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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/23697-0.txt b/23697-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c9e60a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/23697-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1000 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Forty Minutes Late + 1909 + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23697] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +FORTY MINUTES LATE + +By F. Hopkinson Smith + +1909 + + +It began to snow half an hour after the train started--a fine-grained, +slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the +vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the +platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his +depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way he +thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. “Yes, +gettin' worse,” he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows. +“Everything will be balled up if this keeps on.” + +“Shall we make the connection at Bondville?” I was to lecture fifty +miles from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way. + +If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said +the soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every +passenger would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the +road, or the engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest +and cheeks. If we missed the connection, any former hopeful word would +only add another hot coal to everybody's anger. + +I fell back on the porter. + +“Yes' sir, she'll be layin' jes' 'cross de platform. She knows we're +comin'. Sometimes she waits ten minutes--sometimes she don't; more times +I seen her pullin' out while we was pullin' in.” + +Not very reassuring this. Only one statement was of value--the position +of the connecting train when we rolled into Bondville. + +I formulated a plan: The porter would take one bag, I the other--we +would both stand on the lower step of the Pullman, then make a dash. If +she was pulling out as we pulled in, a goatlike spring on my part might +succeed; the bags being hurled after me to speed the animal's motion. + +One hour later we took up our position. + +“Dat's good!--Dar she is jes' movin' out: thank ye, sar. I got de +bag--dis way!” + +There came a jolt, a Saturday-afternoon slide across the ice-covered +platform, an outstretched greasy hand held down from the step of the +moving train, followed by the chug of a bag that missed my knees by a +hand's breadth--and I was hauled on board. + +The contrast between a warm, velvet-lined Pullman and a cane-seated car +with both doors opened every ten minutes was anything but agreeable; +but no discomfort should count when a lecturer is trying to make his +connection. That is what he is paid for and that he must do at all +hazards and at any cost, even to chartering a special train, the price +devouring his fee. + +Once in my seat an account of stock was taken--two bags, an umbrella, +overcoat, two gum shoes (one off, one on), manuscript of lecture in bag, +eye-glasses in outside pocket of waistcoat. This over, I spread myself +upon the cane seat and took in the situation. It was four o'clock (the +lecture was at eight); Sheffield was two hours away; this would give +time to change my dress and get something to eat. The committee, +moreover, were to meet me at the depot with a carriage and drive me +to where I was “to spend the night and dine”--so the chairman's letter +read. The suppressed smile on the second conductor's face when he +punched my ticket and read the name of “Sheffield” sent my hand into my +pocket in search of this same letter. Yes--there was no mistake about +it,--“Our carriage,” it read, “will meet you,” etc., etc. + +The confirmation brought with it a certain thrill; not a carriage picked +up out of the street, or a lumbering omnibus--a mere go-between from +station to hotels--but “our carriage!” Nothing like these lecture +associations, I thought,--nothing like these committees, for making +strangers comfortable. That was why it was often a real pleasure to +appear before them. This one would, no doubt, receive me in a big yellow +and white Colonial club-house built by the women of the town (I know of +a dozen just such structures), with dressing and lunch rooms, spacious +lecture hall, and janitor in gray edged with black. + +This thought called up my own responsibility in the matter; I was glad +I had caught the train; it was a bad night to bring people out and then +disappoint them, even if most of them did come in their own carriages. +Then again, I had kept my word; none of my fault, of course, if I +hadn't--but I had!--that was a source of satisfaction. Now that I +thought of it, I had, in all my twenty years of lecturing, failed only +twice to reach the platform. In one instance a bridge was washed away, +and in the other my special train (the price I paid for that train still +keeps me hot against the Trusts) ran into a snowdrift and stayed there +until after midnight, instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had +arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and +more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments--and I am +particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat--but only twice had +the gas been turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had-- + +“Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!” yelled the +conductor. + +The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat, +down the snow-blocked steps and out into the night. + +“Step lively!--more'n an hour late now.” + +I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any +kind--not a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car +of a station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight. +No carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a +dreary waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black. + +“Is this Sheffield?” I gasped. + +“Yes,--all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills.” + +“The town?” + +“Town?--no, the settlement;--ain't more's two dozen houses in it.” + +“They were to send a carriage and--” + +“Yes--that's an old yarn--better foot it for short.” Here he swung his +lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the locomotive, +and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through the steam +and smoke:--“There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,--follow the +fence and turn to--” the rest was lost in the roar of the on-speeding +train. + +I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things--bags +especially. One bag might be possible--a very small one; two bags, both +big, are an insult. + +I deposited the two outside the box-car, tried the doors, inserted +my fingers under the sash of one window, looked at the chimney with a +half-formed Santa Claus idea of scaling the roof and sliding down to +some possible fireplace below; examined the wind-swept snow for carriage +tracks, peered into the gloom, and, as a last resort, leaned up against +the sheltered side of the box to think. + +There was no question that if a vehicle of any kind had been sent to +meet me it had long since departed; the trackless roadway showed that. +It was equally evident that if one was coming, I had better meet it on +the way than stay where I was and freeze to death. The fence was still +visible--the near end--and there was a farmhouse somewhere--so the +conductor had said, and he seemed to be an honest, truthful man. Whether +to right or left of the invisible road, the noise of the train and the +howl of the wind had prevented my knowing--but _somewhere's_--That was a +consolation. + +The bags were the most serious obstacles. If I carried one in each hand +the umbrella would have to be cached, for some future relief expedition +to find in the spring. + +There _was_ a way, of course, to carry bags--any number of bags. All +that was needed was a leather strap with a buckle at each end; I had +helped to hang half a dozen bags across the shoulders of as many porters +meeting trains all over Europe. Of course, I didn't wear leather straps. +Suspenders were my stronghold. They might!--No, it was too cold to get +at them in that wind. And if I did they were of the springy, wabbly kind +that would seesaw the load from my hips to my calves. + +The only thing was to press on. Some one had blundered, of course. + +“Half a league, half a league--into the jaws,” etc. + +“Theirs not to reason why--” But my duty was plain; the audience were +already assembling; the early ones in their seats by this time. + +Then an inspiration surged through me. Why not slip the umbrella through +the handle of one bag, as Pat carries his shillalah and bundle of duds, +and grab the other in my free hand! Our carriage couldn't be far off. +The exercise would keep my blood active and my feet from freezing, and +as to the road, was there not the fence, its top rail making rabbit +jumps above the drifts? + +So I trudged on, stumbling into holes, flopping into treacherous ruts, +halting in the steeper places to catch my breath, till I reached the top +of the hill. There I halted--stopped short, in fact: the fence had given +out! In its place was a treacherous line of bushes that faded into a +delusive clump of trees. Beyond, and on both sides, stretched a great +white silence--still as death. + +Another council of war. I could retrace my steps, smash in the windows +of the station, and camp for the night, taking my chances of stopping +some east-bound train as it whizzed past, with a match and my +necktie--or I could stumble on, perhaps in a circle, and be found in +the morning by the early milk. + +On! On once more--maybe the clump of trees hid something--maybe-- + +Here a light flashed--a mere speck of a light--not to the right, where +lay the clump of trees--but to my left; then a faint wave of warm color +rose from a chimney and curled over a low roof buried in snow. Again the +light flashed--this time through a window with four panes of glass--each +one a beacon to a storm-tossed mariner! + +On once more--into a low hollow--up a steep slope--slipping, falling, +shoving the hand-gripped bag ahead of me to help my footing, until I +reached a snow-choked porch and a closed door. + +Here I knocked. + +For some seconds there was no sound; then came a heavy tread, and a man +in overalls threw wide the door. + +“Well, what do you want at this time of night?” (Time of night, and it +but seven-thirty!) + +“I'm the lecturer,” I panted. + +“Oh, come! Ain't they sent for ye? Here, I'll take 'em. Walk in and +welcome. You look beat out. Well--well--wife and I was won-derin' why +nothin' driv past for the six-ten. We knowed you was comin'. Then agin, +the station master's sick, and I 'spose ye couldn't warm up none. And +they ain't sent for ye? And they let ye tramp all--Well--well!” + +I did not answer. I hadn't breath enough left for sustained +conversation; moreover, there was a red-hot stove ahead of me, and a +rocking-chair,--comforts I had never expected to see again--and there +was a pine table--oh, a lovely pine table, with a most exquisite white +oil-cloth cover, holding the most beautiful kerosene lamp with a +piece of glorious red flannel floating in its amber fluid; and in the +corner--a wife--a sweet-faced, angelic-looking young wife, with a baby +in her arms too beautiful for words--must have been! + +I dropped into the chair, spread my fingers to the stove and looked +around--warmth--rest-peace--comfort--companionship--all in a minute! + +“No, they didn't send anything,” I wheezed when my breath came. “The +conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill--and--” + +“Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it.” + +“Yes--I must have missed it,” I continued in a dazed way. + +“The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me. +Must be startin' now.” + +“Would you please let them know I am here, and--” + +“Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!