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Mrs. Morse read the advertisement in Ruth’s face when she returned home.
“What has happened?” Mrs. Morse asked.
“You know?” Ruth queried, with trembling lips.
“In the name of goodness, child, what happened?” Mrs. Morse was bewildered.
Ruth looked at her mother in surprise.
“I thought you knew. Why, we’re engaged, Martin and I.”
Mrs. Morse laughed.
“No, he didn’t speak,” Ruth explained. “He just loved me, that was all. I was as surprised as you are. He didn’t say a word. He just put his arm around me. And – and I was not myself. And he kissed me, and I kissed him. And then I knew I loved him.”
She paused, but Mrs. Morse was coldly silent.
“It is a dreadful accident, I know. And I don’t know how you will ever forgive me. I did not dream that I loved him until that moment. And you must tell father.”
“Let me see Martin Eden, and talk with him, and explain. He will understand and release you.”
“No! no!” Ruth cried. “I do not want to be released. I love him, and love is very sweet. I am going to marry him – of course, if you will let me.”
“We have other plans for you, Ruth, dear, your father and I – oh, no, no. You must marry a good and honorable gentleman, whom you will select yourself, when you love him.”
“But I love Martin already,” was the protest.
“We would not influence your choice in any way; but you are our daughter. He has nothing but roughness and coarseness to offer you. He could not support you. We have no foolish ideas about wealth, but our daughter should not marry a penniless adventurer, a sailor, a cowboy, a smuggler, and who is irresponsible.”
Ruth was silent. Every word she recognized as true.
“He wastes his time over his writing. As I have said, and I know you agree with me, he is irresponsible. He is a sailor. It is not his fault, of course, but that does not alter his nature.”
“I have thought. And it is terrible. I told you it was a dreadful accident, but I can’t help myself. There is something in me, in him. I never thought to love him, but, you see, I do,” she concluded.
They talked long, and in conclusion they agreed to wait.
Martin told Ruth about his plans. “I put stamps on all my manuscripts. Tomorrow I start to work.”
“To work!” Ruth cried, pressing his hand, and smiling. “And you never told me! What is your work?”
“I am going to write again.” Her face fell, and he went on hastily. “Don’t misjudge me. I shall earn money. I shall leave masterpieces alone and I shall write jokes, humorous verse, and society verse. Income first, masterpieces afterward. Just to show you, I wrote half a dozen jokes last night for the comic magazines. That will give me time to try bigger things.”
“But what good are these bigger-things, these masterpieces?” Ruth demanded. “You can’t sell them.”
“Oh, yes, I can,” he began; but she interrupted.
“You have not sold any of them. We can’t get married on masterpieces that won’t sell.”
“Then we’ll get married on triolets that will sell. Listen to this, it’s not art, but it’s a dollar. Just listen:
He came in
When I was out,
To borrow some tin
Was why he came in,
And he went without;
So I was in
And he was out.”
Ruth was looking at him angrily.
“It may be a dollar,” she said, “but it is a jester’s dollar, the fee of a clown, Martin.”
“Give me time, dear,” he pleaded. “Give me two years. I shall succeed in that time, and the editors will be glad to buy my good work. I know what I am saying; I have faith in myself. I know what I have in me; I know what literature is, now. A ‘best-seller’ will earn anywhere between fifty and a hundred thousand dollars – sometimes more and sometimes less.”
Ruth remained silent; her disappointment was apparent.
“Well?” he asked.
“I had hoped and planned otherwise. I had thought, and I still think, that the best thing for you is to go into father’s office. You have a good mind, and I am confident you would succeed as a lawyer.”
Martin had discovered that he loved beauty more than fame, and that what desire he had for fame was largely for Ruth’s sake. It was for this reason that his desire for fame was strong. He wanted to be great in the world’s eyes.
As for himself, he loved beauty passionately. And more than beauty he loved Ruth. He considered love the finest thing in the world.
Martin moved and paid two dollars and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a hard working widow. There were but four rooms in the little house. Maria had seven little children. It was a miracle to Martin how she succeed to live. Another source of income to Maria were two her cows, which she milked night and morning.
In his own small room Martin lived, slept, studied, and wrote. Martin had a perfect stomach that could digest anything. Pea-soup was a common article in his diet, as well as potatoes and beans. Rice appeared on Martin’s table at least once a day. Dried fruits were less expensive than fresh, and he had usually a pot of them. Coffee, without cream or milk, he had twice a day. There was need for him to be economical.
