17
It had become habit, leaving the Dakota, to walk out and back into the winter of 1882. I was used to the process now; there were no longer any doubts that it would happen lingering in my mind. Without questioning it I simply knew I was back and accepted it. So it seemed natural, stepping up onto the curb into Central Park — it had snowed during the day — to see horse-drawn sleighs, dozens and dozens and endless more dozens of then, gliding along every park roadway as far as I could see.
It was a great sight, and walking along the path I felt that every sense was stirred and I was suddenly keenly aware of the winter actuality of it. My face felt the sharp clean air press onto my cheeks as I walked, and my lungs tasted it, clear and cold. Nearly every passing horse carried harness bells, and the winter air was bright with their sound, the drum of hoofs and the hiss of runners electrically exciting. And there was a special quality, a happy nostalgia, in the sound — high and faintly muffled — of voices outdoors in new snow. A maroon-enameled sleigh, passing close, had side panels painted with winter scenes, some of the horses wore whisks of dyed horsehair or feathers, and I swear that the eyes of every man and woman and child who jingled past me were smiling with the pleasure of the moment.
I stopped on the path and made a quick sketch of the scene. Much later I finished it, working very carefully in the style of the period because it seemed appropriate. It's on the next page. You can see the Dakota in the background, and I wish you could hear the silvery sound of the wonderfully elaborate harness bells mounted on the horses' backs.
Off across the park as I approached they were skating on the pond, and everywhere the park swarmed with kids, belly-flopping onto low wooden sleds, smaller kids bundled to the ears on high spraddle-runnered sleds pulled by older sisters, brothers, or adults. One such passed me pulled by a white-bearded man whose clothes — gaiters, very skinny pants, a strange dull-silk top hat that flared out at the top — were years out of fashion. He must have been far into his seventies, pulling that sled through the snow, and he was smiling; like everyone else I could see in the entire park, he was having fun. So was I, and I was suddenly happy to be alive here in this place at this time and moment; I was happy, I realized, to be back.
But I didn't look forward to returning to 19 Gramercy Park; this was Sunday, and Jake Pickering could be home. So I stopped at a saloon on West Fifty-seventh Street — its front door was locked, in deference to the Sunday closing law, I learned, after following two men in through a side door. There I had some soup and two huge sandwiches; I wanted to keep the greetings and questions and especially my first encounter with Jake as brief as possible, going up to my room immediately afterward, and saying I wasn't hungry at suppertime.
But when I turned the corner, two big sleighs stood before the house. Felix Grier and a girl I didn't know sat in the front seat of the first one, Felix holding the reins, the girl with Felix's new birthday camera cradled in her lap; Byron Doverman was just helping a young woman into the rear seat. Julia was coming down the steps, carefully because of a layer of new snow, and right beside her Jake, in top hat and dark overcoat with a lamb's-wool collar, held her elbow. Maud Torrence was just behind them, and up on the stoop Aunt Ada stood locking the front door.
They saw me before I could turn away; calling and beckoning. Felix, out of his mind with excitement — over the girl, I imagined — yelled down the street at me. "Welcome home! Just in time for the sleighing party! Mr. Pickering's rented two sleighs!" Waving back feebly, trying to smile as I walked on toward them, I was slamming together an excuse in my mind: tired out; long train ride; coming down with la grippe. Because of course I couldn't ride, the fifth wheel, with the two bachelors and their dates; and to ride in the other sleigh, Pickering glowering, then doing God only knew what crazy thing, was impossible. They surrounded me then, Felix leaping out of his sleigh to grab my free hand, the questions popping — how was my brother, how was my family? — welcoming me back, Byron grabbing my hand next, everyone so plainly glad to see me that I felt my eyes smart.
And then my hand was grabbed again, and Jake was pumping it, happily grinning at me! I was trying to respond: My brother was unexpectedly much better; all was well at home; glad to be back! But I was staring at Jake, astounded: His big brown eyes were warm and friendly and his smile as he stood shaking my hand was real, as obviously sincere as the others. Julia was smiling at me, so really pleased my heart jumped. She shook my hand, so did Maud, and when Aunt Ada took my hand, she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.
And with that, I suddenly wanted to go with these people, wanted nothing else more. Aunt Ada took my bag, to unlock the door and set it inside, and Byron and Felix introduced me to their dates: Felix's very young and pretty; Byron's older, and though her face was pocked, an attractive woman, looking quietly intelligent. They politely asked me to ride with them but before I could reply Jake was saying no, I had to ride with them, taking me by the elbow, urging me to climb in; and when Julia suggested I ride up front with them, Jake agreed enthusiastically, asking if I wanted "the ribbons," meaning the reins, I realized. I simply gave up trying to figure out what was happening. Jake, I assumed, was a manic-depressive, an emotional pendulum, and I was glad and relieved to let it go at that.
He took the reins after I refused with thanks; the horses would have turned and laughed if I'd tried to drive them. Maud and Aunt Ada sat in back, Julia in front between Jake and me. There's something keenly intimate, I discovered, in being pressed snugly against a girl, waist to knees, underneath a robe. Tucking the robe in on my side, I glanced at Jake but he was grinning, hands on the reins ready to go. It wasn't quite comfortable, pressed shoulder to shoulder, and I brought up my left arm and laid it along the back of the seat behind Julia. But I was careful not to actually touch her; there was no point, no future, in dwelling on how nice it was this close beside her, and I made myself think of the scene, the snow-mounded black-iron fence and trees and shrubbery of little Gramercy Park beside us.
"Ready?" Felix yelled over his shoulder, and Jake exuberantly shouted back that he was. Their reins snapped simultaneously, both teams dug in, and the harness bells came to life. The runners sliding easily, the horses eased back; then at a second snap of the reins as we rounded the corner onto Twenty-first Street, they tossed their heads, snorting jets of warm breath, and began to trot, obviously enjoying themselves, and now the harness bells sang.
All I can really tell you about the rest of that day and the evening is that it was magical. A dream. The white streets of Manhattan were filled with sleighs; the air everywhere was alive with the music of their bells. And if that sounds overly lyrical I can't help it. The weekday wagons and vans were gone, even the horse-drawn buses and cars were rare; the streets and sidewalks were given over to people.
On the walks they were pulling kids on sleds, throwing snowballs, making snowmen; children, adults, old men and women, laughing, calling to each other. And in the streets we passed and were passed by every kind of sleigh, and we called to them and they to us. We raced them sometimes; once, going up Fifth Avenue, we raced three teams abreast, drivers on their feet, whips cracking, girls shrieking, for nearly two blocks before — sleighs coming the other way — we had to fall into single file cheering and shouting. Heading north somewhere in the Fifties, Felix's sleigh half a block behind, Jake turned impulsively into a cross street just as a sleigh coming south swung in, too. Bells jingling, we trotted along side by side, grinning at each other.