--that's him now.” + +Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin +cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice +like a fog-horn. + +“Didn't send for ye? Wall, I'll be gol-durned! And yer had to fut it? +Well, don' that beat all. And yer ain't the fust one they've left down +here to get up the best way they could. Last winter--Jan'ry, warn't it, +Bill?” Bill nodded--“there come a woman from New York and they dumped +her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck +would have it--I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled--and there +warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in late, +of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to hear +you speak to-night--we git so much of that sort of thing since the old +man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died--been goin' +on ten years now--but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. But yer +oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder nippy +down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the ridge.” + +This same thought had passed through my own mind. The unusual exertion +had started every pore in my body; the red-hot stove had put on the +finishing touches and I was in a Russian bath. To face that wind meant +all sorts of calamities. + +The Madonna-like wife with the cherub in her arms rose to her feet. + +“Would you mind wearing my fur tippet?” she said in her soft voice; +“'tain't much, but it 'ud keep out the cold from yer neck and maybe this +shawl'd help some, if I tied it round your shoulders. Father got his +death ridin' to the village when he was overhet.” + +She put them on with her own hands, bless her kind heart! her husband +holding the baby; then she followed me out into the cold and helped draw +the horse-blanket over my knees; the man in the coon-skin cap lugging +the bags and the umbrella. + +I looked at my watch. After eight o'clock, and two miles to drive! + +“Oh, I'll git yer there,” came a voice from inside the fur overcoat. +“Darter wanted to go, but I said 'twarn't no night to go nowhars. Got to +see a man who owes me some money, or I'd stay home myself. Git up, Joe.” + +It was marvellous, the intelligence of this man. More than marvellous +when my again blinded eyes--the red flannel in the lamp helped--began to +take in the landscape. Fences were evidently of no use to him; clumps of +trees didn't count. If he had a compass anywhere about his clothes, +he never once consulted it. Drove right on--across trackless Siberian +steppes; by the side of endless glaciers, and through primeval forests, +his voice keeping up its volume of sound, as he laid bare for me the +scandals of the village--particularly the fight going on between the two +churches--one hard and one soft--this lecture course being one of the +bones of contention. + +I saved my voice and kept quiet. If a runner did not give out or +“Joe” break a leg, we would reach the hall in time; half an hour late, +perhaps--but in time; the man beside me had said so--and the man beside +me knew. + +With a turn of the fence--a new one had thrust its hands out of a +drift--a big building--big in the white waste--loomed up. My companion +flapped the reins the whole length of Joe's back. + +“Git up! No, by gosh!--they ain't tired yet;--they're still a-waitin'. +See them lights--that's the hall.” + +I gave a sigh of relief. The ambitious young man with one ear open for +stellar voices, and the overburdened John Bunyan, and any number of +other short-winded pedestrians, could no longer monopolize the upward +and onward literature of our own or former times. I too had arrived. + +Another jerk to the right--a trot up an incline, and we stopped at a +steep flight of steps--a regular Jacob's-ladder flight--leading to +a corridor dimly lighted by the flare of a single gas jet. Up this I +stumbled, lugging the bags once more, my whole mind bent on reaching the +platform at the earliest possible moment--a curious mental attitude, I +am aware, for a man who had eaten nothing since noon, was still wet +and shivering inside, and half frozen outside--nose, cheeks, and +fingers---from a wind that cut like a circular saw. + +As I landed the last bag on the top step--the fog-horn couldn't leave +his horse--I became conscious of the movements of a short, rotund, +shad-shaped gentleman in immaculate white waistcoat, stiff choker and +wide expanse of shirt front. He was approaching me from the door of the +lecture hall in which sat the audience; then a clammy hand was thrust +out--and a thin voice trickled this sentence: + +“You're considerable late sir--our people have been in their--” + +“I am _what!_” I cried, straightening up. + +“I said you were forty minutes late, sir. We expect our lecturers to be +on--” + +That was the fulminate that exploded the bomb. Up to now I had held +myself in hand. I was carrying, I knew, 194 pounds of steam, and I also +knew that one shovel more of coal would send the entire boiler into +space, but through it all I had kept my hand on the safety-valve. It +might have been the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar +cupped his billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight +frown about his eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his +freshly laundered face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture +with which he consulted his watch: whatever it was, out went the boiler. + +“Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?” + +“Well, sir, I have the management of it.” + +“You have, have you? Then permit me to tell you right here, my friend, +that you ought to sublet the contract to a five-year-old boy. You let me +get out in the cold--send no conveyance as you agreed--” + +“We sent our wagon, sir, to the station. You could have gone in +and warmed yourself, and if it had not arrived you could have +telephoned--the station is always warm.” + +“You have the impudence to tell me that I don't know whether a station +is closed or not, and that I can't see a wagon when it is hauled up +alongside a depot?” + +The clammy hands went up in protest: “If you will listen, sir, I will--” + +“No, sir, I will listen to nothing.” and I forged ahead into a small +room where five or six belated people were hanging up their coats and +hats. + +But the Immaculate still persisted: + +“This is not where--Will you come into the dressing-room, sir? We have a +nice warm room for the lecturers on the other side of the--” + +“No--sir; I won't go another step, except on to that platform, and I'm +not very anxious now to get there--not until I put something inside +of me--” (here I unstrapped my bag) “to save me from an attack of +pneumonia.” (I had my flask out now and the cup filled to the brim.) +“When I think of how hard I worked to get here and how little you--” + (and down it went at one gulp). + +The expression of disgust that wrinkled the placid face of the +Immaculate as the half-empty flask went back to its place, was +pathetic--but I wouldn't have given him a drop to have saved his life. + +I turned on him again. + +“Do you think it would be possible to get a vehicle of any kind to take +me where I am to sleep?” + +“I think so, sir.” His self-control was admirable. + +“Well, will you please do it?” + +“A sleigh has already been ordered, sir.” This came through tightly +closed lips. + +“All right. Now down which aisle is the entrance to the platform?” + +“This way, sir.” The highest glacier on Mont Blanc couldn't have been +colder or more impassive. + +Just here a calming thought wedged itself into my brain-storm. These +patient, long-suffering people were not to blame; many of them had come +several miles through the storm to hear me speak and were entitled to +the best that was in me. To vent upon them my spent steam because--No, +that was impossible. + +“Hold on, my friend,” I said, “stop where you are, let me pull myself +together. This isn't their fault--” We were passing behind the screen +hiding the little stage. + +But he didn't hold on; he marched straight ahead; so did I, past the +pitcher of ice water and the two last winter's palms, where he motioned +me to a chair. + +His introduction was not long, nor was it discursive. There was nothing +eulogistic of my various acquirements, occupations, talents; no remark +about the optimistic trend of my literature, the affection in which my +characters were held; nothing of this at all. Nor did I expect it. What +interested me more was the man himself. + +The steam of my wrath had blurred his outline and make-up before; now I +got a closer, although a side, view of his person. He was a short man, +much thicker at the middle than he was at either end--a defect all the +more apparent by reason of a long-tailed, high-waisted, unbuttonable +black coat which, while it covered his back and sides, would have left +his front exposed, but for his snowy white waistcoat, which burst like a +ball of cotton from its pod. + +His only gesture was the putting together of his ten fingers, opening +and touching them again to accentuate his sentences. What passed through +my mind as I sat and watched him, was not the audience, nor what I +was going to say to them, but the Christianlike self-control of this +gentleman--a control which seemed to carry with it a studied reproof. +Under its influence I unconsciously closed both furnace doors and opened +my forced draft. Even then I should have reached for the safety-valve, +but for an oily, martyr-like smile which flickered across his face, +accompanied by a deprecating movement of his elbows, both indicating his +patience under prolonged suffering, and his instant readiness to turn +the other cheek if further smiting on my part was in store for him. I +strode to the edge of the platform: “I know, good people,” I exploded, +“that you are not responsible for what has happened, but I want to tell +you before I begin, that I have been boiling mad for ten minutes and am +still at white heat, and that it is going to take me some time to get +cool enough to be of the slightest service to you. You notice that I +appear before you without a proper suit of clothes--a mark of respect +which every lecturer should pay his audience. You are also aware that I +am nearly an hour late. What I regret is, first, the cause of my frame +of mind, second, that you should have been kept waiting. Now, let me +tell you exactly what I have gone through, and I do it simply because +this is not the first time that this has happened to your lecturers, and +it ought to be your last. It certainly will be the last for me.” Then +followed the whole incident, including the Immaculate's protest about my +being late, my explosion, etc., etc., even to the incident of my flask. + +There was a dead silence--so dead and lifeless that I could not tell +whether they were offended or not; but I made my bow as usual, and began +my discourse. + +The lecture over, the Immaculate paid me my fee with punctilious +courtesy, waiving the customary receipt; followed me to the cloak-room, +helped me on with my coat, picked up one of the bags,--an auditor the +other, and the two followed me down Jacob's ladder into the night. +Outside stood a sleigh shaped like the shell of Dr. Holmes's _Nautilus_, +its body hardly large enough to hold a four-months-old baby. This was +surrounded by half the audience, anxious, I afterward learned, for +a closer view of the man who had “sassed” the Manager. Some of them +expected it to continue. + +I squeezed in beside the bags and was about to draw up the horse +blanket, when a voice rang out: + +“Mis' Plimsole's goin' in that sleigh, too.” It was at Mrs. Plimsole's +that I was to spend the night. + +Then a faint voice answered back: + +“No, I can just as well walk.” She evidently knew the danger of sitting +next to an overcharged boiler. + +Mrs. Plimsole!