THE CHRISTMAS BRIDE (2 page)

An unanticipated shyness came upon him. A bear he had met, wild cattle in a stampede, a gun pointing into his face, the threatening angry growl of a group that outnumbered him, all without the slightest quiver. But that oncoming train that would carry him back into a world of civilization brought a strange panic upon him. He waited while a bundle of papers and a mail pouch were thrown off and a salesman’s case of samples and a trunk were put on. Then just as the conductor waved his signal to the engineer and the first slow revolution of the wheels began, he gravely stepped forward and swung himself aboard the lowest step, his newspaper bundle under his arm, and quite casually rode out of town into the great world.

Cautiously he opened the door of a Pullman and glanced inside. Here at once was a foreign atmosphere. Men and women of another world. Obviously he did not belong here. Swift as the vision of Adam and Eve after they ate the apple came the knowledge to him that his apparel was not right.

The porter approached him hastily from the other end of the car as if he were a stray dog wandered in, to be hustled out as soon as possible.

“Common cah up the othah end of the train!” he said in an unmistakable tone of authority.

Gregory stiffened and lifted his chin haughtily. Here again was that same spirit of class distinction from which he had run away when he came west. He had not expected to meet it again at the first step of the way. He made a mental resolve that his wealth should never make him feel superior to his fellow mortals.

He looked the porter in the eye for an instant and then turned and stalked in the direction indicated, through another parlor car, a club car and diner, on up through several common cars. He dropped finally into a vacant seat, and settling down close to the window, gave himself to watching the sunset, as much as he could see of it reflected in the clouds ahead of the train. Splendid flocks of pinks and blues and delicate pearly grays, like sheep being herded into the oncoming night.

Now and then the train took a slight turn, and he could look directly into the west where were heaped up masses of velvety purple and midnight blue, rent here and there with heavy gold in ragged splashes.

Back there on his old hillside that mingled glory light would be still shining on the home he had left, touching with splendor his rude shack, laying bright hands on the far pile of stones that marked old Luke’s grave, sailing silverly down the river in the valley.

As long as the display lasted, he gave undivided attention to his window, until night pulled the curtain of twilight definitely down and pinned it with a star.

He sat with his head leaning against the cold window pane, looking into the night. And presently he became aware of voices purposely raised across the aisle, four girls in a double seat. They were discussing his clothes, and Greg’s anger arose again. Couldn’t one wear what one pleased in this world?

Greg hadn’t given much thought to what he should wear. Indeed, he had little choice. Out there in his wilderness home, it seemed to matter very little. He was wearing khaki breeches stuffed into heavy boots and belted with a cartridge belt over a flannel shirt of butternut brown. His short coat of khaki color was lined and furred with sheepskin. His hat was a soft, wide-brimmed, weathered felt, and although he did not know it, he made a picturesque figure sitting like a bronze statue against the brilliant, changing sky.

As the girls’ voices rose, he turned and looked at them. He had scarcely noticed them when he sat down. They were brightly dressed—cheaply, too—although he did not know that, and their faces were startling in their makeup. When Gregory came west, nice girls didn’t paint their faces. Even indecent ones did not go to such an extreme as these girls. They looked to him like the girls who came at intervals to Jake’s Place and gave a show, and then danced and drank afterward with the clamoring cowboys who flocked to meet them. He had never cared much for that sort of thing. He had been too busy fighting for his land, too young when he first came west to feel the urge toward such brawls, and later too much in the habits of his hermitage to venture forth for an all-night party. Perhaps, too, the lingering memory of the clean, simple atmosphere with which his mother had surrounded his boyhood days was a strong element in protecting his life from such temptations.

So now as he turned a grave glance toward the three highly illuminated faces and took note of the impudent, intimate challenge of their lawless eyes, he judged them young women of no reputation and met their look with one of half-pitying contempt. He would have been surprised to know that they were simply common, ill-bred, hardworking girls out to have a good time and eager to imitate a brazen modern world whose glamour lured their souls.

The one in red began to laugh and suddenly addressed him mockingly: “Why n’t ya buy ya a haircut, buddie?” she called across to him. “It would improve ya a lot.”

Greg eyed her gravely an instant and then replied in a careless drawl:

“Thanks a lot! I was just thinking how much you girls needed a good face wash!”

Then he slowly straightened up, rose to his full height, and turned his gaze down the car. He made a really stunning figure, and the girls, catching their breath at his audacity, suddenly broke into embarrassed laughter mixed with a note of hilarity. But Greg did not look their way again. He picked up his paper bundle and walked slowly away from them down the aisle and out the car door.

Back through the other common cars he went, looking to neither right nor left, through club car and diner and Pullmans, studying the numbers of the cars as he made his slow progress, till at last he found the number he was looking for. As he paused beside it, the porter whom he had at first encountered came hurrying nervously toward him from the rear end of the car.

Greg eyed him amusedly as he puffed up assertively and seemed about to speak. Then he said in his slow, pleasant drawl: “Sorry to disturb you, brother, but this seems to be my seat,” and he handed out the magic bit of green paper that gave him right to that place and sat down.

The porter eyed him incredulously, studied the ticket a moment, and then looked at him sharply.

“Where’d you-all get this ticket? This yours?”

“Back there at the station where I got on,” said Greg, still in that calm, half-amused tone. “Isn’t it all right?” and he handed out a bill that made the porter stare and melt into smiles.

