_Sketches_
The phrase “a mere sketch,” which one often encounters, seems to
indicate that the sketch is an inferior and undesirable type of
writing. This expression probably reflects the greater popularity
of the short-story with its complete plot and wealth of action; the
sketch has, however, its own admirers, and is not under obligation
to contest the popularity of the short story. Its charm lies not in
action or in climax, but in the perfection with which it creates the
atmosphere of a place or presents the portrait of a person, and at
its best it produces an effect which is not easily forgotten.
It is true that the sketch has action, but not the action of a
logical succession of events leading inevitably to a definite climax.
Rather, the sketch leads the reader through the normal succession
of those hours or days of which we are so likely to say, “Nothing
happens,” though the life may be rich in values and full of color and
feeling. The action is leisurely, and the end of the sketch may leave
the characters in much the same situation in which the beginning
found them, but the reader has been enabled to enter into their lives
to such an extent that they can never again be strangers to him.
Stevenson’s “Lantern Bearers,” for example, is not told for the sake
of any single event, contains no story suitable for the cinema, but
by means of description and variety of incidents, it initiates the
reader into the circle of the boyish lantern bearers. Likewise, in
“Kermis Morning” there is no memorable occurrence, but a picture full
of color and life and people, a picture which makes you a breathing
spectator at the holiday celebration.
If you have an interest in places or people as well as in events,
choose one of your favorites, and invite the reader as a guest, not
in the hope that he may witness thrilling events, but rather that he
may know the reason for your delight, and share it with you.
In writing a sketch, the beginner may find the following suggestions
helpful:
1. Choose a subject which is permeated by human feeling: sorrow,
joy, love, devotion, or despair.
2. Avoid long introductions. Let the subject explain itself.
3. Remember that sense appeals, particularly the use of color and
sound, are of great help in giving atmosphere, without which you
cannot have a sketch.
F. del P.
THE LANTERN BEARERS
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
These boys congregated every autumn about a certain easterly
fisher-village, where they tasted in a high degree the glory of
existence. The place was created seemingly on purpose for the
diversion of young gentlemen. A street or two of houses, mostly red
and many of them tiled; a number of fine trees clustered about the
manse and the kirkyard, and turning the chief street into a shady
alley; many little gardens more than usually bright with flowers;
nets a-drying, and fisher-wives scolding in the backward parts; a
smell of fish, a genial smell of seaweed; whiffs of blowing sand at
the street-corners; shops with golf-balls and bottled lollipops;
another shop with penny pickwicks (that remarkable cigar) and the
_London Journal_, dear to me for its startling pictures, and a few
novels, dear for their suggestive names: such, as well as memory
serves me, were the ingredients of the town. These, you are to
conceive posted on a spit between two sandy bays, and sparsely
flanked with villas--enough for the boys to lodge in with their
subsidiary parents, not enough (not yet enough) to cocknify the
scene: a haven in the rocks in front: in front of that, a file
of gray islets: to the left, endless links and sand-wreaths, a
wilderness of hiding-holes, alive with popping rabbits and soaring
gulls: to the right, a range of seaweed crags, one rugged brow beyond
another; the ruins of a mighty and ancient fortress on the brink of
one; coves between--now charmed into sunshine quiet, now whistling
with wind and clamorous with bursting surges; the dens and sheltered
hollows redolent of thyme and southernwood, the air at the cliff’s
edge brisk and clean and pungent of the sea--in front of all, the
Bass Rock, tilted seaward like a doubtful bather, the surf ringing
it with white, the solan-geese hanging round its summit like a great
and glittering smoke. This choice piece of seaboard was sacred,
besides, to the wrecker; and the Bass, in the eye of fancy, still
flew the colors of King James; and in the ear of fancy the arches of
Tantallon still rang with horseshoe iron, and echoed to the commands
of Bell-the-Cat.
