O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921
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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA. By Edison Marshall | 1 |
| FOUNDER OF THE O. HENRY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE | 1 |
| INTRODUCTION | 1 |
| THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA | 13 |
| I | 13 |
| II | 17 |
| III | 21 |
| IV | 25 |
| V | 28 |
| THE MAN WHO CURSED THE LILIES | 33 |
| THE URGE | 44 |
| MUMMERY | 59 |
| THE VICTIM OF HIS VISION | 71 |
| I | 71 |
| II | 77 |
| III | 80 |
| IV | 86 |
| V | 89 |
| MARTIN GARRITY GETS EVEN | 92 |
| OZARK CENTRAL ALL TRAINS ON TIME | 97 |
| STRANGER THINGS | 102 |
| FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE | 131 |
| WILD EARTH | 147 |
| THE TRIBUTE | 173 |
| THE GETAWAY | 176 |
| MR. DOWNEY SITS DOWN | 192 |
| I | 192 |
| II | 193 |
| III | 195 |
| MOREL PRINSAPLES | 195 |
| AGE 12 | 195 |
| IV | 196 |
| V | 197 |
| VI | 198 |
| VII | 200 |
| VIII | 202 |
| THE MARRIAGE IN KAIRWAN | 203 |
| GRIT | 216 |
THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA. By Edison Marshall
The man who cursed the lilies.By Charles Tenney Jackson
The urge. By Maryland Allen
Mummery. By Thomas Beer
The victim of his vision.By Gerald Chittenden
Martin Gerrity gets even.By Courtney Ryley Cooper and Leo F. Creagan
Stranger things. By Mildred Cram
Comet. By Samuel A. Derieux
Fifty-two weeks for Florette.By Elizabeth Alexander Heermann
Wild earth. By Sophie Kerr
The tribute. By Harry Anable Kniffin
The get-away. By O.F. Lewis
“Aurore.” By Ethel Watts Mumford
Mr. Downey sits down. ByL.H. Robbins
The marriage in Kairwan.By Wilbur Daniel Steele
Grit. By Tristram Tupper
FOUNDER OF THE O. HENRY MEMORIAL COMMITTEE
The plan for the creation of the O. Henry MemorialCommittee was conceived and the work of the Committeeinaugurated in the year 1918 by the late John F. Tucker,ll.M., then Directing Manager of the Societyof Arts and Sciences. The Society promptly approvedthe plan and appropriated the sum necessary to inaugurateits work and to make the award.
The Committee is, therefore, in a sense, a memorialto Mr. Tucker, as well as to O. Henry. Up tothe time of his death Mr. Tucker was a constant adviserof the Committee and an attendant at most of its meetings.
Born in New York City in 1871 and educated for thelaw, Mr. Tucker’s inclinations quickly swepthim into a much wider stream of intellectual development,literary, artistic, and sociological. He joinedothers in reviving the Twilight Club (now the Societyof Arts and Sciences), for the broad discussion ofpublic questions, and to the genius he developed forsuch a task the success of the Society up to the timeof his death was chiefly due. The remarkable seriesof dinner discussions conducted under his management,for many years, in New York City, have helped to mouldpublic opinion along liberal lines, to educate andinspire. Nothing he did gave him greater pridethan the inception of the O. Henry Memorial Committee,and that his name should be associated with that workperpetually this tribute is hereby printed at therequest of the Society of Arts and Sciences.E.J.W.
INTRODUCTION
In 1918 the Society of Arts and Sciences established,through its Managing Director, John F. Tucker, theO. Henry Memorial. Since that year the natureof the annual prize and the work of the Committeeawarding it have become familiar to writer, editor,and reader of short stories. To the best shortstory written by an American and published in Americathe sum of $500 is awarded; to the second best, thesum of $250. In 1919 the prize winning story wasMargaret Prescott Montague’s “Englandto America”; in 1920 it was Maxwell StruthersHurt’s “Each in His Generation.”Second winners were: 1919, Wilbur Daniel Steele’s“For They Know Not What They Do,” and,1920, Frances Noyes Hart’s “Contact!”[The prizes were delivered on June 2, 1920, and onMarch 14, 1921, at the annual memorial dinner, HotelAstor.]
In 1921 the Committee of Award consisted of thesemembers:
Blanche ColtonWilliams, Ph. D., Chairman
Edward J. Wheeler,Litt. D.
Ethel WattsMumford
Frances Gilchristwood
grove E. Wilson
And the Committee of Administration:
John F. Tucker,[Deceased, February 27, 1921.], Founder of the O.
HenryMemorial
Edward J. Wheeler,Litt.D.
Glenn frank,Editor of The Century Magazine
George C. Howard,Attorney.
As in previous years each member of the Committeeof Award held himself responsible for reviewing thebrief fiction of certain magazines and for circulatingsuch stories as warranted reading by other members.
Results in 1921 differ in a number of respects fromthose of 1919 and 1920. In the earlier half year,January excepted, every reader reported a low averageof current fiction, so low as to excite apprehensionlest the art of the short story was rapidly declining.The latter six months, however, marked a reaction,with a higher percentage of values in November andDecember. Explanation of the low level lies inthe financial depression which forced a number ofeditors to buy fewer stories, to buy cheaply, or tosearch their vaults for remnant of purchases madein happier days. Improvement began with the returnto better financial conditions.
The several members of the Committee have seldom agreedon the comparative excellence of stories, few beingof sufficient superiority in the opinion of the Committeeas a whole to justify setting them aside for futureconsideration. The following three dozen candidates,more or less, average highest:
Addington, Sarah, Another Cactus Blooms (SmartSet, December).
Alexander, Elizabeth, Fifty-Two Weeks for Florette[Reprinted as by
Elizabeth Alexander Heermann.] (SaturdayEvening Post, August 13).
Allen, Maryland, The Urge (Everybody’s,September).
Arbuckle, Mary, Wasted (Midland, May).
Beer, Thomas, Mummery (Saturday Evening Post,July 30).
Burt, Maxwell Struthers, Buchanan Hears the Wind (Harper’s,August).
Byrne, Donn, Reynardine (McClure’s, May).
Chittenden, Gerald, The Victim of His Vision (Scribner’s,May).
Comfort, Will Levington, and Dost, Zamin Ki, The DeadlyKarait
(Asia, August).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, and Creagan, Leo F. Martin,Gerrity Gets Even
(American, July).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, Old Scarface (PictorialReview, April).
Cram, Mildred, Stranger Things—(Metropolitan,January).
Derieux, Samuel A., Comet (American, December).
Hull Helen R., Waiting (Touchstone, February).
Jackson, Charles Tenney, The Man who Cursed the Lilies(Short
Stories, December 10).
Kerr, Sophie, Wild Earth (Saturday Evening Post,April 2).
Kniffin, Harry Anable, The Tribute (Brief Stories,September).
Lewis, O.F., The Get-A way (Red Book, February);The Day of Judgment
(Red Book, October).
Mahoney, James, Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse(Century,
August).
Marshall, Edison, The Heart of Little Shikara (Everybody’s,
January).
Morris, Gouverneur, Groot’s Macaw (Cosmopolitan,November); Just One
Thing More (Cosmopolitan, December).
Mumford, Ethel Watts, “Aurore” (PictorialReview, February); The
Crowned Dead (Short Stories, July);Funeral Frank (Detective
Stories, October 29).
Robbins, L.H., Mr. Downey Sits Down (Everybody’s,June).
Steele, Wilbur Daniel, ’Toinette of Maissonnoir(Pictorial Review,
July); The Marriage in Kairwan (Harper’s,December).
Street, Julian, A Voice in the Hall (Harper’s,September).
Stringer, Arthur, A Lion Must Eat (McClure’s,March).
Tupper, Tristram, Grit (Metropolitan, March).
Vorse, Mary Heaton, The Halfway House (Harper’s,October).
Wolff, William Almon, Thalassa! Thalassa! (Everybody’s,July).
* * * * *
The following stories rank high with a majority ofthe Committee:
Anthony, Joseph, A Cask of Ale for Columban (Century,March).
Baker, Karle Wilson, The Porch Swing (Century,April).
Balmer, Edwin, “Settled Down” (Everybody’s,February).
Beer, Thomas, Addio (Saturday Evening Post,October 29); The Lily
Pond (Saturday Evening Post, April16).
Biggs, John, Jr., Corkran of the Clamstretch (Scribner’s,December).
Boulton, Agnes, The Snob (Smart Set, June).
Boyle, Jack, The Heart of the Lily (Red Book,February); The Little
Lord of All the Earth (Red Book,March).
Byrne, Donn, The Keeper of the Bridge (McClure’s,April).
Canfield, Dorothy, Pamela’s Shawl (Century,August).
Connell, Richard, The Man in the Cape (Metropolitan,July).
Cooper, Courtney Ryley, The Fiend (Cosmopolitan,March); Love (Red
Book, June).
Cram, Mildred, Anna (McCatt’s, March);The Bridge (Harper’s
Bazaar, April).
Derieux, Samuel A., Figgers Can’t Lie (Delineator,April); The
Bolter (American, November).
Dreiser, Theodore, Phantom Gold (Live Stories,March).
Ellerbe, Alma and Paul, When the Ice Went Out (Everybody’s,May).
England, George Allan, Test Tubes (Short Stories,March).
Erickson, Howard, The Debt (Munsey’s,February).
Fraenkel, H. E., The Yellow Quilt (Liberator,December).
Ginger, Bonnie, The Decoy (Century, October).
Hart, Frances Noyes, The American (Pictorial Review,November).
Hergesheimer, Joseph, Juju (Saturday Evening Post,July 30); The
Token (Saturday Evening Post, October22).
Hopper, Elsie Van de Water, The Flight of the Herons(Scribner’s,
November).
Hughes, Rupert, When Crossroads Cross Again (Collier’s,January 29).
Hurst, Fannie, She Walks in Beauty (Cosmopolitan,August).
Irwin, Inez Haynes, For Value Received (Cosmopolitan,November).
Irwin, Wallace, The Old School (Pictorial Review,April).
Kabler, Hugh MacNair, Like a Tree (Saturday EveningPost) January 22).
Lanier, Henry Wysham, Circumstantial (Collier’s,October 15).
Lewis, Sinclair, Number Seven (American, May).
Mahoney, James, Taxis of Fate (Century, November).
Mason, Grace Sartwell, Glory (Harper’s,April).
Moore, Frederick, The Picture (Adventure, September10).
Mouat, Helen, Aftermath (Good Housekeeping,September).
Natteford, J. F., A Glimpse of the Heights (Photoplay,April).
Neidig, William F, The Firebug (Everybody’s,April).
Pitt, Chart, Debt of the Snows (Sunset, April).
Post, Melville Davisson, The Mottled Butterfly (RedBook, August);
The Great Cipher (Red Book, November).
Read, Marion Pugh, Everlasting Grace (AtlanticMonthly, March).
Rhodes, Harrison, Night Life and Thomas Robinson (SaturdayEvening
Post, June 4).
Rouse, William Merriam, Arms of Judgment (Argosy-All-StoryWeekly,
March 12).
Shore, Viola Brothers, The Heritage (Saturday EveningPost, February
5).
Singmaster, Elsie, The Magic Mirror (PictorialReview, November).
Springer, Fleta Campbell, The Mountain of Jehovah(Harper’s, March).
Tarkington, Booth, Jeannette (Red Book, May).
Titus, Harold, The Courage of Number Two (Metropolitan,June).
Train, Arthur, The Crooked Fairy (McCall’s,July).
Watson, Marion Elizabeth, Bottle Stoppers (PictorialReview, June).
Wormser, G. Ranger, Gossamer (Pictorial Review,March).
The following stories are regarded the best of theyear by the judges whose names are respectively indicated:
1. The Marriage in Kairwan, by Wilbur DanielSteele (Harper’s,
December). Ethel Watts Mumford.
2. A Life, by Wilbur Daniel Steele (PictorialReview, August).
Edward J. Wheeler.
3. Wisdom Buildeth Her House, by Donn Byrne (Century,December).
Blanche Colton Williams.
4. Waiting, by Helen R. Hull (Touchstone,February). Grove E.
Wilson.
5. The Poppies of Wu Fong, by Lee Foster Hartman(Harper’s,
November). Frances GilchristWood.
Out of the first list sixteen stories were requestedfor republication in this volume. The significanceof the third list lies in the fact that only one storywas selected from it, the others meeting objectionsfrom the remainder of the Committee.
Since no first choice story won the prize, the Committeeresorted, as in former years, to the point system,according to which the leader is “The Heartof Little Shikara,” by Edison Marshall.To Mr. Marshall, therefore, goes the first prize of$500. In like manner, the second prize, of $250,is awarded to “The Man Who Cursed the Lilies,”by Charles Tenney Jackson.
In discussing “A Life,” “The Marriagein Kairwan,” and “’Toinette of Maissonnoir,”all published by Wilbur Daniel Steele in 1921, inremarking upon the high merit of his brief fictionin other years, and in recalling that he alone isrepresented in the first three volumes of O. HenryMemorial Award Prize Stories, the Committee intimatedthe wish to express in some tangible fashion its appreciationof this author’s services to American fiction.On the motion of Doctor Wheeler, therefore, the Committeevoted to ask an appropriation from the Society ofArts and Sciences as a prize to be awarded on accountof general excellence in the short story in 1919, 1920,and 1921. This sum of $500 was granted by theSociety, through the proper authorities, and is accordinglyawarded to Wilbur Daniel Steele.
Two characteristics of stories published in 1921 revealeditorial policies that cannot but be harmful to thequality of this art. These ear-marks are complementaryand, yet, paradoxically antipodal. In order todraw out the torso and tail of a story through Procrusteanlengths of advertising pages, some editors place, orseem to place, a premium upon length. The writer,with an eye to acceptance by these editors, consciouslyor unconsciously pads his matter, giving a semblanceof substance where substance is not. Many storiesfall below first rank in the opinion of the Committeethrough failure to achieve by artistic economy thedesired end. The comment “Overwritten”appeared again and again on the margins of such stories.The reverse of this policy, as practised by othereditors, is that of chopping the tail or, worse, ofcutting out sections from the body of the narrative,then roughly piecing together the parts to fit a smallerspace determined by some expediency. Under theobservation of the Committee have fallen a numberof stories patently cut for space accommodation.Too free use of editorial blue pencil and scissorshas furnished occasion for protest among authors andfor comment by the press. For example, in TheLiterary Review of The New York Post, September3, the leading article remarks, after granting it isa rare script that cannot be improved by good editing,and after making allowance for the physical law oflimitation by space: “Surgery, however,must not become decapitation or such a trimming oflong ears and projecting toes as savage tribes practise.It seems very probable that by ruthless reshapingand hampering specifications in our magazines, storiesand articles have been seriously affected.”Further, “the passion for editorial cutting”is graphically illustrated in The Authors’League Bulletin for December (page 8) by a mutilationof Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
Although, by the terms of the Memorial, the Committeewere at liberty to consider only stories by Americanauthors, they could not but observe the increasingnumber of races represented through authorship.Some of the following names will be recognized frompreceding years, some of them are new: BlascoIbanez, W. Somerset Maugham, May Sinclair, Mrs. HenryDudeney, Mary Butts, Frank Swinnerton, Georges Clemenceau,Johan Bojer, H. Soederberg, Seumas Macmanus, R. Sabatini,Demetra Vaka, Achmed Abdullah, Rabindranath Tagore,A. Remizov, Konrad Bercovici, Anzia Yezierska, and—daughterof an English mother and Italian father who met inChina, she herself having been born in San Francisco—AdrianaSpadoni. Nor do these represent all the nationswhose sons and daughters practise the one indigenousAmerican art on its native soil. Let the liststand, without completion, sufficient to the point.
The note of democracy is sounded, as a sequence, inthe subject matter. East Side Italian and Jewbrush shoulders in Miss Spadoni’s tales; Englishman,Dane, and South Sea Islander shake hands on the samepage of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Tremblingof a Leaf”; Norwegian, Frenchman, and Spaniardare among us, as before; Bercovici’s gypsiesfrom the Roumanian Danube, now collected in “Ghitza,”flash colourful and foreign from the Dobrudja Mountainsand the Black Sea. In one remarkable piece ofmelodrama, “Rra Boloi,” by the EnglishmanCrosbie Garstin (Adventure), and the Africanwitch doctor of the Chwene Kopjes enters short-storyliterature.
The Oriental had been exploited to what appeared theultimate; but continued interest in the Eastern problembrings tidal waves of Japanese and Chinese stories.Disarmament Conferences may or may not effect theideal envisioned by the Victorian, a time “whenthe war drums throb no longer, and the battle-flagsare furled in the Parliament of Man”; but theshort story follows the gleam, merely by virtue ofauthorship and by reflecting the peoples of the earth.
When Lee Foster Hartman created his Chinese hero in“The Poppies of Wu Fong,” dramatized Orientalinscrutability with Occidental suavity and sureness,and set off the Oriental gentleman in American surroundings,he brought together the nations in a new vision ofthe brotherhood of man. This story was preferred,for the reasons implied, by Frances Gilchrist Wood,who sees in Wu Fong’s garden the subtle urgeof acres of flowers, asleep under the stars, pittedagainst the greed of profiteers; who sees in answerto Western fume and fret the wisdom of Confucius,“Come out and see my poppies.” Thestory was rejected by other members who, while applaudingthe author’s motivation of character, his theme,and his general treatment, yet felt a lack of emotionand a faltering at the dramatic climax.
Wilbur Daniel Steele’s “The Marriage inKairwan” presents an appalling tragedy which,if it be typical, may befall any Tunisian lady whoelects for herself man’s standard of morality—forhimself. Such a story is possible when the seeingeye and the understanding heart of an American graspsthe situation in Kairwan and through the technician’sart develops it, transforms it, and bears it into thefourth dimension of literature. The thread ofnarrative runs thinly, perhaps, through the stifflyembroidered fabric, heavy as cloth of gold; the endmay be discerned too soon. But who can fail ofbeing shocked at the actual denouement? The storymay be, as Ethel Watts Mumford admits, caviar.“But if so,” she adds, “it is BelugaImperial.”
Donn Bryne’s “Wisdom Buildeth Her House,”is constructed on a historic foundation, the visitthat Balkis, Queen of Sheba, made to Solomon, Kingof the Jews. Mr. Bryne has not only built a cunningmosaic, plunging into the stream of Scriptural narrativefor his tessellations and drawing gems out of TheSong of Solomon, but he has also recalled by virtueof exercising a vigorous imagination, the glory ofthe royalty that was Sheba’s and the grandeurof her domain in pictures as gorgeously splendid asthose from an Arabian Night. He has elaboratedthe Talmud story with mighty conviction from a novelpoint of view and has whetted his theme on the storyof a love the King lacked wisdom to accept. TheChairman of the Committee prefers this story; butother members assert that it lacks novelty and vitality,nor can they find that it adds anything new to theSong of Songs.
These three first choice stories, then, are strongin Oriental flavour, characters, and setting.
Again, democracy (in the etymological sense of theword, always, rather than the political) is exemplifiedin the fiction of 1921, in that the humblest lifeas well as the highest offers matter for romance.More than in former years, writers seek out the romancethat lies in the lives of the average man or woman.Having learned that the Russian story of realism,with emphasis too frequently placed upon the naturalisticand the sordid, is not a vehicle easily adapted toconveying the American product, the American authorof sincerity and belief in the possibility of realisticmaterial has begun to treat it in romantic fashion,always the approved fashion of the short story inthis country. So Harry Anable Kniffin’s“The Tribute” weaves in 1,700 words alegend about the Unknown Soldier and makes emotionallyvivid the burial of Tommy Atkins. Commonplacetypes regarded in the past as insufficiently drab,on the one hand, and insufficiently picturesque onthe other are reflected in this new romantic treatment.Sarah Addington’s “Another Cactus Blooms”prophesies colour in that hard and prickly plant theprovincial teacher at Columbia for a term of graduatework. Humorously and sardonically the collegeprofessor is served up in “The Better Recipe,”by George Boas (Atlantic Monthly, March); thedoctorate degree method is satirized so bitterly, bySinclair Lewis, in “The Post Mortem Murder”(Century, May), as to challenge wonder, thoughso subtly as to escape all save the initiated.
Sophie Kerr’s “Wild Earth” makescapital in like legitimate manner of the little shopgirl and her farmer husband. Wesley Dean is asfar removed from the Down Easterner of a Mary Wilkinsfarm as his wife, Anita, is remote from the Salliesand Nannies of the farmhouse. Of the soil thisstory bears the fragrance in a happier manner; itstheme of wild passion belongs to the characters, asit might belong, also, to the man and woman of anothersetting. “Here is a romance of the farm,”
the author seems to say; not sordid realistic portrayalof earth grubbers. So, too, Tristram Tupper’s“Grit” reveals the inspiration that flashedfrom the life of a junkman. So Cooper and Creaganevoke the drama of the railroad man’s world:glare of headlight, crash of wreckage and voice ofthe born leader mingle in unwonted orchestration.“Martin Gerrity Gets Even” is reprintedas their best story of this genre.The stories of Ethel Watts Mumford declare her cosmopolitanability and her willingness to deal with lives widelydiverse. At least three rank high in the estimationof her fellow-committeemen. “Aurore,”by its terseness and poignant interpretation of thecharacter of the woman under the Northern Lights touchespoetry and is akin to music in its creative flight.The Committee voted to include it in Volume III, underthe author’s protest and under her express stipulationthat it should not be regarded as a candidate foreither prize. That another of her stories mighthave found place in the collection is indicated bestby the following letter:
The Players 16 Gramercy Park New York City
November 16th
Re. O. HENRY MEMORIAL PRIZE.
To Dr. B.C. Williams,
605 West 113 Street,
New York City.
My Dear Doctor Williams,
I mailed to you yesterday a copy of a story by EthelWatts Mumford, entitled “Funeral Frank,”published in the Detective Story Magazine twoweeks ago—for your consideration in awardingthe O. Henry Memorial prize.
I think it is the best short story I have read ina long time both for originality of subject and technicalconstruction.
The choice on the author’s part of such an unsuspected(by the reader) and seemingly insignificant agentfor the working of Nemesis, I think shows great skill.I say seemingly insignificant because a littledog seems such a small and unlikely thing to act theleading part in a criminal’s judgment and suggestedregeneration—and yet all lovers of animalsknow what such a tie of affection may mean, especiallyto one who has no human friends—and evenwhile it works, the victim of Nemesis as the authorsays “is wholly unconscious of the irony of thesituation.”
Apart from this I think the tale is exceedingly welltold in good English and with the greatest possibleeconomy of space.
Yours very truly,
Oliver Herford.
“Waiting,” by Helen R. Hull, stands firston the list of Grove E. Wilson, who thinks its handlingof everyday characters, its simplicity of theme andits high artistry most nearly fulfil, among the storiesof the year, his ideal of short story requirements.Though admired as literature by the Committee, itseemed to one or two members to present a characterstudy rather than a story. Certainly, in no otherwork of the period have relations between a given motherand daughter been psychologized with greater deftnessand skill.
Other members of society reflected in the year arepreachers, judges, criminals, actors, and actresses.For some years, it is true, actor and actress havebeen treated increasingly as human beings, less aspuppets who walk about on the stage. This volumecontains two stories illustrating the statement:“The Urge,” by Maryland Allen, which marshallsthe grimly ironic reasons for the success of the heroinewho is the most famous comedienne of her day; “Fifty-TwoWeeks for Florette,” which touches with a pathosthat gave the story instant recognition the livesof vaudeville Florette and her son. It is notwithout significance that these stories are the firsttheir respective authors have published.
0.F. Lewis brings the judge to his own bar in“The Day of Judgment,” but had difficultyin finding a denouement commensurate with his antecedentmaterial. The Committee Preferred his “TheGet-Away” and its criminals, who are Presentedobjectively, without prejudice, save as their ownacts invoke it. Viciously criminal is Tedge, of“The Man Who Cursed the Lilies,” by CharlesTenney Jackson. The Committee value this narrativefor the power and intensity of its subject matter,for its novel theme, for its familiar yet seldom-usedsetting, for its poetic justice and for its fulfilmentof short story structural laws.
“The Victim of His Vision,” by GeraldChittenden, dramatizes the missionary’s reverse,unusual in fiction, and presents a convincing demonstrationof the powers of voodoo. Readers who care formanifestations of the superstitious and the magicalwill appreciate the reality of this story as theywill that of “Rra Boloi,” mentioned above.They may also be interested in comparing these withJoseph Hergesheimer’s “Juju.”Mr. Hergesheimer’s story, however, fails tomaintain in the outcome the high level of the initialconcept and the execution of the earlier stages.
A number of 1921 stories centre about a historic character.F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tarquin of Cheapside”(Smart Set, February) offers in episode formthe motivation of Shakespeare’s “Rape ofLucrece”; Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews parallelsher “The Perfect Tribute” and eulogy ofLincoln with “His Soul Goes Marching On”and warm reminiscence of Roosevelt; Fleta CampbellSpringer’s “The Role of Madame Ravelles”is apparently a tapestry in weaving the stately figureof Georgette LeBlanc. Ranking highest among thesepersonal narratives, however, is Mildred Cram’s“Stranger Things—” Besides callingup, under the name of Cecil Grimshaw, the irresistiblefigure of Oscar Wilde, the author has created a supernaturaltale of challenging intricacy and imaginative genius.The only other stories of the supernatural to findplace in the Committee’s first list are MaxwellStruthers Burt’s “Buchanan Hears the Wind”and Mary Heaton Vorse’s “The Halfway House.”In all of these, suggestion, delicately managed, isthe potent element of success.
Animals figure in vaster numbers and under intensivepsychological study. That a race-horse ownergoes nowadays to the astrologer for a horoscope ofhis racer is a fact that insinuatingly elevates thebeast to the plane of his master. In the shortstory of 1921, the monkey, the tiger, the elephant,the dog and all their kind are treated from an anthropomorphicpoint of view. Courtney Ryley Cooper’stitles—“Love” and “Vengeance,”for example—covering stories dominatedby the animal character, betray the author’sascription of human attributes to his hero or villain.“Reynardine,” by Donn Byrne, retails withhaunting charm the friendship between the Fitzpaulsand the fox, in an instance that tests the friendship.Foxes, for Morgan of the story, “took on forhim now a strange, sinister entity.... They hadbecome to him a quasi-human, hypernormal race....They had tabus as strict as a Maori’s.Strange, mystical laws.”—“Corkranof the Clamstretch” uniquely portrays the uglyand heroic “R.T.C.” throughout as a gentleman,“who met triumph with boredom,” and “defeat,as a great gentleman should, with quiet courtesy andgood humour.” Samuel A. Derieux adds “Comet”to his list of superintelligent dogs in a story theCommittee regard as one of his best. It shouldbe compared with R.G. Kirk’s “Gun-Shy”(Saturday Evening Post, October 22). Similarin theme, in sympathy and in the struggle—thatof a trainer to overcome a noble dog’s fearof the powder roar—the stories divergein the matter of workmanship. Yet “Gun-Shy”is based on a plot superior to that of “Comet.”Oddly enough, the Committee preferred not one of thehumanized-beast stories, but Edison Marshall’s“The Heart of Little Shikara.” Thepreference was because of a number of counts, however;moreover, the man eater takes second place beside LittleShikara, whose bravery and loyalty motivate the thrillingclimax of the narrative. And it is just this:a superb story, with underscoring for “story.”
Anthropomorphism is found at its height in “ALife,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Dr. EdwardJ. Wheeler places this story first of the year’sbrief fiction, on the score of originality, power,and satisfactory evolution of the struggle, with itstriumphant dramatic reverse. Other members ofthe Committee, though sensible of its claim to highdistinction, believe it is a novelette, not to be classedas a short story, and therefore barred from consideration.Its spirit, one affirms, lacks something of the vigourwhich made of “Guiablesse” (Harper’s,1919) so convincing a work of art. Another memberfinds its value somewhat decreased in that its themehad been used similarly in John Masefield’s“The Wanderer.”
The child’s place in the democracy of the shortstory was assured years ago. No remarkably outstandingexamples have come from the pen of Booth Tarkington,amusing as are his adolescents and children of theRed Book tales. The best combinations ofhumour and childhood appeared to the Committee tobe “Wilfrid Reginald and the Dark Horse,”by James Mahoney, and “Mr. Downey Sits Down,”by L.H. Robbins. For laughter the readeris recommended to each of these, the latter of whichis reprinted in this volume. For humour plus atrifle more of excitement, “Mummery,”by Thomas Beer, is included. Mr. Beer has succeededin handling Mrs. Egg as Miss Addington manages MissTitwiler, the “Cactus”; that is, as theequal of author and reader, but also—andstill without condescension—as reason fortwinkles and smiles.
Apart from consideration of impulses dominating theshort story of 1921, impulses here summarized underthe general idea of democracy, the story is differentin several particulars. First, its method ofreferring to drink, strong drink, marks it of the presentyear. The setting is frequently that of a foreigncountry, where prohibition is not yet known; the dateof the action may be prior to 1919; or the apologyfor presence of intoxicating liquors is forthcomingin such statement as “My cellar is not yet exhausted,you see.”
Second, the war is no longer tabu; witness “TheTribute,” and “His Soul Goes MarchingOn.” Touched by the patina of time and mellowedthrough the mellifluence of age, the war now makesan appeal dissimilar to that which caused readerstwo or three years ago to declare they were “fedup.”
Third, Freudian theories have found organic placein the substance of the story. They have notyet found incorporation in many narratives that preserveshort story structure, however—althoughit is within conceivability that the influence mayfinally burst the mould and create a new—andthe Committee agree in demanding both substance andstructure as short story essentials.
Finally, the story reflects the changing ideals ofa constantly changing age. Not only are theseideals changing because of cross-currents that havetheir many sources in racial springs far asunder,not only because of contact or conflict between theideals and cosmic forces dimly apprehended; also theyare changing because of the undeniable influence ofwhat Emerson called the Oversoul. The youth ofthe time is different, as youth is always different.But now and then a sharp cleavage separates the succeedinggenerations and it separates them now. The youthof England has found interpretation in Clemence Dane’splay, “A Bill of Divorcement.” InAmerica, the interpretation is only half articulate;but when the incoherent sounds are wholly intelligible,the literature of the short story will have entered,in definite respects, upon a new era.
The Committee of Award wish once again to thank theauthors, editors, and publishers whose cooperationmakes possible this annual volume and the O. HenryMemorial Prizes.
Blanche Colton Williams.
New York City
January 10, 1922
O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD PRIZE STORIES of 1921
THE HEART OF LITTLE SHIKARA
By EDISON MARSHALL
From Everybody’s
I
If it hadn’t been for a purple moon that camepeering up above the dark jungle just at nightfall,it would have been impossible to tell that LittleShikara was at his watch. He was really just thecolour of the shadows—a rather pleasantbrown—he was very little indeed, and besides,he was standing very, very still. If he was tremblingat all, from anticipation and excitement, it was nomore than Nahar the tiger trembles as he crouchesin ambush. But the moon did show him—peeringdown through the leaf-clusters of the heavy vines—andshone very softly in his wide-open dark eyes.
And it was a purple moon—no other colourthat man could name. It looked almost unreal,like a paper moon painted very badly by a clumsy stage-hand.The jungle-moon quite often has that peculiar purplishtint, most travellers know, but few of them indeedever try to tell what causes it. This particularmoon probed down here and there between the tall bamboos,transformed the jungle—just now waking—intoa mystery and a fairyland, glinted on a hard-packedelephant trail that wound away into the thickets, andalways came back to shine on the coal-black Orientaleyes of the little boy beside the village gate.It showed him standing very straight and just as tallas his small stature would permit, and looked oddlysilvery and strange on his long, dark hair. LittleShikara, son of Khoda Dunnoo, was waiting for thereturn of a certain idol and demigod who was even nowriding home in his howdah from the tiger hunt.
Other of the villagers would be down to meet WarwickSahib as soon as they heard the shouts of his beaters—butLittle Shikara had been waiting almost an hour.Likely, if they had known about it, they would havecommented on his badness, because he was notoriouslybad, if indeed—as the villagers told eachother—he was not actually cursed with evilspirits.
In the first place, he was almost valueless as a herderof buffalo. Three times, when he had been sentwith the other boys to watch the herds in their wallows,he had left his post and crept away into the fringeof jungle on what was unquestionably some mission ofwitchcraft. For small naked brown boys, as a rule,do not go alone and unarmed into the thick bamboos.Too many things can happen to prevent them ever comingout again; too many brown silent ribbons crawl in thegrass, or too many yellow, striped creatures, no lesslithe, lurk in the thickets. But the strangestthing of all—and the surest sign of witchcraft—wasthat he had always come safely out again, yet withnever any satisfactory explanations as to why he hadgone. He had always looked some way very joyfuland tremulous—and perhaps even pale iffrom the nature of things a brown boy ever can lookpale. But it was the kind of paleness that onehas after a particularly exquisite experience.It was not the dumb, teeth-chattering paleness offear.
“I saw the sergeant of the jungle,” LittleShikara said after one of these excursions. Andthis made no sense at all.
“There are none of the King’s soldiershere,” the brown village folk replied to him.“Either thou liest to us, or thine eyes liedto thee. And didst thou also see the chevronthat told his rank?”
“That was the way I knew him. It was theblack bear, and he wore the pale chevron low on histhroat.”
This was Little Shikara all over. Of course hereferred to the black Himalayan bear which all menknow wears a yellowish patch, of chevron shape, justin front of his fore legs; but why he should call hima jungle-sergeant was quite beyond the wit of thevillage folk to say. Their imagination did notrun in that direction. It never even occurredto them that Little Shikara might be a born junglecreature, expatriated by the accident of birth—oneof that free, strange breed that can never find peacein the villages of men.
“But remember the name we gave him,” hismother would say. “Perhaps he is only livingup to his name.”
For there are certain native hunters in India thatare known, far and wide, as the Shikaris; and possiblyshe meant in her tolerance that her little son wasmerely a born huntsman. But in reality LittleShikara was not named for these men at all. Ratherit was for a certain fleet-winged little hawk, a hunterof sparrows, that is one of the most free spiritsin all the jungle.
And it was almost like taking part in some great hunthimself—to be waiting at the gate for thereturn of Warwick Sahib. Even now, the elephantcame striding out of the shadows; and Little Shikaracould see the trophy. The hunt had indeed beensuccessful, and the boy’s glowing eyes beheld—evenin the shadows—the largest, most beautifultiger-skin he had ever seen. It was the greatNahar, the royal tiger, who had killed one hundredcattle from near-by fields.
Warwick Sahib rode in his howdah, and he didnot seem to see the village people that came out tomeet him. In truth, he seemed half asleep, hismuscles limp, his gray eyes full of thoughts.He made no answer to the triumphant shouts of thevillage folk. Little Shikara glanced once atthe lean, bronzed face, the limp, white, thin hands,and something like a shiver of ecstasy went clear tohis ten toes. For like many other small boys,all over the broad world, he was a hero-worshipperto the last hair of his head; and this quiet man onthe elephant was to him beyond all measure the mostwonderful living creature on the earth.
He didn’t cry out, as the others did. Hesimply stood in mute worship, his little body tinglingwith glory. Warwick Sahib had looked up now,and his slow eyes were sweeping the line of brown faces.But still he did not seem to see them. And then—wonderof wonders—his eyes rested full on theeyes of his little worshipper beside the gate.
But it was quite the way of Warwick Sahib to sweephis gray, tired-out eyes over a scene and seeminglyperceive nothing; yet in reality absorbing every detailwith the accuracy of a photographic plate. Andhis seeming indifference was not a pose with him, either.He was just a great sportsman who was also an Englishgentleman, and he had learned certain lessons of impassivenessfrom the wild. Only one of the brown faces hebeheld was worth a lingering glance. And whenhe met that one his eyes halted in their sweepingsurvey—and Warwick Sahib smiled.
That face was the brown, eager visage of Little Shikara.And the blood of the boy flowed to the skin, and heglowed red all over through the brown.
It was only the faintest of quiet, tolerant smiles;but it meant more to him than almost any kind of anhonour could have meant to the prematurely gray manin the howdah. The latter passed on tohis estate, and some of the villagers went back totheir women and their thatch huts. But stillLittle Shikara stood motionless—and it wasn’tuntil the thought suddenly came to him that possiblythe beaters had already gathered and were tellingthe story of the kill that with startling suddennesshe raced back through the gates to the village.
Yes, the beaters had assembled in a circle under atree, and most of the villagers had gathered to hearthe story. He slipped in among them, and listenedwith both outstanding little ears. Warwick Sahibhad dismounted from his elephant as usual, the beaterssaid, and with but one attendant had advanced up thebed of a dry creek. This was quite like WarwickSahib, and Little Shikara felt himself tingling again.Other hunters, particularly many of the rich sahibsfrom across the sea, shot their tigers from the securityof the howdah; but this wasn’t Warwick’sway of doing. The male tiger had risen snarlingfrom his lair, and had been felled at the first shot.
Most of the villagers had supposed that the storywould end at this point. Warwick Sahib’stiger hunts were usually just such simple and expeditiousaffairs. The gun would lift to his shoulder, thequiet eyes would glance along the barrel—andthe tiger, whether charging or standing still—wouldspeedily die. But to-day there had been a curiousepilogue. Just as the beaters had started towardthe fallen animal, and the white Heaven-born’scigarette-case was open in his hand, Nahara, Nahar’sgreat, tawny mate, had suddenly sprung forth fromthe bamboo thickets.
She drove straight to the nearest of the beaters.There was no time whatever for Warwick to take aim.His rifle leaped, like a live thing, in his arms,but not one of the horrified beaters had seen his eyeslower to the sights. Yet the bullet went home—theycould tell by the way the tiger flashed to her breastin the grass.
Yet she was only wounded. One of the beaters,starting, had permitted a bough of a tree to whipWarwick in the face, and the blow had disturbed whatlittle aim he had. It was almost a miracle thathe had hit the great cat at all. At once thethickets had closed around her, and the beaters hadbeen unable to drive her forth again.
The circle was silent thereafter. They seemedto be waiting for Khusru, one of the head men of thevillage, to give his opinion. He knew more aboutthe wild animals than any mature native in the assembly,and his comments on the hunting stories were usuallyworth hearing.
“We will not be in the honoured service of theProtector of the Poor at this time a year from now,”he said.
They all waited tensely. Shikara shivered.“Speak, Khusru,” they urged him.
“Warwick Sahib will go again to the jungles—andNahara will be waiting. She owes two debts.One is the killing of her mate—and ye knowthat these two tigers have been long and faithful mates.Do ye think she will let that debt go unpaid?She will also avenge her own wound.”
“Perhaps she will die of bleeding,” oneof the others suggested.
“Nay, or ye would have found her this afternoon.Ye know that it is the wounded tiger that is mostto be feared. One day, and he will go forth inpursuit of her again; and then ye will not see himriding back so grandly on his elephant. Perhapsshe will come here, to carry away our children.”
Again Shikara tingled—hoping that Naharawould at least come close enough to cause excitement.And that night, too happy to keep silent, he toldhis mother of Warwick Sahib’s smile. “Andsome time I—I, thine own son,” hesaid as sleepiness came upon him, “will be akiller of tigers, even as Warwick Sahib.”
“Little sparrow-hawk,” his mother laughedat him. “Little one of mighty words, onlythe great sahibs that come from afar, and WarwickSahib himself, may hunt the tiger, so how canst thou,little worthless?”
“I will soon be grown,” he persisted,“and I—I, too—will sometime return with such a tiger-skin as the great Heaven-bornbrought this afternoon.” Little Shikarawas very sleepy, and he was telling his dreams muchmore frankly than was his wont. “And thevillage folk will come out to meet me with shoutings,and I will tell them of the shot—in thecircle under the tree.”
“And where, little hawk, wilt thou procure thineelephants, and such rupees as are needed?”
“Warwick Sahib shoots from the ground—andso will I. And sometimes he goes forth with only oneattendant—and I will not need even one.And who can say—perhaps he will find meeven a bolder man than Gunga Singhai; and he willtake me in his place on the hunts in the jungles.”
For Gunga Singhai was Warwick Sahib’s own personalattendant and gun-carrier—the native thatthe Protector of the Poor could trust in the tightestplaces. So it was only to be expected that LittleShikara’s mother should laugh at him. Theidea of her son being an attendant of Warwick Sahib,not to mention a hunter of tigers, was only a taleto tell her husband when the boy’s bright eyeswere closed in sleep.
“Nay, little man,” she told him.“Would I want thee torn to pieces in Nahara’sclaws? Would I want thee smelling of the jungleagain, as thou didst after chasing the water-buckthrough the bamboos? Nay—thou wiltbe a herdsman, like thy father—and perhapsgather many rupees.”
But Little Shikara did not want to think of rupees.Even now, as sleep came to him, his childish spirithad left the circle of thatch roofs, and had goneon tremulous expeditions into the jungle. Faraway, the trumpet-call of a wild tusker trembled throughthe moist, hot night; and great bell-shaped flowersmade the air pungent and heavy with perfume.A tigress skulked somewhere in a thicket licking aninjured leg with her rough tongue, pausing to listento every sound the night gave forth. Little Shikarawhispered in his sleep.
A half mile distant, in his richly furnished bungalow,Warwick Sahib dozed over his after-dinner cigar.He was in evening clothes, and crystal and silverglittered on his board. But his gray eyes werehalf closed; and the gleam from his plate could notpass the long, dark lashes. For his spirit wasfar distant, too—on the jungle trails withthat of Little Shikara.
II
One sunlit morning, perhaps a month after the skinof Nahar was brought in from the jungle, Warwick Sahib’smail was late. It was an unheard-of thing.Always before, just as the clock struck eight, hewould hear the cheerful tinkle of the postman’sbells. At first he considered complaining; butas morning drew to early afternoon he began to believethat investigation would be the wiser course.
The postman’s route carried him along an oldelephant trail through a patch of thick jungle besideone of the tributaries of the Manipur. When nativeswent out to look, he was neither on the path nor drownedin the creek, nor yet in his thatched hut at the otherend of his route. The truth was that this particularpostman’s bells would never be heard by humanears again. And there was enough evidence in thewet mould of the trail to know what had occurred.
That night the circle under the tree was silent andshivering. “Who is next?” they askedof one another. The jungle night came down, breathlessand mysterious, and now and then a twig was crackedby a heavy foot at the edge of the thickets.In Warwick’s house, the great Protector of thePoor took his rifles from their cases and fitted themtogether.
“To-morrow,” he told Gunga Singhai, “wewill settle for that postman’s death.”Singhai breathed deeply, but said nothing. Perhapshis dark eyes brightened. The tiger-hunts werenearly as great a delight to him as they were to Warwickhimself.
But while Nahara, lame from Warwick’s bullet,could no longer overtake cattle, she did with greatskilfulness avoid the onrush of the beaters.Again Little Shikara waited at the village gate forhis hero to return; but the beaters walked silentlyto-night. Nor were there any tales to be toldunder the tree.
Nahara, a fairly respectable cattle-killer before,had become in a single night one of the worst terrorsof India. Of course she was still a coward, butshe had learned, by virtue of a chance meeting witha postman on a trail after a week of heart-devouringstarvation, two or three extremely portentous lessons.One of them was that not even the little deer, drinkingbeside the Manipur, died half so easily as these tall,forked forms of which she had previously been so afraid.She found out also that they could neither run swiftlynor walk silently, and they could be approached easilyeven by a tiger that cracked a twig with every step.It simplified the problem of living immensely; andjust as any other feline would have done, she tookthe line of least resistance. If there had beenplenty of carrion in the jungle, Nahara might neverhave hunted men. But the kites and the jackalslooked after the carrion; and they were much swifterand keener-eyed than a lame tiger.
She knew enough not to confine herself to one village;and it is rather hard to explain how any lower creature,that obviously cannot reason, could have possessedthis knowledge. Perhaps it was because she hadlearned that a determined hunt, with many beaters andmen on elephants, invariably followed her killings.It was always well to travel just as far as possiblefrom the scene. She found out also that, justas a doe is easier felled than a horned buck, certainof this new kind of game were more easily taken thanthe others. Sometimes children played at thedoor of their huts, and sometimes old men were afflictedwith such maladies that they could not flee at all.All these things Nahara learned; and in learning themshe caused a certain civil office of the British Empireto put an exceedingly large price on her head.
Gradually the fact dawned on her that unlike the deerand the buffalo, this new game was more easily huntedin the daylight—particularly in that tired-out,careless twilight hour when the herders and the plantationhands came in from their work. At night the villagefolk kept in their huts, and such wood-cutters andgipsies as slept without wakened every hour to tendtheir fires. Nahara was deathly afraid of fire.Night after night she would creep round and round agipsy camp, her eyes like two pale blue moons in thedarkness, and would never dare attack.
And because she was taking her living in a mannerforbidden by the laws of the jungle, the glory andbeauty of her youth quickly departed from her.There are no prisons for those that break the junglelaws, no courts and no appointed officers, but becausethese are laws that go down to the roots of life,punishment is always swift and inevitable. “Thoushall not kill men,” is the first law of thewild creatures; and everyone knows that any animalor breed of animals that breaks this law has sooneror later been hunted down and slain—justlike any other murderer. The mange came upon her,and she lost flesh, and certain of her teeth beganto come out. She was no longer the beautifulfemale of her species, to be sung to by the weaver-birdsas she passed beneath. She was a hag and a vampire,hatred of whom lay deep in every human heart in herhunting range.
Often the hunting was poor, and sometimes she wentmany days in a stretch without making a single kill.And in all beasts, high and low, this is the laststep to the worst degeneracy of all. It instilsa curious, terrible kind of blood-lust—tokill, not once, but as many times as possible in thesame hunt; to be content not with one death, but toslay and slay until the whole herd is destroyed.It is the instinct that makes a little weasel killall the chickens in a coop, when one was all it couldpossibly carry away, and that will cause a wolf toleap from sheep to sheep in a fold until every oneis dead. Nahara didn’t get a chance tokill every day; so when the opportunity did come,like a certain pitiable kind of human hunter who comesfrom afar to hunt small game, she killed as many timesas she could in quick succession. And the BritishEmpire raised the price on her head.
One afternoon found her within a half mile of Warwick’sbungalow, and for five days she had gone without food.One would not have thought of her as a royal tigress,the queen of the felines and one of the most beautifulof all living things. And since she was stilltawny and graceful, it would be hard to understandwhy she no longer gave the impression of beauty.It was simply gone, as a flame goes, and her queenlinesswas wholly departed, too. In some vague way shehad become a poisonous, a ghastly thing, to be namedwith such outcasts as the jackals or hyenas.
Excessive hunger, in most of the flesh-eating animals,is really a first cousin to madness. It bringsbad dreams and visions, and, worst of all, it inducesan insubordination to all the forest laws of man andbeast. A well-fed wolf-pack will run in starkpanic from a human being; but even the wisest of mountaineersdo not care to meet the same gray band in the starvingtimes of winter. Starvation brings recklessness,a desperate frenzied courage that is likely to upsetall of one’s preconceived notions as to thebehaviour of animals. It also brings, so thatall men may be aware of its presence, a peculiar luridglow to the balls of the eyes.
In fact, the two pale circles of fire were the mostnoticeable characteristics of the long, tawny catthat crept through the bamboos. Except for them,she would hardly have been discernible at all.The yellow grass made a perfect background, her blackstripes looked like the streaks of shadow betweenthe stalks of bamboo, and for one that is lame shecrept with an astounding silence. One couldn’thave believed that such a great creature could lieso close to the earth and be so utterly invisiblein the low thickets.
A little peninsula of dwarf bamboos and tall junglegrass extended out into the pasture before the villageand Nahara crept out clear to its point. Shedidn’t seem to be moving. One couldn’tcatch the stir and draw of muscles. And yet sheslowly glided to the end; then began her wait.Her head sunk low, her body grew tense, her tail whippedsoftly back and forth, with as easy a motion as theswaying of a serpent. The light flamed and diedand flamed and died again in her pale eyes.
Soon a villager who had been working in Warwick’sfields came trotting in Oriental fashion across themeadow. His eyes were only human, and he didnot see the tawny shape in the tall grass. Ifany one had told him that a full-grown tigress couldhave crept to such a place and still remained invisible,he would have laughed. He was going to his thatchedhut, to brown wife and babies, and it was no wonderthat he trotted swiftly. The muscles of the greatcat bunched, and now the whipping tail began to havea little vertical motion that is the final warningof a spring.
The man was already in leaping range; but the tigerhad learned, in many experiences, always to make sure.Still she crouched—a single instant inwhich the trotting native came two paces nearer.Then the man drew up with a gasp of fright.
For just as the clear outlines of an object that haslong been concealed in a maze of light and shadowwill often leap, with sudden vividness, to the eyes,the native suddenly perceived the tiger.
He caught the whole dread picture—the crouchingform, the terrible blue lights of the eyes, the whippingtail. The gasp he uttered from his closing throatseemed to act like the fall of a firing-pin againsta shell on the bunched muscles of the animal; and sheleft her covert in a streak of tawny light.
But Nahara’s leaps had never been quite accuratesince she had been wounded by Warwick’s bullet,months before. They were usually straight enoughfor the general purposes of hunting, but they missedby a long way the “theoretical centre of impact”of which artillery officers speak. Her lame pawalways seemed to disturb her balance. By rememberingit, she could usually partly overcome the disadvantage;but to-day, in the madness of her hunger, she had beenunable to remember anything except the terrible raptureof killing. This circumstance alone, however,would not have saved the native’s life.Even though her fangs missed his throat, the powerof the blow and her rending talons would have certainlysnatched away his life as a storm snatches a leaf.But there was one other determining factor. TheBurman had seen the tiger just before she leaped; andalthough there had been no time for conscious thought,his guardian reflexes had flung him to one side ina single frenzied effort to miss the full force ofthe spring.
The result of both these things was that he receivedonly an awkward, sprawling blow from the animal’sshoulder. Of course he was hurled to the ground;for no human body in the world is built to withstandthe ton or so of shocking power of a three-hundred-poundcat leaping through the air. The tigress sprawleddown also, and because she lighted on her woundedpaw, she squealed with pain. It was possiblythree seconds before she had forgotten the stabbingpain in her paw and had gathered herself to springon the unconscious form of the native. And thatthree seconds gave Warwick Sahib, sitting at the windowof his study, an opportunity to seize his rifle andfire.
Warwick knew tigers, and he had kept the rifle alwaysready for just such a need as this. The distancewas nearly five hundred yards, and the bullet wentwide of its mark. Nevertheless, it saved the native’slife. The great cat remembered this same far-offexplosion from another day, in a dry creek-bed ofmonths before, and the sing of the bullet was a rememberedthing, too. Although it would speedily returnto her, her courage fled and she turned and faced intothe bamboos.
In an instant, Warwick was on his great veranda, callinghis beaters. Gunga Singhai, his faithful gun-carrier,slipped shells into the magazine of his master’shigh-calibered close-range tiger-rifle. “Theelephant, Sahib?” he asked swiftly.
“Nay, this will be on foot. Make the beaterscircle about the fringe of bamboos. Thou andI will cross the eastern fields and shoot at her asshe breaks through.”
But there was really no time to plan a complete campaign.Even now, the first gray of twilight was blurringthe sharp outlines of the jungle, and the soft junglenight was hovering, ready to descend. Warwick’splan was to cut through to a certain little creek thatflowed into the river and with Singhai to continueon to the edge of the bamboos that overlooked a widefield. The beaters would prevent the tigressfrom turning back beyond the village, and it was atleast possible that he would get a shot at her asshe burst from the jungle and crossed the field tothe heavier thickets beyond.
“Warwick Sahib walks into the teeth of his enemy,”Khusru, the hunter, told a little group that watchedfrom the village gate. “Nahara will collecther debts.”
A little brown boy shivered at his words and wonderedif the beaters would turn and kick him, as they hadalways done before, if he should attempt to followthem. It was the tiger-hunt, in view of his ownvillage, and he sat down, tremulous with rapture, inthe grass to watch. It was almost as if his dream—thathe himself should be a hunter of tigers—wascoming true. He wondered why the beaters seemedto move so slowly and with so little heart.
He would have known if he could have looked into theireyes. Each black pupil was framed with white.Human hearts grow shaken and bloodless from such sightsas this they had just seen, and only the heart ofa jungle creature—the heart of the eaglethat the jungle gods, by some unheard-of fortune,had put in the breast of Little Shikara—couldprevail against them. Besides, the superstitiousBurmans thought that Warwick was walking straight todeath—that the time had come for Naharato collect her debts.
III
Warwick Sahib and Singhai disappeared at once intothe fringe of jungle, and silence immediately fellupon them. The cries of the beaters at once seemedcuriously dim. It was as if no sound could livein the great silences under the arching trees.Soon it was as if they were alone.
They walked side by side, Warwick with his rifle heldready. He had no false ideas in regard to thistiger-hunt. He knew that his prey was desperatewith hunger, that she had many old debts to pay, andthat she would charge on sight.
The self-rage that is felt on missing some particularlyfortunate chance is not confined to human beings alone.There is an old saying in the forest that a felinethat has missed his stroke is like a jackal in dog-days—andthat means that it is not safe to be anywhere in theregion with him. He simply goes rabid and is quitelikely to leap at the first living thing that stirs.Warwick knew that Nahara had just been cheated outof her kill and someone in the jungle would pay forit.
The gaudy birds that looked down from the tree-branchescould scarcely recognize this prematurely gray manas a hunter. He walked rather quietly, yet withno conscious effort toward stealth. The riflerested easily in his arms, his gray eyes were quietand thoughtful as always. Singularly, his splendidfeatures were quite in repose. The Burman, however,had more of the outer signs of alertness; and yet therewas none of the blind terror upon him that markedthe beaters.
“Where are the men?” Warwick asked quietly.“It is strange that we do not hear them shouting.”
“They are afraid, Sahib,” Singhai replied.“The forest pigs have left us to do our ownhunting.”
Warwick corrected him with a smile. “Forestpigs are brave enough,” he answered. “Theyare sheep—just sheep—sheep ofthe plains.”
The broad trail divided, like a three-tined candlestick,into narrow trails. Warwick halted beside thecentre of the three that led to the creek they wereobliged to cross. Just for an instant he stoodwatching, gazing into the deep-blue dusk of the deeperjungle. Twilight was falling softly. Thetrails soon vanished into shadow—patchesof deep gloom, relieved here and there by a brightleaf that reflected the last twilight rays. Aliving creature coughed and rustled away in the thicketsbeside him.
“There is little use of going on,” hesaid. “It is growing too dark. Butthere will be killings before the dawn if we don’tget her first.”
The servant stood still, waiting. It was nothis place to advise his master.
“If we leave her, she’ll come again beforethe dawn. Many of the herders haven’t returned—she’llget one of them sure. At least we may cross thecreek and get a view of the great fields. Sheis certain to cross them if she has heard the beaters.”
In utter silence they went on. One hundred yardsfarther they came to the creek, and both strode intogether to ford.
The water was only knee-deep, but Warwick’sboots sank three inches in the mud of the bottom.And at that instant the gods of the jungle, alwayswaiting with drawn scimitar for the unsuspecting, turnedagainst them.
Singhai suddenly splashed down into the water, onhis hands and knees. He did not cry out.If he made any sound at all, it was just a shiveringgasp that the splash of water wholly obscured.But the thing that brought home the truth to Warwickwas the pain that flashed, vivid as lightning, acrosshis dark face; and the horror of death that left itsshadow. Something churned and writhed in the mud;and then Warwick fired.
Both of them had forgotten Mugger, the crocodile,that so loves to wait in the mud of a ford. Hehad seized Singhai’s foot, and had already snatchedhim down into the water when Warwick fired. Noliving flesh can withstand the terrible, rending shockof a high-powered sporting rifle at close range.Mugger had plates of armour, but even these couldnot have availed against it if he had been exposedto the fire. As it was, several inches of waterstood between, a more effective armour than a two-inchsteel plate on a battleship. Of course the shockcarried through, a smashing blow that caused the reptileto release his hold on Singhai’s leg; but beforethe native could get to his feet he had struck again.The next instant both men were fighting for theirlives.
They fought with their hands, and Warwick fought withhis rifle, and the native slashed again and againwith the long knife that he carried at his belt.To a casual glance, a crocodile is wholly incapableof quick action. These two found him a slashing,darting, wolf-like thing, lunging with astoundingspeed through the muddied water, knocking them fromtheir feet and striking at them as they fell.
The reptile was only half grown, but in the waterthey had none of the usual advantages that man hasover the beasts with which he does battle. Warwickcould not find a target for his rifle. But evenhuman bodies, usually so weak, find themselves possessedof an amazing reserve strength and agility in themoment of need. These men realized perfectlythat their lives were the stakes for which they fought,and they gave every ounce of strength and energy theyhad. Their aim was to hold the mugger off untilthey could reach the shore.
At last, by a lucky stroke, Singhai’s knifeblinded one of the lurid reptile eyes. He wasprone in the water when he administered it, and itwent home just as the savage teeth were snapping athis throat. For an instant the great reptileflopped in an impotent half-circle, partly rearedout of the water. It gave Warwick a chance toshoot, a single instant in which the rifle seemedto whirl about in his arms, drive to his shoulder,and blaze in the deepening twilight. And theshot went true. It pierced the mugger from beneath,tearing upward through the brain. And then theagitated waters of the ford slowly grew quiet.
The last echo of the report was dying when Singhaistretched his bleeding arms about Warwick’sbody, caught up the rifle and dragged them forty feetup on the shore. It was an effort that cost thelast of his strength. And as the stars poppedout of the sky, one by one, through the gray of dusk,the two men lay silent, side by side, on the grassybank.
Warwick was the first to regain consciousness.At first he didn’t understand the lashing painin his wrists, the strange numbness in one of hislegs, the darkness with the great white Indian starsshining through. Then he remembered. Andhe tried to stretch his arm to the prone form besidehim.
The attempt was an absolute failure. The coolbrain dispatched the message, it flew along the telegraph-wiresof the nerves, but the muscles refused to react.He remembered that the teeth of the mugger had metin one of the muscles of his upper arm, but beforeunconsciousness had come upon him he had been ableto lift the gun to shoot. Possibly infectionfrom the bite had in some manner temporarily paralyzedthe arm. He turned, wracked with pain, on hisside and lifted his left arm. In doing so hishand crossed before his eyes—and then hesmiled wanly in the darkness.
It was quite like Warwick, sportsman and English gentleman,to smile at a time like this. Even in the graydarkness of the jungle night he could see the handquite plainly. It no longer looked slim and white.And he remembered that the mugger had caught his fingersin one of its last rushes.
He paused only for one glance at the mutilated member.He knew that his first work was to see how Singhaihad fared. In that glance he was boundlesslyrelieved to see that the hand could unquestionablybe saved. The fingers were torn, yet their bonesdid not seem to be severed. Temporarily at least,however, the hand was utterly useless. The fingersfelt strange and detached.
He reached out to the still form beside him, touchingthe dark skin first with his fingers, and then, becausethey had ceased to function, with the flesh of hiswrist. He expected to find it cold. Singhaiwas alive, however, and his warm blood beat closeto the dark skin.
But he was deeply unconscious, and it was possiblethat one foot was hopelessly mutilated.
For a moment Warwick lay quite still, looking hissituation squarely in the face. He did not believethat either he or his attendant was mortally or evenvery seriously hurt. True, one of his arms hadsuffered paralysis, but there was no reason for thinkingit had been permanently injured. His hand wouldbe badly scarred, but soon as good as ever. Thereal question that faced them was that of getting backto the bungalow.
Walking was out of the question. His whole bodywas bruised and lacerated, and he was already dangerouslyweak from loss of blood. It would take all hisenergy, these first few hours, to keep his consciousness.Besides, it was perfectly obvious that Singhai couldnot walk. And English gentlemen do not deserttheir servants at a time like this. The realmystery lay in the fact that the beaters had not alreadyfound and rescued them.
He wore a watch with luminous dial on his left wrist,and he managed to get it before his eyes. Andthen understanding came to him. A full hour hadpassed since he and his servant had fought the muggerin the ford. And the utter silence of early nighthad come down over the jungle.
There was only one thing to believe. The beatershad evidently heard him shoot, sought in vain forhim in the thickets, possibly passed within a fewhundred feet of him, and because he had been unconscioushe had not heard them or called to them, and now theyhad given him up for lost. He remembered withbitterness how all of them had been sure that an encounterwith Nahara would cost him his life, and would thusbe all the more quick to believe he had died in hertalons. Nahara had her mate and her own lamenessto avenge, they had said, attributing in their superstitionhuman emotions to the brute natures of animals.It would have been quite useless for Warwick to attemptto tell them that the male tiger, in the mind of herwicked mate, was no longer even a memory, and thatpremeditated vengeance is an emotion almost unknownin the animal world. Without leaders or encouragement,and terribly frightened by the scene they had beheldbefore the village, they had quickly given up anyattempt to find his body. There had been noneamong them coolheaded enough to reason out which trailhe had likely taken, and thus look for him by theford. Likely they were already huddled in theirthatched huts, waiting till daylight.
Then he called in the darkness. A heavy bodybrushed through the creepers, and stepping falsely,broke a twig. He thought at first that it mightbe one of the villagers, coming to look for him.But at once the step was silenced.
Warwick had a disturbing thought that the creaturethat had broken the twig had not gone away, but wascrouching down, in a curious manner, in the deep shadows.Nahara had returned to her hunting.
IV
“Some time I, too, will be a hunter of tigers,”Little Shikara told his mother when the beaters beganto circle through the bamboos. “To carrya gun beside Warwick Sahib—and to be honouredin the circle under the tree!”
But his mother hardly listened. She was quiveringwith fright. She had seen the last part of thedrama in front of the village; and she was too frightenedeven to notice the curious imperturbability of herlittle son. But there was no orderly retreat afterLittle Shikara had heard the two reports of the rifle.At first there were only the shouts of the beaters,singularly high-pitched, much running back and forthin the shadows, and then a pell-mell scurry to theshelter of the villages.
For a few minutes there was wild excitement at thevillage gates. Warwick Sahib was dead, they said—theyhad heard the shots and run to the place of firing,and beat up and down through the bamboos; and WarwickSahib had surely been killed and carried off by thetigress. This dreadful story told, most of thevillagers went to hide at once in their huts; onlya little circle of the bravest men hovered at thegate. They watched with drawn faces the growingdarkness.
But there was one among them who was not yet a mangrown; a boy so small that he could hover, unnoticed,in the very smallest of the terrible shadow-patches.He was Little Shikara, and he was shocked to the verydepths of his worshipping heart. For Warwick hadbeen his hero, the greatest man of all time, and hefelt himself burning with indignation that the beatersshould return so soon. And it was a curious factthat he had not as yet been infected with the contagionof terror that was being passed from man to man amongthe villagers. Perhaps his indignation was tooabsorbing an emotion to leave room for terror, andperhaps, far down in his childish spirit, he was madeof different stuff. He was a child of the jungle,and perhaps he had shared of that great imperturbabilityand impassiveness that is the eternal trait of thewildernesses.
He went up to one of the younger beaters who had toldand retold a story of catching a glimpse of Naharain the thickets until no one was left to tell it to.He was standing silent, and Little Shikara thoughtit possible that he might reach his ears.
“Give ear, Puran,” he pleaded. “Didstthou look for his body beside the ford over Taraistream?”
“Nay, little one—though I passedwithin one hundred paces.”
“Dost thou not know that he and Singhai wouldof a certainty cross at the ford to reach the fringeof jungle from which he might watch the eastern field?Some of you looked on the trail beside the ford, butnone looked at the ford itself. And the soundof the rifle seemed to come from thence.”
“But why did he not call out?”
“Dead men could not call, but at least ye mighthave frightened Nahara from the body. But perhapshe is wounded, unable to speak, and lies there still—”
But Puran had found another listener for his story,and speedily forgot the boy. He hurried overto another of the villagers, Khusru the hunter.
“Did no one look by the ford?” he asked,almost sobbing. “For that is the placehe had gone.”
The native’s eyes seemed to light. “Hai,little one, thou hast thought of what thy elders hadforgotten. There is level land there, and clear.And I shall go at the first ray of dawn—”
“But not to-night, Khusru—?”
“Nay, little sinner! Wouldst thou haveme torn to pieces?”
Lastly Little Shikara went to his own father, andthey had a moment’s talk at the outskirts ofthe throng. But the answer was nay—justthe same. Even his brave father would not goto look for the body until daylight came. Theboy felt his skin prickling all over.
“But perhaps he is only wounded—andleft to die. If I go and return with word thathe is there, wilt thou take others and go out and bringhim in?”
“Thou goest!” His father brokeforth in a great roar of laughter. “Why,thou little hawk! One would think that thou werta hunter of tigers thyself!”
Little Shikara blushed beneath the laughter.For he was a very boyish little boy in most ways.But it seemed to him that his sturdy young heart wasabout to break open from bitterness. All of themagreed that Warwick Sahib, perhaps wounded and dying,might be lying by the ford, but none of them wouldventure forth to see. Unknowing, he was beholdingthe expression of a certain age-old trait of humannature. Men do not fight ably in the dark.They need their eyes, and they particularly requirea definite object to give them determination.If these villagers knew for certain that the Protectorof the Poor lay wounded or even dead beside the ford,they would have rallied bravely, encouraged one anotherwith words and oaths, and gone forth to rescue him;but they wholly lacked the courage to venture againinto the jungle on any such blind quest as LittleShikara suggested.
But the boy’s father should not have laughed.He should have remembered the few past occasions whenhis straight little son had gone into the jungle alone;and that remembrance should have silenced him.The difficulty lay in the fact that he supposed hisboy and he were of the same flesh, and that LittleShikara shared his own great dread of the night-curtainedjungle. In this he was very badly mistaken.Little Shikara had an inborn understanding and loveof the jungle; and except for such material dangersas that of Nahara, he was not afraid of it at all.He had no superstitions in regard to it. Perhapshe was too young. But the main thing that thelaugh did was to set off, as a match sets off powder,a whole heartful of unexploded indignation in Shikara’sbreast. These villagers not only had desertedtheir patron and protector, but also they had laughedat the thought of rescue! His own father hadlaughed at him.
Little Shikara silently left the circle of villagersand turned into the darkness.
At once the jungle silence closed round him.He hadn’t dreamed that the noise of the villagerswould die so quickly. Although he could stillsee the flame of the fire at the village gate behindhim, it was almost as if he had at once dropped offinto another world. Great flowers poured perfumedown upon him, and at seemingly a great distance heheard the faint murmur of the wind.
At first, deep down in his heart, he had really notintended to go all the way. He had expected tosteal clear to the outer edge of the firelight; andthen stand listening to the darkness for such impressionsas the jungle would choose to give him. But therehad been no threshold, no interlude of preparation.The jungle in all its mystery had folded about himat once.
He trotted softly down the elephant trail, a dim,fleet shadow that even the keen eyes of Nahara couldscarcely have seen. At first he was too happyto be afraid. He was always happy when the jungleclosed round him. Besides, if Nahara had killed,she would be full-fed by now and not to be feared.Little Shikara hastened on, trembling all over witha joyous sort of excitement.
If a single bird had flapped its wings in the branches,if one little rodent had stirred in the underbrush,Little Shikara would likely have turned back.But the jungle-gods, knowing their son, stilled allthe forest voices. He crept on, still lookingnow and again over his shoulder to see the villagefire. It still made a bright yellow trianglein the dusk behind him. He didn’t stop tothink that he was doing a thing most grown nativesand many white men would not have dared to do—tofollow a jungle trail unarmed at night. If hehad stopped to think at all he simply would have beenunable to go on. He was only following his instincts,voices that such forces as maturity and grown-up intelligenceand self-consciousness obscure in older men—andthe terror of the jungle could not touch him.He went straight to do what service he could for thewhite sahib that was one of his lesser gods.
Time after time he halted, but always he pushed ona few more feet. Now he was over halfway to theford, clear to the forks in the trail. And thenhe turned about with a little gasp of fear.
The light from the village had gone out. Thethick foliage of the jungle had come between.
He was really frightened now. It wasn’tthat he was afraid he couldn’t get back.The trail was broad and hard and quite gray in themoonlight. But those far-off beams of light hadbeen a solace to his spirit, a reminder that he hadnot yet broken all ties with the village. Hehalted, intending to turn back.
Then a thrill began at his scalp and went clear tohis bare toes. Faint through the jungle silenceshe heard Warwick Sahib calling to his faithless beaters.The voice had an unmistakable quality of distress.
Certain of the villagers—a very few ofthem—said afterward that Little Shikaracontinued on because he was afraid to go back.They said that he looked upon the Heaven-born sahibas a source of all power, in whose protection no harmcould befall him, and he sped toward him because thedistance was shorter than back to the haven of fireat the village. But those who could look deeperinto Little Shikara’s soul knew different.In some degree at least he hastened on down that jungletrail of peril because he knew that his idol was indistress, and by laws that went deep he knew he mustgo to his aid.
V
The first few minutes after Warwick had heard a livingstep in the thickets he spent in trying to reloadhis rifle. He carried other cartridges in theright-hand trousers pocket, but after a few minutesof futile effort it became perfectly evident that hewas not able to reach them. His right arm wasuseless, and the fingers of his left, lacerated bythe mugger’s bite, refused to take hold.
He had, however, three of the five shells the rifleheld still in his gun. The single question thatremained was whether or not they would be of use tohim.
The rifle lay half under him, its stock protrudingfrom beneath his body. With the elbow of hisleft arm he was able to work it out. Consideringthe difficulties under which he worked, he made amazinglyfew false motions; and yet he worked with swiftness.Warwick was a man who had been schooled and trainedby many dangers; he had learned to face them withopen eyes and steady hands, to judge with uncloudedthought the exact percentage of his chances. Heknew now that he must work swiftly. The shapein the shadow was not going to wait all night.
But at that moment the hope of preserving his lifethat he had clung to until now broke like a bubblein the sunlight. He could not lift the gun toswing and aim it at a shape in the darkness. Withhis mutilated hands he could not cock the strong-springedhammer. And if he could do both these thingswith his fumbling, bleeding, lacerated fingers, hisright hand could not be made to pull the trigger.Warwick Sahib knew at last just where he stood.Yet if human sight could have penetrated that dusk,it would have beheld no change of expression in thelean face.
An English gentleman lay at the frontier of death.But that occasioned neither fawning nor a loss ofhis rigid self-control.
Two things remained, however, that he might do.One was to call and continue to call, as long as lifelasted in his body. He knew perfectly that morethan once in the history of India a tiger had beenkept at a distance, at least for a short period oftime, by shouts alone. In that interlude, perhapshelp might come from the village. The secondthing was almost as impossible as raising and firingthe rifle; but by the luck of the gods he might achieveit. He wanted to find Singhai’s knife andhold it compressed in his palm.
It wasn’t that he had any vain hopes of repellingthe tiger’s attack with a single knife-bladethat would be practically impossible for his mutilatedhand to hold. Nahara had five or so knife-bladesin every paw and a whole set of them in her mouth.She could stand on four legs and fight, and Warwickcould not lift himself on one elbow and yet wieldthe blade. But there were other things to be donewith blades, even held loosely in the palm, at a timelike this.
He knew rather too much of the way of tigers.They do not always kill swiftly. It is the tigerway to tease, long moments, with half-bared talons;to let the prey crawl away a few feet for the raptureof leaping at it again; to fondle with an exquisitecruelty for moments that seem endless to its prey.A knife, on the other hand, kills quickly. Warwickmuch preferred the latter death.
And even as he called, again and again, he began tofeel about in the grass with his lacerated hand forthe hilt of the knife. Nahara was steadily stealingtoward him through the shadows.
The great tigress was at the height of her huntingmadness. The earlier adventure of the eveningwhen she had missed her stroke, the stir and tumultof the beaters in the wood, her many days of hunger,had all combined to intensify her passion. Andfinally there had come the knowledge, in subtle ways,that two of her own kind of game were lying woundedand helpless beside the ford.
But even the royal tiger never forgets some smallmeasure of its caution. She did not charge atonce. The game looked so easy that it was insome way suggestive of a trap. She crept forward,a few feet at a time. The wild blood began toleap through the great veins. The hair went stiffon the neck muscles.
But Warwick shouted; and the sound for an instantappalled her. She lurked in the shadows.And then, as she made a false step, Warwick heardher for the first time.
Again she crept forward, to pause when Warwick raisedhis voice the second time. The man knew enoughto call at intervals rather than continuously.A long, continued outcry would very likely stretchthe tiger’s nerves to a breaking point and hurlher into a frenzy that would probably result in adeath-dealing charge. Every few seconds he calledagain. In the intervals between the tiger creptforward. Her excitement grew upon her. Shecrouched lower. Her sinewy tail had whipped softlyat first; now it was lashing almost to her sides.And finally it began to have a slight vertical movementthat Warwick, fortunately for his spirit, could notsee.
Then the little light that the moon poured down wassuddenly reflected in Nahara’s eyes. Allat once they burned out of the dusk; two blue-greencircles of fire fifty feet distant in the darkness.At that Warwick gasped—for the first time.In another moment the great cat would be in range—andhe had not yet found the knife. Nothing remainedto believe but that it was lost in the mud of the ford,fifty feet distant, and that the last dread avenueof escape was cut off.
But at that instant the gasp gave way to a whisperedoath of wonder. Some living creature was runninglightly down the trail toward him—soft,light feet that came with amazing swiftness. Foronce in his life Warwick did not know where he stood.For once he was the chief figure of a situation hedid not entirely understand. He tried to probeinto the darkness with his tired eyes.
“Here I am!” he called. The tiger,starting to creep forward once more, halted at thevoice. A small straight figure sped like an arrowout of the thickets and halted at his side.
It was such an astounding appearance as for an instantcompletely paralyzes the mental faculties. Warwick’sfirst emotion was simply a great and hopeless astonishment.Long inured to the mystery of the jungle, he thoughthe had passed the point where any earthly happeningcould actually bewilder him. But in spite of it,in spite of the fire-eyed peril in the darkness, hewas quite himself when he spoke. The voice thatcame out of the silence was wholly steady—akindly, almost amused voice of one who knows lifeas it is and who has mastered his own destiny.
“Who in the world?” he asked in the vernacular.
