Note: Many of the author's spellings follow older, obsolete, or
intentionally incorrect practice.
OPTIONS
by
O. HENRY
CONTENTS
"The Rose of Dixie"
The Third Ingredient
The Hiding of Black Bill
Schools and Schools
Thimble, Thimble
Supply and Demand
Buried Treasure
To Him Who Waits
He Also Serves
The Moment of Victory
The Head-Hunter
No Story
The Higher Pragmatism
Best-Seller
Rus in Urbe
A Poor Rule
"THE ROSE OF DIXIE"
When _The Rose of Dixie_ magazine was started by a stock company in
Toombs City, Georgia, there was never but one candidate for its chief
editorial position in the minds of its owners. Col. Aquila Telfair
was the man for the place. By all the rights of learning, family,
reputation, and Southern traditions, he was its foreordained, fit,
and logical editor. So, a committee of the patriotic Georgia citizens
who had subscribed the founding fund of $100,000 called upon Colonel
Telfair at his residence, Cedar Heights, fearful lest the enterprise
and the South should suffer by his possible refusal.
The colonel received them in his great library, where he spent most
of his days. The library had descended to him from his father. It
contained ten thousand volumes, some of which had been published as
late as the year 1861. When the deputation arrived, Colonel Telfair
was seated at his massive white-pine centre-table, reading Burton's
"Anatomy of Melancholy." He arose and shook hands punctiliously with
each member of the committee. If you were familiar with _The Rose of
Dixie_ you will remember the colonel's portrait, which appeared in it
from time to time. You could not forget the long, carefully brushed
white hair; the hooked, high-bridged nose, slightly twisted to the
left; the keen eyes under the still black eyebrows; the classic mouth
beneath the drooping white mustache, slightly frazzled at the ends.
The committee solicitously offered him the position of managing editor,
humbly presenting an outline of the field that the publication was
designed to cover and mentioning a comfortable salary. The colonel's
lands were growing poorer each year and were much cut up by red
gullies. Besides, the honor was not one to be refused.
In a forty-minute speech of acceptance, Colonel Telfair gave an
outline of English literature from Chaucer to Macaulay, re-fought the
battle of Chancellorsville, and said that, God helping him, he would
so conduct _The Rose of Dixie_ that its fragrance and beauty would
permeate the entire world, hurling back into the teeth of the Northern
minions their belief that no genius or good could exist in the brains
and hearts of the people whose property they had destroyed and whose
rights they had curtailed.
Offices for the magazine were partitioned off and furnished in the
second floor of the First National Bank building; and it was for the
colonel to cause _The Rose of Dixie_ to blossom and flourish or to
wilt in the balmy air of the land of flowers.
The staff of assistants and contributors that Editor-Colonel Telfair
drew about him was a peach. It was a whole crate of Georgia peaches.
The first assistant editor, Tolliver Lee Fairfax, had had a father
killed during Pickett's charge. The second assistant, Keats Unthank,
was the nephew of one of Morgan's Raiders. The book reviewer, Jackson
Rockingham, had been the youngest soldier in the Confederate army,
having appeared on the field of battle with a sword in one hand and a
milk-bottle in the other. The art editor, Roncesvalles Sykes, was a
third cousin to a nephew of Jefferson Davis. Miss Lavinia Terhune, the
colonel's stenographer and typewriter, had an aunt who had once been
kissed by Stonewall Jackson. Tommy Webster, the head office-boy,
got his job by having recited Father Ryan's poems, complete, at the
commencement exercises of the Toombs City High School. The girls who
wrapped and addressed the magazines were members of old Southern
families in Reduced Circumstances. The cashier was a scrub named
Hawkins, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who had recommendations and a bond
from a guarantee company filed with the owners. Even Georgia stock
companies sometimes realize that it takes live ones to bury the dead.
Well, sir, if you believe me, _The Rose of Dixie_ blossomed five times
before anybody heard of it except the people who buy their hooks and
eyes in Toombs City. Then Hawkins climbed off his stool and told on
'em to the stock company. Even in Ann Arbor he had been used to having
his business propositions heard of at least as far away as Detroit. So
an advertising manager was engaged - Beauregard Fitzhugh Banks, a young
man in a lavender necktie, whose grandfather had been the Exalted High
Pillow-slip of the Kuklux Klan.
In spite of which _The Rose of Dixie_ kept coming out every month.
