University of Virginia Library

5. “LITTLE TOMMY TUCKER.”

There were but three persons in the car; a merchant,
deep in the income list of the “Traveller,” an
old lady with two bandboxes, a man in the corner
with his hat pulled over his eyes.

Tommy opened the door, peeped in, hesitated, looked
into another car, came back, gave his little fiddle a
shove on his shoulder, and walked in.

shouted the young exquisite lounging on the platform
in tan-colored coat and lavender kid gloves.

“O Kids, you 're there, are you? Well, I 'd rather
play for it than loaf for it, I had,” said Tommy,
stoutly.

The merchant shot a careless glance over the top
of his paper, at the sound of this petit dialogue, and
the old lady smiled benignly; the man in the corner
neither looked nor smiled.

Nobody would have thought, to look at that man in
the corner, that he was at that very moment deserting
a wife and five children. Yet that is precisely
what he was doing.

A villain? O no, that is not the word. A brute?
Not by any means. A man, weak, unfortunate, discouraged,
and selfish, as weak, unfortunate, and discouraged
people are apt to be; that was the amount
of it. His panoramas never paid him for the use of
his halls. His travelling tin-type saloon had trundled
him into a sheriff's hands. His petroleum speculations
had crashed like a bubble. His black and gold
sign, J. Harmon, Photographer, had swung now for
nearly a year over the dentist's rooms, and he had had
the patronage of precisely six old women and three
babies. He had drifted to the theatre in the evenings,
he did not care now to remember how many times,
— the fellows asked him, and it made him forget his
troubles; the next morning his empty purse would
gape at him, and Annie's mouth would quiver. A
man must have his glass too, on Sundays, and — well,
perhaps a little oftener. He had not always been
fit to go to work after it; and Annie's mouth would
quiver. It will be seen at once that it was exceedingly
hard on a man that his wife's mouth should
quiver. “Confound it! Why could n't she scold or
cry? These still women aggravated a fellow beyond
reason.”

Well, then the children had been sick; measles,
whooping-cough, scarlatina, mumps, he was sure he
did not know what not; every one of them from the
baby up. There was medicine, and there were doctor's
bills, and there was sitting up with them at night,

— their mother usually did that. Then she must
needs pale down herself, like a poorly finished photograph;
all her color and roundness and sparkle gone;
and if ever a man liked to have a pretty wife about,
it was he. Moreover she had a cough, and her shoulders
had grown round, stooping so much over the
heavy baby, and her breath came short, and she had a
way of being tired. Then she never stirred out of
the house, — he found out about that one day; she had
no bonnet, and her shawl had been cut up into blankets
for the crib. The children had stopped going
to school. “They could not buy the new arithmetic,”
their mother said, half under her breath. Yesterday
there was nothing for dinner but Johnny-cake, nor a
large one at that. To-morrow the saloon rents were
due. Annie talked about pawning one of the bureaus.
Annie had had great purple rings under her
eyes for six weeks.

He would not bear the purple rings and quivering
mouth any longer. He hated the sight of her, for the
sight stung him. He hated the corn-cake and the untaught
children. He hated the whole dreary, dragging,
needy home. The ruin of it dogged him like a
ghost, and he should be the ruin of it as long as he
stayed in it. Once fairly rid of him, his scolding and
drinking, his wasting and failing, Annie would send
the children to work, and find ways to live. She had
energy and invention, a plenty of it in her young,
fresh days, before he came across her life to drag her

down. Perhaps he should make a golden fortune and
come back to her some summer day with a silk dress
and servants, and make it all up; in theory this was
about what he expected to do. But if his ill luck went
westward with him, and the silk dress never turned
up, why, she would forget him, and be better off, and
that would be the end of it.

So here he was, ticketed and started, fairly bound
for Colorado, sitting with his hat over his eyes, and
thinking about it.

“Hm-m. Asleep,” pronounced Tommy, with his
keen glance into the corner. “Guess I 'll wake him
up.”

He laid his cheek down on his little fiddle, — you
don 't know how Tommy loved that little fiddle, — and
struck up a gay, rollicking tune, —

The man in the corner sat quite still. When it
was over he shrugged his shoulders.

“When folks are asleep they don't hist their shoulders,
not as a general thing,” observed Tommy.
“We 'll try another.”

