There were three vases in the druggist’s window, green, yellow and red, filled with translucent and motionless liquid. Ralph Blodgett stood before the window and gazed at them, sinking deep into their color as into a sea. He shivered in the chill wind of the early November day and thought bitterly of his long ride from Whitmore to Williamsburg, how aglow he had been, how he had looked about him with bemused and smiling eyes. It was not until, at dawn, when he arrived at the deserted depot in Williamsburg that a feeling of lostness began to creep over him. He had stood in the waiting room, his bag beside him, and wondered what to do next. The room was empty; in the distance was the loud thunder of passing freight trains, the hollow echoing of disconnected sounds.
“Anythin’ I can do for you, son?” called the stationmaster through the grating of the ticket window.
“I’m a stranger in town,” said Ralph, hope in his voice. He looked at the older man eagerly. “I’m not quite sure where to go.”
“Where you from?”
“Whitmore. I just came in.”
“Well, it’s most mornin’. I ’spect what you’d like is a boardinghouse, or hotel. Got any money?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Ralph confidently.
“Well, I ’spect you ain’t got so much that you can stand a hotel. Good roomin’ house, good plain grub, that’s what you want. Wait a minute.”
He disappeared from behind the grating. A moment later he could be heard shouting into the baggage room. “Bob! Hey you, Bob!” Then a ruddy Swede with tremendous shoulders emerged.
“Got a young fellow in there,” said the stationmaster, jerking his bald head toward the waiting room. “No folks or anybody in town. Looks like he ain’t got too much cash. Whyn’t you take him down to a boardin’ house and get him settled?”
“You say, boss,” replied Bob, touching his forehead.
The boardinghouse was filthy, bare and dismal. For four dollars a week, the slatternly landlady offered a room and two meals a day, Sunday dinner twenty-five cents extra. She catered to mill laborers and dray drivers, and when they were home it was like a barracks full of ribald and quarrelsome giants.
Ralph was lost in all this and his only sanctuary was his hall bedroom. And when that was unbearable he fled from his room to the streets, full of traffic, crowds, and icy November winds. Days went by like this, as he wandered aimlessly through the streets. He was jostled, cursed at, as he stood directly in the streams of traffic, looking about him with lost eyes.
He had realized from the first that if he were to remain in Williamsburg he would have to have a job. But he was too proud to face being rejected by inferior men, as inwardly he knew he would be. Nevertheless he had to face it, for his funds were running dangerously low, so one morning he left the house early, thinking of Margaret and determined to find work. That night he returned, tired and utterly beaten. But fear of being less a man than others gave him courage, so he went on like this day after day. He had to drive himself to leave the house, and as his money shrank, so grew his despair.
He thought once of his poetry, but he shrank at the image of alien eyes reading the lines that Margaret had loved. He could deceive her, but not himself.
It was on the fourteenth day after his arrival in Williamsburg that he stood before the druggist’s window and suddenly realized, in a flash of maturity, that he and Margaret had been fools.
Ralph had never known that there were so many bewildering fields of labor in the world. Each morning he picked up a discarded newspaper in the reeking dining room and carefully looked over the advertisements for help. There were requests for such exotic creatures as bushelmen, toolmakers, assemblers, and diemakers. He wondered what they were, listlessly.
Then one day he read an advertisement for a copy boy in the office of the Williamsburg Courier. He did not have the vaguest conception of what a copy boy was, but he knew that he filled the requirements of at least one year of high school and a neat hand. He brushed his thin coat, polished his boots, and set forth.
The offices of the Williamsburg Courier were large, urbane, and warm. Ralph’s old shyness returned as he asked for the city editor. The city editor was also owner of the newspaper, but even though Ralph’s eye dimly noted the name, Alfred Holbrooks, lettered upon a closed door, it did not register with any significance in his mind. He knocked gently, was shouted to from behind the door, and entered.
There were four men at desks in the room, wearing green eyeshades; they worked in their shirtsleeves and chewed tobacco. There was a warm and incredible disorder in this room, much more heartening than the neatness of the outer offices. Under glaring and spluttering gas lights spittoons glittered; at the windows the November sleet lowered and whistled. Each man leaned over his desk, rapidly writing, actively spitting, grunting, tossing paper into overflowing baskets.
The city editor was a bluff, gigantic man who ran to flabbiness instead of muscle. He was chewing a cigar, his red forehead wrinkling under a green eyeshade. The gaslights flared down on a round pink skull incredibly bald, and rolls of hard fat at the base of the brain.
As Ralph entered, he glanced up inquiringly. “Yes?” he asked.
“You—You advertised for a copy boy.” Ralph straightened and tried to look winning.
“What makes you think you’d make a good copy boy?”
“Well, I’ve got a good education and can write neatly, and—”
“I need the job,” replied Ralph with the simplicity of despair.
Holbrooks grunted. “That’s as good a reason as any. Where you from?”
Ralph breathed deeply. “Whitmore township.”
