Wocel's Daughter

’NONZIATA came out and seated herself on the doorstep of the boardinghouse. It was her leisure hour; the men were at table, and she could put on a fresh blue apron, sit with hands folded, and enjoy the bustle of the street. The whistle at Green Hollow Shaft had just “blown out,” and Pumpkin Breaker and Pumpkin Shaft came close after.

The streets began to fill with men and boys, — laborers, drivers, and doorboys from underground, a few men and a drove of screen-room imps from the breaker. The miners, who finish their work early, as a general thing take time to scrub off hands and face in the wash-house, and so come through the streets by twos and threes. ’Nonziata’s six o’clock procession, on the contrary, was more of a spectacle; the hurrying figures, jet-black from cap to shoes, crowded the ugly street. Hobnails on the brick pavement, the clank of empty dinner pails, the crack of the drivers’ long snake-whips, the babel of German, Russian, Polish, Slovak, Czech, Italian, Magyar, filled the place with life and bustle.

Antonin Wocel, the girl’s father, had been in the country ten years. Thrifty, industrious, and keen, he had prospered notably. His boyhood in the little village of northern Hungary, where Polish was spoken as often as his native Slovak, had given him two languages; he had seen life, and added further to his accomplishments under the Emperor’s colors. A vagary of the Austrian war minister sent half his regiment to Innsbruck; and thence Wocel returned in his twentythird year, speaking some German, more Italian, and carrying always in his memory a girl’s name.

He settled in the home village, married one of the innkeeper’s six daughters, Slovak like himself, and tilled his third of the little farm which came down from his forefathers. His second child, a girl, he named Annunziata, — a strange, foreign, troublesome word that he could not begin to spell himself.

In the tenth year after his marriage, a drouth, a legacy from the innkeeper, and the death of his firstborn, came within a single summer month. By September, Wocel was pouring out a trilingual explanation of himself and family at Ellis Island, meanwhile shoving forward ’Nonziata with one hand, and Eliska with the other, for the inspection of a man in uniform. The coal valleys of Eastern Pennsylvania received them. On their first Sunday in the new country, the immigrants went to high mass in a Polish church, and heard in the crowded streets all the tongues of the Danube.

For the first three years, work was irregular and prices high, so that life was a harder struggle than they had found it in Hungary. Then matters bettered rapidly. Antonin had his certificate, obtained work as a fully qualified miner, rented a “company house ” on the strength of his employment, and took twelve men to board.

Just at this time, the labor union movement began among the mine workers. Speaking good enough English to make himself understood by the Irish district officers, and possessing a bitter, savage eloquence in two of the important Slav dialects, Wocel became an important man among the local unions. The superintendent of his mining company heard of him, and advised that he be discharged; the “inside boss” at Pumpkin Shaft was wiser, and gave him the best chamber in the mine. Local politicians knew him, and sent him complimentary kegs of beer. When ’Nonziata was seventeen, he moved into a larger house with five bedrooms; revised his boarding list to weed out laborers, because they came home late, and needed a second supper; added twelve new miners to make the total twenty; and kept a waiting list, like that of an exclusive club.

The innkeeper’s daughter, a short, lumpish, muscular woman, was delighted with their new prosperity. She loved laughter, crowds, and loud talk, did not fear hard work, and was never happier than when chaffering with the butcher over the twenty pounds of mutton for Sunday’s dinner, and threatening him, in her husband’s name, with the boycott.

As for ’Nonziata, she had grown into a tall girl with brown eyes and abundant flaxen hair. When she was eighteen, her father took her shopping, and from that week her American clothes were the envy of all the foreign settlements thereabout. Her church-going costume that summer was a very dream of fashion and splendor, — a white picture hat with white feathers, blue ribbons, and crimson roses, set well back over a stupendous pompadour of flaxen hair; a navy blue silk dress, with plenteous lace and ribbons, and a sweeping train; white cotton gloves; high-heeled shoes with varnished tips; and a black silk coat with brass buttons. From the possession of these splendors ’Nonziata became the belle of the settlement, although a reserve and distance in her manner puzzled the wits of various would-be admirers.

It was during the past summer that the seat on the doorstep had become her regular place after six o’clock. The air was fresher than in the kitchen, if not cooler; and at the far end of the street, beyond the black tower of Pumpkin Shaft, the wooded hillside slowly wrapped itself in a blue haze. As the sun fell lower, far-away places and people of her childhood sometimes floated in her memory, haze-wrapped like the hill. Then, when the street was empty of human company, there were the cows strolling home from the common, and the ducks and chickens scratching amicably together in the gutters, while the Italian in his grocery on the opposite corner played gay little snatches on an accordion.

