The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 18, 1898, Page 10

10 THE SAN FRANCISCO CALIL, I as Or to take his s 11 as her: no question of si.. s at all, 1.0 n ed to ly another : of the difficulty Oy one another’s point of view. But 1dded by way of introduction, are the candid and sincere narrative. income from landed , say, $30,000, or thereabout , the gardens delightful, the her obviou: m's father had an wn ey maintained, the housekeeping e “ M, Petheram had three sons and Y o were il anATnotthe TeAlRaTEE “body, the two girls th were d of society, its in town for anyl day ' m m r brother was ; but, like a wise » chances, went and became ex- an exceedingly omething, in fact, Afr and when ; and it was 3 would be -l ard Jackson, who made one and had no prospects ibtful one of mair that level—un out a genius, when whether a mans a vear for her Petheram, wip- then dustin his back from his ride. ‘he insurance, my dear?” Mr & Petheram suggested. But her husb: et ghook his head; that little discrepancy otween five and six thou- this caused the above noted, b sand a year, had before (E “woz év‘(i'n‘ free—like ez K Ro-x_:lil'la_roar)n" : And Jores of [¥lo had finished hi / Now 7_zAnd we all sot up, and réhiled his cup, and this is the yarn he tqld: ¢ There was gold in heaps&~but 1t's there it keeps, and will keep till the Judgment Day, &/~ lady at the next table, who put up her glass, looked at the frock, and with a nod of approval called her companion’s attention to it. This was while Harold paid the bill. % Then they took another cab and headed north—through Berkeley Square, where Winifred would have liked, but did not expect to stop, and so up to Oxford street. Here they bore considerably to the east, then plunged north again and drove through one or two long streets. Harold, who had made the journey before, paid no heed to the route, but talked freely of delightful hours which they were to enjoy to- gether, of books to read and thoughts to think, and of an intimate sympathy which, near as they were already to one another, the home and the home life alone could enable them fully to realize. Wini- fred listened, but far down in her mind now was another question hardly easier to stifle than that about the frock. ‘“Where are we go- ing to?” would have been its naked form, but she yielded no more to her impulse than to look about her and mark and wonder. At last they turned up a sharp twist from a long, narrow street into a short, narrower street, where a wagon by the curbstone forced the cab to a walk, and shrill boys were playing an unintelligible, noisy game. “What queer places we pass through!” she cried with a laugh, as ghe laid her hand on arm and turned her face to his. “Pass through! We're at home,” he answered, returning her laugh. “At home, Winnie!” He pointed at a house on the right hand side, and immediate after the cab stopped. Winifred got out, holding her skirt back from contact with the wheel. Harold, in his eagerness to ring the doorbell, had forgotten to render her this service. She stood on the pavement for a moment looking about her. One of the boys cried: “Crickey, there’s a swell!” and she liked the boy for it. Then she turned to the house. “It wants a lick of paint,” said Harold cheerfully as he rang the bell again. “‘t‘t'r‘ tainly does,” she admitted looking up at the dirty walls. An old woman opened the door; she might be said, by way of shor, to need the same process as the walls; a very narrow > was disclosed behind her. me pass — = you and’me—4im ourlcamp on the Stanislow, fire’of bresh andfbrarstirred up by a pifch-pine bough; $ g 5010\ on Bilson’s prospectin’-pan T 7 z gay (\nul’jen‘er; n Clag kemfim with a Klondike .man.[{ == I g .lf R e e g Q.