“Mother,” said Pearl, “is sun-chasing hard work?”
“It depends on what you mean by that,” replied the mother. The iron
hissed over the wet linen.
For an instant the child studied her mother’s face. Then she lifted a
ragged apron--once it had been sprigged with bright forget-me-nots, but
that was before Ambrose Clark had a sunstroke,--and fumbled around in
her dress pocket.
“It’s here!” Her pale baby face lighted up. “See, Mother, Doctor gave me
two of these.”
She drew out a silver coin like the one she had given her father and
held it under the lamplight.
The mother did not look. She turned over a flat and tested it with a
moistened forefinger. Like an angry cat the iron spat back. Then she
glanced at the child and down the child’s thin legs to the boots from
which parts of vamp and sole were gone. Not for an instant did she cease
her ironing, for that was the work which bought all their bread.
“If only,” she sighed, “you could have a pair of shoes! Where’s the
other?”
“You mean the other quarter, Mother?”
Pearl looked frightened.
“Yes, tell me,” commanded the mother. “No, you needn’t,” she added
bitterly. “You’ve given it to your father.”
“But, Mother!” cried the child, “his foot hurt so--he said it did--and
he said he hadn’t had any success in sun-chasing and--”
“There, there, that’ll do! I know every one of those explanations
backwards and forwards by this time. Anyway, don’t give him that. You
must have a pair of mittens. Thanksgiving’s only a day off.”
Pearl crowded closer to her mother’s left side. About her mother’s waist
she clasped one arm, sighing, for it felt good to be so close to her.
There were so many questions to try to understand. Mother’s love seemed
the only thing that was plain.
She stood some time so, undisturbed by the jerk and jar of her mother’s
ceaselessly active arm and the thumping on the ironing board.
“Mother,” said Pearl, “if it weren’t for Father feeling he must chase
the sun, wouldn’t we be just the happiest family in the whole world?”
“That’s as might be, child, but perhaps so,” replied Sybil.
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, soft as rain-fall on a moss-covered
roof; fragment of sun, shining, upright, and nearer; golden and shining
in the sun, gleam of waxed iron, clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, softer
than rain-fall on a moss-covered roof--here was an end of defeat, this
and then more. This and then more!
“Mother, what was that passed the window?” asked Pearl.
“Nothing, I guess. I heard nothing.”
“But, Mother, I _saw_ something.”
“Did you? Well the nights are growing cold now--maybe a falling star.”
Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, around the house, to the door, to the
latch. He who had never overtaken the whole must be wary in overtaking
even a fragment of that sun whose possession spelled an end of defeat
and misery. Clip-clop, clip--the door--clop--the latch--a rush, and it
was his, his, his, swaying and gleaming, flaring and shining, dipping
and flickering--his, his, his, in his hand, his own, part and parcel of
the Great One. Toss it, catch it, brandish it! His, his, his, forever!
“Ambrose!” came Sybil’s cry, “for God’s sake set that lamp down--set it
down!”
Fools, fools, fools, they had it and did not even know that it was
beside them. His child, his child should have it all--never go out into
the night and the dark--never chase the sun and never find--his child!
“Father!” came another cry, “it burns so! The lamp’s burning me!”
Nearer again swung the lamp, torch of flame and blackened stream of
smoke. Scatter it like this--joy and joy and joy!
Smell of smoke, screams of a child, the tigerish leap of a woman upon a
man, a crashing lamp, a black room and the dull thud and thrashing of
struggle upon the floor; then moans and silence.
Up out of the blackness and silence, the Sun Chaser raised himself on
knee and leather-shod foot, setting wooden-shod beside it. The windows
were pale and silvery with the night light; in the room was the smell of
lamp soot and burned hair; behind him the grate of the kitchen stove
gleamed like an evil eye.
