The Bixbys settled themselves down in Mrs. Johnson’s rooms over Julie
Rose’s little shop, and thereafter the lives of these two new people
were constantly crossing the thread of Julie’s life, all of them
together weaving that unseen pattern in the garment of existence.
Elizabeth Bixby and her landlady fell into an indifferent intimacy.
Aunt Sadie was a sociable person well up in her sixties. The immediate
pressure of life was over for her, except when some one of her
children, all of whom were married, needed her in an emergency. The
years had drifted her into a rather pleasant backwater where she had
leisure to look about her and to enjoy what small diversions Hart’s Run
had to offer. Her gray eyes, set in a broad, weather-beaten face, were
shrewd but tolerant. She viewed human nature clearly, but not unkindly.
“You got to take people like you find ’em,” she was apt to state. Of
Elizabeth Bixby she said, “Oh, well, the poor thing, maybe I’d’ve put
a little more sweetening in, if I’d had the makin’ of her; but I didn’t
mix her batter, so it’s no concern of mine. I’m kind of sorry for her,
she craves so to have people notice her, an’ wants her own way so bad;
but she’s right good company, too, when everything’s going to suit
her.” Thus she explained their intimacy, and together they went almost
nightly to the moving pictures.
Elizabeth was lonesome, and had a good deal of spare time to kill. Some
of it she killed in Aunt Sadie’s society. The rest she made away with
by lying in bed late,--Mr. Bixby always got his own breakfast,--by
fitful housekeeping, by gossip and cheap fiction, and by much attention
to her clothes. And all that she did went by to the blare of popular
songs ground out on her gramophone, for, as she told Aunt Sadie, “If
there’s one thing I hate more’n another it’s nothin’ doin’. I got to
have some kind of stir goin’ on all the time, if it’s nothin’ more’n
the gramophone.”
Her uncertain and slovenly habits were the very antithesis of Julie’s
well-ordered and conscientious ones. At a certain early hour Julie
arose; at another certain hour she had her breakfast; and by another
her rooms were tidied and her shop open for the day. After the Bixbys
moved in, she became accustomed to hearing Mr. Bixby every morning at
a regular time getting his own breakfast; his habits, when they did
not depend on Elizabeth, were as methodical as her own. His breakfast
varied in time not more than five minutes from morning to morning, but
his dinner, which Elizabeth prepared, swung backward and forward across
the face of the clock.
As Julie finished her own breakfast and started her house-cleaning
for the day, she was used now to hearing Mr. Bixby’s tiptoe footsteps
creeping about overhead. The footsteps were so timid, so stealthy,
that she guessed he went in terror of an outburst of irritability from
Elizabeth if he awakened her. He was not always successful in keeping
quiet. One morning there was a sudden clatter and crash of tinware, and
immediately on the heels of it, a flood of abuse from his wife.
When Mr. Bixby came down the outside stairs that morning Julie was
sweeping her front steps. He paused after they had exchanged their
customary shy good morning.
“I was mighty sorry I made all that racket right over your head just
now,” he apologized awkwardly.
“Oh, that was all right,” she assured him quickly. “A person can’t help
pans falling down sometimes.”
“It was the pie plates,” he confided. “Seems like they just stand
there on edge watching their chance to jump down on a feller, and they
ain’t never satisfied to let one of the bunch go alone, but all of ’em
got to rattle down together.” There was in his eyes now that rueful
twinkle which she had seen before. He offered it tentatively to her, a
deprecatory, whimsical comment on his own inaptitude.
It was like a shy animal peeping forth from its hole, ready to whisk
away at the first unsympathetic gesture.
Julie smiled. “Yes, I know,” she said, although she really had no
whimsical twist like that in her own make-up. When pie plates fell for
her, they fell, and there was no alleviating mirth about their descent.
He still lingered, looking at her wistfully, relaxing his nerves in her
sympathetic atmosphere.
The street was almost empty. The little gardens up and down it made
joyful bits of color, and the fresh morning air danced through the
shimmering trees, and twinkled its feet over the sparkling grass.
Here and there, spread on the small lawns, or depending from the
garden fences or from the branch of a shrub, spider webs showed their
lace, an ephemeral loveliness which would presently disappear as the
day advanced. For a time life seemed to turn a kindly side to them
both, and in the friendliness of each other’s presence, their real
personalities--which were usually as invisible as the gossamer webs
upon the grass--came forth in shy intercourse.
