Cousin Larry.
The young woman in the crepe de Chine dress printed all over with little paG.o.das set amid giant cornflowers flung one knee atop the other and surveyed, with an enviable contentment, the tip of her scrolled green sandal. Then, in a like happy calm, she inspected her finger nails of so thick and glistening a red that it seemed as if she but recently had completed tearing an ox apart with her naked hands. Then she dropped her chin abruptly to her chest and busied herself among the man-made curls, sharp and dry as shavings, along the back of her neck; and again she appeared to be wrapped in cozy satisfaction. Then she lighted a fresh cigarette and seemed to find it, like all about her, good. Then she went right on with all she had been saying before.
"No, but really," she said. "Honestly. I get so darn sick of all this talk about Lila-"Oh, poor Lila" this, and "Oh, the poor thing" that. If they want to be sorry for her-well, it"s a free country, I suppose, but all I can say is I think they"re crazy. I think they"re absolutely c.o.c.k-eyed wild. If they want to be sorry for anybody, go be sorry for Cousin Larry, why don"t they? Then they"d be making some sense, for a change. Listen, n.o.body has to be sorry for Lila. She has a marvelous time; she never does one solitary thing she doesn"t want to do. She has the best time of anybody I know. And anyway, it"s all her own fault, anyway. It"s just the way she is; it"s her rotten, vile disposition. Well, you can"t be expected to feel sorry for anybody when it"s their own fault, can you? Does that make any sense? Now I ask you!
"Listen. I know Lila. I"ve known her for years. I"ve seen her practically day in, day out. Well, you know how often I"ve visited them, down in the country. You know how well you know a person after you"ve visited them; well, that"s the way I know Lila. And I like her. Honestly I do. I like Lila all right when she"s decent. It"s only when she starts feeling sorry for herself and begins whining and asking questions and spoiling everybody"s fun that she makes me throw up. A lot of the time she"s perfectly all right. Only she"s selfish, that"s all. She"s just a rotten, selfish woman. And then the way people talk about Larry for staying in town and going around places without her! Listen to me, she stays home because she wants to. She"d rather go to bed early. I"ve seen her do it night after night, when I"ve been down there visiting. I know her like a book. Catch that one doing anything she doesn"t feel like doing!
"Honestly. It just makes me boil to hear anyone say anything against Larry. Just let them try criticizing him to me, that"s all. Why, that man"s a living saint, that"s what he is. How on earth he"s got anything at all left, after ten years with that woman, I don"t see. She can"t let him alone a second; always wants to be in on everything, always wants to know what"s the joke and what"s he laughing about, and oh, tell her, tell her, so she can laugh too. And she"s one of those d.a.m.n serious old fools that can"t see anything funny, and can"t kid or anything, and then she tries to get cute and play, too, and-well, you just can"t look, that"s all. And poor Larry, who couldn"t be funnier or have more of a sense of humor and all. I should think she"d have driven him c.o.c.k-eyed wild, years ago.
"And then when she sees the poor soul having a little bit of fun with anybody for a few minutes, she gets-well, she doesn"t get jealous, she"s too self-centered ever to have a jealous moment-she"s so rotten suspicious, she"s got such a vile, dirty mind, she just gets mean. And to me, of all people. Now I ask you! Me, that"s known Larry practically all my life, practically. Why, I"ve called him Cousin Larry for years-that shows you how I"ve always felt about him. And the very first time I went down there to stay with them, she started in about why did I call him Cousin Larry, and I said, oh, I"d known him so well, I felt sort of related, and then she got kittenish, the old fool, and said, well, I"d have to take her into the family, too, and I said, yes, that would be great, or something. And I did try to call her Aunt Lila, but I just simply couldn"t seem to feel that way. And it didn"t seem to make her any happier, anyway. Well, she"s just one of those kind she"s never happy unless she"s miserable. She enjoys being miserable. That"s why she does it. Catch her doing anything she doesn"t want to do!
"Honestly. Poor Cousin Larry. Imagine that dirty old thing trying to work up something, because I call him Cousin Larry. Well, I certainly didn"t let her stop me; I guess my friendship with Larry is worth a little more than that. And he calls me Little Sweetheart, too, just the way he always did. He"s always called me his little sweetheart. Wouldn"t you think she could see, if there was anything in it, he wouldn"t call me that right in front of her face all the time?
