A Man's Hearth

by Eleanor M. Ingram

  CHAPTER VIII

  ANDY OF THE MOTOR-TRUCKS.

  The man behind the wicket leaned forward to survey the man outside. Thegate-keeper at the main entrance to Adriance's was the prey of a doublevanity that kept his attention alert: he was vain of his own position,and of his ability to judge the positions of other men. This was hisseventeenth year in the cage of ornamental iron-work, and he had broughthis hobby into it with his first day there. He delighted in difficultsubjects, now, who baffled a casual inspection.

  It was, therefore, with an air of bored certainty that he classifiedthis morning visitor at a glance, and settled back on his high stool.

  "Office door to the right, sir," he directed, briefly, but respectfully."Boy there will take in your card, sir."

  "I understand chauffeurs are wanted here," said the visitor, hiscomposed gaze dwelling on a poster to that effect affixed to the nearestwall.

  The gate-keeper stared.

  "I guess so----?"

  "Is the office the place where I should apply for such work?"

  "Trucking department; turn left, down basement, Mr. Ransome," vouchsafedthe chagrined concierge, severely wounded in his self-esteem. So blatanta mistake had not offended his pride in years. He turned in his seat andcraned his thin neck to watch the stranger swing blithely away in thedirection indicated.

  "Chauffeur!" he muttered. "Walks as if Adriance's was his private garagean' he was buildin' himself a better one around the corner! Hope Ransomethrows him out!"

  But Ransome of the motor-trucks was in urgent need of men and disposedto be more tolerant. Moreover, his sensitive vanity had taken no hurtthat morning. But he looked rather closely at the applicant,nevertheless.

  "Used to chauffing private cars, aren't you?" he shrewdly questioned.

  "Yes," admitted Adriance.

  "I thought so! Where was your last place?"

  "I drove for Mr. Adriance, junior," was the grave response.

  The man whistled.

  "You did, eh? Why did he fire you?"

  "He left New York for the winter, without taking his machines along."

  "Did he give you a reference?"

  "I can bring one to-morrow, or I can go get it now, if you want me tostart work at once. I haven't it with me."

  "Why not?"

  "I forgot it would be needed."

  This was unusual, and produced a pause. Ransome studied his man, andliked what he saw.

  "Married?" he shot the next routine question.

  "Yes."

  "Anything against you on the police records? Accidents? Overspeeding?"

  "Nothing."

  "I can see you don't drink. You know Jersey?"

  "Not so well as New York, but well enough to pick up the rest as I goalong."

  "Well, it's irregular, but we're short-handed. Give me your licensenumber so I can verify that. Bring your reference to-morrow, and if itis all right---- I'll take you on to-day, on trial. Wait; I'll give youyour card."

  The inquisition was safely past. Adriance smiled to himself as hewatched the superintendent fill out the card that grudgingly permittedhim to earn his first wage. He was intoxicated, almost bewildered by hisown lightheartedness. His body was still tired and beaten after themiserable conflict from which his mind had resiliently leaped erect tostand rejoicing in the sunlight. To-day he could have overcome a hundredill chances, where one had yoked him yesterday.

  "Name?" came the crisp demand from the man writing.

  "Anthony Adriance."

  "What!" The superintendent's head came up abruptly. "Why--whatconnection----?"

  "Poor relation," classified Adriance coolly. He had anticipated this,but he could not have endured the furtive discomfort and risk of a falsename. "All rich men have them, I suppose."

  His indifference was excellently done. The superintendent noddedacquiescence.

  "I suppose so; must have been queer, though! What did young Adriancecall you? Did he know?"

  "Oh, yes. 'Andy' is a noncommittal nickname."

  "All right; here is your card."

  Mr. Ransome watched the new employee cross the floor, with a meditativeconsideration of the uselessness of the shadow of the purple without itscomfortable substance; but he was not especially surprised after thefirst moment. Few wealthy men trouble themselves about the distantbranches of their families, and babies are frequently named after themby hopeful kinsmen.

  At the other end of the subterranean chamber where trucks rolled in andout, piloted by weather-beaten chauffeurs and loaded with heavy packagesand bales by perspiring porters, a little man in a derby hat and shirtsleeves was in command. With him the matter passed still more easily forthe stranger.

  "What's your name?" he shrilled in a peculiarly flat treble voice,across the uproar of thudding weight, rolling wheels and pantingmachinery. "Andy? Well, take out number thirty-five. Mike, Mike! Whereis that--that Russian? Here, Mike, you are to go with numberthirty-five. Bring your truck in for its load and get your directionsfrom the boss there, Andy. Report when you get back."

  A huge figure lounged across the electric-lighted space toward Adriance;a pair of mild brown eyes gazed down at him from under a shock of redhair.

  "I guess you're new," pronounced the heavy accent of Russian Mike; "Iguess I show you?"

  "I wish you would," Adriance cordially accepted the patronizingkindness. He found time to marvel at the readiness of his own smilesince last night, and at the response it evoked from these strangers. "Idon't know where to find thirty-five yet, or who is the boss."