--a woman--walk--on a night like this--I was out of the +sleigh before she had ceased to speak. + +“No, madam, you are going to do nothing of the kind; if anybody is to +walk it will be I; I'm getting used to it.” + +She allowed me to tuck her in. It was too dark for me to see what she +was like--she was so swathed and tied up. Being still mad--fires drawn +but still dangerous, I concluded that my companion was sour, and skinny, +with a parrot nose and one tooth gone. That I was to pass the night at +her house did not improve the estimate; there would be mottoes on the +walls--“What is home without a mother,” and the like; tidies on the +chairs, and a red-hot stove smelling of drying socks. There would also +be a basin and pitcher the size of a cup and saucer, and a bed that +sagged in the middle and was covered with a cotton quilt. + +The _Nautilus_ stopped at a gate, beyond which was a smaller Jacob's +ladder leading to a white cottage. Was there nothing built on a level +in Sheffield? I asked myself. The bags which had been hung on the shafts +came first, then I, then the muffled head and cloak. Upward and onward +again, through a door, past a pretty girl who stood with her hand on +the knob in welcome, and into a hall. Here the girl helped unmummy her +mother, and then turned up the hall-lamp. + +Oh, such a dear, sweet gray-haired old lady! The kind of an old lady +you would have wanted to stay--not a night with--but a year. An old lady +with plump fresh cheeks and soft brown eyes and a smile that warmed you +through and through. And such an all-embracing restful room with its +open wood fire, andirons and polished fender--and the plants and books +and easy-chairs! And the cheer of it all! + +“Now you just sit there and get comfortable,” she said, patting my +shoulder--(the second time in one night that a woman's hand had been +that of an angel). “Maggie'll get you some supper. We had it all ready, +expecting you on the six-ten. Hungry, aren't you?” + +Hungry! I could have gnawed a hole in a sofa to get at the straw +stuffing. + +She drew up a chair, waited till her daughter had left the room, and +said with a twinkle in her eyes: + +“Oh, I was glad you gave it to 'em the way you did, and when you sailed +into that snivelling old Hard-shell deacon, I just put my hands down +under my petticoats and clapped them for joy. There isn't anybody +running anything up here. They don't have to pay for this lecture +course. It was given to them by a man who is dead. All they think +they've got to do is to dress themselves up. They're all officers; +there's a recording secretary and a corresponding secretary and an +executive committee and a president and two vice-presidents, and a lot +more that I can't remember. Everyone of them is leaving everything +to somebody else to attend to. I know, because I take care of all the +lecturers that come. Only last winter a lady lecturer arrived here on a +load of wood; she didn't lose her temper and get mad like you did. Maybe +you know her; she told us all about the Indians and her husband, the +great general, who was surrounded and massacred by them.” + +“Know her, Madam, not only do I know and love her, but the whole country +loves her. She is a saint, Madam, that the good Lord only allows to live +in this world because if she was transferred there would be no standard +left.” + +“Yes, but then you had considerable cause. The hired girl next door--she +sat next to my daughter--said she didn't blame you a mite.” (Somebody +was on my side, anyhow.) “Now come in to supper.” + +The next morning I was up at dawn: I had to get up at dawn because the +omnibus made only one trip to the station, to catch the seven-o'clock +train. I went by the eight-ten, but a little thing like that never makes +any difference in Sheffield. + +When the omnibus arrived it came on runners. Closer examination from the +window of the cosey room--the bedroom was even more delightful--revealed +a square furniture van covered on the outside with white canvas, the +door being in the middle, like a box-car. I bade the dear old lady and +her daughter good-by, opened the hall door and stood on the top step. +The driver, a stout, fat-faced fellow, looked up with an inquiring +glance. + +“Nice morning,” I cried in my customary cheerful tone--the dear woman +had wrought the change. + +“You bet! Got over your mad?” + +The explosion had evidently been heard all over the village. + +“Yes,” I laughed, as I crawled in beside two other passengers. + +“You was considerable het up last night, so Si was tellin' me,” remarked +the passenger, helping me with one bag. + +I nodded. Who Si might be was not of special interest, and then again +the subject had now lost its inflammatory feature. + +The woman made no remark; she was evidently one of the secretaries. + +“Well, by gum, if they had left me where they left you last night, and +you a plumb stranger, I'd rared and pitched a little myself,” continued +the man. “When you come again--” + +“Come again! Not by a--” + +“Oh, yes, you will. You did them Hard-shells a lot of good! You just bet +your bottom dollar they'll look out for the next one of you fellows that +comes up here!” + +The woman continued silent. She would have something to say about any +return visit of mine, and she intended to say it out loud if the time +ever came! + +The station now loomed into sight. I sprang out and tried the knob. I +knew all about that knob--every twist and turn of it. + +“Locked again!” I shouted, “and I've got to wait here an hour in this--” + +“Hold on--_hold on_--” shouted back the driver. “Don't break loose +again. I got the key.” + +My mail a week later brought me a county paper containing this +statement: “The last lecturer, owing to some error on the part of the +committee, was not met at the train and was considerably vexed. He said +so to the audience and to the committee. Everybody was satisfied with +his talk until they heard what they had to pay for it. He also said that +he had left his dress suit in his trunk. If what we hear is true, he +left his manners with it.” On reflection, the editor was right--_I had_. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE *** + +***** This file should be named 23697-0.txt or 23697-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/9/23697/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hopkinson Smith + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Forty Minutes Late + 1909 + +Author: F. Hopkinson Smith + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23697] +Last Updated: March 8, 2018 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + <div style="height: 8em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h1> + FORTY MINUTES LATE + </h1> + <h2> + By F. Hopkinson Smith <br /> 1909 + </h2> + <p> + <br /><br /><br /> + </p> + <p> + It began to snow half an hour after the train started—a + fine-grained, slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the + bellows of the vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt + all over the platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on + his depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way + he thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. “Yes, + gettin' worse,” he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows. + “Everything will be balled up if this keeps on.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall we make the connection at Bondville?” I was to lecture fifty miles + from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way. + </p> + <p> + If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said the + soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every passenger + would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the road, or the + engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest and cheeks. If + we missed the connection, any former hopeful word would only add another + hot coal to everybody's anger. + </p> + <p> + I fell back on the porter. + </p> + <p> + “Yes' sir, she'll be layin' jes' 'cross de platform. She knows we're + comin'. Sometimes she waits ten minutes—sometimes she don't; more + times I seen her pullin' out while we was pullin' in.” + </p> + <p> + Not very reassuring this. Only one statement was of value—the + position of the connecting train when we rolled into Bondville. + </p> + <p> + I formulated a plan: The porter would take one bag, I the other—we + would both stand on the lower step of the Pullman, then make a dash. If + she was pulling out as we pulled in, a goatlike spring on my part might + succeed; the bags being hurled after me to speed the animal's motion. + </p> + <p> + One hour later we took up our position. + </p> + <p> + “Dat's good!—Dar she is jes' movin' out: thank ye, sar. I got de bag—dis + way!” + </p> + <p> + There came a jolt, a Saturday-afternoon slide across the ice-covered + platform, an outstretched greasy hand held down from the step of the + moving train, followed by the chug of a bag that missed my knees by a + hand's breadth—and I was hauled on board. + </p> + <p> + The contrast between a warm, velvet-lined Pullman and a cane-seated car + with both doors opened every ten minutes was anything but agreeable; but + no discomfort should count when a lecturer is trying to make his + connection. That is what he is paid for and that he must do at all hazards + and at any cost, even to chartering a special train, the price devouring + his fee. + </p> + <p> + Once in my seat an account of stock was taken—two bags, an umbrella, + overcoat, two gum shoes (one off, one on), manuscript of lecture in bag, + eye-glasses in outside pocket of waistcoat. This over, I spread myself + upon the cane seat and took in the situation. It was four o'clock (the + lecture was at eight); Sheffield was two hours away; this would give time + to change my dress and get something to eat. The committee, moreover, were + to meet me at the depot with a carriage and drive me to where I was “to + spend the night and dine”—so the chairman's letter read. The + suppressed smile on the second conductor's face when he punched my ticket + and read the name of “Sheffield” sent my hand into my pocket in search of + this same letter. Yes—there was no mistake about it,—“Our + carriage,” it read, “will meet you,” etc., etc. + </p> + <p> + The confirmation brought with it a certain thrill; not a carriage picked + up out of the street, or a lumbering omnibus—a mere go-between from + station to hotels—but “our carriage!” Nothing like these lecture + associations, I thought,—nothing like these committees, for making + strangers comfortable. That was why it was often a real pleasure to appear + before them. This one would, no doubt, receive me in a big yellow and + white Colonial club-house built by the women of the town (I know of a + dozen just such structures), with dressing and lunch rooms, spacious + lecture hall, and janitor in gray edged with black. + </p> + <p> + This thought called up my own responsibility in the matter; I was glad I + had caught the train; it was a bad night to bring people out and then + disappoint them, even if most of them did come in their own carriages. + Then again, I had kept my word; none of my fault, of course, if I hadn't—but + I had!