WILD OATS
By the same author:
“DR. RAST”
“MONDAY MORNING AND OTHER POEMS”
WILD OATS
By JAMES OPPENHEIM
With a Foreword by
EDWARD BOK
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
1910
COPYRIGHT 1910 BY
B. W. HUEBSCH
_All rights reserved_
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Spring on East Broadway 1
II. The Mother 21
III. The First Night 35
IV. The Second Night 61
V. Spring Music 89
VI. Mr. Grupp Interrupts 96
VII. The Golden-Haired One 113
VIII. Twilight 125
IX. Night 154
X. Morning Again 160
XI. On the Bridge 165
XII. The Three Rooms 174
XIII. Wild Oats 182
XIV. The Whirlwind 203
XV. Sunrise 216
XVI. The Passing Seasons 230
XVII. Indian Summer 241
XVIII. The Harvest 245
A FOREWORD
This story by Mr. Oppenheim comes, perhaps, at the psychological moment
to tell--let me hope to thousands--in the form of fiction what we
must very soon face as an actual living question to be squarely met
and dealt with. For the old saying that “the truth is stranger than
fiction” is peculiarly true of this story. The fearful truth that lies
back of this narrative cannot much longer remain in the background
of the public conscience. We are slowly but surely awakening, in
part, to a realizing sense that somewhere in the social body there
is a festering sore that needs the surgery and cleansing process of
the light of public discussion and extermination at the hands of
decent people. It is not meeting the question to contend that it is
not a “nice subject” or a “polite topic”: neither did the ravages of
tuberculosis make pleasant reading. And the evil of “The Great White
Plague” is comparatively as naught with the greater and more insidious
evil that is being wrought by “The Great Black Plague,” with its
fearful results on innocent children. Mr. Oppenheim, with due reserve,
gives a glimpse, and it is but a glimpse, of the burden we are laying
upon the next generation by blinding not alone our own eyes to the
death-dealing evil that lies at our very door, but the actual and
pitiable blinding of the unborn and the newly-born.
It may be that the work of arousing the public conscience on the great
evils that threaten the very foundations of our social structure, is in
the hands of the fictionist. This has unquestionably been true in the
past. If it be true of the present evil, may this story speak its great
and vibrant message in clarion tones.
EDWARD BOK.
Philadelphia,
1910.
Wild Oats
CHAPTER I
SPRING ON EAST BROADWAY
Spring on East Broadway. The air is winey, the heavens are radiant
blue and full of fire. A sparrow chirps on the window-sill, fluttering
before the milk-glass sign: “Doctor Rast.” Down toward the East the wet
pavement is golden with sun, and through the splendor wades an ancient
people on their way to work. For it is early morning; early April;
the waters of river and bay flash about that shining floating city of
towers; and, though the great Earth is buried beneath paving stone and
brick and steel and granite, her mighty yearning exhales through the
cool white air, and four million human beings are dazzled and smelted
in the fires of Spring.
The big dark Doctor was shaving before a tiny wall-mirror over the
kitchen wash tub. He was in shirt and trousers, and his face was white
with lather. Nell had the oatmeal cooking on the hot stove, and glided
here and there singing snatches of song. Her eager olive-tinted face
was flushed, her brown eyes afire. The little boy David, now nearly
three, tugged at her skirts.
“Mother! Mother! Mother!”
She swung him up in her arms and laughed in his beautiful face; for he
was a rosy new boy-god, straight and breathing health, overrunning with
virility.
“Well!” she shook him. “Well, Blinkers!”
“I’m not Blinkers--I’m Davy,” he said indignantly.
“You’re Blinkers!” she shook him again.
“I’m not--_you’re_ Blinkers!”
“Then give me a kiss.”
“No--I can’t love you.”
“Whom do you love?”
“Daddy!”
The Doctor danced up and down with joy.
“Mother,” he cried, “the boy has genius!”
“No, I haven’t,” said Davy, “I’ve got a new nose.”
The Mother and Father laughed, and looked at each other.
“Where?” Nell gave him a squeeze.
“Here!” he delicately touched his nose with one finger.
“And where did you get it?”
“I bought it.”
“Where?”
“I bought it in the store.”
“With what?” cried the Doctor.
“A dollar,” said Davy calmly.
“And who gave you a dollar, you rascal?”
“Mother gave me a dollar.” The little imagination was set at work, and
the little lips poured a wild stream of words, a breathless recitation:
“I got a dollar and I went to the store and I said give me a new nose,
and I gave the man a dollar and he gave me a nose. Isn’t that funny?
And then I went to another store, and what do you think happened?”