  "I know," announced Mike, grandly comprehensive; "you ride with me,Andy; I'll learn you."

  So Andy of the trucks began his education.

  A motor-truck is not a high-priced pleasure car. Nor is the truckingdepartment of a large factory professional in its courtesy. TonyAdriance learned a great many things in breathless sequence. And henever had been quite so much interested by anything in his life--excepthis newly-made wife. The men were not gentle, but they were merry. Theyshouted gaily back and forth at each other with a humor of their own.When Tony stalled his unfamiliar motor there was much unpolishedwitticism at his expense; but also a neighbor jumped down to crank themachine for him, and another sprang up to the seat beside the new manand gave him a score of valuable hints in a dozen terse sentences. Whenhe finally drove up the incline into the street, he found that RussianMike appeared to have a complete map of the Jersey City river frontengraved on his otherwise blank intelligence and proved as willinglyefficient a guide on the streets as in the factory. If the difficultieswere more numerous than the novice had anticipated and the work harder,these things were more than offset by the unexpected comradeship heencountered.

  All day, amid the steady press of events, the thought of his wife laywarm at the core of his heart. His love was matched only by his deepwonder at the thing which had befallen him. The exultation of successfulescape was strong upon him; escape from loathsome bonds, fromcomplicated problems his innately simple mind detested, above all, fromthe guidance of other people. He and Elsie were alone as no distancearound the world could have made them. He had come to a place in lifewhere he was not a boy to be governed, but master in his own right. Aheat of pride had burned his face when he had answered "Yes" to thesuperintendent's question: "Married?" Decidedly he meant to stay in thehome and the factory of his first adventure, if possible.

  On his first trip he made an excuse to stop at a stationer's, where hewrote for himself a recommendation signed by Anthony Adriance, Junior.The ruse amused him; he found himself childishly ready to be amused.When he brought the truck in from the last journey of the day hepresented this letter to Mr. Ransome, who read and returned it with anod of content.

  "All right; to-morrow at seven," he said briefly.

  He ached in every unaccustomed muscle bent to toil when he strode up thehill at dusk, his day's work over. But he was no more affected by thatthan a boy on his first day of camping--it was part of the sport.Because he was learning unselfishness
he felt more anxiety as to howElsie had got through the day. Housework in the rather primitive cottagewas a different thing from caring for Holly Masterson in his luxuriouspink-and-gold nursery. Would he find her discouraged, tired--perhapscross? He smiled audacious confidence in his ability to caress her intogood humor, but he wondered rather uneasily whether his wages wouldsupport a maid should Elsie demand one as necessary. He was utterlyunused to the practical apportionment of money.

  There were new curtains draped across the lighted windows of the littlered house. As he turned up the ridiculous plank walk he saw a verydiminutive kitten seated on the window-sill inside washing its face. Andthen he heard a fresh, smooth voice singing the drollest little air heever had heard in his musical experience--a minor grotesqueriedistinctive as the flavor of _bouillabaisse orleanais_. He opened thedoor and his wife laughed at him across the bright room, flushed withfire heat, dainty in her lavender frock and white ruffled apron,arrested with a steaming tureen uplifted in her little hands.

  Perhaps she had doubted how he would come home from that first day ofwork. For just a moment they drank full reassurance from each other'seyes; then Adriance was across the room.

  "Put it down or I'll spill it!"

  "Sir, this is a soup extraordinary! Would you overturn your supper?"

  "Yes, for this," said Adriance, and kissed her soft mouth.

  "Anthony, can one be _too_ happy and affront the fates?"

  "No."

  "We can go on and on, and nothing will happen!"

  "Please God!" said Tony Adriance with perfect reverence.

  "It is not a wonderful adventure now; it is just life?"

  "Of course. I say--I wish that van-driver could see me now--the one Itold you about last night."

  "The butcher gave me the kitten, Anthony."

  "Of course he did; any man would give you all he had. What were yousinging when I came in?"

  "How should I know? I know a thousand bits of song and a thousandstories, and they march in and out of my head. Our dinner is spoiling,Mr. Adriance."

  "I love you!"

  "I dislike you!" she mocked him.

  There was no one in New York who would have quite recognized eitherAnthony or Elsie Adriance in these two children at play together.

  "Next Saturday evening I want you to take me shopping, please," she toldhim when they were seated at supper.

  "Enchanted; but why Saturday?"

  "Because you will have your wages then, naturally. We need more dishes,and a casserole, and a ribbon for the kitten, and--thousands ofthings."

  "Shall I have wealth enough?"

  "Plenty; we are going to the 5-10-20 cent store."

  "I thought those were the prices of melodrama on the East Side."

  "Wait. You may find the event even tragic, if I want too many seductivearticles," she cautioned him. "But let us not talk of merethings--aren't you going to tell me about your day?"

  "I am. But it was a day like any other workingman's, I suppose; nothinghappened."

  "Did you want anything to happen? I imagined----"

  "All I want," said Tony Adriance fervently, "is to be left alone, withyou."