The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (132 page)

The girl cast a miserable glance behind her. She was still crawling away. On the ground beside the porch young Sim raised a strange bleat, which expressed both his fright and his lack of wind. Presently the monster, with a fashionable amble, ascended the steps after the girl.

She grovelled in a corner of the room as the creature took a chair. It seated itself very elegantly on the edge. It held an old cap in both hands. “Don’ make no botheration, Miss Fa’gut. Don’ make no botherations. No, ‘deed. I jes drap in ter ax you if you won’ do me the proud of acceptin’ ma humble invitation to er daince, Miss Fa’gut.”

She shielded her eyes with her arms and tried to crawl past it, but the genial monster blocked the way. “I jes drap in ter ax you ‘bout er daince, Miss Fa’gut. I ax you if I kin have the magnifercent gratitude of you’ company on that ‘casion, Miss Fa’gut.”

In a last outbreak of despair, the girl, shuddering and wailing, threw herself face downward on the floor, while the monster sat on the edge of the chair gabbling courteous invitations, and holding the old hat daintily to his stomach.

At the back of the house, Mrs. Farragut, who was of enormous weight, and who for eight years had done little more than sit in an armchair and describe her various ailments, had with speed and agility scaled a high board fence.

XVIII

The black mass in the middle of Trescott’s property was hardly allowed to cool before the builders were at work on another house. It had sprung upward at a fabulous rate. It was like a magical composition born of the ashes. The doctor’s office was the first part to be completed, and he had already moved in his new books and instruments and medicines.

Trescott sat before his desk when the chief of police arrived. “Well, we found him,” said the latter.

“Did you?” cried the doctor. “Where?”

“Shambling around the streets at daylight this morning. I’ll be blamed if I can figure on where he passed the night.”

“Where is he now?”

“Oh, we jugged him. I didn’t know what else to do with him. That’s what I want you to tell me. Of course we can’t keep him. No charge could be made, you know.”

“I’ll come down and get him.”

The official grinned retrospectively. “Must say he had a fine career while he was out. First thing he did was to break up a children’s party at Page’s. Then he went to Watermelon Alley. Whoo! He stampeded the whole outfit. Men, women, and children running pell-mell, and yelling. They say one old woman broke her leg, or something, shinning over a fence. Then he went right out on the main street, and an Irish girl threw a fit, and there was a sort of a riot. He began to run, and a big crowd chased him, firing rocks. But he gave them the slip somehow down there by the foundry and in the railroad yard. We looked for him all night, but couldn’t find him.”

“Was he hurt any? Did anybody hit him with a stone?”

“Guess there isn’t much of him to hurt any more, is there? Guess he’s been hurt up to the limit. No. They never touched him. Of course nobody really wanted to hit him, but you know how a crowd gets. It’s like — it’s like—”

“Yes, I know.”

For a moment the chief of the police looked reflectively at the floor. Then he spoke hesitatingly. “You know Jake Winter’s little girl was the one that he scared at the party. She is pretty sick, they say.”

“Is she? Why, they didn’t call me. I always attend the Winter family.”

“No? Didn’t they?” asked the chief, slowly. “Well — you know — Winter is — well, Winter has gone clean crazy over this business. He wanted — he wanted to have you arrested.”

“Have me arrested? The idiot! What in the name of wonder could he have me arrested for?”

“Of course. He is a fool. I told him to keep his trap shut. But then you know how he’ll go all over town yapping about the thing. I thought I’d better tip you.”

“Oh, he is of no consequence; but then, of course, I’m obliged to you, Sam.”

“That’s all right. Well, you’ll be down tonight and take him out, eh? You’ll get a good welcome from the jailer. He don’t like his job for a cent. He says you can have your man whenever you want him. He’s got no use for him.”

“But what is this business of Winter’s about having me arrested?”

“Oh, it’s a lot of chin about your having no right to allow this — this — this man to be at large. But I told him to tend to his own business. Only I thought I’d better let you know. And I might as well say right now, doctor, that there is a good deal of talk about this thing. If I were you, I’d come to the jail pretty late at night, because there is likely to be a crowd around the door, and I’d bring a — er — mask, or some kind of a veil, anyhow.”

XIX

Martha Goodwin was single, and well along into the thin years. She lived with her married sister in Whilomville. She performed nearly all the house-work in exchange for the privilege of existence. Every one tacitly recognized her labor as a form of penance for the early end of her betrothed, who had died of small-pox, which he had not caught from her.

But despite the strenuous and unceasing workaday of her life, she was a woman of great mind. She had adamantine opinions upon the situation in Armenia, the condition of women in China, the flirtation between Mrs. Minster of Niagara Avenue and young Griscom, the conflict in the Bible class of the Baptist Sunday-school, the duty of the United States towards the Cuban insurgents, and many other colossal matters. Her fullest experience of violence was gained on an occasion when she had seen a hound clubbed, but in the plan which she had made for the reform of the world she advocated drastic measures. For instance, she contended that all the Turks should be pushed into the sea and drowned, and that Mrs. Minster and young Griscom should be hanged side by side on twin gallows. In fact, this woman of peace, who had seen only peace, argued constantly for a creed of illimitable ferocity. She was invulnerable on these questions, because eventually she overrode all opponents with a sniff. This sniff was an active force. It was to her antagonists like a bang over the head, and none was known to recover from this expression of exalted contempt. It left them windless and conquered. They never again came forward as candidates for suppression. And Martha walked her kitchen with a stern brow, an invincible being like Napoleon.

