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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text 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 *** diff --git a/76802-h/76802-h.htm b/76802-h/76802-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd75aea --- /dev/null +++ b/76802-h/76802-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,15246 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + O. 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+ left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; + color: #888; +} /* page numbers */ + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poetry-container {display: flex; justify-content: center;} +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry { + text-align: left; + margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%; + font-size: 90%; +} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry .indentq { + text-indent: -3em; + margin-left: -0.45em; + } +.poetry .indent0 { text-indent: -3.0em; } + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp57 {width: 30%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp57 {width: 100%;} +.illowp46 {width: 46%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp46 {width: 100%;} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76802 ***</div> +<figure class="figcenter illowp46" id="cover" style="max-width: 103.125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="front"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p> + +<h1 class='mt2 mb2'> +<i>O. HENRY MEMORIAL<br> +AWARD<br> +PRIZE STORIES<br> +of 1927</i> +</h1> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="front"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p> + +<div class='box-center'> +<div class='border-box-double'> +<div class='border-box-single'> + +<p class='fs140'><i>O. HENRY MEMORIAL AWARD</i></p> +<p class='fs300 lh085 color-red'>PRIZE STORIES</p> +<p class='fs200'><i>of</i> 1927</p> + +<p class='fs110 mt2'>CHOSEN BY THE SOCIETY OF<br> +ARTS AND SCIENCES</p> + +<p class='mt1 fs80 ls1'>WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY</p> +<p class='fs110'>BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS</p> + +<p class='mth fs80'><i>Author of “A Handbook on Story Writing,”<br> +“Our Short Story Writers,” Etc.</i></p> + +<p class='mth fs80 mb2'><i>Head, Department of English, Hunter College<br> + of the City of New York</i></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp57" id="colophon" style="max-width: 10em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="colophon"> +</figure> + +<p class='mt4 fs80'>GARDEN CITY           NEW YORK</p> +<p>DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.</p> +<p>1928</p> +</div></div></div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="front"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<div class='box-center'> +<p class='copyright'><span class="smcap">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.</span></p> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter mt4 mb4"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="ACKNOWLEDGMENT"> + ACKNOWLEDGMENT + </h2> +</div> + +<p>For the Committee the chairman thanks authors, editors, +and agents, with whose friendly coöperation this volume is +prepared.</p> + +<p class="right pr1"> + <span class="smcap">Blanche Colton Williams.</span> +</p> + +<p class='no-indent'>New York City,</p> +<p class='double-indent'>January, 1927.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS"> + CONTENTS + </h2> +</div> + +<table class='toc'> +<tr> + <td colspan='2' class='tdr fs80'>PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction.</span></a> By Blanche Colton Williams</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_ix'>ix</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#CHILD_OF_GOD"><span class="smcap">Child of God.</span></a> By Roark Bradford</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#THE_KILLERS"><span class="smcap">The Killers.</span></a> By Ernest Hemingway</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_15'>15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#THE_SCARLET_WOMAN"><span class="smcap">The Scarlet Woman.</span></a> By Louis Bromfield</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#JUKES"><span class="smcap">Jukes.</span></a> By Bill Adams</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_34'>34</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#FEAR"><span class="smcap">Fear.</span></a> By James Warner Bellah</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_53'>53</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#NIGHT_CLUB"><span class="smcap">Night Club.</span></a> By Katharine Brush</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_84'>84</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#SINGING_WOMAN"><span class="smcap">Singing Woman.</span></a> By Ada Jack Carver</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_97'>97</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#WITH_GLORY_AND_HONOUR"><span class="smcap">With Glory and Honour.</span></a> By Elisabeth Cobb Chapman</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_109'>109</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#BULLDOG"><span class="smcap">Bulldog.</span></a> By Roger Daniels</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_126'>126</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#HE_MAN"><span class="smcap">He Man.</span></a> By Marjory Stoneman Douglas</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_149'>149</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#DONE_GOT_OVER">“<span class="smcap">Done Got Over.</span></a>” By Alma and Paul Ellerbe</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_175'>175</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#MONKEY_MOTIONS"><span class="smcap">Monkey Motions.</span></a> By Eleanor Mercein Kelly</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_192'>192</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#FOUR_DREAMS_OF_GRAM"><span class="smcap">Four Dreams of Gram Perkins.</span></a> By Ruth Sawyer</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_208'>208</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#THE_LITTLE_GIRL_FROM"><span class="smcap">The Little Girl from Town.</span></a> By Ruth Suckow</td> + <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_220'>220</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td><a href="#SHADES_OF_GEORGE_SAND"><span class="smcap">Shades of George Sand!</span></a> By Ellen du Pois Taylor</td> + <td class='tdr pl3'><a href='#Page_239'>239</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION"> + INTRODUCTION + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='center'>THE JUDGES</p> + +<table class='judges'> +<tr> + <td rowspan='4'></td> + <td rowspan='4'></td> + <td class='tdr'>1.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Emma K. Temple</span></td> + <td class='vam tight' rowspan='7'> +⎫<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎬<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎭ + </td> + <td rowspan='6' style='padding-top: 0.75em;'><i>First<br>Judges</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>2.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Isabel Walker</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>3.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Harry Anable Kniffin</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>4.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Katharine Lacy</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td rowspan='5'><i>Final<br>Judges</i></td> + <td rowspan='5' class='vam tight'> +⎧<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎨<br> +⎪<br> +⎪<br> +⎩ + </td> + <td class='tdr'>5.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Frances Gilchrist Wood</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>6.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Dorothy Scarborough</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>7.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Blanche Colton Williams</span></td> + <td><i>Chairman</i></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>8.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Robert L. Ramsay</span></td> + <td rowspan='2' colspan='2'></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='tdr'>9.</td> + <td><span class="smcap">Maxim Lieber</span></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p class='center'>1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 <i>Readers</i>, <i>First Judges</i></p> +<p class='center'>5, 6, 7, 8, 9 <i>Final Judges</i>.</p> + +<p class='mt1'><span class='smcap'>In preparing</span> 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.</p> + +<p>“Child of God,” by Roark Bradford, received four votes for +first place, and wins by a number of points. To this story, +published in <i>Harper’s Magazine</i>, April, 1927, is awarded the +first prize of $500.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span> +Hemingway, was published in <i>Scribner’s Magazine</i>, March, +1927.</p> + +<p>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 <i>McClure’s</i>, January, 1927.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 +<i>O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories</i> 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 <i>Harper’s</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span> +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 +<i>Liliom</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>Les Misérables</i> +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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span> +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).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Jukes,” the story of a sailor by sailor Bill Adams, is the +survival of many cullings from <i>Adventure</i>. 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 <i>Adventure</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span></p> + +<h3>THE LISTS</h3> + +<p>Before consulting the appended lists, please note the following +abbreviations:</p> + +<h4>ABBREVIATIONS</h4> + +<table class='abbr'> +<tr><td><i>Ad.</i></td><td><i>Adventure</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Am.</i></td><td><i>American Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Am. Merc.</i></td><td><i>American Mercury</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>A. A.</i></td><td><i>Argosy Allstory Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Arch.</i></td><td><i>Archer</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Atl.</i></td><td><i>Atlantic Monthly</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>B. M.</i></td><td><i>Black Mask</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>B. B.</i></td><td><i>Blue Book Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Book.</i></td><td><i>Bookman</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>C. W.</i></td><td><i>Catholic World</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>C.</i></td><td><i>Century Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>C. T.</i></td><td><i>Chicago Tribune</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Clues</i></td><td><i>Clues Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>C. H.</i></td><td><i>College Humor</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Col.</i></td><td><i>Collier’s Weekly</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>C. G.</i></td><td><i>Country Gentleman</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>D.</i></td><td><i>Delineator</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>D. S. M.</i></td><td><i>Detective Stories Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>D. S.</i></td><td><i>Droll Stories</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>E.</i></td><td><i>Echo</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Elks</i></td><td><i>Elks Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Ev.</i></td><td><i>Everybody’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Fl.</i></td><td><i>Flynn’s Weekly</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>F.</i></td><td><i>Forum</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>G. H.</i></td><td><i>Good Housekeeping</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>H. J. Q.</i></td><td><i>Haldeman Julius Quarterly</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>H. B.</i></td><td><i>Harper’s Bazar</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>H.</i></td><td><i>Harper’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>H. I. and C.</i></td><td><i>Hearst’s International and Cosmopolitan Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>L. H. J.</i></td><td><i>Ladies’ Home Journal</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>L.</i></td><td><i>Liberty</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>McCall.</i></td><td><i>McCall’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>McClure.</i></td><td><i>McClure’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Mun.</i></td><td><i>Munsey’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span> +<i>Op.</i></td><td><i>Opportunity</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>P. R.</i></td><td><i>Pictorial Review</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Pop.</i></td><td><i>Popular</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>R. B.</i></td><td><i>Red Book Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>S. E. P.</i></td><td><i>Saturday Evening Post</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Scr.</i></td><td><i>Scribner’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>S. S.</i></td><td><i>Short Stories</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>S. S. M.</i></td><td><i>Special Salesman Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Sun.</i></td><td><i>Sunset Magazine</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>W. T.</i></td><td><i>Weird Tales</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>W. S.</i></td><td><i>Western Story</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>W. H. C.</i></td><td><i>Woman’s Home Companion</i></td></tr> +<tr><td><i>Y.</i></td><td><i>Young’s Magazine</i></td></tr> +</table> + +<h4>LIST I</h4> + +<p>Stories ranking highest:</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>Abbot, Keene, Tree of Life (<i>Atl.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Adams, Bill, Jukes (<i>Ad.</i>, Nov. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Alexander, Elizabeth, The Purest Passion (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Feb. 5).</p> + +<p>Alexander, Sandra, Passion (<i>H.</i> Apr.).</p> + +<p>Aley, Maxwell, Man Child (<i>G. H.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Anderson, Frederick Irving, Wise Money (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 6).</p> + +<p>Anthony, Joseph, A Hobo He Would Be (<i>C.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Bailey, Margaret Emerson, Common Law (<i>H.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Banning, Margaret Culkin, Heads or Tails (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 7); +The Woman Higher Up (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 21).</p> + +<p>Beer, Thomas, Piepowder Court (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926); +The Public Life (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 20, 1926); Curly-Tailed +Wolf (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 16); Cramambuli (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +May 7); Æsthetics (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 11).</p> + +<p>Bellah, James Warner, Fear (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 6, 1926); Boppo’s +Bicycle (<i>Col.</i>, Feb. 5); Funny Nose (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Feb. 5); +Old Slithercheeks Takes a Bath (<i>Col.</i>, Feb. 26); +Blood (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 2); The Great Tradition (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +May 28); A Gentleman of Blades (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 11); +M’Givney’s Mustache (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 20).</p> + +<p>Blake, Clarice, The Mold (<i>C.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Bradford, Roark, Child of God (<i>H.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Brady, Mariel, From Four Till Seven (<i>G. H.</i>, Nov., 1926); +April’s Fools (<i>G. H.</i>, Apr.); Snips and Snails (<i>G. H.</i>, +June).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span></p> + +<p>Brecht, Harold W., Vienna Roast (<i>H.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Broadhurst, George, The Motive (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 2).</p> + +<p>Bromfield, Louis, “Let’s Go to Hinkey-Dink’s” (<i>McCall.</i>, +Sept.).</p> + +<p>Brush, Katharine, The Other Pendleton (<i>P. R.</i>, Oct., 1926); +Night Club (<i>H.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Burlingame, Roger, Jacinth (<i>Scr.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Burt, Katharine Newlin, Jealous Oberon (<i>C. T.</i>, May 15).</p> + +<p>Burt, Struthers, Freedom (<i>C. T.</i>, Nov. 28, 1926); C’Est La +Guerre (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Feb. 5); Grandpa (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 23); +Soda Bicarb (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 2).</p> + +<p>Busch, Niven, Jr., The Wife and the Toreador (<i>Col.</i>, Aug. 6).</p> + +<p>Butler, Ellis Parker, Bruce of the Bar-None (<i>Sun.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Byrne, Donn, Rivers of Damascus (<i>McCall</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Canfield, Dorothy, Here Was Magic (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Carver, Ada Jack, The Old One (<i>H.</i>, Oct., 1926); Singing +Woman (<i>H.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Chapman, Elisabeth Cobb, With Glory and Honour (<i>C.</i>, +June).</p> + +<p>Clark, Valma, Candlelight Inn (<i>Scr.</i>, Nov., 1926); The Tact +of Monsieur Pithou (<i>Scr.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Clarke, James Mitchell, Punishment (<i>Ad.</i>, Apr. 1).</p> + +<p>Cobb, Irvin S., The Wooden Decoy (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Dec., 1926); +This Man’s World (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, May); Louder Than +Words (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, June); As Brands from the Burning +(<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July); Faith with Works (<i>H. I. and +C.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Cohen, Octavus Roy, Idles of the King (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 6); +The Porter Missing Men (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 20).</p> + +<p>Connell, Richard, The Lady Killer (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 27, 1926); +In Society (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 5).</p> + +<p>Cram, Mildred, From a Château Kitchen (<i>D.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Crowell, Chester T., The Trick (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Daniels, Roger, Bulldog (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 13, 1926).</p> + +<p>Davis, Elmer, The Ruinous Woman (<i>C.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Detzer, Karl W., The Superior Woman (<i>C.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Dickson, Harris, On the First Sand Bar (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 15); +The Sealed Wager (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 21); Foresight +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 27).</p> + +<p>Dobie, Charles Caldwell, Slow Poison (<i>H.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, The Beautiful and Beloved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span>(<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 2); The Third Woman (<i>C. T.</i>, May 29); +Stepmother (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 4); He Man (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +July 30).</p> + +<p>Dwyer, James Francis, Dreve of Virginia (<i>R. B.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Edmonds, Walter D., Who Killed Rutherford? (<i>Scr.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Eliot, Ethel Cook, Heaven Knows (<i>Arch.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Ellerbe, Alma and Paul, “Done Got Over” (<i>Col.</i>, Nov. 27, +1926).</p> + +<p>Fairbank, Janet, The Thin Red Line (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Farnham, Walter, David (<i>Ad.</i>, Nov. 8, 1926).</p> + +<p>Ferber, Edna, Blue Blood (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Fisher, Rudolph, Blades of Steel (<i>Atl.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Flynn, T. T., Twenty Fathoms Under (<i>S. S.</i>, Apr. 25).</p> + +<p>Gale, Zona, A Way of Escape (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Gilkyson, Phoebe, The Portrait (<i>H.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Gilson, Charles, Three Thieves (<i>Ad.</i>, Mch. 15).</p> + +<p>Gordon, Eugene, Game (<i>Op.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Hackett, Francis, The Cinder (<i>C.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Hartman, Lee Foster, The Reek of Limes (<i>P. R.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Hemingway, Ernest, The Killers (<i>Scr.</i>, Mch.); Fifty Grand +(<i>Atl.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Hergesheimer, Joseph, Collector’s Blues (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 2, +1926); Trial by Armes (<i>Scr.</i>, Mch.); Natchez (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +May 21); New Orleans (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 23).</p> + +<p>Hervey, Harry, The Lover of Madame Guillotine (<i>McClure</i>, +Jan.).</p> + +<p>Heyward, Du Bose, The Half Pint Flask (<i>Book.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Hopper, James, When It Happens (<i>H.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Hughes, Rupert, They Were Americans Too (<i>McCall</i>, Feb.); +The River Pageant (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Hume, Cyril, The Count’s China Teeth (<i>C. H.</i>, Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Jackson, Margaret W., Birds of a Feather (<i>McCall</i>, Oct., +1926).</p> + +<p>Jaffé, Margaret Davis, Shut In (<i>C. W.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Jordan, Elizabeth, The Little Red-Haired Girl (<i>C. T.</i>, Oct. +31, 1926).</p> + +<p>Kelly, Eleanor Mercein, Monkey Motions (<i>P. R.</i>, Oct., +1926); Emiliana (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 2, 1926); Fête-Dieu +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 18, 1926); Charivari (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Feb. +12); Interlude (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 25); Nostalgia (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Aug. 13).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span></p> + +<p>Kerr, Sophie, The Bad Little Egg (<i>L.</i>, Nov. 6, 1926); Mrs. +Mather (<i>C.</i>, June); Mister Youth (<i>D.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>King, Basil, The Supreme Goal (<i>McCall</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Kirk, R. G., Transfer (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926).</p> + +<p>Krebs, Roland, The Sport of Kings’ County (<i>C. H.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Kyne, Peter B., The Devil-Dog’s Pup (<i>G. H.</i>, Nov., 1926); +The Tidy Toreador (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Apr.); Bread upon +the Waters (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Lane, Rose Wilder, Yarbwoman (<i>H.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Logan, James T., Lawrence Avenue (<i>Op.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>MacDougall, Sally, Wild Music (<i>H.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>McFee, William, The Wife of the Dictator (<i>R. B.</i>, May); +The Roving Heart (<i>R. B.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>MacGrath, Harold, The Fiddle String (<i>R. B.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>McLean, Margharite Fisher, The Lonesome Christmas-Tree +(<i>Scr.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Marquand, J. P., Lord Chesterfield (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 18).</p> + +<p>Marquis, Don, When the Turtles Sing (<i>Scr.</i>, Apr.); A Keeper +of Tradition (<i>Scr.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Mumford, Ethel Watts, The Ghosts of China Gardens +(<i>P. R.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>O’Reilly, Edward S., In Our Midst (<i>P. R.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Paul, L., Heat (<i>Ad.</i>, Mch. 1).</p> + +<p>Popowska, Leokadya, The Living Sand (<i>H.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Rhodes, Eugene Manlove, The Bad Man and the Darling +of the Gods (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Roe, Vingie, Doc Virginia (<i>McCall</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Saunders, Louise, Formula (<i>H.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Sawyer, Ruth, Four Dreams of Gram Perkins (<i>Am. Merc.</i>, +Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Scobee, Barry, Monotony (<i>Ad.</i>, Nov. 8).</p> + +<p>Scoggins, C. E., White Fox (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Sept. 17).