CHAPTER III
I WATCH AN INFANT

It was all very well for Frieda to tell Mrs. Milliken that, if I had no objection to that baby, no one else could resent its presence. She assumes too much. If I had really belonged to the order of vertebrates I should have objected most strenuously, for its presence is disturbing. It diverts my attention from literary effort. But of course, since I am as spineless as a mollusk, I sought to accept this heaven-sent visitation with due resignation. My endeavor to continue that story was a most pitiful farce. Four times, in reading over a single page, I found the word baby inserted where I had meant to write dog or one of the few available synonyms. I wondered whether it was owing to lack of sleep that my efforts failed and threw myself upon the bed, but my seeking for balmy slumber was more ghastly than my attempt at literature. Never in all my life had I been more arrantly wakeful. A desperate resolve came to me and I flipped a quarter. Heads and I would sit down and play solitaire; tails and I would take a boat to Coney Island, a place I abhor. The coin rolled under the bed, and I was hunting clumsily for it with a stick when a tremendous knock came at the door, followed by the immediate entrance of the washerwoman's sister, whom I afterwards knew as Eulalie Carpaux.

I explained my position, half under the bed, feeling that she had caught me in an attitude lacking in dignity, but the good creature sympathized with me and discovered my money at once, after which she insisted on taking my whiskbroom and vigorously dusting my knees.

"I have come, Monsieur," she informed me, "to ask if your door may be left open. The heat is terrible and the poor, dear lamb has perspiration on her forehead. I know that currents of air are dangerous, but suffocation is worse. What shall I do?"

"You will open as many doors as you please," I answered meekly.

"Thank you. One can see that Monsieur has a good heart, but then any friend of Mademoiselle Frieda must be a good man. She is adorable and uses a great deal of linen. May I ask who does Monsieur's washing?"

"A Chinaman," I answered shortly. "He scrubs it with cinders and irons it with a nutmeg grater. I keep it in this closet on the floor."

"My sister," she informed me, "has four children and washes beautifully. I am sure that if Monsieur allowed me to take his linen, he would be greatly pleased."

"Take it," I said, and waved my hand to signify that the interview was closed, whereupon she mopped her red face, joyfully, with her apron and withdrew.

Here was a pretty kettle of fish. Immediately the most gorgeous ideas for my story crowded my brain and the language came to me, beautiful and touching. But the Murillo-woman's door was open and so was mine. Since Eulalie had ventured to leave the room, it was most probable that her charge was sleeping. The typewriter, of course, would awaken her at once. Was that infant destined to deprive me of a living, to snatch the bread from my mouth? But I reflected that temperatures of ninety in the shade were inconstant phenomena. It would be but a temporary annoyance and the best thing I could do, since I was driven out of house and home, was to take my hat and go to the beach for a swim. The die was cast and I moved to the door, but had to return to place a paperweight on loose sheets littering my desk, whereupon my eyes fell on the old pack of cards and I threw the hat upon the bed and began solitaire. My plans often work out in such fashion. Ten minutes later I was electrified by a cry, a tiny squeak that could hardly have disturbed Herod himself. But it aroused my curiosity and I tiptoed along the hallway, suspecting that the woman Eulalie might not be attending properly to her duties, whatever they were. Everything was still again, and the unjustly mistrusted party was rocking ponderously, with an amorphous bundle in her lap. She smiled at me, graciously. Upon the bed I caught a glimpse of wonderful chestnut hair touched by a thread of sunlight streaming tenuously from the side of a lowered blind; also, I saw a rounded arm. Eulalie put a fat finger to rubicund lips and I retired, cautiously.

How in the world could I have been bothering my head about a trumpery and impossible dog? In that room Nature was making apologetic amends. A woman had obeyed the law of God and man, which, like all other laws, falls heaviest on the weak. She was being graciously permitted to forget past misery and, perchance, dream of happier days to come, while David Cole, scrub coiner of empty phrases, bemoaned the need of keeping quiet for a few hours. I decided that I ought to be ashamed of myself. "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" was at my hand and I took it up, the volume opening spontaneously at the "Story of Iris," and I lost myself in its delight.

An hour later came a light step, swiftly, and the little doctor appeared. He is as tall as I, but looks so very young that he seems small to me. He entered my room, cheerfully, looking as fresh and nice as if rosy dreams had filled his night.

"Well! How are things wagging?" he inquired breezily.

He was fanning himself with his neat straw hat, and I asked him to sit down for a moment.

"Sure! But only for a minute or two. I have a throat clinic to attend at one o'clock. There's just time for this visit, then a bite at Childs' and a skip to Bellevue."

I looked at my watch and found he had allowed himself just fifty minutes for these various occupations.

"Don't let me detain you, my dear boy," I told him. "I – I just wanted to say that I haven't the least idea whether – whether that young creature in the other room has a cent to bless herself with. It seems to me – I think that she should have every care, and I shall be glad if you will consider me responsible – er – within the limits of a moderate income."

"Thanks," he said, "that's very kind of you."