\And\v;béi\é’rgs he/cfig‘.of'ci»z ( kixd - ’ > L NS ~ » . > For it's very rare that a man gets there—and the man that 1s there must stay! ¢ i fl}xs —— i 2 S _= q;_,k\‘/ ' Now 1 mest despise lowjlanguage and lhes—as 1 used to remark to Nye; SBut d\ soul of Truth—+though he was but a youth—looked out of that stranger’s'eye; - ¥RAd The things he said |1 had frequent read in the papers down on f'll?: Bay, wot's used in the best theayter play. Hdw jhey = H'o’\fzfi Y ¢ But their regiilaf fare. when they'd nothin’ to spare and had finisied Z~ 4 Was the harness leather} which \\'l’llvll hulgsmwem together, though the ]'a_st 1 ( all this seemed trueZand quu_e natural, too, and then he spoke of the “gold,” SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 189S. arrived at (after discussion) as a compromise between *rooms” and ‘“pens,” and she knew that the windows of each of these enclosures were commanded by the windows of several other apparently similar and very neighboring enclosures. Beyond this shfiould give no account of her first half hour in the house; her exact recollection began when she was left alone in the enclosure on the first floor which Harold asserted to be the drawing room, Harold himself hav- ing gone down stairs to seek the old woman and elicit from her some information as to what were and were not tenant’s fixtures in the said enclosure. “You can look about you,” he remarked cheerful- 1y as he left her, “and make up your mind where you're going to have your favorite seat. Then you shall tell me, and I shall have the picture of you sitting there in my mind.” He pointed to a wooden chalr, the only one then in the room. “Experiment with that chair, he added laughing. “I won't be long, darling.” Mechanically, without considering things which she obviously ought to have considered, Winifred sank into the designated seat, laid her parasol on a small table, and leant her elbows on the same piece of furniture as she held her face between her gloved hands. The at- mosphere dgain asserted its peculiar quality; she rose for a moment and opened the window; fresh air was gained at the expense Of spoiled gloves, and was weighted with the drawbacks of a baby's cries and an inquisitive woman’s stare from over the way. Shut- ting the window again, she returned to her chair—the symbol of what was to be her favorite seat in days to come, her chosen cor- ner in the house which had been the subject of so many talks and 80 many dreams. There were a great many flies in the room; the noise of adjacent humanity in street and houses was miscellaneous and penetrating; the alr was very close. And this house was rather more expensive than their calculations had allowed. They had im- mensely enjoyed making those calculations down there in the country, under the old yew hedge, and in sight of the flower beds beneath the library window. She remembered the day they did it. There was a cricket match in the meadow. Mildred and her husband brought the drag over and Sir Barton came in his tandem. It was almost too hot in the sun, but simply delightful in the shade. She and Harold had had great fun over mapping out their $2500 a year and proving how much might be done with {t—at least compared with anything they could want once they had the great thing that they wanted. The vision vanished; she was back in the dirty little room again; she caught up her parasol; a streak across the dust marked where it had lain on the table; she sprang up and twisted her frock round, craning her neck back; ah, that she had reconnoitered that chair. She looked at her gloves; then with a cry of horror she dived for her handkerchief, put it to her lips, and scrubbed her cheeks; the hand- kerchlef came away sofled, dingy, almost black. This last outrage overcame her; the parasol dropped on the floor, she rested her arms on the table and laid her face on them, and she burst into sobs, Just as she used to in childhood when her brothers crumpled a clean frock or somebody spoke to her roughly. And between her sobs she cried almost loudly, very bitterly: “Oh, it's too mean and dirty and horrid!” Harold had stolen softly upstairs, meaning to surprise the girl he loved, perhaps to let a snatehed Kiss be her first knowledge of his return. He flushed red, and his lips set sternly; he walked across the room to her with a heavy tread. She looked up, saw him, and =i Which it took just a pound to And of pork that was dfilled p t For things will he s(rankc }\'hél\ thcrn_\fomflers‘r}ange to Valley a corps de bally might get up a fine “menoo. iz s ; y badly broken - e L - - It's a-thousand miles by them Russtan isles till you come on to “Fort Get There” e O oA ald Tackson for Intmutl ek Which the same you are not if you'll look at the spot on the map that of gold is bare),: .