A Top-Floor Idyl Part 12

"For the time being, he is asleep," she answered, "and so, I suppose, is having an excellent time. He's an exceedingly intelligent child and of the happiest disposition. I'm sure he is aware that he has a mother to love him, and that's enough to keep him contented."

"Of course," I a.s.sented. "That somewhere there is a good woman to love him is all that a baby or a grown man needs to know in order to enjoy perfect bliss. Those who are fortunate enough to reach such a consummation are the elect of the world."

She looked at me with a smile, and I saw a question hanging on her lips.

It was probably one I had heard very often. Frieda and some others, when hard put to it for a subject of conversation, are apt to ask me why I don't get married. I tell them that the only proof of the pudding is the eating and that, strangely enough, all the good wives I know are already wedded. Moreover, I know that very few women would deign to look with favor upon me. I have always deemed myself a predestined bachelor, a lover of other people's children and a most timid venturer among spinsters.

Frances, however, permitted the question to go unasked, which showed much cleverness on her part. She recognized the obviousness of the situation. As we went on, she gazed with admiration upon the yachts, many of which were lying becalmed, but picturesque. The big tramps at anchor awakened in her the wonder we all feel at the idea of sailing for faraway sh.o.r.es where grow strange men and exotic fruits. Then, when the steamer had turned around the great point of the island and her eyes caught the big open sea, I saw them filling, gradually. She was thinking of the gallant lad who had fallen for his first and greatest mother.

Recollections came to her of sailing away with him, with hopes and ambitions rosier than the illumined sh.o.r.es before us, that were kissed by the sun under a thin covering veil of mist. She remembered the days of her toil, rewarded at last by the ripening of her divine gift, and the days of love crowned by the little treasure on her lap. But now, all that had been very beautiful in her life was gone, saving the tiny one to whom she could not even sing a lullaby and whose very livelihood was precarious.

I knew that when she was in this mood it was better to say nothing or even appear to take no notice. Suddenly, a child running along the deck fell down, a dear little girl I ran to and lifted in my arms.

Confidingly, she wept upon my collar which, fortunately, was a soft one.

A broad shouldered youth made his way towards me.

"Hand her over, Mister," he said, pleasantly, "she's one o' mine."

He took the child from me, tenderly, and I looked at him, somewhat puzzled, but instant recognition came to him.

"Say," he declared, breezily, "you's the guy I seen th' other day when I wuz havin' me picture took."

He extended a grateful hand, which I shook cordially, for he was no less a personage than Kid Sullivan, who would have been champion, but for his defeat. On my last call upon Frieda at her studio I had seen him in the lighter garb of Orion, with a gold fillet about his brow, surmounted by a gilt star. I bade him come with me, but a couple of steps away, to where Frances sat, and I had left a small provision of chocolate drops.

"This," I said, "is my friend Mr. Sullivan. The child belongs to him, and I have come to see whether I cannot find consolation for her in the box of candy."

Frances bowed pleasantly to him, and he removed his cap, civilly.

"Glad to meet ye, ma'am," he said. "Thought I'd take the wife and kids over to the Island. The painter-lady found me a job last week. It's only a coal wagon, but it's one o' them five-ton ones with three horses.

They're them big French dappled gray ones."

I looked at Frances, fearing that this mention of his steeds might bring back to her the big Percherons of Paris, the omnibuses climbing the Montmartre hill or rattling through the Place St. Michel, that is the throbbing heart of the Latin Quarter. But she is a woman, as I may have mentioned a hundred times before this. Her interest went out to the child, and she bent over to one side and took a little hand within hers.

"I hope you were not hurt," she said, tenderly.

At the recollection of the injury the little mouth puckered up for an instant. Diplomatically, I advanced a chocolate and the crisis was averted.

"She's a darling, Mr. Sullivan," ventured Frances.

"Yes'm, that's what me and Loo thinks," he a.s.sented. "But you'd oughter see Buster. Wait a minute!"

About ten seconds later he returned with a slightly bashful and very girlish little wife, who struggled under the weight of a ponderous infant.

"Mr. Cole, Loo," the Kid introduced me, "and--and I guess Mrs. Cole."

"No," I objected, firmly. "There is no Mrs. Cole. I beg to make you acquainted with Mrs. Dupont. Please take my chair, Mrs. Sullivan, you will find it very comfortable. My young friend, may I offer you a cigar?"

"I'm agreeable, sir," said the young man, graciously. "I've give up the ring now, so I don't train no more."

The two of us leaned against the rail, while the women entered upon a pleasant conversation. At first, Frances was merely courteous and kindly to the girl with the two babies, but in a few minutes she was interested. From a fund of vast personal experience little Mrs.