Then, as the shadows lengthened, there was sure to be Stefan; and every time he came a little earlier than before. To-night, it was barely half-past six. He swung through the gate with his irregular, nervous stride, and seated himself on the lower step.

“It has been a hot day,” he said in Polish. His brown eyes, his lean, brown face, smiled up at her. Despite the weather, he wore shoes, and the inevitable long-skirted coat of dress occasions, though without collar and waistcoat, — a combination answering to the dinnerjacket stage in more pretentious circles. “I like to find you sitting there; I like to think of it.”

“Then it is lucky that you came early,” returned the girl, demure eyes upon the misty hill. “You would not have found me a little later; I am going up into town.” This was a shameless and purposeless invention of the moment.

“What for ? ”

“To — to buy some cloth.”

“The wrong night, then: to-morrow is Saturday, not to-day,— no shops open.”

“Well, I’m going. Maybe I shall just take a walk.”

“Then you shall walk in my shadow,” cried the gallant Stefan. “The sun is hot for some time yet.”

“Or to church. Yes, I think that is it. It is time that I — went to see Father Sodoliski.”

“Let us not neglect him. It is time that we both went to him. I have waited long enough; I have money in bank, and there is a house empty down here that I can” —

“Nonsense,” returned ’Nonziata calmly, though her heart thumped heavily. “I have changed my mind; I am not going at all. Christmas is time enough for confessions, anyway.”

Privacy is a luxury so costly that the transplanted peasant scarcely gives it a thought. Stefan was in deadly earnest; he went on with his wooing in good round terms, regardless of the twenty men within, the broad backs of the nearest not six feet from the girl on the doorstep. To speak English would be no better, because fully half the company understood it well; and then, too, the old tongue came warmer from the heart.

“Christmas is a long way off; we must be married long before that.”

“‘Three things cannot be told beforehand, — deaths, rainy days, and marriages,’” quoted ’Nonziata, a slow heat burning in her face.

“But why not?” The suitor sprang to his feet in his eagerness, squaring his shoulders to the struggle. “Do you not like me ? You do not dislike me, — you do not ? Oh, ’Nonziata, I have never seen a girl like you! Day in and day out I think of nobody else. If you ” — His glance fastened itself on something behind her; his whole manner chilled, and he raised his voice. “And some day I will tell you, — when that long-eared animal, Vladimir, is busy with a full manger, instead of pricking his ears back at me!”

Loud responses from within greeted this sally. Under cover of the noise, ’Nonziata made the next move in the time-honored game.

“I never said I didn’t like you; who told you I did ? ”

“Then we’ll go up to town, and tell Father Sodoliski you do!”

“What an idea! The world must move so fast to suit you, Stefan Zatorski. Sit down; I want to know something.”

“There is plenty to tell,” agreed the complaisant Stefan. “Now, if we were down at that house I spoke of” —

“I was thinking to-day of the ship, and of the place I used to live, — in my old home, I mean, when I was a child. I have nearly forgotten it. Can you remember coming to America, or any places before that?”

“I remember Warsaw.” His voice shook; a bitter, brooding trouble darkened his face.

“Did you live there ? ” she cried. Without the least notion of its location, ’Nonziata had heard of Warsaw all her life. It was the city where horses wore bridles of gold in the streets; where wars were fought; where the government lived in a citadel; where the rich were richer and prouder and more cruel, where the poor were more hopeless, more angry, more oppressed, than in any other city of the world.

“I went there with my father from our village, a long journey in carts. It was the conscription. My two brothers were drawn, and we went to see them march away, and to give them four sheepskins for coats. I do not know where they were going. Perhaps there was a war; perhaps not. Then there came men on horseback, and killed the new soldiers and the people in that street, — riding and shooting, — riding and shooting. It was a riot. When my father saw the killing, he lost his senses. He threw me to a man that stood keeping a door, and ran out into the street where my brothers lay, and saw that they were dead. Then he began to sing very loud, in Polish. That was against the law, — to sing Polish in the streets in Warsaw: you could only sing Russian. So they came back, and killed him too — with their horses — only their horses.”

“Ah, those police!” sighed the girl, shaking her head.

“I had one more brother, the oldest. He worked in a bell foundry, and he was sent for, and came and took me, and we ran away together into Posen. There was plenty of work, but he was restless, and changed his name and shaved his hair, and went from place to place, trying to forget who we were. Finally we came to America. He is in Pittsburg now. It was eighteen years ago, but even he does not know how old I am. Perhaps I was six, perhaps more, when we went to Warsaw.”