=~ -~ ,f( il tion of Winifred's action must be L y Y B aemap g b e = sd was tall, zood loo ready Then a River begins that the Amazon skins and the big Mississippy knocks out— z — ]( (\ H :v; speech a&;‘l "re;‘l‘)’il‘;‘i For it's seventy ml/les ‘cross its mouth when it smiles. and—you've only begun your route. | (=== ;j’ here s no C = 3 B 2 him, and his quiet manners repelled : ha . e & any suspicion of bumptiousn: But ‘ S e e = it cannot be denied that to him Wine fred’s action did not seem extraordi- ; he himself accounted for this by ng that s like himself, was an 1ist, the boys by saying that he w “stuck up.” Mr. Petheram, by a fre ful exclamation, that in all worldly mat- ,:( he was as blind as a new-born py. Whatever the truth of these V7 Jective theories, he was 8s con- Vineed that Winifred had chosen for as that she had And in this she most Of course, then, all the n the universe could not affect the radiant content- ment of the lovers, nor could it avert the swift passage of months which soon brought the wedding day in sight, and made pr.parations for it urgent pensable. her given him ¥ fully agreed. shrugging of shoulders own For we're way-worn and though they e only a precarious five hundred a must live somewhere id=al- is independent of a roof; on the , it centers round the home, so said, and the word noine alre; v sacred to Winifred as red his. Harold seemed her glance 5 happiest day of her life when s| on her dainty new costume of delic It was the put took pa and gloves, d to a shade with her gown, and d into the small dogeart which nie, the new chestnut mare, was to draw to the station. A letter -had come from Harold to say that, after a long search, he had found a house which would suit them, and was only just a trifle more expensive than the maximum sum they had decided to give for rent. Winifred knew that the delicate gray became her well, and that Harold would think her looking very pretty; and she was going to see her home and his she kissed her father and jumpe " sighed when she had left hi Jennie back. not seem quite as remote as it was no use in crying over it now. Wiliful girls must have their way, d it was not his fault that confounded agitators had played the deuce with the Iand_ed interest. The matter passed from his thoughts as_he began to motice how satisfactorily Jennie moved. ‘Winifred’s lover met her in London, and found her eyes still bright from the reveries of her journey. To-day was a gala day— they drove off in a hansom to a smart restaurant in Piccadilly, jok- ing about thelr extravagance. Everything was perfect to Winifred, except (a small exception, surely!) that Harold failed to praise, seemed almost not to notice, the gray costume; it must have been that he looked at her face only! It's not a large house, you know,” he said at lunch, smiling at her over a glass of Graves. “Well, T shan’t be wanting to get away from you,” she answered smiling. *“Not very far, Harold.” “Are your people still abusing me?" He put the question with a laugh. “They never abused you, only me.” questio; “Do you like my new frock? the house, you know.” “Our home,” he murmurec, rather sentimentally, it must be con- fessed. The question .about the frock he did not answer; he was thirking of the home. Winifred was momentari.y grateful to a stout Her face was bright as d down from the dogcart, but he m, and his brow was wrinkled as he drove He felt himself growing rather old; “some day” did used, and pretty Winnie—well, there Then came the irrepressible I put it on on purpose—for V:}n’:@cdn't care—for I'fiever was there,” said that simple Kiondike man;%’—fi‘- “1I'm a company-floater and business promoter—and this is my little plan; -~ =¥ 1 show you the dangers to which you are strangers. and now for a sum you'll learn How vou can expect us—as per this Prospectus _— : — bl o e e T Then Bilson stared, and he almost r'ared. but he spoke in a calm-like tone “You Il excuse me for sayin’ you're rather delayin’ your, chance to msure-your own! And what did affect uss-he tqok that Prospectus, and c! — ——— e —&S’i\\ === BT A i he says: e 'hen at Dawson;City. —_— to insure your safe return.” ol “/?‘%__f_"/;m".’