Although in every issue it ran photos of either the Taj Mahal or
the Luxembourg Gardens, or Carmencita or La Follette, a certain
number of people bought it and subscribed for it. As a boom for it,
Editor-Colonel Telfair ran three different views of Andrew Jackson's
old home, "The Hermitage," a full-page engraving of the second battle
of Manassas, entitled "Lee to the Rear!" and a five-thousand-word
biography of Belle Boyd in the same number. The subscription list that
month advanced 118. Also there were poems in the same issue by Leonina
Vashti Haricot (pen-name), related to the Haricots of Charleston,
South Carolina, and Bill Thompson, nephew of one of the stockholders.
And an article from a special society correspondent describing a
tea-party given by the swell Boston and English set, where a lot of
tea was spilled overboard by some of the guests masquerading as
Indians.
One day a person whose breath would easily cloud a mirror, he was so
much alive, entered the office of _The Rose of Dixie_. He was a man
about the size of a real-estate agent, with a self-tied tie and a
manner that he must have borrowed conjointly from W. J. Bryan,
Hackenschmidt, and Hetty Green. He was shown into the editor-colonel's
_pons asinorum_. Colonel Telfair rose and began a Prince Albert bow.
"I'm Thacker," said the intruder, taking the editor's chair - "T. T.
Thacker, of New York."
He dribbled hastily upon the colonel's desk some cards, a bulky manila
envelope, and a letter from the owners of _The Rose of Dixie_. This
letter introduced Mr. Thacker, and politely requested Colonel Telfair
to give him a conference and whatever information about the magazine
he might desire.
"I've been corresponding with the secretary of the magazine owners
for some time," said Thacker, briskly. "I'm a practical magazine man
myself, and a circulation booster as good as any, if I do say it.
I'll guarantee an increase of anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred
thousand a year for any publication that isn't printed in a dead
language. I've had my eye on _The Rose of Dixie_ ever since it
started. I know every end of the business from editing to setting up
the classified ads. Now, I've come down here to put a good bunch of
money in the magazine, if I can see my way clear. It ought to be made
to pay. The secretary tells me it's losing money. I don't see why a
magazine in the South, if it's properly handled, shouldn't get a good
circulation in the North, too."
Colonel Telfair leaned back in his chair and polished his gold-rimmed
glasses.
"Mr. Thacker," said he, courteously but firmly, "_The Rose of Dixie_
is a publication devoted to the fostering and the voicing of Southern
genius. Its watchword, which you may have seen on the cover, is 'Of,
For, and By the South.'"
"But you wouldn't object to a Northern circulation, would you?" asked
Thacker.
"I suppose," said the editor-colonel, "that it is customary to open
the circulation lists to all. I do not know. I have nothing to do with
the business affairs of the magazine. I was called upon to assume
editorial control of it, and I have devoted to its conduct such poor
literary talents as I may possess and whatever store of erudition I
may have acquired."
"Sure," said Thacker. "But a dollar is a dollar anywhere, North,
South, or West - whether you're buying codfish, goober peas, or Rocky
Ford cantaloupes. Now, I've been looking over your November number. I
see one here on your desk. You don't mind running over it with me?
"Well, your leading article is all right. A good write-up of the
cotton-belt with plenty of photographs is a winner any time. New York
is always interested in the cotton crop. And this sensational account
of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, by a schoolmate of a niece of the Governor
of Kentucky, isn't such a bad idea. It happened so long ago that most
people have forgotten it. Now, here's a poem three pages long called
'The Tyrant's Foot,' by Lorella Lascelles. I've pawed around a good
deal over manuscripts, but I never saw her name on a rejection slip."
"Miss Lascelles," said the editor, "is one of our most widely
recognized Southern poetesses. She is closely related to the Alabama
Lascelles family, and made with her own hands the silken Confederate
banner that was presented to the governor of that state at his
inauguration."
"But why," persisted Thacker, "is the poem illustrated with a view of
the M. & O. Railroad freight depot at Tuscaloosa?"
"The illustration," said the colonel, with dignity, "shows a corner
of the fence surrounding the old homestead where Miss Lascelles was
born."
"All right," said Thacker. "I read the poem, but I couldn't tell
whether it was about the depot of the battle of Bull Run. Now, here's
a short story called 'Rosies' Temptation,' by Fosdyke Piggott. It's
rotten. What is a Piggott, anyway?"
