Part 3 (2/2)
The children scattered like a covey of quail; but a pair of little five-year-olds, forgotten by the others, walked on hand in hand, looking into each other's faces, right toward the poor crazed, hunted brute, which trotted slowly toward the children, gnas.h.i.+ng its frothing jaws at sticks and weeds, at everything it met, ready to bury its teeth in the first baby to come within reach.
A young man with a canva.s.ser's portfolio stood behind a fence over which he had jumped to avoid the dog. Suddenly he saw the children, knew their danger, and leaped back into the road. It was like a bull-fighter vaulting the barriers into the perils of the arena,--only it was to save, not to destroy. The dog had pa.s.sed him and was nearer the children than he was. I wondered what he expected to do as I saw him running lightly, swiftly, and yet quietly behind the terrible beast. As he neared the animal, he stooped, and my blood froze as I saw him seize the dog with both hands by the hinder legs. The head curled sidewise and under, and the teeth almost grazed the young man's hands with a vicious, metallic snap. Then we saw what the contest was. The young man, with a powerful circling sweep of his arms, whirled the dog so swiftly about his head that the lank frame swung out in a straight line, and the snap could not be repeated. But what of the end? No muscles could long stand such a strain, and when they yielded, then what?
Then we saw that as he swung his loathsome foe, the young man was gradually approaching the schoolhouse. We saw the horrible snapping head whirl nearer and nearer at every turn to the corner of the building.
Then we saw the young man strike a terrible blow at the stone wall, using the dog as a club; and in a moment I saw the stones splashed with red, and the young man lying on the ground, where the violence of his effort had thrown him, and by him lay the quivering form of what we had fled from. And the young man was James Elkins.
Alice breathed hard as I finished, and stood straight with her chin held high.
”That was fine!” said she. ”I want to see that man!”
CHAPTER IV.
Jim discovers his Coral Island.
There has long been abroad in the world a belief that events which bear some controlling relation to one's destiny are announced by premonition, some spiritual trepidation, some movement of that curtain which cuts off our view of the future. I believe this notion to be false, but feel that it is true; and the manner in which that adventure of mine in the old art gallery and at Auriccio's impressed my mind, and the way in which my memory clung to it, seem to justify my feeling rather than my belief.
Whenever I visited Chicago, I went to the gallery, more in the hope of seeing the girl whose only name to me was ”the Empress” than to gratify my cravings for art. I felt a boundless pity for her--and laughed at myself for taking so seriously an incident which, in all likelihood, she herself dismissed with a few tears, a few retrospective burnings of heart and cheek. But I never saw her. Once I loitered for an hour about the boarding-house with the vine-clad porch, while the boarders (mostly students, I judged) came and went; but though I saw many young girls, the Empress was not among them. And all this time the years were rolling on, and I was permitting my once bright political career to blight and wither by my own neglect, as a growth not worth caring for.
I became a private citizen in due time, but found no comfort in leisure.
I was in those doldrums which beset the politician when rivals justle him from his little eminence. One who, for years, is annually or biennially complimented by the suffrages of even a few thousands of his fellow citizens, and is invited into the penetralia of a great political party, is apt to regard himself, after a while, as peculiarly deserving of the plaudits of the humble and the consideration of the powerful.
Then comes the inevitable hour when p.u.s.s.y finds himself without a corner. The deep disgust for party and politics which then takes possession of him demands change of scene and new surroundings. Any flagging in partisan enthusiasm is sure to be attributed to sore-headedness, and leads to charges of perfidy and thanklessness. Yet, for him, the choice lies between abated zeal and hypocrisy, inasmuch as no man can normally be as zealous for his party as the fanatic into which the candidate or inc.u.mbent converts himself.
Underlying my whole frame of mind was the knowledge that, so far as making a career was concerned, I had wasted several years of my life, and had now to begin anew. Add to this a slight sense of having played an unworthy part in life (although here I was unable to particularize), and a new sense of aloofness from the people with whom I had been for so long on terms of hearty and back-slapping familiarity, and no further reason need be sought for a desire which came mightily upon me to go away and begin life over again in a new _milieu_. In spite of the mild opposition of my wife, this desire grew to a resolve; and I came to look upon myself as a temporary sojourner in my own home.
Such was the state of our affairs, when a letter came from Mr. Elkins (in lieu of the promised visit) urging me to remove to the then obscure but since celebrated town of Lattimore.
”I got to be too rich for Charley Harper's blood,” said the letter, among other things. ”I wanted as much in the way of salary as I could earn, working for myself, and Charley kicked--said the directors wouldn't consent, and that such a salary list would be a black eye for the Frugality and Indemnity if it showed up in its statements. So I quit. I am loan agent for the company here, which gives me a visible means of support, and keeps me from being vagged. But, in confidence, I want to tell you that my main graft here is the putting in operation of my boom-hatching scheme. Come out, and I'll enroll you as a member of the band once more; for this is the coral atoll for me. You ought to get out of that stagnant pond of yours, and come where the natatory medium is fresh, clean, and thickly peopled with suckers, and a new run of 'em coming on right soon. In other words, get into the swim.”
After reading this letter and considering it as a whole, I was so much impressed by it that Lattimore was added to the list of places I meant to visit, on a tour I had planned for myself.
In the West, all roads run to or from Chicago. It is nearer to almost any place by the way of Chicago than by any other route: so Alice and I went to the city by the lake, as the beginning of our prospecting tour.
I took her to the art gallery and showed her just where my two lovers had stood,--telling her the story for the first time. Then she wanted to eat a supper at Auriccio's; and after the play we went there, and I was forced to describe the whole scene over again.
”Didn't she see you at all?” she asked.
”Not at all,” said I.
”You are a good boy,” said my wife, judging me by one act which she approved. ”Kiss me.”
This occurred after we reached our lodgings. I suggested as a change of subject that my next day's engagements took me to the Stock Yards, and I a.s.sumed that she would scarcely wish to accompany me.
”I think I prefer the stores,” said she, ”and the pictures. Maybe _I_ shall have an adventure.”
At the big Exchange Building, I found that the acquaintance whom I sought was absent from his office, and I roamed up and down the corridors in search of him. As usual the gathering here was intensely Western. There were bronzed cattlemen from every range from Amarillo to the Belle Fourche, st.u.r.dy buyers of swine from Iowa and Illinois, sombreroed sheepmen from New Mexico, and vikingesque Swedes from North Dakota. Men there were wearing thousand-dollar diamonds in red flannel s.h.i.+rts, solid gold watch-chains made to imitate bridle-bits, and heavy golden bullocks sliding on horse-hair guards. It pleased me, as such a crowd always does. The laughter was loud but it was free, and the hunted look one sees on State Street and Michigan Avenue was absent.
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