American Gothic, page 93
One of the very smallest boys in the party showed signs of a wistful desire to distinguish himself, and they turned their attention to him, pushing at his shoulders while he swung away from them, and hesitated dreamily. He was eventually induced to make furtive expedition, but it was only for a few yards. Then he paused, motionless, gazing with open mouth. The vociferous entreaties of Jimmie and the large boy had no power over him.
Mrs. Hannigan had come out on her back porch with a pail of water. From this coign2 she had a view of the secluded portion of the Trescott grounds that was behind the stable. She perceived the group of boys, and the monster on the box. She shaded her eyes with her hand to benefit her vision. She screeched then as if she was being murdered. “Eddie! Eddie! You come home this minute!”
Her son querulously demanded, “Aw, what for?”
“You come home this minute. Do you hear?”
The other boys seemed to think this visitation upon one of their number required them to preserve for a time the hang-dog air of a collection of culprits, and they remained in guilty silence until the little Hannigan, wrathfully protesting, was pushed through the door of his home. Mrs. Hannigan cast a piercing glance over the group, stared with a bitter face at the Trescott house, as if this new and handsome edifice was insulting her, and then followed her son.
There was wavering in the party. An inroad by one mother always caused them to carefully sweep the horizon to see if there were more coming. “This is my yard,” said Jimmie, proudly. “We don’t have to go home.”
The monster on the box had turned its black crèpe countenance toward the sky, and was waving its arms in time to a religious chant. “Look at him now,” cried a little boy. They turned, and were transfixed by the solemnity and mystery of the indefinable gestures. The wail of the melody was mournful and slow. They drew back. It seemed to spellbind them with the power of a funeral. They were so absorbed that they did not hear the doctor’s buggy drive up to the stable. Trescott got out, tied his horse, and approached the group. Jimmie saw him first, and at his look of dismay the others wheeled.
“What’s all this, Jimmie?” asked Trescott, in surprise.
The lad advanced to the front of his companions, halted, and said nothing. Trescott’s face gloomed slightly as he scanned the scene.
“What were you doing, Jimmie?”
“We was playin’,” answered Jimmie, huskily.
“Playing at what?”
“Just playin’.”
Trescott looked gravely at the other boys, and asked them to please go home. They proceeded to the street much in the manner of frustrated and revealed assassins. The crime of trespass on another boy’s place was still a crime when they had only accepted the other boy’s cordial invitation, and they were used to being sent out of all manner of gardens upon the sudden appearance of a father or a mother. Jimmie had wretchedly watched the departure of his companions. It involved the loss of his position as a lad who controlled the privileges of his father’s grounds, but then he knew that in the beginning he had no right to ask so many boys to be his guests.
Once on the sidewalk, however, they speedily forgot their shame as trespassers, and the large boy launched forth in a description of his success in the late trial of courage. As they went rapidly up the street, the little boy who had made the furtive expedition cried out confidently from the rear, “Yes, and I went almost up to him, didn’t I, Willie?”
The large boy crushed him in a few words. “Huh!” he scoffed. “You only went a little way. I went clear up to him.”
The pace of the other boys was so manly that the tiny thing had to trot, and he remained at the rear, getting entangled in their legs in his attempts to reach the front rank and become of some importance, dodging this way and that way, and always piping out his little claim to glory.
XXI
“By the way, Grace,” said Trescott, looking into the dining room from his office door, “I wish you would send Jimmie to me before school-time.”
When Jimmie came, he advanced so quietly that Trescott did not at first note him. “Oh,” he said, wheeling from a cabinet, “here you are, young man.”
“Yes, sir.”
Trescott dropped into his chair and tapped the desk with a thoughtful finger. “Jimmie, what were you doing in the back garden yesterday – you and the other boys – to Henry?”
“We weren’t doing anything, pa.”
Trescott looked sternly into the raised eyes of his son. “Are you sure you were not annoying him in any way? Now what were you doing, exactly?”
