The Labor enquirer. [volume], December 23, 1882, Page 3, Image 3

About The Labor enquirer. [volume] (Denver, Colo.) 1882-1888

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A NEW TEAR’S STORY.
Egg —*
Martha Tolivar pushed the book oft'
o the window ledge apd leaned sul
lenly on her elbows. “A great and beau
tiful thing to be alive ? Umph l That
depends ” she muttered.
Carlyle in it, that she was reading.
Martha’s eyes were reasonable gray.
■' an 4 projecting forehead, under the
coarse, yellow hair, promised a good deal
of strength and intelligence, but the
brain behrvrwas a little drunk just now
with half comprehended Carlyle and
Emerson. She had just left school and,
, you know, every reading girl between
leaving school and falling in love, has a
passion for metapbysics-made-easy.
, “‘To think of living!’” looking out
into the clear December night glimmer
ing into softer starlight, the gray'eyes
.slowly filling with tears. “It might be
worth atrial —to live —somewhere,where
there would be room for work, or sharp
pain, or happiness. In the thick of cities.
If she were a man she could be on a
battle field to-night,” her blood hot and
her teeth clenched. “Even women could
do something in hospitals; they lived
years in a day there. But here —here—”
The clearer the thought of the full,
chivalric life yepder grew to her, the
deeper was the disgust on her face. She
caught the window sash as if it had been
an iron grating, looked up and down the
narrow, muddy street, into the back
yard, at the room within, with, its white
washed walls, rag carpet and green and
yellow chairs. “Bah-h!” with a gutteral
outbreak. “I’m sick of the whole of it.”
Martha’s three years of schooling, at
the seminary on the hill, had not clean
ed off some little vulgar traits of man
ner; had not even made her conscious
of them. But, apart from that, she was
an honest, earnest girl, with good, right
feelings below all. Well, it was true,
there was not much of the polish or deli
cacy of life around her, you might have'
thought, that evening. Her father was
the turnkey of the town prison ; they
lived in the front rooms of the jail,
wide and well-lighted enough, but with
the musty smell of crime about them,
somehow, and the cells and their thieves
or drunken vagabonds just on the other
side of the hall wall. She could hear
two of the tipsy Irish women, putin last
night, yelping at each other now. Her
father, a raw-boned man in a red shirt,
was smoking a pipe at the other side of
Hhe room, and below the window where
she stood was a basement kitchen, where
her mother, fat and jolly, was finishing
the week’s washing; the two jail bull
dogs were snarling over a heap of bones
at the door. Martha had been starching
all day herself, and her hands were stiff
and bleeding. j
No, not an inviting, poetic life, cer
tainly ; yet maybe (glancing at the glass)
good enough for her. She did herself
injustice in the look, perhaps, seeing
only tho stout, solid figure, and the fea
tures both heavy and dull. She did not
know how a bit of cheerfulness and a
smile kindled the whole face into down
right beauty, just as it did those coarse
jailrooms of theirs.
“Matty,” said her father, knocking the
ashes out of his pipe. “Don’t you want
- to puts on a clean collar and things?
Cam’ll be up before the meeting, he said.”
“It don’t matter.”.
“Well, tell him I’m gone on. We’re
going to clench old Dyke to-night on the
gov’ner question,” going out and pulling
his coat on as he went.
“It didn’t matter for Sam?” Her
conscience twinged her sharply. She
went to the glass, smoothing her hair,
straightening her dress' Sam loved her
as nobody else ever would; for two years
he had been working hard, so that they
could go to housekeeping in the spring;
not saying much, but dogging on, day
after day; she ought to remember that.
H ell, she did. Poor Sam, with his snub
nose ami brushy red hair! There was
not much room in his nature for heroic
efiort, or deeds of derring-do: how
fibsurd those longings of hers to-night
would seem to him !
It was a long time kince Martha Tolivar
had spent so much thought on her lover’s
nature. She had grown so used to him.
It seemed to her that they' had been
engaged since they were children.
Down a by-street she could see the snug
• Ihtle house he had rented for the Spring.
Sam would go on bqssing the nail
shop, then, and she -would do her own
cooking. Her life was ruled out straight
f Ihe end ; and again she caught at the
i window frame as if it were an iron cage.
j Just across the street was Judge Lynn’s
old place; a queer, old fashioned stone
house in the midst of a clear shaven
' lawn and forest trees. Martha’s precep
" tion was acute enough to see how every
. trait of the place betreved the life of its
owners, generous, refined, graceful.