</p> + +<p>Shay, Frank, Little Dombey (<i>Scr.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Singmaster, Elsie, The Fiery Cross (<i>Atl.</i>, Oct., 1926); Pomp +an’ Glory (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926); Aged One Hundred +and Twenty (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 12).</p> + +<p>Smith, Garret, Sitting Pretty for Life (<i>L.</i>, Feb. 5).</p> + +<p>Spears, Raymond S., On Getting Acquainted (<i>Ad.</i>, Feb. 15).</p> + +<p>Springer, Fleta Campbell, Severson (<i>H.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Starrett, Vincent, The Incomplete Angler (<i>S. S.</i>, Aug. 10).</p> + +<p>Steele, Wilbur Daniel, Autumn Bloom (<i>P. R.</i>, Nov., 1926); +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</span> +A Drink of Water (<i>H.</i>, Jan.); Sailor! Sailor! (<i>P. R.</i>, +July); New Deal (<i>Scr.</i>, Aug); Sooth (<i>H.</i>, Aug.); +Speed (<i>P. R.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Stone, Elinore Cowan, An Hour Before Dinner (<i>Col.</i>, Dec. +18, 1926).</p> + +<p>Suckow, Ruth, Eminence (<i>Am. Merc.</i>, Mch.); The Little +Girl from Town (<i>H.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Synon, Mary, Amy Brooks (<i>G. H.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Tarkington, Booth, Mr. White (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 12); Hell +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 16).</p> + +<p>Tarleton, Fiswoode, Eloquence (<i>Ad.</i>, Oct. 8, 1926).</p> + +<p>Taylor, Ellen du Pois, Nostalgia (<i>H.</i>, Feb.); Shades of George +Sand! (<i>H.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Torrey, Grace B., One Medium-Sized Dog (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Oct., +1926); Bartley, B. A. (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 30, 1926).</p> + +<p>Tupper, Tristram, Three Episodes in the Life of Timothy +Osborn (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 9).</p> + +<p>Welles, Harriet, The Stranger Woman (<i>Scr.</i>, Dec., 1926); +Her Highness’ Hat (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Aug).</p> + +<p>Wetjen, Albert Richard, Shingles out of Bandon (<i>Ad.</i>, Oct. +8, 1926); The Covenant of the Craddocks (<i>Ad.</i>, +Feb. 1); The Strange Adventure of Tommy Lawn +(<i>Ad.</i>, Mch. 15).</p> + +<p>Wiley, Hugh, The <i>Patriot</i> (<i>R. B.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Williams, Ben Ames, Coconuts (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926); +Opportunity (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 8); Altitude (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Jan. 15); A Needful Fitness (<i>C. T.</i>, Jan. 23).</p> + +<p>Williams, Jesse Lynch, A Man’s Castle (<i>R. B.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Wister, Owen, The Right Honorable the Strawberries (<i>H. I. +and C.</i>, Nov., 1926); Lone Fountain (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, +Apr.).</p> + +<p>Wylie, Elinor, King’s Pity (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Sept.).</p> +</div> + + +<h4>LIST II</h4> + +<p>Stories ranking second:</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>Adams, Frank R., Love’s Pair o’ Dice (<i>L.</i>, Feb. 26); Oysters +in Season (<i>L.</i>, Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Addington, Sarah, Mr. Dickens’ Little Boy (<i>D.</i>, Dec., 1926); +Tornado (<i>D.</i>, July); Clodhopper (<i>D.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Aldrich, Bess Streeter, “He Whom a Dream Hath Possest” +(<i>Am.</i>, June).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</span></p> + +<p>Aley, Maxwell, Mr. Petty’s Garden (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Anderson, Frederick Irving, Finger Prints (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 23, +1926).</p> + +<p>Andrews, G. G., Fire (<i>C. T.</i>, Mch. 6).</p> + +<p>Avery, Stephen Morehouse, Where Angels Fear to Tread +(<i>Col.</i>, Sept. 25, 1926); “Circle Wide, We’ll Meet +above the Clouds” (<i>McCall</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Bailey, Temple, So This Is Christmas! (<i>McCall</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Balmer, Edwin, The Round Bullet (<i>L.</i>, Jan. 29); Double +Exposure (<i>L.</i>, Sept. 3).</p> + +<p>Banning, Margaret Culkin, Amateur (<i>H.</i>, Dec., 1926); +Not in Politics (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 25, 1926); The Favorite +Daughter (<i>Col.</i>, May 28).</p> + +<p>Barker, Elsa, The Jade Earring (<i>R. B.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Bechdolt, Frederick, For the Girl Back Home (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, +May).</p> + +<p>Bellah, James Warner, Boppo and the Awful Whiffs (<i>Col.</i>, +Mch. 12); The Silly Major (<i>Col.</i>, Apr. 9); The Gods +of Yesterday (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 30); Boppo Refuses (<i>Col.</i>, +June 11).</p> + +<p>Benét, Stephen Vincent, The Amateur of Crime (<i>Am.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Blochman, L. G., Ways That Are Dark (<i>Ev.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Borden, Mary, An Accident on the Quai Voltaire (<i>F.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Borland, Hal, The Heifers (<i>Book.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Boyd, Thomas, The Fickle Jade (<i>C. H.</i>, Dec., 1926); The +Fighting Face (<i>S. S.</i>, Dec. 25, 1926); Old Timers +(<i>C. G.</i>, Mch.); Grandfather’s Dog (<i>Scr.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Brackett, Charles, The Monster’s Child (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 23, +1926); As Suggested (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 22).</p> + +<p>Brady, Mariel, Georgia Washington (<i>G. H.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Brown, Bernice, Marie Celeste (<i>D.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Brown, Royal, The Sixth Hat (<i>L.</i>, Mch., 19).</p> + +<p>Buckley, F. R., Peg Leg Retires (<i>W. S.</i>, Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Burt, Katharine Newlin, Heartbreak Homestead (<i>L.</i>, Apr. +23).</p> + +<p>Burt, Struthers, Masquerade (<i>C. T.</i>, Oct. 3, 1926).</p> + +<p>Butler, Ellis Parker, I Beg Your Pardon (<i>W. H. C.</i>, June); +Happy Harry (<i>Mun.</i>, June); Mad Marix (<i>Mun.</i>, +July).</p> + +<p>Canfield, Dorothy, A Basque Windfall (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Carman, Dorothy Walworth, Every Thursday (<i>H.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</span></p> + +<p>Chamberlain, George Agnew, The Red, Red Tree (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Nov. 13, 1926).</p> + +<p>Child, Maude Parker, Diamonds in the Rough (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Dec. 4, 1926).</p> + +<p>Child, Richard Washburn, When I’m Rich Enough (<i>Col.</i>, +Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Clearing, Robert, Mother Cuts Loose (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Cockrell, Stephena, Lafayette’s Sheets (<i>G. H.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Connell, Catharine, Life Isn’t Like That, Father! (<i>W. H. C.</i>, +Aug.).</p> + +<p>Connell, Richard, Room at the Top (<i>Col.</i>, Feb. 19).</p> + +<p>Cooper, Mary Lispenard, Moth-Mullein (<i>H.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Cross, Ruth, Mr. Tightwad Meets His Match (<i>P. R.</i>, Jan.)</p> + +<p>Croy, Homer, Wilkie’s Unforgivable Sin (<i>P. R.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Davenport, Walter, Dr. Lysander (<i>Col.</i>, Nov. 6, 1926).</p> + +<p>Davis, Aaron, The Armored Heart (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Davis, Elmer, The $125,000 Marriage License (<i>McClure</i>, +Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Davron, Mary Clare, Icebergs (<i>R. B.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Delano, Edith Barnard, Enough Is Enough (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 16).</p> + +<p>Delmar, Vina, The Belle of Barnesville (<i>L.</i>, Aug. 6).</p> + +<p>Detzer, Karl, A Call for the Doctor (<i>S. S.</i>, Sept. 25).</p> + +<p>Dickson, Harris, Two of a Trade (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 20, 1926).</p> + +<p>Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, Guinevere (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 1); +You Can Have Three Wishes (<i>W. H. C.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Edgar, Day, The Last Patrician (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 14); Sic +Semper (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 13).</p> + +<p>Egan, Cyril B., Passion Play (<i>C. W.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>England, George Allan, Johnny Moaner (<i>Ev.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Erskine, John, Nausicaa Receives (<i>Col.</i>, July 16).</p> + +<p>Evans, Ida M., Mrs. Galahad (<i>C. T.</i>, Nov. 7, 1926).</p> + +<p>Falkner, Leonard, Corpus Delicti (<i>D. S. M.</i>, Oct. 30, 1926).</p> + +<p>Ferber, Edna, Perfectly Independent (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Dec., +1926).</p> + +<p>Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Jacob’s Ladder (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 20).</p> + +<p>Flynn, T. T., Mountain Top Mystery (<i>Clues</i>, Mch.); Through +the Red Death (<i>S. S.</i>, July 10); Peg Leg (<i>C. T.</i>, Aug. +14).</p> + +<p>Ford, Sewell, The Woman Who Never Forgot (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, +Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxv">[xxv]</span></p> + +<p>Fowler, Richard B., Practicality in Practice (<i>Scr.</i>, Feb.); +Elmer’s Imperfect Day (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Frost, Meigs, O., They’s Always Thoroughbreds (<i>Ev.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Gale, Zona, A Winter’s Tale (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Gelzer, Jay, Man’s Size (<i>G. H.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Gilbert, Kenneth, Strength of the Hills (<i>Sun.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p>Gould, Bruce, Sky Scrapes (<i>B. B.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Hallet, Richard Matthews, Theed Harlow’s Cadenza (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Hergesheimer, Joseph, A Further Study of Plants (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Oct. 16, 1926); Albany (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 7); Washington +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 4); Lexington (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 18); +Charleston (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 9).</p> + +<p>Hopper, James, Stilts and a Complex (<i>R. B.</i>, Nov., 1926); +The Derringer (<i>L.</i>, May 7).</p> + +<p>Hughes, James Perley, The Glass Stalker (<i>Mun.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Hughes, Rupert, The Big Boob (<i>L.</i>, May 14).</p> + +<p>Humphreys, Ray, In All His Glory (<i>W. S. M.</i>, Apr. 2).</p> + +<p>Huse, Harry G., Red Symbols (<i>Ad.</i>, June 11).</p> + +<p>Huston, McCready, The Lamp (<i>Scr.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Irwin, Wallace, American Beauty (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 8); Thanks +for the Buggy Ride (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Jan. 15).</p> + +<p>Irwin, Will, Through a Loophole in the Law (<i>L.</i>, Feb. 12).</p> + +<p>Jackson, Charles Tenney, Big Timber (<i>S. S.</i>, Feb. 25); +Fingers (<i>S. S.</i>, Sept. 25).</p> + +<p>James, Will, The Young Cowboy (<i>Scr.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Jerard, Elise Jean, The Treat (<i>Col.</i>, May 14).</p> + +<p>Johnson, Nunnally, A Portrait of the Writer (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Oct. 16, 1926).</p> + +<p>Johnston, Isabel, The Lavender-Flowered Crime (<i>McCall</i>, +Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Jordan, Elizabeth, John Henry’s Inferiority Complex (<i>C. T.</i>, +July 10).</p> + +<p>Kahler, Hugh MacNair, The Puppet (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 16); +Elbowroom (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 20).</p> + +<p>Kelly, Eleanor Mercein, Las Señoritas (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 26); +Sky Pastures (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 23).</p> + +<p>Kerr, Sophie, The Sloane Temper (<i>Am.</i>, Mch.); Hush-Me-Dear +(<i>L.</i>, Feb. 19); Mimi-Mary (<i>Col.</i>, Nov. 13, 1926); +They Told Her Everything (<i>D.</i>, May).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvi">[xxvi]</span></p> + +<p>Kilbourne, Fannie, If We Have Each Other (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. +11, 1926); Red Hair (<i>McCall</i>, Jan.); With a Modern +Leading Lady (<i>S. E. P.</i>, July 9); A Married Man’s +Job (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. 20).</p> + +<p>Lardner, Ring, Fun Cured (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Jan.); Hurry-Kane +(<i>H. I. and C.</i>, May); Then and Now (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, +June); The Spinning Wheel (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Lea, Fannie Heaslip, That’s Life (<i>G. H.</i>, Feb.); On the Air +(<i>G. H.</i>, Apr.); Caprice Itself (<i>McCall</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Leach, Paul R., Miscellany (<i>L.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Lincoln, Joseph C., An Honest Man’s Business (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +July 23).</p> + +<p>Lloyd, Beatrix Demarest, Villa Beata (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 30); +Alimentation’s Artful Aid (<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 11); A +Tidiness in the Affairs of Mr. Tracy (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Aug. +27).</p> + +<p>Looms, George, The Lights of the Harbour (<i>E.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>McBlair, Robert, One Christmas Morning (<i>Elks</i>, Dec., 1926); +Twisted Gun Gap (<i>Elks</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>McCarter, Margaret Hill, The Guardian of the Jack Oaks +(<i>McCall</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>McCulloch, F. H., The Code of Boys and Dogs (<i>McCall</i>, +Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>McKenna, Edward L., Hardware (<i>Ad.</i>, Apr. 1).</p> + +<p>McMorrow, Will, Battle Honors (<i>Pop.</i>, Feb. 7).</p> + +<p>Marmur, Jacland, Copra (<i>Ad.</i>, Jan. 1).</p> + +<p>Marquand, J. P., Good Morning, Major (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 11, +1926); The Cinderella Motif (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 5).</p> + +<p>Mason, Grace Sartwell, The Way to Heaven (<i>H.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Means, E. K., A Farewell Tour (<i>Mun.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Merrill, Kenneth Griggs, The Cross (<i>Scr.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Merwin, Samuel, The Million-Dollar Buckwheats (<i>McCall</i>, +Oct., 1926); The Cat Jumps Quick (<i>McCall</i>, July); +The Morning Star (<i>Col.</i>, Aug. 27).</p> + +<p>Mitchell, Ruth Comfort, Of the Fittest (<i>R. B.</i>, Oct., 1926); +Dangerous but Passable (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Montague, Margaret Prescott, The Golden Moment (<i>Atl.</i>, +Oct., 1926); The Last Tenth (<i>H.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Montross, Lois Seyster, Iron Dogs (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Montross, Lynn, The Vulgar Boatman (<i>Col.</i>, Aug. 13).</p> + +<p>Morton, Leigh, A Poor Man’s Cottage (<i>McCall</i>, May).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxvii">[xxvii]</span></p> + +<p>Mumford, Ethel Watts, The Scales of Justice (<i>Mun.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Nason, Leonard H., The General’s Aide (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 6, +1926).</p> + +<p>Neidig, William J., Rubies of Mogok (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926); +The Dagga Smokers (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 11, 1926).</p> + +<p>Norris, Kathleen, The Irish Song Bird (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Dec., +1926).</p> + +<p>Osborne, William Hamilton, A Rum Proposal (<i>R. B.</i>, Oct., +1926).</p> + +<p>Pangborn, Georgia Wood, The North Wind (<i>C. T.</i>, Dec. 19, +1926).</p> + +<p>Parker, Maude, Raise or Quit (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 5); Exploration +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, June 11).</p> + +<p>Patterson, Norma, Ships That Pass (<i>G. H.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Pattullo, George, Eels (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Mch. 12).</p> + +<p>Pelley, William Dudley, The Prodigal Angel (<i>L.</i>, June 18).</p> + +<p>Perry, Peter, the State’s Witness (<i>Fl.</i>, Oct. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Post, Melville Davisson, The Leading Case (<i>Am.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Pulver, Mary Brecht, They Knew What They Wanted +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 4, 1926).</p> + +<p>Reese, Lowell Otus, Fool Ridge (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 6, 1926).</p> + +<p>Ritchie, Robert Welles, Rapahoe Bob (<i>C. G.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Roche, Arthur Somers, Love Was Different Then (<i>H. I. and +C.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Roe, Vingie E., Smoke in the Gulch (<i>McCall</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Rose, Will, Splurgin’ (<i>Scr.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Ross, Mary Lowry, The Real Mrs. Alward (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. +20, 1926); Three Husbands in Paris (<i>S. E. P.</i>, May 21).</p> + +<p>Russell, John, The Bright Reversion (<i>Col.</i>, May 14).</p> + +<p>Rutledge, Maryse, Skyscrapers (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Apr. 16).</p> + +<p>Sangster, Margaret E., Mountains (<i>G. H.</i>, May); Loveliness +(<i>G. H.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Savell, Morton, The Wings of a Lark (<i>S. S.</i>, Feb. 25); Bird +in Hand (<i>C. T.</i>, Sept. 18).</p> + +<p>Saxby, Charles, The Little Mercy of Men (<i>Col.</i>, Feb. 19).</p> + +<p>Schisgall, Oscar, Come On, Row! (<i>D. S. M.</i>, Oct. 30, 1926); +In Kashla’s Garden (<i>W. T.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Scott, R. T. M., Peter’s Tower (<i>Am.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Scoville, Samuel Jr., The Mouse and the Lion (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 30, +1926).</p> + +<p>Seifert, Shirley, Dumb Bunnies (<i>Col.</i>, Nov. 27, 1926).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxviii">[xxviii]</span></p> + +<p>Sheehan, Perley Poore, A Feud of the High Sierras (<i>S. S.</i>, +June 25).</p> + +<p>Shenton, Edward, All the Boats to Build (<i>Scr.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Singmaster, Elsie, There Was Joan of Arc (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Skerry, Frederick, Touched in Passing (<i>Col.</i>, Feb. 12).</p> + +<p>Squier, Emma-Lindsay, The Room of the Golden Lovers +(<i>Col.</i>, Mch. 19); The Bells of Culiacán (<i>G. H.</i>, May); +The Gipsy Road (<i>D.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Starrett, Vincent, The Woman in Black (<i>S. S.</i>, Dec. 10, 1926); +The Murder on the Ace’s Trick (<i>S. S.</i>, June 10).</p> + +<p>Stone, Elinore Cowan, Be My Valentine (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Storm, Marian, Discovery (<i>F.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Stribling, T. S., It Don’t Mean Nothin’ to Men (<i>P. R.</i>, +Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Synon, Mary, You Meet Such Nice People (<i>G. H.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Tarleton, Fiswoode, Miracles (<i>Ad.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Terhune, Albert Payson, Early Birds (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926); +The True Romance (<i>D.</i>, Nov., 1926); The Battle of +the Gods (<i>Col.</i>, Dec. 4, 1926); Loot (<i>Col.</i>, Aug. 13); +The Short Cutters (<i>L.</i>, Aug. 27).</p> + +<p>Terrill, Lucy Stone, Sidewalks? Yes (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926).</p> + +<p>Thomas, Elizabeth Wilkins, Deer (<i>W. H. C.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Tisdale, Frederick, Down to Babylon (<i>P. R.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Train, Arthur, The Viking’s Daughter (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Feb. 5).</p> + +<p>Triem, Paul Ellsworth, Will Morning Never Come? (<i>D. S. M.</i>, +Nov. 13, 1926).</p> + +<p>Turnbull, Agnes Sligh, Flood-Gates (<i>McCall</i>, Nov., 1926); +Holly at the Door (<i>McCall</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Valensi, Marion Poschman, The Girl Who Set Out to Marry +Money (<i>Am.</i>, Nov., 1926); Roseleaves and Moonlight +(<i>McCall</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Van de Water, Virginia Terhune, How It Worked (<i>Mun.</i>, +Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Waldron, Webb, Jim Comes Home (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Wallace, S. E., Kenyon Stands by (<i>S. S. M.</i>, Aug.)</p> + +<p>Warren, Lella, The Wrong Twin (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Watkins, Maurine, Alimony (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Watkins, Richard Howells, The Ace of Aerobats (<i>Mun.</i>, +Sept.); Conover Crashes in (<i>S. S.</i>, Sept. 10); Fly-by-Night +(<i>Ad.</i>, Sept. 15).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxix">[xxix]</span></p> + +<p>Weiman, Rita, Dinner Is Served (<i>R. B.</i>, Dec., 1926); Slow +Torture (<i>L.</i>, Apr. 16).</p> + +<p>Wetjen, Albert Richard, The First Law of Nature (<i>Col.</i>, +June 11); The Mate Stands by (<i>Col.</i>, July 23).</p> + +<p>White, Stewart Edward, “Free, Wide, and Handsome” (<i>Am.</i>, +May).</p> + +<p>Wiley, Hugh, The Power of the Press (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926).</p> + +<p>Williams, Ben Ames, Skins (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 23, 1926); Aside +after Lucre (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Dec. 4, 1926).</p> + +<p>Williams, Valentine, The Thumb of Fat’ma (<i>C. T.</i>, Aug. 7).</p> + +<p>Williams, Wythe, En Garde (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 30, 1926); Destiny +(<i>S. E. P.</i>, Nov. 20, 1926).</p> + +<p>Wilson, Mary Badger, Dust Behind the Sofa (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Dec. 4, 1926).</p> + +<p>Worts, George F., The Nimble Snail (<i>Mun.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> +</div> + + +<h4>LIST III</h4> + +<p>Stories ranking third.</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell, The Steps That Went up into +the Sky (<i>G. H.</i>, Nov., 1926); Turkey in the Oven +(<i>W. H. C.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Banning, Margaret Culkin, Rich Man, Poor Man (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Oct. 9, 1926); Delicatessen Love (<i>C. T.</i>, Apr. 24).</p> + +<p>Bari, Valeska, the Goddess of Liberty (<i>F.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Barnard, Leslie Gordon, The Guest of Honor (<i>L. H. J.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Barretto, Larry, The Phantom Major (<i>Ad.</i>, Nov. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Bellah, James Warner, Boppo Takes a Bird’s-Eye View +(<i>Col.</i>, May 7); Old Waffle Ear (<i>Col.</i>, July 2).</p> + +<p>Benét, Stephen Vincent, Miss Willie Lou and the Swan +(<i>C. G.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Benson, Stuart, Ramadin’s Daughter (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926).</p> + +<p>Boyd, Thomas, Dark in a Shell Hole (<i>S. S.</i>, Feb. 10); Two +Lean and Hungry Looks (<i>S. S.</i>, Apr. 10); Shootin’ +Keno (<i>C. G.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Bretherton, Vivien R., Trinket (<i>McCall</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Caffrey, Andrew A., Aerial Blue (<i>Ad.</i>, Nov. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Clausen, Carl, On the Midnight Tide (<i>B. B.</i>, Nov., 1926); +Around the Horn (<i>C. T.</i>, June 12); The Shining Door +(<i>R. B.</i>, July); The Father of His Son (<i>C. T.</i>, Aug. 21); +The Three of Us (<i>P. R.</i>, Sept.).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxx">[xxx]</span></p> + +<p>Douglas, Marjory Stoneman, Too Much Class (<i>S. E. P.</i>, +Oct. 9, 1926).</p> + +<p>Edward, Cecil A., The Russian (<i>Atl.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Elliott, Stuart E., Whom the Gods Love (<i>L. H. J.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Franken, Rose L., The Lady in the Back (<i>C. T.</i>, July 31).</p> + +<p>Gale, Zona, Heart of Youth (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Goodman, Blanche, Nocturne (<i>Book.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Hamilton, H. M., Liberty (<i>A. A.</i>, Oct. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Jones, Vara Macbeth, Danny Goes Druid (<i>C. W.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>Kroll, Harry Harrison, Good to the Last Drop (<i>Ev.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Lea, Fannie Heaslip, The Brute (<i>G. H.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Lovelace, Delos, Toe of the Stocking (<i>C. G.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>McMorrow, Thomas, Hinkle against Fayne (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 30, +1926).