Part 11

Below at one place, under a shed, were some market-gardeners disposing of the last remnants of their day’s wares--a sickly, dull life, she thought. Here was Rutgers Avenue, with its line of red street-cars, many wagons and tracks and counter-streams of automobiles--how often had she passed it morning and evening in a shuttle-like way, and how often would, unless she got married! And here, now, was the river flowing smoothly between its banks lined with coal-pockets and wharves--away, away to the huge deep sea which she and Arthur had enjoyed so much. Oh, to be in a small boat and drift out, out into the endless, restless, pathless deep! Somehow the sight of this water, to-night and every night, brought back those evenings in the open with Arthur at Sparrows Point, the long line of dancers in Eckert’s Pavilion, the woods at Atholby, the park, with the dancers in the pavilion--she choked back a sob. Once Arthur had come this way with her on just such an evening as this, pressing her hand and saying how wonderful she was. Oh, Arthur! Arthur! And now Barton was to take his old place again--forever, no doubt. She could not trifle with her life longer in this foolish way, or his. What was the use? But think of it!

Yes, it must be--forever now, she told herself. She must marry. Time would be slipping by and she would become too old. It was her only future--marriage. It was the only future she had ever contemplated really, a home, children, the love of some man whom she could love as she loved Arthur. Ah, what a happy home that would have been for her! But now, now----

But there must be no turning back now, either. There was no other way. If Arthur ever came back--but fear not, he wouldn’t! She had risked so much and lost--lost him. Her little venture into true love had been such a failure. Before Arthur had come all had been well enough. Barton, stout and simple and frank and direct, had in some way--how, she could scarcely realize now--offered sufficient of a future. But now, now! He had enough money, she knew, to build a cottage for the two of them. He had told her so. He would do his best always to make her happy, she was sure of that. They could live in about the state her parents were living in--or a little better, not much--and would never want. No doubt there would be children, because he craved them--several of them--and that would take up her time, long years of it--the sad, gray years! But then Arthur, whose children she would have thrilled to bear, would be no more, a mere memory--think of that!--and Barton, the dull, the commonplace, would have achieved his finest dream--and why?

Because love was a failure for her--that was why--and in her life there could be no more true love. She would never love any one again as she had Arthur. It could not be, she was sure of it. He was too fascinating, too wonderful. Always, always, wherever she might be, whoever she might marry, he would be coming back, intruding between her and any possible love, receiving any possible kiss. It would be Arthur she would be loving or kissing. She dabbed at her eyes with a tiny handkerchief, turned her face close to the window and stared out, and then as the environs of Latonia came into view, wondered (so deep is romance): What if Arthur should come back at some time--or now! Supposing he should be here at the station now, accidentally or on purpose, to welcome her, to soothe her weary heart. He had met her here before. How she would fly to him, lay her head on his shoulder, forget forever that Barton ever was, that they had ever separated for an hour. Oh, Arthur! Arthur!

But no, no; here was Latonia--here the viaduct over her train, the long business street and the cars marked “Center” and “Langdon Avenue” running back into the great city. A few blocks away in tree-shaded Bethune Street, duller and plainer than ever, was her parents’ cottage and the routine of that old life which was now, she felt, more fully fastened upon her than ever before--the lawn-mowers, the lawns, the front porches all alike. Now would come the going to and fro of Barton to business as her father and she now went to business, her keeping house, cooking, washing, ironing, sewing for Barton as her mother now did these things for her father and herself. And she would not be in love really, as she wanted to be. Oh, dreadful! She could never escape it really, now that she could endure it less, scarcely for another hour. And yet she must, must, for the sake of--for the sake of--she closed her eyes and dreamed.

She walked up the street under the trees, past the houses and lawns all alike to her own, and found her father on their veranda reading the evening paper. She sighed at the sight.

“Back, daughter?” he called pleasantly.

“Yes.”

