her where he pleases. If he don"t do it, he"d better, the women say, "count of her knowing more about him than he knows she knows. I don"t know what "tis, but I hate her. All of us hate her."
"Why doesn"t some one speak to Mr. Johns? Certainly he can"t know--"
"Yes "m, he does. Joe d.i.c.kson and Bob Beazley told him once, and the next week they got a hand-out. High-Spy made Mr. Pritchard do it.
Mr. Johns leaves those kinds of things to him. Swell folks like him "ain"t got time to look after folks like us. He"s awful rich, ain"t he?"
"He isn"t poor. When are you going to have your lunch?" I looked at my watch. "Can"t you go out and have it with me? I"ll ask Mr.
Johns. Come on, quick. I"ll see the other rooms when I come back."
Jimmy shook his head. "I can"t go. I ain"t being docked "count of being with you, because Mr. Pritchard sent me, but he wouldn"t let me come back if I went out. I been sent down to him once to-day, and please "m don"t ask him, please "m don"t!"
In Jimmy"s voice was something of terror, and his hands slipped in and out of his trousers" pockets with nervous, frightened movements.
His usually merry little mouth with its pale lips quivered oddly, and in his eyes, as he turned away, were tears I could not understand.
I put my hand on his shoulder, lifted his face to mine. "What is it, Jimmy? What has happened that you don"t want me to ask Mr. Johns to tell Mr. Pritchard you can go with me? Why are you afraid?"
"I ain"t afraid. Yes "m, I am. I--I"ve been docked once to-day.
Please "m don"t ask Mr. Pritchard nothing! High-Spy makes him punish me whenever--"
"Punish you!" I straightened indignantly. "Why does he punish you?
What right--"
"I don"t mean licking. But he keeps me out of the room when I"m sent out, and docks me at the end of the week. Mother needs every cent.
She"s back in the rent. I was sent out to-day."
"But why? What were you doing?"
"Nothing--leastways I didn"t mean to. There wasn"t none of us sick this morning, and Billy c.o.o.ns was acting down behind High-Spy"s back, and I tried not to laugh. She don"t let us laugh. But she said I did. I didn"t laugh--" Jimmy"s voice was protesting. "I just smiled and it--it busted."
"Is that why she made you go out of the room?" I turned away and looked out of the window lest the accident to Jimmy"s smile be mine.
"Is that why she sent you out?"
He nodded. "Mr. Pritchard kept me out an hour. Sometimes he lets me make it up at lunch. I was going to ask him to let me to-day, but--"
"I"m preventing. I"m glad of it! When are you going to eat your lunch?"
"I"ve done et it--" Jimmy"s tongue moistened his lips. "I et it on my way here this morning. I got paid off last night and I took out five cents and gave the rest to mother, and this morning I bought a pie with it and et up every bite. It might have been hooked when I was out the room, so I"m glad I didn"t save none. I got it at Heck"s. He keeps the best pies in town for five cents. They"re real fat."
I was paying little attention to Jimmy. At the open window I could see a young girl across the street with a baby in her arms. She had brought it from a small frame house with high steps leading to a sagging porch, in the door of which a large and kindly-faced woman was standing, arms folded and eyes watching the movements of the girl. As the latter lifted her head, on which was no hat, I leaned forward, my heart in my throat. The odd, eager young face, the boyish arrangement of the hair above it, the quick, bird-like movements of the slender body, had burned for days and nights in my brain, and I recognized her at once.
"Jimmy," I said, "come here." I drew him to the window with nervous haste, my fingers twitching, my breath unsteady. "Who is that girl with the baby? There she is, turning the corner. Look quick! Do you know her?"
Jimmy shook his head. "Never saw her. Can"t see her now." He leaned far out the window, but the girl had disappeared, and the woman in the doorway had gone in and closed the door.
I must have said something, made some sort of sound, for Jimmy, turning from the window, looked at me uneasily, in his eyes distress and understanding.
"What"s the matter, Miss Heath? You"d better sit down. Did the heat make you sick? You"re--you"re whiter than that wall."
CHAPTER XI
A sickness which Jimmy could not understand was indeed upon me, and unsteadily I leaned against the window-frame, looking at, but not seeing, him, and not until he spoke again did I remember I was not alone.
"Is it very bad? You look as if it hurts so. Wait a minute--I"ll get you some water."
I caught him as he started to run down the hall, and drew him back.
"I don"t want any water. I am not sick." My head went up. "The smell of paste would make me ill if I stayed, however, and I"m not going to stay to-day. I"ll come some other time. Run on and join the other boys. Tell your mother"--I seemed groping for words--"tell your mother I will see her before you start to school. Run on, Jimmy, and thank Mr. Pritchard for lending you to me. And laugh as much as you want to, Jimmy. Laugh all you can before--you can"t!"
Over the banister the child was leaning anxiously, watching me as I stumbled down the steps. At their foot I turned and waved my hand and laughed, an odd, faint, far-away laugh that seemed to come from some one else; and then I went into the street and found myself crossing it, impelled by surging impulse to know--
To know what? At the foot of the rickety stairs leading to the high porch from which I had seen the girl come I stopped. All I had been repressing, fighting, resisting for days past, had in a moment yielded to horror, and hurt that seemed past healing, and I was surrendering to what I should know was impossible. I must be mad!
With a shudder that was half a sob I turned away and walked down the street and into the one which would lead to Scarborough Square. As I walked my shoulders straightened. What was the matter with me? Was I becoming that which I loathed--a suspicious, spying person? I was insulting Selwyn. He knew I hated mystery, however, knew the right of explanation was mine, knew that I expected of any man who was my friend that his life should be as open as my life. If I had hurt him, angered him by my question when I last saw him, he had hurt, had angered me far more. For now I was angry. Did he imagine I was the sort of woman who accepted reticence with resignation? I was not.
At the corner Mr. Fogg was standing in the door of his little shop, holding a blue bottle up to the light and examining it with critical care. He had on his usual clothes of many colors, shabby from much wearing, but in his round, clean-shaven face, pink with health and inward cheer, was smiling serenity, and in his eyes a twinkle that yielded not to time or circ.u.mstance. His second-hand bookshelf, his canary-birds and white rabbits, his fox-terriers and goldfish are friends that never fail, and in them he has found content. His eagerness to chat occasionally with some one who cares, as he cares, for his beloved books, is not at times to be resisted, but I was in no mood to talk to-day. I wondered if I could hurry by.
"Good morning!" The blue bottle, half filled with water, in which a tiny bulb was floating, was waved toward me, and a s.h.a.ggy white head nodded at me. "It"s a fine day, ain"t it?--a fine day for snow.
Good and gray. I think we"ll have some flakes before night. Kinder feel like a boy again when it"s snowing. I don"t know yet which season I like best. Every one has got its glory. What you been up to to-day? Seeing some more things?"
I nodded. "I wish I could come in, but I can"t." I shivered, though I was not cold. "I am going up-town." A minute before I had no intention of going up-town, but to go indoors was suddenly impossible. Whatever was possessing me must be fought off alone. "I will bring you my copy of Men and Nations to-morrow. Keep it as long as you wish."
"Thank you, ma"am. Thank you hearty. I"ll take good care of it. I suppose you haven"t heard of the widow Robb? Her name"s Patty, you know, and she"s got a beau. He"s named Cake. Luck plays tricks with love, don"t it? Don"t get caught in a snow-storm. You ain"t"--his voice was anxious--"you ain"t thinking of leaving us, are you? The girls down here are needing of you, needing sore. All of us are needing of you."