The Classic American Short Story Megapack, Volume 1

by Ambrose Bierce

  “Next corner, dear,” he said finally.

  They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.

  There was silence. Potter’s mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman’s grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake.

  The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity.

  “Tried to sneak up on me,” he said. “Tried to sneak up on me!” His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. “No, don’t you do it, Jack Potter. Don’t you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Don’t you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I’m goin’ to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin’. So if you don’t want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you.”

  Potter looked at his enemy. “I ain’t got a gun on me, Scratchy,” he said. “Honest, I ain’t.” He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated, the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil—all the glory of the marriage, the environment of the new estate. “You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I ain’t got a gun on me. You’ll have to do all the shootin’ yourself.”

  His enemy’s face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter’s chest. “Don’t you tell me you ain’t got no gun on you, you whelp. Don’t tell me no lie like that. There ain’t a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don’t take me for no kid.” His eyes blazed with light, and his throat worked like a pump.

  “I ain’t takin’ you for no kid,” answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. “I’m takin’ you for a damned fool. I tell you I ain’t got a gun, and I ain’t. If you’re goin’ to shoot me up, you better begin now. You’ll never get a chance like this again.”

  So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson’s rage. He was calmer. “If you ain’t got a gun, why ain’t you got a gun?” he sneered. “Been to Sunday-school?”

  “I ain’t got a gun because I’ve just come from San Anton’ with my wife. I’m married,” said Potter. “And if I’d thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I’d had a gun, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Married!” said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.

  “Yes, married. I’m married,” said Potter distinctly.

  “Married?” said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other man’s side. “No!” he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. “Is this the lady?” he asked.

  “Yes, this is the lady,” answered Potter.

  There was another period of silence.

  “Well,” said Wilson at last, slowly, “I s’pose it’s all off now.”

  “It’s all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn’t make the trouble.” Potter lifted his valise.

  “Well, I ’low it’s off, Jack,” said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. “Married!” He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.

  THE MONSTER, by Stephen Crane

  I

  Little Jim was, for the time, engine Number 36, and he was making the run between Syracuse and Rochester. He was fourteen minutes behind time, and the throttle was wide open. In consequence, when he swung around the curve at the flower-bed, a wheel of his cart destroyed a peony. Number 36 slowed down at once and looked guiltily at his father, who was mowing the lawn. The doctor had his back to this accident, and he continued to pace slowly to and fro, pushing the mower.

  Jim dropped the tongue of the cart. He looked at his father and at the broken flower. Finally he went to the peony and tried to stand it on its pins, resuscitated, but the spine of it was hurt, and it would only hang limply from his hand. Jim could do no reparation. He looked again towards his father.

  He went on to the lawn, very slowly, and kicking wretchedly at the turf. Presently his father came along with the whirring machine, while the sweet, new grass blades spun from the knives. In a low voice, Jim said, “Pa!”

  The doctor was shaving this lawn as if it were a priest’s chin. All during the season he had worked at it in the coolness and peace of the evenings after supper. Even in the shadow of the cherry-trees the grass was strong and healthy. Jim raised his voice a trifle. “Pa!”

  The doctor paused, and with the howl of the machine no longer occupying the sense, one could hear the robins in the cherry-trees arranging their affairs. Jim’s hands were behind his back, and sometimes his fingers clasped and unclasped. Again he said, “Pa!” The child’s fresh and rosy lip was lowered.

  The doctor stared down at his son, thrusting his head forward and frowning attentively. “What is it, Jimmie?”

  “Pa!” repeated the child at length. Then he raised his finger and pointed at the flowerbed. “There!”

  “What?” said the doctor, frowning more. “What is it, Jim?”

  After a period of silence, during which the child may have undergone a severe mental tumult, he raised his finger and repeated his former word—“There!” The father had respected this silence with perfect courtesy. Afterwards his glance carefully followed the direction indicated by the child’s finger, but he could see nothing which explained to him. “I don’t understand what you mean, Jimmie,” he said.

  It seemed that the importance of the whole thing had taken away the boy’s vocabulary, He could only reiterate, “There!”

  The doctor mused upon the situation, but he could make nothing of it. At last he said, “Come, show me.”

  Together they crossed the lawn towards the flower-bed. At some yards from the broken peony Jimmie began to lag. “There!” The word came almost breathlessly.

  “Where?” said the doctor.

  Jimmie kicked at the grass. “There!” he replied.

  The doctor was obliged to go forward alone. After some trouble he found the subject of the incident, the broken flower. Turning then, he saw the child lurking at the rear and scanning his countenance.

  The father reflected. After a time he said, “Jimmie, come here.” With an infinite modesty of demeanor the child came forward. “Jimmie, how did this happen?”

  The child answered, “Now—I was playin’ train—and—now—I runned over it.”

  “You were doing what?”

  “I was playin’ train.”