—that was a source of satisfaction. Now that I thought of it, + I had, in all my twenty years of lecturing, failed only twice to reach the + platform. In one instance a bridge was washed away, and in the other my + special train (the price I paid for that train still keeps me hot against + the Trusts) ran into a snowdrift and stayed there until after midnight, + instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had arrived late, of + course, many times, gone without my supper often, and more than once had + appeared without the proper habiliments—and I am particular about my + dress coat and white waistcoat—but only twice had the gas been + turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had— + </p> + <p> + “Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!” yelled the + conductor. + </p> + <p> + The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat, down + the snow-blocked steps and out into the night. + </p> + <p> + “Step lively!—more'n an hour late now.” + </p> + <p> + I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any kind—not + a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car of a + station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight. No + carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a dreary + waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black. + </p> + <p> + “Is this Sheffield?” I gasped. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,—all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills.” + </p> + <p> + “The town?” + </p> + <p> + “Town?—no, the settlement;—ain't more's two dozen houses in + it.” + </p> + <p> + “They were to send a carriage and—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—that's an old yarn—better foot it for short.” Here he + swung his lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the + locomotive, and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through + the steam and smoke:—“There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,—follow + the fence and turn to—” the rest was lost in the roar of the + on-speeding train. + </p> + <p> + I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things—bags + especially. One bag might be possible—a very small one; two bags, + both big, are an insult. + </p> + <p> + I deposited the two outside the box-car, tried the doors, inserted my + fingers under the sash of one window, looked at the chimney with a + half-formed Santa Claus idea of scaling the roof and sliding down to some + possible fireplace below; examined the wind-swept snow for carriage + tracks, peered into the gloom, and, as a last resort, leaned up against + the sheltered side of the box to think. + </p> + <p> + There was no question that if a vehicle of any kind had been sent to meet + me it had long since departed; the trackless roadway showed that. It was + equally evident that if one was coming, I had better meet it on the way + than stay where I was and freeze to death. The fence was still visible—the + near end—and there was a farmhouse somewhere—so the conductor + had said, and he seemed to be an honest, truthful man. Whether to right or + left of the invisible road, the noise of the train and the howl of the + wind had prevented my knowing—but <i>somewhere's</i>—That was + a consolation. + </p> + <p> + The bags were the most serious obstacles. If I carried one in each hand + the umbrella would have to be cached, for some future relief expedition to + find in the spring. + </p> + <p> + There <i>was</i> a way, of course, to carry bags—any number of bags. + All that was needed was a leather strap with a buckle at each end; I had + helped to hang half a dozen bags across the shoulders of as many porters + meeting trains all over Europe. Of course, I didn't wear leather straps. + Suspenders were my stronghold. They might!—No, it was too cold to + get at them in that wind. And if I did they were of the springy, wabbly + kind that would seesaw the load from my hips to my calves. + </p> + <p> + The only thing was to press on. Some one had blundered, of course. + </p> + <p> + “Half a league, half a league—into the jaws,” etc. + </p> + <p> + “Theirs not to reason why—” But my duty was plain; the audience were + already assembling; the early ones in their seats by this time. + </p> + <p> + Then an inspiration surged through me. Why not slip the umbrella through + the handle of one bag, as Pat carries his shillalah and bundle of duds, + and grab the other in my free hand! Our carriage couldn't be far off. The + exercise would keep my blood active and my feet from freezing, and as to + the road, was there not the fence, its top rail making rabbit jumps above + the drifts? + </p> + <p> + So I trudged on, stumbling into holes, flopping into treacherous ruts, + halting in the steeper places to catch my breath, till I reached the top + of the hill. There I halted—stopped short, in fact: the fence had + given out! In its place was a treacherous line of bushes that faded into a + delusive clump of trees. Beyond, and on both sides, stretched a great + white silence—still as death. + </p> + <p> + Another council of war. I could retrace my steps, smash in the windows of + the station, and camp for the night, taking my chances of stopping some + east-bound train as it whizzed past, with a match and my necktie—or + I could stumble on, perhaps in a circle, and be found in the morning by + the early milk. + </p> + <p> + On! On once more—maybe the clump of trees hid something—maybe— + </p> + <p> + Here a light flashed—a mere speck of a light—not to the right, + where lay the clump of trees—but to my left; then a faint wave of + warm color rose from a chimney and curled over a low roof buried in snow. + Again the light flashed—this time through a window with four panes + of glass—each one a beacon to a storm-tossed mariner! + </p> + <p> + On once more—into a low hollow—up a steep slope—slipping, + falling, shoving the hand-gripped bag ahead of me to help my footing, + until I reached a snow-choked porch and a closed door. + </p> + <p> + Here I knocked. + </p> + <p> + For some seconds there was no sound; then came a heavy tread, and a man in + overalls threw wide the door. + </p> + <p> + “Well, what do you want at this time of night?” (Time of night, and it but + seven-thirty!) + </p> + <p> + “I'm the lecturer,” I panted. + </p> + <p> + “Oh, come! Ain't they sent for ye? Here, I'll take 'em. Walk in and + welcome. You look beat out. Well—well—wife and I was + won-derin' why nothin' driv past for the six-ten. We knowed you was + comin'. Then agin, the station master's sick, and I 'spose ye couldn't + warm up none. And they ain't sent for ye? And they let ye tramp all—Well—well!” + </p> + <p> + I did not answer. I hadn't breath enough left for sustained conversation; + moreover, there was a red-hot stove ahead of me, and a rocking-chair,—comforts + I had never expected to see again—and there was a pine table—oh, + a lovely pine table, with a most exquisite white oil-cloth cover, holding + the most beautiful kerosene lamp with a piece of glorious red flannel + floating in its amber fluid; and in the corner—a wife—a + sweet-faced, angelic-looking young wife, with a baby in her arms too + beautiful for words—must have been! + </p> + <p> + I dropped into the chair, spread my fingers to the stove and looked around—warmth—rest-peace—comfort—companionship—all + in a minute! + </p> + <p> + “No, they didn't send anything,” I wheezed when my breath came. “The + conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill—and—” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—I must have missed it,” I continued in a dazed way. + </p> + <p> + “The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me. + Must be startin' now.” + </p> + <p> + “Would you please let them know I am here, and—” + </p> + <p> + “Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!—that's him now.” + </p> + <p> + Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin + cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice + like a fog-horn. + </p> + <p> + “Didn't send for ye? Wall, I'll be gol-durned! And yer had to fut it? + Well, don' that beat all. And yer ain't the fust one they've left down + here to get up the best way they could. Last winter—Jan'ry, warn't + it, Bill?” Bill nodded—“there come a woman from New York and they + dumped her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck + would have it—I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled—and + there warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in + late, of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to + hear you speak to-night—we git so much of that sort of thing since + the old man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died—been + goin' on ten years now—but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. + But yer oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder + nippy down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the + ridge.” + </p> + <p> + This same thought had passed through my own mind. The unusual exertion had + started every pore in my body; the red-hot stove had put on the finishing + touches and I was in a Russian bath. To face that wind meant all sorts of + calamities. + </p> + <p> + The Madonna-like wife with the cherub in her arms rose to her feet. + </p> + <p> + “Would you mind wearing my fur tippet?” she said in her soft voice; + “'tain't much, but it 'ud keep out the cold from yer neck and maybe this + shawl'd help some, if I tied it round your shoulders. Father got his death + ridin' to the village when he was overhet.” + </p> + <p> + She put them on with her own hands, bless her kind heart! her husband + holding the baby; then she followed me out into the cold and helped draw + the horse-blanket over my knees; the man in the coon-skin cap lugging the + bags and the umbrella. + </p> + <p> + I looked at my watch. After eight o'clock, and two miles to drive! + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I'll git yer there,” came a voice from inside the fur overcoat. + “Darter wanted to go, but I said 'twarn't no night to go nowhars. Got to + see a man who owes me some money, or I'd stay home myself. Git up, Joe.” + </p> + <p> + It was marvellous, the intelligence of this man. More than marvellous when + my again blinded eyes—the red flannel in the lamp helped—began + to take in the landscape. Fences were evidently of no use to him; clumps + of trees didn't count. If he had a compass anywhere about his clothes, he + never once consulted it. Drove right on—across trackless Siberian + steppes; by the side of endless glaciers, and through primeval forests, + his voice keeping up its volume of sound, as he laid bare for me the + scandals of the village—particularly the fight going on between the + two churches—one hard and one soft—this lecture course being + one of the bones of contention. + </p> + <p> + I saved my voice and kept quiet. If a runner did not give out or “Joe” + break a leg, we would reach the hall in time; half an hour late, perhaps—but + in time; the man beside me had said so—and the man beside me knew. + </p> + <p> + With a turn of the fence—a new one had thrust its hands out of a + drift—a big building—big in the white waste—loomed up. + My companion flapped the reins the whole length of Joe's back. + </p> + <p> + “Git up! No, by gosh!