There was nothing to mar your days, if you were a boy summering in
that part, but the embarrassment of pleasure. You might golf if you
wanted; but I seem to have been better employed. You might secrete
yourself in the Lady’s Walk, a certain sunless dingle of elders,
all mossed over by the damp as green as grass, and dotted here and
there by the stream-side with roofless walls, the cold homes of
anchorites. To fit themselves for life, and with a special eye to
acquire the art of smoking, it was even common for the boys to harbor
there; and you might have seen a single penny pickwick, honestly
shared in lengths with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these
apprentices. Again, you might join our fishing-parties, where we sat
perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and
girl, angling over each other’s heads, to the much entanglement of
lines and loss of podleys and consequent shrill recrimination--shrill
as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have
done this often; but though fishing be a fine pastime, the podley is
scarce to be regarded as a dainty for the table; and it was a point
of honor that a boy should eat all that he had taken. Or again, you
might climb the Law, where the whale’s jawbone stood landmark in the
buzzing wind, and behold the face of many counties, and the smokes
and spires of many towns, and the sails of distant ships. You might
bathe, now in the flaws of fine weather, that we pathetically call
our summer, now in a gale of wind, with the sand scourging your bare
hide, your clothes thrashing abroad from underneath their guardian
stone, the froth of the great breakers casting you headlong ere it
had drowned your knees. Or you might explore the tidal rocks, above
all in the ebb of springs, when the very roots of the hills were for
the nonce discovered; following my leader from one group to another;
groping in slippery tangle for the wreck of ships, wading in pools
after the abominable creatures of the sea, and ever with an eye
cast backward on the march of the tide and the menaced line of your
retreat. And then you might go Crusoeing, a word that covers all
extempore eating in the open air; digging perhaps a house under the
margin of the links, kindling a fire of the sea-ware, and cooking
apples there--if they were truly apples, for I sometimes suppose the
merchant must have played us off with some inferior and quite local
fruit, capable of resolving, in the neighborhood of fire, into mere
sand and smoke and iodine; or perhaps pushing to Tantallon, you might
lunch on sandwiches and visions in the grassy court, while the wind
hummed in the crumbling turrets; or clambering along the coast, eat
geans (the worst, I must suppose, in Christendom) from an adventurous
gean-tree that had taken root under a cliff, where it was shaken with
an ague of east wind, and silvered after gales with salt, and grew so
foreign among its bleak surroundings that to eat of its produce was
an adventure in itself.
There are mingled some dismal memories with so many that were joyous.
Of the fisher-wife, for instance, who had cut her throat at Canty
Bay; and of how I ran with the other children to the top of the
Quadrant, and beheld a posse of silent people escorting a cart,
and on the cart, bound in a chair, her throat bandaged, and the
bandage all bloody--horror!--the fisher-wife herself, who continued
thenceforth to hagride my thoughts, and even to-day (as I recall the
scene) darkens daylight. She was lodged in the little old jail in the
chief street; but whether or no she died there, with a wise terror
of the worst, I never inquired. She had been tippling; it was but a
dingy tragedy, and it seems strange and hard that, after all these
years, the poor crazy sinner should be still pilloried on her cart
in the scrap-book of my memory. Nor shall I readily forget a certain
house in the Quadrant where a visitor died, and a dark old woman
continued to dwell alone with the dead body; nor how this old woman
conceived a hatred to myself and one of my cousins, and in the dread
hour of the dusk, as we were clambering on the garden-walls, opened a
window in that house of mortality and cursed us in a shrill voice and
with a marrowy choice of language. It was a pair of very colorless
urchins that fled down the lane from this remarkable experience! But
I recall with a more doubtful sentiment, compounded out of fear and
exultation, the coil of equinoctial tempests; trumpeting squalls,
scouring flaws of rain; the boats with their reefed lugsails scudding
for the harbor mouth, where danger lay, for it was hard to make
when the wind had any east in it; the wives clustered with blowing
shawls at the pier-head, where (if fate was against them) they might
see boat and husband and sons--their whole wealth and their whole
family--engulfed under their eyes; and (what I saw but once) a troop
of neighbors forcing such an unfortunate homeward, and she squalling
and battling in their midst, a figure scarcely human, a tragic Mænad.
These are things that I recall with interest; but what my memory
dwells upon the most, I have been all this while withholding. It was
a sport peculiar to the place, and indeed to a week or so of our two
months’ holiday there. Maybe it still flourishes in its native spot;
for boys and their pastimes are swayed by periodic forces inscrutable
to man; so that tops and marbles reappear in their due season,
regular like the sun and moon; and the harmless art of knucklebones
has seen the fall of the Roman empire and the rise of the United
States. It may still flourish in its native spot, but nowhere else,
I am persuaded; for I tried myself to introduce it on Tweedside, and
was defeated lamentably; its charm being quite local, like a country
wine that cannot be exported.
The idle manner of it was this:--
Toward the end of September, when school-time was drawing near and
the nights were already black, we would begin to sally from our
respective villas, each equipped with a tin bull’s-eye lantern. The
thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of
Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish
their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them
buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was
the rigor of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely
of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always
burn our fingers; their use was naught; the pleasure of them merely
fanciful; and yet a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat asked
for nothing more. The fishermen used lanterns about their boats, and
it was from them, I suppose, that we had got the hint; but theirs
were not bull’s-eyes, nor did we ever play at being fishermen. The
police carried them at their belts, and we had plainly copied them
in that; yet we did not pretend to be policemen. Burglars, indeed,
we may have had some haunting thoughts of; and we had certainly an
eye to past ages when lanterns were more common, and to certain
storybooks in which we had found them to figure very largely. But
take it for all in all, the pleasure of the thing was substantive;
and to be a boy with a bull’s-eye under his top-coat was good enough
for us.
