Latest / Ernest Hemingway Works Collection / Torrents of Spring - Ernest Hemingway
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The Torrents of Spring, a romantic novel, and honor of
- 0:04Speaker 1: the passing of a great race. And perhaps there is
- 0:07Speaker 1: one reason why a comic writer should, of all others,
- 0:11Speaker 1: be the least excused for deviating from nature, since it
- 0:14Speaker 1: may not always be easy for a serious poet to
- 0:18Speaker 1: meet with the great and the admirable, But life everywhere
- 0:21Speaker 1: furnishes and accurate. Observer with the ridiculous Henry Fielding, Part one,
- 0:28Speaker 1: Red and Black Laughter, Chapters one through five, The only
- 0:33Speaker 1: source of the true ridiculous, as it appears to me,
- 0:37Speaker 1: is affectation, Henry Fielding, Chapter one. Jugi Johnson stood looking
- 0:45Speaker 1: out of the window of a big pump factory in Michigan.
- 0:48Speaker 1: Spring would soon be here? Could it be that that
- 0:52Speaker 1: was what this writing fellow Hutchison had said, If winter comes,
- 0:56Speaker 1: can spring be far behind? Would it be true again
- 0:59Speaker 1: this year? Jogi Johnson wondered near Yogi at the next window,
- 1:04Speaker 1: but one stood Scrips O'Neill, a tall, lean man with
- 1:09Speaker 1: a tall, lean face. Both stood and looked out at
- 1:13Speaker 1: the empty yard of the pump factory. Snow covered the
- 1:16Speaker 1: crateed pumps that would soon be shipped away once the
- 1:20Speaker 1: spring should come and the snow melt. Workmen from the
- 1:23Speaker 1: factory would break out the pumps from piles where they
- 1:26Speaker 1: were snowed in and hauled them down to the g
- 1:29Speaker 1: R and I station, where they would be loaded on
- 1:32Speaker 1: flat cars and shipped away. Jogi Johnson looked out of
- 1:37Speaker 1: the window of the snowed in pumps, and his breath
- 1:40Speaker 1: made little fairy tracings on the cold window pane. Jogi
- 1:44Speaker 1: Johnson thought of Paris. Perhaps it was the little fairy
- 1:47Speaker 1: tracings that reminded him of the gay city where he
- 1:50Speaker 1: had once spent two weeks, two weeks that were to
- 1:54Speaker 1: have been the happiest weeks of his life. That was
- 1:57Speaker 1: all behind him now that in every anything else. Scrips
- 2:01Speaker 1: O'Neill had two wives. As he looked out of the window,
- 2:05Speaker 1: standing tall and lean and resilient with his own tenuous hardness,
- 2:09Speaker 1: he thought of both of them. One lived in man
- 2:12Speaker 1: Solona and the other lived in Pataski. He had not
- 2:16Speaker 1: seen the wife who lived in man Sllona since last spring.
- 2:20Speaker 1: He looked out at the snow covered pump yards and
- 2:23Speaker 1: thought what spring would mean with his wife in man Solona.
- 2:27Speaker 1: Scrips often got drunk when he was drunk. He and
- 2:30Speaker 1: his wife were happy. They would go down together to
- 2:33Speaker 1: the railway station and walk out along the tracks, and
- 2:36Speaker 1: then sit together and drink and watch the trains go by.
- 2:41Speaker 1: They would sit under a pine tree on a little
- 2:43Speaker 1: hill that overlooked the railway and drink. Sometimes they drank
- 2:48Speaker 1: all night. Sometimes they drank for a week at a time.
- 2:52Speaker 1: It did them good, It made Scribs strong. Scrips had
- 2:56Speaker 1: a daughter whom he playfully called Loosy O'Neill. Her real
- 3:01Speaker 1: name was Lucy O'Neill. One night, after Scribs and his
- 3:04Speaker 1: old woman had been out drinking on the railroad line
- 3:07Speaker 1: for three or four days, he lost his wife. He
- 3:10Speaker 1: didn't know where she was. When he came to himself,
- 3:13Speaker 1: everything was dark. He walked along the railroad track toward town.
- 3:18Speaker 1: The ties were stiff and hard under his feet. He
- 3:21Speaker 1: tried walking on the rails. He couldn't do it. He
- 3:25Speaker 1: had the dope on that all right. He went back
- 3:27Speaker 1: to walking along the ties. Was a long way into town.
- 3:32Speaker 1: Finally came to where he could see the lights of
- 3:34Speaker 1: the switch yard. He cut away from the tracks and
- 3:37Speaker 1: passed the mon Salona High School. It was a yellow
- 3:41Speaker 1: brick building. There was nothing rococo about it, like the
- 3:45Speaker 1: buildings he had seen in Paris. No, he had never
- 3:49Speaker 1: been in Paris. That was not he, That was his friend,
- 3:52Speaker 1: Jogi Johnson. Jogi Johnson looked out of the window. Soon
- 3:56Speaker 1: it would be time to shut the pump factory for
- 3:59Speaker 1: the night. He opened the window carefully, just to crack,
- 4:02Speaker 1: but that was enough. Outside in the yard, the snow
- 4:05Speaker 1: had begun to melt. A warm breeze was blowing, a
- 4:09Speaker 1: chinook wind. The pump fellows called it. The warm chinook
- 4:12Speaker 1: wind came and through the window into the pump factory.
- 4:16Speaker 1: All the workmen laid down their tools. Many of them
- 4:19Speaker 1: were Indians. The foreman was a short, iron jawed man.
- 4:23Speaker 1: He had once made a trip as far as Duluth.
- 4:26Speaker 1: The looth was far across the blue waters of the
- 4:29Speaker 1: lake in the hills of Minnesota. A wonderful thing had
- 4:33Speaker 1: happened to him there. The foreman put his finger in
- 4:36Speaker 1: his mouth to moisten it, and held it up in
- 4:38Speaker 1: the air. He felt the warm breeze on his finger.
- 4:41Speaker 1: He shook his head ruefully and smiled at the men
- 4:44Speaker 1: a little grimly. Perhaps, Well, it's a regular chinook, boys,
- 4:49Speaker 1: he said, silently. For the most part, the workmen hung
- 4:53Speaker 1: up their tools. The half completed pumps were put away
- 4:57Speaker 1: in their racks. The workmen filed some of the talking
- 5:00Speaker 1: of their silent, a few muttering to the washroom to
- 5:04Speaker 1: wash up. Outside, through the window came the sound of
- 5:08Speaker 1: an Indian war whoop. Chapter two. Scrips O'Neill stood outside
- 5:13Speaker 1: the man Salona High School, looking up at the light
- 5:16Speaker 1: at windows. Was dark, and the snow was falling. It
- 5:20Speaker 1: had been falling ever since scripts could remember. The passerby
- 5:23Speaker 1: stopped and stared at Scrips. After all, what was this
- 5:27Speaker 1: man to him? He went on. Scrips stood in the
- 5:31Speaker 1: snow and stared up at the light at windows of
- 5:33Speaker 1: the high school. Inside there people were learning things. Far
- 5:38Speaker 1: into the night. They worked, the boys vying with the
- 5:41Speaker 1: girls in their search for knowledge, this urge for the
- 5:44Speaker 1: yearning of things that was sweeping America. His girl, Little Lousy,
- 5:49Speaker 1: a girl that had cost him a cool seventy five
- 5:51Speaker 1: dollars in doctors bills, was in there learning. Scrips was proud.
- 5:57Speaker 1: It was too late for him to learn. But there
- 6:00Speaker 1: after day and night after night, Lowsey was learning. She
- 6:04Speaker 1: had the stuff in her that girl, Scrips went on
- 6:08Speaker 1: up to the house. It was not a big house,
- 6:10Speaker 1: but it wasn't size that mattered to Scrips. Old woman
- 6:14Speaker 1: scripts she often had said when they were drinking together,
- 6:17Speaker 1: I don't want a palace. All I want is a
- 6:19Speaker 1: place to keep the wind out. Scrips had taken her
- 6:22Speaker 1: at her word. Now, as he walked in the late
- 6:24Speaker 1: evening through the snow and saw the lights of his
- 6:28Speaker 1: own home, he felt glad that he had taken her
- 6:30Speaker 1: at her word. It was better this way than if
- 6:32Speaker 1: they were coming home to a palace. He Scrips was
- 6:36Speaker 1: not the sort of chap that wanted a palace. He
- 6:40Speaker 1: opened the door of his house and went in. Something
- 6:42Speaker 1: kept going through his head. He tried to get it out,
- 6:45Speaker 1: but it was no good. What was it that poet
- 6:49Speaker 1: chap Is friend Harry Parker had met once in Detroit,
- 6:52Speaker 1: had written, Harry used to recite it through pleasures and palaces.
- 6:57Speaker 1: Though I may roam when you something, something, something, there's
- 7:02Speaker 1: no place like home. He could not remember the words,
- 7:06Speaker 1: not all of them. He had written a simple tune
- 7:09Speaker 1: to it and taught Lucy to sing it. That was
- 7:11Speaker 1: when they first were married. Scrips might have been a composer,
- 7:15Speaker 1: one of these chaps that write the stuff the Chicago
- 7:18Speaker 1: Symphony Orchestra plays. If he had had a chance to
- 7:21Speaker 1: go on, he would get Lucy to sing that song tonight.
- 7:25Speaker 1: He would never drink again. Drinking robbed him of his
- 7:28Speaker 1: ear for music. Times when he was drunk, the sound
- 7:31Speaker 1: of the whistles of the trains at night, pulling up
- 7:34Speaker 1: the boy and falls grade seemed more lovely than anything
- 7:37Speaker 1: this chap Stravinsky had ever written. Drinking had done that
- 7:42Speaker 1: was wrong. He would get away to Paris like this chap.
- 7:45Speaker 1: Albert Spawling that played the violin Scrips opened the door.
- 7:50Speaker 1: He went in Lucy. He called it his I scrips.
- 7:54Speaker 1: He would never drink again. No more nights out on
- 7:56Speaker 1: the railroad. Perhaps Lucy needed a new fur, Perhaps after
- 8:01Speaker 1: all she had wanted a palace instead of this place.
- 8:05Speaker 1: You never knew how you were treating a woman. Perhaps,
- 8:09Speaker 1: after all this place was not keeping out the wind.
- 8:12Speaker 1: Fantastic He lit a match, Lucy, he called, and there
- 8:16Speaker 1: was a note of dumb terror in his mouth. His
- 8:18Speaker 1: friend Walt Simmons had heard just such a cry from
- 8:21Speaker 1: a stallion that had once been run over by a
- 8:23Speaker 1: passing autobus in the place see Vandon in Paris. In Paris,
- 8:28Speaker 1: there were no geldings. All the horses were stallions. They
- 8:31Speaker 1: did not breed mares, not since the war. The war
- 8:35Speaker 1: changed all that. Lucy, he called, and again, Lucy, there
- 8:40Speaker 1: was no answer. The house was empty. Through the snow
- 8:44Speaker 1: filled air. As he stood there alone in his tall, leanness,
- 8:48Speaker 1: in his own deserted house, there came to Script's ears
- 8:51Speaker 1: the distant sound of an Indian war hoop. Chapter three,
- 8:56Speaker 1: Scrips left Moncellona. Who was through with that place? What
- 9:00Speaker 1: had a town like that to give him? There was
- 9:02Speaker 1: nothing to it. You worked all your life, and then
- 9:04Speaker 1: a thing like that happened. The savings of years wiped
- 9:08Speaker 1: out everything gone. He started to Chicago to get a job.
- 9:12Speaker 1: Chicago was the place. Look at its geographical situation, right
- 9:17Speaker 1: at the end of Lake Michigan. Chicago would do big things.
- 9:21Speaker 1: Any fool could see that. He would buy land in
- 9:23Speaker 1: what is now the Loop, the big shopping and manufacturing district.
- 9:27Speaker 1: He would buy the land at a low price and
- 9:29Speaker 1: then hang on to it, let them try and get
- 9:32Speaker 1: it away from him. He knew a thing or two.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Now alone, bare headed, the snow blowing in his hair.
- 9:39Speaker 1: He walked down the g R and I railway tracks.
- 9:42Speaker 1: It was the coldest night he had ever known. He
- 9:45Speaker 1: picked up a dead bird that had frozen and fallen
- 9:48Speaker 1: onto the railroad tracks and put it inside his shirt
- 9:51Speaker 1: to warm it. The bird nestled close to his warm
- 9:54Speaker 1: body and pecked at his chest gratefully, Poor little chap,
- 9:58Speaker 1: Script said, you've feel the cold too. Tears came into
- 10:03Speaker 1: his eyes. Drat that wind, Script said, and once again
- 10:07Speaker 1: faced into the blowing snow. The wind was blowing straight
- 10:10Speaker 1: down from Lake Superior. The telegraph wires above Scrip's head sang,
- 10:14Speaker 1: and the wind. Through the dark, Script saw a great
- 10:17Speaker 1: yellow eye coming toward him. The giant locomotive came nearer
- 10:21Speaker 1: through the snowstorm. Scrip stepped to one side of the
- 10:24Speaker 1: track to let it go by. What is it that
- 10:27Speaker 1: old writing fellow Shakespeare says, Mike makes right? Scrips thought
- 10:32Speaker 1: of that quotation as the train went past him in
- 10:35Speaker 1: the snowing darkness. First the engine passed, he saw the
- 10:39Speaker 1: fireman bending to fling great shovelfuls of cold into the
- 10:42Speaker 1: open furnace door. The engineer wore goggles, his face was
- 10:47Speaker 1: lit up by the light from the open door of
- 10:49Speaker 1: the engine. He was the engineer. It was he who
- 10:53Speaker 1: had his hand on the throttle. Scripts thought of the
- 10:55Speaker 1: Chicago anarchist who, when they were hanged, said, though you
- 10:59Speaker 1: throttle a today, still you cannot something something our souls.
- 11:04Speaker 1: There was a monument where they were buried in Waldheim Cemetery,
- 11:08Speaker 1: right beside the Forest Park amusement park in Chicago. His
- 11:12Speaker 1: father used to take Scripts out there on Sundays. The
- 11:15Speaker 1: monument was all black and there was a black angel.
- 11:18Speaker 1: That was when Scripts had been a little boy. He
- 11:21Speaker 1: used often to ask his father father, why if we
- 11:25Speaker 1: came to look at the anarchists on Sunday, why can't
- 11:28Speaker 1: we ride on the hut the shoots. He had never
- 11:31Speaker 1: been satisfied with his father's answer. He'd been a little
- 11:34Speaker 1: boy in knee pants. Then. His father had been a
- 11:37Speaker 1: great composer. His mother was an Italian woman from the
- 11:41Speaker 1: north of Italy. They are strange people, these North Italians.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Scripts stood beside the track, and the long black segments
- 11:49Speaker 1: of the train clicked by him in the snow. All
- 11:52Speaker 1: the cars were pullmans, the blinds were down. Light came
- 11:56Speaker 1: in thin slits from the bottom of the dark windows
- 11:58Speaker 1: as the cars went by. The train did not roar by,
- 12:01Speaker 1: as it might have if it had been going in
- 12:04Speaker 1: the other direction. Because it was climbing the boyin Fall's grade,
- 12:08Speaker 1: it went slower than if it had been going down. Still,
- 12:11Speaker 1: it went too fast for Scripts to hitch on. He
- 12:14Speaker 1: thought how he had been an expert at hitching on
- 12:16Speaker 1: grocery wagons when he was a young boy in knee pants.