See what they had done! Happiness and to spare for all, and they had
defeated him. Sybil had always been against him. Anyhow he had done his
best to find and scatter joy over them all. Clip-clop--something soft,
hop around it dragging wooden-shod; clip-clop, clip-clop, something
again; around it, clip-clop, clippity-clop, clip-clop; the latch; out,
clip-clop, clip-clop; to the mill; the dawn again; the mill had always
brought dawn back to him again; but at the mill one had to pay--thumb
and forefinger into pocket,--yes, the silver piece Pearl had given him
lay there--clippity-clop, clippity-clop, clippity-clop, not so fast as
past the undertaker’s but fast as he could go, now, with a
clippity-clippity, clippity-clop, stars and moon and trees swinging
around his head.
V
The Miller had been sitting in the dark to save oil. He had ceased to
grind wheat since he had discovered that there was more gold which came
by means of no grinding. Nevertheless he was called the Miller,--old
Harding, the Miller.
He rose and stood behind the closed shutters to look out between their
wooden slats upon the road down which Ambrose Clark was limping. Above
the Miller’s head there was the shuffling noise of slippered feet.
“She’s getting ready,” he muttered.
But he stood by the shutters watching Ambrose Clark and rubbing his
hands. Then he laughed and rubbed his hands and rubbed his hands and
rubbed them, and drew in his breath until it clicked. No one knew better
than he did that the Sun Chaser was a fool.
He pushed the slats down so that not even a cat’s eye of light could be
revealed and set a match to a candle. He lifted the lighted candle and
let Ambrose in. The candle-light flickered on the Sun Chaser’s
copper-colored hair and burning face. In the blood-shot, chameleon-like
eyes the Miller read all he needed to know.
“What you got?” demanded the Miller.
Ambrose fumbled in his pocket and produced the silver piece Pearl had
given him.
This silver had been warmed by her little hands and made bright, too, by
rubbing so that a pretty picture of Liberty would show and a child’s
eyes could read the words, “In God we trust.”
The Miller held the coin under the candle-flame, bit it with his teeth
and then put it in his pocket.
He blew out the candle and left Ambrose in the dark. He went out into
the yard to the pile of logs. The Miller brought a jug in and poured
from it something yellow and murky and from which fumes rose. Ambrose
watched the Miller pour, wildly, eagerly watched him. Even before the
glass brimmed, he snatched it. The Sun Chaser tossed off the first
glass. It stung and smarted, it thrilled and stabbed, it gripped like a
hot metal hand at his quivering nerves and seemed to steady them; it
sent the tears of relief gushing to his eyes; it swam and swarmed, out,
out, out to the furthermost surfaces of his being; it tingled and bit at
his fingers and ears; it seethed in his belly like summer heat; and it
seared all misery from his mind. The Miller was watching the face that
paled and flamed and then glazed into a semblance of steadiness.
“What luck?” he asked, rubbing his hands.
“None, none to-day,” answered the Sun Chaser, holding out his glass for
another drink, “but to-morrow I shall overtake the sun.”
Harding lifted the jug, held it above the glass and poured.
The Sun Chaser took the glass in one hand and with the other seized the
Miller by the front of his coat, drew him closer and whispered in his
ear, “I tell you how I know this. I found--a piece--on the table--for
the first time.”
“A piece of what?” asked the Miller, thinking of money.
“The sun, of course,” and Ambrose nodded, “but my wife’s against
me--damn the women!”
A man came up the walk, entered and sat down on the bench from which he
demanded a drink. As he was lifting his glass to his lips another
entered, sat down on the bench too, and called for liquor. They came
quickly now until the bench was full and men were standing about in the
corridor--all waiting.
The Sun Chaser had laughed until he cried. Then he began to curse, and
in the sitting room into which the Miller had shut him he cursed on and
on, repeating now with a cry, now with a laugh, “Damn the women! Damn
the women! All against us! All against us!”
Finally he sank down on an ancient, gutted-out, horsehair sofa, and
screamed and cried and laughed and cursed, and struck at the floor with
his wooden-shod foot and struck at the floor with his leather-shod foot.
Then he wept alone. Alone, too, he murmured over and over, “As for me,
give me the sun--the sun for me!” Finally he sank back on the sofa,
crumpled up, and lay senseless upon it.