"What shall we do this evening?"
"I shall be studying."
"Oh, rot; don't work so hard."
It was morning in mid-May and Dick Brown was standing in the hallway of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house, his hat set back on his head, turning for the last word with Hertha before he left for his day's task. It was a grief to him that they did not leave together; but, though she finished breakfast when he did, and had but a few minutes leeway beyond his time of departure, she was never ready when the minute came that he must go. So he stopped this morning to ask his question, knowing the answer, since he had received it the night before, but anxious to hold the young girl in conversation before he turned into the engrossing world of business that drove her from his thoughts. And yet, even when he was most concentrated on some perplexing detail associated with the handling of fancy trimmings, she would be back in his mind, far back where he might not turn to her and yet where, when the hour came that released him from the bondage of the city's trade, she was present—her brown eyes, to his fancy, looking at him with more favor than they had yet shown.
"Well, good-by," he said, grasping the doorknob.
"Good-by," she answered, and turned upstairs to her room.
Whirled through the city and over the bridge, Dick tried to obliterate the image of the girl he loved and to turn to schemes of business. He was well aware that he had not yet caught her fancy, that she was not in the least in love with him, but he reckoned on his staying powers and on the fortune that some day he meant to lay at her feet. Any one so alone in the world as she, and she seemed singularly alone, must need a protector; and if he could only be patient and work diligently the time might come when she would accept a home filled with every conceivable thing to use, lovely as the "House Beautiful" rooms exhibited in the department stores, and where, when she had wandered through the many chambers and corridors, she would accept the man who stood upon the threshold eager to bring this, and more, of comfort and luxury and watchful care into her life. So he sat tense in his seat (he sometimes got a seat going in to his work) and began with resolute will to ponder the problem of business success. And as he pondered his face took on a shrewd and calculating expression at variance with his youthful frame and his bright, speckled necktie.
At noon he went into a restaurant frequented by many business men of the neighborhood and was greeted by an elderly gentleman at a table near the doorway who invited him to sit down. Like the firm for which he worked, this man was a dealer in trimmings, and Dick was elated at such a sign of favor. Perhaps it might lead to an opportunity for advancement. He took his place with some embarrassment, however, not knowing whether this were an invitation to luncheon or only to a seat in which to have a friendly chat. Believing it wiser to assume the latter to be the case, he picked up the bill of fare and said in a loud voice, "I reckon you've ordered your grub."
Mr. James Talbert, whose modest sign on Broadway shone conspicuous among the plethora of foreign names, smiled good-humoredly and answered: "Not yet; I'm planning to order yours with mine. I don't have a young man fresh from the Sunny South to dine with me every day."
Richard Brown laughed hilariously to hide the hurt to his pride. It was not the first time that it had been conveyed to him that he was fresh.
A weary, indifferent waiter received the order, and in a short time they were engrossed in disposing of an excellent and hearty meal.
As he became less absorbed in his chops andsautépotatoes, Dick looked about the room filled with tables where busy men were intent on fortifying themselves with food before they went back to their engrossing work. He noted their faces, their figures, and guessed at their professions. The tall, thin young fellow ahead was a clerk like himself—he could tell by the way he was trying to joke with his waiter. There were newspaper men back of him; it was easy to determine them by their talk about this or the other "story." Moving down the aisle and returning his stare was a young, black-haired, dark-eyed Jew thrumming restlessly with his fingers. In business for himself, Dick guessed, and calculating on to-day's gains and to-morrow's expenditures. The young southerner wondered whether he would ever be able to do this, whether the day would come when he would have a business of his own.
"Chops all right?" The older man broke the silence.
"Hunky. See that fellow over there?" Dick pointed to a somewhat soiled, slouchily dressed youth who had taken a seat near them. "That's the way we look where I come from, only a heap more good-natured. Something like a mule, though, slow and kind of set-like; we could kick if it was worth while throwing out our heels. There ain't much hurry there, except if once in a lifetime you want to catch a train. Yes, and there's the factory, that's speeding up the folks."
"Miss it?" his companion asked.
"The way we do things, you mean? No, sir! I wouldn't go back, except for a vacation, not if you gave me a present of Casper County on a golden tray. I like it here; it's a race."
Dick spoke with emphasis and then took a great mouthful of food that required his full attention.
"Country boys are apt to feel that way." Mr. Talbert looked gravely at the young man before him. "The city would never grow as it does if it wasn't fed by country stock, strong young fellows who have worked out of doors and laid up energy to be exhausted later within the great buildings down town."
"I can't say as I ever did much work." The young Georgian grinned as he recalled his boyhood. "But I played a heap and made enough trouble for the neighbors to win me a gilt-edged certificate in cussedness. Business is a sort of play, I reckon, and the biggest daredevil comes out ahead."
"It means taking risks."
"Do you think," Dick asked, his cheeks flushing as though he expected to be guyed for his question, "that a fellow can come to New York any more without a penny and end a millionaire?"
"They're still doing it." The business man eyed his guest with evident interest. "But the number gets smaller all the time. It's a little like telling every boy that he can become president, this poor-man-to-millionaire business; nevertheless," looking intently at his listener, "it can be done."
"Honest Injun?" The joviality left Dick's face, though he tried to put it in his voice. His thin mouth was tightly drawn and the hard lines were accentuated about his deep blue eyes.
"Honest Injun." Mr. Talbert was amused again. "But don't forget the secret. Always look out for yourself. Don't think about the other fellow, for if he's a good business man you can count on it he isn't thinking about you."
"Listen!" Dick leaned forward. "I'm meaning what I say. I've got to get rich. It ain't for myself; it's for a girl, a girl that ought to have the best of everything in New York."
For the first time during the meal he spoke in a low voice, but with an intensity that drove the smile from his companion's face. With elbows on the table, his head resting on his hands, he looked into the older man's eyes as though he hoped by searching long enough to learn the secret of success that he saw about him in this great city—the success that moved outside in silent limousines, that inhabited beautiful houses filled with skilled servants, that sent its women and children, now the warm weather advanced, into other beautiful houses by the sea. In the Sunday supplements of the great papers he had seen pictures of these homes and of the women who dwelt in them. There was not a face among the many that belonged more truly in such surroundings than the face that he looked into at his boarding-house table every day. And among the men who had won this success were some, he knew, who had started as poor as he. He asked only to be told their secret.
Mr. Talbert did not smile at the mention of the girl as Dick feared he would. Instead he looked sympathetically at the long face before him.
"A girl's a good thing to work for," he said. "It keeps a man thrifty and sober. I'm not an expert on getting rich, for such money as I have was mostly made by my father before me. But I take it if a man is young and strong and has an aptitude for his profession, he can still get what he wants in these United States. But he's got to want it more than anything else in the world, more than leisure or friends, more, perhaps, than honor. He's got to carry his work with him, study it in the evening, dream of it at night. He's got to live poor before he can live rich. He must be able to use men for his own aims. He must skin or he'll be skinned. See here, Mac," clutching at a man who was passing, "come and give your advice to youth."
