Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 28

"Where? Woman doctor's?"

"Yes. I met her sister, too."

"O, you'll soon be getting so swell you won't notice us. Well, anyhow, you'll leave me Owen?"

In the mood in which she went to sleep that night, there was no premonition of conquest. The tide of her life sank low. It was impossible for her to succeed--she, a little country girl, of five feet nine. She looked at her bulk as it showed under the quilts. How small a thing she was to be set over against the mighty city.

And yet Napoleon was less than she. And Patti and Edwin Booth were not so large. The life of a great actor, like Edwin Booth, a singer, like Patti, interested her deeply. She wondered that they could do things like other people. They were so public, so admired, so lifted into the white-hot glare of success.

She brought her mind back to the point. They succeeded, small beings though they were, they faced the millions of the earth and became the masters, the kings and queens of art.

By what necromancy did they do this? If it was born in them, then there was hope for her; if they reached it by toil, then, surely, there was hope for her.

CHAPTER XVII

HER FIRST DINNER OUT

Rose went to see the parts of the city which no true Chicagoan ever visits. That is to say, she spent Sunday in the park, admiring with pathetic fort.i.tude the sward, the curving drives, and the bridges and the statues, in company with the lowly and nameless mult.i.tude--she even crowded in to see the animals.

She had intended to get back to church, conformable to Mary's programme, which was to start in St. James, and go in rotation to all the great churches and hear the choirs; but it happened that on this first Sunday there was a fine west wind, and the three-masters were setting sail to the north close insh.o.r.e, and when Rose found she could sit on the park benches and see those mighty birds sail by she was content to do that and nothing more.

She had no cheap, easy and d.a.m.nable comparisons. The pa.s.sage of each purple-sailed lumber freighter was a poem to her. They floated noiselessly, effortlessly, on a beautiful sea of color. They drove like b.u.t.terflies in dreams, their motive power indiscernible.

She sat with her chin in her palm, her big eyes, like beautiful windows, letting in the suns.h.i.+ne and the grace of s.h.i.+ps and clouds without effort, fixed in an ecstasy of reverie. Around her streamed floods of the city's newly acquired residents, clerks, bookkeepers, typewriters, shop-girls, butcher's boys, salesmen, all fresh from the small towns and from the farms of the West. As the s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sed, she gave her attention to these people--recognized in them many familiar types. There was the smart young man, son of the tavernkeeper in Cyene. There was the blundering big wag, Ed Smith of Mola.s.ses Gap (a.s.sistant s.h.i.+pping clerk in Smith & Rydal's hardware store now). There were types like Mary, hearty, loud-voiced, cheery, wholesome, whom the city could never rob of their native tw.a.n.g. There were Tom and Grace and Elsa and Bert and all the rest of the bright, restless spirits of the country towns and wide-awake school districts come to try their fortunes in the great city like herself.

They wore bargains in ready-made clothing pretty generally, but it was up-to-date and they were all clean as a new dime. They laughed, shouted jokes, scuffled and pushed the girls, quite in the good country way.

They made quaint and sometimes insolent remarks about the park and its adornments, a.s.suming blase airs as old residents, and pointing out to the later arrivals the various attractions.

There came by other groups, as alien as the foregoing were familiar.

Dark-skinned, queer, bow-legged, bewhiskered little men, followed by their wives and children, all sallow and crooked.

They were all foreigners. Great droves, whole neighborhoods drifted along, chattering unintelligible languages, incomprehensible to the country girl as the Chinese. Whether they were Italians or Jews or Bohemians she could not tell, but she could see the marks of hunger and hard work on their pallid faces. These were, no doubt, the people who moved about under the murk of that deadly region through which she had been borne by her train that first night.

She went home from this first visit to the park oppressed and over-borne with the mult.i.tude of her new impressions. She felt quite as she did upon her return from the Art Inst.i.tute, to which she had hastened early in the first week. So much that was artificially beautiful tired her and irritated her, like eating a meal of honey and sponge cake. Her head ached with the formal curves of the drives, with the unchanging fixedness of the statues, just as the unnatural murky tones of the landscapes in frames gave her vague discomfort.

