Chapter VI: Part 6

For this little one had the gift of tongues, and from babyhood Dutch and English were simply convertible terms with her--and the adoring father, with cap off, stood and smiled, and smiled, and waved his earth-stained, stumpy hand, and blessed her with all the tender Dutch blessings that he knew, and then put on his cap--took up his load and started on the way that would have been so hard, so ugly, but for those baby kisses that bloomed like flowers on his path and sweetened all his day. When he had gone quite out of sight the little Rosie was returned to the great, Dutch bed to complete her sleep, and in a few moments the mother was crouching between the rows of vegetables, looking like a monster toad, and was weeding--weeding--weeding, until with almost breaking back she began to carry water and sprinkle--sprinkle--sprinkle, and after that the household tasks of other women began--washing--scrubbing--ironing--baking, yet always and ever with it all, there were little, white garments for Rosie, and time to put them on, and when the child outgrew the vegetable basket she had passed a great part of her life in, playing with a few marigolds or a hollyhock flower--she could not have salable ones like mignonette or pinks--the mother feared many things--for, as “Little Knights” (that was what the neighbors called him), explained in slow, back-end-first sentences, the vegetable basket arrangement had been very satisfactory to both parties, and his wife could plant or hoe or weed without anxiety, having simply to put out her hand now and then and pull the basket after her. But now that was all past, and his wife was “full up mit dem fears,” and when questioned as to the nature of the fears that were filling her up, his blue eyes seemed both surprised and reproachful that they could not see for themselves the possible dangers in small Rosie’s path. “In place of first,” he explained, “der was de cleanness--she mighd get dirty de garden in! Den,” his eyes grew round at that, “der vas de red-peppers--she might touch dem and aftervards rup her sveet eyes!” but when at the end of a long list of possibilities, he cried out: “Unt dem pees--dem honey pees--what pite mit dere tails--suppose dey make mit dere stingers on her? Ach Gott! Ach Gott!” and, caught in a linguistic tangle, he fell into deep Dutch, from which he emerged breathless and excited. Now that is a condition no Dutchman will endure, so without apology, he trotted off home to soothe himself with the one smoke he allowed himself each day, and then to--rest? Oh, no, there was much work done in that small house by night as well as by day--and mind, there are old neighbors still to support this statement--they used actually to work in the garden by moonlight--not habitually, but often enough, Heaven knows! And what was the object of all this ceaseless labor--of their astonishing economies?

Before the coming of their baby girl, they had been little more than two patient, dumb beasts of burden. Born and bred to work--they worked--but dully--without hope or special object--but when God had sent into their lives that laughing, pretty thing, and formed her delicately that she might arouse their tenderness, they had changed. They looked at one another, and each, smiling, saw the other anew. They dreamed for her--they hoped now for her--they prayed now heavy, laborious, loving prayers for her. Truly she had been the “locust and wild honey” that fed them in their wilderness--so now it was for her they labored and were therefore never tired.

As the years passed I, who had long since ceased to live in S---- street, often went there to visit my friends who had remained, stopping with them from Saturday till Monday, and these visits kept me still in touch with “Little Knights” and his idol. It seemed strange that Rosie was quite unspoiled by so much adulation. She was a favorite with all the neighbors, was polite and obedient outside her own domain, while within it, an absolute monarch, she ruled with gentlest strength her idolatrous subjects. Derision or contempt shown to them was swiftly and sharply resented by her, while the only time she had to sternly exert her authority was when she made some demand upon the treasury that was for _their_ benefit instead of hers.

The Knights’ Sunday went like this: When it was time for Sunday-school the front door opened (mind you, in any other family of like position in life, that door would have opened for only one of three things--a wedding, a funeral, or the first visit of the clergyman, so think how they honored that mere child)--then big Mrs. Knights appeared and brushed the step over with a cloth and retired from view (a pause), then little Rosie appeared, balancing a moment on the step like one of her own pet, white doves, her many short skirts and her white dress starched to the uttermost limit of rattling stiffness, open-work white stockings and black slippers, with an ankle strap fastened with a gold button, a broad, pink sash about her waist, pink ribbon bows on each long, blond braid, a big leghorn hat secured first by an elastic band, and over that by broad, pink ribbons tied in a large bow under her milk-white chin. In her little, mitted hands she held a testament, and from between its leaves peeped a pink or a rose--a handkerchief the size of a large postage stamp finished her outfit--and so, gravely and with great propriety, she came down the narrow path between the “flox” and “sweet-william,” the “larkspur” and “four o’clocks,” and all the horde of strong-growing, free-blooming flowers of the poor--herself the daintiest flower of them all--and at the gate she turned and kissed her hand to the two heads thrust out at either side of the door--the fresh-shaven face of her father low down on one side, the broad-smiling face of her mother high up on the other--then walked sedately on towards the church, while behind her, the heads gone, the door closed, seemingly of its own volition--to open no more until the next week.

