A YANKEE ATALANTA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1187, 28 October 1882, Page 7 (Supplement)

A YANKEE ATALANTA.

BY LUCIA G. RUNKLE IN HARPERS’ BAZAAR. A chime of tea bells rang out along the broad street of Charlton as Dr. Myrick, perched in his high-swung sulky, drove wearily homeward through the biting air. To a hungry man the cheerful tinkle pleasantly suggested the thought of creature comforts. But the thought of creature comforts unpleasantly suggested their natural entail of bills, He recalled the unpaid scores of these tormentors rustling in the hollow bronze globe, by whose weight a bronze Atlas standing on his office table seemed quite bent and overcome. No wonder either, thought the care-worn doctor. His own world often seemed to contain nothing but bills, and that the stoop in his own shoulders had come of their unlifting load he knew. It was Mrs. Myrick’s last Christmas gift to him—that costly inutility. When he kissed her, with thanks, his prophetic soul misgave him that the bill would be sent in at the moment he could least afford to pay, if one hour of his wearing year wqre distinguishable from another in that respect. But he had long since discovered that his wife had a fiscal genius unrivalled among her sex, save by that able financier Mrs. Micawber. She declared that the explanation of their embarrassments lay in the fact that the doctor constantly mislaid his bills, and so, of course, paid most of them twice over. When, therefore, she had appointed to office, so to speak, this pagan Chancellor of the Exchequer, and had made in a daily duty to put all new or stray evidences of debt into his grim keeping, she really felt that the Myrick family stood once more on a sound financial basis, or, if they did not, that it was certainly no fault of hers. Meantime she went on as she had always done, committing endless extravagances in the name of economy, and heaping up bills against the day of bills. Had she been one of the ten virgins for whom the bridegroom called, her lamp would have been found neither full nor empty; she would long since have exchanged it altogether, much under value, for a highly recommended self-lighting-and-fced-ing perpetual burner, certain under no circumstances to ignite. The system of barter and substitution, animated the housekeeping, devastating as it went. But however spent and troubled Dr. Myrick might be, he never suffered himself to be impatient with his wife. He was eminently a just man. He remembered that she was unaltered from the smiling beauty of seventeen, whom he had passionately wooed, vowing, after the manner of lovers, that not for worlds would he have had her other than she was. No strong-minded, aggressive, unsexed creature for him, he had gone so far as to say, in the wisdom of his post-graduate experience, but a tender, clinging, sweet, adorable maiden, whose strength was her weakness, and who should clothe his roughness with her grace. In short, the oak and the vine, though somewhat hackneyed as to metaphor, seemed to him quite the correct thing as to sentiment. At thirty-five, his Mary was just as pretty, just as useless, just as incapable of serious effort, just as inane, just as loving, just as sweet-tempered, as on their wedding-day. It was the care-worn man of forty-two, who had left the impulsive boy of twenty-four so far behind him, that he could no longer comprehend the passion of that foolish young fellow for a beautiful doll. It seemed impossible, that he, Arthur Myrick, knowing what a wise, careful, and high-minded wife might have

done for him in essence and estate during these eighteen years, could ever have quoted with approval, to the girl he loved, Coleridge’s sentiment, that the perfection of character in a woman, is to be characterless. Yet he remembered that he had perpetrated that very idiocy, and he acknowledged that he had no right to whimper now that his pleasant vice of sentimentality had been made an instrument to plague him. All that he had reason to expect from his Mary—love for himself and his children—he had received in full measure. And he would have held himself caitiff indeed could he have visited upon her blameless head his own sins of blinded judgment, of dull perception, and of an ignoble worship which exacted no nobleness of its object. Over the sradles of his five daughters he had suffered pangs of apprehension and selfreproach, lest they had been bokn to make the lives of other men as hard and empty as his who had begotten them. Through each successive year, his own domestic vine had clung and clambered closer about its supporting oak, precisely as he had invited it to do. He knew that the innocent, bloomy growth had sapped his vitality and thriven on his decay. And he vowed a vow to heaven that each of his little maids should grow up strong-bodied strong-souled, strong-minded—-if need were, to the verge of masculinity—if only thus she could become a distinct human being, and no parasite. But, as the years slipped by in the commonplace of disguise of days, he accepted his girls as they were, with a matter-of-course paternal pride, and sometimes forgot, and oftener felt too weary, to shape into conduct his aspirations for them. They were all pretty—prettier than their mother even. They were all clever in their different ways; well-bred and intelligent, as a matter of course. Those effects belonged to the Myrick blood, the doctor thought, with some pardonable selfcomplacency. He felt sure that Rose, who was seventeen now, had great executive force. He thought that she might inaugurate a new reign in the housekeeping, if her mother would only abdicate in her favor. He had suggested the change of dynasties, with a perfidious pretence of relieving his wife from care. But, with perfect sweetness, he had declined all aid. With her experience, she observed, housekeeping cares were nothing to her—the merest form of occupation ; whereas dear Rose would grow old before her time with such a responsibility on her shoulders. No, no. Every girl learned that sort of thing by intuition as soon as she had a house of her own. She knew she did, and Rose had certainly inherited her capacity to manage well. Let the child have her brief holiday. Will Hayes wanted her to be married in the spring, and then she must settle down, of course. Besides, as Will was rich, Rose would never have to slave as she had done, thank Heaven!

