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Page 12
Hetty was a Shoulder. Hers was a sharp, sinewy shoulder; but all her
life people had laid their heads upon it, metaphorically or actually,
and had left there all or half their troubles. Looking at Life
anatomically, which is as good a way as any, she was preordained to be
a Shoulder. There were few truer collar-bones anywhere than hers.
Hetty was only thirty-three, and she had not yet outlived the little
pang that visited her whenever the head of youth and beauty leaned
upon her for consolation. But one glance in her mirror always served
as an instantaneous pain-killer. So she gave one pale look into the
crinkly old looking-glass on the wall above the gas-stove, turned down
the flame a little lower from the bubbling beef and potatoes, went
over to the couch, and lifted Cecilia's head to its confessional.
"Go on and tell me, honey," she said. "I know now that it ain't art
that's worrying you. You met him on a ferry-boat, didn't you? Go on,
Cecilia, kid, and tell your--your Aunt Hetty about it."
But youth and melancholy must first spend the surplus of sighs and
tears that waft and float the barque of romance to its harbor in the
delectable isles. Presently, through the stringy tendons that formed
the bars of the confessional, the penitent--or was it the glorified
communicant of the sacred flame--told her story without art or
illumination.
"It was only three days ago. I was coming back on the ferry from
Jersey City. Old Mr. Schrum, an art dealer, told me of a rich man in
Newark who wanted a miniature of his daughter painted. I went to see
him and showed him some of my work. When I told him the price would
be fifty dollars he laughed at me like a hyena. He said an enlarged
crayon twenty times the size would cost him only eight dollars.
"I had just enough money to buy my ferry ticket back to New York. I
felt as if I didn't want to live another day. I must have looked as I
felt, for I saw him on the row of seats opposite me, looking at me as
if he understood. He was nice-looking, but oh, above everything else,
he looked kind. When one is tired or unhappy or hopeless, kindness
counts more than anything else.
"When I got so miserable that I couldn't fight against it any longer,
I got up and walked slowly out the rear door of the ferry-boat cabin.
No one was there, and I slipped quickly over the rail and dropped into
the water. Oh, friend Hetty, it was cold, cold!
"For just one moment I wished I was back in the old Vallambrosa,
starving and hoping. And then I got numb, and didn't care. And then
I felt that somebody else was in the water close by me, holding me up.
He had followed me, and jumped in to save me.
"Somebody threw a thing like a big, white doughnut at us, and he made
me put my arms through the hole. Then the ferry-boat backed, and they
pulled us on board. Oh, Hetty, I was so ashamed of my wickedness in
trying to drown myself; and, besides, my hair had all tumbled down and
was sopping wet, and I was such a sight.
"And then some men in blue clothes came around; and he gave them his
card, and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on the
edge of the boat outside the rail, and in leaning over to get it I had
fallen overboard.
And then I remembered having read in the papers that people who try to
kill themselves are locked up in cells with people who try to kill
other people, and I was afraid.
"But some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace-room
and got me nearly dry and did up my hair. When the boat landed, he
came and put me in a cab. He was all dripping himself, but laughed as
if he thought it was all a joke. He begged me, but I wouldn't tell
him my name nor where I lived, I was so ashamed."
"You were a fool, child," said Hetty, kindly. "Wait till I turn the
light up a bit. I wish to Heaven we had an onion."
"Then he raised his hat," went on Cecilia, "and said: 'Very well. But
I'll find you, anyhow. I'm going to claim my rights of salvage.'
Then he gave money to the cab-driver and told him to take me where I
wanted to go, and walked away. What is 'salvage,' Hetty?"
"The edge of a piece of goods that ain't hemmed," said the shop-girl.
"You must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little hero
boy."
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