Читать книгу Little Man - George Herbert Sallans - Страница 8

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George went, when he was seven, with Harold, who was ten, and his sister Jean, who was fourteen, to the noisiest place he had ever seen in his life. It was the lumber mill where Daddy worked.

Gone now were the woods and the little house in the clearing with Aunt Mary at her eternal sewing and Grandma at her knitting. Gone, too, was Grandma, to the little cemetery behind the church, and Aunt Mary had decided to go away out West and be with Uncle Jim and Aunt Sadie.

At last Daddy had a house ready for them where he worked in an eastern shipyard town. George had no thought then of his Daddy's lonely life when he had farmed his children out to relatives and set out with his bare hands to make life anew. Now his motherless family were starting to keep house on their own, and Jean was head of the home while Daddy was away on his long days at the mill, for which he received the magnificent sum of $1.50 a day.

George and Harold went wild with delight at their new place, for it had a wonderful orchard of apple, plum, pear, cherry and peach trees and plenty of berry bushes. It was a godsend for little country boys trying to get acquainted with smart town boys. Every day in the apple season they went to school with their blouses filled clear round their waists with apples. An apple was a cheap price to pay for some strange boy's favours.

George's main trouble at school, and by irony his greatest ambition of the moment, was keeping long slate pencils. One by one he dropped his slate pencils on the floor, where they broke into short stubs. Five slate pencils cost a cent, and cents were not rolling around loose, so he used the stubs. But the pupils around him all seemed to have beautiful long pencils with their red-and-white striped paper, and delicious long points. As he scratched over his slate he felt that every boy and girl in the schoolroom was watching him with pity and scorn. Thus a long slate pencil, and others to take its place when it was broken, became the symbol of achievement, the supreme and outer fringe of perfection in George's expanding intellectual universe.

He discovered that he could trade apples for them. It usually took six apples for a slate pencil. So while the apples lasted he had his supply. But one day the fruit pickers came and the apples went. George was thrown on his own slim resources, with little trading experience to help him. Joe Zeigler (called Zeke by the schoolyard gang) traded him off his feet.

"Hey, kid, I'll trade you one," he told George when he heard him timidly bargaining with a classmate. "What yuh got to trade?"

When the deal was through, George got a new slate pencil in exchange for his eraser and his lead pencil. Zeke threw in a short lead pencil stub for good measure. George was thrilled and happy. He had satisfied his insidious craving for the time being. There lay his new slate pencil, long and lovely in its white-and-yellow stripes.

His Daddy found out about the deal and handled the situation with a severity that George considered was out of all proportion.

"A lead pencil costs two cents and a rubber eraser costs one cent, and you trade them both for a slate pencil that you get five for a cent," he snorted. "Come over here."

George went in dismay. His Daddy bent him over his knee and hit him smartly five times with his hand. The hand stung George's behind, but the humiliation of it, in front of Jean and Harold, hurt his soul a lot more. He went noisily into his bedroom and cried into his pillow. His burning resentment burst out in muttered threats against his Daddy, against Jean and even against Harold. But as it died away there came a deeper and sterner resolve, a smouldering anger that was to stay. It was anger against Zeke, who had let him in for this; Zeke, who had bullied him since he came to school.

He thought of himself hitting Zeke in the face as hard as he could. For a young man of his age that ought to be pretty hard. Zeke was bigger, but in this hour of vicarious vengeance George put away such trifles. Some time he would lay for Zeke and pound him to jelly. The thought of Zeke grovelling in the dirt at his feet and begging for mercy was sweet and ravishing. He soon forgot to feel angry at his family; he had found a focus for his venom that involved no immediate action—or risk. The sweet, abiding thought of revenge raised George's stature. His chest was bigger. He felt that he had grown older and more important. He was a man with a mission—to lick the livin' daylights out of Zeke, by crickety.

He'd tell him a thing or two, he would.