A few minutes later Mrs. Knights appeared at the side door where there was a tiny, _tiny_ little platform, with “scarlet-beans” trained thickly over its morsel of roof. On this porch one chair was carefully placed on Sunday mornings and occupied by Mrs. Knights, arrayed in a white petticoat and white bedgown (as the short, loose garment was called). Her hair was oiled and brushed to a glassy smoothness, a big horn-comb loomed high above her head, and a pair of gold ear-drops, that seemed to have been sold by the yard, dangled from her ears. Her tired, old feet rested in a huge pair of braided list shoes that looked like boats. Once seated, “Little Knights” trotted out with a Bible of a size so prodigious one wondered how it ever found a resting place inside that little bit of a house. Its mighty clasps undone, he placed it on his wife’s lap, and then made another trip and brought out a great pair of spectacles, framed in silver, which he solemnly fitted on her nose, then most carefully and cautiously he adapted himself to such narrow margin of floor space as was left for him, and their service began.

It was with a rather wavering, quavering rendering of an old hymn, after which Mrs. Knights opened the book, and looking over the tops of her glasses--she could not see a word through them, but she felt they loaned her a certain dignity as of office--she found the place, and by the aid of one blunt finger (its stained, cracked nail worn down to the very quick), she made her way with pathetic slowness across the page of frenzied Dutch print. Not that they doubted the saving-power of the English Bible for the English and incidentally for the American sinner, but they felt that their own sins were so peculiarly Dutch in quality that nothing short of a Dutch Bible could save them. Wherefore, Mrs. Knights, each Sunday, with blunt forefinger seemed to dig out words of Holy-writ from the great book, while her small husband carefully stored them in the basket of his memory.

After the chapter had come to its laborious close, they both took breath and wiped their dripping brows, then clasped their hands, bowed their heads and offered each a silent prayer. I had once come upon them so, the bees circling about their gray, old heads, while their prayers, like the perfume of two souls mingling with the perfume of the flowers, rose through the warm air, straight to that great God who had given them Rosie.

And that sweet name encompassed all of good his life contained--health and strength, growing wealth and the respect in which his neighbors held him, and when he would have offered humble thanks for them, instead he blessed God for Rosie.

With a slight trace of that peasant cunning which had been his when the stocking-foot had been his only bank, he tried to hide, as far as possible, his increasing prosperity. He had long owned the double lot and the toy house that made home for him, and it was whispered that certain lots on the outskirts of the town, used by “Little Knights” for a truck-garden, were really his, though the wily Jacobus often, perhaps too often, referred to the fact: “Dat he had paid de rent dem gartens of!” However, the old neighbors to this day tell a story of “Little Knights” touching upon his secretiveness about money.

Rosie, who, by the way was Rosie to all the world except her father--he called her ever and always his Rose or his “Little Rose;” in babyhood, or in womanhood, “My Rose” was the name he gave his idol! When his Rose had reached the age of fourteen, she stood before him one evening, holding a match to his pipe, and when the tobacco glowed evenly all over, she shut down the perforated silver cover, and said suddenly: “Father, I wonder if you can be rich enough to buy me something, an expensive something, too, father?” and the old eyes had fairly danced, and surely in that moment, Jacobus Knights tasted all the sweetness of prosperity. Yet, Jacobus was a Dutchman, and therefore cautious, and so assuming as much doubt as was possible over so absolutely certain a matter, he inquired as to the nature of “dis ting vat made such expense mit itself,” and Rosie, with clear eyes on his face, had answered with a little tremble of anxiety in her voice: “A piano, father.”

And the small father had crushed back a smile, and averted joyous eyes, and had basely suggested that an accordeon “might answer youst as well.”

But clever Rosie noticed he said no word about not affording it, so she instantly assumed a patient look of endurance, saying: “No father, an accordeon will not do; but never mind, I see you are not rich enough yet, I can wait!” and he had hastily broken in on this meekness with: “_You see, you see_, youst noddings, my Rose! How many dimes a hunnert tollars, makes dem bianos mit demselves, all mit der india-rupper overcoats on ’em, too, unt lots of dat moosic pieces sphilt all de top over? All--youst all de nice hair-horse biano stools, too, vat twist round unt round, and make you sick mit yourself--everyting vat goes dat biano mit? _Dat_ is, vat I come rich enough to give mit my Rose!”

But imagine the stupefaction of every soul who knew “Little Knights,” when two weeks later, without a word of his intentions to anyone, he sent men to lay the foundation of a new house on the next-door lot, which was vacant; and to the excited inquiries of his neighbors he _naively_ replied, between puffs of smoke: “Vell, you see now, my Rose, she vant dat biano, unt--(pause)--unt I have to make first de house to put him in--don’t you see mit me?” And the laugh that followed rolled around the town and made him known far and wide as the little, Dutch gardener who built a house for his daughter’s piano.

A few more prosperous years and “Little Knights,” who began to be called “Little Old Knights” now, was watching, with proud eyes, the growing train of Rosie’s lovers. She was a charming girl--clever, well-read, an excellent musician, a perfect little housekeeper, and, best of all, tenderly, bravely loyal to her big, illiterate mother and her short-cut, old father.

She was a milk-white blond--a silvery, flaxen blond, and though tints of mauve and clear, pure blue found favor in her eyes, she still wore pink for her old father’s sake. He had used to say of her in baby days: “My Rose is such a vite, liddle Rose--I like dat she be tied up pink ribbons mit--alvays mit pink!” So now, tied up “mit pink,” she received her young friends in that one-time “holy of holies”--the front room; now termed parlor. With a sort of anguished pride big Mrs. Knights saw sunlight streaming through only thin lace curtains across the new carpet--saw other books than the Bible and family album there--saw flowers and open piano, and oh--oh--the chairs all pulled out from their nice, straight rows against the wall! But then--ach Gott! Rosie knew! And the ringing of the doorbell was as music in the ears of the doting, old pair who sat in the inner room--one knitting, the other smoking--both nodding and smiling and putting severe restraint upon themselves to keep from rushing in with refreshments before greetings were hardly over.