</p> + +<p>Marquis, Don, The High Pitch (<i>Col.</i>, May 28).</p> + +<p>Mason, Grace Sartwell, Sweet Tooth (<i>W. H. C.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Miller, Helen Topping, A Bird Flies Over (<i>G. H.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Montague, Margaret Prescott, Hog’s Eye and Human +(<i>F.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Montross, Lois Seyster, The Golden Legend (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Moravsky, Maria, The Ode to Pegasus (<i>W. T.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Nebel, Frederick L., Grain to Grain (<i>B. M.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Parmenter, Christine Whiting, David’s Star of Bethlehem +(<i>Am.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Pelley, William Dudley, Martin’s Tree (<i>Am.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Perry, Lawrence, Barbed Wire (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926).</p> + +<p>Portor, Laura Spencer, One Night (<i>W. H. C.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Post, Melville Davisson, The Survivor (<i>Am.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Pruden, Oliver, Black Salve (<i>S. S.</i>, July 10).</p> + +<p>Ritchie, Robert Welles, You Take ’Em as They Flies (<i>S. S.</i>, +Jan. 25).</p> + +<p>Sears, Zelda, Out of the Fourth Dimension (<i>Mun.</i>, Oct., +1926).</p> + +<p>Shore, Viola Brothers, A Handy Manuel (<i>S. E. P.</i>, Oct. 2, +1926).</p> + +<p>Shore, Viola Brothers and Fort, Garrett, The Prince of Headwaiters +(<i>L.</i>, Apr. 9).</p> + +<p>Singer, Mary, Fathers (<i>G. H.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Singmaster, Elsie, Finis (<i>Book.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Speare, Dorothy, Sweet but Dumb (<i>P. R.</i>, Apr.).</p> + +<p>Steele, Harwood, An Affair of Courage (<i>S. S.</i>, Mch., 25).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxi">[xxxi]</span></p> + +<p>Synon, Mary, A Girl Called Stella (<i>P. R.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Taggard, Genevieve, The Shirt (<i>Book.</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>Tilden, Freeman, The Two-Browning Man (<i>L. H. J.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Topham, Thomas, In All His Glory (<i>D. S. M.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926).</p> + +<p>Treleaven, Owen Clarke, Vengeance (<i>S. S.</i>, May 25).</p> + +<p>Van de Water, Frederic F., Angels and Yellowjackets +(<i>L. H. J.</i>, Oct., 1926); He Sendeth His Rain (<i>C. G.</i>, +Apr.).</p> + +<p>Vance, Louis Joseph, Base Metal (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 30, 1926).</p> + +<p>Ware, Edmund, The Boy and the Wind (<i>Am.</i>, Aug.); So-Long, +Old Timer (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Aug.).</p> + +<p>Weadock, Louis, Bottles and Stoppers (<i>Clues</i>, Nov., 1926).</p> + +<p>White, Ared, The Watch on the Rhine (<i>Ev.</i>, Mch.).</p> + +<p>White, Nelia Gardner, “Treasures” (<i>Am.</i>, Jan.); Helga (<i>Am.</i>, +Aug.).</p> + +<p>Whitehead, Henry S., The Left Eye (<i>W. T.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Wolff, William Almon, A Lady of Leisure (<i>L.</i>, June 18).</p> +</div> + +<h4>LIST IV</h4> + +<p>Of short short stories the following rank highest:</p> + +<div class="list"> +<p>Anderson, Nels, Old Whitey (<i>Am.</i> Merc., Jan.).</p> + +<p>Benson, Stuart, A Soldier (<i>Col.</i>, July 2).</p> + +<p>Bromfield, Louis, The Scarlet Woman (<i>McClure</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Child, Richard Washburn, The Man at the Bottom (<i>Col.</i>, +Aug. 13).</p> + +<p>Cohen, Octavus Roy, Stamped Out (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926); +Sunset (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 23, 1926).</p> + +<p>Crawford, Nelson Antrim, Frock Coats (<i>H. J. Q.</i>, January).</p> + +<p>Davenport, Walter, All Aboard (<i>Col.</i>, Sept. 17).</p> + +<p>Davis, Bob, The Hard-Boiled Egg (<i>Col.</i>, Aug. 6).</p> + +<p>Dell, Floyd, The Blanket (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 16, 1926).</p> + +<p>Doyle, Lynn, Smoke (<i>Mun.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Edholm, Charlton Lawrence, The Fame of Usskar (<i>C.</i>, Oct., +1926).</p> + +<p>Fagin, N. Bryllion, The Queerness of Kate (<i>E.</i>, Feb.).</p> + +<p>Farrar, John, Primrose Pavilion (<i>Col.</i>, Jan. 15).</p> + +<p>Gale, Zona, Another Lady Bountiful (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, Feb.); Blue +Velvet (<i>P. R.</i>, June); Tommy Taylor (<i>R. B.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Hare, Amory, Three Lumps of Sugar (<i>H. I. and C.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Hecht, Ben, The Lifer (<i>R. B.</i>, Feb.); Don Juan’s Rainy Day +(<i>C. H.</i>, May).</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxii">[xxxii]</span></p> + +<p>Hoyt, Nancy, Things Like That Happen Only in Dreams +(<i>C. H.</i>, Dec., 1926).</p> + +<p>Kniffin, Harry A., Aftermath (<i>C. W.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Kyne, Peter B., The Devil Drives (<i>Col.</i>, Dec. 18, 1926).</p> + +<p>Martin, Helen R., The Wooing of Weesie (<i>L. H. J.</i>, Jan.).</p> + +<p>Merwin, Samuel, The Old Blood (<i>Col.</i>, Jan. 22).</p> + +<p>Mish, Charlotte, A Woman Like That (<i>Y.</i>, Apr.); Pretenders +(<i>Y.</i>, June); The Moment of Triumph (<i>D. S.</i>, June).</p> + +<p>Nelson, Gaylord, Moonshine (<i>C.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Norris, Kathleen, The Ring (<i>H. B.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>O’Donnell, Jack, The Killer (<i>L.</i>, Jan. 1).</p> + +<p>Phillips, Michael J., Back to Apple Harbor (<i>R. B.</i>, Oct., 1926).</p> + +<p>Powel, Harford, Jr., The Finest Lie in the World (<i>Col.</i>, +Mch. 19).</p> + +<p>Singmaster, Elsie, Sandoe’s Pocket (<i>W. H. C.</i>, Oct., 1926); +Miss Glynn (<i>Col.</i>, Oct. 9, 1926); The Christmas Guest +(<i>P. R.</i>, Dec., 1926); The Legacy (<i>D.</i>, May).</p> + +<p>Toohey, John Peter, The Trouper (<i>Col.</i>, Apr. 23).</p> + +<p>Way, Isabella, Sachet (<i>E.</i>, July).</p> + +<p>Wetjen, Albert Richard, A Loyal Man (<i>Col.</i>, Jan. 15).</p> + +<p>White, Owen P., The Simpleton (<i>Col.</i>, Nov. 27, 1926).</p> + +<p>Williams, Ben Ames, Victory (<i>Col.</i>, Apr. 30); Red Hair +(<i>Col.</i>, July 2).</p> + +<p>Worts, George F., Woman’s Work Is Never Done (<i>Col.</i>, +Mch. 19).</p> +</div> + +<p class='mt1'>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.</p> + +<p>Yet too many stories of to-day are like O. Henry’s clam +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiii">[xxxiii]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 (<i>Century</i>, +May), and “Sooth,” by Wilbur Daniel Steele (<i>Harper’s</i>, +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.</p> + +<p>In the eight years of <i>O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxiv">[xxxiv]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>That standards of reviewers differ may be illustrated by +the following quotations drawn from reviewers of <i>O. Henry +Memorial Prize Stories</i>, 1926:</p> + +<div class='reviews'> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left top-column'> + “Miss Williams’s introduction + is of great interest, as it + takes us behind the scenes + with the judges ... but still + the collection itself remains + disappointing.”—Hartford + <i>Courant</i>, January 23, 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right top-column'> +“The introduction is, it +must be said, an unpleasant +piece of work ... in a style +whose lack of distinction is in +marked contrast to the stories +that follow.”—New York +<i>Sun</i>, January 18, 1927. +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + “Miss Williams in her introduction + considers each + story with critical seriousness, + and analyzes, and + praises, and compares, till +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxv">[xxxv]</span> + one can’t help wondering + what she would say of a + Chekhov or a Maupassant.”—The + <i>Saturday Review of + Literature</i>, May 28, 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> +“It is at least refreshing +after the monotones of praise +to which introducing editors +have almost invariably +treated us; and even though +one may not always agree +with the specific comment +... that fact need not detract +from one’s approval of this +tempered, tentative editorial +attitude as constituting a +salutary and genuinely respectable +criticism.”—New +York <i>Herald-Tribune</i>, January +30, 1927. +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + “If Wilbur Daniel Steele + had never written a better + story than ‘Bubbles’ he + would never have achieved + the fame and popularity + which he not unjustly + enjoys.”—Richmond (Va.) + <i>News Leader</i>, January 17, + 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> +“All competent readers +will agree with the official +judges as to the wisdom of +their first choice. ‘Bubbles’ +is a profound, subtle, and +highly finished piece of work.”—New +York <i>Sun</i>, January +18, 1927.<br> + +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + “To me the story [Bubbles] + is not convincing enough to + be really successful. Despite + deft craftsmanship the story + fails to become important, + and even its pattern is beautiful + artifice rather than art.”—The + <i>Saturday Review of + Literature</i>, May 28, 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> +“Mr. Steele’s really stupendous +story, ‘Bubbles’—it +is difficult not to overdo +superlatives in writing of this +appalling little masterpiece +... is one of Mr. Steele’s +supreme achievements.”—Hartford +<i>Courant</i>, January +23, 1927.<br> + +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + “Sherwood Anderson wins + the second prize with a story + called ‘Death in the Woods’ + in which he is at his + worst.”—Richmond <i>News + Leader</i>, January 17, 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> +“Of the stories in this +book, that by Sherwood Anderson +[Death in the Woods] +is the most important.”—New +York <i>World</i>, January +19, 1927. +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + “‘Death in the Woods’ has + the curious distinction no + story of Mr. Anderson’s could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxxvi">[xxxvi]</span> + lack, but would have hardly + made him the reputation he + so magnificently deserves.”—New + York <i>Post</i>, February 5, + 1927. +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> + “Mr. Anderson’s story +strikes the authentic Anderson +note. He has seldom done +anything more powerful +within its limits and never +anything more characteristic.”—New +York <i>Sun</i>, January +18, 1927. +</p> +</div> +<div class='review-set'> +<p class='rev-left'> + The New York <i>Times</i> reviewer + (January 23, 1927) remarks, + “The relegation of + Mary Heaton Vorse’s story + [The Madelaine] to the back + of the book makes the reader + wonder if these authorities + on the short story ... really + know a story when they see + it.” +</p> +<p class='rev-right'> +The order of the stories +(see the table of contents for +the 1926 collection) is, after +the three prize stories, alphabetical +by authors.<br> + <br> + <br> + +</p> +</div> +</div> +<p class='cb'> </p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="CHILD_OF_GOD"> + CHILD OF GOD + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ROARK BRADFORD</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Harper’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>When</span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You mean dar hit wuz,” admonished the preacher. “Now +yo’ flesh is fed, Willie, whut ’bout yo’ soul?”</p> + +<p>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——”</p> + +<p>“Den which, son?” Preacher Moore was eager to find a +point of contact at which he could begin his prepared message +of consolation.</p> + +<p>“I’se Glory bound!” Willie declared with enthusiasm.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>While the condemned man talked and the preacher listened, +the Great State of Louisiana prepared to exact its penalty +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Willie did like to sing—church songs, mostly. But sometimes +when he felt sad and lonesome he’d sing the one that +began:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Thirty days in jail,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Baby, don’t soun’ so long,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But de las’ frien’ I got in dis worl’,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Done shuck her laig an’ gone.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“He might er stole yo’ chickens,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He might er stole yo’ cow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hit don’t make no diffunce what he stole,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You’s in de jail-house now.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Cap’m Archie had laughed at that one and it made Willie +happy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The preacher had spared no detail his imagination could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Hyar dey comes, son,” the preacher said kindly. “Git up +off’n yo’ knees.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>Wilton Parish Gazette</i>, 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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I bet you fergits my cigar, Cap’m Archie,” Willie countered +as his arms were being pinioned behind him.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie hummed desperately +under his breath. “Hit’s good ernuff for me.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Gimme dat ole time religion,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gimme dat ole time religion,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gimme dat ole time religion, Lawd,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hit’s good ernuff fer me.</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Hit will take you home to Glory,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hit will take you home to Glory,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hit will take you home to Glory, Lawd,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hit’s good ernuff fer me.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Makes me love ev’ybody,” Willie insisted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He edged over toward Cap’m Archie.</p> + +<p>“When does I make my speech, Cap’m Archie?” he asked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Come over here, nigger.” It was “Ole Green Eyes” again. +Willie stood on the trapdoor.</p> + +<p>“Makes me love ev’ybody,” he kept repeating as the knot +was being drawn close to his ear. “Makes me love ev’ybody.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>He threw back his shoulders and raised his chin as though +about to address a large congregation.</p> + +<p>“Folkses,” he began in a clear, strong voice, “I has a few +words I wants to say to y’all——”</p> + +<p>“Too late now, nigger.” It was that stubby little man. +And even as the trap gave way under his feet Willie began:</p> + +<p>“Makes me love ev’ybody.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Great day!” he exclaimed. “Class sho’ is comin’ down de +road to-day.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Git up hyar, boy, an’ le’s git goin’,” the driver called +down. “Us is late, as it is or—else you is early.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You drives right well, boy,” he observed. “What’s yo’ +name?”</p> + +<p>“Jehu,” replied the driver.</p> + +<p>“Jehu-which?”</p> + +<p>“Jest Jehu,” replied the driver.</p> + +<p>“Who dat boy wid de hawn in his han’?”</p> + +<p>“Gab’l.”</p> + +<p>The monosyllabic replies of his companion irritated Willie. +He wanted conversation and he intended to have it.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Hol’ tight,” cautioned Jehu, and the chariot stopped +suddenly.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span> +carriage. The old man halted a few paces from him and cast +a surveying glance at the horses.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Willie quickly ran and lowered the checkrein and climbed +back to his seat.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Dat de Jurdan, huh?” asked Willie. “I be dog,” and he +gripped tightly to the seat.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As soon as the old man had disappeared behind the cherub, +St. Peter dropped his air of formality.</p> + +<p>“Well, well,” he said, “if it ain’t that worthless Willie Malone. +Willie, how’d you git here, son?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p> + +<p>That was language Willie could understand and appreciate.</p> + +<p>“St. Peter,” he replied, “I jes’ got on de chariot an’ rid up +hyar.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>St. Peter helped the cherub adjust the wings.</p> + +<p>“Now you’re fixed, son,” he announced. “Fly away!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Doggone my hide,” he exclaimed, “dis is somethin’ like!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What shall I play, Great Lord God?” asked Little David.</p> + +<p>“Play something calm and low, Little David,” said the +Great Lord God. “Do not alarm my people.”</p> + +<p>David struck a chord or two on his harp. It was beautiful. +The mellow music floated straight to Willie’s heart. One or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> +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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“When dat big <i>Titanic</i> sunk down in de sea,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All de brass bands played ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Out on de deep blue ocean de people sleep</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In a cold wet cradle, three miles deep.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It’s yo’ las’ trip, <i>Titanic</i>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>After several verses Willie began to feel a personal sorrow +for the passengers of the <i>Titanic</i>. 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.”</p> + +<p>And as soon as the command was issued all the angels began +dancing and singing as Little David played:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Two little babies a-layin’ in de bed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">One of’m sick an’ de yuther mos’ dead.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sont fer de doctor an’ de doctor said,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Give dem babies some shortnin’ bread.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So put on de skillet an’ thow way de led,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cause mammy gonter make a little shortnin’ bread.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As he puzzled over the matter he faintly remembered a +story his old mammy had told him about a man with scars +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> +on his hands and feet, and he recalled the lines of a song that +Cap’m Archie used to make him sing:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“They nailed His hands and they rivet His feet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">An’ de hammers wuz heard in Jerusalem street.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Some way, Willie could not place him. But he felt much +more at ease for his presence.</p> + +<p>“What you thinking about, Willie?” the kindly angel +asked. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself so much.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“But I did want ter make dat speech,” he concluded.</p> + +<p>“What speech is that?” asked the kindly faced angel.</p> + +<p>Willie explained in great detail, and the angel and the +Great Lord God listened intently.</p> + +<p>“But hit wa’n’t Cap’m Archie’s fault,” he declared.</p> + +<p>“Whose fault was it, then?” demanded the Great Lord +God.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p> + +<p>The cherub brought the lightning, and the Great Lord God +was about to hurl it. But the kind angel touched his arm +gently.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Willie Malone,” commanded the Great Lord God in a +tone of thunder.</p> + +<p>“Yassuh, Great Lord God,” replied Willie, jumping to his +feet.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> +Willie stood a minute respectfully, hoping Cap’m Archie +would notice him and inquire what he wanted.</p> + +<p>But Cap’m Archie did not look toward him and Willie +tried a scheme that had worked many times for him.</p> + +<p>“Cap’m, suh,” he said, “don’ you want dis ole dirty flo’ +swep’ up er somethin’?”</p> + +<p>But Cap’m Archie acted as though he did not hear.</p> + +<p>Willie cogitated. Maybe he was worrying about forgetting +the cigar.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You got the mate to that’n, Sheriff?” Ole Green Eyes +quit shuffling the new bills and directed his attention toward +the cigar.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“No hard feelings, Sheriff,” offered Green Eyes. “I see +you ain’t used to it. Cheer up. It’s just another nigger less.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There he goes now—out of yer jail and out of yer life. +It’s all over and yer duty’s done.”</p> + +<p>Cap’m Archie squeezed the cigar tightly, crumbling it into +tiny bits.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span> +Then they will curse you. Willie knew how to get along +with white folks.</p> + +<p>But things were different now. He had business with Mister +Green Eyes.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute, Cap’m, suh,” he addressed the green-eyed +man.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Wait a minute, Cap’m,” Willie pleaded. “I got ter make +my speech.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“There’s the doctor,” Cap’m Archie replied calmly, nodding +toward the coroner.</p> + +<p>“But, Cap’m, suh, wait,” interjected Willie, “lemme make +my speech——”</p> + +<p>The green-eyed man yelled and ran to the doctor.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the matter, man?” demanded the doctor. “What +is it?”</p> + +<p>“That damned nigger, Doctor. I’m seein’ things. So help +me. He wants to make a speech, Doctor——”</p> + +<p>“Dat’s all right, Cap’m,” Willie insisted. “Hit ain’t no +mean speech.”</p> + +<p>“O-ww-w-w—Doctor,” screamed the green-eyed man. +“There he is again.”</p> + +<p>The coroner and Cap’m Archie caught the hangman and +led him to a chair.</p> + +<p>“Calm down, man,” said the doctor. “Your nerves are +upset.”</p> + +<p>“But that nigger, that damned nigger! I see him.”</p> + +<p>“Well, he isn’t going to hurt you, man. He’s——”</p> + +<p>“Nawsuh, I wa’n’t gonter hurt nobody,” Willie assured +him. “I jes’ was gonter say a few words.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That damned nigger! I see him! I see him!” he kept shouting. +“He wants to make a speech!”</p> + +<p>“Hold him until I can fix a hypodermic,” ordered the doctor.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>“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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_KILLERS"> + THE KILLERS + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ERNEST HEMINGWAY</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Scribner’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>The</span> door of Henry’s lunch room opened and two men +came in. They sat down at the counter.</p> + +<p>“What’s yours?” George asked them.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” one of the men said. “What do you want +to eat, Al?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” said Al. “I don’t know what I want to +eat.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll have a roast pork tenderloin with apple sauce and +mashed potato,” the first man said.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t ready yet.”</p> + +<p>“What the hell do you put it on the card for?”</p> + +<p>“That’s the dinner,” George explained. “You can get that +at six o’clock.”</p> + +<p>George looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter.</p> + +<p>“It’s five o’clock.”</p> + +<p>“The clock says twenty minutes past five,” the second +man said.</p> + +<p>“It’s twenty minutes fast.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, to hell with the clock,” the first man said. “What +have you got to eat?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Give me chicken croquettes with green peas and cream +sauce and mashed potatoes.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the dinner.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span></p> + +<p>“Everything we want’s the dinner, eh? That’s the way you +work it.”</p> + +<p>“I can give you ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver—-”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Got anything to drink?” Al asked.</p> + +<p>“Silver beer, bevo, ginger ale,” George said.</p> + +<p>“I mean you got anything to drink?”</p> + +<p>“Just those I said.”</p> + +<p>“This is a hot town,” said the other. “What do they call +it?”</p> + +<p>“Summit”</p> + +<p>“Ever hear of it?” Al asked his friend.</p> + +<p>“No,” said the friend.</p> + +<p>“What do you do here nights?” Al asked.