Books: Life at High Tide
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Various >> Life at High Tide
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This had been said by an eminent scientist who had addressed his
graduating class. Swan had heard it then and remembered it now. He
clearly remembered that hot June morning ten years ago. Some young
maple leaves had made a lovely pattern on the blue northern sky
outside the uncurtained windows of the lecture-hall. He remembered
that he had looked through the window and vowed that he would never
give up.
He organized two bands of men, one to work by moonlight and one by
sunlight; but it was necessary for him to overlook them both, day and
night, so it happened that there were just two hours in the
twenty-four when he could find any rest. This was when the daily
tropical storm broke, late in the afternoon, and all the workmen
scampered for shelter. Swan crawled into a shanty the men had put up
to hold their tools, and wrapping himself in a blanket, slept until
the storm was over. That is to say, for three or four times he slept,
but gradually he found it impossible to get any rest, and nobody knew
the agonies he endured fighting off the fever, which he felt had
marked him for its own. He never looked forward longer than twelve
hours, thinking always that the next day would decide his fate, and
the next day never did. "If I can keep it off till to-morrow, I guess
it won't come back," he repeated, mechanically, standing in the
moonlight and dosing himself and bossing the men. But in the morning
there was never any abatement in those deadly symptoms which told him
that the period of incubation would soon be over; and it almost seemed
to him as if his cruel mistress was saving him in some miraculous way
to complete her work, for it was not until the evening of the ninth
day, when the railroad was finished and the last man paid off, that
his temperature rose to fever-heat, his pulse quickened, and his
tongue became congested, and this demon of the tropical swamp claimed
him for its own.
Early on the morning of the 25th, a Pacific mail-steamer touched at
the little port of Zacatula, and a man was put off who came down from
San Francisco to do business for the company in the event of the
railroad not being completed. He was greatly astonished when Pilchard
showed him that the last day's work had been done.
"Then," said the agent, mopping his perspiring bald head, "we may say
that you've carried out the contract to the letter, to the very
minute. You say you only paid off the men last night?"
"Yes," answered Pilchard, with his engaging smile, and casting a
possessive glance down the front of his white trousers. "And it was an
awful rush to get the job done." But in spite of Pilchard's sleek
figure and social smile, he looked pale that morning. The hot sunlight
that bathed the end of the dock met no responsive glow in his cheeks.
The agent hung his handkerchief over the top of a post to dry it, and
looked more closely at his companion. "Anything the matter?" he asked,
kindly. "You certainly haven't lost anything on the job?"
"No--no." Pilchard brought out that ever-ready smile that was so
delightful. "But it's about time to go home. This is a terrible
climate. We've lost every white man that came down, eleven all told,
except myself and--and--one other, who's dying over in that shed now.
Maybe--maybe--he's dead--" Pilchard jerked with his thumb towards a
shanty just where the docks joined the land....
* * * * *
In this rude shanty, knocked together by the workmen to hold their
tools, on a heap of sacks and blankets, Swan lay as he had dropped the
night before. Pilchard had found him there, and the full moon coming
in at the wide opening had revealed a fearful sight--Swan in the
throes of terrific fever, his face scarlet, his eyes ferrety and
congested, and his swollen tongue lolling between his lips. When he
saw Pilchard he asked in a strange voice for water. Pilchard brought
him some and felt his forehead. It seemed on fire.
"Pilchard," began Swan, in a deliberate voice, as if he were trying to
fight off the delirium, "the swamp got into me, after all. I've taken
the fever."
Pilchard, appalled by the terrible sight before him, and the things it
suggested, which he could not help but see, leaned against the rude
wall, and for once his self-possession deserted him. "Swan," he
faltered, "Swan--for God's sake--"
"Hush," Swan interposed, in that same deliberate voice. "Don't lose
your head. I'm keeping mine. Am I talking sense?"
"Yes, yes, Swan. Perfectly correctly."
"Then I'll tell you what to do." Swan spoke more and more slowly as
the fire mounted to his brain and besieged it. "There's every symptom
of fever. You can't deny that."
