BEGINNING AN ORPHAN’S ODYSSEY
Rex Morgan came back from his mother’s funeral and sat down on the front
porch of the little place he had always known as home. He was a slender
young man, twenty years of age, with the complexion of a girl,
well-moulded features, somber brown eyes and an unruly mop of black
hair.
His black suit was slightly threadbare, the cuffs of his shirt rough
edged from many washings. He smoothed back his hair, staring at the
skyline of the little city of Northport, California. It had suddenly
occurred to him that he was all alone in the world.
The death of his mother had been a great shock to him. The doctor had
said it was heart failure. The rest of it had been a confusion of
neighbors, who wanted to assist with everything, the sympathetic
minister, the businesslike, solemn-faced undertaker, who had talked with
him on the price of caskets.
It seemed that there was a difference in price between sterling silver
handles and the plated ones, but Rex did not remember which had been
selected. Just now he stared at the skyline and wondered who would pay
for everything; because he had suddenly remembered that he had no money.
As far as he knew he was all alone in the world. There were plenty of
Morgans, of course, but he had never heard his mother mention one of
them as being a relative. He had never given this a thought before. In
fact, he had never given anything of that kind any thought.
Mrs. Morgan had always been an enigma to her neighbors. They had seen
Rex grow from babyhood to manhood, practically tied to his mother’s
apron strings, as they expressed it. He had no companions. She had never
allowed him to go to a public school, but had always employed a tutor.
How her income was derived, no one knew; but she was not wealthy. On the
contrary, Mrs. Morgan practiced the strictest economy in order to make
both ends meet. She was a slight little woman, evidently well-bred, who
lived solely for her son, shielding him from the world in every way.
She had never told any one anything of her past life. Rex was like her
in many respects. Now he was twenty years of age, educated from books—as
ignorant of the world as a six-year-old. He did not know how his
mother’s money had come. It had never meant anything to him.
* * * * *
In his own dumb sort of way he wondered about the money, and whether
there was any left. Another thing bothered him just a little. A
newspaper reporter, writing up the death notice, had asked Rex about his
father.
“I don’t know anything about him,” Rex had replied. “In fact, I have
never heard his name mentioned.”
“Possibly his name was Morgan,” suggested the reporter facetiously.
“Didn’t your mother have a marriage certificate?”
“I have never seen it.”
These things bothered him now. It seemed so ridiculous. There had been
one man in Northport, who had dropped in to see his mother once in a
while. Rex knew him to be a Mr. J. E. Blair, an attorney at law. He did
not come oftener than once every two or three months, and his visits
were of short duration. Rex had never wondered about him; he had never
been present during Mr. Blair’s short visits.
The death of his mother had been a great awakening for Rex. All his life
he had drifted along, being content to let her guide him in everything,
absolutely devoid of any initiative, and now he was like a rudderless
ship in a storm.
He looked at his soft, white hands, and a flash of bitterness swept
through his soul. He remembered what he had heard a man say one day:
“That Morgan boy is going to grow up to be an educated damn’ fool.”
He did not understand it at the time, but now he knew. But he was not
exactly a fool. He had absorbed education as a sponge absorbs water—but
to no purpose. He realized that he knew nothing of the world, of people,
except what he had learned from books. There was not a single thing he
had learned that would fit him for making a living.
His next-door neighbor was coming across the little strip of lawn, and
Rex looked at him curiously. His name was Amos Weed, a big, portly man,
who owned a grocery store down in the center of the city. They had been
neighbors for years, but nothing more than a nod had ever passed between
them.
* * * * *
Amos Weed sat down beside Rex, shifted his cigar to the opposite side of
his mouth and considered Rex thoughtfully.
“Me and the wife have been talkin’ about you,” he said. “Been wonderin’
just what you’re going to do, young man.”
“Going to do?” Rex lifted his head and looked at Weed.
“Yeah—work.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I see. Mebbe it’s none of my business, but are you fixed so you don’t
have to work?”
“Why, I—I don’t really know.”
