Chapter I_The Shoulders of Atlas: A Novel

Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly

The Shoulders of Atlas

A Novel

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

Author of

"By the Light of the Soul" "The Debtor"

"Jerome" "A New England Nun" etc.

New York and London

Harper & Brothers Publishers

MCMVIII

Published June, 1908.

Chapter I

Henry Whitman was walking home from the shop in the April afternoon.

The spring was very early that year. The meadows were quite green,

and in the damp hollows the green assumed a violet tinge--sometimes

from violets themselves, sometimes from the shadows. The trees

already showed shadows as of a multitude of bird wings; the

peach-trees stood aloof in rosy nimbuses, and the cherry-trees were

faintly a-flutter with white through an intense gloss of gold-green.

Henry realized all the glory of it, but it filled him with a renewal

of the sad and bitter resentment, which was his usual mood, instead

of joy. He was past middle-age. He worked in a shoe-shop. He had

worked in a shoe-shop since he was a young man. There was nothing

else in store for him until he was turned out because of old age.

Then the future looked like a lurid sunset of misery. He earned

reasonably good wages for a man of his years, but prices were so high

that he was not able to save a cent. There had been unusual expenses

during the past ten years, too. His wife Sylvia had not been well,

and once he himself had been laid up six weeks with rheumatism. The

doctor charged two dollars for every visit, and the bill was not

quite settled yet.

Then the little house which had come to him from his father,

encumbered with a mortgage as is usual, had all at once seemed to

need repairs at every point. The roof had leaked like a sieve, two

windows had been blown in, the paint had turned a gray-black, the

gutters had been out of order. He had not quite settled the bill for

these repairs. He realized it always as an actual physical incubus

upon his slender, bowed shoulders. He came of a race who were

impatient of debt, and who regarded with proud disdain all gratuitous

benefits from their fellow-men. Henry always walked a long route from

the shop in order to avoid passing the houses of the doctor and the

carpenter whom he owed.

Once he had saved a little money; that was twenty-odd years before;

but he had invested it foolishly, and lost every cent. That

transaction he regarded with hatred, both of himself and of the

people who had advised him to risk and lose his hard-earned dollars.

The small sum which he had lost had come to assume colossal

proportions in his mind. He used, in his bitterest moments, to reckon

up on a scrap of paper what it might have amounted to, if it had been

put out at interest, by this time. He always came out a rich man, by

his calculations, if it had not been for that unwise investment. He

often told his wife Sylvia that they might have been rich people if

it had not been for that; that he would not have been tied to a

shoe-shop, nor she have been obliged to work so hard.

Sylvia took a boarder--the high-school principal, Horace Allen--and

she also made jellies and cakes, and baked bread for those in East

Westland who could afford to pay for such instead of doing the work

themselves. She was a delicate woman, and Henry knew that she worked

beyond her strength, and the knowledge filled him with impotent fury.

Since the union had come into play he did not have to work so many

hours in the shop, and he got the same pay, but he worked as hard,

because he himself cultivated his bit of land. He raised vegetables

for the table. He also made the place gay with flowers to please

Sylvia and himself. He had a stunted thirst for beauty.

In the winter he found plenty to do in the extra hours. He sawed wood

in his shed by the light of a lantern hung on a peg. He also did what

odd jobs he could for neighbors. He picked up a little extra money in

that way, but he worked very hard. Sometimes he told Sylvia that he

didn't know but he worked harder than he had done when the shop time

was longer. However, he had been one of the first to go, heart and

soul, with the union, and he had paid his dues ungrudgingly, even

with a fierce satisfaction, as if in some way the transaction made

him even with his millionaire employers. There were two of them, and

they owned houses which appeared like palaces in the eyes of Henry

and his kind. They owned automobiles, and Henry was aware of a

cursing sentiment when one whirred past him, trudging along, and

covered him with dust.

Sometimes it seemed to Henry as if an automobile was the last straw

for the poor man's back: those enormous cars, representing fortunes,

tyrannizing over the whole highway, frightening the poor old country

horses, and endangering the lives of all before them. Henry read with

delight every account of an automobile accident. "Served them right;

served them just right," he would say, with fairly a smack of his

lips.

