The Street of the City (5 page)

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” breathed the girl softly. “I can’t thank you enough for taking all this trouble.”

“It wasn’t trouble. It was a pleasure,” said Willoughby. “And now, what about the return trip for you? Can I help in any way? I can easily get the car and take you back much faster than if you went on the bus.”

“Oh no, thank you. You’ve taken too much trouble already. I shall get home all right.”

“Why, it wouldn’t be any trouble. I’d be glad to help you in any way I can. What time do you get done there? I didn’t think to ask Mr. Chalmers.”

“Why, we usually go out at five, but Mr. Chalmers said I might go as soon as I finished the letters for the day. However there were a great many letters. It was a heavy mail this morning. I can’t tell how long it will take me. But please don’t trouble any more about me. You have been very kind already. And I have my skates. It doesn’t take long to get home on the ice. Thank you so much for all your kindness.”

Skates? So she was a skater! He couldn’t help but admire her independence.

“Well,” he said in a genial tone, “run along then and get done as quickly as possible. I’ll be seeing you later.”

Frannie hurried back to her desk with a warm glow on her cheeks. How nice it was of that young man to offer to take her home. How wonderful it was that people had been raised up to look after her mother in her stress! But she simply must not think about it or she would get to crying. Poor, dear little Mother all alone with strangers!

And now what would Mother think they ought to do? Perhaps she would have to give up her job for a while—until Mother was better. Mother wouldn’t like the idea of strangers in the house, even kind strangers. And as for that nurse, well, even if she was very nice, they couldn’t afford a nurse. Nurses were very expensive. But she must not go into that now or she would get it all mixed up with the letters she was writing and would lose her job by careless work, and that would be worse than giving it up.

So she resolutely put it all out of her mind and went to work again. With no thought whatever of lunch, she plunged into her job and did her level best, though she had a neat little bundle of crackers and cheese and an apple tucked away in her locker that might have helped out a little. But her only ambition was to get done and get home, home to her mother and her little sister and find out what she had to do next.

Of the two boys—the very young men—who had endeavored to gain an acquaintance with her that morning, she hadn’t even thought all day, not since the tall young stranger had come down the aisle with Mr. Chalmers and brought her word about her mother. And if she had thought of them they would have been like the passing of a bad dream. They were nothing to her. She felt years beyond them. Even her dread that they might try to annoy her had passed beyond her memory.

So she worked on, now and again with an eye toward the clock that loomed like a sentinel at the far end of the room. She was running a race and the clock was her judge, her arbiter. Breathlessly she worked, with strangely perfect precision, all keyed up as she was, not daring to turn a particle of thought away from the matter in hand. It was as if her whole life depended upon the outcome of her work that day.

Occasionally she drew a weary breath and pressed cold fingers to tired eyes.

Then she slid another sheet of paper into her machine and typed on, her fingers in perfect rhythm with the timing of her goal.

And at last the final letter was typed, letter perfect, and ready for inspection.

Her eyes went to the clock again that ticked solemnly on with no evident intention of finishing the afternoon just yet. It was twenty whole minutes to five! She had finished! There was time to take the letters to Mr. Chalmers and find out if he had other orders for her before she left.

Quietly she put her materials away in the machine drawer, covered the typewriter, and rose with her sheaf of letters in her hand, walking over to Mr. Chalmers’s office. And just a moment later the two young men, Kit and Spike, strayed casually across the hall and paused in the open doorway, lingering long enough to look down toward Frannie’s desk and note that it was empty.

“She’s gone,” said Kit. “I bet you scared her off.”

“Scared? That baby?” said Spike. “Not her! She’s only independent. Or perhaps she’s got away early to steal a march on us and laugh at us tomorrow. Come on. It’s near five. I’m going down and get my skates on and be ready for what happens. There’s no need hanging around here.”

“It isn’t five yet,” reminded Kit. “I already got so many marks against me for getting out early I can’t risk getting in bad with ole Jimsey. Let’s go back to the room and make like we’re awful busy.”

“Okay! Go if you like. I’m getting my skates on. I’m not taking any chances on losing that little number. She’s a honey and no mistake.”