Sullivan, who looked rather younger than most of the taller girls one sees coming out of the public schools, bestowed invaluable information in regard to teething. Later, she touched upon her experience in a millinery shop.

"I seen you was a lady, soon as I peeped at yer hat," she declared, in a high-pitched, yet agreeable, voice. "There's no use talking, it ain't the feathers, not even them egrets and paradises, as make a real hat.

It's the head it goes on to."

As she made this remark, I stared at the youthful mother. She was unconscious of being a deep and learned philosopher. She had stated a deduction most true, an impression decidedly profound. The hat was the black one bought in Division Street, where the saleswomen come out on the sidewalk and grab possible customers by the arm, so Frieda told me.

Frances smiled at her. In her poor, husky voice she used terms of endearment to Mrs. Sullivan's baby. It was eleven months and two weeks old, we were informed, and, therefore, a h.o.a.ry-headed veteran as compared to Baby Paul. Had they been of the same age, there might have been comparisons, and possibly some trace of envy, but in the present case there could be nothing but mutual admiration.

"Is you folks going ash.o.r.e?" asked the Kid.

"We were thinking of remaining on the boat," I told him.

"Say, what's the matter with goin' on the pier and sittin' down for a while? 'Tain't as cool as the boat, but it's better'n town, and the later ye gets back, the cooler it'll be."

Mrs. Sullivan confirmed her husband's statements. I looked enquiringly at Frances, who listened willingly to the words of experience. In a few minutes we landed and found a comfortable seat.

Suddenly, as we were chatting pleasantly, there pa.s.sed before us Mr.

O'Flaherty, of the second floor back. He wore a cap surmounted by goggles and an ample gray duster, and with him walked several other large and florid-looking gentlemen. His eyes fell on Frances and then upon me. I thanked goodness that her head was turned so that she could not possibly have seen the odious wink and the leer he bestowed upon me.

"Say," whispered Mr. Sullivan, in my ear. "D'ye see that big guy look at ye? Made ye mad, didn't he? For two cents I'd have handed him one."

"My good friend," I whispered back, "none of us are beyond reach of the coa.r.s.e natured."

"That's so," he answered, "but a wallop in the jaw's good for 'em."

An hour later we took the boat back. The little girl slept all the way home, in her father's arms. Frances gazed dreamily on the water. Little Mrs. Sullivan sat on a chair very close to her husband, with the baby secure on her lap. Her head soon rested on the young prizefighter's shoulder, and she dozed off. I am sure he endured exquisite discomfort with pins and needles rather than disturb her.

And I, like a fool, worried on account of a man perpetually scented with gasoline and spotted with transmission grease who had taken the infernal liberty of winking at me because of my being with poor Frances, taking the air on a proletarian pier.

"The world," Gordon had told me, one day, "utterly refuses to permit a man and woman to be merely good friends. Since the days of Noah's Ark, it has been recognized as an impossibility, and, therefore, society has ever frowned down upon any attempt in so foolish a direction."

I replied hotly that the world was evil-minded, at times, and he retorted that the world was all right, but some men were jacka.s.ses. He remarked that Carlyle had been too lenient when he declared that his countrymen were mostly fools. But then, Carlyle was insular, after all, and unduly favored the inhabitants of his isle, as any British subject would. Nearly all men all over the world were fools, Gordon a.s.serted.

Coyotes and foxes had an instinctive dread of traps, but men walked into them so innocently that merely to behold them was enough to drive a man to drink.

After all, I don't care what O'Flaherty and such cattle think! As long as I can save Frances, or any other good woman, from shedding one more tear than has been ordained for her, I shall do so. I refuse to be envious of the intelligence of foxes and coyotes, and I will always resent uncouthness and mean thoughts.

She looked rather tired when we came down the steps of the elevated road. I begged her to let me take Baby Paul in my arms, and she finally consented, after first declining. It did not awaken him, and we reached the house in becoming tranquillity. Some of our fellow lodgers were on the steps and greeted us civilly. They were the three young men and the two girls. Thank goodness they appeared to be too unversed in the wickedness of this world to entertain such ideas as must have pa.s.sed through the bullet-head of O'Flaherty!

On the next day, I went up to Gordon's studio, and I confess it was with the purpose of looking again at that picture. He was superintending the packing of his suit cases and a trunk. I told him something of my experience, my indignation throbbing in my throat.

"You're a donkey, Dave," he consoled me. "What right or t.i.tle have you to the belief that the millennium has come? I suppose the poor girl is ent.i.tled to some commiseration, for her troubles are in the nature of a series of accidents and misfortunes which no one could foresee. Yours, on the other hand, are simply due to congenital feebleness of some parts of your gray matter. By-by, old fellow, my taxi's waiting for me!"

CHAPTER IX