HE BECOMES ACQUAINTED WITH A CHICAGO WIDOW.
I came to my senses in one of the bedrooms of the Shantytown Hotel. There was only a partition between that and the other bedrooms of brown cotton cloth, and as I slowly became conscious of things about me, I heard two voices beyond the next curtain talking of my affairs.
"I reckon he won't know where the time's gone to when he comes to himself ag'in. Lucky for him he didn't go up, like the old gentleman, in such small pieces as to never come down. I don't see, fur the life of me, what purvented. He was standin' right over the kag on which the old chap sot. Marakalous escape, that of the young lady. Beats everything."
"You bet, pardner, 'twouldn't happen so once in a thousand times. You see, she was jist blowed over the ledge an' rolled down twenty or thirty feet, an' brought up on a soft spot—wa'n't hurt a particle. But how she does take on about her pop! S'pose you knew her brother's come on fur her?"
"Yes; got here by the noon stage. They're reckoning to leave Shantytown immegitly. Less go down and see 'em off!"
They shuffled away.
I don't know whether my head ached, but I know my heart did. I was a murderer. Or, if not quite so bad as a deliberate murderer, I was, at the very least, guilty of manslaughter. And why? Because I had not been able to overcome my wicked weakness. I felt sick of life, of everything—especially of the mines.
"I can never return to the scene of the accident," I thought.
I groaned and tossed, but it was the torture of my conscience, and not of my aching limbs. The doctor and others came in.
"How long shall I have to lie here?" I asked.
"Not many days; no bones are broken. Your head is injured and you are badly bruised, that's all. You must keep quiet—you must not excite yourself."
Excite myself! As if I could, for one moment, forget the respectable old capitalist whom I had first poisoned and then blown into ten thousand pieces through my folly. I had brain fever. It set in that night. For two weeks I raved deliriously; for two weeks I was doing the things I ought not to have done—in imagination. I took a young lady skating, and slipped down with her on the ice, and broke her Grecian nose. I went to a grand reception, and tore the point lace flounce off of Mrs. Grant's train, put my handkerchief in my saucer, and my coffee-cup in my pocket. I was left to entertain a handsome young lady, and all I could say was to cough and "Hem! hem!" until at last she asked me if I had any particular article I would like hemmed.
I killed a baby by sitting down on it in a fit of embarrassment, when asked by a neighbor to take a seat. I waltzed and waltzed and waltzed with Blue-Eyes, and every time I turned I stepped on her toes with my heavy boots, until they must have been jelly in her little satin slippers, and finally we fell down-stairs, and I went out of that fevered dream only to find myself again giving blazing kerosene to an estimable old gentleman, who swallowed it unsuspiciously, and then sat down on a powder keg, and we all blew up—up—up—and came down—down—bump! I never want to have brain fever again—at least, not until I have conquered myself.
When I was once more rational, I resolved that a miner's life was too rough for me; and, as soon as I could be bolstered up in a corner of the coach, I set out to reach the railroad, where I was to take a palace-car for home. I gained strength rapidly during the change and excitement of the journey; so that, the day before we were to reach Chicago, I no longer remained prone in my berth, but, "clothed and in my right mind," took my seat with the other passengers, looked about and tried to forget the past and to enjoy myself. At first, I had a seat to myself; but, at one of the stations, about two in the afternoon, a lady, dressed in deep black, and wearing a heavy crepe veil, which concealed her face, entered our car, and slipped quietly in to the vacant half of my seat. She sat quite motionless, with her veil down. Every few moments a long, tremulous, heart-broken sigh stirred this sable curtain which shut in my companion's face. I felt a deep sympathy for her, whoever she might be, old or young, pretty or ugly. I inferred that she was a widow; I could hear that she was in affliction; but I was far too diffident to invent any little courteous way of expressing my sympathy. In about half an hour, she put her veil to one side, and asked me, in a low, sweet, pathetic voice, if I had any objection to drawing down the blind, as her veil smothered her, and she had wept so much that her eyes could not bear the strong light of the afternoon sun. I drew down the blind—with such haste as to pinch my fingers cruelly between the sash and the sill.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" said she.