A large, comfortable looking gentleman stopped at his friend's bidding and looked quizzically at Dick as they were introduced. He would not sit down, and as the others were through their meal Talbert settled his account and they all stood for a moment together.
"Have a cigar?" offering one to Dick.
"I think I won't," Dick answered. "Perhaps that's one of the things to go slow on, eh, if I mean to succeed?"
"Yes, when it comes to buying them yourself; but never refuse a gift," and his new acquaintance thrust the cigar into the young man's hand.
"Here's an emigrant from the State of Georgia," Talbert said, turning to his friend, "who is bent on becoming a millionaire. He's got health and determination; all he asks for is advice. What's yours?"
"David Harum's golden rule," was the answer. "Do unto the other feller the way he'd like to do unto you, and do it fust."
They made their way past the waiters bearing their trays gleaming with straw-colored cocktails, bright with fruit, pleasantly odorous with freshly cooked meats and vegetables, on out into the street. The older men continued to explain the road to success in kindly speech, their tone and bearing at variance with the harsh gospel which they preached. Dick listened eagerly, as eagerly as he had once listened to the gospel of the evangelist at home. And as he shook hands and left them, he walked up Broadway feeling a strange elation. His hand went to his pocket for the cigar he usually smoked at this time, but, recalling himself, he put it resolutely back. He would live meagerly to-day that he might have a plethora in a golden to-morrow.
The soft May air blowing on his face recalled to him his southern home. He had been poor down there, and yet not poor in comparison with his neighbors. His father had owned hundreds of acres of miserable soil on which his tenants had planted cotton and reaped scanty crops. He recalled those tenants—sallow, ill-fed whites, shiftless blacks. Their cabins reeked with dirt and were always cluttered with children. The men were continually in debt, and while his father got from them all he could, being accounted a hard master by his neighbors, Dick knew that there was little enough that any one made. It had been a good thing when his mother had sold some of the property. Had it not been for their timber they would have known real poverty. He felt a sudden revulsion for his old home, its sordidness, its slow piling of penny upon penny with no greater outlook upon life than a new rifle or a Victrola in the best room. There was no game worthy the name to be played down there, only a monotonous round of stupid covetousness. Here the play was difficult and the stakes big.
He held his head very high that afternoon, and fairly touched the clouds when, before he went home, he was informed that he would again be sent for a short time upon the road. His first trip had brought in good results and he was to be entrusted with a better circuit and to receive a slight increase in salary. He felt grateful for the advancement, and then, recalling the advice of noontime, put this thought from him. If he were getting more money it was because the firm thought he was worth it, and that they must pay more or lose him. Therefore it was to his own interest, while serving them, to be looking for advancement. In the autumn he might seek a job with Mr. Talbert.
He was enough of a boy still to buy a box of candies to take to Hertha. Calculating that his luncheon had cost him nothing and that he would begin at once to save by smoking only one cigar a day, he spent a dollar on his gift, and with it tucked under his arm moved among the seething mass of faces, mysteriously upborne, on bodies with arms and legs, that stampeded the Brooklyn train. Once hanging to his hardly secured strap, contrary to the advice given him, he let the work of the day drop from his mind and fell into a day dream of a home of his own with Hertha as its queen. And as he thought of her, of her lightly poised head, her softly curling hair, her delicate hands, the minutes flew by and he was quite unconscious that he was standing amid a crowd of people, the women swaying on the straps to which they clung, one of them falling regularly against him at each station, the men endeavoring to read their newspapers while they balanced themselves with each recurring jolt. He was moving on as the train moved in a swift passage through time, stopping now and again at some well-marked station along the happy road of life.
As he neared his stopping place an old question came to perplex him. Who was this girl whom he so deeply loved? Ogilvie was a fine sounding name, and any one could see that she was descended from people of note. But he was curious to know something of her kin and of her early life. It was of no use to ask his mother or any of the folks at home. As he had once put it to Hertha, they were "hill billies," far removed from her progenitors. Mrs. Pickens had confessed ignorance when he had questioned her. The one person who could tell him anything he dared not question. There was something in Hertha's reserve that he was forced to respect, and yet he often wondered that any girl should be so wholly alone. She seemed to receive no mail. More than once, since she herself had first spoken of him, he had alluded to her brother, only to be met with a shy silence. He had never before known so silent a girl, or one, too, whom it was so difficult to interest. Sometimes when he recalled the Rosies and Annie-Lous at home over whom he had lorded it with the high hand of the best-known fellow in the county, he wondered that he should be so engrossed in one who was evidently indifferent to his advances. But he was keen enough to see that, like his coveted riches, the needed effort to gain her affection added to the intensity of his desire. But he did wish, as he clutched the candy to his side, that she would treat him a little better. They did not seem to be as near one another now as they had been in the winter when she was living with her Irish friend.
Nothing was solved as he ran up the stoop of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house and put his key in the latch, but he was rewarded with a bright smile when, looking in at Hertha's open doorway, he tossed the box of candy on her bed. He was never invited over the threshold of her bedroom, though it was beyond his code of etiquette to understand why. In his mother's home the living-room contained the largest bed in the house, a massive affair with a variegated cover that every visitor was called upon to admire. But he had learned from experience that if he entered Hertha's room she shortly left it, and so, accepting her word of thanks, he went to his own quarters to make himself ready for dinner.
At eight o'clock, when Hertha was poring over a page of shorthand, vainly endeavoring to read the business letter from "Jones Brothers" to "Smith and Company," she heard a knock at her door. Opening it, she found Dick outside.
"I told them you didn't want to be disturbed," he hastened to say in answer to her look of annoyance, "but Mrs. Pickens and Miss Wood want you to come down and make a fourth at bridge."
"Get Mrs. Wood," Hertha made answer, "you know I can't play."
"Neither can she," Dick replied cheerfully, "but she don't know it. However, she won't," he added, "we've asked her."
Hertha looked at the page of wavering marks and hesitated.
"Oh, come along," Dick pleaded. "Do it 'to oblige Benson.' Mrs. Pickens has left a bunch of southern newspapers, just come in, to amuse us, but she wants you."
It was a standing joke in the household, the love its landlady bore for local southern news. A corner of her room was stacked with such weeklies as "The Cherokee Advocate," "The Talapoosie Ladies' Messenger," over which she would pore, reading the births and deaths, the marriages and divorces, the lawsuits and business tribulations, the receptions and engagements of the southern world as though each community were her own. "They're my novels," she would retort when Dick jeered at her fondness for these local sheets. Hertha appreciated her unselfishness in joining the game, and, obeying an impulse to have a good time, flung down her textbook, picked up her box of candy and, accompanied by Dick, went downstairs.
The young man was elated. At Hertha's request he placed the candy in the center of the table and seized upon her as his partner without permitting the question to be decided by cutting the cards. For this Hertha was grateful, since she knew little of the game and was confident that she would spoil the good time of either of the women should they have to bear her mistakes upon their score. Of Miss Wood she stood much in awe. That lady was an assistant secretary in an Association for Improving the Condition of the Destitute and knew a prodigious amount regarding poverty and crime. She played her cards as though solving one of her, day's cases. Mrs. Pickens had played to oblige too often to have any feeling of the importance of the game. To Dick, cards were a matter of luck; his failures were always attributed to poor hands, and with Hertha opposite him he cared little whether he ended in a pit of defeat or on a pinnacle of success.
