There were many days now, three months all told, in which Eugene
obtained insight into the workaday world such as he had not previously
had. It is true he had worked before in somewhat this fashion, but his
Chicago experience was without the broad philosophic insight which had
come to him since. Formerly the hierarchies of power in the universe and
on earth were inexplicable to him--all out of order; but here, where he
saw by degrees ignorant, almost animal intelligence, being directed by
greater, shrewder, and at times it seemed to him possibly malicious
intelligences--he was not quite sure about that--who were so strong that
the weaker ones must obey them, he began to imagine that in a rough way
life might possibly be ordered to the best advantage even under this
system. It was true that men quarreled here with each other as to who
should be allowed to lead. There was here as elsewhere great seeking for
the privileges and honors of direction and leadership in such petty
things as the proper piling of lumber, the planing of boards, the making
of desks and chairs, and men were grimly jealous of their talents and
abilities in these respects, but in the main it was the jealousy that
makes for ordered, intelligent control. All were striving to do the work
of intelligence, not of unintelligence. Their pride, however ignorant it
might be, was in the superior, not the inferior. They might complain of
their work, snarl at each other, snarl at their bosses, but after all it
was because they were not able or permitted to do the higher work and
carry out the orders of the higher mind. All were striving to do
something in a better way, a superior way, and to obtain the honors and
emoluments that come from doing anything in a superior way. If they were
not rewarded according to their estimate of their work there was wrath
and opposition and complaint and self-pity, but the work of the superior
intelligence was the thing which each in his blind, self-seeking way was
apparently trying to do.
Because he was not so far out of his troubles that he could be forgetful
of them, and because he was not at all certain that his talent to paint
was ever coming back to him, he was not as cheerful at times as he might
have been; but he managed to conceal it pretty well. This one thought
with its attendant ills of probable poverty and obscurity were terrible
to him. Time was slipping away and youth. But when he was not thinking
of this he was cheerful enough. Besides he had the ability to simulate
cheerfulness even when he did not feel it. Because he did not
permanently belong to this world of day labor and because his position
which had been given him as a favor was moderately secure, he felt
superior to everything about him. He did not wish to show this feeling
in any way--was very anxious as a matter of fact to conceal it, but his
sense of superiority and ultimate indifference to all these petty
details was an abiding thought with him. He went to and fro carrying a
basket of shavings, jesting with "the village smith," making friends
with "Big John," the engineer, with Joseph, Malachi Dempsey, little
Jimmy Sudds, in fact anyone and everyone who came near him who would be
friends. He took a pencil one day at the noon hour and made a sketch of
Harry Fornes, the blacksmith, his arm upraised at the anvil, his helper,
Jimmy Sudds, standing behind him, the fire glowing in the forge. Fornes,
who was standing beside him, looking over his shoulder, could scarcely
believe his eyes.
"Wotcha doin'?" he asked Eugene curiously, looking over his shoulder,
for it was at the blacksmith's table, in the sun of his window that he
was sitting, looking out at the water. Eugene had bought a lunch box and
was carrying with him daily a delectable lunch put up under
Mrs. Hibberdell's direction. He had eaten his noonday meal and was
idling, thinking over the beauty of the scene, his peculiar position,
the curiosities of this shop--anything and everything that came into his
head.
"Wait a minute," he said genially, for he and the smith were already as
thick as thieves.
The latter gazed interestedly and finally exclaimed:
"W'y that's me, ain't it?"
"Yep!" said Eugene.
"Wat are you goin' to do with that wen you get through with it?" asked
the latter avariciously.
"I'm going to give it to you, of course."
"Say, I'm much obliged fer that," replied the smith delightedly. "Gee,
the wife'll be tickled to see that. You're a artist, ain't cher? I
hearda them fellers. I never saw one. Gee, that's good, that looks just
like me, don't it?"
"Something," said Eugene quietly, still working.
The helper came in.
"Watcha' doin'?" he asked.
"He's drawin' a pitcher, ya rube, watchye suppose he's doin'," informed
the blacksmith authoritatively. "Don't git too close. He's gotta have
room."
