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diff --git a/76802-0.txt b/76802-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2ca6616 --- /dev/null +++ b/76802-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12812 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76802 *** + + + + + + _O. HENRY MEMORIAL + AWARD + PRIZE STORIES + of 1927_ + + + + + _O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD_ + + PRIZE STORIES + _of_ 1927 + + CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF + ARTS AND SCIENCES + + WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS + + _Author of “A Handbook on Story Writing,” + “Our Short Story Writers,” Etc._ + + _Head, Department of English, Hunter College + of the City of New York_ + + + [Illustration] + + + GARDEN CITY NEW YORK + DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC. + 1928 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC. COPYRIGHT, 1926, + BY THE PICTORIAL REVIEW COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY THE AMERICAN + MERCURY, INC. COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY. + COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY BILL ADAMS. COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY S. S. MCCLURE + COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1926, 1927, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY. + COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY HARPER & BROTHERS. COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY CHARLES + SCRIBNER’S SONS. COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE CENTURY COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS + RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, + GARDEN CITY, N. Y. + + + + +ACKNOWLEDGMENT + + +For the Committee the chairman thanks authors, editors, and agents, +with whose friendly coöperation this volume is prepared. + + BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS. + + New York City, + January, 1927. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION. By Blanche Colton Williams ix + + CHILD OF GOD. By Roark Bradford 1 + + THE KILLERS. By Ernest Hemingway 15 + + THE SCARLET WOMAN. By Louis Bromfield 25 + + JUKES. By Bill Adams 34 + + FEAR. By James Warner Bellah 53 + + NIGHT CLUB. By Katharine Brush 84 + + SINGING WOMAN. By Ada Jack Carver 97 + + WITH GLORY AND HONOUR. By Elisabeth Cobb Chapman 109 + + BULLDOG. By Roger Daniels 126 + + HE MAN. By Marjory Stoneman Douglas 149 + + “DONE GOT OVER.” By Alma and Paul Ellerbe 175 + + MONKEY MOTIONS. By Eleanor Mercein Kelly 192 + + FOUR DREAMS OF GRAM PERKINS. By Ruth Sawyer 208 + + THE LITTLE GIRL FROM TOWN. By Ruth Suckow 220 + + SHADES OF GEORGE SAND! By Ellen du Pois Taylor 239 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +THE JUDGES + + 1. EMMA K. TEMPLE } + 2. ISABEL WALKER } + 3. HARRY ANABLE KNIFFIN } _First_ + 4. KATHARINE LACY } _Judges_ + { 5. FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD } + _Final_ { 6. DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH } + _Judges_ { 7. BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS } _Chairman_ + { 8. ROBERT L. RAMSAY + { 9. MAXIM LIEBER + + 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 _Readers_, _First Judges_ + 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 _Final Judges_. + +In preparing this the ninth volume of the series, the O. Henry +Memorial Committee selected more than six hundred stories from some +twenty-five hundred published in the year October, 1926, to September, +1927, inclusive. Of these six hundred the best according to the votes +of at least two judges are listed in the following pages. From the +fifty stories ranking highest were chosen, in the usual process of +elimination by five final judges, the fifteen included in this volume. + +“Child of God,” by Roark Bradford, received four votes for first place, +and wins by a number of points. To this story, published in _Harper’s +Magazine_, April, 1927, is awarded the first prize of $500. + +Four candidates were considered for second place. One judge preferred +“Singing Woman”; another, “Shades of George Sand” (closely followed by +“The Little Girl from Town”); another, “Fear”; two others cast votes +for “The Killers.” To this last named story, which wins by points, is +awarded the second prize of $250. “The Killers,” by Ernest Hemingway, +was published in _Scribner’s Magazine_, March, 1927. + +For the special prize awarded the best short short story, the following +were nominated by one or more of the judges: “Another Wife,” by +Sherwood Anderson; “Sandoe’s Pocket,” by Elsie Singmaster; “Tommy +Taylor,” by Zona Gale; “The Scarlet Woman,” by Louis Bromfield. “The +Scarlet Woman” leads and receives therefore the award of $100. The +story was published in _McClure’s_, January, 1927. + + * * * * * + +Among the fifteen stories ranking highest, four happen to be about the +American Negro. The increasing representation of this race in brief +fiction I observed in my introduction to _O. Henry Memorial Award +Prize Stories_ of 1925. Of that year Du Bose Heyward’s “Crown’s Bess” +and Julia Peterkin’s “Maum Lou” were reprinted; John Matheus’s “Fog,” +Frederick Tisdale’s “The Guitar,” and Elsie Singmaster’s “Elfie” +were mentioned. The volume for 1926 reprinted Arthur Huff Fauset’s +“Symphonesque” and Lyle Saxon’s “Cane River.” The present collection +offers, first, “Child of God.” “Never,” writes Mrs. Wood, “was the +spirit of an age and a people more happily caught than here. The +old-time darky and his tales may have been lost in a modern deluge of +the nigger minstrel type, that ‘extinct species of a race that never +existed’; but he comes back into his own in ‘Child of God’ with his +characteristic ideas of a perfect heaven.” That the idea of heaven +advanced is Willie’s idea appears to have eluded those who raised a +small storm when they read the story in _Harper’s_. The visions Mr. +Bradford spreads upon the page with sympathy and naïve simplicity are, +of course, the visions vouchsafed to Willie in the few seconds after +the trap gave way under his feet and before his body was borne out of +jail; just so Willie would have constructed those visions. Added to +the dream is something else that is greater art. The supernatural, +revealing Willie’s experiences after death, is joined to the human +dream so well as to defy detection. Who knows when life was pronounced +extinct? What part of Willie’s dream belongs to earth and what to the +heaven of his fancy? “There is art, exquisite art, in the joining,” as +O. Henry once wrote of another story, and tenuous though the fabric +may be, the seam is indiscernible. And how completely the delicately +woven stuff covers the hard reality of the green-eyed man’s collapse! +That ugly blue face and frothy saliva potently declare that the hangman +was neatly punished by Willie’s ghost. “Mr. Bradford is of course the +unquestionable find of the year,” writes Mr. Ramsay. “His ‘Child of +God’ would perhaps never have been written if Molnar had not shown us +in _Liliom_ how interesting it may be to see heaven through a glass +very darkly; but it is an amazingly successful transcription into terms +of Negro psychology.” The chairman suggests that it be read side by +side with Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”--a tale +many times reprinted--for testing its indubitable superiority. + +“Bulldog,” like the prize winner, makes of an alleged criminal a hero. +The black giant, of square and protruding jaw, square and receding +forehead, was a fighter, one intent upon vengeance, willing to take +punishment. The brute strength that served him falsely in his personal +fracases served him and the judge truly in the fifteen-mile odyssey +to Ossabaw. Mr. Daniels’s use of revealing incident and character +prepares acceptance for Bulldog’s herculean feat, climax to an escape +at once logical and stirring. Call to mind all the thrills you have +enjoyed--say, from the many chases in _Les Misérables_ on--and compare +with them the action from “Stan’s yo’ back!” to the “cry through the +stillness of the night”; you will find that it survives in form, in +style, in substance. With right logic and humorous turn the author +brings Bulldog back to the opening scene and to the sentence of six +months on the farm. + +“Done Got Over” dramatizes the struggle between superstition harnessed +with petty vengeance against enlightenment aided by generosity. Whoever +has lived in the cotton belt knows with what excitation of horror, with +what sense of the occult and foreboding of the mysteriously awful the +old-time Negroes await the funeral sermon over the manifest ungodly. +Intimation of a “preaching-to-hell” draws--or not many years ago +drew--an audience keyed to highest expectancy, all sympathy lost in +shuddering anticipation of the sinner’s doom. The idea seldom occurs +that the verdict of the preacher is not irremediable. Perhaps “Done Got +Over” falters at the moment of climax, perhaps one may wish that Miss +Jinny Pickens had spoken. Her simple act, however, was sufficient--one +who knows the Pickenses testifies to this point. The local colour +witnesses the authors’ careful observation; the atmosphere declares +their participation in the drama. They must have seen Draper’s yard of +prince’s feather and dog-fennel; must have smelled the fig leaves in +Miss Jinny’s back yard, the cape jasmines on Tampa’s coffin; surely +they felt the agony of Tampa’s son. + +“Monkey Motions,” from a seemingly casual recountal of Sam’l, rises +to the perfect description of his dancing. That climax becomes a +flashlight to illumine the backward way, to outline clearly details +unguessed as salient. Pictures of the dance have always tempted the +pen, not infrequently to failure; this instance is successful. “What +are you weeping about?” asked Tom. If you have followed with the dancer +his exposition of the “origins, methods, and significations” of the +Charleston, if through it you have followed his race’s history, you +may still have no more reason than Aunt Lady, but you will be dropping +a tear with her. And your reason may be that so poignant a summary of +race history in so short space presents the motive. + +“The Killers,” second prize winner, one of three photographically +realistic studies here reprinted, has been the most talked about story +of 1927. In its seeming incompleteness is its superb completeness. Max +and Al, the killers, do not get their man this particular evening, +but they will get him; and the doom that Ole Andreson knows to be +upon him when he says, “There isn’t anything I can do about it,” is +more appalling than would be the actual shot from that sawed-off gun. +Unknown horrors are greater than known horrors, a truth of which Mr. +Hemingway has taken advantage in leaving the reader to construct the +climax. If Ole stays in the room, the slayers will find him; if he +goes out, they will find him; in either choice, they will inevitably +shoot him. Can such things be? carries its answer: Such things are. +Without a word of preachment, the story arraigns a world of presumable +law and order. Mr. Hemingway’s dialogue, lacking specious suspense or +excitement, tells the story. Six or seven hundred words in addition +relate the bare action and sketch the setting. In transferring this +narrative to the dramatic form no changes are necessary except the +conversion of non-dialogue into stage directions; the story is +economically perfect. It is not really a story, says Mrs. Wood, “not +to be insulted as half-caste ‘realism’--just a blazing bit of reality +to which you are the unwilling witness. Like the black cook, you ‘don’t +like any of it--don’t like any of it, at all!’ yet you could no more +tear yourself away from that peep-hole in the kitchen than you could +resist the weaving head of a cobra. Of course, it is stale comparison +to liken ‘The Killers’ to Greek tragedy, but since that is our golden +milestone no other comparison serves.” + +Of all the stories here reprinted, Maxim Lieber thinks “Night Club” +“by far the best. It is a very swiftly moving, sharply outlined story, +and the author achieves a remarkable effect with the utmost economy +of words.” In “Night Club” Miss Brush purports to retail the drab +evening of Mrs. Brady, maid, and in so doing adds another instance +to examples of old truths: Romance is never at hand, but far away; +the searcher fails to see that what he seeks is near home; life is +stranger than fiction. The parts of the story are greater than its +whole, a six-in-one marvel that tells the stories of (1) a wife who +denies her marriage tie, for reasons implied, (2) of a dope fiend, +(3) of an unfaithful husband, the wife, and the other woman, (4) of a +girl who finds a pair of scissors necessary with her escort, (5) of an +elopement, (6) of a girl who marries wealth to save her sister’s life. +Even summary details convey other stories: “she saw a yellow check with +the ink hardly dry.” Like “The Killers,” this story is of the immediate +present. Nothing in fiction has described night-club life so deftly, +much less described it from the cubbyhole of a maid who saw nothing. + +Third of these photographic studies is “The Little Girl from Town,” an +exquisite picture of childhood embroidered in tiny, colourful stitches. +It reminds the chairman of nothing so much as a treasured piece of +tapestry, bought years ago in Bath, in which thousands of stitches +portray a small girl, her dog, her parrot, and her flowers. Patricia’s +beauty and helplessness, set off by the hardier country children’s +assurance, emphasized by her seeming victory, her pitiful failure, in +saving the calf--this slight theme the author has embellished with a +wealth of detail. As in the grimmer realism of “The Killers,” dialogue +does most of the work. The minute accuracy of its transcription reads +like a stenographic report edited by an artist. In this story, “quiet +and penetrating,” to quote Mr. Ramsay, and in “Eminence” (see page +xxii), whose chief character is a relative of Patricia’s, Miss Suckow +has surpassed her former writing. Interesting by way of comparison for +similarity of theme is Nels Anderson’s “Old Whitey” (see page xxxi). + +Elisabeth Cobb Chapman’s “With Glory and Honour,” which shares with +“Night Club” the element of setting, uses the setting for a different +purpose. Hal Levering, who has denied his race, learns by a humiliating +lesson what every man of every race must learn, that individual +fulfilment depends upon race, pride in race, acceptance of racial +possibilities. The work of Irvin Cobb’s daughter, “With Glory and +Honour,” itself a happy testimonial to inheritance, reveals individual +power that promises well. In suggestion, choice of detail, and rhythm, +the story might be the accomplishment of a master. + +In “He Man,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas not only tells the experiences +of six in a fallen plane ending in the death of all but two, not only +describes a struggle with the sea that lasted two days and nights; she +achieves victory for endurance and fortitude, no less tokens of manhood +than sportsmanship and courage. By vivid pictures, by the wind in the +wires, by the omnipresence of the menacing sea, the author brings near +the plight of those on the craft. Beautiful writing, forceful writing, +carries the story; for example, “Stars were quivering in the enormous +rondure of the sky that overhead took on a strange metallic blue and +cast upon them a faint luminance that was less than light and only a +little less than dark.” Isn’t that worthy to set beside “L’obscure +clarté, qui tombe des etoiles,” and Milton’s light that served to +render darkness visible? + +The title “Fear,” the fear of men who fly, declares companionship with +“He Man.” “Fear,” second on Dr. Scarborough’s list, has the distinction +of being the one war story chosen from scores that have done their +bit to memorialize the tenth decade after America’s entry into the +conflict. “Fear” may be, as Mr. Ramsay says, sloppily executed; but, as +he also states, it is intensely realized. Mr. Bellah’s way with planes +is the way of one who has fought in them; his analysis of Paterson’s +fear is the analysis of a warrior who knows the effect of war on men’s +minds. Paterson weakened twice, but he recouped in the climax of his +berserker rage what he had lost through previous faltering. To read +“Fear” is to live again the days of ’17 and ’18. The story establishes +the same point “He Man” establishes: faced by demand for courage, fear +flees. + +“Jukes,” the story of a sailor by sailor Bill Adams, is the survival +of many cullings from _Adventure_. No other magazine represented in +this book has shown so remarkable a gain in quality. The chairman, who +read every number, marvelled at its rapid rise and trusts the ascent +is more than temporary. Mr. Ramsay also comments that _Adventure_ has +had an unusually good year. Mr. Adams, who spent eight weeks in writing +“Jukes”, surely had no prime intention of producing an argument for +prohibition; he was concerned to show the weakness of Jukes, that +weakness by which tottered Jukes’s good resolutions, weakness abetted +by crimp and board master. “You an’ me is dogs,” says one of the +sailors; and “Jukes, was you ever beat at anything?” draws no answer. +Jukes knows that he has never been other than beaten; his repeated +impressment will be repeated--until the end. To read “Jukes” is to +taste the ocean’s bitterest salt. Mr. Adams need not tell us that he +has sailed with many a Jukes. “All these nowadays books about the +clipper ships and the beauty of the sea rather weary me at times. The +beauty and the grandeur were there. But what a horror was there too. +Crews carted around like dogs.” Mr. Adams, like Mr. Wetjen, relates +stories of the sea with breadth of knowledge and accuracy of detail +possible only to a seaman. + +Of the four remaining stories two are of the folk. Ada Jack Carver’s +“Singing Woman,” second on Mr. Ramsay’s list, celebrates a custom of +the French mulattoes on Isle Brevelle of the Joyous Coast. A gruesome +and pathetic contest this between Henriette and Josephine, their +ninety-nine and ninety-eight funerals proclaiming them last survivors +of wailing women, rivals to the death. By easy management, the author +permits them to emerge with drawn honours in “my friend, you and me ull +quit even”; and, by her usual sympathy in characterizing the lowly, +provokes for the old brown women admiration tempered with pity. A near +relative of these wailing ones is George Allan England’s “Johnny +Moaner” (see page xxiv), whose calling led him to kill that he might be +supplied with a necessary funeral. + +In “Four Dreams of Gram Perkins” Ruth Sawyer weaves one of the oddest +yarns ever spun from dream stuff, yet as surely of the Maine folk as +“Singing Woman” is of the Isle Brevelle natives. In their climactic +progress Zeb Perkins’s dreams maintain consistently the ruling passion +of Gram’s life as well as the character of Zeb himself, self-appointed +layer of Gram’s ghost. Sardonic humour saves these dreams from the +horrific as tenderness redeems Ada Jack Carver’s song of death. + +“Shades of George Sand!” happens to fall into a category all its +own. Mr. Lieber, placing it second, comments on its air of savoir +faire and mature quality; the chairman appreciates the rebellion of +Mathilde against her environment, her escape into a pseudo-paradise and +consequent descent into limbo. Only the clever girl, apparently doomed +to rusticity, fired by ancestry, and nourished by experiences vicarious +as those which fed Mathilde, can guess with what eagerness Mathilde set +out for Chicago. The meanness of Flora Campbell’s respectable boarding +house and the defection of Mathilde’s hero may have struck down +momentarily the girl’s aspirations; but surely the conference with her +tutelary shade gave Mathilde courage to follow her star; and if she has +not presided over a salon, she has found something better. The mordant, +yeasty humour of this tale should leaven the collection, in general a +serious collection. + +“The Scarlet Woman,” in length about that of “The Killers,” required +greater skill in elimination. Whereas “The Killers” belongs to the true +short-story genre in brevity of time, close circumscription of place, +and sharply defined conflict, “The Scarlet Woman” is a novel which, +paradoxically and exceptionally, succeeds as a short short story. In +its 3,000 words, the author, by concentrating the essence of Vergie +Winters’s life, has escaped a mere synopsis. To say it differently, he +has revealed by high lights the passive conflict one woman endured with +the social order, a conflict the motive of which is love. The obstacles +in the way, too great to be surmounted, Mr. Bromfield has disregarded +with a featness that recalls Columbus’s triumph with the egg. + + +THE LISTS + +Before consulting the appended lists, please note the following +abbreviations: + + +ABBREVIATIONS + + _Ad._ _Adventure_ + _Am._ _American Magazine_ + _Am. Merc._ _American Mercury_ + _A. A._ _Argosy Allstory Magazine_ + _Arch._ _Archer_ + _Atl._ _Atlantic Monthly_ + _B. M._ _Black Mask_ + _B. B._ _Blue Book Magazine_ + _Book._ _Bookman_ + _C. W._ _Catholic World_ + _C._ _Century Magazine_ + _C. T._ _Chicago Tribune_ + _Clues_ _Clues Magazine_ + _C. H._ _College Humor_ + _Col._ _Collier’s Weekly_ + _C. G._ _Country Gentleman_ + _D._ _Delineator_ + _D. S. M._ _Detective Stories Magazine_ + _D. S._ _Droll Stories_ + _E._ _Echo_ + _Elks_ _Elks Magazine_ + _Ev._ _Everybody’s Magazine_ + _Fl._ _Flynn’s Weekly_ + _F._ _Forum_ + _G. H._ _Good Housekeeping_ + _H. J. Q._ _Haldeman Julius Quarterly_ + _H. B._ _Harper’s Bazar_ + _H._ _Harper’s Magazine_ + _H. I. and C._ _Hearst’s International and Cosmopolitan Magazine_ + _L. H. J._ _Ladies’ Home Journal_ + _L._ _Liberty_ + _McCall._ _McCall’s Magazine_ + _McClure._ _McClure’s Magazine_ + _Mun._ _Munsey’s Magazine + _Op._ _Opportunity_ + _P. R._ _Pictorial Review_ + _Pop._ _Popular_ + _R. B._ _Red Book Magazine_ + _S. E. P._ _Saturday Evening Post_ + _Scr._ _Scribner’s Magazine_ + _S. S._ _Short Stories_ + _S. S. M._ _Special Salesman Magazine_ + _Sun._ _Sunset Magazine_ + _W. T._ _Weird Tales_ + _W. S._ _Western Story_ + _W. H. C._ _Woman’s Home Companion_ + _Y._ _Young’s Magazine_ + + +LIST I + +Stories ranking highest: + + Abbot, Keene, Tree of Life (_Atl._, Dec., 1926). + + Adams, Bill, Jukes (_Ad._, Nov. 23, 1926). + + Alexander, Elizabeth, The Purest Passion (_S. E. P._, Feb. 5). + + Alexander, Sandra, Passion (_H._ Apr.). + + Aley, Maxwell, Man Child (_G. H._, July). + + Anderson, Frederick Irving, Wise Money (_S. E. P._, Aug. 6). + + Anthony, Joseph, A Hobo He Would Be (_C._, Oct., 1926). + + Bailey, Margaret Emerson, Common Law (_H._, Apr.). + + Banning, Margaret Culkin, Heads or Tails (_S. E. P._, May 7); The + Woman Higher Up (_S. E. P._, May 21). + + Beer, Thomas, Piepowder Court (_S. E. P._, Oct. 16, 1926); The Public + Life (_S. E. P._, Nov. 20, 1926); Curly-Tailed Wolf (_S. E. P._, + Apr. 16); Cramambuli (_S. E. P._, May 7); Æsthetics (_S. E. P._, + June 11). + + Bellah, James Warner, Fear (_S. E. P._, Nov. 6, 1926); Boppo’s + Bicycle (_Col._, Feb. 5); Funny Nose (_S. E. P._, Feb. 5); Old + Slithercheeks Takes a Bath (_Col._, Feb. 26); Blood (_S. E. P._, + Apr. 2); The Great Tradition (_S. E. P._, May 28); A Gentleman of + Blades (_S. E. P._, June 11); M’Givney’s Mustache (_S. E. P._, + Aug. 20). + + Blake, Clarice, The Mold (_C._, May). + + Bradford, Roark, Child of God (_H._, Apr.). + + Brady, Mariel, From Four Till Seven (_G. H._, Nov., 1926); April’s + Fools (_G. H._, Apr.); Snips and Snails (_G. H._, June). + + Brecht, Harold W., Vienna Roast (_H._, Nov., 1926). + + Broadhurst, George, The Motive (_S. E. P._, July 2). + + Bromfield, Louis, “Let’s Go to Hinkey-Dink’s” (_McCall._, Sept.). + + Brush, Katharine, The Other Pendleton (_P. R._, Oct., 1926); Night + Club (_H._, Sept.). + + Burlingame, Roger, Jacinth (_Scr._, Oct., 1926). + + Burt, Katharine Newlin, Jealous Oberon (_C. T._, May 15). + + Burt, Struthers, Freedom (_C. T._, Nov. 28, 1926); C’Est La Guerre + (_S. E. P._, Feb. 5); Grandpa (_S. E. P._, Apr. 23); Soda Bicarb + (_S. E. P._, July 2). + + Busch, Niven, Jr., The Wife and the Toreador (_Col._, Aug. 6). + + Butler, Ellis Parker, Bruce of the Bar-None (_Sun._, May). + + Byrne, Donn, Rivers of Damascus (_McCall_, Oct., 1926). + + Canfield, Dorothy, Here Was Magic (_W. H. C._, Feb.). + + Carver, Ada Jack, The Old One (_H._, Oct., 1926); Singing Woman (_H._, + May). + + Chapman, Elisabeth Cobb, With Glory and Honour (_C._, June). + + Clark, Valma, Candlelight Inn (_Scr._, Nov., 1926); The Tact of + Monsieur Pithou (_Scr._, May). + + Clarke, James Mitchell, Punishment (_Ad._, Apr. 1). + + Cobb, Irvin S., The Wooden Decoy (_H. I. and C._, Dec., 1926); This + Man’s World (_H. I. and C._, May); Louder Than Words (_H. I. and + C._, June); As Brands from the Burning (_H. I. and C._, July); + Faith with Works (_H. I. and C._, Aug.). + + Cohen, Octavus Roy, Idles of the King (_S. E. P._, Aug. 6); The Porter + Missing Men (_S. E. P._, Aug. 20). + + Connell, Richard, The Lady Killer (_S. E. P._, Nov. 27, 1926); In + Society (_S. E. P._, Mch. 5). + + Cram, Mildred, From a Château Kitchen (_D._, June). + + Crowell, Chester T., The Trick (_S. E. P._, Apr. 2). + + Daniels, Roger, Bulldog (_S. E. P._, Nov. 13, 1926). + + Davis, Elmer, The Ruinous Woman (_C._, May). + + Detzer, Karl W., The Superior Woman (_C._, Jan.). + + Dickson, Harris, On the First Sand Bar (_S. E. P._, Jan. 15); The + Sealed Wager (_S. E. P._, May 21); Foresight (_S. E. P._, Aug. 27). + + Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Slow Poison (_H._, July). + + Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Beautiful and Beloved (_S. E. P._, + Apr. 2); The Third Woman (_C. T._, May 29); Stepmother + (_S. E. P._, June 4); He Man (_S. E. P._, July 30). + + Dwyer, James Francis, Dreve of Virginia (_R. B._, Oct., 1926). + + Edmonds, Walter D., Who Killed Rutherford? (_Scr._, Mch.). + + Eliot, Ethel Cook, Heaven Knows (_Arch._, Mch.). + + Ellerbe, Alma and Paul, “Done Got Over” (_Col._, Nov. 27, 1926). + + Fairbank, Janet, The Thin Red Line (_W. H. C._, Jan.). + + Farnham, Walter, David (_Ad._, Nov. 8, 1926). + + Ferber, Edna, Blue Blood (_H. I. and C._, Mch.). + + Fisher, Rudolph, Blades of Steel (_Atl._, Aug.). + + Flynn, T. T., Twenty Fathoms Under (_S. S._, Apr. 25). + + Gale, Zona, A Way of Escape (_W. H. C._, Oct., 1926). + + Gilkyson, Phoebe, The Portrait (_H._, Jan.). + + Gilson, Charles, Three Thieves (_Ad._, Mch. 15). + + Gordon, Eugene, Game (_Op._, Sept.). + + Hackett, Francis, The Cinder (_C._, Nov., 1926). + + Hartman, Lee Foster, The Reek of Limes (_P. R._, Apr.). + + Hemingway, Ernest, The Killers (_Scr._, Mch.); Fifty Grand (_Atl._, + July). + + Hergesheimer, Joseph, Collector’s Blues (_S. E. P._, Oct. 2, 1926); + Trial by Armes (_Scr._, Mch.); Natchez (_S. E. P._, May 21); New + Orleans (_S. E. P._, July 23). + + Hervey, Harry, The Lover of Madame Guillotine (_McClure_, Jan.). + + Heyward, Du Bose, The Half Pint Flask (_Book._, May). + + Hopper, James, When It Happens (_H._, May). + + Hughes, Rupert, They Were Americans Too (_McCall_, Feb.); The River + Pageant (_H. I. and C._, July). + + Hume, Cyril, The Count’s China Teeth (_C. H._, Apr. 2). + + Jackson, Margaret W., Birds of a Feather (_McCall_, Oct., 1926). + + Jaffé, Margaret Davis, Shut In (_C. W._, Oct., 1926). + + Jordan, Elizabeth, The Little Red-Haired Girl (_C. T._, Oct. 31, 1926). + + Kelly, Eleanor Mercein, Monkey Motions (_P. R._, Oct., 1926); Emiliana + (_S. E. P._, Oct. 2, 1926); Fête-Dieu (_S. E. P._, Dec. 18, 1926); + Charivari (_S. E. P._, Feb. 12); Interlude (_S. E. P._, June 25); + Nostalgia (_S. E. P._, Aug. 13). + + Kerr, Sophie, The Bad Little Egg (_L._, Nov. 6, 1926); Mrs. Mather + (_C._, June); Mister Youth (_D._, July). + + King, Basil, The Supreme Goal (_McCall_, Apr.). + + Kirk, R. G., Transfer (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926). + + Krebs, Roland, The Sport of Kings’ County (_C. H._, June). + + Kyne, Peter B., The Devil-Dog’s Pup (_G. H._, Nov., 1926); The Tidy + Toreador (_H. I. and C._, Apr.); Bread upon the Waters (_H. I. and + C._, Aug.). + + Lane, Rose Wilder, Yarbwoman (_H._, July). + + Logan, James T., Lawrence Avenue (_Op._, Aug.). + + MacDougall, Sally, Wild Music (_H._, Sept.). + + McFee, William, The Wife of the Dictator (_R. B._, May); The Roving + Heart (_R. B._, July). + + MacGrath, Harold, The Fiddle String (_R. B._, Jan.). + + McLean, Margharite Fisher, The Lonesome Christmas-Tree (_Scr._, Dec., + 1926). + + Marquand, J. P., Lord Chesterfield (_S. E. P._, June 18). + + Marquis, Don, When the Turtles Sing (_Scr._, Apr.); A Keeper of + Tradition (_Scr._, Aug.). + + Mumford, Ethel Watts, The Ghosts of China Gardens (_P. R._, Nov., + 1926). + + O’Reilly, Edward S., In Our Midst (_P. R._, Oct., 1926). + + Paul, L., Heat (_Ad._, Mch. 1). + + Popowska, Leokadya, The Living Sand (_H._, June). + + Rhodes, Eugene Manlove, The Bad Man and the Darling of the Gods (_H. + I. and C._, July). + + Roe, Vingie, Doc Virginia (_McCall_, Aug.). + + Saunders, Louise, Formula (_H._, Oct., 1926). + + Sawyer, Ruth, Four Dreams of Gram Perkins (_Am. Merc._, Oct., 1926). + + Scobee, Barry, Monotony (_Ad._, Nov. 8). + + Scoggins, C. E., White Fox (_S. E. P._, Sept. 17). + + Shay, Frank, Little Dombey (_Scr._, Jan.). + + Singmaster, Elsie, The Fiery Cross (_Atl._, Oct., 1926); Pomp an’ + Glory (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926); Aged One Hundred and Twenty + (_S. E. P._, Mch. 12). + + Smith, Garret, Sitting Pretty for Life (_L._, Feb. 5). + + Spears, Raymond S., On Getting Acquainted (_Ad._, Feb. 15). + + Springer, Fleta Campbell, Severson (_H._, June). + + Starrett, Vincent, The Incomplete Angler (_S. S._, Aug. 10). + + Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Autumn Bloom (_P. R._, Nov., 1926); A Drink + of Water (_H._, Jan.); Sailor! Sailor! (_P. R._, July); New Deal + (_Scr._, Aug); Sooth (_H._, Aug.); Speed (_P. R._, Aug.). + + Stone, Elinore Cowan, An Hour Before Dinner (_Col._, Dec. 18, 1926). + + Suckow, Ruth, Eminence (_Am. Merc._, Mch.); The Little Girl from Town + (_H._, Aug.). + + Synon, Mary, Amy Brooks (_G. H._, Mch.). + + Tarkington, Booth, Mr. White (_S. E. P._, Mch. 12); Hell (_S. E. P._, + July 16). + + Tarleton, Fiswoode, Eloquence (_Ad._, Oct. 8, 1926). + + Taylor, Ellen du Pois, Nostalgia (_H._, Feb.); Shades of George Sand! + (_H._, Mch.). + + Torrey, Grace B., One Medium-Sized Dog (_W. H. C._, Oct., 1926); + Bartley, B. A. (_S. E. P._, Oct. 30, 1926). + + Tupper, Tristram, Three Episodes in the Life of Timothy Osborn + (_S. E. P._, Apr. 9). + + Welles, Harriet, The Stranger Woman (_Scr._, Dec., 1926); Her + Highness’ Hat (_W. H. C._, Aug). + + Wetjen, Albert Richard, Shingles out of Bandon (_Ad._, Oct. 8, 1926); + The Covenant of the Craddocks (_Ad._, Feb. 1); The Strange + Adventure of Tommy Lawn (_Ad._, Mch. 15). + + Wiley, Hugh, The _Patriot_ (_R. B._, June). + + Williams, Ben Ames, Coconuts (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926); Opportunity + (_S. E. P._, Jan. 8); Altitude (_S. E. P._, Jan. 15); A Needful + Fitness (_C. T._, Jan. 23). + + Williams, Jesse Lynch, A Man’s Castle (_R. B._, Feb.). + + Wister, Owen, The Right Honorable the Strawberries (_H. I. and C._, + Nov., 1926); Lone Fountain (_H. I. and C._, Apr.). + + Wylie, Elinor, King’s Pity (_W. H. C._, Sept.). + + +LIST II + +Stories ranking second: + + Adams, Frank R., Love’s Pair o’ Dice (_L._, Feb. 26); Oysters in + Season (_L._, Apr. 2). + + Addington, Sarah, Mr. Dickens’ Little Boy (_D._, Dec., 1926); Tornado + (_D._, July); Clodhopper (_D._, Sept.). + + Aldrich, Bess Streeter, “He Whom a Dream Hath Possest” (_Am._, June). + + Aley, Maxwell, Mr. Petty’s Garden (_W. H. C._, Apr.). + + Anderson, Frederick Irving, Finger Prints (_S. E. P._, Oct. 23, 1926). + + Andrews, G. G., Fire (_C. T._, Mch. 6). + + Avery, Stephen Morehouse, Where Angels Fear to Tread (_Col._, Sept. + 25, 1926); “Circle Wide, We’ll Meet above the Clouds” (_McCall_, + May). + + Bailey, Temple, So This Is Christmas! (_McCall_, Dec., 1926). + + Balmer, Edwin, The Round Bullet (_L._, Jan. 29); Double Exposure + (_L._, Sept. 3). + + Banning, Margaret Culkin, Amateur (_H._, Dec., 1926); Not in Politics + (_S. E. P._, Dec. 25, 1926); The Favorite Daughter (_Col._, May + 28). + + Barker, Elsa, The Jade Earring (_R. B._, Nov., 1926). + + Bechdolt, Frederick, For the Girl Back Home (_H. I. and C._, May). + + Bellah, James Warner, Boppo and the Awful Whiffs (_Col._, Mch. 12); + The Silly Major (_Col._, Apr. 9); The Gods of Yesterday + (_S. E. P._, Apr. 30); Boppo Refuses (_Col._, June 11). + + Benét, Stephen Vincent, The Amateur of Crime (_Am._, Apr.). + + Blochman, L. G., Ways That Are Dark (_Ev._, Mch.). + + Borden, Mary, An Accident on the Quai Voltaire (_F._, Mch.). + + Borland, Hal, The Heifers (_Book._, Oct., 1926). + + Boyd, Thomas, The Fickle Jade (_C. H._, Dec., 1926); The Fighting + Face (_S. S._, Dec. 25, 1926); Old Timers (_C. G._, Mch.); + Grandfather’s Dog (_Scr._, July). + + Brackett, Charles, The Monster’s Child (_S. E. P._, Oct. 23, 1926); As + Suggested (_S. E. P._, Jan. 22). + + Brady, Mariel, Georgia Washington (_G. H._, Feb.). + + Brown, Bernice, Marie Celeste (_D._, Aug.). + + Brown, Royal, The Sixth Hat (_L._, Mch., 19). + + Buckley, F. R., Peg Leg Retires (_W. S._, Apr. 2). + + Burt, Katharine Newlin, Heartbreak Homestead (_L._, Apr. 23). + + Burt, Struthers, Masquerade (_C. T._, Oct. 3, 1926). + + Butler, Ellis Parker, I Beg Your Pardon (_W. H. C._, June); Happy + Harry (_Mun._, June); Mad Marix (_Mun._, July). + + Canfield, Dorothy, A Basque Windfall (_W. H. C._, Apr.). + + Carman, Dorothy Walworth, Every Thursday (_H._, Jan.). + + Chamberlain, George Agnew, The Red, Red Tree (_S. E. P._, Nov. 13, + 1926). + + Child, Maude Parker, Diamonds in the Rough (_S. E. P._, Dec. 4, 1926). + + Child, Richard Washburn, When I’m Rich Enough (_Col._, Apr. 2). + + Clearing, Robert, Mother Cuts Loose (_W. H. C._, Mch.). + + Cockrell, Stephena, Lafayette’s Sheets (_G. H._, Sept.). + + Connell, Catharine, Life Isn’t Like That, Father! (_W. H. C._, Aug.). + + Connell, Richard, Room at the Top (_Col._, Feb. 19). + + Cooper, Mary Lispenard, Moth-Mullein (_H._, Nov., 1926). + + Cross, Ruth, Mr. Tightwad Meets His Match (_P. R._, Jan.) + + Croy, Homer, Wilkie’s Unforgivable Sin (_P. R._, Apr.). + + Davenport, Walter, Dr. Lysander (_Col._, Nov. 6, 1926). + + Davis, Aaron, The Armored Heart (_W. H. C._, Sept.). + + Davis, Elmer, The $125,000 Marriage License (_McClure_, Nov., 1926). + + Davron, Mary Clare, Icebergs (_R. B._, Feb.). + + Delano, Edith Barnard, Enough Is Enough (_S. E. P._, July 16). + + Delmar, Vina, The Belle of Barnesville (_L._, Aug. 6). + + Detzer, Karl, A Call for the Doctor (_S. S._, Sept. 25). + + Dickson, Harris, Two of a Trade (_S. E. P._, Nov. 20, 1926). + + Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, Guinevere (_S. E. P._, Jan. 1); You Can + Have Three Wishes (_W. H. C._, June). + + Edgar, Day, The Last Patrician (_S. E. P._, May 14); Sic Semper + (_S. E. P._, Aug. 13). + + Egan, Cyril B., Passion Play (_C. W._, Sept.). + + England, George Allan, Johnny Moaner (_Ev._, June). + + Erskine, John, Nausicaa Receives (_Col._, July 16). + + Evans, Ida M., Mrs. Galahad (_C. T._, Nov. 7, 1926). + + Falkner, Leonard, Corpus Delicti (_D. S. M._, Oct. 30, 1926). + + Ferber, Edna, Perfectly Independent (_H. I. and C._, Dec., 1926). + + Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Jacob’s Ladder (_S. E. P._, Aug. 20). + + Flynn, T. T., Mountain Top Mystery (_Clues_, Mch.); Through the Red + Death (_S. S._, July 10); Peg Leg (_C. T._, Aug. 14). + + Ford, Sewell, The Woman Who Never Forgot (_H. I. and C._, Dec., 1926). + + Fowler, Richard B., Practicality in Practice (_Scr._, Feb.); Elmer’s + Imperfect Day (_W. H. C._, Sept.). + + Frost, Meigs, O., They’s Always Thoroughbreds (_Ev._, Jan.). + + Gale, Zona, A Winter’s Tale (_H. I. and C._, June). + + Gelzer, Jay, Man’s Size (_G. H._, Feb.). + + Gilbert, Kenneth, Strength of the Hills (_Sun._, Sept.). + + Gould, Bruce, Sky Scrapes (_B. B._, Oct., 1926). + + Hallet, Richard Matthews, Theed Harlow’s Cadenza (_S. E. P._, Apr. 2). + + Hergesheimer, Joseph, A Further Study of Plants (_S. E. P._, Oct. 16, + 1926); Albany (_S. E. P._, May 7); Washington (_S. E. P._, + June 4); Lexington (_S. E. P._, June 18); Charleston (_S. E. P._, + July 9). + + Hopper, James, Stilts and a Complex (_R. B._, Nov., 1926); The + Derringer (_L._, May 7). + + Hughes, James Perley, The Glass Stalker (_Mun._, May). + + Hughes, Rupert, The Big Boob (_L._, May 14). + + Humphreys, Ray, In All His Glory (_W. S. M._, Apr. 2). + + Huse, Harry G., Red Symbols (_Ad._, June 11). + + Huston, McCready, The Lamp (_Scr._, Dec., 1926). + + Irwin, Wallace, American Beauty (_S. E. P._, Jan. 8); Thanks for the + Buggy Ride (_S. E. P._, Jan. 15). + + Irwin, Will, Through a Loophole in the Law (_L._, Feb. 12). + + Jackson, Charles Tenney, Big Timber (_S. S._, Feb. 25); Fingers + (_S. S._, Sept. 25). + + James, Will, The Young Cowboy (_Scr._, Jan.). + + Jerard, Elise Jean, The Treat (_Col._, May 14). + + Johnson, Nunnally, A Portrait of the Writer (_S. E. P._, Oct. 16, + 1926). + + Johnston, Isabel, The Lavender-Flowered Crime (_McCall_, Oct., 1926). + + Jordan, Elizabeth, John Henry’s Inferiority Complex (_C. T._, July 10). + + Kahler, Hugh MacNair, The Puppet (_S. E. P._, Oct. 16); Elbowroom + (_S. E. P._, Aug. 20). + + Kelly, Eleanor Mercein, Las Señoritas (_S. E. P._, Mch. 26); Sky + Pastures (_S. E. P._, Apr. 23). + + Kerr, Sophie, The Sloane Temper (_Am._, Mch.); Hush-Me-Dear (_L._, + Feb. 19); Mimi-Mary (_Col._, Nov. 13, 1926); They Told Her + Everything (_D._, May). + + Kilbourne, Fannie, If We Have Each Other (_S. E. P._, Dec. 11, 1926); + Red Hair (_McCall_, Jan.); With a Modern Leading Lady (_S. E. P._, + July 9); A Married Man’s Job (_S. E. P._, Aug. 20). + + Lardner, Ring, Fun Cured (_H. I. and C._, Jan.); Hurry-Kane (_H. I. + and C._, May); Then and Now (_H. I. and C._, June); The Spinning + Wheel (_H. I. and C._, July). + + Lea, Fannie Heaslip, That’s Life (_G. H._, Feb.); On the Air (_G. H._, + Apr.); Caprice Itself (_McCall_, June). + + Leach, Paul R., Miscellany (_L._, Dec., 1926). + + Lincoln, Joseph C., An Honest Man’s Business (_S. E. P._, July 23). + + Lloyd, Beatrix Demarest, Villa Beata (_S. E. P._, Apr. 30); + Alimentation’s Artful Aid (_S. E. P._, June 11); A Tidiness in the + Affairs of Mr. Tracy (_S. E. P._, Aug. 27). + + Looms, George, The Lights of the Harbour (_E._, Aug.). + + McBlair, Robert, One Christmas Morning (_Elks_, Dec., 1926); Twisted + Gun Gap (_Elks_, Mch.). + + McCarter, Margaret Hill, The Guardian of the Jack Oaks (_McCall_, + Dec., 1926). + + McCulloch, F. H., The Code of Boys and Dogs (_McCall_, Nov., 1926). + + McKenna, Edward L., Hardware (_Ad._, Apr. 1). + + McMorrow, Will, Battle Honors (_Pop._, Feb. 7). + + Marmur, Jacland, Copra (_Ad._, Jan. 1). + + Marquand, J. P., Good Morning, Major (_S. E. P._, Dec. 11, 1926); The + Cinderella Motif (_S. E. P._, Mch. 5). + + Mason, Grace Sartwell, The Way to Heaven (_H._, Dec., 1926). + + Means, E. K., A Farewell Tour (_Mun._, Dec., 1926). + + Merrill, Kenneth Griggs, The Cross (_Scr._, Dec., 1926). + + Merwin, Samuel, The Million-Dollar Buckwheats (_McCall_, Oct., 1926); + The Cat Jumps Quick (_McCall_, July); The Morning Star (_Col._, + Aug. 27). + + Mitchell, Ruth Comfort, Of the Fittest (_R. B._, Oct., 1926); + Dangerous but Passable (_W. H. C._, Nov., 1926). + + Montague, Margaret Prescott, The Golden Moment (_Atl._, Oct., 1926); + The Last Tenth (_H._, Nov., 1926). + + Montross, Lois Seyster, Iron Dogs (_L. H. J._, Nov., 1926). + + Montross, Lynn, The Vulgar Boatman (_Col._, Aug. 13). + + Morton, Leigh, A Poor Man’s Cottage (_McCall_, May). + + Mumford, Ethel Watts, The Scales of Justice (_Mun._, July). + + Nason, Leonard H., The General’s Aide (_S. E. P._, Nov. 6, 1926). + + Neidig, William J., Rubies of Mogok (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926); The + Dagga Smokers (_S. E. P._, Dec. 11, 1926). + + Norris, Kathleen, The Irish Song Bird (_H. I. and C._, Dec., 1926). + + Osborne, William Hamilton, A Rum Proposal (_R. B._, Oct., 1926). + + Pangborn, Georgia Wood, The North Wind (_C. T._, Dec. 19, 1926). + + Parker, Maude, Raise or Quit (_S. E. P._, Mch. 5); Exploration + (_S. E. P._, June 11). + + Patterson, Norma, Ships That Pass (_G. H._, Jan.). + + Pattullo, George, Eels (_S. E. P._, Mch. 12). + + Pelley, William Dudley, The Prodigal Angel (_L._, June 18). + + Perry, Peter, the State’s Witness (_Fl._, Oct. 23, 1926). + + Post, Melville Davisson, The Leading Case (_Am._, June). + + Pulver, Mary Brecht, They Knew What They Wanted (_S. E. P._, Dec. 4, + 1926). + + Reese, Lowell Otus, Fool Ridge (_S. E. P._, Nov. 6, 1926). + + Ritchie, Robert Welles, Rapahoe Bob (_C. G._, Jan.). + + Roche, Arthur Somers, Love Was Different Then (_H. I. and C._, Feb.). + + Roe, Vingie E., Smoke in the Gulch (_McCall_, Jan.). + + Rose, Will, Splurgin’ (_Scr._, Jan.). + + Ross, Mary Lowry, The Real Mrs. Alward (_S. E. P._, Nov. 20, 1926); + Three Husbands in Paris (_S. E. P._, May 21). + + Russell, John, The Bright Reversion (_Col._, May 14). + + Rutledge, Maryse, Skyscrapers (_S. E. P._, Apr. 16). + + Sangster, Margaret E., Mountains (_G. H._, May); Loveliness (_G. H._, + Aug.). + + Savell, Morton, The Wings of a Lark (_S. S._, Feb. 25); Bird in Hand + (_C. T._, Sept. 18). + + Saxby, Charles, The Little Mercy of Men (_Col._, Feb. 19). + + Schisgall, Oscar, Come On, Row! (_D. S. M._, Oct. 30, 1926); In + Kashla’s Garden (_W. T._, May). + + Scott, R. T. M., Peter’s Tower (_Am._, Mch.). + + Scoville, Samuel Jr., The Mouse and the Lion (_Col._, Oct. 30, 1926). + + Seifert, Shirley, Dumb Bunnies (_Col._, Nov. 27, 1926). + + Sheehan, Perley Poore, A Feud of the High Sierras (_S. S._, June 25). + + Shenton, Edward, All the Boats to Build (_Scr._, Oct., 1926). + + Singmaster, Elsie, There Was Joan of Arc (_L. H. J._, Mch.). + + Skerry, Frederick, Touched in Passing (_Col._, Feb. 12). + + Squier, Emma-Lindsay, The Room of the Golden Lovers (_Col._, Mch. 19); + The Bells of Culiacán (_G. H._, May); The Gipsy Road (_D._, May). + + Starrett, Vincent, The Woman in Black (_S. S._, Dec. 10, 1926); The + Murder on the Ace’s Trick (_S. S._, June 10). + + Stone, Elinore Cowan, Be My Valentine (_W. H. C._, Feb.). + + Storm, Marian, Discovery (_F._, Nov., 1926). + + Stribling, T. S., It Don’t Mean Nothin’ to Men (_P. R._, Oct., 1926). + + Synon, Mary, You Meet Such Nice People (_G. H._, July). + + Tarleton, Fiswoode, Miracles (_Ad._, Mch.). + + Terhune, Albert Payson, Early Birds (_Col._, Oct. 16, 1926); The True + Romance (_D._, Nov., 1926); The Battle of the Gods (_Col._, Dec. + 4, 1926); Loot (_Col._, Aug. 13); The Short Cutters (_L._, Aug. + 27). + + Terrill, Lucy Stone, Sidewalks? Yes (_S. E. P._, Oct. 16, 1926). + + Thomas, Elizabeth Wilkins, Deer (_W. H. C._, June). + + Tisdale, Frederick, Down to Babylon (_P. R._, Dec., 1926). + + Train, Arthur, The Viking’s Daughter (_S. E. P._, Feb. 5). + + Triem, Paul Ellsworth, Will Morning Never Come? (_D. S. M._, Nov. 13, + 1926). + + Turnbull, Agnes Sligh, Flood-Gates (_McCall_, Nov., 1926); Holly at + the Door (_McCall_, Dec., 1926). + + Valensi, Marion Poschman, The Girl Who Set Out to Marry Money (_Am._, + Nov., 1926); Roseleaves and Moonlight (_McCall_, Mch.). + + Van de Water, Virginia Terhune, How It Worked (_Mun._, Dec., 1926). + + Waldron, Webb, Jim Comes Home (_W. H. C._, Mch.). + + Wallace, S. E., Kenyon Stands by (_S. S. M._, Aug.) + + Warren, Lella, The Wrong Twin (_H. I. and C._, July). + + Watkins, Maurine, Alimony (_H. I. and C._, July). + + Watkins, Richard Howells, The Ace of Aerobats (_Mun._, Sept.); Conover + Crashes in (_S. S._, Sept. 10); Fly-by-Night (_Ad._, Sept. 15). + + Weiman, Rita, Dinner Is Served (_R. B._, Dec., 1926); Slow Torture + (_L._, Apr. 16). + + Wetjen, Albert Richard, The First Law of Nature (_Col._, June 11); The + Mate Stands by (_Col._, July 23). + + White, Stewart Edward, “Free, Wide, and Handsome” (_Am._, May). + + Wiley, Hugh, The Power of the Press (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926). + + Williams, Ben Ames, Skins (_S. E. P._, Oct. 23, 1926); Aside after + Lucre (_S. E. P._, Dec. 4, 1926). + + Williams, Valentine, The Thumb of Fat’ma (_C. T._, Aug. 7). + + Williams, Wythe, En Garde (_S. E. P._, Oct. 30, 1926); Destiny + (_S. E. P._, Nov. 20, 1926). + + Wilson, Mary Badger, Dust Behind the Sofa (_S. E. P._, Dec. 4, 1926). + + Worts, George F., The Nimble Snail (_Mun._, Oct., 1926). + + +LIST III + +Stories ranking third. + + Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell, The Steps That Went up into the Sky + (_G. H._, Nov., 1926); Turkey in the Oven (_W. H. C._, Nov., 1926). + + Banning, Margaret Culkin, Rich Man, Poor Man (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, + 1926); Delicatessen Love (_C. T._, Apr. 24). + + Bari, Valeska, the Goddess of Liberty (_F._, July). + + Barnard, Leslie Gordon, The Guest of Honor (_L. H. J._, July). + + Barretto, Larry, The Phantom Major (_Ad._, Nov. 23, 1926). + + Bellah, James Warner, Boppo Takes a Bird’s-Eye View (_Col._, May 7); + Old Waffle Ear (_Col._, July 2). + + Benét, Stephen Vincent, Miss Willie Lou and the Swan (_C. G._, Nov., + 1926). + + Benson, Stuart, Ramadin’s Daughter (_Col._, Oct. 9, 1926). + + Boyd, Thomas, Dark in a Shell Hole (_S. S._, Feb. 10); Two Lean and + Hungry Looks (_S. S._, Apr. 10); Shootin’ Keno (_C. G._, June). + + Bretherton, Vivien R., Trinket (_McCall_, May). + + Caffrey, Andrew A., Aerial Blue (_Ad._, Nov. 23, 1926). + + Clausen, Carl, On the Midnight Tide (_B. B._, Nov., 1926); Around the + Horn (_C. T._, June 12); The Shining Door (_R. B._, July); The + Father of His Son (_C. T._, Aug. 21); The Three of Us (_P. R._, + Sept.). + + Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, Too Much Class (_S. E. P._, Oct. 9, 1926). + + Edward, Cecil A., The Russian (_Atl._, June). + + Elliott, Stuart E., Whom the Gods Love (_L. H. J._, June). + + Franken, Rose L., The Lady in the Back (_C. T._, July 31). + + Gale, Zona, Heart of Youth (_L. H. J._, Oct., 1926). + + Goodman, Blanche, Nocturne (_Book._, Feb.). + + Hamilton, H. M., Liberty (_A. A._, Oct. 23, 1926). + + Jones, Vara Macbeth, Danny Goes Druid (_C. W._, Mch.). + + Kroll, Harry Harrison, Good to the Last Drop (_Ev._, Jan.). + + Lea, Fannie Heaslip, The Brute (_G. H._, Oct., 1926). + + Lovelace, Delos, Toe of the Stocking (_C. G._, Dec., 1926). + + McMorrow, Thomas, Hinkle against Fayne (_S. E. P._, Oct. 30, 1926). + + Marquis, Don, The High Pitch (_Col._, May 28). + + Mason, Grace Sartwell, Sweet Tooth (_W. H. C._, May). + + Miller, Helen Topping, A Bird Flies Over (_G. H._, Oct., 1926). + + Montague, Margaret Prescott, Hog’s Eye and Human (_F._, Aug.). + + Montross, Lois Seyster, The Golden Legend (_L. H. J._, Apr.). + + Moravsky, Maria, The Ode to Pegasus (_W. T._, Nov., 1926). + + Nebel, Frederick L., Grain to Grain (_B. M._, Nov., 1926). + + Parmenter, Christine Whiting, David’s Star of Bethlehem (_Am._, Jan.). + + Pelley, William Dudley, Martin’s Tree (_Am._, Apr.). + + Perry, Lawrence, Barbed Wire (_Col._, Oct. 16, 1926). + + Portor, Laura Spencer, One Night (_W. H. C._, May). + + Post, Melville Davisson, The Survivor (_Am._, Oct., 1926). + + Pruden, Oliver, Black Salve (_S. S._, July 10). + + Ritchie, Robert Welles, You Take ’Em as They Flies (_S. S._, Jan. 25). + + Sears, Zelda, Out of the Fourth Dimension (_Mun._, Oct., 1926). + + Shore, Viola Brothers, A Handy Manuel (_S. E. P._, Oct. 2, 1926). + + Shore, Viola Brothers and Fort, Garrett, The Prince of Headwaiters + (_L._, Apr. 9). + + Singer, Mary, Fathers (_G. H._, Aug.). + + Singmaster, Elsie, Finis (_Book._, Aug.). + + Speare, Dorothy, Sweet but Dumb (_P. R._, Apr.). + + Steele, Harwood, An Affair of Courage (_S. S._, Mch., 25). + + Synon, Mary, A Girl Called Stella (_P. R._, Nov., 1926). + + Taggard, Genevieve, The Shirt (_Book._, Nov., 1926). + + Tilden, Freeman, The Two-Browning Man (_L. H. J._, May). + + Topham, Thomas, In All His Glory (_D. S. M._, Oct. 16, 1926). + + Treleaven, Owen Clarke, Vengeance (_S. S._, May 25). + + Van de Water, Frederic F., Angels and Yellowjackets (_L. H. J._, Oct., + 1926); He Sendeth His Rain (_C. G._, Apr.). + + Vance, Louis Joseph, Base Metal (_Col._, Oct. 30, 1926). + + Ware, Edmund, The Boy and the Wind (_Am._, Aug.); So-Long, Old Timer + (_L. H. J._, Aug.). + + Weadock, Louis, Bottles and Stoppers (_Clues_, Nov., 1926). + + White, Ared, The Watch on the Rhine (_Ev._, Mch.). + + White, Nelia Gardner, “Treasures” (_Am._, Jan.); Helga (_Am._, Aug.). + + Whitehead, Henry S., The Left Eye (_W. T._, June). + + Wolff, William Almon, A Lady of Leisure (_L._, June 18). + + +LIST IV + +Of short short stories the following rank highest: + + Anderson, Nels, Old Whitey (_Am._ Merc., Jan.). + + Benson, Stuart, A Soldier (_Col._, July 2). + + Bromfield, Louis, The Scarlet Woman (_McClure_, Jan.). + + Child, Richard Washburn, The Man at the Bottom (_Col._, Aug. 13). + + Cohen, Octavus Roy, Stamped Out (_Col._, Oct. 9, 1926); Sunset + (_Col._, Oct. 23, 1926). + + Crawford, Nelson Antrim, Frock Coats (_H. J. Q._, January). + + Davenport, Walter, All Aboard (_Col._, Sept. 17). + + Davis, Bob, The Hard-Boiled Egg (_Col._, Aug. 6). + + Dell, Floyd, The Blanket (_Col._, Oct. 16, 1926). + + Doyle, Lynn, Smoke (_Mun._, Dec., 1926). + + Edholm, Charlton Lawrence, The Fame of Usskar (_C._, Oct., 1926). + + Fagin, N. Bryllion, The Queerness of Kate (_E._, Feb.). + + Farrar, John, Primrose Pavilion (_Col._, Jan. 15). + + Gale, Zona, Another Lady Bountiful (_H. I. and C._, Feb.); Blue Velvet + (_P. R._, June); Tommy Taylor (_R. B._, June). + + Hare, Amory, Three Lumps of Sugar (_H. I. and C._, May). + + Hecht, Ben, The Lifer (_R. B._, Feb.); Don Juan’s Rainy Day (_C. H._, + May). + + Hoyt, Nancy, Things Like That Happen Only in Dreams (_C. H._, Dec., + 1926). + + Kniffin, Harry A., Aftermath (_C. W._, July). + + Kyne, Peter B., The Devil Drives (_Col._, Dec. 18, 1926). + + Martin, Helen R., The Wooing of Weesie (_L. H. J._, Jan.). + + Merwin, Samuel, The Old Blood (_Col._, Jan. 22). + + Mish, Charlotte, A Woman Like That (_Y._, Apr.); Pretenders (_Y._, + June); The Moment of Triumph (_D. S._, June). + + Nelson, Gaylord, Moonshine (_C._, Oct., 1926). + + Norris, Kathleen, The Ring (_H. B._, Oct., 1926). + + O’Donnell, Jack, The Killer (_L._, Jan. 1). + + Phillips, Michael J., Back to Apple Harbor (_R. B._, Oct., 1926). + + Powel, Harford, Jr., The Finest Lie in the World (_Col._, Mch. 19). + + Singmaster, Elsie, Sandoe’s Pocket (_W. H. C._, Oct., 1926); Miss + Glynn (_Col._, Oct. 9, 1926); The Christmas Guest (_P. R._, Dec., + 1926); The Legacy (_D._, May). + + Toohey, John Peter, The Trouper (_Col._, Apr. 23). + + Way, Isabella, Sachet (_E._, July). + + Wetjen, Albert Richard, A Loyal Man (_Col._, Jan. 15). + + White, Owen P., The Simpleton (_Col._, Nov. 27, 1926). + + Williams, Ben Ames, Victory (_Col._, Apr. 30); Red Hair (_Col._, July + 2). + + Worts, George F., Woman’s Work Is Never Done (_Col._, Mch. 19). + + +The short story has known better seasons, says a reader who, moved by +indigestion and nausea, forswears the magazine tale of to-day as food +unfit. The trouble with this reader lies partly in his having the world +too much with him, late and soon. He finds no recreation in reading +contemporary fictionists, or fiction about the present of which he +is integrally a part. He believes he laments the Stockton and Bunner +model; rather he laments the day of Stockton and Bunner. This nostalgia +for the dear, dead days that are no more demands a superfiction, a +glorification of the past. The demand is satisfied best by fictive +biography, which has never known a better season. Because the satiated +reader has no desire for short stories, he should condemn them all no +more than one who has eaten too many clams condemns all clams. + +Yet too many stories of to-day are like O. Henry’s clam shells “from +which the succulent and vital inhabitants” have forever departed. A +critical reader finds himself saying, “This tale was made on order from +the editor,” or “So-and-so is writing under too great pressure; he is +tired.” A disturbing fact is the absence of humour, for humour is the +unfailing index to superabundance of vitality. + +Among hopeful signs may be mentioned, first, a number of new writers +appearing in the better as well as the humbler magazines; several are +represented in this volume. Second, from what has been called the +incoherent left side and the technically correct right side, a new form +may be emerging; I suggest tentatively “The Mold,” by Clarice Blake +(_Century_, May), and “Sooth,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele (_Harper’s_, +August). Third, the war story is slowly developing out of that emotion +remembered in tranquillity which, on occasion, is as necessary to prose +as to poetry. The period of recollection has produced good results, +chiefly in the work of Thomas Beer, Thomas Boyd, Leonard Nason, and +James Warner Bellah. Finally, a number of veterans are creating with +undiminished vigour: Irvin S. Cobb, tales of the Tennessee River; +Harris Dickson, reminiscences of Mississippi River gambling days; Booth +Tarkington, adventures in the supernatural. + +In the eight years of _O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories_, no reviewer of +the annual collection--so far as I have discovered--has ever suggested +a better story of a given year than those included between its covers. +The fact is either gratifying or amusing; gratifying if the reviewer +recognizes the selections as one of the best possible in the premises; +amusing if the reviewer damns the whole lot--unless, to be sure, he +damns all stories published in the period. + +The Committee know what they demand in a story and read hundreds to +salvage the comparatively few which best meet the demand. The first +desideratum is a narrative constructed about characters in a struggle +or complication having a definite outcome expressed or implied. Every +story in this book satisfies this first test. In “Child of God” the +struggle is Willie’s against the social order; the order crushes him, +but by his death he wins; The Killers are out for their man and, though +they fail this time, ultimately they will not fail; the Scarlet Woman +is at odds with society; Jukes agonizes to escape from the sea--he +never will escape; “Fear” is nothing less at bottom than the conflict +in Paterson’s soul; on the surface it offers a display of spectacular +conflicts between enemy planes; “Night Club” hints at a half-dozen +conflicts (see page 84); “Singing Woman” relates the final stages in +a lifelong rivalry; “He Man” instances a struggle with the sea and +hunger; I have spoken of the struggle in “Done Got Over” as one between +superstition and enlightenment; of that in “Shades of George Sand!” as +one between the individual and environment; “With Glory and Honour” +implies pretty strongly that Hal Levering conquered himself before +he changed his ways; “Monkey Motions” reveals awkwardness and genius +working to final expression; “Four Dreams” relates four vain efforts +of Gram; Bulldog’s fights and his escape lead to his climactic rescue +of the judge; “The Little Girl” symbolizes the helplessness of all +childhood through the concrete instance of Patricia’s failure. + +All writers and all critics are agreed upon other well-known +desiderata, which neither the author nor the critic needs consciously +to enumerate. Familiarity with the laws and limitations of the art is +as necessary to judging fiction as insistence upon them is deplorable +if such insistence means undervaluing a narrative that may smash all +laws and succeed, it may so happen, because of the fact. He who follows +an uncharted way may discover, or he may not discover, new lands. + +That standards of reviewers differ may be illustrated by the following +quotations drawn from reviewers of _O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories_, +1926: + + “Miss Williams’s introduction | “The introduction is, it + is of great interest, as it | must be said, an unpleasant + takes us behind the scenes | piece of work ... in a style + with the judges ... but still | whose lack of distinction is in + the collection itself remains | marked contrast to the stories + disappointing.”--Hartford | that follow.”--New York + _Courant_, January 23, 1927. | _Sun_, January 18, 1927. + | + “Miss Williams in her introduction | “It is at least refreshing + considers each | after the monotones of praise + story with critical seriousness, | to which introducing editors + and analyzes, and | have almost invariably + praises, and compares, till | treated us; and even though + one can’t help wondering | one may not always agree + what she would say of a | with the specific comment + Chekhov or a Maupassant.”--The | ... that fact need not detract + _Saturday Review of | from one’s approval of this + Literature_, May 28, 1927. | tempered, tentative editorial + | attitude as constituting a + | salutary and genuinely respectable + | criticism.”--New + | York _Herald-Tribune_, January + | 30, 1927. + | + “If Wilbur Daniel Steele | “All competent readers + had never written a better | will agree with the official + story than ‘Bubbles’ he | judges as to the wisdom of + would never have achieved | their first choice. ‘Bubbles’ + the fame and popularity | is a profound, subtle, and + which he not unjustly | highly finished piece of + enjoys.”--Richmond (Va.) | work.”--New York _Sun_, January + _News Leader_, January 17, | 18, 1927. + 1927. | + | + “To me the story [Bubbles] | “Mr. Steele’s really stupendous + is not convincing enough to | story, ‘Bubbles’--it + be really successful. Despite | is difficult not to overdo + deft craftsmanship the story | superlatives in writing of this + fails to become important, | appalling little masterpiece + and even its pattern is beautiful | ... is one of Mr. Steele’s + artifice rather than art.”--The | supreme achievements.”--Hartford + _Saturday Review of | _Courant_, January + Literature_, May 28, 1927. | 23, 1927. + | + “Sherwood Anderson wins | “Of the stories in this + the second prize with a story | book, that by Sherwood Anderson + called ‘Death in the Woods’ | [Death in the Woods] + in which he is at his | is the most important.”--New + worst.”--Richmond _News | York _World_, January + Leader_, January 17, 1927. | 19, 1927. + | + “‘Death in the Woods’ has | “Mr. Anderson’s story + the curious distinction no | strikes the authentic Anderson + story of Mr. Anderson’s could | note. He has seldom done + lack, but would have hardly | anything more powerful + made him the reputation he | within its limits and never + so magnificently deserves.” | anything more characteristic.” + --New York _Post_, February 5, | --New York _Sun_, January + 1927. | 18, 1927. + | + The New York _Times_ reviewer | The order of the stories + (January 23, 1927) remarks, | (see the table of contents for + “The relegation of | the 1926 collection) is, after + Mary Heaton Vorse’s story | the three prize stories, + [The Madelaine] to the back | alphabetical by authors. + of the book makes the reader | + wonder if these authorities | + on the short story ... really | + know a story when they see | + it.” | + + + + +CHILD OF GOD + +BY ROARK BRADFORD + +From _Harper’s_ + + +When Willie told the preacher that morning that “ev’ything is all O.K., +Revund,” he meant it from the bottom of his heart. The hawking of the +rain crow from the limb of the dead cottonwood, sounded like the song +of a mocking bird. The monotonous patter of rain on the tin roof lulled +him into gentle restfulness. The damp, dirty stench that floated up +from the dark closeness of the cells below him was like a sedative. +Even the lyelike coffee served to remind him that the jailer was his +friend. + +“Cap’m Archie tole me I could have ev’ything I wanted fer brekfus,” +he explained as he caught the minister sniffing and eyeing the scant +remains of the meal. “An’ I tole him I b’lieve I’d take some po’k chops +an’ cawfee, ef’n hit wuz all right. An’ hyar it is.” + +“You mean dar hit wuz,” admonished the preacher. “Now yo’ flesh is fed, +Willie, whut ’bout yo’ soul?” + +Willie beamed a broad, knowing smile. “My soul,” he said tolerantly, +“is all O.K. An’ Revund,” he continued jubilantly, “Cap’m Archie say he +gonter bring me a ten-cent cigar to go walkin’ up de gallows wid in my +mouf.” The minister’s face was a study in expression. “An’ I makes me a +speech up yonder”--jerking his arm toward the gallows high in the roof +of the jail--“an’ den----” + +“Den which, son?” Preacher Moore was eager to find a point of contact +at which he could begin his prepared message of consolation. + +“I’se Glory bound!” Willie declared with enthusiasm. + + * * * * * + +While the condemned man talked and the preacher listened, the Great +State of Louisiana prepared to exact its penalty in the form of the +life of Willie Malone because “he did feloniously, wilfully, and of +his deliberately premeditated malice aforethought, make an assault on +one Thurston Gibbs, and a certain gun which then and there was loaded +with gunpowder and buckshot and was by him, the said Willie Malone, +had and held in both hands, he, the said Willie Malone, did then and +there feloniously and of malice aforethought shoot off and discharge +at and upon the said Thurston Gibbs thereby, and by thus striking the +said Thurston Gibbs with the buckshots inflicting on and in the body +one mortal wound of which said mortal wound the said Thurston Gibbs +then and there instantly died. And so the said Willie Malone did in the +manner and form aforesaid, feloniously and of deliberately premeditated +malice aforethought, kill and murder the said Thurston Gibbs in the +Parish of Wilton aforesaid, against the peace and dignity of the Great +State of Louisiana.” + +It all came out at the trial. Hogs had been running in Willie’s +cornfield. The hogs belonged to Mr. Gibbs. And when Willie asked him to +keep them home Mr. Gibbs had cursed him. Willie then bought a shotgun +and some buckshot. Everybody agreed upon that much of it. Willie said +he aimed to shoot the hogs and that when he heard something rustling +the long blades he fired, thinking it was a hog. The district attorney +pointed out that it was impossible to get a witness who could say what +was in a man’s mind and, therefore, he’d leave it to the jury as to +whether Willie was hog hunting or man hunting. + +The jury was divided upon the point, but all agreed that no nigger had +any right to shoot a white man’s hogs, anyway, much less shoot a white +man. So they found him guilty as charged. + +Willie had rather enjoyed his stay in jail. Two or three times his +lawyer came and talked to him in a low voice and had him make his cross +mark on many important-looking pieces of paper. It all gave him a +feeling of importance hitherto not experienced. + +He liked “Cap’m Archie,” too--Cap’m Archie was always making jokes, and +didn’t make him do any work around the jail except a little sweeping. +And during the long cool spring evenings, when the stars twinkled in +the sky and the fiddling of the katydids out in the weed patch back +of the jail floated in between the long iron-barred windows, Cap’m +Archie would have one of the short-time prisoners drag his chair back +to Willie’s own private cage and Willie would sing for him. + +Willie did like to sing--church songs, mostly. But sometimes when he +felt sad and lonesome he’d sing the one that began: + + “Thirty days in jail, + Baby, don’t soun’ so long, + But de las’ frien’ I got in dis worl’, + Done shuck her laig an’ gone.” + +There were many verses, and to these Willie had added a hundred others. +He was good at that. When they locked up that Caldonie for cutting her +husband because he stole one of her hens and a chicken brood and gave +it to another woman, Willie celebrated the occasion by adding: + + “He might er stole yo’ chickens, + He might er stole yo’ cow, + Hit don’t make no diffunce what he stole, + You’s in de jail-house now.” + +Cap’m Archie had laughed at that one and it made Willie happy. + +Not long after that Cap’m Archie sent for him to come to the office. +Cap’m Archie looked sad that day, and it made Willie feel sad. So when +Cap’m Archie told him the Supreme Court had turned him down and that he +would have to hang Willie was much relieved. + +“Shuh! Cap’m Archie,” Willie consoled, “dat ain’ nothin’ to go worryin’ +’bout. I thought hit mought er been somethin’ wrong, de way you had yo’ +face strung out. Shuh! Ain’ dat de same as de jedge done tole me?” + +That afternoon Reverend Moore, Negro preacher, was ushered into +Willie’s cell, and under his exhortations Willie was converted. He had +been converted annually ever since he could remember but he always had +been too busy to follow it up. This time he had ample leisure in which +to contemplate Christianity and draw mental pictures of it. Willie was +keenly interested. + +The preacher had spared no detail his imagination could supply as to +the glories of heaven, and these Willie supplemented with the colourful +pigments of his own imagination. Heaven was a wonderful place. Willie +wanted to go there. + +“Hyar dey comes, son,” the preacher said kindly. “Git up off’n yo’ +knees.” + +Cap’m Archie unlocked the cage door with keys that rattled nervously +in his hand. Behind the jailer were half a dozen others--the doctor, +two brothers of the man he had killed, the editor of the _Wilton Parish +Gazette_, and a short, stubby, mean-looking man that Willie disliked +instinctively. He had never seen him before, and the pale-green, watery +eyes that squinted out at him through shaggy eyelashes made Willie feel +bad. “I loves him too,” Willie insisted under his breath. “Got ter +love him. ‘Makes me love ev’ybody--hit’s good ernuff fer me’”--Willie +recalled the words from the old song. “An’ I guess he is somebody. But +I be dog ef’n he looks like much, Ole Green Eyes.” + +“Ready to go, Willie?” It was Cap’m Archie. His voice was kind and +filled with sorrow. Willie hated to see Cap’m Archie like that. But +when the jailer’s teeth clicked together and he said briskly, “Here, +slip your hands into these,” it did not sound so sad, and Willie obeyed +with alacrity. + +“I bet you fergits my cigar, Cap’m Archie,” Willie countered as his +arms were being pinioned behind him. + +“Cut out that damned foolishness! Come on here, nigger. I ain’t got all +day to fool.” It was the stubby little man who assumed charge. + +“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie hummed desperately under his breath. +“Hit’s good ernuff for me.” + +“Good ernuff fer anybody,” seconded the preacher loudly, happy that he +had found some place to enter into the ceremony with the dignity of his +calling. “Hit’s de ole time religion, and hit’s good ernuff fer me!” + +As the party marched up the narrow steps to the gallows, the Negro +prisoners on the lower tier of cells caught up the refrain and the +brick walls of the little jail reverberated with: + + “Gimme dat ole time religion, + Gimme dat ole time religion, + Gimme dat ole time religion, Lawd, + Hit’s good ernuff fer me. + + “Hit will take you home to Glory, + Hit will take you home to Glory, + Hit will take you home to Glory, Lawd, + Hit’s good ernuff fer me.” + +The climb to the gallows took a remarkably short time and Willie +noticed that as soon as they arrived there “Ole Green Eyes” rushed to +the rope that was lying handy and began making a loop in the end of it. + +“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie insisted. + +Everybody seemed nervous. Cap’m Archie couldn’t look at him. The +editor was talking with big words to the elder of the Gibbses and said +something about “dancing on the air.” Willie didn’t understand it but +he knew he wasn’t going to dance on anything. Dancing would send him +straight to hell. He had the preacher’s word for it. + +He edged over toward Cap’m Archie. + +“When does I make my speech, Cap’m Archie?” he asked. + +The jailer did not look up. “In a minute,” he replied. “When you are +ready to--when they stand you over there.” He pointed to the trapdoor +with his foot. + +“Come over here, nigger.” It was “Ole Green Eyes” again. Willie stood +on the trapdoor. + +“Makes me love ev’ybody,” he kept repeating as the knot was being drawn +close to his ear. “Makes me love ev’ybody.” + +When the knot was finished the little stubby man slipped a black hood +over Willie’s head and stepped back. A jaybird on a dead limb of the +cottonwood broke out in a scathing chatter of malediction at the crow. +A dog howled mournfully in the jail yard below. The katydids in the +weed patch opened with a wild symphony of fiddling. “Somethin’ ’bout to +happen,” Willie concluded. “I guess I better make my speech.” + +He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin as though about to +address a large congregation. + +“Folkses,” he began in a clear, strong voice, “I has a few words I +wants to say to y’all----” + +“Too late now, nigger.” It was that stubby little man. And even as the +trap gave way under his feet Willie began: + +“Makes me love ev’ybody.” + + * * * * * + +Willie did not finish that line, however. He was interrupted in the +midst of it by a long blast on a horn. It was a loud, thundering blast +and it startled him. He looked into the direction from which it came +and there, charging down the road, he saw four prancing horses drawing +a snow-white chariot. It was a beautiful sight. He had seen some such +rig the time when he went to the circus at Baton Rouge. But this rig +was even prettier than the circus carriages. Big white plumes bobbed +from the crown-pieces of the bridles, and the horses pranced and danced +along, raising a terrible dust. + +“Great day!” he exclaimed. “Class sho’ is comin’ down de road to-day.” + +In a minute the carriage was in front of him, and with much suddenness +it came to a halt, the horses falling back on their haunches to check +the momentum. + +“Git up hyar, boy, an’ le’s git goin’,” the driver called down. “Us is +late, as it is or--else you is early.” + +Willie scrambled to the seat beside the driver. As the horses raced +onward he enjoyed the thrill of the speedy ride, the wind rushing by +his ears, the sparkle of the gold and silver harness, the dexterity +with which the driver held the horses in the road with one hand and +cracked the whip over their heads with the other. + +“You drives right well, boy,” he observed. “What’s yo’ name?” + +“Jehu,” replied the driver. + +“Jehu-which?” + +“Jest Jehu,” replied the driver. + +“Who dat boy wid de hawn in his han’?” + +“Gab’l.” + +The monosyllabic replies of his companion irritated Willie. He wanted +conversation and he intended to have it. + +“How long you been----” he began, but suddenly Gabriel raised his +trumpet to his lips and blew a deafening blast which almost lifted +Willie from his seat. + +“Hol’ tight,” cautioned Jehu, and the chariot stopped suddenly. + +Willie saw an old man in a black slouch hat and cutaway coat, walking +very alertly toward the carriage. His face was cleanly shaven except +for a moustache and goatee which gave him a distinguished appearance. +Willie instinctively knew that this quality-gentleman was going to ride +on the plush seats inside, so he leaped down and opened the door of the +carriage. The old man halted a few paces from him and cast a surveying +glance at the horses. + +“That checkrein is too tight on that off-lead horse,” he said. “It is +a pity that I have to ’tend to these trifles, but damn it all, I can’t +stand to see fine horseflesh suffer on account of triflin’ niggers.” + +Willie quickly ran and lowered the checkrein and climbed back to his +seat. + +“You oughter know better’n to check up dat hoss so high,” he admonished +Jehu with a proprietary air. “Us likes our hosses to have a heap er +room.” + +Jehu did not reply. He held steadily to the reins, and the carriage +fairly flew through the misty haze. Willie wanted to ask for the reins +himself. He felt he could drive much more to his own satisfaction but, +withal, he admitted, Jehu was doing very well. A minute later, however, +when the lead horse bolted just as they approached a long bridge, and +Jehu prevented a crash by expert manœuvring of the reins, Willie was +glad he was not driving. + +“Does dat ev’y time at the bridge,” Jehu volunteered as the team +settled down to a long gallop across the structure. “Lots er times us +misses an’ de folks in de chariot gits drownded tryin’ to cross Jurdan.” + +“Dat de Jurdan, huh?” asked Willie. “I be dog,” and he gripped tightly +to the seat. + +The chariot rolled off the bridge and up to the front of a white pearly +gate where it stopped. Willie dropped confidently to the ground, opened +the chariot door, and assisted the distinguished old passenger to +alight. St. Peter swung the big gate open. + +“Welcome, Colonel,” he said. “It gives me great pleasure to greet you +personally after having known you indirectly for these many years. +She’s waiting for you under the crêpe myrtles. Cherub, escort the +Colonel to Miss Julia.” + +Willie thought that was great, and he was thrilled almost to ecstasy +when the old gentleman gave him a curt nod in recognition of his +service. + +As soon as the old man had disappeared behind the cherub, St. Peter +dropped his air of formality. + +“Well, well,” he said, “if it ain’t that worthless Willie Malone. +Willie, how’d you git here, son?” + +That was language Willie could understand and appreciate. + +“St. Peter,” he replied, “I jes’ got on de chariot an’ rid up hyar.” + +“Well,” said St. Peter, “I guess you better try on a pair of wings, +then. Here, Cherub. Bring out a pair of wings for old Willie Malone.” + +St. Peter helped the cherub adjust the wings. + +“Now you’re fixed, son,” he announced. “Fly away!” + +And Willie flew. He flew among the golden clouds and down long narrow +golden streets. He flew over mansions of gold and sparkling rivers. +High into the air and close to the ground he flew. He tried a few fancy +turns, such as he had seen birds perform among the chinaberry trees. He +dived at the surface of the water and grabbed at the golden fish and +then climbed again by lusty flaps of his wings, as pelicans do. And he +did it perfectly. + +“Doggone my hide,” he exclaimed, “dis is somethin’ like!” + +After a few hours the novelty began to wear off. He was high in the +air, maybe a mile high, he estimated. So he pointed one wing at an +angle and began gliding down, making a huge spiral as he descended. +Halfway down, he reversed the cant of his wings and came down the rest +of the way, flying backwards. + +He landed right in the midst of a group of other angels who were seated +around the Great Throne. Upon the throne sat the Great Lord God. Willie +recognized him instantly because of the distinction with which he sat +upon his throne and by the carefree tilt of his huge, bejewelled crown +almost hiding one eye and by the angle at which the ten-cent cigar +was cocked. Willie was a little frightened, and dazzled by the regal +splendour of it all, but he settled down noiselessly to the ground, +and was made to feel perfectly at home, by the informal greeting he +received. + +“I bet you want to hear some music, don’t you, Willie?” asked the Great +Lord God and, without waiting for Willie’s reply, he continued, “Little +David, play on your harp.” + +“What shall I play, Great Lord God?” asked Little David. + +“Play something calm and low, Little David,” said the Great Lord God. +“Do not alarm my people.” + +David struck a chord or two on his harp. It was beautiful. The mellow +music floated straight to Willie’s heart. One or two of the other +angels started humming with the music and, almost unconscious of where +he was, Willie added his low, rich bass to the chorus: + + “When dat big _Titanic_ sunk down in de sea, + All de brass bands played ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ + Out on de deep blue ocean de people sleep + In a cold wet cradle, three miles deep. + It’s yo’ las’ trip, _Titanic_.” + +After several verses Willie began to feel a personal sorrow for the +passengers of the _Titanic_. The music stopped suddenly, and the Great +Lord God commanded, “Little David, play something quick and lively. Let +the skies rock with mirth. Let the heavens open wide. Let the stars and +the moon shine out. Let my people shout with joy.” + +And as soon as the command was issued all the angels began dancing and +singing as Little David played: + + “Two little babies a-layin’ in de bed, + One of’m sick an’ de yuther mos’ dead. + Sont fer de doctor an’ de doctor said, + ‘Give dem babies some shortnin’ bread.’ + So put on de skillet an’ thow way de led, + Cause mammy gonter make a little shortnin’ bread.” + +Several more songs followed and finally Willie began to tire of +singing. The party broke up, the angels flying away in groups of twos +and threes. Soon no one was left before the throne except Willie. + +Willie felt slightly embarrassed there, with no one around except the +Great Lord God. He figured he might be intruding or something, or that +perhaps he’d better go out and fly some more. But as he was turning +over the idea a tall, kindly looking angel, more strikingly handsome +than any he had ever seen, strolled up and sat down familiarly by +the side of the Great Lord God. At first Willie thought it was Cap’m +Archie. There was kindness and understanding in his face, just like +Cap’m Archie’s face. But it wasn’t Cap’m Archie. Cap’m Archie had no +scars on his hands and feet as had this angel. + +As he puzzled over the matter he faintly remembered a story his old +mammy had told him about a man with scars on his hands and feet, and +he recalled the lines of a song that Cap’m Archie used to make him sing: + + “They nailed His hands and they rivet His feet, + An’ de hammers wuz heard in Jerusalem street.” + +Some way, Willie could not place him. But he felt much more at ease for +his presence. + +“What you thinking about, Willie?” the kindly angel asked. “You don’t +seem to be enjoying yourself so much.” + +Willie did not know exactly what to reply. He rummaged through his +mind hastily. He had been entirely happy for ever so long, not a thing +had gone wrong. Everybody had been so nice to him. The music had +been beautiful and just the songs he liked to sing. His wings fitted +perfectly and St. Peter had been wonderful. So had Jehu. And Cap’m +Archie--he had given him everything he could think of and a heap he +did not think of. Of course there was the matter of the cigar. He +wanted to go to the gallows with a cigar in his mouth. But that wasn’t +Cap’m Archie’s fault ... and, too, maybe Cap’m Archie had forgotten +the cigar. He had so many things to think about. Willie concluded that +if it were the cigar he would say nothing about it to the kind angel +because he did not want to embarrass Cap’m Archie. He did not really +want to go to the gallows with a cigar, anyway, he decided. + +“But I did want ter make dat speech,” he concluded. + +“What speech is that?” asked the kindly faced angel. + +Willie explained in great detail, and the angel and the Great Lord God +listened intently. + +“But hit wa’n’t Cap’m Archie’s fault,” he declared. + +“Whose fault was it, then?” demanded the Great Lord God. + +“Hit mought er been--onderstan’, I ain’ s’cusin’ nobody,” Willie +faltered, “but hit mought er been Ole Green Eyes. But I loves +ev’ybody--him, too,” he added hastily. + +“I know the scoundrel,” declared the Great Lord God. “He’s been +plaguing me for years and years. But this is too much.” The brow of +the Great Lord God clouded in anger and he shouted with a terrible +roar, like seven peals of thunder, “Cherub, bring me a bolt of forked +lightning that I may strike that man from the face of the earth.” + +The cherub brought the lightning, and the Great Lord God was about to +hurl it. But the kind angel touched his arm gently. + +“I wouldn’t, Father,” said the angel. “He might not have understood +that the speech was to have been the biggest thing in Willie’s life.” + +The Great Lord God stayed his hand and turned upon the kind angel. “Of +course he understood. That’s why he didn’t let him make it. He’s just +low-down mean. I’ve put up with enough of it.” + +“But,” insisted the kind angel, “it will do no good to strike him down +with lightning. It would frighten many people. And it would start new +arguments over religion and that would lead to controversies and they +would lead to hatreds and hatreds lead to----” + +“I’ve heard that speech a million times, Son,” said the Great Lord God, +“and you needn’t go into details. I admit you are right,” and he handed +the lightning bolt back to the cherub. “But,” continued the Great Lord +God, “I will not let this thing pass.” His brow clouded in anger again. +“I am the Great I am,” he roared, “and my commands shall be obeyed.” +The kind angel sat meekly and argued no further. + +“Willie Malone,” commanded the Great Lord God in a tone of thunder. + +“Yassuh, Great Lord God,” replied Willie, jumping to his feet. + +“You go right back down yonder and make that speech. He’s sitting +in the jail office right now with Captain Archie. Now go and do my +commands.” + + * * * * * + +Willie lost no time in getting to the jail. As he approached, he +noticed a half-dozen Negroes--friends of his--standing in the rain +about the big steel door entry to the lower cells. But he hurried by +them with only a curt “hy-dy, boys.” The fact that they ignored him +stung a little but he had no time to lose. He went straight to the +office entrance. + +The green-eyed man was seated at a table fingering five new +ten-dollar bills. The coroner was scratching away with a pen on a big +official-looking document. The editor and the two Gibbses were talking +in low tones. Cap’m Archie was hunched down in his chair at his desk, +looking at the floor. Willie stood a minute respectfully, hoping Cap’m +Archie would notice him and inquire what he wanted. + +But Cap’m Archie did not look toward him and Willie tried a scheme that +had worked many times for him. + +“Cap’m, suh,” he said, “don’ you want dis ole dirty flo’ swep’ up er +somethin’?” + +But Cap’m Archie acted as though he did not hear. + +Willie cogitated. Maybe he was worrying about forgetting the cigar. + +But as the thought came to Willie Cap’m Archie slowly reached to his +vest pocket and drew out a single long black cigar and studied it +intently. + +“You got the mate to that’n, Sheriff?” Ole Green Eyes quit shuffling +the new bills and directed his attention toward the cigar. + +“Nope,” replied Cap’m Archie, “I ain’t got the mate to this’n.” And he +tightened his grip on the cigar until he had broken and crushed it. +“And if I did have it,” he added, “I’d damn well keep it.” + +“No hard feelings, Sheriff,” offered Green Eyes. “I see you ain’t used +to it. Cheer up. It’s just another nigger less.” + +A scraping of feet in the jail hall at the side of the office attracted +the attention of both Cap’m Archie and Green Eyes. Willie followed +their gaze through the barred hall door and saw six Negroes carrying +a long black box toward the big jail door. Behind the box marched +Preacher Moore, directing and exhorting as he went. + +“There he goes now--out of yer jail and out of yer life. It’s all over +and yer duty’s done.” + +Cap’m Archie squeezed the cigar tightly, crumbling it into tiny bits. + +The green-eyed man essayed a cackling laugh. “And so’s mine,” he +continued, picking up the five bills, “so I guess I’ll be going.” + +Willie had been standing by in respectful silence since the white folks +had indicated by ignoring him that they were too busy to talk to him. +White people are that way, Willie had learned. Sometimes they will +talk with you and laugh with you. And sometimes when they are busy +they won’t pay any attention to you unless you get in their way or +something. Then they will curse you. Willie knew how to get along with +white folks. + +But things were different now. He had business with Mister Green Eyes. + +“Wait a minute, Cap’m, suh,” he addressed the green-eyed man. + +Green Eyes stiffened, blinked his eyes, passed his hand across his +forehead, and frowned. He stuck the money into his pocket quickly and +grabbed for his hat. + +“Wait a minute, Cap’m,” Willie pleaded. “I got ter make my speech.” + +The green-eyed man turned pale and shut his eyes tightly, gritting his +teeth and shaking his head as if in an effort to clear his brain. + +“Sheriff,” he said with a great struggle for calmness in his voice, “I +need a drink. I--I--I’m sort of nervous, I reckon.” + +“There’s the doctor,” Cap’m Archie replied calmly, nodding toward the +coroner. + +“But, Cap’m, suh, wait,” interjected Willie, “lemme make my speech----” + +The green-eyed man yelled and ran to the doctor. + +“Get me a drink, Doctor!” he begged. “A drink! For God’s sake. I’m all +shot to hell, Doctor. Get me a drink, quick.” + +“What’s the matter, man?” demanded the doctor. “What is it?” + +“That damned nigger, Doctor. I’m seein’ things. So help me. He wants to +make a speech, Doctor----” + +“Dat’s all right, Cap’m,” Willie insisted. “Hit ain’t no mean speech.” + +“O-ww-w-w--Doctor,” screamed the green-eyed man. “There he is again.” + +The coroner and Cap’m Archie caught the hangman and led him to a chair. + +“Calm down, man,” said the doctor. “Your nerves are upset.” + +“But that nigger, that damned nigger! I see him.” + +“Well, he isn’t going to hurt you, man. He’s----” + +“Nawsuh, I wa’n’t gonter hurt nobody,” Willie assured him. “I jes’ was +gonter say a few words.” + +The man struggled wildly, and it was only with the added strength of +the two Gibbses and the editor that they succeeded in holding him in +his chair. He was alternately crying and cursing, trembling weakly and +fighting wildly. + +“That damned nigger! I see him! I see him!” he kept shouting. “He wants +to make a speech!” + +“Hold him until I can fix a hypodermic,” ordered the doctor. + +“I jes’ gonter make my speech,” Willie pleaded again in an effort to +calm the green-eyed man. “I ain’ gonter do nothin’ but jes’ tawk.” + +But instead of being soothed, the man became more violent and but for +the utmost strength of four men, he would have escaped. They held him, +though. Held him in the chair while his eyes glared in wild frenzy, his +huge neck swelled even bigger, his face turned purple, and his breath +came in short rasping gasps. “Git away, damned nigger. I see you. +Ow-ww-ww!” + +“I jes’ on’y got a few words I wanner say,” Willie began again. And +after one lunge at the sound of Willie’s voice the man quieted down, +and his eyes stared glassily at nothing, although his neck still +bulged. The colour of his face changed to an ugly blue and his mouth +dropped open and dripped frothy saliva. And while the green-eyed man +sat limp in the chair Willie Malone completed his speech: + +“I jes’ wanner say I ain’t got no hard feelin’s agin nobody an’ I don’ +want nobody to has no hard feelin’s agin me. An’ I wants to meet you +all in heaven.” + + + + +THE KILLERS + +BY ERNEST HEMINGWAY + +From _Scribner’s_ + + +The door of Henry’s lunch room opened and two men came in. They sat +down at the counter. + +“What’s yours?” George asked them. + +“I don’t know,” one of the men said. “What do you want to eat, Al?” + +“I don’t know,” said Al. “I don’t know what I want to eat.” + +Outside it was getting dark. The street-light came on outside the +window. The two men at the counter read the menu. From the other end of +the counter Nick Adams watched them. He had been talking to George when +they came in. + +“I’ll have a roast pork tenderloin with apple sauce and mashed potato,” +the first man said. + +“It isn’t ready yet.” + +“What the hell do you put it on the card for?” + +“That’s the dinner,” George explained. “You can get that at six +o’clock.” + +George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter. + +“It’s five o’clock.” + +“The clock says twenty minutes past five,” the second man said. + +“It’s twenty minutes fast.” + +“Oh, to hell with the clock,” the first man said. “What have you got to +eat?” + +“I can give you any kind of sandwiches,” George said. “You can have ham +and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver and bacon, or a steak.” + +“Give me chicken croquettes with green peas and cream sauce and mashed +potatoes.” + +“That’s the dinner.” + +“Everything we want’s the dinner, eh? That’s the way you work it.” + +“I can give you ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver---” + +“I’ll take ham and eggs,” the man called Al said. He wore a derby hat +and a black overcoat buttoned across the chest. His face was small and +white and he had tight lips. He wore a silk muffler and gloves. + +“Give me bacon and eggs,” said the other man. He was about the same +size as Al. Their faces were different, but they were dressed like +twins. Both wore overcoats too tight for them. They sat leaning +forward, their elbows on the counter. + +“Got anything to drink?” Al asked. + +“Silver beer, bevo, ginger ale,” George said. + +“I mean you got anything to drink?” + +“Just those I said.” + +“This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call it?” + +“Summit” + +“Ever hear of it?” Al asked his friend. + +“No,” said the friend. + +“What do you do here nights?” Al asked. + +“They eat the dinner,” his friend said. “They all come here and eat the +big dinner.” + +“That’s right,” George said. + +“So you think that’s right?” Al asked George. + +“Sure.” + +“You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?” + +“Sure,” said George. + +“Well, you’re not,” said the other little man. “Is he, Al?” + +“He’s dumb,” said Al. He turned to Nick. “What’s your name?” + +“Adams.” + +“Another bright boy,” Al said. “Ain’t he a bright boy, Max?” + +“The town’s full of bright boys,” Max said. + +George put the two platters, one of ham and eggs, the other of bacon +and eggs, on the counter. He set down two side dishes of fried potatoes +and closed the wicket into the kitchen. + +“Which is yours?” he asked Al. + +“Don’t you remember?” + +“Ham and eggs.” + +“Just a bright boy,” Max said. He leaned forward and took the ham and +eggs. Both men ate with their gloves on. George watched them eat. + +“What are _you_ looking at?” Max looked at George. + +“Nothing.” + +“The hell you were. You were looking at me.” + +“Maybe the boy meant it for a joke, Max,” Al said. + +George laughed. + +“_You_ don’t have to laugh,” Max said to him. “_You_ don’t have to +laugh at all, see?” + +“All right,” said George. + +“So he thinks it’s all right.” Max turned to Al. “He thinks it’s all +right. That’s a good one.” + +“Oh, he’s a thinker,” Al said. They went on eating. + +“What’s the bright boy’s name down the counter?” Al asked Max. + +“Hey, bright boy,” Max said to Nick. “You go around on the other side +of the counter with your boy friend.” + +“What’s the idea?” Nick asked. + +“There isn’t any idea.” + +“You better go around, bright boy,” Al said. Nick went around behind +the counter. + +“What’s the idea?” George asked. + +“None of your damn business,” Al said. “Who’s out in the kitchen?” + +“The nigger.” + +“What do you mean the nigger?” + +“The nigger that cooks.” + +“Tell him to come in.” + +“What’s the idea?” + +“Tell him to come in.” + +“Where do you think you are?” + +“We know damn well where we are,” the man called Max said. “Do we look +silly?” + +“You talk silly,” Al said to him. “What the hell do you argue with this +kid for? Listen,” he said to George, “tell the nigger to come out here.” + +“What are you going to do to him?” + +“Nothing. Use your head, bright boy. What would we do to a nigger?” + +George opened the slit that opened back into the kitchen. “Sam,” he +called. “Come in here a minute.” + +The door to the kitchen opened and the nigger came in. “What was it?” +he asked. The two men at the counter took a look at him. + +“All right, nigger. You stand right there,” Al said. + +Sam, the nigger, standing in his apron, looked at the two men sitting +at the counter. “Yes, sir,” he said. Al got down from his stool. + +“I’m going back to the kitchen with the nigger and bright boy,” he +said. “Go on back to the kitchen, nigger. You go with him, bright +boy.” The little man walked after Nick and Sam, the cook, back into +the kitchen. The door shut after them. The man called Max sat at the +counter opposite George. He didn’t look at George but looked in the +mirror that ran along back of the counter. Henry’s had been made over +from a saloon into a lunch-counter. + +“Well, bright boy,” Max said, looking into the mirror, “why don’t you +say something?” + +“What’s it all about?” + +“Hey, Al,” Max called, “bright boy wants to know what it’s all about.” + +“Why don’t you tell him?” Al’s voice came from the kitchen. + +“What do you think it’s all about?” + +“I don’t know.” + +“What do you think?” + +Max looked into the mirror all the time he was talking. + +“I wouldn’t say.” + +“Hey, Al, bright boy says he wouldn’t say what he thinks it’s all +about.” + +“I can hear you, all right,” Al said from the kitchen. He had propped +open the slit that dishes passed through into the kitchen with a catsup +bottle. “Listen, bright boy,” he said from the kitchen to George. +“Stand a little further along the bar. You move a little to the left, +Max.” He was like a photographer arranging for a group picture. + +“Talk to me, bright boy,” Max said. “What do you think’s going to +happen?” + +George did not say anything. + +“I’ll tell you,” Max said. “We’re going to kill a Swede. Do you know a +big Swede named Ole Andreson?” + +“Yes.” + +“He comes here to eat every night, don’t he?” + +“Sometimes he comes here.” + +“He comes here at six o’clock, don’t he?” + +“If he comes.” + +“We know all that, bright boy,” Max said. “Talk about something else. +Ever go to the movies?” + +“Once in a while.” + +“You ought to go to the movies more. The movies are fine for a bright +boy like you.” + +“What are you going to kill Ole Andreson for? What did he ever do to +you?” + +“He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us.” + +“And he’s only going to see us once,” Al said from the kitchen. + +“What are you going to kill him for, then?” George asked. + +“We’re killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, bright boy.” + +“Shut up,” said Al from the kitchen. “You talk too goddam much.” + +“Well, I got to keep bright boy amused. Don’t I, bright boy?” + +“You talk too damn much,” Al said. “The nigger and my bright boy are +amused by themselves. I got them tied up like a couple of girl friends +in the convent.” + +“I suppose you were in a convent.” + +“You never know.” + +“You were in a kosher convent. That’s where you were.” + +George looked up at the clock. + +“If anybody comes in you tell them the cook is off, and if they keep +after it, you tell them you’ll go back and cook yourself. Do you get +that, bright boy?” + +“All right,” George said. “What you going to do with us afterward?” + +“That’ll depend,” Max said. “That’s one of those things you never know +at the time.” + +George looked up at the dock. It was a quarter past six. The door from +the street opened. A street-car motorman came in. + +“Hello, George,” he said. “Can I get supper?” + +“Sam’s gone out,” George said. “He’ll be back in about half an hour.” + +“I’d better go up the street,” the motorman said. George looked at the +clock. It was twenty minutes past six. + +“That was nice, bright boy,” Max said. “You’re a regular little +gentleman.” + +“He knew I’d blow his head off,” Al said from the kitchen. + +“No,” said Max. “It ain’t that. Bright boy is nice. He’s a nice boy. I +like him.” + +At six-fifty-five George said: “He’s not coming.” + +Two other people had been in the lunch room. Once George had gone out +to the kitchen and made a ham-and-egg sandwich “to go” that a man +wanted to take with him. Inside the kitchen he saw Al, his derby hat +tipped back, sitting on a stool beside the wicket with the muzzle of a +sawed-off shotgun resting on the ledge. Nick and the cook were back to +back in the corner, a towel tied in each of their mouths. George had +cooked the sandwich, wrapped it up in oiled paper, put it in a bag, +brought it in, and the man had paid for it and gone out. + +“Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can cook and everything. +You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright boy.” + +“Yes?” George said. “Your friend, Ole Andreson, isn’t going to come.” + +“We’ll give him ten minutes,” Max said. + +Max watched the mirror and the clock. The hands of the clock marked +seven o’clock, and then five minutes past seven. + +“Come on, Al,” said Max. “We better go. He’s not coming.” + +“Better give him five minutes,” Al said from the kitchen. + +In the five minutes a man came in, and George explained that the cook +was sick. + +“Why the hell don’t you get another cook?” the man asked. “Aren’t you +running a lunch counter?” He went out. + +“Come on, Al,” Max said. + +“What about the two bright boys and the nigger?” + +“They’re all right.” + +“You think so?” + +“Sure. We’re through with it.” + +“I don’t like it,” said Al. “It’s sloppy. You talk too much.” + +“Oh, what the hell,” said Max. “We got to keep amused, haven’t we?” + +“You talk too much, all the same,” Al said. He came out from the +kitchen. The cut-off barrels of the shotgun made a slight bulge under +the waist of his too tight-fitting overcoat. He straightened his coat +with his gloved hands. + +“So long, bright boy,” he said to George. “You got a lot of luck.” + +“That’s the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the races, bright boy.” + +The two of them went out the door. George watched them through the +window pass under the arc light and cross the street. In their tight +overcoats and derby hats they looked like a vaudeville team. George +went back through the swinging door into the kitchen and untied Nick +and the cook. + +“I don’t want any more of that,” said Sam, the cook. “I don’t want any +more of that.” + +Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before. + +“Say,” he said. “What the hell?” He was trying to swagger it off. + +“They were going to kill Ole Andreson,” George said. “They were going +to shoot him when he came in to eat.” + +“Ole Andreson?” + +“Sure.” + +The cook felt the corners of his mouth with his thumbs. + +“They all gone?” he asked. + +“Yeah,” said George. “They’re gone now.” + +“I don’t like it,” said the cook. “I don’t like any of it at all.” + +“Listen,” George said to Nick. “You better go see Ole Andreson.” + +“All right.” + +“You better not have anything to do with it at all,” Sam, the cook, +said. “You better stay way out of it.” + +“Don’t go if you don’t want to,” George said. + +“Mixing up in this ain’t going to get you anywhere,” the cook said. +“You stay out of it.” + +“I’ll go see him,” Nick said to George. “Where does he live?” + +The cook turned away. + +“Little boys always know what they want to do,” he said. + +“He lives up at Hirsch’s rooming house,” George said to Nick. + +“I’ll go up there.” + +Outside the arc light shone through the bare branches of a tree. Nick +walked up the street beside the car tracks and turned at the next arc +light down a side street. Three houses up the street was Hirsch’s +rooming house. Nick walked up the two steps and pushed the bell. A +woman came to the door. + +“Is Ole Andreson here?” + +“Do you want to see him?” + +“Yes, if he’s in.” + +Nick followed the woman up a flight of stairs and back to the end of a +corridor. She knocked on the door. + +“Who is it?” + +“It’s somebody to see you, Mr. Andreson,” the woman said. + +“It’s Nick Adams.” + +“Come in.” + +Nick opened the door and went into the room. Ole Andreson was lying +on the bed with all his clothes on. He had been a heavy-weight +prizefighter and he was too long for the bed. He lay with his head on +two pillows. He did not look at Nick. + +“What was it?” he asked. + +“I was up at Henry’s,” Nick said, “and two fellows came in and tied up +me and the cook, and they said they were going to kill you.” + +It sounded silly when he said it. Ole Andreson said nothing. + +“They put us out in the kitchen,” Nick went on. “They were going to +shoot you when you came in to supper.” + +Ole Andreson looked at the wall and did not say anything. + +“George thought I better come and tell you about it.” + +“There isn’t anything I can do about it,” Ole Andreson said. + +“I’ll tell you what they were like.” + +“I don’t want to know what they were like,” Old Andreson said. He +looked at the wall. “Thanks for coming to tell me about it.” + +“That’s all right.” + +Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed. + +“Don’t you want me to go and see the police?” + +“No,” Ole Andreson said. “That wouldn’t do any good.” + +“Isn’t there something I could do?” + +“No. There ain’t anything to do.” + +“Maybe it was just a bluff.” + +“No. It ain’t just a bluff.” + +Ole Andreson rolled over toward the wall. + +“The only thing is,” he said, talking toward the wall, “I just can’t +make up my mind to go out. I been in here all day.” + +“Couldn’t you get out of town?” + +“No,” Ole Andreson said. “I’m through with all that running around.” + +He looked at the wall. + +“There ain’t anything to do now.” + +“Couldn’t you fix it up some way?” + +“No. I got in wrong.” He talked in the same flat voice. “There ain’t +anything to do. After a while I’ll make up my mind to go out.” + +“I better go back and see George,” Nick said. + +“So long,” said Ole Andreson. He did not look toward Nick. “Thanks for +coming around.” + +Nick went out. As he shut the door he saw Ole Andreson, with all his +clothes on, lying on the bed looking at the wall. + +“He’s been in his room all day,” the landlady said downstairs. “I guess +he don’t feel well. I said to him: ‘Mr. Andreson, you ought to go out +and take a walk on a nice fall day like this,’ but he didn’t feel like +it.” + +“He doesn’t want to go out.” + +“I’m sorry he don’t feel well,” the woman said. “He’s an awfully nice +man. He was in the ring, you know.” + +“I know it.” + +“You’d never know it except from the way his face is,” the woman said. +They stood talking just inside the street door. “He’s just as gentle.” + +“Well, good-night, Mrs. Hirsch,” Nick said. + +“I’m not Mrs. Hirsch,” the woman said. “She owns the place. I just look +after it for her. I’m Mrs. Bell.” + +“Well, good-night, Mrs. Bell,” Nick said. + +“Good-night,” the woman said. + +Nick walked up the dark street to the corner under the arc light, and +then along the car tracks to Henry’s eating house. George was inside, +back of the counter. + +“Did you see Ole?” + +“Yes,” said Nick. “He’s in his room and he won’t go out.” + +The cook opened the door from the kitchen when he heard Nick’s voice. + +“I don’t even listen to it,” he said, and shut the door. + +“Did you tell him about it?” George asked. + +“Sure. I told him, but he knows what it’s all about.” + +“What’s he going to do?” + +“Nothing.” + +“They’ll kill him.” + +“I guess they will.” + +“He must have got mixed up in something in Chicago.” + +“I guess so,” said Nick. + +“It’s a hell of a thing.” + +“It’s an awful thing,” Nick said. + +They did not say anything. George reached down for a towel and wiped +the counter. + +“I wonder what he did?” Nick said. + +“Double-crossed somebody. That’s what they kill them for.” + +“I’m going to get out of this town,” Nick said. + +“Yes,” said George. “That’s a good thing to do.” + +“I can’t stand to think about him waiting in the room and knowing he’s +going to get it. It’s too damned awful.” + +“Well,” said George, “you better not think about it.” + + + + +THE SCARLET WOMAN + +BY LOUIS BROMFIELD + +From _McClure’s_ + + +I can see her now as she used to come down the steps of her narrow +house between the printer’s office and the little shop of Rinehart, +the German cobbler--little, rickety steps, never in too good repair, +especially as she grew older and the cost of everything increased +and that mysterious money of hers seemed to go less and less far in +the business of meeting the necessities of life. It was a house but +one room wide, of wood painted a dun colour; the most ordinary and +commonplace of houses which a stranger would not even have noticed--yet +until yesterday, when they pulled it down, a house invested with a +terrific glamour and importance. It was a house of which no one spoke; +a house which the Town, in its passionate desire to forget (which was +really only a hypocrisy), raised into such importance that one thought +of it when one forgot the monuments which had been raised to the +leading citizens of the community: to the bankers, to the merchants, +to the politicians who had made it (as people said with a curious and +non-committal tone which might have meant anything at all) “what it was +to-day.” One remembered it even when one forgot the shaft of granite +raised in the public square to remind the Town that John Shadwell had +been one of its leading citizens. + +I can see her now--Vergie Winters--an old woman past eighty, coming +painfully down those rickety steps, surrounded always by that wall of +solitude which appeared to shut out all the world. Old Vergie Winters, +whose dark eyes at eighty carried a look of tranquil, defiant victory. +Vergie Winters, of whose house no one spoke; whose door had been stoned +by boys who knew nothing of her story but sensed dimly that she was +the great pariah of the Town. Old Vergie Winters went on and on, long +after John Shadwell was in his grave, refusing to give way, living +there on the main street of the Town as if she were alone in the vast +solitude of a desert. Sometimes she spoke to Rinehart, the cobbler, +and sometimes to her neighbour on the other side; and of course in the +shops they were forced to sell her things, though in one or two places +they had even turned her away--and she had gone without a word, never +trying to force her way anywhere. + +It all began almost a century ago, before the Civil War, when one day +in April Vergie Winters, tall and dark, with great, burning dark eyes +set in a cool, pale face, opened the door of her father’s house to John +Shadwell, tall and handsome and blond, the youngest lawyer in the Town. +It happened so long ago that it seems now to have no more reality than +a legend, especially when one remembers Vergie only as an immensely +old woman coming painfully down her narrow, crooked steps. But it +happened; it must have happened to have made of Vergie Winters so great +a character in all the community. It must have been the rare sort of +love which comes like a stroke of lightning. + +He would have married Vergie Winters, they said (the old ones who +remembered the beginnings of Vergie’s story and passed it on to their +children and grandchildren) but there was already a girl to whom John +Shadwell was betrothed, and in the background a powerful father, and +John Shadwell’s career--which Vergie Winters, being only the daughter +of a Swiss immigrant farmer, could do nothing to aid. + +Long afterward, the Town said, “Look at her! You can see what a drag +she would have been on him, with her queer, silent ways. A pity, too, +for she was a beautiful girl. A pity she was always bad!” + +But they never thought, of course, that if things had been different, +Vergie Winters might not have been queer and silent; and now, looking +back, one can see that they were quite wrong. It was not Vergie Winters +who was a drag on his career. It was the other woman, John Shadwell’s +wife, who turned into a strange, whining, melancholy invalid before +they had been married two years. And what could John Shadwell do? +Desert her? It was not possible. And in the way of such invalids she +lived for more than forty years, forty dreary years, complaining, +hypochondriac, nagging. She outlived even her husband, a great, +vigorous, handsome man, who treated her patiently and with gentlemanly +respect. + +“It was a pity about John Shadwell’s wife,” people said. “And she was +such a lady, too.” + +And Vergie Winters? She did not break her heart. She did not marry +some stupid lout and give up her life to a dull unhappiness. She did +not wither away into spinsterhood. She loved John Shadwell, who knows +how passionately, how deeply, in the profound depths of that curious, +remote soul of hers? She left her parents (“to set herself up in +dressmaking and millinery,” so she said), and took a narrow wooden +house on Main Street, where she put up a card in the window and sold +hats to the women of the Town. And before two years had passed it was +to this narrow house that John Shadwell came, secretly--it must have +been with an amazing secrecy, for no one even suspected the visits +for more than three years. She made no effort to be more friendly +with people about her than was required by the simple routine of her +trade. She lived placidly, with a strange, rich contentment, inside the +walls of the narrow little house. One met her sometimes, usually after +darkness had fallen, walking with her slow, dignified step along the +streets of the Town. But she was alone ... always alone. + +Only once in all those sixty years was she ever known to leave the +house overnight, and that was once, three years after John Shadwell +was married, when she went away for a few months, “to visit her aunt +in Camden.” It was not long after she returned that John Shadwell, +“whose poor wife could never have any children,” adopted a girl baby. +His wife, it was said, made no protest so long as the child had a good +nurse and did not worry her. She was “so miserable, always ailing. She +would give anything in the world for the health some women had.” + +“You couldn’t blame her,” said the Town, “for feeling like that. They +say she never has a moment’s good, wholesome sleep.” + +John Shadwell went to the Legislature, the youngest man in the state to +hold such an office; and when the time for reelection came the fight +was bitter, and into it some enemy thrust the name of Vergie Winters. +So the story spread, and so the name of Vergie Winters went the way of +most smalltown milliners. Millinery was a “fast” business and Vergie +Winters was a “fast” woman. A committee called upon her and asked her +to leave the Town. And John Shadwell did nothing. If he came to her +defense, he was ruined at the very beginning of that precious career. +So Vergie gave him up, but she did not leave the Town. In the little +parlour with the hats in the window she received the committee, and +in that calm, aloof way she told them that they could not force her +to leave. They could not prove that she had broken any law. She was a +free citizen. She even looked at them out of the depths of those dark, +candid eyes, and lied. + +“John Shadwell,” she said, “is nothing to me. If he has come here once +or twice, it is only because he is my lawyer.” + +She must protect John Shadwell. + +And so she sent them away baffled, even perhaps a little intimidated +... a committee of red-faced, self-righteous townsmen who had known, +some of them at least, far worse women than Vergie Winters. + +But her trade dwindled. Women no longer came to her for hats, unless +they were the shady ladies of the streets. And Vergie Winters never +turned them away, perhaps because she needed desperately their trade, +perhaps because it never occurred to her, in that terrible solitude to +which she had dedicated her life, ever to judge them. They came and +sometimes they stayed to talk. A few of them were run out of town, but +new ones always took their places. They always went to Vergie Winters +for their bonnets. + +“She is such a lady. She has such a fine air,” they said. And, “It’s so +restful sitting there in her cool parlour.” + +But their trade did her no good. “It only goes to show,” said the Town. + +It was really the beginning of her colossal solitude. She did not go +away. She did not flee from the threats that sometimes came to her. She +was sure of herself. She would not surrender. And she could wait. She +effaced herself from the life of John Shadwell. And when the Town began +putting two and two together, she was even forced to give up walking +through the twilight in the direction of John Shadwell’s house, where +from the opposite side of the street she could watch with a furtive eye +the little girl who played on the lawn about the iron dogs and deer. +She never went out except to buy the few things she needed to eat, and +for her trade. It was about this time that a shop run by a Presbyterian +elder refused to sell her a spool of thread with which to sew the +bright roses on the hats of the ladies of the streets. She did not make +a scene; she did not even complain. She went quietly from the shop and +never again passed through its doors. + +But there were always the gay ladies. They came and went; but there +were always some in the town, so it must have had some need for them. +They could not live without money, yet they always had it, though they +toiled not nor spun, to pay Vergie Winters for their hats. Some died; +one or two were murdered in saloon brawls, but Vergie Winters never +turned them away. They were her only friends. One wonders what secrets, +what confidences they brought to Vergie Winters, sitting there in her +narrow little house. One wonders what a dark history of the Town’s +citizens went into the grave when Vergie Winters was carried down those +narrow, rickety steps for the last time. But she said nothing. She +simply waited. + +At last what she hoped--what she must have known--would happen, came to +pass. One cold night while Vergie Winters sat sewing on the gay hats a +key turned in the lock, and John Shadwell came back to her. He came in +the face of scandal, of ruin, because he could not help himself. It had +begun in a flash of lightning when Vergie Winters opened the door of +her father’s house to let him in, and now John Shadwell found that it +went on and on and on.... There was no stifling it. + +Who can picture that return? Who can imagine the sudden upleaping in +the calm, withdrawn soul of Vergie Winters--who had such faith in this +love that she sacrificed all her life to it? + +And so for years John Shadwell came, on the occasions when he was not +in Washington, to see Vergie Winters in the narrow wooden house. She +kept on with her precarious trade, for she would never while he lived +accept any money from him. Besides, she could not, for his sake, afford +to arouse suspicions. For herself it did not matter; she could not be +worse off. + +Thus Vergie Winters and John Shadwell passed into middle age, and there +came a time when he no longer sought election but instead became a +power behind the throne, a man who shaped the careers of other men. He +held power in the palm of his hand and no longer depended on votes. He +grew careless, and one night he was seen by a Negro stable boy turning +his key in the back door of Vergie Winters’s house. + +After that there were women who crossed the street in order to avoid +passing the window with the gay bonnets; and children, hearing +their parents whisper as they drove by on a summer evening, came to +understand dimly that some evil monster lay hidden behind the neat +fringed curtains. Once, while John Shadwell was away in Washington, +boys stoned the house and broke all the windows; but Vergie Winters +said nothing. In the morning a Slovak glazier, who was new to the Town +and had never heard of its Scarlet Woman, came and repaired the damage; +and after he had gone she was seen coming down the narrow steps, in +that terrible pool of solitude, as if nothing at all had happened. So +far as any one knew, she never spoke of the affair to John Shadwell. +She wanted to save him, it seemed, even from such petty annoyances. + +And then as the years passed she sometimes saw from her window--the +only safe spot from which she might peep--the figure of John Shadwell’s +adopted daughter, grown now into a girl of twenty. A thousand times +she must have watched the girl, always in company with John Shadwell’s +sister, a large, bony spinster, as the pair came out of the shop on +the corner and crossed the street in order that a girl so young and +innocent might not have to pass the house of Vergie Winters. + +Thus she sat in the narrow, dun-coloured house, working at the gay +bonnets, on the afternoon that John Shadwell’s adopted daughter was +married to a son of the Presbyterian elder who refused to sell Vergie +Winters a spool of thread. Perhaps on that afternoon she had a visit +from one of the ladies of the street, who sat talking to her (she was +such a lady) while the girl in her bridal dress walked down the aisle +of the brick Presbyterian church--with no mother sitting in the pew on +the right because John Shadwell’s wife had been too much upset by the +preparations for the wedding. + +And one is certain that on the same night, when the festivities were +ended, the figure of a middle-aged man followed the shadows of the +alley behind Vergie Winters’s house, and let himself in with a key he +had carried for more than twenty years. And one can hear him telling +Vergie Winters who was at the wedding, and that there never was a +prettier bride, and what music they played, and what there was at the +wedding breakfast; and assuring her, as he touched her hand gently, +that the bit of lace she had given him had been used in the bridal +dress. He had told them he bought it himself. + +Then, slowly, the town came to accept the state of affairs as a +permanent scandal. One seldom spoke of it any longer. One simply knew +that Vergie Winters and John Shadwell had been living together for +years. He was rich, he was important, he was a power in politics; and +now that his career no longer mattered, he had grown indifferent and a +little defiant. So far as John Shadwell was concerned, he was a leading +citizen nearly seventy years old, the grandfather of children by his +adopted daughter. + +But with Vergie Winters? She still went her solitary way, making her +few bonnets, now a little old-fashioned and _démodé_ for all her +sedulous reading of the fashion papers. (One can see her, slightly +grayed, putting on her spectacles and peering closely at the pages.) +And still, as she sat behind the lace curtains at her window, she +saw the figure of John Shadwell’s daughter, remote and upright and a +little buxom, crossing the street and going down the opposite side; +only instead of being led by John Shadwell’s spinster sister she was +leading her own children now. And night after night the figure of John +Shadwell, no longer an ardent lover but an old man, following the +shadows of the alley (less and less furtively as he grew older) to turn +the worn key in the lock and sit there all through the evening with +Vergie Winters. What did they do? What did they say to each other in +those long winter evenings? + +And at last, one night, John Shadwell’s wife, peevish and fretful +in her tight-closed bedroom smelling of medicines, sent for him at +midnight to read to her, only to be told that he had not come in. Again +at two o’clock, and again at three--still he had not come in. Even when +the gray light filtered through the elms on to the iron dogs and deer, +he had not come back. They knew then that he would never return; for +he lay dead in Vergie Winters’s narrow, dun-coloured house, behind +the lace curtains and the gay bonnets. He had belonged to her always, +and in that silent, powerful way of hers she had known it from the +beginning. In the end he came to Vergie Winters to die.... + +It made great trouble and embarrassment, and they were forced to wait +until midnight of the following day before they were able to take John +Shadwell’s body from the house of Vergie Winters. And when they did +take it, it went out of the same door that had opened so many times at +the touch of the worn key, and along the shadows of the alley through +which he had passed in life so many times. But even then they were not +able to keep the affair a secret. The Town came to know it, and so +shut out the last glimmer of tolerance for Vergie Winters. It was no +longer a half-secret. It was a scandal which cast darkness upon the +name of one of the men who had made the Town (as people said with a +curious and non-committal tone which might have meant anything at all) +“what it was to-day.” The crime was Vergie Winters’s. But she could not +have cared very much.... Vergie Winters, sitting there in her terrible +solitude behind the lace curtains, while the procession passed her +house--first, the band playing “The Dead March from Saul,” and then +the cabs containing John Shadwell’s daughter, her husband, and John +Shadwell’s grandchildren, and then one by one the cabs carrying the +leading citizens. + +The next morning she came down the steps as she had always done, in the +same clothes, with the same air of abysmal indifference. She had not +betrayed him during life, and in death she would give no sign; and she +must have known that on that morning every eye she passed was turned +upon her with a piercing gaze, “to see how she took it.” + +For twenty years longer, Vergie Winters lived in the narrow wooden +house, growing poorer and poorer with the passing years. She saw the +children of John Shadwell’s adopted daughter grow into men and women +and have children of their own. But the scandal had grown stale now, +though the legend persisted, and only a few must have remembered hazily +that the old woman who sat behind the curtains was a great-grandmother. +Until one morning the howling of the cat roused Rinehart, the German +cobbler, who broke into the house and found Vergie Winters dead. And +when they carried her down the rickety steps on her last journey she +went alone, without a band to play “The Dead March from Saul,” and +without a procession of carriages to follow her into that far corner +of the cemetery (remote from the fine burial ground of the Shadwells) +where they laid her to rest. + + * * * * * + +Yesterday they pulled down Vergie Winters’s house. There is no monument +to her memory save the tiny stone at the head of her grave, paid for +with the money saved out of what she earned by making bonnets for the +gay ladies of the Town. But Vergie Winters is not dead. When one passes +the gaping hole where the little house once stood, one thinks of Vergie +Winters. When one passes the granite shaft raised to John Shadwell, +one thinks of Vergie Winters. When one sees a Shadwell grandchild or +a Shadwell great-grandchild, one thinks of Vergie Winters. For now +that time has begun a little to soften the Town, the memory of Vergie +Winters has been kept fresh and green with a strange aroma of vague, +indefinable romance. When the names of those who crossed the street to +avoid her narrow house are forgotten, the name of Vergie Winters will +live. Why? Who can say? Was it because the Town never knew a woman +called upon to show a faith so deep, a sacrifice so great, a devotion +so overwhelming? + +I can see her still, an old woman of eighty, hobbling painfully down +the rickety steps of her house, with that curious, proud look upon +her worn old face, and in the sharp old eyes another look which said, +“Vergie Winters was right! John Shadwell belonged to her, from the very +beginning!” + + + + +JUKES + +BY BILL ADAMS + +From _Adventure_ + + +A boarding master’s boat was alongside by the fore rigging. The +boarding master and his crimp were bringing off the crew; helping the +drunken sailors over the bulwarks, and shoving or dragging them into +the forecastle. + +Alf Jukes came over the bulwarks last. He came without assistance. He +was drunk, as were all his fellows, but his drunkenness took a turn +different from theirs. As he jumped to the deck he saw the ship’s mate +by the mainmast. + +His attitude revengeful and defiant, Alf Jukes strode up to the mate. +He stood face to face with him and cursed him. + +The mate paid no attention at all to Alf Jukes. He had heard the same +thing, had seen the same thing, too many times from such men as Jukes. +He looked at Jukes as unconcernedly as if he looked at a coil of rope +or a barrel of tallow. + +As the mate turned disinterestedly away, Jukes addressed himself to +the ship. Scornfully scanning her from boom to taffrail, from deck to +mastheads, from yardarm to yardarm, he cursed her. As if exasperated by +her silence, as if maddened by her dignity, he raised his voice higher +and higher. Like the mate, the ship paid no heed to him. The wind in +her rigging whispered of clean things. + +Alf Jukes lifted his eyes to the serene and cloudless sky. Craning his +neck, seeming to tiptoe a little, hands clenched and arms upraised, he +shouted curses. No answer came from the sky. + +Jukes ceased his cursing and walked to the forecastle, in which his +comrades were now gathered. Having put the last senseless seaman +aboard, having collected from the skipper the price prearranged for +them, having pocketed a month’s advance pay for each one of them, the +boarding master with his crimp was already well on the way ashore. The +tug was alongside the ship. The ship’s mate leaned on the bulwark and +talked with the tugboat men. + +Presently the skipper appeared and spoke to the mate, who walked +forward and called the sailors from the forecastle. + +Alf Jukes came last from the forecastle. Like all his comrades, he +reeked of cheap and abominable liquor, but, unlike them, he walked +erect and steadily, a fierce remonstrance in his step and bearing. +They staggered, cursed, or grumbled listlessly. Some were tall, some +short; some wide, some narrow; some bearded, others not. They were of +many nations. Some wore dungarees, others shoddy cloth; one, a pair of +trousers made of ship’s canvas; his upper body covered by a threadbare +oilskin jacket. Some wore old cloth caps; one, a battered sun-downer; +another a dented derby. + +Jukes towered above his comrades. His curly brown head and bony feet +were bare. His worn dungaree shirt was unbuttoned. His neatly patched +dungaree trousers were gathered by a broad brass-buckled belt. His +forearms, hands, and throat were rugged. His breast showed white +through his unbuttoned shirt. It looked cold, like marble. + +Alone of all the crew, Jukes did not look besotted. The stamp of +the sea was on him as on them. But the shore had stamped him less. +He scowled toward the shore as he followed his comrades from the +forecastle. + +Impelled almost as much by instinct as by the brief command of the +mate, the crew ascended to the forecastle head, took the windlass bars +from their rack and set them in their places. As they leaned their +weight upon them some grunted like pigs. Some laughed stupidly. Jukes +alone was silent. + +The ship lifted a little to the tide beneath her. A flag at her peak +fluttered. A wisp of smoke passed over her as the tugboat steamed ahead. + +The crew stamped slowly round and round the windlass, heaving the +anchor in. The cable clanked at the hawse pipe. Tide and cable spoke of +clean and windy things. + +The reek of liquor grew fainter. The wind came fresher. The mate said-- + +“Someone sing!” + +One of the sailors began to sing a forecastle song, a chantey, a +ballad with a wailing chorus. His voice, at first spiteful, sneering, +and contemptuous, the voices of the others, also at first spiteful, +sneering, and contemptuous, became presently attuned to the sounds of +wind and tide and cable. They no longer cursed, or grunted like pigs. +The stamp of the shore was falling from them. + +The ship passed swiftly from the harbour heads. The tugboat let go her +towline. Some of the men went aloft, to loose sail. Talking in low +voices, others waited by sheet and halyard; ready to hoist when the +mate’s order came. Jukes stood apart, detached, solitary, brooding. +He looked like a bear lately released from an unclean cage, and still +uncertain of its freedom. + +The mate called-- + +“Hoist away, main tops’l!” + +The men grasped the halyards and lay back, setting their weight upon +them. Straining to raise the heavy sail, they failed. They tried, and +failed again. + +“You there! Lend a hand here!” called the mate to Jukes. + +The men waited while Jukes slowly approached. As he laid hold on the +rope he seemed to shake himself. He drew a long deep breath. He reached +up, higher and higher. His great chest expanded. + +The mate called-- + +“All together, now!--_Lay back!_” + +The tackle rattled noisily through its three-fold blocks. The sail +slid, threshing and filling, to its masthead. + +“Bully boy!” said the mate. + +A sailor repeated-- + +“Bully boy!” + +Jukes remained silent, sombre, brow-beclouded. While sail on sail was +spread, the crew all hauling to his leadership, he took no notice of +anyone or anything. He paid no heed at all to their admiring comments. + +The shore line faded astern. The day passed. The sun sank. Night fell. + +The sailors sat in the forecastle. + +“’Ow long was you ashore?” asked one. + +“Three days. How long was you?” came the reply. + +“I come in the same day as you, then. I been three days ashore.” + +“We was five months at sea,” said the other, “three days in port, an’ I +don’t know nothin’ about ’em.” + +The dozen sailors discussed their stays in port. Not one of them had +been ashore over five days. Each had accepted a drink from the boarding +master’s bottle. Between then and now no one of them knew aught of what +had taken place. + +“We was two hundred days on the passage out,” said one. “We was posted +missin’. Four days in port, an’ back to sea agin!” + +They were from half a dozen different ships. + +“How long was you ashore?” asked one, turning to Jukes. Jukes seemed +not to hear him. + +“He don’t know,” laughed one. + +“We don’t none of us know much, or we’d not be here,” another grumbled. + +“After this v’yage I quits the sea,” another asserted. + +“Me, too,” another. + +“Yuss!--You will!” chuckled a third. + +“I’ll do wot I please,” retorted the other. + +“Same as you always ’ave! Me, too,” another said. “Haw, haw, haw!” + +Turning to Jukes the last speaker asked-- + +“Wot will you do w’en she gits in, ol’ matey?” + +Jukes rose and left the forecastle. For a long time he sat motionless +on the bulwark, his head bowed, his great hands upon his knees, his +figure dim against the starry sky. When eight bells struck and his +comrades started aft to answer to the muster roll he crossed the deck +and reëntered the forecastle. His step seemed to falter as he neared +the dingy lamp. Looking about him to make sure that he was all alone, +he drew from a pocket a small oilskin package; untied and took from it +a faded kerchief--an old bandanna. Loosening the knots, he drew from +its crumpled folds an envelope. The envelope, drab and dirty like the +kerchief that protected it, bore the mark of a distant port, and of a +yet more distant date. + +A picture but little larger than a postage stamp fell to the table and +lay face up. The letter, dog-eared and torn from much handling, was +like the picture--commonplace, yet smiling and hopeful. As Jukes looked +hungrily at the picture his face grew haggard. His lips moved as he +read the old letter over. + +Startled by a shout from the quarterdeck, Jukes thrust letter and +picture back within the bandanna, folded the oilskin about them, and +hurried out to answer to his name. + + * * * * * + +A month was gone. Barefooted, bare of arm, Jukes walked from the wheel. +The sunset glowed in his weathered face. The sails above him shone. +Below him shone the sea. He gave the course to the mate and went to +join his fellows on the hatch. + +“A fine man that, Mister,” said the skipper to the mate. + +“’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked one sailor of +another on the hatch. + +“I ain’t goin’ to sea no more after this passage,” answered the other. + +Jukes lighted his pipe and sat among them. The sea was blue-black; the +sky blue-black above. Whispering from horizon to horizon the sea crests +murmured of clean, free, windy things. + +“’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked the last +speaker of Jukes. + +Jukes turned and faced the man. His eyes shining and eager, he drew the +oilskin package from his pocket. They gathered round him as he opened +it. They passed the picture from hand to hand. + +“I wisht as I was ’im,” muttered one and another. + +They looked at him enviously, seated serene and confident among them. + + * * * * * + +Another month was gone. + +A canopy of cloud hung low over the mastheads. It was without break, or +rift, uniform from horizon to horizon. It was of that cold gray that +presages snow. Because it was uniform it seemed to be without motion. +Beneath it the cañon hollows of the sea were black. From horizon to +horizon white sea cataracts roared. + +Every two hours a sailor peered from the forecastle. Watching his +opportunity, leaving those behind him to close the door, he sprang to +the deck. Now running a few steps, now desperately clinging to the +wire-tight life line, now leaping high into the rigging to escape the +raging sea, he battled a slow way to the wheel; whence the helmsman +whom he relieved made an equally precarious passage to the forecastle. + +It was midday when Alf Jukes opened the forecastle door. Unlike the +others, he did not hesitate, or pause to scrutinize the chances +of the deck. Though in the past two days no man aboard had slept, +there was no sign of weariness about him. As he opened the door he +looked with a casual but comprehensive glance to the gale-whipped and +snow-laden sky. Then, stepping to the waist-deep smother of the forward +deck, he turned and deliberately banged the door behind him. Head +unbowed, gaze straightforward, light hands upon the rigid life line, +he strode surefooted through the tempest’s rage. When an insweeping +sea completely submerged him, the mate, who was watching from by the +helmsman’s side, made for the chart room and bellowed to the skipper. +Jukes’s head and shoulders reappeared as the skipper leaped out to the +poop deck. + +The groan of the ship’s hull, the creak and outcry of a hundred +straining blocks, the clack of chains and parrals, were inaudible. Had +the three masts simultaneously splintered and gone over the side, not a +sound would have been heard. + +The skipper and mate looked amusedly into each other’s faces. Alf +Jukes’s shoulders, his gripping hands, his arms, the every motion of +his entirely reckless body, appeared as the limbs and motions of a +gambolling schoolboy. By the toss of his chin, by the shake of his +head, by the partings and closings of his stubble-surrounded lips, the +universe might observe that Jukes, on his way to relieve the wheel, was +singing. + +Pointing to the helmsman, the skipper yelled an order into the mate’s +ear. The mate nodded. Waylaying the man, the mate dragged him into the +chart room. So ordered by mate and skipper, the exhausted helmsman +sought shelter in the chart house instead of attempting to reach the +forecastle. + +When sailors looked from the forecastle door to see what was become of +Jukes, or of the man whom he had gone to relieve, it was to see the +mate gesticulating to them to go back; voicelessly ordering them to +remain where they were. + +Afternoon passed, and no man ventured to the wheel’s relief. + +Toward dusk the wind fell, its uproar ending abruptly--as if a +multitude of yelling maniacs had leaped from a precipice edge to +instant extinguishment. The crests of the sea died down. The horizons +widened. For a little while gray ocean rolled under gray sky. + +Snow fell. The horizons were blotted out. + +Skipper and mate descended to the saloon. Jerking the door of the +steward’s pantry open, the skipper shouted for the steward. A trapdoor +in the pantry deck opened slowly, and the steward, who had laid hidden +below, arose. His teeth chattered. For a moment he looked dazedly up +at the skipper; then, realizing that the storm was over, that the ship +still floated, and that it was long since he had served a meal, passed +out to the deck and made haste to the cook’s galley. + +“We’ll set sail when the moon rises,” said the skipper to the mate. + +Skipper, mate, steward, cook, and sailors buried their noses in +pannikins of steaming coffee. Ravenously devouring hash made of pork +scraps mixed with pulverized sea biscuit, they forgot the fury of the +recent storm, forgot that it was snowing--forgot Alf Jukes. + +The ship rolled easily. Blocks whined. Sails flapped. A pleasant odour +of tobacco smoke arose in cabin, galley, and forecastle. + +The clouds lifted. The snow ceased. A wan light illumined deck and +rigging. + +“Loose them upper tops’ls!” bawled the mate. + +Some of the sailors climbed aloft to cast the gaskets off. Others +gathered at the halyards, ready to hoist away. Snow, disturbed by the +feet of the climbers, fell on the heads and shoulders of those below. +Flapping their arms, shaking their fists, the men on deck swore at +the climbers, who, envying them the comparative comfort of the deck, +replied with gibes and curses. + +A man aloft called-- + +“All ready on the main!” + +The mate said-- + +“Hoist away!” + +The men lay back, straining on the stiff swollen rope. The sail refused +to move. + +“W’ere’s Alf?” asked one of the sailors. + +“Jukes!” called the mate, “Jukes!” + +They looked aloft, seeking Jukes. + +“’Ee ain’t aloft,” said one. + +“He’s at the wheel,” said the mate, remembering. “One o’ you men +relieve Jukes.” + +“I forgot ’im,” said one. + +“Me, too,” another. + +Alf Jukes came forward from the wheel. Snow was thick on his +sou’wester, and on his shoulders. Snow was frozen on his sleeves and +oilskin trousers. His hands, his lips, were blue. + +“Lend a hand here, Jukes,” said the mate. + +Jukes strode to the halyards and reached up. His great chest expanded +as he reached higher and higher. + +“All together--_now!_” said the mate. + +Jukes laid his weight upon the halyards. The sheaves rattled. The yard +began to rise. + +“Bully boy!” said the mate. A sailor grunted, “Bully boy!” + +Their feet tramping soundlessly in the deep snow, the men ran the +topsail to its masthead. + +“All ready on the fore,” called a man from aloft. + +“Go eat,” said the mate to Jukes, his accents crisp and clear in the +stillness. + +Preceding the others, Jukes walked to the fore topsail halyards as if +he had not heard. + +When sail was set there was neither coffee nor hash left. The cook’s +skilly pots and hash kids were washed, and hung on the taut wire above +his stove. Jukes munched sea biscuit, and took a drink of cold water. + +“That fellow Jukes is a good man, Mister,” said the skipper to the mate. + +“Jukey ain’t afeard o’ naught,” said a sailor, “I wish as I was ’im.” + +Night passed. + + * * * * * + +A bright sun shone on the ship at anchor. Sails were furled, ropes +coiled. From the fore bulwarks, the sailors watched a boat rowed by two +men approaching. + +Jukes sat alone upon the forecastle head. Gazing shoreward, he saw +masts and spars, steeples and roofs. Chimneys smoked. Windows glinted. +Beyond the town he saw low hills, with treetops blowing. His eyes were +hungry. + +Noticing the approaching boat, Jukes rose to his feet. His teeth +clenched, a scowl on his face, he paced to and fro. He looked like a +bear come too close to the dwellings of men--suspicious, undetermined, +afraid of the world and of himself. + +Hands extended, eyes a-twinkle, faces beaming, a sailor’s boarding +master and his crimp climbed aboard. + +“Did ye have a good voyage, boys? W’ere are ye from? You’re come to a +good port this time!” + +The boarding master entered the forecastle. Seating himself, looking +amicably up to the expectant and childish faces of the sailors, he drew +a bottle from his pocket. + +“The best, boys! I’d never offer ye any but the best.” + +One of them grasped the bottle. + +“Don’t swaller it all!” cried one of the sailors. + +“’Old ’is arm!” another. + +“’S’all right, boys. There’s plenty more,” grinned the boarding master. + +The crimp came from the boat, bottles in his pockets. + +The forecastle reeked of cheap and abominable liquor. Presently one of +the sailors asked-- + +“W’ere’s Jukey?” + +The crimp left the forecastle, to seek the missing man. + +“The boys wants you,” said he, discovering Alf Jukes alone upon the +forecastle head. He took a bottle from his pocket and held it out to +Jukes. + +Uttering a low coughing grunt, Jukes struck savagely at the crimp. The +bottle fell, and broke upon the deck. Cursing Jukes, the crimp beat a +hasty retreat. + +With a half pannikin of unspilled liquor in it, the lower half of the +bottle remained upright against the windlass. + +Alf Jukes looked down. Nostrils quivering, fingers twitching, he +uncertainly approached the broken bottle. He stooped, lifted the +bottle, and stretched out a hand; as if to hurl it to the water. He +hesitated; drew in his hand, and sniffed. Another moment and he flung +the emptied fragment over the forecastle rail. + +“Hey, Jukey! Come on down, ol’ son!” called one of his comrades, +looking up from the forecastle. + +Jukes descended and entered the forecastle. His fellows slapped him on +the back. The boarding master thrust a bottle in his hand. As Jukes +took it, one of his comrades tried to snatch it from him, and a bellow +of laughter rose as the sailor went sprawling on the deck. + +The bottles passed around. + +“No more ships for me,” said one. + +“Nor me, boys,” said another. + +Jukes drank silently. + +By and by the sailors shouldered their sea bags and followed the +boarding master and his crimp from the forecastle. Jukes towering +heedless among them, they shoved and elbowed one another aside, making +for the boat. Pointing to other ships near by, they cursed them. They +cursed the ship they left. They chattered confidingly to the boarding +master, who promised them one and all an easy job on the land. As Jukes +grasped the stroke oar and set the pace ashore they shouted their +approval. + +“Ol’ Jukey!” they cried, and “Good ol’ Jukey!” + +They laughed to see the way the boat drove through the water, with +Jukes’s great muscles surging her along. They jumped ashore and turned +their backs forever on the sea. Without a glance behind, they followed +Jukes across the street; Jukes at the boarding master’s heels, the +crimp behind them all. + +Hours passed. Besotted sailors lolled on dirty cots about a dirty room. +They quarrelled, forgot their quarrels, and embraced each other. They +smoked, and spat, and sang. The leering crimp came in, and went, and +came, and went again, and called them each by name--quick-fitted names. + +“’Ere, old Cork-fender, lap it up now! It’s good for sailor’s gizzards.” + +“Gimme yer empty glass ’ere, Queer-fellow!” + +“Young Bandy-shanks, you’ve ’ad enough! You’re young.--Another? All +right, then. Wot’d yer mommer say?” + +“Aw, haw! haw! haw!” + +“Drink hearty, Jimmie Bilge! There’s plenty more.” + +Ignoring their quarrels and embraces, taking no part in their noisy +songs, Alf Jukes held out his glass for filling and refilling. The +crimp winked at him deferentially. + +Evening came. Save for loud snores, heavy breathing, and now and then +a mumbled, sleepy oath, the room was quiet. Steady-handed still, Jukes +stood erect amidst the wreckage of his fellows and emptied his glass. + +In the barroom adjoining, the boarding master reached a black bottle +from beneath the bar. Alf Jukes came from the back room as he replaced +it. Resolve in his face, he stepped toward the street. + +Three brimming glasses stood upon the bar. Lifting one to his own lips, +the boarding master pushed another out toward Jukes. + +“Here, big boy! Don’t run off so soon!” he quickly called. + +Jukes stopped and hesitatingly looked toward the bar. The crimp and +boarding master raised their glasses. + +Jukes took the proffered glass, lifted, and drained it in one long +straight swallow; then turned and strode toward the street door again. +Midway, he staggered. + +The boarding master and the crimp came from behind the bar. They lifted +Jukes, carried him to the dusky street, and dumped him in their boat. + +“That fills _her_ crew,” growled the boarding master with a nod to the +riding light of a ship at anchor close inshore. + + * * * * * + +Dawn was breaking. Stars were fading. Mastheads of anchored ships +swayed easily against the opening sky. A ship’s mate banged upon the +forecastle door, rousing his crew. A drowsy sailor lurched off to the +galley, fetching the morning coffee. + +“How long was you ashore?” asked one sailor of another. + +“Wot day is it?” came the reply. The questioner chuckled. + +Some surly, some indifferent, they sipped their coffee. + +The mate looked in. + +“Rouse out here, now! Get up and man that windlass!” + +They straggled to the deck. But Jukes lay sleeping still, his face to +the bulkhead. The mate stepped in and shook him. He wakened slowly. + +“Tumble out, here, you!” + +Jukes climbed from the bunk and looked about him. + +“Come on, now! You’re at sea, my man. Get out of here!” + +With a long staggering stride, Jukes passed out to the new ship’s deck. +The wind blew in his hair. The tide sang by. + +Jukes turned, wild-eyed, and faced the mate. Men on the forecastle head +looked down and laughed to hear him curse. He gazed up at them, vacant +eyed. He looked toward the shore, saw his old ship, and shuddered. + +“Come on, my man!” the mate said. “You’re at sea.” + +Alf Jukes ascended to the forecastle head. + +“Sing, someone!” said the mate, “sing and let’s get her away.” + +A sailor leaning on a windlass bar began to sing a forecastle song, a +chantey, a ballad with a wailing chorus. The tugboat’s smoke whirled +by. The chorus rose and fell. The cable clanked. + +“W’y don’t ye sing, shipmate?” a sailor asked of Jukes. + +Alf Jukes let go his windlass bar. Fists clenched and arms upraised, +his curses ringing loud above his comrades’ song, he looked upon the +shore. + +“Come on, my man,” the mate said. “You’re at sea.” + + * * * * * + +Weeks were gone by. It was black midnight. No star shone. Sails hung +invisible. Long swells rolled sluggishly beneath the keel. The ship’s +bow rose, dipped to deep hollows, and arose again. + +Half naked in the hot night, Alf Jukes lay slumbering. The watch below +slept soundly all about him. The watch on deck sat talking on the hatch +without. + +Sails flapped to the long roll of the ship. Chains clinked upon the +lower masts. Blocks chattered squeakily. Now and again a heavy rope, +a sheet or lazy tack, thud-thudded against the ship’s side. The wheel +cluck-clucked. The sailors’ voices rose and fell, a mumble from the +hatch. + +Poring above a chart, the skipper sat in his chart room. Presently he +rose, looked out to the dark night, listened awhile, and went below. + +An hour passed. + +High and sudden, the mate’s voice rang above the noises of the night, +and, answering quick commands, gloom-hidden sailors leaped up and +rushed to the braces. + +The skipper ran, pajama-clad and shouting, to the deck. The watch on +deck were shouting at the ropes. A deep, long, grumbling roar was all +about--the growl of rollers bursting on a reef. + +A sailor yelled at the forecastle door, wakening the sleepers of the +watch below. Blackness was like a wall. The skipper was shouting +orders. The mate was shouting; the grumbling rumble coming closer, +louder. + +The ship quivered. A rending sound rose sharp above the roar, died, +and arose again. A topmast splintered and went overboard. Torn canvas +snarled. Blocks skirled. The ship slid on, settling beyond the reef. + +Last from his bunk came Jukes. Striking a match, he held it high, and +by its feeble flare saw the crazed struggle of his comrades all yelling +at the door. Fallen men clutched madly at the feet that trampled them. +Water lapped into the forecastle. The match went out. The ship lurched +heavily. + +Jukes stepped from the emptied forecastle into water knee deep. As he +slid barefooted to the rigging, the water rose to his waist. He gripped +the shrouds and swung himself aloft. The water followed. He climbed, +cat-nimble. The water followed close. He heard a last useless order +from the skipper. Someone screamed, “The boat!” A shriek ended in a +groan close to him. A hand clutched his bare foot. He bent to grasp the +hand; but it slipped, and he touched only water. + +Save for the growl and long wash of the sea there was no sound. + +Alf Jukes was swimming. + +Dawn came, and, treading water, Jukes gazed round the sea. He struck +out, swam with strong steady strokes, and presently swung himself upon +a piece of drifting wreckage. + +The horizon was empty, the sky without a cloud. The sea was flat. + +The sun rose. It beat on the bare white skin of Alf Jukes. + +Jukes took a little oilskin package from his pocket and wedged it in +the centre of the raft. He slipped off his dungaree trousers and dipped +them in the sea. The dripping dungarees in his hand, he stood stark +naked and once more gazed around. The sea was empty. His head by the +raft’s edge, he lay down and covered himself as well as he could with +the wet dungaree. The sun climbed higher. + +Now and again Jukes splashed his great hands in the water, wetting his +head and upper limbs afresh. Except upon the raft there was no motion +anywhere in sky or sea. + +By and by Jukes rose. His eyes searched the horizon. It was empty. He +dropped the dungarees and dived deep. He swam down and down, seeking +the cooler depths. He glimmered white, far under the unrippled blue +water. When he rose to the surface again he held to the edge of the +raft. The raft gave no shade. He reached for, and covered his head +with, the dungarees. The sun was overhead when he drew himself up, +and, holding to the edge of the raft, looked all about again. + +Suddenly Jukes hurled himself upon the raft. His body, glistening in +the sun, he watched a long green shape dart under him. + +For the rest of the day Jukes dipped his dungarees in the sea and +covered himself as best he could. All day a sharp green fin cruised +slowly round. When the sun dipped there were red fiery patches on the +marble-white skin of his back, on his thighs and shoulders. + +Stars wakened. Long after day was gone Jukes curled himself in the +middle of the raft and went to sleep. Thirst wakened him. He dipped the +dungarees in the sea and wrapped them round his neck. + +Night passed. At dawn the horizon was empty. Fins cruised to and fro on +all sides. Snouts broke the still blue water. The sky was cloudless. + +When Jukes dipped his dungarees, jaws snapped on them. He wrenched, and +a leg of the dungarees remained in his hands. He wrapped it about his +neck, and crouched down. The sun climbed higher. + +Jukes rocked a little to and fro. Now and again a low coughing grunt +escaped him. + +Day passed. Night came, starry and still. Snouts nosed around the +raft’s edge. Fins darted to and fro, rippling the windless water. Jukes +slept fitfully, dreamed, wakened, dozed, and dreamed again. Night +passed. + +At dawn Jukes climbed unsteadily to his feet. His lips were black, his +skin scarlet. He moaned. His tongue was swollen. + +A quarter of a mile from the raft a dense black cloud was slowly +crossing the equatorial sky. A sheer wall of water fell from the cloud +to the sea. Flying fish leaped at the rain’s foot. White birds preyed +on them from above, silver-bellied fish from below. The snouts were +gone, to join in the preying. + +Staring at the rain wall, Jukes listened to the just-audible _s-s-s-s_ +of the doldrum squall. + +The squall passed by, came within an eighth of a mile of the raft, +dipped under the sea rim, and was gone. The sun rode high in a blue +cloudless sky. The snouts were back. Fins rippled the water all about. +Jukes crouched, with the wet scrap of dungaree about his neck. Day +passed. Night came. + +Jukes lay prostrate, face downward. Hours passed. Long after midnight +he lifted his head and tried to climb to his knees. A dim green light +winked on the sea far off. He toppled over and was still. Wind ruffled +his hair and blew cool upon his brow. + +Alf Jukes saw houses with smoking chimneys, windows aglint. Saw masts +and spars along a waterfront. Heard singing, far away. A wind blew +through green treetops. + + * * * * * + +When Jukes came to himself he lay in a lamplit forecastle. From near by +came the voices of sailors. “I seen a boat wi’ two dead men in her one +time. None ever knowed wot ship they was from.” + +“If you follers deep water long enough, it’ll git ye.” + +“Aye. ’Ow many _old_ sailors ’ave you ever seed?” + +Jukes raised his head painfully and listened. From neck to ankles his +body was a fiery blister. + +“I been eleven blasted year at sea. I got nuthin’.” + +“You never will ’ave.” + +“W’oo cares?” + +“There don’t no one care. You an’ me is dogs.” + +“This here’ll be my last v’yage.” + +“Aye.