AN ORDEAL BY FIRE
MR. LANTER was bookkeeping clerk in a New York dry-goods store. For his services he was remunerated at the rate of fifteen dollars per week. His bedroom at the boarding house with daily breakfast and three meals on the Sunday, cost him ten dollars; the remaining five supplied all other necessities—fed him at cheap restaurants, dressed him from cheap clothing stores, and allowed him to send a cash bill now and then to his mother, who lived in a New Hampshire village on tea, bread and sauce, wore her hair in looped bell-ropes on either side of her forehead and a rosette behind, and thought her son the most splendid man in the world. But despite heroic efforts, Mr. Lanter had not succeeded in putting by anything against a rainy day. As to marriage, it was not to be dreamt of, which is probably the reason why Mr. Lanter dreamed of it so frequently. But the feminine form that figured in those dreams was not that of a typist, or a sales-lady, or even a chorus-girl or variety artist. Mr. Lanter was a young man with a turn for reading, who regularly spent his Sundays at the Cooper Institute, and he did not feel that he could undertake to do his duty as a husband by anything short of a heroine of romantic classical fiction. He had had imaginary love passages with several of these, both ancient and modern. The Faëry Queen had given him Britomart, and the Volsunga Saga had supplied him with Brunhild. Hypatia’s erudition made her a little alarming, but the affair was pleasant while it lasted; and Iseult was too dark for Mr. Lanter’s taste, but he changed the color of her locks as expeditiously as a French hairdresser, and roamed the forest ways with her more appreciatively than Prosper. Theaters Mr. Lanter did not frequent, because Mrs. Lanter regarded such places as pitfalls dug by the devil for the capture of unwary young America, and he had promised his mother he would not visit them. Indeed, had he been inclined to go back on his word, he could not have afforded to do so. But neither concert-halls, museums, nor circuses figured on Mrs. Lanter’s black list, because she had forgotten to specify them; and one half-holiday Mr. Lanter found himself entering Kneeman’s Star Musée with an order.
The Kneeman Musée is a big, opulent building, with a central dome of colored glass, a gorgeous façade ornamented with groups of sculptured figures and a gilded vestibule where are displayed an array of life-sized photographs and gigantic colored posters illustrating the wonders to be seen within; promising upon this occasion, among other exquisite novelties, the unique whistling entertainment of Madame Smithers, the Kentucky Mocking Bird; the Celebrated Centaur Family, in their feats of Equitation; the Balancing Bonellis, in their electrifying plank-and-ladder interlude; Madame la Comtesse Püspök Ladany, the Beautiful Hungarian (heroine of one of the most sensational European elopements) in her Elegant Effects of Equestrianism upon the highly-trained Arab Maimoun, assisted by Rurik the Gitano, who had the honor, upon the sensational occasion above alluded to, of eloping with Madame la Comtesse. Then came the Mermaids in a Tank Act, and three-inch notes of exclamation clamorously invited attention to the American Girl Giantess, Mademoiselle Minota, nineteen years of age, nine feet in height, weighing four hundred and twenty-six pounds, able to lift a weight of one hundred and forty pounds with one hand.... The remainder of the bill was filled with dwarfs, performing lions, snake-charmers, and ventriloquists.