Sylvia, who had caught a little of his rebellion, but was gentler,

would regard him with horror. "Why, Henry Whitman, that is a dreadful

wicked spirit!" she would say, and he would retort stubbornly that he

didn't care; that he had to pay a road tax for these people who would

just as soon run him down as not, if it wouldn't tip their old

machines over; for these maniacs who had gone speed-mad, and were

appropriating even the highways of the common people.

Henry had missed the high-school principal, who was away on his

spring vacation. He liked to talk with him, because he always had a

feeling that he had the best of the argument. Horace would take the

other side for a while, then leave the field, and light another

cigar, and let Henry have the last word, which, although it had a

bitter taste in his mouth, filled him with the satisfaction of

triumph. He loved Horace like a son, although he realized that the

young man properly belonged to the class which he hated, and that,

too, although he was manifestly poor and obliged to work for his

living. Henry was, in his heart of hearts, convinced that Horace

Allen, had he been rich, would have owned automobiles and spent hours

in the profitless work-play of the golf links. As it was, he played a

little after school-hours. How Henry hated golf! "I wish they had to

work," he would say, savagely, to Horace.

Horace would laugh, and say that he did work. "I know you do," Henry

would say, grudgingly, "and I suppose maybe a little exercise is good

for you; but those fellers from Alford who come over here don't have

to work, and as for Guy Lawson, the boss's son, he's a fool! He

couldn't earn his bread and butter to save his life, except on the

road digging like a common laborer. Playing golf! Playing! H'm!" Then

was the time for Horace's fresh cigar.

When Henry came in sight of the cottage where he lived he thought

with regret that Horace was not there. Being in a more pessimistic

mood than usual, he wished ardently for somebody to whom he could

pour out his heart. Sylvia was no satisfaction at such a time. If she

echoed him for a while, when she was more than usually worn with her

own work, she finally became alarmed, and took refuge in Scripture

quotations, and Henry was convinced that she offered up prayer for

him afterward, and that enraged him.

He struck into the narrow foot-path leading to the side door, the

foot-path which his unwilling and weary feet had helped to trace more

definitely for nearly forty years. The house was a small cottage of

the humblest New England type. It had a little cobbler's-shop, or

what had formerly been a cobbler's-shop, for an ell. Besides that,

there were three rooms on the ground-floor--the kitchen, the

sitting-room, and a little bedroom which Henry and Sylvia occupied.

Sylvia had cooking-stoves in both the old shop and the kitchen. The

kitchen stove was kept well polished, and seldom used for cooking,

except in cold weather. In warm weather the old shop served as

kitchen, and Sylvia, in deference to the high-school teacher, used to

set the table in the house.

When Henry neared the house he smelled cooking in the shop. He also

had a glimpse of a snowy table-cloth in the kitchen. He wondered,

with a throb of joy, if possibly Horace might have returned before

his vacation was over and Sylvia were setting the table in the other

room in his honor. He opened the door which led directly into the

shop. Sylvia, a pathetic, slim, elderly figure in rusty black, was

bending over the stove, frying flapjacks. "Has he come home?"

whispered Henry.

"No, it's Mr. Meeks. I asked him to stay to supper. I told him I

would make some flapjacks, and he acted tickled to death. He doesn't

get a decent thing to eat once in a dog's age. Hurry and get washed.

The flapjacks are about done, and I don't want them to get cold."

Henry's face, which had fallen a little when he learned that Horace

had not returned, still looked brighter than before. While Sidney

Meeks never let him have the last word, yet he was much better than

Sylvia as a safety-valve for pessimism. Meeks was as pessimistic in

his way as Henry, although he handled his pessimism, as he did

everything else, with diplomacy, and the other man had a secret

conviction that when he seemed to be on the opposite side yet he was

in reality pulling with the lawyer.

Sidney Meeks was older than Henry, and as unsuccessful as a country

lawyer can well be. He lived by himself; he had never married; and

the world, although he smiled at it facetiously, was not a pleasant

place in his eyes.

