Читать книгу Stubble - George Looms - Страница 7

Joe Hooper was not a handsome man. He was of that type so often seen in the South, tall, gangly, and very dark, with a sallow complexion and a general air of inertness that always misleads the stranger to the type. Insignificant looking, perhaps, but they will be found, on later acquaintance, to be worming themselves into general regard without effort. The law claims many of them and occasionally the raising of stock and the tilling of soil, though usually as proprietors only, it is true. Sometimes they are swept into strange waters where, if they float about long enough, they manage by some inherent mordant capacity to colour the entire complexion to their own. There are exceptions, of course.

Joe's father had lost his farm through foreclosure. It killed him. This fact and the presence of some alien strain sent Joe to Louisville which had some of the elements of the melting pot and some traditional elements of opportunity. He was twenty-four when he made this change. For two years he had resisted fusion and escaped opportunity. He had fallen into a job with the Bromley Plow Company and risen to the exalted status of stock clerk when the war came. The war, or rather the idea of the war, had proved a great relief to his imagination and he had enlisted at once, as a matter of fact, on the second day. This notion of service had been the one thing stronger than the influence of Mary Louise, which had been, it must be confessed, the main reason for his sticking as long as two years. The Plow Works had seemed a rather tedious road to a Restoration and the Barebones Parliament that sat in the inner office had seemed inexorably determined to make that road as devious and difficult as possible. He had escaped gladly. But the war had come to an end with him still in service on this side and he had at length returned with many things unsatisfied. One of these had been his idea about Mary Louise. She, too, had been swept into the vortex, into a mild eddy of it. The Red Cross had found her useful in the maintenance of a tea room for the enjoyment of the men at Camp Taylor. It had sounded innocent enough, but upon Joe's return he had found that she had in some way been galvanized. She was one of the war's changes; he, unfortunately, not so.

He did not know clearly just what he had expected upon his return, but then he had not expected the kind of return that he had experienced. There had been nothing epochal in it. Even his job was waiting for him; it seemed to him even the same routine details. One file of correspondence that he had found upon his desk that first morning had had a singularly familiar look. It would always stick in his memory. First there had been a moment of high anticipation at the station with the taxi-men calling out the names of the hotels, and stretched across Main Street he remembered seeing a large banner flanked with bunting and with "Welcome Home" inscribed thereon. Then he had watched the familiar landmarks as he rolled southward in the street car with an odd little feeling of "Hello, there you are again"; and the Works, looming up in the distance at the end of the line, with its tall brick stack, was a sort of culmination. Not exactly a culmination, either, for he was conscious of a jarring note. Then the oak-panelled lobby, with the time clock, a sombre monitor, took just another grain of carefree satisfaction from the sum total of his feelings; and finally—his desk, and the worn, thumb-edged file! The first letter therein! "Recent shipments castings EE23, G143, F47, and J29 have come to us unannealed. J29 shows fins and sprues; the hole in EE23 is in most cases completely closed; and G143 and F47 are so rough that they will not fit into their respective sockets without machining. Will return same via local freight to-day." That was all. An Homeric welcome into very deep water! Such had been Joe Hooper's homecoming.

As for Mary Louise:—well, there had been nothing quite so definite. He had met her at the tea room—there had been one final week of closing after his arrival—and he had not quite made up his mind about her before she had left for Bloomfield, beyond a certain stiffening of fibre, an aloofness that was new, and a business-like air that seemed to say "Come across," that he did not exactly like. But then a week is not a very long time to get down to bed-rock with a person, especially when that person is busy ten hours out of the day and thinking the other fourteen about the ten that have just passed.

Four weeks had rolled around. It was the first of May. Joe sat at his desk absently fingering a stack of paper slips. They were reports from the various assembling shops advising him of the number of bolts of certain styles and sizes used in those respective shops that day. He was supposed to post these amounts in a stock ledger against the various sizes and styles and note the approaching shortages wherever they came. There were between fifty and a hundred slips. The window was open opposite his desk and a delightful breeze was curling up the edges of some papers which had been thoughtfully weighted down. Joe gazed, heavy lidded, through the window. An automobile, a long, slouchy black one, went whirling by with the tonneau full of girls. Their veils were streaming and fluttering out behind, many-hued and flimsy. They were all gazing at the office windows as they passed. "One might think it was a reformatory or the county workhouse or something," he thought. He turned dully to the stack of reports and began to count them. He felt stale—flat.

