Sarah Pratt Carr

“ Sydney waited for no more but set out at a run. That was what Max intended—to ship to some distant port! That would certainly hide him well, and give him a living on his way. Sydney thought of sensitive, gifted Max handling “tackle,” and “bossed” around by some profane mate; treated like a machine rather than like a human being—no, worse; machines are property and get consideration. It is only human life that is wasted with unconcern, it is so plenty.
Running faster and faster, Sydney emerged from the woods to see the ship steaming slowly into the bay. ”

“ Sydney knew Max did not mean May Nell.
“No, no. She’s lovely to look at and I guess lovely to know; I didn’t notice her much. It’s Miss Carter I mean. There’s a real musician.”
“Is that all you think she is? She’s much more than that,” Sydney defended.
“All! All? To be a real musician is to have tasted divine fire.”
“All the same, I think it’s no compliment to a girl to think only of what she can do,” Sydney persisted with some temper.
“Sydney, you don’t understand. A musician, a real one, doesn’t do things musical; he is them. Hundreds of girls strum on the piano. ”

“ Going home, Billy thought over his changed future. The gay days were coming when May Nell and his cousins, Hector, Hugh, and little Miss Snow, as they called their little sister, would all go chugging around the Sound among the beautiful Thousand Islands, or startle the silences of night and day at lovely Lallula.
But he would not be there. He would be drudging at some sort of hard work; making a beginning in his long, hurrying climb toward an income that would warrant him in taking Erminie to a home of their own. ”

“ It was a solemn moment to Sydney; he felt as if an angel had been near.
“So now my three times because comes right, ant you take this room,” she declared.
“But it is too fine for me.”
“No. Nothing I have iss too fine for you. I want you to feel all the time that the whole world cannot give you too fine a thing. You are a man. God makes you. In his image he makes you. The best cannot be too good if—if you feel always you are a child of the Divine.” ”

“ Behind them stood Bess Carter bursting with indignation. “You boys haven’t the spunk of a flea!” she taunted, and before they could reply she was standing on the bench gazing fearlessly but silently around on the mob. Her advent, so sudden and unheralded, touched the most quieting element of a crowd, its curiosity.
Tall, erect, her dark eyes flashing in the light of the torches, her beauty enhanced by her air of refinement and womanliness,—her power was felt by every little hoodlum there as keenly as by the older people.
“Gee! The Queen of Sheba’ll do the trick!” Billy ejaculated softly. ”

“ He writhed inwardly at the conclusions forced upon him.
“Remember, Billy, every girl is like an apple slowly ripening toward womanhood.”
The room was very still, and they stood together, Billy’s arm close about her waist, looking out upon the distant shimmering lake. At length she lifted her head suddenly and spoke with a singular passion.
“My boy, the love relation between a man and a woman is the holiest one on earth. It may begin in passion, but if true, it ends in a constant devotion that opens the door of heaven. ”

“ Buckman busy at his desk, his dreams seemed very foolish. The atmosphere of severity that pervaded the office sobered him; and as the absorbed man did not look up, Max seated himself quietly to wait till he should be noticed.
At business the man looked the master he was. [200] Power showed in every movement of his broad hand; sternness in every feature of his large, deeply lined face. He was one to drive important enterprises to success against the greatest odds; the only kind of man who is able to conquer the territory of the Northwest where nature, though lavish, makes harsh resistance. ”

“ The yellow rose of sunrise touched Cascades and Olympics alike with a splendor he had not before recognized, and lighted the vast reaches between ranges with a clear thin radiance not seen in southern lands.
Billy’s heart ached with this new fulness of life. Visions undreamed before opened his eyes to his own manhood; and the impulse came to put this experience into rhythm,—the impulse that touches every normal young creature. Some may not have the wit to fix it on paper, but all sing the song. ”

“ Mrs. Schmitz with a lighted taper was standing at the head of the stairs, listening. Her hair hung in a long braid, and the straight lines of her heavy kimono disguised her large figure and gave her a weird stateliness that made Sydney think of some serpent-bound goddess from old mythology.
He slid into his slippers, pulled around him the spread from the bed, caught up the poker from under the stove, and hurried to her.
“What is it,” he whispered, “a burglar?”
“Nothing, I guess. What you up for? I catch him mine self.” ”

“ He was beginning to note social differences; to realize that daughters of very rich men are reared to a luxurious scale of life; that they cannot understand poverty, or even simple comfort. He was seeing that no matter how willing they may think themselves to endure poverty with the loved man, they are totally unfit; and their failure is not their blame.
Something of this made him awkward and silent, while the four girls together with Reginald Steele, Redtop, and Sis Jones, chattered and laughed and joked, till Billy began to wish he had not come. ”

“ The dullest one there knew that this was a crisis, knew that the smouldering rebellion against Jim Barney’s tyranny had at last broken into open war.
None understood the situation better than Billy. “Fellows, think before you follow Jim Barney. His game is as cultus as his name; and this hour starts the open fight between rowdyism and decency. All that want to line up for things we shall not be ashamed of, stay!” ”

“ Sydney did not know how deep an impression his simple motto, “Never take something for nothing,” had made upon Max, who had thought the opposite, “Take all you can get and give as little as possible,” was the law of business from day laborers to railroad wreckers.
He did not know that business is built upon an idea, confidence; that the commercial life of the nation would have failed, and surely would fail, were not the majority of men honest, and willing to let the “other fellow” also make something.
Mrs. Schmitz read what was passing in his mind and encouraged his attempts at helpfulness. ”

“ But suddenly Sydney realized in the presence of this stranger, so sinisterly introduced into that quiet life, that there was a great area of culture for which no public school can issue diplomas. As a child speaks its native tongue nor knows when he learns it, so Max spoke the language of refined society, of an early home environment that comes only from generations of good breeding and comfortable income. ”

