Mr. Babcock had come in early this morning, depositing a small traveling-bag behind the door of his office, and then looking at his watch to see if Mr. Bigelow were not about due. Somewhat travel-stained was Mr. Babcock, as a glance at the mirror told him; and there was time to wash and change his linen before his senior should arrive.
Shortly entered Mr. Bigelow, pausing within the threshold.
“Good-morning, Mr. Babcock. Did you find Michigan City still on the map?”
Mr. Babcock, giving a last flick at his coat-collar before the mirror, turned, listened, and laughed at his senior's little jest. The stenographer, sitting in her corner by the window, smiled and giggled. Young men at desks in the outer office snickered and chuckled over their books. The round-eyed office-boy tee-heed outright, and then, covered with fright and confusion, disappeared behind the water-cooler as the head of the firm passed on to the inner office.
The arrival of Mr. Babcock with a traveling-bag was, it seemed, to be considered important; more important even than the heap of letters that lay ready opened on the mahogany desk. For now Mr. Babcock had been summoned, the stenographer had been dismissed to some work in the outer office, and Mr. Bigelow, closely attentive, and Mr. Babcock, with much to communicate in that low voice of his, were settling down to consider a problem.
“The price appealed to them,” Mr. Babcock was saying, “but they are afraid of Higginson. They admit it. Higginson, they say, has their written order to cut out the timber at the old price. Higginson, on his part, has agreed to deliver the entire bill, two hundred thousand feet or more, at the wharf at Michigan City, by the fourteenth of this month.”
Mr. Bigelow's eyes strayed to his desk calendar.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Babcock, “to-day's the eleventh. That gives us three days to stop it in.”
At this point there was an interruption. As had happened once before when these two gentlemen were talking, the door opened and the small office-boy appeared, catching his breath hurriedly before getting out the words:
“Lady t' see y'u, sir.”
A decisive utterance was hanging on Mr. Bigelow's lips; a hand was raised to make it more emphatic, but the lips closed and the hand fell.
“You will excuse me, Mr. Babcock?”
“Certainly.”
“I shall be engaged only a moment.”
The discreet Mr. Babcock withdrew, and the head of the firm, with a glance at the heap of letters still untouched, turned, without rising, toward the door. There was a curious expression on his face, the expression of a man who feels himself at last in a position to cut knots, who knows that he commands the situation. A person who might choose to break in on such a weighty conference this morning need not be surprised at summary treatment. And as the woman entered and softly closed the door he leaned a little forward and drew his brows together, his whole appearance saying plainly: “My time is short, madam. Speak to the point.”
The woman faltered and waited for his question. He said not a word. She started to speak, but seemed unable to break through this heavy silence. He waited, his brows coming down more and more. And at last, when the words did pass her lips, they were not at all what she had meant to say.
“I have tried not to come to you again. God knows how it hurts me. But I had to come. I was turned out of the New York Store ten days ago, without warning.”
Once started, she was finding it a little easier to go on; but Mr. Bigelow, carrying the weight of millions on his shoulders, dealing hourly with questions of importance, greater or less, to the whole commercial world, had no time now—kind as he may have been in the more leisurely past—to waste on trivial matters. He had given the woman a chance; was he to blame for her failure? Did “not potential success exist within every human being? Was any man to blame for the shipwreck of another?
“I know nothing about that,” he cut in shortly and finally. “There is no use in bringing your story here.”
She quailed before him. “But I have a right—the law——”
“The law is yours to use. If you think it will help you, use it.” He rose, opened the door, and bowed her out. And she, baffled, humiliated, at the end of her resources, went out without a word, crossed the hall as steadily as any young stenographer, stepped into the elevator with a composed face, and out into the street—and all this while there was nothing to mark her out from a thousand other ill-dressed women; nothing to show that her hopes were gone; simply a plain woman on La Salle Street, quietly walking—where? Where could she walk now? Were there still depths to sound, or had she reached the bottom?
“Mr. Babcock!”
The junior partner came out from his own private office at the sound of his senior's voice.
