The Web and the Root

by Thomas Wolfe

  “And if there is work to do at three o’clock—if we must rouse ourselves from somnolent repose, and from the green-gold drowsy magic of our meditations—for God’s sake give us something real to do. Give us great labors, but vouchsafe to us as well the promise of a great accomplishment, the thrill of peril, the hope of high and spirited adventure. For God’s sake don’t destroy the heart and hope and life and will, the brave and dreaming soul of man, with the common, dull, soul-sickening, mean transactions of these little things!

  Don’t break our heart, our hope, our ecstasy, don’t shatter irrevocably some brave adventure of the spirit, or some brooding dream, by sending us on errands which any stupid girl, or nigger wench, or soulless underling of life could just as well accomplish. Don’t break man’s heart, man’s life, man’s song, the soaring vision of his dream with—“Here, boy, trot around the corner for a loaf of bread,”—or “Here, boy; the telephone company has just called up—you’ll have to trot around there…”—Oh, for God’s sake, and my sake, please don’t say ‘trot around’—“…and pay the bill before they cut us off!”

  Or, fretful-wise, be-flusteredlike, all of a twitter, scattered and demoralized, fuming and stewing, complaining, whining, railing against the universe because of things undone you should have done yourself, because of errors you have made yourself, because of debts unpaid you should have paid on time, because of things forgotten you should have remembered—fretting, complaining, galloping off in all directions, unable to get your thoughts together, unable even to call a child by his proper name—as here:

  “Ed, John, Bob—pshaw, boy! George, I mean!…”

  Well, then for God’s sake, mean it!

  “Why, pshaw!—to think that that fool nigger—I could wring her neck when I think of it—well, as I say now….”

  Then, in God’s name, say it!

  “…why, you know…”

  No! I do not know!

  “…here I was dependin’ on her—here she told me she would come—and all the work to be done—and here she’s sneaked out on me after dinner—and I’m left here in the lurch.”

  Yes, of course you are; because you failed to pay the poor wench on Saturday night the three dollars which is her princely emolument for fourteen hours a day of sweaty drudgery seven days a week; because “it slipped your mind,” because you couldn’t bear to let it go in one gigantic lump—could you?—because you thought you’d hang on to the good green smell of money just a little longer, didn’t you?—let it sweat away in your stocking and smell good just a little longer—didn’t you?—break the poor brute’s heart on Saturday night just when she had her mind all set on fried fish, gin, and f——g, just because you wanted to hold on to three wadded, soiled, and rumpled greenbacks just a little longer—dole it out to her a dollar at a time—tonight a dollar, Wednesday night a dollar, Friday night the same…and so are left here strapped and stranded and forlorn, where my father would have paid and paid at once, and kept his nigger and his nigger’s loyalty. And all because you are a woman, with a woman’s niggard smallness about money, a woman’s niggard dealing towards her servants, a woman’s selfishness, her small humanity of feeling for the dumb, the suffering, and afflicted soul of man—and so will fret and fume and fidget now, all flustered and undone, to call me forth with:

  “Here, boy!—Pshaw, now!—To think that she would play a trick like this!—Why as I say, now—child! child!—I don’t know what I shall do—I’m left here all alone—you’ll have to trot right down and see if you can find someone at once.”

  Aye! to call me forth from coolness, and the gladed sweetness of cool grass to sweat my way through Niggertown in the dreary torpor of the afternoon; to sweat my way up and down that grassless, treeless horror of baked clay; to draw my breath in stench and sourness, breathe in the funky nigger stench, sour wash-pots and branch-sewage, nigger privies and the sour shambles of the nigger shacks; to scar my sight and soul with little snot-nosed nigger children fouled with dung, and so bowed out with rickets that their little legs look like twin sausages of fat, soft rubber; so to hunt, and knock at shack-door, so to wheedle, persuade, and cajole, in order to find some other sullen wench to come and sweat her fourteen hours a day for seven days a week—and for three dollars!

  Or again, perhaps it will be: “Pshaw, boy!—Why to think that he would play me such a trick!—Why, I forgot to put the sign out—but I thought he knew I needed twenty pounds!—If he’d only asked!—but here he drove right by with not so much as by-your-leave, and here there’s not a speck of ice in the refrigerator—and ice cream and iced tea to make for supper.—You’ll have to trot right down to the icehouse and get me a good ten-cent chunk.”

