OF TIME AND THE RIVER

by Thomas Wolfe

  "Yes, sir!" he said. "That's the way it is. And the thing that's begun to happen at home already is going to happen everywhere--all over the country. From now on you're going to see a period of rising prices and high wages--increased production, a boom in real estate, stocks, investments, business of all kinds--rising values everywhere such as you never saw before and never hoped to see."

  "And where is it going to stop?"

  "Stop!" the swarthy little man spoke almost curtly, and then barked, "It's not going to stop! Not during our lifetime, anyway! I tell you, man, we're just beginning! How can there be any talk of stopping when we haven't started yet? . . . There's been nothing like it before," he cried with passionate earnestness--"nothing to match it in the history of the world. We've had wars, booms, good times, hard times, slumps, periods of prosperity--but, I tell you, gentlemen!" and here he smote himself sharply on the knee and his voice rose with the strength of an unshakable conviction--"this thing is different! We have reached a stage in our development that no other country in the world has ever known--that was never dreamed of before--a stage that is beyond booms, depressions, good times, hard times--anything--"

  "You mean that after this we shall never be affected by those things?"

  "Yes, sir!" he cried emphatically. "I mean just that! I mean that we have learned the causes for each of those conditions. I mean that we have learned how to check them, how to control them. I mean that so far as we are concerned they don't exist any more!" His voice had become almost shrill with the force of his persuasive argument, and suddenly whipping a sheaf of envelopes, tied with a rubber band, out of his inner pocket, and gripping a stub of pencil in his stubby hand, he crossed his short fat legs with an energetic movement, bent forward poised above the envelopes, and said quietly but urgently:

  "See here, now!--I'd like to show you a few figures! My business, as you know, is to look after other people's money--your money, the town's money, everybody's money--I've got to keep my fingers on the pulse of business at every moment of the day--my business is to know--to know--and let me tell you something," he said quietly, looking directly in their eyes, "I do know,--so pay attention just a moment while I show these figures to you."

  And for some moments he spoke quietly, persuasively, his dark features packed with an energy of powerful conviction, while he rapidly jotted figures down upon the backs of the soiled envelopes, and they bent around him--their medicine-man of magic numerals--in an attitude of awed and rapt attentiveness. And when he had finished, there was silence for a moment, save for the rhythmic clack of wheels, the rocketing sound of the great train. Then one of the men, stroking his chin thoughtfully, and with an impressed air, said:

  "I see. . . . And you think, then, that in view of these conditions it would be better for the country if Harding is elected."

  The little man's manner became instantly cautious, non-committal, "conservative":

  "I don't say that," he said, shaking his head in a movement of denial--"I only say that whoever gets elected we're in for a period of unparalleled development. . . . Now both of them are good men--as I say, I shall probably vote for Cox--but you can rest assured," he spoke deliberately and looked around him in his compelling way--"you can rest assured that no matter which one gets elected the country will be in good hands. There's no question about that."

  "Yes, sir," said the florid-faced politician in his amiable and hearty way. "I agree with you. . . . I'm a Democrat myself, both in practice and in principle. I'm going to vote for Cox, but if Harding gets elected I won't shed any tears over his election. We'll have to give the Republicans credit for a good deed this time--they couldn't have made a wiser or a better decision. He has a long and honourable career in the service of his country,"--as he spoke his voice unconsciously took on the sententious ring and lilt of the professional politician--"no breath of scandal has ever touched his name: in public and in private life he has remained as he began--a statesman loyal to the institutions of his country, a husband devoted to his family life, a plain American of simple tastes who loves his neighbours as himself, and prefers the quiet life of a little town, the democracy of the front porch, to the marble arches of the Capitol--so, whatever the result may be," the orator concluded, "this nation need fear nothing: it has chosen well and wisely in both cases, its future is secure."

  Mr. Flood, during the course of this impassioned flight, had remained ponderously unmoved. In the pause that followed, he sat impassively, his coarse-jowled face and bulging yellowed eyes fixed on the orator in their customary expression of comic stupefaction. Now, breathing hoarsely and stertorously, he coughed chokingly and with an alarming rattling noise into his handkerchief, peered intently at his wadded handkerchief for a moment, and then said coarsely:

  "Hell! What all of you are saying is that you are goin' to vote for Cox but that you hope that Harding wins."

