Sibyl and Roscoe were upon the point of leaving when Bibbs returned to
the New House. He went straight to Sibyl and spoke to her quietly, but
so that the others might hear.
“When you said that if I'd stop to think, I'd realize that no one would
be apt to care enough about me to marry me, you were right,” he said. “I
thought perhaps you weren't, and so I asked Miss Vertrees to marry me.
It proved what you said of me, and disproved what you said of her. She
refused.”
And, having thus spoken, he quitted the room as straightforwardly as he
had entered it.
“He's SO queer!” Mrs. Sheridan gasped. “Who on earth would thought of
his doin' THAT?”
“I told you,” said her husband, grimly.
“You didn't tell us he'd go over there and--”
“I told you she wouldn't have him. I told you she wouldn't have JIM,
didn't I?”
Sibyl was altogether taken aback. “Do you supose it's true? Do you
suppose she WOULDN'T?”
“He didn't look exactly like a young man that had just got things fixed
up fine with his girl,” said Sheridan. “Not to me, he didn't!”
“But why would--”
“I told you,” he interrupted, angrily, “she ain't that kind of a girl!
If you got to have proof, well, I'll tell you and get it over with,
though I'd pretty near just as soon not have to talk a whole lot about
my dead boy's private affairs. She wrote to Jim she couldn't take him,
and it was a good, straight letter, too. It came to Jim's office; he
never saw it. She wrote it the afternoon he was hurt.”
“I remember I saw her put a letter in the mail-box that afternoon,” said
Roscoe. “Don't you remember, Sibyl? I told you about it--I was waiting
for you while you were in there so long talking to her mother. It was
just before we saw that something was wrong over here, and Edith came
and called me.”
Sibyl shook her head, but she remembered. And she was not cast down,
for, although some remnants of perplexity were left in her eyes, they
were dimmed by an increasing glow of triumph; and she departed--after
some further fragmentary discourse--visibly elated. After all, the
guilty had not been exalted; and she perceived vaguely, but none the
less surely, that her injury had been copiously avenged. She bestowed a
contented glance upon the old house with the cupola, as she and Roscoe
crossed the street.
When they had gone, Mrs. Sheridan indulged in reverie, but after a while
she said, uneasily, “Papa, you think it would be any use to tell Bibbs
about that letter?”
“I don't know,” he answered, walking moodily to the window. “I been
thinkin' about it.” He came to a decision. “I reckon I will.” And he
went up to Bibbs's room.
“Well, you goin' back on what you said?” he inquired, brusquely, as he
opened the door. “You goin' to take it back and lay down on me again?”
“No,” said Bibbs.
“Well, perhaps I didn't have any call to accuse you of that. I don't
know as you ever did go back on anything you said, exactly, though the
Lord knows you've laid down on me enough. You certainly have!” Sheridan
was baffled. This was not what he wished to say, but his words were
unmanageable; he found himself unable to control them, and his querulous
abuse went on in spite of him. “I can't say I expect much of you--not
from the way you always been, up to now--unless you turn over a new
leaf, and I don't see any encouragement to think you're goin' to do
THAT! If you go down there and show a spark o' real GIT-up, I reckon the
whole office'll fall in a faint. But if you're ever goin' to show any,
you better begin right at the beginning and begin to show it to-morrow.”
“Yes--I'll try.”
“You better, if it's in you!” Sheridan was sheerly nonplussed. He had
always been able to say whatever he wished to say, but his tongue seemed
bewitched. He had come to tell Bibbs about Mary's letter, and to his own
angry astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold
like a drudge-driver. “You better come down there with your mind made
up to hustle harder than the hardest workin'-man that's under you,
or you'll not get on very good with me, I tell you! The way to get
ahead--and you better set it down in your books--the way to get ahead is
to do ten times the work of the hardest worker that works FOR you. But
you don't know what work is, yet. All you've ever done was just stand
around and feed a machine a child could handle, and then come home
and take a bath and go callin'. I tell you you're up against a mighty
different proposition now, and if you're worth your salt--and you never
showed any signs of it yet--not any signs that stuck out enough to bang
somebody on the head and make 'em sit up and take notice--well, I want
to say, right here and now--and you better listen, because I want to say
just what I DO say. I say--”
He meandered to a full stop. His mouth hung open, and his mind was a
hopeless blank.
Bibbs looked up patiently--an old, old look. “Yes, father; I'm
listening.”
“That's all,” said Sheridan, frowning heavily. “That's all I came to
say, and you better see't you remember it!”
He shook his head warningly, and went out, closing the door behind him
with a crash. However, no sound of footsteps indicated his departure.
He stopped just outside the door, and stood there a minute or more.
Then abruptly he turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead
liberally covered with perspiration.
“Look here,” he said, crossly. “That girl over yonder wrote Jim a
letter--”
“I know,” said Bibbs. “She told me.”
“Well, I thought you needn't feel so much upset about it--” The door
closed on his voice as he withdrew, but the conclusion of the sentence
was nevertheless audible--“if you knew she wouldn't have Jim, either.”
And he stamped his way down-stairs to tell his wife to quit her frettin'
and not bother him with any more fool's errands. She was about to
inquire what Bibbs “said,” but after a second thought she decided not
to speak at all. She merely murmured a wordless assent, and verbal
communication was given over between them for the rest of that
afternoon.
