Her Weight in Gold

by George Barr McCutcheon

Trotter had married Kate with a heart overrunning with the glorious ambition of untried youth, the happy confidence of strength, fully convinced that nothing was necessary toward securing success save the establishment of a purpose. And that is quite, quite the fact.

They began with a dollar and they had seen but few, since the beginning, that they could call their own. Too late did Digby learn that he knew but little and that the world was full of young men whose beginning in life had been so much worse than his that necessity had made them equal to the struggle for which he had been so illy prepared by an indulgent parent. Digby found the banks in which he had hoped to secure positions thronged with clerks and accountants who had worked slowly, painfully from the bottom upward. Grey-haired men, whose lives had been spent in the one great battle for gold, told him of their years in the patient ranks; thoughtful-faced young men told him how they had been office boys, messenger boys, even janitor boys, in the climb up the Matterhorn of success. Here he was a man of 25, strong, bright and the possessor of an unusual intelligence, a college man, a rich man's son, but poorer than the smallest clerk that had ever bent his throbbing, ambitious head over the desk in his father's bank, and who had often envied the life of his employer's son. Now that son was beneath them all because he did not know how to work!

Work—toil—slave! The definition of success.

At first the failures originating from inexperience had been of small consequence to Digby. His old-time independence resisted the harsh criticisms of his first employers and he had, on more than one occasion, thrown away fair positions because the spirit could not endure the thumb of mastery. For months he rebelled against the requirements of servitude, but gradually it dawned upon him that though the rich man was his father he was no longer the rich man's son.

So, when the first year of their wedded life had rolled by, Digby Trotter, still neat, still independent, yet not so defiant—wore a haggard look which could no longer be disguised. The once fashionable garments were beginning to look shabby; his recently purchased clothing had come from the bargain counters in cheap "ready-made" establishments; his once constantly used evening dress suit hung in a closet, lonely and forlorn, minus the trousers. He was keeping the books in a street car office and his salary was $40 a month.

When, at the close of their first happy, miserable year, her father died and their baby was born, many changes came. They were forced to take the house for themselves and had to be accountable for the rent. Dr. Anderson had given them the right to call his home their own so long as he should live and it was the earnings of two men that kept the little establishment crowded with happiness, if not comforts, during his lifetime. One day a blow came to them. The landlord ejected them. Kate wept as she passed out through the little front gate, leaving behind the dear old home with its rose bushes, its lilacs, its gravelled walks, perhaps forever. Digby buttoned his coat tightly about his thinning figure and scowled as he followed her through the gate. He scowled at that invisible fate which preceded them both. Now, at the end of five years, they were living in a tenement house, a crowded, filthy place, ruled by a miserly, relentless landlord, whose gold was his god.

The young husband had been employed by many men and in many occupations during these five years. Fate pursued him always, despite his dogged determination, his earnest efforts to surmount the obstacles which crowded his path to happiness and peace. If a reduction was necessary in a working force he was one of the first to go: if any one was to be superseded by a new and favoured applicant he was the one. On many occasions he had taken up his coat and hat, stepping to the pavement with the crushed heart of a despairing man, tears in his wistful eyes, his tired brain filling, almost bursting with the thoughts of the little woman whose brave eyes would grow large and bright when he told her of the end, and who would kiss him and bid him not to despair. He could almost hear her suppressed sob as he thought of her, her head upon his shoulder, her soft voice blaming herself for having dragged him down to this.

In this warfare of poverty they had seen many hungry days, many hardships, but neither had relinquished faith in Digby's ability to baffle adversity and stem the tide. Like tennis balls, they had been batted from one end of the year to the other, and now, at this time, Digby Trotter and wife had become members of New York's "floating population." Seldom did they live in one place more than three months, sometimes less than one. Frequently they moved because their surroundings were so distasteful to Kate, whose natural sense of refinement was averse, not to poverty and squalor, but to the vice with which it often is associated in districts where an ignorant and vicious element flocks as if drawn by the magnetism of sin.

A man of strong will was Digby, and a woman of wonderful strength of purpose was his wife, or he would have lost heart, and lost her in the end. Only once had he come home to her intoxicated, driven to it through despair and by what he thought to be approaching illness. On awakening from the drunken sleep shame made him fear to meet the eyes of her who suffered with him. But she had gently said:

"Don't be ashamed, Digby; poor, dear boy! You couldn't help it, I know. But, dear, do try to be strong, stronger than ever, for baby's sake if not for your own and mine. We shall all be happy yet, I'm sure we shall, if you—if you will but resist that one misfortune."