WHAT LINDY HAD UP HER SLEEVE
"But think of it, Shorty!" says Sadie. "What an existence!"
"There's plenty worse off than her," says I; "so what's the use?"
"I can't help it," says she. "Twenty years! No holidays, no home, no relatives: nothing but sew and mend, sew and mend—and for strangers, at that! Talk about dull gray lives—ugh!"
"Well, she's satisfied, ain't she?" says I.
"That's the worst of it," says Sadie. "She seems to live for her work. Goodness knows how early she's up and at it in the morning, and at night I have to drive her out of the sewing room!"
"And you kick at that?" says I. "Huh! Why, on lower Fifth-ave. they capitalize such habits and make 'em pay for fifteen-story buildin's. Strikes me this Lindy of yours is perfectly good sweatshop material. You don't know a good thing when you see it, Sadie."
"There, there, Shorty!" says she. "Don't try to be comic about it. There's nothing in the least funny about Lindy."
She was dead right too; and all I meant by my feeble little cracks was that a chronic case of acute industry was too rare a disease for me to diagnose offhand. Honest, it almost gave me the fidgets, havin' Lindy around the house. Say, she had the busy bee lookin' like a corner loafer with his hands in his pockets!
About once a month we had Lindy with us, for three or four days at a stretch, and durin' that time she'd be gallopin' through all kinds of work, from darnin' my socks or rippin' up an old skirt, to embroiderin' the fam'ly monogram on the comp'ny tablecloths; all for a dollar'n a half per, which I understand is under union rates. Course, Sadie always insists on throwin' in something for overtime; but winnin' the extra didn't seem to be Lindy's main object. She just wanted to keep goin', and if the work campaign wa'n't all planned out for her to cut loose on the minute she arrived, she'd most have a fit. Even insisted on havin' her meals served on the sewin' table, so she wouldn't lose any time. Sounds too good to be true, don't it? But remember this ain't a class I'm describin': it's just Lindy.
And of all the dried-up little old maids I ever see, Lindy was the queerest specimen. Seems she was well enough posted on the styles, and kept the run of whether sleeves was bein' worn full or tight, down over the knuckles or above the elbow, and all that; but her own costume was always the same,—a dingy brown dress that fits her like she'd cut it out in the dark and had put it together with her eyes shut,—a faded old brown coat with funny sleeves that had little humps over the shoulders, and a dusty black straw lid of no partic'lar shape, that sported a bunch of the saddest lookin' violets ever rescued from the ashheap.
Then she had such a weird way of glidin' around silent, and of shrinkin' into corners, and flattenin' herself against the wall whenever she met anyone. Meek and lowly? Say, every motion she made seemed to be sort of a dumb apology for existin' at all! And if she had to go through a room where I was, or pass me in the hall, she'd sort of duck her head, hold one hand over her mouth, and scuttle along like a mouse beatin' it for his hole.
You needn't think I'm pilin' on the agony, either. I couldn't exaggerate Lindy if I tried. And if you imagine it's cheerin' to have a human being as humble as all that around, you're mistaken. Kind of made me feel as if I was a slave driver crackin' the whip.
And there wa'n't any special reason that I could see for her actin' that way. Outside of her clothes, she wa'n't such a freak. That is, she wa'n't deformed, or anything like that. She wa'n't even wrinkled or gray haired; though how she kept from growin' that way I couldn't figure out. I put it down that her lonesome, old maid existence must have struck in and paralyzed her soul.
There was another queer quirk to her too. Work up as much sympathy as you wanted to, you couldn't do anything for her. Sadie ain't slow at that, you know. She got int'rested in her right off, and when she discovers how Lindy lives in a couple of cheap rooms down in the Bronx all by herself, and never goes anywhere or has any fun, she proceeds to spring her usual uplift methods. Wouldn't Lindy like a ticket to a nice concert? No, thanks, Lindy didn't care much about music. Or the theater? No, Lindy says she's afraid to go trapesin' around town after dark. Wouldn't she quit work for an hour or so and come for a spin in the car, just to get the air? Lindy puts her hand over her mouth and shakes her head. Automobiles made her nervous. She tried one once, and was so scared she couldn't work for two hours after. The subway trains were bad enough, goodness knows!
