V
Madelaine arrived in our town at four o’clock of a drab, depressing winter’s afternoon. The weather was treacherously balmy. The snow was thin, hard-packed and dirty. Paris in no other season of year looked less attractive or more mediocre. She alighted from the Junction train and walked down the length of the station platform with a little dread. Did she want to know about Nathaniel Forge, after all? Did she really want to see him? Suppose he was hopeless, that the poem had simply been a trick of circumstance and coincidence? Would it not be better to let him remain ever as she had idealized him, whoever and whatever he was, perhaps the One-Who-Might-Have-Been. Then she condemned herself for an emotional, sentimental little weakling, afraid to face facts. She wandered up Depot Street to East Main, carrying a light traveling bag, looking for the hotel.
In her trim tailored suit of green worsted and small mannish hat, she resembled a hundred traveling saleswomen or demonstration women of the better class. Half a dozen drummers so “placed” her before she had been in the Whitney House ten minutes. With a room secured, she started out to see the town.
The town! She wandered up one side of Main Street and down the other. She saw a jumble of drab, discouraged, discordant, chaotic blocks and buildings such as border Main Street in every town of ten thousand inhabitants from the Presidio to Plymouth Rock. Its people were a painfully self-conscious, muddy-shoed procession of everybody not mentioned in Who’s Who and never likely to be mentioned in Who’s Who. The sky was smothered with depressing mist. It shut out the distant mountain sky line. The sordidness and commonness of the community grated—horribly.
A single-track car line wound through Main Street, not much caring whether cars went over it or not. The People’s National Bank, the Bishop Jewelry with the sidewalk clock that was never correct, Joe Service’s News Room, Edwards Brothers’ Cigar Store, The Red Front Grocery, the Michalman Misses-and-Ladies-Suits, the Bon Ton Millinery, the Woolworth Five-and-Ten, the Daily Telegraph office with bulletins about the latest developments on the Somme, the Masonic Temple, the Y. M. C. A., Williams Clothing Emporium,—a thousand towns had them and would always have them until America ceased to be. She was glad she possessed a sense of humor. And yet what a dispirited, uninteresting, plodding sort of existence. The plainness and crudity of everything bothered her. It was piteous.
She saw a greasy barber shop next door to the Élite Lunch Room with a fly-speckled sign in the window of the latter: “Eat Here or We Both Starve.” She caught glimpses of rakishly barbered heads moving about pool tables behind a foggy window filled with wrestling-match placards and announcements of dance carnivals. A basket of eggs marked “Fresh at 17c” was set down close to the glass in the window of the Metropolitan Drug Store. A small boy with an enormous fur cap clanked the iron tie-ring in front of a gift shop with a torn awning. A washed-out woman in a hideous hat waited in a sleigh while her husband smoked a five-cent cigar and then came to untie the huge-rumped horse with his big fingers and take his place beside her beneath a ponderous buffalo robe. A long curb-line of carefully groomed young bucks with no place to go but home assayed her figure as she passed in front of the Olympic Movie and commented about her ankles.
She stopped in front of the hotel again and tried to decide what one thing was the keynote to the place and its people. She finally decided it must be the dilapidated Ford truck with a torn and dirty horse blanket thrown over its radiator. The truck was left, headed into the curb in a hay-strewn gutter, in front of the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Store. A flock of pigeons about it were being extremely bothered by the sidewalk traffic.
Madelaine was neither prig nor snob. Yet she wondered how people could possibly pass all their lives in such a place. Especially she pitied the women. She went inside the hotel at last and found that the “Ladies’ Parlor” overlooked the street. Before she made any inquiries as to Nathan, she sank into one of the rockers. As she meditated, with a little ache of excitement in her heart, other scenes came to her,—scenes she unconsciously compared with the lot of the town’s women here. The first lamps of evening blinked on and found her still meditating.
The shape of a hansom clopping through the London fog; a careless laugh floating back on a French boulevard in the hush of a soft, spring night; evening on the Grand Canal with the eternal slap, slap, slap of the water and the memory of a weird song mixed with the musty decay of old palaces; blue-toned Greece where the landscapes were as clear and sharp as far-flung cameos of mountain size; the heat-soaked Holy Land; Sunday morning from the Mount of Olives; breakfast in a Persian camp; noon on a Chinese river; twilight and a Japanese moon riding mystic above eucalyptus trees,—what did the women of such a landlocked little town know of the world’s beauties and its far places? Or the men either? The men! Who was Nathaniel Forge and why should he have written such a poem? She wondered if she was beginning to understand.
