Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 26

"Write! My dear girl, every addlepate wants to write. Have you friends in the city?"

"One; a cla.s.smate."

"Man?"

"No, a girl."

"Why did you leave home?"

Rose began to grow angry. "Because I couldn't live the life of a cow or a cabbage. I wanted to see the city."

The Doctor arose. "Come here a moment." Rose obeyed and stood beside her at the window, and they looked out across a stretch of roofs, heaped and humped into mountainous ma.s.ses, blurred and blent and made appalling by smoke and plumes of steam. A scene as desolate as a burnt-out volcano--a jumble of hot bricks, jagged eave-spouts, gas-vomiting chimneys, spiked railings, gla.s.s skylights and lofty spires, a hideous and horrible stretch of stone and mortar, cracked and seamed into streets. It had no limits and it palpitated under the hot September sun, boundless and savage. At the bottom of the creva.s.ses men and women speckled the pavement like minute larvae.

"Is _that_ what you came here to see?" asked the Doctor.

Rose drew a deep breath and faced her.

"Yes, and I'm not afraid of it. It's mighty! It is grander than I expected it to be--grand and terrible, but it's where things are done."

Isabel Herrick studied her a little closer.

"You'd leave your country home for this?"

Rose turned upon her and towered above her. Her eyes flashed and her abundant eye-brows drew down in a dark scowl.

"Would you be content to spend your life, day and night, summer and winter, in Dutcher's Coolly?"

"Pardon me," said Dr. Herrick cuttingly, "the problem is not the same. I have not the same----I----the question----"

"Yes, _you_ who are born in the city and who come up to see us on the farms for a couple of weeks in June--_you_ take it on yourselves to advise us to stay there! _You_ who succeed are always ready to discourage us when we come to try _our_ fortunes. I can succeed just as well as you, and I'll make you bow your head to me before five years are gone."

Rose was magnificent, masterful. She was flaming hot with wrath. This little woman had gone too far.

Dr. Herrick turned abruptly.

"I guess I've made a mistake; sit down again," she said, in softer tones.

Rose was not yet done. She kept her lofty pose.

"Yes, you certainly have. I am not afraid of this city; I can take care of myself. I wouldn't be under obligations to you now for the world. I want you to know I'm not a beggar asking a dollar from you; I'm not a school-girl, either. I know what I can do and you don't. I wouldn't have troubled you, only for Dr. Thatcher." She moved toward the door, gloriously angry, too angry to say good-day.

The Doctor's cold little face lighted up. She smiled the most radiant smile, and it made her look all at once like a girl.

"My dear--I am crushed. I am an ant at your feet. Come here now, you great splendid creature, and let me hug you this minute."

Rose kept on to the door, where she turned:

"I don't think I ought to trouble you further," she said coldly.

The Doctor advanced. "Come now, I beg your pardon. I'm knocked out. I took you for one of those romantic country girls, who come to the city--helpless as babes. Come back."

Rose came near going on. If she had, it would have lost her a good friend. She felt that and so, when the Doctor put an arm around her to lead her back to the desk, she yielded, but she was still palpitating with the heat of her wrath.

"My dear, you fairly scared me. I never was so taken by surprise in my life; tell me all about yourself; tell me how you came to come, where you are--and all about it."

Rose told her--not all, of course--she told her of her college work, of her father, of the coule, of her parting from her father.

"O yes," the Doctor interrupted, "that's the way we go on--we new men and women. The ways of our fathers are not ours; it's tragedy either way you put it. Go on!"

At last she had the story, told with marvelous unconscious power, direct, personal, full of appeal. She looked at Rose with reflective eyes for a little s.p.a.ce.

"Well, now we'll take time to consider. Meanwhile bring me something of yours; I'll show it to a friend of mine, an editor here, and if it pleases him we'll know what to do. Meanwhile, come and see me, and I'll introduce you to some nice people. Chicago is full of nice people if you only come at them. Come and see me tomorrow, can't you? O you great, splendid creature! I wish I had your inches." She glowed with admiration.

"Come Sunday at six and dine with me," yielding to a sudden impulse.

"Come early and let me talk to you."

Rose promised and then went out into the waiting room.

"Etta, dear, this is Miss Dutcher; this is my sister. I want you to know each other." The little girl tip-toed up and took Rose's hand with a little inarticulate murmur.

There was a patient waiting, but Dr. Herrick ignored her and conducted Rose to the door.

"Good-bye, dear, I'm glad you came. You've given me a good shaking up.

Remember, six, sharp!"

She looked after Rose with a wonderful glow in her heart.

"The girl is a genius--a jewel in the rough," she thought. "She must be guided. Heavens! How she towered."

When she stepped into the street Rose felt taller and stronger, and the street was less appalling. She raised her eyes to the faces of the men she met. Her eyes had begun their new search. The men streamed by in hundreds; impressive in ma.s.s, but comparatively uninteresting singly.

It was a sad comment upon her changing conceptions of life that she did not look at the poorly dressed men, the workmen. She put them aside as out of the question; not consciously, for the search at this stage was still unconscious, involuntary, like that of a bird seeking a mate, moved by a law which knows neither individuals nor time.

She saw also the splendor of the shop windows. She had a distinct love for beautiful fabrics as works of art, but she cared less for dress than one would suppose to see her pa.s.s lingeringly before great luminous cataracts of drapery. She was quietly dressed, and gracefully dressed, beyond this she had never cared to go, but she constructed wonderful homes and owners out of the glimpses of these windows, and from the pa.s.sing of graceful young girls, clothed like d.u.c.h.esses, and painted (some of them) like women of the under world.

It all grew oppressive and disheartening to her at last, and she boarded a State street car (the only car she knew) and took her way up home. All the people in the car looked at her as if she had intruded into a private drawing room.

She was evidently from the country, for, though it was in the day of quaintness, she wore her hair plain. It was also the middle period of the curious and inexplicable little swagger which all duly-informed girls a.s.sumed, but Rose walked on her strong elastic feet with a powerful swing which was worth going miles to see. It was due to her unconscious imitation of the proud carriage of William De Lisle. She loved that forward swing of the thigh, with the flex of the side which accompanied it. It was her ideal of motion, that free action of knee, waist and neck, which she felt rather than saw in the great athlete.

She made a goodly figure to look at, and it was no especial wonder that the people in the car faced her. Her forehead was prominent and her eyes were sombre. It was impossible for the casual observer to define why she made so marked an impression upon him. It was because she was so fresh and strong, and unaffected and unconscious.

Pure men did not smile at her as they might at a pretty girl. They looked at her with wide, quiet eyes, and she knew they meant to be perfectly respectful. There was one man looking at her like that when she looked up to pay the conductor. There was a deep sorrowful look in his eyes, and his face, too, was sad.

She did not understand his mood, but was moved by it. When she looked at him again he dropped his eyes to his paper. He was a large man of thirty or more, and had a rugged, serious face. She remembered it long afterwards.

At lunch she found no one but Mr. Taylor. He loomed up at the further end of the table, his gaunt, grave face and broad shoulders towering up like a farmer's. She studied him closely, now that she knew more about him. He had a big, wide, plain face, with gentle gray eyes. His beard was trimmed round and made him look older than he was. He was a man into whose eyes women could look unafraid and unabashed. He greeted Rose with a smile.

"I'm very glad you've come. I was afraid I should eat lunch alone. With your permission I'll move down to your end of the table."