There Was a Time

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Everything had been drained of color, dusted over with a grayish powder that seemed to make everything of the same deathly hue. But the heavens had escaped this universal decay. Though the zenith was dark and somber, the low west was flaring with a dull red fire, intense and wild. Above this belt of flame, the skies were a softer rose, melting yet bitterly cold, and above this was a pale lake of translucent jade filled with a flock of golden birds.

  Frank saw the sunset, but he never spoke of things that clutched and tormented him with their lonely beauty. He was too afraid of the old ridicule that had followed his earlier attempts to speak. Paul, too, was seeing the sunset. He regarded it, absorbed. But his face was rigid, almost frozen, full of inarticulate and motionless pain. He experienced none of the exaltation that so stirred and invigorated Frank, and none of his prayerful ecstasy. He felt only despair without words, hopelessness and longing beyond his power to understand.

  Then Paul said, speaking in his soft and reluctant voice: “Your poem was wonderful, Frank. It—it is like that sunset. Isn’t it?” he added, almost inaudibly.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Frank, with fine loftiness. “I’ve done better.” But now his heart was beating with rapture. He took Paul’s arm, and they went down the next street together. And then the next, in a deep and absorbed silence, seeing nothing but each other.

  They had reached West Avenue and Massachusetts Street. Paul stopped in front of a little house of gray wood, the windows tall and narrow and unlighted, the chimney without smoke. A little rickety stoop stood before the closed door. The house looked cold and gloomy and poverty-stricken. Its lawn had been neglected all summer, and dry faded grass stood upon it almost knee-high; it was beginning to move and rustle in a little bitter wind which was rising. Frank looked at it with vague discomfort. The house chilled him, seemed to send out its dusty aura to surround and choke him. He half waited for Paul to invite him in. But Paul did not invite him. Intimacy had not gone that far in that cool and reticent young heart. He merely looked at Frank without expression.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” said Frank suddenly. “I’ll come down to your house.”

  “All right,” responded Paul, indifferently. But he was inwardly excited and warmed. Now his face became humid, gentle, and he smiled.

  Frank scuffed his toe. He glanced up at Paul fearfully.

  “Do you like football?”

  “No!” For the first time, real emotion sounded in Paul’s tones. He made a faint gesture of involuntary repugnance. Frank grinned delightedly.

  “Neither do I. Fool business. Do you like anything else of that kind?”

  “No, I don’t!”

  “Neither do I.”

  They were caught up in intimate pleasure. They laughed. They were friends. Frank laughed loudly and joyously, but Paul’s laughter, so rare and niggardly, was a shrill and musical piping. They stood together, facing each other, these tall and emaciated young boys with the strange faces. Frank, even in the dusk, exuded vitality and fire. But Paul, standing there, gave an impression of immovable integrity. Frank was swift and brilliant lightning leaping across the skies, but Paul was granite rock that the lightning might play upon with only a distant threat of sundering it.

  Frank went down the street alone. He was very late, but he was not concerned about it. When he looked back, he saw Paul still standing on the sidewalk, watching him. He waved affectionately. It was now too dark for him to see whether Paul had responded or not. But Paul had not responded.

  Now that Frank was leaving him, the warmth and comfort and assurance were seeping out of Paul at every psychic crack, and fear crept in again. He went into the house.

  Frank walked on home, whistling softly, staring at the sky, which was now awakening with silvery stars. An active man, a lamplighter, ran ahead of him, turning on the gaslamps, lighting them, so that it was as if pale golden suns preceded Frank upon his way, and glowed into life as he approached.

  He reached the corner of a street. A girl was approaching, in a red coat and a red hood. She had dark curls on her shoulders, and a round pink face. Frank waited, and the hands in his pockets clenched. She came under the lamplight. It was not Jessica. She stared at him impudently, then looked away. He went on, desolate.

  CHAPTER 20

  Paul’s brother, Gordon, was just lighting the flaring gaslight in the cold and miserable little parlor when the younger boy came into the house.