</p> + +<p>“They eat the dinner,” his friend said. “They all come here +and eat the big dinner.”</p> + +<p>“That’s right,” George said.</p> + +<p>“So you think that’s right?” Al asked George.</p> + +<p>“Sure.”</p> + +<p>“You’re a pretty bright boy, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” said George.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’re not,” said the other little man. “Is he, Al?”</p> + +<p>“He’s dumb,” said Al. He turned to Nick. “What’s your +name?”</p> + +<p>“Adams.”</p> + +<p>“Another bright boy,” Al said. “Ain’t he a bright boy, +Max?”</p> + +<p>“The town’s full of bright boys,” Max said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Which is yours?” he asked Al.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you remember?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p> + +<p>“Ham and eggs.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“What are <i>you</i> looking at?” Max looked at George.</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p>“The hell you were. You were looking at me.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe the boy meant it for a joke, Max,” Al said.</p> + +<p>George laughed.</p> + +<p>“<i>You</i> don’t have to laugh,” Max said to him. “<i>You</i> don’t +have to laugh at all, see?”</p> + +<p>“All right,” said George.</p> + +<p>“So he thinks it’s all right.” Max turned to Al. “He thinks +it’s all right. That’s a good one.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s a thinker,” Al said. They went on eating.</p> + +<p>“What’s the bright boy’s name down the counter?” Al +asked Max.</p> + +<p>“Hey, bright boy,” Max said to Nick. “You go around on +the other side of the counter with your boy friend.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the idea?” Nick asked.</p> + +<p>“There isn’t any idea.”</p> + +<p>“You better go around, bright boy,” Al said. Nick went +around behind the counter.</p> + +<p>“What’s the idea?” George asked.</p> + +<p>“None of your damn business,” Al said. “Who’s out in the +kitchen?”</p> + +<p>“The nigger.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean the nigger?”</p> + +<p>“The nigger that cooks.”</p> + +<p>“Tell him to come in.”</p> + +<p>“What’s the idea?”</p> + +<p>“Tell him to come in.”</p> + +<p>“Where do you think you are?”</p> + +<p>“We know damn well where we are,” the man called Max +said. “Do we look silly?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do to him?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. Use your head, bright boy. What would we do +to a nigger?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p> + +<p>George opened the slit that opened back into the kitchen. +“Sam,” he called. “Come in here a minute.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“All right, nigger. You stand right there,” Al said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Well, bright boy,” Max said, looking into the mirror, +“why don’t you say something?”</p> + +<p>“What’s it all about?”</p> + +<p>“Hey, Al,” Max called, “bright boy wants to know what +it’s all about.”</p> + +<p>“Why don’t you tell him?” Al’s voice came from the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>“What do you think it’s all about?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“What do you think?”</p> + +<p>Max looked into the mirror all the time he was talking.</p> + +<p>“I wouldn’t say.”</p> + +<p>“Hey, Al, bright boy says he wouldn’t say what he thinks +it’s all about.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Talk to me, bright boy,” Max said. “What do you think’s +going to happen?”</p> + +<p>George did not say anything.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you,” Max said. “We’re going to kill a Swede. +Do you know a big Swede named Ole Andreson?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“He comes here to eat every night, don’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes he comes here.”</p> + +<p>“He comes here at six o’clock, don’t he?”</p> + +<p>“If he comes.”</p> + +<p>“We know all that, bright boy,” Max said. “Talk about +something else. Ever go to the movies?”</p> + +<p>“Once in a while.”</p> + +<p>“You ought to go to the movies more. The movies are fine +for a bright boy like you.”</p> + +<p>“What are you going to kill Ole Andreson for? What did +he ever do to you?”</p> + +<p>“He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never +even seen us.”</p> + +<p>“And he’s only going to see us once,” Al said from the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to kill him for, then?” George asked.</p> + +<p>“We’re killing him for a friend. Just to oblige a friend, +bright boy.”</p> + +<p>“Shut up,” said Al from the kitchen. “You talk too goddam +much.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I got to keep bright boy amused. Don’t I, bright +boy?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose you were in a convent.”</p> + +<p>“You never know.”</p> + +<p>“You were in a kosher convent. That’s where you were.”</p> + +<p>George looked up at the clock.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“All right,” George said. “What you going to do with us +afterward?”</p> + +<p>“That’ll depend,” Max said. “That’s one of those things +you never know at the time.”</p> + +<p>George looked up at the dock. It was a quarter past six. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> +The door from the street opened. A street-car motorman +came in.</p> + +<p>“Hello, George,” he said. “Can I get supper?”</p> + +<p>“Sam’s gone out,” George said. “He’ll be back in about +half an hour.”</p> + +<p>“I’d better go up the street,” the motorman said. George +looked at the clock. It was twenty minutes past six.</p> + +<p>“That was nice, bright boy,” Max said. “You’re a regular +little gentleman.”</p> + +<p>“He knew I’d blow his head off,” Al said from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>“No,” said Max. “It ain’t that. Bright boy is nice. He’s a +nice boy. I like him.”</p> + +<p>At six-fifty-five George said: “He’s not coming.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Bright boy can do everything,” Max said. “He can cook +and everything. You’d make some girl a nice wife, bright +boy.”</p> + +<p>“Yes?” George said. “Your friend, Ole Andreson, isn’t +going to come.”</p> + +<p>“We’ll give him ten minutes,” Max said.</p> + +<p>Max watched the mirror and the clock. The hands of the +clock marked seven o’clock, and then five minutes past seven.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Al,” said Max. “We better go. He’s not coming.”</p> + +<p>“Better give him five minutes,” Al said from the kitchen.</p> + +<p>In the five minutes a man came in, and George explained +that the cook was sick.</p> + +<p>“Why the hell don’t you get another cook?” the man +asked. “Aren’t you running a lunch counter?” He went out.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Al,” Max said.</p> + +<p>“What about the two bright boys and the nigger?”</p> + +<p>“They’re all right.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p> + +<p>“You think so?”</p> + +<p>“Sure. We’re through with it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like it,” said Al. “It’s sloppy. You talk too much.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what the hell,” said Max. “We got to keep amused, +haven’t we?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“So long, bright boy,” he said to George. “You got a lot +of luck.”</p> + +<p>“That’s the truth,” Max said. “You ought to play the +races, bright boy.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want any more of that,” said Sam, the cook. “I +don’t want any more of that.”</p> + +<p>Nick stood up. He had never had a towel in his mouth before.</p> + +<p>“Say,” he said. “What the hell?” He was trying to swagger +it off.</p> + +<p>“They were going to kill Ole Andreson,” George said. +“They were going to shoot him when he came in to eat.”</p> + +<p>“Ole Andreson?”</p> + +<p>“Sure.”</p> + +<p>The cook felt the corners of his mouth with his thumbs.</p> + +<p>“They all gone?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yeah,” said George. “They’re gone now.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t like it,” said the cook. “I don’t like any of it at +all.”</p> + +<p>“Listen,” George said to Nick. “You better go see Ole +Andreson.”</p> + +<p>“All right.”</p> + +<p>“You better not have anything to do with it at all,” Sam, +the cook, said. “You better stay way out of it.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t go if you don’t want to,” George said.</p> + +<p>“Mixing up in this ain’t going to get you anywhere,” the +cook said. “You stay out of it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll go see him,” Nick said to George. “Where does he +live?”</p> + +<p>The cook turned away.</p> + +<p>“Little boys always know what they want to do,” he said.</p> + +<p>“He lives up at Hirsch’s rooming house,” George said to +Nick.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go up there.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Is Ole Andreson here?”</p> + +<p>“Do you want to see him?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if he’s in.”</p> + +<p>Nick followed the woman up a flight of stairs and back to +the end of a corridor. She knocked on the door.</p> + +<p>“Who is it?”</p> + +<p>“It’s somebody to see you, Mr. Andreson,” the woman +said.</p> + +<p>“It’s Nick Adams.”</p> + +<p>“Come in.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What was it?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>It sounded silly when he said it. Ole Andreson said nothing.</p> + +<p>“They put us out in the kitchen,” Nick went on. “They +were going to shoot you when you came in to supper.”</p> + +<p>Ole Andreson looked at the wall and did not say anything.</p> + +<p>“George thought I better come and tell you about it.”</p> + +<p>“There isn’t anything I can do about it,” Ole Andreson +said.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what they were like.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> + +<p>“That’s all right.”</p> + +<p>Nick looked at the big man lying on the bed.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you want me to go and see the police?”</p> + +<p>“No,” Ole Andreson said. “That wouldn’t do any good.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t there something I could do?”</p> + +<p>“No. There ain’t anything to do.”</p> + +<p>“Maybe it was just a bluff.”</p> + +<p>“No. It ain’t just a bluff.”</p> + +<p>Ole Andreson rolled over toward the wall.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you get out of town?”</p> + +<p>“No,” Ole Andreson said. “I’m through with all that running +around.”</p> + +<p>He looked at the wall.</p> + +<p>“There ain’t anything to do now.”</p> + +<p>“Couldn’t you fix it up some way?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“I better go back and see George,” Nick said.</p> + +<p>“So long,” said Ole Andreson. He did not look toward +Nick. “Thanks for coming around.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“He doesn’t want to go out.”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry he don’t feel well,” the woman said. “He’s an +awfully nice man. He was in the ring, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I know it.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Well, good-night, Mrs. Hirsch,” Nick said.</p> + +<p>“I’m not Mrs. Hirsch,” the woman said. “She owns +the place. I just look after it for her. I’m Mrs. Bell.”</p> + +<p>“Well, good-night, Mrs. Bell,” Nick said.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> + +<p>“Good-night,” the woman said.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Did you see Ole?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Nick. “He’s in his room and he won’t go out.”</p> + +<p>The cook opened the door from the kitchen when he heard +Nick’s voice.</p> + +<p>“I don’t even listen to it,” he said, and shut the door.</p> + +<p>“Did you tell him about it?” George asked.</p> + +<p>“Sure. I told him, but he knows what it’s all about.”</p> + +<p>“What’s he going to do?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing.”</p> + +<p>“They’ll kill him.”</p> + +<p>“I guess they will.”</p> + +<p>“He must have got mixed up in something in Chicago.”</p> + +<p>“I guess so,” said Nick.</p> + +<p>“It’s a hell of a thing.”</p> + +<p>“It’s an awful thing,” Nick said.</p> + +<p>They did not say anything. George reached down for a +towel and wiped the counter.</p> + +<p>“I wonder what he did?” Nick said.</p> + +<p>“Double-crossed somebody. That’s what they kill them +for.”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to get out of this town,” Nick said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said George. “That’s a good thing to do.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” said George, “you better not think about it.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SCARLET_WOMAN"> + THE SCARLET WOMAN + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> LOUIS BROMFIELD</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>McClure’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first'><span class='allcaps'>I can</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“It was a pity about John Shadwell’s wife,” people said. +“And she was such a lady, too.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“You couldn’t blame her,” said the Town, “for feeling like +that. They say she never has a moment’s good, wholesome +sleep.”</p> + +<p>John Shadwell went to the Legislature, the youngest man +in the state to hold such an office; and when the time for reelection +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“John Shadwell,” she said, “is nothing to me. If he has +come here once or twice, it is only because he is my lawyer.”</p> + +<p>She must protect John Shadwell.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“She is such a lady. She has such a fine air,” they said. +And, “It’s so restful sitting there in her cool parlour.”</p> + +<p>But their trade did her no good. “It only goes to show,” +said the Town.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And one is certain that on the same night, when the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But with Vergie Winters? She still went her solitary way, +making her few bonnets, now a little old-fashioned and <i>démodé</i> +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?</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> +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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="JUKES"> + JUKES + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> BILL ADAMS</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Adventure</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first'><span class='allcaps'>A boarding</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His attitude revengeful and defiant, Alf Jukes strode up to +the mate. He stood face to face with him and cursed him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Presently the skipper appeared and spoke to the mate, who +walked forward and called the sailors from the forecastle.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The reek of liquor grew fainter. The wind came fresher. The +mate said—</p> + +<p>“Someone sing!”</p> + +<p>One of the sailors began to sing a forecastle song, a chantey, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The mate called—</p> + +<p>“Hoist away, main tops’l!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You there! Lend a hand here!” called the mate to Jukes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The mate called—</p> + +<p>“All together, now!—<i>Lay back!</i>”</p> + +<p>The tackle rattled noisily through its three-fold blocks. +The sail slid, threshing and filling, to its masthead.</p> + +<p>“Bully boy!” said the mate.</p> + +<p>A sailor repeated—</p> + +<p>“Bully boy!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The shore line faded astern. The day passed. The sun sank. +Night fell.</p> + +<p>The sailors sat in the forecastle.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ow long was you ashore?” asked one.</p> + +<p>“Three days. How long was you?” came the reply.</p> + +<p>“I come in the same day as you, then. I been three days +ashore.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p> + +<p>“We was five months at sea,” said the other, “three days in +port, an’ I don’t know nothin’ about ’em.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“We was two hundred days on the passage out,” said one. +“We was posted missin’. Four days in port, an’ back to sea +agin!”</p> + +<p>They were from half a dozen different ships.</p> + +<p>“How long was you ashore?” asked one, turning to Jukes. +Jukes seemed not to hear him.</p> + +<p>“He don’t know,” laughed one.</p> + +<p>“We don’t none of us know much, or we’d not be here,” +another grumbled.</p> + +<p>“After this v’yage I quits the sea,” another asserted.</p> + +<p>“Me, too,” another.</p> + +<p>“Yuss!—You will!” chuckled a third.</p> + +<p>“I’ll do wot I please,” retorted the other.</p> + +<p>“Same as you always ’ave! Me, too,” another said. “Haw, +haw, haw!”</p> + +<p>Turning to Jukes the last speaker asked—</p> + +<p>“Wot will you do w’en she gits in, ol’ matey?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“A fine man that, Mister,” said the skipper to the mate.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked +one sailor of another on the hatch.</p> + +<p>“I ain’t goin’ to sea no more after this passage,” answered +the other.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ow would you like to ’ave a little place ashore?” asked +the last speaker of Jukes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I wisht as I was ’im,” muttered one and another.</p> + +<p>They looked at him enviously, seated serene and confident +among them.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Another month was gone.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> +made an equally precarious passage to the forecastle.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Afternoon passed, and no man ventured to the wheel’s relief.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> +down. The horizons widened. For a little while gray ocean +rolled under gray sky.</p> + +<p>Snow fell. The horizons were blotted out.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“We’ll set sail when the moon rises,” said the skipper to +the mate.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The ship rolled easily. Blocks whined. Sails flapped. A +pleasant odour of tobacco smoke arose in cabin, galley, and +forecastle.</p> + +<p>The clouds lifted. The snow ceased. A wan light illumined +deck and rigging.</p> + +<p>“Loose them upper tops’ls!” bawled the mate.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A man aloft called—</p> + +<p>“All ready on the main!”</p> + +<p>The mate said—</p> + +<p>“Hoist away!”</p> + +<p>The men lay back, straining on the stiff swollen rope. The +sail refused to move.</p> + +<p>“W’ere’s Alf?” asked one of the sailors.</p> + +<p>“Jukes!” called the mate, “Jukes!”</p> + +<p>They looked aloft, seeking Jukes.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ee ain’t aloft,” said one.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p> + +<p>“He’s at the wheel,” said the mate, remembering. “One o’ +you men relieve Jukes.”</p> + +<p>“I forgot ’im,” said one.</p> + +<p>“Me, too,” another.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Lend a hand here, Jukes,” said the mate.</p> + +<p>Jukes strode to the halyards and reached up. His great +chest expanded as he reached higher and higher.</p> + +<p>“All together—<i>now!</i>” said the mate.</p> + +<p>Jukes laid his weight upon the halyards. The sheaves rattled. +The yard began to rise.</p> + +<p>“Bully boy!” said the mate. A sailor grunted, “Bully boy!”</p> + +<p>Their feet tramping soundlessly in the deep snow, the men +ran the topsail to its masthead.</p> + +<p>“All ready on the fore,” called a man from aloft.</p> + +<p>“Go eat,” said the mate to Jukes, his accents crisp and clear +in the stillness.</p> + +<p>Preceding the others, Jukes walked to the fore topsail +halyards as if he had not heard.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That fellow Jukes is a good man, Mister,” said the skipper +to the mate.</p> + +<p>“Jukey ain’t afeard o’ naught,” said a sailor, “I wish as I +was ’im.”</p> + +<p>Night passed.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> +undetermined, afraid of the world and of himself.</p> + +<p>Hands extended, eyes a-twinkle, faces beaming, a sailor’s +boarding master and his crimp climbed aboard.</p> + +<p>“Did ye have a good voyage, boys? W’ere are ye from? +You’re come to a good port this time!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“The best, boys! I’d never offer ye any but the best.”</p> + +<p>One of them grasped the bottle.</p> + +<p>“Don’t swaller it all!” cried one of the sailors.</p> + +<p>“ ’Old ’is arm!” another.</p> + +<p>“ ’S’all right, boys. There’s plenty more,” grinned the boarding +master.</p> + +<p>The crimp came from the boat, bottles in his pockets.</p> + +<p>The forecastle reeked of cheap and abominable liquor. +Presently one of the sailors asked—</p> + +<p>“W’ere’s Jukey?”</p> + +<p>The crimp left the forecastle, to seek the missing man.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>With a half pannikin of unspilled liquor in it, the lower half +of the bottle remained upright against the windlass.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hey, Jukey! Come on down, ol’ son!” called one of his +comrades, looking up from the forecastle.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p> + +<p>The bottles passed around.</p> + +<p>“No more ships for me,” said one.</p> + +<p>“Nor me, boys,” said another.</p> + +<p>Jukes drank silently.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Ol’ Jukey!” they cried, and “Good ol’ Jukey!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ere, old Cork-fender, lap it up now! It’s good for sailor’s +gizzards.”</p> + +<p>“Gimme yer empty glass ’ere, Queer-fellow!”</p> + +<p>“Young Bandy-shanks, you’ve ’ad enough! You’re young.—Another? +All right, then. Wot’d yer mommer say?”</p> + +<p>“Aw, haw! haw! haw!”</p> + +<p>“Drink hearty, Jimmie Bilge! There’s plenty more.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>In the barroom adjoining, the boarding master reached a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>Three brimming glasses stood upon the bar. Lifting one to +his own lips, the boarding master pushed another out toward +Jukes.</p> + +<p>“Here, big boy! Don’t run off so soon!” he quickly called.</p> + +<p>Jukes stopped and hesitatingly looked toward the bar. The +crimp and boarding master raised their glasses.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That fills <i>her</i> crew,” growled the boarding master with a +nod to the riding light of a ship at anchor close inshore.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“How long was you ashore?” asked one sailor of another.</p> + +<p>“Wot day is it?” came the reply. The questioner chuckled.</p> + +<p>Some surly, some indifferent, they sipped their coffee.</p> + +<p>The mate looked in.</p> + +<p>“Rouse out here, now! Get up and man that windlass!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Tumble out, here, you!”</p> + +<p>Jukes climbed from the bunk and looked about him.</p> + +<p>“Come on, now! You’re at sea, my man. Get out of here!”</p> + +<p>With a long staggering stride, Jukes passed out to the new +ship’s deck. The wind blew in his hair. The tide sang by.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Come on, my man!” the mate said. “You’re at sea.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<p>Alf Jukes ascended to the forecastle head.</p> + +<p>“Sing, someone!” said the mate, “sing and let’s get her +away.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“W’y don’t ye sing, shipmate?” a sailor asked of Jukes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Come on, my man,” the mate said. “You’re at sea.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>An hour passed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The ship quivered. A rending sound rose sharp above the +roar, died, and arose again. A topmast splintered and went +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> +overboard. Torn canvas snarled. Blocks skirled. The ship slid +on, settling beyond the reef.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Save for the growl and long wash of the sea there was no +sound.</p> + +<p>Alf Jukes was swimming.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The horizon was empty, the sky without a cloud. The sea +was flat.</p> + +<p>The sun rose. It beat on the bare white skin of Alf Jukes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span> +and, holding to the edge of the raft, looked all about again.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Jukes hurled himself upon the raft. His body, +glistening in the sun, he watched a long green shape dart under +him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jukes rocked a little to and fro. Now and again a low coughing +grunt escaped him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At dawn Jukes climbed unsteadily to his feet. His lips were +black, his skin scarlet. He moaned. His tongue was swollen.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Staring at the rain wall, Jukes listened to the just-audible +<i>s-s-s-s</i> of the doldrum squall.