Vignettes of Manhattan; Outlines in Local Color Part 27

AN IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT

The summer sun had blazed down all day on the low wooden roof of the old shed lately used as an ice-cream saloon, and now hastily altered to accommodate a post of the Salvation Army. Placards at the wide doorway proclaimed that All were Welcome, and besought the stranger to Come in and be Saved. The tall tenements that lined the side-streets east and west had emptied their hundreds of inhabitants out into the avenue that evening, and the sidewalks were thronged with men and women languid from the heat of the day, and longing for the lazy breeze that sometimes creeps into the city with nightfall; but few of them cared to enter the stifling hall where the song-service was about to begin, and that night especially there were many counter-attractions out-doors. Already were the rockets beginning to burst far above the square where the fireworks were to be displayed; and now and again a boy (who had more than boyish self-control) produced a reserve pack of fire-crackers, and dropped them into a barrel, and capered away with delight as the owner of the barrel was called to his door by the rattle of their explosion.

A pale and thin young woman, in the uniform of the Salvation Army, stood wearily in the entrance, proffering the _War Cry_ to all those who came near. She looked as though she had been pretty when she was a girl.

Now she was obviously worn and weak, like one recovering from a long illness. High up over her head appeared a shower of colored stars shot forth from a bomb; and then she remembered how she had seen the fireworks on the last Fourth of July, only a year before, lying on her bed which Jim had pulled to the window before he went down to conduct the meeting. She had lain there peacefully with her two-weeks-old baby in her arms, and it had seemed to her as though the glowing wheels that revolved in the air, and the curving lines of fire that rose and fell again, were but a prefiguration of a golden future where all would be splendor and glory. How that vision had faded into blackness in the months that followed!--when the baby sickened because they had not proper food for him, and when Jim broke down also; and she had had to get up, feeble as she was, and nurse them both until they died, one after another. When she let herself think of those days of despair, she had always to make a resolute effort if she did not wish to give way and go into a fit of sobbing that left her exhausted for the next twenty-four hours.

She mastered her rising emotion and turned for relief to the duty of the moment. For five minutes no one had bought a paper from her, and the time had come to go into the hall to take part in the service of song.

She pushed inside the swinging-door and found that perhaps a score of visitors had gathered, and that already half a dozen members of the Salvation Army had taken their seats at the edge of the low platform at the end of the shallow hall. Captain Quigley was standing there, with his s.h.i.+ny black hair carefully curled and his pointed beard carefully combed. He was waiting, ready to begin, with his accordion in his hands.

She wondered why it was that she was always sorry to have Captain Quigley lead the service. She would not deny that he led well, giving a swing to the tunes he played that carried all the people off their feet; he sang sweetly and he spoke feelingly. But she did not altogether like his manner, which was almost patronizing; and then he had a way of bringing her suddenly into his remarks and of calling her forward needlessly. Even after her two years' service she shrank from personalities and from self-exhibition. Yet there was no doubt that he meant to be kind to her, and she knew that he had allowed her special privileges more than once. With motherly kindness Adjutant Willetts had asked her only a week before if she really liked Captain Quigley, telling her that if she did not like him, she ought to be careful not to encourage him, and since that talk with the adjutant her distaste for the captain had been intensified.

It was as though Captain Quigley had been waiting for her to appear, for he began to speak as soon as he saw her. In a high nasal voice and with an occasional elided aspirate, he welcomed those present and told them he was glad that they had come. He asked them all to take part in singing the grand old hymn, "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." He set the tune with his accordion, and lined out the first stanza and led in the singing. Only three or four of the chance visitors joined in the song, the burden of which was borne by the members of the Salvation Army.

Then the captain told his hearers that there was a new _War Cry_ published that very morning full of interesting things, and containing the words of the songs they would all sing later, so he wanted everybody in the hall to buy one, that they could all follow the music.

The thin young woman with the saddened face began to move down the aisles offering her papers right and left.

"That's the way, Sister Miller," called out the captain, as though to encourage her; but she winced as she heard her name thus thrown to the public. "I want you all to buy Sister Miller's papers, so that she can come up here and join us in the singing. You don't know what a sweet voice Sister Miller has--but we know."

He continued to talk thus familiarly as she made the circuit of the seats. When she had taken her place on the platform by the side of Adjutant Willetts, who smiled at her with maternal affection in her eye, then suddenly the captain changed his tone. "Now we will ask the Lord to bless us--to bless us all, to bless this meeting. I don't know why any of you have come here to-night, but I do know this: if you have come here for G.o.d's blessing, you will get it. If you have come here for something else, I don't know whether you will get it; but if you have come here for that you will surely get it. G.o.d always gives His blessing to all who ask for it. Brother Higginson, will you lead us in prayer?"

