The Pit

Page had been born there, and there had lived until the death of their father, at a time whe

rather to guide than to enforce her application. She soon acquired a reading knowledge of French, and knew her Racine in the original almost as well as her Shakespeare. Literature became for her an actual passion. She delved into Tennyson and the Victor

ura and the local lawyer had come to close up the business, to dispose of the mill, and to settle the claims against what the lawyer grandiloq

st, and had pledged themselves to look after Page during the period of her schooli

n, and this one, long since, had provided for the two girls. A large sum had been set aside, which was to be made over to them when the father died. For years now this sum had been

d; even the Boston aunt was dead. Of all her relations, Aunt Wess' alone remained. Page was at her finishing school at Geneva Lake, within two hours of Chicago. The Cresslers were the dearest friends of the orph

sed, procrastinated, loth to leave the old home, loth to leave the grave in the cemetery back of the Methodist-Episcopal chapel. Twice during this time she visited Page, and each time the great grey city threw the spell of its fascination about her. Each time she returned to Barrington the town dwindled in her estimation. It was picturesque, but la

r, seemed to be regarded as a relic of heathenish rites-a thing almost cannibalistic. When she elected to engage a woman and a "hired man" to ma

ll of enthusiasm, allowed it to be understood that she had a half-formed desire of emulating such an example. A group of lad

members of the "committee," before they were well aware, came to themselves in the street outside the front gate, dazed and bewildered, staring at each other, all conf

o foot. But she had not the least compunction for what she had said, and before the month was out

to join the theatre party at the Auditorium had fallen inopportunely enough, squarely in the midst of the ordeal of moving in. Indeed the two girls had already passed one night in the new home, and they must dress for the affair

ousness of a hard day's work at hand. Outside it was still raining, the room was cold, heated only by an inadequate oil stove, and through the slats of

t had happened that their month at the hotel was just up, and rather than engage the rooms for another four weeks she had thought it easier as well as cheaper to come to

the sounds of the newly engaged "girl" making the fire for breakfast, while through the register a thin wisp of blue smoke curled upward to prove that the "hired man" was tinkering with the unused furnace. The room itself was i

the prospect she r

"didn't we stay at the hotel til

turned to Page, who upon the pillows beside her still slept,

girlie. It's late, and

oke bl

, dear, aren't you sleepy, and, oh, wasn't last night lovely? Which one of us will get up to light th

ll but touching, the bedclothes up to their ears,

ed" to decide as to who should get up

eeny-my

two girls implored her to light the stove. While she did so, Aunt Wess' remarked, with the

a fire in that stove. My word, Laura, I do believe you'll have enough of all thi

l work it out all right. I know what's the matter with that r

t on the kitchen table, with the kitchen knives and forks, and over the meal, Pa

and at once Aunt Wess' smiled. Landry Court was openly and strenuously in love with Laura, and no one of the new household ignored

ndry was a decent, hard-working young fellow, with all his way to make and no time to waste, and if Laura d

Wess', "that our little girlie has a little bit of an eye on a certain h

that I would run after any man or care in the least whether he's in love or not. I just guess I've got some self-respect; and as for Landry Court, we're no more nor less than just good friends, and I appreciate his busine

er "Shakespeare," was ev

protest too m

fast, in fact, L

to her from the depths of a crate. "Now, I've done a lot already. That's what made me late. I've ordered your newspaper sent here, and I've

s good," s

ce left here every day, and told the telephone company that you wanted a telephone put in. Oh,

at congested the rooms and hallways on the first floor of the house. The two sisters could hear him atta

this jardiniere thing? ... Where

rnaments, came down-stairs, and she and La

e window mouldings with a p

e's a screw-driver, and a step-ladder? Yes, and I'll have to have som

the furnace, shouted upstairs to Page to ask for the whereabouts

, "those rods want to be abou

'll mark the place with the scre

ack, her head

-or a little lower-so. That's just right. C

thered the pleats. Inevitably his hands touched hers, and their heads drew close together. Page and Mrs. Wessels were unpacking linen in the

of love making. The evening before that palavering artist seemed to have managed to monopolise her about all of the time. Now it was his turn, and this day of household affairs, of little domestic commotions, appeared to him to be infinitely more desirous than the pomp and formality of evening dress and opera boxes. This morning the relations between himself

you did

he added, "how often are you going to let me come to see

, Landry, I'm growing up to be an old maid. You c

ce with, but when a man got too old for that sort of thing, he wanted some one with sense to

sked, as though he were t

e. His eyes snapped. He st

like me?" r

he cried, "you seem to understand me. Wh

Laura go with the cook to see if the range was finally and properly adjusted, and while she was gone the man from the gas company called to turn on the m

d; "and you are such a help, Landry.