That moment of offering refreshments was a moment of joy and of torture. They would willingly have effaced themselves from the life of their “American” daughter (as they proudly called her), but she had neither friend nor acquaintance who did not know--and through her introduction--her father and mother. With regard to the latter, Rosie had worked a miracle. In two years’ time, by faithful and almost desperate effort, she had taught her mother nine simple English words. They were evidently selected by the astute Rosie with a view to future social requirements. So now Mrs. Knights could, with portentous gasps and moistening brow, say: “How do-do?” “Com’ again!” “Good-bye!” “Ver’ glad!” “Ver’ sorry!” and “My!” And when the moment came for the long-necked bottles of sparkling German wine--the fruit--the sandwiches--the cream-cheese, etc., to appear, the old pair, rejoicing in their hospitality, swelling with pride in Rosie and Rosie’s popularity, yet nearly crushed by embarrassment, appeared, too. And Mrs. Knights--“How do-do?” all round--wilted into a big chair in the corner, from whence she smiled most happily and cast a “My!” of excellent pronunciation into the general conversation now and then, for which her Rosie gave her a dozen kisses afterward.

The bright, laughing girl saw that her father had the prettiest visitor in the room to sit by, and that her own choice of the young men should wait upon her mother, and so, with wonderful tact, she led them into her brighter life, instead of shutting them out into the shamed solitude known to so many lowly parents. Rosie was nineteen when she made her choice. Young Randall had been a child of wealth until, at twenty, his father tried to “corner” something and had been cornered himself and ruined. Then the boy went to work and had been working for six years when he fell in love with Rosie. Never had there been such excitement in a Dutchman’s life before! Little Old Knights was a house-building, present-buying, hand-rubbing, amiable, little lunatic! His wife smiled in her very sleep at night, and lived in her Dutch receipt-book all day, while Rosie had to watch the pair with the eyes of an affectionate lynx to prevent them from buying horse-hair furniture for her future parlor, and large chunks of amethyst or big, diamond-set things for ornaments.

But she managed so well that only a few atrocities crept in among her gifts, and her little home was charming. Many thought that now, as Rosie entertained a good deal and had new friends in her new home, she would ignore the old folks. Not she! Whenever she had anything “on,” from a “coffee-drinking” to an “evening party,” she flew down to the old home and laced her mother into shape, crowding her into a stiff, silk gown, that creaked at each labored breath of its wearer, and when she was in full panoply of war, and Little Old Knights had been turned about and looked over as if he were a boy getting ready for Sunday-school, Rosie kissed them both and took them off to her own home, and set them down in two big chairs with a little table between them, for their spectacles and handkerchiefs and other small belongings--and there, like an old pair of children, they sat and enjoyed all that went on; and when there was dancing, “Old Knights” never failed to indulge in one waltz with his ancient wife--the memory of whose youth must have gone into her feet to make her so light on them still. And while Rosie joined in the laughter this waltz always aroused, there would be a tremor in her voice and she would hold her young husband’s hand close and whisper: “Will you love _me_ like that, Hal, when I have grown old?”

So on radiant wings time flew by, until one morning neighbors heard laughing in “Little Knights’” garden--laughing that continued and continued, and when they went over, “Little Knights” was doing the laughing, with tears running down his cheeks and falling on the prodigious Bible open on his short knees. When questioned, he exclaimed: “She has kom’--all safe, she has kom’! I seen her mit mine eyes--I have tooched her mit dese fingers! De liddle daughter of mine own Rose! Ach, de Almighty Gott is a most goot Gott!” and then he bowed his white head and muttered: “Now let Thy servant depart mit peace!” And so poor, “Little Old Knights” found his cup of joy full to the brim!

And what happens to any cup held in human hands if filled to the brim? It runs over--and there is cruel loss! And so it came to pass that Rosie’s little one stayed with them just long enough to smile a recognition of her girlish mother’s face, and then some sweet, strong call came from the “beyond” that baby had heard and answered--and they were left to wonder at the awful void that small absence made in all their lives.

Poor, Old Knights! Tight in his arms he held the tiny, coffined dead--moaning over and over: “My liddle pud--my Rose’s liddle pud!”--until that sad moment when, by sheer force, they took the wee, dead thing from him, to hide it away beneath the flowers and the grasses.

Time passed slowly now. Rosie, very gentle--very tender of others--was sad, so sad. That was not natural to her--so all rejoiced when hope once more shone in her face--and all was thankful when Little Old Knights trotted from door to door with the news that his Rose had “anodder liddle daughter--so like--ach Gott! so like de first--as never yet dey saw!”

Rosie’s joy was great, but it was not the laughing, unthinking joy of other days. She felt anxieties and fears. She dreaded this and that, but her silvery blond baby was so strong and well, and grew so fast, and “crowed” and laughed, and romped with father and grandfather, and stood so strong upon her little legs that fears had to give way to confidence, and her heart bounded with triumph when she heard the baby voice, cry imperatively; “Ma--ma! ma--ma!”