“It is I—Little Shikara,” atremulous voice answered. Except for the tremorhe could not keep from his tone, he spoke as one manto another.
Warwick knew at once that Little Shikara was not yetaware of the presence of the tiger fifty feet distantin the shadows. But he knew nothing else.The whole situation was beyond his ken.
But his instincts were manly and true. “Thenrun speedily, little one,” he whispered, “backto the village. There is danger here in the dark.”
Little Shikara tried to speak, and he swallowed painfully.A lump had come in his throat that at first wouldnot let him talk. “Nay, Protector of thePoor!” he answered. “I—Icame alone. And I—I am thy servant.”
Warwick’s heart bounded. Not since hisyouth had left him to a gray world had his strongheart leaped in just this way before. “MercifulGod!” he whispered in English. “Hasa child come to save me?” Then he whipped againinto the vernacular and spoke swiftly; for no furtherseconds were to be wasted. “Little Shikara,have you ever fired a gun?”
“No, Sahib—”
“Then lift it up and rest it across my body.Thou knowest how it is held—”
Little Shikara didn’t know exactly, but he restedthe gun on Warwick’s body; and he had seen enoughtarget practice to crook his finger about the trigger.And together, the strangest pair of huntsmen that theIndian stars ever looked down upon, they waited.
“It is Nahara,” Warwick explained softly.For he had decided to be frank with Little Shikara,trusting all to the courage of a child. “Itall depends on thee. Pull back the hammer withthy thumb.”
Little Shikara obeyed. He drew it back untilit clicked and did not, as Warwick had feared, letit slip through his fingers back against the breach.“Yes, Sahib,” he whispered breathlessly.His little brave heart seemed about to explode inhis breast. But it was the test, and he knewhe must not waver in the sahib’s eyes.
“It is Nahara, and thou art a man,” Warwicksaid again. “And now thou must wait untilthou seest her eyes.”
So they strained into the darkness; and in an instantmore they saw again the two circles of greenish, smoulderingfire. They were quite near now—Naharawas almost in leaping range.
“Thou wilt look through the little hole at therear and then along the barrel,” Warwick orderedswiftly, “and thou must see the two eyes alongthe little notch in front.”
“I see, Sahib—and between the eyes,”came the same breathless whisper. The littlebrown body held quite still. Warwick could noteven feel it trembling against his own. For themoment, by virtue of some strange prank of Shiv, thejungle-gods were giving their own strength to thislittle brown son of theirs beside the ford.
“Thou wilt not jerk or move?”
“Nay, Sahib.” And he spoke true.The world might break to pieces or blink out, buthe would not throw off his aim by any terror motions.They could see the tiger’s outline now—thelithe, low-hung body, the tail that twitched up anddown.
“Then pull the trigger,” Warwick whispered.
The whole jungle world rocked and trembled from theviolence of the report.
When the villagers, aroused by the roar of the rifleand led by Khusru and Puran and Little Shikara’sfather, rushed down with their firebrands to the ford,their first thought was that they had come only tothe presence of the dead. Three human beings layvery still beside the stream, and fifty feet in theshadows something else, that obviously was nota human being, lay very still, too. But they werenot to have any such horror story to tell their wives.Only one of the three by the ford, Singhai, the gun-bearer,was even really unconscious; Little Shikara, the riflestill held lovingly in his arms, had gone into a half-faintfrom fear and nervous exhaustion, and Warwick Sahibhad merely closed his eyes to the darting light ofthe firebrands. The only death that had occurredwas that of Nahara the tigress—and shehad a neat hole bored completely through her neck.To all evidence, she had never stirred after LittleShikara’s bullet had gone home.
After much confusion and shouting and falling overone another, and gazing at Little Shikara as if hewere some new kind of a ghost, the villagers got astretcher each for Singhai and the Protector of thePoor. And when they got them well loaded intothem, and Little Shikara had quite come to himselfand was standing with some bewilderment in a circleof staring townspeople, a clear, commanding voice orderedthat they all be silent. Warwick Sahib was goingto make what was the nearest approach to a speechthat he had made since various of his friends haddecoyed him to a dinner in London some years before.
The words that he said, the short vernacular wordsthat have a way of coming straight to the point, establishedLittle Shikara as a legend through all that cornerof British India. It was Little Shikara who hadcome alone through the jungle, said he; it was LittleShikara’s shining eyes that had gazed alongthe barrel, and it was his own brown finger that hadpulled the trigger. Thus, said Warwick, he wouldget the bounty that the British Government offered—Britishrupees that to a child’s eyes would be pastcounting. Thus in time, with Warwick’sinfluence, his would be a great voice through all ofIndia. For small as he was, and not yet grown,he was of the true breed.
After the shouting was done, Warwick turned to LittleShikara to see how he thought upon all these things.“Thou shalt have training for the army, littleone, where thy good nerve will be of use, and thoushalt be a native officer, along with the sons of princes.I, myself, will see to it, for I do not hold my lifeso cheap that I will forget the thing that thou hastdone to-night.”
And he meant what he said. The villagers stoodstill when they saw his earnest face. “Andwhat, little hawk, wilt thou have more?” he asked.
Little Shikara trembled and raised his eyes.“Only sometimes to ride with thee, in thy howdah,as thy servant, when thou again seekest the tiger.”
The whole circle laughed at this. They were justhuman, after all. Their firebrands were heldhigh, and gleamed on Little Shikara’s duskyface, and made a lustre in his dark eyes. Thecircle, roaring with laughter, did not hear the sahib’sreply, but they did see him nod his head.
“I would not dare go without thee now,”Warwick told him.
And thus Little Shikara’s dreams came true—tobe known through many villages as a hunter of tigers,and a brave follower and comrade of the forest trails.And thus he came into his own—in those far-offglades of Burma, in the jungles of the Manipur.
THE MAN WHO CURSED THE LILIES
By CHARLES TENNEY JACKSON
From Short Stories
Tedge looked from the pilot-house at the sweatingdeckhand who stood on the stubby bow of the MarieLouise heaving vainly on the pole thrust intothe barrier of crushed water hyacinths across the channel.
Crump, the engineer, shot a sullen look at the masterere he turned back to the crude oil motor whose madpounding rattled the old bayou stern-wheeler fromkeel to hogchains.
“She’s full ahead now!” gruntedCrump. And then, with a covert glance at thesingle passenger sitting on the fore-deck cattle pens,the engineman repeated his warning, “Yeh’lllose the cows, Tedge, if you keep on fightin’the flowers. They’re bad f’r feedand water—they can’t stand anotherday o’ sun!”
Tedge knew it. But he continued to shake hishairy fist at the deckhand and roar his anathemasupon the flower-choked bayou. He knew his crewwas grinning evilly, for they remembered Bill Tedge’syear-long feud with the lilies. Crump had bluntlytold the skipper he was a fool for trying to pushup this little-frequented bayou from Cote BlancheBay to the higher land of the west Louisiana coast,where he had planned to unload his cattle.
Tedge had bought the cargo himself near Beaumont froma beggared ranchman whose stock had to go on the marketbecause, for seven months, there had been no rainin eastern Texas, and the short-grass range was gone.
Tedge knew where there was feed for the starving animals,and the Marie Louise was coming back light.By the Intercoastal Canal and the shallow string ofbays along the Texas-Louisiana line, the bayou boatcould crawl safely back to the grassy swamp lands thatfringe the sugar plantations of Bayou Teche.Tedge had bought his living cargo so ridiculouslycheap that if half of them stood the journey he wouldprofit. And they would cost him nothing for winterranging up in the swamp lands. In the springhe would round up what steers had lived and sell them,grass-fat, in New Orleans. He’d land themthere with his flap-paddle bayou boat, too, for theMarie Louise ranged up and down the Inter-coastalCanal and the uncharted swamp lakes and bays adjoining,trading and thieving and serving the skipper’sobscure ends.
Only now, when he turned up Cote Blanche Bay, somehundred miles west of the Mississippi passes, to makethe last twenty miles of swamp channel to his landing,he faced his old problem. Summer long the waterhyacinths were a pest to navigation on the coastalbayous, but this June they were worse than Tedge hadever seen. He knew the reason: the mightyMississippi was at high flood, and as always then,a third of its yellow waters were sweeping down theAtchafalaya River on a “short cut” tothe Mexican Gulf. And somewhere above, on itswest bank, the Atchafalaya levees had broken and theflood waters were all through the coastal swamp channels.
Tedge grimly knew what it meant. He’d haveto go farther inland to find his free range, but now,worst of all, the floating gardens of the coast swampswere coming out of the numberless channels on thecrevasse water.
He expected to fight them as he had done for twentyyears with his dirty bayou boat. He’d fightand curse and struggle through the les flotantes,and denounce the Federal Government, because it didnot destroy the lilies in the obscure bayous wherehe traded, as it did on Bayou Teche and Terrebonne,with its pump-boats which sprayed the hyacinths witha mixture of oil and soda until the tops shrivelledand the trailing roots then dragged the flowers tothe bottom.
“Yeh’ll not see open water till the rivercleans the swamps of lilies,” growled Crump.“I never seen the beat of ’em! Thehigh water’s liftin’ ’em from pondswhere they never been touched by a boat’s wheeland they’re out in the channels now. Ifyeh make the plantations yeh’ll have to keepeastard and then up the Atchafalaya and buck the mainflood water, Tedge!”
Tedge knew that, too. But he suddenly broke intocurses upon his engineer, his boat, the sea and skyand man. But mostly the lilies. He couldsee a mile up the bayou between cypress-grown banks,and not a foot of water showed. A solid fieldof green, waxy leaves and upright purple spikes, jammedtight and moving. That was what made the masterrage. They were moving—a flower glacierslipping imperceptibly to the gulf bays. Theywere moving slowly but inexorably, and his dirty cattleboat, frantically driving into the blockade, was movingbackward—stern first!
He hated them with the implacable fury of a man whosefists had lorded his world. A water hyacinth—whatwas it? He could stamp one to a smear on hisdeck, but a river of them no man could fight.He swore the lilies had ruined his whisky-runningyears ago to the Atchafalaya lumber camps; they blockedGrand River when he went to log-towing; they had costhim thousands of dollars for repairs and lost timein his swamp ventures.
Bareheaded under the semi-tropic sun, he gloweredat the lily-drift. Then he snarled at Crump toreverse the motor. Tedge would retreat again!
“I’ll drive the boat clean around SouthwestPass to get shut of ’em! No feed, huh,for these cows! They’ll feed sharks, theywill! Huh, Mr. Cowman, the blisterin’ liliescost me five hundred dollars already!”
The lone passenger smoked idly and watched the gauntcattle staggering, penned in the flat, dead heat ofthe foredeck. Tedge cursed him, too, under hisbreath. Milt Rogers had asked to make the coastrun from Beaumont on Tedge’s boat. Tedgeremembered what Rogers said—he was goingto see a girl who lived up Bayou Boeuf above Tedge’sdestination. Tedge remembered that girl—aCajan girl whom he once heard singing in the floatinggardens while Tedge was battling and cursing to passthe blockade.
He hated her for loving the lilies, and the man forloving her. He burst out again with his volcanicfury at the green and purple horde.
“They’re a fine sight to see,” musedthe other, “after a man’s eyes been burnedout ridin’ the dry range; no rain in nine monthsup there—nothin’ green or prettyin——”
“Pretty!” Tedge seemed to menace withhis little shifty eyes. “I wish all themlilies had one neck and I could twist it! Jestone head, and me stompin’ it! Yeh!—andall the damned flowers in the world with it!Yeh! And me watchin’ ’em die!”
The man from the dry lands smoked idly under the awning.His serenity evoked all the savagery of Tedge’sfeud with the lilies. Pretty! A man whodealt with cows seeing beauty in anything! Well,the girl did it—that swamp angel this Rogerswas going to visit. That Aurelie Frenet who sangin the flower-starred river—that was it!Tedge glowered on the Texan—he hated him,too, because this loveliness gave him peace, whilethe master of the Marie Louise must fume abouthis wheelhouse, a perspiring madman.
It took an hour for the Marie even to retreatand find steerage-way easterly off across a shallowlake, mirroring the marsh shores in the sunset.Across it the bayou boat wheezed and thumped drearily,drowning the bellowing of the dying steers. Oncethe deckhand stirred and pointed.
“Lilies, Cap’n—pourin’from all the swamps, and dead ahead there now!”
Scowling, Tedge held to the starboard. Yes, therethey were—a phalanx of flowers in the dusk.He broke into wild curses at them, his boat, the staggeringcattle.
“I’ll drive to the open gulf to get ridof ’em! Outside, to sea! Yeh!Stranger, yeh’ll see salt water, and lilies drownin’in it! I’ll show yeh ’em dead anddried on the sands like dead men’s dried bones!Yeh’ll see yer pretty flowers a-dyin’!”
The lone cowman ignored the sneer. “Youbetter get the animals to feed and water. Anothermornin’ of heat and crowdin’—”
“Let ’em rot! Yer pretty flowersdone it—pretty flowers—spit o’hell! I knowed ’em—I fought ’em—I’llfight ’em to the death of ’em!”
His little red-rimmed eyes hardly veiled his contemptfor Milt Rogers. A cowman, sailing this duskypurple bay to see a girl! A girl who sang inthe lily drift—a-sailing on this dirty,reeking bumboat, with cattle dying jammed in the pens!Suddenly Tedge realized a vast malevolent pleasure—hecouldn’t hope to gain from his perishing cargo;and he began to gloat at the agony spread below hiswheelhouse window, and the cattleman’s futilepity for them.
“They’ll rot on Point Au Fer! We’llheave the stink of them, dead and alive, to the sharksof Au Fer Pass! Drownin’ cows in dyin’lilies—”
And the small craft of his brain suddenly awakenedcoolly above his heat. Why, yes! Why hadn’the thought of it? He swung the stubby nose ofthe Marie more easterly in the hot, windlessdusk. After a while the black deckhand lookedquestioningly up at the master.
“We’re takin’ round,” Tedgegrunted, “outside Au Fer!”
The black stretched on the cattle-pen frame.Tedge was a master-hand among the reefs and shoals,even if the flappaddle Marie had no businessoutside. But the sea was nothing but a star-setvelvet ribbon on which she crawled like a dirty insect.And no man questioned Tedge’s will.
Only, an hour later, the engineman came up and forwardto stare into the faster-flowing water. Evennow he pointed to a hyacinth clump.
“Yeh!” the master growled. “I’llshow yeh, Rogers! Worlds o’ flowers!Out o’ the swamps and the tide’ll send’em back again on the reefs. I’llshow yeh ’em—dead, dried white likemen’s bones.” Then he began to whisperhuskily to his engineer: “It’s timefer it. Five hundred fer yeh, Crump—ahundred fer the nigger, or I knock his head in.She brushes the bar, and yer oil tank goes—yehunderstand?” He watched a red star in the south.
Crump looked about. No sail or light or coastguard about Au Fer—at low tide not evena skiff could find the passages. He nodded cunningly:
“She’s old and fire-fitten. Tedge,I knowed yer mind—I was always waitin’fer the word. It’s a place fer it—andyeh say yeh carry seven hundred on them cows?Boat an’ cargo—three thousand sevenhundred—”
“They’ll be that singed and washed inthe sands off Au Fer that nobody’ll know whatthey died of!” retorted Tedge thickly. “Yeh,go down, Crump, and lay yer waste and oil right.I trust yeh, Crump—the nigger’llget his, too. She’ll ride high and burnflat, hoggin’ in the sand——”
“She’s soaked with oil plumb for’ardto the pens now,” grunted Crump. “She’sfitten to go like a match all along when she bumps—”
He vanished, and the master cunningly watched theember star southeasterly.
He was holding above it now, to port and landward.The white, hard sands must be shoaling fast underthe cattle-freighted Marie. It littlemattered about the course now; she would grind hernose in the quiet reef shortly.
Tedge merely stared, expectantly awaiting the blow.And when it came he was malevolently disappointed.A mere slithering along over the sand, a creak, aslight jar, and she lay dead in the flat, calm sea—itwas ridiculous that that smooth beaching would breakan oil tank, that the engine spark would flare themachine waste, leap to the greasy beams and floors.
The wheezy exhaust coughed on; the belt flapped asthe paddle wheel kept on its dead shove of the Marie’skeel into the sand. Hogjaw had shouted and runforward. He was staring into the phosphorescentwater circling about the bow when Crump raised hiscry:
“Fire—amidships!”
Tedge ran down the after-stairs. Sulphurouslyhe began cursing at the trickle of smoke under themotor frame. It was nothing—a childcould have put it out with a bucket of sand.But upon it fell Tedge and the engineer, stamping,shouting, shoving oil-soaked waste upon it, and covertlyblocking off the astounded black deckman when he rushedto aid.
“Water, Hogjaw!” roared the master.“She’s gainin’ on us—she’sunder the bilge floor now!” He hurled a bucketviciously at his helper. And as they pretendedto fight the fire, Crump suddenly began laughing andstood up. The deckman was grinning also.The master watched him narrowly.
“Kick the stuff into the waste under the stairs,”he grunted. “Hogjaw, this here boat’sgoin’—yeh understand? We takethe skiff and pull to the shrimp camps, and she hogsdown and burns—”
The black man was laughing. Then he stopped curiously.“The cows—”
“Damn the cows! I’ll git my moneyback on ’em! Yeh go lower away on the skiffdavits. Yeh don’t ask me nothin’—yehdon’t know nothin’!”
“Sho’, boss! I don’t know nothin’,or see nothin’!”
He swung out of the smoke already drifting greasilyup from the foul waist of the Marie Louise.A little glare of red was beginning to reflect fromthe mirrored sea. The ripples of the beachinghad vanished; obscurely, undramatically as she hadlived, the Marie Louise sat on the bar to chokein her own fetid fumes.
Tedge clambered to the upper deck and hurried to hisbunk in the wheelhouse. There were papers therehe must save—the master’s license,the insurance policy, and a few other things.The smell of burning wood and grease was thickening;and suddenly now, through it, he saw the quiet, questioningface of the stranger.
He had forgotten him completely. Tedge’ssmall brain had room but for one idea at a time:first his rage at the lilies, and then the wreckingof the Marie. And this man knew. Hehad been staring down the after-companionway.He had seen and heard. He had seen the masterand crew laughing while the fire mounted.
Tedge came to him. “We’re quittin’ship,” he growled.
“Yes, but the cattle—” Theother looked stupefiedly at him.
“We got to pull inside afore the sea comes up—”
“Well, break the pens, can’t you?Give ’em a chance to swim for a bar. I’ma cowman myself—I cain’t let dumbbrutes burn and not lift a hand—”
The fire in the waist was beginning to roar.A plume of smoke streamed straight up in the starlight.The glare showed the younger man’s startledeyes. He shifted them to look over the foredeckrail down to the cattle. Sparks were fallingamong them, the fire veered slightly forward; andthe survivors were crowding uneasily over the fallenones, catching that curious sense of danger which forewarnscreatures of the wild before the Northers, a burningforest, or creeping flood, to move on.
“You cain’t leave ’em so,”muttered the stranger. “No; I seen you—”
He did not finish. Tedge had been setting himselffor what he knew he should do. The smaller manhad his jaw turned as he stared at the suffering brutes.And Tedge’s mighty fist struck him full on thetemple. The master leaned over the low rail towatch quietly.
The man who wished to save the cattle was there amongthem. A little flurry of sparks drove over thespot he fell upon, and then a maddened surge of gauntsteers. Tedge wondered if he should go finishthe job. No; there was little use. He hadcrashed his fist into the face of a shrimp-seine hauleronce, and the fellow’s neck had shifted on hisspine—and once he had maced a woman up-riverin a shantyboat drinking bout—Tedge hadgot away both times. Now and then, boasting aboutthe shrimp camps, he hinted mysteriously at his twokillings, and showed his freckled, hairy right hand.
“If they find anything of him—hegot hurt in the wreck,” the master grinned.He couldn’t see the body, for a black longhornhad fallen upon his victim, it appeared. Anyhow,the cattle were milling desperately around in thepen; the stranger who said his name was Milt Rogerswould be a lacerated lump of flesh in that mad stampedelong ere the fire reached him. Tedge got histin document box and went aft.
Crump and Hogjaw were already in the flat-bottomedbayou skiff, holding it off the Marie Louise’sport runway, and the master stepped into it.The heat was singeing their faces by now.
“Pull off,” grunted the skipper, “aroundeast’ard. This bar sticks clean out o’water off there, and you lay around it, Hogjaw.They won’t be no sea ’til the breeze liftsat sunup.”
The big black heaved on the short oars. The skiffwas a hundred yards out on the glassy sea when Crumpspoke cunningly, “I knowed something——”
“Yeh?” Tedge turned from his bow seatto look past the oarsman’s head at the engineman.“Yeh knowed——”
“This Rogers, he was tryin’ to get offthe burnin’ wreck and he fell, somehow or——”
“The oil tank blew, and a piece o’ pipetook him,” grunted Tedge. “I triedto drag him out o’ the fire—Gawd knowsI did, didn’t I, Crump?”
Crump nodded scaredly. The black oarsman’seyes narrowed and he crouched dumbly as he rowed.Tedge was behind him—Tedge of the MarieLouise who could kill with his fists. No,Hogjaw knew nothing—he never would knowanything.
“I jest took him on out o’ kindness,”mumbled Tedge. “I got no license fer passengerbusiness. Jest a bum I took on to go and see hisswamp girl up Des Amoureaux. Well, it ain’tno use sayin’ anything, is it now?”
A mile away the wreck of the Marie Louise appearedas a yellow-red rent in the curtain of night.Red, too, was the flat, calm sea, save northerly wherea sand ridge gleamed. Tedge turned to search forits outlying point. There was a pass here beyondwhich the reefs began once more and stretched on,a barrier to the shoal inside waters. When theskiff had drawn about the sand spit, the reflectingwaters around the Marie had vanished, and thefire appeared as a fallen meteor burning on the flat,black belt of encircling reef.
Tedge’s murderous little eyes watched easterly.They must find the other side of the tidal pass andgo up it to strike off for the distant shrimp campswith their story of the end of the Marie Louise—boatand cargo a total loss on Au Fer sands.
Upon the utter sea silence there came a sound—afaint bawling of dying cattle, of trampled, chokedcattle in the fume and flames. It was very faroff now; and to-morrow’s tide and wind wouldfind nothing but a blackened timber, a swollen, floatingcarcass or two—nothing more.
But the black man could see the funeral pyre; thedistant glare of it was showing the whites of hiseyes faintly to the master, when suddenly he stoppedrowing. A drag, the soft sibilance of a movingthing, was on his oar blade. He jerked it free,staring.
“Lilies, boss—makin’ out dispass, too, lilies—”
“I see ’em—drop below ’em!”Tedge felt the glow of an unappeasable anger mountto his temples. “Damn ’em—Isee ’em!”
There they were, upright, tranquil, immense hyacinths—theirspear-points three feet above the water, their featherystreamers drifting six feet below; the broad, waxyleaves floating above their bulbous surface mats—theycame on silently under the stars; they vanished underthe stars seaward to their death.
“Yeh!” roared Tedge. “Sun andsea to-morry—they’ll be back on AuFer like dried bones o’ dead men in the sand!Bear east’ard off of ’em!”
The oarsman struggled in the deeper pass water.The skiff bow suddenly plunged into a wall of green-and-purplebloom. The points brushed Tedge’s cheek.He cursed and smote them, tore them from the low bowand flung them. But the engineman stood up andpeered into the starlight.
“Yeh’ll not make it. Better keepup the port shore. I cain’t see nothin’but lilies east’ard—worlds o’flowerscomin’ with the crevasse water behind’em.” He dipped a finger to the water,tasted of it, and grumbled on: “It ain’thardly salt, the big rivers are pourin’ sucha flood out o’ the swamps. Worlds o’flowers comin’ out the passes—”
“Damn the flowers!” Tedge arose, shakinghis fist at them. “Back out o’ ’em!Pull up the Au Fer side, and we’ll break through’em in the bay!”
Against the ebb tide close along Au Fer reef, theoarsman toiled until Crump, the lookout, grumbledagain.
“The shoal’s blocked wi’ ’em!They’re stranded on the ebb. Tedge, yeh’llhave to wait for more water to pass this bar inside’em. Yeh try to cross the pass, and thelilies ’ll have us all to sea in this crazyskiff when the wind lifts wi’ the sun.”
“I’m clean wore out,” the blackman muttered. “Yeh can wait fer day andtide on the sand, boss.”
“Well, drive her in, then!” raged theskipper. “The in-tide’ll set beforedaylight. We’ll take it up the bay.”
He rolled over the bow, knee-deep in the warm inletwater, and dragged the skiff through the shoals.Crump jammed an oar in the sand; and warping the headlineto this, the three trudged on to the white dry ridge.Tedge flung himself by the first stubby grass clump.
“Clean beat,” he muttered. “Byday we’ll pass ’em. Damn ’em—andI’ll see ’em dyin’ in the sun—lilieslike dried, dead weeds on the sand—that’swhat they’ll be in a couple o’ days—hesaid they was pretty, that fello’ back there—”Lying with his head on his arm, he lifted a thumbto point over his shoulder. He couldn’tsee the distant blotch of fire against the low stars—hedidn’t want to. He couldn’t markthe silent drift of the sea gardens in the pass, buthe gloated in the thought that they were riding totheir death. The pitiless sun, the salt tidesdrunk up to their spongy bulbs, and their glory passed—theywould be matted refuse on the shores and a man couldtrample them. Yes, the sea was with Tedge, andthe rivers, too; the flood waters were lifting thelilies from their immemorable strongholds and forcingthem out to their last pageant of death.
The three castaways slept in the warm sand. Itwas an hour later that some other living thing stirredat the far end of Au Fer reef. A scorched andweakened steer came on through salt pools to staggerand fall. Presently another, and then a slowline of them. They crossed the higher ridge tohuddle about a sink that might have made them rememberthe dry drinking holes of their arid home plains.Tired, gaunt cattle mooing lonesomely, when the mancame about them to dig with his bloody fingers inthe sand.
He tried another place, and another—hedidn’t know—he was a man of the short-grasscountry, not a coaster; perhaps a sandy sink mightmean fresh water. But after each effort the dampfeeling on his hands was from his gashed and batteredhead and not life-giving water. He wiped theblood from his eyes and stood up in the starlight.
“Twenty-one of ’em—alive—andme,” he muttered. “I got ’emoff—they trampled me and beat me down,but I got their pens open. Twenty-one livin’—andme on the sands!”
He wondered stupidly how he had done it. Thestern of the Marie Louise had burned off andsogged down in deep water, but her bow hung to thereef, and in smoke and flame he had fought the cattleover it. They clustered now in the false water-hole,silent, listless, as if they knew the uselessnessof the urge of life on Au Fer reef.
And after a while the man went on eastward. Whereand how far the sand ridge stretched he did not know.Vaguely he knew of the tides and sun to-morrow.From the highest point he looked back. The wreckwas a dull red glow, the stars above it cleared nowof smoke. The sea, too, seemed to have gone backto its infinite peace, as if it had washed itselfdaintily after this greasy morsel it must hide in itsdepths.
A half hour the man walked wearily, and then beforehim stretched water again. He turned up pastthe tide flowing down the pass—perhapsthat was all of Au Fer. A narrow spit of whitesand at high tide, and even over that, the sea breezefreshening, the surf would curl?
“Ships never come in close, they said,”he mused tiredly, “and miles o’ shoalsto the land—and then just swamp for miles.Dumb brutes o’ cows, and me on this—andno water nor feed, nor shade from the sun.”
He stumbled on through the shallows, noticing apatheticallythat the water was running here. Nearly to hiswaist he waded, peering into the starlight. Hewas a cowman and he couldn’t swim; he had neverseen anything but the dry ranges until he said hewould go find the girl he had met once on the upperBrazos—a girl who told him of sea and sunkenforests, of islands of flowers drifting in lonely swamplakes—he had wanted to see that land, butmostly the Cajan girl of Bayou Des Amoureaux.
He wouldn’t see her now; he would die amongdying cattle, but maybe it was fit for a cattlemanto go that way—a Texas man and Texas cows.
Then he saw a moving thing. It rode out of thedark and brushed him. It touched him with softfingers and he drew them to him. A water hyacinth,and its purple spike topped his head as he stood waist-deep.So cool its leaves, and the dripping bulbs that hepressed them to his bloody cheek. He sank histeeth into them for that coolness on his parched tongue.The spongy bulb was sweet; it exhaled odorous moisture.He seized it ravenously. It carried sweet water,redolent of green forest swamps!
He dragged at another floating lily, sought underthe leaves for the buoyant bulb. A drop or twoof the fresh water a man could press from each!
Like a starving animal he moved in the shoals, seeingmore drifting garden clumps. And then a darkobject that did not drift. He felt for it slowly,and then straightened up, staring about.
A flat-bottomed bayou skiff, and in it the oars, ariverman’s blanket-roll of greasy clothes, anda tin box! He knew the box. On one end,in faded gilt, was the name “B. Tedge.”Rogers had seen it on the grimy shelf in the pilothouseon the Marie Louise. He felt for the rope;the skiff was barely scraping bottom. Yes, theyhad moored it here—they must be campedon the sands of Au Fer, awaiting the dawn.
A boat? He didn’t know what a Texas cowmancould do with a boat on an alien and unknown shore,but he slipped into it, raised an oar, and shovedback from the sandy spit. At least he could driftoff Au Fer’s waterless desolation. Tedgewould kill him to-morrow when he found him there;because he knew Tedge had fired the Marie forthe insurance.
So he poled slowly off. The skiff drifted now.Rogers tried to turn to the oar athwart, and awkwardlyhe stumbled. The oar seemed like a roll of thunderwhen it struck the gunwale.
And instantly a hoarse shout arose behind him.Tedge’s voice—Tedge had not sleptwell. The gaunt cattle burning or choking in thesalt tide, or perhaps the lilies of Bayou Boeuf—anyhow,he was up with a cry and dashing for the skiff.In a moment Rogers saw him.
The Texas man began driving desperately on the oars.He heard the heavy rush of the skipper’s feetin the deepening water. Tedge’s voice becamea bull-like roar as the depth began to check him.To his waist, and the slow skiff was but ten yardsaway; to his great shoulders, and the clumsy oarsmanwas but five.
And with a yell of triumph Tedge lunged out swimming.Whoever the fugitive, he was hopeless with the oars.The skiff swung this way and that, and a strong manat its stern could hurl it and its occupant bottom-sideup in Au Fer Pass. Tedge, swimming in Au Fer Pass,his fingers to the throat of this unknown marauder!There’d be another one go—and nothingbut his hands—Bill Tedge’s hands thatthe shrimp camps feared.
Just hold him under—that was all.Tread water, and hold the throat beneath until itsthrobbing ceased. Tedge could; he feared no man.Another overhand stroke, and he just missed the wobblingstern of the light skiff.
He saw the man start up and raise an oar as if tostrike. Tedge laughed triumphantly. Anotherplunge and his fingers touched the gunwale. Andthen he dived; he would bring his back up against theflat bottom and twist his enemy’s footing fromunder him. Then in the deep water Tedge lungedup for the flat keel, and slowly across his brow aninvisible hand seemed to caress him.
He opened his eyes to see a necklace of opalescentjewels gathering about his neck; he tore at it andthe phosphorescent water gleamed all about him withfeathery pendants. And when his head thrust abovewater, the moment’s respite had allowed the skiffto straggle beyond his reach.
Tedge shouted savagely and lunged again—andabout his legs came the soft clasp of the driftinghyacinth roots. Higher, firmer; and he turnedto kick free of them. He saw the man in the boatpoling uncertainly in the tide not six feet beyondhim. And now, in open water, Tedge plunged onin fierce exultance. One stroke—andthe stars beyond the boatman became obscured; theswimmer struck the soft, yielding barrier of the floatingislands. This time he did not lose time in drawingfrom them; he raised his mighty arms and strove tobeat them down, flailing the broad leaves until thespiked blossoms fell about him. A circlet ofthem caressed his cheek. He lowered his headand swam bull-like into the drift; and when he knewthe pressure ahead was tightening slowly to rubberybands, forcing him gently from his victim, Tedge raisedhis voice in wild curses.
He fought and threshed the lilies, and they gave himcool, velvety kisses in return. He dived andcame up through them; and then, staring upward, hesaw the tall, purple spikes against the stars.And they were drifting—they were sailingseaward to their death. He couldn’t seethe boat now for the shadowy hosts; and for the firsttime fear glutted his heart. It came as a paroxysmof new sensation—Tedge of the MarieLouise who had never feared.
But this was different, this soft and moving web ofsilence. No, not quite silence, for past hisear the splendid hyacinths drifted with a musicalcreaking, leaf on leaf, the buoyant bulbs brushingeach other. The islets joined and parted; oncehe saw open water and plunged for it—andover his shoulders there surged a soft coverlet.He turned and beat it; he churned his bed into a furiouswelter, and the silken curtain lowered.
He shrank from it now, staring. The featheryroots matted across his chest, the mass of them feltslimy like the hide of a drowned brute.
“Drownin’ cows”—he mutteredthickly—“comin’ on a man driftin’and drownin’—no, no! Lilies,jest lilies—damn ’em!”
The tall spiked flowers seemed nodding—yes,just lilies, drifting and singing elfin music to thesea tide. Tedge roared once again his hatredof them; he raised and battered his huge fists intotheir beauty, and they seemed to smile in the starlight.Then, with a howl, he dived.
He would beat them—deep water was herein the pass, and he would swim mightily far beneaththe trailing roots—he would find the manwith the boat yet and hurl him to die in the hyacinthbloom.
He opened his eyes in the deep, clear water and exulted.He, Tedge, had outwitted the bannered argosies.With bursting lungs he charged off across the current,thinking swiftly, coolly, now of the escape.And as he neared the surface he twisted to glance upward.It was light there—a light brighter thanthe stars, but softer, evanescent. Mullet andsquib were darting about or clinging to a featheryforest that hung straight down upon him. Farand near there came little darts of pale fire, gleamingand expiring with each stir in the phosphorescentwater.
And he had to rise; a man could not hold the torturingair in his lungs for ever. Yes, he would teara path to the stars again and breathe. His armsflailed into the first tenuous streamers, which partedin pearly lace before his eyes. He breasted higher,and they were all about him now; his struggles evokedglowing bubble-jewels which drifted upward to expire.He grasped the soft roots and twisted and sought toraise himself. He had a hand to the surface bulbs,but a silken mesh seemed tightening about him.
And it was drifting—everything was driftingin the deep pass of Au Fer. He tried to howlin the hyacinth web, and choked—and thenhe merely fought in his close-pressing cocoon, thrustingone hard fist to grasp the broad leaves. He clungto them dumbly, his face so close to the surface thatthe tall spiked flowers smiled down—butthey drifted inexorably with a faint, creaking music,leaf on leaf.
Tedge opened his eyes to a flicker of myriad lights.The sound was a roaring now—like the surfon the reefs in the hurricane month; or the thunderof maddened steers above him across this flowery seameadow. Perhaps the man he had killed rode withthis stampede? Tedge shrank under the lilies—perhapsthey could protect him now? Even the last strokeof his hands made luminous beauty of the under-runningtide.
An outward-bound shrimp lugger saw the figures onAu Fer reef and came to anchor beyond the shoals.The Cajan crew rowed up to where Milt Rogers and Crumpand the black deckhand were watching by a pool.The shrimpers listened to the cowman, who had tiedthe sleeve of his shirt about his bloody head.
“You can get a barge down from Morgan City andtake the cows off before the sea comes high,”said Rogers quietly. “They’re eatingthe lilies—and they find sweet water in’em. Worlds o’ lilies driftin’to sea with sweet water in the bulbs!” And headded, watching Crump and the black man who seemedin terror of him: “I want to get off, too.I want to see the swamp country where worlds o’flowers come from!”
He said no more. He did not even look in thepool where Crump pointed. He was thinking ofthat girl of the swamps who had bid him come to her.But all along the white surf line he could see thegreen-and-purple plumes of the hyacinth warriors tossingin the breeze—legion upon legion, comingto die gloriously on Au Fer’s sands.
But first they sent a herald; for in Tedge’shand, as he lay in the pool, one waxen-leafed bannerwith a purple spear-point glittered in the sun.
THE URGE
By MARYLAND ALLEN
From Everybody’s
She is now a woman ageless because she is famous.She is surrounded by a swarm of lovers and possessesa great many beautiful things. She has more thanone Ming jar in the library at her country place; yardsupon yards of point de Venise in her top bureau-drawer.She is able to employ a very pleasant, wholesome woman,whose sole duty it is to keep her clothes in order.
She wears superb clothes—the last wordin richness and the elegance of perfection—clothesthat no man can declaim over, stimulating himselfthe while with shot after shot of that most insidiousof all dope, self-pity. You see, she earns themall herself, along with the Ming jars, the point deVenise, the country place, and countless other things.She is the funniest woman in the world—notin her press-agent’s imagination, but in cold,sober fact. She can make anybody laugh; she doesmake everybody.
Night after night in the huge public theatres of thecommon people; in the small private ones of the commonerrich; in Greek amphitheatres where the laughter rollsaway in thunderous waves to be echoed back by distantblue hills; in institutions for the blind; in convalescentwards; everywhere, every time, she makes them laugh.The day labourer, sodden and desperate from too muchclass legislation, the ego in his cosmos and the strugglefor existence; the statesman, fearful of losing votes,rendered blue and depressed by the unruliness of nationsand all the vast multitude of horrors that lie in between—allof these, all of them, she makes laugh. She isqueen of the profession she has chosen—unusualfor one of her sex. She is the funniest womanin the world.
When she is at home—which is seldom—shehas many visitors and strives, if possible, to seenone of them.
“You know, I entertain so much,” she pleadsin that vivid, whimsical way of hers that holds asmuch of sadness as mirth.
But this time, it being so early in the afternoon,she was caught unawares.
The girls—they were nothing but girls,three of them—found her out upon the lawn,sitting on a seat where the velvety green turf fellaway in a steep hillside, and far beneath them theycould see the river moving whitely beyond the trees.They halted there before her, happy but trembling,giggling but grave. They were gasping and incoherent,full of apologies and absurd tremors. It had takentheir combined week’s savings to bribe the gardener.And they only wanted to know one thing: How hadshe achieved all this fame and splendour, by whatmagic process had she become that rarest of all livingcreatures, the funniest woman in the world?
It was an easy enough question to ask and, to them,hovering twittering upon high heels a trifle wornto one side, a simple one for her to answer.She looked at them in that humorous, kindly way ofhers, looked at their silly, excited, made-up faceswith noses sticking out stark, like handles, froma too-heavy application of purplish-white powder.Then her glance travelled down the velvety green slopeto the bright river glancing and leaping beyond theshady trees.
Did she think of that other girl? Sitting therewith that strange smile upon her face, the smile thatis neither mirth nor sadness, but a poignant, hauntingcompound of both, did she remember her and the Urgethat had always been upon her, racking her like actualpain, driving her with a whip of scorpions, flayingher on and on with a far more vivid sense of sufferingthan the actual beatings laid on by her mother’sheavy hand, the thing that found articulation in thewords, “I must be famous, I must!”
She belonged in the rear of a batch of a dozen, andhad never been properly named. The wind was blowingfrom the stockyards on the dark hour when she arrived.It penetrated even to the small airless chamber whereshe struggled for her first breath—one ofa “flat” in the poorest tenement in theworst slum in Chicago. Huddled in smelly ragsby a hastily summoned neighbour from the floor above,the newcomer raised her untried voice in a frail,reedy cry. Perhaps she did not like the smellthat oozed in around the tightly closed window tocombat the foul odours of the airless room. Whateverit was, this protest availed her nothing, for theneighbour hurriedly departed, having been unwillingfrom the first, and the mother turned away and layclose against the stained, discoloured wall, too apathetic,too utterly resigned to the fate life had meted outto her to accord this most unwelcome baby furtherattention. This first moment of her life mighteasily serve as the history of her babyhood.
Her father was also indifferent. He brought homehis money and gave it to his wife—childrenwere strictly none of his business. Her brothersand sisters, each one busily and fiercely fending forhimself, gave no attention to her small affairs.
Tossed by the careless hand of Fate into the darksea of life to swim or perish, she awoke to consciousnesswith but one thought—food; one ruling passion—toget enough. And since, in her habitual half-starvedstate, all food looked superlatively good to her, cakewas the first word she learned to speak. It formedher whole vocabulary for a surprisingly long time,and Cake was the only name she was ever known by inher family circle and on the street that to her ranon and on and on as narrow and dirty, as crowded andas cruel as where it passed the great dilapidatedold rookery that held the four dark rooms that shecalled home.
Up to the age of ten her life was sketchy. Apassionate scramble for food, beatings, tears, slumber,a swift transition from one childish ailment to anotherthat kept her forever out of reach of the truant officer.
She lay upon the floor in a little dark room, andthrough the window in the airless air-shaft, highup in one corner, she could see a three-cornered spotof light. At first she wondered what it was, sinceshe lived in a tenement, not under the sky. Thenit resolved itself into a ball, white and luminous,that floated remote in that high place and seemedto draw her, and was somehow akin to the queer, gnawingpain that developed about that time beneath her breastbone.It was all inarticulate, queer and confused.She did not think, she did not know how. Sheonly felt that queer gnawing beneath her breastbone,distinct from all her other pains, and which she ascribedto hunger, and saw the lovely, trembling globe oflight. At first she felt it only when she wasill and lay on the tumbled floor bed and looked upthrough the dark window; afterward always in her dreams.
After she passed her tenth birthday the confusionwithin her seemed to settle as the queer pain increased,and she began to think, to wonder what it could be.
A year or two later her father died, and as she wasthe only child over whom her mother could exerciseany control, the report of her death was successfullyimpressed upon the truant officer, so that she mightbe put to work unhindered to help the family in itsdesperate scramble for food, a scramble in which shetook part with vivid earnestness. She was hiredto Maverick’s to wash dishes.
Maverick was a Greek and kept an open-all-night chop-house,a mean hole in the wall two doors from the corner,where Cake’s surpassing thinness made her invaluableat the sink. Also the scraps she carried homein her red, water-puckered hands helped out materially.Then her mother took a boarder and rested in her endeavours,feeling she had performed all things well.
This boarder was a man with a past. And he hadleft it pretty far behind, else he had never renteda room and meals from the mother of Cake. Inthis boarder drink and debauchery had completely beatenout of shape what had once been a very noble figureof a man. His body was shrunken and trembling;the old, ragged clothes he wore flapped about himlike the vestments of a scarecrow. His cheekshad the bruised congested look of the habitual drinker,his nose seemed a toadstool on his face, and his redeyes were almost vanished behind puffy, purple, pillow-likelids. His voice was husky and whispering, exceptwhen he raised it. Then it was surprisingly resonantand mellow, with something haunting in it like theecho of an echo of a very moving sweetness.
One night Cake, returning all weary and played-outfrom dish-washing at Maverick’s, heard him speakingin this loud voice of his, pushed the door open acrack, and peeked in. He was standing in the middleof the floor evidently speaking what the child calledto herself “a piece.” Her big mouthcrooked derisively in the beginning of what is nowher famous smile. The lodger went on speaking,being fairly well stimulated at the time, and presentlyCake pushed the door wider and crept in to the dry-goodsbox, where her mother always kept a candle, and satdown.
The lodger talked on and on while Cake sat rapt, theflickering candle in her hands throwing strange lightsand shadows upon her gaunt face. How was sheto know she was the last audience of one of the greatestShakespearian actors the world had ever seen?
It was a grave and wondering Cake that crept to herplace to sleep that night between her two older sisters.And while they ramped against her and chewed and snortedin her ears, she listened all over again to that wonderfulvoice and was awed by the colour and beauty of thewords that it had spoken. She slept, and saw beforeher the globe of light, trembling and luminous, theone bright thing of beauty her life had ever known,that seemed to draw her up from darkness slowly andwith great suffering. Trembling and weeping sheawoke in the dawn, and the strange pain that had torturedher so much and that she had called hunger and soughtto assuage with scraps from the plates that came tothe sink at Maverick’s became articulate at last.With her hands clasped hard against her breast shefound relief in words.
“I gotta be somebody,” sobbed the child.“I mus’ be famous, I mus’!”
She arose to find life no longer a confused strugglefor food, but a battle and a march; a battle to getthrough one day to march on to the next, and so onand on until, in that long line of days that stretchedout ahead of her like chambers waiting to be visited,she reached the one where rested Fame, that trembling,luminous globe of beauty it was so vitally necessaryfor her to achieve. “How come he c’ntalk like that?” she demanded of herself, musingon the lodger’s wonderful exhibition over thegreasy dish-water at Maverick’s.
And that night she asked him, prefacing her questionwith the offering of an almost perfect lamb-chop.Only one piece had been cut from it since the purchaser,at that moment apprised by Maverick himself that thearrival of the police was imminent, had taken a hastydeparture.
“Who learned you to talk that-a-way?”demanded Cake, licking a faint, far-away flavour ofthe chop from her long, thin fingers.
The lodger, for a moment, had changed places withthe candle. That is to say, he sat upon the dry-goodsbox, the candle burned upon the floor. And, havingbeen most unfortunate that day, the lodger was tragicallysober. He bit into the chop voraciously, likea dog, with his broken, discoloured teeth.
“A book ‘learned’ me,” hesaid, “and practice and experience—andsomething else.” He broke off short.“They called it genius then,” he saidbitterly.
Cake took a short step forward. That thing beneathher prominent breastbone pained her violently, forcedher on to speak.
“You learn me,” she said.
The lodger ceased to chew and stared, the chop boneuplifted in his dirty hand. A pupil for him!
“You want to do this perhaps,” he began.“Pray do not mock me; I am a very foolish, fondold man——”
The disreputable, swollen-faced lodger with a noselike a poisoned toadstool vanished. Cake sawan old white-haired man, crazy and pitiful, yet bearinghimself grandly. She gasped, the tears flew toher eyes, blinding her. The lodger laughed disagreeably,he was gnawing on the chop bone again.
“I suppose you think because you’ve foundme here it is likely I’ll teach you—you!You starved alley cat!” he snarled.
Cake did not even blink. It is repetition thatdulls, and she was utterly familiar with abuse.
“And suppose I did—’learn’you,” he sneered, “what would youdo with it?”
“I would be famous,” cried Cake.
Then the lodger did laugh, looking at her with hishead hanging down, his swollen face all creased andpurple, his hair sticking up rough and unkempt.He laughed, sitting there a degraded, debauched ruin,looking down from the height of his memories upon thegaunt, unlovely child of the slums who was renderedeven more unlovely by the very courage that kept herwaiting beside the broken door.
“So you think I could learn you to be famous,hey?” Even the words of this gutter filth hesought to construe into something nattering to himself.
Cake nodded. Really she had not thought of itthat way at all. There was no thinking connectedwith her decision. The dumb hours she had spentstaring up the air-shaft had resolved themselves withthe passing years into a strange, numb will to do.There was the light and she must reach it. Indeedthe Thing there behind the narrow walls of her chestgave her no alternative. She did not think shewanted to be an actress. It was a long time afterthat before she knew even what an actress was.She did not know what the lodger had been. No.Instinctively, groping and inarticulate, she recognizedin him the rags and shreds of greatness, knew himto be a one-time dweller in that temple whither, willingor not, she was bound, to reach it or to die.
The lodger looked down at the naked chop bone in hishand. The juicy, broiled meat was comfortingto his outraged stomach. Meat. The wordstood out in his mind to be instantly followed by thatother word that, for him, had spelled ruin, made hima ragged panhandler, reduced him to living among thepoorest and most hopeless. Drink! He raisedhis head and eyed Cake with crafty calculation.
“What will you pay me for such teaching?”he demanded, and looked down again at the bone.
What he did in the end, Cake herself was satisfiedcame to him afterward. At first he was actuatedonly by the desire to procure food and drink—moreespecially the drink—at the cost of theleast possible effort to himself.
Cake saw the look, and she knew. She even smileda little in the greatness of her relief. Shesaw she had been right to bring the chop, and appreciatedthat her progress along road to fame would be as slowor fast as she could procure food for him in lesseror larger quantities.
“I’ll bring you eats,” she saidcunningly. “From Maverick’s,”she added. By which she meant the eats wouldbe “has-is”—distinctly secondclass, quite possibly third.
The lodger nodded. “And booze,” heput in, watching her face.
“And booze,” Cake assented.
So the bargain was struck in a way that worked themost cruel hardship on the girl. Food she couldsteal and did, blithely enough, since she had no monitorbut the lure of brightness and that Thing within herbreast that hotly justified the theft and only urgedher on. But booze was a very different proposition.It was impossible to steal booze—even alittle. To secure booze she was forced to offermoney. Now what money Cake earned at Maverick’sher mother snatched from her hand before she was wellwithin the door. If she held out even a dime,she got a beating. And Cake’s mother, inthe later years of her life, besides being a cleverevader of the police and the truant officer, developedinto a beater of parts. Broken food the childoffered in abundance and piteous hope. But thelodger was brutally indifferent.
“Food,” he scoffed. “Why, itsays in the Bible—you never heard of theBible, hey?” Cake shook her tangled head.
“No? Well, it’s quite a Book,”commented the lodger. He had been fortunate thatday and was, for him, fairly intoxicated. “Andit says right in there—and some considerthat Book an authority—man cannot liveby food alone. Drink—I drink when Ihave occasion, and sometimes when I have no occasion—Don’tyou know what drink is, alley-cat? Very well,then, wine is wont to show the mind of man, and youwon’t see mine until you bring me booze.Get out!”
And Cake got out. Also, being well versed ina very horrid wisdom, she took the food with her.This was hardly what the lodger had expected, andI think what respect he was capable of sprouted forher then.
Behind a screen of barrels in the corner of the alleyCake ate the broken meats herself, taking what comfortshe could, and pondering the while the awful problemof securing the booze, since she must be taught, andsince the lodger moved in her sphere as the only availableteacher.
There was a rush up the alley past her hiding-place,a shout, and the savage thud of blows. Very cautiously,as became one wise in the ways of life in that place,Cake peered around a barrel. She saw Red Dan,who sold papers in front of Jeer Dooley’s place,thoroughly punishing another and much larger boy.The bigger boy was crying.
“Anybody c’n sell pipers,” shoutedRed Dan, pounding the information home bloodily.“You hear me?—anybody!”
Cake crept out of her hiding-place on the oppositeside.
She did not care what happened to the bigger boy,though she respected Red Dan the more. She knewwhere the money was going to come from to buy thelodger’s booze. It meant longer hours forher; it meant care to work only out of school hours;it meant harder knocks than even she had experienced;it meant a fatigue there were no words to describeeven among the beautiful, wonderful, colourful onesthe lodger taught her. But she sold the papersand she purchased the booze.
Her mother did not know where she spent this extratime. She did not care since the money came infrom Maverick’s steadily each week. Neitherdid the lodger care how the booze was procured; thebig thing to him was that it came.
At first these lessons were fun for him; the big,gawky, half-starved, overworked child seeing so vividlyin pictures all that he told her in words. Full-fedon the scraps from Maverick’s—he wasno longer fastidious—well stimulated bythe drink she brought, he took an ugly sort of degradedpleasure in posturing before her, acting as he alonecould act those most wonderful of all plays, watchingwith hateful, sardonic amusement the light and shadowof emotion upon her dirty face. Oh, he was amagician, no doubt at all of that! Past masterin the rare art of a true genius, that of producingillusion.
Then he would make Cake try, rave at her, curse her,strike her, kill himself laughing, drink some moreand put her at it again.
Night after night, almost comatose from the fatigueof a day that began while it was still dark, she carrieda heaped-up plate and a full bottle to the lodger’sroom and sat down upon the dry-goods box with thecandle beside her on the floor. And, having thussecured her welcome, night after night she walkedwith him among that greatest of all throngs of soldiersand lovers, kings and cardinals, queens, prostitutesand thieves.
If the liquor was short in the bottle a dime’sworth, the lesson was curtailed. At first Caketried to coax him. “Aw, c’mon, yuhRomeo on th’ street in Mantua.”
But the lodger was never so drunk that he made theslightest concession.
“Yes, I’m Romeo all right—thelad’s there, never fear, gutter-snipe.But—the bottle is not full.”
After that she never attempted to change his ruling.She was letter perfect in the bitter lesson, and ifthe sale of papers did not bring in enough to fillthe bottle, she accepted the hard fact with the calmof great determination and did not go near the lodger’sroom, but went to bed instead.
Perhaps it was these rare occasions of rest that kepther alive.
After the lodger had been teaching her for severalyears her mother died and was buried in the potters’field. Cake managed to keep two rooms of thewretched flat, and no word of his landlady’sdemise reached the lodger’s drink-dulled ears.Otherwise Cake feared he might depart, taking withhim her one big chance to reach the light. Yousee, she did not know the lodger. Things mighthave been different if she had. But he was nevera human being to her, even after she knew the truth;only a symbol, a means to the great end.
Her brothers went away—to the penitentiaryand other places. One by one the flood of lifecaught her sisters and swept them out, she did notknow to what. She never even wondered. Shehad not been taught to care. She had never beentaught anything. The knowledge that she mustbe famous danced through her dreams like a will-o’-the-wisp;had grown within her in the shape of a great painthat never ceased; only eased a little as she strovemightily toward the goal.
So she still sold papers, a homely, gawky, long-leggedgirl in ragged clothes much too small for her, andslaved at Maverick’s for the lodger’snightly dole that he might teach her and she be famous.
At first he was keen on the meat and drink—moreespecially the drink. Later, gradually, a changecame over him. Only Cake did not notice thischange. She was too set on being taught so shecould become famous. At first the lodger wasall oaths and blows with shouts of fierce, derisivelaughter intermingled.
“My God!” he would cry. “IfNoyes could only see this—if he only could!”
This Noyes, it appeared, was a man he furiously despised.When he was in the third stage of drunkenness he wouldnever teach Cake, but would only abuse his enemies,and this Noyes invariably came in for a fearful showerof epithets. It was he as Cake heard it, sittinghuddled on the old dry-goods box, the candle castingstrange shadows into her gaunt, unchildlike face,who was the cause of the lodger’s downfall.But for Noyes—with a blasting array of cursesbefore the name—he would now have whatCake so ardently strove for: Fame. But forNoyes he would be acting in his own theatre, ridingin his own limousine, wearing his own diamonds, entertaininghis own friends upon his own gold plate.
When he was still too sober to take a really vitalinterest in the teaching, he was a misanthrope, bitterand brutal, with an astonishing command of the mostterrible words. At these times he made the gravestcharges against Noyes; charges for which the man shouldbe made accountable, even to such a one as the lodger.One evening Cake sat watching him, waiting for thismood to pass so that the teaching might begin.
“If I was youse,” she said at last, “andhated a guy like youse do this Noyes, I’d fetch’im a insult that’d get under his skinright. I’d make evens wit’ ‘im,I would, not jes’ talk about it.”
“Oh, you would!” remarked the lodger.He took a long pull at the bottle. “Yoube Queen Kathrine, you alley-cat.”
So the nightly teaching began with the usual accompanimentof curses, blows, and shouts of brutal laughter.But when it was over and the lodger was sinking tothe third stage that came inevitably with the bottomof the bottle, he kept looking at his pupil queerly.
“Oh, you would! Oh, you would, would you?”He said it over and over again. “Oh, youwould, would you?”
And after that he was changed by the leaven of hateher suggestion had started working in him. Forone thing, he took a far greater interest in the teachingfor its own sake. Of that much the girl herselfwas thankfully aware. And she thought, Cake did,that the dull husk of self was wearing away from thatpart of her destined to be famous, wearing away atlast. The lodger’s curses changed in toneas the nights filed past, the blows diminished, thelaughter became far more frequent.
Cake, as rapidly reaching the end of her girlhoodas the lodger was nearing the limits of his drink-sappedstrength, redoubled her efforts. It was veryplain to her that he could not live much longer; deathin delirium tremens was inevitable. After that,she decided, school would not keep, and she must tryher fortune.
Then one night in the midst of the potion scene whenshe felt herself Juliet, soft, passionate,and beautiful, far away in the land of tragic romance,she heard the lodger crying:
“Stop—my God, stop! How do youget that way? Don’t you know there’sa limit to human endurance, alley-cat?”
He was fairly toppling from the dry-goods box.His eyes were popping from his head, and in the flickeringcandlelight his face looked strained and queer.In after life she became very familiar with that expression;she saw it on all types of faces. In fact, shecame to expect to see it there. But she did notknow how to analyze it then. She glimpsed itonly as a tribute to her performance, so immense thatshe had to be halted in the middle, and felt correspondinglyelated. She was exactly right in her deduction.But Cake and the lodger advanced along very differentlines of thought.
The next night he was shaky, came all too quicklyto the teaching period, and left it as speedily.Then he retired to the flock mattress in the cornerof the room and called Cake to bring the candle.
“I’ve an idea I’m going to leaveyou, gutter-snipe,” he said, “and I doubtif I ever see you again. The end of life cancelsall bands. And the one that bound you to me,alley-cat, was very material, very material indeed.The kind that runs easily in and out of a black bottle.”He laughed.
“You Shakespearian actress!” He laughedagain, longer this time. “But I have notforgotten you,” he resumed. “In additionto all that I have taught you, I am going to leaveyou something. Here,” he fumbled out asquare envelope and Cake took it between her hands.“Take that to the address written on it,”said the lodger, “and see what the gentlemandoes.” He began to laugh again.
“Noyes——” he cried andbroke off to curse feebly but volubly. Cake didnot even glance in his direction. She went awayout of the room, too utterly stunned with fatigueto look at the letter in her dingy hand.
The next morning the lodger was dead. He wasburied in the potters’ field quite near hisold landlady.
This second funeral, such as it was, closed the shelterthat Cake, for want of a more fitting name, had calledhome. She decided to put all her years of bitterlyacquired learning to the test. And as she bestknew what she had bought and paid for it she felt shecould not fail. She unfolded from a scrap ofnewspaper the envelope presented her by the lodgerand carefully studied the address.
Cake could both read and write, having acquired thesearts from a waiter at Maverick’s, who also helpedher steal the broken meats with which she securedher artistic education. And, watching the steadydisappearance of the food, this waiter marvelled thatshe got no fatter as she grew upward, hovering aboutin hope of becoming her lover if she ever did.But even if that miracle had ever been accomplishedthe helpful waiter would still have waited. Cake’sconception of a real lady was Queen Katherine;Cleopatra her dream of a dangerous, fascinatingone. And what chance in the world for eitherwith a waiter?
Cake read the name and address upon the envelope freelyas the hopeful bread-caster had taught her: ArthurPayson Noyes, National Theatre. With the simplicityand dispatch that characterized her, she went to thatplace. To the man reposing somnolently in thebroken old chair beside the door she said she hada letter for Mr. Noyes. The doorkeeper saw itwas a large, swanking envelope with very polite writing.He straightened up in the chair long enough to passher in, and then slumped down again.
Cake found herself in a queer, barnlike place, halfroom and half hallway, feebly illumined by a singleelectric bulb suspended above the door. Verycomposedly she looked about her. If Mr. ArthurNoyes lived in this place, he was one of her own kindand there was no need for any palpitation on her part.Anyway, she was looking solely for her chance to becomefamous, and she brought to this second stage of hersearch the same indifference to externals, the samecalm, unfaltering courage as she had to the first.
“Now, then,” said a voice briskly.“Say what you want. We have not advertisedfor any extra people. At least—notthis year.”
A short, stout man emerged from the shadows.He was very blond, with his hair cut snapper, andhis pale eyes popped perpetual astonishment.She returned his look steadily and well. She knewshe was born to be famous, and fame has a certainbeauty of dignity utterly lacking in mere success.
“I am not an extra person,” she replied.“I have come to see Mr. Noyes,” and shedisplayed once more the large square envelope, herlegacy from the lodger, the knife with which she proposedto shuck from its rough shell that oyster, the world.
The man looked even more astonished, if the thingcould have been accomplished, and regarded her keenly—stared.
“Come this way,” he said.
Cake followed him along a narrow passage that turnedoff to the right, down five steps, across a narrowentry, up three more steps—although itseems quite silly, she never in her life forgot theodd number of those worn steps—and haltedbefore a closed door. On this the fat man knockedonce and opened immediately without waiting.
“Someone I think you’ll see,” hesaid, standing between Cake and the interior.There came to her a murmur over his chunky shoulder.
“She has a letter from——”The fat man dropped his voice and mumbled. “Positive,”he said, aloud, after a pause broken only by the vaguemurmur within the room. “I’d knowhis fist anywhere. Yes.” Then he pushedthe door open wide, stood aside, and looked at Cake.“Walk in,” he said.
She did so. Beautifully. Poems have beenwritten about her walk. Two kinds.
The room she entered was square, with concrete floorand rough walls. But Cake did not notice theroom for three reasons: The rug on the floor,four pictures on the walls, and the man who lookedat her as she entered.
They gazed at each other, Cake and this man, withsudden, intense concentration. He was a geniusin his line, she as surely one in hers. And,instinctively, to that strange, bright flame each renderedinstant homage. What he saw he described longafterward when a million voices were vociferouslyraised in a million different descriptions. Whatshe saw she likened in her mind to a dark sheath fromwhich a sword flashed gloriously. That swordwas his soul.
“He says your name is Plain Cake—isthat true?” He referred to the lodger’sletter held open in his hand, and by that she knewhe was Arthur Noyes. And great. That lastshe had not needed any telling.
“Yes,” she replied.
“He says you are the right Shakespearian actressfor me,” Noyes referred to the letter again.“Do you know Shakespeare?”
“All the way,” said Cake. It wasnot quite the answer Queen Katherine mighthave made, perhaps, but her manner was perfect.
“Come here”—he pointed to thecentre of the rapturous rug—“and dothe potion scene for me.” Cake stepped forward.
Perhaps you have been so fortunate as to see her.If so you know that to step forward is her only preparation.She was poised, she was gone. Then suddenly sheheard the lodger’s voice crying:
“Stop—my God, stop! How do youget that way? Don’t you know there’sa limit to human endurance, alley-cat?”
She broke off, staring confusedly into space justthe height of his debauched old figure crouching onthe dry-goods box. Then with swift realizationof her surroundings, her vision cleared. It wasthe fat man in the checked suit she saw leaning helplesslyagainst the closed door. His jaw sagged, hiseyes were frightfully popped, his face wore the samestrained, queer look she had come to see so often onthe lodger’s, and he made weak little flappinggestures with his hands.
Cake looked then at Arthur Noyes. His face waswhite as the letter in his hand, his dark eyes weredilated with a look of dreadful suffering, the numb,unconscious reaction of one who has received a mortalblow.
“Come here, Crum,” he cried as if therewas no one else in the room. And Crum fairlytottered forward.
“What do you make of this?” asked Noyes,while Cake stood and listened.
“I—I—” stammeredCrum exhaustedly. “My God,” he groaned,“it’s too much for me. And training!”
“Oh, trained,” Cake heard Noyes say.“Such training as only he could give. Yearsof it, that’s plain. And then to send herto me. A Shakespearean actress for me! Toinsult me like that—”
“It’s too much for me, Boss,” saidCrum again. “Still—Oh—oh,my!” His back was turned, but Cake saw his wholebody shake.
“Telephone Meier,” exclaimed Noyes suddenly.
“Meier?” Crum became immediately composed,and Cake saw that he was tremendously surprised.“You don’t mean that you’re goingto—After this? Why, she’s inthe know. Look at her. It’s perfect!”
And they both turned and looked at Cake standing unconsciousand serene on the other side of the room. Youwho have seen her know just how perfect the pose was.
“It is perfect,” Noyes said.“I’d be a pretty poor sport if I did notacknowledge that.” Then his voice droppedand Cake only caught snatches here and there. “...such genius ... once in a century ... get even withhim in a way he least expects ... wipe off the slateentirely ... no comeback to my play ... let him seethat for himself. Call Meier.” Thenhe turned to Cake.
“Sit down, please,” he said courteously.“I have sent for a man who may give you an engagement.”
She returned his gaze so quietly that he was puzzled.About her was neither nervous anticipation nor flightyvivacity. The actions of her audience of twoleft her in-curious and calm. You see, she wasused to the lodger. Also she had worked to befamous so long that all the flowery borders of selfwere worn down to the keen edge of doing. OfPlain Cake she thought not at all. But then, shenever had. Only of the light at the end of thepassage that now loomed so bright to her watchingeyes.
It seemed only a minute before Noyes spoke again:“This is Mr. Meier.” He regardedher shrewdly all the time.
Cake bowed to Mr. Meier, a fat, gaudy gentleman withthick, hairy hands. And Mr. Meier looked at Noyesand shook his head. She realized they had alreadybeen talking together.
“Never before,” Mr. Meier said.
“If you will repeat the potion scene,”Arthur Noyes suggested. “This time, I trust,you will not be interrupted,” he added politely.
And Cake stepped once more into that rich orgy ofemotion. This time, though dimly aware of noiseand a confusion of shouting, she carried the scenethrough to the end. “Romeo, I come!This do I drink to thee.” She lay for amoment where she had fallen close to the heavenlycolours of the rug.
“Goo-hood Gaw-hud!” gasped Mr. Meier,and Cake sat up.
She saw he was rather collapsed upon a chair nearwhich he had been standing up when she began.His fat face was purple, and tears stood in his eyes.But Arthur Noyes had not changed. White, withthat look of mortal hurt, he still stood straightand slim against the table.
“You cannot offer her less than two hundreda week to begin,” he said with the same airof being alone with Mr. Meier.
“No, oh, no, no, no, no!” sighed Mr. Meier,wiping his eyes.
He rose and bowed to Cake with the queerest respect,still wiping his eyes with the back of his thick,hairy hands. It was a striking commentary uponher years of training that both of these men, successfulfrom long and hard experience, paid her the complimentof thinking her an old hand at the game.
“Mine is the Imperial Theatre, Miss,”said Meier. “You should be there to-nightby seven o’clock. It ain’t necessarywe should rehearse. No, oh, no, no, no, no!And now, perhaps”—he looked her upand down, oddly—“perhaps I can takeyou to your—hotel?”
Cake looked him back, serene in her belief in whatthe lodger had taught her.
“I’ll be there at seven,” she said.“No, thank you.” She walked out andacross into a small park where she sat until the appointedtime.
Then she went to the stage entrance of the ImperialTheatre, presented the card Mr. Meier had given her,and entered. Once inside she was taken to a dressingroom by a fat, comfortable, middle-aged woman whoseemed to be waiting for her. After a very shortand, to Cake, tranquil period, Mr. Meier bustled in.
“Of course, Miss, you know this is a Revue,”he explained, rubbing his hands with a deference thatCake shed utterly, because she did not know it wasthere.
She nodded, accepting his statement. “Wemake ’em laugh here,” said Mr. Meier.Again Cake nodded; she knew exactly as much about theshow as she did before. “You close thesecond act; it’s the best place for you.Leafy, here, will help you dress.”
Cake sat still while Leafy dressed her, very hushedand still. The light blazed so near after allthese hard, lean years of pursuit, years in whichthe little affairs of life, like the business of growingfrom a child to a woman, had simply passed her by.Of that Urge to be famous she was even more burninglyaware; herself she did not know at all.
Mr. Meier came and took her by the hand. Hisfat face was pale and sweating, he seemed almost awestruckby Cake’s calm. He drew her out of thedressing room and through a crowd of people, men andwomen with painted faces, some beautifully, some extravagantlyand strangely dressed. They all stared.One woman shook her head. A man said: “Searchme! I never saw her before.”
Then Mr. Meier thrust her out in the face of a brightlight. “Begin,” he said hoarsely.“Walk over there and begin.”
Quietly Cake obeyed. She had walked right intothe bright light that had drawn her so hard and solong. Of course it was time for her to begin.And with this bright light in her face, which soonbecame to her the candle in that dark room left sofar behind, she fared away to the magic land of beautifulmake-believe.
And only when Juliet, that precocious child,sank down poisoned did she become aware of the uproarabout her. The shouts of the lodger, “Stop—myGod, stop! How do you get that way?” augmenteda million times. It was this she heard.
Slowly Cake lifted herself on her hands, dazedly shepeered through the heart of the great light that hadcaused her such suffering and that she had followedfaithfully so bitterly long. On the other sideshe saw faces, rows and rows of them mounting up tothe very roof. Faces laughing; faces convulsed,streaming with tears; faces with eyes fixed and wearingthat same queer, strained look she had noticed before;hundreds of faces topping each other in semicircularrows, all different but all alike in that they wereall laughing.
She rose to her knees and rested there on all fours—staring.
Laughter! A great clapping of hands rolled abouther like thunder, dying down and rising again to evengreater volume. Cries of “Go on,”assailed her ears, mingled with, “Stop, stop!I can’t bear it!”
The curtain fell before her, blotting out the visionof those faces, making the uproar slightly dimmer.Mr. Meier advanced and lifted her to her feet.He moved weakly, exhausted with mirth.
“Even Noyes,” he gasped. “He—hecan’t help it. Oh, my goo-hood Gaw-hud!”
Cake looked away from him to the men and women thatthronged about her. The same faces that had turnedto her such a short while ago; but now, how different!
“Oh, don’t criticise,” one womancried. “Hand it to her! She can’tbe beat. She’s the one that comes oncein a century to show the rest of us what really canbe done.”
“Meier,” shouted a man. “Meier—she’llhave to go back, Meier; she’s stopped the show.”
Quiet and very still, Cake drew away.
It seemed to her only a moment later that Leafy touchedher arm.
“Mr. Meier has taken a suite for you here inthis hotel,” she said. “Can’tyou eat a little, Miss?”
Eat? She had never had enough to eat in her life.Her life? She had spent her life securing foodfor the lodger that he might teach her to be famous.Leafy lifted the spoon of hot soup to her lips andimmediately she drank—she who had neverhad enough to eat in her life. Morsel by morselfrom the bountifully filled table the kindly dresserfed her. Obediently she ate, and the hot, richfood stimulated her to swifter, more agonizing thought.
Then, for the first time, she saw Arthur Noyes standingwith his back against a closed door. She readpity in his eyes, comprehension, great wonder, andwhat she did not know then was the love that came toa rare perfection between them and has never faded—andhas no place in this story.
“Will you tell me,” he said, “whatyour name is, where your home is, and who are thosethat love you there?”
Then he broke off and shrank a little against thedoor. “Oh, don’t,” he protested.
Yet she had only looked at him and smiled. Butit came to her keenly in her new awareness that hisquestions covered the whole of a woman’s life:Her name, her home, and the ones that loved her there.While she—she had no name, she did noteven know the lodger’s name. She lookeddown with strange astonishment at her grown-up figure,her woman’s hands. She saw herself a ragged,gaunt, bushy-headed child moving on a tight rope abovea dark abyss, intent only upon a luminous globe floatingjust out of reach ahead of her, that she stretchedout for eagerly with both her hands. Suddenlythe lovely bubble burst and the child was a woman,falling and falling among rows of convulsed, shiningwhite faces to the sound of gargantuan laughter.
“You tell me,” Arthur Noyes pleaded gently.
And she did so very simply and beautifully. Shedid know Shakespeare; it was the only English thatshe had ever been taught. So Noyes heard howshe became an instrument in the hands of the man whohated him mortally, and owed her debut and her terribleawakening to what he considered the only sportinganswer to that insult. While he listened he pondered,awestruck, upon the fact that out of all this muckand blackness, the degradation of hate by the lodger,the refinement of hate by himself, had flowered thatrarest of all human creatures—one thatcould make the whole world laugh.
“He always hated me,” he said. “Itold him he had traded his genius for drink, and henever forgave me. Where is he now?”
“Now?” Cake looked up at him in startledwonder. It came over her suddenly that he countedupon the lodger’s being in the Imperial Theatrethat night.
“Now?” she repeated. “Why,he is dead.”
It took Noyes a minute to recover. “Whatwill you do?” he asked her. “Willyou go on from this start, continue this—thissort of success?” He felt it the basest cruelty,in the face of her story, to say it was the only kindshe was ever destined to make. He waited for heranswer, wondering, and a little awestruck. Itseemed to him they had come to the supreme test ofher genius.
And she looked up at him with such sadness and suchmirth—such tragic, humorous appreciationof the darkness in which she had been born, the toilsomeway she had travelled to the Great Light and whatit actually revealed when she arrived.
“I will go on from this success,” shesaid. Involuntarily she raised her hand to herbreast. “I must, since it is the only wayfor me. You see,” with a humour far moretouching than the saddest tears, “I must befamous.”
And she smiled that smile that hurt him, the smilethe world loves and will give anything to see.
The most famous funmaker of her time looked away fromthe bright river fleeting beyond the trees to hergiggling, half-terrified visitors.
“Fame,” she said, “is a secret thatcannot be told. It must be discovered by theseeker. Let me offer you tea as a substitute.”
MUMMERY
By THOMAS BEER
From Saturday Evening Post
On Monday Mrs. Egg put her husband on the east-boundexpress with many orders. He was not to annoyAdam by kissing him when they met, if they met inpublic. He was to let Adam alone in the choiceof civil dress, if Adam wanted to change his navalcostume in New York. He was not to get lost inBrooklyn, as he had done before. He was to visitthe largest moving-picture theatres and report thebest films on his return. She made sure thatEgg had her written list of lesser commands safe inhis wallet, then folded him to her bosom, sniffed,and patted him up the steps of the coach.
A red-haired youth leaned through an open window andinquired, “Say, lady, would you mind tellin’me just what you weigh?”
“I ain’t been on the scales in years,bub,” said Mrs. Egg equably; “not sinceabout when you was born. Does your mamma everwash out your mouth with soap?”
An immediate chorus of laughter broke from the platformloungers. The train jerked forward. Theyouth pulled in his head. Mrs. Egg stood puffingtriumphantly with her hands on her hips.
“It’s a shame,” the baggage-mastertold her, “that a lady can’t be kind of—kindof——”
“Fat,” said Mrs. Egg; “and bein’tall makes it worse. All the Packers ’vealways been tall. When we get fat we’reholy shows. But if that kid’s mother’sdone her duty by him he’d keep his mouth shut.”
The dean of the loungers put in, “Your papawas always skinny, Myrtle.”
“I can’t remember him much,” Mrs.Egg panted, “but he looks skinny in his pictures.Well, I got to get home. There’s a gentlemancoming over from Ashland to look at a bull.”