- 12:20Speaker 1: The long black train of pullman cars passed Scrips as
- 12:23Speaker 1: he stood beside the tracks. Who were in these cars?
- 12:26Speaker 1: Were they Americans piling up money while they slept? Were
- 12:30Speaker 1: they mothers, were their fathers? Were their lovers among them?
- 12:34Speaker 1: Or were they Europeans members of a worn out civilization
- 12:38Speaker 1: world weary from the war, Scripts wondered. The last car
- 12:43Speaker 1: passed them, and the train went on up the track.
- 12:46Speaker 1: Scrips watched the red light at its stern disappearing into
- 12:49Speaker 1: the blackness through which the snowflakes now came softly. The
- 12:53Speaker 1: bird fluttered inside his shirt. Scrips started along the ties.
- 12:58Speaker 1: He wanted to get to Chicago the night, if possible,
- 13:01Speaker 1: to start work in the morning. The bird fluttered again.
- 13:05Speaker 1: It was not so feeble. Now, Scripts put his hand
- 13:09Speaker 1: on it to still its little bird flutterings. The bird
- 13:12Speaker 1: was calmed. Scripts strode on up the track. After all,
- 13:17Speaker 1: he did not need to go as far as Chicago.
- 13:19Speaker 1: There were other places. What if that critic fellow Henry
- 13:23Speaker 1: Menkin had called Chicago the literary capital of America. There
- 13:27Speaker 1: was Grand Rapids. Once in Grand Rapids he could start
- 13:30Speaker 1: in on the furniture business. Fortunes had been made that way.
- 13:34Speaker 1: Grand Rapids furniture was famous wherever young couples walked in
- 13:38Speaker 1: the evening to talk of homemaking. He remembered a sign
- 13:42Speaker 1: he had seen in Chicago as a little boy. His
- 13:45Speaker 1: mother had pointed it out to him as together they
- 13:47Speaker 1: walked barefoot through what now is probably the Loop, begging
- 13:51Speaker 1: from door to door. His mother loved the bright flashing
- 13:55Speaker 1: of the electric lights and the sign there like sun
- 13:59Speaker 1: Minneapto and Nta Florence. She told Scrips. Look at them,
- 14:03Speaker 1: my son, she said, for some day your music will
- 14:06Speaker 1: be played there by the Ferenze Symphony Orchestra. Scrips had
- 14:10Speaker 1: often watched the sign for hours while his mother slept
- 14:14Speaker 1: wrapped in an old shawl on what is now probably
- 14:17Speaker 1: the black Stone Hotel. The sign had made a great
- 14:20Speaker 1: impression on him. Let Hartman feather your nest, it had said.
- 14:25Speaker 1: It flashed in many different colors. First a pure, dazzling white.
- 14:30Speaker 1: That was what Scrips loved best. Then it flashed a
- 14:33Speaker 1: lovely green, Then it flashed red. One night, as he
- 14:37Speaker 1: lay crouched against his mother's body warmth and watched the
- 14:40Speaker 1: sign flash, a policeman came up. You'll have to move along,
- 14:44Speaker 1: he said, Ah, yes, there was big money to be
- 14:48Speaker 1: made in the furniture business if you knew how to
- 14:50Speaker 1: go about it. He Scrips knew all the wrinkles of
- 14:53Speaker 1: that game. In his own mind, it was settled. He
- 14:56Speaker 1: would stop at grand rapids. The little bird fluttered happily. Now, ah,
- 15:02Speaker 1: what a beautiful gilded cage I'll build for you, my
- 15:04Speaker 1: pretty one, Script said exultantly. The little bird pecked at
- 15:09Speaker 1: him confidently. Scripts strode on in the storm. The snow
- 15:13Speaker 1: was beginning to drift across the track. Borne on the wind,
- 15:17Speaker 1: there came to Script's ears the sound of a far
- 15:20Speaker 1: off Indian war whoo. Chapter four. Where was Scripts now?
- 15:25Speaker 1: Walking in the night in the storm. He had become confused.
- 15:29Speaker 1: He had started for Chicago after that dreadful night, when
- 15:31Speaker 1: he had found that his home was a home no longer.
- 15:35Speaker 1: Why had Lucy left? What had become of lousy? He
- 15:39Speaker 1: scripts did not know, not that he cared. That was
- 15:42Speaker 1: all behind him. It was none of that. Now he
- 15:45Speaker 1: was standing knee deep in snow in front of a
- 15:47Speaker 1: railway station. On the railway station was written in big letters, pataski.
- 15:54Speaker 1: There were a pile of deer shipped down by hunters
- 15:57Speaker 1: from the upper Peninsula of Michigan, lying piled the one
- 16:00Speaker 1: on the other, dead and stiff and drifted half over
- 16:03Speaker 1: with snow on the station platform. Scrips read the sign again.
- 16:08Speaker 1: Could this be petaski? A man was inside the station
- 16:13Speaker 1: tapping something back of a wicketed window. He looked out
- 16:16Speaker 1: at Scrips. Could he be a telegrapher? Something told Scrips
- 16:21Speaker 1: that he was. He stepped out of the snow drift
- 16:24Speaker 1: and approached the window. Behind the window, the man worked
- 16:27Speaker 1: busily away at his telegrapher's key. Are you a telegrapher,
- 16:31Speaker 1: asked Scripps. Yes, sir, said the man, I'm a telegrapher.
- 16:35Speaker 1: How wonderful the telegrapher eyed him suspiciously. After all, what
- 16:40Speaker 1: was this man to him? Is it hard to be
- 16:43Speaker 1: a telegrapher? Scrips asked. He wanted to ask the man
- 16:46Speaker 1: outright if this was PETASKI He did not know this
- 16:50Speaker 1: great northern section of America, though, and he wished to
- 16:53Speaker 1: be polite. The telegrapher looked at him curiously. Say he asked,
- 16:58Speaker 1: are you a fairy? No, Scrips said, I don't know
- 17:02Speaker 1: what being a fairy means. Well, said the telegrapher, what
- 17:06Speaker 1: do you carry a bird around? For? Bird? Asked Grips?
- 17:10Speaker 1: What bird? The bird that's sticking out of your shirt?
- 17:14Speaker 1: Scrips was at a loss. What sort of chap was
- 17:16Speaker 1: this telegrapher? What sort of men went in for telegraphy?
- 17:20Speaker 1: Were they like composers? Were they like artists? Were they
- 17:24Speaker 1: like writers? Were they like the advertising men who wriped
- 17:27Speaker 1: the ads in our national weeklies? Or were they like
- 17:30Speaker 1: Europeans drawn and wasted by the war their best years
- 17:34Speaker 1: behind them? Could he tell this telegrapher the whole story?
- 17:39Speaker 1: Would he understand? I started home, he began. I passed
- 17:43Speaker 1: the man Salona High School. I knew a girl in Mancellona.
- 17:46Speaker 1: The telegrapher said, maybe you knew her ethel enright. Was
- 17:51Speaker 1: no good going on. He would cut the story short.
- 17:55Speaker 1: He'd give the bare essentials. Besides, it was beastly cold.
- 17:59Speaker 1: Was cold standing there on the windswept station platform. Something
- 18:03Speaker 1: told them it was useless to go on. He looked
- 18:06Speaker 1: over at the deer lying there in a pile, stiff
- 18:09Speaker 1: and cold. Perhaps they too had been lovers. Some were
- 18:13Speaker 1: bucks and some were doze. The bucks said horns. That
- 18:18Speaker 1: was how you could tell. With cats. It is more
- 18:20Speaker 1: difficult in France. They gelt the cats and do not
- 18:23Speaker 1: guild the horses. France was a long way off. My
- 18:28Speaker 1: wife left me, Scrip said abruptly. I don't wonder if
- 18:31Speaker 1: you go around with the damn bird sticking out of
- 18:33Speaker 1: your shirt. The telegrapher said, what town is this? Scripts asked.
- 18:38Speaker 1: The single moment of spiritual communion they had had had
- 18:42Speaker 1: been dissipated. They had never really had it, but they
- 18:45Speaker 1: might have. It was no use now, there was no
- 18:48Speaker 1: use trying to capture what had gone, what had fled Petuski.
- 18:53Speaker 1: The telegrapher replied, thank you, Scrip said, He turned and
- 18:57Speaker 1: walked into the silent, deserted northern town. Luckily he had
- 19:02Speaker 1: four hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket. He had
- 19:05Speaker 1: sold a story to George Horace Lorimer just before he
- 19:08Speaker 1: had started out with his old woman on the drinking trip.
- 19:12Speaker 1: Why had he gone at all? What was it all about? Anyway?
- 19:17Speaker 1: Coming toward him down the street came two Indians. They
- 19:20Speaker 1: looked at him, but their faces did not change. Their
- 19:24Speaker 1: faces remained the same. They went into McCarthy's barbershop, Chapter five, Scrips.
- 19:31Speaker 1: O'Neill stood irresolutely before the barbershop. Inside there men were
- 19:36Speaker 1: being shaved, other men no different, were having their hair cut.
- 19:40Speaker 1: Other men sat against the wall and tall chairs and smoked,
- 19:44Speaker 1: waiting their turn in the barber chairs, admiring the paintings
- 19:48Speaker 1: hung on the wall, or admiring their own reflections in
- 19:51Speaker 1: the long mirror. Should he scripts go in there? After all,
- 19:55Speaker 1: he had four hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket.
- 19:59Speaker 1: He could go where want it. He looked, once again, irresolutely.
- 20:04Speaker 1: Was an inviting prospect. The society of men, the warm room,
- 20:09Speaker 1: the white jackets of the barbers, skillfully snipping away with
- 20:12Speaker 1: their scissors or drawing their blades diagonally through the lather
- 20:16Speaker 1: that covered the face of some man who was getting
- 20:18Speaker 1: a shave. They could use their tools, these barbers. Somehow,
- 20:23Speaker 1: it wasn't what he wanted. He wanted something different, He
- 20:27Speaker 1: wanted to eat. Besides, there was his bird to look after. Scrips.
- 20:32Speaker 1: O'Neill turned his back on the barber shop and strode
- 20:35Speaker 1: away up on the street of the silently frozen northern town.
- 20:39Speaker 1: On his right, as he walked the weeping birches, their
- 20:42Speaker 1: branches bare of leaves, hung down to the ground, heavy
- 20:46Speaker 1: with snow. To his ears came the sound of sleigh bells.
- 20:50Speaker 1: Perhaps it was Christmas in the South, little children would
- 20:54Speaker 1: be shooting off firecrackers and crying Christmas Gift, Christmas gift
- 20:59Speaker 1: to one another. His father came from the South. He'd
- 21:02Speaker 1: been a soldier in the Rebel Army, way back in
- 21:05Speaker 1: Civil War days. Sherman had burned their house down on
- 21:08Speaker 1: his march to the sea. War's hell Sherman had said,
- 21:12Speaker 1: but you see how it is, missus O'Neill had got
- 21:15Speaker 1: to do it. He had touched a match to the
- 21:17Speaker 1: white pillared old house. If General O'Neill were here, you dastard,
- 21:21Speaker 1: his mother had said, speaking in her broken English, you
- 21:25Speaker 1: never had touched a match to that house. Smoke curled
- 21:28Speaker 1: up from the old house. The fire was mounting. The
- 21:31Speaker 1: white pillars were obscured in the rising smoke. Wreaths Scrips
- 21:36Speaker 1: had held close to his mother's Lindsey woolsey dress. General
- 21:40Speaker 1: Sherman climbed back on to his horse and made a
- 21:42Speaker 1: low bow. Missus O'Neill, he said, And Scrip's mother always said,
- 21:46Speaker 1: there were tears in his eyes, even if he was
- 21:49Speaker 1: a damned yank man had a heart, sir, even if
- 21:53Speaker 1: he did not follow its dictates, Missus O'Neill. If the
- 21:56Speaker 1: General were here, we could have it out as manned
- 21:59Speaker 1: a man as it is, ma'am. War being what it is,
- 22:02Speaker 1: I must burn your house. He motioned to one of
- 22:05Speaker 1: his soldiers, who ran forward and threw a bucket of
- 22:08Speaker 1: kerosene on the flames. The flames rose, and a great
- 22:11Speaker 1: column of smoke went up in the still evening air.
- 22:15Speaker 1: At least General Sherman. Script's mother said triumphantly, that column
- 22:19Speaker 1: of smoke will warn the other loyal daughters of the
- 22:22Speaker 1: Confederacy that you were coming. Sherman bowed. That is the
- 22:27Speaker 1: risk we must take, ma'am. He clapped spurs to his
- 22:30Speaker 1: horse and rode away, his long white hair floating on
- 22:33Speaker 1: the wind. Neither Scrips nor his mother ever saw him again.
- 22:37Speaker 1: Odd that he should think of that incident. Now he
- 22:40Speaker 1: looked up. Facing him was a sign Brown's Beanery, the
- 22:44Speaker 1: best by test. He would go in and eat. This
- 22:48Speaker 1: was what he wanted. He would go in and eat
- 22:51Speaker 1: that sign the best by test. Ah. These big beanery
- 22:55Speaker 1: owners were wise fellows. They knew how to get the customers.
- 22:59Speaker 1: No add in the Saturday evening post for them, the
- 23:02Speaker 1: best by test. That was the stuff. He went in.
- 23:06Speaker 1: Inside the door of the beanery, Scrips O'Neill looked around him.
- 23:10Speaker 1: There was a long counter, There was a clock. There
- 23:13Speaker 1: was a door led into the kitchen. There were a
- 23:16Speaker 1: couple of tables. There were a pile of doughnuts under
- 23:19Speaker 1: a glass cover. There were signs put out on the
- 23:23Speaker 1: wall advertising things one might eat. Was this after all
- 23:27Speaker 1: Brown's Beanery? I wonder? Scrips asked an elderly waitress who
- 23:32Speaker 1: came in through the swinging door from the kitchen, if
- 23:35Speaker 1: you could tell me if this is Brown's beanery. Yes, sir,
- 23:38Speaker 1: answered the waitress, the best by test. Thank you, Scrips said.
- 23:43Speaker 1: He sat down at the counter. I would like to
- 23:45Speaker 1: have some beans for myself and some for my bird.
- 23:48Speaker 1: Here he opened his shirt and placed the bird on
- 23:51Speaker 1: the counter. The bird ruffled his feathers and shook himself.
- 23:55Speaker 1: He pecked inquiringly at the ketchup bottle. The elderly waitress
- 23:59Speaker 1: put out a hand and stroked him. Isn't he a
- 24:02Speaker 1: manly little fellow, she remarked by the way. She asked
- 24:06Speaker 1: a little shamefacedly, what was it you ordered, sir being,
- 24:10Speaker 1: Scrip said, from my bird and myself. The waitress shoved
- 24:14Speaker 1: up a little wicket that led into the kitchen. Scrips
- 24:17Speaker 1: had a glimpse of a warm, steam filled room with
- 24:20Speaker 1: big pots and kettles, and many shining cans on the wall,
- 24:24Speaker 1: a pig and the noisy ones. The waitress called, in
- 24:27Speaker 1: a matter of fact voice into the open wicket, one
- 24:30Speaker 1: for a bird on the fire. A voice answered from
- 24:33Speaker 1: the kitchen, how old is your bird? The elderly waitress asked,
- 24:37Speaker 1: I don't know, Scrip said, I never saw him before
- 24:40Speaker 1: last night. I was walking on the railroad track from
- 24:43Speaker 1: man Salona. My wife left me, poor little chap. The
- 24:48Speaker 1: waitress said. She poured a little ketchup on her finger,
- 24:51Speaker 1: and the bird pecked at it gratefully. My wife left me.
