My Fire Opal, and Other Tales. Sarah Warner Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ a whole fidgety hour spent in the composure of my nerves, and the resolving into natural causes of such "noises of the night" as successively set my hair on end, I fell asleep.

      The sun was already high when I awoke. It was a lovely September morning. Recalling, with amused wonder, the groundless alarms of the last eventless night, I bathed and dressed in great spirits, and descended to the preparation of breakfast.

      Yesterday's coffee, warmed over in an Ætna, was less palatable than I could have imagined, and, easily resisting the indulgence of a second cup, I completed, with scant relish, my untempting meal.

      The ringing of the church bells surprised me in my morning work. It was Sunday. Not for a moment, however, must I entertain the idea of going to church!

      In C – , bold, day-time robberies were familiar occurrences, and, in my absence, our unguarded domicile would become an easy prey for the spoiler. The outer doors, three in number, were securely fastened, and I especially congratulated myself upon the complete security of the glass door opening from our parlour upon the piazza, as, in addition to its regular fastening, it rejoiced in an admirable catch-lock, that snapped beautifully, of itself, as one closed it.

      As the morning wore on, weary of reading, I wrote some letters, and thereafter overhauled my writing-desk. Among my accumulated correspondence, I found half a score of stiffly-worded epistles. They had been indited by inmates of the Massachusetts State Prison. To elucidate the controlling event of my story, let me say, that helpful effort among the convicts had long been an integral part of my life-work.

      Among themselves, they were pleased to term me "The Prisoner's Friend," and, when discharged, and homeless, they often came to me for counsel, or aid, in procuring that employment which, naturally, is but grudgingly given to these attainted beings, whom, even as visitors, my friends considered objectionable. On Mondays, my weekly visit to the prison hospital was made. I carried to its patients fruit and flowers, and read to them, sandwiching in, as best I could, a modicum of reproof and advice.

      The re-reading, sorting, and bestowal of this odd correspondence brought me to dinner-time. An unsubstantial breakfast having whetted my appetite for this important meal, I resolved to start a fire in the kitchen stove. Having achieved this exploit – with that absurd outlay of time, strength, and patience, peculiar to the amateur – I laboriously elaborated an omelet, a dish of Lyonnaise potatoes, and a steaming pot of tea.

      Heated and weary, I hurried through the parlours, threw open the piazza door for a whiff of fresh air, before dishing my dinner, and, attracted by the grateful odor of heliotrope, stepped debonairly into the outside sunshine. As I passed, the "sweet west wind" whipped to the piazza door. It closed behind me, with a malicious bang. The much admired patent fastening had, but too well, done its fatal work! I stood diabolically fastened out of my own house! Recovering breath, and taking in the desperate situation, I glanced ruefully at my neighbour's back bow window. Miss Pettingrew, my next neighbour, was an elderly maiden, and of curiosity "all compact." Nominally (as set forth on her sign of blue and gold) a dressmaker, but adding to her regular vocation the supervision of our neighbourhood, the outgoings and incomings of the Simpletons were especially focussed by her awful eye.

      Our neighbourhood was not socially congenial. We had come to C – for the sole purpose of putting a son through Harvard, and, having no other local interest in that city, we were simply the nobodies from nowhere, and consequently ineligible as acquaintances.

      Irving Cottage – so called from its supposed resemblance to that of Washington Irving – attracted us by an exceptional allowance of door-yard, combined with a moderate rent. Irving Cottage was a double tenement-house; and its north side was now vacant. Its western front commanded – street; its south side an uninterrupted series of back door-yards. On the north it was overtopped by a tall storage building, and in its rear stood a weather-worn old colonial mansion, once an aristocratic abode, but now fallen upon evil times, and become a rackety students' boarding-house. A low picket fence divided our rear premises from those of Mrs. MacNebbins, its proprietor. And now, let me return from this parenthetic information to my forlorn self, drearily surveying my "hermetically sealed" dwelling.

