To Look and Pass Page 6

  When we went home together it was already dark and moonless. Whippoorwills and katydids were shrilling in the trees; the stars were hot faint points above us. We could smell the burned odor of grass, the pungency of weeds and the warmth of the trees. Twigs cracked loudly under our cautious feet; once or twice a distant dog barked warningly. But beyond these was smothering silence.

  I heard Dan sigh in the darkness. We had not been speaking for some time. He sighed, and sighed again. Once I heard a faint sound as though he had struck a hard fist into the palm of his hand, and something that oddly resembled a groan. These sounds embarrassed and frightened me, after what I had seen in Sarah’s gay little parlor. I wanted to get away from Dan, away from his disquieting presence. After nearly a year I had very little to say to him, and even that little was held back by the disconcerting sight of his nakedness and the unmuffled sounds of his spirit.

  I pitied him, and loved him, yes; but I wanted to get away from him, resenting my own embarrassment and the cause of it. I did not see him alone again that summer, and only at a distance when I did see him.

  Chapter Six

  I liked my first year of college in Pittsburgh, and also my mother’s relatives, her sister and the latter’s husband, and my two young girl cousins. In June, when I began to think of returning home for the summer, Aunt Mary invited me to go with the family to Atlantic City until September. I wrote my parents for permission, and receiving it, went with my aunt and uncle and cousins on their vacation. It was unbearably hot in Atlantic City, but the saltwater bathing was splendid and exciting. I wrote home only twice during the summer. I had hoped to be able to run up to South Kenton before school started again, but found it impossible. So, it was nearly two years before I returned home. I had not been able to return for Christmas, either. Father’s parents were very old then, and had asked their son and his wife to go for Christmas to their home in Indiana; as Grandmother was very feeble and bedridden, and this would probably be her last Christmas, my parents went. It was too far for me to go, and my grandparents did not particularly care for young people. So I had a big box of things from home, and spent the holidays with my aunt. The second Christmas I developed scarlet fever and was quarantined in the dormitories with ten other victims.

  It seemed to me when I arrived home that South Kenton had shrunk amazingly. I thought it a sleepy Rip-Van-Winkle sort of place, with the low white houses under the sleeping trees, the sun ruddy and motionless on their boughs, the green shutters pulled silently in against the warm midday, the gardens blazing with hollyhocks and delphinium and pansies and phlox and roses behind trim white picket fences. Father had met me at the station with the buckboard, and as we drove under the trees in the thick hot silence, clouds of white dust rose about us, instantly turning to warm gold as they caught the sun. We met scarcely a soul on our way home through the slumberous streets, and so hypnotic was the tranquil and static air that I drowsed for a moment or two, and forgot all the questions I was going to ask. Time had disappeared, had become a telescope that had folded together, bringing two years ago to yesterday. Despite my shiny new bag, my stiff collar, and satin cravat, and low-crowned brown bowler, very cityish, I was a cub again, returning after a short visit to Ripley. Even my new polished boots looked grotesque to my eyes, as though I had put on my father’s. Only my new and very young mustache was fixed in the present.

  Father avoided Main Street; he disliked the very semblance of a crowd, though heaven knows, even the Saturday farm crowd was very modest in South Kenton. He told me that there were two other stores on Main Street now, special shops carrying men and women’s clothing, hats and boots. This was not so good, he said without regret, for Dan Hendricks.

  “Was poor old Billy very sick before he died?” I asked. For a moment I disliked my father. Though folks often spoke of the kindness in his bluff and bearded face, I always thought, with all due respect to him, that he had very cold and narrow eyes.

  “Yes. Pretty bad. I always did think he looked consumptive, and the way he was carried off in the spring with pneumonia made it positive for me. He had no resistance, no fight. Expect his lungs were riddled in the first place.”

  “Gosh, that’s bad, Father! And Dan slept in the same room with him, lived with him. Have you looked him over to see if he might have gotten it?”