Henry, after he had washed himself at the sink in the shop, entered

the kitchen, where the table was set, and passed through to the

sitting-room, where the lawyer was. Sidney Meeks did not rise. He

extended one large, white hand affably. "How are you Henry?" said he,

giving the other man's lean, brown fingers a hard shake. "I dropped

in here on my way home from the post-office, and your wife tempted me

with flapjacks in a lordly dish, and I am about to eat."

"Glad to see you," returned Henry.

"You get home early, or it seems early, now the days are getting so

long," said Meeks, as Henry sat down opposite.

"Yes, it's early enough, but I don't get any more pay."

Meeks laughed. "Henry, you are the direct outcome of your day and

generation," said he. "Less time, and more pay for less time, is our

slogan."

"Well, why not?" returned Henry, surlily, still with a dawn of

delighted opposition in his thin, intelligent face. "Why not? Look at

the money that's spent all around us on other things that correspond.

What's an automobile but less time and more money, eh?"

Meeks laughed. "Give it up until after supper, Henry," he said, as

Sylvia's thin, sweet voice was heard from the next room.

"If you men don't stop talking and come right out, these flapjacks

will be spoiled!" she cried. The men arose and obeyed her call.

"There are compensations for everything," said Meeks, laughing, as he

settled down heavily into his chair. He was a large man. "Flapjacks

are compensations. Let us eat our compensations and be thankful.

That's my way of saying grace. You ought always to say grace, Henry,

when you have such a good cook as your wife is to get meals for you.

If you had to shift for yourself, the way I do, you'd feel that it

was a simple act of decency."

"I don't see much to say grace for," said Henry, with a disagreeable

sneer.

"Oh, Henry!" said Sylvia.

"For compensations in the form of flapjacks, with plenty of butter

and sugar and nutmeg," said Meeks. "These are fine, Mrs. Whitman."

"A good thick beefsteak at twenty-eight cents a pound, regulated by

the beef trust, would be more to my liking after a hard day's work,"

said Henry.

Sylvia exclaimed again, but she was not in reality disturbed. She was

quite well aware that her husband was enjoying himself after his own

peculiar fashion, and that, if he spoke the truth, the flapjacks were

more to his New England taste for supper than thick beefsteak.

"Well, wait until after supper, and maybe you will change your mind

about having something to say grace for," Meeks said, mysteriously.

The husband and wife stared at him. "What do you mean, Mr. Meeks?"

asked Sylvia, a little nervously. Something in the lawyer's manner

agitated her. She was not accustomed to mysteries. Life had not held

many for her, especially of late years.

Henry took another mouthful of flapjacks. "Well, if you can give me

any good reason for saying grace you will do more than the parson

ever has," he said.

"Oh, Henry!" said Sylvia.

"It's the truth," said Henry. "I've gone to meeting and heard how

thankful I ought to be for things I haven't got, and things I have

got that other folks haven't, and for forgiveness for breaking

commandments, when, so far as I can tell, commandments are about the

only things I've been able to keep without taxes--till I'm tired of

it."

"Wait till after supper," repeated the lawyer again, with smiling

mystery. He had a large, smooth face, with gray hair on the sides of

his head and none on top. He had good, placid features, and an easy

expression. He ate two platefuls of the flapjacks, then two pieces of

cake, and a large slice of custard pie! He was very fond of sweets.

After supper was over Henry and Meeks returned to the sitting-room,

and sat down beside the two front windows. It was a small, square

room furnished with Sylvia's chief household treasures. There was a

hair-cloth sofa, which she and Henry had always regarded as an

extravagance and had always viewed with awe. There were two rockers,

besides one easy-chair, covered with old-gold plush--also an

extravagance. There was a really beautiful old mahogany table with

carved base, of which neither Henry nor Sylvia thought much. Sylvia

meditated selling enough Calkin's soap to buy a new one, and stow

that away in Mr. Allen's room. Mr. Allen professed great admiration

for it, to her wonderment. There was also a fine, old, gold-framed

mirror, and some china vases on the mantel-shelf. Sylvia was rather

ashamed of them. Mrs. Jim Jones had a mirror which she had earned by

selling Calkin's soap, which Sylvia considered much handsomer. She

would have had ambitions in that direction also, but Henry was firm

in his resolve not to have the mirror displaced, nor the vases,

although Sylvia descanted upon the superior merits of some vases with

gilded pedestals which Mrs. Sam Elliot had in her parlor.

