DAN.
Factory hours were over, and Dan Price issued from the heated place, his
old coat over his arm, and his neck bared to what little breeze there
was, as he turned his moist face in the direction of home. There was no
loitering among the boys, no waiting for any special girl.
Dan had no boon companions, no home ties, no courting to carry on. He
"kept company" with no one but himself. The one room he called home was
in one of the houses still untouched by the changes going on, a remnant
of the once ugly row, now largely broken into, but not wholly destroyed.
For, with that perversity of inanimate things which attends every large
enterprise to retard in every possible manner, through bad weather, the
non-arrival of needed materials, loss, breakage, accident, and the
"soldiering" of the workmen, many hindrances had arisen, and while
wonders had been accomplished much remained to be done. But what had
tried Joyce almost beyond endurance was to find that her greatest
opposition came from the people she was trying to benefit. Often she
found herself, through her builders, butting against a wall of human
perversity and stupidity fairly insurmountable.
More than one family, and these in the poorest homes, utterly refused to
allow of any improvements, resisting the entrance of the workmen, as if
this were an armed incursion of some enemy. In vain Dalton explained
that it was only to make them more comfortable, that it should not cost
them a penny, that the discomforts of a week, a month, would change
their barracks into modern homes. They sullenly defied him to interfere,
and would none of these "new-fangled notions" he tried to describe in
glowing terms.
"'Tain't fair, boss, and we ain't going to stand it!" shouted one man
from his door-step, rotting from the misdirected leakage of the roof.
"If we keep the rent paid up you've no right to disturb us in our own
homes. If we want changes, or improvements, we'll let you know quick
enough. Till we do just let us alone, can't ye? It's all we ask."
Even Dalton, between the Scylla of Joyce's determination and the
Charybdis of her people's perversity, sometimes lost his temper
entirely, and could do nothing but anathematize them for a "pesky set of
fools" right to their faces. So a part of the old buildings still
remained, and in Bachelor's Row, where the rooms were mostly let to men
without families, lived Dan, forlornest of all in the block. It seemed,
to-day, as if the bare, paintless shanties looked worse than ever, by
contrast with their improved surroundings, while an air of neglect and
disheartenment lingered about them, impalpable but as plainly perceived
as an odor. Naked, shutterless, porchless, and hot, they stood in the
blazing afternoon sunshine, as obtrusive as the wart on a man's nose,
and as ugly. When Dan's dark gaze was uplifted to them he scowled
fiercely, and muttered,
"Out of the frying-pan into the fire! I can never stand it inside,
to-night. Guess I'll take to the woods."
He stepped from the small front platform directly into a room which
smelled strongly of leather and tobacco, where two oldish men with
grizzled beards were sitting--one in an apron, cobbling shoes on the
bench by the one window; the other, evidently a caller, close by the
open door, reading something from a newspaper and gesticulating rather
wildly. A sardonic gleam flashed across Dan's handsome face as he passed
them with a nod, and disappeared in the room beyond. This was his own,
where he stinted himself in other ways that he might keep it unshared,
thus insuring the strict privacy he courted.
It was very small and its boards were bare, but he had saved space by
making himself a bunk, in lieu of a bed, which, hung on hinges, could be
hooked up out of the way when not in use. For the rest, a couple of
chairs, a chest of drawers, and a table with a little oil stove for
cooking purposes composed the meagre furnishings. But each bit of wall
space was occupied in a manner that astonished one at first glance, for
up to the height of four feet were shelves partly filled with books and
magazines, while above them, reaching to the ceiling, were fastened pine
cases protected by glass, in which were collections of butterflies and
beetles arranged in a manner that awoke admiration even in those who
knew nothing of entomology. But to-day the room was stifling, and even
the stiff beetles on their pins seemed to droop in the fierce glare of
the sunshine streaming in.
With an impatient "Whew-w!" Dan went hastily about, selecting such
things as he needed for his impromptu camp of a night, and soon was
ready; a blanket tightly rolled around net and tackle, and some food in
his dinner-pail.
Coming out into the yard through the rear door, he stepped under a rough
lean-to of a shed, and soon emerged with his wheel, which, being geared
to suit his peculiar form, made him look almost like a caricature when
mounted. He fastened his paraphernalia in place, steered it around in
front and was just mounting when the man with the newspaper issued from
the cobbler's room, talking loudly,
"I tell you, it's no good! Toil and moil every day from your first
breath to your last, and what good does it bring you? Independence?