She trod the platform toward the motor at the hitchingrails and several loungers came along gallantly.Mrs. Egg cordially thanked them as she sank into thedriving seat, settled her black straw hat, and droveoff.
Beholding two of her married daughters on the stepsof the drug store, she stopped the car and shouted:“Hey, girls, the fleet’s gettin’in to-morrow. Your papa’s gone to meetDammy. I just shoved him on the train. Bygee! I forgot to tell him he was to fetch home—no,I wrote that down—well, you come out tosupper Wednesday night.”
“But can Dammy get discharged all in one day?”a daughter asked.
Mrs. Egg had no patience with such imbecility.She snapped, “Did you think they’d dischargehim a foot at a time, Susie?” and drove on upthe street, where horsechestnuts were ready to bloom,appropriately, since Adam was fond of the blossoms.She stopped the car five times to tell the boys thatAdam would be discharged tomorrow, and made a sixthstop at the candy shop, where a clerk brought out achocolate ice cream with walnut sauce. He didthis mechanically. Mrs. Egg beamed at him, althoughthe fellow was a newcomer and didn’t know Adam.
“My boy’ll be home Wednesday,” shesaid, giving the dish back.
“Been in the Navy three-four years, ain’the?”
Mrs. Egg sighed. “April 14, 1917.He was twenty-one las’ week, so he gets dischargedsoon as the fleet hits New York. My gee, thinkof Dammy being twenty-one!”
She drove on, marvelling at time, and made her seventhstop at the moving-picture theatre. The postersof the new feature film looked dull. The heavilytyped list of the current-events weekly took her sharpeye. She read, “Rome Celebrates Anniversary—FleetSails from Guantanamo,” and chuckled. Shemust drive in to see the picture of the fleet.She hadn’t time to stop now, as lunch would beready. Anyhow, night was the time for movies.She drove on, and the brick business buildings gaveout into a dribble of small frame cottages, mostlyshabby. Edith Webb was coming out of her father’sgate.
Mrs. Egg made an eighth halt and yelled, “Hey,Edie, Dammy’ll be home Wednesday night,”for the pleasure of seeing the pretty girl flush.Adam had taken Edith to several dances at Christmas.Mrs. Egg chuckled as the favoured virgin went red,fingering the top of the gatepost. Edith woulddo. In fact, Edith was suitable, entirely.
“Well, I’m glad,” the girl said.“Oh, say, was it our house or the next one youused to live in? Papa was wondering last night.”
“It was yours,” Mrs. Egg declared; “andthank your stars you’ve got a better fatherthan I had, Edie. Yes, right here’s whereI lived when I was your age and helped Mamma do sewin’,and sometimes didn’t get enough to eat.I wonder if that’s why—well, anyhow,it’s a solid-built house. I expect Dammy’llcall you up Wednesday night.” She chuckledimmensely and drove on again.
From the edge of town she passed steadily a quarterof a mile between her husband’s fields.His cows were grazing in the pastures. His appletrees were looking well. The red paint of hismonstrous water tanks soothed her by their brilliance.A farmhand helped her out of the car and she tookthe shallow veranda steps one at a time, a little moody,wishing that her mother was still alive to see Adam’sglory. However, there were six photographs ofAdam about the green sitting room in various uniforms,and these cheered her moment of sorrow. They weren’taltogether satisfactory. His hard size didn’tshow in single poses. He looked merely beautiful.Mrs. Egg sniffled happily, patting the view of Adamin white duck. The enlarged snapshot portrayedhim sitting astride a turret gun. It was thebest of the lot, although he looked taller in wrestlingtights, but that picture worried her. She hadalways been afraid that he might kill someone in awrestling match. She took the white-duck photographto lunch and propped it against the pitcher of icedmilk.
“It’ll be awful gettin’ him clothes,”she told the cook; “except shoes. ThankGod, his feet ain’t as big as the rest of him!Say, remind me to make a coconut cake in the morningin the big pan. He likes ’em better whenthey’re two three days old so the icin’skind of spread into the cake. I’d of senta cake on with his papa, but Mr. Egg always dropsthings so much. It does seem——”The doorbell rang. Mrs. Egg wiped her mouth andcomplained, “Prob’ly that gentleman fromAshland to look at that bull calf. It does seema shame folks drop in at mealtimes. Well, golet him in Sadie.”
The cook went out through the sitting room and downthe hall. Mrs. Egg patted her black hair, sighedat her third chop and got up. The cook’svoice mingled with a drawling man’s tone.Mrs. Egg drank some milk and waited an announcement.The cook came back into the dining room and Mrs. Eggset down the milk glass swiftly, saying, “Why,Sadie!”
“He—he says he’s your father,Mis’ Egg.”
After a moment Mrs. Egg said, “Stuff and rubbidge!My father ain’t been seen since 1882. What’sthe fool look like?”
“Awful tall—kinda skinny—bald——”
A tremor went down Mrs. Egg’s back. Shewalked through the sitting room and into the sunnyhall. The front door was open. Against theapple boughs appeared a black length, topped by a gleam.The sun sparkled on the old man’s baldness.A shivering memory recalled that her father’shair had been thin. His dark face slid into amass of twisting furrows as Mrs. Egg approached him.
He whispered, “I asked for Myrtle Packer downround the station. An old feller said she wasmarried to John Egg. You ain’t Myrtle?”
“I’m her,” said Mrs. Egg.
Terrible cold invaded her bulk. She laced herfingers across her breast and gazed at the twistingface.
The whisper continued: “They tell me yourmamma’s in the cem’tery, Myrtle.I’ve come home to lay alongside of her.I’m grain for the grim reaper’s sickle.In death we sha’n’t be divided; and I’vewalked half the way from Texas. Don’t expectyou’d want to kiss me. You look awful likeher, Myrtle.”
Tears rolled out of his eyes down his hollowed cheeks,which seemed almost black between the high bones.His pointed chin quivered. He made a waveringgesture of both hands and sat down on the floor.Behind Mrs. Egg the cook sobbed aloud. A farmhandstood on the grass by the outer steps, looking in.Mrs. Egg shivered. The old man was sobbing gently.His head oscillated and its polish repelled her.He had abandoned her mother in 1882.
“Mamma died back in 1910,” she said.“I dunno—well——”
The sobbing was thin and weak, like an ailing baby’smurmur. It pounded her breast.
She stared at the ancient dusty suitcase on the porchand said, “Come up from Texas, have you?”
“There’s no jobs lef for a man seventy-sixyears of age, Myrtle, except dyin.’ I runa saloon in San Antonio by the Plaza. Walked fromGreenville, Mississippi, to Little Rock. An oldlady give me carfare, there, when I told her I wasgoin’ home to my wife that I’d treatedso bad. There’s plenty Christians in Arkansaw.And they’ve pulled down the old Presbyterianchurch your mamma and I was married in.”
“Yes; last year. Sadie, take Mr. Packer’sbag up to the spare room. Stop cryin’,Papa.”
She spoke against her will. She could not lethim sit on the floor sobbing any longer. Hisgleaming head afflicted her. She had a queeremotion. This seemed most unreal. The grayhall wavered like a flashing view in a film.
“The barn’d be a fitter place for me,daughter. I’ve been a——”
“That’s all right, Papa. You bettergo up and lie down, and Sadie’ll fetch you upsome lunch.”
His hand was warm and lax. Mrs. Egg fumbled withit for a moment and let it fall. He passed upthe stairs, drooping his head. Mrs. Egg heardthe cook’s sympathy explode above and leanedon the wall and thought of Adam coming home Wednesdaynight. She had told him a thousand times thathe mustn’t gamble or mistreat women or chewtobacco “like your Grandfather Packer did.”And here was Grandfather Packer, ready to welcomeAdam home!
The farmhand strolled off, outside, taking the seedof this news. It would be in town directly.
“Oh, Dammy,” she said, “and I wantedeverything nice for you!”
In the still hall her one sob sounded like a shout.Mrs. Egg marched back to the dining room and dranka full glass of milk to calm herself.
“Says he can’t eat nothin’, Mis’Egg,” the cook reported, “but he’dlike a cup of tea. It’s real pitiful.He’s sayin’ the Twenty-third Psalm tohimself. Wasted to a shadder. Asked if Mr.Egg was as Christian an’ forbearin’ asyou. Mebbe he could eat some buttered toast.”
“Try and see, Sadie; and don’t botherme. I got to think.”
She thought steadily, eating cold rice with creamand apple jelly. Her memory of Packer was slim.He had spanked her for spilling ink on his diary.He had been a carpenter. His brothers were alldead. He had run off with a handsome Swedishservant girl in 1882, leaving her mother to sew fora living. What would the county say? Mrs.Egg writhed and recoiled from duty. Perhaps shewould get used to the glittering bald head and thethin voice. It was all most unreal. Her motherhad so seldom talked of the runaway that Mrs. Egghad forgotten him as possibly alive. And herehe was! What did one do with a prodigal father?With a jolt she remembered that there would be roastveal for supper.
At four, while she was showing the Ashland dairymanthe bull calf, child of Red Rover VII and ButtercupIV, Mrs. Egg saw her oldest daughter’s motorsliding across the lane from the turnpike. Itheld all three of her female offspring. Mrs.Egg groaned, drawling commonplaces to her visitor,but he stayed a full hour, admiring the new milk shedand the cider press. When she waved him good-byefrom the veranda she found her daughters in a stalwartgroup by the sitting-room fireplace, pink eyed andcomfortably emotional. They wanted to kiss her.Mrs. Egg dropped into her particular mission chairand grunted, batting off embraces.
“I suppose it’s all over town? It’dtravel fast. Well, what d’you think ofyour grandpapa, girls?”
“Don’t talk so loud, Mamma,” onedaughter urged.
Another said, “He’s so tired he went offasleep while he was telling us how he nearly got hungfor shooting a man in San Antonio.”
Mrs. Egg reached for the glass urn full of chocolatewafers on the table and put one in her mouth.She remarked, “I can see you’ve been havinga swell time, girls. A sinner that repenteth——”
“Why, Mamma!”
“Listen,” said Mrs. Egg; “if there’sgoing to be any forgiving done around here, it’sme that’ll do it. You girls was raised withall the comforts of home and then some. You neverhelped anybody do plain sewin’ at fifteen centsa hour nor had to borrow money to get a decent dressto be married in. This thing of hearin’how he shot folks and kept a saloon in Texas is goodas a movie to you. It don’t set so easyon me. I’m old and tough. And I’llthank you to keep your mouths shut. Here’sDammy comin’ home Wednesday out of the Navy,and all this piled up on me. I don’t wantevery lazyjake in the country pilin’ in hereto hear what a bad man he’s been, and dirtythe carpets up. Dammy likes things clean.I’m a better Christian than a lot of folks Ican think of, but this looks to me like a good dealof a bread-and-butter repentance. Been devourin’his substance in Texas and come home to——”
“Oh, Mamma, your own papa!”
“That’s as may be. My own mamma bustedher eyesight and got heart trouble for fifteen mortalyears until your papa married me and gave her a homefor her old age, and never a whimper out of her, neither.She’s where she can’t tell me what shethinks of him and I dunno what to think. ButI’ll do my own thinkin’ until Dammy andyour papa gets back and tell me what they think.This is your papa’s place—and Dammy’s.It ain’t a boardin’ house for——”
“Oh, Mamma!”
“And it’s time for my nap.”
Susan, the oldest daughter, made a tremulous protest.“He’s seventy-six years old, Mamma, andwhatever he’s done——”
“For a young woman that talked pretty loud ofleavin’ her husband when he came home kind oflit up from a club meetin’——”Mrs. Egg broke in. Susan collapsed and drew hergloves on hastily. Mrs. Egg ate another chocolatewafer and resumed: “This here’s mybusiness—and your papa’s and Dammy’s.I’ve got it in my head that that movie weeklypicture they had of Buttercup Four with her price wroteout must have been shown in San Antonio. Andyou’ll recollect that your papa and me stoodalongside her while that fresh cameraman took the picture.If I was needin’ a meal and saw I’d gota well-off son-in-law——”
“Mamma,” said Susan, “you’reperfectly cynical.”
Mrs. Egg pronounced, “I’m forty-five yearsof age,” and got up.
The daughters withdrew. Mrs. Egg covered thechocolate urn with a click and went into the kitchen.Two elderly farmhands went out of the porch door asshe entered.
Mrs. Egg told the cook: “Least said, soon’stmended, Sadie. Give me the new cream. Iguess I might’s well make some spice cookies.Be pretty busy Wednesday. Dammy likes ’ema little stale.”
“Mis’ Egg,” said the cook, “ifthis was Dammy that’d kind of strayed off andcome home sick in his old age——”
“Give me the cream,” Mrs. Egg commanded,and was surprised by the fierceness of her own voice.“I don’t need any help seein’ myduty, thanks!”
At six o’clock her duty became highly involved.A friend telephoned from town that the current-eventsweekly at the moving-picture theatre showed Adam inthe view of the dreadnoughts at Guantanamo.
“Get out,” said Adam’s mother.“You’re jokin’! ... Honest?Well, it’s about time! What’s hedoin’? ... Wrestlin’? My!Say, call up the theatre and tell Mr. Rubenstein tosave me a box for the evenin’ show.”
“I hear your father’s come home,”the friend insinuated.
“Yes,” Mrs. Egg drawled, “and ain’tfeelin’ well and don’t need comp’ny.Be obliged if you’d tell folks that. He’skind of sickly. So they’ve got Dammy ina picture. It’s about time!” The tremorran down her back. She said “Good-night,dearie,” and rang off.
The old man was standing in the hall doorway, hishead a vermilion ball in the crossed light of thered sunset.
“Feel better, Papa?”
“As good as I’m likely to feel in thisworld again. You look real like your mother settin’there, Myrtle.” The whisper seemed likelyto ripen as a sob.
Mrs. Egg answered, “Mamma had yellow hair andnever weighed more’n a hundred and fifty poundsto the day of her death. What’d you likefor supper?”
He walked slowly along the room, his knees sagging,twitching from end to end. She had forgottenhow tall he was. His face constantly wrinkled.It was hard to see his eyes under their long lashes.Mrs. Egg felt the pity of all this in a cold way.
She said, when he paused: “That’sAdam, there, on the mantelpiece, Papa. Six feetfour and a half he is. It don’t show ina picture.”
“The Navy’s rough kind of life, Myrtle.I hope he ain’t picked up bad habits. Theworld’s full of pitfalls.”
“Sure,” said Mrs. Egg, shearing the whisper.“Only Dammy ain’t got any sense aboutcards. I tried to teach him pinochle, but he nevercould remember none of it, and the hired men alwaysclean him out shakin’ dice. He can’teven beat his papa at checkers. And that’san awful thing to say of a bright boy!”
The old man stared at the photograph and his foreheadsmoothed for a breath. Then he sighed and droopedhis chin.
“If I’d stayed by right principles whenI was young——”
“D’you still keep a diary, Papa?”
“I did used to keep a diary, didn’t I?I’d forgotten that. When you come to myage, Myrtle, you’ll find yourself forgettin’easy. If I could remember any good things I everdid——”
The tears dripped from his jaw to the limp breastof his coat. Mrs. Egg felt that he must be horrible,naked, like a doll carved of coconut bark Adam hadsent home from Havana. He was darker than Adameven. In the twilight the hollows of his facewere sheer black. The room was gray. Mrs.Egg wished that the film would hurry and show somethingbrightly lit.
The dreary whisper mourned, “Grain for the grimreaper’s sickle, that’s what I am.Tares mostly. When I’m gone you lay me alongsideyour mamma and——”
“Supper’s ready, Mis’ Egg,”said the cook.
Supper was odious. He sat crumbling bits of toastinto a bowl of hot milk and whispering feeble questionsabout dead folk or the business of the vast dairyfarm. The girls had been too kind, he said.
“I couldn’t help but feel that if theyknew all about me——”
“They’re nice sociable girls,” Mrs.Egg panted, dizzy with dislike of her veal. Shewent on: “And they like a good cry, neverhavin’ had nothin’ to cry for.”
His eyes opened wide in the lamplight, gray brilliancesparkled. Mrs. Egg stiffened in her chair, meetingthe look.
He wailed, “I gave you plenty to cry for, daughter.”The tears hurt her, of course.
“There’s a picture of Dammy in the movies,”she gasped. “I’m goin’ in tosee it. You better come. It’ll cheeryou, Papa.”
She wanted to recall the offer too late. In thecar she felt chilly. He sank into a corner ofthe tonneau like a thrown laprobe. Mrs. Egg talkedloudly about Adam all the way to town and shouted directionsto the driving farmhand in order that the whispermight not start. The manager of the theatre hadsaved a box for her and came to usher her to its discomfort.But all her usual pleasure was gone. She noddedmiserably over the silver-gilt rail at friends.She knew that people were craning from far seats.Her bulk and her shadow effaced the man beside her.He seemed to cower a little. At eight the showbegan, and Mrs. Egg felt darkness as a blessing, althoughthe shimmer from the screen ran like phosphorus overthe bald head, and a flash of white between two partsof the advertisement showed the dark wrinkles of hisbrow.
“Like the pictures, Papa?”
“I don’t see well enough to take muchpleasure in ’em, Myrtle.”
A whirling globe announced the beginning of the weekly.Mrs. Egg forgot her burdens. She was going tosee Adam. She took a peppermint from the bagin her hand and set her teeth in its softness, applaudeda view of the President and the arrival of an ambassadorin New York. Then the greenish letters declared:“The fleet leaves Guantanamo training ground,”and her eyes hurt with staring. The familiar linesof anchored battleships appeared with a motion of menin white on the gray decks. The screen showeda race of boats which melted without warning to amass of white uniforms packed about the raised squareof a roped-in Platform below guns and a turret cloudedwith men. Two tanned giants in wrestling tightsscrambled under the ropes. There was a flutterof caps.
“Oh!” said Mrs. Egg. “Oh!”
She stood up. The view enlarged. Adam wasplain as possible. He grinned, too; straightfrom the screen at her. The audience murmured.Applause broke out, Adam jerked his black head to hisopponent—and the view flicked off in somestupid business of admirals. Mrs. Egg sat downand sobbed.
“Was that Adam, daughter? The—thebig feller with black hair?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Egg; “yes.”She was hot with rage against the makers of pictureswho’d taken him from her. It was a shame.She crammed four peppermints into her mouth and groanedabout them, “As if people wouldn’t ratherlook at some good wrestlin’ than a lot of captainsand stuff!”
“How long’s the boy been in the Navy,Myrtle?”
“April 14, 1917.”
The whisper restored her. Mrs. Egg yawned foran hour of nonsense about a millionaire and his wifewho was far too thin. Her father did not speak,although he moved now and then. The show concluded.Mrs. Egg lumbered wearily out to her car in the dullstreet and vaguely listened to the whisper of oldage. She couldn’t pay attention. Shewas going home to write the film company at length.This abuse of Adam was intolerable. She toldthe driver so. The driver agreed.
He reported, “I was settin’ next to MissWebb.”
“That’s Dammy’s girl, Papa.Go on, Sam. What did Edie say?”
“Well,” said the driver, “she likedseein’ the kid. She cried, anyhow.”
Mrs. Egg was charmed by the girl’s good sense.The moon looked like a quartered orange over the orchard.
She sighed, “Well, he’ll be home Wednesdaynight, anyhow. Edie ain’t old enough toget married yet. Hey, what’s the house alllit up for? Sadie ought to know better.”
She prepared a lecture for the cook. The motorshot up the drive into a babble and halted at thesteps. Someone immense rose from a chair andleaped down the space in one stride.
Adam said, “H’lo, Mamma,” and openedthe car door.
Mrs. Egg squealed. The giant lifted her out ofher seat and carried her into the sitting room.The amazing muscles rose in the flat of his back.She thought his overshirt ripped. The room spun.Adam fanned her with his cap and grinned.
“Worst of radiograms,” he observed; “theboys say Papa went on to meet me. Well, it’llgive him a trip. Quit cryin’, Mamma.”
“Oh, Dammy, and there ain’t nothin’fit to eat in the house!”
Adam grinned again. The farmhands dispersed athis nod. Mrs. Egg beat down her sobs with bothhands and decried the radio service that could turnSunday into Tuesday. Here was Adam, though, silentlygrinning, his hands available, willing to eat anythingshe had in the pantry. Mrs. Egg crowed her rapturein a dozen bursts.
The whispering voice crept into a pause with, “You’llbe wantin’ to talk to your boy, daughter.I’ll go to bed, I guess.”
“Dammy,” said Mrs. Egg, “this is——”
Adam stopped rolling a cigarette and nodded to theshadow by the hall door. He said, “Howyou? The boys told me you’d got here,”and licked the cigarette shut with a flash of hisred tongue. He struck a match on the blue coatingof one lean thigh and lit the cigarette, then staredat the shadow. Mrs. Egg hated the old man againstreason as the tears slid down the dark face.
“Grain for the grim reaper’s sickle, daughter.You’ll be wantin’ to talk to your boy.I guess I’ll say good-night.” He fadedinto the hall.
“Well, come, let’s see what there is toeat, Mamma,” said Adam, and pulled Mrs. Eggfrom her chair.
He sat on the low ice chest in the pantry and atechocolate cake. Mrs. Egg uncorked pear ciderand reached, panting, among apple-jelly glasses.Adam seldom spoke. She didn’t expect talkfrom him. He was sufficient. He nodded andate. The tanned surface of his throat dimpledwhen he swallowed things. His small nose wrinkledwhen he chewed.
Mrs. Egg chattered confusedly. Adam grinned whenshe patted his smooth hair and once said “Getout!” when she paused between two kisses toassure him he was handsome. He had his father’sdoubts on the point perhaps. He was not, sheadmitted, exactly beautiful. He was Adam, perfectand hard as an oak trunk under his blue clothes.He finished the chocolate cake and began to eat breadand apple jelly.
He ate six slices and drank a mug of pear cider, thencrossed his legs and drawled, “Was a fellowon the Nevada they called Frisco Cooley.”
“What about him, Dammy?”
“Nothin’. He was as tall as me.Skinny, though. Used to imitate actors in shows.Got discharged in 1919.”
“Was he a nice boy, Dammy?”
“No,” said Adam, and reached for the pear-ciderbottle. He fell into his usual calm and drankanother mug of cider. Mrs. Egg talked of EdieWebb. Adam grinned and kept his black eyes onthe pantry ceiling. The clock struck eleven.He said, “They called him Frisco Cooley ’causehe came from San Francisco. He could wrinklehis face up like a monkey. He worked in a gamblin’joint in San Francisco. That’s him.”Adam jerked a thumb at the ceiling.
“Dammy!”
“That’s him,” said Adam. “Ittook me a time to think of him, but that’s him.”
Mrs. Egg fell back against the ice chest and squeaked:“You mean you know this——”
“Hush up, Mamma!”
“But he walked part the way from San Antonio.He——”
“He ain’t your father,” said Adam,“so don’t cry. Is there any maplesugar? The grub on the train was fierce.”
Mrs. Egg brought him the tin case of maple sugar.Adam selected a chunk of the brown stuff and bit alobe of it. He was silent. Mrs. Egg marvelledat him. His sisters had hinted that he wasn’tclever. She stood in awe, although her legs ached.Adam finished the lump of maple sugar and rose.He leaned on the shelves with his narrow waist curvedagainst them and studied a row of quince-preserve jars.His nose wrinkled.
He asked, “You been fumigatin’?”
“Fumigatin’! Why, Dammy, there ain’tbeen a disease in the house since you had whoopin’cough.”
“Sulphur,” Adam drawled.
“Why, Dammy Egg! I never used sulphur fornothin’ in my life!”
He took a jar of preserves and ripped off the paraffinwafer that covered the top. Then he set the jaraside and sat down on the floor. Mrs. Egg watchedhim unlace his shoes.
He commanded, “You sit still, Mamma. Beback in a minute.”
“Dammy, don’t you go near that heathen!”
“I ain’t.”
He swung across the kitchen floor in two strides andbumped his head on the top of the door. Mrs.Egg winced, but all her body seemed to move afterthe boy. Shiverings tossed her. She liftedher skirts and stepped after him. The verandawas empty. Adam had vanished, although the mooncovered the dooryard with silver. The woman staredand shook. Then something slid down the nearestpillar and dropped like a black column to the grass.Adam came up the steps and shoved Mrs. Egg back tothe pantry.
He spread some quince preserve on a slab of breadand stated, “He’s sittin’ up readin’a lot of old copybooks, kind of. Got oil all overhis head. It’s hair remover. Sulphurin it.”
“How could you ever smell that far, Dammy?”
“I wonder what’s in those books?”Adam pondered. He sat cross-legged on the icechest and ate slowly for a time, then remarked, “Youdidn’t put up these quinces, Mamma.”
“No; they’re Sadie’s. Thinkof your noticin’!”
“You got to teach Edie cookin’,”he said. “She can’t cook fit for aCuban. Lots of time, though. Now, Mamma,we can’t let this goof stay here all night.I guess he’s a thief. I ain’t goin’to let the folks have a laugh on you. Didn’tyour father always keep a diary?”
“Think of your rememberin’ that, Dammy!Yes, always.”
“That’s what Frisco’s readin’up in. He’s smart. Used to do im’tationsof actors and cry like a hose pipe. Spotted that.Where’s the strawb’ry jam?”
“Right here, Dammy. Dammy, suppose he killedPapa somewheres off and stole his diaries!”
“Well,” said Adam, beginning strawberryjam, “I thought of that. Mebbe he did.I’d better find out. Y’oughtn’tto kill folks even if they’re no good for nothin’.”
“I’ll go down to the barn and wake someof the boys up,” Mrs. Egg hissed.
“You won’t neither, Mamma. This’dbe a joke on you. I ain’t goin’ tohave folks sayin’ you took this guy for yourfather. Fewer knows it, the better. Thisis awful good jam.” He grinned and pulledMrs. Egg down beside him on the chest. She forgotto be frightened, watching the marvel eat. Shemust get larger jars for jam. He reflected:“You always get enough to eat on a boat, butit ain’t satisfyin’. Frisco prob’lyuses walnut juice to paint his face with. It don’twash off. Don’t talkin’ make a personthirsty?”
“Wait till I get you some more cider, Dammy.”
Adam thoughtfully drank more pear cider and made acigarette. Wonderful ideas must be moving behindthe blank brown of his forehead. His mother adoredhim and planned a recital of his acts to Egg, whohad accused Adam of being slow witted.
She wanted to justify herself, and muttered:“I just felt he wasn’t Papa all along.He was like one of those awful sorrowful persons ina movie.”
“Sure,” said Adam, patting her arm.“I wish Edie’d got as nice a complexionas you, Mamma.”
“Mercy, Dammy!” his mother tittered andblushed.
Adam finished a third mug of cider and got up to examinethe shelves. He scratched the rear of one calfwith the other toe, and muscles cavorted in both legsas he reached for a jar of grapefruit marmalade.He peered through this at the lamp and put the jarback. Mrs. Egg felt hurt.
The paragon explained: “Too sour afterstrawb’ry, Mamma. I’d like some forbreakfast, though. Back in a minute.”
He trotted out through the kitchen and vanished onthe veranda. She shivered, being alone.
Adam came back and nodded: “Light’sout. Any key to that room?”
“No.”
“I can always think better when I’m eatin’,”he confessed, and lifted down the plate of spicedcookies, rejected them as too fresh, and pounced ona covered dish of apple sauce.
This he absorbed in stillness, wriggling his toeson the oilcloth. Mrs. Egg felt entirely comfortableand real. She could hear the cook snoring.Behind her the curtain of the pantry window fluttered.The cool breeze was pleasant on her neck. Adamlicked the spoon and said, “Back in a minute,Mamma,” as he started for the veranda door.
Mrs. Egg reposed on the ice chest thinking about Adam.He was like Egg, in that nothing fattened him.She puzzled over to-morrow’s lunch. Bakedham and sweet potatoes, sugared; creamed asparagus;hot corn muffins. Dessert perplexed her.Were there any brandied peaches left? She fearednot. They belonged on the upper shelf nearestthe ice chest. Anxiety chewed her. Mrs.Egg climbed the lid by the aid of the window silland reached up an arm to the shelf.
Adam said, “Here y’are, Mamma.”
The pantry door shut. Mrs. Egg swung about.Adam stood behind a shape in blue pajamas, a handlocked on either of its elbows. He grinned atMrs. Egg over the mummer’s shoulder. Asthe woman panted sulphur entered her throat.The lamp threw a glare into the dark face, which seemedpaler.
“Go on, Frisco,” said Adam, about theskull, “tell Mamma about her father.”
A sharp voice answered, “Let go my arms.You’re killin’ me!”
“Quit kiddin’,” Adam growled.“Go on!”
“He ran a joint in San Francisco and gave mea job after I got out the Navy. Died last fall.I kind of nursed him. Told me to burn all thesebooks—diaries. I read ’em.He called himself Peterson. Left all his moneyto a woman. She shut the joint. I lookedsome like him so I took a chance. Leggo my arms,Egg!”
“He’d ought to go to jail, Dammy,”said Mrs. Egg. “It’s just awful!I bet the police are lookin’ for him right now.”
“Mamma, if we put him in jail this’llbe all over the county and you’ll never hearthe end of it.”
She stared at the ape with loathing. There wasa star tattooed on one of his naked insteps.He looked no longer frail, but wiry and snakelike.The pallor behind his dark tan showed the trianglesof black stain in his cheeks and eye sockets.
“He’s too smart to leave loose, Dammy.”
“It’ll be an awful joke on you, Mamma.”
“I can’t help it, Dammy. He——”
The prisoner figure toppled back against Adam’sbreast and the mouth opened hideously. The leanlegs bent.
“You squeezed him too tight, Dammy. He’sfainted. Lay him down.”
Adam let the figure slide to the floor. It rosein a whirl of blue linen. Mrs. Egg rocked onthe chest.
The man thrust something at Adam’s middle andsaid in a rasp, “Get your arms up!”
Adam’s face turned purple beyond the gleamingskull. His hands rose a little and his fingerscrisped. He drawled,
“Fact. I ought have looked under your duds,you——”
“Stick ’em up!” said the man.
Mrs. Egg saw Adam’s arms tremble. His lowerlip drew down. He wasn’t going to put hisarms up. The man would kill him. She couldnot breathe. She fell forward from the ice chestand knew nothing.
She roused with a sense of great cold and was sittingagainst the shelves. Adam stopped rubbing herface with a lump of ice and grinned at her.
He cried, “By gee, you did that quick, Mamma!Knocked the wind clear out of him.”
“Where is he, Dammy?”
“Dunno. Took his gun and let him get dressed.He’s gone. Say, that was slick!”
Mrs. Egg blushed and asked for a drink. Adamdropped the ice into a mug of pear cider and squattedbeside her with a shabby notebook.
“Here’s somethin’ for October 10,1919.” He read: “’Talkedto a man from Ilium to-day in Palace Bar. Myrtlemarried to John Egg. Four children. Eggworth a wad. Dairy and cider business. Goingto build new Presbyterian church.’ That’sit, Mamma. He doped it all out from the diary.”
“The dirty dog!” said Mrs. Egg. Sheached terribly and put her head on Adam’s shoulder.
“I’ll put all the diaries up in the attic.Kind of good readin.’ Say, it’s aftertwo. You better go to bed.”
In her dreams Mrs. Egg beheld a bronze menacing skeletonbeside her pillow. It whispered and rattled.She woke, gulping, in bright sunlight, and the rattlechanged to the noise of a motor halting on the drive.She gave yesterday a fleet review, rubbing her blackenedelbows, but felt charitable toward Frisco Cooley byconnotation; she had once sat down on a collie pup.But her bedroom clock struck ten times. Mrs.Egg groaned and rolled out of bed, reaching for a wrapper.What had the cook given Adam for breakfast? Shecharged along the upper hall into a smell of coffee,and heard Adam speaking below. His sisters madesome feeble united interjection.
The hero said sharply: “Of course he wasa fake! Mamma knew he was, all along, but shedidn’t want to let on she did in front of folks.That ain’t dignified. She just flattenedhim out and he went away quiet. You girls alwaystalk like Mamma hadn’t as much sense as you.She’s kind of used up this morning. Waittill I give her her breakfast, and I’ll cometalk to you.”
A tray jingled.
Mrs. Egg retreated into her bedroom, awed. Adamcarried in her breakfast and shut the door with afoot.
He complained: “Went in to breakfast atEdie’s. Of course she’s only sixteen,but I could make better biscuits myself. Lay down,Mamma.”
He began to butter slices of toast, in silence, expertly.Mrs. Egg drank her coffee in rapture that rose towardecstasy as Adam made himself a sandwich of toast andmarmalade and sat down at her feet to consume it.
THE VICTIM OF HIS VISION
By GERALD CHITTENDEN
From Scribner’s
I
“There’s no doubt about it,” saidthe hardware drummer with the pock-pitted cheeks.He seemed glad that there was no doubt—smackedhis lips over it and went on. “Obeah—that’sblack magic; and voodoo—that’s snake-worship.The island is rotten with ’em—rottenwith ’em.”
He looked sidelong over his empty glass at the ReverendArthur Simpson. Many human things were foreignto the clergyman: he was uneasy about being inthe Arequipa’s smoke-room at all, forinstance, and especially uneasy about sitting therewith the drummer.
“But—human sacrifice!” he protested.“You spoke of human sacrifice.”
“And cannibalism. La chevre sans cornes—thegoat without horns—that means an unblemishedchild less than three years old. It’s frequentlydone. They string it up by its heels, cut itsthroat, and drink the blood. Then they eat it.Regular ceremony—the mamaloi officiates.”
“Who officiates?”
“The mamaloi—the priestess.”
Simpson jerked himself out of his chair and went ondeck. Occasionally his imagination worked loosefrom control and tormented him as it was doing now.There was a grizzly vividness in the drummer’sdescription. It was well toward morning beforeSimpson grasped again his usual certainty of purposeand grew able to thank God that he had been born intoa very wicked world. There was much for a missionaryto do in Hayti—he saw that before the nightgrew thin, and was glad.
Between dawn and daylight the land leaped out of thesea, all clear blues and purples, incomparably freshand incomparably 111 wistful in that one golden hourof the tropic day before the sun has risen very high—thedisembodied spirit of an island. It lay, vagueas hope at first, in a jewel-tinted sea; the shipsteamed toward it as through the mists of creation’sthird morning, and all good things seemed possible.Thus had Simpson, reared in an unfriendly land, imaginedit, for beneath the dour Puritanism that had lappedhim in its armour there still stirred the power ofwonder and surprise that has so often through theages changed Puritans to poets. That glimpse ofHayti would remain with him, he thought, yet withinthe hour he was striving desperately to hold it.For soon the ruffle of the breeze died from off thesea, and it became gray glass through which the anchorsank almost without a sound and was lost.
“Sweet place, isn’t it, Mr. Simpson?”said Bunsen, the purser, pausing on his way to thegangway.
“So that,” Simpson rejoined slowly—andbecause it was a port of his desire his voice shookon the words—“is Port au Prince!”
“That,” Bunsen spat into the sea, “isPort au Prince.”
He moved away. A dirty little launch full ofuniforms was coming alongside. Until the yellowflag—a polite symbol in that port—shouldbe hauled down Simpson would be left alone. Theuniforms had climbed to the deck and were chatteringin a bastard patois behind him; now and then the smellof the town struck across the smells of the sea andthe bush like the flick of a snake’s tail.Simpson covered his eyes for a moment, and immediatelythe vision of the island as he had seen it at dawnswam in his mind. But he could not keep his eyesforever shut—there was the necessity ofliving and of doing his work in the world to be rememberedalways. He removed his hand. A bumboat wasmade fast below the well of the deck, and a boy withan obscenely twisted body and a twisted black facewas selling pineapples to the sailors. Simpsonwatched him for a while, and because his educationhad been far too closely specialized he quoted theinevitable:
“Where every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile”
The verse uplifted him unreasonably. He wentbelow to pack his baggage. He said good-bye tothe officers, painfully conscious that they were grinningbehind his back, and was rowed ashore by the deformedboy.
The boy said something in abominable French.He repeated it—Simpson guessed at its meaning.
“I shall stay a long time,” he answeredin the same language. “I am a ministerof the gospel—a missionary.”
The cripple, bent revoltingly over his oar, suddenlybroke out into laughter, soulless, without meaning.Simpson, stung sharply in his stiff-necked pride,sprang up and took one step forward, his fist raised.The boy dropped the oars and writhed to starboard,his neck askew at an eldritch angle, his eyes glaringupward. But he did not raise a hand to ward offthe blow that he feared, and that was more uncannystill.
The blow never fell. Simpson’s hand unclinchedand shame reddened in his face.
“Give me the oars,” he said. “Pauvregarcon—did you think that I would strikeyou?”
The boy surrendered the oars and sidled aft like acrab, his eyes still rolling at his passenger.
“Why should the maimed row the sound?”said Simpson.
He rowed awkwardly. The boy watched him for amoment, then grinned uncertainly; presently he lolledback in the stern-sheets, personating dignity.A white man was doing his work—it was splendid,as it should be, and comic in the extreme. Hethrew back his head and cackled at the hot sky.
“Stop that!” Simpson, his nerves raw,spoke in English, but the laughter jarred to a bluntend. The boy huddled farther away from him, watchinghim with unwinking eyes which showed white all aroundthe pupil. Simpson, labouring with the clumsyoars, tried to forget him. It was hot—hotterthan it had seemed at first; sweat ran into his eyesand he grew a little dizzy. The quarantine launchwith its load of uniforms, among which the purser’swhite was conspicuous, passed, giving them its wake;there was no sound from it, only a blaze of teethand eyeballs. Simpson glanced over his shoulderat it. The purser was standing in the stern,clear of the awning, his head quizzically on one sideand a cigarette in his fingers.
The rowboat came abreast of a worm-eaten jetty.
“Ici,” said the cripple.
Simpson, inexpert, bumped into it bow on, and sculledthe stern around. The cripple, hideously agile,scrambled out and held the boat; Simpson gatheredup his bag and followed.
A Roman priest, black as the top of a stove, strodedown the jetty toward them.
“You—you!” he shouted to thecripple when he was yet ten strides away. Hisvoice rose as he approached. “You let them’sieu’ row you ashore! You——”A square, heavy boot shot out from beneath his cassockinto the boy’s stomach. “Cochon!”said the priest, turning to Simpson. His mannerbecame suddenly suave, grandiose. “Theseswine!” he said. “One keeps them intheir place. I am Father Antoine. And you?”
“Simpson—Arthur Simpson.”He said his own name slowly as thought there was magicin it, magic that would keep him in touch with hisbeginnings.
“Simpson?” The priest gave it the Frenchsound; suspicion struggled for expression on his blackmask; his eyes took in the high-cut waistcoat, theunmistakable clerical look. “You were sent?”
“By the board of foreign missions.”
“I do not know it. Not by the archbishop?”
“There is no archbishop in my Church.”
“In your Church?” Father Antoine’seyes sprang wide—wide as they had beenwhen he kicked the boatman. “In your Church?You are not of the true faith, then?”
Pride of race, unchastened because he had not tillthat moment been conscious that it existed in him,swelled in Simpson.
“Are you?” he asked.
Father Antoine stared at him, not as an angry whiteman stares, but with head thrown back and mouth partlyopen, in the manner of his race. Then, with theunreasoned impetuousness of a charging bull, he turnedand flung shoreward down the pier. The cripple,groaning still, crawled to Simpson’s feet andsat there.
“Pauvre garcon!” repeated Simpsondully. “Pauvre garcon!”
Suddenly the boy stopped groaning, swung Simpson’skit-bag on his shoulder, and sidled up the pier.His right leg bent outward at the knee, and his leftinward; his head, inclined away from his burden, seemedcuriously detached from his body; his gait was a haltingsort of shuffle; yet he got along with unexpectedspeed. Simpson, still dazed, followed him intothe Grand Rue—a street of smells and piledfilth, where gorged buzzards, reeking of the tomb,flapped upward under his nose from the garbage andoffal of their feast. Simpson paused for a momentat the market-stalls, where negroes of all shadeslooked out at him in a silence that seemed devoid ofcuriosity. The cripple beckoned him and he hurriedon. On the steps of the cathedral he saw FatherAntoine, but, although the priest must have seen him,he gave no sign as he passed. He kept to whatshade there was. Presently his guide turned downa narrow alley, opened a dilapidated picket gate,and stood waiting.
“Maman!” he called. “Oh!Maman!”
Simpson, his curiosity faintly stirring, acceptedthe invitation of the open gate, and stepped intoan untidy yard, where three or four pigs and a dozenchickens rooted and scratched among the bayonets ofyucca that clustered without regularity on both sidesof the path. The house had some pretensions;there were two stories, and, although the blue andred paint had mostly flaked away, the boarding lookedsound. In the yard there was less fetor thanthere had been outside.
“Maman!” called the boy again.
A pot-lid clashed inside the house, and a tall negress,dressed in a blue-striped Mother Hubbard, came tothe door. She stared at Simpson and at the boy.
“Qui?” was all she said.
The boy sidled nearer her and dropped the bag on thethreshold.
“Qui?” she said again.
Simpson waited in silence. His affairs had gotbeyond him somehow, and he seemed to himself but thetool of circumstance. It did occur to him, thoughdimly, that he was being introduced to native liferather quickly.
The cripple, squatting with his back against the bag,launched into a stream of patois, of which Simpsoncould not understand a word. Gestures explainedsomewhat; he was reenacting the scenes of the lasthalf hour. When he had finished, the negress,not so hostile as she had been but by no means friendly,turned to Simpson and looked at him a long time withoutspeaking. He had all he could do not to fidgetunder her gaze; finally, she stood aside from the doorand said, without enthusiasm:
“B’en venu. C’est vo’masson.”
Simpson entered automatically. The kitchen, withits hard earth floor and the sunlight drifting inthrough the bamboo sides, was not unclean, and a savourysmell came from the stew-pot on the ramshackle stove.In one of the bars of sunlight a mango-coloured childof two years or so was playing with his toes—hewas surprisingly clean and perfectly formed.
“Aha, mon petit!” exclaimed Simpson.He loved children. “He is handsome,”he added, addressing the woman.
“Mine!” She turned the baby gently withher foot; he caught at the hem of her dress, laughing.But she did not laugh. “Neither spot norblemish,” she said, and then: “Heis not yet three years old.”
Simpson shuddered, recalling the pock-marked drummeron the Arequipa. That was momentary—acoincidence, he told himself. The woman was lookingdown at the child, her eyes softer than they had been,and the child was lying on its back and playing withher Mother Hubbard.
The woman lifted the lid from the pot and peered intoit through the sun-shot steam.
“It is ready,” she said. She liftedit from the stove and set it on the earthen floor.The cripple placed a handful of knives and spoonson the table and three tin plates; he thrust a longfork and a long spoon into the pot and stood aside.
“Seat yourself,” said the woman, withoutlooking at Simpson, “and eat.”
She explored the pot with the fork, and stabbed itfirmly—there was a suggestion of ruthlessnessabout her action that made Simpson shudder again—intoa slab of meat, which she dropped on a plate, usinga callous thumb to disengage it from the tines.She covered it with gravy and began to eat withoutfurther ceremony. The cripple followed her example,slobbering the gravy noisily; some of it ran down hischin. Neither of them paid any attention to Simpson.
He took the remaining plate from the table and stoodirresolute with it in his hand. He was hungry,but his essential Puritan fastidiousness, combinedwith that pride of race which he knew to be un-Christian,rendered him reluctant to dip into the common pot orto eat on equal terms with these people. Besides,the sun and his amazing introduction to the islandhad given him a raging headache: he could notthink clearly nor rid himself of the sinister suggestionof the town, of the house, of its three occupantsin particular.
The child touched a ringer to the hot lip of the pot,burned itself, and began to cry.
“Taise,” said the woman. Hervoice was low but curt, and she did not raise hereyes from her plate. The child, its finger inits mouth, stopped crying at once.
Simpson shook himself; his normal point of view wasbeginning to assert itself. He must not—mustnot hold himself superior to the people he expectedto convert; nothing, he insisted to himself, was tobe gained, and much might be lost by a refusal to meetthe people “on their own ground.”Chance—he did not call it chance—hadfavoured him incredibly thus far, and if he failedto follow the guidance that had been vouchsafed himhe would prove himself but an unworthy vessel.He took up the long fork—it chattered againstthe pot as he seized it—and, overcominga momentary and inexplicable nausea, impaled the firstpiece of meat that rolled to the surface. Therewere yams also and a sort of dumpling made of manioc.When he had filled his plate he rose and turned suddenly;the woman and the cripple had stopped eating and werewatching him. They did not take their eyes awayat once but gave him stare for stare. He satdown; without a word they began to eat once again.
The stew was good, and once he had begun Simpson ateheartily of it. The tacit devilry fell away fromhis surroundings as his hunger grew less, and hiscompanions became no more than a middle-aged negressin a turban, a black boy pitifully deformed, and abeautiful child. He looked at his watch—hehad not thought of the time for hours—andfound that it was a little after noon. It wastime that he bestirred himself and found lodgings.
“Is there a hotel?” he asked cheerfully.He had noticed that the islanders understood legitimateFrench, though they could not speak it.
“There is one,” said the woman. Shepushed away her plate and became suddenly dourly communicative.“But I doubt if the proprietaire wouldfind room for m’sieu’.”
“Has he so many guests, then?”
“But no. M’sieu’ has forgottenthe priest.”
“The priest? What has he to do with it?”
“My son tells me that m’sieu’ offendedhim, and the proprietaire is a good Catholic.He will close his house to you.”
She shaved a splinter to a point with a table knifeand picked her teeth with it, both elbows on the tableand her eyes on Simpson. “There is nowhereelse to stay,” she said. “Unless—here.”
“I should prefer that,” said Simpson—quickly,for reluctance and distrust were rising in him again.“But have you a room?”
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at a door behindher.
“There,” she said. Simpson waitedfor her to move, saw that she had no intention ofdoing so, and opened the door himself.
The room was fairly large, with two windows screenedbut unglazed; a canvas cot stood in one corner, apacking-box table and a decrepit chair in another.Like the kitchen it was surprisingly clean. Hereturned to his hostess, who showed no anxiety abouthis intentions.
“How much by the week?” he asked.
“Eight gourdes.”
“And you will feed me for how much?”
“Fifteen gourdes.”
“I will take it.” He forced himselfto decision again; had he hesitated he knew he wouldhave gone elsewhere. The price also—lessthan four dollars gold—attracted him, andhe could doubtless buy some furniture in the town.Moreover, experienced missionaries who had talkedbefore the board had always emphasized the value ofliving among the natives.
“B’en,” said the negress.She rose and emptied the remains from her plate intoa tin pail, sponging the plate with a piece of bread.
“I have a trunk on the steamer,” saidSimpson. “The boy—can he——”
“He will go with you,” the negress interrupted.
The cripple slid from his chair, scraped his plateand Simpson’s, put on his battered straw hat,and shambled into the yard. Simpson followed.
He turned at the gate and looked back. The childhad toddled to the door and was standing there, holdingon to the door-post. Inside, the shadow of thewoman flickered across the close bars of bamboo.
II
Bunsen was standing on the jetty when they reachedit talking excitedly with a tall bowed man of fiftyor so whose complexion showed the stippled pallorof long residence in the tropics.
“Here he is now!” Bunsen exclaimed asSimpson approached. “I was just gettinganxious about you. Stopped at the hotel—youhadn’t been there, they said. Port au Princeis a bad place to get lost in. Oh—thisgentleman is our consul. Mr. Witherbee—Mr.Simpson.”
Simpson shook hands. Witherbee’s face wasjust a pair of dull eyes behind a ragged moustache,but there was unusual vigour in his grip.
“I’ll see a lot of you, if you stay long,”he said. He looked at Simpson more closely.“At least, I hope so. But where have youbeen? I was getting as anxious as Mr. Bunsen—afraidyou’d been sacrificed to the snake or something.”
Simpson raised a clerical hand, protesting. Hisamazing morning swept before his mind like a moving-picturefilm; there were so many things he could not explaineven to himself, much less to these two Gentiles.
“I found lodgings,” he said.
“Lodgings?” Witherbee and Bunsen chorusedthe word. “Where, for heaven’s sake?”
“I don’t know the name of the street,”Simpson admitted. “I don’t even knowthe name of my hostess. That”—indicatingthe cripple—“is her son.”
“Good God!” Witherbee exclaimed.“Madame Picard! The mamaloi!”
“The—the what?” But Simpsonhad heard well enough.
“The mamaloi—the mamaloi—highpriestess of voodoo.”
“Her house is fairly clean,” Simpson said.He was hardly aware of his own inconsequence.It was his instinct to defend any one who was attackedon moral grounds, whether they deserved the attackor not.
“Ye-es,” Witherbee drawled. “Idare say it is. It’s her company that’sunsavoury. Especially for a parson. Eh?What’s the matter now?”
Simpson had flared up at his last words. Hismouth set and his eyes burned suddenly. Bunsen,watching him coolly, wondered that he could kindleso; until that moment he had seemed but half alive.When he spoke his words came hurriedly—werealmost unintelligible; yet there was some qualityin his voice that compelled attention, affecting thesenses more than the mind.
“Unsavoury company? That’s best fora parson. ’I come not to bring the righteousbut sinners to repentance.’ And who areyou to brand the woman as common or unclean?If she is a heathen priestess, yet she worships agod of some sort. Do you?” He stopped suddenly;the humility which men hated in him again blanketedhis fanaticism. “It is my task to giveher a better god—the only true God—Christ.”
Bunsen, his legs wide apart, kept his eyes on thesea, for he did not want to let Simpson see him smiling,and he was smiling. Witherbee, who had no emotionsof any sort, pulled his moustache farther down andlooked at the clergyman as though he were under glass—acuriosity.
“So you’re going to convert the wholeisland?” he said.
“I hope to make a beginning in the Lord’svineyard.”
“Humph! The devil’s game-preserve,you mean,” Bunsen suddenly broke in.
“The devil’s game-preserve, then!”Simpson was defiant.
“The ship calls here every other Saturday,”was all Bunsen said to that. “You may needto know. I’ll send your trunk ashore.”
He stepped into the cripple’s boat and startedfor the ship. Witherbee did not speak; Simpson,still raging, left him, strode to the end of the pier,and stood there, leaning on a pile.
His gust of emotion had left him; a not unfamiliarfeeling of exaltation had taken its place. Itis often so with the extreme Puritan type; controlrelaxed for however brief a moment sends their slowblood whirling, and leaves them light-headed as thosewho breathe thin air. From boyhood Simpson hadbeen practised in control, until repression had becomea prime tenet of his faith. The cheerful andgenerally innocent excursions of other men assumedin his mind the proportions of crime, of sin againstthe stern disciplining of the soul which he conceivedto be the goal of life. Probably he had neverin all his days been so shocked as once when a youngpagan had scorned certain views of his, saying; “There’smore education—soul education, if you willhave it—in five minutes of sheer joy thanin a century of sorrow.” It was an appallingstatement, that—more appalling becausehe had tried to contradict it and had been unable todo so. He himself had been too eager to findhis work in life—his pre-ordained work—everto discover the deep truths that light-heartednessonly can reveal; even when he heard his call to foreignmissions—to Hayti, in particular—hefelt no such felicity as a man should feel who hasclimbed to his place in the scheme of things.His was rather the sombre fury of the Covenanters—anintense conviction that his way was the only way ofgrace—a conviction that transcended reasonand took flight into the realm of overmastering emotion—theonly overmastering emotion, by the way, that he hadever experienced.
His choice, therefore, was in itself a loss of controland a dangerous one, for nothing is more perilousto sanity than the certainty that most other peoplein the world are wrong. Such conviction leadsto a Jesuitical contempt of means; in cases wherethe Puritan shell has grown to be impregnable fromthe outside it sets up an internal ferment which sometimesbursts shell and man and all into disastrous fragments.Until old age kills them, the passions and emotionsnever die in man; suppress them how we will, we cannever ignore them; they rise again to mock us whenwe think we are done with them forever. And theman of Simpson’s type suffers from them mostof all, for he dams against them all normal channelsof expression.
Simpson, standing at the pier-end, was suffering fromthem now. His exaltation—a thing ofa moment, as his fervour had been—had goneout of him, leaving him limp, uncertain of his ownpowers, of his own calling, even—the preyto the discouragement that precedes action, whichis the deepest discouragement of all. Except forhimself and Witherbee the pier was deserted; behindhim the filthy town slept in its filth. Fourbuzzards wheeled above it, gorged and slow; the harbourlay before him like a green mirror, so still that theship was reflected in it down to the last rope-yarn.Over all, the sun, colourless and furnace-hot, burnedin a sky of steel. There was insolence in thescorched slopes that shouldered up from the bay, athreatening permanence in the saw-edged sky-line.The indifference of it all, its rock-ribbed impenetrabilityto human influence, laid a crushing weight on Simpson’ssoul, so that he almost sank to his knees in sheeroppression of spirit.
“Do you know much about Hayti?” askedWitherbee, coming up behind him.
“As much as I could learn from books.”Simpson wanted to be angry at the consul—whyhe could not tell—but Witherbee’svoice was so carefully courteous that he yielded perforceto its persuasion and swung around, facing him.Suddenly, because he was measuring himself againstman and not against Nature, his weakness left him,and confidence in himself and his mission floodedback upon him. “As much as I could getfrom books.” He paused. “Youhave lived here long?”
“Long enough,” Witherbee answered.“Five years.”
“You know the natives, then?”
“Can’t help knowing them. There arequite a lot of them, you see, and there’s almostno one else. Do you know negroes at all?”
“Very little.”
“You’d better study them a bit beforeyou—before you do anything you have itin mind to do—the Haytian negro in particular.They’re not like white men, you know.”
“Like children, you mean?”
“Like some children. I’d hate tohave them for nephews and nieces.”
“Why?”
“We-ell”—Witherbee, lookingsidelong at Simpson, bit off the end of a cigar—“anumber of reasons. They’re superstitious,treacherous, savage, cruel, and—worst ofall—emotional. They’ve gone back.They’ve been going back for a hundred years.The West Coast—I’ve been there—isnot so bad as Hayti. It’s never been anythingelse than what it is now, you see, and if it movesat all it must move forward. There’s nothingawful about savagery when people have never knownanything else. Hayti has. You know what theisland used to be before Desalines.”
“I’ve read. But just what do youmean by West Coast savagery—here?”
“Snake-worship. Voodoo.” Witherbeelit the cigar “Human sacrifice.”
“And the Roman Church does nothing!” Therewas exultation in Simpson’s voice. Hisdistrust of the Roman Church had been aggravated byhis encounter with the black priest that morning.
“The Roman Church does what it can. It’sbeen unfortunate in its instruments. Especiallyunfortunate now.”
“Father Antoine?”
“Father Antoine. You met him?”
“This morning. A brute, and nothing more.”
“Just that.” Witherbee let a mouthfulof smoke drift into the motionless air. “It’scurious,” he said.
“What is?”
“Father Antoine will make it unpleasant foryou. He may try to have you knifed, or something.”
“Impossible!”
“Not at all. Human life is worth nothinghere. No wonder—it’s not reallyworth living. But you’re safe enough, andthat’s the curious thing.”
“Why am I safe?”
“Because your landlady is who she is.”Witherbee glanced over his shoulder, and, althoughthey were the only people on the pier, from forceof habit he dropped his voice. “The mamaloihas more power than the Church.” He straightenedand looked out toward the ship. “Here’sher idiot with your trunk. My office is the firsthouse on the left after you leave the pier. Don’tforget that.”
He turned quickly and was gone before the cripple’sboat had reached the landing.
III
The town, just stirring out of its siesta as Simpsonfollowed the cripple through the streets, somehowreassured him. Men like Bunsen and Witherbee,who smiled at his opinions and remained cold to hisrhapsodies, always oppressed him with a sense of ineffectuality.He knew them of old—knew them superficially,of course, for, since he was incapable of talkingimpersonally about religion, he had never had thechance to listen to the cool and yet often strangelymystical opinions which such men hold about it.He knew, in a dim sort of way, that men not clergymensometimes speculated about religious matters, seekinglight from each other in long, fragmentary conversations.He knew that much, and disapproved of it—almostresented it. It seemed to him wrong to discussGod without becoming angry, and very wrong for laymen
to discuss God at all. When circumstances trappedhim into talk with them about things divine, he feltbaffled by their silences and their reserves, seemedto himself to be scrabbling for entrance to theirsouls through some sort of a slippery, impenetrablecasing; he never tried to enter through their minds,where the door stood always open. The troublewas that he wanted to teach and be listened to; whereforehe was subtly more at home among the ignorant and insuch streets as he was now traversing than with educatedmen. He had been born a few decades too late;here in Hayti he had stepped back a century or sointo the age of credulity. Credulity, he believed,was a good thing, almost a divine thing, if it wereproperly used; he did not carry his processes farenough to realize that credulity could never becomefixed—that it was always open to conviction.A receptive and not an inquiring mind seemed to himthe prerequisite for a convert. And black people,he had heard, were peculiarly receptive.The question was, then, where and how to start hiswork. Hayti differed from most mission fields,for, so far as he knew, no one had ever worked init before him. The first step was to cultivatethe intimacy of the people, and that he found difficultin the extreme. He had one obvious channel ofapproach to them; when buying necessary things forhis room, he could enter into conversation with theshopkeepers and the market-women, but this he foundit difficult to do. They did not want to talkto him, even seemed reluctant to sell him anything;and when he left their shops or stalls, did not answerhis “Au revoir.” He wondered how muchthe priest had to do with their attitude. Theyhad little also that he wanted—he shoppedfor a week before he found a gaudy pitcher and basinand a strip of matting for his floor. Chairs,bureaus, bookcases, and tables did not exist.He said as much to Madame Picard, and gathered fromher growled response that he must find a carpenter.The cripple, his constant companion in his first dayson the island, took him to one—a gray oldnegro who wore on a shoe-string about his neck a pouchwhich Simpson thought at first to be a scapular, andwhom age and his profession had made approachable.He was garrulous even; he ceased working when at lengthhe understood what Simpson wanted, sat in his doorwaywith his head in the sun and his feet in the shade,and lit a pipe made out of a tiny cocoanut. Yes—hecould build chairs, tables, anything m’sieu’wanted There was wood also—black palm fordrawer-knobs and cedar and mahogany and rosewood,but especially mahogany. An excellent wood, pleasantto work in and suave to the touch. Did they useit in the United States, he wondered?
“A great deal,” answered Simpson.“And the San Domingo wood is the best, I believe.”
“San Domingo—but yes,” thecarpenter said; “the Haytian also—thatis excellent. Look!”
He led Simpson to the yard at the rear of his houseand showed him half a dozen boards, their grain showingwhere the broad axe had hewed them smooth. Wasit not a beautiful wood? And what furniture didm’sieu’ desire?
Simpson had some little skill with his pencil—areal love for drawing was one of the instincts whichhis austere obsessions had crushed out of him.He revolved several styles in his mind, decided atlength on the simplest, and drew his designs on aragged scrap of wrapping paper, while the carpenter,leaning down from his chair by the door, watched him,smoking, and now and then fingering the leather pouchabout his neck. Simpson, looking up occasionallyto see that his sketch was understood, could not keephis eyes away from the pouch—whatever itwas, it was not a scapular. He did not ask aboutit, though he wanted to; curiosity, he had heard, shouldbe repressed when one is dealing with barbarians.But he knew that that was not his real reason fornot asking.
“But it is easy,” said the carpenter,picking up the paper and examining it. “Andthe seats of the chairs shall be of white hide, isit not?”
Simpson assented. He did not leave the shop atonce, but remained seated on the threshold, followinghis usual policy of picking up acquaintances wherehe could.
“M’sieu’ is a priest?” theold man asked, squinting at he filled the cocoanutpipe again and thrust it between his ragged yellowteeth.
“Not a priest. A minister of the gospel.”
“Quoi?” said the carpenter.
Simpson saw that he must explain. It was difficult.He had on the one hand to avoid suggesting that theRoman Church was insufficient—that denunciationhe intended to arrive at when he had gained firmerground with the people—and on the otherto refrain from hinting that Haytian civilizationstood in crying need of uplift. That also couldcome later. He wallowed a little in his explanation,and then put the whole matter on a personal basis.
“I think I have a message—somethingnew to say to you about Christ. But I have beenhere a week now and have found none to listen to me.”
“Something new?” the carpenter rejoined.“But that is easy if it is something new.In Hayti we like new things.”
“No one will listen to me,” Simpson repeated.
The carpenter reflected for a moment, or seemed tobe doing so.
“Many men come here about sunset,” hesaid. “We sit and drink a little rum beforedark; it is good against the fever.”
“I will come also,” said Simpson, rising.“It is every evening?”
“Every evening.” The carpenter’sright hand rose to the pouch which was not a scapularand he caressed it.
“Au revoir,” said Simpson suddenly.
“’Voir,” the carpenter replied,still immobile in his chair by the door.
Up to now a walk through the streets had been a night-mareto Simpson, for the squalor of them excited to protestevery New England nerve in his body, and the evidenthostility of the people constantly threatened hissuccess with them. He had felt very small andlonely, like a man who has undertaken to combat anatural force; he did not like to feel small and lonely,and he did not want to believe in natural forces.Chosen vessel as he believed himself to be, thus farthe island had successfully defied him, and he hadfeared more than once that it would do so to the end.He had compelled himself to frequent the markets,hoping always that he would find in them the key tothe door that was closed against him; he had not foundit, and, although he recognized that three weeks wasbut a fractional moment of eternity, and comfortedhimself by quoting things about the “mills ofGod,” he could not approach satisfaction withwhat he had accomplished so far.
His interview with the carpenter had changed all that,and on his way home he trod the Grand Rue more lightlythan he had ever done. Even the cathedral, eventhe company of half-starved conscripts that straggledpast him in the tail of three generals, dismayed himno longer, for the cathedral was but the symbol ofa frozen Christianity which he need no longer fear,and the conscripts were his people—his—orsoon would be. All that he had wanted was a start;he had it now, though he deplored the rum which wouldbe drunk at his first meeting with the natives.One must begin where one could.
Witherbee, sitting in the window of the consulate,called twice before Simpson heard him.
“You look pretty cheerful,” he said.“Things going well?”
“They’ve just begun to, I think—Ithink I’ve found the way to reach these people.”
“Ah?” The monosyllable was incredulousthough polite. “How’s that?”
“I’ve just been ordering some furniturefrom a carpenter,” Simpson answered. Itwas the first time since the day of his arrival thathe had seen Witherbee to speak to, and he found ita relief to speak in his own language and withoutcalculating the result of his words.
“A carpenter? Vieux Michaud, I suppose?”
“That’s his name. You know him?”
“Very well.” The consul tipped backhis chair and tapped his lips with a pencil.“Very well. He’s a clever workman.He’ll follow any design you give him, and thewoods, of course, are excellent.”
“Yes. He showed me some. But he’smore than a carpenter to me. He’s more—receptive—thanmost of the natives, and it seems that his shop isa gathering place—a centre. He askedme to come in the evenings.”
“And drink rum?” Witherbee could not resistthat.
“Ye-es. He said they drank rum. Isha’n’t do that, of course, but one mustbegin where one can.”
“I suppose so,” Witherbee answered slowly.The office was darkened to just above reading-light,and the consul’s face was in the shadow.Evidently he had more to say, but he allowed a longsilence to intervene before he went on. Simpson,imaging wholesale conversions, sat quietly; he washardly aware of his surroundings.
“Don’t misunderstand what I’m goingto say,” the consul began at length. Simpsonstraightened, on his guard at once. “Itmay be of use to you—in your work,”he added quickly. “It’s this.Somehow—by chance perhaps, though I don’tthink so—you’ve fallen into strangecompany—stranger than any white man I’veever known.”
“I am not afraid of voodoo,” said Simpsonrather scornfully.
“It would be better if you were a little afraidof it. I am—and I know what I’mtalking about. Look what’s happened to you.There’s the Picard woman—she’sthe one who had President Simon Sam under her thumb.Did you know he carried the symbols of voodoo nexthis heart? And now Michaud, who’s her righthand and has been for years. Looks like deepwater to me.”
“I must not fear for my own body.”
“That’s not what I mean exactly, thoughI wish you were a little more afraid for it.It might save me trouble—possibly save ourgovernment trouble—in the end. Butthe consequences of letting voodoo acquire any morepower than it has may be far-reaching.”
“I am not here to give it more power.”Simpson, thoroughly angry, rose to go. “Itis my business to defeat it—to root it out.”
“Godspeed to you in that”—Witherbee’svoice was ironical. “But remember whatI tell you. The Picard woman is subtle, and Michaudis subtle.” Simpson had crossed the threshold,and only half heard the consul’s next remark.“Voodoo is more subtle than both of them together.Look out for it.”
Witherbee’s warning did no more than make Simpsonangry; he attributed it to wrong motives—tojealousy perhaps to hostility certainly, and neitherjealousy nor hostility could speak true words.In spite of all that he had heard he could not believethat voodoo was so powerful in the island; this wasthe twentieth century, he insisted, and the most enlightenedcountry in the world was less than fifteen hundredmiles away; he forgot that opinions and not figuresnumber the centuries, and refused to see that distancehad nothing to do with the case. These were apeople groping through the dark; when they saw thelight they could not help but welcome it, he thought.The idea that they preferred their own way of lifeand their own religion, that they would not embracecivilization till they were forced to do so at thepoint of benevolent bayonets, never entered his head.His own way of life was so obviously superior.He resolved to have nothing more to do with Witherbee.
When he returned to the carpenter’s house atabout six that evening he entered the council of eldersthat he found there with the determination to placehimself on an equality with them. It was to hiscredit that he accomplished this feat, but it was notsurprising for the humility of his mind at least wasgenuine. He joined in their conversation, somewhatstiffly at first, but perhaps no more so than becamea stranger. Presently, because he saw that he
could not refuse without offending his host, he conqueredprejudice and took a little rum and sugar and water.It went to his head without his knowing it, as rumhas a habit of doing; he became cheerfully familiarwith the old men and made long strides into theirfriendship—or thought he did. He didnot once mention religion to them at that first meeting,though he had to exercise considerable self-restraintto prevent himself from doing so.On his way home he met Father Antoine not far fromMichaud’s door. The priest would have passedwith his usual surly look if Simpson had not stoppedhim.
“Well?” Antoine demanded.
“Why should we quarrel—you and I?”Simpson asked. “Can we not work togetherfor these people of yours?”
“Your friends are not my people, heretic!”Father Antoine retorted.” Rot in hell withthem!”
He plunged past Simpson and was gone down the darklingalley.
“You are late, m’sieu’,” remarkedMadame Picard as he came into the kitchen and satdown in a chair near the cripple. Her manner wasless rough than usual.
“I’ve been at Michaud’s,”he answered.
“Ah? But you were there this morning.”
“He asked me to come this evening, when hisfriends came, madame. There were several there.”
“They are often there,” she answered.There was nothing significant in her tone, but Simpsonhad an uneasy feeling that she had known all the timeof his visit to the carpenter.
“I met Father Antoine on the way home,”he said.
“A bad man!” She flamed into sudden violence.“A bad man!”
“I had thought so.” Her loquacitythis evening was amazing. Simpson thought hesaw an opening to her confidence and plunged in.“And he is a priest. It is bad, that.Here are sheep without a shepherd.”
“Quoi?”
“Here are many people—all good Christians.”Simpson, eager and hopeful, leaned forward in hischair. His gaunt face with the down-drawn mouthand the hungry eyes—grown more hungry inthe last three weeks—glowed, took on fervour;his hand shot out expressive fingers. The womanraised her head slowly, staring at him; more slowlystill she seated herself at the table that stood betweenthem. She rested her arms on it, and narrowedher eyelids as he spoke till her eyes glittered throughthe slits of them.
“All good Christians,” Simpson went on;“and there is none to lead them save a black——”He slurred the word just in time. The woman’seyes flashed open and narrowed again. “Savea renegade priest,” Simpson concluded.“It is wrong, is it not? And I knew it waswrong, though I live far away and came—wasled—here to you.” His voice,though it had not been loud, left the room echoing.“It was a real call.” He whisperedthat.
“You are a Catholic?” asked Madame Picard.
“Yes. Of the English Catholic Church.”He suspected that the qualifying adjective meant nothingto her, but let the ambiguity rest.
“I was not sure,” she said slowly, “thoughyou told the boy.” Her eyes, velvet-blackin the shadow upcast by the lamp, opened slowly.“There has been much trouble with Father Antoine,and now small numbers go to mass or confession.”Her voice had the effect of shrillness though it remainedlow; her hands flew out, grasping the table-edge atarms’ length with an oddly masculine gesture.“He deserved that! To tell his canaillethat I—that we——He dared!But now—now—we shall see!”
Her voice rasped in a subdued sort of a shriek; shesprang up from her chair, and stood for the fractionof a second with her hands raised and her fists clinched.Simpson, puzzled, amazed, and a little scared at last,had barely time to notice the position before it dissolved.The child, frightened, screamed from the floor.
“Taisez-vous—taisez-vous, monenfant. Le temps vient.”
She was silent for a long time after that. Simpsonsat wondering what she would do next, aware of anuncanny fascination that emanated from her. Itseemed to him as though there were subterranean firesin the ground that he walked on.
“You shall teach us,” she said in herusual monotone. “You shall teach us—preachto many people. No house will hold them all.”She leaned down and caressed the child. “Letemps vient, mon petit. Le temps vient.”
Under Simpson’s sudden horror quivered an eeriethrill. He mistook it for joy at the promisedfulfilment of his dreams. He stepped to his owndoorway and hesitated there with his hand on the latch.
“To many people? Some time, I hope.”
“Soon.” She looked up from the child;there was a snakiness in the angle of her head andneck. “Soon.”
He opened the door, slammed it behind him, and droppedon tense knees beside his bed. In the kitchenthe cripple laughed—laughed for a longtime. Simpson’s tightly pressed palms couldnot keep the sound from his ears.
IV
Each night the gathering at Vieux Michaud’sbecame larger; it grew too large for the house, andpresently overflowed into the yard behind, where Michaudkept his lumber. Generally thirty or forty nativescollected between six and seven in the evening, roostingon the piled boards or sitting on the dusty groundin little groups, their cigarettes puncturing theblue darkness that clung close to the earth underthe young moon. There were few women among themat first and fewer young men; Simpson, who knew thatyouth ought to be more hospitable to new ideas thanage, thought this a little strange and spoke to Michaudabout it.
“But they are my friends, m’sieu’,”answered Michaud.
The statement might have been true of the smallergroup that Simpson had first encountered at the carpenter’shouse; it was not true of the additions to it, forhe was evidently not on intimate terms with them.Nor did he supply rum for all of them; many broughttheir own. That was odd also, if Simpson hadonly known it; the many cantinas offered attractionswhich the carpenter’s house did not. Thatfact occurred to him at length.
“They have heard of you, m’sieu’—andthat you have something new to say to them. WeHaytians like new things.”
Thus, very quietly, almost as though it had been anatural growth of interest, did Simpson’s ministrybegin. He stepped one evening to the platformthat overhung the carpenter’s backyard, and beganto talk. Long study had placed the missionarymethod at his utter command, and he began with parablesand simple tales which they heard eagerly. Purposely,he eschewed anything striking or startling in thishis first sermon. It was an attempt to establisha sympathetic understanding between himself and hisaudience, and not altogether an unsuccessful one,for his motives were still unmixed. He felt thathe had started well; when he was through speakingsmall groups gathered around him as children mighthave done, and told him inconsequent, wandering talesof their own—tales which were rather fables,folklore transplanted from another hemisphere andstrangely crossed with Christianity. He was happy;if it had not been that most of them wore about theirnecks the leather pouches that were not scapulars hewould have been happier than any man has a right tobe. One of these pouches, showing through theragged shirt of an old man with thin lips and a squint,was ripped at the edge, and the unmistakable sheenof a snake’s scale glistened in the seam.Simpson could not keep his eyes from it.
He dared to be more formal after that, and on thenext night preached from a text—the Macedoniancry, “Come over and help us.” Thatsermon also was effective: toward the end ofit two or three women were weeping a little, and thesight of their tears warmed him with the sense ofpower. In that warmth certain of his prejudicesand inhibitions began to melt away; the display offeelings and sensibilities could not be wicked oreven undesirable if it prepared the way for the gospelby softening the heart. He began to dabble inemotion himself, and that was a dangerous matter, forhe knew nothing whatever about it save that, if hefelt strongly, he could arouse strong feeling in others.Day by day he unwittingly became less sure of themoral beauty of restraint, and ardours which he hadnever dreamed of began to flame free of his soul.
He wondered now and then why Madame Picard, who almostfrom the first had been a constant attendant at hismeetings, watched him so closely, so secretly—bothwhen he sat with her and the cripple at meals and atthe carpenter’s house, where he was never unconsciousof her eyes. He wondered also why she broughther baby with her, and why all who came fondled itso much and so respectfully. He did not wonderat the deference, almost the fear, which all men showedher—that seemed somehow her due. Shehad shed her taciturnity and was even voluble at times.But behind her volubility lurked always an inexplicableintensity of purpose whose cause Simpson could neverfathom and was afraid to seek for. It was there,however—a nervous determination, not altogetheralien to his own, which he associated with religionand with nothing else in the world. Religiosity,he called it—and he was not far wrong.
