Schools And Schools

O Henry

I

Old Jerome Warren lived in a hundred-thousand-dollar house at 35 East Fifty-Soforth

Street. He was a down-town broker, so rich that he could afford to walk--for his health--a

few blocks in the direction of his office every morning, and then call a cab.

He had an adopted son, the son of an old friend named Gilbert--Cyril Scott could play him

nicely--who was becoming a successful painter as fast as he could squeeze the paint out of

his tubes. Another member of the household was Barbara Ross, a stepniece. Man is born to

trouble; so, as old Jerome had no family of his own, he took up the burdens of others.

until one day old Jerome had a letter from his brother. It was badly written on ruled paper

that smelled of salt bacon and coffee-grounds. The writing was asthmatic and the spelling

St. Vitusy.

It appeared that instead of Dick having forced Fortune to stand and deliver, he had been

held up himself, and made to give hostages to the enemy. That is, as his letter disclosed, he

was on the point of pegging out with a complication of disorders that even whiskey had

failed to check. All that his thirty years of prospecting had netted him was one daughter,

nineteen years old, as per invoice, whom he was shipping East, charges prepaid, for Jerome

to clothe, feed, educate, comfort, and cherish for the rest of her natural life or until

matrimony should them part.

They met Nevada Warren at the station. She was a little girl, deeply sunburned and

wholesomely good-looking, with a manner that was frankly unsophisticated, yet one that

not even a cigar-drummer would intrude upon without thinking twice. Looking at her,

somehow you would expect to see her in a short skirt and leather leggings, shooting glass

balls or taming mustangs. But in her plain white waist and black skirt she sent you guessing

again. With an easy exhibition of strength she swung along a heavy valise, which the

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uniformed porters tried in vain to wrest from her.

"I am sure we shall be the best of friends," said Barbara, pecking at the firm, sunburned

cheek.

"I hope so," said Nevada.

"Dear little niece," said old Jerome, "you are as welcome to my home as if it were your

father's own."

"Thanks," said Nevada.

"And I am going to call you 'cousin,'" said Gilbert, with his charming smile.

problems--as the triangle. But they are never unqualified triangles. They are always

isosceles--never equilateral. So, upon the coming of Nevada Warren, she and Gilbert and

Barbara Ross lined up into such a figurative triangle; and of that triangle Barbara formed

the hypotenuse.

One morning old Jerome was lingering long after breakfast over the dullest morning paper

in the city before setting forth to his down- town fly-trap. He had become quite fond of

Nevada, finding in her much of his dead brother's quiet independence and unsuspicious

frankness.

A maid brought in a note for Miss Nevada Warren.

"A messenger-boy delivered it at the door, please," she said. "He's waiting for an answer."

"Why, bless the child!" said old Jerome, crackling his paper loudly; "of course he is. I raised

him myself."

"He wouldn't write anything to anybody that wasn't exactly--I mean that everybody couldn't

know and read, would he?"

"I'd just like to see him try it," said uncle, tearing a handful from his newspaper. "Why,

what--"

"Read this note he just sent me, uncle, and see if you think it's all right and proper. You see,

I don't know much about city people and their ways."

Old Jerome threw his paper down and set both his feet upon it. He took Gilbert's note and

fiercely perused it twice, and then a third time.

"Why, child," said he, "you had me almost excited, although I was sure of that boy. He's a

duplicate of his father, and he was a gilt-edged diamond. He only asks if you and Barbara

will be ready at four o'clock this afternoon for an automobile drive over to Long Island. I

"Would it be all right to go?" asked Nevada, eagerly.

"Yes, yes, yes, child; of course. Why not? Still, it pleases me to see you so careful and

"I didn't know," said Nevada, demurely. "I thought I'd ask you. Couldn't you go with us,

uncle?"

"I? No, no, no, no! I've ridden once in a car that boy was driving. Never again! But it's

entirely proper for you and Barbara to go. Yes, yes. But I will not. No, no, no, no!"

Nevada flew to the door, and said to the maid:

"You bet we'll go. I'll answer for Miss Barbara. Tell the boy to say to Mr. Warren, 'You bet

note in reply? Just a line would do."

