Читать книгу The World Of Chance - William Dean Howells - Страница 5

II.

The next evening, under a rich, mild October sky, the train drew in towards New York over a long stretch of trestlework spanning a New Jersey estuary. Ray had thriftily left bis sleeper at the station where he breakfasted, and saved the expense of it for the day's journey by taking an ordinary car. He could be free with his dollars when he did not suppose he might need them; but he thought he should be a fool to throw one of them away on the mere self-indulgence of a sleeper through to New York, when he had no use for it more than halfway. He experienced the reward of virtue in the satisfaction he felt at having that dollar still in his pocket; and he amused himself very well in making romances about the people who got on and off at different points throughout the day. He read a good deal in a book he had brought with him, and imagined a review of it. He talked with passengers who shared his seat with him, from time to time. He ate ravenously at the station where the train stopped twenty minutes for dinner, and he took little supernumerary naps during the course of the afternoon, and pieced out the broken and abbreviated slumbers of the night From the last of these naps he woke with a sort of formless alarm, which he identified presently as the anxiety he must naturally feel at drawing so near the great, strange city which had his future in keeping. He was not so hopeful as he was when he left Midland; but he knew he had really no more cause now than he had then for being less so.

The train was at a station. Before it started, a brakeman came in and called out in a voice of formal warning: "This train express to Jersey City. Passengers for way stations change cars. This train does not stop between here and Jersey City."

He went out and shut the door behind him, and at the same time a young woman with a baby in her arms jumped from her seat and called out, " Oh, dear, what did he say? "

Another young woman, with another baby in her arms, rose and looked round, but she did not say anything. She had the place in front of the first, and their two seats were faced, as if the two young women were travelling together. Ray noted, with the interest that he felt in all young women as the elements both of love and of literature, that they looked a good deal alike, as to complexion and feature. The distraction of the one who rose first seemed to communicate itself to her dull, golden-brown hair, and make a wisp of it come loose from the knot at the back of her head, and stick out at one side. The child in her arms was fretful, and she did not cease to move it to and fro and up and down, even in the panic which brought her to her feet. Her demand was launched at the whole earful of passengers, but one old man answered for all:

" He said, this train doesn't stop till it gets to Jersey City."

The young woman said, " Oh! " and she and the other sat down again, and she stretched across the fretful child which clung to her, and tried to open her window. She could not raise it, and the old man who had answered her question lifted it for her. Then she sank back in her seat, and her sister, if it was her sister, leaned forward, and seemed to whisper to her. She put up her hand and thrust the loosened wisp of her hair back into the knot. To do this she gave the child the pocketbook which she seemed to have been holding, and she did not take it away again. The child stopped fretting, and began to pull at its plaything to get it open; then it made aimless dabs with it at the back of the car seat and at its mother's face. She moved her head patiently from side to side to escape the blows; and the child entered with more zest into the sport, and began to laugh and strike harder. Suddenly, mid-way of the long trestlework, the child turned towards the window and made a dab at the sail of a passing sloop. The pocketbook flew from its hand, and the mother sprang to her feet again with a wail that filled the car.

" Oh, what shall I do! He's thrown my pocketbook out of the window, and it's got every cent of my money in it. Oh, couldn't they stop the train? "

The child began to cry. The passengers all looked out of the windows on that side of the aisle; and Ray could see the pocketbook drifting by in the water. A brakeman whom the young woman's lamentation had called to the rescue, passed through the car with a face of sarcastic compassion, and spoke to the conductor entering from the other end. The conductor shook his head; the train kept moving slowly on. Of course it was impossible and useless to stop. The young women leaned forward and talked anxiously together, as Ray could see from his distant seat; they gave the conductor their tickets, and explained to him what had happened; he only shook his head again.

When he came to get Ray's ticket, the young fellow tried to find out something about them from him.

" Yes, I guess she told the truth. She had all her money, ten dollars and some change, in that pocketbook, and of course she gave it to her baby to play with right by an open window. Just like a woman! They're just about as Jit as babies to handle money. If they had to earn it, they'd be different. Some poor fellow's week's work was in that pocketbook, like as not. They don't look like the sort that would have a great deal of money to throw out of the window, if they were men."

" Do you know where they're going? " Ray asked. " Are they going on any further? "

" Oh, no. They live in New York. 'Way up on the East Side somewhere."

" But how will they get there with those two babies? They can't walk."

The conductor shrugged. "Guess they'll have to try it."

" Look here! " said Ray. He took a dollar note out of his pocket, and gave it to the conductor. " Find out whether they've got any change, and if they haven't, tell them one of the passengers wanted them to take this for car fares. Don't tell them which one."

" All right," said the conductor.

He passed into the next car. When he came back Ray saw him stop and parley with the young women. He went through the whole train again before he stopped for a final word with Ray, who felt that he had entered into the poetry of his intentions towards the women, and had made these delays and detours of purpose. He bent over Ray with a detached and casual air, and said:

" Every cent they had was in that pocket-book. Only wonder is they hadn't their tickets there, too. They didn't want to take the dollar, but I guess they had to. They live 'way up on Third Avenue about Hundred and First Street; and the one that gave her baby her money to hold looks all played out. They couldn't have walked it. I told 'em the dollar was from a lady passenger. Seemed as if it would make it kind of easier for 'em."

" Yes, that was right," said Ray.