Part 13

“One morning, on the hottest day of the hottest July I ever knew--and you know what that means down here--I left the bank to call on a man named Harlan and collect some money that’d come due on a note. Harlan had the cash waiting for me all right, and when I counted it I found it amounted to three hundred dollars and eighty-six cents, the change being in brand new coin that Harlan had drawn from another bank that morning. I put the three one-hundred-dollar bills in my wallet and the change in my vest pocket, signed a receipt and left. I was going straight back to the bank.

“Outside the heat was terrible. It was enough to make you dizzy, and I hadn’t been feeling right for a couple of days, so, while I waited in the shade for a street-car, I was congratulating myself that in a month or so I’d be out of this and up where it was some cooler. And then, as I stood there, it occurred to me all of a sudden that outside of the money which I’d just collected, which, of course, I couldn’t touch, I didn’t have a cent in my pocket. I’d have to walk back to the bank, and it was about fifteen blocks away. You see, on the night before, I’d found that my change came to just a dollar, and I’d traded it for a bill at the corner store and added it to the roll in the bottom of my trunk. So there was no help for it--I took off my coat and I stuck my handkerchief into my collar and struck off through the suffocating heat for the bank.

“Fifteen blocks--you can imagine what that was like, and I was sick when I started. From away up by Juniper Street--you remember where that is; the new Mieger Hospital’s there now--all the way down to Jackson. After about six blocks I began to stop and rest whenever I found a patch of shade wide enough to hold me, and as I got pretty near I could just keep going by thinking of the big glass of iced tea my mother’d have waiting beside my plate at lunch. But after that I began getting too sick to even want the iced tea--I wanted to get rid of that money and then lie down and die.

“When I was still about two blocks away from the bank I put my hand into my watch pocket and pulled out that change; was sort of jingling it in my hand; making myself believe that I was so close that it was convenient to have it ready. I happened to glance into my hand, and all of a sudden I stopped up short and reached down quick into my watch pocket. The pocket was empty. There was a little hole in the bottom, and my hand held only a half-dollar, a quarter and a dime. I had lost one cent.

“Well, sir, I can’t tell you, I can’t express to you the feeling of discouragement that this gave me. One penny, mind you--but think; just the week before a runner had lost his job because he was a little bit shy twice. It was only carelessness; but there you were! They were all in a panic that they might get fired themselves, and the best thing to do was to fire some one else--first.

“So you can see that it was up to me to appear with that penny.

“Where I got the energy to care as much about it as I did is more than I can understand. I was sick and hot and weak as a kitten, but it never occurred to me that I could do anything except find or replace that penny, and immediately I began casting about for a way to do it. I looked into a couple of stores, hoping I’d see some one I knew, but while there were a few fellows loafing in front, just as you saw them today, there wasn’t one that I felt like going up to and saying: ‘Here! You got a penny?’ I thought of a couple of offices where I could have gotten it without much trouble, but they were some distance off, and besides being pretty dizzy, I hated to go out of my route when I was carrying bank money, because it looked kind of strange.

“So what should I do but commence walking back along the street toward the Union Depot where I last remembered having the penny. It was a brand new penny, and I thought maybe I’d see it shining where it dropped. So I kept walking, looking pretty carefully at the sidewalk and thinking what I’d better do. I laughed a little, because I felt sort of silly for worrying about a penny, but I didn’t enjoy laughing, and it really didn’t seem silly to me at all.

“Well, by and by I got back to the Union Depot without having either seen the old penny or having thought what was the best way to get another. I hated to go all the way home, ’cause we lived a long distance out; but what else was I to do? So I found a piece of shade close to the depot, and stood there considering, thinking first one thing and then another, and not getting anywhere at all. One little penny, just _one_--something almost any man in sight would have given me; something even the nigger baggage-smashers were jingling around in their pockets.... I must have stood there about five minutes. I remember there was a line of about a dozen men in front of an army recruiting station they’d just opened, and a couple of them began to yell: ‘Join the Army!’ at me. That woke me up, and I moved on back toward the bank, getting worried now, getting mixed up and sicker and sicker and knowing a million ways to find a penny and not one that seemed convenient or right. I was exaggerating the importance of losing it, and I was exaggerating the difficulty of finding another, but you just have to believe that it seemed about as important to me just then as though it were a hundred dollars.

“Then I saw a couple of men talking in front of Moody’s soda place, and recognized one of them--Mr. Burling--who’d been a friend of my father’s. That was relief, I can tell you. Before I knew it I was chattering to him so quick that he couldn’t follow what I was getting at.

