CROSSED WIRES
A great storm came out of the north late in January and beat fiercely upon Clarkson. It left a burden of snow on the town and was followed by a week of bitter cold. The sun shone impotently upon the great drifts which filled the streets; it seemed curiously remote, and ashamed of its failure to impress the white, dazzling masses. The wires sang their song of the cold; even the confused wires of the Clarkson Traction Company lifted up their voices, somewhat to the irritation of John Saxton, receiver, as he fought the snow banks below and sought to disentangle the twisted wires above. Upper Varney Street, beyond Porter Hill, was receiving his attention late one afternoon as the winter sunset burned red in the west. The iron poles of the trolley wires had been pulled far over into the street by the blast and the weight of snow; and trolley, telephone, and electric light wires were a baffling tangle which workmen were seeking to straighten. Saxton's men had detached their own wires and were restoring them to the poles. Traffic on the Varney Street line would, he concluded, be resumed on the morrow; and he gave final instructions to the foreman of the repair crew and turned toward his office.
Evelyn Porter, who had come out for the walk she had been taking every afternoon since the beginning of her father's illness, stopped at the narrow aisle which had been trampled in the snow-piled sidewalk to watch an adventurous lineman scale an icy telephone pole. There is a vintage of the North that is more stimulating than any that comes out of Southern vineyards. It brings a glow to the cheeks, a sparkle to the eyes, and a nimbleness to the tongue which no product of the winepress ever gives. It is a wine that makes the heart leap and the blood tingle. It is distilled in the great ice-clasped seas of the North, and the pine and balsam of snowy woods add their quintessence to it; it tickles no palate but is assimilated directly into the blood of the brave and strong; it is the wine of youth, of perpetual youth. Evelyn felt the joy of it to-day, her heart leaped with it,—it was a delight to be abroad in the pure, cold air. Her coloring was freshly accented. The remote Scotch grandmother who conferred it upon her, across years of migration, would have rejoiced in it; where the Irish strain maintained its light of humor in her blue eyes, the gray mist of the Scotch moors still held its own. There are women who are dominated by their clothes; but Evelyn Porter was not one of them. Her dark green skirt might have belonged to any other girl, but it would not have swayed in just the same way to any other step; and her toque and cape of sable would have lost their distinction on any other head and shoulders. Her father's convalescence was only a matter of time and care; he had withstood the fever better than the physicians had thought possible, and there was no question of his restoration to health. It was good to be free of the anxious strain, and the keen air was like a tonic to her happiness. Saxton recognized her as he jumped over the drifted snow at the curb to the path. His face, where it was visible between his cap and collar, was red from the cold.
"They say freezing to death's an easy way,—but I don't believe I'd prefer it."
"Oh, it's you, is it? I wondered who the busy man was." She was interested in the lineman, the points of whose climbers were shaking down the ice coating of the pole as he ascended.
"Won't you order that man to come down? It isn't nice to make him risk his life for a wire or two."
"He's not my man," said John, beating his hands together, "he's fixing telephone wires, and besides, he's not taking any chances."
Evelyn half turned away to continue her walk, still with her eyes on the lineman.
"Poor fellow; it must be very cold up there."
"Yes, polar expeditions are usually that way."
"Wretched man, to pun about a human life in peril!" The lineman was sitting on one of the cross beams, and Evelyn started ahead, Saxton following.
"Is that the overcoat?" she asked, over her shoulder.
"What overcoat?"
"The one that's in the newspapers. Aren't you the man in the gray ulster who runs the trolleys?"
"I've been too busy to read the papers, so I don't know."
"It might pay you to join a current topics class and learn what's going on."
"That presupposes a little knowledge. I'd never pass the entrance exams."
"You needn't be afraid, they probably carry a prep. department."
"My wires are down and the trolley isn't running!"
She laughed, and it was pleasant to hear her, John thought.
"Is that the kind of things you say? They are making you out a humorist."
"There's no harder lot. Who is this enemy that's undoing me?"
"There's a certain person called Raridan. He's always telling me of the things you say."
"The villain! I merely lecture him for his good; and so he thought I was joking!"
They had reached the Porter grounds where the walk had been cleared, and they stamped the snow from their shoes on the cement pavement and walked on together. Evelyn dropped her tone of raillery, and John asked about her father. John had followed Mr. Porter's sickness through Raridan's reports, and had called at the house only a few times since the banker's seizure. They entered the gate at the foot of the hill and walked up the long slope to the door.
"Won't you come in?" she asked.
"I oughtn't to; there's work waiting for me down town."
She sent the maid who let them in for hot water, and threw down her furs in the hall while it was being brought. The tea table had been moved into the library during Mrs. Whipple's visit, and Evelyn left John to revive the fire while she went to speak to her father. Saxton had not taken off his coat, and when she came back he stood buttoning it as if he meant to leave.
"It's historic, but not exactly a handsome garment," she said, shaking the tea caddy.
"You shake the caddy when you can't hit the ball: new rule of golf." He had buttoned his ulster to the chin, and really intended to go. She poured the steaming water into the tea-pot, and walked to the fire with folded arms, shivering.
