“DOWN TO YORK.”

Despite his father’s expressed desire, Phil went to New York on Sol Mantring’s sloop. The difference in time promised to be a day or two days, but the difference in cash outlay was more than five dollars,—a sum which no one in the vicinity of Hayn Farm had ever been known to spend needlessly without coming to grief. Between cash in hand and its nominal equivalent in time, Phil, like most other prudent young countrymen, had learned to distinguish with alacrity and positiveness: besides, he knew how small was the amount of ready money that his father, in spite of care and skill at his business, was able to show for more than a quarter of a century of hard work.

The young man’s departure was the occasion for quite a demonstration by the neighbors. Other young men of the vicinage had been to New York, but generally they were those whom their neighbors did not hope to see again; Phil, on the contrary, was a general favorite. His family intended that no one should know of the journey until Phil was fairly off, for they knew by experience, in which sometimes they had been the offenders, how insatiable is rural curiosity about any doings out of the ordinary. But{28} when Sol Mantring told his wife that Phil was to go down with him as a “hand,” Mrs. Mantring straight-way put on her best things and went out to tell all her neighbors that Phil Hayn was going down to York, and, being a woman who never did anything by halves, she afterward plodded the dusty road that led to the little village at the railway-station, where she consumed several hours in doing petty shopping at the several stores, varying this recreation by industrious gossip with every acquaintance who dropped in. As each person who heard the news wondered what Phil was going for, and as Mrs. Mantring was sure she didn’t know any better than dead-and-gone Adam, there was developed a wealth of surmise and theory that should have forever dispelled the general impression that Americans are not an imaginative people.

For the remainder of Phil’s time at home the family and its eldest son had scarcely enough time to themselves to attend to their daily devotions. People came to borrow something, to bring news, to ask advice,—anything that would be an excuse to see what might be going on and to learn why Phil was going to the city. Phil’s parents had prepared what they supposed would be sufficient explanation: the farm and the house needed some things that could better be selected from large stocks and variety than bought nearer home. But they had underrated the persistency of local curiosity: numberless pointed questions were asked, and if in the course of a week there had been any visitor who did not ask, in one way or other, whether Phil would go to see the{29} Tramlays, the family did not know who it had been; they were sure they would have gratefully noted such a considerate person at the time, and remembered him—or her—forever after.

There were scores, too, who wanted Phil to do them small services in the city. Farmer Blewitt had heard that the car-companies often sold for almost nothing the horses that broke down at their hard work and needed only plenty of rest and pasturage to make them as good as new: wouldn’t Phil look about and see if he couldn’t get him a bargain?—and bring it back oil the sloop, if he wouldn’t mind feeding and watering it on the home trip! Old Mrs. Wholley had been finding her spectacles so young that she didn’t know but she needed stronger glasses, or maybe a Bible with larger print: if Phil would price both and write her, she would try to make up her mind what she ought to do. Samantha Roobles had been telling her husband James for the last five years that their best-room carpet was too shabby for people who might have a funeral in the family at any time, James’s stepmother being very old and sickly, but James wouldn’t do anything but put off, and as for her, she wasn’t going to be cheated out of her eye-teeth at the stores at the dép?t, when year before last she saw in a York newspaper, that the wind blew out of the hand of somebody leaning out of a train window, that good ingrains were selling in New York at thirty-five cents a yard: she wished Phil would pick her out one.

Besides many requests like these, Phil had to make promises to dozens of young men and women whose{30} wants were smaller, but none the easier to attend to: so the prospective traveller and his parents had the pains of parting alleviated by the thought that not until Phil departed would any of them have peace. The day of sailing brought a great throng of visitors,—so many that the minister, who was of the number, extemporized a “neighborhood prayer-meeting,” at which Providence was implored to “save our dear young brother from the perils of the deep,” and informed of so many of Phil’s good qualities that only an inborn respect for religious forms restrained the modest youth from sneaking out of the back door and hiding in the hull of the sloop until there was a broad expanse of water between him and the shore.

Then the entire throng, excepting two or three old ladies who remained with Mrs. Hayn “to help her bear up, poor soul,” escorted Phil to the sloop. Among them was a predominance of young men who looked as if in case Phil should want a substitute they were ready, and of young women whose faces indicated that if Phil should care to say anything tender to anybody, just to have something to think about while away, he should have no excuse to leave it unsaid. Sol Mantring cut the parting short by remarking that prayer was all very well in its place, but he didn’t believe in it keeping a sloop in a shallow river while the tide was falling and no wind to help her out. So Phil hurried aboard, though not before his father had almost crushed his hand with a grasp that had been developed by many years of training with bridle-reins, axe-helves, and paternal affection.

Some one cast off the sloop’s hawser; the mainsail{31} was already up, and the craft began to drift out with the tide. This was the signal for a flutter of handkerchiefs and a chorus of cheers, during which Farmer Hayn plodded along the river-bank beside the sloop, regardless of mud, stones, marsh grass and cat-tails. He seemed to have no last injunctions for his boy; indeed, his occasional shouts were bestowed principally upon Sol Mantring, who stood at the wheel, and they had no more relation to Phil than to the Khan of Khiva. In like manner Phil seemed less interested in his father than in the maze of cordage at the foot of the mast. Nevertheless, when the river-bank ended at the shore of the bay, and could be followed no longer, the old man stood there, as Sol Mantring said afterward, “lookin’ as if he’d lost his last friend, never expected to git another, an’ he’d got ten year older all of a sudden,” and Phil, when he saw this, straightened in front of the friendly mast which hid him from the remainder of the crew, and threw kisses to his father, with the profusion of early childhood, as long as he could distinguish the dingy old coat and hat from the stones of similar hue that marked the little point.

