Many Kingdoms Part 18

women both. Poor Mr. Jackson's about the worst. I never SEE such a sick man. I got this cracked ice for him," she added, looking down at the gla.s.s she was clasping to her bosom with her free hand. "I'd 'a' looked in on you," she added, kindly, "if I hadn't been so busy, but I heard you wa'n't neither of you sick."

I explained with some effort that I felt comfortable as long as I lay still, but that as soon as I was on my feet, the motion--We parted hurriedly.

On the morning of the sixth day Jessica turned over in her berth, removed from her spine a fork which had seemingly been there all the week, regarded it with strong disfavor, and announced briefly that she was going above. We went. The decks were still wet, and the steamer-chairs were securely lashed in place. The sky was gray and lowering, but the sea had sulkily subsided, showing its continued resentment of the whole experience only in the upheaval of an occasional wave which broke over the ship-rail and perished at our feet. As the hours pa.s.sed, pale wraiths appeared at the companionways, supported one another feebly to the nearest chairs, sank into them, and veiled their faces from one another's gaze. They seemed the ghosts of the happy men and women who had come on board the Columbia six long days ago. Languidly as the hours pa.s.sed they revived and confided to one another the simple record of the voyage. No, they had not been ill.

It was, indeed, singular how few of them had been disturbed by the voyage, though they had all noticed that it was rough. But they had been injured by being knocked about or thrown from their berths, or they had been caring for friends or relatives who were ill. Several of them paused at my side on their way to and from their cabins to indulge in these artless confidences. It remained, however, for Aunt Nancy to make the most interesting of all.

She came along the deck about five in the afternoon and dropped with serene satisfaction into the empty steamer-chair at my right. She was fully dressed in the inevitable black, even to her wide bonnet. With a sigh of pleasure she folded her mittened hands and began to talk.

"It's been real interestin'," she said. "I must say I'm 'most sorry to have it over. I want to go to Europe again in two years; I ain't really enjoyed this trip very much; but when I come again I think I'll like it better, now that I know it. But of course at my age one can't really be sure one can come again."

She sank into silence for a moment, looking down at the mittened hands in her lap. Then her face brightened, and she turned to me again with her old, alert eagerness of expression.

"I dunno why I shouldn't come, though," she added, cheerfully. "I'm real well. Before I left home I was some worried. I didn't seem to be as strong as I used to be. That's why I come--to build up my health an'

git strong. Lots of folks has wondered why I come, I guess, an' that was it, though I ain't told no one till now. I guess I did improve, too, for the stewardess told me with her own lips only this mornin'

that she thought I was a healthy woman. But of course," she added, with lowly humility, "I can't do what I did when I was young."

I was speechless. The Columbia paused on the top of a wave, hesitated a moment, and sailed unsteadily onward. With eyes filled with a solemn content, Aunt Nancy gazed out over the cold, wet sea.

IX

THE HENRY SMITHS' HONEYMOON

When Jacob West suggested to Henry Smith that the latter's honeymoon should be spent in New York, Mr. Smith's ruddy countenance paled at the audacity of the words, and Miss Maria Tuttle, his fiancee, gasped audibly for breath. Unconsciously they clasped hands, as if better to meet together the rude shock of the moment; and seated side by side on the rustic bench which adorned the small veranda of the Tuttle homestead, they gazed helplessly at the speaker. Slowly and with the stiffness of age Jacob sat down on the steps below them and looked up at their startled faces with a twinkle in his dim old eyes. His enjoyment of the moment was intense.

"Why not?" he demanded, cajolingly and argumentatively. "Ain't yeh old enough t' have a good time? Ain't yeh waited long enough? Ain't yeh"--he turned directly to Maria--"bin nursin' yer poor mother fer six years past an' wearin' yerself out, an' ain't yeh bin sewin' day an'

night fer three months, ever sence she died, t' git ready t' marry Henry?" He drew a long breath of gratification over the respectful silence which greeted these adroit points, and went on with hortatory sympathy. "Yeh bin a good daughter, Maria. They ain't no better in Clayton Centre. Yeh deserve th' best they is. Now be good t' yerself an' Henry. Let him take yeh to New York an' give yeh a good time on the weddin' tower."

Miss Tuttle blushed faintly. She was forty-five, and looked ten years older. She was a tired, worn out, faded little woman, drained of her youth and vitality by the hourly exactions of the fault-finding invalid mother whom she had so recently laid away in the church-yard with unselfish filial tears. But there was something attractive in the sweet patience of her thin face, and the look in her brown eyes as she turned them on her faithful middle-aged lover was one of the trump cards her s.e.x has played since Eve first used it as she accompanied Adam to the gate out of paradise. In her embarra.s.sment she laughed a little, consciously.

