Books: Life at High Tide
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Various >> Life at High Tide
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"There's no question about the _need_ of stopping it," said the
Vicar-General, continuing his own train of thought aloud, "but how are
we to do it? The feeling is a perfect dynamite factory now, and the
least stumble on our part will bring an explosion. If we tried to give
them the money back--and you know women have a tight grip on money
--we shouldn't know where to give it. Positively we're like the family
of the poor fellow who had the fit--one doctor said it would kill him
to bring him to his senses, and the other said he would die if they
didn't!"
"And Father Martin safe in his bed with pneumonia!" groaned Father
Kelly.
Norah had found her progress barred by new-comers, and she had fled
back to avoid them. Her cheeks reddened again, and the tears burned
her eyelids; she went past too fast for more than a hurried
salutation, at which Father Kelly shook his head. "That's the girl,
isn't it?" said the Vicar-General. "I'm afraid the situation is a
little too much for her, too; she looks excited."
"Not a bit, not a bit," cried Father Kelly, undaunted; "she's a bit
impulsive, but she's got good sense."
"She wears too much jewelry."
Norah did not hear this; she was out of the hall, speeding back to
Mrs. Conner's gown that awaited her finishing touches. Her mother, a
little creature with sweet temper that made amends for an entire lack
of energy, was rocking over some bastings, sawing the air with her
forefinger as she discoursed on the weighty splendor of the gold watch
and chain, ending in gush of parental complacency, "And Norah says
it'll be as much mine 's hers!"
Norah could hear her chirping on, happily, while she laid away her hat
in the bandbox and girt herself with a protecting apron.
The talk turned her cold. "It ain't only for myself I want it," she
declared to an invisible suggester, "though I _do_ want something
real. I never had a real gold chain, or even a real gold breastpin, in
my life--or a ring. Oh, I did want one!" She looked scornfully at the
gay prism gleaming from her pretty fingers (fingers as daintily kept
as any lady's); they had flashed like rubies and sapphires and
diamonds from the white velvet drifts of the show-case in the great
department store where she bought them when she went to the city; but
now they were cheapened and dimmed by her memories of the "real"
watch. She peeled them roughly from her hands.
She had no morsel of news ready for the hungry ears awaiting her. To
her mother's questions she answered briefly that the only thing she
heard was that Freda Berglund would have a great number of new votes
in the evening.
Mrs. Murray tossed back a confident: _"Let_ her! I know some boys
that's going to go this night, with a hundred dollars in their pockets
each of 'em. Let her bring on her votes, I say. It's a good cause gits
the money. But it's you'll be wearin' the watch next Sunday, and not
Freda Berglund!"
Norah bit her lip. She was not used to silence, but she sewed silently
(Norah, who was so sweet-tempered that she had been known to work a
whole day with a machine that skipped stitches, never getting cross,
and stopping four times to wrestle with the bobbin before she subdued
it). Her mother did not know what to make of her. Her own nickering
complaints of Norah's "glumness" sank into dumb anxiety. She stole
timid glances at the bowed black head and the frowning black brows;
after a glance she would sigh, a prolonged, patient sigh. There are
times when a sigh is to strained nerves like a blast of hot air on a
burn. Norah jumped up and ran away from her own irritation before it
exploded. She made a pretext of looking at her skirt (which was new)
in the parlor cheval-glass; but in the parlor, behind the door, she
did not give a glance to the picture in the mirror. The "pire glass,"
as Mrs. Murray called it, was a relic of the family's better days when
Norah's father was alive and kept a grocery-store and owned a horse
and wagon; its florid frame of black-walnut etched with gilt, its tall
mirror, very little marred by water-spots on the back, long had been
reverently admired by Norah; it showed that the family had "had
things"; but she passed it without a glance, just as she passed the
cabinet organ decked in flowered plush which she had bought with her
own savings. Never until that day had she stood in the parlor without
a sensation of pleasure over its fresh paint and paper and the many
gilt frames on the wall; but to-day she went, unnoting, to the crayon
picture of a man, and looked through tears at a plain, smiling, kindly
face.