“Your mother is wondering if you would like steak or liver for dinner. Better tell her.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

She hurried into her bedroom, threw down her hat and gloves, and herself on the bed to rest silently, and groaned in her soul. To think that it had all come to this!--Never to see him any more!--To see only Barton, and marry him and live in such a street, have four or five children, forget all her youthful companionships--and all to save her face before her parents, and her future. Why must it be? Should it be, really? She choked and stifled. After a little time her mother, hearing her come in, came to the door--thin, practical, affectionate, conventional.

“What’s wrong, honey? Aren’t you feeling well to-night? Have you a headache? Let me feel.”

Her thin cool fingers crept over her temples and hair. She suggested something to eat or a headache powder right away.

“I’m all right, mother. I’m just not feeling well now. Don’t bother. I’ll get up soon. Please don’t.”

“Would you rather have liver or steak to-night, dear?”

“Oh, anything--nothing--please don’t bother--steak will do--anything”--if only she could get rid of her and be at rest!

Her mother looked at her and shook her head sympathetically, then retreated quietly, saying no more. Lying so, she thought and thought--grinding, destroying thoughts about the beauty of the past, the darkness of the future--until able to endure them no longer she got up and, looking distractedly out of the window into the yard and the house next door, stared at her future fixedly. What should she do? What should she really do? There was Mrs. Kessel in her kitchen getting her dinner as usual, just as her own mother was now, and Mr. Kessel out on the front porch in his shirt-sleeves reading the evening paper. Beyond was Mr. Pollard in his yard, cutting the grass. All along Bethune Street were such houses and such people--simple, commonplace souls all--clerks, managers, fairly successful craftsmen, like her father and Barton, excellent in their way but not like Arthur the beloved, the lost--and here was she, perforce, or by decision of necessity, soon to be one of them, in some such street as this no doubt, forever and--. For the moment it choked and stifled her.

She decided that she would not. No, no, no! There must be some other way--many ways. She did not have to do this unless she really wished to--would not--only--. Then going to the mirror she looked at her face and smoothed her hair.

“But what’s the use?” she asked of herself wearily and resignedly after a time. “Why should I cry? Why shouldn’t I marry Barton? I don’t amount to anything, anyhow. Arthur wouldn’t have me. I wanted him, and I am compelled to take some one else--or no one--what difference does it really make who? My dreams are too high, that’s all. I wanted Arthur, and he wouldn’t have me. I don’t want Barton, and he crawls at my feet. I’m a failure, that’s what’s the matter with me.”

And then, turning up her sleeves and removing a fichu which stood out too prominently from her breast, she went into the kitchen and, looking about for an apron, observed:

“Can’t I help? Where’s the tablecloth?” and finding it among napkins and silverware in a drawer in the adjoining room, proceeded to set the table.

A STORY OF STORIES

Take a smoky Western city. Call it Omaha or Kansas City or Denver, only let the Mississippi flow past it. Put in it two rival morning papers--two, and only two--the _Star_ and the _News_, the staffs of which are rather keen to outwit each other. On the staff of the _News_, slightly the better of the two newspapers, put Mr. David Kolinsky, alias (yes, alias) David, or “Red” Collins (a little shift of nomenclature due to the facts that, first: he was a South Russian Jew who looked exactly like a red-headed Irishman--that is a peculiarity of South Russian Jews, I believe--and secondly: that it was more _distingué_, as it were, to be Irish in Omaha or Denver or Kansas City than it was to be a South Russian Jew). Give him a slithery, self-confident, race-track or tout manner. Put on him “loud” or showy clothes, a diamond ring, a ruby pin in his tie, a yellowish-green Fedora hat, yellow shoes, freckles, a sneering contemptuous “tough” smile, and you have Mr. “Red” Collins as Mr.----

But wait.

