by O. Henry
As for Nancy, her case was one of tens of thousands. Silk and jewels and laces and ornaments and the perfume and music of the fine world of good breeding and taste – these were made for woman; they are her equitable portion. Let her keep near them if they are a part of life to her, and if she will. She is no traitor to herself, as Esau was; for she keeps her birthright, and the pottage she earns is often very scant.
In this atmosphere Nancy belonged, and she throve in it and ate her frugal meals and schemed over her cheap dresses with a determined and contented mind. She already knew woman; and she was studying man, the animal, both as to his habits and eligibility. Some day she would bring down the game that she wanted; but she promised herself it would be what seemed to her the biggest and the best, and nothing smaller.
Thus she kept her lamp trimmed and burning to receive the bridegroom when he should come.
But another lesson she learned, perhaps unconsciously. Her standard of values began to shift and change. Sometimes the dollar-mark grew blurred in her mind’s eye, and shaped itself into letters that spelled such words as ‘truth’ and ‘honour’ and now and then just ‘kindness’. Let us make a likeness of one who hunts the moose or elk in some mighty wood. He sees a little dell, mossy and embowered, where a rill trickles, babbling to him of rest and comfort. At these times the spear of Nimrod himself grows blunt.
So Nancy wondered sometimes if Persian lamb was always quoted at its market value by the hearts that it covered.
One Thursday evening Nancy left the store and turned across Sixth Avenue, westward to the laundry. She was expected to go with Lou and Dan to a musical comedy.
Dan was just coming out of the laundry when she arrived. There was a queer, strained look on his face.
‘I thought I would drop around to see if they had heard from her,’ he said.
‘Heard from who?’ asked Nancy. ‘Isn’t Lou there?’
‘I thought you knew,’ said Dan. ‘She hasn’t been there or at the house where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things there. She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to Europe.’
‘Hasn’t anybody seen her anywhere?’ asked Nancy.
Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly and a steely gleam in his steady gray eyes.
‘They told me in the laundry,’ he said harshly, ‘that they saw her pass yesterday – in an automobile. With one of the millionaires, I suppose, that you and Lou were for ever busying your brains about.’
For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand, that trembled slightly, on Dan’s sleeve.
‘You’ve no right to say such a thing to me, Dan – as if I had anything to do with it!’
‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ said Dan, softening. He fumbled in his vest pocket.
‘I’ve got the tickets for the show tonight,’ he said, with a gallant show of lightness. ‘If you—’
Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it.
‘I’ll go with you, Dan,’ she said.
Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again.
At the twilight one evening the shop-girl was hurrying home along the border of a little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled about in time to catch Lou rushing into her arms.
After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and creations of the tailor’s art.
‘You little fool!’ cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. ‘I see you are still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how about that big catch you were going to make – nothing doing yet, I suppose?’
And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity had descended upon Nancy – something that shone brighter than gems in her eyes and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like electricity anxious to be loosed from the tip of her tongue.
‘Yes, I’m still in the store,’ said Nancy, ‘but I’m going to leave it next week. I’ve made my catch – the biggest catch in the world. You won’t mind now, Lou, will you? – I’m going to be married to Dan – to Dan! – he’s my Dan now – why, Lou!’
Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop, smooth-faced young policemen that are making the force more endurable – at least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur coat and diamond-ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence of the park, sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly dressed working girl leaned close, trying to console her. But the Gibsonian cop, being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he was wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help, so far as the power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his nightstick till the sound goes up to the farthermost stars.
‘Little Speck in Garnered Fruit’
The honeymoon was at its full. There was a flat with the reddest of new carpets, tasselled portieres and six steins with pewter lids arranged on a ledge above the wainscoting of the dining-room. The wonder of it was yet upon them. Neither of them had ever seen a yellow primrose by the river’s brim; but if such a sight had met their eyes at that time it would have seemed like – well, whatever the poet expected the right kind of people to see in it besides a primrose.
The bride sat in the rocker with her feet resting upon the world. She was wrapped in rosy dreams and a kimono of the same hue. She wondered what the people in Greenland and Tasmania and Baluchistan were saying one to another about her marriage to Kid McGarry. Not that it made any difference. There was no welterweight from London to the Southern Cross that could stand up four hours – no, four rounds – with her bridegroom. And he had been hers for three weeks; and the crook of her little finger could sway him more than the fist of any 142-pounder in the world.
Love, when it is ours, is the other name for self-abnegation and sacrifice. When it belongs to people across the airshaft it means arrogance and self-conceit.
The bride crossed her Oxfords and looked thoughtfully at the distemper Cupids on the ceiling.
‘Precious,’ said she, with the air of Cleopatra asking Antony for Rome done up in tissue-paper and delivered at residence, ‘I think I would like a peach.’
Kid McGarry arose and put on his coat and hat. He was serious, shaven, sentimental and spry.
‘All right,’ said he, as coolly as though he were only agreeing to sign articles to fight the champion of England. ‘I’ll step down and cop one out for you – see?’
‘Don’t be long,’ said the bride. ‘I’ll be lonesome without my naughty boy. Get a nice ripe one.’