This engagement was another of the doctor’s worries. Rose was too young, he thought, and Will too imperious. But he was secretly pleased that the Hayes family, who were as critical as they were rich, should have given so warm a welcome to his bonny daughter. Nevertheless, he reflected with some shame, he did not feel well enough acquainted with Rose to be sure that there were not depths in her nature which gay conventional Will would never sound.

Revolving these things in his mind, Dr. Myrick turned in at his own gate. Mrs. Myrick, with her usual forethought, having dispatched Jem, the factotum, to the other end of the town, he groomed his tire(J beast himself, and then made a fresh toilette, not to bring the stable into the parlor, When at last he came down, Mrs. Myrick rose calmly from her rocker and her novel before the fire.

“ Welcome home, dear,” she said, with a placid kiss, leading the way into the diningroom, where the table stood strewn with the debris of supper. “ Bridget wanted to go out to-night, so I told her that as one never knew when to look for you, I was sure you wouldn’t expect anything hot. There’s no more toast, I believe, but here are bread and butter and preserves, and I don’t believe the tea is really cold yet. I put it down before the fire. Why, where’s the tea-pot ?” “ Cornin’, mum; d’reckly, mum,” cried a sweet young voice from the kitchen. “ Serve the gen’l’man at once, mum.” And the doctor thought he had never seen so pretty a girl as stood framed in the doorway, her soft black eyes shining with fun|and affection, her rippling raven hair pushed back from her fair forehead, her cheeks dimpling, and her white teeth gleaming. There was a splendour of youth and health and purpose about her that fairly dazzled him. “ Are you Hebe, cup-bearer to the immortals ? ” he asked her, noticing her uplifted arms and covered tray. “ Surely I think you have the power to make the aged feel young again.” “ Oh, no,” she laughed, delightedly; “ I am only a poor slave to Galen, purveyor of his Sagacity’s broiled chicken and toast and tea. Never mind historical accuracy, papa It’s tea you have here, instead of Falernian wine, and I dare say a great deal better.” “ Why, Rosalie,” exclaimed her mother, “ you are the precise colour of Fox’s martyrs in the picture-book. How could you do such a thing, when you pretend to recognise Will’s claims upon you, and all the Hayeses so strict on the subject of complexion ? ” Rose laughed as she arranged the disorderly table. “ You see, mamma,” she said, “ I recognise papa’s claim too, and he so strict upon the subject of involuntary starvation. At least he ought to be, though he isn’t, poor dear. Don’t compliment me too soon, papa. It may turn out as pink as poor Mr. Copperfield’s mutton, and I should never dare to Sill it for you as Micawber did that, with the ayeses and their views as to complexion only a mile away. Mamma, dear, beauty is its own excuse for being. Go back and finish your Dead Sea Fruit by the fire, and leave me to feed this grampus.” “But you never did it before, dear, and why, being engaged, and all—” sighed Mrs. Myrick, and paused, as giving up a riddle too hard for her. “ No, dear, I never did, the more shame to me. But it’s not kind to remind a penitent sinner of her transgressions. ‘ Leave her to Heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her.’ ” And pretty Rose waltzed her mother back to the rocking chair and novel, stirred the fire, turned up the lamp, kissed her soft hair, and waltzed back again laughing. But it was a very sober maiden who quietly closed the door behind her, and sat down beside her father. “ Now, papa,” she said, “ there is going to be an end of this thing, and we must come to an understanding.” “ Certainly, my dear,” he replied ; “ whatever pleases you. Would your Royal Highness kindly specify the offending ‘ thing ’ which is to be thus suddenly cut off ?” “ Oh, all this misery of debt and waste and discomfort for you, dear papa, whichever way you turn. Oh, I’ve lain awake nights to think and plan all this last year, and it never came to anything because I couldn’t see my way clear. There’s so little I can do at home to make things better that I must go away for a while, and learn how to earn money, if I can’t save it—l first, and the other girls as they are old enough. You needn’t talk, papa. If we had been five boys, you would have been ashamed of us, if we were willing to be lazy at home while you worked so hard, and I hope we have as much sense and affection and self-respect as if we had been our own brothers. I want to take Aunt Laura’s legacy, which was saved for my