One day in particular Rosie always remembered--she had toiled for a good hour at training baby to say: “Pa--pa,” when the father had come from the office--and when he came the baby had stretched out her arms to him, looked back roguishly at Rosie, and then fairly screamed: “Ma--ma! ma--ma!” and they had all laughed and laughed! Good God! how easy it is for a baby to fill a happy home with merriment! And that very night “croup” had clutched with murderous fingers the little throat that was used to swell with laughter as a bird’s throat swells with song--and darkness and silence came upon the house.

Little Knights--poor, broken, Little Knights--like a small, gray shadow, flitted back and forth between the two stricken homes. At one moment he had blasphemed in his misery. His Rose had been lying on his breast and she had wrung her hands and lifted her tortured eyes to his and cried: “Father, what have I done? Think back--think hard! What wickedness did I do, that God should punish me so cruelly? Did I lie? Did I bear false witness against anyone? Think father--think for me, dear!”

And then he had lifted up his voice against Almighty God and cursed his work--and now he remembered his words and shivered, for, with creeping horror, he felt that there was something approaching him more terrible even than the loss of the second little bud of love and hope--Rose! Rose--his worshiped Rose--who wept not--who thought no more for others’ comforts--who sat motionless for long hours at a time, had been taken possession of by a grotesquely horrible idea that the husband she loved so was trying to put her legally away, because her children died! And she would hold his hands and beg piteously that he should wait for her to die!--that she would not be long about it now! And the poor husband would kneel at her feet and pour out his love and grief, but all in vain!

Then she would lay her head on “Little Knights’” breast and tell him to take her away before the new wife came! He felt what was coming, and believed _his_ blasphemy had brought destruction upon her when his Rose became quite mad! At first he tried to take his life, but Mrs. Knights seemed to have eyes all over--he could not escape them. Then, suddenly, he cast himself--helpless, hopeless, almost heartbroken, at the “Blessed Feet,” asking nothing for himself, but entreating mercy for his Rose!--so innocent, so good! Bye and bye he ceased to bargain with the Lord, and bowed his head, and with grief-shaken voice, said simply: “Thy will, not mine, O Gott!” and straight a gleam of sunlight came back into his life. Rose--his beloved Rose--had recovered her reason! “Little Knights” held her in his arms and kissed the weary eyes and drooping lips--and blessed God for her! but knew in his heart he would never again see his white Rose “tied up mit pink ribbons.”

And time goes on and on, and Rose, gentle, kind, a very angel of mercy to the poor, devoted to her husband and her parents--rarely smiling--never laughing--shivers at the sight of a blond baby. Four years had passed after her second loss, and her silence was deceiving them all. I think, when one Sunday in church a strange, little, restless creature in her pew crept along the seat and put its baby hand on hers, and poor Rosie at that touch had fainted dead away, after that they understood.

One day I saw “Little Knights” standing uncovered at the side of two tiny graves. A small white stone at their head had carved upon it two rosebuds and beneath, three words, clear and plain: “Our little buds!” I murmured the words half aloud, and “Little Knights,” with tears on his cheeks, said: “Yays, yays--youst liddle puds--but, oh, whad sweet, liddle puds dey were! Gott give me youst von Rose--full bloomed unt perfect--but dese puds? _No! no!_ He say dey may not bloom here!”

He looked up into the clear, far, far blue, and smiled and nodded, and said, very low: “Oop dere--I think He make ’em bloom out full--dem puds! I like I can see dat! I don’t want to leaf my Rose--I stay here as long as she stay--but I vant so much to see my liddle puds bloom!” and then he placed on each wee grave a beautiful rosebud, and trotted away home to his good, old wife and his adored Rosie!

“Let me see,” I added, “this is Saturday--is it not? Well, to-morrow, before four o’clock in the afternoon, should you go to W---- Cemetery, you would see the ‘little hop o’ my thumb’ I pointed out to you a while ago come trotting in, holding two beautiful, exquisitely beautiful, rosebuds in his hand; would see him make his way to those two tiny graves, and without shame, fall on his knees, and with one arm stretched across the graves, humbly pray. Then kissing both buds, he would place one on each grave--then, with falling tears, leave the cemetery--and that has been done and will be done, winter as well as summer, by this poor, faithful ‘Little Old Knights.’”

I glanced at my companion and was amazed to see her eyes were brimming, and as she dashed the tears away, the shameless little turncoat cried--“And do you now tell me you can’t see poetry in life--when you have known a man like that? Why, there is all the poetry of ‘fatherhood’ right before your eyes!”

And to this day she wonders why I laughed so long and heartily.

The Ambition of MacIlhenny

The Ambition of MacIlhenny

After mentioning that last name it seems like rank waste of time to say his first name was Sandy. He couldn’t help it, his parents couldn’t help it, no one could help it; one name follows the other naturally.

Well, then, being Sandy MacIlhenny, of course he was Scotch. I mention it for mere form’s sake, as you knew it beforehand, just as you knew what his first name was. But, fortunately for us all, he had lived in America so many years that he had lost or thrown away his dialect, and the only thing in his speech that could suggest his native heath was the marked preference for the letter “u” instead of “i” in whisky, (and I think, myself, “whusky” has a more filling sound) and a “burring,” a b’r’r’r to his “r’s,” as though a very large, bewildered “bumble-bee” were blundering about the end of his broad tongue, and then bumping back to the roof of his mouth.

Poor MacIlhenny’s life was a tragedy, and yet it was played, to the very last act, to an accompaniment of jeers and laughter--not malicious, not bitter, but simple, thoughtless laughter.