—they ain't tired yet;—they're still + a-waitin'. See them lights—that's the hall.” + </p> + <p> + I gave a sigh of relief. The ambitious young man with one ear open for + stellar voices, and the overburdened John Bunyan, and any number of other + short-winded pedestrians, could no longer monopolize the upward and onward + literature of our own or former times. I too had arrived. + </p> + <p> + Another jerk to the right—a trot up an incline, and we stopped at a + steep flight of steps—a regular Jacob's-ladder flight—leading + to a corridor dimly lighted by the flare of a single gas jet. Up this I + stumbled, lugging the bags once more, my whole mind bent on reaching the + platform at the earliest possible moment—a curious mental attitude, + I am aware, for a man who had eaten nothing since noon, was still wet and + shivering inside, and half frozen outside—nose, cheeks, and fingers—-from + a wind that cut like a circular saw. + </p> + <p> + As I landed the last bag on the top step—the fog-horn couldn't leave + his horse—I became conscious of the movements of a short, rotund, + shad-shaped gentleman in immaculate white waistcoat, stiff choker and wide + expanse of shirt front. He was approaching me from the door of the lecture + hall in which sat the audience; then a clammy hand was thrust out—and + a thin voice trickled this sentence: + </p> + <p> + “You're considerable late sir—our people have been in their—” + </p> + <p> + “I am <i>what!</i>” I cried, straightening up. + </p> + <p> + “I said you were forty minutes late, sir. We expect our lecturers to be on—” + </p> + <p> + That was the fulminate that exploded the bomb. Up to now I had held myself + in hand. I was carrying, I knew, 194 pounds of steam, and I also knew that + one shovel more of coal would send the entire boiler into space, but + through it all I had kept my hand on the safety-valve. It might have been + the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar cupped his + billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight frown about his + eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his freshly laundered + face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture with which he + consulted his watch: whatever it was, out went the boiler. + </p> + <p> + “Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?” + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir, I have the management of it.” + </p> + <p> + “You have, have you? Then permit me to tell you right here, my friend, + that you ought to sublet the contract to a five-year-old boy. You let me + get out in the cold—send no conveyance as you agreed—” + </p> + <p> + “We sent our wagon, sir, to the station. You could have gone in and warmed + yourself, and if it had not arrived you could have telephoned—the + station is always warm.” + </p> + <p> + “You have the impudence to tell me that I don't know whether a station is + closed or not, and that I can't see a wagon when it is hauled up alongside + a depot?” + </p> + <p> + The clammy hands went up in protest: “If you will listen, sir, I will—” + </p> + <p> + “No, sir, I will listen to nothing.” and I forged ahead into a small room + where five or six belated people were hanging up their coats and hats. + </p> + <p> + But the Immaculate still persisted: + </p> + <p> + “This is not where—Will you come into the dressing-room, sir? We + have a nice warm room for the lecturers on the other side of the—” + </p> + <p> + “No—sir; I won't go another step, except on to that platform, and + I'm not very anxious now to get there—not until I put something + inside of me—” (here I unstrapped my bag) “to save me from an attack + of pneumonia.” (I had my flask out now and the cup filled to the brim.) + “When I think of how hard I worked to get here and how little you—” + (and down it went at one gulp). + </p> + <p> + The expression of disgust that wrinkled the placid face of the Immaculate + as the half-empty flask went back to its place, was pathetic—but I + wouldn't have given him a drop to have saved his life. + </p> + <p> + I turned on him again. + </p> + <p> + “Do you think it would be possible to get a vehicle of any kind to take me + where I am to sleep?” + </p> + <p> + “I think so, sir.” His self-control was admirable. + </p> + <p> + “Well, will you please do it?” + </p> + <p> + “A sleigh has already been ordered, sir.” This came through tightly closed + lips. + </p> + <p> + “All right. Now down which aisle is the entrance to the platform?” + </p> + <p> + “This way, sir.” The highest glacier on Mont Blanc couldn't have been + colder or more impassive. + </p> + <p> + Just here a calming thought wedged itself into my brain-storm. These + patient, long-suffering people were not to blame; many of them had come + several miles through the storm to hear me speak and were entitled to the + best that was in me. To vent upon them my spent steam because—No, + that was impossible. + </p> + <p> + “Hold on, my friend,” I said, “stop where you are, let me pull myself + together. This isn't their fault—” We were passing behind the screen + hiding the little stage. + </p> + <p> + But he didn't hold on; he marched straight ahead; so did I, past the + pitcher of ice water and the two last winter's palms, where he motioned me + to a chair. + </p> + <p> + His introduction was not long, nor was it discursive. There was nothing + eulogistic of my various acquirements, occupations, talents; no remark + about the optimistic trend of my literature, the affection in which my + characters were held; nothing of this at all. Nor did I expect it. What + interested me more was the man himself. + </p> + <p> + The steam of my wrath had blurred his outline and make-up before; now I + got a closer, although a side, view of his person. He was a short man, + much thicker at the middle than he was at either end—a defect all + the more apparent by reason of a long-tailed, high-waisted, unbuttonable + black coat which, while it covered his back and sides, would have left his + front exposed, but for his snowy white waistcoat, which burst like a ball + of cotton from its pod. + </p> + <p> + His only gesture was the putting together of his ten fingers, opening and + touching them again to accentuate his sentences. What passed through my + mind as I sat and watched him, was not the audience, nor what I was going + to say to them, but the Christianlike self-control of this gentleman—a + control which seemed to carry with it a studied reproof. Under its + influence I unconsciously closed both furnace doors and opened my forced + draft. Even then I should have reached for the safety-valve, but for an + oily, martyr-like smile which flickered across his face, accompanied by a + deprecating movement of his elbows, both indicating his patience under + prolonged suffering, and his instant readiness to turn the other cheek if + further smiting on my part was in store for him. I strode to the edge of + the platform: “I know, good people,” I exploded, “that you are not + responsible for what has happened, but I want to tell you before I begin, + that I have been boiling mad for ten minutes and am still at white heat, + and that it is going to take me some time to get cool enough to be of the + slightest service to you. You notice that I appear before you without a + proper suit of clothes—a mark of respect which every lecturer should + pay his audience. You are also aware that I am nearly an hour late. What I + regret is, first, the cause of my frame of mind, second, that you should + have been kept waiting. Now, let me tell you exactly what I have gone + through, and I do it simply because this is not the first time that this + has happened to your lecturers, and it ought to be your last. It certainly + will be the last for me.” Then followed the whole incident, including the + Immaculate's protest about my being late, my explosion, etc., etc., even + to the incident of my flask. + </p> + <p> + There was a dead silence—so dead and lifeless that I could not tell + whether they were offended or not; but I made my bow as usual, and began + my discourse. + </p> + <p> + The lecture over, the Immaculate paid me my fee with punctilious courtesy, + waiving the customary receipt; followed me to the cloak-room, helped me on + with my coat, picked up one of the bags,—an auditor the other, and + the two followed me down Jacob's ladder into the night. Outside stood a + sleigh shaped like the shell of Dr. Holmes's <i>Nautilus</i>, its body + hardly large enough to hold a four-months-old baby. This was surrounded by + half the audience, anxious, I afterward learned, for a closer view of the + man who had “sassed” the Manager. Some of them expected it to continue. + </p> + <p> + I squeezed in beside the bags and was about to draw up the horse blanket, + when a voice rang out: + </p> + <p> + “Mis' Plimsole's goin' in that sleigh, too.” It was at Mrs. Plimsole's + that I was to spend the night. + </p> + <p> + Then a faint voice answered back: + </p> + <p> + “No, I can just as well walk.” She evidently knew the danger of sitting + next to an overcharged boiler. + </p> + <p> + Mrs. Plimsole!—a woman—walk—on a night like this—I + was out of the sleigh before she had ceased to speak. + </p> + <p> + “No, madam, you are going to do nothing of the kind; if anybody is to walk + it will be I; I'm getting used to it.” + </p> + <p> + She allowed me to tuck her in. It was too dark for me to see what she was + like—she was so swathed and tied up. Being still mad—fires + drawn but still dangerous, I concluded that my companion was sour, and + skinny, with a parrot nose and one tooth gone. That I was to pass the + night at her house did not improve the estimate; there would be mottoes on + the walls—“What is home without a mother,” and the like; tidies on + the chairs, and a red-hot stove smelling of drying socks. There would also + be a basin and pitcher the size of a cup and saucer, and a bed that sagged + in the middle and was covered with a cotton quilt. + </p> + <p> + The <i>Nautilus</i> stopped at a gate, beyond which was a smaller Jacob's + ladder leading to a white cottage. Was there nothing built on a level in + Sheffield? I asked myself. The bags which had been hung on the shafts came + first, then I, then the muffled head and cloak. Upward and onward again, + through a door, past a pretty girl who stood with her hand on the knob in + welcome, and into a hall. Here the girl helped unmummy her mother, and + then turned up the hall-lamp. + </p> + <p> + Oh, such a dear, sweet gray-haired old lady! The kind of an old lady you + would have wanted to stay—not a night with—but a year. An old + lady with plump fresh cheeks and soft brown eyes and a smile that warmed + you through and through. And such an all-embracing restful room with its + open wood fire, andirons and polished fender—and the plants and + books and easy-chairs! And the cheer of it all! + </p> + <p> + “Now you just sit there and get comfortable,” she said, patting my + shoulder—(the second time in one night that a woman's hand had been + that of an angel). “Maggie'll get you some supper. We had it all ready, + expecting you on the six-ten. Hungry, aren't you?” + </p> + <p> + Hungry! I could have gnawed a hole in a sofa to get at the straw stuffing. + </p> + <p> + She drew up a chair, waited till her daughter had left the room, and said + with a twinkle in her eyes: + </p> + <p> + “Oh, I was glad you gave it to 'em the way you did, and when you sailed + into that snivelling old Hard-shell deacon, I just put my hands down under + my petticoats and clapped them for joy. There isn't anybody running + anything up here. They don't have to pay for this lecture course. It was + given to them by a man who is dead. All they think they've got to do is to + dress themselves up. They're all officers; there's a recording secretary + and a corresponding secretary and an executive committee and a president + and two vice-presidents, and a lot more that I can't remember. Everyone of + them is leaving everything to somebody else to attend to. I know, because + I take care of all the lecturers that come. Only last winter a lady + lecturer arrived here on a load of wood; she didn't lose her temper and + get mad like you did. Maybe you know her; she told us all about the + Indians and her husband, the great general, who was surrounded and + massacred by them.” + </p> + <p> + “Know her, Madam, not only do I know and love her, but the whole country + loves her. She is a saint, Madam, that the good Lord only allows to live + in this world because if she was transferred there would be no standard + left.