"Mr. Piggott," said the editor, "is a brother of the principal
stockholder of the magazine."
"All's right with the world - Piggott passes," said Thacker. "Well this
article on Arctic exploration and the one on tarpon fishing might go.
But how about this write-up of the Atlanta, New Orleans, Nashville,
and Savannah breweries? It seems to consist mainly of statistics about
their output and the quality of their beer. What's the chip over the
bug?"
"If I understand your figurative language," answered Colonel Telfair,
"it is this: the article you refer to was handed to me by the owners
of the magazine with instructions to publish it. The literary quality
of it did not appeal to me. But, in a measure, I feel impelled to
conform, in certain matters, to the wishes of the gentlemen who are
interested in the financial side of _The Rose_."
"I see," said Thacker. "Next we have two pages of selections from
'Lalla Rookh,' by Thomas Moore. Now, what Federal prison did Moore
escape from, or what's the name of the F.F.V. family that he carries
as a handicap?"
"Moore was an Irish poet who died in 1852," said Colonel Telfair,
pityingly. "He is a classic. I have been thinking of reprinting his
translation of Anacreon serially in the magazine."
"Look out for the copyright laws," said Thacker, flippantly. Who's
Bessie Belleclair, who contributes the essay on the newly completed
water-works plant in Milledgeville?"
"The name, sir," said Colonel Telfair, "is the _nom de guerre_ of
Miss Elvira Simpkins. I have not the honor of knowing the lady; but
her contribution was sent to us by Congressman Brower, of her native
state. Congressman Brower's mother was related to the Polks of
Tennessee.
"Now, see here, Colonel," said Thacker, throwing down the magazine,
"this won't do. You can't successfully run a magazine for one
particular section of the country. You've got to make a universal
appeal. Look how the Northern publications have catered to the South
and encouraged the Southern writers. And you've got to go far and
wide for your contributors. You've got to buy stuff according to its
quality without any regard to the pedigree of the author. Now, I'll
bet a quart of ink that this Southern parlor organ you've been running
has never played a note that originated above Mason & Hamlin's line.
Am I right?"
"I have carefully and conscientiously rejected all contributions from
that section of the country - if I understand your figurative language
aright," replied the colonel.
"All right. Now I'll show you something."
Thacker reached for his thick manila envelope and dumped a mass of
typewritten manuscript on the editors desk.
"Here's some truck," said he, "that I paid cash for, and brought along
with me."
One by one he folded back the manuscripts and showed their first pages
to the colonel.
Here are four short stories by four of the highest priced authors in
the United States - three of 'em living in New York, and one commuting.
There's a special article on Vienna-bred society by Tom Vampson.
Here's an Italian serial by Captain Jack - no - it's the other Crawford.
Here are three separate exposés of city governments by Sniffings, and
here's a dandy entitled 'What Women Carry in Dress-Suit Cases' - a
Chicago newspaper woman hired herself out for five years as a lady's
maid to get that information. And here's a Synopsis of Preceding
Chapters of Hall Caine's new serial to appear next June. And here's a
couple of pounds of _vers de société_ that I got at a rate from the
clever magazines. That's the stuff that people everywhere want. And
now here's a write-up with photographs at the ages of four, twelve,
twenty-two, and thirty of George B. McClellan. It's a prognostication.
He's bound to be elected Mayor of New York. It'll make a big hit all
over the country. He - "
"I beg your pardon," said Colonel Telfair, stiffening in his chair.
"What was the name?"
"Oh, I see," said Thacker, with half a grin. Yes, he's a son of the
General. We'll pass that manuscript up. But, if you'll excuse me,
Colonel, it's a magazine we're trying to make go off - not the first
gun at Fort Sumter. Now, here's a thing that's bound to get next to
you. It's an original poem by James Whitcomb Riley. J. W. himself.
You know what that means to a magazine. I won't tell you what I had
to pay for that poem; but I'll tell you this - Riley can make more
money writing with a fountain-pen than you or I can with one that lets
the ink run. I'll read you the last two stanzas:
"'Pa lays around 'n' loafs all day,
'N' reads and makes us leave him be.
He lets me do just like I please,
'N' when I'm bad he laughs at me,
'N' when I holler loud 'n' say
Bad words 'n' then begin to tease
The cat, 'n' pa just smiles, ma's mad
'N' gives me Jesse crost her knees.