_ o=~ i weary, your style 1sn’t cheery,fve've had quite enough of »our game: s }{llckcd 1t night into the flame! e 5 Thenour roarin’ fire of bresh and of s = Y T =~=\ And B — ““Welcome!"” said Harold, glving Winifred his hand and then pre- senting her to the old woman. “This iIs my future wife,” he ex- plained. *“We've come to look at the house. But we won’t bother vou, Mrs. Blidgett, we’d rather run over it by ourselves. We shall enjoy that, shan’t we, Winnie?"” % ‘Winnie’s answer was a little scream and a hasty clutch at her gown; a pall of dirty water, standing in the passage, had threatened rufn; she recoiled violently from this peril against the opposite wall and drew away again, silently exhibiting a long trail of dark dust on her new gray frock. Harold laughed as he led the way into a small, square room that opened from the passage. “That's the parlor,” said the old woman, wiping her arms with her apron. “You can find your way upstairs; nothing’s locked.” And with this remark she withdrew by a steep staircase leading under- ground. ““She’s the caretaker,” Harold explained. “She doesn’t seem to have taken much care,” observed Winifred, still indignant about her gown and holding it round her as closely as drapery clings to an antique statue. Miss Petheram’s account of the house, its actual dimensions, ac- commodation and characteristics, has always been very vague, and since she refused information as to its number in the street, verifica- tion of these details has remained impossible. Perhaps it was a rea- sonably capacious, although doubtless not extensive, dwelling; per- haps, again, it' was a confined and well-nigh stifling den. She re- membered two things—first, its all-pervading dirt; secondly, the re- markable quality which (as she alleged) distinguished its atmos- phere. She thought there were seven ‘“‘enclosures,” this term being — Here Bilson arose with a kezrless-like po;e,- and he gaz—e-d on that Klondike youth. “Fair Sir, don't think I infer that your words are not words of truth, But I'd simply asl;_\:hy;;finc& that all men must die—your sperrit 1s wanderin’ here, #7And Jeflerson Clay wenr softly away with that vouth with a downcast brow; And Jones of Yolo repeated his solo on that still calm evening air: we thought with a shiver of Yukon River and the — the glorc'ys‘the px\yQ.—yO\j'vc bin froz up mgh a year?’'— briar fashed up on the Stawislow Fort that was called “Get There."~ - ) 5 —— —~ \\_, it g R\A,J : knew that her exclamation had been overheard. “What in the world is the matter?” he asked in a tone of cold sur- prise. It was very absurd—she couldn’t stop crying; and from amid her weeping nothing more reasonable, nothing more adequate, nothing less trivial would come than confused murmurs of “My frock, Har- old!” “My parasol!” “O, my face, my gloves!” He smiled contemptu- ously. “Don’t you see?”-she exclaimed, exhibiting the gloves and parasol. “She what. Are you crying because the room’s dirty?”’ He paused and then added, “I'm sorry you think it mean and horrid. Very sorry, Winifred.” Offense was deep and bitter in his voice; he looked at her with a sort of disgust; she stopped sobbing and regarded him with a gaze in which fright and expectation semed mingled, as though there were a great peril and just one thing that might narrowly avert it. But his eyes were very hard. She dried her tears and then forlornly scrutbed her cheeks again. He watched her with hostile curlosity, appearing to think her a very strange spéctacle. Presently he spoke. “I thought you loved me. O, I daresay you thought so, too, till I came into competition with your new frock. I beg pardon—I must add your gloves and your parasol. As for the house, it's no doubt mean and horrid; we were going to be poor, you see.” He laughed scornfully, as he added, “You might even have had to do a jittle dusting yourself now and then! Horrible!” i “I just sat there and looked at him.” That was Winifred’'s own account of her behavior. It is not very explicit, and leaves room for much conjecture as to what her look said or tried to say. But what- ‘o H:'(r;ked of|snows and, of wh%}:y wottroze inlthe solidest kindof chunk, 2 B 0 Ia:rly‘around when the boys}\afl nd witk dynam:*F filled before {t would yield to a l‘)lnw “sixty degrees helpw.