Читать книгу The Lay Anthony - Joseph Hergesheimer - Страница 5

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BAY STREET was thronged; the shops displayed broad, lighted windows filled with their various merchandise; in front of a produce store a row of chickens hung bare, bright blue and yellow, head down; from within came the grinding of a coffee machine, the acrid voices of women bargaining. The glass doors to the fire-engine house stood open, the machines glimmering behind a wide demilune of chairs holding a motley assemblage of men. Further along, from above, came the shuffle of dancing feet, the thin, wiry wail of violins. At the corners groups of youths congregated, obstructing the passerby, smirking and indulging in sudden, stridulous hursts of laughter.

The sky was infinitely remote, intensely, tenderly blue, the stars white as milk; from the immediately surrounding countryside came the scented breaths of early summer—the trailing sweetness of locust blooms, of hidden hedges of honeysuckle, of June roses, and all the pungent aroma of growing grasses, leaves, of fragile and momentary flowers.

Anthony made his way brusquely through the throng, nodding shortly to the countless salutations that marked his progress. The youths all knew him, and the majority of the men; women stopped in their sharp haggling to smile at him; garlands of girls gay in muslins “Mistered” him with pretty propriety, or followed him more boldly over their shoulders with inviting eyes.

He impatiently disregarded his facile popularity: the tumult within him settled into a dull, unreasoning anger against the universe at large. He still owed Doctor Allhop four dollars and seventy cents; he had told the Doctor that he would pay to-morrow; and he would have to go to his father. The latter was a rigorously just man, Anthony gladly recognized, the money would be instantly forthcoming; but he was not anxious to recall the deficiencies of his present position to his father just then. He had passed twenty, and—beyond his ability to cause a baseball to travel in certain unexpected tangents, and a limited comprehension of the conduct of automobiles—he was totally without assets, and without any light on the horizon.

He had been willing to work, he reminded himself resentfully, but bad luck had overtaken him at every turn. The venture before the machine shop—a scheme of squabs, the profits of which, calculated from an advertisement, soared with the birthrate of those prolific birds, had been ruined by rats. The few occasions when he had neglected to feed the pigeons, despite the frank and censorious opinion of the family, had had little or nothing to do with that misfortune. And, before that, his kennel of rabbit dogs had met with an untimely fate when a favorite bitch had gone mad, and a careful commonwealth had decreed the death of the others. If his mother could but be won from the negative she had placed upon baseball as a professional occupation, he might easily rise through the minor leagues to a prideful position in the ranks of the national pastime—“Lonnie This” was paid fourteen hundred yearly for his prowess with the leather sphere, “Hans That's” removal from one to another club had involved thousands of dollars.

He heard his name pronounced in a peremptory manner, and stopped to see the relative whose automobile had been placed in his care cross the street.

“What in the name of the Lord have you young dunces done to my car?” the older man demanded.

“We have been trying to locate that grinding,” Anthony told him in as conciliatory manner as he could assume.

“Well,” the other proceeded angrily, “you have ruined it this time; the gears slid around like a plate of ice cream.”

“It was nothing but a pile of junk when we took it,” Tony exploded; “why don't you loosen up and get a real car?”

“I took it to Feedler's. You can send me a bill to-morrow.”

“There will be no bill. I'm sorry you were not satisfied, Sam.”

“You are the most shiftless young dog in the county,” the other told him in kindlier tones; “why don't you take hold of something, Anthony?”

Anthony swung on his heel and abruptly departed. He had taken hold, he thought hotly, times without number, but everything broke in his grasp.

The stores on Bay Street grew more infrequent, the rank of monotonous brick dwellings closed up, family groups occupied the steps that led to the open doors. The crowd grew less, dwindling to a few aimless couples, solitary pedestrians. He soon stopped, before his home. Opposite the gaunt skeleton of a building operation rose blackly against the pale stars. The aged lindens above him, lushly leaved, cast an intenser gloom, filled with the warm, musty odor of the sluiced pavement, about the white marble steps. The hall, open before him, was a cavern of coolness; beyond, from the garden shut from the street by an intricate, rusting iron fence, he heard the deliberate tones of his sister Ellie. Evidently there was a visitor, and he entered the hall noiselessly, intent upon passing without notice to his room above. But Ellie had been watching for him, and called before he had reached the foot of the stairs.