“What?” cried his parents.
Three times he told his story, winding up, “Isn’t that funny? And then
I went to another store, and what do you think happened?”
Nell and the Doctor laughed till the tears came, for they were the
Mother and the Father and only they shared the secret of the miracle.
Then Nell put the boy down, and while he capered with excitement, put
a wooden bowl on a chair, filled it with cut vegetables, and gave him
a chopper. He set to work with a will, chopping the vegetables, a tiny
mite laboring like a man. He looked up.
“I’m a helper, Mother, I’m a helper!”
Nell whispered to the Doctor:
“Just watch!”
And they put their arms round each other, and leaned close, smiling:
“Look,” said Nell, “he does it just as I do--scrapes round the side
and chops in toward the center. Isn’t it wonderful?”
The Doctor sighed:
“And to think that he came to the world through us! That we had a hand
in creating him! Pretty good work, Nell!”
The little fellow ran to the cupboard, obtained imaginary salt with
his hand, and hurried back to sprinkle his hash. He could not contain
himself for joy. He turned to his mother and cried in a wild treble
music:
“Oh, I love you so much, I don’t know what to do!”
The Doctor shouted; the young Mother snatched up her baby and hugged
him to her heart.
Truly it was Springtime; joy was in the air, and new life; and the
Earth had her way with the stone city. That little kitchen, with its
shafts of bright light through the window, sang like a clearing in a
wilderness. And even as the Earth enfolded with love and tenderness her
young buds, her song-stricken birds, her singing waters, even so this
man and woman enfolded their living child.
“He is like a little bird,” said the Doctor, “so full of song; so
fresh; so sweet. And like a little blossom.”
He went on and finished his dressing, and the boy toiled and sang
aloud, and the Mother prepared breakfast. Then the Doctor touched Nell
on her shoulder.
“Shall I tell you a secret, Mother?”
“Yes. What is it?”
He seized both her arms and looked in her face.
“Spring is here!”
They smiled at one another.
“What does it remind you of?” he went on.
“Us.”
And then she whispered:
“I’m always full of yearning in the Spring. Remember the nights we used
to walk together?”
“Moonlight nights!”
“Oh, I wish we were in love again!”
He smiled and drew her close.
“Let’s be, then,” he whispered. “Let’s have the old enchantment
again--the old witchery. A kiss in secret--a walk through deserted
streets--a quarrel--romance!”
“And let’s elope!” she cried.
“Yes,” he said with a grin, “but we’ll be original, sweetheart. We’ll
take the boy with us!”
Whereupon they laughed, and the scene turned human again, and they sat
and ate a hearty breakfast, and were glad that life was so full of
commonplaces. For what more can a man ask than to eat breakfast with
his wife and his son on a Spring morning?
Then, after breakfast, the Doctor felt too happy to work, so Davy
was shoved into a coat and hat, and his father took him out into the
street, and they went wandering together. The first breath of that cool
pure air, the first sight of golden pave and clear blue sky, the first
thrill of sun, changed the Doctor into a young boy. He and Davy babbled
together like closest chums.
Many passing nodded to the Doctor. Old women in wigs and shawls,
old men bearded and wrinkled, mothers leading children, young
men on the way to work, cheerily spoke a good morning and passed.
The old-fashioned red street, with a horse-car passing, with the
Educational Alliance lifting yellow opposite and a crowd of children
lined up at the door, was beautiful to the Doctor. Every step was
rich with associations, bloody almost with the life of the past. For
the Doctor had been working in the Ghetto for years now; he had come
down with his young wife to serve his own people--serve them not with
drug and knife alone, but rather with understanding, with wisdom and
with love. And so his name had gone out to thousands, his face in the
doorway made the sick strong, his counsel was sought in matters of
birth and of life and death. He was the best-loved man in the East Side.
And so, as he and Davy babbled together through the joyous morning, he
was greeted by many as they passed. Suddenly a young voice cried:
“Good morning!”
The Doctor looked up. It was Edith Kroll, a girl of seventeen--young
as the morning. A faint flush was in her fresh cheeks, her blue eyes
were full of soft light, her light-brown hair went out in strands that
fluttered in the stirring air. She was graceful, slim, exquisite, her
little blue hat contrasting with the blue of her eyes. As she cried
“good morning” her face was lit with soft laughter, and she leaned
quickly and kissed Davy on the cheek.
Davy shrieked: “Don’t do that!”
The Doctor laughed, and took her little cool hand in both of his.
“Well! Edith!” he cried. “Nun ya, how goes it?”
The girl’s cheeks burned, and she looked down shyly.
