Edith and John Part 1

Edith and John.

by Franklin S. Farquhar.

CHAPTER I.

THE WRECKED UMBRELLA.

Fog and smoke and grime hung over the city of Pittsburgh: a thickening blanket, soggy in its c.u.mbrous pall. The rain came down like gimlets; the air was savage, miserably embracing; the streets were sodden, muddy, filthy, with dirty streams babbling along the gutters; the lights gleamed ghastly, ghostly, hideously, in radiating through the gloom; water dripped from eave, awning, wire, sign, lamppost--from everything, spattering, trickling, everlastingly dripping, till the whole world seemed to be in an advanced stage of the diabetes. It was a gray, grim, medieval night--a cold, raw, nerve-racking night in November.

The gleaming forges, the ponderous hammers, the monstrous rolls of the mills boomed in the distance, sullenly, ceaselessly, like unto the grumblings of a maddened Tubal Cain irritated beyond endurance. Mill and factory and boat and shop whistles tooted and screeched and howled demoniacally, with little agreement as to rhythm. Trains rumbled, cars rattled, and all manner of conveyances b.u.mped along, over crossings and grades and Y's, through tunnels, under sheds, through yards, beneath buildings, over streets, across bridges; some rapidly, some slowly, some cautiously, some recklessly--all going, coming, hither and yon, with a remorseless energy, and for an inexorable purpose. A medley of bells smote the air with a harshness, a sweetness, a madness, that was startling enough to drive the nervous into a wild panic. The rumble of cart, the thud of horse, the crack of whip, the tread of feet, the sound of voice, was a confused ma.s.s of noises added to the greater roaring of the turbulent city of iron and steel.

Tired, wan women, coa.r.s.ely dressed; proud, haughty women, fashionably attired; strips of boys and girls, shivering and chattering, bedraggled and humped up; h.o.r.n.y-handed men, roughly clothed; kid-gloved men, faultlessly groomed: some with bundles, baskets, dinner-buckets, or nothing--all hurrying through the elemental dreariness, bending their way from office, from store, from shop, from mill, from factory to home, to hotel, to palace, to mansion, to hovel, to downy beds, to straw pallets, to bunk, to bench, or doorstep; or to place of nightly service, or to pleasure; to rest and refresh themselves, and await the coming of another day of toil, or leisure.

John Winthrope was a strapping young man but a few months from the country--aged twenty-two. He had quit his pen and ink and account sheets at his high desk in the office of Jarney & Lowman as the clock in the court house tower pealed out six deliberately solemn strokes. He put on his coat and hat, took up a bundle of reading matter selected for its quality from that which daily c.u.mbered the desks and waste-baskets, procured an umbrella from the many that had been left in a rack in one corner, and went out the door, down the elevator, and into the street.

As rain was falling, he turned up his pantaloons, turned up his coat collar, raised the umbrella, and joined the throng of hurrying pedestrians, homeward bound.

Home! John had no home in the city. He had left his home behind--the modest, cheaply builded, scantily furnished and illy appointed home of his parents in the mountains--to come to the city to make his fortune.

His home now was a "room"--merely a room among a multiplicity of similar rooms, in between the four angles of plastered walls. His remuneration as the lowest bookkeeper in the line of such functionaries was insufficient to purchase more than the most meager accommodations in a cheap boarding house up Diamond Alley way.

This room in question was in an ancient brick and timber building, that, in its earlier days, was an architectural ornament in its stateliness compared to other business blocks; but by reason of the rapid striding of modern prosperity, it was long ago left in the vast shades that great fortunes had reared into iron and concrete, standing by.

There were only two sides open to the light and air in this low and aged building--one in front and one on top. In between were three tiers of small dark rooms, one tier above the other, resembling very much the little cubes of a concentrated egg case. Two small paned windows looked drearily into them from the street, on each floor, with a smaller time-stained window in each resounding hallway.

The inner rooms were lighted by abbreviated wells dug in from a skylight on the side adjoining the blank walls of a dizzy skysc.r.a.per. And cloudy and shadowy and dim and cheerless, indeed, was the light let in on the brightest of days, while on dull days it was nothing more than the semblance of a waning twilight; so that, if used in day time at all, a light were needed to make out and clearly discern any object within.

In one of these dark and inodorous rooms, John Winthrope had his temporary abiding place. There were in it a cheap iron bed, with musty smelling tick, sheet and coverlets; a small oak-grained pine washstand, with such a wavy little mirror hanging over it, that one could not tell, in looking at himself in it, whether he were a Chinaman, a Greaser, or a crooked-faced Irishman toiling in the streets; a small bowl, for washing, and a correspondingly small pitcher, with water in it, sat upon the shaky stand; a cheap chair, a weak imitation of quartered oak, with many marks of usage all over it, stood by a little table, also with many marks of usage on it; a flowered carpet, faded, worn and fretted by the sure hand of wearing time, covered the floor, with here and there ragged spots of bareness to enhance the room's impoverishment.

Leaving the office of Jarney & Lowman on that very disagreeable evening, as mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, John pushed down the foggy thoroughfares, with a rain: which seemed to be coming from a reservoir in the infinite s.p.a.ce above: pouring down. The streets were crowded with people, going in various directions, and jostling each other with little regard as to manners. Everybody had, apparently, but one motive, and that was to get somewhere out of the terrors of the elements. n.o.body went with any precision as to plan of action, aiming only to reach a near or remote destination.

John pressed along the best he could, with what care that the rain, the umbrellas and the crowd permitted. He drew his shoulders downward, and bent forward, leaning against the driving rain, with his umbrella in front of him. He hugged the buildings closely, stepped rapidly, dodged from right to left of the other pedestrians, who were attempting the same artful measures as himself, to keep out of the rain, if that were possible.

