THE HESPERIAN
,
JOHNNY AND THE DUTCH PIPE.
Watertown was smoking, all the way up
from the giant red chimneys of Jean and
Farwell's iron works down to little Johnny
Turner who, at great danger of setting the
house a fire, was smoking his father's
lighted pipe und?r the bed quilts.
And Johnny's father was out of sorts
which had been very common to him of
late. He could not find his long Dutch
pipe, the dearest companion of his life. He
had sought everywhere, but in vain. He
had cherished, at first, a suspicion way down
in his secret heart that Margaret, or the
'Brig," as he in his nautical way sometimes
called her, knew where he had put it, but
that out of sheer stubbornness she would not
tell him. Then gradually he came to think
that she had hidden it, because she was
jealous of his love for it.
When, just a few minutes before, she had
gone into the boxy, green and red parlor to
gossip with some neighbor woman, as he
supposed, about the advisability of hanging
geraniums and other house plants by their
roots in the collar during winter, or else,
whether it were better to cut a little boy's
curls at two than to let them grow until he
was eight, then he had risen from his humble
seat in the corner and had proceeded cau
tiously to look for his luckless pipe. In the
cupboard, in the bake-box, in the warming
oven everywhere he looked, and he even
stirred around in the flour-barrel, but it
could not be found.
He had had just time enough to get set
tled in his chair again when he heard the
distant approach of the Brig. Ah, but ill
fortune awaited herl A storm was brewing.
It burst upon her unexpectedly.
Margaret entered. Johnny's father arose.
He turned, and faced her stern and pale. A
groat ado, perhaps you think, over just a
hidden pipe? But it was not that alone, oh
no. He told her, then, in a voice so cour
ageous, so calm, that Margaret stood there
staring, how he had married her for love,
and because she was so handsome, with such
black hair and red, red cheeks, and eyes as
blue and innocent as well ho had thought,
anyhow, that they would always be as happy
as doves, but all had turned out differently.
In one way and another she had slighted
him, it was no use to mention how. But
now his pipe was gone. She had hidden it.
The only joy and comfort that he had had
she had taken from him. He would never
get another, for that would soon be taken
from him too. All that she cared for was
to talk and talk the whole day long, or take
Johnny out for an airing in now kilts. Even
little Johnny, when his father took him up
and tried to be kind, rewarded him only
with kicks and screams. Life had become
unbearable. No, ho would not listen. He
had long ago made up his mind to leave her.
She would get along, doubtless, a good deal
better without having him and his dirty old
pipe in her way. As fortune would have it
the "Good Luck" sailed that afternoon.
Ho left the room, slamming the door.
Later he entered the kitchen dressed in his
old sailor suit and carrying a cloth and
leather satchel. He walked up to his silent
wife, still standing at the window and look
ing far off beyond everything, and gave her
a letter.
Then he went out through the open door,
,,and took his way down the long, crooked,
muddy streets, dark in the mist, to the
wharf where he was soon swallowed up in
the thicker mist and in the crowd of moving
horses, men and boats.
All night long in a brig at sea a man lay
tossing and dreaming, half asleep and half
awake, cf a brig "Margaret" at shore, with
black hair and red, red cheeks and eyes as
blue and innocent as then he would waken
and hear the water dashing.
In Watertown a lamp burned all night
long in a kitchen window, and a woman sat
in an humble seat in the corner waiting for
a man in a sailor's suit and carrying a cloth
and leather satchel. On the woman's lap
lay a long Dutch-pipe and an open letter.