"But suppose for argument that it is. Don"t they control it for good?"
"For good! And every night you see the bread line for a block down the Bowery?"
Applebaum laid down his pipe and spoke with emphasis.
"Oh, I"ve no sympathy with that. Those are just b.u.ms, nothing else. They wouldn"t do a day"s job if you gave it to them. They don"t mean to work.
All they want is a bite and a drink and a dirty hole to sleep in until they can get the drink again. They ought to be forced to work. The trouble is the men don"t have to work long enough. With their eight-hour day you see them in the saloon before they go to work getting a drink.
And they"re after it again when the day"s work is over or some other foolishness."
"You fool!" Kathleen said, her eyes blazing, and she lifted her hand as if to strike him.
He seized it in his own and carried it to his lips.
"I"m wise enough to love you, Kathleen."
Hertha found this an excellent time to slip from her seat and into the kitchen. When she came back the two were seated as before, but talking of indifferent things, and the light had gone out of Kathleen"s face.
CHAPTER XVII
It was Sat.u.r.day evening and early December. Kathleen was away for the night on a case, and Hertha, after a dinner alone, decided to go to the library to secure a book to read on Sunday. She was quite accustomed by this time to going out in the evening by herself; yet it always seemed a little an adventure, the streets were so gaily lighted and the people so many. She put a raincoat over her suit for the sky was lowering and there was a chilliness in the air, a harsh feeling that made her shiver and turn gladly, her short walk over, into the warm, brightly lighted reading-room.
Accustomed all her life to having few books about her, with no opportunity for individual choice, she made mistakes at first amid the plethora of volumes that the city offered. It had been disappointing, for instance, to reach home in the evening to learn that _The Four Georges_ was not about four little boys or to find out that _Sesame and Lilie_ had nothing to do with flowers. But part of the stack was open, and she soon found what she desired and drenched herself in the world of romance. Under the guidance of the librarian she read two novels of d.i.c.kens, and carried home and returned with suspicious swiftness one each of Scott and Thackeray; under her own guidance she became intimate with the heroines of those best sellers that a conscientious library board permitted upon the open shelves. Rather to her relief the librarian this evening was very busy and she went at once to the open stack.
It was with a guilty feeling that she habitually walked past the rows of history and travel. Ellen would have stopped here, she knew, and have carried home volumes telling of Europe and China and India and other lands unknown to Hertha even by name. Tom in her place would have asked for Livingstone"s _Travels in Africa_, a book he had always wanted to own. She hoped they would surely have it in the school where he was reading or studying that night. Well, Ellen was industrious, and Tom liked to stop and think; but she, Hertha, never had cared for heavy reading--except poetry, and poetry belonged under the pines or by the river, not in noisy New York. So excusing herself, she reached the jaunty, attractively bound fiction and joined the large group of borrowers who were intent on securing a thrilling story for the morrow.
"Excuse me, but do you know anything about these books?"
She turned to see a young man at her elbow. He was tall, not in the least good-looking, with a long, thin face, a small mouth and a sharp nose. His eyes, however, were attractive--deep blue with long lashes like a child"s. He was dressed in cheap, conspicuously patterned clothes, and his gay necktie bore a large scarfpin. She hesitated to answer, and yet there was a tone of entreaty in his voice that gave her confidence. She felt sure that he was from the country and was floundering about amid this mult.i.tude of volumes as she had floundered a few weeks ago. He should, of course, consult the official-looking librarian seated at her desk whose business it was to instruct newcomers, but the newcomer is the one who instinctively avoids the official cla.s.s. Glancing down she answered shyly, "Very little."
They were between two stacks, and looking along the line of volumes, Hertha saw a familiar t.i.tle and took down _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_.
"Have you read this?" she asked.
"No, ma"am," was the answer.
She smiled at the "ma"am" for it reminded her of home. "I feel like you"ll enjoy it," she ventured.
"There," the young man cried, so loudly that a number of borrowers turned to look at them both. "I knew the minute I set eyes on you that you were from the South!"
Hertha was very much annoyed. This forward youth was making her conspicuous. Leaving him she went quickly to the reading-room, and seating herself at a table took up a magazine. In a few minutes, however, she saw him at her side.
"I didn"t mean to make such a noise," he said in a peculiarly penetrating whisper, "but what the d.i.c.kens do you do after you find your book?"
It is always a pleasure to be placed in the superior position of an imparter of knowledge, and Hertha, unbending from her dignity, found herself whispering instructions.
Once put on the right path, the youth showed no further shyness, and was soon talking familiarly with the librarian who equipped him with a card.
"It"s all hunky," he explained, coming back to Hertha. "She gave me the book and as long as you think it"s good I"m going to read it through.
I"m not much on reading," he added as though apologizing for his new taste. "Never entered a library before, but there ain"t such a lot to do of a Sunday."
Hertha nodded but did not look up, and after some minutes of aimless wandering the young man went out.
