The Road to Understanding Part 8

So also were the third and the fourth experiences. Not, indeed, until the weary, distracted pair had spent three days in time, all their patience, and most of their good nature, did they finally arrive at a decision. And then their selection, alas, proved to be one of the despised tiny flats, in which, according to the unhappy young bridegroom, they were destined to be packed like sardines.

After all, it had been the "elegant mirror in the parlor," and the "just grand" tiled and tessellated entrance, that had been the determining factors in the decision; for Burke, thankful that at last something within reach of his pocketbook had been found to bring a sparkle to his beloved's eyes, had stifled his own horror at the tawdry cheapness of it all, and had given a consent that was not without a measure of relief born of the three long days of weary, well-nigh hopeless search.

Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping, flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows, where a blade of gra.s.s was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. There was Old Dalton, with its winding, tree-shaded streets clambering all over the slope of Elm Hill, where old colonial mansions, with an air of aloofness (borrowed quite possibly from their occupants), seemed ever to be withdrawing farther and farther away from plebeian noise and publicity.

There was, of course, the mill district, where were the smoke-belching chimneys and great black buildings that meant the town's bread and b.u.t.ter; and there were the adjoining streets of workmen's houses, fitted to give a sensitive soul the horrors, so seemingly endless was the repet.i.tion of covered stoop and dormer window, always exactly the same, as far as eye could reach. There was, too, the bustling, asphalted, brick-blocked business center; and there were numerous streets of simple, pretty cottages, and substantial residences, among which, with growing frequency, there were beginning to appear the tall, many-windowed apartment houses, ranging all the way from the exclusive, expensive Reddington Chambers down to the flimsy structures like the one whose tawdry ornamentation had caught the fancy of Burke Denby's village-bred wife.

To Burke Denby himself, late of Denby House (perhaps the most aloof of all the "old colonials"), the place was a nightmare of horror. But because his wife's eyes had glistened, and because his wife's lips had caroled a joyous "Oh, Burke, I'd _love_ this place, darling!"--and because, most important of all, if it must be confessed, the rent was only twenty dollars a month, he had uttered a grim "All right, we'll take it." And the selection of the home was accomplished.

Not until they were on the way to the hotel that night did there come to the young husband the full realizing sense that housekeeping meant furniture.

"Oh, of course I _knew_ it did," he groaned, half-laughingly, after his first despairing e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. "But I just didn't think; that's all. Our furniture at home we'd always had. But of course it does have to be bought--at first."

"Of course! And _I_ didn't think, either," laughed Helen. "You see, we'd always had _our_ furniture, too, I guess. But then, it'll be grand to buy it. I love new things!"

Burke Denby frowned.

"Buy it! That's all right--if we had the money to pay. Heaven only knows how much it'll cost. I don't."

"But, Burke, you've got _some_ money, haven't you? You took a big roll out of your pocket last night."

He gave her a scornful glance.

"Big roll, indeed! How far do you suppose that would go toward furnishing a home? Of course I've got some money--a little left from my allowance--but that doesn't mean I've got enough to furnish a home."

"Then let's give up housekeeping and board," proposed Helen. "Then we won't have to buy any furniture. And I think I'd like it better anyhow; and I _know_ you would--after you'd sampled my cooking," she finished laughingly.

But her husband did not smile. The frown only deepened as he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:--

"Board! Not much, Helen! We _couldn't_ board at a decent place. 'Twould cost too much. And as for the cheap variety--great Scott, Helen! I wonder if you think I'd stand for that! Heaven knows we'll be enough gossiped about, as it is, without our planting ourselves right under the noses of half the tabby-cats in town for them to 'oh' and 'ah' and 'um'

every time we turn around or don't turn around! No, ma'am, Helen! We'll shut ourselves up somewhere within four walls we can call home, even if we have to furnish it with only two chairs and a bed and a kitchen stove. It'll be ours--and we'll be where we won't be stared at."

Helen laughed lightly.

"Dear, dear, Burke, how you do run on! Just as if one minded a little staring! I rather like it, myself,--if I know my clothes and my back hair are all right."

"Ugh! Helen!"

"Well, I do," she laughed, uptilting her chin. "It makes one feel so sort of--er--important. But I won't say 'board' again, _never_,--unless you begin to scold at my cooking," she finished with an arch glance.

"As if I could do that!" cried the man promptly, again the adoring husband. "I shall love everything you do--just because it's _you_ that do it. The only trouble will be, _you_ won't get enough to eat--because I shall want to eat it all!"

"You darling! Aren't you the best ever!" she cooed, giving his arm a surrept.i.tious squeeze. "But, really, you know, I am going to be a bang-up cook. I've got a cookbook."

"So soon? Where did you get that?"

"Yesterday, while you went into Stoddard's for that house-key. I saw one in the window next door and I went in and bought it. 'Twas two dollars, so it ought to be a good one. And that makes me think. It took all the money I had, 'most, in my purse. So I--I'm afraid I'll have to have some more, dear."

"Why, of course, of course! You mustn't go without money a minute." And the young husband, with all the alacrity of a naturally generous nature supplemented by the embarra.s.sment of this new experience of being asked for money by the girl he loved, plunged his hand into his pocket and crowded two bills into her unresisting fingers. "There! And I won't be so careless again, dear. I don't ever mean you to have to _ask_ for money, sweetheart."

"Oh, thank you," she murmured, tucking the bills into her little handbag. "I shan't need any more for ever so long, I'm sure. I'm going to be economical _now_, you know."

"Of course you are. You're going to be a little brick. _I_ know."

"And we won't mind anything if we're only together," she breathed.

"There won't be anything to mind," he answered fervently, with an ardent glance that would have been a kiss had it not been for the annoying presence of a few score of Dalton's other inhabitants on the street together with themselves.