"I wish you wouldn't talk so much about above and below the line," Hertha said, as they started upon a new rubber.
"Why?" Mrs. Pickens asked.
"Because it's in shorthand, and I want to forget the old stuff. All the sense of a sentence depends upon whether you're above or below."
"It's much the same in bridge," Mrs. Pickens made answer. "Now don't make it, Dick, unless you have the cards."
It was before auction bridge when the dealer's position was an important one.
"I'm not reckless, am I?" Dick asked, appealing to his partner. "I'm as careful as a donkey walking by the side of a precipice."
"Just about," said Hertha, laughing.
Forgetful of the game, he looked at her as though he would devour her.
"Perhaps you will decide on something," Miss Wood remarked sarcastically, "or let your partner."
"Make it, partner," said Dick, but Hertha, frightened at the opportunity, threw down a good hand.
Certainly her partner never lectured her upon her poor plays. He was quite indifferent when she took his Queen with her King, and when in a burst of adventure she doubled her opponent and lost four tricks he proved to her that she had done exactly right. This disaster made her cautious and in the following hand, with four aces, she made it spades and scored eight points instead of a grand slam. When the modest figure was placed below the line her partner cheered her for her success.
"Really, Miss Ogilvie," Miss Wood said, "if you want to learn bridge you must not think that a make like that is good. It is quite wrong."
Hertha laughed acquiescence. She was having a good time and enjoying Dick's ridiculous talk as hand after hand he kept up a stream of comment. Mrs. Pickens laughed with them, but the fourth member of the party became angry.
"This is not bridge," she said, her hands shaking as she picked up the cards dealt her.
"Ain't it?" said Dick good-naturedly. "Well, it's fun, anyway."
He took an unconscionably long time to decide on the trump, clutching his cards tightly, and wrinkling his forehead in imitation of his indignant opponent.
"Oh, do make it something!" Mrs. Pickens urged him.
"Very well, hearts!" cried Dick, "Hearts, the best suit in the pack."
He broke into exaggerated praise of the quite ordinary hand Hertha spread out for him. He loved the careful way in which she put each card in sequence.
"The King of my suit!" he cried. "Didn't I know you had it! Saw it with my poker eye. Ever play poker, Miss Hertha?"
He had asked the question before, and she did not trouble to answer him. Not that he cared whether he was answered or not. He felt elated at his day and at the evening that was bringing him such good fortune.
Talking steadily as he threw down his cards, he won a finesse, for by this time Miss Wood had lost all track of the game.
"What did I tell you?" he cried to Hertha boisterously. "This is the time we're going under and over both. Just you wait. Count the tricks! One, two, three, four, five, six—only four more and the rubber's ours. Watch me now! Just watch yours truly haul in the goods. Watch me——"
"Oh, stop talking, Dick," said Mrs. Pickens good-humoredly, "and play."
She was very fond of this southern lad, her one man boarder, and was quite ready herself to frolic. But, seeing the thundercloud on her partner's face, she endeavored to bring some seriousness into the occasion.
"Well, here goes!" cried the young man. "My trump card!" and he flung down the ace of hearts.
The deuce, tray and four spot fell upon it.
"One, two, three, four!" he called out. "Kiss the dealer!"
Leaning far over the table, his lips came within an inch of Hertha's own.
She drew back, blushing crimson, her body stiff with antagonism. Mrs. Pickens, to relieve the situation, put her arm around the youth's neck and, drawing down his head, gave him the asked-for kiss. But she could not resist murmuring, "A poor substitute."
"Three tricks more," Dick called, and dashed through the hand.
He won the game and the rubber, but he had reduced his partner to a state of frigidity excelling even Miss Wood's. "We won't play any more," she said to that lady, "I know you are tired at our noise." And with a general good-night she went out of the room, leaving the box of candy behind her.
Miss Wood added the score conscientiously, pronounced her partner and herself the winners, professed indignation at Dick's offer to pay anything he might owe, and, accompanied by Mrs. Pickens, left the young man to himself.
Richard Shelby Brown looked across the table at the empty chair and deliberately kicked himself. "What a mutt I am," he thought. "But if she were a princess, born with a lot of knights bowing before her all day long, she couldn't hold her head any higher." Then he pulled the cigar that Mr. Talbert had given him out of his pocket, struck a light and began to smoke. And as he sniffed the delicious fragrance and blew rings into the air, as he looked about the room at the bright pictures all descriptive of gaiety and happiness, he grew less disturbed and gradually regained his self-possession. One could never tell what a girl liked, but surely she must find it pleasant to know that a man wanted to kiss her. Had she slapped him on the face, as Annie-Lou would have done, he would not have minded. But she had blushed, and, oh how beautiful she became when the color rushed into her face! Tilted back in one chair, his feet on another, he puffed at his cigar and puffed again, and smiled gently, thinking of the princess in her room and of the palace that he must hasten to build.
There was no question that Hertha Ogilvie was not making a success at stenography and typewriting at the excellent school which Dick had found for her. Among the thirty-odd pupils who had entered in February, only two were as far behind as she. And though her teachers, who liked her for her good manners and quiet speech, were ready with encouragement, assuring her that the moment would come when, with unexpected rapidity, the light of understanding would shine amid the darkness of insignificant lines and dots and she would forge ahead, she herself did not believe in the miracle. This was perhaps her greatest handicap—distrust in her ability blocked her road. An ever recurring sense of stupidity kept her repeating the same tasks without progress, until, filled with disgust, she threw her books aside, declaring that she would give it up and take to sewing again.
This was her mood on the Saturday afternoon following the game of bridge, when, dropping her work, she went into the park with Bob Henderson, her next door neighbor and devoted companion. Bob was the oldest of four children, though but six himself, and when his mother could spare him from the home tasks that were already piling upon his small shoulders, he liked best to go with Hertha among the trees to the lake where every day there was some new interest. This afternoon it was a brood of ducks that were taking their first bath. And while Hertha sat on the grass he wandered along the shore, throwing in bits of bread and sometimes laughing softly to himself.
The afternoon was full of golden lights, the warm sun bringing a feeling of happy drowsiness. School was forgotten and the southern girl basked in the languorous fragrance of spring. Life had begun again for the world. Across from where she sat on a granite stone a little white butterfly lighted and slowly folded and unfolded its wings. It quivered on its resting place as though not yet accustomed to flight. The buds on the azalea were slowly opening. Everywhere life was close to fulfilment and yet as though waiting for some final word from sun or earth.
"Please come here, Miss Ogilvie," Bob called, running up to her. "Look at this bird. I bet it's broken its wing."
A white birch hung over the path by the water's edge and beneath it, on the smooth asphalt, fluttered a little bird, brilliant with black and orange markings. It hopped away as they approached, but made no flight, and as they followed they could mark each splotch of black and white and orange.
"What is it?" Bob asked eagerly.
"I never saw it before," Hertha said. "I think it belongs up in the treetops."