On the _Star_, slightly the lesser of these two great dailies that matutinally thrashed the city to a foam of interest, place Mr. Augustus Binns, no less, young (not over twenty-two), tall, college-y, rather graceful as young college men go, literary of course, highly ambitious, with gold eye-glasses, a wrist watch, a cane--in short, one of those ambitious young gentlemen of this rather un-happy go un-lucky scribbling world who has distinct ideals, to say nothing of dreams, as to what the newspaper and literary professions combined should bring him, and who, in addition, inherently despised all creatures of the “Red” Collins, or race-track, gambler, amateur detective, police and political, type. Well may you ask, what was Mr. Collins, with his peculiar characteristics, doing on a paper of the importance and distinction of the _News_. A long story, my dears. Newspapers are peculiar institutions.

For this same paper not long since had harbored the truly elegant presence of Mr. Binns himself, and so excellent a writer and news gatherer was he that on more than one occasion he had been set to revise or rewrite the tales which Mr. “Red” Collins, who was then but tentatively connected with the paper as a “tipster,” brought in. This in itself was a crime against art and literature, as Mr. Binns saw it, for, when you come right down to it, and in the strict meaning of the word, Mr. Collins was not a writer at all, could not write, in fact, could only “bring in” his stories, and most interesting ones they were, nearly all of them, whereas about the paper at all times were men who could--Mr. Binns, for instance. It insulted if not outraged Mr. Binns’s sense of the fitness of things, for the _News_ to hire such a person and let him flaunt the title of “reporter” or “representative,” for he admired the _News_ very much and was glad to be of it. But Collins! “Red” Collins!

The latter was one of those “hard life,” but by no means hard luck, Jews who by reason of indomitable ambition and will had raised himself out of practically frightful conditions. He had never even seen a bath-tub until he was fifteen or sixteen. By turns he had been a bootblack, newsboy, race-track tout, stable boy, helper around a saloon, and what not. Of late years, and now, because he was reaching a true wisdom (he was between twenty-five and six), he had developed a sort of taste for gambling as well as politics of a low order, and was in addition a police hanger-on. He was really a sort of pariah in his way, only the sporting and political editors found him useful. They tolerated him, and paid him well for his tips because, forsooth, his tips were always good.

Batsford, the capable city editor of the _News_, a round, forceful, gross person who was more allied to Collins than to Binns in spirit, although he was like neither, was Binns’s first superior in the newspaper world. He did not like Binns because, for one thing, of his wrist watch, secondly, his large gold glasses--much larger than they need have been--and thirdly, because of his cane, which he carried with considerable of an air. The truth is, Binns was Eastern and the city editor was Western, and besides, Binns had been more or less thrust upon him by his managing editor as a favor to some one else. But Binns could write, never doubt it, and proved it. He was a vigorous reporter with a fine feeling for words and, above all, a power to visualize and emotionalize whatever he saw, a thing which was of the utmost importance in this rather loose Western emotional atmosphere. He could handle any story which came to him with ease and distinction, and seemed usually to get all or nearly all the facts.

On the other hand, Collins, for all his garishness, and one might almost say, brutality of spirit, was what Batsford would have called a practical man. He knew life. He was by no means as artistic as Binns, but still-- Batsford liked to know what was going on politically and criminally, and Collins could always tell him, whereas Binns never could. Also, by making Binns rewrite Collins’s stories, he knew he could offend him horribly. The two were like oil and water, Mussulman and Christian.

When Batsford first told Collins to relate the facts of a certain tale to Binns and let him work it out, the former strolled over to the collegian, his lip curled up at one corner, his eye cynically fixed on him, and said, “The Chief says to give youse this dope and let youse work it out.”

Youse!

Oh, for a large, bright broad ax!

Binns, however, always your stickler for duty and order, bent on him an equally cynical and yet enigmatic eye, hitched up his trousers slightly, adjusted his wrist watch and glasses, and began to take down the details of the story, worming them out of his rival with a delicacy and _savoir faire_ worthy of a better cause.

Not long after, however, it was brought to the horrified ears of Mr. Binns that Mr. Collins had said he was a “stiff” and a “cheap ink-slinger,” a la-de-da no less, that writers, one and all, college and otherwise, didn’t count for much, anyhow, that they were all starving to death, and that they “grew on trees”--a phrase which particularly enraged Mr. Binns, for he interpreted it to mean that they were as numerous as the sands of the sea, as plentiful as mud.

