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diff --git a/old/1bskt10.txt b/old/1bskt10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e16aa19 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1bskt10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6144 @@ +***The Project Gutenberg Etext of One Basket, by Edna Ferber*** +#4 in our series by Edna Ferber + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + +ONE BASKET + +THIRTY-ONE +SHORT STORIES + +BY EDNA FERBER + + + +INTRODUCTION ix +THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO BE GOOD 1 +THE GAY OLD DOG 11 +THAT'S MARRIAGE 29 +FARMER IN THE DELL 49 +UN MORSO DOO PANG 68 +LONG DISTANCE 89 +THE MATERNAL FEMININE 94 + . . . . remainder not included + + + + + +The Woman Who Tried to Be Good +[1913] + + +Before she tried to be a good woman she had been a very bad +woman--so bad that she could trail her wonderful apparel up and +down Main Street, from the Elm Tree Bakery to the railroad +tracks, without once having a man doff his hat to her or a woman +bow. You passed her on the street with a surreptitious glance, +though she was well worth looking at-- in her furs and laces and +plumes. She had the only full-length mink coat in our town, and +Ganz's shoe store sent to Chicago for her shoes. Hers were the +miraculously small feet you frequently see in stout women. + +Usually she walked alone; but on rare occasions, especially round +Christmastime, she might have been seen accompanied by some +silent, dull-eyed, stupid-looking girl, who would follow her +dumbly in and out of stores, stopping now and then to admire a +cheap comb or a chain set with flashy imitation stones--or, +queerly enough, a doll with yellow hair and blue eyes and very +pink cheeks. But, alone or in company, her appearance in the +stores of our town was the signal for a sudden jump in the cost +of living. The storekeepers mulcted her; and she knew it and paid +in silence, for she was of the class that has no redress. She +owned the House with the Closed Shutters, near the freight +depot--did Blanche Devine. + +In a larger town than ours she would have passed unnoticed. She +did not look like a bad woman. Of course she used too much +make-up, and as she passed you caught the oversweet breath of a +certain heavy scent. Then, too, her diamond eardrops would have +made any woman's features look hard; but her plump face, in spite +of its heaviness, wore an expression of good-humored +intelligence, and her eyeglasses gave her somehow a look of +respectability. We do not associate vice with eyeglasses. So in +a large city she would have passed for a well-dressed, +prosperous, comfortable wife and mother who was in danger of +losing her figure from an overabundance of good living; but with +us she was a town character, like Old Man Givins, the drunkard, +or the weak-minded Binns girl. When she passed the drug- store +corner there would be a sniggering among the vacant-eyed loafers +idling there, and they would leer at each other and jest in +undertones. + +So, knowing Blanche Devine as we did, there was something +resembling a riot in one of our most respectable neighborhoods +when it was learned that she had given up her interest in the +house near the freight depot and was going to settle down in the +white cottage on the corner and be good. All the husbands in the +block, urged on by righteously indignant wives, dropped in on +Alderman Mooney after supper to see if the thing could not be +stopped. The fourth of the protesting husbands to arrive was the +Very Young Husband who lived next door to the corner cottage that +Blanche Devine had bought. The Very Young Husband had a Very +Young Wife, and they were the joint owners of Snooky. Snooky was +three-going- on-four, and looked something like an angel--only +healthier and with grimier hands. The whole neighborhood +borrowed her and tried to spoil her; but Snooky would not spoil. + +Alderman Mooney was down in the cellar, fooling with the furnace. + +He was in his furnace overalls; a short black pipe in his mouth. +Three protesting husbands had just left. As the Very Young +Husband, following Mrs. Mooney's directions, descended the cellar +stairs, Alderman Mooney looked up from his tinkering. He peered +through a haze of pipe smoke. + +"Hello!" he called, and waved the haze away with his open palm. + +"Come on down! Been tinkering with this blamed furnace since +supper. She don't draw like she ought. 'Long toward spring a +furnace always gets balky. How many tons you used this winter?" + +"Oh-five," said the Very Young Husband shortly. Alderman +Mooney considered it thoughtfully. The Young Husband leaned up +against the side of the water tank, his hands in his pockets. +"Say, Mooney, is that right about Blanche Devine's having bought +the house on the corner?" + +"You're the fourth man that's been in to ask me that this +evening. I'm expecting the rest of the block before bedtime. +She bought it all right." + +The Young Husband flushed and kicked at a piece of coal with the +toe of his boot. + +"Well, it's a darned shame!" he began hotly. "Jen was ready +to cry at supper. This'll be a fine neighborhood for Snooky to +grow up in! What's a woman like that want to come into a +respectable street for, anyway? I own my home and pay my +taxes--" + +Alderman Mooney looked up. + +"So does she," he interrupted. "She's going to improve the +place--paint it, and put in a cellar and a furnace, and build a +porch, and lay a cement walk all round." + +The Young Husband took his hands out of his pockets in order to +emphasize his remarks with gestures. + +"Whati's that got to do with it? I don't care if she puts in +diamonds for windows and sets out Italian gardens and a terrace +with peacocks on it. You're the alderman of this ward, aren't +you? Well, it was up to you to keep her out of this block! You +could have fixed it with an injunction or somethng. I'm going to +get up a petition--that's what I'm going----" + +Alderman Mooney closed the furnace door with a bang that drowned +the rest of the threat. He turned the draft in a pipe overhead +and brushed his sooty palms briskly together like one who would +put an end to a profitless conversation. + +"She's bought the house," he said mildly, "and paid for it. +And it's hers. She's got a right to live in this neighborhood as +long as she acts respectable." + +The Very Young Husband laughed. + +"She won't last! They never do." + +Alderman Mooney had taken his pipe out of his mouth and was +rubbing his thumb over the smooth bowl, looking down at it with +unseeing eyes. On his face was a queer look--the look of one who +is embarrassed because he is about to say something honest. + +"Look here! I want to tell you something: I happened to be up +in the mayor's office the day Blanche signed for the place. She +had to go through a lot of red tape before she got it--had quite +a time of it, she did! And say, kid, that woman ain't so--bad." + +The Very Young Husband exclaimed impatiently: + +"Oh, don't give me any of that, Mooney! Blanche Devine's a town +character. Even the kids know what she is. If she's got +religion or something, and wants to quit and be decent, why +doesn't she go to another town-- Chicago or someplace--where +nobody knows her?" + +That motion of Alderman Mooney's thumb against the smooth pipe +bowl stopped. He looked up slowly. + +"That's what I said--the mayor too. But Blanche Devine said she +wanted to try it here. She said this was home to her. +Funny--ain't it? Said she wouldn't be fooling anybody here. +They know her. And if she moved away, she said, it'd leak out +some way sooner or later. It does, she said. Always! Seems she +wants to live like--well, like other women. She put it like +this: she says she hasn't got religion, or any of that. She says +she's no different than she was when she was twenty. She says +that for the last ten years the ambition of her life has been to +be able to go into a grocery store and ask the price of, say, +celery; and, if the clerk charged her ten when it ought to be +seven, to be able to sass him with a regular piece of her mind-- +and then sail out and trade somewhere else until he saw that she +didn't have to stand anything from storekeepers, any more than +any other woman that did her own marketing. She's a smart woman, +Blanche is! God knows I ain't taking her part--exactly; but she +talked a little, and the mayor and me got a little of her +history." + +A sneer appeared on the face of the Very Young Husband. He had +been known before he met Jen as a rather industrious sower of +wild oats. He knew a thing or two, did the Very Young Husband, +in spite of his youth! He always fussed when Jen wore even a +V-necked summer gown on the street. + +"Oh, she wasn't playing for sympathy," went on Alderman Mooney +in answer to the sneer. "She said she'd always paid her way and +always expected to. Seems her husband left her without a cent +when she was eighteen--with a baby. She worked for four dollars +a week in a cheap eating house. The two of 'em couldn't live on +that. Then the baby----" + +"Good night!" said the Very Young Husband. "I suppose Mrs. +Mooney's going to call?" + +"Minnie! It was her scolding all through supper that drove me +down to monkey with the furnace. She's wild--Minnie is." He +peeled off his overalls and hung them on a nail. The Young +Husband started to ascend the cellar stairs. Alderman Mooney +laid a detaining finger on his sleeve. "Don't say anything in +front of Minnie! She's boiling! Minnie and the kids are going +to visit her folks out West this summer; so I wouldn't so much as +dare to say `Good morning!' to the Devine woman. Anyway, a +person wouldn't talk to her, I suppose. But I kind of thought +I'd tell you about her. + +"Thanks!" said the Very Young Husband dryly. + +In the early spring, before Blanche Devine moved in, there came +stone- masons, who began to build something. It was a great +stone fireplace that rose in massive incongruity at the side of +the little white cottage. Blanche Devine was trying to make a +home for herself. + +Blanche Devine used to come and watch them now and then as the +work progressed. She had a way of walking round and round the +house, looking up at it and poking at plaster and paint with her +umbrella or finger tip. One day she brought with her a man with +a spade. He spaded up a neat square of ground at the side of the +cottage and a long ridge near the fence that separated her yard +from that of the Very Young Couple next door. The ridge spelled +sweet peas and nasturtiums to our small-town eyes. + +On the day that Blanche Devine moved in there was wild agitation +among the white-ruffed bedroom curtains of the neighborhood. +Later on certain odors, as of burning dinners, pervaded the +atmosphere. Blanche Devine, flushed and excited, her hair +slightly askew, her diamond eardrops flashing, directed the +moving, wrapped in her great fur coat; but on the third morning +we gasped when she appeared out-of-doors, carrying a little +household ladder, a pail of steaming water, and sundry voluminous +white cloths. She reared the little ladder against the side of +the house, mounted it cautiously, and began to wash windows with +housewifely thoroughness. Her stout figure was swathed in a gray +sweater and on her head was a battered felt hat--the sort of +window--washing costume that has been worn by women from time +immemorial. We noticed that she used plenty of hot water and +clean rags, and that she rubbed the glass until it sparkled, +leaning perilously sideways on the ladder to detect elusive +streaks. Our keenest housekeeping eye could find no fault with +the way Blanche Devine washed windows. + +By May, Blanche Devine had left off her diamond eardrops--perhaps +it was their absence that gave her face a new expression. When +she went downtown we noticed that her hats were more like the +hats the other women in our town wore; but she still affected +extravagant footgear, as is right and proper for a stout woman +who has cause to be vain of her feet. We noticed that her trips +downtown were rare that spring and summer. She used to come home +laden with little bundles; and before supper she would change her +street clothes for a neat, washable housedress, as is our thrifty +custom. Through her bright windows we could see her moving +briskly about from kitchen to sitting room; and from the smells +that floated out from her kitchen door, she seemed to be +preparing for her solitary supper the same homely viands that +were frying or stewing or baking in our kitchens. Sometimes you +could detect the delectable scent of browning, hot tea biscuit. +It takes a determined woman to make tea biscuit for no one but +herself. + +Blanche Devine joined the church. On the first Sunday morning +she came to the service there was a little flurry among the +ushers at the vestibule door. They seated her well in the rear. +The second Sunday morning a dreadful thing happened. The woman +next to whom they seated her turned, regarded her stonily for a +moment, then rose agitatedly and moved to a pew across the aisle. + +Blanche Devine's face went a dull red beneath her white powder. +She never came again--though we saw the minister visit her once +or twice. She always accompanied him to the door pleasantly, +holding it well open until he was down the little flight of steps +and on the sidewalk. The minister's wife did not call. + +She rose early, like the rest of us; and as summer came on we +used to see her moving about in her little garden patch in the +dewy, golden morning. She wore absurd pale-blue negligees that +made her stout figure loom immense against the greenery of garden +and apple tree. The neighborhood women viewed these negligees +with Puritan disapproval as they smoothed down their own prim, +starched gingham skirts. They said it was disgusting --and +perhaps it was; but the habit of years is not easily overcome. +Blanche Devine--snipping her sweet peas, peering anxiously at the +Virginia creeper that clung with such fragile fingers to the +trellis, watering the flower baskets that hung from her +porch--was blissfully unconscious of the disapproving eyes. I +wish one of us had just stopped to call good morning to her over +the fence, and to say in our neighborly, small-town way: "My, +ain't this a scorcher! So early too! It'll be fierce by noon!" + +But we did not. + +I think perhaps the evenings must have been the loneliest for +her. The summer evenings in our little town are filled with +intimate, human, neighborly sounds. After the heat of the day it +is pleasant to relax in the cool comfort of the front porch, with +the life of the town eddying about us. We sew and read out there +until it grows dusk. We call across lots to our next- door +neighbor. The men water the lawns and the flower boxes and get +together in little, quiet groups to discuss the new street +paving. I have even known Mrs. Hines to bring her cherries out +there when she had canning to do, and pit them there on the front +porch partially shielded by her porch vine, but not so +effectually that she was deprived of the sights and sounds about +her. The kettle in her lap and the dishpan full of great ripe +cherries on the porch floor by her chair, she would pit and chat +and peer out through the vines, the red juice staining her plump +bare arms. + +I have wondered since what Blanche Devine thought of us those +lonesome evenings--those evenings filled with friendly sights and +sounds. It must have been difficult for her, who had dwelt +behind closed shutters so long, to seat herself on the new front +porch for all the world to stare at; but she did sit +there--resolutely--watching us in silence. + +She seized hungrily upon the stray crumbs of conversation that +fell to her. The milkman and the iceman and the butcher boy used +to hold daily conversation with her. They--sociable +gentlemen--would stand on her door- step, one grimy hand resting +against the white of her doorpost, exchanging the time of day +with Blanche in the doorway--a tea towel in one hand, perhaps, +and a plate in the other. Her little house was a miracle of +cleanliness. It was no uncommon sight to see her down on her +knees on the kitchen floor, wielding her brush and rag like the +rest of us. In canning and preserving time there floated out +from her kitchen the pungent scent of pickled crab apples; the +mouth-watering smell that meant sweet pickles; or the cloying, +divinely sticky odor that meant raspberry jam. Snooky, from her +side of the fence, often used to peer through the pickets, gazing +in the direction of the enticing smells next door. + +Early one September morning there floated out from Blanche +Devine's kitchen that fragrant, sweet scent of fresh-baked +cookies--cookies with butter in them, and spice, and with nuts on +top. Just by the smell of them your mind's eye pictured them +coming from the oven-crisp brown circlets, crumbly, delectable. +Snooky, in her scarlet sweater and cap, sniffed them from afar +and straightway deserted her sand pile to take her stand at the +fence. She peered through the restraining bars, standing on +tiptoe. Blanche Devine, glancing up from her board and rolling +pin, saw the eager golden head. And Snooky, with guile in her +heart, raised one fat, dimpled hand above the fence and waved it +friendlily. Blanche Devine waved back. Thus encouraged, +Snooky's two hands wigwagged frantically above the pickets. +Blanche Devine hesitated a moment, her floury hand on her hip. +Then she went to the pantry shelf and took out a clean white +saucer. She selected from the brown jar on the table three of +the brownest, crumbliest, most perfect cookies, with a walnut +meat perched atop of each, placed them temptingly on the saucer +and, descending the steps, came swiftly across the grass to the +triumphant Snooky. Blanche Devine held out the saucer, her lips +smiling, her eyes tender. Snooky reached up with one plump white +arm. + +"Snooky!" shrilled a high voice. "Snooky!" A voice of +horror and of wrath. "Come here to me this minute! And don't +you dare to touch those!" Snooky hesitated rebelliously, one +pink finger in her pouting mouth. + +"Snooky! Do you hear me?" + +And the Very Young Wife began to descend the steps of her back +porch. Snooky, regretful eyes on the toothsome dainties, turned +away aggrieved. The Very Young Wife, her lips set, her eyes +flashing, advanced and seized the shrieking Snooky by one arm and +dragged her away toward home and safety. + +Blanche Devine stood there at the fence, holding the saucer in +her hand. The saucer tipped slowly, and the three cookies slipped +off and fell to the grass. Blanche Devine stood staring at them +a moment. Then she turned quickly, went into the house, and shut +the door. + +It was about this time we noticed that Blanche Devine was away +much of the time. The little white cottage would be empty for +weeks. We knew she was out of town because the expressman would +come for her trunk. We used to lift our eyebrows significantly. +The newspapers and handbills would accumulate in a dusty little +heap on the porch; but when she returned there was always a grand +cleaning, with the windows open, and Blanche--her head bound +turbanwise in a towel--appearing at a window every few minutes to +shake out a dustcloth. She seemed to put an enormous amount of +energy into those cleanings--as if they were a sort of safety +valve. + +As winter came on she used to sit up before her grate fire long, +long after we were asleep in our beds. When she neglected to +pull down the shades we could see the flames of her cosy fire +dancing gnomelike on the wall. +There came a night of sleet and snow, and wind and rattling +hail--one of those blustering, wild nights that are followed by +morning-paper reports of trains stalled in drifts, mail delayed, +telephone and telegraph wires down. It must have been midnight +or past when there came a hammering at Blanche Devine's door--a +persistent, clamorous rapping. Blanche Devine, sitting before +her dying fire half asleep, started and cringed when she heard +it, then jumped to her feet, her hand at her breast--her eyes +darting this way and that, as though seeking escape. + +She had heard a rapping like that before. It had meant bluecoats +swarming up the stairway, and frightened cries and pleadings, and +wild confusion. So she started forward now, quivering. And then +she remembered, being wholly awake now--she remembered, and threw +up her head and smiled a little bitterly and walked toward the +door. The hammering continued, louder than ever. Blanche Devine +flicked on the porch light and opened the door. The half-clad +figure of the Very Young Wife next door staggered into the room. +She seized Blanche Devine's arm with both her frenzied hands and +shook her, the wind and snow beating in upon both of them. + +"The baby!" she screamed in a high, hysterical voice. "The +baby! The baby----!" + +Blanche Devine shut the door and shook the Young Wife smartly by +the shoulders. + +"Stop screaming," she said quietly. "Is she sick?" + +The Young Wife told her, her teeth chattering: + +"Come quick! She's dying! Will's out of town. I tried to get +the doctor. The telephone wouldn't---- I saw your light! For +God's sake----" + +Blanche Devine grasped the Young Wife's arm, opened the door, and +together they sped across the little space that separated the two +houses. Blanche Devine was a big woman, but she took the stairs +like a girl and found the right bedroom by some miraculous woman +instinct. A dreadful choking, rattling sound was coming from +Snooky's bed. + +"Croup," said Blanche Devine, and began her fight. + +It was a good fight. She marshaled her inadequate forces, made +up of the half-fainting Young Wife and the terrified and awkward +hired girl. + +"Get the hot water on--lots of it!" Blanche Devine pinned up +her sleeves. "Hot cloths! Tear up a sheet--or anything! Got an +oilstove? I want a tea- kettle boiling in the room. She's got +to have the steam. If that don't do it we'll raise an umbrella +over her and throw a sheet over, and hold the kettle under till +the steam gets to her that way. Got any ipecac?" + +The Young Wife obeyed orders, white-faced and shaking. Once +Blanche Devine glanced up at her sharply. + +"Don't you dare faint!" she commanded. + +And the fight went on. Gradually the breathing that had been so +frightful became softer, easier. Blanche Devine did not relax. +It was not until the little figure breathed gently in sleep that +Blanche Devine sat back, satisfied. Then she tucked a cover at +the side of the bed, took a last satisfied look at the face on +the pillow, and turned to look at the wan, disheveled Young Wife. + +"She's all right now. We can get the doctor when morning +comes-- though I don't know's you'll need him." + +The Young Wife came round to Blanche Devine's side of the bed and +stood looking up at her. + +"My baby died," said Blanche Devine simply. The Young Wife +gave a little inarticulate cry, put her two hands on Blanche +Devine's broad shoulders, and laid her tired head on her breast. + +"I guess I'd better be going," said Blanche Devine. + +The Young Wife raised her head. Her eyes were round with fright. + +"Going! Oh, please stay! I'm so afraid. Suppose she should +take sick again! That awful--breathing----" + +"I'll stay if you want me to." + +"Oh, please! I'll make up your bed and you can rest----" + +"I'm not sleepy. I'm not much of a hand to sleep anyway. I'll +sit up here in the hall, where there's a light. You get to bed. +I'll watch and see that everything's all right. Have you got +something I can read out here--something kind of lively--with a +love story in it?" + +So the night went by. Snooky slept in her white bed. The Very +Young Wife half dozed in her bed, so near the little one. In the +hall, her stout figure looming grotesque in wall shadows, sat +Blanche Devine, pretending to read. Now and then she rose and +tiptoed into the bedroom with miraculous quiet, and stooped over +the little bed and listened and looked--and tiptoed away again, +satisfied. + +The Young Husband came home from his business trip next day with +tales of snowdrifts and stalled engines. Blanche Devine breathed +a sigh of relief when she saw him from her kitchen window. She +watched the house now with a sort of proprietary eye. She +wondered about Snooky; but she knew better than to ask. So she +waited. The Young Wife next door had told her husband all about +that awful night--had told him with tears and sobs. The Very +Young Husband had been very, very angry with her-- angry, he +said, and astonished! Snooky could not have been so sick! Look +at her now! As well as ever. And to have called such a woman! +Well, he did not want to be harsh; but she must understand that +she must never speak to the woman again. Never! + +So the next day the Very Young Wife happened to go by with the +Young Husband. Blanche Devine spied them from her sitting-room +window, and she made the excuse of looking in her mailbox in +order to go to the door. She stood in the doorway and the Very +Young Wife went by on the arm of her husband. She went +by--rather white-faced--without a look or a word or a sign! + +And then this happened! There came into Blanche Devine's face a +look that made slits of her eyes, and drew her mouth down into an +ugly, narrow line, and that made the muscles of her jaw tense and +hard. It was the ugliest look you can imagine. Then she +smiled--if having one's lips curl away from one's teeth can be +called smiling. + +Two days later there was great news of the white cottage on the +corner. The curtains were down; the furniture was packed; the +rugs were rolled. The wagons came and backed up to the house and +took those things that had made a home for Blanche Devine. And +when we heard that she had bought back her interest in the House +with the Closed Shutters, near the freight depot, we sniffed. + +"I knew she wouldn't last!" we said. + +"They never do!" said we. + + + +The Gay Old Dog +[1917] + + +Those of you who have dwelt--or even lingered--in Chicago, +Illinois, are familiar with the region known as the Loop. For +those others of you to whom Chicago is a transfer point between +New York and California there is presented this brief +explanation: + +The Loop is a clamorous, smoke-infested district embraced by the +iron arms of the elevated tracks. In a city boasting fewer +millions, it would be known familiarly as downtown. From +Congress to Lake Street, from Wabash almost to the river, those +thunderous tracks make a complete circle, or loop. Within it lie +the retail shops, the commercial hotels, the theaters, the +restaurants. It is the Fifth Avenue and the Broadway of Chicago. + +And he who frequents it by night in search of amusement and cheer +is known, vulgarly, as a Loop-hound. + +Jo Hertz was a Loop-hound. On the occasion of those sparse first +nights granted the metropolis of the Middle West he was always +present, third row, aisle, left. When a new Loop cafe' was +opened, Jo's table always commanded an unobstructed view of +anything worth viewing. On entering he was wont to say, "Hello, +Gus," with careless cordiality to the headwaiter, the while his +eye roved expertly from table to table as he removed his gloves. +He ordered things under glass, so that his table, at midnight or +thereabouts, resembled a hotbed that favors the bell system. The +waiters fought for him. He was the kind of man who mixes his own +salad dressing. He liked to call for a bowl, some cracked ice, +lemon, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil and make a +rite of it. People at near-by tables would lay down their knives +and forks to watch, fascinated. The secret of it seemed to lie +in using all the oil in sight and calling for more. + +That was Jo--a plump and lonely bachelor of fifty. A plethoric, +roving- eyed, and kindly man, clutching vainly at the garments of +a youth that had long slipped past him. Jo Hertz, in one of +those pinch-waist suits and a belted coat and a little green hat, +walking up Michigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, trying +to take the curb with a jaunty youthfulness against which every +one of his fat-encased muscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or +pity, depending on one's vision. + +The gay-dog business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. +He had been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and +harassed brother of three unwed and selfish sisters is an +underdog. + +At twenty-seven Jo had been the dutiful, hard-working son (in the +wholesale harness business) of a widowed and gummidging mother, +who called him Joey. Now and then a double wrinkle would appear +between Jo's eyes--a wrinkle that had no business there at +twenty-seven. Then Jo's mother died, leaving him handicapped by +a deathbed promise, the three sisters, and a +three-story-and-basement house on Calumet Avenue. Jo's wrinkle +became a fixture. + +"Joey," his mother had said, in her high, thin voice, "take +care of the girls." + +"I will, Ma," Jo had choked. + +"Joey," and the voice was weaker, "promise me you won't marry +till the girls are all provided for." Then as Jo had hesitated, +appalled: "Joey, it's my dying wish. Promise!" + +"I promise, Ma," he had said. + +Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a +completely ruined life. + +They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style, +too. That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught +school over on the West Side. In those days it took her almost +two hours each way. She said the kind of costume she required +should have been corrugated steel. But all three knew what was +being worn, and they wore it--or fairly faithful copies of it. +Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack. She could skim +the State Street windows and come away with a mental photograph +of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of +departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she +went home and reproduced them with the aid of a seamstress by the +day. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe. + +Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the +household leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and +hated it. Eva kept house expertly and complainingly. Babe's +profession was being the family beauty, and it took all her spare +time. Eva always let her sleep until ten. + +This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But +it was an empty title. The three women dominated his life. They +weren't con- sciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they +would have put you down as mad. When you are the lone brother of +three sisters, it means that you must constantly be calling for, +escorting, or dropping one of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's +age were standing before their mirror of a Saturday night, +whistling blithely and abstractedly while they discarded a blue +polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the maroon for a +shot-silk and at the last moment decided against the shot-silk in +favor of a plain black-and-white because she had once said she +preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening his +feathers for conquest, was saying: + +"Well, my God, I AM hurrying! Give a man time, can't you? I +just got home. You girls been laying around the house all day. +No wonder you're ready." + +He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a +time when he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and +brilliant-hued socks, according to the style of that day and the +inalienable right of any unwed male under thirty, in any day. On +those rare occasions when his business necessitated an +out-of-town trip, he would spend half a day floundering about the +shops selecting handkerchiefs, or stockings, or feathers, or +gloves for the girls. They always turned out to be the wrong +kind, judging by their reception. + +From Carrie, "What in the world do I want of long white +gloves!" + +"I thought you didn't have any," Jo would say. + +"I haven't. I never wear evening clothes." + +Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his +way when disturbed. "I just thought you'd like them. I thought +every girl liked long white gloves. Just," feebly, "just +to--to have." + +"Oh, for pity's sake!" + +And from Eva or Babe, "I've GOT silk stockings, Jo." Or, "You +brought me handkerchiefs the last time." + +There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in +any gift freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the +exquisite pleasure it gave him to select these things, these +fine, soft, silken things. There were many things about this +slow-going, amiable brother of theirs that they never suspected. +If you had told them he was a dreamer of dreams, for example, +they would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine +o'clock after a hard day downtown, he would doze over the evening +paper. At intervals he would wake, red-eyed, to a snatch of +conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue you can wear +it anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet, +too." Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem +of the new spring dress. They never guessed that the com- +monplace man in the frayed old smoking jacket had banished them +all from the room long ago; had banished himself, for that +matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather +dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled evening +clothes. The kind of man who can lean up against a mantel, or +propose a toast, or give an order to a manservant, or whisper a +gallant speech in a lady's ear with equal ease. The shabby old +house on Calumet Avenue was transformed into a brocaded and +chandeliered rendezvous for the brilliance of the city. Beauty +was here, and wit. But none so beautiful and witty as She. +Mrs.