“WHO looks a mustang in the eye?
Changety, chang, chang! Bash! Crash! BANG!”
So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen
because of the noise of the machinery. He had discovered long ago that
the uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the
afternoon of the fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the
swing and clash of the metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling
improvisations of his own among them, and mocking the zinc-eater's crash
with vocal imitations:
Fearless and bold,
Chang! Bash! Behold!
With a leap from the ground
To the saddle in a bound,
And away--and away!
Hi-YAY!
WHO looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang!
WHO cares a dash how you bash and you crash?
NIGHT'S on the way
EACH time I say,
Hi-YAY!
Crash, chang! Bash, chang! Chang, bang, BANG!
The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the
air was thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually;
everything was implacably in motion--nowhere was there a rest for the
dizzied eye. The first time he had entered the place Bibbs had become
dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea
to faintness. But he felt neither now. “ALL DAY LONG I'LL SEND MY
THOUGHTS TO YOU. YOU MUST KEEP REMEMBERING THAT YOUR FRIEND STANDS
BESIDE YOU.” He saw her there beside him, and the greasy, roaring place
became suffused with radiance. The poet was happy in his machine-shop;
he was still a poet there. And he fed his old zinc-eater, and sang:
Away--and away!
Hi-YAY!
Crash, bash, crash, bash, CHANG!
Wild are his eyes,
Fiercely he dies!
Hi-YAH!
Crash, bash, bang! Bash, CHANG!
Ready to fling
Our gloves in the ring--
He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen.
Their great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him
standing with Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs. Sheridan nodded
to those nearest him--he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of
them--but he kept his attention upon his son. Bibbs worked steadily,
never turning from his machine. Now and then he varied his musical
programme with remarks addressed to the zinc-eater.
“Go on, you old crash-basher! Chew it up! It's good for you, if
you don't try to bolt your vittles. Fletcherize, you pig! That's
right--YOU'LL never get a lump in your gizzard. Want some more? Here's a
nice, shiny one.”
The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to
Gurney's ear and shouted fiercely: “Talkin' to himself! By George!”
Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.
Bibbs returned to song:
Chang! Chang, bash, chang! It's I!
WHO looks a mustang in the eye?
Fearless and bo--
His father grasped him by the arm. “Here!” he shouted. “Let ME show you
how to run a strip through there. The foreman says you're some better'n
you used to be, but that's no way to handle--Get out the way and let me
show you once.”
“Better be careful,” Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.
“Careful? Boh!” Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box. “What
you talkin' to yourself about? Tryin' to make yourself think you're so
abused you're goin' wrong in the head?”
“'Abused'? No!” shouted Bibbs. “I was SINGING--because I 'like it'! I
told you I'd come back and 'like it.'”
Sheridan may not have understood. At all events, he made no reply,
but began to run the strip of zinc through the machine. He did it
awkwardly--and with bad results.
“Here!” he shouted. “This is the way. Watch how I do it. There's nothin'
to it, if you put your mind on it.” By his own showing then his mind was
not upon it. He continued to talk. “All you got to look out for is to
keep it pressed over to--”
“Don't run your hand up with it,” Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.
“Run nothin'! You GOT to--”
“Look out!” shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang
forward. But Sheridan's right hand had followed the strip too far, and
the zinc-eater had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers.
He swore vehemently, and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops
over himself and Bibbs, but Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:
“Come out of here. Come over to the lavatory in the office. Bibbs, fetch
my bag. It's in my machine, outside.”
And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor
still grasping Sheridan's wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin.
Sheridan had lost color, and temper, too. He glared over his shoulder at
his son as the latter handed the bag to Gurney.
“You go on back to your work,” he said. “I've had worse snips than that
from a pencil-sharpener.”
“Oh no, you haven't!” said Gurney.
“I have, too!” Sheridan retorted, angrily. “Bibbs, you go on back to
your work. There's no reason to stand around here watchin' ole Doc
Gurney tryin' to keep himself awake workin' on a scratch that only needs
a little court-plaster. I slipped, or it wouldn't happened. You get back
on your job.”
“All right,” said Bibbs.
“HERE!” Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door.
“You watch out when you're runnin' that machine! You hear what I say? I
slipped, or I wouldn't got scratched, but you--YOU'RE liable to get your
whole hand cut off! You keep your eyes open!”
“Yes, sir.” And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.
Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him
outside, where conversation was possible. “I sent him home, Bibbs. He'll
have to be careful of that hand. Go get your overalls off. I'll take you
for a drive and leave you at home.”
“Can't,” said Bibbs. “Got to stick to my job till the whistle blows.”
