At sunset of a certain exquisite day toward the close of February, a young girl might have been seen making her way westward along Pacific avenue. She walked swiftly, lightly, the joyous wind of motion in her going. The waning afternoon was warm, and she had slipped off her jacket, carrying it under her arm, her slender shirt-waisted figure seeming to enjoy the freedom. The breath of violets was in the air, a marvelous sky of tender rose-shot gold before her—the spirit of the beauty of the hour had passed into her face.
In the serene light the houses rose, now stately, now picturesque, among velvety lawns and palms and rose-trees, here and there a red-stone mansion showing vivid and princely among the general scheme of perishable wooden architecture. Glimpses of the lovely island-dotted, hill-encircled bay smiled up to her as she passed the corners along the heights. She was in the midst of the fairest residence environs of the town.
Turning southward, she came abruptly upon two unpretentious little houses standing snugly together near the corner.
She ran up the steps of the nearer and rang the bell, scarcely conscious that she was happily humming a song while she waited.
The door was opened by a buxom, clean-aproned Irishwoman.
“Well, Katie,” asked the girl, entering quickly, “how is everything getting along? Has any one been near the table since I left?” She did not pause; she moved as she spoke toward the dining-room.
“There it is, Miss Jean, beautiful as a picter, same as you left it. What would the likes of my clumsy hands have to do wid anything you touches? And there’s nobody else.”
“And the kitchen, Katie?”
“Come and take a smell.”
She tripped after her into the shining room steaming with importance and good savors.
“It smells like—like your kitchen, and that means it makes me hungry,” the girl assured her, critically approving.
“Ah, go long wid the blarney eyes and tongue of you,” laughed the privileged old cook and house-keeper, in pleased excitement. “Who wouldn’t have the best dinner in the land when her boy as was her baby is coming home to-night after ten long, lonesome years widout a sight of him. Laws, Miss Jean! when Mr. Mays stood and looked at that table two hours ago, his hands just trembled wid joy, even if his face did look like it did the day poor young Madame Mays died, and he sat and shivered for her.”2
“Sat and what, Katie?”
“Shivered. That’s what all them old Jews does when some one dies as is dear to ’em. Leastways that’s what your own poor mother says to me when I see him sitting on a footstool and wanted to give the poor dear man a comfortable chair wid a back. ‘Let him alone, Katie,’ says she. ‘He has to sit low and shiver,’ says she. ‘It’s the Jewish custom.’”
The girl’s laugh rang out unrestrainedly.
“For shame, Miss Jean, to laugh over a poor young thing’s death; and she just a mother,” reproved the old woman, in shocked solemnity.
The laugh died lingeringly on Jean’s lips. “I was not laughing at what you said, Katie,” she explained, with a vanishing ripple of mirth; “it was the way you said it. Probably my mother said he was sitting Shivah for her, which is—”3
“It’s haythen English, then. Well, Miss Jean, all I hope is that Phily’ll like his dinner.”
“Dr. May now, Katie. Remember he’s a grown man past thirty, and a physician besides. Of course he’ll like his old Katie’s dinner. Did you say Mr. May is at home?”
“Home and dressed these two hours. He’s in the sitting-room waiting.”
The girl slipped out, tiptoed softly through the hall, knocked gently, and then immediately opened the door in furtive, mischievous noiselessness.
Joseph May stood before the glass, absorbed in his own reflection. His deep-set eyes looked out from the brown, furrowed face set in its framework of grizzled hair and beard, taking stock of the over-hanging brow, the long, thick nose, the straight, close-set lips—the upper one shaven; his eyes measured the thick-set, stooping figure, slightly below medium height. An eager anxiety dominated the whole attitude and aspect of the man.
“Oh, vanity of vanities,” murmured the girl, her hand still upon the door-knob. “Vanity of vanities, Uncle Joseph!” She shook her head in tender mockery at him as he veered around.
He laughed sheepishly up into the dancing light of her dark gray eyes. “Well, Jean,” he returned, with a helpless shrug, his palms turned upward and outward, “what can a man do when he is such a dood like me?”
“Dude! I should think you are a dude. Come here and turn around, sir, and let me admire you.”4
He revolved in slow, solemn delight under her hand placed lightly upon his shoulder.
“Who ever heard of a man’s making such a beauty of himself just for another man,” she observed, severely. “And a man of your years, too!”
“Then you think I will do, Jean?” he asked, in serious anxiety. “You think he won’t be ashamed from his old father?” The man, although an American citizen of more than forty years standing, spoke with a marked foreign accent, composite of Jewish and German.5
“I wouldn’t give a penny for his taste if he were,” she returned, with a loyal uplift of her head, “even if you do think he’s the Grand Mogul in person.”
“Chutspah ponim!”6 murmured Joseph, lovingly. “Chutspah ponim—as if you don’t know he is yourself!”
The girl’s alert senses—more alert than usual this evening—winced secretly under the familiar jargon.7
“Old man,” she said, gently, argumentatively, “do you happen to have a picture of a certain illustrious young surgeon about you? If you do, we might settle that point at once and for always.”
He clapped his hand to his breast-pocket, a look of comical surprise crossing his face as he felt its emptiness.
