LITTLE SISTER
I
It is one thing, however, to fling a challenge to the hills, and another
to live up to the high moment. Looking at it afterwards in cold blood,
Randy was forced to admit that his chances of beating George Dalton in a
race for Becky were small.
There seemed some slight hope, however, in the fact that Becky was a
Bannister and ought to know a gentleman when she saw one.
"And Dalton's a--a bounder," said Randy to Nellie Custis.
Nellie Custis, who was as blue-blooded as any Bannister, cocked a
sympathetic ear. Cocking an ear with Nellie was a weighty matter. Her
ears were big and unmanageable. When she got them up, she kept them
there for some time. It was a rather intriguing habit, as it gave her an
air of eager attention which wooed confidence.
"He's a bounder," said Randy as if that settled it.
But it did not settle it in the least. A man with an Apollo head may not
be a gentleman under his skin, but how are you to prove it? The world,
spurning Judy O'Grady, sanctions the Colonel's lady, and their
sisterhood becomes socially negligible. Randy should have known that he
could not sweep George Dalton away with a word. Perhaps he did know it,
but he did not care to admit it.
He and Nellie Custis were in the garage. It had once been a barn, but
the boarders had bought cars, so there was now the smell of gasoline
where there had once been the sweet scent of hay. And intermittently the
air was rent with puffs and snorts and shrieks which drowned the music
of that living chorus which has been sung in stables for centuries.
There were three cars. Two of them have nothing to do with this story,
but the third will play its part, and merits therefore description.
It was not an expensive car, but it was new and shining, and had a perky
snub-nosed air of being ready for anything. It belonged to the genial
gentleman who used it without mercy, and thus the little car wove back
and forth over the hills like a shuttle, doing its work sturdily, coming
home somewhat noisily, and even at rest, seeming to ask for something
more to do.
The genial gentleman was very proud of his car. He talked a great deal
about it to Randy, and on this particular morning when he came out and
found young Paine sitting on a wheelbarrow with Nellie Custis lending
him a cocked ear, he grew eloquent.
"Look here, I've been thinking. There ought to be a lot of cars like
this in the county."
To Randy the enthusiasms of the genial gentleman were a constant source
of amazement. He was always wanting the world to be glad about
something. Randy felt that at this moment any assumption of gladness
would be a hollow mockery.
"Any man," said the genial gentleman, rubbing a cloth over the enamel of
the little car, "any man who would start selling this machine down here
would make a fortune."
Randy pricked up his ears.
"How could he make a fortune?"
"Selling cars. Why, the babies cry for them----" he chuckled and rubbed
harder.
"How much could he make?" Randy found himself saying.
The genial gentleman named a sum, "Easy."
Randy got up from the wheelbarrow and came over. "Is she really as good
as that?"
"Is she really? Oh, say----" the genial gentleman for the next ten
minutes dealt in superlatives.
Towards the end, Randy was firing questions at him.
"Could I own a car while I was selling them?"
"Sure--they'd let you have it on installments to be paid for out of your
commissions----"
"And I'd have an open field?"
"My dear boy, in a month you could have cars like this running up and
down the hills like ants after sugar. They speak for themselves, and
they are cheap enough for anybody."
"But it is a horse-riding country, especially back in the hills. They
love horse-flesh, you know."
"Oh, they'll get the gasoline bug like the rest of us," said the genial
gentleman and slapped him on the back.
Randy winced. He did not like to be slapped on the back. Not at a
moment--when he was selling his soul to the devil----
For that was the way he looked at it.
"I shall have to perjure myself," he said to Major Prime later, as they
talked it over in the Schoolhouse, "to go through the country telling
mine own people to sell their horses and get cars."
"If you don't do it, somebody else will."
"But a man can't be convincing if he doesn't believe in a thing."
"No, of course. But you've got to look at it this way, the world moves,
and horses haven't had an easy time. Perhaps it is their moment of
emancipation. And just for the sake of a sentiment, a tradition, you
can't afford to hold back."
"I can't afford to lose this chance if there is money in it. But it
isn't what I had planned."
As he sat there on the step and hugged his knees, every drop of blood in
Randy seemed to be urging "Hurry, hurry." He felt as a man might who,
running a race, finds another rider neck and neck and strains towards
the finish.
To sell cars in order to win Becky seemed absurd on the face of it. But
he would at least be doing something towards solving the problem of
self-support, and towards increasing the measure of his own
self-respect.
"What had you planned?" the Major was asking.
"Well of course there is the law---- And I like it, but there would be a
year or two before I could earn a living---- And I've wanted to
write----"
"Write what? Books?"
"Anything," said Randy, explosively, "that would make the world sit up."
"Ever tried it?"
