At that, I expect I was some curious to find out just how the Gummidges had managed it. Must have been Ma Gummidge who found a way. Hen.
Gummidge never would, all by himself. About as helpless an old Stick-in-the-Mud, he was, as I"d, ever helped pry out of the muck. And a chronic c.r.a.pe hanger. If things were bad, he was sure they were going to be worse.
"I never have no luck," was his constant whine. It was his motto, as you might say, his Fourteen Points of Fate.
I never could make out whether he got that way on account of his face, or if his face had lengthened out as his disposition grew gloomy. It was a long face, almost as long and sad as a cow"s. Much too long for his body and legs as he was only medium height up as far as the chin. Kind of a stoop shouldered, hollow chested, thin shanked party, too.
Somewhere in the fifties, I should judge, but he might have been sixty by his looks and the weary way he dragged around.
When I first knew him he was a.s.sistant engineer in the Corrugated buildin" and I used to see him risin" solemn out of the sidewalk on the ash elevator, comin" up from the bas.e.m.e.nt like some sad, flour-sprinkled ghost. And then before he"d roll off the ash cans he"d lean his elbows on the safety bar and stare mournful up and down Broadway for a spell, just stallin" around. Course, I got to kiddin" him, askin" what he found so comic in the boiler-room and why he didn"t let me in on the joke.
"Huh!" he"d grunt. "If there"s any joke down there, young feller, I"m it. I wonder how much grinnin" you"d do if you had to slave ten hours a day in a hole like that. I ought to be up sittin" on the right side of an engine cab, fast freight, and drawin" my three hundred a month with time and a half overtime. That"s what I set out to be when I started as wiper. Got to be fireman once, but on the second run we hit a weak rail and went into the ditch. Three busted ribs and my hospital expenses was all I pulled out of that with; and when I tried to get damages they put my name on the blacklist, which finished my railroadin" career for good.
Maybe it was just as well. Likely I"d got mashed fair in the next wreck.
That"s me. Why say, if it was rainin" soup I"d be caught out with a fork."
Yes, he was some consistent gloom hound, Henry Gummidge. Let him tell it and what Job went through was a mere head-cold compared to his trials and tribulations. And the worst was yet to come. He knew it because he often dreamed of seeing a bright yellow dog walkin" on his hind legs proud and wearin" a shiny collar. And then the dog would change into a bow-legged policeman swingin" a night-stick threatenin". All of which a barber friend of Henry"s told him meant trouble in the pot and that he must beware of a false friend who came across the water. The barber got it straight from a dream book, and there must be something in it, for hadn"t Henry been done out of $3 by a smooth talkin" guy from Staten Island?
Well, sure enough, things did happen to Gummidge. He had a case of shingles. Then he dropped the silver watch he"d carried for fifteen years and before he knew it had stepped square on it with the iron plated heel of his work boots, squashin" the crystal into the works.
And six weeks later he"d carelessly rested a red hot clinker rake on his right foot and had seared off a couple of toes. But the climax came when he managed to bug the safety catch on the foolproof ash elevator and took a 20-foot drop with about a ton of loaded ash cans. He only had a leg broken, at that, but it was three or four months before he came limpin" out of the hospital to find that the buildin" agent didn"t care to have him on the payroll any more.
Somehow Henry got his case before Mr. Robert, and that"s how I was sent scoutin" out to see if all this about a sufferin" fam"ly was a fairy tale or not. Well, it was and it wasn"t. There was a Mrs. Gummidge, and Rowena, and Horatio, just as he"d described. And they was livin" in a back flat on a punk block over near the North river. Their four dark rooms was about as bare of furniture as they could be. I expect you might have loaded the lot on a push cart. And the rations must have been more or less skimpy for some time.
But you couldn"t exactly say that Ma Gummidge was sufferin". No. She"d collected a couple of fam"ly washes from over Seventh avenue way and was wadin" into "em cheerful. Also she was singin" "When the Clouds Are Darkest," rubbin" out an accompaniment on the wash board and splashin"
the suds around reckless, her big red face shinin" through the steam like the sun breakin" through a mornin" fog.
