Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe (35 page)

But he saw hopefully that he never learned--that what
remained was the tinsel and the gold.  He was so bitter with his
tongue because his heart believed so much.

The merciless brain lay coiled and alert like a
snake: it saw every gesture, every quick glance above his head, the
shoddy scaffolding of all reception.  But these people existed
for him in a worldremote from human error.  He opened one window
of his heart to Margaret, together they entered the sacred grove of
poetry; but all dark desire, the dream of fair forms, and all the
misery, drunkenness, and disorder of his life at home he kept
fearfully shut.  He was afraid they would hear. 
Desperately he wondered how many of the boys had heard of it. 
And all the facts that levelled Margaret down to life, that plunged
her in the defiling stream of life, were as unreal and horrible as a
nightmare.

That she had been near death from tuberculosis, that
the violent and garrulous Sheba had married an old man, who had
begotten two children and was now about to die, that the whole little
family, powerful in cohesive fidelity, were nursing their great sores
in privacy, building up before the sharp eyes and rattling tongues of
young boys a barrier of flimsy pretense and evasion, numbed him with
a sense of unreality.

Eugene believed in the glory and the gold.

He lived more at Dixieland now.  He had been
more closely bound to Eliza since he began at Leonard's.  Gant,
Helen, and Luke were scornful of the private school.  The
children were resentful of it--a little jealous.  And their
temper was barbed now with a new sting.  They would say:

"You've ruined him completely since you sent him
to a private school."  Or, "He's too good to soil his
hands now that he's quit the public school."

Eliza herself kept him sufficiently reminded of his
obligation. She spoke often of the effort she had to make to pay the
tuition fee, and of her poverty.  She said, he must work hard,
and help her all he could in his spare hours.  He should also
help her through the summer and "drum up trade" among the
arriving tourists at the station.

"For God's sake!  What's the matter with
you?" Luke jeered. "You're not ashamed of a little honest
work, are you?"

This way, sir, for Dixieland.  Mrs. Eliza E.
Gant, proprietor. Just A Whisper Off The Square, Captain.  All
the comforts of the Modern Jail.  Biscuits and home-made pies
just like mother should have made but didn't.

That boy's a hustler.

At the end of Eugene's first year at Leonard's, Eliza
told John Dorsey she could no longer afford to pay the tuition. 
He conferred with Margaret and, returning, agreed to take the boy for
half price.

"He can help you drum up new prospects,"
said Eliza.

"Yes," Leonard agreed, "that's the
very thing."
 
 

Ben bought a new pair of shoes.  They were tan. 
He paid six dollars for them.  He always bought good things. 
But they burnt the soles of his feet.  In a scowling rage he
loped to his room and took them off.

"Goddam it!" he yelled, and hurled them at
the wall.  Eliza came to the door.

"You'll never have a penny, boy, as long as you
waste money the way you do.  I tell you what, it's pretty bad
when you think of it." She shook her head sadly with puckered
mouth.

"O for God's sake!" he growled. 
"Listen to this!  By God, you never hear me asking any one
for anything, do you?" he burst out in a rage.

She took the shoes and gave them to Eugene.

"It would be a pity to throw away a good pair of
shoes," she said. "Try 'em on, boy."

He tried them on.  His feet were already bigger
than Ben's.  He walked about carefully and painfully a few
steps.

"How do they feel?" asked Eliza.

"All right, I guess," he said doubtfully. 
"They're a little tight."

He liked their clean strength, the good smell of
leather.  They were the best shoes he had ever had.

Ben entered the kitchen.

"You little brute!" he said.  "You've
a foot like a mule." Scowling, he knelt and touched the
straining leather at the toes. Eugene winced.

"Mama, for God's sake," Ben cried out
irritably, "don't make the kid wear them if they're too small. 
I'll buy him a pair myself if you're too stingy to spend the money."

"Why, what's wrong with these?" said
Eliza.  She pressed them with her fingers.  "Why,
pshaw!" she said.  "There's nothing wrong with them. 
All shoes are a little tight at first.  It won't hurt him a
bit."

