Still Jim

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER III

  THE BROWNSTONE FRONT

  "Coyote, eagle, Indian, I have seen countless generations of them fulfill their destinies and disappear. I wonder when my turn will come."

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  Jim and his mother did not feel like strangers when they reached NewYork. Mrs. Manning knew the city well and Jim, boy-like, was overjoyedat the idea of being in the great town.

  Mr. Dennis' brownstone front was one of the fine old houses on West 23rdstreet that are fast making way for stores. It was full of red Brusselscarpets and walnut furniture of crinkly design. It had crayonenlargements of Mrs. Dennis and the two small Dennises in the parlor andin the guest room and in Mr. Dennis' room. Jim wondered how Mr. Denniscould be so genial when he had lost so much.

  The third floor had two large rooms opening off a big central room, andthis floor, comfortably furnished, was for the use of Mrs. Manning andJim and the maid. Mrs. Manning solved the maid question by sending backto Exham for Annie Peyton. Annie was about forty. Her mother had beenhousekeeper for Mrs. Manning's mother and Annie was the domestic dayworker for the village. Up in Exham English customs still obtained amongthe old families. Annie was "Peyton" to Mrs. Manning.

  Jim guessed from his own feelings how her position as a servant hurt hismother. She herself never said anything, but Jim noticed that she madeno friends. Mr. Dennis treated her with a very real courtesy and baskedin her perfect housekeeping.

  Jim entered school at once. In his own way, he was a brilliant student.He had the sort of mind that instinctively grasps fundamentalprinciples, and this faculty, combined with a certain mental obstinacyand independence, made him at once the pride and terror of his teachers.He was a very firm rock on which to depend for exhibition purposes, butwhenever he asked questions they were of a searching variety that madehis teachers long to box his ears.

  It was rather a pity that all Jim's spare moments when not in school hadto be spent in janitor service. He missed the companionship of the boysin the public school which, in America, is an almost indispensable partof a boy's education. In his adult life he must meet and understand menand methods of every nationality. New York public schools are veritablecongresses of nations and a boy who plans to go into business gets farmore than mere book learning from them. Jim's poverty cut him out ofathletics and clubs so that all his inherent New England tendency tomental aloofness would have been vastly increased if it had not been forhis summer vacations.

  The first day of his summer vacation, Jim applied for a job. A steelskyscraper was being erected in 42nd street and Jim asked thesuperintendent of construction for work. The superintendent looked atthe lank lad, who now, fifteen, would have appeared eighteen were it notfor his smooth, almost childish face.

  "What kind of work, young fella?" asked the Boss.

  "Anything to start with," replied Jim, "until we see what I can do."

  "You're as thin as a lath. Ye can get down there with Derrick No. 2 andget some muscle laid on you. A dollar fifty a day is the best I can dofor you. Get along now."

  Jim's brain reeled with joy at the size of his prospective income. Henodded, pulled off his coat, leaving it in the superintendent's officeand found his way to Derrick No. 2.

  The structure was a big one, so big that the exigencies of New Yorktraffic were forcing the company to build in sections. A steel framenearly eighteen stories high was nearly finished at one edge, whileblasting for another portion of the foundation, five stories deep, wasgoing on at the other edge.

  Derrick No. 2 was in the new foundation. Jim's foreman was a Greek. Hiscompanion, with whom he guided the rock that the derrick lifted was aSicilian. The steam drillman whom Jim had to help was a negro. Therewere ten nationalities on the pay roll of the company. Jim had grownaccustomed to feeling in school that New York was not in America, but ina foreign country. Down in the five-story hole in the ground, with theear-shattering batter of the steam riveters above him, the groaning ofthe donkey engines, the tear and screech of the steam drills beside him,with the never ending clatter and chatter of tongues that he could notunderstand about him, Jim often got the sense of suffocation of whichhis father had complained. He detested foreigners, anyhow. There was inJim the race vanity of the Anglo-Saxon which is as profound as it isunconscious.

  Now, with his boyish sweat mingling with that of these alien workers onthe great new structure, Jim wondered how he was going to stand this,summer after summer, until he had his education. They seemed to him sodirty, so stupid, like so many chattering monkeys. To get to know them,to try to understand them, never occurred to him.

  Jim liked the darky, Hank, better than he did the others. To Hank theothers were foreigners as they were to Jim.

  "Don't talk so much. I can't hear ma drill!" yelled Hank in Jim's earone afternoon when the din was at its height.

  Jim flashed his charming smile. "I talk English, anyhow," he shoutedback, "when I do talk."

  "You'se the stillest white man I ever see. I'se callin' you Still Jim inmy mind. Pretty quick whites and colored folks can't get no jobs no morein this country. Just Bohunks and Wops and Ginnies. Can you watch thedrill one minute while I gits a drink?"