Bob eyed the broken wing. "It was some boy," he said admiringly, "that could hit such a little thing with nothing but a stone."
"Was that how it happened?"
"Sure. I've seen the boys throwing stones up the trees, but it ain't often they bring down a bird."
Making a tremendous effort, the bird flew on to a low branch of the birch. Amid the young green leaves its dress of orange and black showed gayer than ever. It reminded Hertha of one of Ellen's children, a little girl with shining black face and bright black eyes, who used to wear as a kerchief her mother's bandana. She was like a bird herself, swift of movement, trilling with song.
"It was a mean thing to do," Hertha cried indignantly as she watched the warbler flutter and fall to the ground again. "Why couldn't they let it stay in the tree top? I suppose the boys think it's fun to bring it down with a stone."
"Sure," said Bob cheerfully.
"Don't you do it," his companion commanded. "Can't you see how it hurts? It's crippled through no fault of its own."
"What do you think'll happen?" Bob asked, a little anxiously. Hertha's tone was making an impression on him.
"I'm afraid it will die. Any animal can seize it now."
"I tell you what." Bob's face brightened. "I'll catch it and put it in our old canary cage. Our bird's dead now, and we can feed this and hear it sing."
He crouched to make a sudden spring, but Hertha held him back. "Don't!" she said.
"Why not?" Bob asked, straightening up.
The girl found it hard to give her answer. "See how it's trying to get away," she said at last. "I believe it would rather live a few hours free, in the sunshine, than to be caged for life."
"I'll give it some crumbs, anyway," said Bob, and, strewing bread along the path, went back to his more engrossing ducks.
The bird of the tree tops refused the bread of grain and, making a tremendous effort, rose to the birch tree again and moved among the leaves, its black head bobbing about hunting for insects, its free wing fluttering with pleasure. "What a comfort it is," Hertha thought to herself, "that it lives only in to-day."
Becoming weary of his ducks, Bob joined his companion where she sat on the grass, and leaning up against her asked to hear about Tom-of-the-Woods. Tom was a wonderful boy who lived in the forest, eating roots and fruit, for he would not kill any living creature. The berries that he found and the oranges that he plucked from the trees were finer than any other oranges and berries in the world. Tom made his house out of palm leaves tied together and set up on shoots of bamboo. He did not use it much, however, for at night he loved to sit under the stars listening to the screech owls and the toads and the little four-footed creatures that came out of their hiding-places when the sun went down. It was then that he talked with the rabbits and the great white owl, the wisest bird in the world. Tom went to the city and purchased a top that he could spin so fast on the sidewalk that it disappeared. How he got it back he never told, but it was always there in his pocket whenever he came to town. It was a long, comfortable story, without plot and with little incident, the kind of story that you could begin and leave off at your convenience. But before Bob was half tired of it, some one called out "Hallo," and Dick appeared coming along the path toward them.
"Glad I found you," he said gaily, and then, turning to the little boy, "Your mother says it's time for you to be trotting home."
Bob viewed the newcomer suspiciously. It was not his first experience in having Dick interrupt when he and Miss Ogilvie were enjoying a good time.
"Very well," said Hertha, rising, "we'll go home together."
This arrangement was not in the least what Dick desired, but he said nothing and the three walked slowly away from the lake to the park's entrance where Bob's house could be seen across the broad street.
"Say," Dick whispered, "let the little fellow go and come out rowing with me."
Bob heard and clutched Hertha's hand tight.
"I'm going on the road Monday," Dick added.
Bob only clutched the harder and tried to drag his friend across the street.
Realizing the need of strategy, Dick put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dime. "Run over and get yourself a soda, sonny," he said; "I bet you know the way."
Bob's hesitation was short. "Sure," he replied after an infinitesimal wait, and dropping Hertha's hand dashed across the street. They saw him enter the friendly drug store and then, at Dick's earnest pleading, they walked back along the path that they had come.
It was a day for dreaming, for lightly putting the oar in the water to withdraw it again. On the soft wind, from the bushes, white and purple and golden, from the new buds of the resinous trees, came a fragrance, sweet and pungent. Rowing beside the west bank, the boat kept in shadow, but beyond this restful line of dimmed light the sun danced upon the water, the ripples streaming with silver and gold. The late blossoming trees still stood tall, dark, with naked limbs, but the drooping willow gleamed pale yellow, and the maples and elms were dropping their small blossoms to stand clothed in summer green. Robins called to one another across the lake, busy carrying bits of grass and twigs to make their nests. Her hat off, Hertha sat in the stern of the boat, sometimes trailing her hand in the water, her head bent as she watched the trickling drops, again sitting erect gazing among the trees and out to the sky beyond.
"Thinking about home?" Dick asked, and she nodded and smiled.
"Let's visit the garden," she suggested, when having rowed the length of the lake they returned to the landing.
There was a riot of flowers in the great stretches of the formal garden, but the girl leading, they made their way to the pansy beds. Deep, velvety purple blossoms nodded up at them; soft blues and lavenders, streaked with deeper blue and purple, touched plants of glowing yellow. Hertha bent and began to talk to the nodding heads as though they were children.
"They're more alive," she said to Dick, apologizing for her childishness, "than any flowers I know."
He entered her conceit. "There's a lot of difference among them, though, don't you think?" He bent over with her to look closely. "The blue ones don't look like they were blue at all; but that dark lady down there, for instance, she hasn't enjoyed her dinner. Perhaps last night she had an overdose of dew."
"I'm afraid the expression is chronic," Hertha answered gravely.
They wandered on where bushes of spirea grew on either side the path—"Bridal wreath, don't they call it?" Dick asked timidly—on among the tall hickory and chestnut trees; then up the hill to the rose garden, the green buds of the newly trimmed plants beginning to show touches of color, and down again to the little valley where the mischievous bronze baby, standing in the water surrounded by his guard of spouting turtles, clutches a duck that pours out a constant stream of sparkling drops into the pool below.
"How does any one think of such things?" Dick asked gazing with admiration at the miniature fountain.
"It seems to me easy enough to think of them," Hertha answered. "But how does any one make them?"
The sun was low as with reluctant feet they turned homeward. Dick had been quiet, in touch with the beauty about him, the right companion for a dreamlike afternoon. But the springtime had its present call to him, and as they neared the end of their walk he could not forego a word.
They had come upon a sunny strip of path and Hertha, slipping off her coat, threw it over her arm.
Dick took it from her. "Let me carry it, dear," he said.
It was the first time he had dared thus to speak to her, and his breath came quick.
Awakening to find her dream was over, Hertha drew away from him.
"I know I have no right to say anything, Hertha," he went on, "I'm poor still, but I can't go away again without telling you a little of what I think of every minute of my life."
The broad path had many people upon it, the most of them, like themselves, on their way home. Hertha looked about as though asking him to say nothing then, but the young man continued in a low voice:
"I haven't anything to say but what you know and every one else knows who sees you and me. I love you like I didn't believe any one could love another. I don't ask for anything but to work for you, hoping some time that you'll take what I have to give. It just about kills me to see you worrying about your work or money. It's for a man to do that. Don't worry, dear," he said the word again, almost in a whisper, "we can walk along together. Let me carry the things."