"Symptoms, Swan? I don't see any. You're worn out, poor fellow. That's
all."
"Then what's this?" Swan opened his mouth and showed his scarlet
tongue. "And this?" He tore open the breast of his shirt and showed
the congested condition of his skin. "But I'll fight death as I fought
the fever! I'm not going to die. There's too much for me to do in the
world! I'll be a great engineer. I'll make her proud. I vowed it when
we looked out over the waves and I wanted to take her in my arms. See
here!" and suddenly seizing a pickaxe from the ground beside him, he
swung it around his head and sent it whizzing past Pilchard's ear, out
through the opening of the shanty. "I've got my muscle and I've got my
brain and I'll keep my life. I deserve to live. I deserve it as
payment for putting the job through. I'll keep my wife here, too, here
in the engine-room, with the pines behind us, and I can look after the
men then. Who's that leaning against the wall? Pilchard? Poor fool!
Why did you boast you were the only man who had ever loved a woman?"
"Me boast! Heaven forbid," faltered Pilchard.
"Then," shouted Swan, suddenly sitting up and striking out with both
arms, "take these things away. All these little black things that are
pouring over me. It's a regular shower. It must be a whole city. No!
No! They're sparks! They're fire! They burn! They burn! Take the
wheels away from me! They're grinding me like corn--oh, Lord! it's
heavy, it's heavy! There, there! It crushes me! Now, now it's over.
This is--death--" And he sank back, oppressed by a sudden, and
overwhelming load of oblivion.
Swan grew worse toward morning, and though the disease had only
attacked him at sunset the night before, so rapid and terrible were
its onslaughts that by the time the sun rose a complete physical
collapse had occurred. His pulse had fallen below normal, and his skin
assumed a strange yellow hue, the color of a lemon, and in these signs
and the constant hiccough which convulsed the death-stricken frame
Pilchard guessed properly what the termination must be. The end would
come easily. Swan had ceased to suffer.
When light crept gray and silent into the shanty, Pilchard stood and
looked at Swan's prostrate form. No sound came to them but the gentle
lapping of the waves. Sober as a dove Day hovered in the sky, and that
solemn change which is Death was somewhere near, hiding and waiting;
and Pilchard and Death and the breaking Day were for one second alone.
And Pilchard was overwhelmed with terror. Some spectre had seized him,
and he could not shake it off. He looked once more at the dying man,
at his closed eyes and his still body, momentarily convulsed by the
final signs of life, like a great piece of machinery when the steam
power is gradually running down. Then he turned and broke away, to
take a bath and to take a drink and then go to meet the steamer from
San Francisco....
* * * * *
"Eleven? You don't say. Fever, I suppose?"
"Yes. We tackled three swamps on our way down from Mexico."
"That so? Well, it's worth some sacrifice. It's a good job. I wouldn't
'a' undertaken it myself."
"I wouldn't do it again."
They walked down the dock....
Swan opened his eyes and looked through the wide opening of the shanty
out to where the blazing sun struck the hot water of the little
harbor. He hardly remembered where he was. Oh yes! He must get up and
go down-town. In a minute, when he was fully awake. And he closed his
eyes again and heard the accustomed whir of machinery, and knew that
he was in the engine-room. One of the workmen needed to be spoken to;
he was the filthiest of the lot, and Swan was the only man who could
control him. Suddenly Swan opened his eyes again and saw that this
same workman had entered the shanty and was standing beside him. He
instantly recognized the man's greasy black shirt.
"For science is a cruel mistress," the man said. "She exacts her
yearly tribute of flesh and blood."
But, singularly enough, these words meant something entirely
different. Swan looked curiously at the workman and saw that he too
was really somebody else. The man smiled and, leaning over, gently
raised him up, and for the first time in his life Swan felt himself
encircled by a woman's arms, and he tasted a strange, delicious joy
awakening deep within him that knowledge of reciprocal love which
slumbers in the heart of every man.
