CHAPTER II
Moses was having a busy day. The front hall was packed full with a heterogeneous mass of miscellaneous furniture, the sidewalk littered with straw packing, kitchen utensils, empty bird-cages, umbrella-stands, crates of china, and rolls of carpet. Mr. Ebner Ford, late of Clapham Four Corners, State of Connecticut; Mrs. Ebner Ford, formerly Preston, late of Roy, State of North Carolina, and her daughter, Miss Sue Preston, were moving in.
Moses was in his shirt-sleeves, a green baize apron tied about his waist, a close-fitting skull-cap crowning his gray wool. There were spots on his cranium which the friction of life had worn to a polish, and, the January air being keen and searching, the old darky braved no unnecessary risks.
The force was properly apportioned. Mrs. Ford was in charge of the stowage, moving back, and hanging-up department. Mr. Ford had full charge of the sidewalk, the big furniture van and the van’s porters. Moses was at everybody’s beck and call, lifting one moment one end of a sofa, the other steadying a bureau on its perilous voyage from the curb to the back bedroom, while Miss Preston, with an energy born of young and perfect health, tripped up and down the few steps, pointing out to the working force this orthat particular chair, table, or clock most needed. All this that the already tired mother might get the room to rights with the least possible delay.
It was not the first time this young woman had performed this service. The later years of her life had been spent in various intermittent moves in and out of various houses since the gentleman from Connecticut had married her mother.
Her first experience had taken place some months after the unexpected wedding, when her stepfather—he was at that time a life-insurance agent—had moved his own bag and baggage into the family homestead. Shortly after he had elaborated a plan by which the entire family would be infinitely better off if a red flag should be hoisted out of the second-story window, and the old place knocked down to the highest bidder. He would then invest the proceeds in the purchase of some town lots in one of the larger cities up the State. They would then have a home of their own, more in keeping with the aspirations of his wife, who really had married him to escape her present poverty, and the welfare of his stepdaughter, whose sole ambition was to perfect herself in music, she being the possessor of a wonderful soprano voice.
In this new venture six houses were to be built; one they would live in, rent and cost free, the income from the other five supporting them all.
Then had come a hasty packing up and rather sudden departure for Norfolk, the houses being partly built, and none of them rented or sold, Mr. Ford havingabandoned life insurance and given his attention to a new dredging machine for use in the Dismal Swamp Canal. And then a third exodus to a small village near New York, where the promoter of a brilliant and entirely new adaptation of laundry machinery, never before imagined, and the formation of which was known among the favored few as The United Family Laundry Association, Limited, engrossed the distinguished engineer Mr. Ebner Ford’s sole attention.
It was from this near-by village the fourth move had been made, the van and supplementary cart having absorbed the contents of a small house, situated on the outskirts of the town, that deluded individual having exchanged a year’s rent for a delicately engraved sheet of paper, certifying that he was the proud possessor of ten shares of the company’s preferred.
That these several shiftings, migrations, and re-handlings had had their effect on the family belongings could be seen by even the most cursory examination of the several articles littering the sidewalk. Even the old family sideboard—and every Southern family has an old-fashioned sideboard—lacked a brass door-handle or escutcheon here and there, and similar defects could be found in Mrs. Ford’s high-poster, once the property of her dead mother, two of the carved feet being gone by reason of a collision in an extra-hazardous journey.
It was because of the knowledge gained in these experiences, as well as a fervent desire to get the whole matter over as quickly as possible, that the young girlhad taken charge of the “picking-out” department, so that each article might reach her mother in regular order, and in discrete corners as much as what was left of the old mahogany was saved.
She was again on the sidewalk, dragging out a rocker, ordering a crate here, and a bundle of fire-tongs there, when the gentleman from Connecticut must have got in her way, for she broke in in an authoritative tone of voice, much to Moses’ astonishment, with:
“No, Mr. Ford, stop right where you are. Mamma doesn’t want any more small things until she gets the big ones arranged, and don’t you send them in!”