Many places are provided in the world where men and women may repair for the purpose of

extricating themselves from divers difficulties. There are cloisters, wailing-places,

studies; and the greatest of these are studies.

But it's a long line that has no turning.

Barbara was alone. Uncle Jerome and Nevada had gone to the theatre. Barbara had not

cared to go. She wanted to stay at home and study in the study. If you, miss, were a

stunning New York girl, and saw every day that a brown, ingenuous Western witch was

getting hobbles and a lasso on the young man you wanted for yourself, you, too, would lose

taste for the oxidized-silver setting of a musical comedy.

Barbara sat by the quartered-oak library table. Her right arm rested upon the table, and her

dextral fingers nervously manipulated a sealed letter. The letter was addressed to Nevada

Warren; and in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope was Gilbert's little gold palette. It

had been delivered at nine o'clock, after Nevada had left.

generally approved methods, because her position in society forbade such an act. She had

pressing it hard against the paper, but Gilbert had too good a taste in stationery to make that

At eleven-thirty the theatre-goers returned. it was a delicious winter night. Even so far as

from the cab to the door they were powdered thickly with the big flakes downpouring

diagonally from the cast. Old Jerome growled good-naturedly about villanous cab service

and blockaded streets. Nevada, colored like a rose, with sapphire eyes, babbled of the

stormy nights in the mountains around dad's cabin. During all these wintry apostrophes,

Barbara, cold at heart, sawed wood--the only appropriate thing she could think of to do.

Old Jerome went immediately up-stairs to hot-water-bottles and quinine. Nevada fluttered

into the study, the only cheerfully lighted room, subsided into an arm-chair, and, while at

demerits of the "show."

"Yes, I think Mr. Fields is really amusing--sometimes," said Barbara. "Here is a letter for

you, dear, that came by special delivery just after you had gone."

"Well, really," said Barbara, with a smile, "I can only guess. The envelope has that queer

"We're all alike," said Barbara; "all women. We try to find out what is in a letter by

studying the postmark. As a last resort we use scissors, and read it from the bottom upward.

She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada.

"Great catamounts!" exclaimed Nevada. "These centre-fire buttons are a nuisance. I'd rather

wear buckskins. Oh, Barbara, please shuck the hide off that letter and read it. It'll be

midnight before I get these gloves off!"

"Why, dear, you don't want me to open Gilbert's letter to you? It's for you, and you wouldn't

wish any one else to read it, of course!"

Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.

"Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn't read," she said. "Go on, Barbara.

Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car again to-morrow."

world of her interest, and letters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars.

For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strange steadfastness; and then a

smile so small that it widened her mouth only the sixteenth part of an inch, and narrowed

her eyes no more than a twentieth, flashed like an inspired thought across her face.

Since the beginning no woman has been a mystery to another woman Swift as light travels,

each penetrates the heart and mind of another, sifts her sister's words of their cunningest

disguises, reads her most hidden desires, and plucks the sophistry from her wiliest talk like

letting them float away on the breezes of fundamental doubt. Long ago Eve's son rang the

he introduced. Eve took her daughter-in-law aside and lifted a classic eyebrow.

"Not lately," said Eve, absolutely unstaggered. "Don't you think the apple-sauce they serve

So, then and there--according to the records--was the alliance formed by the only two

who's-who ladies in the world. Then it was agreed that woman should forever remain as

should palm herself off on man as a mystery.

"Really, Nevada," she said, with a little show of embarrassment, "you shouldn't have

insisted on my opening this. I-I'm sure it wasn't meant for any one else to know."

Nevada forgot her gloves for a moment.

"Then read it aloud," she said. "Since you've already read it, what's the difference? If Mr.

Warren has written to me something that any one else oughtn't to know, that is all the more

reason why everybody should know it."

"Well," said Barbara, "this is what it says:

must go up-stairs now, I have such a headache. I'm sure I don't understand the note. Perhaps

Nevada tiptoed to the hall, and heard Barbara's door close upstairs. The bronze clock in the

study told the hour of twelve was fifteen minutes away. She ran swiftly to the front door,

and let herself out into the snow-storm. Gilbert Warren's studio was six squares away.