A description of his personal appearance might, I think, go a good way toward explaining the cause of that general laughter. Had he been simply ugly, all had been well--there’s nothing injurious in ugliness; it may even be a power. He was worse than that. In our English language there is a word that may have been created at the very moment of Sandy’s birth, for the express use of those wishing to describe him perfectly but briefly--that word is “grotesque.”

He was tall, very tall, with a sudden, rounding droop of the shoulders that gave him the look of a button-hook or interrogation point, while his thickness through the body was about that of a choice, salt codfish. If he was furnished with the usual number of internal organs they must have been pressed like autumn leaves in a dictionary, or else he did not wear them all at one time; that’s how thin he was. Then he was the only tall man I ever saw pacing through life on bowed-legs. No, not knock-kneed! Sandy’s legs were bowed to a roundness that let one see, at a glance, just how a picture of certain portions of the landscape would look in a perfectly round frame. No man on earth could command respect while standing on a pair of legs like Sandy’s, unless they were concealed beneath the protecting petticoat of church or college. He had very high cheek-bones, across which the skin was drawn so tightly that they looked like a pair of unexpected knuckles. His chin was long and straight, without the slightest indentation or curve about it. His nose shared in the general lengthiness and was thin and pointed, while, owing to the narrowness of his entire structural plan, each small, greenish-blue eye turned inwardly and gazed with fixed resentment at the intervening bridge that seemed to be crowding them.

And these cruelly crossed eyes made MacIlhenny a veritable joy to the street boys, who would follow him, performing warlike dances, and then rush before him and wait at street corners with ostentatiously crossed forefingers between which they gravely spat to avert the ill-luck his glance might put upon them.

Poor man! In no limb, no feature had he been spared--so that the final touch of common, coarse ugliness was found in the shining baldness of the top of his head, and the little flounce of brick-red hair with which he seemed to be modestly trying to cover its startling nudity.

With such a body to dwell in, one can hardly wonder that his mind should become distorted and develop only in one direction, as it were, and such a direction, for the ambition of MacIlhenny, this poor, cross-eyed, bowlegged Scotchman of the lower laboring class--this excellent cutter of stone, was to be the greatest _tragic-actor_ of his day!

Nor was his ambition of the mere “I wish I were!” or “I would like to be!” order. It was a devouring passion.

A strong word, “devouring,” but since Webster says it means, among other things, “to consume ravenously, to prey upon, to swallow up, to appropriate greedily,” it is the right word, for his mad ambition, even in its beginning, appropriated greedily all his small savings, all his spare time. It consumed his sense of duty toward his wife--he had no sense of the ridiculous to consume. It preyed upon his heart as well as his mind, and finally it swallowed up his very life.

Many of the old acting plays he knew by heart, had memorized literally from cover to cover, while his knowledge of Shakespeare’s unacted plays was greater than most actors’ knowledge of the acting ones. Quite naturally he was given over to the habit of quoting, in season and out of season, and it was an indulgence in this habit that brought the stonecutter into touch with the actors of the city.

There was a saloon not far from the theatre, and MacIlhenny, being at work near by, went in one noon for his mid-day beer. There was a party of actors there eagerly discussing the morning news of the death of one of their profession, a very well known and successful actor. Now, as they all knew, one of this party had been the envious enemy of the dead man, and now, instead of a respectful silence, they were astonished to see him assuming deep grief. There was a great pulling of moustaches and exchanging of glances, but no one replied, and the hypocrite burst out again, first with fulsome praise, and then with exaggerated expressions of sorrow. The last word was barely spoken, when a voice with a burr in it gravely and most distinctly remarked: “The tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow!”

There was an instant of surprised silence, in which every one recognized the exquisite fitness of the quotation, and then a roar of laughter--another and another! Many beers were thrust upon the Scotch stonecutter, who knew his Shakespeare so well--and--and--oh! poor MacIlhenny! Straightway he neglected his work; he loitered too long at his nooning. He could not tear himself away from the actors, who listened to his quotations and laughed at his antics, as children might laugh at the capers of a monkey. But MacIlhenny left them with a wild gleam in his poor, crossed eyes, with jumping, twitching muscles about his thin lips, fairly drunk with excitement.

It was on one of these occasions that he saw his landlord ahead of him in the public street--a rotund, little person who seemed to have had one story left off when he was built. He knew it, too, and tried, with piled up dignity and high silk hat, to make up the missing height. And it was to this dignified, black-croated, slow-moving, old gentleman that MacIlhenny roared: “Turn, hell-hound, turn! Turn, I say! I want to hand you me month’s rent and save a trip to your house to-morrow!”

That was one of his out of season quotations, for the dignified old party was no hell-hound, but MacIlhenny had just been discussing Macbeth, and showing how poorly Mr. Booth understood that character, admitting that the “laddie did his best, and meant well, still he (MacIlhenny) was the one man living who had got _inside_ the part”!

Well along in the season, one of the actors was to take a benefit, and as he was not much of a favorite with the public, he was greatly worried about arranging an attractive “bill.” Perhaps I should say that when one takes “a benefit” the fact is announced on the theatre’s bills. The “beneficiary” has the privilege of selecting the play for that special performance, and on that one night, he or she receives one-half, or one-third of the gross receipts of the house, by which he is benefited (perhaps), hence the term, “To take a benefit!”

