"Well, we're going on to the house," said Myrtle.
"I'd go along if I hadn't promised Harry I'd come over."
"Oh, that's all right," replied Myrtle. "We don't mind."
He withdrew, feeling that he had made a very poor impression.
Stella's eyes had been on him in a very inquiring way. She looked
after him when he had gone.
"Isn't he nice?" she said to Myrtle frankly.
"I think so," replied Myrtle; "kind o'. He's too moody,
though."
"What makes him?"
"He isn't very strong."
"I think he has a nice smile."
"I'll tell him!"
"No, please don't! You won't, will you?"
"No."
"But he
has
a nice smile."
"I'll ask you round to the house some evening and you can meet
him again."
"I'd like to," said Stella. "It would be a lot of fun."
"Come out Saturday evening and stay all night. He's home
then."
"I will," said Stella. "Won't that be fine!"
"I believe you like him!" laughed Myrtle.
"I think he's awfully nice," said Stella, simply.
The second meeting happened on Saturday evening as arranged,
when he came home from his odd day at his father's insurance
office. Stella had come to supper. Eugene saw her through the open
sitting room door, as he bounded upstairs to change his clothes,
for he had a fire of youth which no sickness of stomach or weakness
of lungs could overcome at this age. A thrill of anticipation ran
over his body. He took especial pains with his toilet, adjusting a
red tie to a nicety, and parting his hair carefully in the middle.
He came down after a while, conscious that he had to say something
smart, worthy of himself, or she would not see how attractive he
was; and yet he was fearful as to the result. When he entered the
sitting room she was sitting with his sister before an open
fire-place, the glow of a lamp with a red-flowered shade warmly
illuminating the room. It was a commonplace room, with its blue
cloth-covered center table, its chairs of stereotyped factory
design, and its bookcase of novels and histories, but it was homey,
and the sense of hominess was strong.
Mrs. Witla was in and out occasionally, looking for things which
appertained to her functions as house-mother. The father was not
home yet; he would get there by supper-time, having been to some
outlying town of the county trying to sell a machine. Eugene was
indifferent to his presence or absence. Mr. Witla had a fund of
humor which extended to joking with his son and daughters, when he
was feeling good, to noting their budding interest in the opposite
sex; to predicting some commonplace climax to their one grand
passion when it should come. He was fond of telling Myrtle that she
would one day marry a horse-doctor. As for Eugene, he predicted a
certain Elsa Brown, who, his wife said, had greasy curls. This did
not irritate either Myrtle or Eugene. It even brought a wry smile
to Eugene's face for he was fond of a jest; but he saw his father
pretty clearly even at this age. He saw the smallness of his
business, the ridiculousness of any such profession having any
claim on him. He never wanted to say anything, but there was in him
a burning opposition to the commonplace, a molten pit in a crater
of reserve, which smoked ominously now and then for anyone who
could have read. Neither his father nor his mother understood him.
To them he was a peculiar boy, dreamy, sickly, unwitting, as yet,
of what he really wanted.
"Oh, here you are!" said Myrtle, when he came in. "Come and sit
down."
Stella gave him an enticing smile.
He walked to the mantel-piece and stood there, posing. He wanted
to impress this girl, and he did not quite know how. He was almost
lost for anything to say.
"You can't guess what we've been doing!" his sister chirped
helpfully.
"Well—what?" he replied blankly.
"You ought to guess. Can't you be nice and guess?"
"One guess, anyhow," put in Stella.
"Toasting pop-corn," he ventured with a half smile.
"You're warm." It was Myrtle speaking.
Stella looked at him with round blue eyes. "One more guess," she
suggested.
"Chestnuts!" he guessed.
She nodded her head gaily. "What hair!" he thought. Then—"Where
are they?"
"Here's one," laughed his new acquaintance, holding out a tiny
hand.
Under her laughing encouragement he was finding his voice.
"Stingy!" he said.
"Now isn't that mean," she exclaimed. "I gave him the only one I
had. Don't you give him any of yours, Myrtle."
"I take it back," he pleaded. "I didn't know."
"I won't!" exclaimed Myrtle. "Here, Stella," and she held out
the few nuts she had left, "take these, and don't you give him
any!" She put them in Stella's eager hands.