  Father flashed me a derisive look. “Oh, you young fellows with your germ theories and folderols! I never did hold much to all that germ nonsense. I’m not saying there’s nothing to it, but it’s exaggerated. There’s other things besides germs. I believe, like better men than you new young squirts think you are, that consumption is due to bad blood and humors in the system, and inherited. I laughed when you wrote home about folks being able to take consumption from infected cow’s milk. Nothing wrong with our cows in this country. Folks are just born consumptive, and all your stuff about being able to cure it with fresh air and rest and good food and sunshine—” He shook his head humorously, and tugged at his beard. “When you’ve got the consumption, you’re finished. Like cancer or diabetes. You’ll never be able to do anything about ’em. Never. So, old Billy had it, I’m sure, though he didn’t cough that I heard. Always something funny about him, anyways. I always did think so, and was convinced when he died. He left your precious Dan Hendricks his store, three thousand dollars in the bank, and everything else he had. On one condition, and that was that Dan wouldn’t put a marker on Billy’s grave, not even a piddling little stone or a piece of wood. And that he wouldn’t bury him near other folks, but under a tree off in some corner. The grave was to be smoothed over, and covered with grass, no flowers mind you. Nothing to show there was a grave there. Folks were scandalized, especially Parson Bingham, who’s an ass, if you want my private opinion. Anyways, it was done like he asked. Dan saw to that. Folks were riled about it pretty bad, and for a couple of months hardly anyone went into the store. And now that there are two other stores, business ain’t going to be so good for your precious funny friend.” He chuckled.

  Dull anger began to rise in me. “What’ve you got, all of you, against poor old Dan?” I demanded hotly. “Everything he does is wrong. You won’t give him a chance. You hated his dad, and despised Dan when he was a kid, and now that he’s trying to make good, and do things right, you try to stamp him down. Why? Why, in God’s name?”

  “Whoa!” said my father. He chuckled again, but gave me a nasty look. “Don’t be so hot-headed, you young fool. There’s things you don’t understand about folks. I admit we don’t think much of your friend Dan. Why? I don’t know. I’m not interested in knowing. He’s just different from all of us, and we don’t like folks that’re different. Simple. We don’t need to explain to you or any other whippersnapper with a brand-new doctor’s bag and polished boots and city doctor ideas.”

  There was no use arguing with him. I knew that my father loved me, was proud of me in his obscure way, proud even of my new ideas. But I had never really loved him, and now I actively disliked him, felt a sickness against him and all the others like him in South Kenton. I can’t pretend I regret this; even fathers and sons can be antagonistic, naturally, and all the cluckings and head-shakings in the world won’t change it. But we never hated each other the way Sarah and Beatrice Faire came to hate each other. My father had ability, integrity and solidity, and he always had my respect if nothing else.

  My silence must have irritated my father. He gave me a side look. “When you take my place here, and before that when you’re working with me, don’t try to force folks to follow your ideas too quick,” he said warningly. “Folks move slow, like the tides and the stars. No use trying to rush them. You just muddle them all up. Circumstances sometimes move rapidly, but people don’t move rapidly. Slow, creeping, fumbling their way from point to point, learning slow and easy, and forgetting half they learn. You can’t rush things. Science always moves in spite of folks, not because of ’em. That’s why martyrs are always young; they rush in and start to shout and wave their arms, and kick
the old slow ways in the backside, to stir them up. And that’s why they get knocked on the head. Wise men try to feed things gently to folks, like putting peppermint and sugar into the castor oil you give children. They take it easylike, and first thing you know it works, without them knowing anything about it.

  “You can’t buck opinion openly. You won’t do any good championing your friend Dan. Folks hate him, suspect him. You won’t do any good. Him with his fiddle playing, and reading, and walking out in the country of nights to look at the stars! Humph.”

  I felt profound disgust, and even fear. The fear was like a premonition. I would not talk about Dan anymore to my father.

  “And how’s Livy, and Jack Rugby and old Mortimer, and Amelia Burnett, and Dave King and Willie Williams, and all the rest?”