“The perils of the deep” were happily averted. Indeed, Phil would willingly have endured more could the wind have blown harder. The sloop finally made her pier in New York about dusk of the second day. Phil hastily donned his best suit, and as the part of the city in which the iron-merchants cluster was not far away, and Sol Mantring knew the streets of that portion of the city, Phil started, with minute directions from the skipper, to call on Mr. Tramlay.{32} His singleness of purpose made him unconscious that he was acting in a manner not common to him, but as he climbed the side of the pier and hurried toward the mass of light before him Sol Mantring remarked to the remainder of the crew, consisting of two men,—

“I knowed it.”

“Knowed what?”

“He’s gal-struck. Got it bad.”

Phil made his way up the principal thoroughfare from New York to Brooklyn, wondering at the thronged sidewalks and brilliantly-lighted shops, but he did not neglect to eye the street-names on corner-lamps. Soon he turned into a street which was part of his course as laid down by Sol; at the same time he turned from light to darkness, the change being almost appalling in its suddenness. Still he hurried on, and after another turn began to look for numbers on the fronts of buildings. His heart bounded within him as he suddenly saw, by the light of a street-lamp, the sign EDGAR TRAMLAY. In an instant his hand was on the door-knob; but the door did not open. Through the glass door he saw two or three dim lights within. Probably the proprietor was at his desk; perhaps, too, he should have knocked; so knock he did.

“What d’ye want there, young feller?” shouted a policeman across the street.

“I want to see Mr. Tramlay.”

“Guess your watch is slow, ain’t it?” growled the officer.

“I don’t know: maybe so,” Phil replied.{33}

“Don’t you know better’n to come huntin’ down here for a bizness-man after six o’clock at night?” asked the officer.

Phil admitted to himself that he did not; still, he had come ashore to find Mr. Tramlay, and the idea of giving up the search did not occur to him. He finally asked,—

“Where do you suppose I can find him?”

“At home, I guess, if he’s one of the kind that goes straight home from his store.”

“I reckon he is,” said Phil. “Will you please tell me where he lives?”

“Oh, come off!” muttered the policeman. “D’ye s’pose I ain’t got nothin’ to do but know where folks live? Where was you brought up?—‘way back?”

“I’m sorry I bothered you, sir,” said Phil, who now saw the officer’s uniform, and recognized it, by memory of pictures he had seen in illustrated newspapers. “Isn’t there any way to find out where a man lives in New York?”

“Certainly; look in the Directory. Go up to Broadway,—it’s up at the head of this street,—an’ go along till you find a drug-store. Like enough you’ll find a Directory there.”

Phil followed instructions, and learned the street and number of the Tramlay domicile. In front of him street-cars were continually coming and going, and by the conductors of these he was referred from one to another until he found a car which went to the street he wanted to reach. Although Phil knew the city was large, the journey seemed very long; it{34} was made an hour longer than it should have been; for a fire had broken out somewhere along the route, and engine-hose blockaded the railway-track. When finally the desired street was reached, Phil found himself several hundred numbers away from that he was looking for, and it was then nearly nine o’clock.

“I’ve half a mind to give it up,” said Phil, as he walked rapidly along. “Perhaps they go to bed early: there’s no telling. Still, if they’re abed I’ll know it by the lights being out. I don’t seem to walk down these numbers very fast.”

He quickened his steps; he almost ran; but more than a quarter of an hour passed before he saw on a glass transom the number that indicated his journey was at an end. Phil stopped; then he crossed the street, and surveyed the house carefully.

“Lights in all the windows,” said he. “That looks as if they’d all gone to their own rooms; looks like bed-time. I was afraid of it. I suppose there’s nothing to do but go back to the sloop, or find some place to lodge. Too bad!”

He re-crossed the street, and ascended a step or two: truthful though he was, he would have denied to any one but himself that he did it only because Lucia had tripped up those same steps. Slowly he descended and walked away; but he had passed but a house or two, and was looking backward, when a man who had passed him ran up the Tramlay steps. Then Phil saw a flash of light and heard a door close.

“That wasn’t Mr. Tramlay. There aren’t any other men in the family. He must be a visitor.{35} Well, if other men can call at this time of night, I guess I can visit it too.”

Back he went, and, as he was unacquainted with the outer mechanism of door-bells, he rapped sharply upon the door. It opened instantly, and as Phil stepped in he found the hall and stairway, as well as the parlors, quite full of ladies and gentlemen.

“It’s a party,” he said to himself. Then he informed himself, in great haste, that he would postpone his visit, but as he turned to go he found the door was closed, and a small colored boy who stood by it said, “Gen’lmen fust room back,” and pointed up-stairs. Entirely losing his self-possession, and wondering what to do, Phil stood stupidly staring about him, when suddenly he saw Lucia in full evening dress. He hastily dropped his eyes, for he had never before seen a dress of that particular cut.