She found herself thinking of him after he had gone. His type was not unfamiliar. The tall, lank figure, the yellowish skin, looking as though indigestion lurked around the corner, the hard, narrow mouth--white men like this had been customary figures in her Southern life. They were the sort who monopolized four places in the train, lolling back on one seat and putting their feet up on another. More than once, on a street car, she and Ellen had been obliged to stand when such a man, quite oblivious of whether or not he usurped the jim-crow section, had taken his lazy comfort. But a person of this type would be courteous to a white girl, would be glad to sacrifice his pleasure to do her a kindness. She had recognized at once that he was from the South, and her speech had proclaimed to him her birthplace. But what if he had seen her when she was colored? She found the blood rush to her face at the thought. Then, remembering Mammy"s injunction, she grew calm again. It was for her to-day, in New York, to live only in the white world.
Going to the shelves she selected a book to take home, and then as the librarian was making ready to close, pushed at the outside door, which was a little stiff in opening, and walked into the street.
Into the street? Oh, no, into Heaven!
Everywhere about her white crystals were falling through the air--on her hat, on her coat, on her upturned face. As she looked overhead they came in mult.i.tudes, like a soft curtain. They made a carpet at her feet, and as far as she could see down the street they dropped one after another, millions upon millions, shimmering golden in the light of the lamp.
It was a miracle of beauty. Here in this ugly city, where she had missed the clean sand and the growing flowers, from the very heavens had come a sacred robe, for were not the angels clothed in white? And the robe was covering the world. The gray stone stoops were shining, and on each bit of cornice or projecting woodwork was a line of light; and she was moving through it; feeling the soft flakes encircle her, stepping as lightly as she could that she might not crush the lovely things that had come straight from G.o.d.
That night, as she flung open her window, for the first time she heard no sound. The jolt and jar of the street car, the rumble of the elevated, fell upon deaf ears. All her mind was in her eyes that watched, with ever-growing reverence, the falling flakes of white. And as she slipped into unconsciousness her last thought was of the heavenly city that would be building throughout the night.
"Be sure to put on your rubbers, Hertha," said Kathleen the next morning.
"Why," asked Hertha, "is the snow wet?"
"Is the snow wet? Is the sun hot? It"s a mercy you didn"t take your death of cold last night, wandering around with your face turned up to the sky, and the snow falling about you! Put on your rubbers, darling, just as though it were rain, for it may turn to that before the morning"s over."
Hertha did as she was bid and returned for general inspection. Freezing weather had begun to exhaust her extra supply of warmth, and she had purchased a heavy coat of soft brown material trimmed with brown fur and with a fur m.u.f.f to match. A little brown hat with a red quill had been another recent purchase. She had dipped into her bank account to get these things and had feared that Kathleen might think it extravagant--she was sure that Ellen would have--but Kathleen had silenced any misgivings.
"Spend your money when you have the chance," she advised, as Hertha began to speak apologetically of her expenditures. "The poorhouse at the end is a pleasanter life than sc.r.a.ping and denying yourself all along the road. And you can"t be a brown fairy with a quiver of a smile on your lips and a glint of sorrow in your eyes for many years more. The sorrow or joy will get the better of you, and that"s the end of youth."
"You haven"t lost your youth, then."
"Oh, be off with you! You"re going to church?"
"Yes, but I"m leaving early to see the snow."
"If I hadn"t been up all night I"d go with you too, but it"s a morning when bed can"t be resisted. So good-by, little brown angel, and come back for a homely dinner of corn beef."
Few people had pa.s.sed since the snow had ceased falling and the sidewalks were still beautiful, one side dazzling white, the other luminous purple in the shadow of the walls. Anxious not to miss any of the spectacle before the city made for its destruction--some boys were already shoveling the snow into the street--Hertha hastened to the open square on one side of which stood her church. Tall English elms with n.o.bly branching limbs stood out against the clear blue sky; and the bushes, bared of their leaves, bore on each twig a ma.s.s of crystal flowers. She moved in and out among the paths, crunching the snow beneath her feet, now circling the dismantled fountain, now walking through the broad gateway only to return again. Looking at the church clock she found she had still half an hour left to enter into the treasures of the snow.
As she stood in the sunlight by the park bench she became conscious that some one was watching her. This, she had learned, was one of the distressing features of city life; only at a shop window could one stop to gaze without being conspicuous. Provoked at the sense of interruption she started to walk away.
"I beg your pardon."
Turning she saw the young man of the evening before. He looked almost attractive in the daylight in his soft hat and dark overcoat, the winter cold bringing a little color to his face. His deep blue eyes were clear and friendly, and she felt sure from his manner that he meant no impertinence.
"I beg your pardon," he said again, "but I noticed you here in the early morning looking at things and I thought they might be as strange to you as to me."
"I have never seen the snow before," said Hertha.
"There, I was on to it, all right. Do you know what it"s like," he went on, "all this snow? It"s like a field of cotton with the stuff lying around in heaps, but with some bolls still sticking to the plant. Look at it there on that bush. The Bible says "white as wool" but I say, "white as cotton.""