The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

In 1924 Cain began writing for H. L. Mencken’s American Mercury. His first contributions were typical magazine essays, but right from the beginning he showed an unusual talent for capturing the speech and dialects of the average man. For example: In his first piece — “The Labor Leader,” which appeared in the February 1924 Mercury — Cain compared the labor leader with the businessman and said that just as the businessman had come to the point where everything was “a proposition,” the labor leader had reached the point where everything was “a matter.”

With his talent for dialogue, Cain eventually suggested to Mencken that he be allowed to do his iconoclastic, satiric pieces entirely in dialogue, and the Mercury editor agreed. The result was a series beginning in the April 1925 Mercury lampooning various aspects of town and local government. The pieces were essentially little one-act plays and attracted considerable attention in the literary world, establishing Cain as a humorist and master of American dialect, both rural and urban. He continued to write these dialogues until he had amassed enough for a book, Our Government, published in 1930. Two of them, “The Hero” and “Theological Interlude,” are included here. The first was included in Our Government under the title “Town Government: The Commissioners”; the second, he intended to include because he felt the book needed some sort of offbeat piece “to wash it up,” but then decided that religion has very little to do with American government and dropped it. Another, “The Governor,” was included in Katharine and E. B. White’s Subtreasury of American Humor, which pleased Cain immensely. “The piece,” he wrote Katharine White, “is one of the few things I have ever written that I have real affection for.”

The dialogues also impressed Phil Goodman, a friend of Mencken’s who produced Broadway plays. Mencken introduced the two men, and Goodman encouraged Cain to write a full play. It was about a modern-day Messiah who comes to the coal mines of West Virginia to save the miners and their families. He called it Crashing the Gates, and it was produced in 1926, a year before Sinclair Lewis’s indictment of the clergy in Elmer Gantry. Clearly, the country was not ready for it. It shocked theatergoers in Stamford and Worcester, many of whom hissed, booed, stomped their feet, and then walked out. Crashing the Gates closed before it reached Broadway, but Cain never lost his urge to write a successful play. It was a dream he never realized.

Cain was also developing as a writer of short fiction in another outlet — the New York World. In 1928, partly to help meet his alimony payments, Cain started writing a regular column for the Sunday section. It consisted almost entirely of short sketches, as he called them, similar to the longer dialogues he was writing for the Mercury. They were, however, rather tepid versions of his Mercury pieces, given the restrictions of a family newspaper. For his World sketches he could not write about “niggers,” murderers, and burning “stiffs” in a county poorhouse as he did for Mencken; he had to be more conventional. In the first year, his column was devoted entirely to a neighborhood centering around a fictional Bender Street in a city which was obviously New York. The recurring characters included: Mr. Schwartz, proprietor of the Bender Pharmacy; Mr. Fletcher, the popular bootlegger, his wife, and son, Herbert; Mr. Kallen, Grand Exalted Scribe of the Bender Lodge, The Loyal and Royal Order of Bruins; Hans Krumwielde, the director of the lodge’s band, the Bender Red Pants; Police Sergeant Joyce, his daughter, Rose, and son, Benny; Mr. Albright, Bender School history teacher; Winny the Ninny, a friend of Rose’s; and Dolly Dimple, an advice-to-the-lovelorn newspaper columnist who advises Rose on her many problems, most of which are told to “Dear Diary.”

The dialogues centered around such issues as Rose Joyce trying to fatten herself, at Dolly Dimple’s suggestion, with milk shakes, or the problem in the Bender Red Pants caused by the first trombonist not being able to play because he was being fitted for new false teeth. Reading them today, it is hard to imagine that these sketches were written by the author of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Yet the voices are authentic, the dialogue excellent, and each little sketch holds your interest once you get into it.

After a year, Cain, or perhaps someone higher on the World staff, tired of the Bender Street gang. So Cain shifted to other characters and locales, and from 1929 to early 1931, when the World folded, the subjects of his sketches fell into three categories, examples of which are included here: New York and New Yorkers (“The Robbery,” “Vanishing Act,” and “Dreamland”); Eastern Shore rubes and roughnecks, most of which begin “Down in the country...” (“Joy Ride,” “Queen of Love and Beauty,” and “Santa Claus, M.D.”); and fictionalized accounts of personal experiences (“Gold Letters Hand Painted” and “It Breathed”).

These sketches were extremely important to Cain’s development. In the first place, he discovered that he was at his best as a writer when pretending to be someone else, and the person he felt most comfortable imitating was some Eastern Shore rube or mountain roughneck who spoke like one of Ring Lardner’s characters. A perfect example is the sketch “It Breathed,” about something that happened to Cain while he was in France in 1918. Instead of writing it in perfect diction, using the kind of grammar and phrasing that had so impressed Walter Lippmann, Cain pretended the incident had happened to some yokel and wrote the story in the first person in an Eastern Shore dialect.

Cain’s World sketches were widely read around New York and are still being read in writing classes, where teachers use them to illustrate how a story can be told through dialogue alone (see “The Robbery”). The sketches also helped draw attention to Cain when he was still a relatively unknown writer. One day Claude Bowers, a World writer and historian, brought an eminent editor named Robert Linscott, from Houghton Mifflin, to see Cain. Linscott had read Cain’s sketches and wanted him to try a novel. Cain told Linscott of his earlier unsuccessful attempts at longer fiction and said he was not capable of it, but Linscott disagreed and predicted that someday Cain would write a novel — and he expressed the hope that Houghton Mifflin would be its publisher.

However, by 1931, when Cain left New York for Hollywood, he still felt his colloquial first-person approach to storytelling would not stand up in longer fiction. He was also convinced that New York was not his milieu, and that of all the sketches he wrote for the World, the ones about New York and New Yorkers were the least successful. “I’d been gradually coming to the conclusion,” he later said, “that if I was to write anything of the kind I’d been dreaming about for so long, it could not be based in New York... Those killingly funny drivers of New York cabs, the secretaries, bellhops, and clerks behind counters, were completely sterile soil. I drew nothing from them.” On the other hand, he took pride in the country sketches, especially the dialogues he had done for the Mercury. They were, he said, in the “down-home idiom of Anywhere USA — anywhere but New York.” Writing had to have roots — “it can’t wriggle down from the sky, as Alice did, in Wonderland.” And he felt that, just maybe, he would find his roots in the West.

Moving to California in 1931 proved to be the wisest decision James M. Cain ever made. Once in the West, he was ready for more conventional short stories, but he also discovered something that surprised him. The dialogue for which James M. Cain had become famous was essentially written for the printed page. It would not play to the ear, as Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler found out when they were scripting Double Indemnity. This curious fact was perhaps at the root of Cain’s frustrating inability to achieve success as a scriptwriter or playwright.

R.H.

The Robbery

“Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

“I guess we’ve seen each other a couple of times before, haven’t we? Me and my wife, we live downstairs.”

“Yeah, I know who you are. What do you want?”

“Just want to talk to you about something.”

“Well — come in.”

“No. Just close that door behind you and we’ll sit on the steps.”

“All right. That suits me. Now what’s the big idea?”

“Today we was robbed. Somebody come in the apartment, turned the whole place inside out, and got away with some money, and my wife’s jewelry. Three rings and a couple of wrist watches. It’s got her broke up pretty bad. I got her in bed now, but she’s crying and carrying on all the time. I feel right down sorry for her.”

“Well, that’s tough. But what you coming to me about it for?”

“Nothing special. But of course I’m trying to find out who done it, so I thought I would come around and see you. Just to see if you got any idea about it.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s it.”

“Well, I haven’t got no idea.”

“You haven’t? That’s funny.”

“What’s funny about it?”

“Seems like most everybody on the block has an idea about it. I ain’t got in the house yet before about seven people stopped me and told me about it, and all of them had an idea about who done it. Of course, some of them ideas wasn’t much good, but still they was ideas. So you haven’t got no idea?”

“No. I haven’t got no idea. And what’s more, you’re too late.”

“How you mean, too late?”

“I mean them detectives has been up here already. I mean that fine wife of yours sent them up here, and what I had to say about this I told them, and I ain’t got time to say it over again for you. And let me tell you something: You tell any more detectives I was the one robbed your place, and that’s right where the trouble starts. They got laws in this country. They got laws against people that goes around telling lies about their neighbors, and don’t you think for a minute you’re going to get by with that stuff no more. You get me?”

“I’ll be doggone. Them cops been up here already? Them boys sure do work fast, don’t they?”

“Yeah, they work fast when some fool woman that has lost a couple of rings calls up the station house and fills them full of lies. They work fast, but they don’t always work so good. They ain’t got nothing on me at all, see? So you’re wasting your time, just like they did!”

“What did you tell them, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I told them just what I’m telling you: that I don’t know a thing about you or your wife, or your flat, or who robbed you, or what goes on down there, ’cepting I wish to hell you would turn off that radio at night onct, so I can get some sleep. That’s what I told them, and if you don’t like it you know what you can do.”

“Well, now, old man, I tell you. Fact of the matter, my wife didn’t send them cops up here at all. When she come home, and found out we was robbed, why it got her all excited. So she rung up the station house, and told the cops what she found, and then she went to bed. And that’s where she’s at now. She ain’t seen no detectives. She’s to see them tomorrow. So it looks like them detectives thought up that little visit all by theirself, don’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean maybe even them detectives could figure out that this here job was done by somebody that knowed all about me and my wife, when we was home, when we was out, and all like of that. And ’specially, that it was done by somebody that knowed we had the money in the house to pay the last installment on the furniture.”

“How would I know that?”

“Well, you might know by remembering what time the man came around to get the money last month and figuring he would come around the same day this month, and that we would have the money here waiting for him. That would be one way, wouldn’t it?”

“Let me tell you something, fellow: I don’t know a thing about this, or your furniture, or the collector, or nothing. And there ain’t nothing to show what I know. So you ain’t got nothing on me, see? So shag on. Go on down where you come from. So shut up. So that’s all. So good-bye.”

“Now, not so fast,”

“What now? I ain’t going to stay but here all night.”

“I’m just thinking about something. First off, we ain’t got nothing on you. That sure is a fact. We ain’t got nothing on you at all. Next off, them detectives ain’t got nothing on you. They called me up a little while ago and told me so. Said they couldn’t prove nothing.”