and be helping you, and all that sort of thing. Now, all this," he waved a hand at the confusion of furniture, "all this to-day-I just feel," he declared with tremendous earnestness, "I just feel as though I were entering into your life. And

ere all that. Here, pu

ed and raised it to his lips and kissed it. She did not withdraw it, nor r

oy; you'll make me prick my

proach at once, and turned her hand

breathed.

'm so ashamed." She indicated a spot on her wrist instead

trated. "The idea! As if

at you're going to marry

ry!" she retorted. "Aren't

"It's mine. You can't have it till I say-or till you say that-s

very sweet to have this clean, fine-fibred young boy so earnestly in love with her, very

on't know how much I do mean it. Why, Laur

ieved that. How many other girl

mpressed

born, you

d Laura, at last w

me. It isn't kind. No, i

your question ye

ques

e when we were settled. I t

ge, from the doorway. "Do

about it. Oh, just a pick-up lunch-coffee, chops. I thought

dry, "and finish with these curtains af

would get settled if they let things dawdle along, set to work unpacking her trunk and putting her clothes away. Her fox terrier, whom the family, for obscure reasons, called the Pig, arrived in the middle of the afternoon in a crate, and shivering

lead grey; the trees, bare and black as though built of iron and wire, dripped incessantly. The sparrows, huddling under the house-eaves or in interstices of the mouldings, chirped feebly from time to

e faint sounds of steamer and tug whistles. The sidewalks in either direction were deserted. Only a solitary policeman, his star pinned to the outside of his dri

hich were occupied with book-cases. They were busy putting the books in place. Laura stood

m carefully, Lan

sheet in his hand, and rubbed the dust f

n novels? You've got Scott and Dickens and Thackeray, of course, and Eliot-yes, and he

d. When I've yet to read 'Jane Eyre,' and have

conservatism, refusing to acknowledge hardly any fiction that

ing it up to her. "I read it last summer-vacation a

sh story, no love story in it, and so coarse, so brut

andry uttered

this? 'Wanda,' by Ouida.

r hair, snatching

ht it home.

trayed her, and Land

cried over a book since I was a little tot. You can say what you like, but it's beautiful-a beautiful love story-and it does tell about noble, unself

does. He can talk you blind about literature. I've heard him run on by the hour

ded her head

I am dead-that's one

ng that every one likes, and cracking up some book or picture or play that no one has ever heard of. Just let anything get popular once and Sheldon Corthell can't speak of it without shuddering. But he'll go over here to some Archer Avenue pawn shop, dig up an old brass stew

ile had been filling up,

. That's all tha

r. In filling the higher shelves she h

ndry, as he came forwa

dy her. He was surprised at his own audacity, for he had premeditated nothing, and his arm was about her before he was

ention apparently fixed upon coming safely down to

"that's over with.

t the half-open doo

upper, Miss Dearborn?" she inquir

en blankness, "I never thought o

ess, as if the entire affair were totally foreign to any interest or

things," she said. "We'll all go.

out to dine with me. I know a place where you can get the best stea

are all so dirt

e nobody there, and we can have a room to ourselves.

nt Wess' say. Of course Aun

wouldn't think of asking

before taking their car they crossed to the opposite side of the street, Laura hav

ar enough," she declared. But Land

king place on the b

ors and windows. The material used was solid, massive, the walls thick, the foundation heavy. It did not occupy the entire lot, the original builder seeming to have preferred garden space to mere amplitude of construction, and in addition to the inevitable "back yard," a lawn bordered it on three sides. It gave the place a certain air of distinction and exclusiveness. Vines grew thick upon the s

ura. "I think it's as pretty a h

mented Page. "It gives you the idea tha

s' was not y

you are going to heat all that house with

ame, and Landry escorted them down town. All the way Laura could not refrain from looking

