At Close Range

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

Ten minutes later he was startled by the opening of his door. In the dim glow of the hall gas-jet showing through the crack and the transom, his eyes caught the outline of a girl in her night-dress, her hair in two braids down her neck. She was stepping noiselessly and approaching his bed. In her hand she carried a quilt. Bending above him—Steve lying in the shadow—she spread the covering gently over his body, tucked the end softly about his throat, and as gently tiptoed out of the room. Then there came a voice from the other side of the partition:

"He ain't coughin' any more—he's asleep. I got it over him. Now get all your clo'es, Molly, and pile 'em on top. We can get along."

Steve lay still. His first impulse was to cry out that they had made a mistake—that Jerry was next door; his next was to slip into Jerry's room and pile the quilt on him. Then he checked himself—the first would alarm and mortify the girls, and the second would be like robbing them of the credit of their generous act. Jerry might wake and the girls would hear, and explanations follow and all the pleasure of their sacrifice be spoiled. No, he'd hand it back to the girls, and say he was much obliged but he didn't need it. Again he stopped—this time with a sudden pull-up. Going into a chorus girl's room, under any pretence whatever, in a hotel at night! No, sir-ee, Bob! Not for Stephen! He had been there; none of that in his!

All this time the quilt was choking him—his breath getting shorter every minute, as if he was being slowly smothered. A peculiar hotness began to creep over the skin of his throat and a small lump to rise near his Adam's apple, followed by a slight moistening of the eyes—all new symptoms to Steve, new since his boyhood.

Suddenly there flashed into his mind the picture of a low-roofed garret room, sheltering a trundle-bed tucked away under the slant of the shingles. In the dim light where he lay he caught the square of the small window, the gaunt limbs of the butternut beyond, and could hear, as he listened, the creak of its branches bending in the storm. All about were old-fashioned things—a bureau with brass handles; a spinning-wheel; ropes of onions; a shelf of apples; an old saddle; and a rocking-chair with one arm gone and the bottom half out. A soft tread was heard upon the stairs, a white figure stole in, and a warm hand nestling close to his cheeks tucked the border of a quilt under his chin. Then came a voice. "I thought you might be cold, son."

With a bound Steve sprang from the bed.

For an instant he sat on the edge of the hard mattress, his eyes on the floor, as if in deep thought.

"Those two girls lying there freezing, and all to get that feller warm!" he muttered. "You're a dog, Stephen Dodd—that's what you are—a yellow dog!"

Reaching out noiselessly for his shoes and socks, he drew them toward him, slipped in his feet, dragged on his trousers and shirt, threw his coat around his shoulders—he was beginning to shiver now—opened the door of his room cautiously, letting in more of the glow of the gas-jet, and stole down the corridor to the staircase. Here he looked into a black gulf. The only lights were the one by the clerk's desk and the glow of the stove. Quickening his steps, he descended the stairs to the lower floor. The porter would be up, he said to himself, or the night watchman, or perhaps the clerk; somebody, anyway, would be around. He looked over the counter, expecting to find Larry in his chair; passed out to the porter's room and studied the trunks and boot-stand; peered behind the screen, and finding no one, made a tour of the floor, opening and shutting doors. No one was awake.

Then a new thought struck him. This came with a thumping of one fist in the palm of the other hand, his face breaking out into a satisfied smile at his discovery. He remounted the stairs—the first flight two steps at a time, the second flight one step at a time, the last few levels on his toes. If he had intended to burglarize one of the rooms he could not have been more careful about making a noise. Entering his own apartment, he picked up the quilt the girls had spread over him, folded it carefully and laid it on the floor. Then he stripped off his own blanket and quilt and placed them beside it. These two packages he tucked under his arm, and with the tread of a cat crept down the corridor to the stairway. Once there, he wheeled and with both heels striking the bare floor came tramping toward the girls' room.