Some sizable old girl, Ma Gummidge; one of these bulgy, billowy females with two chins and a lot of brownish hair. And when she wipes her hands and arms and camps down in a chair she seems to fill all one side of the room. Even her eyes are big and bulgy. But they"re good-natured eyes. Oh my, yes. Just beamin" with friendliness and fun.
"Yes, Henry"s had kind of a hard time," she admits, "but I tell him he got off lucky. Might have been hurt a lot worse. And he does feel downhearted about losin" his job. But likely he"ll get another one better"n that. And we"re gettin" along, after a fashion. Course, we"re behind on the rent, and we miss a meal now and then; but most folks eat too much anyway, and things are bound to come out all right in the end.
There"s Rowena, she"s been promised a chance to be taken on as extra cash girl in a store. And Horatio"s gettin" big enough to be of some help. We"re all strong and healthy, too, so what"s the use worryin", as I say to Henry."
Say, she had Mrs. Wiggs lookin" like a consistent grouch, Ma Grummidge did. Rowena, too, is more or less of an optimist. She"s about 16, built a good deal on her mother"s lines, and big enough to tackle almost any kind of work, but I take it that thus far she ain"t done much except help around the flat. Horatio, he"s more like his father. He"s only 15 and ought to be in school, but it seems he spends most of his time loafin" at home. They"re a folksy fam"ly, I judge; the kind that can sit around and chat about nothing at all for hours at a time. Why, even the short while I was there, discoverin" how near they was to bein" put out on the street, they seemed to be havin" a whale of a time. Rowena, dressed in a saggy skirt and a shirt waist with one sleeve partly split out, sits in the corner gigglin" at some of her Ma"s funny cracks. And then Ma Gummidge springs that rollin" chuckly laugh of hers when Rowena adds some humorous details about a stew they tried to make out of a piece of salt pork and a couple of carrots.
But the report I makes to Mr. Robert is mostly about facts and finances, so he slips a ten spot or so into an envelope for "em, and next day he finds a club friend who owns a row of apartment houses, among them the Patricia, where there"s a janitor needed. And within a week we had the Gummidges all settled cozy in bas.e.m.e.nt quarters, with enough to live on and more or less chance to graft off the tenants.
Then Vee has to get interested in the Gummidges, too, from hearin" me tell of "em, and the next I knew she"d added "em to her reg"lar list.
No, I don"t mean she pensions Pa Gummidge, or anything like that. She just keeps track of the fam"ly, remembers all their birthdays, keeps "em chirked up in various ways, shows Rowena how to do her hair so it won"t look so sloppy, fits Horatio out so he can go back to school, and smooths over a row Pa Gummidge has managed to get into with the tenant on the second floor west. It ain"t so much that she likes to boss other peoples" affairs as it is that she gets to have a real likin" for "em and can"t help tryin" to give "em a boost. And she"s "specially strong for Ma Gummidge.
"Do you know, Torchy," she tells me, "her disposition is really quite remarkable. She can be cheerful and good natured under the most trying circ.u.mstances."
"Lucky for her she can," says I. "I expect she was born that way."
"But she wasn"t born to live in a bas.e.m.e.nt and do janitor"s work," says Vee. "For you know Gummidge puts most of it on her. No, her people were fairly well-to-do. Her father ran a shoe store up in Troy. They lived over the store, of course, but very comfortably. She had finished high school and was starting in at the state normal, intending to be a teacher, when she met Henry Gummidge and ran off and married him. He was nearly ten years older and was engineer in a large factory. But he lost that position soon after, and they began drifting around. Her father died and in the two years that her mother tried to manage the shoe store she lost all that they had saved. Then her mother died. And the Gummidges kept getting poorer and poorer. But she doesn"t complain. She keeps saying that everything will turn out all right some time. I hope it does."
"But I wouldn"t bank heavy on it," says I. "I never studied Hen.
Gummidge"s palm, or felt his b.u.mps, but my guess is that he"ll never shake the jinx. He ain"t the kind that does. He"s headed down the chute, Henry is, and Ma Gummidge is goin" to need all her reserve stock of cheerfulness before she gets through. You watch."
Well, it begun to look like I was some grand little prophet. Even as a janitor Hen. Gummidge was in about the fourth cla.s.s, and the Patricia apartments were kind of high grade. The tenants did a lot of grouchin"
over Henry. He wouldn"t get steam up in the morning until about 8:30. He didn"t keep the marble vestibule scrubbed the way he should, and so on.
