CHAPTER X.
THE CLOTHES AND THE MAN.
It was six weeks before Jud had saved enough money to make the rather expensive trip to Glenville. In that time he found many experiences, novel and soul-trying. The busy city clashed against the rough edges of this unsophisticated youth and quickly wore them off. By the time he was ready to board the train for a two-days' stay with Justine he had acquired what it had taken other men years to learn. Keen and quick-witted, he easily fell into the ways of strangers, putting forward as good a foot as any country-bred boy who ever went to Chicago.
The newspaper on which he was employed recognized his worth, and at the end of the month he was pleased beyond all expression to find a twenty dollar gold piece in his envelope instead of a ten and a five. The chief artist told him his salary would improve correspondingly with his work. Still, he realized that twenty dollars a week was but little more than it required to keep him "going" in this spendthrift metropolis. The men he met were good fellows and they spent money with the freedom customary among newspaper workers. Jud did not spend his foolishly, yet he found he could save but little. He did not touch liquor; the other boys in the office did. His friend, the chief artist, advised him to save what money he could, but to avoid as much as possible the danger of being called a "cheap skate." He was told to be anything but stingy.
The young artist would gladly have eaten at lunch counters and slept in the lowliest of flats if he could have followed his own inclinations. But how could he let the other boys spend money on expensive meals without responding as liberally? It was with joy, then, that he welcomed the increase; and besides, it proved to him that there was promise of greater advancement, and that at no far distant day he could bring Justine to the city.
He took a bright twenty dollar gold piece to her on that first and long-expected visit. She met him at the station. All the way out to the little cottage he beamed with the pleasure and pride of possessing such love as came to him from this glowing girl. He forgot to compare her with the visions of loveliness he had become accustomed to seeing in the city. So overjoyed was he that he did not notice her simple garments, her sunburnt hands, her brown face. To him she was the most beautiful of all beings—the most perfect, the most to be desired.
"Jud, dear, I am so happy I could die," she whispered as they entered the cottage door after the drive home. He took her in his arms and held her for neither knew how long.
"Are you so glad to see me, sweetheart?" he asked tenderly.
"Glad! If you had not come to-day I should have gone to Chicago to-night. I could not have waited another day. Oh, it is so good to have you here; it is so good to be in your arms! You don't know how I have longed for you, Jud;—you don't know how lonely I have been all these years."
"Years! It has been but a month and a half," he said, smiling.
"But each day has been a year. Have they not seemed long to you?" she cried, chilled by the fear that they had been mere days to him when they had been such ages to her.
"My nights were years, Justine. My days were short; it was in the nights that I had time to think, and then I felt I should go wild with homesickness. You will never know how often I was tempted to get up out of bed and come back to you. It can't be long, it must not, till I can have you up there with me. I can't go through many such months as the last one; I'd die, Justine, honest I would."
"It won't be long, I know. You are getting on so nicely and you'll be able soon to take me with you. Maybe this winter?" She asked the question eagerly, dubiously.
"This winter? Good heavens, if I can't have you up there this winter, what's the use of trying to do anything? I want you right away, but I know I can't do it for a month or two——"
"Don't hope too strongly, dear. You must not count on it. I don't believe you can do it so soon—no, not for six months," she said, again the loving adviser.
"You don't know me," he cried. "I can do it!"
"I hope you can, Jud, but—but, I am afraid——"
"Afraid? Don't you believe in me?"
"Don't say that, please. I am afraid you won't be ready to have me up there as a—a——"
"A what, sweetheart?"
"A very heavy burden."
"Burden! Justine, you will lift the greatest burden I will have to carry—my spirits. I need you, and I'll have you if I starve myself."
"When you are ready, Jud, I'll go with you. You can tell when the time comes. I'll starve with you, if needs be."
That night they received callers in the fire-lit front room. The whole community knew that he was at home, and everybody came to sate legitimate curiosity. Some talked, others joked, a few stared; until at length the township was satisfied and hurried home to bed. For days the people talked of the change they had observed in Jud—not so much in respect to his clothes as to his advanced ideas. "Aleck" Cranby was authority for the statement that Sherrod was engaged in "drawin' picters fer a dictionary. Thet's how he knows so all-fired much."
The young artist's brief stay at home was the most blissful period in his life and in hers. They were separated only for moments. When the time came for him to go away he went with a cheerier heart and he left a happier one behind. In their last kiss there was the promise that he would return in a month, and there was, back of all, the conviction that she would go with him to Chicago within six months. On the train, however, he allowed gloomy thoughts to drive away the optimism that contact with Justine had inspired. He realized that every dollar he possessed in the world was in his pocket, and he had just six dollars and thirty cents. At such a rate, how much could he accumulate in six short months?
Back on the little farm there was a level-headed thinker who was counting on a year instead of six months, and who was racking her brains for means with which to help him in the struggle. One good crop would be a godsend.
For several weeks Jud observed the strictest economy. When next he went to the farm for a visit it was with sixty dollars. Most of this he gave to Justine, who hid it in a bureau drawer. Winter was on in full blast now, and he did not forget to purchase a warm coat for her, besides heavy dress-goods, underwear, and many little necessities. Thanksgiving saw her dressed in better clothes than she had known since those almost forgotten days of affluence before the mining swindle. Jud, himself, was not too warmly clad. He refused to buy clothes for himself until he had supplied Justine with all she needed. His suit was old but neat, his shoes were new, his hat was passable, but his overcoat was pitiful in its old age.