When two of these asses met, there would be an anxious “Have you
got your lantern?” and a gratified “Yes!” That was the shibboleth,
and very needful too; for, as it was the rule to keep our glory
contained, none could recognize a lantern-bearer, unless (like the
pole-cat) by the smell. Four or five would sometimes climb into
the belly of a ten-man lugger, with nothing but the thwarts above
them--for the cabin was usually locked, or choose out some hollow
of the links where the wind might whistle overhead. There the
coats would be unbuttoned and the bull’s-eye discovered, and in
the checkering glimmer, under the huge windy hall of the night,
and cheered by a rich steam of toasting tinware, these fortunate
gentlemen would crouch together in the cold sand of the links or
on the scaly bilges of the fishing-boat, and delight themselves
with inappropriate talk. Woe is me that I may not give some
specimens--some of their foresights of life, or deep inquiries into
the rudiments of man and nature, these were so fiery and so innocent,
they were so richly silly, so romantically young. But the talk, at
any rate, was but a condiment; and these gatherings themselves only
accidents in the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of this
bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut,
the top-coat buttoned; not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your
footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in
the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool’s
heart, to know you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and
sing over the knowledge.
Robert Louis Stevenson, _The Lantern Bearers_.
By permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons, the
authorized publishers.
KERMIS MORNING
FELIX TIMMERMANS
The mist was still hanging among the bushes and over the water when
the bells of the churches began to ring.
When Pallieter saw what fine weather the day had brought, he threw
his cap into the air and went up to the belfry in the attic with a
smiling face. He threw open the wooden shutters and let in the white
daylight, dazzling at first to his eyes, and then he looked on to
the undulating breadth of fresh fields spread out beneath him. Then
he began to knock on the wooden handles; the wires tinkled, the wood
creaked and squeaked, but above rose the clang of the bells, clear as
crystal, into the pearly atmosphere. The joy of the bells vibrated
through his heart, and he sang with them lustily.
Out of the attic window he hung a new kermis flag, and the mild east
wind rippled out its colors. As soon as he had had his breakfast of
ham and eggs with Charlot, he strolled out of doors, smoking a good
cigar. Yesterday’s rain had been like a salve to the ground, and made
everything brighter, fresher, and more beautiful.
Pallieter had been walked off his legs with all the preparations for
the kermis; now he was as glad as a child to smell the quick scent of
the fields. He laughed till it re-echoed, drank some beer, and played
at bowls. When he came back he put the piebald horse into the covered
cart and drove to the station.
All the houses in the town had hung out flags, and the belfry of
St. Gommarus Church was playing national airs above the roofs where
pigeons were strutting. The sellers of balloons were already about
the streets, and not far off a barrel organ was grinding.
While Pallieter was away, Charlot was all in a worry with her
cooking. “Come what may,” she said at last, “but the Lord’s business
first.” And she nailed candle brackets on the front of the house with
tall candles in, and next to the front door she set a table covered
with a stiff white tablecloth, on which she placed the box with the
image of the Virgin, a crucifix of boxwood, and all the relics from
her own room.
“They’ll all want to see our Lord,” she said. And all round and among
these she placed glass vases of flowers, and old brass candlesticks
with candles with paper twisted round.
When she saw that all was in order she went back to the cooking.
There in the peacefulness the birds sang, the flag fluttered, and the
sun streamed through the leaves of the trees; it shone on the roses
and the brasswork, and made the gold-brocaded mantle of the Holy
Mother glitter.
Pallieter loaded up the women into the cart, and when he saw Marieke
his eyes grew big with surprise, and he said with a sigh:
“Oh, what a fine gel!”
The men came behind on foot.
Inside, the cart was like a bunch of bright-colored flowers. The
women all wore their heavy gold ornaments and the older ones had on
their fine lace caps, and over them a straw hat tied down with a
bright-colored ribbon.
They wore silk patterned shawls; some were deep red, purple, or
creamy-white ground, with crimson flowers on it. One woman had a
suckling child with her.
A quarter of an hour later they reached the Reinaert and were all
agog, chattering and shaking hands with Charlot. Then all at once
Marieke stood before her in a blue dress with white spots, fresh and
sweet as a wild flower.
“Oh, what a pretty maid you’ve grown!” she cried, “Oh, Marieke,
my dear!” And she kissed her again, and her tears splashed on to
Marieke’s face.
The men came up, ten of them, and Pallieter welcomed them all
indoors, where they began at once to drink beer, and to light their
pipes, and to talk about their land, their cattle, their children,
and the weather. Other things were as strange to them as what is
written in a book. They didn’t know or care about other things, yet
Pallieter always said, “A farmer with his wits about him is the right
sort of man!” Afterward they all went into the garden to wait for the
procession. They drifted into groups, and the silk kerchiefs mixed
prettily with the bright-green growing things. Some stayed to look
at the fountain spouting its highest and dripping down on the backs
of the quiet goldfish; others looked at the game fowls and all sorts
of poultry; and everyone was amazed at the magnificent tail of the
peacock.