“Oh well, if you think we can get away with it, I’m agreeable,” said Kit, and discreetly they stole by devious way to their lockers, stealthily procured their skates, stuffed their caps in their sweater pockets, and vanished out the basement door. They chose a sheltered spot to attire their feet with gleaming runners and then struck out on the ice, far enough away from the plant not to be noticed by any chance watcher.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” said Spike wisely, “that gal won’t appear till the stroke of five. She’s not one to slide out of things. She’ll stay till the last minute or I miss my guess. She’s conscientious. When you fall for a conscientious dame you’ve got to get wise to her ways and go slow and easy. She won’t break the tidy little rule she’s got in her life, not even if she falls for you, so you better go slow and easy. She’s got to think you’re a nice guy like her own folks, or she won’t look at you!”

“Oh, you don’t say so!” said Kit. “Who taught you all that, I’d like to know?”

And just then Frannie walked out of the basement door, her skates on a strap over her shoulder, and sat down on the wooden step to put them on!

With wary, furtive glances around to make sure the coast was clear of anyone who could make trouble for them, the boys struck across the ice and circled up to her, Spike dropping neatly down on his knees before her and boldly reaching to the small boot she was attempting to lace up.

“How about me doing that for you, beautiful?” he said, smiling boldly into her frightened face just above him as he grasped her foot.

“No! No thank you!” said Frannie, pulling her foot away and trying to rise. She clutched her other skate in her hands and held it almost as a weapon. “Please don’t!” she protested. “I prefer to do it myself!”

She tried to put dignity in her frightened voice, but the bold young bully held her foot like a vise, and she had to drop back again on the step.

“Let go of my foot!” she said sharply, and lifting the other boot with its blade she brought it down smartly on the bold fingers, making Spike howl in protest.

“You little hellcat!” he shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?” and with his smarting hand he lunged at her angrily and tried to seize the skate from her, but she realized her danger just in time and hit him sharply again across the knuckles, which caused him to howl still louder and dance angrily around on the ice holding his bruised hand in the other one shouting to his companion to help him.

“Hi there, Kit, get that skate away from the little fiend. Come on, we’ll make her skate home on one foot. We can do it. You grab her on one side and I on the other. I guess she won’t be so high hat any more with us. Grab her now before she has a chance to strike you! Pin her hands behind her! Quick! Don’t let her get another clip at you. Hold her elbows! That’s it! Now, I’ll wrench this skate out of her hands and then she won’t have a chance, and will have to do just what we tell her. Take it easy there, girlie. If you don’t fight you won’t get hurt. We’re not going to hurt you, girlie. We’re just going to show you a good time. There, there, now take it easy! Don’t try to yammer. We’ll take care of you, beautiful!”

With a final yank he tore Frannie’s skate from her tense fingers, and she let out a piercing scream. Then suddenly a voice spoke thunderously, “What do you fellows think you are doing?” and Spike was lifted from behind by his collar and wafted through the air in a circle that sent him hurtling on his back across the ice to a safe distance, where he lay, stunned, utterly astounded that this should have happened to him. Why, he was the big bully of his neighborhood! Nobody ever got him. What happened anyway? He tried to lift a maimed hand to pass it over his bleared eyes. Who was that guy, anyway? What wouldn’t he do to him when he got up out of this!

But he wasn’t out of it yet, and where was that Kit? Was he punishing the guy that butted into their frolic? And what had become of the girl? She couldn’t go very far with only one shoe and one skate on. Where was the other?

He wanted to look around, but somehow he was too sore in his muscles to turn around and look. He had to lie still a minute longer.

“Kit! Oh Kit!” he murmured, and wondered why his voice didn’t seem to carry farther. He tried again. “Kit! Oh, I say, Kit!” Nothing happened. Then he tried his piercing whistle that always waked the echoes, but the whistle didn’t seem to pan out right. His lips were stiff and wouldn’t work. Did that girl get away after all?

At last he managed to roll over, raising himself on one elbow to look around him. Blinking into the late afternoon sunlight he made out two figures skimming together far upstream, but look as he might he could not see Kit anywhere. He must have made good his escape.

M
arietta Hollister was considered a beautiful girl. She wore severely tailored tweeds in the daytime and affected the latest hairdo and makeup, though she tried never to go to extremes. She considered herself very conservative. She kept the length of her fingernails within quiet bounds, and of late their color had resembled more the seashell pink of a young rosebud rather than drops of blood. Perhaps it was because a young man she much admired had expressed dislike for the bloody looking hands of many girls of the day. Some of her friends considered her eccentric, but she went on her way serenely.