  Yes! A good ten-cent chunk tied with a twist of galling twine, that cuts like a razor down into my sweaty palm; that wets my trouser leg from thigh to buttock; that bangs and rubs and slips and cuts and freezes against my miserable knees until the flesh is worn raw; that trickles freezing drops down my bare and aching legs, that takes all joy from living, that makes me curse my life and all the circumstances of my birth—and all because you failed to “put the sign out,” all because you failed to think of twenty pounds of ice!

  Or is it a thimble, or a box of needles, or a spool of thread that you need now! Is it for such as this that I must “trot around” some place for baking powder, salt or sugar, or a pound of butter, or a package of tea!

  For God’s sake thimble me no thimbles and spool me no spools! If I must go on errands send me out upon man’s work, with man’s dispatch, as my father used to do! Send me out with one of his niggers upon a wagon load of fragrant pine, monarch above the rumps of two grey mules! Send me for a wagon load of sand down by the river, where I can smell the sultry yellow of the stream, and shout and holler to the boys in swimming! Send me to town to my father’s brick and lumber yard, the Square, the sparkling traffic of bright afternoon. Send me for something in the City Market, the smell of fish and oysters, the green, cool growth of vegetables; the cold refrigeration of hung beeves, the butchers cleaving and sawing in straw hats and gouted aprons. Send me out to life and business and the glades of afternoon; for God’s sake, do not torture me with spools of thread, or with the sunbaked clay and shambling rickets of black Niggertown!

  “Son, son!…Where has that fool boy got to!…Why, as I say now, boy, you’ll have to trot right down to….”

  With baleful, brooding vision he looked towards the house. Say me no says, sweet dame: trot me no trots. The hour is three o’clock, and I would be alone.

  So thinking, feeling, saying, he rolled over on his belly, out of sight, on the “good” side of the tree, dug bare, luxurious toes in cool, green grass, and, chin a-cup in his supporting hands, regarded his small universe of three o’clock.

  “A LITTLE CHILD, a limber elf”—twelve years of age, and going on for thirteen next October. So, midway in May now, midway to thirteen, with a whole world to think of. Not large or heavy for his age, but strong and heavy in the shoulders, arms absurdly long, big hands, legs thin, bowed out a little, long, flat feet; small face and features quick with life, the eyes deep-set, their look both quick and still; low brow, wide, stick-out ears, a shock of close-cropped hair, a large head that hangs forward and projects almost too heavily for the short, thin neck—not much to look at, someone’s ugly duckling, just a boy.

  And yet—could climb trees like a monkey, spring like a cat; could jump and catch the maple limb four feet above his head—the bark was already worn smooth and slick by his big hands; could be up the tree like a flash; could go places no one else could go; could climb anything, grab hold of anything, dig his toes in anything; could scale the side of a cliff if he had to, could almost climb a sheet of glass; could pick up things with his toes, and hold them, too; could walk on his hands, bend back and touch the ground, stick his head between his legs, or wrap his legs around his neck; could make a hoop out of his body and roll over like a hoop, do hand-springs and cut flips—jump, climb, and leap as no other b
oy in town could do. He is a grotesque-looking little creature, yet unformed and unmatured, in his make-up something between a spider and an ape (the boys, of course, call him “Monk”)—and yet with an eye that sees and holds, an ear that hears and can remember, a nose that smells out unsuspected pungencies, a spirit swift and mercurial as a flash of light, now soaring like a rocket, wild with ecstasy, outstripping storm and flight itself in the aerial joy of skyey buoyancy; now plunged in nameless, utter, black, unfathomable dejection; now bedded cool in the reposeful grass beneath the maple tree, remote from time and brooding on his world of three o’clock; now catlike on his feet—the soaring rocket of a sudden joy—then catlike spring and catch upon the lowest limb, then like a monkey up the tree, and like a monkey down, now rolling like a furious hoop across the yard—at last, upon his belly in cool grass again, and bedded deep in somnolent repose at three o’clock.