"And you did it all for me," she said.
"Did what?" he asked her.
"Built the road?"
"Yes," he whispered, closing his eyes again, filled with this new
strange joy.
"And now we'll go home together to the North, where the maple leaves
make a lovely pattern against the blue sky."
He knew nothing for a minute, and then she spoke again:
"Well, it's a good job. I'll see that you get pushed along. The
company 'll have plenty more work; big pay, too. This business has
made your name. You're a wonderful fellow! You say you worked night as
well as day?"
"For eight days, yes."
It was Pilchard's voice. He was talking to another man. They were
leaning heavily against the rough wall of Swan's shanty. A horrible
sensation came over the sick man, that sensation experienced by men
who emerge from some unnatural mental condition, who are recalled by
one sentence, often by one word, which acts like a key and opens again
to their terrified vision the horrible realities of actual life. Swan
raised his arms to bring that woman's face close to his, but he could
not find it. He opened his eyes, and tears of weakness watered his
cheeks. He was alone in the hovel knocked together by the men to hold
their tools, and the work for which he had given his life was being
claimed outside by another man....
The agent leaned against the side of the shanty, gazing reflectively
at his steamer, which was anchored half a mile from shore. "I'm going
clear round to New York. You'd better get aboard and come with me," he
proposed to Pilchard, to whom he had taken a fancy. "Good Lord!" he
suddenly shouted, leaping forward. "Is this the shed where you said a
workman was dying of fever? Let's get out quick or we'll take the
infection."
But Pilchard, pale as death, put up a warning hand. "Yes, let's clear
out--let's get to sea before I go crazy! But--but--don't speak so
loud. _He may hear_!"
He had heard every word. His faculties, numb with death, sprang
instantly into life. He leaped to his feet and left the shanty,
momentarily endowed with his full strength, and facing the two men,
spoke three times: "My work! My work! My work!" His eyes were on
Pilchard all the time, and that look pierced like a sword; it
penetrated to the very foundations of his being....
* * * * *
Pilchard caught the body as it fell and lowered it to the ground, and
then looked at the agent with a scared face to see how much he knew.
The agent had leaped still farther away, and now was crouching, livid
with fear, before this man whose last words had been words of
delirium. No, he knew nothing. Pilchard alone knew the extent of his
own deceit, which dead lips could never disclose. He alone knew of
that half-formed idea he had not dared to mature, which had come to
him a year ago when he looked at Swan's resolute face in the
engine-room; and he alone in all the world could ever know of the
terror which had possessed him at daybreak in the shanty when he had
turned in a panic and run away--from what? ...
A MATTER OF RIVALRY
BY OCTAVE THANET
It was the fifth afternoon of St. Kunagunda's fair. An interlude of
semi-rest had come between the clearing up last night's debris of
crowd and traffic, which had filled the morning, and the renewed crowd
and traffic that would come with the lamps. The tired elderly women in
charge of the supper had sunk into chairs before their clean linen and
dazzling white stone-china dishes and fresh bunches of lilacs. The
pretty young girls at the "fancy table" were laughing and prattling
rather loudly with two amiable young men who had been tacking
home-made lace handkerchiefs and embroidered "art centres" in the
vacant spaces left on the pink cambric wall by the departure of last
night's purchases. A comely matron kept guard simultaneously over the
useful but not perilously alluring wares of the "household table" and
the adjacent temptations of the flower-stand and the candy-booth. The
last was indeed fair to see, having a magnificent pyramid of pop-corn
balls and entrancing heaps of bright-colored home-made French candy;
and round and round its delights prowled a chubby and wistful boy,
with hands in his penniless pockets, waiting for the chancellor of the
exchequer.