"Really. It isn"t that she means anything in my young life, it"s just that I feel so terribly sorry for Larry. I wouldn"t set foot in the house again if it wasn"t for him. But he says-of course, he"s never said one single word against her, he"s the kind would always be just like a clam about any woman that happened to be his wife-he says n.o.body has any idea of what it"s like to be there alone with Lila. So that"s why I went down in the first place. And I saw what he meant. Why, the first night I was in the house, she went up to bed at ten o"clock. Cousin Larry and I were playing some old phonograph records-well, we had to do something, she wouldn"t laugh or kid or do anything we were doing, just sat there like an old stick-and it just happened I happened to find a lot of old songs Larry and I used to sing and go dancing to, and everything. Well, you know how it is when you know a man awfully well, you always have things that remind you of things, and we were laughing and playing these records and sort of saying, "Do you remember the time?" and "What does that remind you of?" and all, the way everybody does; and the first thing you know, Lila got up and said she was sure we wouldn"t mind if she went to bed-she felt so awfully tired. And Larry told me then, that"s what she always does when anybody around is having a good time. If there"s a guest in the house when she feels so awfully tired, that"s just too bad, that"s all. A little thing like that doesn"t put that one out. When she wants to go to bed, she goes.
"So that"s why I"ve gone down there so much. You don"t know what a real G.o.dsend it is for Larry to have someone he can sit up with, after dear Lila goes to bed at ten o"clock. And then I"m somebody the poor soul can play golf with in the daytime, too; Lila can"t play-oh, she"s got something wrong with her insides, wouldn"t she have? I wouldn"t go near the place if it wasn"t such a help to Larry. You know how crazy he is about having a good time. And Lila"s old-she"s an owe-wuld woman! Honestly. Larry-well, of course it doesn"t make any difference how old a man is, anyway-years, I mean; it"s the way he feels that counts. And Larry"s just like a kid. I keep telling Lila, trying to clean up her nasty, evil mind, that Cousin Larry and I are nothing but a couple of crazy kids together. Now I ask you, wouldn"t you think she"d have sense enough to see she"s all through and the only thing for her to do is to sit back and let people have a good time that can? She had a good time; going to bed early, that"s what she likes. n.o.body interferes with her-wouldn"t you think she"d mind her own business and stop asking questions and wanting to know what everything"s about?
"Well, now look. Once I was down there, and I happened to be wearing orchids. And so Lila said oh, weren"t they lovely and all, and who sent them to me. Honestly. She deliberately asked me who sent them to me. So I thought, well, it will just do you good, and I told her Cousin Larry did. I told her it was a sort of a little anniversary of ours-you know how it is, when you know a man a long time, you always have sort of little anniversaries, like the first time he ever took you to lunch, or the first time he sent you flowers or something. So anyway, this was one of those, and I told Lila what a wonderful friend Cousin Larry was to me, and how he always remembered things like that, and how much fun it was for him to do them, he seemed to get such pleasure out of doing sweet things. Now I ask you. Wouldn"t you think anybody in the world would see how innocent it was if you told them that? And do you know what she said? Honestly. She said, "I like orchids, too." So I just thought, well, maybe if you were fifteen years younger you might get some man to send you some, baby, but I didn"t say a thing. I just said, "Oh, wear these, Lila, won"t you?" Just like that; and Lord knows, I didn"t have to say it, did I? But oh, no, she wouldn"t. No, she thought she"d just go and lie down a while, if I didn"t mind. She was feeling so awfully tired.
"And then-oh, my dear, I nearly forgot to tell you. You"ll simply die over this, you"ll absolutely collapse. Well, the last time I was there, Cousin Larry had sent me some little chiffon drawers; they couldn"t have been cuter. You know, it was just a joke, these little pink chiffon things with "Mais l"amour viendra" embroidered on them in black. It means "Love will come." You know. He saw them in some window and he just sent them to me, just for this joke. He"s always doing things like-hey, for goodness" sake, don"t tell anyone, will you? Because, Lord knows if it meant anything, I wouldn"t be telling you, you know that, but you know how people are. And there"s been enough talk, just because I go out with him sometimes, to keep the poor soul company while Lila"s in bed.