Bibbs and his father were gone when Mrs. Sheridan woke, the next
morning, and she had a dreary day. She missed Edith woefully, and she
worried about what might be taking place in the Sheridan Building. She
felt that everything depended on how Bibbs “took hold,” and upon her
husband's return in the evening she seized upon the first opportunity
to ask him how things had gone. He was non-committal. What could anybody
tell by the first day? He'd seen plenty go at things well enough right
at the start and then blow up. Pretty near anybody could show up fair
the first day or so. There was a big job ahead. This material, such as
it was--Bibbs, in fact--had to be broken in to handling the work Roscoe
had done; and then, at least as an overseer, he must take Jim's position
in the Realty Company as well. He told her to ask him again in a month.
But during the course of dinner she gathered from some disjointed
remarks of his that he and Bibbs had lunched together at the small
restaurant where it had been Sheridan's custom to lunch with Jim, and
she took this to be an encouraging sign. Bibbs went to his room as soon
as they left the table, and her husband was not communicative after
reading his paper.
She became an anxious spectator of Bibbs's progress as a man of
business, although it was a progress she could glimpse but dimly and
only in the evening, through his remarks and his father's at dinner.
Usually Bibbs was silent, except when directly addressed, but on the
first evening of the third week of his new career he offered an opinion
which had apparently been the subject of previous argument.
“I'd like you to understand just what I meant about those storage-rooms,
father,” he said, as Jackson placed his coffee before him. “Abercrombie
agreed with me, but you wouldn't listen to him.”
“You can talk, if you want to, and I'll listen,” Sheridan returned, “but
you can't show me that Jim ever took up with a bad thing. The roof
fell because it hadn't had time to settle and on account of weather
conditions. I want that building put just the way Jim planned it.”
“You can't have it,” said Bibbs. “You can't, because Jim planned for the
building to stand up, and it won't do it. The other one--the one that
didn't fall--is so shot with cracks we haven't dared use it for storage.
It won't stand weight. There's only one thing to do: get both buildings
down as quickly as we can, and build over. Brick's the best and cheapest
in the long run for that type.”
Sheridan looked sarcastic. “Fine! What we goin' to do for storage-rooms
while we're waitin' for those few bricks to be laid?”
“Rent,” Bibbs returned, promptly. “We'll lose money if we don't rent,
anyhow--they were waiting so long for you to give the warehouse matter
your attention after the roof fell. You don't know what an amount of
stuff they've got piled up on us over there. We'd have to rent until
we could patch up those process perils--and the Krivitch Manufacturing
Company's plant is empty, right across the street. I took an option on
it for us this morning.”
Sheridan's expression was queer. “Look here!” he said, sharply. “Did you
go and do that without consulting me?”
“It didn't cost anything,” said Bibbs. “It's only until to-morrow
afternoon at two o'clock. I undertook to convince you before then.”
“Oh, you did?” Sheridan's tone was sardonic. “Well, just suppose you
couldn't convince me.”
“I can, though--and I intend to,” said Bibbs, quietly. “I don't think
you understand the condition of those buildings you want patched up.”
“Now, see here,” said Sheridan, with slow emphasis; “suppose I had my
mind set about this. JIM thought they'd stand, and suppose it was--well,
kind of a matter of sentiment with me to prove he was right.”
Bibbs looked at him compassionately. “I'm sorry if you have a sentiment
about it, father,” he said. “But whether you have or not can't make a
difference. You'll get other people hurt if you trust that process, and
that won't do. And if you want a monument to Jim, at least you want
one that will stand. Besides, I don't think you can reasonably defend
sentiment in this particular kind of affair.”
“Oh, you don't?”
“No, but I'm sorry you didn't tell me you felt it.”
Sheridan was puzzled by his son's tone. “Why are you 'sorry'?” he asked,
curiously.
“Because I had the building inspector up there, this noon,” said Bibbs,
“and I had him condemn both those buildings.”
“What?”
“He'd been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us--afraid you'd
see he lost his job. But he can't un-condemn them--they've got to come
down now.”
Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows.
Finally he said, “How long did they give you on that option to convince
me?”
“Until two o'clock to-morrow afternoon.”
“All right,” said Sheridan, not relaxing. “I'm convinced.”
Bibbs jumped up. “I thought you would be. I'll telephone the Krivitch
agent. He gave me the option until to-morrow, but I told him I'd settle
it this evening.”
Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his
expression did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that
startled his wife. It had been a long time since she had heard anything
resembling a chuckle from him, and this sound--although it was grim and
dry--bore that resemblance.
She brightened eagerly. “Looks like he was startin' right well don't it,
papa?”
“Startin'? Lord! He got me on the hip! Why, HE knew what I
wanted--that's why he had the inspector up there, so't he'd have me beat
before we even started to talk about it. And did you hear him? 'Can't
reasonably defend SENTIMENT!' And the way he says 'Us': 'Took an option
for Us'! 'Stuff piled up on Us'!”
There was always an alloy for Mrs. Sheridan. “I don't just like the way
he looks, though, papa.”
“Oh, there's got to be something! Only one chick left at home, so you
start to frettin' about IT!”
“No. He's changed. There's kind of a settish look to his face, and--”
“I guess that's the common sense comin' out on him, then,” said
Sheridan. “You'll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I
expect.”
“Well, and he don't have as good color as he was gettin' before. And
he'd begun to fill out some, but--”
Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to
her, patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being
still heavily bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling. “That's the
way it is with you, mamma--got to take your frettin' out one way if you
don't another!”
“No. He don't look well. It ain't exactly the way he looked when he
begun to get sick that time, but he kind o' seems to be losin', some
way.”
“Yes, he may 'a' lost something,” said Sheridan. “I expect he's lost a
whole lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin'
poetry and--”
“No,” his wife persisted. “I mean he looks right peakid. And yesterday,
when he was settin' with us, he kept lookin' out the window. He wasn't
readin'.”