- 24:55Speaker 1: Scrip said. We'd been out drinking on the railroad track.
- 24:58Speaker 1: We used to go out evening and watch the trains pass.
- 25:02Speaker 1: I write stories. I had a story in the post
- 25:05Speaker 1: and two in the dial. Menkin's trying to get a
- 25:08Speaker 1: hold of me. Two eyes for that sort of thing.
- 25:11Speaker 1: No POLITZI for me. They give me the cats and jammers.
- 25:15Speaker 1: What was he saying? He was talking wildly, that would
- 25:18Speaker 1: never do. Must pull himself together, Schofield. There was my
- 25:22Speaker 1: best man, he said, And I'm a Harvard man. All
- 25:24Speaker 1: I want is for them to give me and my
- 25:26Speaker 1: bird a square deal. No more, well, holytique, take doctor
- 25:31Speaker 1: Coolich away. His mind was wandering. He knew what it was.
- 25:36Speaker 1: He was faint with hunger. This northern air was too sharp,
- 25:40Speaker 1: too keen for him, I say, he said, could you
- 25:43Speaker 1: let me have just a few of those beans. I
- 25:46Speaker 1: don't like to rush things. I'd know when to let
- 25:48Speaker 1: well enough alone. The wicket came up, and a large
- 25:52Speaker 1: plate of beans and a small plate of beans, both
- 25:54Speaker 1: steaming appeared. Here they are, the waitress said, Scripts fell too,
- 25:58Speaker 1: and the large plate of beans. There was a little
- 26:01Speaker 1: pork too. The bird was eating, happily, raising its head
- 26:04Speaker 1: after each swallow to let the beans go down. He
- 26:08Speaker 1: does that to thank God for those beans. The elderly
- 26:11Speaker 1: waitress explained, they're mighty fine beans too. Scripts agreed. Under
- 26:16Speaker 1: the influence of the beans, his head was clearing. What
- 26:19Speaker 1: was this rod he had been talking about? That man
- 26:22Speaker 1: Henry Mankin was making really after him? Wasn't a pretty prospect?
- 26:27Speaker 1: Face did four hundred and fifty dollars in his pocket.
- 26:31Speaker 1: When that was gone, he could always put an end
- 26:33Speaker 1: to things. They pressed him too far, they would get
- 26:36Speaker 1: a big surprise. He wasn't the man to be taken alive.
- 26:40Speaker 1: Just let them try it. After eating his beans, the
- 26:43Speaker 1: bird had fallen asleep. He was sleepy on one leg,
- 26:47Speaker 1: the other leg tucked up into his feathers. When he
- 26:50Speaker 1: gets tired of sleepy on that leg, he will change
- 26:53Speaker 1: legs and rest. The waitress remarked, we had an old
- 26:56Speaker 1: osprey at home that was like that. Where was your home,
- 27:00Speaker 1: Scripps asked. In England, in the Lake District, The waitress
- 27:04Speaker 1: smiled a bit WI was fully words were its country?
- 27:07Speaker 1: You know? Ah, these English they traveled all over the
- 27:11Speaker 1: face of the globe. They were not content to remain
- 27:14Speaker 1: in their little island. Strange Nordics, obsessed with her dream
- 27:18Speaker 1: of empire. I was not always a waitress, the elderly
- 27:22Speaker 1: waitress remarked, Sure, you weren't, not half. The waitress went on,
- 27:27Speaker 1: it's rather a strange story. Perhaps it would bore you
- 27:30Speaker 1: not at all, Scrips said, you wouldn't mind if I
- 27:33Speaker 1: used the story sometimes, not if you find it interesting.
- 27:37Speaker 1: The waitress smiled. You wouldn't use my name, of course,
- 27:41Speaker 1: not if you'd rather not. Scripts said, By the way,
- 27:43Speaker 1: could I have another order of beings? Best by test?
- 27:47Speaker 1: The waitress smiled, Her face was lined in gray. She
- 27:51Speaker 1: looks a little like that actress that died in Pittsburgh.
- 27:55Speaker 1: What was her name? Leonor Ulrich? And Peter Pan? That
- 27:59Speaker 1: was it? I say she always went about veiled. Scripps thought,
- 28:03Speaker 1: there was an interesting woman, was it leonor Ulrich? Perhaps not?
- 28:09Speaker 1: No matter? You really want some more beans, asked the waitress. Yes,
- 28:14Speaker 1: Gripps answered, simply. Once again on the loud ones, the
- 28:18Speaker 1: waitress called into the wicket, lay off the bird on
- 28:21Speaker 1: the fire. Came the response. Please go on with your stories,
- 28:25Speaker 1: Grips said kindly. Was the year of the Paris Exposition.
- 28:29Speaker 1: She began. I was a young girl at the time,
- 28:33Speaker 1: a June FI and I came over from England with
- 28:36Speaker 1: my mother. We were going to be present at the
- 28:38Speaker 1: opening of the exposition. On our way from the Gard
- 28:41Speaker 1: de Noord to the hotel in the Blace Vendome, where
- 28:44Speaker 1: we lodged, we stopped at a coiffure's shop and made
- 28:48Speaker 1: some trifling purchase. My mother, as I recall, purchased an
- 28:52Speaker 1: additional bottle of smelling salts, as you call them here
- 28:56Speaker 1: in America. She smiled, Yes, go on smelling salts, scrip said.
- 29:02Speaker 1: We registered as his customary in the hotel and were
- 29:06Speaker 1: given the adjoining rooms we had reserved. My mother felt
- 29:09Speaker 1: a bit done in by the trip, and we dined
- 29:12Speaker 1: in our rooms. I was full of excitement about seeing
- 29:15Speaker 1: the exposition on the morrow, but I was tired after
- 29:19Speaker 1: the journey. We had a rather nasty crossing and slept soundly.
- 29:24Speaker 1: In the morning. I woke and called for my mother.
- 29:27Speaker 1: There was no answer, and I went into the room
- 29:29Speaker 1: to waken mummy. Instead of mummy, there was a French
- 29:32Speaker 1: general in the bed. Mon Dieu script said. I was
- 29:36Speaker 1: terribly frightened. The waitress went on and rang the bell
- 29:39Speaker 1: for the management. The concierge came up, and I demanded
- 29:43Speaker 1: to know where my mother was, But Mademoiselle, the concierge explained,
- 29:47Speaker 1: we know nothing about your mother. You came here with
- 29:50Speaker 1: General so and so. I cannot remember the general's name.
- 29:55Speaker 1: Call him General Joffre. Scripts suggested it was a name
- 29:59Speaker 1: very like that. The waitress said. I was fearfully frightened
- 30:03Speaker 1: and sent for the police and demanded to see the
- 30:05Speaker 1: guest register. You'll find there that I am registered with
- 30:08Speaker 1: my mother, I said. The police came and the concierge
- 30:12Speaker 1: brought up the register. See madame, He said, you were
- 30:15Speaker 1: registered with the general with whom you came to our
- 30:18Speaker 1: hotel last night. I was desperate. Finally I remembered where
- 30:23Speaker 1: the coffure's shop was. The police sent for the couthure.
- 30:27Speaker 1: An agent of police brought him in. I stopped at
- 30:30Speaker 1: your shop with my mother, I said to the couthure,
- 30:33Speaker 1: and my mother bought a bottle of aromatic salts. I
- 30:37Speaker 1: remember mademoiselle perfectly, the cothure said, but you were not
- 30:41Speaker 1: with your mother. You were with an elderly French general.
- 30:44Speaker 1: He purchased. I believe a pair of mustache tongues. My books,
- 30:49Speaker 1: at any rate, will show the purchase. I was in despair.
- 30:53Speaker 1: In the meantime, the police had brought in the cab
- 30:55Speaker 1: driver who had brought us from the god to the hotel.
- 30:58Speaker 1: He swore that I had never been with my mother.
- 31:01Speaker 1: Tell me, does this story bore you? Go on? Said scrips.
- 31:05Speaker 1: If you had ever been as hard up for plots
- 31:07Speaker 1: as I have been, well, the waitress said, that's all
- 31:11Speaker 1: there is to the tale. I never saw my mother again.
- 31:14Speaker 1: I communicate it with the embassy, but they could do nothing.
- 31:18Speaker 1: It was finally established by them that I had crossed
- 31:20Speaker 1: the channel with my mother, but they could do nothing.
- 31:23Speaker 1: Beyond that. Tears came into the elderly waitress's eyes. I
- 31:28Speaker 1: never saw mommy again, never again, not even once. What
- 31:33Speaker 1: about the general? He finally loaned me one hundred francs,
- 31:38Speaker 1: not a great sum even in those days, and I
- 31:40Speaker 1: came to America and became a waitress. That's all there
- 31:43Speaker 1: is to the story. There's more than that, Scrips said,
- 31:47Speaker 1: I'd stake my life. There's more than that. Sometimes, you know,
- 31:51Speaker 1: I feel there is. The waitress said, I feel there
- 31:53Speaker 1: must be more than that. Somewhere, somehow, there must be
- 31:57Speaker 1: an explanation. I don't know what the subject into my
- 32:01Speaker 1: mind this morning. It was a good thing to get
- 32:04Speaker 1: it off your mind. Scripps said, yes. The waitress smiled,
- 32:08Speaker 1: the lines in her face not quite so deep. Now.
- 32:11Speaker 1: I feel better. Now, tell me, Scrips asked the waitress.
- 32:15Speaker 1: Is there any work in this town for me and
- 32:17Speaker 1: my bird? Honest work, asked the waitress. I only know
- 32:21Speaker 1: of honest work. Yes, honest work, Scripts said, they do.
- 32:25Speaker 1: Say they're hiring hands at the new pump factory. The
- 32:28Speaker 1: waitress said, why shouldn't he work with his hands? Rodin
- 32:32Speaker 1: had done it. Sezon had been a butcher, Renoirs a carpenter.
- 32:36Speaker 1: Picasso had worked in a cigarette factory in his boyhood.
- 32:40Speaker 1: Gilbert Stewart, who painted those famous portraits of Washington that
- 32:44Speaker 1: are reproduced all over this America of ours and hang
- 32:47Speaker 1: in every schoolroom. Gilbert Stewart had been a blacksmith. Then
- 32:51Speaker 1: there was Emerson. Emerson had been a hot carrier, James
- 32:55Speaker 1: Russell Lowell had been. He had heard telegraph operator in
- 32:58Speaker 1: his youth like that chap down at the station. Perhaps
- 33:02Speaker 1: even now that telegrapher at the station was working on
- 33:05Speaker 1: as then atopsis or his to a waterfowl. Why shouldn't he, Scrips,
- 33:10Speaker 1: O'Neil work in a pump factory. You'll come back again,
- 33:14Speaker 1: the waitress said, if I may, Scrips said, and bring
- 33:18Speaker 1: your bird. Yes, Scrips said. The little chap's rather tired now,
- 33:22Speaker 1: after all it was a hard night for him, I
- 33:25Speaker 1: should say. It was agreed the waitress. Scrips went out
- 33:29Speaker 1: again into the town. He felt clear headed and ready
- 33:32Speaker 1: to face life. A pump factory would be interesting. Pumps
- 33:36Speaker 1: were big things now. Fortunes were made and lost in
- 33:39Speaker 1: pumps every day in New York and Wall Street. He
- 33:42Speaker 1: knew of a chap who'd cleaned up a cool half
- 33:44Speaker 1: million on pumps in less than half an hour. They
- 33:48Speaker 1: knew what they were about, these big Wall Street operators.
- 33:51Speaker 1: Outside on the street. He looked up at the sign
- 33:54Speaker 1: best by test he read. They had the dope all right,
- 33:58Speaker 1: he said, Was it true, though, that there had been
- 34:00Speaker 1: a Negro cook just once, just for one moment when
- 34:04Speaker 1: the wicket went up, he thought he had caught a
- 34:06Speaker 1: glimpse of something black. Perhaps the chap was only souity
- 34:10Speaker 1: from the stove. And of Part one, Part two he
- 34:15Speaker 1: Struggle for Life Chapters six through ten. And here I
- 34:21Speaker 1: solemnly protest I have no intention to vilify or disperse
- 34:25Speaker 1: any one, For though everything is copied from the book
- 34:29Speaker 1: of Nature, and scarce a character or action produce which
- 34:32Speaker 1: I have not taken from my own observations or experience.
- 34:37Speaker 1: Yet I have used the utmost care to obscure the
- 34:40Speaker 1: persons by such different circumstances, degrees, and colors, that it
- 34:45Speaker 1: will be impossible to guess at them with any degree
- 34:48Speaker 1: of certainty. And if it ever happens otherwise, it is
- 34:52Speaker 1: only where the failure characterized is so minute that it
- 34:56Speaker 1: is a foible only which the party himself may laugh
- 34:59Speaker 1: at as well as any other. Henry Fielding, Chapter six scrips.
- 35:07Speaker 1: O'Neill was looking for employment. It would be good to
- 35:10Speaker 1: work with his hands. He walked down the street away
- 35:13Speaker 1: from the beanery and passed McCarthy's barber shop. He did
- 35:17Speaker 1: not go into the barber shop. It looked as inviting
- 35:20Speaker 1: as ever but it was employment scripts wanted. He turned
- 35:24Speaker 1: sharply around the corner of the barber shop and onto
- 35:27Speaker 1: the main street of Pataski. Was a handsome broad street,
- 35:31Speaker 1: lined on either side with brick and pressed stone buildings.
- 35:35Speaker 1: Scrips walked along it toward the part of town where
- 35:38Speaker 1: the pump factory stood. At the door of the pump factory,
- 35:41Speaker 1: he was embarrassed. Could this really be the pump factory? True?
- 35:45Speaker 1: A stream of pumps were being carried out and set
- 35:48Speaker 1: up in the snow, and workmen were throwing pails of
- 35:51Speaker 1: water over them to encase them in a coating of
- 35:54Speaker 1: ice that would protect them from the winter winds as
- 35:56Speaker 1: well as any paint wood. But were they really pumps?
- 36:00Speaker 1: Might all be a trick? These pump men were clever fellows,
- 36:04Speaker 1: I say. Scrips beckoned to one of the workmen who
- 36:07Speaker 1: was sloshing water over a new, raw looking pump that
- 36:10Speaker 1: had just been carried out and stood protestingly in the snow.
- 36:14Speaker 1: Are they pumps? They will be in time, the workmen said.
- 36:18Speaker 1: Scrips knew it was the factory. They weren't going to
- 36:21Speaker 1: fool him on that. He walked up to the door.
- 36:23Speaker 1: There was a sign on it. Keep out. This means
- 36:27Speaker 1: you can that mean me, Scrips wondered. He knocked on
- 36:31Speaker 1: the door and went in. I'd like to speak to
- 36:34Speaker 1: the manager, he said, standing quietly in the half light.
- 36:38Speaker 1: Workmen were passing him, carrying the new raw pumps on
- 36:41Speaker 1: their shoulders. They hummed snatches of songs as they passed.
- 36:45Speaker 1: The handles of the pumps fluffed stiffly in dumb protest.