  Now, with chin cupped in his hands and broodingly aware, he meditates the little world before him, the world of one small, modest street, the neighbors, and his uncle’s house. For the most part, it is the pleasant world of humble people and small, humble houses, most of them worn, shabby, so familiar: the yards, the porches, swings, and railings, and the rocking chairs; the maple trees, the chestnuts and the oaks; the way a gate leans open, half ajar, the way the grass grows, and the way the flowers are planted; the fences, hedges, bushes, and the honeysuckle vines; the alleyways and all the homely and familiar backyard world of chicken houses, stables, barns, and orchards, and each one with its own familiar hobby, the Potterham’s neat back-garden, Nebraska Crane’s pigeon houses—the whole, small, well-used world of good, small people.

  He sees the near line of eastern hills, with light upon it, the sweet familiarity of massed green. His thought soars westward with a vision of far distances and splendid ranges; his heart turns west with thoughts of unknown men and places and of wandering; but ever his heart turns home to this his own world, to what he knows and likes the best. It is—he feels and senses this obscurely—the place of common man, his father’s kind of people. Except for his uncle’s raw, new house, the sight of which is a desolation to him, it is the place of the homely, simple houses, and the old, ordinary streets, where the bricklayers, plasterers, and masons, the lumber dealers and the stonecutters, the plumbers, hardware merchants, butchers, grocers, and the old, common, native families of the mountains—his mother’s people—make their home.

  It is the place of the Springtime orchards, the loamy, dew-wet morning gardens, the peach, cherry, apple blossoms, drifting to the ground at morning in the month of April, the pungent, fragrant, maddening savor of the breakfast smells. It is the place of roses, lilies, and nasturtiums, the vine-covered porches of the houses, the strange, delicious smell of the ripening grapes in August, and the voices—near, strange, haunting, lonely, most familiar—of the people sitting on their porches in the Summer darkness, the voices of the lost people in the darkness as they say good-night. Then boys will hear a screen door slam, the earth grow silent with the vast and brooding ululation of the night, and finally the approach, the grinding screech, the brief halt, the receding loneliness and absence of the last street car going around the corner on the hill, and will wait there in the darkness filled with strangeness, thinking, “I was born here, there’s my father, this is I!”

  It is the world of the sun-warm, time-far clucking of the sensual hens in the forenoon strangeness of the spell of time, and the coarse, sweet coolness of Crane’s cow along the alleyway; and it is the place of the ice-tongs ringing in the streets, the ice saw droning through the dripping blocks, the sweating negroes, and the pungent, musty, and exotic odors of the grocery wagons, the grocery box piled high with new provisions. It is the place of the forenoon housewives with their shapeless gingham dresses, bare legs, slippers, turbaned heads, bare, bony, labor-toughened hands and arms and elbows, and the fresh, clean, humid smell of houses airing in the morning. It is the place of the heavy midday dinners, the smells of roasts of beef, corn on the cob, the deep-hued savor of the big string beans, cooking morning long into the sweet amity and unction of the fat-streaked pork; and above it all is the clean, hungry, humid smell and the streaming freshness of the turnip greens at noon.

  It is the world of magic April and October; world of the first green and the smell of blossoms; world of the bedded oak leaves and the smell of smoke in Autumn, and men in shirt-sleeves working in their yards in red waning light of old October as boys pass by them going home from school. It is the world of the Summer nights, world of the dream-strange nights of August, the great moons and the tolling bells; world of the Winter nights, the howling winds, and the fire-full chimney throats—world of the ash of time and silence while the piled coals flare and crumble, world of the waiting, waiting, waiting—for the world of joy, the longed-for face, the hoped-for step, the unbelieved-in magic of the Spring again.

  It is the world of warmth, nearness, certitude, the walls of home! It is the world of the plain faces, and the sounding belly laughter; world of the people who are not too good or fine or proud or precious for the world’s coarse uses; world of the sons who are as their fathers were before them, and are compacted of man’s base, common, stinking clay of fury, blood, and sweat and agony—and must rise or fall out of the world from which they came, sink or swim, survive or perish, live, die, conquer, find alone their way, be baffled, beaten, grow furious, drunken, desperate, mad, lie smashed and battered in the stews, find a door, a dwelling place of warmth and love and strong security, or be driven famished, unassuaged, and furious through the world until they die!