"Mebbe Henry don't want to go," she began. "He ain't said nothing about New York."

Henry whirled abruptly till he faced her on the rustic seat.

"Go! You bet I want to go!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, with fervor. "Don't I just--you bet I do. Say, Maria"--he fumbled nervously with the thin hand he still held in his own--"say, let's go."

Jacob West cackled delightedly. "That's the talk!" he cried, his thin, high tones taking on a shriller note in his excitement. "You jest do it, Henry! You make her! Neither of yeh'll be sorry, I swan!"

They sat silent, reflecting, and the old fellow rose slowly and painfully, instinctive delicacy telling him that, having done his part, it behooved him to leave them alone to solve for themselves the question he had raised. It was hard to go, but he went, chuckling reminiscently as he recalled the excited look on their faces and pictured the lively debate which would follow his departure.

It was a warm October evening, and the little village lay silent under the early stars. A light wind sang a droning lullaby in the grove of pines back of the Tuttle home, and a few belated birds twittered sleepily in near-by trees. Unconsciously Maria voiced the subtle charm of the hour when she spoke.

"I dunno, Henry," she said, lingeringly--"I dunno's I feel to go. Seems like we ought to be content to stay right here, where it's so quiet an'

restful."

Her eyes roamed lovingly down the garden paths, lingering on trees and shrubs planted by Tuttle hands now a part of earth themselves. "I'm so glad you're comin' here," she sighed, happily. "I don't b'lieve you know yet how glad I am, Henry--not t' leave the old place."

He waived the discussion of this side interest, already settled between them.

"It'll be jest as nice when we come back from New York," he argued, logically, "an' jest as quiet."

The feminine intellect beside him took another tack on the sea of uncertainty with which old Jacob had surrounded it.

"Mebbe we can't afford it," she hazarded. "Prices is very high in New York, Henry. Joseph Hadley's daughter went there four years ago with her aunt, and she told me with her own lips they had to pay a dollar a day for their room at the hotel, without no meals. The hotel man wanted seventy-five cents apiece for dinner, so they paid it once a day an'

the rest of the time they went into lunch-rooms an' had milk an'

crackers. But with one dollar for the room, and another dollar 'n' a half for dinner, an' the crackers an' milk besides, they spent 'most twenty dollars the very first week. They had to come right straight home, 'n' they'd meant to stay two weeks."

Henry Smith's strong jaw set rather obstinately.

"I guess we won't have to come home till we git ready," he remarked, easily, "an' I guess we'll git our three meals a day, too. I don't see myself eatin' no milk an' crackers, nor you, neither. I guess I 'ain't bin savin' all these years, with a good carpenter business, without gittin' somethin' ahead. Say, 'Ria"--it was he who blushed now, his round face close to hers--"yeh can have anything yeh want. I'm that glad t' git yeh at last, I'd spend all I have!"

Her thin hand responded for an instant to the pressure of his and then coyly withdrew itself. She had few words at any time and none in moments of emotion, but he knew her and was satisfied.

"You've bin so good, Henry," she said, at last; "you've bin awful patient all these years. Fur's I'm concerned, I'd as lief stay here's anywhere, but if you want to go t' New York, I--I--want to do what yeh say."

"Then we'll go," he said, quietly; and the great question was settled.

When Mr. and Mrs. Henry Smith arrived in New York on the evening of their wedding-day, it is doubtful which of them was the more dazed and frightened by the bustle and confusion at the Grand Central station.

Maria had at least the support of her husband's nearness to sustain her, and the comparative peace of mind of the one who, though facing untoward conditions, is without personal responsibility; but Henry experienced, in addition to his self-distrust, a sickening fear of failure in her presence. He was conscious of two dominant thoughts.

Whatever happened, he must take care of his wife and spurn the advances of agreeable strangers. Also he and she must be transported by hack to the hotel they had chosen, without parting with the savings of years for the ride. He had heard of the extortions of cabmen. He bargained fiercely with a too-zealous independent who had already grasped his hand-bag and was leading the way to his cab, past the more inexpensive cabs supplied by the railroad company.

"You don't git one cent more'n two dollars for taking us, I can tell you that," announced Henry Smith, firmly but breathlessly, as he climbed clumsily into the cab after his wife. The hotel was in the fifties, and the cabman had intended to charge a dollar for the ride.

He promptly protested against Mr. Smith's offer, however, inquiring anxiously if the gentleman wished an honest cabman's family to go supperless to bed. It appeared that the gentleman was indifferent to the fate of the cabman's family.