- 36:49Speaker 1: Some pumps had no handles. They perhaps, after all, are
- 36:53Speaker 1: the lucky ones, Scripps thought. A little man came up
- 36:56Speaker 1: to him. He was well built, short, with white shoulders
- 36:59Speaker 1: and a grim face. You were asking for the manager, Yes, sir,
- 37:03Speaker 1: I'm the foreman here. What I say goes? Can you
- 37:07Speaker 1: hire and fire? Scripts asked, I can do one as
- 37:10Speaker 1: easily as the other. The foreman said, I want a job,
- 37:14Speaker 1: any experience, not in pumps. All right, The foreman said,
- 37:19Speaker 1: we'll put you on peace work. Here, yogi, He called
- 37:22Speaker 1: to one of the men who was standing looking out
- 37:24Speaker 1: of the window at the factory. Show this new chum
- 37:27Speaker 1: where to stow his swag and how to find his
- 37:29Speaker 1: way around these diggings. The foreman looked Scripts up and down.
- 37:34Speaker 1: I'm an Australian. He said, hope you'll like the lay here.
- 37:38Speaker 1: He walked off. The man called Yogi Johnson came over
- 37:41Speaker 1: from a window. Glad to meet you. He said. He
- 37:44Speaker 1: was a chunky, well built fellow, one of the sort
- 37:47Speaker 1: you see around almost anywhere. He looked as though he'd
- 37:50Speaker 1: been through things. Your Foreman's the first Australian I've ever met,
- 37:55Speaker 1: Scrips said, always not Australian. Yogi said he was just
- 37:59Speaker 1: with the Australian once during the war and it made
- 38:02Speaker 1: a big impression on him. Were you in the war,
- 38:05Speaker 1: Scrips asked, yes. Jogi Johnson said, I was the first
- 38:09Speaker 1: man to go from Cadillac. Must have been quite an experience.
- 38:13Speaker 1: This meant a lot to me. Yogi answered, come on
- 38:16Speaker 1: and I'll show you around the works. Scrips followed this man,
- 38:21Speaker 1: who showed him through the pump factory. It was dark
- 38:23Speaker 1: but warm. Inside the pump factory, men naked to the
- 38:27Speaker 1: waist took the pumps and huge tongs as they came,
- 38:29Speaker 1: trundling by on an endless chain, culling out the misfits
- 38:33Speaker 1: and placing the perfect pumps on another endless chain that
- 38:37Speaker 1: carried them up into the cooling room. Other men, Indians,
- 38:40Speaker 1: for the most part, wearing only breech clouts, broke up
- 38:44Speaker 1: the misfit pumps with huge hammers and adz its and
- 38:47Speaker 1: rapidly recast them into axe heads, wagon springs, trombone slides,
- 38:52Speaker 1: bullet modes, all the byproducts of a big pump factory.
- 38:56Speaker 1: There was nothing wasted, Yogi pointed out of Indian boys
- 39:01Speaker 1: humming to themselves. One of the old tribal chanties squatted
- 39:04Speaker 1: in a corner of the big forging room, shaping the
- 39:07Speaker 1: little fragments that were chipped from the pumps and casting
- 39:10Speaker 1: into safety razor blades. They work naked, Yogi said. They're
- 39:15Speaker 1: searched as they go out. Sometimes they try and conceal
- 39:18Speaker 1: the razor blades and take them out with them to bootleg.
- 39:22Speaker 1: There must be quite a loss that way, Scrip said,
- 39:25Speaker 1: Oh no, Yogi answered, The inspectors get most of them
- 39:29Speaker 1: upstairs apart. In a separate room, two old men were working.
- 39:33Speaker 1: Yogi opened the door. One of the old men looked
- 39:36Speaker 1: over his steel spectacles and frowned. You make a draft,
- 39:40Speaker 1: he said, shut the door. The other old man said,
- 39:44Speaker 1: in the high complaining voice of the very old there
- 39:47Speaker 1: are two hand workers, Yogi said. They make all the
- 39:50Speaker 1: pumps the manufactory sends out to the big international pump races.
- 39:55Speaker 1: Do you remember our peerless pounder that won the pump
- 39:57Speaker 1: race in Italy where Frankie Dawson was. I read about
- 40:02Speaker 1: it in the paper, Scripts answered, mister Barrow over there
- 40:05Speaker 1: in the corner made the peerless pounder all himself by hand.
- 40:08Speaker 1: Yogi said, I carved it direct from the steal with
- 40:12Speaker 1: this knife. Mister Barrow held up a short blade at
- 40:15Speaker 1: razor like looking knife. Took me eighteen months to get
- 40:18Speaker 1: it right. The peerless pounder was quite a pump, all right,
- 40:22Speaker 1: the high voice little old man said, But we're working
- 40:25Speaker 1: on one now that will show its heels to any
- 40:27Speaker 1: of them foreign pumps, aren't we. Henry. That's mister Shaw,
- 40:32Speaker 1: Yogi said, in an undertone. He's probably the greatest living
- 40:35Speaker 1: pump maker. You boys get along and leave us alone.
- 40:39Speaker 1: Mister Barrow said, he was carving away steadily, his infirm
- 40:43Speaker 1: old hand shaking a little between strokes. Let the boys watch.
- 40:48Speaker 1: Mister Shaw said, where are you from, young feller. I've
- 40:52Speaker 1: just come from Mancellona. Scripts answered, my wife left me. Well,
- 40:56Speaker 1: you won't have no difficulty finding another one. Mister Shaw said,
- 41:00Speaker 1: you're a likely looking young feller, but take my advice
- 41:04Speaker 1: and take your time. A poor wife ain't much better
- 41:06Speaker 1: than no wife at all. I wouldn't say that, Henry.
- 41:10Speaker 1: Mister Barrow remarked, in his high voice. Any wife at
- 41:13Speaker 1: all is a pretty good wife the way things are
- 41:16Speaker 1: going now, you take my advice, young feller, go slow,
- 41:20Speaker 1: get yourself a good one this time. Henry knows a
- 41:23Speaker 1: thing or two. Mister Barrow said, he knows what he's
- 41:26Speaker 1: talking about. There. He laughed, a high, crackling laugh. Mister Shaw,
- 41:30Speaker 1: the old pump maker, blushed. You boys get a line
- 41:34Speaker 1: and leave us. Get on with our pump making, he said,
- 41:37Speaker 1: Henry and me here, we got a side of work
- 41:39Speaker 1: to do. I'm very glad to have met you. Scrip said,
- 41:44Speaker 1: come on, Yogi said, I'd better get you started, or
- 41:47Speaker 1: the foreman will be on my tail. He put Scripts
- 41:50Speaker 1: to work collaring pistons in the piston collaring room. There
- 41:54Speaker 1: Scripts worked for almost a year. In some ways, it
- 41:57Speaker 1: was the happiest year of his life. And it was
- 42:00Speaker 1: a nightmare, a hideous nightmare, and the end he grew
- 42:04Speaker 1: to like it. And otherways. He hated it. Before he
- 42:07Speaker 1: knew it, a year had passed. He was still collaring pistons.
- 42:10Speaker 1: But what strange things had happened in that year? Often
- 42:14Speaker 1: he wondered about them as he wondered collaring a piston. Now,
- 42:18Speaker 1: almost automatically, he listened to the laughter that came up
- 42:21Speaker 1: from below, where the little Indian lads were shaping what
- 42:24Speaker 1: were to be razor blades. As he listened, something rose
- 42:28Speaker 1: in his throat and almost choked him. Chapter seven. That night,
- 42:34Speaker 1: after his first day in the pump factory, the first
- 42:37Speaker 1: day in what was or were to become an endless
- 42:40Speaker 1: secession of days of dull piston collaring, Scrips went again
- 42:44Speaker 1: to the beanery to eat All day. He had kept
- 42:47Speaker 1: his bird concealed. Something told him that the pump factory
- 42:50Speaker 1: was not the place to bring his bird out in
- 42:53Speaker 1: During the day. The bird had several times made him uncomfortable,
- 42:56Speaker 1: but he had adjusted his clothes to it, and even
- 42:59Speaker 1: cut a little slit the bird could poke his beak
- 43:01Speaker 1: out through and search of fresh air. Now the day's
- 43:05Speaker 1: work was over. It was finished. Scrip's on his way
- 43:09Speaker 1: to the beanery, Scrip's happy that he was working with
- 43:12Speaker 1: his hands. Scrips thinking of the old pump makers script
- 43:16Speaker 1: going to the society of the friendly waitress. Who was
- 43:20Speaker 1: that waitress anyway? What was it had happened to her
- 43:23Speaker 1: in Paris? He must find out more about this Paris
- 43:27Speaker 1: Yogi Johnson had been there. He would quiz Yogi, get
- 43:31Speaker 1: him to talk, draw him out, make him tell what
- 43:33Speaker 1: he knew. He knew a trick or two about that.
- 43:37Speaker 1: Watching the sun set out over the Potasky Harbor, the
- 43:40Speaker 1: lake now frozen, and great blocks of ice jutting out
- 43:43Speaker 1: over the breakwater, Scrips strode down the streets of Pataski
- 43:47Speaker 1: to the beanery. He would have liked to ask Yogi
- 43:50Speaker 1: Johnson to eat with him, but he didn't dare not yet.
- 43:54Speaker 1: That would come later, All in good time. No need
- 43:57Speaker 1: to rush matters with a man like Yogi. It was
- 44:00Speaker 1: Yogi anyway. Had he really been in the war? What
- 44:04Speaker 1: had the war meant to him? Was he really the
- 44:06Speaker 1: first man to enlist from Cadillac? Where was Cadillac? Anyway?
- 44:11Speaker 1: Time would tell. Scrips O'Neil opened the door and went
- 44:15Speaker 1: into the beanery. The elderly waitress got up from the
- 44:18Speaker 1: chair where she had been reading the overseas edition of
- 44:21Speaker 1: The Manchester Guardian and put the paper onto her steel
- 44:24Speaker 1: rimmed spectacles on top of the cash register. Good evening,
- 44:29Speaker 1: she said, simply, it's good to have you back. Something
- 44:32Speaker 1: stirred inside Scrips O'Neil. A feeling that he could not
- 44:35Speaker 1: define came within him. I've been working all day long,
- 44:40Speaker 1: he looked at the elderly waitress for you. He added.
- 44:44Speaker 1: How lovely she said, and then smiled shyly. And I've
- 44:47Speaker 1: been working all day long for you. Tears came into
- 44:51Speaker 1: Scrip's eyes. Something stirred inside him again. He reached forward
- 44:55Speaker 1: to take the elderly waitress's hand, and with quiet dignity,
- 44:59Speaker 1: she laid within his own. You are my woman, he said.
- 45:03Speaker 1: Tears came into her eyes too. You are my man,
- 45:07Speaker 1: she said. Once again, I say you are my woman.
- 45:11Speaker 1: Scripps pronounced the words solemnly. Something had broken inside him again.
- 45:16Speaker 1: He felt he could not keep from crying. Let this
- 45:19Speaker 1: be our wedding ceremony, the elderly waitress said. Scrips pressed
- 45:24Speaker 1: her hand. You are my woman, he said, simply, you
- 45:28Speaker 1: are my man, and more than my man. She looked
- 45:31Speaker 1: into his eyes. You are all of America to me.
- 45:35Speaker 1: Let us go, Scrips said, Have you your bird, asked
- 45:38Speaker 1: the waitress, laying aside her apron and folding the copy
- 45:42Speaker 1: of the Manchester Guardian weekly. I'll bring the Guardian if
- 45:45Speaker 1: you don't mind, she said, wrapping the paper in her apron.
- 45:49Speaker 1: It's a new paper and I've not read it yet.
- 45:52Speaker 1: I'm very fond of the Guardian, scrip said. My family
- 45:55Speaker 1: have taken it ever since I can remember. My father
- 45:58Speaker 1: was a great admirer of Gladstone. My father went to
- 46:01Speaker 1: eaton with Gladstone, the elderly waitress said. And now I
- 46:05Speaker 1: am ready. She had donned the coat and stood ready,
- 46:08Speaker 1: her raporn, her steel rimmed spectacles in their worn black
- 46:12Speaker 1: Morocco case, her copy of the Manchester Guardian held in
- 46:16Speaker 1: her hand. Have you no hat, asked Gripps. No. Then
- 46:20Speaker 1: I will buy you one, scrip, said tenderly, will be
- 46:23Speaker 1: your wedding gift. The elderly waitress said again. There were
- 46:27Speaker 1: tears shown in her eyes. Now let us go, Scrip said.
- 46:31Speaker 1: The elderly waitress came out from behind the counter, and together,
- 46:35Speaker 1: hand in hand, they strode out into the night. Inside
- 46:39Speaker 1: the beanery, the black cook pushed up the wicket and
- 46:42Speaker 1: looked through from the kitchen. Days gone off, he chuckled,
- 46:46Speaker 1: gone off into a night. Well, well, well, He closed
- 46:49Speaker 1: the wicket softly, even he was a little impressed. Chapter eight.
- 46:55Speaker 1: Half an hour later, Scrips, O'Neill and the elderly waitress
- 46:59Speaker 1: returned to the beanery as man and wife. The beanery
- 47:03Speaker 1: looked much the same. There was the long counter, the
- 47:07Speaker 1: salt cellars, the sugar containers, the ketchup bottle, the Worcestershire
- 47:12Speaker 1: sauce bottle. There was the wicket that led into the kitchen.
- 47:16Speaker 1: Behind the counter was the relief waitress. She was a buxom,
- 47:20Speaker 1: jolly looking girl, and she wore a white apron. At
- 47:24Speaker 1: the counter, reading a Detroit paper, sat a drummer. The
- 47:27Speaker 1: drummer was eating a tea, bone steak and hash brown potatoes.
- 47:32Speaker 1: Something very beautiful had happened to Scrips and the elderly waitress.
- 47:36Speaker 1: Now they were hungry they wished to eat. The elderly
- 47:39Speaker 1: waitress looking at Scrips, Scrips looking at the elderly waitress.
- 47:44Speaker 1: The drummer reading his paper and occasionally putting a little
- 47:47Speaker 1: ketchup on his hash brown potatoes. The other waitress, Mandy,
- 47:52Speaker 1: back of the counter in her freshly starched white apron.
- 47:55Speaker 1: The frost on the windows, the warmth inside, the cold outside.
- 48:00Speaker 1: Scrip's bird rather rumpled, now sitting on the counter and
- 48:03Speaker 1: preening his feathers. So you've come back, Mandy, the waitress said.
- 48:08Speaker 1: The cook said you had gone out into the night.
- 48:11Speaker 1: The elderly waitress looked at Mandy, her eyes brightened, her
- 48:14Speaker 1: voice calm and now of a deeper, richer tambour. We're
- 48:18Speaker 1: man and wife, now, she said, kindly, for you've just
- 48:21Speaker 1: been married. What would you like to eat for supper? Scrips, Dear,
- 48:25Speaker 1: I don't know, Scrips said. He felt vaguely uneasy. Something
- 48:29Speaker 1: was stirring within him. Perhaps you have eaten enough of
- 48:33Speaker 1: the beans, dear, Scrips, the elderly waitress, now his wife said.
- 48:37Speaker 1: The drummer looked up from his paper. Scrips noticed that
- 48:41Speaker 1: it was the Detroit News. There was a fine paper.
