Part 8

"There you go again! No wonder you got a cold on you--always wanting air on you! Come, Sweetness; this ain't hot. Here, lemme show you the dip I get the girls crazy with. One, two, three--dip! One, two, three--dip! Ugh!"

"Gee, ain't it a jam, though?"

"One, two, three!"

"That's swell, Charley! Quit! You mustn't squeeze me like that till--till you've asked me to be engaged, Charley. We--we ain't engaged yet, are we, Charley?"

"Aw, what difference does that make? You girls make me sick--always wanting to know that."

"It--it makes a lot of difference, Charley."

"There you go on that Amen talk again. All right, then; I won't squeeze you no more, Stingy!"

Her step was suddenly less elastic and she lagged on his arm.

"I--I never said you, couldn't, Charley. Gee, ain't you a great one to get mad so quick. Touchy! I only said not till we're engaged."

He skirted the crowd, guiding her skillfully.

"Stingy! Stingy! I know 'em that ain't so stingy as you."

"Charley!"

"What?"

"Aw, I'm ashamed to say it."

"Listen! They're playin' the new one--Up to Snuff! Faster! Don't make me drag you, kiddo. Faster!"

They were suddenly in the center of the maze, as tight-packed as though an army had conspired to close round them. She coughed and, in her effort at repression coughed again.

"Charley, I--honest, I--I'm going to keel. I--I can't stand it packed in here--like this."

She leaned to him, with the color drained out of her face; and the crowd of black and pink and red dominos, gnomes gone mad, pressed, batted, surged.

"Look out, Sweetness! Don't give out in here! They'll crush us out. Ain't you got no nerve? Here; don't give out now! Gee! Watch out, there! The lady's sick. Watch out! Here; now sit down a minute and get your wind."

He pressed her shoulders downward and she dropped whitely on a little camp chair hidden underneath the balcony.

"I gotta get out, Charley; I gotta get out and get air. I feel like I'm going to suffocate in here. It's this old cough takes the breath out of me."

In the foyer she revived a bit and drank gratefully of the water he brought; but the color remained out of her cheeks and the cough would rack her.

"I guess I oughtta go home, Charley."

"Aw, cut it! You ain't the only girl I've seen give out. Sit here and rest a minute and you'll be all right. Great Scott! I came here to dance."

She rose to her feet a bit unsteadily, but smiling.

"Fussy! Who said I didn't?"

"That's more like it."

And they were off again to the lilt of the music but, struggle as she would, the coughing and the dizziness and the heat took hold of her and at the close of the dance she fainted quietly against his shoulder.

And when she finally caught at consciousness, as it passed and repassed her befuddled mind, she was on the floor of the cloak room, her head pillowed on the skirt of a pink domino.

"There, there, dearie; your young man's waiting outside to take you home."

"I--I'm all right!"

"Certainly you are. The heat done it. Here; lemme help you out of your domino."

"It was the heat done it."

"There; you're all right now. I gotta get back to my dance. You fainted right up against him, dearie; and I seen you keel."

"Gee, ain't I the limit!"

"Here; lemme help you on with your coat. Right there he is, waiting."

In the foyer Sara Juke met Charley Chubb shamefacedly.

"I spoilt everything, didn't I?"

"I guess you couldn't help it. All right?"

"Yes, Charley." She met the air gratefully, worming her little hand into the curve of his elbow. "Gee! I feel fine now."

"Come; here's a car."

"Let's walk up Sixth Avenue, Charley; the air feels fine."

"All right."

"You ain't sore, are you, Charley? It was so jammed dancing, anyway."

"I ain't sore."

"It was the heat done it."

"Yeh."

"Honest, it's grand to be outdoors, ain't it? The stars and--and chilliness and--and--all!"

"Listen to the garden stuff!"

"Silly!"

She squeezed his arm and drew back, shamefaced. His spirits rose.

"You're a right loving little thing when you wanna be."

They laughed in duet; and before the plate-glass window of a furniture emporium they must stop and regard the monthly-payment display, designed to represent the $49.50 completely furnished sitting room, parlor and dining room of the home felicitous--a golden-oak room, with an incandescent fire glowing right merrily in the grate; a lamp redly diffusing the light of home; a plaster-of-Paris Cupid shooting a dart from the mantelpiece; and, last, two figures of connubial bliss, smiling and waxen, in rocking chairs, their waxen infant, block-building on the floor, completing the picture.

"Gee, it looks as snug as a bug in a rug! Looka what it says too: 'You Get the Girl; We'll Do the Rest!' Some little advertisement, ain't it? I got the girl all right--ain't I, hon?"