Molly Lynn and she had been classmates,
up at the seminary, used to walk home
together; for Molly had no fhlse pride.
t ?
jMt
gg&tfc’’. ■ T " ' ,-JL.
Since then Martfta watched her with a
curious interest, though, of course, their
friendships had ceased, except for a
pleasant nod now and then. Their lives
were so utterly apart! God had showerd
such full, choiee blessings on that girl!
Martha could catch a glimpse of her now
through the folds of the lace window
curtains of the judge’s library, sewing
by the lamp: how delicate, and fair, and
quiet she was! her face still with content
and security.
It w r as not her beauty that Martha j
envied, nor position; it was the num
bered chances she held. “The chances
—the very air of the house is full of life,
and music, and culture, every day. Not
one of these men and wpmen to whom
she talks that does not help her to
knowledge and refinement. It is easy
to live nobly, supported by nobler souls
which Martha gave at that moment,
seeing'Sam Carton enter the gate.
Over the street young Robert Fullmer,
the state’s attorney, had stopped at
Judge Lynn’s. People said he was soon
to marry Miss Lynn. No man in his
party, they also said, Lad the mental
force bf Fullmer; even his enemies
! prophesied a sure and speedy ascent for
him. "All her life a first chance for her,”
said Martha to herself. “Always power,
and a place to stand where she can make
God and man glad that she has lived."
It was the night before New Year's,
and a wild fancy crossed her mind.
What if with the new year a new life
could begin for herself; if some magic
could tear her out of this dull, vulgar
commonplace, and give her, too, a higher
heroic destiny. “I wouldn’t care how
terrible was the pain it held,” she said,
“if ”
Sain Carton opened the door just then.
Now, the girl loved Sam, whether she
knew it or not. She hurried a smile on
her face so as to please him, and felt a
little crestfallen when lie did not notice
it, or her particularly, but began talking,
as tier father had done all day, of the
meeting, and old Dyke, and the gov’ner
question. ” But I forgot, Matty,” he said,
at last, “you don’t care whether we elect
our candidate or not. What do you see
out of the window, eh? It’s a biting
cold night,” coining up beside hei#
“Yon’s Bob Fullmer, going in there.
They say lie’s honevfugled that pretty
daughter of Lynn’s into marrying him.
It’s a pity.”
“Why? sharply. “What do you know
of Air. Fullmer?”
“He’s not the true wood for a man,
Matty,” rubbing his red hands in his
lumbering, slow way. “Not the true
wood! There’s things about him I
wouldn’t say—to you. But that was a
scoundrelly trick, now, he played our
about that screw matter. You
mind?”
“ Yes, something of it,” indifferently.
“That did set my teeth on edge. I’ve
'-sworn often I’d be revenged on Bob
Fullmer for that. But it’s likely it’ll go
oft’ in'swearing,” with a good natured
laugh. “What are you going to do
to-morrow, Matty ? It’s a holiday. New-
Year’s, you know?”.
Alartha looked at him wistfully. “J
don’t know. I think, Sam if one
could have a new life—begin all over
again to-morrow ”
“Eh? Yes! I see,” looking gravely
out of the window, his face reminding
her, as it often did, that there were
depths of quiet and seriousness about
him in which she had no share. “Most
days seem like that to me—a fresh start.
He was silent for awhile, then roused
himself. “Well, Alatty, I must be off.
I only stopped to look at you on my way
to the meeting.”
She stood tapping on the window sill, j
Thti was the end of most of their inter- j
views—just such every day jog trot sort i
of talk. She had read of passionate love |
■ wohls, of tender looks ; they were not !
for such as her. “It’s early yet, Sam.”
smothering a sigh.
“No, I think not. Will you look at
the clock, Alatty ? Aly watch is stopped."
She went into the back chamber to look
at a clock behind the door, taking a
candle with her. “It wants five minutes
of eight. Father set ours by the town
clock this evening.” She did not know
that life and death before long should
bang on that trivial answer.
“Good by then," he said, “I’m late.
The meeting begins at eight. I’ll go
through Ford’s lane, though, and make
a near cut. . Good by.” He held her
band a moment, then went out touching
his cap again at the door. Sam had
some old fashioned courtesies that made
Alartha smile. He never had kissed her
but twice, and then turned pale and
looked pale as a woman might. She
wondered if it was because he cared so
little, or
Going to the window, Martha looked
out again, idly. The night had clouded
over with a heavy impending snow storm.
