stalwart negro women who raced back and forth from the bases of supplies
with splendid dash and clatter and energy. Their labors were
supplemented after a fashion by the young girl Puss. She carried coffee
and tea back and forth among the boarders, but she made pleasure
excursions rather than business ones in this way, to speak strictly.
She made jokes with various people. She chaffed the young men pleasantly
and wittily, as she supposed, and as the rest also supposed, apparently,
judging by the applause and laughter which she got by her efforts.
Manifestly she was a favorite with most of the young fellows and
sweetheart of the rest of them. Where she conferred notice she conferred
happiness, as was seen by the face of the recipient; and; at the same
time she conferred unhappiness–one could see it fall and dim the faces
of the other young fellows like a shadow. She never “Mistered” these
friends of hers, but called them “Billy,” “Tom,” “John,” and they called
her “Puss” or “Hattie.”
Mr. Marsh sat at the head of the table, his wife sat at the foot. Marsh
was a man of sixty, and was an American; but if he had been born a month
earlier he would have been a Spaniard. He was plenty good enough
Spaniard as it was; his face was very dark, his hair very black, and his
eyes were not only exceedingly black but were very intense, and there was
something about them that indicated that they could burn with passion
upon occasion. He was stoop-shouldered and lean-faced, and the general
aspect of him was disagreeable; he was evidently not a very companionable
person. If looks went for anything, he was the very opposite of his
wife, who was all motherliness and charity, good will and good nature.
All the young men and the women called her Aunt Rachael, which was
another sign. Tracy’s wandering and interested eye presently fell upon
one boarder who had been overlooked in the distribution of the stew.
He was very pale and looked as if he had but lately come out of a sick
bed, and also as if he ought to get back into it again as soon as
possible. His face was very melancholy. The waves of laughter and
conversation broke upon it without affecting it any more than if it had
been a rock in the sea and the words and the laughter veritable waters.
He held his head down and looked ashamed. Some of the women cast glances
of pity toward him from time to time in a furtive and half afraid way,
and some of the youngest of the men plainly had compassion on the young
fellow–a compassion exhibited in their faces but not in any more active
or compromising way. But the great majority of the people present showed
entire indifference to the youth and his sorrows. Marsh sat with his
head down, but one could catch the malicious gleam of his eyes through
his shaggy brows. He was watching that young fellow with evident relish.
He had not neglected him through carelessness, and apparently the table
understood that fact. The spectacle was making Mrs. Marsh very
uncomfortable. She had the look of one who hopes against hope that the
impossible may happen. But as the impossible did not happen, she finally
ventured to speak up and remind her husband that Nat Brady hadn’t been
helped to the Irish stew.
Marsh lifted his head and gasped out with mock courtliness, “Oh, he
hasn’t, hasn’t he? What a pity that is. I don’t know how I came to
overlook him. Ah, he must pardon me. You must indeed Mr–er–Baxter–
Barker, you must pardon me. I–er–my attention was directed to some
other matter, I don’t know what. The thing that grieves me mainly is,
that it happens every meal now. But you must try to overlook these
little things, Mr. Bunker, these little neglects on my part. They’re
always likely to happen with me in any case, and they are especially
likely to happen where a person has–er–well, where a person is, say,
about three weeks in arrears for his board. You get my meaning?–you get