His eyes strayed on my desk, and he pounced upon a copy of "The City's Wrath."

"Tell you what," he said, "that's a tip-top book. I borrowed my mother's copy and read it all night. The fellow who wrote it knows something about the slender connection between body and soul, in this big city. He's looked pretty deep into people's lives."

No compliments I ever received, with the exception of Frieda's, gave me greater pleasure than the appreciation of this honest, strong lad.

"Will you kindly give me your full name?" I asked him.

"Thomas Lawrence Porter," he answered.

I took the volume and wrote it down on the first page, adding kindest regards and my signature, and handed it to him, whereat he stared at me.

"D'ye mean to say you're the chap who wrote that book," he said, and wrung my hand, painfully. "I'm proud to meet you. If you don't mind, I'd like to come in some time and – and chat about things with you, any evening when you're not busy. You know an awful lot about – about people."

"My good friend," I told him, "don't permit youthful enthusiasm to run away with you. But I shall be delighted to have you drop in. And now, since your time is so limited, you had better go and see your patient."

He tucked his book under his arm and went down the hallway. After remaining in the room for perhaps a quarter of an hour, he came out again, cheerfully.

"Doing exceedingly well," he called to me. "By-by; see you again very soon, I hope."

He vanished down the stairs, and I took up my book again, holding it in one hand while I went to the windows, intending to draw down a blind against the sunlight that was streaming in. The heat was entering in gusts and, for a second, a sparrow sat on my window ledge with head drooping, as if it were about to succumb. Then I drew down the blinds and immediately let them up again, reflecting that in the room opposite mine they were lowered for the sake of darkness and air and that my action would lessen the latter. So I sponged off my cranium and panted. It was being revealed to me that babies, whatever their other qualifications, were exquisitely complicated nuisances.

Yet an Arab, I told myself, refuses to step on a piece of paper, lest upon it might be written the name of the Deity, while some Hindoos carry little brooms and sweep the path before them, that they may not tread upon one of Buddha's creatures. Who knows whether divinity does not leave its signature on every infant, and who can reasonably doubt that infinite goodness possesses an equity in prospective men and women. Shall I be less civil than a sand-washed Bedouin or the monk of a Benares shrine? It behooves me to welcome a chance to acquire merit by showing patience.

The book I held was as charming as ever, of course, but since I knew the story by heart I dropped it on my knees and waged a losing fight against a fly, which persisted in perching itself on my brow. Before me flitted the idea that a skull-cap made of sticky fly-paper might be patentable and sell by the million, combining protection and revenge; I must look into the matter. Finally hunger troubled me and I decided to go out for refreshment. Before my neighbor's door I stopped for an instant, my eyes seeking to penetrate the dimness. Eulalie came to me at once and began to whisper.

"Would Monsieur be so very kind as to remain here for a few moments and watch?" she said. "I am going to run over to my sister's and tell her to buy a chicken and make broth. It will be very good for our poor, dear lady. In ten minutes I will be back."

Man's freedom of action is apparently a mere academic concept. Theoretically, I was entirely at liberty to refuse, to look down upon this woman from the superior height of my alleged intellectuality and inform her that my soul craved for an immediate glass of iced tea and some poached eggs on toast. I could have asserted that I did not purpose to allow myself to be bulldozed by an infant seven hours and ten minutes old. As a matter of fact, I was helpless and consented, Eulalie shaking the stairs during her cautious, down-ward progress. It was with some of the feelings of an apprentice in the art of lion-taming that I entered the room. Would the proceeding be tranquil and dignified, or accompanied by roars?

I sat down upon the rocker just vacated by Eulalie and gazed on the horsehair sofa as if the package resting on it were explosive, with a fuse alight. I had feared that it would be thrust upon my lap, but it is likely that my competency had been justifiably suspected. I dared not move the chair, fearing to make a noise, and could see nothing of the white arms or the Murillo face. Suddenly, an orgy of steam-whistling began, rousing my apprehensions while recalling workers to their factories. It proved but a false alarm and stillness prevailed in the top-floor back, for at least three minutes, when the dreaded wail arose.

"Please, Eulalie," came a husky, low voice. "Give me my baby."

It was then that my already damp brow began to stream. She wanted her baby and wouldn't be happy till she got it. My duty, I realized, was to go to the sofa and pick up the animated and noisy parcel. It would then have to be conveyed to the bed! Nervously, I prepared to obey.

"Eulalie has gone out for a few minutes," I explained, in the subdued tones I deemed suitable to a sickroom. "Here – here is the bundle. I think it wriggles."

"Thank you ever so much and – and please turn him the other way – yes, those are the feet. And would you pull up the shade a little bit, I think I would have more air."

I raised the thing, letting in a flood of light, and feasted my eyes in utter liberty. Poor child, she must have a cold, for she suffers from hoarseness. She paid little more heed to me than did the ancient Roman ladies to the slaves they refused to recognize as men. I realized my small importance when she tenderly pushed aside the little folds and revealed diminutive features over which she sighed, contentedly, while I drew my chair a little nearer to the bed. Since a Murillo was on free exhibition, I might as well gaze upon it and admire. That faint little wailing had stopped at once.