By Allah! That such dogs should be allowed to take the beards of great writers into their hands thus!

Nevertheless and in spite of all this, the fortunes of Mr. Collins went forward apace, and that chiefly, as Mr. Binns frequently groaned, at his expense. Collins would come in, and after a long series of “I sez to him-s” and “He sez to me-s,” which Mr. Binns (per the orders of Mr. Batsford) translated into the King’s best Britannica, he having in the meanwhile to neglect some excellent tale of his own, would go forth again, free to point the next day to a column or column-and-a-half or a half-column story, and declare proudly, “My story.”

Think of it! That swine!

There is an end to all things, however, even life and crime. In due time, as per a series of accidents and the groundless ill-will of Mr. Batsford, Mr. Binns was perforce, in self-respect, compelled to transfer his energies to the _Star_, a paper he had previously contemned as being not so good, but where he was now made very welcome because of his ability. Then, to his astonishment and disgust, one day while covering a police station known as the South Ninth, from which emanated many amazing police tales, whom should he encounter but “Red” Collins, no less, now a full-fledged reporter on the _News_, if you please, and “doing police.” He had a grand and even contemptuous manner, barely deigning to notice Binns. Binns raged.

But he noticed at once that Collins was far more _en rapport_ with the various sergeants and the captain, as well as all that was going on in this station, than ever he had dreamed of being. It was “Hello, Red,” here and “Hi, sport,” there, while Collins replied with various “Caps” and “Charlies.” He gave himself all the airs of a newspaper man proper, swaggering about and talking of this, that, and the other story which he had written, some of them having been done by Binns himself. And what was more, Collins was soon closeted intimately with the captain in his room, strolling in and out of that sanctum as if it were his private demesne, and somehow giving Binns the impression of being in touch with realms and deeds of which he had never heard, and never would. It made Binns doubly apprehensive lest in these secret intimacies tales and mysteries should be unfolded which should have their first light in the pages of the _News_, and so leave him to be laughed at as one who could not get the news. In consequence, he watched the _News_ more closely than ever for any evidence of such treachery on the part of the police, while at the same time he redoubled his interest in any such items as came to his attention. By reason of this, as well as by his greater skill in writing and his undeniable imagination, on more than one occasion he gave Mr. Collins a good drubbing, chancing to make good stories out of things which Mr. Collins had evidently dismissed as worthless. _Au contraire_, now and then a case appeared in the columns of the _News_ with details which he had not been able to obtain, and concerning which the police had insisted that they knew nothing. It was thus that Mr. Collins secured his revenge--and very good revenge too, it was at times.

But Mr. Binns managed to hold his own, as, for instance, late one August afternoon when a negro girl in one of those crowded alleys which made up an interesting and even amazing portion of O---- was cut almost to shreds by an ex-lover who, following her from river-city to river-city and town to town, had finally come up with her here and had taken his revenge.

It was a glistering tale this. It appeared (but only after the greatest industry on the part of Mr. Binns) that some seven or eight months before [the O---- papers curiously were always interested in a tale of this kind] this same girl and the negro who had cut her had been living together as man and wife in Cairo, Illinois, and that later the lover (a coal passer or stevedore, working now on one boat and now on another plying the Mississippi between New Orleans and O----), who was plainly wildly fond of her, became suspicious and finally satisfying himself that his mistress, who was a real beauty after her kind, was faithless to him, set a trap to catch her. Returning suddenly one day when she imagined him to be away for a week or two of labor, and bursting in upon her, he found her with another man. Death would have been her portion as well as that of her lover had it not been for the interference of friends, which had permitted the pair to escape.