Mr. Lanter presented nothing remarkable to the ordinary observation. He was fair, undersized, and short-sighted, and the necktie he had chosen was of a vivid salmon-pink, trying to his complexion, which had been injured by overwork and close confinement in a glass counting-hutch lighted by electricity, and heated by steam. He followed his companion, who was a smart, bustling young salesman with a lady-killing reputation, and sporting proclivities; and as he went he smiled a little vaguely, and his mouth was not quite shut, a negligence which deprives the expression of intellectuality. They had fauteuil seats so close to the Ring that their knees rubbed against the low velvet-cushioned barrier that enclosed the sand-strewn space, which seemed to Mr. Lanter to be a brown central-patch, in a gorgeous, multi-colored dream. The dome above, all glass and gilding, the pretty women in the boxes, the perambulating vendors of candy and ices, the orchestra tuning up in a gilded balcony on the left of the stage, the whiffs of menagerie, gas, and stabling which escaped from the coulisses, the people who pushed past into their places, Madame Smithers trilling and piping in emulation of the feathered songsters of American groves, the Centaur Family upon their gaily-trapped steeds, the bursts of applause, the shouts of laughter, were all made of dream-stuff.... But when heavy tableau-curtains rose upon a scene representing a mediæval banqueting-hall, and revealed the American Girl Giantess, throned upon a high seat, arrayed in gilded chain-mail and flowing purple draperies, a sword in her large white right hand, a crimson cloak upon her shoulders and a dragon-crested helm upon her large fair head, the start Mr. Lanter gave would have awakened any ordinary sleeper. But the dream closed in again, as Miss Minota rose, and, bowing to the right, to the left, to the middle, descended the baize-covered staircase which led from the stage to the Ring.... Other spectators saw a young woman monstrously overgrown, with tow-colored hairplaits as thick as coir-cable, and blue eyes as round as silver dollars, who was well-proportioned in her huge way, and who, if looked at through the wrong end of an opera-glass, when divested of her tawdry theatrical trappings, might have appeared an honest, ordinary young person of average good looks. But Mr. Lanter saw a golden roof-ridge and a ring of magic fire roaring up, and the Brunhild of his visions; and breathed hard, and felt a clammy sensation about the palms of the hands, while his heart drummed heavily against the lining of his ready-made waistcoat. He must have been very pale or very purple in the face, for his companion nudged him.
“Guess you’re feeling off color!... Like to get out into the air?... If so, I’ll keep your seat,� he whispered; but Mr. Lanter shook his head.
The band struck up a march, Miss Minota descended into the arena, a voluble gentleman in evening dress, who acted as showman, and, when necessary, as interpreter, walking in the shadow of her elbow. She seemed, indeed, an overwhelming example of feminine physical development as she gravely performed her round, replying in monosyllables to the remarks that were made to her by members of the audience, complying with their expressed desire to shake her enormous hand. Mr. Lanter was hot and cold by turns as her monumental proportions drew nearer; he meant to rise in his place and boldly engage her in conversation; he got as far as getting on his legs. It seemed that the large blue eyes of the giantess dropped upon him inquiringly; he almost fancied her about to pause. But his tongue refused to utter the word which would have arrested her progress.... She swept past, and it was as though the mainsail of a yacht had gone over on the starboard tack, emptying a whole breeze out of an acre of canvas. Another moment and she had ascended to the stage, her draperies of crimson and purple trailing as she went; she had lifted her weights, respectively guaranteed at one hundred and one hundred and forty pounds avoirdupois; she had made her three bows, and the tableau-curtains had descended and closed. Thenceforward Mr. Lanter took no interest in the entertainment. With fishy eyes he sat, retrospective, unobservant; and his companion, the lively Mr. Goter, found him mighty dull.
“Oh, look here!... Say now! what’s up with you?� he protested, as they walked home together through the crowded streets.
The clang of street-car gongs, the intermittent roar and rattle of the elevated railway, mingled with the blare of tin horns, and the clamor of voices. It was hot May weather, and there was a smell upon the languid air that seemed to combine in itself the flavor of rotten fruit, the musky odor of African skins, the pungent acridity of frying oil, and the rankness of coarse tobacco.
“Up with me? Why, I’m all right,� said Mr. Lanter, “and I’ve had a real good time, thanks to you, old man!�
“Come, have a drink?� said the pacified Goter, and they turned in at the swing doors of a beer saloon. “Bully, wasn’t she?� he broke out, after ordering two iced bocks. “My style all over! Guess I’ve a good mind to take her on!� and he winked knowingly.
Mr. Lanter set down his tall glass of untasted Münchener. “Look here, who are you talking about?� He was salmon-pink to the edge of his black Derby hat, and his pale blue eyes had angry sparks in them.
“That girl that did the jugglin’ business on the plank-and-ladder,� responded Goter. “Black eyes, black hair, high color, and spankin’ action. Did you s’pose I meant that walkin’ grain-elevator in the tin armor? No, sir!�
He had yet another fulminating witticism on hand, and he discharged it. Before it had done crackling he saw stars, for the placable Lanter had suddenly smitten him upon the nose.
