_Oiled Skids_
Anyway, that's that, as we says up here. I will now pass along to what
comes to pass about two weeks later on. All along through them two weeks
Mr. Dallas don't impress me like a young man should which he is starting
out in the New Year full of good cheer and bright prospects. As the
catch-word goes, he ain't at himself. At the breakfast table when I'm
passing things to him he's often looking hard at nothing at all. It's
plain his thoughts is far away and not so very happy in the place where
they've strayed off to, neither.
Well, on this particular day, which it is along toward the middle of the
present month of January, he don't get home from down-town until long
after dinner-time and when he does get in he don't scarcely touch a
morsel to eat; he just pecks at the vittles. After dinner is over and
the dishes washed up I passes through the hall on the way out, being
bound for the Pastime Club to consultate with 'Lisses Petty touching on
our own private affairs. Mr. Dallas had told me at dinner that I could
have the evening off and there was not no reason why I should linger on.
But as I passes the setting-room door I looks in and he's setting there,
sort of haunched down in his chair, with his elbows resting on a little
table and his face in his hands, seemingly mighty lonesome. Something
seems to come over me and I steps in and I says to him, I says:
"'Scuse me, Mr. Dallas, fur interruptin' yore ponderin's, but is they
anythin' I kin do fur you befo' I goes on out?"
He sort of starts and looks up at me, and if ever I sees miserableness
staring forth from a person's eyes I sees it now. He speaks to me then
and what he says hits me with a jolt. Because this is what he says:
"Jeff, why is it that white people are forever committing suicide on
account of their private worries but you never hear of a darky killing
himself for the same reason?"
I studies for a minute and then I says:
"Well, Mr. Dallas, I reckin it's 'is yere way: A w'ite man gits hisse'f
in trouble an' he can't seem to see no way to git shet of it. An' so he
sets down an' he thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks, and after 'w'ile he
shoots hisse'f. A nigger-man gits in trouble an' he sets down an' he
thinks an' he thinks an' he thinks--an' after 'w'ile he goes to sleep!"
He smiles the least little bit at that. But it is not no regulation
smile--it's more like the ha'nting ghost of one.
"But suppose you're brooding so hard you can't sleep?" he says.
"I ain't never seen no nigger yit," I says, "but whut he could sleep ef
the baid wuz soft 'nuff. They may not be many 'vantages in bein' black,
the way the country is organized," I says, "but this is shore one place
whar my culler has it the best."
He don't say anything back at me. So after lingering a little bit I
starts to move on out. And then another one of them inmost promptings
leads me to speak again:
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "sometimes we kin lif' the load of our pestermints
ef only we talks 'bout 'em to somebody else. Sometimes," I says, "it's
keepin' 'em all corked up tight on the insides of us w'ich meks the
burden bear down so heavy.... Wuz they anything else, suh, 'at you
wished fur to ast me?"
It seems like my words must have put a fresh notion in his head.
"Jeff," he says, "you're right. I've got to confide in somebody--or else
explode. Besides," he says, "I figure that if there is one person in all
the five or six million people in this town who's likely to be a real
friend to me, it's you. And while my talking to you probably can't do
any good, it certainly can't do any harm."
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "I is yore frien' an' yore desperit well-wisher,
besides. Sence I been wukkin' fur you you shore is used me mouty kind. I
ain't never had nary speck nur grain of complaint to find wid yore way
of treatin' me. You's w'ite an' I is black," I says, "an' sometimes,
seems lak to me, the two races is driftin' fu'ther apart day by day;
but all that ain't henderin' me frum havin' yore bes' intrusts at heart.
"An' so, suh, ef you feels lak givin' me yore confidences I'm yere to
heed an' to hearken an' do my humble but level bes' fur to aid you, ef
so be ez I kin."
"I believe you," he says, "and I'm grateful to you.... Well, Jeff, to
put it plainly, I've gone and got myself tangled up in a bad mess."
"Whut way, suh?" I says.
"In two ways," he says; "in business--and in another way. I've been an
ass, Jeff--a blind, witless ass. This life here was so different from
any I'd ever known--so different and so fascinating--that it just swept
me off my feet. I've been drifting along with my eyes shut, having my
fling, letting today take care of itself and with no thought of
tomorrow. As I look back on it, it strikes me I always have been more or
less of a drifter. Down yonder, among our own people, there always was
somebody who'd step in once in awhile and check me up. But up here in
this big selfish greedy town, among strangers, I've had nobody to
advise me or to show me where I was making a fool of myself. And,
believe me, I have made a fool of myself. I guess what I need is a
guardian--only I doubt whether I'd find the money eventually to pay for
his services.... Jeff, if I was free of these--these--well, these
entanglements--I tell you right now I'd be willing to quit New York
tomorrow and take the next train back home where I belong."
