Alone in the kitchen, Horace stared with sombre eyes at the plate of
food. For a long time he betrayed no sign of yielding. His mood was
adamantine. He was resolved not to sell his vengeance for bread, cold
ham, and a pickle, and yet it must be known that the sight of them
affected him powerfully. The pickle in particular was notable for its
seductive charm. He surveyed it darkly.
[Illustration: "Horace Stared with Sombre Eyes at the Plate of Food"]
But at last, unable to longer endure his state, his attitude in the
presence of the pickle, he put out an inquisitive finger and touched
it, and it was cool and green and plump. Then a full conception of the
cruel woe of his situation swept upon him suddenly, and his eyes
filled with tears, which began to move down his cheeks. He sniffled.
His heart was black with hatred. He painted in his mind scenes of
deadly retribution. His mother would be taught that he was not one to
endure persecution meekly, without raising an arm in his defence. And
so his dreams were of a slaughter of feelings, and near the end of
them his mother was pictured as coming, bowed with pain, to his feet.
Weeping, she implored his charity. Would he forgive her? No; his once
tender heart had been turned to stone by her injustice. He could not
forgive her. She must pay the inexorable penalty.
The first item in this horrible plan was the refusal of the food. This
he knew by experience would work havoc in his mother's heart. And so
he grimly waited.
But suddenly it occurred to him that the first part of his revenge was
in danger of failing. The thought struck him that his mother might not
capitulate in the usual way. According to his recollection, the time
was more than due when she should come in, worried, sadly
affectionate, and ask him if he was ill. It had then been his custom
to hint in a resigned voice that he was the victim of secret disease,
but that he preferred to suffer in silence and alone. If she was
obdurate in her anxiety, he always asked her in a gloomy, low voice to
go away and leave him to suffer in silence and alone in the darkness
without food. He had known this maneuvering to result even in pie.
But what was the meaning of the long pause and the stillness? Had his
old and valued ruse betrayed him? As the truth sank into his mind, he
supremely loathed life, the world, his mother. Her heart was beating
back the besiegers; he was a defeated child.
He wept for a time before deciding upon the final stroke. He would run
away. In a remote corner of the world he would become some sort of
bloody-handed person driven to a life of crime by the barbarity of his
mother. She should never know his fate. He would torture her for years
with doubts and doubts, and drive her implacably to a repentant grave.
Nor would Aunt Martha escape. Some day, a century hence, when his
mother was dead, he would write to his Aunt Martha, and point out her
part in the blighting of his life. For one blow against him now he
would, in time, deal back a thousand--aye, ten thousand.
[Illustration: "Some Sort of Bloody-Handed Person"]
He arose and took his coat and cap. As he moved stealthily towards the
door he cast a glance backward at the pickle. He was tempted to take
it, but he knew that if he left the plate inviolate his mother would
feel even worse.
A blue snow was falling. People, bowed forward, were moving briskly
along the walks. The electric lamps hummed amid showers of flakes. As
Horace emerged from the kitchen, a shrill squall drove the flakes
around the corner of the house. He cowered away from it, and its
violence illumined his mind vaguely in new directions. He deliberated
upon a choice of remote corners of the globe. He found that he had no
plans which were definite enough in a geographical way, but without
much loss of time he decided upon California. He moved briskly as far
as his mother's front gate on the road to California. He was off at
last. His success was a trifle dreadful; his throat choked.
[Illustration: "People, Bowed Forward"]
But at the gate he paused. He did not know if his journey to
California would be shorter if he went down Niagara Avenue or off
through Hogan Street. As the storm was very cold and the point was
very important, he decided to withdraw for reflection to the
wood-shed. He entered the dark shanty, and took seat upon the old
chopping-block upon which he was supposed to perform for a few minutes
every afternoon when he returned from school. The wind screamed and
shouted at the loose boards, and there was a rift of snow on the floor
to leeward of a crack.
Here the idea of starting for California on such a night departed from
his mind, leaving him ruminating miserably upon his martyrdom. He saw
nothing for it but to sleep all night in the wood-shed and start for
California in the morning bright and early. Thinking of his bed, he
kicked over the floor and found that the innumerable chips were all
frozen tightly, bedded in ice.
Later he viewed with joy some signs of excitement in the house. The
flare of a lamp moved rapidly from window to window. Then the kitchen
door slammed loudly and a shawled figure sped towards the gate. At
last he was making them feel his power. The shivering child's face was
lit with saturnine glee as in the darkness of the wood-shed he gloated
over the evidences of consternation in his home. The shawled figure
had been his Aunt Martha dashing with the alarm to the neighbors.
The cold of the wood-shed was tormenting him. He endured only because
of the terror he was causing. But then it occurred to him that, if
they instituted a search for him, they would probably examine the
wood-shed. He knew that it would not be manful to be caught so soon.
He was not positive now that he was going to remain away forever, but
at any rate he was bound to inflict some more damage before allowing
himself to be captured. If he merely succeeded in making his mother
angry, she would thrash him on sight. He must prolong the time in
order to be safe. If he held out properly, he was sure of a welcome of
love, even though he should drip with crimes.
Evidently the storm had increased, for when he went out it swung him
violently with its rough and merciless strength. Panting, stung, half
blinded with the driving flakes, he was now a waif, exiled,
friendless, and poor. With a bursting heart, he thought of his home
and his mother. To his forlorn vision they were as far away as heaven.