"Yes. At school. I talked to a teacher of mine once about it. He said I
had better invent a--pill----"
The Major stared, "A pill?"
Randy nodded. "He didn't quite mean it, of course. But he saw the modern
trend. A poet? A poor thing! But hats off to the pillmaker with his
multi-millions!"
"Stop that," said the Major.
"Stop what?"
"Blaming the world for its sordidness. There is beauty enough if we look
for it."
"None of us has time to look for it. We are too busy trying to sell cars
to people who love horses."
II
In the end Randy got his car. And after that he, too, might have been
seen running shuttle-like back and forth over the red roads. Nellie
Custis was usually beside him on the front seat. She took her new honors
seriously. For generations back her forbears had loped with flapping
ears in the lead of a hunting pack. To be sitting thus on a leather seat
and whirled through the air with no need of legs from morning until
night required some readjustment on the part of Nellie Custis. But she
had always followed where Randy led. And in time she grew to like it,
and watched the road ahead with eager eyes, and with her ears
perpetually cocked.
Now and then Becky sat beside Randy, with Nellie at her feet. The
difference between a ride with Randy and one with George Dalton was,
Becky felt, the difference a not unpleasant commonplace and the stuff
that dreams are made of.
"It is rather a duck of a car," she had said, the first time he took her
out in it.
"Yes, it is," Randy had agreed. "I am getting tremendously fond of her.
I have named her 'Little Sister.'"
"Oh, Randy, you haven't."
"Yes, I have. She has such confiding ways. I never believed that cars
had human qualities, Becky."
"They are not horses of course."
"Well, they have individual characteristics. You take the three cars in
our barn. The Packard reminds one of that stallion we owned three years
ago--blooded and off like the wind. The Franklin is a grayhound--and
Little Sister is a--duck----"
"Mr. Dalton's car is a--silver ship----"
"Oh, does he call it that?" grimly.
"No----"
"Was it your own--poetic--idea?"
"Yes."
"And you called Little Sister a duck," he groaned. "And when my little
duck swims in the wake of his silver ship, and he laughs, do you laugh,
too?"
There was a dead silence. Then she said, "Oh, Randy----"
He made his apology like a gentleman. "That was hateful of me, Becky.
I'm sorry----"
"You know I wouldn't laugh, Randy, and neither would he."
"Who?"
"Mr. Dalton."
"Wouldn't what?"
"Laugh."
He hated her defense of young Apollo--but he couldn't let the subject
alone.
"You never have any time for me."
"Randy, are you going to scold me for the rest of our ride?"
"Am I scolding?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll stop it and say nice things to you or you won't want to come
again."
Yet after that when he saw her in Dalton's car, her words would return
to him, and gradually he began to think of her as sailing in a silver
ship farther and farther away in a future where he could not follow.
Little Sister was a great comfort in those days. She gave him occupation
and she gave him an income. He was never to forget his first sale. He
had not found it easy to cry his wares. The Paines of King's Crest had
never asked favors of the country-folk, or if they had, they had paid
generously for what they had received. To go now among them saying, "I
have something to sell," carried a sting. There had been nothing
practical in Randy's education. He had no equipment with which to meet
the sordid questions of bargain and sale.
He had thought of this as he rode over the hills that morning to the
house of a young farmer who had been suggested by the genial gentleman
as a good prospect. He turned over in his mind the best method of
approach. It was a queer thing, he pondered, to visualize himself as a
salesman. He wondered how many of the other fellows who had come back
looked at it as he did. They had dreamed such dreams of valor, their
eyes had seen visions. To Randy when he had enlisted had come a singing
sense that the days of chivalry were not dead. He had gone through the
war with a laugh on his lips, but with a sense of the sacredness of the
crusade in his heart. He had returned--still dreaming--to sell
snub-nosed cars to the countryside!
Why, just a year ago----! He remembered a black night of storm, when,
hooded like a falcon--he had ridden without a light on his motorcycle,
carrying dispatches from the Argonne, and even as he had ridden, he had
felt that high sense of heroic endeavor. On the success of his mission
depended other lives, the saving of nations--victory----!
And now he, with a million others, was faced by the problem of the
day's work. He wondered how the others looked at it--those gallant young
knights in khaki who had followed the gleam. Were they, too, grasping at
any job that would buy them bread and butter, pay their bills, keep them
from living on the bounty of others?
He felt that in some way the thing was all wrong. There should have been
big things for these boys to do. There seemed something insensate in a
civilization which would permit a man who wore medals of honor to sell
ribbon over a counter, or weigh out beef at a butcher's. Yet he supposed
that many of them were doing it. Indeed he knew that some of them were.
