Chapter 49. Bill Cronk's Toast

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_ CHAPTER XLIX. BILL CRONK'S TOAST

After all, it was a long day to Christine. Tears would start from her eyes at the thought of her father, but she realized that the only thing for her to do was to shroud his memory in a great, forgiving pity, and put it away forever. She could only turn from the mystery of his life and death--the mystery of evil--to Him who taketh away the sin of the world. There was no darkness in that direction. She busied herself with Mrs. Leonard, and the distribution of food to others, till six o'clock, and then she stood near the door to watch till her true knight should appear in his shirt-sleeves, with a shovel on his shoulder, and an old burned, tattered felt hat on his head, instead of jewelled crest and heron plume.

Dennis had gone to his work not very hopeful. He knew Christine would be his grateful friend while she lived, and would perhaps even regard him as a brother, but all this might be and still she be unable to respond to his deeper feelings. Moreover, he knew she was Baroness Ludolph, and might be heiress of such titles and estates in Germany as would require that she should go at once to secure them; and so she seemed clearly to pass beyond his sphere.

As he shovelled the hot bricks and cinders hour after hour among other laborers, the distance between himself and the Baroness Ludolph seemed to increase; and when, begrimed and weary, he sat down to eat his dinner of a single sandwich saved from breakfast (for as yet he had no money), the ruins around him were quite in keeping with his feelings. He thought most regretfully of his two thousand dollars and burned picture. The brave, resolute spirit of the morning had deserted him. He did not realize that few men have lived who could be brave and hopeful when weary and hungry, and fewer still, when, in addition, they doubted the favor of the lady of their love.

The work of the afternoon seemed desperately hard and long, but with dogged persistency Dennis held his own with the others till six, and in common with them received his two dollars. Whether Christine would accept the supper he brought or not, he determined to fulfil his promise and bring one. Wearily he trudged off to the west side, in order to find a store. No one who met him would have imagined that this plodding laborer was the artist who the week before had won the prize and title of genius.

If he had been purchasing a supper for himself, he would doubtless have been sensible about it; but one that the Baroness Ludolph might share was a different matter. He bought some very rich cake, a can of peaches, a box of sardines, some fruit, and then his money gave out! But, with these incongruous and indigestible articles made up into one large bundle, he started for the church. He had gone but a little way when some one rushed upon him, and little Ernst clasped him round the neck and fairly cried for joy. Sitting on the sidewalk near were the other little Bruders, looking as forlorn and dirty as three motherless children could. Dennis stopped and sat down beside them (for he was too tired to stand), while Ernst told his story--how their mother had left them, and how she had been found so burned that she was recognized only by a ring (which he had) and a bit of the picture preserved under her body. They had been looking ever since to find him, and had slept where they could.

As Ernst sobbingly told his story the other children cried in doleful chorus, and Dennis's tears fell fast too, as he realized how his humble friend had perished. He remembered her kindness to his mother and little sisters, and his heart acknowledged the claim of these poor little orphans. Prudence whispered, "You cannot afford to burden yourself with all these children," and pride added, "What a figure you will make in presenting yourself before the Baroness Ludolph with all these children at your heels!" But he put such thoughts resolutely aside, and spoke like a brother; and when one of the children sobbed, "We so hungry!" out came the Baroness Ludolph's fruit and cake, and nothing remained for Christine but the sardines and peaches, since these could not well be opened in the street. The little Bruders having devoured what seemed to them the ambrosia of the gods, he took the youngest in his arms, Ernst following with the others; and so they slowly made their way to the church where Christine was now anxiously waiting, with many surmises and forebodings at Dennis's delay.

At last, in the dusk, the little group appeared at the church-door, and she exclaimed, "What has kept you so, Mr. Fleet?"

He determined to put the best face on the situation, and indulge in no heroics, so he said, "You could not expect such a body of infantry as this to march rapidly."

"What!" she exclaimed, "have you brought all the lost children in the city back with you?"

"No, only those that fell properly to my care;" and in a few words he told their story.

"And do you, without a cent in the world, mean to assume the burden of these four children?" she asked, in accents of surprise.

He could not see her face, but his heart sank within him, for he thought that to her it would seem quixotic and become another barrier between them; but he answered, firmly: "Yes, till God, who has imposed the burden, removes it, and enables me to place them among friends in a good home. Mrs. Bruder, before she died, wrote to her family in Germany, telling her whole story. Relatives may take the children; if not, some way will be provided."

"Mr. Fleet, I wonder at you," was her answer. "Give me that child, and you bring the others."

He wondered at her as he saw her take the child and imprint a kiss on the sleepy, dirty face; and Ernst, who had been eying her askance, crept timidly nearer when he saw the kiss, and whispered, "Perhaps her old outside heart has been burned away."

They followed to a lobby of the lecture-room, and here she procured a damp towel and proceeded to remove the tear and dust stains from the round and wondering faces of the children. Having restored them to something of their original color, she took them away to supper, saying to Dennis, with a decided nod, "You stay here till I come for you."

Something in her manner reminded him of the same little autocrat who had ordered him about when they arranged the store together. She soon returned with a basin of water and a towel, saying: "See what a luxury you secure by obeying orders. Now give an account of yourself, as every lady's knight should on his return. How have you spent the day?"