Soon after his first sermon he began little by littleto introduce ritual into the meetings at Michaud’s,so that they became decorous; rum-drinking was postponedtill after the concluding prayer, and that in itselfwas a triumph. He began to feel the need of hymns,and, since he could find in French none that had associationsfor himself, he set about translating some of themore familiar ones, mostly those of a militant nature.Some of them, especially “The Son of God goesforth to war,” leaped into immediate popularityand were sung two or three times in a single service.He liked that repetition; he thought it laid the groundworkfor the enthusiasm which he aroused more and moreas time went on, and which he took more pains to arouse.Nevertheless, the first time that his feverish eloquencebrought tears and incoherent shoutings from the audience,he became suddenly fearful before the ecstasies whichhe had touched to life, he faltered, and brought hisdiscourse to an abrupt end. As the crowd slowlyquieted and reluctantly began to drift away thereflashed on him with blinding suddenness the realizationthat his excitement had been as great as their own;for a moment he wondered if such passion were godly.Only for a moment, however, of course it was godly,as any rapture informed by religion must be.He was sorry he had lost courage and stopped so soon.These were an emotional and not an intellectual people—ifthey were to be reached at all, it must be throughthe channels of their emotions. Thus far he thoughtclearly, and that was as far as he did think, forhe was discovering in himself a capacity for religiousexcitement that was only in part a reflex of the crowd’sfervour, and the discovery quickened and adorned thememory of the few great moments of his life.Thus had he felt when he resolved to take orders,thus, although in a less degree, because he had beendoubtful and afraid, had he felt when he heard theMacedonian cry from this West Indian island.He had swayed the crowd also as he had always believedthat he could sway crowds if only the spirit wouldburn in him brightly enough; he had no doubt thathe could sway them again, govern them completely perhaps.That possibility was cause for prayerful and lonelyconsideration, for meditation among the hills, whencehe might draw strength. He hired a pony forthwithand set out for a few days in the hinterland.
It was the most perilous thing he could have done.There is neither sanctity nor holy calm in the tropicjungle, nothing of the hallowed quietude that, innorthern forests, clears the mind of life’s muddleand leads the soul to God. There lurks insteada poisonous anodyne in the heavy, scented air—adrug that lulls the spirit to an evil repose counterfeitingthe peacefulness whence alone high thoughts can spring.In the North, Nature displays a certain restraint evenin her most flamboyant moods: the green firesof spring temper their sensuousness in chill winds,
and autumn is rich in suggestion not of love, but ofgracious age, having the aloof beauty of age and itstrue estimates of life. The perception of itsloveliness is impersonal and leaves the line betweenthe aesthetic and the sensuous clearly marked.Beneath a straighter sun the line is blurred and sometimesvanishes: no orchid-musk, no azure and distanthill, no tinted bay but accosts the senses, confusingone with another, mingling all the emotions in a singlecup, persuading man that he knows good from evil aslittle as though he lived still in Eden. Fromsuch stealthy influences the man of rigid convictionsis often in more danger than the man of no convictionsat all, for rigid convictions rather often indicateinexperience and imperfect observation; experience,therefore—especially emotional experience—sometimeswarps them into strange and hideous shapes.Simpson did not find in the bush the enlightenmentthat he had hoped for. He did, however, anaesthetizehis mind into the belief that he had found it.Returning, he approached Port au Prince by a routenew to him. A well-beaten trail aroused his curiosityand he followed it into a grove of ceiba and mahogany.It was clear under foot, as no tropic grove uncaredfor by man can be clear; in the middle of it lay theashes of a great fire, and three minaca-palm huts ingood repair huddled almost invisible under the vasttrees. The ground, bare of grass, was troddenhard, as though a multitude had stamped it down—dancedit down, perhaps—and kept it bare by frequentuse.
“What a place for a camp-meeting!” thoughtSimpson as he turned to leave it. “God’scathedral aisles, and roofed by God’s blue sky.”
His pony shied and whirled around, a long snake—afer-de-lance—flowed across the path.
The desire to hold his services in the grove remainedin his mind; the only reason he did not transfer themthere at once was that he was not yet quite sure ofhis people. They came eagerly to hear him, theyreflected his enthusiasm at his behest, they wept andpraised God. Yet, underneath all his hopes andall his pride in what he had done ran a cold currentof doubt, an undefined and indefinable fear of somethingdevilish and malign that might thwart him in the end.He thrust it resolutely out of his mind.
V
“I have told your people—your canaille,”said Father Antoine, “that I shall excommunicatethem all.”
The priest had been graver than his wont—moredignified, less volcanic, as though he was but themouthpiece of authority, having none of it himself.
“They are better out of your Church than init,” Simpson answered.
Father Antoine trembled a little; it was the firstsign he had given that his violent personality wasstill alive under the perplexing new power that hadcovered it.
“You are determined?” Simpson nodded withcompressed lips. “Their damnation be onyour head, then.”
The priest stood aside. Simpson squeezed by himon the narrow sidewalk; as he did so, Antoine drewaside the skirts of his cassock.
From the beginning Simpson had preached more of hellthan of heaven; he could not help doing so, for heheld eternal punishment to be more imminent than eternaljoy, and thought it a finer thing to scare peopleinto heaven than to attract them thither. He tookan inverted pleasure also in dwelling on the torturesof the damned, and had combed the minor prophets andRevelation for threatening texts to hurl at his congregation.Such devil-worship, furthermore, gave him greateropportunity for oratory, greater immediate resultsalso; he had used it sometimes against his betterjudgment, and was not so far gone that he did notsometimes tremble at the possible consequences of itsuse. His encounter with the priest, however,had driven all doubts from his mind, and that eveninghe did what he had never done before—heopenly attacked the Roman Church.
“What has it done for you?” he shouted,and his voice rang in the rafters of the warehousewhere a hundred or so Negroes had gathered to hearhim. “What has it done for you? Youcultivate your ground, and its tithes take the foodfrom the mouths of your children. Does the priesttell you of salvation, which is without money and withoutprice, for all—for all—for all?Does he live among you as I do? Does he ministerto your bodies? Or your souls?”
There was a stir at the door, and the eyes of thecongregation turned from the platform.
“Father Antoine!” shrieked a voice.It was Madame Picard’s; Simpson could see herin the gloom at the far end of the hall and could seethe child astride of her hip. “Father Antoine!He is here!”
In response to the whip of her voice there was a roarlike the roar of a train in a tunnel. It diedaway; the crowd eddied back upon the platform.Father Antoine—he was robed, and there weretwo acolytes with him, one with a bell and the otherwith a candle—began to read in a voiceas thundering as Simpson’s own.
“Excommunicado ——”
The Latin rolled on, sonorous, menacing. It ceased;the candle-flame snuffed out, the bell tinkled, therewas the flash of a cope in the doorway, and the priestwas gone.
“He has excommunicated you!” Simpson shouted,almost shrieked. “Thank God for that, mypeople!”
They faced him again; ecstatic, beside himself, heflung at them incoherent words. But the Latin,mysterious as magic, fateful as a charm, had frightenedthem, and they did not yield to Simpson immediately.Perhaps they would not have yielded to him at all ifit had not been for Madame Picard.
From her corner rose an eerie chant in broken minors;it swelled louder, and down the lane her people madefor her she came dancing. Her turban was off,her dress torn open to the breasts; she held the childhorizontally and above her in both hands. Herbody swayed rhythmically, but she just did not takeup the swing of the votive African dance that is asold as Africa. Up to the foot of the platformshe wavered, and there the cripple joined her, laughingas always. Together they shuffled first to theright and then to the left, their feet marking theearth floor in prints that overlapped like scales.She laid the baby on the platform, sinking slowly toher knees as she did so; as though at a signal thewordless chant rumbled upward from the entire building,rolled over the platform like a wave, engulfing thewhite man in its flood.
“Symbolism! Sacrifice!” Simpson yelled.“She offers all to God!”
He bent and raised the child at arm’s lengthabove his head. Instantly the chanting ceased.
“To the grove!” screamed the mamaloi.She leaped to the platform, almost from her kneesit seemed, and snatched the child. “To thegrove!”
The crowd took up the cry; it swelled till Simpson’sears ached under the impact of it.
“To the grove!”
Doubt assailed him as his mind—a whiteman’s mind—rebelled.
“This is wrong,” he said dully; “wrong.”
Madame Picard’s fingers gripped his arm.Except for the spasms of the talons which were herfingers she seemed calm.
“No, m’sieu’,” she said.“You have them now. Atonement—atonement,m’sieu’. You have many times spokenof atonement. But they do not understand whatthey cannot see. They are behind you—youcannot leave them now.”
“But—the child?”
“The child shall show them—a childshall lead them, m’sieu’. They mustsee a theatre of atonement—then theywill believe. Come.”
Protesting, he was swept into the crowd and forward—forwardto the van of it, into the Grand Rue. Alwaysthe thunderous rumble of the mob continued; high shrieksflickered like lightning above it; the name of Christdinned into his ears from foul throats. On oneside of him the cripple appeared; on the other strodethe mamaloi—the child, screamingwith fear, on her hip. A hymn-tune stirred underthe tumult—rose above it.
“Le fils de Dieu se va Pen guerre
Son drapeau rouge comme sang.”
Wild quavers adorned the tune obscenely; the mob marchedto it, falling into step. Torches came, flaminghigh at the edges of the crowd, flaming wan and luridon hundreds of black faces.
“Il va pour gagner sa couronne
Qui est-ce que suit dans son train?”
“A crusade!” Simpson suddenly shouted.“It is a crusade!”
Yells answered him. Somewhere a drum began, reverberatingas though unfixed in space; now before them, now behind;now, it seemed, in the air. The sound was maddeningA swaying began in the crowd that took on cadence,became a dance. Simpson, his brain drugged, hissenses perfervid marched on in exultation. Thesewere his people at last.
The drum thundered more loudly, became unbearable.They were clear of the town and in the bush at last;huge fires gleamed through the trees, and the mobspilled into the grove. The cripple and the mamaloiwere beside him still.
In the grove, with the drums—more thanone of them now—palpitating unceasingly,the dancing became wilder, more savage. In thelight of the fire the mamaloi swayed, holdingthe screaming child, and close to the flames crouchedthe cripple. The hymn had given place to theformless chant, through which the minors quivered likethe wails of lost souls.
The scales fell from Simpson’s eyes. Herose to his full height and stretched out his arm,demanding silence; there was some vague hope in himthat even now he might guide them. His only answerwas a louder yell than ever.
It took form. Vieux Michaud sprang from the circleinto the full firelight, feet stamping, eyes glaring.
“La ch vre!” he yelled. “Lachevre sans cornes!”
The drums rolled in menacing crescendo, the fire lickedhigher. All sounds melted into one.
“La chevre sans cornes!”
The mamaloi tore the child from her neck andheld it high by one leg. Simpson, seeing clearlyas men do before they die, flung himself toward her.
The cripple’s knife, thrust from below, wenthome between his ribs just as the mamaloi’sblade crossed the throat of the sacrifice.
“So I signed the death-certificate,” Witherbeeconcluded. “Death at the hands of personsunknown.”
“And they’ll call him a martyr,”said Bunsen.
“Who knows?” the consul responded gravely.“Perhaps he was one.”
MARTIN GARRITY GETS EVEN
By COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER and LEO. F. CREAGAN
From American Magazine
The entrance of Martin Garrity, superintendent ofthe Blue Ribbon Division of the O.R.& T. Railroad,had been attended by all the niceties of such an occasion,when Martin, grand, handsome, and magnificent, arrivedat his office for the day. True to form, he hadcussed out the office boy, spoken in fatherly fashionto the trainmaster over the telephone about the latenessof No. 210, remarked to the stenographer that herlast letter had looked like the exquisite tracks ofa cow’s hoof—and then he had readtwo telegrams. A moment later, white, a bit stooped,a little old in features, he had left the office,nor had he paused to note the grinning faces of thosein his wake, those who had known hours before!
Home, and stumbling slightly as he mounted the stepsof the veranda, he faced a person in screaming foulardand a red toque, Mrs. Jewel Garrity, just startingfor the morning’s assault upon the market.Wordlessly he poked forward the first of the telegramsas he pulled her within the hall and shut the door.And with bulging eyes Jewel read it aloud:
Chicago, April 30.
GARRITY,
Montgomery City:
Effective arrival successor J.P. Aldrich mustdispense your valuable services. Kindly forwardresignation by wire confirming this telegram.
W.W. WALKER,
Vice-President & General
Manager.
“And who is this Walker person?” Jewelasked, with a vindictive gasp. “’Tisme that never heard of him. Why should he signhisself vice prisident and giniral manager when thewhole world knows Mr. Barstow, bless his soul, isthe——”
“Will ye listen?” Martin bellowed withsorrowful asperity. “Somethin’s happened.And now:
GARRITY,
Montgomery City.
Alabaster abound celebrity conglomerate commensurateconstituency
effective arrival successor. Meet me PlantersHotel St. Louis this
P.M.
LEMUELC. BARSTOW.”
And while Jewel gasped Martin went on:
“’Tis code it is, from Barstow. Itsays Walker’s taken his place—andI’m out.”
Mouth drawn at the corners, hand trembling slightly,Jewel reached for the message and stared blankly atthe railroad code. Then silently she turned andthumped up the stairs. In a moment she was downagain; the screaming foulard had given place to ahouse dress; the red toque had been substituted bya shawl. But the lips were drawn no longer—asmile was on them, and a soft hand touched Martin’swhite cheek as she reached the door.
“‘Tis me that’s goin’ to thecash-carry, Marty darlin’,” came quietly.“I never liked that high-toned market annyhow.About—about that other, Marty, me bye,’tis all right, it is, it is. We can alwaysstart over again.”
Over again! It had opened the doors of memoryfor Martin Garrity as, at the window, he stared afterher with eyes that saw in the portly, middle-agedfigure a picture of other days, when the world hadcentred about a fluttering honour flag, which flewabove a tiny section house at a bit of a place calledGlen Echo, when the rotund form of Jewel Garrity wasslender and graceful, when Martin’s freckledface was thinner and more engaging, and when——
Visions of the old days floated before him, days onthe section with his crew of “snipes”back in the Honour Flag times. Memories returnedto him, of blazing hours in the summer, when even thegrease-lizards panted and died, when the heat rayscurled in maddening serpent-like spirals before hisglazed eyes.
And why? Why had he been willing to sacrifice,to work for wages pitiful indeed, compared to theemoluments of other lines of endeavour? Why hadshe, his Jewel, accepted the loneliness, the impoverishmentof those younger days with light-heartedness?He never had thought of it before. Now, deposed,dethroned, defeated at the very pinnacle of his life,the answer came, with a force that brought a lumpto his throat and a tear to his eyes. Why?Because they had loved this great, human, glisteningthing of shining steel and thundering noise, lovedit because the Blue Ribbon division had included theBlue Ribbon section, their section, which they hadbuilt together.
Now, all they had worked for, lived for, longed for,and enjoyed together had been taken away, withoutwarning, without reason, and given to another!Martin groaned with the thought of it. Three hourslater he kissed his Jewel good-bye, roaring at herbecause a tear stood in each eye—to coverthe fact that tears were in his own. That night,still grim, still white, he faced Lemuel C. Barstow,former vice-president and general manager of the O.R.&T. in his hotel room in St. Louis. That personspoke with biting directness.
“Politics, Martin,” came his announcement.“They shelved me because I wouldn’t playthe tricks of a clique that got into power before Icould stop ’em. You were my pet appointee,so you went, too. It wasn’t because weweren’t efficient. They lifted the pin onme, and that meant you. So here we are.But”—and a fist banged on the table—“they’regoing to pay for it! This new crowd knows as muchabout railroading as a baby does about chess.I tried to tell that to the men with the money.They wouldn’t listen. So I went to men whocould hear, the Ozark Central. I’m to bethe new president of that road.”
“That wooden axle outfit?” Martin squinted.“Sure, Mr. Barstow, I’m not knockin’the new deal, or——”
“Never mind that.” Lemuel C. Barstowsmiled genially. “That’s where yourpart of the job comes in. That’s why I needyou. But we’ll let that go for the present.Go back to Montgomery City, turn over the reins tothis new fish, who doesn’t know an air brakefrom a boiler tube, and keep quiet until I send foryou.”
Then ensued two weeks of nothing to do but wait.Nothing to do but to pace the floor like some belligerent,red-faced caged animal, daring his Jewel to feel hurtbecause sneering remarks had been made about her husband’sdownfall. Two weeks—then came the summons.
“Careful now, Martin! No wild throws, remember!”Lemuel Barstow was giving the final instructions.“We’ve got a big job ahead. I’vebrought you down here because you have the facultyof making men think they hate you—thengoing out and working their heads off for you, becausewell, to be frank, you’re the biggest, blunderingest,hardest-working blusterer that I ever saw—andyou’re the only man who can pull me through.This road’s in rotten shape, especially as concernsthe roadbed. The steel and ties are all right,but the ballast is rotten. You’ve got tomake it the best in Missouri, and you’ve gotonly eight months to do it in. So tear loose.Your job’s that of special superintendent, withno strings on it. Pay no attention to any onebut me. If you need equipment, buy it and tellthe purchasing agent to go to the hot place. ByMarch 1st, and no later, I want the track from St.Louis to Kansas City to be as smooth as a ballroomfloor.”
“And why the rush?”
“Just this: The O.R.& T. treated me likea dirty dog. I’m going to make ’empay for it; I’m after my pound of flesh now!There’s just one thing that road prizes aboveall else—it’s St. Louis-Kansas Citymail contracts. The award comes up again in March.The system that can make the fastest time in the governmentspeed trials gets the plum. Understand?”
“I do!” answered Martin, with the firstreal enthusiasm he had known in weeks. “‘Tisme budget I’ll be fixin’ up immejiate atonce. Ye’ll get action, ye will.”He departed for a frenzied month. Then he returnedat the request of President Barstow.
“You’re doing wonderful work, Martin,”said that official. “It’s comingalong splendidly. But—but——Iunderstand there’s a bit of a laugh going aroundamong the railroad men about you.”
“About me?” Garrity’s chest bulgedaggressively. “An’ who’s laughin?”
“Nearly everybody in the railroad game in Missouri.They say you let some slick salesman sting you fora full set of Rocky Mountain snow-fighting machinery,even up to a rotary snow plough. I——”
“Sting me?” Martin bellowed the words.“That I did not!”
“Good! I knew——”
“I ordered it of me own free will. Andif annybody laughs——”
“But, Martin”—and there waspathos in the voice—“a rotary snowplough? On a Missouri railroad? Flangers,jull-ploughs, wedge ploughs—tunnel wideners—anda rotary? Here? Why—I—Ithought better of you than that. We haven’thad a snow in Missouri that would require all of thosethings, not in the last ten years. What did theycost?”
“Eighty-three thousand, fi’hunnerd an’ten dollars,” answered Martin gloomily.He had pulled a boner. Mr. Barstow figuredon a sheet of paper.
“At three dollars a day, that would hire nearlya thousand track labourers for thirty days. Athousand men could tamp a lot of ballast in a month,Martin.”
“That they could, sir,” came dolefully.Then Garrity, the old lump in his throat, waited tobe excused, and backed from the office. Thatrotary snow plough had been his own, his pet idea—andit had been wrong!
Gloomily he returned to Northport, his headquarters,there to observe a group of grinning railroad mengathered about a great, bulky object parked in frontof the roundhouse. Behind it were other contraptionsof shining steel, all of which Martin recognized withouta second glance—his snow-fighting equipment,just arrived. Nor did he approach for a closerview. Faintly he heard jeering remarks from thecrowd; then laughter. He caught the mention ofhis own name, coupled with derisive comment.His hands clenched. His red neck bulged.His big lungs filled—then slowly deflated;and Martin went slowly homeward, in silence.
“And is it your liver?” asked Jewel Garrityas they sat at dinner.
“It is not!” bawled Martin. He rose.He pulled his napkin from his chin with Garrity emphasisand dropped it in the gravy. He thumped aboutthe table, then stopped.
One big freckled paw reached uncertainly outward andplunked with intended gentleness upon the woman’sshoulder, to rest, trembling there, a second.Then silently Martin went on upstairs. For thattouch had told her that it was—his heart!
A heart that ached with a throbbing sorrow which couldnot be downed as the summer passed and Martin heardagain and again the reflexes brought about by thepurchase of his snow ploughs. Vainly he stormedup and down the line of the Ozark Central with itsthousands of labourers. Vainly he busied himselfwith a thousand intricacies of construction, in thehope of forgetfulness. None of it could take fromhis mind the fact that railroad men were laughing athim, that chuckling train-butchers were pointing outthe giant machinery to grinning passengers, that eventhe railroad journals were printing funny quips aboutBarstow’s prize superintendent and his mountainsnow plough. Nor could even the news that Aldrich,over on the Blue Ribbon division, was allowing thatonce proud bit of rail to degenerate into an ordinaryportion of a railroad bring even a passing cheer.They, too, were laughing! In a last doglike hopeMartin looked up the precipitation reports. Itonly brought more gloom. Only four times in thirtyyears had there been a snowfall in Missouri that couldblock a railroad!
The summer crept into autumn; autumn to early winter,bringing with it the transformation of the ricketyold Ozark Central to a smooth, well-cushioned lineof gleaming steel, where the trains shot to and frowith hardly a tremor, where the hollow thunder of culvertand trestle spoke of sturdy strength, where the trackwalkersearched in vain for loose plates or jutting joints;but to Garrity, it was only the fulfilment or thework of a mechanical second nature. December wasgliding by in warmth and sunshine. January came,with no more than a hatful of snow, and once moreMartin found himself facing the president.
“We’ll win that contract, Martin!”It almost brought a smile to the superintendent’sface. “I’ve just been over the road—onthe quiet. We made eighty miles an hour withhardly a jolt!”
“Thankee, sir.” A vague sense ofjoy touched Martin’s aching heart—onlyto depart.
“By the way, I noticed when I went through Northportthat you’ve still got that rotary where everybodycan see it. I wish you’d move that stuff—behindthe roundhouse, out of sight.”
Then Martin, heavier at heart than ever, went backto Northport. There he said a quaking good-byeto his last hope—and executed the president’sorders, trying not to notice the grins of the “goat”crew as they shunted the machinery into hiding.That night, after Jewel was asleep, and the cat outsidehad ceased yowling, Martin climbed stealthily outof bed and went on his knees, praying with all thefervour of his big being for snow. And the prayerwas answered——
By the worst rain that a Missouri January had knownin years, scattering the freshly tamped gravel, looseningthe piles of trestles, sending Martin forth once moreto bawl his orders with the thunder of the old daysback at Glen Echo, even to leap side by side with thetrack labourers, a tamping bar in his big hands, thatone more blow might be struck, one more impressionmade upon the giant task ahead.
January slid by; February went into the third weekbefore the job was finished. Martin looked atthe sky with hopeful eyes. It was useless.March the first—and Martin went into St.Louis to make his report, and to spend an uneasy,restless night with the president in his room at thehotel.
“It’s only a few days off now”—theywere in bed the next morning, finishing the conversationbegun the night before—“and I wantyou to keep your eyes open every second! Themail marathon agreement reads that no postponementcan be made on account of physical or mechanical obstacles.If a trestle should happen to go out—thatwould be our finish.”
“I wish”—Martin rolled outof bed and groped for his shoes—“we’dbeen workin’ with me old Blue Ribbon division.I know every foot o’ ——”
“Oh, chase the Blue Ribbon division! Everytime I see you you’ve got something on yourchest about it. Why, man, don’t you knowit’s the Blue Ribbon division that I’mcounting on! Aldrich has let it run down untilit’s worse than a hog trail. If they canmake forty-five an hour on it, I’m crazy.You can’t win mail contracts with that.So forget it. Anyhow, you’re working forthe Ozark Central now.”
Martin nodded, then for a long moment crouched silenthumiliated, his thick fingers fumbling with the lacesof his shoes. At last, with a sigh, he pokedhis shirt into his trousers and thumped across theroom to raise the drawn shades.
He stared. He gulped. He yelped—withan exclamation of joy, of deliverance, of victory!The outside world was white! A blinding, swirlingveil shrouded even the next building. The streetbelow was like a stricken thing; the vague forms ofthe cars seemed to no more than crawl. WildlyMartin pawed for the telephone and bawled a number.Barstow sat up in bed.
“Snow!” he gasped. “A blizzard!”
“Order the snow ploughs!” Garrity hadgot the chief dispatcher, and was bawling louder thanever. “All of thim! Put an injine oneach and keep thim movin’! Run that rotarytill the wheels drop off!”
Then he whirled, grasping wildly at coat, hat, andovercoat.
“And now will ye laugh?” he roared, ashe backed to the door. “Now will ye laughat me snow plough?”
Twenty-four hours later, when trains were limpinginto terminals hours behind time, when call aftercall was going forth to summon aid for the strickensystems of Missouri, when double-headers, frost-cakedwheels churning uselessly, bucked the drifts in a constantlylosing battle; when cattle trains were being cut fromthe schedules, and every wire was loaded with themessages of frantic officials, someone happened towonder what that big boob Garrity was doing with hissnow ploughs. The answer was curt and sharp—thereon the announcement board of the Union Station:
OZARK CENTRAL ALL TRAINS ON TIME
But Martin had only one remark to make, that it stillwas snowing. Noon of the third day came, andthe Ozark Central became the detour route of everycross-Missouri mail train. Night, and Martin Garrity,snow-crusted, his face cut and cracked by the biteof wind and the sting of splintered, wind-driven ice,his head aching from loss of sleep, but his heartthumping with happiness, took on the serious businessof moving every St. Louis-Kansas City passenger andexpress train, blinked vacuously when someone calledhim a wizard.
Railroad officials gave him cigars, and slapped himon his snow-caked shoulders. He cussed them outof the way. The telephone at Northport clangedand sang with calls from President Barstow; but Martinonly waved a hand in answer as he ground through withthe rotary.
“Tell him to send me tilegrams!” he blustered.“Don’t he know I’m busy?”
Twelve hours more. The snow ceased. Thewind died. Ten miles out of Kansas City Martingave the homeward-bound order for Northport, thenslumped weakly into a corner. Five minutes beforehe had heard the news—news that hurt.The O.R.& T., fighting with every available man itcould summon, had partially opened its line, with theexception of one division, hopelessly snowed under—hisold, his beloved Blue Ribbon.
“Tis me that would have kept ’er open,”he mused bitterly. “And they fired me!”
He nodded and slept. He awoke—andhe said the same thing again. He reached Northport,late at night, to roar at Jewel and the hot watershe had heated for his frost-bitten feet—thento hug her with an embrace that she had not knownsince the days when her Marty wore a red undershirt.
“And do ye be hearin?” she asked.“The Blue Ribbon’s tied up! Not awheel——”
“Will ye shut up?” Martin suddenly hadremembered something. The mail test! Notforty-eight hours away! He blinked. One bighand smacked into the other. “The poundof flesh!” he bellowed. “Be gar!The pound of flesh!”
“And what are ye talkin’ ——”
“Woman, shut up,” said Martin Garrity.“‘Tis me that’s goin’ to bed.See that I’m not disturbed. Not even forMr. Barstow.”
“That I will,” said Jewel—butthat she didn’t. It was Martin himselfwho answered the pounding on the door four hours later,then, in the frigid dining room, stared at the messagewhich the chief dispatcher had handed him:
GARRITY, NORTHPORT: If line is free of snow assembleall snow-fighting equipment and necessary locomotivesto handle same, delivering same fully equipped andmanned with your own force to Blue Ribbon DivisionO.R. & T. Accompany this equipment personally to carryout instructions as I would like to have them carriedout. Everything depends on your success or failureto open this line.
LEMUEL C. BARSTOW.
So! He was to make the effort; but if he failedthat mail contract came automatically to the one roadfree to make the test, the Ozark Central! Thatwas what Barstow meant! Make the effort, appearto fight with every weapon, that the O.R. & T. mighthave no claim in the future of unfairness but to fail!Let it be so! The O.R. & T. had broken his heart.Now, at last, his turn had come!
He turned to the telephone and gave his orders.Then up the stairs he clambered and into his clothes.Jewel snorted and awoke.
“Goo’by!” roared Martin as he climbedinto his coat. “They’ve sent forme to open the Blue Ribbon.”
“And have they?” Jewel sat up, her eyesbeaming. “I’d been wishin’it—and ye’ll do it, Marty; I’vebeen thinkin’ about the old section snowed under—andall the folks we knew——”
“Will ye shut up?” This was somethingMartin did not want to hear. Out of the househe plumped, to the waiting double-header of locomotivesattached to the rotary, and the other engines, parkedon the switches, with their wedge ploughs, jull-ploughs,flangers, and tunnel wideners. The “high-ball”sounded. At daybreak, boring his way through thesnow-clogged transfer at Missouri City, Martin cameout upon the main line of the O.R. & T.—andto his duty of revenge.
On they went, a slow, deliberate journey, steam hissing,black smoke curling, whistles tooting, wheels crunching,as the rotary bucked the bigger drifts and the smallerploughs eliminated the slighter raises, a triumphantprocession toward that thing which Martin knew he couldattack with all the seeming ferocity of desperationand yet fail—the fifty-foot thickness ofBander Cut.
Face to face, in the gaunt sun of early morning hesaw it—a little shack, half covered withsnow, bleak and forbidding in its loneliness, yetall in all to the man who stared at it with eyes suddenlywistful—his little old section house, whereonce the honour flag had flown.
He gulped. Suddenly his hand tugged at the bellcord. Voices had come from without, they werecalling his name! He sought the door, then gulpedagain. The steps and platform of his car werefilled with eager, homely-faced men, men he had knownin other days, his old crew of section “snipes.”
All about him they crowded; Martin heard his voiceanswering their queries, as though someone were talkingfar away. His eyes had turned back to that sectionhouse, seeking instinctively the old flag, his flag.It spoke for a man who gave the best that was in him,who surpassed because he worked with his heart andwith his soul in the every task before him. Butthe flag was not there. The pace had not beenmaintained. Then the louder tones of a straw bosscalled him back:
“You’ll sure need that big screw and allthe rest of them babies, Garrity. That ole BanderCut’s full to the sky—and Sni-a-bendHill! Good-night! But you’ll make’er. You’ve got to, Garrity; we’vemade up a purse an’ bet it down in Montgomerythat you’ll make ’er!”
Martin went within and the crew waited for a high-ballorder that did not come. In his private car,alone, Martin Garrity was pacing the floor. Thecall of the old division, which he had loved and built,was upon him, swaying him with all the force of memory.
“I guess we could sell the flivver——”he was repeating. “Then I’ve gotme diamond ... and Jewel ... she’s got a bit,besides what we’ve saved bechune us. Andhe’ll win the test, anyhow ... they’llnever beat him over this division ... if I give himback what I’ve earned ... and if he wins anyhow------”
Up ahead they still waited. Fifteen minutes.Twenty. At last a figure appeared in the cabof the big rotary, looking for a last time at thatbleak little section house and the bare flagpole.Then:
“Start ’er up and give ’er hell!”
Martin was on the job once more, while outside hisold section snipes cheered, and reminded him thattheir hopes and dreams for a division still belovedin spite of a downfall rested upon his shoulders.The whistles screamed. The bells clanged.Smoke poured from the stacks of the double-header,and the freshening sun, a short time later, glintedupon the white-splotched equipment, as the great augerfollowed by its lesser allies, bored into the massof snow at Bander Cut.
Hours of backing and filling, of retreats and attacks,hours in which there came, time after time, the opportunityto quit. But Martin did not give the word.Out the other side they came, the steam shooting high,and on toward the next obstacle, the first of forty,lesser and greater, which lay between them and MontgomeryCity.
Afternoon ... night. Still the crunching, whiningroar of the rotary as it struck the icy stretchesfought against them in vain, then retreated untilpick and bar and dynamite could break the way for itsfurther attack. Midnight, and one by one the exhaustedcrew approached the white-faced, grim-lipped man whostood tense and determined in the rotary cab.One by one they asked the same question:
“Hadn’t we better tie up for the night?”
“Goon! D’ye hear me? Goon!What is it ye are, annyhow, a bunch of white-liveredcowards that ye can’t work without rest?”
The old, dynamic, bulldozing force, the force thathad made men hate Martin Garrity only to love him,had returned into its full power, the force that hadbuilt him from a section snipe to the exalted possessorof the blue pennon which once had fluttered from thatflagpole, was again on the throne, fighting onwardto the conclusion of a purpose, no matter what itmight wreck for him personally, no matter what thecost might be to him in the days to come. He wason his last job—he knew that. Themail contract might be won a thousand times over, butthere ever would rest the stigma that he had receiveda telegram which should have been plain to him, andthat he had failed to carry out its hidden orders.But with the thought of it Martin straightened, andhe roared anew the message which carried tired, achingmen through the night:
“Go on! Go on! What’s stoppin’ye? Are ye going to let these milk-an’-waterfellys over here say that ye tried and quit?”
Early morning—and there came Sni-a-bendHill, with the snow packed against it in a new planewhich obliterated the railroad as though it had neverbeen there. Hot coffee came from the containers,sandwiches from the baskets, and the men ate and drankas they worked—all but Garrity. Thiswas the final battle, and with it came his battle cry:
“Keep goin’! This is the tough one—we’vegot to go on—we’ve got to go on!”
And on they went. The streaking rays of dawnplayed for a moment upon an untroubled mound of white,smooth and deep upon the eastern end of Sni-a-bend.Then, as though from some great internal upheaval,the mass began to tremble. Great heaps of snowbroke from their place and tumbled down the embankment.From farther at the rear, steam, augmented by thevapours of melting snow and the far-blown gushes ofspitting smoke, hissed upward toward the heights ofthe white-clad hill. Then a bulging break—theroar of machinery, and a monster came grinding forth,forcing its way hungrily onward, toward the next andsmaller contest. Within the giant auger a manturned to Garrity.
“Guess it’s over, Boss. They saidup at Glen Echo—”
A silent nod. Then Garrity turned, and reachinginto the telegram-blank holder at the side of thecab, brought forth paper and an envelope. Longhe wrote as the rotary clattered along, devouringthe smaller drifts in steady succession, a letter ofthe soul, a letter which told of an effort that hadfailed, of a decision that could not hold. Andit told, too, of the return of all that Martin hadworked for—Mr. Barstow had been good tohim, and he, Martin Garrity, could not take his moneyand disobey him. He’d pay him back.
Whistles sounded, shrieking in answer to the tootingof others from far away, the wild eerie ones of yardengines, the deeper, throatier tones of factories.It was the end. Montgomery City!
Slowly Martin addressed the envelope, and as the bigbore came to a stop, evaded the thronging crowds andsought the railroad mail box. He raised the letter....
“Mr. Garrity!” He turned. The dayagent was running toward him. “Mr. Garrity,Mr. Barstow wants to see you. He’s here—inthe station. He came to see the finish.”
So the execution must be a personal one! Theletter was crunched into a pocket. Dimly, soddenly,Martin followed the agent. As through a hazehe saw the figure of Barstow, and felt that persontug at his sleeve.
“Come over here, where we can talk in private!”There was a queer ring in the voice and Martin obeyed.Then—“Shake, Old Kid!”
Martin knew that a hand was clasping his. Butwhy?
“You made it! I knew you would. Didn’tI tell you we’d get our pound of flesh?”
“But—but the contract——”
“To thunder with the contract!” came thehappy answer of Barstow. “If you had onlyanswered the ’phone, you wouldn’t be somuch in the dark. What do I care about mail contractsnow—with the best two lines in Missouriunder my supervision? Don’t you understand?This was the hole that I had prayed for this O.R.& T. bunch to get into from the first minute I sawthat snow. They would have been tied up for aweek longer—if it hadn’t been forus. Can’t you see? It was the argument
I needed—that politics isn’t whatcounts—it’s brains and doing things!Now do you understand? Well”—andBarstow stood off and laughed—“ifI have to diagram things for you, the money interestsbehind the O.R. & T. have seen the light. I’lladmit it took about three hours of telephoning toNew York to cause the illumination; but they’veseen it, and that’s enough. They also haveagreed to buy the Ozark Central and to merge the two.Further, they have realized that the only possiblepresident of the new lines is a man with brains like,for instance, Lemuel C. Barstow, who has working directlywith him a general superintendent—and don’toverlook that general part—a generalsuperintendent named Martin Garrity!”STRANGER THINGS
By MILDRED CRAM
From Metropolitan Magazine
We were seated in the saloon of a small steamer whichplies between Naples and Trieste on irregular schedule.Outside, the night was thickly black and a drivingrain swept down the narrow decks.
“You Englishmen laugh at ghosts,” theCorsican merchant said. “In my country,we are less pretentious. Frankly, we are afraid.You, too, are afraid, and so you laugh! A difference,it seems to me, which lies, not in the essence butin the manner.”
Doctor Fenton smiled queerly. “Perhaps.What do any of us know about it, one way or the other?Ticklish business! We poke a little too far beyondour ken and get a shock that withers our souls.Cosmic force! We stumble forward, bleating forcomfort, and fall over a charged cable. It mayhave been put there to hold us out—or in.”
Aldobrandini, the Italian inventor, was playing cardswith a German engineer. He lost the game to hisopponent, and turning about in his chair, came intothe conversation.
“You are talking about ghosts. I have seenthem. Once in the Carso. Again on the campagnanear Rome. I met a company of Caesar’slegionaries tramping through a bed of asphodels.The asphodels lay down beneath those crushing sandals,and then stood upright again, unharmed.”
The engineer shuffled the cards between short, capablefingers. “Ghosts. Yes, I agree; thereare such things. Created out of our subconsciousselves; mirages of the mind; photographic spiritualprojections; hereditary memories. There are alwaysexplanations.”
Doctor Fenton poked into the bowl of his pipe witha broad thumb. “Did any of you happen toknow the English poet, Cecil Grimshaw? No?I’ll tell you a story about him if you careto listen. A long story, I warn you. Verycurious. Very suggestive. I cannot vouchfor the entire truth of it, since I got the tale frommany sources—a word here, a chance encounterthere, and at last only the puzzling reports of menwho saw Grimshaw out in Africa. He wasn’ta friend of mine, or I wouldn’t tell these things.”
Aldobrandini’s dark eyes softened. He leanedforward. “Cecil Grimshaw ... We Latinsadmire his work more than that of any modern Englishman.”
The doctor tipped his head back against the worn redvelvet of the lounge. An oil lamp, swinging fromthe ceiling, seemed to isolate him in a pool of light.Outside, the invisible sea raced astern, hissing slightlybeneath the driving impact of the rain.
I first heard of Grimshaw [the doctor began] in mystudent days in London. He was perhaps five yearsmy senior, just beginning to be famous, not yet infamous,but indiscreet enough to get himself talked about.He had written a little book of verse, “Visionof Helen,” he called it, I believe....The oblique stare of the hostile Trojans. Helencoifed with flame. Menelaus. Love ...Greater men than Grimshaw had written of Priam’stragedy. His audacity called attention to hisimperfect, colourful verse, his love of beauty, hissense of the exotic, the strange, the unhealthy.People read his book on the sly and talked about itin whispers. It was indecent, but it was beautiful.At that time you spoke of Cecil Grimshaw with disapproval,if you spoke of him at all, or, if you happened tobe a prophet, you saw in him the ultimate bomb beneaththe Victorian literary edifice. And so he was.
I saw him once at the Alhambra—poetry ina top hat! He wore evening clothes that werea little too elaborate, a white camellia in his buttonhole,and a thick-lensed monocle on a black ribbon.During the entr’acte he stood up and surveyedthe house from pit to gallery, as if he wanted tobe seen. He was very tall and the ugliest manin England. Imagine the body of a Lincoln, thehands of a woman, the jaw and mouth of Disraeli, anaristocratic nose, unpleasant eyes, and then thatshock of yellow hair—hyacinthine—thecurly locks of an insane virtuoso or a baby prodigy.
“Who is that?” I demanded.
“Grimshaw. The chap who wrote the bookabout naughty Helen. La belle Helene and theshepherd boy.”
I stared. Everyone else stared. The pitstopped shuffling and giggling to gaze at that prodigiousmonstrosity, and people in the boxes turned theirglasses on him. Grimshaw seemed to be enjoyingit. He spoke to someone across the aisle andsmiled, showing a set of huge white teeth, veritabletombstones.
“Abominable,” I said.
But I got his book and read it. He was the firstEnglishman to dare break away from literary conventions.Of course he shocked England. He was a savageaesthete. I read the slim volume through at onesitting; I was horrified and fascinated.
I met Grimshaw a year later. He was having aplay produced at the Lyceum—“TheLabyrinth”—with Esther Levenson asSimonetta. She entertained for him at her housein Chelsea and I got myself invited because I wantedto see the atrocious genius at close range. Hewore a lemon-coloured vest and lemon-yellow spats.
“How d’you do?” he said, gazingat me out of those queer eyes of his. “Ihear that you admire my work.”
“You have been misinformed,” I replied.“Your work interests me, because I am a studentof nervous and mental diseases.”
“Ah. Psychotherapy.”
“All of the characters in your poem, ‘TheVision of Helen,’ are neurotics. They sufferfrom morbid fears, delusions, hysteria, violent mentaland emotional complexities. A text-book in madness.”
Grimshaw laughed. “You flatter me.I am attracted by neurotic types. Insanity hasits source in the unconscious, and we English are afraidof looking inward.” He glanced around thecrowded room with an amused and cynical look.“Most of these people are as bad as my Trojans,Doctor Fenton. Only they conceal their badness,and it isn’t good for them.”
We talked for a few moments. I amused him, Ithink, by my diagnosis of his Helen’s mentalmalady. But he soon tired of me and his restlessgaze went over my head, searching for admiration.Esther Levenson brought Ellen Terry over and he forgotme entirely in sparkling for the good lady—showinghis teeth, shaking his yellow locks, bellowing likea centaur.
“The fellow’s an ass,” I decided.
But when “The Labyrinth” was produced,I changed my mind. There again was that disturbingloveliness. It was a story of the passionateFlorence of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and Esther Levensondrifted through the four long acts against a backgroundof Tuscan walls, scarlet hangings, oaths, blood-spilling,dark and terrible vengeance. Grimshaw took Londonby the throat and put it down on its knees.
Then for a year or two he lived on his laurels, lappingup admiration like a drunkard in his cups. Unquestionably,Esther Levenson was his mistress, since she presidedover his house in Cheyne Walk. They say she wasnot the only string to his lute. A Jewess, a Greekpoetess, and a dancer from Stockholm made up his amorousmedley at that time. Scandalized society flockedto his drawing-room, there to be received by Simonettaherself, wearing the blanched draperies and tragicpearls of the labyrinth he had made for her.Grimshaw offered no apologies. He was the uncrownedlaureate and kings can do no wrong. He was paintedby the young Sargent, of course, and by the agingWhistler—you remember the butterfly’sportrait of him in a yellow kimono leaning againsta black mantel? I, for one, think he was vastlyamused by all this fury of admiration; he despisedit and fed upon it. If he had been less great,he would have been utterly destroyed by it, even then.
I went to Vienna, and lost track of him for severalyears. Then I heard that he had married a dearfriend of mine—Lady Dagmar Cooper, oneof the greatest beauties and perhaps the sternest prudein England. She wrote me, soon after that unbelievablemating: “I have married Cecil Grimshaw.I know you won’t approve; I do not altogetherapprove myself. He is not like the men I haveknown—not at all English. Buthe intrigues me; there is a sense of power behind hisawfulness—you see I know that he is awful!I think I will be able to make him look at things—Imean visible, material things—my way.We have taken a house in town and he has promisedto behave—no more Chelsea parties, no dancers,no yellow waistcoats and chrysanthemums. Thatwas all very well for his ‘student’ days.Now that he is a personage, it will scarcely do.I am tremendously interested and happy....”
Interested and happy! She was a typical productof Victoria’s reign, a beautiful creature whosefaith was pinned to the most unimportant things—class,position, a snobbish religion, a traditional moralityand her own place in an intricate little world of ladiesand gentlemen. God save us! What was CecilGrimshaw going to do in an atmosphere of titled bores,bishops, military men, and cautious statesmen?I could fancy him in his new town house, strugglingthrough some endless dinner party—his cynical,stone-gray eyes sweeping up and down the table, hislips curled in that habitual sneer, his mind, perhaps,gone back to the red-and-blue room in Chelsea, wherehe had been wont to stand astride before the blackmantel, bellowing indecencies into the ears of wittymodernists. Could he bellow any longer?
Apparently not. I heard of him now and then fromthis friend and that. He was indeed “behaving”well. He wrote nothing to shock the sensibilitiesof his wife’s world—a few fantasticshort stories, touched with a certain childish spirituality,and that was all. They say that he bent his mannersto hers—a tamed centaur grazing with amilk-white doe. He grew a trifle fat. Quitelike a model English husband, he called Dagmar “Mydear” and drove with her in the Park at thefashionable hour, his hands crossed on the head ofhis cane, his eyes half closed. She wrote me:“I am completely happy. So is Cecil.Surely he can have made no mistake in marrying me.”
You all know that this affectation of respectabilitydid not last long—not more than five years;long enough for the novelty to wear off. Thegenius or the devil that was in Cecil Grimshaw madeits reappearance. He was tossed out of Dagmar’scircle like a burning rock hurled from the mouth ofa crater; he fell into Chelsea again. EstherLevenson had come back from the States and was castingabout for a play. She sought out Grimshaw andwith her presence, her grace and pallor and seduction,lured him into his old ways. “The leavesare yellow,” he said to her, “but stillthey dance in a south wind. The altar fires areash and grass has grown upon the temple floor——I have been away too long. Get me my pipe, youlaughing dryad, and I will play for you.”
He played for her and all England heard. Dagmarheard and pretended acquiescence. According toher lights, she was magnificent—she invitedEsther Levenson to Broadenham, the Grimshaw place inKent, nor did she wince when the actress accepted.When I got back to England, Dagmar was fighting forhis soul with all the weapons she had. I wentto see her in her cool little town house, that houseso typical of her, so untouched by Grimshaw.And, looking at me with steady eyes, she said:“I’m sorry Cecil isn’t here.He’s writing again—a play—forEsther Levenson, who was Simonetta, you remember?”
I promised you a ghost story. If it is slow incoming, it is because all these things have a bearingon the mysterious, the extraordinary things that happened——
You probably know about the last phase of Grimshaw’scareer—who doesn’t? There issomething fascinating about the escapades of a famousman, but when he happens also to be a great poet, wecannot forget his very human sins—in themhe is akin to us.
Not all you have heard and read about Grimshaw’scareer is true. But the best you can say of himis bad enough. He squandered his own fortunefirst—on Esther Levenson and the productionof “The Sunken City”—and thenstole ruthlessly from Dagmar; that is, until she foundlegal ways to put a stop to it. We had passedinto Edward’s reign and the decadence whichended in the war had already set in—Grimshawwas the last of the “pomegranate school,”the first of the bolder, more sinister futurists.A frank hedonist. An intellectual voluptuary.He set the pace, and a whole tribe of idolaters andimitators panted at his heels. They copied hisyellow waistcoats, his chrysanthemums, his eye-glass,his bellow. Nice young men, otherwise sane, lettheir hair grow long like their idol’s and professedthemselves unbelievers. Unbelievers in what?God save us! Ten years later most of them werewading through the mud of Flanders, believing somethingpretty definite——
One night I was called to the telephone by the Grimshaws’physician. I’ll tell you his name, becausehe has a lot to do with the rest of the story—DoctorWaram, Douglas Waram—an Australian.
“Grimshaw has murdered a man,” he saidbriefly. “I want you to help me. Cometo Cheyne Walk. Take a cab. Hurry.”
Of course I went, with a very clear vision of thefuture of Dagmar, Lady Cooper, to occupy my thoughtsduring that lurching drive through the slippery streets.I knew that she was at Broadenham, holding up herhead in seclusion.
Grimshaw’s house was one of a row of red brickbuildings not far from the river. Doctor Waramhimself opened the door to me.
“I say, this is an awful mess,” he said,in a shocked voice. “The woman sent forme—Levenson, that actress. There’ssome mystery. A man dead—his headknocked in. And Grimshaw sound asleep. Itmay be hysterical, but I can’t wake him.Have a look before I get the police.”
I followed him into the studio, the famous Pompeianroom, on the second floor. I shall never forgetthe frozen immobility of the three actors in the tragedy.Esther Levenson, wrapped in peacock-blue scarves,stood upright before the black mantel, her hands crossedon her breast. Cecil Grimshaw was lying fulllength on a brick-red satin couch, his head thrownback, his eyes closed. The dead man sprawled onthe floor, face down, between them. Two lampsmade of sapphire glass swung from the gilded ceiling....Bowls of perfumed, waxen flowers. A silver statuetteof a nude girl. A tessellated floor strewn withrugs. Orange trees in tubs. Cigarette smokehanging motionless in the still, overheated air....
I stooped over the dead man. “Who is he?”
“Tucker. Leading man in ‘The SunkenCity.’ Look at Grimshaw, will you?We mustn’t be too long—”
I went to the poet. The inevitable monocle wasstill caught and held by the yellow thatch of histhick brow. He was breathing slowly.
“Grimshaw,” I said, touching his forehead,“open your eyes.”
He did so, and I was startled by the expression ofdespair in their depths. “Ah,” he-said,“it’s the psychopathologist.”
“How did this happen?”
He sat up—I am convinced that he had beenfaking that drunken sleep—and stared atthe sprawling figure on the floor. “Tuckerquarrelled with me,” he said. “I knockedhim down and his forehead struck against the table.Then he crawled over here and died. From fright,d’you think?” He shuddered. “Takehim away, Waram, will you? I’ve got workto do.”
Suddenly Esther Levenson spoke in a flat voice, withoutemotion: “It isn’t true! Hestruck him with that silver statuette. Like this——”She made a violent gesture with both arms. “Andbefore God in heaven, I’ll make him pay forit. I will! I will! I will!”
“Keep still,” I said sharply.
Grimshaw looked up at her. He made a gestureof surrender. Then he smiled. “Simonetta,”he said, “you are no better than the rest.”
She sobbed, ran over to him, and went down on herknees, twisting her arms about his waist. Therewas a look of distaste in Grimshaw’s eyes; hestared into her distraught face a moment, then he freedhimself from her arms and got to his feet.
“I think I’ll telephone to Dagmar,”he said.
But Waram shook his head. “I’ll dothat. I’m sorry, Grimshaw; the police willhave to know. While we’re waiting for them,you might write a letter to Mrs. Grimshaw. I’llsee that she gets it in the morning.”
I don’t remember whether the poet wrote to Dagmarthen or not. But surely you remember how shestayed by him during the trial—still Victorianin her black gown and veil, mourning for the hope thatwas dead, at least! You remember his imprisonment;the bitter invective of his enemies; the defectionof his followers; the dark scandals that filled thenewspapers, offended public taste, and destroyed CecilGrimshaw’s popularity in an England that hadworshipped him!
Esther Levenson lied to save him. That was thestrangest thing of all. She denied what she hadtold us that night of the tragedy. Tucker, shesaid, had been in love with her; he followed her toGrimshaw’s house in Chelsea and quarrelled violentlywith the poet. His death was an accident.Grimshaw had not touched the statuette. When hesaw what had happened, he telephoned to Doctor Waramand then lay down on the couch—apparentlyfainted there, for he did not speak until Doctor Fentoncame. Waram perjured himself, too—forDagmar’s sake. He had not, he swore, heardthe actress speak of a silver statuette, or of revengebefore God.... And since there was nothing toprove how the blow had been struck, save the deepdent in Tucker’s forehead, Grimshaw was setfree.
He had been a year in prison. He drove away fromthe jail in a cab with Doctor Waram, and when thecrowd saw that he was wearing the old symbol—ayellow chrysanthemum—a hiss went up thatwas like a geyser of contempt and ridicule. Grimshaw’spallid face flushed. But he lifted his hat andsmiled into the host of faces as the cab jerked forward.
He went at once to Broadenham. Years later, Waramtold me about the meeting between those two—thecentaur and the milk-white doe! Dagmar receivedhim standing and she remained standing all during theinterview. She had put aside her mourning fora dress made of some clear blue stuff, and Waram saidthat as she stood in the breakfast room, with a sun-floodedwindow behind her, she was very lovely indeed.
Grimshaw held out his hands, but she ignored them.Then Grimshaw smiled and shrugged his shoulders andsaid: “I have made two discoveries thispast year: That conventionalized religion is themost shocking evil of our day, and that you, my wife,are in love with Doctor Waram.”
Dagmar held her ground. There was in her eyesa look of inevitable security. She was mistressof the house, proprietor of the land, conscious oftradition, prerogative, position. The man shefaced had nothing except his tortured imagination.For the first time in her life she was in a positionto hurt him. So she looked away from him to Waramand confirmed his discovery with a smile full of prideand happiness.
“My dear fellow,” Grimshaw shouted, clappingWaram on the back, “I’m confoundedly pleased!We’ll arrange a divorce for Dagmar. Goodheaven, she deserves a decent future. I’mnot the sort for her. I hate the things she caresmost about. And now I’m done for in England.Just to make it look conventional—nice,Victorian, English, you understand—youand I can go off to the Continent together while Dagmar’sgetting rid of me. There’ll be no troubleabout that. I’m properly dished. Besides,I want freedom. A new life. Beauty, withouthaving to buck this confounded distrust of beauty.Sensation, without being ashamed of sensation.I want to drop out of sight. Reform? No!I am being honest.”
So they went off together, as friendly as you please,to France. Waram was still thinking of Dagmar;Grimshaw was thinking only of himself. He swaggeredup and down the Paris boulevards showing his tombstoneteeth and staring at the women. “The Europeansadmire me,” he said to Waram. “MayEngland go to the devil.” He groaned.“I despise respectability, my dear Waram.You and Dagmar are well rid of me. I see I’moffending you here in Paris—you look nauseatedmost of the time. Let’s go on to Switzerlandand climb mountains.”
Waram was nauseated. They went to Salvanand there a curious thing happened.
They were walking one afternoon along the road toMartigny. The valley was full of shadows likea deep green cup of purple wine. High above themthe mountains were tipped with flame. Grimshawwalked slowly—he was a man of great physicallaziness—slashing his cane at the tasselledtips of the crowding larches. Once, when a herdof little goats trotted by, he stood aside and laugheduproariously, and the goatherd’s dog, bristling,snapped in passing at his legs.
Waram was silent, full of bitterness and disgust.They went on again, and well down the springlike coilsof the descent of Martigny they came upon the bodyof a man—one of those wandering vendorsof pocket-knives and key-rings, scissors and cheapwatches. He lay on his back on a low bank bythe roadside. His hat had rolled off into a poolof muddy water. Doctor Waram saw, as he bent downto stare at the face, that the fellow looked likeGrimshaw. Not exactly, of course. The nosewas coarser—it had not that Wellington springat the bridge, nor the curved nostrils. But itmight have been a dirty, unshaven, dead Grimshaw lyingthere. Waram told me that he felt a shock ofgratification before he heard the poet’s voicebehind him: “What’s this? Adrunkard?” He shook his head and opened the deadman’s shirt to feel for any possible flutterof life in the heart. There was none. Andhe thought: “If this were only Grimshaw!If the whole miserable business were only done with.”
“By Jove!” Grimshaw said. “Thechap looks like me! I thought I was the ugliestman in the world. I know better... D’yousuppose he’s German, or Lombardian? Hishands are warm. He must have been alive when thegoatherd passed just now. Nothing you can do?”
Waram stayed where he was, on his knees. He torehis eyes away from the grotesque dead face and fixedthem on Grimshaw. He told me that the force ofhis desire must have spoken in that look because Grimshawstarted and stepped back a pace, gripping his cane.Then he laughed. “Why not?” he said.“Let this be me. And I’ll go on, withthat clanking hardware store around my neck.It can be done, can’t it? Better for youand for Dagmar. I’m not being philanthropic.I’m looking, not for a reprieve, but for release.No one knows this fellow in Salvan—he probablycame up from the Rhone and was on his way to Chamonix.What d’you think was the matter with him?”
“Heart,” Doctor Waram answered.
“Well, what d’you say? This pedlarand I are social outcasts. And there is Dagmarin England, weeping her eyes out because of divorcecourts and more public washing of dirty linen.You love her. I don’t! Why not carrythis fellow to the rochers, to-night after dark?To-morrow, when I have changed clothes with him, wecan throw him into the valley. It’s a goodthousand feet or more. Would there be much leftof that face, for purposes of identification?I think not. You can take the mutilated bodyback to England and I can go on to Chamonix, as hewould have gone.” Grimshaw touched the pedlarwith his foot. “Free.”
That is exactly what they did. The body, hiddennear the roadside until nightfall, was carried throughthe woods to the rochers du soir, that littleplateau on the brink of the tremendous wall of rockwhich rises from the Rhone valley to the heights nearSalvan. There the two men left it and returnedto their hotel to sleep.
In the morning they set out, taking care that theproprietor of the hotel and the professional guidewho hung about the village should know that they weregoing to attempt the descent of the “wall”to the valley. The proprietor shook his headand said: “Bonne chance, messieurs!”The guide, letting his small blue eyes rest for a momenton Grimshaw’s slow-moving hulk, advised themgravely to take the road. “The tall gentlemanwill not arrive,” he remarked.
“Nonsense,” Grimshaw answered.
They went off together, laughing. Grimshaw waswearing his conspicuous climbing clothes—tweedjacket, yellow suede waistcoat, knickerbockers, andhigh-laced boots with hob-nailed soles. His greenfelt hat, tipped at an angle, was ornamented with alittle orange feather. He was in tremendous spirits.He bellowed, made faces at scared peasant childrenin the village, swung his stick. They stoppedat a barber shop in the place and those famous hyacinthinelocks were clipped. Waram insisted upon this,he told me, because the pedlar’s hair was fairlyshort and they had to establish some sort of a tonsorialalibi. When the floor of the little shop was thickwith the sheared “petals,” Grimshaw shookhis head, brushed off his shoulders, and smiled.“It took twenty years to create that visiblepersonality—and behold, a Swiss barber destroysit in twenty minutes! I am no longer a livingpoet. I am already an immortal—halfwayup the flowery slopes of Olympus, impatient to gothe rest of the way.
“Shall we be off?”
“By all means,” Waram said.
They found the body where they had hidden it the nightbefore, and in the shelter of a little grove of larchesGrimshaw stripped and then reclothed himself in thepedlar’s coarse and soiled under-linen, theworn corduroy trousers, the flannel shirt, short coat,and old black velvet hat. Waram was astoundedby the beauty and strength of Grimshaw’s body.Like the pedlar, he was blonde-skinned, thin-waisted,broad of back.
Grimshaw shuddered as he helped to clothe the deadpedlar in his own fashionable garments. “Death,”he said. “Ugh! How ugly. Howterrifying. How abominable.”
They carried the body across the plateau. Theheight where they stood was touched by the sun, butthe valley below was still immersed in shadow, a broadpurple shadow threaded by the shining Rhone.
“Well?” Waram demanded. “Areyou eager to die? For this means death for you,you know.”
“A living death,” Grimshaw said.He glanced down at the replica of himself. Aconvulsive shudder passed through him from head tofoot; his face twisted; his eyes dilated. Hemade a strong effort to control himself and whispered:“I understand. Go ahead. Do it.I can’t. It is like destroying me myself....I can’t. Do it—”
Waram lifted the dead body and pushed it over theedge. Grimshaw, trembling violently, watchedit fall. I think, from what Doctor Waram toldme many years later, that the poet must have sufferedthe violence and terror of that plummet drop, musthave felt the tearing clutch of pointed rocks in thewall face, must have known the leaping upward of theearth, the whine of wind in his bursting ears, thedizzy spinning, the rending, obliterating impact atlast....
The pedlar lay in the valley. Grimshaw stoodon the brink of the “wall.” He turned,and saw Doctor Waram walking quickly away across theplateau without a backward glance. They had agreedthat Waram was to return at once to the village andreport the death of “his friend, Mr. Grimshaw.”The body, they knew, would be crushed beyond recognition—abruised and broken fragment, like enough to CecilGrimshaw to pass whatever examination would be givenit. Grimshaw himself was to go through the woodto the highroad, then on to Finhaut and Chamonix andinto France. He was never again to write to Dagmar,to return to England, or to claim his English property....
Can you imagine his feelings—deprived ofhis arrogant personality, his fame, his very identity,clothed in another man’s dirty garments, wearingabout his neck a clattering pedlar’s outfit,upon his feet the clumsy boots of a peasant?Grimshaw—the exquisite futurist, the daffodil,apostle of the aesthetic!
He stood for a moment looking after Douglas Waram.Once, in a panic, he called. But Waram disappearedbetween the larches, without, apparently, having heard.Grimshaw wavered, unable to decide upon the way tothe highroad. He could not shake off a sense ofloneliness and terror, as if he himself had gone whirlingdown to his death. Like a man who comes slowlyback from the effects of ether, he perceived, oneby one, the familiar aspects of the landscape—thedelicate flowers powdering the plateau, the tasselledlarches on the slope, the lofty snow-peaks still suffusedwith rosy morning light. This, then, was theworld. This clumsy being, moving slowly towardthe forest, was himself—not Cecil Grimshawbut another man. His mind sought clumsily fora name. Pierre—no, not Pierre; toocommon-place! Was he still fastidious? No.Then Pierre, by all means! Pierre Pilleux.That would do. Pilleux. A name suggestiveof a good amiable fellow, honest and slow. Whenhe got down into France he would change his identityagain—grow a beard, buy some decent clothes.A boulevardier... gay, perverse, witty.... Thethought delighted him and he hurried through the forest,anxious to pass through Salvan before Doctor Waramgot there. He felt extraordinarily light andexhilarated now, intoxicated, vibrant. His spiritsoared; almost he heard the rushing of his old selfforward toward some unrecognizable and beautiful freedom.
When he struck the road the sun was high and it wasvery hot. Little spirals of dust kicked up athis heels. He was not afraid of recognition.Happening to glance at his hands, he became aware oftheir whiteness, and stooping, rubbed them in the dust.
Then a strange thing happened. Another herd ofgoats trotted down from the grassy slopes and spilledinto the road-way. And another dog with lollingtongue and wagging tail wove in and out, shepherdingthe little beasts. They eddied about Grimshaw,brushing against him, their moon-stone eyes full ofa vague terror of that barking guardian at their heels.The dog drove them ahead, circled, and with a low whinecame back to Grimshaw, leaping up to lick his hand.
Grimshaw winced, for he had never had success withanimals. Then, with a sudden change of mood,he stooped and caressed the dog’s head.
“A good fellow,” he said in French tothe goatherd.
The goatherd looked at him curiously. “Notalways,” he answered. “He is an unpleasantbeast with most strangers. For you, he seems tohave taken a fancy.... What have you got there—anytwo-bladed knives?”
Grimshaw started and recovered himself with:“Knives. Yes. All sorts.”
The goatherd fingered his collection, trying the bladeson his broad thumb.
“You come from France,” he said.
Grimshaw nodded. “From Lyons.”
“I thought so. You speak French like agentleman.”
Grimshaw shrugged. “That is usual in Lyons.”
The peasant paid for the knife he fancied, placingtwo francs in the poet’s palm. Then hewhistled to the dog and set off after his flock.But the dog, whining and trembling, followed Grimshaw,and would not be shaken off until Grimshaw had peltedhim with small stones. I think the poet was strangelyflattered by this encounter. He passed throughSalvan with his head in the air, challenging recognition.But there was no recognition. The guide who hadsaid “The tall monsieur will not arrive”now greeted him with a fraternal: “How istrade?”
“Very good, thanks,” Grimshaw said.
Beyond the village he quickened his pace, and easingthe load on his back by putting his hands under theleather straps, he swung toward Finhaut. Behindhim he heard the faint ringing of the church bellsin Salvan. Waram had reported the “tragedy.”Grimshaw could fancy the excitement—thepriest hurrying toward the “wall” withhis crucifix in his hands; the barber, a-quiver withmorbid excitement; the stolid guide, not at all surprised,rather gratified, preparing to make the descent torecover the body of that “tall monsieur”who had, after all, “arrived.” Thetelegraph wires were already humming with the message.In a few hours Dagmar would know.
He laughed aloud. The white road spun beneathhim. His hands, pressed against his body by theweight of the leather straps, were hot and wet; hecould feel the loud beating of his heart.
His senses were acute; he had never before felt withsuch gratification the warmth of the sun or knownthe ecstasy of motion. He saw every flower inthe roadbank, every small glacial brook, every newconformation of the snow clouds hanging above the raggedpeaks of the Argentieres. He sniffed with delightthe pungent wind from off the glaciers, the short,warm puffs of grass-scented air from the fields inthe Valley of Trient. He noticed the flight ofbirds, the lazy swinging of pine boughs, the rainbowspray of waterfalls. Once he shouted and ran,mad with exuberance. Again he flung himself downby the roadside and, lying on his back, sang outrageoussongs and laughed and slapped his breast with bothhands.
That night he came to Chamonix and got lodging ina small hotel on the skirts of the town. Hisspirits fell when he entered the room. He puthis pedlar’s pack on the floor and sat down onthe narrow bed, suddenly conscious of an enormousfatigue. His feet burned, his legs ached, hisback was raw where the heavy pack had rested.He thought: “What am I doing here?I have nothing but the few hundred pounds Waram gaveme. I’m alone. Dead and alive.”
He scarcely looked up when the door opened and a younggirl came in, carrying a pitcher of water and a coarsetowel. She hesitated and said rather prettily:“You’ll be tired, perhaps?”
Grimshaw felt within him the tug of the old personality.He stared at her, suddenly conscious that she wasa woman and that she was smiling at him. Charming,in her way. Bare arms. A little black bodicelaced over a white waist. Straight blonde hair,braided thickly and twisted around her head.A peasant, but pretty.... You see, his desirewas to frighten her, as he most certainly would havefrightened her had he been true to Cecil Grimshaw.But the impulse passed, leaving him sick and ashamed.He heard her saying: “A sad thing occurredto-day down the valley. A gentleman....Salvan ... a very famous gentleman.... And theyhave telegraphed his wife.... I heard it fromSimon Ravanel.... It seems that the gentlemanwas smashed to bits—brise en morceau.Epouvantable, n’est ce pas?”
Grimshaw began to tremble. “Yes, yes,”he said irritably. “But I am tired, littleone. Go out, and shut the door!”
The girl gave him a startled glance, frightened atlast, but for nothing more than the lost look in hiseyes. He raised his arms, and she fled with alittle scream.
Grimshaw sat for a moment staring at the door.Then with a violent gesture he threw himself backon the bed, buried his face in the dirty pillow andwept as a child weeps, until, just before dawn, hefell asleep....
As far as the public knows, Cecil Grimshaw perishedon the “wall”—perished andwas buried at Broadenham beneath a pyramid of chrysanthemums.Perished, and became an English immortal—hissins erased by his unconscious sacrifice. Perished,and was forgiven by Dagmar. Yet hers was thevictory—he belonged to her at last.She had not buried his body at Broadenham, but shehad buried his work there. He could never writeagain....
During those days of posthumous whitewashing he readthe papers with a certain contemptuous eagerness.Some of them he crumpled between his hands and threwaway. He hated his own image, staring balefullyfrom the first page of the illustrated reviews.He despised England for honouring him. Once,happening upon a volume of the “Vision of Helen”—thefirst edition illustrated by Beardsley—ina book-stall at Aix-les-Bains, he read it from coverto cover.
“Poor stuff,” he said to the bookseller,tossing it down again. “Give me ’Arsne Lupin’.” And he paid two sous fora paper-covered, dog-eared, much-thumbed copy of thefamous detective story, not because he intended toread it, but in payment for his hour of disillusionment.Then he slung his pack over his shoulders and trampedout into the country. He laughed aloud at thethought of Helen and her idolaters. A poetichoax. Overripe words. Seductive sounds.Nonsense!
“Surely I can do better than that to-day,”he thought.
He saw two children working in a field, and calledto them.
“If you will give me a cup of cold water,”he said, “I’ll tell you a story.”
“Gladly, monsieur.”
The boy put down his spade, went to a brook whichthreaded the field and came back with an earthenwarejug full to the brim. The little girl staredgravely at Grimshaw while he drank. Grimshaw wipedhis mouth with the back of his hand.
“What story shall it be?” he demanded.
The little girl said quickly: “The blackking and the white princess and the beast who livedin the wood.”
“Not that one,” the boy cried. “Tellus about a battle.”
“I will sing about life,” Grimshaw said.
It was hot in the field. A warm, sweet smellrose from the spaded earth and near by the brook rustledthrough the grass like a beautiful silver serpent.Grimshaw sat cross-legged on the ground and words spunfrom his lips—simple words. And hesang of things he had recently learned—thegaiety of birds, the strength of his arms, the scentof dusk, the fine crystal of a young moon, wind ina field of wheat....
At first the children listened. Then, becausehe talked so long, the little girl leaned slowly overagainst his shoulder and fell asleep, while the boyfingered the knives, jangled the key-rings, clippedgrass stalks with the scissors, and wound the watchesone after the other. The sun was low before Grimshawleft them. “When you are grown up,”he said, “remember that Pierre Pilleux sang toyou of life.”
“Oui, monsieur,” the boy said politely.“But I should like a watch.”
Grimshaw shook his head. “The song is enough.”
Thereafter he sang to any one who would listen tohim. I say that he sang—I mean, ofcourse, that he spoke his verses; it was a minstrel’ssimple improvisation. But there are people inthe villages of southern France who still recall thatungainly, shambling figure. He had grown a beard;it crinkled thickly, hiding his mouth and chin.He laughed a great deal. He was not altogetherclean. And he slept wherever he could find abed—in farmhouses, cheap hotels, haylofts,stables, open fields. Waram’s few hundredpounds were gone. The poet lived by his witsand his gift of song. And for the first time inhis remembrance he was happy.
Then one day he read in Le Matin that Ada Rubensteinwas to play “The Labyrinth” in Paris.Grimshaw was in Poitiers. He borrowed three hundredfrancs from the proprietor of a small cafe in the RueCarnot, left his pack as security, and went to Paris.Can you imagine him in the theatre—it wasthe Odeon, I believe—conscious of curious,amused glances—a peasant, bulking conspicuouslyin that scented auditorium?
When the curtain rose, he felt again the familiarpain of creation. A rush of hot blood surgedaround his heart. His temples throbbed. Hiseyes filled with tears. Then the flood recededand left him trembling with weakness. He satthrough the rest of the performance without emotionof any sort. He felt no resentment, no curiosity.
This was the last time he showed any interest in hisold existence. He went back to Poitiers, andthen took to the road again. People who saw himat that time have said that there was always a packof dogs at his heels. Once a fashionable spanielfollowed him out of Lyons and he was arrested fortheft. You understand, he never made any effortto attract the little fellows—they joinedon, as it were, for the journey. And it was aqueer fact that after a few miles they always whined,as if they were disappointed about something, and turnedback....
He finally heard that Dagmar had married Waram.She had waited a decent interval—Victorianto the end! A man who happened to be in Marseillesat the time told me that “that vagabond poet,Pilleux, appeared in one of the cafes, roaring drunk,and recited a marriage poem—obscene, vicious,terrific. A crowd came in from the street tolisten. Some of them laughed. Others werefrightened. He was an ugly brute—wellover six feet tall, with a blonde beard, a hooked nose,and a pair of eyes that saw beyond reality. Hewas fascinating. He could turn his eloquenceoff and on like a tap. He sat in a drunken stupor,glaring at the crowd, until someone shouted: “Ehbien, Pilleux—you were saying?”Then the deluge! He had a peasant’s acceptanceof the elemental facts of life—it was raw,that hymn of his! The women of the streets whohad crowded into the caf listened with a sort of terror;they admired him. One of them said: “Pilleux’swife betrayed him.” He lifted his glassand drank. “No, ma petite,”he said politely, “she buried me.”
That night his pack was stolen from him. He wastoo drunk to know or to care. They say that hewent from cafe to cafe, paying for wine with verse,and getting it, too! At his heels a crowd of loafers,frowsy women and dogs. His hat gone. Hiseyes mad. A trickle of wine through his beard.Bellowing. Bellowing again—the untamedcentaur cheated of the doe!
And now, perhaps, I can get back to the reasons forthis story. And I am almost at the end of it....
In the most obscure alley in Marseilles there is acaf frequented by sailors, riff-raff from the waterfrontand thieves. Grimshaw appeared there at midnight.A woman clung to his arm. She had no eyes forany one else. Her name, I believe, was Marie—avery humble Magdalen of that tragic back-water ofcivilization. Putting her cheek against Grimshaw’sarm, she listened to him with a curious patience asone listens to the eloquence of the sea.
“This is no place for thee,” he said toher. “Leave me now, ma petite.”
But she laughed and went with him. Imagine thatroom—foul air, sanded floor, kerosene lamps,an odour of bad wine, tobacco, and stale humanity.Grimshaw pushed his way to a table and sat down witha surly Gascon and an enormous Negro from some Americanship in the harbour.
They brought the poet wine but he did not drink it—satstaring at the smoky ceiling, assailed by a suddensharp vision of Dagmar and Waram at Broadenham, alonetogether for the first time, perhaps on the terracein the starlight, perhaps in Dagmar’s brightroom which had always been scented, warm, remote——
He had been reciting, of course, in French. Nowhe broke abruptly into English. No one but theAmerican Negro understood. The proprietor shouted:“Hi, there, Pilleux—no gibberish!”The woman, her eyes on Grimshaw’s face, saidwarningly: “Ssh! He speaks English.He is clever, this poet! Pay attention.”And the Negro, startled, jerked his drunken body straightand listened.
I don’t know what Grimshaw said. It musthave been a poem of home, the bitter longing of anexile for familiar things. At any rate, the Negrowas touched—he was a Louisianian, a sonof New Orleans. He saw the gentleman, where youand I, perhaps, would have seen only a maudlin savage.There is no other explanation for the thing that happened....
The Gascon, it seems, hated poetry. He tippedover Grimshaw’s glass, spilling the wine intothe woman’s lap. She leaped back, tremblingwith rage, swearing in the manner of her kind.
“Quiet,” Grimshaw said. And her furyreceded before his glance; she melted, acquiesced,smiled. Then Grimshaw smiled, too, and puttingthe glass to rights with a leisurely gesture, said,“Cabbage. Son of pig,” and flippedthe dregs into the Gascon’s face.
The fellow groaned and leaped. Grimshaw didn’tstir—he was too drunk to protect himself.But the Negro saw what was in the Gascon’s hand.He kicked back his chair, stretched out his arms—toolate. The Gascon’s knife, intended forGrimshaw, sliced into his heart. He coughed,looked at the man he had saved with a strange questioning,and collapsed.
Grimshaw was sobered instantly. They say thathe broke the Gascon’s arm before the crowd couldseparate them. Then he knelt down by the dyingNegro, turned him gently over and lifted him in hisarms, supporting that ugly bullet head against hisknee. The Negro coughed again, and whispered:“I saw it comin’, boss.” Grimshawsaid simply: “Thank you.”
“I’m scared, boss.”
“That’s all right. I’ll seeyou through.”
“I’m dyin’, boss.”
“Is it hard?”