He saw her meaning. It was an invitation to a contest. She
wanted him to try to make her give him some. He fell in with her
plan.
"Here!" He stretched out his palm. "That's not right!"
She shook her head.
"One, anyhow," he insisted.
Her head moved negatively from side to side slowly.
"One," he pleaded, drawing near.
Again the golden negative. But her hand was at the side nearest
him, where he could seize it. She started to pass its contents
behind her to the other hand but he jumped and caught it.
"Myrtle! Quick!" she called.
Myrtle came. It was a three-handed struggle. In the midst of the
contest Stella twisted and rose to her feet. Her hair brushed his
face. He held her tiny hand firmly. For a moment he looked into her
eyes. What was it? He could not say. Only he half let go and gave
her the victory.
"There," she smiled. "Now I'll give you one."
He took it, laughing. What he wanted was to take her in his
arms.
A little while before supper his father came in and sat down,
but presently took a Chicago paper and went into the dining room to
read. Then his mother called them to the table, and he sat by
Stella. He was intensely interested in what she did and said. If
her lips moved he noted just how. When her teeth showed he thought
they were lovely. A little ringlet on her forehead beckoned him
like a golden finger. He felt the wonder of the poetic phrase, "the
shining strands of her hair."
After dinner he and Myrtle and Stella went back to the sitting
room. His father stayed behind to read, his mother to wash dishes.
Myrtle left the room after a bit to help her mother, and then these
two were left alone. He hadn't much to say, now that they were
together—he couldn't talk. Something about her beauty kept him
silent.
"Do you like school?" she asked after a time. She felt as if
they must talk.
"Only fairly well," he replied. "I'm not much interested. I
think I'll quit one of these days and go to work."
"What do you expect to do?"
"I don't know yet—I'd like to be an artist." He confessed his
ambition for the first time in his life—why, he could not have
said.
Stella took no note of it.
"I was afraid they wouldn't let me enter second year high
school, but they did," she remarked. "The superintendent at Moline
had to write the superintendent here."
"They're mean about those things," he cogitated.
She got up and went to the bookcase to look at the books. He
followed after a little.
"Do you like Dickens?" she asked.
He nodded his head solemnly in approval. "Pretty much," he
said.
"I can't like him. He's too long drawn out. I like Scott
better."
"I like Scott," he said.
"I'll tell you a lovely book that I like." She paused, her lips
parted trying to remember the name. She lifted her hand as though
to pick the title out of the air. "The Fair God," she exclaimed at
last.
"Yes—it's fine," he approved. "I thought the scene in the old
Aztec temple where they were going to sacrifice Ahwahee was so
wonderful!"
"Oh, yes, I liked that," she added. She pulled out "Ben Hur" and
turned its leaves idly. "And this was so good."
"Wonderful!"
They paused and she went to the window, standing under the cheap
lace curtains. It was a moonlight night. The rows of trees that
lined the street on either side were leafless; the grass brown and
dead. Through the thin, interlaced twigs that were like silver
filigree they could see the lamps of other houses shining through
half-drawn blinds. A man went by, a black shadow in the
half-light.
"Isn't it lovely?" she said.
Eugene came near. "It's fine," he answered.
"I wish it were cold enough to skate. Do you skate?" She turned
to him.
"Yes, indeed," he replied.
"My, it's so nice on a moonlit night. I used to skate a lot at
Moline."
"We skate a lot here. There're two lakes, you know."
He thought of the clear crystal nights when the ice of Green
Lake had split every so often with a great resounding rumble. He
thought of the crowds of boys and girls shouting, the distant
shadows, the stars. Up to now he had never found any girl to skate
with successfully. He had never felt just easy with anyone. He had
tried it, but once he had fallen with a girl, and it had almost
cured him of skating forever. He felt as though he could skate with
Stella. He felt that she might like to skate with him.
"When it gets colder we might go," he ventured. "Myrtle
skates."
"Oh, that'll be fine!" she applauded.
Still she looked out into the street.
After a bit she came back to the fire and stood before him,
pensively looking down.
"Do you think your father will stay here?" he asked.
"He says so. He likes it very much."
"Do you?"
"Yes—now."
"Why
now
?"
"Oh, I didn't like it at first."