--er--Jo Hertz. There was wine, of course; but no vulgar +display. There was music; the soft sheen of satin; laughter. +And he, the gracious, tactful host, king of his own domain---- + +"Jo, for heaven's sake, if you're going to snore, go to bed!" + +"Why--did I fall asleep?" + +"You haven't been doing anything else all evening. A person +would think you were fifty instead of thirty." + +And Jo Hertz was again just the dull, gray, commonplace brother +of three well-meaning sisters. + +Babe used to say petulantly, "Jo, why don't you ever bring home +any of your men friends? A girl might as well not have any +brother, all the good you do." + +Jo, conscience-stricken, did his best to make amends. But a man +who has been petticoat-ridden for years loses the knack, somehow, +of comradeship with men. + +One Sunday in May Jo came home from a late-Sunday-afternoon walk +to find company for supper. Carrie often had in one of her +schoolteacher friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, or +even Eva a staid guest of the old-girl type. There was always a +Sunday-night supper of potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, +and perhaps a fresh cake. Jo rather enjoyed it, being a +hospitable soul. But he regarded the guests with the undazzled +eyes of a man to whom they were just so many petticoats, timid of +the night streets and requiring escort home. If you had +suggested to him that some of his sisters' popularity was due to +his own presence, or if you had hinted that the more kittenish of +these visitors were probably making eyes at him, he would have +stared in amazement and unbelief. + +This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends. + +"Emily," said Carrie, "this is my brother, Jo." + +Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking +women in the late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted +downward. + +"Happy to meet you," said Jo, and looked down at a different +sort altogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of +Carrie's friends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, +and blue-eyed, and crinkly looking. The corners of her mouth when +she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair, +which was brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of +looking golden. + +Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and +soft, so that you were afraid of crushing it, until you +discovered she had a firm little grip all her own. It surprised +and amused you, that grip, as does a baby's unexpected clutch on +your patronizing forefinger. As Jo felt it in his own big clasp, +the strangest thing happened to him. Something inside Jo Hertz +stopped working for a moment, then lurched sickeningly, then +thumped like mad. It was his heart. He stood staring down at +her, and she up at him, until the others laughed. Then their +hands fell apart, lingeringly. + +"Are you a schoolteacher, Emily?" he said. + +"Kindergarten. It's my first year. And don't call me Emily, +please." + +"Why not? It's your name. I think it's the prettiest name in +the world." Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he +was perfectly aghast to find himself saying it. But he meant it. + +At supper he passed her things, and stared, until everybody +laughed again, and Eva said acidly, "Why don't you feed her?" + +It wasn't that Emily had an air of helplessness. She just made +him feel he wanted her to be helpless, so that he could help her. + +Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night he began to strain +at the leash. He took his sisters out, dutifully, but he would +suggest, with a carelessness that deceived no one, "Don't you +want one of your girl friends to come along? That little +What's-her-name-Emily, or something. So long's I've got three of +you, I might as well have a full squad." + +For a long time he didn't know what was the matter with him. He +only knew he was miserable, and yet happy. Sometimes his heart +seemed to ache with an actual physical ache. He realized that he +wanted to do things for Emily. He wanted to buy things for +Emily--useless, pretty, expensive things that he couldn't afford. + +He wanted to buy everything that Emily needed, and everything +that Emily desired. He wanted to marry Emily. That was it. He +discovered that one day, with a shock, in the midst of a +transaction in the harness business. He stared at the man with +whom he was dealing until that startled person grew +uncomfortable. "What's the matter, Hertz?" "Matter?" "You +look as if you'd seen a ghost or found a gold mine. I don't know +which." "Gold mine," said Jo. And then, "No. Ghost." For +he remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And the +harness business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, +as the automobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to +stop it. But he was not that kind of businessman. It never +occurred to him to jump out of the down-going vehicle and catch +the up-going one. He stayed on, vainly applying brakes that +refused to work. "You know, Emily, I couldn't support two +households now. Not the way things are. But if you'll wait. If +you'll only wait. The girls might--that is, Babe and Carrie--" + +She was a sensible little thing, Emily. "Of course I'll wait. +But we mustn't just sit back and let the years go by. We've got +to help." + +She went about it as if she were already a little matchmaking +matron. She corralled all the men she had ever known and +introduced them to Babe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, +and en masse. She got up picnics. She stayed home while Jo took +the three about. When she was present she tried to look as plain +and obscure as possible, so that the sisters should show up to +advantage. She schemed, and planned, and contrived, and hoped; +and smiled into Jo's despairing eyes. + +And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still +taught school, and hated it. Eva kept house more and more +complainingly as prices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell +was still Babe, the family beauty. Emily's hair, somehow, lost +its glint and began to look just plain brown. Her crinkliness +began to iron out. + +"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night. "We +could be happy, anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. +Lots of people begin that way. Of course, I couldn't give you +all I'd like to, at first. But maybe, after a while--" No +dreams of salons, and brocade, and velvet-footed servitors, and +satin damask now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and +Emily to work for. That was his dream. But it seemed less +possible than that other absurd one had been. + +Emily was as practical a little thing as she looked fluffy. She +knew women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, and Babe. +She tried to imagine herself taking the household affairs and the +housekeeping pocket- book out of Eva's expert hands. So then she +tried to picture herself allowing the reins of Jo's house to +remain in Eva's hands. And everything feminine and normal in her +rebelled. Emily knew she'd want to put away her own freshly +laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. She was that kind of +woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightful haggling +with butcher and grocer. She knew she'd want to muss Jo's hair, +and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, +without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden eyes +and ears. + +"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't +object. And they would, Jo. Wouldn't they?" + +His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me. +don't you, Emily?" + +"I do, Jo. I love you--and love you--and love you. But, Jo, +I--can't." + +"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just +thought, maybe, somehow----" + +The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped. + +Then they both shut their eyes with a little shudder, as though +what they saw was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny +hand that was so unexpectedly firm, tightened its hold on his, +and his crushed the absurd fingers until she winced with pain. + +That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it. + +Emily wasn't the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There +are too many Jos in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and +then thump at the feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small +hand in their grip. One year later Emily was married to a young +man whose father owned a large, pie- shaped slice of the +prosperous state of Michigan. + +That being safely accomplished, there was something grimly +humorous in the trend taken by affairs in the old house on +Calumet. For Eva married. Married well, too, though he was a +great deal older than she. She went off in a hat she had copied +from a French model at Field's, and a suit she had contrived with +a home dressmaker, aided by pressing on the part of the little +tailor in the basement over on Thirty-first Street. It was the +last of that, though. The next time they saw her, she had on a +hat that even she would have despaired of copying, and a suit +that sort of melted into your gaze. She moved to the North Side +(trust Eva for that), and Babe assumed the management of the +household on Calumet Avenue. It was rather a pinched little +household now, for the harness business shrank and shrank. + +"I don't see how you can expect me to keep house decently on +this!" Babe would say contemptuously. Babe's nose, always a +little inclined to sharpness, had whittled down to a point of +late. "If you knew what Ben gives Eva." + +"It's the best I can do, Sis. Business is something rotten." + +"Ben says if you had the least bit of----" Ben was Eva's +husband, and quotable, as are all successful men. + +"I don't care what Ben says," shouted Jo, goaded into rage. +"I'm sick of your everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your +own, why don't you, if you're so stuck on the way he does +things." + +And Babe did. She made a last desperate drive, aided by Eva, and +she captured a rather surprised young man in the brokerage way, +who had made up his mind not to marry for years and years. Eva +wanted to give her her wedding things, but at that Jo broke into +sudden rebellion. + +"No, sir! No Ben is going to buy my sister's wedding clothes, +understand? I guess I'm not broke--yet. I'll furnish the money +for her things, and there'll be enough of them, too." Babe had +as useless a trousseau, and as filled with extravagant pink-and- +blue and lacy and frilly things, as any daughter of doting +parents. Jo seemed to find a grim pleasure in providing them. +But it left him pretty well pinched. After Babe's marriage (she +insisted that they call her Estelle now) Jo sold the house on +Calumet. He and Carrie took one of those little flats that were +springing up, seemingly overnight, all through Chicago's South +Side. + +There was nothing domestic about Carrie. She had given up +teaching two years before, and had gone into social-service work +on the West Side. She had what is known as a legal mind--hard, +clear, orderly--and she made a great success of it. Her dream +was to live at the Settlement House and give all her time to the +work. Upon the little household she bestowed a certain amount of +grim, capable attention. It was the same kind of attention she +would have given a piece of machinery whose oiling and running +had been entrusted to her care. She hated it, and didn't +hesitate to say so. + +Jo took to prowling about department-store basements, and +household goods sections. He was always sending home a bargain +in a ham, or a sack of potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a +window clamp, or a new kind of paring knife. He was forever +doing odd jobs that the janitor should have done. It was the +domestic in him claiming its own. + +Then, one night, Carrie came home with a dull glow in her +leathery cheeks, and her eyes alight with resolve. They had what +she called a plain talk. + +"Listen, Jo. They've offered me the job of first assistant +resident worker. And I'm going to take it. Take it! I know +fifty other girls who'd give their ears for it. I go in next +month." + +They were at dinner. Jo looked up from his plate, dully. Then +he glanced around the little dining room, with its ugly tan walls +and its heavy, dark furniture (the Calumet Avenue pieces fitted +cumbersomely into the five-room flat). + +"Away? Away from here, you mean--to live?" + +Carrie laid down her fork. "Well, really, Jo! After all that +explanation." + +"But to go over there to live! Why, that neighborhood's full of +dirt, and disease, and crime, and the Lord knows what all. I +can't let you do that, Carrie." + +Carrie's chin came up. She laughed a short little laugh. "Let +me! That's eighteenth-century talk, Jo. My life's my own to +live. I'm going." + +And she went. + +Jo stayed on in the apartment until the lease was up. Then he +sold what furniture he could, stored or gave away the rest, and +took a room on Michigan Avenue in one of the old stone mansions +whose decayed splendor was being put to such purpose. + +Jo Hertz was his own master. Free to marry. Free to come and +go. And he found he didn't even think of marrying. He didn't +even want to come or go, particularly. A rather frumpy old +bachelor, with thinning hair and a thickening neck. + +Every Thursday evening he took dinner at Eva's, and on Sunday +noon at Stell's. He tucked his napkin under his chin and openly +enjoyed the homemade soup and the well-cooked meats. After +dinner he tried to talk business with Eva's husband, or Stell's. +His business talks were the old- fashioned kind, beginning: + +"Well, now, looka here. Take, f'rinstance, your raw hides and +leathers." + +But Ben and George didn't want to take, f'rinstance, your raw +hides and leathers. They wanted, when they took anything at all, +to take golf, or politics, or stocks. They were the modern type +of businessman who prefers to leave his work out of his play. +Business, with them, was a profession-- a finely graded and +balanced thing, differing from Jo's clumsy, down- hill style as +completely as does the method of a great criminal detective +differ from that of a village constable. They would listen, +restively, and say, "Uh-uh," at intervals, and at the first +chance they would sort of fade out of the room, with a meaning +glance at their wives. Eva had two children now. Girls. They +treated Uncle Jo with good-natured tolerance. Stell had no +children. Uncle Jo degenerated, by almost imperceptible degrees, +from the position of honored guest, who is served with white +meat, to that of one who is content with a leg and one of those +obscure and bony sections which, after much turning with a +bewildered and investigating knife and fork, leave one baffled +and unsatisfied. + +Eva and Stell got together and decided that Jo ought to marry. + +"It isn't natural," Eva told him. "I never saw a man who took +so little interest in women." + +"Me!" protested Jo, almost shyly. "Women!" + +"Yes. Of course. You act like a frightened schoolboy." + +So they had in for dinner certain friends and acquaintances of +fitting age. They spoke of them as "splendid girls." Between +thirty-six and forty. They talked awfully well, in a firm, clear +way, about civics, and classes, and politics, and economics, and +boards. They rather terrified Jo. He didn't understand much +that they talked about, and he felt humbly inferior, and yet a +little resentful, as if something had passed him by. He escorted +them home, dutifully, though they told him not to bother, and +they evidently meant it. They seemed capable not only of going +home quite unattended but of delivering a pointed lecture to any +highwayman or brawler who might molest them. + +The following Thursday Eva would say, "How did you like her, +Jo?" + +"Like who?" Joe would spar feebly. + +"Miss Matthews." + +"Who's she?" + +"Now, don't be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl who +was here for dinner. The one who talked so well on the +emigration question." + +"Oh, her! Why, I liked her all right. Seems to be a smart +woman." + +"Smart! She's a perfectly splendid girl." + +"Sure," Jo would agree cheerfully. + +"But didn't you like her?" + +"I can't say I did, Eve. And I can't say I didn't. She made me +think a lot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of +Himes. As I recall her, she must have been a fine woman. But I +never thought of Himes as a woman at all. She was just +Teacher." + +"You make me tired," snapped Eva impatiently. "A man of your +age. You don't expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!" + +"I don't expect to marry anybody," Jo had answered. + +And that was the truth, lonely though he often was. + +The following spring Eva moved to Winnetka. Anyone who got the +meaning of the Loop knows the significance of a move to a North +Shore suburb, and a house. Eva's daughter, Ethel, was growing +up, and her mother had an eye on society. + +That did away with Jo's Thursday dinners. Then Stell's husband +bought a car. They went out into the country every Sunday. +Stell said it was getting so that maids objected to Sunday +dinners, anyway. Besides, they were unhealthful, old-fashioned +things. They always meant to ask Jo to come along, but by the +time their friends were placed, and the lunch, and the boxes, and +sweaters, and George's camera, and everything, there seemed to be +no room for a man of Jo's bulk. So that eliminated the Sunday +dinners. + +"Just drop in any time during the week," Stell said, "for +dinner. Except Wednesday--that's our bridge night--and Saturday. + +And, of course, Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for +me to phone." + +And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of +those you see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper +propped up against the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly +and with indifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying +them through the brazen plate-glass window. + +And then came the war. The war that spelled death and +destruction to millions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo +Hertz, and transformed him, overnight, from a baggy-kneed old +bachelor whose business was a failure to a prosperous +manufacturer whose only trouble was the shortage in hides for the +making of his product. Leather! The armies of Europe called for +it. Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions of straps. +More! More! + +The musty old harness business over on Lake Street was magically +changed from a dust-covered, dead-alive concern to an orderly +hive that hummed and glittered with success. Orders poured in. +Jo Hertz had inside information on the war. He knew about troops +and horses. He talked with French and English and Italian buyers +commissioned by their countries to get American-made supplies. +And now, when he said to Ben or George, "Take, f'rinstance, your +raw hides and leathers," they listened with respectful +attention. + +And then began the gay-dog business in the life of Jo Hertz. He +developed into a Loop-hound, ever keen on the scent of fresh +pleasure. That side of Jo Hertz which had been repressed and +crushed and ignored began to bloom, unhealthily. At first he +spent money on his rather contemptuous nieces. He sent them +gorgeous furs, and watch bracelets, and bags. He took two +expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, and there was something more +tear-compelling than grotesque about the way he gloated over the +luxury of a separate ice-water tap in the bathroom. He explained +it. + +"Just turn it on. Any hour of the day or night. Ice water!" + +He bought a car. Naturally. A glittering affair; in color a +bright blue, with pale-blue leather straps and a great deal of +gold fittings, and special tires. Eva said it was the kind of +thing a chorus girl would use, rather than an elderly +businessman. You saw him driving about in it, red-faced and +rather awkward at the wheel. You saw him, too, in the Pompeian +Room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon when +roving-eyed matrons in mink coats are wont to congregate to sip +pale-amber drinks. Actors grew to recognize the semibald head and +the shining, round, good- natured face looming out at them from +the dim well of the theater, and sometimes, in a musical show, +they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out +the critics as they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding +acquaintance with two of them. + +"Kelly, of the Herald," he would say carelessly. "Bean. of +the Trib. They're all afraid of him." + +So he frolicked, ponderously. In New York he might have been +called a Man About Town. + +And he was lonesome. He was very lonesome. So he searched about +in his mind and brought from the dim past the memory of the +luxuriously furnished establishment of which he used to dream in +the evenings when he dozed over his paper in the old house on +Calumet. So he rented an apartment, many-roomed and expensive, +with a manservant in charge, and furnished it in styles and +periods ranging through all the Louis. The living room was +mostly rose color. It was like an unhealthy and bloated boudoir. +And yet there was nothing sybaritic or uncleanly in the sight of +this paunchy, middle-aged man sinking into the rosy-cushioned +luxury of his ridiculous home. It was a frank and naive +indulgence of long-starved senses, and there was in it a great +resemblance to the rolling-eyed ecstasy of a schoolboy smacking +his lips over an all-day sucker. + +The war went on, and on, and on. And the money continued to roll +in-- a flood of it. Then, one afternoon, Eva, in town on +shopping bent, entered a small, exclusive, and expensive shop on +Michigan Avenue. Eva's weakness was hats. She was seeking a hat +now. She described what she sought with a languid conciseness, +and stood looking about her after the saleswoman had vanished in +quest of it. The room was becomingly rose-illumined and somewhat +dim, so that some minutes had passed before she realized that a +man seated on a raspberry brocade settee not five feet away-- a +man with a walking stick, and yellow gloves, and tan spats, and a +check suit--was her brother Jo. From him Eva's wild-eyed glance +leaped to the woman who was trying on hats before one of the many +long mirrors. She was seated, and a saleswoman was exclaiming +discreetly at her elbow. + +Eva turned sharply and encountered her own saleswoman returning +hat-laden. "Not today," she gasped. "I'm feeling ill. +Suddenly." And almost ran from the room. + +That evening she told Stell, relating her news in that telephone +pidgin English devised by every family of married sisters as +protection against the neighbors. Translated, it ran thus: + +"He looked straight at me. My dear, I thought I'd die! But at +least he had sense enough not to speak. She was one of those +limp, willowy creatures with the greediest eyes that she tried to +keep softened to a baby stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to +get her hands on those hats. I saw it all in one awful minute. +You know the way I do. I suppose some people would call her +pretty. I don't. And her color. Well! And the most expensive- +looking hats. Not one of them under seventy-five. Isn't it +disgusting! At his age! Suppose Ethel had been with me!" + +The next time it was Stell who saw them. In a restaurant. She +said it spoiled her evening. And the third time it was Ethel. +She was one of the guests at a theater party given by Nicky +Overton II. The North Shore Overtons. Lake Forest. They came +in late, and occupied the entire third row at the opening +performance of Believe Me! And Ethel was Nicky's partner. She +was glowing like a rose. When the lights went up after the first +act Ethel saw that her uncle Jo was seated just ahead of her with +what she afterward described as a blonde. Then her uncle had +turned around, and seeing her, had been surprised into a smile +that spread genially all over his plump and rubicund face. Then +he had turned to face forward again, quickly. + +"Who's the old bird?" Nicky had asked. Ethel had pretended not +to hear, so he had asked again. + +"My uncle," Ethel answered, and flushed all over her delicate +face, and down to her throat. Nicky had looked at the blonde, +and his eyebrows had gone up ever so slightly. + +It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her +mother of it later, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her +life. + +Eva talked it over with her husband in that intimate hour that +precedes bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hairbrush. + +"It's disgusting, that's what it is. Perfectly disgusting. +There's no fool like an old fool. Imagine! A creature like +that. At his time of life." + +"Well, I don't know," Ben said, and even grinned a little. "I +suppose a boy's got to sow his wild oats sometime." + +"Don't be any more vulgar than you can help," Eva retorted. +"And I think you know, as well as I, what it means to have that +Overton boy interested in Ethel." + +"If he's interested in her," Ben blundered, "I guess the fact +that Ethel's uncle went to the theater with someone who isn't +Ethel's aunt won't cause a shudder to run up and down his frail +young frame, will it?" + +"All right," Eva had retorted. "If you're not man enough to +stop it, I'll have to, that's all. I'm going up there with Stell +this week." + +They did not notify Jo of their coming. Eva telephoned his +apartment when she knew he would be out, and asked his man if he +expected his master home to dinner that evening. The man had +said yes. Eva arranged to meet Stell in town. They would drive +to Jo's apartment together, and wait for him there. + +When she reached the city Eva found turmoil there. The first of +the American troops to be sent to France were leaving. Michigan +Boulevard was a billowing, surging mass: flags, pennants, +banners, crowds. All the elements that make for demonstration. +And over the whole-quiet. No holiday crowd, this. A solid, +determined mass of people waiting patient hours to see the +khaki-clads go by. Three years had brought them to a clear +knowledge of what these boys were going to. + +"Isn't it dreadful!" Stell gasped. + +"Nicky Overton's too young, thank goodness." + +Their car was caught in the jam. When they moved at all, it was +by inches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were +flushed, nervous, apprehensive. But he had not yet come in. So +they waited. + +No, they were not staying to dinner with their brother, they told +the relieved houseman. + +Stell and Eva, sunk in rose-colored cushions, viewed the place +with disgust and some mirth. They rather avoided each other's +eyes. + +"Carrie ought to be here," Eva said. They both smiled at the +thought of the austere Carrie in the midst of those rosy +cushions, and hangings, and lamps. Stell rose and began to walk +about restlessly. She picked up a vase and laid it down; +straightened a picture. Eva got up, too, and wandered into the +hall. She stood there a moment, listening. Then she turned and +passed into Jo's bedroom, Stell following. And there you knew Jo +for what he was. + +This room was as bare as the other had been ornate. It was Jo, +the clean-minded and simplehearted, in revolt against the cloying +luxury with which he had surrounded himself. The bedroom, of all +rooms in any house, reflects the personality of its occupant. +True, the actual furniture was paneled, cupid-surmounted, and +ridiculous. It had been the fruit of Jo's first orgy of the +senses. But now it stood out in that stark little room with an +air as incongruous and ashamed as that of a pink tarlatan +danseuse who finds herself in a monk's cell. None of those wall +pictures with which bachelor bedrooms are reputed to be hung. No +satin slippers. No scented notes. Two plain-backed military +brushes on the chiffonier (and he so nearly hairless!). A little +orderly stack of books on the table near the bed. Eva fingered +their titles and gave a little gasp. One of them was on +gardening. + +"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Stell. A book on the war, by +an Englishman. A detective story of the lurid type that lulls us +to sleep. His shoes ranged in a careful row in the closet, with +a shoe tree in every one of them. There was something speaking +about them. They looked so human. Eva shut the door on them +quickly. Some bottles on the dresser. A jar of pomade. An +ointment such as a man uses who is growing bald and is panic- +stricken too late. An insurance calendar on the wall. Some +rhubarb-and- soda mixture on the shelf in the bathroom, and a +little box of pepsin tablets. + +"Eats all kinds of things at all hours of the night," Eva said, +and wandered out into the rose-colored front room again with the +air of one who is chagrined at her failure to find what she has +sought. Stell followed her furtively. + +"Where do you suppose he can be?" she demanded. "It's"--she +glanced at her wrist--"why, it's after six!" + +And then there was a little click. The two women sat up, tense. +The door opened. Jo came in. He blinked a little. The two +women in the rosy room stood up. + +"Why--Eve! Why, Babe! Well! Why didn't you let me know?" + +"We were just about to leave. We thought you weren't coming +home." + +Jo came in slowly. + +"I was in the jam on Michigan, watching the boys go by." He +sat down, heavily. The light from the window fell on him. And +you saw that his eyes were red. + +He had found himself one of the thousands in the jam on Michigan +Avenue, as he said. He had a place near the curb, where his big +frame shut off the view of the unfortunates behind him. He +waited with the placid interest of one who has subscribed to all +the funds and societies to which a prosperous, middle-aged +businessman is called upon to subscribe in war-time. Then, just +as he was about to leave, impatient at the delay, the crowd had +cried, with a queer, dramatic, exultant note in its voice, "Here +they come! Here come the boys!" + +Just at that moment two little, futile, frenzied fists began to +beat a mad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in +the crowd, all indignant resentment. "Say, looka here!" + +The little fists kept up their frantic beating and pushing. And +a voice--a choked, high little voice--cried, "Let me by! I +can't see! You MAN, you! You big fat man! My boy's going by--to +war--and I can't see! Let me by!" + +Jo scrooged around, still keeping his place. He looked down. +And upturned to him in agonized appeal was the face of Emily. +They stared at each other for what seemed a long, long time. It +was really only the fraction of a second. Then Jo put one great +arm firmly around Emily's waist and swung her around in front of +him. His great bulk protected her. Emily was clinging to his +hand. She was breathing rapidly, as if she had been running. +Her eyes were straining up the street. + +"Why, Emily, how in the world----!" + +"I ran away. Fred didn't want me to come. He said it would +excite me too much." + +"Fred?" + +"My husband. He made me promise to say good-by to Jo at home." + +"Jo?" + +"Jo's my boy. And he's going to war. So I ran away. I had to +see him. I had to see him go." + +She was dry-eyed. Her gaze was straining up the street. + +"Why, sure," said Jo. "Of course you want to see him." And +then the crowd gave a great roar. There came over Jo a feeling +of weakness. He was trembling. The boys went marching by. + +"There he is," Emily shrilled, above the din. "There he is! +There he is! There he----" And waved a futile little hand. It +wasn't so much a wave as a clutching. A clutching after +something beyond her reach. + +"Which one? Which one, Emily?" + +"The handsome one. The handsome one." Her voice quavered and +died. + +Jo put a steady hand on her shoulder. "Point him out," he +commanded "Show me." And the next instant, "Never mind. I +see him." + +Somehow, miraculously, he had picked him from among the hundreds. +Had picked him as surely as his own father might have. It was +Emily's boy. He was marching by, rather stiffly. He was +nineteen, and fun-loving, and he had a girl, and he didn't +particularly want to go to France and--to go to France. But more +than he had hated going, he had hated not to go. So he marched +by, looking straight ahead, his jaw set so that his chin stuck +out just a little. Emily's boy. + +Jo looked at him, and his face flushed purple. His eyes, the +hard-boiled eyes of a Loop-hound, took on the look of a sad old +man. And suddenly he was no longer Jo, the sport; old J. Hertz, +the gay dog. He was Jo Hertz, thirty, in love with life, in love +with Emily, and with the stinging blood of young manhood coursing +through his veins. + +Another minute and the boy had passed on up the broad street--the +fine, flag-bedecked street--just one of a hundred service hats +bobbing in rhythmic motion like sandy waves lapping a shore and +flowing on. + +Then he disappeared altogether. + +Emily was clinging to Jo. She was mumbling something, over and +over. "I can't. I can't. Don't ask me to. I can't let him go. + +Like that. I can't." + +Jo said a queer thing. + +"Why, Emily! We wouldn't have him stay home, would we? We +wouldn't want him to do anything different, would we? Not our +boy. I'm glad he enlisted. I'm proud of him. So are you +glad." + +Little by little he quieted her. He took her to the car that was +waiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said good-by, +awkwardly. Emily's face was a red, swollen mass. + +So it was that when Jo entered his own hallway half an hour later +he blinked, dazedly, and when the light from the window fell on +him you saw that his eyes were red. + +Eva was not one to beat about the bush. She sat forward in her +chair, clutching her bag rather nervously. + +"Now, look here, Jo. Stell and I are here for a reason. We're +here to tell you that this thing's going to stop." + +"Thing? Stop?" + +"You know very well what I mean. You saw me at the milliner's +that day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. +If you must go about with people like that, please have some +sense of decency." + +Something gathering in Jo's face should have warned her. But he +was slumped down in his chair in such a huddle, and he looked so +old and fat that she did not heed it. She went on. "You've got +us to consider. Your sisters. And your nieces. Not to speak of +your own----" + +But he got to his feet then, shaking, and at what she saw in his +face even Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the face of +a fat, middle-aged sport. It was a face Jovian, terrible. + +"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a +great fist high. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, +twenty years ago. You come to me with talk like that. Where's +my boy! You killed him, you two, twenty years ago. And now he +belongs to somebody else. Where's my son that should have gone +marching by today?" He flung his arms out in a great gesture of +longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead. "Where's my +son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women. Where's +my son!" Then, as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed. + +"Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!" + +They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them. + +Jo stood, shaking, in the center of the room. Then he reached +for a chair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, +flabby hand over his forehead and it came away wet. The +telephone rang. He sat still. It sounded far away and +unimportant, like something forgotten. But it rang and rang +insistently. Jo liked to answer his telephone when he was at +home. + +"Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end. + +"That you, Jo?" it said. + +"Yes." + +"How's my boy?" + +"I'm--all right." + +"Listen, Jo. The crowd's coming over tonight. I've fixed up a +little poker game for you. Just eight of us." + +"I can't come tonight, Gert." + +"Can't! Why not?" + +"I'm not feeling so good." + +"You just said you were all right." + +"I AM all right. Just kind of tired." + +The voice took on a cooing note. "Is my Joey tired? Then he +shall be all comfy on the sofa, and he doesn't need to play if he +don't want to. No, sir." + +Jo stood staring at the black mouthpiece of the telephone. He +was seeing a procession go marching by. Boys, hundreds of boys, +in khaki. + +"Hello! Hello!" The voice took on an anxious note. "Are you +there?" + +"Yes," wearily. + +"Jo, there's something the matter. You're sick. I'm coming +right over." + +"No!" "Why not? You sound as if you'd been sleeping. Look +here----" + +"Leave me alone!" cried Jo, suddenly, and the receiver clacked +onto the hook. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone." Long after +the connection had been broken. + +He stood staring at the instrument with unseeing eyes. Then he +turned and walked into the front room. All the light had gone +out of it. Dusk had come on. All the light had gone out of +everything. The zest had gone out of life. The game was +over--the game he had been playing against loneliness and +disappointment. And he was just a tired old man. A lonely, +tired old man in a ridiculous rose-colored room that had grown, +all of a sudden, drab {sic} + + + + + That's Marriage + [1917] + +Theresa Platt (she had been Terry Sheehan) watched her husband +across the breakfast table with eyes that smoldered. But Orville +Platt was quite unaware of any smoldering in progress. He was +occupied with his eggs. How could he know that these very eggs +were feeding the dull red menace in Terry Platt's eyes? + +When Orville Platt ate a soft-boiled egg he concentrated on it. +He treated it as a great adventure. Which, after all, it is. +Few adjuncts of our daily life contain the element of chance that +is to be found in a three-minute breakfast egg. + +This was Orville Platt's method of attack: first, he chipped off +the top, neatly. Then he bent forward and subjected it to a +passionate and relentless scrutiny. Straightening--preparatory +to plunging his spoon therein--he flapped his right elbow. It +wasn't exactly a flap; it was a pass between a hitch and a flap, +and presented external evidence of a mental state. Orville Platt +always gave that little preliminary jerk when he was +contemplating a serious step, or when he was moved, or +argumentative. It was a trick as innocent as it was maddening. + +Terry Platt had learned to look for that flap--they had been +married four years--to look for it, and to hate it with a morbid, +unreasoning hate. That flap of the elbow was tearing Terry +Platt's nerves into raw, bleeding fragments. + +Her fingers were clenched tightly under the table, now. She was +breathing unevenly. "If he does that again," she told herself, +"if he flaps again when he opens the second egg, I'll scream. +I'll scream. I'll scream! I'll sc----" + +He had scooped the first egg into his cup. Now he picked up the +second, chipped it, concentrated, straightened, then--up went the +elbow, and down, with the accustomed little flap. + +The tortured nerves snapped. Through the early-morning quiet of +Wetona, Wisconsin, hurtled the shrill, piercing shriek of Terry +Platt's hysteria. + +"Terry! For God's sake! What's the matter!" + +Orville Platt dropped the second egg, and his spoon. The egg +yolk trickled down his plate. The spoon made a clatter and flung +a gay spot of yellow on the cloth. He started toward her. + +Terry, wild-eyed, pointed a shaking finger at him. She was +laughing, now, uncontrollably. "Your elbow! Your elbow!" + + "Elbow?" He looked down at it, bewildered, then up, fright in +his face. "What's the matter with it?" + +She mopped her eyes. Sobs shook her. "You f-f-flapped it." + +"F-f-f----" The bewilderment in Orville Platt's face gave way +to anger. "Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that +because my--because I moved my elbow?" + +"Yes." + +His anger deepened and reddened to fury. He choked. He had +started from his chair with his napkin in his hand. He still +clutched it. Now he crumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the +center of the table, where it struck a sugar bowl, dropped back, +and uncrumpled slowly, reprovingly. "You--you----" Then +bewilderment closed down again like a fog over his countenance. +"But why? I can't see----" + +"Because it--because I can't stand it any longer. Flapping. +This is what you do. Like this." + +And she did it. Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever +mimic. + +"Well, all I can say is you're crazy, yelling like that, for +nothing." + +"It isn't nothing." + +"Isn't, huh? If that isn't nothing, what is?" They were +growing incoherent. "What d'you mean, screeching like a maniac? + +Like a wild woman? The neighbors'll think I've killed you. What +d'you mean, anyway!" + +"I mean I'm tired of watching it, that's what. Sick and +tired." + +"Y'are, huh? Well, young lady, just let me tell YOU +something----" + +He told her. There followed one of those incredible quarrels, as +sickening as they are human, which can take place only between +two people who love each other; who love each other so well that +each knows with cruel certainty the surest way to wound the +other; and who stab, and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots +in exact proportion to their love. + +Ugly words. Bitter words. Words that neither knew they knew +flew between them like sparks between steel striking steel. + +From him: "Trouble with you is you haven't got enough to do. +That's the trouble with half you women. Just lay around the +house, rotting. I'm a fool, slaving on the road to keep a +good-for-nothing----" + +"I suppose you call sitting around hotel lobbies slaving! I +suppose the house runs itself! How about my evenings? Sitting +here alone, night after night, when you're on the road." + +Finally, "Well, if you don't like it," he snarled, and lifted +his chair by the back and slammed it down, savagely, "if you +don't like it, why don't you get out, hm? Why don't you get +out?" + +And from her, her eyes narrowed to two slits, her cheeks scarlet: + +"Why, thanks. I guess I will." + +Ten minutes later he had flung out of the house to catch the 8:19 +for Manitowoc. He marched down the street, his shoulders +swinging rhythmically to the weight of the burden he carried--his +black leather handbag and the shiny tan sample case, +battle-scarred, both, from many encounters with ruthless porters +and busmen and bellboys. For four years, as he left for his +semi-monthly trip, he and Terry had observed a certain little +ceremony (as had the neighbors). She would stand in the doorway, +watching him down the street, the heavier sample case banging +occasionally at his shin. The depot was only three blocks away. +Terry watched him with fond but unillusioned eyes, which proves +that she really loved him. He was a dapper, well-dressed fat +man, with a weakness for pronounced patterns in suitings, and +addicted to derbies. One week on the road, one week at home. +That was his routine. The wholesale grocery trade liked Platt, +and he had for his customers the fondness that a traveling +salesman has who is successful in his territory. Before his +marriage to Terry Sheehan his little red address book had been +overwhelming proof against the theory that nobody loves a fat +man. + +Terry, standing in the doorway, always knew that when he reached +the corner just where Schroeder's house threatened to hide him +from view, he would stop, drop the sample case, wave his hand +just once, pick up the sample case and go on, proceeding backward +for a step or two until Schroeder's house made good its threat. +It was a comic scene in the eyes of the onlooker, perhaps because +a chubby Romeo offends the sense of fitness. The neighbors, +lurking behind their parlor curtains, had laughed at first. But +after a while they learned to look for that little scene, and to +take it unto themselves, as if it were a personal thing. +Fifteen-year wives whose husbands had long since abandoned +flowery farewells used to get a vicarious thrill out of it, and +to eye Terry with a sort of envy. + +This morning Orville Platt did not even falter when he reached +Schroeder's corner. He marched straight on, looking steadily +ahead, the heavy bags swinging from either hand. Even if he had +stopped--though she knew he wouldn't--Terry Platt would not have +seen him. She remained seated at the disordered breakfast table, +a dreadfully still figure, and sinister; a figure of stone and +fire, of ice and flame. Over and over in her mind she was +milling the things she might have said to him, and had not. She +brewed a hundred vitriolic cruelties that she might have flung in +his face. She would concoct one biting brutality, and dismiss it +for a second, and abandon that for a third. She was too angry to +cry--a dangerous state in a woman. She was what is known as cold +mad, so that her mind was working clearly and with amazing +swiftness, and yet as though it were a thing detached; a thing +that was no part of her. + +She sat thus for the better part of an hour, motionless except +for one forefinger that was, quite unconsciously, tapping out a +popular and cheap little air that she had been strumming at the +piano the evening before, having bought it downtown that same +afternoon. It had struck Orville's fancy, and she had played it +over and over for him. Her right forefinger was playing the +entire tune, and something in the back of her head was following +it accurately, though the separate thinking process was going on +just the same. Her eyes were bright, and wide, and hot. +Suddenly she became conscious of the musical antics of her +finger. She folded it in with its mates, so that her hand became +a fist. She stood up and stared down at the clutter of the +breakfast table. The egg--that fateful second egg--had congealed +to a mottled mess of yellow and white. The spoon lay on the +cloth. His coffee, only half consumed, showed tan with a cold +gray film over it. A slice of toast at the left of his plate +seemed to grin at her with the semi-circular wedge that he had +bitten out of it. + +Terry stared down at these congealing remnants. Then she +laughed, a hard high little laugh, pushed a plate away +contemptuously with her hand, and walked into the sitting room. +On the piano was the piece of music (Bennie Gottschalk's great +song hit, "Hicky Boola") which she had been playing the night +before. She picked it up, tore it straight across, once, placed +the pieces back to back, and tore it across again. Then she +dropped the pieces to the floor. + +"You bet I'm going," she said, as though concluding a train of +thought. "You just bet I'm going. Right now!" And Terry went. +She went for much the same reason as that given by the ladye of +high degree in the old English song--she who had left her lord +and bed and board to go with the raggle-taggle gipsies-O! The +thing that was sending Terry Platt away was much more than a +conjugal quarrel precipitated by a soft-boiled egg and a flap of +the arm. It went so deep that it is necessary to delve back to +the days when Theresa Platt was Terry Sheehan to get the real +significance of it, and of the things she did after she went. + +When Mrs. Orville Platt had been Terry Sheehan, she had played +the piano, afternoons and evenings, in the orchestra of the Bijou +Theater, on Cass Street, Wetona, Wisconsin. Anyone with a name +like Terry Sheehan would, perforce, do well anything she might +set out to do. There was nothing of genius in Terry, but there +was something of fire, and much that was Irish. Which meant that +the Watson Team, Eccentric Song and Dance Artists, never needed a +rehearsal when they played the Bijou. Ruby Watson used merely to +approach Terry before the Monday performance, sheet music in +hand, and say, "Listen, dearie. We've got some new business I +want to wise you to. Right here it goes `TUM dee-dee DUM dee-dee +TUM DUM DUM.' See? Like that. And then Jim vamps. Get me?" + +Terry, at the piano, would pucker her pretty brow a moment. +Then, "Like this, you mean?" + +"That's it! You've got it." + +"All right. I'll tell the drum." + +She could play any tune by ear, once heard. She got the spirit +of a thing, and transmitted it. When Terry played a martial +number you tapped the floor with your foot, and unconsciously +straightened your shoulders. When she played a home-and-mother +song you hoped that the man next to you didn't know you were +crying (which he probably didn't, because he was weeping, too). + +At that time motion pictures had not attained their present +virulence. Vaudeville, polite or otherwise, had not yet been +crowded out by the ubiquitous film. The Bijou offered +entertainment of the cigar-box-tramp variety, interspersed with +trick bicyclists, soubrettes in slightly soiled pink, trained +seals, and Family Fours with lumpy legs who tossed each other +about and struck Goldbergian attitudes. + +Contact with these gave Terry Sheehan a semiprofessional tone. +The more conservative of her townspeople looked at her askance. +There never had been an evil thing about Terry, but Wetona +considered her rather fly. Terry's hair was very black, and she +had a fondness for those little, close-fitting scarlet turbans. +Terry's mother had died when the girl was eight, and Terry's +father had been what is known as easygoing. A good-natured, +lovable, shiftless chap in the contracting business. He drove +around Wetona in a sagging, one-seated cart and never made any +money because he did honest work and charged as little for it as +men who did not. His mortar stuck, and his bricks did not +crumble, and his lumber did not crack. Riches are not acquired in +the contracting business in that way. Ed Sheehan and his +daughter were great friends. When he died (she was nineteen) +they say she screamed once, like a banshee, and dropped to the +floor. + +After they had straightened out the muddle of books in Ed +Sheehan's gritty, dusty little office Terry turned her +piano-playing talent to practical account. At twenty-one she was +still playing at the Bijou, and into her face was creeping the +first hint of that look of sophistication which comes from daily +contact with the artificial world of the footlights. + +There are, in a small Midwest town like Wetona, just two kinds of +girls. Those who go downtown Saturday nights, and those who +don't. Terry, if she had not been busy with her job at the Bijou, +would have come in the first group. She craved excitement. +There was little chance to satisfy such craving in Wetona, but +she managed to find certain means. The traveling men from the +Burke House just across the street used to drop in at the Bijou +for an evening's entertainment. They usually sat well toward the +front, and Terry's expert playing, and the gloss of her black +hair, and her piquant profile as she sometimes looked up toward +the stage for a signal from one of the performers caught their +fancy, and held it. + +She found herself, at the end of a year or two, with a rather +large acquaintance among these peripatetic gentlemen. You +occasionally saw one of them strolling home with her. Sometimes +she went driving with one of them of a Sunday afternoon. And she +rather enjoyed taking Sunday dinner at the Burke Hotel with a +favored friend. She thought those small-town hotel Sunday +dinners the last word in elegance. The roast course was always +accompanied by an aqueous, semifrozen concoction which the bill +of fare revealed as Roman Punch. It added a royal touch to the +repast, even when served with roast pork. + +Terry was twenty-two when Orville Platt, making his initial +Wisconsin trip for the wholesale grocery house he represented, +first beheld her piquant Irish profile, and heard her deft +manipulation of the keys. Orville had the fat man's sense of +rhythm and love of music. He had a buttery tenor voice, too, of +which he was rather proud. + +He spent three days in Wetona that first trip, and every evening +saw him at the Bijou, first row, center. He stayed through two +shows each time, and before he had been there fifteen minutes +Terry was conscious of him through the back of her head. Orville +Platt paid no more heed to the stage, and what was occurring +thereon, than if it had not been. He sat looking at Terry, and +waggling his head in time to the music. Not that Terry was a +beauty. But she was one of those immaculately clean types. That +look of fragrant cleanliness was her chief charm. Her clear, +smooth skin contributed to it, and the natural penciling of her +eyebrows. But the thing that accented it, and gave it a last +touch, was the way in which her black hair came down in a little +point just in the center of her forehead, where hair meets brow. +It grew to form what is known as a cowlick. (A prettier name for +it is widow's peak.) Your eye lighted on it, pleased, and from +it traveled its gratified way down her white temples, past her +little ears, to the smooth black coil at the nape of her neck. +It was a trip that rested you. + +At the end of the last performance on the night of his second +visit to the Bijou, Orville waited until the audience had begun +to file out. Then he leaned forward over the rail that separated +orchestra from audience. + +"Could you," he said, his tones dulcet, "could you oblige me +with the name of that last piece you played?" + +Terry was stacking her music. "George!" she called to the +drum. "Gentleman wants to know the name of that last piece." +And prepared to leave. + +"`My Georgia Crackerjack,'" said the laconic drum. + +Orville Platt took a hasty side step in the direction of the door +toward which Terry was headed. "It's a pretty thing," he said +fervently. "An awful pretty thing. Thanks. It's beautiful." + + +Terry flung a last insult at him over her shoulder: "Don't +thank ME for it. I didn't write it." + +Orville Platt did not go across the street to the hotel. He +wandered up Cass Street, and into the ten-o'clock quiet of Main +Street, and down as far as the park and back. "Pretty as a +pink! And play! . . . And good, too. Good." + +A fat man in love. + +At the end of six months they were married. Terry was surprised +into it. Not that she was not fond of him. She was; and +grateful to him, as well. For, pretty as she was, no man had +ever before asked Terry to be his wife. They had made love to +her. They had paid court to her. They had sent her large boxes +of stale drugstore chocolates, and called her endearing names as +they made cautious declarations such as: + +"I've known a lot of girls, but you've got something different. +I don't know. You've got so much sense. A fellow can chum +around with you. Little pal." + +Wetona would be their home. They rented a comfortable, +seven-room house in a comfortable, middle-class neighborhood, and +Terry dropped the red velvet turbans and went in for picture +hats. Orville bought her a piano whose tone was so good that to +her ear, accustomed to the metallic discords of the Bijou +instrument, it sounded out of tune. She played a great deal at +first, but unconsciously she missed the sharp spat of applause +that used to follow her public performance. She would play a +piece, brilliantly, and then her hands would drop to her lap. +And the silence of her own sitting room would fall flat on her +ears. It was better on the evenings when Orville was home. He +sang, in his throaty, fat man's tenor, to Terry's expert +accompaniment. + +"This is better than playing for those ham actors, isn't it, +hon?" And he would pinch her ear. + +"Sure"--listlessly. + +But after the first year she became accustomed to what she termed +private life. She joined an afternoon sewing club, and was +active in the ladies' branch of the U.C.T. She developed a knack +at cooking, too, and Orville, after a week or ten days of hotel +fare in small Wisconsin towns, would come home to sea-foam +biscuits, and real soup, and honest pies and cake. Sometimes, in +the midst of an appetizing meal he would lay down his knife and +fork and lean back in his chair, and regard the cool and +unruffled Terry with a sort of reverence in his eyes. Then he +would get up, and come around to the other side of the table, and +tip her pretty face up to his. + +"I'll bet I'll wake up, someday, and find out it's all a dream. +You know this kind of thing doesn't really happen--not to a dub +like me." + +One year; two; three; four. Routine. A little boredom. Some +impatience. She began to find fault with the very things she had +liked in him: his superneatness; his fondness for dashing suit +patterns; his throaty tenor; his worship of her. And the flap. +Oh, above all, that flap! That little, innocent, meaningless +mannerism that made her tremble with nervousness. She hated it +so that she could not trust herself to speak of it to him. That +was the trouble. Had she spoken of it, laughingly or in earnest, +before it became an obsession with her, that hideous breakfast +quarrel, with its taunts, and revilings, and open hate, might +never have come to pass. + +Terry Platt herself didn't know what was the matter with her. +She would have denied that anything was wrong. She didn't even +throw her hands above her head and shriek: "I want to live! I +want to live! I want to live!" like a lady in a play. She only +knew she was sick of sewing at the Wetona West End Red Cross +shop; sick of marketing, of home comforts, of Orville, of the +flap. + +Orville, you may remember, left at 8:19. The 11:23 bore Terry +Chicago-ward. She had left the house as it was--beds unmade, +rooms unswept, breakfast table uncleared. She intended never to +come back. + +Now and then a picture of the chaos she had left behind would +flash across her order-loving mind. The spoon on the tablecloth. + +Orville's pajamas dangling over the bathroom chair. The +coffeepot on the gas stove. + +"Pooh! What do I care?" + +In her pocketbook she had a tidy sum saved out of the +housekeeping money. She was naturally thrifty, and Orville had +never been niggardly. Her meals when Orville was on the road had +been those sketchy, haphazard affairs with which women content +themselves when their household is manless. At noon she went +into the dining car and ordered a flaunting little repast of +chicken salad and asparagus and Neapolitan ice cream. The men in +the dining car eyed her speculatively and with appreciation. +Then their glance dropped to the third finger of her left hand, +and wandered away. She had meant to remove it. In fact, she had +taken it off and dropped it into her bag. But her hand felt so +queer, so unaccustomed, so naked, that she had found herself +slipping the narrow band on again, and her thumb groped for it, +gratefully. + +It was almost five o'clock when she reached Chicago. She felt no +uncertainty or bewilderment. She had been in Chicago three or +four times since her marriage. She went to a downtown hotel. It +was too late, she told herself, to look for a less expensive room +that night. When she had tidied herself she went out. The +things she did were the childish, aimless things that one does +who finds herself in possession of sudden liberty. She walked up +State Street, and stared in the windows; came back, turned into +Madison, passed a bright little shop in the window of which +taffy-white and gold-- was being wound endlessly and +fascinatingly about a double-jointed machine. She went in and +bought a sackful, and wandered on down the street, munching. + +She had supper at one of those white-tiled sarcophagi that +emblazon Chicago's downtown side streets. It had been her +original intention to dine in state in the rose-and-gold dining +room of her hotel. She had even thought daringly of lobster. +But at the last moment she recoiled from the idea of dining alone +in that wilderness of tables so obviously meant for two. + +After her supper she went to a picture show. She was amazed to +find there, instead of the accustomed orchestra, a pipe organ +that panted and throbbed and rumbled over lugubrious classics. +The picture was about a faithless wife. Terry left in the middle +of it. + +She awoke next morning at seven, as usual, started up wildly, +looked around, and dropped back. Nothing to get up for. The +knowledge did not fill her with a rush of relief. She would have +her breakfast in bed. She telephoned for it, languidly. But +when it came she got up and ate it from the table, after all. + +That morning she found a fairly comfortable room, more within her +means, on the North Side in the boardinghouse district. She +unpacked and hung up her clothes and drifted downtown again, +idly. It was noon when she came to the corner of State and +Madison Streets. It was a maelstrom that caught her up, and +buffeted her about, and tossed her helplessly this way and that. + + +The thousands jostled Terry, and knocked her hat awry, and dug +her with unheeding elbows, and stepped on her feet. + +"Say, look here!" she said once futilely. They did not stop to +listen. State and Madison has no time for Terrys from Wetona. +It goes its way, pell-mell. If it saw Terry at all it saw her +only as a prettyish person, in the wrong kind of suit and hat, +with a bewildered, resentful look on her face. + +Terry drifted on down the west side of State Street, with the +hurrying crowd. State and Monroe. A sound came to Terry's ears. + +A sound familiar, beloved. To her ear, harassed with the roar +and crash, with the shrill scream of the whistle of the policeman +at the crossing, with the hiss of feet shuffling on cement, it +was a celestial strain. She looked up, toward the sound. A +great second-story window opened wide to the street. In it a +girl at a piano, and a man, red-faced, singing through a +megaphone. And on a flaring red and green sign: + + BERNIE GOTTSCHALK'S MUSIC HOUSE! + +COME IN! HEAR BERNIE GOTTSCHALK'S LATEST HIT! +THE HEART-THROB SONG THAT HAS GOT 'EM ALL! +THE SONG THAT MADE THE SQUAREHEADS CRAWL! + +"I COME FROM PARIS, ILLINOIS, BUT OH! YOU PARIS, FRANCE! +I USED TO WEAR BLUE OVERALLS BUT NOW IT'S KHAKI PANTS." + + +COME IN! COME IN! + +Terry accepted, + +She followed the sound of the music. Around the corner. Up a +little flight of stairs. She entered the realm of Euterpe; +Euterpe with her hair frizzed; Euterpe with her flowing white +robe replaced by soiled white shoes; Euterpe abandoning her flute +for jazz. She sat at the piano, a red- haired young lady whose +familiarity with the piano had bred contempt. Nothing else could +have accounted for her treatment of it. Her fingers, tipped with +sharp-pointed and glistening nails, clawed the keys with a +dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks of music sheets on +counters and shelves and dangling from overhead wires. The girl +at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly by request. + +A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear of one +of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, +"Hicky Boola, Miss Ryan!" And Miss Ryan would oblige. She +made a hideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound. + +Terry joined the crowds about the counter. The girl at the piano +was not looking at the keys. Her head was screwed around over +her left shoulder and as she played she was holding forth +animatedly to a girl friend who had evidently dropped in from +some store or office during the lunch hour. Now and again the +fat man paused in his vocal efforts to reprimand her for her +slackness. She paid no heed. There was something gruesome, +uncanny, about the way her fingers went their own way over the +defenseless keys. Her conversation with the frowzy little girl +went on. + +"Wha'd he say?" (Over her shoulder.) + +"Oh, he laffed." + +"Well, didja go?" + +"Me! Well, whutya think I yam, anyway?" + +"I woulda took a chanst." + +The fat man rebelled. + +"Look here! Get busy! What are you paid for? Talkin' or +playin'? Huh?" + +The person at the piano, openly reproved thus before her friend, +lifted her uninspired hands from the keys and spake. When she +had finished she rose. + +"But you can't leave now," the megaphone man argued. "Right +in the rush hour." + +"I'm gone," said the girl. The fat man looked about, +helplessly. He gazed at the abandoned piano, as though it must +go on of its own accord. Then at the crowd. + +"Where's Miss Schwimmer?" he demanded of a clerk. + +"Out to lunch." + +Terry pushed her way to the edge of the counter and leaned over. +"I can play for you," she said. + +The man looked at her. "Sight?" + +"Yes." + +"Come on." + +Terry went around to the other side of the counter, took off her +hat and coat, rubbed her hands together briskly, sat down, and +began to play. The crowd edged closer. + +It is a curious study, this noonday crowd that gathers to sate +its music hunger on the scraps vouchsafed it by Bernie +Gottschalk's Music House. Loose-lipped, slope-shouldered young +men with bad complexions and slender hands. Girls whose clothes +are an unconscious satire on present-day fashions. On their +faces, as they listen to the music, is a look of peace and +dreaming. They stand about, smiling a wistful half smile. The +music seems to satisfy a something within them. Faces dull, eyes +lusterless, they listen in a sort of trance. + +Terry played on. She played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She +played as no music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played +before. The crowd swayed a little to the sound of it. Some kept +time with little jerks of the shoulder--the little hitching +movement of the dancer whose blood is filled with the fever of +syncopation. Even the crowd flowing down State Street must have +caught the rhythm of it, for the room soon filled. + +At two o'clock the crowd began to thin. Business would be slack, +now, until five, when it would again pick up until closing time +at six. The fat vocalist put down his megaphone, wiped his +forehead, and regarded Terry with a warm blue eye. He had just +finished singing "I've Wandered Far from Dear Old Mother's +Knee." (Bernie Gottschalk Inc. Chicago. New York. You can't +get bit with a Gottschalk hit. 15 cents each.) + +"Girlie," he said, emphatically, "you sure--can--play!" He +came over to her at the piano and put a stubby hand on her +shoulder. "Yessir! Those little fingers----" + +Terry just turned her head to look down her nose at the moist +hand resting on her shoulder. "Those little fingers are going +to meet your face if you don't move on." + +"Who gave you your job?" demanded the fat man. + +"Nobody. I picked it myself. You can have it if you want it." + +"Can't you take a joke?" + +"Label yours." + +As the crowd dwindled she played less feverishly, but there was +nothing slipshod about her performance. The chubby songster +found time to proffer brief explanations in asides. "They want +the patriotic stuff. It used to be all that Hawaiian dope, and +Wild Irish Rose stuff, and songs about wanting to go back to +every place from Dixie to Duluth. But now seems it's all these +here flag wavers. Honestly, I'm so sick of 'em I got a notion to +enlist to get away from it." + +Terry eyed him with withering briefness. "A little training +wouldn't ruin your figure." + +She had never objected to Orville's embonpoint. But then, +Orville was a different sort of fat man; pink-cheeked, springy, +immaculate. + +At four o'clock, as she was in the chorus of "Isn't There +Another Joan of Arc?" a melting masculine voice from the other +side of the counter said "Pardon me. What's that you're +playing?" + +Terry told him. She did not look up. "I wouldn't have known +it. Played like that--a second `Marseillaise.' If the +words----What are the words? Let me see a----" + +"Show the gentleman a `Joan,'" Terry commanded briefly, over +her shoulder. The fat man laughed a wheezy laugh. Terry glanced +around, still playing, and encountered the gaze of two melting +masculine eyes that matched the melting masculine voice. The +songster waved a hand uniting Terry and the eyes in informal +introduction. + +"Mr. Leon Sammett, the gentleman who sings the Gottschalk songs +wherever songs are heard. And Mrs.