“It’s about time you was getting wise to yourself.”

“Just the same, you are the one that done it.”

“Huh?”

“I say you are the one that done it.”

“All right. All right. I’m the one that done it. Now go ahead and prove it.”

“Ain’t going to try to prove it. That’s a funny thing, ain’t it? Them detectives, when they start out on a thing like this, they always got to prove something, haven’t they? But me, I don’t have to prove nothing.”

“Come on. What you getting at?”

“Just this: Come on with that money, and come on with them jewels, or I sock you. And make it quick.”

“Now wait a minute... Wait a minute.”

“Sure. I ain’t in no hurry.”

“Maybe if I was to go in and look around... Maybe some of my kids done that, just for a joke—”

“Just what I told my wife, old man, now you mention it. I says to her, I says, ‘Them detectives is all wrong on that idea. Them kids upstairs done it,’ I says, ‘just for a joke.’”

“I’ll go in and take a look—”

“No. You and me, we set out here till I get them things in my hand. You just holler inside and tell the kids to bring them.”

“I’ll ring the bell and get one of them to the door—”

“That sure is nice of you, old man. I bet there’s a whole slew of them robberies done by kids just for a joke, don’t you? I always did think so.”

Vanishing Act

“This here,” said Mr. Kemper, after contemplating for a time the rear elevation of the Public Library, “is a bum park. You can twist your neck around till you got a crick in it and still you can’t tell what time it is. Let’s go down to City Hall. It’s plenty clocks down there.”

Mr. Needles said nothing.

“What the hell you doing with that paper anyhow?” continued Mr. Kemper fretfully. “You been gawping at it for a hour, and in the same place. If you can’t read it, then say so, but don’t keep looking at it that way. That there annoys me.”

“This here,” said Mr. Needles, “is a terrible thing.”

“What is it?” said Mr. Kemper.

“A guy what’s getting littler all the time,” said Mr. Needles. “Look at him. ‘Living at Soldiers’ Home in Sawtelle, Cal., he was five feet seven inches tall in 1914; now he is four feet ten inches. The case is of rare type.’”

“Rare and then some,” said Mr. Kemper. “More like raw.”

“How you mean?” said Mr. Needles.

“I mean it’s so rare it ain’t so,” said Mr. Kemper. “That there is just one more of them lies what the guys would get tired of that devilment after a while.”

“That there is so,” said Mr. Needles.

“H’m,” said Mr. Kemper.

“Because look at them pants,” said Mr. Needles.

“Well,” said Mr. Kemper, “them pants is for a bigger guy than he is, that’s a fact. H’m. And that coat don’t fit so good, neither.”

“That there is true,” said Mr. Needles. “I know it’s true. I feel it in my bones.”

“Well, then,” said Mr. Kemper, “what of it? Maybe that guy is better off little than he was big. He don’t eat so much, and that makes it easier. Or would, anyway, if he had to panhandle his grub off these eggs around here, ’stead of getting it free in a old soldiers’ home. Bryant Park. Was this here William Jennings Bryant a Scotchman, do you suppose?”

“I ain’t thinking about him,” said Mr. Needles. “I’m thinking about myself.”

“What you got to do with it?” said Mr. Kemper.

“Plenty,” said Mr. Needles, and lapsed into a gloomy silence. Then, after a long time: “I been worried about myself a long time. I ain’t as big as I was. Not nowhere near as big. And suppose I got this here disease too? ‘The case is of rare type,’ but if they got one, why can’t they have two?”

“No reason at all,” said Mr. Kemper. “’Cepting what ails you is you don’t get enough to eat. If you would get offen that bench more and work up and down Forty-second Street, panhandling enough nickels and dimes to get some grub what would stick to your ribs, why, then, you wouldn’t have that there disease. Nobody can’t stay the same size on coffee only.”

“He’s getting littler all the time,” said Mr. Needles. “Maybe I am too. And that there is a terrible thing.”

“What’s so terrible about it?” said Mr. Kemper. “I already told you maybe he was better off. And maybe so are you.”

“But suppose he would shrivel clean up like a balloon what has a leak and the wind all goes out?” said Mr. Needles. “Or maybe go away altogether, like a... like a... well, what the hell is that there like anyway?”

“Like a hole what somebody et the doughnut,” said Mr. Kemper.

“Yeah,” said Mr. Needles.

“Well, then,” said Mr. Kemper, “suppose he would? The next war what he fights in, nobody couldn’t shoot him. Looks like to me he would be still better off.”

“But how about his soul?” said Mr. Needles.

“That guy,” said Mr. Kemper, “he don’t look to me like he even got a soul.”

“But I got a soul,” said Mr. Needles.

“How you know?” said Mr. Kemper.

“Never mind how I know,” said Mr. Needles. “I know, and that’s enough.”

“Well, then, if you know, that’s enough and you ain’t got nothing to worry about. You never hear tell of no soul going out like a hole what somebody et the doughnut, did you? A soul, why that there is something what’s built to last.”

“I know,” said Mr. Needles, “but if I all shrivel up and go away like that, am I dead yet or not?”

“Well, now,” said Mr. Kemper, “that there is a question. It sure is. Of course, if you ain’t there no more, I guess you’re dead legal, all like of that. But are you really dead, let’s see now. I got to think about that.”

“I ain’t even sure I’m dead legal,” said Mr. Needles. “If it ain’t no dead body, how can a guy be dead legal? No coroner wouldn’t give no verdict without no remains.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Kemper. “It’s funny I didn’t think of that myself. Must of been because I was figuring on this other side of it.”

“What’s that?” said Mr. Needles.

“Suppose after you shrivel up and go out like that,” said Mr. Kemper, “suppose, then, you would start growing again. How about that?”

“What was that again?” said Mr. Needles.

“Suppose,” said Mr. Kemper, talking very slowly and distinctly, “after you went away and you wasn’t there no more, why maybe you got cured of this here disease and begun growing again. How about that? Would you be the same guy or would you be another guy? Or like the fellow says, a couple of other fellows?”

“Holy smoke,” said Mr. Needles. “Holy smoke, I never thought of that.”

“This here,” said Mr. Kemper, “is a very rare case. This here interests me a whole lot.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Mr. Needles. “I... I... I don’t like this here. It’s got me worried.”

“Then let’s go down to City Hall, like I said,” said Mr. Kemper, “so we can see what time it is.”

OCTOBER 20, 1929

Dreamland

Vinny felt his mouth go numb as he entered the apartment and saw what was on the table. He stood for a moment moistening his lips as he stared at it.

“Piece of mail for you,” he heard his sister-in-law call. “Looks like a phonograph record.”

“Sure,” he replied, and was surprised at how casual he sounded. “I been expecting it. How’s everything?”

“O.K. Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

He picked up the record, went to his room, and sat down on the bed. He had been expecting it all right. Or hoping for it anyhow. Ever since that day in the store.

He hadn’t covered himself with glory that day, that was a cinch. He just hadn’t had the nerve to make the grade.

He had gone in to make one of those personal phonograph records, a record to send his brother Ike, who had moved to Cleveland. But he had had to wait.

Then the girl arrived. She was a pretty girl, and she sat down so close to Vinny that he could smell the fur of her little summer neckpiece. He wanted to speak to her, to start a little conversation that would lead to his asking her if she didn’t want to go with him and have an ice-cream soda. He opened his mouth to say it was hot, wasn’t it. Nothing came out of it. He tried to catch her eye, so he could shake his head and fan himself a couple of times with his hat. Then he would probably have the nerve to say it was hot. But she didn’t look at him.

Pretty soon the radio announcer came out, with his accompanist and the lady in charge. The girl stood up.

“But I think this gentleman was ahead of you,” said the lady in charge.

“’S all right,” said Vinny. “I’ll wait.”

When she came out she would probably stop to thank him or something for letting her go first. Then he could say it was hot, wasn’t it, a pretty good day for an ice-cream soda.

She came out with her record under her arm, stopped, started to speak, and fled without saying a word.

“It’s your turn now,” said the lady in charge.

He sat down in front of the microphone and took out of his pocket what he was going to say to Ike. He had it all written out, so he wouldn’t get rattled and forget it in front of the machine.

“When the red light goes on,” said the lady in charge, “it’s time for you to begin. I’ll turn it off ten seconds before the record is used up, so you’ll have time to finish.”

“All right.”

The red light.

“Hello, Ike! you old son of a gun; how are you and what do you think of this for pulling a fast one on you? It’s cheaper than calling up on the long-distance telephone, hey, Ike, you old son of a gun?”

It had seemed pretty funny when he wrote it out, but it sounded stale and flat now.

The red light out.

“Well, so long, Ike, this is all they allow me this time and don’t take any rubber nickels.”

“That’ll be seventy-five cents unless you want a package of needles, and that’ll make a dollar.”

“All right. Put the needles in.”

“A dollar, thank you. And now, if you don’t mind writing your name and address here in this book...”

“Aw, never mind about that...”

“Well, we usually ask for the name and address—”

“I know, so you can send me a lot of that advertising junk and—”

He stopped. Looking up at him from the book in a threadlike, feminine hand, were a name and address:

“All right,” he said, and photographed this signature in his mind’s eye as he wrote his own beneath it. A fat chance he would forget it.

“Say,” he said innocently, “I believe I’ll make another record. Just remembered somebody else I want to send one to.”

“Why, surely.”

This time he sat down at the piano. He could play a little, well enough for this job anyhow.

The red light.

He started up “You’re the Cream in My Coffee.” It sounded lousy, but it would give her the idea. Then he stopped singing and turned to the mike. “I’m the guy,” he said with a guarded look at the lady in charge, “that wanted to speak to you today and didn’t. And that you wanted to speak to and didn’t. Believe me, I want to speak to you and if you feel the same way about it, you meet me at the Dreamland dance hall, up on a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, on Saturday night, at...”

He mailed it, then spent three days of agony. Most of the time he felt like a sap, but sometimes he would play with the idea that the girl would go back to the store after she received the record, find the name and address after her own, and mail him a postcard saying “I’ll be there” or something like that.

Now, here it was Saturday night and instead of a postcard there was a phonograph record, addressed in the same threadlike hand.

Trembling he cranked up his phonograph and clipped a needle.

A few bars of piano music. An old tune. Where had he heard it?

A thin, pretty, trembly voice:

“Dinner’s ready,” called his sister-in-law.