“No, you don't,” the doctor returned, smothering a yawn. “He wants me to
take you down to my office and give you an overhauling to see how much
harm these four days on the machine have done you. I guess you folks
have got that old man pretty thoroughly upset, between you, up at your
house! But I don't need to go over you. I can see with my eyes half
shut--”
“Yes,” Bibbs interrupted, “that's what they are.”
“I say I can see you're starting out, at least, in good shape. What's
made the difference?”
“I like the machine,” said Bibbs. “I've made a friend of it. I serenade
it and talk to it, and then it talks back to me.”
“Indeed, indeed? What does it say?”
“What I want to hear.”
“Well, well!” The doctor stretched himself and stamped his foot
repeatedly. “Better come along and take a drive with me. You can take
the time off that he allowed for the examination, and--”
“Not at all,” said Bibbs. “I'm going to stand by my old zinc-eater till
five o'clock. I tell you I LIKE it!”
“Then I suppose that's the end of your wanting to write.”
“I don't know about that,” Bibbs said, thoughtfully; “but the zinc-eater
doesn't interfere with my thinking, at least. It's better than being
in business; I'm sure of that. I don't want anything to change. I'd be
content to lead just the life I'm leading now to the end of my days.”
“You do beat the devil!” exclaimed Gurney. “Your father's right when he
tells me you're a mystery. Perhaps the Almighty knew what He was doing
when He made you, but it takes a lot of faith to believe it! Well, I'm
off. Go on back to your murdering old machine.” He climbed into his car,
which he operated himself, but he refrained from setting it immediately
in motion. “Well, I rubbed it in on the old man that you had warned him
not to slide his hand along too far, and that he got hurt because he
didn't pay attention to your warning, and because he was trying to show
you how to do something you were already doing a great deal better
than he could. You tell him I'll be around to look at it and change the
dressing to-morrow morning. Good-by.”
But when he paid the promised visit, the next morning, he did more than
change the dressing upon the damaged hand. The injury was severe of
its kind, and Gurney spent a long time over it, though Sheridan was
rebellious and scornful, being brought to a degree of tractability
only by means of horrible threats and talk of amputation. However, he
appeared at the dinner-table with his hand supported in a sling, which
he seemed to regard as an indignity, while the natural inquiries upon
the subject evidently struck him as deliberate insults. Mrs. Sheridan,
having been unable to contain her solicitude several times during the
day, and having been checked each time in a manner that blanched her
cheek, hastened to warn Roscoe and Sibyl, upon their arrival at five, to
omit any reference to the injury and to avoid even looking at the sling
if they possibly could.
The Sheridans dined on Sundays at five. Sibyl had taken pains not to
arrive either before or after the hand was precisely on the hour;
and the members of the family were all seated at the table within two
minutes after she and Roscoe had entered the house.
It was a glum gathering, overhung with portents. The air seemed charged,
awaiting any tiny ignition to explode; and Mrs. Sheridan's expression,
as she sat with her eyes fixed almost continually upon her husband, was
that of a person engaged in prayer. Edith was pale and intent.
Roscoe looked ill; Sibyl looked ill; and Sheridan looked both ill and
explosive. Bibbs had more color than any of these, and there was a
strange brightness, like a light, upon his face. It was curious to see
anything so happy in the tense gloom of that household.
Edith ate little, but gazed nearly all the time at her plate. She never
once looked at Sibyl, though Sibyl now and then gave her a quick glance,
heavily charged, and then looked away. Roscoe ate nothing, and, like
Edith, kept his eyes upon his plate and made believe to occupy himself
with the viands thereon, loading his fork frequently, but not lifting
it to his mouth. He did not once look at his father, though his father
gazed heavily at him most of the time. And between Edith and Sibyl, and
between Roscoe and his father, some bitter wireless communication seemed
continually to be taking place throughout the long silences prevailing
during this enlivening ceremony of Sabbath refection.
“Didn't you go to church this morning, Bibbs?” his mother asked, in the
effort to break up one of those ghastly intervals.
“What did you say, mother?”
“Didn't you go to church this morning?”
“I think so,” he answered, as from a roseate trance.
“You THINK so! Don't you know?”
“Oh yes. Yes, I went to church!”
“Which one?”
“Just down the street. It's brick.”
“What was the sermon about?”
“What, mother?”
“Can't you hear me?” she cried. “I asked you what the sermon was about?”
He roused himself. “I think it was about--” He frowned, seeming to
concentrate his will to recollect. “I think it was about something in
the Bible.”
White-jacket George was glad of an opportunity to leave the room and
lean upon Mist' Jackson's shoulder in the pantry. “He don't know they
WAS any suhmon!” he concluded, having narrated the dining-room dialogue.
“All he know is he was with 'at lady lives nex' do'!” George was right.
“Did you go to church all by yourself, Bibbs?” Sibyl asked.
“No,” he answered. “No, I didn't go alone.”