A couple of weeks before, at the “leading” man’s benefit, there had been several volunteers, among them the manager’s young daughter, who sang for him, and in MacIlhenny’s presence, the worried actor was mourning because there was no one to volunteer to assist him, when up rose Sandy MacIlhenny and offered _his_ services. Those who were farthest away writhed in quiet laughter, while those who were near him suffered silently. In that silence the stonecutter read dread of a rival, and he hastened to dispel all anxiety by saying, soothingly: “Don’t misunderstand me, young man! You have nothing to fear! I do not ask to play a ‘part’ in your play--since the public could then have neither eye nor ear for any man but me--and I’d not extinguish anyone’s light on his benefit--but I’ll do a recitation or a reading-like, for you--so ‘Put money in thy purse, Cassio,’ and not injure your standing as an actor!”

It was a trying moment. They liked the funny, old chap, and did not wish to hurt his feelings--but good Heavens! the idea of turning him loose before an audience! Again came the voice of MacIlhenny, with the inevitable quotation: “Why whisper you--and answer not, my lords?”

A laugh followed, and the tormented actor asked: “Well, Sandy man, what on earth do you propose to read or recite?”

“Why,” answered he, “since you will be doing a tragedy, and I have no wish to outshine you in any way, I’ll just give them the ‘Trial Scene’ from ‘Pickwick.’”

Through the storm of merriment that followed one or two voices cried: “Let him do it! Let him do it! It will be great!” And just then, at the glass door of the saloon, a tall, gaunt woman appeared. She was one of that body of black-bombazine women who are never ragged, but are always rusty--who all appear of the same age, as they all seem to have passed with reluctant feet their fiftieth birthday. She tapped with a black cotton forefinger on the glass, and MacIlhenny went to her at once, and spoke with her a few moments--and one exclaimed: “The Two Dromios!” For indeed had it not been for her straight eyes, she might have been Sandy’s twin. When he returned some one said: “Your wife, MacIlhenny?”

“Aye,” he said, “aye--and though I don’t claim she’s a beauty, yet ‘I’ll give no blemish to her honor--none!’” At which they howled with delight, and when they were tired of pounding one another, the voice arose again: “Let him go on--oh, let him go on!” and another added: “Yes, let him go on, just to see how many he’ll kill before he gets off again!”

And so it happened that Sandy MacIlhenny, stonecutter by the grace of God, became, by the cruel whim of man, an actor, and was duly announced on the “benefit-bills” to read the “Trial Scene” from “Pickwick.”

Alas, “those whom the Gods will destroy, they first make mad!” It is an ancient promise, and so truly was it kept with this their chosen victim, that on the dark and fatal night that was the beginning of the end for him, poor MacIlhenny saw the radiant dawn of a superb success.

The night came, and a fairly good-sized audience was present. Sandy’s reading was placed between the first and second plays, and a more ludicrous figure never appeared before the public. By some mysterious process he had forced his widely bowed-legs into a pair of very narrow, straight-cut trousers. They were of an unsympathetic nature, and as he wore low-cut shoes, they basely betrayed about two inches of white, womany-looking stockings, thus giving a strong suggestion of impropriety to his whole “make-up.”

His “wescut,” as he called it, he had brought, as he proudly declared, from Scotland, and the actors, as with one voice, had cried: “It looks the part, Sandy, it looks it!”

It was a short-waisted, low-necked vest of a plaid (of course) of red and green and blue and yellow, and the greatest of these was red, and it was velvet, and it had two crowded rows of shining, brass buttons. With quite unnecessary candor, his shirt proclaimed, through dragging wrinkle and straggling band, that it was of domestic manufacture; while an ancient black satin stock nearly choked the life out of him. And his hair--oh, Sandy, Sandy! His wife had curled it on a very small iron, and had then drawn the comb through it, thus setting it a-flying in a wild, red fuzz on whose edges the gaslight glittered, until he looked like some absurd, old Saint with his halo falling off backward!

As this figure of fun appeared, there was a ripple of laughter, and in a few minutes--in the expressive slang of to-day--the audience were “on” to him. The laughter grew and grew--and then that strange _strain_ of cruelty, that has come down to us from our ancient barbaric forefathers, and is so much easier to arouse in a crowd than in a single individual, was all alive. They thought they recognized a victim, and they rose to the occasion. They _baited_ him; they bombarded him with satirical applause; they demanded certain passages over again; they addressed him as Mr. Buz-fuz, and they had just reached the point of throwing things when the reading ended.

As MacIlhenny had no sense of the ridiculous, he could not distinguish the difference between being laughed _at_ and being laughed _with_, so it was all like fragrant incense to him, and he came off the stage, his crossed eyes blazing at the bridge of his nose, on each cheek bone a spot of scarlet and a burr on his tongue that made his first words of triumph utterly incomprehensible to those about him. Two of us there were who drew aside, and pitying him, spoke him fair and respectfully, but the others, meaning no harm, carrying on a jest, congratulated him extravagantly, and when he went out from the theatre that night the promise of the gods had been fulfilled, for MacIlhenny was literally mad!

He never did another stroke of work. His kit of tools became strangers to him. He touched chisel and mallet but once more, and that was when he pawned them that he might buy a play-book, and a little bread, with which to quiet for a moment the two devils who tormented him, one gnawing in his brain, the other at his stomach.