“You were saying,” said Mr. Bigelow, taking up the thread where they had laid it down, “that Higginson & Company have agreed to deliver the timber by the fourteenth. Now, of course, a blockade, to be effective, must be complete.” This was self-evident to Mr. Babcock.
“And so long as these people are free to deliver lumber the blockade is not complete. What is your plan regarding this?”
“The Michigan City people, as I said, are afraid of Higginson. But they will accept our price the minute we can show them that they're safe in doing it. They received a letter from Higginson's manager yesterday stating that the Higginson steamer, with the timber, will reach Michigan City on the night of the thirteenth or the morning of the fourteenth. That means that it will be ready for loading on the twelfth—to-morrow—and that the steamer will start the morning of the thirteenth. Now, it's not hard to imagine a delay that would keep the Higginson manager from getting the boat off in time. And if he fails to deliver, we are promised the order.”
“How do you mean to do this?”
Mr. Babcock glanced around in that cautious way of' his, leaned forward, and buzzed along rapidly for a few moments, his eyes keen with eagerness. The senior partner listened closely and slowly nodded, to show that he understood. Even Mr. Bigelow, as we have seen, was not wholly free from annoyance. Head of the Lumber Trust was Mr. Bigelow, but not, unfortunately, sole owner of the Lumber Trust. Fighting is expensive; and voting heads of constituent companies are sometimes unreasonable about expenses. Mr. Bigelow was skilful and resourceful; he knew well how to paint rainbows that should dazzle even the hard-headed, hard-fisted old lumbermen of Michigan; he understood how to make it plain that money spent in defeating Higginson would come back threefold when the defeat was over, and the price up where it should be, and the “economies” of the trust in working order; he was shrewd, and he knew that the sooner Higginson could be run out of business the better it would be for him (to say nothing of the trust and its directors). And so it was indeed important that the blockade should be made effective. The railroads were practically closed to Higginson now, his customers were to be had for the buying, but the steamers of the Higginson line were still afloat and ready to deliver Higginson lumber at contract prices. The Michigan City contract was not a matter of money; there was a principle at stake. Higginson must not deliver that lumber on the fourteenth!
“Very good,” he said, nodding again. “Have you the right man for this work?”
Buzz—buzz—from Mr. Babcock. More words from Mr. Bigelow.
“You will have to move quickly.”
“Yes, I am off now,” and the junior partner headed for the traveling-bag, feeling in his pocket for a time-table.
The thirteenth was a storm-centre at Wauchung. At six in the morning, while Mr. William H. Babcock was sleeping peacefully in a Grand Rapids hotel, dreaming sweet dreams and smiling childlike smiles, conscious even in slumberland that his work was accomplished; while the Martin L. Higginson No. 1 was lying at the Higginson wharves with two hundred and fifteen thousand feet of lumber aboard, Halloran was up and tumbling into his clothes. Captain Craig, master of the Higginson No. 1, was sitting grimly on the corner of the bed.
“Do you know the man?” Halloran was asking.
“No.”
“Did he say whom he was acting for?”
The Captain shook his head.
At seven o'clock the No. 1. should be leaving the harbour; but here was her master sitting on Halloran's bed, his seamed old face set hard with the thoughts that were boiling behind it. Down by the mills, where the first early risers were lounging in, where the lumber piles stretching far along the wharves were glistening yellow under the light of the new sun, all was quiet even to the steamer, whose stoke-room was cold, whose boilers were giving out no sounds of preparation for the twelve-hour journey. Over at Grand Rapids Mr. Babcock was still sleeping the sleep of the just, dreaming once more that his man had come in by a late train to report that all was well at Wauchung. And still Halloran was jerking himself into his clothes, pulling on his old purple sweater rather than waste time over collar and tie.
“All right,” he said; “I'm ready.” Then he paused. The next move was not to be settled offhand. “You went around to Billy's house, Captain?”
“Yes; I've just come from there. The way that fellow talked bothered me so last night that I couldn't sleep much. I got to thinking it over after I'd gone to bed, and it struck me that if he wanted to cripple the line he'd hardly stop at me. He'd go for Billy sure, for a good engineer isn't an easy man to replace. And they tell me Billy hasn't been seen at his boarding-house since noon yesterday.”