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jukes lay prostrate, face downward. Hours passed. Long +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“If you follers deep water long enough, it’ll git ye.”</p> + +<p>“Aye. ’Ow many <i>old</i> sailors ’ave you ever seed?”</p> + +<p>Jukes raised his head painfully and listened. From neck +to ankles his body was a fiery blister.</p> + +<p>“I been eleven blasted year at sea. I got nuthin’.”</p> + +<p>“You never will ’ave.”</p> + +<p>“W’oo cares?”</p> + +<p>“There don’t no one care. You an’ me is dogs.”</p> + +<p>“This here’ll be my last v’yage.”</p> + +<p>“Aye.—That’s wot you says.—Wait.”</p> + +<p>“Wait yerself. I’m done.”</p> + +<p>“Haw, haw, haw!”</p> + +<p>“There’s one as had ought to be cured leastways,” and a +nod toward the forecastle.</p> + +<p>Jukes climbed from the bunk and tottered out into the starlight.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ow are ye, matey?”</p> + +<p>“Bring ’im some water.”</p> + +<p>Jukes gulped cold water down.</p> + +<p>“ ’Ere, mate—you ’ad it in yer ’and.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Look at ’im!—I’m done.”</p> + +<p>“Me, too.”</p> + +<p>As Jukes with fumbling fingers untied the package, they +gathered round. He nodded his head. His lips moved. A sailor +bent above him, listening.</p> + +<p>“ ’E’s done. No more o’ships fer ’im.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span></p> + +<p>Jukes dozed away. They passed the picture from hand to +hand. They read the dog-eared letter over.</p> + +<p>“Look at ’ere,” said one, and pointed to the date.</p> + +<p>“Three year ago! ’Ee’s been a long time——”</p> + +<p>“Shanghaied, maybe.”</p> + +<p>“Them crimps.”</p> + +<p>“I’m done.”</p> + +<p>“Haw, haw, haw! Maybe!”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was the dog-watch time. The sun was setting. Warm, +pearly little clouds passed overhead. A low wind murmured.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“ ’Ere, Chips! Come on an’ start ’em,” called an eager +sailor; and Chips, the carpenter, stepped up.</p> + +<p>“One—two——”</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet a pound o’ baccy on young Limbertoes!”</p> + +<p>“Me, too.”</p> + +<p>Turning to the mate, the skipper said:</p> + +<p>“The young fellow’ll win.”</p> + +<p>“Aye,” said the mate, “he’s young. It’s in his favour.”</p> + +<p>Jukes at the main, the other at the fore shrouds, stood +waiting “three.”</p> + +<p>“<i>Three!</i>” snapped the carpenter.</p> + +<p>“Go!—go!—go!”</p> + +<p>“Go, Limbertoes! My baccy’s on you!”</p> + +<p>“Go, Jukes!—Go, Jukes!”</p> + +<p>“Show ’im a sailor! Show ’im, Limber, now!”</p> + +<p>Over the futtock shrouds, together, neck and neck, went +Jukes and Limber.</p> + +<p>“Two pound o’ baccy—’oo takes me on?—two pound on +Limber!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span></p> + +<p>“Done—an’ my Sunday whack o’ duff thrown in!”</p> + +<p>“Lord!—look at that there Jukes! ’Ee’s like a monkey.”</p> + +<p>“Some sailor, that,” the skipper said. “Look at him go!”</p> + +<p>“But the young man wins,” the mate replied.</p> + +<p>“Bully for Limber!”</p> + +<p>The youngster touched a hand upon the fore royal truck a +touch ahead of Jukes upon the main.</p> + +<p>“Down!—down!—down!” roared all the sailors.</p> + +<p>Alf Jukes came sliding down the main royal stay. Down +the fore royal stay came Limbertoes.</p> + +<p>“Come on, Limber!”</p> + +<p>“Limber wins!”</p> + +<p>“A tie! They’re neck and neck.”</p> + +<p>“No.—Limber wins!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“That fellow’s like a bear,” the skipper said.</p> + +<p>“There was a feller on my last ship as’d beat both of ’em,” +said a sailor.</p> + +<p>“Oh, aye! There’s always fellers on a man’s last ship,” answered +another.</p> + +<p>“To-morrer we’ll be in, an’ you’ll ’ave one more last ship,” +another laughed.</p> + +<p>“Jukes, was you ever beat at anything?”</p> + +<p>Without an answer Jukes walked slowly off and sat alone +upon the bulwarks. His face was grim.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Sails were furled, ropes coiled; the ship at anchor. A chill +wind thrummed in her rigging. Cold rain beat down.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The boarding master’s crimp came out, bottle in hand.</p> + +<p>“The boys sent it ye, matey,” said he, and held the bottle +temptingly toward Jukes. Jukes answered with a growl. His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> +great right fist shot out, and, as the bruised crimp climbed to +his feet, the sailors looked, laughing, from the forecastle ports.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The shouts of the sailors faded away. The ship was silent. +The wind and the rain beat on her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Bottle in hand, Jukes leaned in the doorway and looked +out into the night. To-morrow he would be forever done with +the sea.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jukes moved closer to the lamp and held the bottle up. +The crimp nudged the boarding master.</p> + +<p>Alf Jukes put the bottle to his nose. Something to warm +him a little; then toss it over the side.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Jukes sat down, bottle in hand. Outside the wind wailed +drearily. The cold rain hissed. His Adam’s apple rose and fell +again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p> + +<p>The crimp was laughing.</p> + +<p>Jukes clutched at the bulkhead. The lamp was grown suddenly +dim. The boarding master and the crimp had disappeared.</p> + +<p>Someone struck Alf Jukes just behind the ear. Someone +laughed near by.</p> + +<p>Stars whirled in a pitch-black sky. The boarding master +knelt over Jukes.</p> + +<p>Everything was dark.</p> + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FEAR"> + FEAR + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By JAMES WARNER BELLAH</span></p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Saturday Evening Post</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>It was</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was with him now as the tender that was to take him up +to his squadron jolted and bounced its way across the <i>pavé</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Thankee, sor-r.”</p> + +<p>He nodded and lighted both cigarettes with the smudge of +his pocket lighter. Anyway, he was not flying up to 44. That +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No one could smile at the cleanness of his uniform again +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>estaminet</i> with a tattered yellow awning that +tried bravely to smile.</p> + +<p>“Albert,” said the driver.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Paterson, sir, G. K., second lieutenant, reporting in from +Pilot’s Pool for duty with the 44th.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span></p> + +<p>The adjutant raised a careless finger in acknowledgment. +“Oh, yes. How do? Bring your log books?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Chuck ’em down. D’ye mind?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>The new pilot smiled and relaxed. “Very good, sir.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Eighteen and four twelfths.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The adjutant shrugged. “Righto!”</p> + +<p>“Come on,” said Hoyt. “I’m in your hut block. I’ll show +you your hole.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Le Rhône Camels,” said Hoyt. “We’ve just been over +around Cambrai taking a look-see.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I suppose not,” he said. They tramped on across the airdrome.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Winchester,” said Paterson.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Ever have wind up?” he asked casually.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> +was down with mild flu. He was due back in a week or so from +hospital.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“The next time they’ll get an idea for us to strafe a road +clear to Cologne for them. What are we—street cleaners?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Steward, a whisky-soda for Mr. MacClintock and myself. +Have one, Hoyt? You, Paterson?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The door behind him opened softly. It was Hoyt, in pajamas. +“Got a cigarette?” he asked casually.</p> + +<p>Paterson turned sharply and grinned. “Righto,” he said. +“There on the table.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Hoyt was a good fellow—damned decent.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> +crept out of the line, with Phelps-Barrington after it. Trent, +who had come back from the base the day before, taxied out +next.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> +in arabesque ruffles like icing in a confectioner’s window or +the white smoke of a railway engine.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> +once, where there had been only six Camels, the sky was full +of gray machines with blunt noses and black crosses.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He climbed out of his own machine and walked over toward +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Is it you, Pat?” said Hoyt. “Thought it was Yardley.”</p> + +<p>“ ’Struth!” said Phelps-Barrington. “Let’s go and have a +drink.”</p> + +<p>Paterson thrilled as the man slipped an arm through his. +For one awful moment he had thought——</p> + +<p>“Well,” Hoyt said, “those things will happen.” And he +shrugged again.</p> + +<p>“I saw dots to the southward,” said Paterson. “Maybe +they’ll be in later.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Look here, P-B,” he muttered, “I’m not drinking.” +He wanted to be alone—to think. So quick it had all been.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>They sat down beside him and Phelps-Barrington reached +for a section of the paper.</p> + +<p>“It says here,” said Trent, “that Eva Fay didn’t commit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> +suicide. Died of an overdose of hashish she took at a party in +Maida Vale the night before.”</p> + +<p>The steward brought the glasses. Trent raised his and +looked at Paterson. “Good work, son.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Some. Look here, skipper—this morning—what about it?”</p> + +<p>“What about it?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>The smile faded and Hoyt laid down his pencil. “Do you +really think you could have saved him?”</p> + +<p>“He was behind me already when I saw him lagging, just +as you climbed and P-B dived.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“But if I’d kept my eyes back, instead of trusting to Mac?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>They spent most of the afternoon at Charlie’s Bar with +some of the men from the artillery observation squadron. For +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Take the cylinders out of my kidneys,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Take the scutcheon pins out of my brain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Take the cam box from under my backbone</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And assemble the engine again!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>They were good fellows—Billy Hoyt, P-B, Pat, and Ray +Trent. Have ’nother li’l’ drink.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Phelps-Barrington was fast asleep. Pat woke him up at the +airdrome and tumbled him into the hut.</p> + +<p>They stumbled over a kit bag in the doorway. P-B straightened +up suddenly. “Good-bye, Mac, old lad, sleep tight.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Paterson’s mind jumped miles to the eastward. He saw the +two blackened engines lying somewhere in the bleak fields +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> +beyond, ploughed into the ground, with their mats of twisted +wires coiled around them in a hideous trap.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But A Flight, behind and far above, saw the dots and scattered +them, and the chance was gone.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He looked ahead and down at Trent. Trent had been drunk, +too, but he was steady now, sawing wood above and slightly +behind Hoyt.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> +flap of fabric. Together, the three turned westward and +started back.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Cigarette?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>Hoyt’s voice came evenly, calmly, through his screaming. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>“Steady, boy! Steady! You can’t help it. No one can. Steady, +now!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hoyt put his hand on his trembling shoulders and patted +them. “Steady, now! Steady! None of that!” he said awkwardly.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Someone knocked at the door. “Come in.” It was the runner +from squadron office. He saluted. “Yes?” said Hoyt.</p> + +<p>The man glanced at Paterson’s face and snapped his eyes +quickly back to the captain’s.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Who was it?” asked Hoyt.</p> + +<p>“Lieutenant Mallard, they reported it, sir. That’ll be +Lieutenant Mallory, sir, won’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.” Hoyt’s voice was quite flat. “Thank you.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> +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——”</p> + +<p>Hoyt smiled. “Your trouble, Pat, is that you think you’re +the only person in this jolly old war.”</p> + +<p>Paterson stared at him. “But I did! I started down, out of +it, this morning!”</p> + +<p>“How’d you get here?” asked Hoyt.</p> + +<p>“But if I hadn’t broken for that moment this morning——”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> +The air itself trembled with uncertainty, and rumours flew +fast and thick.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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 <span class="allsmcap">A. M.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> +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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“It’s on,” Church said absently. “I suppose this fog means +hell up the line.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>They crowded out of the mess doorway and stood in an +anxious knot, staring upward. It was well after six o’clock.</p> + +<p>“All right”—the major turned around—“get ready to +stand by.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span> +around listening to Darlington curse softly and pound his +hands together.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span> +Absurd to think of flying without centre section wires! Come +back here! You come back!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>It was very dark—dark except for a dancing blue light far +away. He moved slightly. Something cool touched his forehead.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>He felt something sharp prick his arm. “You’ve got the +new airdrome pinpointed, haven’t you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>A soft voice said, “Yes. Sh-h-h!”</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“No,” said the voice beside him.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” he said quietly. “Really, this is imperative. +I know I crashed.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said the voice. “Go to sleep now.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“All right,” said the voice. “It’s poobah.”</p> + +<p>His breathing became quiet and regular and footsteps +tiptoed softly down the ward away from his bed.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="NIGHT_CLUB"> + NIGHT CLUB + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By KATHARINE BRUSH</span></p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Harper’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>Promptly</span> at quarter of ten <span class="allsmcap">P. M.</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span></p> + +<p>“Late,” said Miss Levin, “again.”</p> + +<p>“Go wan!” said Mrs. Brady. “It’s only ten to ten. <i>Whew!</i> +Them <i>stairs</i>!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Miss Levin obediently felt.</p> + +<p>“Them stairs,” continued Mrs. Brady darkly, “with my +bad heart, will be the death of me. Whew! Well, dearie? +What’s the news?”</p> + +<p>“You got a paper,” Miss Levin languidly reminded her.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>read</i> my paper, won’t I now? On a Saturday +night!” She moaned. “Other nights is bad enough, dear knows—but +<i>Saturday</i> 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 <i>quit</i>!’ I say. An’ I <i>will</i>, too!” added Mrs. Brady firmly, if +indefinitely.</p> + +<p>Miss Levin, in defense of Saturday nights, mumbled some +vague something about tips.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>you</i> +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 <i>black</i>, an’ usin’ your things an’ then sayin’ +they’re sorry, they got no change, they’ll be back. Yah! +They <i>never</i> come back!”</p> + +<p>“There’s Mr. Costello,” whispered Miss Levin through +lips that, like a ventriloquist’s, scarcely stirred.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> +that Mrs. Brady, momentarily forgetting her bad heart, +walked fast, scurried faster, almost ran.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class='center'>NOTICE!</p> + +<p class='center'>These articles, placed here for your convenience, are the property of the +<i>maid</i>.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p> + +<p class='no-indent'>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady was now ready for anything. And (from the +grim, thin pucker of her mouth) expecting it.</p> + +<p>Music came to her ears. Rather, the beat of music, muffled, +rhythmic, remote. <i>Umpa-um, umpa-um, umpa-um-umm</i>—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.</p> + +<p>Then the door swung inward, admitting a blast of Mr. +“Fiddle” Baer’s best, a whiff of perfume, and a girl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady put her paper away.</p> + +<p>The girl was <i>petite</i> 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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Oh, I know my baby loves me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I can tell my baby loves me.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Here the dark little girl got the left glove off, and Mrs. +Brady glimpsed a platinum wedding ring.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“ ’Cause there ain’t no maybe</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In my baby’s</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Eyes.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Oh, I know my baby loves me——”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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 <i>Klink! Klink!</i> into +Mrs. Brady’s saucer, and half rose. Then, remembering something, +she settled down again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There!” she said.</p> + +<p>She swooped up her wrap and trotted toward the door, +jewelled heels merrily twinkling.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“ ’Cause there ain’t no maybe——”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The door fell shut.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady cleared her throat. “Can I do something for +you, miss?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“A glass of water?” suggested Mrs. Brady.</p> + +<p>“No,” said the girl, “no.” She had one hand in the beaded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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——”</p> + +<p>When again she faced her patient, the patient was sitting +erect. She was thrusting her clenched hand back into the +beaded bag again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well!” she exclaimed. “What do you know about that!” +She shook her honey-coloured head. “I can’t imagine what +came over me.”</p> + +<p>“Are you better now?” inquired Mrs. Brady.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>never</i> would +end!” she said.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The next arrivals were two. A tall, extremely smart young +woman in black chiffon entered first, and held the door open +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> +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 <i>happened</i>?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” she said wearily then.</p> + +<p>“That’s nonsense!” snorted the other. “Tell me. Was it +something she said? She’s a tactless ass, of course. Always +was.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>she</i> was!”</p> + +<p>The full red mouth of the other young woman pursed itself +slightly. Her arched brows lifted. “Well?”</p> + +<p>Her matter-of-factness appeared to infuriate Amy. “He +was <i>kissing</i> her!” she flung out.</p> + +<p>“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 <i>that</i> spoil your whole evening? +Amy <i>dear</i>! Kissing may once have been serious and significant—but +it isn’t nowadays. Nowadays, it’s like shaking hands. +It means nothing.”</p> + +<p>But Amy was not consoled. “I hate her!” she cried desperately. +“Red-headed <i>thing</i>! 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....”</p> + +<p>At this point Amy quite broke down, but she recovered +herself sufficiently to add with venom, “I’d like to slap her!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, oh, oh,” smiled the tall young woman, “I wouldn’t +do that!”</p> + +<p>Amy wiped her eyes with what might well have been one +of the Christmas handkerchiefs, and confronted her friend. +“Well, what <i>would</i> you do, Claire? If you were I?”</p> + +<p>“I’d forget it,” said Claire, “and have a good time. I’d +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> +kiss somebody myself. You’ve no idea how much better +you’d feel!”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“There’s a comb there,” said Claire, indicating Mrs. +Brady’s business comb.</p> + +<p>“But imagine using it!” murmured the red-headed girl. +“Amy, darling, haven’t you one?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>She went.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“There is one thing,” Claire went on quietly, holding the +other’s eyes, “that I want understood. And that is, ‘<i>Hands +off!</i>’ Do you hear me?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know what you mean.”</p> + +<p>“You do know what I mean!”</p> + +<p>The red-headed girl shrugged her shoulders. “Amy told +you she saw us, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>me</i>,” she said, and departed, +slamming the door.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Between eleven o’clock and one Mrs. Brady was very busy +indeed. Never for more than a moment during those two +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady, standing just where <i>she</i> was, said, “Yes, +miss?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span></p> + +<p>“Please come here,” said the girl.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady, as slowly as she dared, did so.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Brady stared at her stupidly.</p> + +<p>“Any window?” persisted the girl. “Or anything?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What about that window?” she demanded, pointing.</p> + +<p>“That’s all the farther it opens,” said Mrs. Brady.</p> + +<p>“Oh! And it’s the only one—isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“It is.”</p> + +<p>“Damn,” said the girl. “Then there’s <i>no</i> way out?”</p> + +<p>“No way but the door,” said Mrs. Brady testily.</p> + +<p>The girl looked at the door. She seemed to look <i>through</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>After a long while she said, “Maid!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, miss?”</p> + +<p>“Peek out that door, will you, and see if there’s anyone +standing there.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Lord,” sighed the gray-eyed girl. “Well ... I can’t +stay here all <i>night</i>, that’s one sure thing.”</p> + +<p>She slid off the couch, and went listlessly to the dressing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> +table. There she occupied herself for a minute or two. Suddenly, +without a word, she darted out.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Now what for,” marvelled Mrs. Brady, “did she want to +walk off with them <i>scissors</i>?”</p> + +<p>This at twelve-twenty-five.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>marvellous</i>?” “When +did it happen, Babe? When did you decide?”</p> + +<p>“Just now,” the girl with the heart-shaped face sang softly, +“when we were dancing.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Powder flew and little pocket combs marched through +bright marcels. Flushed cheeks were painted pinker still.</p> + +<p>“My pearls,” said Babe, “are <i>old</i>. And my dress and my +slippers are <i>new</i>. Now, let’s see—what can I <i>borrow</i>?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ve got blue garters!” exclaimed another girl.</p> + +<p>“Give me one, then,” directed Babe. “I’ll trade with you.... +There! That fixes that.”</p> + +<p>More babbling, “Hurry! Hurry up!”