“Oh, yessah, yessah! It’s all right, sah! I wasn’t just shore where at this party was comin’ on, sah. Any bags, sah?” and he eyed Greg’s newspaper bundle questioningly.

“No bags!” said Greg, grinning and stowing his parcel beside him.

The poor, bewildered porter went on his way, staring down at the greenback and casting furtive glances around at the other passengers. And then, entrenched behind his own special narrow sanctum at the end of the car, he peered out and studied this strange, crude-looking passenger who dressed like a common workman and threw ten dollar bills around so casually.

And Greg sank into his comfortable seat and mused on the ways of the world to which he had come back. He could sense that the porter was still troubled in spite of the tip, and he realized that his appearance was against him. Even money didn’t count if one didn’t dress the part. Well, he could do it now, but would it pay? Would it get him the kind of friends he wanted? Of course he meant to buy some new clothes when he got to a city. Perhaps he would stop off in Chicago and shop. He didn’t want to go home looking like a wild man. But he registered a resolve never to dress conspicuously and never to judge a man merely by his clothes.

Presently, one came through the train announcing the last call for dinner, and Greg, with a furtive glance around, noting that most of his car companions were in their seats and had probably had their dinners, decided that it was late enough for him to venture into the diner. He found he was hungry enough to thoroughly enjoy the first well-cooked meal that he had eaten for several years.

Ten days later, Gregory Sterling stood at the front window of the luxurious room that had been assigned him in the great new apartment hotel in his hometown, looking out at the street that had been a meadow when he went away.

He had chosen the Whittall House from the list the taxicab driver had suggested, because it seemed to be located out on the edge of town, and his soul was weary for the quietness and peace of his wilderness lodge. He had spent several days in Chicago shopping, having acquired what seemed to him a ridiculously large supply of clothing and several quite correct pieces of baggage. Porters and hotel clerks no longer looked at him askance. He was as well turned out as any modern young man could be. The hometown had no need to be ashamed of him.

And now he stood at the window of his room looking out on the amazing changes that had come during his absence, identifying the bit of a park across the street as the very spot where his mother and he used to pick violets years ago on the rare occasions when she had time to take a walk with him. His eyes suddenly filmed over with tears at the memory.

The street was wide, and the little park ran down the center, making a boulevard of it. Traffic was whirling on either side, but the little park in the middle made a haven, a wide, nice pleasant place to rest between the crossings. There were paths of cement wandering across the park, curving this way and that among the trees, and there were flower beds with late fall flowers in blossom, little button chrysanthemums, white and yellow, pompon chrysanthemums flaring red, orange, yellow, russet brown, and flame color, growing rankly with bright, ragged heads in spite of the touch of frost there had been the night before.

There were trees, too. Tall pines and oaks and maples, still clinging to their brilliant foliage, for the street there was sheltered by tall buildings, apartments houses, and hotels. And was that an old, gnarled apple tree? It looked like the very tree he used to climb to get a spray of apple blossoms for his mother. There were no leaves left on it, but high in the top there was a small red apple or two that no one had spied. There was a bench under the tree, and the walk curved to it and away to a fountain a little farther on, a fountain whose bright spray caught the late afternoon sun and reflected it into many faceted jewels.

A girl was sitting on the bench, droopingly, as if she was tired and discouraged. It was good to have a bit of green in the midst of the whirl, a quiet place where the traffic could not come, for tired people to rest in. But better still if the meadow were there the way it used to be!

Across the road beyond the little park and the other road there were tall, beautiful buildings, but they did not look natural. He was almost sorry he had come out here to stay. It did not seem as if it was his hometown at all. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that the town would grow out into the country this way in just ten years!

His eyes wandered back again to the fountain where little brown birds were drenching themselves and shaking fluffy, wet feathers, splashing like children in the marble basin and sitting chirping on the marble rim to dry.

The girl on the bench was not far from them, but she did not seem to be watching the birds. She had put her head down now on her arm across the back of the bench, as if she were too tired to watch birds or enjoy bits of parks.

Then suddenly as he gazed, the girl slumped in a little crumpled heap and slid off the bench, as if she no longer had the power to help herself. So slowly, almost unobtrusively, the slender figure slipped down from the bench, it almost seemed like an empty garment sliding from a chair where it had been carelessly thrown. Could it be that her spirit had fled?

Startled, he looked at the still form lying there on the ground, one arm thrown up and back the way it had slipped when she fell, the white face turned upward. Was he seeing aright? Or was this some illusion?

He passed his hand over his eyes hastily and looked again. Something must be wrong with his vision. It could not be that a thing like that had happened before his eyes in broad daylight with traffic passing either way continually.

But there she lay, still as death, her hat tipped away from her face. And now he saw there were bushes all about which might have obstructed the vision of those on the road. He could see because he was looking down from above. She was lying there as she had fallen on the ground beside the bench, and no one seemed to be doing anything about it. He was perhaps the only one who knew, and she might be dying if she were not dead already!

Greg sprang toward his door and started down the stairs, thankful that he was only three stories up, forgetting that an elevator could travel faster than his feet.

T
he doorman was startled as Greg burst hatless into the street.

“A woman fallen off the bench over there!” Greg called breathlessly as the doorman rushed alongside. “I saw her fall. Better call a doctor!”

“Better call the police!” advised the doorman prudently. “You better wait till the police comes! You might get mixed up in some murder or something.” The doorman put a detaining hand on Greg’s arm, holding him back from an oncoming automobile.