The Web and the Root

by Thomas Wolfe

  He could certainly shoot. He gave a modest demonstration of his prowess one afternoon, with Randy’s “twenty-two,” that left them gasping. He just lifted that little rifle in his powerful black hands as if it were a toy, without seeming to take aim, pointed it towards a strip of tin on which they had crudely marked out some bull’s-eye circles, and he simply peppered the center of the bull’s eye, putting twelve holes through a space one inch square, so fast they could not even count the shots.

  He knew how to box, too. Randy said he had been a regimental champion. At any rate, he was as cunning and crafty as a cat. He never boxed with the boys, of course, but Randy had two sets of gloves, and Dick used to coach them while they sparred. There was something amazingly tender and watchful about him. He taught them many things, how to lead, to hook, to counter, and to block, but he was careful to see that they did not hurt each other. Nebraska, who was the most powerful of the lot, could hit like a mule. He would have killed Gus Potterham in his simple, honest way if he had ever been given a free hand. But Dick, with his quick watchfulness, his gentle and persuasive tact, was careful to see this did not happen.

  He knew about football, too, and that day, as Dick passed the boys, he paused, a powerful, respectable-looking negro of thirty years or more, and watched them for a moment as they played.

  Randy took the ball and went up to him.

  “How do you hold it, Dick?” he said. “Is this right?”

  Dick watched him attentively as he gripped the ball and held it back above his shoulder. The negro nodded approvingly and said:

  “That’s right, Cap’n Shepperton. You’ve got it. Only,” he said gently, and now took the ball in his own powerful hand, “when you gits a little oldah, yo’ handses gits biggah and you gits a bettah grip.”

  His own great hand, in fact, seemed to hold the ball as easily as if it were an apple. And, holding it so a moment, he brought it back, aimed over his outstretched left hand as if he were pointing a gun, and rifled it in a beautiful, whizzing spiral thirty yards or more to Gus. He then showed them how to kick, how to get the ball off of the toe in such a way that it would rise and spiral cleanly.

  He showed them how to make a fire, how to pile the kindling, where to place the coal, so that the flames shot up cone-wise, eleanly, without smoke or waste. He showed them how to strike a match with the thumbnail of one hand and keep and hold the flame in the strongest wind. He showed them how to lift a weight, how to “tote” a burden on their shoulders in the easiest way. There was nothing that he did not know. They were all so proud of him. Mr. Shepperton himself declared that Dick was the best man he’d ever had, the smartest darky that he’d ever known.

  And yet? He went too softly, at too swift a pace. He was there upon them sometimes like a cat. Looking before them sometimes, seeing nothing but the world before them, suddenly they felt a shadow at their back, and, looking up, would find that Dick was there. And there was something moving in the night. They never saw him come or go. Sometimes they would waken, startled, and feel that they had heard a board creak, the soft clicking of a latch, a shadow passing swiftly. All was still.

  “Young white fokes—O young white gentlemen”—his soft voice ending in a moan, a kind of rhythm in his lips—“O young white fokes, I’se tellin’ you—” that soft, low moan again—“you gotta love each othah like a brothah.” He was deeply religious and went to church three times a week. He read his Bible every night.

  Sometimes Dick would come out of his little basement room and his eyes would be red, as if he had been weeping. They would know, then, that he had been reading his Bible. There would be times when he would almost moan when he talked to them, a kind of hymnal chant, a religious ecstasy, that came from some deep intoxication of the spirit, and that transported him. For the boys, it was a troubling and bewildering experience. They tried to laugh it off and make jokes about it But there was something in it so dark and strange and full of a feeling they could not fathom that their jokes were hollow, and the trouble in their minds and in their hearts remained.

  Sometimes on these occasions his speech would be made up of some weird jargon of Biblical phrases and quotations and allusions, of which he seemed to have hundreds, and which he wove together in the strange pattern of his emotion in a sequence that was meaningless to them but to which he himself had the coherent clue.