"Well, so anyway, he sent me these things, and so when I came down to dinner-there were just the three of us; that"s another thing she does, she doesn"t have anybody in unless he absolutely insists-I said to Larry, "I"ve got them on, Cousin Larry." So of course Lila had to hear and she said, "What have you got on?" and she kept asking and asking, and naturally I wasn"t going to tell her, and it just struck me so funny I nearly died trying not to laugh and every time I caught Larry"s eye we"d both bust right out. And Lila kept saying oh, what was the joke, and oh, tell her, tell her. And so finally, when she saw we wouldn"t tell, she had to go to bed, no matter how it made us feel. My G.o.d, can"t people have jokes? This is a free country, isn"t it?
"Honestly. And she"s getting worse and worse all the time. I"m simply sick about Larry. I can"t see what he"s ever going to do. You know a woman like that wouldn"t give a man a divorce in a million years, even if he was the one that had the money. Larry never says a word, but I bet there are times when he just wishes she"d die. And everybody saying "Oh, poor Lila," "Oh, poor, dear Lila, isn"t it a shame?" That"s because she gets them off in corners, and starts sobbing about not having any children. Oh, how she wishes she had a baby. Oh, if she and Larry only had a baby, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then the eyes filling with tears-you know, you"ve seen her do it. Eyes filling with tears! A lot she"s got to cry about, always doing what she wants all the time. I bet that"s just a line, about not having a baby. That"s just to get sympathy. She"s just so rotten selfish she wouldn"t have ever given up her own convenience to have one, that"s what"s the matter with her. She might have had to stay up after ten o"clock.
"Poor Lila! Honestly, I could lose my lunch. Why don"t they say poor Larry, for a change? He"s the one to feel sorry for. Well. All I know is, I"ll always do anything I can for Cousin Larry. That"s all I know."
The young woman in the printed crepe de Chine dress removed her dead cigarette from its pasteboard holder and seemed, as she did so, to find increased enjoyment in the familiar sight of her rich-hued finger nails. Then she took from her lap a case of gold or some substance near it, and in a minute mirror scanned her face as carefully as if it were verse. She knit her brows, she drew her upper eyelids nearly to those below them, she turned her head as one expressing regretful negation, she moved her mouth laterally in the manner of a semi-tropical fish; and when all this was done, she seemed even cooler in confidence of well-being. Then she lighted a fresh cigarette and appeared to find that, too, impeccable. Then she went right on over all she had been saying before.
The New Yorker, June 30, 1934.
Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street.
That summer, the Colonel and I leased a bungalow named 947 West Catalpa Boulevard, rumored completely furnished: three forks, but twenty-four nutpicks. Then we went to an employment agency, to hunt for treasure. The lady at the employment agency was built in terraces; she was of a steady pink, presumably all over, and a sky-wide capability. She bit into each of her words and seemed to find it savory, and she finished every sentence to the last crumb. When I am in the presence of such people I am frequently asked, "And what"s the matter with Sister today? Has the cat got her tongue?" But they make the Colonel want to tell them what he done to Philadelphia Jack O"Brien.
So the Colonel did the talking for our team. The lady at the employment agency was of the prompt impression that I was something usually kept in the locked wing; she gave me a quick, kind nod, as who should say "Now you just sit there quietly and count those twelve fingers of yours," and then she and the Colonel left me out of the whole project. We wanted, the Colonel said, a man; a man to market, to cook, to serve, to remember about keeping the cigarette-boxes filled, and to clean the little house. We wanted a man, he said, because maids, at least those in our experience, talked a good deal of the time. We were worn haggard with unsolicited autobiographies. We must insist, he said, that our servant be, before all things, still.
"My wife," said the Colonel-the lady and I waited for him to add, "the former Miss Kallikak"-"my wife must never be disturbed."
"I see," the lady said. She sighed a little.
"She writes," the Colonel said.
"And pretty soon now," the lady and I inferred, "we must look around for someone to come in a couple of hours a week and teach her to read."
The Colonel went on talking about what we wanted. It was but little. The simplest food, he said. The lady nodded compa.s.sionately at him; surely she pictured him standing with extended dish trying to coax me in from eating clay. The quietest life, he said, the earliest hours, the fewest guests-it was a holiday, really, to live with us. We asked only someone to stand between us and the telephone, someone to flick from the doorstep young gentlemen soliciting subscriptions to magazines, someone to keep, at other times and in so far as possible, his face shut.
"Don"t you say another word!" the lady said. She smacked that "say" as if it had been delicious with salt and onion. "Not one other word. I"ve got just the thing!"
Horace Wrenn, she said, was the thing. He was colored, she said, but fine. I was so deeply pondering the selection of "but" that I missed several courses in her repast of words. When next I heard her, a new name had sprung in.