--that is--and Mrs. +Sammett----" + +Terry turned. A sleek, swarthy world-old young man with the +fashionable concave torso, and alarmingly convex bone-rimmed +glasses. Through them his darkly luminous gaze glowed upon +Terry. To escape their warmth she sent her own gaze past him to +encounter the arctic stare of the large blonde who had been +included so lamely in the introduction. And at that the +frigidity of that stare softened, melted, dissolved. + +"Why, Terry Sheehan! What in the world!" + +Terry's eyes bored beneath the layers of flabby fat. "It's--why, +it's Ruby Watson, isn't it? Eccentric Song and Dance----" + +She glanced at the concave young man and faltered. He was not +Jim, of the Bijou days. From him her eyes leaped back to the +fur-bedecked splendor of the woman. The plump face went so +painfully red that the make-up stood out on it, a distinct layer, +like thin ice covering flowing water. As she surveyed that bulk +Terry realized that while Ruby might still claim eccentricity, +her song-and-dance days were over. "That's ancient history, m' +dear. I haven't been working for three years. What're you doing +in this joint? I'd heard you'd done well for yourself. That you +were married." + +"I am. That is I--well, I am. I----" + +At that the dark young man leaned over and patted Terry's hand +that lay on the counter. He smiled. His own hand was incredibly +slender, long, and tapering. + +"That's all right," he assured her, and smiled. "You two +girls can have a reunion later. What I want to know is can you +play by ear?" + +"Yes, but----" + +He leaned far over the counter. "I knew it the minute I heard +you play. You've got the touch. Now listen. See if you can get +this, and fake the bass." + +He fixed his somber and hypnotic eyes on Terry. His mouth +screwed up into a whistle. The tune--a tawdry but haunting +little melody--came through his lips. Terry turned back to the +piano. "Of course you know you flatted every note," she said. + + This time it was the blonde who laughed, and the man who +flushed. Terry cocked her head just a little to one side, like a +knowing bird, looked up into space beyond the piano top, and +played the lilting little melody with charm and fidelity. The +dark young man followed her with a wagging of the head and little +jerks of both outspread hands. His expression was beatific, +enraptured. He hummed a little under his breath and anyone who +was music-wise would have known that he was just a half beat +behind her all the way. + +When she had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent +his lean frame over the counter and, despite his swart coloring, +seemed to glitter upon her--his eyes, his teeth, his very +fingernails. + +"Something led me here. I never come up on Tuesdays. But +something----" + +"You was going to complain," put in his lady, heavily, "about +that Teddy Sykes at the Palace Gardens singing the same songs +this week that you been boosting at the Inn." + +He put up a vibrant, peremptory hand. "Bah! What does that +matter now! What does anything matter now! Listen +Miss--ah--Miss----?" + +"Pl-Sheehan. Terry Sheehan." + +He gazed off a moment into space. "Hm. `Leon Sammett in Songs. + +Miss Terry Sheehan at the Piano.' That doesn't sound bad. Now +listen, Miss Sheehan. I'm singing down at the University Inn. +The Gottschalk song hits. I guess you know my work. But I want +to talk to you, private. It's something to your interest. I go +on down at the Inn at six. Will you come and have a little +something with Ruby and me? Now?" + +"Now?" faltered Terry, somewhat helplessly. Things seemed to +be moving rather swiftly for her, accustomed as she was to the +peaceful routine of the past four years. + +"Get your hat. It's your life chance. Wait till you see your +name in two- foot electrics over the front of every big-time +house in the country. You've got music in you. Tie to me and +you're made." He turned to the woman beside him. "Isn't that +so, Rube?" + +"Sure. Look at ME!" One would not have thought there could be +so much subtle vindictiveness in a fat blonde. + +Sammett whipped out a watch. "Just three quarters of an hour. +Come on, girlie." + +His conversation had been conducted in an urgent undertone, with +side glances at the fat man with the megaphone. Terry approached +him now. + +"I'm leaving now," she said. + +"Oh, no, you're not. Six o'clock is your quitting time." + +In which he touched the Irish in Terry. "Any time I quit is my +quitting time. She went in quest of hat and coat much as the +girl had done whose place she had taken early in the day. The +fat man followed her, protesting. Terry, putting on her hat, +tried to ignore him. But he laid one plump hand on her arm and +kept it there, though she tried to shake him off. + +"Now, listen to me. That boy wouldn't mind grinding his heel on +your face if he thought it would bring him up a step. I know'm. +See that walking stick he's carrying? Well, compared to the +yellow stripe that's in him, that cane is a Lead pencil. He's a +song tout, that's all he is." Then, more feverishly, as Terry +tried to pull away: "Wait a minute. You're a decent girl. I +want to--Why, he can't even sing a note without you give it to +him first. He can put a song over, yes. But how? By flashing +that toothy grin of his and talking every word of it. Don't +you----" + +But Terry freed herself with a final jerk and whipped around the +counter. The two, who had been talking together in an undertone, +turned to welcome her. "We've got a half-hour. Come on. It's +just over to Clark and up a block or so." + +The University Inn, that gloriously intercollegiate institution +which welcomes any graduate of any school of experience, was +situated in the basement, down a flight of stairs. Into the +unwonted quiet that reigns during the hour of low potentiality, +between five and six, the three went, and seated themselves at a +table in an obscure corner. A waiter brought them things in +little glasses, though no order had been given. The woman who +had been Ruby Watson was so silent as to be almost wordless. But +the man talked rapidly. He talked well, too. The same quality +that enabled him, voiceless though he was, to boost a song to +success was making his plea sound plausible in Terry's ears now. + + +"I've got to go and make up in a few minutes. So get this. I'm +not going to stick down in this basement eating house forever. +I've got too much talent. If I only had a voice--I mean a singing +voice. But I haven't. But then, neither had Georgie Cohan, and +I can't see that it wrecked his life any. Now listen. I've got a +song. It's my own. That bit you played for me up at +Gottschalk's is part of the chorus. But it's the words that'll +go big. They're great. It's an aviation song, see? Airplane +stuff. They're yelling that it's the airyoplanes that're going +to win this war. Well, I'll help 'em. This song is going to put +the aviator where he belongs. It's going to be the big song of +the war. It's going to make `Tipperary' sound like a Moody and +Sankey hymn. It's the----" + +Ruby lifted her heavy-lidded eyes and sent him a meaning look. +"Get down to business, Leon. I'll tell her how good you are +while you're making up." + +He shot her a malignant glance, but took her advice. "Now what +I've been looking for for years is somebody who has got the music +knack to give me the accompaniment just a quarter of a jump ahead +of my voice, see? I can follow like a lamb, but I've got to have +that feeler first. It's more than a knack. It's a gift. And +you've got it. I know it when I see it. I want to get away from +this night-club thing. There's nothing in it for a man of my +talent. I'm gunning for bigger game. But they won't sign me +without a tryout. And when they hear my voice they---- Well, if +me and you work together we can fool 'em. The song's great. And +my make-up's one of these aviation costumes to go with the song, +see? Pants tight in the knee and baggy on the hips. And a coat +with one of those full-skirt whaddyoucall- 'ems----" + + "Peplums," put in Ruby, placidly. + +"Sure. And the girls'll be wild about it. And the words!" He +began to sing, gratingly off key: + +Put on your sky clothes, +Put on your fly clothes, +And take a trip with me. +We'll sail so high +Up in the sky +We'll drop a bomb from Mercury. + +"Why, that's awfully cute!" exclaimed Terry. Until now her +opinion of Mr. Sammett's talents had not been on a level with +his. + +"Yeah, but wait till you hear the second verse. That's only +part of the chorus. You see, he's supposed to be talking to a +French girl. He says: + +`I'll parlez-vous in Francais plain +You'll answer, "Cher Americain," +We'll both . . .'" + +The six-o'clock lights blazed up suddenly. A sad-looking group +of men trailed in and made for a corner where certain bulky, +shapeless bundles were soon revealed as those glittering and +tortuous instruments which go to make a jazz band. + +"You better go, Lee. The crowd comes in awful early now, with +all these buyers in town." + +Both hands on the table, he half rose, reluctantly, still +talking. "I've got three other songs. They make Gottschalk's +stuff look sick. All I want's a chance. What I want you to do +is accompaniment. On the stage, see? Grand piano. And a swell +set. I haven't quite made up my mind to it. But a kind of an +army camp room, see? And maybe you dressed as Liberty. Anyway, +it'll be new, and a knockout. If only we can get away with the +voice thing. Say, if Eddie Foy, all those years never had +a----" + +The band opened with a terrifying clash of cymbal and thump of +drum. "Back at the end of my first turn," he said as he Red. +Terry followed his lithe, electric figure. She turned to meet +the heavy-lidded gaze of the woman seated opposite. She relaxed, +then, and sat back with a little sigh. "Well! If he talks that +way to the managers I don't see----" + +Ruby laughed a mirthless little laugh. "Talk doesn't get it +over with the managers, honey. You've got to deliver." + +"Well, but he's--that song is a good one. I don't say it's as +good as he thinks it is, but it's good." + +"Yes," admitted the woman, grudgingly, "it's good." + +"Well, then?" + +The woman beckoned a waiter; he nodded and vanished, and +reappeared with a glass that was twin to the one she had just +emptied. "Does he look like he knew French? Or could make a +rhyme?" + +"But didn't he? Doesn't he?" + +"The words were written by a little French girl who used to +skate down here last winter, when the craze was on. She was +stuck on a Chicago kid who went over to fly for the French." + +"But the music?" + +"There was a Russian girl who used to dance in the cabaret and +she----" + +Terry's head came up with a characteristic little jerk. "I +don't believe it!" + +"Better." She gazed at Terry with the drowsy look that was so +different from the quick, clear glance of the Ruby Watson who +used to dance so nimbly in the old Bijou days. "What'd you and +your husband quarrel about, Terry?" + +Terry was furious to feel herself flushing. "Oh, nothing. He +just--I--it was---- Say, how did you know we'd quarreled?" + +And suddenly all the fat woman's apathy dropped from her like a +garment and some of the old sparkle and animation illumined her +heavy face. She pushed her glass aside and leaned forward on her +folded arms, so that her face was close to Terry's. + +"Terry Sheehan, I know you've quarreled, and I know just what it +was about. Oh, I don't mean the very thing it was about; but the +kind of thing. I'm going to do something for you, Terry, that I +wouldn't take the trouble to do for most women. But I guess I +ain't had all the softness knocked out of me yet, though it's a +wonder. And I guess I remember too plain the decent kid you was +in the old days. What was the name of that little small-time +house me and Jim used to play? Bijou, that's it; Bijou." + +The band struck up a new tune. Leon Sammett--slim, sleek, lithe +in his evening clothes--appeared with a little fair girl in pink +chiffon. The woman reached across the table and put one pudgy, +jeweled hand on Terry's arm. "He'll be through in ten minutes. +Now listen to me. I left Jim four years ago, and there hasn't +been a minute since then, day or night, when I wouldn't have +crawled back to him on my hands and knees if I could. But I +couldn't. He wouldn't have me now. How could he? How do I know +you've quarreled? I can see it in your eyes. They look just the +way mine have felt for four years, that's how. I met up with +this boy, and there wasn't anybody to do the turn for me that I'm +trying to do for you. Now get this. I left Jim because when he +ate corn on the cob he always closed his eyes and it drove me +wild. Don't laugh." + +"I'm not laughing," said Terry. + +"Women are like that. One night--we was playing Fond du Lac; I +remember just as plain--we was eating supper before the show and +Jim reached for one of those big yellow ears, and buttered and +salted it, and me kind of hanging on to the edge of the table +with my nails. Seemed to me if he shut his eyes when he put his +teeth into that ear of corn I'd scream. And he did. And I +screamed. And that's all." + +Terry sat staring at her with a wide-eyed stare, like a +sleepwalker. Then she wet her lips slowly. "But that's almost +the very----" + +"Kid, go on back home. I don't know whether it's too late or +not, but go anyway. If you've lost him I suppose it ain't any +more than you deserve; but I hope to God you don't get your +deserts this time. He's almost through. If he sees you going he +can't quit in the middle of his song to stop you. He'll know I +put you wise, and he'll prob'ly half kill me for it. But it's +worth it. You get." + +And Terry--dazed, shaking, but grateful--fled. Down the noisy +aisle, up the stairs, to the street. Back to her rooming house. +Out again, with her suitcase, and into the right railroad station +somehow, at last. Not another Wetona train until midnight. She +shrank into a remote corner of the waiting room and there she +huddled until midnight, watching the entrances like a child who +is fearful of ghosts in the night. + +The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable. The +hour between eleven and twelve was endless. She was on the +train. It was almost morning. It was morning. Dawn was +breaking. She was home! She had the house key clutched tightly +in her hand long before she turned Schroeder's corner. Suppose +he had come home! Suppose he had jumped a town and come home +ahead of his schedule. They had quarreled once before, and he +had done that. + +Up the front steps. Into the house. Not a sound. She stood +there a moment in the early-morning half-light. She peered into +the dining room. The table, with its breakfast debris, was as +she had left it. In the kitchen the coffeepot stood on the gas +stove. She was home. She was safe. She ran up the stairs, got +out of her clothes and into gingham morning things. She flung +open windows everywhere. Downstairs once more she plunged into +an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs. She +washed, scoured, swabbed, polished. By eight o'clock she had +done the work that would ordinarily have taken until noon. The +house was shining, orderly, and redolent of soapsuds. + +During all this time she had been listening, listening, with her +subconscious ear. Listening for something she had refused to +name definitely in her mind, but listening, just the same; +waiting. + +And then, at eight o'clock, it came. The rattle of a key in the +lock. The boom of the front door. Firm footsteps. + +He did not go to meet her, and she did not go to meet him. They +came together and were in each other's arms. She was weeping. + +"Now, now, old girl. What's there to cry about? Don't, honey; +don't. It's all right." She raised her head then, to look at +him. How fresh and rosy and big he seemed, after that little +sallow restaurant rat. + +"How did you get here? How did you happen----?" + +"Jumped all the way from Ashland. Couldn't get a sleeper, so I +sat up all night. I had to come back and square things with you, +Terry. My mind just wasn't on my work. I kept thinking how I'd +talked--how I'd talked----" + +"Oh, Orville, don't! I can't bear---- Have you had your +breakfast?" + +"Why, no. The train was an hour late. You know that Ashland +train." + +But she was out of his arms and making for the kitchen. "You go +and clean up. I'll have hot biscuits and everything in no time. +You poor boy. No breakfast!" + +She made good her promise. It could not have been more than half +an hour later when he was buttering his third feathery, +golden-brown biscuit. But she had eaten nothing. She watched +him, and listened, and again her eyes were somber, but for a +different reason. He broke open his egg. His elbow came up just +a fraction of an inch. Then he remembered, and flushed like a +schoolboy, and brought it down again, carefully. And at that she +gave a tremulous cry, and rushed around the table to him. + +"Oh, Orville!" She took the offending elbow in her two arms, +and bent and kissed the rough coat sleeve. + +"Why, Terry! Don't, honey. Don't!" + +"Oh, Orville, listen----" + +"Yes." + +"Listen, Orville----" + +"I'm listening, Terry." + +"I've got something to tell you. There's something you've got +to know." + +"Yes, I know it, Terry. I knew you'd out with it, pretty soon, +if I just waited." + +She lifted an amazed face from his shoulder then, and stared at +him. "But how could you know? You couldn't! How could you?" + +He patted her shoulder then, gently. "I can always tell. When +you have something on your mind you always take up a spoon of +coffee, and look at it, and kind of joggle it back and forth in +the spoon, and then dribble it back into the cup again, without +once tasting it. It used to get me nervous, when we were first +married, watching you. But now I know it just means you're +worried about something, and I wait, and pretty soon----" + +"Oh, Orville!" she cried then. "Oh, Orville!" + +"Now, Terry. Just spill it, hon. Just spill it to Daddy. And +you'll feel better." + + + + + +Farmer in the Dell +[1919] + +Old Ben Westerveld was taking it easy. Every muscle taut, every +nerve tense, his keen eyes vainly straining to pierce the +blackness of the stuffy room--there lay Ben Westerveld in bed, +taking it easy. And it was hard. Hard. He wanted to get up. +He wanted so intensely to get up that the mere effort of lying +there made him ache all over. His toes were curled with the +effort. His fingers were clenched with it. His breath came +short, and his thighs felt cramped. Nerves. But old Ben +Westerveld didn't know that. What should a retired and +well-to-do farmer of fifty-eight know of nerves, especially when +he has moved to the city and is taking it easy? + +If only he knew what time it was. Here in Chicago you couldn't +tell whether it was four o'clock or seven unless you looked at +your watch. To do that it was necessary to turn on the light. +And to turn on the light meant that he would turn on, too, a +flood of querulous protest from his wife, Bella, who lay asleep +beside him. + +When for forty-five years of your life you have risen at +four-thirty daily, it is difficult to learn to loll. To do it +successfully, you must be a natural- born loller to begin with +and revert. Bella Westerveld was and had. So there she lay, +asleep. Old Ben wasn't and hadn't. So there he lay, terribly +wide- awake, wondering what made his heart thump so fast when he +was lying so still. If it had been light, you could have seen +the lines of strained resignation in the sagging muscles of his +patient face. + +They had lived in the city for almost a year, but it was the same +every morning. He would open his eyes, start up with one hand +already reaching for the limp, drab work-worn garments that used +to drape the chair by his bed. Then he would remember and sink +back while a great wave of depression swept over him. Nothing to +get up for. Store clothes on the chair by the bed. He was +taking it easy. + +Back home on the farm in southern Illinois he had known the hour +the instant his eyes opened. Here the flat next door was so +close that the bed- room was in twilight even at midday. On the +farm he could tell by the feeling--an intangible thing, but +infallible. He could gauge the very quality of the blackness +that comes just before dawn. The crowing of the cocks, the +stamping of the cattle, the twittering of the birds in the old +elm whose branches were etched eerily against his window in the +ghostly light --these things he had never needed. He had known. +But here in the un- sylvan section of Chicago which bears the +bosky name of Englewood, the very darkness had a strange quality. + +A hundred unfamiliar noises misled him. There were no cocks, no +cattle, no elm. Above all, there was no instinctive feeling. +Once, when they first came to the city, he had risen at +twelve-thirty, thinking it was morning, and had gone clumping +about the flat, waking up everyone and loosing from his wife's +lips a stream of acid vituperation that seared even his +case-hardened sensibilities. The people sleeping in the bedroom +of the flat next door must have heard her. + +"You big rube! Getting up in the middle of the night and +stomping around like cattle. You'd better build a shed in the +back yard and sleep there if you're so dumb you can't tell night +from day." + +Even after thirty-three years of marriage he had never ceased to +be appalled at the coarseness of her mind and speech--she who had +seemed so mild and fragile and exquisite when he married her. He +had crept back to bed shamefacedly. He could hear the couple in +the bedroom of the flat just across the little court grumbling +and then laughing a little, grudgingly, and yet with +appreciation. That bedroom, too, had still the power to appall +him. Its nearness, its forced intimacy, were daily shocks to him +whose most immediate neighbor, back on the farm, had been a +quarter of a mile away. The sound of a shoe dropped on the +hardwood floor, the rush of water in the bathroom, the murmur of +nocturnal confidences, the fretful cry of a child in the night, +all startled and distressed him whose ear had found music in the +roar of the thresher and had been soothed by the rattle of the +tractor and the hoarse hoot of the steamboat whistle at the +landing. His farm's edge had been marked by the Mississippi +rolling grandly by. + +Since they had moved into town, he had found only one city sound +that he really welcomed--the rattle and clink that marked the +milkman's matutinal visit. The milkman came at six, and he was +the good fairy who released Ben Westerveld from durance vile--or +had until the winter months made his coming later and later, so +that he became worse than useless as a timepiece. But now it was +late March, and mild. The milkman's coming would soon again mark +old Ben's rising hour. Before he had begun to take it easy, six +o'clock had seen the entire mechanism of his busy little world +humming smoothly and sweetly, the whole set in motion by his own +big work-callused hands. Those hands puzzled him now. He often +looked at them curiously and in a detached sort of way, as if +they belonged to someone else. So white they were, and smooth +and soft, with long, pliant nails that never broke off from rough +work as they used to. Of late there were little splotches of +brown on the backs of his hands and around the thumbs. + +"Guess it's my liver," he decided, rubbing the spots +thoughtfully. "She gets kind of sluggish from me not doing +anything. Maybe a little spring tonic wouldn't go bad. Tone me +up." + +He got a little bottle of reddish-brown mixture from the druggist +on Halstead Street near Sixty-third. A genial gendeman, the +druggist, white- coated and dapper, stepping affably about the +fragrant-smelling store. The reddish-brown mixture had toned old +Ben up surprisingly--while it lasted. He had two bottles of it. +But on discontinuing it he slumped back into his old apathy. + +Ben Westerveld, in his store clothes, his clean blue shirt, his +incongruous hat, ambling aimlessly about Chicago's teeming, +gritty streets, was a tragedy. Those big, capable hands, now +dangling so limply from inert wrists, had wrested a living from +the soil; those strangely unfaded blue eyes had the keenness of +vision which comes from scanning great stretches of earth and +sky; the stocky, square-shouldered body suggested power +unutilized. All these spelled tragedy. Worse than +tragedy--waste. + +For almost half a century this man had combated the elements, +head set, eyes wary, shoulders squared. He had fought wind and +sun, rain and drought, scourge and flood. He had risen before +dawn and slept before sunset. In the process he had taken on +something of the color and the rugged immutability of the fields +and hills and trees among which he toiled. Something of their +dignity, too, though your town dweller might fail to see it +beneath the drab exterior. He had about him none of the +highlights and sharp points of the city man. He seemed to blend +in with the background of nature so as to be almost +undistinguishable from it, as were the furred and feathered +creatures. This farmer differed from the city man as a hillock +differs from an artificial golf bunker, though form and substance +are the same. + +Ben Westerveld didn't know he was a tragedy. Your farmer is not +given to introspection. For that matter, anyone knows that a +farmer in town is a comedy. Vaudeville, burlesque, the Sunday +supplement, the comic papers, have marked him a fair target for +ridicule. Perhaps one should know him in his overalled, +stubble-bearded days, with the rich black loam of the Mississippi +bottomlands clinging to his boots. + +At twenty-five, given a tasseled cap, doublet and hose, and a +long, slim pipe, Ben Westerveld would have been the prototype of +one of those rollicking, lusty young mynheers that laugh out at +you from a Frans Hals canvas. A roguish fellow with a merry eye; +red-cheeked, vigorous. A serious mouth, though, and great +sweetness of expression. As he grew older, the seriousness crept +up and up and almost entirely obliterated the roguishness. By +the time the life of ease claimed him, even the ghost of that +ruddy wight of boyhood had vanished. + +The Westerveld ancestry was as Dutch as the name. It had been +hundreds of years since the first Westervelds came to America, +and they had married and intermarried until the original Holland +strain had almost entirely disappeared. They had drifted to +southern Illinois by one of those slow processes of migration and +had settled in Calhoun County, then almost a wilderness, but +magnificent with its rolling hills, majestic rivers, and +gold-and-purple distances. But to the practical Westerveld mind, +hills and rivers and purple haze existed only in their relation +to crops and weather. Ben, though, had a way of turning his face +up to the sky sometimes, and it was not to scan the heavens for +clouds. You saw him leaning on the plow handle to watch the +whirring flight of a partridge across the meadow. He liked +farming. Even the drudgery of it never made him grumble. He was +a natural farmer as men are natural mechanics or musicians or +salesmen. Things grew for him. He seemed instinctively to know +facts about the kin ship of soil and seed that other men had to +learn from books or experience. It grew to be a saying in that +section that "Ben Westerveld could grow a crop on rock." + +At picnics and neighborhood frolics Ben could throw farther and +run faster and pull harder than any of the other farmer boys who +took part in the rough games. And he could pick up a girl with +one hand and hold her at arm's length while she shrieked with +pretended fear and real ecstasy. The girls all liked Ben. There +was that almost primitive strength which appealed to the untamed +in them as his gentleness appealed to their softer side. He +liked the girls, too, and could have had his pick of them. He +teased them all, took them buggy riding, beaued them about to +neighbor- hood parties. But by the time he was twenty-five the +thing had narrowed down to the Byers girl on the farm adjoining +Westerveld's. There was what the neighbors called an +understanding, though perhaps he had never actually asked the +Byers girl to marry him. You saw him going down the road toward +the Byers place four nights out of the seven. He had a quick, +light step at variance with his sturdy build, and very different +from the heavy, slouching gait of the work-weary farmer. He had +a habit of carrying in his hand a little twig or switch cut from +a tree. This he would twirl blithely as he walked along. The +switch and the twirl represented just so much energy and animal +spirits. He never so much as flicked a dandelion head with it. + +An inarticulate sort of thing, that courtship. + +"Hello, Emma." + +"How do, Ben." + +"Thought you might like to walk a piece down the road. They got +a calf at Aug Tietjens' with five legs." + +"I heard. I'd just as lief walk a little piece. I'm kind of +beat, though. We've got the threshers day after tomorrow. We've +been cooking up." + +Beneath Ben's bonhomie and roguishness there was much shyness. +The two would plod along the road together in a sort of blissful +agony of embarrassment. The neighbors were right in their +surmise that there was no definite understanding between them. +But the thing was settled in the minds of both. Once Ben had +said: "Pop says I can have the north eighty on easy payments +if--when----" + +Emma Byers had flushed up brightly, but had answered equably: +"That's a fine piece. Your pop is an awful good man." + +The stolid exteriors of these two hid much that was fine and +forceful. Emma Byers' thoughtful forehead and intelligent eyes +would have revealed that in her. Her mother was dead. She kept +house for her father and brother. She was known as "that smart +Byers girl." Her butter and eggs and garden stuff brought +higher prices at Commercial, twelve miles away, than did any +other's in the district. She was not a pretty girl, according to +the local standards, but there was about her, even at twenty-two, +a clear- headedness and a restful serenity that promised well for +Ben Westerveld's future happiness. + +But Ben Westerveld's future was not to lie in Emma Byers' capable +hands. He knew that as soon as he saw Bella Huckins. Bella +Huckins was the daughter of old "Red Front" Huckins, who ran +the saloon of that cheerful name in Commercial. Bella had +elected to teach school, not from any bent toward learning but +because teaching appealed to her as being a rather elegant +occupation. The Huckins family was not elegant. In that day a +year or two of teaching in a country school took the place of the +present-day normal-school diploma. Bella had an eye on St. +Louis, forty miles from the town of Commercial. So she used the +country school as a step toward her ultimate goal, though she +hated the country and dreaded her apprenticeship. + +"I'll get a beau," she said, "who'll take me driving and +around. And Saturdays and Sundays I can come to town." + +The first time Ben Westerveld saw her she was coming down the +road toward him in her tight-fitting black alpaca dress. The +sunset was behind her. Her hair was very golden. In a day of +tiny waists hers could have been spanned by Ben Westerveld's two +hands. He discovered that later. Just now he thought he had +never seen anything so fairylike and dainty, though he did not +put it that way. Ben was not glib of thought or speech. + +He knew at once this was the new schoolteacher. He had heard of +her coming, though at the time the conversation had interested +him not at all. Bella knew who he was, too. She had learned the +name and history of every eligible young man in the district two +days after her arrival. That was due partly to her own bold +curiosity and partly to the fact that she was boarding with the +Widow Becker, the most notorious gossip in the county. In +Bella's mental list of the neighborhood swains Ben Westerveld +already occupied a position at the top of the column. + +He felt his face redden as they approached each other. To hide +his embarrassment he swung his little hickory switch gaily and +called to his dog Dunder, who was nosing about by the roadside. +Dunder bounded forward, spied the newcomer, and leaped toward her +playfully and with natural canine curiosity. + +Bella screamed. She screamed and ran to Ben and clung to him, +clasping her hands about his arm. Ben lifted the hickory switch +in his free hand and struck Dunder a sharp cut with it. It was +the first time in his life that he had done such a thing. If he +had had a sane moment from that time until the day he married +Bella Huckins, he never would have forgotten the dumb hurt in +Dunder's stricken eyes and shrinking, quivering body. + +Bella screamed again, still clinging to him. Ben was saying: +"He won't hurt you. He won't hurt you," meanwhile patting her +shoulder reassuringly. He looked down at her pale face. She was +so slight, so childlike, so apparently different from the sturdy +country girls. From--well, from the girls he knew. Her +helplessness, her utter femininity, appealed to all that was +masculine in him. Bella, the experienced, clinging to him, felt +herself swept from head to foot by a queer electric tingling that +was very pleasant but that still had in it something of the +sensation of a wholesale bumping of one's crazy bone. If she had +been anything but a stupid little flirt, she would have realized +that here was a specimen of the virile male with which she could +not trifle. She glanced up at him now, smiling faintly. "My, I +was scared!" She stepped away from him a little--very little. + + +"Aw, he wouldn't hurt a flea." + +But Bella looked over her shoulder fearfully to where Dunder +stood by the roadside, regarding Ben with a look of uncertainty. +He still thought that perhaps this was a new game. Not a game +that he cared for, but still one to be played if his master +fancied it. Ben stooped, picked up a stone, and threw it at +Dunder, striking him in the flank. + +"Go on home!" he commanded sternly. "Go home!" He started +toward the dog with a well-feigned gesture of menace. Dunder, +with a low howl, put his tail between his legs and loped off +home, a disillusioned dog. + +Bella stood looking up at