Poor White: A Novel Page 16

  CHAPTER XVI

  As he stood alone in the barnyard, excited at the thought of theadventure on which Clara and Hugh had set out, Jim Priest remembered TomButterworth. For more than thirty years Jim had worked for Tom and theyhad one strong impulse that bound them together--their common love offine horses. More than once the two men had spent an afternoon togetherin the grand stand at the fall trotting meeting at Cleveland. In thelate morning of such a day Tom found Jim wandering from stall to stall,looking at the horses being rubbed down and prepared for the afternoon'sraces. In a generous mood he bought his employee's lunch and took him toa seat in the grand stand. All afternoon the two men watched the races,smoked and quarreled. Tom contended that Bud Doble, the debonair, thedramatic, the handsome, was the greatest of all race horse drivers, andJim Priest held Bud Doble in contempt. For him there was but one man ofall the drivers he whole-heartedly admired, Pop Geers, the shrewd andsilent. "That Geers of yours doesn't drive at all. He just sits up therelike a stick," Tom grumbled. "If a horse can win all right, he'll ridebehind him all right. What I like to see is a driver. Now you look atthat Doble. You watch him bring a horse through the stretch."

  Jim looked at his employer with something like pity in his eyes. "Huh,"he exclaimed. "If you haven't got eyes you can't see."

  The farm hand had two strong loves in his life, his employer's daughterand the race horse driver, Geers. "Geers," he declared, "was a man bornold and wise." Often he had seen Geers at the tracks on a morning beforesome important race. The driver sat on an upturned box in the sun beforeone of the horse stalls. All about him there was the bantering talk ofhorsemen and grooms. Bets were made and challenges given. On thetracks nearby horses, not entered in the races for that day, were beingexercised. Their hoofbeats made a kind of music that made Jim's bloodtingle. Negroes laughed and horses put their heads out at stall doors.The stallions neighed loudly and the heels of some impatient steedrattled against the sides of a stall.

  Every one about the stalls talked of the events of the afternoon and Jimleaned against the front of one of the stalls and listened, filled withhappiness. He wished the fates had made him a racing man. Then he lookedat Pop Geers, the silent one, who sat for hours dumb and uncommunicativeon a feed box, tapping lightly on the ground with his racing whip andchewing straw. Jim's imagination was aroused. He had once seenthat other silent American, General Grant, and had been filled withadmiration for him.

  That was on a great day in Jim's life, the day on which he had seenGrant going to receive Lee's surrender at Appomattox. There had been abattle with the Union men pursuing the fleeing Rebs out of Richmond, andJim, having secured a bottle of whisky, and having a chronic dislike ofbattles, had managed to creep away into a wood. In the distance he heardshouts and presently saw several men riding furiously down a road. Itwas Grant with his aides going to the place where Lee waited. They rodeto the place near where Jim sat with his back against a tree and thebottle between his legs; then stopped. Then Grant decided not to takepart in the ceremony. His clothes were covered with mud and his beardwas ragged. He knew Lee and knew he would be dressed for the occasion.He was that kind of a man; he was one fitted for historic pictures andoccasions. Grant wasn't. He told his aides to go on to the spot whereLee waited, told them what arrangements were to be made, then jumped hishorse over a ditch and rode along a path under the trees toward the spotwhere Jim lay.

  That was an event Jim never forgot. He was fascinated at the thoughtof what the day meant to Grant and by his apparent indifference. He satsilently by the tree and when Grant got off his horse and came near,walking now in the path where the sunlight sifted down through thetrees, he closed his eyes. Grant came to where he sat and stopped,apparently thinking him dead. His hand reached down and took the bottleof whisky. For a moment they had something between them, Grant and Jim.They both understood that bottle of whisky. Jim thought Grant was aboutto drink, and opened his eyes a little. Then he closed them. The corkwas out of the bottle and Grant clutched it in his hand tightly. Fromthe distance there came a vast shout that was picked up and carried byvoices far away. The wood seemed to rock with it. "It's done. The war'sover," Jim thought. Then Grant reached over and smashed the bottleagainst the trunk of the tree above Jim's head. A piece of the flyingglass cut his cheek and blood came. He opened his eyes and lookeddirectly into Grant's eyes. For a moment the two men stared at eachother and the great shout again rolled over the country. Grant wenthurriedly along the path to where he had left his horse, and mounting,rode away.