  Jim nodded and glanced up at the red spider web that was dotted clear tothe eighteenth floor with black dots of workmen. He looked up at thestreet edge of the gray pit. Black heads peered over the rail, staringidly at the workmen below. Jim felt half a thrill of pride that he was apart of the great work at which they gazed, half a hot sense ofresentment that they stared so stupidly at his discomfort.

  Far above gray stone and red ironwork was the deep blue of the summersky. Jim wondered if the kids in the old swimming hole missed him. Hewished he could lie on his back and talk to Phil Chadwick again. As hestared wistfully upward, a girder on the 18th floor twisted suddenly andswept across a temporary floor, brushing men off like crumbs. Jim sawthree men go hurtling and bounding down, down to the street. He couldnot hear them scream above the din. He felt sick at his stomach andlifted his hand from the drill, expecting the steam to be shut off. Butit was not.

  Hank came back, the whites of his eyes showing a little. "Killed three.All Wops," he said. "Morgue gets a man a day outa this place. They juststicks 'em outside the board fence and a policeman sends fer aambulance. The blood on these here New York buildings sure oughtahoo-doo 'em. There, you Still Jim, you get a drink o' water. You lookwhite. The iron workers quit fer the day. They always does when a mangits killed."

  That evening Jim did an errand to the tobacco shop for Mr. Dennis. Onhis return to the library with the cigars, Dennis looked at the boyaffectionately. Jim interested him. His faithfulness to his mother, hisquiet ways, his unboyish life, touched the Irishman.

  "You look a little peaked round the gills, Still Jim. Better cut thiswork you're doing and come to me office. I can't pay you so much butI'll make a lawyer of you."

  Jim shook his head. "The work is good for me. The gym teacher said I wasgrowing too fast and to stay outdoors all summer."

  "What's the matter with you, then?" insisted Dennis.

  "I saw three men killed just before quitting time," said the boy. Thensuddenly his face flushed. "Sometimes I hate it here in New York. Seemsas if I can't stand it. They don't care anything about human beings. Ican't think of New York as anything but a can full of angle worms, allof them crawling over each other to get to the top."

  "Sit down, me boy," said Dennis. "If little Mike had lived, he'd havebeen just your age, Still Jim. I don't like to think of you as having solittle of a boy's life. Jim, take the summer off and I'll take you tothe seashore."

  Jim smiled a little uncertainly. "I can't leave mama, and the money I'llget this summer will buy my clothes for a year and something for me toput in the bank. I'm all right. It's just that since--since you know Isaw Dad----" and to his utter shame Jim began to sob. He dropped hishead on his arm and Dennis' florid face became more deeply red as helooked at the long thin
body and the beautiful brown head shaken bysobs.

  "Good God, Jimmy, don't!" he exclaimed. "Why, you're all shot to pieces,lad. Hold on now, I'll tell you a funny story. No, I won't either. I'lltell you something to take up your mind. Still, do you think your motherwould marry me?"

  This had the desired effect. Jim jumped to his feet, forgetting even towipe the tears from his cheeks.

  "She certainly would not!" he cried. "I wouldn't let her. Has she saidshe would?"

  "I haven't asked her," replied Mr. Dennis meekly. "I wanted to talk toyou about it first. Much as I think of her, Jim, I wouldn't marry her ifyou objected. You've been through too much for a kid."

  Jim eyed Mr. Dennis intently. The Irishman was a pleasant,intelligent-looking man.

  "I like you now," said the boy, his voice catching from his heavysobbing, "but I'd hate you if you tried to take my father's place.Anyway, I don't think mama would even listen to you. What makes you wantto get married again, Mr. Dennis, after--after that?"

  Jim looked toward the crayon enlargement above the mantel.

  Dennis answered quickly. "Don't think for a minute I'd try to put anyonein her place." He nodded toward the sweet-faced woman who was lookingdown at them. "And I wouldn't expect to take your father's place. Iguess your mother and I both know we gave and got the best in life,once, and it only comes once. Only it's this way, Still Jim, me boy.When people pass middle age and look forward to old age, they see itlonely, desperately lonely, and they want company to help them gothrough it. I admire and respect your mother and I think as much of youas if you were me own. But you'll be going off soon to make your ownway. Then your mother and I could look out for each other. I leave thedecision to you, me boy."

  "I can't stand thinking of anybody in my father's place," repeated Jimhuskily. "I'm--I'm going out for a walk." And he rushed out of the houseand started north toward 42nd street, his mind a blur of protest.