“I don’t want any dinner!”

“But it’s ready!”

“Sorry. Can’t wait!”

Vinny was gone.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1929

Joy Ride

Down in the country when they built the state road it was a couple guys worked on it name of Luke and Herb Moore. And they was brothers, but their old man was stingy and wouldn’t never give them nothing for their work. Because they didn’t hire out to the contractor direct, but drove teams for their old man and the contractor paid him and he paid them. And he got thirty-five cents a hour apiece for both them double teams, and paid them $12.50 a month for driving them.

So all them other guys that worked on the road was all the time giving them the razz, and letting on their old man must be pretty rich by now, account he’s got a big farm but don’t never spend nothing, and goes to church every Sunday but don’t never put nothing on the plate, and all like of that; until Luke and Herb got so they hated to see the old man show up on Saturday afternoon to sign the payroll. So along about the first of October they begun mumbling to each other in the lunch hour, and then they give it out they was going to do something that would make them other guys on the road look pretty sick. And what they was going to do was go on a bender. They had just got their month’s wages, and that was $25, and they was going to swipe one of the old man’s horses, after he had went in the house that night, and drive down to the railroad station what was about six mile away, and hop the 6:46 in to Washington, and then come back on the owl what got in at 12:22, and then drive on back and put the horse in the stable without the old man knowing nothing about it. Because they figured that $25 would pay for a pretty classy drunk, and then they would have a comeback if they heard any more of this tightwad stuff.

So they done it. They et some supper in a hurry, and then they sneaked out and geared the old man’s best horse to his new buggy, and then they walked the horse on the grass so the old man couldn’t hear them going by the house, and then they hit for the station. And on the way down they passed Will Howe and Heinie Williams, what was rolling the road in the nighttime on account it was getting late in the year and the contract had to be finished before frost, and Will and Heinie blowed the roller whistles for them and it looked like their trick was going to work. Them razzes would be changed to cheers. And they caught the 6:46, and down in Washington they must of put on a swell drunk act, because some people heard them arguing in the Union Station just before the owl pulled out, and Herb was for staying and spending the rest of their money, but Luke says no he wouldn’t give the old man the satisfaction of knowing they stole the horse.

So they come back. And they was all set to get away with it, until they drove up to the piece of road they had built that day, where Will and Heinie had been rolling up to twelve o’clock. But then they seen something they had forgot about. Them two rollers was parked across the road with red lights hung on their water boxes to keep people from driving over the new piece of road that had just been rolled down. And it was a detour they could take, but Luke wouldn’t hear of no detour.

“What?” he says. “Us turn back and drive a half mile further just for a pair of measly steam rollers? Nothing doing.”

So he jumps out, grabs off the red lanterns, and commences waving them around.

“Engineer,” he hollers, “do your stuff, I’m too drunk. ’Stead of us getting out of the way of these here rollers, we’ll make them get out of our way.”

So Herb, he climbs up on the little Buffalo roller what was on the left, and he can’t see so good, and he’s pretty drunk too, but he’s seen Will and Heinie do it, and he grabs a couple of bars, and pulls them, and sure enough the little Buffalo roller begins to move and slides right back in the ditch.

“Whoa!” says Luke, waving his lights out there in the middle of the road. “Engineer, you done great. Casey Jones couldn’t of done it no better. Now get on that other one.”

So Herb climbs up on the big five-ton Acme what was on the right-hand side of the road.

Now a Acme, it don’t work just the same as a Buffalo. The throttle and reverse bar is placed a little different, so when Herb grabbed aholt of them and pulled, he didn’t have no such good luck as he had the first time. ’Stead of going backward, that big five-tonner went frontward. It give a jump and run across the road and whanged right up alongside that other one. And Herb, he got throwed plumb out of the cab on the road. And it wasn’t nothing but steam coming out of both them rollers on account the bump had strained the boilers and they begun to leak. And it was dark all of a sudden. And Herb, soon as he remembered where he was at couldn’t see nothing of Luke. Because that roller, when it jumped frontward, had knocked Luke down and put out his red lights. And it had rolled him flatter than a German pancake.

So the horse give a jump when them two rollers come together, and helloed past them up the road, and turned in at the home gate. So the old man got up and went out, and then he begun ringing all the rings on the party line telephone, and it wasn’t long before him and a bunch found the rollers, and Herb, and what was left of Luke. And then he begun to rave.

“Oh, God,” he says, right out in front of where Herb was crying on the side of the road, “what have I done that you do this to me? Ain’t I always done right? Why did you send me a pair of worthless rascals like this when I asked you for sons?”

So Will Howe, he stood it as long as he could, and then he says: “Well, if God made you, it ain’t much else that I would put past him.”

“Come on, kid,” he says to Herb; “you better stay with me tonight.”

So Herb, he stayed with Will; and the coroner held him, but the state’s attorney turned him loose. And after that, he done some work on the road, but he didn’t never get no razz.

Queen of Love and Beauty

Down in the country they used to have every summer what they called a tournament, and it wasn’t much to it, only a bunch of farmers calling theirself knights, and riding work plugs down a course and spearing iron rings off hooks with a pole they said was a lance. But they generally always had a pretty good time, because the knight that spread the most rings could crown the Queen of Love and Beauty at the dance they had in the Grand Opera House that night, and them that speared next to the most rings could crown the maids of her court, so it was a little excitement anyway, and what with plenty of fried chicken and deviled eggs at the supper they had in between, everybody made out pretty good.

So sure enough, right after wheat-thrashing time one July, they put it in the county paper the tournament would be held the next Saturday, at a farm name of Three Hills what was owned by Mr. Glynn, and when Saturday come it was a big crowd out to Three Hills, and all the women giggling about who was going to get crowned Queen of Love and Beauty.

But what shows up on top of a runty-looking horse with a pole in his hand but a guy name of Bert Lucas. And the committee didn’t hardly know what to do. Because Bert, he wasn’t really no guy to be riding in a tournament. When he was young, he had been kind of wild, and one night he swiped a car and went on a joy ride, and then didn’t have no more sense than to wreck it. So the Grand Jury indicted him and he done the only thing he could do, and that was to skip. And when he come back about five years later to work the little farm what his old man had, nobody didn’t have much to do with him. The indictment, nobody done nothing about it, because his old man had scraped together enough money to pay for the car before he died, so they just kind of let it drop. But there it was just the same, and a guy under indictment don’t hardly look like no knight.

Still, here he come cantering in, and the committee was all crossed up and couldn’t think of nothing to say, so it wasn’t nothing to do but let him ride. He said he was the Knight of Hawthorne Bay and they passed him in.

Well, the first tilt wasn’t hardly over before the whole place knowed that was a big mistake. Because where Bert had went when he skipped was out West and if it was anything he couldn’t do in a saddle that runty-looking horse could pretty near do it for him, because it wasn’t nothing more or less than a cow pony, what he had rode all the way back East from Texas. He could spear them rings so easy he made all them other guys look ridiculous, and he wouldn’t come loafing up on a slow singlefoot either, but on a dead run. And he would kind of holler when he got in front of the people, like them circus cowboys does, and that was kind of a new one in that neck of the woods, and nobody knowed what to make of it.

They couldn’t get away from his score, though, so when the judges read out that he was the winner, they tried to give him a little bit of a hand. So that went to Bert’s head just like it was liquor. I guess it had been pretty lonely out there on the farm without nobody to come and see him, and when Mr. and Mrs. Glynn set the supper out under the trees, he was laughing and cutting up like he was drunk. So all hands thought they might as well kid him along, and pretty soon somebody asks him who is he going to crown Queen of Love and Beauty.

“I ain’t made up my mind yet. I don’t know which one I’m going to pick. It’s so many good-looking women here I’m afraid I’m going to have to shake up all the names in a hat and pull one out.”

So with that, Mr. Glynn went behind the house and got a bunch around him.

“Listen, men,” he says. “Do you know what? That simple-looking nut thinks that winning the tournament gives him the right to pick any woman here and name her Queen.”

“What!” says two or three.

“He certainly does,” says Mr. Glynn. “And I don’t know what to do. Suppose he picks my wife? I can’t have her leading the grand march with that jailbird.”

“Say,” they says. “We got to think about that.”

So Mr. Glynn was grand marshal of the tournament, and of course he had to make the speech handing the crown over to Bert after they had all drove in to the Grand Opera House for the dance. And so he made the speech. And he made it long and flowery, because he was pretty good on that stuff on account he liked to make Fourth of July speeches. And Bert, he just ate it up. Because it look like to him that everything had been forgot and nobody didn’t hardly remember if it was him that was indicted or maybe somebody else. So he kept his eyes glued to Mr. Glynn and kept smiling to hisself. And while Mr. Glynn was talking, Mrs. Glynn and a couple other women kind of tiptoed through the little door that led back of the stage. And two or three more followed them, and then some more, and in a minute they was all slipping through the door like ghosts.

And when Bert took the wreath of flowers from Mr. Glynn, and turned around to pick out some woman to give it to, it wasn’t a single woman in the hall.

So Bert looked around, and his face got red, and a kind of a silly-looking grin stayed on it. And then he swallowed a couple of times, and dropped the wreath down on the floor. And then he walked straight out of the hall. And then he went to the hitching rack, and got on his horse, and rode out into the night. And nobody down there ain’t seen him from that day to this.

Santa Claus, M.D

Down in the country one time they got a new principal to the high school, name of Hartman. And he was a kind of funny-looking guy, and he taught science. So pretty soon he began to teach them pupils in the higher grades all about how the animals has little ones, and he was wasting his breath if you ask me, because if it was anything them tough mugs didn’t know about the animals and all the rest of it, why it wasn’t much. But along about Thanksgiving it begun to be some talking around. A whole lot of people, they let on they didn’t think much of it, teaching boys and girls stuff like that. And pretty soon, the board of trustees, they held a couple meetings.

So just about that time Hartman, he stood up in the assembly hall in front of the whole school, little children and all, and give them a little talk on Christmas. And he says the best thing is to know the truth about Christmas, and the truth is that it ain’t no Santa Claus, but only your father dressed up, and the real way to celebrate Christmas was to quit thinking so much about presents and to go to church and give thanks that Jesus Christ was born that day.

