[ILLUSTRATION]
Morgan had been on the road for one house about 20 years. This is a long period of travel. In less time than that most men work up or work down. No man can continue on a dead level as a salesman during that time, even if his habits are good. If he has ability he is sure, with rare exception, to work himself off the road. If he is mediocre no one house can afford to carry him for twenty years. Morgan was the rare exception just mentioned. He was an excellent salesman, and his ability and success but served to weld him the closer to his work. The house had made him a partner long since, but the business he controlled was so large and so profitable, that they all knew, and he best, that to withdraw him and experiment with a new man would be but playing with fire over a magazine of powder. So he went on his way year after year, making no plans for the future that would change his work or his life.
But his family, consisting of his wife and their one daughter, Mary, a romping girl of twelve, was not of his disposition, These two could not see husband and father start off without a protest. The wife had always on her heart a burden of anxiety about him; of dangers on railroads, of his possible robbery and murder; of the discomforts of hotels, and the fear of his falling sick among strangers. She was naturally a timid woman, and the responsibility of the house weighed upon her. The whole burden of Mary's growth in body and mind, her training, her companions, and her pleasures were matters the mother would gladly have shared with the father, but she was generally compelled to decide them alone.
The father's continued absence was a constant pain and grievance to Mary. There was never a week but that she felt deprived of some special outing because he was not at home to go with her. Saturday night and Sunday, if he was where he could run home, were so many solid hours of happiness to them all, but to Mary they were full of perfect bliss.
Morgan was known to all his friends as a man who never worried. If a train was late he sat down and waited; if a customer failed he always signed a compromise; if he didn't get the best room in the hotel, he took what he could get; and he lost no sleep in picturing how his competitors might get ahead of him. He always left home with the assurance that everything would go on all right until he returned, and when he went away he thought of the two he loved as being happy and well.
But as he started on this trip, he could not shake off a slight feeling of anxiety that had possessed him all the night, and had grown since he awoke. Their talk the previous day had been about the entrance Of diphtheria into the neighborhood, and of the fatal case but two blocks away from their door. Mary had complained of a slightly sore throat, but on Monday morning declared it was entirely well again, kissing him good-by with more spirit than usual, as if trying to convince him of the truth of her words, and send him away assured and happy.
When he was seated in the cars the shadows came over his spirits again and began to torture him with doubts and possibilities. It might be, he thought, that her sprightliness of the morning was due to fever, rather than to health. He wished he had looked into her throat, and he regretted that he had not cautioned his wife about her. He nursed these fears until he felt himself becoming wild with apprehension, and then he resolutely put the thoughts aside, declared he was foolish and would have no more of it, and devoted himself to a companion and to his papers.
Men cannot always govern their minds. These are kingdoms that frequently rebel against all government. Several times during the day Morgan caught himself going back to his morning thoughts and he resolutely changed the current. But at night, try as he would, he could not conquer them. Even his dreams took up the forebodings of the day, exaggerated and intensified them, and tortured him. Next morning found him out of sorts, nervous, and miserable. He had a long drive to take in the country, but he shrank from it as if he saw danger in his track. All his intuitions seemed to be crying to him to go home, but what he thought was his common sense kept insisting that he should go on with his business, and not cross the bridge of trouble until he came to it.
The day was one of the loveliest October days he had ever seen. His drive was through twenty miles of the best corn land of Illinois. The black road was as dry as a board, and as level as only a prairie can be. The first effect of the beautiful day and pure air was invigorating. He enjoyed the drive through the street into the country road. Then the broad fields, the pleasant farm houses, the herds of horses and cattle, the long Osage hedges, the perpetual but always surprised rabbit at the road side, all these attracted and entertained him, and his ride was successful in driving away his blues. His customer seemed especially glad to see him; took him to his house to dinner; talked with him of important personal matters, and gave him a large order for goods. He turned back to the railroad feeling as happy as he had ever done; took out his order-book and figured up the amount of the bill and the profit, as was his custom, and then began to sing.
Suddenly there came across him a wave of anxious worry, and all his thoughts flew back to the daughter's sore throat, and the funeral he saw last Sunday. He could not drive these away. They clung to him; they whispered to him; they unfolded themselves like a panorama, and on the canvas he saw Mary sick, then worse, and then dead! It was the longest twenty-mile ride that he had ever taken, and his old friend, the landlord, concluded from his face that Morgan had met with bad luck in sales that day.