  The same instinct that sends the workman back to look at the shop onhis Sunday afternoon stroll, urged Jim up to the new skyscraper. Thenight watchman was for driving the lank boy away until Jim explainedthat he worked in the foundation, and was just back to see how it lookedat night.

  "If you want to see a grand sight," said the old man, "get you up to thetop floor and look out at the city. Take the tile elevator at the back.Tell the man Morrissy sent ye."

  The work in the foundation was going on but not on the steel structure.No one heeded Jim. He reached the 18th floor, where there was a narrowtemporary flooring. Jim sat down on a coil of rope. The boy was badlyshaken.

  No one, unless for the first time tonight, Mr. Dennis, realized how harda nerve shock Jim had had in seeing his father killed. He had kept fromhis mother the horror of the nights that followed the tragedy. She didnot know that periodically, even now, he dreamed the August fields andthe dying men and the bloody derrick over again. She did not know whatutter courage it had taken to join the derrick gang, not for fear forhis own safety, but because of the dread association in his own mind.

  At first, the sense of height made Jim quiver. To master this he fixedhis mind on the details of structure underneath. Line on line thedelicate tracery of steel waiting for its concrete sheathing wassilhouetted below him. The night wind rushed past and he braced himselfautomatically, noting at the same time how the vibration of the steelcobweb was like a marvelous faint tune. The wonder of conception andworkmanship caught the boy's imagination.

  "That's what I'll do," he said aloud. "I'll build steel buildings likethis. In college, that's what I'll study, reinforced concrete building.I've got to find a profession that'll give me a bigger chance than poorDad had, so I can marry young and have lots and gob-lots of kids."

  The wind increased and Jim slid off the coil of rope and lay flat on hisback, looking up at the sky. It was full of stars and scudding clouds.Jim missed the sky in New York. He lay staring, sailing with the cloudswhile his boyish heart glowed with the stars.

  "I'm not in New York," he thought. "I'm--I'm out in the desert country.There isn't any noise. There aren't any people. I'm an engineer and I'mbuilding a bridge across a canyon where no one but the birds have evercrossed before. I'm making a place for people to come after me. I'mdiscovering new land for them and fixing it so they can come."

  For half an hour Jim lay and dreamed. He often had wondered what he wasgoing to be as a man. He had planned to be many things, from a milkmanto an Indian fighter. But since his father's death and indeed for sometime before, his mind had taken a bent suggested by Mr. Manning'smelancholy. What was the matter with Exham and the Mannings? Why had hisfather failed? What could he do to make up for the failure? Thesethoughts had colored the boy's dreams. No one can measure the importanceto a child of taking his air castles away from him. Tragedy scars achild permanently. Grown people often forget a heavy loss.

  But tonight, inspired by the wonder of the building and the heavens,Jim's mind slipped its leashings and took its racial bent. Suddenly hewas a maker of trails, a builder in the wilderness. He completed thebridge and then sat up with an articulate, "Gee whiz! I know what I'mgoing to be!"

  It seemed a matter of tremendous importance to the boy. He sat withclenched fists and burning cheeks, sensing for the first time one of thehighest types of joy that comes to human beings, that of finding one'spredilection in the work by which one earns one's daily bread. The senseof clean-cut aim to his life was like balm and tonic to the boy'snerves. Something deeper than a New York or a New England influence wasspeaking in Jim now. For the first time, his Anglo-Saxon race, his raceof empire builders, was finding its voice in him.

  Jim rode gaily down the tile elevator, his flashing smile getting avivid response from the Armenian elevator boy. He ran a good part of theway home and burst into the house with a slam, utterly unlike his usualquiet, unboyish steadiness. He was dashing past the library door on hisway upstairs to his mother, when he caught a glimpse of her sitting nearthe library table with Mr. Dennis. He forgot to be astonished at herunwonted presence there. He ran into the room.

  "Mama!" he cried. "Mama! I'm going to be an engineer and go out west andbuild railroads and bridges out where its wild! Aren't you glad?"

  Mr. Dennis and Mrs. Manning stared in astonishment at Jim's loquacityand at the glow of his face. His gray eyes were brilliant. His thickhair was wind-tossed across his forehead. Mr. Dennis, being Irish,understood. He rose, shook hands with Jim, his left hand patting theboy's shoulder.

  "You're made for it, Still Jim, me boy," he said, soberly. "You've theengineer's mind. How'd you come to think of it?"

  "Up on top of the skyscraper," replied Jim lucidly. "Don't you see,Mama? Isn't it great?"

  Mrs. Manning was trying to smile, but her lips trembled. She was wishingJim's father could see him now. "I don't understand, Jimmy. But if youlike it, I must. But what shall I do with you out west?"

  Jim gasped, whitened, then looked at Mr. Dennis and began to turn red.