“Uh-huh.”
He moved over closer beside Rex.
“Your mother traded with me a long time,” he said slowly. “She always
paid her bill right on the dot.”
“Well?” queried Rex.
“No, she don’t owe me a red cent, young man. You see, none of us ever
understood her. We wanted to be neighbors, but she didn’t care to mix
with us. We didn’t understand why she kept you so close all the time.
Hirin’ private teachers and all that. Of course—” quickly—“it wasn’t
none of our business. But you’ve lived here a long time, and folks do
get curious.”
“I see—” absently.
“Ain’t you got no relations?”
Rex shook his head quickly.
“None that I have ever heard about.”
“Father dead?”
“I don’t know,” replied Rex honestly.
“Don’t know?”
“Not a thing, Mr. Weed. I have never heard a word about him. My mother
never mentioned him to me.”
“Nor to anybody else, I guess.”
“I must have had a father.”
“Chances are, you did.”
“Oh, I must have, you know.”
Weed shifted his cigar and looked intently at the sad-eyed young man.
“Are you tryin’ to be funny, or are you just plain ignorant?”
Rex shook his head.
“No, I’m not trying to be funny.”
“I didn’t think you was,” Weed said dryly. “But what’s your plans?”
“I guess I haven’t any.”
“Talkin’ cold turkey, have you any money to live on?”
“None. I haven’t a cent.”
“You’ll have to get a job, eh?”
“I—I suppose so. But I don’t know—”
“All right. I need a boy to drive a delivery wagon for my grocery. You
ought to know this town well enough. I’ll pay you forty a month—start
tomorrow. What do you say?”
“Drive a—a horse?”
“Two of ’em.”
“But I have never driven a horse.”
“Listen to me, son—” Weed tapped him on the knee with a huge
finger—“you’re goin’ to do a hell of a lot of things that you’ve never
done. You’re goin’ to get callouses on your hands, wear dirty clothes,
swear like a man. Your private teacher will be Old Man Experience. He’ll
teach you things that ain’t in books, and when you get a diploma from
his school you’ll be the first man that ever did. Most of us die in the
first grade. You show up at the store at seven o’clock in the mornin’,
and Jerry will teach you how to harness a horse.”
Weed got up abruptly, hitched up his trousers and went striding back
across the lawn to his own porch, where he went clumping heavily into
the house.
* * * * *
Rex stared after him a bit foolishly, got to his feet and went into the
house. The air seemed heavy, and there was a faint scent of flowers. He
remembered now that someone had sent a huge bouquet.
He sat down in an old rocker, staring moodily at the wall, where an old
crocheted motto, slightly askew, stared back at him. Before he had
learned to read he had been taught that single line of cotton words,
done in red against a brown background, “Yield Not to Temptation”.
What temptation, he did not know. Possibly it meant any kind of
temptation. Anyway, it had been held before his eyes since he could
remember.
And there was another, “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother”. This one was
in green on a tan background, with a grapevine effect. His mother had
never said much about this one.
He remembered that the house did not belong to him. Sam Tilton had
rented it to his mother.
Finally he got up from the chair and went to an old desk, where his
mother kept her papers. There was a letter that had come the day she
died, still unopened. He looked at the postmark on it, which was
slightly smudged, but he was able to decipher Mesa City, Ariz.
Slowly he tore it open and took out the single content—a folded green
check on the Mesa City Bank, drawn in favor of Mrs. Mary Morgan, for the
sum of seventy-five dollars. It was signed with an unintelligible
scrawl, badly blotted.
He put the check back in the envelope. Some one was knocking at the
front door, and that someone was Sam Tilton, short of stature, pudgy of
waist, puffing heavily on the short butt of a cigar almost enfolded
between his thick lips.
“I was thinkin’ about the rent,” he panted. “Due las’ week. Don’t like
to have it go too long. Sorry about your ma, young man.”
“How much was the rent?” asked Rex.
“Seventy-fi’ dollars per quatter—due in advance.”
