Sally Price had parted, in the storm and stress of life, with most of the superstitions wherewith she began the world; but there were two upon which she still retained a firm hold. One related to the new moon, which was to her a sign and token of good luck if seen over the right shoulder, or in full face in the open sky; while the left shoulder, or the obscuring branches of trees, brought, in some shape or other, misfortune. She always made a wish before she removed her eyes from the first sight of the new moon, holding up money, if her pocket happened to contain any of that commodity; but in this she had less faith, though she often referred to the fact that, the very last new moon before Polly’s famous swoon, she, Sally, had shown the moon a silver dime, and had wished for something to do whereby they could keep from starving.
The other superstition was that New Year’s Day foretold the year’s complexion, whether sad or joyful. Not its atmospheric condition. Sally looked upon the weather as a matter of too slight importance to be capable of foretelling anything; but sick or sorry; penniless, cold, and hungry; busy, happy, rich, and glad,—as New Year’s Day found her, so, in the main, would she be throughout the year.
They were foolish superstitions enough, I admit; yet Sally had infused something into them not utterly and ridiculously preposterous. For if, as she so humbly and faithfully believed, a Providence watches over the fall of the sparrow, why could not the same Providence foretell to her by the position of the moon and her own impecuniosity, or the reverse, and also by the events and circumstances of New Year’s Day, His gracious will concerning her for the ensuing month or year? It was quite worth His while to comfort her with a little gleam of hope when help was at hand, or to give her time to prepare her mind if misfortune were approaching. And not for the world would she have waited to get the moon over her right shoulder before she looked up, or in any other way have tampered with the omen. It was certainly not her doing that they were to take possession of their new quarters in Männerchor Hall on Sylvester-Abend itself, or that the New Year was to open so brightly with a concert and ball; but it was not strange, but touching, how persistently she strove that Susan should be perfectly well by the eventful day.
“If you wasn’t younger than me, Susan Price,” she said, “I’d say you was in your dotage. Tired! What have you done to tire you, I’d like to know?”
“That’s just where it is, Sally,” her sister would answer meekly, “I ain’t done nothin’; and yet I feel’s if I don’t want to lift a finger, not if the house was afire.”
“Well, don’t lift a finger, then,” Sally would reply. “There ain’t no call for you to; and when the house ketches fire, I’ll come and call you.”
The truth was that Susan, who had never possessed Sally’s vigor, either of mind or body, had been worn out by the bitterness of the struggle for existence, and had no strength to rally now that the worst of the battle was over. Dr. Richards had prescribed tonics—and paid for them himself—and had shaken his head gravely when he had left her.
“A total change of air, scene, and idea,” he said privately to Karl Metzerott, “might possibly put new life into her; but I doubt if she have sufficient elasticity of mind or body to make such a change possible. Set her down in the middle of Paris or London, and she would mentally carry Grind and Crushem and her sewing-machine along with her. She can’t shake them off as her sister has done.”
“Not till she moves to the graveyard,” said Karl grimly; “that’s the only change possible for her, I suppose.”
“And she will piously believe that an All-Merciful God has sent her there! Well, poor soul, it’s her only consolation; I would not rob her of it if I could.”
“Which you couldn’t, doctor. That’s the queerest part of all the lot of rubbish. Those two women believe that the All-Merciful God you speak of has watched over them all their lives, as firmly as I believe you have just written that prescription. I cannot understand it.”
“Nor I,” said the doctor; “but there are so many things one cannot understand,” he added, half to himself.
Did it ever occur to him now, as he lay upon his bed of pain, that an all-merciful, loving Father might be trying—even then—to teach him the lesson which Susan Price already had learned,—the lesson he could not understand?
The move on New Year’s Eve brightened up poor Susan so as to cheer Sally wonderfully. They were busy all day arranging their new domicile; for they meant to use the front portion of the former shop as a dining-room, where those whom they supplied might, if they preferred, take their meals instead of having them sent home. They had already had an application from a young German girl who taught in the public schools, and had neither friends nor relatives in the city, and from one or two clerks in the various stores. Metzerott and Frau Anna, for a while at least, would provide for the conveyance of their own meals, though the former had plans and designs upon a house that stood next to the Hall, whereof he spoke not until the time should be ripe.
Besides their “moving and unpacking,” as Sally jocularly called it,—for they had little to move but their three selves,—and the meals to prepare for their regular customers, there was the supper to be served at the ball that night, so it may be imagined that the Prices had their hands full. Franz Schaefer came around early “to help,” as he said, in reality to look at Polly in the intervals of his proper business of attending to the fire and lights. He was now a tall, somewhat gawky youth of nearly seventeen, with his father’s reddish hair standing up like a halo around an honest, open, but ugly countenance, which, lacking the pastor’s nervous quickness, wore for its most constant expression a stolid impassibility. Only with his violin upon his shoulder did his face light up or change; but, with the soft touch of the electric wood against his cheek, the eyes grew soft and humid, a half-smile curved the corners of the rather heavy lips, and a slight color crept into his usually pale face.