"No!" Hertha said in a whisper. "Seems to me like it was meant I should carry them alone."
But she did not take the coat from him when they reached the house, letting him take it to her room. He laid it on her bed and at once went out, without glancing her way, but when he turned to her at dinner where she sat beside him he could see a troubled look in her eyes. He felt as though he had stirred the waters, just a little, as he had stirred the lake with his oar that afternoon.
The look of happiness on Dick's face made Hertha pass a restless night. She tossed for a long time on her bed, and only fell into a deep sleep by morning. And from this she was awakened by a vivid dream. She was back in her old home among the pines, and never in her waking hours had she seen the cabin more clearly, its log walls, the weeds growing out of the white sand. And as she saw her own home, she saw, too, the home of the whites with its overhanging vines and its broad balcony. In her dream she moved through one and then another, but each room was deserted and empty. She ran among the pines and under the live-oaks, draped with their fringe of swaying moss, but on all her way encountered no human being; only against the blue sky was a long wavering line of birds. The loneliness overwhelmed her, it bore down upon her like a physical weight, until, struggling against the feeling of oppression, she awoke into the hot morning, threw off her blanket and raised herself on her pillow the better to breathe.
As she dressed and thought of her dream, she was overcome with remorse. If the homes were empty, it was because she had made them so. Their life was in her thought, and she had deliberately thrust them far back in her mind. Her lover, whom she tried hard to despise; Miss Patty, who had shown her so many kindnesses; her mother and sister and brother—the command to her heart had been that they should be forgotten. Standing before her mirror and coiling her hair, her hands shook as she thought of the death of her past. And she resolved that before long, when she could reach a decision as to the present, she would bring at least some of the figures back to the empty rooms.
The time had come, she told herself, to determine upon her next step. It was neither kind nor right to play month after month with a man's affection, allowing him to spend money upon her, to grow daily to care more for her, if she was sure that she could never care for him. She sighed a little at her conscientiousness, for Dick, when he kept where he belonged, was a pleasant adjunct to her life. And her second decision must be in regard to her profession. If she could not do better at stenography, she must cease to spend her income trying to master the subject. It would never do to stay on here exhausting her legacy fruitlessly. She turned from her mirror to her desk and took up a calendar that hung above it. To-day was May 22. School would be over on June 24. The day after that would be Saturday. Putting a circle around the date, June 25, she determined in her mind that she would at that time definitely decide on her next step. This resolution taken, she was genuinely relieved, for she knew that, as she would have obeyed such a mark at school had it meant the handing in of a problem or a written paper, so she would obey it now in her difficult life. It was with a feeling of righteous satisfaction, as though the decision had already been reached, that she went down to breakfast.
Dick was late and she slipped out of the house before he saw her. Her day's plan was made, and for the first time in some weeks she went to New York and back to her own church. In Brooklyn she had looked in upon one ecclesiastical edifice after another to be dissatisfied with each, and it was with a feeling of rest and happiness that she returned to her first church home. But though the music was as beautiful as always, there was no one there to remember her, and she went out a little lonely.
Her cheeks were pink as she climbed the three flights and knocked at Kathleen's door. Kathleen had not been cordial to her since her defection. But Hertha, who gave her affection to few and who, finding it hard to give, found it equally difficult to take away, had sought her old friend more than once, ignoring Kathleen's refusal to cross the river. It was some weeks now since they had had a chat together, and as she stood outside the door the young girl found her heart beat fast in hope of a cordial welcome and perhaps a dinner at the little table with Billy sitting between them. If Kathleen would only invite her to dinner, she would help to get it.
The lower hall door had been open and she had no intimation as to whether or not Kathleen was home. Her knock brought no response. Thinking that her friend might return shortly, she sat on the stairs and waited until one o'clock had passed and she felt sure that Kathleen was out at work or dining elsewhere. She was miserably disappointed and wished that at least she had her old key and might enter and look in at the rooms. Probably the flowers were wilting, needing, like herself, a friend. With a white face and drooping mouth she turned downstairs.
An ice cream soda at a drug store is not a sufficient Sunday dinner and it was with a feeling of faintness, a desire to eat her meal alone and sulk if she wished, that Hertha sat down at the supper table.
"Hallo," Dick called out from his seat as she slipped into hers, "where did you get your Sunday dinner?"
"In New York," was the answer.
"You missed a peach at home. A fried chicken peach with corn fritters. I can taste it now!" And Dick ostentatiously smacked his lips. "What did you have?" he asked.
"Nothing especial."
"Well, you missed it."
"I suppose I did," said Hertha, with more than a touch of crossness, "but that doesn't prevent my eating my supper."
"Indeed you are not seeing that any of us are helped," Mrs. Pickens cried, calling Dick's attention to his duties at the head of the table, and Hertha soon found herself making the best of the left-overs of the previous meal.
No one seemed in good spirits. Mrs. Wood told them all a half dozen times that her head ached, and her daughter showed on her face that she had heard the same tale at regular and irregular intervals during the day. She looked more than ever as though she wished she were a man, a desire that was rarely absent from her thoughts. "A man," she was wont to say, "is not expected to earn the family income and also be a companion and nurse, and if by any chance he did take all three positions he would make sure to be paid well for them." Mrs. Pickens was tired, she was always tired on Sunday, it being the maid's easiest and her hardest day; and Dick was disgusted that yesterday's happiness had been spirited away with the morning. So the conversation lagged and only as the meal was almost concluded did it take an unexpected and exciting turn.
It was Miss Wood who began it. "You are from the South, I think, Miss Ogilvie?" she said, addressing Hertha.
"Yes," answered Hertha.
"So am I," called out Dick.
"I am aware of that fact," Miss Wood went on in anything but a cordial tone, "but I wished to ask Miss Ogilvie's opinion on a certain question. I was reading in a magazine to-day," she looked across at Hertha, ignoring the young man at the table's head, "in an article by a southern physician, a man, I understand, of some note, a very sweeping statement. In writing of the Negroes he said that he was confident there was not a pure colored woman in the country above the age of sixteen."
Mrs. Pickens choked over her bread and butter. She had not been brought up to discuss sociological questions and she deeply disapproved of the way Miss Wood frequently introduced them, especially at meal time. Last week they had been treated to a shocking tale of reformatories, but this was the first time they had been drawn into the social evil. Looking at Hertha, she expected to see her with drooping head murmuring a gentle nothing. But she was mistaken. The southern girl's face was on fire, with anger, not shame.
"It's not true," she said.
"And I say itistrue," cried Dick, bringing his fist down on the table. "That doctor knew what he was writing about. It's damned true, every word of it."
He gulped as he realized he had been guilty of swearing, but Miss Wood, who was in control of the conversation, paid no attention to him. "I am interested in what you say," she went on to Hertha, "for it agrees with my own impression. I have not met many colored people in my work, but I have had a few cases among them, and while I have seen degradation it has not seemed to me any greater than that among the whites of the same class. Such a sweeping statement as this is unjust."