He heard his name called, and turning, saw Mr. Boner standing at the corner of the partition looking at him over his spectacles. Mr. Boner was a tall, heavy man with nervous twitchings and anxious eyes that were eternally shifting about beneath their brows for something disturbing. He was responsible for keeping the warehouse filled, the warehouse whose books Joe kept, and it was his further duty to keep it filled as cheaply as possible. The threat of failure in either was what caused that eternal shifting. It was a sort of high-tension vigilance.

Joe rose to his feet, obeying the monosyllabic summons, and followed Mr. Boner around the partition. Mr. Boner rated a private office, where he could worm information, trade secrets, and occasional concessions from travelling salesmen. There was nothing social about the place. As Joe turned the partition corner and stood in the doorway, the old man had already seated himself at the desk. His fat hips completely filled the chair. He was apparently staring at something on the desk before him, but Joe could catch the occasional shifting glimmer of his eyes at the corners and knew he was looking at him. Suddenly Mr. Boner turned to the inner corner of the desk, started to speak, strangled, and with difficulty recovered himself. His voice, when finally he did recover it, was so loud that it startled even himself, and just as suddenly he lowered it to confidential pitch. Joe had been a witness to this procedure many times before but it never failed to interest him. In fact, Mr. Boner was himself a study. There was an old-fashioned golf cap perched on the top of his graying head and his close-clipped moustache was silvery white, in marked contrast to the pink-and-white mottle of his cheeks, which hung down over his collar in folds, like some dependable old foxhound's. One hand lay fat and puffy on the desk, clutching a pencil in a nervous grip. And the middle of him—he seemed to bulk and fill out the entire chair—so incongruous with his little feet and mincing gait! It was as though as much as possible of his body were seeking to escape that all-devouring tension in relapse. How familiar it all was! Even during those months at camp the picture would recur and Joe would laugh softly to himself. Poor old duffer! He was a product of the plant just as much as ploughs and tillage implements were. How soon would he begin to show the indelible imprint?

The voice rose sharply. Joe realized that Mr. Boner was speaking to him—was speaking with great feeling. He came back to realities with a jerk.

"Out of carriage bolts two one half one quarter," he was saying. It was probably the second time he had said it. He choked with emotion and had to seek refuge again in the receptacle on the floor at the left-hand corner of his desk.

Joe seemed unmoved.

"Book shows been out since April nineteenth." The old man turned to observe the effect of his damnation.

Joe quivered but showed no sign.

"Make out memorandum cut down one thousand five one half by one quarter." He spoke it explosively, keeping a furtive eye on that left-hand corner. "Have a surplus eleven thousand of them."

Joe guiltily felt that the old man knew the stock books better than he himself. A little spot of red appeared in each cheek.

Mr. Boner shoved two sheets of yellow paper across the desk toward him. "I've reordered replacement one thousand five one half, cancellation one thousand two one half." This with an air of satisfaction. There was nothing more to be done, patently. "Waste stock," Mr. Boner muttered.

Joe turned to go.

Mr. Boner exploded again. This was not all, apparently. "Blue annealed sheets," he called, sputtered, gripped the arms of his chair convulsively, recovered, and sat glaring helplessly.

Joe availed himself of the opportunity. "Have a memo for you on the desk." In spite of himself his voice sounded nervous. "Just out of two sizes to-day." He waited.

The old man turned and bent his head over his work. That was over. Joe returned to his desk, got the memo, and entered the little office again. As he slipped the paper across an intervening table, Mr. Boner straightened from a stooping inspection of a lower desk drawer, and Joe saw him furtively wipe a knife blade on the leg of his trousers and then turn upon him a look of mildest blue. There was a bulge in his left cheek as round as an acorn. Neither spoke. A privacy had been violated. Joe felt like a "Peeping Tom."