“That king of Austria ought not to let such things be done in a city. Fancy not singing what you liked, indeed! What harm is there in a song ? ” For ’Nonziata’s traditions of the Old World were vague and dim as fog-wreaths, while her American notions were the teachings of everyday fact.

“So my brother would never again speak any Russian, nor let me. And since we started out in the cart with the sheepskins to sit on, my father and I, — since that day I have never had any home.”

“I had a brother once, before we came to America,” said the girl softly. “He died; it was the smallpox. I remember the crying at his funeral.” Then, suddenly lapsing into English: “There have been plenty of kids here, too, of course. But it’s no good. They all died, one at a time.”

“And perhaps that is a reason why I am in a hurry about renting that house,” continued Stefan, following his own thought. “Perhaps that is it, — it is so long since I have been at home in my own house.”

Benches were moved, and chairs shoved about in the kitchen. Some of the men had finished supper, and were lighting their pipes with a bit of paper at the stove; this done, they went out by the back door for a comfortable barefoot smoke with neighbors.

“Sometimes I have an idea, too. There comes to me a feeling that I should like the bread better if you had made it. Perhaps you will laugh, and say it is foolish. Bread is only bread, — so perhaps it is. But after all ” —

’Nonziata laughed softly. “What strange thoughts you have! No one but Stefan would think of such things. They are so foolish that it amuses me to hear them.”

“Then you shall hear plenty, when you live in my house,” the young man promised with solemnity. “And I will buy a carpet for the bedroom, — a red and white carpet.”

“Extravagance! Wasteful!” gasped the prospective mistress of these splendors. Rich as Wocel was, he had never bought such a thing; ’Nonziata had never lived in a carpeted room.

Stefan laughed and wagged his head. “It will be none too good. Some people put them all over the house, all very bright and fancy. My boss has them that way. He sent me from the mine with a letter, and I saw.”

“What color?”

Stefan declined to be led away from the great subject. He began on a new point.

“Did you ever ride in a carriage ? Not a cart, I mean, but a real carriage, with a roof and windows, and two horses, and wheels with soft edges, and a man on the roof to drive ? ”

“No,” the girl admitted. “But I see them on Sundays.”

“I did, once. It was when Jekko wanted to get himself married. He was my laborer in the mine, then, not my butty, but when it came to marrying he wanted me to be his butty. So I did. A great carriage came and got him, and then came to my house for me to get in, and then we both went to Anna’s house to take her. But, as she had changed her mind, and would not come, there could be no wedding. Only Jekko had to pay for the carriage anyway, so I told him he and I would ride over to mass in it, and get the money’s worth. So we rode in the carriage to mass, with the white ribbons tied on the door-handles; and after mass we came home in it. It cost him three dollars beside the government license; so Jekko was cured of marrying Germans.”

“I remember. Everybody laughed, and it served him right.”

“Yes. A Pole should marry a Pole, — or a Slovak,” he responded with meaning. “But I think that it is time that I rode in a wedding carriage again, ’Nonziata.”

“Perhaps it is. Very likely there are several who would have you. My father says that women are getting more plenty every year, so that the unions are trying to have a silk mill built up in the town, to keep them busy.”

“You can keep busy without that. We will have some geese and a cow and a pig; I have an idea we might keep a store if we wanted to. Besides, you can bake the bread, you know, and I will eat it.”

“You are likely to do that, without marrying,” smiled the girl. “Serge goes away to-morrow, and my father says you are the next to come, if you choose.”

“Good; very good. Certainly I will come. But I do not think I shall stay long. It will not be the same as marrying, and there will be no great pleasure in eating what I know you have made for Jan and Michael and that great pig Vladimir as much as for me. No, no!”

“What ideas! Stefan, I am afraid your mind is sickly.”

“There is another thing, though. I have noticed that when you sit here none of the men come out and talk with you; instead, they go out by the back door. Now I will not do that when I come here.”

“It is the custom. If I sat with one, and not with another, there would be trouble all the time in the house. It is a good custom.”

“Well, I will not go out by the back door. Serge may stay or go; I will not come.”

’Nonziata only laughed.

“Very good. Then I will come. The customs can be altered. Now I have to go to meet a man.”

“Goo’-by,” returned the placid ’Nonziata.

“So long. I come to-morrow, maybe, maybe Sunday. You tell your pa. So long. An’ you think about the carriages.”