I couldn't begin to tell you all the things Lindy was afraid of,—crowds, the dark, of getting lost, of meetin' strangers, of tryin' anything new. I remember seein' her once, comin' out on the train. She's squeezed into the end seat behind the door, and was huddled up there, grippin' a little black travelin' bag in one hand and a rusty umbrella in the other, and keepin' her eyes on the floor, for all the world like she'd run away from somewhere and was stealin' a ride. Get it, do you?
But wait! There was one point where Lindy had it on most of us. She knew where she was goin'. Didn't seem to have any past worth speakin' about, except that she'd been born in England,—father used to keep a little store on some side street in Dover,—and she'd come over here alone when she was quite a girl. As for the present—well, I've been tryin' to give you a bird's-eye view of that.
But when it comes to the future Lindy was right there with the goods. Had it all mapped out for twenty years to come. Uh-huh! She told Sadie about it, ownin' up to bein' near forty, and said that when she was sixty she was goin' to get into an Old Ladies' Home. Some prospect—what? She'd even picked out the joint and had 'em put her name down. It would cost her three hundred and fifty dollars, which she had salted away in the savings bank already, and now she was just driftin' along until she could qualify in the age limit. Livin' just for that!
"Ah, can the gloom stuff, Sadie!" says I as she whispers this latest bulletin. "You give me the willies, you and your Lindy! Why, that old horse chestnut out there in the yard leads a more excitin' existence than that! It's preparin' to leaf out again next spring. But Lindy! Bah! Say, just havin' her in the house makes the air seem moldy. I'm goin' out and tramp around the grounds a bit before dinner."
That was a good hunch. It's a clear, crisp evenin' outside, with the last red of the sun just showin' in the northwest and a thin new moon hangin' over Long Island Sound off in the east, and in a couple of turns I shook off the whole business. I'd taken one circle and was roundin' the back of the garage, when I sees something dark slip into a tree shadow up near the house.
"That you, Dominick?" I sings out.
There's no answer to that, and, knowin' that if there's one failin' Dominick don't possess it's bein' tonguetied, I gets suspicious. Besides, a couple of porch-climbin' jobs had been pulled off in the neighborhood recent, and, even though I do carry a burglar policy, I ain't crazy about havin' strangers messin' through the bureau drawers while I'm tryin' to sleep. So I sneaks along the hedge for a ways, and then does the sleuthy approach across the lawn on the right flank. Another minute and I've made a quick spring and has my man pinned against the tree with both his wrists fast and my knee in his chest.
"Woof!" says he, deep and guttural.
"Excuse the warm welcome," says I, "but that's only a sample of what we pass out to stray visitors like you. Sizin' up the premises, were you, and gettin' ready to collect a few souvenirs?"
"A thousand pardons," says he, "if I have seem to intrude!"
"Eh?" says I. That wa'n't exactly the comeback you'd expect from a second-story worker, and he has a queer foreign twist to his words.
"It is possible," he goes on, "that I have achieved the grand mistake."
"Maybe," says I, loosenin' up on him a little. "What was it you thought you was after?"
"The house of one McCah-be," says he, "a professor of fists, I am told."
"That's a new description of me," says I, "but I'm the party. All of which don't prove, though, that you ain't a crook."
"Crook?" says he. "Ah, a felon! But no, Effendi. I come on an errand of peace, as Allah is good."
How was that now, havin' Allah sprung on me in my own front yard? Why travel?
"Say, come out here where I can get a better look," says I, draggin' him out of the shadow. "There! Well, of all the——"
No wonder I lost my breath; for what I've picked up off the front lawn looks like a stray villain from a comic opera. He's a short, barrel-podded gent, mostly costumed in a long black cape affair and one of these tasseled Turkish caps. About all the features I can make out are a pair of bushy eyebrows, a prominent hooked beak, and a set of crisp, curlin' black whiskers. Hardly the kind to go shinnin' up waterspouts or squeezin' through upper windows. Still, I'd almost caught him in the act.
"If that's a disguise you've got on," says I, "it's a bird. And if it ain't—say, let's hear the tale. Who do you claim to be, anyway?"
"Many pardons again, Effendi," says he, "but it is my wish to remain—what you call it?—incognito."
"Then you don't get your wish," says I. "No John Doe game goes with me. Out with it! Who and what?"
"But I make protest," says he. "Rather would I depart on my way."
"Ah, ditch that!" says I. "I caught you actin' like a suspicious character. Now, if you can account for yourself, I may turn you loose; but if you don't, it's a case for the police."