Nevertheless her acquaintances, from the pain of their defeats, had been long in secret revolt. It was in no wise a conspiracy, because they did not care to state their open rebellion, but nevertheless it was understood that any woman who could not coincide with one of Martha’s contentions was entitled to the support of others in the small circle. It amounted to an arrangement by which all were required to disbelieve any theory for which Martha fought. This, however, did not prevent them from speaking of her mind with profound respect.

Two people bore the brunt of her ability. Her sister Kate was visibly afraid of her, while Carrie Dungen sailed across from her kitchen to sit respectfully at Martha’s feet and learn the business of the world. To be sure, afterwards, under another sun, she always laughed at Martha and pretended to deride her ideas, but in the presence of the sovereign she always remained silent or admiring. Kate, the sister, was of no consequence at all. Her principal delusion was that she did all the work in the up-stairs rooms of the house, while Martha did it down-stairs. The truth was seen only by the husband, who treated Martha with a kindness that was half banter, half deference. Martha herself had no suspicion that she was the only pillar of the domestic edifice. The situation was without definitions. Martha made definitions, but she devoted them entirely to the Armenians and Griscom and the Chinese and other subjects. Her dreams, which in early days had been of love of meadows and the shade of trees, of the face of a man, were now involved otherwise, and they were companioned in the kitchen curiously, Cuba, the hot-water kettle, Armenia, the washing of the dishes, and the whole thing being jumbled. In regard to social misdemeanors, she who was simply the mausoleum of a dead passion was probably the most savage critic in town. This unknown woman, hidden in a kitchen as in a well, was sure to have a considerable effect of the one kind or the other in the life of the town. Every time it moved a yard, she had personally contributed an inch. She could hammer so stoutly upon the door of a proposition that it would break from its hinges and fall upon her, but at any rate it moved. She was an engine, and the fact that she did not know that she was an engine contributed largely to the effect. One reason that she was formidable was that she did not even imagine that she was formidable. She remained a weak, innocent, and pig-headed creature, who alone would defy the universe if she thought the universe merited this proceeding.

One day Carrie Dungen came across from her kitchen with speed. She had a great deal of grist. “Oh,” she cried, “Henry Johnson got away from where they was keeping him, and came to town last night, and scared everybody almost to death.”

Martha was shining a dish-pan, polishing madly. No reasonable person could see cause for this operation, because the pan already glistened like silver. “Well!” she ejaculated. She imparted to the word a deep meaning. “This, my prophecy, has come to pass.” It was a habit.

The overplus of information was choking Carrie. Before she could go on she was obliged to struggle for a moment. “And, oh, little Sadie Winter is awful sick, and they say Jake Winter was around this morning trying to get Doctor Trescott arrested. And poor old Mrs. Farragut sprained her ankle in trying to climb a fence. And there’s a crowd around the jail all the time. They put Henry in jail because they didn’t know what else to do with him, I guess. They say he is perfectly terrible.”

Martha finally released the dish-pan and confronted the headlong speaker. “Well!” she said again, poising a great brown rag. Kate had heard the excited new-comer, and drifted down from the novel in her room. She was a shivery little woman. Her shoulder-blades seemed to be two panes of ice, for she was constantly shrugging and shrugging. “Serves him right if he was to lose all his patients,” she said suddenly, in blood-thirsty tones. She snipped her words out as if her lips were scissors.

“Well, he’s likely to,” shouted Carrie Dungen. “Don’t a lot of people say that they won’t have him any more? If you’re sick and nervous, Doctor Trescott would scare the life out of you, wouldn’t he? He would me. I’d keep thinking.”

Martha, stalking to and fro, sometimes surveyed the two other women with a contemplative frown.

XX

After the return from Connecticut, little Jimmie was at first much afraid of the monster who lived in the room over the carriage-house. He could not identify it in any way. Gradually, however, his fear dwindled under the influence of a weird fascination. He sidled into closer and closer relations with it.

One time the monster was seated on a box behind the stable basking in the rays of the afternoon sun. A heavy crepe veil was swathed about its head.

Little Jimmie and many companions came around the corner of the stable. They were all in what was popularly known as the baby class, and consequently escaped from school a half-hour before the other children. They halted abruptly at sight of the figure on the box. Jimmie waved his hand with the air of a proprietor.

“There he is,” he said.

“O-o-o!” murmured all the little boys—”o-o-o!” They shrank back, and grouped according to courage or experience, as at the sound the monster slowly turned its head. Jimmie had remained in the van alone. “Don’t be afraid! I won’t let him hurt you,” he said, delighted.