Panic seized him. "Say, don't drive back to-night, huh? Wherever it is
you've got to go. You ain't driving back to-night?"
She made no answer; parted the bushes, was out on the gravel path in the
sunlight, a slim, short-skirted, almost childish figure. He followed.
They crossed the bridge, left the island, reached the roadway almost in
silence. At the side of the road was a roadster. Its hood was the kind
that conceals power. Its lamps were two giant eyes rimmed in precious
metal. Its line spelled strength. Its body was foreign. Nick's
engine-wise eyes saw these things at a glance.
"That your car?"
"Yes."
"Gosh!"
She unlocked it, threw in the clutch, shifted, moved. "Say!" was wrung
from Nick helplessly. She waved at him. "Good-bye, Pan." He stared,
stricken. She was off swiftly, silently; flashed around a corner; was
hidden by the trees and shrubs.
He stood a moment. He felt bereaved, cheated. Then a little wave of
exaltation shook him. He wanted to talk to someone. "Gosh!" he said
again. He glanced at his wrist. Five-thirty. He guessed he'd go home.
He guessed he'd go home and get one of Ma's dinners. One of Ma's dinners
and talk to Ma. The Sixty-third Street car. He could make it and back in
plenty time.
Nick lived in that section of Chicago known as Englewood, which is not
so sylvan as it sounds, but appropriate enough for a faun. Not only
that; he lived in S. Green Street, Englewood. S. Green Street, near
Seventieth, is almost rural with its great elms and poplars, its frame
cottages, its back gardens. A neighbourhood of thrifty, foreign-born
fathers and mothers, many children, tree-lined streets badly paved. Nick
turned in at a two-story brown frame cottage. He went around to the
back. Ma was in the kitchen.
Nick's presence at the evening meal was an uncertain thing. Sometimes he
did not eat at home for a week, excepting only his hurried early
breakfast. He rarely spent an evening at home, and when he did used the
opportunity for making up lost sleep. Pa never got home from work until
after six. Nick liked his dinner early and hot. On his rare visits his
mother welcomed him like one of the Gracchi. Mother and son understood
each other wordlessly, having much in common. You would not have thought
it of her (forty-six bust, forty waist, measureless hips), but Ma was a
nymph at heart. Hence Nick.
"Hello, Ma!" She was slamming expertly about the kitchen.
"Hello, yourself," said Ma. Ma had a line of slang gleaned from her
numerous brood. It fell strangely from her lips. Ma had never quite lost
a tinge of foreign accent, though she had come to America when a girl. A
hearty, zestful woman, savouring life with gusto, undiminished by
child-bearing and hard work. "Eating home, Dewey?" She alone used his
given name.
"Yeh, but I gotta be back by seven-thirty. Got anything ready?"
"Dinner ain't, but I'll get you something. Plenty. Platter ham and eggs
and a quick fry. Cherry cobbler's done. I'll fix you some." (Cherry
cobbler is shortcake with a soul.)
He ate enormously at the kitchen table, she hovering over him.
"What's the news, Dewey?"
"Ain't none." He ate in silence. Then: "How old was you when you married
Pa?"
"Me? Say, I wasn't no more'n a kid. I gotta laugh when I think of it."
"What was Pa earning?"
She laughed a great hearty laugh, dipping a piece of bread sociably in
the ham fat on the platter as she stood by the table, just to bear him
company.
"Say, earn! If he'd of earned what you was earning now, we'd of thought
we was millionaires. Time Etty was born he was pulling down thirteen a
week, and we saved on it." She looked at him suddenly, sharply. "Why?"
"Oh, I was just wondering."
"Look what good money he's getting now! If I was you, I wouldn't stick
around no old garage for what they give you. You could get a good job in
the works with Pa; first thing you know you'd be pulling down big money.
You're smart like that with engines.... Takes a lot of money nowadays
for feller to get married."
"You _tell_ 'em," agreed Nick. He looked up at her, having finished
eating. His glance was almost tender. "How'd you come to marry Pa,
anyway? You and him's so different."
The nymph in Ma leaped to the surface and stayed there a moment,
sparkling, laughing, dimpling. "Oh, I dunno. I kept running away and he
kept running after. Like that."
He looked up again quickly at that. "Yeh. That's it. Fella don't like to
have no girl chasing him all the time. Say, he likes to do the chasing
himself. Ain't that the truth?"
"You _tell_ 'em!" agreed Ma. A great jovial laugh shook her.
Heavy-footed now, but light of heart.
Suddenly: "I'm thinking of going to night school. Learn something. I
don't know nothing."
"You do, too, Dewey!"
"Aw, wha'd I know? I never had enough schooling. Wished I had."
"Who's doings was it? You wouldn't stay. Wouldn't go no more than sixth
reader and quit. Nothing wouldn't get you to go."
He agreed gloomily. "I know it. I don't know what nothing is.
Uh--Arcadia--or--now--vitality or nothing."
"Oh, that comes easy," she encouraged him, "when you begin once."
He reached for her hand gratefully. "You're a swell cook, Ma." He had a
sudden burst of generosity, of tenderness. "Soon's the bus is fixed I'll
take you joy-riding over to the lake."
Ma always wore a boudoir cap of draggled lace and ribbon for motoring.
Nick almost never offered her a ride. She did not expect him to.
She pushed him playfully. "Go on! You got plenty young girls to take
riding, not your ma."
"Oh, girls!" he said, scornfully. Then in another tone: "Girls."
He was off. It was almost seven. Pa was late. He caught a car back to
Fifty-third Street. Elmer was lounging in the cool doorway of the
garage. Nick, in sheer exuberance of spirits, squared off, doubled his
fists, and danced about Elmer in a semicircle, working his arms as a
prizefighter does, warily. He jabbed at Elmer's jaw playfully.
"What you been doing," inquired that long-suffering gentleman, "makes
you feel so good? Where you been?"
"Oh, nowheres. Bumming round. Park."
He turned in the direction of the stairway. Elmer lounged after him.
"Oh, say, dame's been calling you for the last hour and a half. Like to
busted the phone. Makes me sick."
"Aw, Bauers."
"No, that wasn't the name. Name's Mary or Berry, or something like that.
A dozen times, I betcha. Says you was to call her as soon as you come
in. Drexel 47--wait a min't'--yeh--that's right--Drexel 473----"
"Swell chanst," said Nick. Suddenly his buoyancy was gone. His shoulders
drooped. His cigarette dangled limp. Disappointment curved his lips,
burdened his eyes. "_Swell_ chanst!"