      Yes, Miss Pettingrew was, as usual, at her post. It behooved me to take heed to my ways – to step nonchalantly from the piazza, as if being in the yard were entirely optional. Taking a turn or two up and down the drive, I rested a moment beneath the lordly old willows that adorned our grounds. I pulled a nosegay from the flower-garden; hunted the grass-plot for four-leaved clover – meantime furtively scanning my window fastenings and praying inwardly that some unguarded point of ingress to Irving Cottage might be revealed to me.

      In vain! I had too well done my fatal work! Not the merest crack had been left exposed. The cottage rejoiced in a terraced front. Thus the lower back windows were, at least, five feet above the door-yard level. A possible elevation of piazza chairs would command them. I might, with a stone, demolish a convenient pane, and so reach and manipulate a patent fastening; but there still was Miss Pettingrew! How could I break and enter my own house, in broad daylight, and on a Sunday, directly beneath her astonished gaze? Heavy at heart (and mentally craving that lady's kind permission), I sought shelter beneath the kindly woodbine that shut in our piazza. Hungry, discouraged, and forlorn, I moped the slow hours away, until the westward sloping sun and the chill of approaching evening warned me that night was drawing near.

      Luckily, I had, on my way out, thrown about me a light shawl. Shivering, I wrapped it close, and then – providentially inspired – I bethought me of a place of refuge, – to wit: the woodshed, adjoining our kitchen! It was but a flimsy structure, but would, at least, be warmer than an open piazza.

      Its inner door, now carefully bolted, opened upon the kitchen. Its outer entrance was, however, but slightly secured by a hook, easily manipulated from without, by the insertion of a thin stick. I felt that an entrance might be unostentatiously effected. Eagerly awaiting that auspicious moment when Miss Pettingrew should, at tea-time, vacate her post of observation, I sallied forth upon the lawn, and – still hunting for four-leaved clover – managed to gain the rear of my house. My ogress opportunely disappeared! Already provided with the needful stick, it was but the work of a moment to insert it in the crevice of the loosely-fitting door, to raise the hook, and step gingerly in. Thank heaven, I was, at least, beneath a roof! Humble, indeed, but yet an improvement upon an open sky, or even a vine-draped piazza! And Miss Pettingrew need never know that I had come to grief. Fortunately I wore my watch. It was a slight comfort to note the passage of these unkindly hours. It was now quarter past four. I had become desperately hungry. My mind ran tantalizingly upon the untasted dinner within. Long ere this, my tea must have resolved itself to pure tannin! My omelette and my Lyonnaise must have become the merest chips; and the cat had, no doubt, privately disposed of my precious corned beef. Well, all was not lost! A full hour yet loomed between me and sunset. Given that time, might I not find some escape from my dilemma?

      The colonial mansion of the MacNebbins's backed squarely upon our premises. And our woodshed backed, in turn, upon a roomy lawn – now degraded to an open lot which faced upon B – Street. In the absence of windows upon that wall of the building, a knot-hole, generously enlarged by our boys, served admirably as a lookout. At this inconveniently high aperture, I watched (on tip-toe) the careless throng, strolling, in Sunday attire, up and down B – Street. This wholesome, but tame, diversion palled upon me. My jaded appetite craved more exciting nourishment.

      Mrs. MacNebbins – poor, overworked body, with a temper of her own – and maintaining, single-handed, half a dozen children and a shiftless sot of a husband, sometimes became desperate. On such occasions, it suited her, broomstick in hand, to drive her worse half from the house, the maids, meantime, looking applause from her kitchen windows. My own boys (in spite of my prohibition) had, I regret to say, often audibly applauded this conjugal exhibition. Such a spicy scene would, I felt, be in fine keeping with the situation, and I blush to own that I now turned my attention to the MacNebbins's back door, in the vulgar hope of an immediate connubial skirmish. СКАЧАТЬ