“Good thunder! what are you up to, anyway?� spluttered the astonished Mr. Goter.
“Hol’ off there! Go easy!� shouted the barkeeper. Half a dozen men, their drinks in their hands, their hats tilted back from interested faces, had gathered round, and a colored boy was mopping the red-stained marble table with a wet cloth.
“He—he insulted a lady!� gasped Mr. Lanter, “and I struck him! If he does it again—I’ll do it again!... Mind that!� The tone and the look with which he delivered the final warning convinced Mr. Goter that he had better mind.
Thenceforward he ceased to regard Mr. Lanter as a “Willie� and Mr. Lanter ceased to regard himself as a Christian young man. His own violence had shocked him. There must be a good deal of cold reason, he reflected, at the bottom of Mrs. Lanter’s inveterate prejudice against public places of entertainment, and his conscience pricked him. But she had made him promise that he would not go to “theaters,� and he salved his conscience by reminding himself that he had kept his word. But he went again and yet again to Kneeman’s Star Musée. And upon the third occasion he mustered up courage to speak to Miss Minota.
“How do you do?� he blurted out. Then as an afterthought he blurted out, “Mademoiselle.� He had to tilt his head quite back to look up into Miss Minota’s large fair moon-face. He wondered what she would say if anybody told her that she was his ideal of womanhood?
“I guess I am very well, thank you,� responded the giantess. She had a plaintive, mooing voice, and despite the usage of a public career, she seemed little less bashful than Mr. Lanter.
“Do you like N’York?� Mr. Lanter inquired.
“Well,� Miss Minota returned, “I guess I do!� She sighed as she continued: “But one place is much the same as another to you—when you don’t see anythin’ more of it than the inside of the hotel where you happen to be located, and the inside of the hall where you chance to be exhibitin’.�
“Why, now, that’s a shame!� said Mr. Lanter, growing red with sympathy. “Don’t your friends take you around some, when you feel you’d like to go?�
“I suppose they’d be real pleased,� said Miss Minota, after an instant’s consideration, “if I didn’t attract so much attention. But when you’re too big to go on the cars, like other folk, or pass along the sidewalk without blockin’ it——� She shrugged her enormous shoulders with a little air of fatigue, and the gentleman in evening dress, who officiated as showman, gave her the signal to move. “Good-afternoon!� she said graciously, and passed on.
But Mr. Lanter’s brain was surging with sympathy. “My gracious!� he cried to himself, “is it possible that that splendid creature isn’t happy?� A vague look of gentle melancholy was certainly floating on the surface of those limpid china-blue eyes. He breathed through his nose and clenched his fists, one of which already bore a proof impression of Mr. Goter’s projecting front tooth. And the very next half-holiday found him waiting at the side-door through which professionals found entrance to the back scenes of Kneeman’s. One or two sallow, cropped men in furred overcoats passed in, one of them in company with a black-eyed, vivacious, middle-aged woman, who conversed with her fingers, her shoulders, and every muscle of her face—and in whom Mr. Lanter recognized Goter’s houri. Then a vehicle like a hotel-omnibus, only taller and shinier, drawn by a pair of stout horses, pulled up by the curb; two men, moustached, and dressed in a kind of buff uniform faced with red (Mr. Lanter recognized it as the livery common to the attendants of the Musée), got down from the box seat and opened the omnibus door.... Mr. Lanter’s heart thumped wildly as a colossal foot and ankle, appareled in a pink silk stocking and rosetted black satin shoe, cautiously descended to the ground, and the rest of Miss Minota followed by gradual instalments until the giantess stood upright on the pavement, her nine feet of height handsomely accentuated by an umbrageous hat, with a plume of nodding feathers which might have served for the central ornament of a canopy of state. She inclined this tremendous headgear in gracious recognition of Mr. Lanter. Mr. Lanter took off his hat with his best manner, and boldly stepped forward.
A large pink flush invaded the giantess’s immense cheeks, previously of a pale or dough-colored complexion. “Won’t you walk in a minute?� she said, in a timid, fluttering way. Then, not without difficulty, she went in at the side-door, Mr. Lanter followed, the attendants mounted to their seats, and the large shiny omnibus drove away.
