O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 65

"You ain't the man I expected."

"No?" He rocked up on his toes and made a gesture that indicated the piles of junk. "You're done."

"I'm done," a.s.sented Great Taylor. "I ain't going to lay a hand on the cart again. Ten years...."

"Uhm. You have a right to the things that other women have. But...."

He glanced around the dingy warehouse. "Is this all you have for your ten years?"

Great Taylor made no reply.

"It isn't much," said the man.

"It's something," said Great Taylor.

"Not enough to live on."

"Not enough to live on," she echoed. "But I can't go on working. I can't go on alone. The cart's too heavy to push alone. I'm done." She drooped there.

"I think we can arrange something." For a moment the man was silent, his queer eyes moving over her body. "I had something in mind when I entered--something aside from junk. I could make a place for you. I'll do better than that. With this rubbish you buy a half share in one of my places and sit all day with your hands folded. You can make more in a week than you ever made in a year...." His voice flowed smoothly on until Great Taylor raised her head.

"I didn't come ten years ago."

The man laughed. "Who cares how you make your money? Do you know what people say when they hear you calling through the streets? They say, 'It's nothing, it's only Great Taylor.' And do you know what they think when they look down upon you and your junk-cart? They think of you just as you used to think of Grit...."

She staggered to her feet. "You leave Grit out of it!" For ten years a sentence had been pulsing through her mind. "Get out!" she cried, "_Grit warn't dirty underneath_!" The pain in her breast choked her and stopped her short as she moved threateningly toward him. The piece of iron fell heavily to the floor.

"Who sees underneath?" came the voice of the man.

"Grit," she moaned, "Grit sees underneath." And she hurled her tortured body forward, striking at him with her fists. She fell upon the pile of sc.r.a.p iron. Each heave of her breast was a sob. She struggled to her feet and glared around her. But the man was not there.

Moaning, she sank into the armchair. "What's the matter with me? There warn't n.o.body here! _He_ warn't here. No man could stay the same for ten years." The piles of junk seemed slowly to revolve around her.

"What's the matter with me?" she asked again. "Ain't I got a right?..."

"Of course you have a right to the things you want." From the top of the hill of rags came his voice. It brought Great Taylor to her feet, sobbing. But the pain in her side, more fearful than ever, held her motionless.

"Wash away the ugly grime of toil," said the voice. "You're less than forty. You're a woman. You can have the things that other women have."

"I got more than some women," she cried. "I'm clean--I'm clean underneath." She stumbled toward him but again sank to the floor. She tried to spring up. Her will sprang up, for her spirit at last was splendid even if her body was weak. It dragged her up from the floor.

And now she could see him all around her--on top the hill of rags, on top the mountain of iron, amid the bursting bags of waste paper--blinking down as he sat enthroned upon the debris--the twisted, broken, discarded things of the city that people call the Devil's Own.

"These are mine!" he called. "And you belong to the debris. You are one of the broken, useless things." From all points he moved toward her. She could no longer fight him off. There was no escape. "Grit,"

she cried, "Grit, you can stop him. You ... you was a stone wall...."

Stumbling back, her hand struck a familiar object. There was a tinkle of bells. She wheeled around, and there in the shadows of the dilapidated old warehouse someone was drooping over the handle of the junk-cart--a collarless man with baggy breeches and a nose that leaned toward the smudges and hollows of his cheek. He was striving to move the cart. "Not alone," cried Great Taylor. "You can't do it alone! But we can do it together!" She took hold of the handle. The thing moved.

"Easy as a baby carriage," she laughed. "We should always done it together...."

Out of the gloom, through the arched doorway into the sunlight moved the cart with its jingling, jangling bells. Glossy-haired women with their baskets made way for it and the cart b.u.mped down over the curb.

Teamsters drew aside their heavy-hoofed horses. Peddlers rolled their push-carts back to the curb.

"The street opens when we work together," laughed Great Taylor.

"Who is she talking to?" asked the people.

"Talking to herself," the ignorant replied.

"And why is she looking up like that?"

"Looking for junk."

"And why does she laugh?" they asked.

"Who knows? Who knows? Perhaps she's happy."

A song burst from her throat: "Rags," she sang, "old iron ... bottles, and ra-ags...."

People inside their houses heard her song and the bells of her cart.

"It's nothing," they laughed, "it's only Great Taylor." A woman came to a window and waved an object that glinted in the sunlight. "How much?" she called down. But Great Taylor seemed not to hear. A child ran out with a bundle in her arms. "Rags," called the child, then stepped back out of the way, wondering. Great Taylor was pa.s.sing on.

An elevated train sent down a cataract of noise, but her song rose above it: "Rags ... old iron...." And when she reached the avenue a policeman with a yellow emblematic wheel embroidered on his sleeve held up his hand and stopped the traffic of the Devil's Own city to let Great Taylor pa.s.s.

And so, like a female Colossus, she strode slowly across the city, her head tilted, her eyes looking up from the cavernous streets--up beyond the lofty roofs of houses, her voice becoming fainter and fainter: "Rags ... old iron ... bottles and ra-ags ..." until the G.o.d of those who fall fighting in the battle of life reached down and, drawing the sword, threw away the scabbard.