“I like,” said ’Nonziata to herself, “to hear him talk his English.” She sat where she was for a long time, thinking. When she finally roused herself, it was to go a-visiting in the neighborhood: and during the evening she resumed and prosecuted two of her most interesting flirtations.

Stefan moved to Wocel’s house on Saturday before supper. After the meal, the delicate question of his right to the front steps was avoided rather than settled, ’Nonziata artfully taking the whole space for a pan of water and the cabbages which she was washing. Stefan leaned in the doorway, smoking.

The bustle of Saturday night pervaded the settlement. Pumpkin Shaft and Green Hollow worked no night shift on Saturday, so that everybody was free to go and come; the narrow houses were more crowded, the streets gayer, the tunes from Angelo’s accordion more lively and more frequent, than on other days. Children were everywhere, outnumbering geese, chickens, and dogs together. From far down the street came a burst of shouting and laughter.

“That,” observed Zatorski, with a wave of the hand, “means four kegs at the Stawinskys’, — four kegs for seven of them. They’ll not drag themselves to mass.”

“Fools.”

“Undoubtedly. The American beer is so bad, and so high priced. It is not worth drinking, if you have to pay for it yourself.”

’Nonziata shrugged her shoulders, and gave her whole attention to the cabbage. Silences, with her, were an important part of conversation.

Stefan pulled hard at his pipe, and gazed down at her, turning over an important matter in his mind.

“Let us take a walk,” he said finally. “You can be ready by seven, and it is a pleasant night.”

’Nonziata smiled blandly. “A good idea. I feel like seeing the people; it is so gay on Saturday night.”

For there was no question in her mind as to the direction of their stroll. Those aimless wanderings along footpaths into the fragrant summer woods might do well enough for “English ladies;” they were banned by the conventions of her world. Whether for pleasure, exercise, or love-making, ’Nonziata and her mates kept to the town streets.

’Nonziata’s toilette being at last completed to her satisfaction, the pair set out. The long road stretched before them to the eastward, unpaved, unfenced, and uphill most of the way. Shabby frame houses stood along it at intervals, their doors opening upon the sidewalk of packed black dirt. Black grit of the breaker, ashen grit of the sandy road, covered alike man’s handiwork and nature’s; the very trees looked not much removed from firewood. Here and there were cabbage patches, and half-tilled fields of corn, but most of the land was gravelly waste, all a-bristle with podded milkweed and the ugly stems of the night-flowering primrose. Far ahead, a spire or two, a factory chimney, and certain wavering jets of steam marked the town. The way was long and ugly; and, despite the hour, the heat haze danced along the ground.

Yet to Stefan and ’Nonziata the world was a fair, good place, the black path an enchanted highway, the future scarcely more bright than the enraptured present. The level sun cast their long shadows before them, black upon its gold; and, ’Nonziata happening to tread upon his image, Stefan grew bold to explain a hundred fancies that he had never found breath to tell before. The girl laughed and listened, a growing content at her heart. Decidedly, Stefan was not like other people. Still, he was easy enough to understand, if one gave one’s mind to it.

The town, like all the smaller cities of the coal regions, confined its business to one long main street. Here the gayeties of Saturday night were to be seen at their best. Pianos tinkled, fiddles wailed; peddlers sold trinkets and nostrums, their torches flaring smokily even before twilight; the sidewalks were black with people, who dawdled because there was never room ahead for one free stride. Dancers were gathering in the halls, where entertainment committees had hung oak boughs and cheesecloth; the shops were open, and would not close before eleven o’clock; crowds besieged the theatre and the Ten Cent Vaudeville Auditorium; the shutter-doors of forty saloons swung to and fro without pause.

After the pair had turned into Market Street, ’Nonziata greeted a dozen acquaintances within the first block. Any sustained conversation was impossible in such a throng, and the girl willingly turned her attention to the shop windows. As for Stefan, he preferred not to talk, being occupied with a certain daring resolution.

“This is my bank,” he remarked suddenly. “Come in and wait a minute.”

She followed him into the high, narrow room, where the furniture was of red plush, and the clerks wore a martyred, Saturday-night expression. Stefan presented his pass-book, and drew forty dollars. Then the two resumed their promenade.

In front of the principal dry goods shop of the town ’Nonziata stopped with a low cry of pleasure. An entire window space was hung with palest lavender, — silks, chiffons, gloves, and parasols, satin shoes even. Zatorski slipped cleverly between two stout women, and took up a place beside her.

“Very pretty,” he remarked in English.

“Oh, ain’t they sweet, though! My! Look-a that. No, this here one, — with the vi’lets worked on it! I never seen such pretty silks as those in this town before.”