trousseau—it was three hundred dollars, you know—and go over to Stafford and learn telegraphing. There will be enough to pay my board and expenses of learning, and give me a start somewhere. ‘The wages are very good, papa, to a skilful operator, and I wouldn’t condescend to be an ordinary one. Very likely I could get a place near home, and come back quite often. But go I must, papa, so please give your consent.” “ But, my dear little daughter, you don’t know what it is to work for wages, to go outside the shelter of home, to fetch and carry at another’s bidding.”

“It can’t be worse, papa, than to see what I see here every day, and can’t set right.” “ What would Will say, Rosalie?” She flushed to her curling hair. “He will be very angry, papa. His notions of values and of right and wrong are entirely artificial. Probably he will break our engagement, But if he does, I ought to be glad that two people so hopelessly different in their estimate of things did not commit the awful blunder of trying to live together. I have thought of all that.”

“ And your mother ?” “ She will be horrified, chiefly on account of * the Hayeses.’ If they count themselves out of the question, she will soon be reconciled. You must go a-wooing over again, dear papa, and persuade her, that this ‘ yes’ is as vital to your happiness, as that long-ago one. Will you, Aged P.?” The doctor thought and thought. He knew how Rosalie’s imagination had overleaped the obstacles in her way—the home-sickness, the weariness, the monotony, the longing for her lost lover, for he felt sure that Will Hayes would not marry a “ working-girl.” He showed her, carefully and tenderly, the seamy side of the web which her zeal and conscience had woven. But in his heart he knew she was right. Here, by his own hearth, sprung from his own loins, was the large-hearted, clearheaded, firm-willed woman he had dreamed of, ready to give up ease, comfort, love itself, when duty bade her. And when he gave his consent, he said softly, “ I thank God for this dear daughter.” The news being carefully and gradually broken to Mrs. Myrick, she said at first that she ‘ never did 1’ Then she declared mournfully, that she could not have believed, she could have a strong-minded daughter, who wanted to go out of her sphere. Then she announced that she knew the Hayeses would not bear it for a moment. And finally, her husband and daughter having explained with untiring gentleness and patience, that Rose wished to live her own life, and count for one in the world’s column of significant figures, she dived again into the abysm of her mental processes, and ; came to the surface, with the reflection, that telegraphy must be very scientific, and there was Mrs. Somerville, or was it Mrs. Stowe ? or it might have been George Sand ; at any rate, some woman was very distinguished in science, and had a great deal of attention, and was in the best society, and she had no doubt Rose would be distinguished too, and invited everywhere, as soon as it was known. So that battle was more easily won than the victors had feared. But there still remained the encounter with the Hayeses, in the person of the imperious Will. Rose had said, calmly enough, that her lover would probably break the engagement. But in her secret heart she believed in bis largeness, and glorified his loyalty to what was best in herself. He heard her plea with quietness that surprised her, and answered no word. “ You know, Will, it is only for a few years, and we are so very young we can well wait. I want to send Helena to school, and to give Alice drawing lessons (her talent is really wonderful), and then they can both be earning, and I can afford to stop. Say that you think I am right, Will.” “ Rose, as a joke, you must pardon me if I say that this performance is very silly, As a purpose, you must know it is simply impossible and preposterous.” “Why?” “ Why ? Because I do not choose that you should do it. Because the Hayeses do not go to shops and factories for their husbands and wives. They are accustomed ,to mate with ladies and gentleman. They are something for refined habits, and the protection of home. The men look up for their wives and the mothers of their children, not down, and the race shall not begin to deteriorate through me. Rose, if your father really needs money, I will lend him whatever sum he names, and without interest. Better still, we will be married at once, and his son can claim the same right to help him that his daughter demands. But it is not fit that my future wife should crowd elbows with some common girl from a tene-ment-house learning a vulgar trade. Give it all up, Rosie, and say that you will marry me, next week, to-morrow, when you will, and never talk nonsense again about earning your living. “If I am capable,” answered Rose, trembling with anger and wounded pride—“ if I am capable of a suggestion which dishonours your house, I am proved unfit to mate with it. I would never have consented that you should marry my whole family, and they would repudiate such a scheme with indignation. But now I will not consent that you should marry me. We do not agree on so simple a thing as the definition of honesty and duty. What folly, what madness, to suppose that we should not ruin one another’s lives ! I have adored my father ever since I knew his dear face, and he is nobleness all through. He could not think a mean thought, or set a sham above a reality. I have loved you for a year, and you have hurt me with your mean thoughts and your reverence for shams again and again. It is the last time— I choose my father. Go, Will Hayes, and never come again.”