“Oh?” Sibyl gave the ejaculation an upward twist, as of mocking inquiry,
and followed it by another, expressive of hilarious comprehension. “OH!”
Bibbs looked at her studiously, but she spoke no further. And that
completed the conversation at the lugubrious feast.
Coffee came finally, was disposed of quickly, and the party dispersed to
other parts of the house. Bibbs followed his father and Roscoe into the
library, but was not well received.
“YOU go and listen to the phonograph with the women-folks,” Sheridan
commanded.
Bibbs retreated. “Sometimes you do seem to be a hard sort of man!” he
said.
However, he went obediently to the gilt-and-brocade room in which his
mother and his sister and his sister-in-law had helplessly withdrawn,
according to their Sabbatical custom. Edith sat in a corner, tapping her
feet together and looking at them; Sibyl sat in the center of the room,
examining a brooch which she had detached from her throat; and Mrs.
Sheridan was looking over a collection of records consisting exclusively
of Caruso and rag-time. She selected one of the latter, remarking that
she thought it “right pretty,” and followed it with one of the former
and the same remark.
As the second reached its conclusion, George appeared in the broad
doorway, seeming to have an errand there, but he did not speak. Instead,
he favored Edith with a benevolent smile, and she immediately left
the room, George stepping aside for her to precede him, and then
disappearing after her in the hall with an air of successful diplomacy.
He made it perfectly clear that Edith had given him secret instructions
and that it had been his pride and pleasure to fulfil them to the
letter.
Sibyl stiffened in her chair; her lips parted, and she watched with
curious eyes the vanishing back of the white jacket.
“What's that?” she asked, in a low voice, but sharply.
“Here's another right pretty record,” said Mrs. Sheridan,
affecting--with patent nervousness--not to hear. And she unloosed the
music.
Sibyl bit her lip and began to tap her chin with the brooch. After a
little while she turned to Bibbs, who reposed at half-length in a gold
chair, with his eyes closed.
“Where did Edith go?” she asked, curiously.
“Edith?” he repeated, opening his eyes blankly. “Is she gone?”
Sibyl got up and stood in the doorway. She leaned against the casing,
still tapping her chin with the brooch. Her eyes were dilating; she was
suddenly at high tension, and her expression had become one of sharp
excitement. She listened intently.
When the record was spun out she could hear Sheridan rumbling in the
library, during the ensuing silence, and Roscoe's voice, querulous and
husky: “I won't say anything at all. I tell you, you might just as well
let me alone!”
But there were other sounds: a rustling and murmur, whispering, low
protesting cadences in a male voice. And as Mrs. Sheridan started
another record, a sudden, vital resolve leaped like fire in the eyes of
Sibyl. She walked down the hall and straight into the smoking-room.
Lamhorn and Edith both sprang to their feet, separating. Edith became
instantly deathly white with a rage that set her shaking from head to
foot, and Lamhorn stuttered as he tried to speak.
But Edith's shaking was not so violent as Sibyl's, nor was her face so
white. At sight of them and of their embrace, all possible consequences
became nothing to Sibyl. She courtesied, holding up her skirts and
contorting her lips to the semblance of a smile.
“Sit just as you were--both of you!” she said. And then to Edith: “Did
you tell my husband I had been telephoning to Lamhorn?”
“You march out of here!” said Edith, fiercely. “March straight out of
here!”
Sibyl leveled a forefinger at Lamhorn.
“Did you tell her I'd been telephoning you I wanted you to come?”
“Oh, good God!” Lamhorn said. “Hush!”
“You knew she'd tell my husband, DIDN'T you?” she cried. “You knew
that!”
“HUSH!” he begged, panic-stricken.
“That was a MANLY thing to do! Oh, it was like a gentleman! You wouldn't
come--you wouldn't even come for five minutes to hear what I had to say!
You were TIRED of what I had to say! You'd heard it all a thousand times
before, and you wouldn't come! No! No! NO!” she stormed. “You wouldn't
even come for five minutes, but you could tell that little cat! And SHE
told my husband! You're a MAN!”
Edith saw in a flash that the consequences of battle would be ruinous to
Sibyl, and the furious girl needed no further temptation to give way
to her feelings. “Get out of this house!” she shrieked. “This is my
father's house. Don't you dare speak to Robert like that!”
“No! No! I mustn't SPEAK--”
“Don't you DARE!”
Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously,
fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled
and rose and cracked--they screeched. They could be heard over the noise
of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could
be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could
have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.
“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to
Edith's. “You told my husband! This man put THAT in your hands to strike
me with! HE did!”
“I'll tell your husband again! I'll tell him everything I know! It's
TIME your husband--”
They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors
in?” Sheridan thundered.
There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his
mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved
slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the
hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily,
his eyes on the ground.