"Aw, whose crowdin'?" asked the helper irritably. He realized at once
that his superior was trying to shove him in the background, this being
a momentous occasion. He did not propose that any such thing should
happen. The blacksmith glared at him irritably but the progress of the
art work was too exciting to permit of any immediate opportunities for
hostilities, so Jimmy was allowed to crowd close and see.
"Ho, ho! that's you, ain't it," he asked the smith curiously, indicating
with a grimy thumb the exact position of that dignitary on the drawing.
"Don't," said the latter, loftily--"sure! He's gotta have room."
"An' there's me. Ho! Ho! Gee, I look swell, don't I? Ho! ho!"
The little helper's tushes were showing joyously--a smile that extended
far about either side of his face. He was entirely unconscious of the
rebuke administered by the smith.
"If you're perfectly good, Jimmy," observed Eugene cheerfully still
working, "I may make a sketch of you, sometime!"
"Na! Will you? Go on! Say, hully chee. Dat'll be fine, won't it? Say,
ho! ho! De folks at home won't know me. I'd like to have a ting like
dat, say!"
Eugene smiled. The smith was regretful. This dividing of honors was not
quite all that it might be. Still his own picture was delightful. It
looked exactly like the shop. Eugene worked until the whistle blew and
the belts began to slap and the wheels to whirr. Then he got up.
"There you are, Fornes," he said. "Like it?"
"Gee, it's swell," said the latter and carried it to the locker. He took
it out after a bit though and hung it up over his bench on the wall
opposite his forge, for he wanted everyone to see. It was one of the
most significant events in his life. This sketch was the subject
immediately of a perfect storm of discussion. Eugene was an
artist--could draw pictures--that was a revelation in itself. Then this
picture was so life-like. It looked like Fornes and Sudds and the shop.
Everyone was interested. Everyone jealous. They could not understand how
God had favored the smith in this manner. Why hadn't Eugene sketched
them before he did him? Why didn't he immediately offer to sketch them
now? Big John came first, tipped off and piloted by Jimmy Sudds.
"Say!" he said his big round eyes popping with surprise. "There's some
class to that, what? That looks like you, Fornes. Jinged if it don't!
An' Suddsy! Bless me if there ain't Suddsy. Say, there you are, kid,
natural as life, damned if you ain't. That's fine. You oughta keep that,
smith."
"I intend to," said the latter proudly.
Big John went back to his engine room regretfully. Next came Joseph
Mews, his shoulders humped, his head bobbing like a duck, for he had
this habit of nodding when he walked.
"Say, wot d'ye thinka that?" he asked. "Ain't that fine. He kin drawr
jist as good as they do in them there magazines. I see them there things
in them, now an' then. Ain't that swell? Lookit Suddsy back in there.
Eh, Suddsy, you're in right, all right. I wisht he'd make a picture o'
us out there. We're just as good as you people. Wats the matter with us,
eh?"
"Oh, he ain't goin' to be bothered makin' pitchers of you mokes,"
replied the smith jestingly. "He only draws real ones. You want to
remember that, Mews. He's gotta have good people to make sketches of.
None o' your half-class plane-drivers and jig-saw operators."
"Is that so? Is that so?" replied Joseph contemptuously, his love of
humor spurred by the slight cast upon his ability. "Well if he was
lookin' for real ones he made a mistake wen he come here. They're all up
front. You don't want to forget that, smith. They don't live in no
blacksmith's shop as I ever seen it."
"Cut it out! Cut it out!" called little Sudds from a position of vantage
near the door. "Here comes the boss," and Joseph immediately pretended
to be going to the engine room for a drink. The smith blew up his fire
as though it were necessary to heat the iron he had laid in the coals.
Jack Stix came ambling by.
"Who did that?" he asked, stopping after a single general, glance and
looking at the sketch on the wall.
"Mr. Witla, the new man," replied the smith, reverently.
"Say, that's pretty good, ain't it?" the foreman replied pleasantly. "He
did that well. He must be an artist."
"I think he is," replied the smith, cautiously. He was always eager to
curry favor with the boss. He came near to his side and looked over his
arm. "He done it here today at noon in about a half an hour."
"Say, that's pretty good now," and the foreman went on his way,
thinking.