"It's wicked," said Hertha, addressing Miss Wood. Despite every effort at control, she found her chin trembling and her voice shaking a little. "I have known many colored women, servants and teachers, and I know they were pure and good."
"You were fooled," Dick cried excitedly. "That doctor knew what he was talking about. A nigger wench is always rotten. Why, every southern man knows it."
"Indeed?" Miss Wood looked at him for the first time.
"Dick!" said Mrs. Pickens, in real consternation at the turn the conversation was taking. "You should not talk like that. You owe us an apology."
"I didn't start the subject."
"That's quite true," his landlady replied, "and we'll drop it."
Dick was still defiant. "I'm sorry I swore," he said, speaking more quietly, "but it's a swearing subject. And I won't be picked up as meaning what I didn't intend. A man needn't be rotten to know what a woman's like. And the nigger women are all the same. They don't understand what it means to be pure. And I tell you, the men are worse. Why, every white woman down South's afraid of them. And good reason, too. It ain't safe for them to go out alone at night. Some places it ain't hardly safe day or night. If we didn't string up a black buck every now and then for an example, we'd never be safe. They're a bad lot, the whole crew of them, and they're getting more blasted impertinent every day."
He brought his fist down again and faced them all, his mouth set in its narrow, ugly line, his eyes hard as steel.
Miss Wood smiled over at Hertha. "I'm glad you don't agree," she said.
She was genuinely interested in the subject, and she also rejoiced in showing Richard Brown at a disadvantage. It was her earnest hope that he would not win so attractive a girl as Hertha for his wife.
"No!" said Hertha, "I don't agree." She was close to tears. Unless she told her whole story, nothing that she might say about the Negroes would count, and she was not prepared to tell her story. But her heart was hot with anger, and turning to Dick for the first time in the discussion she cried out, "What do you know about it? You're nothing but a cheap Georgia cracker!" and with this retort rose from the table and hurried to her room.
"Dick, how could you?" Mrs. Pickens asked when the two were left alone together.
"I didn't begin it," he said again.
"No, but you certainly went on with it. How can you expect a girl like Hertha to like you when you talk so coarsely and say such terrible things? She was right, anyway; I'm a southerner and I don't believe such a sweeping statement as that."
"Well, I do," said Dick emphatically, back at the dispute again. "I'm not a nigger lover." He wiped his face with his handkerchief and, getting up, began to pace the room. "That stiff old maid with her darned talk makes me want to kill somebody."
He stopped in front of Mrs. Pickens and took up the subject again. "Haven't I known the niggers? They worked my father's land, when they didn't loaf and get drunk. Pure women! Every mother's child with a different father! I know 'em. Ain't I seen 'em, the splay-footed, stinking devils!"
Mrs. Pickens looked at him, surprised at the intensity of his feeling. She had taken the black people all her life as a matter of course, accepting their failings and shortcomings, never questioning their inferiority, but also never questioning their good qualities and their value in the world in which she was reared.
"I think you ought not to talk that way about any human being," she said gently, "and on Sunday, too."
"They ain't human," Dick declared, and then added sulkily, "anyway not more than half human."
"You don't believe," Mrs. Pickens spoke a little hesitatingly, "you don't think, Dick, that they're our brothers in Christ?"
"No," he roared in answer, "they're no brothers of mine, the dirty, big-lipped, splay-footed bucks. What are you giving me? Want me to take 'em into my parlor, marry 'em to my sisters——"
"Oh, come!" said Mrs. Pickens, with a little laugh, "I'm a southerner, you know! You don't have to talk that stuff to me."
"Well, and ain't I a southerner? No, I'm nothing but a cheap Georgia cracker, that's what I am. But I ain't a nigger lover, anyway. Pretty way to talk to a feller, ain't it, now?" he said, facing Mrs. Pickens, the anger dying in his eyes.
"It was very unkind; I don't wonder you're angry." Then she added, looking keenly at him, "If she thinks that way about you, why don't you give her up?"
"Oh, don't say that!" The lad's whole appearance changed, his mouth softened, the tears started to his eyes. He gripped the table and looked at his woman friend as though she had struck him a blow. "I couldn't stand that. I love her so."
"But you know, Dick," there was a teasing smile on Mrs. Pickens' face, "an attractive girl like Hertha is sure to have a lot of beaus, and she can't marry all of them."
"There isn't anybody else; you can see for yourself there isn't anybody else. I've got to have her. I'll go to the devil if I don't!"
He was so changed, so shaken with feeling, that Mrs. Pickens took the hand that hung by his side and patted it. And then to her amazement and her happiness, for it was good to mother this long-legged piece of masculinity, she found the boy kneeling by her side, his head buried on her shoulder.
"I suppose," he said, looking up after a minute and blinking, "she had an old black mammy that took care of her and loved her and that she loved. Perhaps," contemptuously, "she played with nigger babies when they were cute and small. Nigger babies can be awful cute."
Mrs. Pickens smoothed his ruffled hair, but said nothing.
"Well, I'm a Georgia cracker," he declared next, with desperate calmness, "and she's right in thinking I come cheap."
"She didn't mean it like that!"
"I don't know what she meant," he went on wearily. "I don't half understand her. The only time we get along together is when neither of us says a word."
Mrs. Pickens laughed, and Dick, rising sheepishly to his feet, walked to the open window. When he turned back he seemed his usual self again.
"I'll be out of the way soon enough now," he said. "I'm off on the road to-morrow."
"Yes, dear."
"You couldn't go to her room by and by, could you, and tell her I'm sorry I made such a rumpus?"
"Of course. And I will say, Dick, that I think this time she is as much to blame as you. You only ran down the darkies, but she——"
"She lambasted me, all right. I know I'm not her kind. But what does she think she's going to get?" His anger flared up again for a moment. "Does she expect to find a prince in that precious school of hers? Or perhaps she thinks she'll meet him when she goes to work in Wall Street. That's so, she might, and he'd fall to her, all right."
He grew jealous at his picture and fear overtook him; for as Mrs. Pickens had said, there was more than one beau for a pretty girl, and Hertha was more than pretty—she was a woman whom a man could not forget.
"I've got to have her," he said, looking beyond the reach of the room out into the space in which Hertha's self stood out before him. "I can't see anything without her. You're mighty good to me," he added as he turned to go, "it was a lucky day when Jim Watson steered me up these steps."
"I haven't done anything," Mrs. Pickens made haste to answer, "but I promise after this I'll do what I can."
At ten o'clock she knocked at his door. He opened to her at once, and, seeing his face drop, she knew that he had hoped for a word from another visitor.
"You'll see her at breakfast, Dick; that's all I could get for you. I think she's more hurt than you or I can understand."
Dick sat at his open window until midnight, and tossed on his bed for a long time after that. He remembered the afternoon of yesterday when together they had sat in the boat and had walked among the flowers, quietly living in the spirit of the spring. And now, to-night a thunderstorm had come and drenched them both! He liked his imagery, and, tired of cursing himself, turned over at last and went to sleep.
She did appear at breakfast the next morning dressed for her school, and looking as she always looked, quite composed and very lovely. But when at the door he stopped to say good-by, she, for the first time, went out and walked to the car with him. All the way he did not say a word, so fearful was he of uttering the wrong one. They stood on the corner, both silent, till her car came in sight.
