The latter part of the summer found me tramping through the heavy, grey
dust of a road in southern Iowa, so tired that I scarcely felt the
hunger that had bitten me in the morning. Now, at noon, the hot, August
sun sent its untempered rays down upon me as though it, too, united with
all the world in fiery hatred for the wanderer upon the open road. Once
I had seen romance in the long trail that always beckoned alluringly
from the thin, indefinite distance where it touched the horizon but,
though I had pursued with high hopes, the horizon ever lay beyond and
left its promise unfulfilled. Now its mystery, the mystery of the
unattainable, mocked me as I sweltered in the suffocating heat of a
burning earth. The dim, green fields I had dreamed of, where Freedom
reigned, were still far away. I was sick of it all. Life could not be
solved so simply.
This unhappy trend of my thoughts was broken when I rounded a curve in
the road and saw to the northwest a small, woody town lying somnolent
under the hot, noon sun of August. From a grove on the outskirts of the
village came the unmistakable tunes of a merry-go-round. Ah, here was a
chance to pick up a little money to tide me on my way!
I quickly reached the edge of the grove, and ducked under a single
strand of wire that doubtless marked the sacred precincts of
celebration. Now the rising and falling hum of a large concourse of
people struck me pleasantly, for I liked the impersonal companionship of
crowds.
As I made my way through the trees, I saw that it was the typical
country town celebration which had become familiar to me in my
wanderings. The daughters dressed too gaudily and the mothers too
sombrely. The men stood about in groups, smoking and discussing their
crops. Everywhere, alone or in groups, swaggered small boys, exhibiting
large satisfaction in unreproved stickiness and in the wide choice of
indigestibles. Nevertheless, it struck me now, as it always did, that
there was an undercurrent of weariness running through the whole crowd.
Released for a day from the midsummer drudgery of the farm, their senses
were too dull to appreciate such a change.
Finally, I reached the row of stands where all kinds of foods and drinks
were dispensed to the hungry and thirsty swarm of people. My request for
a job was repeatedly refused after a single glance at my disreputable
attire. At last I reached a hamburger stand at the end of the line. The
two proprietors were plainly having a hard time in handling the crowd.
Here I was quickly hired for the day.
I threw off my coat and donned a greasy apron. It was fine to get back
on the old job again, I thought, as I slapped sizzling hamburgers
between unbuttered buns. The noise of the crowd, insistently surging
about us, seemed comforting.
The balloon ascension in the early afternoon gave me leisure to study my
employers. The one who had given me the job was short and fat, with
tight-fitting trousers of greenish hue showing beneath the apron he
wore. Of Teutonic origin, surely. His face reflected his nationality, a
red nose issuing bluntly from heavy cheeks and light blue eyes, crowned
by a bald head that gleamed palely out of a fringe of sandy hair. Seeing
me observing him, he came up and announced that he was Dutch Frank.
Then he turned to his partner, a tall, loose-limbed, grey-faced and
grey-haired man who impressed me as prematurely old from dissipation.
Out of the dark-rimmed hollows falling deeply from the high cheek-bones,
his eyes, filled with a wide, hungry abstraction, stared out through the
branches of the leaves about us.
“Let me,” said Dutch Frank, expansively, “give you a knock-down to my
revered partner in this noble enterprise. His name is Bill and he’s got
the tastes of a Kentucky colonel--he takes his whiskey raw.”
“Howdy!” Bill’s face remained expressionless as he extended a limp hand
toward me. “Why don’t y’ ever forget that old spiel of yours, Frank?” he
concluded in moody expostulation.
The conversation gradually dropped off. Bill again withdrew into himself
and gazed with lack-lustre eyes into the air. Frank sat on a barrel of
cider and smoked a pipe in stoical enjoyment.
The respite from labor soon ended and the hot, tired mob once more
surrounded us. The air grew damp and fetid. Strong above the spiciness
of hamburger came the sickening odor of peanuts in process of
mastication. The noise of celebration rolled up and enveloped us. Next
to our stand, a dark-skinned vendor of fruits and cold drinks bawled out
incessantly to the restless throng and his words became wearyingly
familiar to me through constant repetition. “Come on over, folks, come
on over. We’ll treat yuh right. Don’t yuh ever git hongry? Don’t yuh
ever git tired?” The bellow ended in a note of ineffable sorrow. Then,
chancing to spy some attractive face in the crowd, he cried out in an
insinuating tone, “Oh, you Lizzie, there ... you with the bright blue
eyes. Won’t y’ come over and talk awhile? I’m the pride of the state o’
Bingville, America’s fav’rite son.” The girl giggled and tried to assume
a demure expression but her embarrassment caused her face to draw up
into rather terrifying contortions. “Why, you poor little son-of-a-gun!”
exclaimed her admirer in a voice that mingled pity and contempt. “Say,
ain’t these corn-feds a nice bunch?” he grinned at me as I came up to
borrow a box.
Time passed swiftly. Though we could not see the sun, we knew that it
was declining, for the oppressive, stale heat of the day was swept from
under the trees by the cool, wet breeze of evening, which held the
peculiar smell of dew fallen on dust. From the neighboring meadow, to
the north, came the pungent smell of wild hay. Then the sun fell to the
level of the horizon, threw a dim red curtain over the west, and faded
away. After the work and grime of the day, twilight came restfully.
I heard a movement at my side and, turning, saw Bill leaning on the
counter, chin resting in his palm, his wide grey eyes filled with the
dreamy, troubled stare I had noticed in the early afternoon.