“I’m mightily afraid I’ll disturb you in the mornings, stepping around
right over your head like that,” he confided.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” she reassured him. “I’m always up and through my
breakfast before you commence, and I think it’s nice to hear other
folks stirring around and getting ready for the day, too.”
“Well, I made stir enough this morning, didn’t I?” He laughed. Then
he was emboldened to a further confession. “I scared myself so bad I
didn’t have the nerve to go on and get my breakfast.”
“Why! You haven’t had anything to eat?” she exclaimed.
He flushed. “Oh, it’s all right. I’ll get me some coffee over at the
Monroe House. I didn’t want to disturb my wife again. She’s mighty
apt to have one of her bad headaches in the morning,” he said,
unconsciously revealing the real reason for his abandoning any further
attempt at breakfast.
“I got some fresh coffee right on my stove this minute, an’ some hot
biscuits still in the oven. I’d be mighty glad to give you a bite,” she
offered impulsively.
At that, a quick embarrassed flush mounted to his forehead. “I’m much
obliged,” he answered stiffly, “but I wouldn’t trouble you.”
His embarrassment communicated itself to her, entrapping them both in
their frozen self-consciousness and destroying the little moment of
friendly spontaneity.
“I must be going,” he said.
“Well,” she answered awkwardly, “I’m sorry you won’t try my coffee.”
For a moment more they lingered uncertainly, their real selves staring
forth wistfully through the formality that their conventional selves
were hastily assuming, like friendly children being dragged apart
by stiff grown-ups. Then she began to sweep again, and he, with a
constrained gesture toward his hat, went on his way.
X
Later in that month of June, Aunt Sadie Johnson gave a supper party.
She said it did look like she ought to do something for Mr. Seabrook:
which was merely a thin excuse, as she was a Presbyterian herself
and therefore owed no hospitality to the new Methodist minister. She
was, however, obsessed with the idea of finding a husband for Julie,
although she was not as frank about it as Mrs. Dolly Anderson. With
this in view, she had meant to ask only Julie and Brother Seabrook, but
Elizabeth Bixby got wind of the small festivity and saw to it that she
was included.
“She invited herself: she didn’t get no bid from me,” Aunt Sadie told
Julie. “Oh, well, the poor thing, I reckon she’s lonesome, so we might
as well have her; an’ anyhow we’ll give that poor little Bixby man a
good feed for once in his life--good, that is, as Mr. Hoover’ll allow.
We’ll have waffles anyhow. I reckon we can use that much flour this
once, seein’ ’s I’ve eat almost nothing but corn bread all summer.
I’ll get you to come in early an’ make ’em, Julie; you make the best
waffles in town.”
Julie had no desire to meet Brother Seabrook so intimately and so soon
again after her encounter with him in the church, but she could not
screw her courage up to explain the matter even to Aunt Sadie. She
blushed all over at the very thought of it now, merely in her own mind.
So there was no escape for her. Accordingly, on the night of the supper
she dressed early and went through to her hostess’s part of the house,
to help set the table and to beat up the waffles.
“My, Julie! You look mighty nice in that little sprigged dress,” Aunt
Sadie hailed her. “That little touch of blue just suits you. It helps
to bring out the color of your eyes. I’ll bet your preacher takes
notice.”
“Oh, no, he won’t!” Julie hastily replied. “That is,” she stammered,
flushing, “I hope he won’t.”
“Oh, Julie, you’re so _young_,” Aunt Sadie told her tolerantly. “I
don’t know what it is about you--you ain’t really young no more, an’
you don’t exactly look young; but someway you just seem to make every
one think of you as nothin’ but a child.”
It was a rather disjointed supper party. Julie had to vibrate
constantly between kitchen and dining-room, serving the waffles,
and Mrs. Johnson was forever jumping up to hand somebody something.
Her idea of entertainment was to see that her guests were well fed,
over-fed,--stuffed, in fact,--and conversation was left to struggle
along as best it could. Little hopeful fragments of talk were started,
but constantly shattered by the necessity for serving a fresh batch
of waffles, or by her starting up to get out a glass of some new kind
of preserve. Brother Seabrook tried bravely to converse with his
hostess, but it was no easy matter. “Yes, yes,” she responded absently
to some promising remark, “Now do have one of Julie’s hot waffles,
Mr. Seabrook, they’re right fresh from the iron”; or, in sudden
accusation, “Why, Mr. Seabrook, you haven’t one thing on your plate!”