“So you’ve forgotten it at last,” she laughed. “How your friends will miss it! There, don’t mind my teasing, Uncle Joseph—you will have the original with you in just about an hour or two, and can pilot the man himself around to your old cronies. Now sit down in that easy-chair so as not to disarrange your beauteous attire before the grand moment arrives. And remember, dear, you are not to get excited. You know Dr. Thallman—”
“Yes, yes, I know, Jean—I got my son to live for now. See how quiet I am.” He held up a trembling hand.
She stooped impulsively, pressing her lips to his bald forehead.
“I’m going home now,” she said, moving toward the door. “Greet the prodigal for me—without words.”
“To-morrow night you and Daniel,” he called huskily after her.
“Uncle Daniel, surely,” she replied, turning back. “And, Uncle Joseph!”
“Yes, dear child?”
“Please don’t take two plates of soup!”
He chuckled softly after her entreating voice and retreating figure.
Shadows gathered in the quiet room. The old man sat motionless in his great chair. . . . .
“I tell you, boys, she’s a bonanza for one of you. A little princess, junge,8 mit hair what comes most to the floor down!”
Out of what dim corner of his brain had the words sprung?—words scarcely noticed when spoken almost forty years before. Was it the suggestion of Jean Willard’s creamy girl-face with its shadowy eyes and her mass of shadowy dark hair? Was it the spirit-presence of one whose memory never left him in such silent moments as this? Was it the strange joy of calling her son—scarce known, grown to a man—his son? Was it—. He lost the links of thought.
He was back again in the office behind Simon Alexander’s store, one of “the boys” crowded round the glowing stove, and Simon Alexander himself was making the announcement which caused them all to start with openly expressed interest over the pleasing thought that another fair young girl was coming into their rough lives.
That was the night young Goldschmitt, without an English word in his vocabulary or a cent in his pocket, had come staggering in, his pack on his back, and demanded explanation of the cruel treatment he had received from the women he had approached with his wares. Whereupon they discovered that a certain wit, one Samuel Weiss by name, had written for the ignorant immigrant a list of questions to be asked, each one prefaced with a dainty oath, such as, “Dam you, lady, here’s a dimity that will make your eyes water!”
Young Goldschmitt wept tears of boyish grief over the unfolding, the others swore mysterious vengeance on the witless wit, and while Daniel Willard, the scribe, sat quietly down and wrote up an elegant text for the sale of his textures—“just like a book—just like a book,” they all agreed—Charlie Stein trolled out:
“With a stone for a pillow and a sky for a sheet,
Oh, a peddler’s life, my dear ones, is a hard one to beat.”
To the truth of which sentiment several of those present could offer personal testimony.
But they were all chafing to get up and away to the home old Arnheim had prepared for his wife and daughter just arrived on the steamer from New Orleans, and when Simon, who gave all “the boys” wide credit—which bore wider interest—had made a bed for poor Goldschmitt on the counter—for they were no sybarites in those days—they started in a body out into the raw night air.
He remembered their passing the historic gambling palace at the corner of Washington and Kearney streets, ablaze with lights, radiant with luxury and vice, glorious, sensuous music floating out above the noise of jingling gold, above the tragic shot of a pistol, above the monotonous cry of the croupier—a Frenchwoman this night—chanting persuasively, “Make-a your bets, gentlemans—gentlemans, make-a your bets.” Some one was for stopping, but Daniel said, sternly, “Boys, that is hell.” Yet a moment later, when they reached Arnheim’s house, the young Frenchman lifted his hat, and said, half quizzically, half reverentially, “But now, boys, we go to heaven.”
So they went to heaven through a pair of brown eyes, and many there were who gazed through thereat. And the way was long and sweet to Joseph May.
He remembered the night before the Eureka ball, when, after a long, silent walk under the stars with Daniel, his beloved friend, he had said, suddenly, “Daniel, when you have no objection, to-morrow night at the ball, I will ask Jeannette Arnheim to marry me.” Such was Joseph’s way, short and direct. And Daniel, after a moment, had said, tenderly, “if it is for your happiness, Joseph, and for hers, what objections can I, a poor occasional journalist, have to offer?”
And the next night—at that ball, whither she had gone with him in her simple, unadorned white silk gown cut low in the neck, a string of pearl beads around her lovely throat, her hands in small white silk gloves drawn tight with a dangling tassel—at that memorable Eureka ball, with all the boys fighting for a dance with her, he, Joseph May, the quietest of them all, had asked her for her hand—and won it.
And behold there was light divine for the quiet man on that long-ago wedding day, when all the boys had kissed the bride—except Daniel Willard, who had only kissed her hand—and they had gone away to live happily together forever after. Forever after—
She brought success with her—everything he touched prospered. But five years passed before the promise of the long-awaited little one came to them, bringing with his glory—
Nay, why this mist of tears? Their plans? Had he not executed them—without her? Had not the long empty years—
“My dear father,” broke in Philip May’s virile voice, “I am glad to be with you again.”
The next minute the room was flooded with light, while, through mist-blinded eyes, the little old Jew felt his hand caught in a powerful grip, and looked up at his son’s broad-shouldered manhood.