"Why?"
"Oh, I guess it was because I didn't know anybody. I like it
though, now." She lifted her eyes.
He drew a little nearer.
"It's a nice place," he said, "but there isn't much for me here.
I think I'll leave next year."
"Where do you think you'll go?"
"To Chicago. I don't want to stay here."
She turned her body toward the fire and he moved to a chair
behind her, leaning on its back. She felt him there rather close,
but did not move. He was surprising himself.
"Aren't you ever coming back?" she asked.
"Maybe. It all depends. I suppose so."
"I shouldn't think you'd want to leave yet."
"Why?"
"You say it's so nice."
He made no answer and she looked over her shoulder. He was
leaning very much toward her.
"Will you skate with me this winter?" he asked meaningly.
She nodded her head.
Myrtle came in.
"What are you two talking about?" she asked.
"The fine skating we have here," he said.
"I love to skate," she exclaimed.
"So do I," added Stella. "It's heavenly."
Some of the incidents of this courtship that followed, ephemeral
as it was, left a profound impression on Eugene's mind. They met to
skate not long after, for the snow came and the ice and there was
wonderful skating on Green Lake. The frost was so prolonged that
men with horses and ice-saws were cutting blocks a foot thick over
at Miller's Point, where the ice houses were. Almost every day
after Thanksgiving there were crowds of boys and girls from the
schools scooting about like water skippers. Eugene could not always
go on week evenings and Saturdays because he had to assist his
father at the store. But at regular intervals he could ask Myrtle
to get Stella and let them all go together at night. And at other
times he would ask her to go alone. Not infrequently she did.
On one particular occasion they were below a group of houses
which crept near the lake on high ground. The moon was up, its
wooing rays reflected in the polished surfaces of the ice. Through
the black masses of trees that lined the shore could be seen the
glow of windows, yellow and homey. Eugene and Stella had slowed up
to turn about, having left the crowd of skaters some distance back.
Stella's golden curls were covered, except for a few ringlets, with
a French cap; her body, to below the hips, encased in a white wool
Jersey, close-fitting and shapely. The skirt below was a grey
mixture of thick wool and the stockings were covered by white
woolen leggings. She looked tempting and knew it.
Suddenly, as they turned, one of her skates came loose and she
hobbled and exclaimed about it. "Wait," said Eugene, "I'll fix
it."
She stood before him and he fell to his knees, undoing the
twisted strap. When he had the skate off and ready for her foot he
looked up, and she looked down on him, smiling. He dropped the
skate and flung his arms around her hips, laying his head against
her waist.
"You're a bad boy," she said.
For a few minutes she kept silent, for as the center of this
lovely scene she was divine. While he held her she pulled off his
wool cap and laid her hand on his hair. It almost brought tears to
his eyes, he was so happy. At the same time it awakened a
tremendous passion. He clutched her significantly.
"Fix my skate, now," she said wisely.
He got up to hug her but she would not let him.
"No, no," she protested. "You mustn't do like that. I won't come
with you if you do."
"Oh, Stella!" he pleaded.
"I mean it," she insisted. "You mustn't do like that."
He subsided, hurt, half angry. But he feared her will. She was
really not as ready for caresses as he had thought.
Another time a sleighing party was given by some school girls,
and Stella, Eugene and Myrtle were invited. It was a night of snow
and stars, not too cold but bracing. A great box-wagon had been
dismantled of its body and the latter put on runners and filled
with straw and warm robes. Eugene and Myrtle, like the others, had
been picked up at their door after the sleigh had gone the rounds
of some ten peaceful little homes. Stella was not in yet, but in a
little while her house was reached.
"Get in here," called Myrtle, though she was half the length of
the box away from Eugene. Her request made him angry. "Sit by me,"
he called, fearful that she would not. She climbed in by Myrtle but
finding the space not to her liking moved farther down. Eugene made
a special effort to have room by him, and she came there as though
by accident. He drew a buffalo robe around her and thrilled to
think that she was really there. The sleigh went jingling around
the town for others, and finally struck out into the country. It
passed great patches of dark woods silent in the snow, little white
frame farmhouses snuggled close to the ground, and with windows
that gleamed in a vague romantic way. The stars were countless and
keen. The whole scene made a tremendous impression on him, for he
was in love, and here beside him, in the shadow, her face palely
outlined, was this girl. He could make out the sweetness of her
cheek, her eyes, the softness of her hair.