I always wondered why that wuz -
I guess it's cause
Pa never does.
"''N' after all the lights are out
I'm sorry 'bout it; so I creep
Out of my trundle bed to ma's
'N' say I love her a whole heap,
'N' kiss her, 'n' I hug her tight.
'N' it's too dark to see her eyes,
But every time I do I know
She cries 'n' cries 'n' cries 'n' cries.
I always wondered why that wuz -
I guess it's 'cause
Pa never does.'
"That's the stuff," continued Thacker. "What do you think of that?"
"I am not unfamiliar with the works of Mr. Riley," said the colonel,
deliberately. "I believe he lives in Indiana. For the last ten years I
have been somewhat of a literary recluse, and am familiar with nearly
all the books in the Cedar Heights library. I am also of the opinion
that a magazine should contain a certain amount of poetry. Many of the
sweetest singers of the South have already contributed to the pages of
_The Rose of Dixie_. I, myself, have thought of translating from the
original for publication in its pages the works of the great Italian
poet Tasso. Have you ever drunk from the fountain of this immortal
poet's lines, Mr. Thacker?"
"Not even a demi-Tasso," said Thacker. Now, let's come to the point,
Colonel Telfair. I've already invested some money in this as a flyer.
That bunch of manuscripts cost me $4,000. My object was to try a
number of them in the next issue - I believe you make up less than a
month ahead - and see what effect it has on the circulation. I believe
that by printing the best stuff we can get in the North, South, East,
or West we can make the magazine go. You have there the letter from
the owning company asking you to co-operate with me in the plan. Let's
chuck out some of this slush that you've been publishing just because
the writers are related to the Skoopdoodles of Skoopdoodle County. Are
you with me?"
"As long as I continue to be the editor of The Rose," said Colonel
Telfair, with dignity, "I shall be its editor. But I desire also to
conform to the wishes of its owners if I can do so conscientiously."
"That's the talk," said Thacker, briskly. "Now, how much of this stuff
I've brought can we get into the January number? We want to begin
right away."
"There is yet space in the January number," said the editor, "for
about eight thousand words, roughly estimated."
"Great!" said Thacker. "It isn't much, but it'll give the readers
some change from goobers, governors, and Gettysburg. I'll leave the
selection of the stuff I brought to fill the space to you, as it's all
good. I've got to run back to New York, and I'll be down again in a
couple of weeks."
Colonel Telfair slowly swung his eye-glasses by their broad, black
ribbon.
"The space in the January number that I referred to," said he,
measuredly, "has been held open purposely, pending a decision that
I have not yet made. A short time ago a contribution was submitted
to _The Rose of Dixie_ that is one of the most remarkable literary
efforts that has ever come under my observation. None but a master
mind and talent could have produced it. It would just fill the space
that I have reserved for its possible use."
Thacker looked anxious.
"What kind of stuff is it?" he asked. "Eight thousand words sounds
suspicious. The oldest families must have been collaborating. Is there
going to be another secession?"
"The author of the article," continued the colonel, ignoring Thacker's
allusions, "is a writer of some reputation. He has also distinguished
himself in other ways. I do not feel at liberty to reveal to you his
name - at least not until I have decided whether or not to accept his
contribution."
"Well," said Thacker, nervously, "is it a continued story, or an
account of the unveiling of the new town pump in Whitmire, South
Carolina, or a revised list of General Lee's body-servants, or what?"
"You are disposed to be facetious," said Colonel Telfair, calmly.
"The article is from the pen of a thinker, a philosopher, a lover of
mankind, a student, and a rhetorician of high degree."
"It must have been written by a syndicate," said Thacker. "But,
honestly, Colonel, you want to go slow. I don't know of any
eight-thousand-word single doses of written matter that are read by
anybody these days, except Supreme Court briefs and reports of murder
trials. You haven't by any accident gotten hold of a copy of one of
Daniel Webster's speeches, have you?"
Colonel Telfair swung a little in his chair and looked steadily from
under his bushy eyebrows at the magazine promoter.
"Mr. Thacker," he said, gravely, "I am willing to segregate the
somewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitude
that your business investments undoubtedly have conferred upon you.