“Yessir.”
“Hold my hand. That’s right.Nothing to be afraid of.”
The Negro’s eyes fixed themselves on Grimshaw’sface—a sombre look came into their depths.“I’m goin’, boss.”
Grimshaw lifted him again. As he did so, he wasconscious of feeling faint and dizzy. The Negro’sblood was warm on his hands and wrists, but it wasnot wholly that—He had a sensation of rushingforward; of pressure against his ear-drums; a violentnausea; the crowd of curious faces blurred, disappeared—hewas drowning in a noisy darkness.... He gasped,struggled, struck out with his arms, shouted, wentdown in that suffocating flood of unconsciousness....
Opening his eyes after an indeterminate interval,he found himself in the street. The air was coolafter the fetid staleness of that room. He wasstill holding the Negro’s hand. And abovethem the stars burned, remote and calm, like beaconlamps in a dark harbour....
The Negro whimpered: “I don’t knowthe way, boss. I’m lost.”
“Where is your ship?”
“In the Vieux Port, near the fort.”
They walked together through the silent streets.I say that they walked. It was rather that Grimshawfound himself on the quay, the Negro still at hisside. A few prowling sailors passed them.But for the most part the waterfront was deserted.The ships lay side by side—an intricatetangle of bowsprits and rigging, masts and chains.Around them the water was black as basalt, only thatnow and again a spark of light was struck by the faintlifting of the current against the immovable hulls.
The Negro shuffled forward, peering. A lanternflashed on one of the big schooners. Lookingup, Grimshaw saw the name: “Anne Beebe,New Orleans.” A querulous voice, somewhereon the deck, demanded: “That you, Richardson?”And then, angrily: “This damned place—darkas hell.... Who’s there?”
Grimshaw answered: “One of your crew.”
The man on deck stared down at the quay a moment.Then, apparently having seen nothing, he turned away,and the lantern bobbed aft like a drifting ember.The Negro moaned. Holding both hands over thedeep wound in his breast, he slowly climbed the sideladder, turned once, to look at Grimshaw, and disappeared....
Grimshaw felt again the rushing darkness. Againhe struggled. And again, opening his eyes aftera moment of blankness, he found himself kneeling onthe sanded floor of the cafe, holding the dead Negroin his arms. He glanced down at the face, astoundedby the look of placid satisfaction in those wide-openeyes, the smile of recognition, of gratification,of some nameless and magnificent content....
The woman Marie touched his shoulder. “Thefellow’s dead, m’sieur. Wehad better go.”
Grimshaw followed her into the street. He noticedthat there were no stars. A bitter wind, forerunnerof the implacable mistral, had come up.The door of the cafe slammed behind them, mufflinga sudden uproar of voices that had burst out withhis going....
Grimshaw had a room somewhere in the Old Town; hewent there, followed by the woman. He thought:“I am mad! Mad!” He was frightened,not by what had happened to him, but because he couldnot understand. Nor can I make it clear to you,since no explanation is final when we are dealingwith the inexplicable....
When they reached his room, Marie lighted the kerosenelamp and, smoothing down her black hair with bothhands, said simply: “I stay with you.”
“You must not,” Grimshaw answered.
“I love you,” she said. “Youare a great man. C’est ca. That isthat! Besides, I must love someone—Imean, do for someone. You think that I like pleasure.Ah! Perhaps. I am young. But my heartfollows you. I stay here.”
Grimshaw stared at her without hearing. “Iopened the door. I went beyond.... I amperhaps mad. Perhaps privileged. Perhapswhat they have always called me—an incorrigiblepoet.” Suddenly he jumped to his feet andshouted: “I went a little way with his soul!Victory! Eternity!”
The woman Marie put her hands on his shoulders andpushed him back into his chair again. She thought,of course, that he was drunk. So she attempteda simple seduction, striving to call attention toherself by the coquetries of her kind. Grimshawpushed her aside and lay down on the bed with hisarms crossed over his eyes. Had he witnesseda soul’s first uncertain steps into a new state?One thing he knew—he had himself sufferedthe confusion of death, and had shared the desperatestruggle to penetrate the barrier between the mortaland the immortal, the known and the unknown, the realand the incomprehensible. With that realization,he stepped finally out of his personality into thatof the mystic philosopher, Pierre Pilleux. Heheard the woman Marie saying: “Let me stay.I am unhappy.” And without opening hiseyes, simply making a brief gesture, he said:“Eh bien.” And she stayed.
She never left him again. In the years that followed,wherever Grimshaw was, there also was Marie—little,swarthy, broad of cheek and hip, unimaginative, faithful.She had a passion for service. She cooked forGrimshaw, knitted woollen socks for him, brushed andmended his clothes, watched out for his health—often,I am convinced, she stole for him. As for Grimshaw,he didn’t know that she existed, beyond thefact that she was there and that she made materialexistence endurable. He never again knew physicallove. That I am sure of, for I have talked withMarie. “He was good to me,” she said.“But he never loved me.” And I believeher.
That night of the Negro’s death Grimshaw stoodin a wilderness of his own. He emerged from ita believer in life after death. He preached thisbelief in the slums of Marseilles. It began tobe said of him that his presence made death easy,that the touch of his hand steadied those who wereabout to die. Feverish, terrified, reluctant,they became suddenly calm, wistful, and passed quietlyas one falls asleep. “Send for Pierre Pilleux”became a familiar phrase in the Old Town.
I do not believe that he could have touched thesesimple people had he not looked the part of prophetand saint. The old Grimshaw was gone. Inhis place an emaciated fanatic, unconscious of appetite,unaware of self, with burning eyes and tangled beard!That finished ugliness turned spiritual—aself-flagellated aesthete. He claimed that hecould enter the shadowy confines of the “nextworld.” Not heaven. Not hell.A neutral ground between the familiar earth and aninexplicable territory of the spirit. Here, hesaid, the dead suffered bewilderment; they remembered,desired, and regretted the life they had just left,without understanding what lay ahead. So far hecould go with them. So far and no farther....
Personal immortality is the most alluring hope everdangled before humanity. All of us secretly desireit. None of us really believe in it. Asyou say, all of us are afraid and some of us laughto hide our fear. Grimshaw wasn’t afraid.Nor did he laugh. He knew. And youremember his eloquence—seductive words,poignant, delicious, memorable words! In hisChelsea days, he had made you sultry with hate.Now, as Pierre Pilleux, he made you believe in theshining beauty of the indestructible, the unconquerabledead. You saw them, a host of familiar figures,walking fearlessly away from you toward the brightnessof a distant horizon. You heard them, murmuringtogether, as they passed out of sight, going forwardto share the common and ineffable experience.
Well.... The pagan had disappeared in the psychic!Cecil Grimshaw’s melancholy and pessimism, hislove of power, his delight in cruelty, in beauty,in the erotic, the violent, the strange, had vanished!Pierre Pilleux was a humanitarian. Cecil Grimshawnever had been. Grimshaw had revolted againstugliness as a dilettante objects to the mediocre inart. Pierre Pilleux was conscious of social ugliness.Having become aware of it, he was a potent rebel.He began to write in French, spreading his revolutionarydoctrine of facile spiritual reward. He splinteredpurgatory into fragments; what he offered was an earthlyparadise—humanity given eternal absolution,freed of fear, prejudice, hatred—aboveall, of fear—and certain of endless life.
Now that we have entered the cosmic era, we look backat him with understanding. Then, he was a radicaland an atheist.
Of course he had followers—seekers aftereternity who drank his promises like thirsty wandererscome upon a spring in the desert. To some ofthem he was a god. To some, a mystic. Tosome, a healer. To some—and they werethe ones who finally controlled his destiny—hewas simply a dangerous lunatic.
Two women in Marseilles committed suicide—theywere followers, disciples, whatever you choose tocall them. At any rate, they believed that whereit was so simple a matter to die, it was foolish tostay on in a world that had treated them badly.One had lost a son, the other a lover. One shotherself; the other drowned herself in the canal.And both of them left letters addressed to Pilleux—enoughto damn him in the eyes of authority. He wastold that he might leave France, or take the consequences—amild enough warning, but it worked. He darednot provoke an inquiry into his past. So he shippedon board a small Mediterranean steamer as fireman,and disappeared, no one knew where.
Two years later he reappeared in Africa. Mariewas with him. They were living in a small townon the rim of the desert near Biskra. Grimshawoccupied a native house—a mere hovel, flat-roofed,sun-baked, bare as a hermit’s cell. Mariehad hired herself out as femme de chambre inthe only hotel in the place. “I watchedover him,” she told me. “And believeme, monsieur, he needed care! He was thinas a ghost. He had starved more than once duringthose two years. He told me to go back to France,to seek happiness for myself. But for me happinesswas with him. I laughed and stayed. I lovedhim—magnificently, monsieur.”
Grimshaw was writing again—in French—andhis work began to appear in the Parisian journals,a strange poetic prose impregnated with mysticism.It was Grimshaw, sublimated. I saw it myself,although at that time I had not heard Waram’sstory. The French critics saw it. “ThisPilleux is as picturesque as the English poet, Grimshaw.The style is identical.” Waram saw it.He read everything that Pilleux wrote—witheagerness, with terror. Finally, driven by curiosity,he went to Paris, got Pilleux’s address fromthe editor of Gil Blas, and started for Africa.
Grimshaw is a misty figure at the last. You seehim faintly—an exile, racially featureless,wearing a dirty white native robe, his face wrinkledby exposure to the sun, his eyes burning. Mariesays that he prowled about the village at night, whisperingto himself, his head thrown back, pointing his beardat the stars. He wrote in the cool hours beforedawn, and later, when the village quivered in heatfumes and he slept, Marie posted what he had writtento Paris.
One day he took her head between his hands and saidvery gently: “Why don’t you get alover? Take life while you can.”
“You say there is eternal life,” she protested.
“N’en doutez-pas! But youmust be rich in knowledge. Put flowers in yourhair. And place your palms against a lover’spalms and kiss him with generosity, ma petite.I am not a man; I am a shadow.”
Marie slipped her arms around him and, standing ontiptoe, put her lips against his. “Je t’aime,”she said simply.
His eyes deepened. There flashed into them theold, mad humour, the old vitality, the old passionfor beauty. The look faded, leaving his eyes“like flames that are quenched.” Marieshivered, covered her face with her hands, and ranout. “There was no blood in him,”she told me. “He was like a spirit—aghost. So meagre! So wan! Waxen hands.Yellow flesh. And those eyes, in which, monsieur,the flame was quenched!”
And this is the end of the curious story....Waram went to Biskra and from there to the villagewhere Grimshaw lived. Grimshaw saw him in thestreet one evening and followed him to the hotel.He lingered outside until Waram had registered atthe bureau and had gone to his room. Thenhe went in and sent word that “Pierre Pilleuxwas below and ready to see Doctor Waram.”
He waited in the “garden” at the backof the hotel. No one was about. A cat slepton the wall. Overhead the arch of the sky wasflooded with orange light. Dust lay on the leavesof the potted plants and bushes. It was breathless,hot, quiet. He thought: “Waram hascome because Dagmar is dead. Or the public hasfound me out!”
Waram came immediately. He stood in the doorwaya moment, staring at the grotesque figure which facedhim. He made a terrified gesture, as if he wouldshut out what he saw. Then he came into the garden,steadying himself by holding on to the backs of thelittle iron garden chairs. The poet saw thatWaram had not changed so very much—a littlegray hair in that thick, black mop, a few wrinkles,a rather stodgy look about the waist. No more.He was still Waram, neat, self-satisfied, essentiallyEnglish.... Grimshaw strangled a feeling of aversionand said quietly: “Well, Waram. Howd’you do? I call myself Pilleux now.”
Waram ignored his hand. Leaning heavily on oneof the chairs, he stared with a passionate intentness.“Grimshaw?” he said at last.
“Why, yes,” Grimshaw answered. “Didn’tyou know?”
Waram licked his lips. In a whisper he said:“I killed you in Switzerland six years ago.Killed you, you understand.”
Grimshaw touched his breast with both hands.“You lie.
“Here I am.”
“You are dead.”
“Dead?”
“Before God, I swear it.”
“Dead?”
Grimshaw felt once more the on-rushing flood of darkness.His thoughts flashed back over the years. The“wall.” His suffering. The dog.The song in the field. The Negro. The doorthat opened. The stars. His own flesh, fadinginto spirit, into shadows....
“Dead?” he demanded again.
Waram’s eyes wavered. He laughed unsteadilyand looked behind him. “Strange,”he said. “I thought I saw——”He turned and went quickly across the garden intothe hotel. Grimshaw called once, in a loud voice:“Waram!” But the doctor did not even turnhis head. Grimshaw followed him, overtook him,touched his shoulder. Waram paid no attention.Going to the bureau he said to the proprietor:“You told me that a Monsieur Pilleux wishedto see me.”
“Oui, monsieur. He was waiting foryou in the garden.”
“He is not there now.”
“But just a moment ago——”
“I am here,” Grimshaw interrupted.
The proprietor brushed past Waram and peered intothe garden. It was twilight out there now.The cat still slept on the wall. Dust on theleaves. Stillness....
“I’m sorry, monsieur. He seemsto have disappeared.”
Doctor Waram straightened his shoulders. “Ah,”he said. “Disappeared. Exactly.”And passing Grimshaw without a glance he went upstairs.
Grimshaw spoke to the proprietor. But the littleman bent over the desk, and began to write in an accountbook. His pen went on scratching, inscribinglarge, flourishing numbers in a neat column....
Grimshaw shrugged and went into the street. Thecrowds paid no attention to him—but then,they never had. A dog sniffed at his heels, whined,and thrust a cold nose into his hand.
He went to his house. “I’ll ask Marie,”he thought.... She was sitting before a mirror,her hands clasped under her chin, smiling at herself....She had put a flower in her hair. Her lips wereparted. She smiled at some secret thought.Grimshaw watched her a moment; then with a leap ofhis heart he touched her shoulder. And she didnot turn, did not move....
He knew! He put his fingers on her cheek, herneck, the shining braids of her coarse black hair.Then he walked quickly out of the house, out of thevillage, toward the desert.
Two men joined him. One of them said: “Ihave just died.” They went on together,their feet whispering in the sand, walking in a globeof darkness until the stars came out—thenthey saw one another’s pale faces and eager,frightened eyes. Others joined them. Andothers. Men. Women. A child. Somewept and some murmured and some laughed.
“Is this death?”
“Where now, brother?”
Grimshaw thought: “The end. What next?Beauty. Love. Illusion. Forgetfulness.”
He clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his faceto the stars, walked steadily forward with that companyof the dead, into the desert, out of the story atlast.
COMET [Published originally under title, “TheComet.”]
By SAMUEL A. DERIEUX
From American Magazine
No puppy ever came into the world under more favourableconditions than Comet. He was descended froma famous family of pointers. Both his motherand father were champions. Before he opened hiseyes, while he was still crawling about over his brothersand sisters, blind as puppies are at birth, Jim Thompson,Mr. Devant’s kennel master, picked him out.
“That’s the best un in the bunch.”
When he was only three weeks old he pointed a butterflythat lit in the yard in front of his nose.
“Come here, Molly,” yelled Jim to hiswife. “Pointed—the little cuss!”
When Thompson started taking the growing pups outof the yard, into the fields to the side of the Devants’great southern winter home, Oak Knob, it was Cometwho strayed farthest from the man’s protectingcare. And when Jim taught them all to follow whenhe said “Heel,” to drop when he said “Drop,”and to stand stock-still when he said “Ho,”he learned far more quickly than the others.
At six months he set his first covey of quail, andremained perfectly staunch. “He’sgoin’ to make a great dog,” said Thompson.Everything—size, muscle, nose, intelligence,earnestness—pointed to the same conclusion.Comet was one of the favoured of the gods.
One day, after the leaves had turned red and brownand the mornings grown chilly, a crowd of people,strangers to him, arrived at Oak Knob. Then outof the house with Thompson came a big man in tweedclothes, and the two walked straight to the curiousyoung dogs, who were watching them with shining eyesand wagging tails.
“Well, Thompson,” said the big man, “whichis the future champion you’ve been writing meabout?”
“Pick him out for yourself, sir,” saidThompson confidently.
After that they talked a long time planning for thefuture of Comet. His yard training was now over(Thompson was only yard trainer), and he must be sentto a man experienced in training and handling forfield trials.
“Larsen’s the man to bring him out,”said the big man in tweeds, who was George Devanthimself. “I saw his dogs work in the CanadianDerby.”
Thompson spoke hesitatingly, apologetically, as ifhe hated to bring the matter up. “Mr. Devant,... you remember, sir, a long time ago Larsen suedus for old Ben.”
“Yes, Thompson; I remember, now that you speakof it.”
“Well, you remember the court decided againsthim, which was the only thing it could do, for Larsendidn’t have any more right to that dog thanthe Sultan of Turkey. But, Mr. Devant, I was there,and I saw Larsen’s face when the case went againsthim.”
Devant looked keenly at Thompson.
“Another thing, Mr. Devant,” Thompsonwent on, still hesitatingly; “Larsen had a chanceto get hold of this breed of pointers and lost out,because he dickered too long, and acted cheesy.Now they’ve turned out to be famous. Somemen never forget a thing like that. Larsen’sbeen talkin’ these pointers down ever since,sir.”
“Go on,” said Devant.
“I know Larsen’s a good trainer.But it’ll mean a long trip for the young dogto where he lives. Now, there’s an old trainerlives near here, Wade Swygert. There never wasa straighter man than him. He used to train dogsin England.”
Devant smiled. “Thompson, I admire yourloyalty to your friends; but I don’t think muchof your business sense. We’ll turn oversome of the others to Swygert, if he wants ’em.Comet must have the best. I’ll write Larsento-night, Thompson. To-morrow, crate Comet andsend him off.”
Just as no dog ever came into the world under morefavourable auspices, so no dog ever had a bigger “send-off”than Comet. Even the ladies of the house cameout to exclaim over him, and Marian Devant, pretty,eighteen, and a sports-woman, stooped down, caughthis head between her hands, looked into his fine eyes,and wished him “Good luck, old man.”In the living-room the men laughingly drank toaststo his future, and from the high-columned porticoMarian Devant waved him good-bye, as in his cleanpadded crate he was driven off, a bewildered youngster,to the station.
Two days and two nights he travelled, and at noonof the third day, at a lonely railroad station ina prairie country that rolled like a heavy sea, hewas lifted, crate and all, off the train. A lean,pale-eyed, sanctimonious-looking man came toward him.
“Some beauty that, Mr. Larsen,” said theagent as he helped Larsen’s man lift the crateonto a small truck.
“Yes,” drawled Larsen in a meditativevoice, “pretty enough to look at—buthe looks scared—er—timid.”
“Of course he’s scared,” said theagent; “so would you be if they was to put youin some kind of a whale of a balloon an’ shipyou in a crate to Mars.”
The station agent poked his hands through the slatsand patted the head. Comet was grateful for that,because everything was strange. He had not whinednor complained on the trip, but his heart had poundedfast, and he had been homesick.
And everything continued to be strange: the treelesscountry through which he was driven, the bald houseand huge barns where he was lifted out, the dogs thatcrowded about him when he was turned into the kennelyard. These eyed him with enmity and walked roundand round him. But he stood his ground staunchlyfor a youngster, returning fierce look for fiercelook, growl for growl, until the man called him awayand chained him to a kennel.
For days Comet remained chained, a stranger in a strangeland. Each time at the click of the gate announcingLarson’s entrance he sprang to his feet fromforce of habit, and stared hungrily at the man forthe light he was accustomed to see in human eyes.But with just a glance at him the man would turn oneor more of the other dogs loose and ride off to trainthem.
But he was not without friends of his own kind.Now and then another young dog (he alone was chainedup) would stroll his way with wagging tail, or liedown near by, in that strange bond of sympathy thatis not confined to man. Then Comet would feelbetter and would want to play, for he was still halfpuppy. Sometimes he would pick up a stick andshake it, and his partner would catch the other end.They would tug and growl with mock ferocity, and thenlie down and look at each other curiously.
If any attention had been paid him by Larsen, Cometwould have quickly overcome his feeling of strangeness.He was no milksop. He was like an overgrown boy,off at college or in some foreign city. He wassensitive, and not sure of himself. Had Larsengained his confidence, it would all have been different.And as for Larsen—he knew that perfectlywell.
One fine sunny afternoon Larsen entered the yard,came straight to him, and turned him loose. Inthe exuberance of his spirits he ran round and roundthe yard, barking in the faces of his friends.Larsen let him out, mounted a horse, and commandedhim to heel. He obeyed with wagging tail.
A mile or more down the road Larsen turned off intothe fields. Across his saddle was something theyoung pointer had had no experience with—agun. That part of his education Thompson had neglected,at least put off, for he had not expected that Cometwould be sent away so soon. That was where Thompsonhad made a mistake.
At the command “Hi on” the young pointerran eagerly around the horse, and looked up into theman’s face to be sure he had heard aright.At something he saw there the tail and ears droopedmomentarily, and there came over him again a feelingof strangeness, almost of dismay. Larsen’seyes were mere slits of blue glass, and his mouth wasset in a thin line.
At a second command, though, he galloped off swiftly,boldly. Round and round an extensive field ofstraw he circled, forgetting any feeling of strangenessnow, every fibre of his being intent on the hunt,while Larsen, sitting on his horse, watched him withappraising eyes.
Suddenly there came to Comet’s nose the smellof game birds, strong, pungent, compelling. Hestiffened into an earnest, beautiful point. Heretoforein the little training he had had Thompson had comeup behind him, flushed the birds, and made him drop.And now Larsen, having quickly dismounted and tiedhis horse, came up behind him, just as Thompson haddone, except that in Larsen’s hand was the gun.
The old-fashioned black powder of a generation agomakes a loud explosion. It sounds like a cannoncompared with the modern smokeless powder now usedby all hunters. Perhaps it was only an accidentthat had caused Larsen before he left the house toload his pump gun with black powder shells.
As for Comet he only knew that the birds rose; thenabove his head burst an awful roar, almost splittinghis tender eardrums, shocking every sensitive nerve,filling him with terror such as he had never feltbefore. Even then, in the confusion and horrorof the surprise, he turned to the man, head ringing,eyes dilated. A single reassuring word, and hewould have steadied. As for Larsen, though, hedeclared afterward (to others and to himself even)that he noticed no nervousness in the dog; that hewas only intent on getting several birds for breakfast.
Twice, three times, four times, the pump gun bellowedin its cannon-like roar, piercing the eardrums, shatteringthe nerves. Comet turned; one more glance backwardat a face, strange, exultant—and then thepuppy in him conquered. Tail tucked, he ran awayfrom that shattering noise.
Miles he ran. Now and then, stumbling over briars,he yelped. Not once did he look back. Histail was tucked, his eyes crazy with fear. Seeinga house, he made for that. It was the noon hour,and a group of farm hands was gathered in the yard.One of them, with a cry “Mad dog!” raninto the house after a gun. When he came out,they told him the dog was under the porch. Andso he was. Pressed against the wall, in the darkness,the magnificent young pointer with the quivering soulwaited, panting, eyes gleaming, the horror still ringingin his ears.
Here Larsen found him that afternoon. A boy crawledunderneath the porch and dragged him out. He,who had started life favoured of the gods, who thatmorning even had been full of high spirits, who hadcircled a field like a champion, was now a cringing,shaking creature, like a homeless cur.
And thus it happened that Comet came home, in disgrace—agun-shy dog, a coward, expelled from college, notfor some youthful prank, but because he was—yellow.And he knew he was disgraced. He saw it in theface of the big man, Devant, who looked at him in theyard where he had spent his happy puppyhood, thenturned away. He knew it because of what he sawin the face of Jim Thompson.
In the house was a long and plausible letter, explaininghow it happened:
I did everything I could. I never was as surprisedin my life. The dog’s hopeless.
As for the other inhabitants of the big house, theirminds were full of the events of the season:de luxe hunting parties, more society events thanhunts; lunches in the woods served by uniformed butlers;launch rides up the river; arriving and departing guests.Only one of them, except Devant himself, gave thegun-shy dog a thought. Marian Devant came outto visit him in his disgrace. She stooped beforehim as she had done on that other and happier day,and again caught his head between her hands.But his eyes did not meet hers, for in his dim wayhe knew he was not now what he had been.
“I don’t believe he’s yellow—inside!”she declared, looking up at Thompson, her cheeks flushed.
Thompson shook his head.
“I tried him with a gun, Miss Marian,”he declared. “I just showed it to him,and he ran into his kennel.”
“I’ll go get mine. He won’trun from me.”
But at sight of her small gun it all came back.Again he seemed to hear the explosion that had shatteredhis nerves. The Terror had entered his very soul.In spite of her pleading, he made for his kennel.Even the girl turned away from him now. And ashe lay panting in the shelter of his kennel he knewthat never again would men look at him as they hadlooked, or life be sweet to him as it had been.
Then there came to Oak Knob an old man to see Thompson.He had been on many seas, he had fought in a dozenwars, and had settled at last on a little truck farmnear by. Somewhere, in his life full of adventureand odd jobs, he had trained dogs and horses.His face was lined and seamed, his hair was white,his eyes piercing, blue and kind. Wade Swygertwas his name.
“There’s been dirty work,” he said,when he looked at the dog. “I’lltake him if you’re goin’ to give him away.”
Give him away—who had been Championshiphope!
Marian Devant came out and looked into the face ofthe old man, shrewdly, understandingly.
“Can you cure him?” she demanded.
“I doubt it, miss,” was the sturdy answer.
“You will try?”
The blue eyes lighted up. “Yes, I’lltry.”
“Then you can have him. And—ifthere’s any expense——”
“Come, Comet,” said the old man.
That night, in a neat, humble house, Comet ate supperplaced before him by a stout old woman, who had followedthis old man to the ends of the world. That nighthe slept before their fire. Next day he followedthe old man all about the place. Several daysand nights passed this way, then, while he lay beforethe fire, old Swygert came in with a gun. Atsight of it Comet sprang to his feet. He triedto rush out of the room, but the doors were closed.Finally, he crawled under the bed.
Every night after that Swygert got out the gun, untilhe crawled under the bed no more. Finally, oneday the man fastened the dog to a tree in the yard,then came out with a gun. A sparrow lit in a tree,and he shot it. Comet tried to break the rope.All his panic had returned; but the report had notshattered him as that other did, for the gun was loadedlight.
After that, frequently the old man shot a bird inhis sight, loading the gun more and more heavily,and each time after the shot coming to him, showinghim the bird, and speaking to him kindly, gently.But for all that the Terror remained in his heart.
One afternoon the girl, accompanied by a young man,rode over on horseback, dismounted, and came in.She always stopped when she was riding by.
“It’s mighty slow business,” oldSwygert reported; “I don’t know whetherI’m makin’ any headway or not.”
That night old Mrs. Swygert told him she thought hehad better give it up. It wasn’t worththe time and worry. The dog was just yellow.
Swygert pondered a long time. “When I wasa kid,” he said at last, “there came upa terrible thunderstorm. It was in South America.I was water boy for a railroad gang, and the stormdrove us in a shack. While lightnin’ washittin’ all around, one of the grown men toldme it always picked out boys with red hair. Myhair was red, an’ I was little and ignorant.For years I was skeered of lightnin’. Inever have quite got over it. But no man eversaid I was yellow.”
Again he was silent for a while. Then he wenton: “I don’t seem to be makin’much headway, I admit that. I’m lettin’him run away as far as he can. Now I’vegot to shoot an’ make him come toward the gunhimself, right while I’m shootin’ it.”
Next day Comet was tied up and fasted, and next, untilhe was gaunt and famished. Then, on the afternoonof the third day, Mrs. Swygert, at her husband’sdirection, placed before him, within reach of hischain, some raw beefsteak. As he started for it,Swygert shot. He drew back, panting, then, hungergetting the better of him, started again. AgainSwygert shot.
After that for days Comet “Ate to music,”as Swygert expressed it. “Now,” hesaid, “he’s got to come toward the gunwhen he’s not even tied up.”
Not far from Swygert’s house is a small pond,and on one side the banks are perpendicular.Toward this pond the old man, with the gun under hisarm and the dog following, went. Here in the silenceof the woods, with just the two of them together,was to be a final test.
On the shelving bank Swygert picked up a stick andtossed it into the middle of the pond with the commandto “fetch.” Comet sprang eagerlyin and retrieved it. Twice this was repeated.But the third time, as the dog approached the shore,Swygert picked up the gun and fired.
Quickly the dog dropped the stick, then turned andswam toward the other shore. Here, so precipitouswere the banks, he could not get a foothold.He turned once more and struck out diagonally acrossthe pond. Swygert met him and fired.
Over and over it happened. Each time, after hefired, the old man stooped down with extended handand begged him to come on. His face was grimnow, and, though the day was cool, sweat stood outon his brow. “You’ll face the music,”he said, “or you’ll drown. Betterbe dead than called yellow.”
The dog was growing weary now. His head was barelyabove water. His efforts to clamber up the oppositebank were feeble, frantic. Yet, each time ashe drew near the shore Swygert fired.
He was not using light loads now. He was usingthe regular load of the bird hunter. Time hadpassed for temporizing. The sweat was standingout all over his face. The sternness in his eyeswas terrible to see, for it was the sternness of aman who is suffering.
A dog can swim a long time. The sun dropped overthe trees. Still the firing went on, regularly,like a minute gun.
Just before the sun set an exhausted dog staggeredtoward an old man almost as exhausted as he.The dog had been too near death and was too faintto care now for the gun that was being fired over hishead. On and on he came, toward the man, disregardingthe noise of the gun. It would not hurt him,that he knew at last. He might have many enemies,but the gun, in the hands of this man, was not oneof them. Suddenly old Swygert sank down and tookthe dripping dog in his arms.
“Old boy,” he said, “old boy.”
That night Comet lay before the fire, and looked straightinto the eyes of a man, as he used to look in theold days.
Next season Larsen, glancing over his sporting papers,was astonished to see that among promising Derbysthe fall trials had called forth was a pointer namedComet. He would have thought it some other dogthan the one who had disappointed him so by turningout gun-shy, in spite of all his efforts to prevent,had it not been for the fact that the entry was bookedas: “Comet; owner, Miss Marian Devant; handler,Wade Swygert.”
Next year he was still more astonished to see in thesame paper that Comet, handled by Swygert, had wonfirst place in a Western trial, and was prominentlyspoken of as a National Championship possibility.As for him, he had no young entries to offer, butwas staking everything on the National Championship,where he was to enter Larsen’s Peerless II.
It was strange how things fell out—butthings have a habit of turning out strangely in fieldtrials, as well as elsewhere. When Larsen reachedthe town where the National Championship was to berun, there on the street, straining at the leash heldby old Swygert, whom he used to know, was a seasonedyoung pointer, with a white body, a brown head, anda brown saddle spot—the same pointer hehad seen two years before turn tail and run in thatterror a dog never quite overcomes.
But the strangest thing of all happened that nightat the drawing, when, according to the slips takenat random from a hat, it was declared that on thefollowing Wednesday Comet, the pointer, was to runwith Peerless II.
It gave Larsen a strange thrill, this announcement.He left the meeting and went straightway to his room.There for a long time he sat pondering. Nextday at a hardware store he bought some black powderand some shells.
The race was to be run next day, and that night inhis room he loaded half-a-dozen shells. It wouldhave been a study in faces to watch him as he bentover his work, on his lips a smile. Into the shellshe packed all the powder they could stand, all thepowder his trusted gun could stand, without bursting.It was a load big enough to kill a bear, to bringdown a buffalo. It was a load that would echoand reecho in the hills.
On the morning that Larsen walked out in front ofthe judges and the field, Peerless II at the leash,old Swygert, with Comet at his side, he glanced aroundat the “field,” or spectators. Amongthem was a handsome young woman, and with her, tohis amazement, George Devant. He could not helpchuckling inside himself as he thought of what wouldhappen that day, for once a gun-shy dog, always a gun-shydog—that was his experience.
As for Comet, he faced the straw fields eagerly, confidently,already a veteran. Long ago fear of the gun hadleft him, for the most part. There were timeswhen at a report above his head he still trembled,and the shocked nerves in his ear gave a twinge likethat of a bad tooth. But always at the quietvoice of the old man, his god, he grew steady, andremained staunch.
Some disturbing memory did start within him to-dayas he glanced at the man with the other dog.It seemed to him as if in another and an evil worldhe had seen that face. His heart began to poundfast, and his tail drooped for a moment. Withinan hour it was all to come back to him—theterror, the panic, the agony of that far-away time.
He looked up at old Swygert, who was his god, andto whom his soul belonged, though he was booked asthe property of Miss Marian Devant. Of the arrangementshe could know nothing, being a dog. Old Swygert,having cured him, could not meet the expenses of takinghim to field trials. The girl had come to theold man’s assistance, an assistance which hehad accepted only under condition that the dog shouldbe entered as hers, with himself as handler.
“Are you ready, gentlemen?” the judgesasked.
“Ready,” said Larsen and old Swygert.
And Comet and Peerless II were speeding away acrossthat field, and behind them came handlers, and judgesand spectators, all mounted.
It was a race people still talk about, and for a reason,for strange things happened that day. At firstthere was nothing unusual. It was like any otherfield trial. Comet found birds, and Swygert, hishandler, flushed them and shot. Comet remainedsteady. Then Peerless II found a covey, and Larsenflushed them and shot. And so for an hour itwent.
Then Comet disappeared, and old Swygert, riding hardand looking for him, went out of sight over a hill.But Comet had not gone far. As a matter of fact,he was near by, hidden in some high straw, pointinga covey of birds. One of the spectators spiedhim, and called the judges’ attention to him.Everybody, including Larsen, rode up to him, but stillSwygert had not come back.
They called him, but the old man was a little deaf.Some of the men rode to the top of the hill but couldnot see him. In his zeal he had got a considerabledistance away. Meanwhile, here was his dog, pointed.
If any one had looked at Larsen’s face he wouldhave seen the exultation there, for now his chancehad come—the very chance he had been lookingfor. It’s a courtesy one handler sometimesextends another who is absent from the spot, to goin and flush his dog’s birds.
“I’ll handle this covey for Mr. Swygert,”said Larsen to the judges, his voice smooth and plausible,on his face a smile.
And thus it happened that Comet faced his supremeordeal without the steadying voice of his god.
He only knew that ahead of him were birds, and thatbehind him a man was coming through the straw, andthat behind the man a crowd of people on horsebackwere watching him. He had become used to that,but when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw theface of the advancing man, his soul began to tremble.
“Call your dog in, Mr. Larsen,” directedthe judge. “Make him back stand.”
Only a moment was lost, while Peerless, a young doghimself, came running in and at a command from Larsenstopped in his tracks behind Comet, and pointed.Larsen’s dogs always obeyed, quickly, mechanically.Without ever gaining their confidence, Larsen had away of turning them into finished field-trial dogs.They obeyed, because they were afraid not to.
According to the rules the man handling the dog hasto shoot as the birds rise. This is done in orderto test the dog’s steadiness when a gun is firedover him. No specification is made as to the sizeof the shotgun to be used. Usually, however,small-gauge guns are carried. The one in Larsen’shands was a twelve gauge, and consequently large.
All morning he had been using it over his own dog.Nobody had paid any attention to it, because he shotsmokeless powder. But now, as he advanced, hereached into the left-hand pocket of his hunting coat,where six shells rattled as he hurried along.Two of these he took out and rammed into the barrels.
As for Comet, still standing rigid, statuesque, heheard, as has been said, the brush of steps throughthe straw, glimpsed a face, and trembled. Butonly for a moment. Then he steadied, head high,tail straight out. The birds rose with a whir—andthen was repeated that horror of his youth. Abovehis ears, ears that would always be tender, brokea great roar. Either because of his excitement,or because of a sudden wave of revenge, or of a determinationto make sure of the dog’s flight, Larsen hadpulled both triggers at once. The combined reportshattered through the dog’s eardrums, it shiveredthrough his nerves, he sank in agony into the straw.
Then the old impulse to flee was upon him, and hesprang to his feet, and looked about wildly.But from somewhere in that crowd behind him came tohis tingling ears a voice—clear, ringing,deep, the voice of a woman—a woman he knew—pleadingas his master used to plead, calling on him not torun, but to stand.
“Steady,” it said. “Steady,Comet!”
It called him to himself, it soothed him, it calmedhim, and he turned and looked toward the crowd.With the roar of the shotgun the usual order observedin field trials was broken up. All rules seemedto have been suspended. Ordinarily, no one belongingto “the field” is allowed to speak toa dog. Yet the girl had spoken to him. Ordinarily,the spectators must remain in the rear of the judges.Yet one of the judges had himself wheeled his horseabout and was galloping off, and Marian Devant hadpushed through the crowd and was riding toward thebewildered dog.
He stood staunch where he was, though in his earswas still a throbbing pain, and though all about himwas this growing confusion he could not understand.The man he feared was running across the field yonder,in the direction taken by the judge. He was blowinghis whistle as he ran. Through the crowd, hisface terrible to see, his own master was coming.Both the old man and the girl had dismounted now,and were running toward him.
“I heard,” old Swygert was saying to her.“I heard it! I might ‘a’ known!I might ‘a’ known!”
“He stood,” she panted, “like arock—oh, the brave, beautiful thing!”
“Where is that——” Swygertsuddenly checked himself and looked around.
A man in the crowd (they had all gathered about now),laughed.
“He’s gone after his dog,” he said.“Peerless has run away!”
FIFTY-TWO WEEKS FOR FLORETTE
By ELIZABETH ALEXANDER HEERMANN [ELIZABETH ALEXANDERin Saturday Evening Post, August 13,1921.]
It had been over two months since Freddy Le Fay’sbill had been paid, and Miss Nellie Blair was worried.She had written to Freddy’s mother repeatedly,but there had been no answer.
“It’s all your own fault, sister.You should never have taken Freddy,” Miss Evasaid sharply. “I told you so at the time,when I saw his mother’s hair. And of courseLe Fay is not her real name. It looks to me likea clear case of desertion.”
“I can’t believe it. She seemed sodevoted,” faltered Miss Nellie.
“Oh, a girl like that!” Miss Eva sniffed.“You should never have consented.”
“Well, the poor thing was so worried, and ifit meant saving a child from a dreadful life——”
“There are other schools more suitable.”
“But, sister, she seemed to have her heart seton ours. She begged me to make a little gentlemanout of him.”
“As if you could ever do that!”
“Why not?” asked Mary, their niece.
“That dreadful child!”
“Freddy isn’t dreadful!” cried Maryhotly.
“With that atrocious slang! Won’teat his oatmeal! And he’s such a queerchild—queer! So pale, never laughs,doesn’t like any one. Why should you takeup for him? He doesn’t even like you.Hates me, I suppose.”
“It’s because we are so different fromthe women he has known,” said Mary.
“I should hope so! Well, sister, what areyou going to do about it?”
“I don’t know what to do,” sighedMiss Nellie. “He hasn’t any otherrelatives as far as I know. And the summer comingon, what shall we do?”
“Nothing for it but to send him to an orphanageif she doesn’t write soon,” said MissEva.
“Oh, auntie, you wouldn’t!”
“Why not? How can we afford to give childrenfree board and education?”
“It’s only one child.”
“It would be a dozen, if we once started it.”
“I’ll wait another month,” saidMiss Nellie, “and then, really, something willhave to be done.”
The girl looked out of the window.
“There he is now,” she said, “sittingon the stone wall at the end of the garden. It’shis favourite spot.”
“What on earth he wants to sit there for—awayfrom all the other children! He never plays.Look at him! Just sitting there—notmoving. How stupid!” exclaimed Miss Evaimpatiently.
“I do declare, I believe he’s fallen asleep,”said Miss Nellie.
Freddy was not asleep. He had only to close hiseyes and it would all come back to him. Memoriesthat he could not put into words, sensations withoutdefinite thought, crowded in upon him. The smell—thethick smell of grease paint, choking powder, dust,gas, old walls, bodies, and breath, and sharp perfume;the sickening, delicious, stale, enchanting, never-to-be-forgottenodour of the theatre; the nerves’ sudden tensionat the cry of “Ov-a-chure”; their tinglingas the jaded music blares; the lift of the heart asthe curtain rises; the catch in the throat as Floretteruns on to do her turn.
Florette was a performer on the trapeze in vaudeville.Her figure was perfect from the strenuous daily exercise.She was small, young, and a shade too blonde.First she appeared in a sort of blue evening dress,except that it was shorter even than a d butante’s.She ran out quickly from the wings, bowed excessively,smiled appealingly, and, skipping over to the trapeze,seized the two iron rings that hung from ropes.Lifting her own weight by the strength in her slenderwrists, she flung her legs upward and hooked her kneesinto the rings. Then hanging head downward sheswung back and forth; flung herself upright again,sat and swung; climbed to the topmost bar of the trapezeand hung down again. Her partner ran on and repeatedher monkeylike manoeuvres. Then Florette heldhis hands while he swung upside down, he held Florettewhile she swung upside down. They turned headover heels, over and over each other, up and down,catching and slipping, and adjusting their balance,in time to gay tunes.
Sometimes the audience clapped. Sometimes theywere too familiar with their kind of flirtation withdeath to clap. Then Florette and her partnerwould invent something a little more daring. Theywould learn to balance themselves on chairs tiltedon two legs on the trapeze, or Florette would hangby only one hand, or she would support her partnerby a strap held in her teeth. Sometimes Florette’srisks were great enough to thrill the audience withthe thought of death.
The thought of a slip, broken bones, delighted thesafe people in comfortable chairs. They laughed.Florette laughed, too, for Freddy was waiting in thewings.
There were mothers in the audience who cooked andmended, swept and dusted, ran up and down innumerablestairs, washed greasy dishes, wore ugly house dresses,slaved and scolded and got chapped hands, all fortheir children. Florette, always dainty and pretty,had nothing to do but airily, gracefully swing, andsmile. Other mothers spent their lives for theirlittle boys. Florette only risked hers twice aday.
While the partner played an accordion Florette ranout for her quick change. Freddy was waiting,with her dress hung over a chair. He flew tomeet her. His eager, nimble fingers unfastenedthe blue frock. He slipped the next costume overher head without mussing a single beloved blonde hair.The second costume was a tight-fitting silver bodicewith a fluff of green skirt underneath. Freddyhad it fastened up in a twinkling. Florette ranout again and pulled herself up into the trapeze.
While Florette went through the second part of heract Freddy folded up the blue costume and trudgedupstairs with it. Florette’s dressing roomwas usually up four flights. Freddy put the bluedress on a coat hanger and wrapped a muslin coverabout it. Then he trudged down the four flightsagain, with the third costume over his arm. Itwas a Chinese jacket and a pair of tight, short bluesatin trousers, and Freddy was very proud of thisconfection. He stood as a screen for Florettewhile she put on the trousers, and there are not manylittle boys who have a mamma who could look so prettyin them.
Florette skipped out lightly and finished her actby swinging far out over the audience, back and forth,faster and faster, farther and farther out, untilit seemed as if she were going to fling herself intothe lap of some middle-aged gentleman in the thirdrow. His wife invariably murmured something abouta hussy as Florette’s pretty bare legs flashedoverhead. The music played louder, ended witha boom from the drum. Florette flung herselfupright, kissed her hands, the curtain fell, and thebarelegged hussy ran up to the dressing room whereher little son waited.
Freddy had already hung up and shrouded the silver-and-greencostume, and was waiting for the Chinese one.He pounced upon it, muttered about some wrinkles,put it into place, and went to the dressing tableto hand Florette the cold cream. He found hermake-up towel, all caked with red and blue, whichshe had flung down on the floor. He patted herhighly glittering hair and adjusted a pin. Hemarshalled the jars and little pans and sticks ofgrease paint on her shelf into an orderly row andblew off the deep layers of powder she had scattered.Then he took down her street dress from its hook andslipped it deftly over her shoulders and had it buttonedup before Florette could yawn. He handed herher saucy bright hat. He flung himself into hisown coat.
“Well, le’s go, Florette!” criedFreddy gayly, with dancing eyes. He had nevercalled her mamma. She was too little and cute.
Then they would go to the hotel, never the best, wherethey were stopping. The room with its greenishlight, its soiled lace curtains, the water pitcheralways cracked, the bed always lumpy, the sheets alwaysdamp, was home to Freddy. Florette made it warmand cozy even when there was no heat in the radiator.She had all sorts of clever home-making tricks.She toasted marshmallows over the gas jet; she spreada shawl on the trunk; or she surprised Freddy by pinningpictures out of the funny page on the wall. Shecould make the nicest tea on a little alcohol stoveshe carried in her trunk. There was always alittle feast after the theatre on the table that invariablywabbled. Freddy would pretend that the foot ofthe iron bed was a trapeze. How they laughed.On freezing nights in Maine or Minnesota, Florettewould let Freddy warm his feet against hers, or shewould get up and spread her coat that looked justlike fur over the bed.
When they struck a new town at the beginning of eachweek Freddy and Florette would go bumming and seeall the sights, whether it was Niagara Falls or justthe new Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids. Freddywould have been sorry for little boys who had to stayin one home all the time—that is, if hehad known anything at all about them. But thelife of the strolling player was all that he had everknown, and he found it delightful, except for thedreaded intervals of “bookin’ the ac’.”
The dream of every vaudevillian is to be booked forfifty-two unbroken weeks in the year, but few attainsuch popularity. Florette’s seasons weresometimes long, sometimes short; but there always camethe tedious worrying intervals when managers and agentsmust be besought for work. Perhaps she wouldfind that people were tired of her old tricks, andshe would have to rehearse new ones, or interpolatenew songs and gags. Then the new act would betried out at some obscure vaudeville house, and ifit didn’t go the rehearsals and trampings toagents must begin all over again. Freddy sharedthe anxieties and hardships of these times. Butthe only hardship he really minded was the loss ofFlorette, for of course the pretty Miss Le Fay, whowas only nineteen on the agents’ books, couldnot appear on Broadway with a great big boy like Freddy.
However, the bad times always ended, and Floretteand Freddy would set out gayly once more for Oshkoshor Atlanta, Dallas or Des Moines. Meals expanded,Florette bought a rhinestone-covered comb, and thetwo adventurers indulged in an orgy of chocolate drops.With the optimism of the actor, they forgot all aboutthe dismal past weeks, and saw the new tour as neverending.
Freddy felt himself once more a real and importanthuman being with a place in the sun, not just a childto be shushed by a dingy landlady while his motherwas out looking for a job. He knew that he wasas necessary a part of Florette’s act as hermake-up box. He believed himself to be as necessarya part of her life as the heart in her breast, forFlorette lavished all her beauty, all her sweetnesson him. No Johns for Florette, pretty and blondethough she was. To the contempt of her contemporariesFlorette refused every chance for a free meal.Freddy was her sweetheart, her man. She had showeredso many pretty love words on him, she had assuredhim so often that he was all in the world she wanted,that Freddy was stunned one day to hear that he wasto have a papa.
“I don’ wan’ one,” said Freddyflatly. “I ain’t never had one, an’I ain’t got no use for one.”
Florette looked cross—an unusual thing.
“Aw, now, Freddy, don’t be a grouch,”she said.
“I don’ wan’ one,” repeatedFreddy.
“You ought to be glad to get a papa!”cried Florette.
“Why?”
“Makes you respectable.”
“What’s that?”
“Who’d believe I was a widow—inthis profession?”
Freddy still looked blank.
“Well,” said Florette, “you’regoin’ to get a nice papa, so there now!”
Then the cruel truth dawned on Freddy. It wasFlorette who wanted a papa. He had not been enoughfor her. In some way Florette had found him lacking.
Tactfully, Freddy dropped the subject of papas, wooedFlorette, and tried to atone for his shortcomings.He redoubled his compliments, trotted out all thelove words he knew, coaxed Florette with everythingshe liked best in him. He even offered to havehis nails filed. At night, in bed, he kissedFlorette’s bare back between the shoulder blades,and snuggled close to her, hugging her desperatelywith his little thin arms.
“Flo,” he quavered, “you—youain’t lonesome no more, are you?”
“Me? Lonesome? Whatcher talkin’about, kid?” sleepily murmured Florette.
“You ain’t never lonesome when you gotme around, are you, Flo?”
“Sure I ain’t. Go to sleep, honey.”
“But, Florette——”
Florette was dozing.
“Oh, Florette! Florette!”
“Florette, if you ain’t lonesome——”
“Sh-h-h, now, sh-h-h! Le’s go tosleep.”
“But, Florette, you don’ wan’—youdon’ wan’—a pop——”
“Sh-h-h! Sh-h-h! I’m so tired,honey.”
Florette slept. Freddy lay awake, but he laystill so as not to disturb her. His arms ached,but he dared not let her go. Finally he slept,and dreamed of a world in which there was no Florette.He shuddered and kicked his mother. She gavehim a little impatient shove. He woke. Daywas dawning. It was Florette’s wedding day.Freddy did not know it until Florette put on her bestcoral-velvet hat with the jet things dangling overher ears.
“You ain’ gonna wear that hat,”said Freddy severely. “It’s rainin’.”
“Yeah, I’m gonna wear this hat,”said Florette, pulling her blonde earbobs into greaterprominence. “An’ you put on your bestsuit an’ new necktie. We’re goin’to a weddin’.”
Her tone was gay, arch, her eyes were happy.
“Who—whose?” Freddy faltered.
“Mine!” chirped Florette. “I’mgoin’ to get you that papa I promised you.”
Freddy turned away.
“Sulkin’!” chided Florette.“Naughty, jealous boy!”
The new papa did not appear so formidable as Freddyhad expected. In fact, he turned out to be onlyHoward, Florette’s acrobatic partner. Freddyphilosophically reflected that if one must have a newpapa, far better so to call Howard, who necessarilyencroached on Florette’s time, than a strangerwho might take up some of her leisure hours.
But Freddy received a distinct shock when the newpapa joined them after the evening performance andaccompanied them up to their room.
Freddy had always regarded Florette’s room ashis, too. He felt that the new papa was an intruderin their home. Alas! It soon became alltoo apparent that it was Freddy who was de trop,or, as he would have expressed it, a Mister Buttinski.
They were having a little supper of pickles and cheeseand liver sausage and jam. Florette and the papadrank out of a bottle by turns and laughed a greatdeal. Florette seemed to think the papa veryclever and funny. She laughed at everything hesaid. She looked at him with shining eyes.She squeezed his hand under the table. Freddytried in vain to attract her attention. Finallyhe gave up and sat staring at the oblivious couplewith a stupid expression.
“That kid’s half asleep,” said thenew papa.
Florette looked at Freddy and was annoyed by his vacanteyes.
“Go to bed right away,” she commanded.
Freddy looked at her in amazement.
“Ain’t you goin’, too, Florette?”he asked.
“No, you go on—go to sleep.”
“Git into that nice li’l cot an’go by-by,” said the new papa genially.
Freddy had not seen the cot before. It had beenmoved in during his absence at the theatre, and stoodwhite, narrow, and lonely, partly concealed by a screen.
“I—I always slep’ with Florette,”faltered Freddy.
This seemed to amuse the new papa. But Floretteflushed and looked annoyed.
“Now, Freddy, are you goin’ to be a grouch?”she wailed.
Freddy was kissed good-night, and went to sleep inthe cot. He found it cold and unfriendly.But habit, the much maligned, is kind as well as cruel;if it can accustom us to evil, so can it soften pain.Freddy was beginning to assume proprietary airs towardthe cot, which appeared in every town, and even toexpress views as to the relative values of cots inSpringfield, Akron, or Joliet—when one nighthe woke to hear Florette sobbing.
Freddy lay awake listening. He had sobbed, too,when he was first banished to the cot. Was Florettemissing him as he had missed her? Ah, if sheat last had seen that papas were not half so nice asFreddy’s, he would not be hard on her. Hisheart swelled with forgiveness and love. He stoleon tiptoe to Florette’s bedside.
“Flo,” he whispered.
The sobbing ceased. Florette held her breathand pretended to be asleep. Freddy wriggled hislittle thin body under the covers and threw his armsaround Florette. With a gulp, she turned and threwher arms around him. They clasped each othertight and clung without speaking. They lay onthe edge of the bed, holding their breath in ordernot to wake the papa who snored loudly. Freddy’scheeks and hair were wet, a cold tear trickled downhis neck, his body ached from the hard edge of thebed; but he was happy, as only a child or a lover canbe, and Freddy was both.
In the morning the papa was cross. He did notseem to care for his own breakfast, but concentratedhis attention on Freddy’s. Freddy had alwaysbeen accustomed to a nice breakfast of tea and toastand jam, but Howard insisted on ordering oatmeal forhim.
“Naw, Freddy can’t stand oatmeal,”Florette objected.
“It’s good for him,” said Howard,staring severely at his son across the white-toppedrestaurant table.
“I don’ see no use forcin’ a personto eat what they can’t stomach,” saidFlorette.
“Yeah, tha’s the way you’ve alwaysspoiled that kid. Look a’ them pale cheeks!Li’l ole pale face!” Howard taunted, stretchinga teasing hand toward Freddy. “Mamma’sboy! Reg’lar sissy, he is!”
He gave Freddy a poke in the ribs. Freddy shrankback, made himself as small as possible in his chair,looked mutely at Florette.
“Aw, cut it out, Howard,” she begged.“Quit raggin’ the kid, can’t you?”
“Mamma’s blessed sugar lump!” jeeredHoward, with an ugly gleam in his eye. “Oughtto wear a bib with pink ribbons, so he ought.Gimme a nursin’ bottle for the baby, waiter!”
The impertinence of this person amazed Freddy.He could only look at his tormentor speechlessly.Freddy and Florette had been such great chums thatshe had never used the maternal prerogative of rudeness.He had never had any home life, so he was unawareof the coolness with which members of a family caninsult one another. Howard’s tones, neverlow, were unusually loud this morning, and people turnedaround to laugh at the blushing child. The greasywaiter grinned and set the oatmeal which Howard hadordered before Freddy.
“Now, then, young man,” commanded Howardsternly, “you eat that, and you eat it quick!”
Freddy obeyed literally, swallowing as fast as hecould, with painful gasps and gulps, fighting to keepthe tears back. Florette reached under the tableand silently squeezed his knee. He flashed hera smile and swallowed a huge slimy mouthful.
“You ain’t eatin’ nothin’yourse’f, Howard,” said Florette acidly.“W’y don’ you have some oatmeal?”
“Tha’s right!” shouted Howard.“Side with the kid against me! Tha’sall the thanks I get for tryin’ to make a manout o’ the li’l sissy. Oughta knownbetter’n to marry a woman with a spoiled brat.”
“Sh-h-h!” whispered Florette. “Don’ttell the whole resterunt about your fam’ly troubles.”
“Say,” hissed Howard, bending down towardher and thrusting out his jaw, “lay off o’me, will yer?”
“Lay off yourse’f!” retorted Floretteunder her breath. “If you wanna fight le’sgo back to the hotel where it’s private.”
“I don’ min’ tellin’ the worldI bin stung!” roared Howard.
Florette flushed up to the slightly darker roots ofher too-blonde hair.
“You?” she gasped furiously. “Afterall I’ve put up with!”
“Say, you ain’t got any kick comin’!I treated you white, marryin’ you, an’no questions asked.”
“What-ta you mean?” breathed Florette,growing deathly pale.
Freddy, alarmed, half rose from his chair.
“Sit down there you!” roared Howard.“What-ta I mean, Miss Innocence?” he said,mimicking Florette’s tone. “Oh, no,of course you ain’t no idea of what I mean!”
“Come on, Freddy,” Florette broke in quickly.“It’s a katzenjammer. He ain’tgot over last night yet.”
She seized Freddy’s hand and walked rapidlytoward the door. Howard lurched after her, followedby the interested stares of the spectators. Onthe street he caught up with her and the quarrel recommenced.
The act went badly that afternoon. It must behard to frolic in midair with a heavy heart.Under cover of the gay music there were angry mutteredwords and reproaches.
“Yoo-hoo! Yoo-hoo!” Florette wouldtrill happily to the audience as she poised on onetoe. “What-ta you tryin’ to do—shakeme off’n the bar?” she would mutter underher breath to her partner.
“That’s right! Leggo o’ mean’ lemme bus’ my bean, damn you!”snarled Howard. And to the audience he sang,“Oh, ain’t it great to have a little girlieyou can trust for—life!”
They were still muttering angrily as they came off.The handclapping had been faint.
“Aw, for God’s sake, stop your jawin’!”half screamed Florette. “It ain’tno more my fault than it is yours. If they don’like us they don’ like us, tha’s all.”
She ran up the stairs, sobbing. Howard followedher. They shared a dressing room now. Itwas small, and Freddy was in the way, although hetried to squeeze himself into the corner by the dingystationary washstand. Howard shoved Freddy.Florette protested. The quarrelling broke outafresh. Howard tipped over a bottle of liquidwhite. Florette screamed at him, and he raisedhis fist. Freddy darted out of his corner.
“Say, ya big stiff, cut out that rough stuff,see?” cried little Freddy in the only languageof chivalry that he knew.
Howard whirled upon him furiously, calling him a namethat Freddy did not understand, but Florette flungherself between them and caught the blow.
* * * * *
“He certainly looks as if he had fallen asleep,”Miss Nellie Blair repeated. “Better runout and get him, Mary. He might tumble off thewall.”
As Mary went out a maid came in.
“A gen’l’mun to see you, Miss Blair,”she announced.
“Is it a parent?” asked Miss Nellie.
The maid’s eyebrows twitched, and she lookedfaintly grieved, as all good servants do when theyare forced to consider someone whom they cannot acknowledgeas their superior.
“No, ma’am, he doesn’t look likea parent,” she complained.
“He really is a very queer-lookin’ sortof person, ma’am. I wouldn’t knowexactly where to place him. Shall I say you areout, ma’am?”
“Yes,” said Miss Eva. “No doubthe wants to sell an encyclopedia.”
“No, let him come in,” said Miss Nellie.“It might be a reporter about Madame d’Avala,”she added, turning to her sister. “Sometimesthey look queer.”
“If it turns out to be an encyclopedia I shallleave you at once,” said Miss Eva. “Youare so kind-hearted that you will look through twenty-fourvolumes, and miss your dinner——”
But the gentleman who came in carried no books, nordid he look like one who had ever been associatedwith them. Carefully dressed in the very worstof taste from his scarfpin to his boots, he had evidentlyjust been too carefully shaved, for there were scratcheson his wide, ludicrous face, and his smile was asrueful as a clown’s.
“The Misses Blair, I presume?” he askedin what was unmistakably his society manner, and heheld out a card.
Miss Eva took it and read aloud, “Mr. Bert Brannigan,Brannigan and Bowers, Black-Face Comedians.”
“Ah?” murmured Miss Nellie, who was alwayspolite even in the most trying circumstances.
But Miss Eva could only stare at the rich brown suit,the lavender tie and matching socks and handkerchief.
“Well?” said Miss Eva.
Mr. Brannigan cleared his throat and looked cautiouslyabout the room. His heavy, clownlike face wastroubled.
“Where’s the kid?” he asked in ahoarse whisper.
“What child?” Miss Eva snapped.
“You’ve come to see one of our pupils?”Miss Nellie faltered.
“Yeah. Hers.”
“Hers?”
“W’y, Miss Le Fay’s li’l boy.”
“Oh, Freddy?”
“Sure! Does he—he don’t—youain’t tole ’im yet, have you?”
“Told him what?”
“My God! don’t you know?”
Bert Brannigan stared at the ladies, mopping his browwith the lavender handkerchief.
“Please explain yourself, Mr. Brannigan,”said Miss Eva.
“She’s dead. I thought you knew.”
“Miss Le Fay is dead?” gasped Miss Nellie.
“Why weren’t we told?” asked MissEva.
“It was in the papers,” said Bert.“But they didn’t give Florette no front-pageheadlines, an’ maybe you don’t read thetheatrical news.”
“No,” said Miss Eva.
“Well, not bein’ in the profession,”Mr. Brannigan said as if he were apologizing for her.
He sat down and continued to mop his brow mechanically.The two sisters stared in dismay at the clown whohad brought bad news.
“W’at I don’ know is how to tellthe kid,” said Bert. “He was nuttyabout Florette; didn’t give a darn for no oneelse. I bin on the bill with them two lots oftimes, an’ I seen how it was. The moneyain’t goin’ to be no comfort to that kid!”
“The money?”
“Florette’s insurance—madeout to him. Tha’s w’y I come.She wan’ed him to stay on here, see, till hewas all educated. They’s enough, too.She was always insured heavy for the kid. They’ssome back money comin’ to you, too. Shetole me. The reason w’y she didn’tsen’ it on was because she was out of luck an’broke, see?”
“But why didn’t Miss Le Fay write to us?”asked Miss Nellie. “If she was in difficultieswe——”
“Naw, Florette wasn’ that kind; nev’put up any hard-luck story y’ un’erstan’.But she’d bin outa work, sick. An’w’en she come back it looked like her ac’was a frost. I run up on her in K.C., an’——”
“What is K.C.?”
“Why, Kansas City! We was on the bill theretwo weeks ago. Me an’ Florette was olefriends, see? No foolishness, if you know whatI mean. I’m a married man myse’f—Bowersthere on the card’s my wife—but mean’ Florette met about five years ago, an’kep’ on runnin’ on to one another on thebill, first one place an’ then another.So she was glad to see me again, an’ me her.’W’y, w’ere’s Freddy?’I says, first thing. An’ then I never seenany person’s face look so sad. But shebegun tellin’ me right off w’at a fineplace the kid was at, an’ how the theayter wasn’tno place for a chile. An’ she says, ‘Bert,I wan’ him to stay w’ere he’s happyan’ safe,’ she says. ‘Evenif I nev’ see him again,’ she says.Well, it give me the shivers then. Psychic, Iguess.”
Bert paused, staring into space.
“And then?” Miss Nellie asked gently.
“Well, like I was tellin’ you, Florettehad been playin’ in hard luck. Now I don’know whether you ladies know anything about the vodvilgame. Some ac’s is booked out through thecircuit from N’ Yawk; others is booked up bysome li’l fly-by-night agent, gettin’ adate here an’ a date there, terrible jumps betweenstands, see?—and nev’ knowin’one week where you’re goin’ the nex’,or whether at all. Well, Florette was gettin’her bookin’ that way. An’ on thatyou gotta make good with each house you play, getme? An’ somethin’ had went wrongwith the ac’ since I seen it las’.It useter be A Number I, y’ un’erstan’,but looked like Florette had lost int’rust or
somethin’. She didn’t put no pepinto it, if you know what I mean. An’ vodvil’sgotta be all pep. Then, too, her an’ thatpartner of hers jawin’ all the time somethin’fierce. I could hear him raggin’ her thataf’noon, an’ me standin’ in thewings, an’ they slipped up on some of theirtricks terrible, an’ the audience laughed.But not with ’em, at ’em, y’ un’erstan’!Well, so the ac’ was a fros’, an’they was cancelled.”“Cancelled?”
“Fired, I guess you’d call it. Theywas to play again that night an’ then move on,see?”
“Oh, yes.”
“An’ they didn’t have no bookin’ahead. Florette come an’ talked to me again,an’ she says again she wanted Freddy to be happy,an’ git a better start’n she’d hadan’ all. ‘An,’ Bert,’she says, ’if anything ev’ happens tome, you go an’ give ‘um the money for Freddy,’she says.”
“Poor thing! Perhaps she had a premonitionof her death,” murmured Miss Nellie.
Bert gave her a queer look.
“Yeah—yes, ma’am, p’rapsso. I was watchin’ her from the wings thatnight,” he went on. “The ac’was almos’ over, an’ I couldn’t seenothin’ wrong. Howard had run off an’Florette was standin’ up on the trapeze kissin’her ban’s like she always done at the finish.But all of a sudden she sort of trem’led an’turned ha’f way roun’ like she couldn’tmake up her min’ what to do, an’ los’her balance, an’ caught holt of a rope—an’let go—an’ fell.”
Miss Nellie covered her face with her hands.Miss Eva turned away to the window.
“She was dead w’en I got to her,”said Bert.
“Be careful!” said Miss Eva sharply.“The child is coming in.”
“Freddy wasn’t asleep at all,” saidMary, opening the door. “He was just playinga game, but he won’t tell me——Oh,I beg your pardon! I didn’t know any onewas here.”
Freddy had stopped round-eyed, open-mouthed with incredulousdelight.
“Bert!” he gasped. “The sonof a gun!”
“Freddy!” cried the Misses Blair.
But Bert held out his arms and Freddy ran into them.
“Gee, Bert, I’m glad to see ya!”rejoiced Freddy.
“Me, too, kid, glad to see you! How’sthe boy, huh? Gettin’ educated, huh?Swell school, ain’t it?” babbled Bert,fighting for time.
“Aw, it’s all right, I guess,” Freddyreplied listlessly, glancing at the Misses Blair.Then turning again with eager interest to Bert, “Butsay, Bert, what in the hell a——Imean what-ta you doin’ here?”
“Why—ah—ah—jus’stoppin’ by to say howdy, see, an’——”
“Playin’in N’Yawk?”
“No.”
“Jus’come in?”
“Yeah.”
Freddy drew his breath in quickly.
“Say, Bert, you—you ain’t seenFlorette anywheres?”
“Why, ye-yeah.”
“Where is she, Bert?”
There was a deathly hush.
Then Miss Eva motioned to Miss Nellie and said, “Ifyou will excuse us, Mr. Brannigan, we have some arrangementsto make about the concert to-night. Madame d’Avalais to sing in the school auditorium, a benefit performance,”and she went out, followed by her sister and niece.
“Where’s Florette?” Freddy askedagain, his voice trembling with eagerness.
“I—seen her in K.C., sonny.”
“How’s the ac’?”
“Fine! Fine! Great!”
“No kiddin’?”
“No kiddin’.”
“Florette—all right?”
“Why, what made you think any different?”
“Who hooks her up now, Bert?”
“She hires the dresser at the theatre.”
“I could ‘a’ kep’ on doin’it,” said Freddy, with a sigh.
“Aw, now, kid, it’s better for you here,gettin’ educated an’ all.”
“I don’t like it, Bert.”
“You don’t like it?”
“Naw.”
“You don’t like it! After all shedone!”
“I hate this ole school. I wanna leave.You tell Florette.”
“Aw, now, Freddy——”
“I’m lonesome. I don’t likenobody here.” His voice dropped. “An’—an’they don’t like me.”
“Aw, now, Freddy——”
“Maybe Miss Mary does. But Miss Eva don’t.Anyway, I ain’t no use to anybody here.What’s the sense of stayin’ where you ain’tno use? An’ they’re always callin’me down. I don’t do nothin’ right.I can’t even talk so’s they’ll likeit. Florette liked the way I talked all right.An’ you get what I mean, don’t you, Bert?But they don’t know nothin’. Why,they don’t know nothin’, Bert! Why,there’s one boy ain’t ever been insidea theatre! What-ta you know about that, Bert?Gee, Bert, I’m awful glad you come! I’d‘a’ bust not havin’ somebody to talkto.”
Bert was silent. He still held Freddy in hisarms. His heart reeled at the thought of whathe must tell the child. He cleared his throat,opened his mouth to speak, but the words would notcome.
Freddy chattered on, loosing the flood gates of hisaccumulated loneliness. He told how Florettehad bidden him “learn to be a li’l gem’mum,”and how he really tried; but how silly were the rulesthat governed a gentlemanly existence; how the otherli’l gem’mum laughed at him, and talkedof things he had never heard of, and never heard ofthe things he talked of, until at last he had ceasedtrying to be one of them.
“You tell Florette I gotta leave this place,”he concluded firmly. “Bert, now you tellFlorette. Will you, Bert? Huh?”
“Freddy—I——Freddy,lissen now. I got somethin’ to tell you.”
“What?”
“I—I come on to tell you, Freddy.Tha’s why I come out to tell you, see?”
“Well, spit it out,” Freddy laughed.
Bert groaned.
“Whassa matter, Bert? What’s eatin’you?”
“I—I——Say, Freddy,lissen—lissen, now, Freddy. I——”
“Florette! She ain’t sick? Bert,is Florette sick?”
“No! No, I——”
“You tell me, Bert! If it’s bad newsabout Florette——”
His voice died out. His face grew white.Bert could not meet his eyes.
“No, no, now, Freddy,” Bert mumbled, turningaway his head. “You got me all wrong.It—it’s good news, sonny.”
Like a flash Freddy’s face cleared.
“What about, Bert? Good news about what?”
“Why—ah—why, the ac’sgoin’ big, like I tole you. An’—an’say, boy, out at one place—out at K.C.,it—why, it stopped the show!”
“Stopped the show!” breathed Freddy inawe. “Oh, Bert, we never done that before!”
“An’ so—so she—ah,Florette—y’see, kid, account of theac’ goin’ so big, why, she—hasto—go away—for a little while.”
“Go away, Bert! Where?”
“To—to—Englund, an’—Australia.”
“To Englund, an’—Australia?”
“Yeah, they booked her up ‘count o’the ac’ goin’ so great.”
“Oh, Bert!”
“Yeah. An’ lissen. She’sbooked for fifty-two weeks solid!”
“Fifty-two weeks! Oh, Bert, that ain’tnever happened to us before!”
“I know. It’s—great!”
Bert blew out his breath loudly, mopped his forehead.He could look at
Freddy now, and he saw a face all aglow with loveand pride.
“When she comin’ to get me, Bert?”the child asked confidently.
“Why—why, Freddy—now—you—–”
Bert could only flounder and look dismayed.
“She ain’t goin’ off an’ leaveme!” wailed the child.
“Now, lissen! Say, wait a minute!Lissen!”
“But, Bert! Bert! She—”
“Say, don’t you wanna help Florette, nowshe’s got this gran’ bookin’ an’all?”
“Sure I do, Bert. I wanna he’p herwith her quick changes like I useter.”
“You he’p her! Say, how would thatlook in all them swell places she’s goin’to? W’y, she’ll have a maid!”
“Like the headliners, Bert?”
“Sure!”
“A coon, Bert?”
“Sure! Like a li’l musical com’dystar.”
“Honest?”
“Honest!”
“But, Bert, w’y can’t I go, too?”
“Aw, now, say—w’y—w’y,you’re too big!”
“What-ta y’ mean, Bert?”
“W’y, kid, you talk’s if you neverbin in the p’fession. How ole does MissLe Fay look? Nineteen, tha’s all. Butwith a great big boy like you taggin’ on—W’y,say, you’d queer her with them English managersright off. You don’ wanna do that now, Freddy?”
“No, but I—”
“I knew you’d take it sensible. Youalways bin a lot of help to Florette.”
“Did she tell you, Bert?”
“Sure!”
“A’ right. I’ll stay.When—when’s she comin’ to tellme goo’-by?”
“Why—why—look-a-here.Brace up, ole man. She had to leave a’ready.”
“She’s gone?”
“Say, you don’ think bookin’ likethat can wait, do you? It was take it or leaveit—quick. You didn’t wan’her to throw away a chancet like that, huh, Freddy?Huh?”
Freddy’s head sank on his chest. His handsfell limp. “A’ right,” he murmuredwithout looking up.
The big man bent over the child clumsily and triedto raise his quivering chin.
“Aw, now, Freddy,” he coaxed, “wannacome out with me an’—an’ havea soda?”
Freddy shook his head.
“Buy ya some candy, too. Choc’latedrops! An’ how about one o’ themli’l airyplane toys I seen in the window downthe street? Huh? Or some marbles? Huh?Freddy, le’s go buy out this here dinky li’lole town. What-ta ya say, huh? Le’spaint this li’l ole town red! What-ta yasay, sport?”
Freddy managed a feeble smile.
“How come you so flush, Brudder Johnsing?”he asked in what he considered an imitation of darkytalk. “Mus’ ‘a’ bin rollin’dem bones!”
“Tha’s a boy!” shouted Bert witha great guffaw. “There’s a comebackfor you! Game! Tha’s what I alwaysliked about you, Freddy. You was always game.”
“I wanna be game!” said Freddy, stiffeninghis lips. “You tell Florette. Youwrite to her I was game. Will ya, Bert?”
A bell rang.
“Aw, I gotta go dress for supper, Bert.They dress up for supper here.”
“A’ right, kid. Then I’ll begoin’——”
“Goo’-by, Bert. You tell her, Bert.”
“So long, kid.”
“Will ya tell her I was game, Bert?”
“Aw, she’ll know!”
Madame Margarita d’Avala found herself in asituation all the more annoying because it was soabsurd. She had promised to sing at the MissesBlair’s School for the benefit of a popular charity,and she had motored out from New York, leaving hermaid to do some errands and to follow by train.But it was eight o’clock and the great Madamed’Avala found herself alone in the prim guestroom of the Misses Blair’s School, with herbag and dressing case, to be sure, but with no oneto help her into the complicated draperies of her gown.There was no bell. She could not very well rundown the corridor, half nude, shouting for help, especiallyas she had no idea of where the Misses Blair kepteither themselves or their servants. The MissesBlair had been so fatiguingly polite on her arrival.Perhaps she had been a little abrupt in refusing theirmany offers of service and saying that she wantedto rest quite alone. Now, of course, they wereafraid to come near her. And, besides, they wouldthink that her maid was with her by this time.They had given orders to have Madame d’Avala’smaid shown up to her as soon as she arrived, and ofcourse their maid would be too stupid to know thatMadame d’Avala’s maid had never come.
Margarita d’Avala bit her lips and paced thefloor, looked out of the window, opened the door,but there was no one in sight. Well, no helpfor it. She must try to get into the gown alone.She stepped into it and became entangled in the lace;stepped out again, shook the dress angrily and pushedit on over her head, giving a little impatient screamas she rumpled her hair. Then she reached up andback, straining her arms to push the top snap of thecorsage into place. But with the quiet glee of
inanimate things the snap immediately snapped outagain. Flushing, Madame d’Avala repeatedher performance, and the snap repeated its. Madamed’Avala stamped both feet and gave a littlegasp of rage. She attacked the belt with no betterluck. Chiffon and lace became entangled in hooks,snaps flew out as fast as she could push them in.Her arms ached, and the dress assumed strange humpyoutlines as she fastened it up all wrong.She would like to rip the cursed thing from her shouldersand tear it into a million pieces! She felt hysteriasweeping over her. She knew that she was goingto have one of her famous fits of temper in a minute.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Madame d’Avalascreamed aloud, stamping her feet up and down as fastas they could go. “Oh! Oh! Oh!Damn! Damn! Damn!”