  The father reflected again. “Well, Jimmie,” he said, slowly, “I guess you had better not play train any more to-day. Do you think you had better?”

  “No, sir,” said Jimmie.

  During the delivery of the judgment the child had not faced his father, and afterwards he went away, with his head lowered, shuffling his feet.

  II

  It was apparent from Jimmie’s manner that he felt some kind of desire to efface himself. He went down to the stable. Henry Johnson, the negro who cared for the doctor’s horses, was spongi
ng the buggy. He grinned fraternally when he saw Jimmie coming. These two were pals. In regard to almost everything in life they seemed to have minds precisely alike. Of course there were points of emphatic divergence. For instance, it was plain from Henry’s talk that he was a very handsome negro, and he was known to be a light, a weight, and an eminence in the suburb of the town, where lived the larger number of the negroes, and obviously this glory was over Jimmie’s horizon; but he vaguely appreciated it and paid deference to Henry for it mainly because Henry appreciated it and deferred to himself. However, on all points of conduct as related to the doctor, who was the moon, they were in complete but unexpressed understanding. Whenever Jimmie became the victim of an eclipse he went to the stable to solace himself with Henry’s crimes. Henry, with the elasticity of his race, could usually provide a sin to place himself on a footing with the disgraced one. Perhaps he would remember that he had forgotten to put the hitching-strap in the back of the buggy on some recent occasion, and had been reprimanded by the doctor. Then these two would commune subtly and without words concerning their moon, holding themselves sympathetically as people who had committed similar treasons. On the other hand, Henry would sometimes choose to absolutely repudiate this idea, and when Jimmie appeared in his shame would bully him most virtuously, preaching with assurance the precepts of the doctor’s creed, and pointing out to Jimmie all his abominations. Jimmie did not discover that this was odious in his comrade. He accepted it and lived in its shadow with humility, merely trying to conciliate the saintly Henry with acts of deference. Won by this attitude, Henry would sometimes allow the child to enjoy the felicity of squeezing the sponge over a buggy-wheel, even when Jimmie was still gory from unspeakable deeds.

  Whenever Henry dwelt for a time in sackcloth, Jimmie did not patronize him at all. This was a justice of his age, his condition. He did not know. Besides, Henry could drive a horse, and Jimmie had a full sense of this sublimity. Henry personally conducted the moon during the splendid journeys through the country roads, where farms spread on all sides, with sheep, cows, and other marvels abounding.

  “Hello, Jim!” said Henry, poising his sponge. Water was dripping from the buggy. Sometimes the horses in the stalls stamped thunderingly on the pine floor. There was an atmosphere of hay and of harness.

  For a minute Jimmie refused to take an interest in anything. He was very downcast. He could not even feel the wonders of wagon washing. Henry, while at his work, narrowly observed him.

  “Your pop done wallop yer, didn’t he?” he said at last.

  “No,” said Jimmie, defensively; “he didn’t.”

  After this casual remark Henry continued his labor, with a scowl of occupation. Presently he said: “I done tol’ yer many’s th’ time not to go a-foolin’ an’ a-projjeckin’ with them flowers. Yer pop don’ like it nohow.” As a matter of fact, Henry had never mentioned flowers to the boy.

  Jimmie preserved a gloomy silence, so Henry began to use seductive wiles in this affair of washing a wagon. It was not until he began to spin a wheel on the tree, and the sprinkling water flew everywhere, that the boy was visibly moved. He had been seated on the sill of the carriage-house door, but at the beginning of this ceremony he arose and circled towards the buggy, with an interest that slowly consumed the remembrance of a late disgrace.

  Johnson could then display all the dignity of a man whose duty it was to protect Jimmie from a splashing. “Look out, boy! look out! You done gwi’ spile yer pants. I raikon your mommer don’t ’low this foolishness, she know it. I ain’t gwi’ have you round yere spilin’ yer pants, an’ have Mis’ Trescott light on me pressen’ly. ’Deed I ain’t.” He spoke with an air of great irritation, but he was not annoyed at all. This tone was merely a part of his importance. In reality he was always delighted to have the child there to witness the business of the stable. For one thing, Jimmie was invariably overcome with reverence when he was told how beautifully a harness was polished or a horse groomed. Henry explained each detail of this kind with unction, procuring great joy from the child’s admiration.

  III

  After Johnson had taken his supper in the kitchen, he went to his loft in the carriage house and dressed himself with much care. No belle of a court circle could bestow more mind on a toilet than did Johnson. On second thought, he was more like a priest arraying himself for some parade of the church. As he emerged from his room and sauntered down the carriage-drive, no one would have suspected him of ever having washed a buggy.

  It was not altogether a matter of the lavender trousers, nor yet the straw hat with its bright silk band. The change was somewhere, far in the interior of Henry. But there was no cake-walk hyperbole in it. He was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman of position, wealth, and other necessary achievements out for an evening stroll, and he had never washed a wagon in his life.