"I hope you'll have a pleasant trip," she said, holding out her hand to him.
"Thank you," he answered, shaking the hand limply.
So fearful was he that he would offend her by holding it a moment too long that he scarcely grasped it at all. But, save for this slight error, certainly on the safe side of the account, he behaved with the utmost correctness. She boarded the car and passed from his sight. But to the inward eye of memory she stood, illumined with the golden light of a lover's worship, aureoled, winged, a creature for the heaven of the enraptured gods.
It was a great relief to Hertha when Dick went away. She had been indignantly angry at his railing against the colored people, "her people," as she had so lately called them; and, added to her anger, was a sense of impotence, of inability properly to answer him. Sometimes she almost believed that it was her duty to tell the whole family the story of her life—only thus could she convince them of the virtue of the Negro. But she shrank inexpressibly from such a revelation. To tell of the goodness of her colored mother meant that she must also tell of the sin of her own mother, a sin accounted so great a disgrace that it was hidden at the cost of a white child's racial integrity. They would enjoy the story, she had no doubt. Mrs. Pickens would love it as pure gossip and Miss Wood would enjoy it equally, though she would cover her pleasure with the veil of the interest of a sociologist. To talk about herself was always repugnant to Hertha, and to speak to these new people of her past was becoming unthinkable. The man she meant to marry should know of it, but she pushed all thought of marriage from her life.
Dick's words, however, rankled daily, and while it was a futile pursuit, destined in no way to help to install the Negro in his rightful place in Mrs. Pickens' household, she spent many hours picturing the Georgia boy's childhood and contrasting it unfavorably with her own. He had told her something of his home, she had seen one of his mother's letters, and she made what was in reality a fairly shrewd guess at his former surroundings. When a little girl she had lived near a white family that counted itself of importance, but whose standards she despised. These people occupied a long, low house, devoid of paint or whitewash, with broken steps from which the railing was long since absent. The rooms of the house opened upon a porch and near the steps was a table with a pitcher and bowl. It was the washroom of the home, and at noon especially it was amusing to watch the men come up and with much spluttering pour water over their faces and run their wet hands through their hair. Ablutions were performed here day and night. The rear of the house was ill-kept and dirty, and once, when Tom brought home a bright piece of rug, thrown out on the dust heap, Mammy rebuked him sharply and burned the offending rag in the stove. The men of the house had been rough and unmannerly and the ugly, sallow women had dipped snuff and looked like slatterns. Probably Dick's sisters (he had told her he had two older sisters) were sallow, with straight thin hair and shrill voices. If they did not dip snuff, they certainly chewed gum, a practice in which Dick himself indulged. "Cheap white trash, dirty white trash," this would be the best word her mammy could say for such people, except perhaps after a good meal or an uplifting sermon when she would admit that they "hadn't had advantages."
And yet it was the memory of her colored mother and not the word of apology from Dick or of excuse from Mrs. Pickens that brought Hertha to the car that Monday morning. Ellen, she felt sure, would have rejoiced at her retort, thrilling with pleasure at it, but Mammy would have been grieved. "Don' make yoursel' cheap, chile," she had once said in rebuke to Ellen, after her daughter had broken out in fierce and angry attack upon a stupid father whom she could not persuade to do his duty by his children. "Keep you' temper. Bad manners carry you back on you' path." Hertha knew that she had not kept her temper, and in recognition of the training from a gentle teacher reared in a school whose doors have long since closed, she made her gesture of apology. But her resentment against the "cheap cracker" was slow in dying out, and she rejoiced as she moved about the house that he was absent from it.
She and Bob became greater friends than ever and took many walks in the park, watching with happy interest the change from spring to full summer. On a Friday afternoon of the week that Dick had left she went to the great department store in New York where she loved to make her few purchases to buy a top for Bob, partly on Bob's account, partly because she herself enjoyed the outing. It was late in the season for tops, but in the interminable story that meandered on through the pleasant paths they traversed in the park Tom-of-the-Woods was spinning his top and Bob wanted a new one of his own. So, in no hurry over her purchase, lingering to look at the lovely silks and satins in the great rotunda, Hertha at last found herself in the basement and, appealing to a floor walker, was directed to the fifth floor where tops were to be found among the toys. She pushed her way into the elevator and, standing well in the rear, waited while the other customers got out one by one until, left alone, the boy at the wheel called out "Fifth floo', upholstery, curtains, toys."
When she was new to the city she had looked curiously at the dark faces of the men who ran the elevators, thinking that some time she might see one that she knew. But this had never happened and she had ceased to expect it. There was no mistaking, however, the pleasant drawling voice, the long drawn out "toy-ese" that came from the man at the wheel. Impetuously moving forward and grasping his arm before he had time to open the door she drew him around to her and cried out "Tom!"
"Yes'm," he answered, looking at her with a serious smile.
He had changed, but for the better, she saw that in a flash. His mouth was more firmly set, about his eyes was a more determined look. He was still a boy, but was fast gaining the outlook upon the world of a man.
"Tom!" Hertha cried again, "what are you doing here?"
She held his arm in hers. "Let go, Hertha," he said in a tone of command, "I must open the door."
She loosed her hold and he drew the door open, but no one entered and they shot on up again.
"How far do you go?" she asked.
"To the eighth."
"Well, stop here!" They were still alone, moving on above the sixth floor. "Stop here, Tom, between these floors, please, please!"
Her voice was full of emotion and he turned his wheel and stopped at her bidding. He had seen her when she entered and his surprise was not great like hers. That she was a beautiful young woman, taking her place in the white world, was what he had expected. He felt pride in her pretty dress and graceful carriage; but he recognized her aloofness, her position with the dominant race. Now, however, as she grasped his arm and greeted him with the old, bright, comradely look, for a moment he felt himself her boy again.
"Why aren't you at school?" she demanded.
He was recalled to his position by repeated clicks of his indicator. "You know, Sister," the name slipped out unawares, "I can't explain a thing like that between two floo's with the bells ringing for me above and below."
"Then come and explain it to me to-night. You must, Tom. I'll do something desperate if you don't come."
Her face was aglow with excitement, her eyes shone and she gripped her silk-gloved hands together.
Doubtful whether he should obey her, he still could not resist her pleading. "All right, I'll come," he promised and sprang the car upward.
They had another moment alone when she slipped her address in his hand and described rapidly the way to reach her home. "Now I know you never broke your word," she whispered as she stepped back in the basement again.
Fearing that the slight delay she had caused in the running time of the elevator might arouse some criticism, she summoned all her courage, drew herself up with a more impressive air than she had ever yet assumed, and addressed the starter.
"I was glad to recognize that elevator boy of yours," she said with condescension, "he comes from my home town."
"Yes, Madam," the man answered.
"He is thoroughly trustworthy," she went on, "I know, for he has worked in my family."
"I thought he was a good boy," the man said, bowing to her, "but we are always grateful for further references."
Hertha nodded and made her way out.
It was not until she was almost at her doorstep that she remembered that she had failed to buy the top.