Well, did you ever cuff a hornet’s nest with the butt end of a fishing pole while you was trying to jerk a big one up on the bank? That’s what it was like when Hartman made that little talk. Them little children went home bellering to their father and mother, and a couple dozen big Ikes showed up at the school and wanted to fight, and things got hot. So the trustees, they made up their mind what they was going to do pretty quick. They fired Hartman, and took the key to the school away from him, and put one of them woman teachers in charge till they could get somebody else.

So that kind of eased things off, but Hartman ain’t left town. He hung around and he would come over to one of the stores from the little house where he lived at on the edge of town, and buy some stuff, and then duck away without speaking to nobody. So the day before Christmas some of the boys fixed it up that they would kind of give him the idea that he better beat it. And what they was going to do was go around that night and take him out, and maybe fan him a few times with a strap, and then make him kneel down in front of Doc Merritt, who would have on the Santa Claus suit that he used to wear up to the festival at the Methodist church, and then let him take his pick would he leave town hisself or get rode out on a rail.

So they done it. The Doc put on his suit, and him and about a dozen others sneaked over there. And when they beat on the door, they could hear some running around upstairs, but not nobody come to the door.

“Come on out, Hartman!” they hollers. “We brung Santa Claus with us and we want you to look at him.”

But still nobody come to the door, and they was getting ready to break it down. But all of a sudden a light showed, and through the glass in the door they seen Hartman running down the steps, fast as he could come. And he opened the door and come running out without no hat.

“Grab him!” one of them hollers, and a couple of them made a pass at him.

But he throwed them off like they was puppy dogs or something, and went running up the street fast as he could go. And they was so surprised all they done was stand there and look at him.

So it seemed like it was something funny about it and they opened the door and peeped in. And right away they could hear something upstairs. It sound like a woman crying.

“Hell,” says one of them. “Let’s beat it.”

“Wait a minute,” says Doc Merritt. “Shut up, you guys.” And he listened, and then he tiptoed upstairs.

“What’s the matter?” they says when he come back.

“Boys,” he says, “this party is off. It’s his wife. She’s having a baby.”

So he sent a couple of them over to his office, and give them the key, and told them to bring him his kit, and went back upstairs. And the rest of them, they felt kind of ashamed of theirself, and they beat it.

So Hartman, where he was heading for was Doc Merritt. And he run over to his office, and didn’t find him there, and then he helloed over to the boardinghouse where the Doc lived at, and didn’t find him there. And then he got kind of wild, and went running all over town, in stores and everywhere, trying to find the Doc. And not nobody could tell him where the Doc was, on account this fanning bee had been kept pretty dark, and everybody was wondering what was up.

So in about a hour, here he come running back, and he didn’t have no Doc and he didn’t have nothing. And when he went upstairs he almost fainted. And then he begun blubbering and crying and carrying on like he was crazy, and the more the Doc tried to calm him down the worse he went on. Because it was all over, and what he seen was the Doc, wrapping up the new baby boy in a little piece of woolen cloth. But what the Doc had forgot was, on account he had been working so hard, that he still had on the Santa Claus suit, with the whiskers still sticking to his chin, and for all Hartman could see it was Santa Claus hisself that had brung him his child and made everything all right.

“It is a Santa Claus,” he kept saying over and over, even when he got it straight what happened. “Oh, God, after the way I ran and prayed, and then come back and find—” And then he would just cry.

So them eggs that was going to fan him, they was trying to tell theirself it was all a joke by that time, and they showed up with a lot of Christmas stuff, and a drum for the kid. And it was all over town in an hour about how Hartman has changed his mind about Santa Claus, and maybe ain’t so sure how little ones gets in the world no more, so Christmas Day the trustees held a special meeting and took him back. So after that he done fine. So it looks like to me Santa Claus pulled a fast one on him.

DECEMBER 22, 1929

Gold Letters Hand Painted

When I was about fifteen years old, I and all the other young men about town used to resort to various schemes to give the impression that we had reached man’s estate. Some of us acquired girls, some took jobs, some played poker, and some just talked. But Bob Plummer, son of one of the Metho-preachers in town, made the mistake of hatching a scheme so grand that it challenged the gods; and that, as we all know, is merely storing up dynamite against the lightning bolt. Bob’s scheme was an individual shaving mug, no less. He went away to Wilmington, Delaware, with his father one spring, to attend the annual conference, and when he came back he had it in his suitcase. He didn’t show it around, of course, and boast about it. That would have been a gross strategic blunder. He merely strolled around to Johnny Vandergrift’s barber shop in the most casual manner, left it there, and told Johnny that from now on he would come on Saturday nights to be shaved.

Well, that, as you may understand, was a bombshell; it made girls, jobs, poker games, white pants, and all such things seem childish nonsense by comparison. By twos and threes that afternoon we all had a look at it, coming to jeer, remaining to be struck dumb with awe. There it stood in plain view, among the hundreds of cups belonging to Johnny’s regular customers, and on its pearly face, in beautiful gold letters, was his own individual name, thus:

And for a whole week we were so groggy that our faculties were practically paralyzed. But then duty called: we had to organize some sort of counteroffensive. And presently we had one that we thought very neat. It was called the Foggy Club, and it was formed for the sole purpose of affording the members an opportunity to foregather occasionally for the sociable smoking of cigarettes. And the beauty of it was that Bob, since his father was a minister, could not very well join.

The next thing, of course, was to select a propitious moment for inviting him to join, and we decided that none could be better than when he was reclining in Johnny Vandergrift’s best chair, having himself shaved out of his precious blue mug. The next Saturday night accordingly, having made sure that the operation had actually started, we all trooped into the shop.

Red Lucas led off. He yawned awhile, and then put down his magazine and looked over at Johnny.

“Who’s that you got in the chair?” he asked, in a puzzled sort of way.

For answer, Johnny held up the mug.

“Oh,” said Red. “Bob Plummer. Damn, I didn’t know that was Bob Plummer. Hello, Bob. How you was?”

“Hello,” said Bob. “I’m all right.”

“Say, that reminds me,” Red went on. “We haven’t got your ante yet for the Foggy Club. You’ll let me have it in the next couple of days, won’t you?”

“Yeah, I heard about the Foggy Club,” said Bob. “If you don’t mind though, I think I won’t join.”

“What, not join?” said Red. “Why, we were counting on you.”

“No, thanks, I’d rather not.”

“Well, gee, I sure am sorry. Old man won’t let you smoke, hey?”

“No, that’s not it. He says I can smoke, if I want to. But you know how it is. He’s a minister, and it would make trouble, so I just don’t do it. Not regular, anyway.”

Well, there we were, licked before we started. Somebody said something about Mamma’s boy, but just then Johnny dipped a brushful of lather out of the mug, and it wilted away to a few weak snickers. The game was over and we hadn’t scored a point.

“No,” said Bob, after he had got up out of the chair, and carefully inspected his face, “it’s not so easy, being a minister’s son. There’s a lot of things you can’t do.”

He leaned close for a look at his chin. We had an uneasy feeling that more was coming, and that we wouldn’t enjoy it a bit. And in a moment, we saw what it was. He had given Johnny a quarter, had received fifteen cents, and was fingering his change. He was going to tip Johnny Vandergrift!

The room reeled around us. Johnny Vandergrift, who had brought the first automobile to town! Johnny Vandergrift, who had once seen an airplane! Johnny Vandergrift, who wore a brown derby hat on Sunday!..

“Here you are, John,” said Bob. “That’ll pay for the wear on the razor.”

“Keep it,” said Johnny. “There’s no wear on the razor, because I’ve shaved you three times now and haven’t clinked a whisker yet.”

There was more, but on the whole I prefer to draw the veil at this point.

MARCH 2, 1930

It Breathed

In the war I put in some time on observation post, and it was in top of the tallest tree in France, and you climbed up by a ladder, and they had a little iron box up there what look like a coffin, and you could go in there when the shells was falling, and they generally was. And how we done was to have two hours in that box and six hours off. Only a guy name of Foley got sick, and that give us two hours on and four off, on account we only had three men instead of four. And that there wasn’t so good, because even doing two and six we didn’t never get no good sleep, and doing two and four we didn’t hardly get no sleep at all.

So it went on like that for two days. And then Katz, he called up headquarters on the telephone again to ask them to come get Foley, and they put up a argument or something, and he kind of got a little wild.

“So you ain’t got no car you can spare, hey?” he hollers. “Well, you better get one, and get it quick. Because this guy is sick. He’s got the flu or something and if you think three men can run this post and take care of him too you made a mistake and you can tell the Captain I said so.”

So Foley, he was laying right there in the bunk in the little shack we had under the tree, and of course, he heared everything that Katz was saying. So after he hung up, Katz begun to blubber, on account he didn’t want Foley to think we minded bringing him water, and bathing his head, and all like of that, and he asked Foley not to pay no attention to what he said. So Foley, he wasn’t paying no attention to nothing, and all he done was nod his head a little bit and wave his hand like he didn’t want nobody to bother him.

So then me and Katz went over to draw the rations, and where we drawed them was from a infantry field kitchen, and it was in a trench about a half mile from where the tree was at. So we ain’t hardly started before he begun some more of his wild talk.

“Damn this thing!” he says. “Damn all of it! How did it ever get started anyway?”

“It won’t be so bad,” I says, “after they send for Foley and give us another man so we can get some sleep.”

“Sleep!” he says. “Ha, ha, ha!”

“Well,” I says, “what else seems to be bothering you?”

“Plenty,” he says. “Them shells, for one thing. Always going off. I got so I jump every time a twig falls off one of them trees on the ground. And another thing: That would be fine, wouldn’t it, to get knocked off right at the end?

“Two weeks!” he keeps on. “After a while only one week. After a while only one day. Then pft! Just like that. Knocked off. And then this.”

“This what?” I says.

“All of it.” And he waves his hand over the whole front, where it was kind of stretched out in front of us. “Yeah, that’s the worst. The rest, that ain’t nothing alongside of that.”

I didn’t have no idea what he meant, but I give a kind of a look around and says: “Oh, I don’t know. It wouldn’t be no bad-looking country if they would fill up them shell holes and leave the grass grow a little.”

“Not by daylight,” he says. “But at night, ha, ha, ha! Listen.” And he stopped still and looked at me with a kind of a crazy look in his eye.