“Well, why shouldn't he look out the window?”
“He was lookin' over there. He never read a word all afternoon, I don't
believe.”
“Look, here!” said Sheridan. “Bibbs might 'a' kept goin' on over there
the rest of his life, moonin' on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did
one big thing, anyway. It woke him up out of his trance. Well, he had
to go and bust clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin' over
there, and it stopped his poetry, but I reckon he's begun to get pretty
fair pay for what he lost. I guess a good many young men have had to get
over worries like his; they got to lose SOMETHING if they're goin'
to keep ahead o' the procession nowadays--and it kind o' looks to me,
mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a considerable long way ahead. Why, a
year from now I'll bet you he won't know there ever WAS such a thing as
poetry! And ain't he funny? He wanted to stick to the shop so's he could
'think'! What he meant was, think about something useless. Well, I guess
he's keepin' his mind pretty occupied the other way these days. Yes,
sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his trance, but
it certainly did the business.” He patted his wife's shoulder again, and
then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke into a boisterous laugh.
“Honest, mamma, he works like a gorilla!”
CHAPTER XXI
And so Bibbs sat in the porch of the temple with the money-changers. But
no one came to scourge him forth, for this was the temple of Bigness,
and the changing of money was holy worship and true religion. The
priests wore that “settish” look Bibbs's mother had seen beginning
to develop about his mouth and eyes--a wary look which she could not
define, but it comes with service at the temple; and it was the more
marked upon Bibbs for his sharp awakening to the necessities of that
service.
He did as little “useless” thinking as possible, giving himself no time
for it. He worked continuously, keeping his thoughts still on his work
when he came home at night; and he talked of nothing whatever except his
work. But he did not sing at it. He was often in the streets, and people
were not allowed to sing in the streets. They might make any manner of
hideous uproar--they could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the
thunder, deafen the deaf, and kill the sick with noise; or they
could walk the streets or drive through them bawling, squawking, or
screeching, as they chose, if the noise was traceably connected with
business; though street musicians were not tolerated, being considered
a nuisance and an interference. A man or woman who went singing for
pleasure through the streets--like a crazy Neopolitan--would have been
stopped, and belike locked up; for Freedom does not mean that a citizen
is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head. The
streets were dangerous enough, in all conscience, without any singing!
and the Motor Federation issued public warnings declaring that the
pedestrian's life was in his own hands, and giving directions how to
proceed with the least peril. However, Bibbs Sheridan had no desire to
sing in the streets, or anywhere. He had gone to his work with an energy
that, for the start, at least, was bitter, and there was no song left in
him.
He began to know his active fellow-citizens. Here and there among
them he found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period
of neighborliness, “pioneer stock,” usually; and there were
men--particularly among the merchants and manufacturers--“so honest they
leaned backward”; reputations sometimes attested by stories of heroic
sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some instances of generosity
even nobler. Here and there, too, were book-men, in their little
leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men. And these, with the others,
worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake and
for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the
beneficence and glory of their god.
To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in
life, except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the
dangerous illness of a wife or child. In the way of “relaxation” some of
the servers took golf; some took fishing; some took “shows”--a mixture
of infantile and negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took
an occasional debauch; some took trips; some took cards; and some took
nothing. The high priests were vigilant to watch that no “relaxation”
should affect the service. When a man attended to anything outside his
business, eyes were upon him; his credit was in danger--that is, his
life was in danger. And the old priests were as ardent as the young
ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the thousand; seventy was
as busy as seventeen. They strove mightily against one another, and
the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the most
dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these--he must wear
a thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed!
And outside the temple itself were the pretenders, the swarming thieves
and sharpers and fleecers, the sly rascals and the open rascals; but
these were feeble folk, not dangerous once he knew them, and he had
a good guide to point them out to him. They were useful sometimes,
he learned, and many of them served as go-betweens in matters where
business must touch politics. He learned also how breweries and
“traction” companies and banks and other institutions fought one another
for the political control of the city. The newspapers, he discovered,
had lost their ancient political influence, especially with the knowing,
who looked upon them with a skeptical humor, believing the journals
either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else striving to
forward the personal ambitions of their owners. The control of the city
lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of
negroes gin-money, and by other largesses. The revenues of the people
were then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men
who had assisted the winning side. Names and titles of offices went with
many of the prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to
present a busy appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did
work honestly and faithfully.
Bibbs had been very ignorant. All these simple things, so well known
and customary, astonished him at first, and once--in a brief moment
of forgetting that he was done with writing--he thought that if he had
known them and written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation
of them must have seemed! Strangest of all to him was the vehement and
sincere patriotism. On every side he heard it--it was a permeation; the
newest school-child caught it, though just from Hungary and learning to
stammer a few words of the local language. Everywhere the people shouted
of the power, the size, the riches, and the growth of their city. Not
only that, they said that the people of their city were the greatest,
the “finest,” the strongest, the Biggest people on earth. They cited no
authorities, and felt the need of none, being themselves the people thus
celebrated. And if the thing was questioned, or if it was hinted that
there might be one small virtue in which they were not perfect and
supreme, they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what the
critic said was true, but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him,
for they were sensitive. So Bibbs, learning their ways and walking with
them, harkened to the voice of the people and served Bigness with them.
For the voice of the people is the voice of their god.
Sheridan had made the room next to his own into an office for Bibbs,
and the door between the two rooms usually stood open--the father had
established that intimacy. One morning in February, when Bibbs was
alone, Sheridan came in, some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his
hand.