The weeks passed. All his manuscripts had come back. The Portuguese grocer, to whom he had paid cash, told him one day that Martin’s bill reached three dollars and eighty-five cents.
“I can’t give you food,” said the grocer, “you have no work, how will you pay?”
Martin could reply nothing. He could not explain him why a young fellow was too lazy to work.
“No job, no food,” the grocer told Martin. “That’s it.”
The owner of the fruit store, where Martin had bought his vegetables, showed Martin a bill of five dollars and stopped his credit. The baker stopped at two dollars, and the butcher at four dollars.
Day by day Martin worked on, and day by day the postman delivered to him rejected manuscripts. He had no money for stamps, so the manuscripts accumulated in a heap under the table.
Martin was disappointed with his jokes. Nobody wanted to buy them. He compared them with what he found in the newspapers, and cheap magazines, and decided that his jokes were better; yet they would not sell.
The hours he spent with Ruth were the only happy ones he had.
Maria Silva was poor, and she knew very well what poverty was. She watched Martin’s toils, and she was very sorry for him. She was surprised to notice that the less food he had, the harder he worked. Sometimes she gave him food, and Martin was very grateful.
“Maria,” he exclaimed suddenly one day. “What would you like to have?”
She looked at him.
“What would you like to have now, right now, if you could get it?”
“Seven pairs of shoes for my kids,” she answered.
“You will have them,” he announced, while she nodded her head gravely. “But I mean a big wish, something big that you want.”
“All right,” she answered. “I’d like to have a house – all mine, I own it, no rent.”
“You will have it,” he granted, “and in a short time. Now wish the great wish. Make believe I am God, and I say to you anything you want you can have. Then you wish that thing, and I listen.”
Maria considered.
“You are not afraid?” she asked.
“No, no,” he laughed, “I’m not afraid. Go ahead.”
“Well, then – “ she drew a big breath like a child. “I want to have a milk ranch – a good milk ranch. Many cows, much land, much grass. I will sell milk in Oakland. Yes, I want to have a milk ranch.”
She paused and regarded Martin with twinkling eyes.
“You will have it,” he answered promptly.
She nodded her head. In her own heart she appreciated his intention.
“Maria,” Martin went on; “Your kids will go to school and wear shoes the whole year round. It will be a first-class milk ranch. There will be a house to live in and a stable for the horses, and cow-barns, of course. There will be chickens, pigs, vegetables, fruit trees; and there will be many cows. And if you find a good man, you can marry him.”
Martin took his one good suit of clothes to the pawnshop. He toiled on, miserable and hopeless. It began to appear to him that the second battle was lost and that he would have to go to work. He would satisfy everybody – the grocer, his sister, Ruth, and even Maria, to whom he owed a month’s room rent.
Suddenly the postman brought him one morning a short, thin envelope. Martin glanced at the upper left-hand corner and read the name and address of the TRANSCONTINENTAL MONTHLY. Of course this was good news. There was no manuscript in that thin envelope, therefore it was an acceptance. He knew the story in the hands of the TRANSCONTINENTAL. It was “The Ring of Bells,” one of his horror stories, and it was five thousand words. And there was a check inside. Two cents a word – twenty dollars a thousand; the check must be a hundred dollars. One hundred dollars! when he was opening the envelope, he was counting – $3.85 to the grocer; butcher $4.00; baker, $2.00; fruit store, $5.00; total, $14.85. Then there was room rent, $2.50; another month in advance, $2.50; two months’ type-writer, $8.00; a month in advance, $4.00; total, $31.85. And finally, the pawnbroker – watch, $5.50; overcoat, $5.50; wheel, $7.75; suit of clothes, $5.50 (60 % interest, but what did it matter?) – grand total, $56.10.
By this time he had opened the envelope. There was no check. He held it to the light, but could not trust his eyes. There was no check. He read the letter. The letter slid from his hand.
Five dollars for “The Ring of Bells” – five dollars for five thousand words! Instead of two cents a word, ten words for a cent!
TRANSCONTINENTAL paid five dollars for five thousand words! Martin would let Ruth know that he was willing to go into her father’s office.
Five dollars for five thousand words, ten words for a cent, the market price for art. Martin’s head ached, the top of it ached, the back of it ached, the brains inside of it ached, the ache over his brows was intolerable.
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