The pipes glowed, the gilt images glittered, and all around lay the
world basking in the sun.
All at once some reed-like notes of music sounded through the garden.
It was Pallieter, who came along with Marieke, playing the oboe. When
they came to the fountain Marieke held the palm of her hand open to
catch the water drops, and Pallieter took the instrument from his
mouth and said to her.
“Now let me have a good look at ye!”
He dropped his hands on to her shoulders and looked at her from head
to foot. In her rosy-cheeked face shone two large brown eyes with
little black points in them, her lips, apple red, curved just under
the well shaped nose, and a dimple darted into her right cheek as she
laughed. The chin curved prettily above the milk-white dainty throat,
her young bosom was firm, and her hips well formed. Her hair was dark
brown, and she had soft, pretty little hands. She was pretty! Her
whole being breathed the breath of Mother Nature and the gay growth
of young things. There she stood, as natural as water, and her face
was an open book. The sun shone through the tips of her ears and made
them rosy, it lighted a halo in her hair, and Pallieter exclaimed:
“Ye need naught but wings!”
She laughed, and her white teeth gleamed, and she looked down at her
shoes.
Pallieter continued to look at her and his heart swelled with
longing, but she looked up again and said:
“Play another tune.”
So he began to play again and they walked away together.
Just then the ringing of many bells filled the air. Pallieter cried
out: “It’s here! It’s coming! Come on, folks!”
And everyone hurried to be standing at the door.
As they all moved round behind the decorated table Pallieter lighted
the candles and strewed the sandy road with flowers and paper
snippets.
From behind the quaint gables of the houses came the triumphal beat
of drums, a flourish, and then a slow, triumphal march on a brass
band.
“There ’tis!” cried the children and the townspeople who had come
to look. They crowded on to the grass between the high tree trunks,
so as to leave the sandy road free. The peasant women took their
paternoster out of their pockets and began to recite prayers.
And there came the procession through the wide gateway on to the
shady convent courtyard.
It was the tall sexton, Samdieke, who headed the procession, in his
red cassock and white surplice. The light shone on his smooth cranium
with a thin lock of black hair combed over it. He carried a tall thin
crucifix, and his eyes were bent on the ground.
On each side of him walked a little choir boy carrying a heavy silver
candlestick, with a lighted candle. The orphans of the Marolle
followed in three long rows; they were dressed neatly in black, above
which their faces looked pale, with their prim, straight-cut black
cape, and thin from sitting indoors. There were little tots not five
years old among them, who kept their eyes on the ground as piously
as the elder ones. There were many children of drunken fathers among
them. Behind them walked the severe-looking nuns in wide black
cloaks, and white caps with broad wings to them. They were all thin
and straight; only the Mother Superior was a short, plump figure.
Then came a stout farmer in a red cassock, carrying the blue velvet
banner of St. Begga. Then a dazzling company of young girls, little
children all in starched white frocks, with small flags and gilt
cornucopias filled with flowers, ears of corn, and sweet herbs.
Their faces shone with excitement, and they stepped along proudly
with their straight young legs in time with the music, and their
white skirts rustled about them like a sea.
The musicians were old men; they blew with all their might, and their
clothes smelled a bit musty.
Next followed four novices, in their white dresses, with sleeves that
were too long. Together they carried on a tray, that rested with
leather-covered supports on their shoulders, a blue-painted Madonna.
It had been washed ashore in the time of the Spaniards and was now
treated with honor, all the country round, for many long years. This
was the “Honeysweet Virgin from Holland, washed ashore here by the
waves and brought to our country.”
Then came all the women members of the congregation, old and young,
all reciting rapidly in undertones the response, “Ore pro nobis,” to
the harsh litany voice of a stalwart nun. They all had their prayer
books in their hands, and the blue ribbon with the medal round their
necks.
Charlot was among these, and she took up room enough for three, but
she did not even raise her eyes to look at Pallieter and Marieke and
her relations.
Little boys dressed in red and purple coats followed with staves and
lanterns.
Twelve nuns in white sheets were weighed down with the heavy silver
reliquary of St. Begga. Its golden rays shone like the sun.
And then, all dressed in white linen from head to foot, there
followed the orphans of St. Begga in long rows of five. They looked
like ghosts; they sang hymns in Latin, in their shrill, hungry young
voices.
Then a rustling movement of variegated silk and velvet banners,
clatter of silver and brass, and flashing of high-held lighted
lanterns and torches. Among these, with tall, shabby, white silk hats
and clean neckties, walked all the old almsmen from the convent, each
with a smoking torch of an arm’s thickness. The three blind men were
there, too.
After this, amid a dazzling glitter of sun-lighted gold, surrounded
by chanting and bell-ringing and sweet smell of incense, came the
Monstrance.
All the onlookers fell on their knees and folded their hands.