Sharp, wintry gusts rattled the windows
and waved the bare poplars across the
THE LABOR ENQUIRER.
street like gigantic black plumes. The
street was deserted; the political meeting,
at the other side of the town, had drawn
in alt straggling passengers; only Sam’s
heavy, clog nailed shoes rung on the
pavement, as he passed down under the
flickering street lamps and turned at last
into an oblique alley. “He said he
would take that short cut,” she mur
mured to herself, watching him out of
sight for want of something better to do.
She stood there just five minutes, for
the dock struck 8, and timed her, when
another, lighter step went down the
street. “It’s Robert Fullmer,” peering
out. “He is going to speak to-night,”'
watching him too, turn down F'ord’s
lane. “He’ll be late. I wonder what it
is Sam had against him?” she said, pok
ing the fire into a cheerful blaze and
getting out her sewing.
The girl was nervous; body and mind
were strained and irritable. Long after
her usual bed hour had passed, there
fore, she remained in the family room,
pacing restlessly up and down, her sew
ing strewed op the floor. It was some
I muslin she was making up for her wed
ding, it tired her, it was a part of the dull
| outlook into the future. Had this New
1 Year, laden with life and death to
1 myriads, nothing for her but the old
stagnation ?
The night had grown colder and more
j stormy with every hour; blasts of hail
I beat sharply against the windows, and
the wind howled at intervals through
the silence, more fiercely, she fancied
than ever before. It might have been
the tension of her own brain, but there
was a strange wailing in its sound, rnean
j ing in its abrupt pause, as though the
i whole night waited for some untold sor
row. Even the dull thud of some be
lated passenger’s step on the frozen snow
without, had an ominous sound, as
though he were the messenger of evil
'tidings.
I "Lam hysteric as any fine lady,” she
j said, arresting herself as she turned to
| ward the window and lighting a night
! lamp. “It would be more to the pur
i pose to consider what is for breakfast to
! morrow, than to abandon myself to these
fancies.”
he stopped, however, before leaving
; the room, hearing a sudden noise with
out. They were bringing in a prisoner
through the hall outside, the same front
| door being used as an entrance to the
v
jail and dwelling house. As much as was
possible, Alartha avoided all contact with
j the prisoners, however; it was the only
means she had of preserving any refine
ment, she thought, This was a Woman
they were bringing in now : she heard
Phil Hoyt, the constable say so, when
her father went to unbolt the door; and
the woman had been arrested for nothing
more than vagrancy, she knew, for they
were putting her into one of the more
decent we 11s. Almost all the women
brought in made some outcry, but this
one was perfectly silent; the only noise
heard was the shuffling of the men’s
feet on the hempen carpet and their
voices in an anxious whisper. “What is
it ?” she said to herself, holding the door
latch in her hand impatiently.•
The next moment her father opened
the door, in his shirt sleeves and trousers,
holding a flaring candle.
“A on up, Afatty?” he cried. “That’s
lucky. Bring us some warm milk for
this child, dear. It’s starving, I think,”
going back to the orisoner, who stood
leaning against the wall, holding a baby
in her arms.
The men were used to sights of crime
and pain, so the woman’s face did not
move them ; and if the child had died
then and there, they would have looked
on it, probably, as a deliverance, it was
I such a wizened, diseased-looking little
j wretch, bearing such unmistakable marks
!of its birth in vice. But it made Alartha
I sick to look at it and at its mother ; with
lan under thought of how coarse and
vulgar the life was which subjected her
to such sights and sounds.
The woman had been young and beau
tiful but a year or two ago it might be —
but months tell like years on such as she.
Yet her face, under the dirt and tangled
hair, was fresh tinted and dimpled, and
there was a latent, dewy softness in the
brown eves, with all their unmeaning
glare now.
“M hat ails her?” Alartha whispered to
her father. It seemed impossible to her
that any mother could look at a starving
child with so unmoved a face as this ;
the woman’s limbs, too, were rigid, and
her flesh had a livid, cataleptic tinge.
“Dunno. She’s been an $ taken some
drug, ’s likely. Let’s have the baby,, my
girl. No? Well, bring the milk, Alatty ;
maybe she’ll feed her.” i
“I found ’em on Stokes’ cellar door,”
said Hoyt, lighting his lantern candle,
which had blown out; “heven’t gbt a
wprd out’n her from that minit till flow.
