Develin voted _against_ Ruth.

CHAPTER LII.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and very tranquil and quiet at the Skiddy's. A tidy, rosy-cheeked young woman sat rocking the deserted little Tommy to sleep, to the tune of "I've been roaming." The hearth was neatly swept, the tin and pewter vessels hung, brightly polished, from their respective shelves. The Maltese cat lay winking in the middle of the floor, watching the play of a stray sunbeam, which had found its way over the shed and into the small window. Ruth and her children were quiet, as usual, in their gloomy back chamber. Mr. Skiddy, a few blocks off, sat perched on a high stool, in the counting-room of Messrs. Fogg & Co.

Noiselessly the front-door opened, and the veritable Mrs. Skiddy, followed by Johnny and Sammy, crept through the front entry and entered, unannounced, into the kitchen. The rosy-cheeked young woman looked at Mrs. Skiddy, Mrs. Skiddy looked at her, and Tommy looked at both of them. Mrs. Skiddy then boxed the rosy-cheeked young woman's ears, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the bewildered baby from her grasp, ejected her, with lightning velocity, through the street-door, and turned the key. It was all the work of an instant. Sammy and Johnny were used to domestic whirlwinds, so they were not surprised into any little remarks or exclamations, but the cat, less philosophical, laid back her ears, and made for the ash-hole; while Mrs. Skiddy, seating herself in the rocking-chair, unhooked her traveling dress and reinstated the delighted Tommy into all his little infantile privileges.

Mr. Skiddy had now been a whole week a widower; time enough for a man in that condition to grow philosophical. In fact, Skiddy was content. He had tasted the sweets of liberty, and he liked them. The baby, poor little soul, tired of remonstrance, had given out from sheer weariness, and took resignedly as a little christian to his pewter porringer. Yes, Skiddy liked it; he could be an hour behind his time without dodging, on his return, a rattling storm of abuse and crockery; he could spend an evening out, without drawing a map of his travels before starting.

On the afternoon in question he felt particularly felicitous; first, because he had dined off fried liver and potatoes, a dish which he particularly affected, and which, on that very account, he could seldom get in his own domicil; secondly, he was engaged to go that very evening with his old love, Nancy Spriggins, to see the "Panorama of Niagara;"

and he had left orders with Betty to have tea half an hour earlier in consequence, and to be sure and iron and air his killing plaid vest by seven o'clock.

As the afternoon waned, Skiddy grew restless; he made wrong entries in the ledger; dipped his pen into the sand-box instead of the inkstand, and several times said "Yes, dear," to his employer, Mr. Fogg, of Fogg Square.

Six o'clock came at last, and the emanc.i.p.ated Skiddy, turning his back on business, walked towards home, in peace with himself, and in love with Nancy Spriggins. On the way he stopped to purchase a bouquet of roses and geraniums with which to regale that damsel's olfactories during the evening's entertainment.

Striding through the front entry, like a man who felt himself to be master of his own house, Skiddy hastened to the kitchen to expedite tea.

If he was not prepared for Mrs. Skiddy's departure, still less was he prepared for her return, especially with that tell-tale bouquet in his hand. But, like all other hen-pecked husbands, on the back of the scape-goat _Cunning_, he fled away from the uplifted lash.

"My _dear_ Matilda," exclaimed Skiddy, "my own wife, how _could_ you be so cruel? Every day since your departure, hoping to find you here on my return from the store, I have purchased a bouquet like this to present you. My dear wife, let by-gones _be_ by-gones; my love for you is imperishable."

"V-e-r-y good, Mr. Skiddy," said his wife, accepting Nancy Spriggins's bouquet, with a queenly nod; "and now let us have no more talk of _California_, if you please, Mr. Skiddy."

"Certainly not, my darling; I was a brute, a beast, a wretch, a Hottentot, a cannibal, a vampire--to distress you so. Dear little Tommy!

how pleasant it seems to see him in your arms again."

"Yes," replied Mrs. Skiddy, "I was not five minutes in sending that red-faced German girl spinning through the front-door; I hope you have something decent for us to eat, Skiddy. Johnny and Sammy are pretty sharp-set; why don't you come and speak to your father, boys!"

The young gentlemen thus summoned, slowly came forward, looking altogether undecided whether it was best to notice their father or not.