Holbrooks took the cigar from his mouth.
“Whitmore township? Say, you wouldn’t happen to know my half-brother, Seth Holbrooks, would you?”
“Oh, yes!” Ralph said quickly, feeling confidence return. “They don’t live far from my folks! Yes, I know Seth Holbrooks well!”
“You do, eh? What’s your name?”
“Ralph Blodgett.”
“Blodgett, eh? Say, then, you must be Susie Blodgett’s boy. Well, I’ll be damned! Your great-grandpap and my grandpap were first cousins! Say, I was raised in that country! Left it, though, before your time; thirty years ago. Just a shaver myself, looking for a job in town after Dad died. I ain’t been back there since I left. Say, my daughter, Lydia, was just down there on a visit. Did you see her?”
Ralph had a hazy recollection of pink dimples, chestnut curls, and tiny white hands.
“Of course, I remember Lydia! She came to see my mother one day. It seems to me that I heard she was going to marry Johnny Hobart. Do you know Johnny Hobart? He’s the squire, and the richest man in that country.”
“John Hobart? I remember his dad, though. Mean as hell and closer than his skin. Yes, Lydia did mention young John. Said something in one letter about him being interested in her, and being very rich and big as a bull. I was going down there to see for myself when she wrote she had given him a no answer, after all. Seems she said something about him getting in a huff and marrying some other girl down there.”
Holbrooks’ chair creaked as he pulled his massive bulk upright and returned to business. His face sharpened.
“So, you need a job, eh? Know how much we pay a copy boy? Seven dollars a week. Hours from seven in the morning to six or more at night. How old are you, anyway? Around twenty? Um. Not much money for a man of that age. You don’t know nothing about what’s wanted, too. You couldn’t live on that.”
Ralph calculated rapidly. Four dollars for board and room—“Yes, I could!” he cried eagerly. “It’s a start, anyway, Mr. Holbrooks. I can do the work, and I’ll do it well. You won’t be sorry if you give me the job.”
Holbrooks shrugged.
“All right, then. It’s yours. Seven in the morning.”
“Thank you, Mr. Holbrooks!” Ralph said quickly. He could hardly believe his luck. “Thank you! I’ll be here in the morning! This means a great deal to me—”
“All right, all right. Now, get out, I’m busy!”
Ralph’s hand was already on the door when it burst open and Lydia Holbrooks, radiant in sealskin jacket and cloque, bounced into the room. Her chestnut curls rioted about her pink cheeks; her little hands were hidden in a small round muff. She collided with Ralph and recoiled.
“Oh! Oh, dear!” Her muff dropped to the floor; he picked it up and gave it to her gravely. She looked at him curiously, as she looked at all young men, and then her smile faded and a startled look came into her eyes.
“Why! Why, it’s Mr. Blodgett! What on earth are you doing here?”
“I’m going to work for your father, Miss Lydia.”
Her eyes leaped beyond him to her father, who was grinning at her with fondness. Her mouth fell open in wonder, and then, as she looked at Ralph again, something hard passed over her face.
“Oh,” she said, with sudden and hypocritical gravity. “I see. Oh. I’m so sorry, Mr. Blodgett, about—everything.”
“Why—what do you mean?” asked Ralph, puzzled.
“Why, what else but Maggie Hamilton? Of course, that’s why you left home, after the way she treated you.”
Ralph went a little white; a premonition clutched him.
“I don’t know what you mean, Miss Lydia.” He tried to look merely curious. “Margaret and I are going to be married just as soon as I can send for her. I left home a few weeks ago, so I could make a place for her—”
An expression of shock passed over Lydia’s face. Then her eyes widened. It was evident to her that Ralph knew nothing as yet. She let her lip quiver slightly, and walked slowly to her father’s desk.
“Oh, Papa, I can’t tell him! It’s too horrible!”
“Tell me,” Ralph whispered, coming slowly back to the desk. “Please tell me.”
“Oh, Mr. Blodgett, that I should be the one to tell you! But didn’t you know that Maggie Hamilton married Mr. John Hobart over two weeks ago? I attended their wedding. And she did look so funny, in a queer gown in the church—”
“I don’t believe it!” Ralph cried harshly. “I don’t believe it! It was someone else! You only saw Margaret once!”
“I tell you I’m not mistaken!” Lydia snapped. “I was at the wedding. And I did too see her more than once. We all called on her and her mother just before the wedding! In their horrible, dirty, filthy little hut!”
Ralph’s heart turned over; there was an enormous sickness in him. He sat down slowly and continued to stare at Lydia. His lips moved but no sound came from them.
“Well, now, that’s too bad, Ralph, my boy,” Holbrooks said sympathetically. “Just when you get a job, too! Well, that’s women for you; you can’t trust them. Just as soon as you’re out of sight, they’re up to their tricks.”
But Ralph did not hear him. He still stared at Lydia but now he did not see her. Then he put a hand over his eyes.
Lydia had paled a little; she touched Ralph’s shoulder timidly.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.