In going to and from the theatre I passed the tiny, three-roomed cottage the MacIlhennys occupied, and morning and evening I could hear his high, rasping voice declaiming, ranting, pouring forth pages of old plays, while through the window I could see him brandishing a poker for a sword, and wildly rumpling his little, red flounce of hair whenever he pronounced a curse--whether he was Lear or Richelieu or Sir Giles, it mattered not, he dragged all curses from the roots of his thin, red hair.

Poor Mrs. Sandy had descended from her former state of bombazine, and was daily seen in black cotton, going out to jobs of washing or office-cleaning, so her neighbors told me. And once, when they missed her comfortable blanket-shawl and noticed that she shivered through the streets in an old Stella shawl, which was a creation of thin cashmere meant for summer only, they rashly spoke the sympathy they felt, and their condemnation of MacIlhenny’s course.

It was the first time and likewise it was every other time, including the _last_ time they so presumed. She listened in stony silence, and then with bitter pride and icy resentment in every look and word, she demanded: “What else shall my man do? Is it for the like of him to be pounding stone forever, and he the finest actor-man in all the world to-day?”

Now Mrs. MacIlhenny was a Presbyterian of a blueness like unto indigo, and of a narrowness inconceivable--who have never in her life entered a theatre. Therefore it was but natural that one of the surprised women should ask: “But how do you know that?” And she made answer--oh! loving, loyal, old Scottish wife--with withering scorn and infinite conviction: “Why, has the man na’ telled me so hissel’?” and so went her hard way.

For many weeks MacIlhenny had made the manager’s life a burden to him--asking, praying, demanding an engagement. “Why, man,” he would say, “did you not see the public at my very feet--did you not hear their acclamations, and you know right well that in the absence of garlands and flowers they would have tossed to me anything their hands came upon? What are you afraid of? The enmity of your wee bit stars! I’ll see that you suffer no loss!”

Then steady disappointment told upon him. His temper began to change--he grew sullen, suspicious, and began to tell strange tales of being followed at night by certain actors--generally stars. No man could call Sandy MacIlhenny a sponge or beat. When he reached the point where he could not extend a general invitation to those present to drink--he ceased to share in the general invitations of others. And when he could no longer pay his own footing, he no longer entered the saloon, but loitered outside to talk to the actors. Imagining things were not well with him, the actor for whom MacIlhenny had read asked him to accept some payment, but with ever-ready quotation, Sandy refused, gravely repeating: “There’s none can truly say he gives--if he receives!”

Then even the outside visits grew far apart, and through my passing of his door I was the only one who knew anything of him, and I knew so little, dear Heaven! so little! Only that he studied, rehearsed, declaimed! I did not know how many, _many_ days passed without bringing Mrs. Sandy any job of work, and their pride-sealed lips made no complaint. The old Scotch couple were not unlike a pair of sharp, old razors--perfectly harmless if left alone in their own case, but very unsafe things for general handling--and so in the midst of plenty, they suffered the pangs--the gnawing pangs--of hunger for weary days and wearier nights, and no one knew!

One spring-like day, as I passed the cottage--the window being raised--I heard MacIlhenny’s voice at some distance, and recognized the lines of Woolsey in Henry VIII.: “Had I but served my God, with half the zeal that I have served--have served--,” he stopped--so did I. Some change in his voice held me! What was it? It was weak and husky, to be sure; but there was something else, some force, some thrill, some strange quality. Again the voice rose: “Had I but served my God with half the zeal that I have served--have served--,” almost unconsciously I gave the words, “My King,” and he, without even turning his face, took it up, saying “Aye, aye! ‘My King--he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies!’” and he laughed. As I hurried on, in all my nerves there was a creeping fear, for in his voice I had felt the subtle difference between ranting and _raving_--had felt the man was mad! And that very morning an actor mentioned him, saying he had seen him in liquor. “Oh, no,” I answered, “MacIlhenny never drinks!”

“Well,” insisted the actor, “when a man staggers in his walk and talks to himself on the public street, it looks as if he had been drinking too much rye.” And another standing by, laughingly said: “Perhaps the old chap has eaten too little, instead of drinking too much!”

Such cruel truths are sometimes said in jest. A few days later, having only to appear in the farce, I was quite late in going to the theatre, and as I neared the cottage, I saw lamplight streaming from its window, and heard Sandy reciting, as usual. But there was some other noise. His words, too, came in gusts and gasps, and I said to myself: “Why, that sounds exactly like two men rehearsing a combat for Richard or Macbeth!” The cottage was flush with the sidewalk and, as I came opposite the window, I could not help looking in, and there I stood and stared, for in the center of the room old Sandy and his wife were struggling desperately for the possession of a hatchet which he held! “Sandy!” she cried, “Sandy!” and all the time Macbeth’s lines poured from his lips: “They have tied me to a stake!” Almost he wrenched himself free from her: “I cannot fly, and bear-like, I must fight the course!”

At that moment his wife tore the hatchet from his hand and flung it across the room. He plunged forward to recover it, but in a twinkling she had a grip upon his arms just above each elbow, and next moment she had shoved him into the chair close to the window, and leaning over him, in spite of his writhings, held him tight.

