The Wood Fire in No. 3 Part 21

"'I should think, perhaps, fifty dollars, when it's finished.'

"'That's at the rate of twenty-five dollars a week, isn't it? A little over three dollars a day. I earned more than that, young man, when I was younger than you, and I was making something that was _sold_ before I turned a hand to it. You've got to shop your things around till you sell 'em. Come into the house, Nellie, I want to speak to you.'

"Brutal, wasn't it? I have hated his kind ever since. Money! Money!

Money! You'd think the only thing in life was the acc.u.mulation of dollars. Flowers bloom, mists curl up mountain sides, brooks laugh in the sunlight, birds sing, and children romp and play. There is poverty and suffering and death; there are stricken hearts needing help; kind words to speak; famis.h.i.+ng minds to educate; there is art, and science, and music--Nothing counts. Money! Money! Money! I'm sick of it!"

"And that ended it with the girl?" I asked, without moving my head from my hand.

"Yes, practically. She went to Paris and I went back to Munich. I felt as if my heart had been torn out of me; like a plant twisted up by the roots. The letters came--first every day, then once or twice a week, then at long intervals. You won't believe it, old man, but do you know that wound never healed for years; hasn't yet, parts of it. Shams, flaunted wealth, society--all irritate it, and me. It seemed so cruel, so d.a.m.ned stupid. What counts but love, I would say to myself over and over again. If I had a million dollars, what better off would I be? If we were both on a desert island without a cent we could be happy together, and if we had a million apiece and didn't love each other we would be miserable. Quixotic, I know, indefensible, out of date with modern methods, but I'd give my career if more of that sort of doctrine saturated the air we breathe."

"You saw her again?"

"Yes, once in Paris, driving with her husband. This was about five years ago. She didn't see me, although I stood within ten feet of her. He was much older, older than I am now, I should think. Commonplace sort of fellow--see a dozen like him any morning on the Avenue going down to Wall Street. Only her eyes were left, and the fluff of hair about her forehead. She made no impression on me; she wasn't the woman I loved. My memories were of a girl in the garden, all in white, her hair about her shoulders, the molten sunlight splashed here and there, the cool shadow tones between the drippings of gold. And the sound of her voice, and the way she raised her eyes to mine! No, it never comes but once. It is the bloom on the peach, the flush of dawn, never repeated in any other sky; the thrill of the first kiss at the altar, the cry of the first child.

Yours! Yours! for ever and ever!

"Talking like a first-cla.s.s idiot, am I not, old man? But I can't help it. And I get so lonely for it sometimes! Often when you fellows go home and I am left alone at night I draw up by this fire and build castles in the coals. And I see so many things: the figure of a woman, the uplifted hands of children, paths leading to low porticos, gardens with tall flowers along their paths, an arm about my neck and a warm cheek held close to mine. I know I am only half living tucked up here pegging away, and that I ought to shake myself loose and go out into the world more and see what it is made of. In a few years I'll be frozen fast into my habits like an old branch in a stream when the winter's cold strikes it.

Only you and the other boys and the fire keep me young."

"Have you never met anybody since, Mac, you cared for?" I had braced myself for that question, wondering how he would take it.

"Yes, once, but she never knew it. I had nothing--why begin over again?

It would have turned out like the other--worse. Then I was too young, now I'm too old. Besides, she's on the other side of the water; lives there."

"She liked you?"

"Oh, I don't know. Women are hard to understand. I never abuse their confidence when they trust me, and they generally do trust me when I get close to them. I seem always to be the big brother to them and so they let themselves go, knowing I won't misunderstand. Women _like_ me, they don't love me--great difference. A lot of men make this mistake, thinking a woman is in love with them when she only wants to be kind.

She can't always be on the defensive and still be natural. The greatest relief that can come to one of them is to find that the man whom she wants only as a companion is contented to be that and nothing more and won't take advantage of her confidence. So I say I don't know. She was a human kind of a girl, this one--real human."

Here Mac paused for an instant, his eyes on the fast-dying embers--as if he were recalling the girl more clearly to his mind. "Had a heart for things outside of her own affairs. Girl a man could tie up to. Human, I tell you--real human!"

