'I saw that much,' Corinne murmured, rather mournfully. 'It's--wait a
minute! I couldn't believe it at first. It--no--yes, that's what it is.'
'_What!_'
Then Humphrey dropped down at Mildred's feet, and laughed, softly at
first, then with increasing vigour.
Mildred clapped her hand over his mouth and ran him down the stairs and
through into the living-room. There they dropped side by side on the
sofa and laughed until tears came.
Corinne, laughing a little herself now, but perplexed, followed them.
'Here,' said Humphrey, when he could speak, 'let's get into this.'
They moved, to the table. Humphrey spread out the pages, and skimmed
them over with a practised eye, arranging as he read.
Once he muttered, 'What on earth!' And shortly after: 'Why, the young
devil!'
'Please--' said Corinne. 'Please! I want to know what it is.',
Humphrey stacked up the sheets, and laid them on the table.
'Well,' he remarked, 'it is certainly an account of the Business Men's
Picnic. And it certainly was _not_ written for _The Weekly Voice of
Sunbury_. I'll start in a minute and read it through. But from what I've
seen---- Well, while it may be a little Kiplingesque--naturally--still
it comes pretty close to being a work of art.
'Tell you what the boy's done. He's gone at that little community outing
just about as an artistic god would have gone at it. As if he'd never
seen any of these Simpson Street folks before. Berger, the grocer, and
William F. Donovan, and Mr Wombast, and Charlie Waterhouse, and Weston
of the bank, and--and, here, the little Dutchman that runs the lunch
counter down by the tracks, and Heinie Schultz and Bill Schwartz, and
old Boice! It's a crime what he's done to Boice. If this ever appears,
Sunbury will be too small for Henry Calverly. But, oh, it's
grand writing.... He's got'em all in, their clothes, their little
mannerisms--their tricks of speech... Wait, I'll read it.'
Forty minutes later the three sat back in their chairs, weak from
laughter, each in his own way excited, aware that a real performance
was taking place, right here in the house.
'One thing I don't quite understand,' said Mildred. 'It's a lovely bit
of writing--he makes you see it and feel it--where Mr Boice and Charles
Waterhouse were around behind the lemonade stand, and Mr Waterhouse is
upset because the purse they're going to surprise him with for being
the most popular man in town isn't large enough. What _is_ all that,
anyway?'
'I know,' said Humphrey. 'I was wondering about that. It's funny as the
dickens, those two birds out there behind the lemonade stand quarrelling
about it. It's--let's see--oh, yes! And Boice says, “It won't help you
to worry, Charlie. We're doing what we can for you. But it'll take time.
And it's a chance!”... Funny!'
He lowered the manuscript, and stared at the wall. 'Hm!' he remarked
thoughtfully. 'Mildred, got any cigarettes?'
'Yes, I have, but I don't care to be mystified like this. Take one, and
tell me exactly what you're thinking.'
'I'm thinking that Bob McGibbon would give a hundred dollars for this
story as it stands, right now.'
'Why?'
'Because he's gunning for Charlie. And for Boice.'
'And what's this?'
'Evidence.' Humphrey was grave now. 'Not quite it. But warm. Very warm.'
'He's really stumbled on something. How perfectly lovely!'
'And he doesn't know it. Sees nothing but the story value of it. But it
may be serious. They'd duck him in the lake. They'd drown him.'
'But how lovely if Henry, by one stroke of his pencil, should really
puncture the frauds in this smug town.'
'There is something in that,' mused Humphrey.
'Ssh!' From Mildred.
They heard a slow step on the stairs.
A moment, and Henry appeared in the doorway. He stopped short when he
saw them. His glasses hung dangling against his shirt front. He was
coatless, but plainly didn't know it. His straight brown hair was
rumpled up on one side and down in a shock over the farther eye. He
was pale, and looked tired about the eyes. He carried more of the
manuscript.
He stared at them as if he couldn't quite make them out, or as if not
sure he had met them. Then he brushed a hand across his forehead and
slowly, rather wanly, smiled.
'I had no idea it was so late,' he said.
Mildred and Corinne fed him and petted him while Humphrey drew a big
chair into the dining-room, smoked cigarette after cigarette, and
studied the brightening, expanding youth before him. He reflected, too,
on the curious, instant responsiveness that is roused in the imaginative
woman at the first evidence of the creative impulse in a man. As if the
elemental mother were moved.
'That's probably it,' he thought. 'And it's what the boy has needed.
Martha Caldwell couldn't give it to him--never in the world! He was
groping to find it in that tough little Wilcox girl. It wouldn't do to
tell him--no, I mustn't tell him; got to steady him down all I can--but
I rather guess he's been needing a Mildred and a Corinne. These two
years.'
9
Humphrey stood up then, said he was going out for half an hour, and
picked up the manuscript from the living-room table as he passed.
He went straight to Boice's house on Upper Chestnut Avenue.
'What has all this to do with me?' asked Mr Boice, behind closed doors
in his roomy library. 'Let him write anything he likes.'
Humphrey sat back; slowly turned the pages of the manuscript.
'This,' he said, 'is a real piece of writing. It's the best picture of a
community outing I ever read in my life. It's vivid. The characters
are so real that a stranger, after reading this, could walk up Simpson
Street and call fifteen people by name. He'd know how their voices
sound, what their weaknesses are, what they're really thinking about
Sunday mornings in church. It is humour of the finest kind. But they
won't know it on Simpson Street. They'll be sore as pups, every man.