In the few days between her meeting with Isabel and her dinner she saw the Wheat Exchange (which interested her mightily, like battle), she went again to the Art Inst.i.tute, she visited other parks, she went to the top of the Masonic Temple, and did many other things which the native high-cla.s.s Chicagoan prides himself on never doing. Happily she apprehended not the enormity of her offence; on the contrary, she was seeing life, and this feeling compensated her when she did not otherwise enjoy "a sight." It was a duty, and she felt grateful to the unknown city officials for the chance to see these things, even if it nearly broke her neck and tired her out to see them. She looked forward to her dinner with great interest. She had thought a great deal about Dr.

Herrick, and had come to the conclusion that she was not much to blame.

"I suppose she thought I was a poor helpless ninny coming to ask her for a job," she said to Mary.

"Well, she couldn't have had much gumption," Mary loyally replied.

Mary came home from a walk with Mr. Taylor on purpose to help Rose "fix up and get off," but found her quite dressed and watching the clock.

"Well, you are a prompt one! Stand up now, and let me see if you're all right."

Rose obediently stood and was twirled about in various lights.

"That's fine! That grey dress is such a fit, and scarlet goes well with it. O, you sweet thing! How're you going to get home?"

"Walk, of course."

"Shall I send Owen over for you?"

They both laughed at her tone.

"O, what a self-sacrificing friend!" Rose exclaimed. "I guess I can walk home alone. I'm not afraid of the dark."

"O, it ain't that. It would be sweller to have some one come after you."

"Well, you and Owen both come."

"Well, I'll see. If I feel safe by nine-thirty I'll send him. But if you're not back here by ten o'clock I'll be after ye." This made them both laugh again.

"Where is this address?"

Rose gave her the card.

"Why, this is away up in the swell part. My, ain't you comin' on!" Mary clucked with her tongue. "You'll be calling on the Lake Drive soon."

Rose looked neat and altogether well composed in her simple grey dress and sober-hued bonnet and gloves. She wasn't in the very latest fall fas.h.i.+on, of course, but she was not noticeably out of vogue. She felt quite at ease as she walked up the street.

This ease began to desert her as the houses grew larger and the doorplates more ornate. What if Dr. Herrick lived in one of these houses! They were not, of course, palatial like those houses on the lake front, but they looked too grand for any of her friends to live in them.

Her fear of getting tangled in social intricacies grew keener as she walked up the steps to a large cream-colored brick building. The mystery of "flats" was to be faced. The entrance was tiled and flecklessly clean. On the right were three bells, one above the other. Over the second one she saw Dr. Herrick's name. She pulled the bell and waited for developments.

Suddenly a hollow voice, hoa.r.s.e and breathy, pushed from the wall.

"Kim roight up." She turned to the inner door which opened mysteriously, and a small boy in b.u.t.tons motioned her to the elevator. She began to comprehend and felt grateful to the small boy for his considerate gravity.

At the landing the door was opened by Etta, the pretty little sister.

She said "How-do-you-do!" in her soft, timid little voice, and let Rose into an exquisite little bedroom off the hall and asked her to lay off her hat. She stood in awe of Rose, who seemed very large and stern to her.

Rose felt a little nervous about what was to come after, but contrived to keep outwardly calm while following her gentle guide out into the hall and forward into a small reception room. Isabel arose and greeted her with a smile of delight.

"Ah! here you are! Do you know I began to fear you were mythical--that I'd dreamed you. Warren, this is Miss Dutcher. Miss Dutcher, Mr. Mason."

A slow, large man stepped forward and looked her in the face with penetrating eyes. He was a little taller than she was and his face had a weary look. He was blond as a Norwegian and his voice was very beautiful.

"I am very glad you're not a myth," he said, and his face lost its tired look for a moment.

"This is my nephew, Mr. Paul Herrick;" a slim young man came up to shake hands. He was plainly a college man, and Rose comprehended him at once.

Isabel's voice changed and a little flush came to her face as she put her hand on the shoulder of a tall, black-bearded man standing quietly in the shadow.