He spent the next day moving crated plants to delivery trucks, where his
broad shoulders were most serviceable, and in the evening returned to
the camp, streaked with fine rich loam. French Janin was waiting for him
and consumed part of Harry Baggs' unskilfully cooked supper. The old man
was silent, though he seemed continually at the point of bursting into
eager speech. However, he remained uncommunicative and followed the
boy's movements with a blank speculative countenance. Finally he said
abruptly:
“Sing that song over--about the 'damn ol' nigger.'”
Harry Baggs responded; and, at the end, Janin nodded.
“What I should have expected,” he pronounced. “When I first heard you I
thought: 'Here, perhaps, is a great voice, a voice for Paris;' but I was
mistaken. You have some bigness--yes, good enough for street ballads,
sentimental popularities; that is all.”
An overwhelming depression settled upon Harry Baggs, a sense of
irremediable loss. He had considered his voice a lever that might one
day raise him out of his misfortunes; he instinctively valued it to
an extraordinary degree; it had resembled a precious bud, the possible
opening of which would flood his being with its fragrant flowering. He
gazed with a new dread at the temporary shelters and men about him,
the huts and men that resembled each other so closely in their patched
decay.
Until now, except in brief moments of depression, he had thought of
himself as only a temporary part of this broken existence. But it was
probable that he, too, was done--like Runnel, and Dake, who lived on the
fear of women. He recalled with an oath his reception in the village of
his birth on his return from jail: the veiled or open distrust of the
adults; the sneering of the young; his barren search for employment. He
had suffered inordinately in his narrow cell--fully paid, it had seemed,
the price of his fault. But apparently he was wrong; the thing was to
follow him through life--and he would live a long while--; condemning
him, an outcast, to the company of his fellows.
His shoulders drooped, his face took on the relaxed sullenness of those
about him; curiously, in an instant he seemed more bedraggled, more
disreputable, hopeless.
French Janin continued:
“Your voice is good enough for the people who know nothing. Perhaps it
will bring you money, singing at fairs in the street. I have a violin, a
cheap thing without soul; but I can get a thin jingle out of it. Suppose
we go out together, try our chance where there is a little crowd; it
will be better than piggin' in the earth.”
It would, Baggs thought, be easier than carrying heavy crates; subtly
the idea of lessened labor appealed to him. He signified his assent and
rolled over on his side, staring into nothingness.
French Janin went into the town the following day--he walked with a
surprising facility and speed--to discover where they might find a
gathering for their purpose. Harry Baggs loafed about the camp until the
other returned with the failing of light.
“The sales about the country are all that get the people together now,”
he reported; “the parks are empty till July. There's to be one tomorrow
about eight miles away; we'll try it.”
He went to the shelter, where he secured a scarred violin, with roughly
shaped pegs and lacking a string. He motioned Harry Baggs to follow him
and proceeded to the brow of the field, where he settled down against a
fence, picking disconsolately at the burring strings and attempting
to tighten an ancient bow. Baggs dropped beside him. Below them night
flooded the winding road and deepened under the hedges; a window showed
palely alight; the stillness was intense.
“Now!” French Janin said.
The violin went home beneath his chin and he improvised a thin but
adequate opening for Harry Baggs' song. The boy, for the first time
in his existence, sang indifferently; his voice, merely big, lacked
resonance; the song was robbed of all power to move or suggest.
Janin muttered unintelligibly; he was, Harry Baggs surmised, speaking
his native language, obscurely complaining, accusing. They tried a
second song: “Hard times, hard times, come again no more.” There was not
an accent of longing nor regret.
“That'll do,” French Janin told him; “good enough for cows and
chickens.”
He rose and descended to the camp, a bowed unsubstantial figure in the
gloom.