Читать книгу The Colossus - Opie Percival Read - Страница 14

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Men bustling their way to the lunch counter; old women fidgeting in the fear that they had forgotten something; man in blue crying the destination of outgoing trains; weary mothers striving to soothe their fretful children; the tumult raised by cabmen that were crowding against the border-line of privilege; bells, shrieks, new harshnesses here and there; confusion everywhere—a railway station in Chicago.

"The train ought to be here now," said George Witherspoon, looking at his watch.

"Do you know exactly what train he is coming on?" his wife asked.

"Yes; he telegraphed again from Memphis."

"You didn't tell me you'd got another telegram."

"My dear, I thought I did. The truth is that I've been so rushed and stirred up for the last day or so that I've hardly known what I was about."

"And I can scarcely realize now what I'm waiting for," said a young woman. "Mother, you look as if you haven't slept any for a week."

"And I don't feel as if I have."

George Witherspoon, holder of the decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious authority to his countenance. He was tall and with so apparent a strength in his shoulders as to suggest the thought that with them he had shoved his way to success. He was erect and walked with a firm step; he wore a heavy grayish mustache that turned under; his chin had a forceful squareness; he was thin-haired, nearing baldness. In his manner was a sort of firm affability, and his voice was of that tone which success nearly always assumes, kindly, but with a suggestion of impatience. His eyes were restless, as though accustomed to keep watch over many things. When spoken to it was his habit to turn quickly, and if occasion so warranted, to listen with that pleasing though frosty smile which to the initiated means, "I shall be terribly bored by any request that you may make, and shall therefore be compelled to refuse it." He was sometimes liberal, though rarely generous. If he showed that a large disaster touched his heart, he could not conceal the fact that a lesser mishap simply fell upon his irritated nerves; and therefore he might contribute to a stricken city while refusing to listen to the distress of a family.

Mrs. Witherspoon was a dark-eyed little woman. In her earlier life she must have been handsome, for in the expression of her face there was a reminiscence of beauty. Her dimples had turned traitor to youth and gossiped of coming age. Women are the first to show the contempt with which wealth regards poverty, the first to turn with resentment upon former friends who have been left in the race for riches, the first to feel the overbearing spirit that money stirs; but this woman had not lost her gentleness.

The girl was about nineteen years of age. She was a picture of style, delsarted to ease of motion. She was good-looking and had the whims and the facial tricks that are put to rhyme and raved over in a sweetheart, but which are afterward deplored in a wife.

"I feel that I shan't know how to act."

Witherspoon looked at his daughter and said, "Ellen."

"But, papa, I just know I shan't. How should I know? I never met a brother before; never even thought of such a thing."

"Don't be foolish. We are not the only people that have been placed in such a position. No matter how you may be situated, remember that you are not a pioneer; no human strain is new."

"But it's the only time I was ever placed in such a position."

"Nonsense. In this life we must learn to expect anything." Mrs. Witherspoon was silently weeping. "Caroline, don't, please. Remember that we are not alone. A trial of joy, my dear, is the easiest trial to bear."

"Not always," she replied.

A counter commotion in the general tumult—the train.

A crowd waited outside the iron gate. A tall young man came through with the hastening throng. He caught Witherspoon's wandering eye. Strangers looking for each other are guided by a peculiar instinct, but Witherspoon stood questioning that instinct. The mother could see nothing with distinctness. The young man held up a gold chain.

It was soon over. People who were hastening toward a train turned to look upon a flurry of emotion—a mother faint with joy; a strong man stammering words of welcome; a girl seemingly thrilled with a new prerogative; a stranger in a nest of affection.

"Come, let us get into the carriage," said Witherspoon. "Come, Caroline, you have behaved nobly, and don't spoil it all now."

She gave her husband a quick though a meek glance and took Henry's arm. When the others had seated themselves in the carriage, Witherspoon stood for a moment on the curb-stone.

"Drive to the Colossus," he commanded. Mrs. Witherspoon put out her hand with a pleading gesture. "You are not going there before you go home, are you, dear?" she asked.

"I am compelled to go there, but I'll stay only a moment or two," he answered. "I'll simply hop out for a minute and leave the rest of you in the carriage. There's something on hand that needs my attention at once. Drive to the Colossus," he said as he stepped into the carriage. A moment later he remarked: "Henry, you are different from what I expected. I thought you were light."

"He is just like my mother's people," Mrs. Witherspoon spoke up. "All the Craigs were dark."

They drove on in a silence not wholly free from embarrassment. Through the carriage windows Henry caught glimpses of a world of hurry. The streets, dark and dangerous with traffic, stretched far away and ended in a cloud of smoke. "It will take time to realize all this," the young men mused, and meeting the upturned eyes of Mrs. Witherspoon, who had clasped her hands over his shoulder, he said:

"Mother, I hope you are not disappointed in me."

"You are just like the Craigs," she insisted. "They were dark. And Uncle Louis was so dark that he might have been taken for an Italian, and Uncle Harvey"—She hesitated and glanced at her husband.