Four men in red held the canopy beneath which the priest in his gold
chasuble held up before his face the shining Monstrance with the Holy
Wafer.
His eyes were closed, his shiny bald head obtruded a little above the
high stiff cap, and his long white hair waved round his ears.
Visitors from other towns who had joined the procession followed
behind.
Slowly the procession wound its way under the luxuriant trees of the
ramparts. The sun shone on it all till the colors glittered. The
breeze flapped the flags and swayed the dresses. The band played,
the bells tinkled, the church bells clanged out the great festival
through the air.
Pallieter was so moved by all the simple show under which so great a
faith lay hidden, so touched, that a lump rose in his throat.
“Come!” he said. “Let’s all follow.”
And the peasants, with Marieke, joined the procession, and Pallieter
was last with a lighted candle in his hand.
The Monstrance went on glittering in the distance through the trees.
Two nightingales began to call to each other and the incense still
hung blue and fragrant under the boughs; an odor of sanctity hovered
over the earth.
There was not a soul to be seen in the quiet Sabbath fields.
The procession was over. Pallieter was walking about the ramparts
with the visitors and Charlot was busy cooking indoors. Suddenly from
the convent garden came the chatter and shouting of children, and out
of the gateway streamed a crowd of the white-muslin girls and the
purple-vested boys, dancing and jumping, carrying a parcel of sweets.
They trooped all together into the field, calling and laughing with
joy, and sucking sweets. There were about forty of them, all rustling
and flashing with color. They jumped over the brooks, chased one
another about, and gathered armfuls of flowers and rushes.
Then three nuns came out to scold them and send them off home, but
the children laughed at them and made a ring round them, dancing and
singing.
The nuns joined in directly, and seemed to enjoy the fun, and then
all the novices who were walking on the ramparts came down and joined
in the fun. The priest appeared and beckoned to them with his finger.
Pallieter went and stood behind him, and waved his arm to the nuns
to come and fetch the priest. They understood at once, and led him
into the crowd of merrymakers, whether he would or not. They made a
ring and danced round him, singing:
“Is the priest at home to-night?
I’d like to get my sins put right
Before the day is dawning!”
And the priest sang the answer with a shaky voice, beating time with
his forefinger:
“They say I’m poor as Job himself;
I’ve neither cent nor gear nor pelf.”
When Pallieter saw and heard this he caught hold of Marieke’s hand
and pulled her into the crowd, and they whirled round with the rest.
They sang and twirled, and feet stamped and skirts swung, and the
priest held his sides with laughing. Pallieter started another song,
threw his legs up as high as his head, and would not hear of stopping.
On the convent rampart, the country folks, the older nuns, and the
men from the almshouse all stood laughing and chuckling, and Charlot
at the kitchen window laughed till the tears ran down her face.
Felix Timmermans, _Pallieter_. Harper & Brothers.
By kind permission of the author, the translator,
C. B. Bodde, and the Publishers.
THE FORGER
GRACE E. POLK
It was spring, one of those gusty March days whose blasts,
reminiscent of winter, are succeeded by a mood so soft and wooing
that the senses ache with the swift prescience of growing things. It
was the sort of day that sends young lambs on shaky legs cavorting
over the meadows, and lures young boys out of their white beds, to
sleep in the open fields or any chicken-coop or ash-barrel. Such a
boy now walked along the street peddling handbills.
He was fourteen, and since his mother died the year before, he had
supported himself. Since, to do this, he must elude the truant
officers, he had become crafty. And since he had twice been caught by
them, and had gone without eating for two days before he discovered
that he could quite easily run away from school and lose himself in
the city, he had also become bitter. But he was neither crafty nor
bitter as he walked along, sniffing the spring, and shivering when
the bitterer gusts smote his small person.
So, with his eyes upon nothing at all, but alert as a young fox’s,
he perceived in the gutter a stamped envelope, saw that it was
addressed, and picked it up. Without examining it, he thrust it
quickly into his pocket, and then, with our ancient instinct for an
alibi, he began whistling jauntily, peddling his bills, meanwhile,
with an almost ferocious exactness. Two blocks away he halted before
an alley and looked quickly up and down: then scurried along it and
dodged into a doorway. Jerking the envelope from his pocket he tore
it open. A check for seventy-five dollars, drawn to Peter Googan,
confronted him.
The boy knew perfectly well what he had found. The year before,
in school, he had himself written dozens of checks, all the way
from twenty-five cents to a million and a half dollars; and this
stupendous capital, enough to float the war, with careless abandon he
had passed around to his companions, receiving I.O.U.’s in juvenile
penmanship and strictly legal phraseology.
But this check was different. He stared at it. It meant real
money--seventy-five real dollars. The gust died down; the thrill of
spring swept over him. He snatched off his hat and threw it into a
puddle. Then he leaned up against the brick wall, and across the back
of the check he wrote “Peter Googan.” He wrote it quickly and neatly.