"He"s been with Mrs. Hofstadter off and on," she said. She looked triumphant. I looked as if all my life I had heard that anybody who had ever been with Mrs. Hofstadter, either off or on, was beyond question the thing. The Colonel looked much as usual.
"Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street," the lady explained. "That"s our loveliest residential district. She has a lovely home there. She"s one of our loveliest families. Mrs. Hofstadter-well, wait till you see what she says!"
She took from her desk a sheet of notepaper spread with a handwriting like the lesser rivers on maps. It was Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s letter of recommendation of Horace Wrenn, and it must have been a sort of blending of the Ninety-Eighth Psalm with Senator Vest"s tribute to his dog. Whatever it was, it was too good for the likes of us to see. The lady held it tight and slipped her gaze along its lines with clucks and smacks of ecstasy and cries of "Well, look at this, will you-"honest, economical, good carver"-well!" and "My, this is a reference for you!"
Then she locked the letter in her desk, and she talked to the Colonel. He is to be had only with difficulty, but she got him, and good. She congratulated him upon the softness of his fortune. She marveled that it was given him to find, and without effort, the blue rose. She envied him the life that would be his when perfection came to house with him. She sighed for the exquisite dishes, the smooth attentions that were to be offered him, ever in silence, by competence and humility, blent and incarnate. He was to have, she told him, just everything, and that without moving a hand or answering a question. There was only one little catch to it, she said; and the Colonel went gray. Horace could not come to us until the day after the next one. Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s daughter was to be married, and Horace had charge of the breakfast. It was touching to hear the Colonel plead his willingness to wait.
"Well, then I guess that"s all," the lady said, briskly. She rose. "If you aren"t the luckiest! You just run right along home now, and wait for Horace." Her air added, "And take Soft Susie, the Girl Who Is Like Anybody Else Till the Moon Comes Up, with you. We want no naturals here!"
We went home, sweet in thought of the luxury to come; though the Colonel, who is of a melancholy cast, took to worrying a little because Horace might not go back to New York with us when the summer was over.
Until the arrival of Horace, we did what is known as making out somehow, which is a big phrase for it. It was found to be best, after fair trial, for me to stay out of the kitchen altogether. So the Colonel did the cooking, and tomatoes kept creeping into everything, which gave him delusions of persecution. It was also found better for me to avoid any other room. The last time I made the bed, the Colonel came in and surveyed the result.
"What is this?" he inquired. "Some undergraduate prank?"
Horace arrived in the afternoon, toward the cool of the day. No bell or knocker heralded his coming; simply, he was with us in the living-room. He carried a suitcase of some leathery material, and upon his head he retained a wide white straw hat with drooping brim, rather like something chosen by a d.u.c.h.ess for garden-party wear. He was tall and broad, with an enormous cinder-colored face crossed by gold-encircled spectacles.
He spoke to us. As if coated with grease, words slid from his great lips, and his tones were those of one who cozens the sick.
"Here," he said, "is Horace. Horace has come to take care of you."
He set down his suitcase and removed his hat, revealing oiled hair, purple in the sunlight, plaided over with thin, dusty lines; Horace employed a hair-net. He laid his hat upon a table. He advanced and gave to each of us one of his hands. I received the left, the middle finger of which was missing, leaving in its stead a big, square gap.
"I want you to feel," he said, "that I am going to think of this as my home. That is the way I will think of it. I always try to think the right thing. When I told my friends I was coming here, I said to them, I said, "That is my home from now on." You are going to meet my friends; yes, you are. I want you to meet my friends. My friends can tell you more about me than I can. Mrs. Hofstadter always says to me, "Horace," she says, "I never heard anything like it," she says. "Your friends just can"t say enough for you." I have a great many friends, boy friends and lady friends. Mrs. Hofstadter always tells me, "Horace," she says, "I never seen anybody had so many friends." Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street. She has a lovely home there; I want you to see her home. When I told her I was coming here, "Oh, my, Horace," she said, "what"m I ever going to do without you?" I have served Mrs. Hofstadter for years, right there on Josephine Street. "Oh, my, Horace," she said, "how"m I going to get along without Horace?" But I had promised to come to you folks, and Horace never goes back on his word. I am a big man, and I always try to do the big thing."