She must have felt my gaze, for suddenly she turned her white face and saw me. Into her eyes there came both fear and furious anger, and then, without loosing her hold for one moment on Sandy’s arms, she thrust her face forward, and catching the shade between her teeth, she fiercely dragged it down! And though the rebuff was sharp as a blow in the face, yet for a moment more I stood staring, and saw on the white shade a black shadow-woman bending over and holding fast a shadow-man, and, as a kaleidoscope responds to a touch, at a single movement these shadows blurred, parted, joined again, and this time, though she still held him close, the shadow-woman was on her knees, and her head was on the breast of the shadow-man!--and ashamed to have watched so long, I hurried away and said to myself: “To-morrow I will go there, and sharp words shall not drive me away, until I learn by what route help can reach them!”

Next day I stood and rapped and rapped, but no one answered to my rapping. The house was very quiet, the room seemed empty, but when I carefully looked I saw a little smoke rising from the chimney. The following day the shade was down--I saw no smoke--but I was obstinate, and I went around to the back door and knocked there, and was instantly met by a white-faced “fury!”

“So,” she cried, “you have come to spy for them! Well, take them the news! Their work is done! They have no one now to fear--he’s gone! He that was greater than them all! Come!” dragging me by main force into the room and to the bed-room door: “See for yourself how he lies there, dead of slow starvation!” One forced glance I gave at the long, long, rigid outline on the bed, but even that forced glance caught, mockingly peeping from under the dead man’s pillow, a yellow-covered play-book.

Wrenching myself away from the sight, I turned, and putting my arms about her trembling, old body, I held her close and said: “Oh, you poor wife! you poor, poor wife!”

She stood within my circling arms quite still for an instant, then suddenly her hard face broke into convulsive weeping. She thrust me from her, gasping: “Don’t--don’t! I say!” and fled to him, while I rushed from the house bearing my ill-news.

Everyone was shocked, and one was wounded, that Sandy had not asked his help. He did not understand the sturdy pride of the old pair who accepted nothing they had not earned and asked of the world but one thing, and that was a decent privacy to suffer in.

Three of the actors went at once to the house, the one who had felt hurt, a gentle and kindly soul, acting as spokesman. They offered help to her and burial for Sandy, but they were met with such invective and imprecation as fairly stunned them, and though, by their secret help, they later on saved poor MacIlhenny from the Potter’s Field, they were compelled to beat a retreat before his frenzied widow.

With bitter sarcasm she invited one to enter and “bring a brush and see if he could find in that house one crumb of bread!” She told them exactly “how many weeks a man could live upon a kit of tools pawned one by one;” she reviled them as “thieves” for stealing her husband’s “great thoughts and ideas of acting;” jeered at them for “cowards,” that they had not “dared to stab him,” though they had “dogged his steps with evil intent many a dark night;” hailed them as “hypocrites,” because they hid their joy and, pretending grief, came here and offered “decent burial”--and as they slowly withdrew, she stood upon her doorstep and called after them: “Hypocrites! hypocrites! You starved him to slow death--and he was broken-hearted!”

The word seemed to catch her own ear. She paused--slowly she repeated, “broken-hearted!” Then suddenly she caught the clue--flung her gaunt arms wide--she lifted her tortured eyes to the sky, and with a burst of bitter triumph, cried: “But a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt Thou not despise!”

And hearing that splendid declaration--that so thrills with hope!--those who had all unintentionally worked her woe, bowed their heads and breathed a quick--Amen!

John Hickey: Coachman

John Hickey: Coachman

“This is to certify that the bearer, John Hickey, five years in my
employ, is as honest a man as ever strode a horse.

“(Signed), MCDOWELL, General.”

The bearer, John Hickey, stood tall, straight and uncovered before me, while I read the above recommendation. There were several others, but I never looked at them. I knew something of “McDowell, General,” in California, and I was persuaded that a man who served him for five years possessed something more than “honesty” in the outfit of his virtues.

But he had, in my opinion, received a still better recommendation at the very moment of his coming into our lives, on that bright summer morning. I had been sitting on the front porch with a dog on each side of me--that being my usual allowance. Both these dogs--Maida and Sancho--yearned with a great yearning to exterminate the whole race of organ-grinders. They also had a profound dislike for that rather large body of men and women who move back and forth on the earth’s surface carrying bundles. Therein lay their only fault; otherwise, they were good, honest, self-respecting dogs. And it must be admitted that this peculiarity of theirs helped to keep things lively about the place and our blood in quick circulation. Therefore, when John Hickey entered the gates, carrying an unusually large valise, there was a roar and a rush before I could form one word of command or entreaty. The blazing eyes and white, uncovered fangs of the dogs told so plainly of their fell intention of reducing him and his valise to a condition resembling desiccated codfish, that anyone might have been frightened. But before they reached him I heard a calm voice, and an unmistakable Irish one, saying: “Well, well! What is it now? What is it?”

Lightning could not have stopped them quicker. Their heads lowered, their tails sagged down in a shamed sort of a way. They stretched their heads out and sniffed him a moment. Then, with a wild yelp of joy, Sancho, with slavering jaws, bounded at his breast, striking staggering blows by way of welcome, while Maida, the fierce, was standing erect on hind legs at his side, kissing his protesting hands, and digging with both great paws in his side. At last they subsided a little. He stood, showing the traces of their rapturous welcome, while they sat at his feet, and looking into his face, told him, with shining, loving eyes and excited beating of their tails, that he was the very fellow they had been searching forever since the seal of their puppyhood’s blindness had fallen from their foolish, blue eyes.