Stubble Part 22

Hawkins came and stood silently beside him as a boy removed the tire.

It was a solemn occasion. They stood there on the pavement, thoughtful, intently watching the operation. Hawkins was coatless; he had pink elastics holding up his sleeves and his hair stood up in a solemn pompadour and his high stiff collar had a spot of grease on it.

"What was the idea of the question you asked me last night, Hawkins?"

There was a moment's silence. Then Hawkins looked up and smiled queerly. "Oh, nothing particular."

Joe was not satisfied. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't be runnin'

around in that crowd? What's the matter? Aren't they--isn't she--all right?"

There was a quick, sudden turning of the slim hatchet face and Hawkins looked hard into his eyes. "It isn't that," he said brusquely. "I'm engaged to marry her."

"Oh, yes," replied Joe.

The boy wrenched loose the tire and was rolling it into the shop.

Slowly they followed him. Hawkins proceeded to the desk and picked up a pad of repair forms and started to scribble something on the top sheet. Joe watched his narrow, bent shoulders under the sleazy s.h.i.+rt.

There was something pathetic in the proud crest of hair above his forehead and the pucker of lines in his brows.

"How long have you been the lucky man?"

Hawkins looked up from his paper. Faint surprise was written in his face. "Oh, a little over three years. Want to wait for this tube or will you come back for it? Man can put on your spare."

"I'll come hack for it Monday," said Joe.

A few moments later he drove away.

For an hour he drove without thought of where he was going. Detail after detail of the affair presented itself to his mind in endless repet.i.tion. It had been a humiliating experience. The old woman's vulgarity; Macomber's stolid, iron hand clearing the air, like brus.h.i.+ng trash from his doorstep; the consciousness of prying eyes at that upstairs window! "I've been a feeble cuckoo," he thought. "Mighta supposed two years in the army would have taught me better'n that.

Played me for a good thing as long as it lasted and then the old lady called a showdown. Hawkins must stand in with the old lady. Poor Hawkins!"

He discovered that he was rolling along on the Bloomfield pike about two miles from town.

"Funny how these hard-workin' folks sink all their money in a b.u.t.terfly like that. Bet she uses up the meat bill every month. And look what she gets out of it. Bet she's twenty-six if she's a day. And all she got was Hawkins. I must have looked good to her for a day or two."

Bitterly he waited at the grade crossing while "Number Twenty-seven"

went lumbering by. It shrieked a high, exasperating whistle as it pa.s.sed, exulting in its trembling, shaking twenty-five miles per hour.

On he drove. Hot blasts of air came crus.h.i.+ng about him, with the sunlight s.h.i.+mmering white hot on the bare, dry pike. There was much dust from countless automobiles hurrying by in both directions. He was constantly churned up in clouds of fine white particles thrown back at him by pa.s.sing tires, hurrying on in a mad drive to get somewhere. He was suddenly unbearably hot. But he drove on blindly.

About five miles out he came to a shady lane. It ran like a cool brown gash between arching trees, off from the pike to the right. Away in the distance the fields dipped and rose to the skyline, a golden waste with here and there a patch of withering green. The lane was irresistible. He swung suddenly into it and was caught in a s.h.i.+fting, squirming quagmire of fine yellow sand. For a hundred yards he struggled on, with the car careening back and forth across the road and with much churning and slipping of tires. His shoulders began to ache and he wearied of the effort. It was a useless waste of energy.

Spying a huge tree standing on the fence line on up ahead, he drew up to it and stopped in its shade. There was barely room for any one to pa.s.s on the other side of him.

For a moment he sat and dully stared out across the landscape. Then he got out of the car, climbed over the fence and threw himself down on the ground in the shade of the big tree.

A stupor seemed to have come over him. There was the splotchy edge of shade just beyond his feet; there stretched a parched and drying furrow. Withered stubs of corn-stalks poked up forlorn heads at intervals in an endless row. Beyond them were more rows, and all about him lay the scarred and cracking earth in yellow heaps and clods, with the wind twisting fine spirals of dust from its rest and spewing it broadcast. In the air was a drone of drab creatures being happy in their drabness, rejoicing in the waste, thoughtless of the future.

