The Magic Curtain Part 11

Just such a group was pressing upon the stalwart Florence and all but crushing the breath out of her, when for the first time she became conscious of a little old lady in a faded shawl who fairly crouched at her feet.

"She's eighty if a day," she thought, with a sudden shock. "She'll be killed unless--

"Pet.i.te Jeanne," she screamed, "there are times when human beings have neither eyes, ears nor brains. They can always feel. You have sharp elbows. Use them now to the glory of G.o.d and for the life of this dear old lady in her faded shawl."

Suiting actions to her own words, she kicked forth l.u.s.tily with her square-pointed athletic shoe. The shoe made contact with a grinning youth's shins. The look of joy on the youth's face changed to one of sudden pain. He ceased to shove and attempted a retreat. One more grinning face was transformed by an elbow thrust in the stomach. This one doubled up and did his best to back away.

Jeanne added her bit. As Florence had said, her elbows were sharp and effective.

In an incredibly short time there was s.p.a.ce for breathing. One moment the little old lady, who was not five feet tall and did not weigh ninety pounds, was in peril of her life; the next she was caught in Florence's powerful arms and was being borne to safety. And all the time she was screaming:

"Oh! Oh! Oh! It is gone! It is lost! It is lost!"

"Yes," Florence agreed, as she dropped her to the curbing, well out of the crush, "you have lost a shoe. But what's a shoe? You would have lost your life. And, after all, how is one to find a shoe in such a place of madness?"

The little old lady made no answer. She sat down upon the curb and began silently to sob while her slight body rocked from side to side and her lips whispered words that could not be heard.

"Was there ever such another night?" Pet.i.te Jeanne cried, in real distress. She was little and quick, very emotional and quite French.

"We came here for a gay time," she went on. "And now, see how it is! We have been tossed about from wave to wave by the crowd, which is a sea, and now it has washed us ash.o.r.e with a weeping old lady we have never seen before and may never see again."

"Hush!" Florence touched her lips. "You will distress her. You came here to find joy and happiness. Joy and happiness may be found quite as often by serving others less fortunate than ourselves as in any other way. We will see if this is not true.

"Come!" She placed gentle hands beneath the bent form of the little, old lady on the curb. "Come, now. There is a bright little tea room right over there. A good cup of black tea will cheer you. Then you must tell us all about it."

A look of puzzled uncertainty gave way to a smile on the wrinkled face as this strange derelict of the night murmured:

"Tea. Yes, yes, a good cup of black tea."

The tea room was all but deserted. On this wild night of nights people did not eat. Vendors of ice cream sandwiches found no customers. Baskets of peanuts were more likely to be tumbled into the street than eaten. The throng had indeed become a wild, stormy sea. And a stormy sea neither eats nor sleeps.

"Tell me," said Florence, as the hot tea warmed the white-haired one's drowsy blood, "why did you weep at the loss of a shoe?"

"A shoe?" The little old lady seemed puzzled. She looked down at her feet. "A shoe? Ah, yes! It is true. One shoe is gone.

"But it is not that." Her voice changed. Her dull blue eyes took on fresh color. "I have lost more--much more. My purse! Money? No, my children. A little. It is nothing. I have lost my cameo, my only treasure. And, oh, I shall never see it again!" She began wringing her hands and seemed about to give way once more to weeping.

"Tell us about it," Pet.i.te Jeanne put in eagerly. "Perhaps we can help you."

"Tell you? Help me?" The old eyes were dreamy now. "My cameo! My one great treasure. It was made in Florence so many, many years ago. It was my own portrait done in onyx, pink onyx. I was only a child, sixteen, slight and fair like you." She touched Jeanne's golden hair. "He was young, romantic, already an artist. He became very famous when he was older. But never, I am sure, did he carve such a cameo, for, perhaps--perhaps he loved me--just a little.

"But now!" This was a cry of pain. "Now it is gone! And I have kept it all these long years. I should not have come to-night. I had not been to the heart of the city for ten years. But this night they told me I was to see 'Auld Sandy' himself. He's on the radio, you know. He sings old Scotch songs so grandly and recites Burns' poems with so much feeling. I wanted to see him. I did not dare leave the cameo in my poor room. My cameo! So I brought it, and now--

"But you said you would help me." Once again her face brightened.

"Yes." Florence's tone was eager, hopeful. "We will help you. Someone will find your purse. It will be turned in. The police will have it. We will get it for you in the morning. Only give us your address and we will bring it, your treasure, your cameo."

"Will you?"

Florence heard that cry of joy, and her heart smote her. Could they find it?

