The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 27

HOME AGAIN

So came one more journey. Why can we not go and come without this musty steamer, these odious smells, this food for dogs, and this surge--ah, how remorseless!--of the cruel sea?

But even this will end. Once more the Stars and Stripes! A land of furnaces and of waterpipes, a land of beggars and of caucuses, a land of gas-meters and of liars, a land of pasteboard and of cards, a land of etiquettes and of bad spelling, but still their country!

A land of telegraphs, which told in an instant, as they landed on the levee, that all the twenty-nine were well, and begged them to be at the college on Tuesday evening, so as to see "Much Ado about Nothing." For at Antioch they act a play the night before Commencement. A land of Pullman's palace-cars. And lo! they secured sections 5 and 6, 7 and 8, in the "Mayflower." Just time to kiss the baby of one friend, and to give a basket of guavas to another, and then whir for Cincinnati and Xenia and Yellow Springs!

How beautiful were the live-oaks and the magnolias!

How fresh the green of the cotton! How black the faces of the little negroes, and how beyond dispute the perfume of the baked peanuts at the stations where sometimes they had to stop for wood and water! Even the heavy pile of smoke above Cincinnati was golden with the hopes of a new-born day as they rushed up to the Ohio River, and as they crossed it. And then, the land of happy homes! It was Kapnist who said to me that the most favored places in the world were the larger villages in Ohio. He had gone everywhere, too. Xenia, and a perfect breakfast at the station, then the towers of Antioch, then the twenty-nine children waving their handkerchiefs as the train rushes in!

How much there was to tell, to show, to ask for, and to see! How much pleasure they gave with their cochineal, their mangoes, their bananas, their hat-bands for the boys, and their fans for the girls! Yes; and how much more they took from nutbrown faces, from smiles beaming from ear to ear, from the boy so tall that he looked down upon his father, from the girl so womanly that you asked if her mother were not masquerading. "You rascal Ozro, you do not pretend that those trousers were made for you? Why, my boy, you disgrace the family." "I hope not, papa; I had ninety-eight in the botany examination, pa.s.sed with honors in Greek, and we beat the Buckeye Club to nothing in the return match yesterday."

"You did, you little beggar?" the proud papa replied.

"You ran all the better, I suppose, because you had nothing to trip you." And so on, and so on. The children did not live in paradise, perhaps, but this seems very like the kingdom come!

And after commencements and the president's party, up to the Yellow Springs platform came two unusual palaces, specially engaged. And one was named the "Valparaiso,"

and the other, as it happened, the "Bethlehem." And they took all the children, and by good luck Mrs. Tucker was going also, and three or four of the college girls, and they took them. So there were forty-two in all. And they sped and sped, without change of cars, save as Bethlehem visited Paradise and Paradise visited Bethlehem, till they came to New Salem, which is the station men buy tickets for when they would go to the beach below Quonochontaug, where the eight and the twenty-nine were to make their summer home before the final emigration.

They do not live at Quonochontaug, but to that post- office are their letters sent. They live in a hamlet of their own, known to the neighbors as the Little Gau.

Four large houses, whitewashed without and within, with deep piazzas all around, the roofs of which join the roofs of the houses themselves, and run up on all sides to one point above the centre. In each house a hall some twenty feet by fifty, and in the hall,--what is not in the hall?--maybe a piano, maybe a fish-rod, maybe a rifle or a telescope, a volume of sermons or a volume of songs, a spinning-wheel, or a guitar, or a battledore. You might ask widely for what you needed, for study or for play, and you would find it, though it were a deep divan of Osiat or a chibouque from Stamboul--you would find it in one of these simple whitewashed halls.

Little Gau is so near the sea-sh.o.r.e that every day they go down to the beach to bathe, and the beach is so near the Gulf Stream that the swim is--well, perfection.

Still, the first day the ladies would not swim. They had the trunks to open, they said, and the closets to arrange. And the four men and the fourteen boys went to that bath of baths alone. And as Felix, the cynic grumbler, ran races naked on the beach with his boy and the boy beat him, even Felix was heard to say, "How little man needs here below to be perfectly happy!"

And at the Little Gau they spent the months from the Fourth of July to the 13th of October--two great days in history--getting ready for Mexico. New sewing-machines were bought, and the fall of the stream from the lake was taught to run the treadles. No end of clothing was got ready for a country which needs none; no end of memoranda made for the last purchases; no end of lists of books prepared, which they could read in that land of leisure.

And on the 14th of October, with a pa.s.sing sigh, they bade good-by to boats and dogs and cows and horses and neighbors and beaches--almost to sun and moon, which had smiled on so much happiness, and went back to Boston to make the last bargains, to pay the last bills, and to say the last good-byes.

After one day of bill-paying and house-advertising and farewelling, they met at Ingham's to "tell their times." And Julia told of her farewell call on dear Mrs.