That was it, the whole field, unkept, idle, lazying, was thoughtless of the future. There stood the dead stubble, blackening and hopeless.

Winter might come with its frost. Here was no worry over failing crops. One year's work had done for two. And the gra.s.shoppers and the midges and the gnats and the flies were likewise quite content.

He brushed the dust from a trouser leg. He looked at the trouser leg.

The suit had cost him ninety dollars. And he was a creature of Bromley's rigged out like a b.u.t.terfly and lying in the dust of a rotten old cornfield. Barely two months had pa.s.sed and great changes had laid their hands upon him. Seemingly great changes. Three hundred dollars a month! Princely wages; but in what respect was he lifted? He had on a ninety-dollar suit, with dust from a cornfield fouling it. He had a few more bills in the haberdasher shops, an enamelled tub to bathe in, and more time to think about himself, to chase elusive lights and shadows. Otherwise, he was the same old Joe, the same tired old Joe. He realized how tired he was. In spite of the heat his face felt dry and parched, his lips were cracking, his bones ached, and his eyes burned. Well, he had caught up with himself; he would have to snap out of it. No use to lie around and gather dust on one's self and not lay anything by, like the farmer who owned this field, and like the gnats that buzzed around in the dust. He had no idea what he would do, but he would be careful--from now on.

He climbed back across the fence and into the car. The lane was so narrow that he had to back clear to its juncture with the pike. It was slow, tedious, grinding work. "Glad I didn't go down a couple of miles," he thought. And as he backed slowly away, the dry, hot wind came in rattling gusts and swept the dust in yellow eddies after him, bearing the voice of the gra.s.shoppers, the monotone of futility.

When at six o'clock he pa.s.sed through the cool, smelly garage entrance that was wet and s.h.i.+ny with grease and blue with the breathings of many cars, he was met by the "boss." The latter looked critically at the dust-bespattered panels and then at Joe.

"Seems to me you're spending a lot of time in the country. Don't need to take 'em all over the earth to show 'em what the car will do. You must be doing a lot of educating."

"I have been," said Joe. "Guess I'll have to slow up on it a bit. Have to brush up my salesmans.h.i.+p."

The "boss" grunted.

CHAPTER XV

Mary Louise was seeing quite a lot of Claybrook. First there had been the business of going over the books, although that had not taken much time. "Just to make sure how things stand," he had laughed and she had been only too eager to acquiesce. Then there was the business of making out the notes. Six months and one year they had been, ample time enough on considering the progress of the business. Of course it could have all been finished up in one session. But somehow it was a week or more before everything was entirely settled. She had taken a small apartment, in reality just a room and a bath, in a quiet family hotel-apartment that Claybrook had recommended. He had, of course, come in to see how she was installed. It was a dim, cool, hushed sort of place, where guests spoke in sibilant whispers when they crossed the parlour lobby. There was a faded blonde of doubtful age presiding over the tiny desk, who handed out mail and plugged in telephone calls in a small switchboard and kept the hotel porter in a constant state of agitated unrest. No one ever sat around in the lobby. Every now and then there would gather little groups of prim old ladies with shawls and magazines and embroidery frames, discussing whispered personalities and the weather, as they waited for the elevator.

Careful, curious looks they always had for Mary Louise whenever she came upon them. An all-pervading atmosphere of stealth and secrecy and propriety seemed to hover about the place. Before she had been an inmate three hours she felt it and when Claybrook called that first evening, she had come rus.h.i.+ng across the lobby to meet him, with a glad little cry of welcome. Immediately one of the little groups had ceased to function and had with one accord stared at her with grave eyes, and the blonde at the switchboard had lifted her head above the edge of the desk and peered over. And then in the lobby, over in a far corner, they had sat uncomfortably for an hour on the faded plush divan and discussed commonplaces in a low tone and felt irreparably guilty.