Very true, Captain Craig! A good suggestion just now when Halloran is still shaking the sleep from his eyes and trying to get these amazing facts in hand, and to relate them with certain suspicions that rose at the first word. It will probably occur to Halloran, when once he shall get facts, suspicions and all firmly gripped in his mind, that heads of trusts do not fight haphazard; that if certain deliveries of timber are to be prevented heads of trusts are not accustomed to move in vain. It is Mr. Bigelow's habit to arrive at results: no getting off at way-stations for G. Hyde Bigelow; and obstinate persons who venture on open warfare with the Great must shake the sleep out very early in the morning if they hope to reach even a way-station along the Bigelow line. Steamers cannot be run without engineers: engineers cannot be had for the whistling in far-away Michigan ports with but forty hours of grace—forty valuable hours not a whit longer than other everyday hours; even shorter—hours that were diminishing, were growing more valuable, would soon be precious.
“How much did this man offer you?” Halloran asked.
“Five hundred a year more salary and a bonus of five hundred extra, cash down.”
“Did he show the money?”
“He had a big roll.”
“Meant business, didn't he?” said Halloran dryly. “First thing we do, we'd better go down and see if we have anybody left. Then we can talk better.”
So they went down to the wharves, where they found a few wandering deckhands by the silent steamer. Evidently deckhands were not important to trusts.
“I guess Billy took the bait,” Halloran observed. “He is never as late as this, is he?”
The Captain shook his head.
“Well, there is only one thing to do next, Captain. We've got to get her down to Michigan City before to-morrow night whether the Trust likes it or not. Do you suppose they've gobbled up the tug men, too?”
It was not a hard fact to discover, for there were only two tugs in the harbour; and sure enough, when, twenty minutes later, the manager for Higginson & Company and the Captain of the No. 1 met again on the wharf, they were both beginning to understand how clean a sweep the Trust people had made of it. The Captain was growing angrier every minute, and so was Halloran. The rascality of it was what aroused the Captain. Waters and winds he could understand, but the ways of men were beyond him. Two days before, in Chicago, Mr. G. Hyde Bigelow had announced that Higginson & Company must not make the delivery at Michigan City; and this resulting moment, with Halloran sitting on the iron cap of a snubbing-post and the Captain standing silent before him, was a very dark moment for the Wauchung interests.
“The damned old rascal,” said Halloran, reflectively.
Craig's dull eye suddenly flashed.
“I ought to have foreseen it,” he burst out. “It's the kind of thing to expect from that Bigelow.”
“Yes,” replied Halloran; “that's what I've been saying to myself. This is a pretty fair sample of Bigelow's methods.” He was chagrined to think that it could be done so easily. He had thought of anything, everything, but this.
“I'd like to set Bigelow's head on that pile of two-by-fours,” Halloran went on, “and have about three shots at him. I don't believe he'd know himself the next time he looked in the glass.”
The Captain glanced at him mistrustfully. He liked this manager, but this was not the time for jokes.
“Did you ever see him?” asked Halloran, swinging a leg on each side of the snubbing-post and letting a twinkle come into his eyes as his thoughts seemed to run on Bigelow.
The Captain sighed an impatient negative.
“He's a big, vain man. You ought to see him come into church Sunday mornings and swell down the aisle, with his wife and children trotting after him. He's proud of being thought the big financial man in the church; and whenever they'll let him he gets up after the sermon and makes a speech about the church debts. Great temperance man, too—likes to preside at prohibition meetings and plead for the sanctity of the home.”
Captain Craig was scowling. Every moment the situation was growing more serious; and here was the manager of the company, sitting on a snubbing-post and swinging his legs. Men were needed now, thought the Captain angrily—grown men, not children.
“One spring house-cleaning time—I generally put in the early mornings and evenings there—G. Hyde called me in—I was putting down the hall rugs just then—he called me in to light the gas. I had a match ready to strike and he reached over and took it away from me and put it back in the box. 'Young man,' he said—he never liked to remember my name—'do you know how I rose from nothing to be the owner of this property?' Then he picked up a burnt match, held it down to the grate, and lighted the gas with that.” Hal-loran smiled a far-away smile. “Aren't some of his steamers up at Pewaukoe now?”
