Thomas Wolfe, page 23
Thus, the entire landscape, the whole physical background of his life, was now dappled by powerful prejudices of liking and distaste formed, God knows how, or by what intangible affinities of thought, feeling and connotation. Thus, one street would seem to him to be a “good street”—to exist in the rich light of cheerful, abundant, and high-hearted living; another, inexplicably, a “bad street,” touching him somehow with fear, hopelessness, depression.
Perhaps the cold red light of some remembered winter’s afternoon, waning pallidly over a playing-field, with all its mockery of Spring, while lights flared up smokily in houses, the rabble-rout of children dirtily went in to supper, and men came back to the dull but warm imprisonment of home, oil lamps (which he hated), and bedtime, clotted in him a hatred of the place which remained even when the sensations that caused it were forgotten.
Or, returning from some country walk in late autumn, he would come back from Cove or Valley with dewy nose, clotted boots, the smell of a mashed persimmon on his knee, and the odor of wet earth and grass on the palms of his hands, and with a stubborn dislike and suspicion of the scene he had visited, and fear of the people who lived there.
He had the most extraordinary love of incandescence. He hated dull lights, smoky lights, soft, or sombre lights. At night he wanted to be in rooms brilliantly illuminated with beautiful, blazing, sharp, poignant lights. After that, the dark.
He played games badly, although he took a violent interest in sports. Max Isaacs continued to interest him as an athlete long after he had ceased to interest him as a person. The game Max Isaacs excelled in was baseball. Usually he played one of the outfield positions, ranging easily about in his field, when a ball was hit to him, with the speed of a panther, making impossible catches with effortless grace. He was a terrific hitter, standing at the plate casually but alertly, and meeting the ball squarely with a level swinging smack of his heavy shoulders. Eugene tried vainly to imitate the precision and power of this movement, which drove the ball in a smoking arc out of the lot, but he was never able: he chopped down clumsily and blindly, knocking a futile bounder to some nimble baseman. In the field he was equally useless: he never learned to play in a team, to become a limb of that single animal which united telepathically in a concerted movement. He became nervous, highly excited, and erratic in team-play, but he spent hours alone with another boy, or, after the mid-day meal, with Ben, passing a ball back and forth.
He developed blinding speed, bending all the young suppleness of his long thin body behind the ball, exulting as it smoked into the pocket of the mitt with a loud smack, or streaked up with a sharp dropping curve. Ben, taken by surprise by a fast drop, would curse him savagely, and in a rage hurl the ball back into his thin gloved hand. In the Spring and Summer he went as often as he could afford it, or was invited, to the baseball games in the district league, a fanatic partisan of the town club and its best players, making a fantasy constantly of himself in a heroic game-saving rôle.
But he was in no way able to submit himself to the discipline, the hard labor, the acceptance of defeat and failure that make a good athlete; he wanted always to win, he wanted always to be the general, the heroic spear-head of victory. And after that he wanted to be loved. Victory and love. In all of his swarming fantasies Eugene saw himself like this—unbeaten and beloved. But moments of clear vision returned to him when all the defeat and misery of his life was revealed. He saw his gangling and absurd figure, his remote unpractical brooding face, too like a dark strange flower to arouse any feeling among his companions and his kin, he thought, but discomfort, bitterness, and mockery; he remembered, with a drained sick heart, the countless humiliations, physical and verbal, he had endured, at the hands of school and family, before the world, and as he thought, the horns of victory died within the wood, the battle-drums of triumph stopped, the proud clangor of the gongs quivered away in silence. His eagles had flown; he saw himself, in a moment of reason, as a madman playing Cæsar. He craned his head aside and covered his face with his hand.
[¬]
16
The Spring grew ripe. There was at mid-day a soft drowsiness in the sun. Warm sporting gusts of wind howled faintly at the eaves; the young grass bent; the daisies twinkled.
He pressed his high knees uncomfortably against the bottom of his desk, grew nostalgic on his dreams. Bessie Barnes scrawled vigorously two rows away, displaying her long full silken leg. Open for me the gates of delight. Behind her sat a girl named Ruth, dark, with milk-white skin, eyes as gentle as her name, and thick black hair, parted in middle. He thought of a wild life with Bessie and of a later resurrection, a pure holy life, with Ruth.