Ben. Ben looked down at her. "You're +the new teacher, ain't you?" + +"Yes. I guess you must think I'm a fool, going on like a baby +about that dog." + +"Most girls would be scared of him if they didn't know he +wouldn't hurt nobody. He's pretty big." + +He paused a moment, awkwardly. "My name's Ben Westerveld." + +"Pleased to meet you," said Bella. "Which way was you going? +There's a dog down at Tietjens' that's enough to scare anybody. +He looks like a pony, he's so big." + +"I forgot something at the school this afternoon, and I was +walking over to get it." Which was a lie. "I hope it won't +get dark before I get there. You were going the other way, +weren't you?" + +"Oh, I wasn't going no place in particular. I'll be pleased to +keep you company down to the school and back." He was surprised +at his own sudden masterfulness. + +They set off together, chatting as freely as if they had known +one another for years. Ben had been on his way to the Byers +farm, as usual. The Byers farm and Emma Byers passed out of his +mind as completely as if they had been whisked away on a magic +rug. + +Bella Huckins had never meant to marry him. She hated farm life. + +She was contemptuous of farmer folk. She loathed cooking and +drudgery. The Huckinses lived above the saloon in Commercial and +Mrs. Huckins was always boiling ham and tongue and cooking pigs' +feet and shredding cabbage for slaw, all these edibles being +destined for the free-lunch counter downstairs. Bella had early +made up her mind that there should be no boiling and stewing and +frying in her life. Whenever she could find an excuse she +loitered about the saloon. There she found life and talk and +color. Old Red Front Huckins used to chase her away, but she +always turned up again, somehow, with a dish for the lunch +counter or with an armful of clean towels. + +Ben Westerveld never said clearly to himself, "I want to marry +Bella." He never dared meet the thought. He intended honestly +to marry Emma Byers. But this thing was too strong for him. As +for Bella, she laughed at him, but she was scared, too. They +both fought the thing, she selfishly, he unselfishly, for the +Byers girl, with her clear, calm eyes and her dependable ways, +was heavy on his heart. Ben's appeal for Bella was merely that +of the magnetic male. She never once thought of his finer +qualities. Her appeal for him was that of the frail and alluring +woman. But in the end they married. The neighborhood was rocked +with surprise. + +Usually in a courtship it is the male who assumes the bright +colors of pretense in order to attract a mate. But Ben +Westerveld had been too honest to be anything but himself. He +was so honest and fundamentally truthful that he refused at first +to allow himself to believe that this slovenly shrew was the +fragile and exquisite creature he had married. He had the habit +of personal cleanliness, had Ben, in a day when tubbing was a +ceremony in an environment that made bodily nicety difficult. He +discovered that Bella almost never washed and that her appearance +of fragrant immaculateness, when dressed, was due to a natural +clearness of skin and eye, and to the way her blond hair swept +away in a clean line from her forehead. For the rest, she was a +slattern, with a vocabulary of invective that would have been a +credit to any of the habitues of old Red Front Huckins' bar. + +They had three children, a girl and two boys. Ben Westerveld +prospered in spite of his wife. As the years went on he added +eighty acres here, eighty acres there, until his land swept down +to the very banks of the Mississippi. There is no doubt that she +hindered him greatly, but he was too expert a farmer to fail. At +threshing time the crew looked forward to working for Ben, the +farmer, and dreaded the meals prepared by Bella, his wife. She +was notoriously the worst cook and housekeeper in the county. +And all through the years, in trouble and in happiness, her +plaint was the same-- "If I'd thought I was going to stick down +on a farm all my life, slavin' for a pack of menfolks day and +night, I'd rather have died. Might as well be dead as rottin' +here." + +Her schoolteacher English had early reverted. Her speech was as +slovenly as her dress. She grew stout, too, and unwieldy, and +her skin coarsened from lack of care and from overeating. And in +her children's ears she continually dinned a hatred of farm life +and farming. "You can get away from it," she counseled her +daughter, Minnie. "Don't you be a rube like your pa," she +cautioned John, the older boy. And they profited by her ad- +vice. Minnie went to work in Commercial when she was seventeen, +an overdeveloped girl with an inordinate love of cheap finery. +At twenty, she married an artisan, a surly fellow with roving +tendencies. They moved from town to town. He never stuck long +at one job. John, the older boy, was as much his mother's son as +Minnie was her mother's daughter. Restless, dissatisfied, +emptyheaded, he was the despair of his father. He drove the farm +horses as if they were racers, lashing them up hill and down +dale. He was forever lounging off to the village or wheedling +his mother for money to take him to Commercial. It was before +the day of the ubiquitous automobile. Given one of those present +adjuncts to farm life, John would have ended his career much +earlier. As it was, they found him lying by the roadside at dawn +one morning after the horses had trotted into the yard with the +wreck of the buggy bumping the road behind them. He had stolen +the horses out of the barn after the help was asleep, had led +them stealthily down the road, and then had whirled off to a +rendezvous of his own in town. The fall from the buggy might not +have hurt him, but evidently he had been dragged almost a mile +before his battered body became somehow disentangled from the +splintered wood and the reins. + +That horror might have served to bring Ben Westerveld and his +wife together, but it did not. It only increased her bitterness +and her hatred of the locality and the life. + +"I hope you're good an' satisfied now," she repeated in endless +reproach. "I hope you're good an' satisfied. You was bound +you'd make a farmer out of him, an' now you finished the job. +You better try your hand at Dike now for a change." + +Dike was young Ben, sixteen; and old Ben had no need to try his +hand at him. Young Ben was a born farmer, as was his father. He +had come honestly by his nickname. In face, figure, expression, +and manner he was a five-hundred-year throwback to his Holland +ancestors. Apple-cheeked, stocky, merry of eye, and somewhat +phlegmatic. When, at school, they had come to the story of the +Dutch boy who saved his town from flood by thrusting his finger +into the hole in the dike and holding it there until help came, +the class, after one look at the accompanying picture in the +reader, dubbed young Ben "Dike" Westerveld. And Dike he +remained. + +Between Dike and his father there was a strong but unspoken +feeling. The boy was cropwise, as his father had been at his +age. On Sundays you might see the two walking about the farm, +looking at the pigs--great black fellows worth almost their +weight in silver; eying the stock; speculating on the winter +wheat showing dark green in April, with rich patches that were +almost black. Young Dike smoked a solemn and judicious pipe, +spat expertly, and voiced the opinion that the winter wheat was a +fine prospect Ben Westerveld, listening tolerantly to the boy's +opinions, felt a great surge of joy that he did not show. Here, +at last, was compensation for all the misery and sordidness and +bitter disappointment of his married life. + +That married life had endured now for more than thirty years. +Ben Westerveld still walked with a light, quick step--for his +years. The stocky, broad-shouldered figure was a little +shrunken. He was as neat and clean at fifty-five as he had been +at twenty-five-a habit that, on a farm, is fraught with +difficulties. The community knew and respected him. He was a +man of standing. When he drove into town on a bright winter +morning, in his big sheepskin coat and his shaggy cap and his +great boots, and entered the First National Bank, even Shumway, +the cashier, would look up from his desk to say: + +"Hello, Westerveld! Hello! Well, how goes it?" + +When Shumway greeted a farmer in that way you knew that there +were no unpaid notes to his discredit. + +All about Ben Westerveld stretched the fruit of his toil; the +work of his hands. Orchards, fields, cattle, barns, silos. All +these things were dependent on him for their future +well-being--on him and on Dike after him. His days were full and +running over. Much of the work was drudgery; most of it was +backbreaking and laborious. But it was his place. It was his +reason for being. And he felt that the reason was good, though +he never put that thought into words, mental or spoken. He only +knew that he was part of the great scheme of things and that he +was functioning ably. If he had expressed himself at all, he +might have said: + +"Well, I got my work cut out for me, and I do it, and do it +right." + +There was a tractor, now, of course; and a sturdy, middle-class +automobile in which Bella lolled red-faced when they drove into +town. + +As Ben Westerveld had prospered, his shrewish wife had reaped her +benefits. Ben was not the selfish type of farmer who insists on +twentieth- century farm implements and medieval household +equipment. He had added a bedroom here, a cool summer kitchen +there, an icehouse, a commodious porch, a washing machine, even a +bathroom. But Bella remained unplacated. Her face was set +toward the city. And slowly, surely, the effect of thirty years +of nagging was beginning to tell on Ben Westerveld. He was the +finer metal, but she was the heavier, the coarser. She beat him +and molded him as iron beats upon gold. + +Minnie was living in Chicago now--a good-natured creature, but +slack like her mother. Her surly husband was still talking of +his rights and crying down with the rich. They had two children. + +Minnie wrote of them, and of the delights of city life. Movies +every night. Halsted Street just around the corner. The big +stores. State Street. The el took you downtown in no time. +Something going on all the while. Bella Westerveld, after one of +those letters, was more than a chronic shrew; she became a +terrible termagant. + +When Ben Westerveld decided to concentrate on hogs and wheat he +didn't dream that a world would be clamoring for hogs and wheat +for four long years. When the time came, he had them, and sold +them fabulously. But wheat and hogs and markets became +negligible things on the day that Dike, with seven other farm +boys from the district, left for the nearest training camp that +was to fit them for France and war. + +Bella made the real fuss, wailing and mouthing and going into +hysterics. Old Ben took it like a stoic. He drove the boy to +town that day. When the train pulled out, you might have seen, +if you had looked close, how the veins and cords swelled in the +lean brown neck above the clean blue shirt. But that was all. As +the weeks went on, the quick, light step began to lag a little. +He had lost more than a son; his right-hand helper was gone. +There were no farm helpers to be had. Old Ben couldn't do it +all. A touch of rheumatism that winter half crippled him for +eight weeks. Bella's voice seemed never to stop its plaint. + +"There ain't no sense in you trying to make out alone. Next +thing you'll die on me, and then I'll have the whole shebang on +my hands." At that he eyed her dumbly from his chair by the +stove. His resistance was wearing down. He knew it. He wasn't +dying. He knew that, too. But something in him was. Something +that had resisted her all these years. Something that had made +him master and superior in spite of everything. + +In those days of illness, as he sat by the stove, the memory of +Emma Byers came to him often. She had left that district +twenty-eight years ago, and had married, and lived in Chicago +somewhere, he had heard, and was prosperous. He wasted no time +in idle regrets. He had been a fool, and he paid the price of +fools. Bella, slamming noisily about the room, never suspected +the presence in the untidy place of a third person--a sturdy girl +of twenty-two or -three, very wholesome to look at, and with +honest, intelligent eyes and a serene brow. + +"It'll get worse an' worse all the time," Bella's whine went +on. "Everybody says the war'll last prob'ly for years an' +years. You can't make out alone. Everything's goin' to rack and +ruin. You could rent out the farm for a year, on trial. The +Burdickers'd take it, and glad. They got those three strappin' +louts that's all flat-footed or slab-sided or cross-eyed or +somethin', and no good for the army. Let them run it on shares. +Maybe they'll even buy, if things turn out. Maybe Dike'll never +come b----" + +But at the look on his face then, and at the low growl of +unaccustomed rage that broke from him, even she ceased her +clatter. + +They moved to Chicago in the early spring. The look that had +been on Ben Westerveld's face when he drove Dike to the train +that carried him to camp was stamped there again--indelibly this +time, it seemed. Calhoun County in the spring has much the +beauty of California. There is a peculiar golden light about it, +and the hills are a purplish haze. Ben Westerveld, walking down +his path to the gate, was more poignantly dramatic than any +figure in a rural play. He did not turn to look back, though, as +they do in a play. He dared not. + +They rented a flat in Englewood, Chicago, a block from Minnie's. +Bella was almost amiable these days. She took to city life as +though the past thirty years had never been. White kid shoes, +delicatessen stores, the movies, the haggling with peddlers, the +crowds, the crashing noise, the cramped, unnatural mode of +living--necessitated by a four-room flat--all these urban +adjuncts seemed as natural to her as though she had been bred in +the midst of them. + +She and Minnie used to spend whole days in useless shopping. +Theirs was a respectable neighborhood of well-paid artisans, +bookkeepers, and small shopkeepers. The women did their own +housework in drab garments and soiled boudoir caps that hid a +multitude of unkempt heads. They seemed to find a great deal of +time for amiable, empty gabbling From seven to four you might see +a pair of boudoir caps leaning from opposite bedroom windows, +conversing across back porches, pausing in the task of sweeping +front steps, standing at a street corner, laden with grocery +bundles. Minnie wasted hours in what she called "running over +to Ma's for a minute." The two quarreled a great deal, being so +nearly of a nature. But the very qualities that combated each +other seemed, by some strange chemical process, to bring them +together as well. + +"I'm going downtown today to do a little shopping," Minnie +would say. "Do you want to come along, Ma?" + +"What you got to get?" + +"Oh, I thought I'd look at a couple little dresses for +Pearlie." + +"When I was your age I made every stitch you wore." + +"Yeh, I bet they looked like it, too. This ain't the farm. I +got all I can do to tend to the house, without sewing." + +"I did it. I did the housework and the sewin' and cookin', an' +besides----" + +"A swell lot of housekeepin' you did. You don't need to tell +me." + +The bickering grew to a quarrel. But in the end they took the +downtown el together. You saw them, flushed of face, with +twitching fingers, indulging in a sort of orgy of dime spending +in the five-and-ten-cent store on the wrong side of State Street. + +They pawed over bolts of cheap lace and bits of stuff in the +stifling air of the crowded place. They would buy a sack of +salted peanuts from the great mound in the glass case, or a bag +of the greasy pink candy piled in profusion on the counter, and +this they would munch as they went. + +They came home late, fagged and irritable, and supplemented their +hurried dinner with hastily bought food from the near-by +delicatessen. + +Thus ran the life of ease for Ben Westerveld, retired farmer. +And so now he lay impatiently in bed, rubbing a nervous +forefinger over the edge of the sheet and saying to himself that, +well, here was another day. What day was it? L'see now. +Yesterday was--yesterday. A little feeling of panic came over +him. He couldn't remember what yesterday had been. He counted +back laboriously and decided that today must be Thursday. Not +that it made any difference. + +They had lived in the city almost a year now. But the city had +not digested Ben. He was a leathery morsel that could not be +assimilated. There he stuck in Chicago's crop, contributing +nothing, gaining nothing. A rube in a comic collar ambling +aimlessly about Halsted Street or State downtown. You saw him +conversing hungrily with the gritty and taciturn Swede who was +janitor for the block of red-brick flats. Ben used to follow him +around pathetically, engaging him in the talk of the day. Ben +knew no men except the surly Gus, Minnie's husband. Gus, the +firebrand, thought Ben hardly worthy of his contempt. If Ben +thought, sometimes, of the respect with which he had always been +greeted when he clumped down the main street of Commercial--if he +thought of how the farmers for miles around had come to him for +expert advice and opinion--he said nothing. + +Sometimes the janitor graciously allowed Ben to attend to the +furnace of the building in which he lived. He took out ashes, +shoveled coal. He tinkered and rattled and shook things. You +heard him shoveling and scraping down there, and smelled the +acrid odor of his pipe. It gave him something to do. He would +emerge sooty and almost happy. + +"You been monkeying with that furnace again!" Bella would +scold. "If you want something to do, why don't you plant a +garden in the back yard and grow something? You was crazy about +it on the farm." + +His face flushed a slow, dull red at that. He could not explain +to her that he lost no dignity in his own eyes in fussing about +an inadequate little furnace, but that self-respect would not +allow him to stoop to gardening-- he who had reigned over six +hundred acres of bountiful soil. + +On winter afternoons you saw him sometimes at the movies, whiling +away one of his many idle hours in the dim, close-smelling +atmosphere of the place. Tokyo and Rome and Gallipoli came to +him. He saw beautiful tiger-women twining fair, false arms about +the stalwart but yielding forms of young men with cleft chins. +He was only mildly interested. He talked to anyone who would +talk to him, though he was naturally a shy man. He talked to the +barber, the grocer, the druggist, the streetcar conductor, the +milkman, the iceman. But the price of wheat did not interest +these gentlemen. They did not know that the price of wheat was +the most vital topic of conversation in the world. + +"Well, now," he would say, "you take this year's wheat crop, +with about 917,000,000 bushels of wheat harvested, why, that's +what's going to win the war! Yes, sirree! No wheat, no winning, +that's what I say." + +"Ya-as, it is!" the city men would scoff. But the queer part +of it is that Farmer Ben was right. + +Minnie got into the habit of using him as a sort of nursemaid. +It gave her many hours of freedom for gadding and gossiping. + +"Pa, will you look after Pearlie for a little while this +morning? I got to run downtown to match something and she gets +so tired and mean-acting if I take her along. Ma's going with +me." + +He loved the feel of Pearlie's small, velvet-soft hand in his big +fist. He called her "little feller," and fed her forbidden +dainties. His big brown fingers were miraculously deft at +buttoning and unbuttoning her tiny garments, and wiping her soft +lips, and performing a hundred tender offices. He was playing a +sort of game with himself, pretending this was Dike become a baby +again. Once the pair managed to get over to Lincoln Park, where +they spent a glorious day looking at the animals, eating popcorn, +and riding on the miniature railway. + +They returned, tired, dusty, and happy, to a double tirade. + +Bella engaged in a great deal of what she called worrying about +Dike. Ben spoke of him seldom, but the boy was always present in +his thoughts. They had written him of their move, but he had not +seemed to get the impression of its permanence. His letters +indicated that he thought they were visiting Minnie, or taking a +vacation in the city. Dike's letters were few. Ben treasured +them, and read and reread them. When the Armistice news came, +and with it the possibility of Dike's return, Ben tried to fancy +him fitting into the life of the city. And his whole being +revolted at the thought. + +He saw the pimply-faced, sallow youths standing at the corner of +Halsted and Sixty-third, spitting languidly and handling their +limp cigarettes with an amazing labial dexterity. Their +conversation was low-voiced, sinister, and terse, and their eyes +narrowed as they watched the overdressed, scarlet-lipped girls go +by. A great fear clutched at Ben Westerveld's heart. + +The lack of exercise and manual labor began to tell on Ben. He +did not grow fat from idleness. Instead his skin seemed to sag +and hang on his frame, like a garment grown too large for him. +He walked a great deal. Perhaps that had something to do with +it. He tramped miles of city pave- ments. He was a very lonely +man. And then, one day, quite by accident, he came upon South +Water Street. Came upon it, stared at it as a water-crazed +traveler in a desert gazes upon the spring in the oasis, and +drank from it, thirstily, gratefully. + +South Water Street feeds Chicago. Into that close-packed +thoroughfare come daily the fruits and vegetables that will +supply a million tables. Ben had heard of it, vaguely, but had +never attempted to find it. Now he stumbled upon it and, +standing there, felt at home in Chicago for the first time in +more than a year. He saw ruddy men walking about in overalls and +carrying whips in their hands--wagon whips, actually. He hadn't +seen men like that since he had left the farm. The sight of them +sent a great pang of homesickness through him. His hand reached +out and he ran an accustomed finger over the potatoes in a barrel +on the walk. His fingers lingered and gripped them, and passed +over them lovingly. + +At the contact something within him that had been tight and +hungry seemed to relax, satisfied. It was his nerves, feeding on +those familiar things for which they had been starving. + +He walked up one side and down the other. Crates of lettuce, +bins of onions, barrels of apples. Such vegetables! The +radishes were scarlet globes. Each carrot was a spear of pure +orange. The green and purple of fancy asparagus held his expert +eye. The cauliflower was like a great bouquet, fit for a bride; +the cabbages glowed like jade. + +And the men! He hadn't dreamed there were men like that in this +big, shiny-shod, stiffly laundered, white-collared city. Here +were rufous men in overalls--worn, shabby, easy-looking overalls +and old blue shirts, and mashed hats worn at a careless angle. +Men, jovial, good-natured, with clear eyes, and having about them +some of the revivifying freshness and wholesomeness of the +products they handled. + +Ben Westerveld breathed in the strong, pungent smell of onions +and garlic and of the earth that seemed to cling to the +vegetables, washed clean though they were. He breathed deeply, +gratefully, and felt strangely at peace. + +It was a busy street. A hundred times he had to step quickly to +avoid a hand truck, or dray, or laden wagon. And yet the busy +men found time to greet him friendlily. "H'are you!" they said +genially. "H'are you this morning!" + +He was marketwise enough to know that some of these busy people +were commission men, and some grocers, and some buyers, stewards, +clerks. It was a womanless thoroughfare. At the busiest +business corner, though, in front of the largest commission house +on the street, he saw a woman. Evidently she was transacting +business, too, for he saw the men bringing boxes of berries and +vegetables for her inspection. A woman in a plain blue skirt and +a small black hat. + +A funny job for a woman. What weren't they mixing into nowadays! + +He turned sidewise in the narrow, crowded space in order to pass +her little group. And one of the men--a red-cheeked, +merry-looking young fellow in a white apron--laughed and said: +"Well, Emma, you win. When it comes to driving a bargain with +you, I quit. It can't be did!" + +Even then he didn't know her. He did not dream that this +straight, slim, tailored, white-haired woman, bargaining so +shrewdly with these men, was the Emma Byers of the old days. But +he stopped there a moment, in frank curiosity, and the woman +looked up. She looked up, and he knew those intelligent eyes and +that serene brow. He had carried the picture of them in his mind +for more than thirty years, so it was not so surprising. + +He did not hesitate. He might have if he had thought a moment, +but he acted automatically. He stood before her. "You're Emma +Byers, ain't you?" + +She did not know him at first. Small blame to her, so completely +had the roguish, vigorous boy vanished in this sallow, sad-eyed +old man. Then: "Why, Ben!" she said quietly. And there was +pity in her voice, though she did not mean to have it there. She +put out one hand--that capable, reassuring hand--and gripped his +and held it a moment. It was queer and significant that it +should be his hand that lay within hers. + +"Well, what in all get-out are you doing around here, Emma?" +He tried to be jovial and easy. She turned to the aproned man +with whom she had been dealing and smiled. + +"What am I doing here, Joe?" + +Joe grinned, waggishly. "Nothin'; only beatin' every man on the +street at his own game, and makin' so much money that----" + +But she stopped him there. "I guess I'll do my own +explaining." She turned to Ben again. "And what are you doing +here in Chicago?" + +Ben passed a faltering hand across his chin. "Me? Well, +I'm--we're living here, I s'pose. Livin' here." + +She glanced at him sharply. "Left the farm, Ben?" + +"Yes." + +"Wait a minute." She concluded her business with Joe; finished +it briskly and to her own satisfaction. With her bright brown +eyes and her alert manner and her quick little movements she made +you think of a wren--a businesslike little wren--a very early +wren that is highly versed in the worm-catching way. + +At her next utterance he was startled but game. + +"Have you had your lunch?" + +"Why, no; I----" + +"I've been down here since seven, and I'm starved. Let's go and +have a bite at the little Greek restaurant around the corner. A +cup of coffee and a sandwich, anyway." + +Seated at the bare little table, she surveyed him with those +intelligent, understanding, kindly eyes, and he felt the years +slip from him. They were walking down the country road together, +and she was listening quietly and advising him. + +She interrogated him gently. But something of his old +masterfulness came back to him. "No, I want to know about you +first. I can't get the rights of it, you being here on South +Water, tradin' and all." + +So she told him briefly. She was in the commission business. +Successful. She bought, too, for such hotels as the Blackstone +and the Congress, and for half a dozen big restaurants. She gave +him bare facts, but he was shrewd enough and sufficiently versed +in business to know that here was a woman of established +commercial position. + +"But how does it happen you're keepin' it up, Emma, all this +time? Why, you must be anyway--it ain't that you look +it--but----" He floundered, stopped. + +She laughed. "That's all right, Ben. I couldn't fool you on +that. And I'm working because it keeps me happy. I want to work +till I die. My children keep telling me to stop, but I know +better than that. I'm not going to rust out. I want to wear +out." Then, at an unspoken question in his eyes: "He's dead. +These twenty years. It was hard at first, when the children were +small. But I knew garden stuff if I didn't know anything else. +It came natural to me. That's all." + +So then she got his story from him bit by bit. He spoke of the +farm and of Dike, and there was a great pride in his voice. He +spoke of Bella, and the son who had been killed, and of Minnie. +And the words came falteringly. He was trying to hide something, +and he was not made for deception. When he had finished: + +"Now, listen, Ben. You go back to your farm." + +"I can't. She--I can't." + +She leaned forward, earnestly. "You go back to the farm." + +He turned up his palms with a little gesture of defeat. "I +can't." + +"You can't stay here. It's killing you. It's poisoning you. +Did you ever hear of toxins? That means poisons, and you're +poisoning yourself. You'll die of it. You've got another twenty +years of work in you. What's ailing you? You go back to your +wheat and your apples and your hogs. There isn't a bigger job in +the world than that." + +For a moment his face took on a glow from the warmth of her own +inspiring personality. But it died again. When they rose to go, +his shoulders drooped again, his muscles sagged. At the doorway +he paused a moment, awkward in farewell. He blushed a little, +stammered. + +"Emma--I always wanted to tell you. God knows it was luck for +you the way it turned out--but I always wanted to----" + +She took his hand again in her firm grip at that, and her kindly, +bright brown eyes were on him. "I never held it against you, +Ben. I had to live a long time to understand it. But I never +held a grudge. It just wasn't to be, I suppose. But listen to +me, Ben. You do as I tell you. You go back to your wheat and +your apples and your hogs. There isn't a bigger man-size job in +the world. It's where you belong." + +Unconsciously his shoulders straightened again. Again they +sagged. And so they parted, the two. + +He must have walked almost all the long way home, through miles +and miles of city streets. He must have lost his way, too, for +when he looked up at a corner street sign it was an unfamiliar +one. + +So he floundered about, asked his way, was misdirected. He took +the right streetcar at last and got off at his own corner at +seven o'clock, or later. He was in for a scolding, he knew. + +But when he came to his own doorway he knew that even his +tardiness could not justify the bedlam of sound that came from +within. High-pitched voices. Bella's above all the rest, of +course, but there was Minnie's too, and Gus's growl, and +Pearlie's treble, and the boy Ed's and---- + +At the other voice his hand trembled so that the knob rattled in +the door, and he could not turn it. But finally he did turn it, +and stumbled in, breathing hard. And that other voice was +Dike's. + +He must have just arrived. The flurry of explanation was still +in progress. Dike's knapsack was still on his back, and his +canteen at his hip, his helmet slung over his shoulder. A brown, +hard, glowing Dike, strangely tall and handsome and older, too. +Older. + +All this Ben saw in less than one electric second. Then he had +the boy's two shoulders in his hands, and Dike was saying, +"Hello, Pop." + +Of the roomful, Dike and old Ben were the only quiet ones. The +others were taking up the explanation and going over it again and +again, and marveling, and asking questions. + +"He come in to--what's that place, Dike?