However, I bustled down to the train that was waiting to carry this party of damsels to Chicago and the World’s Fair, a solid Pullman train which left St. Louis at dusk and arrived in Chicago early the next morning. The fifth of the Pullmans was reserved to carry the school-teachers and their chaperons, Mr. Soldan, superintendent of schools, Mr. Dean, the business-manager-representative, and myself. I entered the car wondering of course what the result of such a temporary companionship with so many girls might be. They were all popular, hence beautiful, prize-winners, as I had heard; but my pessimistic mind had registered a somewhat depressing conception of the ordinary school-mistress and I did not expect much.
For once in my life I was agreeably disappointed. These were young, buxom Missouri school-teachers and as attractive as that profession will permit. I was no sooner seated in a gaudy car than one of the end doors opened and there was ushered in by the porter a pretty, rosy-cheeked, black-haired girl of perhaps twenty-four. This was a good beginning. Immediately thereafter there came in a tall, fair girl with light brown hair and blue eyes. Others now entered, blondes and brunettes, stout and slender, with various intermediate grades or types. Instead of a mounting contempt I suddenly began to suffer from a sickening sense of inability to hold my own in the face of so many pretty girls. What could I do with twenty girls? How write about them? Maybe the business-manager-representative or the superintendent would not come on this train and I should be left to introduce these girls to each other! God! I should have to find out their names, and I had not thought to inquire at the office!
Fortunately for my peace of mind a large, rather showily dressed man with big soft ruddy hands decorated with several rings and a full oval face tinted with health, now entered by the front door and beamed cheerfully upon all.
“Ah, here we are now,” he began with the impressive air of one in authority, going up to the first maiden he saw. “I see you have arrived safely, Miss—ah—C——. I’m glad to see you again. How are you?” We went on to another: “And here is Miss W——! Well, I am glad. I read in the Republic that you had won.”
I realized that this was the Professor Soldan so earnestly recommended to me, the superintendent of schools and one upon whom I was to comment. I rather liked him.
An engine went puffing and clanging by on a neighboring track. I gazed out of the window. It seemed essential for me to begin doing something but I did not know how to begin. Suddenly the large jeweled hand was laid on my shoulder and the professor stood over me. “This must be Mr. Dreiser, of the Republic. Your business manager, Mr. ——, phoned me this morning that you were coming. You must let me introduce you to all these young ladies. We want to get the formalities over and be on easy terms.”
I bowed heavily for I felt as though I were turning to stone. The prettiness and sparkle of these girls all chatting and laughing had fairly done for me. I followed the professor as one marches to the gallows and he began at one end of the car and introduced me to one girl after another as though it were a state affair of some kind. I felt like a boob. I was flustered and yet delighted by his geniality and the fact that he was helping me over a very ticklish situation. I envied him his case and self-possession. He soon betook himself elsewhere, leaving me to converse as best I might with a pretty black-haired Irish girl whose eyes made me wish to be agreeable. And now, idiot, I struggled desperately for bright things to say. How did one entertain a pretty girl, anyhow? The girl came to my rescue by commenting on the nature of the contest and the difficulties she had had. She hadn’t thought she would win at all. Some others joined in, and before I knew it the train was out of the station and on its way. The porter was closing the windows for the long tunnel, the girls were sinking into comfortable attitudes, and there was a general air of relaxation and good nature. Before East St. Louis was reached a general conversation was in progress, and by the time the train was a half-hour out a party of familiars had gathered in the little bridal chamber, which was at the rear of the car, laughing and gesticulating. But I was not of it, nor was the girl with whom I was chatting.
“Why don’t you come back here, Myra?” called a voice.
“Having lots of fun up there?” called another.
“Do come back, for goodness’ sake! Don’t try to monopolize one whole man.”
I felt my legs going from under me. Could this be true? Must I now go back there and try to face six or seven? Stumblingly I followed Myra, and at the door stopped and looked in. It was full of pretty girls, my partner of the moment before now chattering lightly among them. “I’m gone,” I thought. “It’s all off. Now for the grand collapse and silence! Which way shall I turn? To whom?”
“There’s room for one more here,” said a Juney blonde, making a place for me.
I could not refuse this challenge. “I’m the one,” I said weakly, and sank heavily beside her. She looked at me encouragingly, as did the others, and at a vast expense of energy and will power I managed to achieve a smile. It was pathetic.