Across the hall, the walls whereof were lavishly decked with red,
white, and blue festoons of cambric, and had the green and gold of
Erin's flag intertwined with the yellow and black of Germany, stood a
table which had been the centre of interest for four nights, but which
now was entirely deserted. There was no glory of color or pomp of
bedizenment about it; nothing more taking to the eye than a ballot-box
and a small show-case (the contents of the latter draped in newspapers
at the present) and a neatly lettered sign above a blackboard, to one
side. The sign simply demanded, "Vote Here!" The blackboard in less
trim script announced that "For most popular business man" Mr. Timothy
G. Finnerty had 305 votes, and three or four other candidates so few
that there was no interest in deciphering the chalk figures; and that
"For most popular young lady" Miss Norah Murray had 842 votes, and
Miss Freda Berglund had 603. At intervals some one of the score of
people in the hall would saunter up to the show-case or to the
blackboard, to peer into the one or to study the figures on the
other--although, really, there was no one in the hall who did not know
every line on the board, and who had not seen both the gold watch and
the gold-headed cane of the show-case. Two women came from different
quarters of the room at the same instant to look at the blackboard.
One was a comely dame in a silken gown that rustled and glittered with
jet. She had just entered the hall, and was a little flushed with the
climb up the stairs. The other was a stunted, wiry little Irish woman
in black weeds of ancient make. She caught sight of the one in silk
attire and paused. The first-comer also paused. Her color deepened;
her head erected itself more proudly on her shoulders. Then she
continued her progress, halting, with a dignified and elegant air,
before the blackboard. The little Irish woman tossed her own head and
appeared about to follow; however, her intention changed at a few
words from the guardian of the apron table. She inclined her head, and
with a glance of scorn at the silken back passed on over to the aprons
and quilts.
The matrons at the supper-table had viewed the incident with interest.
A little sigh of relief or regret rippled about the board.
"'Tis a great pity, that's sure," said one.
"I was there when they had the words," said another. "Mrs. Conner was
saying this voting business was all wrong--"
"Well, sure she ain't far out of the way, with this time," interjected
a voice; "bad blood more'n in this instance it's raised; the whole
town's taking sides on it, and there was two fights yesterday. Why
didn't they jest raffle the watch off decent and peaceable?"
"There's some objects to raffling."
"There's some objects to drinking tea an' coffee, they're so bigoted!
In a raffle there's nobody pays more'n their quarter, or maybe a
dollar or two--"
"And that's it. Look at the power o' money we're gettin', Mrs. O'Brien
dear! We'd _niver_ 'a' got nigh on to four hundred dollars for a
gold watch rafflin'; and well you know it!"
"Maybe," agreed Mrs. O'Brien, grimly, "but neither would we have got
fightin' out of the church and fightin' in it; nor Pat Barnes be
having his head broke. 'Twas hurted awful bad he was. His own mother
told me; and she said Fritz Miller was sick in bed from it; Pat paid
him well for talkin' down ould Ireland; and poor Terry Flanagin, he
lost his job at the saw-mill for maddin' the boss that's Dutch, and
infidel Dutch at that; and there's quarrels on ivery side, God forgive
'em! They talk of it at the stores, and they talk of it at the saloon,
where they do be going too often to talk it; and 'tis a shame an' a
disgrace, down to that saloon the dirty Dutchman--"
"_Whisht_!" three or four mouths puckered in warning, and Mrs.
O'Brien caught the smouldering gaze of a flaxen-haired woman in very
full black skirts and black basque of an antique cut, who had but now
approached the group; with her race's nimbleness of wit she added,
"Sure there's dirty Germans and there's dirty Irish."
"Dere is," agreed the new-comer, with displeasing alacrity, "und some
is in _dis_ parish und dis sodality. I vas seen dem viping dishes
mit a newsbaber. Dot's so. Yesterday night."
An electric thrill ran through the circle, and two matrons, suddenly
very red, answered at once:
"Would you have us wipe them on our _handkerchiefs_? The towels
were all gone!"
"'Twas the awful crowd did it; an' 'twas only some saucers for the
ice-cream."