He studies a minute and then he continues to resume:
"Yes," he says, "I'd head for home in the morning--if I could. It has
taken a hard jolt to open my eyes but, believe me, they're opened now.
The chief trouble is, though, that even with them opened I can't see any
way out of the tangle I'm in. Jeff, the big mistake I made at the start
was that I tied up with the wrong outfit. I thought I was joining in
with a group of typical successful live New Yorkers; I know now how
wrong I was. There must be plenty of real people here--people who take
life in moderation; people who are fair and kindly and reasonable;
people who can find pleasure in simple things and who don't pretend to
know all there is to know, or to be what they're not. But I haven't met
them; I've been too busy running with the other kind."
Down in my soul I says to myself there's a chance for him to pull out
yet if he's beginning to see the brass-work shining through the gold
plating which has so dazzled him up heretofores. Yes sir, if he's found
out all by himself that New York City ain't exclusively and utterly
composed of the Mr. H. C. Raynorses and the Mr. Hilary Bellowses and
such, there certainly is hope for him still. All along, up to now, I've
been saying to myself that it looks like the only future Mr. Dallas has
to look forward to, is his past; but now I rejoices that he's done woke
up from his happy trance. But of course I don't let on to him that such
is my feelings. I merely says to him, I says:
"I ain't the one to 'spute wid you on 'at p'int, suh. Naw suh, not me!
But whut's the reason you can't pull out frum yere, ef you's a-mind
to?"
At that he lights in and the language just pours out from him like a
flood. There's a lot of rigmarole about business, and some parts of this
I cannot seem to rightly get the straight of it into my head, but I'm
pretty sure I gets the hang of all the main points clear enough. To
begin with, I learns now for the first time that him and Mr. Raynor
ain't actually been selling oil down-town; they've been selling
oil-stocks, which as near as I can figure it out, an oil-stock is the
same kin to oil that a milk-ticket is to milk, only it's like as if the
man which sells you the milk-tickets ain't really got no cows rounded up
yet but trusts in due time he'll be able to do so. Still, if there is
folks scattered about who's willing to take the risk that the milkman
will amass some cows somewhere and that the cows won't go dry or die on
him or be grabbed by the sheriff and thereby leave the customers with a
lot of nice new onusable milk-tickets on their hands why, the way I
looks at it, there ain't no reason why their craving for to invest
should not be gratified.
It seems, furthermore, that Mr. Raynor ain't actually been selling as
many oil stocks in the general market as he has let on. Leastwise, that
is what Mr. Dallas suspicions, even if he can't prove it. When first
they went into partners together last August, Mr. Dallas tells me he put
up a large jag of money for his half-interest. He was content to let Mr.
Raynor manage the business and keep the run of the books and all that,
seeing as how Mr. Raynor had the experience in such matters and he
didn't. Anyhow, he felt most amply satisfied with the gratifying amounts
which Mr. Raynor kept handing over to him, saying it all was from the
profits. But this very day there's been a show-down at the office
growing out of Mr. Raynor having called on him to put up another big
chunk of cash for running expenses, and whilst all the figures and all
the details ain't been made manifest to Mr. Dallas yet, he's got mighty
strong reasons to believe there really wasn't no profits to speak of and
that the money he's been drawing out all along was just his own money,
which Mr. Raynor let him have it in order to keep him happy and
contented whilst he was being sucked in deeper and deeper.
And so now, Mr. Dallas says, that's how it stands. If he goes on and on
along the way he seems to be headed it's only a question of time till
all his money will be plumb drained from him. He tells me that he'd be
willing to pull out now and take his losses and charge 'em up to the
expenses of getting a Wall Street education only, he says, he can't. I
asks him then what's the reason he can't? He says because when the
papers was drawed up--by Mr. Raynor--he obligated himself in such a
twistified way that it seems he's bound hard and fast to stick to the
bitter end. Of course, he says, he might start a lawsuit and throw the
whole thing into the courthouse, but, even so, he's afraid he wouldn't
have a leg left to stand on by reason of his having tied himself up so
tight in writing; and anyway, he says, before he got through with a
lawsuit most doubtless the lawyers would have all the leavings.