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, but then you had considerable cause. The hired girl next door—she + sat next to my daughter—said she didn't blame you a mite.” (Somebody + was on my side, anyhow.) “Now come in to supper.” + </p> + <p> + The next morning I was up at dawn: I had to get up at dawn because the + omnibus made only one trip to the station, to catch the seven-o'clock + train. I went by the eight-ten, but a little thing like that never makes + any difference in Sheffield. + </p> + <p> + When the omnibus arrived it came on runners. Closer examination from the + window of the cosey room—the bedroom was even more delightful—revealed + a square furniture van covered on the outside with white canvas, the door + being in the middle, like a box-car. I bade the dear old lady and her + daughter good-by, opened the hall door and stood on the top step. The + driver, a stout, fat-faced fellow, looked up with an inquiring glance. + </p> + <p> + “Nice morning,” I cried in my customary cheerful tone—the dear woman + had wrought the change. + </p> + <p> + “You bet! Got over your mad?” + </p> + <p> + The explosion had evidently been heard all over the village. + </p> + <p> + “Yes,” I laughed, as I crawled in beside two other passengers. + </p> + <p> + “You was considerable het up last night, so Si was tellin' me,” remarked + the passenger, helping me with one bag. + </p> + <p> + I nodded. Who Si might be was not of special interest, and then again the + subject had now lost its inflammatory feature. + </p> + <p> + The woman made no remark; she was evidently one of the secretaries. + </p> + <p> + “Well, by gum, if they had left me where they left you last night, and you + a plumb stranger, I'd rared and pitched a little myself,” continued the + man. “When you come again—” + </p> + <p> + “Come again! Not by a—” + </p> + <p> + “Oh, yes, you will. You did them Hard-shells a lot of good! You just bet + your bottom dollar they'll look out for the next one of you fellows that + comes up here!” + </p> + <p> + The woman continued silent. She would have something to say about any + return visit of mine, and she intended to say it out loud if the time ever + came! + </p> + <p> + The station now loomed into sight. I sprang out and tried the knob. I knew + all about that knob—every twist and turn of it. + </p> + <p> + “Locked again!” I shouted, “and I've got to wait here an hour in this—” + </p> + <p> + “Hold on—<i>hold on</i>—” shouted back the driver. “Don't + break loose again. I got the key.” + </p> + <p> + My mail a week later brought me a county paper containing this statement: + “The last lecturer, owing to some error on the part of the committee, was + not met at the train and was considerably vexed. He said so to the + audience and to the committee. Everybody was satisfied with his talk until + they heard what they had to pay for it. He also said that he had left his + dress suit in his trunk. If what we hear is true, he left his manners with + it.” On reflection, the editor was right—<i>I had</i>. + </p> + <div style="height: 6em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Forty Minutes Late, by F. Hopkinson Smith + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE *** + +***** This file should be named 23697-h.htm or 23697-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/6/9/23697/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Hopkinson Smith + +Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23697] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FORTY MINUTES LATE *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + +FORTY MINUTES LATE + +By F. Hopkinson Smith + +1909 + + +It began to snow half an hour after the train started--a fine-grained, +slanting, determined snow that forced its way between the bellows of the +vestibules, and deposited itself in mounds of powdered salt all over the +platforms and steps. Even the porter had caught some puffs on his +depot coat with the red cape, and so had the conductor, from the way he +thrashed his cap on the back of the seat in front of mine. "Yes, +gettin' worse," he said in answer to an inquiring lift of my eyebrows. +"Everything will be balled up if this keeps on." + +"Shall we make the connection at Bondville?" I was to lecture fifty +miles from Bondville Junction, and had but half an hour lee-way. + +If the man with the punch heard, he made no answer. The least said +the soonest mended in crises like this. If we arrived on time every +passenger would grab his bag and bolt out without thanking him or the +road, or the engineer who took the full blast of the storm on his chest +and cheeks. If we missed the connection, any former hopeful word would +only add another hot coal to everybody's anger. + +I fell back on the porter. + +"Yes' sir, she'll be layin' jes' 'cross de platform. She knows we're +comin'. Sometimes she waits ten minutes--sometimes she don't; more times +I seen her pullin' out while we was pullin' in." + +Not very reassuring this. Only one statement was of value--the position +of the connecting train when we rolled into Bondville. + +I formulated a plan: The porter would take one bag, I the other--we +would both stand on the lower step of the Pullman, then make a dash. If +she was pulling out as we pulled in, a goatlike spring on my part might +succeed; the bags being hurled after me to speed the animal's motion. + +One hour later we took up our position. + +"Dat's good!--Dar she is jes' movin' out: thank ye, sar. I got de +bag--dis way!" + +There came a jolt, a Saturday-afternoon slide across the ice-covered +platform, an outstretched greasy hand held down from the step of the +moving train, followed by the chug of a bag that missed my knees by a +hand's breadth--and I was hauled on board. + +The contrast between a warm, velvet-lined Pullman and a cane-seated car +with both doors opened every ten minutes was anything but agreeable; +but no discomfort should count when a lecturer is trying to make his +connection. That is what he is paid for and that he must do at all +hazards and at any cost, even to chartering a special train, the price +devouring his fee. + +Once in my seat an account of stock was taken--two bags, an umbrella, +overcoat, two gum shoes (one off, one on), manuscript of lecture in bag, +eye-glasses in outside pocket of waistcoat. This over, I spread myself +upon the cane seat and took in the situation. It was four o'clock (the +lecture was at eight); Sheffield was two hours away; this would give +time to change my dress and get something to eat. The committee, +moreover, were to meet me at the depot with a carriage and drive me +to where I was "to spend the night and dine"--so the chairman's letter +read. The suppressed smile on the second conductor's face when he +punched my ticket and read the name of "Sheffield" sent my hand into my +pocket in search of this same letter. Yes--there was no mistake about +it,--"Our carriage," it read, "will meet you," etc., etc. + +The confirmation brought with it a certain thrill; not a carriage picked +up out of the street, or a lumbering omnibus--a mere go-between from +station to hotels--but "our carriage!" Nothing like these lecture +associations, I thought,--nothing like these committees, for making +strangers comfortable. That was why it was often a real pleasure to +appear before them. This one would, no doubt, receive me in a big yellow +and white Colonial club-house built by the women of the town (I know of +a dozen just such structures), with dressing and lunch rooms, spacious +lecture hall, and janitor in gray edged with black. + +This thought called up my own responsibility in the matter; I was glad +I had caught the train; it was a bad night to bring people out and then +disappoint them, even if most of them did come in their own carriages. +Then again, I had kept my word; none of my fault, of course, if I +hadn't--but I had!--that was a source of satisfaction. Now that I +thought of it, I had, in all my twenty years of lecturing, failed only +twice to reach the platform. In one instance a bridge was washed away, +and in the other my special train (the price I paid for that train still +keeps me hot against the Trusts) ran into a snowdrift and stayed there +until after midnight, instead of delivering me on time, as agreed. I had +arrived late, of course, many times, gone without my supper often, and +more than once had appeared without the proper habiliments--and I am +particular about my dress coat and white waistcoat--but only twice had +the gas been turned off and the people turned out. Another time I had-- + +"Sheffield! Shef-fie-l-d! All out for Shef-f-i-e-l-d!" yelled the +conductor. + +The two bags once more, the conductor helping me on with my overcoat, +down the snow-blocked steps and out into the night. + +"Step lively!--more'n an hour late now." + +I looked about me. I was the only passenger. Not a light of any +kind--not a building of any kind, sort, or description, except a box-car +of a station set up on end, pitch dark inside and out, and shut tight. +No carriage. No omnibus; nothing on runners; nothing on wheels. Only a +dreary waste of white, roofed by a vast expanse of black. + +"Is this Sheffield?" I gasped. + +"Yes,--all there is here; the balance is two miles over the hills." + +"The town?" + +"Town?