The butcher's boy, who brought the meat over every morning to King's
Crest, wore two decorations, and when Randy had stopped for breakfast
supplies, the hero of Belleau Woods had cut off sausages as calmly as he
had once bayonetted Huns.
Randy wondered what the butcher's boy was feeling under that apparently
stolid surface. Was his horizon bounded by beef and sausages, or did his
soul expand with memories of the shoulder-to-shoulder march, the
comradeship of the trenches, the laughter and songs? Did his pulses
thrill with the thought of the big things he might yet do in these days
of peace, or was he content to play safe and snip sausages?
Randy felt that he was not content. It was not that he loved war. But he
loved the visions that the war had brought him. There had seemed no
limit then to America's achievement. She had been a laggard--he thanked
God that he had not been a party to that delay. But when she had come
in, she had come in with all her might and main. And her young men had
fought and the future of the whole world had been in their hands, and
since peace had come the future of the world must still be reckoned in
the terms of their glorious youth.
And now, something within Randy began to sing and soar. He felt that
here were things to be put on paper--the questions which he flung at
himself should be written for other men to read. That was what men
needed--questions. Questions which demanded answers not only in words
but in deeds. This was a moment for men of high thoughts and high
purposes.
And he was selling cars----!
Well, some day he would write. He was writing a little now, at night. In
his room at the top of the Schoolhouse. Yet the things that he had
written seemed trivial as he thought of them. What he wanted was to
strike a ringing note. To have the fellows say when they read it, "If it
is true for him it is true for me."
Yet when one came to think of it, there were really not any "fellows."
Not in the sense that it had been "over there." They were scattered to
the four winds, dispersed to the seven seas--the A. E. F. was
extinct--as extinct--as the Trumpeter Swan!
And now his thoughts ran fast, and faster. Here was his theme. Where was
that glorious company of young men who had once sounded their trumpets
to the world? Gone, as the swans were gone--leaving the memory of their
whiteness--leaving the memory of their beauty--leaving the memory of
their--song----
He wanted to turn back at once. To drive Little Sister at breakneck
speed towards pen and paper. But some instinct drove him doggedly
towards the matter on hand. One might write masterpieces, but there were
cars to be sold.
He sold one----; quite strangely and unexpectedly he found that the
transaction was not difficult. The man whom he had come to see was on
the front porch and was glad of company. Randy explained his errand. "It
is new business for me. But I've got something to offer you that you'll
find you'll want----"
He found that he could say many things truthful about the merits of
Little Sister. He had a convincing manner; the young farmer listened.
"Let me take you for a ride," Randy offered, and away they went along
the country roads, and through the main streets of the town in less time
that it takes to say--"Jack Robinson."
When they came back, the children ran out to see, and Randy took them
down the road and back again. "You can carry the whole family," he said,
"when you go----"
The man's wife came out. She refused to ride. She was afraid.
But Randy talked her over. "My mother felt like that. But once you are
in it is different."
She climbed in, and came back with her face shining.
"I am going to buy the car," her husband said to her.
Randy's heart jumped. Somehow he had felt that it would not really
happen. He had had little faith in his qualities as salesman. Yet, after
all, it had happened, and he had sold his car.
Riding down the hill, he was conscious of a new sense of achievement. It
was all very well to dream of writing masterpieces. But here was
something tangible.
"Nellie," he said, "things are picking up."
Nellie laid her nose on his knee and looked up at him. It had been a
long ride, and she was glad they were on the homeward stretch. But she
wagged her tail. Nellie knew when things were going well with her
master. And when his world went wrong, her sky darkened.
III
The sale of one car, however, does not make a fortune. Randy realized as
the days went on that if he sold them and sold them and sold them,
Dalton would still outdistance him financially.
There remained, therefore, fame, and the story in the back of his mind.
If he could lay a thing like that at Becky's feet! He had the lover's
urge towards some heaven-kissing act which should exalt his mistress----
A book for all the world to read--a picture painted with a flaming
brush, a statue carved with a magic instrument. It was for Becky that
Randy would work and strive hoping that by some divine chance he might
draw her to him.
He worked at night until the Major finally remonstrated.
"Do you ever go to bed?"
Randy laughed. "Sometimes."
"Are you writing?"
"Trying to."
"Hard work?"
"I like it,"--succinctly.
The Major smoked for a while in silence. Then he said, "I suppose you
don't want to talk about it."
It was a starry night and a still one. The younger boarders had gone for
a ride. The older boarders were in bed. The Major was stretched in his
long chair. Randy sat as usual on the steps.
"Yes," he said, "I'd like to talk about it. I have a big idea, and I
can't put it on paper."