  Standing in the race track looking at Geers, Jim thought of Grant. Thenhis mind came back to this other hero. "What a man!" he thought. "Herehe goes from town to town and from race track to race track all throughthe spring, summer and fall, and he never loses his head, never getsexcited. To win horse races is the same as winning battles. When I'm athome plowing corn on summer afternoons, this Geers is away somewhereat some track with all the people gathered about and waiting. To meit would be like being drunk all the time, but you see he isn't drunk.Whisky could make him stupid. It couldn't make him drunk. There hesits hunched up like a sleeping dog. He looks as though he cared aboutnothing on earth, and he'll sit like that through three-quarters of thehardest race, waiting, taking advantage of every little stretch of firmhard ground on the track, saving his horse, watching, watching his horsetoo, waiting. What a man! He works the horse into fourth place, intothird, into second. The crowd in the grand stand, such fellows as TomButterworth, have not seen what he's doing. He sits still. By God, whata man! He waits. He looks half asleep. If he doesn't have to do it, hemakes no effort. If the horse has it in him to win without help he sitsstill. The people are shouting and jumping up out of their seats in thegrand stand, and if that Bud Doble has a horse in the race he's leaningforward in the sulky, shouting at his horse and making a holy show ofhimself.

  "Ha, that Geers! He waits. He doesn't think of the people but of thehorse he's driving. When the time comes, just the right time, thatGeers, he lets the horse know. They are one at that moment, like Grantand I were over that bottle of whisky. Something happens between them.Something inside the man says, 'now,' and the message runs along thereins to the horse's brain. It flies down into his legs. There is arush. The head of the horse has just worked its way out in front byinches--not too soon, nothing wasted. Ha, that Geers! Bud Doble, huh!"

  On the night of Clara's marriage after she and Hugh had disappeareddown the county seat road, Jim hurried into the barn and, bringing outa horse, sprang on his back. He was sixty-three but could mount a horselike a young man. As he rode furiously toward Bidwell he thought, not ofClara and her adventure, but of her father. To both men the right kindof marriage meant success in life for a woman. Nothing else reallymattered much if that were accomplished. He thought of Tom Butterworth,who, he told himself, had fussed with Clara just as Bud Doble oftenfussed with a horse in a race. He had himself been like Pop Geers. Allalong he had known and understood the mare colt, Clara. Now she had comethrough; she had won the race of life.

  "Ha, that old fool!" Jim whispered to himself as he rode swiftly downthe dark road. When the horse ran clattering over a small wooden bridgeand came to the first of the houses of the town, he felt like one comingto announce a victory, and half expected a vast shout to come out of thedarkness, as it had come in the moment of Grant's victory over Lee.

  Jim could not find his employer at the hotel or in Main Street, butremembered a tale he had heard whispered. Fanny Twist the milliner livedin a little frame house in Garfield Street, far out at the eastern edgeof town, and he went there. He banged boldly on the door and the womanappeared. "I've got to see Tom Butterworth," he said. "It's important.It's about his daughter. Something has happened to her."

  The door closed and presently Tom came around the corner of the house.He was furious. Jim's horse stood in the road, and he went straightto him and took hold of the bit. "What do you mean by coming here?" heasked sharply. "Who told you I was here? What business you got cominghere and making a
show of yourself? What's the matter of you? Are youdrunk or out of your head?"

  Jim got off the horse and told Tom the news. For a moment the two stoodlooking at each other. "Hugh McVey--Hugh McVey, by crackies, are youright, Jim?" Tom exclaimed. "No missfire, eh? She's really gone and doneit? Hugh McVey, eh? By crackies!"

  "They're on the way to the county seat now," Jim said softly. "Missfire!Not on your life." His voice lost the cool, quiet tone he had so oftendreamed of maintaining in great emergencies. "I figure they'll be backby twelve or one," he said eagerly. "We got to blow 'em out, Tom. We gotto give that girl and her husband the biggest blowout ever seen in thiscounty, and we got just about three hours to get ready for it."