The question was asked in the same careless voice, and it took the Captain a moment to realize that the subject had been changed. Then he answered with a puzzled expression:
“Yes; the G. H. Bigelow should have come in there two or three days ago. The other boats are at Chicago or up on Lake Superior.”
“Big boat, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“Got a good crew for her?”
The Captain, all at sea, could think of nothing but an affirmative to this.
“What's the Captain's name?”
“Carpenter.”
“Who's the engineer?”
“Robbie MacGregor.”
“Good man?”
“Robbie? Certainly. None better.”
Halloran slid down off the post and looked at his watch.
“Old G. Hyde is getting up just about now. He's a great hand at early rising—preaches a good deal about it—likes to say that if he hadn't been brought up on a good old gentleman known as B. Franklin he'd never be where he is now. Well, maybe he wouldn't.”
The Captain's temper was hanging on the edge of an explosion, but Halloran went on.
“There's nothing to be done here now. Try to keep everything ready—if you can pick up a man to fire up, I should—and we'll probably get off this afternoon sometime.” And he strolled off, leaving the Captain to stare after him and give vent to the first rumblings of a storm.
Halloran, in his old clothes and faded purple sweater and college cap, was headed for the railroad station. At the station he took the Pewaukoe train; at Pewaukoe he walked down to the mills, fairly certain that none of Bigelow's men there would recognize him. The G. H. Bigelow lay at the wharf, as Craig had said. She was taking on a cargo.
The mills were on the low ground by the river. From the road he could overlook them and the great piles of lumber that crowded close to the water's edge for hundreds of yards up and down stream, and he leaned on the fence to take it in. As far up as he could see the river was blocked with logs. The mills were singing and buzzing and humming—it was plain that the Bigelow vitalizing process had begun, and that all hands were being crowded on the work in order to sell lumber at a loss to Higginson's customers. He thought he would walk down through the yards toward the steamer.
As the unknown man, wearing a purple sweater and somewhat in need of a shave, walked past the shore end of the nearer mill, the eyes of the Superintendent fell upon him. A moment later the two met.
“How are you?” said the Superintendent, suspicious but civil.
“First rate. How are you?”
“Want to see any one?”
“No; just looking around.”
“Where were you going?” asked the Superintendent, trying to veil his suspicions.
“Nowhere especially. I didn't suppose they'd be any objection if I watched 'em loading the steamer.”
“No—certainly not.” This reluctantly.
“Got a great lot of lumber here, haven't you?” Halloran was looking, as he spoke, at a long pile that extended to a point within fifty feet of the mill.
“Yes; working nights right along—with all the men I can get. That pile doesn't stay here; but we're so crowded I had to leave it over night—just until I get the Bigelow loaded up. I'm going to put on a big force this afternoon and carry it all down to the wharf. Some days lately we've been so crowded I really haven't known how I was going to get things done.”
Slowly it was dawning on Halloran that he was suspected of being—not the manager for Higgin-son & Company—but a lynx-eyed insurance inspector, out running down violations of the clear-space clause. This wouldn't do. It was not on his books to be drawn into an extended conversation with Bigelow's superintendent. He would have to fall back on lying if this were to keep up much longer.
“Say,” he observed, “what was that fellow doing down in the water, hopping around on the logs with a long pole?”
The Superintendent was beginning to lose interest.
“He picks out logs of the right sizes.”
“You don't mean to say he can tell just by looking at a log in the water what size it will cut to?” A curt nod was the only reply.
“Isn't it remarkable how a man can get trained to things? Now if I were to try a thing like that———”
But the Superintendent had fled.
Halloran walked slowly on to the wharf, and stood watching the gangs that were carrying the heavy sticks over the rail of the steamer. Two steam hoists were clanking and rattling as the booms swung back and forth. Bosses were shouting and swearing—everywhere was confusion, but confusion that moved steadily onward toward the loading of the steamer. Halloran dodged around the labourers and walked along the wharf until he was opposite the engine-room door. Within was a fat man in overalls tinkering over the machinery. Halloran climbed up to the deck and stood in the doorway.
