Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER III.

On the morn­ing of the fourth day out, Chester Lawrence stood watch­ing the an­tics of a young man, who, coat­less and hat­less, and made brave by too many vis­its to the bar, was run­ning up the rope lad­ders of the mast to a dan­ger­ous height. He climbed up to where the lad­der met the one on the oth­er side, down which he scram­bled with the agili­ty of a mon­key. The ladies in the group on deck gasped in fright at his reck­less dar­ing. The fel­low jumped to the deck from the rail, and made a sweep­ing bow to the spec­ta­tors:

“Ladies and gen­tle­men,” he said, “'tis noth­ing at all, I as­sure you. On shore I am a cir­cus per­former, an' I was just prac­tic­ing a lit­tle. Have no fear. See--”

He was about to make a sec­ond ex­hi­bi­tion when a ship's of­fi­cer seized him, threat­en­ing to lock him up if he did not de­sist.

“O, cer­tain­ly, if its against the rules,” he replied meek­ly. His hat and coat were ly­ing on a chair by some ladies. He put these on again, and then sat down and be­gan talk­ing to the one near­est him. Chester, who had fol­lowed the fel­low's ca­pers with some in­ter­est, gave a start when he saw that the la­dy with whom the man was try­ing to car­ry on a con­ver­sa­tion was the min­is­ter's daugh­ter. She was vis­ibly an­noyed, and looked about as if for help. Chester thought her eyes fell on him, and with­out hes­ita­tion he de­ter­mined to as­sist her. He went up to them, and with­out ap­pear­ing to see the girl, reached out his hand to the man, say­ing:

“Hal­loo Jack! Didn't know you were on board till I saw your ca­pers just now. I want to talk to you a mo­ment. Come along and have a drink first.”

The fel­low stared at Chester and was about to de­ny any ac­quain­tance­ship with him, when the in­sis­tent man­ner of the greet­ing changed his mind. He ex­cused him­self to the la­dy, arose and fol­lowed. Chester took his arm as they walked along.

“Which is your state-​room?” asked Chester.

“It's 340; but what you want to know for? Aren't we go­ing to have a drink?”

“Not just now, my man. You're go­ing to your room, and to bed. You got up too ear­ly. Lis­ten,”--as the sober­ing man be­gan to re­sent the in­ter­fer­ence,--“there's an of­fi­cer look­ing at us. He will do noth­ing if you will go along qui­et­ly with me, but if you make a scene I'll hand you over to him.”

They found the man's room and he will­ing­ly went in and lay down. “Now,” said Chester to him, “re­main be­low un­til you're sober. And don't both­er that young la­dy again--do you hear. _Don't you do it_.”

Chester went on deck again, some­what in won­der at his own con­duct. He was not in the habit of in­ter­fer­ing in oth­er peo­ple's busi­ness, and nev­er mixed with drunk­en af­fairs. But this sure­ly was dif­fer­ent. No man would have re­fused _that_ ap­peal for help. Yes; he was sure she had plead­ed with her eyes. Per­haps he ought to go back and re­ceive her thanks, but he re­sist­ed that im­pulse. He walked to the ex­treme rear of the boat and stood look­ing at the broad white path which the ship was mak­ing in the green sea. He stood gaz­ing for some time, then turned, and there sit­ting on a coil of rope was the girl who had been in his mind. She saw his con­fu­sion and smiled at it.

“I--I came to thank you,” she said; “but I did not like to dis­turb your med­ita­tions, so I sat down to rest.”

“The sea has used you up quite bad­ly, hasn't it?”

“O no; I was dread­ful­ly ill be­fore I came aboard. This trip is to make me well, so pa­pa says.”

“I hope so.” There was a pause, dur­ing which Chester found a seat on a bit of ship fur­ni­ture. This girl's voice was like an echo from far-​away Utah and Piney Ridge Cot­tage. And there was some­thing about the shape­ly head now framed in wind-​blown hair and the face it­self that re­mind­ed him of some­one else. Just how the re­sem­blance came in he could not tell, but there it was. Per­haps, af­ter all, it was just the look in her eyes and the spir­it that ac­com­pa­nied her ac­tions and words that moved him.

“Is that man a friend of yours?” she asked.

“You mean that drunk­en fool? No; I've nev­er met him be­fore.”

“That was just a ruse then--that in­vi­ta­tion to drink.”

“I had to do some­thing, and that came first to me.”