The night after his return from the farm, he had a few good friends in his room to eat the apples, cakes, and nuts which his wife had given him at home. It was a novel feast for the Chicago boys. Ned Draper, a dramatic critic, had money in the new suit of clothes which graced his person, and he sent out for wine, beer and cigars. The crowd made merry until two o'clock, but not one drop of liquor passed Jud's lips.
"Sherrod, where did you get that overcoat I saw you wearing to-day?" asked Draper, in friendly banter. Jud flushed, but answered steadily: "In Glenville."
"The glorious metropolis of Clay township—the city of our youth," laughed Hennessy, the police reporter.
"You ought to pension it and give it a pair of crutches," went on Draper. "It has seen service enough and it's certainly infirm. I'll swear, I don't see how it manages to hang alone."
"It's the best I can afford," cried the owner, resentfully.
"Aw, what are you givin' us? You're getting twenty a week and you're to have thirty by Christmas—if you're good, you know,—and I would blow myself for some clothes. Hang it, old man, I mean it for your own good. People will think more of you if you spruce up and make a showing. Those clothes of yours don't fit and they're worn out. You don't know what a difference it will make in your game if you make a flash with yourself. It gets people thinking you're a peach, when you may be a regular stiff. Go blow yourself for some clothes, and the next time you chase down to Glenville to see that girl she'll break her neck to marry you before you can get out of town. On the level, now, old man, I'm giving it to you straight. Tog up a bit. It doesn't cost a mint and it does help. I'll leave it to the crowd."
"The crowd" supported Draper, and Jud could but see the wisdom in their advice, although his pride rebelled against their method of giving it. The sight of the other men in the office dressing well, if not expensively, while he remained as ever the wearer of the rankest "hand-me-downs," had not been pleasing. For weeks he had been tempted to purchase a cheap suit of clothes at one of the big department stores, but the thought of economy prevented.
"You haven't any special expense," said Colton, the third guest. "Nobody depends on your salary but yourself, so why don't you cut loose? Your parents are dead, just as mine are, and you are as free as air. I can put you next to one of the best tailors in Chicago and he'll fix you out to look like a dream without skinning you to death."
Jud smiled grimly when Colton said that no one but himself depended on his salary. These fellows did not know he was married. An unaccountable fear that they might ridicule him if he posed as a married man who could not support his wife had caused him to keep silent concerning his domestic affairs. Besides, he had heard these and other men speak of certain wives, often in the presence of their husbands, in a manner which shocked him. No one had asked him if he were married and he did not volunteer the information. It amused him hugely when his new acquaintances teased him about "his girl down in old Clay." Some day he would surprise them by introducing them to Justine, calmly, in a matter-of-fact way, and then he would laugh at their incredulity.
"I can't afford clothes like you fellows wear," he said in response to Colton's offer.
"Of course, you can—just as well as I can," said Colton.
"Or any one of us," added Draper. "Clothes won't break anybody."
"You're a good-looking chap, Sherrod, and if you dressed up a bit you'd crack every girl's heart in Chicago. 'Gad, I can see the splinters flying now," cried Hennessy, admiringly.
"It's no joke," added Colton. "I could tog you out till you'd——"
"But I haven't the money, consarn it," cried the victim, a country boy all over again. They laughed at his verdancy, and it all ended by Colton agreeing to vouch for him at the tailor's, securing for him the privilege of paying so much a month until the account was settled.
Jud lay awake nights trying to decide the matter. He knew that he needed the clothes and that it was time to cast aside the shabby curiosities from Glenville. He saw that he was to become an object of ridicule if he persisted in wearing them. Pride demanded good clothes, that he might not be ashamed to be seen with well-dressed men; something else told him that he should save every penny for a day that was to come as soon as he could bring it about. At last he went to Colton and asked him what he thought the clothes would cost, first convincing himself that tailor-made garments were the only kind to be considered.
Colton hurried him off to the tailor, and within an hour he was on the street again, dazed and aware that he had made a debt of one hundred and thirty dollars. He was to have two suits of clothes, business and dress, and an overcoat. For a week he was miserable, and a dozen times he was tempted to run in and countermand the order. How could he ever pay it? What would Justine think? At length the garments were completed and he found them at his hall door. Attached was a statement for $130, with the information that he was to pay $10 a month, "a very gracious concession as a favor to our esteemed friend, Mr. Colton," said the accompanying note. In a fever of excitement he tried them on. The fit was perfect; he looked like other men. Still, his heart was heavy. That night, taking up his old cast-off suit, he mourned over the greasy things that he and Justine had selected at Dave Green's store the week before they were married. They were his wedding clothes.
"I'll keep them forever," he half sobbed, and he hung them away carefully. The time came for his next visit to the little farm. In his letters he had said nothing about the new clothes, but he had admitted that unexpected expenses had come upon him. He could not bring himself to tell her of that extravagance. He believed that she would have approved, but he shrank from the confession.
When he boarded the train for the trip home, he was dressed in the clothes he had first worn to Chicago, the greasy wedding garments. He never forgot how guilty he felt when she told him the next evening, as they sat before the old fireplace, that he should buy a new overcoat and a heavy suit of clothes. And after he went away on Monday she wondered why he had been so quiet and preoccupied during his visit.