Noiselessly he slipped around the corner, back to his desk. The breeze was still blowing merrily through the window and two clerks at desks across the aisle were shoving pencils and rulers and like equipment into their proper drawers with a smug sort of satisfaction shining in their drawn faces. He looked at his watch. It lacked a minute of five-thirty. Then he looked at the stack of reports again, paused, and with an air of sudden decision dropped them into an open drawer. Opening another drawer he swept all the movable articles on his desk thereinto, careless of the confusion he caused, seized his hat from a peg behind him, and strode across the office, out through the door, into the oak-panelled lobby. For a moment he stood before the clock. Its hands showed five twenty-nine. He paused, then deliberately punched his number, descended the steps, and went out through the door on to the street. The whistle was blowing as he went down the walk. The street was deserted. He felt eyes somewhere on his back but walked on in apparent unconcern. He was conscious of a peculiar mixture of emotions, a little guilt, a little shame, a little furtiveness, and more than any, a lifting sense of relief, freedom. The air was light, cool, and invigorating. There was a pleasant crunch of dry dusty cinders beneath his feet. And then he saw a venturesome bluebird come darting across the open fields to the west and perch for a moment on the top strand of the barbed-wire fence of the Plow Works, a few yards ahead of him. It sat there swaying and watching him and, as he approached nearer, it took wing and darted across the Plow Company's grounds eastward toward the city. Joe filliped a wire paper clip after it.

"You had better turn around and go back where you came from," he called after it softly.

He proceeded homeward.

As he climbed the boarding-house stairs to his room he felt listless. For four weeks he had climbed those listless stairs. There had been one brief respite—the two days of Bloomfield with its easy relaxation. What lay at the end of the road? Whither was he tending? Mr. Boner's shoes? His desk was the step next below the little private office. He laughed shortly to himself as he opened a bureau drawer and selected a clean white shirt. The touch of the clean linen encouraged him a little. He began to whistle. He had a "date on" with Mary Louise. He had asked her to go to the vaudeville. Two or three hours of pleasant forgetfulness, anyway. Mary Louise—the thought of her brought a vague feeling of unrest. For over two weeks he had tried to get her over the 'phone. She had either been out when he had called or had pleaded some other engagement. Finally he had got the engagement for to-night three days ahead. And she had as good as promised to see him right off, immediately after that week-end in Bloomfield. Stranger! Stranger in the city! That did not sound very much as if she were a stranger. He wondered what she could have been doing. She had met a good many people while she was doing Red Cross, probably, people in the army—men—officers, now in civilian life. Why not? And yet he had felt the least bit irritated and a little bit lonely. For his friends had scattered, it seemed. And then they had not mattered much. And he had rather looked forward to the coming summer with Mary Louise in town. Now he didn't so much. It was foolish, too. There wasn't any reason for it. A man shouldn't pin his resources down to one spot.

He washed, dressed, and then went to dinner at a dairy lunch around the corner. The boarding place furnished breakfasts only. Then there was an hour and a half to kill before he could go for her. She had a room in a down-town apartment, not over three blocks away, and that would take but a very short time. He wandered over to the public square. Some old men were sitting on a row of iron benches lining the sidewalk, facing the street. They surveyed him critically as he passed by. He walked up and idly inspected the kiosk where the weather-bureau reports were posted. He noticed it predicted continued fair. Then he turned and walked in the street for about a block, gazing in shop windows. There was nothing in any of them that he particularly wanted. He stopped at a street corner and looked up and down both streets. A few desultory pedestrians went walking hither and yon, leisurely, with no apparent purpose. It was the lull of supper hour and there was an orange glow that penetrated even down to the streets which were mere canyons between sombre, artificial cliffs of masonry. To the west a small patch of open sky glowed sulphurously through a smoke pall. A city was a poor place to spend time in—really live in, he thought. And Mary Louise—he wondered if she thought so, too, she who had been raised in the greenest of all green country, in the widest and cleanest of spaces. Probably not. At least, it didn't look like it. A city was a good place to work in. One could work anywhere—if the work was all right. She had seemed keen about her work. She probably had had a lot to do, getting things started. She'd probably not had much time. He might have missed her during her leisure hours. It was possible she was as desirous of some outdoors, of some clean air, some blue sky, as he was.

