XAPRIL BREATHES AGAIN
THREE nights later, when she reached Harrow Street from the factory, Pidge found two letters. One was from John Higgins ofThe Public Square. This she opened first.
... At the suggestion of Mr. Cobden, just before he left for South Africa, I am offering you a position here as reader of the unsolicited manuscripts. Mr. Cobden hints that you know enough aboutThe Public Squareto realize we cannot be lavish in salaries, but think we can at least pay you what you are getting now, to begin with—and the work will be different.
... At the suggestion of Mr. Cobden, just before he left for South Africa, I am offering you a position here as reader of the unsolicited manuscripts. Mr. Cobden hints that you know enough aboutThe Public Squareto realize we cannot be lavish in salaries, but think we can at least pay you what you are getting now, to begin with—and the work will be different.
“Oh, Dicky Cobden,” she whispered, alone in the upper room.
She sat in the center of her cot as of old, breathing the sweetness of the release from the factory.... Friendliness like this art of Dicky’s was good.... It made her eyes smart now—the new work. It was easier to take it from him—away. It was a soft cloak that she could nestle in, because he wouldn’t see.... Miss Claes knocked. Pidge read in her eyes that she already knew.
“No one can ever tell you anything.”
“I’m so glad you want it, Pidge. I couldn’t tell him for sure that you’d take it.”
“They really need somebody, don’t they?”
“Mr. Cobden said you wouldn’t be in doubt about that after you got there.”
“I’m going to take it,” Pidge said soberly. “I know it means something more than it looks—but I’m going to take it. I’m so sick of myself which fights everything. Also, I’m going down after supper—and sit there—in his ‘parlor.’ I haven’t entered since——”
Miss Claes was called from below. Pidge felt the second letter in her hand. It was from Los Angeles, her father’s writing. A check dropped out on the cot. By powerful effort of will, Pidge left it there, until she had read the note:
... At this time it seems well for me to send you money. Hard as it has been for me to refrain, I felt before this that it was best for you to face New York alone, unaided. As there is a New Generation, my child, there is a New Fatherhood which dares—dares even to allow the heart’s darling to struggle alone; dares to say “hands off” to all the untransmuted emotions which rush forth to shield the fledgling from the world——
... At this time it seems well for me to send you money. Hard as it has been for me to refrain, I felt before this that it was best for you to face New York alone, unaided. As there is a New Generation, my child, there is a New Fatherhood which dares—dares even to allow the heart’s darling to struggle alone; dares to say “hands off” to all the untransmuted emotions which rush forth to shield the fledgling from the world——
Fifty dollars. Pidge sank back and softly batted her pillow with one loose arm. She laughed in a smothery uncertain way that was not of joy.... It was as if she heard his voice in the room—the newparenthood, the new generation, the adjustment of motive to moment!
The sort of thing in this letter always shook and tortured Pidge. It was a part of her. She was bred of it. She had been half as old as now when she first realized it. Then in every thought and act, she had rushed to the other extreme. It was true that her father had taught her the deepest things in books. In his study, she had caught hints of the inner meanings of inaccessible literatures, before she had learned to spell simple words of English. Because his eyes hurt, she had read aloud for hours, day after day, tomes out of Asia which she had no care nor thought to understand, but from which, volatile fairylike impressions came to rest in the depths of her heart. She had loved the few central springs of books in a house of books, until she realized that her father read, but lived them not; that he expounded, exhorted upon the doctrines—but his life was his own twisted rag. That was when Pidge’s heavens cracked—and she had set out to be honest and erect, if only as tall as a gnome.
The thought that came at this moment had come before. It was the passion to be what her father was not that had made her rush forth to be straight in her own head—to refuse to lie to herself—to go to the other extreme of fierceness and bleakness and ill-temper, rather than lie to herself—to be plain and true, if she had to be a man-hater and poison face. Yet Pidge sat up straight with a bitter thought. Like it or not, she saw right now that it was her father whohad prepared her to accept and make good, possibly, in this position withThe Public Square....
“But where did he get the money?” she muttered at last.
She crossed to the open window. April breathed up to her from the stone floor of the area to-night; magic April, breathing up through the trampled earth and the degraded pavements. Suddenly a soft love stole over her. It was love of the April dark.
She heard the sounds of the city over the buildings, over into the stillness of Harrow Street, like the far tread and clatter of a pageant. Mother Nature was actually perceptible in this soft air, and something that Pidge answered to as never before in New York. Her hands stretched out to touch the casings of the window; the old wood gave her an additional warmth. It belonged to this house of Miss Claes, this house of the mystery of kindness. She was free at this moment of the fear of accepting too much, having come up to breathe, at least, out of the ruck of fighting everything and everybody. She had been utterly graceless and narrow in her acceptances, fighting against favors, when she knew all the time that to receive is the other part of giving. A shiver passed over her, nevertheless, as she remembered the subtle mendicancy that she had known in her father’s house, the calm acceptance of gifts and favors from others in the belief that one was evolved enough to give the ineffable in exchange for materials. No wonder she had run from that.
This of Miss Claes’ was a house with a heart. This was her house. She could breathe in it now, at least, for a little. The numbness and dumbness of the factory had fallen away. The softness stole over her toward Fanny Gallup and the other girls who must still stay at the bench. She would never forget. She had earned an understanding of them, and had been released;releasedwas the word. But something would carry her back to them one day, something born in that slow madness of monotony.
She crossed the room and opened the door into the hall. Supper smells came up to her, the murmur of voices behind the shut doors. The prima donna person was singing, not practicing this time, but singing.... “One comes up through great tribulation to learn to sing,” Miss Claes had once said, “and others share it.”
The warmth stole into her from the halls. Everybody was hungry to-night, the spring hunger, and everybody celebrated, as a festival. April seemed breathing in the halls, too. April was breathing in herself; that was why she was awake to this outer delight. If she could only keep it. It would always be in externals, if she could only keep this springtime alive within. She laughed a little bitterly. Of course, she was elated because the factor had dropped away, because the new position had opened, because the check had come (though she felt something queer about that), because Richard Cobden and Miss Claes were fashioned of unswerving kindnesses, which she suddenly realized as never before.
“It’s money and place, and I’m ‘falling for’ it, venturing to be pleased with myself——” She laughed again. “But, oh, it is so cheerful, so restful to feel New York like this, just for to-night!”