Tommy tried another. Nobody knows what possessed
the little fellow, the little fellow himself least
of all; but he tried this: —

It was a new tune, and he wanted practice, perhaps.

The train jarred and started slowly; the gloved
exquisite, waiting hackmen, baggage-masters, coffee-counter,
and station-walls slid back; engine-house and
prison towers, and labyrinths of tracks slipped by;
lumber and shipping took their place, with clear spaces
between, where sea and sky shone through. The
speed of the train increased with a sickening sway;
old wharves shot past, with the green water sucking
at their piers; the city shifted by and out of sight.

played Tommy in a little plaintive wail,

“Confound the boy!” Harmon pushed up his hat
with a jerk, and looked out of the window. The
night was coming on. A dull sunset lay low on the
water, burning like a bale-fire through the snaky trail
of smoke that went writhing past the car windows.
Against lonely signal-houses and little deserted beaches
the water was plashing drearily, and playing monotonous
bases to Tommy's wail: —

It was a nuisance, this music in the cars. Why did n't
somebody stop it? What did the child mean by playing
that? They had left the city far behind now.
He wondered how far. He pushed up the window
fiercely, venting the passion of the music on the first
thing that came in his way, and thrust his head out to
look back. Through the undulating smoke, out in
the pale glimmer from the sky, he could see a low, red
tongue of land, covered with the twinkle of lighted
homes. Somewhere there, in among the quivering
warmth, was one —

What was that boy about now? Not “Home,
sweet Home?” But that was what Tommy was
about.

They were lighting the lamps now in the car. Harmon
looked at the conductor's face, as the sickly yellow
flare struck on it, with a curious sensation. He
wondered if he had a wife and five children; if he
ever thought of running away from them; what he
would think of a man who did; what most people
would think; what she would think. She! — ah, she
had it all to find out yet.

said Tommy's little fiddle,

Now this fiddle of Tommy's may have had a crack
or so in it, and I cannot assert that Tommy never
struck a false note; but the man in the corner was
not fastidious as a musical critic; the sickly light was
flickering through the car, the quiver on the red flats
was quite out of sight, the train was shrieking away
into the west, — the baleful, lonely west, — which was
dying fast now out there upon the sea, and it is a fact

that his hat went slowly down over his face again, and
that his face went slowly down upon his arm.

There, in the lighted home out upon the flats, that
had drifted by forever, she sat waiting now. It was
about time for him to be in to supper; she was beginning
to wonder a little where he was; she was keeping
the coffee hot, and telling the children not to touch
their father's pickles; she had set the table and drawn
the chairs; his pipe lay filled for him upon the shelf
over the stove. Her face in the light was worn and
white, — the dark rings very dark; she was trying to
hush the boys, teasing for their supper; begging them
to wait a few minutes, only a few minutes, he would
surely be here then. She would put the baby down
presently, and stand at the window with her hands —
Annie's hands once were not so thin — raised to shut
out the light, — watching, watching.

The children would eat their supper; the table
would stand untouched, with his chair in its place;
still she would go to the window, and stand watching,
watching. O, the long night that she must stand
watching, and the days, and the years!

played Tommy.

By and by there was no more of “Sweet Home.”

“How about that cove with his head lopped down
on his arms?” speculated Tommy, with a businesslike
air.

He had only stirred once, then put his face down
again. But he was awake, awake in every nerve;
and listening, to the very curve of his fingers. Tommy
knew that; it being part of his trade to learn how
to use his eyes.

The sweet, loyal passion of the music — it would
take worse playing than Tommy's to drive the sweet,
loyal passion out of Annie Laurie — grew above the
din of the train: —

She used to sing that, the man was thinking, — this
other Annie of his own. Why, she had been his
own, and he had loved her once. How he had loved
her! Yes, she used to sing that when he went to see
her on Sunday nights, before they were married, — in
her pink, plump, pretty days. Annie used to be very
pretty.

hummed the little fiddle.

“That 's a fact,” said poor Annie's husband, jerking
the words out under his hat, “and kept it too,
she did.”

Ah, how Annie had kept it! The whole dark picture
of her married years, — the days of work and
pain, the nights of watching, the patient voice, the
quivering mouth, the tact and the planning and the
trust for to-morrow, the love that had borne all things,

believed all things, hoped all things, uncomplaining,
— rose into outline to tell him how she had kept it.
suggested the little fiddle.