"Ah, no, no!" he objects. "Not the constables! Allah forbid! I—I will make explanation."
"Then let it come across quick," says I. "First off, what name are you flaggin' under?"
"At my home," says he, "I am known as Pasha Dar Bunda."
"Well, that's some name, all right," says I. "Now the next item, Pasha, is this, What set you to prowlin' around the home of one McCabe?"
"Ah, but you would not persist thus far!" says he, pleadin'. "That is a personal thing, something between myself and Allah alone."
"You don't say," says I. "Sorry to butt in, but I've got to have it all. Come, now!"
"But, Effendi——" he begins.
"No, not Fender," says I, "nor Footboard, or anything like that: just plain McCabe."
"It is a word of respect," says he, "such as Sir Lord; thus, Effendi McCabe."
"Well, cut out the frills and let's get down to brass tacks," says I. "You're here because you're here, I expect. But what else?"
He sighs, and then proceeds to let go of a little information. "You have under your roof," says he, "a Meesis Vogel, is it not?"
"Vogel?" says I, puzzled for a second. "You don't mean Lindy, do you?"
"She was called that, yes," says the Pasha, "Meelinda."
"But she's a Miss—old maid," says I.
"Ah?" says he, liftin' his bushy eyebrows. "A Mees, eh? It may be so. They tell me at her place of living that she is to be found here. Voilà! That is all."
"But what about her?" says I. "Where do you come in?"
"Once when I am in England," says he, "many years gone past, I know her. I learn that she is in New York. Well, I find myself in America too. I thought to see her. Why not? A glimpse, no more."
"Is it the style where you come from," says I, "to gumshoe around and peek in the windows to see old friends?"
"In my country," says he, "men do not—but then we have our own customs. I have explain. Now I may depart."
"Not so fast, old scout!" says I. "If it's so you're a friend of Lindy, she'll be wantin' to see you, and all we got to do is to step inside and call her down."
"But thanks," says he. "It is very kind. I will not trouble, however. It need not be."
"Needn't, eh?" says I. "Look here, Pasha So and So, you can't put over anything so thin on me! You're up to something or other. You sure look it. Anyway, I'm goin' to march you in and find out from Lindy herself whether she knows you or not. Understand?"
He sighs resigned. "Since you are a professor of fists, it must be so," says he. "But remark this, I do not make the request to see her, and—and you may say to her that it is Don Carlos who is here."
"Ah-ha!" says I. "Another pen name, eh? Don Carlos! Low Dago, or Hidalgo?"
"My father," says he, "was a Spanish gentleman of Hebrew origin. My mother was French."
"Some combination!" says I. "And Lindy knows you best as Don Carlos, does she? We'll soon test that."
So I escorts him in by the side door, plants him in the livin' room where I can keep an eye on him, and hoohoos gentle up the stairs to Sadie.
"Yes?" says she.
"Shut the sewin' room door," says I.
"All right," says she. "Well?"
"There's a gent down here, Sadie," says I, "that looks like a cross between a stage pirate and an Armenian rug peddler."
"For goodness' sake!" says Sadie. "Not in the house! What on earth did you let him in for?"
"Because," says I, "he claims to be an old friend of Lindy's."
"Of Lindy's!" she gasps. "Why, what——"
"I don't know the rest," says I. "You spring it on her. Tell her it's Don Carlos, and then let me know what she says."
That seems like a simple proposition; but Sadie takes a long time over it. I could hear her give a squeal of surprise at something, and then she seems to be askin' a lot of fool questions. In the course of five or six minutes, though, she leans over the stair rail lookin' sort of excited.
"Well?" says I. "Does she know him?"
"Know him!" says Sadie. "Why, she says he's her husband!"
"Not Lindy's!" I gasps.
"That's what she says," insists Sadie.
"Great Scott!" says I. "Must be some mistake about this. Wait a minute. Here, you, Pasha! Come here! Lindy says you're her husband. Is that so?"
"Oh, yes," says he, as easy as you please. "Under your laws I suppose I am."
"Well, wouldn't that frost you!" says I.
"But, say, Sadie, why don't she come down and see him, then?"
"Just what I've been asking her," says Sadie. "She says she's too busy, and that if he wants to see her he must come up."
"Well, what do you know!" says I. "Pasha, do you want to see her?"
"As I have told," says he, "there is no need. I do not demand it."
"Well, of all the cold-blooded pairs!" says I. "How long since you've seen her?"