A ginger-cake, however, and a slice of b.u.t.tered bread, plentifully powdered with sugar, wonderfully a.s.sisted them in coming to a decision.

As to Nancy Spriggins, poor soul, she pulled off her gloves, and pulled them on, that evening, and looked at her watch, and looked up street and down street, and declared, as "the clock told the hour for retiring,"

that man was a ----, a ----, in short, that woman was born to trouble, as the sparks are--to fly away.

Mrs. Skiddy resumed her household duties with as much coolness as if there had been no interregnum, and received the boarders at tea that night, just as if she had parted with them that day at dinner. Skiddy was apparently as devoted as ever; the uninitiated boarders opened their eyes in bewildered wonder; and _triumph_ sat inscribed on the arch of Mrs. Skiddy's imposing Roman nose.

The domestic horizon still continued cloudless at the next morning's breakfast. After the boarders had left the table, the market prices of beef, veal, pork, cutlets, chops, and steaks, were discussed as usual, the bill of fare for the day was drawn up by Mrs. Skiddy, and her obedient spouse departed to execute her market orders.

CHAPTER LIII.

"Well, I hope you have been comfortable in my absence, Mrs. Hall," said Mrs. Skiddy, after despatching her husband to market, as she seated herself in the chair nearest the door; "ha! ha! John and I may call it quits now. He is a very good fellow--John; except these little tantrums he gets into once in a while; the only way is, to put a stop to it at once, and let him see who is master. John never will set a river on fire; there's no sort of use in his trying to take the reins--the man wasn't born for it. I'm too sharp for him, that's a fact. Ha! ha! poor Johnny! I _must_ tell you what a trick I played him about two years after our marriage.

"You must know he had to go away on business for Fogg & Co., to collect bills, or something of that sort. Well, he made a great fuss about it, as husbands who like to go away from home always do; and said he should 'pine for the sight of me, and never know a happy hour till he saw me again,' and all that; and finally declared he would not go, without I would let him take my Daguerreotype. Of course, I knew that was all humbug; but I consented. The likeness was p.r.o.nounced 'good,' and placed _by me_ in his travelling trunk, when I packed his clothes. Well, he was gone a month, and when he came back, he told me (great fool) what a comfort my Daguerreotype was to him, and how he had looked at it twenty times a day, and kissed it as many more; whereupon I went to his trunk, and opening it, took out the case and showed it to him--_without the plate_, which I had taken care to slip out of the frame just before he started, and which he had never found out! That's a specimen of John Skiddy!--and John Skiddy is a fair specimen of the rest of his s.e.x, let me tell you, Mrs. Hall. Well, of course he looked sheepish enough; and now, whenever I want to take the nonsense out of him, all I have to do is to point to that Daguerreotype case, which I keep lying on the mantel on purpose. When a woman is married, Mrs. Hall, she must make up her mind either to manage, or to be managed; _I_ prefer to manage," said the amiable Mrs. Skiddy; "and I flatter myself John understands it by this time. But, dear me, I can't stand here prating to you all day. I must look round and see what mischief has been done in my absence, by that lazy-looking red-faced German girl," and Mrs. Skiddy laughed heartily, as she related how she had sent her spinning through the front door the night before.

Half the forenoon was occupied by Mrs. Skiddy in counting up spoons, forks, towels, and baby's pinafores, to see if they had sustained loss or damage during her absence.

"Very odd dinner don't come," said she, consulting the kitchen clock; "it is high time that beef was on, roasting."

It _was_ odd--and odder still that Skiddy had not appeared to tell her _why_ the dinner didn't come. Mrs. Skiddy wasted no time in words about it. No; she seized her bonnet, and went immediately to Fogg & Co., to get some tidings of him; they were apparently quite as much at a loss as herself to account for Skiddy's non-appearance. She was just departing, when one of the sub-clerks, whom the unfortunate Skiddy had once snubbed, whispered a word in her ear, the effect of which was instantaneous. Did she let the gra.s.s grow under her feet till she tracked Skiddy to "the wharf," and boarded the "Sea-Gull," bound for California, and brought the crestfallen man triumphantly back to his domicil, amid convulsions of laughter from the amused captain and his crew? No.