"Aw!"

"Look at the papa--slippers and all! And the kid! Look at the kid, Sweetness."

Her confusion nearly choked her and her rapid breath clouded the window glass.

"Yeh, Charley! Looka the little kid! Ain't he cute?"

An Elevated train crashed over their heads, drowning out her words; but her smile, which flickered like light over her face, persisted and her arm crept back into his. At each shop window they must pause, but the glow of the first one remained with her.

"Look, Sweetness--Red Swag, the Train King! Performance going on now. Wanna go in?"

"Not to-night. Let's stay outside."

"Anything your little heart de-sires."

They bought hot chestnuts, city harbingers of autumn, from a vender and let fall the hulls as they walked. They drank strawberry ice-cream soda, pink with foam. Her resuscitation was complete; his spirits did not wane.

"I gotta like a queen pretty much not to get sore at a busted evening like this. It's a good thing the ticket didn't cost me nothing."

"Ain't it, though?"

"Look! What's in there--a exhibit?"

They paused before a white-lighted store front and he read laboriously:

FREE TUBERCULOSIS EXHIBIT

TO EDUCATE PEOPLE HOW TO PREVENT CONSUMPTION

"Oh!" She dragged at his arm.

"Aw, come on, Sweetness; nothing but a lot of T.B.'s."

"Let's--let's go in. See, it's free. Looka--it's all lit up and all; see, pictures and all."

"Say, ain't I enough of a dead one without dragging me in there? Free! I bet they pinch you for something before you get out."

"Come on, Charley; I never did see a place like this."

"Aw, they're all over town."

He followed her in surlily enough and then, with a morbid interest, round a room hung with photographs of victims in various emaciated stages of the white plague.

"Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful? Ain't it awful? Read them symptoms. Almost with nothing it--it begins. Night sweats and losing weight and coughing, and--oh--"

"Look! Little kids and all! Thin as matches."

"Aw, see, a poor little shaver like that! Look! It says sleeping in that dirty room without a window gave it to him. Ugh, that old man! 'Self-indulgence and intemperance.' Looka that girl in the tobacco factory. Oh! Oh! Ain't it awful! Dirty shops and stores, it says; dirty saloons and dance halls--weak lungs can't stand them."

"Let's get out of here."

"Aw, look! How pretty she is in this first picture; and look at her here--nothing but a stack of bones on a stretcher. Aw! Aw!"

"Come on!"

"Courage is very important, it says. Consumptives can be helped and many are cured. Courage is--"

"Come on; let's get out of this dump. Say, it's a swell night for a funeral."

She grasped at his coat sleeve, pinching the flesh with it, and he drew away half angrily.

"Come on, I said."

"All right!"

A thin line filed past them, grim-faced, silent. At the far end of the room, statistics in red inch-high type ran columnwise down the wall's length. She read, with a gasp in her throat:

1--Ten thousand people died from tuberculosis in the city of New York last year.

2--Two hundred thousand people died from tuberculosis in the United States last year.

3--Records of the Health Department show that there are 31,631 living cases of tuberculosis in the city of New York.

4--Every three minutes some one in the United States dies from consumption.

"Oh, Charley, ain't it awful!"

At a desk a young man, with skin as pink as though a strong wind had whipped it into color, distributed pamphlets to the outgoing visitors--a thin streamlet of them; some cautious, some curious, some afraid.

"Come on; let's hurry out of here, Sweetness. My lung's hurting this minute."

They hurried past the desk; but the young man with the clear pink skin reached over the heads of an intervening group, waving a long printed booklet toward the pair.

"Circular, missy?"

Sara Juke straightened, with every nerve in her body twanging like a plucked violin string; and her eyes met the clear eyes of the young clerk.

Like a doll automaton she accepted the booklet from him; like a doll automaton she followed Charley Chubb out into the street, and her limbs were trembling so she could scarcely stand.

"Gotta hand it to you, Sweetness. Even made a hit on the fellow in the lung shop! He didn't hand me out no literachure. Some little hit!"

"I gotta go home now, Charley."

"It's only ten."

"I better go, Charley. It ain't Saturday night."

At the stoop of her rooming house they lingered. A honey-colored moon hung like a lantern over the block-long row of shabby-fronted houses. On her steps and to her fermenting fancy the shadow of an ash can sprawled like a prostrate human being.

"Charley!"

She clutched his arm.

"Whatcha scared about, Sweetness?"

"Oh, Charley, I--I feel creepy to-night."