- 48:45Speaker 1: That's a fine paper you are reading, Scrip said to
- 48:47Speaker 1: the drummer. It's a good paper, the News. The drummer said,
- 48:51Speaker 1: you two on your honeymoon, Yes, missus, Scripps said, we're
- 48:55Speaker 1: man and wife now, well, said the drummer. That's a
- 48:58Speaker 1: mighty fine thing to be. I'm the married man myself,
- 49:02Speaker 1: are you, said, Scrips, My wife left me. It was
- 49:05Speaker 1: in Mansellona. Don't let's talk of that any more, Scrips,
- 49:09Speaker 1: Dear missus Gripps said, you've told that story so many times. Yes,
- 49:14Speaker 1: dear Scrips agreed. He felt vaguely mistrustful of himself. Something
- 49:19Speaker 1: somewhere was stirring inside of him. He looked at the
- 49:22Speaker 1: waitress called Mandy, standing robust and vigorously lovely in her
- 49:27Speaker 1: newly starched white apron. He washed her hands, healthy, calm,
- 49:32Speaker 1: capable hands, doing the duties of her waitresshood. Try one
- 49:36Speaker 1: of these tea bones with hash brown potatoes, the drummer suggested.
- 49:40Speaker 1: They got a nice tea bone here. Would you like one,
- 49:43Speaker 1: Dear Scripps asked his wife. I'll just take a bowl
- 49:47Speaker 1: of milk and crackers. The elderly Missus Scripps said, you
- 49:50Speaker 1: have whatever you want, dear. Here's your crackers and milk, Diana,
- 49:54Speaker 1: Mandy said, placing them on the counter. Do you want
- 49:57Speaker 1: a tea bone, sir, yes, Gripps said. Something stirred again
- 50:02Speaker 1: within him. Well, done or rare, rare please. The waitress
- 50:07Speaker 1: turned and called into the wicked tea for one. Let
- 50:10Speaker 1: it go raw, thank you, scrip said he eyed the waitress, Mandy.
- 50:15Speaker 1: She had a gift for the picturesque and speech. That girl.
- 50:19Speaker 1: It had been that very picturesque quality in her speech
- 50:22Speaker 1: that had first drawn him to his present wife. That
- 50:25Speaker 1: in her strange background. England, the lake country. Scrips striding
- 50:30Speaker 1: through the lake country with Wordsworth, a field of golden daffodils,
- 50:34Speaker 1: the wind blowing at Windermere far off, perhaps a stag
- 50:38Speaker 1: at bay it was farther north in Scotland. They were
- 50:42Speaker 1: a hardy race, those Scots, deep in their mountain fastnesses.
- 50:46Speaker 1: Harry Louder and his pipe, The Highlanders and the Great War?
- 50:51Speaker 1: Why had not he Scrips been in the war? That
- 50:54Speaker 1: was where that chap Jogi Johnson had it on him.
- 50:58Speaker 1: The war would have meant much to him. Why hadn't
- 51:02Speaker 1: he been in it? Why hadn't he heard of it
- 51:04Speaker 1: in time? Perhaps he was too old. Look at that
- 51:08Speaker 1: old French General Joffre, though surely he was a younger
- 51:11Speaker 1: man than that old general General Fosch, praying for victory
- 51:16Speaker 1: the French troops nearly along the Chemine d'aves, praying for victory.
- 51:20Speaker 1: The Germans with their gout meet wounds. What a mokri.
- 51:24Speaker 1: Surely he was no older than that French general Fosh,
- 51:28Speaker 1: he wondered. Mandy the waitress placed his tee bone steak
- 51:32Speaker 1: and hashed brown potatoes on the counter before him. As
- 51:35Speaker 1: she laid the plate down, just for an instant her
- 51:38Speaker 1: hand touched his, Scrips felt a strange thrill go through him.
- 51:43Speaker 1: Life was before him. He was not an old man.
- 51:46Speaker 1: Why were there no wars? Now? Perhaps there were men
- 51:50Speaker 1: were fighting in China Chinaman, Chinaman, killing one another. What for?
- 51:55Speaker 1: Scrips wondered, What was it all about? Anyway? Mandy the
- 51:59Speaker 1: bucks waitress leaned forward, say, she said, did I ever
- 52:03Speaker 1: tell you about the last words of Henry James? Really,
- 52:07Speaker 1: dear Mandy, missus Gripps said, you've told that story rather often.
- 52:12Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Scripps said, I'm very interested in Henry James.
- 52:15Speaker 1: Henry James, Henry James, that chap who had gone away
- 52:19Speaker 1: from his own land to live in England among Englishmen.
- 52:22Speaker 1: Why had he done it? For? What had he left America?
- 52:26Speaker 1: Weren't his roots here, his brother William Boston, Pragmatism, Harvard University,
- 52:33Speaker 1: Old John Harvard with silver buckles on his shoes. Charles Brickley,
- 52:37Speaker 1: Eddie Mahon. Where were they now? Well, Mandy began. Henry
- 52:43Speaker 1: James became a British subject on his death bed at once.
- 52:47Speaker 1: As soon as the King heard Henry James had become
- 52:49Speaker 1: a British subject, he sent her on the highest decoration
- 52:52Speaker 1: in his power to bestow the Order of Merit the
- 52:56Speaker 1: o m The elderly Missus Gripps explained that was it.
- 53:00Speaker 1: The waitress said, Professor's Goss and Saintsbury came with a
- 53:04Speaker 1: man who brought the decoration. Henry James was lying on
- 53:07Speaker 1: his death bed and his eyes were shut. There was
- 53:10Speaker 1: a single candle on a table beside the bed. The
- 53:14Speaker 1: nurse allowed them to come near the bed, and they
- 53:16Speaker 1: put the ribbon of the decoration around James's neck, and
- 53:20Speaker 1: the decoration lay on the sheet over Henry James's chest.
- 53:23Speaker 1: Professor's Goss and Saintsbury leaned forward and smoothed the ribbon
- 53:28Speaker 1: of the decoration. Henry James never opened his eyes. The
- 53:32Speaker 1: nurse told them they all must go out of the room,
- 53:35Speaker 1: and they all went out of the room. When they
- 53:37Speaker 1: were all gone, Henry James spoke to the nurse. He
- 53:40Speaker 1: never opened his eyes. Nurse, Henry James said, put out
- 53:44Speaker 1: the candle, nurse, and spare my blushes. Those were the
- 53:48Speaker 1: last words he ever spoke. James was quite a writer.
- 53:53Speaker 1: Scrips O'Neil said, he was strangely moved by the story.
- 53:57Speaker 1: You don't always tell it the same way, dear missus,
- 53:59Speaker 1: Gripper remarked to Mandy. There were tears in Mandy's eyes.
- 54:04Speaker 1: I feel very strongly about Henry James, She said, What
- 54:08Speaker 1: was the matter with James? Asked the drummer. Wasn't America
- 54:12Speaker 1: good enough for him? Scrips O'Neil was thinking about Mandy
- 54:16Speaker 1: the waitress. What a background she must have, that girl,
- 54:19Speaker 1: What a fund of anecdotes. A chap could go far
- 54:22Speaker 1: with a woman like that. To help him, he stroked
- 54:25Speaker 1: the little bird that sat on the lunch counter before him.
- 54:28Speaker 1: The bird pecked at his finger. Was the little bird
- 54:31Speaker 1: a hawk, a falcon, perhaps from one of the big
- 54:34Speaker 1: Michigan falconries. Was it perhaps a robin pulling and tugging
- 54:39Speaker 1: at the early worm on some green lawn somewhere, He wondered,
- 54:43Speaker 1: what do you call your bird? The drummer asked, I
- 54:46Speaker 1: haven't named him yet. What would you call him? Why
- 54:50Speaker 1: not call him Ariel? Mandy asked, poor puck. Missus Scripps
- 54:54Speaker 1: put in, what's it mean, asked the drummer. It's a
- 54:58Speaker 1: character out of Shakespeare. Ma He explained, Oh, give the
- 55:02Speaker 1: bird a chance. We would you call him? Scrips turned
- 55:05Speaker 1: to the drummer. He ain't a parrot, is, he asked
- 55:08Speaker 1: the drummer. If he was a parrot, you could call
- 55:11Speaker 1: him Polly. There is a character in the Beggar's Opera
- 55:14Speaker 1: called Polly, Mandy explained. Scrips wondered, perhaps the bird was
- 55:19Speaker 1: a parrot, a parrot strayed from some comfortable home with
- 55:22Speaker 1: some old maid, the untilled soil of some New England spinster.
- 55:27Speaker 1: Better wait till you see how he turns out. The
- 55:29Speaker 1: drummer advised, you've got plenty of time to name him.
- 55:33Speaker 1: This drummer had sound ideas. He scripts did not even
- 55:36Speaker 1: know what sex the bird was, whether he was a
- 55:39Speaker 1: boy bird or a girl bird. Wait till you see
- 55:43Speaker 1: if he lays eggs, the drummer suggested, Scrips looked into
- 55:46Speaker 1: the drummer's eyes. The fellow had voiced his own unspoken thought.
- 55:51Speaker 1: You know a thing or two, drummer, he said, Well,
- 55:54Speaker 1: the drummer admitted modestly, I ain't drummed all these years
- 55:58Speaker 1: for nothing. You're right, Their pal Scrips said, that's a
- 56:02Speaker 1: nice bird you got there. Brother. The drummer said, you
- 56:05Speaker 1: want to hang on to that bird. Scrips knew it. Ah,
- 56:08Speaker 1: these drummers know a thing or two going up and
- 56:11Speaker 1: down over the face of this great America of ours.
- 56:14Speaker 1: These drummers kept their eyes open. There were no fools. Listen,
- 56:19Speaker 1: the drummer said. He pushed his derby hat off his
- 56:22Speaker 1: brow and, leaning forward, spat into the tall brass cuspidor
- 56:26Speaker 1: that stood beside his stool. I want to tell you
- 56:29Speaker 1: about a pretty beautiful thing that happened to me once
- 56:31Speaker 1: in Bay City. Mandy, the waitress leaned forward. Missus Scrips
- 56:36Speaker 1: leaned toward the drummer to hear better. The drummer looked
- 56:40Speaker 1: apologetically at Scrips and stroked the bird with his forefinger.
- 56:44Speaker 1: Tell you about it some other time, brother, he said.
- 56:46Speaker 1: Scrips understood. From out of the kitchen through the wicket
- 56:50Speaker 1: in the hall came a high pitched, haunting laugh. Scrips listened.
- 56:54Speaker 1: Could that be the laughter of the negro? He wondered?
- 56:59Speaker 1: Chapter nine, Scrips going slowly to work in the pump
- 57:03Speaker 1: factory in the mornings, Missus Scripps looking out of the
- 57:07Speaker 1: window and watching him go up the street. Not much
- 57:10Speaker 1: time for reading the Guardian now, not much time for
- 57:13Speaker 1: reading about English politics, not much time for worrying about
- 57:17Speaker 1: the cabinet crises over there in France. The French were
- 57:20Speaker 1: a strange people. Joan of Arc, ave Le Gallian, Clemenceaux,
- 57:26Speaker 1: George Carpentier, Sascha Guitri, Yvonne printempt Roch, Liz Fraatellini's Gilbert Seldez,
- 57:36Speaker 1: the Dial, the Dial Prize, Marianne Moore, he Et Cummings,
- 57:41Speaker 1: the enormous room, Vanity Fair, Frank Crowninshield. What was it
- 57:47Speaker 1: all about? Where was it taking her? She had a man, now,
- 57:51Speaker 1: a man of her own, for her own? Could she
- 57:53Speaker 1: keep him? Could she hold him for her own? She wondered?
- 57:58Speaker 1: Missus s Gripps, formerly an elderly waitress, now the wife
- 58:01Speaker 1: of Scrips O'Neill, with a good job in the pump factory.
- 58:05Speaker 1: Diana's scrips. Diana was her own name. It had been
- 58:09Speaker 1: her mother's too, Diana's scrips. Looking into the mirror and
- 58:12Speaker 1: wondering could she hold him? Was getting to be a question.
- 58:16Speaker 1: Why had he ever met Mandy? Would she have the
- 58:19Speaker 1: courage to break off going to the restaurant with scrips
- 58:22Speaker 1: to eat? She couldn't do that. He would go alone.
- 58:25Speaker 1: She knew that it was no use trying to pull
- 58:27Speaker 1: wool over her own eyes. He would go alone, and
- 58:31Speaker 1: he would talk with Mandy. Diana looked into the mirror.
- 58:34Speaker 1: Could she hold him? Could she hold him? That thought?
- 58:38Speaker 1: Never laughter? Now every night at the restaurant, she couldn't
- 58:42Speaker 1: call it a beanery. Now that made a lump come
- 58:45Speaker 1: into her throat and made her throat feel hard and choky.
- 58:48Speaker 1: Every night at the restaurant, now Scrips and Mandy talked together.
- 58:52Speaker 1: The girl was trying to take him away, him, her
- 58:55Speaker 1: scrips tried to take him away, take him away? Could
- 58:59Speaker 1: she Diana hold him? She was no better than a
- 59:03Speaker 1: slut at Mandy? Was that the way to do? Was
- 59:06Speaker 1: that the thing to do, go after another woman's man,
- 59:09Speaker 1: come between man and wife break up a home, and
- 59:13Speaker 1: all with these interminable literary reminiscences, these endless anecdotes. Scripts
- 59:19Speaker 1: was fascinated by Mandy. Diana admitted that to herself. But
- 59:24Speaker 1: she might hold him. That was all that mattered now,
- 59:26Speaker 1: to hold him, to hold him, not to let him go,
- 59:30Speaker 1: make him stay. She looked into the mirror. Diana subscribing
- 59:34Speaker 1: for the Forum, Diana reading the Mentor, Diana reading William Lyon,
- 59:39Speaker 1: Phelps and Scribners. Diana walking through the frozen streets of
- 59:43Speaker 1: the silent Northern town to the public library to read
- 59:47Speaker 1: the Literary Digest Book Review. Diana waiting for the postman
- 59:51Speaker 1: to come bringing the bookman. Diana and the snow, waiting
- 59:55Speaker 1: for the postman to bring the Saturday Review of Literature.
- 59:59Speaker 1: Diana bare he now standing in the mounting snowdrifts, waiting
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: for the postman to bring her the New York Times
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: Literary Section. Was it doing any good? Was it holding him?
- 1:00:10Speaker 1: At first it seemed to be. Diana learned editorials by
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: John Ferrar by heart. Scripts brightened a little of the
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: old light shining in Script's eyes. Now then it died,
- 1:00:22Speaker 1: some little mistake in the wording, some slip in her
- 1:00:25Speaker 1: understanding of a phrase. Some divergence in her attitude made
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: it all ring false. She would go on. She was
- 1:00:32Speaker 1: not beaten. He was her man, and she would hold him.
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: She looked away from the window and slid open the
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: covering of the magazine that lay on our table. It
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: was Harper's Magazine. Harper's Magazine in a new format, Harper's Magazine,
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: completely changed and revised. Perhaps that would do the trick,
- 1:00:51Speaker 1: she wondered. Chapter ten, Spring was coming, Spring was in
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: the air. Author's note. This is the same day on
- 1:01:01Speaker 1: which the story starts. Back on page three. A chnook
- 1:01:05Speaker 1: wind was blowing. Workmen were coming home from the factory
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: scrips as bird singing in his cage. Diana looking out
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: of the open window, Diana watching for her Scripts to
- 1:01:16Speaker 1: come up the street. Could she hold him? Could she
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: hold him? If she couldn't hold him, would he leave her?