He could not forbear laughing as he said: "My employment has been almost ludicrously incongruous with the title by which you honor me. I have been shovelling brick and mortar with other laborers."

"All day?"

"All day."

Her glance became so tender and wistful that he forgot to wash his hands in looking at her, and felt for the moment as if he could shovel rubbish forever, if such could be his reward.

Seemingly by an effort, she regained her brusque manner, which he did not know was but the mask she was trying to wear, and said, quickly: "What is the matter? Why don't you wash your face?"

"You told me to give an account of myself," he retorted, at the same time showing rising color in his dust-begrimed face.

"Well, one of your ability can do two things at once. What have you got in that bundle?"

"You may have forgotten, but I promised to bring you home something that you chose to regard as charity."

"If I was so ungracious, you ought to have rewarded me by bringing me a broken brick. Will you let me see what you brought?" but without waiting for permission she pounced upon the bundle and dragged out the peaches and sardines.

He, having washed and partially wiped his face, was now able to display more of his embarrassment, and added, apologetically: "That is not all I had. I also bought some cake and fruit, and then my money gave out."

"And do you mean to say that you have no money left?"

"Not a penny," he answered, desperately.

"But where are the cake and fruit?"

"Well," he said, laughingly, "I found the little Bruders famishing on the sidewalk, and they got the best part of your supper."

"What an escape I have had!" she exclaimed. "Do you think I should have survived the night if I had eaten those strangely assorted dainties, as in honor bound I would have done, since you brought them?" Then with a face of comical severity she turned upon him and said: "Mr. Fleet, you need some one to take care of you. What kind of economy do you call this, sir, especially on the part of one who has burdened himself with four helpless children?"

There was a mingling of sense and seriousness in her raillery, which he recognized, and he said, with a half-vexed laugh at himself: "Well, really, Miss Ludolph, I suppose that I have not wholly regained my wits since the fire. I throw myself on your mercy." (The same expression he had used once before. She remembered it, and her face changed instantly.) Turning hastily away to hide her feelings, she said, in a rather husky voice, "When I was a wicked fool, I told you I had none; but I think I am a little changed now." Then she added, sharply, "Please don't stand there keeping our friends waiting"; and she led the way into the lecture-room, now filled with tables and hungry people.

Dennis was in a maze, and could scarcely understand her, she was so different from the pensive lady, shrinking from rude contact with the world, that he had expected to meet. He did not realize that there was not a particle of weak sentimentality about her, and that, since now pride was gone, her energetic spirit would make her as truly a leader in scenes like these as in those with which she had been familiar. Much less could he understand that she was hiding a heart brimming over with love to him.

He followed her, however, with much assumed humility. When in the middle of the room, who should meet him squarely but Bill Cronk?

"Hello!" he roared, giving Dennis a slap on his back that startled even the hungry, apathetic people at the tables.

Dennis was now almost desperate. Glad as he was to see Cronk, he felt that he was gathering around him a company as incongruous as was the supper he had brought home. If Yahcob Bunk or even the red-nosed bartender had appeared, to claim him as brother, he would scarcely have been surprised. He naturally thought that the Baroness Ludolph might hesitate before entering such a circle of intimates. But he was not guilty of the meanness of cutting a humble friend, even though he saw the eyes of Christine resting on him. In his embarrassment, however, he held out the washbasin in his confused effort to shake hands, and said, heartily, "Why, Cronk, I am glad you came safely out of it."

"Is this gentleman a friend of yours?" asked Christine, with inimitable grace.

"Yes!" said Dennis, firmly, though coloring somewhat. "He once rendered me a great kindness--"

"Well, miss, you bet your money on the right hoss that time," interrupted Bill. "If I hain't a friend of his'n, I'd like to know where you'll find one; though I did kick up like a cussed ole mule when he knocked the bottle out of my hand. Like enough if he hadn't I wouldn't be here."

"Won't you present me, Mr. Fleet?" said Christine, with an amused twinkle in her eye.

"Mr. Cronk," said Dennis (who had now reached that state of mind when one becomes reckless), "this lady is Miss Ludolph, and, I hope I may venture to add, another friend of mine."

She at once put out her hand, that seemed like a snowflake in the great horny paw of the drover, and said, "Indeed, Mr. Cronk, I will permit no one to claim stronger friendship to Mr. Fleet than mine."

