How It Happened by Kate Langley Bosher
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7 HOW IT HAPPENED
BY
KATE LANGLEY BOSHER
AUTHOR OF
THE MAN IN LONELY LAND,
MARY CARY, ETC
ILLUSTRATED
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1914
TO
MY FAITHFUL FRIEND
ARIADNE ELIZABETH VAUGHAN LATHAM
ILLUSTRATIONS
"WHICH DO YOU LIKE BEST, SARDINES WITH LEMON ON 'EM, OR TOASTED CHEESE
ON TOAST?"
"YOU WOULD NOT LET ME THANK YOU THIS MORNING. MAY I THANK YOU NOW
FOR--"
HOW IT HAPPENED
CHAPTER I
Head on the side and chin uptilted, she held it at arm's-length,
turning it now in one direction, now in another, then with
deliberation she laid it on the floor.
"I have wanted to do it ever since you were sent me; now I am going
to."
Hands on hips, she looked down on the high-crown, narrow-brim hat of
stiff gray felt which was at her feet, and nodded at it with firmness
and decision. "It's going to be my Christmas present to
myself--getting rid of you. Couldn't anything give me as much pleasure
as smashing you is going to give. Good-by--"
Raising her right foot, Carmencita held it poised for a half-moment
over the hated hat, then with long-restrained energy she brought it
down on the steeple-crown and crushed it into shapelessness. "I wish
she could see you now." Another vigorous punch was given, then with a
swift movement the battered bunch of dull grayness, with its yellow
bird and broken buckle of tarnished steel, was sent in the air, and as
it landed across the room the child laughed gaily, ran toward it, and
with the tip of her toes tossed it here and there. Sending it now up
to the ceiling, now toward the mantel, now kicking it over the table,
and now to the top of the window, she danced round and round the room,
laughing breathlessly. Presently she stooped, picked it up, stuck it
on her head, and, going to the stove, opened its top, and with a shake
of her curls dropped the once haughty and now humbled head-gear in the
fire and watched it burn with joyous satisfaction.
"The first time she wore it we called her Coachman Cattie, it was so
stiff and high and hideous, and nobody but a person like her would
ever have bought it. I never thought it would some day come to me.
Some missioners are nice, some very nice, but some--"
With emphasis the lid of the stove was put back, and, going to the
table in the middle of the room, Carmencita picked up the contents of
the little work-basket, which had been knocked over in her rushing
round, and put them slowly in place. "Some missioners seem to think
because you're poor everything God put in other people's hearts and
minds and bodies and souls He left out of you. Of course, if you
haven't a hat you ought to be thankful for any kind." The words came
soberly, and the tiniest bit of a quiver twisted the lips of the
protesting mouth. "You oughtn't to know whether it is pretty or ugly
or becoming or--You ought just to be thankful and humble, and I'm not
either. I don't like thankful, humble people; I'm afraid of them."
Leaving the table where for a minute she had jumbled needles and
thread and scissors and buttons in the broken basket, she walked
slowly over to the tiny mirror hung above a chest of drawers, and on
tiptoes nodded at the reflection before her--nodded and spoke to it.
"You're a sinner, all right, Carmencita Bell, and there's no natural
goodness in you. You hate hideousness, and poorness, and other
people's cast-offs, and emptiness in your stomach, and living on the
top floor with crying babies and a drunken father underneath, and
counting every stick of wood before you use it. And you get furious
at times because your father is blind and people have forgotten about
his beautiful music, and you want chicken and cake when you haven't
even enough bacon and bread. You're a sinner, all right. If you were
in a class of them you would be at the head. It's the only thing you'd
ever be at the head of. You know you're poverty-poor, and still you're
always fighting inside, always making out that it is just for a little
while. Why don't you--"
The words died on her lips, and suddenly the clear blue eyes, made for
love and laughter and eager for all that is lovely in life, dimmed
with hot tears, and with a half-sob she turned and threw herself face
downward on the rug-covered cot on the opposite side of the room.
"O God, please don't let Father know!" The words came in tones that
were terrified. "Please don't ever let him know! I wasn't born good,
and I hate bad smells, and dirty things, and ugly clothes, and not
enough to eat, but until I am big enough to go to work please,
_please_ help me to keep Father from knowing! Please help me!"
With a twisting movement the child curled herself into a little ball,
and for a moment tempestuous sobbing broke the stillness of the room,
notwithstanding the knuckles of two little red hands which were
pressed to the large sweet mouth. Presently she lifted the hem of her
skirt and wiped her eyes, then she got up.