To myself I says there is still another reason. I knows how much it
would hurt Mr. Dallas' pride to have all the folks down home finding out
that he's made another disasterful move in business. By roundabout ways
it has come to my ears that he's been writing letters back telling about
how well he's doing up here in New York and now, if it should come out
in the papers that he's made one more bad bustup on top of all them
finance mistakes he committed before he come North, and he should have
to go South again, broke and shamed at being broke, I reckons it would
just about kill him. Besides which I knows full well from hearing Judge
Priest talking in the past, that even in medium-sized towns lawyers is
plenty costive persons to hire for an important lawsuit, and in the
biggest town of all, where the lawyers naturally run bigger, they'd cost
a mighty heap more.
When he gets through specifying the situation I gets another notion:
"I wonder," I says, sort of casual-like, "I wonder, Mr. Dallas, w'y it
wuz 'at Mr. H. C. Raynor should a-picked this pertic'lar moment fur
callin' on you fur a big bunch of cash, 'specially w'en ef he'd a-kept
silence you'd a-prob'ly gone on wid him, never 'spicionin' anything wuz
wrong?"
"Oh, I'm not so stupid but what I can figure that out," he says. "He's
afraid so much of my money will be spent soon in another direction that
he'll be deprived of the lion's share of what is left. He wants to strip
me down close while the stripping is good."
"In 'nother direction?" I says, kind of musing. "I wonder whut 'at other
direction kin be?"
"Can't you guess?" he says.
"Yas suh," I says, "I kin; but I didn' think 'twould be seemly fur me to
start guessin' along 'at line widout you opened up the way fust."
"Jeff," he says, "I feel like a low-down dog to be dragging in a woman's
name, even indirectly; and so I guess the best thing I can do in that
direction is to keep my mouth shut and take my medicine. It appears
that here lately I've acquired the habit of committing myself to serious
obligations at times when I'm not exactly aware of what I'm doing. At
the moment, I don't seem to remember how it all comes about; then I wake
up and I find I'm signed, sealed and delivered. I may be the damndest
fool alive, but at least I'm an honorable fool. I was raised that way.
Where my sense of personal honor is concerned I'm going to stick, no
matter what the costs may be. I've been fed fat on flattery; now it's
time for me to sup on sorrow awhile. Do you get my drift?"
"Yas suh, I think I does," I says. "Mr. Dallas," I says, "'scuse me fur
persumin' to keep on 'long 'is yere track, but is you right downright
shore 'at you solemnly engaged yo'se'f in the holy bonds of wedlock to
the lady in question?"
"I suppose I did," he says. "I must have. She assumes to think
so--everybody else assumes to think so. And yet, as Heaven is my judge,
I never intended to lead anybody to believe that I wanted to make a
marriage up here. It--it just happened, Jeff--that's all. I can see now
how a lot of things have been happening and why. But what can I do to
clear myself from either one of these two tangles? I've asked myself the
question a hundred times since noon today and there's no answer. I can't
lick Raynor at his own game; he's too wise; he's covered his prints too
well. When I hinted at a lawsuit this afternoon he laughed in my face
and told me to go ahead and sue. And, as for the other thing--well,
unless I go through with it, against my will and my better judgment, it
means a breach of promise suit, or I miss my guess. Besides, I still
have some shreds of self-respect left. I can't deliberately try to break
an engagement which, I suppose, I must have made in good faith."
"S'posen' the lady herse'f wuz to up an' brek it on her own
'sponsibility?" I says. He laughed kind of scornful.
"No chance," he says; "no such luck for me! I've walked blindfolded into
every trap that was set for me and now it's up to me to play the string
out till the last penny is gone. At the present rate that shouldn't
take long. But see here, Jeff, I wonder why I sit here unburdening my
woes on you? I know you would help me if you could, but what can you do?
What can anybody do?"
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "you can't never tell. Sometimes the humblest
he'ps out the greates'. Seems lak I heared tell 'at once't 'pon a time
'twuz the gabblin's of a flock of geese w'ich saved one of these yere
up-state towns--Utica, or maybe 'twas Rome. I don't rightly remember now
whut 'twas ailed 'at town; mebbe 'twuz fixin' to go fur William Jinnin's
Bryant?--somethin' lak 'at! Anyway, the geese gits the credit in the
records fur the savin' of it. An' ain't you never read whur a mouse
comes moseyin' 'long one time an' gnawed a lion loose frum the bindin'
snares w'ich helt him? So, ez I says, you can't never tell. But I wonder
would you do me a small favor? I wonder would you read a piece out of a
su'ttin book ef I wuz to bring it to you out of the liberary, an' w'en
you'd done 'at ef you would go on to baid an' try to compose yore min'
an' git some needful sleep?"
