“Confound it, let go of me,” he roared again, and shook her from him.
He ran hatless upon the street. There were a multitude of hacks at the summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he charged it like a bull. “Uptown,” he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat.
The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced a large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused such contortions by the little hatless man.
It chanced, as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed across the calm gray expanse and recognized a color in a bonnet and a poise of a head. A buggy was traveling along a highway that led to Sorington. Stimson bellowed: “There—there—there they are—in that buggy.”
The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation. He struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to awaken, to become animated and fleet. The horse ceased to ruminate on his state, his air of reflection vanished. He became intent upon his aged legs and spread them in quaint and ridiculous devices for speed. The driver, his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched each motion of this rattling machine down before him. He resembled an engineer. He used the whip with judgment and deliberation as the engineer would have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly upon the macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of the vehicle wheezed and groaned.
Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came to his face and he howled: “Go it—go it—you’re gaining; pound ’im! Thump the life out of ’im; hit ’im hard, you fool.” His hand grasped the rod that supported the carriage top, and it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue.
Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with speed, as from realization of the menace in the rear. It bowled away rapidly, drawn by the eager spirit of a young and modern horse. Stimson could see the buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like an eye, was a derision to him. Once he leaned forward and bawled angry sentences. He began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth’s pace; it was swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his bones must be laid in the earth. The dust rose easily from the hot road and stifled the nostrils of Stimson.
The highway vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that Stimson could no longer see the derisive eye.
At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and turned to look at Stimson. “No use, I guess,” he said.
Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage, despair. As the hackman turned his dripping horse about, Stimson sank back with the astonishment and grief of a man who has been defied by the universe. He had been in a great perspiration, and now his bald head felt cool and uncomfortable. He put up his hand with the sudden recollection that he had forgotten his hat.
At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any rate he was not responsible.
1893?
[New York Press, January 18 and 19, 1895, p. 7, each issue.]
* Midnight Sketches.
THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
I
Two men sat by the sea waves.
“Well, I know I’m not handsome,” said one gloomily. He was poking holes in the sand with a discontented cane.
The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with perspiring discomfort, as a man who is resolved to set another man right.
Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line. “To be sure you are not,” he cried vehemently. “You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must assure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of white wallpaper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like a little wooden plate. And your figure—heavens!”
For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.
Finally the first man spoke. “Well,” said he, defiantly, “what of it?”
“What of it!” exploded the other. “Why, it means that you’d look like blazes in a bathing suit.”
They were again silent. The freckled man seemed ashamed. His tall companion glowered at the scenery.
“I am decided,” said the freckled man suddenly. He got boldly up from the sand and strode away. The tall man followed, walking sarcastically and glaring down at the round, resolute figure before him.
A bath clerk was looking at the world with superior eyes through a hole in a board. To him the freckled man made application, waving his hands over his person in illustration of a snug fit. The bath clerk thought profoundly. Eventually, he handed out a blue bundle with an air of having phenomenally solved the freckled man’s dimensions.
The latter resumed his resolute stride.
“See here,” said the tall man, following him, “I bet you’ve got a regular toga, you know. That fellow couldn’t tell—”
“Yes, he could,” interrupted the freckled man, “I saw correct mathematics in his eyes.”
“Well, supposin’ he has missed your size. Supposin’—”
“Tom,” again interrupted the other, “produce your proud clothes and we’ll go in.”
The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.
At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too small cell, and he turned round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his bathing dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.
Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He began to clamor at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.
“Tom,” called he, “Tom—”
A voice of wrath, muffled by cloth, came through the walls. “You go t’ blazes!”
The freckled man began to groan, taking the occupants of the entire row of coops into his confidence.
“Stop your noise,” angrily cried the tall man from his hidden den. “You rented the bathing suit, didn’t you? Then—”
“It ain’t a bathing suit,” shouted the freckled man at the boards. “It’s an auditorium, a ballroom, or something. It ain’t a bathing suit.”
The tall man came out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping in front of his friend’s door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles.
“Come out of there, y’ ol’ fool,” said he, in an enraged whisper. “It’s only your accursed vanity. Wear it anyhow. What difference does it make? I never saw such a vain ol’ idiot!”
As he was storming the door opened, and his friend confronted him. The tall man’s legs gave way, and he fell against the opposite door.
The freckled man regarded him sternly. “You’re an ass,” he said. His back curved in scorn. He walked majestically down the alley. There was pride in the way his chubby feet patted the boards. The tall man followed, weakly, his eyes riveted upon the figure ahead.
