Spike awoke and his breakfast tray was on the table beside his bed.
Then he was alive. Then he had slept. Then this was Saturday morning.
His chair stood on all four legs as if it were ready to spring at
him. The windows laughed. Spike looked at his chocolate pitcher. It
had a fat belly, stained with a brown dripping of chocolate and stood
jauntily, arm akimbo. Spike reached out and tenderly touched the
handle. Beside the blue saucer bearing _croissants_ was another bearing
two _brioches_, and beside this a letter Spike knew immediately was
from Waterville, Minn.
He tore open the envelope and found three green bills folded
square--thirty dollars--446 francs. His uncle wrote in lead pencil on
ruled paper torn from a ledger ... "been feeling a little poorly, but
am all right now. Very sorry for this delay but it could not be helped.
The two landscapes came and are hung up here in the store by the cash
register and everybody says how wonderful they are. Mrs. Twirlingkrautz
fell down and broke her wrist. Selma Olson has gone to Minneapolis to
bus. college...." Gossip of people in a little town that seemed far
away.
"I guess Paris is still proving pretty interesting and I guess you are
not spending too much time in drinking places like you shouldn't but
you should drink a big glass of real beer for me.... Everybody liked
your last letter especially the undersigned...." Bless his uncle! Spike
saw him standing before the tiers of cookie tins, his white apron tied
under his armpits, reading the letter from "gay Paree." He was good.
He never said, "Pretty soft for you, out looking at the big world,
while I am tied to this store in a hole of a town...." Waterville was
a hole of a town. Flecker half knew that now he would be a stranger in
Waterville. And his uncle, extracting big ten-dollar bills from his
scanty profits, sort of knew this too.
Spike went slowly downstairs, holding to the balustrade, feeling
wan, as if he had been very sick. In the _salon_ crowded with ragged
brown furniture there was no one. Spike picked up _Le Rire_ from the
plush-covered table and leafed through it without seeing a picture or
taking in a word. He looked round vaguely and slowly went out the front
door whistling a song his uncle liked. The words popped into his mind,
one by one, as he whistled:
Showers of blessings,
Showers of blessings we need--
Mercy drops round us are faw-waw-ling
But for thy blessings we plead!
Spike went slowly toward the Gardens. The day had a poignant clarity.
With their upraised arms the motionless tall trees asked nothing from
the clear sky. They stood in a gesture of ecstasy, complete, fearless,
hopeless, living in a growing memory. Spike did not find the word, but
in drawing he would have shown you tall, disillusioned trees.
"I feel," he exclaimed to himself, "as if I could paint like hell."
Not that he felt strong. A pale but exultant flame burned in him. He
walked slowly because it seemed he must be careful of his legs. He felt
innocent and frail, as if he had been born again, converted, cleansed,
or as if he had been extremely drunk.... For a long moment in the
deep dark of the night he had expected death. Now it was light. He was
alive. He even had 446 francs in his pocket!
He would go to the Dome and pay the good _patron_ the thirty francs he
owed him.