So in three days the house was left in solitary possession of its sanguine head, who had gone to the suburban station with his family, bag and baggage, at noon.[18]
Being in business for himself, Mr. Brown could not drop his work, as his clerks did, regardless of importance, when the clock pointed to the hour of five--and on this particular day he had been in close consultation with one of his out of town drummers, and in planning the fall campaign of business the time had sped so rapidly that he was surprised to find it half past six when the commercial man left him--and as he left the street car he half wished he had kept the cook for a day or two until he was fairly initiated, for he was hungry--very--and did not want to wait to cook a dinner. But thinking: “I’ll broil a steak and make some coffee,” he walked up the steps and into the house with a tolerably light heart. Once within, he had to whistle and talk to himself, to prevent the feeling of utter loneliness that would steal over him in spite of his weighty intellect.[18]
Mr. Brown was orderly, even in haste, so when he took off his coat he hung it up with usual care--and put on his slippers before descending to the dining-room, which he found very dark. He opened the blinds wide, and as the light from the setting[setting] sun flooded the room he took fresh courage. “Oh, this isn’t half bad, as our English cousins would say”--and he smiled with gratitude at Maria’s tender thoughtfulness (which just then struck him as better “pound for pound” than intellect or system) in having left the table already set, and with bits of her very choicest China, too.[18]
“She’ll trust me with her hand-painted ware, if she doesn’t Bridget”--and he smiled again with pardonable pride as he thought of his own worthiness to be thus exalted beyond a mere drudge, while he proceeded to the kitchen.
The range was polished to a degree--for Maria was a good housekeeper and her domestics well trained, even without that mighty “intellect” and that forceful “system” on which Mr. Brown was at times prone to expatiate--but it was also dark and cold, and he didn’t want to stop and kindle a fire. As he turned to the gas stove, thinking he would use that, he remembered that he hadn’t brought any steak!
There was no help for it, he must go back down town for his dinner, as he had told Maria to be sure and have the cupboards cleared out, as he didn’t “want to live on cold victuals” and all the markets near were closed now. He locked up carefully, got on the next street car that came along, and went to a club-house that he had patronized in the beautiful long ago.
Apprehensive of more loneliness on his return home, he went out to a news stand and purchased a copy of Stockton’s latest story, for evening company. The house seemed darker than ever when he again entered it, and the silence was almost oppressive. He could hear his watch tick and his heart beat--and it seemed as if both said “Alone, alone, alone,” with provoking iteration, while he groped for a match.
Until then Mr. Brown had not known how much of his happiness depended upon light--light and sound. How still it was, even after the gas had made the house brilliant! What would he not have given to hear even one of Maria’s commonplaces about household matters! How he did wish Ben were here, his sturdy ten-year old Ben, who was so manly and yet so boyish!! The girls, of course, ought to be with Maria; but he and Ben would have been capital chums. Why had he not thought of it?
Even Stockton was dull alone--and he had sometimes had double fun with his favorite author, because in reading aloud he would have to stop and explain a joke that to him seemed bare. He put away the book, lighted a cigar and took up the daily newspaper--but now he missed Maria more than ever, for usually while he smoked, she billed and cooed and admired him in the most lavish way imaginable. That didn’t seem to be the product of any cast-iron system, nor to require any great intellectual effort; but Mr. Brown liked it, was accustomed to it, and he missed it from among the home comforts and luxuries by which he was surrounded.[18]
A happy thought struck him, and he prepared to write a letter to his family. Now that was a sacrifice of self, for if there was anything Mr. Brown detested it was correspondence of any kind; but as he wrote he forgot himself and poured out some of his finest feelings in his letter to his wife and little ones, writing on and on, page after page--until he was not surprised next day to have to pay a sixteen cent tribute to Uncle Sam for carrying the precious missive.[18]