  “Oh. Livy’s fine. Her ma dying made her take things hard. But she’s keeping house for her pa, now that the other girls’re married and living in Ripley. Fine girl, Livy.” He gave me a shrewd side glance again, but I kept my face stolid. “Lots of good common sense, though she’s a smart-talking piece when she feels like it. Talks too roundly, gets too excited. But time’ll heal that. She does her duty. Won’t marry, though Willie Williams, with his new law business with his pa, asked her a dozen times, they say, and Bob Cunningham’s been sparking her. Maybe she’s waiting for someone, eh?” He prodded me archly in the side. I still kept my face stolid, though I could feel it burn. “Dave King’s quite a young country gentleman now, seeing Endicott’s got senile. But Livy won’t look at him. Your ma says she’s bound to be an old maid, but I can see she’s pleased. She loves Livy like a daughter. And there’s Sarah Faire. Been feeling poorly this winter; I gave her some iron, but it’s her age. Funny thing about Sarah; she likes your Dan, always has the boy hanging around there. Must be trying to marry Bee off to him. She don’t show sense there, though I always did like Sarah, and thought she had a level head. Bee’s one fine girl, and as pretty as a picture and smart as paint. Funny she’s not popular with the young folks. Expect she’s too bright for ’em. Independent, too, though with a good tongue in her head and nice manners. After Livy, expect your ma’d like Bee for a daughter-in-law.”

  I turned my head aside. I felt a sudden loathing for everything and everyone. I wanted to see Dan more than I wanted to see my mother or anyone else. Father rambled on with his relishing account of the townsfolk. He became spiteful and contemptuous about the farming folk, as he always did. Once or twice he spat. Having been born and raised on a farm, he despised country life and country people.

  We had reached home now, and I went into the cool and shuttered dark of the house. Mother was delighted to see me. She was a cold woman naturally, and I do not recall any great manifestations of affection from her, but I know that I was the apple of her eye. She kissed me only three times a year, on my birthday and when I left home and when I returned. I thought she looked colder and paler and more upright than ever. But I was glad to see her. I felt a wave of happiness when I smelt the spicy odor of good cooking as it wafted in from the kitchen where the hired girl was sweltering over the stove. I whistled as I ran upstairs to my room with its smooth, white bed and sun-dappled curtains. Two years!

  My parents gave a party for me, and there was a great deal of coming and going. So I did not get to see Dan for nearly a week after I returned. Then, one night, I sneaked out of the house and got out my bicycle. The twilight was warm and full of the smell of dust and trees and flowers and approaching rain. It was very dim and moonless. My wheel made no sound in the thick dust of the streets, but I could hear distant voices from vine-covered porches, and the twanging of guitars. It was good to be home. I had no ambitions for wider and bigger places. South Kenton was where I wished to live and work and die.

  It’ll be a lifetime job to educate these people to sanitation and prevention of infections, and hygiene, I thought. No use looking for a bigger place. There’s all the work I can do right here. Better to save a few thoroughly than save a lot partially.

  I was still very romantic. I’m getting along in years now, and it’s only recently that I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t save people thoroughly or even partially. They always resist their saviors. Perhaps that’s a good thing, too. Eventually, I hope, all fools will be killed off by bacteria, which really have more sense, anyway.

  South Kenton had gas now, though it extended only to street lighting as yet. Several good wells had come in in the vicinity, and there was some talk of oil for awhile, but that talk petered out. The wells were good gas wells. A dim gaslight burned before Dan’s store. But the store was closed. People didn’t feel much like congregating in the warm evenings in front of Dan’s store, as they had done when Billy was alive. No, they tipped their chairs before the American House, and talked to Ed Ford, going in occasionally for a beer or such like. The two new stores were brightly lighted across the street, and there was also an ice cream store, full of giggling young folk. Business seemed to have grown up across the wide width of Main Street, and there was quite a coming and going of buggies and bicycles and people, and quite a lot of voices and laughter. But this side of the street was almost dark. Dan’s store was the only one on the block. Big old houses with shrouded porches and iron dogs and stags on well-tended lawns filled the rest of the street.