But I must ask you to cease your jibes and derogatory comments upon
the South and the Southern people. They, sir, will not be tolerated
in the office of _The Rose of Dixie_ for one moment. And before you
proceed with more of your covert insinuations that I, the editor of
this magazine, am not a competent judge of the merits of the matter
submitted to its consideration, I beg that you will first present some
evidence or proof that you are my superior in any way, shape, or form
relative to the question in hand."
"Oh, come, Colonel," said Thacker, good-naturedly. "I didn't do
anything like that to you. It sounds like an indictment by the fourth
assistant attorney-general. Let's get back to business. What's this
8,000 to 1 shot about?"
"The article," said Colonel Telfair, acknowledging the apology by a
slight bow, "covers a wide area of knowledge. It takes up theories
and questions that have puzzled the world for centuries, and disposes
of them logically and concisely. One by one it holds up to view the
evils of the world, points out the way of eradicating them, and then
conscientiously and in detail commends the good. There is hardly a
phase of human life that it does not discuss wisely, calmly, and
equitably. The great policies of governments, the duties of private
citizens, the obligations of home life, law, ethics, morality - all
these important subjects are handled with a calm wisdom and confidence
that I must confess has captured my admiration."
"It must be a crackerjack," said Thacker, impressed.
"It is a great contribution to the world's wisdom," said the colonel.
"The only doubt remaining in my mind as to the tremendous advantage it
would be to us to give it publication in _The Rose of Dixie_ is that I
have not yet sufficient information about the author to give his work
publicity in our magazine.
"I thought you said he is a distinguished man," said Thacker.
"He is," replied the colonel, "both in literary and in other more
diversified and extraneous fields. But I am extremely careful about
the matter that I accept for publication. My contributors are people
of unquestionable repute and connections, which fact can be verified
at any time. As I said, I am holding this article until I can acquire
more information about its author. I do not know whether I will
publish it or not. If I decide against it, I shall be much pleased,
Mr. Thacker, to substitute the matter that you are leaving with me in
its place."
Thacker was somewhat at sea.
"I don't seem to gather," said he, "much about the gist of this
inspired piece of literature. It sounds more like a dark horse than
Pegasus to me."
"It is a human document," said the colonel-editor, confidently, "from
a man of great accomplishments who, in my opinion, has obtained a
stronger grasp on the world and its outcomes than that of any man
living to-day."
Thacker rose to his feet excitedly.
"Say!" he said. "It isn't possible that you've cornered John D.
Rockefeller's memoirs, is it? Don't tell me that all at once."
"No, sir," said Colonel Telfair. "I am speaking of mentality and
literature, not of the less worthy intricacies of trade."
"Well, what's the trouble about running the article," asked Thacker, a
little impatiently, "if the man's well known and has got the stuff?"
Colonel Telfair sighed.
"Mr. Thacker," said he, "for once I have been tempted. Nothing has
yet appeared in _The Rose of Dixie_ that has not been from the pen of
one of its sons or daughters. I know little about the author of this
article except that he has acquired prominence in a section of the
country that has always been inimical to my heart and mind. But I
recognize his genius; and, as I have told you, I have instituted an
investigation of his personality. Perhaps it will be futile. But I
shall pursue the inquiry. Until that is finished, I must leave open
the question of filling the vacant space in our January number."
Thacker arose to leave.
"All right, Colonel," he said, as cordially as he could. "You use your
own judgment. If you've really got a scoop or something that will make
'em sit up, run it instead of my stuff. I'll drop in again in about
two weeks. Good luck!"
Colonel Telfair and the magazine promoter shook hands.
Returning a fortnight later, Thacker dropped off a very rocky Pullman
at Toombs City. He found the January number of the magazine made up
and the forms closed.
The vacant space that had been yawning for type was filled by an
article that was headed thus:
SECOND MESSAGE TO CONGRESS
Written for
THE ROSE OF DIXIE
BY
A Member of the Well-known
BULLOCH FAMILY, OF GEORGIA
T. Roosevelt
THE THIRD INGREDIENT
The (so-called) Vallambrosa Apartment-House is not an apartment-house.
It is composed of two old-fashioned, brownstone-front residences
welded into one. The parlor floor of one side is gay with the
wraps and head-gear of a modiste; the other is lugubrious with the
sophistical promises and grisly display of a painless dentist. You
may have a room there for two dollars a week or you may have one for
twenty dollars. Among the Vallambrosa's roomers are stenographers,
musicians, brokers, shop-girls, space-rate writers, art students,
wire-tappers, and other people who lean far over the banister-rail
when the door-bell rings.