... “Listen, are you +<i>sure</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> +never even met each other!” “Oh, hurry <i>up</i>, let’s get <i>started</i>!” +“I’m ready.” “So’m I.” “Ready, Babe? You look adorable.” +“Come on, everybody.”</p> + +<p>They were gone again, and the dressing room seemed twice +as still and vacant as before.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Both ignored Mrs. Brady’s cosmetic display as utterly as +they ignored Mrs. Brady, producing full field equipment of +their own.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the girl with the orchids, rouging energetically, +“how do you like him?”</p> + +<p>“Oh-h—all right.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>all</i> your life?”</p> + +<p>“He’s fat,” said Marilee dreamily. “Fat, and—greasy, +sort of. I mean, greasy in his mind. Don’t you know what I +mean?”</p> + +<p>“I know <i>one</i> thing,” declared the girl with orchids. “I know +Who He Is! And if I were you, that’s all I’d need to know. +<i>Under the circumstances.</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“She’s worse,” she said finally, low.</p> + +<p>“Worse?”</p> + +<p>Marilee nodded.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said the girl with orchids, “there you are. It’s the +climate. She’ll never be anything <i>but</i> worse, if she doesn’t get +away. Out West, or somewhere.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span></p> + +<p>“I know,” murmured Marilee.</p> + +<p>The other girl opened a tin of eye shadow. “Of course,” +she said drily, “suit yourself. She’s not <i>my</i> sister.”</p> + +<p>Marilee said nothing. Quiet she sat, breaking the lipstick, +mending it, breaking it.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="SINGING_WOMAN"> + SINGING WOMAN + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ADA JACK CARVER</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Harper’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-more'><span class='allcaps'>Little</span> by little the Joyous Coast was changing.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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: “<i>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</i>——”</p> + +<p>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. +“<i>Mais non</i>, we don’t speak to them niggers,” they assured +old Henriette. “We don’t have nothing to do with them +black folks.”</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>how</i> 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....”</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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, “<i>Mais non</i>, and if I get him, +we’ll be even, Etta, my friend.”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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: “<i>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....</i>” But after +the funeral (Mother forgive her!), she had gone back to comfort +Rose, and unsay all she had said. “Look, Rose, honey, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> +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....</p> + +<p>Well, who should know more about death than she, Henriette +... she who had buried three husbands?</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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.” “<i>Mais +non!</i>” (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 <i>this</i> +time!”</p> + +<p>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 <i>them</i>. 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!</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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>I</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. “<i>Mais +non!</i> And if <i>I</i> get him, we’ll be even, Etta, my friend.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p> + +<p>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: “<i>Well, my beauty, my proud one—all in good time. Don’t +chafe and paw at the bit....</i>” 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.</p> + +<p>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....”</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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, “<i>He will die, my +beloved, my friend, when the good round fruit is ripe; when the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> +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....</i>”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>her</i>, 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.”</p> + +<p>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——”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But in the morning, when Henriette awakened, she found +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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....”</p> + +<p>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 <i>everlasting</i>! If only they could +know what <i>she</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> +and gazed in the grave, she had longed to go and whisper to +youth’s white, impassioned grief, “There, there, <i>chère</i> ... don’t +sorrow so hard. Me, I know. I tell you, I <i>know</i>.” 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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, <i>le bon Dieu</i> is love you, sho’, +Mammy.”</p> + +<p>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.” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> +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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Old Henriette sat up in bed. “Fetch me my specs,” she +grumbled.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<i>perverse</i>! 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....”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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....”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="WITH_GLORY_AND_HONOUR"> + WITH GLORY AND HONOUR + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ELISABETH COBB CHAPMAN</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Century</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>In a</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> +part owner of the Club Levering, and packing them in at +higher prices than any other night club dared charge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Your place is quite amusing,” Constance Corthwaite +said. “I hear you sing very well.”</p> + +<p>Hal Levering laughed. “That’s what they say. Have you +ever heard me?”</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>She had favoured him with a glance from her long eyes. +“Thank you.”</p> + +<p>“What would you like to have me sing for you now?” he +asked.</p> + +<p>“Try something good—I should like to see how it went +here.”</p> + +<p>He sang “Sweet Siren” and “Pretty Little Mama” for her. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> +She did not applaud. He was disappointed. He had realized +that she wasn’t demonstrative, but he had hoped to win her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She recognized his approach with the smallest possible nod.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>She was asking him to visit her. So she <i>had</i> 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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Take your dress suit, Hermie,” advised his mother. +“Your new suit for those swells is none too good.”</p> + +<p>“Wear your lavender sport suit for the golfing.”</p> + +<p>“A bathing suit.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span></p> + +<p>“Your silk socks, Hermie. Hermie, you have forgot your +silk socks, Hermie.”</p> + +<p>“The lavender suit, Hermie.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 +<i>Vanity Fair</i>—perhaps—“Hal Levering, the erstwhile mammy +songster a belated society discovery.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Levering entered.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“The chauffeur will take it around if you will give me the +keys—sir,” said the old man.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The old butler found him there and offered liquid refreshment, +which was accepted gratefully.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Half buried in the pile of papers and magazines he found +an old book, <i>The Book of the Corthwaites</i>, and in idle curiosity +he turned the leaves. There were long lists of names in it, explained +by short sentences.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>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——</p> +</div> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>When Constance Corthwaite and the rest of her house party +returned from the golf links, they found Hal Levering +reading....</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p> + +<p>“In 1802 Solomon Corthwaite married Sarah Emerson,” +and in his eyes a dazed, bored, yet questioning expression.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Miss Bromley and Mr. Taylor were inspired to do an apache +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> +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....</p> + +<p>He moved petulantly in his chair.</p> + +<p>He wished they’d come back ... this was a bore ... no +kind of way to spend Sunday....</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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——</p> + +<p>The stillness gives you funny ideas!</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>He stooped and picked up a sheet of the newspaper and +folded it gently and exactly.</p> + +<p>Corthwaite—she knows. She’s the kind that don’t make +mistakes about houses.</p> + +<p>He was not soothed and comforted in the sunlight now. +He was acutely and miserably fighting with doubt and distrust. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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....</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Hal Levering rose from his chair, trembling a little, very +white, just as the riding party came strolling through the +box hedge.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They were talking about someone named Coperbesby. +He heard Constance Corthwaite’s clear voice say:</p> + +<p>“He has the most intense sense of race. A fierce and proud +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The first thing his cronies at the club asked him was if he +had had a good time at the Corthwaite place.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Did you have a good time?” they asked him.</p> + +<p>“Sure, fine, fine.”</p> + +<p>Mimi Deland looked at him curiously. “Well, you don’t +look it.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>She shrugged. “No,” simply. “But don’t chew my ear +off.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Pretty bad, huh?” pleased.</p> + +<p>“Lousy!”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Gee,” remarked Deland as he slammed the door on them, +“I wonder what they did to him. He’s back early, too.”</p> + +<p>He finished his song, and Bennie dipped his violin to his +orchestra, and they began the opening bars of “Abie’s an +Irisher Now.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> +music stopped in the middle of a bar, jarred to a silence that +held until Bennie shattered it with his music again.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Constance Corthwaite listened to one of his colourless +offerings, and then called him to her table.</p> + +<p>“Where,” she asked, “is Hal Levering? Isn’t he going to +be here to-night?”</p> + +<p>“Nope, he’s left for good.”</p> + +<p>“Really, how disappointing! Where has he gone?”</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“Really?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Cut it out—cut it out. Let’s get to work here. We gotta +give ’em something to knock ’em off their chairs!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Here’s some new numbers that I’m going to try,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Hot dog!” Bernie murmured, as he bent his expert gaze +on the neatly written sheets. Then an expression of bewilderment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> +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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Set me as a seal upon thine heart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As a seal upon thine arm,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For love is strong as death,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jealousy is cruel as the grave.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stir not up nor awake my love</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Until he please.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>When he had finished, a silence hung over the place. Hal +turned to Bennie. “Try the next one,” he said quietly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Later he sang several jazz songs, but after the applause he +did not join his patrons at their tables; he left the room in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> +spite of clamorous shouts of “C’mere, Hal,” “Have a lil one +with us, Hal?” “Draw up a chair, Hal.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to do?” asked Greville.</p> + +<p>“Never mind; you’ll see when he comes,” answered Nancy.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Pull up a chair and have a drink,” invited Taylor.</p> + +<p>“No, thank you, just the same. Is there anything I can do +for you?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Nancy’s face was crimson as she answered, “That will be +all right, Mr. Levering.” Hal bowed and, turning, walked +away.</p> + +<p>John Taylor looked with amusement at the discomfited +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> +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.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="BULLDOG"> + BULLDOG + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ROGER DANIELS</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Saturday Evening Post</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='hide-quote'>“</span><span class='allcaps'>Next</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Mawnin’, Jedge,” the big Negro said with a sheepish +grin. “Heah Ah is!”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>pro tem.</i> to the clerk. +With still more than half a heavy Monday docket to be heard +from, there was no time for amusement this morning.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>The patrolman who had arrested the big Negro stepped +forward.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Bulldog shuffled from one foot to the other. “It was thisaway, +Jedge, Yo’ Honour. The las’ six months what you give +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“So much for that,” Judge Barringer said. “Tell us what +happened. Why is this man in the hospital?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“You just flicked him. What with?” Judge Barringer +asked, as the term was a new one to him.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“So you just flicked him like you’d flick off a fly?” Judge +Barringer questioned.</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, dat’s all, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour,” Bulldog answered.</p> + +<p>Such a remark coming from any other prisoner would have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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’.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>He half turned. “Bulldog, you go over and tell old Henry,” +Cap’n Jim said, “to give you something to eat.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“So that’s why you came back so soon, is it?” the convict +captain said with a laugh.</p> + +<p>“No, suh,” Bulldog answered soberly, his brows knit and +his lips protruding. “Ah didn’ come back fer no perticular +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> +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?”</p> + +<p>“If you don’t get out of here quick I’ll put a sign on you +you won’t forget,” the captain exploded.</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh,” Bulldog called back to him over his shoulder, +being already half a dozen paces on his way.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Uncle Henry looked up, his face crinkled with smiles that +seemed to close his eyes until they were shiny, laughing dots.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Bulldog shuffled toward the door finally with a sigh. “Ef +Ah swallows another swallow, Uncle Henry, Ah busts.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p> + +<p>“Boy, come again when yo’s hungry; yo’ makes me proud.” +The old cook chortled, looking after him.</p> + +<p>As Bulldog turned into the lane to Captain Jim’s quarters, +a small whitewashed bungalow, two hounds bayed a ferocious +greeting.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Wasn’ it sad to see <i>Titanic</i> sinkin’ down,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wasn’ it sad to see <i>Titanic</i> sinkin’ down;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Husban’s an’ wives, little chilluns los’ dey lives;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wasn’ it sad to see <i>Titanic</i> sinkin’ down.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Ah reckon, big boy, dey hangs yo’ dis time!” Chinkapin +repeated.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But the little convict was not to be so readily neglected. +“Ah reckon, big boy, dey hangs yo’ dis time,” he intoned +once more.</p> + +<p>“Hangs who?” Bulldog demanded bluntly. “Chinkapin, +yo’ half-size nigger, shut yo’ mouf befo’ Ah sicks dem eye-pickin’ +buzzards on yo’!”</p> + +<p>“Ah ain’ kill nobody,” Chinkapin answered glibly; “dem +flip-flop death angels ain’ lookin’ fo’ me.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Does yo’ answer me, Chinkapin, or does I knock you +loose?” One hand, open palmed, was raised threateningly.</p> + +<p>“Dat Washin’ton nigger died,” Chinkapin blurted out in +shaking fear. “My gal tol’ me when she come las’ night.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Is yo’ tellin’ de whole truf?” Bulldog demanded.</p> + +<p>“So help me!” quavered the terror-stricken Chinkapin.</p> + +<p>“If yo’ ain’——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> +and listened intently. “Sho’ nuff! Dat’s Lady Belle and +Junie.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Yo’ Lady Belle, yo’ Junie, hush dat racket!”</p> + +<p>At the sound of his voice the hounds whirled to face him, +baying excitedly at this strange turn of affairs.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Jes’ fo’ dat, little red snake, Ah whuffs yo’,” Bulldog +grunted.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> +would find something to eat. His mind travelled no farther +than that. He even forgot that he was lonely.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Whar yo’ is?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Bulldog!” the thing gasped.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span></p> + +<p>“Jedge Barringer! Ah thought yo’ was a ghos’!”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You black hyena, don’t stand there like that!” Judge Barringer +exploded feebly. “I’m no ghost. Call Captain Jim.”</p> + +<p>“Jedge, Yo’ Honour, dey ain’ nobody heah but me,” said +Bulldog, simply stating a fact.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Bulldog!” He spoke to make sure this towering Negro +before him was real.</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour.” Time and circumstances +could not alter custom, and Bulldog’s answer was a tribute +to habit.</p> + +<p>“Bulldog, what are you doing here?”</p> + +<p>“Jedge, Yo’ Honour, it’s thisaway,” the big Negro began.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Bulldog bent and helped the judge to a sitting posture. The +judge groaned and then swore.</p> + +<p>“Dat boat, Jedge Barringer?” Bulldog asked. “Dat was’n +de boat wiv de red paint on de oar handles?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, that’s the one. So you know where it is? That makes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> +things easier.” Judge Barringer was fast being able to think +once more.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“You mean adrift?”</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, jes’ lak a ol’ tree log.”</p> + +<p>“All right.” It was no time to bewail the loss of a boat. +“Then you can take me back in your boat, Bulldog.”</p> + +<p>“Me, Jedge? Ah swum.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to tell me you broke away from the chain +gang?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Judge Barringer was thoroughly aroused now. “Who told +you that nigger died?”</p> + +<p>“Chinkapin.”</p> + +<p>“Where?”</p> + +<p>“He’s on de chain gang.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t believe it!”</p> + +<p>“Befo’ de Lawd, Ah wouldn’ lie to yo’, Jedge Barringer, +an’ yo’ knows it!” Bulldog said fervently.</p> + +<p>“I mean I don’t believe that nigger died,” the judge explained.</p> + +<p>“If yo’ believes it or don’ believes it, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, +dat don’ save mah neck.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour. Ah’ll take yo’ word for it—on’y, +we ain’ goin’ back,” said Bulldog emphatically.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say you aren’t going to help me get out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> +of here—that you’d go away and leave me?” Judge Barringer +looked straight up into the face of the big Negro.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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——”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“If I had a gun, Bulldog, I’d shoot you!” Judge Barringer +threatened.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“Jedge Barringer, don’ yo’ go passin’ out. Ah’ll git you +home someways. Gives me yo’ arm an’ I totes you to Ossabaw.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Is that you, Bulldog?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, dis is me.”</p> + +<p>“If you won’t do anything, why do you stay here?” Judge +Barringer said petulantly in his weakness.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Halfway to Ossabaw?”</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Jedge Barringer!... Jedge Barringer!” Bulldog was calling +to him, but it was cold and he did not want to get up.</p> + +<p>“Jedge Barringer!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + +<p>“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’.”</p> + +<p>“Daddy Ike!” Judge Barringer gasped. “Where did you +come from? Where’s Bulldog?”</p> + +<p>“Down on de plantation, Jedge.” The old Negro’s face +looked puzzled. “How come yo’ don’ know Ah ain’ nebber +lef’ Ossabaw, Jedge?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“That crazy nigger’s gone? Where?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>Judge Barringer smiled. “Daddy Ike, you old rascal, don’t +lie to me. Bulldog saved my life. Where is he?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Before the secretary could question him further, he hung +up the receiver. Judge Barringer hated personal publicity +unless it had to do with politics.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Daddy Ike came in with his hat in his hand. “What dey +say, Jedge?” he asked anxiously.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span></p> + +<p>“That Washington nigger was let out of the hospital +yesterday and by now he’s halfway home.”</p> + +<p>“Praise de Lawd for dat!” breathed Daddy Ike.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“But I thought you went after railbirds, Judge,” Dr. +Kirby said with a grin when the patient’s wound had been +dressed.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Well, what did you run into—a truck?” he asked.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, heah Ah is!”</p> + +<p>“Bulldog!”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“Yas-suh, Jedge, Yo’ Honour, it was thisaway——”</p> + +<p>“Why didn’t you come to me if you got my message?” +Judge Barringer interrupted, his dismay turning to reproof.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Chinkapin!”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you wait until Saturday to come?” Judge Barringer +asked.</p> + +<p>“ ’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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What do you think I ought to do, Bulldog?” he asked the +giant gravely.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“What’s that?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Yo’ ain’ funnin’ wiv me, Jedge, Yo’ Honour? Yo’ ain’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“An’ yo’ kin trus’ me, Jedge Barringer,” he said solemnly. +“Ah won’ bus’ loose no mo’.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="HE_MAN"> + HE MAN + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Saturday Evening Post</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>Small</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span> +him now, shyly, with the spark of his adoration in his eye.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> +There was time for nothing now, and certainly no excess energy +for anything but sports.