“Oh,” she said hastily, and withdrew her hand, “I was just going to
stop in a moment.”
His voice took on concern.
“Is anything the matter?”
“Nothing much,” she murmured, “Mother isn’t so well again. Do you want
to go and see her?”
“Surely!” he said heartily, and snatched at Davy who was bound for the
gutter.
“Well,” he went on, “how are you?”
“Oh, I’m all right.”
“And the job?”
“It’s good.” She looked up, smiling, “I got a raise last month.”
“A raise!” he whistled, “why, splendid!”
“I’m getting twelve a week now.”
He spoke tenderly:
“Edith, I’m glad. But I’m not surprised. All my girls are wonders!”
She flushed hotter with the praise, and her eyes shone as she looked
down on the pavement and played with her hands.
The Doctor smiled softly:
“How you’ve changed, how you’ve grown! Tut, I’m getting to be an old
man.”
She looked up sharply:
“No, you’re not!”
He groaned.
“But are you sure?”
“Yes,” she cried “sure.”
He murmured absently:
“I just wonder if Edith is in love.”
She seemed startled and surprised:
“No! never!” she spoke vehemently “I’m never going to marry.”
“Never?”
“Why should I?”
Again he spoke absently, his lips twitching with smiles:
“Davy, it’s a habit girls have, isn’t it? Wait, till she meets the
right man, eh, Davy?”
Davy laughed knowingly, though he had to force himself to do it, and
the sound resembled a cackle.
“See?” triumphed the Doctor.
But Edith only darted down and kissed the young fellow, cried a
“good-by,” and ran off laughing. The Doctor watched her lovingly as she
swung down the block and round the corner, a graceful young girl, light
on her feet as a faun, dancing over the April earth like a flame in the
blue morning.
She hurried through the playground park. Just a hint of fresh green
tipped the boughs of the glistening trees, and here and there in the
branches blackbirds loosed their dark raucous cries; sparrows crowded
the walk where an old man was scattering bread crumbs; and troops of
little children, laughing, chattering, walked and ran toward the big
white public school. They seemed like human sparrows, or, rather,
blackbirds and redbirds, overrunning with laughter and song. Higher
rose the sun over the swarming city; the air was white haunted with
gold; the heavens seemed to dream and yearn, they were so blue, and
steeped in these mysterious fires the heart of the young girl seemed to
empty with yearning. What she wanted she hardly knew. Was it to leave
the city, and go out beyond the horizon into some enchanted wilderness?
Did she long to sit at the side of some wild water and brood and dream?
Or did she want people? Did she crave human words, human touch, human
faces? No, she wanted something wilder, sweeter. How could she know
that she was in the throes of adolescence, that she was awaking to sex,
that hereafter there would be two miracles on Earth: man and woman? How
could she know what the word love meant as between girls and boys? The
Doctor had whispered of marriage, but looking on the young men that
passed, she saw no glamour. The Doctor was her ideal of a man--and
these were very unlike him.
Sweet Edith! Just seventeen--seventeen years in the heart of the deep
city--and yet a simple and innocent and quiet life. Public school,
shorthand school, the job in the clothing business--her few friends,
her two brothers, her ailing mother. She had had a taste of theater;
she had gone to night school; she sometimes attended a lecture, or a
meeting of the people at Cooper Union. But thus far, though the wild
city whirled like a cyclone about her, with its Broadway, its Bowery,
its crime and commerce, its toil and struggle and tragicomedy of
millions of living people, Edith had lived in the quiet center of the
storm, a life immured, innocent, and had grown naturally as flower
unfolding from bud.
She was at the perilous age. From unconscious childhood she had
emerged, and found that she, too, was a miracle--a human being capable
of the depths and heights of life, packed with all sweet possibilities.
All the world was new; a wonder was everywhere. Romance lurked in
familiar corners, transfiguring them. Anything might break open in her
heart now and sweep her with the passions that drive a life to divine
heights or ruin it.
Sweet Edith! There she was that young Spring morning, living,
breathing, hurrying through the crowds of children, innocent as they,
fresh as a new wild-rose, light on her feet, and full of the yearning
fire of the blue. Can’t you see her, her little blue hat stuck with
a black feather, her bending blue-eyed face, her lithe little body
gracefully gliding through the cool air? Surely she was made for
happiness, for motherhood and home, and all the quiet round of human
life!
She turned into shining Grand Street; she walked down the street
to a tall loft-building, entered, climbed a flight of stairs, and
pushed open a door into the “factory.” There in twilight were the
garment-makers, stitching, cutting, and crazily racing the machines.
