The pale light in which Matt Hilary
watched the sleigh out of sight thickened into early
winter dusk before his train came and he got off to
Boston. In the meantime the electrics came out
like sudden moons, and shed a lunar ray over the region
round about the station, where a young man, who was
in the habit of describing himself in print as “one
of The Boston Events’ young men,”
found his way into an eating-house not far from the
track. It had a simple, domestic effect inside,
and the young man gave a sigh of comfort in the pleasant
warmth and light. There was a woman there who
had a very conversable air, a sort of eventual sociability,
as the young man realized when she looked up from twitching
the white, clean cloths perfectly straight on the little
tables set in rows on either side of the room.
She finally reached the table where
the young man had taken a chair for his overcoat and
hat, and was about taking another for himself.
“Well,” he said, “let’s
see. No use asking if you’ve got coffee?”
He inhaled the odor of it coming from the open door
of another room, with a deep breath.
“Baked beans?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t think there’s
anything much better than baked beans. Do you?”
“Well, not when you git ’em good,”
the woman admitted. “Ril good.”
“And what’s the matter with a piece of
mince pie?”
“I don’t see’s there’s any
great deal. Hot?”
“Every time.”
“I thought so,”
said the woman. “We have it both ways, but
I’d as soon eat a piece of I don’t know
what as a piece o’ cold mince pie.”
“We have mince pie right along
at our house,” said the young man. “But
I guess if I was to eat a piece of it cold, my wife
would have the doctor round inside of five minutes.”
The woman laughed as if for joy in
the hot mince-pie fellowship established between herself
and the young man. “Well, I guess she need
to. Nothin’ else you want?” She brought
the beans and coffee, with a hot plate, and a Japanese
paper napkin, and she said, as she arranged them on
the table before the young man, “Your pie’s
warmin’ for you; I got you some rolls; they’re
just right out the oven; and here’s some the
best butter I ever put a knife to, if I do say
so. It’s just as good and sweet as butter
can be, if it didn’t come from the Northwick
place at a dollar a pound.”
“Well, now, I should have thought
you’d have used the Northwick butter,”
said the young man with friendly irony.
“You know the Northwick butter?”
said the woman, charmed at the discovery of another
tie.
“Well, my wife likes it for
cooking,” said the young man. “We
have a fancy brand for the table.”
The woman laughed out her delight
in his pleasantry. “Land! I’ll
bet you grumble at it, too!” she said, with
a precipitate advance in intimacy which he did not
disallow.
“Well, I’m pretty particular,”
said the young man. “But I have to
be, to find anything to find fault with in the way
my wife manages. I don’t suppose
I shall be able to get much more Northwick butter,
now.”
“Why not?”
“Why, if he was killed in that accident — ”
“Oh, I guess there ain’t
anything to that,” said the woman. “I
guess it was some other Northwick. Their coachman — Elbridge
Newton — was tellin’ my husband that
Mr. Northwick had stopped over at Springfield to look
at some hosses there. He’s always buyin’
more hosses. I guess he must have as much as
eighty or ninety hosses now. I don’t place
any dependence on that report.”
“That so?” said the young
man. “Why, what did that fellow mean, over
at the drug store, just now, by his getting out for
Canada?”
“What fellow?”
“Little slim chap, with a big
black moustache, and blue eyes, blue and blazing,
as you may say.”
“Oh, — Mr. Putney!
That’s just one of his jokes. He’s
always down on Mr. Northwick.”
“Then I suppose he’s just
gone up to Ponkwasset about the trouble there.”
“Labor trouble?”
“I guess so.”
The woman called toward an open door
at the end of the room, “William!” and
a man in his shirt sleeves showed himself. “You
heard of any labor trouble to Mr. Northwick’s
mills?”
“No, I don’t believe there
is any,” said the man. He came forward
inquiringly to the table where his wife was standing
by the Events’ young man.
“Well, I’m sorry,”
said the young man, “but it shows that I haven’t
lost so much in missing Mr. Northwick, after all.
I came up here from Boston to interview him for our
paper about the labor troubles.”
“I want to know!” said the hostess.
“You an editor?”
“Well, I’m a reporter — same
thing,” the young man answered. “Perhaps
you’ve got some troubles of your own here in
your shops?”
“No,” said the host, “I
guess everybody’s pretty well satisfied here
in Hatboro’.” He was tempted to talk
by the air of confidence which the Events’
young man somehow diffused about him, but his native
Yankee caution prevailed, and he did not take the
lead offered him.
“Well,” said the young
man, “I noticed one of your citizens over at
the drug store that seemed to be pretty happy.”
“Oh, yes; Mr. Putney. I heard you tellin’
my wife.”
“Who is Mr. Putney, any way?” asked
the Events’ man.
“Mr. Putney?” the host
repeated, with a glance at his wife, as if for instruction
or correction in case he should go wrong. “He’s
one of the old Hatboro’ Putneys, here.”
“All of ’em preserved in liquor, the same
way?”
“Well, no, I can’t say
as they are.” The host laughed, but not
with much liking, apparently. His wife did not
laugh at all, and the young man perceived that he
had struck a false note.