But he had to give up at the end of six weeks. 
The hard leather did not stretch, his feet hurt more every day. 
He limped about more and more painfully until he planted each step
woodenly as if he were walking on blocks.  His feet were numb
and dead, sore on the palms.  One day, in a rage, Ben flung him
down and took them off.  It was several days before he began to
walk with ease again. But his toes that had grown through boyhood
straight and strong were pressed into a pulp, the bones gnarled, bent
and twisted, the nails thick and dead.

"It does seem a pity to throw those good shoes
away," sighed Eliza.
 
 

But she had strange fits of generosity.  He
didn't understand.

A girl came down to Altamont from the west.  She
was from Sevier, a mountain town, she said.  She had a big brown
body, and black hair and eyes of a Cherokee Indian.

"Mark my words," said Gant.  "That
girl's got Cherokee blood in her somewhere."

She took a room, and for days rocked back and forth
in a chair before the parlor fire.  She was shy, frightened, a
little sullen--her manners were country and decorous.  She never
spoke unless she was spoken to.

Sometimes she was sick and stayed in bed.  Eliza
took her food then, and was extremely kind to her.

Day after day the girl rocked back and forth, all
through the stormy autumn.  Eugene could hear her large feet as
rhythmically they hit the floor, ceaselessly propelling the rocker. 
Her name was Mrs. Morgan.

One day as he laid large crackling lumps upon the
piled glowing mass of coals, Eliza entered the room.  Mrs.
Morgan rocked away stolidly.  Eliza stood by the fire for a
moment, pursing her lips reflectively, and folding her hands quietly
upon her stomach.  She looked out the window at the stormy sky,
the swept windy bareness of the street.

"I tell you what," she said, "it looks
like a hard winter for the poor folks."

"Yes'm," said Mrs. Morgan sullenly. 
She kept on rocking.

Eliza was silent a moment longer.

"Where's your husband?" she asked
presently.

"In Sevier," Mrs. Morgan said.  "He's
a railroad man."

"What's that, what's that?" said Eliza
quickly, comically.  "A railroad man, you say?" she
inquired sharply.

"Yes'm."

"Well, it looks mighty funny to me he hasn't
been in to see you," said Eliza, with enormous accusing
tranquillity.  "I'd call it a pretty poor sort of man who'd
act like that."

Mrs. Morgan said nothing.  Her tar-black eyes
glittered in fireflame.

"Have you got any money?" said Eliza.

"No'm," said Mrs. Morgan.

Eliza stood solidly, enjoying the warmth, pursing her
lips.  "When do you expect to have your baby?" said
Eliza suddenly.

Mrs. Morgan said nothing for a moment.  She kept
on rocking.

"In less'n a month now, I reckon," she
answered.

She had been getting bigger week after week.

Eliza bent over and pulled her skirt up, revealing
her leg to the knee, cotton-stockinged and lumpily wadded over with
her heavy flannels.

"Whew!" she cried out coyly, noticing that
Eugene was staring. "Turn your head, boy," she commanded,
snickering and rubbing her finger along her nose.  The dull
green of rolled banknotes shone through her stockings.  She
pulled the bills out.

"Well, I reckon you'll have to have a little
money," said Eliza, peeling off two tens, and giving them to
Mrs. Morgan.

"Thank you, ma'am," said Mrs. Morgan,
taking the money.

"You can stay here until you're able to work
again," said Eliza. "I know a good doctor."
 
 

"Mama, in heaven's name," Helen fumed. 
"Where on earth do you get these people?"

"Merciful God!" howled Gant, "you've
had 'em all--blind, lame, crazy, chippies and bastards.  They
all come here."

Nevertheless, when he saw Mrs. Morgan now, he always
made a profound bow, saying with the most florid courtesy:

"How do you do, madam?"  Aside, to
Helen, he said:

"I tell you what--she's a fine-looking girl."