--Hoboken--yesterday +only. An' he sent a dispatch to the farm. Can't you read our +letters, Dike, that you didn't know we was here now? And then +he's only got an hour more. They got to go to Camp Grant to be, +now, demobilized. He came out to Minnie's on a chance. Ain't he +big!" + +But Dike and his father were looking at each other quietly. Then +Dike spoke. His speech was not phlegmatic, as of old. He had a +new clipped way of uttering his words: + +"Say, Pop, you ought to see the way the Frenchies farm! They +got about an acre each, and, say, they use every inch of it. If +they's a little dirt blows into the crotch of a tree, they plant +a crop in there. I never seen nothin' like it. Say, we waste +enough stuff over here to keep that whole country in food for a +hundred years. Yessir. And tools! Outta the ark, believe me. +If they ever saw our tractor, they'd think it was the Germans +comin' back. But they're smart at that. I picked up a lot of +new ideas over there. And you ought to see the old +birds--womenfolks and men about eighty years old-- runnin' +everything on the farm. They had to. I learned somethin' off +them about farmin'." + +"Forget the farm," said Minnie. + +"Yeh," echoed Gus, "forget the farm stuff. I can get you a +job here out at the works for four-fifty a day, and six when you +learn it right." + +Dike looked from one to the other, alarm and unbelief on his +face. "What d'you mean, a job? Who wants a job! What you +all----" + +Bella laughed jovially. "F'r heaven's sakes, Dike, wake up! +We're livin' here. This is our place. We ain't rubes no more." + + + +Dike turned to his father. A little stunned look crept into his +face. A stricken, pitiful look. There was something about it +that suddenly made old Ben think of Pearlie when she had been +slapped by her quick- tempered mother. + +"But I been countin' on the farm," he said miserably. "I just +been livin' on the idea of comin' back to it. Why, I---- The +streets here, they're all narrow and choked up. I been countin' +on the farm. I want to go back and be a farmer. I want----" + +And then Ben Westerveld spoke. A new Ben Westerveld--the old Ben +Westerveld. Ben Westerveld, the farmer, the monarch over six +hundred acres of bounteous bottomland. + +"That's all right, Dike," he said. "You're going back. So'm +I. I've got another twenty years of work in me. We're going +back to the farm." + +Bella turned on him, a wildcat. "We ain't! Not me! We ain't! +I'm not agoin' back to the farm." + +But Ben Westerveld was master again in his own house. "You're +goin' back, Bella," he said quietly, "an' things are goin' to +be different. You're goin' to run the house the way I say, or +I'll know why. If you can't do it, I'll get them in that can. +An' me and Dike, we're goin' back to our wheat and our apples and +our hogs. Yessir! There ain't a bigger man-size job in the +world." + + + + + Un Morso doo Pang + [1919] + +When you are twenty you do not patronize sunsets unless you are +unhappy, in love, or both. Tessie Golden was both. Six months +ago a sunset had wrung from her only a casual tribute, such as: +"My! Look how red the sky is!" delivered as unemotionally as a +weather bulletin. + +Tessie Golden sat on the top step of the back porch now, a slim, +inert heap in a cotton house coat and scuffed slippers. Her head +was propped wearily against the porch post. Her hands were limp +in her lap. Her face was turned toward the west, where shone +that mingling of orange and rose known as salmon pink. But no +answering radiance in the girl's face met the glow in the +Wisconsin sky. + + +Saturday night, after supper in Chippewa, Wisconsin, Tessie +Golden of the presunset era would have been calling from her +bedroom to the kitchen: "Ma, what'd you do with my pink +blouse?" + +And from the kitchen: "It's in your second bureau drawer. The +collar was kind of mussed from Wednesday night, and I give it a +little pressing while my iron was on." + +At seven-thirty Tessie would have emerged from her bedroom in the +pink blouse that might have been considered alarmingly frank as +to texture and precariously low as to neck had Tessie herself not +been so reassuringly unopulent; a black taffeta skirt, very +brief; a hat with a good deal of French blue about it; fragile +high-heeled pumps with bows. + +As she passed through the sitting room on her way out, her mother +would appear in the doorway, dishtowel in hand. Her pride in +this slim young thing and her love of her she concealed with a +thin layer of carping criticism. + +"Runnin' downtown again, I s'pose." A keen eye on the swishing +skirt hem. + +Tessie, the quick-tongued, would toss the wave of shining hair +that lay against either glowing cheek. "Oh, my, no! I just +thought I'd dress up in case Angie Hatton drove past in her auto +and picked me up for a little ride. So's not to keep her +waiting." + +Angie Hatton was Old Man Hatton's daughter. Anyone in the Fox +River Valley could have told you who Old Man Hatton was. You saw +his name at the top of every letterhead of any importance in +Chippewa, from the Pulp and Paper Mill to the First National +Bank, and including the watch factory, the canning works, and the +Mid-Western Land Company. Knowing this, you were able to +appreciate Tessie's sarcasm. Angie Hatton was as unaware of +Tessie's existence as only a young woman could be whose family +residence was in Chippewa, Wisconsin, but who wintered in Italy, +summered in the mountains, and bought (so the town said) her very +hairpins in New York. When Angie Hatton came home from the East +the town used to stroll past on Mondays to view the washing on +the Hatton line. Angie's underwear, flirting so audaciously with +the sunshine and zephyrs, was of silk and crepe de Chine and +satin--materials that we had always thought of heretofore as +intended exclusively for party dresses and wedding gowns. Of +course, two years later they were showing practically the same +thing at Megan's dry-goods store. But that was always the way +with Angie Hatton. Even those of us who went to Chicago to shop +never quite caught up with her. + +Delivered of this ironic thrust, Tessie would walk toward the +screen door with a little flaunting sway of the hips. Her +mother's eyes, following the slim figure, had a sort of grudging +love in them. A spare, caustic, wiry little woman, Tessie's +mother. Tessie resembled her as a water color may resemble a +blurred charcoal sketch. Tessie's wide mouth curved into humor +lines. She was the cutup of the escapement department at the +watch factory; the older woman's lips sagged at the corners. +Tessie was buoyant and colorful with youth. The other was +shrunken and faded with years and labor. As the girl minced +across the room in her absurdly high-heeled shoes, the older +woman thought: My, but she's pretty! But she said aloud: "I +should think you'd stay home once in a while and not be runnin' +the streets every night." + +"Time enough to be sittin' home when I'm old like you." + +And yet between these two there was love, and even understanding. + +But in families such as Tessie's, demonstration is a thing to be +ashamed of; affection a thing to conceal. Tessie's father was +janitor of the Chippewa High School. A powerful man, slightly +crippled by rheumatism, loquacious, lively, fond of his family, +proud of his neat gray frame house and his new cement sidewalk +and his carefully tended yard and garden patch. In all her life +Tessie had never seen a caress exchanged between her parents. + +Nowadays Ma Golden had little occasion for finding fault with +Tessie's evening diversion. She no longer had cause to say, +"Always gaddin' downtown, or over to Cora's or somewhere, like +you didn't have a home to stay in. You ain't been in a evening +this week, only when you washed your hair." + +Tessie had developed a fondness for sunsets viewed from the back +porch --she who had thought nothing of dancing until three and +rising at half- past six to go to work. + +Stepping about in the kitchen after supper, her mother would eye +the limp, relaxed figure on the back porch with a little pang at +her heart. She would come to the screen door, or even out to the +porch on some errand or other--to empty the coffee grounds, to +turn the row of half-ripe tomatoes reddening on the porch +railing, to flap and hang up a damp tea towel. + +"Ain't you goin' out, Tess?" + +"No." + +"What you want to lop around here for? Such a grant evening. +Why don't you put on your things and run downtown, or over to +Cora's or somewhere, hm?" + +"What for?"--listlessly. + +"What for! What does anybody go out for!" + +"I don't know." + +If they could have talked it over together, these two, the girl +might have found relief. But the family shyness of their class +was too strong upon them. Once Mrs. Golden had said, in an +effort at sympathy, "Person'd think Chuck Mory was the only one +who'd gone to war an' the last fella left in the world." + +A grim flash of the old humor lifted the corners of the wide +mouth. "He is. Who's there left? Stumpy Gans, up at the +railroad crossing? Or maybe Fatty Weiman, driving the garbage. +Guess I'll doll up this evening and see if I can't make a hit +with one of them." + +She relapsed into bitter silence. The bottom had dropped out of +Tessie Golden's world. + + +In order to understand the Tessie of today one would have to know +the Tessie of six months ago--Tessie the impudent, the +life-loving. Tessie Golden could say things to the +escapement-room foreman that anyone else would have been fired +for. Her wide mouth was capable of glorious insolences. +Whenever you heard shrieks of laughter from the girls' washroom +at noon you knew that Tessie was holding forth to an admiring +group. She was a born mimic; audacious, agile, and with the gift +of burlesque. The autumn that Angie Hatton came home from Europe +wearing the first tight skirt that Chippewa had ever seen, Tessie +gave an imitation of that advanced young woman's progress down +Grand Avenue in this restricting garment. The thing was cruel in +its fidelity, though containing just enough exaggeration to make +it artistic. She followed it up by imitating the stricken look +on the face of Mattie Haynes, cloak-and-suit buyer at Megan's, +who, having just returned from the East with what she considered +the most fashionable of the new fall styles, now beheld Angie +Hatton in the garb that was the last echo of the last cry in +Paris modes--and no model in Mattie's newly selected stock bore +even the remotest resemblance to it. + +You would know from this that Tessie was not a particularly deft +worker. Her big-knuckled fingers were cleverer at turning out a +blouse or retrimming a hat. Hers were what are known as handy +hands, but not sensitive. It takes a light and facile set of +fingers to fit pallet and arbor and fork together: close work and +tedious. Seated on low benches along the tables, their chins +almost level with the table top, the girls worked with pincers +and flame, screwing together the three tiny parts of the watch's +anatomy that were their particular specialty. Each wore a +jeweler's glass in one eye. Tessie had worked at the watch +factory for three years, and the pressure of the glass on the eye +socket had given her the slightly hollow- eyed appearance +peculiar to experienced watchmakers. It was not unbecoming, +though, and lent her, somehow, a spiritual look which made her +impudence all the more piquant. + +Tessie wasn't always witty, really. But she had achieved a +reputation for wit which insured applause for even her feebler +efforts. Nap Ballou, the foreman, never left the escapement room +without a little shiver of nervous apprehension--a feeling +justified by the ripple of suppressed laughter that went up and +down the long tables. He knew that Tessie Golden, like a naughty +schoolgirl when teacher's back is turned, had directed one of her +sure shafts at him. + +Ballou, his face darkling, could easily have punished her. +Tessie knew it. But he never did, or would. She knew that, too. +Her very insolence and audacity saved her. + +"Someday," Ballou would warn her, "you'll get too gay, and +then you'll find yourself looking for a job." + +"Go on--fire me," retorted Tessie, "and I'll meet you in +Lancaster"--a form of wit appreciated only by watchmakers. For +there is a certain type of watch hand who is as peripatetic as +the old-time printer. Restless, ne'er-do- well, spendthrift, he +wanders from factory to factory through the chain of watchmaking +towns: Springfield, Trenton, Waltham, Lancaster, Waterbury, +Chippewa. Usually expert, always unreliable, certainly fond of +drink, Nap Ballou was typical of his kind. The steady worker had +a mingled admiration and contempt for him. He, in turn, regarded +the other as a stick-in-the-mud. Nap wore his cap on one side of +his curly head, and drank so evenly and steadily as never to be +quite drunk and never strictly sober. He had slender, sensitive +fingers like an artist's or a woman's, and he knew the parts of +that intricate mechanism known as a watch from the jewel to the +finishing room. It was said he had a wife or two. He was forty- +six, good-looking in a dissolute sort of way, possessing the +charm of the wanderer, generous with his money. It was known +that Tessie's barbs were permitted to prick him without +retaliation because Tessie herself appealed to his errant fancy. + +When the other girls teased her about this obvious state of +affairs, something fine and contemptuous welled up in her. +"Him! Why, say, he ought to work in a pickle factory instead of +a watchworks. All he needs is a little dill and a handful of +grape leaves to make him good eatin' as a relish." + +And she thought of Chuck Mory, perched on the high seat of the +American Express truck, hatless, sunburned, stockily muscular, +clattering down Winnebago Street on his way to the depot and the +7:50 train. + +Something about the clear simplicity and uprightness of the firm +little figure appealed to Nap Ballou. He used to regard her +curiously with a long, hard gaze before which she would grow +uncomfortable. "Think you'll know me next time you see me?" +But there was an uneasy feeling beneath her flip exterior. Not +that there was anything of the beautiful, persecuted factory girl +and villainous foreman about the situation. Tessie worked at +watchmaking because it was light, pleasant, and well paid. She +could have found another job for the asking. Her money went for +shoes and blouses and lingerie and silk stockings. She was +forever buying a vivid necktie for her father and dressing up her +protesting mother in gay colors that went ill with the drab, +wrinkled face. "If it wasn't for me, you'd go round looking +like one of those Polack women down by the tracks," Tessie would +scold. "It's a wonder you don't wear a shawl!" + +That was the Tessie of six months ago, gay, carefree, holding the +reins of her life in her own two capable hands. Three nights a +week, and Sunday, she saw Chuck Mory. When she went downtown on +Saturday night it was frankly to meet Chuck, who was waiting for +her on Schroeder's drugstore corner. He knew it, and she knew +it. Yet they always went through a little ceremony. She and +Cora, turning into Grand from Winnebago Street, would make for +the post office. Then down the length of Grand with a leaping +glance at Schroeder's corner before they reached it. Yes, there +they were, very clean-shaven, clean-shirted, slick-looking. +Tessie would have known Chuck's blond head among a thousand. An +air of studied hauteur and indifference as they approached the +corner. Heads turned the other way. A low whistle from the +boys. + +"Oh, how do!" + +"Good evening!" + +Both greetings done with careful surprise. Then on down the +street. On the way back you took the inside of the walk, and +your hauteur was now stony to the point of insult. Schroeder's +corner simply did not exist. On as far as Megan's, which you +entered and inspected, up one brightly lighted aisle and down the +next. At the dress-goods counter there was a neat little stack +of pamphlets entitled "In the World of Fashion." You took one +and sauntered out leisurely. Down Winnebago Street now, homeward +bound, talking animatedly and seemingly unconscious of quick +footsteps sounding nearer and nearer. Just past the Burke House, +where the residential district began, and where the trees cast +their kindly shadows: "Can I see you home?" A hand slipped +through her arm; a little tingling thrill. + +"Oh, why, how do, Chuck! Hello, Scotty. Sure, if you're going +our way." + +At every turn Chuck left her side and dashed around behind her in +order to place himself at her right again, according to the rigid +rule of Chippewa etiquette. He took her arm only at street +crossings until they reached the tracks, which perilous spot +seemed to justify him in retaining his hold throughout the +remainder of the stroll. Usually they lost Cora and Scotty +without having been conscious of their loss. + +Their talk? The girls and boys that each knew; the day's +happenings at factory and express office; next Wednesday night's +dance up in the Chute; and always the possibility of Chuck's +leaving the truck and assuming the managership of the office. + +"Don't let this go any further, see? But I heard it straight +that old Benke is going to be transferred to Fond du Lac. And if +he is, why, I step in, see? Benke's got a girl in Fondy, and +he's been pluggin' to get there. Gee, maybe I won't be glad when +he does!" A little silence. "Will you be glad, Tess? Hm?" + +Tess felt herself glowing and shivering as the big hand closed +more tightly on her arm. "Me? Why, sure I'll be pleased to see +you get a job that's coming to you by rights, and that'll get you +better pay, and all." + +But she knew what he meant, and he knew she knew. + +No more of that now. Chuck--gone. Scotty--gone. All the boys +at the watchworks, all the fellows in the neighborhood--gone. At +first she hadn't minded. It was exciting. You kidded them at +first: "Well, believe me, Chuck, if you shoot the way you play +ball, you're a gone goon already." + +"All you got to do, Scotty, is to stick that face of yours up +over the top of the trench and the Germans'll die of fright and +save you wasting bullets." + +There was a great knitting of socks and sweaters and caps. +Tessie's big- knuckled, capable fingers made you dizzy, they flew +so fast. Chuck was outfitted as for a polar expedition. Tess +took half a day off to bid him good-by. They marched down Grand +Avenue, that first lot of them, in their everyday suits and hats, +with their shiny yellow suitcases and their pasteboard boxes in +their hands, sheepish, red-faced, awkward. In their eyes, +though, a certain look. And so off for Camp Sherman, their young +heads sticking out of the car windows in clusters--black, yellow, +brown, red. But for each woman on the depot platform there was +just one head. Tessie saw a blurred blond one with a misty halo +around it. A great shouting and waving of handkerchiefs: + +"Good-by! Good-by! Write, now! Be sure! Mebbe you can get +off in a week, for a visit. Good-by! Good----" + +They were gone. Their voices came back to the crowd on the depot +platform-- high, clear young voices; almost like the voices of +children, shouting. + +Well, you wrote letters--fat, bulging letters--and in turn you +received equally plump envelopes with a red emblem in one corner. + +You sent boxes of homemade fudge (nut variety) and cookies and +the more durable forms of cake. + +Then, unaccountably, Chuck was whisked all the way to California. + +He was furious at parting with his mates, and his indignation was +expressed in his letters to Tessie. She sympathized with him in +her replies. She tried to make light of it, but there was a +little clutch of terror in it, too. California! Might as well +send a person to the end of the world while they were about it. +Two months of that. Then, inexplicably again, Chuck's letters +bore the astounding postmark of New York. She thought, in a +panic, that he was Franceward bound, but it turned out not to be +so. Not yet. Chuck's letters were taking on a cosmopolitan +tone. "Well," he wrote, "I guess the little old town is as +dead as ever. It seems funny you being right there all this time +and I've traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Everybody +treats me swell. You ought to seen some of those California +houses. They make Hatton's place look like a dump." + +The girls, Cora and Tess and the rest, laughed and joked among +themselves and assured one another, with a toss of the head, that +they could have a good time without the fellas. They didn't need +boys around. + +They gave parties, and they were not a success. There was one of +the type known as a stag. "Some hen party!" they all said. +They danced, and sang "Over There." They had ice cream and +chocolate layer cake and went home in great hilarity, with their +hands on each other's shoulders, still singing. + +But the thing was a failure, and they knew it. Next day, at the +lunch hour and in the washroom, there was a little desultory talk +about the stag. But the meat of such an aftergathering is +contained in phrases such as "I says to him"--and "He says to +me." They wasted little conversation on the stag. It was much +more exciting to exhibit letters on blue-lined paper with the red +emblem at the top. Chuck's last letter had contained the news of +his sergeancy. + +Angie Hatton, home from the East, was writing letters, too. +Everyone in Chippewa knew that. She wrote on that new art paper +with the gnawed- looking edges and stiff as a newly laundered +cuff. But the letters which she awaited so eagerly were written +on the same sort of paper as were those Tessie had from +Chuck--blue-lined, cheap in quality. A New York fellow, Chippewa +learned; an aviator. They knew, too, that young Hatton was an +infantry lieutenant somewhere in the East. These letters were +not from him. + +Ever since her home-coming, Angie had been sewing at the Red +Cross shop on Grand Avenue. Chippewa boasted two Red Cross +shops. The Grand Avenue shop was the society shop. The East End +crowd sewed there, capped, veiled, aproned--and unapproachable. +Were your fingers ever so deft, your knowledge of seams and +basting mathematical, your skill with that complicated garment +known as a pneumonia jacket uncanny, if you did not belong to the +East End set, you did not sew at the Grand Avenue shop. No +matter how grossly red the blood which the Grand Avenue bandages +and pads were ultimately to stanch, the liquid in the fingers +that rolled and folded them was pure cerulean. + +Tessie and her crowd had never thought of giving any such service +to their country. They spoke of the Grand Avenue workers as +"that stinkin' bunch." Yet each one of the girls was capable +of starting a blouse in an emergency on Saturday night and +finishing it in time for a Sunday picnic, buttonholes and all. +Their help might have been invaluable. It never was asked. + +Without warning, Chuck came home on three days' furlough. It +meant that he was bound for France right enough this time. But +Tessie didn't care. + +"I don't care where you're goin'," she said exultantly, her +eyes lingering on the stocky, straight, powerful figure in its +rather ill-fitting khaki. "You're here now. That's enough. +Ain't you tickled to be home, Chuck? Gee!" ` + +`I'll say," responded Chuck. But even he seemed to detect some +lack in his tone and words. He elaborated somewhat shamefacedly: + +"Sure. It's swell to be home. But I don't know. After you've +traveled around, and come back, things look so kind of little to +you. I don't know--kind of----" He floundered about, at a loss +for expression. Then tried again: "Now, take Hatton's place, +for example. I always used to think it was a regular palace, +but, gosh, you ought to see places where I was asked to in San +Francisco and around there. Why, they was--were--enough to make +the Hatton house look like a shack. Swimmin' pools of white +marble, and acres of yard like a park, and the help always +bringing you something to eat or drink. And the folks +themselves--why, say! Here we are scraping and bowing to Hattons +and that bunch. They're pikers to what some people are that +invited me to their houses in New York and Berkeley, and treated +me and the other guys like kings or something. Take Megan's +store, too"--he was warming to his subject, so that he failed to +notice the darkening of Tessie's face--"it's a joke compared to +New York and San Francisco stores. Reg'lar hick joint." + +Tessie stiffened. Her teeth were set, her eyes sparkled. She +tossed her head. "Well, I'm sure, Mr. Mory, it's good enough +for me. Too bad you had to come home at all now you're so +elegant and swell, and everything. You better go call on Angie +Hatton instead of wasting time on me. She'd probably be tickled +to see you." + +He stumbled to his feet, then, awkwardly. "Aw, say, Tessie, I +didn't mean--why, say--you don't suppose--why, believe me, I +pretty near busted out cryin' when I saw the Junction eatin' +house when my train came in. And I been thinking of you every +minute. There wasn't a day----" + +"Tell that to your swell New York friends. I may be a hick but +I ain't a fool." She was near to tears. + +"Why, say, Tess, listen! Listen! If you knew--if you knew--A +guy's got to--he's got no right to----" + +And presently Tessie was mollified, but only on the surface. She +smiled and glanced and teased and sparkled. And beneath was +terror. He talked differently. He walked differently. It +wasn't his clothes or the army. It was something else--an ease +of manner, a new leisureliness of glance, an air. Once Tessie +had gone to Milwaukee over Labor Day. It was the extent of her +experience as a traveler. She remembered how superior she had +felt for at least two days after. But Chuck! California! New +York! It wasn't the distance that terrified her. It was his new +knowledge, the broadening of his vision, though she did not know +it and certainly could not have put it into words. + +They went walking down by the river to Oneida Springs, and drank +some of the sulphur water that tasted like rotten eggs. Tessie +drank it with little shrieks and shudders and puckered her face +up into an expression indicative of extreme disgust. + +"It's good for you," Chuck said, and drank three cups of it, +manfully. "That taste is the mineral qualities the water +contains--sulphur and iron and so forth." + +"I don't care," snapped Tessie irritably. "I hate it!" They +had often walked along the river and tasted of the spring water, +but Chuck had never before waxed scientific. They took a boat at +Baumann's boathouse and drifted down the lovely Fox River. + +"Want to row?" Chuck asked. "I'll get an extra pair of oars +if you do." + +"I don't know how. Besides, it's too much work. I guess I'll +let you do it." + +Chuck was fitting his oars in the oarlocks. She stood on the +landing looking down at him. His hat was off. His hair seemed +blonder than ever against the rich tan of his face. His neck +muscles swelled a little as he bent. Tessie felt a great longing +to bury her face in the warm red skin. He straightened with a +sigh and smiled at her. "I'll be ready in a minute." He took +off his coat and turned his khaki shirt in at the throat, so that +you saw the white line of his untanned chest in strange contrast +to his sun- burned throat. A feeling of giddy faintness surged +over Tessie. She stepped blindly into the boat and would have +fallen if Chuck's hard, firm grip had not steadied her. "Whoa, +there! Don't you know how to step into a boat? There. Walk +along the middle." + +She sat down and smiled up at him. "I don't know how I come to +do that. I never did before." + +Chuck braced his feet, rolled up his sleeves, and took an oar in +each brown hand, bending rhythmically to his task. He looked +about him, then at the girl, and drew a deep breath, feathering +his oars. "I guess I must have dreamed about this more'n a +million times." + +"Have you, Chuck?" + +They drifted on in silence. "Say, Tess, you ought to learn to +row. It's good exercise. Those girls in California and New +York, they play tennis and row and swim as good as the boys. +Honest, some of 'em are wonders!" + +Oh, I'm sick of your swell New York friends! Can't you talk +about something else?" + +He saw that he had blundered without in the least understanding +how or why. "All right. What'll we talk about?" In itself a +fatal admission. + +"About--you." Tessie made it a caress. + +"Me? Nothin' to tell about me. I just been drillin' and +studyin' and marchin' and readin' some---- Oh, say, what d'you +think?" + +"What?" + +"They been learnin' us--teachin' us, I mean--French. It's the +darnedest language! Bread is pain. Can you beat that? If you +want to ask for a piece of bread, you say like this: DONNAY MA +UN MORSO DOO PANG. See?" + +"My!" breathed Tessie. + +And within her something was screaming: Oh, my God! Oh, my God! +He knows French. And those girls that can row and swim and +everything. And me, I don't know anything. Oh, God, what'll I +do? + +It was as though she could see him slipping away from her, out of +her grasp, out of her sight. She had no fear of what might come +to him in France. Bullets and bayonets would never hurt Chuck. +He'd make it, just as he always made the 7:50 when it seemed as +if he was going to miss it sure. He'd make it there and back, +all right. But he'd be a different Chuck, while she stayed the +same Tessie. Books, travel, French, girls, swell folks---- + +And all the while she was smiling and dimpling and trailing her +hand in the water. "Bet you can't guess what I got in that +lunch box." + +"Chocolate cake." + +"Well, of course I've got chocolate cake. I baked it myself +this morning." + + + +"Yes, you did!" "Why, Chuck Mory, I did so! I guess you +think I can't do anything, the way you talk." + +"Oh, don't I! I guess you know what I think." + +"Well, it isn't the cake I mean. It's something else." + + "Fried chicken!" + +"Oh, now you've gone and guessed it." She pouted prettily. + +"You asked me to, didn't you?" + +Then they laughed together, as at something exquisitely witty. +Down the river, drifting, rowing. Tessie pointed to a house half +hidden among the trees on the farther shore: "There's Hatton's +camp. They say they have grand times there with their swell +crowd some Saturdays and Sundays. If I had a house like that, +I'd live in it all the time, not just a couple of days out of the +whole year." She hesitated a moment. "I suppose it looks like +a shanty to you now." + +Chuck surveyed it, patronizingly. "No, it's a nice little +place." + +They beached their boat, and built a little fire, and had supper +on the riverbank, and Tessie picked out the choice bits for +him--the breast of the chicken, beautifully golden brown; the +ripest tomato; the firmest, juiciest pickle; the corner of the +little cake which would give him a double share of icing. + +From Chuck, between mouthfuls: "I guess you don't know how good +this tastes. Camp grub's all right, but after you've had a few +months of it you get so you don't believe there IS such a thing +as real fried chicken and homemade chocolate cake." + +"I'm glad you like it, Chuck. Here, take this drumstick. You +ain't eating a thing!" His fourth piece of chicken. + +Down the river as far as the danger line just above the dam, with +Tessie pretending fear just for the joy of having Chuck reassure +her. Then back again in the dusk, Chuck bending to the task now +against the current. And so up the hill, homeward bound. They +walked very slowly, Chuck's hand on her arm. They were dumb with +the tragic, eloquent dumbness of their kind. If she could have +spoken the words that were churning in her mind, they would have +been something like this: + +"Oh, Chuck, I wish I was married to you. I wouldn't care if +only I had you. I wouldn't mind babies or anything. I'd be +glad. I want our house, with a dining-room set, and a mahogany +bed, and one of those overstuffed sets in the living room, and +all the housework to do. I'm scared. I'm scared I won't get it. + +What'll I do if I don't?" + +And he, wordlessly: "Will you wait for me, Tessie, and keep on +thinking about me? And will you keep yourself like you are so +that if I come back----" + +Aloud, she said: "I guess you'll get stuck on one of those +French girls. I should worry! They say wages at the watch +factory are going to be raised, workers are so scarce. I'll +probably be as rich as Angie Hatton time you get back." + +And he, miserably: "Little old Chippewa girls are good enough +for Chuck. I ain't counting on taking up with those Frenchies. +I don't like their jabber, from what I know of it. I saw some +pictures of 'em, last week, a fellow in camp had who'd been over +there. Their hair is all funny, and fixed up with combs and +stuff, and they look real dark like foreigners." + +It had been reassuring enough at the time. But that was six +months ago. And now here was the Tessie who sat on the back +porch, evenings, surveying the sunset. A listless, +lackadaisical, brooding Tessie. Little point to going downtown +Saturday nights now. There was no familiar, beloved figure to +follow you swiftly as you turned off Elm Street, homeward bound. +If she went downtown now, she saw only those Saturday-night +family groups which are familiar to every small town. The +husband, very damp as to hair and clean as to shirt, guarding the +gocart outside while the woman accomplished her Saturday-night +trading at Ding's or Halpin's. Sometimes there were as many as +half a dozen gocarts outside Halpin's, each containing a sleeping +burden, relaxed, chubby, fat-cheeked. The waiting men smoked +their pipes and conversed largely. "Hello, Ed. The woman's +inside, buyin' the store out, I guess." + +"That so? Mine, to. Well, how's everything?" + +Tessie knew that presently the woman would come out, bundle +laden, and that she would stow these lesser bundles in every +corner left available by the more important sleeping bundle--two +yards of oilcloth; a spool of 100, white; a banana for the baby; +a new stewpan at the five-and-ten. + +There had been a time when Tessie, if she thought of these women +at all, felt sorry for them--worn, drab, lacking in style and +figure. Now she envied them. + + +There were weeks upon weeks when no letter came from Chuck. In +his last letter there had been some talk of his being sent to +Russia. Tessie's eyes, large enough now in her thin face, +distended with a great fear. Russia! His letter spoke, too, of +French villages and chateaux. He and a bunch of fellows had been +introduced to a princess or a countess or something--it was all +one to Tessie--and what do you think? She had kissed them all on +both cheeks! Seems that's the way they did in France. + +The morning after the receipt of this letter the girls at the +watch factory might have remarked her pallor had they not been so +occupied with a new and more absorbing topic. + +"Tess, did you hear about Angie Hatton?" + +"What about her?" + +"She's going to France. It's in the Milwaukee paper, all about +her being Chippewa's fairest daughter, and a picture of the +house, and her being the belle of the Fox River Valley, and she's +giving up her palatial home and all to go to work in a canteen +for her country and bleeding France." + +"Ya-as she is!" sneered Tessie, and a dull red flush, so deep +as to be painful, swept over her face from throat to brow. +"Ya-as she is, the doll-faced simp! Why, say, she never wiped +up a floor in her life, or baked a cake, or stood on them feet of +hers. She couldn't cut up a loaf of bread decent. Bleeding +France! Ha! That's rich, that is." She thrust her chin out +brutally, and her eyes narrowed to slits. "She's going over +there after that fella of hers. She's chasing him. It's now or +never, and she knows it and she's scared, same's the rest of us. +On'y we got to set home and make the best of it. Or take what's +left." She turned her head slowly to where Nap Ballou stood +over a table at the far end of the room. She laughed a grim, un- +lovely little laugh. "I guess when you can't go after what you +want, like Angie, why you gotta take second choice." + +All that day, at the bench, she was the reckless, insolent, +audacious Tessie of six months ago. Nap Ballou was always +standing over her, pretending to inspect some bit of work or +other, his shoulder brushing hers. She laughed up at him so that +her face was not more than two inches from his. He flushed, but +she did not. She laughed a reckless little laugh. + +"Thanks for helping teach me my trade, Mr. Ballou. 