She did not swear in Italian, because she was notan Italian except by profession. Her name hadbeen Maggie Davis, but that was a secret between herselfand her press agent.
“Oh! Damn!” screamed Madame d’Avalaagain.
“Ain’t it hell?” remarked an interestedvoice, and Madame d’Avala saw a small pale facestaring at her through the door which she had leftajar.
“Come in!” she ordered, and a small thinboy entered, quite unabashed, looking at her withan air of complete understanding.
“Who are you?” asked Madame d’Avala.
“Freddy.”
“Well, Freddy, run at once and find a maid forme, please. Mine hasn’t come, and I’mfrantic, simply frantic. Well, why don’tyou go?”
“I’ll hook you up,” said Freddy.
“You!”
“Sure! I kin do it better’n any maidyou’d get in this helluva school.”
“Why, Freddy!”
“Aw, I heard you sayin’ damn! You’rein the p’fession, huh? Me, too.”
“You, too?”
His face clouded.
“Oh! And now—you have retired?”
“Yeah—learnin’ to be a gem’mum.Lemme there,” said Freddy, stepping behind Madamed’Avala. “Say, you’ve got itall started wrong.” He attacked the stubbornhooks with light, deft fingers.
“Why, you can really do it!” cried Madamed’Avala.
“Sure! This ain’t nothin’.”Freddy’s fingers flew.
“Careful of that drapery. It’s tricky.”
“Say, drapery’s pie to me. I fastenedup lots harder dresses than this.”
“Really?”
“Sure! Florette had swell clo’es.This’n’s swell, too. My! ain’tit great to see a classy gown again!”
Madame d’Avala laughed and Freddy joined her.
“Say, you seen the teachers at this school?”he asked. “You seen ’em?”
Madame d’Avala nodded.
“Nice ladies,” said Freddy in an effortto be fair. “But no class—youknow what I mean. Way they slick their hair back,an’ no paint or powder. Gee, Florette wouldn’twear their clo’es to a dog fight!”
“Nor I,” said Madame d’Avala; “Ilove dogs.”
“I tole Miss Eva she ought to put peroxide inthe rinsin’ water for her hair like Floretteuseter, but it made her mad. I b’lieve ina woman fixin’ herself up all she can, don’tyou?” asked Freddy earnestly.
“Indeed, I do! But tell me, who is Florette?”
So Freddy told her all about his mother, and aboutthe good fortune that had come to her.
“Fifty-two weeks solid! Some ac’to get that kinda bookin, huh?” he ended.
“Yes! Oh, yes, indeed!”
“There y’ah now! Look at youse’f!See if it’s a’right.”
Madame d’Avala turned to the mirror. Hergown fell in serene, lovely folds. It seemedincredible that it was the little demon of a few minutesbefore.
“Perfect! Freddy, you’re a wonder.How can I thank you?”
“Tha’s a’right. You’rewelcome.”
He was regarding her with worshipful eyes.
“You’re awful pretty,” he breathed.
“Thank you,” said Madame d’Avala.“Are you coming to my concert?”
“No, they put us to bed!” cried Freddyin disgust. “Puttin’ me to bed at8:30 every night! What-ta y’ know aboutthat! Jus’ w’en the orchestra wouldbe tunin’ up for the evenin’ p’formance.”
“What a shame! I’d like to have yousee my act.”
“I bet it’s great. You got the looks,too. Tha’s what it takes in this p’fession.Make a quick change?”
“No, I wear the same dress all through.”
“Oh! Well,” he sighed deeply—“well,it’s been great to see you, anyway. Goo’-bye.”
The great lady bent down to him and kissed his forehead.
“Good-bye, Freddy,” she said. “You’vehelped me so much.”
Freddy drew in a long breath.
“M-m,” he sighed, “you know howI come to peek in your door like that?”
“Because you heard me screaming ’damn’?”
“No, before that. Comin’ all theway down the hall I could smell it. Smelled sonice. Don’t none of these ladies use perfume.I jus’ knew somebody I’d like was in heresoon’s I got that smell.”
“Oh, Freddy, I like you, too! But I’vegot to hurry now. Good-bye. And thanks somuch, dear.”
She started out the door.
“Oh, gee! I can’t go to bed!”Freddy wailed.
“Come along, then!” cried Madame d’Avala,impetuously seizing his hand. “I’llmake them let you go to the concert. They must!”
They ran down the hall together hand in hand, Freddydirecting the way to the Misses Blair’s study.Miss Eva and Miss Nellie and Mary were there, andthey looked at Freddy compassionately. And thoughMiss Eva said it was most unusual, Miss Nellie agreedto Madame d’Avala’s request.
“For,” said gentle Miss Nellie, drawingMadame d’Avala aside and lowering her voice—“forwe are very sorry for Freddy now. His mother——”
“Oh, yes, she has gone to England.”
“Why, no! She—is dead!”
“Oh, mio povero bambino! And howhe adores her!”
“Yes.”
“And what will he do then?”
“He can stay on here. But I am afraid hedoesn’t like us,” Miss Nellie sighed.
“Has he no one else?”
“No—that is, a stepfather. Buthis mother put him here to save him from the stepfather’sabuse, and—and all the coarsening influencesof stage life, if you understand.”
“Ah, yes, I understand,” said Madame d’Avala.“And yet I think I understand the little one,too. He and I—we have the same nature.We cannot breathe in the too-high altitudes.For us there must be dancing in the valley, laughterand roses, perfume and sunshine—alwayssunshine.”
“Oh—er—yes,” repliedMiss Nellie, taken aback by this effusiveness, whichshe could only explain as being foreign.
“It’s 8:30,” said Miss Eva, lookingat her watch.
“Ah, then I must fly,” cried Madame d’Avala.
“Goo’-bye!” said Freddy wistfully.
“Au revoir,” said Madame d’Avala,and electrified the Misses Blair by adding, “Seeyou after the show, kid.”
“I am very lonely, too,” said Margaritad’Avala after the concert—“lonelyand sad.”
“You are?” Freddy cried in amazement.Then, practically, “What about?”
“It’s about a man,” confessed thelady.
“Aw, g’wan!” exclaimed Freddy incredulously.“Say,” lowering his voice confidentially,“lemme tell you something! They ain’ta man on earth worth crying for.”
“How did you know?” asked Margarita.
“Flo—Florette used to say so.”Then a cloud passed over his face. “Sheused to say so,” he added.
There was a moment’s silence, while the ladywatched him. Then Freddy’s mobile facecleared, his eyes shone with their old gay confidence.
“Say, I’m telln’ you!” saidFreddy, spreading his feet apart, thrusting his handsin his pockets. “I ain’t got no usefor men a-tall! An’ you take my advice—don’tbother over ’em!”
Margarita laughed. She laughed so hard that Freddyhad joined her, and without knowing how, he was byher side, holding on to her hand while they both rockedwith merriment. When they could laugh no morehe snuggled up to the shoulder that smelled so nice.His face became babyish and wistful. He strokedthe satin of the lovely gown with one timid finger,while his blue eyes implored hers.
“Ladies an’ children is nicest, ain’tthey?” he appealed.
Suddenly the great Margarita d’Avala caughthim in her arms and drew him to that warm, beautifulbreast where no child’s head had ever rested.
“Oh, Freddy, Freddy!” she cried.“You are right, and I must have you!”
“You kin, s’ long’s Florette’saway,” said Freddy.
WILD EARTH
By SOPHIE KERR
From Saturday Evening Post
The big department store so terrified Wesley Deanthat he got no farther than five steps beyond theentrance. Crowds of well-dressed ladies millinground like cattle, the noise of many feminine voices,the excessive warmth and the heady odour of powderand perfume—the toilet goods were groupedvery near the door—all combined to bewilderand frighten him. He got out before the floorwalkerof the centre aisle could so much as ask him whathe wanted.
Once outside he stood in the spring wind and meditated.There must be other stores in Baltimore, little ones,where a man could buy things in quiet and decency.Until the four-o’clock motor stage started forFrederick he had nothing to do.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and started downthe crowded crookedness of Lexington Street.He reached the market and strolled through it leisurely,feeling very much at home with the meats and vegetablesand the good country look of many of the stall keepers.Its size amazed him; but then he’d always heardthat Baltimore was a big city, and so many peoplemust take a lot to eat. He went on, all the waythrough, and after a little hesitation struck downa quiet street to the right. But he saw no shopsof the sort he was looking for, and he had thoughtsof going back and braving the big store again.He turned again and again, pleased by the orderlyrows of red-brick-with-white-trim houses, homey-lookingplaces in spite of their smallness and close setting.At last, right in the middle of a row of these, hesaw a large window set in place of the two usual smallerones, a window filled with unmistakable feminine stuff,and the sign, small, neatly gilt lettered: MissTolman’s Ladies’ Shop. HemstitchingDone.
There wasn’t a soul going in or out, so he bravedit, and was happier still when he found himself thesole customer. The opening of the door made abell tinkle in a back room.
A girl came through parted green wool curtains, agirl so flaxen-haired, with such blue eyes—likea friendly kitten—that Wesley Dean almostforgot the errand that had brought him so far.
As for the girl, she was surprised to see a man, andparticularly a young country man, among the glovesand stockings, cheap pink underthings, and embroideriesof Miss Tolman’s shop.
“You got any—any aprons?” hestammered.
“White aprons or gingham?” The girl’ssmile helped Wesley a great deal. A very nicegirl, he decided; but she made him feel queer, light-headed.
“I’m not sure, ma’am. WhenI come away from home this morning I asked Aunt Dolceydid she need anything, and she said ’yes, a coupleof aprons,’ but she didn’t say what kind.”
The girl thought it over. “I reckon maybeif she’s your auntie she’d want whiteaprons.”
Her mistake gave him a chance for the conversationwhich he felt a most surprising wish to make.
“No’m, she’s not my auntie.She’s the old coloured woman keeps house forme.”
Oh, she was a very nice girl; something about theway she held her head made Wesley think of his spunkylittle riding mare, Teeny.
“H’m. Then I think you’d besafe to get a gingham; anyway, a gingham apron comesin handy to anybody working round a kitchen. Wegot some nice big ones.”
“Aunt Dolcey’s not so awful big; not anybigger’n you, but heavier set, like.”
There is a distinct advance in friendly intimacy whenone has one’s size considered in relation toa customer’s needs, particularly when the considerationshows how little a man knows about women’s garments.The girl reached beneath the counter and brought upan armful of blue-and-white-checked aprons. Sheunfolded them deftly, and Wesley saw that she hadsmall strong hands and round wrists.
“These got bibs and nice long strings, coveryou all up while you’re cooking. They’rea dollar.”
His gaze, intent on her rather than the aprons, broughther eyes to his.
“Good-looking, but country,” was her swiftappraisal, adding to it, “And what a funny markhe’s got on his forehead.”
It was true. His young hawklike face, tannedbrown by sun and wind, was made strangely grim bya dark vein on his brow, which lent a frowning shadowto his whole visage. Yet the eyes she had lookedinto were shy and gentle and reassuringly full ofopen admiration.
“If you think she’ll like ’em I’lltake two,” he said after an instant’spause.
“I’m sure she’ll like ’em.They’re good gingham and real well made.We don’t keep shoddy stuff. You could gointo one of the big stores and get aprons for fifty,sixty cents, but they wouldn’t be good value.”
The soft cadence of her voice gave Wesley a strangeand stifled feeling around the heart. He must—hemust stay and talk to her. Hardly knowing whathe said, he burst into loquacity.
“I did go into one of the big stores, and itsort of scared me—everything so stuffyand heaped up, and such a lot of people. I don’tget down to Baltimore very often, you see. I domost of my buying right in Frederick, but I’dbroke my disker, and if you send, it’s maybeweeks before the implement house will ’tend toyou. So I just come down and got the piece, sothere won’t be but one day lost.”
The girl looked up at him again, and he could feelhis heart pound against his ribs. This time shewas a little wistful.
“They say it’s real pretty country outround Frederick. I’ve never been out ofBaltimore, ’cept to go down the bay on excursions—Bettertonand Love Point, and places like that. It makesa grand sail in hot weather.”
She handed him the package and picked up the two billshe had laid down on the counter. There was plainlyno reason for his further lingering. But he hadan artful idea.
“Look here—maybe I ought to get AuntDolcey a white apron, too. Maybe she won’twant the gingham ones at all.”
The girl looked surprised at such extravagance.
“But if she doesn’t you can bring ’emback when you come to Baltimore again, and we’dexchange ’em,” she argued mildly.
“No, I better get a white one now. Sheputs on a white apron evenings,” he added craftily.
A box of white aprons was lifted from the shelf anda choice made, but even that transaction could notlast forever, as Wesley Dean was desperately aware.
“Look here, are you Miss Tolman?” he burstout. “I saw the name outside on the window.”
“Mercy, no! Miss Tolman’s a kindof cousin of mine. She’s fifty-two, andshe can’t hardly get through that door there.”
He disregarded the description, for the second bundlewas being tied up fast. He had never seen anyone tie so fast, he thought.
“My name’s Wesley Dean, and I got a farmin the mountains back of Frederick. Say—Idon’t want you to think I’m fresh, but—but—say,would you go to the movies with me to-night?”
It had come to him in a flash that he could disregardthe seat in the four-o’clock bus and go backto-morrow morning. Sweat stood out on his foreheadand on his curving, clean-shaven upper lip. Hisboy’s eyes hung on hers, pleading. Allthe happiness of his life, he felt, waited for thisgirl’s answer, this little yellow-haired girlwhom he had never seen until a quarter of an hourbefore.
“We-ell,” she hesitated, “I—Idon’t like to have you think I’d pickup like this with any fellow that come along——”
“I don’t think so!” he broke infiercely. “If I thought so I’d never’veasked you.”
There was a strange breathless moment in the tinycluttered shop, a moment such as some men and womenare lucky enough to feel once in a lifetime.It is the moment when the heart’s wireless sendsits clear message, “This is my woman”and “This is my man.” The flaxen-hairedgirl and the dark boy were caught in the golden magicof it and, half scared, half ecstatic, were throwninto confusion.
“I’ll go,” she whispered breathlessly.“There’s a little park a block down thestreet. I’ll be there at seven o’clock,by the statue.”
“I’ll be there, waiting for you,”he replied, and because he could not bear the strangesweet pain that filled him he plunged out of the shop,jerking the door so that the little bell squealed withsurprise. He had forgotten his packages.
Also, as he remembered presently, he did not knowher name.
He was at the feet of the statue in the park by half-pastsix, and spent a restless half hour there in the coolspring twilight. Perhaps she would not come!Perhaps he had frightened her, even as he had frightenedhimself, by this inexplicable boldness. Othergirls passed by, and some of them glanced with a coquettishchallenge at the handsome tall youth with his frowningbrow. But he did not see them. Presently—andit was just on the stroke of seven—he sawher coming, hesitantly, and with an air of completeand proper primness. She had on a plain littleshabby suit and hat, but round her throat was a stringof beads of a blue to match her eyes, an enticing,naive harmony.
She carried the forgotten aprons, and handed themto him gravely.
“You left these,” she said; and then,to regularize the situation, “My name’sAnita Smithers. I ought’ve told you thisafternoon, but—I guess I was kind of forgetful,too.”
That made them both smile, and the smile left themless shy. He stuffed the forgotten aprons intohis overcoat pocket.
“I was so afraid you wouldn’t come.Where can we go? I don’t know anythingmuch about the city. I’d like to take youto a nice picture show, the best there is.”
She flushed with the glory of it.
“There’s a real nice picture house onlya little ways from here. They got a Pauline Frederickfilm on. I’m just crazy about Pauline Frederick.”
By this time they were walking sedately out of thepark, not daring to look at each other. She watchedhim while he bought the tickets and then a box ofcaramels from the candy stand inside.
“He knows what to do,” she thought proudly.“He’s not a bit of a hick.”
“D’you go to the pictures a lot?”he asked when they were seated.
“’Most every night. I’m justcrazy about ’em.”
“I expect you’ve got steady company, then?”The question fairly jerked out of him.
She shook her head. “No, I almost alwaysgo by myself. My girl friend, she goes with mesometimes.”
He sighed with relief. “They got good pictureshows in Frederick. I go ’most every Saturdaynight.”
“But you don’t live right in Frederick,you said.”
He seized the chance to tell her about himself.
“Oh, my, no. I live back in the mountains.Say, I just wish you could see my place. It’sup high, and you can look out, ever so far—everythingkind of drops away below, and you can see the riverand the woods, and it takes different colours, ’cordingto the season and the weather. Some days whenI’m ploughing or disking and I get up on theridge, it’s so high up and far away seems likeI’m on top the whole world. It’slonesome—it’s off the pike, you see—butI like it. Here in the city everything crowdson you so close.”
She had listened with the keenest interest.
“That’s so. It must be grand to getoff by yourself and have plenty room. I get sotired of that squinched-in, narrow, stuffy shop; andthe place where I board is worse. I don’tmake enough to have a room by myself. There’stwo other girls in with me, and seems like we’realways under-foot to each other. And there isn’tany parlour, and we got only one bureau for the threeof us, and you can guess what a mess that is.And the closet’s about as big as a pocket handkerchief.”
“Ain’t you got any folks?”
The blue eyes held a sudden mist.
“Nobody but Miss Tolman, and she’s onlya distant cousin. Ma died two years ago.She used to sew, but she wasn’t strong, and wenever could get ahead.”
“My folks are all gone, too.”
How little and alone she was, but how much nearerto him her aloneness brought her. He wanted toput his hand over hers and tell her that he wouldtake care of her, that she need never be alone again.But the beginning of the film choked back the words.He poked the box of caramels at her, and she tookit, opened it with a murmured “Oh, my, thankyou!” Presently they both had sweetly bulgingcheeks. Where their elbows touched on the narrowchair arm made tingling thrills run all over him.Once she gave him an unconscious nudge of excitement.
Out of the corner of his eye he studied her delicateside face as she sat, with her lips parted, intenton the film.
“She’s pretty—and she’sgood,” thought Wesley Dean. “I expectshe’s too good for me.”
But that unwontedly humble thought did not alter ita hair’s breadth that she must be his.The Deans had their way always. The veins in hiswrists and the vein in his forehead beat with his hotpurpose. He shifted so that his arm did not touchhers, for he found the nearness of her disturbing;he could not plan or think clearly while she was soclose. And he must think clearly.
When the last flicker of the feature was over andthe comic and the news had wrung their last laughand gasp of interest from the crowd, they joined theslow exit of the audience in silence. On the sidewalk,however, she found her voice.
“It was an awful nice picture,” she saidsoftly. “’Most the nicest I ever saw.”
“Look here, let’s go somewhere and havea hot choc’late, or some soda, or ice cream,”he broke in hurriedly. He could not let her gowith so much yet unsaid. “Or would youlike an oyster stew in a reg’lar restaurant?Yes, that’d be better. Come on; it isn’tlate.”
“Well, after all those caramels, I shouldn’tthink an oyster stew——”
“You can have something else, then.”The main thing was to get her at a table oppositehim, where they wouldn’t have to hurry away.“Let’s go in there.”
He pointed toward a small restaurant across the streetwhere red candlelights glimmered warmly through panelledlace.
“But that looks like such a stylish place,”she protested, even as she let him guide her towardit.
But it was not so stylish when they got inside, andthe appearance of the stout woman, evidently bothproprietor and cashier, who presided over the sceneat a table on a low platform near the door reassuredthem both. And the red candleshades were onlycrinkled paper; the lace curtains showed many carefuldarns. A rebellious boy of fourteen, in a whitejacket and apron, evidently the proprietor’sson, came to take their order. After a good bitof urging Anita said that she would take a ham sandwichand a cup of coffee.
Wesley ordered an oyster stew for himself, and coffee,and then grandly added that they would both have vanillaand chocolate ice cream.
“He looks as if he just hated being a waiter,”said Anita, indicating the departing boy servitor.
“Sh’d think he would,” said Wesley.He put his arms on the table and leaned toward her.“I was going home this afternoon till I saw you.I stayed over just to see you again. I’vegot to go back in the morning, for I’ve notgot my spring work done; but—you’regoing with me.”
The vein on his forehead heightened his look of desperatedetermination. He was not so much a suitor asa commander.
“You haven’t got any folks and neitherhave I, so that makes it easy. I’ll comefor you in the morning, about eight o’clock,and we’ll go get a license and get married,and then we can get the ten-o’clock bus outto Frederick. Oh, girl, I never saw any one likeyou! I—I’ll be good to you—I’lltake care of you. It don’t matter if I didn’tever see you till this afternoon, I’d neverfind anybody else that I want so much in a hundredthousand years. I’ve not got a lot of money,but the farm’s mine, all free and clear, andif my wheat turns out all right I’ll have athousand dollars’ cash outright come the endof the year, even after the taxes are paid and everything.Won’t you look at me, Anita—won’tyou tell me something? Don’t you like me?”
The girl had listened with her eyes cast down, herhands nervously picking at the edge of the tablecloth.But he was not mistaken in her. She had wherewithto meet him, and her gaze was honest, without coquetryor evasion.
“Oh, I do like you!” she cried with quickcolour. “I do! I do! I alwaysthought somebody like you’d come along some day,just like this, and then—it just seemedfoolish to expect it. But look here. I toldyou a story, right off. My name’s not Anita—it’sAnnie. I took to pretending it’s Anitabecause—it does seem sort of silly, butI got to tell you—because I saw it in themovies, and it seemed sort of cute and different,and Annie’s such a plain, common name. ButI couldn’t let you go on talking like that andcalling me by it, now could I?”
The mutinous young waiter brought their food and thumpedit truculently down before them.
“Look out!” said Dean with sudden violentharshness, the vein in his forehead darkening ominously.“What do you think you’re doing, feedingcattle?”
The boy drew back in confusion, and Annie exclaimed:“Oh, he didn’t mean it anything againstus—he’s just mad because he has tobe a waiter.”
“Well, he’d better be careful; kids canbe too smart Aleck.”
The little gust had deflected them away from theirown affairs. But Annie brought them back.She leaned toward him.
“You make me kind of afraid of you. Ifyou ever spoke to me like that it’d just aboutkill me.”
He was contrite. “Why, I couldn’tever speak to you like that, honey; it just made memad the way he banged things down in front of you.I don’t want people to treat you like that.”
“And you look so fierce, too—scowlingso all the time.”
He put up a brown finger and touched his savage vein.
“Now, now—you mustn’t mindmy look. All the Dean men are marked like that;it’s in the blood. It don’t mean athing.” He smiled winningly. “Ireckon if you’re beginning to scold me you’regoing to marry me, huh?”
Something very sweet and womanly leaped in Annie’sblue eyes.
“I—I reckon I am,” she said,and then confessed herself a brave adventurer andphilosopher in one. “Yes, I’d be afool to sit round and make excuses and pretend itwouldn’t do to be so out of the ordinary whenhere you are and here I am, and it means—ourwhole lives. I don’t care, either, if Ididn’t ever set eyes on you till to-day—Iknow you’re all right and that what you say’strue. And I feel as if I’d known you foryears and years.”
“That’s the way I felt about you the minuteI looked at you. Oh”—he gavea vast and shaking sigh—“I can’thardly believe my luck. Eat up your supper andlet’s get out of here. Maybe there’ssome stores open yet and I could buy you a ring.”
“And I have to be in my boarding house by half-pastten,” offered Annie, “or I’ll belocked out. What the girls are going to say whenI come in and tell ’em——”She looked at him with intense and piteous question—thequestion that every woman at the moment of surrenderasks sometimes with her lips, but always with her heart:“It is going to be all right, isn’t it?And you’ll be good to me?”
“So help me God,” said young Wesley Dean.
* * * * *
The farm lay high, as Wesley had said. Indeed,all the way from Baltimore they had seemed to be goinginto the hills, those placidly rounding friendly Marylandhills that rise so softly, so gradually that the travelleris not conscious of ascent. The long straightroad dips across them gallantly, a silver band oftravel to tie them to the city, with little citiesor towns pendent from it at wide intervals. Treesedge it with a fringe of green; poor trees, maimedby the trimmers’ saws and shears into twistedcaricatures of what a tree should be, because thetelegraph wires and telephone wires must pass, andoaks and locusts, pines and maples, must be butcheredof their spreading branches to give them room.
It was along this highway that the motor bus, filledwith passengers and baggage and driven with considerablymore haste than discretion, carried the newly marriedpair. Annie’s eyes grew wide at the wonderand beauty of it. She was not at all afraid.She snuggled her hand into Wes’s and loved it—andloved him, too, with his look of pride and joy inher. She was content to be silent and let himtalk. Now and then she looked at the little turquoisering on her finger above the shiny new wedding ring,and loved that, too, for he had chosen it at oncefrom the trayful offered them, blurting out that shemust have it because it matched her eyes.
“All this country out here’s rich,”he bragged, “but Fred’rick County’sfar the richest land of all. Richest in the state.Maybe richest in the whole United States, I dunno.And all the farms are big. Great big farms—andgreat big teams to till ’em. People don’tuse mules here s’much as they do over on theEastern Shore. And there’s not any sand,like there is over there—in spots, thatis.”
“What’s that man doing?” asked Anniealertly.
“Ploughin’. Say, didn’t youever see a man ploughin’ before?” “Onlyin the movies,” said Annie, unabashed.“Do you ever plough?”
He laughed outright.
“Say, you’re going to be some little farmer’swife. I can see that. Yes’m, I plougha little now and then. It’s like fancywork—awfulfascinating—and once you get started youdon’t want to stop till you get a whole fielddone.”
“Quit kidding.”
“Say, Annie, do you know a chicken when yousee it walking round? Or a turkey? Or aguinea keet? We got ’em all. Aunt Dolcey,she takes care of ’em.”
“I’d like to take care of ’em.I’ll feed ’em, if she’ll show mehow.”
“Aunt Dolcey’ll show you. She’llbe tickled to death to have somebody feed ’emwhen she’s got the mis’ry.”
At Frederick they left the big motor bus and got intoWes’s own rackety flivver, the possession ofwhich delighted Annie’s heart.
“My land, I never thought I’d get marriedto a man that owned an automobile,” she confessedwith flattering frankness in her voice.
“This ain’t an automobile,” saidWes. “It’s a coffeepot, and an awfulmean one. Sometimes she won’t boil, no matterwhat I do.”
The coffeepot on this particular day chose to boil.They rattled merrily out of Frederick and off intothe higher hills beyond. It was a little afternoon when they reached the farm.
They had had to turn off the pike and take a windingwood road, rough and muddy from the spring rains.All through the budding green of the trees dogwoodhad hung out white bridal garlands for them, and therewere violets in all the little mossy hollows.At last they came through to the clearing, where laythe farm, right on the ridge, its fields smiling inthe sun, a truce of Nature with man’s energyand persistence. Yet not a final truce.For all around, the woods crept up to the open andthrust in tentative fingers—tiny pine trees,sprouts and seedlings of hardwood, scraps of underbrush—alltrying to gain a foothold and even when cut and overturnedby the sharp plough still clinging tenaciously totheir feeble rooting.
“It looks somehow,” said Annie, vaguelyunderstanding this, “as if the trees and thingswere just waiting to climb over the walls.”
“And that’s what they are,” saidWesley Dean. “The time I put in grubbing!Well—let’s go in and see Aunt Dolcey.”
He had told her, coming out, that he was afraid shewould find the house sort of plain, but just the spaceof it delighted her. The rooms were bare andsquare, whitewashed exquisitely, the furniture darkold cherry and walnut of a style three generationspast.
There were no blinds or curtains, and in the streamingsunlight Annie could see that everything was cleanand polished to the last flicker of high light.Here and there were bits of colour—crimsonand blue in the rag carpet, golden brass candlestickson the mantel, a red-beaded mat on the table underthe lamp, the lamp itself clear glass and filled withred kerosene that happily repeated the tint of themat. It all pleased Annie, touching some hithertountwanged chord of beauty in her nature. Andthere was about it the unmistakable atmosphere ofhome.
“Old-fashioned but sort of swell, too,”she decided. “Looks kind of like some ofthe parlours of those old houses on Charles Streetthat I used to rubber into in the evenings when thelights were lit and they’d forgot to put theblinds down.”
She liked the impassive almost Egyptian face of AuntDolcey, too. The old coloured woman had receivedher with a serious regard but friendly.
“Mist’ Wes, he stahtle me mighty frequen’,but he nevah stahtle me with no marryin’ befo’,”she said. “Honey, it’ll be mightynice to have a pret’ young gal in de house.I’ll serve you de bes’ I kin, faithfulan’ stiddy, like I always serve him. EfI’d ‘a’ known you was a-comin’I’d sho’ had somethin’ fo’dinneh to-day besides greens an’ po’k,cracklin’ pone an’ apple dumplin’s.That’s nuffin’ fo’ a weddin’dinneh.”
But when they came to eat it, it was delicious—thegreens delicately seasoned, not greasy, the salt porkhome-cured and sweet, the cracklin’ pone crumblingwith richness, and the apple dumpling a delight ofspicy flavour.
They sat opposite each other, in as matter-of-factfashion as if they had been married for years.They were young and exceedingly hungry, and hungerdestroys self-consciousness.
The china was very old—white plates witha curving pattern of blue leaves and yellow berries.The knives and forks were polished steel with hornhandles. The spoons were silver; old handmaderat-tail spoons they were, with the mark of the smith’smallet still upon them and the initials W.D. cut inuneven letters.
“Those were my great-granddad’s,”said Wesley. “Same name as mine. Hehad ’em made out of silver money by a man downin Frederick. They must be nearly a hundred yearsold. My great-granddad, he was the man that boughtthis land and began to clear it. He wanted tobe away off from everybody.”
“Why?” asked Annie, interested in thestory.
The vein on Wesley’s forehead seemed to growlarger and darker as he answered:
“Oh, he got into trouble—knockeda man down, and the fellow struck his head on a stoneand died. It didn’t come to trial—itreally was an accident—but it didn’tmake granddad popular. Not that he cared.He was a hard-headed, hard-fisted old son of a gun,if there ever was one, according to the stories theytell about him.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“Oh, I dunno—granddad was high-tempered,and this fellow was sort of smart Aleck; give himsome lip about something and dared him to touch him.And quick’s a wink granddad punched him.At least that’s the way I always heard it.Prob’ly they’d both been taking too muchhard cider. Bring me another dumplin’,Aunt Dolcey, please.”
As the old woman entered, bringing the dumpling, Anniefancied there were both warning and sympathy in hereyes. Why, she couldn’t imagine. Ina moment she forgot it, for Wesley was looking at herhard.
“It’s funny,” he said, “tothink I only saw you yesterday, and that we got marriedthis morning. Seems as if you’d been herefor years and years. Does it seem awful strangeto you, honey?”
“No,” said Annie. “No, it doesn’t.It is queer, but all the way here, and when I comeinto the house, I had a sense of having been herebefore sometime; kind of as if it was my home all alongand I hadn’t known about it.”
“So it was—and if I hadn’tever met you I’d been an old bach all my life.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Yes, I wouldn’t.”
They were both laughing now. He got up and stretchedhimself.
“Well, Mrs. Dean,” he said, “I gottago out and fix my disker, and you gotta come along.I don’t want to let you out of my sight.You might fly off somewhere, and I’d never findyou again.”
“Don’t you worry about that. Youcouldn’t lose me if you tried.”
They went through the kitchen, and there a tall gauntold coloured man rose and bowed respectfully.He and Aunt Dolcey were having their own dinner atthe kitchen table.
“This here’s Unc’ Zenas,”said Wesley. “He’s Aunt Dolcey’shusband, and helps me on the place.”
And again Annie saw, this time in the old man’seyes, the flicker of sympathy and apprehension thatshe had marked in Aunt Dolcey’s.
“And right glad to welcome y’, Missy,”said Unc’ Zenas. “We didn’‘spect Marse Wes to bring home a wife whenashe lef’, but that ain’ no sign that itain’ a mighty fine thing.”
They went out into the mellow spring day. WesleyDean, now in his blue overalls and working shirt,became a king in his own domain, a part of the fairprimitiveness about them. It was as if he hadsprung from this dark fertile soil, was made of itselements, at one with it. Here he belonged, andthe very spring of the earth beneath his feet wasrepeated in the measured beating of his blood.The land could not warp or break him, as it does somany, for he belonged to it as essentially and ascompletely as it belonged to him. Dimly the littletown girl beside him felt this, and dimly she hopedthat she, too, might prove to be of the same mould.
“Look at the barn, and the stables, and thecorncrib,” he was saying. “See howthey’re all built? Hand-hewn logs chinkedwith plaster. Great-granddad built them all,helped by his two slaves. That’s all theslaves he had, just two and one of ’em was Unc’Zenas’s grandfather. Everything’sstrong and sound as the day he finished it.”
“That one looks newer,” said Annie, pointing.
Wesley looked a little shamefaced, as does every typicalAnglo-Saxon discovered in sentiment.
“I built that,” he confessed. “It’sa chicken house. Somehow I didn’t wantto go down to the sawmill and get planks and buildwith ’em ’mongst all these old log things.So I got the logs out in the woods and build sameas great-granddad. Maybe it was foolish, but Icouldn’t help it.”
“It wasn’t foolish; it was nice,”she affirmed.
She perched on the tongue of a wagon while he mendedthe disker, dividing her attention between him andthe live things of the barnyard. A string ofdecorative white ducks marched in single file aboutthe edge of the cow pound. Beyond them a proudred-wattled cock paraded and purred among his haremof trim hens, now and then disturbed in his dignityby the darting nervousness of a pair of maliciousguineas, acknowledged brigands of the feathered tribes.Trim iridescent pigeons toddled about on their coralfeet, looking for leftovers from the chickens’table.
“Say, Wes, I should think you’d have adog,” she said suddenly. “A nicebig dog lazying round here would sort of complete it.”
He bent suddenly over his disker and gave the nuthe was working on a mighty twist, but he had tossedaside his hat, and she could see the sudden jump anddarkening of his menacing vein.
“I had a dog,” he said in a low voice,“but he died.”
A curious restraint fell on them, and for the firsttime Annie felt herself an alien, a stranger, faradrift from familiar shores. She shivered inthe light wind.
“You cold? You better go in the house andget something round you,” Wes said to her.
“I guess I’d better.” And sheleft him hammering.
In the house she found Aunt Dolcey in the big bedroomover the living room. She had just finished remakingthe bed—an old maple four-poster, the wooda soft and mellowed orange, fine and colourful againstthe white quilt, the lace-edged pillow slips.
“I put on clean sheets,” said Aunt Dolceyas Annie hesitated on the threshold. “Yes’m,I put on everything clean, an’ the bes’.I know what’s fitten. My chile, dish yerde third bridal bed I made up for wives of de Deanmen.”
Something caught in Annie’s throat, terrifiedher. This old black woman, with her remoteness,her pitying wise eyes, what did she mean? Anniewanted terribly to ask her. But how begin?How get through this wall of inscrutability whichthe black and yellow races have raised for their protection?
She fluttered nearer to the old woman.
“Look,” she began tremulously—“look—it’sall right, isn’t it, my marrying him so quick?I haven’t got any folks, and—and Isuppose I haven’t got much sense; but therewas something about him that just made me trust himand—and want him. But it was all soquick, and—now I’m here it seemslike maybe—there was—something——Oh,you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? It isall right, isn’t it?”
The old woman considered. “It’s allright ef you’re all right,” she pronouncedat length.
“But—but what do you mean? And—andlook here—Aunt Dolcey—tell me—what’dhe do to that dog he had?”
“What you know ’bout any dog?”
“I don’t know—anything; butwhen I asked him why he didn’t have a dog—hewas queer. It scared me.”
“Doan be skeered. They ain’ nuffin’to be skeered of ’bout Marse Wes. Eve’ythingall right ef you got patience, an’ ef you gotsense, an’ ef you got haht enough. Sperritan’ sense go far, but the haht gwine carry youfroo. Now I said my say”—hertone mellowed into unctuous kindness—“whatyou want, Missy? Som’n Aun’ Dolceyc’n fotch you? Temme what it is, f’rI got to be up an’ erbout my wuk. I goter weddin’ cake to mek yit this ebenin’.Yes, ma’am—I gwi’ mek you weddin’cake fill de bigges’ pan in de kitchen.”
She helped Annie rummage in her trunk and get outthe sweater she had come in for, and it was not untilthe girl was running back to the barns that she realizedAunt Dolcey had not answered her question. Butthe old woman’s words had steadied her, reassuredher.
And Wes received her gayly. His repairs weredone, his team in harness, ready to start.
“It’s a shame,” he said. “Weought to go off down to town and play round and havea big time, but I’m so behind with my disking,Annie, honey. You see I had to stay over a dayin Baltimore. Fact. Important business.”He winked at her jocosely. “So I’vegot to work rest of the day. That’s whatcomes of marrying a farmer. Farm work don’teven wait on a bride, not even the prettiest bridein the world.”
He stooped to kiss her, and she held tight to hisarm.
“I don’t mind. You go on about yourbusiness and I’ll get all unpacked and settled.But don’t be late to supper—Aunt Dolcey’smaking us a wedding cake.”
She watched him as he drove down the lane and turnedinto the field and steadied the first straining rushof his team. Again she felt her abandonment,her utter forlornity, her distance from everythingshe had known and been accustomed to. But oncemore she proved herself an adventurer and a philosopher.
Shrugging her shoulders, she turned back to the house.
“It may be a funny way to get married; but everything’sall right until it stops being all right, and—andI like it here.”
* * * * *
She had been married a week now, and the week hadbeen the fairest of fair weather, indoors as wellas out. Now she sat at the clumsy old secretarydesk to write a letter to Miss Tolman.
... For all you said, and hought I was crazy,I am just as happy as I can be. Wes is kind andfull of fun, and he works very hard. This farmis a pretty place, and the house is ten times as bigas your shop. I am learning to cook and churnbutter, and Aunt Dolcey, the old coloured woman, teachesme and doesn’t laugh when I am dumb. Shesays, and Wes does, too, that I am a born farmer’swife, and I think maybe I am, for I like it in thecountry more than I ever thought I’d like anyplace, and I don’t get a bit lonely. Youought to see our wheat—it’s likegreen satin, only prettier.
I hope the rheumatism in your hands is better, andthat you have got somebody good in my place.Cousin Lorena, I am a very lucky girl to fall in lovewith such a nice man, with a piece of property anda flivver, even if it is an old one; but better thanall that he has is Wes himself, for you never sawa better, kinder man. He is not rough and doesnot chew tobacco as you thought maybe he did, onlysmokes a pipe once in a while. I made a sweet-potatocustard yesterday, and he said it was the best heever tasted. He says I must not do anything thatis too hard for me, but I am going to drop seed corn.We have been down to town once, and went to the moviesand bought some candy, and he wanted to buy me a newhat, but I wouldn’t let him. He is so kind....
* * * * *
She had written in a glow of happiness, trying totell everything and finding it hard to get it intowords that would allay Cousin Lorena’s forebodingsand impress her properly. Annie frowned at thepaper. How inform a bilious, middle-aged prophetof evil that she had not only wedded prosperity andindustry but also a glorious young demigod whose tendernessand goodness passed belief?
Suddenly she heard a voice, loud, angry, incoherent.She dropped the pen and ran out to the kitchen door.
Wes stood there, confronting Uncle Zenas—aWes she had never dreamed could exist. The veinon his forehead was black and swollen; indeed hiswhole face was distorted with rage.
“You damned old liar—don’tyou tell me again you put that pitchfork away whenI found it myself in the stable behind the mare’sstall. Pretty business if she’d knockedit down and run one of the tines into her.”
“Marse Wes, you haddat pitchfo’k dereyo’se’f dis mawnin’; I ain’tnevah touch dat pitchfo’k.” Unc’Zenas’s voice was low and even.
Behind Wes’s back Aunt Dolcey made signs toher husband for silence.
“I tell you you’re a liar, and by rightsI ought to cut your lying tongue out of your head!I haven’t even seen that pitchfork for threedays, and when I went to look for it just now I foundit in the stable where you’d had it cleaningout the stalls. Now shut up and get out aboutyour work! Don’t let me hear another wordout of you!”
Unc’ Zenas turned away and Wes, without a wordor look at the two women, strode after him. Annie,shaken, caught Aunt Dolcey’s arm.
“Oh, Aunt Dolcey,” she breathed, “whaton earth was the matter?”
Aunt Dolcey drew her into the kitchen.
“Nuffin’ but Marse Wes flyin’ int’one his bad Dean temper fits, honey,” said theold woman “No use to min’ him. Nouse payin’ any ‘tention. Dat whyI waggle my head at Zenas to say nuffin’ back.Talk back to Marse Wes when he’s high-flyin’on’y meks things worse.”
Annie beheld an abyss yawning beneath her feet.
“Yes, but, Aunt Dolcey—what’sthe sense in talking that way? It wasn’tanything, just a pitchfork out of place. And hewent on so. And he looked so dreadful.”
Aunt Dolcey rattled her pans.
“I been dreadin’ dis moment, whenas youfirs’ see Marse Wes in his anger. Zenasan’ me, we’s use to it. Marse Wesdataway; som’n go wrong he fly off de handle.Zenas ain’t mislay no pitchfo’k—Iseed Marse Wes mahse’f wid dat pitchfo’kdis mawnin’. But eve’y once in a whilehe git a temper fit an’ blow off he mouf likedat. Sometimes he strike some-buddy—buthe doan often strike Zenas. Sometimes he git madat oner de hosses an’ frail it proper.Dat high temper run in de Dean fambly, chile.Dey gits mad, an’ dey flies off, an’ youjust got to stan’ it.”
“But does he—does he get over itquick?”
The old negress shook her head.
“He’ll be mighty quiet come suppeh-time,not talkin’ much, lookin’ dahk. Walklight, an’ don’t say nuffin’ rilehim up, eve’ything all right. T’-morrowmawnin’ come, he’s outer it.”Her voice rose into a minor cadence, almost a chant.“Chile, it’s a dahk shadder on all deDeans—dey all mahked wid dat frown on deirforeheads, an’ dey all got dahk hours come toum. Marse Wes’s maw she fade out an’die caze she cain’ stan’ no such.His grammaw, she leave his grampaw. An’so on back. Ontell some ooman marry a Dean whokin chase dat debbil outer him, jes so long de Deanmen lib in de shadder. I tole you, ain’I, de day you come, sperrit an’ sense carryyou fur, but it’s de haht gwine carry you froo.Now you un’stan’.”
Yes, Annie understood, imperfectly. So mightRed Riding Hood have understood when the wolf suddenlyappeared beside her peaceful pathway. She askedone more question, “Does he get mad often?”and waited, trembling, for the answer.
Aunt Dolcey stuck out her underlip. “Sometimehe do, en den again, sometime he doan’.Mos’ giner’ly he do.”
Annie walked back to her letter, and looked at itslast phrase. She picked up the pen, but did notwrite.
Then with a quick intake of breath she took her firstconscious step in the path of loyal wifehood.
She added, writing fast: “He is the bestman that ever lived, I do believe,” and signedher name, folded the letter and sealed it in its envelopeas quickly as she could.
At supper she watched Wes. He was, as Aunt Dolceyhad predicted, very silent; the vein in his foreheadstill twitched menacingly and the pupils of his eyeswere distended until the colour about them disappearedin blackness. After he had eaten he went outsideand smoked, while Annie sat fiddling with a bit ofsewing and dreading she knew not what.
But nothing happened. Presently he came in, announcedthat he was tired and had a hard day before him to-morrow,and thought he’d go to bed.
Long after he had fallen into immobile slumber Annielay beside him, awake, marvelling how suddenly hehad become a stranger, almost an ogre. Yet sheloved him and yearned to him. The impulse thathad made her finish the letter to Cousin Lorena inthe same spirit in which she had begun it called herto pity and help him. She must conceal his weaknessfrom their world. She listened to his deep, regularbreathing, she put her hand against his hard palm.
“I’m his wife,” thought Annie Deanwith inarticulate tenderness. “I’mgoing to try to be everything a wife ought to be.”
The next morning he was his old self again, laughing,joking, teasing her as usual. The scene of yesterdayseemed to have gone utterly from his memory, thoughhe must have known that she had seen and heard it.But he made no allusion to it, nor did she. Thefarm work was pressing; the warm spring days foretoldan early season.
As he went whistling out toward the barn Annie heardhim salute Unc’ Zenas with familiar friendliness:
“How’s tricks this morning? Thinkthe Jersey’ll be fresh next week?”
Aunt Dolcey heard him, too, and she and Annie exchangedlong glances. The old woman’s said, “Yousee—what I told you was true”; andthe young woman’s answered, “Yes, I see,and I understand. I’m going to see it through.”
But something in her youth had definitely vanished,as it always does when responsibility lays its heavyhand on us. She went about her new life questioninglyeager for understanding. There was so much forher to see and learn—the erratic ways ofsetting hens, the care of foolish little baby chicks;the spring house, cool and damp and gray-walled, withits trickle of cold water forever eddying about thecrocks of cream-topped milk; the garden making, leftto her and Aunt Dolcey after the first spading; thevarious messes and mashes to be prepared for cowswith calf; the use of the stored vegetables and fruits,and meat dried and salted in such generous quantitythat she marvelled at it. All the farm woman’sprimer she learned, bit by bit, seeing how it supplementedand harmonized with that life of the fields that soengrossed and commanded Wes.
But through it all, beneath it all, she found herselfwaiting, with dread, for another outburst. Againstwhom would it be this time—Unc’ Zenasagain—Aunt Dolcey—one of theanimals—or perhaps herself? She wonderedif she could bear it if he turned on her.
She was working in the spring house mixing cream withcurd for cottage cheese, very busy and anxious overit, for this was her first essay alone, when she heardWes again in anger. She dropped her spoon, butdid not go to look, only concentrated herself to listen.
This time he was cursing one of his horses, and shecould hear the stinging whish of a whip, a wickedand sinister emphasis to the beast’s snortingand frenzied thumping of hoofs. Her blue eyesdilated with fear; she knew in what pain and frightthe horse must be lunging under those blows.And Wes, raucous, violent, his mouth foul with uncleanwords—only this morning he had told herthat when Sunday came they’d go into the woodsand find a wild clematis to plant beside the frontdoor. Wild clematis! She could have laughedat the irony of it.
At last she could bear it no longer; she put her handsto her ears to shut out the hideousness of it.After an interminable wait she took them down.He had stopped—there was silence—butshe heard footsteps outside, and she literally coweredinto the darkest corner of the spring house.But it was only Aunt Dolcey, her lips set in a lineof endurance.
“I was lookin’ erbout foh you, honey,”she said reassuringly. “I di’n’know where you was, en den I remembah you come offdown heah. Let Aunt Dolcey finish up dat cheese.”
“What—what started him?” askedAnnie piteously.
“I doan’ jes’ know—sound’like one de big team di’n’ go inter hisright stall, er som’n like dat. It’salways som’n triflin’, en no ‘count.But land, he’ll be ovah it come night. Doan’look so white en skeer, chile.”
“But—but I been thinking—whatif he might turn on me—what if he’dstrike me? Aunt Dolcey—did he everstrike you?”
“Oncet.”
“Oh, Aunt Dolcey, what did you do?”
Something flared in Aunt Dolcey’s eyes thatwas as old as her race. She looked past Annieas if she saw something she rather relished; justso her ancestors must have looked when they were dancingbefore a bloodstained Congo fetish.
“You see dat big white scar on Marse Wes’lef’ wris’? When he struck me I mahkhim dere wid my hot flatiron. Am’ no maneveh gwine lif’ his hand to Dolcey, no matterwho.”
A shrewd question came to Annie:
“Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?”
“No, ma’am, no ‘ndeedy, he didn’.Wil’ Marse Wes may be, but he ain’ nocrazy man. It’s dat ole debbil in his nature,Miss Annie, honey. En ef ever once som’ntremenjus happen to Marse Wes, dat debbil’llbe cas’ out. But hit’s got to bestronger en mo’ pow’ful dan he is.Not ’ligion, fer ’ligion goes f’mde outside in. Som’n got to come from insideMarse Wes out befo’ dat ole debbil is laid.”
This was meagre comfort, and Annie did not followthe primitive psychology of it. She only knewthat into her happiness there had come again the darkeningof a fear, fear that was to be her devil, no lessterrible because his presence was for the most partveiled.
But again she steeled her courage. “I won’tlet him spoil everything; I won’t let him makeme afraid of him,” she vowed, seeing Wes in hissilent mood that night. “I won’t beafraid of him. I wish I could cut that old veinout of his forehead. I hate it—it’sjust as if it was the thing that starts him.Never seems as if it was part of the real Wes, myWes.”
In the depths of the woods, on Sunday, she stood bywhile he dug up the wild clematis—stoodso he could not see her lips quiver—andshe put her clenched hands behind her for fear they,too, would betray her.
“Wes,” she asked, “what made youget so mad last Thursday and beat old Pomp so?”
He turned toward her in genuine surprise.
“I wasn’t mad; not much, that is.And all I laid on Pomp’s tough old hide couldn’thurt him. He’s as mean as a mule, that oldscoundrel. Gets me riled every once in a while.”
“I wish you wouldn’t ever do it again.It scared me almost to death.”
“Scared you!” he laughed. “Oh,Annie, you little silly—you aren’tscared of me. Now don’t let on you are.What you doing—trying to kid me? There,ain’t that a splendid plant? I believe I’lltake back a couple shovelfuls this rich wood earthto put in under it. It’ll never know it’snot at home.”
“Yes, but, Wes—I wish you’dpromise me something.”
“Promise you anything.”
“Then—promise me not to get mad andbeat the horses any more or holler at Unc’ Zenas.I don’t like it.”
“Annie, you little simp—what’sthe matter with you? A fellow’s got tolet off steam once in a while, and if you’d beenpestered like I have with Unc’ Zenas’sornery trifling spells and old Pomp’s generalcussedness, you’d wonder that I don’t getmad and stay mad every minute. Don’t let’stalk any more about it. Say, look there—there’sa scarlet tanager! Ain’t it pretty?Shyest bird there is, but up here in the woods there’sa couple pairs ’most every year. Pull thatold newspaper up round the earth a little, so’sI can get a better holt of it. That’s thegirl. Gee, I never knew what fun it’d beto have a wife who’d be so darn chummy as youare. How d’you like your husband, Mrs.Dean? Ain’t it about time you said somethingnice to the poor feller instead of scolding his lightsand liver out of place on a nice peaceful Sabbathday? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
She pushed back the fear devil and answered his smile.
’No, sir, I’m not going to say anythingnice to my husband. I’ll tell you a secretabout him—he’s awful stuck on himselfnow.”
“Why shouldn’t he be? Look who hepicked out to marry.”
Who could stand against such beguiling? Annielooked up at him and saw his Dean mark give a littlemocking twitch as if it rejoiced in her thwarting.
But she said no more; and they planted the wild clematiswith its black woods earth beneath at the side ofthe front door, and Annie twisted its pliable greenstems round one of the posts of the little benchedentrance.
Her hands moved deftly, and Wes, who had finishedfirming the earth about the plant, watched them.
“Your little paws are gettin’ awful brown,”he said. “I remember that first day, inthe shop, how white they were—and how quickthey moved. You wrapped up them aprons like somethin’was after you, and I was trying to get my nerve upto speak to you.”
“Tryin’ to get up your nerve! I reckonit wasn’t much effort. There, don’tthat vine look’s if it grew there of itself?”
“Yeh—it looks fine.” Hesat down on the bench and pulled her down beside him,his arm about her. “Annie, baby, are y’happy?”
She put her cheek against his shoulder and shut hereyes.
“I’m so happy I wouldn’t darst beany happier.”
“You’re not sorry you picked up with meso quick? You don’t wish’t you’dstayed down in Balt’mer and got you a city beau?”
“I’d rather be with you—here—thanany place in the world. And, Wes—Ithink you’re the best and kindest man that everlived. I wouldn’t have you changed, anyway, one little bit.”
She defied her fears and that mocking, twitching veinwith the words.
“Same here. Made to order for me, you were.First minute I looked in those round blue eyes ofyours I knew it.”
“It isn’t possible,” she thought.“It isn’t possible that he can get somad and be so dreadful. Maybe if I can make himthink he’s awful good and kind”—oh,simple subtlety—“believe he is, too,and he’ll stop getting such spells. Oh,if he would always be just like this!”
But it was only two days later when she called himto help her; there was a hen that was possessed tobrood, and Aunt Dolcey had declared that it was toolate, that summer chickens never thrived.
“I can’t get her out, Wes,” saidAnnie. “She’s ’way in underthe stable, and she pecks at me so mean. Yougot longer arms’n me—you reach inand grab her.”
He came, smiling. He reached in and grabbed,and the incensed biddy pecked viciously.
In a flash his anger was on him. He snatchedagain, and this time brought out the creature anddropped her with wrung neck, a mass of quivering feathersand horribly jerking feet, before Annie.
“I reckon that’ll learn the old crow!”he snarled, and strode away.
“We might’s well have soup for supper,”remarked Aunt Dolcey, coming on the scene a momentlater. “Dere, chile, what’s a chicken,anyway?”
“It’s not that,” said Annie briefly;“but he makes me afraid of him. If I gettoo afraid of him I’ll stop caring anything abouthim. I don’t want to do that.”
“Den,” answered Aunt Dolcey with equalbrevity, “you got think up some manner er meansto dribe his debbil out. Like I done tol’you.”
“Yes, but——”
Aunt Dolcey paused, holding the carcass of the chickenin her hands, and faced her.
“Dishyer ain’ nuthin’. Waittell he gits one his still spells, whenas he doan’speak ter nobody an’ doan’ do no work.Why ain’ we got no seed potaters? MarseWes he took a contrairy spell an’ he wouldn’tdig ‘em, an’ he wouldn’t let Zenastech ’em needer. Me, I went out moonlightnights an’ dug some to eat an’ hid ’emin de cellar. Miss Annie, you doan’ knownuffin’ erbout de Dean temper yit.”
They went silently to the house. Aunt Dolceystopped in the kitchen and Annie went on into theliving room. There on the walls hung the picturesof Wes’s father and mother, cabinet photographsframed square in light wood. Annie looked atthose pictured faces in accusing inquiry. Whyhad they bequeathed Wes such a legacy? In hisfather’s face, despite the beard that was thefashion of those days, there was the same unmistakablepride and passion of Wes to-day. And his motherwas a meek woman who could not live and endure theDean temper. Well, Annie was not going to bemeek. She thought with satisfaction of Aunt Dolceyand the hot flatiron. The fact that he had neverlifted finger to Aunt Dolcey again proved that ifone person could thus conquer him, so might another.Was she, his wife, to be less resourceful, less self-respectingthan that old Negro woman? Was she to endure whatAunt Dolcey would not?
Suddenly she snatched out the little old family albumfrom its place in the top of the desk secretary, anold-fashioned affair bound in shabby brown leatherwith two gilt clasps. Here were more picturesof the Dean line—his grandfather, morebearded than his father, his Dean vein even more prominent;his grandmother, another meek woman.
“Probably the old wretch beat her,” thoughtAnnie angrily.
Another page and here was great-grandfather himself,in middle age, his picture—a faded daguerreotype—showinghim in his Sunday best, but plainly in no Sunday mood.“Looks like a pirate,” was Annie’scomment. There was no picture of great-grandmother.“Probably he killed her off too young, beforeshe had time to get her picture taken.”And Annie’s eyes darted blue fire at the supposedculprit. She shook her brown little fist at him.“You started all this,” she said aloud.“You began it. If you’d had a wifewho’d’ve stood up to you you’d nevergot drunk and killed a man, and you wouldn’thave left your family a nasty old mad vein in themiddle of their foreheads, looking perfectly unChristian.I just wish I had you here, you old scoundrel!I’ll bet I’d tell you something that’dmake your ears smart.”
She banged to the album and put it in its place.
“Well, not me!” said Annie. “Notme! I’m not going to be bullied and scaredto death by any man with a bad temper, and the verynext time Mister Wes flies off the handle and raisesCain I’m going to raise Cain, two to his one.I won’t be scared! I won’t be a littlegump and take such actions off any man. We’llsee!”
It is easy enough to be bold and resolute and threatena picture. It is easy enough to plot action eitherbefore or after the need for it arises. But whenit comes to raising Cain two to your husband’sone, and that husband has been a long and successfulcultivator of that particular crop—why,that is quite a different thing.
Besides, as it happened, Annie did not wholly lacksympathy for his next outburst, which was directedtoward a tramp, a bold dirty creature who appearedone morning at the kitchen door and asked for food.
“You two Janes all by your lonesome here?”he asked, stepping in.
Wes had come into the house for another shirt—hehad split the one he was wearing in a mighty boutwith the grubbing hoe—and he entered thekitchen from the inner door just in time to catch thewords.
He leaped and struck in one movement, and it carriedthe tramp and himself outside on the grass of thedrying yard. The tramp was a burly man, and afterthe surprise of the attack he attempted to fight.He might as well have battled with a locomotive goingfull speed.
“What you doin’ way up here, you lousyloafer?” demanded Wes between blows. “Getto hell out of here before I kill you, like you deserve,comin’ into my house and scarin’ women.I’ve a great mind to get my gun and blow youfull of holes.”
In two minutes the tramp was running full speed towardthe road, followed by Wes, who assisted his flightwith kicks whenever he could reach him. Aftertwenty minutes or so the victor came back. Hiseyes were red with rage that possessed him. Hedid not stop to speak, but hurried out his racketylittle car and was gone. Later they found outhe had overtaken the tramp, fought him again, knockedhim out, and then, roping him, had taken him to thenearest constable and seen him committed to jail.
But the encounter left him strange and silent fora week, and his Dean mark twitched and leaped in triumph.During that time the only notice he took of Anniewas to teach her to use his rifle.
“Another tramp comes round, shoot him,”he commanded.
“En in de meantime,” counselled Aunt Dolcey,“it’ll come in mighty handy fer you tokill off some deseyer chicken hawks what makin’so free wid our nex’ crap br’ilers.”
But beyond the learning how to use the gun Annie hadlearned something more: she added it to her knowledgethat Aunt Dolcey had once outfaced that tyrant.It was this—that Wes’s rage was thesame, whether the cause of it was real or imaginary.
* * * * *
The advancing summer, with its sultriness, its suddenevening storms shot through with flaming lightningand reverberant with the drums of thunder, broughtto Annie a cessation of her purpose. She was languid,subject to whimsical desires and appetites, at timesa prey to sudden nervous tears. The householdwork slipped back into Aunt Dolcey’s faithfulhands, save now and then when Annie felt more buoyantand instinct with life and energy than she had everfelt before. Then she would weed her garden orchurn and print a dozen rolls of butter with a keenand vivid delight in her activity.
In the evening she and Wes walked down the long laneand looked at the wheat, wide level green plains alreadyturning yellow; or at the corn, regiments of tallsoldiers, each shako tipped with a feathery tassel.Beyond lay the woods—dark, mysterious.Little dim plants of the soil bloomed and shed faintscent along the pathway in the dewy twilight.Sometimes they sat under the wild clematis, floweringnow, and that, too, was perfumed, a wild and tangyscent that did not cloy. They did not talk verymuch, but he was tender with her, and his fits of angerseemed forgotten.
When they did talk it was usually about the crops—thewheat. It was wonderful heavy wheat. Itwas the best wheat in all the neighbourhood.Occasionally they took out the little coffeepot anddrove through the country and looked at other wheat,but there was none so fine as theirs.
And with the money it would bring—the goldenwheat turned into gold—they would——And now came endless dreams.
“I thought we’d sell the old coffeepotto the junkman and get a brand-new car, a good one,but now——” This was Wes.
“I think we ought to save, too. A boy’llneed so many things.”
“Girls don’t need anything much, I suppose—oh,no!” He touched her cheek with gentle fingers.
“It’s not going to be a girl.”
“How d’you know?”
“I know.”
So went their talk, over and over, an endless garlandof happy conjectures, plans, air castles. CousinLorena sent little patterns and thin scraps of material,tiny laces, blue ribbons.
“I told her blue—blue’s forboys,” said Annie. And Wes laughed at her.It was all a blessed interlude of peace and expectancy.
The wheat was ready for harvest. From her placeunder the clematis vine, where she sat with her sewing,Annie could see the fields of pale gold, ready forthe reaper. Wes had taken the coffeepot and gonedown to the valley to see when the threshers wouldbe able to come. In the morning he would beginto cut. Annie cocked a questioning eye at thesky, for she had already learned to watch the farmer’sgreatest ally and enemy—weather.
“If this good spell of weather only holds untilhe gets it all cut!” She remembered storieshe had told her of sudden storms that flattened theripe grain to the ground, beyond saving; of long-continuedrains that mildewed it as it stood in the shocks.But if the good weather held! And there was nota cloud in the sky, nor any of those faint signs bywhich changing winds or clouds are forecast.
She heard the rattle and clack of the returning coffeepot,boiling up the hill at an unwonted speed. Andshe waved her hand to Wes as he came past; but hewas bent over the wheel and did not even look roundfor her, only banged the little car round to the backfuriously. Something in his attitude warned her,and she felt the old almost-forgotten devil of herfear leap to clutch her heart.
Presently he came round the house, and she hardlydared to look at him; she could not ask. Butthere was no need. He flung his hat on the groundbefore her with a gesture of frantic violence.When he spoke the words came in a ferment of fury:
“That skunk of a Harrison says he won’tbring the thresher up here this year; claims the road’stoo rough and bridges are too weak for the engine.”
“Oh, Wes—what’ll you do?”
“Do! I’m not going to do anything!I’m not going to haul my wheat down to him—I’llsee him in hell and back again before I will.”
“But our wheat!”
“The wheat can rot in the fields! I won’tbe bossed and blackguarded by any dirty little runtthat thinks because he owns the only threshing outfitin the neighbourhood that he can run my affairs.”
He raged up and down, adding invective, vituperation.
“But you can’t, Wes—you can’tlet the wheat go to waste.” For Annie hadabsorbed the sound creed of the country, that to wastefoodstuff is a crime as heinous as murder.
“Can’t I? Well, we’ll see aboutthat!”
She recognized from his tone that she had been wrongto protest; she had confirmed him in his purpose.She picked up her sewing and tried with unsteady fingersto go on with it, but she could not see the stitchesfor her tears. He couldn’t mean it—andyet, what if he should? She looked up and outtoward those still fields of precious ore, dimmingunder the purple shadows of twilight, and saw thema black tangle of wanton desolation. The storyAunt Dolcey had told her about the potatoes of lastyear was ominous in her mind.
He was sitting opposite her now, his head in his hands,brooding, sullen, the implacable vein in his foreheadswollen with triumph, something brutish and hard dimminghis clean and gallant youth.
“That’s the way he’s going to lookas he gets older,” thought Annie with a touchof prescience. “He’s going to changeinto somebody else—little by little.This is the worst spell he’s ever had. Andall this mean blood’s going to live again inmy child. It goes on and on and on.”
She leaned against the porch seat and struggled againstthe sickness of it.
“I might stand it for myself,” she thought.“I might stand it for myself; but I’mnot going to stand it for my baby. I’lldo something—I’ll take him away.”
Her thoughts ran on hysterically, round and roundin a coil that had no end and no beginning.
The silent fit was on Wes now. Presently, sheknew, he would get up and stalk away to bed withouta word. And in the morning——
It was as she expected. Without a word to herhe got up and went inside, and she heard him goingup the stairs. She sat then a little longer,for the night was still and warm and beautiful, thestars very near, and the soft hush-h of the countrysolitude comforting to her distress.
Then she heard Unc’ Zenas and Dolcey talkingat the kitchen door, their voices a faint cadencedmurmur; and this reminded her that she was not quitealone. She slipped round to them.
“Unc’ Zenas, Wes says he’s not goingto cut the wheat; he’ll let it rot in the fields.Seems Harrison won’t send his thresher up thisfar; wants us to haul to him instead.”
“Marse Wes say he ain’ gwine cut dat goodwheat? Oh, no Miss Annie, he cain’ meandat, sholy, sholy!”
“He said it. He’s got an awful spellthis time. Unc’ Zenas—look—couldn’tyou ride the reaper if he wouldn’t? Couldn’tyou? Once the wheat gets cut there’s somechance.”
“Befo’ my God, Miss Annie, wid deseyerwuffless ole han’s I cain’ ha’dlyhol’ one hawss, let alone three. Oh, ifI had back my stren’th lak I useter!”
The three fell into hopeless silence.
“Are the bridges so bad? Is it too hardto get the thresher up here?” asked Annie atlast. “Or was that just Harrison’sexcuse?”
“No, ma’am; he’s got de rights.Dem ole bridges might go down mos’ any time.An’ dishyer road up yere, it mighty hard to navigatefoh er grea’ big hebby contraption lak er threshin’machine en er engine. Mos’ eve’yyear he gits stuck. Las’ year tuk er dayen er ha’f to git him out. No’m;he’s got de rights.”
“Yes, but, Unc’ Zenas, that wheat mustn’tbe left go to waste.”
Aunt Dolcey spoke up. “Miss Annie, honey,go git your res’—mawnin’ bringslight. Maybe Marse Wes’ll come to his solidsenses een de mawnin’. You cain’do nuffin’ ternight noway.”
“No, that’s so.” She sighedhopelessly. “Unc’ Zenas, maybe wecould hire somebody else to cut the wheat if he won’t.”
“Miss Annie, honey, eve’ybody busy widhis own wheat—an’, moreover, MarseWes ain’ gwi’ let any stranger come ondis place an’ cut his wheat—you knowhe ain’.”
There seemed nothing more to say. In the darknesstears were slowly trickling down Annie’s cheeks,and she could not stop them.
“Well—good-night.”
“Good-night, my lamb, good-night. I gwi’name you en your tribulations in my prayers dis night.”
She had never felt so abandoned, so alone. Shecould not even make the effort to force herself tobelieve that Wes would not commit this crime againstall Nature; instead, she had a vivid and completecertainty that he would. She went over it andover it, lying in stubborn troubled wakefulness.She put it in clear if simple terms. If Wes persistedin his petty childish anger and wasted this wheat,it meant that they could not save the money that theyhad intended for the child that was coming. Theywould have, in fact, hardly more than their bare livingleft them. The ridiculous futility of it swepther from one mood to another, from courage to utterhopelessness. She remembered the first time thatshe had seen Wes angry, and how she had lain awakethen and wondered, and dreaded. She rememberedhow, later, she had planned to manage him, to controlhim. And she had done nothing. Now it hadcome to this, that her child would be born in needlessimpoverishment; and, worse, born with the Dean cursefull upon him. She clenched and unclenched herhands. The poverty she might bear, but the otherwas beyond her power to endure. Sleep came toher at last as a blessed anodyne.
In the first moment of the sunlit morning she forgother trouble, but instantly she remembered, and shedressed in an agony of apprehension and wonder.Wes was gone, as was usual, for he got up before shedid, to feed his cattle. She hurried into herclothes and came down, to find him stamping in tobreakfast, and with the first glance at him her hopefell like a plummet.
He did mean it—he did! He did notmean to cut that wheat. She watched him as heate, and that fine-spun desperation that comes whencourage alone is not enough, that purpose that doesthe impossible, took hold of her.
When he had finished his silent meal he went leisurelyout to the little front porch and sat down. Shefollowed him. “Wes Dean, you going to cutthat wheat?” she demanded; and she did not knowthe sound of her own voice, so high and shrill itwas.
The vein in his forehead leered at her. Whatwas she to pit her strength against a mood like this?He did not answer, did not even look at her.
“Do you mean to say you’d be so wicked—sucha fool?” she went on.
Now he looked up at her with furious, threateningeyes.
“Shut your mouth and go in!” he said.
She did not move. “If you ain’t goingto cut it—then I am!”
She turned and started through the house, and he leapedup and followed her. In the kitchen he overtookher.
“You stay where you are! You don’tgo out of this house this day!” He laid a rough,restraining hand on her shoulder.
At that touch—the first harshness she hadever felt from him—something hot and flamingleaped through her. She whirled away from himand caught up Aunt Dolcey’s big sharp butcherknife lying on the table; lifted it.
“You put your hands on me like that again andI’ll kill you!” Her voice was not highand shrill now; she did not even raise it. “Youand your getting mad! You and your rotten, filthytemper! You’d waste that wheat becauseyou haven’t got enough sense to see what a bigfool you are.”
She dropped the knife and walked past him, out ofthe kitchen, to the barn.
“Unc’ Zenas,” she called, “youhitch up the horses to the reaper. I’mgoing to cut that near field to-day myself.”
“But, Miss Annie——”began the old man.
“You hitch up that team,” she said.“If there ain’t any men round this place,I don’t know’s it makes so much difference.”
She waited while the three big horses were broughtout and hitched to the reaper, and then she mountedgrimly to the seat. She did not even look aroundto see if Wes might be watching. She did not answerwhen Unc’ Zenas offered a word of direction.
“Let dat nigh horse swing round de cornahs byhisse’f, Miss Annie. He knows. An’look—here’s how you drop de knife.I’ll let down de bars an’ foller you.”
Behind her back he made frantic gestures to Dolceyto come to him, and she ran, shuffling, shaken.Together they followed the little figure in the bluecalico dress, perched high on the rattling, clackingreaper. Her hair shone in the sun like the wheat.
The near horse knew the game, knew how to lead theothers. That was Annie’s salvation.As she swung into the field she had a struggle withthe knife, but it dropped into place, and the firstof the golden harvest fell before it squarely, cleanly;the stubble was even behind it. She watched thebroad backs of her team, a woman in a dream. Shedid not know how she drove them; the lines were heavyin her hands, dragged at her arms. It was hot,and sweat rolled down her forehead. She wishedvaguely that she had remembered to put on her sunbonnet.
Behind her came Unc’ Zenas and Aunt Dolcey,setting the sheaves into compact, well-capped stocks,little rough golden castles to dot this field of amazingconflict.
And now the reaper had come to the corner. Unc’Zenas straightened himself and watched anxiously.But his faith in the near horse was justified—theteam turned smoothly, Annie lifted the blade and droppedit, and they started again, only half visible now acrossthe tall grain.
Annie’s wrists and back ached unbearably, thesweat got in her eyes, but she drove on. Shethought a little of Wes, and how he had looked whenshe picked up that butcher knife. She thoughtof his heavy hand on her shoulder, and her flesh burnedwhere he had grasped it.
“I’m going to cut this wheat if it killsme.” she said over and over to herself in aqueer refrain. “I’m going to cut thiswheat if it kills me!” She thought probablyit would. But she drove on.
She made her second corner successfully, and now thesun was at her back, and that gave her a little ease.This wheat was going to be cut, and hauled to thethresher, and sold in the market, if she did everybit of the work herself. She would show Wes Dean!Let him try to stop her—if he dared!
And there would be money enough for everything thebaby might want or might need. Her child shouldnot be born to poverty and skimping. If onlythe sun didn’t beat so hard on the back of herneck! If only her arms didn’t ache so!
After countless hours of time she overtook Dolceyand Zenas, and the old woman divined her chief discomfort.She snatched the sunbonnet off her own head and handedit up to her.
“Marster in hebben, ef I only had my stren’th!”muttered Zenas as she went on.
“Angels b’arin’ dat chile up widdeir wings,” chanted Aunt Dolcey. Then,descending to more mundane matters, she added a delightedchuckle: “I knowed she’d rise en shineone dese days. Holler at Marse Wes she did, namehim names, plenty. Yessuh—laid himout!”
“What you s’pose he up to now?”asked Zenas, looking over his shoulder.
“I dunno—but I bet you he plumb da’nted.Zenas, lak I tol’ you—man may habplenty debbilment, rip en t’ar, but he’llstan’ back whenas a ooman meks up her min’she stood enough.” And Aunt Dolcey had neverheard of Rudyard Kipling’s famous line.
“Dat chile might kill he’se’f.”
“When yo’ mad yo’ kin ‘complishde onpossible, en it doan’ hurt yo’,”replied Dolcey, thus going Kipling one better.
But she watched Annie anxiously.
The girl held out, though the jolting and shakingracked her excruciatingly and the pull of the reinsseemed to drag the very flesh from her bones.Now and then the golden field swam dark before hereyes, the backs of the horses swelled to giant sizeand blotted out the sun. But she kept on longafter her physical strength was gone; her enduranceheld her. Slowly, carefully, the machine wentround and round the field, and the two bent old figuresfollowed.
And so they came to mid-morning. They had longsince ceased to look or care for any sign of the youngmaster of the land. None of them noticed him,coming slowly, slowly from the stables, coming slowly,slowly to the field’s edge and standing there,watching with unbelieving, sullen eyes the progressof the reaper, the wavering arms that guided the horses,the little shaken blue figure that sat high in thedriver’s seat. But he was there.
It is said of criminals that a confession can oftenbe extracted by the endless repetition of one questionalone; they cannot bear the pressure of its monotony.Perhaps it was the monotony of the measured rattleand clack of the machine going on so steadily thatfinally impelled Wes Dean, after his long frowningsurvey of the scene, to vault the low stone wall andapproach it.
Annie did not check the horses when she saw him; shedid not even look at him. But he looked at her,and in her white face, with the dreary circles ofutter fatigue shadowing her eyes, his defeat was completed.He put his hand on the bit of the nearest horse andstopped the team.
Then she looked at him, as one looks at a loathsomestranger.
“What you want?” she asked coldly.
He swallowed hard. “Annie—I’ll—I’llcut the wheat, le’me lift you down off there.”He held out his arms.
She did not budge. “You going to cut itall—and haul it down to the thresher?”
“Yes—yes, I will. Gee, you looknear dead—get down, honey. You go inthe house and lay down—I’m afraidyou’ll kill yourself. I’m afraidyou’ll hurt—him some way.”
Still she did not move. “I’d rutherbe dead than live with a man that acts like you do,”she said. “Grown up, and can’t handlehis temper.”
Something in her quiet, cold scorn struck throughto him and cut away forever his childish satisfactionwith himself. A new manhood came into his face;his twitching, sinister vein was still. Surrenderchoked him, but he managed to get it out:
“I know I acted like a fool. But I can’tlet you do this. I’ll—I’lltry to——”
The words died on his lips and he leaped forward intime to catch her as she swayed and fell, fainting.