Humph! You are as much a slave as any nigger bought for cash. Comfort? A
heap of that! You'd be better housed and fed in any county-house.
Respect? Get yourself charged with a crime and see whether it's any good
to have been an honest, hard-working man. I tell you----"
He stopped and Dan, who had buckled his last strap, looked up to see
why. He divined instantly, and that same sardonic smile passed over his
face once more. Mr. Dalton was approaching, and the speaker, but now
climbing the heights of oratory with the paper flourished like a
standard before him, shrank suddenly into himself and seemed to fall
away, as if he would annihilate himself if he could. Finding that
impossible he sank into his chair and began a vague remark about the
shoe his host was half-soling, all which the latter took as a
matter-of-course, not seeming to notice, even.
Dan pedaled away, laughing harshly.
"Fool!" he muttered. "One would think, to hear him, he was the only one
not a coward amongst us, when the truth is he's the biggest one of all.
Old Tonguey Murfree would cringe to the devil for ten cents worth of
patronage, and then cheat him out of half of it, if he could."
He made his wheel fly in a sort of frenzy of disgust, but the fresh
wind, sweeping his hot face like the besom of peace, soon drove away
this temporary chagrin, bringing to him the best comfort life gave in
those days--the gentle influence of Nature. For, just in proportion as
Dan shunned humanity he courted her, and though he felt her
relentlessness through every fibre of his suffering being, he felt her
charm as well, and could not quite resist it.
He rode fast and far, till the level road, through a turn or two,
brought him into a well-wooded tract where bluffs and willow clumps
suggested running streams. He left the road and, dismounting, guided his
wheel between projecting roots and stumps, down through a winding
cow-path which led to a lick below. Here, discarding shoes and stockings
he waded the stream, and entered a charming dell where nature had been
lavish of adornment. In fact, one might almost have thought time and
human ingenuity had assisted nature, for a wild grapevine was so linked
from bough to bough between two tall trees as to form a perfect bower,
and as if to protect the opening from intrusive onlookers, a sort of
_chevaux-de-frise_ of tall ferns waved their graceful banners up to meet
the drooping lengths of vine waving from the tree.
Toward this bower Dan bent accustomed steps, sliding his wheel into a
copse of young oaks that hid it completely, then parting the growing
ferns, as if he needed no guide to tell him just where the
well-concealed opening might be. As he, stooping, entered, the graceful
fronds sprang back to position, like sentinels who have separated an
instant to let the master pass, but quickly resume place to guard his
hidden presence well.
Inside, Dan glanced about and saw with pleased eyes the undisturbed,
familiar aspect of the spot. In one corner was a large heap of dry
leaves, which might have drifted there last Fall, but did not, and in
any case made an excellent bed for a camper. In another, an
innocent-looking tree-root projected from the earth. With a quick jerk
Dan dislodged it, showing an excavation below, which had been neatly
walled in with stones. Removing the largest one, at the bottom, he
disclosed a rough box sunken in the soil, from the compartments of which
he drew forth all the articles he needed for his simple supper--an old
coffee-pot, an alcohol lamp with its attendant rubber-corked bottle, a
frying-pan of small dimensions, a can of shaved bacon, salt, pepper, and
so on.
By this time a look of peace, yes, even a sort of tame joy, had replaced
Dan's gloomy expression, and one could see that, in a way, he was happy.
Getting out his fishing-rod from its enveloping blanket he presently
emerged, recrossed the stream, and soon could be seen pushing out into
the midst of it, poling an old punt up stream. Anchoring presently in a
small cove where the water was deep and cool, he sat in silent
watchfulness, occasionally jerking out a perch bass, sometimes a
pickerel, but for the most part so still he might have been the occupant
of a "painted boat upon a painted" stream. Yet all the time the soft
influences of the hour and place were weaving their spell about him. The
sun was now only a great half-round of red upon the horizon's line, and
way up to the zenith tiny clouds that were like sheep in a meadow caught
here and there its scarlet tinge. It was very still, yet all alive with
woodsy sounds. Now a belated cicada swung his rattle as if in a fright,
next a bull-frog, with hoarse kerchug! took a header for his evening
bath. Once, later on, when the shadows were falling, a sleepy thrush
settled upon a twig near by, and sang his good-night in sweetest tones.
