THERE were three people in the kitchen, the principal living room of
the Joyce home--Christopher Berry, the undertaker; Jeffy, the local
outcast, a wretched ruin of a man; and Turner Joyce's wife, Ruth.
Jeffy was seated at a table, eating. He was a cousin of the Benticks,
and Mrs. Joyce had furnished him with a complete outfit from her
husband's slender wardrobe for the funeral on the morrow.
Oakley had never known him to be so well or so wonderfully dressed, and
he had seen him in a number of surprising costumes. His black trousers
barely reached the tops of his shoes, while the sleeves of his shiny
Prince Albert stopped an inch or more above his wrists; he furthermore
appeared to be in imminent danger of strangulation, such was the height
and tightness of his collar. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand
were gone, the result of an accident at a Fourth of July celebration,
where, at the instigation of Mr. Gid Runyon--a gentleman possessing
a lively turn of mind and gifted with a keen sense of humor--he
had undertaken to hold a giant fire-cracker while it exploded, the
inducement being a quart of whiskey, generously donated for the occasion
by Mr. Runyon himself.
Mrs. Joyce had charged herself with Jeffy's care. She was fearful that
he might escape and sell his clothes before the funeral. She knew they
would go immediately after, but then he would no longer be in demand as
a mourner.
As for Jeffy, he was feeling the importance of his position. With a fine
sense of what was expected from him as a near relative he had spent
the day in the stricken home: its most picturesque figure, seated bolt
upright in the parlor, a spotless cotton handkerchief in his hand, and
breathing an air of chastened sorrow.
He had exchanged mournful greetings with the friends of the family, and
was conscious that he had acquitted himself to the admiration of all.
The Swede “help,” who was new to Antioch, had thought him a person of
the first distinction, so great was the curiosity merely to see him.
Christopher Berry was a little, dried-up man of fifty, whose name
was chance, but whose profession was choice. He was his own best
indorsement, for he was sere and yellow, and gave out a faint, dry
perfume as of drugs, or tuberoses. “Well, Mrs. Joyce,” he was saying,
as Oakley and the little artist entered the room, “I guess there ain't
nothing else to settle. Don't take it so to heart; there are grand
possibilities in death, even if we can't always realize them, and we got
a perfect body. I can't remember when I seen death so majestic, and I
may say--ca'm.”
Mrs. Joyce, who was crying, dried her eyes on the corner of her apron.
“Wasn't it sad about Smith Roberts's wife! And with all those children!
Dear, dear! It's been such a sickly spring!”
The undertaker's face assumed an expression of even deeper gloom than
was habitual to it. He coughed dryly and decorously behind his hand.
“They called in the other undertaker. I won't say I didn't feel it, Mrs.
Joyce, for I did. I'd had the family trade, one might say, always. There
was her father, his mother, two of her brothers, and the twins. You
recollect the two twins, Mrs. Joyce, typhoid--in one day,” with as near
an approach to enthusiasm as he ever allowed himself.
“Mrs. Poppleton told me over at Lou's that it was about the pleasantest
funeral she'd ever been to, and it's durn few she's missed, I'm telling
you!” remarked the outcast, hoarsely. He usually slept at the gas-house
in the winter on a convenient pile of hot cinders, and was troubled with
a bronchial affection. “She said she'd never seen so many flowers. Some
of Roberts's folks sent 'em here all the ways from Chicago. Say! that
didn't cost--oh no! I just wisht I'd the money. It'd do me for a spell.”
“Well, they may have had finer flowers than we got, but the floral
offerings weren't much when the twins passed away. I remember thinking
then that was a time for display, if one wanted display. Twins, you
know--typhoid, too, and in one day!” He coughed dryly again behind his
hand. “I wouldn't worry, Mrs. Joyce. Their body didn't compare with our
body, and the body's the main thing, after all.” With which professional
view of the case he took himself out into the night.
The outcast gave way to a burst of hoarse, throaty mirth. “It just makes
Chris Berry sick to think there's any other undertakers, but he knows
his business; I'll say that for him any time.”
He turned aggressively on Joyce. “Did you get me them black gloves? Now,
don't give me no fairy tales, for I know durn well from your looks you
didn't.”
“I'll get them for you the first thing in the morning, Jeffy.”
Jeffy brandished his fork angrily in the air.
“I never seen such a slip-shod way of doing things. I'd like to know
what sort of a funeral it's going to be if I don't get them black
gloves. It'll be a failure. Yes, sir, the durndest sort of a failure!
All the Chris Berrys in the world can't save it. I declare I don't see
why I got to have all this ornery worry. It ain't my funeral!”
“Hush, Jeffy!” said Mrs. Joyce. “You mustn't take on so.”
“Why don't he get me them gloves?” And he glared fiercely at the meek
figure of the little artist. Then suddenly he subsided. “Reach me the
pie, Ruthy.”
Mrs. Joyce turned nervously to her husband.
“Aren't you going to show Mr. Oakley your pictures, Turner?”
“Would you care to see them?” with some trepidation.
“If you will let me,” with a grave courtesy that was instinctive.
Joyce took a lamp from the mantel. “You will come, too, Ruth?” he
said. His wife was divided between her sense of responsibility and her
desires. She nodded helplessly towards the outcast, where he grovelled
noisily over his food.