“Why, we – why, we – now – Willie Dalzel said I dassent go right up to him, and I did; and then he did; and then – the other boys were ’fraid; and then – you comed.”
Trescott groaned deeply. His countenance was so clouded in sorrow that the lad, bewildered by the mystery of it, burst suddenly forth in dismal lamentations. “There, there. Don’t cry, Jim,” said Trescott, going round the desk. “Only – ” He sat in a great leather reading chair, and took the boy on his knee. “Only I want to explain to you – ”
After Jimmie had gone to school, and as Trescott was about to start on his round of morning calls, a message arrived from Doctor Moser. It set forth that the latter’s sister was dying in the old homestead, twenty miles away up the valley, and asked Trescott to care for his patients for the day at least. There was also in the envelope a little history of each case and of what had already been done. Trescott replied to the messenger that he would gladly assent to the arrangement.
He noted that the first name on Moser’s list was Winter, but this did not seem to strike him as an important fact. When its turn came, he rang the Winter bell. “Good morning, Mrs. Winter,” he said, cheerfully, as the door was opened. “Doctor Moser has been obliged to leave town today, and he has asked me to come in his stead. How is the little girl this morning?”
Mrs. Winter had regarded him in stony surprise. At last she said: “Come in! I’ll see my husband.” She bolted into the house. Trescott entered the hall, and turned to the left into the sitting room.
Presently Winter shuffled through the door. His eyes flashed toward Trescott. He did not betray any desire to advance far into the room. “What do you want?” he said.
“What do I want? What do I want?” repeated Trescott, lifting his head suddenly. He had heard an utterly new challenge in the night of the jungle.
“Yes, that’s what I want to know,” snapped Winter. “What do you want?”
Trescott was silent for a moment. He consulted Moser’s memoranda. “I see that your little girl’s case is a trifle serious,” he remarked. “I would advise you to call a physician soon. I will leave you a copy of Dr. Moser’s record to give to any one you may call.” He paused to transcribe the record on a page of his notebook. Tearing out the leaf, he extended it to Winter as he moved toward the door. The latter shrunk against the wall. His head was hanging as he reached for the paper. This caused him to grasp air, and so Trescott simply let the paper flutter to the feet of the other man.
“Good morning,” said Trescott from the hall. This placid retreat seemed to suddenly arouse Winter to ferocity. It was as if he had then recalled all the truths which he had formulated to hurl at Trescott. So he followed him into the hall, and down the hall to the door, and through the door to the porch, barking in fiery rage from a respectful distance. As Trescott imperturbably turned the mare’s head down the road, Winter stood on the porch, still yelping. He was like a little dog.
XXII
“Have you heard the news?” cried Carrie Dungen, as she sped toward Martha’s kitchen. “Have you heard the news?” Her eyes were shining with delight.
“No,” answered Martha’s sister Kate, bending forward eagerly. “What was it? What was it?”
Carrie appeared triumphantly in the open door. “Oh, there’s been an awful scene between Doctor Trescott and Jake Winter. I never thought that Jake Winter had any pluck at all, but this morning he told the doctor just what he thought of him.”
“Well, what did he think of him?” asked Martha.
“Oh, he called him everything. Mrs. Howarth heard it through her front blinds. It was terrible, she says. It’s all over town now. Everybody knows it.”
“Didn’t the doctor answer back?”
“No! Mrs. Howarth – she says he never said a word. He just walked down to his buggy and got in, and drove off as co-o-o-l. But Jake gave him jinks, by all accounts.”
“But what did he say?” cried Kate, shrill and excited. She was evidently at some kind of a feast.
“Oh, he told him that Sadie had never been well since that night Henry Johnson frightened her at Theresa Page’s party, and he held him responsible, and how dared he cross his threshold – and – and – and – ”
“And what?” said Martha.
“Did he swear at him?” said Kate, in fearsome glee.