“You want to go in, ’Nonziata? You can. No hurry.”

“We-ell,” sighed the girl doubtfully; and yielded.

The silk counter was at the far end of the store; and in the course of their search Stefan whispered a question in Polish. ’Nonziata turned on him fiercely.

“Talk English!” she hissed. “Do you want them to think we be” —

“Think we be gittin’ married?” Stefan supplied.

“To think we be Huns!” she corrected with vicious emphasis. “Oh, yes. Now I got the place.” Then to the salesgirl, “I want to see that there light silk, — like in the window, — with vi’lets on.”

The thin little Scotch girl behind the counter eyed the pair with professional calm. “Two dollars a yard,” said she, throwing the piece on the counter; “ twenty-seven inches wide.” She turned her back, and walked to the centre aisle, leaving the customers to talk over the purchase.

“Here goes the third wedding dress I’ve sold to-night,” she confided to the cash girl. “All for’ners. One was navy blue, and the other Nile green. They spend a lot for ’em, all right; the men does n’t have a thing to say, but just pay up, and the girls knows it. This one’s goin’ to buy the lavender. Our Nellie ’ll be wild when I tell her; you know she’s just got hers off that violet piece, to-day.”

’Nonziata, meantime, twisting to and fro on the revolving top of her stool, had fallen into sad disorder. The love of delicate fabrics and colors was a passion with her; she could not touch the lustrous stuff before her without a flush of pleasure, and little cries of envy. As she had no idea of buying a dress, the price asked did not concern her in the least; the beautiful thing became hers in imagination without cost.

Stefan was delighted at her pleasure. “Very pretty,” he agreed. “Very nice.”

“Oh!” she exulted; “ain’t it grand ? It’s so stylish!”

Zatorski put an elbow on the counter, and leaned forward. His gaze studied the silk, but in his anxiety he saw no difference between its shimmering surface and his own mine-roughened fingers.

“Buy it,” he advised, outwardly calm, but breathless.

“Buy it?” cried the girl. “I got no money. An’ I guess if I was to ask pa ” — She smiled in derision.

“Better buy it. You buy it,” repeated Stefan. “I’ll pay.”

’Nonziata crimsoned. “You? You?”

“Buy it for the wedding dress. Yes! Oh, ’Nonziata, ’Nonziata! Why not? Oh, I — Let me talk Polish; no one can hear, and the English is too slow. — What ? ”

“We sell sixteen yards for a whole dress,” remarked the saleswoman, returning to her customers. “There’s a dressmaking department upstairs, too, — seven dollars for making.”

Stefan glowered. “Some trimming — nice trimming — you got ?” he demanded, his English and his hope alike weakening.

From the shelves behind her, the Scotch girl produced a box.

“Notthatkind. Silk! Lace! Thicker! ” insisted the wooer desperately. “You get it — bring some here.”

This had the desired effect; the inconvenient young woman marched off to the lace counter.

“Do not say no,” entreated Stefan in his own tongue. “I cannot bear such a pain as that. I care for nothing but you, ’Nonziata; you are the very core of my heart. I have forgotten that anything else ever was worth while. Do not say no. Buy the dress, and wear it for me. You are so handsome, ’Nonziata, that it will become you well. And it would be like going blind, if I am to lose you.”

“I do not want you to buy me a wedding dress,” said the girl, very low.

“Why not? It is the custom. And I think I have waited long enough. Why not ? ”

“I do not want to marry — anybody.”

“But I love you so, ’Nonziata, I will always be good to you. And think how lonesome I have been — for so long” —

Wocel’s daughter fingered the edge of the counter in silence. She could not say no; and yet —

The saleswoman came back with an armful of boxes, and slipped briskly to her place.

“Here’s everything we ’ve got,” said she. “Now shan’t I cut you off a dress pattern first ? It’s an awfully swell piece.”

Zatorski stiffened and stood erect. ’Nonziata drew breath to assent, faltered, and only sighed instead. She tried to look up at Stefan. Instead, her eyes were lifted half way; she caught a glimpse, at the far end of the store, of a group of women, a mother and two daughters, neighbors from Green Hollow. These were nudging one another, peering, and giggling. She sprang up, her face ablaze.

“It’s too dear. I don’t want it!” she snapped at the astonished salesgirl. “ Stefan! I’m going home. No, not that way! The side door.”