"That visit to the Morgue was enough to give anybody the blind staggers."

Her pamphlet was tight in her hand.

"You ain't mad at me, Charley?"

He stroked her arm, and the taste of tears found its way to her mouth.

"I'm feeling so sillylike to-night, Charley."

"You're all in, kiddo."

In the shadow he kissed her.

"Charley, you--you mustn't, unless we're--engaged." But she could not find the strength to unfold herself from his arms. "You mustn't, Charley!"

"Great little girl you are, Sweetness--one great little girl!"

"Aw, Charley!"

"And, to show you that I like you, I'm going to make up for this to-morrow night. A real little Saturday-night blow! And don't forget Sunday afternoon--two o'clock for us, down at Crissey's Hall. Two o'clock."

"Two o'clock."

"Good!"

"Oh, Charley, I--"

"What, Sweetness?"

"Oh, nothing; I--I'm just silly to-night."

Her hand lay on his arm, white in the moonlight and light as a leaf; and he kissed her again, scorching her lips.

"Good night, Sweetness."

"Good night, Charley."

Then up four flights of stairs, through musty halls and past closed doors, their white china knobs showing through the darkness, and up to the fourth-floor rear, and then on tiptoe into a long, narrow room, with the moonlight flowing in.

Clothing lay about in grotesque heaps--a woman's blouse was flung across the back of a chair and hung limply; a pair of shoes stood beside the bed in the attitude of walking--tired-looking shoes, run down at the heels and skinned at the toes. And on the far side of the three-quarter bed the hump of an outstretched figure, face turned from the light, with sparse gray-and-black hair flowing over the pillow.

Carefully, to save the slightest squeak, Sara Juke undressed, folded her little mound of clothing across the room's second chair, groping carefully by the stream of moonlight. Severe as a sibyl in her straight-falling night-dress, her hair spreading over her shoulders, her bare feet pattered on the cool matting. Then she slid into bed lightly, scarcely raising the covers. From the mantelpiece the alarm clock ticked with emphasis.

An hour she lay there. Once she coughed, and smothered it in her pillow. Two hours. She slipped from under the covers and over to the littered dresser. The pamphlet lay on top of her gloves; she carried it to the window and, with her limbs trembling and sending ripples down her night robe, read it. Then again, standing there by the window in the moonlight, she quivered so that her knees bent under her.

After a while she raised the window slowly and without a creak, and a current of cool air rushed in and over her before she could reach the bedside.

On her pillow Hattie Krakow stirred reluctantly, her weary senses battling with the pleasant lethargy of sleep; but a sudden nip in the air stung her nose and found out the warm crevices of the bed. She stirred and half opened her eyes.

"For Gawd's sake, Sara, are you crazy? Put that window down! Tryin' to freeze us out? Opening a window with her cough and all! Put it down! Put--it--down!"

Sara Juke rose and slammed it shut, slipping back into the cold bed with teeth that clicked. After a while she slept; but lightly, with her mouth open and her face upturned. And after a while she woke to full consciousness all at once, and with a cough on her lips. Her gown at the yoke was wet; and her neck, where she felt it, was damp with cold perspiration.

"Oh--oh--Hattie! Oh--oh!"

She burrowed under her pillow to ease the trembling that seized her. The moon had passed on, and darkness, which is allied to fear, closed her in--the fear of unthinking youth who knows not that the grave is full of peace; the fear of abundant life for senile death; the cold agony that comes in the night watches, when the business of the day is but a dream and Reality visits the couch.

Deeper burrowed Sara Juke, trembling with chill and night sweat.

Drowsily Hattie Krakow turned on her pillow, but her senses were too weary to follow her mind's dictate.

"Sara! 'Smatter, Sara? 'Smat-ter?" Hattie's tired hand crept toward her friend; but her volition would not carry it across and it fell inert across the coverlet. "'Smatter, dearie?"

"N-nothin'."

"'Smat-ter, dear-ie?"

"N-nothin'."

* * * * *

In the watches of the night a towel flung across the bedpost becomes a gorilla crouching to spring; a tree branch tapping at the window an armless hand, beckoning. In the watches of the night fear is a panther across the chest sucking the breath; but his eyes cannot bear the light of day, and by dawn he has shrunk to cat size. The ghastly dreams of Orestes perished with the light; phosphorus is yellowish and waxlike by day.

So Sara Juke found new courage with the day, and in the subbasement of the Titanic store the morning following her laughter was ready enough. But when the midday hour arrived she slipped into her jacket, past the importunities of Hattie Krakow, and out into the sun-lashed noonday swarm of Sixth Avenue.