One day, after the noon recess, they were marshalled by the teachers—all of the children in the three upper grades—and marched upstairs to the big assembly hall. They were excited, and gossiped in low voices as they went. They had never been called upstairs at this hour. Quite often the bells rang in the halls: they sprang quickly into line and were marched out in double files. That was fire drill. They liked that. Once they emptied the building in four minutes.
This was something new. They marched into the big room and sat down in blocks of seats assigned to each class: they sat with a seat between each of them. In a moment the door of the principal’s office on the left—where little boys were beaten—was opened, and the principal came out. He walked around the corner of the big room and stepped softly up on the platform. He began to talk.
He was a new principal. Young Armstrong, who had smelled the flower so delicately, and who had visited Daisy, and who once had almost beaten Eugene because of the smutty rhymes, was gone. The new principal was older. He was about thirty-eight years old. He was a strong rather heavy man a little under six feet tall; he was one of a large family who had grown up on a Tennessee farm. His father was poor but he had helped his children to get an education. All this Eugene knew already, because the principal made long talks to them in the morning and said he had never had their advantages. He pointed to himself with some pride. And he urged the little boys, playfully but earnestly, to “be not like dumb driven cattle, be a hero in the strife.” That was poetry, Longfellow.
The principal had thick powerful shoulders; clumsy white arms, knotted with big awkward country muscles. Eugene had seen him once hoeing in the schoolyard; each of them had been given a plant to set out. He got those muscles on the farm. The boys said he beat very hard. He walked with a clumsy stealthy tread—awkward and comical enough, it is true, but he could be up at a boy’s back before you knew it. Otto Krause called him Creeping Jesus. The name stuck, among the tough crowd. Eugene was a little shocked by it.
The principal had a white face of waxen transparency, with deep flat cheeks like the Pentlands, a pallid nose, a trifle deeper in its color than his face, and a thin slightly-bowed mouth. His hair was coarse, black, and thick, but he never let it grow too long. He had short dry hands, strong, and always coated deeply with chalk. When he passed near by, Eugene got the odor of chalk and of the schoolhouse: his heart grew cold with excitement and fear. The sanctity of chalk and school hovered about the man’s flesh. He was the one who could touch without being touched, beat without being beaten. Eugene had terrible fantasies of resistance, shuddering with horror as he thought of the awful consequences of fighting back: something like God’s fist in lighting. Then he looked around cautiously to see if any one had noticed.
The principal’s name was Leonard. He made long speeches to the children every morning, after a ten-minute prayer. He had a high sonorous countrified voice which often trailed off in a comical drawl; he got lost very easily in revery, would pause in the middle of a sentence, gaze absently off with his mouth half-open and an expression of stupefaction on his face, and return presently to the business before him, his mind still loose, with witless distracted laugh.
He talked to the children aimlessly, pompously, dully for twenty minutes every morning: the teachers yawned carefully behind their hands, the students made furtive drawings, or passed notes. He spoke to them of “the higher life” and of “the things of the mind.” He assured them that they were the leaders of to-morrow and the hope of the world. Then he quoted Longfellow.
He was a good man, a dull man, a man of honor. He had a broad streak of coarse earthy brutality in him. He loved a farm better than anything in the world except a school. He had rented a big dilapidated house in a grove of lordly oaks on the outskirts of town: he lived there with his wife and his two children. He had a cow—he was never without a cow: he would go out at night and morning to milk her, laughing his vacant silly laugh, and giving her a good smacking kick in the belly to make her come round into position.
He was a heavy-handed master. He put down rebellion with good cornfield violence. If a boy was impudent to him he would rip him powerfully from his seat, drag his wriggling figure into his office, breathing stertorously as he walked along at his clumsy rapid gait, and saying roundly, in tones of scathing contempt: “Why, you young upstart, we’ll just see who’s master here. I’ll just show you, my sonny, if I’m to be dictated to by every two-by-four whippersnapper who comes along.” And once within the office, with the glazed door shut, he published the stern warning of his justice by the loud exertion of his breathing, the cutting swish of his rattan, and the yowls of pain and terror that he exacted from his captive.