“Then you didn't go and drink with him?”

“Why no, of course not. I took him to his berth, and told him to stay there.”

“Do you think he will?”

“Yes; un­til he sobers up.”

“Well, I don't like drunk­en men.”

“Nei­ther do I.”

“We're agreed on one thing then, aren't we?”

Chester laughed with her. El­der Mal­by was pac­ing the deck, await­ing the call for break­fast; but Chester did not join him.

“The man both­ered me yes­ter­day,” she said, “and again last night. He wished to get ac­quaint­ed, he claimed.”

“You don't know him, then?”

“I've nev­er seen him be­fore. Pa­pa has had to re­main very qui­et, and I haven't been around much. That fel­low made me afraid.”

“Well, he'll not both­er you again. If he does, let me know.”

“Thank you very much--”

The call for break­fast came to them faint­ly, then grew loud­er as the beat­en gong came up from be­low to the deck.

“I must get pa­pa and take him to break­fast. Let me thank you again, and good morn­ing.”

He might have ac­com­pa­nied her down, but he just stood there watch­ing her. El­der Mal­by came up, and the two went down to­geth­er.

The min­is­ter and his daugh­ter got in­to their places more ac­tive­ly that morn­ing. Chester wished hearti­ly that his seat was not op­po­site. She was at too close range to al­low of any care­ful ob­ser­va­tion. He could not very well help look­ing across the ta­ble, nei­ther could she, al­though she had her fa­ther to talk to. Chester was re­al­ly glad when break­fast was over that morn­ing, and they all filed up to the sun-​lit deck again.

Had Chester been a smok­er, he would no doubt have tak­en con­so­la­tion in a pipe with the ma­jor­ity of the men; but as it was, he with­drew as much as pos­si­ble from oth­ers that he might think mat­ters over and get to a prop­er foot­ing; for truth to tell, he was in dan­ger of falling in love again, and that, he said to him­self, would nev­er do. He avoid­ed even El­der Mal­by that morn­ing; but to do so he had to go down to the main deck for­ward out to the prow. He went to the ex­treme point, where from be­hind the closed rail­ing he could stand as a look-​out in­to the east­ern sea. Gen­tly and slow­ly the ves­sel rose and fell as it plowed through the long, gleam­ing un­du­la­tions.

“What am I com­ing to,” said Chester half-​aloud as if the sea might hear and an­swer him. “Here I am run­ning away from one heart en­tan­gle­ment on­ly to go plump in­to an­oth­er. She is not Ju­lia, of course, but she has Ju­lia's twin soul. A per­fect stranger, an ac­quain­tance of two days! The daugh­ter of a min­is­ter, a min­is­ter of the world!” What was he think­ing of? Who were they? He did not even know her name. She was not a well girl, that he could see. The ros­es in her cheeks were not al­to­geth­er nat­ural and her face was pale; but those red lips, and that smile when turned to him! Well, the voy­age was half over. An­oth­er four or five days and they would be in Liv­er­pool, where they would go their dif­fer­ent ways for­ev­er. He must keep away from her that long, see­ing there was dan­ger. No more play­ing with the fire that burns so deep. And all this which he seemed to feel and fear, might be un­dreamed of by her and very like­ly was. A girl like that would not take se­ri­ous­ly a “steam­er friend­ship.” She was on­ly do­ing what all young peo­ple do on such trips, mak­ing pleas­ant ac­quain­tances with whom to pass away the monotonous days. “Sure, sure,” said he, as if to clinch the ar­gu­ment, but nev­er­the­less, deep with­in his soul there was an un­der­cur­rent of protest against such fi­nal con­clu­sions.

Chester tried to seek refuge in El­der Mal­by, but as he was not to be found, he opened up a con­ver­sa­tion with the mis­sion­ary for Scan­di­navia. The mis­sion­ary was but a boy, it seemed to Chester. The go­ing from home and the sea-​sick­ness had had their ef­fects, and the young fel­low was glad to have some one to talk to. He came from Ari­zona, he told Chester; had lived on a ranch all his life; had nev­er been twen­ty miles away from home be­fore,--and now all this at once! It was “tough.”

“But I'm feel­ing fine now,” he said. "Do you know, I've had a pe­cu­liar ex­pe­ri­ence. All the way across the Unit­ed States from home, some­thing seemed to say to me, 'You can't stand this. You'll go crazy. You'd bet­ter go back home.' Of course, I was ter­ri­bly home­sick, and I guess that was the trou­ble. The cow­ard­ly part of me was try­ing to scare the bet­ter part. But all the time I seemed to hear 'You'll go crazy' un­til once or twice I thought I would.