“Listen,” he says. “You know this whole thing is alive? You know it’s alive and it breathes?”

“Well,” I says, “I never noticed it.”

“That’s because you ain’t got that two o’clock watch,” he says. “Oh, my God, when that fog comes down and you can’t hear a thing, and all of a sudden it turns over and breathes! And me up there all alone in that tree—”

“Katz,” I says, “it ain’t a thing the matter with you except you’re blotto from not having no sleep, so—”

“Blotto!” he says. “Yeah, I’m blotto, plenty blotto. But that ain’t all. I’ve been feeling like this a long time, and—”

“And,” I keeps on, “you can damn well snap out of it. Hell,” I says, “you think you’re the only one that’s got it tough?”

And I spoke pretty short, because I was good and tired of listening to him bellyache. So we fixed it up that we would switch that two o’clock watch and I would take it ’stead of him. And at first he didn’t want to, but I made him do it because if it would make him shut up, the two o’clock watch was same to me as any other watch.

And that night when two o’clock come I went up and started the watch. And I wasn’t hardly up there than I seen what he meant, all right. A whole lot of people, they got the idea that on a battle front it’s a hell of a lot of noise going on all the time. And most of the time it is, like shelling in the afternoon when the balloons is up, and machine guns at night when they’re sending up flares to spot raids, and all like of that. But from two o’clock in the morning on to dawn it ain’t nothing so still as a battle front.

Still, I made out all right, because it didn’t mean nothing to me. But then all of a sudden I felt my lips go numb and my heart begun pounding like it would jump out of my throat. I was just looking at my watch, and it was 3:28 and I was getting ready to make my 3:30 entry in the book, when I heared it, just like he said. Maybe you think I’m lying, but I tell you it give kind of a sigh and then went right quiet again. And I was still pretty shaky when he come up to relieve me at four.

“Well,” he says, “you was right.” And he wasn’t wild no more, but stood there looking out at it.

“How you mean?” I says.

“Plenty of them got it tougher than I got it. Foley, for instance.”

“Did they send for him?” I says.

“No,” he says. “He just went.”

He went in the box and lit a cigarette. “You better enter it in the book,” he says. “I took note of the time. It was three twenty-eight.”

NOVEMBER 17, 1929

The Hero

The office of the town commissioners, second floor. Water Witch Fire Engine House. It is an afternoon in May. The members of the board, who are Mr. Hinsch, chairman, and Messrs. Matchett and Oyster, have just returned from lunch after a public hearing which lasted all morning, and are now about to go into executive session, from which, of course, the public is excluded.

Mr. Hinsch: Well, gentlemen, the way I get it, we got to act on this matter of a pension for Scotty Akers, what I mean for his family. And I say let’s not have no more bum argument like we had this morning. It’s too damn hot.

Mr. Matchett: I never seen the beat of them people, a-whooping and a-hollering, and a-carrying on, the way they done.

Mr. Oyster: And it don’t make no difference which way we settle it, we got one side or the other sore as hell at us.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. It don’t make no difference what we do, we got ourself in Dutch.

Mr. Matchett: And us only trying to do the right thing.

Mr. Hinsch: It’s this here goddam fight that makes all the trouble.

Mr. Oyster: This here fight makes it bad. Wonder why the hell Scotty couldn’t of been squirting water in the fire when that string-piece beaned him, ’stead of on them Water Witches.

Mr. Matchett: Scotty sure was a caution, thataway.

Mr. Hinsch: How come that fight to get started? I ain’t never got that straight in my head yet.

Mr. Oyster: Scotty started it.

Mr. Matchett: Yep, Scotty started it, just like he always done.

Mr. Oyster: You see, when them Semper Fidelises drives up in their truck, they finds them Water Witches already at the fire. Well, Scotty, he was driving the Semper Fidelises’ truck. And soon as he seen them Water Witches, he hollers out: “Hell, ain’t you got the fire out yet? Get out of the way and let some firemen get to it.”

Mr. Matchett: That’s what Scotty said. I was there and I heard him.

Mr. Hinsch: It’s a wonder Scotty couldn’t of shut up once in a while. I always did say Scotty could of shut his trap and improved hisself.

Mr. Oyster: And with that, them Water Witches turns the hose on the Semper Fidelises. And they had a fight. And right in the middle of it the roof of the house that was on fire falls and a string-piece beans Scotty on the head. And when they pick him up, he’s dead.

Mr. Matchett: And the house burns down.

Mr. Oyster: That’s the hell of it, the house burns down.

Mr. Hinsch: What I say, if them two companies got to have a fight every time they go to a fire, why can’t they put the fire out first and then have the fight coming back?

Mr. Matchett: That’s the way them Eyetalians does when two funerals have a race. They always race coming back from the graveyard. That there is a better way. It stands to reason.

Mr. Oyster: You would think them boys would stop to think that a house costs money. And them trucks costs money, too.

Mr. Hinsch: And here we got all them Semper Fidelises saying the town had ought to pay Scotty’s family a pension, account of him getting beaned like you might say in the line of duty, and all them Water Witches says it’s a hell of a note to sock a pension on the taxpayers, account of Scotty being the one that started the fight. And it don’t make no difference which way we settle it, we got ourself in Dutch.

Mr. Matchett: A fellow don’t hardly know what to do.

Mr. Hinsch: Them companies wasn’t so bad before this here Rotary Club butted in with all their lovey-dovey stuff.

Mr. Matchett: Why, no! What I mean, they had a fight now and then, but they didn’t have nobody get killed or no house burn down, like of that.

Mr. Oyster: But them Rotarys wasn’t satisfied. They had to get up a association and have all the firemen belong to it, so them two companies would love one another. Who the hell ever hear tell of a couple of fire companies that love one another?

Mr. Hinsch: I don’t think much of that stuff. You got to have competition.

Mr. Oyster: And come to find out, they love each other so damn much they had a fight and the house burns down. And Scotty gets killed.

Mr. Hinsch: Them Rotarys makes me sick. Why the hell does them fellows belong to a order like that?

Mr. Matchett: I hear a fellow say they don’t pay no benefits nor nothing.

Mr. Oyster: That’s right. Jim Peasely, that was president last year, told me so hisself. They ain’t got no insurance or nothing like that.

Mr. Matchett: And they ain’t got no regalia.

Mr. Oyster: And then another thing, why don’t they have their meetings at night? Daytime ain’t no time for a order to meet. I’d like to see them try to pull off a initiation, what I mean, a real initiation, with a big class of candidates, like that, in the daytime. Why, you couldn’t do it.

Mr. Matchett: All they got is a password.

Mr. Oyster; Password? Why, hell, they ain’t got a password no more than a snowbird has. They got a motto, that’s all they got. “Serve yourself,” or something like that, I forget just what it is. But not no regular password, not even a grip.

Mr. Hinsch: Is that right?

Mr. Matchett: I swear to God, I never knowed that. I thought they had a password and a grip.

Mr. Hinsch: Ain’t they got nothing at all?

Mr. Oyster: Not a damn thing! And to hear them fellows talk, and read them pieces in the paper, you would think it was something.

Mr. Hinsch: When I get an order, I want something for my money.

Mr. Matchett: Me, too. I’m in the Junior Order and Heptasophs now, and before long — well, I reckon you boys know what I got my eye on. I hope to get took in the Odd Fellows.

Mr. Oyster: Shall we tell him, Hinsch?

Mr. Hinsch: Go ahead and tell him.

Mr. Oyster: We got a little surprise for you, Matchett. It’s all fixed up for you with the Odd Fellows. They act on it next meeting. Fact of the matter the committee has already passed on it.

Mr. Matchett: Is that right!.. Well, boys, that there was sure some surprise, and I tell you it makes a fellow sure feel good. I kind of had an idea, but a fellow can’t never be sure.

Mr. Oyster: Yep, she’s all fixed up. You’ll be right on the steamboat when this summer’s excursion pulls out.

Mr. Matchett: It sure does make a fellow feel good.

Mr. Hinsch: What I say, if them Rotarys hadn’t of butted in with this here Buddy Association, everything would of been all right. Them firemen didn’t need no association. They ought to of kept them companies separate. But then they got in this here bum argument about what color plumes they’re going to have on their hats and then everything is balled up like hell.

Mr. Oyster: That there is a hot thing to have a argument about, ain’t it, what color plumes they’re going to have? My God! What difference does it make what color plumes they have? They could have green plumes and it wouldn’t make no difference to me.

Mr. Hinsch: Me neither. But I say them Water Witches had one thing on their side. White plumes gets dirty awful quick.

Mr. Oyster: Well, Hinsch, I say it’s according as according. If a fellow takes care of his hat right, what I mean, not make no football outen it and use it to dust off the back porch, why them plumes stays clean about as long as a man could expect. Me, I kind of like them white plumes. They show off good on parade.

Mr. Hinsch: They don’t show off as good as red plumes. A fellow can see a red plume a long ways off.

Mr. Oyster: The trouble with them red plumes was that Myersville had them.

Mr. Hinsch: Myersville ain’t got no red plumes no more. They changed them to blue this year.

Mr. Oyster: I know they changed them, but the trouble is nobody out in the state don’t know about it. What them Semper Fidelises was thinking about was the state carnival. Them boys is taken first prize on appearance for three years now, and they didn’t want nobody getting them mixed up with Myersville. Well, yes, it’s a shame the way things is all shot to hell since them Rotarys butted in the way they done. Them companies ain’t got no more show at the carnival now than a snowball in hell.

Mr. Hinsch: I hear them Semper Fidelises ain’t going down to the carnival if they don’t get what they want for Scotty Akers.

Mr. Oyster: Yeah, I hear that too. First time in fifteen years we ain’t had two companies at the carnival. I would think them Rotarys would be ashamed of theirself.

Mr. Matchett: Well, boys, this sure is good news. What I say, a fellow had ought to go in the Junior Order first. The place for a young fellow is in the Junior Order. Then, when he gets so’s he can take on another one, he ought to get took in the Heptasophs. Anyway, that’s what I done, and if I had the thing to do over again, I would do it the same way. Then, when he gets a little older and he knows where he’s at, it’s time to get took in the Odd Fellows. Ain’t that right?

Mr. Hinsch: A fellow hadn’t ought to be in no hurry about the Odd Fellows. Junior Order first, I say.