"Well, look," said the Colonel, "suppose I show you where your room is and you can-"
"I want you," Horace said, "to get to know me. And I"m going to get to know you, too; yes, I am. I always try to do the right thing for the folks I serve. I want you to get to know that girl of mine, too. When I tell my friends I have a daughter twelve years of age in September, "Horace," they say, "I can hardly believe it!" You"re going to meet that girl of mine; yes, you are. She"ll come up here, and she"ll talk right up to you; yes, and she"ll sit down and play that piano there-play it all day long. I don"t say it because I"m her father, but that"s the brightest girl you ever seen. People say she"s Horace all over. Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street, she said to me, "Horace," she said, "I can"t hardly tell which is the girl and which is Horace." Oh, there"s nothing of her mother"s side about that girl! I never could get on with her mother. I try never to say an unkind thing about n.o.body. I"m a big man, and I always try to do the big thing. But I never could live with her mother more than fifteen minutes at a time."
"Look," the Colonel said, "the kitchen"s right in there, and your room is just off it, and you can-"
"Why, do you know," Horace said, "that girl of mine, she"s taken for white every day in the week. Yes, sir. I bet you there"s a hundred people, right in this town, never dreams that girl of mine"s a colored girl. And you"re going to meet my sister, too, some of these days pretty soon. My sister"s just about the finest hairdresser you ever set your eyes on. And never touches a colored head, either. She"s just about like what I am. I try never to say an unkind thing, I don"t hold nothing against the colored race, but Horace just doesn"t mix up with them, that"s all."
I thought of a man I had known once named Aaron Eisenberg, who changed his name to Erik Colton. Nothing ever became of him.
"Look," the Colonel said, "your room"s right off the kitchen, and if you"ve got a white coat with you you can-"
"Has Horace got a white coat!" Horace said. "Has he got a white coat! Why, when you see Horace in that white coat of his, you"re going to say, just like Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street says, "Horace," you"re going to say, "I never seen anybody look any nicer." Yes, sir, I"ve got that white coat. I never forget anything; that"s one thing I don"t do. Now do you know what Horace is going to do for you? Do you know what he"s going to do? Well, he"s going out there in that kitchen, just like it was Mrs. Hofstadter"s lovely big kitchen of hers, and he"s going to fix you the best dinner you ever et in your life. I always try to make everybody happy; when people are happy, then I"m happy. That"s the way I am. Mrs. Hofstadter said to me, sitting right there in her lovely home on Josephine Street, "Horace," she said, "I don"t know who these people are you"re going to"s," she said, "but I can tell you," Mrs. Hofstadter said, "they"re going to be happy." I just said, "Thank you, Mrs. Hofstadter." That"s all I said. I"ve served her many years. And you"re going to see that lovely home of hers, some of these days; yes, you are."
He gathered up his hat and his suitcase, smiled slowly upon us, and went into the kitchen.
The Colonel walked over to the window and stood for a while, looking out of it.
I said, "You know, I think if we play our cards right we can find out who Horace used to work for."
"For whom Horace used to work," the Colonel said, mechanically.
Horace returned. He wore a white coat and an ap.r.o.n that covered him in front to his shoe-leather. My mind went to Pullman dining-cars, and I remembered, with no pleasure, preserved figs and cream.
"Here"s Horace," he said. "Now Horace is all ready to try and make you happy. Do you know what Horace is going to do for you, some of these days? Do you know what he"s going to do? Well, he"s just going to make you one of those mint juleps of his, that"s what he"s going to do! Mrs. Hofstadter of Josephine Street always says, "Horace," she says, "when you going to make one of those mint juleps of yours?" Well, I"ll tell you what Horace does; he doesn"t care how much trouble he takes, when he"s making people happy. First he goes to work and he takes some pineapple syrup and he puts it in a gla.s.s, and then he puts in just a liddle, lid-dle bit of that juice off them bottles full of red cherries, and then he puts in the gin and the ginger ale, and then he gets him a big, long piece of pineapple and he lays that in, and then when he gets the orange in and puts that old red cherry on top-well! That"s the way Horace does when he fixes a mint julep."
The Colonel is from the old South. He left the room.
Horace came at me with his head lowered and a great forefinger pointed at the level of my eyes. I was terrified for only a moment. Then I saw it for gigantic archness.