She had no appetite for dinner—they called it supper up here, she supposed—at least in the dining room where all the first arrivals would leer at her. She went back down to the lobby and approached Pat Whitney, the proprietor.
“I wonder if you could assist me,” she said, “in finding a certain type of person in this town for whom I’m looking,”
Pat did not remove his two-inch toothpick. He did try to button his vest.
“Shoot, lady!” he answered.
Madelaine smiled to herself, then “shot.”
“I’d like to be directed to some elderly man or woman who has lived a long time here and is acquainted with most of the town’s people. Especially those who lived here about ten years ago. I’m hunting a friend. Yet I don’t want my business made public. I’d prefer some elderly, accommodating man——”
“That’s a cinch!” returned Pat. “Skin around the corner and see Uncle Joe Fodder.”
“Uncle Joe Fodder?”
“Yeah; he runs the livery stable. He knows everybody from way back, who their grandmothers was and what the family et for supper the night they was born.”
“That’s very good of you,” returned Madelaine. And she thanked him.
“I’m all yours, Missie,” was Pat’s rejoinder. He meant no offense. He dealt so with all the “lady drummers”.
Madelaine picked her way into the puddle-dotted, straw-strewn livery yard. A single light burned over the big stable door. Another shone through the murky windowpanes of a tiny office at the left.
Three men were in that office with a kindly old fellow who looked exactly as William Cullen Bryant might have looked if William Cullen Bryant had conducted a livery stable in one Vermont community for half a century. He wore a blue gingham shirt, patched trousers and soiled suspenders. But Madelaine liked his eyes.
“Mr. Fodder?” the girl asked.
Three jaws lowered. Three pairs of eyes stared. Three pairs of front chair legs clumped to the floor. Taking their cue, three specimens of bewhiskered humanity “hoofed along ’bout their business.”
“Mr. Whitney at the hotel sent me to you,” Madelaine declared when they were alone and the soft-eyed old philosopher had dusted a chair and pushed the “spit-box” from sight. “He said you were well acquainted in Paris and could assist me in getting information about a particular person who may, or may not, live here at present. My name is Howland—Allegra Howland—and I come from Springfield, Mass. But my visit here and my business must remain unknown. I’d like you to assure me you’ll keep it confidential before I go further.”
The old man stroked his whiskers gently and his blue eyes smiled.
“Pat claimed I knowed everybody, did he? Wal, wal! He does manage to tell the truth once in a dog’s age. What is it you want to know, daughter?”
“It’s about a man named Forge. Has such a man ever lived here in Paris?”
Madelaine caught the startled expression which for a moment chilled the kindly laughter in those lackluster eyes.
“Which Forge, daughter? Nat or the old man?”
“There are two, then?”
“Nat and Johnathan. Nat’s the boy. Johnathan’s the dad. Which you want to know about?”
“The one called Nathaniel. He—he—several years ago—he—wrote a poem. It interested me greatly. So much so I thought if I ever happened up this way, I’d stop and compliment the poet.”
“Pshaw, now! That’s too bad!”
“Why is it too bad?”
The expression of trouble deepened on the old hostler’s face.
“It’s been quite a spell since Nat writ poetry. His dad sort o’ discouraged it. Nat give it up.”
“He’s a young man, then?” Why did the girl’s heart leap?
“Let’s see, Nat was ten or so when he come to Paris from over Foxboro way. That was in ninety-nine. Now it’s nineteen-fifteen. That’d make Natie ’bout twenty-six at present, wouldn’t it?—yaas, twenty-six!”
“He’s still living here, then?”
“Yaas—he’s still livin’ here. Just now, we’re sort o’ sorry to say, he’s livin’ in jail.”
“In—jail!”
It was a diaphragm blow. Madelaine could hear, see, feel, but she could not move. “Why is he in jail?” she asked faintly.