So they parted, with anger and injustice and bitter longing on both sides, and with pride which forbade either to make atonement. Rose went to the great office in Stafford, and studied with a fierce determination to succeed, born not more of her conscientiousness than of her wish to have no leisure for regret. She duly won her certificate, and obtained the excellent place of night operator at the great junction station of Fairfield, where twenty rushing trains, incoming from north, south, east, west, depended on her slender hands, her sleepless eyes, her sensitive ears, for safety. She was faithful, tireless, skilful. She was earning money which every month gladdened the girls at home. She was helping her father to bear his burdens with a new courage, inspired by her cheerful self-sacrifice. Was she happy ? The nights were long. She was not always busy. There was so much time to think, even when her hands were occupied. She missed home and home tenderness more than she had thought possible. She missed Will’s impetuous, ardent, constant devotion. She missed even his tyranny, and mourned it, but she never dreamed of giving up. And she knew by heart the significance of Adam Bede’s saying : “ There’s nothing but what’s bearable so long as a man can work. The square o’ four is sixteen, and you must lengthen your lever in proportion to your weight, is as true when a man’s miserable as when he’s happy; and the best o’ working is, it gives you a grip hold o’ things outside your own lot.”

There came a rainless August. Day after day the sun shot fiercer javelins of heat. Night after night a stillness of slow suffocation seemed to encompass the earth. But as Rose went wearily to her work one darkening twilight, a nameless thrill and terror in the air warned her of coming tempest. In a moment an inky blackness blotted out the world, a whirlwind clutched at her flying figure, and, as she struggled breathless up the

platform of the station, the heavens seemed to open in a vast sheet of flame, the building trembled in the crash of thunder, sudden fire flashed from her little office, and darkness, as of midnight, had settled once more over all things. She groped her way forward, stumbling against a man.

“Is it you, Miss Myrick?” he gasped. “ For God’s sake don’t stay here ! That bolt struck the instrument, and burned out the magnet. The room’s a death-trap. Come away.” “ I can’t, Mr. Rice. It is time for me to go on duty. Something may happen to the trains in this awful storm. Is no one else here ?”