If Eugene could do that, why was he here? It must be his run down
condition, sure enough. And he must be the friend of someone high in
authority. He had better be civil. Hitherto he had stood in suspicious
awe of Eugene, not knowing what to make of him. He could not figure out
just why he was here--a spy possibly. Now he thought that he might be
mistaken.
"Don't let him work too hard," he told Bill and John. "He ain't any too
strong yet. He came up here for his health."
He was obeyed in this respect, for there was no gain-saying the wishes
of a foreman, but this open plea for consideration was the one thing if
any which could have weakened Eugene's popularity. The men did not like
the foreman. He would have been stronger at any time in the affections
of the men if the foreman had been less markedly considerate or against
him entirely.
******
The days which followed were restful enough though hard, for Eugene
found that the constant whirl of work which went on here, and of which
he had naturally to do his share, was beneficial to him. For the first
time in several years he slept soundly. He would don his suit of blue
overalls and jumper in the morning a few minutes before the whistle blew
at seven and from then on until noon, and from one o'clock until six he
would carry shavings, pile lumber for one or several of the men in the
yard, load or unload cars, help Big John stoke his boilers, or carry
chips and shavings from the second floor. He wore an old hat which he
had found in a closet at Mrs. Hibberdell's, a faded, crumpled memory of
a soft tan-colored sombrero which he punched jauntily to a peak and wore
over one ear. He had big new yellow gloves which he kept on his hands
all day, which were creased and frayed, but plenty good enough for this
shop and yard. He learned to handle lumber nicely, to pile with skill,
to "take" for Malachi Dempsey from the plane, to drive the jig-saw, and
other curious bits. He was tireless in his energy because he was weary
of thinking and hoped by sheer activity to beat down and overcome his
notion of artistic inability--to forget that he believed that he
couldn't paint and so be able to paint again. He had surprised himself
in these sketches he had made, for his first feeling under the old
regime would have been that he could not make them. Here, because the
men were so eager and he was so much applauded, he found it rather easy
and, strange to say, he thought they were good.
At the home of Mrs. Hibberdell at night he would lay off all his working
clothes before dinner, take a cold bath and don a new brown suit, which
because of the assurance of this position he had bought for eighteen
dollars, ready made. He found it hard to get off to buy anything, for
his pay ceased (fifteen cents an hour) the moment he left the shop. He
had put his pictures in storage in New York and could not get off (or at
least did not want to take the time off) to go and sell any. He found
that he could leave without question if he wanted no pay, but if he
wanted pay and had a good reason he could sometimes be excused. His
appearance about the house and yard after six-thirty in the evening and
on Sundays was attractive enough. He looked delicate, refined,
conservative, and, when not talking to someone, rather wistful. He was
lonely and restless, for he felt terribly out of it. This house was
lonely. As at Alexandria, before he met Frieda, he was wishing there
were some girls about. He wondered where Frieda was, what she was doing,
whether she had married. He hoped not. If life had only given him a girl
like Frieda--so young, so beautiful! He would sit and gaze at the water
after dark in the moonlight, for this was his one consolation--the
beauty of nature--thinking. How lovely it all was! How lovely life
was,--this village, the summer trees, the shop where he worked, the
water, Joseph, little Jimmy, Big John, the stars. If he could paint
again, if he could be in love again. In love! In love! Was there any
other sensation in the world like that of being in love?
A spring evening, say, some soft sweet odours blowing as they were
tonight, the dark trees bending down, or the twilight angelically
silver, hyacinth, orange, some soothing murmurs of the wind; some faint
chirping of the tree-toads or frogs and then your girl. Dear God! Could
anything be finer than that? Was anything else in life worth while? Your
girl, her soft young arms about your neck, her lips to yours in pure
love, her eyes speaking like twin pools of color here in the night.
So had it been only a little while ago with Frieda. So had it been once
with Angela. So long ago with Stella! Dear, sweet Stella, how nice she
was. And now here he was sick and lonely and married and Angela would be
coming back soon--and--He would get up frequently to shut out these
thoughts, and either read or walk or go to bed. But he was lonely,
almost irritably so. There was only one true place of comfort for Eugene
anywhere and that was in the spring time in love.