"I'm glad I didn't tell Bob I was getting it for him," she thought remorsefully, "but how should I remember it when I met Tom-of-the-Woods himself!"
During dinner, Mrs. Pickens, as she looked at Hertha from time to time, sitting silently in her place, thought she had never seemed so lovely. Too often of late she had been worried and tired; to-night her face expressed a glad content, her pale cheeks were pink with color, and every now and then a look of expectancy came into her eyes. Something had happened, of this her landlady felt sure, and she regretted that she was going out and could not properly interrogate her pretty boarder.
We love to speak of the maternal instinct, counting it an attribute of every mother who looks down upon her new-born child; yet in the eyes of many women the madonna look never comes however many children they bring into the world. But Hertha was of no such stock. Her mother had turned toward Death when the gift that she had brought into the world might no longer rest in the hollow of her arm. To her daughter, life glowed purest when looking into the eyes of a child. And in the care and companionship of the first baby that she had carried—a squirming lump in its little white frock, its brown feet kicking futilely against her body, its brown head resting upon her shoulder—she had begun to be about her motherly business. It was the madonna look that Mrs. Pickens saw in Hertha's eyes, the look of pride that her baby was growing up as he should, and of intense anticipation at the talk that she would have with him again.
But when the dinner was over, when Mrs. Pickens had gone out and the others had retired to their rooms, a worried expression came into Hertha's face. She was in the North where color prejudice was not extreme, but she was also in a southern home and she could not decide in what spot to meet her visitor. As she sat in her room she half laughed, half cried over it. Probably in all the house there was no one who, if she explained the situation, would not be glad to have her receive a visit from a boy who had lived in her home town and who could bring her news of her old friends there—such old friends—whether he were black or white. And yet in the whole house there did not seem to be a proper spot in which to receive him. From the kitchen, presided over by a cross and busy white cook, to her bedroom, where only if he were a servant he might enter, he had no rightful place. And in the street or the park—she gasped at the thought of what others would think. There really seemed no possible number of appropriate square feet, except perhaps in the hall.
Eight o'clock found her in the parlor, the lamp sending a circle of light from the round table in the middle of the room, the last glow of twilight entering through the long windows. Hertha sat at one of them watching the passers-by, eager and anxious, her heart swelling with love for her old home and for the people there for whom she was hungry, hungry as a baby is hungry for its mother's breast. The rooms of the cabin, empty in her dream, were all inhabited now, the door wide open, Mammy moving about washing the dishes, Ellen at work setting up sums for her children at school. Outside the chickens were pecking amid the white sand. The chords of memory were ringing louder and louder, ringing with an intensity that came from their long suppression, calling up pictures of the past, striking now a note of happiness, more often a deeper one of pain. The life of the last nine months was disappearing, drifting into a mist of nothingness, and Hertha Williams was sitting in Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house parlor, watching for a substantial earthly presence out of the life of the past.
"Miss Ogilvie," a voice said from the hallway, "there's a colored boy downstairs who says he's got something for you. He says he's Tom."
"Tom!" said Hertha with a start. Her surprise was no dissimulation. She had surely expected to see him before he entered the house and she could scarcely believe he was really in it. "Why, yes," she stammered, "if it's Tom he's from my old home. Tell him to come up here."
"Tom," the cook called as she went down the stairway, "the young lady says you're to come along." And with this invitation she went back to her work.
Hertha, as she stood there in the parlor, her hands on her boy's shoulders, looking into his face, his good face with its serious forehead, its kindly mouth, believed that even Dick, were he there, must cease his nasty screeching about niggers and see that boys were boys, black or white, and that here was a young American of whom to be proud.
"Oh, Tom," she said as she sat down, and looked at him where he stood in front of her, "You're so good to see!" And again, "Oh, Tom, it's so good, so good to see you!"
"Now you've got to take that chair and tell me every bit of news," she announced when she had stared her fill.
"Reckon that would take quite a space," he answered cheerfully.
"Sit down," Hertha commanded but with a quaver in her voice.
"Oh, I couldn't sit down," Tom answered in an argumentative way. "I's clean forgotten how. I stand so long in the corner of the car, with one hand on the wheel like this," imitating his position in the elevator, "and one arm going out like this," opening and shutting an imaginary door, "that I reckon I'll soon be doing it in my sleep. It ain't natural for an elevator boy to sit."
Hertha's mouth drooped, and yet her heart glowed at her boy's thoughtfulness. From his entrance at the basement door until he left she knew he would look after her and see that she suffered nothing from his presence in her white home.
"Tell me first if they're all well?" she asked.
"Yes'm, they're doing nicely. Mammy's been ailing some this winter, Ellen says, but she's a heap better now."
"What's been the matter?" Hertha questioned sharply.
"Oh, just ailing," Tom said vaguely. "There ain't anything rightly the matter."
"But she's better now?"
"Oh, yes, and Ellen's had a good year at school and the hens are laying. Mammy told about the eggs they had for Sunday breakfast."
"Truly?" Hertha said. "What Sunday?"
"Last Sunday," Tom answered and drew a letter from Ellen out of his pocket.
As he read her all the homely news of the school and cabin her eyes filled with tears though she did not let them fall; only when he was done she asked for the letter and received it.
"And now," she demanded, turning on Tom with a show of severity, "what are you doing in New York? Don't you know you ought to be in school?"
"Yes'm," he answered, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and smiling ingratiatingly.
"What's happened?" Hertha's voice changed from one of severity to one of curiosity.
"Well," Tom made answer, "it weren't such a great show there, so I up and left."
"I didn't suppose you'd do such a thing! What was the matter anyway?"
"They was always rushing a feller. They didn't give yer any time to think."
"Tom!" Hertha broke into laughter, such peals of laughter that the cook, back in the kitchen, listened and smiled as she wrung out her dishcloth, glad that her favorite in the house, who never made a mite of trouble, was having a good time.
"It weren't a bad place," Tom went on, indulgent to the school, not wishing to do it an injustice, "there's some as likes to jump about like a chicken with its head cut off, but I like a chance to think. You'd have found it right pretty, Hertha—a river not so big as ours but full of lights at sunset. The trees were fine, too, with bigger leaves than we have, and when winter come it was white with snow."
"Oh, I know about that," Hertha interrupted. "I was out in the first snowstorm this winter, and on a sled, too. Did you go coasting, Tom?"
"No, ma'am!" His negative was emphatic. It precluded the possibility that even, for a moment, he had indulged in such a pastime. And after the spoken word he shook his head some seconds in further denial.
"It were this-a-way," he went on, "they thought as there weren't a minute of the day that a feller could have to himself. I reckon they do that way in the army, an' we wore army clothes—play clothes though, for we didn't have no guns. You'd get up in the morning after a cat-nap, an' go about your tasks till breakfast, and when you'd eaten that up an' more too, there'd be drill and lessons and Lord knows what all, I can't remember such a long while as this. But by and by there'd come a minute when the bell didn't ring and a fellow would think he could stop to study something. Perhaps he'd sit on a bench and try to figure out what was in his mind when an officer'd come along and call out, 'What you doing?'"