'Course I +only been at it over three years now, so I ain't got the hang of +it yet." + +He straightened up slowly, and as he did so he rested a hand on +her shoulder for a brief moment. She did not shrug it off. + + +That night, after supper, Tessie put on her hat and strolled down +to Park Avenue. It wasn't for the walk. Tessie had never been +told to exercise systematically for her body's good, or her +mind's. She went in a spirit of unwholesome brooding curiosity +and a bitter resentment. Going to France, was she? Lots of good +she'd do there. Better stay home and--and what? Tessie cast +about in her mind for a fitting job for Angie. Guess she might's +well go, after all. Nobody'd miss her, unless it was her father, +and he didn't see her but about a third of the time. But in +Tessie's heart was a great envy of this girl who could bridge the +hideous waste of ocean that separated her from her man. Bleeding +France. Yeh! Joke! + +The Hatton place, built and landscaped twenty years before, +occupied a square block in solitary grandeur, the show place of +Chippewa. In architectural style it was an impartial mixture of +Norman castle, French chateau, and Rhenish schloss, with a dash +of Coney Island about its facade. It represented Old Man +Hatton's realized dream of landed magnificence. + +Tessie, walking slowly past it, and peering through the high iron +fence, could not help noting an air of unwonted excitement about +the place, usually so aloof, so coldly serene. Automobiles +standing out in front. People going up and down. They didn't +look very cheerful. Just as if it mattered whether anything +happened to her or not! + +Tessie walked around the block and stood a moment, uncertainly. +Then she struck off down Grand Avenue and past Donovan's pool +shack. A little group of after-supper idlers stood outside, +smoking and gossiping, as she knew there would be. As she turned +the corner she saw Nap Ballou among them. She had known that, +too. As she passed she looked straight ahead, without bowing. +But just past the Burke House he caught up with her. No half-shy +"Can I walk home with you?" from Nap Ballou. No. Instead: +"Hello, sweetheart!" + +"Hello, yourself." + +"Somebody's looking mighty pretty this evening, all dolled up in +pink." + +"Think so?" She tried to be pertly indifferent, but it was +good to have someone following, someone walking home with you. +What if he was old enough to be her father, with graying hair? +Lots of the movie heroes had graying hair at the sides. + +They walked for an hour. Tessie left him at the corner. She had +once heard her father designate Ballou as "that drunken skunk." +When she entered the sitting room her cheeks held an unwonted +pink. Her eyes were brighter than they had been in months. Her +mother looked up quickly, peering at her over a pair of +steel-rimmed spectacles, very much askew. + +"Where you been, Tessie?" + +"Oh, walkin'." + +"Who with?" + +"Cora." + +"Why, she was here, callin' for you, not more'n an hour ago." + +Tessie, taking off her hat on her way upstairs, met this coolly. +"Yeh, I ran into her comin' back." + +Upstairs, lying fully dressed on her hard little bed, she stared +up into the darkness, thinking, her hands limp at her sides. Oh, +well, what's the diff? You had to make the best of it. +Everybody makin' a fuss about the soldiers--feeding 'em, and +asking 'em to their houses, and sending 'em things, and giving +dances and picnics and parties so they wouldn't be lonesome. +Chuck had told her all about it. The other boys told the same. +They could just pick and choose their good times. Tessie's mind +groped about, sensing a certain injustice. How about the girls? +She didn't put it thus squarely. Hers was not a logical mind. +Easy enough to paw over the men- folks and get silly over brass +buttons and a uniform. She put it that way. She thought of the +refrain of a popular song: "What Are You Going to Do to Help +the Boys?" Tessie, smiling a crooked little smile up there in +the darkness, parodied the words deftly: "What're you going to +do to help the girls?" she demanded. "What're you going to +do----" She rolled over on one side and buried her head in her +arms. + + +There was news again next morning at the watch factory. Tessie +of the old days had never needed to depend on the other girls for +the latest bit of gossip. Her alert eye and quick ear had always +caught it first. But of late she had led a cloistered existence, +indifferent to the world about her. The Chippewa Courier went +into the newpaper pile behind the kitchen door without a glance +from Tessie's incurious eye. + +She was late this morning. As she sat down at the bench and +fitted her glass in her eye, the chatter of the others, pitched +in the high key of unusual excitement, penetrated even her +listlessness. + +"And they say she never screeched or fainted or anything. She +stood there, kind of quiet, looking straight ahead, and then all +of a sudden she ran to her pa----" + +"I feel sorry for her. She never did anything to me. She----" + +Tessie spoke, her voice penetrating the staccato fragments all +about her and gathering them into a whole. "Say, who's the +heroine of this picture? I come in in the middle of the film, I +guess." + +They turned on her with the unlovely eagerness of those who have +ugly news to tell. They all spoke at once, in short sentences, +their voices high with the note of hysteria. + +"Angie Hatton's beau was killed----" + +"They say his airyoplane fell ten thousand feet----" + +"The news come only last evening about eight----" + +"She won't see nobody but her pa----" + +Eight! At eight Tessie had been standing outside Hatton's house, +envying Angie and hating her. So that explained the people, and +the automobiles, and the excitement. Tessie was not receiving +the news with the dramatic reaction which its purveyors felt it +deserved. Tessie, turning from one to the other quietly, had +said nothing. She was pitying Angie. Oh, the luxury of it! Nap +Ballou, coming in swiftly to still the unwonted commotion in work +hours, found Tessie the only one quietly occupied in that +chatter-filled room. She was smiling as she worked. Nap Ballou, +bending over her on some pretense that deceived no one, spoke +low-voiced in her ear. But she veiled her eyes insolently and +did not glance up. She hummed contentedly all the morning at her +tedious work. + +She had promised Nap Ballou to go picknicking with him Sunday. +Down the river, boating, with supper on shore. The small, still +voice within her had said, "Don't go! Don't go!" But the +harsh, high-pitched, reckless overtone said, "Go on! Have a +good time. Take all you can get." + +She would have to lie at home and she did it. Some fabrication +about the girls at the watchworks did the trick. Fried chicken, +chocolate cake. She packed them deftly and daintily. +High-heeled shoes, flimsy blouse, rustling skirt. Nap Ballou was +waiting for her over in the city park. She saw him before he +espied her. He was leaning against a tree, idly, staring +straight ahead with queer, lackluster eyes. Silhouetted there +against the tender green of the pretty square, he looked very +old, somehow, and different-- much older than he looked in his +shop clothes, issuing orders. Tessie noticed that he sagged +where he should have stuck out, and protruded where he should +have been flat. There flashed across her mind a vividly clear +picture of Chuck as she had last seen him--brown, fit, high of +chest, flat of stomach, slim of flank. + +Ballou saw her. He straightened and came toward her swiftly. +"Somebody looks mighty sweet this afternoon." + +Tessie plumped the heavy lunch box into his arms. "When you get +a line you like you stick to it, don't you?" + + +Down at the boathouse even Tessie, who had confessed ignorance of +boats and oars, knew that Ballou was fumbling clumsily. He +stooped to adjust the oars to the oarlocks. His hat was off. +His hair looked very gray in the cruel spring sunshine. He +straightened and smiled up at her. + +"Ready in a minute, sweetheart," he said. He took off his +collar and turned in the neckband of his shirt. His skin was +very white. Tessie felt a little shudder of disgust sweep over +her, so that she stumbled a little as she stepped into the boat. + +The river was very lovely. Tessie trailed her fingers in the +water and told herself that she was having a grand time. She +told Nap the same when he asked her. + +"Having a good time, little beauty?" he said. He was puffing a +little with the unwonted exercise. + +Tessie tried some of her old-time pertness of speech. "Oh, good +enough, considering the company." + +He laughed admiringly at that and said she was a sketch. + +When the early evening came on they made a clumsy landing and had +supper. This time Nap fed her the tidbits, though she protested. + +"White meat for you," he said, "with your skin like milk." + +"You must of read that in a book," scoffed Tessie. She glanced +around her at the deepening shadows. "We haven't got much time. + +It gets dark so early." + +"No hurry," Nap assured her. He went on eating in a leisurely, +finicking sort of way, though he consumed very little food, +actually. + +"You're not eating much," Tessie said once, halfheartedly. She +decided that she wasn't having such a very grand time, after all, +and that she hated his teeth, which were very bad. Now, Chuck's +strong, white, double row---- + +"Well," she said, "let's be going." + +"No hurry," again. + +Tessie looked up at that with the instinctive fear of her kind. +"What d'you mean, no hurry! 'Spect to stay here till dark?" +She laughed at her own joke. + +"Yes." + +She got up then, the blood in her face. "Well, _I_ don't." + +He rose, too. "Why not?" + +"Because I don't, that's why." She stooped and began picking +up the remnants of the lunch, placing spoons and glass bottles +swiftly and thriftily into the lunch box. Nap stepped around +behind her. + +"Let me help," he said. And then his arm was about her and his +face was close to hers, and Tessie did not like it. He kissed +her after a little wordless struggle. And then she knew. She +had been kissed before. But not like this. Not like this! She +struck at him furiously. Across her mind flashed the memory of a +girl who had worked in the finishing room. A nice girl, too. +But that hadn't helped her. Nap Ballou was laughing a little as +he clasped her. + +At that she heard herself saying: "I'll get Chuck Mory after +you--you drunken bum, you! He'll lick you black and blue. +He'll----" + +The face, with the ugly, broken brown teeth, was coming close +again. With all the young strength that was in her she freed one +hand and clawed at that face from eyes to chin. A howl of pain +rewarded her. His hold loosened. Like a flash she was off. She +ran. It seemed to her that her feet did not touch the earth. +Over brush, through bushes, crashing against trees, on and on. +She heard him following her, but the broken-down engine that was +his heart refused to do the work. She ran on, though her fear +was as great as before. Fear of what might have happened--to +her, Tessie Golden, that nobody could even talk fresh to. She +gave a sob of fury and fatigue. She was stumbling now. It was +growing dark. She ran on again, in fear of the overtaking +darkness. It was easier now. Not so many trees and bushes. She +came to a fence, climbed over it, lurched as she landed, leaned +against it weakly for support, one hand on her aching heart. +Before her was the Hatton summer cottage, dimly outlined in the +twilight among the trees. + +A warm, flickering light danced in the window. Tessie stood a +moment, breathing painfully, sobbingly. Then, with an +instinctive gesture, she patted her hair, tidied her blouse, and +walked uncertainly toward the house, up the steps to the door. +She stood there a moment, swaying slightly. Somebody'd be there. + +The light. The woman who cooked for them or the man who took +care of the place. Somebody'd---- + +She knocked at the door feebly. She'd tell 'em she had lost her +way and got scared when it began to get dark. She knocked again, +louder now. Footsteps. She braced herself and even arranged a +crooked smile. The door opened wide. Old Man Hatton! + +She looked up at him, terror and relief in her face. He peered +over his glasses at her. "Who is it?" Tessie had not known, +somehow, that his face was so kindly. + +Tessie's carefully planned story crumbled into nothingness. +"It's me!" she whimpered. "It's me!" + +He reached out and put a hand on her arm and drew her inside. + +"Angie! Angie! Here's a poor little kid----" + +Tessie clutched frantically at the last crumbs of her pride. She +tried to straighten, to smile with her old bravado. What was +that story she had planned to tell? + +"Who is it, Dad? Who----?" Angie Hatton came into the +hallway. She stared at Tessie. Then: "Why, my dear!" she +said. "My dear! Come in here." + +Angie Hatton! Tessie began to cry weakly, her face buried in +Angie Hatton's expensive shoulder. Tessie remembered later that +she had felt no surprise at the act. + +"There, there!" Angie Hatton was saying. "Just poke up the +fire, Dad. And get something from the dining room. Oh, I don't +know. To drink, you know. Something----" + +Then Old Man Hatton stood over her, holding a small glass to her +lips. Tessie drank it obediently, made a wry little face, +coughed, wiped her eyes, and sat up. She looked from one to the +other, like a trapped little animal. She put a hand to her +tousled head. + +"That's all right," Angie Hatton assured her. "You can fix it +after a while." + +There they were, the three of them: Old Man Hatton with his back +to the fire, looking benignly down upon her; Angie seated, with +some knitting in her hands, as if entertaining bedraggled, +tear-stained young ladies at dusk were an everyday occurrence; +Tessie, twisting her handkerchief in a torment of embarrassment. +But they asked no questions, these two. They evinced no +curiosity about this disheveled creature who had flung herself in +upon their decent solitude. + +Tessie stared at the fire. She looked up at Old Man Hatton's +face and opened her lips. She looked down and shut them again. +Then she flashed a quick look at Angie, to see if she could +detect there some suspicion, some disdain. None. Angie Hatton +looked--well, Tessie put it to herself, thus: "She looks like +she'd cried till she couldn't cry no more--only inside." + +And then, surprisingly, Tessie began to talk. "I wouldn't never +have gone with this fella, only Chuck, he was gone. All the +boys're gone. It's fierce. You get scared, sitting home, +waiting, and they're in France and everywhere, learning French +and everything, and meeting grand people and having a fuss made +over 'em. So I got mad and said I didn't care, I wasn't going to +squat home all my life, waiting----" + +Angie Hatton had stopped knitting now. Old Man Hatton was +looking down at her very kindly. And so Tessie went on. The +pent-up emotions and thoughts of these past months were finding +an outlet at last. These things which she had never been able to +discuss with her mother she now was laying bare to Angie Hatton +and Old Man Hatton! They asked no questions. They seemed to +understand. Once Old Man Hatton interrupted with: "So that's +the kind of fellow they've got as escapement-room foreman, eh?" + +Tessie, whose mind was working very clearly now, put out a quick +hand. "Say, it wasn't his fault. He's a bum, all right, but I +knew it, didn't I? It was me. I didn't care. Seemed to me it +didn't make no difference who I went with, but it does." She +looked down at her hands clasped so tightly in her lap. + +"Yes, it makes a whole lot of difference," Angie agreed, and +looked up at her father. + +At that Tessie blurted her last desperate problem: "He's +learning all kind of new things. Me, I ain't learning anything. +When Chuck comes home he'll just think I'm dumb, that's all. +He----" + +"What kind of thing would you like to learn, Tessie, so that +when Chuck comes home----" + +Tessie looked up then, her wide mouth quivering with eagerness. +"I'd like to learn to swim--and row a boat--and play +tennis--like the rich girls-- like the girls that's making such a +fuss over the soldiers." + +Angie Hatton was not laughing. So, after a moment's hesitation, +Tessie brought out the worst of it. "And French. I'd like to +learn to talk French." + +Old Man Hatton had been surveying his shoes, his mouth grim. He +looked at Angie now and smiled a little. "Well, Angie, it looks +as if you'd found your job right here at home, doesn't it? This +young lady's just one of hundreds, I suppose. Thousands. You +can have the whole house for them, if you want it, Angie, and the +grounds, and all the money you need. I guess we've kind of +overlooked the girls. Hm, Angie? What d'you say?" + +But Tessie was not listening. She had scarcely heard. Her face +was white with earnestness. + +"Can you speak French?" + +"Yes," Angie answered. + +"Well," said Tessie, and gulped once, "well, how do you say in +French: `Give me a piece of bread'? That's what I want to learn +first." + +Angie Hatton said it correctly. + +"That's it! Wait a minute! Say it again, will you?" + +Angie said it again, Tessie wet her lips. Her cheeks were +smeared with tears and dirt. Her hair was wild and her blouse +awry. "DONNAY-MA-UN-MORSO-DOO-PANG," she articulated +painfully. And in that moment, as she put her hand in that of +Chuck Mory, across the ocean, her face was very beautiful with +contentment. + + + + + Long Distance + [1919] + +Chet Ball was painting a wooden chicken yellow. The wooden +chicken was mounted on a six-by-twelve board. The board was +mounted on four tiny wheels. The whole would eventually be +pulled on a string guided by the plump, moist hand of some +blissful five-year-old. + +You got the incongruity of it the instant your eye fell upon Chet +Ball. Chet's shoulders alone would have loomed large in contrast +with any wooden toy ever devised, including the Trojan horse. +Everything about him, from the big, blunt-fingered hands that +held the ridiculous chick to the great muscular pillar of his +neck, was in direct opposition to his task, his surroundings, and +his attitude. + +Chet's proper milieu was Chicago, Illinois (the West Side); his +job that of lineman for the Gas, Light & Power Company; his +normal working position astride the top of a telegraph pole, +supported in his perilous perch by a lineman's leather belt and +the kindly fates, both of which are likely to trick you in an +emergency. + +Yet now he lolled back among his pillows, dabbing complacently at +the absurd yellow toy. A description of his surroundings would +sound like pages 3 to 17 of a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward. The +place was all greensward, and terraces, and sundials, and +beeches, and even those rhododendrons without which no English +novel or country estate is complete. The presence of Chet Ball +among his pillows and some hundreds similarly disposed revealed +to you at once the fact that this particular English estate was +now transformed into Reconstruction Hospital No. 9. + +The painting of the chicken quite finished (including two beady +black paint eyes), Chet was momentarily at a loss. Miss Kate had +not told him to stop painting when the chicken was completed. +Miss Kate was at the other end of the sunny garden walk, bending +over a wheel chair. So Chet went on painting, placidly. One by +one, with meticulous nicety, he painted all his fingernails a +bright and cheery yellow. Then he did the whole of his left +thumb and was starting on the second joint of the index finger +when Miss Kate came up behind him and took the brush gently from +his strong hands. + +"You shouldn't have painted your fingers," she said. + +Chet surveyed them with pride. "They look swell." + +Miss Kate did not argue the point. She put the freshly painted +wooden chicken on the table to dry in the sun. Her eyes fell +upon a letter bearing an American postmark and addressed to +Sergeant Chester Ball, with a lot of cryptic figures and letters +strung out after it, such as A.E.F. and Co. 11. + +"Here's a letter for you!" She infused a lot of Glad into her +voice. But Chet only cast a languid eye upon it and said, +"Yeh?" + +"I'll read it to you, shall I? It's a nice fat one." + +Chet sat back, indifferent, negatively acquiescent. And Miss +Kate began to read in her clear young voice, there in the +sunshine and scent of the centuries-old English garden. + +It marked an epoch in Chet's life--that letter. It reached out +across the Atlantic Ocean from the Chester Ball of his Chicago +days, before he had even heard of English gardens. + +Your true lineman has a daredevil way with the women, as have all +men whose calling is a hazardous one. Chet was a crack workman. +He could shinny up a pole, strap his emergency belt, open his +tool kit, wield his pliers with expert deftness, and climb down +again in record time. It was his pleasure--and seemingly the +pleasure and privilege of all lineman's gangs the world over--to +whistle blithely and to call impudently to any passing petticoat +that caught his fancy. + +Perched three feet from the top of the high pole he would cling +protected, seemingly, by some force working in direct defiance of +the law of gravity. And now and then, by way of brightening the +tedium of their job, he and his gang would call to a girl passing +in the street below, "Hoo-hoo! Hello, sweetheart!" + +There was nothing vicious in it. Chet would have come to the aid +of beauty in distress as quickly as Don Quixote. Any man with a +blue shirt as clean and a shave as smooth and a haircut as round +as Chet Ball's has no meanness in him. A certain daredeviltry +went hand in hand with his work--a calling in which a careless +load dispatcher, a cut wire, or a faulty strap may mean instant +death. Usually the girls laughed and called back to them or went +on more quickly, the color in their cheeks a little higher. + +But not Anastasia Rourke. Early the first morning of a two-week +job on the new plant of the Western Castings Company, Chet Ball, +glancing down from his dizzy perch atop an electric-light pole, +espied Miss Anastasia Rourke going to work. He didn't know her +name or anything about her, except that she was pretty. You +could see that from a distance even more remote than Chet's. But +you couldn't know that Stasia was a lady not to be trifled with. +We know her name was Rourke, but he didn't. + +So then: "Hoo-hoo!" he had called. "Hello, sweetheart! Wait +for me and I'll be down." + +Stasia Rourke had lifted her face to where he perched so high +above the streets. Her cheeks were five shades pinker than was +their wont, which would make them border on the red. + +"You big ape, you!" she called, in her clear, crisp voice. +"If you had your foot on the ground you wouldn't dast call to a +decent girl like that. If you were down here I'd slap the face +of you. You know you're safe up there." + +The words were scarcely out of her mouth before Chet Ball's +sturdy legs were twinkling down the pole. His spurred heels dug +into the soft pine of the pole with little ripe, tearing sounds. +He walked up to Stasia and stood squarely in front of her, six +feet of brawn and brazen nerve. One ruddy cheek he presented to +her astonished gaze. "Hello, sweetheart," he said. And +waited. The Rourke girl hesitated just a second. All the Irish +heart in her was melting at the boyish impudence of the man +before her. Then she lifted one hand and slapped his smooth +cheek. It was a ringing slap. You saw the four marks of her +fingers upon his face. Chet straightened, his blue eyes bluer. +Stasia looked up at him, her eyes wide. Then down at her own +hand, as if it belonged to somebody else. Her hand came up to +her own face. She burst into tears, turned, and ran. And as she +ran, and as she wept, she saw that Chet was still standing there, +looking after her. + +Next morning, when Stasia Rourke went by to work, Chet Ball was +standing at the foot of the pole, waiting. + +They were to have been married that next June. But that next +June Chet Ball, perched perilously on the branch of a tree in a +small woodsy spot somewhere in France, was one reason why the +American artillery in that same woodsy spot was getting such a +deadly range on the enemy. Chet's costume was so devised that +even through field glasses (made in Germany) you couldn't tell +where tree left off and Chet began. + +Then, quite suddenly, the Germans got the range. The tree in +which Chet was hidden came down with a crash, and Chet lay there, +more than ever indiscernible among its tender foliage. + +Which brings us back to the English garden, the yellow chicken, +Miss Kate, and the letter. + +His shattered leg was mended by one of those miracles of modern +war surgery, though he never again would dig his spurred heels +into the pine of a G. L. & P. Company pole. But the other +thing--they put it down under the broad general head of shock. +In the lovely English garden they set him to weaving and painting +as a means of soothing the shattered nerves. He had made +everything from pottery jars to bead chains, from baskets to +rugs. Slowly the tortured nerves healed. But the doctors, when +they stopped at Chet's cot or chair, talked always of "the +memory center." Chet seemed satisfied to go on placidly +painting toys or weaving chains with his great, square-tipped +fingers--the fingers that had wielded the pliers so cleverly in +his pole-climbing days. + +"It's just something that only luck or an accident can mend," +said the nerve specialist. "Time may do it--but I doubt it. +Sometimes just a word-- the right word--will set the thing in +motion again. Does he get any letters?" + +"His girl writes to him. Fine letters. But she doesn't know +yet about-- about this. I've written his letters for him. She +knows now that his leg is healed and she wonders----" + +That had been a month ago. Today Miss Kate slit the envelope +post- marked Chicago. Chet was fingering the yellow wooden +chicken, pride in his eyes. In Miss Kate's eyes there was a +troubled, baffled look as she began to read: + + Chet, dear, it's raining in Chicago. And you know when it + + rains in Chicago it's wetter, and muddier, and rainier than any + + place in the world. Except maybe this Flanders we're reading + + so much about. They say for rain and mud that place takes the + + prize. + + I don't know what I'm going on about rain and mud for, Chet + + darling, when it's you I'm thinking of. Nothing else and + + nobody else. Chet, I got a funny feeling there's something + + you're keeping back from me. You're hurt worse than just the + + leg. Boy, dear, don't you know it won't make any difference + + with me how you look, or feel, or anything? I don't care how + + bad you're smashed up. I'd rather have you without any + + features at all than any other man with two sets. Whatever's + + happened to the outside of you, they can't change your + + insides. And you're the same man that called out to me that + + day, "Hoo-hoo! Hello, sweetheart!" and when I gave you a + piece of my mind, climbed down off the pole, and put your face + +up to be slapped, God bless the boy in you---- + +A sharp little sound from him. Miss Kate looked up, quickly. +Chet Ball was staring at the beady-eyed yellow chicken in his +hand. + +"What's this thing?" he demanded in a strange voice. + +Miss Kate answered him very quietly, trying to keep her own voice +easy and natural. "That's a toy chicken, cut out of wood." + +"What'm I doin' with it?" + +"You've just finished painting it." + +Chet Ball held it in his great hand and stared at it for a brief +moment, struggling between anger and amusement. And between +anger and amusement he put it down on the table none too gently +and stood up, yawning a little. + +"That's a hell of a job for a he-man!" Then in utter +contrition: "Oh, beggin' your pardon! That was fierce! I +didn't----" + +But there was nothing shocked about the expression on Miss Kate's +face. She was registering joy--pure joy. + + + + + The Maternal Feminine + [1919] +Called upon to describe Aunt Sophy, you would have to coin a term +or fall back on the dictionary definition of a spinster. "An +unmarried woman," states that worthy work, baldly, "especially +when no longer young." That, to the world, was Sophy Decker. +Unmarried, certainly. And most certainly no longer young. In +figure, she was, at fifty, what is known in the corset ads as a +"stylish stout." Well dressed in dark suits, with broad-toed +health shoes and a small, astute hat. The suit was practical +common sense. The health shoes were comfort. The hat was +strictly business. Sophy Decker made and sold hats, both astute +and ingenuous, to the female population of Chippewa, Wisconsin. +Chippewa's East End set bought the knowing type of hat, and the +mill hands and hired girls bought the naive ones. But whether +lumpy or possessed of that thing known as line, Sophy Decker's +hats were honest hats. + +The world is full of Aunt Sophys, unsung. Plump, ruddy, capable +women of middle age. Unwed, and rather looked down upon by a +family of married sisters and tolerant, good-humored +brothers-in-law, and careless nieces and nephews. + +"Poor Aunt Soph," with a significant half smile. "She's such +a good old thing. And she's had so little in life, really." + +She was, undoubtedly, a good old thing--Aunt Soph. Forever +sending a model hat to this pert little niece in Seattle; or +taking Adele, Sister Flora's daughter, to Chicago or New York as +a treat on one of her buying trips. + +Burdening herself, on her business visits to these cities, with a +dozen foolish shopping commissions for the idle womenfolk of her +family. Hearing without partisanship her sisters' complaints +about their husbands, and her sisters' husbands' complaints about +their wives. It was always the same. + +"I'm telling you this, Sophy. I wouldn't breathe it to another +living soul. But I honestly think, sometimes, that if it weren't +for the children----" + +There is no knowing why they confided these things to Sophy +instead of to each other, these wedded sisters of hers. Perhaps +they held for each other an unuttered distrust or jealousy. +Perhaps, in making a confidante of Sophy, there was something of +the satisfaction that comes of dropping a surreptitious stone +down a deep well and hearing it plunk, safe in the knowledge that +it has struck no one and that it cannot rebound, lying there in +the soft darkness. Sometimes they would end by saying, "But you +don't know what it is, Sophy. You can't. I'm sure I don't know +why I'm telling you all this." + +But when Sophy answered, sagely, "I know; I know," they paid +little heed, once having unburdened themselves. The curious part +of it is that she did know. She knew as a woman of fifty must +know who, all her life, has given and given and in return has +received nothing. Sophy Decker had never used the word +inhibition in her life. She may not have known what it meant. +She only knew (without in the least knowing she knew) that in +giving of her goods, of her affections, of her time, of her +energy, she found a certain relief. Her own people would have +been shocked if you had told them that there was about this +old-maid aunt something rather splendidly Rabelaisian. Without +being what is known as a masculine woman, she had, somehow, +acquired the man's viewpoint, his shrewd value sense. She ate a +good deal, and enjoyed her food. She did not care for those +queer little stories that married women sometimes tell, with +narrowed eyes, but she was strangely tolerant of what is known as +sin. So simple and direct she was that you wondered how she +prospered in a line so subtle as the millinery business. + +You might have got a fairly true characterization of Sophy Decker +from one of fifty people: from a salesman in a New York or +Chicago wholesale millinery house; from Otis Cowan, cashier of +the First National Bank of Chippewa; from Julia Gold, her head +milliner and trimmer; from almost anyone, in fact, except a +member of her own family. They knew her least of all. Her three +married sisters--Grace in Seattle, Ella in Chicago, and Flora in +Chippewa--regarded her with a rather affectionate disapproval +from the snug safety of their own conjugal inglenooks. + +"I don't know. There's something--well--common about Sophy," +Flora confided to Ella. Flora, on shopping bent, and Sophy, +seeking hats, had made the five-hour run from Chippewa to Chicago +together. "She talks to everybody. You should have heard her +with the porter on our train. Chums! And when the conductor took +our tickets it was a social occasion. You know how packed the +seven-fifty-two is. Every seat in the parlor car taken. And +Sophy asking the colored porter about how his wife was getting +along--she called him William--and if they were going to send her +West, and all about her. I wish she wouldn't." + + +Aunt Sophy undeniably had a habit of regarding people as human +beings. You found her talking to chambermaids and delivery boys, +and elevator starters, and gas collectors, and hotel clerks--all +that aloof, unapproachable, superior crew. Under her benign +volubility they bloomed and spread and took on color as do those +tight little paper water flowers when you cast them into a bowl. +It wasn't idle curiosity in her. She was interested. You found +yourself confiding to her your innermost longings, your secret +tribulations, under the encouragement of her sympathetic, "You +don't say!" Perhaps it was as well that Sister Flora was in +ignorance of the fact that the millinery salesmen at Danowitz & +Danowitz, Importers, always called Miss Decker Aunt Soph, as, +with one arm flung about her plump shoulder, they revealed to her +the picture of their girl in the back flap of their billfold. + +Flora, with a firm grip on Chippewa society, as represented by +the East End set, did not find her position enhanced by a sister +in the millinery business in Elm Street. + +"Of course it's wonderful that she's self-supporting and +successful and all," she told her husband. "But it's not so +pleasant for Adele, now that she's growing up, having all the +girls she knows buying their hats of her aunt. Not that I--but +you know how it is." + +H. Charnsworth Baldwin said yes, he knew. + +When the Decker girls were young, the Deckers had lived in a +sagging old frame house (from which the original paint had long +ago peeled in great scrofulous patches) on an unimportant street +in Chippewa. There was a worm-eaten, russet-apple tree in the +yard, an untidy tangle of wild-cucumber vine over the front +porch, and an uncut brush of sunburned grass and weeds all about. + +From May until September you never passed the Decker place +without hearing the plunkety-plink of a mandolin from somewhere +behind the vines, laughter, and the creak-creak of the hard- +worked and protesting hammock hooks. + +Flora, Ella, and Grace Decker had had more beaux and fewer +clothes than any other girls in Chippewa. In a town full of +pretty young things, they were, undoubtedly, the prettiest; and +in a family of pretty sisters (Sophy always excepted) Flora was +the acknowledged beauty. She was the kind of girl whose nose +never turns red on a frosty morning. A little, white, exquisite +nose, purest example of the degree of perfection which may be +attained by that vulgarest of features. Under her great gray +eyes were faint violet shadows which gave her a look of almost +poignant wistfulness. Her slow, sweet smile give the beholder an +actual physical pang. Only her family knew she was lazy as a +behemoth, untidy about her person, and as sentimental as a hungry +shark. The strange and cruel part of it was that, in some +grotesque, exaggerated way, as a cartoon may be like a +photograph, Sophy resembled Flora. It was as though nature, in +prankish mood, had given a cabbage the color and texture of a +rose, with none of its fragile reticence and grace. + +It was a manless household. Mrs. Decker, vague, garrulous, +referred to her dead husband, in frequent reminiscence, as poor +Mr. Decker. Mrs. Decker dragged one leg as she +walked--rheumatism, or a spinal affection. Small wonder, then, +that Sophy, the plain, with a gift for hatmaking, a knack at +eggless cake baking, and a genius for turning a sleeve so that +last year's style met this year's without a struggle, contributed +nothing to the sag in the center of the old twine hammock on the +front porch. + +That the three girls should marry well, and Sophy not at all, was +as inevitable as the sequence of the seasons. Ella and Grace did +not manage badly, considering that they had only their girlish +prettiness and the twine hammock to work with. But Flora, with +her beauty, captured H. Charnsworth Baldwin. Chippewa gasped. +H. Charnsworth Baldwin drove a skittish mare to a high-wheeled +yellow runabout; had his clothes made at Proctor Brothers in +Milwaukee; and talked about a game called golf. It was he who +advocated laying out a section of land for what he called links, +and erecting a clubhouse thereon. + +"The section of the bluff overlooking the river," he explained, +"is full of natural hazards, besides having a really fine +view." + +Chippewa--or that comfortable, middle-class section of it which +got its exercise walking home to dinner from the store at noon, +and cutting the grass evenings after supper--laughed as it read +this interview in the Chippewa Eagle. + +"A golf course," they repeated to one another, grinning. +"Conklin's cow pasture, up the river. It's full of +natural--wait a minute--what was?