As a disguise the freckled man had adopted the stomach of importance. He moved, with an air of some sort of procession, across a boardwalk, down some steps, and out upon the sand.
There was a pug dog and three old women on a bench, a man and a maid with a book and a parasol, a seagull drifting high in the wind, and a distant, tremend
ous meeting of sea and sky. Down on the wet sand stood a girl being wooed by the breakers.
The freckled man moved with stately tread along the beach. The tall man, numb with amazement, came in the rear. They neared the girl.
Suddenly the tall man was seized with convulsions. He laughed, and the girl turned her head.
She perceived the freckled man in the bathing suit. An expression of wonderment overspread her charming face. It changed in a moment to a pearly smile.
This smile seemed to smite the freckled man. He obviously tried to swell and fit his suit. Then he turned a shriveling glance upon his companion, and fled up the beach. The tall man ran after him, pursuing with mocking cries that tingled his flesh like stings of insects. He seemed to be trying to lead the way out of the world. But at last he stopped and faced about.
“Tom Sharp,” said he, between his clenched teeth, “you are an unutterable wretch! I could grind your bones under my heel!”
The tall man was in a trance, with glazed eyes fixed on the bathing dress. He seemed to be murmuring: “Oh, good Lord! Oh, good Lord! I never saw such a suit!”
The freckled man made the gesture of an assassin. “Tom Sharp, you—”
The other was still murmuring: “Oh, good Lord! I never saw such a suit! I never—”
The freckled man ran down into the sea.
II
The cool, swirling waters took his temper from him, and it became a thing that is lost in the ocean. The tall man floundered in, and the two forgot and rollicked in the waves.
The freckled man, in endeavoring to escape from mankind, had left all save a solitary fisherman under a large hat, and three boys in bathing dress, laughing and splashing upon a raft made of old spars.
The two men swam softly over the ground swells.
The three boys dived from their raft, and turned their jolly faces shoreward. It twisted slowly around and around, and began to move seaward on some unknown voyage. The freckled man laid his face to the water and swam toward the raft with a practiced stroke. The tall man followed, his bent arm appearing and disappearing with the precision of machinery.
The craft crept away, slowly and wearily, as if luring. The little wooden plate on the freckled man’s head looked at the shore like a round brown eye, but his gaze was fixed on the raft that slyly appeared to be waiting. The tall man used the little wooden plate as a beacon.
At length the freckled man reached the raft and climbed aboard. He lay down on his back and puffed. His bathing dress spread about him like a dead balloon. The tall man came, snorted, shook his tangled locks, and lay down by the side of his companion.
They were overcome with a delicious drowsiness. The planks of the raft seemed to fit their tired limbs. They gazed dreamily up into the vast sky of summer.
“This is great,” said the tall man. His companion grunted blissfully.
Gentle hands from the sea rocked their craft and lulled them to peace. Lapping waves sang little rippling sea-songs about them. The two men issued contented groans.
“Tom,” said the freckled man.
“What?” said the other.
“This is great.”
They lay and thought.
A fish hawk, soaring, suddenly turned and darted at the waves. The tall man indolently twisted his head and watched the bird plunge its claws into the water. It heavily arose with a silver gleaming fish.
“That bird has got his feet wet again. It’s a shame,” murmured the tall man sleepily. “He must suffer from an endless cold in the head. He should wear rubber boots. They’d look great, too. If I was him, I’d—Great Scott!”
He had partly arisen, and was looking at the shore. He began to scream. “Ted! Ted! Ted! Look!”
“What’s matter?” dreamily spoke the freckled man. “You remind me of when I put the bird-shot in your leg.” He giggled softly.
The agitated tall man made a gesture of supreme eloquence. His companion upreared and turned a startled gaze shoreward.
“Lord!” he roared, as if stabbed.
The land was a long brown streak with a rim of green, in which sparkled the tin roofs of huge hotels. The hands from the sea had pushed them away. The two men sprang erect, and did a little dance of perturbation.
“What shall we do? What shall we do?” moaned the freckled man, wriggling fantastically in his dead balloon.
The changing shore seemed to fascinate the tall man, and for a time he did not speak.
Suddenly he concluded his minuet of horror. He wheeled about and faced the freckled man. He elaborately folded his arms. “So,” he said, in slow, formidable tones. “So! This all comes from your accursed vanity, your bathing suit, your idiocy! You have murdered your best friend!” He turned away.