The sensation of moving and speaking in a dream bore heavily upon Mr. Lanter as he followed the tall, stooping figure of the giantess up a short flight of stairs and through what seemed to be a labyrinth of winding passages, each of which seemed more dark and dusky than the preceding one, and conveyed a stronger olfactory impression of gas, mice, and turpentine. But the labyrinth ended in a vast echoing chaos of shaky canvas scenes and machinery, which Miss Minota introduced as the stage. The iron curtain that separated the stage from the auditorium was down, and they stood together in the midst of a heterogeneous jumble of properties among which Mr. Lanter recognized the plank-and-ladder of the equilibrists, the gilded props and rubber-covered block-tackle used by the tight-rope dancer, the belled and ribboned saddles employed by the Centaur Family, and Miss Minota’s mediæval throne, flanked by the gilded weights employed in her exhibition of manual strength.
“Won’t you——� Involuntarily he pointed to the gaudy throne-seat.
“Well,� said the giantess, “I don’t know but what I will sit down—just a minute.� Seated, her large round face and china-blue, rather foolish eyes were above the level of Mr. Lanter’s as he stood before her. Certainly, but for the suet dumpling pallor of her fair complexion and a prevailing flabbiness, the result of insufficient exercise, Miss Minota would have been good-looking. “I guess I ought to thank you for being so polite!� she said, and her tone and accent were homely as those of the New England village-folk among whom Mr. Lanter had been raised. “I guess you thought I acted like I was silly just now; but boys do scare me so.... If there’s one thing more than another I dasn’t face, it’s a boy; and you bet boys know it, and lay along for me—the nasty little things! So there’s another reason why I can’t go round like other folks—even if the management wouldn’t object to my givin’ the show away!� She folded her immense hands upon her knees and looked placidly at Mr. Lanter.
“But why should the management object, Miss—Mademoiselle?� asked Mr. Lanter, standing, very red and stiff and embarrassed, at Miss Minota’s knee, like a somewhat dull little boy about to say a lesson.
“Because once folks have seen me for nothin’, they’ll leave the pay-place alone,� said Miss Minota. “It’s human natur’, take it how you will. An’ I’m only Mademoiselle on the posters. My first professional exhibitin’ tour was in the State of Minnesota, an’ that’s how I got my professional name. My own name seemed kind of one-horse for a poster—Quilt—Miss Hattie Quilt of Smartsville, New Hampshire, I was when I lived to-home.�
“I’ve been to Smartsville,� said Mr. Lanter eagerly, as though it were a bond. “It’s only forty miles from Saunderstown where I was raised. My mother, Mrs. Lanter, she lives there now. And Quilt’s a name I’ve heard.... There was old Deacon Quilt that had the lawsuit——�
“I guess he was my grandfather!� said Miss Minota soberly.
Mr. Lanter tilted his head, trying to remember what the lawsuit had been about.
“It was a suit about an iron bedstead,� said Miss Minota. “It’s ’most ten years ago. Grandfather bought it for me, because I’d crowded mother out of hers. We slep’ together till I was ’bout eleven years old. Well, grandfather measured me himself for that bed, but it didn’t get delivered for a month on end, and I’d growed beyond my measure, and didn’t fit it, or it didn’t fit me. Mother tried to convince the old man by showin’ him my frocks—she’d let ’em down eight inches only four weeks back, an’ they was hardly on speakin’ terms with my boot-tops by then—but he said on’y Jonah’s gourd growed at that rate, an’ the dry-goods man must change the bedstead or he’d go to law. An’ the dry-goods man said rather than have legal trouble he’d change the bed for a bigger, ’n he did; but the new one was six weeks in gettin’ delivered, and it was the same story over again—it didn’t fit me, nohow! So grandfather went to law, an’ the case was tried in the Smartsville court-house, an’ grandfather would ’a got damages if the dry-goods man’s lawyer hadn’t asked to have me produced in court. It was my first public appearance, an’ I was dretful shy. People used to laugh at me bein’ so shy, but you’ve no idee what a tryin’ thing it is bein’ bigger ’n anybody else—when you first find it out!� The large form of Miss Minota was convulsed by a shudder. “You’d hide yourself in a mousehole, if it was big enough to hold you. Well, they called Miss Hattie Quilt, an’ I got up an’ straightened out, for I’d been settin’ cramped in a kind of pew, an’ it seemed even to myself as if I’d never end. An’ the judge looked at me through his glasses. My! didn’t he stare! An’ he asked how old I was, an’ I said ‘Risin’ twelve’; an’ the judge allowed if I kep’ on risin’ I might get somewheres in time; an’ that a man with a granddaughter like that growin’ up about him ought to provide india-rubber bedsteads an’ a sliding roof. An’ all the folks laughed an’ grandfather had to pay sixty dollars damages an’ costs.� Miss Minota’s gentle, monotonous, mooing voice left off talking; she paused to draw breath.