“It’s a long story, ma’am. ’Tain’t exactly a pleasant one. You see, Nat come down here from Foxboro and his old man started a shoe place over next to the Red Front Grocery. Him and his woman always had trouble and I guess ‘twa sort o’ hell for the Forge kids. Nat went to school here a piece, and then was pulled out and set to work for Gridley to the tannery. Old Cal took pity on him, the boy bein’ a good sort o’ kid, and put him in the office. Nat writ poems just after leavin’ school. They tickled old Gridley. He got Hod to print ’em in the Telegraph.”
“Gridley? Why, I know a girl named Gridley! And she came from up around here, too. She went to school with me at Mount Hadley.”
“That’s the one! Bernice! Went abroad for a spell, didn’t she? Then married a millionaire feller from somewhere out Chicawgie?”
“Yes,” said Madelaine faintly. “Please go on! It was her father, then. And what about Nathaniel?”
“Well, Johnathan got sick o’ cobblin’ folkses’ shoes. Had a chance to buy Dink Campbell’s box-shop. Didn’t do very well till young Nat got stuck on a girl from A-higher. Commenced workin’ like the devil then, Nat did, to get a stake so’s he could marry her. Caleb coached him, I guess. Leastwise the town says so, and Cal ain’t never denied it. That was ’fore his woman, the Duchess, died, and Cal started travelin’. Anyhow, Nat worked like sixty down to the box-shop and planned when he was twenty-one he’d marry the kid from A-higher. It was sort o’ too bad. She give him the Grand Bounce, married another feller. Pore Natie got it square between the eyes the night he turned twenty-one. He was plannin’ on marryin’ her the comin’ Christmas. Rotten deal! Hurt him awful!”
Madelaine’s throat was dry. She nodded.
“Care if I smoke, daughter?” the old man asked.
“Please do,” begged the girl. He was that type of picturesque old fellow who looks at a loss without a corncob pipe. Uncle Joe pulled a package of black shag from his hip, took his cob from off his desk and for several moments meditated as he applied the shag to the bowl and tamped it hard with a gnarled forefinger.
“’Course,” he went on, as the match flame leaped several times upon being applied to the top of the pipe, “it’s only natcheral that Natie should ‘a’ been sort of upset and all. Still, we didn’t calculate he’d turn so quick and crazy-like, and pull off the stunt he did. I s’pose he was just homesick for a woman, his Ma being pretty much a jawbones and the home life at sixes and sevens. Anyhow, that very night when Natie learned the other girl had married another feller, he goes plumb to work and marries ‘Cock-eye’ Richards’ eldest girl, Milly—the dumpy one that was always sloppy ’bout her shoes.”
“Married! He’s—married—then?”
“Oh, yaas, he’s married. Got a kid—girl kid! Been married—let’s see—been married better’n five year now. Kid’s pretty good size. Goes to school, I think.”
“Go on,” said the girl listlessly. “You said he was in jail.”
“Yaas—box-shop’s busted—high, wide and handsome.”
“Just how do you mean?”
“Well, Nat got going pretty good there, for a piece. He was working for a stake to marry the A-higher girl like I said, and when a kid’s got his back up to do something big for a girl, there’s times when a team o’ hosses can’t hold him. He was keen enough, too, for a kid. He’d probably come out all right if he hadn’t been sidetracked by marryin’ that dumpy Richards thing. Anyhow, he’d had the business incorporated and hittin’ the high spots and it was making so much money for a spell that lots o’ folks hereabouts bought stock. Bought some myself! But it reached its peak the first year o’ Nat’s marriage. Guess the boy lost heart. Then again, his old man give him trouble. What John didn’t know about business, any kind of business, would fill a dam’ big book. So they pulled and they hauled and they sawed, and with a baby comin’, the boy couldn’t very well break away. Then him and Milly didn’t get along—him bein’ a poet and she bein’ a cow. Taken altogether, the box-works commenced to slide.”
“And now it’s reached bankruptcy?”
“’Twouldn’t have gone into bankruptcy if old John hadn’t had one last walloper of a fight with his woman, and one mornin’ showed up missin’. The girl Edith—that’s Nat’s sister—she holds out for marryin’ a feller by the name o’ Dubois—French feller from Montreal. Folks objected, her folks. They objected so much she ran off with him one night and the old man couldn’t have the marriage busted ’cause there was a fambly comin’. John’s woman got scrappin’ and blamin’ him for makin’ a mess o’ things generally and so, well—last week he simply pulled his stakes and blowed.”
“But why should they put the son in jail?”