“No – not much. He did swear at him a little, but not more than a man does anyhow when he is real mad, Mrs. Howarth says.”
“O-oh!” breathed Kate. “And did he call him any names?”
Martha, at her work, had been for a time in deep thought. She now interrupted the other. “It don’t seem as if Sadie Winter had been sick since that time Henry Johnson got loose. She’s been to school almost the whole time since then, hasn’t she?”
They combined upon her in immediate indignation. “School? School? I should say not. Don’t think for a moment. School!”
Martha wheeled from the sink. She held an iron spoon, and it seemed as if she was going to attack them. “Sadie Winter has passed here many a morning since then carrying her school bag. Where was she going? To a wedding?”
The others, long accustomed to a mental tyranny, speedily surrendered.
“Did she?” stammered Kate. “I never saw her.”
Carrie Dungen made a weak gesture.
“If I had been Doctor Trescott,” exclaimed Martha, loudly, “I’d have knocked that miserable Jake Winter’s head off.”
Kate and Carrie, exchanging glances, made an alliance in the air. “I don’t see why you say that, Martha,” replied Carrie, with considerable boldness, gaining support and sympathy from Kate’s smile. “I don’t see how anybody can be blamed for getting angry when their little girl gets almost scared to death and gets sick from it, and all that. Besides, everybody says – ”
“Oh, I don’t care what everybody says,” said Martha.
“Well, you can’t go against the whole town,” answered Carrie, in sudden sharp defiance.
“No, Martha, you can’t go against the whole town,” piped Kate, following her leader rapidly.
“The whole town,” cried Martha. “I’d like to know what you call ‘the whole town.’ Do you call these silly people who are scared of Henry Johnson ‘the whole town’?”
“Why, Martha,” said Carrie, in a reasoning tone, “you talk as if you wouldn’t be scared of him!”
“No more would I,” retorted Martha.
“O-oh, Martha, how you talk!” said Kate. “Why, the idea! Everybody’s afraid of him.”
Carrie was grinning. “You’ve never seen him, have you?” she asked seductively.
“No,” admitted Martha.
“Well, then, how do you know that you wouldn’t be scared?”
Martha confronted her. “Have you ever seen him? No? Well, then how do you know you would be scared?”
The allied forces broke out in chorus: “But, Martha, everybody says so. Everybody says so.”
“Everybody says what?”
“Everybody that’s seen him say they were frightened almost to death, ’Tisn’t only women, but it’s men too. It’s awful.”
Martha wagged her head solemnly. “I’d try not to be afraid of him.”
“But supposing you could not help it?” said Kate.
“Yes, and look here,” cried Carrie. “I’ll tell you another thing. The Hannigans are going to move out of the house next door.”
“On account of him?” demanded Martha.
Carrie nodded. “Mrs. Hannigan says so herself.”
“Well, of all things!” ejaculated Martha. “Going to move, eh? You don’t say so! Where they going to move to?”
“Down on Orchard Avenue.”
“Well, of all things! Nice house?”
“I don’t know about that. I haven’t heard. But there’s lots of nice houses on Orchard.”
“Yes, but they’re all taken,” said Kate. “There isn’t a vacant house on Orchard Avenue.”
“Oh yes, there is,” said Martha. “The old Hampstead house is vacant.”
“Oh, of course,” said Kate. “But then I don’t believe Mrs. Hannigan would like it there. I wonder where they can be going to move to?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” sighed Martha. “It must be to some place we don’t know about.”
“Well,” said Carrie Dungen, after a general reflective silence, “it’s easy enough to find out, anyhow.”
“Who knows – around here?” asked Kate.
“Why, Mrs. Smith, and there she is in her garden,” said Carrie, jumping to her feet. As she dashed out of the door, Kate and Martha crowded at the window. Carrie’s voice rang out from near the steps. “Mrs. Smith! Mrs. Smith! Do you know where the Hannigans are going to move to?”