  “O young white fokes,” he would begin, moaning gently, “de dry bones in de valley. I tell you, white fokes, de day is comin’ when He’s comin’ on dis earth again to sit in judgment. He’ll put de sheep upon de right hand and de goats upon de left—O white fokes, white fokes—de Armageddon days’ a-comin’, white fokes—an’ de dry bones in de valley.”

  Or again, they could hear him singing as he went about his work, in his deep, rich voice, so full of warmth and strength, so full of Africa, singing hymns that were not only of his own race, but that were familiar to them all. They didn’t know where he learned them. Perhaps they were remembered from his army days. Perhaps he had learned them in the service of former masters. He drove the Sheppertons to church on Sunday morning, and would wait for them throughout the service. He would come up to the side door of the church while the service was going on, neatly dressed in his good, dark suit, holding his chauffeur’s hat respectfully in his hand, and stand there humbly and listen during the course of the entire sermon.

  And then when the hymns were sung, and the great rich sound would swell and roll out into the quiet air of Sunday, Dick would stand and listen, and sometimes he would join quietly in the song. A number of these favorite hymns the boys heard him singing many times in a low, rich voice as he went about his work around the house. He would sing “Who Follows in His Train?”—or “Alexander’s Glory Song,” or “Rock of Ages,” or “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

  And yet? Well, nothing happened—there was just “a flying hint from here and there”—and the sense of something passing in the night.

  Turning into the Square one day, as Dick was driving Mr. Shepperton to town, Lon Pilcher skidded murderously around the corner, side-swiped Dick, and took the fender off. The negro was out of the car like a cat and got his master out. Mr. Shepperton was unhurt. Lon Pilcher climbed out and reeled across the street, drunk as a sot in mid-afternoon. He swung viciously, clumsily, at the negro, smashed him in the face. Blood trickled from the flat black nostrils and from the thick, liver-colored lips. Dick did not move. But suddenly the whites of his eyes were shot with red, his bleeding lips bared for a moment over the white ivory of his teeth. Lon smashed at him again. The negro took it full in the face again; his hands twitched slightly but he did not move. They collared the drunken sot and hauled him off and locked him up. Dick stood there for a moment, then he wiped his face and turned to see what damage had been done to the car. No more now, but there were those who saw it, who remembered later how the eyes went red.

  Another thing. The Sheppertons had a cook named Pansy Harris. She was a comely negro wench, young, plump, black as the ace of spades, a good-hearted girl with a deep dimple in her cheeks and faultless teeth, bared in a most engaging smile. No one ever saw Dick speak to her. No one ever saw her glance at him, or him at her—and yet that dimpled, plump, and smilingly good-natured wench became as mournful-silent and as silent-sullen as midnight pitch. She sang no more. No more was seen the gleaming ivory of her smile. No more was heard the hearty and infectious exuberance of her warm, full-throated laugh. She went about her work as mournfully as if she were going to a funeral. The gloom deepened all about her. She answered sullenly now when spoken to.

  One night towards Christmas she announced that she was leaving. In response to all entreaties, all efforts to find the reason for her sudden and unreasonable decision, she had no answer except a sullen repetition of the assertion that she had to leave, Repeated questionings did finally wring from her a statement that her husband wanted her to quit, that he needed her at home. More than this she would not say, and even this excuse was highly suspected, beca
use her husband was a Pullman porter, home only two days a week, and well accustomed to do himself such housekeeping tasks as she might do for him.

  The Sheppertons were fond of her. The girl had been with them for several years. They tried again to find the reason for her leaving. Was she dissatisfied? “No’m”—an implacable monosyllable, mournful, unrevealing as the night. Had she been offered a better job elsewhere? “No’m”—as untelling as before. If they offered her more wages, would she stay with them? “No’m”—again and again, sullen and unyielding; until finally the exasperated mistress threw her hands up in a gesture of defeat and said: “All right then, Pansy. Have it your own way, if that’s the way you feel. Only for heaven’s sake, don’t leave us in the lurch. Don’t leave us until we get another cook.”