(* flode == 4.1 rrnagd")soup of boots—which the oldest best suits—and a “fry’ ever the message was he did not read it. - -e was engrossed in his own indignation, readier to hurt than to understand, full of his own wrong, of the mistake he had made, of her extraordinary want of love, of courage, of the high soul. Very likely all this was a natural enough state of mind for him to be in. Justice admits his provoca- tion; the triviality of her spoken excuses gave his anger only too fine an opportunity. He easily persuaded himself that there was a reve- lation of the real woman, a flash of light that showed her true na- ture, showing, too, the folly of his delusion about her. Against all this her look and what it asked for had very little chance, and she could find no words that did not aggravate her offense. “This is really rather a ludicrous scene,” he went on. “Is there any use in prolonging it?” He waited for her to speak, but she was still tongue-tied. ‘‘The caretaker needn’t be distressed by seeing the awful effects of her omission to dust the room, but if you're com- posed enough, we might as well go.” He looked around the room. “You'll be glad to be out of this,” he ended. “1 know what you must think of me,” she burst out, “but—but you don’t understand—you don’t see—" “No doubt I'm stupid, but I confess I don’t. At least there’s only one thing I see.”” He bowed and waved his hand toward the door, “Shall we go?” he asked. She led the way down stalrs, her skirt again held close and raised clear of her ankles. Her care for it was not lost on Harold as he fol- lowed her, for she heard him laugh again with an obtrusive bitterness that made his mirth a taunt. The old caretaker waited for them in the passage. \ “When’ll you be coming, sir?” she asked. “I don’t know. It's not certain we shall come,” said he. lady is not much taken with the house.” “Ah, well!” sighed the old woman resignedly. For an account of their drive back to the station materials are again sadly wanting. “He hardly said a word, and I did nothing but try to get my face clean and my gloves presentable,” was Winifred's history of the journey. But she remembered—or chose to relate—a little more of what passed while they waited for the train on the platform at Euston. He left her for a few minutes on pretext of smoking a cigarette, and she saw him walking up and down, ap- parently in thought. Then he came back and sat down beside her. His manner was grave now; to judge by his recorded words, perhaps it was even a little pompous; but when may young men be pompous if not at such crises as these? “It's no use pretending that nothing has happened, Winifred,” he said. “That would be the hollowest pretense, not worthy, I think, of either of us. Perhaps we had better take time to consider our course and—er—our relations to each other.” “You ‘don’t want to marry me now?” she asked simply. “I want to do what {s best for our h: ppiness,” he replied. cannot forget what has happened to-day. “I know you would never forget it,” she said. He did not contradict her; he looked first at his watch, th. along the platform for the approach of her train. To admit that he might forget it was impossible to him; in such a case forgetful- ness would be a negation of his principles and a slur on his percep- tion. It would also be such a triumph over his vanity and his prids as it did not lie in him to achieve, such a forgiveness as his faults and virtues combined to put beyond tho power of his nature. She looked at him, and “I smiled,” she said, not seeming herself to know why she had smiled, but conscious that, in the midst of her woe, some subtly amusing thought about him had come into her mind. She had never been amused at him before; so she, too, was getting some glimmer of a revelation out of the day’'s experlence—not the awful blaze of light that had flashed on Har- old’s eyes, but a dim ray, just enough to give cause to that puzzled smile for which she could not explicitly account. So they parted, and for persons who have followed the affair at all closely it is bardly necessary to add that they never came together again. This is- sue was obvious, and Winifred seems to have made up her mind to it that very same evening, for she called her mother into her room (as the good lady passed on the way to bed), and looked up from the task of brushing the gray frock which she had spread out on the sofa. “I don’t think I shall marry Mr, Jackson, now, mother,” she said. Mrs. Petheram looked at her daugh- ter and at her daughter’s gown. “You’d better tell me more about it to-morrow. You look tired to-night, dear,” she replied. But Winifred never told her any more—in