Alaybe she’d tell you what she’s tuk,
Aliss,” he added, turning to Alartha as
he went away.
But the woman only stared blankly in
Alarthys face when she questioned her.
Either ffle would not hear, or there was
some paiy here different from any which
had come Vnder the girl’s ken. So Alatty
brought ths cup of warmed milk and
fed the child.. It swallowed like some
starving cub,And, when it had done,
turned iis soggy black eyes on hfer face
with a strange appealing look, she fan
cied. But she was full of idle fancies,
she knew, to-night; she put them out of
her head ; and when her father pushed
open the cell door, and the woman went
in mechanically and stretched herself
on the ragged pallet with the same glassy
stare, Matty tried to forget her with the
rest. Did they not lock up just such
wretches every night?
Her father looked grave when he came
out and turned the key. '‘There’s some
what out of the ordinary the matter with
that un,” he said. “It’s not drink either.
Well, go to bed, Alatty. What’s kept
you up in this shivering night, pet, any
way?” stooping to kiss her.
If his jaws were lank and unshaven,
and his shirt patched flannel, her father’s
eyes' were the kindest she ever had
known, and his smile as tender as a
woman’s; the kiss warmed her, and so
did the hearty ‘'God bless you, puss. Be
up early to give me my coffee in the
morning.”
Matty turned off, going down the hall.
At the woman’s cell she!halted v a mo
ment. What if she went in and sat by
her to-night? She could persuade her
father to allow it. Only a moment she
paused, then went on to bed. “If it had
been some great thing he told thee to do,
wouldst not thou have done it?”
Her chamber, it happened; was over,
this cell. She could not drive the woman
out of her mind when she tried to sleep;
grew impatient at herself at last that she
could not. She thought it was only her
fancy then, when, an hour after, there
seemed to come from the cell below a
sharp, sudden cry, breaking out of some
depth of pain, such as she never had
dreamed of. It must have been fancy,
for, starting up and listening, all was
silent as the grave, as it had been before.
Yet it terrified her; the more, as she
thought she heard in the cry a familiar
name twice uttered. “Pish! I was asleep.
What could she know of him?” she mut
tered. turning her pillow to ease her
aching head. After that she grew drowsy
and quiet, gazing out through the square,
uncurtained window into the darkness
and driving storm. In after years, look
ing back to this night, that hour used to
recur to her with a curious vividness.
“It was the last of my girlhood’s un
real stupor,” she would say. “I woke
out of it to live in earnest.”
She woke with a sound of subdued
voices in her ear, a clanging of doors,
cries of angpr and horror, and then sud
den pauses, such as fall on a terrified
crowd. The sounds were without the
gates. AVithin the jail all was silent,
save now and then a smothered footfall
outside of the door. Torches carried by
some of the crowd in the street, threw a
reddish and uncertain glare upon the
walls and upon her bed. “It is some
criminal they are bringing here. So the
New A'ear comes in,” and she hid her
face in her hands, sick of slime and vice
and pitying herself. Do not blame her.
She a girl, not far from a child,
and would have liked an innocent and
foolish life just other girls do.
At first she tried to shut out the
noises and the lights, then she got up,
and, wrapping a shawl about her, crept
to the window. They had taken the
prisoner inside: the gates were fastened, 1
but she could catch glimpses of the
swaying mass of faces under the leafless
trees on the dark street, red and angry.
Overhead was the wide, cold winter
night, catching the sickly pallor of dawn;
beneath the drifted snow, foul and’
muddy already with the tramping feet.
The \yhole world was cold and /bul, the
girl thought, standing there with chilled
feet and sick heart, trying to understand
the sullen muttering of tbeSe men with
out. She heard it at last. It was mur
der they talked of—a murder that had
been done to-night. Not a drunken
street brawl, but some deed that shamed
the coarest there, touching him in his
thought of home and decency.
“God help us when such things as this
jean be,” said one that she knew; a tipsy
thief, but he was sober now.
The crowd scattered slowly, going in
groups down the street, but a few re
mained behind, huddled together, talk
ing it over, leaning against the iron rail
ings, and stamping their feet occasion
ally to keep them warm. In the dead
stillness she could hear them distinctly,
she could not go from the window, angry
at herself as she might be. She had a
strange fancy that she had something to
do with the work of this night.