“My dear Sue, you will have to take them as they come.”
“No, I’m not going to take them as they come. I’m going to take them as I want them. You’ve got plenty of room here, and you’ve got plenty of men to help. That wardrobe comes next.”
“Well, but can’t you take these here cushions?”
“Yes, send in the cushions, but that’s the last, until I tell you what next.”
The distinguished engineer raised his hands, opening his fingers in a deprecatory way, expressive of his firm belief that she would live to see the day when she would keenly regret her interference, and in subdued, almost apologetic, tones called Moses.
“Here, Moses—your name is Moses, ain’t it?”
The darky nodded.
“Well, be good enough to carry this here bundle of cushions to Mrs. Ford. And be careful, Moses.”
Moses, without a word in reply, swung the bundle to his shoulder, mounted the few steps and deposited the pillows at Mrs. Ford’s feet, and resumed his place on the sidewalk. He was making up his mind as to the character and personality of the new tenants, and nothing had so far escaped him. The old janitor’s likes and dislikes had a very important bearing on the status occupied by the various tenants.
Furthermore, his diagnosis was invariably correct.
Thus far, two things had impressed him. That the young lady should have addressed her stepfather as if he had been a mere acquaintance, and that that master of the house should have prefaced his order to him with a “be good enough.” Nobody had ever, so far as he could remember, addressed him in any such way. His former master’s customary formula, generally with a laugh, was: “Here, Moses, you infernal scoundrel.” His later employers had been contented with Moses, Mose, or Mr. Harris (the latter he despised). The new young gentlemen had begun with Moses, and had then passed on to “You ebony gargoyle,” or “Bulrushes,” “Pottifer’s Kid.” But the order came direct as if they meant it, and was always carried out by him in the same kind of spirit. “Be good enough, eh,” he kept saying to himself, “’spec’ he ain’t ’customed to nuffin’.”
The young lady seemed to be cast in a different mould.
“That’s too heavy for you, Uncle,” she had said in a low, soft voice, the more surprising to him when heremembered the tones in addressing her stepfather. He was struggling under the weight of one end of the dining-room table at the time. “Come here, one of you men, and help him. Put it down, Uncle. You’ll break your poor old back, first thing you know.”
“Thank you, young mistiss. ’Tis little mite heavy,” he had answered humbly, as the leg he was carrying sagged to the sidewalk, adding as he watched her disappear again into the house: “Befo’ God, she’s one of my own people, dat she is. I ain’t been called Uncle by nobody, since I went back home dat Christmas time.”
The van was empty now, and the supplementary cart, carrying the odds and ends, a rusty, well-burnt-out stove, two pieces of pipe, a big mirror with a gilt frame, a set of wooden shelves, two wash-tubs, and on top, a dainty work-table with spindle legs, was being backed to the sidewalk.
Some article must have been forgotten or broken or scraped, for the language of the man from Clapham Four Corners had lost its soft edge, his outburst ending with:
“See here, you lunkhead, don’t you handle that work-table as if it was a ton of coal. Don’t you see you’ve broken the glass!”
The young girl had just emerged from the door.
“Oh, what a pity!” she cried. “I loved it so. No, please don’t touch it again. I’ll lift it down myself.”
She had mounted a chair now which stood by the tail of the cart and, against the protest of the group,was carefully disentangling the precious legs from the chaos of pipes, tubs, and stove-fittings.
“Oh, you darling little table! Nobody ever thought about you. It’s all my fault. No, go away all of you. You shan’t one of you touch it. I’ll lift it down myself. Oh, the drawer has caught in that stove door! Uncle, won’t you just push it back so I can——”
“Permit me to help this—” came a voice from behind. Before she could catch her breath, an arm reached forth, lifted the precious table clear of the entangling mass and, without waiting for protest or thanks, carried it into the house at the feet of the astonished mother. Then with a remark, “That he was glad to be of service,” Mr. Joseph Grimsby, occupant of the third floor, backed out and rejoined the astonished girl.