“And then——?� said Mr. Lanter, in whose brain dim and faded hearsays connected with the Quilt law-case were stirring.
“Then grandfather took a kind of down on me,� Miss Minota explained, “though he’d set a deal of store on me before. An’ mother used to beg me with tears in her eyes not to grow at that rate; an’ I tried not—hard; but I kep’ on. I stinted meals an’ wore an iron pound-weight on my head under my hat—but still I kep’ on. An’ at last grandfather opinioned to father and mother it was time to let out the house—or to let out me. So they hired me to Dan Slater—perhaps you’ve heard of Slater’s Traveling Museum of Marvels—an’——�
“I should have thought they’d been ashamed!� burst out Mr. Lanter, flushing to the temples. “Their own flesh and blood!�
“That’s what other people kep’ saying to grandfather, ‘your own flesh and blood’!� returned Miss Minota. “But all grandfather ever said was that there was more flesh and blood than he’d bargained for, and he’d thank ’em to ’tend to their own affairs.�
“I don’t think he was a nice kind of man,� said little Mr. Lanter, thrilling with indignation to his toes and finger-tips, “to send a young girl away from her home and her mother—out into the world—among strangers who might have treated her badly!� He looked up at his ideal of womanhood with passionate chivalry.
“Oh, but they didn’t treat me badly!� said Miss Minota. “Dan Slater was real kind. An’ when I outgrew the caravan I traveled in at first, he telescoped two together—an’ as one of ’em had been made for the giraffe, I got on pretty well. But I’ve never got used to bein’ made a show of, an’ stared at, and asked questions by people, whether they’re ordinary folks or Kings an’ Queens an’ Serene Highnesses—an’ I guess I never will. Perhaps you wouldn’t believe it’s lonsome to be bigger ’n anybody else—but it makes me feel so, times!�
“I wish I could prevent your feeling lonesome!� burst out Mr. Lanter, before he was aware. “I wish I could carry you right away from this�—he waved his hand comprehensively—“and take care of you. I wouldn’t let a rough breath blow on you as I could help. I’d stand between you and the world, and shelter you—I’d spend my life in doing it—and spend it gladly!� He forgot himself in what he was saying, and therefore did not blush, but his awkward, plain, and homely little figure in its badly-fitting store clothes was a spectacle to smile at. “Oh! if you knew all I’d thought and dreamed of since I saw you first!� he said, with a quiver of passion in his voice. “It seems like a dream to be talking to you here.... If it didn’t how could I tell you straight out as I am telling you now, what I haven’t even had the courage to write—that I—I——�
Miss Minota modestly reared her Alpine height from the mediæval throne as a trampling of feet sounded from the dusty passage beyond. “I guess I have got to go and dress,� she said modestly.
“Oh, please wait one minute!� pleaded Mr. Lanter. “You must know it, if you never speak to me or look at me again. I think you the grandest, most glorious woman I ever saw! I’m ready to die for you right now, if the dying of a common store clerk would be any use! But it wouldn’t,� said Mr. Lanter, “and so I must go on thinking of you, and worshipping you, and loving you to the end of my days——� He broke down, blushing and stammering.
“Oh, my!� cried Miss Minota. In her surprise she sat down again so unguardedly that the mediæval throne creaked and tottered. “You don’t mean it? Honest, you don’t?�
“I mean it with all my soul!� asseverated Mr. Lanter.