Valiantly as the poor man struggled to see the surface of his plate,
he never saw it, for always as he politely got through one mountain of
food, another avalanche descended upon it. He ate manfully, however,
replying as best he might to Elizabeth’s insistent talk, and trying
from time to time to drag Mr. Bixby into the stream of conversation, as
a small boy, not too happy in the swimming-hole, tries to urge other
tentative little boys upon the bank to “come on in.” But this Elizabeth
always circumvented. Whenever her husband essayed a plunge into the
talk, encouraged thereto by Brother Seabrook or in a moment of his
own unaided daring, she immediately chased him into silence with some
sharp retort. So for the most part he ate his supper without a word. He
ate it, too, as though he were very hungry. Unfortunately he told his
hostess that it was just about the best supper he ever did eat. He said
it in an aside, but Elizabeth overheard and paused just long enough in
something she was telling Brother Seabrook to pounce upon him with,
“Now _that’s_ a pretty thing to say, ain’t it! Like your own wife kep’
you half starved!”
After that Mr. Bixby fell out of the conversation altogether, only
raising his eyes from his plate to glance from time to time at Julie
as she came and went with her waffles. In her neat sprigged dress she
looked soft and gentle. Her face was a little flushed; one dark strand
of hair fell over her forehead, and when she turned to go back to the
kitchen, he could see that there were two little ringlets that made
curls at the nape of her neck.
Waffle-making was an art with Julie. In the practice of it she even
forgot her usual feeling of constraint and breathlessness toward
Elizabeth, and served her as eagerly as the rest. In her unconscious
delight in doing a thing she loved to do and could do well, she
created a content and serenity that drew Mr. Bixby’s eyes continually
toward her, and also made the Reverend Mr. Seabrook, who appeared to
harbor no malice for that brief episode in the church, rather absent
to Elizabeth’s stream of talk. Elizabeth had come to the party intent
on making an impression, but much as her elaborate talk and dashing
costume thrust her into the foreground, she felt herself constantly in
danger of being swept away into the background every time that Julie
entered with fresh waffles.
It was the summer of 1918, and naturally most of the fitful
conversation turned upon the war, although Elizabeth said flatly that
she was just sick to death of the hateful business; and Aunt Sadie
answered Brother Seabrook’s scraps of war news with, “Yes, yes--have
some preserves?” The reverend gentleman, however, was patriotic, and
would not be deflected from the subject.
“Well,” Elizabeth said, at last, making the best of it, “my husband’s
liable to get his draft call most any time now. It’ll be right hard
on me, but if the country needs him, I’ll have to give him, I reckon.
Everybody’s got to do their bit.”
She patted her hair and sighed, basking in her own nobility.
Though Aunt Sadie tolerated Elizabeth, she was apt to flash out at her
every now and again.
“_You_ give him?” she snorted. “Humph! that sounds mighty grand, but
believe _me_ if Uncle Sam wants him, he’ll take him all right, without
any giving on your part.”
Elizabeth’s eyes glittered angrily. She did not quite dare to cross
swords with the older woman, so she turned upon her husband.
“Well, he’ll make a great soldier, won’t he!” she jeered.
“Why, I wouldn’t hardly think he was up to the standard height,”
Brother Seabrook said, running his eye appraisingly over Mr. Bixby.
“Oh, it ain’t always the biggest men makes the best soldiers,” Mrs.
Johnson protested.
They all fixed their scrutinizing eyes upon the little man, but none
of them spoke directly to him, unconsciously following the impersonal
attitude that Elizabeth had adopted.
Julie was standing in the background, having just returned from the
kitchen. She had paused involuntarily when she heard Elizabeth’s remark
about Mr. Bixby’s being drafted, and her eyes went quickly to his face.
She saw his lips give that faint nervous twitch, and his face stiffen.
Then when they all turned their impersonal scrutiny upon him, as though
they were inspecting some curious specimen, she saw the unhappy crimson
flush up to his eyes.
“What’s the matter with us?” Julie thought violently, unconsciously
classing herself with him. “Why can’t folks see us? We’re there just
like anybody else, but they always act like they didn’t see us. Someway
we stand outside of people’s minds, an’ have to wait for them to open
an’ let us in. And they never do.”