Meeks regarded the superb old table with appreciation as he sat in

the sitting-room after supper. "Fine old piece," he said.

Henry looked at it doubtfully. It had been in a woodshed of his

grandfather's house, when he was a boy, and he was not as confident

about that as he was about the mirror and vases, which had always

maintained their parlor estate.

"Sylvia don't think much of it," he said. "She's crazy to have one of

carved oak like one Mrs. Jim Jones has."

"Carved oak fiddlestick!" said Sidney Meeks. "It's a queer thing that

so much virtue and real fineness of character can exist in a woman

without the slightest trace of taste for art."

Henry looked resentful. "Sylvia has taste, as much taste as most

women," he said. "She simply doesn't like to see the same old things

around all the time, and I don't know as I blame her. The world has

grown since that table was made, there's no doubt about that. It

stands to reason furniture has improved, too."

"Glad there's something you see in a bright light, Henry."

"I must say that I like this new mission furniture, myself, pretty

well," said Henry, somewhat importantly.

"That's as old as the everlasting hills; but the old that's new is

the newest thing in all creation," said Meeks. "Sylvia is a foolish

woman if she parts with this magnificent old piece for any

reproduction made in job lots."

"Oh, she isn't going to part with it. Mr. Allen will like it in his

room. He thinks as much of it as you do."

"He's right, too," said Meeks. "There's carving for you; there's a

fine grain of wood."

"It's very hard to keep clean," said Sylvia, as she came in rubbing

her moist hands. "Now, that new Flemish oak is nothing at all to take

care of, Mrs. Jones says."

"This is worth taking care of," said Meeks. "Now, Sylvia, sit down. I

have something to tell you and Henry."

Sylvia sat down. Something in the lawyer's manner aroused hers and

her husband's keenest attention. They looked at him and waited. Both

were slightly pale. Sylvia was a delicate little woman, and Henry was

large-framed and tall, but a similar experience had worn similar

lines in both faces. They looked singularly alike.

Sidney Meeks had the dramatic instinct. He waited for the silence to

gather to its utmost intensity before he spoke. "I had something to

tell you when I came in," he said, "but I thought I had better wait

till after supper."

He paused. There was another silence. Henry's and Sylvia's eyes

seemed to wax luminous.

Sidney Meeks spoke again. He was enjoying himself immensely. "What

relation is Abrahama White to you?" he said.

"She is second cousin to Sylvia. Her mother was Sylvia's mother's

cousin," said Henry. "What of it?"

"Nothing, except--" Meeks waited again. He wished to make a coup. He

had an instinct for climaxes. "Abrahama had a shock this morning," he

said, suddenly.

"A shock?" said Henry.

Sylvia echoed him. "A shock!" she gasped.

"Yes, I thought you hadn't heard of it."

"I've been in the house all day," said Sylvia. "I hadn't seen a soul

before you came in." She rose. "Who's taking care of her?" she asked.

"She ain't all alone?"

"Sit down," said Sidney. "She's well cared for. Miss Babcock is

there. She happened to be out of a place, and Dr. Wallace got her

right away."

"Is she going to get over it?" asked Sylvia, anxiously. "I must go

over there, anyway, this evening. I always thought a good deal of

Abrahama."

"You might as well go over there," said the lawyer. "It isn't quite

the thing for me to tell you, but I'm going to. If Henry here can eat

flapjacks like those you make, Sylvia, and not say grace, his state

of mind is dangerous. I am going to tell you. Dr. Wallace says

Abrahama can't live more than a day or two, and--she has made a will

and left you all her property."