This treatise shall have to do with but two of the Vallambrosians -
though meaning no disrespect to the others.
At six o'clock one afternoon Hetty Pepper came back to her third-floor
rear $3.50 room in the Vallambrosa with her nose and chin more sharply
pointed than usual. To be discharged from the department store where
you have been working four years, and with only fifteen cents in your
purse, does have a tendency to make your features appear more finely
chiselled.
And now for Hetty's thumb-nail biography while she climbs the two
flights of stairs.
She walked into the Biggest Store one morning four years before
with seventy-five other girls, applying for a job behind the waist
department counter. The phalanx of wage-earners formed a bewildering
scene of beauty, carrying a total mass of blond hair sufficient to
have justified the horseback gallops of a hundred Lady Godivas.
The capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young, bald-headed man whose task
it was to engage six of the contestants, was aware of a feeling of
suffocation as if he were drowning in a sea of frangipanni, while
white clouds, hand-embroidered, floated about him. And then a sail
hove in sight. Hetty Pepper, homely of countenance, with small,
contemptuous, green eyes and chocolate-colored hair, dressed in a suit
of plain burlap and a common-sense hat, stood before him with every
one of her twenty-nine years of life unmistakably in sight.
"You're on!" shouted the bald-headed young man, and was saved. And
that is how Hetty came to be employed in the Biggest Store. The story
of her rise to an eight-dollar-a-week salary is the combined stories
of Hercules, Joan of Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. You
shall not learn from me the salary that was paid her as a beginner.
There is a sentiment growing about such things, and I want no
millionaire store-proprietors climbing the fire-escape of my
tenement-house to throw dynamite bombs into my skylight boudoir.
The story of Hetty's discharge from the Biggest Store is so nearly a
repetition of her engagement as to be monotonous.
In each department of the store there is an omniscient, omnipresent,
and omnivorous person carrying always a mileage book and a red
necktie, and referred to as a "buyer." The destinies of the girls in
his department who live on (see Bureau of Victual Statistics) - so much
per week are in his hands.
This particular buyer was a capable, cool-eyed, impersonal, young,
bald-headed man. As he walked along the aisles of his department he
seemed to be sailing on a sea of frangipanni, while white clouds,
machine-embroidered, floated around him. Too many sweets bring
surfeit. He looked upon Hetty Pepper's homely countenance, emerald
eyes, and chocolate-colored hair as a welcome oasis of green in a
desert of cloying beauty. In a quiet angle of a counter he pinched her
arm kindly, three inches above the elbow. She slapped him three feet
away with one good blow of her muscular and not especially lily-white
right. So, now you know why Hetty Pepper came to leave the Biggest
Store at thirty minutes' notice, with one dime and a nickel in her
purse.
This morning's quotations list the price of rib beef at six cents per
(butcher's) pound. But on the day that Hetty was "released" by the B.
S. the price was seven and one-half cents. That fact is what makes
this story possible. Otherwise, the extra four cents would have -
But the plot of nearly all the good stories in the world is concerned
with shorts who were unable to cover; so you can find no fault with
this one.
Hetty mounted with her rib beef to her $3.50 third-floor back. One
hot, savory beef-stew for supper, a night's good sleep, and she would
be fit in the morning to apply again for the tasks of Hercules, Joan
of Arc, Una, Job, and Little-Red-Riding-Hood.
In her room she got the granite-ware stew-pan out of the 2x4-foot
china - er - I mean earthenware closet, and began to dig down in a
rat's-nest of paper bags for the potatoes and onions. She came out
with her nose and chin just a little sharper pointed.
There was neither a potato nor an onion. Now, what kind of a beef-stew
can you make out of simply beef? You can make oyster-soup without
oysters, turtle-soup without turtles, coffee-cake without coffee, but
you can't make beef-stew without potatoes and onions.
But rib beef alone, in an emergency, can make an ordinary pine door
look like a wrought-iron gambling-house portal to the wolf. With salt
and pepper and a tablespoonful of flour (first well stirred in a
little cold water) 'twill serve - 'tis not so deep as a lobster à la
Newburg nor so wide as a church festival doughnut; but 'twill serve.
Hetty took her stew-pan to the rear of the third-floor hall. According
to the advertisements of the Vallambrosa there was running water to be
found there. Between you and me and the water-meter, it only ambled
or walked through the faucets; but technicalities have no place here.