There was a good deal of chatter and singing, and in the midst
of these distractions he managed to slip an arm about her waist, to
get her hand in his, to look close into her eyes, trying to divine
their expression. She was always coy with him, not wholly yielding.
Three or four times he kissed her cheek furtively and once her
mouth. In a dark place he pulled her vigorously to him, putting a
long, sensuous kiss on her lips that frightened her.
"No," she protested, nervously. "You mustn't."
He ceased for a time, feeling that he had pressed his advantage
too closely. But the night in all its beauty, and she in hers made
a lasting impression.
"I think we ought to get Eugene into newspaper work or something
like that," Witla senior suggested to his wife.
"It looks as though that's all he would be good for, at least
now," replied Mrs. Witla, who was satisfied that her boy had not
yet found himself. "I think he'll do something better later on. His
health isn't very good, you know."
Witla half suspected that his boy was naturally lazy, but he
wasn't sure. He suggested that Benjamin C. Burgess, the prospective
father-in-law of Sylvia and the editor and proprietor of the
Morning Appeal
, might give him a place as a reporter or
type-setter in order that he might learn the business from the
ground up. The
Appeal
carried few employees, but Mr.
Burgess might have no objections to starting Eugene as a reporter
if he could write, or as a student of type-setting, or both. He
appealed to Burgess one day on the street.
"Say, Burgess," he said, "you wouldn't have a place over in your
shop for that boy of mine, would you? He likes to scribble a
little, I notice. I think he pretends to draw a little, too, though
I guess it doesn't amount to much. He ought to get into something.
He isn't doing anything at school. Maybe he could learn
type-setting. It wouldn't hurt him to begin at the bottom if he's
going to follow that line. It wouldn't matter what you paid him to
begin with."
Burgess thought. He had seen Eugene around town, knew no harm of
him except that he was lackadaisical and rather moody.
"Send him in to see me some day," he replied noncommittally. "I
might do something for him."
"I'd certainly be much obliged to you if you would," said Witla.
"He is not doing much good as it is now," and the two men
parted.
He went home and told Eugene. "Burgess says he might give you a
position as a type-setter or a reporter on the
Appeal
if
you'd come in and see him some day," he explained, looking over to
where his son was reading by the lamp.
"Does he?" replied Eugene calmly. "Well, I can't write. I might
set type. Did you ask him?"
"Yes," said Witla. "You'd better go to him some day."
Eugene bit his lip. He realized this was a commentary on his
loafing propensities. He wasn't doing very well, that was certain.
Still type-setting was no bright field for a person of his
temperament. "I will," he concluded, "when school's over."
"Better speak before school ends. Some of the other fellows
might ask for it around that time. It wouldn't hurt you to try your
hand at it."
"I will," said Eugene obediently.
He stopped in one sunny April afternoon at Mr. Burgess' office.
It was on the ground floor of the three-story
Appeal
building in the public square. Mr. Burgess, a fat man, slightly
bald, looked at him quizzically over his steel rimmed spectacles.
What little hair he had was gray.
"So you think you would like to go into the newspaper business,
do you?" queried Burgess.
"I'd like to try my hand at it," replied the boy. "I'd like to
see whether I like it."
"I can tell you right now there's very little in it. Your father
says you like to write."
"I'd like to well enough, but I don't think I can. I wouldn't
mind learning type-setting. If I ever could write I'd be perfectly
willing to."
"When do you think you'd like to start?"
"At the end of school, if it's all the same to you."
"It doesn't make much difference. I'm not really in need of
anybody, but I could use you. Would you be satisfied with five a
week?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, come in when you are ready. I'll see what I can do."
He waved the prospective type-setter away with a movement of his
fat hand, and turned to his black walnut desk, dingy, covered with
newspapers, and lit by a green shaded electric light. Eugene went
out, the smell of fresh printing ink in his nose, and the equally
aggressive smell of damp newspapers. It was going to be an
interesting experience, he thought, but perhaps a waste of time. He
did not think so much of Alexandria. Some time he was going to get
out of it.