They wrote down the little old lady's address carefully; then escorting her to the elevated platform, they saw her safely aboard a train.

"Now why did I do that?" Florence turned a face filled with consternation to Pet.i.te Jeanne. "Why did I promise so much?"

She was to wonder this many times during that night of mysterious and thrilling adventure.

"Let us go back," said Pet.i.te Jeanne. "See! The trains are loaded with people returning home. The crowd must not be so great. The little lady's purse must have been kicked about; but we may yet find it."

"That," replied Florence, "would seem too good to be true. Yes, let us go back. We must not hope too much, for all that. Many are going, but others are coming. Surely this is one wild night in a great city."

And so it was. Hardly had they descended the iron steps to the street and walked half a block than the waves of humanity were upon them again.

"The tide is set against us." Florence urged her companion into the momentary security of a department store entrance. There, from a vantage point of safety, they watched the crowds surging by. They were at a point where the pressure of the throng was broken. It was interesting to study the faces of those who emerged into a place of comparative quiet. Some were exuberant over the struggle they had waged and won, others crushed.

Here was one in tears and there was one who had fainted, being hurried away by others to a place of first aid.

"They are poor," Pet.i.te Jeanne murmured. "At least they are not rich, nor even well-to-do. They are working people who came for a good time. Are they having it? Who can tell? Surely, never before have they seen so many people. And perhaps they never will see so many again. To-morrow they will talk. How they will talk of this night's adventure! As for me," she sighed, "I prefer a quiet place beneath the stars."

"Do you?" Florence spoke up quickly. "Then we will go to just such a place."

"Surely not in this great city."

"Ten minutes by elevated train, ten minutes walk after that, and we are there. Come! We can never hope to reach the spot where the cameo was lost. Come!"

Nor did she fail to make good her promise. Twenty minutes later they were walking in a spot where, save for the low swish of water against rocks, silence reigned supreme.

"How strange! How fascinating! What stillness!" Pet.i.te Jeanne gripped her companion's arm hard. "Here are silence, starlight, moonlight, gra.s.s beneath one's feet and the gleam of distant water in our eyes."

"Yes." Florence's tone was low like the deep notes of a cello. "And only a short time ago, perhaps a year ago, the waters of the lake lay ten feet deep at the very spot on which we stand. Such is the wondrous achievement of man when inspired by a desire to provide a quiet place for a weary mult.i.tude. This is 'made land' a park in the making. Great squares of limestone were dumped in the lake. With these as a barrier to hold back the onrush of the lake waters, men have hauled in sand, clay, ashes, all the refuse of a great city. Nature has breathed upon that ugly pile of debris. The sun has caressed it, the wind smoothed it, rain beat down upon it, birds brought seeds, and now we have soft earth, gra.s.s, flowers, a place of beauty and quiet peace."

The place they had entered is strange. A great city, finding itself cramped for breathing s.p.a.ce, has reached out a mighty hand to s.n.a.t.c.h land from the bottom of the lake. Thirty blocks in length, as large as an ordinary farm, this s.p.a.ce promises to become, in the near future, a place of joy forever.

At the time of our story it was half a field of tangled gra.s.s and half a junk pile. As the two girls wandered on they found themselves flanked on one side by a tumbled line of gigantic man-made boulders and on the other by a curious jumble of waste. Steel barrels, half rusted away, lay among piles of cement blocks and broken plaster.

"Come," said Florence, "let us go out upon the rocks."

A moment of unsteady leaping from spot to spot, and they sat looking out on a band of gold painted across the waters by the moon.

"How still it is!" Jeanne whispered. "After all the shouting of the throng, I feel that I may have gone suddenly deaf."

"It _is_ still," Florence replied. "No one here. Not a soul. Only you and I, the moon and the night."

And yet, even as she spoke, a sudden chill gripped her heart. She had caught a sound. Someone was among the rocks close at hand; there could be no mistaking that. Who could it be?

Her heart misgave her. Had she committed a dangerous blunder? She had been here before, but never at night. The city, with all its perils, its evil ones, was but a few steps away. As she listened she even now caught indistinctly the murmur of it. Someone was among the rocks. He might be advancing. Who could it be, at this hour of the night?

Strangely enough at this instant one thought entered her mind: "Nothing must happen to me. I have a sacred duty to perform. I have pledged myself to return that priceless cameo to that dear little old lady."

At the same instant the light from a distant automobile, making a turn on the drive, fell for a s.p.a.ce of seconds upon the tumbled pile of rocks. It lit up not alone the rocks but a face; a strangely ugly face, not ten paces away.