Miss Minota blushed a dull red all over her immense face, as she met the young man’s rather ugly, candid gaze. Then her large china-blue eyes brimmed over; she pulled from her pocket a cambric handkerchief as large as the mainsail of a toy yacht, and began to cry like a thunder-cloud.
“Don’t!� begged Mr. Lanter. “Please don’t! If you’re angry with me I don’t know what I should do. I don’t, indeed!� He was dreadfully in earnest, and quite pale, and large drops stood upon his forehead, for the air in the Musée was insufferably hot and close. There was a smell of charred wood and blistering paint, and the unsettled dust of the place made the straggling rays of daylight that bored their way into it seem blue and smoky. A sudden clamor of voices broke out below, almost under the stage it seemed, and then came the trampling of feet, the crash of broken glass, and the smell of some spilled chemical mingled with the grosser odors of the place. The scent, the stir, the sounds, seemed vaguely associated in Mr. Lanter’s mind with something dangerous and sinister. But he was listening to Miss Minota.
“I ain’t a mite angry,� said the giantess, giving her overflowing eyes a final dab with the handkerchief, now crumpled into a damp ball. “I should hate to have you believe it! I—I think you’re real generous, an’ kind, an’ noble. And I shall be grateful to you all my life�—she mopped her eyes again—“for makin’ me feel—for once—like I’d been an ordinary-sized girl; for I—I’ll own I have fretted considerable. But there, when things can’t be altered, anyhow, it’s no good frettin’, is it? An’, of course, there could never be nothin’ between us—I couldn’t ever play it so low down on a man that’s as generous and kind as you are, as to say there could be. But I’m just as obliged. And now I’ll say good-bye, and if we don’t never meet again you’re to remember I was grateful. My land! I do believe the show’s afire!�
For the crackling, blistering heat that parched the flooring underfoot, with the sudden volume of smoke that rolled upward, betrayed the condition of things no less than the thin tongues of flame that licked upward between the boards. In the regions under the stage the conflagration had broken out; they heard the shouts of the stage-hands, the crash of glass fire-bombs breaking one after another, and next moment a solitary man, smoke-blackened and red-faced, burst upward from the regions below, and, rushing to the fire-hose, coiled like a brown snake against the bare masonry of the wall, began to haul it down. As the man tugged and swore at the hose, other voices shouted and other feet clattered, and half a dozen other men, singed and blackened like so many demons, emerged as the first had done, from those conjectural lower depths.
“It’s no use—no use!� they shouted as they ran, and the fireman dropped the hose and ran with them. They did not have to cross the charring, blistering stage, for they were on the right side for the passage-way. They fought and struggled, shrieking, in the narrow exit, blocked by their terrified bodies.
“Come! Didn’t you hear?� shouted Mr. Lanter. He caught Miss Minota by the skirt and tugged at it like a faithful terrier. “Run!� he shouted again. But a choking volume of smoke, a blast of fiercer heat fanned up from below. The boards of the stage were now in flames. And the flames were of beautiful, ravishingly-delicate shades of blue and hyacinth and orange-red. And they devoured where they licked with a deadly greed and a purring, crackling kind of satisfaction.... “Come!� Mr. Lanter shouted again. The giantess had sunk upon her knees, he shook her violently by the shoulder, and she lifted her large, terrified face and staring blue eyes, now for the first time upon a level with his own.
“I dasn’t!� she cried. “The floor wouldn’t bear me—I should never git across! Save yourself while you have time!� As she sobbed and shuddered, Mr. Lanter put his arm round her, as though she had been quite an ordinary-sized girl.
“Pluck up!� he shouted, for the fire roared as triumphantly as though Kneeman’s Star Musée were the choicest morsel in the world. “I’ll get you out of this or burn with you, by—thunder!� and he kissed her. The kiss seemed to revive Miss Minota, for she gasped, and struggled to her feet, and looked with him upon a wall of rejoicing flame that soared upward between them and the passage-way. “These doors behind us—where do they lead?� Mr. Lanter shouted, and Miss Minota shouted back, “To the dressing-rooms!�
There was no way of escape before them; the iron curtain walled them in. As the slim greedy tongues of fire began to lick the boards on which they stood, they retreated to the back of the stage. But the stifling smoke and the greedy fire followed them, and the end of things seemed not far off.... It seemed quite natural now that they should be holding hands. They were blackened both, and smoke-begrimed, parched and giddy with the terrific heat, and the incandescent air fanned on their smirched faces as though the wings of Azrael had stirred it; but they were a comfort to each other. To be heard by each other in that fiendish tumult of insentient things was impossible; but they pressed close to one another like children in the smoky dark, and held one another’s hands.
