Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1913-06-03


Francisco streets-struck upon her
Observation. with sense of grip
ing, bleak dreariness. She could look
along the TWO lines of sidewalk till
they were lost in the gradual milky
thickening of the fog, and at intervals
see a figure, faint and dreamlike, Ell
tier emerging from space in slow ap-
proach, or melting into it in phantas
NAL withdrawal.
1t was a melancholy, depressing
vista. She had not reached the top OF
the long hill before she decided that
she would walk no farther. Walking
was only bearable when there was
something to see. But she did not
know what else to do or where to go
lndecision was not usually a feature OF
her character To-day, however, the
unaccustomed strain of temptation and
worry seemed to have weakened heI
resourcefulness and resolution. The
one point on which she felt deter
mined was that she would not &C
home.
The advancing front of a car, loom
ing suddenly through the mist, decid
ed her. She hailed 1t, climbed on
board. and sam. into a seat on the In
side. There was no one else there. Ii
smelt of dampness, of wet woolens
and rubber oyershoes, and its closed
windows, filmed with fog, showed
semicircuiar streaks across them
where passengers had rubbed them
clean to look out. The con ctor, an
unkempt man, with an unshayen chin
and dirty collar, slouched in for her
fare, extending grimy paw toward
her. AS he took the money and
punched the tag, he hummed a tune
to himself, seeming to convey in that
harmless act a sighting opinion of
his passenger. Berry looked at him
severely, which made him hum still
louder, and lounge indifferently out
to the back platform, where he leaned
on the brake and spat scornfully into
the street.
Berry felt that sitting there was
worse than walking. There was no
one to look at, there was nothing to
be seen from the windows. The car
dipped over the edge of an incline,
slid with an even, Swimming swiftness
down the face OF the hill, and then,
with a series of small jouncings,
crossed the rails of another line. Not
knowing or caring where she was, she
signaled the conductor to stop, and
alighted. She looked round her for
an uncertain moment, and then recog-
nized the locality She vas close to
the old Union Street plaza on which
the Greek Church frcnted. Here in
the days before her marriage, when
she and Hazel had been known as
the pretty Iverson girls" she had
been won't to come on sunny Sunday
mornings and sit on the benches with
such beaux as frightened the monot-
ony of that unaspiring period.
She felt tired now and thought 1t
would not be bad idea to cross to
the plaza and rest there for a space.
She was warmly dressed and her
clothes would not be hurt by the damp.
Threading her way down the street.
she came out on the opening where
the little park lies like an unrolled
green cloth round which the shabby,
gray city crowds
She sank down on the first empty
bench, and looking round she saw
other dark shapes, having a vague.
huddled appearance, lounging in
bunched-up attitude on the adjacent
seats. They seemed preoccupied. 1t
struck her that they, like herself,
were plunged in meditation on mat
tiers which they had sought this damp
seclusion silently to ponder. The only
region Of activity in the dim, still
scene was where some boys were
playing under the faintly-defined out
lire Of a large willow tree. They
were bending close to the ground in
the performance of game over which
periods of quietness fell to be broken
by sudden disrupting cries. AS Berry
took her seat their imp-like shapes
dark and without detail, danced about
under the tree in what appeared fam
tastic ecstasy, while their cries broke
through the woolly thickness of the
air with an intimate clearness strange
ly at variance with the remote effect
of their figures.
The fact that no one noticed her. or
could clearly see her, affected her as
it seemed to have done the other occu-
pants of the benches. She relaxed
from her alert sprightliness of pose,
and sank against the back of. the seat
in the impress of unobserved Indiffer-
ence. Sitting thus, her eyes on the
ground, she heard, at first unheeding,
then with a growing sense Of atten-
ton, footsteps approaching on the
gravel walk. They were the short,
quick footsteps of a woman. Berry
looked UP and saw a woman, little
darker than the atmosphere, emerging
from the surrounding grayness, as if
she were slowly rising to the surface
water
Her form detached itself gradually
from the fog, the effect of elaboration
being due to the fact that she was
dressed in gray, long. loose coat
and a round hat with film OF veil
about it, She would have been a
study in monochrome but for the
color in the cheek turned to Berry,
a glowing. rose-tinted cheek into
which the damp had called a pink
brighter than any rouge. Berry looked
at it with reluctant admiration, and
the woman turned and presented her
full face. blooming as a flower, to the
watchers eye. 1t was Rose Cannon
If in these wan and dripping sur
the young girl had not
locked so freshly fair and comely.
Berry might have let her pass un-
checked But upon the elder womans
sore and bitter mood the vision of
this rosy youthfulness. triumphant
where all the rest of the world sank
under the weight of a
common ugliness, came with a sense
of unbearable wrong and grievance,
As Rose passed. Berry. with a sudden
binding up-rush of excitement.