She passed through the hubbub to the front, opened a door of a
partition, and stepped into the offices. There were four of these,
partitioned from each other, and connected by doors. The center one
was the show-room, with large oak-table, and racks. Two young men were
chatting at the open window and gazing down at the street. Edith did
not notice them, but passed into the adjoining office, took off hat and
coat, opened the window, pulled the cover from the typewriter, and set
to work busily cleaning the machine. The hum of the young men’s voices
reached her, but she paid no heed to their words.
The young men were chatting amiably. One of them was Frank Lasser,
the new traveling salesman, territory Pennsylvania--a smartly dressed
fellow, almost insolently handsome. He had large black eyes, a little
brown mustache, and black hair smoothly plastered on a high forehead.
His chin was weak. He spoke volubly and cynically. His companion was
Jonas Zug, salesman for New York State, young, but almost bald. As
they talked trade and territory, a barrel organ in the street below
loosed a wild waltz-music. The young men leaned out of the window. Four
little school-girls had handed their books to others and were dancing
in the center of an absorbed circle of people. They executed, not a
waltz, but a wild street-dance, passionate, swift, their whole bodies
playing rhythmically. One forgot tattered shoes and torn aprons and
thin cheeks--so wild a magic was wrought by the dance. All the fresh
glory of the morning, all the yearning and fire of the sun and the air,
seemed to pulse through the world from them.
Zug spoke grimly:
“That’s where the chorus girls come from, eh? My! but they dance!”
Frank laughed, and pointed:
“See that one with the red sweater? Ain’t she a peach, though?”
She was a strange creature--a girl with fiery black eyes, glossy
black hair flying wild. She danced with a weird fury, throwing back
her head now and then, shaking out her curls; her little feet flew,
kicked, whirled; her thin arms and hands darted snakily, out, up,
under. Something of the burning desert was in the face, something of
the tropical in her motions; she seemed like the ominous fire-shot
smoke-plume of a volcano. The crowd was fascinated, drawing closer;
there was a queer feeling that mighty destinies hung on the dance; that
it was leading _somewhere_; that it was moving toward some crisis.
Zug breathed fast and watched sharply. And then the music ceased and
the girl stopped short. A noise of many voices went up about her.
“Gee!” said Frank, “in a few years that girl will be worth trapping.”
Zug turned angrily, and raised his voice:
“Quit it, will you? Can’t you think of anything else, Lasser?”
“Well, well!” Frank whistled. “We’re getting virtuous in our old age,
ain’t we?”
Zug spoke with uncalled-for passion:
“I’m getting decent, Lasser, and you----”
Frank laughed:
“So you’ve finished sowing your wild oats--Congratulations! Have you
set the date?”
“What do you mean?”
Suddenly the air grew electric, as with two souls grappling in a death
struggle. Frank was amazed, startled; but he spoke lightly.
“I mean, when’s the wedding, eh?”
“Whose wedding?”
“Oh, come off,” said Frank cynically, “how should I know her name.”
“Whose name?”
“The lady’s. Is she on the premises? Is she a sweatshop lady?”
Zug squared a fist, and his voice rose and rang with passion:
“Now, see here, Lasser, I say you’ll cut this out. Understand?”
“Oh, that’s it!” laughed Frank easily. “You’ve got it bad, Jonas.”
Zug’s voice rose higher, and he raised his fist:
“Damn you----”
Then, suddenly, he dropped his hand, and stood back, abashed, ashamed,
his face very pale. At the same moment a light delicate hand touched
Frank’s arm, and a low sweet voice quivered at his ear:
“You must both stop this--both.”
Frank turned, and looked into Edith’s face. The light of the blue eyes
went into him, running after the music of the voice. He saw the lips
quiver; he saw the wisps of light-brown hair; the wild-rose cheeks.
Strength went out of him; cynicism left him. And then he heard Zug
speaking in a low, humble voice:
“I didn’t mean it, Miss Edith, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry--awfully
sorry.”
Edith spoke sadly:
“I’m sure you only forgot yourself, Mr. Zug.”
And she was gone--vanishing like a startled fawn.
Truly it was the Springtime--and Earth was yearning as she enfolded her
creatures with strength and love; the air was cool; the heavens utterly
blue; and the fires touched a heart here and there and woke it to dream
and mystery and wild enchantment. Frank Lasser was young in years, but
far from the pure beauty of this world. He did not know girls of this
type. As he stood helpless, he felt as if a new Power was clutching at
his heart.
And then he looked at Zug and saw a remorseful face and tear-stained
eyes--a man stricken down.
“Oh,” he murmured, “I see! I see!”