“How are you?” he observed. “Nice day!” The engineer nodded.
“You must be Mr. MacGregor, aren't you?”
“That's my name.”
“Mine is Halloran.”
MacGregor looked up, surprised.
“Yes, I am with Higginson & Company.”
MacGregor did not know what to make of this. Halloran, however, went right on.
“How do you like working for Bigelow?” And without leaving time to reply, he added: “Mean old humbug, ain't he?”
“What do you know about Bigelow?”
“Used to work for him myself. I had all I wanted of him. He isn't square. That's what brings me here. We need a good engineer, and Captain Craig tells me you are the best on the lakes. Is that so?”
MacGregor's mind had not caught up yet; and Halloran continued:
“I want to take you back to Wauchung with me. We will raise your salary five hundred dollars, and engage you for as long a time as you think right! You know Higginson & Company—and you know we keep our promises. Then you can tell Bigelow to go to hell if you want to. I know how Bigelow's men feel.” He looked at his watch. “We can get the 9:53 train down.”
“You don't mean to go this morning?” said MacGregor.
“Yes; right off. You surely have an assistant you can leave in charge of the engine.”
The fat man backed up against the opposite door and looked at Halloran.
“See here,” he said, “what does this mean?”
“Mean?”—Halloran's anger, that had been rising since six o'clock, began to boil over—“Mean? It means that Bigelow has come into the lumber business with the idea of running Higginson out. And if you know anything about Martin L. Higginson you know that old Bigelow has bitten off the biggest hunk he ever tried to get his mouth around. It means that G. Hyde Bigelow's going to get such a hob-nailed roost in the breeches that he'll be lucky to come down at all. He's going to have the whole damned zodiac buzzing around in his head before he gets through with Higginson—that's what it means! I've come up here this morning to tell you that we want an engineer, and that you're the man we want. And we want you to go on the 9:53 train—that's about forty minutes now.”
MacGregor was thinking hard. He knew a little about Bigelow and a good deal more about Higginson. He liked the phrase, too—what was it—oh, “the best engineer on the lakes.”
“Can't you give me a day to think it over, Mr. Halloran?”
“Sorry, but I'm afraid not. We need you right off.”
“What did you say your offer was?”
“What you think is fair. But I'll tell you flatly, we'll pay you more than Bigelow will—five hundred a year more. You have just about comfortable time to get up to your house and change your clothes. I'll meet you at the station.”
“What if Bigelow should make trouble about my contract?” asked MacGregor dubiously.
“Don't you worry a minute about that. We'll back you up to the last notch.”
MacGregor thought it over a little longer. Then he turned his ponderous frame and called to his assistant.
“All right,” he said over his shoulder to Halloran, “I'll meet you at the station.”
At this moment Mr. William H. Babcock was rising from a hotel breakfast in Grand Rapids and reaching for the toothpicks. As he strolled out to the office to buy a paper he picked his teeth and smiled softly.
Feeling painfully outside of it all—almost inclined to wonder if his troubles were real, if the mills behind him, the lumber piled on either side of him, the laden steamer before him were real; if this round world, even, with its mixture of ups and downs and ins and outs, were real—Mr. Higginson stood on the wharf at Captain Craig's side. The steamer's fires had not yet been started and it was now after eleven o'clock. The engineers had disappeared, and with them the oilers and stokers; the wheelmen were gone, and the lookouts—nothing left in Wauchung but a few deckhands. And now, to cap it all, Halloran had dropped suddenly off the surface of the earth, leaving a certain old Scotch captain to rumble internally and now and then to burst into eruption with scorching phrases about boys that ought to be back in the nursery, about babes that had been prematurely weaned.