An hour later Annie lay on the lounge in the sittingroom, still aching with terrible weariness, but divinelycontent. Far away she could hear the steady susurrusof the reaper, driven against the golden wheat, andthe sound was a promise and a song to her ears.She looked up now and then at the pictured face ofWes’s father, frowning and passionate, and thefaint smile of a conqueror curved her tired mouth.For she had found and proved the strongest thing inthe world, and she would never again know fear.
THE TRIBUTE
By HARRY ANABLE KNIFFIN
From Brief Stories
The Little Chap reached up a chubby hand to the doorknob.A few persistent tugs and twists and it turned inhis grasp. Slowly pushing the door open, he stoodhesitating on the threshold of the studio.
The Big Chap looked up from his easel by the window.His gray eyes kindled into a kindly smile, its welcomingeffect offset by an admonitory headshake. “Notnow, Son,” he said. “I’m busy.”
“Can’t I stay a little while, Daddy?”The sturdy little legs carried their owner acrossthe floor as he spoke. “I’ll be quiet,like—like I was asleep.”
The Big Chap hesitated, looking first at his canvasand then at the small replica of himself standingbefore him.
“I got on my new pants,” the youngsterwas saying, conversationally easing the embarrassmentof a possible capitulation. “Mummy saysI ought to be proud of them, and because I’mfive years old.”
The artist looked gravely down at him. “Proud,Son?” he asked, in the peculiar way he had ofreasoning with the Little Chap. “Have youreached the age of five because of anything you havedone? Or did you acquire the trousers with moneyyou earned?”
The Little Chap looked up at him questioningly.He had inherited his father’s wide gray eyes,and at present their expression was troubled.Then, evidently seeking a more easily comprehendedtopic, his eyes left his father’s and soughtthe canvas on which was depicted a court scene ofmediaeval times. “Who is that, Daddy?”His small index finger pointed to the most prominentfigure in the painting.
His father continued to regard him thoughtfully.“One of England’s proud kings, Son.”
“And what did he do to be proud of?”came quickly from the youthful inquisitioner.
A hearty laugh escaped the artist. “Bullyfor you, Son! That’s a poser! Asidefrom taxing the poor and having enemies beheaded, I’mpuzzled to know what he really did do to earn his highposition.”
The Little Chap squirmed himself between his father’sknees and started to scale the heights to his lap,where he finally settled down with a sigh of comfort.“Tell me a story about him,” he said eagerly.“A story with castles, ‘n’ wars,‘n’ everything.”
The artist’s gaze rested on the kingly figurein the picture, then wandered away to the window throughwhich he seemed to lose himself in scenes of a far-distanttime.
“I’ll tell you a story, Son,” hebegan, slowly and ruminatingly, “of how Loyaltyand Service stormed the Stronghold of Honour and Splendour.This proud king you see in the picture lived part ofthe time in the great castle of Windsor, and the balanceof the year in Saint James’s Palace in London.”
“It must have cost him a lot for rent,”wisely interpolated the Little Chap.
“No, the people paid the rent, Son. Someof them were glad to do it, for they looked upon theirking as a superior being. Among this class ofloyal subjects was an old hatter, very poor and humble.”
“What was his name?” asked the LittleChap, apparently greatly interested.
“He had no name. People in those oldendays were known by their trade or calling. Sohe was simply called ’the hatter’.”
“And did he make nice hats?”
“I’ve no doubt he did, Son. But youmustn’t interrupt. Well, the hatter paidhis tithes, or taxes, after which, I dare say, he hadlittle enough left to live on. But he appearednot to mind. And whenever the King and Queenrode through the streets in their gilded coach ofstate, his cracked old voice would cheer lustily, andhis hoary head would be bared in deepest reverence.”
“Didn’t he ever catch cold?”
“Hush, Son, I’m telling a story!As the hatter grew older he lost his wits and becamequite crazy on the subject of his king. He yearnedto do something to prove his loyalty. And wheneverEngland engaged in a war, and a proclamation was issuedcalling for men to fight for King and country, hewould be one of the first to volunteer. But theynever accepted him, of course, because he was so old.
“With the passing of the years the Queen died,and the King decided to marry again. Great preparationsfor the ceremony were begun at Westminster Abbey,where the wedding was to take place. The old hatterbecame greatly excited when he heard the news.His addled wits presently hit upon a wonderful schemeby which he could both honour and serve his sovereign:He would make the King a hat to wear at his wedding!”
“I guess he must ’ve been a good hatter,after all,” the Little Chap murmured, in a toneof conviction.
“Perhaps, in his time,” his father conceded.“But you must remember he now was old and foolish.His materials were merely such odds and ends as hecould gather together, and the result was very disreputable-looking.But in his rheumy old eyes it was the most wonderfulhat ever designed for a monarch. He carefullywrapped it in a soiled old cloth and started out topresent it to the King. At the palace gates theguards refused him admittance, and cruelly laughedin his face. He tried every means he could thinkof to have the hat reach its destination. Oncehe stopped the Court Chamberlain on the street, onlyto be rebuked for his pains. Another time he waylaida peer, as he left the House of Lords, and was threatenedwith arrest. Foiled in all his attempts, thecracked-brained old fellow impatiently awaited thewedding ceremony. At last the great day arrived.All the bells of old London were ringing blithelyas the gilded coach, drawn by ten white horses, depositedthe King at Westminster Abbey. In the forefrontof the vast throng surrounding the entrance stood thehatter.”
“And did he have the hat with him?” askedthe Little Chap.
“Yes, Son, he had it with him. And whenthe King entered the portals of the ancient Abbey,the hatter somehow broke through the line of guardsand ran after him crying ’Your Majesty!Your Majesty! Deign to accept this token of aloyal subject’s regard!’
“The King turned in surprise And when he sawthe ragged old fellow tending him the ridiculous-lookinghat, he flew into a great rage and cried angrily:’How comes this varlet here, interrupting hisSovereign’s nuptials and desecrating our Tombof Kings? Away with him to prison, and let himrepent his insolence as he rots in a dungeon!’”
“Why did he do that, Daddy?”
“The Sovereign, Son, was a very proud king,while the hatter was both poor and humble. Andat his words the guards hurried forward and hustledthe old man out of the Abbey, where his presence wasan insult to the Great. In the struggle the hatrolled into the gutter, and one of the King’swhite horses put his hoof through it. The hattercried like a child when he saw the work of his lovinghands thus ruined. But they carried him off toprison and kept him shut up there until he died andpaid the penalty for his crime of desecrating the Abbey.”
“Oh, the poor old hatter! But is that theend of the story, Daddy?” The Little Chap’sdisappointment was markedly pronounced.
“No, Son, there is a little more to come.I meant to tell you that the hatter had reared a largefamily of boys. His sons all married and, inturn, raised large families. These numerous relativesor kin took the name of Hatterskin. In courseof time that became shortened to Hatkins, and so remaineduntil the British habit of dropping their H’sreduced it to Atkins.
“At last the proud King died and was buriedwith great ceremony in the Abbey. Year followedyear, and century succeeded century. England,although blessed with a Royal pair both humane andgood, was ruled by an even wiser monarch—theSovereign People.
“Then came an August day when the black thunder-cloudof war darkened her smiling horizon. Four bloody,terrible years the conflict lasted. And whenat last an armistice was signed, the stricken peoplewent wild with joy.”
The Big Chap’s gaze returned to the canvas withits scene of mediaeval splendour. A mystic lightsmouldered in his eyes as, unconscious of his surroundingsand his youthful auditor, he continued: “Onthe second anniversary of that happy day an unprecedentedthing happened. Before the ancient Abbey a guncarriage, bearing the flag-draped casket of an unidentifiedwarrior, came to rest on the very spot where the gildedcoach of the proud King once had stopped. Againthe square was crowded, as on that day in the longago when the poor hatter foolishly tried to honourhis sovereign. The traditions of centuries toppledwhen the body of the unknown soldier passed throughthose storied portals followed by the King of Englandas chief mourner. In the dim, historic chapelthe king stood, in advance of princes, prime ministers,and the famous leaders of both army and navy.Like the humble hatter of old his royal head was reverentlybared as the nameless hero was laid among the silentcompany of England’s illustrious dead.‘The Boast of Heraldry and the Pomp of Power’bowed in silent homage before the remains of a oncecommon soldier. Thus Loyalty and Service eventuallystormed the Stronghold of Honour and Splendour!”
For a moment there was an impressive, brooding silence,broken presently by the Little Chap. “Andwhat was the soldier’s name, Daddy?”
Recalled from his revery, the father answered:
“He was known, Son, as Tommy Atkins.”
The Little Chap’s brow was puckered in thought.At last he laughed delightedly and clapped his hands.“Was the soldier, Daddy, one of the hatter’sfamily—the poor old hatter who was thrownout of the Abbey?”
The Big Chap lifted the child from his lap and placedhim on his feet. Then he picked up a brush andturned to his painting.
“I like to think so, Son. But only Godknows.”
THE GETAWAY
By O.F. LEWIS
From Red Book
Old Man Anderson, the lifer, and Detroit Jim, thebest second-story man east of the Mississippi, laypanting side by side in the pitch-dark dugout, sixfeet beneath the surface of the prison yard.They knew their exact position to be twenty feet southof the north wall, and, therefore, thirty feet southof the slate sidewalk outside the north wall.
It had taken the twain three months and twenty-onedays to achieve the dugout. Although there wasalways a guard somewhere on the north wall, the particularspot where the dugout had come into being was shelteredfrom the wall-guard’s observation by a smalltool-house. Also whenever the pair were ableto dig, which was only at intervals, a bunch of convictswas always perched on the heap of dirt from variouslegitimate excavations within the yard, which Fatehad piled up at that precise spot. The earthfrom the dugout and the earth from these other diggingsmixed admirably.
Nor, likewise because of the dirt-pile, could anyone detect the job from the south end of the yard.If a guard appeared from around the mat-shop or comingout of the Principal Keeper’s office, the convictssunning themselves on the dirt-pile in the free hourof noon, or late in the afternoon, after the shopshad closed, spoke with motionless lips to the twodiggers. Plenty of time was thus afforded to shovea couple of boards over the aperture, kick dirt overthe boards, and even push a barrow over the dugout’sentrance—and there you were!
One minute before this narrative opens, on July 17th,a third convict had dropped the boards over the holeinto which Old Man Anderson, the lifer, and DetroitJim, had crawled. This convict had then franticallykicked dirt over the boards, had clawed down stillmore dirt, to make sure nothing could be seen of thehole—had made the thing look just likepart of the big dirt-pile indeed—and thenhad legged it to the ball-game now in progress onthis midsummer Saturday afternoon, at the extremesouth end of the yard, behind the mat-shop.
Dirt trickled down upon the gray hair of Old Man Andersonin the dark and stuffy hole he shared with his youngercompanion. But the darkness and the stuffinessand the filtering dirt were unsensed. Somethingfar more momentous was in the minds of both.How soon would Slattery, the prison guard, whom theyknew to be lying dead in the alley between the foundryand the tool-shop, be found? For years Slatteryhad been a fairly good friend to Old Man Anderson,but what did that count in the face of his becoming,for all his friendship, a last-minute and totallyunexpected impediment to the get-away? He hadturned into the alley just when Old Man Anderson andDetroit Jim were crouching for the final jump to thedugout! A blow—a thud—thatwas all....
Anderson lay now, staring wide-eyed into the blacknothing of the hole. For the second time he hadkilled a man, and God knew he hadn’t intendedto—either time! Fourteen years agoa man had tried to get his wife away from him, whilehe was serving a one-year bit in the county jail.Both men had had guns, and Old Man Anderson had killedthe other or he would have been killed himself.So that was no murder at all! And as for Slattery—big,heavy, slow-moving, red-faced Slattery—OldMan Anderson would even have gone out of his way todo the guard a favour, under ordinary circumstances.But as between Slattery and the chance to escape—thatwas different.
Old Man Anderson rubbed his right hand in the dirtand held it before his eyes in the blackness.He knew that the moisture on it was Slattery’sblood. The iron pipe in Old Man Anderson’shands had struck Slattery on the head just once, butonce was enough.
Old Man Anderson burst into hiccoughing sobs.The younger convict punched him in the ribs, and sworeat him in muffled tones. Anderson stifled hissobs then, but continued to sniffle and shiver.This time it would absolutely be The Chair for him—ifthey got him! In a few minutes they couldn’thelp discovering Slattery. Anderson never couldgive himself up now, however this business of the dugoutand the hoped-for old sewer conduit should finallyturn out. In the beginning he had counted oncrawling out, if worst came to worst, and surrendering.But to crawl out now meant but one thing—TheChair!
In all his fourteen years behind the walls the visionof The Chair had terrorized the old man. Whenthey had sent him to prison his first cell had beenin the death-house, separated from The Chair only bya corridor that, they told him, was about twenty feetlong, and took no more than five seconds to traverse—withthe priest. Until they changed his cell, thegaunt, terrible Thing in the next room edged everyday nearer, nearer, nearer, looming, growing, broadeningbefore his morbid vision until it seemed to have cutoff from his sight everything else in the world—closer,closer until it was only seven incredible hours away!Then had come the commutation of his sentence fromdeath to life!
The next day Old Man Anderson, gray-haired even then,went out from the death-house among his gray-cladfellows, but straight into the prison hospital, wherefor three months be lay a victim of chair-shock justas surely as was ever a man shell-shocked on the Flandersfront. And never since had the hands of the manwholly ceased to quiver and to shake.
Now he was a murderer for the second time! Inthe blackness he stretched out his hand, and ran itover a stack of tin cans. Detroit Jim had beenmighty clever! Canned food from the storehouse,enough to last perhaps two weeks! Detroit Jimhad had a storehouse job. Twice a day, duringthe last ten days, the wiry little ferret-faced second-storyman had got away with at least one can from the prisoncommissary. Also he had provided matches, candles,and even a cranky little flashlight. Only chewingtobacco, because you can smell smoke a long way whenyou are hunting escaped convicts. And a can ofwater half the size of an ash can!
Despair fastened upon Old Man Anderson, and a waveof sickness swept over him. All the food in theworld wouldn’t bring Slattery back to life.And again that Thing in the death-house rose beforehis mind’s eyes. Throughout all the yearshe had carried a kind of dread that sometime a governormight come along who would put back his sentence whereit had been at first—and then all his goodbehaviour in these endless years would count for nothing.Until Detroit Jim had told him about the long-forgottensewer conduit, he had never even thought to disobeythe prison rules.
The old man’s teeth chattered. DetroitJim’s thin fingers tugged at his sleeve.That meant getting busy, and digging with the pickwith the sawed-off handle. So Anderson wriggledinto the horizontal chamber, which was just largeenough to permit his body and arms to function.
As he hacked away at the damp earth, he could seein the pitch darkness the dirty sheet of paper, nowin Detroit Jim’s pocket, upon which their verylife depended. It was a tracing made by a dischargedconvict from a dusty leather-covered book in the publiclibrary in New York, sent in by the underground toJim. The book had contained the report of someforgotten architect, back in the fifties of the lastcentury, and the diagram in his report showed the waterand sewage conduit—in use! It ranfrom the prison building, right down across the yard,six feet under ground, and out under the north wall,under the street outside, and finally into the river.Built of brick, four feet wide, four feet high.A ready-made tunnel to freedom!
Old Man Anderson could hear Detroit Jim’s hoarsewhisper now, as he chopped away at the dirt, whichhe shoved back under his stomach, to where Jim’sfingers caught it and thrust it farther back.
“We’re only a couple of feet from thatold conduit right now. Dig, you son of a gun,dig! Can the snifflin’! You dig, andthen I’ll dig!”
They were saving their matches and candles againstnecessity. Mechanically the old man chopped andhacked at the wall of earth in front of him.Now and then the pick would encounter a stone or someother hard substance. In the last few days theyhad come upon frequent pieces of old brick. DetroitJim had rejoiced over these signs. For the oldman every falling clod of earth seemed to bring himnearer to freedom. They also took his mind offSlattery.
So he chopped away, how long he did not know.Suddenly his pick struck an obstacle again. Hehacked at it. It gave slightly. A third timehe struck it, and it seemed to recede. An odourof mouldy air filled his nostrils. In that littleaperture his pick touched nothing now! He heardsomething fall! Then he knew! There was ahollow place in front of them! The abandonedconduit? He stifled a shout.
From somewhere, muffled at first, but ultimately faintlystrident, rose a prolonged wail that seemed to issuefrom the very earth. The sound rose, and fell,and rose again. Frantically the pick of Old ManAnderson hacked away at the dirt, and then at whateverwas in front of him. Detroit Jim snapped thefeeble flashlight then. It was a wall—theconduit wall!
Meantime, the prison siren shrieked out to the countrysidethe news of an escape.
What time it was—whether night or day orwhat day, neither Jim nor Old Man Anderson knew.They had slept, of course, and Jim had forgotten towind his watch. Had one week or two weeks passed?If two weeks had slipped by and if the prison officersran true to form they would by now have ceased searchinginside the prison walls.
Old Man Anderson and Detroit Jim huddled close toeach other in the darkness of the conduit. Ahundred times they had crawled from one end to theother of their vaultlike trap! In their desperateand fruitless search for an outlet to the conduitthey had burned many matches and several candles.Besides, Old Man Anderson had required light in whichto fight off his attacks of nerves, and the last ofthe candles had gone for that. Now total darknessenveloped them.
The conduit was blocked! By earth at one end,and by a brick wall at the other! All along thewinding hundred feet of vault they had hacked outbrick after brick only to encounter solid earth behind.Only a few tins of food remained and the water waswholly gone; the liquid from the food cans only servedto increase their thirst.
Old Man Anderson had grown to loathe Detroit Jim.Every word he murmured, every movement he made, intensifiedthe loathing. He had made up his mind that Jimwas planning to desert him the next time he shouldfall asleep; perhaps would kill him and leave him there—inthe dark. The two had practically ceased speakingto each other. In his mental confusion Old ManAnderson kept revolving in his mind, with satisfaction,a new plan he had evolved. The next time Jim shouldfall asleep he would crawl back through the aperturein the conduit wall, pry up the boards over the openinginto the prison yard, wriggle out, and take his chancesin getting over the wall somehow! Better evenbe shot by a guard than die like a rat in this unspeakableplace, as he was doing, where he couldn’t standup and dared not lie down on account of the thingsthat were forever crawling through the place!His contemplation of his plan was broken in upon byhis companion clutching him spasmodically by the arm.The old man’s cry died in his throat.
Footsteps! Dull and distant they were, and somewhereabove them—momentarily more distinct—receding—gone!
Detroit Jim pulled Andersen’s head toward him,and whispered:
“Sidewalk! People going by! We’venever sat right here before! We wouldn’thear them if they weren’t walking on stone, orslate, or something hard!”
The old man’s heart pounded like a trip-hammer.Detroit Jim seized the pick and began to pry the bricksloose from the arched roof of the conduit. Theyworked like mad, picking, hacking, pulling, pilingthe bricks softly down on the conduit floor.
Once, for an instant, Jim stopped working. “Howfar from the hole we came in through, do you thinkwe are?” he whispered.
“’Bout a hundred feet, I guess,”answered the old man. “Why?”
Without replying Detroit Jim resumed his picking,picking, at the bricks. A hundred feet from wherethey had entered would not be under the sidewalk.Finally, he understood. This conduit wound arounda good deal; it would take a hundred winding feetto cover thirty straightaway.
Finally, also, Detroit Jim turned the pick over tothe old man, who, feeling in the blackness with hishands, discovered the span as wide as his outstretchedarms, from which Detroit Jim had removed the bricks.It was a span of yielding earth into which the oldman now dug his pick. As he worked, the looseneddirt fell upon him, upon his head, into his eyes andnose and ears....
Abruptly the old man’s pick struck the flaggingabove them! Detroit Jim mounted upon the pileof bricks and shoved Anderson aside.
Jim felt along the edges of the stone clear around.It seemed to measure about three feet by two, andto be of slate, and probably held in place only byits contact with other stones, or by cement betweenthe stones. No light appeared through the crevices.Detroit Jim took from his pocket a huge pocket-knifeand with the longest blade poked up between the mainstone and the one adjoining. The blade met resistance.
Ultimately, and abruptly, however, the blade shotthrough to the hilt of the knife. Jim drew itback instantly. No light came through the crevice.
“I smell good air,” he whispered, “butI can’t see a thing. It must be night!”
They knew now what to do. The flagging must beremoved at once, before any one should go by!The hole would be big enough to let them out!Old Man Andersen’s heart leaped. It wasover. They had won. Trust him to go wherethey’d never get him for the Slattery business!As for Detroit Jim, he already knew the next big trickthat he would pull off—out in Cleveland!
Ultimately, as Detroit Jim worked upon it, the stonebegan to sag. An edge caught upon the adjacentflagging. The two men, perched upon the wobblybricks, manipulated the stone, working it loose, until,finally, it came crashing down.
The stone had made noise enough, it seemed, to wakethe dead; yet above them there was no sound.Swiftly they raised the flagging and set it securelyupon the heap of bricks. When Detroit Jim stoodupon this improvised platform his head was level withthe aperture they had made. He could see no sky,no stars, could feel no wind, discover no light suchas pervades even the darkest night.
“Good God!” he breathed. His fingerswent out over the flagging. His knife dropped.The tinkle echoed dully down the conduit. He stoopedto where Old Man Anderson stood, breathing hard.
“It’s a—a room!” he whispered.
“A—a room?” repeated Old ManAnderson dully.
“Come! After me! Up! I’llpull you up!”
Detroit Jim, being wiry, swung himself up, and thenbent down, groping for the old man’s hands.Winded, panting, exhausted, the two men stood at lastin this new blackness, clutching each other, theirears strained to catch the slightest sound.
“For God’s sake, don’t fall downthat hole now!” hissed Detroit Jim. “Listen.We’ll both crawl together till we get to a wall.Then you feel along one way, and whisper to me whatyou find, and I’ll crawl the other. Lookfor a window or a door—some way out!We’ll come together finally. Are you ready?”
“I’m—I’m afraid,”whined the old man.
Detroit Jim’s fingers dug into the other’sarm, and he pulled the latter along. Their gropinghands touched a wall—a wall of wood.Detroit Jim stood up and pulled Anderson beside him.He felt the old man shiver. He shoved him gentlyin to the left and himself moved cautiously to theright, slowly, catlike.
Finally, Jim came to a door. He could perceiveno light through the chinks in the door. Sensingthe increasing uncanniness of a room without windows,without furniture, with flagging for a floor, he turnedthe knob of the door gently, and it gave under histouch.
Just then there came to him a hoarse whisper fromacross the room. It made him jump. “I’ve—I’vefound some wires,” the old man was saying, “ina cable running along the floor——”
“See where they lead!” Detroit Jim wasbreathless, in anticipation.
And then, shattering the overwhelming tension of themoment, shrilled, suddenly, a horrible, prolonged,piercing shriek ending in a gasp and the sound ofa heavy body falling to the floor! What, in God’sname, had happened to the old man? And that yellwas enough to awaken the entire world!
Detroit Jim groped his way across the room. Hecould hear now no further sound from the old man....Steps outside! He sank upon his knees, his handsoutstretched. He heard a lock turn; then followingupon a click the whole universe went white, and dazzlingand scorching!
He raised one arm to his blinking, throbbing eyes.A rough voice shouted: “Hands up!”
There was a rush of feet, the rough clutch of handsat his shoulders.... Presently he found himselfblinking down upon the fear-contorted face of OldMan Anderson dirt-streaked, bearded, gaunt, dead!
Slowly his eyes crawled beyond the body on the floor....Before him, its empty arms stretched toward him, itsstraps and wires twisting snakily in front of him,was The Chair!
“AURORE”
By ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD
From Pictorial Review
“Your name!—Votre nom?”Crossman added, for in the North Country not manyof the habitants are bilingual.
She looked at him and smiled slowly, her teeth whiteagainst cardinal-flower lips.
“Ma name? Aurore,” she answered ina voice as mystically slow as her smile, while themystery of her eyes changed and deepened.
Crossman watched her, fascinated. She was likeno woman he had ever seen, radiating a personalityindividual and strange. “Aurore,”he repeated. “You’re not the dawn,you know; not a bit like it.” He did notexpect her to own to any knowledge of the legend ofher name, but she nodded her head understandingly.
“It was the Cure name’ me so,” sheexplained. “But the Cure and me,”she shrugged, “never could—how yousay?—see—hear—onethe other—so, I would not be a blonde justfor spite to him—I am a very black dawn,n’est-ce pas?”
“A black dawn,” he repeated. Herwords unleashed his fancy—her heavy browsand lashes, her satiny raven hair, her slow voice thatseemed made of silence, her eyes that changed in expressionso rapidly that they dizzied one with a sense of space.“Black Dawn!” He stared at her long, whichin no wise disconcerted her.
“Will you want, then, Antoine and me?”she asked at length.
He woke from his dream with a savage realization that,most surely, he wanted her. “Yes.Of course—you—and Antoine.Wait, attendez, don’t go yet.”
“Why not?” she smiled. “Ihave what I came for.”
Her hand was on the door-latch. The radiancefrom the opened door of the square, old-fashionedstove shimmered over her fur cap and intensified thebroad scarlet stripes of her mackinaw. In blackcorduroy trousers, full and bagging as a moujik’s,she stood at ease, her feet small and dainty evenin the heavy caribou-hide boots.
“Bon soir, monsieur,” she said.“In two days we go with you to camp—me—andAntoine.”
“Wait!” he cried, but she had opened thedoor. He rose with a start, and, ignoring theintense cold, followed her till the stinging breathof the North stabbed him with the recollection of itsimmutable power. All about him the night wasradiant. Of a sudden the sky was hung with banners—bannersthat rippled and folded and unfolded, banners of rainbows,long, shaking loops of red and silver, ghosts of lostemeralds and sapphires, oriflammes that fluttered inthe heavens, swaying across the world in mysteriousmajesty. Immensity, Silence, Mystery—TheNorthern Lights! “Aurora!” he calledinto the night, “Aurora—Borealis!”
The Cure of Portage Dernier drove up to the log-cabinoffice and shook himself from his blankets; his soutanewas rolled up around his waist and secured with safety-pins;his solid legs were encased in the heaviest of woollentrousers and innumerable long stockings. Hisappearance was singularly divided—clericalabove, under the long wool-lined cape, and “lay”below. Though the thermometer showed a shockinglydepressed figure, the stillness and the warmth of thesun, busy at diamond-making in the snow, gave thefeeling of spring.
The sky was inconceivably blue. The hard-frozenworld was one immaculate glitter, the giant evergreensstanding black against its brightness. The sonorousring of axes on wood, the gnawing of saws, the crunchingof runners, the crackling crash of distant trees fallingto the woodsmen’s onslaughts—BijouFalls logging-camp was a vital centre of joyous activity.
The Cure grinned and rubbed his mittened hands.“H—Hola!” he called.
At his desk in the north window Crossman heard thehail, and went to the door. At sight of the singularpadded figure his face lifted in a grin. “Comein, Father,” he exclaimed; “be welcome.”
“Ah,” said the Priest, his pink face shiningwith benevolence, “I thank you. Where ismy friend, that good Jakapa? I am on my monthlycircuit, and I thought to see what happens at the Fallsof the Bijou.” He stepped inside the cabinand advanced to the stove with outstretched hands.“I have not the pleasure,” he said tentatively.
“My name is Crossman,” the other answered.“I am new to the North.”
“Ah, so? I am the Cure of Portage Dernier,but, as you see, I must wander after my lambs—verygreat goats are they, many of them, and the winterbrings the logging. So I, too, take to the timber.My team,” he waved an introducing hand at thetwo great cross-bred sled-dogs that unhooked fromtheir traces had followed him in and now sat gravelyon their haunches, staring at the fire. “Youare an overseer for the company?” suggestedthe Cure, politely curious—“or perhapsyou cruise?”
Crossman shook his head. “No, mon pere.I came up here to get well.”
“Ah,” said the Cure, sympathetically tappinghis lung. “In this air of the evergreensand the new wood, in the clean cold—it isthe world’s sanatorium—you will soonbe yourself again.”
Crossman smiled painfully. “Perhaps here”—helaid a long, slender finger on his broad chest—“butI heal not easily of the great world sickness—theWar. It has left its mark! The War, the greatmalady of the world.”
“You are right.” Meditatively thePriest threw aside his cape and began unfasteningthe safety-pins that held up his cassock. “Yousay well. It strikes at the heart.”
Crossman nodded.
“Yet it passes, my son, and Nature heals; aslong as the hurt be in Nature, Nature will take care.And you have come where Nature and God work together.In this great living North Country, for sick bodiesand sick souls, the good God has His good sun andHis clean winds.” He nodded reassurance,and Crossman’s dark face cleared of its brooding.
“Sit down, Father.” He advanced achair.
“So,” murmured the Cure, continuing histhought as he sank into the embrace of thong and withe.“So you were in the War, and did you take hurtthere, my son?”
Crossman nodded. “Trench pneumonia, andthen the rat at the lung; but of shock, somethingalso. But I think it was not concussion, as thedoctors said, but soul-shock. It has leftme, Father, like Mohammed’s coffin, suspended.I think I have lost my grip on the world—andnot found my hold on another.”
“Shock of the soul,” the Priest ruminated.“Your soul is bruised, my son. We musttake care of it.” His voice trailed off.There was silence in the little office broken onlyby the yawn and snuffle of the sled-dogs.
Suddenly the door swung open. In the embrasurestood Aurore in her red mackinaw and corduroy trousers.A pair of snowshoes hung over her back, and her handgripped a short-handled broad axe. Her great eyesturned from Crossman to the Cure, and across her crimsonmouth crept her slow smile. The Cure sprang tohis feet at sight of her, his face went white, andthe lines from nose to lips seemed to draw in.
“Aurore!” he exclaimed; “Aurore!”
“Oui, mon pere,” she drawled.“It is Aurore.” She struck a provocativepose, her hand on her hip, her head thrown back, whileher eyes changed colour as alexandrite in the sun.
The Cure turned on Crossman. “What is thiswoman to you?”
Her eyes defied him. “Tell him,”she jeered. “What am I to you?”
“She is here with Antoine Marceau, the log-brander,”Crossman answered unsteadily. “She takescare of our cabin, Jakapa’s and mine.”
“Is that all?” the Priest demanded.
Her eyes challenged him. What, indeed, was sheto him? What was she? From the momenthe had followed her into the boreal night, with itsstreaming lights of mystery and promise, she had heldhis imagination and his thoughts.
“Is that all?” the Priest insisted.
“You insult both this girl and me,” Crossmanretorted, stung to sudden anger.
“Dieu merci!” the Cure made thesign of the cross as he spoke. “As forthis woman, send her away. She is not thewife of Antoine Marceau; she is not married—shewill not be.”
In spite of himself a savage joy burned in Crossman’sveins. She was the wife of no man; she was afree being, whatever else she was.
“I do not have to marry,” she jeered.“That is for the women that only one man desires—orperhaps two—like some in your parish, monpere.”
“She is evil,” the Priest continued, payingno attention to her sneering comment. “Iknow not what she is, nor who. One night, inautumn, in the dark of the hour before morning, shewas brought to me by some Indians. They had foundher, a baby, wrapped in furs, in an empty canoe, rockingalmost under the Grande Falls. But I tell you,and to my sorrow, I know, she is evil.She knows not God, nor God her. You, whose soulis sick, flee her as you would the devil! Aurore,the Dawn! I named her, because she came so nearthe morning. Aurore! Ah, God! She shouldbe named after the blackest hour of a witch’sSabbath!”
She laughed. It was the first time Crossman hadheard her laugh—a deep, slow, far-awaysound, more like an eerie echo.
“He has a better name for me,”she said, casting Crossman a look whose intimacy madehis blood run hot within him. “’The BlackDawn’—n’est-ce-pas? ThoughI have heard him call me in the night—byanother name,” with which equivocal statementshe swung the axe into the curve of her arm, turnedon her heel, and softly closed the door between them.
The Priest turned on him. “My son,”his eyes searched Crossman’s, “you havenot lied to me?”
“No,” he answered steadily. “OnceI called her the Aurora Borealis—that isall. To me she seems mysterious and changing,and coloured, like the Northern Lights.”
“She is mysterious and changing and beautiful,but it is not the lights of the North and of Heaven.She is the feu follet, the will-o’-the-wispthat hovers over what is rotten, and dead. Sendher away, my son; send her away. Oh, she hasleft her trail of blood and hatred and malice in myparish, I know. She has bred feuds; she has sentstrong men to the devil, and broken the hearts of goodwomen. But you will not believe me.It is to Jakapa I must talk. Mon Dieu! howis it that he let her come! You are a stranger,but he——”
“Jakapa wished for Antoine, and she was withhim,” explained Crossman uneasily, yet resentfulof the Priest’s vehemence.
“I can not wait.” The Cure rose andbegan repinning his clerical garments. “Whereis Jakapa? Have you a pair of snowshoes to lendme? You must forgive my agitation, Monsieur,but you do not understand—I—whichway?”
“He should be at Mile End, just above the Bijou.Sit still, Father; I will send for him. The windsets right. I’ll call him in.”Slipping on his beaver jacket, he stepped outsideand struck two blows on the great iron ring, a bentrail, that swung from its gibbet like a Chinese gong.A singing roar, like a metal bellow, sprang into theclear, unresisting air, leaped and echoed, kissed thecrags of the Bijou and recoiled again, sending a shiverof sound and vibration through snow-laden trees, on,till the echoes sighed into silence. Crossman’sover-sensitive ear clung to the last burring whisperas it answered, going north, north, to the House ofSilence, drawn there by the magnet of Silence, aswater seeks the sea. For a moment he had almostforgotten the reason for the smitten clamour, hypnotizedby the mystery of sound. Then he turned, to seeAurore, a distant figure of scarlet and black at theedge of the wood road, shuffling northward on herlong snowshoes, northward, as if in pursuit of thesound that had gone before. She raised a mittenedhand to him in ironic salutation. She seemedto beckon, north—north—into theSilence. Crossman shook himself. What wasthis miasma in his heart? He inhaled the vitalair and felt the rush of his blood in answer, realizingthe splendour of this beautiful, intensely livingworld of white and green, of sparkle and prismaticbrilliance. Its elemental power like the urgeof the world’s youth.
But Aurore? His brain still heard the echo ofher laugh. He cursed savagely under his breath,and turned his back upon the Cure, unable to facethe scrutiny of those kind, troubled eyes.
“Jakapa will be here presently,” he saidover his shoulder. “That gong carries tenmiles if there’s no wind. One ring, that’sfor the Boss; two, call in for the whole gang; three,alarm—good as a telegraph or the telephoneas far as it goes. Meanwhile, if you’llexcuse me, I’ll have a look at the larder.”
Without a doubt, he reasoned, Aurore would have lefttheir mid-day meal ready. She would not return,he knew, until the guest had gone. In the littleoverheated cook-house he found the meal set out.All was in order. Then his eye caught a singulardecoration fastened to the door, a paper silhouette,blackened with charcoal, the shape of a cassockedpriest. The little cut-out paper doll figure waspinned to the wood by a short, sharp kitchen knifedriven viciously deep, and the handle, quivering withthe closing of the door, gave the illusion that thehand that had delivered the blow must have only atthat instant been withdrawn.
Crossman shivered. He knew that world-old formulaof hate; he knew of its almost innocent use in manya white caban, but its older, deeper meaning of demoniacalincantation rushed to his mind, somehow blending withthe wizardry with which he surrounded his thoughtsof the strange woman.
A step outside crunching in the snow. The dooropened, revealing Antoine Marceau. The huge formof the log-brander towered above him. He couldnot read the expression of the eyes behind the square-cuppedsnow spectacles.
“She tell me, Aurore,” he rumbled, “thatI am to come. We have the company.”
“Yes, the Cure of Portage Dernier.”Crossman watched him narrowly.
Antoine took off the protecting wooden blinders andthrust them in his pocket.
Crossman stood aside, hesitating. Antoine drewoff his mittens with businesslike precision, and placeda huge, capable hand on a pot-lid, lifted it, andeyed the contents of the saucepan.
“The Cure, he like ptarmigan,” he observed,“but,” he added in a matter-of-fact voice,“the Cure like not Aurore—he havetell you, hein? Ah, well, why not?For him such as Aurore are not—voila.”
“The Cure says she is a devil.” Crossmanmarvelled at his temerity, yet he hung on the answer.
“Why not? For him, as I have say, she isnot—for me, for you, ma frien’,that is different.” Antoine turnedon him eyes as impersonal as those of Fate; whereCrossman had expected to see animosity there was none,only a strange brotherhood of pitying understanding.
“For who shall forbid that the dawn she shallbreak—hein?” he continued.“The Cure? Not mooch. When the Dawnshe come, she come; not with his hand can he holdher back. For me, now comes perhaps the sunset;perhaps the dawn for you. But what would you?Who can put the dog-harness on the wind, or put thebit in the teeth of the waterfall to hold him up?”
“Or who with his hand can draw the Borealisfrom heaven?” Crossman cut in. He spokeunconsciously. He had not wished to say that,he had not wanted to speak at all, but his subconsciousmind had welded the thought of her so fast to thegreat mystery of the Northern Lights that withoutvolition he had voiced it.
Antoine Marceau nodded quietly. The strangelyaloof acknowledgment of Crossman’s possiblerelation to this woman, his woman, who yet wasnot his or any man’s, somehow shocked Crossman.His blood flamed at the thought, and yet he felt herintangible, unreal. He had but to look into hershifting, glittering eyes, and there were silence andplaying lights. Suddenly his vision of her changed,became human and vital. He saw before him thesinuous movement of her strong young body. Herealized the living perfume of her, clean and fresh,faintly aromatic as of pine in the sunlight, and violetsin the shadow.
Antoine Marceau busied himself about the cook-house.He did not speak of Aurore again, not even when hiseye rested on the paper doll skewered to the doorby the deep-driven knife. He frowned, made thesign of the cross, jerked out the knife, and thrustits point in the purifying blaze of the charcoal fire.But he made no comment.
Crossman turned on his heel and entered the office-building.Through the south window he saw Jakapa snowshoeingswiftly up the short incline to the door; beside himwalked the Cure, pleading and anxious. He couldfollow the words as his lips framed them. In thepresent mood Crossman did not wish to hear the Cure’sdenunciation. It was sufficient to see that theForeman had, evidently, no intention of acting onthe advice proffered.
As he softly closed the door between the main officeand the living room at the rear, he heard the menenter on a quick word of reproof in the Cure’srich bass.
“She does her work sufficiently well, and Ishall not order her from the camp,” Jakapa snappedin reply. “She is with Marceau; if he keepsher in hand, what do I care? She leave him, thathis affair, mon Dieu, mon pere.”
“She has bewitched you, too, Jakapa. Shehas bewitched that other, the young man who is herefor the healing of his soul. What an irony, toheal his soul, and she comes to poison it!”
“Heal his soul?” Jakapa laughed harshly.“He’s had the weak lung, shell-shock,and he’s a friend of the owner. Mon pere,if he is here for the good of his soul, that is yourprovince—but me?—I am here toboss one job, and I boss him, that’s all.I hope only you have not driven the cook away, orthe pot-au-feu, she will be thin.”He tried to speak the latter part of his sentencelightly, but his voice betrayed his irritation.
Crossman opened the door and entered. “Antoinewill be here in a minute,” he announced.“Aurore sent him back to feed the animals.”He took down the enamelled tin dishes and cups andset their places. Jakapa eyed him covertly, witha half-sneering venom he had never before shown.
It was a silent meal. The Cure sighed and shookhis head at intervals, and the Boss grumbled a fewcomments in answer to an occasional question concerninghis lumberjacks. Crossman sat in a dream.Could he have understood aright when Antoine had spokenof the dawn?
Jakapa dropped a plate with a curse and a clatter.The sudden sound ripped the sick man’s nerveslike an exploding bomb. White to the lips, hejumped from his chair to meet the Boss’s sneeringeyes. The Cure laid a gentle hand on his arm,and he settled back shamefacedly.
“Your pardon, mon pere—mynerves are on edge—excuse me—aninheritance of the trenches.”
“Emotion is bad for you, my son, and you shouldnot emotion yourself,” said the Priest gently.
“Do you travel far when you leave us now?”Crossman asked self-consciously, anxious to changethe subject.
“To the camp at the Chaumiere Noire, a matterof ten kilometres. It is no hardship, my rounds,not at all, with the ground like a white tablecloth,and this good sun, to me like to my dogs, it is butplay.” He rose from the table, glad ofthe excuse to hasten his going, and with scant courtesyJakapa sped his guest’s departure.
As the sled disappeared among the trees, bearing thequeerly bundled figure of the Priest, the Boss unhookedhis snowshoes from the wall. He seemed to haveforgotten Crossman’s presence, but as he turned,his smouldering eyes lighted on him. He straightenedwith a jerk. “What did he mean when hesay, she have bewitch you?” Asalways, when excited, his somewhat precise Englishslipped back into the idiom of the habitant.“By Gar! Boss or no Boss, I pack you outif I catch you. We make no jealousies for anyone, not where I am. You come here for your health—hein?Well, better you keep this place healthy for you.”
As if further to complicate the situation, the dooropened to admit the woman herself. She closedit, leaned against the wall, looking from one to theother with mocking eyes.
“Well, do I leave? Am I to pack? Haveyou wash the hand of me to please the Cure, yes?”
Jakapa turned on her brutally. “Get tothe cook-house! Wash your dish! Did I giveorders to Antoine to leave hees work? By Gar!I feel like I take you and break you in two!”He moved his knotted hands with a gesture of destruction.There was something so sinister in the action that,involuntarily, Crossman cried out a startled warning.Her laugh tinkled across it.
“Bah!” she shrugged. “If youwish to kill, why do you not kill those who make theinterferre? Are you a man? What is it, acassock, that it so protect a man? But me, becauseI do not wear a woman’s skirt, you will breakme, hey? Me! Nevair mind, I prefer this man.He at least make no big talk.” She slippedher arm through Crossman’s, letting her fingersplay down from his wrist to his finger-tips—andthe thrill of it left him tongue-tied and helpless.
Jakapa cursed and crouched low. He seemed aboutto hurl himself upon the pair before him. Againshe laughed, and her tingling, searching fingers stoleslowly over his throbbing pulses.
She released Crossman’s arm with a jerk, andsnapped the fingers that had just caressed him inthe face of the furious lumberman. “Allons!Must I forever have no better revenge but to knifeone paper doll? Am I to be hounded like a beast,and threatened wherever I go? I am tired of thisdead camp. I think I go me down the river.”She paused a moment in her vehemence. Her nextwords came almost in a whisper: “Unlessyou can cross the trail to Chaumiere Noire—then,maybe, I stay with you—I say—maybe.”With a single swooping movement of her strong youngarm she swept the door open, and came face to facewith Antoine Marceau. “What, thou?”she said airily.
He nodded. “Shall I go back, or do youwant that I go to the other side?” he askedthe Foreman.
“Go to the devil!” growled Jakapa, andslinging his snowshoes over his arm, he stamped out.
“Tiens!” said Antoine. “Heis mad, the Boss.”
“I think we are all mad,” said Crossman.
“Maybe,” said Antoine. Quietly hegathered together his axe, mittens, and cap, and shrugginghis huge shoulders into his mackinaw, looked out atthe glorious brightness of the stainless world andfrowned. “Come, Aurore,” he saidquietly.
A little later, as Crossman rose to replenish thedwindling fire, he saw him, followed by Aurore, enterthe northern end of the timber limit. Were theyleaving, Crossman wondered. Had the silent woodsmanasserted his power over the woman? Crossman tookdown the field-glasses from the nail on the wall.They were the sole reminder, here in the North Country,of his years of war service. He followed thetwo figures until the thickening timber hid them.Idly he swept the horizon of black-green trees, blueshadows, and sparkling snow. A speck moved—amackinaw-clad figure passed swiftly across the clearingabove the Little Bijou—only a glimpse—theman took to cover in the burned timber, where thehead-high brush made a tangle of brown above whichthe gaunt, white, black-smeared arms of dead treesflung agonized branches to the sky.—“Theshort-cut trail to Chaumiere Noire”—“ShallI forever have no better revenge but to stab one paperdoll?” Her words echoed in his ears.
Jakapa was on the short cut to the Chaumiere Noire!Only Crossman’s accidental use of the field-glasseshad betrayed his going. For an instant Crossman’simpulse was to rush out and ring the alarm on theshrieking steel gong, but the next instant he laughedat himself. Yes, surely, he was a sick man ofmany imaginings. The gang boss was gone abouthis business. The log-brander had called uponhis woman to accompany him. That was all.Her angry words were mere threats—bestforgotten.
With nervous haste he bundled into his heavy garmentsand ran from himself and his imaginings into the dazzlingembrace of the sun.
He tramped to the gang at work above the Little BijouChute, where they raced the logs to the iron-hardice of the river’s surface far below. Heeven took a hand with the axe, was laughed at, andwatched the precision and power of the Jacks as theyclove, swung, and lopped. From the cliff he lookeddown at the long bunk-house, saw the blue smoke risingstraight, curled at the top like the uncoiling frondof a new fern-leaf. Saw the Chinese cook, inhis wadded coat of blue, disappear into the snow-coveredmound that hid the provision shack, and watched thebounding pups refusing to be broken into harness bySiwash George. It was all very simple, very real,and the twists of his tired mind relaxed; his nervoushands came to rest in the warm depths of his mackinawpockets. The peace of sunned spaces and flowing,clean air soothed his mind and heart.
The blue shadows lengthened. The gang knockedoff work. The last log was rushed down the satinice of the chute to leap over its fellows at the foot.The smell of bacon sifted through the odours of evergreenbranches and new-cut wood. Crossman declined acordial invitation to join the gang at chuck.He must be getting back, he explained, “forchow at the Boss’s.”
Whistling, he entered the office, stirred up the fire,and crossed to the cook-house. It was empty.The charcoal fire was out. Shivering, he rebuiltit, looked through the larder, and hacked off a raggedslice of jerked venison. A film of fear rosein his soul. What if they were reallygone? What if Antoine had taken her?It looked like it. His heart sank. Not tosee her again! Not to feel her strange, thrillingpresence! Not to sense that indomitable, insolentsoul, throwing its challenge before it as it walkedthrough the world!
Crossman came out, returned to the office, busiedhimself in tidying the living room and solving thedisorder of his desk. The twilight sifted overwood and hill, crept from under the forest arches,and spread across the snow of the open. He litthe lamps and waited. The silence was complete.It seemed as if the night had come and closed theworld, locking it away out of the reach even of God.
The meal Crossman had bunglingly prepared lay untouchedon the table. Now and then the crash of an avalancheof snow from the overburdened branches emphasizedthe stillness. Dreading he knew not what, Crossmanwaited—and loneliness is not good for asick soul.
Thoughts began crowding, nudging one another; happeningsthat he had dismissed as casual took on new and sinistermeanings. “Two and two together”became at once a huge sum, leaping to terrifying conclusions.Then with the silence and the tense nerve-draw of waitingcame the sense of things finished—done forever.A vast, all-embracing finality—“Neant”—thehabitant expression for the uttermost nothing, theword seemed to push at his lips. He wanted tosay it, but a premonition warned him that to utterit was to make it real.
Should he call upon the name of the Void, the Voidwould answer. He feared it—it meantthat She would be swallowed also in the great gapinghollow of nothingness. He strained his ears forsounds of the living world—the spit ofthe fire, the fall of clinkers in the grate, the whisperof the wind stirring at the door. He tried toanalyse his growing uneasiness. He was sure nowthat she had followed Antoine’s bidding—forgettinghim, if, indeed, her desires had ever reached towardhim.
Now she seemed the only thing that mattered.He must find her; he must follow. Wherever shewas, there only was the world of reality. Whereshe was, was life. And to find her, he must findAntoine—and then, without warning, thedoor gaped—and Antoine stood before him,like a coloured figure pasted on the black groundof the night. Then he entered, quiet and matter-of-fact.He nodded, closed the door against the biting cold,pulled off his cap, and stood respectfully.
“It is no use to wait for the Boss; he willnot come,” said the log-brander. “Icame to tell Monsieur, before I go on, that le Cureis safe at Chaumiere Noire. Yes, he is safe,and Monsieur Jakapa have turn back, when I catch upwith him and tell him——”
“What?” gasped Crossman.
“It was to do,” the giant twisted hiscap slowly, “but it was harder than I think.It was not for jealousy, I beg you to know. Thatshe would go if she want—to who she want,she can. I have no right to stop her. Butshe would have had the Cure knifed to death. Shemade the wish, and she put her wish in the heart ofa man. If it had not been this time—thensurely some other time. She always find a handto do her will—even this of mine—once.I heard her tell to Jakapa. Therefore, Jakapahe has gone back to watch with her body. I toldhim where. Me I go. There are for me nomore dawns. You love her, too, Monsieur, therefore,I come to tell you the end. Bon soir, Monsieur.”
He was gone. Again there was silence. Crossmansat rigid. What had happened? His mind refusedto understand. Then he visioned her, lying onthe white snow, scarlet under her breast, redder thanher mackinaw, redder than her woollen mittens, redderthan the cardinal-flower of her mouth—cardinalno more! “No, no!” he shrieked, springingto his feet. His words echoed in the empty room.“No—no!—He couldn’tkill her!” He clung to the table. “No—no!No!” he screamed. Then he saw her eyes;she was looking in through the window—yes,they were her eyes—changing and glowing,eyes of mystery, of magic, eyes that made the silence,eyes that called and shifted and glowed. He laughed.Fools, fools! to think her dead! He staggeredto the door and threw it wide. Hatless, coatless,he plunged headlong into the dark—the Dark?No! for she was there—on high, wide-flung,the banners of the Aurora Borealis blazed and swung,banners that rippled and ran, banners of rainbows,the souls of amethysts and emeralds, they flutteredin the heavens, they swayed across the world, streamedlike amber wine poured from an unseen chalice, droppedfold on fold, like the fluttering raiment of the gods.
In the north a great sapphire curtain trembled asif about to part and reveal the unknown Beyond; itgrew brighter, dazzling, radiant.
“Aurore!” he called. “Aurore!”The grip of ice clutched his heart. Cold seizedon him with unseen numbing hands. He was struggling,struggling with his body of lead—for onestep—just a step nearer the great curtain,that now glowed warm—red—redas the ghost of her cardinal-flower lips—pillarsof light, as of the halls of heaven. “Aurore!—Aurore!”
MR. DOWNEY SITS DOWN
By L.H. ROBBINS
From Everybody’s
I
Jacob Downey waited in line at the meat shop.A footsore little man was he. All day long, sixdays a week for twenty-two years, he had stood onhis feet, trotted on them, climbed on them, in thehardware department of Wilbram, Prescot & Co., andstill they would not toughen; still they would hurt;still to sustain his spirit after three o’clockhe had to invoke a vision of slippers, a warm radiator,the Evening Bee, and the sympathy of Mrs. Downeyand the youngsters. To the picture this eveninghe had added pork chops.
The woman next in line ahead of him named her meat.Said the butcher, with a side glance at the clock,“A crown roast takes quite a while, lady.Could I send it in the morning?”
No, the lady wished to see it prepared. Expresslyfor that purpose had she come out in the rain.To-morrow she gave a luncheon.
“First come first served,” thought JacobDowney, and bode his time in patience, feeling lesspity for his aching feet than for Butcher Myers.Where was the charity in asking a hurried man at fiveminutes to six o’clock to frill up a roast thatwould not see the inside of the oven before noon nextday?
Now, crown roasts are one thing to him who waits onfallen arches, and telephone calls are another.Scarcely had Downey’s opening come to speakfor pork chops cut medium when off went the bell andoff rushed Butcher Myers.
Sharply he warned the unknown that this was Myers’sMeat Shop. Blandly he smiled into the transmitterupon learning that his caller was Mrs. A. LincolnWilbram.
By the audience in front of the counter the followingsocial intelligence was presently inferred:
That Mr. and Mrs. Wilbram had just returned from Florida;that they had enjoyed themselves ever so much; thatthey hoped Mr. Myers’s little girl was better;that they were taking their meals at the Clarendonpending the mobilization of their house-servants; thatthey expected to dine with the Mortimer Trevelyansthis evening; that food for the dog may with proprietybe brought home from a hotel, but not from the MortimerTrevelyans; that there was utterly nothing in theicebox for poor Mudge’s supper; that Mudge wasa chow dog purchased by a friend of Mr. Wilbram’sin Hongkong at so much a pound, just as Mr. Myerspurchased live fowls; that Mudge now existed not tobecome chow, but to consume chow, and would feel gratefulin his dog heart if Mr. Myers would, at this admittedlylate hour, send him two pounds of bologna and a goodbone; and that Mrs. Wilbram would consider herselfunder deep and lasting obligation to Mr. Myers forthis act of kindness.
Mr. Myers assured Mrs. Wilbram that it would meanno trouble at all; he would send up the order as soonas his boy came back from delivering a beefsteak tothe Mortimer Trevelyans.
He filled out a slip and stuck it on the hook.
“Now, Mr. Downey,” he said briskly.
But Jacob Downey gave him one tremendous look andlimped out of the shop.
II
It was evening in the home of Miss Angelina Lance.Twenty-seven hours had passed since Jacob Downey’sexasperated exit from Myers’s Meat Shop.The eyes of Miss Angelina were bright behind her not-unbecomingspectacles as she watched the face of the solemn youngman in the Morris chair near the reading lamp.
In his hand the solemn young man held three sheetsof school composition paper. As he read the pencilwriting on page one he lost his gravity. Overpage two he smiled broadly. At the end of thelast page he said:
“D.K.T. couldn’t have done better.May I show it to him?”
In the office of the Ashland (N.J.) Bee thesolemn young man was known as Mr. Sloan. At MissLance’s he was Sam. The mentioned D.K.T.conducted the celebrated “Bee-Stings” columnon the editorial page of Mr. Sloan’s journal,his levity being offset by the sobriety of Mr. Sloan,who was assistant city-editor.
On two evenings a week Mr. Sloan fled the cares ofthe Fourth Estate and became Sam in the soul-refreshingpresence of Miss Angelina. He was by no meansher only male admirer. In the Sixth Grade at theHilldale Public School she had thirty others; amongthese Willie Downey, whose name appeared on everypage of the composition Mr. Sloan had read.
With a host of other sixth-graders throughout thecity Willie had striven that day for a prize of tendollars in gold offered by the public-spirited A.Lincoln Wilbram, of Wilbram, Prescott & Co., for thebest schoolboy essay on Moral Principles.
“Moral principles, gentlemen; that is what weneed in Ashland. How many men do you know whostand up for their convictions—or have anyto stand up for?”
If the head of a department store is a bit thunderousat times, think what a Jovian position he occupies.In his cloud-girt, mahogany-panelled throne-room onthe eighth floor he rules over a thousand mortals,down to the little Jacob Downeys in the basement,who, if they do not quite weep with delight when hegives them a smile, tremble, at least, at his frown.When a large body of popular opinion accords him greatness,were he not undemocratic to affect humility and speaksmall?
“I speak of common men,” said Mr. Wilbram(this was at a Chamber of Commerce banquet); “ofmen whose living depends upon the pleasure of theirsuperiors. How few there are with fearless eye!”
He scarcely heard the laughter from a group of buildingcontractors at a side table, who had not seen a servileeye among their workmen in many moons; for a worthyproject had popped into his mind at that instant.How was the moral backbone of our yeomanry to be stiffenedsave through education? Why not a prize contestto stimulate the interest of the rising generationin this obsolete subject?
In many an Ashland home where bicycles, roller-skates,wireless outfits, and other such extravagances werestrongly desired, the question had since been asked:“Pa, what are Moral Principles?” Whilesome of the resulting essays indicated a haziness inpaternal minds, not so the production that Mr. Sloanread in Miss Lance’s parlour.
“But I couldn’t let you print it,”said Miss Angelina. “I wouldn’t haveWillie shamed for anything. He may be weak ingrammar, but he is captain of every athletic teamin the school. He has told me in confidence thathe means to spend the prize money for a genuine horse-hidecatching-mitt.”
“If I cross out his name, or give him a nomde plume?”
On that condition Miss Lance consented.
III
At the office next morning Sloan found the essay inhis pocket and looked around the city-room for D.K.T.The staff poet-clown was no daylight saver; professingto burn the midnight oil in the interest of his employer,he seldom drifted in before half-past nine.
“See me. S.S.” wrote Sloan, and droppedWillie’s manuscript on D.K.T.’s desk.
Then he jumped and gasped, and copy-readers and office-boysjumped and gasped, and the religious editor dashedfrantically for the stairs, outrunning the entirestaff down the hall, though he had farther to go thanany other man or woman there. A huge, heart-stoppingshock had rocked the building, set the windows toclattering and the lights to swinging, and broughtdown in a cloud the accumulated dust of a quarter-century.
Within two minutes by the clock Sloan and five reportershad started for the scene of the Rutland disaster,fifteen miles away, where enough giant powder hadgone up in one terrific blast to raze Gibraltar.A thriving town lay in ruins; hundreds of familieswere homeless; a steamship was sunk at her dock; apassenger train blown from the rails.
At eleven o’clock on the night following thatpitiful day Sloan journeyed homeward to Ashland inan inter-urban trolley-car in company with a crowdof refugees. A copy of the last edition of theBee comforted his weary soul.
The first page was a triumph. Count on the officeto back up its men in the field! There was thewhole story, the whole horror and heartbreak, finelydisplayed. There were his photographs of thewreckage; there, in a “box” was his interviewwith the superintendent of the Rutland Company; therewas a map of the devastated area. Perhaps someonehad found time even to do an editorial; in that casethe clean-up would be complete.
Opening the paper to the sixth page, he groaned; forthe first thing that caught his eye was Willie Downey’sessay, at the top of D.K.T.’s column, with Willie’sname below the headline.
MOREL PRINSAPLES
BY WILLIE DOWNEY
AGE 12
Morel Prinsaples is when you have a nerve to stickup for some thing.
Like last night my Father went in Mires meet shop& stood in line 15 or twenty min. wateing his tirn& when his tirn come he says to mr. Mires Ilehave 6 porc chops.
at that inst. the telaphone wrang & mr. Miresslidd for it like it was 2nd base.
Hold on Mires says Pa, who got here 1st, me or thatbell wringer. Igscuse me just 1 min. says Mr.mires.
No I be ding if Ile igscuse you says Pa, 1st come1st served is the rool of bizness all over.
But Mr. mires wyped his hands on his apern & anseredthe wring & it was mrs. Will Brum, she was goingto eat out at a frends so she wanted 2 lbs, bolony& a dog bone.
So then Pa give him hale columbus.
Here I bin wateing 1/2 an our he said, yet when somelazy lofer of a woman who has been reading a novvleor a sleep all after noon pfhones you to rush herup some dog meet in youre Autto with gass 36 cts. &charge it to her acct. & may be you wont get youremunny for three 4 munths, wy you run to wate on herwhile I stand & shovle my feet in youre saw dust likea ding mexican pea own or some thing.
What says Pa is there about a cusstamer who takesthe trubble to come for his meet & pay cash for it& deliwers it him self that maiks him so Meen & Lothat he hass to be pushed one side for some body thathas not got Gumpshun enoughf to order her dog bonesbefore the rush our?
Do you think that people with a telapfhone’smunny is any better than mine, do you think becauseI walk in here on my hine leggs that I am a piker& a cheep skait, becuase if so I will bring along mytelapfhone contract nex time & show you & then maybe you will reckonnize me as a free born amerricanwho dont haff to traid where I haff to play 2d fiddleto a chow pupp. Its agenst my morel prinsaplessays Pa.
With theas wirds he walks out in the rane althoghhis feet hurt him clear down to Washington St. tothe nex meet store, but by that time they were allcloased up so we had prinsaples for supper insted ofporc chops.
Pa says if he run a store & had a pfhone & no bodyto anser it & do nothing else he would ring it’sneck, becuase while the telaphone is the gratest blesingof the aige, but a pfhone with out an opperater islike a ham ommalet with the ham let out. He saysthe reazon the Chane Stores have such a pull withthe public is becuase the man behine the counter isnot all the time jilting you in the middle of yourorder & chacing off to be sweet to some sosciety damewith a dog 4 miles away.
Ma says she dont kno why we have a pfhone any howbecuase every time she is youseing it a woman butsin & jiggles the hook & says will you pleas hang upso I can call a Dr. & when Ma hangs up & then lissensin to see who is sick, wy this woman calls up a ladyf rend & they nock Ma back & 4th over the wyre forours & some times they say I bet she is lisening inon us dont you.
So as I say let us all stick up for our Morel Prinsapleslike my Father come what may.
IV
Bright were Miss Angelina’s eyes but not withmirth. It was unspeakable, this thing that Mr.Sloan had done. Thrice before bedtime she calledhis lodgings. Mr. Sloan was not in.
Before the last call, she donned her wraps and wentout to Plume Street. Courageously she pulledthe bell at Number Nine. Willie’s motheropened the door and cried, surprised, “Why!Miss Lance.”
“Is Willie here? Have you seen the paper?Will you let me tell him how it happened, and howsorry I am?”
Willie was not receiving callers this evening.He had been sent to bed without supper. The explosionat Rutland had been as nothing, it seemed, to theoutburst in the Downey home.
Slowly the extent of the harm dawned upon Miss Angelina.
“It was Mrs. A. Lincoln Wilbram wanted the dogbone,” said Mrs. Downey tearfully. “Everybodywill recognize her; and what Mr. Wilbram will do tous we don’t need to be told. Poor Jake isso upset he has gone out to roam in the dark.He couldn’t stay in the house.”
New jobs were scarce for men at his time of life,and with his feet. Dora and Jennie might haveto leave high school.
“I’m sure you meant us no wrong, MissLance; I’m sure there was a mistake. Butthink how dreadful it is, after twenty-two years ofhaving Mr. Wilbram’s pay, then to turn aroundand backbite his wife like that, right out in print!”
Doubly troubled now, Miss Lance departed. Attractedby a quick gathering of loiterers in the avenue, shewitnessed a controversy that might easily have becomea police matter.
“You’re a liar if you say you said allthat to me!” shouted the burly Butcher Myers.“You never opened your head, you shrimp!Bawling me out in the papers and losing me my bestcustomers! Whaddye mean?”
Back came the retort from Jacob Downey with the snarlof a little creature at bay.
“If I didn’t say it to you then, you biglobster, I say it to you now. All that the papersays I said I say. What’ll you do aboutit?”
“Hah! You!” Myers snapped his fingersin Downey’s fiery face and turned away.
Miss Lance’s path to the Hilldale School nextmorning took her past three post-boxes. Intothe third she dropped a note that she had carriedfrom home. Mr. Sloan would find her message exceedinglybrief, although (or, perhaps, because) she had spenthours in composing it.
DEAR SIR:
I regret to discover that you lack moral principles.
ANGELINALANCE.
Just before the last bell the janitor brought in aprisoner for her custody. Willie Downey’shead was bloody but unbowed; three seventh-gradershe had vanquished in one round. “They guyedme,” said he. “They called me a Nawthour.”
Morning prayer and song waited while teacher and pupilspoke earnestly of many things; while the teacher’seyes filled with tears, and the pupil’s heartfilled with high resolve to bring home the baseballchampionship of the Ashland Public School League andlay it at Miss Angelina’s feet, or perish inthe attempt.
V
The A. Lincoln Wilbram prize went to a small boy namedAaron Levinsky whose English was 99 per cent. pure.Little Aaron’s essay was printed as the centre-piecein Wilbram, Prescott & Co.’s page in the Bee;little Aaron invested his gold in thrift-stamps, andthe tumult and the shouting died.
Miss Angelina Lance sat alone every evening of theweek. True, Mr. Sloan had tried to right thewrong; he had called Miss Angelina on the telephone,which he should have known was an inadequate thingto do; he had also sent a ten-dollar bank-note toWillie, in care of Miss Lance at the Hilldale School,together with his warm felicitations upon Willie’ssuccess as a litterateur. Did Willie knowthat his fine first effort had been reprinted, withproper credit, in the great New York Planet?
True, too, the illustrious D.K.T. had written MissAngelina an abject apology, most witty and poetic,taking all the blame to himself and more than exoneratinghis high-principled friend Mr. Sloan.
But the bank-note went back to its donor without evena rejection slip; and D.K.T.’s humour was fatalto his client’s cause. Ghastly are theywho jest in the shadow of tragedy. Mr. Sloan andD.K.T. did not know, of course—Miss Angelinahad not thought it of any use to tell them—ofthe sword which they had hung up by a thread abovethe heads of the Downeys.
As for Jacob Downey, he limped about amid his hardwarein the basement at Wilbram, Prescott & Co.s, careworn,haunted of eye, expecting the house to crash abouthis ears at any moment. One does not with impunitypublish the wife of one’s employer as a lazyloafer.
The A. Lincoln Wilbrams had servants again, and dinedat home. To Mr. Wilbram said Mrs. Wilbram oneevening:
“It is the strangest thing. In the lastmonth I’ve met scarcely a soul who hasn’tasked me silly questions about Mudge and his diet.Mrs. Trevelyan and everybody. And they alwayslook so queer.”
Mr. Wilbram was reminded that while coming home thatevening with a package in his hand he had met Trevelyan,and Trevelyan had inquired: “What’sthat? A bone for the dog?”
“To-morrow,” said A. Lincoln, “I’llask him what he was driving at.”
“What was the package?” queried his wife.
He fetched it from the hall. It had come to himat the store that day by registered mail.
“From Hildegarde,” said Mrs. Wilbram,noting the Los Angeles postmark. Hildegarde washoneymooning among the orange groves. Wrote thehappy bride:
Dear Aunt and Uncle:
Charles and I see by the paper that Mudge is hungry,so we are sending him a little present.
“What can the child mean, Abe?”
“Don’t ask me,” he answered.“Undo the present and see.”
They loosened blue ribbons and wrappings of soft paper,and disclosed a link of bologna sausage.
Maddening? It might have been, if Hildegardehad not thought to inclose a page from the DailySouthern Californian, upon which, ringed withpencil marks, was a bit of miscellany headed, “MorelPrinsaples.”
They read it through to the conclusion:
So as I say let us all stick up for our Morel Prinsapleslike my Father come what may.—Willie Downeyin Ashland (N.J.) Bee.
“Why!—why!—it’s—it’sme!” cried Mrs. Wilbram. “I did telephoneto Mr. Myers for two pounds of bologna and a dog bone—onthe night we dined at the Trevelyans’!”
“It comes mighty close to libel,” fumedWilbram.
“How do they dare! You must see WorthingtonOakes about this, Abe.”
“I certainly will,” he vowed.
VI
He certainly did, as Mr. Worthington Oakes, the publisherof the Bee, will testify. In the frontoffice on the editorial floor he saw Mr. Oakes fora bad half-hour, and demanded a public retraction ofthe insult.
At about the same time a dapper stranger who had comeup in the elevator with Mr. Wilbram held speech withAssistant City-Editor Sloan in the local room at theother end of the hall.
“Yonder’s your bird,” said Mr. Sloan,pointing to a poetic-looking young man at a desk ina corner.
Crossing to the poet, who was absorbed in his day’poesy and talking to himself as he versified, thestranger smiled and spoke.
“Am I addressing the celebrated D.K.T.?”
“Am, cam, dam, damn, ham, jam, lamb——”
The far-away look of genius faded out of the poet’seyes.
“Not buying,” said he. “Mypay-envelope is mortgaged to you book-agents for tenyears to come. Ma’am, ram, Sam, cram, clam,gram, slam——”
“Books are not my line,” said the dapperone briskly. “I represent the Jones-NonpareilNewspaper Syndicate. In fact, I am Jones.I have a proposition to make to you, Mr. D.K.T., thatmay enable you to buy more books than you can everread. You know, of course, what the Jones-Nonpareilservice is. We reach the leading dailies of theUnited States and Canada——”
“Have a chair, Mr. Jones.”
“Thank you. We handle some very successfulwriters. Malcomb Hardy, you may have heard, takeshis little five hundred a week out of us; and poorLarry Bonner pulled down eleven hundred as long ashe had health. His Chinese-laundryman sketchesmight be selling yet.”
“Suspense is cruel,” spoke D.K.T. eagerly.“Let the glad news come.”
“Some time ago,” said the syndicate man,“you printed in your column an essay in imitationof a schoolboy’s. You called it ’MoralPrinciples’.”
D.K.T. sank back with a low moan.
“If you can write six of those a week for ayear,” continued the visitor, “you won’tever need to slave any more. You can burn yourpen and devote the rest of your life to golf and goodworks.”
The poet closed his eyes. “Sham, swam,diagram,” he murmured.
“Does a minimum guarantee of fifteen thousanda year look like anything to you? There will,of course, be the book rights and the movie rightsin addition.”
“Anagram, epigram, telegram, flimflam—aha!”cried D.K.T. “Siam!” He wrote itdown.
“That little skit of yours,” pursued thecaller, “has swept the country. You havecreated a nation-wide demand. My ringer is onthe journalistic pulse, and I know. Can you repeat?”
He drew a paper from his pocketbook.
“Here is a list of subjects your imaginary WillieDowney might start with: The Monetary System;the Cost of Living; the League of Nations; Capitaland Labour——”
Over the stranger’s head an office-boy whisperedsignificantly: “Front office.”
“Excuse me,” said the poet, and hurriedaway.
With the publisher, in the front office, sat A. LincolnWilbram, quite purple in the cheeks. They hada file of the Bee before them.
“Diedrick,” said Mr. Oakes, “onMarch eighteenth you printed this thing”—hisfinger on Willie’s essay—“whydid you do it?”
“What’s the matter with it?” repliedD.K.T.
“The matter with it,” spoke Mr. Wilbramterribly, “is that it slanders my wife.It makes her out to eat dog bones. Friends ofours as far away as California have seen it and recognizedher portrait, drawn by your scurrilous pen. Theworst of it is, the slander is founded on fact.By what right do you air my domestic affairs beforethe public in this outrageous fashion?”
With agonized eyes the funny-man read the essay asfar as the fateful line, “It was Mrs. Will Brum.”
“My gosh!” he cried.
“How did you come to write such a thing?”Mr. Oakes demanded.
“Me write that thing? If I only had!”
The facts were recalled; the sending of Mr. Sloanand many reporters to Rutland; the need of extra handsat the copy-table that day.
“I found this contribution on my desk.It looked safe. In the rush of the morning Isent it up and never gave it another thought.”
“So it is really a boy’s essay, and notsome of your own fooling?” asked Oakes.
“A boy’s essay, yes; entered in Mr. Wilbram’sprize contest, eliminated by the boy’s teacherand shown by her to Mr. Sloan, who brought it to theshop. I know now that Sloan meant me to changethe author’s name to save the kid from ridicule.If there were actual persons in it, I’m as amazedas Mrs. Wilbram.”
“I wonder, Oakes,” said Wilbram, “thata dignified newspaper like yours would print suchtrash, in the first place.”
Worthington Oakes looked down his nose. D.K.T.took up the challenge.
“Trash, sir? If it’s trash, why hasthe Ashland Telephone asked permission to reprintit on the front cover of their next directory?”
“Have they asked that?”
“They have; they say they will put a littlemoral principle into the telephone hogs in this town.And didn’t a Fifth Avenue minister preach asermon on it last Sunday? Doesn’t the LiteraryReview give it half a page this week? Hasn’tit been scissored by almost every exchange editorin the land? Isn’t there a man in the city-roomnow offering me fifteen thousand a year to write adaily screed like it?”
“You can see, Wilbram,” said Mr. Oakes,“that there was no intention to injure or annoy.We are very sorry; but how can we print an apologyto Mrs. Wilbram without making the matter worse?”
“Who is this Willie Downey?” demandedWilbram. “And who is the school teacher?”
“I don’t believe my moral principles willlet me tell you,” replied D.K.T. “I’mpositive Mr. Sloan’s won’t let him.We received the essay in confidence.”
“Enough said,” Mr. Wilbram exclaimed,rising. “Good day to you. I don’tneed your help, anyway. I’ll find out fromthe butcher.”
VII
It seemed necessary that Mr. Sloan should call atthe Lance home that evening. Whatever Miss Angelinamight think of him, it was his duty to take counselwith her for the welfare of Willie.
He began with the least important of the grave mattersupon his mind.
“Do you suppose your protege could writesome essays like the one we printed?”
“Why, Mr. Sloan?”
If Miss Angelina had responded, “Why, you hyena?”she would not have cut him more deeply than with hersimple, “Why, Mr. Sloan?”
“A newspaper syndicate,” he explained,“has offered D.K.T. a fortune for a series ofthem.”
“Poor Willie!” she sighed. “Heflunked his English exam, to-day. I’m afraidI shall have him another year.”
“He is a lucky boy,” said Sloan.
“Do you think so?”
Clearly her meaning was, “Do you think he islucky when a powerful newspaper goes out of its wayto crush him?”
“There is no use approaching him with a literarycontract?”
“Not with the baseball season just opening.His team beat the Watersides yesterday, sixteen nothing.He has more important business on hand than writingfor newspapers.”
Since Sloan wrote for a newspaper, this was rathera dig. Nevertheless, he persevered.
“A. Lincoln Wilbram is on his trail.Do you know that Willie libelled Mrs. Wilbram?”
“Oh! Sam. Surely I know about thelibel. But is—is Mr. Wilbram really——Hashe discovered?”
“He came to the office to-day. We gavehim no information; but he has other sources.He is bound to identify his enemy before he quits.”
“I didn’t know about the so-called slanderat first,” said she, “when I—whenyou——”
“When I promised to change Willie’s name?”
“I found out when I went to them, on the nightit came out in the paper. They were woefullyfrightened. They are frightened still. Mr.Downey has worked for Mr. Wilbram since he was a boy.They think of Mr. Wilbram almost as a god. It’s—it’sa tragedy, Sam, to them.”
“Would it do any good to warn them?”
“They need no warning,” said Miss Angelina.“Don’t add to their terrors.”
“I am more sorry than I can say. May Ihope to be forgiven some day?”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Sam.It was an accident. But don’t you see whata dangerous weapon a newspaper is?’
“Worse than a car or a gun,” he agreed.
