Poppea of the Post-Office

by Mabel Osgood Wright

"For New York? Yes, I cared for that and all the best it gives. But the life? Yes, I cared for that too, in a way, until I stood off and looked back."

Then, clasping her hands about the post, she said, smiling shyly, with a little quizzical expression at the corners of her mouth:—

"Do you remember once, long ago, how you and I stood by the railroad brook and watched a big, striped snake charm and swallow a little green frog?

"We didn't mean to let the affair come to the swallowing, but though the beginning was slow, the frog sat still and waited too long, and the end came quicker than we expected. Then, as the lump that was the frog began to be moved down the snake's length in being digested, you took your foot and little by little edged the frog backward out of the snake's mouth to the ground, slime covered and quite insensible. Then we both took water in our hands, and dashing it washed the slime away, until presently the frog came to and hopped away like mad, without ever looking back.

"Well, once upon a time, Hugh, as the fairy stories say, I was a little green frog and the life down there the snake; it drew me, and I didn't want to get away, until, when it was almost too late, one night a great splash of cold water, thrown by people who did not throw it in kindness, and that nearly strangled me, brought me to, and I hopped away without even wishing to look back.

"So when you think to yourself again, 'Poppea will yet love the life of the city,' remember the little green frog!"

Thus they parted in a sudden ripple of laughter, good friends.

Next day, in the hurry and bustle that always belong to an outgoing steamer in the season of summer travel, some of those in the crowd on the deck of the Normanic were attracted by the sight of a young and well-bred woman of unusual beauty, accompanied by a maid and some one who might either be her mother or aunt, clinging tearfully about the neck of an old man, whom she was wishing good-by. While there was nothing unusual about the parting at such a time, yet the dainty dress and bearing of the woman were in striking contrast to the homespun plainness of the man, who wore the long, flowing beard, stiff clothes, and wide-brimmed Panama hat, his Sunday best for years, that marks the countryman. Moreover, he carried a home-made hickory cane and clutched to his breast a bulky newspaper parcel.

When the final blast of "all ashore" was sounded, the air quivering with the vibrations, the girl loosed her hold, and crying, "Good-by, dear Daddy!" disappeared in the crowd that gathered by the stairway; while he, turning toward the gang-plank, marched down it with all the soldier-like precision his lameness would allow, never looking back, his bundle still clasped tightly to him.

Boarding a small blue car known as a "bob-tail," Gilbert rode across the city, carefully scanning his course. When he emerged presently from the region of crooked ways to where the avenues run north and south and the streets east and west, and saw ahead an open square, he stopped the car, and standing at the street curb, shielding his eyes from the pitiless sun, tried to get his bearings.