"Don't you think he is ever so good and well-behaved?" she asked me, after a while.

I assented, forbearing to tell her that his existence had not yet been sufficiently long to prove him entirely free from all taint of original sin.

"It's such a comfort," she assured me.

Already, by the saintly grace of a mother's heart, she was endowing her offspring with all the virtues. The wondrous optics of motherhood revealed beauty, wisdom, good intent, the promise of great things to come, all concentrated in this tabloid form of man. So mote it be!

The tiny head rested on her outstretched rounded arm and she closed her eyes once more. The plentiful chestnut hair had been braided tight and pinned at the top of her head.

"I wish Gordon McGrath could see her," I told myself. "No, Frieda wouldn't do the picture justice. She would seek to improve on Nature's handiwork; she would etherealize it, make it so dainty that it would become poetry instead of the beautiful plain language the universal mother sometimes speaks. Gordon would paint something that lived and breathed. He would draw real flesh and blood, recognizing that truth unadorned is often very splendid."

At this time I bethought myself of the baby's father. The man was over there, taking his part in the greatest tragedy ever enacted. At this very moment, perhaps, he was engaged in destroying life and knew nothing of this little son. I pitied him. Ye Gods! But for the strength and insolence of some of the mighty ones of this earth he would have been in this room, and I should have been quietly engaged in consuming poached eggs. He would have been appeasing the hunger of his eyes and the longing of his soul with the sight of the picture now before me, in the solemn happiness that must surely come to a man at such a time. A feeling of chilliness came over me as I inopportunely remembered an interview I had some months ago with a fellow called Hawkins. I was in his office downtown when the telephone rang, and he took down the receiver.

"A son," he called back. "Good enough! I was afraid it might be another girl!"

Then he dictated a short letter to his stenographer and calmly picked up his hat.

"Come along, Cole," he said. "They tell me I have a boy. Let's go out and have a highball."

Knowing Hawkins as I do, I am certain he would have had the drink anyway. This new-born offspring of his merely served him as a peg whereon to hang the responsibility for his tipple. The great and wonderful news really affected him little.

But why was I thinking of such monsters? The father of this little baby, I am sure, must be a decent and normal man. He would have come in, hatless and breathless, and thrown himself upon his knees to worship and adore. The very first clumsy touch upon the tiny cheek would have sent a thrill through him, and tears would have welled up in his eyes!

Such were my thoughts when I remembered that, as a delver in fiction, it was probably becoming my second nature to exaggerate a little. To me, after all, a recent father was perhaps like the mule whose story had brought the check. My notions in regard to them were of pure imagination, and I only knew them as potentially picturesque ingredients of literary concoctions. Yet, on further reflection, I conceded to myself the right to imagine newly made fathers as I saw fit. Millions of them are produced every year and among them must be some counterparts of my special conception of the type.

I was thus comforting myself when I heard a familiar wheezy breathing on the stairs. It was Frieda, who presently irrupted into the room.

"David," she commanded, "you go right out and have something to eat. I'm sure you are starving. I will stay here till that woman comes back. I left her at the corner, carrying a fowl to her sister's, and she told me I would find you here."

She deposited voluminous parcels on the sofa, handled the infant with absolute confidence in her ability, and waved me out of the room. Some men are born meek and lowly, while others become monarchs and janitors; my place was to obey, after I had caught the smile suddenly come to the Murillo-woman's pale features. Frieda, I know, sees more affectionate grins than any one in Greater New York. Her presence suffices to make them sprout and grow. Mrs. Dupont had also smiled at me, true enough, but I think it was but a ray of sunshine really intended for the baby, and I had found myself in the same general direction and intercepted a trivial beam of it.

Downstairs, Mrs. Milliken met me with a frown, but her features relaxed when I handed her my week's rental and board, which I seldom partake of. Seeing her in such a happy disposition, I hastened to the door.

"I'm going upstairs to take a look at it," she announced gloomily.

I thanked Providence that Frieda was on guard and felt that I had no cause for worry. The landlady, after all, is undeniably a woman and I believe she is the erstwhile mother of several. Her asperity must surely be smoothed down by the sight of the baby's face.

As I put my hand upon the door, the old lady appeared.

"How is that baby?" she shouted, putting a hard-rubber contrivance to her ear.

"Doing splendidly and endowed with all the virtues," I clamored in the instrument.

"I'd give him sugared water for it," she responded severely.

I rushed out. Dr. Porter had strictly forbidden the stuff, calling it a fount of potential colic. I must say that I felt a sneaking sympathy with the old lady's view. Why refuse a bit of sweetness to a tiny infant, perhaps destined to taste little of it in afterlife? But, fortunately, the realization of my ineptitude came uppermost. That silly, romantic tendency of mine was leading me to think more of future privations than immediate pains in a diminutive stomach. I wondered whether I should ever become a practical member of society. The doctor's orders must and shall be obeyed, or my name is not David Cole!