"I wish you hadn't died," was all she said; but the tears rolled down
her cheeks and her frame shook with sobs that she forced to be
noiseless. At last she dried her wet cheeks and tossed her head. "I
don't see that _I_ need do _anything_," she muttered, while
she hurried round the house outside, in order that she might reach the
bedroom and efface the traces of her weeping. "I'm a great fool to
think of doing anything," she declared. "I didn't put myself up, and I
won't put myself down--and disappoint mother and all my friends. It's
none of my business." Therewith she assumed a light and cheerful air,
which she carried securely through the remainder of the afternoon.
* * * * *
The fifth evening of St. Kunagunda's fair opened with a stifling
crowd. Protestants, Catholics, and Germans who never had seen the
interior of an American church jostled the buyers at the booths, and
the faithful dutifully ate turkey and cold rolls for the fifth time at
the supper-tables. The outsiders did not linger at the booths; they
were come to vote or to witness the voting, and their jests and
comments buzzed noisily above the talk. Every moment the note of the
buzz grew more hostile. More than a few ears were tingling; at every
turn there were scowls and sullen eyes and ugly smiles. The matrons'
cheeks were burning; their eyes flashed; every now and again one of
their voices shrilled defiantly above the hoarse hum of the crowd. The
young Irish girls were laughing, enjoying the excitement, and admiring
the young men flaunting their banknotes with the swing of their
father's shillalahs. The young German girls curled their lips and
whispered together. There was a significant herding of the contending
races apart, while the visiting Anglo-Saxons wore an air of safe and
dispassionate enjoyment, such as pertains of right to the boy on the
fence waiting for the fight.
Norah Murray had a circle of young men about her, who laughed
rapturously at her sallies. She wore her chain and a new rhinestone
brooch and all her rings. She looked very handsome with her flushed
cheeks and bright eyes. She raised her voice to be heard above the
din. Mrs. Murray's new bonnet nodded its red roses and black ostrich
tips among the lace handkerchiefs and embroidery of the fancy
table--she being enthroned on the step-ladder for lack of other
seat--and her delighted eyes ran from her daughter to the voting
blackboard. She waved a spangled fan and smiled buoyantly at every
familiar face, whether turned towards her in recognition or not. Mrs.
O'Brien, who had slipped away from the kitchen to be sure the lamps
were not smoking, stopped a moment beside her. Mrs. O'Brien looked
tired and worried when she let her own smile of greeting slip from her
face. A tinge of the same expression was on Father Kelly's kind old
countenance, but the Vicar-General's features were as inscrutable as a
doctor's. He had made a genial procession through the room,
distributing the merited praise at each booth, and appreciably
softening the atmosphere by his presence. He halted opposite Norah's
party. Father Kelly's gaze grew anxious. "I mind me," said he--"I mind
me of the child when her father died--not six she was--holding her
mother's hand, not weeping herself, the creature, just stroking her
mother's hand and petting her; and holding the baby, the one that's
off to the seminary now. Her father was an honest man. He failed once,
and then paid every dollar with interest--an _honest_ man. I mind
me of little Norah at her first communion--"
The Vicar-General smiled. "Kelly, you're a good fellow," said he, not
removing his glance from Norah's excited face.
"She'll come out all right, all right," said Father Kelly, with the
hammer-like gesture of his right fist which his congregation knew well
for a storm signal. "She's a good girl. This is no fault of hers, this
foolish contraption to make money; I'm one with Conner, there; but the
girls aren't to blame. Freda's a good girl, too. That's she coming."
The German heroine of this miniature Nibelungenlied was tall and
slender, fair haired and fair faced. Her face wore a placid air; she
looked perfectly serene and had assumed unconsciousness as a garment;
she did not talk, only faintly smiled in return to the greetings that
met her on every side. To right and left, before and behind her,
walked her two aunts and her two neighbors, women of substance and
dignity. They walled her about as might a body-guard, sending
eye-blinks of defiance at the hilarious young Irishmen. Mrs. Orendorf,
of the guard, went the length of twisting her head for a final glare
of disapproval at Norah, in passing. Norah laughed. "I used to know
Freda Burglund last week," said she, "but I guess she has forgotten
me."
"She's too busy with the blackboard, doing arithmetic," joked one of
the young men.
"You ought to see old Fritz!" cried another; "he's clean off his base.