"Wait"ll you hear," he said, "wait"ll you hear how that telephone is going to ring, soon as my friends find out this is Horace"s home. Why I bet you right this minute, Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s telephone is ringing away, first this one and then that one, "Where"s Horace? " "How"m I going to reach Horace?" I don"t talk about myself, I always try to be just the way I"d want you to be with me, but you"re going to say you never seen anybody had so many lady friends. Yes, sir, and when you meet them, you"re going to say, "Horace," you"re going to say, "why, Horace, I"d take any one of them for as white as I am any day in the week." That"s what you"re going to say. Wait"ll you hear the fun there"s going to be around this place when that telephone starts, "How are you, Horace?" "What are you doing, Horace?" "When"m I going to see you, Horace?" I"m not going to talk about myself any more than I"d want you to talk about yourself, but you wait"ll you see all those friends I have. Why, Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street always says, "Horace," she says, "I never-" "
The Colonel came back. "Look, Horace," he said, "would you-"
"Well, now, say, if you want to talk about friends," Horace said, "I just don"t mind telling you that out at Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s daughter"s wedding here yesterday, there wasn"t a guest there wasn"t a friend of Horace"s. There they all was, oh, a hundred, a hundred fifty people, all of them talking right up, "h.e.l.lo, Horace," "Glad to see you, Horace." Yes, sir, and not a colored face there, either. I just said, "Thank you." I always try to say the right thing, and that"s what I said. Mrs. Hofstadter, she said to me, "Horace," she said-"
"Horace," I said, nor knew, perhaps, that it would stand my only complete speech with him, "may I have a gla.s.s of water, please?"
"Can you have a gla.s.s of water!" Horace said. "Can you have a gla.s.s of water! Well, I"ll tell you just what Horace is going to do. He"s going out there in that kitchen, and he"s going to bring you just the biggest, coldest gla.s.s of water you ever had in your life. There"s going to be nothing too good for you, now Horace is here. Why, he"s going to do for you just like you was Mrs. Hofstadter, out in her lovely home on Josephine Street; yes, he is."
He left, turning his head archly back over his shoulder to bestow his parting smile.
The Colonel said, "I wonder which Mrs. Hofstadter that is."
"I keep getting her mixed up with the one that lives somewhere near Josephine Street," I said.
Horace returned with the water, and spoke to us. Through his preparations for dinner, he spoke to us. Through dinner, which was held at six o"clock, according to the custom obtaining in Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s lovely home, he spoke to us. We sat there. Once the Colonel asked Horace for something, and so learned his lesson forever. Better go without a service than bring on rich and recommended a.s.surances of the tender perfection of its fulfillment.
I cannot remember the menu. I can bring back, while faintness spirals upward through me, an impression of waxen gray gravy, loose pink gelatine, and b.u.t.ter at blood-heat, specialties finer than which Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street had never et. Over more definite items, memory draws her merciful gray curtain. She does, for that matter, over all the events of Horace"s stay with us. I do not know how long that was. There were no days, there were no nights, there was no time. There was only s.p.a.ce; s.p.a.ce filled with Horace.
The Colonel, for it is a man"s world, was away from the bungalow during the day. Horace was there. Horace was always there. I have known no being so present in a house as was Horace. I never knew him to open a door, I never heard his approaching footfall; Horace was out of the room and then, a thousand times more frequently, Horace was in it. I sat at my typewriter, and Horace stood across from it and spoke to me.
And in the evenings, when the Colonel returned, Horace spoke to us. All his conversation was for us, for none of his friends, boy friends or lady friends, ever called him to hold talk; it may be that Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street could not bring herself to share his telephone number. The Colonel and I did not look at each other; after a little while we avoided each other"s eyes. Perhaps it was that we did not wish to see each other in our shame. I do not know; I know nothing about those days. I am sure, after confirmation, that we did not think, either of us, "In heaven"s name, what manner of worm is this I have married?" We had no thoughts, no spirits, no actions. We ceased to move from room to room, even from chair to chair. We stayed where we were, two vile, dead things, slowly drowned in warmish, sweetish oil. There we were, for eternity, world without end, with Horace.
But an end came. I have never known what brought it on, nor have I wanted to learn. Once your pardon arrives, what"s it to you what induced the governor"s signature? The Colonel said, afterward, that Horace said it once too often; but that is all I ever knew. All I know is that I came into the living-room one morning, one heavenly morning of sunshine, and heard the Colonel"s voice upraised in the kitchen. People who happened to be pa.s.sing through the town on trains at that time could also have heard the Colonel"s voice upraised in the kitchen.
He was giving, it seemed, advice to Horace. "You go," it ran, "and you go now!"