Mr. Oyster: It don’t pay to be in no hurry.

Mr. Hinsch: Fact of the matter, Oyster, I ain’t never got it straight in my head whether Scotty died in line of duty or not. That there is a question.

Mr. Oyster: The way I look at it, Scotty was there when the bell rang. Then Scotty drove the truck out and got to the fire. And he was at the fire. We know that much, and there can’t be no argument about it. Well, suppose Scotty had of been squirting water on the fire? The string-piece might of beaned him just the same.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s so, all right. Fact of the matter, you might say the string-piece would of been more liable to of beaned him if he was squirting water on the fire than like it was. A fellow runs a awful risk, taking a hose in close on a fire when it gets started good.

Mr. Oyster: And then another thing. Take where Scotty was standing. He didn’t have to pull that nozzle in close to the fire like that, just to sock it on them Water Witches. It looks to me like Scotty was just getting ready to turn it on the fire anyhow.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. I was thinking about that myself.

Mr. Oyster: And then, it don’t make no difference if Scotty started the fight, he helped to put out a whole lot of fires, and a fellow don’t hardly know which fire he’s going to get killed at.

Mr. Hinsch: It’s just like lynching a nigger. Some of them says you ought not to lynch him, account of maybe he ain’t the right nigger, but I always say if a nigger hadn’t ought to be lynched for one thing he ought to be lynched for something else he done, so it don’t pay to figure it down too close. It’s just the same way with Scotty. He might of got beaned some other time.

Mr. Oyster: Or later on, maybe.

Mr. Hinsch: Of course, I ain’t saying Scotty didn’t make a whole lot of trouble the way he talked. If Scotty could of kept his trap shut he would of been a hell of a sight better fellow.

Mr. Oyster: Scotty had a-plenty to say all right. But in a way you might say he done a lot for the town.

Mr. Hinsch: I say anybody that went to fires regular like Scotty done, why, he done a lot for the town, even if he did have a lot to say.

Mr. Oyster: If it was only me, I would say pay the pension and glad to do it.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. I would be the first one to vote for it.

Mr. Oyster: The trouble is them goddam Water Witches.

Mr. Hinsch: Them Water Witches sure would raise hell. And what makes it bad, them Water Witches is all from the upper end of town and they pay the taxes.

Mr. Oyster: Them Semper Fidelises ain’t got no money.

Mr. Hinsch: Most of them Semper Fidelises pays rent. It’s them Water Witches owns the property, or their people does.

Mr. Oyster: They pay rent when they pay it. I swear to God, I don’t see how half of them boys get along.

Mr. Hinsch: Now what I say, it ain’t nothing against them boys that they’re poor people, like of that. But when them people that pays taxes comes in here and puts up a holler, why you got to pay some attention to it.

Mr. Oyster: They put up a holler all right. You could hear them a mile. They plumb wore me out.

Mr. Matchett: There wasn’t no trouble about it, was there? What I mean, nobody didn’t drop no blackball against me, did they?

Mr. Hinsch: Not a one.

Mr. Oyster: I don’t believe I ever saw a application go through as quick as hisn, did you, Hinsch?

Mr. Hinsch: Same as a greased pig.

Mr. Matchett: You know what I would tell them Rotarys if they was to come along and ask me to get in it? I’d tell them to go plumb to hell. The Odd Fellows is good enough for me.

Mr. Hinsch: I wouldn’t stay up late nights waiting for them to ask you to get in it. They wouldn’t have such a no-account piece of trash as you in it.

Mr. Oyster: Oh, no! Them Rotarys is a sassiety order. A-setting around the lunch table, making speeches and trying to make out like they knowed what all the tools was for.

Mr. Hinsch: They brung Jim Peasely a bowl of water to wash the fish smell offen his fingers and he drunk it.

Mr. Oyster: Thought it was soup.

Mr. Matchett: Don’t it beat all, the way them fellows does? I wouldn’t trade off one good order, like the Odd Fellows, for a dozen of them Rotarys.

Mr. Oyster: It’s a wonder them Rotarys wouldn’t help finish what they started. But nobody ain’t heard a word out of them since this trouble started.

Mr. Hinsch: Then there’s another way to look at it. If we listen to them Water Witches and don’t allow no pension, why, then we got all them Semper Fidelises saying Scotty got killed in line of duty, same as a soldier, and the town won’t do nothing for him.

Mr. Oyster: Say, Hinsch. That there is what they said, ain’t it? “Same as a soldier.” That there gives me a idea.

Mr. Hinsch: I hope to hell somebody’s got a idea. I ain’t.

Mr. Oyster: Hinsch, next Tuesday come a week is Decoration Day. Well, why not us get up a resolution, what I mean a real fancy resolution, saying Scotty died in line of duty same as a soldier, and appropriate some money to put a wreaf on his grave Decoration Day, and then say all the firemen had ought to have a festival to raise some money for Scotty’s family. How’s that hit you?

Mr. Hinsch: That ain’t so bad. How much is wreaves?

Mr. Oyster: They put up as pretty a wreaf as you want to see for twenty-five dollars. The town can afford twenty-five dollars.

Mr. Hinsch: Them Water Witches couldn’t hardly put up no squawk on twenty-five dollars. And that there would certainly help to satisfy them Semper Fidelises. They can make a whole lot of money on a festival, this time of year, if everybody gets out and works.

Mr. Oyster: And then we could put in that the commissioners has looked up the law and found it ain’t legal for the town to pay out a pension for Scotty. That there would make it look like we wanted to pay out a pension, only we couldn’t.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. And so far as that goes, they ain’t none of us don’t want to see something done for Scotty’s family.

Mr. Oyster: You and me was just saying if it was only us, we would give a pension and glad to do it.

Mr. Hinsch: And fact of the matter is, I ain’t no ways sure the commissioners is got power to pay out a pension. I ain’t said nothing about it, but if them Water Witches was to take it to court, I don’t believe it would stand up.

Mr. Oyster: Why, Hinsch, it stands to reason it ain’t legal. Them is the things people never think about.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. What makes me sick is this here no-account element, always kicking and putting up a holler, and you try to please them, and nothing ever suits them, and come to find out, they don’t know what they want.

Mr. Oyster: And then another thing. We’ll put in that them Rotarys had ought to help out with the festival. They done raised so much hell, now let them do a little work.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right. Now le’s get this here resolution wrote up. This here has got to be a pretty good resolution, what I mean, not no regular resolution, but a fancy one, if it’s going to do the work. You write it.

Mr. Oyster: Not me. I ain’t much on writing. You write it.

Mr. Hinsch: All right.

(He sighs, and slowly collects pen and paper. Presently he starts to write. Mr. Oyster lights a cigar and watches him. Mr. Matchett dreamily looks out the window.)

Mr. Matchett (after a very long time, in the tempo of the intermezzo out of Cavalleria Rusticana): Boys... I tell you there ain’t nothing will do as much for a fellow... as a good fraternal order... If I was a young fellow... first thing I would join... would be the Junior Order... then the Heptasophs... or maybe the Red Men... then... the Odd Fellows... You can’t beat a good order... to help a young fellow along... Take, for instance... if you was to land broke... in some town... them lodge brothers... wouldn’t never let you jump no freight... to get home... I remember one time... over in Myersville... I lost forty-seven dollars... at a shell game... in the county fair... and when I got done... I didn’t have a damn nickel... to buy myself a hot dog with... and the Junior Order seen me through... You can’t beat a good order... to help a young fellow... along...

Mr. Hinsch: I got something wrote out here. But it seems to me it’s too damn long.

Mr. Oyster: Why, hell, it ought to be long. That pleases a whole lot of people. Read it.

Mr. Hinsch (in an impressive voice): “Whereas, in the wisdom of Almighty God—”

Mr. Oyster: That’s the stuff.

Mr. Hinsch: “—there has been taken from our midst one of our most valuable and beloved citizens, Winfield Scott Akers, snatched to his reward from the bosom of a sorrowing wife and five small children—”

Mr. Oyster: Six.

Mr. Hinsch: Did Scotty have another kid? Damn, I never knowed that. “—a sorrowing wife and six small children, but done his duty to the last, in the manner of a soldier on the field of battle—”

Mr. Oyster: Them Semper Fidelises will eat that up.

Mr. Hinsch: “—in order that precious property might be saved from the flames, and might of been, except for things not under human control—”

Mr. Oyster: That kind of makes that goddam fight look better.

Mr. Hinsch: “—and whereas public-spirited citizens has appeared before the Board at a public hearing, whereof due notice was given three days in advance, according to law, and petitioned that the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, be given a pension of thirty-five dollars a month—”

Mr. Oyster: I would put in that we would of give it anyhow, only it was illegal.

Mr. Hinsch: I got that in here “—and whereas the Board is fully of the same sentiment in regards to the matter, and believe the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, is entitled to a pension, but regret to note, after looking up the charter, that the Board has not got power to grant same, unless amended—”

Mr. Oyster: I would cross out that “unless amended.” We don’t want them Semper Fidelises trying to amend the charter. Things is bad enough like they are.

Mr. Hinsch: That’s right “—therefore be it resolved, that the Board appropriates the sum of twenty-five dollars for a wreaf to be placed on the grave of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, May thirtieth, Decoration Day, account of him dying in line of duty, same as a soldier, and hereby calls on both fire companies to hold a parade and lay the said wreaf on the grave, and further recommends that a festival be held that night, to be assisted in by both fire companies and all fraternal orders and civic societies, and that the Rotary Club take charge of same and see it is put over right. And be it further resolved, that this resolution be spread on the minutes of the Board and a copy sent to the sorrowing family of the said beloved brother, Winfield Scott Akers, and advertised in the press. Done under our hand and seal.” How’s that?

Mr. Oyster: Seems to me we could get some more fancy stuff in it. Something like “borne aloft to his reward for his labors on this earth.” Only Scotty never labored none, if he could help it.

Mr. Hinsch: I’m going to write the first part over again. I got some Odd Fellow resolutions home that has got some good stuff in them.

Mr. Oyster: That’s right. Some of them Memorial Service resolutions would have a whole lot of that stuff in them.

Mr. Hinsch: Well, that fixes it, don’t it? Damn, I sure thought they had us in a hole for a while. Now let them goddam Rotary buttinskis take off their coat and go to work.