The need of an accomplice now became immediate and imperative.
Another boy came up the alley. He was picking up cigarette stubs,
examining them with minute interest, and stuffing part of them into
his pocket.
“Swiggey, come here.”
Swiggey came, with the ready obedience that ten accords to fourteen.
“Take this to John’s grocery and get it cashed and bring me the
money.”
“Where did you get it?” asked Swiggey suspiciously.
“He gave it to me: he owes my father money.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself, then?”
“I got those bills to peddle. Can’t you see for yourself? Ah, gwan,
Swiggey. I’ll give you a dollar, if you will.”
“Give me half,” said Swiggey.
Without a word the young forger doubled up his fist and brought it up
swiftly toward Swiggey’s jaw. But Swiggey’s jaw was no longer where
it had been. Swiggey ducked under the oncoming fist, gave a couple
of leaps, and stood on the opposite side of the alley, poised like
Hermes, for immediate flight, if caution dictated.
But Swiggey was in no danger. With a look of scorn that was meant
to annihilate him altogether, the young forger folded up the check
and put it into his own pocket. Then he picked up his hand-bills
and walked leisurely out of the alley, whistling as he went.
Swiggey waited until he had turned the corner, then stuffed his last
cigarette stub into his blouse and trotted after him.
Once more on the street, the boy again began to distribute the bills,
this time, very honorably, one to a doorway. In this way, he worked
his way for two blocks, until he stood before a grocery. He lifted up
a basket of potatoes; with a sudden quick movement of his foot, he
kicked off another basket, threw his handbills into it, and replaced
the basket of potatoes. A man passing by smiled at the small cheat,
and the boy smiled back, the guileless smile of childhood. Then he
went into the store.
There was a crowd inside and no one paid any attention to him. But
the Fabian policy had long been his. He inspected the apples, the
various kinds of jawbreakers, also the cigarettes, with interest.
Presently a clerk came up to him.
He held out the check. “I want to pay Peter Googan’s bill.”
The clerk eyed him sharply.
He smiled his frank smile. “How much is Peter Googan’s bill?” he
asked.
“How much did he tell you?” said the clerk, inspecting the check.
“He said you’d know,” said the boy.
The clerk consulted the books, then handed the boy forty dollars.
The boy received the money and turned to confront Swiggey. Swiggey’s
face wore a grin, and Swiggey’s hand was out. A boy or a dog always
knows his friend. The boy knew that his eyes looked into the eyes of
an enemy, and a cunning one.
“If you snitch, I’ll kill you,” he said. “I’ve got a gun and I’ll
kill you dead.”
It was a threat for the waste places, but not for a crowded store.
Swiggey’s hand shut tight on the forger’s blouse.
“Dibs,” he said.
The other boy twisted his hand loose and brushed past him.
“He stole it,” Swiggey shrieked. “I seen him put the writing on it: I
seen him. Up Mack’s alley, by the pool-room. I seen him do it.”
But the accused was gone. A survey of the street revealed no
scurrying boy.
An hour later a policeman walked down to the front row of a movie
house and touched a boy on the shoulder. Bill Hart was just leaping
the chasm on his sported pinto. The boy did not move. The policeman
took hold of his arm and shook him.
He looked up. “I ain’t done nothing.” Then, behind the burly form he
saw the grinning face of Swiggey. “I’ll kill you, you dirty little
snitcher,” he said. And the sleepy afternoon audience was given a
mild diversion, not noted on the programme, as two small boys and a
policeman climbed the aisle.
Outside Swiggey watched the two go up the street toward the
courthouse. As they disappeared, from the pocket of his blouse he
drew a handfull of stubs, selected the longest, and lit it. And now,
he too, become a culprit, became suddenly fugitive and dived into an
alley.
Grace E. Polk. By kind permission of _The
Atlantic Monthly_ and of the author.
QUALITY
JOHN GALSWORTHY
I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my
father’s boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops
let into one, in a small by-street--now no more, but then most
fashionably placed in the West End.
That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign
upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family--merely his
own German name of Gessler Brothers; and in the window a few pairs
of boots. I remember that it always troubled me to account for those
unvarying boots in the window, for he made only what was ordered,
reaching nothing down, and it seemed so inconceivable that what he
made could ever have failed to fit. Had he bought them to put there?
That, too, seemed inconceivable. He would never have tolerated in
his house leather on which he had not worked himself. Besides,
they were too beautiful--the pair of pumps, so inexpressibly slim,
the patent leathers with cloth tops, making water come into one’s
mouth, the tall brown riding boots with marvellous sooty glow, as
if, though new, they had been worn a hundred years. Those pairs
could only have been made by one who saw before him the Soul of
Boot--so truly were they prototypes incarnating the very spirit of
all foot-gear. These thoughts, of course, came to me later, though
even when I was promoted to him, at the age of perhaps fourteen, some
inkling haunted me of the dignity of himself and brother. For to make
boots--such boots as he made--seemed to me then, and still seems to
me, mysterious and wonderful.