--oh, yeh, here it is--hazards. +Full of natural hazards. Say, couldn't you die!" + +For H. Charnsworth Baldwin had been little Henry Baldwin before +he went East to college. Ten years later H. Charnsworth, in +knickerbockers and gay-topped stockings, was winning the cup in +the men's tournament played on the Chippewa golf-club course, +overlooking the river. And his name, in stout gold letters, +blinked at you from the plate-glass windows of the office at the +corner of Elm and Winnebago: + +NORTHERN LUMBER AND LAND COMPANY + H. Charnsworth Baldwin, Pres. + +Two blocks farther down Elm Street was another sign, not so +glittering, which read: + +Miss Sophy Decker + Millinery + +Sophy's hatmaking, in the beginning, had been done at home. She +had always made her sisters' hats, and her own, of course, and an +occasional hat for a girl friend. After her sisters had married, +Sophy found herself in possession of a rather bewildering amount +of spare time. The hat trade grew so that sometimes there were +six rather botchy little bonnets all done up in yellow paper +pyramids with a pin at the top, awaiting their future wearers. +After her mother's death Sophy still stayed on in the old house. +She took a course in millinery in Milwaukee, came home, stuck up +a homemade sign in the parlor window (the untidy cucumber vines +came down), and began her hatmaking in earnest. In five years +she had opened a shop on a side street near Elm, had painted the +old house, installed new plumbing, built a warty stucco porch, +and transformed the weedy, grass-tangled yard into an orderly +stretch of green lawn and bright flower beds. In ten years she +was in Elm Street, and the Chippewa Eagle ran a half column twice +a year describing her spring and fall openings. On these +occasions Aunt Sophy, in black satin and marcel wave and her most +relentless corsets, was, in all the superficial things, not a +pleat or fold or line or wave behind her city colleagues. She +had all the catch phrases: + +"This is awfully good this year." + +"Here's a sweet thing. A Mornet model." + +". . . Well, but, my dear, it's the style--the line--you're +paying for, not the material." + +"No, that hat doesn't do a thing for you." + +"I've got it. I had you in mind when I bought it. Now don't +say you can't wear henna. Wait till you see it on." + +When she stood behind you as you sat, uncrowned and expectant +before the mirror, she would poise the hat four inches above your +head, holding it in the tips of her fingers, a precious, fragile +thing. Your fascinated eyes were held by it, and your breath as +well. Then down it descended, slowly, slowly. A quick pressure. + +Her fingers firm against your temples. A little sigh of relieved +suspense. + +"That's wonderful on you! . . . You don't! Oh, my dear! But +that's because you're not used to it. You know how you said, for +years, you had to have a brim, and couldn't possibly wear a +turban, with your nose, until I proved to you that if the head +size was only big . . . Well, perhaps this needs just a lit-tle +lift here. Ju-u-ust a nip. There! That does it." + +And that did it. Not that Sophy Decker ever tried to sell you a +hat against your judgment, taste, or will. She was too wise a +psychologist and too shrewd a businesswoman for that. She +preferred that you go out of her shop hatless rather than with an +unbecoming hat. But whether you bought or not you took with you +out of Sophy Decker's shop something more precious than any +hatbox ever contained. Just to hear her admonishing a customer, +her good-natured face all aglow: + +"My dear, always put on your hat before you get into your dress. + +I do. You can get your arms above your head, and set it right. +I put on my hat and veil as soon's I get my hair combed." + +In your mind's eye you saw her, a stout, well-stayed figure in +tight brassiere and scant slip, bare-armed and bare-bosomed, in +smart hat and veil, attired as though for the street from the +neck up and for the bedroom from the shoulders down. + +The East End set bought Sophy Decker's hats because they were +modish and expensive hats. But she managed, miraculously, to +gain a large and lucrative following among the paper-mill girls +and factory hands as well. You would have thought that any +attempt to hold both these opposites would cause her to lose one +or the other. Aunt Sophy said, frankly, that of the two, she +would have preferred to lose her smart trade. + +"The mill girls come in with their money in their hands, you +might say. They get good wages and they want to spend them. I +wouldn't try to sell them one of those little plain model hats. +They wouldn't understand 'em or like them. And if I told them +the price they'd think I was trying to cheat them. They want a +hat with something good and solid on it. Their fathers wouldn't +prefer caviar to pork roast, would they? It's the same idea." + +Her shopwindows reflected her business acumen. One was chastely, +severely elegant, holding a single hat poised on a slender stick. + +In the other were a dozen honest arrangements of velvet and satin +and plumes. + +At the spring opening she always displayed one of those little +toques completely covered with violets. That violet-covered +toque was a symbol. + +"I don't expect 'em to buy it," Sophy Decker explained. "But +everybody feels there should be a hat like that at a spring +opening. It's like a fruit centerpiece at a family dinner. +Nobody ever eats it, but it has to be there." + +The two Baldwin children--Adele and Eugene--found Aunt Sophy's +shop a treasure trove. Adele, during her doll days, possessed +such boxes of satin and velvet scraps, and bits of lace and +ribbon and jet as to make her the envy of all her playmates. She +used to crawl about the floor of the shop workroom and under the +table and chairs like a little scavenger. + +"What in the world do you do with all that truck, child?" asked +Aunt Sophy. "You must have barrels of it." + +Adele stuffed another wisp of tulle into the pocket of her +pinafore. + +"I keep it," she said. + +When she was ten Adele had said to her mother, "Why do you +always say `Poor Sophy'?" + +"Because--Aunt Sophy's had so little in life. She never has +married, and has always worked." + +Adele considered that. "If you don't get married do they say +you're poor?" + +"Well--yes----" + +"Then I'll get married," announced Adele. A small, dark, eerie +child, skinny and rather foreign-looking. The boy, Eugene, had +the beauty which should have been the girl's. Very tall, very +blond, with the straight nose and wistful eyes of the Flora of +twenty years ago. "If only Adele could have had his looks," +his mother used to say. "They're wasted on a man. He doesn't +need them, but a girl does. Adele will have to be well dressed +and interesting. And that's such hard work." + +Flora said she worshiped her children. And she actually +sometimes still coquetted heavily with her husband. At twenty +she had been addicted to baby talk when endeavoring to coax +something out of someone. Her admirers had found it +irresistible. At forty it was awful. Her selfishness was +colossal. She affected a semi-invalidism and for fifteen years +had spent one day a week in bed. She took no exercise and a +great deal of soda bicarbonate and tried to fight her fat with +baths. Fifteen or twenty years had worked a startling change in +the two sisters, Flora the beautiful and Sophy the plain. It was +more than a mere physical change. It was a spiritual thing, +though neither knew nor marked it. Each had taken on weight, the +one, solidly, comfortably; the other, flabbily, unhealthily. +With the encroaching fat, Flora's small, delicate features +seemed, somehow, to disappear in her face, so that you saw it as +a large white surface bearing indentations, ridges, and hollows +like one of those enlarged photographs of the moon's surface as +seen through a telescope. A self-centered face, and misleadingly +placid. Aunt Sophy's large, plain features, plumply padded now, +impressed you as indicating strength, courage, and a great human +understanding. + +From her husband and her children, Flora exacted service that +would have chafed a galley slave into rebellion. She loved to +lie in bed, in an orchid bed jacket with ribbons, and be read to +by Adele, or Eugene, or her husband. They all hated it. + +"She just wants to be waited on, and petted, and admired," +Adele had stormed one day, in open rebellion, to her Aunt Sophy. +"She uses it as an excuse for everything and has, ever since +Gene and I were children. She's as strong as an ox." Not a +daughterly speech, but true. + +Years before, a generous but misguided woman friend, coming in to +call, had been ushered in to where Mrs. Baldwin lay propped up in +a nest of pillows. + +"Well, I don't blame you," the caller had gushed. "If I +looked the way you do in bed I'd stay there forever. Don't tell +me you're sick, with all that lovely color!" + +Flora Baldwin had rolled her eyes ceilingward. "Nobody ever +gives me credit for all my suffering and ill-health. And just +because all my blood is in my cheeks." + +Flora was ambitious, socially, but too lazy to make the effort +necessary for success in that direction. + +"I love my family," she would say. "They fill my life. After +all, that's a profession in itself--being a wife and mother." + +She showed her devotion by taking no interest whatever in her +husband's land schemes; by forbidding Eugene to play football at +school for fear he might be injured; by impressing Adele with the +necessity for vivacity and modishness because of what she called +her unfortunate lack of beauty. + +"I don't understand it," she used to say in the child's +presence. "Her father's handsome enough, goodness knows; and I +wasn't such a fright when I was a girl. And look at her! Little +dark skinny thing." + +The boy, Eugene, grew up a very silent, handsome, shy young +fellow. The girl, dark, voluble, and rather interesting. The +husband, more and more immersed in his business, was absent from +home for long periods irritable after some of these home-comings; +boisterously high-spirited following other trips. Now growling +about household expenses and unpaid bills; now urging the +purchase of some almost prohibitive luxury. Anyone but a +nagging, self-absorbed, and vain woman such as Flora would have +marked these unmistakable signs. But Flora was a taker, not a +giver. She thought herself affectionate because she craved +affection unduly. She thought herself a fond mother because she +insisted on having her children with her, under her thumb, +marking their devotion as a prisoner marks time with his feet, +stupidly, shufflingly, advancing not a step. + +Sometimes Sophy, the clear-eyed, seeing this state of affairs, +tried to stop it. + +"You expect too much of your husband and children," she said +one day, bluntly, to her sister. + +"I!" Flora's dimpled hand had flown to her breast like a +wounded thing. "I! You're crazy! There isn't a more devoted +wife and mother in the world. That's the trouble. I love them +too much." + +"Well, then," grimly, "stop it for a change. That's half +Eugene's nervousness--your fussing over him. He's eighteen. +Give him a chance. You're weakening him. And stop dinning that +society stuff into Adele's ears. She's got brains, that child. +Why, just yesterday, in the workroom, she got hold of some satin +and a shape and turned out a little turban that Angie +Hatton----" + +"Do you mean to tell me that Angie Hatton saw my Adele working +in your shop! Now, look here, Sophy. You're earning your +living, and it's to your credit. You're my sister. But I won't +have Adele associated in the minds of my friends with your hat +store, understand? I won't have it. That isn't what I sent her +away to an expensive school for. To have her come back and sit +around a millinery workshop with a lot of little, cheap, shoddy +sewing girls! Now, understand, I won't have it! You don't know +what it is to be a mother. You don't know what it is to have +suffered. If you had brought two children into the world----" + +So, then, it had come about during the years between their +childhood and their youth that Aunt Sophy received the burden of +their confidences, their griefs, their perplexities. She seemed, +somehow, to understand in some miraculous way, and to make the +burden a welcome one. + +"Well, now, you tell Aunt Sophy all about it. Stop crying, +Della. How can I hear when you're crying! That's my baby. Now, +then." + +This when they were children. But with the years the habit clung +and became fixed. There was something about Aunt Sophy's +house--the old frame house with the warty stucco porch. For that +matter, there was something about the very shop downtown, with +its workroom in the rear, that had a cozy, homelike quality never +possessed by the big Baldwin house. H. Charnsworth Baldwin had +built a large brick mansion, in the Tudor style, on a bluff +overlooking the Fox River, in the best residential section of +Chippewa. It was expensively furnished. The hall console alone +was enough to strike a preliminary chill to your heart. + +The millinery workroom, winter days, was always bright and warm +and snug. The air was a little close, perhaps, and heavy, but +with a not unpleasant smell of dyes and stuffs and velvet and +glue and steam and flatiron and a certain racy scent that Julia +Gold, the head trimmer, always used. There was a sociable cat, +white with a dark-gray patch on his throat and a swipe of it +across one flank that spoiled him for style and beauty but made +him a comfortable-looking cat to have around. Sometimes, on very +cold days, or in the rush season, the girls would not go home to +dinner, but would bring their lunches and cook coffee over a +little gas heater in the corner. Julia Gold, especially, drank +quantities of coffee. Aunt Sophy had hired her from Chicago. +She had been with her for five years. She said Julia was the +best trimmer she had ever had. Aunt Sophy often took her to New +York or Chicago on her buying trips. Julia had not much genius +for original design, or she never would have been content to be +head milliner in a small-town shop. But she could copy a +fifty-dollar model from memory down to the last detail of crown +and brim. It was a gift that made her invaluable. + +The boy, Eugene, used to like to look at Julia Gold. Her hair +was very black and her face was very white, and her eyebrows met +in a thick dark line. Her face as she bent over her work was +sullen and brooding, but when she lifted her head suddenly, in +conversation, you were startled by a vivid flash of teeth and +eyes and smile. Her voice was deep and low. She made you a +little uncomfortable. Her eyes seemed always to be asking +something. Around the worktable, mornings, she used to relate +the dream she had had the night before. In these dreams she was +always being pursued by a lover. "And then I woke up, +screaming." Neither she nor the sewing girls knew what she was +revealing in these confidences of hers. But Aunt Sophy, the +shrewd, somehow sensed it. + +"You're alone too much, evenings. That's what comes of living +in a boardinghouse. You come over to me for a week. The change +will do you good, and it'll be nice for me, too, having somebody +to keep me company." + +Julia often came for a week or ten days at a time. Julia, about +the house after supper, was given to those vivid splashy +negligees with big flower patterns strewn over them. They made +her hair look blacker and her skin whiter by contrast. Sometimes +Eugene or Adele or both would drop in and the four would play +bridge. Aunt Sophy played a shrewd and canny game, Adele a +rather brilliant one, Julia a wild and disastrous hand, always, +and Eugene so badly that only Julia would take him on as a +partner. Mrs. Baldwin never knew about these evenings. + +It was on one of these occasions that Aunt Sophy, coming +unexpectedly into the living room from the kitchen, where she and +Adele were foraging for refreshments after the game, beheld Julia +Gold and Eugene, arms clasped about each other, cheek to cheek. +They started up as she came in and faced her, the woman +defiantly, the boy bravely. Julia Gold was thirty (with +reservations) at that time, and the boy not quite twenty-one. + +"How long?" said Aunt Sophy, quietly. She had a mayonnaise +spoon and a leaf of lettuce in her hand then, and still she did +not look comic. + +"I'm crazy about her," said Eugene. "We're crazy about each +other. We're going to be married." + +Aunt Sophy listened for the reassuring sound of Adele's spoons +and plates in the kitchen. She came forward. "Now, +listen----" she began. + +"I love him," said Julia Gold, dramatically. "I love him!" + +Except that it was very white and, somehow, old-looking, Aunt +Sophy's face was as benign as always. "Now, look here, Julia, +my girl. That isn't love, and you know it. I'm an old maid, but +I know what love is when I see it. I'm ashamed of you, Julia. +Sensible woman like you, hugging and kissing a boy like that, and +old enough to be his mother." + +"Now, look here, Aunt Sophy! If you're going to talk that +way---- Why, she's wonderful. She's taught me what it means to +really----" + +"Oh, my land!" Aunt Sophy sat down, looking suddenly very ill. + +And then, from the kitchen, Adele's clear young voice: "Heh! +What's the idea! I'm not going to do all the work. Where's +everybody?" + +Aunt Sophy started up again. She came up to them and put a +hand-- a capable, firm, steadying hand--on the arm of each. The +woman drew back, but the boy did not. + +"Will you promise me not to do anything for a week? Just a +week! Will you promise me? Will you?" + +"Are you going to tell Father?" + +"Not for a week, if you'll promise not to see each other in that +week. No, I don't want to send you away, Julia, I don't want to. +. . . You're not a bad girl. It's just--he's never had--at home +they never gave him a chance. Just a week, Julia. Just a week, +Eugene. We can talk things over then." + +Adele's footsteps coming from the kitchen. + +"Quick!" + +"I promise," said Eugene. Julia said nothing. + +"Well, really," said Adele, from the doorway, "you're a nervy +lot, sitting around while I slave in the kitchen. Gene, see if +you can open the olives with this fool can opener. I tried." + +There is no knowing what she expected to do in that week, Aunt +Sophy; what miracle she meant to perform. She had no plan in her +mind. Just hope. She looked strangely shrunken and old, +suddenly. But when, three days later, the news came that America +was to go into the war she had her answer. + +Flora was beside herself. "Eugene won't have to go. He isn't +old enough, thank God! And by the time he is it will be over. +Surely." She was almost hysterical. + +Eugene was in the room. Aunt Sophy looked at him and he looked +at Aunt Sophy. In her eyes was a question. In his was the +answer. They said nothing. The next day Eugene enlisted. In +three days he was gone. Flora took to her bed. Next day Adele, a +faint, unwonted color marking her cheeks, walked into her +mother's bedroom and stood at the side of the recumbent figure. +Her father, his hands clasped behind him, was pacing up and down, +now and then kicking a cushion that had fallen to the floor. He +was chewing a dead cigar, one side of his face twisted curiously +over the cylinder in his mouth so that he had a sinister and +crafty look. + +"Charnsworth, won't you please stop ramping up and down like +that! My nerves are killing me. I can't help it if the war has +done something or other to your business. I'm sure no wife could +have been more economical than I have. Nothing matters but +Eugene, anyway. How could he do such a thing! I've given my +whole life to my children----" + +H. Charnsworth kicked the cushion again so that it struck the +wall at the opposite side of the room. Flora drew her breath in +between her teeth as though a knife had entered her heart. + +Adele still stood at the side of the bed, looking at her mother. +Her hands were clasped behind her, too. In that moment, as she +stood there, she resembled her mother and her father so +startlingly and simultaneously that the two, had they been less +absorbed in their own affairs, must have marked it. + +The girl's head came up stiffly. "Listen. I'm going to marry +Daniel Oakley." + +Daniel Oakley was fifty, and a friend of her father's. For years +he had been coming to the house and for years she had ridiculed +him. She and Eugene had called him Sturdy Oak because he was +always talking about his strength and endurance, his walks, his +rugged health; pounding his chest meanwhile and planting his feet +far apart. He and Baldwin had had business relations as well as +friendly ones. + +At this announcement Flora screamed and sat up in bed. H. +Charnsworth stopped short in his pacing and regarded his daughter +with a queer look; a concentrated look, as though what she had +said had set in motion a whole mass of mental machinery within +his brain. + +"When did he ask you?" + +"He's asked me a dozen times. But it's different now. All the +men will be going to war. There won't be any left. Look at +England and France. I'm not going to be left." She turned +squarely toward her father, her young face set and hard. "You +know what I mean. You know what I mean." + +Flora, sitting up in bed, was sobbing. "I think you might have +told your mother, Adele. What are children coming to! You stand +there and say, `I'm going to marry Daniel Oakley.' Oh, I am so +faint . . . all of a sudden . . . Get the spirits of ammonia." + +Adele turned and walked out of the room. She was married six +weeks later. They had a regular prewar wedding--veil, flowers, +dinner, and all. Aunt Sophy arranged the folds of her gown and +draped her veil. The girl stood looking at herself in the +mirror, a curious half smile twisting her lips. She seemed +slighter and darker than ever. + +"In all this white, and my veil, I look just like a fly in a +quart of milk," she said, with a laugh. Then, suddenly, she +turned to her aunt, who stood behind her, and clung to her, +holding her tight, tight. "I can't!" she gasped. "I can't! +I can't!" + +Aunt Sophy held her off and looked at her, her eyes searching the +girl. + +"What do you mean, Della? Are you just nervous or do you mean +you don't want to marry him? Do you mean that? Then what are +you marrying for? Tell me! Tell your Aunt Sophy." + +But Adele was straightening herself and pulling out the crushed +folds of her veil. "To pay the mortgage on the old homestead, +of course. Just like the girl in the play." She laughed a +little. But Aunt Sophy did not. + +"Now look here, Della. If you're----" + +But there was a knock at the door. Adele caught up her flowers. +"It's all right," she said. Aunt Sophy stood with her back +against the door. "If it's money," she said. "It is! It is, +isn't it! I've got money saved. It was for you children. I've +always been afraid. I knew he was sailing pretty close, with his +speculations and all, since the war. He can have it all. It +isn't too late yet. Adele! Della, my baby." + +"Don't, Aunt Sophy. It wouldn't be enough, anyway. Daniel has +been wonderful, really. Dad's been stealing money for years. +Dan's. Don't look like that. I'd have hated being poor, anyway. + +Never could have got used to it. It is ridiculous, though, isn't +it? Like something in the movies. I don't mind. I'm lucky, +really, when you come to think of it. A plain little black thing +like me." + +"But your mother----" + +"Mother doesn't know a thing." + +Flora wept mistily all through the ceremony, but Adele was +composed enough for two. + +When, scarcely a month later, Baldwin came to Sophy Decker, his +face drawn and queer, Sophy knew. + +"How much?" she said. + +"Thirty thousand will cover it. If you've got more than +that----" + +"I thought Oakley----Adele said----" + +"He did, but he won't any more, and this thing's got to be met. +It's this damned war that's done it. I'd have been all right. +People got scared. They wanted their money. They wanted it in +cash." + +"Speculating with it, were you?" + +"Oh, well, a woman doesn't understand these business deals." + +"No, naturally," said Aunt Sophy, "a butterfly like me." + +"Sophy, for God's sake don't joke now. I tell you this will +cover it, and everything will be all right. If I had anybody +else to go to for the money I wouldn't ask you. But you'll get +it back. You know that." + +Aunt Sophy got up, heavily, and went over to her desk. "It was +for the children, anyway. They won't need it now." + +He looked up at that. Something in her voice. "Who won't? Why +won't they?" + +"I don't know what made me say that. I had a dream." + +"Eugene?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh, well, we're all nervous. Flora has dreams every night and +presentiments every fifteen minutes. Now, look here, Sophy. +About this money. You'll never know how grateful I am. Flora +doesn't understand these things, but I can talk to you. It's +like this----" + +"I might as well be honest about it," Sophy interrupted. "I'm +doing it, not for you, but for Flora, and Della--and Eugene. +Flora has lived such a sheltered life. I sometimes wonder if she +ever really knew any of you. Her husband, or her children. I +sometimes have the feeling that Della and Eugene are my +children--were my children." + +When he came home that night Baldwin told his wife that old Soph +was getting queer. "She talks about the children being hers," +he said. + +"Oh, well, she's awfully fond of them," Flora explained. "And +she's lived her little, narrow life, with nothing to bother her +but her hats and her house. She doesn't know what it means to +suffer as a mother suffers --poor Sophy." + +"Um," Baldwin grunted. + +When the official notification of Eugene's death came from the +War Department, Aunt Sophy was so calm it might have appeared +that Flora had been right. She took to her bed now in earnest, +did Flora. Sophy neglected everything to give comfort to the +stricken two. + +"How can you sit there like that!" Flora would rail. "How +can you sit there like that! Even if you weren't his mother, +surely you must feel something." + +"It's the way he died that comforts me," said Aunt Sophy. + +"What difference does that make!" + +AMERICAN RED CROSS +(Croix Rouge Americaine) + +MY DEAR MRS. BALDWIN: + I am sure you must have been officially notified by the U.S. +War Dept. of the death of your son, Lieut. Eugene H. Baldwin. +But I want to write you what I can of his last hours. I was with +him much of that time as his nurse. I'm sure it must mean much +to a mother to hear from a woman who was privileged to be with +her boy at the last. + Your son was brought to our hospital one night badly gassed +from the fighting in the Argonne Forest. Ordinarily we do not +receive gassed patients, as they are sent to a special hospital +near here. But two nights before, the Germans wrecked that +hospital, so many gassed patients have come to us. + Your son was put in the officers' ward, where the doctors who +examined him told me there was absolutely no hope for him, as he +had inhaled so much gas that it was only a matter of a few hours. + +I could scarcely believe that a man so big and strong as he was +could not pull through. + The first bad attack he had, losing his breath and nearly +choking, rather frightened him, although the doctor and I were +both with him. He held my hand tightly in his, begging me not to +leave him, and repeating, over and over, that it was good to have +a woman near. He was propped high in bed and put his head on my +shoulder while I fanned him until he breathed more easily. I +stayed with him all that night, though I was not on duty. You +see, his eyes also were badly burned. But before he died he was +able to see very well. I stayed with him every minute of that +night and have never seen a finer character than he showed during +all that fight for life. + He had several bad attacks that night and came through each one +simply because of his great will power and fighting spirit. +After each attack he would grip my hand and say, "Well, we made +it that time, didn't we, nurse?" Toward morning he asked me if +he was going to die. I could not tell him the truth. He needed +all his strength. I told him he had one chance in a thousand. +He seemed to become very strong then, and sitting bolt upright in +bed, he said: "Then I'll fight for it!" We kept him alive for +three days, and actually thought we had won when on the third day +. . . + But even in your sorrow you must be very proud to have been the +mother of such a son. . . . + I am a Wisconsin girl--Madison. When this is over and I come +home, will you let me see you so that I may tell you more than I +can possibly write? + MARIAN KING + +It was in March, six months later, that Marian King came. They +had hoped for it, but never expected it. And she came. Four +people were waiting in the living room of the big Baldwin house +overlooking the river. Flora and her husband, Adele and Aunt +Sophy. They sat, waiting. Now and then Adele would rise, +nervously, and go to the window that faced the street. Flora was +weeping with audible sniffs. Baldwin sat in his chair, frowning +a little, a dead cigar in one corner of his mouth. Only Aunt +Sophy sat quietly, waiting. + +There was little conversation. None in the last five minutes. +Flora broke the silence, dabbing at her face with her +handkerchief as she spoke. + +"Sophy, how can you sit there like that? Not that I don't envy +you. I do. I remember I used to feel sorry for you. I used to +say `Poor Sophy.' But you unmarried ones are the happiest, after +all. It's the married woman who drinks the cup to the last, +bitter drop. There you sit, Sophy, fifty years old, and life +hasn't even touched you. You don't know how cruel life can be to +a mother." + +Suddenly, "There!" said Adele. The other three in the room +stood up and faced the door. The sound of a motor stopping +outside. Daniel Oakley's hearty voice: "Well, it only took us +five minutes from the station. Pretty good." + +Footsteps down the hall. Marian King stood in the doorway. They +faced her, the four--Baldwin and Adele and Flora and Sophy. +Marian King stood a moment, uncertainly, her eyes upon them. She +looked at the two older women with swift, appraising glances. +Then she came into the room, quickly, and put her two hands on +Aunt Soph's shoulders and looked into her eyes straight and sure. + +"You must be a very proud woman," she said. "You ought to be +a very proud woman," + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of One Basket, by Edna Ferber + diff --git a/old/1bskt10.zip b/old/1bskt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8084751 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1bskt10.zip |