--That’s wot you says.--Wait.” + +“Wait yerself. I’m done.” + +“Haw, haw, haw!” + +“There’s one as had ought to be cured leastways,” and a nod toward the +forecastle. + +Jukes climbed from the bunk and tottered out into the starlight. + +“’Ow are ye, matey?” + +“Bring ’im some water.” + +Jukes gulped cold water down. + +“’Ere, mate--you ’ad it in yer ’and.” + +Jukes took the little oilskin package. They led him back and laid him +in the bunk again. They smeared more grease on his burned limbs. They +gave him more water. + +“Look at ’im!--I’m done.” + +“Me, too.” + +As Jukes with fumbling fingers untied the package, they gathered round. +He nodded his head. His lips moved. A sailor bent above him, listening. + +“’E’s done. No more o’ships fer ’im.” + +Jukes dozed away. They passed the picture from hand to hand. They read +the dog-eared letter over. + +“Look at ’ere,” said one, and pointed to the date. + +“Three year ago! ’Ee’s been a long time----” + +“Shanghaied, maybe.” + +“Them crimps.” + +“I’m done.” + +“Haw, haw, haw! Maybe!” + + * * * * * + +It was the dog-watch time. The sun was setting. Warm, pearly little +clouds passed overhead. A low wind murmured. + +The sailor on lookout leaned on the forecastle rail, watching his +comrades on the deck below. Skipper and mate looked forward from the +poop. The cook and carpenter lolled in the galley doorway. + +A dozen sailors gambolled by the hatch, trying themselves, pitting +their strength and skill against each other’s. Alf Jukes was there, +with head and shoulders higher than the rest. + +“Here, Jukes!” called one, a lad with an unshaven downy face. “I’ll +race you to the masthead!--Up and back. A pound of baccy to the winner. +You take the main, and I’ll go up the fore.” + +“’Ere, Chips! Come on an’ start ’em,” called an eager sailor; and +Chips, the carpenter, stepped up. + +“One--two----” + +“I’ll bet a pound o’ baccy on young Limbertoes!” + +“Me, too.” + +Turning to the mate, the skipper said: + +“The young fellow’ll win.” + +“Aye,” said the mate, “he’s young. It’s in his favour.” + +Jukes at the main, the other at the fore shrouds, stood waiting “three.” + +“_Three!_” snapped the carpenter. + +“Go!--go!--go!” + +“Go, Limbertoes! My baccy’s on you!” + +“Go, Jukes!--Go, Jukes!” + +“Show ’im a sailor! Show ’im, Limber, now!” + +Over the futtock shrouds, together, neck and neck, went Jukes and +Limber. + +“Two pound o’ baccy--’oo takes me on?--two pound on Limber!” + +“Done--an’ my Sunday whack o’ duff thrown in!” + +“Lord!--look at that there Jukes! ’Ee’s like a monkey.” + +“Some sailor, that,” the skipper said. “Look at him go!” + +“But the young man wins,” the mate replied. + +“Bully for Limber!” + +The youngster touched a hand upon the fore royal truck a touch ahead of +Jukes upon the main. + +“Down!--down!--down!” roared all the sailors. + +Alf Jukes came sliding down the main royal stay. Down the fore royal +stay came Limbertoes. + +“Come on, Limber!” + +“Limber wins!” + +“A tie! They’re neck and neck.” + +“No.--Limber wins!” + +A bellow rose from every sailor. Full forty feet above the deck, Alf +Jukes let go and dropped. Hands up and arms above his head, he fell +straight as a plummet and landed on his feet. + +“That fellow’s like a bear,” the skipper said. + +“There was a feller on my last ship as’d beat both of ’em,” said a +sailor. + +“Oh, aye! There’s always fellers on a man’s last ship,” answered +another. + +“To-morrer we’ll be in, an’ you’ll ’ave one more last ship,” another +laughed. + +“Jukes, was you ever beat at anything?” + +Without an answer Jukes walked slowly off and sat alone upon the +bulwarks. His face was grim. + +The bell struck eight. The crew strolled aft to answer to the muster +roll. Last came Jukes. He looked like a bear that, peering from +sheltering wilds, wonders what lies in the valleys beyond its great +freedom. + + * * * * * + +Sails were furled, ropes coiled; the ship at anchor. A chill wind +thrummed in her rigging. Cold rain beat down. + +The sailors sat in the forecastle, amidst them a boarding master. While +they drank from his bottles, Alf Jukes paced up and down the deck +outside, alone. Now and again a sailor looked from the forecastle and +called to him. He paid no heed. + +The boarding master’s crimp came out, bottle in hand. + +“The boys sent it ye, matey,” said he, and held the bottle temptingly +toward Jukes. Jukes answered with a growl. His great right fist shot +out, and, as the bruised crimp climbed to his feet, the sailors looked, +laughing, from the forecastle ports. + +The crimp reëntered the forecastle. The boarding master passed the +bottles round. The sailors cursed the ship, all ships, and damned +the sea. Soon, crowding at his heels, they all swarmed out, and +clambered down into the boat ahead of him. Paying no heed to their loud +farewells, Jukes walked up and down in the wind and the rain. Last, +loitering from the forecastle, came the crimp. + +The shouts of the sailors faded away. The ship was silent. The wind and +the rain beat on her. + +Jukes entered the deserted forecastle. It was gloomy and chill. Water +dripped from him. He sat down, shivering a little. He drew out his +oilskin package and untied it. Dark fell. + +Presently, lighting the lamp, Jukes saw a bottle on the table. He +scowled. He picked it up, and stepped to the door. The wind soughed +drearily. The rain whipped by. He hesitated in the doorway, the bottle +in his outstretched hand. + +A boat drew noiselessly alongside the ship. The boarding master and his +crimp climbed back aboard and peered unseen through one of the forward +forecastle ports. + +Bottle in hand, Jukes leaned in the doorway and looked out into the +night. To-morrow he would be forever done with the sea. + +Shore lights glimmered, winking through the rain. The sound of music +reached him, faint upon the wind. Singing came indistinctly from the +waterfront. It was very solitary, very cold in the forecastle. + +Jukes moved closer to the lamp and held the bottle up. The crimp nudged +the boarding master. + +Alf Jukes put the bottle to his nose. Something to warm him a little; +then toss it over the side. + +Jukes tipped the bottle. His Adam’s apple rose and fell. He took the +bottle from his lips, and listened. He looked about him, making sure +that he was all alone. + +Jukes sat down, bottle in hand. Outside the wind wailed drearily. The +cold rain hissed. His Adam’s apple rose and fell again. + +The boarding master entered the forecastle, the crimp at his heels. +Jukes turned and leaped to his feet. Lifting the bottle to hurl it, he +swayed uncertainly. + +The crimp was laughing. + +Jukes clutched at the bulkhead. The lamp was grown suddenly dim. The +boarding master and the crimp had disappeared. + +Someone struck Alf Jukes just behind the ear. Someone laughed near by. + +Stars whirled in a pitch-black sky. The boarding master knelt over +Jukes. + +Everything was dark. + + + + +FEAR + +BY JAMES WARNER BELLAH + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + + +It was a little spot, that fear, but it had ached in his heart for +months--ever since his first solo flight at Upavon Airdrome. It had +come suddenly one morning like the clean pink hole of a steel-jacketed +bullet--a wound to be ashamed of--a wound to fight against--a wound +that never quite healed. Always it was there to throb and to pinch like +the first faint gnawing of cancer. It came with him to the theatre and +rankled his mind: “Enjoy this--it may be your last play.” It crept into +his throat at meals, sometimes, and took away the poor savour that was +left to the foods of wartime. + +The fear of the men who fly. Sometimes he pictured it as an imp--an imp +that sat eternally on his top plane and questioned him on the strength +of rudder wires, pointed to imaginary flaws in struts, suggested that +the petrol was low in the tank, that the engine would die on the next +climbing turn. + +It was with him now as the tender that was to take him up to his +squadron jolted and bounced its way across the _pavé_ on the outskirts +of Amiens. The squadron was the last place he had to go to. All the +months that were gone had led up to this. These were the wars at last. +This was the place he would cop it, if he was to cop it at all. + +He shrugged. Anyway, he had had his four days in London and his ten +days idling at Pilot’s Pool before the squadron sent for him. He braced +one shoulder against the rattling seat and reached in his tunic pocket +for a cigarette. Mechanically he offered one to the driver. The man +took it with a grubby finger. + +“Thankee, sor-r.” + +He nodded and lighted both cigarettes with the smudge of his pocket +lighter. Anyway, he was not flying up to 44. That was one flight +saved. Funny, that fear--how it came and went like the throb of a nerve +in an open tooth. Sometimes the spot was large, and filled his whole +being; then again it would shrink to a dull ache, just enough to take +the edge from the beauty of the sunrise and the sparkle from the wine +of the moon. + +There had been a time when it had jumped in every fibre of his soul. He +had been a cadet officer then, with only twelve solo hours in the air, +under the old rough-and-tumble system of learning to fly. Spinning at +that time was an unsolved mystery to him, a ghastly mystery that had +meant quick death in a welter of blood, flecked with splinters. Fred +McCloud had gone that way, and Johnny Archamboult. For weeks afterward, +Johnny’s screams had rung in his ears like a stab of pain, until the +mere smell of petrol and fabric dope made the fear crawl into his +throat and strangle him. Somehow he had kept on with the rest, under +the merciless scourge that lashed one on to fly--and the worse fear of +seeing cold scorn in the eyes of the men who taught the lore of thin +cloud miles. + +The tender twisted and dodged along the hard mud ribbon that ran like +a badly healed cicatrix across the pock-scarred face of the fields. +Gnarled and bleak, they were fields that had held the weight of +blood-crazed men--still held them in unmarked graves, where they had +fallen the year before under the steel flail. He had heard stories +from his older brother about those fields--the laughing brother who +had gone away one day and returned months later without his laugh, +only to go away again, not to come back. He had seen pictures in the +magazines----But somehow no one had caught their utter bleakness as he +saw it now. + +The riven boles of two obscene trees crouched and argued about it on +the lead-gray horizon, tossing their splintered arms and shrieking, he +fancied, like quarrelling old women in the lesser streets of a village. +Close to the roadway, there were a torn shoe and a tin hat flattened +like a crushed derby. Poor relics that even salvage could see no +further use in. Farther off, a splintered caisson pointed three spokes +of a shattered wheel to the sky, like a mutilated hand thrown out in +agony. He was seeing it for himself now. + +No one could smile at the cleanness of his uniform again and say, +“Wait till you get out. When I was in France----” He was out himself +now. In a day or so he would go over the line with loaded guns. His +instructors at the training ’drome--thin-jawed men with soiled ribbons +under their wings--had done no more, and some of them had done less. +The thought braced him somewhat. They had seemed so different--so +impossible to imitate--those men. Their war had always been a +different one from his; a war peopled with vague, fearless men like +Rhodes-Moorehouse and Albert Ball and Bishop, the Canadian; men who +flew without a thought for themselves. + +It occurred to him with a start that theirs was the same war as his +now. Twenty-five miles ahead of him, buried somewhere in rat runs, +between Bapaume and Cambrai, it went on and on, waiting for him to +come--waiting to claw and maim and snuff him out when he did come. +It had seemed so far away from him in England. When he was at ground +school he had seen it as a place where one did glorious things--he was +young, pitifully young--a place that one came back from with ribbons +under one’s wings, with nice clean scratches decently bandaged. And he +had been slightly offended at his brother’s attitude--at the things his +brother had said of the staff. Then he had gone to Upavon to learn to +fly. He had soloed for the first time, and the spot of fear had crawled +into his own heart. + +They were rattling into the broken streets of a tottering town; a town +that leered at them and grimaced through blackened gaps in its once +white walls. There was a patched-up _estaminet_ with a tattered yellow +awning that tried bravely to smile. + +“Albert,” said the driver. + +The new pilot nodded. Some sapper officers were loitering in the +doorways of the café. Their uniforms were faded to a rusty brown and +reënforced with leather at the cuffs and elbows. Their buttons were +leather, too, to save polishing, and their badges were a dull bronze. +He looked down at his white Bedford-cord breeches and the spotless +skirts of his fur-collared British warm--privileges of the flying corps +that men envied. Baths, clean clothing, and better food. The P. B. +I.’s idea of heaven. They called flyers lucky for their privileges and +cursed them a little bit for their dry beds and the wines they had in +their messes, miles behind the line. + +The new pilot wondered if they knew what it meant to be alone in +the stabbing cold with no one to talk to, no one to help you, +nothing between you and the ground save a thin, trembling fabric of +cloth and wire and twenty thousand feet of emptiness. That was his +fear--emptiness--nothingness--solitude. Those men under the awning +could die in company. Not so himself--alone, screaming into the cloud +voids, with no one to hear, no one to help, staring with glazed eyes +and foam-flecked lips at the emptiness into which one hurtled to death +miles below. The price one paid for a bath! He remembered seeing +Grahame-White fly at Southport before the war. People had called him an +intrepid aviator. The new pilot laughed harshly inside his throat and +stared out across the bare fields. + +The car topped a slight rise and turned sharply to the left. The driver +pointed his grubby finger. “They be comin’ in from affernoon patrol,” +he said. “Yonder is airdrome.” + +There were three flat canvas hangars painted a dull brown, and a +straggling line of rusty tin huts facing them from across the narrow +landing space--like a deserted mining village, shabby and unkempt. As +he watched, he saw the last machine of the afternoon patrol bank at a +hundred and fifty feet and side-slip down for its landing. In his heart +he could hear the metal scream of wind in the flying wires. A puff of +black smoke squirted out in a torn stream as the pilot blipped on his +engine for one more second before he came into the wind and landed. +By the time the tender rolled up to the dilapidated squadron office, +the machine had taxied into the row of hangars and the pilot was out, +fumbling for a cigarette with his ungloved hands. A thin acrid smell of +petrol and carbonized castor oil still hung in the quiet air between +the shabby huts. Snow in large wet flakes commenced to fall slowly, +steadily. + +The new pilot climbed down from the tender, tossed his shoulder +haversack beside his kit bag, and pushed open the door of the squadron +office. The adjutant was sitting on his desk top, smoking and talking +to someone in a black leather flying coat and helmet--someone with an +oil-streaked face and fingers still blue and clumsy from the cold. + +“Paterson, sir, G. K., second lieutenant, reporting in from Pilot’s +Pool for duty with the 44th.” + +The adjutant raised a careless finger in acknowledgment. “Oh, yes. How +do? Bring your log books?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Chuck ’em down. D’ye mind?” + +Paterson laid them upon the desk top, still standing to attention. The +adjutant smiled. “Break off,” he said. “We’re careless here. This isn’t +cadet school.” + +The new pilot smiled and relaxed. “Very good, sir.” + +“That’s better,” said the adjutant; “makes me feel more comfortable. +Just give me a note of yourself now.” He reached for a slip of paper. +“G. K. Paterson, Two Lt. Next of kin?” Paterson gave his father’s name. +“Age?” + +“Eighteen and four twelfths.” + +“Good!” said the adjutant. “You’ll find an empty cubicle in B +Block--that’s the middle line of huts. You’re lucky. Roof only leaks in +three places. I’ll have your duffel trekked over shortly.” + +The man in the flying coat blew upon his numbed fingers and smiled. +“I’m Hoyt,” he said. “Skipper of C Flight. I’m going to take you now, +before A gets after you.” He turned to the adjutant. “That’s all right, +isn’t it, Charlie? Tell ’em I intimidated you.” He grinned. + +The adjutant shrugged. “Righto!” + +“Come on,” said Hoyt. “I’m in your hut block. I’ll show you your hole.” + +They went out into the snow flurry. Mechanics were fussing in little +knots around the five tiny machines that had just landed, lining them +up, refilling them, and trundling them into the brown musty hangars. + +“Le Rhône Camels,” said Hoyt. “We’ve just been over around Cambrai +taking a look-see.” + +Inside one of the hangars, as they passed, Paterson saw something that +drew a thin, wet gauze across his eyeballs. On a rough bench just +beside the open flap sat a man with his eyes closed and his lips drawn +tightly into a straight bluish line. His flying coat was rolled up +behind his head for a pillow, and his tunic had been unbuttoned and +cut away from his left shoulder. The white of his flesh showed weirdly +in the gloom, like the belly of a dead fish. Just below the shoulder, +the white was crumpled and reddened as if a clawed paw had been drawn +across it. One man was holding his other hand, while another probed +and cleaned and dabbed with little puffs of snowy cotton that turned +quickly to pink and then to a deep brown. + +Hoyt shrugged. “Lucky man. That’s Mallory. He was Number Four this +afternoon. We never saw a thing. Just happened. Funny.” And he smiled. +“That’s why I was so keen to get you. Can’t tell how long it will be +before Mallory gets around again, and I’ve got one vacancy in the +flight already.” He shrugged. “You’ll see a lot of that here--get used +to it. It doesn’t mean a thing as long as you get back alive.” + +Paterson looked at him sharply. He wanted to ask him how many didn’t +get back alive. He wanted to know what had caused the other vacancy in +the flight. But people didn’t ask those things. People merely nodded +casually and went on. + +“I suppose not,” he said. They tramped on across the airdrome. + +“Here we are,” said Hoyt. He kicked open the hut door and groped down +the dark passageway, with Paterson after him. Presently he pushed back +another door and yanked at a tattered window curtain. + +The new pilot saw a tiny room, with two washstands, a cot, a +folding chair, and a cracked mirror. In a corner were his kit bag +and haversack. He pulled out his own cot and chair and set them +up; meanwhile Hoyt threw himself down on the other cot and let +his cigarette smoke dribble straight upward into the gloom of the +pine-raftered roof. Presently he spoke. + +“This is a queer war,” he said; “full of queer things, and the queerest +of these is charity.” He laughed in the darkness, and the tip of his +cigarette became suddenly pink as he drew the smoke into his lungs. +“What was your school?” + +“Winchester,” said Paterson. + +“Right,” said Hoyt. “Remember your first day? This is it over again. +They’ve fed you up on poobah at your training ’drome and down at the +Pool. They always do. It’s part of the system. Just take it for what it +is worth and forget the rest. If you want to know anything, come to me +and I’ll tell you as well as I can. I’ve been here three months. When +I came, I came just as you did to-day, pucka green and afraid to the +marrow--afraid of uncertainty. You get over that shortly. + +“Our job is a funny one, and we’re not here for ourselves, and we’re +not here to be heroes or to get in the newspapers. The V. C.’s are few +and far between.” He raised himself upon his elbow. “I’m not preaching +self-abasement and a greater loyalty to a cause that is right, mind +you. I don’t know anything about causes or who started the war or why, +and I don’t care. I’m preaching C Flight and the lives of five men. + +“You saw Mallory over at the hangar. It was teamwork that put him +there in his own M. O.’s hands. Not much, perhaps”--the cigarette +described a quick arc in the darkness--“just a slight closing in of +the formation--a wave of somebody’s hand--somebody else dropping back +and climbing above him to protect his tail from any stray Huns that +might’ve waylaid him on the way home. That’s what I mean. ‘Esprit de +corps’ is a cold, hard phrase. Call it what you like. It’s the greatest +lesson you learn. Never give up a man.” Hoyt laughed. “They call me an +old woman. Perhaps I am. Take it or leave it. + +“Slick up a bit and come into my hutch while I scrape off the outer +layer of silt. Dinner in half a tick and I’m as filthy as a pig.” He +vaulted up from the cot and punched his cigarette out against the sole +of his boot. At the door he paused for a moment. + +“Ever have wind up?” he asked casually. + +Paterson stiffened against the question and the small spot of fear +danced within him. “No,” he said firmly. Hoyt shrugged. “Lucky man.” +And he went out into the passageway. + +At dinner he met the rest of the squadron and the other men in C +Flight. Mallory, very pale, with his arm slung in a soft pad of +bandages, sat beside him. They were coming for him later to take him +down to the base hospital. Phelps-Barrington sat on the other side of +Mallory, mourning the fact that the wound was not his, that he might +get the inevitable leave to follow. Phelps-Barrington took Paterson’s +hand with a shrug and asked how Marguerite was in Amiens. “What? You +didn’t meet Marguerite on your way through? ’Struth!” MacClintock +sat across the table beside Hoyt--MacClintock, too young to grow a +moustache, but with a deep burr that smelled of the heather in the +Highlands and huge pink knees under his Seaforth kilts, muscles like +the corded roots of an oak. The other man in the flight, Trent, was +down with mild flu. He was due back in a week or so from hospital. + +There was a wild argument on about the dawn patrol the next morning. +Paterson listened to the fragments of talk that flew like sabre cuts +across the glasses: + +“He’s in a red tripe. I don’t give a damn for Intelligence. Saw him +this morning myself. Same machine Mac and I had that brush with down at +Péronne.” + +“The next time they’ll get an idea for us to strafe a road clear to +Cologne for them. What are we--street cleaners?” + +“So I let go a covey of Coopers and turned for home. They had it +spotted for a battery over at 119 Squadron. I saw the pictures. Right +pictures, but wrong map squares as usual. That crowd can’t tell a +battery from a Chinese labour-corps inclosure. I’d rather be a staff +officer than a two-seater pilot.” + +“Steward, a whisky-soda for Mr. MacClintock and myself. Have one, Hoyt? +You, Paterson?” + +Cruel, thin, casual talk clicking against the teeth in nervous haste; +the commercial talk of men bartering their lives against each tick +of the clock; men caught like rats in a trap, with no escape but +death or a lucky chance like Mallory’s. Caught and yet denying the +trap--laughing at it until the low roof of the mess shack rumbled with +the echo; drowning it in a whisky for the night. + +Afterward, Hoyt came down the passage with him to his room--Hoyt, with +his face cleaned of the afternoon’s oil and his eyes slightly bright +with the wine he had taken. + +“We’re relieved to-morrow on account of casualties,” he said. “I’ll +tick you out early and we’ll go joy riding--see what we can teach each +other.” He smiled. “’Night.” + +Paterson undressed slowly and threw back the flap of his sleeping +bag. He ran his fingers softly down the muscles of his left arm. +Automatically they stopped at the spot Mallory had been hit. He +stretched his thumb from the arm to his heart--seven inches. He +shrugged. Nice to go that way. Clean and quick. He sat upon the edge +of his cot and pulled on his pajama trousers. Oh, well, this was the +place--the last place he had to go to. This was the cot he would sleep +his last sleep in. If it weren’t a lonely job! That chap in the mess +who wouldn’t be a two-seater pilot for anything. If he could only +feel like that. If he could only feel Hoyt’s complacency. Hoyt, with +his calm smile and the two little ribbons under his wings. Military +Cross and the Legion of Honour, and three months before he had been +green--pucka green! + +Paterson blew out the light and turned in. Hoyt was a good +fellow--damned decent. Outside he could hear Phelps-Barrington’s voice +muffled by the snow: “Come on, snap into it! Tender for Amiens! Who’s +coming?” The yell died in the roar from the car’s engine. + +Paterson lay for a moment thinking; then suddenly he reached for his +pocket flash, snapped it, and stared nervously at the empty cot across +the room. There was no bedding on it, nor any kit tucked under it; only +the chair beside it, and the cracked mirror. + +He got up and padded over in his bare feet. Stencilled on one corner of +the canvas there was a name--J. G. H. Lyons. There had been no Lyons +introduced to him in the mess. Perhaps he was on leave. Perhaps he had +flu with Trent and was down at the base. The spot of fear in his heart +trembled slightly and he knew suddenly where J. G. H. Lyons was. He was +dead! Somewhere out in the snow, miles across the line, J. G. H. Lyons +slept in a shattered cockpit. + +The door behind him opened softly. It was Hoyt, in pajamas. “Got a +cigarette?” he asked casually. + +Paterson turned sharply and grinned. “Righto,” he said. “There on the +table.” + +Hoyt took one and lighted it. “Can’t sleep,” he said. “Come in and take +Mallory’s cot if you want to. I’ve some new magazines and I can tell +you something about our work here until we feel sleepy.” + +Hoyt was a good fellow--damned decent. + + * * * * * + +The cold wet mist lay upon the fields like a soft veil drawn across the +face of an old woman who had died in the night. Mechanics, with their +balaklavas pulled down across their ears, were running about briskly to +keep warm--kicking chocks in front of under-carriage wheels, snapping +propellers down with mighty leaps and sweeps until the cold engines +barked into life and settled to deep concert roaring. Dust and pebbles, +scattered by the backwash, swept into the billowing hangars in a thin +choking cloud that pattered against the canvas walls. Hoyt’s machine +trembled and crept out of the line, with Phelps-Barrington after it. +Trent, who had come back from the base the day before, taxied out next. + +Paterson waved to the mechanics to pull out his own chocks. They yanked +mightily on the ropes, and he blipped his motor with his thumb. Behind +him and to the left came Yardley, the new man who had come up from Pool +to fill Mallory’s place. Then MacClintock, sitting high in his cockpit, +rushed out with a roar and a swish of gravel. MacClintock was deputy +leader. + +Hoyt waved his hand in a quick nervous sweep, and the flight started. +Through the mist they roared with their engines howling into sharp +echo against the hut walls. A moment later tails whipped up and wheels +bounced lightly upon the uneven ground. Then Hoyt’s nose rose sharply +and he zoomed into the air in a broad climbing turn, with the five +others after him in tight formation. + +Paterson glanced at his altimeter--five hundred feet. He looked ahead +and to the left. There was Bapaume in its raggedness, half drowned in +the mist. Suddenly Phelps-Barrington’s machine burst into rose flame +and every strut and wire trembled like molten silver--the sun. He could +see the red rim just peeping up ahead of him and he was warmer for the +sight of it. Below, under the rim of his cockpit, the ground was still +wrapped in its gray shroud. + +They were climbing up in close formation. The altimeter gave them four +thousand feet now. He glanced to the left. Yardley waved. Yardley was +going through the agony of his first patrol over the line--the same +agony he had gone through himself the week before. Only Yardley seemed +different, somehow--surer of himself--less imaginative. He was older, +too. Behind them, MacClintock, the watchdog, was closing in on their +tails and climbing above them to be ready to help if the Hun swooped +from behind unexpectedly. + +There were clouds above--gray blanket clouds that came together in a +solid roof, with only a torn hole here and there to show the blue. +Bad clouds to be under. Hoyt knew it and kept on climbing. Almost ten +thousand feet now. The ground below had cleared slowly and thrown off +most of its sullen shroud. Here and there, in depressions, the mist +still hung in arabesque ruffles like icing in a confectioner’s window +or the white smoke of a railway engine. + +The line was under them now, running south and east like a jagged +dagger cut, in and out, in and out across the land, not stopping for +towns, but cleaving straight through their gray smudgy ruins with a +cold disregard and a ruthless purpose. The first day he had seen it, +it had seemed a dam to him; a breakwater built there to hold something +that must not flow past it; a tourniquet of barbed wire twisted and +held by half the world that the blood of the other half might not flow. +Some day something would break and the whole thing would give way for +good or evil. Curiously, now, like Hoyt, he didn’t care which. And +suddenly he knew how his older brother had felt, on that last leave, +and he had called him unsporting in the pride of his youthful heart! + +Hoyt was still climbing. Thin wraiths of cloud vapour groped awkwardly +for the six tiny Camels, like ghost fingers, trying desperately to stop +them and hold them from their work. Paterson glanced again at Yardley. +He had been glad when Yardley came. He was still green himself, but +Yardley was greener. It helped buck him up to think about it. + +The line was behind them now. Hoyt turned south to pass below the +anti-aircraft batteries of Cambrai, and presently they crossed the +tarnished silver ribbon of the Somme-Scheldt Canal. Mechanically, +Paterson reached for his Bowden trigger and pressed it for a burst of +ten shots to warm the oil in his Vickers gun against the bite of the +cold air. Then he clamped the joy stick between his knees and reached +up for the Lewis gun on his top plane. + +His throat closed abruptly, with a ghastly dryness, and his knees +melted beneath him. The wing fabric beside his gun was ruffling into +torn lace and he could see the wood of the camber ribs splintering as +he watched! For a moment he was paralyzed, then frantically he whipped +around in his seat and swept the air above him. Nothing. There was the +torn fabric and the staring rib and nothing else. MacClintock was gone. +Yardley was still there, lagging, with the smoke coming in puffs and +streaks from his engine. Then Hoyt turned in a wild climb to the left. +Phelps-Barrington dipped his nose suddenly and dived with his engine +full on, and at once, where there had been only six Camels, the sky +was full of gray machines with blunt noses and black crosses. + +Blindly he pressed his Bowden trigger and fired into the empty air, +blindly he dived after Phelps-Barrington. Somewhere to the left he saw +a plume of black smoke with something yellow twisting in the sunlight +on its lower end. A blunt nose crossed his propeller--into his stream +of bullets. He screamed and banked wildly, still firing. He saw Hoyt +above him. He forgot the machine in front and reached for his Lewis to +help Hoyt. He tried to wait--something about the outer ring of the rear +sight--but his fingers got the better of him and he fired point-blank. + +As quickly as it had begun it ended. There was Hoyt circling back, +and two other Camels to the left and below him--four of them. They +closed in on Hoyt and he wondered where the two others were. He +looked for them--probably chasing after the Huns. He could see dots +to the southward--too far away to make out the markings. Hoyt had +signalled the washout and they were headed back across the line. Funny +those two others didn’t come. He wondered who they were. Probably +Phelps-Barrington and MacClintock, hanging on to the fight until the +last. They worked together that way. He had heard them talk in the mess +about it. They’d be at it again to-night, and to-night he could join +them for the first time. He’d been in a dog fight! Shot and been shot +at! The spot of fear shrank to a pin point. + +The brown smudge of the airdrome slid over the horizon. He blipped +his motor and glided in carefully. No use straining that top wing--no +telling what other parts had been hit. No use taking chances. + +Hoyt was standing beside his machine with his glove off, staring at +his finger nails. Phelps-Barrington was climbing out. Paterson taxied +in between them. The man in the fourth machine just sat and stared +over the rim of his cockpit. Phelps-Barrington walked slowly across to +Hoyt and laid a hand on his shoulder. Hoyt shrugged and stuffed his +bare hand into his coat pocket. Paterson sat with his goggles still on +and his throat quite dry. The man in the fourth machine vaulted out +suddenly, ripped off his helmet and goggles and hurled them to the +ground. It was Trent. + +He climbed out of his own machine and walked over toward +Hoyt. Phelps-Barrington, who had a wild word for all +occasions--Phelps-Barrington, who led the night trips to Amiens--was +silent. When Paterson came up he shrugged and scowled ferociously. + +“Is it you, Pat?” said Hoyt. “Thought it was Yardley.” + +“’Struth!” said Phelps-Barrington. “Let’s go and have a drink.” + +Paterson thrilled as the man slipped an arm through his. For one awful +moment he had thought---- + +“Well,” Hoyt said, “those things will happen.” And he shrugged again. + +“I saw dots to the southward,” said Paterson. “Maybe they’ll be in +later.” + +“No, little Rollo,” said Phelps-Barrington. “They won’t be in later or +ever. I saw it with my own eyes--both in flames. I thought it was you, +and until Trent landed, I thought he might be Mac. But I was wrong. +Let’s shut up and have a drink!” + +Then suddenly he knew, and his mind froze with the ghastliness of +the thought. If he’d been quicker--if he’d turned and climbed above +Yardley when he saw him lagging, with the smoke squirting from his hit +motor--he could have saved him. If he had kept his eyes open behind, +instead of dreaming, he might have saved MacClintock, too. In a daze, +he stumbled after Phelps-Barrington. That’s why Trent had hurled his +helmet to the ground and walked off. That’s why Hoyt had shrugged and +said, “Those things will happen.” It was his fault--his--Paterson’s. +He’d bolted and lost his head and fired blindly into the empty air. +He hadn’t stuck to his man. He had let Yardley drop back alone to be +murdered. + +“Look here, P-B,” he muttered, “I’m not drinking.” He wanted to be +alone--to think. So quick it had all been. + +Phelps-Barrington grabbed his arm and pushed him stumbling into the +mess shack. Trent was slumped down at the table with his glass before +him, thumbing over a newspaper. He raised his head as they came in. +“Two more of the same, steward--double.” + +They sat down beside him and Phelps-Barrington reached for a section of +the paper. + +“It says here,” said Trent, “that Eva Fay didn’t commit suicide. Died +of an overdose of hashish she took at a party in Maida Vale the night +before.” + +The steward brought the glasses. Trent raised his and looked at +Paterson. “Good work, son.” + +Paterson stared at him in amazement. Trent sipped his whisky and went +on reading as if he had never stopped. Some time later, Paterson left +them and went down to the flight office to find Hoyt. The thought of +the morning still bothered him, in spite of Trent’s words, and he +wanted to clear it up. Hoyt smiled as he came in. “Washed the taste out +in Falernian?” he asked. + +“Some. Look here, skipper--this morning--what about it?” + +“What about it?” + +“My part--I was fast asleep. I saw Yardley lagging, and I had a moment +to cross above him, but I lost my head, I’m afraid, and went wild.” + +The smile faded and Hoyt laid down his pencil. “Do you really think you +could have saved him?” + +“He was behind me already when I saw him lagging, just as you climbed +and P-B dived.” + +“Then you couldn’t have helped him, because Mac was done for when I saw +him and climbed, and half a tick after I climbed, P-B saw Yardley burst +into flames. There you are.” + +“But if I’d kept my eyes back, instead of trusting to Mac?” + +“Look here,” said Hoyt, “no man can keep his eyes on everything. +Something always happens in the place he isn’t looking. Bear that in +mind and forget this morning. You’ve seen a dog fight from the inside +and lived. Take it easy. You’re not here to do everything. You’re here +to stick to us. You might have run away. Remember that and be afraid +of it. Remember if you get away by leaving a pal--he may live to come +back. Then you’ll have to face him, and engine trouble is a poor excuse. + +“Trouble with you youngsters is that you’ve been fed up on poobah. And +the myth of the fearless air fighter. Put it out of your mind. There’s +no such thing. Some are less afraid than others. Some are drunker--take +your choice. Class dismissed.” Hoyt grinned. “Go get cleaned up. We’ll +jog into Amiens for tiffin. Tender in half an hour. Tell Trent and P-B.” + +They spent most of the afternoon at Charlie’s Bar with some of the men +from the artillery observation squadron. For dinner they went to the +Du Rhin and the glasses flowed red. Afterward, in another place, there +was a fight, as usual, and chairs crashed like match sticks, until +whistles sounded outside and the A. P. M.’s car, siren screaming, raced +up the street. They poured out into the alleyway and ran, leaving the +waiter praying in high, shrieking French. + +Trent had a bottle with him. They rode all the way home singing and +shouting to high heaven, forgetting that there were two empty chairs in +the mess and that there might be more to-morrow. + + “Take the cylinders out of my kidneys, + Take the scutcheon pins out of my brain, + Take the cam box from under my backbone + And assemble the engine again!” + +They were good fellows--Billy Hoyt, P-B, Pat, and Ray Trent. Have +’nother li’l’ drink. + +They roared along like a Juggernaut, with the exhaust splitting the +night air. Sometimes they were on the road and sometimes they were off. +No one cared so long as they kept hurtling into the darkness. + +Phelps-Barrington was fast asleep. Pat woke him up at the airdrome and +tumbled him into the hut. + +They stumbled over a kit bag in the doorway. P-B straightened up +suddenly. “Good-bye, Mac, old lad, sleep tight.” + +Trent kicked the bag out of the way. “Damned adjutant! Take P-B in with +you, Pat. I’m bunking with the skipper. Might have the decency to take +Mac’s kit over to squadron office and not leave it lying around the +passage. ’Night.” + +Paterson was quite sober. He tumbled P-B into bed and stood for a +moment at the open window, staring out across the ground mist that +billowed knee high in the faint night breeze. He rested his elbows on +the sill and hid his face in his trembling hands. If he could only be +like the others--casual--calloused. If he had less imagination--more +sand--stamina--something. MacClintock had planned this night himself, +at breakfast. Yardley had left a letter addressed and stamped on his +window sill. + +Paterson’s mind jumped miles to the eastward. He saw the two blackened +engines lying somewhere in the bleak fields beyond, ploughed into +the ground, with their mats of twisted wires coiled around them in a +hideous trap. + +Their families would get word to-morrow. “Missing,” it would read. +And then later: “Previously reported missing, now reported killed in +action.” And to-morrow--perhaps his own family. Why can’t it be quick? + +There was a noise behind him. Someone fumbling at the door latch--Hoyt. +“Had this bit left. Bottoms up! Quick!” He took the glass and drained +it. The liquor bit into his veins and burned him. Hoyt set his own +glass down on the washstand with a sharp click. “Get into bed now, you +idiot. Good-night.” + +Spiked drink. Hoyt was a good fellow--damned decent. Do anything for +Hoyt. Never let Hoyt go. Like my brother--before the war. Good old +Hoyt. And he sank suddenly into a dreamless fuddle of sleep. + + * * * * * + +The weeks crawled on slowly. Paterson felt like a man climbing a +steep ladder. Each day was a rung behind him. Each new rung showed an +infinite number still ahead, waiting for him to go on, luring him with +their apparent safety, waiting for him to reach the one rotten rung +that would do him in. Some day he would reach it, and it would crack +under him, or his fingers would slip and hurtle him into the abyss +under his charred engine. + +Offensive patrols and escort for the artillery observation squadron +filled their time, with sometimes a road strafe to vary the monotony. +These he liked best, for some quaint reason--perhaps because there was +less space to fall through. Sometimes there would be a battalion on +those roads--a battalion to scatter and knock down like tin soldiers +on a nursery floor. Quite impersonal. They were never men to Paterson. +Like dolls they ran and like dolls they sprawled awkwardly where they +fell. + +P-B and Trent and Hoyt carried him through somehow. Mallory was back +again, but Mallory never counted much with him. P-B and Trent and Hoyt +were a bulwark. They meant safety. It was good to wake up at night and +hear P-B snoring on the other cot, to know that Hoyt and Trent were +asleep in the next cubicle. It was good to see them stamping to keep +warm before the patrol took off in the half light of early morning. +So different from one another and yet so alike underneath. Hoyt was +nearer his kind than the two others. Tall and spindly like his brother, +with a straight, thin nose that quivered slightly at the nostril when +he was annoyed. Hoyt, who smiled and sanctioned the childish depravity +of little P-B, but never quite met it with his own, although always +seeming to, on the night trips to Amiens. Trent, glowering and quiet, +with a keen hatred for everything political that he learned in the +offices of the London and South Western before the war, when the army +to him had meant young wastrels swanking the Guards’ livery in the +boxes of theatres--wastrels who had died on the Charleroi Road three +years before. + +Suddenly, from one of his mother’s letters, he found that he had been +in France almost three months. He stiffened with the thought and +remembered what Hoyt had told him that day he had come: “I’ve been here +three months. When I came, I came just as you did to-day--pucka green.” +He knew then that all his hopes were false. He was the same to-day as +he had been that first day. He would always be the same. The spot of +fear would always be with him. Some day it would swell and choke him +and his hands would function without his frozen brain. He should never +have tried to fly. He should have gone into the infantry as his brother +had. Too much imagination--too little something. In three months he had +learned the ropes, that was all; how to fire and when to fire, where +the Archie batteries were near Cambrai, how to ride a cloud and crawl +into it--nothing more. + +The weeks went on, creeping closer and closer to the twenty-first of +March--the twenty-first of March--and with them the feeling crept +into Paterson’s heart--a feeling that something frightful was to +happen. Things had been quiet so long and casualties had been few. C +Flight hadn’t been touched in weeks. He brooded over the thought and +slept badly. He went to Amiens with P-B more frequently. If it was +to be any of the three, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it. His +bulwark would crumble and break and he would break with it. On the dawn +patrols, those few minutes before they climbed into the cockpits and +took off were agony: “This will be the day. It must be to-day. We can’t +go on this way. Our luck will break.” + +One day when they were escorting 119, four dots dived on them from +behind and he knew suddenly what he would do. Stark, logically, the +thing stood before him and beckoned through the wires of his centre +section. If a shot hit his plane, he would go down. They were far over +the lines, taking 110 on a bombing show. He would wabble down slowly, +pushing his joy stick from side to side in a slow ellipse as if he were +out of control. Then he would land and run his nose into the ground +and be taken prisoner. The others would see him and swear that he’d +been hit--and he wouldn’t do it until his machine had been hit. That +for his own conscience’s sake and for the years he would have to live +afterwards. + +But A Flight, behind and far above, saw the dots and scattered them, +and the chance was gone. + +Then day by day he waited for another. He knew now that he would do it +at the first opportunity. He slept better with the thought, and the +minutes seemed shorter now while he waited at dawn for his bus to be +run out. All the details were worked out in his mind. If any one of +the three were close to him, he’d throw up his hands wildly before he +started down. They’d see that and report it. Then when he landed he’d +pull out the flare quick and burn his machine so that they would think +he had crashed and caught fire. It was so easy! + +He spent less time with P-B now. Somehow the old freedom was gone. +Somehow Hoyt wasn’t the same to him either. He was working with three +strangers he had never really known--three casual strangers he would +leave shortly and never see again. + +On the morning of the fourteenth of March the caller turned C Flight +out suddenly, without warning, about an hour after P-B and Trent +had returned from Amiens. A special signal had come in from wing +headquarters. B Flight had the regular morning patrol, but there was to +be an additional offensive patrol besides. A Flight had morning escort +and the dusk patrol. That meant C for the special. Paterson could hear +Hoyt swearing about it next door. P-B, across the room, uttered a +mighty curse and rolled over. Paterson got him a bucket of cold water +and doused his feverish head in it. Trent and Hoyt were still cursing +pettishly in the next cubicle. + +Sleep-stupid, the four of them stumbled into the mess for hard-boiled +eggs and coffee. Mallory and the new man, Crowe, were already eating, +white-faced and unshaven. They slumped down beside them in silence. + +In silence, they trooped across the dark airdrome, buttoning their +coats and fastening helmet straps against the cold wretchedness of the +March wind. The machines were waiting for them in a ghostly line like +staring wasps that had eaten the food of the gods and grown to gigantic +size. + +They climbed in and taxied out mechanically. B Flight had already left +on the regular dawn patrol. They blipped their motors and roared away, +leaving their echo and the sharp smell of castor oil behind on the +empty ’drome. + +Hoyt led them south to the crumpled ruins of Péronne and out to the +line, climbing high to get the warmth of the sunlight that began to +tint the clouds above them. They were going over to Le Cateau and +beyond. Intelligence wanted pictures to confirm certain reports of new +Hun shell dumps and battery concentration. The photographic planes were +to go out and get them under escort as soon as there was enough light. +As additional precaution, offensive patrols were to be kept up far over +the enemy’s lines to insure the success of the pictures. They passed +the sullen black stain that was Le Câtelet and turned to the eastward. +The ground was already light and the camera busses would be starting. + +Hoyt took the roof at eighteen thousand feet and skirted the cloud +wisps, watching below for customers. Paterson watched P-B anxiously. +He had been roaring drunk an hour before. Groggy and drunk still, +probably. He closed in a trifle and climbed above him, but P-B waved +him down and wiggled his fingers from the end of his nose. + +He looked ahead and down at Trent. Trent had been drunk, too, but he +was steady now, sawing wood above and slightly behind Hoyt. + +Then, suddenly, beyond Trent and far below, he saw a Hun two-seater +alone. The old stunt. Hoyt shifted and pulled up his nose to climb +above it and wait. Trent followed him up. Somewhere above that +two-seater, and a half mile behind, there would be a flight of Hun +scouts skulking under the clouds, waiting to pounce on whoever dived +for the two-seater. Hoyt knew it for a decoy. Paterson knew it. They +would climb above the cloud edge, circle back, and catch the Hun scouts +as they passed underneath. + +Paterson trembled slightly. This was his chance at last. There’d be a +long dive and a sure fight from behind, and in the mix-up he’d wabble +down and out of the war via Lazaret VI in Cologne. He glanced around +to see if Mallory was above him, and suddenly, out of the corner of +his eye, he saw P-B shove his nose full down and throw himself into a +straight dive for the decoy bus. + +He gazed and shouted “No!” into the roar of his engine. P-B, in a nasty +temper and half fuddled, didn’t smell the trick. There was one awful +second, while Crowe closed up into P-B’s place and Hoyt banked to wait +above, for the Hun scouts to pounce down on the Camel. + +P-B fired, pulled up and dived again, far below them. The Hun +two-seater banked sharply and came up and over in an Immelmann turn +to get away. P-B caught it halfway over and a trickle of smoke swept +out from its engine. Then in an instant Hoyt dived, with the rest of C +Flight after him. + +The next thing Paterson knew there were two Huns on his tail and a +stream of tracer bullets pecking at his left wing. He pulled back on +his stick and zoomed headlong up under Mallory. So close he was for +a second that he could see the wheels turning slowly on Mallory’s +undercarriage and almost count the spokes glinting in the sunlight +where the inside canvas sheathing had been taken off. + +Mallory pulled away from him in a quick climbing turn and the Huns +passed underneath, banking right and left. Paterson picked the +left-hand one, thundered down on him in a short dive, and let go a +burst of ten shots into the pilot’s back. He saw the pilot’s head snap +sideways and his gloved hands fly up from the controls. Then Mallory +dived over him after the other one. He turned in a wild split-air and +followed Mallory. + +There were more Huns below him and to the left, with two of the C +Flight Camels diving and bucking between them. He raced furiously +into a long dive, picked the nearest, and opened fire again in short, +hammering bursts. His Hun wabbled and started down awkwardly in long +sweeps. He picked another, still farther below, and pushed his stick +forward until the rush of air gagged him. Wildly he fired as he +ploughed down on it, and the chatter of his guns stabbed through the +roar of his engine. He yelled like a madman, shot under the Hun, pulled +up sharply, and fired into its gray mud-streaked belly. There was a fan +of scarlet flame and a shock that tossed him to one side. He stalled +and whipped out into a spin. Far below him he could see the decoy +two-seater trailing a long plume of reddish smoke and flopping, wings +over, toward the floor. + +Then, suddenly, he saw his chance to wabble down and get away. He +ruddered out of the spin and ran his stick once through the slow +ellipse he had planned. But somehow he had to force himself to do it. +There wasn’t the relief he had expected. He looked back. Three C-Flight +machines were still above him, fighting madly--P-B, Trent, and Hoyt. +No--not this time. He pulled his stick back and climbed up. There were +five Huns circling the Camels. It was a long shot, but he fired at the +nearest and came up under the tail just as one of the Camels hurtled +into a nose dive, twisted over, and snapped off both wings. He saw the +pilot’s arms raised wildly in the cockpit and no more. + +Blood streamed into his mouth. He had torn his lips with his teeth in +the excitement. The warm salty tang mounted to his brain. His goggles +were sweat-fogged. His fingers ached with their pressure on the joy +stick, and his arm was numb to the elbow. In a spasm of blind hatred, +he fired. Tracers raced across his top plane and struck with little +smoke puffs that ripped the fabric into ribbons. His own bullets clawed +at the Hun above him and fanged home. + +He threw himself up and over in an Immelmann turn and came under the +next, still firing. He let go his stick and jerked his Lewis gun down +its sliding mount on his top plane. It fired twice and jammed. He +yanked madly at the cocking lug, but it stuck halfway. He hurtled down +again in another spin. The ground swept around in a quick arc that +ended in clouds and more Hun busses. He caught at his thrashing joy +stick. Again the ground flashed through his centre section struts in a +brown smudge, with the blaze of the sun hanging to one end of it. Then +there was a Camel above him and a Camel below him. He closed in on the +one below and squinted at the markings. Hoyt. He looked up at the other +Camel, but the numerals on the side of its fuselage were hidden with a +torn flap of fabric. Together, the three turned westward and started +back. + +Presently, near the line, the bus above him wabbled and dipped its +nose. He stared at it. It went into a long, even glide that grew slowly +steeper as he watched. He looked down for Huns. There were none. The +glide became a dive, the dive twisted into an aimless spin, like the +flopping of a lazy swimmer turning over in shallow water. The spin +flattened and the Camel whipped out upside down, stalled, snapped out +again, and again spun downward in that ghastly slow way. Over and over, +only to whip out, stall and spin again. It was miles below him now. +Nothing to do. Fascinated, he watched it as he followed Hoyt’s tail. +It was a mere dot now, flashing once or twice in the sun as it flopped +over and over. Close to the ground now--closer. Then, suddenly, a tiny +sheet of pink flame leaped up like the flash of a far beacon. That was +all. + +Hoyt was side-slipping below him, and he saw his own airdrome under the +leading edge of his bottom wing. He followed Hoyt down. They landed +together and taxied slowly in toward the hangars. They stopped side by +side and climbed out stiff-legged. Paterson looked down and saw that +his right flying boot was torn and flayed into shreds across the outer +side. There was a jagged fringe on the skirt of his coat where the +leather had been ripped into ruffles. Dumbly, he looked back into his +cockpit. The floor boards were splintered and the wicker arm of his +seat was eaten away. He shrugged and walked over toward Hoyt. There was +blood on the rabbit fur of Hoyt’s goggles, blood that oozed slowly down +and dripped from his chin piece in bright drops. + +“Cigarette?” + +Paterson gave him one. They walked into the flight office and slumped +into chairs. Hoyt ripped off his helmet and dabbed at the scratch on +his cheek. “I’m glad you got out, Pat,” he said absently. + +Then the fear spot broke and spattered into the four corners of +Paterson’s soul. He sprang up trembling, with his fists beating the air. + +“The dirty lice!” he screamed. “They’ve killed P-B! They’ve killed +Trent! D’y’ hear me, Hoyt?--they’ve killed ’em! They’re gone! They’ll +never come back! They’ve----” + +Hoyt’s voice came evenly, calmly, through his screaming. “Steady, boy! +Steady! You can’t help it. No one can. Steady, now!” + +A mat of white oil-splotched faces stared at them from the open +doorway that led into the hangar. The boy turned wildly. “Clear out!” +he shrieked. They vanished, open-mouthed. Hoyt drew him down into a +chair. “No, Hoyt, no! Can’t you see? P-B and you and Trent have meant +everything to me. I can’t go on. I’ve fought this thing till I’m +crazy.” Hoyt reached quickly and slammed the door. “I’ve fought it +night and day!” He threw up his arms hopelessly and covered his face +with his shaking hands. + +Hoyt put his hand on his trembling shoulders and patted them. “Steady, +now! Steady! None of that!” he said awkwardly. + +Paterson’s head whipped down across his sprawled arms on the desk top +and the sobs tore at his throat in great gusts that choked him. “Oh, +God!” he sobbed. “What’s it all about, Hoyt? What’s the use of it?” + +“Steady, son! I don’t know. Nobody knows. It just happened, as +everything happens. It’s much too late to talk causes. We’re here and +we know what we have to do. That’s enough for us. It’s all we have +anyway, so it must be enough.” He took his blood-soaked cigarette from +his mouth and hurled it into a corner. It landed with a soft spat. + +Someone knocked at the door. “Come in.” It was the runner from squadron +office. He saluted. “Yes?” said Hoyt. + +The man glanced at Paterson’s face and snapped his eyes quickly back to +the captain’s. + +“Beg pardon, sir,” he said. “Squadron’s just been signalled through +wing. One of the C Flight machines came down near B Battery, the 212th.” + +“Who was it?” asked Hoyt. + +“Lieutenant Mallard, they reported it, sir. That’ll be Lieutenant +Mallory, sir, won’t it?” + +“Yes.” Hoyt’s voice was quite flat. “Thank you.” + +The man saluted again and shut the door. Hoyt dabbed at his cheek and +reached into his desk drawer for another cigarette. Paterson stood up +suddenly and grabbed his arm. “Listen, skipper!” Hoyt’s eyes met his +calmly. “I’m going to tell you something. I’ll feel better if I do. +I’ve been a weak sister in this flight. I’ve planned for days to go +down and let myself be taken prisoner--to get out of it all. I’ve been +sick of it--sick of it, d’y’ hear, until I couldn’t think straight. I +wanted to get out alive. I wanted to get away in any way I could. This +morning I broke. I let go and started down----” + +Hoyt smiled. “Your trouble, Pat, is that you think you’re the only +person in this jolly old war.” + +Paterson stared at him. “But I did! I started down, out of it, this +morning!” + +“How’d you get here?” asked Hoyt. + +“But if I hadn’t broken for that moment this morning----” + +“That’s a lie!” snapped Hoyt. “You’re talking poobah! I know how those +things happen. If P-B hadn’t gone down after the two-seater they’d +all be here now; and by the same reasoning, if my aunt wore trousers +she’d be my uncle. The important thing is that it’s you and me now and +nothing else matters. We’ll have four brand-new men to whip into shape +to-morrow, and whatever you think of yourself, you’ve got to do it. I +can’t do much, for I’ll be ahead, leading. You’ll be behind them and +you’ll have to do it all. They’ll be frightened and nervous and green, +but the job’s to be done. Understand? You’ve got to goad them on and +get them out of trouble and watch them every minute, so that in time +they’ll be as good as P-B and Trent--so that when their turn comes they +can do for other green men what P-B and Trent did for you. Do you see +now what this morning has done for you?” He paused for a moment, and +then, in a lower tone--“Afraid? Who isn’t afraid? But it doesn’t do any +good to brood over it.” + +C Flight did no duty the next day, nor the day following. Hoyt went up +to the 212th and identified Mallory for burial, while Paterson flew +back to the Pool for the replacement pilots and a new Camel for Hoyt. + +In Amiens he heard the first whispered rumours of what was going to +happen. Intelligence was ranting for information. Everybody had the +story and nobody was right. The hospitals were evacuating as fast as +possible. Fresh battalions were being hustled up. It wasn’t a push. +Anyone could tell that with half an eye. Something the Hun was doing. +The spring offensive a month earlier this year. G. H. Q. was plugging +the gaps frantically, replacing and reinforcing and wondering where the +hammer would fall and what it would carry with it. Hence the pictures +that had cost the lives of P-B and Trent. The air itself trembled with +uncertainty, and rumours flew fast and thick. + +Paterson flew back with the four new pilots and brought the rumours +with him. Hoyt had more to barter in exchange. The talk ran riot at +dinner. + +“It’s a Hun push, all right, but where, nobody knows. We’ll have word +in a day or so, but it’ll be wrong whatever it is, mark what I say!” + +And then on the evening of the twentieth things started. A signal came +for the major just as they sat down to mess. He went out and presently +called out the three flight commanders. When they came back, they took +their places thoughtfully. Silence trembled in the room like the hush +that precedes the first blasting stroke of a great bell in a cathedral +tower. The major swept his eyes down the board. + +“You will remain at the airdrome to-night, gentlemen, and remain sober. +Officers’ luggage is to be packed and placed on lorries which Mr. +Harbord is providing for that purpose.” He paused for a moment. “This +is a precautionary move, gentlemen. We are to be ready to retire at +a moment’s notice. Flight commanders have the map squares of the new +airdrome. You can take that up later among yourselves.” He leaned back +in his chair and beckoned to the mess sergeant. “Take every officer’s +order, sergeant, and bring me the chit.” + +The talk broke in a wild flood that roared and crackled down the length +of the table. The tin walls trembled with the surge of it and the +echoes broke in hot discord among the rough pine rafters. Offensive +patrols for all three flights, to start at five minutes to four A. +M. Air domination must be maintained. Wing’s instructions were to +stop everything at all costs. Go out and fight and shut up. Somebody +presented the adjutant with the sugar bowl and asked him if he had +his umbrella for the trip back. The adjutant had spent eighteen days +without soles to his boots in 1914. He and the medical officer stood +drinks for the squadron. + +About ten o’clock, Hoyt called the five men of C Flight into his hut. +“To-morrow, something is going to happen, I’m afraid, and you’ve got +to meet it without much experience. What I want you to understand is +simply this: You’ve got Pat and you’ve got me. Follow us and do what +we do. We won’t let you down so far as it is humanly possible. If the +flight gets split up in a dog fight, then fight your way out two and +two--and go back to the new ’drome two and two. Don’t go separately. +Further”--he paused--“if anything happens to me”--Paterson looked up +at him quickly and something tugged sharply at his heart; Hoyt went +on quietly--“take your lead from Mr. Paterson. You’ll be Number 5, +Darlington. You’ll climb up as deputy leader. And if anything happens +to Pat, then it’s up to you to bring the rest home.” He smiled. “There +is a bottle of Dewar’s in this drawer. Take a snifter now, if you +want it, and one in the morning. It’s for C Flight only. Oh, yes, one +more thing: The fact that we’re moving back to a new airdrome seems +to indicate that staff thinks nothing can stop the Hun from breaking +through. The fact that nothing can stop the Hun seems to indicate that, +for the nonce, we are losing our part of the war. If the thought will +help you--it’s yours without cost.” + + * * * * * + +The caller rapped sharply and threw back the door. Paterson leaped to +his feet half asleep and pushed back the window curtains. The clouds +were down to about four hundred feet, lowering in a gray mass over the +mist on the airdrome. He went into the next cubicle and turned Hoyt +out. Hoyt sat up on the cot edge and ran his hand across his forehead. + +“Stop the caller,” he said. “Let’s see what’s what before we turn +everybody out.” They shrugged into their flying coats and groped down +the passage to the major’s cubicle in the next hut block. + +“Let ’em sleep,” said the major. “Can’t do anything in this muck. Turn +out one officer in each flight to watch for the break and to warn the +rest. Send Harbord to me if you see him wandering about.” + +They woke up the skippers of A and B Flights and told them the news. +Paterson took the watch for C. He turned up his coat collar and went +out. It was cold and miserable in the open, and the chill crept into +his bones. The smoke from his cigarette hung low about him in the still +air. + +Presently to the eastward there came a low roar. He looked at his wrist +watch. The hands pointed to six minutes before four o’clock. The ground +trembled slightly to the sound of the distant guns and the air stirred +in faint gusts that pulled at blue wraiths of his cigarette smoke. The +push had started. His muscles stiffened at the knees as he listened. +The first shock of the guns was raw and sharp in the quiet air; then +it settled into a lower, full-throated rumble like the heavy notes of +an organ growling in an underground basilica. Now it rose again in its +greater volume--rose steadily, slowly, as if it were a colossal express +train hammering down the switch points at unthinkable speed. Presently +it soared to its highest pitch and held the blasting monotony of its +tone. The minutes ticked off, but the guns never faltered in their +symphony of blood. At 4:35 one pipe of the organ to the southeastward +cut out suddenly and almost immediately began again, closer than +before. Again it broke, as he listened, and crept nearer still. + +He walked down the line of huts, thrashing his arms and blowing on his +cold hands. An impersonal thing to him, yet he shivered slightly and +stared upward at the low clouds. Men out there to the eastward were +in it. The suspense was over for them. And suddenly he found himself +annoyed at the delay, annoyed at the fog and clouds above, that kept +him on the ground. He wanted to see what was going on--to know. He +turned impatiently and went into the mess. The sergeant brought him +coffee, and presently Muirhead of A Flight came in with Church of B. + +“It’s on,” Church said absently. “I suppose this fog means hell up the +line.” + +They drank their coffee and smoked in silence. The sound of the guns +crept nearer and nearer, and one by one the rest of the squadron +drifted in for breakfast. + +Hoyt sat down next to Paterson. “I don’t like it,” he said. “Something +is giving way up there.” He went to the window and looked out. “Clouds +are higher,” he said, “and the fog’s lifted a bit. What do you think, +major?” + +They crowded out of the mess doorway and stood in an anxious knot, +staring upward. It was well after six o’clock. + +“All right”--the major turned around--“get ready to stand by.” + +C Flight collected in a little knot in front of Hoyt’s Camel, smoking +and talking nervously. Paterson kept his eyes on Hoyt and stamped his +feet to get the circulation up. A strange elation crept into his veins +and warmed him. In a moment now--in a moment. Awkward waiting here. +Awkward standing around listening to Darlington curse softly and pound +his hands together. + +Somewhere behind him on the road, a motor bike roared through the mist, +and then to the southward a shell crashed not a thousand yards from the +’drome, and the echo of it thumped off across the fields. Darlington +jumped and stared at the mushroom of greasy black smoke. A moment +more--a moment now. Paterson reached over and tapped Darlington’s +sleeve. “Keep your guns warm, old boy.” Darlington nodded fiercely. + +The major climbed into his cockpit and a mechanic leaped to the +propeller. The engine coughed once and the propeller snapped back. The +mechanic leaped at it again. It spun down and melted into a circle of +pale light. Everyone was climbing in. Hoyt flicked his cigarette away +sharply and put a leg up into his stirrup. + +They were taxi-ing out into the open ground, with the mechanics running +after them. Presently they could see the road. Paterson stared at it in +amazement. It was brown and crawling with lorries and troops. Something +had happened! A Flight, with the major, sang off across the ground +and took the air together in a climbing turn. B Flight waited a brief +second and followed. Out of the corner of his eye, Paterson could see +the mess sergeant climbing up on the lorry seat beside Harbord, the +equipment officer. Then Hoyt waved his hand. Mechanics yanked at the +chock ropes and waved them off. They blipped their motors and raced out +after Hoyt. + +At five hundred feet they took the roof in the lacy fringe of the +low clouds. Bad, very bad, Paterson thought. He ran his thumb across +the glass face of his altimeter and his globe became wet with the +beaded moisture. He could hardly see Darlington’s tail. Ahead of +them the clouds were a trifle higher. Hoyt led them up and turned +northward. Murder to cross the line at that height, with the barrage +on. Darlington was lagging a bit. Afraid of the clouds. He dived on +Darlington’s tail and closed him up on Number 3. Darlington glanced +back at him and ducked his head. + +Hoyt was circling back now in a broad sweep. Over there somewhere was +Cambrai. He looked up for an instant just in time to see the underside +of a huge plane sweep over him. He ducked at the sight of the black +crosses, but the plane was gone before he could whip his Lewis gun +into action. Almost immediately one corner of his windshield ripped +away and the triplex glass blurred with a quick frosting of a thousand +cracks. He cursed into the roar of his motor and kept on. + +They were higher now, but the visibility was frightful--like flying +in a glass ball that had been streaked with thick dripping soapsuds. +Here a glimpse and a rift that closed up as soon as you looked; there +a blank wall, tapering into tantalizing shreds that you couldn’t quite +see beyond. He fidgeted in his cockpit and turned his head from Hoyt, +below him, to the gray emptiness behind. Nothing. + +Presently Hoyt banked around, and following him, the compass needle on +Paterson’s instrument board turned through a half circle. They were +going back toward the south again and climbing still higher. An even +thousand feet now--just under the rising, ragged clouds. He felt a drop +of rain strike his cheek where his chin piece ended. It bit his skin +like a thorn and stung for seconds afterward. His goggles were fogging. +He ran a finger up under them and swept the lenses. + +Then, in a breath, it happened. A gray flash swept down out of the +clouds in front of the formation. Hoyt zoomed to avoid it. The Hun +zoomed and they came together and melted into each other in a welter of +torn, rumpled wings and flying splinters. Something black and kicking +rose out and disappeared. The cords stood out in Paterson’s neck and +his throat closed. Somewhere his stomach leaped and kicked inside of +him, trying to get out, and he saw coffee dripping from the dials of +his instruments. + +In a second he had thrown his stick forward and gone down into Hoyt’s +place. He didn’t dare look--he couldn’t look. He was screaming curses +at the top of his voice and the screams caught in his throat in great +sobs. His goggles were hopelessly fogged. He ripped them off. Behind +him the four new men closed in tightly, with Darlington above them as +deputy leader. + +There was blood again on his lips. He pulled back his stick and +climbed. There, somewhere in the clouds, were the men who had done it! +All right! All right! His eyes stung and wept with the force of the +wind, and his cheeks quivered under the lash of the raindrops. With his +free hand, fist clenched, he pounded his knee in stunned anguish until +his muscles ached. Hoyt! Hoyt! Then he saw what he wanted and dived +down furiously at the shape in the mist. Bullets tore at his top plane +and raked across the cowling behind him. He closed on the Hun and sent +it spinning. There was another--three--five--nothing but Huns. He dived +in between them. Fine! He was screaming again, and firing. He forgot he +was flying. The joy stick thrashed crazily between his knees and the +ground and the clouds were a muddy gray scarf that swept from side to +side across his eyes. Guns were the thing. Once, in a quick flash, he +saw tiny men running upside down through the ring sight of his Lewis +gun--the gun on his top plane--funny. + +His wrists ached and his fingers were quite dead against the Bowden +trigger. No, not that; that’s a Camel--Darlington. He grabbed at his +joy stick and pulled it back. Funny how hard it was to pull it. Another +Camel swept in beside him, and another, with startling suddenness. It +had been a long time now--a long time. Somebody had been afraid once +and there had been a man named Hoyt. No, Hoyt was dead. Hoyt had been +killed days before. Must have been P-B. P-B was probably in Amiens +by now. He’d left in the tender at six o’clock. And always his guns +chattered above the roar of his engine. + +Abruptly, the cross wires of his centre section raced up to him from +a great distance and stopped just before his eyes. He wondered where +they had been all this time. He stared past them into the light disk +of his propeller, and again the rain lashed into his face and stung +him. He caught at the kicking joy stick and held on to it with both +hands--but one hand fell away from it and wouldn’t come back. With an +effort, he pulled back his stick to climb up under the clouds again. +Must be up under the clouds. Must wait and get more Huns. Funny things, +Huns. Clumsy, stupid gray things you shot at and sent down. Go home +soon, rest a bit and get some more. He laughed softly to himself. Joke. +Funniest thing in the world. + +The centre section wires clouded up before his eyes and started to +race away from him. Here! That’s bad! Can’t fly without centre section +wires. He chuckled a bit over that. Absurd to think of flying without +centre section wires! Come back here! You come back! + +Just as his eyes closed, he saw a streak of roadway flicker through the +struts of his left wing. There were faces on it quite close to him; +faces that were white and staring; faces with arms raised above them. +Funny. He whipped back his joy stick with a convulsive jerk, and then +his head crashed forward and he threw up his arm to keep his teeth from +being bashed out against the compass. + + * * * * * + +It was very dark--dark except for a dancing blue light far away. He +moved slightly. Something cool touched his forehead. + +“All right,” he muttered; “that’s all right now. You just follow me.” +Someone whispered. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. +“No,” he said quite plainly. “I mean it! Hoyt’s dead. I saw him go +down.” + +He felt something sharp prick his arm. “You’ve got the new airdrome +pinpointed, haven’t you?” he asked. + +A soft voice said, “Yes. Sh-h-h!” + +“No,” he said, “I can’t. Darlington’s alone now, and I’ve got to go +back. They’re green, but they’re good boys.” He moved his legs to get +up. “There’s a bottle of Dewar’s----” + +“No,” said the voice beside him. + +“Oh, yes,” he said quietly. “Really, this is imperative. I know I +crashed.” + +A stealthy languor crept across his chest and flowed down toward his +legs. He thought about it for a moment. “I ought to go,” he said +pettishly. “But I’m so tired.” + +“Yes,” said the voice. “Go to sleep now.” + +“Right-o,” he said. “You call a tender and wake--me--half--an--hour.” +He was quiet for a moment more and then he chuckled softly. “Tell ’em +it’s poobah,” he said sharply. + +“All right,” said the voice. “It’s poobah.” + +His breathing became quiet and regular and footsteps tiptoed softly +down the ward away from his bed. + + + + +NIGHT CLUB + +BY KATHARINE BRUSH + +From _Harper’s_ + + +Promptly at quarter of ten P. M. Mrs. Brady descended the steps of the +Elevated. She purchased from the newsdealer in the cubbyhole beneath +them a next month’s magazine and a to-morrow morning’s paper and, with +these tucked under one plump arm, she walked. She walked two blocks +north on Sixth Avenue; turned and went west. But not far west. Westward +half a block only, to the place where the gay green awning marked Club +Français paints a stripe of shade across the glimmering sidewalk. +Under this awning Mrs. Brady halted briefly, to remark to the six-foot +doorman that it looked like rain and to await his performance of his +professional duty. When the small green door yawned open, she sighed +deeply and plodded in. + +The foyer was a blackness, an airless velvet blackness like the inside +of a jeweller’s box. Four drum-shaped lamps of golden silk suspended +from the ceiling gave it light (a very little) and formed the jewels: +gold signets, those, or cuff-links for a giant. At the far end of the +foyer there were black stairs, faintly dusty, rippling upward toward +an amber radiance. Mrs. Brady approached and ponderously mounted the +stairs, clinging with one fist to the mangy velvet rope that railed +their edge. + +From the top, Miss Lena Levin observed the ascent. Miss Levin was the +checkroom girl. She had dark-at-the-roots blonde hair and slender hips +upon which, in moments of leisure, she wore her hands, like buckles of +ivory loosely attached. This was a moment of leisure. Miss Levin waited +behind her counter. Row upon row of hooks, empty as yet, and seeming to +beckon--wee curved fingers of iron--waited behind her. + +“Late,” said Miss Levin, “again.” + +“Go wan!” said Mrs. Brady. “It’s only ten to ten. _Whew!_ Them +_stairs_!” + +She leaned heavily, sideways, against Miss Levin’s counter, and, +applying one palm to the region of her heart, appeared at once to +listen and to count. “Feel!” she cried then in a pleased voice. + +Miss Levin obediently felt. + +“Them stairs,” continued Mrs. Brady darkly, “with my bad heart, will be +the death of me. Whew! Well, dearie? What’s the news?” + +“You got a paper,” Miss Levin languidly reminded her. + +“Yeah!” agreed Mrs. Brady with sudden vehemence. “I got a paper!” She +slapped it upon the counter. “An’ a lot of time I’ll get to _read_ my +paper, won’t I now? On a Saturday night!” She moaned. “Other nights is +bad enough, dear knows--but _Saturday_ nights! How I dread ’em! Every +Saturday night I say to my daughter, I say, ‘Geraldine, I can’t,’ I +say, ‘I can’t go through it again, an’ that’s all there is to it,’ I +say. ‘I’ll _quit_!’ I say. An’ I _will_, too!” added Mrs. Brady firmly, +if indefinitely. + +Miss Levin, in defense of Saturday nights, mumbled some vague something +about tips. + +“Tips!” Mrs. Brady hissed it. She almost spat it. Plainly money was +nothing, nothing at all, to this lady. “I just wish,” said Mrs. Brady, +and glared at Miss Levin, “I just wish _you_ had to spend one Saturday +night, just one, in that dressing room! Bein’ pushed an’ stepped on +and near knocked down by that gang of hussies, an’ them orderin’ an’ +bossin’ you ’round like you was _black_, an’ usin’ your things an’ then +sayin’ they’re sorry, they got no change, they’ll be back. Yah! They +_never_ come back!” + +“There’s Mr. Costello,” whispered Miss Levin through lips that, like a +ventriloquist’s, scarcely stirred. + +“An’ as I was sayin’,” Mrs. Brady said at once brightly, “I got to +leave you. Ten to ten, time I was on the job.” + +She smirked at Miss Levin, nodded, and right-about-faced. There, +indeed, Mr. Costello was. Mr. Billy Costello, manager, proprietor, +monarch of all he surveyed. From the doorway of the big room, where the +little tables herded in a ring around the waxen floor, he surveyed Mrs. +Brady, and in such a way that Mrs. Brady, momentarily forgetting her +bad heart, walked fast, scurried faster, almost ran. + +The door of her domain was set politely in an alcove, beyond silken +curtains looped up at the sides. Mrs. Brady reached it breathless, +shouldered it open, and groped for the electric switch. Lights sprang +up, a bright white blaze, intolerable for an instant to the eyes, like +sun on snow. Blinking, Mrs. Brady shut the door. + +The room was a spotless, white-tiled place, half beauty shop, half +dressing room. Along one wall stood washstands, sturdy triplets in a +row, with pale-green liquid soap in glass balloons afloat above them. +Against the opposite wall there was a couch. A third wall backed an +elongated glass-topped dressing table; and over the dressing table and +over the washstands long rectangular sheets of mirror reflected lights, +doors, glossy tiles, lights multiplied.... + +Mrs. Brady moved across this glitter like a thick dark cloud in a +hurry. At the dressing table she came to a halt, and upon it she laid +her newspaper, her magazine, and her purse--a black purse worn gray +with much clutching. She divested herself of a rusty black coat and a +hat of the mushroom persuasion, and hung both up in a corner cupboard +which she opened by means of one of a quite preposterous bunch of keys. +From a nook in the cupboard she took down a lace-edged handkerchief +with long streamers. She untied the streamers and tied them again +around her chunky black alpaca waist. The handkerchief became an +apron’s baby cousin. + +Mrs. Brady relocked the cupboard door, fumbled her keyring over, and +unlocked a capacious drawer of the dressing table. She spread a fresh +towel on the plate-glass top, in the geometrical centre, and upon the +towel she arranged with care a procession of things fished from the +drawer. Things for the hair. Things for the complexion. Things for the +eyes, the lashes, the brows, the lips, and the finger nails. Things in +boxes and things in jars and things in tubes and tins. Also, an ash +tray, matches, pins, a tiny sewing kit, a pair of scissors. Last of +all, a hand-printed sign, a nudging sort of sign: + + NOTICE! + + These articles, placed here for your convenience, are the property of + the _maid_. + +And directly beneath the sign, propping it up against the +looking-glass, a china saucer, in which Mrs. Brady now slyly laid decoy +money: two quarters and two dimes, in four-leaf-clover formation. + +Another drawer of the dressing table yielded a bottle of bromo seltzer, +a bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, a tin of sodium bicarbonate, +and a teaspoon. These were lined up on a shelf above the couch. + +Mrs. Brady was now ready for anything. And (from the grim, thin pucker +of her mouth) expecting it. + +Music came to her ears. Rather, the beat of music, muffled, rhythmic, +remote. _Umpa-um, umpa-um, umpa-um-umm_--Mr. “Fiddle” Baer and his +band, hard at work on the first foxtrot of the night. It was teasing, +foot-tapping music; but the large solemn feet of Mrs. Brady were still. +She sat on the couch and opened her newspaper; and for some moments +she read uninterruptedly, with special attention to the murders, the +divorces, the breaches of promise, the funnies. + +Then the door swung inward, admitting a blast of Mr. “Fiddle” Baer’s +best, a whiff of perfume, and a girl. + +Mrs. Brady put her paper away. + +The girl was _petite_ and darkly beautiful; wrapped in fur and mounted +on tall jewelled heels. She entered humming the ragtime song the +orchestra was playing, and while she stood near the dressing table, +stripping off her gloves, she continued to hum it softly to herself: + + “Oh, I know my baby loves me, + I can tell my baby loves me.” + +Here the dark little girl got the left glove off, and Mrs. Brady +glimpsed a platinum wedding ring. + + “’Cause there ain’t no maybe + In my baby’s + Eyes.” + +The right glove came off. The dark little girl sat down in one of the +chairs that faced the dressing table. She doffed her wrap, casting it +carelessly over the chair back. It had a cloth-of-gold lining, and +“Paris” was embroidered in curlicues on the label. Mrs. Brady hovered +solicitously near. + +The dark little girl, still humming, looked over the articles “placed +here for your convenience,” and picked up the scissors. Having cut off +a very small hangnail with the air of one performing a perilous major +operation, she seized and used the manicure buffer, and after that +the eyebrow pencil. Mrs. Brady’s mind, hopefully calculating the tip, +jumped and jumped again like a taximeter. + + “Oh, I know my baby loves me----” + +The dark little girl applied powder and lipstick belonging to herself. +She examined the result searchingly in the mirror and sat back, +satisfied. She cast some silver _Klink! Klink!_ into Mrs. Brady’s +saucer, and half rose. Then, remembering something, she settled down +again. + +The ensuing thirty seconds were spent by her in pulling off her +platinum wedding ring, tying it in a corner of a lace handkerchief, and +tucking the handkerchief down the bodice of her tight white velvet gown. + +“There!” she said. + +She swooped up her wrap and trotted toward the door, jewelled heels +merrily twinkling. + + “’Cause there ain’t no maybe----” + +The door fell shut. + +Almost instantly it opened again, and another girl came in. A blonde, +this. She was pretty in a round-eyed, babyish way; but Mrs. Brady, +regarding her, mentally grabbed the spirits of ammonia bottle. For she +looked terribly ill. The round eyes were dull, the pretty, silly little +face was drawn. The thin hands, picking at the fastenings of a specious +beaded bag, trembled and twitched. + +Mrs. Brady cleared her throat. “Can I do something for you, miss?” + +Evidently the blonde girl had believed herself alone in the dressing +room. She started violently and glanced up, panic in her eyes. Panic, +and something else. Something very like murderous hate--but for an +instant only, so that Mrs. Brady, whose perceptions were never quick, +missed it altogether. + +“A glass of water?” suggested Mrs. Brady. + +“No,” said the girl, “no.” She had one hand in the beaded bag now. +Mrs. Brady could see it moving, causing the bag to squirm like a live +thing, and the fringe to shiver. “Yes!” she cried abruptly. “A glass of +water--please--you get it for me.” + +She dropped on to the couch. Mrs. Brady scurried to the water cooler in +the corner, pressed the spigot with a determined thumb. Water trickled +out thinly. Mrs. Brady pressed harder, and scowled, and thought, +“Something’s wrong with this thing. I mustn’t forget, next time I see +Mr. Costello----” + +When again she faced her patient, the patient was sitting erect. She +was thrusting her clenched hand back into the beaded bag again. + +She took only a sip of the water, but it seemed to help her quite +miraculously. Almost at once colour came to her cheeks, life to her +eyes. She grew young again--as young as she was. She smiled up at Mrs. +Brady. + +“Well!” she exclaimed. “What do you know about that!” She shook her +honey-coloured head. “I can’t imagine what came over me.” + +“Are you better now?” inquired Mrs. Brady. + +“Yes. Oh, yes. I’m better now. You see,” said the blonde girl +confidentially, “we were at the theatre, my boy friend and I, and it +was hot and stuffy--I guess that must have been the trouble.” She +paused, and the ghost of her recent distress crossed her face. “God! I +thought that last act _never_ would end!” she said. + +While she attended to her hair and complexion, she chattered gaily to +Mrs. Brady, chattered on with scarcely a stop for breath, and laughed +much. She said, among other things, that she and her “boy friend” had +not known one another very long, but that she was “ga-ga” about him. +“He is about me, too,” she confessed. “He thinks I’m grand.” + +She fell silent then, and in the looking-glass her eyes were shadowed, +haunted. But Mrs. Brady, from where she stood, could not see the +looking-glass; and half a minute later the blonde girl laughed and +began again. When she went out she seemed to dance out on little winged +feet; and Mrs. Brady, sighing, thought it must be nice to be young ... +and happy like that. + +The next arrivals were two. A tall, extremely smart young woman in +black chiffon entered first, and held the door open for her companion; +and the instant the door was shut, she said, as though it had been on +the tip of her tongue for hours, “Amy, what under the sun _happened_?” + +Amy, who was brown-eyed, brown-bobbed-haired, and patently annoyed +about something, crossed to the dressing table and flopped into a chair +before she made reply. + +“Nothing,” she said wearily then. + +“That’s nonsense!” snorted the other. “Tell me. Was it something she +said? She’s a tactless ass, of course. Always was.” + +“No, not anything she said. It was----” Amy bit her lip. “All right! +I’ll tell you. Before we left your apartment I just happened to notice +that Tom had disappeared. So I went to look for him--I wanted to ask +him if he’d remembered to tell the maid where we were going--Skippy’s +subject to croup, you know, and we always leave word. Well, so I went +into the kitchen, thinking Tom might be there mixing cocktails--and +there he was--and there _she_ was!” + +The full red mouth of the other young woman pursed itself slightly. Her +arched brows lifted. “Well?” + +Her matter-of-factness appeared to infuriate Amy. “He was _kissing_ +her!” she flung out. + +“Well?” said the other again. She chuckled softly and patted Amy’s +shoulder, as if it were the shoulder of a child. “You’re surely not +going to let _that_ spoil your whole evening? Amy _dear_! Kissing +may once have been serious and significant--but it isn’t nowadays. +Nowadays, it’s like shaking hands. It means nothing.” + +But Amy was not consoled. “I hate her!” she cried desperately. +“Red-headed _thing_! Calling me ‘darling’ and ‘honey,’ and s-sending +me handkerchiefs for C-Christmas--and then sneaking off behind closed +doors and k-kissing my h-h-husband....” + +At this point Amy quite broke down, but she recovered herself +sufficiently to add with venom, “I’d like to slap her!” + +“Oh, oh, oh,” smiled the tall young woman, “I wouldn’t do that!” + +Amy wiped her eyes with what might well have been one of the Christmas +handkerchiefs, and confronted her friend. “Well, what _would_ you do, +Claire? If you were I?” + +“I’d forget it,” said Claire, “and have a good time. I’d kiss somebody +myself. You’ve no idea how much better you’d feel!” + +“I don’t do----” Amy began indignantly; but as the door behind +her opened and a third young woman--red-headed, earringed, +exquisite--lilted in, she changed her tone. “Oh, hello!” she called +sweetly, beaming at the newcomer via the mirror. “We were wondering +what had become of you!” + +The red-headed girl, smiling easily back, dropped her cigarette on +the floor and crushed it out with a silver-shod toe. “Tom and I were +talking to ‘Fiddle’ Baer,” she explained. “He’s going to play ‘Clap +Yo’ Hands’ next, because it’s my favourite. Lend me a comb, will you, +somebody?” + +“There’s a comb there,” said Claire, indicating Mrs. Brady’s business +comb. + +“But imagine using it!” murmured the red-headed girl. “Amy, darling, +haven’t you one?” + +Amy produced a tiny comb from her rhinestone purse. “Don’t forget to +bring it when you come,” she said, and stood up. “I’m going on out, I +want to tell Tom something.” + +She went. + +The red-headed young woman and the tall black-chiffon one were alone, +except for Mrs. Brady. The red-headed one beaded her incredible lashes. +The tall one, the one called Claire, sat watching her. Presently she +said, “Sylvia, look here.” And Sylvia looked. Anybody, addressed in +that tone, would have. + +“There is one thing,” Claire went on quietly, holding the other’s eyes, +“that I want understood. And that is, ‘_Hands off!_’ Do you hear me?” + +“I don’t know what you mean.” + +“You do know what I mean!” + +The red-headed girl shrugged her shoulders. “Amy told you she saw us, I +suppose.” + +“Precisely. And,” went on Claire, gathering up her possessions and +rising, “as I said before, you’re to keep away.” Her eyes blazed sudden +white-hot rage. “Because, as you very well know, he belongs to _me_,” +she said, and departed, slamming the door. + + * * * * * + +Between eleven o’clock and one Mrs. Brady was very busy indeed. Never +for more than a moment during those two hours was the dressing room +empty. Often it was jammed, full to overflowing with curled cropped +heads, with ivory arms and shoulders, with silk and lace and chiffon, +with legs. The door flapped in and back, in and back. The mirrors +caught and held--and lost--a hundred different faces. Powder veiled +the dressing table with a thin white dust; cigarette stubs, scarlet at +the tips, choked the ash-receiver. Dimes and quarters clattered into +Mrs. Brady’s saucer--and were transferred to Mrs. Brady’s purse. The +original seventy cents remained. That much, and no more, would Mrs. +Brady gamble on the integrity of womankind. + +She earned her money. She threaded needles and took stitches. She +powdered the backs of necks. She supplied towels for soapy, dripping +hands. She removed a speck from a teary blue eye and pounded the heel +on a slipper. She curled the straggling ends of a black bob and a +gray bob, pinned a velvet flower on a lithe round waist, mixed three +doses of bicarbonate of soda, took charge of a shed pink-satin girdle, +collected, on hands and knees, several dozen fake pearls that had wept +from a broken string. + +She served chorus girls and schoolgirls, gay young matrons and gayer +young mistresses, a lady who had divorced four husbands, and a lady +who had poisoned one, the secret (more or less) sweetheart of a Most +Distinguished Name, and the Brains of a bootleg gang.... She saw +things. She saw a yellow check, with the ink hardly dry. She saw four +tiny bruises, such as fingers might make, on an arm. She saw a girl +strike another girl, not playfully. She saw a bundle of letters some +man wished he had not written, safe and deep in a brocaded handbag. + + * * * * * + +About midnight the door flew open and at once was pushed shut, and a +gray-eyed, lovely child stood backed against it, her palms flattened +on the panels at her sides, the draperies of her white chiffon gown +settling lightly to rest around her. + +There were already five damsels of varying ages in the dressing room. +The latest arrival marked their presence with a flick of her eyes and, +standing just where she was, she called peremptorily, “Maid!” + +Mrs. Brady, standing just where _she_ was, said, “Yes, miss?” + +“Please come here,” said the girl. + +Mrs. Brady, as slowly as she dared, did so. + +The girl lowered her voice to a tense half-whisper. “Listen! Is there +any way I can get out of here except through this door I came in?” + +Mrs. Brady stared at her stupidly. + +“Any window?” persisted the girl. “Or anything?” + +Here they were interrupted by the exodus of two of the +damsels-of-varying ages. Mrs. Brady opened the door for them--and in +so doing caught a glimpse of a man who waited in the hall outside, a +debonair, old-young man with a girl’s furry wrap hung over his arm, and +his hat in his hand. + +The door clicked. The gray-eyed girl moved out from the wall, against +which she had flattened herself--for all the world like one eluding +pursuit in a cinema. + +“What about that window?” she demanded, pointing. + +“That’s all the farther it opens,” said Mrs. Brady. + +“Oh! And it’s the only one--isn’t it?” + +“It is.” + +“Damn,” said the girl. “Then there’s _no_ way out?” + +“No way but the door,” said Mrs. Brady testily. + +The girl looked at the door. She seemed to look _through_ the door, and +to despise and to fear what she saw. Then she looked at Mrs. Brady. +“Well,” she said, “then I s’pose the only thing to do is to stay in +here.” + +She stayed. Minutes ticked by. Jazz crooned distantly, stopped, struck +up again. Other girls came and went. Still the gray-eyed girl sat on +the couch, with her back to the wall and her shapely legs crossed, +smoking cigarettes, one from the stub of another. + +After a long while she said, “Maid!” + +“Yes, miss?” + +“Peek out that door, will you, and see if there’s anyone standing +there.” + +Mrs. Brady peeked, and reported that there was. There was a gentleman +with a little bit of a black moustache standing there. The same +gentleman, in fact, who was standing there “just after you come in.” + +“Oh, Lord,” sighed the gray-eyed girl. “Well ... I can’t stay here all +_night_, that’s one sure thing.” + +She slid off the couch, and went listlessly to the dressing table. +There she occupied herself for a minute or two. Suddenly, without a +word, she darted out. + +Thirty seconds later Mrs. Brady was elated to find two crumpled +one-dollar bills lying in her saucer. Her joy, however, died a +premature death. For she made an almost simultaneous second discovery. +A saddening one. Above all, a puzzling one. + +“Now what for,” marvelled Mrs. Brady, “did she want to walk off with +them _scissors_?” + +This at twelve-twenty-five. + +At twelve-thirty a quartette of excited young things burst in, babbling +madly. All of them had their evening wraps with them; all talked at +once. One of them, a Dresden china girl with a heart-shaped face, was +the centre of attention. Around her the rest fluttered like monstrous +butterflies; to her they addressed their shrill exclamatory cries. +“Babe,” they called her. + +Mrs. Brady heard snatches: “Not in this state unless....” “Well, you +can in Maryland, Jimmy says.” “Oh, there must be some place nearer +than....” “Isn’t this _marvellous_?” “When did it happen, Babe? When +did you decide?” + +“Just now,” the girl with the heart-shaped face sang softly, “when we +were dancing.” + +The babble resumed, “But listen, Babe, what’ll your mother and +father...?” “Oh, never mind, let’s hurry.” “Shall we be warm enough +with just these thin wraps, do you think? Babe, will you be warm +enough? Sure?” + +Powder flew and little pocket combs marched through bright marcels. +Flushed cheeks were painted pinker still. + +“My pearls,” said Babe, “are _old_. And my dress and my slippers are +_new_. Now, let’s see--what can I _borrow_?” + +A lace handkerchief, a diamond bar pin, a pair of earrings were +proffered. She chose the bar pin, and its owner unpinned it proudly, +gladly. + +“I’ve got blue garters!” exclaimed another girl. + +“Give me one, then,” directed Babe. “I’ll trade with you.... There! +That fixes that.” + +More babbling, “Hurry! Hurry up!” ... “Listen, are you _sure_ we’ll be +warm enough? Because we can stop at my house, there’s nobody home.” +“Give me that puff, Babe, I’ll powder your back.” “And just to think a +week ago you’d never even met each other!” “Oh, hurry _up_, let’s get +_started_!” “I’m ready.” “So’m I.” “Ready, Babe? You look adorable.” +“Come on, everybody.” + +They were gone again, and the dressing room seemed twice as still and +vacant as before. + +A minute of grace, during which Mrs. Brady wiped the spilled powder +away with a damp gray rag. Then the door jumped open again. Two +evening gowns appeared and made for the dressing table in a bee line. +Slim tubular gowns they were, one silver, one palest yellow. Yellow +hair went with the silver gown, brown hair with the yellow. The +silver-gowned, yellow-haired girl wore orchids on her shoulder, three +of them, and a flashing bracelet on each fragile wrist. The other girl +looked less prosperous; still, you would rather have looked at her. + +Both ignored Mrs. Brady’s cosmetic display as utterly as they ignored +Mrs. Brady, producing full field equipment of their own. + +“Well,” said the girl with the orchids, rouging energetically, “how do +you like him?” + +“Oh-h--all right.” + +“Meaning, ‘Not any,’ hmm? I suspected as much!” The girl with the +orchids turned in her chair and scanned her companion’s profile with +disapproval. “See here, Marilee,” she drawled, “are you going to be a +damn fool _all_ your life?” + +“He’s fat,” said Marilee dreamily. “Fat, and--greasy, sort of. I mean, +greasy in his mind. Don’t you know what I mean?” + +“I know _one_ thing,” declared the girl with orchids. “I know Who +He Is! And if I were you, that’s all I’d need to know. _Under the +circumstances._” + +The last three words, stressed meaningly, affected the girl called +Marilee curiously. She grew grave. Her lips and lashes drooped. For +some seconds she sat frowning a little, breaking a black-sheathed +lipstick in two and fitting it together again. + +“She’s worse,” she said finally, low. + +“Worse?” + +Marilee nodded. + +“Well,” said the girl with orchids, “there you are. It’s the climate. +She’ll never be anything _but_ worse, if she doesn’t get away. Out +West, or somewhere.” + +“I know,” murmured Marilee. + +The other girl opened a tin of eye shadow. “Of course,” she said drily, +“suit yourself. She’s not _my_ sister.” + +Marilee said nothing. Quiet she sat, breaking the lipstick, mending it, +breaking it. + +“Oh, well,” she breathed finally, wearily, and straightened up. She +propped her elbows on the plate-glass dressing-table top and leaned +toward the mirror, and with the lipstick she began to make her +coral-pink mouth very red and gay and reckless and alluring. + + * * * * * + +Nightly at one o’clock Vane and Moreno dance for the Club Français. +They dance a tango, they dance a waltz; then, by way of encore, they do +a Black Bottom, and a trick of their own called the Wheel. They dance +for twenty, thirty minutes. And while they dance you do not leave your +table--for this is what you came to see. Vane and Moreno. The New York +thrill. The sole justification for the five-dollar couvert extorted by +Billy Costello. + +From one until half-past, then, was Mrs. Brady’s recess. She had been +looking forward to it all the evening long. When it began--when the +opening chords of the tango music sounded stirringly from the room +outside--Mrs. Brady brightened. With a right good will she sped the +parting guests. + +Alone, she unlocked her cupboard and took out her magazine--the +magazine she had bought three hours before. Heaving a great breath of +relief and satisfaction, she plumped herself on the couch and fingered +the pages. Immediately she was absorbed, her eyes drinking up printed +lines, her lips moving soundlessly. + +The magazine was Mrs. Brady’s favourite. Its stories were true stories, +taken from life (so the editor said); and to Mrs. Brady they were live, +vivid threads in the dull, drab pattern of her night. + + + + +SINGING WOMAN + +BY ADA JACK CARVER + +From _Harper’s_ + + +Little by little the Joyous Coast was changing. + +The old rutted dirt road that fringed the Cane had been abandoned. +The highways cut through the swamps and marshy lands and fields full +of corn and refused to follow the whim of the river. It seemed to old +Henriette relentless and terrible. It even ploughed its way through +people’s dooryards, rooting up ancient landmarks: oaks and chinas +and gnarled crêpe myrtles, their branches bowed to the earth with +bloom--trees under which Henriette in her day had been courted and won. + +Isle Brevelle, where the French mulattoes live, is not lonely and +strange as is an island lost in the sea. With the river curving about +it, it is like a maid in the arms of a lover who woos her forever: +“_Lie still, Adored One. Are my arms not around you? Do you not feel +the beat of my heart? Behold the gifts I have brought, the fruit and +the flowers I lay at your feet. You are round and shining like the sun, +more beautiful than the day_----” + +The young people on Isle Brevelle liked the changing order, the feeling +of unrest and impatience. Now, in the long summer evenings they could +get in cars and go to town, to see the sights; or take in the coloured +picture show up on the hill. “_Mais non_, we don’t speak to them +niggers,” they assured old Henriette. “We don’t have nothing to do with +them black folks.” + +But all this saddened Henriette. For generations now her people had +guarded the blood in their veins. Ignored by the whites, ignoring +and scorning the blacks, they had kept themselves to themselves. But +now there was change all about them. Something was in the air.... In +her black spreading skirts, with her black kerchief about her head, +Henriette sat on the gallery and watched the gravelled road that was +straight and white and went on and on, taking the young folks with +it.... People didn’t die, either, like they used to do, properly in +their beds, with time to receive the sacrament and be shrived for their +sins. They died just any and everywhere, bumped off by trains or the +automobiles that ploughed by on the highway. No wonder the buryings +were often hurried, unworthy affairs, without bell or book; to say +nothing of singing woman! + +Henriette and her crony, fat old Josephine Remon, were the only singing +women left on Isle Brevelle. Time was when a singing woman was as +necessary as a priest, when no one who was anything could be buried +without a professional mourner. In those days Henriette and Josephine +were looked up to and respected: the place of honour at table, the best +seat by the fireside, the most desirable pew in the church. Finally, +instead of being sought after, a wailing woman had to offer her +services. Nowadays people seemed to have lost the fear, the dignity of +death. + +It was the same way with midwifery. Young women nowadays engaged +trained nurses, or went to town to the hospitals to have their babies. +Nowadays people didn’t care _how_ they died or were born. They just +came in and went out of the world, any old way.... All this troubled +Henriette, and she sat in her corner and mumbled and grumbled to God +about it, “Look like nothing ain’t right, not what it used to be....” + +It had been nearly ten years now since Henriette had wailed for a +funeral. Josephine had had the last one, when old Madame Rivet died, +six years ago. That made ninety-eight for Josephine and ninety-nine for +herself. She was one funeral ahead. How proud she was of her record! +She, Henriette, had sung for more buryings than any singing woman in +the parish. Of course, old Josephine ran her a mighty close second. +Henriette kept an account of her own and Josephine’s funerals, in a +little black memorandum book locked up in her armoire. On one page was +her own name, Henriette; and underneath it ninety-nine crosses in neat +little rows of five. On the opposite page was Josephine’s name, and +beneath it ninety-eight crosses, in neat little rows of five. Well, +they had served Death long and faithfully, she and Josephine; where +Death had gone they had followed.... Time was, when, as a special +treat, Henriette would take out her funeral book and name the crosses: +“This one was Marie Lombard, and this one Celeste, her daughter. Here +was Henri, what died the time the cholera come, in 1860.” + +Now no one ever thought of Henriette’s funeral book. Six years, since +Madame Rivet died, it had lain in her armoire. Sometimes she wondered +sadly if she would ever wail again. For on Isle Brevelle there was +but one person left who, when he died, would want a wailing woman. +This person was Toni Philbert, the only soul on Isle Brevelle older +than Henriette. Toni and Henriette and Josephine had been young folks +together. Now it had got to be a sort of game between the two women as +to who would get Toni when Toni died. “If I get Toni,” Henriette would +say, “me, I’ll have two more crosses than you. I’ll have a hundred.” +And Josephine, sitting fat in her chair, would chuckle, “_Mais non_, +and if I get him, we’ll be even, Etta, my friend.” + +Toni himself, an old, old man, sans teeth, sans everything, was pleased +with the fuss they made over him. Sometimes he would joke with them +when he met them at church. “Well, well, old uns. I’m here yet. Hee! +Hee! I’ll outlive both you girls. Just wait--me, I show you!” + + * * * * * + +The days on Isle Brevelle were long and filled with the drowsy chatter +of ducks and fat red hens. Henriette’s prayers for those in purgatory +took up part of the time. But a person can’t pray forever! Nothing to +do but sit and think of the past, and of death and dying. Henriette +had always, even when a child, known something lovely and secret about +death. What it was she could not have told; but her knowledge made +her a good wailing woman. She minded the time, long ago, when the +husband of Rose, Toni’s daughter, died and left Rose a widow. Such a +pretty slip of a thing and so white in her sorrow! Henriette had, of +course, done her duty to the dead; she had wailed and sung and beat +the earth: “_Under a tree by the river I saw them digging a young +grave. Stricken one, desired of Heaven, your eyes that will not look +at me--what do they see? How long before I can go to you, as I used to +go?... down by the water where the reeds are singing...._” But after +the funeral (Mother forgive her!), she had gone back to comfort Rose, +and unsay all she had said. “Look, Rose, honey, don’t take on so. +A girl as fresh and sweet as you! Look, he is happy. And the world +is full of lovers....” At Rose’s door grew the lily called “widow’s +tear”--“widow’s tear” because the drop of dew in its heart dries so +quickly when the broad, warm sun comes out.... + +Well, who should know more about death than she, Henriette ... she who +had buried three husbands? + +Sometimes when the weather was fine, and the sun not too hot or too +bright, old Henriette would put on a clean “josie,” and take her +stick and hobble down to Josephine’s house to sit and talk of old +times. She would get one of her grandchildren to help her down in the +ditch, beside the highroad, where she insisted on walking to avoid the +automobiles. When there had been rain Henriette got her feet all wet +and muddy, down in the ditch that way. When the weather was dry the +automobiles, shrieking by, sprayed her from head to foot with a fine +white dust. Sometimes she got into nettles, or cockleburs or ants. And +once a rattlesnake had glided across her path. Her grandchildren, who +loved her, were dismayed and indignant. “Ain’t you ’shame, Gran’mamma, +walking down in the ditch! How come you don’t let us take you to +Josephine’s in the car?” But Henriette was afraid of cars. “It ain’t +far. I ruther walk.” + +Josephine was always glad to see her. She would grunt and grumble and +fetch out another shuck-bottomed chair. Then Josephine would make +coffee. Josephine was rich. She owned her house and a little store +that her son-in-law managed; and her married children lived with her, +not she with them. She was very, very fat, what with easy living. How +the two old women would gossip, the pleasant air stirred with their +palmetto fans. Now in “American,” now in French; talk, talk, talk, +talk. “Ain’t your tongues ever run down?” Josephine’s daughters-in-law +would ask, laughing but respectful. + +What grand living and dying there used to be, back in steamboat days! +It was like recalling a wedding festival or a Mardi Gras to look back +to the yellow-fever scare of 1890. A funeral every day, and sometimes +two. She and Josephine had had their hands full.... Shucks! the land +was too healthy now, what with draining the swamps and such. The people +were getting too uppity, outwitting death like that. Good thing after +all that the automobiles bumped some of them off, else they never +would quit the earth. What if some day folks should rise up and simply +refuse to die! Well, what would God the Father have to say about that? + +Sometimes Henriette and Josephine would crack mild little jokes, +slapping at the flies with their untiring fans. “I seen Toni last week, +at the church. He’s looking feeble.” “_Mais non!_” (A cackle.) “He +ain’t here for long.” Sometimes a shrill and sudden chorus of locusts +swelled out of Josephine’s trees, and was gone. A sure sign of death. +And the two old women would cross themselves. “I wonder who it is +_this_ time!” + +But after all, what did it matter? Some young fool or other run down by +an automobile. Some boy shot at the dance hall, over some girl. Whoever +it was wouldn’t want _them_. The only person on Isle Brevelle who would +want a singing woman was Toni, old Toni Philbert, who for nearly twenty +years, had had one foot in the grave. Looked like he meant to hang on +to the earth forever and ever, amen. He had always been like that, a +lover of life and living. Heylaw! What a lad old Toni used to be!... +What a way with the girls! + + * * * * * + +It was on a sultry August day that Toni Philbert had a stroke. +Henriette’s grandson came in and told her about it. “I hear tell down +at the store that Toni is mighty low. He can’t last very long, they +tell me.” + +Henriette was excited. So Toni was sick, very low! She gulped down some +coffee and got her stick, and set out for Josephine’s house, walking +down in the ditch. She was so heavy with news she could scarcely +breathe. So Toni was on his deathbed.... Thoughts of Toni came to +her from the long-ago years.... The August sun was veiled in a mist +from the river. Already the cottonwoods were changing colour, and the +goldenrod was in bloom. Henriette crowded close into the dusty bushes +as an automobile flashed past above her on the highroad. So Toni was +dying! Well, sometimes she might forget how many grandchildren she +had; sometimes she forgot her age, or what year it was, this and that. +But she would never forget the time that Toni had kissed her, nor the +dress she had worn when he did it, long, long ago. Little enough she +had thought of death or singing for death in those days, sitting under +the trees by the river in a pink-sprigged challis. What a gallant, +insolent lad he had been, old Toni! Of course, he had kissed every +girl on the island. But hers was a sort of a special kiss, she had +always felt. She was a slim, pretty, green-eyed thing, just turned +seventeen.... Old Henriette groped along, catching against the bushes +and the tumbleweeds at her feet. That was in 1852, long ’fore the +war.... Old Henriette had warts on her cheeks. “Frogs put ’em there,” +she sometimes croaked to curious children. “Toadfrogs, out in the +swamp.” But in those days, when Toni had kissed her, her cheeks were +yellow and smooth. Toni had led her down to the river to look at +herself. “A minute ago, Henriette, your face was a yellow lily. And +now--look!--it’s a rose!” + +Ah, well, poor Toni was dying! Which one would he want to sing for him, +herself or old Josephine? Henriette wondered if Josephine had had any +“news.” ... She stopped, heavy with fear. Suppose Josephine had been +“asked?” She began to hurry a little.... Heylaw! Who was that a-coming, +a-coming through the weeds? She screwed up her eyes and peered. It was +Josephine, hobbling along down in the ditch, so fat she could scarcely +wobble. + +The two old women began screeching at each other when they were yet a +great way off, and waving their palmetto fans. “Toni, he’s very sick! +They say that this is the end!” They found a nice spot by the roadside, +among the weeds and overgrown summer flowers. It took them a minute or +two to get settled. How Josephine grunted and took on, trying to sit! +How her hips spread all over the place! Well, Henriette was glad she +was thin and could get about some.... Butter-and-eggs and Jimson weed +grew all around them, giving off rank summer odours. A giant cottonwood +reached its arms between them and the sun.... “Is you heard from Toni +yet?” Henriette asked, all a-tremble. And Josephine said, “No. Is you?” + +Just so, when they were young, they had sat and talked of Toni. “Is +you heard from Toni yet?” What a boy he had been for love!... Love? +Death, the enchantress, was after him now. “If _I_ get him,” Henriette +cackled, “I’ll have two more than you.” And Josephine laughed, sitting +fat in the weeds till their purple juice squashed on her clothes. +“_Mais non!_ And if _I_ get him, we’ll be even, Etta, my friend.” + +A week went by, and another; and it began to look as if old Toni didn’t +mean to die after all. It was just like Toni to keep death waiting, to +flirt with death like that. He always was a tease: “_Well, my beauty, +my proud one--all in good time. Don’t chafe and paw at the bit...._” +And not a word had Toni said about getting a wailing woman! That was +just like Toni, too, keeping everyone guessing up to the last. + +Every night now Henriette got out her funeral book: ninety-nine crosses +for herself. A record any singing woman might be proud of! If only she +could get one more, to round out her final five! If only she could get +Toni. How she would crow over Josephine then: “Me, I got one hundred +crosses. One hundred funerals I’ve sung for....” + +One night in early September Henriette, sleepless, lay in her bed. +Against her window the trees, uneasy with autumn, pushed and drew away, +sighing a little. The moon was up, looking drunken and sodden. It was +very warm--good funeral weather, Henriette thought; a fine night for +death, with cape jessamine still in bloom and baby owls in the trees. +Henriette loved hoot owls. She felt they were kin to her, sisters +under the skin. They plied the same trade, she and they. She loved +owls and bats and all webfooted creatures, things that live in a green +underworld. There were sounds on the highway, the chugging of cars; and +into her window flashed the light from an automobile; it sought out the +Virgin Mary, wheeled through the room, and was gone. Up and down the +roads they went, the automobiles full of young folks--clatter-chug, +clatter-chug!--past the unnoticed glory of river and moon and swamp. +How little they considered death, the boys and girls on the highway! + +The sickly moon went out; and there was lightning in the south. That +meant the rain was ’way off, hiding in week after next.... Henriette +arose very stealthily and crept outdoors to sit on the gallery, where +it was cooler. Maybe right now old Toni was dying.... Once while she +was sitting there her grandson came and poked his head out the door. +“You better come to bed, gran’mammy. You’ll catch cold out there in +your nightclothes.” But she shook her head and mumbled, “Let me be.” +She began to sing, very low, “_He will die, my beloved, my friend, when +the good round fruit is ripe; when the time of courting is at an end; +when the fields are bare, and the sky is black with the low, long cry +of the heron...._” + + * * * * * + +Two weeks later old Toni passed away. And Toni’s son came to bid +Henriette to the funeral: “Papa, he told us to get you. The funeral’s +to-morrow at ten.” + +Henriette, who had moped long ago whenever Toni went off to town, could +not shed a tear now he was dead. She was so excited she could scarcely +speak; she could scarcely put on her clothes. “Come help me fasten +my josie!” she called to her children.... So he had wanted _her_, +after all, poor old Toni. She had her grandson help her down in the +ditch. “Granny!” her grandchildren cried, shocked. “It rained cats and +dogs last night. For shame, a old lady like you, walking down in the +ditches.” + +But they couldn’t do anything with her. She couldn’t rest, she said, +until she had seen Josephine. “I must go tell Josie,” she said. “Poor +old Josie----” + +When Henriette neared Josephine’s house she began to cackle, her voice +like a reed. But Josephine, sitting in her chair, cut her short. “I +done heard a’ready. You needn’t bother to tell me.... Well, me, I’m +glad for you, Etta.” + +Old Josephine sat heavily in her chair, sagging over. How fat and +sloppy she looked! And Henriette wondered what memories passed behind +her lidless old eyes.... Presently Josephine got up and went and made +some coffee. “One hundred for you,” she muttered, “and ninety-eight +for me. Well....” To-day old Josephine laced the coffee with anisette, +peering at Henriette disapprovingly. “You’ll need your strength,” +she said gruffly, deep in her throat. “Getting your feet all wet +that-a-way. You ought to be ‘shame’, at your age.” + +But Henriette smiled. She knew Josephine was trying to dull her own +disappointment; she knew that Josephine was low in her mind. Henriette +drank of the hot, fragrant coffee. On either side of Josephine’s steps +the bunched-up rosettes of the altheas were very pink in the sunshine; +and the red yucca shook out its pretty, globular, rain-filled bells.... +Henriette didn’t stay very long. “I got lots to do. I got to be up +bright and early,” she said. + +But in the morning, when Henriette awakened, she found that something +terrible had happened to her voice. It was gone; she could not speak. +Her grandchildren crowded about her bed, concerned and anxious--an old +woman is frail as glass! “You see what we told you, Gran’mammy! You got +no call yesterday, getting het up and excited just because old Toni is +dead and they want you to sing for his funeral. And didn’t we tell you +stay out that ditch? Walking around in water, just like a duck, at your +age.” + +They scolded and fussed and fumed and put warm flannels on her throat. +They gave her a toddy. But it did no good. Her throat hurt, and when +she opened her mouth she croaked like a frog--she who in her wailing +had had as many stops to her voice as a sounding organ.... “Poor +Gran’mammy,” her children said. “Now she can’t sing. And Josephine’ll +have to go and wail for old Toni’s funeral.” Henriette lay and moaned a +little. If she could only cry as children cry, in her disappointment. +But the tears wouldn’t come. They had all dried up long ago. + +At dusk the family returned from the burying. But out of respect for +her feelings, as Henriette knew, they forbore to talk of the funeral +and of how nice Josephine had sung and “carried on.” They merely said, +“Josephine was so fat they had to hold her, to keep her from tumbling +down in the grave.” But when she thought no one was looking Henriette +took her funeral book from under her pillow and made a crossmark under +Josephine’s name. Now they were even. Her old hands shook and one +yellow tear rolled out of one eye. “Poor Gran’mamma,” her children +said, in whispers. “Poor old Granny....” + +Sleep did not come to Henriette until nearly daybreak. It began to +rain about midnight, a steady rain, long and full of the secrets of +autumn. And Henriette lay in her bed and thought about death and dying. +She thought about her grandchildren, how good they were. Somehow she +always felt sorriest for young people when anyone died. Not for little +children, or the very old; but the ones in between. The ones between +eighteen and forty, say. They took it hardest. How terrible death was +to them, how _everlasting_! If only they could know what _she_ knew, +she and the little children.... Of course, she wailed and carried on; +that was her business, her calling. But how often, right in the midst +of a funeral, even as she stood and gazed in the grave, she had longed +to go and whisper to youth’s white, impassioned grief, “There, there, +_chère_ ... don’t sorrow so hard. Me, I know. I tell you, I _know_.” +But what she knew she could not have said.... Henriette stirred in her +bed, sought a new place for her pillow. How often she had longed to say +to some bereft mother, she who had buried six, “Do not grieve overmuch, +little Mammy. He is not here. See! He is dragging a little tin can for +a train, across the white courts of Heaven.” + +Henriette slept, and after a time a bell tolled in her dreaming. It +awakened her. A gray light had come into the room, and the rain was +gone. Well, and who could be dead? Somebody old and rich was dead, the +bell had been tolling so long. The light about her bed grew brighter, +and the ceiling shone with rose. She dozed again; but when she again +awakened the bell was still tolling.... It must be an old person dead. + +Suddenly Henriette became aware of a flow, a movement in the house. +The windows rattled; a door was opened somewhere and shut. And then +there was a swishing of skirts, a running of feet. Her grandchildren! +They crowded about her bed, three-deep, tense and excited. The cheeks +of the littlest ones glowed, the way they did when there was bad news +to be broken; when the sugar was out, or the cat had fallen down in +the cistern. “Granny, what you think is happen? Old lady Josephine’s +gone!” ... They crowded closer, to see how Henriette “took it.” “Poor +Josephine, she got sick in the night and she passed away early this +morning.” + +Henriette sat up against her pillow, blinking. She looked like the kind +of old woman children make out of their knuckles, with black-headed +pins for eyes. And now the older ones, her daughters, stole into the +room on their tiptoes. They took her hands. “How you feel, Gran’mammy? +Is your throat all right? Well, they’ve done sent for you, honey. They +said Josephine asked for you in the night, to come and sing for her +funeral.... Well, _le bon Dieu_ is love you, sho’, Mammy.” + +All day her children were busy, getting Henriette ready: her best +alpaca cleaned and pressed; her mourning veil laid out, her gloves and +her shoes. Shiny and speckless they must be, to follow the honoured +dead. “Mammy,” her daughters said, “you stay in bed and rest, so your +voice will be good to-morrow.” They were nice daughters; they were +trying to make her feel prideful again.... All day long Henriette lay +and gazed out at the white gravelled road, stretching away, on past +Josephine’s house. Looked like she could see Josephine, sitting there +on her gallery, the fat running over! + +Well, she would miss Josephine, her old crony. Toni and Josie both +gone. It would be queer, a sort of joke, wailing for Josephine’s +funeral. It would be like singing beside her own grave. + + * * * * * + +The next morning, at the first peep of day, her children came in to +help her. “How you feel, Gran’mammy?” They looked at her and shook +their heads. She was so thin and so old. With her friends all gone she +seemed like something from some other life.... “Well, we won’t have +Mammy much longer,” they said. They crowded about her, solicitous. + +Old Henriette sat up in bed. “Fetch me my specs,” she grumbled. + +They brought her specs, her false teeth, her rosary, and her snake-oil. +They washed her feet and rubbed them, and helped her to dress. With her +mourning veil on she looked like a little black bride. And when she was +dressed and ready they brought her the funeral book. “Now, Mammy, look! +Mark it down--one hundred funerals. You’ve sung for more buryings than +anyone else in the parish.” + +But Henriette stared at the funeral book; she seemed mad about +something, offended. “Don’t meddle so much,” she cackled. “You wait +till I come home from Josephine’s funeral.” + +She set out in the ditch, holding tight to her little black bag and +her glasses. The grandchildren, who were to go on in the car, stood +and watched her sorrowfully. Once she turned back and waved.... She +was so little, so little and thin, so _perverse_! She hobbled along +in the ditch. Her funeral shoes felt stiff and heavy, and caught in +the Queen Anne’s lace; and whenever an automobile thundered by on the +highway, Henriette, terrified, put her hands to her ears.... Once, half +fainting, she stopped and clutched at the branch of a cottonwood tree. +And a loneliness passed over her, a loneliness and a heartache.... +“Josie,” she called, hopelessly, “Josie.... I’m a-coming....” + +But when she got to the turn of the road where the willows grew, she +faltered, distressed and alarmed. She could get no farther down in the +ditch. A freshet poured from a hole in the side of the road, and the +ditch in front of her was flooded with water. The black water boiled +and licked at her feet, treacherous and angry; and Henriette shrank +and backed away. For a moment she stood, trembling, uncertain; and she +stared at the road above her that stretched away in the sunlight, on +past Josephine’s house. Then, tottering and dizzy and sick with fright, +she pulled herself up the embankment, and with her face turned toward +Josephine’s house, began to hobble along on the highway. + +“Josie--” she whispered, and a numbness, a darkness took hold of +her--“Josie.... I mind as how, after all, my friend, you and me ull +quit even....” + + + + +WITH GLORY AND HONOUR + +BY ELISABETH COBB CHAPMAN + +From _Century_ + + +In a cross street of the riant fifties stands the Club Levering, an +old brownstone building in a brave new coat of tan plaster, with +wrought-iron lamps by its doors and an imposing uniformed figure to bow +you out politely, or with the force of a strong arm, in nice accordance +to the decorum or lack of it that you preserve within the precincts +which he guards. + +The Club Levering is not a club; it is a cabaret, a dance hall, and a +theatre, with a strong attraction for Broadway luminaries. They drop in +after the theatre to hear Hal Levering sing his new songs and to watch +the swells, strayed from up town East, dance and enjoy themselves. And +they love Hal. “He’s a great boy,” they say. “An artist. Some kid. +Listen to that now. Boy, how he can put it over!” + +Levering, born Lipwitz, had been driven to this place by a dim dream. +There was struggle behind him, years of the unbelievable struggle of +the poor man, of the immigrant Jew, against a relentless city. He +could remember dimly a night in southern Russia, the pogrom, flames +and the sounds of shots in the dark, driving out the Jew. He had been +held up by his mother, crying, on the deck of an immigrant ship to +see the Promised City blazing tall and splendid in the sunlight. They +had all been held up to see it, he and Lena and Roziska and Leo and +little Moses, even though Moses was too young to know what it was all +about--and the Promised Land, as it materialized, a tenement in the +crowded ghetto, too hard on the little Moses, who died in a few months. + +Behind Hal were the years as a singing waiter in cheap cabarets, as +a “song plugger,” small-time vaudeville, and then a revue; and now +marvellously he was Hal Levering, star and part owner of the Club +Levering, and packing them in at higher prices than any other night +club dared charge. + +He had done that single-handed. And he had carried the Lipwitz family +with him. Lena was now a dancer, a good one; Isaac, a partner in a +clothing store. Rosie had married a doctor. Mama kept house for Lena, +and if Papa had been alive, Hal would undoubtedly have found something +lucrative for him. + +Always his dream had driven him. The dream of the artist, inarticulate, +clumsy, hunting for the ultimate beauty. He sang jazz now and he +wore fine clothes, while around him were the flash of jewels and the +white faces of gaudy women and the throb of Bennie Bernstein’s music. +Everybody paid him homage, bowing, pounding on the table for Hal +Levering, the artist, singing “Abie’s an Irisher Now,” a song whose +words were a cry of pain, written by a Jew in contempt of his race. He +sang it gorgeously, with exaggerated gestures, flexible hands, and when +he did the part where Abie pretends to be the Irish plug-ugly, one saw +the cringe of the homeless race that was ingrained in Abie in spite of +the defiant throw of an Irish jaw. It was a beautiful bit of mimicking, +and even though he was a Jew he did not mind the ugly words at all. + +He had one song, “When My Little Baby Boy Says His Prayers to Me,” that +never failed to make his hearers cry. And there were tears in his own +eyes, when he came off, not because of the song--he knew hokum even +when he sang it himself--but because he could “get them” with it. Hal +Levering, the artist, his triumph ringing in his ears clapped out by +enthusiastic hands. + +The grinding afternoon before his new summer show went on; he was in +his element. About him were excited waiters arranging their tables, +decorators at work on the flowers, Bennie Bernstein in his shirt +sleeves, sweating over the new songs, Lilian Laine begging help with +the duet they were to sing. And then, as Hal went over his new numbers +alone, the waiters and the decorators, Lilian and song-wise Bennie +himself, stopped to listen to him. + +He had worked that day until his face was gray with fatigue, but when +at last he went out for his dinner, he walked bravely, with his head +up, a conqueror, Hal Levering of the Club Levering, a king on Broadway. + +The opening of the summer show had been an enormous success. The +entrance was choked with disappointed people who could not get in, and +at the door the page boys battled with the crowd clamouring for tables, +among which the lucky ones who had reservations battled their way. And +Hal moved from table to table to welcome his guests and receive homage. +This was his big night, his triumph, the end, he thought with a choke +in his throat, of his struggle toward the ultimate beauty. + + * * * * * + +Constance Corthwaite came to the Club Levering that night. She had +never been there before, but Hal Levering recognized her at once. She +was as much a celebrity to Broadway as she was to Fifth Avenue. One saw +her everywhere, a pirate of a woman with a face moulded firm in lines +of complete and terrible ennui, hunting for amusement, scattering her +millions with a disdainful hand. She had been Constance Corthwaite +for thirty-five years now, for she had never found a man to hold her +interest long enough to marry him. + +Levering had gone at once to her table, had been introduced, had +accepted a glass of excellent champagne, had bragged, had strutted, had +told jokes. + +“Your place is quite amusing,” Constance Corthwaite said. “I hear you +sing very well.” + +Hal Levering laughed. “That’s what they say. Have you ever heard me?” + +She shook her head. + +“Well, the stuff I do here is--well, no artist can put anything over +in a restaurant, but I’m opening in a new act, just a side line, you +know, at the Palace next week, and that’s where I knock ’em right out +of their seats. We’ve tried it out, and it’s great. Next week--come and +see me.” Then in a magnificent burst of cordiality: “Come around during +the show and see it from behind. How’d you like that, huh? See, I do a +skit, new songs, new patter--it’s a wow!” + +She had favoured him with a glance from her long eyes. “Thank you.” + +“What would you like to have me sing for you now?” he asked. + +“Try something good--I should like to see how it went here.” + +He sang “Sweet Siren” and “Pretty Little Mama” for her. She did +not applaud. He was disappointed. He had realized that she wasn’t +demonstrative, but he had hoped to win her. + +Her friends seemed to enjoy themselves, and he took no more trouble +with them. He noticed that they laughed, drank, and danced. Later +there was an animated discussion; he could see that from the floor +as he sang. Constance Corthwaite’s friends were arguing with her. +They leaned toward her, protesting. The attitudes were unmistakable. +Apparently unmoved, she blew smoke from her nostrils and with a wave +of her cigarette turned their attention back to him. They watched him, +shrewdly, for a few seconds, and then went off into quiet laughter. +Laughter at some joke which that long-eyed woman had designed. From the +floor, singing, he saw all this, for his early training had made him +observant. + +As Constance was leaving she beckoned to him. She stood at the door, +wrapped in her dark cloak. He went out at her nod, with alacrity. As +he went he wondered what she wanted and decided definitely that he did +not like her. “Too damned ritzy,” and he thought her ugly and badly +dressed, too, but after all she was Constance Corthwaite. Probably she +had fallen for him. Most of ’em did. + +She recognized his approach with the smallest possible nod. + +“Thank you for the songs. We enjoyed them. As I can’t watch you ‘knock +’em off their seats’ at the Palace, I suggest that you come down to +my place in the country next week-end and knock us off our seats down +there.” + +She was asking him to visit her. So she _had_ fallen for him. They +all did. He was inundated with female attentions. But a visit to the +Corthwaite place! Well, he had arrived! He accepted blandly. + + * * * * * + +Mommer and Lena helped him pack. They came from their apartment across +the hall to his and favoured him with their advice and assistance. It +was a lengthy business. Before he got off, the plush splendour of his +rooms was strewn with discarded clothing. + +“Take your dress suit, Hermie,” advised his mother. “Your new suit for +those swells is none too good.” + +“Wear your lavender sport suit for the golfing.” + +“A bathing suit.” + +“Your silk socks, Hermie. Hermie, you have forgot your silk socks, +Hermie.” + +“The lavender suit, Hermie.” + + * * * * * + +He got off at last. His big car seemed to eat the miles, exaltation +keeping time to the healthy song of his motor. He went swiftly through +the mean towns squatting on the island’s edge out to the rolling hills +of the North Shore. He dreamed dreams. Now a new billing suggested +itself. “Hal Levering--Society’s Favourite”--or better, “Hal Levering, +Society’s Favoured Comedian.” In his mind’s eye he could see an article +in _Vanity Fair_--perhaps--“Hal Levering, the erstwhile mammy songster +a belated society discovery.” + +He turned the nose of the car into the Corthwaite gates and at +a reduced speed moved up the driveway. In spite of the explicit +directions given him by the policeman in Jonestown, he wasn’t at all +sure that this was the place. + +He had passed, on his drive from New York, many great stone gates, so +high and so formidable that they gave only a niggard glimpse of blue +stone road, perhaps the outline of proud roofs upheld above the trees, +and he had expected the Corthwaite driveway to be at least as fine as +the finest of these. + +But this was just a comfortable country road, distinguished from its +kind only by a pair of lowly stone pillars and a squat frame cottage +doing duty as a gatekeeper’s lodge. + +He drove through a small woodland, not pruned or landscaped at all, +turned a corner, and found himself facing an expanse of lawn and a +rambling frame house, painted a soft faded yellow and adorned with +plain white shutters. The Corthwaite house laid claim to no other +beauty than that which is inherent in old colonial houses and in +ancient Greek vases, the unadorned beauty of line. Hal Levering was +disappointed in it. A butler, not in livery, met him at the door. He +was an old man and grumpy. + +“Mr. Levering?” he asked. Levering had an uncomfortable feeling that +his clothes, his car, and his abilities were all being evaluated, but +he dismissed the suspicion as absurd, for the old man’s eyes had not +moved. He was at the moment holding open the door. + +“Miss Corthwaite left word that if she had not returned at the time of +your arrival you were to make yourself at home and ask me for anything +you might require--sir.” + +Levering entered. + +“The Car?” he asked, and one had, as always, a feeling that he was +thinking of it with at least a capital “C.” “The Car will be all right +there?” + +“The chauffeur will take it around if you will give me the keys--sir,” +said the old man. + +“Oh!” There was an appreciative pause from Levering. This place was +like one of those English places he had heard of--all service--no show. + +The old man led him upstairs, and down a long hall to a bedroom, which +like the rest of the house gave the impression of luxury, although the +chintz was faded and the old furniture austerely simple. + +The windows gave one a view of a garden, a box hedge, and, looming +friendly in the rear, fruit trees not bowed as yet with the crop, but +holding the green fruit as sturdily as a street lamp its light. That +was no drawing room of a garden. The fruit trees were welcome to come +in if they liked. “I don’t call that much,” Levering remarked to the +air at large. He compared unfavourably the gay simple little flower +beds before him to the marble swimming pool and formal terraces of his +friend, Isaac Lowenstein, the moving-picture magnate. He carefully +dusted his gray tweeds, straightened his tie an infinitesimal fraction, +and from his bag searched out a bottle of brilliantine, and, anointing +a comb, smoothed his hair. + +Downstairs again, Levering found himself in the great room he had first +entered, and through which he had passed too quickly for an impression. +Now he frankly took its measure. It did not impress him. It was big, to +be sure, but the hangings were not velvet, the upholstery was not rich. +He decided that the early-American maple was cool looking but plain, +and the dim rosy riot of the chintz, comfortable but cheap. He wondered +at the house because he was sure that here, if any place in the world, +things would be correct, and he had expected to find a glorified Club +Levering with more crystal and more plush and more grandeur. + +The old butler found him there and offered liquid refreshment, which +was accepted gratefully. + +“Did Miss Corthwaite say when she’d be home?” asked Levering. It made +him lonely to be left to himself. The din of his days had beaten upon +his nerves until solitude was a thing abhorred. + +“She did not--sir,” said the butler. Hal was offended with his welcome. +He was doing Constance Corthwaite a favour in coming all the way down +here to the country, and she had made no effort to receive him. Left +alone, he looked about him for some source of amusement. Tentatively +he opened two small cabinets, hoping vainly that they might contain +phonograph or radio. He found only riding gloves, golf balls, a pair of +garden shears, and some sheet music. The music offered possibilities, +and in that room the big piano was the only piece of furniture that +looked like any furniture he had ever seen, but the music was queer +stuff. He did not know any of it, nor did he want to. + +There were magazines piled on the long centre table, and he looked +through them hopefully. Here was the bland impudence of the young +intellectuals with their opinions supported by the dignity of a Duncan +Phyfe table. If Hal Levering had possessed a subtle mind, he would have +fathomed Constance Corthwaite at that instance. Eccentricity upheld by +Duncan Phyfe. + +Half buried in the pile of papers and magazines he found an old book, +_The Book of the Corthwaites_, and in idle curiosity he turned the +leaves. There were long lists of names in it, explained by short +sentences. + + In 1732, Colonel Abednego Corthwaite married Eliza Pepperidge. He + settled in the city of Boston and became one of its most prominent + citizens. His children were Abednego, Elisha, John, Eliza, Aaron, and + Piety. Abednego died in infancy. Elisha married Patience Cabot. Their + children were---- + +“Good-night!” Levering’s surprise was jolted out of him. “What does +anybody care who those dead ones married?” But Constance Corthwaite and +her kind must care, or the book would not be here. He carried it out on +to the porch that gave a view of the garden and the apple trees. + +When Constance Corthwaite and the rest of her house party returned from +the golf links, they found Hal Levering reading.... + +“In 1802 Solomon Corthwaite married Sarah Emerson,” and in his eyes a +dazed, bored, yet questioning expression. + +“How d’ye do?” said Miss Corthwaite. She did not offer to shake hands. +“Sorry to be so late. Golf, you know. Did Lake make you comfortable?” +With a little wave of a hand she indicated her other guests, who, +apparently without seeing him at all, were settling themselves in the +low wicker chairs. “Miss Bromley, Mr.--er--Levering.” Miss Bromley, +whose sunburned face and quite frankly dirty hands gave evidence that +she had played a hard game, indeed, acknowledged the introduction by +not the faintest flicker of an eye. She was seemingly impervious to +introductions. Her bow was not to be considered as directed at him +at all. She merely happened to be bowing at that moment. Miss Paine +and Mrs. Douglass and an Englishwoman, Lady Greville, to whom he was +in turn presented, acknowledged his presence with equal enthusiasm. +The men were more cordial, “My cousin, Mr. Herton, Lord Greville, Mr. +Paine, Mr. Taylor, Mr. Valentine.” + +Levering instantly assumed the genial air of the club. That air, half +ingratiating, half bold, wholly impudent. From his smiling lips to the +bob of the little blue tassels that held up his blue golf stockings, he +radiated cordiality. + +They stayed out on the porch for a long time, discussing their golf +and the long cold drinks. Levering, whose ignorance of the game was +abysmal, and whose drink was finished, found himself rather out of +this. Sitting as he was in the centre of the group, it seemed as +though he were encircled by silence, while beyond there went on a very +animated chatter. And as the dusk slid over them he was conscious of +being lonelier than he had ever been in his life. + +After dinner that night things picked up a bit. They led him to the +piano and settled themselves expectantly around the room waiting to be +entertained. They were. He sang them new popular songs and old songs +that he had written himself, and he “got them” as he always got them at +the Club Levering. + +He gave them pathos for a finale, “When My Little Baby Boy Lisps His +Prayers at Twilight,” and as an encore, “Mamma, Sweet Mamma,” in his +rich tenor, “Please don’t hold out on m-e-e.” + +Miss Bromley and Mr. Taylor were inspired to do an apache dance. Lady +Greville came over to him. “How quaint!” she said in her staccato +voice and clipped pronunciation that he found difficult to understand. +“Rippin’--teach it me, won’t you?” He made room for her on the piano +bench. “See--like this--Ma-ma--sweet Mama--” she picked out the treble +with clever trained fingers. In a moment she was playing it very +well. “You’re some kid at the piano yourself, ain’t you?” he said +enthusiastically, boldly bending his head to look in her eyes. “But you +haven’t got it quite. Don’t play it like grand opera--see. It’s got a +wow--like this--SWEET MAMA!” + +From a corner Constance Corthwaite watched them with amusement. She +looked like a cat luxuriously gorging itself with cream. There was on +her face exactly that complacent, contented, and cynical expression. + + * * * * * + +The next morning he came down late. They had kept him at the piano a +long time the night before, and besides, not for years had he risen +early. He found the house deserted as it had been the afternoon +before. Not until the butler told him they were all out riding did he +remember dimly that something had been said about riding, that they had +suggested he come along. + +Out on the porch there were Sunday papers and warm sunshine. Levering +settled himself in a comfortable, soft-cushioned wicker chair and +picking up a paper turned to the Broadway page, where he found a +flattering notice of the Club Levering activities during the past week. +Yes, it was a triumph. Such a notice! “Quaintest night club in town.” +“Levering’s songs draw the élite.” + +Oh! He’d arrived sure enough, and now here he was the guest of honour +at the Corthwaites’ house ... kind of a funny way to treat your guest +of honour, though, to leave him alone.... But then they knew that an +artist had to have time to himself.... Sure, that was it. Levering +dropped his paper and lay back comfortably. He closed his eyes and +savoured his triumph. He was the Kid himself, and running with all +these swells.... Funny kind of a place, though. No dog, no swank ... +kind of shabby. Not a patch on lots of places.... And come to think of +it, the people ain’t such classy dressers.... Not much jewellery on +the dames.... That English duke’s dinner jacket didn’t fit so damn +good.... Slow kind of crowd; he didn’t get ’em at all.... Now when +he’d sung that nifty song it didn’t go so big ... that Corthwaite +dame had acted kinda queer, seemed like she’d almost sneered.... But, +foolishness ... she liked him fine, and she liked his stuff, too.... + +He moved petulantly in his chair. + +He wished they’d come back ... this was a bore ... no kind of way to +spend Sunday.... + +He picked up another sheet of the paper, but his attention wandered, +and it fluttered from his hand. “What the hell’s the matter with me?” + +It was very still out there. Levering had never felt such stillness. +It pressed on his eardrums. He could fairly hear the silence. There +was no way to escape from one’s self in such quiet. He was acutely +uncomfortable. This was nothing like the Lowensteins’ place! Why, +Sunday morning at this hour there would be a crowd of good fellows +drinking highballs and singing and telling jokes, and the marble pool +would be full of people, and like as not someone would climb up one of +those Italian statues of old Lowenstein’s and stick a bathing cap on +its head. Sure, there’d be things doing all right. + +But this stillness that screamed at you, and this funny little garden, +and no footman in livery, and no marble statues--hell! This wasn’t such +a place, and yet---- + +The stillness gives you funny ideas! + +Now, old Lowenstein, he can’t be all wrong--but Constance Corthwaite’s +place can’t be wrong at all. This place is right--for her brand of +people. And the house--now, the house must be right, too. It wasn’t +what he liked himself, but it was right. It was bound to be right. It +wasn’t as if she didn’t always get the best. She could have anything in +the world, and she knew what was right--and she had this. And if this +was right, the Club Levering was wrong. He turned a little cold at the +thought. The club was his creation, it was his dream, it was, in fact, +himself, and it was wrong! + +He stooped and picked up a sheet of the newspaper and folded it gently +and exactly. + +Corthwaite--she knows. She’s the kind that don’t make mistakes about +houses. + +He was not soothed and comforted in the sunlight now. He was acutely +and miserably fighting with doubt and distrust. For if the Club +Levering was wrong, then he was wrong. He had missed. He was cheated. +He was being shown a land that he could never enter, and desolately, +and suddenly now, he thought it was the only land worth entering. + +Oh, the terrible, silent scorn of this house, in its rightness, scorn +for him and his land and his dream! Hal Levering was a poet. It seemed +to him now that the house behind him had drawn together and was +straining to get away from him, just as the people in it strained away +from him and left him alone and outside. He tried to reassure himself. +There were all kinds of people in the world, and this was America, and +he was as good as anybody. + +“It ain’t so; I’m as good as any of ’em. What’d they ask me here for +if I ain’t? You big clown you, they asked you here to sing your jazz +songs, and so’s they could get a good laugh outa you. That’s what it +was for, you big dummy. Didn’t you see that Corthwaite girl sneering? +Sure you did. But you wouldn’t admit it! These people are right, and +you’re wrong, Hal Levering. You’re a Jew. No, that ain’t it either. +It’s because you ain’t a Jew--that’s it--because you’re pretending you +ain’t. Because you ain’t real. That’s it. They got their own names and +their own people and the things they’ve always had, but you--you’re +what they call a dirty Jew.... + +“That’s what it is about them that’s different--it ain’t just that +they got different styles in architecture--but they ain’t pretending +nothing. They don’t have to.” + +He remembered the smile that had curled Constance Corthwaite’s lips the +night before. It grew, it spread, the image of curving lips blotted out +all the warm world, and he was alone before them, his heart sick with +the humiliation of the degraded artist. + +Hal Levering rose from his chair, trembling a little, very white, just +as the riding party came strolling through the box hedge. + +He looked down at them from the steps of the porch. They came toward +him like sublime creatures oblivious of his presence and of his pain, +ignoring him as they would always ignore him. + +They were talking about someone named Coperbesby. He heard Constance +Corthwaite’s clear voice say: + +“He has the most intense sense of race. A fierce and proud belief in +the Jew, and if you don’t understand that he is a Jew, that everything +he does is racial and unsullied, you can’t understand his music at all.” + +Levering turned and, blundering against the door, went slowly out of +the sun, through the big quiet hall and upstairs. His room had been put +in order, and he hated to disarrange it, but he had to hurry, hurry +so that he could go quickly, and when you pack in a hurry things get +mussed up in spite of you. + + * * * * * + +The first thing his cronies at the club asked him was if he had had a +good time at the Corthwaite place. + +Bennie Bernstein, the orchestra leader, Mimi Deland, the specialty +dancer, and her lean effeminate partner, surrounded him as soon as he +appeared that Monday night. + +“Did you have a good time?” they asked him. + +“Sure, fine, fine.” + +Mimi Deland looked at him curiously. “Well, you don’t look it.” + +He turned on her furiously. “What do you mean, I don’t look it? What do +you want me to do? Sing a song about it?” + +She shrugged. “No,” simply. “But don’t chew my ear off.” + +“Say, don’t get the week-end habit,” said Bennie jovially. “That bird +you had here last night doing your stuff was awful. We wouldn’t keep +open a week with him around.” + +“Pretty bad, huh?” pleased. + +“Lousy!” + +It was time for his first song. As he stepped to the door that led him +to the spotlights and the applause, he said over his shoulder, “Don’t +worry about me getting the week-end habit; I won’t.” + +“Gee,” remarked Deland as he slammed the door on them, “I wonder what +they did to him. He’s back early, too.” + +He finished his song, and Bennie dipped his violin to his orchestra, +and they began the opening bars of “Abie’s an Irisher Now.” + +At the sound of the first notes, Levering stiffened as though he had +been stung; then, turning on his heel, he called harshly, “Don’t play +that song to-night--or ever again.” After which he walked stiffly off +the floor, refusing his encore, while the music stopped in the middle +of a bar, jarred to a silence that held until Bennie shattered it with +his music again. + + * * * * * + +It was several weeks before Constance Corthwaite came again to the Club +Levering. She was quite sure, of course, when Hal Levering fled from +her house without a word to any of them, that he had somehow realized +his position; but that was not what had kept her from the club. She had +been away. Now, to-night, she was in town again and a little bored, +and as Hal Levering had once amused her she came to his place in the +hope that he might again. He was a hired performer; if she had hurt his +feelings, well--she was sorry, but she had no intention of staying away +as long as he could give her a moment’s entertainment. + +The club had not been doing well for the last few weeks. Even Bennie +Bernstein’s saucy music did not hold the crowds. The reason, of course, +was that another man was in Hal Levering’s place. + +Constance Corthwaite listened to one of his colourless offerings, and +then called him to her table. + +“Where,” she asked, “is Hal Levering? Isn’t he going to be here +to-night?” + +“Nope, he’s left for good.” + +“Really, how disappointing! Where has he gone?” + +“Say, lady, you’ll never believe me when I tell you; it’s the funniest +thing you ever heard! You know the money he was getting here--fifteen +hundred a week and a rake-off, and he part owner at that----” + +“Really?” + +“Sure. Well, he came in here one day, nobody expecting it at all, and +told ’em he was through--just like that. Through. Told ’em he was going +back and be a real Jew, going to give his talent to his people. Can you +beat it? They thought he had gone crazy, of course. Fifteen hundred a +week and a rake-off--and do you know what he’s done?” The objectionable +young man paused dramatically. “Say, he’s studying to be a cantor in a +synagogue--can you beat that?