  This, at length, with obvious reluctance, the girl agreed to. Then, putting on her hat and coat, and taking the paper bag of “leavings” she was allowed to take home with her at night, she went out the kitchen door and made her sullen and morose departure.

  This was on Saturday night, a little after eight o’clock.

  THAT SAME AFTERNOON Randy and Monk had been fooling around the Shepperton basement, and, seeing that Dick’s door was slightly ajar, they stopped at the opening and looked in to see if he was there. The little room was empty, and swept and spotless as it had always been.

  But they did not notice that! They saw it! At the same moment their breaths caught sharply in a gasp of startled wonderment. Randy was the first to speak.

  “Look!” he whispered. “Do you see it?”

  See it? Monk’s eyes were glued upon it. Had he found himself staring suddenly at the flat head of a rattlesnake his hypnotized surprise could have been no greater. Squarely across the bare boards of the table, blue-dull, deadly in its murderous efficiency, lay an automatic army rifle. They both knew the type. They had seen them all when Randy went to buy his little “twenty-two” at Uncle Morris Teitlebaum’s. Beside it was a box containing one hundred rounds of ammunition, and behind it, squarely in the center, face downward, open on the table, was the familiar cover of Dick’s old, worn Bible.

  Then he was on them like a cat. He was there like a great, dark shadow before they know it. They turned, terrified. He was there above them, his thick lips bared above his gums, his eyes gone small and red as rodents’.

  “Dick!” Randy gasped, and moistened his dry lips. “Dick!” he fairly cried now.

  It was all over like a flash. Dick’s mouth closed. They could see the whites of his eyes again. He smiled and said softly, affably, “Yes suh, Cap’n Shepperton. Yes suh! You gent-mun lookin’ at my rifle?”—and he stepped across the sill into the room.

  Monk gulped and nodded his head and couldn’t say a word, and Randy whispered, “Yes.” And both of them still stared at him with an expression of appalled and fascinated interest.

  Dick shook his head and chuckled. “Can’t do without my rifle, white fokes. No suh!” He shook his head good-naturedly again, “Ole Dick, he’s—he’s—he’s an ole ahmy man, you know. He’s gotta have his rifle. If they take his rifle away from him, why that’s jest lak takin’ candy away from a little baby. Yes suh!” he chuckled again, and picked the weapon up affectionately. “Ole Dick felt Christmas comin’ on—he—he—I reckon he must have felt it in his bones,” he chuckled, “so I been savin’ up my money—I jest thought I’d hide this heah and keep it as a big surprise fo’ the young white fokes,” he said. “I was jest gonna put it away heah and keep it untwill Christmas morning. Then I was gonna take the young white fokes out and show ’em how to shoot.”

  They had begun to breathe more easily now, and, almost as if they were under the spell of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, they had followed him step by step into the room.

  “Yes suh,” Dick chuckled, “I was jest fixin’ to hide this gun away and keep it hid twill Christmas day, but Cap’n Shepperton—hee!” he chuckled heartily and slapped his thigh—“you can’t fool ole Cap’n Shepperton! He was too quick fo’ me. He jest must’ve smelled this ole gun right out. He comes right in and sees it befo’ I has a chance to tu’n around…. Now, white fokes,” Dick’s voice fell to a tone of low and winning confidence, “Ah’s hopin’ that I’d git to keep this gun as a little surprise fo’ you. Now that you’s found out, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll jest keep it a surprise from the other white fokes twill Christmas day, I’ll take all you gent’mun out and let you shoot it. Now cose,” he went on quietly, with a shade of resignation, “if you want to tell on me you can—but”—here his voice fell again, with just the faintest yet most eloquent shade of sorrowful regret—“Ole Dick was lookin’ fahwad to this. He was hopin’ to give all the white fokes a supprise Christmas day.”

  They promised earnestly that they would keep his secret as if it were their own. They fairly whispered their solemn vow. They tiptoed away out of the little basement room, as if they were afraid their very footsteps might betray the partner of their confidence.