Mrs. O'Brien waved her hands, very clean, not very shapely, and worn
by many an honest day's toil, persuading and pleading for peace at
once. "Sure," says she, "if you'd wurrk at fairs you'd know that you
can't be doing things like you'd do them at home; and 'twas only for a
minit they wiped the saucers with the paper napkins, clean tishy-paper
napkins, Mrs. Orendorf; 'twas only two or three saucers got wiped with
the newspaper, because the napkins was give out and they was shrieking
and clamoring for saucers; and they're _terrible_, them young
girls! waving their hands and jumpin' an' squealin'. 'Me first, Mrs.
O'Brien!' 'It's _my_ turn, Mrs. O'Brien!' 'Oh, Mrs. O'Brien, wait
on _me_. I've got six people haven't had a bite in half an hour;
and they're so cross!' Till your mind's goin'! No doubt we're makin'
money, but I'm for a smaller crowd an' more good falein'."
"It's for der voting dey kooms," grumbled the German woman, only half
pacified. "Dot vas bad mistake haf dot votin'. Vot vas dot dirty
Deutchman you call him do dot make you so mad?"
"Oh, it wasn't so _much_"--Mrs. O'Brien was still bent on
peace--"he jist telephoned to the next door an' got the returns, as he
called them, and had 'em posted up in his saloon. An' if they was
daughters of mine--I 'ain't got anny daughters, praise God! for since
I seen the way these waiters go on, I'm misdoubtin' I niver could
manage thim--but if they was daughters of mine, 'twould be the sorry
day for me whin they'd their names posted up in a saloon!"
"Meine fader in der old country kept a saloon," said the German woman,
with extreme dryness of accent, "und does you mean to say vun vurd
against Freda Berglund?"
"No, indade," cried Mrs. O'Brien.
"And do _you_ mean to say one word against Norah Murray?" a bolder
partisan on the Celtic side struck in, with a determined air. Three or
four voices murmured assent.
The German stood her ground. "I nefer seen her till yesterday"--thus
without committing direct assault on the Murray supporters she avoided
concession; "all I know of her is dot she nefer haf dot gold vatch!"
"Then you know more than _we_ do. Norah's ahead, and she'll be
_more_ ahead this evening," retorted a Murray voter; "there's
plenty more money to spend for old Ireland--ain't there, ladies?"
"Whisht!" called the peace-maker, in her turn. "Ain't it easy to see
how Mrs. Conner and Mrs. Finn come to words and hard falein' when
we're nigh that same ourselves, we that determined to kape out of the
worry? They are both awful nice, pretty young ladies, and I'm sorry
such a question come up between them; and 'tis _dreadful_,
O'Brien says, the way the young men was spinding their money for Norah
last night. Sure, an' it is that. 'Tis all a bad thing; I think that
like Mrs. Conner."
Mrs. Orendorf was unable to adjust her mental view to the varying
argument; she cast a sullen and puzzled eye on the amiable Irish
woman, and said, grimly:
"It isn't joost yoong mans vot kan spend money. Freda don't have got
no yoong mans, 'cause her Schatz vent to der var und die py der fever
in Florida--"
"Sure he did that!" cried Mrs. O'Brien, "an' 'twas a fine man an' a
fine carpenter he was. Aw, the poor girl! I mind how she looked the
day Company E marched out of town, him turnin' his eyes up sidewises,
an' her white as paper but a-smilin'!"
"God pity her!" chimed in another matron, with the ready response to
sympathy of the Celt. There was a little murmur of assent. Mrs.
Orendorf's swelling crest fell a little; her tone was softer.
"But Freda got a fader, a goot man, _too_ goot and kind; he say
he vunt haf his dochter look down on like she don't got no friends. He
go and mortgage his farm, und he got drie--tree hunterd dollar"--she
tapped the sum off her palm with solemn deliberation--"und he svear he
vill in der votin' all, all spend, an' sie git dot vatch. _Ach
Himmel! er ist verruckt!_ He say he got his pension and he got der
insure on his life, und he 'ain't got nobody 'cept Freda, und he vunt
haf Freda look down on. Und _sie_ don't know. Mans don't can talk
mit him; he git mad. He git mad at _me_ 'cause I talk. _Dot's_ vat
der fine votin' do!"