"Follow it up, Mac?" He had volunteered nothing about her personality, and I dared not ask.

"No, let it go. I've been hoping I'd make a hit some time and then maybe I'd--no, don't talk about it any more. Listen! who's that coming upstairs? That's Woods, I know his step. Happy fellow! Hear his whistle--he must have got another order for a full-length; nothing like powder-puff teas for encouraging American art, my boy," and a smile crept over Mac's face, which broadened into a laugh when he added, "I'm beginning to think that a course in cooking is as necessary for a painter as a course in perspective."

The expected arrival was by this time beating a rat-a-tat-too on the Chinese screen, his whistle more shrill than ever.

"Come in, you pampered child of fas.h.i.+on!" cried Mac, the sound of Woods's joyous step having completely changed the current of his thoughts. "Stop that racket, I tell you. We know you've got another portrait, but don't split our ears over it."

A black slouch hat rose slowly above the edge of the screen, then a lock of hair, and then a round fat face in a broad grin. It was Boggs!

"Thought you were Woods," cried Mac.

"I'm aware of that idiotic mistake on your part, great and masterful painter," burst out Boggs, bowing grandiloquently.

"You're not half so good-looking as Woods, you fat woodchuck," shouted back Mac.

"I am aware of it, great and masterful painter, but I am infinitely more valuable. I carry priceless things about me. In fact I'm just chuck-full of priceless things. Shake me and I'll exude glad tidings. Marvellous events are happening at the Academy. I have just left there, and I _know_! The main stairway is in the hands of a mob of disappointed millionnaires pressing up toward the South Room. Every art critic in town is clinging to the columns craning his head. Brown is in a collapse, his body stretched out on one of the green sofas. All eyes are fastened--even Brown's glazed peepers--on a small yellow card slipped into the lower left-hand corner of a canvas occupying the centre of the south wall. Before it, down on his knees, pouring out his heart in thankfulness, is the happy purchaser, the tears rolling down his cheeks, his----"

"Boggs, what the devil are you talking about!" cried Mac, a sudden light breaking out on his face. "Do you mean----"

"I do, most masterful painter--I mean just that! Toot the hewgag! Bang the lyre! The 'East River' is sold!"

"Sold!"

"SOLD! you duffer!"

"Who to?" Mac's voice had an unsteady tremor in it.

"To Pitkins's friend, the banker. He's wild about it. Says he's been looking for something of yours ever since the night he was here, and only knew you had a picture on exhibition when he read Cook's abuse of it in yesterday's paper. And that isn't all! No sooner had the 'Sold'

card been slipped into the frame than Mr. Blodgett came in; swore he had been intending to buy the 'East River' for his gallery ever since the show opened; offered an advance of five hundred dollars to the banker, who laughed at him; and then in despair bought your other picture, 'The Storm,' hung on the top line. Both sold, O most masterful painter! All together now, gentlemen--

"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot--'" and Boggs's voice rang out in the tune he knew Mac loved best.

Mac dropped into his chair. The news thrilled him in more ways than one.

Certain vague, hopeless plans could now, perhaps, be carried out; plans he had driven from his mind as soon as they had taken shape: Holland for one, which seemed nearer of realization now than ever. So did some others.

"Millionaires have their uses, Mac, after all," laughed Marny.

"Yes, but this fellow was an exception. He filled my mug and----"

"--And your pocket," added Boggs; "don't forget that, you ingrate.

Again--all together, gentlemen--

"'Should auld acquaintance be forgot----'"

This time Boggs sang the couplet to the end, Mac and all of us joining in.

When all the others had gone I still kept my chair. There was one thing more I wanted to know. Mac was on his feet, restlessly pacing the room, a quickness in his step, a buoyant tone in his voice that I had not noticed all winter.

"Sit down here, old man, and let me ask you a question."

"No," answered Mac, "fire it at me here. I'm too happy to sit down. What is it?"

"Was that human girl you spoke of, who lives abroad, the one in the steamer chair with the red roses in her lap?"

Mac stopped and laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Yes; I got a letter from her this morning."

"And you are going over?"

"By the first steamer, old man."

THE END