“Wal, seems Johnathan got the idea from somewheres that because he was president and had started the business, it belonged to him, ‘specially the funds. He forgot there was stockholders been interested. He gets peeved and draws out a rotten lot o’ the company’s workin’ capital. Cripples it so it can’t pay its bills. He takes it with him, and God knows where he’s gone. The bank folks here certainly’d like to. The stockholders get together and bein’ pretty hot under the collar and all, they thinks Nat might blow too, and they claps him in the hoosegow. The bank puts figgerers ont’ the books and they found the shop’s been losing money for most three years—just eatin’ into its capital and eatin’ and eatin’. John’s skippin’ out sorter pulled down the temple. The boy’s helpless, ’cause they set his bail so high there won’t nobody go it, though they do say old Caleb in California, or somewheres, has wired he’d come back and lend a hand to straighten things out. But there ain’t much hope o’ re-openin’ the business. Won’t pay fifteen cents on the dollar. Feel like a fool about it myself. Had in fifty dollars.”
“And how does his mother and wife take it?” Madelaine asked. Not that she particularly cared, but she had to say something.
“Oh, John’s woman’s mad at the boy; she and Milly don’t get along. Then agin, Nat got into the mess by bein’ in business with his father—and Anna always did hate his father. She owns the Longstreet property up on Vermont Avenue—leastwise it was put in her name a while back and the courts can’t get it. She could go Nat’s bail if she would. But she won’t. She says it’s ‘good enough for him.’ Let him rot in jail a piece and think it over. Good revenge on John, Nat bein’ his son. It’s makin’ a heap o’ talk ’round the village. Milly—Gawd, she ain’t got brains enough to boil water; all she can do is wring her hands and weep. Folks say a chap named Si Plumb is shinin’ around her—used to be in love with her before she married Nat. But I’m thinkin’ that’s talk. No, the boy ain’t got much help from his women folks. Never did have, for that matter. Sad case, sad case!”
“What became of the sister?”
“She’s off up to Montreal. Dubois got a job up there in a paper mill. Ordinary sort o’ feller—makes two-seventy-five a day, maybe.”
Old Fodder puffed on his pipe for a time. Madelaine could hear his horses munching their evening oats out in the low-studded stable. Finally she drew a deep sigh.
“Then I guess it would be somewhat embarrassing for me to congratulate him on his poetry just now, wouldn’t it? Satisfy a woman’s curiosity, Mr. Fodder. What sort of looking man is he? I’ve drawn a picture of him from his poem and I’d like to know how far I’m correct.”
“Fair-lookin’ chap!” Uncle Joe poised his shining pipe-stem in mid-air. “Had a fight with this Plumb who they sez is sashayin’ round his wife, just now—long time ago. Got a busted ear. Used to have fifty million freckles but them sort o’ faded out. Been goin’ about the village sort o’ seedy-lookin’ lately—guess his woman spent a pile, thinkin’ he had gobs o’ money. Got fair eyes, but sort o’ hounded-lookin’. Yes, fair sort o’ feller but kinda ordinary. Feel sorry for him myself.”
Madelaine laughed. She affected an indifference she did not feel.
“I’m awfully obliged to you, Mr. Fodder. This information has forestalled an awkward situation. And you’ll forget I came to see you, won’t you?”
“Sartin! Sartin! Stoppin’ in the place long?”
“No, I’m going down-country to-night.”
“Well, glad to metcher. Ever stoppin’ here again, look me up. Want me to say anythin’ to Nat ’bout you callin’, if he wins out all right?”
“No, no! It was only idle curiosity. He doesn’t know me anyway and never will.”
“Well, good night. And watch the ice in the yard. Mare broke a leg there Thursday. Dam’ nice mare, too. Had to be shot. Got twelve dollars for her hide. Good night.”
Madelaine went out again to Main Street. She strolled about for a time in thought. Her walk brought her in front of the Court House. Nathaniel Forge, the man who had written the little poem that had meant much in her life, was down in a basement cell at that moment—two hundred feet away—ten thousand miles.
She entered the hotel and found she still had no appetite for supper. She asked what time she could catch a train back to the Junction.
“Find yer man?” demanded Pat Whitney.
“Oh, yes,” Madelaine answered cheerily enough. “The person I hoped to find isn’t here any longer.”