  "No, now, Jim--" the politician, Mr. Candler, said in a protesting tone--"I never said--"

  "Yes, you did!" Mr. Flood wheezed bluntly. "You meant it, anyhow, every one of you is sayin' how he always was a Democrat and what a great man Wilson is, and how he's goin' to vote for Cox--and every God-damn one of you is praying that the other feller gets elected. . . . Why? I'll tell you why," he wheezed coarsely, "--it's because we're sick an' tired of Woodrow, all of us--we want to put the rollers under him an' see the last of him! Oh, yes, we are," he went on brutally as some one started to protest--"we're tired of Woodrow's flowery speeches, an' we're tired of hearin' about wars an' ideals an' democracy an' how fine an' noble we all are an' 'Mister won't you please subscribe?' We're tired of hearin' bunk that doesn't pay an' we want to hear some bunk that does--an' we're goin' to vote for the crook that gives it to us. . . . Do you know what we all want--what we're lookin' for?" he demanded, glowering brutally around at them. "We want a piece of the breast with lots of gravy--an' the boy that promises us the most is the one we're for! . . . Cox! Hell! All of you know Cox has no more chance of getting in than a snowball has in hell. When they get through with him he won't know whether he was run over by a five-ton truck or chewed up in a sausage mill. . . . Nothing has changed, the world's no different, we're just the same as we always were--and I've watched 'em come an' go for forty years--Blaine, Cleveland, Taft, McKinley, Roosevelt--the whole damned lot of 'em--an' what we want from them is just the same: all we can get for ourselves, a free grab with no holts barred, and to hell with the other fellow."

  "So whom are you going to vote for, Jim?" said Mr. Candler smiling.

  "Who? Me?" said Mr. Flood with a coarse grin. "Why, hell, you ought to know that without asking. Me--I'm a Democrat, ain't I?--don't I publish a Democratic newspaper? I'm going to vote for Cox, of course."

  And, in the burst of laughter that followed, some one could be heard saying jestingly:

  "And who's going to win the Series, Jim? Some one told me you're for Brooklyn!"

  "Brooklyn!" Mr. Flood jeered wheezingly. "Brooklyn has just the same kind of chance Cox has--the chance a snowball has in hell! Brooklyn! They're in just the same fix the Democrats are in--they've got nothing on the ball. When Speaker and that Cleveland gang get through with them, Brooklyn is going to look just like Cox the day after the election. Brooklyn," he concluded with brutal conviction, "hasn't got a chance."

  And again the debate between the men grew eager, animated and vociferous: they shouted, laughed, denied, debated, jeered good-naturedly, and the great train hurtled onward in the darkness, and the everlasting earth was still.

  And other men, and other voices, words, and moments such as these would come, would pass, would vanish and would be forgotten in the huge record and abyss of time. And the great trains of America would hurtle on through darkness over the lonely, everlasting earth--the earth which only was eternal--and on which our fathers and our brothers had wandered, their lives so brief, so lonely, and so strange--into whose substance at length they all would be compacted. And the great trains would hurtle on for ever over the silent and e
ternal earth--fixed in that design of everlasting stillness and unceasing change. The trains would hurtle onward bearing other lives like these, all brought together for an instant between two points of time--and then all lost, all vanished, broken and forgotten. The trains would bear them onward to their million destinations--each to the fortune, fame, or happiness he wished, whatever it was that he was looking for--but whether any to a sure success, a certain purpose, or the thing he sought--what man could say? All that he knew was that these men, these words, this moment would vanish, be forgotten--and that great wheels would hurtle on for ever. And the earth be still.

  Mr. Flood shifted his gouty weight carefully with a movement of his fat arm, grunting painfully as he did so. This delicate operation completed, he stared sharply and intently at the boy again and at length said bluntly:

  "You're one of those Gant boys, ain't you? Ain't you Ben's brother?"

  "Yes, sir," the boy answered. "That's right."

  "Which one are you?" Mr. Flood said with this same brutal directness. "You ain't the one that stutters, are you?"

  "No," one of the other men interrupted with a laugh, but in a decided tone. "He's not the one. You're thinking of Luke."