Mr. Oyster: That there’ll fix them.

Mr. Matchett: Boys, did you ever stop to think what a real good fraternal order can do for a man?

Theological Interlude

Characters:

Mr. Nation

Mrs. Nation

Mr. Barlow

The scene is the porch of “The Anchorage,” a boarding-house run by the Nations in a Christian summer resort in the state of Delaware. It is about nine o’clock of an evening in late spring. Few sounds relieve the loneliness, except the restless swash of waves on the nearby beach. In the gathering darkness Mr. Barlow has been peering around in an interested way, asking questions now and then about the things that meet his eye. He is Mrs. Nation’s brother, and apparently has not visited the locality in a long time. He gets only mechanical answers to his queries, both Mr. and Mrs. Nation seeming distracted. When it is quite dark, he knocks the ashes out of his pipe in a businesslike way, and puts it in his pocket.

Mr. Barlow: Well, now, what’s this all about? ’Cause you two sure did pick a bad time to bring me all the way up here from Delmar, and I want to get to it. What I mean, I don’t want to spend no more time up here than I have to.

Mr. Nation: I reckon Laura can tell you.

Mrs. Nation: Tell him yourself. You sent for him.

Mr. Nation: You’re the one has got the squawk. Go on and tell him.

Mr. Barlow: Now, now, that ain’t no way to talk. Come on, Laura, let’s have it.

Mrs. Nation: It’s about Eva.

Mr. Barlow: Where’s she at? I been waiting for her, and I ain’t saw her.

Mr. Nation: Never mind where she’s at. We’ll get to that part in a minute. She ain’t here, anyway.

Mrs. Nation: Well, it all started with what happened last summer. You remember that?

Mr. Barlow: I heard them talking about it at home, but I kinda forgot how it was. I reckon you better start at the beginning, so I can get it all straight.

Mrs. Nation: She had the typhoid fever. She was took just this time a year ago.

Mr. Barlow: Yeah, I remember that.

Mr. Nation: She was took a little earlier than this. First part of May, and she was getting better around the middle of June.

Mrs. Nation: She was getting better when the first boarders begin to come. Dr. Winship said all danger was past, and we was all set she should get well.

Mr. Nation: Only we was kidding ourself.

Mr. Barlow: How old is Eva now? I ain’t saw her in five or six years, I do believe.

Mrs. Nation: Eva’s sixteen now. But she was only fifteen then.

Mr. Barlow: Sixteen! Who could believe it! And last time I seen her she was a little bit of a thing.

Mrs. Nation: So she was took sick again.

Mr. Nation: Sudden.

Mrs. Nation: Real sudden. Dr. Winship said maybe it was something she et, on account their stomach is always tender after typhoid fever.

Mr. Barlow: Yep, I tell you, you got to watch them after typhoid fever.

Mrs. Nation: But anyway, she looks at me one night and says “Ma!.. Ma!” just like that, and I knowed she had a sinking spell. And lands sakes, I was legging it down the boardwalk to Dr. Winship’s office before I really knowed I was out the door!

Mr. Nation: And me trying to raise him by telephone! I’ll never forget that night.

Mrs. Nation: So when Dr. Winship got here she was white as a sheet and he didn’t hardly get his gripsack open before she up and died.

Mr. Barlow: (vastly surprised): Hanh?

Mr. Nation: Almost before you could say Jack Robinson.

Mr. Barlow: Who? You mean Eva?

Mrs. Nation: Yes, Eva.

Mr. Barlow: Eva dead and I ain’t heared nothing about it?

Mrs. Nation: Well of course she ain’t dead now, if that’s what you mean.

Mr. Barlow: (staggered): Well... this beats me!

Mr. Nation: There’s a-plenty more to it yet. Go on, Laura.

Mrs. Nation: So when Dr. Winship listened to her heart and it didn’t beat no more—

Mr. Nation: He pronounced her dead, don’t forget that. Official.

Mrs. Nation: That’s right. When he pronounced her dead, then he left. And then Hal called up the undertaker, the one in Greenwood.

Mr. Nation: I was blubbering same as a baby. I couldn’t hardly talk.

Mrs. Nation: So then a young fellow what was one of the boarders, he come in the room.

Mr. Nation: Mr. Travis. He was a doctor. Anyway, he went to the medical school.

Mrs. Nation: He took a look at her, and then he shook Hal by the arm and sent him down the beach where they keep the pulmotor, what they use when somebody gets drowned.

Mr. Nation: And I run. I hope my die I did.

Mrs. Nation: And then Mr. Travis, he commence to work on her. He run up to his room and got a gripsack and when he come back I don’t think I hardly ever seen anybody work like he did.

Mr. Nation: We never took no more offen Travis after that. We give him his board free.

Mrs. Nation: And when Hal come back with the pulmotor he went to work on her with that too. And then he stuck a needle in her. And pretty soon she came to.

Mr. Barlow: Gosh! I’m glad you come to that part at last!

Mrs. Nation: So when the undertaker come she was setting up.

Mr. Nation: That there finished me with undertakers. You know what that boy done? He got sore because she wasn’t dead no more. Can you beat that?

Mrs. Nation: So then, after a couple of weeks, she begun to tell me about—

Mr. Nation: You forgot something. You forgot them pieces in the papers.

Mrs. Nation: Oh yes. You see we was so excited we forgot all about Dr. Winship. To call him up, I mean, and tell him about it. And before he went to bed that night he wrote up the death certificate and dropped it in the mailbox and it come out in the papers she was dead. And maybe Eva weren’t sore! ’Cause some of them papers from Dover and Salisbury, they had it in about the funeral and how many flowers there was. And Eva, she said, she hear tell all her life you couldn’t believe nothing you seen in the papers, but that time they sure did have a crust.

Mr. Barlow: It beats all how many things them fellows puts in the papers. Sometimes I wonder how they find time to make up all the stuff what they put in.

Mrs. Nation: So then, after a couple weeks, she commences talking about the dream she had. And me, I don’t take stock in dreams, but one day I asked her what it was. And she said that night when she was took that way, she dreamed she been to Heaven, And still we didn’t pay no attention to it, until that night, when I happened to think about what she said, and I told Hal about it. And all of a sudden he seen the meaning of it. Or thought he did anyway.

Mr. Nation: And you thought so, too. Ain’t no reason for you to talk so big all of a sudden.

Mrs. Nation: There’s a-plenty reason. If it hadn’t been for you and your—

Mr. Barlow: Now wait a minute, wait a minute! Just what was this meaning, Hal, what you seen? Or thought you seen anyway?

Mr. Nation: Well... well... I kind of figured out... that she... that maybe she... really had been to Heaven.

Mr. Barlow: Oh! How come you to figure that out?

Mr. Nation: Well, we’ll get to that part in a minute. That ain’t all of it.

Mrs. Nation: So we kind of told a few people about it, and they let on they wanted to hear about it too. So when company come—

Mr. Nation: Yeah, when company come! Who was it all the time a-egging Eva on to tell the company about it? Who was a-saying “Get out your banjer now, Eva, and let the folks hear it?”

Mr. Barlow: Her banjer? What the hell did she want with a banjer? Did she bring that back with her from Heaven?

Mr. Nation: She can pick a banjer.

Mrs. Nation: She picks a banjer to them pieces what she speaks in school. She puts the banjer on her knees and while she picks it she talks.

Mr. Barlow: But this wasn’t no piece.

Mrs. Nation: Well, I’m a-trying to tell it.

Mr. Nation: It was something like a piece. You see, after a while she kind of learned it by heart. And then she put the banjer in. And then after a while she put in a couple of songs what she knowed. The first one come right after the part where she come to the pearly gates, and that was a piece called “The Portal Left Ajar.” And the second one come right after the Angel of the Lord tooken her by the hand and told her she had to come back to earth, ’cause all the people down here couldn’t bear to see her go. And that was a piece called “He Calleth Me.” Or something like that. And believe me, when she got through with it, it took pretty near a hour, and if there was anybody listening what wasn’t busting out crying at the end, why he wasn’t human, that was all. He just wasn’t human.

Mr. Barlow: I see. She kind of put it up fancy. Damn, I never knowed that girl could pick a banjer.

Mr. Nation: Oh, she’s smart. Ain’t nothing that girl can’t do.

Mr. Barlow: Well, what next?

Mrs. Nation: So then a preacher what was holding a revival over in Greenwood last month, he heared about her.

Mr. Nation: Reverend Day.

Mr. Barlow: Day? Sure. I know him.

Mrs. Nation: And he come around one afternoon and listened at her. And then nothing wouldn’t do him but she had to go over and tell it at his meeting. And then nothing wouldn’t do Hal but she had to go.

Mr. Nation: Aw Laura, why you tell it like that? You know yourself you was tickled to death she had the chance.

Mrs. Nation: I was tickled to death she had the chance for one night. But I didn’t know she was going over there for the whole revival. You know I didn’t. You and her, you kept that from me.

Mr. Barlow: Well, but what, then?

Mrs. Nation: So then she run off with this Day.

Mr. Barlow: How you mean, run off?

Mrs. Nation: Mean run off, that’s what I mean.

Mr. Nation: And not a thing to show that it’s so. Now listen. What happened? He moved to Easton, for to hold a revival there, and she went with him. And he went to Cambridge, and she went with him there, and that’s where she’s at now. And for what? To tell about it some more, same as she done in Greenwood. That there is a big card, that is. That there brings in the money, and it saves a whole lot of souls. And she’s getting paid for it. And how can you tell she run off with him?

Mrs. Nation: I can tell by the cut of her jib.

Mr. Nation: You ain’t got a thing to show—

Mr. Barlow: And what next?

Mr. Nation: Nothing next. That’s all. ’Cepting my life ain’t been worth living for the last month, what with Laura a-whooping and a-hollering and a-carrying on—

Mrs. Nation: Why, Hal Nation!—

Mr. Nation: And it got so bad I sent for you to come up here and see if you could straighten us out.

Mrs. Nation: Why, Hal Nation, I never heared no man talk the way you do. Some time I wonder if you got good sense. Don’t nothing mean nothing to you what all the people is a-saying? Ain’t you got no respect for your own daughter’s vircher?

Mr. Barlow: Have you had the law on him?

Mr. Nation: Can’t get no law on him. Can’t prove nothing.