Lacerated by the double offenses of betrayal and desertion, he now set out to follow her, as the cutting on this occasion proved. Returning to his task as stevedore and working his way thus from one river-city to another, he arrived by turns in Memphis, Vicksburg, Natchez and New Orleans, in each case making it a point to disguise himself as a peddler selling trinkets and charms, and in this capacity walking the crowded negro sections of all these cities calling his wares. Ambling up one of these stuffy, stifling alleys, finally, in O---- which bordered on this same police station and where so many negroes lived, he encountered this late August afternoon his quondam but now faithless love. In answer to his cry of “Rings! Pins! Buckles! Trinkets!” his false love, apparently not recognizing his voice, put her head out of a doorway. On the instant the damage was done. Dropping his tray, he was upon her in a flash with his razor, cris-crossing and slashing her until she was marred beyond recognition. With fiendish cruelty he cut her cheeks, lips, arms, legs, back, and sides, so much so that when Binns arrived at the City Hospital where she had been taken, he found her unconscious and her life despaired of. On the other hand, the lover had made good his escape, as had her paramour.

Curiously, this story captured the fancy of Mr. Binns as it did that of his city editor later, completely. It was such a thing as he could do, and do well. With almost deft literary art he turned it into a rather striking black tragedy. Into it, after convincing his rather fussy city editor that it was worth the telling, he had crowded a bit of the flavor of the hot waterfronts of Cairo, Memphis, Natchez, and New Orleans, the sing-song sleepiness of the stevedores at their lazy labors, the idle, dreamy character of the slow-moving boats, this rickety alley, with its semi-barbaric curtain-hung shacks and its swarming, idle, crooning, shuffling negro life. Even an old negro refrain appropriate to a trinket peddler, and the low, bold negro life two such truants might enjoy, were pictured. An old negro mammy with a yellow-dotted kerchief over her head who kept talking of “disha Gawge” and “disha Sam” and “disha Marquatta” (the girl), had moved him to a poetic frenzy. Naturally it made a colorful tale, and his city editor felt called upon to compliment him on it.

But in the _News_, owing possibly to Collins’s inability to grasp the full significance, the romance, of such a story as this, it received but a scant stick--a low dive cutting affray. His was not the type of mind that could see the color here, but once seen he could realize wherein he had been beaten, and it infuriated him.

“You think you’re a helluva feller, dontcha?” he snarled the next day on sight, his lip a-curl with scorn and rage. “You think you’ve pulled off sompin swell. Say, I’ve been up against you wordy boys before, and I can work all around you. All you guys can do is get a few facts and then pad ’em up. You never get the real stuff, never,” and he even snapped his fingers under the nose of the surprised Mr. Binns. “Wait’ll we get a real case some time, you and me, and then I’ll show you sompin. Wait and see.”

“My good fellow,” Mr. Binns was about to begin, but the cold, hard, revengeful glare in the eyes of Mr. Collins quite took his breath away. Then and there Mr. Collins put a strange haunting fear of himself into Mr. Binns’s mind. There was something so savage about him, so like that of an angry hornet or snake that it left him all but speechless. “Is that so?” he managed to say after a time. “You think you will, do you? That’s easy enough to say, now that you’re beaten, but I guess I’ll be right there when the time comes.”

“Aw, go to hell!” growled Collins savagely, and he walked off, leaving Mr. Binns smiling pleasantly, albeit vacantly, and at the same time wondering just what it was Mr. Collins was going to do to him, and when.

The sequel to this was somewhat more interesting.

As Mr. Binns came in one morning fresh from his bath and breakfast, his new city editor called him into his office. Mr. Waxby, in contrast with Mr. Batsford, was a small, waspish, and yet affable and capable man whom Binns could not say he admired as a man or a gentleman, but who, he was sure, was a much better city editor than Batsford, and who appreciated him, Binns, as Batsford never had, i.e., at his true worth. Batsford had annoyed him with such a dog as Collins, whereas Waxby had almost coddled him. And what a nose for news!

Mr. Waxby eyed him rather solemnly and enigmatically on this occasion, and then observed: “Do you remember, Binns, that big M.P. train robbery that took place out here near Dolesville about six months ago?”

“Yes, sir.”