  Gordon was taller and broader than Paul, and much healthier in appearance. His lean face was fair, very intelligent, and had a good color. Moreover, it was mobile, sly and expressive, which Paul’s was not. He had lively gray eyes, even though they had something of Paul’s cold suspicion in them, though none of Paul’s integrity. His wide white forehead, below a well-cut mop of light brown hair, showed intellect, but its tendency to wrinkle constantly betrayed lack of self-control. His mouth was almost pretty in its color and shape, but satirical.

  He cultivated small ills of the body, which relieved him of sundry responsibilities and duties. In this he displayed a good deal of genius, for he was naturally indolent and possessed of no strong emotion.

  “Hello,” he said in a voice of ironic amusement as he saw his brother. “Who was that funny-looking little boy you were talking to out there? The little boy who made his hands fly? He jumped around like a flea.”

  Paul’s lips compressed angrily, but he shrugged with carelessness.

  “Just a kid from school who walked home with me.”

  Gordon chuckled spitefully.

  “Well, that kid was certainly queer-looking,” he said.

  Paul’s light brows drew together harshly, though his face otherwise changed hardly at all. He was conscious, again, of a sudden possessiveness with regard to Frank. The memory of his new friend became precious, became part of himself. His mind closed on the memory of Frank like the shells of a clam, absorbed it, digested it, made it a portion of his own substance.

  “He’s not queer-looking. He’s a fine boy. He’s coming to see me tomorrow.”

  Gordon gave a display of mock stupefaction. “What! Since when did you start to make friends with school kids? And what a kid! While you were at the business of making friends, why didn’t you pick out someone more presentable and civilized?”

  “You don’t know anything about him, Gordon. He’s the only boy I ever cpuld stand, and I don’t want you to make fun of him tomorrow. His father’s a pharmacist, in a big drugstore,” he added, with a shrewd appeal to Gordon’s intense snobbery.

  Gordon was still unconvinced. “He doesn’t look it. I mean, he looks queer and has funny clothes. As if his father was a day-laborer. I hope this doesn’t mean that you are going to be like other people and fill the house with a pack of Toms, Dicks and Harrys. You know Dad would never stand for it, and I don’t want the place cluttered up with kids, myself. By the way, did you forget to bring home the bread and milk?”

  “Yes,” Paul said angrily.

  “Well, for the Lord’s sake, go out and get it! And don’t yell at me like that. You’re no tenor. And Dad’ll be sure to forget the paper, so you’d better get that, too. There’s a couple of cents on the kitchen table. You might clear off the table while you’re there, so I can start supper.”

  Paul stood in silence, glancing disconsolately about the room. A sick depression rolled over him. The Hodge family had moved in from Erie only three days before, and had not yet got settled in. The place had not been cleaned before the new tenants had arrived, and every object, from the scarred window-sills to the hideous oak “mission” furniture and frayed, discolored Brussels rug, was covered with a patina of oily dust. No mantles had as yet been put upon the gas jets, and the light was flickering, dim and yellow, and full of desolation. The wallpaper, discolored and dirty, and of an ugly brownish shade, would have darkened even the brightest light. On the bare oak table, square and ink-stained, stood a brass lamp with a brass-framed shade of milky colored glass, several bits of which were missing. Besides t
he mission furniture, there was an imitation black leather chair, cracked and peeling and showing the stuffing through an occasional small rip. The only piece of furniture belonging to the Hodges was a beautifully polished and simple mahogany chest of drawers in one corner, but its beauty was temporarily eclipsed by heaps of small newspaper parcels, match boxes, a bag of apples and one of grapes, a shabby violin case, and kindred trivia. A shivering small fire burned in the little iron stove; the room was both airless and acridly cold. Between the two small windows, curtainless and dismal, were several scuffed old suitcases. Gordon had lit the gas in the kitchen and the bedroom, and Paul could see the littered breakfast table, the dusty range, the disheveled and littered beds

  Paul shivered. Resentment flashed up in him like gunpowder. Gordon had complained of a headache that morning, and had not gone to school, where, in three days, he had distinguished himself. Despite his claim to indisposition, he looked extraordinarily fresh and complacent.