After a series of farewells that would have befitted an imminent voyage to foreign parts, the Kid went down to the street.
Here he not unreasonably hesitated, for the season was yet early spring, and there seemed small chance of wrestling anywhere from those chill streets and stores the coveted luscious guerdon of summer’s golden prime.
At the Italian’s fruit-stand on the corner he stopped and cast a contemptuous eye over the display of papered oranges, highly polished apples and wan, sun-hungry bananas.
‘Gotta da peach?’ asked the Kid in the tongue of Dante, the lover of lovers.
‘Ah, no,’ sighed the vender. ‘Not for one mont com-a da peach. Too soon. Gotta da nice-a orange. Like-a da orange?’
Scornful, the Kid pursued his quest. He entered the all-night chop-house, café, and bowling-alley of his friend and admirer, Justus O’Callahan. The O’Callahan was about in his institution, looking for leaks.
‘I want it straight,’ said the Kid to him. ‘The old woman has got a hunch that she wants a peach. Now, if you’ve got a peach, Cal, get it out quick. I want it and others like it if you’ve got ’em in plural quantities.’
‘The house is yours,’ said O’Callahan. ‘But there’s no peach in it. It’s too soon. I don’t suppose you could even find ’em at
one of the Broadway joints. That’s too bad. When a lady fixes her mouth for a certain kind of fruit nothing else won’t do. It’s too late now to find any of the first-class fruiterers open. But if you think the missis would like some nice oranges, I’ve just got a box of fine ones in that she might—’
‘Much obliged, Cal. It’s a peach proposition right from the ring of the gong. I’ll try farther.’
The time was nearly midnight as the Kid walked down the West-Side avenue. Few stores were open, and such as were practically hooted at the idea of a peach.
But in her moated flat the bride confidently awaited her Persian fruit. A champion welterweight not find a peach? – not stride triumphantly over the seasons and the zodiac and the almanac to fetch an Amsden’s June or a Georgia cling to his owny-own?
The Kid’s eye caught sight of a window that was lighted and gorgeous with Nature’s most entrancing colours. The light suddenly went out. The Kid sprinted and caught the fruiterer locking his door.
‘Peaches?’ said he, with extreme deliberation.
‘Well, no, sir. Not for three or four weeks yet. I haven’t any idea where you might find some. There may be a few in town from under the glass, but they’d be hard to locate. Maybe at one of the more expensive hotels – some place where there’s plenty of money to waste. I’ve got some very fine oranges, though – from a shipload that came in today.’
The Kid lingered on the corner for a moment, and then set out briskly toward a pair of green lights that flanked the steps of a building down a dark side-street.
‘Captain around anywhere?’ he asked of the desk sergeant of the police-station.
At that moment the Captain came briskly forward from the rear. He was in plain clothes, and had a busy air.
‘Hello, Kid,’ he said to the pugilist. ‘Thought you were bridal-touring?’
‘Got back yesterday. I’m a solid citizen now. Think I’ll take an interest in municipal doings. How would it suit you to get into Denver Dick’s place tonight, Cap?’
‘Past performances,’ said the Captain, twisting his moustache. ‘Denver was closed up two months ago.’
‘Correct,’ said the Kid. ‘Rafferty chased him out of the Forty-Third. He’s running in your precinct now, and his game’s bigger than ever. I’m down on this gambling business. I can put you against his game.’
‘In my precinct?’ growled the Captain. ‘Are you sure, Kid? I’ll take it as a favour. Have you got the entrée. How is it to be done?’
‘Hammers,’ said the Kid. ‘They haven’t got any steel on the doors yet. You’ll need ten men. No; they won’t let me in the place. Denver has been trying to do me. He thought I tipped him off for the other raid. I didn’t though. You want to hurry. I’ve got to get back home. The house is only three blocks from here.’
Before ten minutes had sped the Captain with a dozen men stole with their guide into the hallway of a dark and virtuous-looking building in which businesses were conducted by day.
‘Third floor, rear,’ said the Kid softly. ‘I’ll lead the way.’
Two axemen faced the door that he pointed out to them.
‘It seems all quiet,’ said the Captain doubtfully. ‘Are you sure your tip is straight?’
‘Cut away!’ said the Kid. ‘It’s on me if it ain’t.’
The axes crashed through the as yet unprotected door. A blaze of light from within poured through the smashed panels. The door fell, and the raiders sprang into the room with their guns handy.
The big room was furnished with the gaudy magnificence dear to Denver Dick’s western ideas. Various well-patronised games were in progress. About fifty men who were in the room rushed upon the police in a grand break for personal liberty. The plain-clothes men had to do a little club-swinging. More than half the patrons escaped.
Denver Dick had graced his game with his own presence that night. He led the rush that was intended to sweep away the smaller body of raiders. But when he saw the Kid his manner became personal. Being in the heavyweight class, he cast himself joyfully upon his slighter enemy, and they rolled down a flight of stairs in each other’s arms. On the landing they separated and arose, and then the Kid was able to use some of his professional tactics, which had been useless to him while in the clutch of a 200-pound sporting gentleman who was about to lose $20,000 worth of paraphernalia.