“‘Now,’ he said, ‘you know I’m a little deaf and can’t understand when you talk that fast! What is it you want, Henry? Tell me from the beginning.’

“‘Have you got any change with you?’ I asked him just as loud as I dared. ‘I just want--’ Then I stopped short; a man a few feet away had turned around and was looking at us. It was Mr. Deems, the first vice-president of the Cotton National Bank.”

Hemmick paused, and it was still light enough for Abercrombie to see that he was shaking his head to and fro in a puzzled way. When he spoke his voice held a quality of pained surprise, a quality that it might have carried over twenty years.

“I never _could_ understand what it was that came over me then. I must have been sort of crazy with the heat--that’s all I can decide. Instead of just saying ‘Howdy’ to Mr. Deems, in a natural way, and telling Mr. Burling I wanted to borrow a nickel for tobacco, because I’d left my purse at home, I turned away quick as a flash and began walking up the street at a great rate, feeling like a criminal who had come near being caught.

“Before I’d gone a block I was sorry. I could almost hear the conversation that must’ve been taking place between those two men:

“‘What do you reckon’s the matter with that young man?’ Mr. Burling would say, without meaning any harm. ‘Came up to me all excited and wanted to know if I had any money, and then he saw you and rushed away like he was crazy.’

“And I could almost see Mr. Deems’ big eyes get narrow with suspicion and watch him twist up his trousers and come strolling along after me. I was in a real panic now, and no mistake. Suddenly I saw a one-horse surrey going by, and recognized Bill Kennedy, a friend of mine, driving it. I yelled at him, but he didn’t hear me. Then I yelled again, but he didn’t pay any attention, so I started after him at a run, swaying from side to side, I guess, like I was drunk, and calling his name every few minutes. He looked around once, but he didn’t see me; he kept right on going and turned out of sight at the next corner. I stopped then, because I was too weak to go any farther. I was just about to sit down on the curb and rest when I looked around, and the first thing I saw was Mr. Deems walking after me as fast as he could come. There wasn’t any of my imagination about it this time--the look in his eyes showed he wanted to know what was the matter with _me_!

“Well, that’s about all I can remember clearly until about twenty minutes later, when I was at home trying to unlock my trunk with fingers that were trembling like a tuning fork. Before I could get it open, Mr. Deems and a policeman came in. I began talking all at once about not being a thief and trying to tell them what had happened, but I guess I was sort of hysterical, and the more I said the worse matters were. When I managed to get the story out it seemed sort of crazy, even to me--and it was true--it was true, true as I’ve told you--every word!--that one penny that I lost somewhere down by the station--” Hemmick broke off and began laughing grotesquely--as though the excitement that had come over him as he finished his tale was a weakness of which he was ashamed. When he resumed it was with an affectation of nonchalance.

“I’m not going into the details of what happened, because nothing much did--at least, not on the scale you judge events by up North. It cost me my job, and I changed a good name for a bad one. Somebody tattled and somebody lied, and the impression got around that I’d lost a lot of the bank’s money and had been tryin’ to cover it up.

“I had an awful time getting a job after that. Finally I got a statement out of the bank that contradicted the wildest of the stories that had started, but the people who were still interested said it was just because the bank didn’t want any fuss or scandal--and the rest had forgotten: that is, they’d forgotten what had happened, but they remembered that somehow I just wasn’t a young fellow to be trusted----”

Hemmick paused and laughed again, still without enjoyment, but bitterly, uncomprehendingly, and with a profound helplessness.

“So, you see, that’s why I didn’t go to Cincinnati,” he said slowly; “my mother was alive then, and this was a pretty bad blow to her. She had an idea--one of those old-fashioned Southern ideas that stick in people’s heads down here--that somehow I ought to stay here in town and prove myself honest. She had it on her mind, and she wouldn’t hear of my going. She said that the day I went ’d be the day she’d die. So I sort of had to stay till I’d got back my--my reputation.”

“How long did that take?” asked Abercrombie quietly.

“About--ten years.”

“Oh----”

“Ten years,” repeated Hemmick, staring out into the gathering darkness. “This is a little town you see: I say ten years because it was about ten years when the last reference to it came to my ears. But I was married long before that; had a kid. Cincinnati was out of my mind by that time.”

“Of course,” agreed Abercrombie.

They were both silent for a moment--then Hemmick added apologetically:

“That was sort of a long story, and I don’t know if it could have interested you much. But you asked me----”

“It _did_ interest me,” answered Abercrombie politely. “It interested me tremendously. It interested me much more than I thought it would.”