That it should be darkened forever, the sweet face!
and that he should do it, — he, sitting here, with his
ticket bought, bound for Colorado.

murmured the little fiddle.

He would have knocked the man down who had
told him twenty years ago that he ever should forget;
that he should be here to-night, with his ticket bought,
bound for Colorado.

But it was better for her to be free from him. He
and his cursed ill-luck were a drag on her and the
children, and would always be. What was that she
had said once?

“Never mind, Jack, I can bear anything as long as
I have you.”

And here he was, with his ticket bought, bound for
Colorado.

He wondered if it were ever too late in the day for
a fellow to make a man of himself. He wondered —

sang the little fiddle, triumphantly.

Harmon shook himself, and stood up. The train
was slackening; the lights of a way-station bright
ahead. It was about time for supper and his mother,
so Tommy put down his fiddle and handed around his
faded cap.

The merchant threw him a penny, and returned to
his tax list. The old lady was fast asleep with her
mouth open.

“Come here,” growled Harmon, with his eyes very
bright. Tommy shrank back, almost afraid of him.

“Come here,” softening, “I won't hurt you. I
tell you, boy, you don't know what you 've done
to-night.”

“Done, sir?” Tommy could n't help laughing,
though there was a twinge of pain at his stout little
heart, as he fingered the solitary penny in the faded
cap. “Done? Well, I guess I 've waked you up,
sir, which was about what I meant to do.”

“Yes, that is it,” said Harmon, very distinctly,
pushing up his hat, “you 've waked me up. Here,
hold your cap.”

They had puffed into the station now, and stopped.
He emptied his purse into the little cap, shook it
clean of paper and copper alike, was out of the car
and off the train before Tommy could have said Jack
Robinson.

“My eyes!” gasped Tommy, “that chap had a
ticket for New York, sure! Methuselah! Look a
here! One, two, three, — must have been crazy;
that 's it, crazy.”

“He 'll never find out,” muttered Harmon, turning
away from the station lights, and striking back through
the night for the red flats and home. “He 'll never
find out what he has done, nor, please God, shall
she.”

It was late when he came in sight of the house; it
had been a long tramp across the tracks, and hard;
he being stung by a bitter wind from the east all the
way, tired with the monotonous treading of the sleepers,
and with crouching in perilous niches to let the
trains go by.

She stood watching at the window, as he had known
that she would stand, her hands raised to her face,
her figure cut out against the warm light of the room.

He stood still a moment and looked at her, hidden
in the shadow of the street, thinking his own thoughts.
The publican, in the old story, hardly entered the
beautiful temple with more humble step than he his
home that night.

She sprang to meet him, pale with her watching
and fear.

“Worried, Annie, were you? I have n't been
drinking; don't be frightened, — no, not the theatre,
either, this time. Some business, dear; business that
delayed me. I 'm sorry you were worried, I am,
Annie. I 've had a long walk. It is pleasant here.
I believe I 'm tired, Annie.”

He faltered, and turned away his face.

“Dear me,” said Annie, “why, you poor fellow,

you are all tired out. Sit right up here by the fire,
and I will bring the coffee. I 've tried so hard not to
let it boil away, you don't know, Jack, and I was so
afraid something had happened to you.”

Her face, her voice, her touch, seemed more than
he could bear for a minute, perhaps. He gulped
down his coffee, choking.

“Annie, look here.” He put down his cup, trying
to smile and make a jest of the words. “Suppose a
fellow had it in him to be a rascal, and nobody ever
knew it, eh?”

“I should rather not know it, if I were his wife,”
said Annie, simply.

“But you could n't care anything more for him,
you know, Annie?”

“I don't know,” said Annie, shaking her head with
a little perplexed smile, “you would be just Jack, any
how.”

Jack coughed, took up his coffee-cup, set it down
hard, strode once or twice across the room, kissed the
baby in the crib, kissed his wife, and sat down again,
winking at the fire.

“I wonder if He had anything to do with sending
him,” he said, presently, under his breath.

“Sending whom?” asked puzzled Annie.

“Business, dear, just business. I was thinking of a
boy who did a little job for me to-night, that 's all.”

And that is all that she knows to this day about the
man sitting in the corner, with his hat over his eyes,
bound for Colorado.