Through the cheerful, crowded streets the pair went in silence. ’Nonziata recovered her spirits first; but even she had nothing to say till they were clear of the town, and alone on the long, straight road to the Hollow. They had just passed a little group, — father and mother, with a baby in arms, and two sturdy toddlers dragging alongside, — and Stefan shivered.

“It is warm,” said the girl. “What made you do that? Are you cold?”

“I was thinking. You saw that man ? Well, he has a home; he has people of his own to work for. After work, he can come home to his own house, — his own children. I — I think it made me lonesome.”

’Nonziata’s heart misgave her. With a backward glance, to be sure that distance and the friendly darkness made shield enough, she slipped her hand into Stefan’s arm. “Poor, good Stefan! Not now, of course, — but perhaps in a year or two. You see, I like you.”

“A year or two!” He laughed, but without mirth. “ Oh, in a year or two we may all be dead!”

It was Saturday when Stefan brought his trunk to Wocel’s boarding-house. On Tuesday, early in the afternoon, the Pumpkin Shaft ambulance turned down the long street. House by house, women watched it, and thanked God and the saints as it passed on; it stopped before Wocel’s gate. A little crowd gathered instantly.

“I would n’t wonder if we’d have some throuble gettin’ him in here, Jim,” observed Con Mulrea. “Them for’ners is lackin’ in the dacint feelin’s for their dead entirely. Don’t let on he’s dead, or they won’t take ’im.”

“They’re scairt of a dead body,” returned the driver. “It’s the way with them ignern’t people; they don’t know no better. It’s funny, too; they’ll stick by each other livin’ good enough. It’s just that heartless way they have.”

Eliska stood in the open doorway, looking on. Her face was wooden, but her eyes held a deadly fear.

“He lives here, all right,” said Mulrea, consulting a scrap of paper. “The men told me.” He opened the door of the ambulance a crack.

“Who hurt? Who hurt?” demanded an old woman.

“His name’s Steve Zatorski. Get out o’ the road there; we ’ve got to take him in.”

Eliska came to life; she was the boarding-mistress, the stirring, bustling innkeeper’s daughter, when once that nameless weight was lifted from her heart. She ran down and slammed to the rickety gate, barricading it with her person.

“You got to let us in, ma’am. He belongs here.”

Eliska poured out a torrent of Slovak and Polish. “Tell him I have no English,” she commanded.

“She says she don’t understand no English, mister,” interpreted an obliging child.

“Thim Hungarian women never do pick up nothin’ but ‘How much?'" complained the driver. “Well, you tell her one of her boarders is hurted in the mine, an’ we brought him home. See ? Undherstan’ ? ”

“He thinks we are a pack of fools. Nobody but the Irish know anything!” commented the child in Polish, making a face. The majority of the bystanders understood what was said in both languages, but they gave no sign; Wocel’s wife was playing her own game.

“The man must be dead, else they would have taken him to the hospital. Tell him to carry him to the hospital.”

“She says, why don’t you take him to the hospital ? ”

“There, now, Jim! I told you. It’s hard to fool ’em. They’re an awful ’spicious lot. Oh — say! You tell’er the hospital’s full. See? Hospital — full. No — room. All — full. Undherstan’ me ? ”

“You heard him, Eliska,” said the child in Polish. “What shall I say to that?”

“Tell him I don’t understand,” replied the astute Eliska. “Antonin comes yonder; leave him to deal with these men.”

“She don’t understand, mister; she says take him to the hospital.”

“Listen, now! I’ll bet she’d understand all right if she wanted to. What’ll we do, Jim ? ”

“Take him in anyhow; we can’t be stayin’ here all day. Or, say, now, — here comes Wocel.”

Antonin’s burly figure pressed into the circle. Mulrea raised his hand to the door of the ambulance a second time.

“I hurry up. Joe tol’ me Steve hurted,” he said; his breath was broken by running.

“He’s dead, or they would have taken him to the hospital!” reiterated Eliska in Slovak.

“I know. Joe told me, of course. His Keg Fund will bury him; there will be no expense to us. Let me manage these men; I know them.”

“How are you, Antonin ? You see, we got to take ’im in the house, — only the women is scairt. Just make thim behave aisy, can’t you ? There ain’t no other place to put the poor feller.”

“Yes; good,” Wocel assented. “Let me talk. I talk to them.”

“Antonin, Antonin! How can we? There is no room!”

“He was a good boy; and I am sorry for him.”

The innkeeper’s daughter here committed herself to a decision that was a nine days’ scandal in the neighborhood.

“Yes, yes, — all that. But think! Where can we put a dead man? Two other men sleep with him in that bed, and two more in the narrow bed in the same room. If a dead man is in that room, where can we put the four that are alive ? Men must sleep, after they have worked.”