"I wish I could cry as much as I want to. I never have had a place
convenient to do it all by myself, and there's never time, but it gets
the choked things out and makes you feel much better. I don't often
want to, just sometimes, like before Christmas when you're crazy to do
a lot of things you can't do--and some people make you so mad! If I'd
been born different and not minding ugly things and loving pretty
ones, I wouldn't have hated that hat so. That's gone, anyhow. I've
been wanting to see how high I could kick it ever since Miss Cattie
sent it to me, and now I've done it. I've got a lot of old clothes I'd
like to send to Ballyhack, but I can't send."
She stopped, smoothed her rumpled dress, and shook back the long loose
curls which had fallen over her face. "I must be getting sorry for
myself. If I am I ought to be spanked. I can't spank, but I can dance.
If you don't head it off quick it goes to your liver. I'll head!"
With a swift movement Carmencita sprang across the room and from the
mantel took down a once beribboned but now faded and worn tambourine.
"You'd rather cry," she said, under her breath, "but you sha'n't cry.
I won't let you. Dance! Dance! Dance!"
Aloft the tambourine was shaken, and its few remaining bells broke
gaily on the air as with abandon that was bewildering in grace and
suppleness the child leaped into movement swift and light and amazing
in beauty. Around the room, one arm akimbo, one hand now in the air,
now touching with the tambourine the hard, bare floor, now tossing
back the loose curls, now waving gaily overhead, faster and faster she
danced, her feet in perfect rhythm to the bells; then presently the
tambourine was thrown upon the table, and she stopped beside it, face
flushed, eyes shining, and breath that came in quick, short gasps.
"That was much better than crying." She laughed. "There isn't much you
can do in this world, Carmencita, but you can dance. You've got to do
it, too, every time you feel sorry for yourself. I wonder if I could
see Miss Frances before I go for Father? I _must_ see her. Must! Those
Beckwith babies have got the croup, and I want to ask her if she
thinks it's awful piggy in me to put all my money, or 'most all, in
Father's present. And I want to ask her--I could ask Miss Frances
things all night. Maybe the reason I'm not a thankful person is I'm so
inquiring. I expect to spend the first hundred years after I get to
heaven asking questions."
Going over to the mantel, Carmencita looked at the little clock upon
it. "I don't have to go to the wedding-place for father until after
six," she said, slowly, "and I'd like to see Miss Frances before I go.
If I get there by half past five I can see the people get out of their
automobiles and sail in. I wish I could sail somewhere. If I could see
some grandness once and get the smell of cabbage and onions out of my
nose, which I never will as long as the Rheinhimers live underneath
us, I wouldn't mind the other things so much, but there isn't any
chance of grandness coming as high up in the air as this. I wonder if
God has forgot about us! He has so many to remember--"
With a swift turn of her head, as if listening, Carmencita's eyes grew
shy and wistful, then she dropped on her knees by the couch and buried
her face in her arms. "If God's forgot I'll remind Him," she said, and
tightly she closed her eyes.
"O God"--the words came eagerly, fervently--"we are living in the
same place, and every day I hope we will get in a better one, but
until we do please help me to keep on making Father think I like it
better than any other in town. I thought maybe You had forgotten where
we were. I'm too little to go to work yet, and that's why we're still
here. We can't pay any more rent, or we'd move. And won't You please
let something nice happen? I don't mean miracles, or money, or things
like that, but something thrilly and exciting and romantic, if You can
manage it. Every day is just the same sort of sameness, and I get so
mad-tired of cooking and cleaning and mending, before school and after
school and nights, that if something don't happen soon I'm afraid
Father will find out what a pretending person I am, and he mustn't
find. It's been much better since I knew Miss Frances. I'm awful much
obliged to You for letting me know her, but she isn't permanent,
Mother McNeil says, and may go away soon. I'm going to try to have a
grand Christmas and be as nice as I can to Mrs. Rheinhimer, but she's
so lazy and dirty it's hard not to tell her so. And if You could let a
nice thing happen for Christmas I hope You will. If it could be a
marriage and I could be bridesmaid I'd like that best, as I've never
been to an inside wedding, just outside on the street. I don't care
for poor marriages. Amen."