  "Get off that horse and give me a boost," Tom commanded. With a gruntof satisfaction he sprang to the horse's back. The belated impulse tophilander that an hour before sent him creeping through back streets andalleyways to the door of Fanny Twist's house was all gone, and in itsplace had come the spirit of the man of affairs, the man who, as hehimself often boasted, made things move and kept them on the move. "Nowlook here, Jim," he said sharply, "there are three livery stables inthis town. You engage every horse they've got for the night. Have thehorses hitched to any kind of rigs you can find, buggies, surreys,spring wagons, anything. Have them get drivers off the streets,anywhere. Then have them all brought around in front of the BidwellHouse and held for me. When you've done that, you go to Henry Heller'shouse. I guess you can find it. You found this house where I was fastenough. He lives on Campus Street just beyond the new Baptist Church. Ifhe's gone to bed you get him up. Tell him to get his orchestra togetherand have him bring all the lively music he's got. Tell him to bring hismen to the Bidwell House as fast as he can get them there."

  Tom rode off along the street followed by Jim Priest, running at thehorse's heels. When he had gone a little way he stopped. "Don't let anyone fuss with you about prices to-night, Jim," he called. "Tell everyone it's for me. Tell 'em Tom Butterworth'll pay what they ask. Thesky's the limit to-night, Jim. That's the word, the sky's the limit."

  To the older citizens of Bidwell, those who lived there when everycitizen's affairs were the affair of the town, that evening will be longremembered. The new men, the Italians, Greeks, Poles, Rumanians, andmany other strange-talking, dark-skinned men who had come with thecoming of the factories, went on with their lives on that evening as onall others. They worked in the night shift at the Corn-Cutting MachinePlant, at the foundry, the bicycle factory or at the big new ToolMachine Factory that had just moved to Bidwell from Cleveland. Those whowere not at work lounged in the streets or wandered aimlessly in and outof saloons. Their wives and children were housed in the hundreds of newframe houses in the streets that now crept out in all directions. Inthose days in Bidwell new houses seemed to spring out of the ground likemushrooms. In the morning there was a field or an orchard on Turner Pikeor on any one of a dozen roads leading out of town. On the trees in theorchard green apples hung down waiting, ready to ripen. Grasshopperssang in the long grass beneath the trees.

  Then appeared Ben Peeler with a swarm of men. The trees were cut andthe song of the grasshopper choked beneath piles of boards. There wasa great shouting and rattling of hammers. A whole street of houses, allalike, universally ugly, had been added to the vast number of new housesalready built by that energetic carpenter and his partner Gordon Hart.

  To the people who lived in these houses, the excitement of TomButterworth and Jim Priest meant nothing. Half sullenly they worked,striving to make money enough to take them back to their native lands.In the new place they had not, as they had hoped, been received asbrothers. A marriage or a death there meant nothing to them.

  To the old townsmen however, those who remembered Tom when he was asimple farmer and when Steve Hunter was looked upon with contempt as aboasting young squirt, the night rocked with excitement. Men ranthrough the streets. Drivers lashed their horses along roads. Tomwas everywhere. He was like a general in charge of the defenses of abesieged town. The cooks at all three of the town's hotels were sentback into their kitchens, waiters were found and hurried out to theButterworth house, and Henry Heller's orchestra was instructed to getout there at once and to start playing the liveliest possible music.

  Tom asked every man and woman he saw to the wedding party. The hotelkeeper was invited with his wife and daughter and two or three keepersof stores who came to the hotel to bring supplies were asked, commandedto come. Then there were the men of the factories, the office men andsuperintendents, new men who had never seen Clara. They also, with thetown bankers and other solid fellows with money in the banks, who wereinvestors in Tom's enterprises, were invited. "Put on the best clothesyou've got in the world and have your women folks do the same," hesaid laughing. "Then you get out to my house as soon as you can. If youhaven't any way to get there, come to the Bidwell House. I'll get youout."