- 1:01:21Speaker 1: His bird? She felt lately that she couldn't hold him
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: in the nights. Now when she touched Scripts, he rolled away,
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: not toward her. It was a little sign, But life
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: was made up of little signs. She felt she couldn't
- 1:01:34Speaker 1: hold him. As she looked out of the window. A
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: copy of the Sentry magazine dropped from her nerveless hand.
- 1:01:41Speaker 1: The Sentry had a new editor. There were more wood cuts.
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: Glen Frank had gone to head some great university somewhere.
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: There were more Van Dorens on the magazine. Diana felt
- 1:01:52Speaker 1: that might turn the trick happily. She had opened the
- 1:01:55Speaker 1: Sentry and read all morning. Then the wind, the warm
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: Chinnook wind, had started to blow, and she knew Scrips
- 1:02:01Speaker 1: would soon be home. Men were coming down the street
- 1:02:04Speaker 1: in increasing numbers. Was Scripts among them. She did not
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: like to put on her spectacles to look. She wanted
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: Scrip's first glimpse of her to be of her at
- 1:02:14Speaker 1: her best. As she felt him drawing nearer, the confidant
- 1:02:17Speaker 1: she had in the Sentry grew fainter. She had so
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: hoped that would give her the something which would hold him.
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: She wasn't sure now. Scrips coming down the street with
- 1:02:27Speaker 1: a crowd of excited workmen, men stirred by the spring.
- 1:02:31Speaker 1: Scrips swinging his lunch bucket, Scrips waving goodbye to the workmen,
- 1:02:35Speaker 1: who trooped one by one into what had formerly been
- 1:02:37Speaker 1: a saloon. Scrips, not looking up at the window scrips
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: coming up the stairs. Scrips coming nearer, Scrips coming nearer.
- 1:02:46Speaker 1: Scrips here, Good afternoon, dear Scrips, She said, I've been
- 1:02:50Speaker 1: reading a story by Ruth Suckow Hullo Diana, Scrips answered.
- 1:02:55Speaker 1: He sat down his lunch pale. She looked worn and old.
- 1:02:58Speaker 1: He could afford to be polite. What was the story about, Diana,
- 1:03:02Speaker 1: he asked, Was about a little girl in Iowa? Diana said,
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: she moved toward him. Was about people on the land
- 1:03:09Speaker 1: who reminded me a little of my own lake country.
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: That's so, asked Scripps. In some ways the pump factory
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: had hardened him. His speech had become more clipped, more
- 1:03:19Speaker 1: like these hearty northern workers, but his mind was the same.
- 1:03:24Speaker 1: Would you like me to read a little of it
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: out loud? Diana asked, There are some lovely wood cuts.
- 1:03:31Speaker 1: How about going down to the beanery, Scrips said, as
- 1:03:34Speaker 1: you wish, Dear Diana said. Then her voice broke. I wish, oh,
- 1:03:39Speaker 1: I wish you had never seen that place. She wiped
- 1:03:42Speaker 1: away her tears. Scrips had not even seen them. Hum
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: bring the bird, dear Diana said, he hasn't been out
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: all day. Together they went down the street to the beanery.
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: They did not walk hand in hand. Now they walked
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: like what are called old married people. Missus Gribbs carried
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: the bird cage. The bird was happy in the warm wind.
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: Men lurching along, drunk with the spring, passed them. Many
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: spoke to scripts. He was well known and well liked
- 1:04:10Speaker 1: in the town. Now. Some as they lurched by, raised
- 1:04:13Speaker 1: their hats to Missus Scrips. She responded, vaguely, if I
- 1:04:17Speaker 1: can only hold him? She was thinking, if I can
- 1:04:20Speaker 1: only hold him. As they walked along the slushy snow
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: on the narrow sidewalk of the northern town, something began
- 1:04:26Speaker 1: to beat and her head. Perhaps it was the rhythm
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: of their walking together. I can't hold them. I can't
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: hold him, I can't hold him. Scrips took her arm
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: as they crossed the street. When his hand touched her arm,
- 1:04:40Speaker 1: Diana knew it was true. She would never hold him.
- 1:04:43Speaker 1: A group of Indians passed them on the street. Were
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: they laughing at her? Or was it some tribal jest.
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: Diana didn't know. All she knew was that rhythm that
- 1:04:52Speaker 1: beat into her brain. I can't hold him. I can't
- 1:04:55Speaker 1: hold him. Author's note for the reader, not the prince.
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: What difference does it make to the printer? Who is
- 1:05:03Speaker 1: the printer anyway? Gutenberg the Gutenberg Bible, Caxton twelve point
- 1:05:09Speaker 1: open faced Caslon a linotype machine. The author is a
- 1:05:13Speaker 1: little boy being sent to look for type lice. The
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: author as a young man being sent for the key
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: to the forms. Ah, they knew a trick or two
- 1:05:21Speaker 1: these printers. In case the reader is becoming confused, we
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: are now up to wear. The story opened with Yogi
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: Johnson and Scrips O'Neil in the pump factory itself, with
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: the Chinook wind blowing. As you see, Scrips O'Neil has
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: now come out of the pump factory and is on
- 1:05:37Speaker 1: his way to the beanery with his wife, who is
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: afraid she cannot hold him. Personally. We don't believe she can,
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: but the reader will see for himself. We will now
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: leave the couple on their way to the beanery and
- 1:05:50Speaker 1: go back and take up Jogi Johnson. We want the
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: reader to like Yogi Johnson. The story will move a
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: little faster from now on in case any of the
- 1:05:59Speaker 1: readers are tied. We will also try and work in
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: a number of good anecdotes. Would it be any violation
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: of confidence if we told the reader that we get
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: the best of these anecdotes from mister Ford maddox Ford.
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: We owe him our thanks, and we hope the reader
- 1:06:14Speaker 1: does two at any rate. We will now go on
- 1:06:17Speaker 1: with Jogi Johnson. Jogi Johnson, the reader may remember, is
- 1:06:21Speaker 1: the chap who is in the war. As the story opens,
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: he is just coming out of the pump factory see
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: page three. It is very hard to write this way,
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: beginning things backward, and the author hopes the reader will
- 1:06:34Speaker 1: realize this and not grudge this little word of explanation.
- 1:06:38Speaker 1: I know I would be very glad to read anything
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: the reader ever wrote, and I hope the reader will
- 1:06:44Speaker 1: make the same sort of allowances if any of the
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: readers would care to send me anything they ever wrote
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: for criticism or advice. I am always at the Cafe
- 1:06:53Speaker 1: boudoum any afternoon talking about art with Harold Stearns and
- 1:06:57Speaker 1: Saint Clair Lewis. And the reader can bring his stuff
- 1:07:00Speaker 1: along with him, or he consent it to me care
- 1:07:03Speaker 1: of my bank, for have a bank. Now. If the
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: reader is ready and understand I don't want to rush
- 1:07:09Speaker 1: the reader any We will go back to Yogi Johnson.
- 1:07:12Speaker 1: But please remember that while we have gone back to
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: Yogi Johnson scripts O'Neill and his wife are on their
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: way to the beanery. What will happen to them there?
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: I don't know. I only wish the reader could help me.
- 1:07:25Speaker 1: And A Part two, Part three, Men in War and
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: the Death of Society. It may be likewise noted that
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: affectation does not imply an absolute negation of those qualities
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: which are affected. And therefore, though when it proceeds from
- 1:07:44Speaker 1: hypocrisy it be nearly allied to deceit, yet when it
- 1:07:48Speaker 1: comes from vanity only it partakes at the nature of ostentation.
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: For instance, the affectation of liberality in a vain man
- 1:07:58Speaker 1: differs visibly from the same affectation and the avaricious. For
- 1:08:02Speaker 1: though the vain man is not what he would appear,
- 1:08:06Speaker 1: or hath not the virtue effects to the degree he
- 1:08:09Speaker 1: would be thought to have it, yet it sits less
- 1:08:12Speaker 1: awkwardly on him than on the avaricious man, who is
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: the very reverse of what he would seem to be.
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: Henry Fielding, Chapter eleven, Jogi Johnson walked out of the
- 1:08:26Speaker 1: workman's entrance of the pump factory and down the street.
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: Spring was in the air, the snow was melting, and
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: the gutters were running with snow water. Jogi Johnson walked
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: down the middle of the street, keeping on thee as
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: yet unmelted ice. He turned to the left and crossed
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: the bridge over bare river. The ice had already melted
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: into the river, and he watched the swirling brown current
- 1:08:51Speaker 1: below beside the stream. But on the willow brush were
- 1:08:55Speaker 1: coming out green, the real chinnook wind. Yogi thought a
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: foreman did right to let the men go. It wouldn't
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: be safe keeping them in a day like this, anything
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: might happen. The owner of the factory knew a thing
- 1:09:08Speaker 1: or two when the chinook blew. The thing to do
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: was to get the men out of the factory. Then
- 1:09:14Speaker 1: if any of them were injured, it was not on him.
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: He didn't get caught under the employer's Liability Act. They
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: knew a thing or two, these big pump manufacturers. They
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: were smart, all right. Yogi was worried. There was something
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: on his mind. Who was spring. There was no doubt
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: of that now, and he did not want a woman.
- 1:09:35Speaker 1: He had worried about it a lot lately. There was
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: no question about it. He did not want a woman.
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: He couldn't explain it to himself. He had gone to
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: the public library and asked for a book the night before.
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: He looked at the librarian. Did not want her. Somehow,
- 1:09:51Speaker 1: she meant nothing to him. At the restaurant where he
- 1:09:54Speaker 1: had a meal ticket, he looked hard at the waitress
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: who brought him his meals. He did not want her either.
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: He passed a group of girls on their way home
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: from high school. He looked carefully at all of them.
- 1:10:06Speaker 1: He did not want a single one. Decidedly, something was wrong.
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: Was he going to pieces? Was this the end? Well?
- 1:10:15Speaker 1: Yogi thought women are gone, perhaps, though I hope not,
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: But I still have my love of horses. He was
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: walking up the steep hill that leads up from the
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: Bare River out onto the Charlevoi Road. The road was
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: not really so steep, but it felt steep to Yogi,
- 1:10:31Speaker 1: his legs heavy with the spring. In front of him
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: was a grain and feed store. A team of beautiful
- 1:10:38Speaker 1: horses were hitched in front of the feed store. Yogi
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: went up to them, who wanted to touch them, to
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: reassure himself that there was something left. The night horse
- 1:10:48Speaker 1: looked at him as he came near. Yogi put his
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: hand in his pocket for a lump of sugar. He
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: had no sugar. The horse put its ears back and
- 1:10:57Speaker 1: showed its teeth. The other horse jerked his head away.
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: Was this sow that his glove of horses had brought
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: him after all? Perhaps there was something wrong with these horses.
- 1:11:06Speaker 1: Perhaps they had glanders or spavin. Perhaps something had been
- 1:11:10Speaker 1: caught in the tender frog of their hoof. Perhaps they
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: were lovers. Yogi walked on up the hill and turned
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: to the left on to the Charlevoi Road. He passed
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: the last houses of the outskirts of Petasky and came
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: out onto the open country road. On his right was
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: a field that stretched a little traverse bay, the blue
- 1:11:31Speaker 1: of the bay opening up into the big Lake Michigan.
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: Across the bay the pine hills behind Harbor Springs, beyond
- 1:11:39Speaker 1: where you could not see it, cross Village where the
- 1:11:42Speaker 1: Indians lived. Even further beyond these straits of Mackinac with
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: Saint Pignas, where a strange and beautiful thing had once
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: happened to Oscar Gardner, who worked beside Yogi in the
- 1:11:53Speaker 1: pump factory. Further beyond the Sioux, both Canadian and American.
- 1:11:59Speaker 1: There the wilder spirits of Pataski sometimes went to drink beer.
- 1:12:04Speaker 1: They were happy. Then. Way way beyond and in the
- 1:12:07Speaker 1: other direction, at the foot of the lake was Chicago,
- 1:12:10Speaker 1: where Scrips O'Neil had started for on that eventful night
- 1:12:13Speaker 1: when his first marriage had become a marriage no longer.
- 1:12:17Speaker 1: Near there, Gary, Indiana, where were the great steel mills
- 1:12:21Speaker 1: near their Hammond, Indiana. Near there, Michigan City, Indiana. Further
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: beyond there would be Indianapolis, Indiana, where Booth Tarkington lived.
- 1:12:31Speaker 1: He had the wrong dope, that fellow. Further down there
- 1:12:34Speaker 1: would be Cincinnati, Ohio. Beyond that Pittsburg, Mississippi. Beyond that Waco, Texas.
- 1:12:41Speaker 1: There was a grand sweep to this America of ours.
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: Yogi walked across the road and sat down on a
- 1:12:47Speaker 1: pile of logs where he could look out over the lake.
- 1:12:51Speaker 1: After all, the war was over and he was still alive.
- 1:12:55Speaker 1: There was a chap in that fellow Anderson's book that
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: the librarian had given him at the library last night.
- 1:13:01Speaker 1: Why hadn't he wanted the librarian anyway? Could it be
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: because he thought she might have false teeth? Could it
- 1:13:08Speaker 1: be something else? Would a little child ever tell her?
- 1:13:12Speaker 1: He didn't know what was the librarian to him? Anyway?
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: This chap in the book by Anderson. He had been
- 1:13:18Speaker 1: a soldier too. He had been up the front two years.
- 1:13:22Speaker 1: Anderson said, what was his name? Fred? Something? This? Fred
- 1:13:26Speaker 1: had thoughts dancing in his brain horror. One night, in
- 1:13:29Speaker 1: the time of the fighting, he went out on parade,
- 1:13:32Speaker 1: no it was patrol in no man's land, and saw
- 1:13:35Speaker 1: another man stumbling along in the darkness and shot him.
- 1:13:39Speaker 1: The man pitched forward dead. It had been the only
- 1:13:42Speaker 1: time Fred consciously killed a man. You don't kill men
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: and war much, the book said, The hell you don't,
- 1:13:48Speaker 1: Yogi thought. You're two years in the infantry at the front.
- 1:13:52Speaker 1: They just die. Indeed they do, Yogi thought. Anderson said.
- 1:13:56Speaker 1: The act was rather hysterical on Fred's part, and the
- 1:14:00Speaker 1: men with him might have made the fellow surrender. They
- 1:14:03Speaker 1: had all got the jim jams. After it happened, they
- 1:14:06Speaker 1: all ran away together. Where the hell did they run to?
- 1:14:09Speaker 1: Yogi wondered Paris afterward. Killing this man haunted Fred. It's
- 1:14:15Speaker 1: got to be sweet and true. That was the way
- 1:14:17Speaker 1: the soldiers thought, Anderson said, the hell it was. This
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: Fred was supposed to have been two years in an
- 1:14:24Speaker 1: infantry regiment at the front. A couple of Indians were
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: passing along the road, grunting to themselves and to each other.
- 1:14:32Speaker 1: Yogi called to them. The Indians came over. Big White Chief,
- 1:14:37Speaker 1: got chew of tobacco, asked the first Indian. White Chief
- 1:14:41Speaker 1: carry liquor. The second Indian asked. Yogi handed them a
- 1:14:45Speaker 1: package of Peerless and his pocket flask. White Chief heap
- 1:14:50Speaker 1: big medicine. The Indians grunted, listen. Yogi Johnson said, I
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: am about to address to you a few remarks about
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: the war, the subject on which I feel very deeply.