" said Page. "Everybody will

ference between just mere 'country' and

ts, the unspeakable squalor of some of its poorer neighbourhoods that sometimes developed, like cancerous growths, in the very heart of fine residence districts. The bla

bre the trepidation of its motion. The blackened waters of the river, seen an instant between stanchions as the car trundled across the State Street bridge, disappeared under fleets of tugs, of lake steamers, of lumber barges from Sheboygan and Mackinac, of grain boats from Duluth, of coal sco

rd to depart. Detached engines hurried in and out of sheds and roundhouses, seeking their trains, or bunted the ponderous freight cars into switches; trundling up and down, clanking, shrieking, their bells filling the air with the clangour of tocsins. Men in visored caps shouted hoarsely, waving their arms or red flags; drays, their big dappled horses, feeding in their nose bags, stood backed up to the open doors of freight cars

eaves, soft oranges, decaying beet tops. The air was thick with the heavy smell of vegetation. Food was trodden under foot, food crammed the stores and warehouses to bursting. Food mingled with the mud of the highway. The very dray horses were gorged with an unending nourishment of snatched mouthfuls picked from backboard, from barrel top, and from the edge of the sidewalk. The entire locality reeked with

trees, stimulated by this city's energy. Just as far to the southward pick and drill leaped to the assault of veins of anthracite, moved by her central power. Her force turned the wheels of harvester and seeder a thousand miles distant in Iowa and Kansas. Her force spun the screws and propellers of innumerable squadrons of lake steamers crowding the Sault Sainte Marie. For her an

l her cities, throbbed the true life-the true power and spirit of America; gigantic, crude with the crudity of youth, disdaining rivalry; sane and healthy and vigorous; brutal in its ambition, arrogant in the new-found knowledge of its giant strength, prodigal of its

ied, her ears stunne

for the individual just so long as he can keep afloat, but once fallen, how horribly quick it would crush him, annihilate him, how horribly quick, and with such horrible ind

y itself-men for whom all this crash of conflict and commerce had no terrors. Those who could subdue it to their purposes, must they not be themselves more terrible, more pitiless, more brutal? She shrank a little. What could women ever know of the life of men, after all? Even Landry, extravagant as he was, so young, s

e-mannered fellow, clean-minded, clean-handed, of the breakfast or supper table was one man. The other, who and what was he? Down there in the murk and grime of the business district raged the Battle of the Street, and therein he was a being transformed, case hardened, supremely selfish, asking no quarter; no, nor giving any. Fouled with the clutchings and grapplings of the attack, besmirch

ullied. He passed his life gently, in the calm, still atmosphere of art, in the cult of the beautiful, unperturbed, tranquil; painting, reading, or, piece by piece, developing his beautiful stained glass. Him w

times, in spite of herself. To relax the mind, to indulge the senses, to live in an environment of pervading beauty was delightful. But the men to whom the woman in her turned were not those of the studio. Terrible as the Battle of the Street was, it was yet battle. Only the strong and the brave might dare it, and the figure that held her imagination and her sympathy was not the artist, soft of hand and

, it was discovered that once more the weather had abruptly changed. It was snowing thickly. Again a bitter wind from off the Lake tore t

blocked. When they gained the corner of Washington Street the

ver and get the Clarke Street cars-and at that you may

orld of stuffs and fabrics, upholsteries and textiles, kaleidoscopic, gleaming in the fierce brilliance of a multitude of lights. From each street doorway was pouring an army of "shoppers," women for the most part; and these-since the store catered

y catching sight of Laura, waved a muff in her direc

ek, shook hands all around, and asked about the sisters' new home. Did they want anything, or was

more to

tood off from Laura, fixing h

To te

re you g

rs are stopped. W

d Mrs. Wessels-all of you are

already," they all c

uation, but Mrs. Cress

to call for Charlie. He's got a man from Cincinnati in

ge. Landry excused himself. He lived on the South Side, on Michigan Avenue, and

me, she sent her footman in to tell the "girl" that the family would not be home that night. The Cresslers lived hard by on the sa

and sandwiches in the library, for the ride had been cold. But the othe

couldn't think of tea. My back is just abou

Wessels elected to sleep together, and once the door h

ever see! He just dashes in as though he were doing it all, and messes everything up, and loses things, and gets things into the wrong place, and forgets this and that, and then he and Laura sit down and spoon. I never saw anything like it. First it's Corthell and then Landry, and next it will be somebody else. Laura regularly mortifies me; a great, grown-up girl like that, flirting, and letting every man she meets