As he strolled homeward along a stately avenue, wonderingwhat he could do to avert the retribution that movedtoward the Downeys, and finding that his assistantcity-editor’s resourcefulness availed him naught,he heard the scamper of feet behind him and whirledabout with cane upraised in time to bring a snarlingchow dog to a stand.
“Beat it, you brute!” he growled.
“Yeowp!” responded the chow dog, and leapedin air.
“Don’t be alarmed,” spoke a voiceout of the gloom of the nearest lawn. “Whenhe sees a man with a stick, he wants to play.”
Sloan peered at the speaker’s face. “Isn’tthis Mr. Wilbram? You were at the Beeoffice to-day, sir. May I have a word with youabout the Willie Downey matter?”
“Come in,” said Mr. Wilbram.
VIII
On the first pay-day in May the impending sword cutits thread. Said a messenger to Jacob Downey:“They want you on the eighth floor.”Downey set his jaws and followed.
In the mahogany-panelled room A. Lincoln Wilbram turnedfrom the window and transfixed his servitor with eyesthat bored like steel bits.
“Downey, I understand you have a literary son.”
Jacob held his breath, eyed his accuser steadily,and assured himself that it would soon be over now.
“How about it, Downey?”
“I know what you mean, sir.”
“Did you say the things printed there?”
The little man wasted no time in examining the newspaperclipping.
“Yes, sir, I did. If it has come to yourlady’s ears what I called her, I beg her pardon.But what I said I’ll stick to. If I standfifteen minutes in line in a meat store or any otherkind of store, I’ve got a right to be waitedon ahead of anybody that rings up, I don’t givea ding who she is.”
“Good for you, Downey. Let me see, howlong have you worked for us?”
“Twenty-three years next January, sir.”
“Floor salesman all the while?”
“Since 1900. Before that I was a wrapper.”
“How many men have been promoted over your head?”
“Three.”
“Four,” Wilbram corrected. “Firstwas Miggins.”
“I don’t count him, sir. Him andI started together.”
“Miggins was a failure. Then Farisell;now in prison. Next, McCardy; he ran off to Simonds& Co. the minute they crooked a finger at him.Last, young Prescott, who is now to come up here withhis father. Could you run the department if youhad it?”
“Between you and I,” replied Jacob Downey,sick, dizzy, trembling, “I been running thedepartment these fifteen years.”
“How’d you like to run it from now asmanager? When I find a man with convictions andcourage I advance him. The man who stands up isthe man to sit down. That’s evolution.If you could stand up to a big butcher like Myersand talk Dutch to him the way you did, I guess weneed you at a desk. What do you say?”
A desk! A chance to rest his feet! JacobDowney stiffened.
“Mr. Wilbram, I—I got to tell thetruth. I never said those things to Myers.I just walked out.”
“But you said them. You acknowledge it.”
“I said ’em, yes—after I gothome. To the family I said ’em. WhenI was in the meat shop I only thought ’em.”
“So Myers has told me,” said Jove, smiling.“Downey, my man, you’ve got more thanmoral courage. You’ve got common sense togo with it. Tell young Prescott to give you hiskeys.”
THE MARRIAGE IN KAIRWAN
By WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
From Harper’s
Kairwan the Holy lay asleep, pent in its thick walls.The moon had sunk at midnight, but the chill lightseemed scarcely to have diminished; only the limewashedcity had become a marble city, and all the towersturned fabulous in the fierce, dry, needle rain ofthe stars that burn over the desert of mid-Tunisia.
In the street Bab Djedid the nailed boots of the watchpassed from west to east. When their thin rackethad turned out and died in the dust of the market,Habib ben Habib emerged from the shadow of a doorarch and, putting a foot on the tiled ledge of Bou-Kedj’sfry shop, swung up by cranny and gutter till he stoodon the plain of the housetops.
Now he looked about him, for on this dim tablelandhe walked with his life in his hands. He lookedto the west, toward the gate, to the south, to thenortheast through the ghostly wood of minarets.Then, perceiving nothing that stirred, he went onmoving without sound in the camel-skin slippers hehad taken from his father’s court.
In the uncertain light, but for those slippers andthe long-tasselled chechia on his head, onewould not have taken him for anything but a Europeanand a stranger. And one would have been right,almost. In the city of his birth and rearing,and of the birth and rearing of his Arab fathers generationsdead, Habib ben Habib bel-Kalfate looked upon himselfin the rebellious, romantic light of a prisoner inexile—exile from the streets of Paris where,in his four years, he had tasted the strange delightsof the Christian—exile from the universitywhere he had dabbled with his keen, light-ballastedmind in the learning of the conqueror.
Sometimes, in the month since he had come home, hehad shaken himself and wondered aloud, “Wheream I?” with the least little hint, perhaps,of melodrama. Sometimes in the French cafe outsidethe walls, among the officers of the garrison, a banteringperversity drove him on to chant the old glories ofIslam, the poets of Andalusia, and the bombastic historiesof the saints; and in the midst of it, his face pinkwith the Frenchmen’s wine and his own bitter,half-frightened mockery, he would break off suddenly,“Voila, Messieurs! you will see thatI am the best of Mussulmans!” He would laughthen in a key so high and restless that the commandant,shaking his head, would murmur to the lieutenant besidehim, “One day, Genet, we must be on the alertfor a dagger in that quarter there, eh?”
And Genet, who knew almost as much of the characterof the university Arab as the commandant himself,would nod his head.
When Habib had laughed for a moment he would growsilent. Presently he would go out into the uglydark of the foreign quarter, followed very often byRaoul Genet. He had known Raoul most casuallyin Paris. Here in the Tunisian bled, whenRaoul held out his hand to say good-night under thegate lamp at the Bab Djelladin, the troubled fellowclung to it. The smell of the African city, comingunder the great brick arch, reached out and closedaround him like a hand—a hand bigger thanRaoul’s.
“You are my brother: not they. I amnot of these people, Raoul!”
But then he would go in, under the black arch andthe black shade of the false-pepper trees. Inthe darkness he felt the trees, centuries old, andall the blank houses watching him....
To-night, stealing across the sleeping roofs, he feltthe star-lit mosque towers watching him in secret,the pale, silent espionage of them who could wait.The hush of the desert troubled him. Youth troubledhim. His lips were dry.
He had come to an arbour covered with a vine.Whose it was, on what house-holder’s roof itwas reared, he had never known. He entered.
“She is not here.” He moistened hislips with his tongue.
He sat down on the stone divan to wait, watching towardthe west through the doorway across which hung a loopof vine, like a snake.
He saw her a long way off, approaching by swift dartsand intervals of immobility, when her whiteness grewa part of the whiteness of the terrace. It wasso he had seen her moving on that first night when,half tipsy with wine and strangeness, he had pursued,caught her, and uncovered her face.
To-night she uncovered it herself. She put backthe hooded fold of her haik, showing him herface, her scarlet mouth, her wide eyes, long at theouter corners, her hair aflame with henna.
The hush of a thousand empty miles lay over the city.For an hour nothing lived but the universe, the brightdust in the sky....
That hush was disrupted. The single long crashof a human throat! Rolling down over the plainof the housetops!
“La illah il Allah, Mohammed rassoul’lah!Allah Akbar! God is great!”
One by one the dim towers took it up. The callto prayer rolled between the stars and the town.It searched the white runways. It penetratedthe vine-bowered arbour. Little by little, towerby tower, it died. In a fondouk outsidethe gate a waking camel lifted a gargling wail.A jackal dog barked in the Oued Zaroud two miles away.And again the silence of the desert came up over thecity walls.
Under the vine Habib whispered: “No, Idon’t care anything about thy name. A nameis such a little thing. I’ll call thee ‘Nedjma,’because we are under the stars.”
“Ai, Nedjmetek—’ThyStar’!” The girl’s lips moved drowsily.In the dark her eyes shone with a dull, steady lustre,unblinking, unquestioning, always unquestioning.
That slumberous acquiescence, taken from all her Arabmothers, began to touch his nerves with the old uneasiness.He took her shoulders between his hands and shookher roughly, crying in a whisper:
“Why dost thou do nothing but repeat my words?Talk! Say things to me! Thou art like therest; thou wouldst try to make me seem like theseArab men, who wish for nothing in a woman but the shadowof themselves. And I am not like that!”
“No, sidi, no.”
“But talk! Tell me things about thyself,thy life, thy world. Talk! In Paris, now,a man and a woman can talk together—yes—asif they were two friends met in a coffeehouse.And those women can talk! Ah! in Paris I haveknown women—”
The girl stirred now. Her eyes narrowed; thedark line of her lips thinned. At last somethingcomprehensible had touched her mind.
“Thou hast known many women, then, sidi!Thou hast come here but to tell me that? Me,who am of little beauty in a man’s eyes!”
Habib laughed under his breath. He shook heragain. He kissed her and kissed her again onher red lips.
“Thou art jealous, then! But thou canstnot comprehend. Canst thou comprehend this, thatthou art more beautiful by many times than any otherwoman I have ever seen? Thou art a heaven of loveliness,and I cannot live without thee. That is true... Nedjma. I am going to take thee formy wife, because I cannot live without thine eyes,thy lips, the fragrance of thy hair.... Yes,I am going to marry thee, my star. It is written!It is written!”
For the first time he could not see her eyes.She had turned them away. Once again somethinghad come in contact with the smooth, heavy substanceof her mind. He pulled at her.
“Say! Say, Nedjma!... It is written!”
“It is not written, sidi.”The same ungroping acquiescence was in her whisper.“I have been promised, sidi, to anotherthan thee.”
Habib’s arms let go; her weight sank away inthe dark under the vine. The silence of the deadnight crept in and lay between them.
“And in the night of thy marriage, then, thyhusband—or thy father, if thou hast a father—willkill thee.”
“In-cha-’llah. If it be thewill of God.”
Again the silence came and lay heavy between them.A minute and another minute went away. Habib’swrists were shaking. His breast began to heave.With a sudden roughness he took her back, to devourher lips and eyes and hair with the violence of hiskisses.
“No, no! I’ll not have it! No!Thou art too beautiful for any other man than I evento look upon! No, no, no!”
* * * * *
Habib ben Habib walked out of the gate Djelladin.The day had come; the dawn made a crimson flame inthe false-pepper trees. The life of the gatewas already at full tide of sound and colour, braying,gargling, quarrelling—nomads wading in theirflocks, Djlass countrymen, Singalese soldiers, Jewishpack-peddlers, Bedouin women bent double under theirstacks of desert fire-grass streaming inward, dustwhite, dust yellow, and all red in the dawn under thered wall.
The flood ran against him. It tried to suck himback into the maw of the city. He fought againstit with his shoulders and his knees. He triednow to run. It sucked him back. A wanderingAissaoua plucked at his sleeve and held underhis nose a desert viper that gave off metallic roseglints in its slow, pained constrictions.
“To the glory of Sidna Aissa, master, two sous.”
He kept tugging at Habib’s sleeve, holding himback, sucking him back with his twisting reptile intothe city of the faithful.
“In the name of Jesus, master, two copper sous!”
Habib’s nerves snapped. He struck off theholy mendicant with his fist. “That thedevil grill thee!” he chattered. He ran.He bumped into beasts. He bumped into a bluetunic. He halted, blinked, and passed a handover his hot-lidded eyes. He stammered:
“My friend! I have been looking for you!Hamdou lillah! El hamdou’llah!”
Raoul Genet, studying the flushed, bright-eyed, unsteadyyouth, put up a hand to cover a little smile, halfironic, half pitying.
“So, Habib ben Habib, you revert! Camel-driver’stalk in your mouth and camel’s-hide slipperson your feet. Already you revert! Eh?”
“No, that is not the truth. But I am inneed of a friend.”
“You look like a ghost, Habib.” Thefaint smile still twisted Raoul’s lips.“Or a drunken angel. You have not slept.”
“That’s of no importance. I tellyou I am in need—”
“You’ve not had coffee, Habib. Whenyou’ve had coffee—”
“Coffee! My God! Raoul, that you goon talking of coffee when life and death are in thebalance! For I can’t live without—Listen,now! Strictly! I have need to-night—to-morrownight—one night when it is dark—Ihave need of the garrison car.”
The other made a blowing sound. “I’mthe commandant, am I, overnight? Zut!The garrison car!” Habib took hold of his armand held it tight. “If not the car, twohorses, then. And I call you my friend.”
“Two horses! Ah! So! Ibegin to perceive. Youth! Youth!”
“Don’t jibe, Raoul! I have need oftwo horses—two horses that are fast andstrong.”
“Are the horses in thy father’s stable,then, of no swiftness and of no strength?”
It was said in the patois, the bastard Arabicof the Tunisian bled. A shadow had fallenacross them; the voice came from above. Fromthe height of his crimson saddle Si Habib bel-Kalfateawaited the answer of his son. His brown, unlined,black-bearded face, shadowed in the hood of his creamyburnoose, remained serene, benign, urbanely attendant.But if an Arab knows when to wait, he knows also whennot to wait. And now it was as if nothing hadbeen said before.
“Greeting, my son. I have been seekingthee. Thy couch was not slept upon last night.”
Habib’s face was sullen to stupidity. “Lastnight, sire, I slept at the caserne, at theinvitation of my friend, Lieutenant Genet, whom yousee beside me.”
The Arab, turning in his saddle, appeared to noticethe Christian for the first time. His lids drooped;his head inclined an inch.
“Greeting to thee, oh, master!”
“To thee, greeting!”
“Thou art in well-being?”
“There is no ill. And thou?”
“There is no ill. That the praise be toGod, and the prayer!”
Bel-Kalfate cleared his throat and lifted the reinsfrom the neck of his mare.
“Rest in well-being!” he pronounced.
Raoul shrugged his shoulders a little and murmured:“May God multiply thy days!... And yours,too,” he added to Habib in French. He bowedand took his leave.
Bel-Kalfate watched him away through the thinningcrowd, sitting his saddle stolidly, in an attitudeof rumination. When the blue cap had vanishedbehind the blazing corner of the wool dyers, he threwthe reins to his Sudanese stirrup boy and got downto the ground. He took his son’s hand.So, palm in palm, at a grave pace, they walked backunder the arch into the city. The market-goingstream was nearly done. The tide, against whichat its flood Habib had fought and won ground, carriedhim down again with its last shallow wash—soeasily!
His nerves had gone slack. He walked in a heavywhite dream. The city drew him deeper into itsmurmurous heart. The walls pressed closer andhid him away. The souks swallowed him undertheir shadowy arcades. The breath of the bazaar,fetor of offal, stench of raw leather, and all thecreeping perfumes of Barbary, attar of roses, chypreand amber and musk, clogged his senses like the drugof some abominable seduction. He was weary, weary,weary. And in a strange, troubling way he wasat rest.
“Mektoub! It is written! Itis written in the book of the destiny of man!”
With a kind of hypnotic fascination, out of the cornersof his eyes, he took stock of the face beside him,the face of the strange being that was his father—thebroad, moist, unmarked brow; the large eyes, heavy-lidded,serene; the full-fleshed cheeks from which the beardsprang soft and rank, and against which a hyacinth,pendent over the ear, showed with a startling purityof pallor; and the mobile, deep-coloured, humid lips—thelips of the voluptuary, the eyes of the dreamer, thebrow of the man of never-troubled faith.
“Am I like that?” And then, “Whatcan that one be to me?”
As if in answer, bel-Kalfate’s gaze came tohis son.
“I love thee,” he said, and he kissedHabib’s temple with his lips. “Thouart my son,” he went on, “and my eyes werethirsty to drink of the sight of thee. It isel jammaa.” [Friday, the Mohammedan Sabbath.]“It is time we should go to the prayer.We shall go with Hadji Daoud to-day, for afterward,there at the mosque, I have rendezvous with his friends,in the matter of the dowry. It is the day, thourememberest, that he appointed.”
Habib wanted to stop. He wanted to think.He wanted time. But the serene, warm pressureof his father’s hand carried him on.
Stammering words fell from his mouth.
“My mother—I remember—mymother, it is true, said something—but Idid not altogether comprehend—and—Oh!my sire ——”
“Thou shalt be content. Thou art a mannow. The days of thy learning are accomplished.Thou hast suffered exile; now is thy reward prepared.And the daughter of the notary, thy betrothed, is aslovely as a palm tree in the morning and as mild assweet milk, beauteous as a pearl, Habib, a milk-whitepearl. See!”
Drawing from his burnoose a sack of Moroccan lambskin,he opened it and lifted out a pearl. His fingers,even at rest, seemed to caress it. They slidback among the treasure in the sack, the bargainingprice for the first wife of the only son of a man blessedby God. And now they brought forth also a redstone, cut in the fashion of Tunis.
“A milk-white sea pearl, look thou; to wed ina jewel with the blood-red ruby that is the son ofmy breast. Ah, Habib, my Habib, but thou shaltbe content!”
They stood in the sunlight before the green door ofa mosque. As the hand of the city had reachedout for Habib through the city gate, so now the prayer,throbbing like a tide across the pillared mystery ofthe court, reached out through the doorway in the blaze....And he heard his own voice, strange in his mouth,shallow as a bleat:
“Why, then, sire—why, oh! why, then,hast thou allowed me to make of those others the friendsof my spirit, the companions of my mind?”
“They are neither companions nor friends ofthine, for God is God!”
“And why hast thou sent me to learn the teachingof the French?”
“When thou settest thy horse against an enemyit is well to have two lances to thy hand—thineown and his. And it is written, Habib, son ofHabib, that thou shalt be content.... Put offthy shoes now and come. It is time we were atprayer.”
Summer died. Autumn grew. With the approachof winter an obscure nervousness spread over the land.In the dust of its eight months’ drought, fromone day to another, from one glass-dry night to another,the desert waited for the coming of the rains.The earth cracked. A cloud sailing lone and highfrom the coast of Sousse passed under the moon andeverywhere men stirred in their sleep, woke, lookedout—from their tents on the cactus steppes,from fondouks on the camel tracks of the west,from marble courts of Kairwan.... The cloud passedon and vanished in the sky. On the plain theearth cracks crept and ramified. Gaunt beaststugged at their heel ropes and would not be still.The jackals came closer to the tents. The cityslept again, but in its sleep it seemed to mutterand twitch....
In the serpent-spotted light under the vine on thehousetop Habib muttered, too, and twitched a little.It was as if the arid months had got in under hisskin and peeled off the coverings of his nerves.The girl’s eyes widened with a gradual, phlegmaticwonder of pain under the pinch of his blue fingerson her arms. His face was the colour of the moon.
“Am I a child of three years, that my fathershould lead me here or lead me there by the hand?Am I that?”
“Nay, sidi, nay.”
“Am I a sheep between two wells, that the herder’sstick should tell me, ‘Here, and not there,thou shalt drink’? Am I a sheep?”
“Thou art neither child nor sheep, sidi,but a lion!”
“Yes, a lion!” A sudden thin exaltationshook him like a fever chill. “I am morethan a lion, Nedjma, I am a man—just asthe Roumi” [Romans—i.e.,Christians.] “are men—men who decide—menwho undertake—agitate—accomplish... and now, for the last time, I have decided.A fate has given thy loveliness to me, and no man shalltake it away from me to enjoy. I will take itaway from them instead! From all the men of thisAfrica, conquered by the French. Hark! Iwill come and take thee away in the night, to theland beyond the sea, where thou mayest be always nearme, and neither God nor man say yes or no!”
“And there, sidi, beyond the sea, I maytalk unveiled with other men? As thou hast toldme, in France ——”
“Yes, yes, as I have told thee, there thou mayest—thou——”
He broke off, lost in thought, staring down at thedim oval of her face. Again he twitched a little.Again his fingers tightened on her arms. He twistedher around with a kind of violence of confrontation.
“But wouldst thou rather talk with other menthan with me? Dost thou no longer love me, then?”
“Ai, master, I love thee. I wishto see no other man than thee.”
“Ah, my star, I know!” He drew her closeand covered her face with his kisses.
And in her ear he whispered: “And whenI come for thee in the night, thou wilt go with me?Say!”
“I will go, sidi. In-cha-’llah!If God will!”
At that he shook her again, even more roughly thanbefore.
“Don’t say that! Not, ‘If Godwill!’ Say to me, ‘If thou wilt.’”
“Ai—Ai ——”
There was a silence.
“But let it be quickly,” he heard herwhispering, after a while. Under his hand hefelt a slow shiver moving over her arms. “Nekaf!”she breathed, so low that he could hardly hear.“I am afraid.”
It was another night when the air was electric andmen stirred in their sleep. Lieutenant Genetturned over in bed and stared at the moonlight streamingin through the window from the court of the caserne.In the moonlight stood Habib.
“What do you want?” Genet demanded, gruffwith sleep.
“I came to you because you are my friend.”
The other rubbed his eyes and peered through the windowto mark the Sudanese sentry standing awake besidehis box at the gate.
“How did you get in?”
“I got in as I shall get out, not only fromhere, but from Kairwan, from Africa—becauseI am a man of decision.”
“You are also, Habib, a skeleton. The moonshows through you. What have you been doing theseweeks, these months, that you should be so shiveryand so thin? Is it Old Africa gnawing at yourbones? Or are you, perhaps, in love?”
“I am in love. Yes.... Ai, ai, Raoulhabiby, if but thou couldst see her—thelotus bloom opening at dawn—the palm treein a land of streams ——”
“Talk French!” Genet got his legs overthe side of the bed and sat up. He passed a handthrough his hair. “You are in love, then... and again I tell, you, for perhaps the twentiethtime, Habib, that between a man and a woman in Islamthere is no such thing as love.”
“But I am not in Islam. I am not in anything!And if you could but see her ——”
“Lust!”
“What do you mean by ’lust’?”
“Lust is the thing you find where you don’tfind trust. Lust is a priceless perfume thata man has in a crystal vial, and he is the miser ofits fragrance. He closes the windows when he takesthe stopper out of that bottle to drink its breath,and he puts the stopper back quickly again, so thatit will not evaporate—not too soon.”
“But that, Raoul, is love! All men knowthat for love. The priceless perfume in a crystalbeyond price.”
“Yes, love, too, is the perfume in the vial.But the man who has that vial opens the windows andthrows the stopper away, and all the air is sweetforever. The perfume evaporates, forever.And this, Habib, is the miracle. The vial isnever any emptier than when it began.”
“Yes, yes—I know—perhaps—butto-night I have no time ——”
The moon did shine through him. He wasbut a rag blown in the dark wind. He had beentorn to pieces too long.
“I have no time!” he repeated, with afeverish force. “Listen, Raoul, my dearfriend. To-day the price was paid in the presenceof the cadi, Ben Iskhar. Three days fromnow they lead me to marriage with the daughter ofthe notary. What, to me, is the daughter of thenotary? They lead me like a sheep to kill at atomb.... Raoul, for the sake of our friendship,give me hold of your hand. To-morrow night—thecar! Or, if you say you haven’t the disposalof the car, bring me horses.” And againthe shaking of his nerves got the better of him; againhe tumbled back into the country tongue. “Forthe sake of God, bring me two horses! By SidnaAissa! by the Three Hairs from the Head of the ProphetI swear it! My first-born shall be named forthee, Raoul. Only bring thou horses! Raoul!Raoul!”
It was the whine of the beggar of Barbary. Genetlay back, his hands behind his head, staring intoshadows under the ceiling.
“Better the car. I’ll manage it withsome lies. To-morrow night at moonset I’llhave the car outside the gate Djedid.” Aftera moment he added, under his breath, “But Iknow your kind too well, Habib ben Habib, and I knowthat you will not be there.”
Habib was not there. From moonset till half-pastthree, well over two hours, Genet waited, sittingon the stone in the shadow of the gate, prowling thelittle square inside. He smoked twenty cigarettes.He yawned three times twenty times. At last hewent out got into the car and drove away.
As the throb of the engine grew faint a figure inEuropean clothes and a long-tasselled chechiacrept out from the dark of a door arch along the street.It advanced toward the gate. It started back ata sound. It rallied again, a figure bedeviledby vacillation. It came as far as the well inthe centre of the little square.
On the horizon toward the coast of Sousse rested alow black wall of cloud. Lightning came out ofit from time to time and ran up the sky, soundless,glimmering.... The cry of the morning muezzinrolled down over the town. The lightning showedthe figure sprawled face down on the cool stone ofthe coping of the well....
The court of the house of bel-Kalfate swam in theglow of candles. A striped awning shut out thenight sky, heavy with clouds, and the women, crowdingfor stolen peeps on the flat roof. A confusionof voices, raillery, laughter, eddied around the arcadedwalls, and thin music bound it together with a monotonouscount of notes.
Through the doorway from the marble entresolwhere he stood Habib could see his father, cross-leggedon a dais, with the notary. They sat hand inhand like big children, conversing gravely. Withthem was the caid of Kairwan, the cadi,ben Iskhar, and a dark-skinned cousin from the oasesof the Djerid in the south. Their garments shone;there was perfume in their beards. On a rostrumbeyond and above the crowded heads the musicians swayedat their work—tabouka players withstrong, nervous thumbs; an oily, gross lutist; anorganist, watching everything with the lizard eyesof the hashish taker. Among them, behind a taborettepiled with bait of food and drink, the Jewish dancingwoman from Algiers lolled in her cushions, a driftof white disdain....
He saw it all through a kind of mist. It wasas if time had halted, and he was still at the steaminghammam of the afternoon, his spirit and hisflesh undone, and all about him in the perfumed vapourof the bath the white bodies of his boyhood comradesglimmering luminous and opalescent.
His flesh was still asleep, and so was his soul.The hand of his father city had come closer abouthim, and for a moment it seemed that he was too weary,or too lazy, to push it away. For a little whilehe drifted with the warm and perfumed cloud of thehours.
Hands turned him around. It was Houseen Abdelkader,the caid’s son, the comrade of long ago—Houseenin silk of wine and silver, hyacinths pendent on hischeeks, a light of festival in his eyes.
“Es-selam alekoum, ya Habib habiby!”It was the salutation in the plural—toHabib, and to the angels that walk, one at either shoulderof every son of God. And as he spoke he threwa new white burnoose over Habib’s head, so thatit hung down straight and covered him like a bridalveil.
“Alekoum selam, ya Seenou!” Itwas the name of boyhood, Seenou, the diminutive, thatfell from Habib’s lips. And he could notcall it back.
“Come thou now.” He felt the gentlepush of Houseen’s hands. He found himselfmoving toward the door that stood open into the street.The light of an outer conflagration was in his eyes.The thin music of lute and tabouka in the court behindhim grew thinner; the boom of drums and voices inthe street grew big. He had crossed the threshold.A hundred candles, carried in horizontal banks on lathsby little boys, came around him on three sides, likefootlights. And beyond the glare, in the flamingmist, he saw the street Dar-el-Bey massed with men.All their faces were toward him, hot yellow spots inwhich the black spots of their mouths gaped and vanished.
“That the marriage of Habib be blessed!Blessed be the marriage of Habib!”
The riot of sound began to take form. It beganto emerge in a measure, a boom-boom-boom oftambours and big goatskin drums. A bamboo fifestruck into a high, quavering note. The singingclub of Sidibou-Sa d joined voice.
The footlights were moving forward toward the streetof the market. Habib moved with them a few slowpaces without effort or will. Again they hadall stopped. It could not be more than two hundredyards to the house of the notary and his waiting bride,but by the ancient tradition of Kairwan an hour mustbe consumed on the way.
An hour! An eternity! Panic came over Habib.He turned his hooded eyes for some path of escape.To the right, Houseen! To the left, close athis shoulder, Mohammed Sherif—Mohammed thelaughing and the well-beloved—Mohammed,with whom in the long, white days he used to chaselizards by the pool of the Aglabides ... in the long,white, happy days, while beyond the veil of palmsthe swaying camel palanquins of women, like huge brightblooms, went northward up the Tunis road....
What made him think of that?
“Boom-boom-boom-boom!” And aroundthe drums beyond the candles he heard them singing:
On the day of the going away of myLove,
When the litters, carrying the women ofthe tribe,
Traversed the valley of Dad, like a sea,mirage,
They were like ships, great ships, thework of the children of
Adoul,
Or like the boats of Yamen’s sons....
“Boom-boom!” The monotonous pulse,the slow minor slide of sixteenth tones, the starkrests—he felt the hypnotic pulse of theold music tampering with the pulse of his blood.It gave him a queer creeping fright. He shuthis eyes, as if that would keep it out. And inthe glow of his lids he saw the tents on the nakeddesert; he saw the forms of veiled women; he saw thehorses of warriors coming like a breaker over thesand—the horses of the warriors of God!
He pulled the burnoose over his lids to make themdark. And even in the dark he could see.He saw two eyes gazing at his, untroubled, untroubling,out of the desert night. And they were the eyesof any woman—the eyes of his bride, ofhis sister, his mother, the eyes of his mothers athousand years dead.
“Master!” they said.
They were pushing him forward by the elbows, Mohammedand Houseen. He opened his eyes. The crowdswam before him through the yellow glow. Somethinghad made an odd breach in his soul, and through thebreach came memories.
Memories! There at his left was the smoky shelfof blind Moulay’s cafe—black-faced,white-eyed old Moulay. Moulay was dead now manyyears, but the men still sat in the same attitudes,holding the same cups, smoking the same chiboukwith the same gulping of bubbles as in the happy days.And there between the cafe and the souk gatewas the same whitewashed niche where three lads usedto sit with their feet tucked under their little kashabias,their chechias awry on their shaven polls,and their lips pursed to spit after the leather legsof the infidel conquerors passing by. The Roumi,the French blasphemers, the defilers of the mosque!Spit on the dogs! Spit!
Behind his reverie the drums boomed, the voices chanted.The lament of drums and voices beat at the back ofhis brain—while he remembered the threelads sitting in the niche, waiting from one white dayto another for the coming of Moulay Saa, the Messiah;watching for the Holy War to begin.
“And I shall ride in the front rank of the horsemen,please God!”
“And I, I shall ride at Moulay Saa’s righthand, please God, and I shall cut the necks of Roumiwith my sword, like barley straw!”
Habib advanced in the spotlight of the candles.Under the burnoose his face, half shadowed, lookedgreen and white, as if he were sick to his death.Or, perhaps, as if he were being born again.
The minutes passed, and they were hours. Themusic went on, interminable.
“Boom-boom-boom-boom ——”But now Habib himself was the instrument, and nowthe old song of his race played its will on him.
Pinkness began to creep over the green-white cheeks.The cadence of the chanting had changed. It grewardent, melting, voluptuous.
_... And conquests I have made among the fairones, perfume inundated, Beauties ravishing; thatsway in an air of musk and saffron, Bearing stillon their white necks the traces of kisses...._
It hung under the pepper trees, drunk with the beautyof flesh, fainting with passion. Above the treesmute lightning played in the cloud. Habib benHabib was born again. Again, after exile, he cameback into the heritage. He saw the heaven of themen of his race. He saw Paradise in a walkingdream. He saw women forever young and foreverlovely in a land of streams, women forever changing,forever virgin, forever new; strangers intimate andtender. The angels of a creed of love—orof lust!
“Lust is the thing you find where you don’tfind trust.”
A thin echo of the Frenchman’s diatribe flickeredthrough his memory, and he smiled. He smiledbecause his eyes were open now. He seemed tosee this Christian fellow sitting on his bed, bare-footed,rumple-haired, talking dogmatically of perfumes andvials and stoppers thrown away, talking of faith inwomen. And that was the jest. For he seemedto see the women, over there in Paris, that the brothersof that naive fellow trusted—trusted alonewith a handsome young university student from Tunisia.Ha-ha-ha! Now he remembered. He wanted tolaugh out loud at a race of men that could be as simpleas that. He wanted to laugh at the bursting ofthe iridescent bubble of faith in the virtue of beautifulwomen. The Arab knew!
A colour of health was on his face; his step had grownconfident. Of a sudden, and very quietly, allthe mixed past was blotted out. He heard onlythe chanting voices and the beating drums.
Once I came into the tent of a young beauty ona day of rain.... Beauty blinding.... Charmsthat ravished and made drunkards of the eyes....
His blood ran with the song, pulse and pulse.The mute lightning came down through the trees andbathed his soul. And, shivering a little, helet his thoughts go for the first time to the strangeand virgin creature that awaited his coming there,somewhere, behind some blind house wall, so near.
“Thou hast suffered exile. Now is thy rewardprepared.”
What a fool! What a fool he had been!
He wanted to run now. The lassitude of monthswas gone from his limbs. He wanted to fling asidethat clogging crowd, run, leap, arrive. How longwas this hour? Where was he? He tried tosee the housetops to know, but the glow was in hiseyes. He felt the hands of his comrades on hisarms.
But now there was another sound in the air. Hisears, strained to the alert, caught it above the drumsand voices—a thin, high ululation.It came from behind high walls and hung among the leavesof the trees, a phantom yodeling, the welcoming “you-you-you-you”of the women of Islam.
Before him he saw that the crowd had vanished.Even the candles went away. There was a door,and the door was open.
He entered, and no one followed. He penetratedalone into an empty house of silence, and all aroundhim the emptiness moved and the silence rustled.
He traversed a court and came into a chamber wherethere was a light. He saw a negress, a Sudaneseduenna, crouching in a corner and staring at him withwhite eyes. He turned toward the other side ofthe room.
She sat on a high divan, like a throne, her handspalms together, her legs crossed. In the completenessof her immobility she might have been a doll or acorpse. After the strict fashion of brides, hereyebrows were painted in thick black arches, her lipsdrawn in scarlet, her cheeks splashed with rose.Her face was a mask, and jewels in a crust hid theflame of her hair. Under the stiff kohl of theirlids her eyes turned neither to the left nor to theright. She seemed not to breathe. It isa dishonour for a maid to look or to breathe in themoment when her naked face suffers for the first timethe gaze of the lord whom she has never seen.
A minute passed away.
“This is the thing that is mine!” A blindingexultation ran through his brain and flesh. “Betterthis than the ‘trust’ of fools and infidels!No question here of ‘faith.’ Here Iknow! I know that this thing that is minehas not been bandied about by the eyes of all themen in the world. I know that this perfume hasnever been breathed by the passers in the street.I know that it has been treasured from the beginningin a secret place—against this moment—forme. This bud has come to its opening in a hiddengarden; no man has ever looked upon it; no man willever look upon it. None but I.”
He roused himself. He moved nearer, consumedwith the craving and exquisite curiosity of the new.He stood before the dais and gazed into the unwaveringeyes. As he gazed, as his sight forgot the grotesquedoll painting of the face around those eyes, somethingqueer began to come over him. A confusion.Something bothering. A kind of fright.
“Thou!” he breathed.
Her icy stillness endured. Not once did her dilatedpupils waver from the straight line. Not oncedid her bosom lift with breath.
“Thou! It is thou, then,O runner on the housetops by night!”
The fright of his soul grew deeper, and suddenly itwent out. And in its place there came a blackcalm. The eyes before him remained transfixedin the space beyond his shoulder. But by and bythe painted lips stirred once.
“Nekaf!... I am afraid!”
Habib turned away and went out of the house.
In the house of bel-Kalfate the Jewess danced, still,even in voluptuous motion, a white drift of disdain.The music eddied under the rayed awning. Railleryand laughter were magnified. More than a littlebokha, the forbidden liquor distilled of figs,had been consumed in secret. Eyes gleamed; lipshung.... Alone in the thronged court on the dais,the host and the notary, the caid, the cadi,and the cousin from the south continued to conversein measured tones, holding their coffee cups in theirpalms.
“It comes to me, on thought,” pronouncedbel-Kalfate, inclining his head toward the notarywith an air of courtly deprecation—“itcomes to me that thou hast been defrauded. Forwhat is a trifle of ten thousand douros ofsilver as against the rarest jewel (I am certain,sidi) that has ever crowned the sex which thoumayest perhaps forgive me for mentioning?”
And in the same tone, with the same gesture, HadjiDaoud replied: “Nay, master and friend,by the Beard of the Prophet, but I should repay theethe half. For that is a treasure for a sultan’sdaughter, and this fillette of mine (forgiveme) is of no great beauty or worth ——”
“In saying that, Sidi Hadji, thou sayest a thingwhich is at odds with half the truth.”
They were startled at the voice of Habib coming frombehind their backs.
“For thy daughter, Sidi Hadji, thy Zina, issurely as lovely as the full moon sinking in the westin the hour before the dawn.”
The words were fair. But bel-Kalfate was lookingat his son’s face.
“Where are thy comrades?” he asked, ina low voice. “How hast thou come?”Then, with a hint of haste: “The dance isadmirable. It would be well that we should remainquiet, Habib, my son.”
But the notary continued to face the young man.He set his cup down and clasped his hands about hisknee. The knuckles were a little white.
“May I beg thee, Habib ben Habib, that thoushouldst speak the thing which is in thy mind?”
“There is only this, sidi, a little thing:When thou hast another bird to vend in the marketof hearts, it would perhaps be well to examine withcare the cage in which thou hast kept that bird.
“Thy daughter,” he added, after a momentof silence—“thy daughter, Sidi Hadji,is with child.”
That was all that was said. Hadji Daoud liftedhis cup and drained it, sucking politely at the dregs.The cadi coughed. The cadi raisedhis eyes to the awning and appeared to listen.Then he observed, “To-night, in-cha-’llah,it will rain.” The notary pulled his burnooseover his shoulders, groped down with his toes for hisslippers, and got to his feet.
“Rest in well-being!” he said. Then,without haste, he went out.
Habib followed him tardily as far as the outer door.In the darkness of the empty street he saw the loomof the man’s figure moving off toward his ownhouse, still without any haste.
“And in the night of thy marriage thy husband,or thy father, if thou hast a father ——”
Habib did not finish with the memory. He turnedand walked a few steps along the street. He couldstill hear the music and the clank of the Jewess’ssilver in his father’s court....
“In-cha-’llah!” she had said,that night.
And after all, it had been the will of God....
A miracle had happened. All the dry pain hadgone out of the air. Just now the months of waitingfor the winter rains were done. All about himthe big, cool drops were spattering on the invisiblestones. The rain bathed his face. His soulwas washed with the waters of the merciful God ofArab men.
For, after all, from the beginning, it had been written.All written!
“Mektoub!”
GRIT
By TRISTRAM TUPPER
From Metropolitan Magazine
Grit was dead. There was no mistake about that.And on the very day of his burial temptation cameto his widow.
Grit’s widow was “Great” Taylor,whose inadequate first name was Nell—ayoung, immaculate creature whose body was splendideven if her vision and spirit were small. Shenever had understood Grit.
Returning from the long, wearisome ride, she climbedthe circular iron staircase—up throughparallels of garlic-scented tenement gloom—toher three-room flat, neat as a pin; but not even thendid she give way to tears. Tears! No mancould make Great Taylor weep!
However, drawing the pins from her straw hat, dyedblack for the occasion, she admitted, “It ain’tright.” Grit had left her nothing, absolutelynothing, but an unpleasant memory of himself—hisgrimy face and hands, his crooked nose and baggy breeches....And Great Taylor was willing that every thought ofhim should leave her forever. “Grit’sgone,” she told herself. “I ain’tgoing to think of him any more.”
Determinedly Great Taylor put some things to soakand, closing down the top of the stationary washtubs,went to the window. The view was not intriguing,and yet she hung there: roofs and more roofs,a countless number reached out toward infinity, withpebbles and pieces of broken glass glittering in thesunlight; chimneys sharply outlined by shadow; andon every roof, except one, clothes-lines, from whichwhite cotton and linen flapped in the wind at the sideof faded overalls and red woollen shirts. Theyformed a kind of flag—these red, white,and blue garments flying in the breeze high above anation of toilers. But Great Taylor’s onlythought was, “It’s Monday.”
One roof, unlike the rest, displayed no such flag—asomewhat notorious “garden” and dancehall just around the corner.
And adjacent to this house was a vacant lot on whichGreat Taylor could see a junk-cart waiting, and perhapswondering what had become of its master.
She turned her eyes away. “I ain’tgoing to think of him.” Steadying her chinin the palms of her hands, elbows on the window-sill,Nell peered down upon a triangular segment of chaoticstreet. Massed humanity overflowed the sidewalksand seemed to bend beneath the weight of sunlightupon their heads and shoulders. A truck plougheda furrow through push-carts that rolled back to thecurb like a wave crested with crude yellow, red, green,and orange merchandise. She caught the hum ofvoices, many tongues mingling, while the odours ofvegetables and fruit and human beings came faintlyto her nostrils. She was looking down upon oneof the busiest streets of the city that people sometimescall the Devil’s Own.
Grit had wrested an existence from the debris of thiscity. Others have waded ankle-deep in the crowd;but he, a grimy, infinitesimal molecule, had beenat the bottom wholly submerged, where the light ofidealism is not supposed to penetrate. Grit hadbeen a junkman; his business address—avacant lot; his only asset—a junk-cart acrossthe top of which he had strung a belt of jingling,jangling bells that had called through the cavernousstreets more plainly than Grit himself: “Rags,old iron, bottles, and ra-ags.”
This had been Grit’s song; perhaps the onlyone he had known, for he had shoved that blest cartof his since a boy of thirteen; he had worn himselfas threadbare as the clothes on his back, and at lastthe threads had snapped. He had died of old age—inhis thirties. And his junk-cart, with its bells,stood, silent and unmanned, upon the vacant lot justaround the corner.
Great Taylor had seen Grit pass along this narrowsegment of street, visible from her window; but hisflight had always been swift—pushing steadilywith head bent, never looking up. And so it wasnot during his hours of toil that she had known him....
Nell closed the window. She was not going tothink of him any more. “Ain’t wortha thought.” But everything in the room remindedher of the man. He had furnished it from hisjunk-pile. The drawer was missing from the centretable, the door of the kitchen stove was wired atthe hinges; even the black marble clock, with its headlessgilt figure, and the brown tin boxes marked “Coffee,”“Bread,” and “Sugar”—allwere junk. And these were the things that Grit,not without a show of pride, had brought home to her!
Nell sank into a large armchair (with one rung gone)and glowered at an earthen jug on the shelf.Grit had loved molasses. Every night he had spiltamber drops of it on the table, and his plate had alwaysbeen hard to wash. “Won’t have thatto do any more,” sighed Nell. Back of themolasses jug, just visible, were the tattered pagesof a coverless book. This had come to Grit togetherwith fifty pounds of waste paper in gunny-sacks; andthough Nell had never undergone the mental tortureof informing herself as to its contents, she had dubbedthe book “Grit’s Bible,” for he hadpawed over it, spelling out the words, every nightfor years. It was one thing from which she couldnot wash Grit’s grimy fingermarks, and so shedisliked it even more than the sticky molasses jug.“Him and his book and his brown molasses jug!”One was gone forever, and soon she would get rid ofthe other two.
And yet, even as she thought this, her eyes movedslowly to the door, and she could not help visualizingGrit as he had appeared every evening at dusk.His baggy breeches had seemed always to precede himinto the room. The rest of him would follow—histhin shoulders, from which there hung a greenish coat,frayed at the sleeves; above this, his long, collarlessneck, his pointed chin and broken nose, that leanedtoward the hollow and smudges of his cheek.
He would lock the door quickly and stand there, lookingat Nell.
“Why did he always lock the door?” musedGreat Taylor. “Nothing here to steal!Why’d he stand there like that?” Everynight she had expected him to say something, but henever did. Instead, he would take a long breath,almost like a sigh, and, after closing his eyes fora moment, he would move into the room and light thescreeching gas-jet. “Never thought of turningdown the gas.” This, particularly, wasa sore point with Great Taylor. “Never thoughtof anything. Just dropped into the best chair.”
“It’s a good chair, Nell,” he wouldsay, “only one rung missing.” Andhe would remain silent, drooping there, wrists crossedin his lap, palms turned upward, fingers curled, untilsupper had been placed before him on the table.“Fingers bent like claws,” muttered GreatTaylor, “and doing nothing while I set the table.”
Sometimes he would eat enormously, which irritatedNell; sometimes he would eat nothing except breadand molasses, which irritated Nell even more.“A good molasses jug,” he would say; “gotit for a dime. Once I set a price I’m astone wall; never give in.” This was hisone boast, his stock phrase. After using it hewould look up at his wife for a word of approval;and as the word of approval was never forthcoming,he would repeat: “Nell, I’m a stonewall; never give in.”
After supper he would ask what she had been doingall day. A weary, almost voiceless, man, he hadtold her nothing. But Great Taylor while washingthe dishes would rattle off everything that had happenedsince that morning. She seldom omitted any importantdetail, for she knew by experience that Grit wouldsit there, silent, wrists crossed and palms turnedup, waiting. He had always seemed to know whenshe had left anything out, and she always ended bytelling him. Then he would take a long breath,eyes closed, and, after fumbling back of the molassesjug, would soon be seated again beneath the streaminggas-jet spelling to himself the words of his coverlessbook.
So vivid was the picture, the personality and routineof Grit, that Great Taylor felt the awe with whichhe, at times, had inspired her. She had beenafraid of Grit—afraid to do anything shecould not tell him about; afraid not to tell him abouteverything she had done. But now she determined:“I’ll do what I please.” Andthe first thing it pleased Great Taylor to do wasto get rid of the odious molasses jug.
She plucked it from the shelf, holding the stickyhandle between two fingers, and dropped it into thepeach crate that served as a waste-basket. Thenoise when the jug struck the bottom of the cratestartled her. Great Taylor stood there—listening.Someone was slowly ascending the circular staircase.The woman could hear a footfall on the iron steps.
“Grit’s gone,” she reassured herself.“I’ll do what I please.”
She reached for the grimy book, “Grit’sBible,” the most offensive article in the room,and with sudden determination tore the book in two,and was about to throw the defaced volume into thebasket along with the earthen jug when fear arrestedthe motion of her hands. Her lips parted.She was afraid to turn her head. The door backof her had opened.
Great Taylor was only ordinarily superstitious.She had buried Grit that morning. It was stillbroad daylight—early afternoon. Andyet when she turned, clutching the torn book, shefully expected to see a pair of baggy breeches precedinga collarless, long-necked man with a broken nose,and smudges in the hollows of his cheeks.
Instead, she wheeled to see a pair of fastidiouslypressed blue serge trousers, an immaculate white collar,a straight nose and ruddy complexion. In fact,the man seemed the exact opposite of Grit. Nellglanced at the open door, back at the man, exhaledtremulously with relief, and breathed: “Whydidn’t you knock?”
“Sorry if I startled you,” puffed theman, entirely winded by the six flights. “Musthave pushed the wrong button in the vestibule.No great harm done.”
“Who are you? What you want?”
“Junk. That’s one of the things Icame to see about—the junk in back of myplace. I suppose it’s for sale.”He thrust his white hands into the side pockets ofhis coat, pulling the coat snugly around his waistand hips, and smiled amiably at Great Taylor’spatent surprise.
“You!.... Buy Grit’s junk business!”What did he want with junk? He was clean!From head to foot he was clean! His hair was parted.It was not only parted, it was brushed into a wave,with ends pointing stiffly up over his temples (acoiffure affected by bartenders of that day); andNell even detected the pleasant fragrance of pomade.“You ain’t a junkman.”
The man laughed. “I don’t know aboutthat.”
He studied her a moment in silence. Nell wasleaning back against the washtubs, her sleeves rolledup, her head tilted quizzically, lips parted, whiletints of colour ebbed and flowed in her throat andcheeks. She had attained the ripeness of womanhoodand very nearly animal perfection. The man’sattitude might have told her this. One of hiseyes, beneath a permanently cocked eyebrow, blinkedlike the shutter of a camera and seemed to take intimatephotographs of all parts of her person. The othereye looked at her steadily from under a drooping lid.“No,” he said, after the pause of a moment,“I’m not going into the junk business.”But he wanted to get the rubbish away from the backof his place. “I’ll buy it and haveit carted away. It’s too near the ‘Garden.’”He rocked up on his toes and clicked his heels gently.“I own the house just around the corner.”
“I knew it,” Nell murmured fatuously.The man was vaguely familiar, even though she couldnot remember having seen him before.
“Set your price.” He turned away,and Nell imagined that his camera-like eye was takinginstantaneous photographs of all the broken and mendedthings in the immaculate room. A wave of hot bloodmade her back prickle and dyed her throat crimson.
“I don’t like rubbish,” said theman. “I don’t like junk.”
“Who does?” stammered Great Taylor.
“You dislike junk, and yet there was your husband,a junkman.” He watched her narrowly frombeneath his drooping eyelid.
Great Taylor was not of the noblesse, nor did sheknow the meaning of noblesse oblige; and had she beena man, perhaps she would have denied her former lordand master—once, twice, or even thrice—ithas been done; but being a woman, she said: “LeaveGrit out of it.”
This seemed to please the man from around the corner.“I think we are going to get on,” he saidsignificantly. “But you must remember thatGrit can’t take care of you any longer.”
“Grit’s gone,” assented Nell; “gonefor good.”
“Uhm.” The man allowed his singulareyes to move over her. “I think we canarrange something. I’ve seen you pass myplace, looking in; and I had something in mind whenI started up here—something aside fromjunk. I could make a place over there—matronor cashier. How would you like that—cashierat the Garden?” He rocked up on his toes andclicked his heels quite audibly.
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“You’ll soon learn,” he was confident.He mentioned the salary, and that a former cashierwas now half owner of an uptown place. And forhalf an hour Great Taylor’s saturnine mind followedin the wake of his smoothly flowing words.
Why couldn’t Grit have talked like that? shekept asking herself. Grit never said anything.Why couldn’t he been clean like that, with hairbrushed into a curl that sat up like that? ...The man’s words gradually slipped far beyondher, and only his pleasant voice accompanied her ownthoughts. No reason why she shouldn’t becashier at the Garden. Only one reason, anyway,and that wasn’t any reason at all....
On an afternoon more than a year ago she had goneto the place around the corner. She had toldGrit all about it, and Grit had said in his wearyvoice, “Don’t never go again, Nell.”She had argued with Grit. The Garden wasn’twicked; nothing the matter with it; other people wentthere of an afternoon; she liked the music....And Grit had listened, drooping in his chair, wristscrossed and palms turned upward. Finally, whenNell had finished, he had repeated, “Don’tgo again.” He had not argued, for Gritnever argued; he was always too weary. But thishad been one of his longest speeches. He had ended:“The Devil himself owns that place. I oughtto know, my junkyard’s right back of it.”And he had closed his eyes and taken a long, deepbreath. “When I say a thing, Nell, I’ma stone wall. You can’t go there again—nowor never.” And that had settled it, forGreat Taylor had been afraid of Grit. But nowGrit was dead; gone for good. She would do asshe pleased....
When she looked up the man had stopped talking.He glanced at the clock.
“What time?” murmured Great Taylor.
“Five,” said the man from just aroundthe corner.
Nell nodded her head and watched as the man’sfastidiously pressed trousers and polished shoes clearedthe closing door. Nell immediately went to thelooking-glass—a cracked little mirror thathung by the mantelpiece—and studied thereflection of herself with newly awakened interest.She had never seemed so radiant—her smoothhair, her lineless face, her large gray eyes and perfectthroat. “I ain’t so bad looking,”she admitted. Grit had never made her feel thisway. And again she asked herself why he couldnot have been clean like the man from around the corner.
She rehearsed all that had been said. She thoughtof the salary the man had mentioned, and made calculations.It was more than Grit had averaged for the two ofthem to live on. With prodigal fancy she spentthe money and with new-born thrift she placed it inbank. Limited only by her small knowledge ofsuch things, she revelled in a dream of affluenceand luxury which was only dissipated when graduallyshe became conscious that throughout the past hourshe had been clinging to a grimy, coverless book.
Damp finger-prints were upon the outer leaves, andthe pages adhered to her moistened hand. Sheloosened her grip, and the book opened to a particularlysoiled page on which a line had been underscored witha thick red mark. Dully, Great Taylor read theline, spelling out the words; but it conveyed nothingto her intellect. It was the fighting phraseof a famous soldier: “I have drawn thesword and thrown away the scabbard.”
“What does that mean?” she mumbled.Her eyes wandered to the top of the page, where inlarger type was the title: “Life of ‘STONEWALL’JACKSON.” “Stonewall,” repeatedNell. “Stonewall!” The word had thepotency to bring vividly before her Grit’s drooping,grimy form. Her ears rang with his ridiculousboast. His voice seemed no longer low and weary.“When I say a thing ... stone wall. Can’tgo there again—now or never.”Great Taylor mumbled disparagingly, “He got itfrom a book!” And again she read the fightingphrase of Grit’s hero: “I havedrawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard.”“Can’t mean Grit,” she mused.“He never threw away anything....”And she tossed his desecrated Bible toward the peachcrate; but missing its aim, the book slid along thefloor with a slight rustle, almost like a sigh, andstruck the chair-board behind the washtubs, where itlay limp and forgotten.
Back of Nell the clock struck the half hour, and sheturned quickly, her heart thumping with the fear ofbeing late. But the hour was only three thirty.“Plenty time.” She gazed at the brokenclock. “A good clock,” Grit usedto say; “keeps time and only cost a quarter.”“Stone wall!... Humph!...”
Nell transformed the washtubs into a bath by the removalof the centre partition, and within an hour was bathedand dressed. Sticking the pins through her strawhat, dyed black, she took from the bottom drawer ofthe cupboard a patent-leather hand-bag with colourfulworsted fruit embroidered upon its shining sides.She thought of the night Grit had brought it hometo her, his pride—he had bought it at astore. But a glance around the room obliteratedthis memory, and she mumbled, “Wish I warn’tnever, never going to see this place again!Wait till I get money....” She glared atthe broken furniture, each piece of which broughtback some memory of the man. She could see himdrooping in the armchair, with his wrists crossed,fingers curled. She glared at the shelf and imaginedhim fumbling for something that was not there.She started for the door, then, turning back, reachedinto the peach crate. “There! Keepyour old molasses jug!” she said, in a dry voice,and, replacing the jug on the shelf, she went out intothe hall.
Winding down through the tenement-house gloom, GreatTaylor was not without fear. Her footfall onthe uncarpeted landings and iron treads sounded hollowand strangely loud. The odours that in the pasthad greeted her familiarly, making known absorbingdomestic details of her neighbours, caused her neitherto pause nor to sniff. She reached the narrowentrance hall, dark and deserted, and, hurrying downits length, fumbled with the knob and pulled openthe street door. Dazzling sunlight, a blast ofwarm air and the confused clatter of the sidewalkengulfed her. She stood vacillating in the doorway,thinly panoplied for the struggle of existence.Her body was splendid, it is true, but her spiritwas small. Despite the sunlight and warmth shewas trembling. And yet, for years she had gonedown into this street confident of herself, minglingon equal terms with its wayfarers, her ear catchingand translating the sounds that, converging, causedthis babel. Now, suddenly, all of it was meaningless,the peddlers with whom she had bickered and bargainedin a loud voice with gestures, breast to breast, werestrangers and the street an alien land. Manythings seemed to have passed backward out of her life.She was no longer Grit’s wife, no longer theGreat Taylor of yesterday. She was somethingnew-born, free of will; all the old ties had been clipped.She could do as she pleased. No one could stopher. And she pleased to become a denizen of aworld which, though just around the corner, was unrelatedto the sphere in which she had moved.
“What’s the matter with me?” sheasked herself. “Nothing to be afraid of.He’s gone. I’ll do as I please.”With such assertions she bolstered her courage, butnevertheless she was trembling....
Glossy-haired women jostled her with their baskets.Taller by a head, Nell pushed her way oblivious ofthe crowd. At the corner she paused. “Iain’t going to be early.” A clockacross the avenue, visible beneath the reverberatingironwork of the elevated, seemed to have stopped atthe half hour. It was four thirty. She watchedthe long hand until it moved jerkily. A policeman,half dragging a shrieking woman and followed by ajostling, silent crowd, swept Great Taylor aside andput in a call for the wagon.
She hurriedly rounded the corner and passed a windowthat displayed a pyramid of varnished kegs backedby a mirror with a ram’s head painted on itin colours. Beyond was the side entrance.Over the door hung a glass sign, one word in largered letters: “DANCING.” She caughtthe odour of cheap wine and stale beer. Againshe said, “I ain’t going to be early,”and moved away aimlessly.
Beyond the end of this building was a vacant lot andGreat Taylor moved more swiftly with head averted.She had passed nearly to the next building beforeshe stopped and wheeled around defiantly. “Iain’t afraid to look,” she said to herselfand gazed across at Grit’s junk-cart, with itsstring of bells, partly concealed back against thefence. It was standing in the shadow, silent,unmanned. She walked on for a few steps and turnedagain. The cart was standing as before, silent,unmanned. She stood there, hands on her hips,trying to visualize Grit drooping over the handle—hiscollarless neck, his grimy face and baggy breeches;but her imagination would not paint the picture.“Grit’s gone for good,” she said.“Why couldn’t he been clean like otherpeople, like the man that owns the Garden? Noexcuse for being dirty and always tired like that.Anybody could push it and keep clean, too—halfclean, anyway.” She slipped a glance atthe clock. It stood at twenty minutes beforethe hour of her appointment. “A baby couldpush it....”
She picked her way across the vacant lot to the junk-cartand laid her hand upon the grimy handle. Thething moved. The strings of bells set up a familiarjingle. “Easy as a baby carriage!”And Great Taylor laughed. The cart reached thesidewalk, bumped down over the curb and pulling GreatTaylor with it went beyond the centre of the street.She tried to turn back but a clanging trolley carcut in between her and the curb, a wheel of the junk-cartcaught in the smooth steel track and skidded as ifit were alive with a stupid will of its own. “Itain’t so easy,” she admitted. Witha wrench she extracted the wheel, narrowly avoidedan elevated post and crashed head on into a push-cart,laden with green bananas resting on straw. AnItalian swore in two languages and separated the lockedwheels.
Hurriedly Great Taylor shoved away from the fruitman and became pocketed in the traffic. Two heavy-hoofedhorses straining against wet leather collars crowdedher toward the curb and shortly the traffic becameblocked. She looked for a means of escape andhad succeeded in getting one wheel over the curb whena man touched her on the arm. “Someoneis calling from the window up there,” he saidin a low weary voice like Grit’s. Nellswung around, gasping, but the man had moved awaydown the sidewalk and a woman was calling to her froma second-story window.
“How much?” called the woman, waving atin object that glinted in the sunlight. GreatTaylor stared stupidly. “Clothes boiler,”yelled the woman. “Fifty cents....Just needs soldering.” “What?”stammered Nell. “Fifty cents,” shoutedthe woman in the window. And something promptedGreat Taylor to reply, “Give you a dime.”
“Quarter,” insisted the woman. “Dime... Ten cents,” repeated Great Taylor,somewhat red in the face. “Once I set aprice I’m a ...” But the woman’shead had disappeared and her whole angular person soonslid out through the doorway. Entirely befogged,Great Taylor fumbled in her patent-leather bag withits worsted fruit, discovered two nickels, and placedthe leaky boiler beside the rusty scales on the junk-cart.
“Ain’t I got enough junk without that?”she grumbled. But the traffic of the Devil’sOwn city was moving again and Great Taylor was movingwith it. She passed a corner where a clock ina drug store told her the time—ten minutesof the hour. “I got to get back,”she told herself, and heading her cart determinedlyfor an opening succeeded in crossing to the oppositeside of the congested avenue. There, a child,attracted by the jingling of the bells, ran out ofa house with a bundle of rags tied in a torn blueapron. The child placed the bundle on the scalesand watched with solemn wide eyes. Great Tayloragain fumbled in the bag and extracted a coin whichtransformed the little girl into an India-rubber thingthat bounced up and down on one foot at the side ofthe junk-cart. “Grit never gave me onlya penny a pound,” she cried.
“Grit is dead,” said Great Taylor.
“Dead!” echoed the child, clinging motionlessto the wheel. “Grit is dead?” Sheturned suddenly and ran toward the house, calling:“Mamma, poor old Grit is dead.”
Great Taylor put her weight against the handle ofthe cart. She pushed on desperately. Somethinghad taken hold of her throat. “What’sthe matter with me?” she choked. “Didn’tI know he was dead before this? Didn’tI know it all along? I ain’t going to cryover no man ... not in the street, anyway.”She hurriedly shoved her cart around a corner intoa less-congested thoroughfare and there a mammoth gildedclock at the edge of the sidewalk confronted her.The long hand moved with a sardonic jerk and indicatedthe hour—the hour of her appointment.But Great Taylor turned her eyes away. “Pushinga junk-cart ain’t so easy,” she said,and for a moment she stood there huddled over thehandle; then, taking a long, deep breath, like Gritused to do, she straightened herself and sang out,clear and loud, above the noises of the cavernousstreet: “Rags ... old iron ... bottles andra-ags.”
The city that people call the Devil’s Own lostits sharp outline and melted into neutral tints, grayand blue and lavender, that blended like an old, oldtapestry. It was dusk. Great Taylor strodeslowly with laborious long strides, her breast risingand falling, her body lengthening against the load,her hands gripping the handle of the cart, freightedwith rusty, twisted, and broken things. At crossingsshe paused until the murmuring river of human beingsdivided to let her pass. Night settled upon thehigh roofs and dropped its shadow into the streetsand alleys, and the windows began to glow. Lightleaped out and streaked the sidewalks while at eachcorner it ran silently down from high globes likefull moons and spattered over the curb into the gutterand out as far as the glistening car tracks. Shepassed blocks solid with human beings and blocks withouta human soul. Cataracts of sound crashed downinto the street now and again from passing elevatedtrains, and the noise, soon dissipated, left trembling
silence like pools of sinister black water. Shepassed through stagnant odours and little eddies ofperfume. She lifted her drooping head and sawa door open—the darkness was cut by a rectangleof soft yellow light, two figures were silhouetted,then the door closed. A gasolene torch flaredabove a fruit stand hard against the towering blackwindowless wall of a warehouse and a woman squattedin the shadow turning a handle. Nell pushed onpast a cross street that glittered and flared fromsidewalk to cornice, and at the next corner a singleflickering gas-jet revealed a dingy vestibule withrows of tarnished speaking tubes....The air became thick with noise and odours and thesidewalks swayed with people. Great Taylor slowlyrounded a familiar corner, slackened the momentumof the junk-cart, and brought up squarely against thecurb. Dragging the wheels, she gained the sidewalkand, beyond, the rims of the cart cut into soft earth.She crossed the vacant lot. A city’s superciliousmoon alone gave its half-light to the junkyard ofGrit and here the woman unloaded the cart, carryingheavy unyielding things against her breast. Shedid not linger. She was trembling from fatigueand from emotions even more novel to her. Sheclosed the gate without looking back at the weirdcrepe-like shadows that draped themselves among themoonlit piles of twisted things. Nearing thecorner, she glanced with dull eyes at a glaring redsign: “Dancing.” Voices, laughter,and music after a kind came from the doorway, A manwas singing. Great Taylor recognized the voicebut did not pause. She was not to see the manfrom just around the corner again for many years.
Hurrying, without knowing why she hurried, Nell climbedthe circular iron staircase up through parallels ofodorous gloom and, entering her flat, closed the doorand quickly locked it against the world outside—thetoil, the bickering, the sneers, the insults and cursesflung from alley gates and down upon her in the trafficof the Devil’s Own city. She closed hereyes and took a long deep breath almost like a sigh.She was home. It was good to be home, but shelacked the words and was far too weary to expressher emotions.
Lighting the gas she sank into a chair. Whatdid it matter if the gas was screeching? Shedrooped there, hands in her lap, wrists crossed, palmsturned upward and fingers curled stiffly like claws—fromholding to the jarring handle of the junk-cart.
Presently she raised her eyes and glanced across atthe shelf with its row of tin boxes marked “Bread,”“Coffee,” “Sugar.” Onthe next shelf was Grit’s molasses jug.She arose and fumbled behind this, but nothing wasthere—Grit’s Bible was gone.Then she remembered, and striking a match placed hercheek to the floor and found the grimy book beneaththe stationary washtubs. “Stone wall,”she murmured, “Grit was a stone wall.”At the mantelpiece she caught a glimpse of herselfin the cracked little mirror, but she was too wearyto care what she looked like, too weary to noticethat her hair was matted, that grime and smudges madehollows in her cheeks, and that even her nose seemedcrooked.
She sank again into the chair beneath the screechinggas-jet. “Grit,” she repeated dully,“was a stone wall.” And between veryhonest, tired, and lonely tears she began slowly tospell out the words of the coverless book, havinggained within the past few hours some understandingof what it means in the battle of life to draw thesword and throw away the scabbard.
There came another afternoon, another evening, anotheryear, and still another; but this narrative coversmerely a part of two days—Great Taylor’sfirst and last as a junk-woman. The latter camenearly ten years after the burial of Grit. Foralmost a decade Nell followed in his grimy footprintsand the polyglot people of the lower East Side, lookingdown from their windows as she passed through the congestedstreets pushing steadily with head bent, thought ofher either as an infinitesimal molecule at the bottomof the mass where the light of idealism seldom penetratesor else as a female Colossus striding from end toend of the Devil’s Own city only ankle-deep inthe debris from which she wrested an existence.But to Great Taylor it seemed not to matter what peoplethought. She sang her song through the cavernousstreets, the only song she knew: “Rags,old iron, bottles, and ra-ags.” She poundedwith a huge, determined fist on alley gates, she learnedexpertly to thread the traffic and to laugh at theteamsters, their oaths, their curses. “Theyain’t so bad.” And, finally, bickeringand bargaining with men of all classes, she came towonder why people called this the Devil’s Owncity. In all those years of toil she did notonce see him in the eyes of men. But there camethe day when she said, “I’m done.”
On this day Great Taylor lifted the end of a hugekitchen range against two struggling members of theother sex. A pain shot through her breast, butshe carried her part of the dead weight, saying nothing,and, at high noon, pushed her jingling, jangling cartthrough streets sharply outlined with sunlight andshadow to a dilapidated brick warehouse that, longsince, had taken the place of Grit’s junk-yard.
There, in the interior gloom of the shabby old building,could be seen piles of broken, twisted, and rustythings—twisted iron rods, broken cam-shafts,cog wheels with missing teeth, springs that had losttheir elasticity—a miniature mountain ofscrap iron each piece of which at some time had beena part of some smoothly working machine. In anotherpile were discarded household utensils—oldpots and pans and burnt-out kettles, old stoves throughthe linings of which the flames had eaten and therust had gnawed. There were other hillocks andmountains with shadowy valleys between—amountain of waste paper, partly baled, partly stuffedinto bursting bags of burlap, partly loose and scatteredover the grimy floor; a hill of rags, all coloursfading into sombre shadows.... And in the midstof these mountains and valleys of junk sat Great Taylorupon her dilapidated throne.
She drooped there over an old coverless book, spellingout the words and trying to forget the pain that wasno longer confined to her breast. From shoulderto hip molten slag pulsed slowly through her veinsand great drops of sweat moved from her temples andmade white-bottomed rivulets among the smudges ofher cheeks. “I’m done,” shemumbled, closing Grit’s book. “I gota right to quit. I got a right to be idle likeother people....”
Raising her head she appraised the piles that surroundedher. “All this stuff!” It had tobe disposed of. She lifted herself from the creakingchair and, finding a pot of black paint and a board,laboured over this latter for a time. “Icould get rid of it in a week,” she mused.But she was done—done for good. “Iain’t going to lay a hand on the cart again!”She studied the sign she had painted, and spelledout the crooked letters: “M A n WAnTeD.”It would take a man a month, maybe more, she reckoned,adding: “Grit could done it in no time.”She moved to the arched door of the warehouse andhung the sign outside in the sunlight against an ironshutter and for a moment stood there blinking.Despite the sunlight and warmth she was trembling,the familiar noises were a babel to her ears; thepeddlers with their carts piled high with fruits andvegetables and colourful merchandise seemed like strangers;the glossy-haired women with baskets seemed to bepassing backward out of her life, and the street wassuddenly an alien land. “What’s thematter with me?” she asked herself.
Returning to the interior gloom of the warehouse,she looked down upon the old junk-cart. The stringof bells was the only part of it that had not beenrenewed twice, thrice, a number of times since Grithad left it standing on the vacant lot. “GuessI’ll save the bells,” she decided.
The rest she would destroy. Nobody else was goingto use it—nobody. She cast about foran adequate instrument of destruction, an axe or sledge,and remembering a piece of furnace grate upon the fartherpile of junk, made her way slowly into the deepeningshadows.
There, at the foot of the rusty mountain of scrapiron, Great Taylor stood irresolute, straining hereyes to pierce the gloom. She had not seen anyone enter; and yet, standing beyond the pile with whitehands stabbing the bottom of his pockets, was a man.She could not remember having seen him before, andyet he was vaguely familiar. One eye looked ather steadily from beneath a drooping lid, the otherblinked like the shutter of a camera and seemed totake intimate photographs of all parts of her grimyperson. His sleek hair was curled over his templeswith ends pointing up, and she caught, or imagined,the fragrance of pomade.
“What do you want?” she breathed, allowingthe heavy piece of iron to sink slowly to her side.
“Sit down,” said the man. “Let’stalk things over.”
Great Taylor sank into a broken armchair, her hugecalloused hands rested in her lap, wrists crossed,palms turned upward, fingers stiffly curled.“I know who you are,” she mumbled, leaningforward and peering through the half-light. “Whatdo you want?”
“You hung out a sign....”
“You ain’t the man I expected.”
“No?” He rocked up on his toes and madea gesture that indicated the piles of junk. “You’redone.”
“I’m done,” assented Great Taylor.“I ain’t going to lay a hand on the cartagain. Ten years....”
“Uhm. You have a right to the things thatother women have. But....” He glancedaround the dingy warehouse. “Is this allyou have for your ten years?”
Great Taylor made no reply.
“It isn’t much,” said the man.
“It’s something,” said Great Taylor.
“Not enough to live on.”
“Not enough to live on,” she echoed.“But I can’t go on working. I can’tgo on alone. The cart’s too heavy to pushalone. I’m done.” She droopedthere.
“I think we can arrange something.”For a moment the man was silent, his queer eyes movingover her body. “I had something in mindwhen I entered—something aside from junk.I could make a place for you. I’ll do betterthan that. With this rubbish you buy a half sharein one of my places and sit all day with your handsfolded. You can make more in a week than youever made in a year....” His voice flowedsmoothly on until Great Taylor raised her head.
“I didn’t come ten years ago.”
The man laughed. “Who cares how you makeyour money? Do you know what people say whenthey hear you calling through the streets? Theysay, ‘It’s nothing, it’s only GreatTaylor.’ And do you know what they thinkwhen they look down upon you and your junk-cart?They think of you just as you used to think of Grit....”
She staggered to her feet. “You leave Gritout of it!” For ten years a sentence had beenpulsing through her mind. “Get out!”she cried, “Grit warn’t dirty underneath!”The pain in her breast choked her and stopped hershort as she moved threateningly toward him. Thepiece of iron fell heavily to the floor.
“Who sees underneath?” came the voiceof the man.
“Grit,” she moaned, “Grit sees underneath.”And she hurled her tortured body forward, strikingat him with her fists. She fell upon the pileof scrap iron. Each heave of her breast was asob. She struggled to her feet and glared aroundher. But the man was not there.
Moaning, she sank into the armchair. “What’sthe matter with me? There warn’t nobodyhere! He warn’t here. No man couldstay the same for ten years.” The pilesof junk seemed slowly to revolve around her.“What’s the matter with me?” sheasked again. “Ain’t I got a right?...”
“Of course you have a right to the things youwant.” From the top of the hill of ragscame his voice. It brought Great Taylor to herfeet, sobbing. But the pain in her side, morefearful than ever, held her motionless.
“Wash away the ugly grime of toil,” saidthe voice. “You’re less than forty.You’re a woman. You can have the thingsthat other women have.”
“I got more than some women,” she cried.“I’m clean—I’m cleanunderneath.” She stumbled toward him butagain sank to the floor. She tried to springup. Her will sprang up, for her spirit at lastwas splendid even if her body was weak. It draggedher up from the floor. And now she could seehim all around her—on top the hill of rags,on top the mountain of iron, amid the bursting bagsof waste paper—blinking down as he satenthroned upon the debris—the twisted,broken, discarded things of the city that people callthe Devil’s Own. “These are mine!”he called. “And you belong to the debris.You are one of the broken, useless things.”From all points he moved toward her. She couldno longer fight him off. There was no escape.“Grit,” she cried, “Grit, you canstop him. You ... you was a stone wall....”
Stumbling back, her hand struck a familiar object.There was a tinkle of bells. She wheeled around,and there in the shadows of the dilapidated old warehousesomeone was drooping over the handle of the junk-cart—acollarless man with baggy breeches and a nose thatleaned toward the smudges and hollows of his cheek.He was striving to move the cart. “Notalone,” cried Great Taylor. “You can’tdo it alone! But we can do it together!”She took hold of the handle. The thing moved.“Easy as a baby carriage,” she laughed.“We should always done it together....”
Out of the gloom, through the arched doorway intothe sunlight moved the cart with its jingling, janglingbells. Glossy-haired women with their basketsmade way for it and the cart bumped down over the curb.Teamsters drew aside their heavy-hoofed horses.Peddlers rolled their push-carts back to the curb.
“The street opens when we work together,”laughed Great Taylor.
“Who is she talking to?” asked the people.
“Talking to herself,” the ignorant replied.
“And why is she looking up like that?”
“Looking for junk.”
“And why does she laugh?” they asked.
“Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps she’shappy.”
A song burst from her throat: “Rags,”she sang, “old iron ... bottles, and ra-ags....”
People inside their houses heard her song and thebells of her cart. “It’s nothing,”they laughed, “it’s only Great Taylor.”A woman came to a window and waved an object thatglinted in the sunlight. “How much?”she called down. But Great Taylor seemed not tohear. A child ran out with a bundle in her arms.“Rags,” called the child, then steppedback out of the way, wondering. Great Taylor waspassing on. An elevated train sent down a cataractof noise, but her song rose above it: “Rags... old iron....” And when she reached theavenue a policeman with a yellow emblematic wheelembroidered on his sleeve held up his hand and stoppedthe traffic of the Devil’s Own city to let GreatTaylor pass.
And so, like a female Colossus, she strode slowlyacross the city, her head tilted, her eyes lookingup from the cavernous streets—up beyondthe lofty roofs of houses, her voice becoming fainterand fainter: “Rags ... old iron ... bottlesand ra-ags ...” until the God of those who fallfighting in the battle of life reached down and, drawingthe sword, threw away the scabbard.