"Now, les' see: 'Zeke you consarned bully—' No, you hadda play with them a bit. 'Say, lissen here, smart aleck—!' Ah, that was getting at it! 'Say, lissen here, I don't want to pick a fight, but you think you're mighty smart—'"

He rolled on the grass in glee at the thought. Wouldn't Zeke be mad! The phrase ravished him, and he repeated it over and over again. "Now, lissen here—"

At last he had squeezed all the fun out of it. At last he had wrung it down to the stern essentials, and he felt his fists closing as he said it. He felt the iron in him as the words formed.

"'At's how Zeke's gonna yell," he vowed, unaware he was talking at the top of his voice.

"Who's Zeke, and how's he going to yell, and what for?" Jean demanded. "What are you talking about, anyway?"

"Oh, nawthin'," said George. "Jiss nawthin'."

That was Saturday, and even Sunday School and church on Sunday did not erase from his mind the vision of what was to happen on Monday. Often did he rehearse his speech. It lingered there even as they went through the Catechism.

By Monday, the fury of his vengeance had cooled off a bit in spite of himself. He had, in fact, moments of doubt about the feasibility of the whole business. He shook them off sternly, but they returned. Zeke was a tough fighter, they'd told him.

"Eee-yo! Eee-yo!" A classmate hailed in the universal yodel of those times, as George trudged to school Monday morning.

"H'lo, Fuzzy," said George without enthusiasm. "I'm gonna lick Zeke till he can't see."

There! It was out. No backing down now. George watched closely to see the effect. After all, if he was gonna fight, he might as well get all the glory he could before the fight started.

The effect was electric. "Yippee!" yelled Fuzzy. "George is gonna lick the tar outa Zeke!"

"I gotta devilish temper," said George, pursuing his temporary advantage. The phrase had made a terrific impression on him when he read it in one of Jean's books. Fuzzy seemed to miss the dreadful import of it.

"'Ray. George's got a devilish temper. Haw-haw!"

George looked at him in cold and pitying resentment. Fuzzy bore the scorn lightly.

The news of the fight spread like wildfire, thanks to Fuzzy's stentorian broadcasts all the way down the street. By the time they reached the schoolyard George had a small crowd of admirers. He noted with doubtful satisfaction that many of them were from Zeke's gang. Now they were cheering George and egging him on.

The school bell had rung and they were on their way through the hall to their classroom before George saw Zeke. Knowing there were dozens of eager eyes on him for this first salutation, George thumbed his nose, though a bit dubiously. Then he made a fierce face. Zeke promptly raised him two, and displayed such a gift for face making that George felt worsted. He countered with a significant tap on his own nose with his fist. He thumped himself unintentionally hard and fetched a couple of small tears, which enraged him. A sibilant chorus of whispers flew around, and he knew all the kids were nudging one another. It impelled him almost to the reckless stage, though at any moment Miss Bell, their sharp-nosed and sharper-tongued teacher, might see him and send him to stand in the corner.

Classes that day were confused. The first recess found classmates divided. "Are you gonna fight him now?" some wanted to know.

"Naw," said others, "don't be a ninny! He can't go back into school all bloodied. Yuh gotta wait till school's out."

Zeke showed a disconcerting eagerness for the fight himself. He responded with a bit too much alacrity to all George's gestures across the schoolroom, and the kids tittered with him, George felt, as much as they did at him. But the time came at last. They were standing at their seats.

"Class dismissed!" They went scrambling for their caps in the cloakroom. They went down the stairs. They were in the play yard. George thought hard: "Now, lissen, smart aleck—"

"Yuh can't fight in the yard," the kids told him. "C'mon down to the empty lot with the fence all around. That's a swell place to fight."

Zeke was nowhere to be seen. Something suspiciously like a thrill raced through George's veins. He told himself he wasn't glad, but as mad as anything. "Zeke's a fraidy cat," he yelled as they ran across the yard. "Zeke's a fraidy cat!" And the farther they ran without seeing Zeke the louder he yelled it.