Suddenly familiar words flashed upon her with such vividness as to
leave her giddy. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” She was aware
of so enormous an extension of understanding that the whole of it was
beyond her grasp, making her feel for an instant as though she reeled
into a larger world. She knew that it was just Mr. Bixby sitting there,
silent and embarrassed, shut away from life by the impersonal eyes upon
him; and yet in that moment of insight it seemed to her that the great
essence of humanity was there looking forth from the caged bars of the
little man’s face, waiting patiently, terribly, for an invitation to
enter. “I got to let him in--I _got_ to get the door open someway an’
let him in!” she thought fiercely. She moved forward quickly, holding
out her plate of waffles. “Have a fresh waffle, Mr. Bixby,” she urged.
“These are nice and crisp. I’d like for _you_ to try one.”
It was all perfectly simple and natural, and yet the slight emphasis
she laid upon the personal pronoun seemed to open the door for him that
he might emerge into the life of a real human being, set free from the
negative limbo to which the others had driven him.
He looked up quickly and gladly into her face, with that look of
release and freedom, and the breaking of a constricting cord which she
had read in his expression before.
“I thank you, I thank you, Miss Julie,” he said gratefully. It was
the first time he had dared the intimacy of her Christian name. He
helped himself, and, fortified by her creative touch, held the waffle
suspended upon his fork for a moment’s approving contemplation.
“My!” he said, with the air of a connoisseur, “That’s about the finest
thing in the way of waffle-flesh I ever did see. I’d recommend you to
try one of this batch, Brother Seabrook,” he urged.
“Well, I thought I was about done, but if you advise it, Brother
Bixby--” Brother Seabrook hesitated.
“I don’t just advise you to take one, I prescribe it for your health,”
Mr. Bixby returned; at which every one laughed except Elizabeth, who
was furious over his being allowed any personality.
But for the other two Julie had opened the door and let him in, so
that he emerged into their consciousness as some one to be taken into
account. Brother Seabrook fell into talk with him about the war, and
as to the possibility of his draft call, ignoring Elizabeth’s ruffled
attempts to draw the conversation back to herself. The supper came to
an end presently, and to Elizabeth’s chagrin, Mrs. Johnson accepted her
perfunctory offer to help with the dishes.
“Yes,” she said, “you stay with me, Mis’ Bixby, an’ we’ll let Julie go
out to the porch an’ entertain the men-folks for a spell. She needs a
rest an’ cool-off ’fore we go to the show.”
“Well, you picked a poor hand to help you,” Elizabeth said tartly.
“If there’s one thing I do despise, it’s dirty dishes. Here, Tim!”
she cried to her husband; and then, realizing that if she called him
back that would leave Brother Seabrook in a tête-à-tête with Julie,
she said, “Oh, well, go on then”; for she suspected in the minister
an interest in Julie which she resented. Her manœuvres were all so
obvious and usually so futile, that Julie, informed by that wider
understanding, felt a sudden pity for her.
“I’ll stay and help you with the dishes,” she offered.
But this Aunt Sadie would not allow. “No, you go on now, Julie; you’ve
done your bit. You go out on the porch an’ cool off,” she ordered.
While the table was being cleared, Julie and the two men sat together
in the dusk of the side porch. Julie did not talk much. She did not
want to. She was slightly tired, and was content to listen to the
other two. She liked to hear Mr. Bixby. It was amazing how much he
found to say when the stifling incubus of Elizabeth was withdrawn.
For a time the talk was still about the war, but presently it drifted
away to other topics, and as that was left behind, Julie was conscious
that there appeared in his voice a note of relief and picking up of
interest. He talked more quickly and easily, describing the matter of
printing. His father, it appeared, had been a printer before him. He
had learned the trade from him. He said, “I like it.” He said that
over frequently in variations. “Somehow I like it. I like a good bit
of printing,” and “I liked it from the first, when I was just a kid.”
He made what he said interesting: so much so that Brother Seabrook was
glad to listen and said, “Well, well, is that so?” frequently. Neither
of the men spoke especially to Julie, yet she knew that they were both
aware of her presence, and stimulated by it.
She liked sitting there in the dusk, making the background for their
conversation. She had a curious sense that something out of herself
flowed forth and made a successful medium for their talk. She knew that
if she had not been there Mr. Bixby could never have spoken so well and
so easily about his trade. Without the touch of her sympathy, together
with the mantle of the dusk, he could never have let so much of himself
appear; he would not have been interesting, and Brother Seabrook
would have seized the conversation and borne it away in his own large
declamatory tones.