Into this scene of gloom and desolation came Halloran, recognizable half-way up to the mill by the purple sweater, carrying a bulging canvas telescope; and following him, somewhat scant of breath, hurried a fat man with a patent-leather valise. The gloomy ones observed them at the same moment. Mr. Higginson gave a nervous start, then was swept by a feeling of relief that almost brought a smile to his face. The Captain looked—and looked—and—the rumblings ceased. Nothing further was heard that day about nursing-bottles.
“Hallo, Robbie,” was all that Craig could bring himself to say when the fat man had reached the wharf and set down his valise and begun swabbing his face with a handkerchief that showed signs of use since he had fallen into Halloran's hands.
“How are you, Cap'n?”
Mr. Higginson drew his manager aside.
“Who is this man?”
“He is the new engineer.”
Mr. Higginson's eyes shifted from Halloran to the fat man and back again two or three times. Then, as time was pressing, he decided to ask no questions.
“There is a man up the river that understands firing,” he said. “Crosman has gone up to get him.”
“Have we any wheelmen?”
“Yes, one of Craig's old men is in the mill. When do you plan to start?”
“Right away—as soon as we can fire up.”
Mr. Higginson was on the point of suggesting a wait until the next morning, but he withheld this, too. And so Halloran, who had promised to deliver the lumber by the morning of the fourteenth, and who would have, taken the steamer down himself rather than give Bigelow the pleasure of delaying him fifteen minutes, went on with the work of preparation.
At three o'clock that afternoon they were off, with one man in the wheel-house, a quartet of clumsy deckhands in the stoke-hole, a devoutly profane fat man in the engine-room, and one combined lookout and deckhand by the name of Halloran—every man of them facing a solid twelve hours on duty. Never had steamer gone out between the Wauchung piers in such plight before. If the white-clad Swede in the lookout of the life-saving station could have seen through the walls of this good ship Higginson, could have known the facts that lay behind this brave front, he would have wagged his head dubiously and long.
But the stars were kind on the thirteenth of this month. Captain Craig, standing on the wheel-house and guiding her out toward deep water, found himself looking on a flat mirror that blended, miles away, into the blue sky. Streaked with wide reaches of green and purple and corn-colour was Lake Michigan to-day—wearing her gladdest dress over a calm heart. And Halloran and the Captain, both of whom knew her temper, who had met once, indeed, when she was angriest, near Evanston a few years earlier—recognized themselves for very lucky men.
And so the old Higginson No. 1 headed southward, and plowed deliberately down past Point Sable, and heaved out a long line of black smoke just as if she had been a real full-handed steamer with real firemen throwing coal into the greedy furnaces. There was even some enthusiasm aboard; not one even of the stokers but knew dimly that they were fighting. They even felt, the younger ones, like men marching into battle, and when the Higginson was fairly out on the lake and swinging around on her course, one amateur fireman of the watch below ran down the ladder to pass the good news to his less fortunate brethren on duty. And if the heat of the work had been less trying, these grimy fellows, stripped to the drawers and covered with sweat and coal, might even have given three cheers.
They ran down slowly, of course. It was getting on toward daylight when the Higginson steamed into the harbour at Michigan City and tied up at the wharf of the lumber company, and it was a heartily exhausted set of men that rolled into their bunks to snatch a wink before day should come, bringing more work with it.
At eight o'clock Halloran walked over to the Company's office and inquired for the manager.
“I'm Halloran,” he said, “of Higginson & Company. How soon can you begin unloading?”
“Right away,” replied the manager civilly, but with an odd expression. “I'm just sending some men down.” His surprise was so great that it had to find some expression. He seemed to be thinking it over as he left his desk to go to the wharf. Finally, with an effort at an off-hand manner, he added, “You're prompt on time.”
“Sure,” replied Halloran. “Why not?”
It was Saturday night on the North Side, and shortly after six o'clock. That part of the world that centres in North Clark Street between Lincoln Park and the Bridge was already beginning to stir and stretch and shake off the dust of the day; was swarming in from scores of cross streets, to parade before the show-windows and pour into the beer-gardens and restaurants, to crowd at the corners—a motley company of washed and unwashed; of labourers and shopgirls hurrying home, and of more fortunate ones, old and young, sauntering from home, to get out of life what North Clark Street had to offer.