“Jeffy will stay here until we come back, won't you, Jeffy?” ventured
Joyce, insinuatingly.
“Sure I will. There isn't anything to take me out, unless it's them
black gloves.”
Mrs. Joyce led the way into the hall. “I am so afraid when he's out of
my sight,” she explained to Oakley. “We've had such trouble in getting
him put to rights. I couldn't go through it again. He's so trying.”
The parlor had been fitted up as a studio. There were cheap draperies on
the walls, and numerous pictures and sketches. In one corner was a
shelf of books, with Somebody's _Lives of the Painters_ ostentatiously
displayed. Standing on the floor, their faces turned in, were three or
four unfinished canvases. There was also a miscellaneous litter about
the room, composed of Indian relics and petrified wood.
It was popularly supposed that an artist naturally took an interest in
curios of this sort, his life being devoted to an impractical search
after the beautiful, and the farmer who ploughed up a petrified rail, or
discovered an Indian hand-mill, carted it in to poor Joyce, who was
too tender-hearted to rebel; consequently he had been the recipient
of several tons of broken rock, and would have been swamped by the
accumulation, had not Mrs. Joyce from time to time conveyed these
offerings to the back yard.
Joyce held the lamp, so Oakley might have a better view of the pictures
on the wall. “Perhaps you will like to see my earlier paintings first.
There! Is the light good? That was Mrs. Joyce just after our marriage.”
Oakley saw a plump young lady, with her hair elaborately banged and a
large bouquet in her hand. The background was a landscape, with a ruined
Greek temple in the distance. “Here she is a year later; and here she is
again, and over there in the corner above my easel.”
He swept the lamp back to the first picture. “She hasn't changed much,
has she?”
Oakley was no critic, yet he realized that the little artist's work was
painfully literal and exact, but then he had a sneaking idea that a good
photograph was more satisfactory than an oil painting, anyhow.
What he could comprehend and appreciate, however, was Mrs. Joyce's
attitude towards her husband's masterpieces. She was wholly and
pathetically reverent. It was the sublime, unshaken faith and approval
that marriage sometimes wins for a man.
“I am so sorry the light isn't any better. Mr. Oakley must come in in
the afternoon,” she said, anxiously.
“I suppose you have seen some of the best examples of the modern
painters,” said Joyce, with a tinge of wistful envy in his tones. “You
know I never have. I haven't been fifty miles from Antioch in my life.”
Oakley was ashamed to admit that the modern painters were the least of
his cares, so he said nothing.
“That's just like Mr. Joyce. He is always doubting his ability, and
every one says he gets wonderful likenesses.”
“I guess,” said Oakley, awkwardly, inspired by a feeling of large
humanity, “I guess you'll have to be my guest when I go East this fall.
You know I can always manage transportation,” he added, hastily.
“Oh, that would be lovely!” cried Mrs. Joyce, in an ecstasy of happiness
at the mere thought. “Could you?”
Joyce, with a rather unsteady hand, placed the lamp on the centre-table
and gazed at his new friend with a gratitude that went beyond words.
Oakley recognized that in a small way he was committed as a patron of
the arts, but he determined to improve upon his original offer, and
send Mrs. Joyce with her husband. She would enter into the spirit of his
pleasure as no one else could.
“Can't I see more of your work?” he asked, anxious to avoid any
expression of gratitude.
“I wish you'd show Mr. Oakley what you are doing now, Turner. He may
give you some valuable criticisms.”
For, by that unique, intuitive process of reasoning peculiar to women,
she had decided that Oakley's judgment must be as remarkable as his
generosity.
His words roused Joyce, who had stood all this while with misty eyes
blinking at Oakley. He turned and took a fresh canvas from among those
leaning against the wall and rested it on the easel. “This is a portrait
I'm doing of Jared Thome's daughter. I haven't painted in the eyes yet.
That's a point they can't agree upon. You see, there's a slight cast--”
“She's cross-eyed, Turner,” interjected Mrs. Joyce, positively.
“Jared wants them the way they'll be after she's been to Chicago to be
operated on, and his wife wants them as they are now. They are to settle
it between them before she comes for the final sitting on Saturday.”
“That is a complication,” observed Oakley, but he did not laugh. It was
not that he lacked a sense of humor. It was that he was more impressed
by something else.
The little artist blinked affectionately at his work.
“Yes, it's going to be a good likeness, quite as good as any I ever got.
I was lucky in my flesh tints there on the cheek,” he added, tilting his
head critically on one side.
“What do you think of Mr. Joyce's work?” asked Mrs. Joyce, bent on
committing their visitor to an opinion.
“It is very good, indeed, and perhaps he is doing a greater service
in educating us here at Antioch than if he had made a name for himself
abroad. Perhaps, too, he'll be remembered just as long.”
“Do you really think so, Mr. Oakley?” said the little artist,
delighted. “It may sound egotistical, but I have sometimes thought that
myself--that these portraits of mine, bad as I know they must be, give
a great deal of pleasure and happiness to their owners, and it's a great
pleasure for me to do them, and we don't get much beyond that in this
world, do we?”