Polly, who was three years his senior, laughed at the lad’s devotion, and alternately petted and scolded him, like a mother. Franz submitted; but he had entirely made up his mind as to his own course.
“I mean to marry her if she will wait until I come back from Germany,” he said to himself. “If she marries any one else, I will kill him like a mosquito.”
Certainly, no one suspected such bloodthirsty designs in the quiet youth who lounged awkwardly against the doorpost as the members of the Männerchor climbed, laughing and talking, up the steep winding staircase that led to the Concert Hall, most of them pausing to chaff “Janitor Franz,” as they went by. Franz was not good at chaff; he never could think of anything clever enough to say until the occasion was past. Then he thought of a plenty, he said. Sometimes he confided some of the things he ought to have said to Polly, who laughed at him undisguisedly.
“If you were a soldier, Franz,” she said, “you’d go after your ammunition just as the battle was beginning.”
As usual Franz only grinned in reply, but later in the evening he suddenly exclaimed aloud, “Not if somebody I can imagine were on the other side.”
Several persons standing by looked at him in surprise; but Franz did not deign to explain that the imaginary somebody was Polly’s possible husband.
In truth Franz was not stupid, though the connection between his mind and tongue did not act as rapidly as might have been wished. But give him time and he could think as clearly and plan as well as anybody. And thus on this Sylvester Night it was beautiful to see how evident he made it to all men that Polly belonged to him. He surrounded her with his own family, of whom Tina, recently married, was his confidant, and highly approved his choice. The pastor was amused, but unconcerned, as at something belonging to a distant and improbable future; and Gretchen, who still held fast her own immunity from accident, was mildly sarcastic and coolly critical. Polly did not rebel; she liked the pastor’s family, even to Lottie, now grown stouter than ever, and apt to drop asleep on very small provocation. Tina and Polly were fast friends; and, as for Franz himself, his devotion was too absurd for any sensible person to consider seriously.
It was the last hour of the old year, and “Damenregiment” was solemnly proclaimed by the Herr President. The ladies, he said, who for all the year had been under the rule of their lords and masters, for that one hour, were to have full sway. They were to ask, and their partners were not to refuse, to tread a measure devised for the total overthrow of the nobler sex. In the “Männerchor Cotillon” the dancers stood in a circle as in “Tucker.” In the midst stood a table and chair, the former bearing favors and a nightcap. Up to this table each conqueror waltzed her chosen victim, and, either decorated him with a favor—in which case he waltzed her away again,—or—put the nightcap on his head. In which case, he naturally remained in his place until released by some more gracious Tänzerin.
Great was the fun and loud the laughter; many an old score was paid off by a specially unbecoming arrangement of that yellow tissue-paper cap, with its full white frill and long floating strings; many a shy old bachelor was hunted out from his refuge in the gallery, and made, as he keenly felt, a scorn and hissing in the sight of all men. Polly thoroughly enjoyed it. She chose the prettiest favor she could find for Karl Metzerott, who was her first partner, and who, simply to tease Franz, improved his opportunity to keep her to himself so long that not a few gossiping eyebrows went up in consequence. Polly, however, being filled with compassion at the sight of Franz chained, Andromeda-like, to that fatal chair (though when duly capped he rather resembled Medusa), raised him to the seventh heaven by releasing him.
“It must be nearly twelve,” she said. “Ought not you to look after that dynamite bomb, or whatever it is, that is to explode the New Year in upon us?”
Franz grinned; this time his answer was all ready.
“I’ve got nothing to do with that,” he said, “that’s the president’s business. They would not trust me, anyway; I’m too young. I know who I’m going to wish a happy New Year to, Miss Polly, first of anybody here.”
“That’s good,” she said coolly, “who is it?”
“Ah! I won’t tell, or she’d be running off,” said the lad; “but if any fellow cuts in ahead of me, I’ll throw him downstairs. Miss Polly, if I was to kiss her hand, you know, would she be mad at me?”
“Yes, I think she would,” rejoined Polly. “There are my aunts, who have come up for the New Year wishes; it must be near twelve.”
Sally and Susan had been busy in the kitchen over the supper, all the evening, but at this moment appeared in the doorway, to see the Old Year out and the New Year in, smiling and radiant in the new dresses which Frau Anna had made for them.
“Aunt Susan looks so very pale,” said Polly uneasily, “I am afraid she has been working too hard. I ought to have stayed and helped them, but they were both so kind, and the music sounded so bright and cheering,”—
“There was so little to do,” said Franz, “the supper was mostly ready”—
At this moment something—perhaps a dynamite bomb, as Polly had said,—exploded on the stage, and Polly found her hand suddenly seized and kissed.
“Prosit Neujahr! Miss Polly,” cried Franz; “I hope you may be as happy as I would like to make you.”
Polly had no time to be angry; indeed she was half stunned by the “Prosits” and handshakings going on all around her. But through it all there rang all at once a shrill, grief-stricken cry.
“Not now, Susan! Oh! not now, when we were goin’ to be so happy!”
For, amid the laughter and good wishes all around her, Susan Price had suddenly and quietly fainted away.