“Bibbs,” he said, “I don't like to butt in very often this way, and when
I do I usually wish I hadn't--but for Heaven's sake what have you been
buying that ole busted inter-traction stock for?”
Bibbs leaned back from his desk. “For eleven hundred and fifty-five
dollars. That's all it cost.”
“Well, it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty-five cents. You ought to
know that. I don't get your idea. That stuff's deader'n Adam's cat!”
“It might be worth something--some day.”
“How?”
“It mightn't be so dead--not if we went into it,” said Bibbs, coolly.
“Oh!” Sheridan considered this musingly; then he said, “Who'd you buy it
from?”
“A broker--Fansmith.”
“Well, he must 'a' got it from one o' the crowd o' poor ninnies that was
soaked with it. Don't you know who owned it?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Ain't sayin', though? That it? What's the matter?”
“It belonged to Mr. Vertrees,” said Bibbs, shortly, applying himself to
his desk.
“So!” Sheridan gazed down at his son's thin face. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Your business.” And he went back to his own room. But presently he
looked in again.
“I reckon you won't mind lunchin' alone to-day”--he was shuffling
himself into his overcoat--“because I just thought I'd go up to the
house and get THIS over with mamma.” He glanced apologetically toward
his right hand as it emerged from the sleeve of the overcoat. The
bandages had been removed, finally, that morning, revealing but three
fingers--the forefinger and the finger next to it had been amputated.
“She's bound to make an awful fuss, and better to spoil her lunch than
her dinner. I'll be back about two.”
But he calculated the time of his arrival at the New House so accurately
that Mrs. Sheridan's lunch was not disturbed, and she was rising from
the lonely table when he came into the dining-room. He had left his
overcoat in the hall, but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets.
“What's the matter, papa?” she asked, quickly. “Has anything gone wrong?
You ain't sick?”
“Me!” He laughed loudly. “Me SICK?”
“You had lunch?”
“Didn't want any to-day. You can give me a cup o' coffee, though.”
She rang, and told George to have coffee made, and when he had withdrawn
she said querulously, “I just know there's something wrong.”
“Nothin' in the world,” he responded, heartily, taking a seat at the
head of the table. “I thought I'd talk over a notion o' mine with you,
that's all. It's more women-folks' business than what it is man's,
anyhow.”
“What about?”
“Why, ole Doc Gurney was up at the office this morning awhile--”
“To look at your hand? How's he say it's doin'?”
“Fine! Well, he went in and sat around with Bibbs awhile--”
Mrs. Sheridan nodded pessimistically. “I guess it's time you had him,
too. I KNEW Bibbs--”
“Now, mamma, hold your horses! I wanted him to look Bibbs over BEFORE
anything's the matter. You don't suppose I'm goin' to take any chances
with BIBBS, do you? Well, afterwards, I shut the door, and I an' ole
Gurney had a talk. He's a mighty disagreeable man; he rubbed it in on
me what he said about Bibbs havin' brains if he ever woke up. Then
I thought he must want to get something out o' me, he got so
flattering--for a minute! 'Bibbs couldn't help havin' business brains,'
he says, 'bein' YOUR son. Don't be surprised,' he says--'don't be
surprised at his makin' a success,' he says. 'He couldn't get over his
heredity; he couldn't HELP bein' a business success--once you got him
into it. It's in his blood. Yes, sir' he says, 'it doesn't need MUCH
brains,' he says, 'an only third-rate brains, at that,' he says, 'but
it does need a special KIND o' brains,' he says, 'to be a millionaire.
I mean,' he says, 'when a man's given a start. If nobody gives him a
start, why, course he's got to have luck AND the right kind o' brains.
The only miracle about Bibbs,' he says, 'is where he got the OTHER kind
o' brains--the brains you made him quit usin' and throw away.'”
“But what'd he say about his health?” Mrs. Sheridan demanded,
impatiently, as George placed a cup of coffee before her husband.
Sheridan helped himself to cream and sugar, and began to sip the coffee.
“I'm comin' to that,” he returned, placidly. “See how easy I manage this
cup with my left hand, mamma?”
“You been doin' that all winter. What did--”
“It's wonderful,” he interrupted, admiringly, “what a fellow can do with
his left hand. I can sign my name with mine now, well's I ever could
with my right. It came a little hard at first, but now, honest, I
believe I RATHER sign with my left. That's all I ever have to write,
anyway--just the signature. Rest's all dictatin'.” He blew across the
top of the cup unctuously. “Good coffee, mamma! Well, about Bibbs. Ole
Gurney says he believes if Bibbs could somehow get back to the state o'
mind he was in about the machine-shop--that is, if he could some way get
to feelin' about business the way he felt about the shop--not the poetry
and writin' part, but--” He paused, supplementing his remarks with a
motion of his head toward the old house next door. “He says Bibbs
is older and harder'n what he was when he broke down that time, and
besides, he ain't the kind o' dreamy way he was then--and I should
say he AIN'T! I'd like 'em to show ME anybody his age that's any wider
awake! But he says Bibbs's health never need bother us again if--”
Mrs. Sheridan shook her head. “I don't see any help THAT way. You know
yourself she wouldn't have Jim.”
“Who's talkin' about her havin' anybody? But, my Lord! she might let him
LOOK at her! She needn't 'a' got so mad, just because he asked her, that
she won't let him come in the house any more. He's a mighty funny boy,
and some ways I reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the
Bible, but Gurney kind o' got me in the way o' thinkin' that if
she'd let him come back and set around with her an evening or two
sometimes--not reg'lar, I don't mean--why--Well, I just thought I'd see
what YOU'D think of it. There ain't any way to talk about it to Bibbs
himself--I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow--but I thought maybe you
could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a
little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land
lays, and ask her--”
“ME!” Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. “No.” She shook
her head decidedly. “It wouldn't do any good.”