He's taken their skulls off and looked in. He's as impersonal, as cruel,
as Shakespeare.'
This sounded pretty highfalutin' to Mr Boice. He made a reflective
sound; then remarked:--
'You think the advertisers wouldn't like it,'
'They'd hate it. They'd fight. It would raise Ned in the town. But
McGibbon wouldn't mind. Or if he didn't have the nerve to print it, any
Sunday editor in Chicago would eat it alive.'
'Well, what----'
Humphrey quietly interrupted.
'Little scenes, all through. Funny as Pickwick. There really is a touch
of genius in it. Handles you pretty roughly. But they'd laugh. No doubt
about that. All sorts of scenes--you and Charlie Waterhouse behind the
lemonade stand--Bill Parker's little accident in the tug-of-war.' He
read on, to himself. But he knew that Mr Boice sat up stiffly in his
chair, with a grunt. He heard him rise, ponderously, and move down the
room; then come back.
When he spoke, Humphrey, aware of his perturbation, was moved to
momentary admiration by his apparent calmness. He sounded just as usual.
'What are you getting at?' he asked. 'You want something.'
'I want you to take Hemy back at--say, twelve a week.'
'Hm. Have him re-write this?'
'No. Henry won't be able to write another word this week. He's empty.
My idea is, Mr Boice, that you'll want to do the cutting yourself. When
you've done that, I'll pitch in on the re-write. We can get our three
columns out of it all right.'
'Hm!'
'There's one thing you may be sure of. Henry doesn't know what he's
written. No idea. It's a flash of pure genius.'
'Don't know that we've got much use for a genius on the _Voice_,'
grunted Mr Boice. 'He ought to go to Chicago or New York.'
'He will, some day.' Humphrey rose. 'Will you send for him in the
morning?'
There was a long silence. Then a sound. Then:--'Tell him to come
around.'
'Twelve a week, including this week?'
The massive yellowish-gray head inclined slowly.
'Very well, I'll tell him.'
'You can leave the manuscript here, Weaver.'
'No.' Humphrey deliberately folded it and put it in an inside pocket.
'Henry will have to give it to you himself. It's his. Good-night.'
Out on the street, Humphrey reflected, with a touch of exuberance rare
in his life:--
'We won't either of us be long on the _Voice_. Not now. But it's great
going while it lasts.'
And he wondered, with a little stir of excitement, just why that purse
wasn't enough for Charlie Waterhouse... just what old Boice knew... Why
it was a chance! Curious! Something back of it, something that McGibbon
was eternally pounding at--hinting--insinuating. Something real there;
something that might never be known.
10
Humphrey felt that the little triumph--though it might indeed prove
temporary; any victory over old Boice in Sunbury affairs was likely
to be that--called for celebrating in some special degree. He had, it
seemed, a few bottles of beer at the rooms.
So thither they adjourned; Mildred and Humphrey strolling slowly ahead,
Corinne and Henry strolling still more slowly behind.
Henry seemed fagged. At least he was quiet.
Corinne, stirred with a sympathetic interest not common to her sort of
nature, stole hesitant glances at him, even, finally, slipped her hand
through his arm.
She hung back. Mildred and Humphrey disappeared in the shadows of the
maples a block ahead.
'I suppose you're pretty tired, aren't you?' Corinne murmured.
Her voice seemed to waken him out of a dream.
'I--I--what was that? Oh--tired? Why, I don't know. Sorta.'
Her hand slipped down his forearm, within easy reach of his hand; but he
was unaware.
'I'm frightfully excited,' he said, brightening. 'If you knew what this
meant to me! Feeling like this. The Power--but you wouldn't know what
that meant. Only it lifts me up. I know I'm all right now. It's been an
awful two years. You've no idea. Drudgery. Plugging along. But I'm up
again now. I can do it any time I want. I'm free of this dam' town. They
can't hold me back now.'
'You'll do big things,' she said, a mournful note in her voice.
'I know. I feel that.'
And now she stopped short. In a shadow.
'What is it?' he asked casually. 'What's the matter?'
She glanced at his face; then down.
'Do you think you'll write--a poem?' she asked almost sullenly.
'Maybe. I don't know. It's queer--you get all stirred up inside, and
then something comes. You can't tell what it's going to be. It's as if
it came from outside yourself. You know. Spooky.'
She moved on now, bringing him with her.
'Mildred and Humphrey'll wonder where we are,' she said crossly.
Henry glanced down at her; then at the shadowy arch of maples ahead.
He wondered what was the matter with her. Girls were, of course,
notoriously difficult. Never knew their own minds. He was exultantly
happy. It had been a great day. Twelve a week now, and going up! Hump
was a good old soul.... He recalled, with a recurrence of both the
thrill and the conservatism that had come then, that he had had a great
time with Corinne in the early afternoon. Mustn't go too far with that
sort of thing, of course. But she was sure a peach. And she didn't seem
the sort that would be for ever trying to pin you down. He took her hand
now. It was great to feel her there, close beside him.'
Corinne walked more rapidly. He didn't know that she was biting her
lip. Nor did he perceive what she saw clearly, bitterly; that she
had unwittingly served a purpose in his life, which he would never
understand. And she saw, too, that the little job was, for the present,
at least, over and done with.
She stole another sidelong glance at him. He was twisting up the ends of
his moustache. And humming.