--can you?” + + * * * * * + +It was a year and more before the Club Levering saw its part owner +again. A variety of rumours had floated along Broadway--Levering had +gone abroad to study, he had taken a position in a synagogue, he was +composing highbrow music--but soon the rumours died away, and all that +was left of Levering at his old stamping ground was the flashing red +and green sign of the club. Business had fallen off; new places had +each in turn engaged the fickle attentions of the city’s night-lovers, +and the Club Levering was patronized by only a few stragglers. And then +the management decided to make one more bid for popular favour with a +new revue. + +Bennie Bernstein laboured at his piano just as he had the afternoon of +Levering’s greatest triumph a year before, but the other performers +were new. No one now tried to fill Hal’s shoes; they had to depend on +a speeding chorus to cover up a palpable lack. And as Bennie sweated +to get the rehearsal into full swing, the service door opened and a +familiar voice sang out: “Hel-lo, Bennie, how’ve you been? Making the +grade O. K., huh?” It was Hal Levering. + +“My--God--Hal!” and Bennie leaped from his stool and seized Levering by +the shoulders. The other performers gathered around, and to Hal again +was given the once so sweet chorus of praise. + +“Cut it out--cut it out. Let’s get to work here. We gotta give ’em +something to knock ’em off their chairs!” + +Bennie looked at Levering in astonishment. Was he really coming back? +It was too good to be true, but here he was, and Bennie ran over to +the piano joyfully. His nimble fingers flew up and down the keyboard, +and then, triumphantly, he hammered out the first bars of “Abie’s an +Irisher Now.” Levering, who had been chatting with the chef, who had +come running from the kitchen, whirled about with a white face. + +“Bennie!” His voice stopped the music with the player’s hands suspended +in the air, such was its savage earnestness. “Never again that number, +Bennie. Levering’s a Jewisher now. Don’t forget that, hey?” Hal patted +his friend on the shoulder. “S’all right, Bennie, but there’s been some +changes made.” + +The rehearsal went on under Levering’s direction, and when he was +satisfied with it he turned to the piano and handed Bernstein several +sheets of manuscript. + +“Here’s some new numbers that I’m going to try,” he said. + +“Hot dog!” Bernie murmured, as he bent his expert gaze on the neatly +written sheets. Then an expression of bewilderment spread over his +face. What was this stuff Hal was pulling? He glanced sideways at +Levering, who was standing at the edge of the platform, his back +turned. With a shake of his head, Bennie played a few bars; then +Levering joined in, a new softness, a thrilling timbre, in his rich +voice. Again the few in the room stopped their chatter and listened +with puzzled expressions, which changed into real wonder and reluctant +admiration as Hal sang: + + “Set me as a seal upon thine heart, + As a seal upon thine arm, + For love is strong as death, + Jealousy is cruel as the grave. + Stir not up nor awake my love + Until he please.” + +When he had finished, a silence hung over the place. Hal turned to +Bennie. “Try the next one,” he said quietly. + +And again he sang a verse from the Song of Solomon, set to a wailing +accompaniment, that died away to a whisper, rose, swelled, and died +away again. It was thrilling, strange, but “Can even Hal Levering get +away with that stuff in a night club?” wondered Bennie. + +One or two jazz numbers followed, and Hal called off rehearsal. The +word spread that Levering was back, and that night, when the lights +were dimmed and the chorus twinkled through the opening number, the +place was crowded beyond seating capacity. + +There was no sight of Levering until after Buck and Wing, those +whirling cloggers, had done their turn. Then he appeared, and a burst +of applause, punctuated by the staccato click of the little wooden +hammers on the tables, showed that he still had a loyal following. + +Bennie, at the piano, nervously settled himself, waiting for the noise +to cease. Then Hal broke into one of his new songs, those songs that +are as famous now as “Eli, Eli.” The reaction of the crowd was amazing. +Some wept, some applauded, others sat silent, wondering. It was so +unexpected, so sudden, that before they realized it Hal had bowed +quietly and left the room. + +Later he sang several jazz songs, but after the applause he did not +join his patrons at their tables; he left the room in spite of +clamorous shouts of “C’mere, Hal,” “Have a lil one with us, Hal?” “Draw +up a chair, Hal.” + +Sitting at one of the tables were Lord and Lady Greville, Nancy +Bromley, and John Taylor. If Levering had noticed the presence of these +companions of his week-end at Constance Corthwaite’s, he gave no sign. + +“I told Constance he’d be back at it within a year,” remarked Nancy +Bromley, when Levering had left the floor and the lights had again been +brightened. “A taste of good fortune to a man like that always goes to +the head.... Cantor! It is to laugh.” + +The others were silent; then Taylor spoke: “That’s not the man we knew, +though. Don’t you get the difference? Those first songs were superb. +The man who wrote that music is a genius.” + +“Changed, nothing! That’s the same old Levering. I’ll prove it to you.” +Nancy called a waiter and told him to ask Mr. Levering if he would +speak to Miss Bromley. + +“What are you going to do?” asked Greville. + +“Never mind; you’ll see when he comes,” answered Nancy. + +In a few moments Levering appeared and walked through the aisles of +tables to where the party was sitting. He did not cross the floor +in his old swaggering manner, receiving homage as he went; but with +dignity he walked and, reaching the table, bowed quietly to the four +people. + +“Pull up a chair and have a drink,” invited Taylor. + +“No, thank you, just the same. Is there anything I can do for you?” + +“I am having some people down over the week-end of the twenty-third, +Mr. Levering,” said Nancy. “I should like very much to have you come.” + +“That is very kind of you, Miss Bromley,” replied Levering quietly; +“I should be very glad to come on Saturday evening and entertain your +guests. My charge for such an affair is one thousand dollars. I presume +you will not want me after eleven-thirty. I must be back in town early, +for I sing in a concert Sunday afternoon.” + +Nancy’s face was crimson as she answered, “That will be all right, Mr. +Levering.” Hal bowed and, turning, walked away. + +John Taylor looked with amusement at the discomfited Nancy and then +at the proud set of the head of the Jew who was now a Jew, a Prince of +Israel, and a verse that he had learned as a child came to him: “For +thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him +with glory and honour.” + + + + +BULLDOG + +BY ROGER DANIELS + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + + +“Next case!” Judge Barringer was brisk. Word had come to him that the +railbirds were plentiful down in the marshes of the Big Swamp and he +was going hunting. It was Monday morning, and the police-court docket +was an unusually large one even for Monday morning. + +Out of the group of Negroes waiting in the prisoners’ pen, a group so +large this morning that it overflowed on to the sunny porch beyond, +edged a giant Negro in answer to the turnkey’s signal. Rather, he could +have been said to plough his way through, for the men and women ranged +before him separated as does soft loam under the impelling blade of +the ploughshare. Once free of the crowd, the man stepped forward with +an easy but awkward shuffle until he stood directly in front of the +judge’s desk. At that moment Judge Barringer was intently scanning the +docket slip and figuring how soon he would be able to get away. + +The prisoner’s massive head might have been chiselled with an ax from +a block of black marble, and not too finely chiselled, at that. It had +the sheen of black marble, and was square and formidable, that head, +viewed from any angle. The jaw was square and protruding, the forehead +was square and receding, the nose was broad and flat. Just now the +mouth was spread wide across the shining ebony face. + +“Mawnin’, Jedge,” the big Negro said with a sheepish grin. “Heah Ah is!” + +Judge Barringer’s head jerked up instantly. He was not accustomed to +mawkish familiarity from his charges, nor did he fail to administer +stinging rebukes, when such were attempted, in the amount of sentence +given as well as in verbal reproof to any and all who might presume +to take such liberties. But as he took cognizance of the figure that +loomed before him, his expression changed. The frown that had furrowed +his forehead did not linger. It could not be said that he smiled, but +a look of real recognition, kindly and forbearing, came into his eyes. +One hardly frowns at an old acquaintance. + +“Well, Bulldog,” Judge Barringer said, calling the big Negro by the +only name he had, “I haven’t seen you for the longest time. Where have +you been hiding?” + +Bulldog grinned, even a broader grin than before, so that his white +teeth showed in a semicircle. “Same place wheah Ah usually is, Jedge +Barringer, Yo’ Honour. Down on the Fahm wiv Cap’n Jim.” The Farm was +the chain-gang camp. + +“It’s too bad, Bulldog,” the judge said, shaking his head; “you’re big +enough to keep out of trouble and mind your own business.” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge Barringer, tha’s jes’ what Ah was a-doin’, mindin’ mah +business, an’ Ah jes’ gits me into trouble jes’ the same. Seems lak me +an’ trouble sticks together lak a pair ob dice.” He grinned again. The +grin became infectious and Judge Barringer took it up. Even the stolid +fat Sam Perks, the turnkey, grinned. Then came a general titter, to be +brought to a sudden halt by the judge’s staccato gavel. + +Judge Barringer had suddenly remembered the railbirds and the Big +Swamp. He was off for a three-day hunt, and there were several things +he must attend to personally before turning over the affairs of court +_pro tem._ to the clerk. With still more than half a heavy Monday +docket to be heard from, there was no time for amusement this morning. + +“Well, where’s the witness against Bulldog? Is the Court to be kept +waiting? What has he to say for himself and why isn’t he here?” + +The patrolman who had arrested the big Negro stepped forward. + +“The witness is still in the hospital, judge,” he said. “Pretty badly +done up and they don’t know when he will be out. I guess the case will +have to be continued until he can appear.” + +“Waste of time,” Judge Barringer said crisply. “I know Bulldog.” He +turned abruptly to the big Negro. “Well, what happened this time? Tell +us your side of the story.” + +Bulldog shuffled from one foot to the other. “It was thisaway, Jedge, +Yo’ Honour. The las’ six months what you give me, they ain’t up till +to-morrow. Cap’n Jim, he startin’ the big ’Geechee Canal to-morrow. +Come las’ Friday, Cap’n Jim, he say, ‘Bulldog, yo’ bin a mighty good +nigger this trip. Ah’m lettin’ yo’ out a couple ob days ahaid ob time. +Mebby you-all be back so’s we kin staht wif the new ‘Geechee Canal +together.’ Ah reckon dat Cap’n Jim be right, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, cause +heah Ah is!” + +As Bulldog broke into another of those infectious grins, it was +necessary for Judge Barringer to rap for order, although he was forced +to cough to hide his own mirth. Any other morning Bulldog might have +been highly amusing entertainment, but the railbirds were calling from +the Big Swamp. + +“So much for that,” Judge Barringer said. “Tell us what happened. Why +is this man in the hospital?” + +“It was thisaway, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog repeated the formula: “Ah +gits me home an’ Ah finds that a yaller Washin’ton nigger been shinin’ +up to my Sally while Ah bin down on de Fahm. Yassuh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, +he’s shinin’ when I gits home. I comes in de front do’ an’ he goes out +de back. All Ah done, Jedge, was jes’ flicked dat nigger, ’cause he +don’ move fas’ enough.” + +“You just flicked him. What with?” Judge Barringer asked, as the term +was a new one to him. + +“Wif the back ob mah han’, Jedge, thisaway.” Bulldog made a snapping +gesture with one hand; “jes’ lak yo’d flick on a fly, Jedge. Dat’s all +Ah done to dat measly little nigger. He wasn’t big enough to hit.” + +“So you just flicked him like you’d flick off a fly?” Judge Barringer +questioned. + +“Yas-suh, dat’s all, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered. + +“And now this man is in the hospital and they don’t know when he will +be able to appear. It seems to me that the last time you were here you +said you had just made a pass at a man and when they got him to the +hospital he was cut in ten different places.” Judge Barringer leaned +back with an air of resignation. “Bulldog, you’re hopeless. I’m going +to send you back to Captain Jim for another six months. For the general +safety of the community at large, you’d better do your flicking on the +new Ogeechee Canal.” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered. + +Such a remark coming from any other prisoner would have been +impertinence and would have been swiftly treated as such. But between +old friends there are no impertinences. Bulldog turned away with a grin +and ploughed his way through the crowd in the prisoners’ pen to the +bench in the rear. Two Negroes got up hastily to make room for him. + +The business of the court moved along swiftly. The railbirds were +calling to the judge’s bench from the Big Swamp. Bulldog, on the +prisoners’ bench, was thinking of the convict captain. He liked Captain +Jim. “Ah guess he knowed Ah’d be back in time all right,” he mused to +himself. “Well, Cap’n Jim, Ah’m comin’.” + +Later that afternoon there was a meeting between the two. “Been waitin’ +all mawnin’ for you, Bulldog,” was the convict captain’s greeting. +“Just you run along and get your work clothes and then you can go over +and clean up my quarters.” + +The regular routine of the check-in was usually dispensed with in +Bulldog’s case, as it was to-day. Once safe in the convict camp, he +caused no trouble. He did the work of seven ordinary men and had withal +the stolid patience of a work horse. Only when he was at liberty was +Bulldog dangerous, like a colt turned out to grass which suddenly +remembers that he can kick. Captain Jim had been busy for several +minutes with the other prisoners before he realized that Bulldog still +stood back of him, shifting uneasily from foot to foot. He recalled +that the same thing had happened on one other occasion and grinned +inwardly. + +He half turned. “Bulldog, you go over and tell old Henry,” Cap’n Jim +said, “to give you something to eat.” + +“Yas-suh, Cap’n Jim,” Bulldog said with alacrity, his eyes brightening +and his lower lip hanging expectantly at the thought of food. “Dat’s +what Ah was hopin’ yo’ was goin’ to say, Cap’n Jim. Ah ain’t eat since +las’ night.” The sheepish grin spread over his face. “Seems lak Ah +cain’t relish de bacon and grits what dey gives up to dat city jail. +Dey don’t know how to feed a nigger lak yo’ does, Cap’n Jim.” + +“So that’s why you came back so soon, is it?” the convict captain said +with a laugh. + +“No, suh,” Bulldog answered soberly, his brows knit and his lips +protruding. “Ah didn’ come back fer no perticular reason, Cap’n Jim. +Now Ah stops and figgers it out, Ah guess it jus’ happen.” His face lit +up with an idea as he asked with all the wonder of a small boy, “Cap’n +Jim, you-all didn’ put no sign on me to make me come back?” + +“If you don’t get out of here quick I’ll put a sign on you you won’t +forget,” the captain exploded. + +“Yas-suh,” Bulldog called back to him over his shoulder, being already +half a dozen paces on his way. + +Ten minutes later, garbed in his chain-gang work clothes, with a chain +dangling from his waist, Bulldog poked his head through the open window +of the cook shanty. + +“Ev’nin’, Uncle Henry,” he said in a mellifluous tone to a gray-haired +Negro in cap and apron who was ladling the contents of a huge pot set +at the back of the big square stove. + +Uncle Henry looked up, his face crinkled with smiles that seemed to +close his eyes until they were shiny, laughing dots. + +“Dat you-all, Bulldog? Sho’ nuff I jes’ dis minute ’cided you done +dis’point Cap’n Jim an’ slumped a fresh ham bone an’ two pounds ob meat +on it into dat soup. But, Bulldog, boy, for you I fishes it out.” + +“Yas-suh, Uncle Henry, Ah knowed yo’ ain’t goin’ to see Bulldog starve. +Mebbe yo’ has a handful ob dem yaller sweet yams.” Bulldog’s mouth +fairly dripped. + +“Hush up dat fool talk, boy,” the old cook chuckled. “Don’ it do my +heart good to see them what likes they vittles? Bulldog, yo’ am de +most satisfactoriest meal hound what I know.” Uncle Henry doubled with +laughter, in which Bulldog, his mouth already crammed full, joined +heartily. + +Uncle Henry sincerely liked Bulldog. The giant never referred to the +fact that Uncle Henry was a lifer. For twenty-seven years he had been a +convict-camp cook. It was as a young man that, under the influence of +ten-cent white mule, he had lifted a chair against his legally married +wife. In Uncle Henry’s mind that dreadful event had always remained +as an accident. His whole life was being freely given in atonement. +When some of the younger convicts taunted him and called him the old +murderer, they left a hurt that remained with Uncle Henry for weeks. + +Bulldog shuffled toward the door finally with a sigh. “Ef Ah swallows +another swallow, Uncle Henry, Ah busts.” + +“Boy, come again when yo’s hungry; yo’ makes me proud.” The old cook +chortled, looking after him. + +As Bulldog turned into the lane to Captain Jim’s quarters, a small +whitewashed bungalow, two hounds bayed a ferocious greeting. + +“Yo’ Lady Belle, yo’ Junie, hush yo’ mouf!” Bulldog bayed back. Then +he grinned and tossed the remains of the fresh ham bone over the +chicken-wire inclosure. The hounds left off their racket instantly and +pounced on the bone, while Bulldog leaned complacently against the +inclosure and eyed them with satisfaction. + +“Dem houn’ dawgs go after dat bone lak it was a runaway nigger,” he +commented with approval. Though every other Negro on the place looked +upon the bloodhounds as a possible Nemesis, such a thought had never +entered Bulldog’s massive head. To him they were companions, and the +fact that he was allowed to feed them was proof conclusive that he was +above the ordinary regulations of the convict camp. + +He turned from the hounds presently and made his way to a small +outhouse, where he procured a pail, a whitewash brush and a scraper. +Captain Jim liked things to look spick-and-span, and the timbers +supporting the bungalow porch had acquired a reddish-brown mud colour +from the recent rains. Bulldog proceeded at the first job that he knew +would catch Captain Jim’s eye. He knew on which side his bread was +buttered. + + “Wasn’ it sad to see _Titanic_ sinkin’ down, + Wasn’ it sad to see _Titanic_ sinkin’ down; + Husban’s an’ wives, little chilluns los’ dey lives; + Wasn’ it sad to see _Titanic_ sinkin’ down.” + +Verse after verse, in the droning singsong of the old spirituals, kept +time to the whitewash brush. The underpinning of the bungalow was +certainly going to catch Captain Jim’s eye when he came up the lane. + +Two and a half hours later Bulldog took up his accustomed place in +line on the way to the mess hall. If he had recently gorged until he +couldn’t swallow another swallow, that was not going to interfere with +his doing full justice to Uncle Henry’s supper. And later, spread out +at full length in the bunk room over the mess hall, he lay on his +back and slept the sleep of the just. Sleeping on one’s back is said +to be conducive to snoring, but Bulldog was a silent sleeper. If he +was primitive in his mode of living, so, too, he was primitive in his +sleeping hours. Dead to the world he was, yet ready to be instantly +awake. + +Once upon a time a fellow convict night guard had taken the liberty +to bring his stick across the soles of Bulldog’s bare feet as he lay +asleep. It was a common trick, and as the sleepers were chained to +their flat bunks, the guard had only to step back out of harm’s way, +while the startled sleeper rubbed open his eyes and bellowed revenge +to the accompaniment of catcalls from the other prisoners. But the +unlucky guard who had attempted the prank at Bulldog’s expense carried +an eye that squinted forever after as a warning to all and sundry that +the giant was equally dangerous, asleep or awake. It must have been +that Bulldog had heard the swish of the descending stick in his sleep, +for the smack of it against the soles of his feet and the whoosh of +his hand striking the unwitting guard had been nearly simultaneous. So +Bulldog slept the sleep of the just. + +He was awake with the sun, and lay there for half an hour studying his +toes, even as a small boy of five or six months studies them. When +a man can do that intently for half an hour, his conscience isn’t +bothering him. So to breakfast presently and to take his place at the +head of the squad line. They were starting the new Ogeechee Canal and +Bulldog knew that Captain Jim meant him to set the pace. It was an +accepted fact that a squad line with Bulldog at its head got about a +week and a half of digging done in a week. It was useless to try to +drive labour out of Negro chain gangs, but to lead it out of them--that +was different. It explained why Captain Jim needed Bulldog. Winter was +coming along and the new drainage canal must be finished before the +flood rains of spring. + +The beginning was to be made some three miles away from camp, and +they marched out in formation, five men to a squad. The chain-gang +squad of five meant two ahead, two behind, and one in the middle. Each +prisoner had a leg iron around his right ankle, to which was attached +the four-foot squad chain. When they were on the march the squad chains +of each squad were linked together in a common ring, so that if a +man attempted to bolt on the road he would have to take four of his +companions with him. Even if the bolt were successful, it was poor work +for five men, chained together, to beat off pursuit in the swamp. When +they worked, each man carried his own chain hooked to a snaffle sewed +to his tunic. + +But the work line was watched over by a convict guard whose duty it was +to sit on a palmetto stump all day with a sawed-off shotgun across his +knees. Sometimes a prisoner escaped, but not often. + +Bulldog, at the head of the line, had never tried to escape. When his +time was up he had always hurried to town in high glee, but with a +certain remote feeling that sooner or later he would be coming back to +Cap’n Jim. Once back, he was content to work out his time. He liked to +work, he gloried in the fact that he could do the work of seven. + +“Ah reckon, big boy, dey hangs yo’ dis time.” Chinkapin, so named +because of his size, was the middle prisoner in Bulldog’s squad. He had +spoken irrelevantly to the landscape, a dreary waste of cypress knees +and cabbage palmetto extending half a dozen miles to the row of live +oaks that marked the river line. No one in the squad paid any attention. + +“Ah reckon, big boy, dey hangs yo’ dis time!” Chinkapin repeated. + +This time Bulldog half turned his head to speak, but as he did so +three turkey buzzards flapped crazily out of the swamp just ahead and +absorbed his attention for the moment. By the time the buzzards had +settled out of sight again Bulldog had forgotten Chinkapin. + +But the little convict was not to be so readily neglected. “Ah reckon, +big boy, dey hangs yo’ dis time,” he intoned once more. + +“Hangs who?” Bulldog demanded bluntly. “Chinkapin, yo’ half-size +nigger, shut yo’ mouf befo’ Ah sicks dem eye-pickin’ buzzards on yo’!” + +“Ah ain’ kill nobody,” Chinkapin answered glibly; “dem flip-flop death +angels ain’ lookin’ fo’ me.” + +“What yo’ mean yo’ ain’ kill nobody? What lie yo’ fixin’ to tell now?” +Bulldog had stopped and was facing his tormentor. “Who hangs who for +what? Yo’ tells de truf or Ah smacks yo’ cross-eyed.” + +Chinkapin had an active mind. Although he had never seen him, he had +heard about the squint-eyed night guard. Bulldog towered above him. In +one glance Chinkapin made full appraisal. Bulldog’s hand was the size +of a ham. There was no going back now, for the big Negro was evidently +riled. The three buzzards taking wing had been an omen. Chinkapin +should have realized that before he pressed his point. + +“Ah ain’ lyin’, Bulldog,” the diminutive one countered quickly. “My gal +done tol’ me las’ night when she brung mah clo’s. Ah’m leavin’ Sa’day.” + +“Who cares when yo’ leaves, han’ful? Did Ah ax yo’ when yo’ leaves? Who +hangs for what? Yo’ answer me dat in de whole truf or I slaps you pas’ +an’ presen’ an’ back again!” + +Chinkapin shivered. The delay had stopped the whole squad line, and +back along the line a convict guard was shouting. But Bulldog was +intent only on the little Negro before him. + +“Does yo’ answer me, Chinkapin, or does I knock you loose?” One hand, +open palmed, was raised threateningly. + +“Dat Washin’ton nigger died,” Chinkapin blurted out in shaking fear. +“My gal tol’ me when she come las’ night.” + +Bulldog’s hand dropped to his side. He stood absolutely motionless, +looking blankly at the quivering messenger of bad news. For a full +minute he stood there, and to Chinkapin it seemed that death itself was +standing there. + +“Is yo’ tellin’ de whole truf?” Bulldog demanded. + +“So help me!” quavered the terror-stricken Chinkapin. + +“If yo’ ain’----” + +But the sentence was never finished. One of the guards, alarmed at +the sudden halt, had fired into the air as a signal to the others. +The report of the gun had an electrical effect on Bulldog. If the +Washington Negro had died, he would hang. The three turkey buzzards, +frightened by the gun, came winging past. Out of the corner of one eye +Bulldog saw them. + +“Stan’s yo’ back!” he commanded quickly, at the same time shoving the +four other members of the squad into a huddle. That gave him about six +feet of chain to work on. Swiftly he bent. The chain was coiled like +magic first around one forearm and then the other. There was a grunt, +the ring of metal, and the chain had parted. Bulldog dived headlong off +the trail into the palmetto scrub just as the first convict guard came +running up. He fired both barrels of the sawed-off shotgun point-blank +in the general direction of Bulldog’s dive. Then he reloaded and fired +again, keeping up the process until the other guards arrived. In a +circle they closed in on the place. But the turned-back palmetto scrub +revealed nothing. Bulldog was gone. + +It was Chinkapin who turned an almost pasty gray face toward heaven as +he exclaimed, “May de Lawd have mercy on dis pore little nigger’s soul, +Ah didn’ mean no hahm!” + +When he dived, Bulldog landed in the lush swamp grass and proceeded +through it bellywise like a snake. He made a hundred yards that way +before he got to his feet and broke into a run. The palmetto scrub was +slightly higher than his head as he pressed forward ankle-deep in the +slime. He came to a halt presently to get his second wind, knowing that +he was safe for the immediate present. The convict guards couldn’t +leave the chain gang. They would have to summon Captain Jim and a +posse. By that time Bulldog would be well on his way. But where? + +Half an hour later, ploughing his way through the swamp grass to the +river, he was still pondering the question when his ear caught the +far-away bay of a hound. + +“Dere’s dat posse, sho’ nuff,” Bulldog grunted, and put on speed. He +was nearing the river and higher ground, and the going was easier. +The Big Swamp, on both sides of the river, was mostly tidal backwash. +There wasn’t a habitation for miles ahead, and once he got to the +river, Bulldog felt he could swim downstream and lose himself in the +swamps on the other side. Unless the crime were a very terrible one, +a white man’s posse wouldn’t break its neck searching the swamps for +one chain-gang Negro more or less. Bulldog, for all his uncouthness, +had a rough-and-ready knowledge of the customs of the country. But for +one day the chase would be hot; the cry of the hounds, giving tongue, +assured the big Negro of that. Even now the dogs seemed to have gained +on him, and he stopped to listen. They were much nearer than they had +been before. Bulldog’s worried face changed to reveal a grin. + +“Dem houn’ dawgs ain’ on no leash. Cap’n Jim done loosed ’em!” He +chortled aloud as if to convince himself that his ears had not deceived +him. He cocked his head on one side and listened intently. “Sho’ nuff! +Dat’s Lady Belle and Junie.” + +The river line, with its row of live oaks festooned with Spanish moss, +was a scant half mile away now, and the going underfoot was solid. +Bulldog broke into a steady run. In a few minutes he had reached the +first of the live oaks. Back in the glory days of the old South, these +magnificent trees had been set out by some long-since-departed rice +planter. Now their branches interlaced. + +Bulldog swung himself into a tree, got up among the middle branches, +ran out a good-sized limb like some giant monkey, paused, and then +swung himself into the next tree. The hounds were close now; he could +hear them as he climbed. But they were running the trail far ahead of +the posse. Through the second tree and into the third swung the apelike +giant. He kept on until he had reached the fifth, from which he dropped +swiftly to the ground. He found a stout section of an old branch, +tested it with the weight of his hand, and then swung back in a circle +to lie in wait beside his trail. + +He did not wait long. The hounds went by in full cry, Junie in the +lead, Lady Belle at his heels. The bloodhound cares neither for sight +nor sound, but follows his nose. Bulldog closed in behind them and +grinned broadly as they came to a baffled halt at the foot of the live +oak. + +“Yo’ Lady Belle, yo’ Junie, hush dat racket!” + +At the sound of his voice the hounds whirled to face him, baying +excitedly at this strange turn of affairs. + +“Yo’ heah me? Hush dat racket!” Brandishing the broken limb, Bulldog +stepped toward them. “Ah feeds yo’ wiv mah own han’s and yo’ runs me +down jes’ lak Ah was a runaway convic’ nigger! Junie, Lady Belle, fo’ +dat Ah frails yo!” + +The broken limb descended in a sidelong swish and Junie was bowled +over. A split second later, in the midst of a protracted howl, Lady +Belle got the same treatment. Both hounds scrambled to their feet +whimpering. + +“Hush dat noise! Yo’ ain’ hurt!” Again the tree branch came swishing +down, but this time above their heads. The hounds were cowed. “Tracks +me down lak a runaway convic’ nigger, will yo’? Now yo’ gits!” Bulldog +grunted savagely. “Home, Junie! Home, Lady Belle, befo’ Ah cuts loose +an’ frails yo’ good!” + +With tails down, both hounds turned and fled. Bulldog sent the tree +branch soaring through the air after them. It lit at their heels and +sent them scurrying faster. + +“Why fo’ Cap’n Jim let loose dem houn’ dawgs? He might knowed Ah’d +frail ’em,” the big Negro commented philosophically. It was common +knowledge that a bloodhound loose on the trail could be beaten back, or +frailed, as usage had it. But time for philosophy was short. Bulldog +went down to the river at a jog trot, hesitated at its brink and then +dived overboard into the deep water that cut into the live-oak bank. He +came up with a snort and struck out for the opposite shore. + +The tide was strong and carried him well downstream, which was to his +advantage in putting distance between himself and his pursuers. It +was in searching for a convenient landing place that he spied a boat +pulled up in a bayou. That meant someone else was there, and he allowed +himself to be swept farther downstream. It also offered him means of +getting upstream with much less trouble than through the swamp. He cut +into shore presently, and keeping well under the bank, worked his way +around to the boat. It was high and dry, and a pair of oars were tucked +under the seats. + +Just as Bulldog reached for them there was the reddish-brown flash of a +copperhead that had been sunning itself. Outraged at being disturbed, +the reptile struck. But the giant Negro was quicker and snatched his +hand back out of harm’s way. + +“Jes’ fo’ dat, little red snake, Ah whuffs yo’,” Bulldog grunted. + +Sensing danger, the copperhead squirmed for the gunwale of the boat and +the safety of the river. Once more the big Negro was quicker. His heel +descended and the snake’s head was crushed. + +“Whuff!” he grunted. “What Ah tell yo’?” Reaching down, he picked up +the remains and tossed them on the sun-baked bank. The whole little +drama had consumed not more than ten seconds. Bulldog shoved the boat +into the river and clambered quietly aboard. + +Once in the current, he pulled upstream, using a long, steady, untiring +stroke. As a pickaninny, a flat-bottomed river rowboat had been his +hobbyhorse. It would be a full hour before the posse would get within +sight of the river, he figured, even if it came that far, now that the +hounds were no longer giving cry to guide it. Lady Belle and Junie had +cut it straight for home. + +Ten miles above the place where he had first struck the river, Bulldog +pulled the boat into a bayou, beached it well up among a covering +screen of scrub palmetto, and then crawled under it and went to sleep. + +The frogs were singing the sun to sleep when he awoke hungry. All along +he hadn’t had any idea at all where he was going, but that was a matter +which could easily remain indeterminate. The gnawing at his stomach was +serious. He would starve to death in the swamp; so, as a hiding place, +the swamp was cast aside. + +“Ah got to git me goin’,” he mumbled to himself, his lips protruding +as they always did when he was perplexed. In an hour it would be dark. +He decided to wait. Presently, in the growing dusk, he dragged the +boat down to the river, and tucking the oars under the seats as he had +found them, he gave it a heave that sent it well out into the stream. +He watched while the current caught it up, nosed it around and bore it +from sight in the gloom. “Dey don’ git me fo’ stealin’ no boats,” he +grumbled dispassionately, “but I sho’ would relish me some food.” + +The yellowest of yellow moons, as big as a house, bathed the palmettos +with metallic beauty when Bulldog silently and sullenly struck off +through the swamp, heading south. He was going down to the sea, but +there was no romance in his going. It was the urge of his stomach that +led him that way rather than striking inland. The sea coast below +the Big Swamp was a series of wind-swept savannas. It was broken +by innumerable inlets and fringed with islands. But there were no +settlements along this strip for miles and he would be safe from the +sight of men. The beaches offered clams, crawfish, and prawn. He had +never been a fugitive before. He was lonely for the companionship of +his kind. Most of all, he was hungry. + +Hour after hour he went on and on through the swamp, another shadow +among a million, yet the only one that moved. His gait was rapid, but +not hurried, a relentless, ever-forward swinging rhythm of motion. If +he took bearings, he took them subconsciously. He made no plan. At the +sea he would find something to eat. His mind travelled no farther than +that. He even forgot that he was lonely. + +A sudden cry through the stillness of the night sent dread loneliness +over him like a pall and stirred every fibre of him, so that he +quivered where he stood, as frozen as the other million shadows about +him. At once the night had a myriad of tiny sounds that mounted and +mounted, until, joined with the pulsations of his own body, they seemed +to roar in his ears. + +But the cry that had startled him had been human. He sensed that, as he +stood listening to hear it again, stood like a statue in the moonlight, +motionless and breathless. Had the cry come from above or below him, +from before or behind him? He couldn’t tell, but as he strained his +senses he became gradually aware that he was not alone in the swamp. +The moon was well overhead now, and though it was half as bright as day +in the upper world, every shadow was as black as pitch. Insects droned, +the palmetto leaves caught a fitful breeze and rasped dully, unseen +things crackled in the undergrowth. + +“Whar yo’ is?” + +Bulldog jumped two yards at the sound of his own voice, not realizing +that he had experienced a psychological moment, that the very stress +he had put on his senses of perception had caused him to speak out, +just as a householder who fancies he has heard someone outside his door +will call out, “Who’s there?” And while he stood there unable to decide +whether to remain or run, that human cry came to him again, this time +almost at his feet. + +His teeth chattered now from mental if not bodily fear. Sounds do not +come from nothing; and yet, strain his eyes as he would, he saw only +a cabbage palmetto and its jet-black shadow in the place from whence +it seemed to him the cry had come. Still he stared at the shadow. +Something was there. As he stared, he saw it take form. Slowly at first +it grew round and whitish, then its shape became more definite. Bulldog +was hypnotized by it now, glued to the spot where he stood. He tried to +ask it what it was, but his lips refused to move. He was cold now--cold +and shivering. Then, with a rush, his breath came back to him. The +thing had moved and was looking at him and he knew what he saw. + +“Bulldog!” the thing gasped. + +“Jedge Barringer! Ah thought yo’ was a ghos’!” + +“Thank God you’ve come,” the judge said weakly. “I’ve had an accident. +I’m shot in the leg. Not bad, but I lost a lot of blood before I got +the flow stopped. I guess I’ve crawled ten miles trying to find the +river and my boat. But I’m all right now. Who’s with you? Captain Jim?” + +Bulldog heard and yet didn’t hear. Judge Barringer had been hunting +and had shot himself in the leg. He had tried to reach his boat and +had failed. The boat in question was the one Bulldog had found and +appropriated; the boat he had later set adrift. The judge thought +Bulldog had been sent out to look for him by Captain Jim. + +“You black hyena, don’t stand there like that!” Judge Barringer +exploded feebly. “I’m no ghost. Call Captain Jim.” + +“Jedge, Yo’ Honour, dey ain’ nobody heah but me,” said Bulldog, simply +stating a fact. + +“You mean to say you came for me alone?” Judge Barringer was suffering +from a terrible ordeal and was not thinking very clearly. “But how did +you know----” + +He stopped. Bulldog had not come for him. No one had come for him. He +had slipped off quietly to hunt alone, expecting to go on that night to +Bryan Neck. The whole idea of someone coming for him had been a sort of +nightmare of hope when his brain had failed to function properly. He +might still be suffering from hallucinations. + +“Bulldog!” He spoke to make sure this towering Negro before him was +real. + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour.” Time and circumstances could not alter +custom, and Bulldog’s answer was a tribute to habit. + +“Bulldog, what are you doing here?” + +“Jedge, Yo’ Honour, it’s thisaway,” the big Negro began. + +“That’s enough,” the judge cut in with a sigh of relief. “As long as +it’s you, I don’t give a damn what you’re doing here. Just give me a +hand and help me get to the river. I’ve got a boat there in a little +bayou between two live oaks.” + +Bulldog bent and helped the judge to a sitting posture. The judge +groaned and then swore. + +“Dat boat, Jedge Barringer?” Bulldog asked. “Dat was’n de boat wiv de +red paint on de oar handles?” + +“Yes, that’s the one. So you know where it is? That makes things +easier.” Judge Barringer was fast being able to think once more. + +“De las’ time Ah see dat boat, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, she was gwine down de +middle ob de ’Geechee all by itself,” Bulldog explained honestly. + +“You mean adrift?” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, jes’ lak a ol’ tree log.” + +“All right.” It was no time to bewail the loss of a boat. “Then you can +take me back in your boat, Bulldog.” + +“Me, Jedge? Ah swum.” + +Judge Barringer put out a quick hand to Bulldog’s leg. The big Negro’s +clothes were dry. “You swam across? When?” he asked warily. + +“Ah reckon it mus’ ’a’ been a couple hours befo’ dinnertime,” Bulldog +answered. He knew from experience it was useless to try to lie to Judge +Barringer. But the thought of dinnertime prompted him to add hopefully, +“Yo’ ain’t got nuthin’ to eat on yo’, has yo’, Jedge, Yo’ Honour?” + +“Do you mean to tell me you broke away from the chain gang?” + +“No, suh!” Bulldog answered hurriedly. “Ah didn’ do nuthin’ lak dat. It +was thisaway, Jedge, Yo’ Honour: Dat Washin’ton nigger die an’ Ah cain’ +see no use in cravin’ to hang by mah neck.” + +Judge Barringer was thoroughly aroused now. “Who told you that nigger +died?” + +“Chinkapin.” + +“Where?” + +“He’s on de chain gang.” + +“I don’t believe it!” + +“Befo’ de Lawd, Ah wouldn’ lie to yo’, Jedge Barringer, an’ yo’ knows +it!” Bulldog said fervently. + +“I mean I don’t believe that nigger died,” the judge explained. + +“If yo’ believes it or don’ believes it, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, dat don’ +save mah neck.” + +“Well, we’ll see about that when we get back. In the meantime you can +have my word for it, that nigger didn’t die.” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour. Ah’ll take yo’ word for it--on’y, we ain’ +goin’ back,” said Bulldog emphatically. + +“Do you mean to say you aren’t going to help me get out of here--that +you’d go away and leave me?” Judge Barringer looked straight up into +the face of the big Negro. + +“No, suh! Ah ain’ goin’ away an’ leave yo’, Jedge Barringer, but also +Ah ain’ goin’ back wiv yo’ an’ git hung by de neck for no yaller +Washin’ton nigger.... Ain’ yo’ even got a san’widge, Jedge?” + +Judge Barringer was rapidly, in his weakened state, becoming +exasperated. “Now, you listen to me, Bulldog, and don’t be a fool. I +don’t want you to hang any more than you want to hang. Chinkapin never +told the truth in his life. If he said that nigger died, he meant it as +a joke, and you jumped to conclusions and----” + +“No, suh, Jedge, Ah ain’ jump to nuthing. Jes when Chinkapin say dat +nigger die three flip-flop death-angel buzzards come flyin’ right ovah +mah haid.... If yo’ ain’ even got a san’widge, we goes hungry, both of +us; but, Jedge, we ain’ gwine back fo’ to git me hung.” Bulldog was +adamant on that point. + +“If I had a gun, Bulldog, I’d shoot you!” Judge Barringer threatened. + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog agreed solemnly. “But dat +wouldn’t be gittin’ me hung by de neck. Ah saw oncet a lynch nigger an’ +his neck was stretch out as long as mah arm. No, suh, Jedge Barringer, +when Ah dies Ah dies so dey can put me in de coffin beautiful.” + +“Can’t you do something besides talk like a fool?” Judge Barringer felt +that his strength was slipping away from him. The hope that had come +with Bulldog’s arrival was fast disappearing. His head sank resignedly +to his chest. His brain was beginning to grow muddled again from sheer +exhaustion, when he felt that Bulldog had taken him by the shoulder. +From a long way off he could hear the big Negro’s voice. + +“Jedge Barringer, don’ yo’ go passin’ out. Ah’ll git you home someways. +Gives me yo’ arm an’ I totes you to Ossabaw.” + +Ossabaw? That was an island at the mouth of the river fully fifteen +miles distant. Now Judge Barringer, semiconscious as he was, knew +that Bulldog was crazy. If he should be taken to Ossabaw, he would be +farther away from help than ever. He would stay rather where he was. It +was warm here, and quiet. + +But when the black giant reached down and picked him up he made no +protest. He was not even aware that he was being carried. Under this +new burden, Bulldog found the going heavy in the swamp and made for the +higher ground near the river bank. It was the wind coming up from the +sea some two hours later that had a reviving effect on Judge Barringer. +He opened his eyes to see a shadow a yard away. + +“Is that you, Bulldog?” he asked. + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, dis is me.” + +“If you won’t do anything, why do you stay here?” Judge Barringer said +petulantly in his weakness. + +“Shucks, Jedge, we ain’ heah no mo’; we’s halfway to Ossabaw. Yo’ +weighs like ce-ment, Jedge. When Ah gits me a li’l’ res’ we goes on.” + +“Halfway to Ossabaw?” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge.” + +Judge Barringer lapsed again. It was useless to try to argue with the +crazy hyena. If Bulldog had made up his mind to take him to Ossabaw, he +would have to go, being unable to resist. He saw a picture of himself +as a fellow Crusoe, fugitive from justice with a chain-gang Negro. +But if that leg of his lost its soreness, if he ever was able to get +around again, he swore that it would be much better for Bulldog to have +hanged. A sudden jolt, a feeling that he was floating, and he knew that +they were on their way. + +When he opened his eyes again they were still on the go. His injured +leg--it had been a flesh wound in the calf--was numb and did not pain +him now. It occurred to him that he might even be able to walk. But the +side-to-side sway, as he was carried along, seemed much easier; and +besides, there was little weight to his body now; he felt as light as +a feather. Years after, he was to look back at that moment and wonder +what ever had put such a crazy notion in his head. He closed his eyes +again. + +“Jedge Barringer!... Jedge Barringer!” Bulldog was calling to him, but +it was cold and he did not want to get up. + +“Jedge Barringer!” + +That was not Bulldog’s voice. He roused himself with a great effort +and sat up. A bent old Negro was on his knees before him, his face a +picture of despair. Suddenly it was wreathed in smiles of thankfulness. + +“Jedge Barringer, yo’ is alive, thank de Lawd! Ah been callin’ yo’ fo’ +de longes’ time until Ah jes’ ’bout reckon yo’ was a corp’.” + +“Daddy Ike!” Judge Barringer gasped. “Where did you come from? Where’s +Bulldog?” + +“Down on de plantation, Jedge.” The old Negro’s face looked puzzled. +“How come yo’ don’ know Ah ain’ nebber lef’ Ossabaw, Jedge?” + +And then Judge Barringer remembered. Ossabaw Island was the seat of the +old Depford plantation, now only a relic of the past, and Daddy Ike was +the oldest Negro in the section. He still lived in the old ramshackle +slave quarters and eked out a living by fishing and raising truck. +Everyone knew Daddy Ike, and yet Judge Barringer had forgotten until +now. This was the reason they had come to Ossabaw. It was dawn. Bulldog +had been carrying him all night. He owed his life to the big Negro. + +Daddy Ike misread the judge’s thoughts. “Bulldog he gone,” the old +Negro said quickly. “Yo’ fergit all ’bout him, Jedge Barringer, while +Ah helps yo’ to mah boat.” + +“That crazy nigger’s gone? Where?” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Bulldog’s de craziest nigger in de worl’. Why fo’ yo’ +an’ me gib two goobers wheah dat fool nigger’s gone? Us is gwine to git +yo’ home, Jedge. How’s yo’ laig?” Daddy Ike changed the subject. + +Judge Barringer smiled. “Daddy Ike, you old rascal, don’t lie to me. +Bulldog saved my life. Where is he?” + +“Jedge Barringer, Ah don’ know. De las’ time Ah seed him he was sittin’ +in mah house eatin’ hominy grits an’ side meat an’ yams an’ black-eye +peas; an’ lissen to me, Jedge, if Ah don’t git yo’ home and git back +dat crazy nigger’s gwine to eat me into de po’house. But Ah don’ know +wheah he is now.” + +“All right,” Judge Barringer laughed. “We’ll see about that later. +Where’s your boat, Daddy Ike? If you’ll give me a hand I think I can +hobble.” + +“Dat’s right, Jedge, lets us go. Heah’s de boat. Bulldog he swum across +to de island an’ like to scairt me senseless, comin’ up to mah do’ in +dem chain-gang clo’s. Ah’d ’a’ come across to yo’ right away, Jedge, +but dat crazy Bulldog said Ah got to feed him fust. If we don’ get yo’ +home he’ll eat up all mah winter rations!” + +With the old Negro’s help, Judge Barringer managed to bear his weight +on the uninjured leg and hobble down the few feet of bank to the boat. +Ossabaw Island lay like a black blob in the early morning mist a +quarter of a mile away. But their way lay in the opposite direction, +and Daddy Ike, for all his eighty-odd years, lost no time in pushing +off. Bulldog had told him to bring back a pair of overalls and a shirt, +and he wanted to get back as soon as possible before the ravenous giant +ate him “into de po’house.” Also he was genuinely alarmed for the +escaped convict’s sake and wanted him to get away before the law came +after him. + +“Yo’ ain’ gwine to say nuthin’ ’bout Bulldog, is yo’, Jedge?” the old +man asked presently. “Dat nigger’s crazy, but fo’ all he size, he’s +jes’ lak a baby.” + +“I’ll let you know later,” Judge Barringer said absently. He was +pondering the question of just what was to be done with Bulldog. He +knew that the big Negro would not go far. It was only a matter of time +before he would be caught in some shanty or other, giving way to his +appetite. But Judge Barringer was also convinced in his own mind that +the story of the Washington Negro’s death had been a hoax--a hoax that +had worked too well. And when they landed at one of the first river +settlements where the judge could get a conveyance that would take him +back to the city, the first thing he did was to get to a telephone and +wait while he had his secretary at the other end give him a report from +the hospital. + +“Discharged yesterday, Judge,” the secretary reported. “It would be +pretty hard to find him now. After his experience with Bulldog I guess +he’s left town.” + +“All right; didn’t want him anyway,” said the judge. “Tell Dr. Rafe +Kirby to go out to the hospital and wait for me. I’ll be there in about +an hour, bringing an accident case.” + +Before the secretary could question him further, he hung up the +receiver. Judge Barringer hated personal publicity unless it had to do +with politics. + +He turned to the storekeeper, whose telephone he had used. “Would you +mind telling that old nigger out there I want to see him a moment?” + +Daddy Ike came in with his hat in his hand. “What dey say, Jedge?” he +asked anxiously. + +“That Washington nigger was let out of the hospital yesterday and by +now he’s halfway home.” + +“Praise de Lawd for dat!” breathed Daddy Ike. + +“And tell Bulldog when he finishes eating that he is to come and report +to me before he goes back to the chain gang,” Judge Barringer said. The +least he could do was suspend sentence, but if possible, he wanted to +do something more substantial than that. + + * * * * * + +Thorough examination by Dr. Rafe Kirby showed that the gunshot wound +was superficial. The hardship of crawling mile after mile through the +swamp had caused most of the judge’s suffering. He was promised that he +would be around with the aid of a crutch in a day or two. + +“But I thought you went after railbirds, Judge,” Dr. Kirby said with a +grin when the patient’s wound had been dressed. + +“Rafe, if you-all don’t want me to lose my reputation as a gentleman +before this young lady nurse, get out of here quick,” Judge Barringer +bellowed. + + * * * * * + +It was the following Monday, still hobbling with the aid of a crutch, +that Judge Barringer returned to the bench. There had been no word +from Bulldog and he did not quite know what to make of it. When the +first case was called, a small Negro, whose head was almost completely +shrouded in bandages, stood before him, Judge Barringer looked down +compassionately. + +“Well, what did you run into--a truck?” he asked. + +There was a movement in the prisoners’ pen. The Monday-morning crowd +was being swayed by some unseen force. Then the force came into view in +the shuffling, sheepish form of Bulldog. + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, heah Ah is!” + +“Bulldog!” + +Judge Barringer was accustomed to almost anything that might happen +in his court, but for the moment he was nonplussed. “Didn’t Daddy Ike +bring you my message?” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, it was thisaway----” + +“Why didn’t you come to me if you got my message?” Judge Barringer +interrupted, his dismay turning to reproof. + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, Ah’m comin’ to dat. It was thisaway,” +Bulldog pleaded apologetically: “If yo’ was to take dem rags offen dat +little half-size nigger, yo’d see it was Chinkapin hidin’ behin’ ’em.” + +“Chinkapin!” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, de same what tol’ me dat lie ’bout dat Washin’ton +nigger dyin’. Dis heah Chinkapin cause all de trouble, Jedge, Yo’ +Honour. If it wasn’ fo’ Chinkapin’s lyin’, Jedge, Ah wouldn’ ’a’ bus’ +loose from de chain gang. If it wasn’ fo’ dat little han’ful lyin’, I +wouldn’ hab tote’ yo’ all de way to Ossabaw. Don’ blame me fo’ totin’ +yo’ to Ossabaw, Jedge; blame Chinkapin; he done it. Dat Chinkapin +nigger’s to blame fo’ ev’y las’ bit ob de trouble. So’s when Ah’m +comin’ from Ossabaw Sa’day night, comin’ to see you, Jedge, Ah bumps +into dat Chinkapin an’ Ah jes nachelly squeeze his lyin’ haid fo’ him +and gib him a couple ob shakes and dat’s all.” + +“Why did you wait until Saturday to come?” Judge Barringer asked. + +“’Deed, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, how come Ah could come befo’ Sa’day? Cap’n +Jim didn’ let Chinkapin loose offen de chain gang until Sa’day,” said +Bulldog honestly. + +Judge Barringer did not smile this morning. The business before him was +too personal. The little bandaged Negro had lied to Bulldog. But in +breaking away from the chain gang, Bulldog had been the means of saving +the judge’s life, for he might never have been found in the swamp. It +had been his purpose to suspend sentence on the big Negro, to take him +under his wing and get him a job. Now that seemed impossible. + +“What do you think I ought to do, Bulldog?” he asked the giant gravely. + +“Who, me?” Bulldog looked incredulous. “Shucks, Jedge Barringer, Ah’ +don’ know what yo’ ought to do, but Ah knows what yo’ is gwine to do.” + +“What’s that?” + +Bulldog grew suddenly serious. He had heard enough tales of road gangs +in the northern counties of the state, where it was cold in winter, +where the prisoners were badly treated, and the food was poor. + +“Yo’ ain’ funnin’ wiv me, Jedge, Yo’ Honour? Yo’ ain’ holdin’ it +agin me for totin’ yo’ all de way down to Ossabaw? ’Deed, Jedge +Barringer”--and here pathos entered Bulldog’s voice--“’deed, if yo’ +sen’ me anywheres besides to de Fahm, yo’ll bus’ Cap’n Jim’s heart.” + +Judge Barringer sighed a sigh of relief. “All right, Bulldog, you win. +Six months on the Fahm. And you, Chinkapin,” he said, turning to the +little Negro--“you go with him.” + +“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog grinned. As long as he could be +under the gentle tutelage of Captain Jim and Uncle Henry, the cook, he +was happy. + +“An’ yo’ kin trus’ me, Jedge Barringer,” he said solemnly. “Ah won’ +bus’ loose no mo’.” + + + + +HE MAN + +BY MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS + +From _Saturday Evening Post_ + + +Small cold shivers of fright began rippling up and down Ronny’s spine +the moment his father stopped the car at the wharf on the bay front, +and Gloria Cargill and Mrs. Kinney screamed with delight at the waiting +parallel planes of the flying boat. In spite of the warm brilliance +of the Florida morning at ten o’clock, in spite of the salt tang of +the wind that snapped flags on mastheads and ruffled the blue water +between the slips, in spite of the hilarious breakfast party they had +all shared in celebration of Ronny’s birthday trip to Bimini, his feet +chilled and his hands went clammy and the bacon and boiled pompano sat +uneasily within him. Yet the terror that from childhood had ridden him, +the fear of high places, of falling horribly through thin air, and +therefore, of all flying, was no greater in him at this moment than his +fear of letting his father know that he was afraid. + +He sat mute in the corner of the back seat, his slender hands gripping +at his boyish bony knees. The lucky fact that no one ever noticed him +much anyway gave him a chance to pull himself together. As his father +dashed around to help out Gloria, and burly Colonel Kinney reached back +a hand for his smart chubby wife, Ronny looked at himself deliberately +in the little mirror over the wheel. His tan hid the pallor that he +felt. His mild gray eyes steadied as he watched them, so that they +would not betray him. That he did not show his panic more plainly gave +him courage to get out of the car, carrying Gloria’s green-leather +vanity case and her flimsy green-silk coat. + +None of the four looked at him as he came up, the tall awkward boy so +acutely aware always that he could never be the figure of a man that +his father was. Ronny looked at him now, shyly, with the spark of his +adoration in his eye. + +Andrew Burgess always dominated any group. His graying dark hair was +bared, flying its shaggy crest of lock above the others. His bronzed +handsome face was alert and eager, with only a few folds about the +eyes to betray his years. Ronny thought again, as he had since a small +boy, with that same little throb of almost hopeless devotion, that his +father was the finest man he had ever seen in his life. To Ronny, who +at school had followed breathlessly in the newspapers his father’s polo +exploits, his tennis triumphs, the purses and the ribbons that his +racing stable won, Andrew Burgess was also the most brilliant sportsman +in the world. His father never in his life refused a high dive or knew +the weak sickness of great heights. Never in a thousand years would he +have given up practice with the school polo team, as Ronny had, after +being in hospital two months with a broken rib, because ever after that +when he thought of playing polo the thunder of those following hoofs +came sickeningly back to him, the trampling pain, the darkness, the +oblivion. His father’s ribs had been broken, and his collar bone and +his leg, and he had played more dashing polo than ever, after that. +But Ronny couldn’t. He just couldn’t, that was all, no matter how deep +within him burned the bitter knowledge that he was a coward. + +Sometimes Ronny thought that if his father ever discovered the depths +of his son’s weakness he would disown him. It was only that as a +motherless sickly child Ronny had been given over to the care of the +best of nurses, as a mild little boy to the most expensive of schools, +that had saved him until now, he was certain, from being found out. +This winter in Miami was the first time Ronny had ever been with his +father for so many months. It was as if Andrew had suddenly discovered +that he was about to be twenty and had decided to make a man of him. +As a result Ronny had had desperately to try to live up to what was +expected of him by a man who retained all his enthusiasm for sports, +even if he were too old now for the more strenuous of them. Ronny had +to give up entirely his rather studious, leisurely life. He had no +time now for reading, or for the Spanish translations he had been so +interested in doing with a young instructor at his college. And he gave +up his beloved photography, which for years at school and summer camp +and college had absorbed him. There was time for nothing now, and +certainly no excess energy for anything but sports. + +He struggled with them, with what valiance he could muster. He worked +hard at a golf lesson every day, to improve his indifferent game, +while his father and Colonel Kinney tramped their speedy eighteen +holes every morning. He worked at tennis lessons for which he had no +feeling whatsoever, because it had been one of the things his father +had done best. And he spent hours every afternoon with his father and +the Kinneys at polo games or at the races, where he bet and lost often, +so that his father would not think him a piker, struggling wildly to +conceal even from himself how supremely he was bored. It seemed to +Ronny that nothing but luck and Gloria Cargill had kept his father from +finding him out. + +It had been all luck at first. His father happened never to have seen +Ronny swinging rather wildly with a brassie, or practising an overhand +with his usual awkwardness. Ronny took care always to be swimming among +the breakers when everyone else was diving from the tower by the pool. +He rather liked swimming, anyway, if he could be left alone at it. He +grew brown from work with a medicine ball every morning on the sand, +put on a little weight, and tried to remain inconspicuous. His father, +incapable of imagining that any real man could be uninterested in the +sports he loved, was only vaguely disappointed with him as yet. + +If at times he looked a little puzzled at the quiet boy who took no +prizes, broke no records at anything, would not play polo, was not +handsome and dominant and magnetic, he had not thought about it long +enough to be resentful. The boy was young yet. After all, he’d had too +much schooling, too many women nurses as a small boy. It was a good +thing he’d remembered to take him out of college. There would be still +time for his polo. + +“Stick with me, old boy!” he would shout to Ronny in one of his lavish +moments, when a horse of his had won or he had taken a close game from +Colonel Kinney. “I’ll make a he man of you yet. Next year, when you’re +toughened up a bit, we’ll look around for a couple of good polo ponies +for you and you can get in on the practice games up at Aiken.” + +Those were the moments that Ronny, writhing inwardly, hated most. It +made the time when his father must find him out seem very near. It was +to the putting off of that moment, which would have been the end of +everything for Ronny, that Gloria Cargill had assisted. + +Ronny did not really like Gloria Cargill. He did not really like big +wheezy Colonel Kinney, whose talk was like his father’s--all sports +and poker and bootleggers--but somehow not the same--a thousand times +more monotonous. He did not really like Mrs. Kinney, who was fat and +flat faced, who wore the most expensive clothes in the most startling +colours and played bridge like an inspired card sharp. He never knew +what to say to any of them, and they had a way of screaming with +laughter at some embarrassed speech of his and then staring at him +curiously, with cold eyes, touched slightly with contempt. They always +made him feel that they knew perfectly what a coward he was, if his +father did not. But even they were easier to endure than Gloria, for +all that she took his father’s attention from him. + +His father said that Gloria Cargill was the most marvellous woman in +New York, and all his world of rich men and expensive women and racing +and cards and sport and supper clubs seemed to agree with him. She +was the youthful widow of a tire king, and she spent her money like a +spoiled empress. She was almost as tall as Andrew, with a lithe figure +that was swaying and sleek either in a bathing suit or in one of her +fabulous evening dresses. Her hair was wild red gold around the bold +beauty of her face. Her brown-velvet eyes had little gold lights in +them that burned when they looked at men, and the wet brightness of +her mouth showed scarlet down the whole length of a hotel corridor or +across a dance floor. + +For Ronny the worst of it was that she had discovered that he was +painfully shy of handsome women and therefore delighted in tormenting +him. She could turn the whole force of her fascination on him, like a +headlight, in which he squirmed and blinked miserably, to her laughing +delight. She adored running a glittering hand suddenly down his coat +sleeve, drowning him in her gusts of perfume, clinging with a burlesque +of devotion to his arm and flashing her heady glance into his dazzled +eyes. Once or twice Andrew had seen him blanch and jerk his hand back +involuntarily and he had been furious, because an assured gallantry +to women was to Andrew the fundamental of red-blooded masculinity. +He lashed out savagely to the boy, if in a low voice, in one of those +sudden rages which reddened his face uncontrollably. The whole thing +fixed Ronny in his miserable sense of inferiority. + +But if he secretly disliked Gloria, he was grateful to her for taking +his father’s attention. It seemed that everyone was watching to see if +she would marry Andrew. Their world agreed it would be an excellent +match, with plenty of money on both sides. Sometimes Ronny had moments +of bitter jealousy of her, of this woman like a brass band and an +express train, who thought she was good enough for his splendid father. +But chiefly he was humbly glad to be effaced. And if she did marry +him, perhaps his father would not mind so much finding out, as he must +sometime, how much his son was unlike and unworthy of him. + +Ronny thought all that over in a flash now, joining them in the full +sun upon the wharf. He was trying to keep himself from staring at that +flying thing. Gloria caught his somewhat rigid glance and smiled at him +brilliantly. He had never seen her beauty so bright and polished and +complete. She was all in a green so bright it made your eyes redden to +look at it--green shoes and small green hat with a diamond and emerald +pin pulled tight down over her blazing gold eyes. There was a flash +of emerald light on her finger and a cuff of glittering bracelets on +her wrist. And yet she dominated all that flash and glare with the +sheer assault of her eyes, her lips, her poise, her conscious charm. +Beside her, fattish Mrs. Kinney in her egg-yellow chiffon was almost +inconspicuous. Not that Mrs. Kinney cared. Her voice was as loud as +Gloria’s, if not louder. Her laughter had edges. Ronny saw men around +the wharves lingering and staring at the bright group, chauffeurs +staring from parked cars and mechanics from the plane shed. The women +especially seemed to be carelessly aware of the attention they were +attracting. When Gloria glanced about her with quick casual glances, it +was as if she trailed her laughter like an insolent plume across all +the staring faces, fascinating them and knowing that she fascinated +them, although they did not exist. That sort of thing always made +Ronny’s feet and hands seem enormous and uncomfortable. Now he tried to +imitate his father’s lordly buoyance, knowing exactly how far he failed. + +For one moment he caught the aloof calculation in the eye of the +aviator fussing about the plane which was to take them up. Instantly +Ronny’s fear leaped and tore at him again. A line of perspiration was +cold on his upper lip. He was afraid. He could not go up in that thing, +to those terrible heights of thin air. He could not. He would not. +He would tell his father that he wasn’t well. He did feel slightly +nauseated already, and dizzy, as if he were looking down from a high +building. Little tremors crawled beneath his skin. Nothing in the world +could make him go up in that thing, even his father’s furious contempt. + +Somebody gave him a soft leather helmet, and he buckled it under his +chin with clammy fumbling fingers. Colonel Kinney was putting one on +over his shiny bald spot. His father never wore anything on his head in +Florida, and Gloria and Mrs. Kinney said their hats were quite tight +enough. Then they were walking down the slippery plank and getting into +the plane. + +It was a three-seater. Mrs. Kinney and the colonel took the third seat +and Gloria and his father the second. The women got in alertly, their +high heels clicking on the deck, their sleek knees flashing among their +skirts. His father motioned Ronny to sit next to the aviator, because +it was his birthday treat. Ronny got in. + +It was like sitting on a leather cushion in a high-sided tin bathtub, +behind the smudged dimness of the short windshield. There were +things--rods and handles--dangerous-looking things, between Ronny’s +feet, which he would not have touched for worlds, and behind, overhead, +the loom and shadow of the great wings. + +Gloria’s jewelled hand patted his shoulder. “So nice of you, darling, +to have this marvellous birthday!” she was crying, in that gay scream +which made his very eardrums cringe. Suddenly the roar of the engine +exploded in a thuttering numbness of sound that clamped mufflers on +their hearing. Ronny felt his skin chill and crawl. They were off. + +At the same time he had a flash of panicky decision that he must not +clench his hands where this aviator could see them. There was something +careless and matter-of-fact and young about him, which Ronny suddenly +wished that he could emulate. So that, while the plane taxied out on +the smooth bay water, rocking a little as it curved and thundered +between the high black sides of oil tankers, past white bows of yachts, +in an increasing blur of speed, he was equally concerned in watching +his hands, fixed in a pose of relaxation, on his knees. He was bracing +himself for what he knew must come, the first sickening leap upward. +It did not come. There was only a slight adjustment in the angle of +the seat. The water at a distance looked lower than it had been. And +he suddenly realized that they were up, although he could feel no +sensation in himself but a quickening of his heartbeats. + +All around the plane the sapphire level of the bay was deepening and +lowering. The plane ground ceaselessly, climbing with a great, roaring +steadiness the orderly staircase of the wind. There was reality in +it, and stolidity. Ronny felt