"Hahahaha," said Helen, laughing in an
ironic falsetto, and prodding him, "you wouldn't mind having her
yourself, would you?"

"B'God," he said humorously, wetting his
thumb, and grinning slyly at Eliza, "she's got a pair of
pippins."

Eliza smiled bitterly into popping grease.

"Hm!" she said disdainfully.  "I
don't care how many he goes with. There's no fool like an old fool. 
You'd better not be too smart. That's a game two can play at."

"Hahahahaha!" laughed Helen thinly, "she's
mad now."

Helen took Mrs. Morgan often to Gant's and cooked
great meals for her.  She also brought her presents of candy and
scented soap from town.

They called in McGuire at the birth of the child. 
From below Eugene heard the quiet commotion in the upstairs room, the
low moans of the woman, and finally a high piercing wail. 
Eliza, greatly excited, kept kettles seething with hot water
constantly over the gas flames of the stove.  From time to time
she rushed upstairs with a boiling kettle, descending a moment later
more slowly, pausing from step to step while she listened attentively
to the sounds in the room.

"After all," said Helen, banging kettles
about restlessly in the kitchen, "what do we know about her? 
Nobody can say she hasn't got a husband, can they?  They'd
better be careful!  People have no right to say those things,"
she cried out irritably against unknown detractors.

It was night.  Eugene went out on to the
veranda.  The air was frosty, clear, not very cool.  Above
the black bulk of the eastern hills, and in the great bowl of the
sky, far bright stars were  scintillant as jewels.  The
light burned brightly in neighborhood houses, as bright and as hard
as if carved from some cold gem. Across the wide yard-spaces wafted
the warm odor of hamburger steak and fried onions.  Ben stood at
the veranda rail, leaning upon his cocked leg, smoking with deep lung
inhalations.  Eugene went over and stood by him.  They
heard the wail upstairs.  Eugene snickered, looking up at the
thin ivory mask.  Ben lifted his white hand sharply to strike
him, but dropped it with a growl of contempt, smiling faintly. 
Far before them, on the top of Birdseye, faint lights wavered in the
rich Jew's castle.  In the neighborhood there was a slight mist
of supper, and frost-far voices.

Deep womb, dark flower.  The Hidden.  The
secret fruit, heart-red, fed by rich Indian blood.  Womb-night
brooding darkness flowering secretly into life.
 
 

Mrs. Morgan went away two weeks after her child was
born.  He was a little brown-skinned boy, with a tuft of elvish
black hair, and very black bright eyes.  He was like a little
Indian.  Before she left Eliza gave her twenty dollars.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I've got folks in Sevier," said Mrs.
Morgan.

She went up the street carrying a cheap
imitation-crocodile valise. At her shoulder the baby waggled his
head, and looked merrily back with his bright black eyes.  Eliza
waved to him and smiled tremulously; she turned back into the house
sniffling, with wet eyes.

Why did she come to Dixieland, I wonder? Eugene
thought.
 
 

Eliza was good to a little man with a mustache. 
He had a wife and a little girl nine years old.  He was a hotel
steward; he was out of work and he stayed at Dixieland until he owed
her more than one hundred dollars.  But he split kindling
neatly, and carried up coal; he did handy jobs of carpentry, and
painted up rusty places about the house.

She was very fond of him; he was what she called "a
good family man."  She liked domestic people; she liked men
who were house-broken.  The little man was very kind and very
tame.  Eugene liked him because he made good coffee.  Eliza
never bothered him about the money.  Finally, he got work at the
Inn, and quarters there. He paid Eliza all he owed her.

Eugene stayed late at the school, returning in the
afternoon at three or four o'clock.  Sometimes it was almost
dark when he came back to Dixieland.  Eliza was fretful at his
absences, and brought him his dinner crisped and dried from its long
heating in the oven. There was a heavy vegetable soup thickly
glutinous with cabbage, beans, and tomatoes, and covered on top with
big grease blisters.  There would also be warmed-over beef, pork
or chicken, a dish full of cold lima beans, biscuits, slaw, and
coffee.