Down one block--two, three; then a sudden pause before a narrow store front liberally placarded with invitatory signs to the public, and with a red cross blazoning above the doorway. And Sara Juke, whose heart was full of fear, faltered, entered.

The same thin file passed round the room, halting, sauntering, like grim visitors in a grim gallery. At a front desk a sleek young interne, tiptilted in a swivel chair, read a pink sheet through horn-rimmed glasses.

Toward the rear the young man whose skin was the wind-lashed pink sorted pamphlets and circulars in tall, even piles on his desk.

Round and round the gallery walked Sara Juke; twice she read over the list of symptoms printed in inch-high type; her heart lay within her as though icy dead, and her eyes would blur over with tears. Once, when she passed the rear desk, the young man paused in his stacking and regarded her with a warming glance of recognition.

"Hello!" he said. "You back?"

"Yes." Her voice was the thin cry of a quail.

"You must like our little picture gallery, eh?"

"Oh! Oh!" She caught at the edge of his desk and tears lay heavy in her eyes.

"Eh?"

"Yes; I--I like it. I wanna buy it for my yacht."

Her ghastly simulacrum of a jest died in her throat; and he said quickly, a big blush suffusing his face:

"I was only fooling, missy. You ain't got the scare, have you?"

"The scare?"

"Yes; the bug? You ain't afraid you've ate the germ, are you?"

"I--I dunno."

"Pshaw! There's a lot of 'em comes in here more scared than hurt, missy. Never throw a scare till you've had a examination. For all you know you got hay fever, eh! Hay fever!" And he laughed as though to salve his words.

"I--got all them things on the red-printed list, I tell you. I--I got 'em all, night sweats and all. I--I got 'em."

"Sure you got 'em, missy; but that don't need to mean nothin' much."

"I got 'em, I tell you."

"Losin' weight?"

"Feel."

He inserted two fingers in her waistband.

"Huh!"

"You a doctor?"

He performed a great flourish.

"I ain't in the profesh, missy. I'm only chief clerk and bottle washer round here; but--"

"Where is the doctor? That him reading down there? Can I ask him--I--Oh! Ain't I scared!"

He placed his big, cool hand over her wrist and his face had none of its smile.

"I know you are, little missy. I seen it in you last night when you and--and--"

"My--my friend."

"--your friend was in here. There's thousands come in here with the scare on, and most of 'em with a reason; but I picked you out last night from the gang. Funny thing, but right away I picked you. 'A pretty little thing like her'--if you'll excuse me for saying it--'a pretty little thing like her,' I says to myself. 'And I bet she ain't got nobody to steer her!'"

"Honest, did you?"

"Gee, it ain't none of my put-in; but when I seen you last night--funny thing--but when I seen you, why, you just kinda hit me in the eye; and, with all that gang round me, I says to myself: 'Gee, a pretty little thing like her, scared as a gazelle, and so pretty and all; and no one to give her the right steer!'"

"Aw, you seen me?"

"Sure! Wasn't it me reached out the pamphlet to you? You had on that there same cutey little hat and jacket and all."

"Does it cost anything to talk to the doctor down there?"

"Forget it! Go right down and he'll give you a card to the Victoria Clinic. I know them all over there and they'll look you over right, little missy, and steer you. Aw, don't be scared; there ain't nothing much wrong with you--maybe a sore spot, that's all. That cough ain't a double-lunger. You run over to the clinic."

"I gotta go back to the store now."

"After store, then."

"Free?"

"Sure! Old Doc Strauss is on after five too. If I ain't too nervy I'm off after six myself. I could meet you after and we could talk over what he tells you--if I ain't too nervy?"

"I--"

"Blaney's my name--Eddie Blaney. Ask anybody round here about me. I--I could meet you, little missy, and--"

"I can't to-night, Mr. Blaney. I gotta go somewheres."

"Aw!"

"I gotta."

"To-morrow? To-morrow's Sunday, little missy. There's a swell lot of country I bet you ain't never seen, and Old Doc Strauss is going to tell you to get acquainted with it pretty soon."

"Country?"

"Yes. That's what you need, outdoors; that's what you need, little missy. You got a color like all indoors--pretty, but putty."

"You--you don't think there's nothing much the matter with me, do you, Mr. Blaney?"

"Sure I don't. Why, I got a bunch of Don'ts for you up my sleeve that'll color you up like drug-store daub."

Tears and laughter trembled in her voice.

"You mean that the outdoor stuff will do it, Mr. Blaney?"