“Well, it was the same in New York, and the same when we came aboard. I didn't care much one way or oth­er while sea-​sick, but when I got over it, there was the same taunt­ing voice. At last I got down­right an­gry and said, 'All right, I'm go­ing right on and fill my mis­sion, _and go crazy!_' From that mo­ment I have ceased to be both­ered, and am now feel­ing fine.”

“Good for you,” said Chester. “You'll win out. I wish I was sure about my­self.” He went no fur­ther in ex­pla­na­tion, how­ev­er.

Ship board eti­quette does not re­quire for­mal in­tro­duc­tions be­fore ex­tend­ed con­ver­sa­tions may be car­ried on. The New Eng­land school ma'am and the Ger­man pro­fes­sor were in a deep dis­cus­sion ten min­utes af­ter they had met for the first time. Many on the ship were go­ing es­pe­cial­ly “to do Eu­rope,” so there were themes for con­ver­sa­tion in com­mon.

As it hap­pened, Chester was alone again that af­ter­noon and he met the min­is­ter and his daugh­ter on the prom­enade deck. They were tak­ing their ex­er­cise mod­er­ate­ly, paus­ing fre­quent­ly to look at any tri­fling di­ver­sion. Chester tipped his cap at them as they passed. At the next meet­ing in the walk, the min­is­ter stopped and greet­ed the young man.

“I wish to thank you for your act of kind­ness to my daugh­ter,” he said. “She has told me about it.”

“It was noth­ing, I as­sure you, sir,” replied Chester. “I don't think the fel­low will an­noy her again.”

“I hope not. On these ocean voy­ages one is thrown so close­ly in­to all kinds of com­pa­ny. We, of course, must sup­pose all our fel­low-​pas­sen­gers are re­spectable peo­ple, un­til we find out oth­er­wise--but let us sit down. Where are our chairs, Lucy?”

“They're on the oth­er side, I be­lieve, where we left them this morn­ing.”

“It's a lit­tle too windy there.”

“I'll bring them around to you,” said Chester. Lucy fol­lowed him, point­ing out which of the chairs be­longed to them.

“May I not car­ry one?” she asked.

“You do not ap­pear strong enough to lift one.”

Chester car­ried the two chairs around to the side of the shel­tered deck, then found a va­cant chair for him­self which he placed with the oth­er two.

“Thank you very much,” said the min­is­ter, as they seat­ed them­selves. “The day is re­al­ly fine, isn't it? Af­ter the sea-​sick­ness, there is some­thing glo­ri­ous in a pleas­ant sea voy­age. This is my third time across, but I don't re­mem­ber just such a fine day as this. Are you a good sailor?” this to Chester.

“I've not missed a meal yet, if that's any in­di­ca­tion.”

“I en­vy you. I have of­ten wished I could be on deck in a bit of re­al bad weath­er. We had a lit­tle blow the oth­er day, I un­der­stand, when that poor fel­low lost his life.”

“Yes; I saw the ac­ci­dent,” replied Chester; where­upon he had to re­late the de­tails to them.

“Well, such is life--and death,” was the min­is­ter's on­ly com­ment on the sto­ry.

The min­is­ter did most of the talk­ing. Per­haps that was be­cause he was used to it, hav­ing, as he told Chester, been a preach­er for twen­ty-​five years. The daugh­ter com­ment­ed briefly now and then, prompt­ing his mem­ory where it seemed to be weak. Chester lis­tened with great in­ter­est to the man's ac­count of for­mer trips to Eu­rope and his de­scrip­tion of fa­mous places. The speak­er's voice was pleas­ant and well-​mod­ulat­ed. His clean-​cut face light­ed up un­der the in­spi­ra­tion of some vivid de­scrip­tion. Chester found him­self drawn to the man near­ly as much as he had been to the daugh­ter.

“You're an Amer­ican,” an­nounced the min­is­ter, turn­ing to Chester.

“Yes.”

“A west­ern Amer­ican, too.”

“Right again; how can you tell?”

“Eas­ily enough. How far west?”

“My home is in Chica­go.”

“Well, Lucy and I can beat you. We came from Kansas City. Ev­er been there?”

