Part 24 (1/2)
CHAPTER XVI
FRANCES READS MY BOOK.
A great extravagance of mine lies in the fact that I pay my board here, for the sake of Mrs. Milliken, and take a good many of my meals outside, for mine. Strange as it may seem to the inveterately domestic, I enjoy a little table of my own, with a paper or a book beside me and the utter absence of the ”please pa.s.s the b.u.t.ter” or ”I'll trouble you for the hash” of the boarding-house.
Hence, I rose from my chair for another refection outside and debated as to whether I might venture out without my overcoat, when Frieda came out of Frances's room and penetrated mine.
”She is all right now,” I was informed. ”Her headache has quite left her, and Madame Smith has been in to inform her that the shop is to be opened to-morrow. So I have told Frances she had better continue to lie down and have a good rest. I may come in again, later this afternoon, for a cup of tea.”
”You are a million times welcome to it,” I said, ”but you will have to make it yourself. I have to go over to my sister's where there is another blessed birthday. I shall have to go out now and pick out a teddy bear or a Noah's ark. I am afraid they will keep me until late.
Give Frances my love and insist on her going out to-morrow evening with us, to Camus.”
”Very well, I certainly will,” answered Frieda, bending over with much creaking of corset bones. ”What are these books on the floor? You ought to be ashamed of yourself for ill-treating valuable, clean volumes.”
”They may be clean, but I doubt their value,” I said. ”They're only copies of the 'Land o' Love.'”
”What a pretty cover design, but the girl's nose is out of drawing. Sit right down and sign one of them for me and I want to take another to Frances. It will help her to pa.s.s away the time.”
I obeyed, decorating a blank page with my illegible hieroglyphics, and repeated the process on a second copy for Frances, after which I departed.
Goodness knows that I love the whole tribe of my sister's young ones, and my sister herself, and hold her husband in deep regard. He is a hard-working and inoffensive fellow, who means well and goes to church of a Sunday. He proudly introduces me as ”my brother-in-law the author,”
and believes all he sees in his morning paper. Despite all this, I abhor the journey to their bungalow although, once I have reached it, I unquestionably enjoy the atmosphere of serene home life. The infants climb on my knees and wipe their little shoes on my trousers, bless their hearts! To little David, named after me, I was bringing a bat and baseball mitt, with some tin soldiers. He is now six years old and permitted to blow his own nose under his mother's supervision. The pride he takes in this accomplishment is rather touching.
A large box of candies would permit the others to share in my largess, and I arrived at the top of the Palisades laden like a commuter. After the many embraces, my expert advice was sought in regard to the proposed location of an abominable bronze stag, purchased cheap at an auction, and the thirst I was supposed to be dying from was slaked with homemade root beer. Thereafter, I was taken for a walk and made to inspect a new house under construction, that was being erected by an individual who is G.o.dfather to little Philippa. Upon our return, the scratchy phonograph was called upon to contribute to the general entertainment, my sister constantly running in and out of the parlor to the kitchen, where a perspiring straw-headed Swede toiled at the forthcoming dinner.
From this I arose at last, quite happy and slightly dyspeptic. In honor of the day the children were allowed an extra half-hour of grace before being driven off to bed. After peace reigned upstairs, I was consulted at length in regard to my views concerning the future prospects of the sewing-machine trade, in which John is interested, while my sister requested my opinion as to an Easter hat. I finally left, after contributing the wherewithal for a family visit to the circus, and John was so good as to accompany me all the way to the trolley tracks.
They are lovable, dear people, prudent in their expenditure in order that their offspring may be well brought up, and happy in their modest and useful lives. If I were only a successful writer, a maker of best sellers, I should rejoice in the ability to help them carry out their plans and achieve their reasonable ambitions. As it is, I can only a.s.sist Santa Claus in his yearly mission and try, at various time, to bring extra little rays of suns.h.i.+ne to them.
As the trolley and ferryboat brought me home, I had the feeling that the night was far advanced and that I had been on a long journey which rendered the prospect of bed and slumber a highly desirable one. But once in the embrace of the big city, I realized that it was but the shank of the evening and that the hurried life of the town, maker of successes and destroyer of many hopes, was throbbing fast. My watch showed but ten o'clock when I reached my caravanserai, but I climbed up the last steps, carefully, anxious to avoid making any disturbance that might awaken Frances and her little one.
To my surprise I found that her door was still open. She was holding my book, closed, upon her lap, and as she lifted her head I saw her wonderful eyes gazing at me, swimmingly, and she rose with hand outstretched.
”Come in for a moment, David. Yes, leave the door open. Baby Paul is sleeping soundly and will not awaken. Take a chair and let me talk to you about that book. But--but before I speak of it, I want to have a long, long look at you. Yes, it is the same dear old David--you haven't changed a bit. And yet, Dave, you are a great big man. I never knew how big, until I read this volume. I have been at it ever since you left!”
”My dear child, it is all fiction and, I am afraid, not very good.
Jamieson doesn't think very much of it.”
”It makes no difference what he thinks. I know that I haven't been able to keep my eyes away from it since Frieda brought it in. Oh! David, where did you ever find such things to say; how did you ever discover and reveal such depths of feeling, such wonderful truth in the beats of struggling hearts. You should be so proud of yourself, so glad that this book of yours will bring comfort and hope to many. It has made me feel like a new woman, one who has received a message of cheer and gladness.
Thank you, David, for those words written on the fly-leaf, and thank you still more for the strength and the courage those pages have brought me!”
I looked at her, rather stupidly, until I reflected that she had read the volume through the distorting gla.s.ses of her friendliness to me, of the interest she takes in my work.
”My dear,” I told her, ”I am happy indeed that you have been able to gather a little wheat from the chaff of the 'Land o' Love.' You have hypnotized yourself a little into thinking that whatever comes from your friend Dave must be very good. For your sake, as well as mine, and especially for the good of Baby Paul, I wish indeed that your impression may be shared by others.”
”I know it will be! It can't help appealing to ever so many. It is perfectly wonderful. I like your other books, ever so much, but this one is different.”
”That's the trouble,” I informed her.