  “You’ve been home all day, Gordon,” said Paul. “You might have cleaned up a little of this mess and unpacked our things.”

  Gordon glanced up swiftly from the little stove, whose stubborn contents he had just been poking. His sandy brows drew together irritably. “I’ve had a headache. Besides, Dad ought to have had a woman in to clean up before we unpacked. But it seems that he expects us to do the scrubbing.”

  “Of course. Who else? Gordon, you talk so silly. You know Dad hasn’t any money at all. He can’t spare a cent. And now he’ll soon be home from the office and there’s nothing to eat in the house, and you haven’t even made the beds.”

  Gordon shrugged with contemptuous indifference. “All right, if you want things done, Cinderella, do them yourself.” His fair face tightened and colored vindictively; he went into the bedroom, turned up the gas, snatched a book from a broken and littered chair, tucked a soiled pillow under his sandy head, and collapsing onto the creaking bed, calmly began to read. “I’ve got to make up for missing today,” he said. “Run along, now, and get the bread and milk. You can put some potatoes on to boil, too, and you might get some boiled ham or some lamb chops while you’re out. And a can of beans and a couple of cupcakes from the bakery. Oh, and some tea. And don’t bother me.”

  Furious anger tore at Paul’s throat and heart. His long pale hands clenched. He had a mad longing to lay those hands on Gordon, to rip and slash and destroy with them. Nothing of what he felt showed on the small expressionless face, which seemed to lack the very muscles to reveal emotion. He merely looked tight and blank, though under his brows there was a strong and yellowish glare.

  After a moment, he went into the kitchen. He was trembling all through his thin body, and he felt sick. He gingerly washed some potatoes and lit the gas under them. On a filthy shelf was the family treasury of small coins, and he picked up several. He glanced into the bedroom. Gordon was serenely reading. His chilly lips were compressed in a stony silence, and Paul went out.

  The little corner store, dirty and smelly and cold, yielded up some boiled ham, a can of beans, and some bread and butter and tea. Paul looked at a basket of oranges, and hesitated. His father loved oranges, but the family purse was very thin, and it would be four days until pay day. Paul fumbled in another pocket where he was hoarding ten cents. He bought half a dozen oranges for his father, and asked that they be put into a separate bag. He would have to hide them from Gordon, who would eat them immediately, and would laugh in Paul’s face while doing so. Gordon’s dislike for his brother was even greater than his love for his father. The fact that he had deprived his father occupied less space in his mind than the fact that Paul would shudder with rage and “look ridiculous” in his helplessness.

  Paul bought an evening paper at the store, and while his purchases were being wrapped, he glanced listlessly at the headlines. He was rarely really interested in anything. He read of two suffragettes who had died during a hunger strike in London prisons. There was a forum of indignant ministers who were vigorously denouncing the modern hobbleskirt and its display of feminine calves when the owner climbed into a public vehicle, and one clergyman became lyrical about the effect this display would have on a tender, rising generation. “Women have lost all modesty,” he proclaimed. “Decorum is going the way of the horse and carriage and church attendance.” Paul yawned. He was not of the company of young boys who hung about corners where streetcars stopped for passengers, in hope of seeing the female limb exposed. He saw the headline: “King George visits Kaiser Wilhelm,” and was not interested. There were dire prophecies by Republican politicans that the recent election of Woodrow Wilson would result in “panic, depression, inflated money and disorganization, the usual concomitants of Democratic administration.” Mr. Taft, who had been defeated, had only dignified and restrained comments to make, but Mr. Theodore Roosevelt was less ambiguous, in his usual vitriolic manner. An embargo on war munitions into Mexico was announced. Everyone was very excited.

  A miserable woman, poorly dressed and with raw red hands, entered the store with a little girl of about five years. The woman’s face was pinched and white and fierce with chronic despair, and the child looked hungry and cold. The grocer was gathering Paul’s oranges up from the counter and was putting them into a bag, when the child snatched one greedily and thrust the thick yellow fruit against her chapped lips.

