Short Fiction O. Henry (comprehension books TXT) 📖

care. And then I felt that somebody else was in the water close by me, holding me up. He had followed me, and jumped in to save me.

“Somebody threw a thing like a big, white doughnut at us, and he made me put my arms through the hole. Then the ferryboat backed, and they pulled us on board. Oh, Hetty, I was so ashamed of my wickedness in trying to drown myself; and, besides, my hair had all tumbled down and was sopping wet, and I was such a sight.

“And then some men in blue clothes came around; and he gave them his card, and I heard him tell them he had seen me drop my purse on the edge of the boat outside the rail, and in leaning over to get it I had fallen overboard. And then I remembered having read in the papers that people who try to kill themselves are locked up in cells with people who try to kill other people, and I was afraid.

“But some ladies on the boat took me downstairs to the furnace-room and got me nearly dry and did up my hair. When the boat landed, he came and put me in a cab. He was all dripping himself, but laughed as if he thought it was all a joke. He begged me, but I wouldn’t tell him my name nor where I lived, I was so ashamed.”

“You were a fool, child,” said Hetty, kindly. “Wait till I turn the light up a bit. I wish to Heaven we had an onion.”

“Then he raised his hat,” went on Cecilia, “and said: ‘Very well. But I’ll find you, anyhow. I’m going to claim my rights of salvage.’ Then he gave money to the cabdriver and told him to take me where I wanted to go, and walked away. What is ‘salvage,’ Hetty?”

“The edge of a piece of goods that ain’t hemmed,” said the shop-girl. “You must have looked pretty well frazzled out to the little hero boy.”

“It’s been three days,” moaned the miniature-painter, “and he hasn’t found me yet.”

“Extend the time,” said Hetty. “This is a big town. Think of how many girls he might have to see soaked in water with their hair down before he would recognize you. The stew’s getting on fine⁠—but oh, for an onion! I’d even use a piece of garlic if I had it.”

The beef and potatoes bubbled merrily, exhaling a mouth-watering savor that yet lacked something, leaving a hunger on the palate, a haunting, wistful desire for some lost and needful ingredient.

“I came near drowning in that awful river,” said Cecilia, shuddering.

“It ought to have more water in it,” said Hetty; “the stew, I mean. I’ll go get some at the sink.”

“It smells good,” said the artist.

“That nasty old North River?” objected Hetty. “It smells to me like soap factories and wet setter-dogs⁠—oh, you mean the stew. Well, I wish we had an onion for it. Did he look like he had money?”

“First, he looked kind,” said Cecilia. “I’m sure he was rich; but that matters so little. When he drew out his bill-folder to pay the cabman you couldn’t help seeing hundreds and thousands of dollars in it. And I looked over the cab doors and saw him leave the ferry station in a motorcar; and the chauffeur gave him his bearskin to put on, for he was sopping wet. And it was only three days ago.”

“What a fool!” said Hetty, shortly.

“Oh, the chauffeur wasn’t wet,” breathed Cecilia. “And he drove the car away very nicely.”

“I mean you,” said Hetty. “For not giving him your address.”

“I never give my address to chauffeurs,” said Cecilia, haughtily.

“I wish we had one,” said Hetty, disconsolately.

“What for?”

“For the stew, of course⁠—oh, I mean an onion.”

Hetty took a pitcher and started to the sink at the end of the hall.

A young man came down the stairs from above just as she was opposite the lower step. He was decently dressed, but pale and haggard. His eyes were dull with the stress of some burden of physical or mental woe. In his hand he bore an onion⁠—a pink, smooth, solid, shining onion as large around as a ninety-eight-cent alarm-clock.

Hetty stopped. So did the young man. There was something Joan of Arc-ish, Herculean, and Una-ish in the look and pose of the shop-lady⁠—she had cast off the roles of Job and Little-Red-Riding-Hood. The young man stopped at the foot of the stairs and coughed distractedly. He felt marooned, held up, attacked, assailed, levied upon, sacked, assessed, panhandled, browbeaten, though he knew not why. It was the look in Hetty’s eyes that did it. In them he saw the Jolly Roger fly to the masthead and an able seaman with a dirk between his teeth scurry up the ratlines and nail it there. But as yet he did not know that the cargo he carried was the thing that had caused him to be so nearly blown out of the water without even a parley.

“Beg your pardon,” said Hetty, as sweetly as her dilute acetic acid tones permitted, “but did you find that onion on the stairs? There was a hole in the paper bag; and I’ve just come out to look for it.”

The young man coughed for half a minute. The interval may have given him the courage to defend his own property. Also, he clutched his pungent prize greedily, and, with a show of spirit, faced his grim waylayer.

“No,” he said huskily, “I didn’t find it on the stairs. It was given to me by Jack Bevens, on the top floor. If you don’t believe it, ask him. I’ll wait until you do.”

“I know about Bevens,” said Hetty, sourly. “He writes books and things up there for the paper-and-rags man. We can hear the postman guy him all over the house when he brings them thick envelopes back. Say⁠—do you live in the Vallambrosa?”

“I do not,” said the young man. “I come to see Bevens sometimes. He’s my friend. I