“You won't try it?”
“I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house. Some way, that's what I
believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I CAN'T--and,
what's more, it'd only make things worse. If people find out you're
runnin' after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as
much for you as if you let 'em alone. I don't believe it's any use, and
I couldn't do it if it was.”
He sighed with resignation. “All right, mamma. That's all.” Then, in a
livelier tone, he said: “Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this
morning. All healed up. Says I don't need 'em any more.”
“Why, that's splendid, papa!” she cried, beaming. “I was afraid--Let's
see.”
She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket.
“Wait a minute,” he said, smiling. “Now it may give you just a teeny bit
of a shock, but the fact is--well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl
came over here and made all that fuss about nothin'--it was the day
after I got tired o' that statue when Edith's telegram came--”
“Let me see your hand!” she cried.
“Now wait!” he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand.
“The truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning,
when you wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office--he'd told
me to, you see--and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything.” And he held
out, for her inspection, the mutilated hand. “You see, these days when
it's all dictatin', anyhow, nobody'd mind just a couple o'--”
He had to jump for her--she went over backward. For the second time in
her life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.
CHAPTER XXXII
It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own
room, still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat
that the “fuss” she was making irked him far more than his physical
loss. He permitted her to think that he meant to return directly to his
office, but when he came out to the open air he told the chauffeur in
attendance to await him in front of Mr. Vertrees's house, whither he
himself proceeded on foot.
Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as
manna in the wilderness; it came from heaven--by what agency he did
not particularly question. The broker informed him that “parties were
interested in getting hold of the stock,” and that later there might
be a possible increase in the value of the large amount retained by his
client. It might go “quite a ways up” within a year or so, he said, and
he advised “sitting tight” with it. Mr. Vertrees went home and prayed.
He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own
again. It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and
his wife shared his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her
piano, and as for furs--spring was on the way, she said. But they paid
the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook
once more. It was this servitress who opened the door for Sheridan and
presently assured him that Miss Vertrees would “be down.”
He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed
and beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the
cook. She had a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second,
but it vanished at the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes
by a soft brilliance, while color rushed in her cheeks.
“Don't be surprised,” he said. “Truth is, in a way it's sort of on
business I looked in here. It'll only take a minute, I expect.”
“I'm sorry,” said Mary. “I hoped you'd come because we're neighbors.”
He chuckled. “Neighbors! Sometimes people don't see so much o' their
neighbors as they used to. That is, I hear so--lately.”
“You'll stay long enough to sit down, won't you?”
“I guess I could manage that much.” And they sat down, facing each other
and not far apart.
“Of course, it couldn't be called business, exactly,” he said, more
gravely. “Not at all, I expect. But there's something o' yours it seemed
to me I ought to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it
myself and explain how I happened to have it. It's this--this letter you
wrote my boy.” He extended the letter to her solemnly, in his left hand,
and she took it gently from him. “It was in his mail, after he was hurt.
You knew he never got it, I expect.”
“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.
He sighed. “I'm glad he didn't. Not,” he added, quickly--“not but what
you did just right to send it. You did. You couldn't acted any other way
when it came right down TO it. There ain't any blame comin' to you--you
were above-board all through.”
Mary said, “Thank you,” almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed
low.
“You'll have to excuse me for readin' it. I had to take charge of all
his mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it
all--once I got started.”
“I'm glad you did.”
“Well”--he leaned forward as if to rise--“I guess that's about all. I
just thought you ought to have it.”
“Thank you for bringing it.”
He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might
have something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this
glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.
“Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office,” he said, rising
desperately. “I told--I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock,
and I guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind
time. I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days--with
THAT fellow keepin' tabs on me!”
Mary rose with him. “I've always heard YOU were the hard driver.”
He guffawed derisively. “Me? I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine. You
couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end
o' the job. I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some
day, and run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is--once he
goes AT a thing!”
“No,” she smiled. “I didn't know you had a partner. I'd always heard--”
He laughed, looking away from her. “It's just my way o' speakin' o' that
boy o' mine, Bibbs.”
He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of
careless geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, “How
IS Bibbs?” but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the
silence became embarrassing.
“Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there,” he said, at last. “He
might worry.”
“Good-by--and thank you,” said Mary.
“For what?”
“For the letter.”
“Oh,” he said, blankly. “You're welcome. Good-by.”
Mary put out her hand. “Good-by.”
“You'll have to excuse my left hand,” he said. “I had a little accident
to the other one.”
She gave a pitying cry as she saw. “Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!”
“Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow.” He laughed
jovially. “Did anybody tell you how it happened?”
“I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how.”
“It was this way,” he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down
again. “You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the
youngest o' my boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes,
after Jim--that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner;
and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o'
these days--if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I
had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o'
sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me
sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc
Gurney--I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy--”
“Yes.”
“Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook
to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I
wouldn't listen, and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand
hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and
I didn't. Made me so mad I just wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS
hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o' radical
measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too. Don't you think so,
Miss Vertrees?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, he is so!” Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and
gossip with all day on his hands. “Take him on Bibbs's case. I was
talkin' about Bibbs's case with him this morning. Well, you'd laugh to
hear the way ole Gurney talks about THAT! 'Course he IS just as much a
friend as he is doctor--and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if
he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and
he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if--well, this is
what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there, Miss Vertrees--honest it
would!” He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing
straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and--visibly--she
was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing
furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went
on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his
voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still
maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only
a joke he shared with her. “Yes, sir, you certainly would 'a' laughed!