By aerial ferry the white, silent forces of the storm attacked the city from beyond the sullen

East River. Already the snow lay a foot deep on the pavements, the drifts heaping

themselves like scaling- ladders against the walls of the besieged town. The Avenue was as

quiet as a street in Pompeii. Cabs now and then skimmed past like white-winged gulls over

a moonlit ocean; and less frequent motor-cars- -sustaining the comparison--hissed through

sierras of cloud-capped buildings that rose above the streets, shaded by the night lights and

the congealed vapors to gray, drab, ashen, lavender, dun, and cerulean tints. They were so

A policeman caused her to waver on a corner, just by his eye and weight.

The excuse serves as a passport for the most sophisticated. Does it prove that woman never

progresses, or that she sprang from Adam's rib, full-fledged in intellect and wiles?

Turning eastward, the direct blast cut down Nevada's speed one-half. She made zigzag

tracks in the snow; but she was as tough as a pinon sapling, and bowed to it as gracefully.

some well- remembered canon. The haunt of business and its hostile neighbor, art, was

darkened and silent. The elevator stopped at ten.

Up eight flights of Stygian stairs Nevada climbed, and rapped firmly at the door numbered

"89." She had been there many times before, with Barbara and Uncle Jerome.

Gilbert opened the door. He had a crayon pencil in one hand, a green shade over his eyes,

and a pipe in his mouth. The pipe dropped to the floor.

"Am I late?" asked Nevada. "I came as quick as I could. Uncle and me were at the theatre

this evening. Here I am, Gilbert!"

where the artist had been sketching in crayon.

"You wanted me," said Nevada simply, " and I came. You said so in your letter. What did

"You read my letter?" inquired Gilbert, sparring for wind.

"Barbara read it to me. I saw it afterward. It said: 'Come to my studio at twelve to-night, and

do not fail.' I thought you were sick, of course, but you don't seem to be."

"Aha!" said Gilbert irrelevantly. "I'll tell you why I asked you to come, Nevada. I want you

to marry me immediately -- to-night. What's a little snow-storm? Will you do it?"

"You might have noticed that I would, long ago," said Nevada. "And I'm rather stuck on the

Gilbert, I didn't know you had grit enough to propose it this way. Let's shock 'em--it's our

"You bet!" said Gilbert. "Where did I hear that expression?" he added to himself. "Wait a

condensed into unromantic numbers and districts.

come with you. Yes. Nevada is here, waiting. We've been engaged quite a while. Some

opposition among the relatives, you know, and we have to pull it off this way. We're

order a carriage to call for you, double-quick time. Confound you, Jack, you're all right!"

"My old friend, Jack Peyton, and his sister were to have been here at a quarter to twelve,"

he explained; "but Jack is so confoundedly slow. I've just 'phoned them to hurry. They'll be

here in a few minutes. I'm the happiest man in the world, Nevada! What did you do with the

letter I sent you to-day ?"

"I've got it cinched here," said Nevada, pulling it out from beneath her opera-cloak.

Gilbert drew the letter from the envelope and looked it over carefully. Then he looked at

Nevada thoughtfully.

"Didn't you think it rather queer that I should ask you to come to my studio at midnight?" he

sends you a hurry call--ain't that what you say here ?--we get there first and talk about it

mind."

wind, rain, or snow.

"Put this raincoat on," he said, holding it for her. "We have a quarter of a mile to go. Old

Jack and his sister will be here in a few minutes." He began to struggle into a heavy coat.

"Oh, Nevada," he said, "just look at the head-lines on the front page of that evening paper

on the table, will you? It's about your section of the West, and I know it will interest you."

He waited a full minute, pretending to find trouble in the getting on of his overcoat, and

then turned. Nevada had not moved. She was looking at him with strange and pensive

the wind and snow; but her eyes were steady.

"I was going to tell you," she said, "anyhow, before you--before we-- before-well, before

anything. Dad never gave me a day of schooling. I never learned to read or write a darned

V

night?"