On her feet, Carmencita hesitated, then, going to a closet across the
room, took from its top shelf a shabby straw hat and put it on. "This
was bought for me and fits," she said, as if to some one by her side,
"and, straw or no straw, it feels better than that Coachman Cattie,
which is gone for evermore. Some day I hope I can burn you up,
too"--she nodded to the coat into which she was struggling--"but I
can't do it yet. You're awful ugly and much too big, but you're warm
and the only one I've got. I'll have half an hour before it's time to
go for Father. If Miss Frances is home I can talk a lot in half an
hour."
CHAPTER II
Carmencita knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again. After the
third knock she opened the door and, hand on the knob, looked in.
"Oh, Miss Frances, I was afraid you had gone out! I knocked and
knocked, but you didn't say come in, so I thought I'd look. Please
excuse me!"
The girl at the sewing-machine, which was close to the window and far
from the door, stopped its running, turned in her chair, and held out
her hand. "Hello, Carmencita! I'm glad it's you and not Miss Perkins.
I wouldn't want Miss Perkins to see me trying to sew, but you can see.
Take off your coat. Is it cold out?"
"Getting cold." The heavy coat was laid on one chair, and Carmencita,
taking up a half-made gingham dress from another, sat in it and laid
the garment in her lap. "I didn't know you knew how to sew."
"I don't." The girl at the machine laughed. "Those Simcoe children
didn't have a dress to change in, and I'm practising on some skirts
and waists for them. Every day I'm finding out something else I don't
know how to do. I seem to have been taught a good many things there is
no special need of knowing, and very few I can make use of down here."
"You didn't expect to come down here when you were learning things,
did you?" Carmencita's eyes were gravely watching the efforts being
made to thread the machine's needle. "I guess when you were a little
girl you didn't know there were things like you see down here. What
made you come here, Miss Frances? You didn't have to. What made you
come?"
Into the fine fair face color crept slowly, and for a moment a sudden
frown ridged the high forehead from which the dark hair, parted and
brushed back, waved into a loose knot at the back of her head; then
she laughed, and her dark eyes looked into Carmencita's blue ones.
"Why did I come?" The gingham dress on which she had been sewing was
folded carefully. "I came to find out some of the things I did not
know about. I wasn't of any particular use to anybody else. No one
needed me. I had a life on my hands that I didn't know what to do
with, and I thought perhaps--"
"You could use it down here? You could use a dozen down here, but you
weren't meant not to get married. Aren't you ever going to get
married, Miss Frances?"
"I hardly think I will." Frances Barbour got up and pushed the machine
against the wall. "The trouble about getting married is marrying the
right man. One so often doesn't. I wouldn't like to make a mistake."
Again she smiled.
"Don't see how you could make a mistake. Isn't there some way you can
tell?"
"My dear Carmencita!" Stooping, the child's face was lifted and
kissed. "I'm not a bit interested in men or marriage. They belong
to--to a long, long time ago. I'm interested now in little girls like
you, and in boys, and babies, and gingham dresses, and Christmas
trees, and night classes, and the Dramatic School for the children who
work, and--"
"I'm interested in them, too, but I'm going to get married when I'm
big enough. I know you work awful hard down here, but it wasn't what
you were born for. I'm always feeling, right inside me, right
here"--Carmencita's hand was laid on her breast--"that you aren't
going to stay here long, and it makes an awful sink sometimes. You'll
go away and forget us, and get married, and go to balls and parties
and wear satin slippers with buckles on them, and dance, and I'd do
it, too, if I were you. Only--only I wish sometimes you hadn't come.
It will be so much harder when you go away."
"But I'm not going away." At the little white bureau in the plainly
furnished room of Mother McNeil's "Home," Frances stuck the pins
brought from the machine into the little cushion and nodded gaily to
the child now standing by her side. "I've tried the parties and balls
and--all the other things, and for a while they were very nice; and
then one day I found I was spending all my time getting ready for them
and resting from them, and there was never time for anything else. If
I had died it would not have mattered the least bit that I had lived.
And--"
"Didn't you have a sweetheart that it mattered to? Not even one?"
Into hers Carmencita's eyes were looking firmly, and, turning from
them, Frances made effort to laugh; then her face whitened.
"One can never be sure how much things matter to others, Carmencita.