After vanquishing his adversary, the Kid hurried upstairs and through the gambling-room into a smaller apartment connecting by an arched doorway.
Here was a long table set with choicest chinaware and silver, and lavishly furnished with food of that expensive and spectacular sort of which the devotees of sport are supposed to be fond. Here again was to be perceived the liberal and florid taste of the gentleman with the urban cognomenal prefix.
A No. 10 patent leather shoe protruded a few of its inches outside the tablecloth along the floor. The Kid seized this, and plucked forth a black man in a white tie and the garb of a servitor.
‘Get up!’ commanded the Kid. ‘Are you in charge of this free lunch?’
‘Yes, sah, I was. Has they done pinched us ag’in, boss?’
‘Looks that way. Listen to me. Are there any peaches in this layout? If there ain’t I’ll have to throw up the sponge.’
‘There was three dozen, sah, when the game opened this evinin’; but I reckon the gentlemen done eat ’em all up. If you’d like to eat a fust-rate orange, sah, I kin find you some.’
‘Get busy,’ ordered the Kid sternly, ‘and move whatever peach crop you’ve got quick, or there’ll be trouble. If anybody oranges me again tonight, I’ll knock his face off.’
The raid on Denver Dick’s high-priced and prodigal luncheon revealed one lone, last peach that had escaped the epicurean jaws of the followers of chance. Into the Kid’s pocket it went, and that indefatlgable forager departed immediately with his prize. With scarcely a glance at the scene on the sidewalk below, where the officers were loading their prisoners into the patrol wagons, he moved homeward with long, swift strides.
His heart was light as he went. So rode the knights back to Camelot after perils and high deeds done for their ladies fair. The Kid’s lady had commanded him and he had obeyed. True, it was but a peach that she had craved; but it had been no small deed to glean a peach at midnight from that wintry city where yet the February snows lay like iron. She had asked for a peach; she was his bride; in his pocket the peach was warming in his hand that held it for fear that it might fall out and be lost.
On the way the Kid turned in at an all-night drugstore and said to the spectacled clerk: ‘Say, sport, I wish you’d size up this rib of mine and see if it’s broke. I was in a little scrap, and bumped down a flight or two of stairs.’
The druggist made an examination.
‘It isn’t broken,’ was his diagnosis; ‘but you have a bruise there that looks like you’d fallen off the Flatiron twice.’
‘That’s all right,’ said the Kid. ‘Let’s have your clothes-brush, please.’
The bride waited in the rosy glow of the pink lampshade. The miracles were not all passed away. By breathing a desire for some slight thing – a flower, a pomegranate, a – oh, yes, a peach – she could send forth her man into the night, into the world which could not withstand him, and he would do her bidding.
And now he stood by her chair and laid the peach in her hand.
‘Naughty boy!’ she said fondly. ‘Did I say a peach? I think I would much rather have had an orange.’
Blest be the bride.
The Pendulum
‘Eighty-First Street – let ’em out, please,’ yelled the shepherd in blue.
A flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambled aboard. Ding-ding! The cattle cars of the Manhattan Elevated rattled away, and John Perkins drifted down the stairway of the station with the released flock.
John walked slowly toward his flat. Slowly, because in the lexicon of his daily life there was no such word as ‘perhaps’. There are no surprises awaiting a man wh
o has been married two years and lives in a flat. As he walked John Perkins prophesied to himself with gloomy and downtrodden cynicism the foregone conclusions of the monotonous day.
Katy would meet him at the door with a kiss flavoured with cold cream and butterscotch. He would remove his coat, sit upon a macadamised lounge and read, in the evening paper, of Russians and Japs slaughtered by the deadly Linotype. For dinner there would be pot roast; a salad flavoured with a dressing warranted not to crack or injure the leather, stewed rhubarb and the bottle of strawberry marmalade blushing at the certificate of chemical purity on its label. After dinner Katy would show him the new patch in her crazy quilt that the iceman had cut for her off the end of his four-in-hand. At half-past seven they would spread newspapers over the furniture to catch the pieces of plastering that fell when the fat man in the flat overhead began to take his physical culture exercises. Exactly at eight Hickey & Mooney, of the vaudeville team (unbooked) in the flat across the hall would yield to the gentle influence of delirium tremens and begin to overturn chairs under the delusion that Hammerstein was pursuing them with a five-hundred-dollar-a-week contract. Then the gent at the window across the air-shaft would get out his flute; the nightly gas leak would steal forth to frolic in the highways; the dumb waiter would slip off its trolley; the janitor would drive Mrs Zanowitski’s five children once more across the Yalu, the lady with the champagne shoes and the Skye terrier would trip downstairs and paste her Thursday name over her bell and letter box – and the evening routine of the Frogmore flats would be under way.
John Perkins knew these things would happen. And he knew that at a quarter-past eight he would summon his nerve and reach for his hat, and that his wife would deliver this speech in a querulous tone: ‘Now, where are you going, I’d like to know, John Perkins?’