“Isn’t train-riding just glorious?” exclaimed one of these bright-faced imps exuberantly. “I bet I haven’t been on a train twice before in all my life, and just look at me! I do it all right, don’t I? I’d just love to travel. I wish I could travel all the time.”
“Oh, don’t you, though!” echoed the girl who was sitting beside me and whom up to now I had scarcely noticed. “Do you think she looks so nice riding?”
I cannot recall what I answered. It may have been witty—if so it was an accident.
“What do you call the proper surroundings?” put in a new voice in answer to something that was said, which same drew my attention to limpid blue eyes, a Cupid’s bow mouth and a wealth of corn-colored hair.
“These,” I finally achieved gallantly, gazing about the compartment and at my companions. A burst of applause followed. I was coming to. Yet I was still bewildered by the bouquet of faces about me. Already the idea of the dreary school-teachers had been dissipated: these were prize-winners. Look where I would I seemed to see a new type of prettiness confronting me. It was like being in the toils of those nymphs in the Ring of the Nibelungen, yet I had no desire to escape, wishing to stay now and see how I could “make out” as a Lothario. Indeed at this I worked hard. I did my best to gaze gayly and captivatingly into pretty eyes of various colors. They all gazed amusedly back. I was almost the only man; they were out for a lark. What would you?
“If I had my wishes now I’d wish for just one thing,” I volunteered, expecting to arouse curiosity.
“Which one?” asked the girl with the brown eyes and piquant little face who wished to travel forever. Her look was significant.
“This one,” I said, running my finger around in a circle to include them all and yet stopping at none.
“We’re not won yet, though,” said the girl smirkily.
“Couldn’t you be?” I asked smartly.
“Not all at once, anyhow. Could we?” she asked, speaking for the crowd.
I found myself poor at repartee. “It will seem all at once, though, when it happens, won’t it?” I finally managed to return. “Isn’t it always ‘so sudden’?” I was surprising myself.
“Aren’t you smart!” said the blue-eyed girl beside me.
“Oh, that’s clever, isn’t it?” said the girl with the corn-colored hair.
I gazed in her direction. Beside her sat a maiden whom I had but dimly noticed. She was in white, with a mass of sunny red hair. Her eyes were almond-shaped, liquid and blue-gray. Her nose was straight and fine, her lips sweetly curved. She seemed bashful and retiring. At her bosom was a bouquet of pink roses, but one had come loose.
“Oh, your flowers!” I exclaimed.
“Let me give you one,” she replied, laughing. I had not heard her voice before and I liked it.
“Certainly,” I said. Then to the others: “You see, I’ll take anything I can get.” She drew a rose from her bosom and held it out toward me. “Won’t you put it on?” I asked smartly.
She leaned over and began to fasten it. She worked a moment and then looked at me, making, as I thought, a sheep’s eye at me.
“You may have my place,” said the girl next me, feigning to help her, and she took it.
The conversation waxed even freer after this, although for me I felt that it had now taken a definite turn.... I was talking for her benefit. We were still in the midst of this when the conductor passed through and after him Mr. Dean, middle-aged, dusty, assured, advisory.
“These are the people,” he said. “They are all in one party.” He called me aside and we sat down, he explaining cheerfully and volubly the trouble he was having keeping everything in order. I could have murdered him.
“I’m looking out for the baggage and the hotel bills and all,” he insisted. “In the morning we’ll be met by a tally-ho and ride out to the hotel.”
I was thinking of my splendid bevy of girls and the delightful time I had been having.
“Well, that’ll be fine, won’t it?” I said wearily. “Is that all?”
“Oh, we have it all planned out,” he went on. “It’s going to be a fine trip.”
I did my best to show that I had no desire to talk, but still he kept on. He wanted to meet the teachers and I had to introduce him. Fortunately he became interested in one small group and I sidled away—only to find my original group considerably reduced. Some had gone to the dressingroom, others were arranging their parcels about their unmade berths. The porter came in and began to make them up. I looked ruefully about me.
“Well, our little group has broken up,” I said at last to the girl of my choice as I came up to where she was sitting.
“Yes. It’s getting late. But I’m not sleepy yet.”