He had called the school together that day to command it to write him a composition. The children sat, staring dumbly up at him as he made a rambling explanation of what he wanted. Finally he announced a prize. He would give five dollars from his own pocket to the student who wrote the best paper. That aroused them. There was a rustle of interest.
They were to write a paper on the meaning of a French picture called The Song of the Lark. It represented a French peasant girl, barefooted, with a sickle in one hand, and with face upturned in the morning-light of the fields as she listened to the bird-song. They were asked to describe what they saw in the expression of the girl’s face. They were asked to tell what the picture meant to them. It had been reproduced in one of their readers. A larger print was now hung up on the platform for their inspection. Sheets of yellow paper were given them. They stared, thoughtfully masticating their pencils. Finally, the room was silent save for a minute scratching on paper.
The warm wind spouted about the eaves; the grasses bent, whistling gently.
Eugene wrote: “The girl is hearing the song of the first lark. She knows that it means Spring has come. She is about seventeen or eighteen years old. Her people are very poor, she has never been anywhere. In the winter she wears wooden shoes. She is making out as if she was going to whistle. But she doesn’t let on to the bird that she has heard him. The rest of her people are behind her, coming down the field, but we do not see them. She has a father, a mother, and two brothers. They have worked hard all their life. The girl is the youngest child. She thinks she would like to go away somewhere and see the world. Sometimes she hears the whistle of a train that is going to Paris. She has never ridden on a train in her life. She would like to go to Paris. She would like to have some fine clothes, she would like to travel. Perhaps she would like to start life new in America, the Land of Opportunity. The girl has had a hard time. Her people do not understand her. If they saw her listening to the lark they would poke fun at her. She has never had the advantages of a good education, her people are so poor, but she would profit by her opportunity if she did, more than some people who have. You can tell by looking at her that she’s intelligent.”
It was early in May; examinations came in another two weeks. He thought of them with excitement and pleasure—he liked the period of hard cramming, the long reviews, the delight of emptying out abundantly on paper his stored knowledge. The big assembly room had about it the odor of completion, of sharp nervous ecstasy. All through the summer it would be drowsy-warm; if only here, alone, with the big plaster cast of Minerva, himself and Bessie Barnes, or Miss—Miss—
“We want this boy,” said Margaret Leonard. She handed Eugene’s paper over to her husband. They were starting a private school for boys. That was what the paper had been for.
Leonard took the paper, pretended to read half a page, looked off absently into eternity, and began to rub his chin reflectively, leaving a slight coating of chalk-dust on his face. Then, catching her eye, he laughed idiotically, and said: “Why, that little rascal! Huh? Do you suppose——?”
Feeling delightfully scattered, he bent over with a long suction of whining laughter, slapping his knee and leaving a chalk print, making a slobbering noise in his mouth.
“The Lord have mercy!” he gasped.
“Here! Never you mind about that,” she said, laughing with tender sharp amusement. “Pull yourself together and see this boy’s people.” She loved the man dearly, and he loved her.
A few days later Leonard assembled the children a second time. He made a rambling speech, the purport of which was to inform them that one of them had won the prize, but to conceal the winner’s name. Then, after several divagations, which he thoroughly enjoyed, he read Eugene’s paper, announced his name, and called him forward.
Chalkface took chalkhand. The boy’s heart thundered against his ribs. The proud horns blared, he tasted glory.
Patiently, all through the summer, Leonard laid siege to Gant and Eliza. Gant fidgeted, spoke shiftily, finally said:
“You’ll have to see his mother.” Privately he was bitterly scornful, roared the merits of the public school as an incubator of citizenship. The family was contemptuous. Private school! Mr. Vanderbilt! Ruin him for good!
Which made Eliza reflective. She had a good streak of snobbism. Mr. Vanderbilt? She was as good as any of them. They’d just see.
“Who are you going to have?” she asked. “Have you drummed any one up yet?”
Leonard mentioned the sons of several fashionable and wealthy people,—of Dr. Kitchen, the eye, ear, nose and throat man, Mr. Arthur, the corporation lawyer, and Bishop Raper, of the Episcopal diocese.