“A lovely bit of Chippendale, is it not, Miss Ford? It is Miss Ford, isn’t it? Yes, our old colored janitor told me you were expected to-day. I and my chum live up-stairs. But please don’t worry about the glass. That is quite easily replaced. I must apologize for my intrusion, but when I saw what a beauty it was, and heard you say how you loved it, I had to help. There is nothing like Chippendale, and it’s getting rarer every day.”
“Oh, but you were very kind. It was my grandmother’s and I have always used it since I was a girl. Thank you very much.”
Joe was about to say: “That—” but checked himself in time—“if she would permit the digression, shewas still a girl, and a very pretty one.” In fact, he had not seen any one quite as pretty for a very long period of time. He had thought so when he stood in the doorway, watching her efforts to save the table from further destruction. He had only a view of her back, but he had noticed in that brief glance the trim, rounded figure, curve of her neck, and the way her tight woollen sweater clung to her small waist and hips. He had caught, too, a pair of very small and well-shod feet.
When she turned in surprise and looked him square in the eyes, in one of those comprehensive, searching glances, and his own lenses had registered her fresh color, small ears, and dainty, enchanting mouth and teeth, the whole surrounded by a wealth of light, golden hair, escaping from the thraldom of a tam-o’-shanter hat, part of her working clothes, he would have taken an oath on a pile of Bibles as high as a church steeple that she was altogether the most radiantly attractive young woman he had ever met in the whole course of his natural existence.
This was not at all unusual. It was Joe’s way with every fresh girl he met. Such hyperbole was only a safety-valve, giving vent to his enthusiastic appreciation. He had had similar outbursts over two or three since he had left Paris. He had not onlylookeda similar declaration into the eyes of the inamorata who had begun her letter with “Dearest,” and ended it with an initial—the letter he had cremated and tucked away in the burial-plot of his forgetfulness—but hehad told her so in so many plain words, and had told her a lot of other things besides, which the young beauty had believed.
The scribe who knew them both will tell you that Sue Preston, despite Joe’s panegyrics, was just a trim, tidy, well-built, rosy, and thoroughly wholesome girl, no prettier than half a dozen other Southern girls brought up in her own town, which she had left when the gentleman from Connecticut had married her mother. That her independence of speech and bearing, as well as her kindness, came from the fact that she was obliged to earn her own living with her voice, singing at private houses and teaching music. The life, which, while it had not dulled her enthusiasm or love for things worth the having, had taught her a knowledge of the world far beyond her years. This could have been detected in the short talk she had had with Moses, after Joe, having reached the limit of his intrusion, had lifted his hat in respectful admiration and taken himself off to his office, where he spent what was left of the morning pouring into Atwater’s ears a wholly inflated account of the charms of the new arrival, and how plans must be laid at once to get on the friendliest terms possible with the occupants of the first floor.
“You ask me, young mistiss, who is dat gentleman?” Moses had rejoined in answer to her question, her eyes fixed on Joe’s graceful, manly figure as he swung down the street.
“Dat’s Mr. Grimsby, and dere ain’t nobody movedinto dis house since I been here, and dat’s eleven years next June, any better. Fust time I see him, I says to Matilda: ‘Matilda, don’t he look like Marse Robin when he was his age? He’s got just de air of him.’ Don’t care for nobody dat ain’t quality. Ain’t you from the South, young mistiss?” Moses never forgot his slave days when he was talking to his own people.
“Yes, Moses, I’m from North Carolina.”
“And de mistiss, too?”
“Yes; mother, too.”
“But dat—dat—” the darky hesitated, “dat gentleman dat—dat married yo’ ma. He ain’t one our people, is he?”
The girl laughed, a crisp, sparkling laugh, as if she really enjoyed answering his questions.
“No, he’s a Yankee.”
“Gor a’mighty, I knowed it. ’Scuse me, young mistiss, for askin’, but we got to get along together, and I’m goin’ to do evertin’ I can to please you.”