  "Oh," said Mr. Flood stupidly. "Is Luke the one that stutters?"

  "Yes," the boy said, "that's Luke. I'm Eugene."

  "Oh," Mr. Flood said heavily. "I reckon you're the youngest one."

  "Yes, sir," the boy answered.

  "Well," said Mr. Flood with an air of finality, "I didn't know which one you were, but I knew you were one of them. I knew I'd seen you somewhere."

  "Yes, sir," the boy answered. He was about to go on, hesitated for a moment, and suddenly blurted out: "I used to carry a route on The Courier when you owned it. I guess that's how you remembered me."

  "Oh," said Mr. Flood stupidly, "you did? Yes, that's it, all right. I remember now." And he continued to look at the boy with his bulging stare of comic stupefaction and for a moment there was silence save for the pounding of the wheels upon the rail.

  "How many of you boys are there?" The swarthy and important-looking man who had previously been addressed as Emmet now spoke curiously: "There must be five or six in all."

  "No," the boy said, "there's only three now. There's Luke and Steve and me."

  "Oh, Steve, Steve," the little man said with an air of crisp finality, as if this was the name that had been at the tip of his tongue all the time. "Steve was the oldest, wasn't he?"

  "Yes, sir," said the boy.

  "Whatever became of Steve, anyway?" the man said. "I don't believe I've seen him in ten or fifteen years. He doesn't live at home any more, does he?"

  "No, sir," the boy said. "He lives in Indiana."

  "Does he for a fact?" said the little man, as if this was a rare and curious bit of information. "What's Steve doing out there? Is he in business?"

  For a moment the boy was going to say, "No, he runs a pool room and lives up over it with his wife and children," but feeling ashamed to say this, he said:

  "I think he runs some kind of cigar store out there."

  "Is that so?" the man answered with an air of great interest. "Well," he went on in a moment in a conciliatory tone, "Steve was always smart enough. He had brains enough to do almost anything if he tried."

  Emmet Wade, the man who had asked the boy all these questions, was a quick, pompous little figure, corpulently built, but so short in stature as to be almost dwarfish-looking. His skin was curiously and unpleasantly swarthy, and save for a fringe of thin black hair at either side, his head was completely bald. In that squat figure, the suggestion of pompous authority and mountainous conceit was so pronounced that even in repose, as now, the whole man seemed to strut. He was, by virtue of that fortuitous chance and opportunity which has put so many small men in great positions, the president of the leading bank of the community. Even as he sat there in the smoking compartment, with his short fat legs crossed, the boy could see him sitting at his desk in the bank, swinging back and forth in his swivel chair thoughtfully, his pudgy hands folded behind his head as he dictated a letter to his obsequious secretary.

  "Where's old Luke? What's he doing, anyway?" another of the men demanded suddenly, beginning to chuckle even as he spoke. The speaker was the florid-faced, somewhat countrified-looking man already noted, who wore the string neck-tie and spoke with the rhetorical severity of the small-town politician. He was one of the town commissioners and in his hearty voice and easy manner there was a more genial quality than any of the others had. "I haven't seen that boy in years," he continued. "Some one was asking me just the other day what had become of him."

  "He's got a job selling farm machinery and lighting equipment," the boy answered.

  "Is that so?" the man replied with this same air of friendly interest. "Where is he located? He doesn't get home very often, does he?"

  "No, sir," the boy said, "not very often. He comes in every two or three weeks, but he doesn't stay home long at a time. His territory is down through South Carolina and Georgia--all through there."

  "What did you say he was selling?" said Mr. Flood, who had been staring at the boy fixedly during all this conversation with his heavy expression of a slow, intent and brutal stupefaction.

  "He sells lighting systems and pumps and farm equipment and machinery--for farms," the boy said awkwardly.

  "That's Luke--who does that?" said Mr. Flood after a moment, when this information had had time to penetrate.

  "Yes, sir. That's Luke."

  "And he's the one that stutters?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "The one that used to have the agency for The Saturday Evening Post and did all that talking when he sold 'em to you?"

  "Yes, sir. That's Luke."

  "And what d'you say he's doing now?" said Mr. Flood heavily. "Selling farm machinery?"

