FANNY AND THE FIREMAN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue VI, 5 August 1899, Page 201

FANNY AND THE FIREMAN.

(By

Cy Warman.)

CHAPTER I. . “Sit here, please.” said Fanny, and she stood with her shapely hands upon the back of a chair that she had drawn a little out from the table. It was the boast of the proprietor that he had the handsomest lot of table-girls on the road, and the queen of the collection was Fanny McCann. That’s how she happened to be head waitress, for she could not know much of the business. She had come to the eating station partly because her widowed mother was poor and partly to gratify a consuming desire to pose as the prettiest girl in the place, for she had been consulting her mirror.

The fireman frowned, but took a seat next the proprietor of the Mint Julep. The fireman’s face, newly washed and rubbed hard, glistened in the glare of the electric light, and the same light played upon the jewelled hands and immaculate shirt front of the Julep man. The fireman bowed coldly, and the other, feeling a certain superiority in the matter of dress and personal appearance, smiled. The head waitress, taking a position at one of the windows, stood looking at the two men, both of whom had made love to her. She had purposely seated them so as to get their faces in one frame, as it were, for she had been unable to forsake one and cleave to the other She respected the fireman—she had loved him ouce and had acknowledged it to him—but she was dazzled by the handsome, well groomed proprietor of the Mint Julep. Once or twice the fireman ventured to look up, but each time he saw her gazing upon his rival, and his heart was filled with dread. “What time shall I call?” he asked as Fanny punched his meal ticket. “Not before nine. I detest being first in a ball-room.”

“Suppose we say 5.30? It will be 9 by the time we reach the hall.” “Nine,” said Fanny, smiling and nodding at the Julep man as he passed out. with his chinchilla thrown gracefully over his shoulders. “But I'm on the reception committee.”

"Then go and recep and come back for me. I shan't leave the house before 9. My, how jay you are!” The fireman went out with a heavy heart. Fanny was getting on. She had not used such language to him before, and it cut. him to the quick. He had felt it himself, but to have her see it and tell him of his shortcomings to his face was crushing. He remembered how he had begged her to keep out- of the eating house and tried, to hint to her mother that the place was full of lures.

“It's only a short step in the direction of danger.” he said. “A public dining-room, camp meeting, the skating rink and—” “Stop!” said Fanny's mother. “I will not have you hint even that Fanny is capable of being bad.” And so the fireman had been powerless to prevent the pure young girl from putting herself in this Eden so freighted with poisonous fruit. Promptly at 9 o'clock he called for Fanny. She would be out in a moment, her mother said. During the half-hour in which he waited for the expiration of a woman's “moment” the fireman noticed a number of new pieces of furniture; also he noticed that Fanny’s mother was a little mite remote. Fanny herself, while amply deliberate, was irritable and nervous. Conversation seemed to go slowly with them, like a heavy train on an’up grade, and when he shut off they appeared to be going back.

When they entered the ballroom the fiddlers ’ were already fiddling, and they fell in line for the opening walk around. Over in one end of the hall there was a bank of plants and ferns, loaned by leading citizens for the firemen’s annual ball, and just in front of the oasis stood the Julep man. immaculate as ever and wearing the only evening dress suit in the room. My. but he was radiant, and all the more so by comparison, for not a few of the respectable black suits worn by the firemen and their friends were beginning to take on that unmistakable shine that comes with age! “Oh, Isaac,” exclaimed Mrs Wolfstine to her husband, “what a beautiful young lady! Who is she?” “She ees not what you say—a lady. She ees waitress fum ze eating house.” “And who is the handsome gentleman writing on her Icard?” “He ees not one gentleman, my dear. He ees ze proprietor of ze Mint TTlep.” Now Mrs Wolfstine marvelled that

tjirs man should be there dancing with ftee of the best families in this growing Western town. But why should tee not be there? Every fireman on the division had sold or tried to sell him a ticket to the annual ball.

Society had not yet become stratified. and this wolf was still allowed to romp with the lambs. After the ball, when honest people were asleep, he would go and mingle with his own kind.