“Well, Bill, what do you think of it?” He remained silent, looking
sombrely into the distance. Finally he said, irrelevantly, “See that
yellow strip out there in the west? It’s so clear, almost wet--like
whiskey.” He moved a little closer. His voice, though low, quivered
tensely, almost out of control. “Oh, I wish this burg wasn’t dry--I got
t’ have a drink!” I noticed that all the softness had fled from the eyes
and a hard, desperate eagerness lay there instead. His hands grasped the
edge of the counter so hard that the veins stood out blue and snakelike
in the ghastly yellow skin. “I guess I’m all in, Bo,” he concluded, and
as I saw again the grey face I believed him.
Lights began to appear. The merry-go-round blazed with color and its
unending discord seemed to beat uselessly against the faint line of
darkness that hurled the jarring tunes back upon us derisively. In the
narrow belt of light the crowd moved restlessly, after its short rest at
meal time. The older men and women had gone home with the children and
only the young people remained. As evening grew, they threw off all
restraint. Groups of heavy-faced farmer boys swaggered past and cried
out familiarly to the young women they met. These answered back as
roughly and usually occasioned a roar of laughter by their sharply
personal replies. Then liquor began to flow from some unseen source. The
crowd divided into groups, all anxious for a fight. Several times we
narrowly avoided trouble by Frank’s seasoned diplomacy. Suddenly I
noticed that Bill had disappeared.
After an hour the work became pressing. On all sides, the mob clamored.
The cool night air became warm and stifling. The mixture of odors struck
like a blow. Above the general smell of hamburger and fruit, rose the
heavy fumes of whiskey and cheap perfume.
In a lull, when the capricious throng had ebbed away, I rested against
the counter and looked up through the leaves into the night sky. How
strange it seemed suddenly to feel the peaceful beauty of the night,
with the twinkling stars shining so silently in their ebony setting, so
indifferent and untouched by the brutishness raging about us. As the
wind stirred the leaves, it brought the cool touch of fog, gathered, I
fancied, from some grassy hollow where fireflies burned their tiny
lanterns of green and yellow.
Immersed in pleasant revery, I did not at once notice Bill come in until
he coughed. He leaned upon the counter beside me and looked into the
darkness. His eyes shone with a warm light and a faint color touched his
cheeks.
“Resting, are yuh?” he asked sociably, turning toward me.
His breath came to me heavy with the fumes of whiskey. We stood there
for a long time. I was too tired to talk. Bill seemed to indulge in
pleasant retrospection.
“Well, Bill,” I spoke lazily, “how do you like this kind of a life?”
His expression changed swiftly. “Rotten!” he exclaimed, so vehemently
that I was startled.
“How did you get into such work, then?”
He settled himself more firmly against an empty barrel. “I started when
I was a kid,” he began, in his low monotone. “My folks didn’t want me
around so I got t’ work. Found a job with a guy that sold hot dogs on
circuit fairs. Afterwards, I knocked about, but I liked the crowds so I
went into cahoots with Dutch Frank. We tried skin games for awhile, but
the law got pretty tight so we started a hamburger outfit.” He stopped.
We were silent once more. The crowd had slowly deserted us until only a
few stragglers walked uneasily. The night had crept in closer and now,
as its silence came to us, the yellow tawdriness of the lights seemed
incongruous beside the softer darkness of nature. I looked at my watch.
Eleven o’clock. An hour more before the lights went out.
“Tell you what.” Bill had evidently been thinking back into his life.
“I’m going to cut out all this pretty soon.” He came closer and spoke
confidentially. “I got a girl up to Peoria, Illinois. When she was just
a little runt, I found her on the streets, about half froze. Took her to
where I stayed and fed her good. Then, when me ’n Frank went out on the
circuits, she stayed with an old woman who took care of her. Gee, she
got to be the purtiest little kid you ever seen. The boys laughed at me
and says I was an old fool but I tell you they was pretty nice to her
when she happened around.”
He fell into a fit of retrospection.
“What then?”
“When she was eighteen, she run away.” He commenced abruptly. “It just
about busted me up, I guess. I started boozing pretty strong then and
one night I got the D.T.’s bad. Then she come back. She felt so mean
about it that I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t anyway--I was too glad.
After that, she was as straight as a string. Went to church too. She
always wanted me to quit work and let her take care o’ me but I wouldn’t
do it. And then, I was tryin’ to cut the booze first. So I went ahead
with Frank--but I guess I’ll go on the water-wagon soon.” “Say,” he
lowered his voice slightly, “I got a letter from her a couple o’ days
ago. She wrote that she was goin’ t’ be married to a fine young fellow
and that they was goin’ t’ run a little truck farm just outside of
Peoria. And she says, ‘Dad, we got it all fixed up. You got t’ throw up
your work and come and live with us. You’re goin’ t’ get the warmest
room in the house--on the south side. Besides, we need you to take care
of the chickens.’ What do you know about that!” He laughed deep in his
throat. “An old cuss like me feeding chickens. But see me beat it to
that little farm as soon as the season’s over. Can’t jump my contract
with my partner, y’ know.”
I was filled with a peculiar pity for the old man, a pity mixed with
pleasure in his good-fortune. Surely, he needed the care of a kind
daughter. Out there on the farm, wearing faded blue overalls, surrounded
by grunting swine and bawling calves--I smiled--Bill would certainly
look out of place there.
Slowly, as the place became deserted, the lights winked out, one by one,
until our stand alone stood out in the gloom. Everything seemed asleep.
I walked over to where Frank lay dozing in the grass. Happening to
glance behind me, I caught Bill hastily removing a bottle from his lips.
So he was drinking again! Oh, well, let him go to the devil in his own
way.