  I saw that Dan had neatly painted his store. But behind the dark panes of well-polished glass his wares—saddles and pails and mops and dishes and overalls and tubs and boots and rakes and shovels and what not—looked forlorn and unwanted and lonely. There was a ghostly and spectral look about the place. My heart literally ached as I saw this. I got off my bicycle and wheeled it around to the back. I could see a lozenge of yellow lamplight brightening the darkness, and could hear the muffled wailing of a violin. Poor Dan, young and strong, was yet deserted and avoided as though he had a plague. He should have been across there with the other young folks, laughing and eating ice cream, and joshing the girls. Yes, he had a plague, all right, the plague of a great mind. He was like a black and noble beast, strange and somehow wild, herded in with a flock of fat and comfortable cattle. There could never be any peace between him and them, never any meeting place, never a word passing that either could understand. I knew without proof that his store was never patronized when it could be avoided, and that any trade given him was given sourly and grudgingly. My angry melancholy increased as I leaned my wheel against the side of the house and knocked at the door.

  The violin wailed on, sad and mournful, sustained and powerful. He had not heard me. I listened for a long time. Though the music was indeed powerful, it was yet subdued and hushed, as though a mighty voice was speaking in meditative accents. I could not bear it; I felt foolish young tears stinging my eyes. It seemed to me that Dan was thinking on his instrument. I knocked again, louder. The music stopped. I heard the scraping of a chair as it was pushed back, the sound of slow footsteps, and the door opened. Dan stood in the doorway, peering out heavily, as though bemused.

  “It’s I—Jim Marcy, Dan,” I said. He stood aside without speaking, and I entered the room. I saw at once that it was a clean, poor room, sparsely and cheaply furnished, but somehow homelike with its globular oil lamp on a bare table which held only the lamp and a pile of books. The floor was scrubbed but carpetless. My eye was caught by a rack of pipes on the wall near the fireplace; old Billy’s pipes. Dan did not smoke yet. Somehow the sight of those cherished pipes still hanging there affected me tremendously. It was all that Dan had left of the man who had been his friend.

  I smiled heartily and turned to Dan. He was standing near the doorway, regarding me gravely, his violin still in his hands. He looked much older than his twenty-one years, and rather tired. His homely and beautiful face seemed less fitting to South Kenton than ever. His hair was still shaggy and dull, his eyes still somber and absent. He returned my smile forcedly.

  “How are you, Jim?” he asked quietly. When I offered my hand he hesitated for a moment and stared at it as though it were
a strange object. Then he shook hands. “Sit down, Jim. When did you get back?”

  “A couple of days ago. Say, Dan, you don’t seem very glad to see me!”

  He smiled slightly. “Sure, I’m glad. Take off your hat; sit down. I’ve got a pot of coffee on the stove in the kitchen, and some pie Sarah—Mrs. Faire—gave me yesterday. It’s good pie. Strawberry. Sit down there, and I’ll bring it in. I haven’t eaten any supper yet. I’ve got some good baked ham, too, and fresh biscuits. Mrs. Faire gave me them, too. I’ll only be a minute.”

  He put down his violin hastily and literally rushed out of the room. I sat down, uneasy. He had not known what to say to me at all. I hated myself because I had not written to him. I thought at first I would explain that I hadn’t written anyone except my parents and Livy, but that would make it too obvious. There are times when explanations only complicate things. I picked up one or two books and glanced at them. All classics, with old leather bindings, crumbling. There were strange names on the flyleaves, and old dates. Where on earth had he picked them up? He had read them, and handled them tenderly. There were many pasted leaves and repaired covers, and I saw that he had made a great many marginal notations in his fine small hand. I did not read the notes; I knew they were too private and it would be presumptuous. Somehow I felt that everything was very sad, and my anger made my mouth bitter.

  He called to me from the kitchen, asking me if I minded coming there. I went out. It was a dark, clean little hole with its ancient range and dimly burning oil lamp. He had covered the table with a turkey red cloth, and set out thick white ironware. But the coffee smelled very good, and the half pie oozed rich red juice and lucious berries. The ham was pink and white and stuck over with cloves, and the biscuits were hot. He had put out his best, a comb of honey and a lump of butter molded to the shape of a beehive. There was also a white pitcher of rich milk. I had eaten my supper, but everything looked very good, and I had a young appetite. My spirits rose. He ate with me with very good appetite, too, and soon we were talking and laughing.