Mrs. Nation: My land, Hal! My land! And all on account of you in the first place. You and your figuring out the meaning of it—

Mr. Nation: Stop! Stop right there! That’s the first thing what we got to have out. And it ain’t no use going further till we do. (He turns earnestly to Mr. Barlow, takes careful thought before he speaks, and then proceeds in a solemn voice.) Now I ask you, and if you don’t see it my way I’m a-perfectly willing to say I was wrong, but if she weren’t in Heaven in the time when she was dead, then where the hell was she?

Mr. Barlow: I swear, Hal, now you’re coming at me pretty strong. That there is kind of out of my line... What you say to that, Laura?

Mrs. Nation: I don’t say nothing.

Mr. Nation: You said a-plenty till Day come along. You couldn’t see it no other way. Funny you ain’t got nothing to say.

Mr. Barlow: Have you asked any preachers about it?

Mr. Nation: We asked five or six preachers about it, not counting Day. And they all said the same thing. Said there could be no doubt about it at all. Said it had to be so.

Mr. Barlow: Still, you can’t go by none of them preachers. I never seen one of them as what wouldn’t jump up and holler amen for anything they heared, didn’t make no difference what it was. Them bums if they had sense enough to figure anything out, why they wouldn’t be preachers... Well, now, le’s see. Maybe we can figure it out for ourself. How was it now again?

Mr. Nation: She died.

Mr. Barlow: You’re sure of that, now. ’Cause look like to me that was pretty important.

Mr. Nation: If her heart didn’t beat no more, then she died, didn’t she? You never seen nobody what was half dead, did you? Winship said it didn’t beat no more, and so did Travis. And Winship sent the death certificate in to the county clerk’s office, and a hell of a time I had getting it out so she could get on the school rolls again, and be alive legal and all like of that.

Mr. Barlow: Well then, looks like she was dead. Nobody couldn’t hardly be deader than that.

Mr. Nation: That’s right. That’s all I’m trying to say. She was dead.

Mr. Barlow: All right then, she was dead. We know that much anyway. Now le’s see. The next thing to figure out is where she could of been before she come back to life.

Mr. Nation: That’s right. Now keep right on going.

Mr. Barlow: Well, first off, she could of been in Heaven, where she said she was.

Mr. Nation: That’s right. Now where else?

Mr. Barlow: Then... well, ain’t no sense saying that.

Mr. Nation: Go on say it. What I want is to figure this thing out right, oncet and for all. And if a thing has got to be said, then it just as well be said.

Mr. Barlow: What I started to say, she might of been in Hell. But ain’t no sense talking like that.

Mr. Nation: Might just as well say it. She might of been in Hell. We ain’t going to get nowheres pussyfooting.

Mr. Barlow: Well then, she might of been in Hell. Now where else?

Mr. Nation: All right. Where else?

Mr. Barlow: Dogged if I know. Where the hell else do they go when they die, anyway?

Mr. Nation: Onliest place I can think of is she might of been still on this earth. Now can you think of any other places?

Mr. Barlow: Nope. Damned if I can.

Mr. Nation: All right, she might of been in Heaven, she might of been in Hell, and she might of been down here on the earth. Ain’t no other place she could of been. Now then, take Hell. What the hell would a girl fifteen year old what had always gone to church regular be doing in Hell? Tell me that oncet?

Mr. Barlow: Well, I told you already that ain’t reasonable. Ain’t no use talking about that. Why no. ’Cause look. You mean to tell me anybody could be in Hell and not know it?

Mr. Nation: What I tell you, Laura? Ain’t them the very same words I said not more’n two weeks ago?

Mrs. Nation: If them is the same words you said two weeks ago, then I know there ain’t no sense to it.

Mr. Barlow: Nope. From what I hear, when somebody goes to Hell, they’re going to get scorched, and you can bank on that. Go on, Hal.

Mr. Nation: All right, then, she ain’t been in Hell. Now that leaves Heaven and this earth. And if she was on this earth, that means she was a ghost. And me, I don’t care what people say, I don’t believe in no ghosts.

Mr. Barlow: By gosh! that’s right. I never thought of that. She would of been a ghost, wouldn’t she? That there wouldn’t be so good, would it? What do you think about that, Laura? Do you believe in ghosts?

Mrs. Nation: Never mind what I believe in. I ain’t had my say yet.

Mr. Barlow: Well now, there ain’t no use being bull-headed about it. We’re a-trying to figure this thing out, and we ain’t getting nowhere with you setting there rocking like you had a pain in your big toe and not doing nothing to help. The big thing now is, was she a ghost or not?

Mrs. Nation: I ain’t never said I believed in ghosts.

Mr. Barlow: Well me, I never believed in them neither... But Hal, I tell you I hear tell of some funny things in my time.

Mrs. Nation: Me too. Me too.

Mr. Barlow: Did I ever tell you about the time I was driving along the road on the other side of the Maryland line?

Mr. Nation: No. What was it?

Mr. Barlow: Well, that beat anything I ever hear tell of in my life. It was about three o’clock in the morning, and I had tooken a girl to a dance. I was a young fellow then. And I was driving back, after I dropped her where she lived, and believe me it was lonely. And I come to a piece of road what run through a woods. And the woods was mostly scrub pine, but right alongside the road was a big oak tree. It was a fine-looking tree, and had a big limb what hung out over the road. And I was letting my horse walk, ’cause it was a sandy piece of road, and I kept looking at the tree, and thinking how fine it looked, and kind of wild, ’cause the limbs was kind of swaying a lot, and the leaves was rustling, and every now and then turning gray in the moonlight, when the undersides would show up in the wind. And then I drove right under a big limb, and went on a little ways, and then all of a sudden I turned right cold. ’Cause, Hal, there wasn’t no wind!.. Well, when I got in and turned my plug over to the fellow in the livery stable, I told him about it, and I swear he turned green. And then he told me that was the tree where they had lynched a nigger about ten year before, and it was a windy night, and he swung around like he was drunk before they cut him down to take the souvenirs off him, and sometimes now that tree still shakes in the same wind.

Mr. Nation: I’d of dropped dead! I’d of dropped dead!

Mr. Barlow: Some funny things, I tell you.

Mr. Nation: Gosh! And no wind a-blowing!

Mr. Barlow: Fellow told me one time you can always tell if there’s a ghost in the house by the way the cat acts. Cat won’t stay in no house with a ghost. Did you take notice of the cat when all this was going on?

Mr. Nation: No, we didn’t. No, we didn’t. Yes, by gosh we did! Yes, we did! Laura, remember what you said when you come back from the kitchen with that hot-water bottle? Remember? Remember? You said it sure was funny how that cat was still asleep alongside the stove after all that fuss what we had upstairs. Remember?

Mrs. Nation: I don’t recollect.

Mr. Barlow: Well now, Laura, try just this oncet to see if you can’t be some help. You—

Mrs. Nation: The cat was asleep, if that’s all you want to know.

Mr. Nation: Well then, that settles it. She couldn’t of been no ghost. And that leaves Heaven.

Mr. Barlow: I swear, Hal, I don’t see nothing wrong with that. It kind of went a little funny when you first mentioned it, but now we figured on it awhile, it don’t seem like it could have been no other way. Anyhow, not no other way that I can think of.

Mr. Nation: All right. All right. Then how about all this here about running off? Does that sound right? Would a girl what had been to Heaven take and run off with the first preacher who come along? Would she, now?

Mr. Barlow: Well...

Mrs. Nation: Well nothing! Now I have to have my say. All right, she’s been in Heaven. Is she ever going back there after she run off with Day? Tell me that.

Mr. Barlow: Well now, maybe she will at that. You know, I was talking not long ago with a fellow what had just put up a kind of a short Bible for Sunday school classes, or something like that. And he had made a kind of a study of it. And he says to me, he says, “It’s a funny thing, but there ain’t a word in the Bible agin a little cutting up. Yes,” he says, “I know most people think there is, but it’s a fact there ain’t.”

Mrs. Nation: Then there ought to be.

Mr. Barlow: Laura, try to act like you was a little bit bright. If we got to write the whole Bible over again to suit you, that’s right where I quit.

Mr. Nation: Me too... I swear, that there bellering around all the time has got my goat.

Mr. Barlow: And suppose she is a-cutting up a little with Day? What of it? There’s always got to be some cutting up before people gets married. And she could do a whole lot worse than marry Day.

Mrs. Nation: Ain’t he married?

Mr. Barlow: He is not. Anyway, not when I seen him last, about six months ago. I think he did have a wife oncet but he ain’t got her no more. And I say this for Day. He may be a preacher but he’s got enough git-up-and-git to buy hisself a tent and go out and hustle and that’s more’n you can say for many young bucks here in Delaware what want to cut up with a girl.

Mr. Nation: Ain’t nothing wrong with the fellow. I always said so, right from the beginning.

Mr. Barlow: Look like to me, the thing for you two to do is to invite him over here. Him and Eva together. That would kind of smooth things out a bit, and at the same time git it in his head that you got your eye on him.

Mrs. Nation: Well, we could run over and get them in the car, I reckon. And have them here to dinner. And put them back in time for the night meeting.

Mr. Barlow: That’s the stuff, Laura. Now you’re talking something what has got some sense to it.

Mr. Nation: That there sounds pretty good to me. That there is the thing to do.

Mrs. Nation: I ain’t wanted to believe it of her nohow... ’Cause I loved it so, about her having been to... to Heaven... and all... And she told it so sweet... And when she puts them songs in and all... It was so beautiful.

Mr. Barlow: Why sure, I swear, I been setting here tonight, thinking to myself it’s just about the beautifulest thing I ever hear tell of in my life. I wish one of my daughters could of done it, and could pick a banjer and all...

Mr. Nation: Now Laura, ain’t no use crying. What you crying about?

Mr. Barlow: Hal, looks like to me the thing for you to do is to take Laura in and put her to bed. And I don’t know but I’m ready to turn in myself if you two think you’re all straightened out now. ’Cause I got to catch that early train down from Greenwood...

(They rise, Mr. Barlow stretching and winding his watch, Mrs. Nation sniffling, and Mr. Nation awkwardly guiding her into the house.)

Mr. Nation: Come on, now, Laura... Why, sure she was up in Heaven!.. Couldn’t of been nowheres else... Why sure... Stands to reason...