"Very long," says he; "perhaps twenty years."
"And now all you can work up is a mild curiosity for a glimpse through the window, eh?" says I.
He shrugs his shoulders careless.
"Then, by the great horned spoon," I goes on, "you're goin' to get what you came after! Trail along upstairs after me. This way. In through here. There you are, Pasha! Lindy, here's your Don Carlos!"
"Oh!" says she, lookin' up from the shirt-waist she was bastin' a sleeve on, and not even botherin' to take the pins out of her mouth.
And maybe they ain't some cross-mated couple too! This Pasha party shows up ponderous and imposin', in spite of the funny little fez arrangement on his head. He's thrown his cloak back, revealin' a regulation frock coat; but under that is some sort of a giddy-tinted silk blouse effect, and the fringed ends of a bright red sash hangs down below his knee on the left side. He's got a color on him like the inside of an old coffeepot, and the heavy, crinkly beard makes him look like some foreign Ambassador. While Lindy—well, in her black sewin' dress and white apron, she looks slimmer and more old maidish than ever.
He confines his greetin' to a nod of the head, and stands there gazin' at her as calm as if he was starin' at some stranger in the street.
"I suppose you've come to take me away with you, Carlos?" says she.
"No," says he.
"But I thought," says Lindy, "I—I thought some day you might. I didn't know, though. I haven't planned on it."
"Is it your wish to go with me?" says he.
"Why, I'm your wife, you know," says she.
"You had my letters, did you?" he goes on.
"Four," says she. "There was one from Spain, when you were a brigand, and another——"
"A brigand!" breaks in Sadie. "Do you mean that, Lindy?"
"Wasn't that it?" asks Lindy of him.
"For two years, Madam," says Don Carlos, bowin' polite. "A dull sort of business, mingling so much with stupid tourists. Bah! And such small gains! By the time you have divided with the soldiers little is left. So I gave it up."
"The next came from that queer place," says Lindy, "Port—Port——"
"Port Said," helps out Pasha, "where I had a gambling house. That was good for a time. Rather lively also. We had too much shooting and stabbing, though. It was an English officer, that last one. What a row! In the night I left for Tunisia."
"Oh, yes, Tunis," says Lindy. "Something about slaves there, wasn't it?"
"Camels also," says Pasha. "I traded in both stolen camels and smuggled slaves."
He throws this off as casual as if he was tellin' about sellin' sewin' machines. I glances over to see how Sadie's takin' it, and finds her drawin' in a long breath.
"Well, I never!" says she explosive. "What a shameless wretch! And you dared confess all this to Lindy?"
"Pardon, Madam," says he, smilin' until he shows most of his white teeth, "but I desired no misunderstanding. It is my way with women, to tell them only what is true. If they dislike that—well, there are many others."
"Humph!" says Sadie, tossin' her head. "Lindy, do you hear that?"
Lindy nods and keeps right on bastin' the sleeve.
"But how did you ever come to marry such a person, Lindy?" Sadie demands.
Carlos executes another smile at this and bows polite. "It was my fault," says he. "I was in England, waiting for a little affair that happened in Barcelona to blow over. By chance I saw her in her father's shop. Ah, you may find it difficult to believe now, Madam, but she was quite charming,—cheeks flushed like dawn on the desert, eyes like the sea, and limbs as lithe as an Arab maiden's! I talked. She listened. My English was poor; but it is not always words that win. These British girls, though! They cannot fully understand romance. It was she who insisted on marriage. I cared not a green fig. What to me was the mumbling of a churchman, I who cared not for the priests of my mother nor the rabbi of my father? Pah! Two weeks later I gave her some money and left her. Once more in the mountains of Spain I could breathe again—and I made the first English we caught settle the whole bill. That is how it came to be, Madam. Ask her."
Sadie looks at Lindy, who nods. "Father drove me out when I went back," says she; "so I came over here. Carlos had told me where to write. You got all my letters, did you, Carlos?"
"Oh, yes," says he. Then, turnin' to Sadie, "A wonderful writer of letters, Madam,—one every month!"
"Then you knew about little Carlos?" puts in Lindy. "It was a pity. Such lovely big black eyes. He was nearly two. I wish you could have seen him."
"I also had regret," says Carlos. "I read that letter many times. It was because of that, I think, that I continued to read the others, and was at pains to have them sent to me. They would fill a hamper, all of them."