  "Yes, sir. That's what he's doing."

  "Then, by God," said Mr. Flood, with a sudden and explosive emphasis which, after his former attitude of heavy, brutal stupefaction, was startling, "he'll do it!" The other men laughed and Mr. Flood shook his ponderous, crimson head slowly from side to side to emphasize his conviction in the matter.

  "If any one can sell 'em, he'll do it," he said positively. "That boy could sell Palm Beach suits to the Esquimaux. They'd have to buy 'em just to keep him from talking them to death."

  "I'll tell you what I saw him do one time," said the politician, shifting his weight a little in order to accommodate himself more comfortably to the motion of the train. "I was standing in front of the post office one day talking to Dave Redmond about some property he owned out on the Haw Creek Road--oh, it must have been almost fifteen years ago--when here he comes hustling along, you know, with a big bundle of his papers under his arm. Well, he sails right into us, talking about a mile a minute and going so fast neither of us had a chance to get a word in edgeways. 'Here you are, gentlemen,' he says, 'hot off the press, just the thing you've been waiting for, this week's edition of The Saturday Evening Post, five cents, only a nickel, the twentieth part of a dollar.' By that time," said Mr. Candler, "he had the thing all opened up and shoved up right under Dave Redmond's nose, and he was turning the pages and telling him all about the different pieces it had in it and who wrote them and what was in them, and what a bargain it was for five cents. 'W-w-w-why,' he says, 'if you b-b-b-bought it in a book, why it'd cost you a d-d-d-dollar and a half and then,' he says, 'it wouldn't be half as good.' Well, Dave was getting sort of red in the face by that time," Mr. Candler said, "and I could see he was sort of annoyed at being interrupted, but the boy kept right on with his spiel and wouldn't give up. 'I don't want it,' says Dave, 'I'm busy,' and he tries to turn away from him, but Luke moves right around to the other side and goes after him about twice as hard as before. 'Go on, go on,' says Dave. 'We're busy! I don't want it! I can't read!' he says. 'All right,' says Luke, 'then you can look at the p-p-p-pictures. Why, the pictures alone,' he says, 'are w-w-w-worth a half a dollar. It's the b-b-b-bargai
n of a lifetime,' he says. Well, the boy was pressing him pretty hard and I guess Dave lost his temper. He sort of knocked the magazine away from him and shouted, 'Damn it, I told you that I didn't want it, and I mean it! Now go on! We're busy.' Well," said Mr. Candler, "Luke didn't say a word for a moment. He took his magazine and put it under his arm again, and he just stood there looking at Dave Redmond for a moment, and then he said, just as quiet as you please, 'All right, sir. You're the doctor. But I think you're going to regret it!' And then he turned and walked away from us. Well, sir," said Mr. Candler, laughing, "Dave Redmond's face was a study. You could see he felt pretty small to think he had shouted at the boy like that, and acted as he did. And Luke hadn't gone twenty feet before Dave Redmond called him back. 'Here, son,' he says, diving his hand down into his pocket, 'give me one of those things! I may never read it but it's worth a dollar just to hear you talk.' And he gave him a dollar, too, and made him take it," Mr. Candler said, "and from that day on Dave Redmond was one of the biggest boosters that Luke had. . . . 'I think you're going to regret it,'" said Mr. Candler again, laughing at the memory. "That's the thing that did it--that's what got him--the way the boy just looked at him and said, 'All right, sir, but I think you're going to regret it.' That did the trick, all right." And pleased with his story and the memory it evoked, Mr. Candler looked mildly out of the window for a moment, smiling.

  "That was Luke that done that?" Mr. Flood demanded hoarsely after a moment, with his air of brutal and rather stunned surprise. "The one that stutters?"

  "Yes, that's the one all right," said Mr. Candler. "That's who it was."

  Mr. Flood pondered this information for a moment with his bulging eyes still fastened on Mr. Candler in their look of stupefied curiosity. Then, as the full import of what he had heard at length soaked into his intelligence, he shook his great coarse head once, slowly, in a movement of ponderous but emphatic satisfaction, and said with hoarse conviction:

  "Well, he's a good 'un! If any one can sell 'em, he's the one."