There was also a sink where housekeeping roomers often met to dump
their coffee grounds and glare at one another's kimonos.
At this sink Hetty found a girl with heavy, gold-brown, artistic hair
and plaintive eyes, washing two large "Irish" potatoes. Hetty knew the
Vallambrosa as well as any one not owning "double hextra-magnifying
eyes" could compass its mysteries. The kimonos were her encyclopedia,
her "Who's What?" her clearinghouse of news, of goers and comers. From
a rose-pink kimono edged with Nile green she had learned that the
girl with the potatoes was a miniature-painter living in a kind of
attic - or "studio," as they prefer to call it - on the top floor. Hetty
was not certain in her mind what a miniature was; but it certainly
wasn't a house; because house-painters, although they wear splashy
overalls and poke ladders in your face on the street, are known to
indulge in a riotous profusion of food at home.
The potato girl was quite slim and small, and handled her potatoes as
an old bachelor uncle handles a baby who is cutting teeth. She had a
dull shoemaker's knife in her right hand, and she had begun to peel
one of the potatoes with it.
Hetty addressed her in the punctiliously formal tone of one who
intends to be cheerfully familiar with you in the second round.
"Beg pardon," she said, "for butting into what's not my business, but
if you peel them potatoes you lose out. They're new Bermudas. You want
to scrape 'em. Lemme show you."
She took a potato and the knife, and began to demonstrate.
"Oh, thank you," breathed the artist. "I didn't know. And I _did_ hate
to see the thick peeling go; it seemed such a waste. But I thought
they always had to be peeled. When you've got only potatoes to eat,
the peelings count, you know."
"Say, kid," said Hetty, staying her knife, "you ain't up against it,
too, are you?"
The miniature artist smiled starvedly.
"I suppose I am. Art - or, at least, the way I interpret it - doesn't
seem to be much in demand. I have only these potatoes for my dinner.
But they aren't so bad boiled and hot, with a little butter and salt."
"Child," said Hetty, letting a brief smile soften her rigid features,
"Fate has sent me and you together. I've had it handed to me in the
neck, too; but I've got a chunk of meat in my, room as big as a
lap-dog. And I've done everything to get potatoes except pray for 'em.
Let's me and you bunch our commissary departments and make a stew of
'em. We'll cook it in my room. If we only had an onion to go in it!
Say, kid, you haven't got a couple of pennies that've slipped down
into the lining of your last winter's sealskin, have you? I could step
down to the corner and get one at old Giuseppe's stand. A stew without
an onion is worse'n a matinée without candy."
"You may call me Cecilia," said the artist. "No; I spent my last penny
three days ago."
"Then we'll have to cut the onion out instead of slicing it in," said
Hetty. "I'd ask the janitress for one, but I don't want 'em hep just
yet to the fact that I'm pounding the asphalt for another job. But I
wish we did have an onion."
In the shop-girl's room the two began to prepare their supper.
Cecilia's part was to sit on the couch helplessly and beg to be
allowed to do something, in the voice of a cooing ring-dove. Hetty
prepared the rib beef, putting it in cold salted water in the stew-pan
and setting it on the one-burner gas-stove.
"I wish we had an onion," said Hetty, as she scraped the two potatoes.
On the wall opposite the couch was pinned a flaming, gorgeous
advertising picture of one of the new ferry-boats of the P. U. F. F.
Railroad that had been built to cut down the time between Los Angeles
and New York City one-eighth of a minute.
Hetty, turning her head during her continuous monologue, saw
tears running from her guest's eyes as she gazed on the idealized
presentment of the speeding, foam-girdled transport.
"Why, say, Cecilia, kid," said Hetty, poising her knife, "is it as bad
art as that? I ain't a critic; but I thought it kind of brightened
up the room. Of course, a manicure-painter could tell it was a bum
picture in a minute. I'll take it down if you say so. I wish to the
holy Saint Potluck we had an onion."
But the miniature miniature-painter had tumbled down, sobbing, with
her nose indenting the hard-woven drapery of the couch. Something
was here deeper than the artistic temperament offended at crude
lithography.