It was not long, however, before this little friendly interim was
broken. The other two reappeared, and Aunt Sadie hurried them all off
to the moving-picture theatre. There Elizabeth managed to secure the
seat next to Brother Seabrook, a manœuvre which Aunt Sadie was not
quick enough to frustrate. She would not, however, permit her guest of
honor to be snatched completely from her, and so squeezed herself down
firmly beside them, leaving Julie and Mr. Bixby to find seats together
elsewhere.
The entertainment was preceded by a patriotic rally on behalf of one of
the Liberty Loans, and as Judge Dean--the main speaker of the evening,
who had come from Red River to address the Hart’s Run people--was
just beginning his speech, they hastily obliterated themselves in
back seats. They listened dutifully through the speech, and to the
subscribing for bonds which followed, although they took no part in it,
as Julie had already bought two bonds, and Mr. Bixby whispered that he
too was carrying about all he could manage.
After the drive for the Loan was over, the lights were lowered, and
the moving pictures began; and as always in those summer days of 1918,
soldiers went marching by upon the screen. Soldiers drilling at Camp
Lee; running up the flag--for a moment Old Glory waved and rippled in
the wind before them, and the crowd went wild with applause; soldiers
on a transport; American soldiers marching through Paris. At the sight
of them and at the sound of the continuous applause, Julie felt the
man beside her stiffen. “I’m liable to get my call any time now,” he
whispered suddenly in the dimness.
It was only what his wife had said at supper, but now it was different.
Then it had been an almost impersonal statement. Now his low voice made
it alive and real, an approaching event upon which a human being’s
whole life was hung.
“You heard ’em speak of it at table?” he questioned.
“Yes,” she nodded faintly.
The light from the screen glimmered upon his face, and he looked and
looked at the men slipping by before him. Suddenly for Julie there
seemed to be nothing in the house save those marching figures, and his
white face watching them. She fixed her eyes upon them also and a twist
of horror shot through her. “Look at those men,” she thought. “Look at
all of them--those are all real men--they aren’t just pictures, they’re
real. Every soldier there is--or was--a real person. Oh, my Lord!” she
thought suddenly, “I wonder what they’re up against now.”
At last the war pictures flashed out and a play began. Mr. Bixby drew
a deep breath and Julie felt him relax. He turned to her. “I--I was
mightily obliged to you,” he ventured, speaking softly.
Julie knew what he meant, but she wondered if he was aware of what she
had done.
“What for?” she questioned.
“Why, _you_ know.” He seemed surprised that she should ask. “At supper,
for helping me out. I mean for sort of bringing me into things. After
what you did, they saw I was there. But--_you_ know,” he broke off.
“Yes, I know,” she answered.
“You’ve known right from the first,” he said, daring to speak in the
half obscuring dark. “When you’re there, I always know you understand.
She--I mean--” he cut himself off; “some people seem to sort of
strangle me. I don’t know how it is, but someway, I just can’t get to
the surface with them.”
“Can’t get to the surface?” she asked quickly.
“Yes. I mean, to get into the world at all. It was like I wasn’t all
in; they seem to slam a door in my face, an’ squeeze me out. I’m only
half alive with them. They go right along as though I wasn’t there. I
don’t know what it is.” He paused uncertainly, as though trying to
blaze a pathway of words through a maze of difficult and heretofore
unexpressed thoughts. “I reckon it’s my fault someway--I don’t know--or
maybe it’s because I’m insignificant-looking an’ small--though I’m
really only a little bit below average height--but folks go along an’
don’t even seem to see me.”
“I know: I understand,” she breathed.
“Yes,” he whispered sharply, “you do know. That’s just it. You’ve
understood right from the first! There was never anybody else who ever
did.”
“It’s--it’s the same with me,” she confessed, a thrill of emotion in
her voice. “That’s why I understand. Some folks just choke me--an’
I--someway, I don’t know how to stand up against them.”
“Ain’t that funny?” He spoke wonderingly. “Ain’t it funny? I thought I
was the only one in the world that way.”
“I know. I thought that, too.”
They spoke slowly, little pauses between each sentence, as they felt
their way on this dim pathway out toward each other.
When suddenly the play came to an end, the theatre lights flashed up,
and they heard Elizabeth’s loud confident laugh, they were startled and
astray, as though they had come back into a strange world.