We can only be sure of how much they matter--to us. But it was
Christmas we were to talk about. It's much nicer to talk about
Christmas. We can't talk very long, for I meet the 'Little Mothers' at
half past six, and after that I--"
"And I've got to go at half past five to meet Father when he's through
with that wedding up-town, and then we're going shopping. I've got a
lot to talk about. The Beckwith babies are awful sick. I guess it
would be a good thing if they were to die. They are always having
colic and cramps and croup, and they've got a coughing mother and a
lazy father; but they won't die. Some babies never will. Did you know
Mr. Rheinhimer had been on another spree?" Carmencita, feet fastened
in the rounds of her chair, elbows on knees, and chin in the palms of
her hand, nodded affirmatively at the face in front of her. "Worst one
yet. He smashed all the window-panes in the bedroom, and broke two
legs of their best chairs doing it, and threw the basin and pitcher
out of the window. He says he'd give any man living five hundred
dollars, if he had it, if he'd live with his wife a month and not
shake her. She is awful aggravating. She's always in curl papers, and
don't wear corsets, and nags him to death. She says she wishes you'd
send him to a cure or something. And I want to tell you about Father's
present."
For twenty minutes they talked long and earnestly. Carmencita's list
of names and number of pennies were gone over again and again, and
when at last she got up to go the perplexities of indecision and
adjustment were mainly removed, and she sighed with satisfaction.
"I'm very much obliged to you for helping me fix it." The piece of
paper was carefully pinned to the inside of the coat. "I'm not going
to get anything but Father's present to-night. I won't have to go to
school to-morrow, and I want the buying to last as long as possible.
Isn't it funny the way Christmas makes you feel?"
Carmencita's hands came suddenly together, and, pressing them on her
breast, her eyes grew big and shining. Standing first on one foot and
then on the other, she swayed slightly forward, then gave a leap in
the air.
"I can't help it, Miss Frances, I really can't! It's something inside
me--something that makes me wish I was all the world's mother! And
I'm so squirmy and thrilly and shivery, thinking of the things I'd do
if I could, that sometimes I'm bound to jump--just bound to! I'm
almost sure something nice is going to happen. Did you ever feel that
way, Miss Frances?"
"I used to feel that way." The clear dark eyes for a moment turned
from the eager ones of the child. "It's a very nice way to feel. When
one is young--though perhaps it is not so much youth as hope in the
heart, and love, and--"
"I don't love everybody. I loathe Miss Cattie Burns. She's the very
old dev--I promised Father I wouldn't say even a true mean thing
about anybody for a month, and I've done it twice! I'd much rather
love people, though. I love to love! It makes you feel so nice and
warm and homey. If I had a house I'd have everybody I know--I mean all
the nice everybodies--to spend Christmas with me. Isn't it funny that
at Christmas something in you gets so lonely for--for--I don't know
what for, exactly, but it's something you don't mind so much not
having at other times."
Carmencita's arms opened to their full length, then circled slowly,
and her hands crossed around her neck. "It's the time to wipe out and
forget things, Father says. It's the home-time and the heart-time
and--" In her voice was sudden anxiety. "You are not going away for
Christmas are you, Miss Frances?"
"Not for Christmas eve." She hesitated. "I'm not quite sure what I'm
going to do on Christmas day. My people live in different places and
far apart. It is all very different from what it used to be. When one
is alone--"
She stopped abruptly and, going over to the window, looked down on the
street below; and Carmencita, watching, saw the face turned from hers
twist in sudden pain. For a moment she stood puzzled and helpless.
Something she did not understand was troubling, something in which she
could not help. What was it?
"You couldn't be alone at Christmas, Miss Frances." Slowly she came
toward the window, and shyly her hand slipped into that of her friend.
"There are too many wanting you. Father and I can't give fine presents
or have a fine dinner, but there wouldn't be words in which to tell
you how thankful we'd be if you'd spend it with us. Would you--would
you come to us, Miss Frances?"
Into the eager blue eyes looking up the dark eyes looked down, and,
looking, grew misty. "Dear child, I'd come to you if I were here, but
I do not think I'll be here." Her head went up as if impatient with
herself. "I'm going away on Christmas day--going--" She took out her
watch hurriedly and looked at it. "It's after half past five,
Carmencita. You will have to hurry or you won't see the wedding guests
go in. Good-by, dear. Have a good time and tuck away all you see to
tell me later. I will be so busy between now and Christmas, there will
be no time for talking, but after Christmas--Why, you've got on your
straw hat, Carmencita! Where is the winter one Miss Cattie gave you?
She told me she had given you a perfectly good hat that would last a
long time."
"She did." Carmencita's hands were stuck in the deep pockets of her
long coat, and again her big blue eyes were raised to her friend's.
"It would have lasted for ever if it hadn't got burned up. It fell in
the fire and got burned up." Out in the hall she hesitated, then came
back, opened the door, and put her head in. "It did get burned up,
Miss Frances. I burned it. Good-by."