The next minute they reached the hotel.

At nine o'clock the following morning Mr. and Mrs. Burke Denby sallied forth to buy the furniture for their "tenement," as Helen called it, until her husband's annoyed remonstrances changed the word to "apartment."

Burke Denby learned many things during the next few hours. He learned first that tables and chairs and beds and stoves--really decent ones that a fellow could endure the sight of--cost a prodigious amount of money. But, to offset this, and to make life really worth the living, after all, it seemed that one might buy a quant.i.ty sufficient for one's needs, and pay for them in installments, week by week. This idea, while not wholly satisfactory, seemed the only way of stretching their limited means to cover their many needs; and, after some hesitation, it was adopted.

There remained then only the matter of selection; and it was just here that Burke Denby learned something else. He learned that two people, otherwise apparently in perfect accord, could disagree most violently over the shape of a chair or the shade of a rug. Indeed, he would not have believed it possible that such elements of soul torture could lie in a mere matter of color or texture. And how any one with eyes and sensibilities could wish to select for one's daily companions such a ma.s.s of gingerbread decoration and glaring colors as seemed to meet the fancy of his wife, he could not understand. Neither could he understand why all his selections and preferences were promptly dubbed "dingy" and "homely," nor why nothing that he liked pleased her at all. As such was certainly the case, however, he came to express these preferences less and less frequently. And in the end he always bought what she wanted, particularly as the price on her choice was nearly always lower than the one on his--which was an argument in its favor that he found it hard to refute.

Tractable as he was as to quality, however, he did have to draw a sharp line as to quant.i.ty; for Helen;--with the cheerful slogan, "Why, it's only twenty-five cents a week more, Burke!"--seemed not to realize that there was a limit even to the number of those one might spend--on sixty dollars a month. True, at the beginning she did remind him that they could "eat less" till they "got the things paid for," and that her clothes were "all new, anyhow, being a bride, so!" But she had not said that again. Perhaps because she saw the salesman turn his back to laugh, and perhaps because she was a little frightened at the look on her husband's face. At all events, when Burke did at last insist that they had bought quite enough, she acquiesced with some measure of grace.

Burke himself, when the shopping was finished, drew a sigh of relief, yet with an inward shudder at the recollection of certain things marked "Sold to Burke Denby."

"Oh, well," he comforted himself. "Helen's happy--and that's the main thing; and I shan't see them much. I'm away days and asleep nights." Nor did it occur to him that this was not the usual att.i.tude of a supposedly proud bridegroom toward his new little nest of a home.

Getting settled in the little Dale Street apartment was, so far as Burke was concerned, a mere matter of moving from the hotel and dumping the contents of his trunk into his new chiffonier and closet. True, Helen, looking tired and flurried (and not nearly so pretty as usual), brought to him some borrowed tools, together with innumerable curtains and rods and nails and hooks that simply must be put up, she said, before she could do a thing. But Burke, after a half-hearted trial,--during which he mashed his thumb and bored three holes in wrong places,--flew into a pa.s.sion of irritability, and bade her get the janitor who "owned the darn things" to do the job, and to pay him what he asked--'twould be worth it, no matter what it was!

With a very hasty kiss then Burke banged out of the house and headed for the Denby Iron Works.

It was not alone the curtains or the offending hammer that was wrong with Burke Denby that morning. The time had come when he must not only meet his fellow employees, and take his place among them, but he must face his father. And he was dreading yet longing to see his father. He had not seen him since he bade him good-night and went upstairs to his own room the month before--to write that farewell note.

Once, since coming back from his wedding trip, he had been tempted to leave town and never see his father again--until he should have made for himself the name and the money that he was going to make. Then he would come back and cry: "Behold, this is I, your son, and this is Helen, my wife, who, you see, has _not_ dragged me down!" He would not, of course, _talk_ like that. But he would show them. He would! This had been when he first learned from Brett of the allowance-cutting, and of his father's implacable anger.

Then had come the better, braver decision. He would stay where he was.

He would make the name and the money right here, under his father's very eyes. It would be harder, of course; but there would then be all the more glory in the winning. Besides, to leave now would look like defeat--would make one seem almost like a quitter. And his father hated quitters! He would like to show his father. He _would_ show his father.

And he would show him right here. And had not Helen, his dear wife, said that she would aid him? As if he could help winning out under those circ.u.mstances!

It was with thoughts such as these that he went now to meet his father.

Especially was he thinking of Helen, dear Helen,--poor Helen, struggling back there with those abominable hooks and curtains. And he had been such a brute to snap her up so crossly! He would not do it again. It was only that he was so dreading this first meeting with his father. After that it would be easier. There would not be anything then only just to keep steadily going till he'd made good--he and Helen. But now--father would be proud to see how finely he was taking it!

With chin up and shoulders back, therefore, Burke Denby walked into his father's office.

"Well, father," he began, with cheery briskness. Then, instantly, voice and manner changed as he took a hurried step forward. "Dad, what is it?

Are you ill?"

So absorbed had Burke Denby been over the part he himself was playing in this little drama of Denby and Son, that he had given no thought as to the probable looks or actions of any other member of the cast. He was quite unprepared, therefore, for the change in the man he now saw before him--the pallor, the shrunken cheeks, the stooped shoulders, the unmistakable something that made the usually erect, debonair man look suddenly worn and old.

"Dad, you are ill!" exclaimed Burke in dismay.

John Denby got to his feet at once. He even smiled and held out his hand. Yet Burke, who took the hand, felt suddenly that there were uncounted miles of s.p.a.ce between them.

"Ah, Burke, how are you? No, I'm not ill at all. And you--are you well?"