A Top-Floor Idyl. Van Schaick George

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      Man's freedom of action is apparently a mere academic concept. Theoretically, I was entirely at liberty to refuse, to look down upon this woman from the superior height of my alleged intellectuality and inform her that my soul craved for an immediate glass of iced tea and some poached eggs on toast. I could have asserted that I did not purpose to allow myself to be bulldozed by an infant seven hours and ten minutes old. As a matter of fact, I was helpless and consented, Eulalie shaking the stairs during her cautious, down-ward progress. It was with some of the feelings of an apprentice in the art of lion-taming that I entered the room. Would the proceeding be tranquil and dignified, or accompanied by roars?

      I sat down upon the rocker just vacated by Eulalie and gazed on the horsehair sofa as if the package resting on it were explosive, with a fuse alight. I had feared that it would be thrust upon my lap, but it is likely that my competency had been justifiably suspected. I dared not move the chair, fearing to make a noise, and could see nothing of the white arms or the Murillo face. Suddenly, an orgy of steam-whistling began, rousing my apprehensions while recalling workers to their factories. It proved but a false alarm and stillness prevailed in the top-floor back, for at least three minutes, when the dreaded wail arose.

      "Please, Eulalie," came a husky, low voice. "Give me my baby."

      It was then that my already damp brow began to stream. She wanted her baby and wouldn't be happy till she got it. My duty, I realized, was to go to the sofa and pick up the animated and noisy parcel. It would then have to be conveyed to the bed! Nervously, I prepared to obey.

      "Eulalie has gone out for a few minutes," I explained, in the subdued tones I deemed suitable to a sickroom. "Here – here is the bundle. I think it wriggles."

      "Thank you ever so much and – and please turn him the other way – yes, those are the feet. And would you pull up the shade a little bit, I think I would have more air."

      I raised the thing, letting in a flood of light, and feasted my eyes in utter liberty. Poor child, she must have a cold, for she suffers from hoarseness. She paid little more heed to me than did the ancient Roman ladies to the slaves they refused to recognize as men. I realized my small importance when she tenderly pushed aside the little folds and revealed diminutive features over which she sighed, contentedly, while I drew my chair a little nearer to the bed. Since a Murillo was on free exhibition, I might as well gaze upon it and admire. That faint little wailing had stopped at once.

      "Don't you think he is ever so good and well-behaved?" she asked me, after a while.

      I assented, forbearing to tell her that his existence had not yet been sufficiently long to prove him entirely free from all taint of original sin.

      "It's such a comfort," she assured me.

      Already, by the saintly grace of a mother's heart, she was endowing her offspring with all the virtues. The wondrous optics of motherhood revealed beauty, wisdom, good intent, the promise of great things to come, all concentrated in this tabloid form of man. So mote it be!

      The tiny head rested on her outstretched rounded arm and she closed her eyes once more. The plentiful chestnut hair had been braided tight and pinned at the top of her head.

      "I wish Gordon McGrath could see her," I told myself. "No, Frieda wouldn't do the picture justice. She would seek to improve on Nature's handiwork; she would etherealize it, make it so dainty that it would become poetry instead of the beautiful plain language the universal mother sometimes speaks. Gordon would paint something that lived and breathed. He would draw real flesh and blood, recognizing that truth unadorned is often very splendid."

      At this time I bethought myself of the baby's father. The man was over there, taking his part in the greatest tragedy ever enacted. At this very moment, perhaps, he was engaged in destroying life and knew nothing of this little son. I pitied him. Ye Gods! But for the strength and insolence of some of the mighty ones of this earth he would have been in this room, and I should have been quietly engaged in consuming poached eggs. He would have been appeasing the hunger of his eyes and the longing of his soul with the sight of the picture now before me, in the solemn happiness that must surely come to a man at such a time. A feeling of chilliness came over me as I inopportunely remembered an interview I had some months ago with a fellow called Hawkins. I was in his office downtown when the telephone rang, and he took down the receiver.

      "A son," he called back. "Good enough! I was afraid it might be another girl!"

      Then he dictated a short letter to his stenographer and calmly picked up his hat.

      "Come along, Cole," he said. "They tell me I have a boy. Let's go out and have a highball."

      Knowing Hawkins as I do, I am certain he would have had the drink anyway. This new-born offspring of his merely served him as a peg whereon to hang the responsibility for his tipple. The great and wonderful news really affected him little.

      But why was I thinking of such monsters? The father of this little baby, I am sure, must be a decent and normal man. He would have come in, hatless and breathless, and thrown himself upon his knees to worship and adore. The very first clumsy touch upon the tiny cheek would have sent a thrill through him, and tears would have welled up in his eyes!

      Such were my thoughts when I remembered that, as a delver in fiction, it was probably becoming my second nature to exaggerate a little. To me, after all, a recent father was perhaps like the mule whose story had brought the check. My notions in regard to them were of pure imagination, and I only knew them as potentially picturesque ingredients of literary concoctions. Yet, on further reflection, I conceded to myself the right to imagine newly made fathers as I saw fit. Millions of them are produced every year and among them must be some counterparts of my special conception of the type.

      I was thus comforting myself when I heard a familiar wheezy breathing on the stairs. It was Frieda, who presently irrupted into the room.

      "David," she commanded, "you go right out and have something to eat. I'm sure you are starving. I will stay here till that woman comes back. I left her at the corner, carrying a fowl to her sister's, and she told me I would find you here."

      She deposited voluminous parcels on the sofa, handled the infant with absolute confidence in her ability, and waved me out of the room. Some men are born meek and lowly, while others become monarchs and janitors; my place was to obey, after I had caught the smile suddenly come to the Murillo-woman's pale features. Frieda, I know, sees more affectionate grins than any one in Greater New York. Her presence suffices to make them sprout and grow. Mrs. Dupont had also smiled at me, true enough, but I think it was but a ray of sunshine really intended for the baby, and I had found myself in the same general direction and intercepted a trivial beam of it.

      Downstairs, Mrs. Milliken met me with a frown, but her features relaxed when I handed her my week's rental and board, which I seldom partake of. Seeing her in such a happy disposition, I hastened to the door.

      "I'm going upstairs to take a look at it," she announced gloomily.

      I thanked Providence that Frieda was on guard and felt that I had no cause for worry. The landlady, after all, is undeniably a woman and I believe she is the erstwhile mother of several. Her asperity must surely be smoothed down by the sight of the baby's face.

      As I put my hand upon the door, the old lady appeared.

      "How is that baby?" she shouted, putting a hard-rubber contrivance to her ear.

      "Doing splendidly and endowed with all the virtues," I clamored in the instrument.

      "I'd give him sugared water for it," she responded severely.

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