I remember well my shy remark, one day, while stretching out to him
my youthful foot:
“Isn’t it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?”
And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonic
redness of his beard: “Id is an Ardt!”
Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow
crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard, and neat folds
slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and his
guttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance,
and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of his
face, save that his eyes, which were grey-blue, had in them the
simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elder
brother was so very like him--though watery, paler in every way, with
a great industry--that sometimes in early days I was not quite sure
of him until the interview was over. Then I knew that it was he, if
the words, “I will ask my brudder,” had not been spoken; and that, if
they had, it was his elder brother.
When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow never ran
them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming to
go in there and stretch out one’s foot to that blue iron-spectacled
glance, owing him for more than--say--two pairs, just the comfortable
reassurance that one was still his client.
For it was not possible to go to him very often--his boots lasted
terribly, having something beyond the temporary--some, as it were,
essence of boot stitched into them.
One went in, not as into most shops, in the mood of: “Please serve
me, and let me go!” but restfully, as one enters a church; and,
sitting on the single wooden chair, waited--for there was never
anybody there. Soon, over the top edge of that sort of well--rather
dark, and smelling soothingly of leather--which formed the shop,
there would be seen his face, or that of his elder brother, peering
down. A guttural sound, and the tip-tap of bast slippers beating the
narrow wooden stairs, and he would stand before one without coat, a
little bent, in leather apron, with sleeves turned back, blinking--as
if awakened from some dream of boots, or like an owl surprised in
daylight and annoyed at this interruption.
And I would say: “How do you do, Mr. Gessler? Could you make me a
pair of Russia leather boots?”
Without a word he would leave me, retiring whence he came, or into
the other portion of the shop, and I would continue to rest in the
wooden chair, inhaling the incense of his trade. Soon he would come
back, holding in his thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown leather.
With eyes fixed on it, he would remark: “What a beautiful biece!”
When I, too, had admired it, he would speak again. “When do you wand
dem?” And I would answer: “Oh! As soon as you conveniently can.” And
he would say: “To-morrow fordnighd?” Or if he were his elder brother:
“I will ask my brudder!”
Then I would murmur: “Thank you! Good-morning, Mr. Gessler.”
“Goot-morning!” he would reply, still looking at the leather in his
hand. And as I moved to the door, I would hear the tip-tap of his
bast slippers restoring him, up the stairs, to his dream of boots.
But if it were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not yet made
me, then indeed he would observe ceremony--divesting me of my boot
and holding it long in his hand, looking at it with eyes at once
critical and loving, as if recalling the glow with which he had
created it, and rebuking the way in which one had disorganized this
masterpiece. Then, placing my foot on a piece of paper, he would two
or three times tickle the outer edges with a pencil and pass his
nervous fingers over my toes, feeling himself into the heart of my
requirements.
I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say to him: “Mr.
Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you know.”
He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting me to
withdraw or qualify the statement, then said:
“Id shouldn’d ’ave greaked.”
“It did, I’m afraid.”
“You goddem wed before dey found demselves?”
“I don’t think so.”
At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory of those boots,
and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave thing.
“Zend dem back!” he said; “I will look at dem.”
A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged up in me, so
well could I imagine the sorrowful long curiosity of regard which he
would bend on them.
“Zome boods,” he said slowly, “are bad from birdt. If I can do noding
wid dem, I dake dem off your bill.”
Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop in a pair of
boots bought in an emergency at some large firm’s. He took my order
without showing me any leather, and I could feel his eyes penetrating
the inferior integument of my boot. At last he said:
“Dose are nod my boods.”
The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even of contempt,
but there was in it something quiet that froze the blood. He put his
hand down and pressed a finger on the place where the left boot,
endeavouring to be fashionable, was not quite comfortable.
“Id ’urds you dere,” he said. “Dose big virms ’ave no self-respect.
Drash!” And then, as if something had given way within him, he spoke
long and bitterly. It was the only time I ever heard him discuss the
conditions and hardships of his trade.
“Dey get id all,” he said, “dey get id by adverdisement, nod by
work. Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our boods. Id gomes to
this--bresently I haf no work. Every year id gets less--you will
see.” And looking at his lined face I saw things I had never noticed
before, bitter things and bitter struggle--and what a lot of grey
hairs there seemed suddenly in his red beard!
As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the purchase
of those ill-omened boots. But his face and voice made so deep
impression that during the next few minutes I ordered many pairs.
Nemesis fell! They lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not able
conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years.
When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of the
two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also that
of a bootmaker--making, of course, for the Royal Family. The old
familiar boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled in the
single window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one little shop
was more scented and darker than ever. And it was longer than usual,
too, before a face peered down, the tip-tap of the bast slippers
began. At last he stood before me, and, gazing through those rusty
iron spectacles, said:
“Mr. ----, isn’d it?”