"What were you going to say about your Uncle Harvey?" Henry asked.

"Nothing, only he was dark just like all the Craigs."

There is a grunt which man borrowed from the goat, or which, indeed, the goat may have borrowed from man. And this grunt, more than could possibly be conveyed by syllabic utterance, expresses impatience. Witherspoon gave this goat-like grunt, and Henry knew that he had heard of the Craigs until he was sick of their dark complexion. He knew, also, that the great merchant had not a defensive sense of humor, for humor, in the exercise of its kindly though effective functions, would long ago have put these Craigs to an unoffending death.

"I don't see why you turn aside to talk of complexion when the whole situation is so odd," said Ellen, speaking to her father. "I am not able to bring myself down to a realization of it yet, although I have been trying to ever since we got that letter from that good-for-nothing country, away off yonder. You must know that it strikes me differently from what it does any one else. It is all romance with me—pure romance."

Witherspoon said nothing, but his wife replied: "It isn't romance with me; it is an answer to a prayer that my heart has been beating year after year."

"But don't cry, mother," said Ellen. "Your prayer has been answered."

"Yes, I know that, but look at the long, long years of separation, and now he comes back to me a stranger."

"But we shall soon be well acquainted," Henry replied, "and after a while you may forget the long years of separation."

"I hope so, my son, or at least I hope to be able to remember them without sorrow. But didn't you, at times, fancy that you remembered me? Couldn't you recall my voice?" Her lips trembled.

"No," he answered, slowly shaking his head. This was the cause for more tears. She had passed completely out of his life. Ah, the tender, the hallowed egotism of a mother's love!

The carriage drew up to the sidewalk, and the driver threw open the door. "I'll be back in just a minute," said Witherspoon, as he got out; and when he was gone his wife began to apologize for him. "He's always so busy. I used to think that the time might come when he could have more leisure, but it hasn't."

"What an immense place!" said Henry, looking out.

"One of the very largest in the world," Ellen replied. "And the loveliest silks and laces you ever saw." A few moments later she said: "Here comes father."

"Drive out Michigan," Witherspoon commanded. They were whirled away and had not gone far when the merchant, directing Henry's attention, said:

"The Auditorium."

"The what?"

"The Auditorium. Is it possible you never heard of it?"

"Oh, yes, I remember now. It was formally opened by the President."

He did remember it; he remembered having edited telegraph for a newspaper on the night when Patti's voice was first heard in this great home of music.

"Biggest theater in the world," said Witherspoon.

"Bigger than La Scala of Milan?" Henry asked.

"Beats anything in the world, and I remember when the ground could have been bought for—see that lot over there?" he broke off, pointing. "I bought that once for eighty dollars a foot and sold it for a hundred."

"Pretty good sale! wasn't it?" Henry innocently asked.

"Good sale! What do you suppose it's worth now!"

"I have no idea."

"Three thousand a foot if it's worth a penny. There never was anything like it since the world began. I'm not what you might call an old-timer, but I've seen some wonderful changes here. Now, this land right here—fifteen hundred a foot; could have bought it not so very long ago for fifty. I tell you the world never saw anything like it. Why, just think of it; there are men now living who could have bought the best corner in this city for a mere song. There's no other town like this. Look at the buildings. When a man has lived here a while he can't live in any other town—any other town is too slow for him—and yet I heard an old man say that he could have got all the land he wanted here for a yoke of oxen."

"But he hadn't the oxen, eh?"

"Of coarse he had," Witherspoon replied, "but who wanted to exchange useful oxen for a useless mud-hole? Beats anything in this world."

Henry looked at him in astonishment. His tongue, which at first had seemed to be so tight with silence, was now so loose with talk. He had dropped no hint of his own importance; he had made not the slightest allusion to the energy and ability that had been required to build his mammoth institution. His impressive dignity was set aside; he was blowing his town's horn.

The carriage turned into Prairie Avenue. "Look at all this," Witherspoon continued, waving his hand. "I remember when it didn't deserve the name of a street. Look at that row of houses. Built by a man that used to drive a team. There's a beauty going up. Did you ever see anything like it?"

"I can well say that I never have," Henry answered.

"I should think not," said Witherspoon, and pointing to the magnificent home of some obscure man, he added: "I remember when an old shed stood there. Just look at that carving in front."

"Who lives there?" Henry asked.

"Did hear, but have forgotten. Yonder's one of green stone. I don't like that so well. Here we have a sort of old stone. That house looks as though it might be a hundred years old, but it was put up last year. Well, here's our house."

The carriage drew up under the porte-cocher of a mansion built of cobble-stones. It was as strong as a battlement, but its outlines curved in obedience to gracefulness and yielded to the demand of striking effect. Viewed from one point it might have been taken for a castle; from another, it suggested itself as a spireless church. Strangers halted to gaze at it; street laborers looked at it in admiration. It was showy in a neighborhood of mansions.

Mrs. Witherspoon led Henry to the threshold and tremulously kissed him. And it was with this degree of welcome that the wanderer was shown into his home.