“Seven times he stuck the knife in
him,” said a bloated little Dutchman, in
a dogmatic voice. “I was there the first
after the murderer, and Joe Stiles. Seven
times. The man must have been dead
with the first blow. That went to the
heart, after that he went iu editing like
a butcher.”
“Bah]” It was Phil Hoyt’s voice.
“The boy as did this is no butcher,
Daddy Heiner. If so be as it was
a £ght it was a fair fight.
There was an old grudge. That I’ll
acknowledge,” pointing off his sentence
with one finger on his palm. “Hot blood,
an’young blood; that I’ll acknowledge.
I want to be fair, though- I’m a friend to
this boy as you have in the jug, and, to
be plain, I don’t think the other fellow’s
much loss.” There was an angry mur
mur. “No. Not a loss,” raising his voice.
“I sees lots in my beat of work you know
nothing about. Well. They too, bavin,
this grtidge, as I said, an’ rneetin’ in this
dark corner, words begins it; blood gets
up—an’ there’s the end. Is that onnat
ural? Ls there one here as it mightn’t
have happened unto?”
There was a pause after this argument.
Most of his hearers had there own reas
ons for treating the constable with
respect.; They chewed their tobacco
more vigorously, shuffled their feet; and
looked askance up at the jail windows.
I
“Yon]s Judge Lynn’s,” said one at last,
after a diffident Cough. “I have heard
say as him as was killed in this fight,
to-night, was goin’ to marpy the judge’s
girl?” |
“Likely he was,” growled !loyt. “That
does not alter the case, does it ? I’ve
nothing; against it. But I have a good
deal against a fellow howled at to the
gallows, as you had all made up yer
minds tp do with this chap indoors.”
“Wonder if she knows?” said a small
boy, wish his hat askew and eyes set, in
dicating Aliss Lynn by a twitch of his
thumb.' There was no answer.
said a grave, elderly man, who
had srpoked in silence, “there was no
fight. I have been thinking of what
you said. The murdered man had no
arms. The knife which did the busi
ness was, on the contrary, long and
strong. One blow, as Heiner says, would
have been enough, wiielded by even a
weak hand. And then,” lowering his
voice, as if it pained him to believe bis
own words, “in the snow there was no
sign of any struggle. Only this, two
footsteps, one approaching the other be
hind. Those which came later could
easily be discerned.” !
Hoyt was silent. “It is a bad .busi
ness,” he said, at lastj “But if Fullmer
was done to death,! foul or fair, he
wrought for it. lam ielear on that.”
“Fullmer?” She Staggered back to
the bed. “Robert Fullmer; done to
death ; hot blood and an old grudge ;
they meeting in a dark corner ”
The broken sentence rung dully, again
and again, through her brain. She gave
them no meaning; thrust their import
away from her, sick ami angry. Then
she sank into a quiet stupor, sitting there
until the sun was up, leaning her head
against the pine bed post, dragging her
bare toes to and fro across the carpet.
The men were gone; the street had long
ago relapsed into silence ; in the jail,
though, there was a hushed sound now
and then that told there were anxious
watchers astir. She knew it was
her father pacing through the'down hall
waiting for daylight. When it came he
would come to her door and rap; he had
something to tell her. Yes, she under
stood. She chuckled ; that insane laugh
of the first paralysis ot pain dr terror.
[Concluded in our next.] .
The Use of Wealth.
There a»e thousands of rich men who
are not skinflints, who have the reputa
tion of being so, because they have
never been known to do any special
good with their money. A man who is
worth $50,000 can do more to make him
self loved and respected by all with
whom he comes in contact by the ju
dicious expenditure of SI,OOO in charity
than by giving the whole $50,000 after
he is dead. It seems as though it would
be mighty small consolatian to a million
aire to leave money to some charitable
purpose after death, and be so con
founded dead that he couldn’t see the
smiles of happiness that his generosity
had created.
Suppose a millionaire who has never
had a kind word said of him except by
fawning hypocrites, who hope to get
some of his money, should lay out a
beautiful park, worth $1,000,000,] and
throw it open free to all, with walks,
drives, lakes, shadfe and everything.
Don’t you suppose, if he took a drive
through it himself and saw thousands of
people having a good time, and all look
ing their love and respect for him, that
his heart would be warmed up, and that
his days would be lengthened? Wouldn’t
every look of thanks be worth SI,OOO to
to the man who had so much money
that it made him round shouldered? -
Wouldn’t he have more pleasure than
he would in cutting off coupons with a
lawn mower?—Exchange.
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