  Tom did not forget that in order to have his wedding party go as hewished, he would need to serve drinks. Jim Priest went from bar tobar. "What wine you got--good wine? How much you got?" he asked ateach place. Steve Hunter had in the cellar of his house six cases ofchampagne kept there against a time when some important guest, theGovernor of the State or a Congressman, might come to town. He felt thaton such occasions it was up to him to see that the town, as he said,"did itself proud." When he heard what was going on he hurried to theBidwell House and offered to send his entire stock of wine out to Tom'shouse, and his offer was accepted.

  * * * * *

  Jim Priest had an idea. When the guests were all assembled and when thefarm kitchen was filled with cooks and waiters who stumbled over eachother, he took his idea to Tom. There was, he explained, a short-cutthrough fields and along lanes to a point on the county seat road, threemiles from the house. "I'll go there and hide myself," he said. "Whenthey come along, suspecting nothing, I'll cut out on horseback and gethere a half hour before them. You make every one in the house hide andkeep still when they drive into the yard. We'll put out all the lights.We'll give that pair the surprise of their lives."

  Jim had concealed a quart bottle of wine in his pocket and, as he rodeaway on his mission, stopped from time to time to take a hearty drink.As his horse trotted along lanes and through fields, the horse that wasbringing Clara and Hugh home from their adventure cocked his ears andremembered the comfortable stall filled with hay in the Butterworthbarn. The horse trotted swiftly along and Hugh in the buggy beside Clarawas lost in the same dense silence that all the evening had lain overhim like a cloak. In a dim way he was resentful and felt that time wasrunning too fast. The hours and the passing events were like the watersof a river in flood time, and he was like a man in a boat without oars,being carried helplessly forward. Occasionally he thought courage hadcome to him and he half turned toward Clara and opened his mouth, hopingwords would come to his lips, but the silence that had taken hold ofhim was like a disease whose grip on its victim could not be broken. Heclosed his mouth and wet his lips with his tongue. Clara saw him do thething several times. He began to seem animal-like and ugly to her. "It'snot true that I thought of her and asked her to be my wife only becauseI wanted a woman," Hugh reassured himself. "I've been lonely, all mylife I've been lonely. I want to find my way into some one's heart, andshe is the one."

  Clara also remained silent. She was angry. "If he didn't want to marryme, why did he ask me? Why did he come?" she asked herself. "Well, I'mmarried. I've done the thing we women are always thinking about," shetold herself, her mind taking another turn. The thought frightenedher and a shiver of dread ran over her body. Then her mind went to thedefense of Hugh. "It isn't his fault. I shouldn't have rushed things asI have. Perhaps I'm not meant for marriage at all," she thought.

  The ride homeward dragged on indefinitely. The clouds were blown outof the sky, the moon came out and the stars looked down on the twoperplexed people. To relieve the feeling of tenseness that had takenhold of her Clara's mind resorted to a trick. Her eyes soug
ht out a treeor the lights of a farmhouse far ahead and she tried to count thehoof beats of the horse until they had come to it. She wanted to hurryhomeward and at the same time looked forward with dread to the nightalone in the dark farmhouse with Hugh. Not once during the homewarddrive did she take the whip out of its socket or speak to the horse.

  When at last the horse trotted eagerly across the crest of the hill,from which there was such a magnificent view of the country below,neither Clara nor Hugh turned to look. With bowed heads they rode, eachtrying to find courage to face the possibilities of the night.

  * * * * *

  In the farmhouse Tom and his guests waited in winelit suspense, andat last Jim Priest rode shouting out of a lane to the door. "They'recoming--they're coming," he shouted, and ten minutes later and after Tomhad twice lost his temper and cursed the girl waitresses from the townhotels who were inclined to giggle, all was silent and dark about thehouse and the barnyard. When all was quiet Jim Priest crept into thekitchen, and stumbling over the legs of the guests, made his way to afront window where he placed a lighted candle. Then he went out of thehouse to lie on his back beneath a bush in the yard. In the house hehad secured for himself a second bottle of wine, and as Clara with herhusband turned in at the gate and drove into the barnyard, the onlysound that broke the intense silence came from the soft gurgle of thewine finding its way down his throat.