The men and women on the platform fell on their knees, and the most of those scattered about the hall bowed their heads reverently, while Brother Higginson prayed that the blessing of G.o.d might descend upon them that night. Sister Miller had heard Brother Higginson lead in prayer many times and she knew almost to a word what he was likely to say, for the range of his appeal was limited; but she always thrilled a little at the simple fervor of the man. It annoyed her, as usual, to have the captain punctuate the appeal of Brother Higginson with an occasional "Amen! Amen!" or "Hallelujah!"

After the prayer there was another gospel song, and then the captain laid aside his accordion and took up a Bible. He read a pa.s.sage from the Old Testament describing the advance of the Children of Israel into the desert, guided by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He held the book in his hand while he expounded his text. The Children of Israel had their loins girded to fight the good fight, he said. That is what every people has to do; the Israelites had to do it, the English had to do it, the Americans had to do it. They all knew what the Fourth of July stood for and how well Americans fought then, more than a hundred years ago; and so saying he seized the flag which had been leaning against the wall behind him, by the side of the blood-red banner of the Salvation Army.

As he was waving the Stars and Stripes Sister Miller felt her dislike accentuated, for she knew that the captain was an Englishman who had been here but a few years, and it seemed to her mean of him to be taking sides against his native land. She wondered if he was really ignorant enough to think that one of the great battles of the Revolution had been fought on the Fourth of July.

Then her mind went back to her girlhood, and she recalled the last celebration of the Fourth that had taken place in the old school-house at home the summer before she graduated. She remembered how old Judge Standish read the Declaration of Independence with a magnificent air of proprietors.h.i.+p, as though he had just dashed it off. Other incidents of that day came floating back to her memory as she sat there in the thick air of the little hall, and she ceased to hear Captain Quigley calling urgently on all those present to be Soldiers of G.o.d. In her ears there echoed, instead, the pleading words of young Dexter Standish, telling her that he was going to the Naval Academy and that he wanted her to wait for him till he should come back. She had given her promise, and why had she not kept her word? Why had she been foolishly jealous when she heard that he was the best dancer in his cla.s.s at Annapolis, and that all the Baltimore girls were wild to dance with him. She had long ago discovered that her reason for breaking off the engagement was wholly inadequate; and, in her folly, she had not foreseen that Dexter could not leave the Academy and come to her and explain. If only he had presented himself and told her he loved her she would have forgiven him, even if he had really deserved punishment. But he was a cadet, and he would not have a leave of absence for another year. Before that year was out, she had married James Miller, a theological student, who soon threw up all his studies in his religious zeal to join the Salvation Army, as though craving martyrdom. Jim had loved her, and he had thought she loved him. It was with a swift pang of reproach that she found herself asking whether it was not better for Jim that he had died before he found out that his wife did not love him as he loved her.

With the ingenuity that came of long experience, Captain Quigley had ended his address with a quotation from "Onward, Christian Soldiers,"

and Sister Miller was roused from her reverie to take part in the chorus. When they had sung three stanzas the captain stopped abruptly and turned to the gray-haired woman who sat beside Sister Miller, and called on Adjutant Willetts to say a few words of loving greeting to the souls waiting to be saved.

To Sister Miller it was a constant delight to be with the adjutant, to be comforted by her motherly smile and to be sustained by her cheerful faith. There was a Quaker simplicity about Sister Willetts, and a Quaker strength of character that the wan and worn Sister Miller had found she could always rely upon. And another characteristic of the elder woman's endeared her also to the younger: her religious fervor was as fresh as it was sincere, and she gave her testimony night after night with the same force and the same feeling that she had given it the first time.

Too many of the others had reduced what they had to say to a mere formula, modified but little and delivered at last in almost mechanical fas.h.i.+on. But Sister Willetts stood forward on the platform and bore witness to her possession of the peace of G.o.d which pa.s.seth all understanding; and she did this most modestly, with neither shyness nor timidity, merely as though she were doing her duty gladly in declaring what G.o.d had done for her.

When the adjutant had made an end of speaking and had taken her seat by the side of the pale young woman, who smiled back at her again, Captain Quigley grasped his accordion once more.

"Now you shall have a solo," he said. "Sister Miller will sing that splendid old hymn, 'Rock of Ages.' Come, Sister Miller."