I heard Horace"s tones, those of one quieting a problem child, but they were so low I received few words. "-spoken to this way," I distinguished, and "-loveliest people in this town. Why, Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street, she wouldn"t never-"
Then the Colonel"s voice had everything its way again. He gave a fresh piece of advice. He suggested, as a beginning, that Horace take Mrs. Hofstadter and take her lovely home and take her whole G.o.ddam Josephine Street- The Colonel was free. He was so free that he stood, straight-shouldered on the sunlit porch, and sated his eyes on the back of Horace, receding down the path. Mrs. Hofstadter on Josephine Street"s words had come true. She had not known who those people were that Horace was going to"s, but she had known they were going to be happy. We were alone; tomatoes might start following us around again, but that was the worst that could happen to us.
So it was ten minutes before the telephone rang. Crazed with joy at the return of my tongue, I answered it. I heard a large voice, slithering along the wire like warm cottonseed oil.
"This," it said, "is Horace. Horace is speaking. I am a big man and I always try to do the big thing, and I want to tell you that I am sorry Horace left your home so impetuous; yes, I am: I want you to know that Horace is going to come back to your home again and serve you, just like for so many years he served-"
But somehow the receiver clicked into place and I never had to hear her name again.
The New Yorker, August 4, 1934.
Clothe the Naked.
Big Lannie went out by the day to the houses of secure and leisured ladies, to wash their silks and their linens. She did her work perfectly; some of the ladies even told her so. She was a great, slow ma.s.s of a woman, colored a sound brown-black save for her palms and the flat of her fingers that were like gutta-percha from steam and hot suds. She was slow because of her size, and because the big veins in her legs hurt her, and her back ached much of the time. She neither cursed her ills nor sought remedies for them. They had happened to her; there they were.
Many things had happened to her. She had had children, and the children had died. So had her husband, who was a kind man, cheerful with the little luck he found. None of their children had died at birth. They had lived to be four or seven or ten, so that they had had their ways and their traits and their means of causing love; and Big Lannie"s heart was always wide for love. One child had been killed in a street accident and two others had died of illnesses that might have been no more than tedious, had there been fresh food and clear s.p.a.ces and clean air behind them. Only Arlene, the youngest, lived to grow up.
Arlene was a tall girl, not so dark as her mother but with the same firm flatness of color. She was so thin that her bones seemed to march in advance of her body. Her little pipes of legs and her broad feet with jutting heels were like things a child draws with crayons. She carried her head low, her shoulders scooped around her chest, and her stomach slanted forward. From the time that she was tiny, there were men after her.
Arlene was a bad girl always; that was one of the things that had happened to Big Lannie. There it was, and Big Lannie could only keep bringing her presents, surprises, so that the girl would love her mother and would want to stay at home. She brought little bottles of sharp perfume, and pale stockings of tinny silk, and rings set with bits of green and red gla.s.s; she tried to choose what Arlene would like. But each time Arlene came home she had bigger rings and softer stockings and stronger perfume than her mother could buy for her. Sometimes she would stay with her mother over a night, and sometimes more than a week; and then Big Lannie would come back from work one evening, and the girl would be gone, and no word of her. Big Lannie would go on bringing surprises, and setting them out along Arlene"s bed to wait a return.
Big Lannie did not know it, when Arlene was going to have a baby. Arlene had not been home in nearly half a year; Big Lannie told the time in days. There was no news at all of the girl until the people at the hospital sent for Big Lannie to come to her daughter and grandson. She was there to hear Arlene say the baby must be named Raymond, and to see the girl die. For whom Raymond was called, or if for anyone, Big Lannie never knew.
He was a long, light-colored baby, with big, milky eyes that looked right back at his grandmother. It was several days before the people at the hospital told her he was blind.
Big Lannie went to each of the ladies who employed her and explained that she could not work for some while; she must take care of her grandson. The ladies were sharply discommoded, after her steady years, but they dressed their outrage in shrugs and cool tones. Each arrived, separately, at the conclusion that she had been too good to Big Lannie, and had been imposed upon, therefore. "Honestly, those n.i.g.g.e.rs!" each said to her friends. "They"re all alike."
Big Lannie sold most of the things she lived with, and took one room with a stove in it. There, as soon as the people at the hospital would let her, she brought Raymond and tended him. He was all her children to her.