His companion reeled as if stricken by an unexpected arm. He stretched out his hands. “Tom, Tom,” wailed he, beseechingly, “don’t be such a fool.”
The broad back of his friend was occupied by a contemptuous sneer.
Three ships fell off the horizon. Landward, the hues were blending. The whistle of a locomotive sounded from an infinite distance as if tooting in heaven.
“Tom! Tom! My dear boy,” quavered the freckled man, “don’t speak that way to me.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” said the other, still facing away and throwing the words over his shoulder. “You suppose I am going to accept all this calmly, don’t you? Not make the slightest objection? Make no protest at all, hey?”
“Well, I—I—” began the freckled man.
The tall man’s wrath suddenly exploded. “You’ve abducted me! That’s the whole amount of it! You’ve abducted me!”
“I ain’t,” protested the freckled man. “You must think I’m a fool.”
The tall man swore and, sitting down, dangled his legs angrily in the water. Natural law compelled his companion to occupy the other end of the raft.
Over the waters little shoals of fish spluttered, raising tiny tempests. Languid jellyfish floated near, tremulously waving a thousand legs. A row of porpoises trundled along like a procession of cogwheels. The sky became grayed save where, over the land, sunset colors were assembling.
The two voyagers, back to back and at either end of the raft, quarreled at length.
“What did you want to follow me for?” demanded the freckled man in a voice of indignation.
“If your figure hadn’t been so like a bottle, we wouldn’t be here,” replied the tall man.
III
The fires in the west blazed away, and solemnity spread over the sea. Electric lights began to blink like eyes. Night menaced the voyagers with a dangerous darkness, and fear came to bind their souls together. They huddled fraternally in the middle of the raft.
“I feel like a molecule,” said the freckled man in subdued tones.
“I’d give two dollars for a cigar,” muttered the tall man.
A V-shaped flock of ducks flew toward Barnegat, between the voyagers and a remnant of yellow sky. Shadows and winds came from the vanished eastern horizon.
“I think I hear voices,” said the freckled man.
“That Dollie Ramsdell was an awfully nice girl,” said the tall man.
When the coldness of the sea night came to them, the freckled man found he could by a peculiar movement of his legs and arms encase himself in his bathing dress. The tall man was compelled to whistle and shiver. As night settled finally over the sea, red and green lights began to dot the blackness. There was mysterious shadows between the waves.
“I see things comin’,” murmured the freckled man.
“I wish I hadn’t ordered that new dress suit for the hop tomorrow night,” said the tall man reflectively.
The sea became uneasy and heaved painfully, like a lost bosom when little forgotten heart bells try to chime with a pure sound. The voyagers cringed at magnified foam on distant wave crests. A moon came and looked at them.
“Somebody’s here,” whispered the freckled man.
“I wish I had an almanac,” remarke
d the tall man, regarding the moon.
Presently they fell to staring at the red and green lights that twinkled about them.
“Providence will not leave us,” asserted the freckled man.
“Oh, we’ll be picked up shortly. I owe money,” said the tall man. He began to thrum on an imaginary banjo. “I have heard,” said he, suddenly, “that captains with healthy ships beneath their feet will never turn back after having once started on a voyage. In that case we will be rescued by some ship bound for the golden seas of the south. Then, you’ll be up to some of your confounded devilment, and we’ll get put off. They’ll maroon us! That’s what they’ll do! They’ll maroon us! On an island with palm trees and sun-kissed maidens and all that. Sun-kissed maidens, eh? Great! They’d—”
He suddenly ceased and turned to stone. At a distance a great green eye was contemplating the sea wanderers.
They stood up and did another dance. As they watched the eye grew larger.
Directly the form of a phantom-like ship came into view. About the great green eye there bobbed small yellow dots. The wanderers could hear a far-away creaking of unseen tackle and flapping of shadowy sails. There came the melody of the waters as the ship’s prow thrusted its way.
The tall man delivered an oration. “Ha!” he exclaimed, “here come our rescuers. The brave fellows! How I long to take the manly captain by the hand! You will soon see a white boat with a star on its bow drop from the side of yon ship. Kind sailors in blue and white will help us into the boat and conduct our wasted frames to the quarter-deck, where the handsome, bearded captain, with gold bands all around, will welcome us. Then in the hard-oak cabin, while the wine gurgles and the Havanas glow, well tell our tale of peril and privation.”
The ship came on like a black hurrying animal with froth-filled maw. The two wanderers stood up and clasped hands. Then they howled out a wild duet that rang over the wastes of sea.
The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane Page 16