“Pity,” he said, “to
see a man like that, goin’ that way. He
said more bright things in five minutes, drunk as
he was, than I could say in a month on a strict prohibition
basis.”
The good understanding was restored
by this ready self-abasement. “Well, I
d’ know as you can say that, exactly,”
said the hostess, “but he is bright, there ain’t
any two ways about it. And he ain’t always
that way you see him. It’s just one of
his times, now. He has ’em about once in
every four or five months, and the rest part he’s
just as straight as anybody. It’s like
a disease, as I tell my husband.”
“I guess if he was a mind to
steady up, there ain’t any lawyer could go ahead
of him, well, not in this town,” said
the husband.
“Seems to be pretty popular
as it is,” said the young man. “What
makes him so down on Mr. Northwick?”
“Well, I dunno,” said
the host, “what it is. He’s
always been so. I presume it’s more the
kind of a man Mr. Northwick is, than what it is anything
else.”
“Why, what kind of a man is
Mr. Northwick, any way?” the young man asked,
beginning to give his attention to the pie, which the
woman had now brought. “He don’t
seem to be so popular. What’s the reason.”
“Well, I don’t know as
I could say, exactly. I presume, one thing, he’s
only been here summers till this year, since his wife
died, and he never did have much to do with the place,
before.”
“What’s he living here for this winter?
Economizing?”
“No; I guess he no need to do that,” the
host answered.
His wife looked knowing, and said
with a laugh, “I guess Miss Sue Northwick could
tell you if she was a mind to.”
“Oh, I see,” said the
reporter, with an irreverence that seemed to be merely
provisional and held subject to instant exchange for
any more available attitude. “Young man
in the case. Friendless minister whose slippers
require constant attention?”
“I guess he ain’t very
friendless,” said the hostess, “as far
forth as that goes. He’s about the most
popular minister, especially with the workin’
folks, since Mr. Peck.”
“Who was Mr. Peck?”
“Well, he was the one that was
run over by the cars at the depot here two or three
years back. Why, this house was started on his
idea. Sort of co-operation at first; we run it
for the Social Union.”
“And the co-operation petered
out,” said the reporter making a note.
“Always does; and then you took it, and began
to make money. Standard history of co-operation.”
“I guess we ain’t gettin’
rich any too fast,” said the hostess, dryly.
“Well, you will if you use the
Northwick butter. What’s the reason he
isn’t popular here when he is here? Must
spend a good deal of money on that big place of his;
and give work.”
“Mr. Putney says it’s
corruptin’ to have such a rich man in the neighborhood;
and he does more harm than good with his money.”
The hostess threw out the notion as if it were something
she had never been quite able to accept herself, and
would like to see its effect upon a man of the reporter’s
wide observation. “He thinks Hatboro’
was better off before there was a single hat-shop
or shoe-shop in the place.”
“And the law offices had it
all to themselves,” said the young man; and
he laughed. “Well, it was a halcyon period.
What sort of a man is Mr. Northwick, personally?”
The woman referred the question to
her husband, who pondered it a moment. “Well,
he’s a kind of a close-mouthed man. He’s
never had anything to do with the Hatboro’ folks
much. But I never heard anything against him.
I guess he’s a pretty good man.”
“Wouldn’t be likely to
mention it round a great deal if he was going
to Canada. Heigh? Well, I’m sorry I
can’t see Mr. Northwick, after all. With
these strikes in the mills everywhere, he must have
some light to throw on the labor question generally.
Poor boy, himself, I believe?”
“I don’t believe his daughters
could remember when,” said the hostess, sarcastically.
“That’s so? Well,
we are apt to lose our memory for dates as we get on
in the world, especially the ladies. Ponkwasset
isn’t on the direct line of this road, is it?”
He asked this of the host, as if it followed.
“No, you got to change at Springfield,
and take the Union and Dominion road there. Then
it’s on a branch.”
“Well, I guess I shall have
to run up and see Mr. Northwick, there. What
did you say the young man’s name was that’s
keeping the Northwick family here this winter?”
He turned suddenly to the hostess, putting up his
note-book, and throwing a silver dollar on the table
to be changed. “Married man myself, you
know.”
“I guess I hain’t mentioned
any names,” said the woman in high glee.
Her husband went back to the kitchen, and she took
the dollar away to a desk in the corner of the room,
and brought back the change.
“Who’d be a good person
to talk with about the labor situation here?”
the young man asked, in pocketing his money.
“I d’ know as I could
hardly tell,” said the hostess thoughtfully.
“There’s Colonel Marvin, he’s got
the largest shoe-shop; and some the hat-shop folks,
most any of ’em would do. And then there’s
Mr. Wilmington that owns the stocking mills; him or
Mr. Jack Wilmington, either one’d be good.
Mr. Jack’d be the best, I guess. Or I don’t
suppose there’s anybuddy in the place ’d
know more, if they’d a mind to talk, than Mrs.
Wilmington; unless it was Mis’ Docter Morrell.”
“Is Mr. Jack their son?” asked the reporter.
“Land! Why she ain’t a day older,
if she’s that. He’s their nephew.”
“Oh, I see: second wife. Then he’s
the young man, heigh!”