He hugged his knees and talked. His young voice thrilled with the
majesty of his conception. Here, he said, was the idea. Once upon a time
there had been a race of wonderful swans, with plumage so white that
when they rested in flocks on the river banks they made a blanket of
snow. Their flight was a marvellous thing--they flew so high that the
eye of man could not see them--but the sound of their trumpets could be
heard. The years passed and the swans came no more to their old haunts.
Men had hunted them and killed them--but there were those who held that
on still nights they could be heard--sounding their trumpets----
"I want to link that up with the A. E. F. We were like the swans--a
white company which flew to France---- Our idealism was the song which
we sounded high up. And the world listened--and caught the sound---- And
now, as a body we are extinct, but if men will listen, they may still
hear our trumpets--sounding----!"
As he spoke the air seemed to throb with the passion of his phrases. His
face was uplifted to the sky. The Major remembered a picture in the
corridor of the Library of Congress--the Boy of Winander---- Oh, the
boys of the world--those wonderful boys who had been drawn out from
among the rest, set apart for a time, and in whose hands now rested the
fate of nations!
"It is epic," he said, slowly. "Take your time for it."
"It's too big," said Randy slowly, "and I am not a genius---- But it is
my idea, all right, and some day, perhaps, I shall make it go."
"You must make it clear to yourself. Then you can make it clear to
others."
"Yes," Randy agreed, "and now you can see why I am sitting up nights."
"Yes. How did you happen to think of it, Paine?"
"I've been turning a lot of things over in my mind----; what the other
fellows are doing about their jobs. There's that boy at the butcher's,
and a lot of us went over to do big things. And now we have come back to
the little things. Why, there's Dalton's valet--Kemp--taking orders from
that--cad."
His scorn seemed to cut into the night. "And I am selling cars---- I
sold one to-day to an old darkey, and I felt my grandsires turn in
their graves. But I like it."
The Major sat up. "Your liking it is the biggest thing about you,
Paine."
"What do you mean?"
"A man who can do his day's work and not whine about it, is the man that
counts. That butcher's boy may have a soul above weighing meat and
wrapping sausages, but at the moment that's his job, and he is doing it
well. There may be a divine discontent, but I respect the man who keeps
his mouth shut until he finds a remedy or a raise.
"I don't often speak of myself," he went on, "but perhaps this is the
moment. I am as thirsty for California, Paine, as a man for drink. It is
the dry season out there, and the hills are brown, but I love the brown,
and the purple shadows in the hollows. I have ridden over those hills
for days at a time,--I shall never ride a horse over them again." He
stopped and went on. "Oh, I've wanted to whine. I have wanted to curse
the fate that tied me to a chair like this. I have been an active
man--out-of-doors, and oh, the out-of-doors in California. There isn't
anything like it--it is the sense of space, the clear-cut look of
things. But I won't go back. Not till I have learned to do my day's
work, and then I will let myself play a bit. I'd like to take you with
me, Paine--you and a good car--and we'd go over the hills and far
away----
"I haven't told you much of my life. And there's not a great deal to
tell. Fifteen years ago I married a little girl and thought I loved her.
But what I really loved was the thought of doing things for her. I had
money and she was poor. It was pleasant to see her eyes shine when I
gave her things---- But money hasn't anything to do with love, Paine,
and that is where we American men fall down. When we love a woman we
begin to tell her of our possessions and to tempt her by them. And the
thing that we should do is to show her ourselves. We should say, 'If I
were stripped of all my worldly goods what would there be in me for you
to like?' My little wife and I had not one thing in common. And one day
she left me. She found a man who gave her love for love. I had given her
cars and flowers and boxes of candy and diamonds and furs. But she
wanted more than that. She died--two years ago. I think she had been
happy in those last years. I never really loved her, but she taught me
what love is--and it is not a question of barter and sale----"
He seemed to be thinking aloud. Randy spoke after a silence. "But a man
must have something to offer a woman."
"He must have himself. Oh, we are all crooked in our values, Paine. The
best that a man can give a woman is his courage, his hope, his
aspiration. That's enough. I learned it too late. I don't know why I am
saying all this to you, Paine."
But Randy knew. It was on such nights that men showed their souls to
each other. It was on such nights that his comrades had talked to him in
France. Under the moon they had seemed self-conscious. But beneath a sky
of stars, the words had come to them.
As he sat at his desk later, he thought of all that the Major had said
to him: that possessions had nothing to do with love; that the test must
be, "What would there be in me to like if I were stripped of all my
worldly goods?"
Well, he had nothing. There were only his hopes, his dreams, his
aspiration--himself.
Would these weigh with any woman in the balance against George Dalton's
splendid trappings?
The dawn crept in and found him still sitting at his desk. He had not
written a dozen lines. But his thoughts had been the long, long thoughts
of youth.