A Top-Floor Idyl. Van Schaick George

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СКАЧАТЬ upon it, while a soft and chastened feeling stole over me.

      "Thank you, Eulalie," I said, with some emotion. "It is exceedingly nice; I am glad you called my attention to it. In the future I shall be obliged, if you will stuff it in the chiffonier. Had I first seen all this on going to bed, I am afraid I should have pitched it on the floor, as usual, and been sorry for it next morning."

      She smilingly complied at once with my request and withdrew, bidding me a good night, while I sat again, feeling great contentment. I had now discovered that a man, if lucky, might have his socks darned without being compelled to take a wife unto himself, with all the uncomfortable appurtenances thereof. It was a new and cheering revelation. No sooner had I begun to cogitate over the exquisiteness of my fate than I was disturbed again, however. Frieda partly obeyed conventionality by knocking upon my open door and walking in.

      "Frances Dupont wants me to thank you ever so much for the pretty roses, David," she told me. "It was really very kind of you to bring them. I have snipped the stems and changed the water and put them on the window sill for the night."

      "Yes," I explained, "I had to change that twenty-dollar bill, and there was a hungry-looking man at the corner of Fourteenth Street, who offered them to me for a quarter. So we had to go over to the cigar store to get the note broken up into elementals. The fellow really looked as if he needed money a great deal more than roses, so I gave him a dollar."

      "But then why didn't you take a dollar's worth of flowers?" asked Frieda, high-priestess of the poetic brush, who is a practical woman, if ever there was one.

      "Never thought of it," I acknowledged; "besides, he had only three bunches left."

      "And so you didn't want to clean out his stock in trade. Never mind, Dave, it was very sweet of you."

      She hurried away, and, finally, I heard the front door closing, after which I made a clean copy of that dog story, flattering myself that it had turned out rather neatly. It was finished at two o'clock, and I went to bed.

      The next morning was a Sunday. I dawdled at length over my dressing and sallied forth at eleven, after Mrs. Milliken had knocked at my door twice to know if she could make the room. If I were an Edison, I should invent an automatic room-making and womanless contrivance. These great men, after all, do little that is truly useful and practical.

      My neighbor's door was open. I coughed somewhat emphatically, after which I discreetly knocked upon the doorframe.

      "Come in, Mr. Cole," said a cheery, but slightly husky, voice. "Come in and look at the darling."

      "That was my purpose, Madame Dupont," I said most veraciously.

      "Eulalie has gone out again," I was informed, after the infant had been duly exhibited, as it slept with its two fists tightly closed. "She has gone for a box of Graham crackers and the Sunday paper."

      I smiled, civilly, and opined that the day's heat would not be so oppressing.

      "Don't you want to sit down for a moment?" she asked me.

      I was about to obey, when I heard the elephantine step of the washerwoman's sister, who entered, bearing her parcels and the Courrier des Etats Unis.

      "Excuse me for just a second," said the husky little voice.

      I bowed and looked out of the window, upon yards where I caught the cheery note of a blooming wisteria.

      Suddenly, there came a cry. The bedsprings creaked as the young woman, who had raised herself upon one elbow, fell back inertly.

      "Oh, mon Dieu!" bellowed Eulalie, open-mouthed and with helpless arms hanging down.

      I rushed to the bed, with some vague idea of bringing first aid. In the poor little jar of roses I dipped my handkerchief and passed it over Mrs. Dupont's brow, scared more than half to death. Presently, she seemed to revive a little. She breathed and sighed, and then came a flood of tears. She stared at me with great, deep, frightened eyes, and with a finger pointed to a column of the paper. I took it from her and held it out at a convenient distance from my eyes, about two feet away. There was a printed list referring to reservists gone from New York. For many weeks, doubtless, she had scanned it, fearing, hopeful, with quick-beating heart that was only stilled when she failed to find that which she tremblingly sought.

      I caught the name, among other announcements of men fallen at the front.

      – Paul Dupont —

      I also looked at her, open-mouthed, stupidly. She stared again at me, as if I could have reassured her, sworn that it was a mistake, told her not to believe her eyes.

      Then, she rose again on her elbow and turned to the slumbering mite at her side, but, although the salty drops of her anguish fell on the baby's face, he continued to sleep on.

      CHAPTER V

      GORDON HELPS

      The passing of the next week or two can only be referred to in a few words, for how can a man gauge the distress of a soul, measure the intensity of its pangs, weight the heavy burden of sorrow? That good little Dr. Porter came in very often. Most tactfully he pretended that his visits were chiefly to me, and would merely drop into the other room on his way out of mine; at any rate the smallness of the bill he rendered long afterwards made me surmise that this was the case.

      In the meanwhile, the weather remained very warm and the doors were often left open. I went into the room quite frequently. Eulalie is the salt of the earth, but she still has a little of the roughness of the unground crystal so that, for conversational purposes, Frances Dupont perhaps found my presence more congenial. Her faithful, but temporary, retainer was always there, exuding an atmosphere of robust health and lending propriety to my visits. She was generally darning socks.

      The hungry one snatches at any morsel presented to him, while those who are dying of thirst pay little heed to the turbidity of pools they may chance upon. The poor Murillo-girl, perforce, had to be content with such friendship and care as her two new friends could give her. Frieda always came in once a day, but she was tremendously busy with her Orion. Indeed, her visits were eagerly awaited; she brought little doses of comfort, tiny portions of cheer that vied with Porter's remedies in efficacy and, possibly, were much pleasanter to take.

      From my friend Hawkins I borrowed baby-scales, fallen into desuetude, and triumphantly jotted down the ounces gained each week by Baby Paul. I believe that the humorous peculiarities of my countenance excited the infant's risibilities; at any rate, the young mother assured me that he smiled when he looked at me. Presently, after the violence of the blow had been slightly assuaged and the hours of silent weeping began to grow shorter, she managed, at times, to look at me as if I also brought a little consolation.

      I remember so well the morning when I found the bed empty and neatly made up and the young woman sitting in an uncomfortable rocker. I insisted on returning at once to my room for my old Morris chair, knowing that she would be much easier in it. At first, to my consternation, she refused to accept it, under some plea that she did not want me to be deprived of it. When she finally consented, her eyes were a little moist and I was delighted when she acknowledged that it gave her excellent comfort. A little later came the chapter of confidences, memories of brief happy days with her husband, the warp and woof of an existence that had already suffered from broken threads and heart-strings sorely strained.

      She had an Aunt Lucinda, it appeared, and when the teacher of singing in Providence had declared that the girl's voice was an uncut jewel of great price that must be smoothed over to perfection by study abroad, the aunt had consented to СКАЧАТЬ