"What!" says Sadie. "After you knew the kind of monster he was, Lindy, did you keep on writing to him?"
"But he was still my husband," protested Lindy.
"Bah!" says Sadie, throwin' a scornful glance at the Pasha.
Don Carlos he spreads out his hands, and shrugs his shoulders. "These English!" says he. "At first I laughed at the letters. They would come at such odd times; for you can imagine, Madam, that my life has been—well, not as the saints'. And to many different women have I read bits of these letters that came from so far,—to dancing girls, others. Some laughed with me, some wept. One tried to stab me with a dagger afterward. Women are like that. You never know when they will change into serpents. All but this one. Think! Month after month, year after year, letters, letters; about nothing much, it is true, but wishing me good health, happiness, asking me to have care for myself, and saying always that I was loved! Well? Can one go on laughing at things like that? Once I was dangerously hurt, a spearthrust that I got near Biskra, and the letter came to me where I lay in my tent. It was like a soothing voice, comforting one in the dark. Since then I have watched for those letters. When chance brought me to this side of the world, I found myself wishing for sight of the one who could remain ever the same, could hold the faith in the faithless for so long. So here I am."
"Yes, and you ought to be in jail," says Sadie emphatic. "But, since you're not, what do you propose doing next?"
"I return day after to-morrow," says Don Carlos, "and if the lady who is my wife so wills it she shall go with me."
"Oh, shall she!" says Sadie sarcastic. "Where to, pray?"
"To El Kurfah," says he.
"And just where," says Sadie, "is that?"
"Three days by camel south from Moorzook," says he. "It is an oasis in the Libyan Desert."
"Indeed!" says Sadie. "And what particular business are you engaged in there,—gambling, robbing, slave selling, or——"
"In El Kurfah," breaks in Don Carlos, bowin' dignified, "I am Pasha Dar Bunda, Minister of Foreign Affairs and chief business agent to Hamid-al-Illa; who, as you may know, is one of the half-dozen rulers claiming to be Emperor of the Desert. Frankly, I admit he has no right to such a title; but neither has any of the others. Hamid, however, is one of the most up-to-date and successful of all the desert chieftains. My presence here is proof of that. I came to arrange for large shipments of dates and ivory, and to take back to Hamid an automobile and the latest phonograph records."
"I don't like automobiles," says Lindy, finishin' up the sleeve.
"Neither does Hamid," says Pasha; "but he says we ought to have one standing in front of the royal palace to impress the hill tribesmen when they come in. Do you go back to El Kurfah with me, Mrs. Vogel?"
"Yes," says Lindy, rollin' up her apron.
"But, Lindy!" gasps Sadie. "To such a place, with such a man!"
"He is my husband, you know," says she.
And Lindy seems to think when she's put that over that she's said all there was to say on the subject. Sadie protests and threatens and begs. She reminds her what a deep-dyed villain this Carlos party is, and forecasts all sorts of dreadful things that will likely happen to her if she follows him off. But it's all wasted breath.
And all the while Pasha Dar Bunda, alias Don Carlos Vogel, stands there smilin' polite and waitin' patient. But in the end he walks out triumphant, with Lindy, holdin' her little black bag in one hand and her old umbrella in the other, followin' along in his wake.
Then last Friday we went down to one of them Mediterranean steamers to see 'em actually start. And, say, this slim, graceful party in the snappy gray travelin' dress, with the smart lid and all the gray veils on, looks about as much like the Lindy we'd known as a hard-boiled egg looks like a frosted cake. Lindy has bloomed out.
"And when we get to El Kurfah guess what Carlos is going to give me!" she confides to Sadie. "A riding camel and Batime. He's one of the best camel drivers in the place, Batime. And I have learned to salaam and say 'Allah il Allah.' Everyone must do that there. And in our garden are dates and oranges growing. Only fancy! There will be five slaves to wait on me, and when we go to the palace I shall wear gold bracelets on my ankles. Won't that seem odd? It's rather warm in El Kurfah, you know; but I sha'n't mind. Early in the morning, when it is cool, I shall ride out into the sandhills with Carlos. He is going to teach me how to shoot a lion."
She was chatterin' along like a schoolgirl, and when the boat pulls out of the slip she waves jaunty to us. Don Carlos, leanin' over the rail alongside of her, gazes at her sort of admirin'.
"El Kurfah, eh?" says I to Sadie. "That's missin' the Old Ladies' Home by some margin, ain't it?"