Why, that ole man thinks YOU got something to do with it. You'll have to
blame it on him, young lady, if it makes you feel like startin' out
to whip somebody! He's actually got THIS theory: he says Bibbs got to
gettin' better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept
him cheered up and feelin' good. And he says if you could manage to
just stand him hangin' around a little--maybe not much, but just
SOMEtimes--again, he believed it'd do Bibbs a mighty lot o' good.
'Course, that's only what the doctor said. Me, I don't know anything
about that; but I can say this much--I never saw any such a MENTAL
improvement in anybody in my life as I have lately in Bibbs. I expect
you'd find him a good deal more entertaining than what he used to
be--and I know it's a kind of embarrassing thing to suggest after the
way he piled in over here that day to ask you to stand up before the
preacher with him, but accordin' to ole Doc GURNEY, he's got you on his
brain so bad--”
Mary jumped. “Mr. Sheridan!” she exclaimed.
He sighed profoundly. “There! I noticed you were gettin' mad. I
didn't--”
“No, no, no!” she cried. “But I don't understand--and I think you don't.
What is it you want me to do?”
He sighed again, but this time with relief. “Well, well!” he said.
“You're right. It'll be easier to talk plain. I ought to known I could
with you, all the time. I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you
sometimes, once more. Could you?”
“You don't understand.” She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful
gesture. “Yes, we must talk plain. Bibbs heard that I'd tried to make
your oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came and
asked me to marry him--because he was sorry for me. And I CAN'T see him
any more,” she cried in distress. “I CAN'T!”
Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You mean because he thought
that about you?”
“No, no! What he thought was TRUE!”
“Well--you mean he was so much in--you mean he thought so much of you--”
The words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue; he seemed
to be in doubt even about pronouncing them, but after a ghastly pause he
bravely repeated them. “You mean he thought so much of you that you just
couldn't stand him around?”
“NO! He was sorry for me. He cared for me; he was fond of me; and he'd
respected me--too much! In the finest way he loved me, if you like, and
he'd have done anything on earth for me, as I would for him, and as he
knew I would. It was beautiful, Mr. Sheridan,” she said. “But the cheap,
bad things one has done seem always to come back--they wait, and pull
you down when you're happiest. Bibbs found me out, you see; and he
wasn't 'in love' with me at all.”
“He wasn't? Well, it seems to me he gave up everything he wanted to
do--it was fool stuff, but he certainly wanted it mighty bad--he just
threw it away and walked right up and took the job he swore he never
would--just for you. And it looks to me as if a man that'd do that
must think quite a heap o' the girl he does it for! You say it was only
because he was sorry, but let me tell you there's only ONE girl he could
feel THAT sorry for! Yes, sir!”
“No, no,” she said. “Bibbs isn't like other men--he would do anything
for anybody.”
Sheridan grinned. “Perhaps not so much as you think, nowadays,” he
said. “For instance, I got kind of a suspicion he doesn't believe in
'sentiment in business.' But that's neither here nor there. What he
wanted was, just plain and simple, for you to marry him. Well, I was
afraid his thinkin' so much OF you had kind o' sickened you of him--the
way it does sometimes. But from the way you talk, I understand that
ain't the trouble.” He coughed, and his voice trembled a little. “Now
here, Miss Vertrees, I don't have to tell you--because you see things
easy--I know I got no business comin' to you like this, but I had to
make Bibbs go my way instead of his own--I had to do it for the sake o'
my business and on his own account, too--and I expect you got some idea
how it hurt him to give up. Well, he's made good. He didn't come in
half-hearted or mean; he came in--all the way! But there isn't anything
in it to him; you can see he's just shut his teeth on it and goin' ahead
with dust in his mouth. You see, one way of lookin' at it, he's
got nothin' to work FOR. And it seems to me like it cost him your
friendship, and I believe--honest--that's what hurt him the worst. Now
you said we'd talk plain. Why can't you let him come back?”
She covered her face desperately with her hands. “I can't!”
He rose, defeated, and looking it.
“Well, I mustn't press you,” he said, gently.
At that she cried out, and dropped her hands and let him see her face.
“Ah! He was only sorry for me!”
He gazed at her intently. Mary was proud, but she had a fatal honesty,
and it confessed the truth of her now; she was helpless. It was so clear
that even Sheridan, marveling and amazed, was able to see it. Then a
change came over him; gloom fell from him, and he grew radiant.
“Don't! Don't” she cried. “You mustn't--”
“I won't tell him,” said Sheridan, from the doorway. “I won't tell
anybody anything!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
There was a heavy town-fog that afternoon, a smoke-mist, densest in the
sanctuary of the temple. The people went about in it, busy and dirty,
thickening their outside and inside linings of coal-tar, asphalt,
sulphurous acid, oil of vitriol, and the other familiar things the men
liked to breathe and to have upon their skins and garments and upon
their wives and babies and sweethearts. The growth of the city was
visible in the smoke and the noise and the rush. There was more smoke
than there had been this day of February a year earlier; there was more
noise; and the crowds were thicker--yet quicker in spite of that. The
traffic policeman had a hard time, for the people were independent--they
retained some habits of the old market-town period, and would cross
the street anywhere and anyhow, which not only got them killed more
frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings, but kept the
motormen, the chauffeurs, and the truck-drivers in a stew of profane
nervousness. So the traffic policemen led harried lives; they themselves
were killed, of course, with a certain periodicity, but their main
trouble was that they could not make the citizens realize that it was
actually and mortally perilous to go about their city. It was strange,
for there were probably no citizens of any length of residence who had
not personally known either some one who had been killed or injured in
an accident, or some one who had accidentally killed or injured others.