Strains of dance music floated out over board fences that were gaudy with posters, out over evergreen hedges that thrived in green tubs. All the world was gay to-night; all the world was in the mood to sit at white tables under the trees and dine on the best of German fare, to tip back and listen to German music from German orchestras, to toss the waiter half a dollar; life was gay, life was jolly; all was well with the world. No half-lights here, no miserly crouching in shadows, no gloomy ones to spoil it all; nothing but froth on the glass, a laugh on the lip, and here's looking at you!
But think again. Of all these houses of amusement was there not one standing empty—was there not one where gloom reigned? Glance along the street, pass the policeman on the corner—the fat policeman, for whose sake we will hope all thieves are slow of foot—down past other corners and other fat policemen, down almost to the river, so near that the smell of the water poisons the air. Was there not a dingy little playhouse, overwhelmed by the soot and grime of the city, by the noise of the trains that seemed to be rushing into the building with bells ringing and every steam-valve open—overwhelmed, too, by the rattle and struggle of the street, and the large buildings that crowded so close on each side that they threatened to come together with a snap and leave no trace of the dingy little structure with its porte cochere front. If there was, anywhere in this big city, a building that spoke of failure, of pitiful inadequacy for any metropolitan purpose, of aimlessness and inevitable wreckage, here it stood, bearing the hesitating announcement that within might be found Somebody's Original Oriental Burlesquers and Refined Vaudeville.
Not long after six o'clock was it, and the lingering remnants of a very thin audience were rapidly escaping before the onslaught of the “chasers.” The particular chaser that held the stage at the moment was a tall, thin young man, rather nimble as to the legs, who was exercising a sound pair of lungs on a song, a tender memory of a certain Bridget O'Grady, who, he vowed, was a perfect lady. The fiddles squeaked and rasped, the piano tinkled, the bass viol rumbled in loudest of all; and the audience grew thinner and thinner—narrowed down, in fact, to a few questionable individuals who had, one feared, no better place to go. After the song there was a dance in which the nimble legs appeared to some advantage. And if we had been tucked away in a corner of that dirty stage, behind the wings that were slit and frayed from years of service—if we had watched the Irish vocalist when he came off and readjusted his carroty wig, we could not have failed to recognize in the possessor of the nimble legs and the sound lungs our old friend Apples.
Somewhere in the course of his career Apples had dropped a stitch; for the goal of all true Thespians, the myriad-minded Shakespeare, was still only a waking dream for Apples, was still no more than a twinkling constellation that shone and shone in the far heavens, serenely unconscious that one Appleton Le Duc was striving upward. But was it not an encouragement to recall the inspiriting words of the professor of elocution, that Shakespeare himself had been a country boy; that he, too, had gone to the city to seek his fortune; that he, too, had stumbled and struggled, and climbed and climbed until he had reached the highest pinnacle of fame?
Something was certainly on the mind of the rising actor to-night—something that elevated him above the dingy hall and the sleepy audience. Pausing only to mop his brow, back he went in response to his encore—the encore that was mentioned in his contract—as cheerfully as if the audience had really given him a hand; and the sound lungs burst out again, to another scraping, tinkling, rumbling accompaniment; and the voice of Apples rose high in the praise of 'Mary, my fairy, the Maid of Ochlone,' whose heart-dum-de-dumdy-dum-surely-my-own. The sight of a newspaper spread wide before the face of the only occupant of an orchestra seat could not disturb Apples this evening; the glimpse of two newsboys in the gallery, aiming with peanuts at the bald head behind the newspaper, could not so much as ruffle him; for golden-haired Mary, dee-doodle-dee-fairy, dee-iddle-dee-airy, ta raddle-my-own. Very blithe was Apples, strangely blithe for an underpaid chaser in the most despondent theatre on the North Side.
There was another little scene taking place at this time in which we are interested. In the lodging of Mrs. Craig—not two rooms now, but one, with a decrepit cook-stove in one corner and a ragged quilt hung across another corner to serve as a partition between George's bedroom and the rest of the space—a silent woman was cooking a meager supper. A very silent woman was Mrs. Craig at this time, even more so than formerly. The room was hot and close with the odour of cooking.