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: The Indians sat down on the logs. One of the
- 1:15:04Speaker 1: Indians pointed out the sky up there. Get chee manitude
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: the mighty, he said. The other Indian winked at Yogi.
- 1:15:13Speaker 1: White Chief. No believe every goddamn thing he here. He grunted. Listen,
- 1:15:17Speaker 1: Yogi Johnson said, And he told them about the war.
- 1:15:21Speaker 1: War hadn't been that way to Yogi, he told the Indians.
- 1:15:24Speaker 1: War had been to him like football, American football. But
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: they play at the colleges Carlisle Indian School. Both the
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: Indians nodded they had been to Carlisle. Yogi had played
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: center at football, and war had been much the same thing,
- 1:15:40Speaker 1: intensely unpleasant. When you played football and had the ball,
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: you were down with your legs spread out and the
- 1:15:46Speaker 1: ball held out in front of you on the ground.
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: You had to listen for the signal decode it, make
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: the proper pass. You had to think about it all
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: the time while your hands were on the ball. The
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: opposing center stood in front of you, and when you
- 1:15:59Speaker 1: passed the ball, he brought his hand up, smash into
- 1:16:01Speaker 1: your face, and grabbed you with the other hand under
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: the chin or under your armpit, and tried to pull
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: you forward or shove you back to make a hole
- 1:16:09Speaker 1: he could go through and break up the plate. He
- 1:16:12Speaker 1: was supposed to charge forward so hard you banged him
- 1:16:15Speaker 1: out of the play with your body and put you
- 1:16:17Speaker 1: both on the ground. He had all the advantage. It
- 1:16:21Speaker 1: was not what you would call fun. When you had
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: the ball. He had all the advantage. The only good
- 1:16:27Speaker 1: thing was that when he had the ball, you could
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: rough house him, and this way things evened up, and
- 1:16:32Speaker 1: sometimes even a certain tolerance was achieved. Football, like the war,
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: was unpleasant, stimulating, and exciting after you had attained a
- 1:16:41Speaker 1: certain hardness, and the chief difficulty had been that of
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: remembering the signals. Yogi was thinking about the war, not
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: the army. He meant combat. The army was something different.
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: You could take it and ride with it, or you
- 1:16:55Speaker 1: could buck the tiger and let it smash you. The
- 1:16:59Speaker 1: army was a silly business, but the war was different.
- 1:17:03Speaker 1: Yogi was not haunted by men he had killed. He
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: knew he had killed five men, probably he had killed more.
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: He didn't believe men you killed haunted you, not if
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: you had been two years at the front. Most of
- 1:17:16Speaker 1: the men he had known had been excited as hell
- 1:17:18Speaker 1: when they had first killed. The trouble was to keep
- 1:17:21Speaker 1: them from killing too much. It was hard to get
- 1:17:23Speaker 1: prisoners back to the people that wanted them for identification.
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: You sent a man back with two prisoners, maybe you
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: sent two men back with four prisoners. What happened The
- 1:17:34Speaker 1: men came back and said the prisoners were knocked out
- 1:17:36Speaker 1: by the barrage. They would give the prisoner a poking
- 1:17:40Speaker 1: the seat of the pants with a bayonet, and when
- 1:17:42Speaker 1: the prisoner jumped, they would say you run, you son
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: of a bitch, and let their gun off in the
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: back of his head. They wanted to be sure they
- 1:17:49Speaker 1: had killed. Also, they didn't want to go back through
- 1:17:52Speaker 1: any damn barrage, No, sir. They learned those kind of
- 1:17:56Speaker 1: manners from the Australians. After all, what were those jerries?
- 1:18:00Speaker 1: Bunch of goddamn huns? Huns sounded like a funny word now,
- 1:18:05Speaker 1: all the sweetness and truth. Not if you were in
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: there two years in the end, they would have softened,
- 1:18:11Speaker 1: got sorry for excesses, and begun to store up good
- 1:18:14Speaker 1: deeds against getting killed themselves. But that was the fourth
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: phase of soldiering. He gentling down and a good soldier.
- 1:18:22Speaker 1: In the war it went like this. First, you were
- 1:18:24Speaker 1: brave because you didn't think anything could hit you, because
- 1:18:27Speaker 1: you yourself were something special and you knew that you
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: could never die. Then you found out different. You were
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: really scared then, But if you were a good soldier,
- 1:18:37Speaker 1: you functioned the same as before. Then, after you were
- 1:18:41Speaker 1: wounded and not killed, with new men coming on and
- 1:18:44Speaker 1: going through your old processes, you hardened and became a good,
- 1:18:48Speaker 1: hard boiled soldier. Then came the second crack, which is
- 1:18:51Speaker 1: much worse than the first. And then you began doing
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: good deeds and being the boy Sir Philip Sidney in
- 1:18:58Speaker 1: storing up treasures in heaven. At the same time, of course,
- 1:19:02Speaker 1: functioning always the same as before, as if it were
- 1:19:05Speaker 1: a football game. Nobody had any damn business to write
- 1:19:09Speaker 1: about it, though they didn't at least know about it
- 1:19:11Speaker 1: from hearsay. Literature has too strong an effect on people's minds,
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: like this American writer Willa Cather, who wrote a book
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: about the war where all the last part of it
- 1:19:22Speaker 1: was taken from the action in the Birth of a Nation.
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: An ex serviceman wrote to her from all over America
- 1:19:28Speaker 1: to tell her how much they liked it. One of
- 1:19:31Speaker 1: the Indians was asleep. He had been chewing tobacco and
- 1:19:35Speaker 1: his mouth was pursed up in sleep. He was leaning
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: on the other Indian's shoulder. The Indian, who was awake,
- 1:19:41Speaker 1: pointed to the other Indian who was asleep and shook
- 1:19:44Speaker 1: his head. Well, how did you like the speech, Yogi
- 1:19:48Speaker 1: asked the Indian who was awake. White chief, have heap
- 1:19:52Speaker 1: much sound ideas? The Indian said, White chief educated like help.
- 1:19:57Speaker 1: Thank you, Yogi said, he felt tight here among the
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: simple Aborigines, the only real Americans. He had found that
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: true communion. The Indian looked at him, holding the sleeping
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: Indian carefully that his head might not fall back upon
- 1:20:12Speaker 1: the snow covered logs. Was White Chief and the war?
- 1:20:16Speaker 1: The Indian asked, I landed in France in May nineteen seventeen.
- 1:20:20Speaker 1: Yogi began, I thought maybe White Chief was in the war.
- 1:20:24Speaker 1: From the way he talked, the Indians said him. He
- 1:20:28Speaker 1: raised the head of his sleeping companion up so the
- 1:20:30Speaker 1: last rays of the sunset shone on the sleeping Indian's face.
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: He got VC ME, I got DSO and MC with bar.
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: I was major in the fourth CMRS. I'm glad to
- 1:20:45Speaker 1: meet you, Yogi said. He felt strangely humiliated. It was
- 1:20:49Speaker 1: growing dark. There was a single line of sunset where
- 1:20:53Speaker 1: the sky and water met way out on Lake Michigan.
- 1:20:57Speaker 1: Yogi watched the narrow line of the sunset grow darker, red,
- 1:21:00Speaker 1: then to a mere slit, and then fade. The sun
- 1:21:04Speaker 1: was down behind the lake. Yogi stood up from the
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: pile of logs. The Indian stood up too. He awakened
- 1:21:10Speaker 1: his companion, and the Indian, who had been sleeping stood
- 1:21:13Speaker 1: up and looked at Yogi Johnson. We go to Pataski
- 1:21:17Speaker 1: to join salvation army. The larger and more wakeful Indians said,
- 1:21:22Speaker 1: White Chief, come too, said the smaller Indian, who had
- 1:21:25Speaker 1: been asleep. I'll walk in with you. Yogi replied, who
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: were these Indians? What did they mean to him? With
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: the sundown, the slushy road was stiffening, It was freezing again.
- 1:21:37Speaker 1: After all, maybe spring was not coming. Maybe it did
- 1:21:40Speaker 1: not make a difference that he did not want a
- 1:21:42Speaker 1: woman now that the spring was perhaps not coming, there
- 1:21:46Speaker 1: was a question about that he would walk into town
- 1:21:48Speaker 1: with the Indians and look for a beautiful woman and
- 1:21:51Speaker 1: try and want. He turned down the now frozen road.
- 1:21:55Speaker 1: The two Indians walked by his side. They were all
- 1:21:58Speaker 1: bound in the same direction. Chapter twelve. Through the night,
- 1:22:04Speaker 1: down the frozen road, the three walked into Petaski. They
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: had been silent walking along the frozen road. Their shoes
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: broke the new formed crusts of ice. Sometimes Yogi Johnson
- 1:22:16Speaker 1: stepped through a thin film of ice into a pool
- 1:22:18Speaker 1: of water. The Indians avoided the pools of water. They
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: came down the hill past the feed store, crossed the
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: bridge over the bare river, their boots ringing hollowly on
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: the frozen planks of the bridge, and climbed the hill
- 1:22:32Speaker 1: that led past Doctor Rumsey's house and the home tea
- 1:22:35Speaker 1: room up to the pool room. In front of the
- 1:22:38Speaker 1: pool room, the two Indians stopped. White Chief shoot pool.
- 1:22:42Speaker 1: The big Indian asked, no. Yogi Johnson said, my right
- 1:22:47Speaker 1: arm was crippled in the war. White Chief, have hard luck.
- 1:22:51Speaker 1: The small Indian said, shoot one game, Kelly Pool. He
- 1:22:55Speaker 1: got both arms and both legs shot off at Wiper's
- 1:22:58Speaker 1: The big Indian said, aside to Yogi, in very sensitive
- 1:23:03Speaker 1: all right, Yogi Johnson said, I'll shoot one game. They
- 1:23:07Speaker 1: went into the hot, smoke filled warmth of the pool room.
- 1:23:10Speaker 1: They obtained a table and took down cues from the wall.
- 1:23:14Speaker 1: As the little Indian reached up to take down his cue,
- 1:23:17Speaker 1: Yogi noticed that he had two artificial arms. They were
- 1:23:20Speaker 1: brown leather and were both buckled on at the elbow
- 1:23:24Speaker 1: on the smooth green cloth. Under the bright electric lights,
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: they played pool. At the end of an hour and
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: a half, Yogi Johnson found that he owed the little
- 1:23:33Speaker 1: Indian four dollars and thirty cents. You shoot a pretty
- 1:23:37Speaker 1: nice stick. He remarked to the small Indian, may not
- 1:23:40Speaker 1: shoot so good since the war. The small Indian replied,
- 1:23:45Speaker 1: White Chief liked to drink a little, asked the larger Indian,
- 1:23:48Speaker 1: where do you get it? Asked Yogi, I have to
- 1:23:51Speaker 1: go to Sheboygan for mine. White Chief come with red brothers,
- 1:23:55Speaker 1: the big Indian said. They left the pool table, placed
- 1:23:59Speaker 1: their cues in the on the wall, paid at the counter,
- 1:24:02Speaker 1: and went out into the night. Along the dark streets,
- 1:24:05Speaker 1: men were sneaking home. The frost had come and frozen
- 1:24:08Speaker 1: everything stiff and cold. The chinook had not been a
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: real chinook after all, spring had not yet come, and
- 1:24:15Speaker 1: the men who had commenced their orgies were halted by
- 1:24:18Speaker 1: the chill in the air that told them the chinook
- 1:24:21Speaker 1: wind had been a fake. That foreman Yogi thought he'll
- 1:24:24Speaker 1: catch hell tomorrow. Perhaps it had all been engineered by
- 1:24:28Speaker 1: the pump manufacturers to get the foreman out of his job.
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: Such things were done through the dark of the night.
- 1:24:34Speaker 1: Men were sneaking home in little groups. The two Indians
- 1:24:38Speaker 1: walked on either side of Yogi. They turned down a
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: side street, and all three halted before a building that
- 1:24:44Speaker 1: looked something like a stable. It was a stable. The
- 1:24:48Speaker 1: two Indians opened the door, and Yogi followed them in sighed.
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: A ladder led upstairs to the floor above. Was dark
- 1:24:56Speaker 1: inside the stable, but one of the Indians lit a
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: match to show you, Jogi the ladder. The little Indian
- 1:25:02Speaker 1: climbed up first, the metal hinges of his artificial limbs
- 1:25:06Speaker 1: squeaking as he climbed. Yogi followed him, and the other
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: Indian climbed last, lighting Yogi's way with matches. The little
- 1:25:14Speaker 1: Indian knocked on the roof where the ladder stopped against
- 1:25:17Speaker 1: the wall. There was an answering knock. The little Indian
- 1:25:20Speaker 1: knocked in answer three sharp knocks on the roof above
- 1:25:23Speaker 1: his head. The trap door on the roof was raised
- 1:25:26Speaker 1: and they climbed up through into the lighted room. In
- 1:25:30Speaker 1: one corner of the room, there was a bar with
- 1:25:32Speaker 1: a brass rail and tall spittoons. Behind the bar was
- 1:25:36Speaker 1: a mirror. Easy chairs were all around the room. There
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: was a pool table, magazines on sticks hung in a
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: line on the wall. There was a framed autographed portrait
- 1:25:46Speaker 1: of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on the wall, draped in the
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: American flag. Several Indians were sitting in the easy chairs reading.
- 1:25:54Speaker 1: A little group stood at the bar. Nice little club. Eh.
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: An Indian came up up and shook hands with Yogi.
- 1:26:01Speaker 1: I see almost every day at the pump factory. He
- 1:26:05Speaker 1: was a man who worked at one of the machines
- 1:26:07Speaker 1: near Yogi in the factory. Another Indian came up and
- 1:26:10Speaker 1: shook hands with Yogi. He also worked in the pump factory.
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: Rotten luck about the chinook, he said, yes, Yogi said,
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: just a false alarm. Come and have a drink. The
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: first Indian said, I'm with a party. Yogi answered, who
- 1:26:25Speaker 1: were these Indians? Anyway? Bring them along too. The first
- 1:26:28Speaker 1: Indian said, always room for one more. Yogi looked around him.
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: The two Indians who had brought him were gone. Where
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: were they? Then he saw them? They were over at
- 1:26:39Speaker 1: the pool table. The tall refined Indian to whom Yogi
- 1:26:42Speaker 1: was talking followed his glance. He nodded his head in understanding,
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: there are woods Indians, he explained, apologetically, we're most of
- 1:26:51Speaker 1: us town Indians here. Yes, of course, Yogi agreed. The
- 1:26:56Speaker 1: little chap has a very good war record, the tall
- 1:26:59Speaker 1: refined Indian. The other chap was a major too. I
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: believe Yogi was guided over to the bar by the tall,
- 1:27:06Speaker 1: refined Indian. Behind the bar was the bartender. He was
- 1:27:10Speaker 1: a Negro. How would some dog's head, ale Go, asked
- 1:27:14Speaker 1: the Indian fine. Yogi said, two dogs head, Spruce. The
- 1:27:18Speaker 1: Indian remarked to the bartender. Bartender broke into a chuckle.
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: What are you laughing at? Bruce, the Indian asked. The
- 1:27:27Speaker 1: Negro broke into a shrill, haunting laugh. I noted it
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: massa red dog, he said, I knowed you'd order that
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: dogs had all the time. He's a merry fellow. The
- 1:27:37Speaker 1: Indian remarked to Yogi, I must introduce myself. Red Dog's
- 1:27:41Speaker 1: the name. Johnson's the name, Yogi said, Yogi Johnson. Oh,
- 1:27:46Speaker 1: we're all quite familiar with your name, mister Johnson. Red
- 1:27:49Speaker 1: Dog smiled. I would like you to meet my friends,
- 1:27:52Speaker 1: mister sitting Bull, mister Poison Buffalo, and Chief Running Skunk Backwards.