The other boys raced with him and took up the cry frantically. They filled the air with taunts for Zeke. They cleared the yard and rounded the high post of the board fence that fronted the empty lot.

"Zeke's a fraidy cat!" George puffed. "Zeke's—"

And then suddenly the boys all stopped with suspicious unanimity, and they pointed significantly behind the big post. Out stepped Zeke, his face in an ugly sneer, and his fists doubled.

"Now, kid," said Zeke and called George a dirty name. "You wanta fight? I'm waitin' on yuh. Make faces at me, will yuh! Awright, go ahead and put up your fists!"

George looked into Zeke's eyes and saw they were green and ugly. Zeke's hands in front of his face looked hard and gnarled and the pores were dirty and mean looking. The supreme moment had come. The audience was clamouring:

"Hit 'im right on the nose! Knock his eye out! Paste him!"

George began, a last pre-war statement. "Say, lissen here, smart aleck," he said, and the courageous strength of his voice pleasantly surprised him. "I jiss wanta say that I don't wanta pick a fight, but—"

A thunderclap of laughter burst all around him. It even drowned the sneering and humiliating guffaw from Zeke himself. The kids left him as suddenly as they had rallied around him. They raced off down the street yelling at the top of their voices, and Zeke ran with them.

"But—but—Hey, kids, I ain't finished!" George yelled in desperation. He might as well have yelled inside the sawmill. "I meant I ain't a fightin' man, but—" Puff, puff "I'd lick Zeke 'cause he's a—c-consarned bully. Hey, you gotta come back—You g-gotta!"

But he was talking to himself, for the show was over. It was a flop, the boys had decided, and they had left for more promising fun. George stopped in indecision, started to run after them again, gave it up in despair, and sat down on the curb in a white anger that soon turned to black gloom. His heroic hour was over. They thought he was a coward. They'd laugh at him every time they saw him now, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

"You think you're smart," he flung at his tormentor next day.

"Haw, haw! Don't wanna fight, don't wanna fight!" Zeke guffawed with what seemed to George very coarse humour.

"I didn't say I didn't wanna fight," George blazed.

"Yah did, yah did, yah did!"

"Well, if I did I didn't mean it. I meant—"

"Fraidy cat. Yer jiss a fraidy cat—"

"Who's what?"

They were turning the last block corner to school. Zeke stopped short. George's heart leaped, for there was Harold with his school bag. Harold marched nonchalantly up to Zeke, who was his size, despite a year or two in ages. "Who's a fraidy cat?" he asked, and swung with his free hand—a good-natured, pawing, condescending, open-handed swipe that swept Zeke's cap off into the gutter. Zeke dived for it.

"I was jiss foolin'," he bawled, and ducked behind a tree till he saw Harold was not interested, then he tore off to school. George watched him in glee tingled with regret.

"It's a good job I didn't hafta hit him," he said manfully. "I was gonna use my closed fist."

His revenge had not come exactly as he would have designed it, but it was sweet, for the boys took pains to tell Zeke who Harold was. At dismiss-time Zeke came to George with new-found respect.

"I'll give yuh one o' my marbles," he said, and dug into his pants pocket. "Want that one?" He selected one that rivalled the rainbow.

"But that's an alley," George objected.

"Aw, take it," said Zeke. "I got lots."

Thus came the rapprochement under Harold's unsuspecting protection. George had gained, by means he hardly understood, an advantage that he had thought to gain with his bare fists, but he never quite lost the feeling that, somehow or other, he had been thrust into a false rôle.

Zeke proudly escorted him home.

"Stan' back!" he warned the curious crowd who followed in anticipation of a fight around the empty lot corner. "I'll lick any kid that lays a finger on 'im."

At George's gate Zeke suddenly said, "Well, s'long," and fled with a speed that puzzled George, till he saw Harold in the yard.