--no, the settlement;--ain't more's two dozen houses in it." + +"They were to send a carriage and--" + +"Yes--that's an old yarn--better foot it for short." Here he swung his +lantern to the engineer craning his head from the cab of the locomotive, +and sprang aboard. Then this fragment came whirling through the steam +and smoke:--"There's a farmhouse somewhere's over the hill,--follow the +fence and turn to--" the rest was lost in the roar of the on-speeding +train. + +I am no longer young. Furthermore, I hate to carry things--bags +especially. One bag might be possible--a very small one; two bags, both +big, are an insult. + +I deposited the two outside the box-car, tried the doors, inserted +my fingers under the sash of one window, looked at the chimney with a +half-formed Santa Claus idea of scaling the roof and sliding down to +some possible fireplace below; examined the wind-swept snow for carriage +tracks, peered into the gloom, and, as a last resort, leaned up against +the sheltered side of the box to think. + +There was no question that if a vehicle of any kind had been sent to +meet me it had long since departed; the trackless roadway showed that. +It was equally evident that if one was coming, I had better meet it on +the way than stay where I was and freeze to death. The fence was still +visible--the near end--and there was a farmhouse somewhere--so the +conductor had said, and he seemed to be an honest, truthful man. Whether +to right or left of the invisible road, the noise of the train and the +howl of the wind had prevented my knowing--but _somewhere's_--That was a +consolation. + +The bags were the most serious obstacles. If I carried one in each hand +the umbrella would have to be cached, for some future relief expedition +to find in the spring. + +There _was_ a way, of course, to carry bags--any number of bags. All +that was needed was a leather strap with a buckle at each end; I had +helped to hang half a dozen bags across the shoulders of as many porters +meeting trains all over Europe. Of course, I didn't wear leather straps. +Suspenders were my stronghold. They might!--No, it was too cold to get +at them in that wind. And if I did they were of the springy, wabbly kind +that would seesaw the load from my hips to my calves. + +The only thing was to press on. Some one had blundered, of course. + +"Half a league, half a league--into the jaws," etc. + +"Theirs not to reason why--" But my duty was plain; the audience were +already assembling; the early ones in their seats by this time. + +Then an inspiration surged through me. Why not slip the umbrella through +the handle of one bag, as Pat carries his shillalah and bundle of duds, +and grab the other in my free hand! Our carriage couldn't be far off. +The exercise would keep my blood active and my feet from freezing, and +as to the road, was there not the fence, its top rail making rabbit +jumps above the drifts? + +So I trudged on, stumbling into holes, flopping into treacherous ruts, +halting in the steeper places to catch my breath, till I reached the top +of the hill. There I halted--stopped short, in fact: the fence had given +out! In its place was a treacherous line of bushes that faded into a +delusive clump of trees. Beyond, and on both sides, stretched a great +white silence--still as death. + +Another council of war. I could retrace my steps, smash in the windows +of the station, and camp for the night, taking my chances of stopping +some east-bound train as it whizzed past, with a match and my +necktie--or I could stumble on, perhaps in a circle, and be found in +the morning by the early milk. + +On! On once more--maybe the clump of trees hid something--maybe-- + +Here a light flashed--a mere speck of a light--not to the right, where +lay the clump of trees--but to my left; then a faint wave of warm color +rose from a chimney and curled over a low roof buried in snow. Again the +light flashed--this time through a window with four panes of glass--each +one a beacon to a storm-tossed mariner! + +On once more--into a low hollow--up a steep slope--slipping, falling, +shoving the hand-gripped bag ahead of me to help my footing, until I +reached a snow-choked porch and a closed door. + +Here I knocked. + +For some seconds there was no sound; then came a heavy tread, and a man +in overalls threw wide the door. + +"Well, what do you want at this time of night?" (Time of night, and it +but seven-thirty!) + +"I'm the lecturer," I panted. + +"Oh, come! Ain't they sent for ye? Here, I'll take 'em. Walk in and +welcome. You look beat out. Well--well--wife and I was won-derin' why +nothin' driv past for the six-ten. We knowed you was comin'. Then agin, +the station master's sick, and I 'spose ye couldn't warm up none. And +they ain't sent for ye? And they let ye tramp all--Well--well!" + +I did not answer. I hadn't breath enough left for sustained +conversation; moreover, there was a red-hot stove ahead of me, and a +rocking-chair,--comforts I had never expected to see again--and there +was a pine table--oh, a lovely pine table, with a most exquisite white +oil-cloth cover, holding the most beautiful kerosene lamp with a +piece of glorious red flannel floating in its amber fluid; and in the +corner--a wife--a sweet-faced, angelic-looking young wife, with a baby +in her arms too beautiful for words--must have been! + +I dropped into the chair, spread my fingers to the stove and looked +around--warmth--rest-peace--comfort--companionship--all in a minute! + +"No, they didn't send anything," I wheezed when my breath came. "The +conductor told me I should find the farmhouse over the hill--and--" + +"Yes, that's so; it's back a piece, you must have missed it." + +"Yes--I must have missed it," I continued in a dazed way. + +"The folks at the farmhouse is goin' to hear ye speak, so they told me. +Must be startin' now." + +"Would you please let them know I am here, and--" + +"Sure! Wait till I get on my boots! Hello!--that's him now." + +Again the door swung wide. This time it let in a fur overcoat, coon-skin +cap, two gray yarn mittens, a pair of raw-beefsteak cheeks and a voice +like a fog-horn. + +"Didn't send for ye? Wall, I'll be gol-durned! And yer had to fut it? +Well, don' that beat all. And yer ain't the fust one they've left down +here to get up the best way they could. Last winter--Jan'ry, warn't it, +Bill?" Bill nodded--"there come a woman from New York and they dumped +her out jes' same as you. I happened to come along in time, as luck +would have it--I was haulin' a load of timber on my bob-sled--and there +warn't nothin' else, so I took her up to the village. She got in late, +of course, but they was a-waitin' for her. I really wasn't goin' to hear +you speak to-night--we git so much of that sort of thing since the old +man who left the money to pay you fellers for talkin' died--been goin' +on ten years now--but I'll take yer 'long with me, and glad to. But yer +oughter have somethin' warmer'n what yer got on. Wind's kinder nippy +down here, but it ain't nothin' to the way it bites up on the ridge." + +This same thought had passed through my own mind. The unusual exertion +had started every pore in my body; the red-hot stove had put on the +finishing touches and I was in a Russian bath. To face that wind meant +all sorts of calamities. + +The Madonna-like wife with the cherub in her arms rose to her feet. + +"Would you mind wearing my fur tippet?" she said in her soft voice; +"'tain't much, but it 'ud keep out the cold from yer neck and maybe this +shawl'd help some, if I tied it round your shoulders. Father got his +death ridin' to the village when he was overhet." + +She put them on with her own hands, bless her kind heart! her husband +holding the baby; then she followed me out into the cold and helped draw +the horse-blanket over my knees; the man in the coon-skin cap lugging +the bags and the umbrella. + +I looked at my watch. After eight o'clock, and two miles to drive! + +"Oh, I'll git yer there," came a voice from inside the fur overcoat. +"Darter wanted to go, but I said 'twarn't no night to go nowhars. Got to +see a man who owes me some money, or I'd stay home myself. Git up, Joe." + +It was marvellous, the intelligence of this man. More than marvellous +when my again blinded eyes--the red flannel in the lamp helped--began to +take in the landscape. Fences were evidently of no use to him; clumps of +trees didn't count. If he had a compass anywhere about his clothes, +he never once consulted it. Drove right on--across trackless Siberian +steppes; by the side of endless glaciers, and through primeval forests, +his voice keeping up its volume of sound, as he laid bare for me the +scandals of the village--particularly the fight going on between the two +churches--one hard and one soft--this lecture course being one of the +bones of contention. + +I saved my voice and kept quiet. If a runner did not give out or +"Joe" break a leg, we would reach the hall in time; half an hour late, +perhaps--but in time; the man beside me had said so--and the man beside +me knew. + +With a turn of the fence--a new one had thrust its hands out of a +drift--a big building--big in the white waste--loomed up. My companion +flapped the reins the whole length of Joe's back. + +"Git up! No, by gosh!--they ain't tired yet;--they're still a-waitin'. +See them lights--that's the hall." + +I gave a sigh of relief. The ambitious young man with one ear open for +stellar voices, and the overburdened John Bunyan, and any number of +other short-winded pedestrians, could no longer monopolize the upward +and onward literature of our own or former times. I too had arrived. + +Another jerk to the right--a trot up an incline, and we stopped at a +steep flight of steps--a regular Jacob's-ladder flight--leading to +a corridor dimly lighted by the flare of a single gas jet. Up this I +stumbled, lugging the bags once more, my whole mind bent on reaching the +platform at the earliest possible moment--a curious mental attitude, I +am aware, for a man who had eaten nothing since noon, was still wet +and shivering inside, and half frozen outside--nose, cheeks, and +fingers---from a wind that cut like a circular saw. + +As I landed the last bag on the top step--the fog-horn couldn't leave +his horse--I became conscious of the movements of a short, rotund, +shad-shaped gentleman in immaculate white waistcoat, stiff choker and +wide expanse of shirt front. He was approaching me from the door of the +lecture hall in which sat the audience; then a clammy hand was thrust +out--and a thin voice trickled this sentence: + +"You're considerable late sir--our people have been in their--" + +"I am _what!_" I cried, straightening up. + +"I said you were forty minutes late, sir. We expect our lecturers to be +on--" + +That was the fulminate that exploded the bomb. Up to now I had held +myself in hand. I was carrying, I knew, 194 pounds of steam, and I also +knew that one shovel more of coal would send the entire boiler into +space, but through it all I had kept my hand on the safety-valve. It +might have been the white waistcoat or the way the curved white collar +cupped his billiard-ball of a chin, or it might have been the slight +frown about his eyebrows, or the patronizing smile that drifted over his +freshly laundered face; or it might have been the deprecating gesture +with which he consulted his watch: whatever it was, out went the boiler. + +"Late! Are you the man that's running this lecture course?" + +"Well, sir, I have the management of it." + +"You have, have you? Then permit me to tell you right here, my friend, +that you ought to sublet the contract to a five-year-old boy. You let me +get out in the cold--send no conveyance as you agreed--" + +"We sent our wagon, sir, to the station. You could have gone in +and warmed yourself, and if it had not arrived you could have +telephoned--the station is always warm." + +"You have the impudence to tell me that I don't know whether a station +is closed or not, and that I can't see a wagon when it is hauled up +alongside a depot?" + +The clammy hands went up in protest: "If you will listen, sir, I will--" + +"No, sir, I will listen to nothing." and I forged ahead into a small +room where five or six belated people were hanging up their coats and +hats. + +But the Immaculate still persisted: + +"This is not where--Will you come into the dressing-room, sir? We have a +nice warm room for the lecturers on the other side of the--" + +"No--sir; I won't go another step, except on to