He had a lot of alibis, but mostly he complained that he was gettin"
rheumatism from livin" in such damp quarters. If it hadn"t been for Vee talkin" smooth to the agent Gummidge would have been fired. As it is he hangs on, limpin" around gloomy with his hand on his hip. I expect his joints did pain him more or less. And at last he gives up altogether and camps down in an easy chair next to the kitchen stove.
It was about then he heard from this brother of his out in Nebo, Texas.
Seems brother was an old bach who was runnin" a sheep ranch out there.
Him and Henry hadn"t kept close track of each other for a good many years, but now brother Jim has a sudden rush of fraternal affection. He wants Henry and his family to come out and join him. He"s lonesome, and he"s tired of doin" his own cookin". He admits the ranch ain"t much account, but there"s a livin" on it, and if Henry will come along he"ll make him an equal partner.
"Ain"t that just my luck?" says Henry. "Where could I sc.r.a.pe up enough money to move to Texas, I"d like to know?"
"Think you"d like to go, do you?" I asks.
"Course I would," says Gummidge. "It would do my rheumatism good. And, then, I"d like to see old Jim again. But Gosh! It would take more "n a hundred dollars to get us all out there, and I ain"t had that much at once since I don"t know when."
"Still," says I, "the thing might be financed. I"ll see what can be done." Meaning that I"d put it up to Mr. Robert and Vee.
"Why, surely!" says Vee. "And wouldn"t that be splendid for them all?"
"You may put me down for fifty," says Mr. Robert. "If he"ll move to China I"ll double it."
But Nebo seemed to be far enough off to be safe. And it was surprisin"
how easy we stood it when the tickets was all bought and the time came to say good-bye to the Gummidges. As I remember, we was almost merry over it. Even Mr. Robert has to shoot off something he thinks is humorous.
"When you all get to Nebo," says he, "perhaps the old mountain will be a little less lonely."
"And if anybody offers to give you a steer down there," says I, "don"t refuse. It might be just tin-horn advice, but then again he might mean a long-horn beef."
As usual Henry is the only gloom in the party. He shakes his head.
"Brother Jim only keeps sheep," says he, "and I never did like mutton much, nohow. Maybe I won"t live to git there, though. Seems like an awful long ways to go."
But they did land there safe enough, for about a week or ten days later Vee gets a postcard from Ma Gummidge sayin" that it was lucky they got there just as they did for they found Brother Jim pretty sick. She was sure she"d have him prancin" around again soon, and she couldn"t say how much she thanked us all for what we"d done.
And with that the Gummidges sort of fades out. Not another word comes from "em. Must have been a year and a half ago they went. More, I expect. We had one or two other things to think of meanwhile. You know how easy it is to forget people like that, specially when you make up your mind that they"re sort of crossed off for good. And after a spell if somebody mentioned Texas maybe I"d recall vague that I knew someone who was down there, and wonder who it was.
Then here the other afternoon comes Vee with this announcement that the Gummidges were back. Do you wonder I didn"t give way to any wild, uncontrolled joy? I could see us goin" through the same old program with "em; listenin" to Pa Gummidge whine about how bad he felt, tryin" to keep his job for him, plannin" out a career for Horatio, and watchin"
Rowena split out more shirtwaists.
Vee shows up prompt a little before closin" time. She"s in a taxi and has a big suit case and a basket full of contributions. "What puzzles me," says she, "is how he could get back his old place so readily."
"Needn"t worry you long," says I. "Let"s go on up and have it over with and then go somewhere for dinner."
So, of course, when we rolls up to the Patricia apartment we dives down into janitor"s quarters as usual. But we"re halted by a putty-faced Swede person in blue denims, who can converse and smoke a pipe at the same time.
"Yah, I bane yanitor here long time," says he.
"Eh?" says I. "What about Gummidge then?"
"Oh, Meester Gummidge," says he. "He bane new tenant on second floor, yes? Sublet, furnished, two days ago yet. Nice peoples."
Well, at that I stares at Vee and she stares back.
"Whaddye mean, nice?" I demands.
"Swell peoples," says the Swede, soundin" the "v" in swell. "Second floor."