“I've passed through twice.”

“Through the Union De­pot on­ly?” asked Lucy.

“You must have re­ceived a very un­pleas­ant im­pres­sion of our city.”

“Well, hap­pi­ly I did get away from that de­pot. I took a ride on the cars out to In­de­pen­dence, and I saw a good part of the city be­sides. It's beau­ti­ful out to­wards Swope Park--”

“There's where we live,” ex­claimed the girl. “I think the park's just grand. I live in it near­ly all sum­mer.”

At this point of the con­ver­sa­tion, a par­ty to wind­ward, among whom were the two Catholic Fa­thers, light­ed their pipes, and the smoke streamed like from so many chim­neys in­to the faces of those sit­ting near. The min­is­ter looked sharply to­wards the puff­ing men, while Lucy tried to push the denser clouds away with her hands; but no no­tice was tak­en of such gen­tle re­mon­strances.

“I'll speak to them,” sug­gest­ed Chester.

“No; don't. It would on­ly of­fend them,” said the min­is­ter. “They think they are strict­ly with­in their rights, and it does not dawn on their nico­tine poi­soned wits that they are tak­ing away oth­er peo­ples' rights,--that of breath­ing the un­con­tam­inat­ed air. We'll just move our chairs a bit,” which they did.

“You don't smoke, I take it,” con­tin­ued the cler­gy­man, ad­dress­ing Chester.

“No; I quit two years ago.”

“Good for you. It's a vile habit, and I some­times think the worst ef­fect smok­ing has on peo­ple is that it dulls the nice gen­tle­man­ly­ness of a man's char­ac­ter. Now, those men over there, even the Catholic Fa­thers, are, no doubt gen­tle­men in all re­spects but one; it's a pity that the to­bac­co habit should make the one ex­cep­tion.”

Chester agreed in words, Lucy in looks.

“You say you have passed through Kansas City,” con­tin­ued the fa­ther. “How far west have you been?”

“To the Pa­cif­ic Coast.”

“Lucy and I should have made this trip west­ward, but the doc­tor said we must not cross the moun­tains, be­cause of her heart. So an ocean voy­age was ad­vised.”

“And I did want so much to see the Rock­ies,” added the young wom­an. “I have al­ways had a long­ing to see our own moun­tains as well as those of Switzer­land. Next sum­mer we'll take that west­ern trip.”

“I hope so, daugh­ter.”

“I as­sure you they are worth see­ing,” said Chester.

“No doubt about it. Lucy and I have planned it all for some day. Were you ev­er in Utah?”

“I lived for some time in Salt Lake City. Be sure to see that town on your trip.”

The min­is­ter looked some­what queer­ly at Chester for a mo­ment. Then his gaze swept out to the wa­ter again as if a mo­men­tary dis­turb­ing thought was got­ten rid of. Lucy was in­ter­est­ed.

“Tell us about Salt Lake City, and, and the Mor­mons,'” plead­ed she.

“Nev­er mind the 'Mor­mons,' Lucy,” ad­mon­ished her fa­ther.

“It's dif­fi­cult to speak of Utah and Salt Lake with­out men­tion­ing the 'Mor­mons,'” added Chester.

“Then let's talk of some­thing else, some­thing more pleas­ant.”

Ev­ident­ly this min­is­ter was like all oth­ers, Chester con­clud­ed; sane and in­tel­li­gent on all sub­jects but one,--the “Mor­mons.” Well, he would set him­self right be­fore these two peo­ple, and do it now.

“I can say,” said Chester, “that my ex­pe­ri­ence among the 'Mor­mon' peo­ple has been among the most pleas­ant of my life. In fact, I don't know where I can go to find a more hon­est, God-​fear­ing, vir­tu­ous peo­ple. I--”

“Young man,” in­ter­rupt­ed the cler­gy­man, look­ing keen­ly at him, “are you a 'Mor­mon'?”

“Yes, sir; I have that hon­or.”

Lucy gave a cry, whether of alarm or glad­ness, the young man could not then tell. The min­is­ter arose slow­ly. “Lucy,” he said, “let us walk a lit­tle more,” and with­out an­oth­er word the two re­sumed their prom­enade.

But in Lucy's face there ap­peared con­cern. The tears, glit­ter­ing in her eyes did not al­to­geth­er hide the re­as­sur­ing glance which she turned about to give Chester as he sat alone by the va­cat­ed chairs.