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Those were the moments that Ronny, writhing inwardly, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> +with an unremitting power and passed behind them for +others hurrying and trampling on.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The water was rapidly filling the cockpit. There wasn’t +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>The plane had sunk with the weight of water in the cockpit, +but now it seemed not to be sinking any more.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Are you with me?” said Bill’s glance to Ronny, and +Ronny’s answered instantly, “You betcha life.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> +Bill had been looking steadily at the same place for several +seconds. He drew himself up higher, shading his eyes.</p> + +<p>“You’re looking at something!” Gloria called suddenly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> +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——”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Hush, Momma, hush,” he said. “Never mind. That +means we’ll see others. The next one will come nearer.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The waves that came racing at them from the southeast, +with their curious impersonal violence, surprised him with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> +afterglow that held no loveliness for them. In half +an hour it would be night, and there was no boat.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Ronny saw the night—the night. “Sure,” he said +to Bill, grateful for activity. But something about his heart +was cold.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>By the time they were ranged beside the others again, +along the fuselage, the anxious pale faces turned to them, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>No one spoke. It was what everyone had been thinking, +Ronny was sure. But it had not been spoken before in so +many words.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>No one spoke again. They set themselves somehow to endure +the night.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> +for a second of blur, he had forgotten—the lost floundering +in the dark, the misery in him and in the figures about him.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was Bill, his voice low and humble.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>For a moment longer the bulk of Andrew Burgess hung and +shook a little in the dimness. “Thanks—old boy,” he said +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> +then. “Guess I wasn’t holding on tight enough. Yet hanging +on—hanging on’s—not much worth while.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Bill roused instantly and took charge. Ronny hooked his +arm over the cockpit edge, and the doze that moved upon +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was late afternoon. “Ron,” whispered his father feebly +through his mask, “where’s the colonel?”</p> + +<p>“Gone,” said Ronny after a moment. “I—lost him.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“Hush, Dad,” Ronny said patiently, “they’ll hear you. +There’ll be a boat before long. There must be.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="DONE_GOT_OVER"> + “DONE GOT OVER” + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ALMA <span class="allsmcap">AND</span> PAUL ELLERBE</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Collier’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>Woodie Simmons</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” he said, as simply as he could, but he +knew his voice had a stilted sound.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Li’l Woodie Simmons!” Draper roared. “Li’l’ pickaninny +Woodie, dressed up lak’ <i>dat</i>!” 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?”</p> + +<p>“He—he pays all my expenses. All the boys dress thisaway. +And—and everybody else in the town.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>po</i>lice, or what?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>A swift change went over the preacher. His easy, bantering +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span> +air disappeared. He bent forward an intent grave face. Always +and innately dramatic, he listened in every line.</p> + +<p>“There’s nobody but—but you to preach—at his funeral. +Will you—will you please do it?”</p> + +<p>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 <i>daid</i>!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Praise de name er Jesus!” she said gently in her soft voice. +“Glory be ter Gawd! Ah never thought he’d do it!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She was a soft, plump little woman, almost the same colour +as her son, full of kindness and forgivingness. She had had no +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There was another woman in the lean-to kitchen, beside +the stove, where he had never seen anyone but his mother. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>he</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>As he came nearer he recognized a spry, birdlike creature +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> +who played the melodeon in the Old Ship. He remembered +that she used to give him tea cakes.</p> + +<p>“Why, howdy, sis? Charity?” He held out his hand.</p> + +<p>She took it and peered at him with nearsighted eyes from a +kindly face as wrinkled as a nanny-oak ball.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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—“<i>he gwine sen’ +his soul ter hell!</i>”</p> + +<p>Woodie stared in blank amazement. “He’s go’n’er do +<i>what</i>?”</p> + +<p>“<i>He gwine sen’ yer paw’s soul ter hell!</i>”</p> + +<p>“But—but how can he? What’s <i>he</i> got to do with it? Don’t +everybody know Pappy was a good man? Do you think anybody +will believe him?”</p> + +<p>“<i>Ev’ybody</i> 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!”</p> + +<p>“There warn’t anywheres else to go but the Old Ship.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“Can’t you—can’t you change him somehow? Can’t you +talk him out of it?”</p> + +<p>“Ah’s done tried ter! Ah’s talked ter um till he won’t listen +ter me no mo’.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p> + +<p>Woodie shook with sudden anger. “Did you tell him he’s +ornery—lowdown—mean?”</p> + +<p>“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’!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>But first he told the three women what Charity had said, +and made them promise to help him keep it from his mother.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> +brought cream (and Woodie) to the back yard and Miss +Jinny had come out to talk with him.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The door was opened by a woman of his own race whom he +did not know. “<i>She</i> 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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Mebbe ter-morrer an’ mebbe not. Is you Tampa Simmons’ +boy?”</p> + +<p>When he said he was she told him what Draper meant to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If Miss Jinny failed him!...</p> + +<p>He got out the old white mule and started for Leestown.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> +bigger and more terrible than he had realized threshing around +him in the hot, humid Southern air....</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>Toward morning he slept a little.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Woodie’s hour was on him, and Miss Jinny hadn’t come.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>His mother laid her hand on his arm. “Is yer all right, +Son?”</p> + +<p>“Yes’m,” he muttered thickly, “I’m all right.” But he +scarcely heard her and was barely aware that he had replied.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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’ <i>Ah’m</i> 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—“<i>Ah’m</i> 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 <i>git on de boat</i>: 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? +<i>Is yer gwine ter be fitten?</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“It ain’t gwine do yer no good ter <i>sneak</i> 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——”</p> + +<p>His big features stiffened with displeasure. He stood silent, +staring toward the door.</p> + +<p>Woodie turned with the rest. His heart bounded like a toy +balloon and then crowded up into his throat and stuck there.</p> + +<p>Miss Jinny Pickens was coming down the aisle.</p> + +<p>But not the Miss Jinny Pickens he remembered: a frail, +little old woman with bent back and brown time spots on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> +her wrinkled cheeks, who wore shabby clothes and walked +slowly, leaning on a cane.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>He couldn’t tell; but then and always she had been <i>Miss +Jinny Pickens</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“An’ den He’ll p’int de silver spyglass, an’ ef dere’s anybody +on dat boat dat don’t belong—<i>He’ll see um! He’ll see +spang through um!</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p> + +<p>“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’!</p> + +<p>“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: “‘<i>Yer got er onbeliever +on dat boat!</i> Yer’ll have ter stop an’ go back, Mistah +Cap’n, an’ lan’ um——’”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“‘—an’ lan’ um whar he belongs!’”</p> + +<p>Miss Jinny cleared her throat, but Draper didn’t notice.</p> + +<p>“‘Back whar de brimstone’s at, an’ de fire——’”</p> + +<p>Miss Jinny moved her chair, but Draper didn’t even look +her way.</p> + +<p>“‘Back whar de smoke’s a-curlin’ out de groun’, an’——’”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>With his hand on his father’s old pistol, that had never +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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!’”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p><i>Tap, tap</i>, went the cane, mild and premonitory, but he pretended +not to hear.</p> + +<p>“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!’”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“Yer got ter pull off from de goats! Yer got ter come inter +de fold!”</p> + +<p>He chanted like a warrior leading hosts, with a rhythm as +heavily marked as the beating of a drum.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span></p> + +<p>“Ah done see de Devil, de big, black, shiny Devil, a-scorchin’ +up de canebrake wid his breath!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“His tail was long an’ shiny lak’ er blacksnake! His eyes was +lak’ de haidlights on de train!”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Draper’s words crept toward it steadily. “His long white +teeth was a-champin’ an’ a-scrunchin’ an’ a-gnashin’—<i>fer +dem goats</i>!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“An’ de Devil say ter me: ‘<i>Whar’s dat backslider?</i>’”</p> + +<p><i>Tap, tap, tap</i>, insisted the cane, steady and sharp.</p> + +<p>Woodie moved farther from his mother, for elbow room.</p> + +<p>Tiny beads of sweat broke out on Draper’s face, but he +didn’t swerve. “‘<i>Whar’s de man dat laid his ’ligion down?</i>’”</p> + +<p>“Gawd gimme strength!” Woodie prayed.</p> + +<p>“‘He ain’t so dark,’ de Devil say, ‘an’ he ain’t so light.’”</p> + +<p>Woodie cocked the old pistol in his pocket.</p> + +<p>“‘He’s middle-sized,’ de Devil say, ‘an’ he’s got er limp——’”</p> + +<p>Woodie leaned forward to shoot, but Miss Jinny was on +her feet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And then Miss Jinny sat down, and he found that he could +speak.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Done got over!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Had a hard time;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Had to work so long;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But I done got over,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Done got over,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Done got over at last!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="MONKEY_MOTIONS"> + MONKEY MOTIONS + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> ELEANOR MERCEIN KELLY</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Pictorial Review</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>Having</span> 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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Where,” he inquired of the Curtises, “did you get that?”</p> + +<p>“It’s just the Infant Samuel; Mahaly’s child, you know.” +Aunt Lady spoke in rather a <i>distraite</i> manner, her ear turned +toward the pantry, whence issued sounds of more or less repressed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> +African mirth. Suddenly there was a crash, and the +mirth rose beyond repression.</p> + +<p>“Excuse me one moment,” murmured Aunt Lady. “I expect +Sam’l’s dropped the shoat again.”</p> + +<p>He had. It appeared that when the small roast pig, the +<i>pièce de résistance</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>Certainly I did. She was one of the happiest memories of +my childhood, though overlaid, as such memories often are, +with events more immediate.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?)</p> + +<p>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 <i>to</i> herse’f,” added Mahaly significantly. +That was the reason she lived quite alone in a ramshackle +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> +cabin on the far side of the graveyard, where “nigger folks +wouldn’t come pesterin’.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hark, fum de tomb come do’fum soun’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(Jay-bird jump an’ jar de groun’).</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I once was los’ but now I’se foun’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(Wash dem dishes an’ set ’em erroun’).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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’.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> +patchwork quilt. Mahaly was, indeed, an advance agent of +the decorative doctrines of Bakst.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Her feet were encased in a pair of Dr. Tom Curtis’s rubber-sided +<i>Romeo</i> 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 <i>Janice Meredith</i> 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.</p> + +<p>But Mahaly never got farther than to the railroad station. +Whether the other Negroes would not let her go with them, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>And that was the last of Mahaly for many a long day. Nobody +knew what had become of her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Not her own?” I gasped, incredulous.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“And, besides, I can’t help feeling that Tom was sort of +responsible,” she admitted, ignoring her husband’s startled +disclaimer.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Dey mocks at me all de time,” he said quite patiently, +not at all complaining.</p> + +<p>No matter how serious Sam’l was, the teacher reported, +he seemed to move his schoolmates to ribald mirth.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Ha, the imagist theory!” murmured my husband, who +interests himself in movements.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span> +manner, had discovered that its outline was the profile, face +downward, of George Washington.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Ho! The subjective school,” muttered my husband.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Sam’l can’t seem really to <i>do</i> things, somehow,” said Aunt +Lady, sighing. “He just does <i>at</i> ’em. Play-acting, like. ‘Monkey +motions’; you remember?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span></p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“I ack monkey moshuns, too-ra-loo;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I ack monkey moshuns, so I do.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I ack ’em good, and dat’s a fack:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I ack jes’ like dem monkeys ack.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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”?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>Sam’l’s own hair happened by some odd freak to be quite +straight and thick and silky, like coarse floss.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to say,” murmured my husband respectfully, +“that the Infant Samuel is serenading us in Italian?”</p> + +<p>“Practically,” said the doctor. “As near as he can make it. +He’s been that way ever since I made the mistake of bringing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> +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>I Pagliacci</i> and <i>Lucia</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Never mind, it won’t last long,” his wife soothed him. +“Sam’l’s going off to be a hero soon.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>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.</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Intuition told me what had occurred, even before a voice +came floating up the furnace pipes:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indentq">“Hark, fum de tomb come do’fum soun’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(Jay-bird jump an’ jar de groun’).”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span> +person whom her friends can fail. Sam’l and I engaged each +other.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Leastways he <i>tried</i> to gimme a card,” bridled the housemaid, +giggling, “but I never took’n it off him.”</p> + +<p>The drawing room was empty. I asked where she had put +the caller.</p> + +<p>“In the kitchen, whar he belongs at!” was the emphatic +response.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Quite right, Sam’l; I’m glad you did,” I murmured, rather +dazed, “but what is the event?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“How nice!” I murmured. “But what are you professor of, +Sam’l?”</p> + +<p>“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.’”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“So you’ve come to compete in the Charleston contest?” +I asked.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>I rose to the occasion sufficiently to invite the Charleston +King to remain for supper; an invitation he accepted on condition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious!” exclaimed Aunt Lady, beside me. “You +don’t tell me <i>ladies</i> and <i>gentlemen</i> 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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The audience, with one gasp of surprise, went wild. There +were shrieks of welcome and approval, congratulatory howls.</p> + +<p>“Attaboy, Slippyfoot!” they yelled. “You show ’em, +King!”</p> + +<p>And of course they laughed at him, as people always did +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span> +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.)</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“He fives! He sevens! Attaboy, King! Roll your own! +Babies, come to Papa!”</p> + +<p>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>I</i> hears You callin’ me!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>Then the audience followed him, as it had welcomed him, +with shouts and shrieks of laughter.</p> + +<p>But Sam’l’s white folks would never laugh at him again; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span> +dreamer of dreams that he was, seer of visions. Aunt Lady’s +dear, wrinkled face was frankly wet with tears.</p> + +<p>Her husband put an arm around her.</p> + +<p>“Why, old honey, it’s only Sam’l at his monkey motions! +What are you weeping about?”</p> + +<p>“<i>I</i> don’t know. What are you!” she countered snappishly.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="FOUR_DREAMS_OF_GRAM"> + FOUR DREAMS OF GRAM + PERKINS + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> RUTH SAWYER</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>American Mercury</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>Gram Perkins</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="center fs90 mt1 mb1"> +Sara Amanda Perkins<br> +Beloved wife of Benjamin Perkins, Sea Captain<br> +1791–1863<br> +May she rest in perfect peace! +</p> + +<p>“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 <i>her</i>. Pa says I might git to dreamin’, too.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Did he ever tell you about those dreams?”</p> + +<p>“No, m’am!” He fixed me with a fore-warning eye. “What’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span> +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!”</p> + +<p>I questioned the post-office Perkins one day: “Do you happen +to know what Zeb Perkins dreamed about his grandmother?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span> +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:</p> + +<p class="center fs90 mt1 mb1"> +<span class="allsmcap">HAND MADE TROUT FLIES FOR SALE HERE</span> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Pick out what ye want. Swamp back yonder jes’ eats ’em +up, doan’t it?” And he smiled an ingratiating, toothless smile.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span> +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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>At the mention of burial a sense of enormity made me +shudder. I was beginning to realize that the further Zeb progressed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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?’</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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.’</p> + +<p>“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.’</p> + +<p>“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.’</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“Cold sweat?” I asked. It was all I could think of.</p> + +<p>“Cold as a clam, dripped with it.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span></p> + +<p>“That makes three.”</p> + +<p>“Three!” Zeb tolled it out like a passing bell. “All bad +enough—the fourth, worst of all. Ye wait.”</p> + +<p>I waited.</p> + +<p>“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!</p> + +<p>“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.’</p> + +<p>“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!’</p> + +<p>“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?’</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“‘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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LITTLE_GIRL_FROM"> + THE LITTLE GIRL FROM + TOWN + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By</span> RUTH SUCKOW</p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Harper’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first'><span class='hide-quote'>“</span><span class='allcaps'>I wonder</span> who that is coming here,” Mrs. Sieverson said, +looking out of the kitchen window.</p> + +<p>“Somebody coming?” Mr. Sieverson asked from the sink. +“Oh, I guess that’s Dave Lindsay, ain’t it? He said he’d be +out.”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Anybody home?” Mr. Lindsay called out jovially.</p> + +<p>“You bet!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“Well, sir, I’ve got somebody along with me!”</p> + +<p>“I see you have!” Mr. Sieverson answered with shy heavy +jocularity and Mrs. Sieverson asked, “Is this the little girl +been visiting you?”</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span> +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:</p> + +<p>“Well, ain’t you going to get out?”</p> + +<p>Mr. Lindsay asked, “Well!—shall we, Patricia?”</p> + +<p>The little girl looked gravely at the other little girls, and +then nodded.</p> + +<p>“All right, sir! Patricia’s the boss! I’ve got to do as she +says.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>There</i> she is! This is the first time this little girl has ever +been out to a farm. What do you think of that, Marvin?”</p> + +<p>Marvin grinned, and backed off a few steps.</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir! But she and Uncle Dave have great times driving +round together, don’t they?”</p> + +<p>The little girl looked up at him and then smiled and nodded +her head with a subtle hint of mischief.</p> + +<p>“You bet we do! We have great times.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span> +upon it ... like the silver bloom on wildflower petals, picked +in cool places, that smudged when she rubbed it with her +fingers.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Yeah, I guess it’s ready.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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——”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Leone’ll look after her,” Mrs. Sieverson assured him, +and Mr. Sieverson repeated, “Sure! She’ll be all right with +Leone.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“No, you be careful,” Mrs. Sieverson warned them.</p> + +<p>“Will you go with Leone?” The little girl did not say that +she would or wouldn’t, but she was courteous and did not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span> +draw back. “You’ll be all right! <i>You’ll</i> have a good time! Oh, +I guess Uncle Dave didn’t tell these kids who you were, did +he? This is Patricia.”