So absorbed was he in his own behalf, that he did not observe a young lady approaching, in line with him, with the same absorbing carefulness as to herself. She had but a moment before stepped from a store, not perceiving that it was raining hard till she was plodding along through it. She was also bending forward slightly, picking her way with dainty but quickly executed steps to get where everybody else was aiming for--home. Like John, she was un.o.bserving as to the actions of the fleeing people about her; and it is difficult to tell just how she expected to keep her feet dry, considering how the water fell, and how it splashed about.

Howsoever, the lady, all of a sudden, came to a stop; two ribs of her umbrella snapped with a loud click, one side flapping down over her shoulders; her hat flew off as if it had been kicked by an athlete, and rolled across the swimming pavement into the gutter. She uttered a little cry of distress, and was in the act of turning around, and repairing to the store whence she came, when she beheld a young man performing an ungraceful act in attempting the recovery of her hat. He was fleeing after it, with upspread umbrella over him, and running and stopping and reaching for the piece of headgear that seemed determined to evade his efforts to secure it. Seeing him thus, in his ludicrous movements, she half smiled, and then decided to await further developments.

Securing the hat, finally, after it had started to float away on the tide of the gutter, John (for that is whom the young man was) returned with it to her, he himself showing some moiling, like the hat, as a result of his gallant endeavors. When he approached her, with it in his hand, she exhibited such an air of respectability and unfeigned independence that John was fairly startled.

"Beg your pardon, lady," he said, handing her the hat, bowing as he did so; "it was an unavoidable accident--or rather the result of my heedlessness. I beg your pardon."

The lady stood a short moment confused, hesitating as to whether she should deign to answer a stranger in the street, any more than to say "thank you," and acknowledge, lady-like, that she was partly in the blame, and ask his pardon also; or accept his blunder in good nature, as he seemed to take it, and go her way. But John's voice was so mild, and his manner so gentlemanly, that she felt as soon as he had spoken that she need have no fear of him.

"Oh, sir," she said, pleasantly, with a laugh; "as much my fault as yours. Thank you."

"May I hold your umbrella while you adjust your hat?" he asked, seeing her dilapidated rain shade, with water streaming off of it on her shoulders, falling about her head.

"If you wish, you may," she replied, shyly. "I fear it is about done for."

"You may have mine," he returned. "May I take yours?"

"You may hold it," she answered, as she began to lower it, having her hat now also in her hand. "My, what a predicament I am in!"

"Pardon me," he said; "but you will be left in the rain, if I take yours and you do not accept mine."

"Why, yes, indeed, I forgot it was raining," she responded, with a laugh that indicated her confusion.

"Give it me," he said, as her umbrella shut up tightly. "Will you accept the protection of mine? The rain is falling hard," he continued, as he took hers; and then reached as far as possible, without going closer, holding his over her, and standing himself in the rain.

"Oh, my, this hat is so soiled and nasty from the street," she said, as she held it before her in the light of a fog enshrouded street lamp.

"If you will give it me a moment, I will make an effort to remove some of the grime," he said, in such a deferential tone that she was moved to reply:

"Indeed, sir, I find now I need your a.s.sistance, or perhaps I would be doing a wrong in standing here in the rain with you. I find most men are gentlemen, though, when a lady is in trouble."

"Thank you," he returned. "May I take the hat for a moment?"

She hesitated a second time about accepting his proffered aid, but finally, becoming more convinced of the futility of aiding herself alone, said: "You may."

He then took the hat to clean, and she took the umbrella to hold, and they both stood together, closely, under his rain protector. While he cleaned the hat of its s.m.u.tage, she watched him with some trepidation as to the propriety of the act.

When she saw him draw forth his pocket handkerchief and begin, with delicate carefulness, to mop the slimy accretions from the rich material, she breathed more easily, and stood as silent noting the performance as the street lamp that gave forth such an haloic light.

They were both facing the light, he holding the hat in his left hand, whirling it round and round as he diligently soaked up, with his handkerchief, the water from it. His head was bent forward, with his eyes cast directly upon the object of his attention. She glanced up into his face from time to time, wondering at the strange situation she was in, and seeing how good a face he had. She was very careful that he did not catch her throwing furtive glances at him, fearful that he might think her very bold. John paid no heed to her for the time, so bent was he in attempting to make courteous amends for his awkwardness. But when he had so soiled his handkerchief that it would not absorb any more of the hat's defilement, he raised his eyes to her and said:

"There!"

"Thank you," she returned, taking the hat, and handing him his umbrella.

"Will you be so kind as to hold the umbrella while I put on my hat?"

"With your permission," he replied, with condign simplicity. "I am delighted to be of service to you for the grievous work I have done this night," and he took the umbrella again, and held it over her.

After a few minutes of prodding about her head with two long silver pins, with something sparkling like diamonds on one end of each, she said, as she lowered her hands:

"Now, my umbrella, if you please?"

"You may have mine," he answered. "Yours is so desolate looking that you might as well go on your way without one as to attempt to use it again."

"You are kind, indeed," she replied, with reserve, as she was making an effort to hoist her wrecked umbrella, which he had turned over to her, but still standing under his.

She was now facing the lamp that was feebly radiating down upon them, and he could see, plainly enough, that she was pretty. He had divined as much, however, basing his divination upon her beautifully modulated and sweet voice, which he thought could accompany no other than blue eyes, rosy cheeks and cupid lips.

"Will you accept mine?" he asked again, seeing she was having trouble in raising her own to a due and rigid uprightness.

"To whom shall I return it, should I accept it?" she asked.