The Door—A Nocturne
There is a pale moon, consequently the electric street-lamps are unlighted. The setting is nowise picturesque. The street is narrow, unpaved, and fringed on either side with maples in leaf. It is late June. To right and left, are to be discerned behind the trees rows of characterless frame houses, that, for the greater part, are set well back in yards, where, here and there, are lilac bushes, rose trees, smoke trees, and silver birches, ghostly in the thin light. The moon's rays, glimmering upon the latched green blinds of the lower stories—which seem black—streak them with white.
At the end of the block, on the east side of the street, stands a house markedly different from the others. It is three stories in height, whilst they are two; the lawn, cut by a gravel path, slopes gently to the walk, and is close cropped; across the front of the house and continuing unbroken along either side to the back is a broad, covered porch with a spindled rail at its edge like a little fence. The only door is at the top of the path, in front. In a window directly above the door is a card the legend on which the moon makes clear—"Rooms to Rent." There is no fence about the place. On the south side another gravel path, narrower than the one in front and bordered with box, links the sidewalk to the porch. The main path prongs to still another set of steps on the north side. The house is white and looms big in the paleness. In a pear-tree near the south porch-steps a katydid scrapes her dreary tune; whilst, on the north steps, a vagrant cat sits in silent adoration of the night, contemplating, presumably, the joys thereof. A stillness made the more tangible by the katydid's song pervades the scene.
The deep throated bells in the library tower on the campus ring out six times—ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong. Accurately it lacks but fifteen minutes of being midnight.
Suddenly the song of the katydid ceases, and the cat, seized with panic, leaps from the north steps and vanishes beneath the grape trellis at the back. Footfalls sound on the cement, and presently a couple slant across the lawn to the porch, issuing from the shadow of the trees into the white light that floods the lawn. He is seen to be a well set up youth who looks twenty-three. It is the moon, for he is twenty. Upon his blond head is perched a slouch hat of a dirty gray color and bound with a wide black band. His trousers, turned up at the ankles, are baggy at the hips and bulge beneath the belted Norfolk jacket that he wears. His hat is pulled down rakishly in front. She is a head shorter than he, and plump. Were it high noon her face would glow ruddy. She wears a straw sailor-hat such as no sailor ever wore; a shirt waist, and a white duck skirt that flares at the hem and appears somewhat crumpled. Her steps are mincing; he slouches. Between them they carry by its two out-springing handles a small luncheon hamper. He is a junior; his walk gives the clue to his class. So is she; so does hers. At the porch he sets the basket on the lowest step and turns to her:—
Jamie. Well, we beat 'em; didn't we?
Hilda [fumbling in her finger purse]. Uh huh. Let's go up-stairs and wait.
Jamie [doubtfully]. Had we better? Won't your landlady think—— It's awful late.
Hilda [testily]. We don't pay her three dollars a week to think; besides, they'll surely be here in a minute. We couldn't have been more than a mile ahead of them. They're at the livery now, probably. [During this speech she fumbles in her purse.] Oh, dear!