the first place, because the family -‘was too delighted with the fact to care one straw about how it had come to pass, and, in the second place, on the more important ground that the thing was really too small, too trivial, and too absurd to bear telling—at lea to the family. To me, for some son or other, Winifred did tell it some of it, enough, anyhow, to en me with the help of a few touches imagination to conjecture how it curred. ‘Don’t you think it was very ab- surd?” she asked at the end of her story. We were sitting by the wyew hedge, near the library windows, look- ing across the flower beds to the meadow; it was a beautiful day, and the old place was charming. “Because,” she added, “I did love him, you know; and it seems a small thing to separate about, doesn’t it?” “If he had behaved differently”— I “The “We oc- 3 a first-class drunk, || li o from a dancip’ sho? [ began. [[. | T “T don’t see how he could be expected o lE ey ] to,” she murmured. | Mctafaa e, 1 L “You expected him to,” T said firmly. didn't)count. as a vull She turned to me with an appearance of interest, as though I might be abls to interpret to her something that had been causing her puzzle. “Or you wouldn’t have looked at him as you say you did—or smiled at him, as you admit you did. But you were wrong to expect him to, because he’s not that kind of a man.” % “What kind of a man?” “The kind of man to catch you in his arms, smother you in kisses (allow me the old phrase), tell you that he understood all you felt, knew all you, were giving up, realized the great thing you were doing for him.” Winifred was listening. I went on with my imaginary scene of romantio fervor. | “That when he contrasted that m little place with the beauties you we«;l: accustomed to, with the beauties which were right and nroper for you, when he ‘saw your daintiness soiled by that! dust, that gown whose hem he would willingly*'— “He needn’t say quite as much a that,” interrupted Winifred, smiling o little. “Well, or words to that effect,” sald I. “That when he did all this and saw all this, you know, he loved you more, and knew that you loved him mort;‘ than he had dared to dream, with a deeper love, a love that gave up for him all that you loved next best and second only tQ him; that after seeing| your tears he would never doubt again that you would face all trials and an troubles with him at your side. Don’t you think if he'd said something of that kind, accompanying his words, with the appropriate actions”—— I paused. “Well?” asked Winifred. “Don’t you think you might have been living in that horrid little house now instead of being about to con- tract an alliance with Sir Barton Ames- bury?” “How do you know I shall do that?" she cried. “It needs,” I observed modestly, “lit- tle skill to discern the approach of the Fy inevitable.” I looked at her thought- ful face and at her eyes; they ha their old look of wondering in them.' “Don’t vou think that, if he’d treated the situation in that way?" I asked. “Perhaps,” she said softly. “But he wouldn’t think of all that. He was such an idealist.” I really do not know why she apn- plied that term to him at that moment except that he used to apply it to him- self at many moments. But since it seemed to her to explain hig conduct there’s no need to quarrel with the epithet. “And I hope,” said I, “that the gray frock wasn’t irretrievably ruined?” “I've never worn it again,” she murmured. So I suppose it was ruined—unless she has some other reason. But she would be right to treat it differently from other frocks; it must mean a good deal to her, although it failed to mean anything except its own pretty self to Mr. Jackson. QUEER THINGS OF 100 YEARS AGO. ONE hundred years ago, no public library in the United States. One hundred years ago, the only hat factory made cocked hats, One hundred years ag0, 50 cents was good pay for a day’s labor, One hundred years ago, Virginia had one-fifth the population of . the United States. One hundred yvears ago, New York and Boston. One hundred years ago, in New York. One hundred years ago, beef, were staple diet the year round. One hundred years ago, buttons fastened with pegs and laces. a whipping-post and pillory were standing pork, salt fish, potatoes and hominy ‘were scarce and trousers we; two stages carrled all the travel between ‘ [}