But in spite of it all, Claybrook had come again; had come the next evening and the next. Most of the time he took her out for drives in his car. It began to be a regular thing, and she had come to look forward to his coming. The idea of staying alone in that whispery place was not a pleasant idea. Moreover, now that Maida was gone, she had double work to do in the tea room--which was running on as briskly as ever--and in the evening she felt invariably jaded and in need of some sort of diversion. So she welcomed Claybrook. And she got used to him.

One evening--it was after two weeks of this sort of thing--as she was sitting in her room, looking out of the window at the tops of the trees in an adjacent yard, it struck her how much she had been seeing him. For a moment it made her uncomfortable. What was it leading to?

Such suppositions must almost invariably come to a single woman. Ages of tradition have left their imprint upon the s.e.x to the effect that single life is not an end in itself, and that somehow it needs must change. Of course, many a spinster has gone to a satisfied grave in complete contentment over a life of spinsterhood. But there is nothing to prevent the question from arising, especially when there is an attentive male hanging about unattached.

Claybrook had given no indication of any serious intentions. Now that she had come to know him better, he seemed more like an overgrown boy with a healthy appet.i.te for play. There was no cause for alarm. If he had been the kind to moon around in dark corners, wanting to sit alone with her in long interminable silences--but on the contrary he always wanted to go somewhere. She had met several of his friends and they were always going somewhere, both men and women. And he always had plenty to say, mostly about conditions in the mill, the increase in the cost of labour, the scarcity of good lumber, some little anecdotes about the men, drummers' tales. More like a business acquaintance he treated her, discussing gravely the problems of her tea room and that sort of thing. He had even begun to call her "Sister" in an odd little patronizing way. And she had seen him every night now for the past two weeks. She thoughtfully ran her hand across her mouth. That was too much speed. She would have to slow down.

The graying light deepened and the chequered wavering of the boughs beneath her was slowly swallowed up in shadow so that the depth seemed interminable. A screen door slammed and there was the clatter of a pan on a brick pavement and the drawl of a soft Negro voice somewhere below. The help was going home. And then silence descending with only the quiet rustling of leaves and the distant clang and clatter of the city. She felt suddenly very much alone; and she wondered what her aunt Susie might be doing at this instant. Sitting alone in the ell sitting room, knitting, perhaps, with old Landy pottering about in the kitchen or on the back steps, with some fis.h.i.+ng tackle or an odd bit of harness. A bit of sentimentality touched her lightly. It would be good to put the old place on its feet again, free it entirely of debt, with a little surplus so that there would not be that constant feeling of strain, of anxiety. This was no life to be living in spite of the glamour of the city. Every living creature felt the need of home. If only all she meant to do might not be accomplished too late.

The sharp burr of the telephone startled her and she rose to answer it, dabbing at her eyes furtively with her handkerchief as she rose.

She met Claybrook in the lobby.

"Hi, there!" he said. "Get your hat. The Thompsons want us to come and play bridge with them." He squeezed her hand just a little as he smiled good-naturedly at her with patronizing approval.

"To-night?" she echoed. "In August?"

"Sure," he said. "Why not? It's plenty cool. They've a room on the top floor of the Ardmore and they keep all the windows open. Never seen the Thompsons' apartment, have you?"

She shook her head.

"Pretty swell dump. Like to know how much Tommy pays for it. Keeps it all the year too. They go to Florida for January and February. Want you to see it. Maybe when the business grows enough you'll be wanting one like it."

She smiled wanly and pictured herself spending the balance of her days in a hotel.

"Hurry up. Get your hat and powder your nose and pretty yourself up.

Want you to feel at home. Mrs. Tom is _some_ doll."

She hastened back to the room. He was like a kind older brother wanting to show her a good time, wanting her to show to the best advantage. She smiled at him when she again joined him in the lobby.

"That better?"