He's mortgaged his farm to Nichols. Nichols didn't want to lend, but
he would have the money."
"Well, I guess we'll give him a run for his pile."
"He's mortgaged his farm!" said a third young man; when his voiced
sounded, the very slightest of movements of Norah's head betrayed that
she listened.
"I'd mortgage two farms if I had them," was the gallant comment from
the first man, "if Miss Norah needed votes."
The third man felt the rustle of every dollar he had, drawn out of the
bank that morning, and now bulging his waistcoat-pocket in company
with a bit of ribbon that had dropped from Norah's hair; but it was
easier for him to make money than talk; he was ready to push the last
of it over the voting-table for Norah, but he wasn't ready of tongue;
he put his big honest hands in his pocket, and lest he should glower
too openly at the fluent blade, sent his eyes after Freda Berglund's
yellow head and fine shoulders. Norah could see him. She stiffened.
"I don't think it very nice of her to _let_ her father mortgage
his farm," said a fourth partisan of Norah's; "he'd better buy her a
watch out and out; you can get a good one for ten dollars. She'd ought
to stop the old man. Her mother would if she were alive."
"Fritz ain't so easy headed off," said the third man. "Miss Freda is a
very nice young lady; I don't believe she knows about it."
He kept his eyes on the yellow head, this unfortunate bungler, who had
been in love with Norah since he had worn knickerbockers, and Norah
held her own head higher in the air. And she let Mr. Williamson, the
new book-keeper at Conner's (he who would have mortgaged two farms for
her), take her to the ice-cream table, leaving the bungling lover
(christened Patrick Maurice, his surname being Barnes), to jostle
dismally over to the apron table, where Freda was.
Norah laughed at Mr. Williamson's jokes, and asked him questions about
the business college from which he had recently been graduated, and
was the picture of soft animation and pleasure; and the while her
heart was like lead, and she hated Freda Berglund. Sitting at the
table she heard snatches of talk, all tinctured by the strong
excitement of the evening. "I can't help it if they do quarrel," she
thought, angrily, answering her own accusation; not even to herself
did she say that she hated Freda.
Her eyes wandered a second over the hall; they saw the Vicar-General's
pale, handsome face, a half-head taller than Father Kelly's good gray
head; they saw a square-jawed, black-haired, determined, smiling young
man behind the ballot-box turning his eyes from Pat Barnes to an
elderly man who held up his hand, waving a roll of bills.
"Ah, I see Berglund has arrived," said Williamson. "You are going to
do a lot to build the church, Miss Norah."
Berglund was rather a short man; his hair was gray; he limped from the
old wound received at Shiloh. Something clutched at Norah's heart as
she looked at him. Williamson made some trivial joke; she did not hear
it; she was hearing over again the words of the German woman to Mrs.
O'Brien that afternoon. Impulsively she sprang to her feet. "Will you
excuse me, Mr. Williamson?" she exclaimed. "I have to go to the
voting-booth one moment." She went so swiftly that Williamson had much
ado to keep pace with her, besides overpaying the waitress in his
hurry. Father Kelly swallowed a groan of dismay at the fresh strain on
his faith when he perceived her beckoning a ring-laden hand at the
custodian of votes; and the Vicar-General involuntarily frowned. They
both with one accord pushed up to the table--to the visible relief of
the young man behind it. "I don't know what to do," he confided to
Father Kelly, before the latter could ask the question quivering on
his tongue--"I don't know what to do. Miss Murray wants me not to take
in any more money 'til I hear from her again. She'll be back. And
here's old Berglund wants three hundred and fifty dollars' worth for
Miss Freda, and here's Barnes with a big bunch for Miss Murray, trying
to scare off the old man. What'll I do, Father?"
"I guess you better not do anything," said Father Kelly, with a
twinkle in his eye. "Norah Murray is apt to have a good reason for her
asking. Shut the booth down, and _I'll_ take charge while you go
off for a cup of coffee."
The Vicar-General nodded approval.
"Well, just's you say, Father," said the young man; "it's kind of
unprecedented."
"What do you suppose it means?" puzzled the Vicar-General, in an
undertone, as the vote-taker disappeared; and the crowd fell back a
little on Father Kelly's bland announcement that Mr. Duffy had been
called off for a few minutes, and there would be a recess in voting.