XXIII
The autumn smote the leaves, and the trees of Whilomville were panoplied in crimson and yellow. The winds grew stronger, and in the melancholy purple of the nights the home shine of a window became a finer thing. The little boys, watching the sear and sorrowful leaves drifting down from the maples, dreamed of the near time when they could heap bushels in the streets and burn them during the abrupt evenings.
Three men walked down Niagara Avenue. As they approached Judge Hagenthorpe’s house he came down his walk to meet them in the manner of one who has been waiting.
“Are you ready, Judge?” one said.
“All ready,” he answered.
The four then walked to Trescott’s house. He received them in his office, where he had been reading. He seemed surprised at this visit four very active and influential citizens, but he had nothing to say of it.
After they were all seated, Trescott looked expectantly from one face to another. There was a little silence. It was broken by John Twelve, the wholesale grocer, who was worth $400,000, and reported to be worth over a million.
“Well, doctor,” he said, with a short laugh, “I suppose we might as well admit at once that we’ve come to interfere in something which is none of our business.”
“Why, what is it?” asked Trescott, again looking from one face to an other. He seemed to appeal particularly to Judge Hagenthorpe, but the old man had his chin lowered musingly to his cane, and would not look at him.
“It’s about what nobody talks of – much,” said Twelve. “It’s about Henry Johnson.”
Trescott squared himself in his chair. “Yes?” he said.
Having delivered himself of the title, Twelve seemed to become more easy. “Yes,” he answered, blandly, “we wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Yes?” said Trescott.
Twelve abruptly advanced on the main attack. “Now see here, Trescott, we like you, and we have come to talk right out about this business. It may be none of our affairs and all that, and as for me, I don’t mind if you tell me so; but I am not going to keep quiet and see you ruin yourself. And that’s how we all feel.”
“I am not ruining myself,” answered Trescott.
“No, maybe you are not exactly ruining yourself,” said Twelve, slowly, “but you are doing yourself a great deal of harm. You have changed from being the leading doctor in town to about the last one. It is mainly because there are always a large number of people who are very thoughtless fools, of course, but then that doesn’t change the condition.”
A man who had not heretofore spoken said, solemnly, “It’s the women.”
“Well, what I want to say is this,” resumed Twelve: “Even if there are a lot of fools in the world, we can’t see any reason why you should ruin yourself by opposing them. You can’t teach them anything, you know.”
“I am not trying to teach them anything.” Trescott smiled wearily. “I – it is a matter of – well – ”
“And there are a good many of us that admire you for it immensely,” interrupted Twelve; “but that isn’t going to change the minds of all those ninnies.”
“It’s the women,” stated the advocate of this view again.
“Well, what I want to say is this,” said Twelve. “We want you to get out of this trouble and strike your old gait again. You are simply killing your practice through your infernal pig-headedness. Now this thing is out of the ordinary, but there must be ways to – to beat the game somehow, you see. So we’ve talked it over – about a dozen of us – and, as I say, if you want to tell us to mind our own business, why, go ahead; but we’ve talked it over, and we’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to do is to get Johnson a place somewhere off up the valley, and – ”
Trescott wearily gestured. “You don’t know, my friend. Everybody is so afraid of him, they can’t even give him good care. Nobody can attend to him as I do myself.”
“But I have a little no-good farm up beyond Clarence Mountain that I was going to give to Henry,” cried Twelve, aggrieved. “And if you – and if you – if you – through your house burning down, or anything – why, all the boys were prepared to take him right off your hands, and – and – ”
Trescott arose and went to the window. He turned his back upon them. They sat waiting in silence. When he returned he kept his face in the shadow. “No, John Twelve,” he said, “it can’t be done.”
There was another stillness. Suddenly a man stirred on his chair.
“Well, then, a public institution – ” he began.
“No,” said Trescott; “public institutions are all very good, but he is not going to one.”
In the background of the group old Judge Hagenthorpe was thoughtfully smoothing the polished ivory head of his cane.