“I don’t know as I’d choose to have things different,� said a grip of Mr. Lanter’s; and the answering squeeze of Miss Minota’s large hand said, “Thank you for helping me to die so like an ordinary-sized girl!� But the hand she pressed seemed to melt in hers and slip away, and, groping downward in the dun-colored smother, the giantess touched the senseless body of Mr. Lanter lying at her feet. And then she gave a cry of love and grief and anger mingled, as an ordinary-sized woman might have done—and lifted her lover from the blistering floor as though he had been a baby. The smoke seemed less dense a few feet beyond where she stood, and, moving forward with Mr. Lanter held upon one arm, the other outstretched gropingly, Miss Minota bruised her knuckles against a wooden door. It was the high, narrow door of solid, iron-clamped timber (usually situated at the back of the scene-dock), by which scenery and the more bulky properties were hoisted up to or removed from the stage of Kneeman’s Musée. In the joy of the discovery Miss Minota cried out. Then she laid down Mr. Lanter very gently on the floor, and fumbled for the door-bolts. But the door opened by a winch and lever, and Miss Minota fumbled in vain. A chill despair seized her. He lay so helpless and inert at her feet that he might have been dead! “O Lord!� Miss Minota prayed, “where’s the use in You havin’ made me so much bigger than other folk if I can’t save him? Help me to do it, and I’ll never go back on You by grumblin’ at my size any more!�
A dizziness overcame her, she reeled and staggered against the side wall of the scene-dock, bruising her knee against something that fell with a dull, reverberating crash. It was a solid bar of iron used by a professional athlete in a weight-lifting exhibition, and it might have weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. The crash of its fall brought Miss Minota to herself. She stooped, and found and lifted it, and exultant, for the first time, in the stature and the strength that marked her out and set her apart from her ordinary-sized sisters, the giantess attacked the door. One battering blow from the weapon wielded by those tremendous arms, and the hinges started and the stout planks split; a second, and a plank crashed splintering outward; a third, and a shout went up from the crowd assembled in the street below, as, amid volumes of escaping smoke, the begrimed and fire-scorched figure of Miss Minota appeared, carrying the insensible body of Mr. Lanter in her arms.
“Well,� said Madame Lanter, the Colossal American Marvel, some months later, to an interviewer specially despatched from the office of the Boston Magpie, “I guess you know what happened after that!� She blushed a little, being yet a bride, and coyly turned her wedding ring, a golden circlet of the dimensions of a baby’s bracelet, upon her colossal finger. “We brought him to, and then he brought it off. Flesh an’ blood is flesh an’ blood, an’ we all have our weak p’ints!—and if I did lay out never to marry a man as I couldn’t look up to—I guess it would take half a dozen of my size, standing on each other’s heads, to equal the loftiness of Mr. Lanter’s mind!�
The young man thus eulogized presented to the reporter’s view a spare and rather undersized personality, plain of feature, and awkward of manner, drawbacks afterward transmuted by the magic touch of the stylographic pen into “slightness, unpretending elegance, and unaffected simplicity. The beaming affection discernible in the glance he turned upon his stately bride justified the eulogistic terms in which that lady spoke of her husband. Their brief but thrillingly romantic courtship, with its strikingly sensational ‘dénouement,’ created a ‘furore’ when detailed by the New York press. The disinterested nature of the attachment of Mr. Lanter (who is a member of one of our oldest New England families) to the superb specimen of American womanhood who bears his aristocratic name may be gathered from the fact that the marriage ceremony was some weeks old before Mr. Lanter discovered that Mrs. Lanter had amassed, during the period of time spent by her in exhibiting her personal developments in the principal cities of Europe and the States, a fortune of ninety-five thousand dollars.�
And in this final statement the stylographic pen distilled pure truth.