The Tale of Timber Town. Grace Alfred Augustus
girl stood, listening. “Come out of that!” she cried. But there was never another sound – the chuckling had ceased.
She skirmished down a by-alley, and stormed a kopje of rugs and linoleums; but found nothing except the store tom-cat in hiding on the top. Having climbed down the further side, she found herself in a difficult country of enamelled ware and wooden buckets, but successfully extricating herself from this entanglement she ascended a spur of carpet-rolls, and triumphantly crowned the summit of the lofty mountain of wool-bales. The country round lay at her feet, and half-concealed behind a barrel of Portland cement she saw the crouching form of the enemy.
Her head was up among the timbers of the roof, and hanging to nails in the cross-beams were countless twisted lengths of clothesline, and with these dangerous projectiles she began to harass the foe. Amid the hail of hempen missiles the white flag was hoisted, and the enemy surrendered.
“Rachel! Rachel! Come down, my girl. You’ll break your peautiful neck. Packett, what you stand there for like a wooden verandah-post? Go up, and help Miss Varnhagen down. Take care! – my ’tear Rachel! – look out for that bucket! – mind that coil of rubber-belting! Pe careful! That bale of hops is ofer! My ’tear child, stand still, I tell you; wait till I get the ladder.”
With Packett in a position to cut off retreat, and the precipice of wool-bales in front, Rachel sat down and shook with laughter.
Varnhagen naturally argued that his pretty daughter’s foot, now that the tables were so suddenly turned upon her, would with the storeman’s assistance be quickly set upon the top rung of the ladder which was now in position. But he had not yet learned all Rachel’s stratagems.
“No!” she cried. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“My child, my Rachel, you will fall!”
“Oh, dear, no: it’s as firm as a rock. No, Packett, you can go down. I shall stay here.”
“But, my ’tear Rachel, you’ll be killed! Come down, I beg.”
“Will you promise to do what I want?”
“My ’tear daughter, let us talk afterwards. I can think of nothing while you are in danger of being killed in a moment!”
“I want that gold watch in Tresco’s window. I sha’n’t come down till you say I can have it.”
“My peautiful Rachel, it is too expensive. I will import you one for half the price. Come down before it is too late.”
“What’s the good of watches in London? I want that watch at Tresco’s, to wear going calling. Consent, father, before it is too late.”
“My loafly, how much was the watch?”
“Twenty-five pounds.”
“Oh, that is too much. First, you will ruin me, and kill yourself afterwards to spite my poverty. Rachel, you make your poor old father quite ill.”
“Then I am to have the watch?”
“Nefer mind the watch. Some other time talk to me of the watch. Come down safe to your old father, before you get killed.”
“But I do mind the watch. It’s what I came for. I shall stay here till you consent.”
“Oh, Rachel, you haf no heart. You don’t loaf your father.”
“You don’t love your daughter, else you’d give me what I want.”
“I not loaf you, Rachel! Didn’t I gif you that ring last week, and the red silk dress the week pefore? Come down, my child, and next birthday you shall have a better watch than in all Tresco’s shop. My ’tear Rachel, my ’tear child, you’ll be killed; and what good will be your father’s money to him then? Oh! that bale moved. Rachel! sit still.”
“Then you’ll give me the watch?”
“Yes, yes. You shall have the watch. Come down now, while Packett holds your hand.”
“Can I have it to-day?”
“Be careful, Packett. Oh! that bale is almost ofer.”
“Will you give it me this morning, father?”
“Yes, yes, this morning.”
“Before I go home to dinner?”
“Yes, pefore dinner.”
“Then, Packett, give me your hand. I will come down.”
The dainty victress placed her little foot firmly on the uppermost rung; and while Packett held the top, and the merchant the bottom, of the ladder, the dream of muslin and ribbons descended to the floor.
Old Varnhagen gave a sigh of relief.
“You’ll nefer do that again, Rachel?”
“I hope I shall never need to.”
“You shouldn’t upset your poor old father like that, Rachel.”
“You shouldn’t drive me to use such means to make you do your duty.”
“My duty!”
“Yes, to give me that watch.”
“Ah, the watch. I forgot it.”
“I shall go now, and get it.”
“Yes, my child, get it.”
“I’ll say you will pay at the end of the month.”
“Yes, I will pay – perhaps at the end of the month, perhaps it will go towards a contra account for watches I shall supply to Tresco. We shall see.”
“Good-bye, father.”
“Good-bye, Rachel; but won’t you gif your old father a kiss pefore you go?”
The vision of muslin and ribbons laid her parasol upon an upturned barrel, and came towards the portly Jew. Her soft dress was crumpled by his fat hand, and her pretty head was nestled on his shoulder.
“Ah! my ’tear Rachel. Ah! my peautiful. You loaf your old father. My liddle taughter, I gif you everything; and you loaf me very moch, eh?”
“Of course, I do. And won’t it look well with a brand-new gold chain to match?”
“Next time my child wants something, she won’t climb on the wool-bales and nearly kill herself?”
“Of course not. I shall wear it this afternoon when I go out calling.”
“Now kiss me, and run away while I make some more money for my liddle Rachel.”
The saintly face raised itself, and looked with a smile into the face of the old Jew; and then the bright red lips fixed themselves upon his wrinkled cheek.
“You are a good girl; you are my own child; you shall have everything you ask; you shall have all I’ve got to give.”
“Good-bye, father. Thanks awfully much.”
“Good-bye, Rachel.”
The girl turned; the little heels tapped regularly on the floor; the pigeon-like walk was resumed; and Rachel Varnhagen, watched by the loving eyes of her father, passed into the street.
The gold-buying clerk at the Kangaroo Bank was an immaculately dressed young man with a taste for jewelry. In his tie he wore a pearl, in a gold setting shaped like a diminutive human hand; his watch-chain was of gold, wrought in a wonderful and extravagant design. As he stepped through the swinging, glazed doors of the Bank, and stood on the broad step without, at the witching hour of twelve, he twirled his small black moustache so as to display to advantage the sparkling diamond ring which encircled the little finger of his left hand. His Semitic features wore an expression of great self-satisfaction, and his knowing air betokened intimate knowledge of the world and all that therein is. He nodded familiarly to a couple of young men who passed by, and glanced with the appreciative eye of a connoisseur at the shop-girls who were walking briskly to their dinners.
Loitering across the pavement he stood upon the curbing, and looked wistfully up and down the street. Presently