"Of course, if you prefer your uniform!" She spread her hands to the flames. Her mood was new to him; he felt suddenly that he knew her better than ever before; and this having occurred to him as he stood watching her, he accused himself instantly. He had no right to be there; no one had any right to be there but Warry Raridan! She had turned swiftly and was smiling at him. The darkness had fallen suddenly outside. The maid went about closing blinds and turning on the lights. He felt, by anticipation, the loneliness that lay for him beyond the soft glow of this room. This was, after all, only a moment's respite.
Evelyn was back at the tea table. She held a lump of sugar poised above a cup, and looked at him inquiringly, as though of course he was staying and wished his tea. He unbuttoned the coat and threw it on a chair.
"One lump, thanks!"
"It was the sandwiches that did it, I'm sure," she said, passing him a plate of bread and butter.
"I should like to refute your statement, but candor compels me to admit its truth," he answered. "I just happen to remember that I haven't had luncheon yet. Excuse me if I take two."
She went to the wall and pushed a button.
"You're a foolish person and I'm going to punish you. Father's beef tea is ready day and night, and"—she said to the Swedish maid,—"bring some more hot water and the decanter."
"J'y suis; j'y reste. I think I have died and gone to Heaven."
"You don't deserve Heaven. Why didn't you tell me?"
"That I wanted a sandwich? They advised me against it as a kid. We are taught repression in Massachusetts and I try to live up to my training."
He pronounced beef tea no such deadly drug as it was reported to be, and he drank it until she was content. He concocted a hot toddy while she twitted him about his use of the tea-table implements for so ignoble a use; and she made him talk of his work and of the Traction Company's affairs.
"Mr. Wheaton has explained about it," she said, "and Warry too. Warry seems to be very much interested in some work he is doing in connection with it."
"Yes, he does his work well, too!" said John, with enthusiasm. He had no right to be there; but being there he could praise his friend. He told her in detail about some of Warry's work. Warry had, he said, a legal mind, and knew the philosophy of the law as only the old-time lawyers did. He rose and replenished the fire and went on talking. Some amusing incidents had occurred in the adjustment of legal questions relating to the receivership and he told of them in a way to reflect the greatest credit on Warry.
"It looks awfully complicated—the receivership and all that. Father has begun to ask questions, but we don't encourage him."
"I'll have a good deal to explain and apologize for, when he is able to take a hand," said John.
"I'm sure father will be grateful. Mr. Wheaton and Warry are very enthusiastic about your work." She laughed out suddenly. "Warry says you have made two cars go where none had gone before."
"They have a joke down town in refutation of that. They illustrate the erratic service of the Varney Street line by saying that the cars are like bananas—short, yellow, and come in bunches."
He walked to the fireplace and took up the poker. "I have been prodigally generous with Mr. Porter's wood. It burns awfully fast." The flame had died down to a few uncertain embers which he touched tentatively with the poker. "When it goes out I'll have to go with it."
"The joke is poor, Mr. Saxton. You can hardly sustain a reputation on sayings of that sort." She put down her tea cup and went over to the fire and poked the ashes gravely.
"One might construe those actions in two ways," he said, meditatively, as if the subject were one of weight. "One cannot tell whether the sibyl is trying to encourage or to blight the dying flame. Just another poke in that corner and it will be gone."
Evelyn menaced the ember with the iron rod but did not touch it.
"The lady's position is one of great delicacy," continued John. "Between her instinct for self defense, and her gracious hospitality, she wavers. A touch might revive the flame, or it might extinguish it utterly! She hesitates between two inclinations—"
"Why should you intimate that I hesitate?"
"Her seeming reluctance to apply the poker to the crucial point, speaks for itself," continued John, solemnly, while Evelyn still hung over the fitful flame, which was growing fainter and fainter. "She's clearly afraid of the chance of resuscitating the fire and thereby saving a poor guest from the cold, hard world."
Evelyn administered a gentle prod; the burnt fragment of wood fell apart, the flame flared hopefully once and then passed into a wraith of itself that curled dolorously into the chimney.
"You see you made me do it," said Evelyn, turning on him. He looked at her very seriously and there was no mirth in his laugh.
"Good night," he said, and came toward her. "I feel like a burnt sacrifice."
"But you brought it on yourself! I wish, though, you'd stay to dinner. Sandwiches aren't very filling."
"In wholesale lots they are. Mine were seven; and my strength is as the strength of ten because the punch was pure."
He had buttoned himself into his ulster, which magnified his tall, broad figure, and was walking toward the door. His time was now filled with congenial work, which he was doing well, but still he did not quite lose that air of injury, of having suffered defeat, which had from the first touched her in him.
When Grant, who had not returned to school after the Christmas holidays, came in, she was still standing by the fire. He had been coasting on the hillside, and was aglow from the exercise.
"I met Mr. Saxton outside and asked him to stay to dinner," said the boy, helping himself to sandwiches at the tea table.
"I asked him, too," said Evelyn, "but he couldn't stay. I didn't know he was a friend of yours, Grant."
"Well, he's all right," continued Grant, biting into a fresh sandwich, and unconsciously adopting one of his father's phrases. "He doesn't guy me the way Warry does. He talks to me as if I had some sense, and he's going to let me ride on the trolley plow the next time it snows. He's a Harvard man. I want to go to Harvard, Evelyn."
The girl laughed.
"You're a funny boy, Grant," she said.