Round the Corner in Gay Street

by Grace S. Richmond

I never knew before what it was to breathe way down to the bottom of my lungs. My existence--after my accident, and up to the time I came here--seems now to me like that of some pale monk in his cell, feeding on other men's thoughts, but never living them himself. I've learned to live! You, who have long known that secret, will be glad with me, won't you?

All through the winter I was wrapped to the eyes whenever I put my head out of the cabin door. Men dress warmly here in the winter--flannel-lined canvas overcoats--"blanket coats" they call them--felt boots, and all that. But they don't make grannies of themselves as I did--at first. As the winter advanced, though, I began to get hardened to it, and before spring I could stand a pretty low temperature without feeling my blood congeal. But when spring came--spring in this Western country! I wish I could describe it. The air like wine, the sunshine like--nothing I can think of. When spring came I began to expand mentally and physically--and in still another way, I think. Anyhow, I 'm not the same fellow who went to the doctor for an outfit of drugs before he dared start West.

I 've learned a lot from these men I 've been associated with. A rough set they would seem to you, most of them--they did to me at first. But when I got to know them, underneath the roughness I found--men. It's no use trying to put it into a letter. I must talk with you, face to face--and just what that means to me when I think of it I won't venture to say. I 'll be home in the fall, and then--I 'm going into my father's business. I have n't said that before, have I? You 'll please not mention it to anyone, except Peter, if you like; I want to surprise father. That's going to be my reward for doing my duty. It is my duty--I see it plainly at last, and every ounce of determination I can grow from now till fall is going to be just so much more to offer him. But I won't brag about that. Do the best I can, it won't be a wonderful gift, for I 'm afraid my talents don't lie in that direction. But if honest effort can make up--Jane, I have n't watched some of these heroic chaps for nothing. I 'm simply shamed into taking my medicine, and shutting my mouth tight after it. And that's the last word about it's being medicine. I 'm going to get interested in the business if pitching in all over will do it.

This is a long letter, and I 'm done--except to tell you that the West does n't deserve all the credit for my altered views of life. A certain girl I know, who wanted to go to college, but gave up all thought of it because, besides the family, her father and brothers had half a dozen helpless elderly relatives to support, isn't the poorest sort of inspiration to her friend, when he happens to be a fellow who never gave up anything for anybody in his life. He values her friendship far more than he dares to tell her now. Somebody--Ruskin?--said a knight's armour never fitted him quite so well as when the lady's hand had braced it--and I 'm beginning to understand what that rather picturesque metaphor may mean. Do I sound sentimental, and are you laughing at me? Don't do it! I 've not a "gun" in my belt, but I'm rather a rough looking customer nevertheless. I came in an hour ago, wet to the skin--caught out in a cloudburst without my slicker--and while my clothes dry am attired in my cousin's (seven sizes too big!) being averse to putting on any of the clothes in my trunk, the foolish clothes of civilisation.

I weigh one hundred and sixty-five. What do you think of that? And it's not flesh, but worked-on muscle and sinew. Did I say I was done? I am. But I am also

Faithfully your friend,

MURRAY TOWNSEND.

"You look it," agreed Jane, studying the photograph. "You certainly look it." She gave the little print one more careful examination, noting the steady gaze the pictured face gave back, a spirited expression very different from the half-moody look she had first known; then she put the photographs away and went about her work. And as she went, a little song sang itself over and over in her heart--the song of trust in a ripening friendship of the sort that makes life worth living.

Spring and summer passed slowly by, marking a growing interchange of amenities between the little house in Gay Street and the big one in Worthington Square. Things had happened during the winter, things kept on happening as the year advanced, to draw the two families together. In January Shirley had had a long and severe illness, during which Mrs. Bell and Jane made their way into the inmost heart of every member of the household. There were nights during that illness when Joseph Bell, feeling that difference of social position counted for nothing when a father was in trouble, went over to shake Harrison Townsend's hand, bidding him be of courage--and found himself detained as a friend in need.

By and by, when the anxiety was over and the Bells ceased coming often in and out, the Townsends began to summon them. Mr. Townsend discovered the shrewd wisdom and genial philosophy of Joseph Bell to be of value, and often went to sit with him in the little front room, where his eyes noted with approval the rows of books. He discovered that Armstrongs's head man knew more that lay between the covers of those books than did Harrison Townsend himself.