</p> + +<p>“Can you say that?” Mrs. Sieverson asked—doubting if +<i>she</i> could.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“You better stay in the yard with her. Mr. Lindsay won’t +like it if she gets her dress dirty. Leone! You hear me?”</p> + +<p>“I heard. Do you want to come into the yard, Patricia? +You do, don’t you?” Leone asked coaxingly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Leone!” Mrs. Sieverson called from the house. “Ain’t you +got something to entertain her with? Why don’t you get your +dolls?”</p> + +<p>“Do you want to see our dolls, Patricia?”</p> + +<p>So far Patricia had been consenting but silent. “You go in +and get them, Vila,” Leone ordered, and when Vila whined, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>Patricia spoke for the first time. The children listened, with +bright eager eyes wide open, to each soft little word.</p> + +<p>“I have fifteen dolls.”</p> + +<p>Marvin said, “Gee!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“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....”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Leone was indignant. “Those are <i>lovely</i> names! I think +Patricia was just wonderful to think of them!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“No. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay right +here in this round shade.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“I bet you never saw a mouse nest, Patricia.”</p> + +<p>“Patricia doesn’t care anything about that,” Leone said +impatiently. “I wish you boys would go off somewhere anyway +and let <i>us</i> look after Patricia.”</p> + +<p>“I can show it to you, Patricia.”</p> + +<p>“<i>She</i> doesn’t want to see that!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do,” Patricia assured them with an innocent courtesy +that made Clyde giggle again.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she breathed.</p> + +<p>“A mouse nest,” Marvin said nonchalantly.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Do the mouses—<i>mices</i>—live in it?”</p> + +<p>“Sure! They did before we took it away.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but can’t they live in it any more? What will the +mices do?”</p> + +<p>“Gee! What can they do?” Marvin swaggered. Clyde +giggled.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Shoot! Why, they’ve run off somewheres else by this +time!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“No, they haven’t, Patricia! Boys just like to say things +like that.”</p> + +<p>“Aw, gee——!”</p> + +<p>“But what will the mices <i>do</i>?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you’ve got awful pretty clothes for your dolls, +haven’t you, Patricia?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bet you’ve been into lots of big stores, Patricia. Did +this dress you’ve got on come from a big store?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Now you mustn’t touch me any more.”</p> + +<p>The boys giggled again at this, admiring but feeling abashed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Oh! Do you have a kitty?”</p> + +<p>“A cat! Gee!” They all laughed. “<i>One</i> cat! I bet we got +seventeen.”</p> + +<p>“Really seventeen kitties? Did your father buy them all +for you?”</p> + +<p>“Buy them!” The boys shouted with laughter. “Gee, you +don’t buy cats!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you do,” Patricia told them, shocked. “They cost +twenty-five dollars, the kitties that sit in the window in the +shop.”</p> + +<p>“Twenty-five dollars! Pay twenty-five dollars for a <i>cat</i>!” +<i>Cats</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, gee!” the boys began.</p> + +<p>“Maybe some of them <i>do</i>,” 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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you ever been up in a haymow before?” Clyde +demanded.</p> + +<p>“Of course she hasn’t,” Leone answered indignantly.</p> + +<p>Patricia looked around at them, and her face was pale with +awed excitement. “It’s like the church!” she breathed.</p> + +<p>“Gee, a <i>hay</i>-mow!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Is this where the kitties live?”</p> + +<p>“The little ones do. Where are the little bitty ones, Marvin?”</p> + +<p>“<i>I</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!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span></p> + +<p>“I’ll help you, Patricia,” Leone encouraged her.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>“Here they are!” the boys shouted.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Look here! Come here!” the boys were calling.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>The boys were highly amused. “What do they look like?” +Marvin demanded. “What do you think they are? Cows? +Horses?”</p> + +<p>She said tremulously, “No, I <i>know</i> cows are big. But their +heads look the way little baby cow heads do in the pictures. +They do.”</p> + +<p>“I think they do, too,” Leone asserted stoutly. She coaxed, +“Touch them, Patricia. They won’t hurt you.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Oh, but they have such funny tails!”</p> + +<p>“No, they ain’t. They got tails like all cats got.”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p> + +<p>The boys doubled up with laughter. “Who’d put cats in a +show?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, but they are!” Patricia looked at them in distress.</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn’t they be?” Leone demanded.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Take it!” Marvin urged.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, I wouldn’t!”</p> + +<p>“Why not? Go on and take it!”</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“She doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to,” Leone said +warmly.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to drop it!”</p> + +<p>“No, you won’t!”</p> + +<p>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 <i>silk</i> 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!”</p> + +<p>“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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span> +until the fluffy bell of shining hair trembled. She said solemnly, +and as if she had forgotten that the others were there:</p> + +<p>“No. I won’t. Because all its other little sisters and brothers +would be lonesome for it. And its mother would.”</p> + +<p>The boys stood grinning but they said nothing.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Patricia said: “Oh, but they must have names! That’s +wicked. Nobody goes up to heaven to our Lord Jesus without +a name!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to give every one a name,” Patricia asserted +solemnly.</p> + +<p>“What are you going to name ’em, Patricia?” Leone and +Vila were impressed.</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you going to name one Di’mond, Patricia?” Leone +asked eagerly. Vila thought that, too.</p> + +<p>“No.” Patricia was very decided. “Cats don’t look like +diamonds. They look like coloured jewels.”</p> + +<p>The boys giggled. Besides that one she had named <i>Pearl</i>—gee, +they had already looked at these kittens and they knew +very well that one was a he-cat! If she wasn’t funny!</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Now she must see all our places!”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Patricia!” Marvin hinted, tempting her, holding out a +little green apple.</p> + +<p>Leone snatched it from his hand. “Why, Marvin Sieverson, +shame on you! Do you want to make little Patricia sick?”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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. “<i>Eat</i> it, Patricia, +why don’t you?” But she wanted to hold it. “Oh, thank +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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 <i>nice</i>! 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.</p> + +<p>“Oh, if I lived in the country,” she cried, “do you know +what I’d do? I’d just run around and run around——”</p> + +<p>“You’d play with <i>me</i>, wouldn’t you, Patricia?” Marvin +cut in jealously.</p> + +<p>“I’d play——”</p> + +<p>“Children!”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“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!”</p> + +<p>Patricia looked in awe and wonderment. “What is it?” she +breathed.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know what that is?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span></p> + +<p>Mr. and Mrs. Sieverson, standing back, both laughed. +The children too were grinning.</p> + +<p>Patricia ventured, “A baby cow!”</p> + +<p>Then they all laughed to think that she had known.</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, Uncle Dave! Is it going <i>with</i> us?”</p> + +<p>“It’s going to be our back-seat passenger. If the boss permits?”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“Now, if that calf’s going to be any nuisance to you——”</p> + +<p>“No, no. As long as I’ve got the old car, put it in. Tie it up.”</p> + +<p>Patricia saw the rope then in Mr. Sieverson’s hand. She +cried, “Oh, not <i>tie</i> the little calf!”</p> + +<p>“Sure,” Mr. Sieverson said, grinning kindly at her. “You +don’t want it to jump out, do you?”</p> + +<p>She looked at Uncle Dave for confirmation of that. He said:</p> + +<p>“Sure! Calves won’t go riding any other way.”</p> + +<p>The two boys laughed.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“You don’t want to let this calf get loose or you won’t get +any of it!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + +<p>She didn’t understand that.</p> + +<p>“Get any of it to eat. This calf’s going to make veal.”</p> + +<p>“Eat it?” she cried in horror; and she earnestly put him +right. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t <i>eat</i> it.” Mr. Sieverson was joking.</p> + +<p>“Why, sure!” he said. “Don’t you eat good veal? You’re +going to take this calf to the butcher.”</p> + +<p>“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 <i>wicked</i>!”</p> + +<p>He couldn’t stand that. His face got red. Even if she was +just a child, he demanded, “Don’t you eat veal?”</p> + +<p>“No! No!” Patricia shrieked.</p> + +<p>“What, then?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh, no, we couldn’t take it!” Mr. Lindsay muttered. He +cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“So now we can go! Hm?” Mr. Lindsay asked her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You children go get her something—apples or something,” +Mrs. Sieverson whispered.</p> + +<p>“We have, Mamma! We’ve got a whole lot of things for +her.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“No, no, my boy! You keep your game. She’s got more +things at home now than she can ever play with.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“I will. I will, Leone. I will, Marvin. Thank you for all the +beautiful things.”</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>“Sure. That’s all right, Mr. Lindsay.”</p> + +<p>“Well, now, my little girl, tell them all good-bye.”</p> + +<p>“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:</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, calf! I forgot to say good-bye to you.”</p> + +<p>Marvin laughed in delight, and then Clyde echoed him.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Sieverson did not answer at once. Then she said in an +expressionless tone, “Well ... maybe you better take the +other one, then.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>such</i> things....</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>“Come on here!” Mr. Sieverson said sharply.</p> + +<p>He put the rope around the calf’s neck.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p> + + <h2 class="nobreak" id="SHADES_OF_GEORGE_SAND"> + SHADES OF GEORGE SAND! + </h2> +</div> + +<p class='chap-author'><span class="smcap">By ELLEN du POIS TAYLOR</span></p> + +<p class='chap-source'>From <i>Harper’s</i></p> + +<p class='chap-first kern-first'><span class='allcaps'>It was</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Matilda shrugged her shoulders. It was a gesture inherited +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span> +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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>This was what had happened.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“<i>Ma petite</i>,” she whispered harshly, “I am content that +it is the <i>père</i> you resemble and not that fat <i>other</i>.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Matilda, perversely delighted at this allusion +to her mother’s size.</p> + +<p>“Because, <i>ma cherie</i>, it is the dark and slender ones of the +earth that know how to suffer, and yet keep their joy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Grandma,” exclaimed the child, “you are happy +then!”</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span></p> + +<p>“Merchant?” queried Matilda. “Is that why Papa keeps a +store?”</p> + +<p>Mathilde shrugged her aristocratic old shoulders.</p> + +<p>“God punished us. I was young and dark and it made +trouble. Franz Gessler was fat and yellow and he dropped +dead of it.”</p> + +<p>“Is that why we are so poor and the store smells so awful?”</p> + +<p>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!”</p> + +<p>“Tell me more,” begged Matilda. “Tell me everything.”</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p>“<i>Ma petite fille</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>“They are for you.” And she smiled a wise and curious +smile.</p> + +<p>The package contained a picture and a book, and very old +they both looked.</p> + +<p>“The original,” explained the grandmother, holding up the +picture, “was painted by Delacroix.”</p> + +<p>“It’s a man,” observed the child ruefully, taking in the +long aquiline face framed by short thick hair above a tightly +buttoned waistcoat.</p> + +<p>Mathilde Lantier snorted. “You have only to observe how +the mouth is of a sympathy and the bosom of a tenderness to +know!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span></p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Matilda, “excuse me!”</p> + +<p>“And this,” continued the woman, “is just one of the so +many books she wrote. Ah, <i>ce roman dépeint une existence +malheureuse d’artiste</i>!”</p> + +<p>“C-o-n-s-u-e-l-o,” spelled Matilda, bending over the tattered +cover.</p> + +<p>“<i>C’est ça, ma cherie.</i>”</p> + +<p>“You talk funny, Grandma.”</p> + +<p>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: “<i>Quand on a +aimé un homme, il est bien difficile d’aimer Dieu ... c’est si +différent!</i>”</p> + +<p>There was a silence in which the stately reveries and tingling +regrets of an old coquette mingled with the timid wonder of a +child.</p> + +<p>“She said truly,” sighed the withered woman at last, “too +truly for peace.”</p> + +<p>“Peace?” asked the little girl, “and what is that, Grandma?”</p> + +<p>“A thing a woman longs for but does not want, <i>ma petite +fille</i>.”</p> + +<p>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 <i>Consuelo</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Sand, George (1804–1876), the pseudonym of Madame Amandine +Lucile Aurore Dudevant, <i>née</i> 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.</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>There came a day, thanks to old Pusey’s French exercises, +when she could spell her way through <i>Consuelo</i> and make what +was scrawled on the fly-leaf her own. That sentence tormented +Matilda like music which must be experienced to be appreciated: +“<i>Quand on a aimé un homme, il est bien difficile d’aimer +Dieu ... c’est si différent!</i>”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Matilda snatched up a hat faded by last summer’s sun and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span> +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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>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.</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Just as the dawn was turning the blurred square of her +window to rose Matilda decided what she would do. She would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At six o’clock that evening it was her father who swung +open the door she dreamed of.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I’m thinkin’ of puttin’ in a line of fancy glassware and +some electrical stuff. We gotta be more modern.”</p> + +<p>“A fool notion,” grunted Minnie Gessler.</p> + +<p>“Go to it, Dad,” said Fred. “When you get the place +fixed up maybe I’ll clerk for you.”</p> + +<p>“Where you plannin’ to get the truck?” asked Minnie, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span> +Fred’s interest making her visibly weaken in favour of the +proposition.</p> + +<p>“Chicago,” confessed poor Franz, hanging his head.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’re not goin’ traipsin’ off there and leave the +store. Runnin’ up and down those stairs would jest kill me +... my corns....”</p> + +<p>“Fred’ll go,” decided her husband, growing sallower and +stringier than ever under her accusation and his own disappointment.</p> + +<p>“And I’m going with him,” announced Matilda, clutching +the tablecloth between her knees with hands that tingled and +trembled.</p> + +<p>“For the land’s sakes, what for?”</p> + +<p>“To buy hats,” said Franz, going white with inspiration. +“I’m thinkin’ o’ puttin’ in a line o’ women’s hats.”</p> + +<p>“Hats,” snorted Minnie, “in a grocery store!”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“I won’t have ’Tilda tagging me to Chicago,” objected +Fred sourly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Go ’long with him, ’Tildy,” she said, “and keep your eye +on him.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“What’s that?” asked Matilda timorously.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“How nice!” agreed Matilda meekly. Where had this uncouth +brother of hers kept all this unsuspected savoir faire? +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>She eyed Matilda and Fred proprietarily.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Writes?” asked Matilda, hypnotized by Mrs. Campbell’s +tone.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” answered Flora importantly, “books in his room.”</p> + +<p>Matilda turned to Fred. “We’ll stay, won’t we?” she asked +timidly.</p> + +<p>“ ’Spose so,” grunted Fred. He didn’t much care where he +slept.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Why hadn’t Eugene Walter noticed her? God knows, it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span> +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?</p> + +<p>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p> + +<p>“I’m not going back to Crittenden,” announced Matilda +with soft suddenness.</p> + +<p>“Gee!” he whistled. “What’s the big idea?”</p> + +<p>“I’m going to stay here and be an authoress.”</p> + +<p>“Like fun you are.”</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I ain’t got any money,” he said sullenly.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Two hundred,” insisted Matilda ominously.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span></p> + +<p>He squirmed miserably as he counted the money into her +palm.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“Very tasty ... that frock. Going to the theatre?”</p> + +<p>“No,” she answered, “I just got tired wearing that stuffy +serge.”</p> + +<p>“One does,” agreed Mr. Goodwillie stiltedly, seating her on +the sofa.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It was nine-thirty.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” and he did not succeed in making his voice +casual, “why artists paint sheep? Inane things.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that the trouble with everything?” asked Matilda +heavily.</p> + +<p>“That gown isn’t inane. It’s gorgeous.” And he gave her a +direct look.</p> + +<p>“I was so sick of that old serge,” she said weakly, drawing +the veil about her shoulders a shade more tightly.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“You’ve no right to cover up such eburnean loveliness,” he +whispered.</p> + +<p>Eburnean? What was that? Her whole being wondered what +it meant and it thrilled her because she did not know.</p> + +<p>“Take that funereal rag off,” he said pettishly twitching the +veil.</p> + +<p>“I feel funereal,” she said, despondent once more at his +touch.</p> + +<p>“Why?” he asked, his hand barely touching her knee.</p> + +<p>“Because I’ve been in Chicago a whole week and nothing +has happened.”</p> + +<p>“Doesn’t eating dinner in the presence of a novelist thrill +you?”</p> + +<p>“It did at first,” she admitted ruefully.</p> + +<p>“Well, you thrill me in that gown. You’re epical.”</p> + +<p>Matilda gasped. He talked like a book. She became suddenly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At midnight Eugene Walter stooped and gallantly kissed her +hand.</p> + +<p>“Good-night, Egeria,” he whispered, and his eyes were two +promises lighting her up the darkened stairs.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Mathilde</i> 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.</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>Matilda Gessler and Eugene Walter stole out every night +after dinner. She descended Flora Campbell’s stairs in scarlet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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, “<i>Ma Mathilde ... Ma belle ... Ma +princesse adorée.</i>”</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Matilda mutely allowed herself to be propelled into a tiny +alcove garishly ruffled in pink cretonne and stuffed with +bird’s-eye maple.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span></p> + +<p>“Sit down, miss,” ordered Flora, shoving a low stool toward +her.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“I ran a decent house until you came, miss,” she accused +shrilly. “I’ve had complaints.”</p> + +<p>“Complaints,” hazarded poor Mathilda, “what are those?”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>“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!</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“Who—who complained about me?” quavered Matilda.</p> + +<p>“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.”</p> + +<p>“But,” objected Matilda faintly, “there’s Mr. Walter. +He was out, too.”</p> + +<p>“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?”</p> + +<p>Why, indeed? Matilda rose. “Good-night,” she said succinctly +and opened the door.</p> + +<p>“If I was you,” warned Flora, “I’d reform. Men don’t +marry light women.”</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Matilda slept finally—slept across her bed in wrinkled +crêpe de chine while a noisy gas jet drew the hot yellow walls +together....</p> + +<p>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, “<i>Quand on a aimé un homme, il est bien difficile +d’aimer Dieu ... c’est si différent!</i>”</p> + +<p>Matilda hummed under her breath as she crammed her +dingy wardrobe into a wicker suitcase.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span></p> + +<p>She wavered there at the foot of the stairs, her breath shortening +and thickening in her throat.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>“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.</p> + +<p>“We thought you’d gone,” said Enid, balancing her fairy +proportions against her escort.</p> + +<p>“I’m going,” apologized Matilda dully, “in the morning.”</p> + +<p>“How distressing!” exclaimed Eugene nervously, twirling +his hat.</p> + +<p>“How funny!” chanted Enid, laying her white fingers on +his sleeve.</p> + +<p>“Is there anything I can do?” he said with that cool, impersonal +courtesy which is not meant to be taken advantage +of.</p> + +<p>“No, thank you,” answered Matilda mechanically, heavily, +mounting another step.</p> + +<p>“Good-bye then, <i>Mathilde</i> ... 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.</p> + +<p>“My slipper’s unfastened,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>He knelt and took the slender golden foot in his hand.</p> + +<p>Matilda gained the upper hall. Just as she turned to enter +her room she glimpsed Flora’s coloured bulk in close communion +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span> +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....</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>They sat there for hours grimly enjoying an old disillusionment +together.</p> + +<p class='center mt2'>THE END</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="transnote"> + <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes"> + Transcriber’s Notes + </h2> + +<ul> + +<li>Obvious typograpic errors silently corrected.</li> + +<li>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.)</li> + +</ul> +</div> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76802 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/76802-h/images/colophon.jpg b/76802-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e49865 --- /dev/null +++ b/76802-h/images/colophon.jpg diff --git a/76802-h/images/cover.jpg b/76802-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..98aa098 --- /dev/null +++ b/76802-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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