  This was four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Already, there was a somber moaning of the wind, grey storm clouds sweeping over. The threat of snow was in the air.

  SNOW FELL THAT night. It began at six o’clock. It came howling down across the hills. It swept in on them from the Smokies. By seven o’clock the air was blind with sweeping snow, the earth was carpeted, the streets were numb. The storm howled on, around houses warm with crackling fires and shaded light. All life seemed to have withdrawn into thrilling isolation. A horse went by upon the street with muffled hoofs.

  George Webber went to sleep upon this mystery, lying in the darkness, listening to that exultancy of storm, to that dumb wonder, that enormous and attentive quietness of snow, with something dark and jubilant in his soul he could not utter.

  Snow in the South is wonderful. It has a kind of magic and a mystery that it has nowhere else. And the reason for this is that it comes to people in the South not as the grim, unyielding tenant of the Winter’s keep, but as a strange and wild visitor from the secret North. It comes to them from darkness, to their own special and most secret soul there in the South. It brings to them the thrilling isolation of its own white mystery. It brings them something that they lack, and that they have to have; something that they have lost, but now have found: something that they have known utterly, but had forgotten until now.

  In every man there are two hemispheres of light and dark, two worlds discrete, two countries of his soul’s adventure. And one of these is the dark land, the other half of his heart’s home, the unvisited domain of his father’s earth.

  And this is the land he knows the best. It is the earth unvisited—and it is his, as nothing he has seen can ever be. It is the world intangible that he has never touched—yet more his own than something he has owned forever. It is the great world of his mind, his heart, his spirit, built there in his imagination, shaped by wonder and unclouded by the obscuring flaws of accident and actuality, the proud, unknown earth of the lost, the found, the never-here, the ever-real America, unsullied, true, essential, built there in the brain, and shaped to glory by the proud and flaming vision of a child.

  Thus, at the head of those two poles of life will lie the real, the truthful image of its immortal opposite. Thus, buried in the dark heart of the cold and secret North, abides forever the essential image of the South; thus, at the dark heart of the moveless South, there burns forever the immortal splendor of the North.

  So had it always been with George. The other half of his heart’s home, the world unknown that he knew the best, was the dark North. And snow swept in that night across the hills, demonic visitant, to restore that land to him, to sheet it in essential wonder. Upon this mystery he fell asleep.

  A LITTLE AFTER two o’clock next morning he was awakened by the ringing of a bell. It was the fire bell of the City Hall, and it was beating an alarm—a hard, fast stroke that he had never heard before. Bronze with peril, clangorous through the snow-numbed silence of the air, it had a quality of instancy and m
enace he had never known before. He leaped up and ran to the window to look for the telltale glow against the sky. But it was no fire. Almost before he looked, those deadly strokes beat in upon his brain the message that this was no alarm for fire. It was a savage, brazen tongue calling the town to action, warning mankind against the menace of some peril—secret, dark, unknown, greater than fire or flood could ever be.

  He got instantly, in the most overwhelming and electric way, the sense that the whole town had come to life. All up and down the street the houses were beginning to light up. Next door, the Shepperton house was ablaze with light, from top to bottom. Even as he looked Mr. Shepperton, wearing an overcoat over his pajamas, ran down the steps and padded out across the snow-covered walk towards the street.

  People were beginning to run out of doors. He heard excited cries and shouts and questions everywhere. He saw Nebraska Crane come pounding up the middle of the street. He knew that he was coming for him and Randy. As Bras ran by Shepperton’s, he put his fingers to his mouth and whistled piercingly. It was a signal they all knew.

  Monk was already almost dressed by the time he came running in across the front yard. He hammered at the door; Monk was already there. They both spoke at once. He had answered Monk’s startled question before he got it out.

  “Come on!” he said, panting with excitement, his Cherokee black eyes burning with an intensity Monk had never seen before. “Come on!” he cried. They were halfway out across the yard by now. “It’s that nigger! He’s gone crazy and is running wild!”