And yet, perhaps it was not strange, seeing the sharp preoccupation of
the faces--the people had something on their minds; they could not stop
to bother about dirt and danger.
Mary Vertrees was not often down-town; she had never seen an accident
until this afternoon. She had come upon errands for her mother connected
with a timorous refurbishment; and as she did these, in and out of the
department stores, she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan
Building. From the street, anywhere, it was almost always in sight, like
some monstrous geometrical shadow, murk-colored and rising limitlessly
into the swimming heights of the smoke-mist. It was gaunt and grimy
and repellent; it had nothing but strength and size--but in that
consciousness of Mary's the great structure may have partaken of beauty.
Sheridan had made some of the things he said emphatic enough to remain
with her. She went over and over them--and they began to seem true:
“Only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for!” “Gurney says he's got you
on his brain so bad--” The man's clumsy talk began to sing in her heart.
The song was begun there when she saw the accident.
She was directly opposite the Sheridan Building then, waiting for the
traffic to thin before she crossed, though other people were risking the
passage, darting and halting and dodging parlously. Two men came from
the crowd behind her, talking earnestly, and started across. Both wore
black; one was tall and broad and thick, and the other was taller, but
noticeably slender. And Mary caught her breath, for they were Bibbs and
his father. They did not see her, and she caught a phrase in Bibbs's
mellow voice, which had taken a crisper ring: “Sixty-eight thousand
dollars? Not sixty-eight thousand buttons!” It startled her queerly,
and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for the first time a
resemblance to his father.
She watched them. In the middle of the street Bibbs had to step ahead
of his father, and the two were separated. But the reckless passing of
a truck, beyond the second line of rails, frightened a group of country
women who were in course of passage; they were just in front of Bibbs,
and shoved backward upon him violently. To extricate himself from them
he stepped back, directly in front of a moving trolley-car--no place for
absent-mindedness, but Bibbs was still absorbed in thoughts concerned
with what he had been saying to his father. There were shrieks and
yells; Bibbs looked the wrong way--and then Mary saw the heavy figure
of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the car. With
absolute disregard of his own life, he hurled himself at Bibbs like a
football-player shunting off an opponent, and to Mary it seemed
that they both went down together. But that was all she could
see--automobiles, trucks, and wagons closed in between. She made out
that the trolley-car stopped jerkily, and she saw a policeman breaking
his way through the instantly condensing crowd, while the traffic came
to a standstill, and people stood up in automobiles or climbed upon
the hubs and tires of wheels, not to miss a chance of seeing anything
horrible.
Mary tried to get through; it was impossible. Other policemen came to
help the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again.
The crowd became pliant, dispersing--there was no figure upon the
ground, and no ambulance came. But one of the policemen was detained by
the clinging and beseeching of a gloved hand.
“What IS the matter, lady?”
“Where are they?” Mary cried.
“Who? Ole man Sheridan? I reckon HE wasn't much hurt!”
“His SON--”
“Was that who the other one was? I seen him knock him--oh, he's not bad
off, I guess, lady. The ole man got him out of the way all right. The
fender shoved the ole man around some, but I reckon he only got shook
up. They both went on in the Sheridan Building without any help. Excuse
me, lady.”
Sheridan and Bibbs, in fact, were at that moment in the elevator,
ascending. “Whisk-broom up in the office,” Sheridan was saying. “You got
to look out on those corners nowadays, I tell you. I don't know I got
any call to blow, though--because I tried to cross after you did. That's
how I happened to run into you. Well, you want to remember to look out
after this. We were talkin' about Murtrie's askin' sixty-eight thousand
flat for that ninety-nine-year lease. It's his lookout if he'd rather
take it that way, and I don't know but--”
“No,” said Bibbs, emphatically, as the elevator stopped; “he won't get
it. Not from us, he won't, and I'll show you why. I can convince you
in five minutes.” He followed his father into the office anteroom--and
convinced him. Then, having been diligently brushed by a youth of color,
Bibbs went into his own room and closed the door.
He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his
side was sore where Sheridan had struck him. He desired to be alone; he
wanted to rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again.
He knew that his father had not “happened” to run into him; he knew that
Sheridan had instantly--and instinctively--proved that he held his own
life of no account whatever compared to that of his son and heir. Bibbs
had been unable to speak of that, or to seem to know it; for Sheridan,
just as instinctively, had swept the matter aside--as of no importance,
since all was well--reverting immediately to business.
Bibbs began to think intently of his father. He perceived, as he
had never perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and
indomitable--and lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature's
very self; laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation;
conquering, irresistible--and blindly noble. For the first time in his
life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man's
son.
He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said,
Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly. He
had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary
Vertrees in her need. And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking
how he had gone to her to offer it, asking her to marry him--with his
head on his breast in shameful fear that she would accept him! He had
not known her; the knowing had lost her to him, and this had been his
real awakening; for he knew now how deep had been that slumber wherein
he dreamily celebrated the superiority of “friendship”! The sleep-walker
had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and life, finding himself a
failure in both. He had made a burnt offering of his dreams, and the
sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to Mary. All that was left for
him was the work he had not chosen, but at least he would not fail in
that, though it was indeed no more than “dust in his mouth.” If there
had been anything “to work for--”
He went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets
below. He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms and he looked
across, over the roofs with their panting jets of vapor, into the vast,
foggy heart of the smoke. Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly
against it, chattering with steel on steel, and screeching in steam,
while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky. Buildings
would overtop the Sheridan. Bigness was being served.