The office of the
Appeal
was not different from that of
any other country newspaper office within the confines of our two
hemispheres. On the ground floor in front was the business office,
and in the rear the one large flat bed press and the job presses.
On the second floor was the composing room with its rows of type
cases on their high racks—for this newspaper was, like most other
country newspapers, still set by hand; and in front was the one
dingy office of the so-called editor, or managing editor, or city
editor—for all three were the same person, a Mr. Caleb Williams
whom Burgess had picked up in times past from heaven knows where.
Williams was a small, lean, wiry man, with a black pointed beard
and a glass eye which fixed you oddly with its black pupil. He was
talkative, skipped about from duty to duty, wore most of the time a
green shade pulled low over his forehead, and smoked a brown briar
pipe. He had a fund of knowledge, piled up in metropolitan
journalistic experience, but he was anchored here with a wife and
three children, after sailing, no doubt, a chartless sea of
troubles, and was glad to talk life and experiences after office
hours with almost anybody. It took him from eight in the morning
until two in the afternoon to gather what local news there was, and
either write it or edit it. He seemed to have a number of
correspondents who sent him weekly batches of news from surrounding
points. The Associated Press furnished him with a few minor items
by telegraph, and there was a "patent insides," two pages of
fiction, household hints, medicine ads. and what not, which saved
him considerable time and stress. Most of the news which came to
him received short shrift in the matter of editing. "In Chicago we
used to give a lot of attention to this sort of thing," Williams
was wont to declare to anyone who was near, "but you can't do it
down here. The readers really don't expect it. They're looking for
local items. I always look after the local items pretty sharp."
Mr. Burgess took care of the advertising sections. In fact he
solicited advertising personally, saw that it was properly set up
as the advertiser wanted it, and properly placed according to the
convenience of the day and the rights and demands of others. He was
the politician of the concern, the handshaker, the guider of its
policy. He wrote editorials now and then, or, with Williams,
decided just what their sense must be, met the visitors who came to
the office to see the editor, and arbitrated all known forms of
difficulties. He was at the beck and call of certain Republican
party-leaders in the county; but that seemed natural, for he was a
Republican himself by temperament and disposition. He was appointed
postmaster once to pay him for some useful services, but he
declined because he was really making more out of his paper than
his postmastership would have brought. He received whatever city or
county advertising it was in the power of the Republican leaders to
give him, and so he did very well. The complications of his
political relationships Williams knew in part, but they never
troubled that industrious soul. He dispensed with moralizing. "I
have to make a living for myself, my wife and three children.
That's enough to keep me going without bothering my head about
other people." So this office was really run very quietly,
efficiently, and in most ways pleasantly. It was a sunny place to
work.
Witla, who came here at the end of his eleventh school year and
when he had just turned seventeen, was impressed with the
personality of Mr. Williams. He liked him. He came to like a Jonas
Lyle who worked at what might be called the head desk of the
composing room, and a certain John Summers who worked at odd
times—whenever there was an extra rush of job printing. He learned
very quickly that John Summers, who was fifty-five, grey, and
comparatively silent, was troubled with weak lungs and drank.
Summers would slip out of the office at various times in the day
and be gone from five to fifteen minutes. No one ever said
anything, for there was no pressure here. What work was to be done
was done. Jonas Lyle was of a more interesting nature. He was
younger by ten years, stronger, better built, but still a
character. He was semi-phlegmatic, philosophic, feebly literary. He
had worked, as Eugene found out in the course of time, in nearly
every part of the United States—Denver, Portland, St. Paul, St.
Louis, where not, and had a fund of recollections of this
proprietor and that. Whenever he saw a name of particular
distinction in the newspapers he was apt to bring the paper to
Williams—and later, when they became familiar, to Eugene—and say,
"I knew that fellow out in——. He was postmaster (or what not) at
X——. He's come up considerably since I knew him." In most cases he
did not know these celebrities personally at all, but he knew of
them, and the echo of their fame sounding in this out-of-the-way
corner of the world impressed him. He was a careful reader of proof
for Williams in a rush, a quick type-setter, a man who stayed by
his tasks faithfully. But he hadn't got anywhere in the world, for,
after all, he was little more than a machine. Eugene could see that
at a glance.