The hostess looked at the reporter
with admiration. “Well, you do beat the
witch. If he hain’t, I guess he might ‘a’
b’en.”
The reporter said he guessed he would
take another piece of that pie, and some more coffee
if she had it, and before he had finished them he
had been allowed to understand that if it was not for
his being Mrs. Wilmington’s nephew Mr. Jack
would have been Miss Northwick’s husband long
ago; and that the love lost between the two ladies
was not worth crying for.
The reporter, who had fallen into
his present calling by a series of accidents not necessarily
of final result in it, did not use arts so much as
instincts in its exercise. He liked to talk of
himself and his own surroundings, and he found that
few men, and no women could resist the lure thrown
out by his sincere expansiveness. He now commended
himself to the hostess by the philosophical view he
took of the popular belief that Mrs. Wilmington was
keeping her nephew from marrying any one else so as
to marry him herself when her husband died. He
said that if you were an old man and you married a
young woman he guessed that was what you had got to
expect. This gave him occasion to enlarge upon
the happiness to be found only in the married state
if you were fitly mated, and on his own exceptional
good fortune in it.
He was in the full flow of an animated
confidence relating to the flat he had just taken
and furnished in Boston, when the door opened, and
the pale young man whom Louise Hilary had noticed
at the station, came in.
The reporter broke off with a laugh
of greeting. “Hello, Maxwell! You
onto it, too?”
“Onto what?” said the
other, with none of the reporter’s effusion.
“This labor-trouble business,”
said the reporter, with a wink for him alone.
“Pshaw, Pinney! You’d
grow a bush for the pleasure of beating about it.”
Maxwell hung his hat on a hook above the table, but
sat down fronting Pinney with his overcoat on; it
was a well-worn overcoat, irredeemably shabby at the
buttonholes. “I’d like some tea,”
he said to the hostess, “some English breakfast
tea, if you have it; and a little toast.”
He rested his elbows on the table, and took his head
between his hands, and pressed his fingers against
his temples.
“Headache?” asked Pinney,
with the jocose sympathy men show one another’s
sufferings, as if they could be joked away. “Better
take something substantial. Nothing like ham
and eggs for a headache.”
The other unfolded his paper napkin.
“Have you got anything worth while?”
“Lots of public opinion and
local color,” said Pinney. “Have you?”
“I’ve been half crazy
with this headache. I suppose we brought most
of the news with us,” he suggested.
“Well, I don’t know about that,”
said Pinney.
“I do. You got your tip
straight from headquarters. I know all about it,
Pinney, so you might as well save time, on that point,
if time’s an object with you. They don’t
seem to know anything here; but the consensus in Hatboro’
is that he was running away.”
“The what is?” asked Pinney.
“The consensus.”
“Anything like the United States Census?”
“It isn’t spelt like it.”
Pinney made a note of it. “I’ll
get a head-line out of that. I take my own wherever
I find it, as George Washington said.”
“Your own, you thief!”
said Maxwell, with sardonic amusement. “You
don’t know what the word means.”
“I can make a pretty good guess,
thank you,” said Pinney, putting up his book.
“Do you want to trade?”
Maxwell asked, after his tea came, and he had revived
himself with a sip or two.
“Any scoops?” asked Pinney, warily.
“Anything exclusive?”
“Oh, come!” said Maxwell.
“No, I haven’t; and neither have you.
What do you make mysteries for? I’ve been
over the whole ground, and so have you. There
are no scoops in it.”
“I think there’s a scoop
if you want to work it,” said Pinney, darkly.
Maxwell received the vaunt with a
sneer. “You ought to be a detective — in
a novel.” He buttered his toast and ate
a little of it, like a man of small appetite and invalid
digestion.
“I suppose you’ve interviewed
the family?” suggested Pinney.
“No,” said Maxwell, gloomily,
“there are some things that even a space-man
can’t do.”
“You ought to go back on a salary,”
said Pinney, with compassion and superiority.
“You’ll ruin yourself trying to fill space,
if you stick at trifles.”
“Such as going and asking a
man’s family whether they think he was burnt
up in a railroad accident, and trying to make copy
out of their emotions? Thank you, I prefer ruin.
If that’s your scoop, you’re welcome to
it.”
“They’re not obliged to
see you,” urged Pinney. “You send
in your name and — ”
“They shut the door in your
face, if they have the presence of mind.”
“Well! What do you care
if they do? It’s all in the way of business,
anyhow. It’s not a personal thing.”
“A snub’s a pretty personal
thing, Pinney. The reporter doesn’t mind
it, but it makes the man’s face burn.”
“Oh, very well! If you’re
going to let uncleanly scruples like that stand in
your way, you’d better retire to the poet’s
corner, and stay there. You can fill that much
space, any way; but you are not built for a reporter.
When are you going to Boston?”
“Six, fifteen. I’ve got a scoop of
my own.”
“What is it?” asked Pinney, incredulously.
“Come round in the morning, and I’ll tell
you.”
“Perhaps I’ll go in with
you, after all. I’ll just step out into
the cold air, and see if I can harden my cheek for
that interview. Your diffidence is infectious,
Maxwell.”