A little gasp from the audience meant more than agreement; their eyes
ran to Mrs. O'Brien, who faced the German and could see what they saw;
then back of Mrs. Orendorf to the crimson face of a young girl. Mutely
they signalled consternation.
But the young girl did not speak; she walked away quickly, not turning
her head as she passed the voting-booth. She was a pretty girl, with
fresh skin, the whiter and fresher against her abundant silky black
hair and black-lashed violet eyes. She carried her dainty head a
little haughtily, but her soft eyes had a wistful sweetness. Her big
flowered hat and her white gown, brightened by blue ribbons, were as
fresh as her skin and became her rich beauty. She walked with the
natural light grace often seen in girls of her race, whatever their
class. No one could watch the winsome little figure pass and not feel
the charm of youth and frank innocence and immeasurable hopes. More
than one pair of elderly eyes that had seen the glory and freshness of
the dream fade followed it kindly and with a pensive pride.
"Ain't she pretty and slim!" sighed a stout lady in silk (Mrs. Conner,
the most important supporter of the parish, no less), "and think of me
having a waist as little as hers when I was married! But I wish she
hadn't let them drag her into this voting business, for it has caused
trouble."
"Norah's as good and sweet's she's pretty," another elderly woman
replied. "Just to think of that young thing supporting her mother and
educating her brother for a priest with only those pretty little
hands! But she won't be doing it long if the boys can one of them get
their way. And what will we do for a dress-maker then? We never
_did_ have such a stylish one!"
"That's so," Mrs. Conner agreed, cordially; "she's the only one I ever
went to didn't make me look fleshier than I am. But I say it is all
the more shame to make that innocent young creature talked about and
fought over, and have jokes made in the saloon and at the stores, and
quarrels outside the parish and in it, too."
"I guess it has gone farther than we thought," said the other. "Look!
there's Father Kelly and the Vicar-General; they're looking at the
blackboard. I wish I could hear what they are saying."
Norah, indeed, was the only person who did not look at the two quiet
gentlemen before the blackboard, curiously, and wonder the same, since
the voting-booth had become a firebrand menacing the peace of the
parish. Norah was too busy with her own thoughts even to see them; she
only wanted to get past her wellwishers and be alone with her
perplexities. If she did not see her spiritual guides, they saw her,
and Father Kelly's tired face brightened. "You really can't blame the
boys," he said, smiling; "and she's as good a daughter and sister, and
as good a girl, too, as ever stepped."
The Vicar-General smiled faintly, but his eyes were absent. The parish
at Clover Hill was the newest in the diocese--a feeble folk struggling
to build a church, or rather help build it, and holding its first
bazar. There were no rich people of their faith--unless one except the
Conners, who owned the saw-mill and were well-to-do--not even many
poor to club their mites; more disheartening yet, the parish roll held
about an equal proportion of Irish and German names. The Vicar-General
and the Bishop shook their heads at the yoking of the two races; but
there was no church nearer than Father Kelly's, five miles away, and
Father Kelly was not young, and his own great parish growing all the
time; so the parish was made, and a young American priest, who had
more sense than always goes with burning enthusiasm, was sent to guide
the souls at Clover Hill and keep the peace. He kept it until the
fair, when in an evil hour he consented to the voting-booth. He
expected--they all expected--that the excitement would focus on the
gold-headed cane, and that Mr. Michael Conner would lead the poll,
although the popular Finnerty might give him a pretty race for his
honors; the gold watch was but an incidental attraction to please the
young people and attract outsiders; nor was there any suggestion of
names. Alas! Michael Conner, a blunt man, dubbed the voting scheme a
"d--- weather-breeder," and would not give the use of his name; hence
there was a walkaway for Finnerty; and somehow, before any of the
elders quite realized how it began, the Irish girl and the German girl
were unconsciously setting the whole town by the ears, and imported
voters from Father Kelly's were joyously mixing in the fight.
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