About this time he heard a farm-boy calling anxiously through the
neighboring wood for the lost Sukey of the herd, and at times a dusty
rumble announced a wagon jolting homeward over the unseen road away to
his right. Dan's sense of satisfaction was possibly heightened by this
mingling of nearness and remoteness. He had all life at his ear, so to
speak, yet held it back by his will, as one might listen at the receiver
of a telephone and yet refuse to yield up one's own presence by opening
the lips in response. And here there was no "central" to cut him off,
though he held the situation long.
At last, in the soft dusk, which wrapped him like a mother's arms, he
poled noiselessly down stream, secured the punt, dressed his fish with
the dexterity of a practised woodsman, and washing them neatly in the
river, waded back to his camp. Again the root handle was lifted, the
alcohol lamp filled and lighted, and while the coffee boiled over that,
the fish, laid on the slices of bacon, were set to sizzle comfortably
over a tiny fire of sticks and leaves built in the stony hollow. Dan was
hungry and ate with keen relish. He had produced knife, fork and spoon
from his sunken cupboard, but his frying-pan served for both plate and
platter, and the cover of his dinner-pail for cup. The bread and
doughnuts he had brought from home helped out the repast, which had all
the relish and wholesomeness of the out-door meal which has been foraged
for by personal effort.
Oddly enough in these tobacco-ridden days, Dan did not smoke. When he
had neatly cleaned away the remnants of his feast and replaced root and
stone, he spread his blanket out under the stars, and tucking one
rolled-up corner under his head for a pillow, lay long into the night,
gazing up into the heavens which formed his only roof.
It was a moonlighted evening, and the fleecy clouds we have noted moved
in and out of her path in a stately dance, with winning grace, as
eastern Nautch girls might dance their way into the favor of a haughty
sheik.
Dan at first saw all, but reflected nothing of this beauty in his
thought. His animal nature satisfied, he craved nothing as yet. But
presently memory and remorse knocked for admittance--the twain were
seldom long banished. They sat like skeletons at every banquet. At a
bound thought flew back to that day when his brother had fallen before
his eyes.
Dan groaned as the awful vision loomed before him. He saw again the
trickling blood, the strange, astonished protest on that dying face,
with its eyes turned up to his. That was what he could not bear--that
Will should have believed he did it, even in carelessness. If the
unspoken reproach of that last minute could be removed Dan felt he would
be a free man once more. But that hung over him like a curse.
"I didn't do it, Will!" he moaned half aloud. "I wasn't even fooling
with the trigger, as you thought. If I'd been careless in that way--but
I wasn't. I never see a gun without thinking it may be loaded, and
though we both believed that one wasn't still I was careful. But it
caught either in your sleeve or mine--nobody will ever know, and it
killed you and left me to live on. Who did it, Will? It wasn't you; it
wasn't me. Was it the devil, or was it God himself? What is that awful
Something that makes things happen just when you're guarding against
'em? For that's what I was doing. I had just looked up to caution you
when you pressed so close, and then came the stroke!" He groaned again,
as if in physical pain, then presently went on in a moaning voice: "Oh,
Will, if you can hear me, believe me and not what other folks may say.
They all believe it was me, but that I was so crazy over it I couldn't
bear to own up; and the doctor bid them let me alone or I should go mad.
But Will, it is not true. You must hear me, wherever you are. _It is not
true!_"
He broke into a passion of sobs, and rolling over, muffled his face in
the blanket's folds. Even in that solitude some living being might hear,
and the thought that anyone should ever witness this agony of soul,
should ever lay the lightest touch upon that sacred wound, was torture
to him.
Poverty, orphanage, and physical weakness had always set him apart, but
while Will lived he had not greatly minded. He had kept in touch with
his world through its greatest favorite, that handsome, witty brother;
and it had been the same when Will was praised, or courted, as if it had
been himself. Death had torn from him the best part of himself, and as
if this loss were not cruel enough simply as a loss, it had left behind
the conviction that in dying that worshiped brother believed the one who
would gladly have died for him to be his slayer. No wonder Dan moaned
and writhed, incapable of comfort. He wonder he shunned everybody,
knowing what they believed of him.
No wonder he groped in black despair and could not yet look up, or
listen to the voices of consolation that might have come to him in
different moods.
It was night for Dan in more senses than one.