Hetty knew. She had accepted her rôle long ago. How scant the words
with which we try to describe a single quality of a human being! When
we reach the abstract we are lost. The nearer to Nature that the
babbling of our lips comes, the better do we understand. Figuratively
(let us say), some people are Bosoms, some are Hands, some are Heads,
some are Muscles, some are Feet, some are Backs for burdens.
Hetty was a Shoulder. Hers was a sharp, sinewy shoulder; but all her
life people had laid their heads upon it, metaphorically or actually,
and had left there all or half their troubles. Looking at Life
anatomically, which is as good a way as any, she was preordained to
be a Shoulder. There were few truer collar-bones anywhere than hers.
Hetty was only thirty-three, and she had not yet outlived the little
pang that visited her whenever the head of youth and beauty leaned
upon her for consolation. But one glance in her mirror always served
as an instantaneous pain-killer. So she gave one pale look into the
crinkly old looking-glass on the wall above the gas-stove, turned down
the flame a little lower from the bubbling beef and potatoes, went
over to the couch, and lifted Cecilia's head to its confessional.
"Go on and tell me, honey," she said. "I know now that it ain't art
that's worrying you. You met him on a ferry-boat, didn't you? Go on,
Cecilia, kid, and tell your - your Aunt Hetty about it."
But youth and melancholy must first spend the surplus of sighs and
tears that waft and float the barque of romance to its harbor in the
delectable isles. Presently, through the stringy tendons that formed
the bars of the confessional, the penitent - or was it the glorified
communicant of the sacred flame - told her story without art or
illumination.
"It was only three days ago. I was coming back on the ferry from
Jersey City. Old Mr. Schrum, an art dealer, told me of a rich man in
Newark who wanted a miniature of his daughter painted. I went to see
him and showed him some of my work. When I told him the price would
be fifty dollars he laughed at me like a hyena. He said an enlarged
crayon twenty times the size would cost him only eight dollars.
"I had just enough money to buy my ferry ticket back to New York. I
felt as if I didn't want to live another day. I must have looked as I
felt, for I saw _him_ on the row of seats opposite me, looking at me
as if he understood. He was nice-looking, but oh, above everything
else, he looked kind. When one is tired or unhappy or hopeless,
kindness counts more than anything else.
"When I got so miserable that I couldn't fight against it any longer,
I got up and walked slowly out the rear door of the ferry-boat cabin.
No one was there, and I slipped quickly over the rail and dropped into
the water. Oh, friend Hetty, it was cold, cold!
"For just one moment I wished I was back in the old Vallambrosa,
starving and hoping. And then I got numb, and didn't care. And then I
felt that somebody else was in the water close by me, holding me up.
_He_ had followed me, and jumped in to save me.
"Somebody threw a thing like a big, white doughnut at us, and he made
me put my arms through the hole. Then the ferry-boat backed, and they
pulled us on board. Oh, Hetty, I was so ashamed of my wickedness in
trying to drown myself; and, besides, my hair had all tumbled down and
was sopping wet, and I was such a sight.
"And then some men in blue clothes came around; and he gave them his
card, and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on the
edge of the boat outside the rail, and in leaning over to get it I had
fallen overboard. And then I remembered having read in the papers that
people who try to kill themselves are locked up in cells with people
who try to kill other people, and I was afraid.
"But some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace-room
and got me nearly dry and did up my hair. When the boat landed, _he_
came and put me in a cab. He was all dripping himself, but laughed as
if he thought it was all a joke. He begged me, but I wouldn't tell him
my name nor where I lived, I was so ashamed."
"You were a fool, child," said Hetty, kindly. "Wait till I turn the
light up a bit. I wish to Heaven we had an onion."
"Then he raised his hat," went on Cecilia, "and said: 'Very well. But
I'll find you, anyhow. I'm going to claim my rights of salvage.' Then
he gave money to the cab-driver and told him to take me where I wanted
to go, and walked away. What is 'salvage,' Hetty?"
"The edge of a piece of goods that ain't hemmed," said the shop-girl.
"You must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little hero
boy."
"It's been three days," moaned the miniature-painter, "and he hasn't
found me yet."
"Extend the time," said Hetty. "This is a big town. Think of how many
girls he might have to see soaked in water with their hair down before
he would recognize you. The stew's getting on fine - but oh, for an
onion! I'd even use a piece of garlic if I had it."
The beef and potatoes bubbled merrily, exhaling a mouth-watering savor
that yet lacked something, leaving a hunger on the palate, a haunting,