"There, now," said his amiable spouse, untying her bonnet, "there's _another_ flash in the pan, Skiddy. Anybody who thinks to circ.u.mvent Matilda Maria Skiddy, must get up early in the morning, and find themselves too late at that. Now hold this child," dumping the doomed baby into his lap, "while I comb my hair. Goodness knows you weren't worth bringing back; but when I set out to have my own way, Mr. Skiddy, Mount Vesuvius shan't stop me."

Skiddy tended the baby without a remonstrance; he perfectly understood, that for a probationary time he should be put "on the limits," the street-door being the boundary line. He heaved no sigh when his coat and hat, with the rest of his wearing apparel, were locked up, and the key buried in the depths of his wife's pocket. He played with Tommy, and made card-houses for Sammy and Johnny, wound several tangled skeins of silk for "Maria Matilda," mended a broken b.u.t.ton on the closet door, replaced a missing k.n.o.b on one of the bureau drawers, and appeared to be in as resigned and proper a frame of mind as such a perfidious wretch could be expected to be in.

Two or three weeks pa.s.sed in this state of incarceration, during which the errand-boy of Fogg & Co. had been repeatedly informed by Mrs.

Skiddy, that the doctor hoped Mr. Skiddy would soon be sufficiently convalescent to attend to business. As to Skiddy, he continued at intervals to shed crocodile tears over his past short-comings, or rather his short-_goings_! In consequence of this apparently submissive frame of mind, he, one fine morning, received total absolution from Mrs.

Skiddy, and leave to go to the store; which Skiddy peremptorily declined, desiring, as he said, to test the sincerity of his repentance by a still longer period of probation.

"Don't be a fool, Skiddy," said Maria Matilda, pointing to the Daguerreotype case, and then crowding his beaver down over his eyes; "don't be a fool. Make a B line for the store, now, and tell Fogg you've had an attack of _room-a-tism_;" and Maria Matilda laughed at her wretched pun.

Skiddy obeyed. No Uriah Heep could have out-done him in "'umbleness," as he crept up the long street, until a friendly corner hid him from the lynx eyes of Maria Matilda. Then "Richard was himself again"! Drawing a long breath, our flying Mercury whizzed past the mile-stones, and, before sun-down of the same day, was under full sail for California.

Just one half hour our Napoleon in petticoats spent in reflection, after being satisfied that Skiddy was really "on the deep blue sea." In one day she had cleared her house of _boarders_, and reserving one room for herself and children, filled all the other apartments with _lodgers_; who paid her good prices, and taking their meals down town, made her no trouble beyond the care of their respective rooms.

About a year after a letter came from Skiddy. He was "disgusted" with ill-luck at gold-digging, and ill-luck everywhere else; he had been "burnt out," and "robbed," and everything else but murdered; and "'umbly" requested his dear Maria Matilda to send him the "pa.s.sage-money to return home."

Mrs. Skiddy's picture should have been taken at that moment! My pen fails! Drawing from her pocket a purse well filled with her own honest earnings, she c.h.i.n.ked its contents at some phantom shape discernible to her eyes alone; while through her set teeth hissed out, like ten thousand serpents, the word

"N--e--v--e--r!"

CHAPTER LIV.

"What is it on the gate? Spell it, mother," said Katy, looking wistfully through the iron fence at the terraced banks, smoothly-rolled gravel walks, plats of flowers, and grape-trellised arbors; "what is it on the gate, mother?"

"'Insane Hospital,' dear; a place for crazy people."

"Want to walk round, ma'am?" asked the gate-keeper, as Katy poked her little head in; "can, if you like." Little Katy's eyes pleaded eloquently; flowers were to her another name for happiness, and Ruth pa.s.sed in.

"I should like to live here, mamma," said Katy.

Ruth shuddered, and pointed to a pale face pressed close against the grated window. Fair rose the building in its architectural proportions; the well-kept lawn was beautiful to the eye; but, alas! there was helpless age, whose only disease was too long a lease of life for greedy heirs. There, too, was the fragile wife, to whom _love_ was breath--being!--forgotten by the world and him in whose service her bloom had withered, insane--only in that her love had outlived his patience.

"Poor creatures!" exclaimed Ruth, as they peered out from one window after another. "Have you had many deaths here?" asked she of the gate-keeper.

"Some, ma'am. There is one corpse in the house now; a married lady, Mrs. Leon."