Almost with the force of a decision he turned and walked back to the square and sat down. He looked at the clock. It said five minutes after seven. There was still an hour.

He sat and deliberately waited.

The time eventually passed, and before he had really gathered together his thoughts into orderly array she was meeting him at the door of her apartment, a little flushed, a little hurried, quite brisk and apparently eager to be at the business at hand. There was also an air of preoccupation as if she were revolving over in her mind some previous matters of which the threads still remained untangled. In this respect there was change. The old Mary Louise had been as open as a wild rose, as freshly and sweetly receptive to whatever wind came along. She had gathered complexity, was more serious, laughed less, frowned more.

They walked along the street in the gathering darkness soberly, he returning monosyllabic answers to the perfunctory questions which she fired at him, brightly crisp. Like the questionnaire of a superior officer he felt. Then for nearly a block they said nothing. Glancing sidewise at her he caught the straight, almost grim line of her mouth and the little pucker between her brows. As if realizing she was being observed she suddenly asked:

"What are you doing out at the Works?"

Joe paused a moment before replying. "When I was in Texas," he began, "out in the sticks, we had a flood, and the road from headquarters was in danger of being washed away. Culverts too small. Had one nigger standing on the bank of one stream by the head of a culvert catching the sticks and brush and dragging them up on the bank so they wouldn't clog up the hole." He spoke in a quietly reminiscent tone.

She turned and looked at him curiously. "But I said, 'What are you doing now at the Works?'"

"I know," he continued, in the same tone. "That's what I'm doing at the Plow Factory. Keeping the water running."

She smiled, just a flash of a smile. "Doesn't sound so bad, even if you are secretive about it. How did the nigger take care of his job?"

Joe looked up quickly. "Oh—he? He fell asleep. And then he fell in the creek."

Mary Louise was watching him, waiting for him to finish. At last he seemed to have got her entire attention. "And then?"

"Then he got pneumonia—and died."

They crossed the street. Up ahead the lights of the theatre gleamed dazzling white. The crowd was getting almost too thick to permit conversation.

"You don't like your job then?"

He flared into sudden unexpected defense of it. "Well, I haven't gone to sleep on it yet."

They said no more, for the task of passing the ticket chopper and then of getting settled in their seats was all absorbing. And then directly the curtain rose and Joe found himself slipping into a delightfully relaxed forgetfulness. He was being amused. His good humour was returning. He got an occasional glance at Mary Louise, sometimes during contagious gales of laughter that would sweep the audience, and saw her smiling slightly, mostly with her eyes; and was puzzled, for the humour was not that sort. Had he stopped to think, or had he been more experienced, he would not have been thus puzzled, for he would have realized that the sudden putting on of sophistication is always a puzzling thing.

But he banished the question and gave himself up entirely to enjoyment. And when the final curtain fell he rose to his feet with a faint inner sigh of regret. It was with high good humour that he gained his companion's side outside the theatre.

"We'll get a bite to eat down in the Rathskeller," he suggested gaily.

"No, Joe, let's not. This is enough for one evening." She turned as if to start southward, toward home, but he seized her arm, laughing:

"Maybe it's enough for you, but it's not enough for me. Come on. Be a sport. You've been dodging me long enough."

"Dodging you?" She was all hurt surprise as he hurried her along.

Joe's method was improving. "Well, come along, then—if you don't want me to think so."

Mary Louise let it go at that. She came.