“That is true,” he assented. “Then we cannot take him. The man who sells coffins will have to; he does, sometimes.”

“Well, will we take him in?” demanded the impatient driver of the ambulance.

“What his name?” Antonin queried cautiously.

“You know very good an’ certain who ’t is! It’s Steve, — Steve Zatorski. I know he lives here, too; you can’t fool me.”

“Oh! Steve Zatorski!” repeated Wocel, with the accent of one for whom a cloudy misunderstanding has happily been cleared away. “I know him. Him not my man. My man Steve Latrobi. Yes, yes, all one big mistake. Steve Zatorski live down there, down-town ways.”

“Well, they told me he b’longs here, an’ here’s where I guess I’ll put him,” concluded the Irishman, looking grim. “Con, you just open that there door.”

“No,” Antonin insisted. “Not my house. Not live here; not dead here, either. Steve Zatorski say he come on my house Saturday, if one man go way. He not come. So comes Steve Latrobi Sunday, an’ I say, ‘Yes; can stay.’ Steve Zatorski mad, maybe, but no good. The other man come quicker. So Steve Zatorski not come here livin’, not come here dead. No.”

The bystanders listened with perfect gravity to this little fiction; it was nobody’s business to interfere between Wocel and his boarders.

“Well, I don’ know,” said the driver. “But I’ll tell you one thing, Antonin Wocel, an’ I’ll say it to yer face, if you was twice as big a man. You ’re a damned black-hearted dirty blaggard of a for’ner, that’s what you are! There’s no heart nor dacincy in you. A pretty union man you are! To the divil with all yer fine talk, if this is how you stand by yer own men! I say it to yer face; I ain’t afraid o’ you nor yer pull.”

“No can come in,” repeated Wocel, with an expression of patient obstinacy. Then in a flash his look changed; a girl was fighting to break through the crowd, and Eliska’s short, powerful arms held her back.

“No, ’Nonziata! Back! Go back!” he shouted, in his own tongue.

With a desperate fling, the girl wrenched herself free, and darted forward. She slipped behind the sturdy figure of Con Mulrea. The ambulance door swung part way open, and she threw herself in bodily, snatching at the grimy, stiffening form upon the mattress.

“Stefan! Stefan! My Stefan! Oh, oh, my Stefan!”

“’Deed, it’s the worst time we ever had yet, Jim,” groaned the assistant. “Him we can’t never get rid of, an’ now we’ve got her, too! Must be his girl, I guess. What will we do, anyhow ? Will we choke the old boardin boss, an’ take him in whether or no ? Or what the ” —

“No can come in my house,” insisted Wocel. And inside the ambulance ’Nonziata still moaned her lover’s name monotonously.

At this difficult pass, Angelo, the little Italian of the corner grocery, stepped forward.

“Him good man, Steve,” he began, waving a hand toward the vehicle. “I know him. Him my ver’ good frien’. Good man.”

“You bet he was! A damn good man! ” averred the driver with feeling; although his own knowledge of the sufferer had been of the slightest.

“I gotta good place. Come! You bringa my store. Plenty room. Come.”

“Good fer the Dago!” cried Con Mulrea. He turned and shook his fist in Wocel’s face. “Smell o’ that, you dirty, blood-suckin’ heart-o’-stone! Oh, I’d like to punch it clear through yer carcass.

I would! To turn a dead man out o’ doors! All right, John. We’ll bring him. You show us where do we go, an’ we’ll have ’im in. My word, but the Dago’s the only wan o’ them wi’ the heart of a Christian in him!”

And so the stiff figure was carried into the gaudy little store, between the bunches of bananas, and the swinging braids of garlic, the shining kettles, the sugar barrels, and the pails of tobacco. Behind a partition was the proprietor’s own room; here they laid him upon Angelo’s own bed.

’Nonziata threw herself on her knees beside the pillow, and buried her face in the coarse mine shirt. The bearers withdrew hastily. Angelo followed them to the door.

“His Keg Fund or some o’ his soci’ties ’ll pay for the fun’ral; you don’t need to worry ’bout that.” The driver felt in his pockets for a coin, and held it out awkwardly. “Here, John. Take this. You’re a good feller, you are; you done a good thing. I ’ll see if I can’t send you some trade for this.”

A covetous gleam shone in the Italian’s face for a second, but he thrust his hands behind him.