Into this home, at a little before six, came Lizzie Bigelow, grown rather more mature in appearance since we last saw her, of a rounder figure and a brighter colour. She was in good spirits to-night. By some miracle she was as fresh and healthy as if she had been given nothing but the best of food, the purest air and plenty of time for exercise; and to the mother it seemed as if a whiff of fresh air had come with her into the room.
“Well, Lizzie, you are back early.”
“Yes; I got off at half-past five. Where is George?”
“He has to work late to-night.”
“Oh, yes; I forgot. You are tired, ma. You sit down awhile and let me finish the supper.” She was throwing aside her hat and jacket as she spoke, and she smiled at her mother in a way that brought an expression of gratefulness and surprise to the face of the older woman. “Now you just sit down awhile. I'm going to get supper ready to-night.”
It appeared that she really meant it; and the mother, after a little protesting, made way for her by the stove. Indeed, it promised to be quite a jolly evening, if only George could get home in time to share it. Even without him, what with a merry recital of the funny things that had happened at the office during the day, and with other talk of an equally unusual good humour, Mrs. Craig was almost bewildered. She knew only too well how unexpectedly Lizzie's high spirits could turn corners, how petulant this merry, black-eyed girl could be.
After supper, announcing that she was going to get a breath of fresh air, Lizzie went out, first ingeniously smuggling a small package outside the door under pretense of opening it for air. Next she put on her hat and jacket and stood for a moment smiling; finally she bent over her mother and kissed her, an act so surprising that Mrs. Craig flushed with pleasure. Then, with a nervous little laugh and a fling of her skirts, she had whisked out and the door was closed. There was a pause at the top of the stairs while she fumbled in her pocket for a folded slip of paper which she tucked silently into the crack of the door; but at last she was off, running down the stairs with her bundle held tightly under her jacket, and hurrying across the street to avoid meeting George in case he should be returning home at this hour.
The encore was over and Apples was hurrying, wig in hand, to the dressing-room. There he threw off his costume, dressed for the street, packed all his “properties” hastily in an old valise, and went out at the stage-door. The doorkeeper nodded to him.
“You're off now, are you?”
“Yes; I'm through here.”
“Got your pay?”
“Some of it.”
“You're lucky.”
“Guess I am. Good-night.”
“Good-night.”
Apples, still hurrying, still wanting breath, turned the corner, paused, looked up the street and down, seemed disappointed and irresolute, and finally turned his valise on end and sat on it. From where he sat in the shadow of a dark building he could see the flow of life along North Clark Street, and he watched it nervously. He seemed somewhat oppressed by the rush and whirl of things, as if in mid-course of a tempestuous career he had paused to think. The soot-laden air was portentous to-night; the rattle and rumble of the street, the guffaws from the actors' saloon at his elbow, the roar and hurry of it all, bore heavily on his spirits as he sat waiting there. For Apples was on the brink of something—something new and strange. Before him lay an unexplored country, and who could say if it should prove a land of roses or a black abyss. For better or worse it was to be, a plunge into the future, vastly unlike certain other plunges that he had been forced to take—alone. Circumstances had swept him on; the offer had come, bearing the guarantee that at last his name should appear on all posters in letters not shorter than three and one-half inches; the other one, whose face and voice had helped to make it all possible, was willing, with a fluttering heart, to keep her promise; the small boy with the wizened face, whose thin legs were to help make their joint fortunes, had jumped at the chance; and here he was on the brink. Henceforth the three Le Ducs, three, were to be a feature in the theatrical world. And the black sky, bearing oppressively down like an emblem of great grim Chicago, was portentous indeed.
At last a woman, with a small package under her jacket, slipped out from the crowd and came hesitatingly down the side street. Apples rose.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.”
“Got everything?”
“Yes; where's Jimmie?”
“He's waiting at the pier.”
And so, without speaking further, these two young persons, who were about to take the plunge hand in hand, set out together toward the east. A block farther on she said, with a show of petulance, “Have we got to take Jimmie along?”