Blake.

"The saint!" said she; "she does not see as well as she did. But it was just lovely there. There was the great bronze j.a.panese stork, which seemed so friendly, and the great vases, and her flowers as fresh as ever, and her books everywhere. She found something for Tom and Maud to play with, just as she used to for Ben and Horace. And we sat and talked of Mexico and Antioch and everything. I asked her if her eyes troubled her, and I was delighted because it seems they do not trouble her at all. She told all about Swampscott and her grandchildren. I asked her if the dust never troubled them on Gladstone Street, but she says it does not at all; and she told all about her son's family in Hong- Kong. I asked her if the failure of Rupee & Lac annoyed them, and she said not at all, and I was so glad, for I had been so afraid for them; and then she told about how much they were enjoying Macaulay. Then I asked her if the new anvil factory on the other side of the street did not trouble her, and she said not at all. And when I said, 'How can that be?' she said, 'Why, Julia dear, we do not let these things trouble us, don't you see. If I were you, I would not let such things trouble me.'"

George Haliburton laid down his knife as Julia told the story. "Do you remember Rabia at Mecca? Yes, they all remembered Rabia at Mecca:--

"Oh heart, weak follower of the weak, That thou shouldst traverse land and sea; In this far place that G.o.d to seek Who long ago had come to thee!"

"Why should we not stay here, and not let these things trouble us?"

Why not, indeed?

And they stayed.

ONE CENT

A CHRISTMAS STORY

DOWN

Mr. Starr rose very early that day. The sun was not up. Yet, certainly, it was too light to strike a match.

Ah, Mr. Starr, a match may be an economy!

So it was that when, as always, the keys jingled out from his trousers pockets upon the floor, and the money as well, one cent rolled under the bureau unseen by Mr.

Starr. He went down to his work now, after he had gathered up the rest of the money and the keys, and answered yesterday's letters.

Then, of course, he could loiter over his breakfast.

But not too long. Clara, his wife, was in good spirits, and the boys were very jolly, but Mr. Starr, all the same, did the duty next his hand. He "kissed her good-by," and started down-town. Edgar stopped, him to ask for fifty cents for his lunch; the postman wanted fifteen for an underpaid parcel; Susan, the maid, asked for ten for some extra milk; and then he kissed his hand to the parlor window, and was off.

No! He was not off.

For Clara threw up the window and waved her lily hand. Mr. Starr ran back to the door. She flung it open.

"My dear John, here is your best coat. That coat you have on has a frayed b.u.t.ton. I saw it yesterday, and I cannot bear to have you wear it at the Board."

"Dear Clara, what a saint you are!" One more kiss, and Mr. Starr departed.

And loyally he did the duty next his hand. He stopped and signed the sewerage pet.i.tion; he looked in on poor Colt and said a cheerful word to him; he bade Woolley, the fruit man, send a barrel of Nonesuches to old Mrs. Cowen; he was on time at the Board meeting, took the chair, and they changed the const.i.tution. He looked in at the office and told Mr. Freemantle he should be late, but that he would look at the letters when he came back, and then, ho! for East Boston!

If only you knew, dear readers, that to East Boston you must go by a ferry-boat, as if it were named Greenbush, or Brooklyn, or Camden.

As Mr. Starr took the street car after he had crossed the ferry, to go into the unknown parts of East Boston, he did notice that he gave the conductor his last ticket.

But what of that? "End of the route" came, and he girded his loins, trudged over to the pottery he was in search of, found it at last, found the foreman and gave his orders, and then, through mud unspeakable, waded back to the street car. He was the only pa.s.senger.

No wonder! The only wonder was that there was a car.

"Ticket, sir," said the conductor, after half a mile.

MR. STARR (SMILING). I have no ticket, but you may sell me a dollar's worth. (FEELS FOR POCKETBOOK.) h.e.l.lo! I have not my pocketbook; changed my coat.

CONDUCTOR (SAVAGELY). They generally has changed their coats.

MR. STARR (WITH DIGNITY, OFFERING A FIVE-CENT NICKEL). There's your fare, man.

CONDUCTOR. That won't do, mud-hopper. Fare's six cents.

MR. STARR (WELL REMEMBERING THE CENT, WHICH IS, ALAS UNDER THE BUREAU, AND GROVELLING FOR IT IN BOTH POCKETS). I have a cent somewhere.

CONDUCTOR (STOPPING CAR AND RETURNING FIVE-CENT PIECE). We've had enough of you tramps who change your coats and cannot find your pennies. You step off--and step off mighty quick.

Mr. Starr declines; when they come to Maverick Square he will report the man to the superintendent, who knows him well. Slight scuffle. Mr. Starr resists. Conductor calls driver. Mr. Starr is ejected. Coat torn badly and hat thrown into mud. Car departs.

TABLEAU.

SCENE II

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