“No, no, no! Steve my frien’. One time he my boss. I jus’ come in America, those days, — worka the mines. All go bad, one time; all gas, all fire, — you know? Yes ? Fire go killa me. Burn all over me. So I lie down an’ go to die. Steve he come; getta me out. He say, ‘Now don’ go in mines no more. You keepa one store; I sen’ people buy off you.’ Ah, — ver’ good! He nice man, that Steve.”

“Yep; he must ’a’ been,” assented the driver. “Well, we must get back. Goodby, John.”

“You would n’t think it, neither,” pondered Mulrea. “But I s’pose, if there does be a good for’ner, he’s bound to be killt off. The most o’ them has thick heads; you wouldn’t expect jus’ that little piece o’ rock to finish up that there Steve, would you ? The boys said the weight was n’t nothin’ to speak of, but the boss told us his brains was all spilled around over the floor.”

“Well, you can’t tell. I did n’t take no particular notice, but I did n’t see nothin’ more ’n a little cut on his head, far’s I remember. Poor soul, you can’t help bein’ sorry for ’im, if he was a Polander!”

The long, sultry summer afternoon dragged out its endless hours. In the little room behind the partition, the sun beat in, and the flies buzzed; ’Nonziata, all unheeding, watched her dead.

At five o’clock, two men of Stefan’s Polish union came and stood about the room for a little. They left, to buy a grave in the Polish cemetery, and a burial permit. The coroner, too, sent word that he was coming; but before his arrival, ’Nonziata had leaped to her feet with a dreadful cry: —

“Angelo! Angelo! He spoke!”

The little Neapolitan darted to the bedside. There was no doubt about it; Stefan had begun to breathe, slowly, with low, stertorous groans.

“Go for the priest! Go for the priest! His life has come back; he ain’t quite dead. Quick, quick, get a priest!”

Angelo dragged his bicycle from a corner, then hesitated. “You keepa store ? ”

’Nonziata stamped her foot and threw out her arms in a passion of impatience.

“The priest, the priest! Can’t you hear ? ”

“Maybe I getta him one good doctor, all come right off quick!” responded the practical son of Italy. “Him sick.” Angelo vanished.

The doctor came, and, after an interval, the priest; but neither of them could be persuaded to echo Angelo’s sanguine predictions of recovery. The doctor, coming out, met the coroner at the street door, and paused to exchange salutations.

“You’re not needed yet, but you will be,” he announced brusquely, “The man’s alive still. He ought to have gone to the hospital; I don’t know what those idiots up at the mine were thinking of. However, it would n’t have made the least difference, — the man would die, anywhere. The skull, you know, — hopeless fracture. He won’t last till midnight. Well, good-afternoon.”

Morning, however, found Angelo at his “good doctor’s ” door, money in hand, and clamoring for a second visit. His man, he said, had not died; indeed, was better. With a little medicine, he would be well.

“No, no,keep your dollar. It’s merely a question of vitality; you know I told you he’d die. However, I’ll come up. Just let me get something to eat first.”

Contrary to all reason, nevertheless, the man lived on. The little back room of the grocery, with its one window, its heat, its flies, its garlic smells, would have horrified a hospital staff; yet in that stuffy box of a place, with only ’Nonziata’s rude nursing, Stefan knit his skull anew, and fought his way back to life. The girl was with him day and night; in two weeks, she spent scarcely one hour in her father’s house. The faithful Angelo, too, was always within call. No offers of help, no hospitality, could tempt him from the store; when it was too late for customers, he moved the candy showcase to the floor, and went contentedly to bed upon the counter.

When the fever was nearly gone, the sick man one day opened his eyes, and gazed at the girl with something of consciousness in his look.

“ ’Non-zi-ata,” he said with difficulty. She only smiled at him, for Angelo’s doctor had forbidden talking. Stefan smiled too, and straightway fell asleep.

Thereafter, he drank more and more milk daily, and grew visibly stronger. One sultry afternoon ’Nonziata, huddled on the floor at his bedside, wakened from an uneasy nap to find his eyes upon her.

“You were asleep. I woke first,” he whispered in Polish.

“Yes,” sighed ’Nonziata. She was very tired.

“I had a dream.”

“I was dreaming, too,” she admitted, half startled.

“Mine was a good dream. It was at mass on Sunday. All the church was crowded. We were just standing out to be married, — you and I. But I woke.”

For very weakness, the tears stood in his eyes. The girl flushed, then laughed, then caught the great, weak hand that lay upon the sheet and kissed it.

“Stefan! Dear Stefan! You must not talk; go to sleep again. I — I dreamed about the ribbons — on the wedding carriages ! ”