  “Here, you mustn’t do that,” began the grocer with uncomfortable kindness. But before he could take back the orange, Paul had pounced on the child. He snatched the fruit violently from the thin and dirty little fingers. “Pig!” he exclaimed, his voice shrill and keening. The woman, the grocer, the baby, stared at him, paralyzed. For his face had turned to gray stone, and in his eyes glared the mortal and loathing hatred that was so inexorably a part of his character, and which not even his father suspected. Between his livid lips, his large white teeth had a wet and ferocious glitter. He was only thirteen years old, but he looked, at that moment, like an insane and vicious old man.

  The baby began to cry suddenly, with fright. But the woman and the grocer were still petrified. In silence, they watched Paul leave the shop. Then the grocer breathed deeply, and grinned at his customer. “Well!” he exclaimed. “Did you ever see the like? Here, sweetheart, Mr. Murphy’ll give you a nice big orange. There’s the girl!”

  CHAPTER 21

  Paul, back in the miserable little cottage on West Avenue, washed dishes and looked at the shabby violin case on the chest of drawers. His brows contracted in a slight frown; he was full of sudden pain. He secretly believed that regular lessons would reveal the fact that he was a genius; his dreams at night were golden and flaming with visions of a world’s homage, a world’s adulation, and of having expressed himself in the noblest of music.

  The house was almost warm, the supper almost ready, when Edward Hodge crept wearily up the board sidewalk in the darkness. A few flakes of dry snow powdered his old overcoat with its threadbare sleeves and frayed collar. His hat was too large for him. Under it, his gentle wry face, with its one-sided, twisted smile, looked too small and angular. His trouser legs, though narrow in the prevailing style, still flapped emptily about his emaciated calves and thin ankles. He walked like a man who had reached the last boundary of exhaustion, and could go no farther. His shoulders were bent and huddled; he seemed to shrink from the bitter wind. He was of medium height rather than tall, and his lack of flesh made him seem even shorter.

  Edward Hodge was in reality a very sick man, and to the discerning and interested eye this was self-evident. He would have appeared pathetic had it not been for his continual sweet and sadly satirical smile; that smile saved him from appearing defenseless, warned off sympathy. Though only forty years old, he appeared older. It was not that he was prematurely gray or wizened or slow of gait. It was more in the expression of his fine, mild and intelligent blue eyes. In the sweetness and steadiness and endurance of his delicate features was a whimsicality and a wisdom that at times gave him a puckish look. He despised everyone, himself i
ncluded, with fragile humor. A strange and devoted little man was Edward Hodge, of immense tenacity and a certain fine-drawn grimness.

  Edna Hodge, his wife, had died when Paul had been but six months old. She had never seemed real to her husband; she was even less real to her sons. Edward had a faded photograph of her; Gordon resembled her closely, but there was a certain catlike fixity about her eyes which recalled Paul. However, Paul resembled his father, though he lacked the delicate mobility of the latter’s features. He possessed, however, their general contour and dignity, their reserve and secretiveness.

  It seemed to Edward, tonight, that he did not have the strength to push open the splintered wooden door of his new home. He had been certain all day that he would not be able to go on, that he must lie down and give up. Perhaps die. But he had not really believed that. There was nothing for him to do but to go on, to educate his sons, to give them an opportunity to be more than he had been.

  Until they no longer needed him, were no longer defenseless, he could not die, however his sick body ached and thirsted for death. His will kept him alive, his sons’ need of him. He had come to Bison from Erie because Bison was much larger, had better schools, chances for scholarships, and a State College, where tuition could be had for almost nothing.

  When he entered the little house, its close warmth seemed to enfold him and greet him with affection. Gordon, who was belatedly gathering up newspapers, immediately told his father of his headache, which had prevented him from going to school. Edward had no breath as yet to speak; he merely smiled. His pale and delicate face lit up. Paul ran in from the kitchen with a knife in his hand, and when he saw his father a radiance came into his eyes and he looked glorified as at the coming of a beloved. He said nothing, however, but helped his father to remove his coat.