"What's the idea?" he says.
"Nummine," I says. "Wait 'twell I fetches you the book."
So I goes and gets it down from the shelf where it belongs. It's the
furtherest one of a long row of big shiny black books, which all of them
has got different names. But the name of this one is: _Vet to Zym_.
He takes a look at it when I lays it before him, and he says:
"Why, this is a volume of the Encyclopedia! What bearing can this
possibly have on what we've just been talking about?"
"Mr. Dallas," I says, "you's no doubt of'en seen ole Pappy Exall, w'ich
he is the pastor of Zion Chapel, struttin' round the streets at home in
times gone by? Well, the Rev'n. Exall may look lak one-half of a
baby-elephant runnin' loose, but lemme tell you, suh, he ain't nobody's
bawn fool. One time yere some yeahs back he got hisse'f into a kind of a
jam wid his flock 'count of some of 'em bein' mos' onhighly dissatisfied
wid the way he wuz handlin' the funds fur to buy a new organ fur the
church. Nigh ez they could figger it out, he'd done confisticated the
organ money to his own pussonal an' private pu'pposes. Try ez they mout,
they couldn't nobody in the congregation git no satisfaction out of him
reguardin' of it. So one evenin', unbeknownst to him, a investigatin'
committee formed itse'f, an' whilst he was settin' at the supper-table
they come bustin' in on him an' demanded then an' thar how 'bout it? Wid
one voice they called on him to perduce an' perduce fast, else they
gwine start yellin' fur the police. Wid that he jest rise up frum his
cheer an' he look 'em right in the eye an' he say to 'em, very ca'mlak:
'My pore bernighted brethren, in response to yore questions I directs
yore prayerful considerations to Acts twenty-eighth an' seventeenth,
also Timothy fust an' fifth, lakwise Kings sixth an' fust. Return to
yore homes in peace an' read the messages w'ich is set fo'th in the
'foresaid Scriptures an' return to me yere on the morrow fur fu'ther
guidance.' Well, they all dashes off fur to dig up they Bibles an' see
whut the answer is. Bright an' early next mawnin' they comes back to say
'at w'ile them is mighty fine-soundin' verses w'ich he bade 'em to read,
still they ain't nary one of 'em w'ich seems to relate in any way
whutsomever to a missin' organ fund. Then he smiles sort of pitiful-lak
an' he reaches his fat hand down in his britches pocket an' he hauls out
the money to the las' cent. The trick w'ich he had done played on 'em
had give him a chanc't to slip out an' borrow 'nuff frum a couple of
w'ite gen'elmen frien's of his'n fur to mek up the shortage. Whut he
needed wuz time an' time wuz whut he got.
"Now, Mr. Dallas, I aims to borrow a lesson frum the example of ole
Pappy Exall. I asts you to set yere an' read a chapter out of 'is yere
book. It don't mek no diff'ence to me w'ich chapter 'tis you reads, jes'
so it's a good long one. I done looked th'ough 'at book the other day
an' most of the chapters in it is long an' all of 'em is tiresome. You
jes' read 'twell you gits good an' sleepy an' 'en you go on to baid an'
refresh yo'se'f in slumber. An' in the meanwhile I aims to steddy right
hard over these yere pressin' matters of your'n an' see ef I can't see
the daylight breakin' th'ough somewhars."
I can tell by his looks that he ain't got no hope of success on my part,
but he's so plumb wore out from worrying that he ain't got the spirit
for to resist me. He says to me he won't promise to read the book, but
he will promise to try to lay aside his botherments and go to bed early,
which that is sufficient for me.
I leaves him there and I goes back to my room, after telephoning to
'Lisses Petty that something important has come up at our place which
will detain me away from him for the time being. And then, when I gets
to my room, I sets down and takes off my shoes. It seems like I always
could think better when my feet was freed from them binding shoes.
When a nigger boy is fixing to run his fastest he's got to snatch his
hat off and sail bareheaded; and I'm much the same way about my feet
when I craves to think. So, my shoes being off, I just rears back and
sets in for to give the problems before me the fullest considerations.