when Mrs. Cressler knocked at her door. The latter had put on a w

e glass of the bureau, her head bent upon her breast, her hands busy with the back of her hair. From time to time the hairpins clicked as she laid t

ng herself for a long talk with her protege. She had much to tell, but now

ched phrases and observations that did not call necessarily fo

smokes ten cigarettes every night before she goes to bed. Y

side, she drew the brush in slow, deliberate movements downward underneath

y, Laura," she remarked, "farther down on

ar the faint murmuring click of the frozen snow. A radiator in the

his-a sort of white and gold effect. My hair? Oh, I don't know. Wearing it low that way makes it c

ll over her shoulder, shook it into place with a twist of her head. She stepped out of her skirt, and Mrs. Cre

crackling sharply. Laura drew up an armchair and sat down in front of it, her chin

I have some real news for you. My dea

eigned a surprise, though she guessed at o

n-the one you m

k, Laura sat upright

n't have five minutes' talk. Why, I hardl

head, closing her eyes and

tell when a man is taken with a girl. My dear, you c

ou're mistaken,

nobody better. He's as old a family friend as Charlie and I have.

a, promising herself to be royally angry if such was

s the conversation got on some other subject he would lose interest. He wanted to know all about you-oh, you know how a

catingly, as if to say that that

. He said that he never remembered

shielding her cheek. She did not

dwin-has he ever be

pretty face and smart talk isn't going to rush right into matrimony because of that. It wasn't so much what Curtis Jadwin said-though, dear me suz, he talked enough about you-as what he didn't say.

?" repea

ut Jadwin, and how taken he seemed

t believe

ly about it, and when I made him remember how Mr

fire. For a long time neither spoke. A little clock of brass and black marble

to be a very agreeable kind

ura thoughtfully,

rs. Cressler. "But somehow it never impre

ura indifferently

in a tone of resignation, "I suppose

shoulder with

n have? Charlie always speaks of him as though he were a higher order of glazier.

ould be kindly and-and-generous. Somehow," she said, musingly, "I didn't think he would be the sort of man that women woul

rthell is that. I tell you one thing, Laura, and when you are as old as I am, you'll know it's t

odded h

, listlessly, "I su

ness. He wants to make it the biggest Sunday-school in Chicago. It's an ambition of his. I don't want you to think that he's good in a goody-goody way, because he's not. Laura," she exclaimed, "he's a fine man. I didn't intend to brag him up to you, because I

's church?"

-the Second P

observed Laura, still thoug

of them who has been hurt or taken sick. And he wants to start a ward at the Children's Hospital, that can take care of them. He says he wants to get other people interested, too, and so he wants to start a contribution. He says he'll double any amount that's raised in the next six months-that is, if there's two thousand raised, he'll make it four thousand; understand? And so Charlie and I and the Gretrys are

akes so long to get settled, and there's so much to do about a big

hell to undertake a role. Page, it appeared, had already promised to help. Laura remembered now that she had heard her speak of it. However, th

s upon the capabilities and business ability of "J.," "you know I never heard

t was near Monroe Street-increased in value. He sold the lots and bought other real estate, sold that and bought somewhere else, and so on, till he owned some of the best business sites in the city. Just his ground rent alone brought him, heaven knew how many thousands a year. He was one of the largest real estate owners in Chicago. But he no longer bought and sold. His property had grown so large that just the management of it alone took up most of his time. He had an office in the Rookery, and perhaps being so close to the Board of Trade Building, had given him a taste for trying a little deal in wheat now and then. As a rule, he deplored speculation. He had no fixed principles about it, like Charlie. Only he was conservative; occasionally he hazarded small operation

ate. At length M

ime; and I've been keeping you up

, pausing at the door

rt in the play. J. made me p

Only I'll have to see first how our new

not light the gas again, but guided by the firelight, spread a shovelful of ashes over the top of the grate. Yet when she had done this, she still knelt there a moment, looking wide-eyed into the glow, thinking over the events of the last t

ment had appeared-this other one, this man of the world, of affairs, mature, experienced, whom she hardly knew. It was charming she told herself, exciting. Life never had see

rey City was fast disappearing. S

the fire, looking deep into the coals, absorbed, abst