It occurred to Hemmick that he himself had never realized what a curious, rounded tale it was. He saw dimly now that what had seemed to him only a fragment, a grotesque interlude was really significant, complete. It was an interesting story; it was the story upon which turned the failure of his life. Abercrombie’s voice broke in upon his thoughts.

“You see, it’s so different from my story,” Abercrombie was saying. “It was an accident that you stayed--and it was an accident that I went away. You deserve more actual--actual credit, if there is such a thing in the world, for your intention of getting out and getting on. You see, I’d more or less gone wrong at seventeen. I was--well, what you call a Jelly-bean. All I wanted was to take it easy through life--and one day I just happened to see a sign up above my head that had on it: ‘Special rate to Atlanta, three dollars and forty-two cents.’ So I took out my change and counted it----”

Hemmick nodded. Still absorbed in his own story, he had forgotten the importance, the comparative magnificence of Abercrombie. Then suddenly he found himself listening sharply:

“I had just three dollars and forty-one cents in my pocket. But, you see, I was standing in line with a lot of other young fellows down by the Union Depot about to enlist in the army for three years. And I saw that extra penny on the walk not three feet away. I saw it because it was brand new and shining in the sun like gold.”

The Georgia night had settled over the street, and as the blue drew down upon the dust the outlines of the two men had become less distinct, so that it was not easy for any one who passed along the walk to tell that one of these men was of the few and the other of no importance. All the detail was gone--Abercrombie’s fine gold wrist watch, his collar, that he ordered by the dozen from London, the dignity that sat upon him in his chair--all faded and were engulfed with Hemmick’s awkward suit and preposterous humped shoes into that pervasive depth of night that, like death, made nothing matter, nothing differentiate, nothing remain. And a little later on a passerby saw only the two glowing disks about the size of a penny that marked the rise and fall of their cigars.

[10] Copyright, 1922, by The Metropolitan Magazine Company. Copyright, 1923, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

JOHN THE BAPTIST[11]

By WALDO FRANK

(From _The Dial_)

The room was bright with the sun. Three stories up.

Three dark halls, three worn stairs, the mustiness of walls to which grimed hands, worn shoulders had rubbed their intricate soiled burden, held up this room that was all bright with the sun.

The door was open: two windows with their mesh Dutch curtains were thrown high: Clara Jones dusted.

She was a short woman, colored a dark brown in which were shadows of blue and orange. She was of indeterminate age. She worked slowly, diligently, with a sort of submissive rhythm to the sweep of her arms, the sway of her head, as if an invisible Master timed her work with gentle strokes on her bent back. The contours and objects of the room were a familiar haze against her hands. Her eyes did not take in the books upon the mantel, the morris chair which her hands groomed and shifted, the blue cover of the couch which the room’s tenant used for a bed. Her eyes were focused dimly beyond the room, beyond the sunlight also that did not make them blink--beyond the sun. At times a murmur as of words answering in herself, a shred of tune, came from her. And these were in unison with the rapt measure of her work. And it with the distant fixedness of her eyes that moved as if to remain upon some point either far within or far without herself. Or both....

A tall young man ... almost a boy ... stood in the door. He buttressed both his palms against the threshold’s sides: he watched her.

Her face turned to her shoulder, then fell forwards back into its somnolent rhythm.

“Lor’! that you already? You-all _quick_ this mo’nin’.”

“May I come in?”

“Sho’ly, sho’ly. Sit down over th’ah.”

She did not stop. She held a broom in her two brown hands. With a steady stroke of shoulder, back and forth it went, rasping ... swinging; her small, soft body cadenced with its stiff advance.

“Th’ah you are, Mr. Loer!” She waved a musty rag over his desk, over a picture nailed above it. “Th’ah you are.”

She turned and smiled at him. He was still standing in the threshold. She had a round, small face, and her big mouth smiling seemed to cover it. Her eyes still focused distantly.

She dropped the broom against a shoulder and flung the rag into the fold of an elbow. She laughed.

“What yo’ got, this mo’nin’? I’m done. Come along in.”

“I don’t feel like being alone this morning, Clara.”

Clara’s smile was tender. Her face tilted to a side.

“Lonely, Mr. Loer?” she said. He felt caressed.

“Oh, no.” He stepped into the room, lifting his knees unnecessarily high. He sank down in the morris chair and primed a pipe.

“Clara,” he seemed to hold her, “how’d you sleep last night?”

She folded her hands.

“Oh, fine, Mr. Loer. You know I always sleeps fine.”

“Well I slept rotten.”

“I wouldn’t sleep none at all, Mr. Loer ... ef I went to sleep same as you does.”