  Last of all, it is the world of the true friends, the fine, strong boys who can smack a ball and climb a tree, and are always on the lookout for the thrill and menace of adventure. They are the brave, free, joyful, hope-inspiring fellows who are not too nice and dainty and who have no sneers. Their names are such wonderful, open-sounding names as John, Jim, Robert, Joe, and Tom. Their names are William, Henry, George, Ben, Edward, Lee, Hugh, Richard, Arthur, Jack! Their names are the names of the straight eye and the calm and level glance, names of the thrown ball, the crack of the bat, the driven hit; names of wild, jubilant, and secret darkness, brooding, prowling, wild, exultant night, the wailing whistle and the great wheels pounding at the river’s edge.

  They are the names of hope, the names of love, friendship, confidence, and courage, the names of life that will prevail and will not be beaten by the names of desolation, the hopeless, sneering, deathloving, and lifehating names of old scorn-maker’s pride—the hateful and accursed names that the boys who live in the western part of town possess.

  Finally, they are the rich, unusual names, the strange, yet homely, sturdy names—the names of George Josiah Webber and Nebraska Crane.

  NEBRASKA CRANE WAS walking down the street upon the other side. He was bare-headed, his shock of Indian coarse black hair standing out, his shirt was opened at his strong, lean neck, his square brown face was tanned and flushed with recent effort. From the big pocket of his pants the thick black fingers of a fielder’s mitt protruded, and upon his shoulder he was carrying a well-worn ash-wood bat, of which the handle was wound round tight with tape. He came marching along at his strong and even stride, his bat upon his shoulder, as steady and as unperturbed as a soldier, and, as he passed, he turned his fearless face upon the boy across the street—looked at him with his black-eyed Indian look, and, without raising his voice, said quietly in a tone instinct with quiet friendliness:

  “Hi, Monk!”

  And the boy who lay there in the grass, his face supported in his hands, responded without moving, in the same toneless, friendly way:

  “Hello, Bras.”

  Nebraska Crane marched on down the street, turned into the alley by his house, marched down it, turned the corner of his house, and so was lost from sight.

  And the boy who lay on his belly in the grass continued to look out quietly from the supporting prop of his cupped hands. But a feeling of certitude and
comfort, of warmth and confidence and quiet joy, had filled his heart, as it always did when Nebraska Crane passed his house at three o’clock.

  The boy lay on his belly in the young tender grass. Jerry Alsop, aged sixteen, fat and priestly, his belly buttoned in blue serge, went down along the other side of the street. He was a grave and quiet little figure, well liked by the other boys, but he was always on the outer fringes of their life, always on the sidelines of their games, always an observer of their universe—a fat and quiet visitant, well-spoken, pleasant-voiced, compactly buttoned in the blue serge that he always wore…. There had been one night of awful searching, one hour when all the torment and the anguish in that small, fat life had flared out in desperation. He had run away from home, and they had found him six hours later on the river road, down by the muddy little river, beside the place where all the other boys went to swim, the one hole deep enough to drown. His mother came and took him by the hand; he turned and looked at her, and then the two fell sobbing in each other’s arms…. For all the rest, he had been a quiet and studious boy, well thought of in the town. Jerry’s father was a dry goods merchant, and the family was comfortably off in a modest way. Jerry had a good mind, a prodigious memory for what he read, all things in books came smoothly to him. He would finish high school next year….

  Jerry Alsop passed on down the street.

  Suddenly, the Webber boy heard voices in the street. He turned his head and looked, but even before he turned his head his ear had told him, a cold, dry tightening of his heart, an acrid dryness on his lips, a cold, dry loathing in his blood, had told him who they were.

  Four boys were coming down the street in raffish guise; advancing scattered and disorderly, now scampering sideways, chasing, tussling in lewd horseplay with each other, smacking each other with wet towels across the buttocks (they had just come from swimming in Jim Rheinhardt’s cow pond in the Cove), filling the quiet street with the intrusions of their raucous voices, taking the sun and joy and singing from the day.