Eliza grew more reflective. She thought of Pett. She needn’t give herself airs.
“How much are you asking?” she said.
He told her the tuition was one hundred dollars a year. She pursed her lips lingeringly before she answered.
“Hm-m!” she began, with a bantering smile, as she looked at Eugene. “That’s a whole lot of money. You know,” she continued with her tremulous smile, “as the darkey says, we’re pore-folks.”
Eugene squirmed.
“Well what about it, boy?” said Eliza banteringly. “Do you think you’re worth that much money?”
Mr. Leonard placed his white dry hand upon Eugene’s shoulders, affectionately sliding it down his back and across his kidneys, leaving white chalk prints everywhere. Then he clamped his meaty palm tightly around the slender bracelet of boy-arm.
“That boy’s worth it,” he said, shaking him gently to and fro. “Yes, sir!”
Eugene smiled painfully. Eliza continued to purse her lips. She felt a strong psychic relation to Leonard. They both took time.
“Say,” she said, rubbing her broad red nose, and smiling slyly, “I used to be a school-teacher. You didn’t know that, did you? But I didn’t get any such prices as you’re asking,” she added. “I thought myself mighty lucky if I got my board and twenty dollars a month.”
“Is that so, Mrs. Gant?” said Mr. Leonard with great interest. “Well, sir!” He began to laugh in a vague whine, pulling Eugene about more violently and deadening his arm under his crushing grip.
“Yes,” said Eliza, “I remember my father—it was long before you were born, boy,” she said to Eugene, “for I hadn’t laid eyes on your papa—as the feller says, you were nothing but a dish-rag hanging out in heaven—I’d have laughed at any one who suggested marriage then—Well, I tell you what [she shook her head with a sad pursed deprecating mouth], we were mighty poor at the time, I can tell you.—I was thinking about it the other day—many’s the time we didn’t have food in the house for the next meal.—Well, as I was saying, your grandfather [addressing Eugene] came home one night and said—Look here, what about it?—Who do you suppose I saw to-day?—I remember him just as plain as if I saw him standing here—I had a feeling—[addressing Leonard with a doubtful smile] I don’t know what you’d call it but it’s pretty strange when you come to think about it, isn’t it?—I had just finished helping Aunt Jane set the table—she had come all the way from Yancey County to visit your grandmother—when all of a sudden it flashed over me—mind you [to Leonard] I never looked out the window or anything but I knew just as well as I knew anything that he was coming—mercy I cried—here comes—why what on earth are you talking about, Eliza? said your grandma—I remember she went to the door and looked out down the path—there’s no one there—He’s acoming, I said—wait and see—Who? said your grandmother—Why, father, I said—he’s carrying something on his shoulder—and sure enough—I had no sooner got the words out of my mouth than there he was just acoming it for all he was worth, up the path, with a tow-sack full of apples on his back—you could tell by the way he walked that he had news of some sort—well—sure enough—without stopping to say howdy-do—I remembered he began to talk almost before he got into the house—O father, I called out—you’ve brought the apples—it was the year after I had almost died of pneumonia—I’d been spitting up blood ever since—and having hemorrhages—and I asked him to bring me some apples—Well sir, mother said to him, and she looked mighty queer, I can tell you—that’s the strangest thing I ever heard of—and she told him what had happened—Well, he looked pretty serious and said—Yes, I’ll never forget the way he said it—I reckon she saw me. I wasn’t there but I was thinking of being there and coming up the path at that very moment—I’ve got news for you he said—who do you suppose I saw to-day—why, I’ve no idea, I said—why old Professor Truman—he came rushing up to me in town and said, see here: where’s Eliza—I’ve got a job for her if she wants it, teaching school this winter out on Beaverdam—why, pshaw, said your grandfather, she’s never taught school a day in her life—and Professor Truman laughed just as big as you please and said never you mind about that—Eliza can do anything she sets her mind on—well sir, that’s the way it all came about.” High-sorrowful and sad, she paused for a moment, adrift, her white face slanting her life back through the aisled grove of years.