Late into the night Frances Barbour sat at her desk in the bare and
poorly furnished room which she now called hers, and wrote letters,
settled accounts, wrapped bundles, assorted packages, and made lists
of matters to be attended to on the next day. When at last through,
with the reaction that comes from overtired body and nerves she leaned
back in her chair and let her hands fall idly in her lap, and with
eyes that saw not looked across at the windows, on whose panes bits of
hail were tapping weirdly. For some minutes thought was held in
abeyance; then suddenly she crossed her arms on the table, and her
face was hidden in them.
"Oh, Stephen! Stephen!" Under her breath the words came wearily. "We
were so foolish, Stephen; such silly children to give each other up!
All through the year I know, but never as I do at Christmas. And
we--we are each other's, Stephen!" With a proud uplifting of her head
she got up. "I am a child," she said, "a child who wants what it once
refused to have. But until he understood--" Quickly she put out the
light.
CHAPTER III
He was ashamed of himself for being ashamed. Why on earth should he
hesitate to tell Peterkin he would dine alone on Christmas day? It was
none of Peterkin's business how he dined, or where, or with whom. And
still he had not brought himself to the point of informing Peterkin,
by his order for dinner at home, that he was not leaving town for the
holidays, that he was not invited to dine with any one else, and that
there was no one he cared to invite to dine with him. It was the 22d
of December, and the custodian in charge of his domestic arrangements
had not yet been told what his plans were for the 25th. He had no
plans.
He might go, of course, to one of his clubs. But worse than telling
Peterkin that he would dine alone would be the public avowal of having
nowhere to go which dining at the club would not only indicate, but
affirm. Besides, at Christmas a club was ghastly, and the few who
dropped in had a half-shamed air at being there and got out as quickly
as possible. He could go to Hallsboro, but Hallsboro no longer bore
even a semblance to the little town in which he had been born--had,
indeed, become something of a big city, bustling, busy, and new, and
offensively up-to-date; and nowhere else did he feel so much a
stranger as in the place he had once called home. He was but twelve
when his parents moved away, and eight months later died within a week
of each other, and for years he had not been back. Had there been
brothers and sisters--Well, there were no brothers and sisters, and by
this time he should be used to the fact that he was very much alone in
the world.
Hands in his pockets, Stephen Van Landing leaned back in his chair and
looked across the room at a picture on the wall. He did not see the
picture; he saw, instead, certain things that were not pleasant to
see. No, he would not go to Hallsboro for Christmas.
Turning off the light in his office and closing the door with
unnecessary energy, Van Landing walked down the hall to the elevator,
then turned away and toward the steps. Reaching the street, he
hesitated as to the car he should take, whether one up-town to his
club or one across to his apartment, and as he waited he watched the
hurrying crowd with eyes in which were baffled impatience and
perplexity. It was incomprehensible, the shopping craze at this season
of the year. He wished there was no such season. Save for his very
young childhood there were few happy memories connected with it, but
only of late, only during the past few years, had the recurrence
awakened within him a sort of horror, its approach a sense of
loneliness that was demoralizing, and its celebration an emptiness in
life that chilled and depressed beyond all reason. Why was it that as
it drew near a feeling of cowardice so possessed him that he wanted to
go away, go anywhere and hide until it was over, go where he could not
see what it meant to others? It was humanity's home-time, and he had
no home. Why--
"An ass that brays is wiser than the man who asks what can't be
answered," he said, under his breath. "For the love of Heaven, quit
it! Why-ing in a man is as inexcusable as whining in a woman. There's
my car--crowded, of course!"
For some minutes longer he waited for a car on which there was chance
to get a foothold, then, buttoning his overcoat, put his hands in his
pockets and began the walk to his club. The season had been mild so
far, but a change was coming, and the two days left for Christmas
shopping would doubtless be stormy ones. On the whole, it might be
fortunate. There was a good deal of nonsense in this curious custom of
once a year getting on a giving jag, which was about what Christmas
had degenerated into, and if something could prevent the dementia that
possessed many people at this season it should be welcomed. It had
often puzzled him, the behavior of the human family at this so-called
Christian holiday in which tired people were overworked, poor people
bought what they couldn't afford, and the rich gave unneeded things to
the rich and were given unwanted ones in return. The hands of all
people--all places--had become outstretched. It wasn't the giving of
money that mattered. But what did matter was the hugeness of the habit
which was commercializing a custom whose origin was very far removed
from the spirit of the day.
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