Her voice had no great power, but it sufficed for that little hall. She did not like to stand forward conspicuously, but the singing itself she always enjoyed. Sometimes she was almost able to forget herself as she poured out her soul in song.

On that Fourth of July evening she had not more than begun when she became conscious that somebody was staring at her with an intensity quite different from the ordinary gaze of curiosity to which she was accustomed. She obeyed the impulse, and looked down into the eyes of Dexter Standish fixed upon her as though he had come to claim possession of her at once.

So unexpected was this vision, and so enfeebled was her self-control, that her voice faltered, and she almost broke off in the middle of a line. But she stiffened herself, and though she felt the blood dyeing her face, she sang on st.u.r.dily. Her first thought was to run away--to run away at once and hide herself, somewhere, anywhere, so that she were only out of his sight. He had not seen her for six years and more, and in those weary years she had lost her youth and her looks. She knew that she was no longer the pretty girl he had loved, and she shrank from his scrutiny of her faded features and of her shrunken figure.

She could not run away and she could not hide; she had to stand there and let him gaze at her and discover how old she looked and how worn.

She met his eyes again--he never took them from her--and it seemed to her that they were full of pity. She resented this. What right had he to compa.s.sionate her? She drew her thin frame up and sang the louder in mere bravado. Yet she was glad when she came to the end, and was able to sink back into the seat by the side of Sister Willetts.

The captain spoke up at once, and said that the time had come to take up a collection. Let every man give a little, in proportion to his means, no more and no less. Would Sister Willetts and Sister Miller go about among the people to collect the offerings?

As she picked up her tambourine she turned impulsively to the elder woman.

"Let me go to those near the platform, please," she begged. "Won't you take the outside rows?"

The adjutant looked down on her a little surprised, but agreed at once.

The younger woman went only a few steps down the aisles, keeping as far away from him as possible. Whenever she glanced towards him she found his eyes fixed upon her, following her everywhere; and now it was not pity she thought she saw in his look, but love--the same love she had seen in those eyes the last time they two had stood face to face.

When the tambourines had been extended towards everybody in the hall, the two women went back to the platform and the adjutant counted up the money--coppers and nickels, most of it, and not two dollars in all.

The captain kept on steadfastly. He gave out another hymn. When that had been sung, he turned to a portly man who had come in late and who was sitting on the platform behind Brother Higginson.

"Brother Jackman," he asked, with unction, "how is your soul to-night?

Can't you tell us about it?"

While the portly man, standing uneasily with his hands on the chair before him, was briskly setting forth the circ.u.mstances of his a.s.sured salvation, Sister Miller was silent on the platform.

She could not help seeing Dexter Standish, who was straight in front of her. She noted how erect he was, and how resolutely his shoulders were squared. She saw that he was older, too; and she observed that his face had a masterful look, wanting there the last time she had seen him.

He had always been a fine-looking fellow, and the training at Annapolis had done him good. He was no mere youth now, but a man, bronzed and bearded, and bearing himself like one who knew what he wanted and meant to get it. She realized that the woman he chose to guard from the world would be well s.h.i.+elded. A weary woman might find rest under the shelter of his stalwart protection. Involuntarily she contrasted the man she had promised to marry with the man she had married--the manly strength of the one with the gentle weakness of the other. Then she blushed again, for this seemed to her disloyalty to the dead. Jim had been very good to her always; he was the father of her child; he never did any wrong. But the thought returned again--perhaps if he had had more force of character the child need not have died as it did.

Brother Jackman was rattling along glibly, but Sister Miller did not heed him. She did not hear him even. She did not hear anything distinctly during the rest of the service. She rose to her feet with the rest of them, and she sat down again automatically, and she knelt like one in a trance. When the meeting was over and the people began to disperse she saw that he did not move. He stood there silently, waiting for her to come to him, ready to bear her away. Without a word Sister Miller knew what it was her old lover wanted; he wanted to pick up their love-story where it had been broken off four years before.

When the hall was nearly empty he started towards her.

She turned to the gray-haired woman by her side.

"Tell me what to do," she cried. "He is coming to take me away with him."

Sister Willetts saw the young man advancing slowly, as those last to go made a path for him.

"Is he in love with you, too?" she asked.

"Yes," the younger woman answered.

"And do you love him?"

"Yes--at least, I think so. Oh yes!"

"And is he a good man?" was the last question.

"Yes, indeed," came the prompt reply, "the best man I ever knew!"

The st.u.r.dy figure was drawing nearer and the elder woman rose.