“Not a soul, Miss Myrick. It’s the halfhour for supper, though it’s so dark. There’s no train for forty minutes. It’s as much as your life is worth to meddle with that magnet. I beg you to come. Another flash of blinding light, another crash as of a crumbling world. “ Don’t stay, Mr. Rice,” said Rose, quietly. “ You have your wife and child to consider; but my place is here.” He made a feint to remain, but she closed the door of the office behind her, as if to make his dismissal absolute, and he was glad to go. She found the matches, lighted her ' lamp, and supplied the magnet, a fury of rain and wind dashing against her window, a flame of lightning seeming to scorch her eye"- * balls. She tried the instrument, and found 7 ' the circuit secured. Her nerves were tense with excitement. She went to the open door to breathe. A ghastly brilliancy, brighter than any daylight, touched the for a swift moment, and by its torch Bhc saw, far , up the shining, narrowing rails, a huge tree uptom and lying prone across the track. She remembered the road just thdre—-'the river on one side, a rocky chasm on thyother. Good God! and the Western’Express was aflWbat due! Was there time to /stop it at HSrM u wick? She would try/ /She rushed*to the instrument. The stornyhad it w’ould not respond. She precious minutes over/the battery.* SifHdenly x she remembered having seen tlft'fred lantehis ready lighted for use. In the’sKnß* inswnt* she remembered z also ttrSlch of trestle-work which she must cross, that fdpen bridge, the mete thought’6f‘which'ha“d,always turned her'dizzy and sick ■’when '‘sm* had noticed the trackrrfen shufflihg heedlessly over. • **<*><. ’**.• For one second 1810 hesiteted.’‘Then some words' Will Hajes had once read to her, with flashing eyes and'a deepening colon seemed spoken audibly in his voice'.* / “ Whether on“the scaffold high, Or'iiHhe battle’s van, The fittest? place for man to die r Is where he dies for man.” She snatched up s a red lantern, and ran—ran as .if the issues of* life and death lent her feet wings, site reached the horrible trestleorork, caught her breath, and darted on. She K»t the firm grpund under her feet once more, saw the bridge rise .grim and awful before her, put all her hoaH ar£l strength into a swifter flight, and crossea it, swinging her lantern high in the air. For she had heard, faint and far off, the swift rush of the oncoming train, and knew she was racing neck and neck with death. The storm beat on her uncovered head, half blinding her. Her light summer raiment, soaked through and through, clung about her, hindering. Her heart throbbed so that she seemed suffocating. She had cea«ed to feel her flying feet. This running, panting, aching, choking thing that toiled along so painfully, swinging its red light with its numbed arm, could this be Rose Myrick ? Oh, if her will should fail, she thought—her will which alone seemed to bear her stiffening body on! And at that instant she heard the sound for which her straining ears were s§t, the whistle for “ down brakes. The engineer had seen her signal. Thank God, the train was saved! But its fiery rush could not be stopped. It kept the track, indeed, but struck the tree with a force that sent the smaller branches flying like missiles, that drove a splinter full against the breast of the slender girl, still mechanically struggling on with her beacon, and hurled her down the embankment. She felt no hurt. She was confused, utterly exhausted, willing to lie there forever, so she need never move again. She was almost sorry when she saw lanterns moving above her, and men climbing down to her. It was the kind conductor, whom she knew well, who took her gently in his arms, exclaiming, “ Why, bless my soul I it is Miss Myrick ! Gentlemen, take off your hats. This little girl has done what few men would have dared to do in the face of such a storm, and saved three hundred lives. Are you hurt, my dear ?” “ I think not,” said Rose, faintly; “ but please lay me down again.” “ Go, somebody—everybody—and see if there’s a doctor on this train,” ordered Conductor Parker. But one passenger remained behind, and silently, but very tenderly, helped the bluff official to carry the half-conscious girl back to the baggage-car, where they laid her on a bed of coats and wraps eagerly proffered. Half-a-dozen doctors were there in a moment. When they agreed, after long consultation, that it was probably a case of simple exhaustion, and not of internal injuries, the passenger who had lingered beside her breathed so fervent a thanksgiving that the conductor beckoned him apart. “ You know Miss Myrick,” he asserted. The passenger bowed. “ I don’t mean to be impertinent,” said the fatherly conductor ; “ lam only thinking how to bring her back to life, for, mark my words, it’s a near shave. Would she be glad to see you ?” “ I don’t know,” groaned the young fellow. “If I had not been a fool, she would have been glad.” “I see,” replied his confessor. “You treated her shabbily, and she loves you all the more, of course. You are the medicine I want: better than all the doctors’ stuff. Go in there and sit by her till she routes up. I’ll keep everybody else out, sjpnpathetic women especially. We shall run mto the station as soon as the tackle comes to get this confounded tree off. Make the most of your time. I shall telegraph her father, and he may warn you off the premises.” When Rose lifted her heavy eyes they looked straight into the anxious face of Will Hayes. But he forestalled her questions. “ Hush !” he said; “ I’ll tell you. I couldn’t bear it any longer, Rose. I was coming to say so, when you— I’m afraid to think of what might have been, darling! But if you will take the life you have saved, and help me to make something of it, please God you shall never again be ashamed of me.” There was a wedding at Dr. Myrick’s the next summer. Helena was earning more than Rose had earned. Alice was the thrifty and energetic housekeeper to whom her mother had at last been persuaded to resign the dignity of office. The doctor himself grew daily younger, his children declared. As for Rose and Will, it was the opinion of the family that they agreed too entirely to be in the least interesting. Indeed, they differed, apparently, upon only one subject. Rose thought that Will went almost too far in advocating the right of women to work, and to be respected in and for that work; and Will said that Rose was much too conservative in her notions of the proper submissiveness of wives to their husbands, and would spoil any man less high-minded than himself.

The height of oratory: To drown yourself in a torrent of your own eloquence.