that platform, and I'm +not very anxious now to get there--not until I put something inside +of me--" (here I unstrapped my bag) "to save me from an attack of +pneumonia." (I had my flask out now and the cup filled to the brim.) +"When I think of how hard I worked to get here and how little you--" +(and down it went at one gulp). + +The expression of disgust that wrinkled the placid face of the +Immaculate as the half-empty flask went back to its place, was +pathetic--but I wouldn't have given him a drop to have saved his life. + +I turned on him again. + +"Do you think it would be possible to get a vehicle of any kind to take +me where I am to sleep?" + +"I think so, sir." His self-control was admirable. + +"Well, will you please do it?" + +"A sleigh has already been ordered, sir." This came through tightly +closed lips. + +"All right. Now down which aisle is the entrance to the platform?" + +"This way, sir." The highest glacier on Mont Blanc couldn't have been +colder or more impassive. + +Just here a calming thought wedged itself into my brain-storm. These +patient, long-suffering people were not to blame; many of them had come +several miles through the storm to hear me speak and were entitled to +the best that was in me. To vent upon them my spent steam because--No, +that was impossible. + +"Hold on, my friend," I said, "stop where you are, let me pull myself +together. This isn't their fault--" We were passing behind the screen +hiding the little stage. + +But he didn't hold on; he marched straight ahead; so did I, past the +pitcher of ice water and the two last winter's palms, where he motioned +me to a chair. + +His introduction was not long, nor was it discursive. There was nothing +eulogistic of my various acquirements, occupations, talents; no remark +about the optimistic trend of my literature, the affection in which my +characters were held; nothing of this at all. Nor did I expect it. What +interested me more was the man himself. + +The steam of my wrath had blurred his outline and make-up before; now I +got a closer, although a side, view of his person. He was a short man, +much thicker at the middle than he was at either end--a defect all the +more apparent by reason of a long-tailed, high-waisted, unbuttonable +black coat which, while it covered his back and sides, would have left +his front exposed, but for his snowy white waistcoat, which burst like a +ball of cotton from its pod. + +His only gesture was the putting together of his ten fingers, opening +and touching them again to accentuate his sentences. What passed through +my mind as I sat and watched him, was not the audience, nor what I +was going to say to them, but the Christianlike self-control of this +gentleman--a control which seemed to carry with it a studied reproof. +Under its influence I unconsciously closed both furnace doors and opened +my forced draft. Even then I should have reached for the safety-valve, +but for an oily, martyr-like smile which flickered across his face, +accompanied by a deprecating movement of his elbows, both indicating his +patience under prolonged suffering, and his instant readiness to turn +the other cheek if further smiting on my part was in store for him. I +strode to the edge of the platform: "I know, good people," I exploded, +"that you are not responsible for what has happened, but I want to tell +you before I begin, that I have been boiling mad for ten minutes and am +still at white heat, and that it is going to take me some time to get +cool enough to be of the slightest service to you. You notice that I +appear before you without a proper suit of clothes--a mark of respect +which every lecturer should pay his audience. You are also aware that I +am nearly an hour late. What I regret is, first, the cause of my frame +of mind, second, that you should have been kept waiting. Now, let me +tell you exactly what I have gone through, and I do it simply because +this is not the first time that this has happened to your lecturers, and +it ought to be your last. It certainly will be the last for me." Then +followed the whole incident, including the Immaculate's protest about my +being late, my explosion, etc., etc., even to the incident of my flask. + +There was a dead silence--so dead and lifeless that I could not tell +whether they were offended or not; but I made my bow as usual, and began +my discourse. + +The lecture over, the Immaculate paid me my fee with punctilious +courtesy, waiving the customary receipt; followed me to the cloak-room, +helped me on with my coat, picked up one of the bags,--an auditor the +other, and the two followed me down Jacob's ladder into the night. +Outside stood a sleigh shaped like the shell of Dr. Holmes's _Nautilus_, +its body hardly large enough to hold a four-months-old baby. This was +surrounded by half the audience, anxious, I afterward learned, for +a closer view of the man who had "sassed" the Manager. Some of them +expected it to continue. + +I squeezed in beside the bags and was about to draw up the horse +blanket, when a voice rang out: + +"Mis' Plimsole's goin' in that sleigh, too." It was at Mrs. Plimsole's +that I was to spend the night. + +Then a faint voice answered back: + +"No, I can just as well walk." She evidently knew the danger of sitting +next to an overcharged boiler. + +Mrs. Plimsole!--a woman--walk--on a night like this--I was out of the +sleigh before she had ceased to speak. + +"No, madam, you are going to do nothing of the kind; if anybody is to +walk it will be I; I'm getting used to it." + +She allowed me to tuck her in. It was too dark for me to see what she +was like--she was so swathed and tied up. Being still mad--fires drawn +but still dangerous, I concluded that my companion was sour, and skinny, +with a parrot nose and one tooth gone. That I was to pass the night at +her house did not improve the estimate; there would be mottoes on the +walls--"What is home without a mother," and the like; tidies on the +chairs, and a red-hot stove smelling of drying socks. There would also +be a basin and pitcher the size of a cup and saucer, and a bed that +sagged in the middle and was covered with a cotton quilt. + +The _Nautilus_ stopped at a gate, beyond which was a smaller Jacob's +ladder leading to a white cottage. Was there nothing built on a level +in Sheffield? I asked myself. The bags which had been hung on the shafts +came first, then I, then the muffled head and cloak. Upward and onward +again, through a door, past a pretty girl who stood with her hand on +the knob in welcome, and into a hall. Here the girl helped unmummy her +mother, and then turned up the hall-lamp. + +Oh, such a dear, sweet gray-haired old lady! The kind of an old lady +you would have wanted to stay--not a night with--but a year. An old lady +with plump fresh cheeks and soft brown eyes and a smile that warmed you +through and through. And such an all-embracing restful room with its +open wood fire, andirons and polished fender--and the plants and books +and easy-chairs! And the cheer of it all! + +"Now you just sit there and get comfortable," she said, patting my +shoulder--(the second time in one night that a woman's hand had been +that of an angel). "Maggie'll get you some supper. We had it all ready, +expecting you on the six-ten. Hungry, aren't you?" + +Hungry! I could have gnawed a hole in a sofa to get at the straw +stuffing. + +She drew up a chair, waited till her daughter had left the room, and +said with a twinkle in her eyes: + +"Oh, I was glad you gave it to 'em the way you did, and when you sailed +into that snivelling old Hard-shell deacon, I just put my hands down +under my petticoats and clapped them for joy. There isn't anybody +running anything up here. They don't have to pay for this lecture +course. It was given to them by a man who is dead. All they think +they've got to do is to dress themselves up. They're all officers; +there's a recording secretary and a corresponding secretary and an +executive committee and a president and two vice-presidents, and a lot +more that I can't remember. Everyone of them is leaving everything +to somebody else to attend to. I know, because I take care of all the +lecturers that come. Only last winter a lady lecturer arrived here on a +load of wood; she didn't lose her temper and get mad like you did. Maybe +you know her; she told us all about the Indians and her husband, the +great general, who was surrounded and massacred by them." + +"Know her, Madam, not only do I know and love her, but the whole country +loves her. She is a saint, Madam, that the good Lord only allows to live +in this world because if she was transferred there would be no standard +left." + +"Yes, but then you had considerable cause. The hired girl next door--she +sat next to my daughter--said she didn't blame you a mite." (Somebody +was on my side, anyhow.) "Now come in to supper." + +The next morning I was up at dawn: I had to get up at dawn because the +omnibus made only one trip to the station, to catch the seven-o'clock +train. I went by the eight-ten, but a little thing like that never makes +any difference in Sheffield. + +When the omnibus arrived it came on runners. Closer examination from the +window of the cosey room--the bedroom was even more delightful--revealed +a square furniture van covered on the outside with white canvas, the +door being in the middle, like a box-car. I bade the dear old lady and +her daughter good-by, opened the hall door and stood on the top step. +The driver, a stout, fat-faced fellow, looked up with an inquiring +glance. + +"Nice morning," I cried in my customary cheerful tone--the dear woman +had wrought the change. + +"You bet! Got over your mad?" + +The explosion had evidently been heard all over the village. + +"Yes," I laughed, as I crawled in beside two other passengers. + +"You was considerable het up last night, so Si was tellin' me," remarked +the passenger, helping me with one bag. + +I nodded. Who Si might be was not of special interest, and then again +the subject had now lost its inflammatory feature. + +The woman made no remark; she was evidently one of the secretaries. + +"Well, by gum, if they had left me where they left you last night, and +you a plumb stranger, I'd rared and pitched a little myself," continued +the man. "When you come again--" + +"Come again! Not by a--" + +"Oh, yes, you will. You did them Hard-shells a lot of good! You just bet +your bottom dollar they'll look out for the next one of you fellows that +comes up here!" + +The woman continued silent. She would have something to say about any +return visit of mine, and she intended to say it out loud if the time +ever came! + +The station now loomed into sight. I sprang out and tried the knob. I +knew all about that knob--every twist and turn of it. + +"Locked again!" I shouted, "and I've got to wait here an hour in this--" + +"Hold on--_hold on_--" shouted back the driver. "Don't break loose +again. I got the key." + +My mail a week later brought me a county paper containing this +statement: "The last lecturer, owing to some error on the part of the +committee, was not met at the train and was considerably vexed. He said +so to the audience and to the committee. Everybody was satisfied with +his talk until they heard what they had to pay for it. He also said that +he had left his dress suit in his trunk. If what we hear is true, he +left his manners with it." On reflection, the editor was right--_I had_. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Forty Minutes Late, by F. 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