"That's the talk!"

"But you--you ain't the doctor."

"I ain't, but I ain't been deaf and dumb and blind round here for three years. I can pick 'em every time. You're taking your stitch in time, little missy. You ain't even got a wheeze in you. Why, I bet you ain't never seen red!"

"No!" she cried, with quick comprehension.

"Sure you ain't!"

More tears and laughter in her voice.

"I'm going to-night, then--at six, Mr. Blaney."

"Good! And to-morrow? There's a lot of swell country and breathing space round here I'd like to introduce you to. I bet you don't know whether Ingleside Woods is kindling or a breakfast food--now do you?"

"No."

"Ever had a chigger on you?"

"Huh?"

"Ever sleep outdoors in a bag?"

"Say, whatta you think I am?"

"Ever seen the sun rise, or took the time to look up and see several dozen or a couple of thousand or so stars glittering all at once?"

"Aw, come off! We ain't doing teamwork in vaudeville."

"Gee, wouldn't I like to take you out and be the first one to make you acquainted with a few of the things that are happening beyond Sixth Avenue--if I ain't too nervy, little missy?"

"I gotta go somewheres at two o'clock to-morrow afternoon, Mr.--Mr. Blaney; but I can go in the morning--if it ain't going to look like I'm a freshie."

"In the morning! Swell! But where--who--" She scribbled on a slip of paper and fluttered it into his hand. "Sara Juke! Some little name. Gee! I know right where you live. I know a lot of cases that come from round there. I used to live near there myself, round on Henry Street. I'll call round at nine, little missy. I'm going to introduce you to the country, eh?"

"They won't hurt at the clinic, will they, Mr. Blaney? I'm losing my nerve again."

"Shame on a pretty little thing like you losing her nerve! Gee! I've seen 'em come in here all pale round the gills and with nothing but the whooping cough. There was a little girl in here last week who thought she was ready for Arizona on a canvas bed; and it wasn't nothing but her rubber skirt-band had stretched. Shame on you, little missy! Don't you get scared! Wait till you see what I'm going to show you out in the country to-morrow--leaves turning red and all. We're going to have a heart-to-heart talk out there--eh? A regular lung-to-lung talk!"

"Aw, Mr. Blaney! Ain't you killing!"

She hurried down the room, laughing.

* * * * *

At Sharkey's on Saturday night the entire basement café and dance hall assumed a hebdomadal air of expectancy; extra marble-topped tables were crowded about the polished square of dancing space; the odor of hops and sawdust and cookery hung in visible mists over the bar.

Girls, with white faces and red lips and bare throats, sat alone at tables or tête-à-tête with men too old or too young, and ate; but drank with keener appetite.

A self-playing piano performed beneath a large painting of an undraped Psyche; a youth with yellow fingers sang of Love. A woman whose shame was gone acquired a sudden hysteria at her lone table over her milky-green drink, and a waiter hustled her out none too gently.

In the foyer at seven o'clock Sara Juke met Charley Chubb, and he slid up quite frankly behind her and kissed her on the lips. At Sharkey's a miss is as good as her kiss!

"You--you quit! You mustn't!"

She sprang back, quivering, her face cold-looking and blue; and he regarded her with his mouth quirking.

"Huh! Hoity-toity, ain't you? Hoity-toity and white-faced and late, all at once, ain't you? Say, them airs don't get across with me. Come on! I'm hungry."

"I didn't mean to yell, Charley--only you scared me. I thought maybe it was one of them fresh guys that hang round here; all of 'em look so dopey and all. I--you know I never was strong for this place, Charley."

"Beginning to nag, are you?"

"No, no, Charley. No, no!"

They drew up at a small table.

"No fancy keeling act to-night, kiddo. I ain't taking out a hospital ward, you know. Gad, I like you, though, when you're white-looking like this! Why'd you dodge me at noon to-day and to-night after closing? New guy? I won't stand for it, you know, you little white-faced Sweetness, you!"

"I hadda go somewheres, Charley. I came near not coming to-night, neither, Charley."

"What'll you eat?"

"I ain't hungry."

"Thirsty, eh?"

"No."

He regarded her over the rim of the smirchy bill of fare.

"What are you, then, you little white-faced, big-eyed devil?"

"Charley, I--I got something to--to tell you. I--"

"Bring me a lamb stew and a beer, light. What'll you have, little white-face?"

"Some milk and--"

"She means with suds on, waiter."

"No--no; milk, I said--milk over toast. Milk toast--I gotta eat it. Why don't you lemme talk, Charley? I gotta tell you."