"I can take any friend of Mr. Fleet's to my buzzom at once," said Bill, speaking figuratively, but Christine instinctively shrank nearer Dennis. In talking with men, Bill used the off-hand vernacular of his calling, but when addressing ladies, he evidently thought that a certain style of metaphor bordering on sentiment was the proper thing. But Christine said, "As a friend of Mr. Fleet's you shall join our party at once"; and she led them to the further end of the room, where at a table sat Dr. Arten, Professor and Mrs. Leonard, Ernst, and the little Bruders, who at the prospect of more eating were wide awake again. After the most hearty greetings they were seated, and she took her place by the side of the little children in order to wait on them. Few more remarkable groups sat down together, even in that time of chaos and deprivation. Professor Leonard was without vest or collar, and sat with coat buttoned tight up to his chin to hide the defect. He had lost his scholarly gold-rimmed spectacles; and a wonderful pair of goggles bestrode his nose in their place. Mrs. Leonard was lost in the folds of an old delaine dress that was a mile too large, and her face looked as if she had assisted actively in an Irish wake. Dr. Arten did the honors at the head of the table in his dress coat and vest that had once been white, though he no longer figured around in red flannel drawers as he had done on the beach. The little round faces of the Bruders seemed as if protruding from animated rag babies, while nothing could dim the glory of Ernst's great spiritual eyes, as they gratefully and wistfully followed Dennis's every movement. Cronk was in a very dilapidated and famished state, and endured many and varied tortures in his efforts to be polite while he bolted sandwiches at a rate that threatened famine. Christine still wore the woollen dress she had so hastily donned with Dennis's assistance on Sunday night, and the marks of the fire were all over it. Around her neck the sparks had burned a hole here and there, through which her white shoulders gleamed. While she was self-possessed and assiduous in her attention to the little children, there was a glow of excitement in her eyes which perhaps Mrs. Leonard understood better than any one else, though the shrewd old doctor was anything but blind.

Dennis sat next to Christine in shirt-sleeves once white, but now, through dust and smoke, of as many colors as Joseph's coat. He was too weary to eat much, and there was a weight upon his spirits that he could not throw off--the inevitable despondency that follows great fatigue when the mind is not at rest.

Christine darted away and brought him a huge mug of hot coffee.

"Really, Miss Ludolph," he remonstrated, "you should not wait on me in this style."

"You may well feel honored, sir," said Mrs. Leonard. "It is not every man that is waited on by a baroness."

"The trouble with Christine is that she is too grateful," put in the old doctor.

"Now I should say that was scarcely possible in view of--" commenced the professor, innocently.

"I really hope Miss Ludolph will do nothing more from gratitude," interrupted Dennis, in a low tone that showed decided annoyance.

The doctor and Mrs. Leonard were ready to burst with suppressed amusement, and Cronk, seeing something going on that he did not understand, looked curiously around with a sandwich half-way to his open mouth, while Ernst, believing from Dennis's tone that he was wronged, turned his great eyes reproachfully from one to another. But Christine was equal to the occasion. Lifting her head and looking round with a free, clear glance she said, "And I say that men who meet this great disaster with courage and fortitude, and hopefully set about retrieving it, possess an inherent nobility such as no king or kaiser could bestow, and, were I twenty times a baroness, I should esteem it an honor to wait upon them."

A round of applause followed this speech, in which Cronk joined vociferously, and Mrs. Leonard whispered: "Oh, Christine, how beautifully I learn from your face the difference between dignity and pride! That was your same old proud look, changed and glorified into something so much better."

Dennis also saw her expression, and could not disguise his admiration, but every moment he increasingly felt how desperately hard it would be to give her up, now that she seemed to realize his very ideal of womanhood.

And Cronk, having satisfied the clamors of his appetite, began to be fascinated in his rough way with her grace and beauty. Nudging Dennis he asked in a loud whisper heard by all, which nearly caused Dr. Arten to choke, "The young filly is a German lady, ain't she?"

Dennis, much embarrassed, nodded assent.

A happy thought struck Bill. Though impeded by the weight of an indefinite number of sandwiches, he slowly rose and looked solemnly round on the little group. Dennis trembled, for he feared some dreadful bull on the part of his rough, though well-meaning friend, but Dr. Arten, in a state of intense enjoyment, cried, "Mr. Cronk has the floor."

Lifting a can of coffee containing about a quart, the drover said impressively, and with an attempt at great stateliness:

"Beautiful ladies and honorable gentlemen here assembled, I would respectfully ask you to drink to a toast in this harmless beverage: _The United States of Ameriky!_ When the two great elemental races--the sanguinary Yankee and the phlegmatic German--become one, and, as represented in the blooded team before me" (waving his hand majestically over the heads of Dennis and Christine), "pull in the traces together, how will the ship of state go forward!" and his face disappeared behind his huge flagon of coffee in the deepest pledge. Bill thought he had uttered a very profound and elegant sentiment, but his speech fell like a bombshell in the little company.

"The very spirit of mischief is abroad to-day," Dennis groaned. And Christine, with a face like a peony, snatched up the youngest little Bruder, saying, "It is time these sleepy children were in bed"; but the doctor and the Leonards went off again and again in uncontrollable fits of laughter, in which Dennis could not refrain from joining, though he wished the unlucky Cronk a thousand miles away. Bill put down his mug, stared around in a surprised and nonplussed manner, and then said, in a loud whisper, "I say, Fleet, was there any hitch in what I said?"

This set them off again, but Dennis answered good-naturedly, slapping his friend on the shoulder, "Cronk, you would make a man laugh in the face of fate."

Bill took this as a compliment, and the strange party, thrown together by an event that mingled all classes in the community, broke up and went their several ways. _

Read next: Chapter 50. Every Barrier Burned Away

Read previous: Chapter 48. Doctor Arten Struck By Lightning

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