She had always been a saving woman, with few needs and no cravings, and she had been long alone. Even after Arlene"s burial, there was enough left for Raymond and Big Lannie to go on for a time. Big Lannie was slow to be afraid of what must come; fear did not visit her at all, at first, and then it slid in only when she waked, when the night hung motionless before another day.
Raymond was a good baby, a quiet, patient baby, lying in his wooden box and stretching out his delicate hands to the sounds that were light and color to him. It seemed but a little while, so short to Big Lannie, before he was walking about the room, his hands held out, his feet quick and sure. Those of Big Lannie"s friends who saw him for the first time had to be told that he could not see.
Then, and it seemed again such a little while, he could dress himself, and open the door for his granny, and unlace the shoes from her tired feet, and talk to her in his soft voice. She had occasional employment-now and then a neighbor would hear of a day"s scrubbing she could do, or sometimes she might work in the stead of a friend who was sick-infrequent, and not to be planned on. She went to the ladies for whom she had worked, to ask if they might not want her back again; but there was little hope in her, after she had visited the first one. Well, now, really, said the ladies; well, really, now.
The neighbors across the hall watched over Raymond while Big Lannie looked for work. He was no trouble to them, nor to himself. He sat and crooned at his chosen task. He had been given a wooden spool around the top of which were driven little brads, and over these with a straightened hairpin he looped bright worsted, working faster than sight until a long tube of woven wool fell through the hole in the spool. The neighbors threaded big, blunt needles for him, and he coiled the woolen tubes and sewed them into mats. Big Lannie called them beautiful, and it made Raymond proud to have her tell him how readily she sold them. It was hard for her, when he was asleep at night, to unravel the mats and wash the worsted and stretch it so straight that even Raymond"s shrewd fingers could not tell, when he worked with it next day, that it was not new.
Fear stormed in Big Lannie and took her days and nights. She might not go to any organization dispensing relief, for dread that Raymond would be taken from her and put in-she would not say the word to herself, and she and her neighbors lowered their voices when they said it to one another-an inst.i.tution. The neighbors wove lingering tales of what happened inside certain neat, square buildings on the cindery skirts of the town, and, if they must go near them, hurried as if pa.s.sing grave-yards, and came home heroes. When they got you in one of those places, whispered the neighbors, they laid your spine open with whips, and then when you dropped, they kicked your head in. Had anyone come into Big Lannie"s room to take Raymond away to an asylum for the blind, the neighbors would have fought for him with stones and rails and boiling water.
Raymond did not know about anything but good. When he grew big enough to go alone down the stairs and into the street, he was certain of delight each day. He held his head high, as he came out into the little yard in front of the flimsy wooden house, and slowly turned his face from side to side, as if the air were soft liquid in which he bathed it. Trucks and wagons did not visit the street, which ended in a dump for rusted bedsprings and broken boilers and staved-in kettles; children played over its cobbles, and men and women sat talking in open windows and called across to one another in gay, rich voices. There was always laughter for Raymond to hear, and he would laugh back, and hold out his hands to it.
At first, the children stopped their play when he came out, and gathered quietly about him, and watched him, fascinated. They had been told of his affliction, and they had a sort of sickened pity for him. Some of them spoke to him, in soft, careful tones. Raymond would laugh with pleasure, and stretch his hands, the curious smooth, flat hands of the blind, to their voices. They would draw sharply back, afraid that his strange hands might touch them. Then, somehow ashamed because they had shrunk from him and he could not see that they had done so, they said gentle good-bys to him, and backed away into the street again, watching him steadily.
When they were gone, Raymond would start on his walk to the end of the street. He guided himself by lightly touching the broken fences along the dirt sidewalk, and as he walked he crooned little songs with no words to them. Some of the men and women at the windows would call h.e.l.lo to him, and he would call back and wave and smile. When the children, forgetting him, laughed again at their games, he stopped and turned to the sound as if it were the sun.
In the evening, he would tell Big Lannie about his walk, slapping his knee and chuckling at the memory of the laughter he had heard. When the weather was too hard for him to go out in the street, he would sit at his worsted work, and talk all day of going out the next day.
The neighbors did what they could for Raymond and Big Lannie. They gave Raymond clothes their own children had not yet worn out, and they brought food, when they had enough to spare and other times. Big Lannie would get through a week, and would pray to get through the next one; and so the months went. Then the days on which she could find work fell farther and farther apart, and she could not pray about the time to come because she did not dare to think of it.