a strange sense of lifting upward into +a freedom from earthly things, a consciousness of wide salt wind and +tremendous reaches of sunny air. He had forgotten about relaxing his +hands now, and his heart was pounding, but in him climbed, as the plane +climbed, an amazement and a new delight. He was hardly afraid at all. +It was astonishing. It was delicious. + +As the plane wheeled, lifted its nose, climbed, wheeled, and lifted in +enormous roaring circles, the earth wheeled slowly beyond the side. The +checkered green, the crowded glistening roof tops of Miami, stretching +west to a mist of Everglades and sky, wheeled also. The blue bay floor +wheeled, which was at this height bright turquoise, streaked with lime +green, which whitened lightly on each side of the lean elbow of the +causeway, where cars slid like beetles. Beyond Ronny’s right bathtub +rim circled the straight lines of trees and streets that were Miami +Beach; the apron patches of green that were golf links; the small +squares that were hotel roofs, house roofs, patches and rectangles of +colour flattened on the ground. Then, as they climbed higher and the +plane lurched a little, heading into the vast sea wind, there before +them, dim through the windshield, reaching out tremendously to right +hand and to left, lay the ocean, a vast lavender miracle, wrinkling a +little and reaching out, reaching out so enormously to the stretched +horizon that it seemed to rise to meet it, to melt into it, and mingle +in, the distance all one smoking, imperceptible blue. + +High and far above it, yet somehow not remote, because there was +nothing with which to measure the distance between, the plane snored +straight eastward now upon the crystal level of its pathway, rocking a +little upon its invisible cradling of air, strangely real, strangely +prosaic, a thing of wood and metal, weighty, hard to the touch, solid +to rest upon, commonplace in a world gone wonderful with high magic, +all blue air and bluer unbelievable sea. + +Beside Ronny, the aviator’s sunburned profile was calm. His hands +moved only occasionally now on the controls. His manner was easy and +assured. From time to time he glanced about him, out at the sea below +his left shoulder; once across Ronny at the sky; and once, with a +long narrowed glance, at something behind and overhead, at a wire or +strut or something, which for some imperceptible reason had caught +his attention. Ronny followed his glance with a little prickling +thrill, but found himself nodding and grinning at Mrs. Kinney in the +back seat, beyond his father’s shoulder, and at Gloria’s brilliant, +enthusiastic face. His father and Colonel Kinney grinned at him +briefly, eyes narrowed and faces still, with the manner of men enjoying +themselves sedately. Ronny felt a sudden glow of friendship for all +of them. Against the vastness of the background, underlaid still with +the thought of his fear, they were familiar and dear and reassuring. +He was overwhelmed with thankfulness that he had not shown them how +much he had been afraid. The thuttering roar of the engines which shut +about them so completely was not so noticeable. Ronny felt a sudden +impulse to lean over and tell his father now all about how afraid of +things he was. It seemed as if an ordinary tone could have carried +and that in this moment of exultation his father would understand and +forgive everything. As if Ronny did not know well enough, at the same +moment, that the difference between his father and himself was more +impenetrable than the roar. + +The plane had been moving steadily upon its level above the vast +wrinkled ultramarine of ocean for some thirty minutes now. Far behind, +the mainland had melted into the mist, that at the horizon blurred from +sea colour into sky colour, like the bloom on a grape. Before them the +islands were equally obscured. Occasionally the plane lifted or joggled +slightly, as the wings bucked the booming trade wind, but on the +whole it was stable, lulling into oblivion remembered fears. Ronny was +growing happier and happier in knowing himself relaxed, even sleepy, +under the numbing drone. + +He could let his glance fall down over the side for a minute or two, +with no feeling in the pit of his stomach. He grew bolder, making +himself stick his head out almost into the wind to stare down. But +suddenly then, like a dropped weight, he was hit by a dreadful image +of himself leaping to his feet and pitching over there, head first, +and hurtling down the vast empty drop. The suddenness of it caught him +in the stomach and the throat so that his spine crept. He withdrew +his glance hurriedly to the comfortable commonplace within--dials and +indicators, floor boards, the aviator’s strong freckled hands, and +his own feet. They helped to steady him physically, but horror still +mounted within him, not so much at the outside world, perilous as +it had become again for him, but at the suddenly revealed depths of +strangeness in himself. Perhaps it was not only that he was utterly +unlike his father but that he was different from all normal men. +Perhaps within his very brain crawled the maggots of imbalance. At that +moment he felt it was even possible for him to go mad and scream, and +leap screaming over there. Ugh! Yet, of course, it was not so. It was +only his imagination. But a he man would never have been troubled by +fancies as sick as that. + +It was at that moment that Ronny, fighting to calm the tumult in him +by staring fixedly at the aviator’s hands, saw the right one jerk as +the whole plane lurched sideways. He saw the aviator throw a glance +over his shoulder even while his hands and feet made curt gestures with +the controls. The plane righted, but tossed violently before lurching +again. Ronny, throwing a look back and up, saw a broken thing hanging +and banging at one wing--a great blue hole and long rags of canvas. The +vast circle of the sea below them was tipping up and circling like the +surface of water in a tilted cup. The man beside him, working tensely, +shot a look at him, a queer, tight-lipped grin, and the plane slid +downward slowly, circling and nosing, with occasional moments of level. +The engine roared as usual, and the air seemed calm. + +The conviction that something was wrong, that something was awfully +wrong, came to Ronny with a surprising slowness. The very worst things +happened to him only in his imagination. When it was a matter of +outward affairs which older men had always controlled so much better +than he, it was hard to believe them capable of accident. The dark +floor of the sea was rushing toward them in dizzy circles. And yet +there was no horror in this for him, as there had been in the thought +of plunging alone. Something had gone wrong, that was all, and the +aviator had told him in that one glance that he was going to make a +landing. Ronny had much more confidence in him than he would ever have +in himself. They would probably land all right. + +It was like sliding down an enormous shoot-the-chute, even to the water +at the bottom. The ocean was there, rushing up to the pitch of the +plane’s nose, a ridged, blurry surface of deep blue. They were going to +land all right. Ronny was certain. He was growing a little pleased with +himself. There was even a breath of relief at the more familiar level +after all that breathless height. + +The engine subsided into a low growl. The wind screamed in the wires +as if for the first time, and below grew the long rustling rumour of +the waves. He could see whitecaps flashing now over brilliant sapphire +hollows. Why, these waves were high, he thought confusedly, leaning +back against the steepness. The faint scream of a woman behind him +came only a second before the shock and bounce of landing, with the +crash and drench of flying cold water. When their bouncing slide lost +momentum, they were immediately bucked about, tossed and dropped and +flung on the strong new element as if in a light, top-heavy dory. The +hiss and surge of waves were around them, dark blue water hurling +itself northwestward, blue blacks in the hollows and laced with snowy +streaks of foam. + +Ronny turned at once to look back and grin at his father, still +exhilarated with himself and with his sudden sense of adventure. It +was like looking at people whom he had not seen for years, who were +changed, yet completely familiar. His father met his glance with a +face like bronzed rock, in which the eyes were a little fixed. He and +they all were engaged in the almost violent business of keeping their +balance in the lurching dip and rise of the plane, topheavy as it was +and beaten by the wind, upon the strong waves which rose before them, +jagged and frowning, which heaved them up with an unremitting power +and passed behind them for others hurrying and trampling on. + +Gloria Cargill was clinging with one hand to his father’s arm, and +with the other was straightening her bright green hat. Mrs. Kinney’s +plucked eyebrows were lifted over the roundness of her eyes in an +almost ridiculous expression of amazed protest, and Colonel Kinney, +holding her tightly, was crimson to his heavy dewlaps, and swearing +visibly. Ronny was happy that he had not yet revealed himself to these +courageous people. + +The aviator jerked off his helmet and became immediately individual and +human. His blue eyes were anxious in a bony, sun-reddened face. His +bleached hair bristled on his head, and his eyelashes were bleached. +Ronny remembered suddenly that his name was Bill. He looked more +disturbed than any of them. + +“Well, folks,” he said, “I sure am sorry. That strut busted like a +match stick. Somebody will get murdered for this, if I have to do it +myself. Hope the ladies are all right. There’s nothing to worry about, +of course. Perhaps I can patch it.” He crawled backward between them +and on to the back of the fuselage. + +“Want any help?” Andrew Burgess called, with his eyes warm and lively +again. “Rotten luck. I’ve been ready for a bottle of beer for the last +fifteen minutes. Hope this won’t make us too late for lunch.” + +Ronny, looking up at Bill as he climbed over the seat and seeing the +curious slant look he cast down at his father’s nonchalance, knew as +suddenly as if he had spoken that the matter was to be graver than +that. He clung to the edge of his seat as the plane swung down in a +smashing burst of spray that flew over them and stung their faces, +considering the thing soberly. The violence of those Gulf Stream waves +was still almost unbelievable. They had looked down so long upon the +seeming flatness of this water. Ronny’s clothes were getting wet and he +shifted about on his seat to avoid the stinging spray that came inboard. + +His father and Gloria Cargill were singing “Where do we go from here?” +and “When do we eat?” with voices that seemed a little too boisterous. +He knew that Gloria was showing what a good sport she could be, for his +father’s admiration, who watched her powder her nose and rouge, and do +over her lips with the scarlet lipstick. Gloria was lovely, glancing +sidewise into her tiny mirror, sidewise up at him. Mrs. Kinney was not +singing. Her plump cheeks had gone a little sallow under the rouge, and +her bright yellow hat and bright yellow dress looked startling on her. +She sat hunched up very close to her husband, with her eyes fixed upon +the lifting wave tops. Colonel Kinney patted her hand regularly and +watched Bill. + +As the plane lifted to a racing wave Ronny could look out over the +sea to some distance to more racing blue wave tops with flashes of +white boiling at their crests, under the dazzling beat of the sun. +The horizon that had shrunk to this, from the vast sweep of the air, +was jagged and uneasy with waves, and the sky beyond it was a remote +unnoticed blue. It was the sea that had suddenly taken the menace that +the air had had; the sea, looming and tossing around the incongruous +smallness of the plane, an awkward alien, unfitted for this heavier +element. It seemed to Ronny that they sat a little lower among these +waves than they had at first. + +The aviator, Bill, was slashing at a tangle of stiff canvas and wires +and broken sticks under the lower wing. Ronny saw him slip and the +tangle drop into the water, where it hung and splashed, held by a +single wire. The plane veered suddenly at the crest of a wave and Ronny +saw it plunge, stern down, on the wreckage. With a scream from Mrs. +Kinney, a broken strut crashed through a thin floor board and in the +jagged rip sea water bubbled smoothly, wetting their feet and ankles +and legs. + +“Hey, look here!” Ronny’s father called suddenly. “We’re getting wet! +Here, Bill; come here and fix this! Put your feet up, Gloria. It’s all +right, Mrs. Kinney. We’ll be all right presently.” + +Ronny had been certain his father would take charge of things. He was +splendid. His voice was loud and confident and reassuring. Only Ronny +could not make himself believe that nothing was the matter. Things +looked bad to him. Bill’s face told him the same thing, slipping and +splashing back along the wet fuselage, like a whale back, low in the +water. + +The water was rapidly filling the cockpit. There wasn’t any use +being too cheerful, Ronny was thinking, climbing up to sit crouched +uncomfortably on the back of the seat. His father and Gloria did it, +laughing. But Mrs. Kinney had to be helped up and then held, perched +precariously, her round dismayed eyes still fixed on the coming +water. Colonel Kinney held her, with his ruddy face turning a curious +congested purple. Ronny saw suddenly that the Kinneys were afraid, and +he was sorry for them. It was dreadful to be afraid. + +The plane had sunk with the weight of water in the cockpit, but now it +seemed not to be sinking any more. + +Bill scrambled wetly up beside Ronny and spoke to the others, “This +isn’t so good, folks, but it isn’t so bad. The old bus is knocked out, +but it can’t sink any more and we’re not so far from Bimini now. We may +even drift quite near, the way the stream runs. Somebody’s sure to pick +us up almost any minute, because we’re in the direct line of boats from +Miami to Bimini and they’ll report by and by that we haven’t arrived. +All we’ve got to do now is hang on.” + +His glance met Ronny’s on the last words, and Ronny saw that in +spite of his cheerful, matter-of-fact voice, his eyes were wide and +unwinking. Ronny’s own eyes were like that. As they stared at each +other for a long moment, Ronny felt a sudden warmth of understanding +and comradeship leap between them. After all, Bill was not so very much +older than he was, for all the weathered maturity of his face. That +glance linked them, by their youth, by their common ability to look at +the situation, without too much fear or too much optimism. These others +must be protected at all costs. + +“Are you with me?” said Bill’s glance to Ronny, and Ronny’s answered +instantly, “You betcha life.” + +Bill withdrew his gaze abruptly to unlace his shoes and take them off. +Ronny did the same, glad to feel his toes free in the water. He watched +one shoe float a minute and then go over the side in a slap of water +from a running wave. Bill was plucking up the wet cushions from the +seats below the water. + +“They’ll float,” he said briefly. “You hang on to this one, Mrs. +Kinney. And listen here. The backs of these seats are going to get +awfully uncomfortable in about a minute. It would be easier if we all +got down on the fuselage, even if it is partly in the water. Then the +ladies can hang on to these cushions, too. That’s right, isn’t it, sir?” + +He appealed to Andrew Burgess, and Ronny saw his father brighten +visibly, as if glad of something to do. “Perhaps you could show them, +sir,” Bill further suggested, and Andrew turned and slid back gingerly +over the wet surface, lowering himself with one hand on a strut down on +the incline, so that he rested with his legs in the water, but his body +supported. + +“It is better,” he said promptly. “Come along, Gloria. Help Mrs. +Kinney, Colonel. Here, grab my hand. You won’t get any wetter than you +are now. It’s not half bad.” + +Ronny and Bill and the colonel, splashing in the water, held Mrs. +Kinney and lowered her, quite mute now, down to Andrew Burgess. Gloria +went next, laughing. Her green silk dress clung wetly to her lithe +figure, and she moved with much more assurance than the other woman, +and seemed somehow more suited to the watery and difficult background. +Her face was not so tense either, but somehow the bright spots of +rouge on each cheek, the darkened eyelashes, the scarlet curve of +mouth seemed to stand away from her face a little, as if the flesh +were shrinking. After Colonel Kinney had followed them with ponderous +caution and a very tight grip of Ronny’s shoulder, the four hung there +in a row, their eyes looking upward at Bill and Ronny clinging above +them, and at the jagged wave crests racing down upon them, with the +same look. It was a mute look, guarded, expectant, a little humble. +Their lifted eyes made something in Ronny ache with pity for them. They +looked so helpless, hanging there, in the smashing dangerous water. +They were looking at Bill and him as if the two had suddenly taken on +an unguessed power and significance. Ronny tried to think of something +else to do for them to still the tightness in his throat. + +“Let’s cut some of that wire, Bill,” he said. “Maybe we can put it +around them, so that they wouldn’t have to hang on so tightly. Got a +knife? I have.” + +They worked, balancing, slipping, plunging about on top of the +fuselage, over which the highest waves sent a skim of water, twisting +and cutting and clinging to the wing frames as they could. When four +lengths of the wire had been hacked off, Bill slid down to the Kinneys, +Ronny to his father and Gloria. There was enough to twist around the +body of each, but it was hard to bend it around a strut so that it +would stay fastened against the roll and jerk of the plane. Half +the time Ronny was completely in the water, working with one hand, +sprawling, while his father helped. When a higher wave reared above +them, hissing, they had to stop working and hang on tightly, their +heads and shoulders barely above the smother, their bodies banging +against the wood. + +Once Ronny lost the last piece of wire overboard and had to dive for +it, clutching it luckily in the boiling depth below. But the swimming +was actually a refreshment to him. To be able to move his cramped +limbs freely and surely in this sea removed much of its menace. It was +an element with which he was familiar. He came to the surface with a +sputtering rush and an overhand that carried him easily back, with a +grin for his father’s anxious eyes. Ronny had even time to realize +that he had never seen his father look at him like that. As Ronny put +the wire about him Andrew’s right hand lingered on his shoulder and he +said, “Nice work, old chap.” + +Ronny was warm with gratitude for that. His father was being splendid. +His colour was good. His voice was assured. He joked occasionally +with Gloria or Mrs. Kinney, putting out a hand to help when he could. +That was what it meant to have been a good sport all his life, Ronny +thought. He simply did not know what fear meant. + +Gloria’s hair looked funny, wet and plastered about her forehead like +that. She had lost her hat somehow, but she was game all right. She was +singing a lot of old songs, making them all sing things like “On the +Banks of the Wabash” and “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee.” Even Mrs. +Kinney smiled with stiff lips when there was anything to smile about. + +There was not much to do after Bill and Ronny got the wires fixed. +They all hung there, the four with the wires, Ronny and Bill wherever +they could catch hold of something, half supported by the wallowing +fuselage, bumping and hanging in the flounder of water, watching to +duck a taller wave crest, and talking now and then, little bursts of +talk that ran from one to another of the soaking figures. Their words +lagged or renewed like a slow pendulum of vitality. + +Presently Bill, who did a good deal of scrambling about, shinned up +so that he could hang from the upper wing frame and peer, long and +earnestly, out over the wave tops. Mutely everyone watched him. Ronny, +standing on the fuselage above them, noticed that the whites of their +eyes shone a little. Bill had been looking steadily at the same place +for several seconds. He drew himself up higher, shading his eyes. + +“You’re looking at something!” Gloria called suddenly. + +Bill did not answer. The faces were tense and a similar light seemed to +be upon them all--a light of pallor and suspense. They knew that Bill +was looking at something. Ronny leaped up beside him. + +At first he could see nothing but scalloped blue wave tops and the +leap and flash of foam. Then, more to the right, he caught a steady +flash that was a wave, but a wave breaking before a boat’s bow. When he +looked intently he could see, now and then, the gray pointed mass of +the bow itself, appearing and disappearing. It was hard to tell how far +away it was, or whether it was moving in their direction. Bill waited, +motionless, and so did Ronny. + +His father called suddenly below them, “For God’s sake, boys, if you +see something, tell us! And do something about it, can’t you? Wave +something! Shout!” + +Mrs. Kinney shrieked suddenly, strained and off key, “Oh, make them +hurry! Make them hurry! We can’t stand this any longer!” And the other +three all cried things, words and shouts mingled indistinguishably, +a babel of sound at the water’s edge, incapable of carrying, in that +wind, more than a boat’s length. Bill and Ronny waved their arms, waved +Bill’s coat, waved torn strips of canvas, and shouted as if a tension +had given way. + +Presently the breaking white from the boat’s bow and the occasional +glimpse of bow itself were gone. There were only the jagged lift of the +wave tops and the foaming white of crests. + +When Ronny really believed that the boat had gone, that he could not +see it any more, that it had really failed to see them, or had ignored +them, he stopped waving and let himself drop down to the fuselage. Bill +dropped beside him and they stood looking down at the faces below them, +the wet faces with the incredulous eyes raised to theirs. Ronny cleared +his throat before he shook his head and said, “It went.” + +“You mean it went?” His father’s voice was suddenly harsh and there +were reddish veins under the salt water on his forehead. “You didn’t +wave hard enough! You didn’t try to shout! The hounds--to leave +us--the dirty dogs! I’ll have them arrested for it. I’ll make them +suffer for it, the dirty skunks, the lou----” + +Gloria stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. Mrs. Kinney had gasped +once or twice and her eyes had rolled in her plump white face, but +Colonel Kinney had both arms around her. + +“Hush, Momma, hush,” he said. “Never mind. That means we’ll see others. +The next one will come nearer.” + +There was then nothing to do but keep on waiting and keep on hanging +on. There was no way of knowing what time it was, except that the +blazing sun had moved slightly westward down from the zenith. The +waves rolled as high, but it almost seemed as if the six had adjusted +to their rolling, so that they did it automatically, knowing how high +the highest would come. But the ferocity of the sun was an increasing +agony. Ronny felt the sting of it under his wet shirt, along his tanned +shoulders, and knew how much the others must feel it on the tenderer +skin of their faces and shoulders. Colonel Kinney’s bald spot glowed an +angry crimson. He had lost his helmet long since. And Ronny tore a big +piece from his wet shirt and made Colonel Kinney tie it over his head +like a hood. + +All Gloria’s make-up had washed off and her cheeks were red with +sunburn and her nose already blistered. Mrs. Kinney’s pale face was +bright rose colour, and both women’s lips were swollen and blistered +from the salt water and the sun. Ronny tore other pieces from his shirt +to tie over their faces, and the sun was instantly angry on the bared +places on his neck and back. + +It was a relief to dive into the water after a dropped cushion or to +swim around a bit, after their various positions on the fuselage, and +yet Bill was right when he warned him, in a low voice, not to tire +himself. Ronny contented himself by hanging over the cockpit edge with +one hand and letting his body float on the lift and drop of the waves. +The sense of high adventure was burning steadily in him; the sense that +here at last he was encountering an experience which he could remember +all his life. + +The waves that came racing at them from the southeast, with their +curious impersonal violence, surprised him with their endlessness. It +was amazing that there could be so many of them, hurrying and shoving +forward, in their leaping up and down. As the blazing sun crept slowly +down the long afternoon slope, so that it shone redly in their smarting +eyelids, the light changed upon the waves, whitening their leaping +tops, intensifying the dark sapphire of their hollows, shadowed in the +trough with glossy black. It might have been a gloriously exhilarating +sea to sail a boat over. But sunk almost to the chin as they were +here, there was little gaiety in it. Deep blue could be bleak, Ronny +was learning slowly, and flashes of white sinister, just as the plane +that had been so powerful and assured, taking off from water only that +morning, floated here so incongruously; alien wreckage that just was +able to support itself and their clutched and uncomfortable lives. + +The silences were longer between the choppy snatches of talk. Gloria +did no more singing. Ronny remembered, as if she had been some other +woman, how she had looked that morning, waiting on the pier. That +gay brilliant figure had practically no point of resemblance to this +sodden one with the drenched, salt-matted hair, the pale swollen lips, +the brilliant green silk only dank clinging fabric on the arms and +shoulders, the nose and eyelids reddened. Her consciousness of charm, +too, had gone--that powerful vibration. + +Ronny looked at her now only with pity and concern for the pale woman, +silent, with closed eyes and miserably clutching hands where the great +emerald still flashed incongruously in the wet. Mrs. Kinney managed +somehow to look more like herself, with her plump short figure in the +soaked yellow silk clutched by her husband’s arm, with a piece of +Ronny’s shirt tied over her head and forehead. There was in all the +faces, it seemed to him, a growing look of withdrawal, of remoteness, +as if each one were drifting away from their relations with others to +the silent place where ultimately human life exists alone. When one +spoke, it was with a forced utterance. A smile took more strength than +it had and was more automatic. All their attention was centring, more +and more, on the sheer act of endurance. + +The sun, just above the western horizon, burned and flared upon their +faces, under their blinking eyelids, and the blue waves changed slowly +to a cold green against a vast rosecoloured afterglow that held no +loveliness for them. In half an hour it would be night, and there was +no boat. + +Ronny was thinking lingeringly of juicy beefsteak and baked potatoes +and a steaming cup of coffee, or fried onions, or even just an orange. +Anything to relieve this withering, abominable taste of salt in the +mouth. It seemed to him he must have swallowed quarts of salt water +already, and his tongue and the lining of his mouth were blistered with +it. The feeling of too much salt water swallowed was cold and uneasy +also in his stomach. + +Bill came floundering beside him. “Look here, buddy, le’s you and me +try to turn this bus around, so the plane’ll be away from the wind. +Maybe she’ll ride better that way for the night.” + +Suddenly Ronny saw the night--the night. “Sure,” he said to Bill, +grateful for activity. But something about his heart was cold. + +It was harder to swim than it had been. There was no longer refreshment +in the swash of water over his body. The wind skimmed stinging hatfuls +of spray over a wave top into their faces. When they reached the rudder +they clung to it and breathed a trifle hard, planning their concerted +effort. Presently they let go and began pushing, thrashing tremendously +with their legs, breathing or gasping when they could. The huge thing +was unwieldy and hard to start and, once started, the wind often caught +and forced it back on top of them. Ronny’s legs began to feel the +strain of it and there was a pain in his labouring lungs. Floundering +and struggling side by side there, Ronny found that he and Bill +were staring grimly into each other’s eyes, as if the very abstract +intentness of the look, in such moments as their faces were clear of +water, was some sort of permanence. And at the moment when they got the +thing half about and the wind took it from the new angle, whirling it +as they wanted it to go, Ronny caught a twisted grin on Bill’s face, a +grin and gasp of triumph that reached to him as a glorious thing. It +was tremendous. It was unconquerable, he felt, grinning back as best he +could as they both hung and panted on the turned plane. He felt warm +all over, as if with a great achievement. + +By the time they were ranged beside the others again, along the +fuselage, the anxious pale faces turned to them, the bodies +floundering and awash, the colour had gone from the watery world. There +was only a brief green streak of twilight where the sun had gone. To +the east the waves were black against the tremendous looming purple of +the night. Stars were quivering in the enormous rondure of the sky that +overhead took on a strange metallic blue and cast upon them a faint +luminance that was less than light and only a little less than dark. +By it they could see their own dark shapes, the black parallels of +the wings. On the black water the white crests flashed and lengthened +and disappeared, ghostly in the dark. The waves snarled now as they +leaped toward them. The hissing spray stung like thrown pebbles as it +struck their blistered, puffy faces. There was a little relief in the +darkness, for the sun no longer burned into their eyeballs, but in its +place the phantoms of the black lonely water started about them and the +blood went thin. + +“I suppose now”--Mrs. Kinney’s voice came suddenly and a little shrill, +from the shadow she had become--“now that it’s dark, nobody can see to +pick us up, even if a boat did come?” + +No one spoke. It was what everyone had been thinking, Ronny was sure. +But it had not been spoken before in so many words. + +Then Bill said simply, “It’s not likely, Mrs. Kinney. But in the +morning it will be different. They’ll have heard from Bimini, and the +boats will be out sure. We’ve been drifting a bit or they would have +found us sooner.” + +No one spoke again. They set themselves somehow to endure the night. + +Through the noise of the wind humming and shrieking in the wires and +of the waves hissing and slapping against the wood, Ronny could hear +few sounds which would indicate that human life was here, clinging +perilously to what was almost wreckage. His arm ached dully and +continuously as he held it tight over the edge of the cockpit, and his +bumped and floating body smarted in places where the skin had been +rubbed off. Yet he was growing queerly drowsy. His eyelids drooped and +a hazy swimming took the place of thought within his head. He must even +have dozed once or twice, for a sharp pain in his elbow roused him or a +slap of choking water in the face, and he recognized miserably again, +what, for a second of blur, he had forgotten--the lost floundering in +the dark, the misery in him and in the figures about him. + +Once or twice he heard Colonel Kinney speaking gently to his wife and +her sharp whimper, as if she, too, had wakened abruptly from a wretched +doze, perhaps one in which she had dreamed of warmth and safety and +being dry, to the reality of the roaring and sinister dark. Once he +heard Gloria swearing to herself, as if unable to stand it any longer, +and then stopping abruptly, knowing that it did no good. + +The stars were gold and silver overhead in the vast dark vault, and it +seemed to Ronny that their tangled and glittering patterns were dragged +slowly across up there, like a remote panorama for how many human eyes +below them, raised in agony and mute endurance. Only decoration, after +all. He must have dozed again, hanging by the other elbow, cheek almost +in the water, for presently he started out of oblivion with a hand on +his shoulder. + +It was Bill, his voice low and humble. + +“Look here, buddy,” he said slowly and with difficulty, “we’ll have to +look out. They’ve begun to slip off. Mrs. Cargill’s wire keeps coming +unfastened and your father went down once. Coming up with him I hit +my head a bit. Would you stick around and watch them while I catch my +breath?” + +“Hurt bad, Bill?” Ronny whispered anxiously. “Here, hang on to this +edge. Hook your elbow over. Take your time, old man. I’ll be on the +job.” + +He swam slowly down the side, catching here and there at a foot. +“Don’t mind. It’s me,” he said hastily. He counted the dark heads and +shoulders out of the ghostly foam. One, Colonel Kinney; two, Mrs. +Kinney; three, Gloria; four, his fa---- that head disappeared even as +he looked. Instantly he dived, groping downward in the strangling, +rushing depths. There was only water in his frantic reaching fingers. +Then he felt hair, a shoulder, caught at a thrashing arm. They came to +the surface together, staring into each other’s shadowy faces, gasping. + +“Dad,” Ronny whispered in agony, “did the wire come off? You must have +let go. For heaven’s sake, be careful. You can’t tell when----” + +For a moment longer the bulk of Andrew Burgess hung and shook a little +in the dimness. “Thanks--old boy,” he said then. “Guess I wasn’t +holding on tight enough. Yet hanging on--hanging on’s--not much worth +while.” + +“Hush, Dad. Don’t.” Ronny whispered. “They’ll hear you. Think how we’ll +talk about this when we get back. Just think of the experience of it.” + +His father said nothing. Ronny hung and watched the stars and tried not +to think of those boiling black depths he had encountered, or of the +queer tone in his father’s voice, or of hot, yellow scrambled eggs. The +wind played three distinct wailing notes among the wires, high when the +plane was tossed higher on a crest, low and humming in the hollows. The +jerk and ache along his arms helped to keep him alert now. He hoped +that Bill would be all right. Then Mrs. Kinney cried out, either in a +doze or waking from it, and Ronny ached with pity for her, because she +sounded like a frightened child trying hard to be good. Ronny could +hear the patient fatherly drone of Colonel Kinney’s voice, trying to +console her. His own father changed his position restlessly, and then +Gloria, in one of those restless moments which passed among them all +like a long shudder. The night crawled on. + +There was no way of knowing what time it was and yet it might not be +more than ten o’clock, Ronny thought. People ashore were just leaving +hotels to go out for the evening, or dressing gaily for a dance. How +strange it was--they here; those other people over there, hundreds +of them, thousands of them, laughing and well fed and happy, walking +around on pavements under bright lights. He could see them vividly, +hear the murmur of their voices, the scuffing of their feet on +sidewalks; and yet they could not think of the six here, even imagine +them, or their helpless plight in the black devouring ocean, unless +there were headlines in a morning paper. How queer things were. + +And the stars far overhead moved slightly and slowly on their steady +courses, and the black water lifted and lashed and fell, lifted +and fell, lifted and fell, and the wind hummed its three notes +interminably. Ronny’s head swam a little with a creeping weariness. His +body was clammy inside and out, and it was extraordinary how his arms +could ache. + +Then Gloria’s wire went loose and she slipped down with a choked +gasp and her head went under, and Ronny dived for her--dived with +desperation, so that he crashed full into her down there in the strong +surge, and came up with her weight caught in his arms. She coughed and +tried to swim a little and spluttered and tried to conceal from him +that she was crying in sheer wet misery. Then he could not find her +piece of wire. It must have gone down, too. He put one arm around her +and held her tightly while she recovered herself. Their wet bodies +close together warmed each other feebly, and he was grateful for it. +Her shivering stopped slowly and she put out a hand to a strut and held +on, so that he was relieved of her weight. He took off what was left of +his shirt and tied it around her and around the strut but warned her +hoarsely not to trust it too much, torn and sodden as it was. + +Then he dozed a little, locking his grip and jerking it tight again +before it quite relaxed. It seemed to him that a second of real sleep, +half a second of sleep, would be an oblivion so delicious that it would +make up for everything. It was always just ahead--just ahead--and +then salt water smacked in his face and he was wide awake again and +his father’s head had disappeared, and he had to dive twice before he +brought him safely back again and held him while he recovered from the +longer immersion. + +A fear that was not like any fear he had known yet clutched coldly at +his heart. Was it really a possibility--could it be possible!--that he +might lose someone down there? Was death really so near to any one of +them in this casual adventure? + +The stars slid a little; the waters hissed; the wind screamed. Time was +an interminable agony, welding impossible moment to impossible moment +that crawled, crawled, crawled. Gloria slipped in again, and then his +father, and then Colonel Kinney, losing his wire, and Ronny dived again +and again. He had lost track of the number of times. He was not even +sure which one it was he hauled heavily to the surface, clinging to him +and coughing weakly. Now his right leg was getting cramped. The pain +shot up the stiffened muscle, needlelike and searing. Suppose it caught +him down there next, when he most needed all the strength he had? He +was ashamed to rouse Bill, but he had to, and he heard his own voice, +husky and humble, as Bill’s had been. + +Bill roused instantly and took charge. Ronny hooked his arm over the +cockpit edge, and the doze that moved upon him was delightful. Yet it +seemed only a moment when Bill was calling him again, exhausted, and +the stars were altered and it was hours later. + +As Ronny moved out to be among the others, and Bill hung gasping, he +counted them carefully, to make sure they were all there. His hands +lingered on a shoulder, and he saw that it was his father. After a +moment his father’s voice came to him wearily. “Still--hanging--on,” +he said. “Don’t go doing--too much now. We--depend on--you and Bill--a +lot.” + +The night went like that, passing so slowly, with such a minute +succession of incidents, of wretchedness, that it seemed impossible +that it could ever end or change above a half-drowned world. + +So that when Ronny, floundering on a wave top, with one arm holding up +Gloria, happened to see in the east a streak of pale colour, he stared +at it for a long time with puzzled, bloodshot eyes, wondering dully +what it could be. The glow widened, the sky and sea around it turned +pale gray. A streak of burning gold swelled into that. And Ronny cried +out suddenly, in his surprise, “Look; it’s morning!” + +The tender light fell on faces sodden and strained almost beyond +recognition. But even as the light grew white and radiant over the +crested wave tops and the strange emerald of the waters, animation came +into the faces and they were once more his father and Gloria and Mrs. +Kinney and the colonel and Bill. + +As if light were the supreme necessity, the supreme miracle, they +sought it. It was hope; it was food; it was safety; it was life. A +faint burst of animation, exclamation, broken words, feeble, husky +laughter passed among them like a renewed pledge. They were once more +capable of watching the sea to the west, where any moment now a boat +might come. Yet no boat came. The flash of spray was only the edge of +a higher wave. The drone was only the wind in the wires. Bill, lifting +himself up with greater difficulty now, peered out above them over an +empty sea. + +Presently the reassuring warmth of the sun had changed to the agonizing +glare of yesterday. Their faces were a raw crimson against which the +wave edges were knife cuts. Their salt-crusted lips were swollen and +cracked. Their eyes were bloodshot and inflamed. Ronny and Bill managed +to find rags enough about them to make masks to tie over the faces of +the four. Ronny and Bill dared not mask themselves. They had to be on +the alert now, both of them. For now that the flash of hope was over +and the sun glared nearer and nearer to noon, the others slipped down +more easily into the blue depths. It was easier to find them there now, +that was all. + +It must have been afternoon when Colonel Kinney, slipping down almost +without a splash, eluded Ronny’s grasp. Beneath the surface the big +body was only a whirling shadow which Ronny caught lightly once and +lost. When Ronny’s lungs seemed bursting he shot to the surface +empty-handed, with despairing eyes for Bill’s anxious look. One full +breath and he was down again, fighting down amidst the strong heave and +swirl of the waters, and Bill was with him. Twice they clutched each +other fiercely. There was no other shape. + +Gasping dreadfully the two hung together on the fuselage, staring into +each other’s eyes. There was nothing to be said. Ronny was thankful for +the mask over Mrs. Kinney’s eyes. She need not know yet. She was like +a dead thing, hanging there, half held by the wire about her, with one +hand locked about a strut. She clung as if by no volition of her own, +but only the gripping tenacity of the life within her, straining to +go on. The sun beat down upon them. The wind screamed steadily in the +wires. The eternal water roared and hissed. No one had said anything +for hours and hours. + +It was late afternoon. “Ron,” whispered his father feebly through his +mask, “where’s the colonel?” + +“Gone,” said Ronny after a moment. “I--lost him.” + +His father tore off his mask suddenly. Beneath it the contorted swollen +features were almost unrecognizable. “He’s lucky,” his father rasped. +“Why not? Why not?” + +“Hush, Dad,” Ronny said patiently, “they’ll hear you. There’ll be a +boat before long. There must be.” + +Andrew Burgess said nothing more. Ronny stared at the haggard, bitter +face where the stiff gray hairs bristled about the chin. It smote +through his numbed brain suddenly that his father--his splendid +father--was an old, old man. + +The sunset flared hideously down upon them. Another night came slowly +from the west. And Gloria, tearing off her mask, leaned back abruptly +in the rag that held her, and tore free. Her lips strained back from +her gaunt face in a queer tense smile and she threw both hands over +her head and went down suddenly, before Ronny could guess what she had +intended. And below there was only the swirl and the silvery bubbles of +his own and Bill’s frantic search. + +When they came back again it was almost night, and Ronny was shaken by +a paroxysm of grief which he had not even strength enough to express in +sobs. He remembered vaguely how beautiful she had been on that morning, +ages ago, when he was a boy, before the flight began. + +In that night his father disappeared. It was a night such as Ronny had +never dreamed possible. He and Bill were left alone in all the lost +world, hanging mute and feeble on each side of the faintly warm figure +of Mrs. Kinney. Her wire still held. With the mask off, under the +stars, her face was not so ravaged as the others. From time to time she +moaned a little and they took turns in chafing gently her clammy hands +and feet. She was something infinitely precious that they had left to +care for, in the whirling chaos in their minds, in the roaring black +about them and the high black over them, punctuated with the glittering +smear of stars. + +When the sun at last broke up the permanence of that night they blinked +their salt-incrusted eyes at each other unbelievably, to see the sun, +to see that they were still there--three nameless, shapeless beings, +under the incredible light. + +Ronny turned his head presently to see a boat come surging toward them +with a great fan of spray at the bow--a boat with men in it, with +young, dry, smooth faces looking anxiously at them, and waving. Ronny +watched it come with no emotion whatsoever. He had always known that it +would come. But now that hardly mattered. + +When hands clutched and hauled him up, he fought them until he saw they +had clutched also Bill and Mrs. Kinney. He felt himself in a dry boat, +with something to drink burning in his throat. But he felt nothing. +There was nothing to feel. Until they told him, gently, that Mrs. +Kinney had been dead for very many hours. Then he cried with terrible +retching sobs, vaguely ashamed that Bill should see him so. + + + + +“DONE GOT OVER” + +BY ALMA AND PAUL ELLERBE + +From _Collier’s_ + + +Woodie Simmons walked past the house three times before he found +courage to open the gate. He was trying to decide what he was going +to say. His mind switched; no sooner had he chosen sentences than he +forgot them and thought of others. He went up the walk at last because +he was afraid that if he delayed longer he wouldn’t be able to think of +any at all. + +There were four-o’clocks on either side of the walk, their blossoms +furled into tight little yellow and red fists, and beyond them prince’s +feather, nasturtiums, a chinaberry tree, and a syringa bush all mixed +in with tomatoes (the kind that bear small fruit, like red marbles), +collards, mint, jimson weeds and white and yellow dog fennel. The Rev. +Zachariah Draper spent but little time on things like gardening. But +his congregation kept his house in good repair. It was the best in the +Negro section of Lower Habersham. + +Woodie knocked. There was the sound of a tilted chair let down to the +floor, and then of a heavy foot, and Draper came into the doorless +hallway that ran through the middle of the house with the slinging +slouch that had always made Woodie think of an enormous, sore-footed +cat. He had been afraid of the preacher all his life. + +“Good-morning,” he said, as simply as he could, but he knew his voice +had a stilted sound. + +Draper straightened and fumbled with his collar, which was unbuttoned. +He buttoned it and made a pompous bow. “Howdy, suh? What can Ah do fer +yer?” + +The boy had the miserable consciousness that he had been mistaken for a +white man. He was tall for his seventeen years, with a coffee-and-cream +coloured skin; the light shone from behind him; he and Draper had +not met for five years, and he wore the kind of clothes that in that +place only white men wore: a gray tweed suit, tan Oxford shoes and blue +socks, a clean white collar, a blue cravat and a sailor straw hat. He +was intensely conscious of them, but they were all he had. + +“It--it’s jest Woodie Simmons, Brudder Zach,” he stammered, dropping +desperately into the vernacular in an attempt at conciliation. “Don’t +yer know me?” + +Draper came nearer, and the morning sun shone on his boldly modelled, +lustful face until it gleamed like oiled black marble. His huge body +seemed to exude health and strength, along with a rank, unpleasant +odour of its own and the smell of snuff. He wore enormous carpet +slippers on his bare feet, blue overalls, a dirty white stiff shirt +without a cravat, and the greenish black frock coat which was his +inevitable badge of office. He tilted back his head, his lips curled +away from his snuff-chinked teeth and bluish gums, something lightened +in his live black eyes and he broke into a great whoop of laughter. + +The volume and unexpectedness of it startled the boy. He shrank back as +if he had been pushed. His anger rose, but fear and grief made him weak. + +“Li’l Woodie Simmons!” Draper roared. “Li’l’ pickaninny Woodie, dressed +up lak’ _dat_!” He drew an immense blue handkerchief with white polka +dots on it from the tails of his coat and wiped his eyes and blew his +nose, watching Woodie the while with a malignant shrewdness beneath +his feigned amusement. He enjoyed the boy’s discomfort and wanted to +prolong it. “Tell me, son, do de Yankee white man what’s payin’ fer yer +at dat school up North throw in dem clo’es?” + +“He--he pays all my expenses. All the boys dress thisaway. And--and +everybody else in the town.” + +“Do tell! Ah thought mebbe dey’d done made yer er perfesser or +somethin’. And now yer’s done gradyerwaited yerse’f, is yer gwine take +de colonel’s place down ter de bank, or be de chief er _po_lice, or +what?” + +Woodie’s eyes filled with tears. He trembled like a colt in a +thunderstorm--he was leggy and sensitive and slender like a colt. +“Brother Zack,” he said timidly, “my father--died--last night.” + +A swift change went over the preacher. His easy, bantering air +disappeared. He bent forward an intent grave face. Always and innately +dramatic, he listened in every line. + +“There’s nobody but--but you to preach--at his funeral. Will you--will +you please do it?” + +Draper gazed at the boy for a long moment. “Tampa Simmons daid!” he +said slowly. He pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, nodding his head +to emphasize the words. “Tampa Simmons _daid_!” + +He still seemed to be listening, but now to something inside himself. +His unseeing eyes were turned inward. A change went over his face and +illumined his eye. He regarded Woodie with stern dignity. The boy knew +the issue had been settled, but not how. + +“Yer paw was er backslider an’ er Philly-stine. He turned his back on +’ligion. He fought me up an’ he fought me down, ever since de day Ah +first come ter de Ole Ship er Zion, fifteen years ago. Ah wrastled wid +um in de presence uv de Lawd, an’ he scandalized mah name.” + +It was the deep, sure barytone that had won him half his battles. He +could turn it on like an organ stop whenever he needed it. It had a +strangely moving quality. Woodie felt it in the flesh of his back. + +“But de Sperret says ter me: ‘Bury um from de Ole Ship an’ preach ter +his funeral.’ Ah feel de Sperret movin’ in mah heart, an’ dat what it +say: ‘Bury um from de Ole Ship an’ preach ter his funeral.’ Yer can +tell yer maw Ah’ll do it.” + +Woodie told her two hours later, after he had bought food in the town, +made arrangements for the funeral to be held the next morning at nine +o’clock--the hour set by Draper--notified their friends, and jogged +the three miles back home on the old white mule that had gone down the +furrows ahead of his father ever since he could remember. + +“Praise de name er Jesus!” she said gently in her soft voice. “Glory be +ter Gawd! Ah never thought he’d do it!” + +She turned her face to the whitewashed wall where she lay on her bed +and began to cry quietly to herself, from relief. Before Woodie could +leave the room she had gone to sleep, for the first time in forty-eight +hours. + +She was a soft, plump little woman, almost the same colour as her son, +full of kindness and forgivingness. She had had no part in the feud +between her husband and the preacher. She had always gone to church +at the Old Ship of Zion. When Draper became a part of it she had +accepted him without question. He preached only hate and fear: hate of +the unconverted, of the liberal-minded, of white people, and fear of, +almost equally, God and the devil, but she didn’t see that. She was +perplexed and frightened when her husband denounced him as unchristian +and withdrew his family from the church. That had been fifteen years +ago, when Woodie was a baby. + +Other people had followed Tampa Simmons--who was a good deal of a +leader in his own right--but not for long. There was fascination in the +very boards of the Old Ship and a dread fascination in Draper. His gift +of torrential oratory was unlike anything the Piney Woods had known. +His congregation whispered that he “had a hand,” and shivered with +dreadful pleasure, seeing his power as half from Satan and half from +God, and wholly interesting. Their meagre lives would have been barren +of entertainment, their genuine religious fervour denied an outlet, +without Draper and the Old Ship. Everyone had drifted back but the +Simmonses. + +Woodie’s mother had remained away solely from loyalty to his father. +As Woodie lingered, looking down at her, he realized with a pang that +at any time during the fifteen years she would have returned to the +Old Ship, if she could, as a carrier pigeon to its home. She had never +really understood how his father felt, nor why. Woodie had understood, +even five years ago--when he was too young to talk about it. He could +have talked about it now, and now it was too late. + +He went into the other room. Pieces of dark cloth had been tacked up +at the windows to keep out the light. Two old women were bent together +beside the fireless hearth. He had always called them Aunt Caroline +and Aunt Miranda, but they were not related to him. He could barely +see them in the half dark, but the mound of his father’s body beneath +a sheet on the bed stood out clearly. Nothing could have lain so +still which had not once had life in it. The room smelled of medicine +and snuff and food, and somehow faintly of death. The old women were +talking in whispers and dipping snuff. + +There was another woman in the lean-to kitchen, beside the stove, where +he had never seen anyone but his mother. She was cooking dinner: +collards, turnip greens with pork, and crackling bread. The strong +odours made him a little queasy. The woman was stout and black and +shone with perspiration. She had big, loose breasts and cheeks and +lips and shrewd, tolerant eyes. She wore the garbled remains of white +women’s clothes: shoes broken at the bulges, a black silk skirt that +had split on the creases, and a newly blackened waist still damp with +pokeberry dye. Her face looked strange to Woodie without its usual half +smile. Her name was Maria Knox, and her husband was a truck gardener. +He had known her all his life, but when they spoke to each other their +words were stiff and unnatural. He had played with her children almost +every day until he went away, but now it seemed that it wasn’t he who +had known them. + +He was feeling more clearly and deeply than he had ever felt; the +impressions made upon him were going to last until he was an old man, +but because he kept seeing himself as if he were someone else, he +thought he wasn’t much affected, and was disappointed in himself. He +couldn’t help seeing the house as if it were a stage-set for a play +about inferior people, and the people in the house as if they had been +actors, and that seemed to him cruel and unworthy. + +He went on out of doors and sat on a stump near the house, where his +father used to smoke his pipe in the evening. It came to him there +that _he_ was the head of the family now. Somehow he had to take the +place of the strong, resourceful man who was dead. He felt slight and +ignorant--incompetent. The flash and fragrance of the spring day seemed +inappropriate and unnatural. He held up his hand to shield his eyes. +The fresh yellow-jasmine-scented air was strange in his nostrils. + +He stared off across the clearing. That, too, seemed like a scene in a +play, and yet no other spot of ground was so familiar. The climbing sun +lit as if they had been candles the red trumpet flowers that hung on a +twisted pine. There had always been a trumpet vine on that tree.... + +Something moved near the base of the tree. He looked more closely and +saw that it was a woman. She was waving her hand--beckoning. He got up +and walked across the clearing. + +As he came nearer he recognized a spry, birdlike creature who played +the melodeon in the Old Ship. He remembered that she used to give him +tea cakes. + +“Why, howdy, sis? Charity?” He held out his hand. + +She took it and peered at him with nearsighted eyes from a kindly face +as wrinkled as a nanny-oak ball. + +“Howdy, Woodie? Yer sho’ has growed lak’ er weed! De spittin’ image uv +yer maw! Ah called yer over hyeh ter keep from disturbin’ her. Ah--Ah +got somethin’ ter tell yer.” + +Her eyes blinked rapidly; she put her head first on one side and then +on the other with quick little jerks and her fingers worked nervously +together. + +“Dat low-down nigger, dat Zach Draper”--she looked around +uneasily--“when he preach ter yer paw’s funeral ter-morrer, he +gwine--gwine”--her voice shook--“_he gwine sen’ his soul ter hell!_” + +Woodie stared in blank amazement. “He’s go’n’er do _what_?” + +“_He gwine sen’ yer paw’s soul ter hell!_” + +“But--but how can he? What’s _he_ got to do with it? Don’t everybody +know Pappy was a good man? Do you think anybody will believe him?” + +“_Ev’ybody_ b’lieve um! Ain’t he de preacher? An’ ain’t yer paw laid +his ’ligion down? Fer fifteen years he ain’t gone ter church nowhar!” + +“There warn’t anywheres else to go but the Old Ship.” + +“That ain’t gwine make no diff’rence ter most folks. Dey’ll say Brudder +Zach’s got de right ter decide ’bout dat. He’s er powerful man when it +comes ter de ’splainments uv de Sperret!” + +Woodie had the feel of things crumbling down inside of him. “I’ll--stop +him somehow!” he said in a choked voice; but he felt frightened and +confused. He looked into the troubled eyes of the little organist. +“What can I do, sis--Charity?” he faltered. + +“Ah dunno, chile! Ah dunno! Ah’s knowed yer paw all mah life, and, +preacher or no preacher, Zach Draper ain’t fitten ter tote swill fer +um!” + +“Can’t you--can’t you change him somehow? Can’t you talk him out of it?” + +“Ah’s done tried ter! Ah’s talked ter um till he won’t listen ter me no +mo’.” + +Woodie shook with sudden anger. “Did you tell him he’s +ornery--lowdown--mean?” + +“Gawd A’mighty, boy, Ah dassent! Ah’m skeered uv um! Ev’ybody’s skeered +uv um!” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper: “Dey do say he’s got +er han’!” + +Woodie shivered. You got a “hand” from a conjure doctor, and it gave +you supernatural power over your enemies. He had thought, off at +school, that he had come to regard such things as nonsense, but down +here a deep live current of terror ran through the people, and he found +himself tingling to it as he used to do. + +Woodie stood for a long time beneath the swaying trumpet flowers, +thinking. There was one person who could stop Draper if she would. Miss +Jinny Pickens could stop any coloured man or woman in that county from +doing anything. His grandfather and grandmother had belonged to her, +and he had seen his father and mother turn to her in every emergency. +He went to her now as naturally as they would have done. + +But first he told the three women what Charity had said, and made them +promise to help him keep it from his mother. + +From the other side of the gentle tree-smothered valley that stretched +before it the house lifted itself with its old air of remote nobility, +but when he had walked up the long, winding driveway under the oaks and +hickory trees and sycamores, he saw that the paint had flaked from the +tall Corinthian columns--which no longer had the effect of propping +up the sky--and that the iron balcony behind them drooped like a +disillusioned mouth. + +And at the rear, where all coloured people were supposed to enter and +his feet took him of their own accord, the arms of the tall fig tree +couldn’t hide the broken shutters at the windows, the gaps in the +railing of the upstairs porch, nor the rotting boards of the steps--the +air the old place had of dropping minutely into ruin, bit by bit. + +The harsh smell of fig leaves in the sun came to him strongly, and he +took a sudden sharp breath. It brought back his father more vividly +than even the sight of his dead face had done. Tampa Simmons seemed to +be standing against the big three-fingered leaves, heavily listed to +the left on account of his lame leg, just as he had stood that day when +he had brought cream (and Woodie) to the back yard and Miss Jinny had +come out to talk with him. + +“Miss Jinny, ma’am,” he had said, “Ah don’t want mah li’l’ boy ter +grow up ter be lak’ Ah is! Miss Jinny--look at me!” He had spread out +his work-twisted hands in the mellow sunshine of late afternoon and +looked at her earnestly, and Miss Jinny (and Woodie) had looked at him. +“Ah don’t know nothin’; Ah can’t read an’ Ah can’t write; Ah ain’t +got nothin’ an’ Ah ain’t never goin’ ter have. Ah’m jest er cawnfiel’ +nigger--er li’l’ better’n er mule. Don’t yer expec’ that mebbe somehow +it might be fixed so’s mah li’l’ boy might be--diff’rent?” + +Woodie heard again the grave, self-respecting bass and saw the deeply +furrowed, kindly face looking out at him with what had come to be to +the boy the wistfulness of their race. + +Miss Jinny, too, had seen and heard, and felt, and in the end had +found a man in Boston--and Jerusalem seemed no farther from the Piney +Woods--to send Woodie away to school and give him such an opportunity +as had fallen to the lot of no other coloured child he had ever known. +Even his vacations were provided for: that the experiment might have a +thorough chance, he had spent them, until this year, with a prosperous +Negro family who had a summer place in Maine. + +Behind the humble Simmons family always, as protection, somehow, from +any hardship too great to be borne, had stood the great rock of Miss +Jinny Pickens: impoverished, elderly, and alone, but a Pickens; knit +into the fibres of the state; indomitable by nature and affiliations. +Woodie felt her there. He stepped up and knocked at her door with +confidence. + +The door was opened by a woman of his own race whom he did not know. +“_She_ ain’t hyeh!” she said, with inflections that suggested that only +the undesirable wouldn’t have known it. “She done gone ter Leestown, +ter see Miss Sadie Lee.” + +The Lees were cousins of the Pickenses. He hadn’t thought of any of the +old names for a long time. He asked when Miss Jinny would return. + +“Mebbe ter-morrer an’ mebbe not. Is you Tampa Simmons’ boy?” + +When he said he was she told him what Draper meant to do at the +funeral. She told him with sympathy, but with a strange gusto. There +had been a trace of it even in the kindly Charity. + +He had come through the woods. As he went back by the road and one +Negro after another stopped him to tell him the same thing in the +same way, the sick consciousness dawned within him of something which +he could not have expressed. The sympathy of these people was real +enough, but there was in it an excitation of horror that they craved; a +brushing near of occult and of awful things. They awaited his father’s +funeral in a state of delicious, morbid expectancy. + +If Miss Jinny failed him!... + +He got out the old white mule and started for Leestown. + +When he returned the mule to the stable a round white moon was pouring +light steadily into the velvet darkness. Sore and stiff, he stumbled +into the kitchen, where a pallet had been fixed for him on the floor. + +He had ridden the mule to Leestown and back--twenty-four miles. He had +had to ride slowly, because the old mule tired easily and had gone a +little lame. He would have made the trip by stage, but no stage went in +the afternoon. Both towns were off the railroad. + +He had gone to Miss Sadie Lee’s house, and again Miss Jinny had been +away. Miss Sadie had taken her motoring. The best he had been able +to accomplish was to leave a note, to be delivered to Miss Jinny +immediately upon her return. He hadn’t dared wait for her. If she +wasn’t going to stop Zach Draper, he had to do it himself. + +He couldn’t sleep. His mind ran all night, as uselessly as the arms of +an unconnected windmill. It showed him scores of unrelated pictures: +the faces of boys he knew off at school; the little white New England +church in the village there; Draper, laughing at him; a bend in the +creek where he used to swim; his father’s body; the corner of a +cornfield behind a snake fence covered with purple morning glories. +It repeated scraps of the day’s conversations. On and on and on. +It reverberated soundlessly with the voodooistic terror that ran +through the Negroes of the Piney Woods at the prospect of the morrow’s +sensation. Fear, like a hot wind, blew across it, searing and drying +his thoughts. He felt things older and bigger and more terrible than +he had realized threshing around him in the hot, humid Southern air.... + +Finally he got up and rummaged in a cupboard and slipped his father’s +old pistol into the pocket of his coat, where it hung over the back of +a chair. He had a plan now. It was as simple as Cain’s.... + +Toward morning he slept a little. + + * * * * * + +Woodie sat on the front pew in the Old Ship of Zion, between his mother +and Maria Knox. His mother was heavily swathed in borrowed black. Her +plump, innocent features, still swollen from weeping, looked purged and +peaceful beneath her veil. She alone was unaware of the air of tense +expectancy that bound the rest of the congregation together. + +In front of them stood his father’s coffin, on two sawhorses banked +deep with cape jasmine, which had just begun to bloom; dead-white, +half-opened flowers set stiffly in stiff, glistening green leaves. +Their heavy odour lay like a blanket over the place in spite of the +open windows. A score of spring scents outside strove against it in +vain. + +Behind him the church filled steadily. He could feel the waiting +people: row on close-packed row, all their faces turned one +way--tense--expectant--frightened. They were all very still. Somewhere +in the distance a man was calling hogs. The long-drawn notes of his +voice sounded like a horn. It died away, and the kind of silence that +belongs only to funerals fell upon the little church. Into it the clock +on the wall plumped nine twangy notes. + +Charity spread her thin black fingers over the keys of the melodeon. +Draper erected his bulk in the chancel and began lining out the first +hymn: “Shall We Gather at the River?” + +Woodie’s hour was on him, and Miss Jinny hadn’t come. + +Things swam together and went black. He clutched the butt of the pistol +in his coat pocket with a cold, damp hand and stared at Draper. The man +seemed of superhuman size. He was like something the little church had +been built to hold. Woodie shook with fear. + +His mother laid her hand on his arm. “Is yer all right, Son?” + +“Yes’m,” he muttered thickly, “I’m all right.” But he scarcely heard +her and was barely aware that he had replied. + +The first notes of the hymn came whining out of the old melodeon. He +rose with the rest, and the congregation sang. It passed over his mind +in a blur of sound. + +Draper knelt beside the pulpit and prayed, and the people bowed their +heads to the roll of his voice. Woodie listened long enough to be sure +the prayer held no menace for the dead man; the rest of it became a +confused rumble in his ears. + +Draper rose from his knees. Omitting the hymn between the prayer and +the sermon, he looked out over his people--gathered them in with +his eye. A hush fell upon them. The faint, lazy call of a distant +flycatcher pulsed its way clearly through their midst, and he spoke, +slowly. + +“Brethren an’ sisters, de hymn done ax yer, shall we gather at de +river, de beautiful river dat flows by de throne uv Gawd? An’ _Ah’m_ +a-axin’ yer”--he paused, spread out his arms in a slow gesture of +restrained power and let his voice fall upon a note that went through +the waiting people as a wind through leaves--“_Ah’m_ a-axin’ yer, +brethren an’ sisters, when yer gits ter de river, de beautiful river +dat flows by de throne uv Gawd, is yer gwine ter be fitten ter _git +on de boat_: de big boat dat’s a-waitin’ by de bank, wid de steam +a-shootin’ outer de chimbley an’ de paddles a-splashin’ in de water--de +big boat dat’s a-waitin’ dar ter take yer on down ter de throne itse’f? +_Is yer gwine ter be fitten?_” + +A groan went over the people. A scarcely audible sigh of anticipation +came out of them. Draper caught it and fanned it. His voice began its +steady march toward its goal. Woodie’s mouth grew dry. His heart seemed +about to burst. + +“It ain’t gwine do yer no good ter _sneak_ on ter de big boat ef yer +ain’t fitten, caise’ yer can’t fool de Lawd Jesus! Yer might fool de +cap’n er de boat, or de Angel Gabriel, but”--the creak of an automobile +brake came through the window--“yer can’t”--his outstretched hand sank +to his side--“fool----” + +His big features stiffened with displeasure. He stood silent, staring +toward the door. + +Woodie turned with the rest. His heart bounded like a toy balloon and +then crowded up into his throat and stuck there. + +Miss Jinny Pickens was coming down the aisle. + +But not the Miss Jinny Pickens he remembered: a frail, little old woman +with bent back and brown time spots on her wrinkled cheeks, who wore +shabby clothes and walked slowly, leaning on a cane. + +A swift sense came back to him of the Miss Jinny whose foot had tapped +the floor as positively as a woodpecker’s beak against a tree; whose +back had been as straight as a child’s; whose movements had been marked +with crisp decisiveness; whose clothes had been magnificent. + +Or had they only seemed so to the ragged little boy who had never owned +a pair of shoes or seen a train? Was it possible that she had been old +and frail and shabby then? + +He couldn’t tell; but then and always she had been _Miss Jinny +Pickens_, and a member of the super-supreme court which in the last +analysis settled everything of importance in that countryside. No Negro +in the state had ever openly crossed one of them and lived out the day. +He looked with swift hope at Draper--and saw that things had changed. + +Something inhered in Miss Jinny that stood for power, but Draper didn’t +see it. He waited there in haughty, calculating silence, watching +her progress down the aisle, through contemptuous, half-closed eyes, +unimpressed and unafraid. The consciousness that the issue lay solely +between him and Draper grew tight about Woodie’s heart. Miss Jinny +faded out for him almost before she had settled herself in the chair +that someone brought from the little room behind the melodeon. + +And Draper, too, as soon as he began to talk again, forgot her. His +voice took on the sound of something started on its way which could not +be stopped--not even by the preacher himself. There had been but one +rebellion in the Old Ship of Zion since he came: now was the time to +stamp out any last lingering embers of it. As he slowly raised his hand +and swung back into his march of words, Woodie’s vitals seemed to melt +and flow downward. Despair boiled in him like vomit. + +“De Lawd Jesus’ll be a-waitin’! He’ll be a-settin’ on de edge er de +great white throne, a-waitin’--a-waitin’ fer dat boat! An’ when He see +it comin’, He’ll holler out ter de angels: ‘Hi’st up de silver spyglass +ter Mah eye!’ An’ de angels’ll h’ist it. Twelve angels it’ll take ter +h’ist up de silver spyglass ter His eye. + +“An’ den He’ll p’int de silver spyglass, an’ ef dere’s anybody on dat +boat dat don’t belong--_He’ll see um! He’ll see spang through um!_ + +“An’ He’ll say: ‘Lean de silver spyglass erginst de throne, an’ lif’ up +de speakin’ trumpet dat’s made er gol’!’ An’ de angels’ll do it. Twenty +angels it’ll take ter lif’ up de speakin’ trumpet dat’s made er gol’! + +“An’ den de Lawd Jesus’ll put His mouth ter de speakin’ trumpet, an’ +He’ll holler out loud an’ cl’are: ‘Mistah Cap’n, yer hyeh Me?’” very +slowly and solemnly: “‘_Yer got er onbeliever on dat boat!_ Yer’ll have +ter stop an’ go back, Mistah Cap’n, an’ lan’ um----’” + +Woodie’s hand closed round the pistol, when his eye chanced to fall on +Miss Jinny’s face. Her look of quiet certitude startled him. He leaned +forward, scarcely breathing. + +“‘--an’ lan’ um whar he belongs!’” + +Miss Jinny cleared her throat, but Draper didn’t notice. + +“‘Back whar de brimstone’s at, an’ de fire----’” + +Miss Jinny moved her chair, but Draper didn’t even look her way. + +“‘Back whar de smoke’s a-curlin’ out de groun’, an’----’” + +The sharp pounding of Miss Jinny’s cane fell across his sentence and +broke it as brittelely off as if it had been a rod of glass. + + * * * * * + +Woodie dropped back limply into his seat. He opened his mouth to still +the sound of his breathing. He grew weak under the surge of his relief. +For a moment all that he could realize was that he hadn’t had to +shoot--that Miss Jinny had saved him from that. + +She sat on the edge of her chair, as delicately separate as a white +hepatica, looking straight at Draper, and as the sense of her sank into +Woodie it seemed to him that she was a part of the backbone of life +itself, and again he looked at the preacher with a flaming up of hope. + +But the big Negro was staring at the white woman in blank amazement, +without meeting her eyes, much as he might have stared at the roof if +it had fallen in; uneasy only because the mood he had induced in his +people had been threatened. + +For a moment he was silent, while he reassembled his scattered powers. +He shifted his weight until the floor creaked. He leaned forward and +began to speak again, and Woodie’s hope sank slowly and heavily. It was +going to take more than the pounding of a cane to stop Zachariah Draper. + +With his hand on his father’s old pistol, that had never been pointed +at anything bigger than a chicken-hunting skunk, he leaned forward +breathlessly, while Draper, out of a deep instinct in such matters, and +as though rebuking his antagonist, laid his tongue to stronger words +than any of his own. + +“De Good Book say”--with sombre emphasis--“‘Take heed lest dere be in +any uv yer an evil heart uv onbelief! Take heed, fer de sword uv Gawd +am quick an’ powerful, an’ sharper dan any two-edged sword, piercin’ +even ter de dividin’ asunder uv de soul an’ de sperret, an’ uv de +j’ints an’ de marrow!’” + +“Amen!” a woman said startlingly in a clear soprano; the others groaned +in chorus, “A-amen! A-amen, brudder!” and the shattered mood of the +people came together again. + +Draper fanned it as a wind fans a prairie fire: “Brethren an’ sisters, +ef yer want ter lan’ at de great white throne, yer got ter git shed uv +dat evil heart uv onbelief!” + +_Tap, tap_, went the cane, mild and premonitory, but he pretended not +to hear. + +“De Good Book say: ‘He shall set de sheep on His right han’, but de +goats on de lef’. An’ He shall say unter dem on de lef’ han’, Depart +from me, ye cursed, inter everlastin’ fire, prepared fer de Devil an’ +his angels!’” + +A gleam came into his eye. He in his pulpit, in the midst of his +people, and the white woman down there alone...! Almost alone too, +now, in that part of the state: ten Negroes all about her now to +every poverty-stricken white...! He within his rights, and she a +trespasser...! His voice rolled out over her like a river: + +“Yer got ter pull off from de goats! Yer got ter come inter de fold!” + +He chanted like a warrior leading hosts, with a rhythm as heavily +marked as the beating of a drum. + +“Ah been down yander in de canebrake, a-lookin’ fer dem +goats--a-studyin’ in mah min’ an’ a-wrastlin’ in mah soul! Ah been down +yander in de canebrake, an’ what yer think Ah see?” + +A moan of anticipation--pleasure and horror and fear--ran over his +human harp strings. “What yer see, brudder?” “Glory, hallelujah!” +“Praise de name er Jesus!” “What yer see?” + +“Ah done see de Devil, de big, black, shiny Devil, a-scorchin’ up de +canebrake wid his breath!” + +A bass voice began to moan heavily. An alto joined. Others took it up, +improvising with a sure sense of harmony an elaborate background for +Draper’s trampling barytone. + +“His tail was long an’ shiny lak’ er blacksnake! His eyes was lak’ de +haidlights on de train!” + +Woodie shut his eyes and prayed. The long-continued pound of emotion +had beaten from him all acquired white folks’ methods of speech and +feeling. “Gawd gimme strength,” he prayed, “ter shoot um through de +heart ef Ah have ter!” + +The trampling barytone went on: “His feet was p’inted lak’ er crowbar +an’ cloven in de midst, an’ his mouth was lak’ et watermillon full er +seeds!” + +Woodie sat there stiff and cold with sweat, in his excitement almost as +white as a white boy. He looked childlike and harmless and pitiful, but +he was the most dangerous kind of potential murderer: the determined +coward, rapt out of himself past the reach of reason; ready to shoot +when Draper’s words should pull the trigger. + +Draper’s words crept toward it steadily. “His long white teeth was +a-champin’ an’ a-scrunchin’ an’ a-gnashin’--_fer dem goats_!” + +He got his people rocking and moaning to the drunken rhythm of his +feelings and his words. He got them ten thousand miles away from the +mind of the white woman, so that her lonely, pale face in their midst +seemed strange and unnatural. And suddenly, under cover of the eerie +din, he dropped like a waiting eagle straight for his prey: + +“An’ de Devil say ter me: ‘_Whar’s dat backslider?