A revolving door that swept outward musty and yet alluring odours swept them inward. They descended a flight of winding steps to a subterranean anteroom of stone. Dim lights winked at them from stone niches and from a cleft in the rock to one side a prim little maid in a ruched white cap took Joe's hat. There should have been a troglodyte attendant, instead. On the other side of swinging glass doors was much clatter and laughter and the indistinct voice of a woman above a rhythmic strumming and the bleat of a saxophone. The transition to this other side was sudden and bewildering. The glimmer burst into a glare, the dim echo swelled into a roar as the door opened, and Joe stood blinking, asking for a table for two. As he threaded his way between tables, past careening waiters swinging aloft perilous trays, a girl in a crimson evening frock came wandering carelessly through the aisle toward him, her hands clasped behind her back, her eyes searching the crowd sitting about her. Her figure was short and pudgy and so violently compressed into her crimson gown that she seemed to be oozing out of a scanty chalice. She was singing a most provocative song and, catching sight of Joe as he struggled along, face uptilted, and, looking into his eyes most impudently, let him have the full import of her words.

Joe gave her a deliberate, knowing wink. With a careless shrug she moved away in search of more promising and sensitive material.

He passed, the toxine of gaiety mounting to his head, to a small table tucked into a remote corner, where the waiter was holding out a chair for him.

"Won't do, George," he said, refusing the proffered chair. "We can't be buried way back here. We aren't dead ones, you know."

The waiter raised a deprecating shoulder but Mary Louise broke in, "Oh, don't bother! This is all right, Joe." She had already seated herself and was drawing off her gloves. Her face looked hot and weary, and long wisps of hair were clinging damply to her temples.

"Wish we could have had a table over there," indicating two or three vacant ones near the orchestra and the base of the jongleur's operations. "We're out of it here. Well, at any rate, what are you going to have?"

She turned from a weary inspection of adjoining tables. "Oh, anything. Some lemonade, I suppose."

"Don't want to celebrate? This is our first party." His eyes and smile were eager.

"No. Of course not, Joe. You know better than that."

"Two lemonades," he said to the waiter regretfully. Somehow it seemed like a waste of atmosphere, a waste of fuel, pulling a rowboat with a turbine—to be drinking lemonade in a place like this. Many bitter similes occurred to him, but he banished them.

"The old girl looks like a rash, doesn't she?" he said, indicating the singer who was wandering about amongst the tables in another part of the room.

Mary Louise looked at him suspiciously. "How's that?"

"She's a-breakin' out."

Neither paid any further attention to this atrocity; she, because she willed otherwise; he, because he was blissfully unaware.

But her apathy was noticeable. He made one or two violent efforts to spur her flagging spirits and then, becoming touched by the contagion of her reserve, lapsed himself into silence. They sat and sipped their lemonades, thoughtfully inspecting their straws, dolefully ruminative. Their little table was like a blot on a snow-white expanse of joy.

Joe came to the bottom of his glass and made a vicious noise in the residue of cracked ice. He looked up to see how she might be taking it and saw a gleam of pleasure pass across her face. It quickly subsided and gave way to a look of preoccupation. He was watching her intently now. And then she smiled and looked beyond him, stretching her hand out in recognition. Someone touched the back of his chair. He looked over his shoulder, saw a man's figure standing there, and then he rose to his feet.

Dimly he heard Mary Louise's introduction. It was a Mr. Claybrook or something like that.

"Won't you pull your chair up?" Joe invited.

Mr. Claybrook decided he would. He was a big man, a grave man, a man of considerable poise, and possessed of whimsical crow's-feet in the corners of his eyes. Mary Louise's apathy seemed to retire a little at his approach.

"Glad to see you survived last night," he said to her with a faint smile.

She flushed, and Joe felt a little roughness under his collar.

"How's the tea room coming? Roused out any hard drinkers yet?"

"Oh, we're not looking for that. We hope to make a few steady friends, but we're depending on the ebb and flow." Her colour was mounting, and had not Joe been so uncomfortable he would have seen how pretty she was. But he sank deeper and deeper into a sullen and unreasoning discomfort. The two had evidently had considerable in common before. He felt awkward—knew of nothing to say. Claybrook, on the other hand, was enjoying himself.

And apparently sensing the tension in Joe's mind, and seeking to lighten it a bit, she volunteered:

"Captain Claybrook is going to help us put the tea room across. He was one of our best little patrons in Camp Taylor."

Claybrook looked self-conscious; Joe even more embarrassed. And suddenly a strange look crossed her face and she broke off her explanation. Joe turned and looked in the direction toward which she was staring wide-eyed.