The fireman was surprised upon taking Fanny's card to find that his rival had already written upon it. A half hour later be took the card again to select a number and found the face of it black with:

“Julep.” “Julep.” “Julep.” This man had been called by that name so much that he had come to answer to it and write it. Indeed, few people in the place knew that he had another name.

It was two hours after midnight when the fireman opened the gate in front of the little frame cottage where the girl's mother lived. “Well.” said the girl, putting the gate between them, “was the ball a success?”

'-For some people 1 think it was a decided success." “And for others?" “A flat failure.” “That's too bad." said Fanny, with provoking carelessness. “Oh. I don’t know. Where there are so many smooth runs and smooth runners there must always be a few wrecks and failures.” Fanny yawned and ended it with a forced, half apologetic laugh. “Fannv,” said the fireman. “I want to ask you one question before 1 go, and I would like a frank, honest answer.” “Well?”

“Do you love me?” “I have said that I did." “And vou have shown that you do not.” “Then why do you ask me? “For your’ answer. If you can say truthfullv that you love me now, fresh from the radiance of that tinsel god Julep, I shall trust you." 41 Oh, vou don’t need to trust me if you don’t want to! Fm sure I never asked you to. Good night; “Fanny.” exclaimed the fireman, stretching his arms over the gate, "is this the end of my dream?" The girl twisted the little gold engagement ring from her finger and thrust it across the gate. Now the fireman wondered that he had not until now noticed the beautiful diamond that sparkled even in the pale moonlight. CHAPTER 11. How strangely sad the organ sounded in the man’s ears! He could scarcely remember when he had been inside of a church. "It’s all rot, Fanny, ole girl,” he had said. “S’nough to give a man the jimjams.” -Mother of God,’ wailed the woman, falling upon her knees beside the small white coffin, “take my baby, my baby!” And then she lay and sobbed above this mite of cold, cold clay. The man turned his bloated, distorted face from the window, drew a silk handkerchief from his pocket, and flicked the dust from his patent leather boots. And that’s how the Mint Julep man happened to hear the organ. CHAPTER HI. Fanny had just returned from the little stonv graveyard that had grown up with the town. The grass of two summers had grown green upon the grave of her dead baby. Her husband, the Mint Jelup man, was no more. His light had gone out in the midst of delirium, and his body had been sent back east to his people. They had seen men carrying a man on a stretcher from the train across the river to the hospital. “Engineer hurt!” shouted a freckled boy going past the cottage, proudly spreading the news. “Who is it?” “Dunno,” said the boy, without slowing down. “Yes, it's him.” said Fanny’s mother, coming back from one of the neighbours; “caught under his engine—leg broke and badly scalded.” Fanny put her chin in her hand, and the tears began to run down her pale face. If she could only go to him. V>t she had no right. Besides, he might not care to have her. She had seen him but once since they parted in the moonlight at the gate. That was the day her baby was buried. Lifting her eyes from the grave that was closing over the white coffin, she had looked inlo his face, and, seeing a look of sympathy there, she had almost thrown herself into his arms, so

utterly lonely and miserable did she feel, but he turned away, probably to hide his own tears. It was a week later that the kindhearted surgeon consented to allow her to visit the injured man.

He whs asleep when she entered, and she sat down silently beside the little iron bed. The sight of his pale but honest face so affected her that she took his hand and held it in bers. The sleeper stirred slightly, and she put down the hand, but not until she had left two tears upon it. When he could collect M 4 weak and wavering mind, the sick man looked upon the pale, but still beautiful face of the woman and whispered the one word, the one name, that had been the sweetest name in the language to him in his youth. He had taken her hands and now drew her towards him. She turned her face awav.

“Ah. Fanny, don't you think you could learn to love me again?” “1 have never ceased to love you.” she said, with her honest eyes upon his. “It was all a mistake—an awful, horrid mistake.” “Here, here!” said the doctor entering. “If you're going to cry, I'll send you away.” “No. you won’t." said the engineer, smiling and taking her hand in his, “She’s going to be my nurse.”