"'Tis beyond _me_," said Father Kelly, "but watch the girl; she's
gone straight to Freda Berglund. There, they're talking; they're going
off together with Mrs. Orendorf. I can't give a guess, but she's a
good girl. I'm hopeful."
Norah had indeed gone straight to Freda Berglund. She addressed her in
so low a voice that only Freda and Mrs. Orendorf, bending across
Freda's shoulders at that instant, the better to cheapen a darning-bag
for stockings, could hear her words. "I want to see you, Freda," she
said. "Won't you and Mrs. Orendorf come away somewhere so we can talk?
I have got something important to say."
"I--don't--know," faltered Freda.
"I want Mrs. O'Brien, too," said Norah, firmly. "It's all right;
you'll think it all right, Mrs. Orendorf. Come, come; don't you see
those men who have been drinking? Don't you hear them? Don't you see
Mrs. Finn, who used to think there was nobody like Mrs. Conner,
looking the other way so's not to see her? Can't you hear the
quarrelling all round? They've stopped voting, but they haven't
stopped quarrelling. Come!"
Although she had dropped her voice, the listeners were so close that
they caught snatches of the sentences, and craned their necks forward
and hushed their own talk to listen. Mrs. Orendorf was not of a nimble
habit of thought; but she felt the electric impetus of the Irish girl;
besides, was _she_ not bidden? Could she not protect Freda from
the machinations of the enemy?
"Dot's so, Freda," she concluded, stolidly. "Koom den, der only blace
vere we can talk py uns is dot coal-closet wo is der eggstry ice-cream
freezer. Koom. I see Meezis O'Breen."
Amid a startling pause, every eye questioning them, the three picked
up Mrs. O'Brien and sought the coal-closet. Then Norah turned. In the
dim light her face shone whitely. Her full melodious voice shook the
least in the world with haste and excitement. "We've got to stop
this," said she, "and I know how. Freda, I am going to withdraw my
name. I wish to Heaven I never had let them put it on. You may have
the watch."
Freda's tall figure was only an outline in the shadow; they could not
see her face; but the outline wavered backward. Her voice was stiff
and cold.
"I don't think that's fair. You have more votes than I have."
Mrs. O'Brien opened her lips and shut them tightly. It was so dark no
one saw her, or Mrs. Orendorf, as she sat on the freezer gulping down
inaudible opinions regarding Norah's sanity.
"I sha'n't have," retorted Norah, impatiently, "when your father
spends all his money that he mortgaged his farm--"
_"What!"_ cried Freda.
"She not know; ve keep it von her," muttered Mrs. Orendorf. "Fritz
make me promise not to tell."
"Well, he didn't make _me_," said Norah. "_I'll_ tell. He
raised the money, and he was trying to buy the votes, and I saw him. I
haven't any father. I can't remember anything of my father except his
leading me about when I was a little thing by the finger, and how kind
his voice was; but I miss him--I miss him all the time; I know he was
a good man, and loved me; and he'd have done anything for me, just as
your father is doing; and I couldn't have borne it to have him, and I
was sure you couldn't, either. Freda, it's all wrong, this spending
more money than they can afford on us; I've felt it all along. Now
let's stop it. The church has got enough."
"Is it true about papa?" said Freda, in German.
"_Ach Himmel_! Yes, my child. Dost thou not know thy father yet?
For all he seems still and stern, thou art more than all the world to
him." Mrs. Orendorf spoke in the same tongue; her other listeners
could not understand it, but they marvelled over the soft change in
her voice.
"It's true enough, Miss Freda," said Mrs. O'Brien, gently. "And maybe
you're in the right of it, Norah darling, though 'tis a bit hard to
give in; but, yes, I'm sure you're right."
"You _are_ right," said Freda, "and it's all been wrong, all
wrong. But I've got to see my father first. Please come with me."
As Norah had led them in the first place, Freda led them by an equally
potent although entirely different force now; it was Norah's turn to
follow, blindly.