“NOW THEN!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.
The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the
vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the
direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of
George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs.
Sheridan. They fled lightly.
“Papa, papa!” wailed Mrs. Sheridan. “Look at your hand! You'd oughtn't
to been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder. Look!”
There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips
of the fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling. “Now then!”
he repeated. “You goin' to leave my house?”
“He will NOT!” sobbed Edith. “Don't you DARE order him out!”
“Don't you bother, dear,” said Lamhorn, quietly. “He doesn't understand.
YOU mustn't be troubled.” Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very
handsome, and as he left the room he seemed in the girl's distraught
eyes a persecuted noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his
heels--the rabble being enacted by her father.
“Don't come back, either!” said, Sheridan, realistic in this
impersonation. “Keep off the premises!” he called savagely into the
hall. “This family's through with you!”
“It is NOT!” Edith cried, breaking from her mother. “You'll SEE about
that! You'll find out! You'll find out what'll happen! What's HE done?
I guess if I can stand it, it's none of YOUR business, is it? What's
HE done, I'd like to know? You don't know anything about it. Don't you
s'pose he told ME? She was crazy about him soon as he began going there,
and he flirted with her a little. That's everything he did, and it
was before he met ME! After that he wouldn't, and it wasn't anything,
anyway--he never was serious a minute about it. SHE wanted it to be
serious, and she was bound she wouldn't give him up. He told her long
ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and--”
“Yes,” said Sheridan, sternly; “that's HIS side of it! That'll do! He
doesn't come in this house again!”
“You look out!” Edith cried.
“Yes, I'll look out! I'd 'a' told you to-day he wasn't to be allowed on
the premises, but I had other things on my mind. I had Abercrombie
look up this young man privately, and he's no 'count. He's no 'count
on earth! He's no good! He's NOTHIN'! But it wouldn't matter if he was
George Washington, after what's happened and what I've heard to-night!”
“But, papa,” Mrs. Sheridan began, “if Edie says it was all Sibyl's
fault, makin' up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor--”
“'S enough!” he roared. “He keeps off these premises! And if any of you
so much as ever speak his name to me again--”
But Edith screamed, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the
sound of his voice, and ran up-stairs, sobbing loudly, followed by her
mother. However, Mrs. Sheridan descended a few minutes later and joined
her husband in the library. Bibbs, still sitting in his gold chair, saw
her pass, roused himself from reverie, and strolled in after her.
“She locked her door,” said Mrs. Sheridan, shaking her head woefully.
“She wouldn't even answer me. They wasn't a sound from her room.”
“Well,” said her husband, “she can settle her mind to it. She
never speaks to that fellow again, and if he tries to telephone her
to-morrow--Here! You tell the help if he calls up to ring off and say
it's my orders. No, you needn't. I'll tell 'em myself.”
“Better not,” said Bibbs, gently.
His father glared at him.
“It's no good,” said Bibbs. “Mother, when you were in love with
father--”
“My goodness!” she cried. “You ain't a-goin' to compare your father to
that--”
“Edith feels about him just what you did about father,” said Bibbs. “And
if YOUR father had told you--”
“I won't LISTEN to such silly talk!” she declared, angrily.
“So you're handin' out your advice, are you, Bibbs?” said Sheridan.
“What is it?”
“Let her see him all she wants.”
“You're a--” Sheridan gave it up. “I don't know what to call you!”
“Let her see him all she wants,” Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully. “You're
up against something too strong for you. If Edith were a weakling
you'd have a chance this way, but she isn't. She's got a lot of your
determination, father, and with what's going on inside of her she'll
beat you. You can't keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about
him the way she does now. You can't make her think less of him, either.
Nobody can. Your only chance is that she'll do it for herself, and if
you give her time and go easy she probably will. Marriage would do it
for her quickest, but that's just what you don't want, and as you DON'T
want it, you'd better--”
“I can't stand any more!” Sheridan burst out. “If it's come to BIBBS
advisin' me how to run this house I better resign. Mamma, where's that
nigger George? Maybe HE'S got some plan how I better manage my family.
Bibbs, for God's sake go and lay down! 'Let her see him all she wants'!
Oh, Lord! here's wisdom; here's--”
“Bibbs,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “if you haven't got anything to do, you
might step over and take Sibyl's wraps home--she left 'em in the hall. I
don't think you seem to quiet your poor father very much just now.”
“All right.” And Bibbs bore Sibyl's wraps across the street and
delivered them to Roscoe, who met him at the door. Bibbs said only,
“Forgot these,” and, “Good night, Roscoe,” cordially and cheerfully, and
returned to the New House. His mother and father were still talking in
the library, but with discretion he passed rapidly on and upward to his
own room, and there he proceeded to write in his note-book.