We dropped into an easy conversation, and I learned that she was from Missouri and taught in a little town not far from St. Louis. She explained to me how she had come to win, and I told her how ignorant I had been of the whole affair up to four days ago. She said that friends had bought hundreds of Republics in order to get the coupons. It seemed a fine thing to me for a girl to be so popular.
“You’ve never been to Chicago, then?” I asked.
“Oh no. I’ve never been anywhere really. I’m just a simple country girl, you know. I’ve always wanted to go, though.”
She fascinated me. She seemed so direct, truthful, sympathetic.
“You’ll enjoy it,” I said. “It’s worth seeing. I was in Chicago when the Fair was being built. My home is there.”
“Then you’ll stay with your home-folks, won’t you?” she asked, using a word for family to which I was not accustomed. It touched a chord of sympathy. I was not very much in touch with my family any more but the way she seemed to look on hers made me wish that I were.
“Well, not exactly. They live over on the west side. I’ll go to see them, though.”
I was thinking that now I had her out of that sparkling group she seemed more agreeable than before, much more interesting, more subdued and homelike.
She arose to leave me. “I want to get some of my things before the porter puts them away,” she explained.
I stepped out of her way. She tripped up the aisle and I looked after her, fascinated. Of a sudden she seemed quite the most interesting of all those here, simple, pretty, vigorous and with a kind of tact and grace that was impressive. Also I felt an intense something about her that was concealed by an air of supreme innocence and maidenly reserve. I went out to the smokingroom, where I sat alone looking out of the window.
“What a delightful girl,” I thought, with a feeling of intense satisfaction. “And I have the certainty of seeing her again in the morning!”
CHAPTER XXXVIII
The next morning I was awake early, stirred by the thoughts of Chicago, the Fair, Miss W—— (my favorite), as well as the group of attractive creatures who now formed a sort of background for her. One of the characteristics of my very youthful temperament at that time was the power to invest every place I had ever left with a romance and strangeness such as might have attached to something abandoned, say, a thousand or two years before and which I was now revisiting for the first time to find it nearly all done over. So it was now in my attitude toward Chicago. I had been away for only eight or nine months, and still I expected—what did I not expect?—the whole skyline and landscape to be done over, or all that I had known done away with. Going into Chicago I studied every street and crossing and house and car. How sad to think I had ever had to leave it, to leave Alice, my home, my father, all my relatives and old friends! Where was E——, A——, T——, my father? At thought of the latter I was deeply moved, for had I not left him about a year before and without very much ceremony at the time I had chosen to follow the fortunes of my sister C——? Now that I looked back on it all from the vantage point of a year’s work I was much chastened and began to think how snippy and unkind I had been. Poor, tottering, broken soul, I thought. I could see him then as he really was, a warm, generous and yet bigoted and ignorant soul, led captive in his childhood to a brainless theory and having no power within himself to break that chain, and now wandering distrait and forlorn amid a storm of difficulties: age, the death of his wife, the flight of his children, doubt as to their salvation, poverty, a declining health.
I can see him now, a thin grasshopper of a man, brooding wearily with those black-brown Teutonic eyes of his, as sad as failure itself. What thoughts! What moods! He was very much like one of those old men whom Rembrandt has portrayed, wrinkled, sallow, leathery. My father’s peculiarly German hair and beard were always carefully combed and brushed, the hair back over his forehead like Nietzsche’s, the beard resting reddishly on his chest. His clothes were always loose and ill-fitting, being bought for durability, not style, or made over from abandoned clothes of some one—my brother Paul or my sister M——’s husband. He always wore an old and very carefully preserved black derby hat, very wide of brim and out of style, which he pulled low over his deep-set weary eyes. I always wondered where and when he had bought it. On this trip I offered to buy him a new one, but he preferred to use the money for a mass for the repose of my good mother’s soul! Under his arm or in one of his capacious pockets was always a Catholic prayerbook from which he read prayers as familiar to him as his own hands, yet from the mumbling repetition of which he extracted some comfort, as does the Hindu from meditating upon space or time. In health he was always fluttering to one or another of a score of favorite Catholic churches, each as commonplace as the other, and there, before some trashy plaster image of some saint or virgin as dead or helpless as his own past, making supplication for what?—peace in death, the reconversion and right conduct of his children, the salvation of his own and my mother’s soul? Debts were his great misery, as I had always known. If one died and left unpaid an old bill of some kind one had to stay in purgatory so much longer!