He looked up from his pipe. “What do you mean?”

“’Thout prayin’. Yo’ tole me so yo’self. No wonder you sleep rotten. Lor’! I wouldn’t sleep none at all ... ef ... I went to sleep ’thout prayin’.” She paused. “Watch out, Mr. Loer,” she said with a sweet tremulousness. “Supposin’ the time comes when you cyant sleep at all.”

“I don’t know whom to pray to.”

The old woman looked at the broomstick standing against her shoulder.

“And you so--eddicated,” she declared.

She ambled out, still keyed to that impalpable warm measure kindling her feet, her hips, the drone of her soft voice.

The door’s gentle click made him alone.

He relaxed forward in his chair. Crumpled hands held his sharp, fine chin. His eyes were disturbed. They wandered. They saw his room: sharply each object in his room caught in his eyes and held there. His eyes were hurt because they saw no farther.

He jumped up, flung his coat. He ran his fingers through the high, blond hair. He faced his books.

Spencer’s “First Principles” ... “Introduction to Anthropology” ... Dewey’s “How We Think” ... caught like long splinters in his eyes. He shook his head as if to shake them out.

Then he took the psychology book and settled, rigid in his chair, to read.

His mind held back. It seemed stiff and small, dry and remote. It gave no attention to the book. It gave no attention, now, to the movement of his body as the book fell from limp hands and he was stepping to the corner where stood his ’cello.

He placed a stool. His body flexed and grew co-ordinate as it received the instrument. Softly, with eyes arching beyond him and his mind still gone, he began to bow. His mind held away no more. It broke forward. It leaped, it sang: his fingers moved with delicate precision making slow music.

... The street. A woman, tall, clouded in dark glow, whom he had seen, whom he had seen in the street. His mind out there beat against her uprightness; it was a sea beating and breaking against her. It went up, it went down--as did his fingers--avail-less.

... Then his mother. There was no doubt, she reminded him of his mother who had died when he was a lad in Holland.

Karl Loer bent his face upon his loved ’cello and played deep, plaintive words. He saw the woman whom he had passed so often in the street.... She has arms piteous towards a man who is her husband. She pleads with her arms. She wears a straight black dress. And underneath her dress he saw her breast. It is bleeding! There is an iron bar, clamped hard and close, on the breasts of the woman!

His fingers stopped. He drew his bow dazedly back and forth. He jumped up.

“O you! O you!” he cried, clutching his loved instrument. “I could wring your neck. I could dash you to bits--” He lifted his ’cello in violence with both hands above his face. Softly he laid it on the couch.

He stood now with eyes free and found that he was thinking of his life.

“What nonsense! what nonsense!” he began. He had forgotten how he had begun.... “Mother, this woman ... two women I have never known.” He loved his mother. She was French. He recalled her stately and dark in a town of light, plump people. He recalled her lovely in a world of clods.

The whole world knew that she had been unfaithful, and had disappeared ... disappeared for ever and for ever: that was eternity, her disappearing ... after his father turned her out. He and his two brothers knew how sensual indulgence grew like the fat upon his father, clogged him, clotted his brain ... and he had turned her out. His father’s soul shrank famished, he was a sucking brute. Then he was mad ... she was gone ... and Karl had come away.

America! He brought to it, he thought, his yearning and his music. He dwelt in misery. He dwelt, it seemed to his free eyes, in misery that grew more deep, more blind.

He wondered why.

“I have a good mind,” he said aloud. He swung his chair to face the row of books upon his mantel. So he sat looking at his books. Proud of them--I wonder why?

And as he sat, he forgot the books that stood within his eyes. He thought again of his mother. Why had she been unfaithful? What had driven her, and what his father? Was his brutality the way of sorrow? Had she found joy in that eternity where he had lost her?... Sudden like a stroke across his brain, the woman with white breasts crushed in a clamping iron: her piteous arms stretched towards a man--not he.

He walked up and down. He forgot the vision.

“There,” he said aloud, with an emphasis that was a plea, “there is what comes of music ... of emotion. Idiotic ideas ... visions. That woman ... what do you know about that woman? Rot!”

He bent down and picked up the book that he had failed to read.

“Here’s the place for your mind,” he said aloud.

“You,” he turned to his ’cello, “you’ll go on earning my living.” He stroked the fragile wine-hued wooden breast. “For a while.... But you’ll not boss me, hear?” He stood the instrument away.

There was a knock. Clara with a letter.

He took it. He seemed strangely perturbed. He laid the letter, unread, aside. As she reached for the door, “Clara,” he said.

She turned.