Joe had turned the corner by this time, and her eyes again sought the old darky’s.
“What does he do, this Mr. Grimsby?”
“I don’t know, young mistiss; I think he builds houses. What dey call a architect.”
“And how long has he been here?”
“’Bout two weeks, goin’ on three now.”
A curious expression now crossed her face.
“And is he always as polite as that to everybody he meets for the first time?”
It was Moses’ turn to chuckle now. “I ain’t neverseen him with nobody, fur dere ain’t nobody ’round fit fur him to bow and scrape fur till you come, and you ain’t seen de last of him, young mistiss, unless I miss my guess.” And with a prolonged chuckle, Moses seized a chair, backed away with it to the house, and returned again to his duties on the sidewalk.
That the new tenant interested him enormously could be seen as the old negro stood watching his self-imposed supervision. He had been accustomed to all sorts of people since he had held his position, especially the kind that constantly moved in and out of the first floor. There had been inebriates who had been laid up for days at a time, broken-down bank clerks looking for another situation, with only money enough for the first month in advance, ending in final collapse and exit, with most of their furniture in pawn. There had been a mysterious widow, a rather flabby person, whose son was a reporter, and who came in at all hours of the night. And there had been a distinguished lawyer, who moved in for the summer and was going when the heating apparatus broke down on the first cold day.
But the gentleman from Connecticut represented a type which Moses had never seen before. His dress showed it, with a full suit of black, his white collar showing above his overcoat. His speech was another indication. Where most men used verbal ammunition at the rate of so many spoken words a minute, Ford’s delivery was as rapid and continuous as the outpouring of a Gatling gun.
“How many times must I tell you to be careful, men? How often must I go on insistin’ that you should not bump things on the sidewalk? This here furniture is made to sit on, not to be smashed into kindlin’ wood. Easy there, now, on that bureau! Pull out the drawers. Quick, now! One at a time. And now let go of that other end. It’s extraordinary how sensible men like you should go on ignorin’ the simplest rules of safety. Sue, my dear, tell your dear mother that I am doin’ the best I can. But that if everything is brought to a piecemeal, it’s only what’s to be expected. Out of the way, Moses, give them men plenty of room. There, that’s more like it!”
That the two broad-backed porters in linen jumpers had for years passed everything from a piano-stool to a folding-bed from the top of the highest tenement in New York, without so much as a scrape of paint from the side walls, and that nothing that Ford had said or done made the slightest impression on them, was entirely clear to Moses as he listened to their harangue.
He had seen a busy clown at the circus picking up and dropping at a critical moment the ends of the carpet spread out on the sawdust, a remembrance which pumped up another chuckle in the old darky’s interior.
When the sidewalk was cleared, the van and the supplementary cart emptied, and the entire belongings of the Ford family securely housed, and the door of the apartment discreetly closed, so that the passersup and down the staircase might not become familiar with the various imperfections of the household gods, when I say what Moses called the biggest circus he had ever seen for many a day was over, that guardian of the house moved into the rear basement to talk it all over with Matilda.
The old woman—and she was very nearly as old as Moses, sixty-five if she was a day—was busy ironing, her head tied up in a big red bandanna, her shrewd eyes peering out of a pair of big-bowed spectacles.
“Well, is you through?” her eyes on her work, not on her husband.
“Yes; through!”
“Well, what you think of him?”
Moses had dropped into a chair now and begun to untie his big green baize apron, his morning work being over.
“I ain’t got no think, Matilda. He can talk de legs off a iron pot. Dat’s one of my thinks. Ain’t never heard nuffin’ like it. Jes’ like one of dese patent-medicine fellers with a stand on de street corner.”
“Well, is dat all?” She had dropped her iron now and with her hands on her hips was looking at him curiously.
“Dat’s all. Unless I’m much mistuk, dat’s all dere is to him. Jes’ wind. De madam is sumfin’ better. She looks as if she might have been quality afo’ she struck him. But young mistiss is de real thing. How she can put up wid him is mo’ ’an I can understand.”