"It's of no consequence," I stammered, making a Toots of myself.
"Oh, but it is! and in my service too! Let me be your surgeon, sir," and she took from her traveling-bag a small bottle of cologne, with which she drenched a delicate film of black-bordered handkerchief, and then wound the same around my aching fingers. "You are pale," she continued, slightly pressing my hand before releasing it—"ah, how sorry I am!"
"I am pale because I have been ill recently," I responded, conscious that all my becoming pallor was changing to turkey-red.
"Ill?—oh, how sad! What a world of trouble we live in! Ill?—and so young—so hand——. Excuse me, I meant not to flatter you, but I have seen so much sorrow myself. I am only twenty-two, and I've been a wid—wid—wid—ow over a year."
She wiped away a tear with handkerchief No. 2, and smiled sadly in my face.
"Sorrow has aged her," I thought, for, although the blind was down, she looked to me nearer thirty than twenty-two.
Still, she was pretty, with dark eyes that looked into yours in a wonderfully confiding way—melting, liquid, deep eyes, that even a man who is perfectly self-possessed can not see to the bottom of soon enough for his own good. As for me, those eyes confused while they pleased me. The widow never noticed my embarrassment; but, the ice once broken, talked on and on. She gave me, in soft, sweet, broken accents, her history—how she had been her mother's only pet, and had married a rich Chicago broker, who had died in less than two years, leaving her alone—all alone—with plenty of money, plenty of jewelry, a fine house, but alas, "no one to love her, none to caress," as the song says, and the world a desert.
"But I can still love a friend," she added, with a melancholy smile. "One as disinterested, as ignorant of the world as you, would please me best. You must stop in Chicago," she said, giving me her card before we parted. "Every traveler should spend a few days in our wonderful city. Call on me, and I will have up my carriage and take you out to see the sights."
Need I say that I stopped in Chicago? or add that I went to call on the fair widow? She took me out driving according to promise. I found that she was just the style of woman that suited me best. I was bashful; she was not. I was silent; she could keep up the conversation with very little aid from me. With such a woman as that I could get along in life. She would always be willing to take the lead. All I would have to do would be to give her the reins, and she would keep the team going. She would be willing to walk the first into church—to interview the butcher and baker—to stand between me and the world. A wife like that would be some comfort to a bashful man. Besides, she was rich! Had she not said it? I have seldom had a happier hour than that of our swift, exhilarating drive. The colored driver, gorgeous in his handsome livery, kept his eyes and ears to himself. I lolled back in the luxurious carriage beside my charmer. I forgot the unhappy accident of the blasting-powder—all the mortifications and disappointments of my life. I reveled in bliss. For once, I had nothing to do but be courted. How often had I envied the girls their privilege of keeping quiet and being made love to. How often had I sighed to be one of the sex who is popped to and does not have to pop. And now, this lovely, brilliant creature who sat beside me, having been once married, and seeing my natural timidity, "knew how it was herself," and took on her own fair hands all the responsibility.
"Mr. Flutter," said she, "I know just how you feel—you want to ask me to marry you, but you are too bashful. Have I guessed right?"
I pressed her hand in speechless assent.
"Yes, my dear boy, I knew it. Well, this is leap-year, and I will not see you sacrificed to your own timidity. I am yours, whenever you wish—to-morrow if you say so—yours forever. You shall have no trouble about it, I will speak to the Rev. Mr. Coalyard myself—I know him. When shall it be?—speak, dearest!"
I gasped out "to-morrow," and buried my blushing face on her shoulder.
For a moment her soft arms were twined around me—a moment only, for we were on the open lake drive. Not more than ten seconds did the pretty widow embrace me, but that was time enough, as I learned to my sorrow, for her to extract my pocket-book, containing the five hundred dollars I still had remaining from the sale of my mining-stock, and not one dollar of which did I ever see again.