“Hasn't your shawl got out of pawn yet?”
“How should it?”
He flung himself angrily out of the broken chair, picked up his ragged cap, and strode angrily and noisily across the room, out at the door, stumbling up the steps, like one half-blind with disgust or rage, and went on swift feet down the street out of sight. And Mart, poor Mart, left thus to solitude, let the last beam of the sun go without watching, and buried her face in the ragged quilt and cried.
CHAPTER IV. — “I DON'T BLAME THEM.”
It was not a “pet” name. Poor Mart Colson would not have known what to do with a pet name. Her life had not taught her how to use such phrases; how she came to be named Martha, she did not know; but a hollow-eyed, sad-voiced woman could have told her of a country home, long ago, where there were daffodils blowing in the early spring, almost under the snow; where, later, the earth was turned into sky, or the stars came down and gleamed all over her father's fields, so plentiful were the dandelions; and the breath of the clover came in at all the open windows, and the cows—her father's cows—coming home from pasture, and the tinkle of their bells were sights and sounds familiar to her ear. She sat there one summer evening, in the back-door, watching the glory and the peace, and studying, between times, her Sabbath lesson. Often and often the words came back to her in future years. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” That was one of the verses. Was it a dim memory of the words, and a sort of blind reaching out after their fulfilment, that led her to name her poor little two-days-old baby, Martha? The old home had vanished, the sweet-scented meadows, the tinkling bells, the peace and the plenty, were as utterly things of the past as though they had not been. Mother, and father, and one brother, were gone, lying in grass-grown, neglected graves; and she—why the two-days-old baby's father was drunk; and had been for three weeks! A hard, hateful-sounding word,—coarse, almost. Why don't I say intoxicated? Oh, because I can't! I've no desire to find smooth-sounding words with which to cover the sin of that baby's father. But the mother named her Martha. She never told her why, if, indeed, she herself fully knew; it was not a family name. Gradually, after the fashion of the times, she sought to shorten the name; and because they had not sweet, short words, as “Pet,” and “Dear” and “Sweet,”—all such belong to happy homes,—they grew to calling her Mart. And now even she herself hardly realized that she had ever owned to any other call. Poor Mart! I find myself wanting to use the adjective over and over again when I speak of her. Such a desolate, loveless life! Always a drunken father,—she had never known any other; always a sharp-toned, weary-eyed, disheartened mother, who shut her tenderness for the child within herself, as one who could not afford to show it. Then Dirk, the one brother, going astray almost as soon as he was born. What wonder, from such a home? Yet Mart wondered and felt bitter over it. Why could not Dirk be like some others of whom she knew? Like Sallie Calkin's brother, for instance, who worked day and night, and brought home, often and often, an apple, or a herring, or sometimes even a picture paper for Sallie! Mart was sharp-tongued; all her life had taught her to be so. She spoke sharp words out of the bitterness of her heart at Dirk, and of late rarely anything but sharp words, yet—and this was Mart's secret, hidden away as if it were something of which to be ashamed—she loved Dirk, loved him fiercely, with all the pent-up wealth of her young heart; and often, because she loved him, she was harsh and bitter towards him, though she did not herself understand why this should be.
As for Dirk, he walked rapidly but for a few blocks; his dinner had been too insufficient to give him strength, after the first aimless anger had subsided. Then came the question what to do with himself. Why hadn't he gone with the fellows? More than likely some of them had contrived a way to get a dinner. Why had he persisted in sullenly leaving them all and going home?
He had not the least idea why he had been impelled to go home. Now that he was fairly away from home again, he had no idea what to do with himself. A place where he could warm his feet and his hands, where he could get a bite to eat, possibly,—this last would be an immense attraction, but was not a necessity, and he did not expect it,—but warmth, at least, he felt that he must have. Where would he find it? What place had been provided for such as he? He ought by this time to have been earning his own living, to have had a corner which he could call home, earned by himself, where some of the decencies of life were gathered. Of course he ought; but the painful fact to meet just now, was that he had not done his duty. He had gone astray; not so far but that there were plenty of chances to go farther, greater deeps to which he might yet reach, but far enough to all but break any watchful mother's heart; only that his mother's heart was broken before he was born. The simple question waiting to be solved was this: Having done as poorly for himself as under the circumstances he well could, what was Dirk Colson to do next? He had no idea; neither, apparently, had multitudes of Christian people engaged in praying that the Father's will might be done on earth, even as it was in heaven. The young man walked six blocks down the respectable avenue, lined with pleasant homes, where the people went to church, and read their Bibles, and had family prayers, and kept holy the Sabbath day. Not a door among them all opened and held out a winning signal to arrest his heedless feet. Not so Satan! Is he ever caught idling at his post?
Just around the corner from the respectable avenue (and around the corner Dirk presently turned, still uncertain what to do, where to find the warmth he craved) then the winning invitations for such as he began to present themselves. Saloons, and saloons, and saloons! How many of them were there? Far outnumbering the churches! Pleasant they looked, too; opening doors, ever and anon, revealing brightness and warmth within. They would like to see him inside. Of this Dirk was sure; not that he had money, but he had something that in such places often served him well,—a decided and dangerous talent for imitating any and every peculiarity of voice or manner that had chanced to come under his notice. He could make the fellows in these saloons roar with laughter. If he did particularly well, they were willing to order for him a glass of beer, or a fairly good cigar; in any case he had a chance to get warm. This was actually Dirk's only present source of income! Yet he shrank from it; he could not have told you why, but on this particular Sabbath he was averse to earning his coveted warmth in this way. He walked resolutely by two or three places where he had reason to think he might be welcomed, wondering vaguely whether there wasn't something else a fellow could do to keep himself from freezing. Oddly enough there seemed to be something about the glimmer of sunshine as he saw it in Mart's hair that kept him from halting before any of the places open to him. What if she had come out with him to take a walk; he could not have taken her into one of them! Then, poor fellow, he set himself to wondering where the place was, open and warmed, to which he could take Mart. There were places, several of them, in the large city; but Dirk knew nothing about them, and he was acquainted with the saloons. He thought of another thing; he had been invited to call at a house on East Fifty-fifth Street. Suppose he should walk up there this very afternoon and ring the bell, and say that he had come to call! What would happen then? Whereupon he laughed aloud. The fancy seemed to him so utterly preposterous. The idea of his making a call! The utter improbability of his ever seeing the inside of one of the East Fifty-fifth Street mansions!