Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 24

A fresh, keen east wind had arisen, pure and exhilarating, and the smooth expanse of glittering green-and-blue water stretched out under a vivid blue sky, in which great clouds floated like snow mountains, trailing great shadows like robes of state upon the lake.

The curving lake-wall was wet and glistening with the up-flung spray.

The slender elms were fronded at the top like palms, and the vivid green gra.s.s set opposite the pink-gray wall, and the brilliant many-colored lake in magnificent, harmonious contrast. The girl felt her soul grow larger as she faced this scene, so strange, so oriental, and she looked and looked, until it became a part of her.

It was all so remote and so splendid. There the great violet-shadowed sails of ships stood, as she had seen them in pictures of the sea. There a gleaming steamer ran, trailing great banners of smoke. There glittered the white bodies and slant wings of gulls, dipping, upshooting and whirling. To her eyes this was infinity, and the purple mist in which the ships drave was ultimate mystery.

At last she turned to look behind her. There on the left stood rows of immense houses, barred and grated like jails or fortresses; palaces where lived the mighty ones of Chicago commerce. Before their doors carriages stood, with attendants in livery, such as she had read about and had never seen. Up and down the curving ribbon of lavender sand other carriages were driving, with jingle of silver chains and soft roll of wheels. The horses flung foam from their bits; they were magnificent horses (she knew horses as well as any coachman), and their bra.s.s-trimmed harnesses glittered in the sun like burnished gold.

There was no noise here beyond the tread of these stately horses, the babble of a few soft-voiced children on the gra.s.s and the crackling, infrequent splash of the leaping breakers. It was a wide contrast to the Chicago of her first glimpses the day before. That side of the city terrified her, this oppressed and awed her. The social splendor of this life appealed to her perception as it would not to any man. Her quick imagination peopled these mansions with beautiful women and lordly men, and she felt herself rightful claimant of a place among them.

She turned and faced them with set teeth and a singular look in her half-closed eyes, and in her heart she said: "Before I die I'll go where I please in this city. I'll be counted as good as any of you--poor as I am."

To the onlooker--to Mrs. Oliver Frost, she was a girl in a picturesque att.i.tude; to the coachmen on the carriages she was a possible nurse-girl; to the policeman she was a speck on the lake-front lawn.

Something of this mood was with her still when she went in to dinner with Mary. Mary ushered the way, beaming with joy. Rose never looked more beautiful nor more imperious. The Boston man was properly astonished; the Jew salesman smiled till his chubby face seemed not able to contain his gladness. Mr. Taylor, a gaunt young man, alone seemed unmoved; the morose teacher gave a sigh of sad envy.

Rose said little during the meal. She cordially hated Mr. Reed at once.

His Boston accent annoyed her, and his brutal sarcasm upon the West aroused a new anger in her. She had never listened to such talk before.

It didn't seem possible anybody could disparage the West.

"Civilization stops," he said during the meal, "after you leave the Hudson riveh."

"Some folks' manners stop after they leave the Hudson river, if they ever had any," Mary replied, and the Jew cackled joyously.

He defended Chicago. "It is the greatest place to do business in the world. I'm a New Yorker by birth, but Chicago suits me. I like its hustle."

"That's the point. It thinks of nothing but hustle," said the Boston man. "I was speaking of higher things. It lacks the art atmosphere of Boston and Cambridge."

"It has all the atmosphere I need," said the Jew.

To Rose all this was new. It had not occurred to her to differentiate the cities sharply from one another. Chicago, to her, was a great city, a splendid example of enterprise, and it was to be her city, the pride of the West. To the country mind a city is a great city when it acquires a million people. Like the young Jew, Rose had not missed any atmosphere. The tall young man voiced her opinion when he said:

"This finicky criticism don't count. You might just as well talk about the lack of gondolas and old palaces in Boston. Conditions here are unexampled. It's a new town and I think a splendid place to live. Of course you can find fault anywhere."

Rose looked at him with interest. Such precision and unhesitancy of speech she had not heard since leaving college.

Mary glowed with gratified admiration. The Jew was delighted, although he did not quite follow the implied rebuke. Miss Fletcher merely said:

"If Mr. Reed don't like Chicago he is privileged to go back to Boston. I don't think Chicago would experience any shock if he did."

Mr. Reed wilted a little, but he was not crushed.

"The trouble with you people is you don't know anything about any other city. You come in here from Oshkosh and Kalamazoo, and Okookono--"

"Hit him on the back!" called Mary, "he's choking."

"O-con-o-mo-woc," calmly interpreted Miss Fletcher.

Reed recovered--"And a lot more outlandish places--"

"How about Squantum and Skowhegan and Pa.s.samaquoddy," laughed Mary.

Reed collapsed--"O well, those are old, familiar--"

The others shouted with laughter.

"O yes! Everything old and New England goes. You are too provincial, old boy. You want to broaden out. I've seen a lot of fellows like you come here, snapping and snarling at Chicago, and end up by being wild promoters." The Jew was at the bat, and the table applauded every hit.

Rose did not share in the talk--she had so little knowledge of cities--but it served to make Mr. Taylor a strong figure in her eyes. He was tall and big-boned and unsmiling. He studied her with absent-minded interest, and she felt no irritation or embarra.s.sment, for his eyes were clean and thoughtful. He looked at her as if she called up memories of some one he had loved in another world, and she somehow grew a little sad under his gaze.

As they sat in her room after dinner, Mary asked:

"How do you like our crowd?"

"I can't tell yet. I don't like that Boston man. I never could bear the sound of 'ah'."

"He's a chump; but they ain't all like that. I have met two or three decent Boston fellows down in the office. Don't think they are all m.u.f.fs."

"Of course not."

"Now take my 'boss' for example. He's fine. He's big enough so you don't mind his airs, but what do you think of Mr. Taylor?"

Rose looked thoughtful, and Mary hastened to say.

"Ain't he fine?" She hoped to forestall criticism.

"Yes, I think he's fine. He makes me think of Professor Jenks."

"A-hugh! so he does me. Say Rose, I'm going to tell you something, don't you ever tell, will you?"

"Why no--of course not."

"Hope to die?"

"Hope to die, hands crossed."

"Well!"

"Well?"

"I came here to board because _he_ was here."

"Why, Mary Compton!"

"Ain't it awful? Of course, no one knows it but you. I'd just die if he knew it. I used to be afraid that he'd find out, but he can't, because you see, he never saw me till I came here, and he thinks it is just accident. He's so simple about such things anyway, and he's always dreaming of something away off. O he's wonderful! He's been all over the mountains. He adores John Muir--you know that man Professor Ellis told us about? Well, he's lived just that way weeks and weeks in the wildest mountains, and it's just glorious to hear him tell about it."