Part 17 (1/2)

”Well,” said Patrick Kenny, ”yez don't look very dirthy. Charge fifteen cents. Pay in advance.”

”Show me up,” accepted Fairfax, and put the last of Bella's charity into the man's hand.

CHAPTER III

That was May. Five months later, when the Hudson flowed between flaming October sh.o.r.es, and the mists of autumn hung like a golden grail on the air, Fairfax leaned out of the window of the engine-cab and cried to another man, in another cab on the opposite track--

”h.e.l.lo, Sanders; how's your health?”

It was the slang greeting of the time. The engineer responded that he was fine as silk, and rang his bell and pa.s.sed on his rolling way.

Fairfax wore a red s.h.i.+rt, his trousers were thick with oil and grease.

His collar, open at the neck, showed how finely his head was set upon his shoulders, and left free the magnificent column of his throat. Down to his neck came his crisp fair hair, just curling at the ends; his sleeves were up to his elbows and his bare arms were dirty, vigorous and powerful, with the muscles standing out like cords. He never looked at his hands any more, his clever sensitive hands. He had been Joe Mead's fireman for five months, a record ticket for Joe Mead's cab. Fairfax had borne cursing and raging from his chief, borne them with equanimity, feeding into the belly of his engine whatever disgust he felt. Thrown together with these strange men of a different cla.s.s, he learned new things of life, and at first he was as amused as a child at play. He made two dollars a day. This amply fed him and kept him, and he put by, with a miserliness that was out of all keeping with his temperament, every cent he could spare from the necessities of life.

Not that Fairfax had any plans.

From the first opening of his eyes on West Albany, when he had crawled out of the baggage car in the dawn, he shut out his past from himself.

He crushed back even his own ident.i.ty. He earned his bread by the sweat of his brow in the real sense of the word, and for what reason he saved his money he could not have told. He had become a day labourer, a fireman on the New York Central road, and he was a first-rate hand. His figure in the rude, dirty clothes, his bowler always worn on the back of his blonde head, his limp (that big boot had gone hard with him on the day that he applied for a job at the boss's office), all were familiar in Nut Street by this. His voice, his smile, his rare good heart, made him a popular companion, and he was, too, popular with the women.

His miserable reception in New York, the bruises inflicted upon him by Cedersholm and his uncle, had embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of which his humble Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any harm, however. If any harm were done at all--and there is a question even regarding that--it was done to himself, for he crushed down his ambitions, he thrust them out of his heart, and he bit the dust with a feeling of vengeance. He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own world had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. All that his mother knew was that he had gone on to the north of the State, to perfect certain branches of his art, and that it was better for him to be in Albany. Reclining under the vines, she read his letters, smiling, fanning herself with a languid hand.

”Emmy, Master Tony's getting on, getting on.”

”Yas'm, Mis' Bella, I do speck he is.”

”Listen, Emmy.” And Mrs. Fairfax would read aloud to the devoted negro the letters planned, concocted, by her son in his miserable lodgings, letters which cost him the keenest pangs of his life, kind and tender lines; things he would have done if he could; things he had hoped for and knew would never come true; joys he meant to bring her and that he knew she would grow old and never see; success and fame, whose very sound to him now was like the knell of fate. At the end of the letter he said--

”I am studying mechanics. I reckon you'll laugh at me, mother, but they are useful to a sculptor.”

And she had not laughed in the way he meant as she kissed his letter and wet it with her tears.

CHAPTER IV

No Sunday duties took him to the yards, and washed and dressed, shaved and brushed, he became a beautiful man of the world, in a new overcoat and a new sleek hat, and over his hands thick doeskin gloves. He could afford to pay for his clothes, and like this he left Nut Street every Sunday at nine o'clock, not to see West Albany again till midnight. On the seventh day of the week he was a mystery to his chums and his landlady, and if any one in Nut Street had had time to be suspicious and curious they might have given themselves the trouble of following Fairfax. There were not many idlers, however, and no saloons. Drunkards were unwelcome, and Sunday was a day of rest for decent hard workers.

When Antony, in his elegance, came out he used to pa.s.s between fathers of families in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves, if it were warm weather, and between complacent couples, and many of the hands slept all day. The most curious eyes were those of Molly Shannon, the girl at the restaurant, and her eyes were more than curious.

Fairfax had been courteous to her, bidding her good-morning in a way that made her feel as though she were a lady. He had been there for his breakfast and lunch several months until finally Molly Shannon drove him away. This she did not do by her boldness, for she was not bold, but by her comeliness and her s.e.x and her smile. Fairfax fed his Pride in his savage immolation before the monster of iron and steel; by his slavery to work he revenged himself upon his cla.s.s. His Pride grew; he stood up against Fate, and he thought he was doing a very fine thing, when his Pride also stood up in the restaurant when he took his cup of coffee from the red-handed girl of the people, pretty Molly Shannon from Killarney. Fairfax went farther up the street. He found another eating house, and later ate his sandwich on his knees at noon in the cab of his engine.

When Molly Shannon found that he was not coming there for his coffee any more, she grew listless, and doled out food to the other men with a lack of science and interest that won her sharp reproofs and coa.r.s.e jokes.

From her window over the restaurant she watched Mister Fairfax as every Sunday he went limping up the street. Molly watched him, her breast palpitating under the common s.h.i.+rtwaist, and the freckles on the milky white skin died out under the red that rose.

”He's got a girl,” she reflected; ”sure, he's got a girl.”

One Sunday in October, a day of yellow sunlight and autumn air, when Nut Street and the yards and West Albany fringed the country like the hem of an ugly garment, Molly came down and out into the street, and at a distance she followed Fairfax. Fairfax cut down a couple of blocks further on to the main station. He went in and bought a ticket for Albany. He boarded the cars, and Molly followed.

She tracked him at a safe distance up Market Street to Eagle, and the young man walked so slowly that it was easy to keep him in sight. The man pursued by the Irish girl suggested nothing less than a New York Central fireman. He looked like any other well-set-up, well-made young gentleman out on a Sunday morning. In his fas.h.i.+onable coat, his fas.h.i.+onable hat, Molly saw him go through the doors of a stone church whose bells rang solemnly on the October air.