“Ah! Mr. Gessler,” I stammered, “but your boots are really _too_
good, you know! See, these are quite decent still!” And I stretched
out to him my foot. He looked at it.
“Yes,” he said, “beople do nod wand good boods, id seems.”
To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily remarked:
“What have you done to your shop?”
He answered quietly: “Id was too exbensif. Do you wand some boods?”
I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly
left. I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in his
mind, of a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much against him
as against his idea of boot. One does not, I suppose, care to feel
like that; for it was again many months before my next visit to his
shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: “Oh! well, I can’t leave
the old boy--so here goes! Perhaps it’ll be his elder brother!”
For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to reproach
me, even dumbly.
And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder
brother, handling a piece of leather.
“Well, Mr. Gessler,” I said, “how are you?”
He came close, and peered at me.
“I am breddy well,” he said slowly, “but my elder brudder is dead.”
And I saw that it was indeed himself--but how aged and wan! And never
before had I heard him mention his brother. Much shocked, I murmured:
“Oh! I am sorry!”
“Yes,” he answered, “he was a good man, he made a good bood; but he
is dead.” And he touched the top of his head, where the hair had
suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother,
to indicate, I suppose, the cause of death. “He could nod ged over
losing de oder shop. Do you wand any boods?” And he held up the
leather in his hand: “Id’s a beaudiful biece.”
I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they came--but they
were better than ever. One simply could not wear them out. And soon
after that I went abroad.
It was over a year before I was again in London. And the first shop
I went to was my old friend’s. I had left a man of sixty, I came
back to one of seventy-five, pinched and worn and tremulous, who
genuinely, this time, did not at first know me.
“Oh! Mr. Gessler,” I said, sick at heart; “how splendid your boots
are! See, I’ve been wearing this pair nearly all the time I’ve been
abroad; and they’re not half worn out, are they?”
He looked long at my boots--a pair of Russia leather, and his face
seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he said:
“Do dey vid you here? I ’ad drouble wid dat bair, I remember.”
I assured him that they had fitted beautifully.
“Do you wand any boods?” he said. “I can make dem quickly; id is a
slack dime.”
I answered: “Please, please! I want boots all round--every kind!”
“I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger.” And with
utter slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only once
looking up to say:
“Did I dell you my brudder was dead?”
To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to get
away.
I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening the
parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I tried
them on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in finish
and quality of leather, they were the best he had ever made me. And
in the mouth of one of the Town walking-boots I found his bill. The
amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a shock. He had
never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew down-stairs, and
wrote a cheque, and posted it at once with my own hand.
A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in
and tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came
to where his shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the
window, were the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops, the
sooty riding boots.
I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops--again made
into one--was a young man with an English face.
“Mr. Gessler in?” I said.
He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.
“No, sir,” he said, “no. But we can attend to anything with pleasure.
We’ve taken the shop over. You’ve seen our name, no doubt, next door.
We make for some very good people.”
“Yes, yes,” I said: “but Mr. Gessler?”
“Oh!” he answered; “dead.”
“Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday week.”
“Ah!” he said; “a shockin’ go. Poor old man starved ’imself.”
“Good God!”
“Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in
such a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn’t have a soul touch his
boots except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a time.
People won’t wait. He lost everybody. And there he’d sit, goin’ on
and on--I will say that for him--not a man in London made a better
boot! But look at the competition! He never advertised! Would ’ave
the best leather, too, and do it all ’imself. Well, there it is. What
could you expect with his ideas?”
“But starvation----!”
“That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin’ is--but I know myself he
was sittin’ over his boots day and night, to the very last. You see I
used to watch him. Never gave ’imself time to eat; never had a penny
in the house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived so long I
don’t know. He regular let his fire go out. He was a character. But
he made good boots.”
“Yes,” I said, “he made good boots.”
And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth to
know that I could hardly see.
John Galsworthy, _The Inn of Tranquillity_. By
permission of Charles Schribner’s Sons, the
authorized publishers.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SKETCHES
The editors have found these additional selections useful in teaching
the writing of sketches:
Audoux, Marguerite. _The Queen’s Barge; Foals._ _Everybody’s
Magazine_, August 1912, Vol. 27.
Belloc, Hilaire. _The Path to Rome._ Longmans Green & Company.
Daudet, Alphonse. _Aged Folk_, in _Modern Short Stories_, edited by
Margaret Ashmun. The Macmillan Company.
Gay, Robert M. _Stray Notes of a Somewhat Dogged Tendency. The
Atlantic Monthly_, June 1925.
Hearn, Lafcadio. _Chita._ Harper & Brothers.
Irving, Washington. _Christmas Sketches; Bracebridge Hall._