And across the room, weaving through the labyrinth of tables and bearing straight down upon them, came a strange apparition. With unsteady gait, his hand stretched out in caution before him and a watery smile upon his lips, came Uncle Buzz. An incongruously picturesque figure amidst smartness and glitter. His head was as sleek as ever and he had waxed the tips of his moustaches so that they stuck out jauntily as did the tips of his black bow tie. But his jacket was short and rusty and in need of pressing, of which fact he seemed blissfully unaware. For, having sighted them, he was coming on steadfastly, past pitfalls that yawned, with a smile upon his face.

Joe felt a peculiar exulting glow pass over him, whether at the sight of a familiar, friendly face or for some less creditable reason. Distress was plainly written on the face of Mary Louise. Claybrook talked on, unconscious of what was coming.

And then Mr. Mosby drew up alongside and favoured them with an elaborate bow from the centre of the aisle. A hurrying waiter, being thus perilously presented with an unexpected hazard, made a desperate swerve in mid-flight and menaced an adjoining table with the contents of his tray. A glass crashed, a woman shrieked, and Uncle Buzz serenely proceeded.

"Don't get up. Pray, don't get up," he said to Joe and Claybrook. "Saw you from the door and merely came to pay my respects. Miss Mary Louise, we miss you in the old town." He turned to her gracefully, and Joe could catch the faint aroma of Bourbon, thus immediately accounting to his own satisfaction for the easy poise and manner. Mary Louise was lost. She watched Claybrook, who seemed amused, and Uncle Buzz went on, turning his attention to Joe. "And by the way, Joseph, if you can arrange to, your Aunt Loraine and I would like for you to spend Saturday and Sunday with us."

Joe knew how much his Aunt Loraine would subscribe to this courtesy. It meant work to do, that was all. But he was amused, felt singularly light-hearted instead of embarrassed. Who can say he was depraved? His voice was kind and cajoling as he replied:

"What are you doing in town, Uncle Buzz? Isn't the store open to-day? Mr. Claybrook! Mr. Mosby!"

Uncle Buzz acknowledged the honour and then he turned on Joe a dignified but hurt surprise. "I come to town quite frequently," he said, clipping his words. "A Mr. Forbes of Boston wrote me to meet him here about some saddle horses." This was said quietly but with proper emphasis. Joe wondered how far it strayed from the truth. There were only two saddlers left, he knew. Uncle Buzz was swaying slightly to and fro and the little table was rapidly becoming the cynosure of all eyes. Mary Louise looked about her desperately. Uncle Buzz, smiling sweetly in the aisle, and threatening at any moment to shatter the illusion by falling prostrate, was entirely ignorant of her distress. The tables were reversed. Claybrook was silent; Joe held the centre of the conversational stage.

Suddenly Mary Louise arose. "We must be going," she said. She paused, gave them all an uncertain smile, and then she started rapidly for the door. Old Mr. Mosby looked mildly surprised, then accepted the situation as one too complex for his muddled brain. And Joe, after a first flare of anger, followed her in silence, leaving Claybrook and Uncle Buzz to contest the honours after him.

They parted in the lobby; Mary Louise with a bright spot on either cheek and her lips set in their tightest line; Claybrook suave and genial; Uncle Buzz bewildered and in some way wistfully regretful. His watery blue eyes held in them an unanswered question that seemed too ponderous for utterance. Joe was silent.

He took her home, along the deserted streets as quickly as possible. For a long time neither spoke. Then it was some trivial amenity that she uttered to which he made even shorter reply. Up in the elevator they went, silently watching the floor. At the door of her apartment he inclined his head. "Good-night," he said, without offering to shake hands.

"What's the matter, Joe?" she asked, suddenly coming to herself and realizing the oversight.

"Not a thing," he said. "It's perfectly all right with me." He turned to go.

"Oh!" The exclamation was almost involuntary. She shrank back a little into the shadow. "It was a nice party."

He made no reply but acknowledged this with another slight inclination of the head. And then he started down the hall.

For a moment she stood and listened to the muffled sound of his footsteps upon the thick hall carpet, and then she softly closed the door.