had a couple of drinks with him.
And so they reminiscenced and drowned their hunger in the raw, sour
wine. To Martin the future did not seem so dim. Success trembled
just before him. He was on the verge of clasping it. Then he
studied the deep-lined face of the toil-worn woman before him,
remembered her soups and loaves of new baking, and felt spring up
in him the warmest gratitude and philanthropy.
“Maria,” he exclaimed suddenly. “What would you like to have?”
She looked at him, bepuzzled.
“What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?”
“Shoe alla da roun’ for da childs – seven pairs da shoe.”
“You shall have them,” he announced, while she nodded her head
gravely. “But I mean a big wish, something big that you want.”
Her eyes sparkled good-naturedly. He was choosing to make fun with
her, Maria, with whom few made fun these days.
“Think hard,” he cautioned, just as she was opening her mouth to
speak.
“Alla right,” she answered. “I thinka da hard. I lika da house,
dis house – all mine, no paya da rent, seven dollar da month.”
“You shall have it,” he granted, “and in a short time. Now wish
the great wish. Make believe I am God, and I say to you anything
you want you can have. Then you wish that thing, and I listen.”
Maria considered solemnly for a space.
“You no ‘fraid?” she asked warningly.
“No, no,” he laughed, “I’m not afraid. Go ahead.”
“Most verra big,” she warned again.
“All right. Fire away.”
“Well, den – ” She drew a big breath like a child, as she voiced
to the uttermost all she cared to demand of life. “I lika da have
one milka ranch – good milka ranch. Plenty cow, plenty land,
plenty grass. I lika da have near San Le-an; my sister liva dere.
I sella da milk in Oakland. I maka da plentee mon. Joe an’ Nick
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no runna da cow. Dey go-a to school. Bimeby maka da good
engineer, worka da railroad. Yes, I lika da milka ranch.”
She paused and regarded Martin with twinkling eyes.
“You shall have it,” he answered promptly.
She nodded her head and touched her lips courteously to the wine-
glass and to the giver of the gift she knew would never be given.
His heart was right, and in her own heart she appreciated his
intention as much as if the gift had gone with it.
“No, Maria,” he went on; “Nick and Joe won’t have to peddle milk,
and all the kids can go to school and wear shoes the whole year
round. It will be a first-class milk ranch – everything complete.
There will be a house to live in and a stable for the horses, and
cow-barns, of course. There will be chickens, pigs, vegetables,
fruit trees, and everything like that; and there will be enough
cows to pay for a hired man or two. Then you won’t have anything
to do but take care of the children. For that matter, if you find
a good man, you can marry and take it easy while he runs the
ranch.”
And from such largess, dispensed from his future, Martin turned and
took his one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop. His plight was
desperate for him to do this, for it cut him off from Ruth. He had
no second-best suit that was presentable, and though he could go to
the butcher and the baker, and even on occasion to his sister’s, it
was beyond all daring to dream of entering the Morse home so
disreputably apparelled.
He toiled on, miserable and well-nigh hopeless. It began to appear
to him that the second battle was lost and that he would have to go
to work. In doing this he would satisfy everybody – the grocer,
his sister, Ruth, and even Maria, to whom he owed a month’s room
rent. He was two months behind with his type-writer, and the
agency was clamoring for payment or for the return of the machine.
In desperation, all but ready to surrender, to make a truce with
fate until he could get a fresh start, he took the civil service
examinations for the Railway Mail. To his surprise, he passed
first. The job was assured, though when the call would come to
enter upon his duties nobody knew.
It was at this time, at the lowest ebb, that the smooth-running
editorial machine broke down. A cog must have slipped or an oil-
cup run dry, for the postman brought him one morning a short, thin
envelope. Martin glanced at the upper left-hand corner and read
the name and address of the TRANSCONTINENTAL MONTHLY. His heart
gave a great leap, and he suddenly felt faint, the sinking feeling
accompanied by a strange trembling of the knees. He staggered into
his room and sat down on the bed, the envelope still unopened, and
in that moment came understanding to him how people suddenly fall
dead upon receipt of extraordinarily good news.
Of course this was good news. There was no manuscript in that thin
envelope, therefore it was an acceptance. He knew the story in the
hands of the TRANSCONTINENTAL. It was “The Ring of Bells,” one of
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his horror stories, and it was an even five thousand words. And,
since first-class magazines always paid on acceptance, there was a
check inside. Two cents a word – twenty dollars a thousand; the
check must be a hundred dollars. One hundred dollars! As he tore
the envelope open, every item of all his debts surged in his brain
– $3.85 to the grocer; butcher $4.00 flat; baker, $2.00; fruit
store, $5.00; total, $14.85. Then there was room rent, $2.50;
another month in advance, $2.50; two months’ type-writer, $8.00; a
month in advance, $4.00; total, $31.85. And finally to be added,
his pledges, plus interest, with the pawnbroker – watch, $5.50;
overcoat, $5.50; wheel, $7.75; suit of clothes, $5.50 (60 %
interest, but what did it matter?) – grand total, $56.10. He saw,
as if visible in the air before him, in illuminated figures, the
whole sum, and the subtraction that followed and that gave a
remainder of $43.90. When he had squared every debt, redeemed
every pledge, he would still have jingling in his pockets a
princely $43.90. And on top of that he would have a month’s rent
paid in advance on the type-writer and on the room.
By this time he had drawn the single sheet of type-written letter
out and spread it open. There was no check. He peered into the
envelope, held it to the light, but could not trust his eyes, and
in trembling haste tore the envelope apart. There was no check.
He read the letter, skimming it line by line, dashing through the
editor’s praise of his story to the meat of the letter, the
statement why the check had not been sent. He found no such
statement, but he did find that which made him suddenly wilt. The
letter slid from his hand. His eyes went lack-lustre, and he lay
back on the pillow, pulling the blanket about him and up to his
chin.
Five dollars for “The Ring of Bells” – five dollars for five
thousand words! Instead of two cents a word, ten words for a cent!
And the editor had praised it, too. And he would receive the check
when the story was published. Then it was all poppycock, two cents
a word for minimum rate and payment upon acceptance. It was a lie,
and it had led him astray. He would never have attempted to write
had he known that. He would have gone to work – to work for Ruth.
He went back to the day he first attempted to write, and was
appalled at the enormous waste of time – and all for ten words for
a cent. And the other high rewards of writers, that he had read
about, must be lies, too. His second-hand ideas of authorship were
wrong, for here was the proof of it.
The TRANSCONTINENTAL sold for twenty-five cents, and its dignified
and artistic cover proclaimed it as among the first-class
magazines. It was a staid, respectable magazine, and it had been
published continuously since long before he was born. Why, on the
outside cover were printed every month the words of one of the
world’s great writers, words proclaiming the inspired mission of
the TRANSCONTINENTAL by a star of literature whose first
coruscations had appeared inside those self-same covers. And the
high and lofty, heaven-inspired TRANSCONTINENTAL paid five dollars
for five thousand words! The great writer had recently died in a
foreign land – in dire poverty, Martin remembered, which was not to
be wondered at, considering the magnificent pay authors receive.
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141
Well, he had taken the bait, the newspaper lies about writers and