"You'll do it for two dollars or you'll let us git out," was his final word. As one overcome by superior force, the cabman yielded, climbed sulkily to his perch, and, bestowing a large, comprehensive wink upon the by-standers, started for the hotel his fare had indicated. Mr.

Smith's spirits rose. Obviously, in this triumph he had demonstrated his fitness to cope with all the other grinding monopolies of New York.

He smiled proudly at his wife as they drove toward Broadway, and his confidence grew as he discovered that he recognized the Times Building at the first glance and could also recognize the Hotel Astor by its resemblance to the picture of it in the Clayton Centre Weekly. At one point in their progress up-town the cab was caught in a crush of vehicles and Mrs. Henry Smith was privileged, for the first time in her life, to listen to the untrammelled conversation of New York cabmen on an occasion when they set their moral shoulders against congested traffic, knowing that it helps THEM, at all events. She shuddered and clung to Henry's arm. It was all too plain that they were in the vortex of G.o.dlessness, but even as the realization of this was borne to her on the winged speech of the driver, Mrs. Smith was conscious of an inward thrill. It was awful, but it was life--not life as lived in Clayton Centre, but certainly a life that already gained in excitement and interest from that fact. Unconsciously craning her thin neck farther out of the cab window, she drank in with a fearful joy the roar and excitement of Broadway, the shouts of drivers, the clang of trolley-cars. Her faded eyes gleamed as she saw the brilliant lights of the great thoroughfare whose illuminated signs met her glance at every turn.

Arrived at the hotel, the cabman accepted the two dollars, dumped the bride's trunk on the sidewalk, and drove off with an alacrity designed to prevent any further discussion of rates. Mr. Smith surrendered his hand-bag to the bell-boy who was reaching out impatient hands for it, grasped his wife's arm, and, following his small guide, walked firmly into the presence of the hotel clerk. It was a trying moment for him as he dragged that aloof personality down to his level, but details were arranged with surprising ease, barring so strange a lack of sympathy.

As soon as he had expressed his few and simple wishes he found himself and his wife being guided to a lift, and with wonderful simplicity put in possession of a comfortable room on the third floor. Here the shades were drawn down, a pitcher of ice-water was hospitably placed on the stand, and a cheery fire was started on the small hearth. Over this last extravagance the bride faintly demurred, but Henry silenced her with his simple grandeur of insistence. It was a cool November evening, and he had noticed that she shivered in her thin wrap as they drove up-town.

"I jest intend makin' yeh comfortable," he announced, masterfully.

It was something of an ordeal to go down to dinner half an hour later, but they met it bravely, walking stiffly into the crowded dining-room, and looking to neither the right nor the left as they followed the headwaiter to their places. The discovery that they had exclusive possession of a small table was a matter of joyful surprise to them both, on which they freely commented. The daintiness of the linen, the gleam of silver, the perfection of the service, and the soft glow of candles under silk shades, filled their simple country souls with awe.

It suggested unconjectured expense with a tang of wickedness as well.

Off in an alcove, screened by palms, an orchestra played with considerate softness. Mr. Smith smiled a large, expansive smile and leaned back in his chair. The moment was perfect. His apprehensions were over for the time. Maria was with him, she was his, and he was giving her all this. Could an Astor or a Vanderbilt offer more to the woman of his heart? Henry Smith looked at the plush and gilding about him, and read his answer.

He experienced a rude awakening. A silent waiter stood beside him, offering for his inspection an elaborate menu. The letters danced before his eyes as Henry looked at them. What did they mean, anyhow, and how did one pick out what one wanted, he wondered. Or, perchance, was one expected gracefully to consume everything? His momentary self-sufficiency died on the instant, and sickening fears of making a mistake before Maria's eyes again overcame him. A great longing filled him to appear to advantage, to do the thing properly, whatever it was.

On a sudden inspiration he leaned toward the waiter.

"Say," he said, confidentially, "you jest bring us two good dinners--the best of everything you've got--and I'll make it all right with yeh." He surveyed the waiter's face anxiously as he spoke, his own clearing as it remained quietly respectful.

"Very well, sir; certainly, sir," said the servant, promptly. "Oysters first, sir, I suppose, and a little green-turtle soup; a bit of fish, perhaps--we've some very nice sole in to-day, sir; a bird--the partridge and grouse are excellent, sir; a salad, and an ice. Any wine, sir? No, sir? Yes, sir." He was gone, and Mr. Smith wiped his perspiring brow. Maria was gazing at him with simple love and trust.

"I declare, Henry," she murmured, "you do it all just 's if you'd be'n doin' it every day of your life. Where'd you learn?"