A hush everywhere in their wake betrayed that a consciousness of their
conference and its importance was in the air. Freda was pale, Norah's
cheeks burned, but neither girl looked to the right or the left; and
both the matrons following avoided their friends' curiosity by a
soldierly "eyes front." Freda walked up to her father, who looked up,
not altogether pleased, at her light touch on his arm.
"This is no place for thee, my child," said he; something in her face
made his voice gentler than common. She looked, he thought, dimly, as
she had looked when they got the news about Otto.
"I _have_ to say something," said Freda.
"You beples stand back!" commanded Mrs. Orendorf, with a backward
impulse of her elbows.
"Yes, you stand back, ladies and gentlemen, please," begged Mrs.
O'Brien, smiling; "'twill all be explained to yous." Only Norah stood
her ground; and Pat Barnes kept in the front rank of the bystanders.
"What is it?" growled Berglund, bristling at the circle of faces much
readier for peace than war.
"She wants to give the watch to me," explained Freda, rapidly
repeating almost word for word Norah's offer. As she spoke suspicion
wrinkled the corners of old Fritz's eyes.
"Maypi sie know sie vill git peten," he muttered, loud enough for
Norah to hear. Then, as he saw her color turn, his hard face softened.
"No," he said, clearly, "it don't be _dot_; dot Pat Barnes got
his pocket full of moneys; no, sie is a goot schild, und her fader he
vas a goot mans; sie haf a hard dime mit no fader to look oudt for
her." He turned to Norah, whose swimming eyes met his full. Pat Barnes
tried to cough down his emotion and made a strange squeak; but nobody
smiled; the crowded hall was curiously still as Fritz limped up to
Norah. "No, ve don't can take it off you; can ve, Freda?" said he.
Freda slipped her hand into her father's arm. "No, Norah," she said.
"I withdraw my name. And I'm prouder to have my father than all the
watches in the world!"
"Sure, you're right there, mavourneen," cried Mrs. O'Brien. "Whisht,
all of you! These blessid children have got the way out of all this
mess; they're better Christians than anny of us." Mrs. Orendorf
frowned fiercely, reached for her handkerchief, and wiped her face.
Father Kelly felt it time for his own word, and stepped into the
circle. A sentence or two from Mrs. O'Brien made the quick-witted old
Irishman master of the incident.
"As I understand it," his full, rich, Celtic tones purred, "'tis the
feeling of both these young ladies that there is hard feeling and
strife and wasteful spending of money coming out of what was meant to
be a good-natured contest for the good of the church; but this
disputing, this spending, are neither for the good of the church nor
the glory of God--far from it--God forgive us our weakness. So both
these young ladies withdrew their names. We have cause to be proud of
them both, as they surely have cause to be proud of the loyalty of
their friends." (Irrepressible applause.) "And the kindest thing their
friends can do is to shake hands all around." (A voice--in point of
fact, the voice of the widow Murray: "But what will the sodality do
with the watch?") "The watch is the property of the parish." Here
Father Kelly paused, his persuasive argument rolling back on himself;
_he didn't_ know what to do with the watch. It was too perilous
to run the risk of new discords over it. The priest cast a distress
rocket in a look at the Vicar-General; but the Vicar-General
perfidiously smiled and looked away.
Up spoke Norah, her sweet voice not quite steady, her cheeks
crimson--but they all heard her: "It's a large gold watch. Why can't
we give it to Father Kelly?"
The Vicar-General's lifted hand stilled the shout that rose.
"Why not?" called he. "Father Kelly is not a young lady, but he is
popular."
And Father Kelly, putting both hands over his blushes, ran away from
the frantic roar of applause and laughter. The Vicar-General pursued
him to say:
"You were right, Kelly; she _is_ a good girl--and a wise one!"
Perhaps the only person in the hall who was not either shouting or
screaming, according to sex, was Norah's mother; and the cloud on her
face lightened when she saw Norah coming to her on Pat Barnes's arm
and Pat's face aglow.
Freda saw them too; she slipped her hand into her father's arm.
"_Liebchen_!" said he, stroking it with his rough fingers, "I
will get thee a watch some day, never fear!"
But it was not the thought of a watch that made Freda's heart lighter
than for many a day. "I don't want a watch," said she. "Oh, I'm sorry
for Norah, who can't even remember about her father!"
THE END
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