She took a deep interest in war work of various kinds. She attended class in first aid religiously, offered her services as an ambulance driver, organized entertainments for the soldiers’ camps, and was put on numerous committees for the various defense activities, patriotic and otherwise, to say nothing of keeping up her social obligations. She was a very busy and eager young woman, ready to set everybody right on everything, and in such a lovely way that they were not antagonized. She lived in the big colonial house on the hill, on the estate to the left of the Haversett House, where Val Willoughby was staying with his aunt and uncle. She was considered one of the most desirable and charming girls in the neighborhood.

Marietta had known Valiant Willoughby when they were children. Whenever he was in the neighborhood they had played together and taken each other for granted. She had just discovered his return, having not seen him during the four years he was in college.

It was that same morning that Marietta got up with a new plan in her mind. As it involved Valiant she proceeded to call up his aunt’s house as soon as she had had breakfast.

“Oh, good morning, Nannie!” she called as she recognized the old servant’s voice answering her. “Nannie, is Val there? Oh, has he gone already? Why, I supposed he went down on the eight thirty train. You mean he goes this early every morning? What? You say he skated down? Why, how ridiculous! I should think it would tire him all out for the day. Well, he’s gone then, and I can’t speak to him. Does he come home to lunch? No, of course not. That would be too long a journey, wouldn’t it? But Nannie, let me speak to Mrs. Haversett, please. That is, if she isn’t busy…. Oh, good morning, Auntie Haversett! This is Marietta. I called to speak to Val but Nannie tells me he is already gone. Can you tell when he will be home? Not till five? How provoking! I wanted to talk something over with him. I wonder if he would come over and take dinner with us tonight, then I can have time to talk things over with him. Do you think he will come?”

“Well, my dear, I’m afraid I can’t say positively. Sometimes he has to stay all the evening at the plant. It depends on whether they are finishing some army order or not. I didn’t talk with him last night. He was late coming home, and I was just going out. And this morning he was off before I got up. I am afraid he is very uncertain just now, my dear. But I’ll tell him, of course, when he gets back, only it won’t do to count on him too much. He is most uncertain, you know; war work comes first.”

“Why, how perfectly horrid!” said the girl indignantly. “I thought Val was in charge of a department or something. Can’t he arrange his own hours?”

“I’m afraid not, my dear. He is in charge of something, I forget just what they call it. But nobody can arrange his own hours just now. The government arranges those matters, and we’ll just have to be patient until the great work of defense gets going thoroughly and it becomes apparent just what is the best method of working.”

“Well, it’s all wrong, I say, to waste time and good men that way,” said the girl. “A man can’t keep on working indefinitely without his proper rest, and he needs a little playtime, too—time to do just exactly what he pleases. Don’t you think so, Auntie Haversett?”

“Well, in ordinary times, yes, I should think so,” said the older woman thoughtfully. “But in these times of stress, my dear, people who have charge of important matters have to put aside their own wishes, you know—”

“Oh certainly, I know that as well as you do, but it isn’t the way to run things, and I should think if Val is in charge of things he could regulate his hours according to common sense.”

“Well, I don’t know how much power he has yet. Perhaps those things will work out. But in the meantime, I’ll tell him what you want, and I’m sure if he can make it he will come.”

“Thanks awfully, Auntie Haversett. I’m really planning something quite important. It’s a scheme to raise money to get shelter places ready for the children down near the munitions plants—in case of raids, you know. There are a lot of little children living down there on the flats near the plants where their fathers work, and there should be refuges with fully trained nurses in charge, ready for sudden needs. You know those places down there would be the very first spot an enemy would bomb in case of a raid. And I thought if we were to get up a series of dances for the younger set, the ones who aren’t really doing anything much yet, and charge plenty for tickets, we could get quite a lot of money in no time. There’s nothing like a dance to get the youngsters interested. And of course we regular young set would be there to run things for the kids. I’m quite sure it would be popular. That’s what I want to talk over with Val. If he will help me start it I’m sure it will take like wildfire. Don’t you think he would be interested? And don’t you think the project seems fairly inspired, Auntie Haversett?”