But what for? The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair. Here,
where his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and
how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured! The pioneers had
begun the work, but in their old age their orators had said for them
that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity
might live in peace and wisdom, enjoying the fruits of the earth. Well,
their posterity was here--and there was only turmoil. Where was the
promised land? It had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars; it
had been promised to this generation by the pioneers; but here was the
very posterity to whom it had been promised, toiling and risking and
sacrificing in turn--for what?
The harsh roar of the city came in through the open window, continuously
beating upon Bibbs's ear until he began to distinguish a pulsation in
it--a broken and irregular cadence. It seemed to him that it was like
a titanic voice, discordant, hoarse, rustily metallic--the voice of
the god, Bigness. And the voice summoned Bibbs as it summoned all its
servants.
“Come and work!” it seemed to yell. “Come and work for Me, all men! By
your youth and your hope I summon you! By your age and your despair I
summon you to work for Me yet a little, with what strength you have. By
your love of home I summon you! By your love of woman I summon you! By
your hope of children I summon you!
“You shall be blind slaves of Mine, blind to everything but Me, your
Master and Driver! For your reward you shall gaze only upon my ugliness.
You shall give your toil and your lives, you shall go mad for love and
worship of my ugliness! You shall perish still worshipping Me, and your
children shall perish knowing no other god!”
And then, as Bibbs closed the window down tight, he heard his father's
voice booming in the next room; he could not distinguish the words but
the tone was exultant--and there came the THUMP! THUMP! of the maimed
hand. Bibbs guessed that Sheridan was bragging of the city and of
Bigness to some visitor from out-of-town.
And he thought how truly Sheridan was the high priest of Bigness. But
with the old, old thought again, “What for?” Bibbs caught a glimmer of
far, faint light. He saw that Sheridan had all his life struggled
and conquered, and must all his life go on struggling and inevitably
conquering, as part of a vast impulse not his own. Sheridan served
blindly--but was the impulse blind? Bibbs asked himself if it was not
he who had been in the greater hurry, after all. The kiln must be fired
before the vase is glazed, and the Acropolis was not crowned with marble
in a day.
Then the voice came to him again, but there was a strain in it as of
some high music struggling to be born of the turmoil. “Ugly I am,” it
seemed to say to him, “but never forget that I AM a god!” And the voice
grew in sonorousness and in dignity. “The highest should serve, but so
long as you worship me for my own sake I will not serve you. It is man
who makes me ugly, by his worship of me. If man would let me serve him,
I should be beautiful!”
Looking once more from the window, Bibbs sculptured for himself--in
the vague contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs--a gigantic
figure with feet pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders
disappearing in the clouds, a colossus of steel and wholly blackened
with soot. But Bibbs carried his fancy further--for there was still a
little poet lingering in the back of his head--and he thought that up
over the clouds, unseen from below, the giant labored with his hands
in the clean sunshine; and Bibbs had a glimpse of what he made
there--perhaps for a fellowship of the children of the children that
were children now--a noble and joyous city, unbelievably white--
It was the telephone that called him from his vision. It rang fiercely.
He lifted the thing from his desk and answered--and as the small voice
inside it spoke he dropped the receiver with a crash. He trembled
violently as he picked it up, but he told himself he was wrong--he had
been mistaken--yet it was a startlingly beautiful voice; startlingly
kind, too, and ineffably like the one he hungered most to hear.
“Who?” he said, his own voice shaking--like his hand.
“Mary.”
He responded with two hushed and incredulous words: “IS IT?”
There was a little thrill of pathetic half-laughter in the instrument.
“Bibbs--I wanted to--just to see if you--”
“Yes--Mary?”
“I was looking when you were so nearly run over. I saw it, Bibbs.
They said you hadn't been hurt, they thought, but I wanted to know for
myself.”
“No, no, I wasn't hurt at all--Mary. It was father who came nearer it.
He saved me.”
“Yes, I saw; but you had fallen. I couldn't get through the crowd until
you had gone. And I wanted to KNOW.”
“Mary--would you--have minded?” he said.
There was a long interval before she answered.
“Yes.”
“Then why--”
“Yes, Bibbs?”
“I don't know what to say,” he cried. “It's so wonderful to hear your
voice again--I'm shaking, Mary--I--I don't know--I don't know anything
except that I AM talking to you! It IS you--Mary?”
“Yes, Bibbs!”
“Mary--I've seen you from my window at home--only five times since
I--since then. You looked--oh, how can I tell you? It was like a man
chained in a cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky, Mary. Mary, won't
you--let me see you again--near? I think I could make you really forgive
me--you'd have to--”
“I DID--then.”
“No--not really--or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me any
more.”
“That wasn't the reason.” The voice was very low.
“Mary,” he said, even more tremulously than before, “I can't--you
COULDN'T mean it was because--you can't mean it was because you--care?”
There was no answer.
“Mary?” he called, huskily. “If you mean THAT--you'd let me see
you--wouldn't you?”
And now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all, but
if it did, the words were, “Yes, Bibbs--dear.”
But the voice was not in the instrument--it was so gentle and so light,
so almost nothing, it seemed to be made of air--and it came from the
air.
Slowly and incredulously he turned--and glory fell upon his shining
eyes. The door of his father's room had opened.
Mary stood upon the threshold.
THE END