Rex drew out the check and handed it to him.
“Fuf-fine,” panted Tilton heavily, drawing out a much thumbed receipt
book. “Goin’ to stay on, eh? Uh—uh—”
He squinted at the check, turned it over carefully.
“No good this way,” he said sadly. “Ain’t been endorsed. Your ma would
have t’ sign it before I could take it.”
“I’m afraid that is impossible, Mr. Tilton.”
“Seems t’ me that way. Is that all you’ve got?”
“Every cent.”
“Well, well! Suppose I’ll have to take possession. Huh-huh! Well, you
stay here tonight and move out t’morrow. I lose money on it, but can’t
be helped. Did your mother have a nice funeral? Queer woman. Don’t
suppose many folks went to see her off. Well, I’ll be goin’.”
* * * * *
The next morning Rex Morgan took his first job. Jerry, the big stable
man, showed him how to harness a horse. Jerry had barely gone past the
primary grades in school, but he knew horses. Rex was afraid of being
stepped on by the two big grays that he was supposed to drive, and he
was as white as a sheet when he drove them through the narrow alley and
out into the street in front of the grocery store.
He kept repeating under his breath—
“Pull left line to turn left, right line to turn right, and both lines
to stop them.”
The horses knew where to go, and he had no difficulty in swinging them
around to the front door. Amos Weed looked quizzically at him.
“Didn’t expect you to handle ’em so soon,” he said. “Was goin’ to have
Slim drive for you today. But I guess you’ll do. C’mon in and load up.
First delivery almost ready.”
Two clerks helped him load the wagon, explaining just where he should go
in order to shorten the route. Rex listened to them in a sort of daze,
saying yes, when he hadn’t the slightest idea of what it was all about.
Then he found himself back on the seat again. One of the men was
explaining to him about the heavy iron weight, from which ran a strong
strap, fastened to the bit of one of the horses.
“Always throw down that anchor when you stop,” explained the man. “Those
horses are high headed. Don’t depend on the brake. And don’t forget to
take it up when you start again.”
Rex nodded absently and tightened the lines. He drove away from the
store, and the horses broke into a trot. It was exhilarating to sit up
there and guide a stepping team. As an experiment, he leaned back,
reached down to pick up an order sheet from one of the boxes, and almost
tore a front wheel off against a fire plug. A policeman swore roundly at
him, as he trotted his team around a corner, barely missing another
vehicle, but Rex was trying to read the address on that slip of paper.
The horses were going faster now. He slipped the paper under his leg and
shortened his grip on the lines. About a block ahead of him was a street
car, just slowing to a stop.
* * * * *
Suddenly, he heard the jangle of bells, the shrieking of a siren. It was
behind him. Quickly he turned his head and looked back. It was the fire
department, answering a call, heading down the street toward him.
For a moment he was paralyzed. He had been driving in the middle of the
street, and now he forgot whether they were supposed to pass on the
right or left hand side of him. It seemed to him as if he were taking up
all of the street and that unless he did something quickly they would
crash into him.
He reached back, picked up his whip and slashed both horses, swinging
heavily on the left line. With a lurch the team broke into a running
gallop, and the wheels of the wagon, skidding sideways on the car track,
almost side-swiped the rear end of the street car.
Across a street intersection they went at a mad gallop, the wagon doing
a juggling act with the grocery orders. For two long blocks the way had
been cleared for him, it seemed, but when he was halfway down the next
block he saw a heavily loaded truck lurch out through an alley, blocking
his way.
He forgot to set back on the lines, forgot to apply the brake. Perhaps
it would have availed him little. But one thought flashed through his
brain—the anchor. It was the last thing any driver would have thought
about, but Rex Morgan was not a driver.
And as quickly as the thought struck him he leaned over, hooked his
fingers in that iron anchor and threw it off the right side of the
wagon.
The twelve-pound weight hurtled through the air, whipped around a
telephone pole, where it hung long enough to throw one of the horses
almost a complete somersault; the wagon buckled sideways and up-ended on
the sidewalk, while Rex Morgan described a parabola, landed on his hands
and knees in the doorway of a clothing store and settled on his back,
with his feet up the side of a counter.