  In the morning, when in his working-clothes, he had met a friend—“Hello, Pete!” “Hello, Henry!” Now, in his effulgence, he encountered this same friend. His bow was not at all haughty. If it expressed anything, it expressed consummate generosity—“Good-evenin’, Misteh Washington.” Pete, who was very dirty, being at work in a potato-patch, responded in a mixture of abasement and appreciation—Good-evenin’, Misteh Johnsing.”

  The shimmering blue of the electric arc lamps was strong in the main street of the town. At numerous points it was conquered by the orange glare of the outnumbering gaslights in the windows of shops. Through this radiant lane moved a crowd, which culminated in a throng before the post-office, awaiting the distribution of the evening mails. Occasionally there came into it a shrill electric street-car, the motor singing like a cageful of grasshoppers, and possessing a great gong that clanged forth both warnings and simple noise. At the little theatre, which was a varnish and red plush miniature of one of the famous New York theatres, a company of strollers was to play “East Lynne.” The young men of the town were mainly gathered at the corners, in distinctive groups, which expressed various shades and lines of chumship, and had little to do with any social gradations. There they discussed everything with critical insight, passing the whole town in review as it swarmed in the street. When the gongs of the electric cars ceased for a moment to harry the ears, there could be heard the sound of the feet of the leisurely crowd on the bluestone pavement, and it was like the peaceful evening lashing at the shore of a lake. At the foot of the hill, where two lines of maples sentinelled the way, an electric lamp glowed high among the embowering branches, and made most wonderful shadow-etchings on the road below it.

  When Johnson appeared amid the throng a member of one of the profane groups at a corner instantly telegraphed news of this extraordinary arrival to his companions. They hailed him. “Hello, Henry! Going to walk for a cake to-night?”

  “Ain’t he smooth?”

  “Why, you’ve got that cake right in your pocket, Henry!”

  “Throw out your chest a little more.”

  Henry was not ruffled in any way by these quiet admonitions and compliments. In reply he laughed a supremely good-natured, chuckling laugh, which nevertheless expressed an underground complacency of superior metal.

  Young Griscom, the lawyer, was just emerging from Reifsnyder’s barber shop, rubbing his chin contentedly. On the steps he dropped his hand and looked with wide eyes into the crowd. Suddenly he bolted back into the shop. “Wow!” he cried to the parliament; “you ought to see the coon that’s coming!”

  Reifsnyder and his assistant instantly poised their razors high and turned towards the window. Two belathered heads reared from the chairs. The electric shine in the street caused an effect like water to them who looked through the glass from the yellow glamour of Reifsnyder’s shop. In fact, the people without resembled the inhabitants of a great aquarium that here had a square pane in it. Presently into this frame swam the graceful form of Henry Johnson.

  “Chee!” said Reifsnyder. He and his assistant with one accord threw the
ir obligations to the winds, and leaving their lathered victims helpless, advanced to the window. “Ain’t he a taisy?” said Reifsnyder, marvelling.

  But the man in the first chair, with a grievance in his mind, had found a weapon. “Why, that’s only Henry Johnson, you blamed idiots! Come on now, Reif, and shave me. What do you think I am—a mummy?”

  Reifsnyder turned, in a great excitement. “I bait you any money that vas not Henry Johnson! Henry Johnson! Rats!” The scorn put into this last word made it an explosion. “That man was a Pullman-car porter or someding. How could that be Henry Johnson?” he demanded, turbulently. “You vas crazy.”

  The man in the first chair faced the barber in a storm of indignation. “Didn’t I give him those lavender trousers?” he roared.

  And young Griscom, who had remained attentively at the window, said: “Yes, I guess that was Henry. It looked like him.”

  “Oh, vell,” said Reifsnyder, returning to his business, “if you think so! Oh, vell!” He implied that he was submitting for the sake of amiability.

  Finally the man in the second chair, mumbling from a mouth made timid by adjacent lather, said: “That was Henry Johnson all right. Why, he always dresses like that when he wants to make a front! He’s the biggest dude in town—anybody knows that.”

  “Chinger!” said Reifsnyder.

  Henry was not at all oblivious of the wake of wondering ejaculation that streamed out behind him. On other occasions he had reaped this same joy, and he always had an eye for the demonstration. With a face beaming with happiness he turned away from the scene of his victories into a narrow side street, where the electric light still hung high, but only to exhibit a row of tumble-down houses leaning together like paralytics.

  The saffron Miss Bella Farragut, in a calico frock, had been crouched on the front stoop, gossiping at long range, but she espied her approaching caller at a distance. She dashed around the corner of the house, galloping like a horse. Henry saw it all, but he preserved the polite demeanor of a guest when a waiter spills claret down his cuff. In this awkward situation he was simply perfect.