“ Billy was utterly perplexed. What could she mean?
Slowly, his feet weighing tons, he plodded home, and entered to find the telephone ringing.
He hurried to take down the receiver that the household might not be disturbed. “Who is it?”
“Erminie,” came back over the wire. “Oh, Billy, I’m so glad to get you!”
“Yes?” Billy could not keep the coldness out of his voice. He was hearing again the tender eagerness in her tone as the Kid bent over her twenty minutes before.
“Oh, I don’t wonder you speak in that Alaska voice, Billy; but you don’t know everything. ”

“ That bit of slang with the familiar name helped Sydney to “break through,” as he knew she intended; for none better than Bess understood the sort of good breeding that fits the rule to the situation.
As he turned back he met May Nell Smith. She was almost grown, tall and lady-like; yet she had the same sun-touched waving hair, the same blue eyes and mystic, ethereal spirit looking out from them, that he remembered when he first met her, a delicate little girl in the big car, taking him and Billy on their first drive over the City of Green Hills. ”

“ Just imagination.”
“Just imagination makes the whole world, Billy.”
“That’s what we think when we’re children, but I guess when we get out with the cold facts we’ll find imagination doesn’t fill the dinner pail.”
“Billy, imagination makes everything! It builds the world. Why, when God himself looked into the void didn’t He have to imagine a world before He could speak the fiery word that created it?” ”

“ He took her hand again in the closer clasp, and she saw a new look in his face, the look his mother saw when they discussed together the deep things of life. “Erminie, I have been trying to see your life as you see it. You know my mother is—she talks things over with me—the things a chap needs to know before he starts out for himself; and I have come to see pretty deep into—into the sort of thing that’s between us, engagements and that; what it means to one’s whole life, what it means to the race.”
“Why, Billy! Billy! Does your mother talk to you of such things?” ”

“ Billy’s efforts, enlisted by Sydney in behalf of Ida Jones, had long before this borne fruit. May Nell’s own shining electric motor stood more than once in front of the house where Ida lived, impressing the family little less than when she was driven up in her mother’s great limousine. And Bess Carter, whether she walked, came by trolley, or was dropped from his motor car by Dr. Carter, radiated power and a bluff sort of queenliness all her own that was even more impressive than evidence of wealth. ”

“ But when the man slow to fight does become enraged, especially if it is in the just cause of others, he is twice an adversary; the blood of the beast joins with the spirit of man. Right then makes might.
Billy was younger, slenderer, less skilled; for the Kid valued his “good right arm” as his chief glory in life. But right arm and skill, any force that mere physical exercise had developed, met its Waterloo in such a tide of outraged spirit as enables a little woman with a carving fork, to put to flight desperadoes, or such as now nerved Billy’s arms. ”

“ None of us are going in for opera hats and patent leathers; that is, only the Fussers. Will you come to dinner with me tonight and stay for rehearsal?”
“All right. Thank you. Say, Billy! Hello, Billy!”
“Hi, there! Thought you had finished,” Billy returned after a slight wait. “Hello!” he called again as Sydney did not answer.
In that hesitant moment Sydney decided to abandon his intention of asking an invitation for Max. With his airy, sophisticated manner, his good looks, his playing, Max would be sure to win the heart of every one present. And then his cough—really he was not well enough. ”

“ A motherless boy wholly orphaned by the great fire in San Francisco, he had lived, tramp-like, as a newsboy, till adventuring into the newer opportunities of the City of Green Hills. He had been Billy’s fellow-traveller on the steamer that brought them both from California; and his efforts to make good at each turn of his fortune’s wheel enlisted every one in his favor. ”

“ Max smiled. “With no proper clothes, no violin, and not a friend among people that care for music? There was no Mrs. Schmitz standing round, ready to hand me an old Cremona.”
Both were silent a moment. “But even bottle washers get too plenty in the winter when work is slack; and after I began to cough so hard the men were afraid of tuberculosis and wouldn’t work with me and I had to go. I couldn’t seem to impress any one with my superior skill as bottle washer enough to command a promotion.” He gave Sydney a crooked smile that was not all mirth. ”

“ He went to the foreman for his tools, and set to work.
The hard work, the long hours, and Billy’s youth unaccustomed to labor left him at night little more than a log to roll into bed, sleep heavily, and go dully off in the morning to another day of digging. It was no wonder that the strange situation of being engaged to marry a young woman and already entered upon his life obligation of providing her home, and yet not knowing where she was, did not weigh upon him as much as he had thought it would. ”

“ Opportunity will pass your way many times. Catch her every time—hold her. By Heaven! With your face and body, your clean mind and good brain, you can do anything,—be a young god. Billy, a fellow at the open door of life doesn’t suspect his power, doesn’t use a fraction of it. ”

“ Billy started off in fine spirits with a basket his mother had prepared, and a proud feeling that he would not be ashamed to open it in the presence of any girl. He had begged Erminie to let him bring the luncheon for the two of them; and when he met her as agreed at the trolley line transfer point, care-free, erect and strong, his eyes shining with anticipation, it was little wonder that he saw an answering look of pleasure and pride in her eyes. He was a young man any girl might feel it a privilege to know ”

“ I’ll have to die when I don’t believe in it.”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true, Billy Boy!” She had not called him so since the days in Vina when she was a waif and the Bennett home her refuge. The affectionate child-name touched him, bridged the distance between them.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he hesitated, “imagination may be a divine privilege; but for mere man,—too much dreaming makes him discontented. I think when one must earn one’s bread and butter the straight fact is better.” ”