He had a night run to Decatur and determined that he would telegraph to the house, and quiet these nervous apprehensions that were so cruel, though probably so absurd. It would cost but little, he reasoned, and though foolish, it was wiser than to continue to be torn by doubts. So before going to bed he gave the operator a half rate message, for morning delivery, as follows:
To Manning, Morgan & Co., Chicago, Ill.: Is my wife or daughter sick? Answer, care Gilsey.
C. MORGAN.
He felt easier having done this, and passed a better night than the previous one, although there was in all his sleeping and waking thoughts an under current of solicitude over impending danger to Mary.
With an attempt not to be anxious, yet terribly apprehensive at heart, he tore open the telegram that reached him about 9 o'clock:
To C. Morgan, care Gilsey & Co., Decatur: Come home first train.
MANNING.
Good God, what was this! Were his forebodings indeed true? If so he was all the more totally unprepared for the truth. His constant comfort had been that his fears had not the slightest foundation to rest upon, and the more they crowded upon him the surer he had been that they were flimsier than dreams. But here staring him in the face were those four ominous words:
“Come home first train.”
Why had they not given him the whole story? He started for the telegraph office to send for further particulars, but stopped. Suppose Mary was dead! Did he want to learn it here, so far from his wife? No; he would wait. Such a story would unfold soon enough. There were several hours before a train went his way; the discipline of twenty years asserted itself, and he attended to his business.
The ride home was one that can be understood in its depths only by those who have been similarly circumstanced. The train seemed to creep. The minutes were like hours. The stops seemed to be interminable, and every mile nearer home seemed to be proportionately longer than the previous one. He reached the city at dark. The store was closed. He had expected to find Manning there, but he suddenly remembered that he had not telegraphed to him the time of his arrival. As he neared his home the first glance showed him there was a change. The lower part of the house was in darkness, and only a dim light shone in the front chamber, which was but rarely occupied.
“They have laid her there,” he said to himself, and all his soul cried within him in anguish. His poor wife! How she must have suffered, to have gone through all this alone! What a brute he was to go away Monday, when he ought to have known, and did know, that something dreadful was upon them! He reached the door; it was fastened; he would go to the other side and enter quietly. But some one heard his step, and, opening the door, called him back.
“Is it Mr. Morgan?” The voice was that of a neighbor.
“Yes.” He passed in, expecting to see or hear his wife. The friend closed the door and turned to him.
“Have you heard—,” she began.
“I have heard nothing; is Mary—,” he broke down. The door beside him opened.
“Oh, papa!”
Give him air! What mystery was this?
“Mary, is it you? Are you alive? Why, I thought—I feared—Oh, darling, is it you?”
Yes, it was Mary. Oh, thank God! Thank God!
“Tell me again, dear, are you well?”
“Oh, yes, papa, but poor mamma!”
“Mamma! What of her? Is she sick? What is it? Tell me quick!” And again he was pushed from the heaven of happiness to the bottomless pit of doubt. “Is mamma sick? where is she?”
“Oh, papa, the doctor says she is going to—”
“Hush,” said the neighbor. “Step inside, sir; the doctor is with her now; he will soon be down. Prepare yourself, Mr. Morgan; your wife is very low. The servant's carelessness caused an explosion in the kitchen, setting herself on fire; your wife ran to her assistance and saved her life, but, I fear, at the expense of her own.”
“I must see her.”
“No, sir, not now; be guided by me for a moment. The doctor will soon be down.”
He took Mary in his arms and they wept together. Oh, if his wife, his darling wife! were to be taken from him! It was the cruelest blow God ever struck! And she saving another's life, too! He cursed and raved, but it was in his own heart; and Mary, crying on his breast, only knew what comfort it was to have her papa once more with her.
The physician came down with manner so grave that it told its own story. “There is scarcely a chance,” he said; “you can go to her; she will not know you.”
“When did this happen?”
“Monday evening.”
“Have you consulted others? Can nothing more be done?”
“Nothing except to help her to die easy.”
* * * * * * *
But she did not die. She knew her husband. He begged of her to live, as only a man can plead whose soul is bound up in a woman's life, and whether love, or whether medicine, or whether care saved her, I do not know. But she lived. But Morgan informed Manning that his traveling days were over; that a new man must be engaged for that route. They found him, after diligent search, and much to the surprise of everyone connected with the who rejoices most at this is Morgan, who says he has made his last trip.
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