He stayed right there, trying to pump air into his lungs, while a
white-faced clerk, quivering all over, leaned across the counter and
looked down at Rex.
“What do you want?” he asked inanely.
“What have you got?” replied Rex. His right eye was fast swelling shut,
and the knees of his trousers were burst wide open, exposing badly
bruised knees.
A crowd had gathered, and men were trying to untangle the two horses,
which miraculously were unhurt. Even the wagon did not seem any the
worse for it; but the grocery orders were a sad jumble. A policeman came
in and looked at Rex. Finally he helped Rex to his feet, growling deep
in his throat.
“Did—did the fuf—fire department catch me?” panted Rex.
“Were ye runnin’ away from the department?”
“Yes.”
“They turned a half block from where ye started, ye poor fool. Who told
ye ye could dr-rive?”
“I—I can drive all right—but I don’t stop very well.”
“Oh, ye stopped, all right. Wan of yer horses had his nose through a
wheel of the big tr-ruck. If ye hadn’t—”
But at that moment Amos Weed came in. His face was red and he was
panting heavily. He looked at Rex, worked his jaws savagely and glared
at the policeman.
“He ran a race wid the fire department, Mr. Weed,” said the officer.
“The boy is too swift to be dr-rivin’ a delivery wagon.”
“He is!” exploded Weed angrily, turning on Rex. “You are fired! Don’t go
near that wagon. You almost killed both horses. I was a fool to hire
you, in the first place.”
* * * * *
Weed bustled outside into the crowd, while Rex leaned against a counter
and tried to adjust his thoughts. He had never been hurt before, and the
experience was quite a novelty. It was not remorse. He tried to grin.
“Get away from that counter!” snapped a voice.
Rex turned his head slightly. The clerk was standing close to him,
scowling and pointing.
“Move on, will you?” he demanded. “You’re bleeding on my counter. This
is not a hospital. Will you move, or will—”
The man reached over and put a hand on Rex’s shoulder, as if to shove
him away; and before Rex realized what he was doing he had clenched his
fist and smashed the clerk square in the jaw, sending him spinning back
against another counter.
Rex stared at the man, who made no move to resent the blow, but kept
both hands up to his jaw. Like a man in a daze, Rex limped through the
doorway, while the clerk ran out behind him, calling for the police. But
the crowd had righted the wagon, untangled the team, and the policeman
had gone on down his beat.
People looked curiously at the youth with the black eye and the ripped
trousers that showed a bruised knee, as he walked down the street.
Rex’s right hand was sore from the blow he had struck the clerk, and he
grinned foolishly at his own reflection in a plate glass show window. He
had unconsciously started toward home, but now he realized that he had
no home. In fact, he had walked out early that morning, without taking
anything except the clothes he had on his back. He stopped on a corner
near a big bank and watched the people going in and out of the
institution.
Reaching inside his coat pocket he drew out the green check for
seventy-five dollars. Without the proper identification it was worthless
but, without hesitating, he went into the bank and wrote his mother’s
signature across the back of the check.
The teller glanced at it closely, shot a quick glance at the bruised
face of the young man and shoved the check back to him.
“You better write your own name on it, too,” he said.
Fifteen minutes later Rex leaned against the ticket window at the Union
Station.
“A ticket to Mesa City, Arizona,” he said.
After a few moments of investigation the clerk replied:
“I can sell you one to Cañonville. Mesa City is on a stage line from
there. When do you want to leave?”
“Right now.”
“Train leaves in thirty minutes. Gives you time to check your baggage.”
“Plenty,” agreed Rex. “Were you ever in Mesa City?”
“No; and that’s only half of it,” replied the clerk blandly. “I prefer
civilization.”
“Isn’t Mesa City civilized?”
“Well, it’s twenty-five miles from a railroad, in Arizona; so you may
draw your own conclusions.”