_’” + +_Tap, tap, tap_, insisted the cane, steady and sharp. + +Woodie moved farther from his mother, for elbow room. + +Tiny beads of sweat broke out on Draper’s face, but he didn’t swerve. +“‘_Whar’s de man dat laid his ’ligion down?_’” + +“Gawd gimme strength!” Woodie prayed. + +“‘He ain’t so dark,’ de Devil say, ‘an’ he ain’t so light.’” + +Woodie cocked the old pistol in his pocket. + +“‘He’s middle-sized,’ de Devil say, ‘an’ he’s got er limp----’” + +Woodie leaned forward to shoot, but Miss Jinny was on her feet. + +She had risen casually, as if to smooth the folds of the shawl that lay +over the back of her chair, but the straight thrust of her keen blue +eyes seeking the preacher’s made the air between them crackle with life. + +Draper drew himself up to the full of his enormous height. He was as +superb and as sincere as a great coiled snake. He thrust out his jaw +and frowned; his eyes lightened in the way they had, and the essential +spirit within him met Miss Jinny’s steadily. + +The whole church held its breath. There was a moment of intense +silence, through which the call of the flycatcher fanned its lazy +way, and then an inward and spiritual something behind the frail old +countenance broke something behind the big, glistening black face, +with its prow of a nose, its curling lips and heavy jowl and restless, +predatory eyes--broke it with a snap that might have been audible, so +definite it was. + +Draper raised his hand and lowered it; opened his mouth and closed +it again; drew forth the polka-dotted handkerchief and mopped the +perspiration from his face. + +And then Miss Jinny sat down, and he found that he could speak. + +But whatever it was that had snapped in him had snapped, too, in his +people. An uneasy sense of shame lay over them. There wasn’t one who +didn’t know Tampa Simmons as he knew his own hearthstone; not one whom +the dead man hadn’t helped and comforted when he could; who didn’t +believe in him as no human being had ever believed in Draper. The tide +of feeling flowed away from the preacher; ebbed faster and faster with +his every word. + +He couldn’t tell what was stopping him. He was like a bird trying to +fly through the pane of a window. Because he could not see it, he +thought there was nothing there, and battered himself to pieces against +the realest thing in all that country, going down at last before his +congregation, a beaten man, jabbering meaningless sentences out of +which one fact only stood up: that the soul of Tampa Simmons went to +heaven, where Miss Jinny Pickens wanted it to go. + +And in the midst of the debacle a strange thing happened. Softly, +spontaneously, without a leader, the people began to sing: “Done got +over!” they sang: + + “Done got over! + Had a hard time; + Had to work so long; + But I done got over, + Done got over, + Done got over at last!” + +The deep, old, patient, humble melody fell upon them like the spirit of +Christ, and they bowed their heads and sank to their knees, and most of +them wept. + +And that night Woodrow Woodson Simmons, the son of Tampa Bay Florida +Simmons, who was the son of Wisdom, a chattel without surname belonging +to the Pickens estate; who was the son of Zebulon, likewise a slave; +who was the son of a naked savage of the Congo jungle, walked alone +through his native woods like a murderer reprieved, with a heart too +big for his breast; and, throwing the old pistol far out into the +swamp, caught the sound of the myriad feet of his people stumbling +painfully along the way his father had travelled, out of the land of +ignorance and out of the house of fear, and swore that some spark of +his father’s spirit should march in him at the head of that army until +he died. + + + + +MONKEY MOTIONS + +BY ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY + +From _Pictorial Review_ + + +Having lately discovered our Aunt Lady after a lapse of years, we made +the most of it, and frequently accepted her standing invitation to +motor over to the old town for Sunday dinner, saving up our Hooverized +appetites for days beforehand, since no mere world war had been able to +affect to any appreciable extent Aunt Lady’s table. + +“A doctor’s got to keep his strength up these days,” she explained +apologetically, “and it isn’t as if we didn’t raise ’most everything on +the place.” + +On such an occasion--and they were occasions--we noticed for the first +time a singularly limber, spindling, knock-kneed youth of a pale saddle +colour, who was being taught, with some difficulty, to wait on table. +He moved about his duties in a sort of rhythmical, high-stepping manner +that made one rather nervous, especially when soup was being served. +His eyes had the mournful, wistful anxiety of a young hound’s, but his +manner affected an easy pomposity, modelled obviously upon the best of +butler traditions, which are good in that part of the country. + +“Sarvent, Moddom, sarvent!” he murmured as he placed me in my chair at +table; and at my husband’s ear he breathed solicitously, “I hopes de +julep was to Yore Honour’s tas’e?” + +My husband, who is a mere business man and unaccustomed to such +attentions and entitlements, sat down with some suddenness as his chair +was thrust vigorously beneath his knees. + +“Where,” he inquired of the Curtises, “did you get that?” + +“It’s just the Infant Samuel; Mahaly’s child, you know.” Aunt Lady +spoke in rather a _distraite_ manner, her ear turned toward the pantry, +whence issued sounds of more or less repressed African mirth. Suddenly +there was a crash, and the mirth rose beyond repression. + +“Excuse me one moment,” murmured Aunt Lady. “I expect Sam’l’s dropped +the shoat again.” + +He had. It appeared that when the small roast pig, the _pièce de +résistance_ of the feast, was laid out prettily upon its platter, +fore feet folded on its breast and parsley arranged all round, it so +suggested to Sam’l’s vivid imagination a baby laid out for burial +that he could not make up his mind to bring it in to be carved. The +shoat had to be rescued, reinstated upon an unbroken platter, and +brought to table by Aunt Lady herself, the rest of the domestic force +being entirely demoralized. Only Sam’l remained serious, painfully, +shudderingly serious. + +“He’s very fond of children,” observed our host, “and does not come of +a cannibal tribe, probably. Besides, he seems to have inherited his +mother’s nervous temperament. You remember Mahaly, I dare say?” + +Certainly I did. She was one of the happiest memories of my childhood, +though overlaid, as such memories often are, with events more immediate. + +I would no more have missed the weekly visit of Mahaly to our wash +house than I would have missed the circus, and for much the same +reason. She stimulated the imagination; she brought far things near; in +her companionship nothing seemed impossible, neither hippopotami, nor +miracles, nor “ha’nts.” + +She moved in a world of her own, amid events invisible. One frequently +heard her conversing, giggling, coquetting with persons who were not +there, which might have been disconcerting to older and more rigid +minds. + +But we loved to hear her tell about them, these invisibles: the King +of Yearth, for instance, one of her suitors, who came to court her in +the guise of a simple mole, although he lived in underground palaces +as gorgeous as Aladdin’s cave. (From which of the classic fables could +this have derived, and how?) + +And there was the Queen of Sheba, African, like herself, but of a +“brighter” shade, who was not really dead, but sometimes chose to +manifest in the body of some descendant--“ef she kep’ herse’f _to_ +herse’f,” added Mahaly significantly. That was the reason she lived +quite alone in a ramshackle cabin on the far side of the graveyard, +where “nigger folks wouldn’t come pesterin’.” + +The Negroes were only too content to leave her alone, less out of fear, +apparently, than out of scorn. They regarded her as “foolish in the +head.” They jeered and laughed at her whenever she appeared, to poor +Mahaly’s wincing surprise; the penalty an artist pays for living in a +conservative community. + +For Mahaly was unmistakably an artist in the broader sense of the word. +How the queer creature could sing! I am haunted yet by the dramatic +pathos she used to put into her favourite washtub ditty: + + Hark, fum de tomb come do’fum soun’ + (Jay-bird jump an’ jar de groun’). + I once was los’ but now I’se foun’ + (Wash dem dishes an’ set ’em erroun’). + +Why this rather inconsequent song should contain so much of pathos +I could not have told then, nor can I now; perhaps one sensed the +contrast between her supernatural yearnings, the Jeanne d’Arc voices +which guided her, and the humble round of Mahaly’s daily life: “Washin’ +dem dishes” (other people’s dishes) “an’ settin’ ’em erroun’.” + +On occasion she was moved to dance for us; not the ordinary, frivolous +clap-and-patter, buck-and-wing steps, for Mahaly had got religion and +was very much saved indeed--so much so that she gave nearly all her +earnings to the church--but a stately ceremonial prance, with odd jerks +of the body and long, rhythmic pauses, to the tune of a muttered chant. +Her eyes were half closed as in an ecstasy. So might some ancient +jungle priestess have danced before the great god Mumbo-jumbo. + +And she had the true artist’s passion for colour, for beautiful +fabrics, which was doubtless the reason our mothers found her such an +invaluable laundress. With what loving tenderness she would “rub out” +some silken treasure entrusted to her care, or flute a delicate ruffle, +or clear-starch a sheer organdy! And her cabin walls fluttered queerly +with rags and tags of brilliant colour, discarded finery, bright +garments which had ceased to function; meaningless, savage, more than a +little mad, of course, yet cheerful to the eye as a patchwork quilt. +Mahaly was, indeed, an advance agent of the decorative doctrines of +Bakst. + +Yet I recalled her most clearly--such is the sadism of childhood--not +as the wistful seeker after beauty, the patient and adoring friend (for +the most pestiferous of children never seemed to pester Mahaly), but as +the guy she always looked when she started off for camp meeting. This +great event of her church, known as “Conference,” took place annually +at a camp ground in the next county, and during the week or so it +lasted our kitchens were deserted, also our stables and gardens. An +enforced holiday was declared for all but the leisure classes. + +Mahaly used to prepare for “Conf’rence” weeks beforehand; and on the +day of departure we youngsters would collect in groups to watch her +pass, hurrying by short cuts to fresh points of vantage, sniggering, +nudging one another, jeering at her, I am afraid, as cruelly as any of +the Negroes. But Mahaly never seemed to realize it; we were only “the +chillen,” whom she trusted and loved. + +Moreover, she was uplifted beyond reach of our mocking, rapt in high +inner contemplation; and moved along the road with her queer, rhythmic, +jerking step to music that we could not hear, trailing clouds of +glory--literally. Sheba herself, on her way to the court of Solomon, +could have been no more magnificent. She wore, although the sun is +hot in “Conf’rence” time, a pink velvet opera cloak trimmed with +swan’s-down, which had belonged to Miss Mabilla Cornish in her days of +bellehood; beneath it glittered and swept a voluminous spangled yellow +evening gown from the same prolific source. + +Her feet were encased in a pair of Dr. Tom Curtis’s rubber-sided +_Romeo_ slippers, with the toes removed for greater ease; and she +wore my mother’s Paris bonnet of many seasons past, an erection of +jet which sprouted purple ostrich tips at intervals. There were other +details, such as square gold-rimmed spectacles without glass, a _Janice +Meredith_ curl (blond) draped coquettishly over one shoulder, an +ancient carpetbag which bulged with sacrifices destined presumably for +the altar: a fat roasting pullet, a jar of brandied peaches, a bottle +of elderberry wine, other delicacies which she could not afford. + +But Mahaly never got farther than to the railroad station. Whether the +other Negroes would not let her go with them, whether their jeers +caused her to lose confidence in the suitability of her appearance +before the Lord, or whether at the last she dared not put to the risk +of possible disillusionment her secret dreams, her hidden ecstasies, we +never knew. But the train for camp ground invariably went off without +Mahaly. She would reappear that evening, shorn of her glory and much +subdued, to a welcome she was sure of, in some grateful kitchen. Never +within my knowledge did Mahaly get to “Conf’rence.” + +Except once. Aunt Lady told us about it, all these years afterward. It +chanced that Dr. Tom, driving past the station just after the annual +exodus to camp ground, was struck with the forlornness of the solitary +figure which remained; and, being Aunt Lady’s husband and that sort of +man, he had offered to drive Mahaly over in state behind his fast span +of trotters, having a patient to see in that part of the country. + +Mahaly had stared incredulously. Then, with a wild shout of “Glory to +Gawd! Here I come!” she had clambered into the buggy, and said not +another word until, after many miles, he deposited her at the gates of +the Promised Land. Then she came down to earth sufficiently to smile +her gratitude speechlessly, radiantly. “I declare, the old wench looked +almost handsome!” murmured Dr. Tom, remembering it. + +And that was the last of Mahaly for many a long day. Nobody knew what +had become of her. + +It was a year later that they saw her coming home along the pike, still +wearing the pink opera cloak, bedraggled, weak, exhausted, but bearing +in her arms a puny yellow baby. + +“Not her own?” I gasped, incredulous. + +Aunt Lady nodded. “For all the world like an old cow that’s gone off +into the woods to calve, and don’t know whether to be proud or sorry +for herself,” she said with the rich tang of the soil that is her +heritage. + +Mahaly never told where she had been, nor with whom. I thought of the +King of Yearth, in his Aladdin cave; I thought also of the sacrifices +and libations she had prepared for the altar, and of priests who might +well have appreciated them. But nobody ever knew. Once, pressed too +closely, she had made some cryptic allusion to “a merracle”; and a +miracle indeed it seemed to those who had known her half their lives as +a man-hating spinster of uncertain age. + +But people pay heavily for miracles. Mahaly never recovered from hers. +She had the child christened “Infant Samuel” after an admired picture +in Aunt Lady’s parlour; and then she died, vaguer and more queer than +ever, babbling of mystic things. She left the Infant Samuel, of course, +to Aunt Lady, who seemed to find the legacy quite natural. It was not +her first. + +“And, besides, I can’t help feeling that Tom was sort of responsible,” +she admitted, ignoring her husband’s startled disclaimer. + +Sam’l’s infancy was no problem; he just grew up, she said, “like any of +the puppies,” in and out of the kitchen, the barn, the wash house--who +minded an extra piccaninny or two around? But the school age brought +difficulties. Not that Sam’l was mischievous, or disobedient, or lazy, +like ordinary coloured children. His name seemed to have affected his +nature, thus proving a theory of George Moore’s: the Infant Samuel was, +like his pictured prototype, a model child. But the other coloured +children failed to appreciate him. + +“Dey mocks at me all de time,” he said quite patiently, not at all +complaining. + +No matter how serious Sam’l was, the teacher reported, he seemed to +move his schoolmates to ribald mirth. + +And for this there may have been some cause. He not only looked +peculiar, with his long, pointed head, his anxious solemnity, and his +extreme limberness of body, but he did peculiar things. For example, +the sums on his slate looked like real sums, quite neatly done, until +one examined them more closely, when they were found to be composed of +mere pothooks, meaningless hieroglyphics which resembled figures, and +which he seemed to think did quite as well. + +“Ha, the imagist theory!” murmured my husband, who interests himself in +movements. + +And once during geography class, when there were visitors, the teacher +had invited Sam’l, who drew quite nicely, to do a map of the United +States upon the blackboard from memory. The result was a vaguely +familiar outline which resembled a map, in that states and lakes and +rivers were all neatly marked, the mountains very handsomely shaded +indeed. But one of the visitors, examining it in a puzzled manner, had +discovered that its outline was the profile, face downward, of George +Washington. + +Sam’l was sent home in disgrace for poking fun at company. But he +protested earnestly that he “hadn’t never poked fun at nobody,” not he. +That was the way he saw his native land, and he had drawn it so. + +“Ho! The subjective school,” muttered my husband. + +Later, under the influence of his name picture, Aunt Lady had thought +to make a preacher of the Infant Samuel; but after a brief trial the +coloured seminary had returned him with thanks. Their young brother, +they reported, was undoubtedly an earnest seeker, even sanctified; +he preached with fluency and was powerful in prayer; but though his +language and gestures were most superior, neither prayers nor sermons +seemed somehow to make sense; they sounded more like poetry. Nor would +his fellow theologs take him seriously. Whatever he said or did, they +sniggered at; a fatal handicap in the preaching profession. + +So Dr. Tom took him in hand and decided to make a stable boy of him. +Sam’l became at once every inch a horseman; he had great adaptability. +True, whenever he entered a stall he got kicked, horses being intuitive +creatures, not easily deceived. But Dr. Tom bore with him until one +morning he found Sam’l running his aged, cherished buggy mare, Miss +Susy, round and round the back lot, riding her neck like a jockey, +plying the outraged favourite with whip and spur--“jes’ givin’ the ol’ +gal a breath-out,” he explained, “to take the rheumatics out’n her +knees.” Incidentally, he gave Miss Susy an attack of heaves from which +she never recovered. + +After that Aunt Lady thought best to take Sam’l into the house under +her own eye, where there were less valuable things than horses to +learn upon; and that was the period during which we had discovered +him, dramatizing himself on the model of Judge Cornish’s stately old +factotum, Romulus. He had already, in his zeal, polished most of the +silver off Aunt Lady’s tea set, and he averaged one smash a meal; +whereas Romulus had never been known in his long career to break so +much as a teacup. + +“Sam’l can’t seem really to _do_ things, somehow,” said Aunt Lady, +sighing. “He just does _at_ ’em. Play-acting, like. ‘Monkey motions’; +you remember?” + +It was a game the little darkies used to play when we were all young +together, a left-over from the care-free days of slavery and the +plantation “street.” A leader, chosen for skill at pantomime, would +select something to imitate, and the circle around him must represent +the subject as best they could each in his own way, singing as they +went: + + “I ack monkey moshuns, too-ra-loo; + I ack monkey moshuns, so I do. + I ack ’em good, and dat’s a fack: + I ack jes’ like dem monkeys ack.” + +And so they did--“gemman moshuns,” “lady moshuns,” “preacher moshuns,” +and other less polite--absurd little skinny-shanked, mop-headed +creatures, with their soft, bright animal eyes and ingratiating ways; +the bandar-log indeed. But why should his fellow bandar-log object so +consistently to Sam’l’s monkey motions? For the grown-up Negroes were +as unkind to him as his schoolmates had been. Was it, I suggested, that +they thought him a “white-folks’ nigger”? + +On the contrary. Sam’l had great ambitions for his “race,” as he loved +to call them; yearned to lead it on to victory (against what enemy was +not stated--presumably the Germans); treated his persecutors--for they +amounted almost to that--with a magnanimity that was not without pathos. + +“It’s jus’ ign’ance,” he would apologize for them kindly. “They ack +so mean an’ ornery an’ outrageous ’cause they got such woolly heads; +that’s all!” + +Sam’l’s own hair happened by some odd freak to be quite straight and +thick and silky, like coarse floss. + +“If he didn’t show off so much, I’d be downright sorry for him,” said +Aunt Lady. “The boy’s lonesome for his kind; but--just listen to that!” +(as a burst of song reached us from the pantry). “He can’t even sing +like other people!” + +The pantry door having been thoughtfully propped open, we got full +benefit in the parlour of a fine falsetto aria done after Caruso’s best +manner, the impassioned tremolo, the husky little break at the climax, +all complete. + +“Do you mean to say,” murmured my husband respectfully, “that the +Infant Samuel is serenading us in Italian?” + +“Practically,” said the doctor. “As near as he can make it. He’s +been that way ever since I made the mistake of bringing Lady home a +phonograph from the city. She lends it to Sam’l to take to his room +on holidays, and our housework is accomplished to the strains of _I +Pagliacci_ and _Lucia_.” + +“Never mind, it won’t last long,” his wife soothed him. “Sam’l’s going +off to be a hero soon.” + +It appeared that, although the draft had twice rejected him, once +because of insufficient age and once because of defective vision, Sam’l +had managed to overcome all difficulties and was shortly to report at +training camp. + +I exclaimed with surprise, not able somehow to visualize the +temperamental child of Mahaly as a warrior, and such a determined +warrior. It did seem in his case peculiarly heroic, he was so inept and +helpless-looking; so what the Negroes call “shackly” in the knees. + +“Humph!” remarked Aunt Lady to my praise of this patriotism. “Showing +off, as usual. ‘I ack soldier moshuns, so I do.’ If Sam’l ever hears a +cannon he’ll start for home like a gun-shy setter. A mere ocean won’t +be able to stop him.” + + * * * * * + +It was a prophecy that came to pass, as many of Aunt Lady’s prophecies +do. But in the meanwhile Sam’l got as far as France; supplied by me, +because of auld lang syne, with the sort of comfort kit that would have +pleased Mahaly. It included a Bible, perfumed soap, a box of chocolate, +some very fancy notepaper, and a fountain pen; also a letter of sound +advice, as I rather dreaded the effect of foreign travel upon so +adaptable a temperament. + +His reply is one of my cherished possessions. He had been allotted to a +labour battalion, diggers, road makers, and the like, of whom he wrote +modestly: + + We are the Chosen People who must go before, like a Voice in the + Wilderness, to puppare the way. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. What + we’ll do to them en’emies, respeckted Madam, is a plenty. These yere + foreign nations is wusser than what you write about them. The way + they ack, respeckted Madam, is somethin’ scand’lous. Specially the + French. White wimmen makin’ over a sanctified cullud boy like who but + he! But don’ you fret, respeckted Madam, for fear I mought fergit my + raisin’. Pussonally I wouldn’t so demeen myself as to ’sociate with + no white wimmen what would demeen theirselves by ’sociatin’ with + cullud. + +It was reassuring to feel that a representative from our old town was +keeping so stern an eye upon the morals and manners of our volatile +ally. + +We learned not long afterward that Sam’l had been invalided safely +home, suffering from something like shell-shock. As Aunt Lady put it in +her letter, he must have heard a gunshot somewhere. + +We forgot about Sam’l for a while after that, until one very early +morning I heard our furnace being shaken down with a sort of rhythmic +emphasis, and asked the maid who brought in my coffee what all the +racket was about. + +She tossed her head. “Hit’s de new houseman,” she reported, “and he +’lows don’t nobody but him know how to shake a furnace nohow.” She +giggled angrily. + +Intuition told me what had occurred, even before a voice came floating +up the furnace pipes: + + “Hark, fum de tomb come do’fum soun’ + (Jay-bird jump an’ jar de groun’).” + +Nobody but Mahaly’s child could have given this song its old, peculiar +eeriness. Sam’l had abandoned the coloratura type of vocalization and +returned to an earlier manner. + +“Yes, M’dame, hit’s me,” he called up cheerily (since his sojourn in +France he no longer pronounced me “Moddom”). “Miss Lady done sent me +along to work for you-all a while,” and he presently handed me his +credentials. + +Since his return from the war, Aunt Lady wrote, the other Negroes had +treated him so unsympathetically that she thought best for him to +convalesce elsewhere, in the care of people like ourselves who could +understand his sensitive nature. While Sam’l, she went on to say, was +not and could never be a decent house servant, he was certainly better +than the city sort, who, she understood, were likely as not to sit down +beside you in the street car. + +He did not drink or gamble, he was not light-fingered (though of course +he sometimes borrowed things, like anybody), and he was willing and +anxious to do whatever was expected of him, whether he knew how or not. +His shell-shock merely took the form of a sort of nervousness in the +feet, resembling St. Vitus’s dance. + +We did not, as it happened, either need or want a houseman, +particularly one afflicted with St. Vitus’s dance; but Aunt Lady, +having never in her life failed a friend, is naturally not a person +whom her friends can fail. Sam’l and I engaged each other. + +It proved a relation which, while pleasant, was of short duration. +Sam’l was neglecting his operatic interests at the time in favour of +interpretative dancing, and his habit of constant practise in kitchen +and basement not only bade fair to disrupt our domestic arrangements, +but even to endanger the foundations of the house. At all hours of +the day and some of the night there was to be felt a certain measured +vibration in the atmosphere, accompanied by a slight warning rattle of +chandeliers and crockery. + +We might have ignored this growing menace in the interests of +friendship, but that one day my husband happened to observe our +houseman going off for a holiday sporting golf tweeds and stockings +whose vivid pattern was unmistakable. Sam’l, as Aunt Lady had +forewarned us, was merely borrowing these articles, and had every +intention of returning them to my husband’s closet at the first +favourable opportunity; but husbands have their little crotchets. I +parted with Sam’l, to our mutual regret. + +He bore no hard feelings, confessing that he was really on his gradual +way northward to join some influential acquaintances he had made +during his military career. We were, it appeared, merely a stepping +stone, albeit an honoured and a valued stepping stone, upon his upward +progress. + +That should by all rights have been the end of Sam’l so far as we were +concerned, for when Negroes go North they are usually lost to us. But +some years later a visitor was announced, who had sent up no card. + +“Leastways he _tried_ to gimme a card,” bridled the housemaid, +giggling, “but I never took’n it off him.” + +The drawing room was empty. I asked where she had put the caller. + +“In the kitchen, whar he belongs at!” was the emphatic response. + +The prodigal had returned, but a metamorphosed, almost an +unrecognizable prodigal. He had grown a neat little shoebrush moustache +(in itself quite a feat for a coloured man); he wore an extremely +well-tailored cutaway, mouse-coloured trousers and gloves to match, +immaculate white spats, and a gardenia in his buttonhole. His manner +was even more of a metamorphosis; it had become as simple as his +appearance was elaborate; crisp, clear, decisive, very much the manner, +in fact, of my husband closing up a business deal. Sam’l invariably +profited by his contacts. + +“I shall not take up mo’ than a moment of yore vallyble time, Madam” +(pronounced in plain American now), “but I have come to tender you and +His Honour some free tickets for the performance to-morrow night. I +also mailed free tickets,” he added, “to Doctor and Miss Lady Curtis, +and I took’n the libbuty to suggest that they better come and stay with +you-all for the event.” + +“Quite right, Sam’l; I’m glad you did,” I murmured, rather dazed, “but +what is the event?” + +In silence he handed me a card--the one my housemaid had +rejected--printed in Old English lettering, “Professor Samuel K. +Curtis, Esq.” Mahaly’s child had evidently paid his “white folks” the +compliment of incorporating their names with his own. + +“How nice!” I murmured. “But what are you professor of, Sam’l?” + +“The art of Terpsichore, Madam. I thought perhaps you’d reckernize +the name. But it’s natural you wouldn’t,” he added, “being as how I’m +better known to the public as ‘Slippyfoot.’ Also,” he added simply, “as +‘the Charleston King.’” + +I began to understand. One knew by hearsay--our personal ambitions in +that line having ceased with the fox trot--of the new dancing step +which was taking America and even Europe by storm; and I remembered +reading that our own city was to be the privileged scene of a coloured +Charleston contest, with competitors from all quarters of the country. + +“So you’ve come to compete in the Charleston contest?” I asked. + +“Hardly to compete,” he replied gently, looking rather disappointed +in me. “Rather to expound, Madam. To show ’em,” he elucidated +further, “how the Charleston should be did; its origins, methods, and +significations, like I showed ’em,” he added very, very modestly, “in +London and in Paris.” + +I rose to the occasion sufficiently to invite the Charleston King to +remain for supper; an invitation he accepted on condition that he be +allowed to wait on us at table, which he did, white spats, gardenia, +and all. Greatness had not gone to his head; he still remembered his +“raisin’.” Incidentally, he dropped and broke my favourite salad bowl. + +None of us had happened to see the Charleston danced before, or so +we thought, until the contest begun. Then we recognized it: the same +old clap-and-patter, wriggling and prancing, familiar to any Southern +childhood, with some elaborations: a constant St. Vitus-like movement +of the feet, odd sidewise skating-motions, a slow dipping of the body +up and down and up again, with flapping arms, as of some clip-winged +bird trying to fly. + +“Good gracious!” exclaimed Aunt Lady, beside me. “You don’t tell me +_ladies_ and _gentlemen_ are carrying on like this in the ballroom? And +what’s the crowd making such a to-do about, anyhow? They can see this +sort of thing any day if they look out the back window!” + +Yet the large auditorium was packed as for a prize fight; white people +on the main floor, standing up, mounting their chairs in order to see +better; coloured people packing the gallery, in delegations, with +appropriate banners; and all shouting together, catcalling, yelling for +Slippyfoot Sam. + +What a descent from his christened name! I was glad for the moment that +Mahaly was not present at this apotheosis of her miracle child. But +only for a moment. + +He came in the place of honour on the programme, the spotlight full +upon him, heralded by a fanfare of snare drums and saxophones. To +my surprise, it was not the elegant gentleman I had promised my +companions. He had left to lesser luminaries the fine raiment, the +spats, and the gardenia. Even the neat moustache had been sacrificed +to art. He had deliberately reverted to type. Barefoot, in ragged +trousers, and a hat without a crown, it was a Sam’l any one in that +audience would recognize, as we did, and love because he was their own. +He had shown the intuition of genius; achieved the crowning artistry of +imitating himself. + +The audience, with one gasp of surprise, went wild. There were shrieks +of welcome and approval, congratulatory howls. + +“Attaboy, Slippyfoot!” they yelled. “You show ’em, King!” + +And of course they laughed at him, as people always did and always +would. But it was a new laughter, sympathetic, almost affectionate. +Sam’l, I realized, had become to his public a sort of symbol, like the +Charleston itself, like the tune “Dixie”; a reminder of a South that +was passing now, and would never come again. + +He paid no attention to laughter or to cheers; a ludicrous enough +figure with his great flat feet and exquisitely awkward body, yet oddly +dignified. It was the dignity of conscious power; Sam’l knew what he +was about. Those melancholy, anxious hound’s eyes roamed over the +enormous audience till suddenly they paused and lighted. He had found +his white folks. He smiled at us; I think I had never seen Sam’l smile +before. It was an experience; sudden, irradiating, infinitely proud and +trustful. He was among friends. + +He began to move, a strange, slow prance with measured jerks and +pauses, which I recognized--Mahaly before the great god Mumbo-jumbo! +Suddenly he crouched, shivering, trembling, and began to run +desperately--all without leaving one spot; he fought against unseen +enemies, shield before him, thrusting his spear, flinging his assegai; +he moved away, drooping, heavy, a captive in chains; never losing a +single beat of the wild rhythm, a single intricate double pat of the +foot. + +I began to understand what he was doing. This was no mere exposition +of the Charleston “as it should be did, its origins, methods, and +significations.” Sam’l, the despised and rejected of them, was +interpreting his people for our benefit, dramatizing in dance the +history of his race, even as Roland Hayes in song, as others in +literature. + +There was something hypnotic in that ceaseless beating rhythm, those +constant, significant movements of the half-naked body. We saw through +his imagination; we remembered through his race-memory. Hoeing and +sowing; picking cotton under the eye of an overseer with a lash; +escaping into the swamp, with bloodhounds following; terror he danced +for us, the terror that crouches and prays and kills; ecstasy, the +shouting joys of religion, the release of freedom--springing up and up +as if he would dance with the stars. + +There followed the humble, happy life of the quarters: picking a banjo, +crooning as he patted and swung, flashing his teeth at a girl; rocking +a child in his arms, tenderly, lovingly; bending up and down over +a wash-tub, testing a flatiron with wetted forefinger; “washin’ dem +dishes an’ settin’ ’em erroun’.” (We heard him humming his mother’s old +working song to the timeless steady thump of the orchestra, and Aunt +Lady smiled at me dimly.) + + * * * * * + +Now and again the music changed, and for a moment some familiar tune +emerged. To the beat of “Greased my heel wid hog-eye lard,” we saw him +slip stealthily along the hen-roosts, seize his prey and still it with +a quick twist of the wrist; later he seemed to be shooting craps, down +on his knees, shaking the dice and rolling them out, to delighted cries +from the audience: + +“He fives! He sevens! Attaboy, King! Roll your own! Babies, come to +Papa!” + +We rode a race with him, jockeying home to a grand-stand finish. (I +thought of poor, astonished Miss Susy.) We saw him off to the war, +strutting gloriously, twirling his baton at the head of a brass band, +and we saw him slipping ingloriously home again, peering back over his +shoulder as if he had seen a ghost; for Sam’l did not spare himself. +Next he mounted the pulpit, wrestled with the Lord in prayer, laying +off his hands in eloquent gesture, giving us the Word straight from the +shoulder, so that a sudden hysterical voice out of the gallery shouted, +“Yas, O my Lawdy! _I_ hears You callin’ me!” + +And all the time his feet kept up that steady, monotonous, hypnotic +beat and shuffle, shuffle and beat, as if they could never stop; as if +they could never stop until the unseen force that manages the puppet +show should cease to pull the strings. + +When at the end he stumbled away out of the spotlight, dancing still, +bent over double like an old rheumatic that leans upon a stick, there +was a moment’s quiet. + +Some two thousand people felt for that moment, perhaps, just what he +intended them to feel: the loneliness of children in a world that has +grown old, the helplessness of a simple jungle folk, a bandar-log, set +down in the life of cities and expected to be men. “They ack so mean +an’ ornery an’ outrageous ’cause they got such woolly heads!” + +Then the audience followed him, as it had welcomed him, with shouts and +shrieks of laughter. + +But Sam’l’s white folks would never laugh at him again; dreamer of +dreams that he was, seer of visions. Aunt Lady’s dear, wrinkled face +was frankly wet with tears. + +Her husband put an arm around her. + +“Why, old honey, it’s only Sam’l at his monkey motions! What are you +weeping about?” + +“_I_ don’t know. What are you!” she countered snappishly. + + + + +FOUR DREAMS OF GRAM PERKINS + +BY RUTH SAWYER + +From _American Mercury_ + + +Gram Perkins was not my grandmother. I had good reason to believe +that she had died and received Christian burial a half century before +I first set foot in Haddock harbour. Neither were the dreams of my +dreaming; so my connection with her was always remote and impersonal. +Nevertheless, I came to know through her all the horror and the +fascination of a perturbed spirit. + +For those who may not know the harbour, let me explain that it bites +into the northern stretch of Maine coast. Summer resorters are still +in the minority, and peace and beauty serve as perpetual handmaidens +to those few exhausted, nerve-racked city folk who have found refuge +there. I was there only a few days when the immortal essence of Gram +Perkins confronted me. Perkins is a prevailing name at the harbour. +A Perkins peddles fish on Tuesdays and Fridays. A Perkins keeps the +village store in whose windows are displayed those amazing knickknacks +somebody or other creates out of sweet grass, beads, birch bark, and +sealing wax. A Perkins is framed daily in the general delivery window +of the post office, and his brother drives the one village jitney. + +It was Cal Perkins of tender years who indirectly introduced me to the +mysterious dreamer of the dreams. Cal took me on my first scaling of +the blueberry ledges. Standing like Balboa on the Peak of Darien he +swept a hand inland and said: “Somewhars, over thar, lives Zeb Perkins. +Hain’t never laid eyes on him myself, but Pa says you doan’t never want +to hear him tell of them four dreams he’s had of Grandmother Perkins. +Woan’t sleep ag’in fur a month ef you do.” It was not long before I +discovered those dreams were as firm a tradition at the harbour as +the “Three Hairs of Grandfather Knowital” are in Eastern Europe--only +with a difference. Natives in the Balkans pass on their story for the +asking; whereas in Haddock harbour they evade all questions leading to +Gram Perkins, while their tongues travel to their cheeks. + +One day Cal took me to the cemetery and showed me the Perkins monument. +It was a splendid affair in two shades of marble with a wrought-iron +fence and gateway, and all about it were the head stones marking the +graves of the separate members of the family. I read the inscription on +Gram Perkins’s stone: + + Sara Amanda Perkins + Beloved wife of Benjamin Perkins, Sea Captain + 1791-1863 + May she rest in perfect peace! + +“Wall, she didn’t!” Cal hurled the words at me as he catapulted through +the gate, shaking all over like the aspen back of the lot. I caught a +final mumbling: “Never aim to stop nigh _her_. Pa says I might git to +dreamin’, too.” + +Here was distinctly unpleasant food for thought. Already she had a firm +grip on my waking hours, and there was no relish to the idea of her +haunting my sleeping ones. The manner in which she possessed the town +was astounding. She lurked wherever one went, popping out with the most +casual remark when one was buying a pound of butter or a pint of clams. +And yet, for all the daily allusions and innuendoes, one never got at +the heart of the matter; one never rightly understood why Gram Perkins +was and yet was not five feet below the sod. As for the dreamer of the +dreams, one never found him clothed in anything more solid than words. + +I questioned Peddling Perkins one Friday when he came to our house with +the makings of a chowder. “Tell me,” I began, “where does Zeb Perkins +live and what relation is he to you?” + +He paused in his weighing. The scales hung from a rafter in his cart +and worked somewhat mysteriously. He might have been weighing out the +exact amount of relationship he cared to claim. “Fur as I can make out +he’s sort of a third cousin.” + +“Did he ever tell you about those dreams?” + +“No, m’am!” He fixed me with a fore-warning eye. “What’s more, he +hain’t never goin’ to. I seen Scip Perkins--time he told him. Scairt! +Never seen a feller so shook up in his life. Didn’t take off his +clothes and lay good abed fur a week. No, m’am!” + +I questioned the post-office Perkins one day: “Do you happen to know +what Zeb Perkins dreamed about his grandmother?” + +“Dreamed! Gosh, what didn’t he dream? Think of anything a sensible +woman, dead and buried fifty years, stands liable to do and you +wouldn’t have the half of it.” He finished snapping his teeth together +to signify that he had gone as far with those dreams as he intended to +go--for the present, anyway. + +A few days later I took the matter to the village store. I even +bought a chain and earrings of sealing wax to make my going seem less +mercenary. “Those dreams,” I ventured, “how did they happen and do they +belong entirely to Zeb?” + +“They do, God be praised!” Whereupon the storekeeper retired behind +the necklace for a good two minutes, and then partially emerged to +whisper, “No one’s layin’ any claim at all to those dreams but Zeb. And +I’ve always thought myself if he hadn’t had them, no knowing what he +mightn’t have had.” + + +II + +For two recurring summers I stayed fixed at this point. And then came a +spring when I slipped off early to the harbour for trout. The Perkins +who drives the jitney met me at the wharf as I stepped from the Boston +boat. “Hain’t a summer resorter nor a bluejay here yit,” was his +greeting. “Weather’s right smart--nips ye considerable.” And it did. +The water in the brooks was so cold my fingers remained stiff and blue +all day. But the fishing was good, and in the end I caught something +more than trout. + +A morning came with a southeast wind. Up to that I had lost almost no +flies, so I started out with little extra tackle. The middle of the +morning found me a mile deep in an alder swamp, bog on one side and +piled-up brush on the other. It was what you would call dirty fishing, +and in half an hour I had lost every fly and leader I had with me. +There was nothing to do but put up my rod and go back. In an effort +to strike higher ground I came into what was new country to me. A +trail led up toward where I judged the blueberry ledges would be, and +climbing for a mile or so I suddenly broke through into a clearing and +a wagon road. A grayish house stood beside the road. A thin spiral of +smoke curled out of the chimney. On a split stake, even with the road, +teetered a sign reading: + + HAND MADE TROUT FLIES FOR SALE HERE + +I attacked the door without mercy. A moment’s knocking brought the +sound of stirring from within, and the door finally creaked open, +displaying the oddest cut of a little man in a wheel chair. He blinked +at me like some great nocturnal bird, and soon there was an intelligent +wag of the head--more at my clothes than at me. + +“Come in. Doan’t gin’rally git lady fishermen. Hearn tell they git ’em +down to the harbour lookin’ jes’ as he-ish as the men.” He rolled his +chair backward from the door, beckoning me to follow. I could hear +him repeating the last of his words under his breath as if by way of +confirmation: “Yes, sir, looking jes’ as he-ish as the men.” + +He led me into a room that might have been identified even in the +uttermost corner of the world as having been conceived and delivered in +the State of Maine. An airtight stove centred it, and on its pinnacle +stood a nickel-plated moose at bay. There were half a dozen pulled-in +rugs: fruit pulled in; red, yellow, and purple roses pulled in; a +rooster pulled in; and other things that defied the imagination. The +two window sills were gay with geraniums and begonias. Crayon portraits +panelled the walls, and between each portrait hung a hair wreath. +Fronting the door was a shower of coffin plates, strung together +with a fish line. A large coloured print of a clipper hung over the +mantel, while all about hung trophies of the South Seas--strings of +shells and beads and corals. But the most amazing exhibit was the +feathers: peacock, egret, flamingo, pheasant, turkey, and cock tails, +yellowhammer and bluejay wings, breasts, crests and what not. The work +bench was littered with tiny feathers, partridge and guinea fowl, +and spools of bright silk. He brushed all these aside and reached +underneath to a drawer, bringing out a handful of trout flies. It took +no close scrutiny to tell their exquisite workmanship. + +“Pick out what ye want. Swamp back yonder jes’ eats ’em up, doan’t it?” +And he smiled an ingratiating, toothless smile. + +I made my selections slowly, studying the little man more than the +flies. His head was as bald and pink as a baby’s. His lips were +tremulous, and his eyes showed that pale blue opacity of the very +old or very young. It was his hands that held me confounded. They +were twisted like bird claws. How they could have ever taken wisps +of feather and fine lengths of silk and wound them into the perfect +semblance of tiny aërial creatures was more than I could conceive. He +caught at my wondering and with a burst of crowing laughter he held the +claws closer for inspection. “Handsome, hain’t they? Cal’ate I work ’em +steady as most folks work a good pair. Can’t stand wet nor cold, no +better ’n Gram Perkins could in hern. Good days she was the smartest +knitter in the county.” + +So here was another Perkins. I aimed my habitual question at him, +expecting no better results. “Tell me, do you know anything about those +four dreams?” + +He sat a moment, motionless, in what one might have termed a +vainglorious silence. He sucked his lips in and out over those vacant +gums as if he found them full of flavour; then he suddenly burst into +the triumphant crow of a chanticleer. “Yes m’am! Cal’ate I do know +them dreams--seein’ I dreamed ’em. I be Zeb Perkins!” He said it with +as sweet an unction as if he had announced himself King of the Hejaz. +In a flash the room stood revealed anew. It spoke aloud of Sara Amanda +Perkins, beloved wife of Benjamin Perkins, sea captain; of his clipper, +of the relics of his voyages, of her handiwork in rugs and wreaths. The +very begonias might be slip grandchildren of the ones she had planted. +Here, indeed, was a stage set for those dreams. Here sat Zeb Perkins, +playwright and stage manager, picking excitedly at his pink head, +eternally ready to ring up his curtain. He caught my eye on the wreaths. + +“Them little tow-headed fergit-me-nots belonged to her first son as +died a baby. She set a terrible store by him. The black in them susans +come from her sister Ida, my great-aunt Perkins. See them coffin +plates. Ye’ll see every one of them was copper, nickeled over, every +one but Gram’s. Hers was solid.” + +There was a wealth of information conveyed in that last word. I had +been standing until now. One of Zeb’s claws waved itself away from the +coffin plates to a chair: “Set, woan’t ye? Ye’ll see them rockers +under ye are worn as flat as sledge runners. That was Gram’s chair; and +we wore them rockers off luggin’ her ’round. She was all crippled up, +Gram was, same as me; only in them days there warn’t no wheel chairs.” + +The chair was all Zeb claimed. There was no more rock to it than to +a dray sledge. From the chair his eyes flew to the crayon portraits. +“Look at them! Look at Marm--then look at Gram. Why, there was nary a +thing Gram couldn’t do, for all her crippled-upness. Bake a pie, fry a +batch o’ doughnuts, clean up the butt’ry. But Marm seems like she was +born fretty and tired. Made ye tired jest to watch her travel from the +sink to the cook stove. She’d handle a batch o’ biscuits like she never +expected to live to see ’em baked. Jes’ lookin’ at ’em, can’ ye make +out a difference?” + +I did and I could. In spite of everything the artist had done to +obliterate all human expression he had mastered the single point of +difference. One face sagged utterly, the other looked out with sharp +alert eyes on a world that interested her immensely. There was a grim +humour about the mouth, and a firmness that spoke a challenge even at +the end of a century. + +“I tell ye,” Zeb’s eulogy was gathering momentum. “We boys set a +terrible store by Gram. She was cuter and smarter tied to that chair +than Marm was on two good legs--hands to match ’em. Golly! How sick +boys git bein’ whined at. Didn’t make no odds what we done--good or +bad--Marm al’ays whined, but Gram--she stood by like she’d been a boy +herself. She’d beg us off hoein’ fer circus and fair days and slip +us dimes for this or that. Cal’ate she’s slipped us enough nickels +and dimes to stretch clean to the upper pasture. Pasture! Golly! When +we was up thar, hot days, hayin’, she’d al’ays mix us a pitcher o’ +somethin’ cool--cream o’ tartar water or lemon and m’lasses. When +she had it ready she’d take a stick and tick-tack on the wind’y. She +could whistle, too; whistle through them crooked fingers o’ hern like +a yaller-hammer. She’d whistle whenever she wanted to be fetched +anywhars; then one of us boys would come runnin’ and heave her to +wheresomever she aimed to go--kitchen to butt’ry--butt’ry to settin’ +room--settin’ room to shed.” + +Zeb stopped here and illustrated. He put two of his crooked fingers to +his mouth and shrilled out a thin, wailing note as eery as a banshee’s. + +“That’s the way she done it,” he continued. “And Marm would fuss and +fret and say she didn’t see why the Lord ’lowed a little crippled-up +body like Gram’s to stay so chuck full o’ spunk. Some days she git sort +o’ vengeful, Marm would, and tell Gram she’d better quiet down decent, +or more’n likely she’d never rest quiet in her grave after she died.” + + +III + +A hush fell on the room. There was a baleful light shimmering through +Zeb’s dull eyes, his claws began a nervous intertwining. “Wall ...” +he broke the silence at last, “Gram died. Night afore she died seems +like she got scairt. She grabbed us boys one after another and made +us all promise we wouldn’t bury her twell we were good and sure she +was dead. ‘Keep me five days--promise me that,’ she kept a-sayin’. And +we promised. Recollect it didn’t seem to me then as how Gram could +die--so full of smartness and spunk. Even after old Doc Coombs come and +pronounced her, seemed like she’d open her eyes any minute and ask us +boys to lug her somewhars. ’Stead o’ that she lay so quiet, seemed like +I could hear Doomsday strike.” + +The air about us became suddenly supercharged with something. Was it +that ravenous desire for life that must have consumed Gram Perkins? +Under their glass domes the hair wreaths seemed to move as if fanned by +a breath. The feathers about us swayed. The rooster in the pulled-in +rug seemed to pulse with life and a desire to crow. A crowing shook the +room, but it came from Zeb. + +“Hot! Golly, Gram died in the sizzlingest spell, middle of August, +folks can remember. Didn’t embalm in them days, so ’twas ice or +nothing. We drew lots for shifts--us boys. Ben and Ellery drew day; Sam +and me night. Mebbe we didn’t work! Lugged in hunks from the ice house +to the shed; thar we cracked and lugged in dish pans to the settin’ +room. Crack--lug--mop--lug--crack. Five days! It’s been a powerful +sight o’ comfort sence to know we kept Gram’s promise. Then come the +funeral--smart one. Slathers o’ flowers and mourners and hacks. Cal’ate +you’ve seen the lot whar we buried her?” + +At the mention of burial a sense of enormity made me shudder. I was +beginning to realize that the further Zeb progressed in the matter of +the obsequies of Gram Perkins the more alive she became. At that moment +she possessed the house--every crack and cranny in it. She possessed +Zeb, and she possessed me. I found myself straining my ears for the +rattle of dishes in the butt’ry or the sharp thin note of a whistle. +Zeb’s ear was cocked as well as mine. + +“Them dreams,” he said, pulling himself together. “First one come +fifteen years after Gram died. All was gone from the harbour by that +time but me. Ben took the pneumony and died quick. Ellery got liver +complaint, turned yaller as arnicy and thinned out to a straw. Sort o’ +blew away he did. Sam--he got trampled on by a horse. That left jes’ +me. Night after I buried Marm I come back here and had my first dream. +I was young ag’in. Boys back, Marm back, all of us settin’ thar at +Gram’s funeral. Parson was a-prayin’--had been fur a considerable time. +I could hear Nate French fumblin’ fur his tunin’ fork, so’s to lead the +departin’ hymn when plain as daylight I heard a whistle. Yes, m’am. +Then I heard a tick-tack--like Gram was knockin’ on some wind’y. Kept +hopin’ she’d quiet down when out shot another whistle--clear above the +parson’s prayin’. Nobody but me seemed to notice, so I got up gingerly +and tiptoed over to the coffin and raised the lid. + +“Thar she was--fixin’ fur to tick-tack ag’in. I grapped her fingers +quick and shoved ’em back whar they belonged. Then I leaned over and +whispered, loud as I durst, ‘Lay still, Gram. Parson’s nigh through +and we’ll be movin’ along shortly. Folks ’ll be passin’ ’round in a +moment to view the remains. Fur the Lord’s sake, close your eyes and +act sensible.’ Wall ... that fixed her. She give me a wink so’d I know +she’d act right, and I tiptoed back to my place. They was all still +a-prayin’--kept right on a-prayin’ twell I woke up. Three years later, +come November, I had the second.” + +Zeb shivered, and so did I. I wanted that second dream and yet I did +not want it. Had I chosen I could no more have stayed it than one could +have held back the second act of a Greek tragedy. + +“We was on our way to the cemetery.” Zeb’s voice lifted me free of +all choice in the matter. “I was ridin’ outside the first hack, bein’ +the youngest, and I was thinkin’ what a fine day it was fur that time +o’ year. Sort o’ funny, too, fur Gram died in August and here it was +November and we was jes’ gittin’ to bury her. I was lookin’ at the +hearse when it happened. Hearses was different in them days, black +urns at the four top corners with black plumes stickin’ out and a pair +o’ solid wooden doors behind. Above the poundin’ of the horses’ hoofs +I heard a hammerin’ on them solid doors. Bang ... bang ... plain as +daylight. Old Jared Sims was drivin’ and I didn’t want he should hear +so I sung out, ‘Cal’ate they’re shinglin’ the Coomb’s barn.’ He turned +’round in his seat to look, and jes’ that minute thar come a regular +whale of a hammerin’ and the doors of the hearse bust open. Thar was +Gram--top of her own coffin, peekin’ down low at me and beckonin’ fur +me to come and git her. + +“Mad! I was as mad as a hornet. I went back to that wink she’d given me +in t’other dream and seemed like she’d gone back on her word--something +Gram had never done livin’. I was off the seat of that hack in a jiffy, +runnin’ aside the hearse. When the goin’ slowed up I stuck my head +inside and hollered, ‘Ye git straight back whar ye b’long! And what’s +more ye stay thar!’ Then I begun to whimper like I couldn’t stand my +feelin’s another minute. ‘Gram,’ says I, ‘hain’t ye got any heart? Do +ye want to disgrace us boys? How’ll ye cal’ate we’ll feel to have the +neighbours thinkin’ we’re tryin’ to bury ye ag’in your will? We give ye +them five days like we promised--can’t ye lay down decent and proper +now?’ + +“That settled her. She turned, meek as a cow, climbed back into her +coffin and closed the lid down. I went back to the hack and climbed up. +We was still a-goin’ when I woke up.” + + +IV + +An interlude followed. I tried to bring back my mind to the reality +of life as I knew it to be. I fingered my trout flies and did my best +to image the still, deep pool below the swamp where I had been on the +point of casting just as my last leader broke. Half an hour more I +could be back there, casting again. But the pool and the trout faded +into oblivion beside the sterner reality of Gram Perkins. I was on the +hack with young Zeb, my eyes fastened in growing perturbation on a pair +of solid black doors. + +“Jes’ started on our January thaw when the next dream took me,” broke +in Zeb. “We’d reached the cemetery. Grave dug, coffin lowered, folks +standin’ ’round fur a final prayer. To all appearances everything +was goin’ first rate. But the sexton hadn’t more than picked up his +shovel, easy-like, when out comes a whistle, clear as a fog horn. I +opened my eyes quick and looked down. Thar was Gram, poppin’ out like +a jack-in-the-box, lid swung wide open and both hands reachin’ fur the +dirt the sexton was shovellin’ in. Yes, m’am! Ye never saw dirt fly in +all your born days the way Gram made it fly. At the rate she was goin’, +I knew we’d be standin’ thar twell Doomsday, gittin’ her buried. + +“Everybody else was prayin’ hard along with the parson, and he was +’most to the Resurrection. I knew somethin’ had to be done quick, so +in I jumped. I slapped the dirt out of her hands hard like you would +with a child and says I, ‘Land o’ goodness, Gram, what ails ye? We’ve +fetched ye along to what the Bible calls your last restin’ place. All +we boys is askin’ of ye now is to keep quiet and rest twell Jedgment +Day.’ + +“The words warn’t more’n out afore I knew I’d said the wrong thing. +She didn’t lay any more store ’bout this eternal restin’ than what ye +would, settin’ thar fingerin’ them flies. She give me the most pitiful +look ye ever saw on a human face. It said, plain as daylight, ‘Zeb, lug +me back home and let me git to work ag’in.’ + +“Wall ... I took to whimperin’ like a two-year-old. ‘Ef ye woan’t do it +fur the Bible,’ says I, ‘do it fur us boys. Ye’ve al’ays been terrible +proud of us--al’ays wanted we should have jes’ what we wanted, and +thar’s nothin’ in the whole o’ creation we want so much this minute as +to see ye restin’ peaceful. Git back in. Close your eyes, fold your +hands, git that listen fur the last trumpet look on your face. Hurry, +woan’t ye? The sexton’s shovellin’ like sixty.’ + +“She give me another of them pitiful looks--nigh broke me all up--and +she sort o’ slid back and slammed the lid down on her fur all the +world like one of these cuckoo clocks. I lit out and landed side o’ +the parson jes’ as he said ‘Amen.’ ... ‘Amen,’ says I, thankful-like. +‘Amen,’ says the sexton.... ‘Amen,’ says the mourners in a roarin’ +chorus like the sea. And then I swear to ye that way under the dirt I +heard Gram sing out Amen! Tell ye I woke in a sweat!” + +“Cold sweat?” I asked. It was all I could think of. + +“Cold as a clam, dripped with it.” + +“That makes three.” + +“Three!” Zeb tolled it out like a passing bell. “All bad enough--the +fourth, worst of all. Ye wait.” + +I waited. + +“Three years I lived comfortable in my mind. Seemed like that last Amen +had settled things. Then May come along. I’d been slippin’ some of them +geraniums to take up to the cemetery Memorial Day. I could still walk +some--slowly, but git about--and I went to bed mighty real happy at the +idea o’ fixin’ up Gram’s grave. Right on top o’ that came the fourth +dream! + +“I was swingin’ up the road toward the cemetery, and in one hand +I carried a pot with the slips in, and t’other held my stick I +walked with. Jes’ about reached the lot when up comes a jedge from +Boston--nice feller--and I asked him to come along and see the view +from our place. ‘Most famous in the State,’ says I. ‘Clear days we can +see ’most anything.’ + +“I fetched him through the iron gates and stood him up close to the +monument and begun pointin’ places out. ‘Thar’s Mount Washington,’ +says I. ‘Some days ye can see the whole Presidential Range.... Thar’s +Katahdin ... thar’s....’ But I stopped thar dead. I’d caught something +move in the grass by Gram’s headstone. The next minute out come a +whistle, loudest I ever heard. I swung the jedge clear ’round and +pointed out to sea. ‘Thar’s Mount Desert,’ says I, and ‘thar’s Isle au +Haut. That’s the Rockland boat ye hear whistlin’--consarn it!’ + +“I looked at Gram. She’d got her head and shoulders clear and she was +whistlin’ ag’in fur dear life. Then she took her fingers out of her +mouth and nodded her head toward out back. Seemed like she was askin’ +me fur the last time to take her home. The jedge seemed lost in the +scenery, and I stepped up to Gram and showed her the geranium slips. +‘Look at them,’ says I. ‘Fetched ’em all the way over to decorate your +grave, and here ye be, bustin’ loose and cuttin’ up. Hain’t ye ever +goin’ to give in and rest in peace?’ + +“Wall, she never said a word, jes’ kept working herself further and +further out. I was terrible scairt the jedge would turn round any +second and ketch her. Stood thar on pins and needles watchin’ Gram rise +from her grave. ‘Have a heart, Gram,’ I begun coaxin’ ag’in. ‘How’d ye +like a city feller like that jedge to ketch a Perkins turnin’ ghost +like?’ ... Never finished what I set out to say. She looked so queer +and upset--so like she wanted to tell me something and didn’t know how. +I stood thar, geraniums in one hand, stick in t’other, tryin’ to make +out what it was Gram wanted to tell me. Then it come over me, all of a +flash. ’Twasn’t she that wanted to git out; ’twas that smart, spunky +body o’ hern. It was drivin’ the sperrit same as a strong wind drives +a cloud afore it. She was ready to rest if that doggoned crippled-up, +pie-bakin’, doughnut-fryin’ body would have let her be. But it +wouldn’t. It was draggin’ her out of her coffin, out of her grave, +turnin’ her loose about the county like no decent sperrit could stand. + +“‘I’ll fix it,’ says I, droppin’ the geraniums and grabbin’ the +stick with both hands, ‘I’ll fix it so it’ll let ye rest quiet twell +Doomsday,’ and with that I laid on Gram with that stick. I beat her up +twell thar warn’t nothin’ left but a scatterin’ of dust on the spring +sod. Yes, m’am! I reduced Gram to dust and ashes like the Bible said +had to be.” + +A long sigh swept the stillness of the room. The face of Zeb Perkins +underwent a sequence of changes. Triumph had been there, but it +dwindled out and sorrow took its place; and then a fear, a tremulous +commiseration and, finally, bewilderment. He now looked straight at me. +His eyes were dull, fearful. “They doan’t understand, them Perkins to +the harbour. They doan’t think I ever ought to have done that to Gram.” + +I gathered up my flies and was halfway to the door before Zeb spoke +again. His voice had now grown querulous: “Wall--what do ye think?” + +I gave my answer as I slipped out of doors, into the wide spaces again. +“I think the trout are going to bite,” said I. + + + + +THE LITTLE GIRL FROM TOWN + +BY RUTH SUCKOW + +From _Harper’s_ + + +“I wonder who that is coming here,” Mrs. Sieverson said, looking out of +the kitchen window. + +“Somebody coming?” Mr. Sieverson asked from the sink. “Oh, I guess +that’s Dave Lindsay, ain’t it? He said he’d be out.” + +“Yes, but he’s got someone with him. Oh! I believe it’s that little +girl from back East somewhere that’s visiting them. Leone! Children!” + +Mr. Sieverson went outdoors, and then Mrs. Sieverson, and, by the time +the car stopped, rounding the drive, all four children were on hand +from somewhere. Even Marvin and Clyde, the two boys. + +“Anybody home?” Mr. Lindsay called out jovially. + +“You bet!” + +They were all looking at the little girl in the car beside him. They +had heard about this little girl, and how “cute” she was. Her mother +was some relative of Mrs. Lindsay. Leone and Vila looked at her +eagerly. The boys hung back but they wanted to see her. Mr. Lindsay was +proud. He said: + +“Well, sir, I’ve got somebody along with me!” + +“I see you have!” Mr. Sieverson answered with shy heavy jocularity and +Mrs. Sieverson asked, “Is this the little girl been visiting you?” + +“This is the little girl! But I don’t know whether she’s visiting or +not. I’ve just about made up my mind I’ll keep her!” + +They all laughed appreciatively. Leone pulled her mother’s dress. She +wanted her mother to ask if the little girl couldn’t get out and play +with them. “Now, don’t. We’ll see,” Mrs. Sieverson whispered. The +little girl was so pretty sitting there with her soft golden-brown hair +and her cream-white dress that Mr. and Mrs. Sieverson were both shy +of saying anything directly to her. Mr. Sieverson cried, still trying +conscientiously to joke: + +“Well, ain’t you going to get out?” + +Mr. Lindsay asked, “Well!--shall we, Patricia?” + +The little girl looked gravely at the other little girls, and then +nodded. + +“All right, sir! Patricia’s the boss! I’ve got to do as she says.” + +She consented to smile at that, and the two boys giggled. Mr. Lindsay +lifted her out of the car. She put her arms around his neck, and her +little legs and her feet in their shiny black slippers dangled as he +swung her to the ground. The children felt shy when he set her down +among them. Mr. and Mrs. Sieverson didn’t quite know what to say. + +“_There_ she is! This is the first time this little girl has ever been +out to a farm. What do you think of that, Marvin?” + +Marvin grinned, and backed off a few steps. + +“Yes, sir! But she and Uncle Dave have great times driving round +together, don’t they?” + +The little girl looked up at him and then smiled and nodded her head +with a subtle hint of mischief. + +“You bet we do! We have great times.” + +The Sieversons all stood back in a group shyly grinning and admiring. +Leone’s eyes were as eager as if she were looking at a big doll in a +store window. They had never seen any child as pretty as this one, and +Mr. Lindsay knew it and was brimming with pride. Her short dress of +creamy linen, tied with a red-silk cord at the neck and embroidered +with patches of bright Russian colours, melted its fairness into the +pure lovely pallor of her skin. The sleeves were so short that almost +the whole of her soft, round, tiny arms was bare. Her hair was of fine +gold streaked and overlaid with brown--the colour of a straw stack with +the darker, richer brown on top--but every hair lay fine and perfect, +the thick bangs waved slightly on her forehead, and the long soft bob +curved out like a shining flower bell and shook a little when she +moved her head. Her skin wasn’t one bit sunburned, and so white and +delicately grained that there seemed to Vila, in awe, to be a little +frost upon it ... like the silver bloom on wildflower petals, picked +in cool places, that smudged when she rubbed it with her fingers. + +Mr. Lindsay became businesslike now that he was out of the car. “Well, +Henry,” he said, “you got it all figured up and ready to show me? I +think we’ve got Appleton where we can make a deal all right.” + +“Yeah, I guess it’s ready.” + +While the two men talked, the little girl stood beside Mr. Lindsay, +her hand still in his, with a grave, trustful, wondering look. Leone, +smiling at her, was getting closer. Mr. Lindsay seemed to remember her +then and looked down at her. + +“Well, Patricia, what about you while I’m looking after my business?” +He smiled then at the other children. “Think you can find something to +do with all these kids here?” + +Leone looked up at him and her blue eyes pleaded brightly in her +eagerness. “I guess they’s plenty of them to look after her,” Mr. +Sieverson said shyly but still grinning. “They can entertain her,” Mrs. +Sieverson put in. She could do the baking without Leone this morning, +she thought rapidly, but feeling hurried and anxious. + +“You going to play with them for a while, are you?” Mr. Lindsay felt +responsible for Patricia. All the same he wanted her off his mind for a +while until he had finished his business. “I don’t know whether----” + +“Oh, Leone’ll look after her,” Mrs. Sieverson assured him, and Mr. +Sieverson repeated, “Sure! She’ll be all right with Leone.” + +Leone came up now, smiling eagerly and with a sweetness that +transformed her thin freckled face. She shook back the wisps of uneven, +tow-coloured hair. She took the little girl’s hand protectingly and +confidingly in her hot palm that had a gleam of dusty perspiration +along the life line and the heart line. The tiny hand felt like a soft +warm bit of silk--or a flower. + +“That’s right! Uncle Dave won’t be gone long. Don’t take her out where +it’s too hot, kids. You know she isn’t used to things the way you are.” + +“No, you be careful,” Mrs. Sieverson warned them. + +“Will you go with Leone?” The little girl did not say that she would or +wouldn’t, but she was courteous and did not draw back. “You’ll be all +right! _You’ll_ have a good time! Oh, I guess Uncle Dave didn’t tell +these kids who you were, did he? This is Patricia.” + +“Can you say that?” Mrs. Sieverson asked--doubting if _she_ could. + +Vila drew shyly back, with one shoulder higher than the other; but +Leone laughed in delight. “I can say it!” She nodded. She squeezed +Patricia’s hand. + +“You can say it, can you? All right, then. Well, now, you kids can show +this little girl what good times you can have on the farm. That so? All +right then, Henry.” + +Mrs. Sieverson went into the house to get back to her baking. She had a +lot to do to-day. She wasn’t at all worried about leaving their little +visitor so long as Leone was with her. But she turned to call back to +the children, who were still silently grouped about Patricia in the +driveway: + +“You better stay in the yard with her. Mr. Lindsay won’t like it if she +gets her dress dirty. Leone! You hear me?” + +“I heard. Do you want to come into the yard, Patricia? You do, don’t +you?” Leone asked coaxingly. + +Patricia went soberly with her. Her eyes, gray with threads of violet +in the clear iris, were looking all about silently. Her little hand lay +quiet but with confidence in Leone’s. The other children followed, the +boys lagging behind, but coming all the same. + +“There, now! Here’s just the nicest shady place, and Patricia can sit +here, can’t she, and just be so nice?” Leone placed Patricia in the +round patterned shade of an apple tree, and spread out her linen dress, +making it perfectly even all around, and carefully drew out her little +legs straight in front of her with the shiny black slippers close +together. “There!” she said proudly. “See?” + +She sat down on one side of Patricia, and then Vila shyly and with a +sidelong confiding smile sat down on the other. The boys hung back +together. + +“Leone!” Mrs. Sieverson called from the house. “Ain’t you got something +to entertain her with? Why don’t you get your dolls?” + +“Do you want to see our dolls, Patricia?” + +So far Patricia had been consenting but silent. “You go in and get +them, Vila,” Leone ordered, and when Vila whined, “I don’t want to!” +she said, “Yes, you have to. I can’t leave her. I have to take care +of her. Don’t I, Patricia?” But when Vila came back with the scanty +assortment of dolls Patricia looked at them and then reached out her +hand for the funny cloth boy doll in the knitted sweater suit. The boys +laughed proudly and looked at each other, the way they had done when +the swan in the park at Swea City took the piece of sandwich they put +on the water for it. “Isn’t that doll cute, Patricia?” Leone begged +eagerly. + +Patricia touched its black-embroidered eyes, and its red-embroidered +lips--done in outline stitch--and then looked up at the eager, watching +children and smiled with that gleam of mischief. + +The boys laughed again. They all came around closer. “That’s mine,” +Vila said softly. She reached over and touched the big stuffed cloth +doll, with the hair coloured yellow and the cheeks bright red, that was +smooth along the top and bottom sides like a fish but crisp along the +edges from the seams. Patricia took it and looked at it. She looked at +every one of their dolls--there were five, one of them was a six-inch +bisque doll from the ten-cent store--and then smiled again. + +“I’ll bet you have nice dolls at home, haven’t you, Patricia?” Leone +said in generous worship. “I’ll bet you’ve got lots nicer dolls than we +have.” + +Patricia spoke for the first time. The children listened, with bright +eager eyes wide open, to each soft little word. + +“I have fifteen dolls.” + +Marvin said, “Gee!” + +“Have you got them named?” Vila leaned over the grass toward Patricia, +and then quickly hitched herself back, frightened at the sound of her +own voice asking the question. + +“Oh, yes, I always name my dolls,” Patricia assured them. “My dolls +have beautiful names. They’re all the names of the great actresses and +singers.” And she began gravely to repeat them. “Geraldine Farrar, and +Maria Jeritza, and Eva LeGallienne, and Amelita Galli-Curci....” + +While she was saying them, the boys looked at each other over her head, +their eyes glinting, their mouths stretched into grins of smothered +amusement, until Clyde broke into giggles. + +Leone was indignant. “Those are _lovely_ names! I think Patricia was +just wonderful to think of them!” + +Vila stretched across the grass again. She touched the cloth doll +and drew back her fingers as quickly as if it were hot. “Her name’s +Dor’thy,” she whispered. + +After Patricia’s gracious acceptance of the dolls, the children wanted +to show her all the treasures they had--even those they had never told +anyone else about. Everything, they felt, would receive a kind of glory +from her approval. They liked to repeat her name now. “Patricia.” “She +wants to see the little pigs. Don’t you, Patricia?” “Aw, she does not! +Do you, Patricia? She wants to see what I’ve got to make a radio.” +Patricia looked from one to the other with her violet-gray eyes and +let the others answer for her. But after a while she said with a cool, +gentle, royal decision: + +“No. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay right here in this +round shade.” + +The children were highly delighted. They began to bring their treasures +to her. Vila had run off to the edge of the garden and dug up two +glass precious stones she had buried there, but when she came back to +Patricia she was too shy to show them and kept them hidden in her hot +little hand that got sticky and black from the earth clinging to them. +The boys were getting quite bold. Marvin said: + +“I bet you never saw a mouse nest, Patricia.” + +“Patricia doesn’t care anything about that,” Leone said impatiently. +“I wish you boys would go off somewhere anyway and let _us_ look after +Patricia.” + +“I can show it to you, Patricia.” + +“_She_ doesn’t want to see that!” + +“Yes, I do,” Patricia assured them with an innocent courtesy that made +Clyde giggle again. + +The boys ran off to the woodshed to get it. It was all made of +wound-about string and little bits of paper and a soft kind of woolly +down. Patricia examined it with her large grave eyes. She reached out +one finger toward it delicately, and drew the finger back. She looked +up at the boys. + +“What is it?” she breathed. + +“A mouse nest,” Marvin said nonchalantly. + +He held it carefully in his brown sturdy hands, partly to keep it +together, but more because he liked to have Patricia’s soft little +fingers come near his. They were as smooth as silk, and rosy at the +tips as the pointed petals of the dog-tooth violets he had found near +the little creek in the woods, when he was out there one day last +April all alone. A happy shiver went over him at the thought of their +touching him, silvery and cool. + +“Do the mouses--_mices_--live in it?” + +“Sure! They did before we took it away.” + +“Oh, but can’t they live in it any more? What will the mices do?” + +“Gee! What can they do?” Marvin swaggered. Clyde giggled. + +Her pink mouth opened into a distressed O. She looked from one to the +other for help, and the violet in her eyes deepened. “But they won’t +have anywhere to live! You must put it back.” She was very serious. + +“Shoot! Why, they’ve run off somewheres else by this time!” + +What did it matter about mice anyhow? Gee, they were something to get +rid of! Why did she suppose Pop kept all those cats and fed ’em, if it +wasn’t to get rid of the mice? But she looked so distressed that Leone, +with an angry glance at the boys, assured her hastily leaning over and +hugging her: + +“No, they haven’t, Patricia! Boys just like to say things like that.” + +“Aw, gee----!” + +“But what will the mices _do_?” + +“The boys’ll put the nest back, and then the mice’ll come there,” Leone +warmly promised her. She didn’t care if it wasn’t true. + +The boys had never heard anything so funny in their lives. Gee whiz! +They despised her for such ignorance, and could hardly keep from +laughing, and yet they felt uneasily ashamed of themselves for they +didn’t quite know what. They had just wanted to bring her the mouse +nest to make her interested and then to show her, too, that they +weren’t afraid of things most people didn’t want to touch. But they +seemed to be out of favour. They hung around while the girls talked a +lot of silly talk, and laid all the dolls out in the grass in front of +them. + +“I’ll bet you’ve got awful pretty clothes for your dolls, haven’t you, +Patricia?” + +Patricia didn’t like to say, or to talk about her dolls because she +didn’t really think that these dolls’ dresses were one bit pretty. +Leone went on questioning her, with naïve admiration, and Vila listened +with her eyes glistening. + +“I’ll bet you’ve been into lots of big stores, Patricia. Did this dress +you’ve got on come from a big store?” + +They both bent and examined the creamy shining linen with its coarse +silky weave and the large roughened threads that Vila scarcely dared +to touch with her fingers all dirty from the precious stones. Patricia +graciously let them touch and see until, gently but with a final +dignity, she drew the cloth out of their fingers. + +“Now you mustn’t touch me any more.” + +The boys giggled again at this, admiring but feeling abashed. + +A striped kitten came suddenly into sight at a little distance--became +motionless, saw them--and flattened and slid under the cover of the +plants in the garden. Patricia gave a little cry. Her face bloomed into +brightness. + +“Oh! Do you have a kitty?” + +“A cat! Gee!” They all laughed. “_One_ cat! I bet we got seventeen.” + +“Really seventeen kitties? Did your father buy them all for you?” + +“Buy them!” The boys shouted with laughter. “Gee, you don’t buy cats!” + +“Oh, you do,” Patricia told them, shocked. “They cost twenty-five +dollars, the kitties that sit in the window in the shop.” + +“Twenty-five dollars! Pay twenty-five dollars for a _cat_!” _Cats_, +when you had to drown half of ’em and couldn’t hardly give the others +away! The boys were hilarious with laughter over such ignorance. + +Leone couldn’t help knowing that Patricia was ignorant, too. But she +gave the boys a hurt, indignant, silencing look--it was mean of them +to laugh at Patricia when she didn’t know! Anyway, she was so little. +Leone put her arm around Patricia, in warm protection. + +“But they do!” Patricia’s eyes were large and tearful and her soft +little lips were quivering. It was dreadful to have these children +not believe her, and she couldn’t understand it. “Some of them cost a +hundred dollars!” + +“Oh, gee!” the boys began. + +“Maybe some of them _do_,” Leone said quickly. “You don’t know +everything in the world, Marvin Sieverson.” She knew, of course, that +cats couldn’t--but then, she wasn’t going to have the boys make fun of +Patricia. “Come on now, Patricia,” she pleaded. “We’ll go and see our +kitties. Shall we?” + +The boys watched anxiously. They didn’t want Patricia to be mad at +them. They wanted to take her out to the barn and have her look at +everything. + +She considered. Her eyes were still large and mournful and a very dark +violet. At last she nodded her head, held out her hands trustingly to +Leone to be helped from the grass, smoothed down her skirts--and the +whole tribe went running off together. + + * * * * * + +Patricia had to climb up the steep stairs into the haymow one step at a +time. She felt along the rough sides carefully with her little hands. +The boys would have liked to help her and were too bashful, but all +the time Leone was just behind her, telling her, “Don’t you be afraid. +Leone’s right here, Patricia. Leone won’t let you fall.” When they got +up into the haymow Patricia was almost frightened at first; it was so +big, and there were such shadows. A long beam of sunlight fell dimly +and dustily golden from the high window in the peak, across the great +beams and the piled hay, and widened over the great stretch of wooden +floor. + +“Haven’t you ever been up in a haymow before?” Clyde demanded. + +“Of course she hasn’t,” Leone answered indignantly. + +Patricia looked around at them, and her face was pale with awed +excitement. “It’s like the church!” she breathed. + +“Gee, a _hay_-mow!” + +Still, it really was. Even their voices and the way they walked sounded +different up here. The boys were tickled and a little embarrassed that +Patricia had thought of that. + +“Is this where the kitties live?” + +“The little ones do. Where are the little bitty ones, Marvin?” + +“_I_ know!” both the boys shouted. They leaped up into the sliding +mounds of hay, calling back, “Come on if you want to see, Patricia!” + +“I’ll help you, Patricia,” Leone encouraged her. + +She boosted and got Patricia up on to the hay pile and helped her +flounder along with her feet plunging into uncertain holes, and the +long spears of hay scratching at her bare legs above the half socks, +and the dust making her eyes smart. Then Patricia began to laugh. She +liked it! + +“Here they are!” the boys shouted. + +A bevy of half-grown cats suddenly fled down the hay like shadows. “No, +no!” Patricia screamed when the boys tried valiantly to catch a little +black cat by its tail. Leone was assuring her, “Never mind, they won’t +hurt the kitties, Patricia.” + +“Look here! Come here!” the boys were calling. + +Patricia was almost afraid to go. The boys had found the nest of little +kittens. They had got hold of the soft, mousy, wriggling things and +were holding them up for her to see. Fascinated, she went nearer. The +little kittens had pink skin fluffed over with the finest fur, big +round heads, and little snubby ears, and blue eyes barely open. + +“Oh!...” She looked up at Leone with her pink lips pursed. She loved +the little kittens but she was afraid of them. “Oh, but they aren’t +kitties! They don’t look like kitties.” + +The boys were highly amused. “What do they look like?” Marvin demanded. +“What do you think they are? Cows? Horses?” + +She said tremulously, “No, I _know_ cows are big. But their heads look +the way little baby cow heads do in the pictures. They do.” + +“I think they do, too,” Leone asserted stoutly. She coaxed, “Touch +them, Patricia. They won’t hurt you.” + +The boys grinned at the way Patricia put out her fingers and drew them +back. How could these little bits of kittens hurt her? Didn’t she know +they couldn’t bite yet? Their little teeny teeth couldn’t do anything +but nibble. It was fun to feel them. Marvin caught up the white one and +held it out to her, and they all kept urging her. He hoped her fingers +would touch his. She cringed back, her mouth pursed in wonder. + +“Oh, but they have such funny tails!” + +“No, they ain’t. They got tails like all cats got.” + +“Oh, no, Marvin. In the show the kitties have tails so big, and they +waved them--just like the big plumes on men’s hats riding on horses.” + +The boys doubled up with laughter. “Who’d put cats in a show?” + +“Oh, but they are!” Patricia looked at them in distress. + +“Why shouldn’t they be?” Leone demanded. + +Of course she knew why, as well as the boys did. Nobody would pay to +see a cat! Patricia had meant the tigers. She was so little she didn’t +know the difference. The boys were not to tease her though! Clyde was +giggling. Gee, if she didn’t have the funniest notions! + +At last they got her to touch the kitten. She did it first with just +the pink tip of one finger--then it felt so soft, so little and fluffy, +with tiny whiskers like fine silk threads, that she reached out her +hands. Marvin felt the brush of her fingers, as if a cobweb had blown +across his hand, and a shiver of joy and pain went down his backbone. +Patricia laughed in delight, and looked from one to the other of the +children with her large shining eyes, to share her wonder. + +“Take it!” Marvin urged. + +“Oh, no, I wouldn’t!” + +“Why not? Go on and take it!” + +She shook her head. + +“She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to,” Leone said warmly. + +“Yes, she does!” Marvin thrust the kitten into her hands. She gave a +little shriek and squeezed it by its soft belly, while the weak pinkish +legs wavered and clawed out of her grasp. + +“I’m going to drop it!” + +“No, you won’t!” + +Its fluffiness filled her with ecstasy. “Oh, see its claws! They look +like little bits of shavings from mother’s pearl beads!” The boys +grinned in amusement and delight at each other. Vila laughed happily. +“Oh, and inside its little ears! Just the way shells look inside--only +these are _silk_ shells!” The boys grinned broadly. She caught the +kitten to her cheek and held it wildly wriggling. “Oh, kitty, I love +you! I want to have you to take home!” + +“You can--you can have it,” the children all urged her eagerly. Marvin +said, “Gee, we got all kinds of cats, and that old gray one----” Clyde +pinched him. “Shut up!” He grinned and blushed. Patricia laid the +kitten gravely and reluctantly back in the rounded nest. She shook +her head until the fluffy bell of shining hair trembled. She said +solemnly, and as if she had forgotten that the others were there: + +“No. I won’t. Because all its other little sisters and brothers would +be lonesome for it. And its mother would.” + +The boys stood grinning but they said nothing. + +What were the kittens’ names? Patricia asked. She was horrified that +they had none. “Gee, we call ’em kitty,” Marvin said; but Leone +hastened to add, “Well, we call that one we have Old Gray.” + +Patricia said: “Oh, but they must have names! That’s wicked. Nobody +goes up to heaven to our Lord Jesus without a name!” + +The boys just barely glanced at each other. They kept their red faces +straight with agony. Then Marvin went pawing and rolling through the +hay over to the other side of the pile, where he buried his flushed +face and snorted. + +“I’m going to give every one a name,” Patricia asserted solemnly. + +“What are you going to name ’em, Patricia?” Leone and Vila were +impressed. + +“I’m going to give them jewel names. Because the cats make me think +about things like jewels. This is what I’m going to call them. I’m +going to name this one Pearl because it’s white, and this bluey one +Sapphire, and the other bluey one Turquoise, and this little pinky one +Coral, and this one ... Jade!” + +“Aren’t you going to name one Di’mond, Patricia?” Leone asked eagerly. +Vila thought that, too. + +“No.” Patricia was very decided. “Cats don’t look like diamonds. They +look like coloured jewels.” + +The boys giggled. Besides that one she had named _Pearl_--gee, they had +already looked at these kittens and they knew very well that one was a +he-cat! If she wasn’t funny! + +Vila was looking at Patricia so intently that she trembled. Now she +said, “Patricia’s eyes are jewel eyes, too. They’re--they’re----” She +didn’t know how to say it, and yet she felt what she meant and wanted +to say--felt it so that it hurt! The whites of Patricia’s eyes gleamed, +and a little blue spread out into them from the circles of the coloured +parts, and in these there were all sorts of threads of colour woven +together, the way they were inside the glass of marbles--bluish and +violet-coloured and gray, and a sort of golden! All just as clear.... +Vila reached out and took Patricia’s wrist quickly and with shy ardour, +but then she only smiled and couldn’t think of anything to say ... she +would have been afraid to say it, anyway. + +“Now she must see all our places!” + +They went through the big barn. “Look here, Patricia!” “Patricia can’t. +She’s looking at this.” She looked at everything, but when they urged +her, “Touch it! Go ahead!” she wouldn’t quite do that. When they went +out of the barn they all took hands and ran pounding down the long +slope of heavy boards and out into the farmyard. Patricia was afraid at +first and then shrieked with laughter and wanted to do it over again. + +“Now we mustn’t do it any more,” Leone said after the third time. “Her +little face is all red. Let go her hand, Marvin! Now, darling, stand +still, and Leone’ll wipe off her little face.” + +They thought it was funny the way she ran when the chickens came near +her. “Oh, gee, if we had time we’d go down to the pond and show her the +geese. Wouldn’t she run if that old goose got after her!” Leone said, +“Marvin Sieverson! We shan’t go there.” + +But the very best place was the orchard. Even the boys were not so wild +and noisy there. Their feet made only soft swishing sounds when they +went through the long grass. The boughs were loaded, some broken and +sweeping the ground, and the sky was patterned with leaves. + +“Patricia!” Marvin hinted, tempting her, holding out a little green +apple. + +Leone snatched it from his hand. “Why, Marvin Sieverson, shame on you! +Do you want to make little Patricia sick?” + +“Aw, gee!” He had just wanted to see if she would take it. He and Clyde +had both been hunting through the grass for some apples that Patricia +could really eat. + +Only the yellow transparents were ripe. The large apples had a clear +pale colour against the leaves that were only slightly darker--mellow +and clear at the same time, a light pure yellow-green through which +the August sunshine seemed to pass. Patricia took the big yellow apple +that Marvin picked for her and carried it all around with her. “_Eat_ +it, Patricia, why don’t you?” But she wanted to hold it. “Oh, thank +you!” she said very earnestly for every single thing the children gave +her--the red dahlia, and the tiny bunch of sweet peas, the bluebird’s +feather. Whenever she saw a bird she stopped. She put her little silky +hand on Leone’s wrist. “Look!” “It’s just a bird.” She stood and +watched with fascinated eyes until the bird was lost in the sky and she +had to turn away dazzled with blue and gold. + +“Do you wish you could stay here and belong to us, Patricia?” Leone +asked her wistfully. “We’d play you were my little girl, wouldn’t we?” + +Patricia wished that she could stay. There were streaks of dust down +the shining linen dress and on the soft little arms, a damp parting in +the lovely wave of the bangs, and around her mouth there was a faint +stain of red from the juicy plums the boys had brought her to suck. Oh, +yes, the country, she said, was _nice_! She looked about with shining +innocent eyes of wonder. She loved the animals. In the city, she told +them, animals weren’t happy. There were the beautiful green birds in +the shop--just the colour, almost, of these apple-tree leaves!--but her +father wouldn’t buy them for her because he didn’t believe in keeping +things in cages, and he wouldn’t get her the big gray dog because it +wasn’t right to take dogs out on chains. + +“Oh, if I lived in the country,” she cried, “do you know what I’d do? +I’d just run around and run around----” + +“You’d play with _me_, wouldn’t you, Patricia?” Marvin cut in jealously. + +“I’d play----” + +“Children!” + +The grown people were calling them. Disaster showed on the children’s +faces. “Oh, we don’t want Patricia to go home!” There were so many +things still that they hadn’t shown her. But Mr. Lindsay came into the +orchard calling out jovially: + +“Well! Here she is! Ready to go home now with Uncle Dave?” He took it +for granted that she was. He took her reluctant little hand, and the +other children trailed after them. When they reached the farmyard, he +said, “See what’s going with us!” + +Patricia looked in awe and wonderment. “What is it?” she breathed. + +“Don’t you know what that is?” + +Mr. and Mrs. Sieverson, standing back, both laughed. The children too +were grinning. + +Patricia ventured, “A baby cow!” + +Then they all laughed to think that she had known. + +“That’s what it is, all right. But don’t you know what baby cows are +called? Calf! That’s a calf! Well, sir, do you want this little calf to +go with us?” + +Patricia didn’t know whether or not Uncle Dave meant that for a joke. +But the little calf was so sweet--she loved it so terribly the instant +she saw it--that she couldn’t help risking that and begging, “Oh, yes!” +Its head really was shaped like the tiny kittens’. But its eyes were +very large and coloured a soft deep brown under a surface of rounded +brightness, so gentle and so sad too, that it seemed to her as if the +colour showed in each eye under a big tear. The calf turned its head +toward her. Its frail legs bent inward, to prop it up. Its coat looked +like cream spilled over with shining tar. There were curls, like the +curly knots showing in freshly planed wood; and the shining ends of the +hair looked as if they had curled because the whole coat had just been +licked by the mother. + +“Oh, yes, Uncle Dave! Is it going _with_ us?” + +“It’s going to be our back-seat passenger. If the boss permits?” + +It made Mr. Sieverson laugh--feel tickled--to see how the thought of +riding to town with that calf pleased the little girl. But he said +dutifully to Mr. Lindsay: + +“Now, if that calf’s going to be any nuisance to you----” + +“No, no. As long as I’ve got the old car, put it in. Tie it up.” + +Patricia saw the rope then in Mr. Sieverson’s hand. She cried, “Oh, not +_tie_ the little calf!” + +“Sure,” Mr. Sieverson said, grinning kindly at her. “You don’t want it +to jump out, do you?” + +She looked at Uncle Dave for confirmation of that. He said: + +“Sure! Calves won’t go riding any other way.” + +The two boys laughed. + +Patricia stood back close to Leone but not saying anything more. She +looked frightened. Mr. Sieverson said, with some feeling of reassuring +her still more: + +“You don’t want to let this calf get loose or you won’t get any of it!” + +She didn’t understand that. + +“Get any of it to eat. This calf’s going to make veal.” + +“Eat it?” she cried in horror; and she earnestly put him right. “Oh, +no, I wouldn’t _eat_ it.” Mr. Sieverson was joking. + +“Why, sure!” he said. “Don’t you eat good veal? You’re going to take +this calf to the butcher.” + +“Oh, no!” He meant that! Patricia was suddenly wild with crying. They +all stood back, shocked, never expecting such a storm as this. “Oh, no! +The little calf isn’t going to be killed! I won’t! I won’t! No!” She +put out her hands blindly and turned from one to the other for help. +Mr. Sieverson didn’t know what to do. She turned to him and beat the +air with her little fists, shrieking, “Oh, you’re _wicked_!” + +He couldn’t stand that. His face got red. Even if she was just a child, +he demanded, “Don’t you eat veal?” + +“No! No!” Patricia shrieked. + +“What, then?” he demanded. + +She had to look at him. Her little pink mouth was open and her bright +eyes drowned. She quavered, “Other kinds of meat ... I’ll eat chicken,” +and turned piteously to Uncle Dave. + +Mr. Sieverson didn’t like to be called “wicked” by anyone. The +injustice, when he had just been trying to be nice to this little +girl, too, hurt him. His wife murmured, “Well, now, Henry----” But he +insisted, “Don’t chicken have to be killed before you can eat it?” + +But even Mr. Sieverson, although he was in the right of it, felt +ashamed when he saw the little thing cry. Mrs. Sieverson gave him a +look, stroked Patricia’s hair, and said, “They won’t take the calf.” +Mr. Lindsay hastened to promise, “No, no. Of course we won’t take the +calf.” They were all trying now to reassure her. Vila was crying, too. +The boys were pleading, “Patricia!” although they didn’t know just +what they would say to her in comfort if they got her to look at them. +“No, no, it isn’t going. It won’t have to be tied up. See, he’s put +away the rope.” The two men settled the thing with a look above her +head. Patricia looked up at last, with piteous drowned eyes, as dark +as wet violets. She broke away from all of them and, running to the +calf--fearful of touching things as she was--she threw her arms in +protection around its neck and stared fiercely at the shamefaced people. + +“Oh, no, we couldn’t take it!” Mr. Lindsay muttered. He cleared his +throat. + +The children surrounded Patricia again. They were begging her not to +cry. Her cheek was laid against the little calf’s silky ear, and she +was telling it, in her own mind, “Don’t you care, don’t you mind, +precious little calf, I’ve saved you.” She let herself be drawn away +but said “No!” when Mrs. Sieverson wanted to wipe the tears from her +cheeks, and held up the little wet face trustingly for Leone to do it. +That pleased all the Sieversons greatly. + +“So now we can go! Hm?” Mr. Lindsay asked her. + +She seemed to have forgiven them. She didn’t want to look at Mr. +Sieverson, but when she said good-bye to Mrs. Sieverson she touched +her little skirts and made a curtsey. Clyde pinched Marvin to tell him +to look. The children watched her with as great delight as they had +watched the tightrope walker in the “show.” Mr. Lindsay lifted her into +the car. She smiled faintly at the children, but there were stains of +tears on her pearly cheeks, and her eyes were still as dark as violets. + +“You children go get her something--apples or something,” Mrs. +Sieverson whispered. + +“We have, Mamma! We’ve got a whole lot of things for her.” + +They began piling presents into her lap. “Don’t forget your little +feather, Patricia!” Marvin ran off to find something else. The wilting +flowers, the apple, the six rosy plums, the bluebird’s feather she +carefully took again. Marvin came panting back with his new game of +“Round the World by Aëroplane.” But Mr. Lindsay wouldn’t let him give +her that. + +“No, no, my boy! You keep your game. She’s got more things at home now +than she can ever play with.” + +Now she seemed happy and appeased. The children crowded close to the +side of the car and pleaded, “Come out again, won’t you, Patricia?” +Vila whispered in her shy voice, “I’ll take care of Pearl and Samphire +and those others, Patricia.” Marvin said fiercely, “If any tomcat comes +round, I’ll----” and ground and gnashed his teeth and made fiercely +appropriate motions. Leone gave him a look for making her think about +the tomcat! But Patricia was still smiling and happy and hadn’t +understood. Now, in her relief and in the flurry of going, she was +more eager and talkative than she had been all afternoon. She promised +everything they asked. + +“I will. I will, Leone. I will, Marvin. Thank you for all the beautiful +things.” + +In the midst of it Mr. Lindsay leaned over to say in a low tone to Mr. +Sieverson, a little ashamed, “Well, somebody else’ll take that in for +you, Henry, if you can’t go.” + +“Sure. That’s all right, Mr. Lindsay.” + +“Well, now, my little girl, tell them all good-bye.” + +“Good-bye.” “Good-bye, Patricia!” They called and waved madly to her, +all standing back together. She answered them. At the very last minute, +just as the car was going out into the driveway, she leaned out with +her shining hair mussed and blowing in the breeze, and cried: + +“Good-bye, calf! I forgot to say good-bye to you.” + +Marvin laughed in delight, and then Clyde echoed him. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Sieverson stood looking after the car. That “wicked” still rankled. +He said, as if very much put out, “Well, now, I’ll have to find another +way of getting this calf in or else take it myself before night.” Then +he said, as if ashamed, “Gosh! I don’t know. I almost hate to take it. +That little thing put up such a fuss.” He couldn’t help adding, “She +was a pretty little kid, wasn’t she?” + +Mrs. Sieverson did not answer at once. Then she said in an +expressionless tone, “Well ... maybe you better take the other one, +then.” + +He looked at her and seemed to want to assent. Then he cried, “Oh, no! +We can’t do that. This is the one we’d picked on.” He looked angry, and +yet in his light-blue eyes under the shock of lightish hair there was a +hurt, puzzled look. “Oh, well,” he muttered. “Folks can’t be foolish!” +If ever folks were to start thinking of _such_ things.... + +He went forward resolutely, saying “Hi! Stand still, there!” as he took +hold of the calf. His wife stood back watching him and saying nothing. +The calf turned, bolted a little way, and then let him take hold of +it again. It did not seem to know whether to be afraid of him or not. +Its eyes looked up into his. In the large eyes of dark mute brown and +the smaller eyes of light blue there was much the same reluctant +bewilderment in some far depths. But the man knew what he was after, +and the calf did not know what was to come. + +“Come on here!” Mr. Sieverson said sharply. + +He put the rope around the calf’s neck. + + + + +SHADES OF GEORGE SAND! + +BY ELLEN DU POIS TAYLOR + +From _Harper’s_ + + +It was one of those April mornings when the sun lacquers yesterday’s +rain puddles with gold, and the meadow larks melodiously promise a +month of blue weather with violets to match it. But all this fruitful +fuss did not warm one apathetic drop of Matilda Gessler’s young blood +nor soften one scornful angle of her averted face. + +Matilda was weighing sugar in her father’s dingy little grocery in +Crittenden, South Dakota, when she should have been dozing under +ancestral lace in a château somewhere in France. If Mathilde Lantier, +her paternal grandmother, hadn’t lived with such unwise intensity that +one moonlit hour in a certain French garden, and if old Franz Gessler +hadn’t been so conveniently eager to shoulder the consequences, and if +... but then Matilda knew nothing of all this. But she knew enough. She +knew what her mother’s Methodist God had done to her. He had created +her under a morally tight roof in Crittenden for the good of her soul +when every Latin molecule of her belonged in one of those sophisticated +centres of the earth where it’s dinner in low-cut brocade at eight and +philosophy before kissing. + +And so Matilda, weighing sugar, sniffed at the plucky April trying to +make a bright island on the muddy floor. What was the use of looking +like a bayadere when it meant breaking her lithe back over flour bags, +the contents of which were destined to nourish the grace of girls less +graceful than she? She was doomed to make beans into bundles that +others might be strengthened for flight. Only last week Hazel Amberton, +the thick-ankled daughter of the jeweller, packed her gauzy traps and +went forth to conquer Minneapolis. + +Matilda shrugged her shoulders. It was a gesture inherited from +Mathilde Lantier and worthy of Ninon de Lenclos herself, but there was +no one to appreciate it except three tobacco-sodden farmers who tramped +out, leaving her to resume her futile musing. + +If ancestors would only stay where they belonged and live their lives +in straight lines and leave the tangents to those who deserved them! +Well, no good rebelling against anything as irrevocable as your +grandmother’s mistakes, your father’s failures, or your mother’s God. +That left one thing to rebel against ... the store. + +The store was a place of odorous chiaroscuro. Smells fairly nudged one +another and often knocked one another down. There was the fetidness +of stale codfish, the acrid pungency of freshly ground coffee, the +penetrating foulness of rancid butter, and the sickening tropical odour +of decaying bananas. It wasn’t worth looking at either ... rows of tins +whose faded labels betrayed the probable age of the victuals within; +jars of moribund prunes and molasses-coloured horehound drops, counters +piled with coarse denim garments leaking threads, bolts of grotesquely +sprigged calico. Even the dusty jumble of decorated china on the top +shelf didn’t look destined for anything but cooling pork fat. And, if +all this wasn’t enough, they have to live over it. Four of them lived +up there in the huddled stuffiness of a half-dozen rooms ... horrible, +uneasy rooms tenanted by lumpy pieces of golden-oak furniture whose +sharp corners and glittering hostile surfaces constantly threatened one +with eviction. + +But there was one member of the family before whom the whole +domineering conglomeration was powerless. That was Minnie Gessler, +Matilda’s fat, unimaginative mother. Every rocker dreaded her +relentless dimensions. There was but one place where she looked +properly engulfed and that was under the steepled bulk of the red-brick +church around the corner. She waddled there regularly. Matilda often +puzzled over her mother’s voluptuous devotion to something that +couldn’t be poked or eaten or wasn’t her son Fred. + +Matilda sighed resentfully when she thought of her brother. The +dispatch with which he made his dreams come true was nothing short of +indecent. He rarely came near the store except to eat and sleep over +it. He made quick, successful love to the dimpled daughters of the +Crittenden gentry and bragged about it afterward in Lemke’s Pool Room. +He never kissed the mother who adored him, but he wheedled a Ford car +out of her and went tearing up and down the long yellow road between +Crittenden and a half-dozen towns, seeking other lips to conquer and +getting them. Now Matilda dutifully kissed her mother every night but +it had got her nothing. Minnie Gessler hadn’t even allowed her daughter +to have a French name in peace. It was ’Tilda she grumbled at and not +Mathilde. + +Matilda’s father was shy and the only German thing about him was his +name. There was a foreign gleam in his hazel eyes and the hair that +fimbriated his bald head was black. He had not inherited Mathilde +Lantier’s fire--that fire which had made the submitting required of her +a thing almost as prismatic as the unrealizable dreams of other people. +But he hated the store. Matilda was the only one who suspected this +and she knew it from the gingerly manner in which he handled grubby +potatoes and the delicate way he turned up his nose over a slab of +ancient cheese. Once Matilda caught him trying to carve the head of a +Greek goddess out of a bar of American Family Soap, and after that she +had a dim kind of respect for the thin man who shuffled uncomplainingly +about the murky store at all hours. + +This, then, was Matilda’s family. It was no worse than the usual run of +families, but Matilda thought she was uniquely cursed. The trouble was +that Matilda’s frustrations blinded her to everything but her own point +of view. If only her French blood were given an opportunity to riot +uncensored! But no opportunity had materialized ... that is none which +iridescently mattered. To be sure, she had taken a degree from the +little sectarian college on the edge of Crittenden, but that experience +had only enabled her to rebel against fate in terms of bad poetry. + +Matilda deserted her sugar and went over and stood in the doorway. +She glanced up and down the clapboarded vista of Main Street. Dora +Todd, the blue-and-gold daughter of the banker, clicked by on her new +red heels. Envious tears smarted Matilda’s eyelids. She did not envy +Dora because the wind tossed her curls flaxenly, nor did she covet +eyes made of azure china, but those heels were another matter. They +typified Dora’s power to dress herself up. Matilda adored her own +dark obliqueness and she would have liked to keep it in the style to +which it deserved to be accustomed. Those heels now--they might have +been those of her ancestress, young Mathilde Lantier, setting Paris +boulevards to music! Matilda shook herself impatiently. Why couldn’t +her grandmother stay out of it? She even appropriated the heels of that +silly cream-coloured girl who didn’t know Balzac from buttons! And that +wasn’t the worst of it. Pretty soon that other woman would take command +of her resentment--that irritatingly brilliant woman who had flooded +the world with printed proofs that she had lived the fullest life of +her generation and who had given Mathilde Lantier such vivid advice one +afternoon in her drawing room at Nohant. Sometimes Matilda wished that +her grandmother had kept that memory to herself, for the bright taint +of it simmered through her blood like some high and mighty poison. + + * * * * * + +This was what had happened. + +It was the summer Matilda was twelve. Mathilde Lantier Gessler had come +to Crittenden from Baltimore to see her son once more before she died. +Grandmother Gessler was tall and every inch of her was swarthy. Her +eyes were as black as bottomless water and as imperishable as diamonds. +There was a tuft of hair on her jutting chin, and it was proudly +apparent that her lips had curved once. She came and stayed three days. +Before she left she took Matilda aside. + +“_Ma petite_,” she whispered harshly, “I am content that it is the +_père_ you resemble and not that fat _other_.” + +“Why?” asked Matilda, perversely delighted at this allusion to her +mother’s size. + +“Because, _ma cherie_, it is the dark and slender ones of the earth +that know how to suffer, and yet keep their joy.” + +“Oh, Grandma,” exclaimed the child, “you are happy then!” + +“Of course,” the old woman assured her gallantly, “and a great number +of tears I might have shed and did not. I laughed sixteen hours out +of the twenty-four and smiled in my sleep the other eight. The dreams +I had under the crimson canopy of that ancient bed across the sea! +But that was before it was decided that I marry Franz Gessler, the +merchant, and make an end in Baltimore.” + +“Merchant?” queried Matilda. “Is that why Papa keeps a store?” + +Mathilde shrugged her aristocratic old shoulders. + +“God punished us. I was young and dark and it made trouble. Franz +Gessler was fat and yellow and he dropped dead of it.” + +“Is that why we are so poor and the store smells so awful?” + +And then it had seemed to Matilda that her grandmother peered down at +her for the first time. “Ah, yes,” she sighed, stroking the braided +silk of her granddaughter’s hair. “Ah, yes!” + +“Tell me more,” begged Matilda. “Tell me everything.” + +But the old woman had suddenly grown stubborn or weary. She sat there +and kept quiet about the walled gardens in which she had strolled; the +suitors she had tormented over sundials; the mistake she made that +night the moon shone with such Hellenic tenderness; the tearful morning +they packed her into the eager arms of the old German merchant and +hurried them both off to Baltimore. But she did rouse from her romantic +napping long enough to say: + +“_Ma petite fille_, there was a thing or two I had from a woman who +knew how to love beyond bounds and suffer with triumph. One summer +afternoon I saw her at Nohant. There were books on the floor, an +unfinished letter to Flaubert on the writing table, and Dumas sitting +in a corner. She deserted everything to talk to me. Her eyes were +wisdom, her hands were comforting, and her smile contagious. I left, +but before that she gave me these,” and the old woman drew up a +yellowed package from the capacious pocket of her gown. + +“They are for you.” And she smiled a wise and curious smile. + +The package contained a picture and a book, and very old they both +looked. + +“The original,” explained the grandmother, holding up the picture, “was +painted by Delacroix.” + +“It’s a man,” observed the child ruefully, taking in the long aquiline +face framed by short thick hair above a tightly buttoned waistcoat. + +Mathilde Lantier snorted. “You have only to observe how the mouth is of +a sympathy and the bosom of a tenderness to know!” + +“Oh,” said Matilda, “excuse me!” + +“And this,” continued the woman, “is just one of the so many books she +wrote. Ah, _ce roman dépeint une existence malheureuse d’artiste_!” + +“C-o-n-s-u-e-l-o,” spelled Matilda, bending over the tattered cover. + +“_C’est ça, ma cherie._” + +“You talk funny, Grandma.” + +The grandmother pointed to a line of faded script on the fly-leaf. +A long bony finger caressed each word as the foreign staccato of it +sharpened the air like thin music: “_Quand on a aimé un homme, il est +bien difficile d’aimer Dieu ... c’est si différent!_” + +There was a silence in which the stately reveries and tingling regrets +of an old coquette mingled with the timid wonder of a child. + +“She said truly,” sighed the withered woman at last, “too truly for +peace.” + +“Peace?” asked the little girl, “and what is that, Grandma?” + +“A thing a woman longs for but does not want, _ma petite fille_.” + +Mathilde Gessler returned to Baltimore. A week later a telegram +came announcing her very sudden death. But she hadn’t quite died. A +goodly fraction of her alternately dreamed and despaired under the +olive-tinted skin of her granddaughter, and her granddaughter thought +at times she would die of it. And that wasn’t all. There was that +unholy booty from Nohant. Matilda longed to achieve the expression +which illumined the experienced features of the woman Delacroix +painted, and the unintelligible copy of _Consuelo_ with the scribbled +sentence on the fly-leaf finally drove her to the little college just +outside of Crittenden. It had been rumoured that French was taught +there. + +Doctor Pusey, professor of Romance languages, was a retired +Presbyterian. He threw up his hands at mention of the lady’s name. +His attitude, combined with her dead grandmother’s enthusiasm, put +Matilda into a palpitation that drove her to the little college library +ransacking for information. One short paragraph in the encyclopedia +rewarded her: + + Sand, George (1804-1876), the pseudonym of Madame Amandine Lucile + Aurore Dudevant, _née_ Dupin, the most prolific authoress in the + history of literature and unapproached among women novelists of + France. Her life was as strange and adventurous as any of her novels, + which for the most part are idealized versions of the multifarious + incidents of her life. + +Matilda fumed at the inadequacy of it. It gave no clue as to why the +college curriculum had been cleansed of her. Of course there was that +reference to an adventurous life, but that might mean anything from tea +parties with kings to lions in Africa. And Delacroix had made her look +like a clever Madonna masquerading as a nobleman up to nothing more +damnable than courageous benevolences. + +There came a day, thanks to old Pusey’s French exercises, when she +could spell her way through _Consuelo_ and make what was scrawled on +the fly-leaf her own. That sentence tormented Matilda like music which +must be experienced to be appreciated: “_Quand on a aimé un homme, il +est bien difficile d’aimer Dieu ... c’est si différent!_” + +No wonder old Mathilde had looked a bit wan over that sentiment! But +before a woman could look wan like that she would have lived some +intoxicating moments in ballroom corners and rose arbours. Love ... it +would be slow and silken and happen in a far place. How fiercely and, +at times, almost resentfully Matilda envied this George Sand who could +be so flip about the love of God! She had more or less ceased envying +Mathilde Lantier. After all, that lady had in some subtle fashion wound +up in Crittenden. + +Crittenden ... every harsh tight syllable of it made Matilda feel +manacled. Her history had run a quarter of a century and here she still +was loitering in the doorway of her father’s store while another girl’s +red heels made the minutes flash and click on Main Street. Of course, +before the sun shortened April another hour a thing would have happened +to her, too, but Matilda was not aware of this. She just stood there +in the doorway shifting her unhappy weight from one miserable foot to +the other and thought bitterly of all the drawing rooms she could make +historic if God would only stop being a Methodist. + +Matilda snatched up a hat faded by last summer’s sun and walked +down a street paved with clay, past houses whose eaves were dripping +with sunlight to where a wet yellow road cut uncertainly through the +pastures. She walked until a rickety wooden bridge spanned Sandy Creek. +Matilda liked Sandy Creek. The willows that bent to it reminded her +of churchyards filled with people who had died loving one another. A +cottonwood or two dropped white fluff and it floated on the sluggish +water like tufts of foam. But the water wasn’t so sluggish this +morning. Last night’s rain made it behave like the brooks one read +about. Matilda leaned over the rachitic railing and looked at it. + +If one had the nerve one could start being adventurous from this very +spot. All one would have to do would be to follow Sandy Creek as it +flowed through three great rivers and sprayed into a gulf on the brink +of which was a French town where dark men lurked passionately under +iron balconies. + +Just then Matilda noticed something which disfigured the sandy +smoothness of the creek bank. Her fingers tightened resentfully on +the railing. It was so like any one of those people back there in +Crittenden to sacrifice beauty to the easiest way by dumping worn-out +shoes, broken bottles, and old papers off the only bridge within ten +miles! And there was something almost shamelessly revelatory about +such rubbish. Matilda leaned over and peered down at it. Well, of all +things! Somebody had tossed away his library, for edging the heap +were a half-dozen books, their backs broken and their tattered leaves +flapping hysterically in the wind. Matilda scrambled down and turned +over the mass with a stick. Her lip curled. They were well thrown +away--nothing but a lurid copy or two of the adventures of Nick Carter +and the pale experiences of Elsie Dinsmore. Just as she was about to +abandon the pile a name caught her eye. She snatched up the volume and +rubbed the black lettering with an unconvinced finger. It wasn’t merely +a coincidence. It was probably Providence warning her, or the shade of +the mad mistress of Nohant mockingly reminding her that the road to a +salon is paved with something more definite than intentions. + +A man named Francis Gribble had been so intrigued by those daring feet +which had blazed the way to a high banned place that he had written a +volume about George Sand and Her Lovers and somebody in this town had +bought it--a woman, perhaps, who had glimpsed it in a window in a city +and to whom it had appealed as a Baedeker to romance intoxicatingly +beyond the stilted prelude to a husband and a family of children. And +she had tossed it away.... + +Matilda hurried home. And it was only the excessive brightness of the +sun that prevented her seeing a waistcoated shade striding gallantly +along beside her. + +Once home, she locked the door of her room so she could have her +mythical headache in peace. She threw herself flat on the bed and was +oblivious to everything but a certain world compressed between those +two brown covers. One paragraph of the preface gave everything away. + + Living in an extravagant age, George Sand gloried in her own + contributions to its extravagance. She not only lived her own life + but boldly asserted her right to do so. Her feeling was that when she + loved she was making history. + +A pretty brazen creed for the timorous daughter of a sad little grocer +in a prairie town, but we must not forget that Matilda had inherited +a way of dreaming. That was why these words burned slogan-wise in her +brain after every other page was devoured and why at six o’clock the +following evening she was able to seize her opportunity by something +more than the tenuous tail of it as it whisked over her dazzled head. + +The whole point about George Sand was that she would have got nowhere +if she had been content to be a home girl. The fact that she was +a descendant of kings and that a grisette gave birth to her in an +alcove adjoining a ballroom wouldn’t have availed her much had she not +answered when Paris called. She could have stayed down in the country, +being a dutiful wife to Casimir Dudevant until kingdom come and that +would have been all there was to it--no Latin Quarter to be free in, no +salons to dominate, no editors to cajole, no poet to be adored by--and +what woman doesn’t dream of being adored by one of the shallow ethereal +creatures? Then, too, George Sand had a sense of values. It would be +more interesting to coddle Chopin on an island than to keep Maurice and +Solange tidy at Nohant; so she up and had the courage of her romantic +convictions. + +Just as the dawn was turning the blurred square of her window to rose +Matilda decided what she would do. She would go to a city, Chicago, +perhaps; change her name to Mathilde Lantier, and open a salon. She +might even write when she had lived long enough to have a viewpoint +about her lovers. In the meantime she would make a collection of bon +mots. To hear her one would think that opening a salon in Chicago was +as simple as setting up a millinery shop on Main Street at home. + +The next day Matilda went about the detested store in a daze of +intrepid graciousness, and so hypnotized was she by her borrowed +boldness that she verily believed she was bringing something to pass. + +When the school children trooped in at noon she tossed lemon drops +across the counter as if they were largesse. She sold farmhand overalls +with the charming condescension of a princess. A notoriously stingy old +fellow who “batched it” in a tumbledown cottage across the tracks came +in and bought china recklessly because Matilda’s way among the chipped +dusty cups was that of a hostess tendering a senator tea. + +At six o’clock that evening it was her father who swung open the door +she dreamed of. + +The four of them were at supper. The fat, hairy mother headed the +board like a pink general whose idea of relaxation is being as plump +as possible in a flowered wrapper. Her handsome son Fred sat there +glorying sullenly in a prowess which enabled him to juggle night +into day and make sibyls, sheriffs, virgins, and hoboes stand in awe +of him or succumb, as the case might be. There was Matilda herself, +hollow-eyed, brooding, with a heritage in her breast clamouring to be +aired and a book upstairs which was making her poignantly sure that +at last she had found a way up the hill. At the foot of everything +sat Franz, the grocer, who clung to the tangled faded ends of dreams +with the same kind of shamefaced pride that he clung to the last faint +fringe of his hair. He was gumptionless and meant too well for his own +good, but it was he who spoke. + +“I’m thinkin’ of puttin’ in a line of fancy glassware and some +electrical stuff. We gotta be more modern.” + +“A fool notion,” grunted Minnie Gessler. + +“Go to it, Dad,” said Fred. “When you get the place fixed up maybe I’ll +clerk for you.” + +“Where you plannin’ to get the truck?” asked Minnie, Fred’s interest +making her visibly weaken in favour of the proposition. + +“Chicago,” confessed poor Franz, hanging his head. + +“Well, you’re not goin’ traipsin’ off there and leave the store. +Runnin’ up and down those stairs would jest kill me ... my corns....” + +“Fred’ll go,” decided her husband, growing sallower and stringier than +ever under her accusation and his own disappointment. + +“And I’m going with him,” announced Matilda, clutching the tablecloth +between her knees with hands that tingled and trembled. + +“For the land’s sakes, what for?” + +“To buy hats,” said Franz, going white with inspiration. “I’m thinkin’ +o’ puttin’ in a line o’ women’s hats.” + +“Hats,” snorted Minnie, “in a grocery store!” + +“It’s a general store,” he reminded her courageously, and his eyes +sought help from his daughter. But Matilda was silent. Gratitude and +pity choked her. + +“I won’t have ’Tilda tagging me to Chicago,” objected Fred sourly. + +Minnie Gessler became as alert as her bulk would permit. Suspicion +twitched at her features. It was one thing to give this beloved son the +trip he wanted but jeopardizing his purity might be another. Chicago +was sheer Babylon. + +“Go ’long with him, ’Tildy,” she said, “and keep your eye on him.” + + * * * * * + +The train shuttled noisily through the windy dust of two states and +finally deposited them on the station platform in Chicago. A terrifying +kaleidoscope this platform. Was it possible for a city to be big enough +to supply destinations for all those people? Matilda clung to the arm +of her brother and was in despair about theirs. Fred hailed a taxi and +gave the chauffeur a number out on North Dearborn Street. + +“What’s that?” asked Matilda timorously. + +“Boarding house run by Old Lady Campbell. Clyde Eggers, the drummer, +told me about it. Said just to give his name and she’d treat us white.” + +“How nice!” agreed Matilda meekly. Where had this uncouth brother of +hers kept all this unsuspected savoir faire? He didn’t know George +Sand from Adam, and yet he was the one who was brave and unabashed. +Matilda leaned back in the taxi, which was very swift and very yellow. +Time enough to check up on her own courage after the cinders were +washed off and she knew where she was. + +They were dropped in front of a high narrow brownstone house. Flora +Campbell met them. She was a large imposing woman with coarse black +curly hair which she wore in a high chignon. A tight black-satin gown +accentuated the amplitude of her bust and the grotesque narrowness +of her hips. There was something innately gaudy about her which her +clothes barely hinted at. Notwithstanding her advanced ideas about +adventure, Matilda would have been shocked had she even so much as +suspected what her prospective landlady had been through. Carl Eggers, +the drummer, knew by what perilous, unconventional steps Flora Campbell +had finally arrived at this boarding house--the genteel goal of her +dreams. And, in spite of the flagrant past of its mistress, it had +turned out to be the most respectable of boarding houses. The only +off-colour thing about the establishment was the violent toilettes of +the owner herself, but she was complacently confident that she dressed +as all dignified matrons must eventually dress. + +She eyed Matilda and Fred proprietarily. + +“So you’re friends o’ Clyde’s from Crittenden! Glad to take care o’ +you. I have only the nicest people. People like Mr. Goodwillie who is +at Field’s, Mrs. Kelsey whose daughter paints, and Mr. Eugene Walter +who writes.” + +“Writes?” asked Matilda, hypnotized by Mrs. Campbell’s tone. + +“Yes,” answered Flora importantly, “books in his room.” + +Matilda turned to Fred. “We’ll stay, won’t we?” she asked timidly. + +“’Spose so,” grunted Fred. He didn’t much care where he slept. + +They stayed a week. Matilda helped Fred with his buying and spent +the rest of her time poking purposelessly in and out of the stores +on State Street and gazing despairingly at the flashing modishness +of the boulevard. She could fairly feel herself shrinking under the +expensively turned out gaiety of the city, so impersonally musical and +so inexorably full of motion! + +The boarding house hadn’t been a success either. Mr Goodwillie turned +out to be an amiable old bore with a manner which was a courtly +hang-over from his floorwalking days. Mrs. Kelsey was a plump gray +woman whose only claim to distinction was a lorgnette on a silver +chain studded with amethysts, and a daughter who studied at the Art +Institute. Enid Kelsey was a yellow-haired, green-eyed, freckled little +creature with a large shapely mouth full of white teeth. She and the +young man who wrote books in his room seemed to have a great deal in +common. + +Eugene Walter was tall, lank, and mouse-haired. He had an Adam’s +apple and blue eyes that twinkled behind horn-rimmed glasses. He +seemed to have unlimited leisure. Matilda wondered when he wrote his +books, but the mere fact that it had been said that he wrote them was +glamorous enough. Mr. Walter was anything but an Apollo; but even +the irresistible George Sand had had to make a choice between beauty +and genius. There had been that lover of hers, Michel de Bourges. He +must have been queer enough with his shrunken body and his unwieldy +head several sizes too large for him. And yet in spite of Matilda’s +willingness to overlook his lack of pulchritude, Mr. Walter continued +to ignore her. The only person in the house who noticed Matilda was a +Miss Slattery who taught English somewhere and she was acidly superior +to everything but hot water and the Elizabethans. The week wore on. +Fred was out every night. Matilda smelled whisky on his breath and once +she surprised him amorously counting a roll of dirty greenbacks. Had he +gambled and won? He apparently had. Matilda sighed. Fred, as usual, was +making his dreams come true. + +It was Monday evening. Matilda and Fred were due to start back to +Crittenden in the morning. They were sitting in the parlour. Enid was +playing the piano, and Eugene Walter was hanging loosely over her. +Matilda watched them narrowly and bitterly. That giggling little blonde +was monopolizing the only male in the room worth talking to, while she, +Matilda Gessler, the granddaughter of a certain not inconsiderable +French coquette, was forced to sit moping beside a brother whose mind +was busy with exploits which he meant to turn into cash or kisses. + +Why hadn’t Eugene Walter noticed her? God knows, it only needed +one warm word or a bent look to make all her stifled vividness leap +into flower. She could be ten times more arresting than that stupid +flaxen-topped creature who used her gleaming teeth to make up for her +lack of brains. What was the matter? + +And then a strip of iridescent silk slipping from a white shoulder +made her divine the truth with devastating thoroughness. It was the +clothes. She leaned forward, studying her rival from a purely sartorial +angle. She _was_ effective in spite of her freckled skin and turned-up +nose. The green gown emphasized the emerald lights in her eyes. Gold +banded her hips, and a large cornelian made a splash of flame against +her breast. Matilda looked down and fingered her own brown serge +disgustedly. Why had she been so blind? She gritted her teeth. Then +her hot rage cooled into a resolve. She wouldn’t let her French blood +go to waste. She would warm it yet or know the reason why. There was a +woman once who charmed a romantic doctor out of Venice by the velvet +eccentricity of her attire. + +“I’m not going back to Crittenden,” announced Matilda with soft +suddenness. + +“Gee!” he whistled. “What’s the big idea?” + +“I’m going to stay here and be an authoress.” + +“Like fun you are.” + +“Yes,” said Matilda, and wondered why more people didn’t lie for the +sheer intoxication of it. It could miraculously commit one to anything. +“Yes,” continued Matilda, “Dad will miss me. Mother won’t like it, but +you must lend me two hundred dollars.” She held out her hand. + +Fred shifted his gum from one cheek to the other. He chewed peppermint +gum so that his sister would not detect the odour of liquor on his +breath. + +“I ain’t got any money,” he said sullenly. + +“Yes, you have. I saw you pull a roll of it out of your pocket. You +must lend it to me. If you don’t I’ll write the folks what you’ve been +up to. Mother’d be furious if she knew you drank and gambled. She’d +take the car away from you.” + +Poor Fred looked shaken. Life in Crittenden without that Ford would be +awful. They had sent Matilda to Chicago to spy on him and this was the +result. + +“Two hundred,” insisted Matilda ominously. + +He squirmed miserably as he counted the money into her palm. + +The next afternoon Matilda’s locks made a dark swirling island on the +floor of a State Street barber shop. Then a department store claimed +her. She could imitate George Sand’s haircut but the waistcoat was +another matter. Something intuitive counselled her that if she didn’t +dare be mannish she must be as feminine as possible. So she bought a +dinner gown of flame-coloured crêpe de chine. To this she added a long +swathing kind of cape and a pair of black-satin pumps buckled in gold. + +She spent a whole hour before dinner nerving herself to the point of +slipping that sheath of ignescent silk over her cropped head. She +finally surveyed herself in the mirror and was panic stricken at what +she saw. She was too lithe, almost colubrine, and every inch of her +from shoulder to knee cap looked on fire. She cooled herself at a +window and then returned to the mirror practising nonchalance. How +broad and white her back was! But would George Sand have hesitated +knowing that she was probably beautiful? Matilda shuddered and snatched +up a long black motor veil from a hook. It would do duty as a scarf. +She would let her shoulders slide out by inches. + +Matilda slipped into her seat at table and nervously attacked her soup. +She did not raise her head. She felt that the least motion on her part +would ignite a neighbour. Mr. Goodwillie coughed, and Miss Slattery +sniffed. It was over the last spoonful of bread pudding that she caught +Eugene Walter’s eyes fixed upon her. Flora Campbell gave the signal to +rise. Mr. Goodwillie ceremoniously escorted her into the parlour. + +“Very tasty ... that frock. Going to the theatre?” + +“No,” she answered, “I just got tired wearing that stuffy serge.” + +“One does,” agreed Mr. Goodwillie stiltedly, seating her on the sofa. + +Enid floated to her place at the piano, where she postured and shook +her flaxen halo in vain. Mr. Walter was not disposed to lean over her +to-night. He sat gazing at a herd of fluffy sheep framed in hard gold +which was suspended over Matilda’s head. Miss Slattery glared at her +over the flapping pages of a woman’s magazine. Mrs. Kelsey inspected +her through her lorgnette. They both left the room. After strumming +fruitlessly on the piano for awhile, Enid whirled and murmured +something about being bored and drifted out, leaving a faint odour of +lilies of the valley. + +Matilda sank into a silence so absolute that even the brook-like +garrulity of the loquacious Goodwillie could not weather it, and so he, +too, rose and left. + +It was nine-thirty. + +She and Eugene Walter avoided looking at each other. It was as if they +wordlessly conspired to rid themselves of the others and now that they +were alone it was meet and proper they should sit there in a moment’s +decent silence and not gloat. He advanced finally and stood in front of +her, his eyes still on the white animals huddled under a white storm. + +“I wonder,” and he did not succeed in making his voice casual, “why +artists paint sheep? Inane things.” + +“Isn’t that the trouble with everything?” asked Matilda heavily. + +“That gown isn’t inane. It’s gorgeous.” And he gave her a direct look. + +“I was so sick of that old serge,” she said weakly, drawing the veil +about her shoulders a shade more tightly. + +He sat down beside her and gave the veil a little pull which exposed +one shoulder. It glistened in the light like marble and made her feel +like a Diana submitting to the brazen teasing of a satyr. “You’ve no +right ...” she murmured. + +“You’ve no right to cover up such eburnean loveliness,” he whispered. + +Eburnean? What was that? Her whole being wondered what it meant and it +thrilled her because she did not know. + +“Take that funereal rag off,” he said pettishly twitching the veil. + +“I feel funereal,” she said, despondent once more at his touch. + +“Why?” he asked, his hand barely touching her knee. + +“Because I’ve been in Chicago a whole week and nothing has happened.” + +“Doesn’t eating dinner in the presence of a novelist thrill you?” + +“It did at first,” she admitted ruefully. + +“Well, you thrill me in that gown. You’re epical.” + +Matilda gasped. He talked like a book. She became suddenly oblivious +to Eugene Walter’s Adam’s apple, his pasty pallor, and the clamminess +of his fingers as they caressed her elbow. She glowed under his +elaborate infatuation and told him everything. More than everything. + +She told him about her French grandmother who had jilted a title to +follow an adventurous lover to Baltimore; how she herself lived in a +copy of a French château surrounded by a vast western garden; about her +father who sat all day in his tapestried library, reading Balzac. She +told him about her majestic mother who sceptred it over everybody and +dispensed formidable charity to a grateful countryside. But she did not +dare refer to the one thing that would have impressed Eugene Walter +more than all her guilty exaggerations. She did not dare refer to her +grandmother’s momentous interview with the famous chatelaine of Nohant; +for to have brought Madame Sand into it would have in some subtle +fashion given her own secret away. Therefore, there was nothing for it +but to gild everything else. + +At midnight Eugene Walter stooped and gallantly kissed her hand. + +“Good-night, Egeria,” he whispered, and his eyes were two promises +lighting her up the darkened stairs. + +Matilda tottered happily to her room. She had been flattered for over +two hours in words five syllables long, and her adroit fictions had +enabled her to measure up to the flame of her gown. And he had called +her Egeria. That sounded involved and classical. Just who was this +divinity? Some goddess, perhaps, who had turned Mount Olympus upside +down by appearing on it attired in a crimson tunic. + +Matilda hung her own bright gown caressingly away in the closet and +tumbled into bed too stirred for sleep. This was it. This was the +beginning. George Sand herself had probably hung around Paris a week or +two before Sandeau noticed her. And hadn’t Eugene promised to introduce +her to his crowd and dedicate his novel to _Mathilde_ Gessler? And out +there among those powerful literary friends of his perhaps there was a +poet whose hands were not moist and who looked like Byron. + + * * * * * + +Matilda Gessler and Eugene Walter stole out every night after dinner. +She descended Flora Campbell’s stairs in scarlet silk with the long +dark cape wrapped romantically about her. They wandered along the shore +of the Lake, and while the spray misted the sidewalk with pearl, he +concealed the thinness of his soul under trappings borrowed from Oscar +Wilde. Occasionally he stepped back and allowed Swinburne to make love +to Matilda. And Matilda was satisfied. + +Once when a scimitar-shaped moon cut the wet purple clouds with silver, +Eugene wound his long arms about Matilda and kissed her on the mouth. +His lips were thin and cold and savoured in some ridiculous fashion +of bitter tea. She very nearly cried out against she knew not what, +but ten minutes later the old complacency came surging back when he +murmured in her ear, “_Ma Mathilde ... Ma belle ... Ma princesse +adorée._” + +French! How many generations of dark heads in France had dropped to +catch the flattering music of those very words! Just so De Musset must +have apostrophized George Sand.... + +Every night it was the same. Once she hinted that it was time to invade +that literary circle of his, but he passionately flouted the idea. He +must keep her to himself awhile, for all too soon the clamouring world +would claim her. This made Matilda prey to conflicting emotions. She +wanted above everything to feel the world under her feet, but the only +way of getting it there seemed to be via somebody’s arms--somebody +whose head was above the horizon. Ah, yes, she would marry Eugene when +he asked her and then slip from one pair of arms to another until.... + +And so it was that they strolled every night by poetic water, and when +she wearied of the interminable contacts that got nowhere he would lure +her back by a quotation. + +It was two o’clock in the morning, Eugene had preceded her up the damp +stairs. Matilda had taken off her shoes so that she could steal up +in noiseless security. Just as she was turning to tiptoe down to her +room, she felt a soft plump hand on her shoulder. She turned sharply, +suppressing a scream. It was Flora Campbell in a sky-blue kimono +latticed with yellow roses. “Come into my room,” she hissed, the gold +in her teeth gleaming. + +Matilda mutely allowed herself to be propelled into a tiny alcove +garishly ruffled in pink cretonne and stuffed with bird’s-eye maple. + +“Sit down, miss,” ordered Flora, shoving a low stool toward her. + +Mathilda took it heavily, although she had no intention of doing so. +Flora remained standing, her two hands ruthlessly crushing the blossoms +on her hips. + +“I ran a decent house until you came, miss,” she accused shrilly. “I’ve +had complaints.” + +“Complaints,” hazarded poor Mathilda, “what are those?” + +“Do you mean to sit down there and tell me that you can dress yourself +up in flashy low-necks and sit in my parlour and make eyes at my +best-paying boarder and philander on park benches with him until two in +the morning and then pretend you don’t know what I mean when I say I’ve +had complaints?” + +“I don’t,” answered Matilda, her lips trembling childishly. Oh, it was +dreadful being pushed into this horrible pink place minus the dignity +of shoes and to be hissed at by this awful harpy in a terrible wrapper! + +“You can’t put over any of that big-eyed innocent stuff on me. I ain’t +lived fifty-seven years for nothing. I’ll give you until to-morrow to +pack and find a new place.” + +“Who--who complained about me?” quavered Matilda. + +“Everybody,” replied Flora cryptically. “There’s that sweet little Enid +Kelsey. What kind of an example are you for her, I’d like to know? And +Miss Slattery can’t bear the sight of that red dress and she’s been +with me five years.” + +“But,” objected Matilda faintly, “there’s Mr. Walter. He was out, too.” + +“He’s a man. I never interfere with what they do. Besides, he was +friendly with that Kelsey kid and going to bed at ten until you came +along. Why should I turn him out?” + +Why, indeed? Matilda rose. “Good-night,” she said succinctly and opened +the door. + +“If I was you,” warned Flora, “I’d reform. Men don’t marry light women.” + +Matilda did not reply to this excellent advice. It was doubtful if she +heard it. Her head hummed and something in her throat whirred. Once in +her room, she threw herself full length across the bed and sobbed. She +didn’t weep because she felt guilty. She wept because the vulgar words +of that coarse woman had pounded her brilliant conception of herself +into the dust. It was like seeing a beloved rose go worm-eaten--to +have her dream go like that. She wasn’t in love with Eugene. It was +more tragic than that. She was still in her Crittenden cage. A bar +would have to be broken, and she had counted on Eugene’s ardour. He +represented her only way out. Once out, there would be countless hands +to help her up. And now she was about to be driven into the street +like the scarlet-lettered women one read about. How had George Sand +managed things? How would she have managed an irate landlady? Well, she +was done for ... done for.... Then a ray of hope filtered through the +gloom. She had one more night. + +She would put Eugene to the test. He adored her. He had said so over +and over until her ears ached with it. Confronted with the possibility +of losing her, he would make something happen--something that would +make it radiantly unnecessary to return to Crittenden. + +Matilda slept finally--slept across her bed in wrinkled crêpe de chine +while a noisy gas jet drew the hot yellow walls together.... + +When she awoke it was past noon. Her temples throbbed and her gown +was a wreck, but that didn’t matter. Eugene would be glad to take +her, headache and all, in her old serge; for deep down inside Matilda +Gessler there was an inherited technic which up until now she had not +been stirred enough to use. She would use it now. She would return +Eugene’s kisses. Perhaps she would find herself in love with Eugene if +she returned one of his kisses, and then she, too, would be entitled to +feel that, “_Quand on a aimé un homme, il est bien difficile d’aimer +Dieu ... c’est si différent!_” + +Matilda hummed under her breath as she crammed her dingy wardrobe into +a wicker suitcase. + +At six o’clock Matilda stole out and ate a hasty sandwich in the little +white-tiled lunch room around the corner. She would have died rather +than face the polite hostility in Flora Campbell’s dining room. At +six-thirty she slipped back into the front hall. Uncertainty assailed +her and made her cheeks tingle with something not unlike shame. If only +Eugene would appear and they could unobtrusively slip out together! +She smiled as she visualized his probable uneasiness about her +non-appearance at dinner. He might even omit pudding and rush out. + +She wavered there at the foot of the stairs, her breath shortening and +thickening in her throat. + +Then the portières between the parlour and the hall parted. Enid +appeared muffled to the chin in a green-velvet cape edged with soft +gray fur. Over the top of her spiralling mop of hair towered Eugene +Walter. Matilda gasped and her despair sharpened. It was wretchedly +evident that in the glow of Enid’s pride in being reappropriated by +him and under the unbearable intensity of her own need of him, Eugene +Walter had taken on some of the remote perfection of an Adonis and the +poetic dignity of a Galahad. He paused in front of the rack and took +down his hat--the very hat that had lain crushed between them last +night on that bench by the Lake when he had all but promised her the +Mediterranean. Matilda made a brown blot against the wall and somehow +managed to ascend three steps. + +“If there isn’t Miss Gessler!” lilted Enid, nudging Eugene. Matilda +turned and looked unseeingly down into their faces. She felt curiously +like a person who had died and after a fitting funeral had had the bad +taste to come back to life. + +“We thought you’d gone,” said Enid, balancing her fairy proportions +against her escort. + +“I’m going,” apologized Matilda dully, “in the morning.” + +“How distressing!” exclaimed Eugene nervously, twirling his hat. + +“How funny!” chanted Enid, laying her white fingers on his sleeve. + +“Is there anything I can do?” he said with that cool, impersonal +courtesy which is not meant to be taken advantage of. + +“No, thank you,” answered Matilda mechanically, heavily, mounting +another step. + +“Good-bye then, _Mathilde_ ... and good luck!” he called up to her, +feigning a casualness he clearly did not feel. He made a forward motion +as if to take her hand, but Enid with birdlike deftness fluttered in +front of him and sank gracefully down on the bottom step. + +“My slipper’s unfastened,” she murmured. + +He knelt and took the slender golden foot in his hand. + +Matilda gained the upper hall. Just as she turned to enter her room she +glimpsed Flora’s coloured bulk in close communion with Mrs. Kelsey’s +gray dumpiness. Matilda clenched her fists. How fast they must have +tossed her name about at dinner and with what eager celerity they must +have sprayed it with venom! And there was Eugene. How easily he was +filling the gap between dessert and bedtime with the fluffy green and +gold that was Enid! And yet if those two hens had held their tongues +she might have.... + +Matilda sank down in the darkness beside her window and leaned her +forehead against the sooty glass. Paint peeling from clapboards, pork +fat congealing on thick china, dust sifting through the vulgar meshes +of coarse lace curtains, smells crowding one another through the damp +tumult of the store, bolts of cross-barred gingham stuffily waiting +to become high-necked dresses, two books and a picture under a pile +of cotton chemises reminding one of freedoms taken in silk ... this +was what she was doomed to return to. Matilda writhed there beside the +window on the other side of which a city went adventuring without her. +She even cried out to her mother’s Methodist God. + +Then something seemed to materialize close beside her--something that +laid a cool shadowy hand upon her shoulder and brushed its dark velvet +waistcoat against her cheek. For one ghostly moment she believed that +she was her grandmother being comforted at Nohant. Then she looked +up. It was as if she were aware of eyes ... mocking at first and then +softly united with hers. + +They sat there for hours grimly enjoying an old disillusionment +together. + + +THE END + + + + +Transcriber’s Notes + + +• Italic text represented with surrounding _underscores_. + +• Small capitals converted to ALL CAPS. + +• Obvious typograpic errors silently corrected. + +• Variations in hyphenation, spelling, and word choice kept as in the + original. (Some words seem like obvious errors, but the + transcriber has compared the reprinted text here with the original + publications, and the book accurately reproduced the originals.) + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76802 *** |