- 1:27:58Speaker 1: Sitting Bull's a name, I know, Yogi, shaky hands. Oh,
- 1:28:01Speaker 1: I'm not one of those sitting bulls. Mister sitting bulls,
- 1:28:04Speaker 1: said Chief Running Skunk Backwards. Great grandfather once sold the
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: entire island of Manhattan for a few strings of wampum.
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: Red Dog explained, how very interesting. Yogi said, that was
- 1:28:17Speaker 1: a costly bit of wampum for our family. Chief running
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: Skunk Backwards smiled ruefully. Chief running Skunk Backwards, is some
- 1:28:25Speaker 1: of that wampum? Would you like to see it? Red
- 1:28:27Speaker 1: Dog asked, indeed, I would. It's really no different from
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: any other wampum. Skunk Backwards explained deprecatingly. He pulled a
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: chain of wampum out of his pocket and handed it
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: to Yogi Johnson. Yogi looked at it curiously. What a
- 1:28:43Speaker 1: part that string of wampum had played in this america
- 1:28:46Speaker 1: of ours? Would you like to have one or two
- 1:28:49Speaker 1: wampums for a keepsake, Skunk Backwards asked, I wouldn't like
- 1:28:53Speaker 1: to take your wampum. Yogi demurred, they have no intrinsic value, really,
- 1:28:58Speaker 1: Skunk Backwards explained, detaching one or two wampums from the string,
- 1:29:04Speaker 1: Their value is really a sentimental one to Skunk Backwards family,
- 1:29:07Speaker 1: Red Dog said, damned decent of you, mister Skunk Backwards.
- 1:29:12Speaker 1: Yogi said, it's nothing. Skunk Backwards said, you'd do the
- 1:29:16Speaker 1: same for me in a moment. It's decent of you.
- 1:29:20Speaker 1: Behind the bar, Bruce, the Negro bartender had been leaning
- 1:29:23Speaker 1: forward and watching the wampums pass from hand to hand.
- 1:29:26Speaker 1: His dark face shone sharply. Without explanation, he broke into
- 1:29:31Speaker 1: high pitched, uncontrolled laughter, the dark laughter of the negro.
- 1:29:36Speaker 1: Red Dog looked at him sharply, I say, Bruce, he
- 1:29:39Speaker 1: spoke sharply. Your mirth is a little ill timed. Bruce
- 1:29:43Speaker 1: stopped laughing and wiped his face on a towel. He
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: rolled his eyes apologetically. I can't help it, massa Red Dog.
- 1:29:51Speaker 1: When I seen mister skunk back house passing dim wampums around,
- 1:29:55Speaker 1: I just couldn't stand it no longer. What do you
- 1:29:57Speaker 1: want to sell a big town like New York for
- 1:30:00Speaker 1: dem wampums, for wopums? Take away your wampums. Bruce is
- 1:30:05Speaker 1: an eccentric, Red Dog explained, But he's a corking bartender
- 1:30:08Speaker 1: and a good hearted chap. You're right there, massa red Dog.
- 1:30:12Speaker 1: The bartender leaned forward. I's got a heart of pure gold.
- 1:30:17Speaker 1: He is an eccentric, though, Red Dog apologized. The House
- 1:30:20Speaker 1: committee are always after me to get another bartender. But
- 1:30:23Speaker 1: I liked the chap oddly enough. I'm all right, boss,
- 1:30:27Speaker 1: Bruce said, It's just that when I see something funny,
- 1:30:30Speaker 1: I just have to laugh. You know, I don't mean
- 1:30:32Speaker 1: no harm. Boss, right enough, Bruce, Red Dog agreed, you
- 1:30:36Speaker 1: are an honest chap. Joki Johnson looked about the room.
- 1:30:40Speaker 1: The other Indians had gone away from the bar, and
- 1:30:43Speaker 1: Skunk Backwards was showing the wampum to a little group
- 1:30:46Speaker 1: of Indians and dinner dress who had just come in.
- 1:30:49Speaker 1: At the pool table, the two Woods Indians were still playing.
- 1:30:52Speaker 1: They had removed their coats, and the light above the
- 1:30:55Speaker 1: pool table glinted on the metal joints in the Little
- 1:30:58Speaker 1: Woods Indians artificial war arms. He'd just run the table
- 1:31:02Speaker 1: for the eleventh consecutive time. That little Chap would have
- 1:31:06Speaker 1: made a pool player if he hadn't had a bit
- 1:31:08Speaker 1: of hard luck, and war Red Dog remark, would you
- 1:31:11Speaker 1: like to have a look about the club. He took
- 1:31:13Speaker 1: the check from Bruce, signed it, and Yogi followed him
- 1:31:16Speaker 1: into the next room, Our committee room, Red Dog said.
- 1:31:21Speaker 1: On the walls were framed autographed photographs of Chief Bender,
- 1:31:25Speaker 1: Francis Parkman, d H. Lawrence, Chief Myers, Stuart Edward White,
- 1:31:30Speaker 1: Mary Austin, Jim Thorpe, General Custer, Glenn Warner, Mabel Dodge,
- 1:31:36Speaker 1: and a full length oil painting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
- 1:31:40Speaker 1: Beyond the committee room was a locker room with a
- 1:31:42Speaker 1: small plunge bath or a swimming pool. It's really ridiculously
- 1:31:47Speaker 1: small for a club, Red Dog said, but it makes
- 1:31:50Speaker 1: a comfortable little hole to pop into when the evenings
- 1:31:53Speaker 1: are dull. He smiled. We call it the wigwam. You
- 1:31:56Speaker 1: know that's a little conceit of my own. It's a
- 1:31:59Speaker 1: damn nice club, Yogi said, enthusiastically. Put you up if
- 1:32:04Speaker 1: you like. Red Dog offered, what's your tribe? What do
- 1:32:07Speaker 1: you mean your tribe? What are you? Sac and fox
- 1:32:10Speaker 1: jipwake free? I imagine, oh, said Yogi, My parents come
- 1:32:14Speaker 1: from Sweden. Red Dog looked at him closely, his eyes narrowed.
- 1:32:20Speaker 1: You're not having me on. No, they either came from
- 1:32:23Speaker 1: Sweden or Norway. Yogi said, i'd have sworn you looked
- 1:32:27Speaker 1: a bit on the white side. Red Dog said, damn
- 1:32:30Speaker 1: good thing this came out in time. There'd have been
- 1:32:33Speaker 1: no end of scandle. He put his hand to his
- 1:32:36Speaker 1: head and pursed his lips. Hear you. He turned suddenly
- 1:32:39Speaker 1: and gripped Yogi by the vest. Yogi felt the barrel
- 1:32:42Speaker 1: of an automatic pushed hard against his stomach. You go
- 1:32:46Speaker 1: quietly through the club room, get your coat and hat,
- 1:32:48Speaker 1: and leave as though nothing had happened. Say polite goodbye
- 1:32:52Speaker 1: to anyone who happens to speak to you, and never
- 1:32:55Speaker 1: come back. Get that you swede, yes, said Yogi. Put
- 1:33:00Speaker 1: up your gun. I'm not afraid of your gun. Do
- 1:33:02Speaker 1: as I say, Red Dog ordered. As for those two
- 1:33:06Speaker 1: pool players who brought you here, I'll soon have them
- 1:33:08Speaker 1: out of this. Yogi went into the bright room, looked
- 1:33:12Speaker 1: at the bar where Bruce, the bartender was regarding him,
- 1:33:15Speaker 1: got his hat and coat, said good night to Skunk backwards,
- 1:33:19Speaker 1: who asked him why he was leaving so early, And
- 1:33:21Speaker 1: the outside trap door was swung up by Bruce. As
- 1:33:25Speaker 1: Yogi started down the ladder, the Negro burst out laughing,
- 1:33:28Speaker 1: I noted, he laughed. I knowed it all the time.
- 1:33:31Speaker 1: No swee gunna fool, old Bruce. Yogi looked back and
- 1:33:35Speaker 1: saw the laughing black face of the Negro framed in
- 1:33:38Speaker 1: the oblong square of light that came through the raised
- 1:33:41Speaker 1: trap door. Once on the stable floor, Yogi looked around him.
- 1:33:46Speaker 1: He was alone. The straw of the old stable was
- 1:33:49Speaker 1: stiff and frozen under his feet. Where had he been?
- 1:33:53Speaker 1: Had he been in an Indian club? What was it
- 1:33:56Speaker 1: all about? Was this? The end above him? A slit
- 1:34:00Speaker 1: of light came in the roof, then it was blacked
- 1:34:03Speaker 1: by two black figures. There was the sound of a kick,
- 1:34:06Speaker 1: a blow, a series of thuds, some dull, some sharp,
- 1:34:10Speaker 1: and two human forms came crashing down the ladder from above.
- 1:34:13Speaker 1: Floated at the dark haunting sound of black Negro laughter,
- 1:34:17Speaker 1: the two woods Indians picked themselves up from the straw
- 1:34:20Speaker 1: and limped toward the door. One of them, the little one,
- 1:34:23Speaker 1: was crying. Jogi followed them out into the cold night.
- 1:34:27Speaker 1: It was cold, the night was clear, the stars were out.
- 1:34:31Speaker 1: Club no damn good, the big Indian said, Club heap,
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: no damn good. The little Indian was crying. Yogi, in
- 1:34:39Speaker 1: the starlight, saw that he had lost one of his
- 1:34:41Speaker 1: artificial arms. Me no playpool no more. The little Indian sobbed.
- 1:34:46Speaker 1: He shook his one arm at the window of the club,
- 1:34:49Speaker 1: from which a thin slit of light came. Club heap,
- 1:34:52Speaker 1: goddamn hell, no good, never mind, Yogi said, I'll get
- 1:34:56Speaker 1: you a job in the pump factory. Pump factory, held
- 1:34:59Speaker 1: the big inn Indian said, we all go join Salvation army.
- 1:35:03Speaker 1: Don't cry, Yogi said to the little Indian, I'll buy
- 1:35:06Speaker 1: you a new arm. The little Indian went on crying.
- 1:35:10Speaker 1: He sat down in the snowy road. No can playpool me,
- 1:35:14Speaker 1: no care about nothing, he said. From above them, out
- 1:35:18Speaker 1: of the window of the club came the haunting sound
- 1:35:20Speaker 1: of a Negro laughing. Author's note to the reader, in
- 1:35:26Speaker 1: case it may have any historical value, I'm glad to
- 1:35:29Speaker 1: state that I wrote the foregoing chapter in two hours
- 1:35:32Speaker 1: directly on the typewriter, and then went out to lunch
- 1:35:35Speaker 1: with John dos Passos, whom I consider a very forceful
- 1:35:38Speaker 1: writer and an exceedingly pleasant fellow. Besides, this is what
- 1:35:44Speaker 1: is known in the provinces, says lag rolling. We lunched
- 1:35:47Speaker 1: on roll mops, salt, munier, sived du yefa, a la
- 1:35:52Speaker 1: chaise cocote, marchmalad du poem, and washed it all down,
- 1:35:57Speaker 1: as we used to say, Hey reader, with the Battle
- 1:36:00Speaker 1: of Monroche nineteen nineteen, with the soul and a bottle
- 1:36:05Speaker 1: of ouspice Dubonna nineteen nineteen a piece with the jugged hair.
- 1:36:10Speaker 1: Mister dos Passos, I believe shared a bottle of schambardin
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: with me over the marmalade, through poems English apple sauce.
- 1:36:20Speaker 1: We drank two view marks, and after deciding not to
- 1:36:24Speaker 1: go to the Cafe du Dome and talk about art,
- 1:36:27Speaker 1: we both went to our respective homes and I wrote
- 1:36:29Speaker 1: the following chapter. I would like the reader to particularly
- 1:36:33Speaker 1: remark the way the complicated threads of the lives the
- 1:36:36Speaker 1: various characters in the book are gathered together and then
- 1:36:40Speaker 1: held there in that memorable scene in the beanery. It
- 1:36:44Speaker 1: was when I read this chapter aloud to him that
- 1:36:46Speaker 1: mister dos Pasos exclaimed, henyway you have brought a masterpiece
- 1:36:52Speaker 1: p s from the author to the reader. It is
- 1:36:55Speaker 1: at this point, reader, that I am going to try
- 1:36:57Speaker 1: and get that sweep and movement into the book that
- 1:37:00Speaker 1: shows that the book is really a great book. I
- 1:37:02Speaker 1: know you hope just as much as I do, Reader,
- 1:37:05Speaker 1: that I will get this sweep and movement, because think
- 1:37:08Speaker 1: what it will mean to both of us. Mister H. G. Wells,
- 1:37:11Speaker 1: who has been visiting at our home, we're getting along
- 1:37:14Speaker 1: in the litter again. I reader asked us the other
- 1:37:17Speaker 1: day if perhaps our reader, that's you reader, just think
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: of it. H. G. Wells talking about you right in
- 1:37:23Speaker 1: our home anyway. H G. Wells asked us if perhaps
- 1:37:27Speaker 1: our reader would not think too much of this story
- 1:37:30Speaker 1: was autobiographical. Please, reader, just get that idea out of
- 1:37:35Speaker 1: your head. We have lived in Pataski, Michigan. It is true,
- 1:37:39Speaker 1: and naturally many of the characters are drawn from life
- 1:37:41Speaker 1: as we lived it then, but they are other people,
- 1:37:45Speaker 1: not the author. The author only comes into the story
- 1:37:48Speaker 1: in these little notes. It is true that before starting
- 1:37:51Speaker 1: the story, we spent twelve years studying the very Sindian
- 1:37:55Speaker 1: dialects of the North, and there are still preserved in
- 1:37:58Speaker 1: the museum at Cross Village our translation of the New
- 1:38:01Speaker 1: Testament into a jibway. But you would have done the
- 1:38:04Speaker 1: same thing in our place, reader, and I think if
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: you think it over, you will agree with us on this.
- 1:38:10Speaker 1: Now to get back to the story. It is meant
- 1:38:13Speaker 1: in the best spirit of friendship when I say that
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: you have no idea, reader, what a hard chapter this
- 1:38:18Speaker 1: is going to be to write. As a matter of fact,
- 1:38:21Speaker 1: and I try to be frank about these things, we
- 1:38:24Speaker 1: will not even try and write it until tomorrow. End
- 1:38:29Speaker 1: of Part three, Part four, The Passing of a Great
- 1:38:34Speaker 1: Race and the Making and Marring of Americans Chapter thirteen
- 1:38:39Speaker 1: through sixteen, an author's final note to the reader. But
- 1:38:44Speaker 1: perhaps it may be objected to me that I have,
- 1:38:47Speaker 1: against my own rules, introduced vices and of a very
- 1:38:51Speaker 1: black kind into this work, to which I shall answer, first,
- 1:38:55Speaker 1: that it is very difficult to pursue a series of
- 1:38:58Speaker 1: human actions in keep clear from them. Secondly, that the
- 1:39:03Speaker 1: vices to be found here are rather the accidental consequences
- 1:39:07Speaker 1: of some human frailty or a foible, than causes habitually
- 1:39:11Speaker 1: existing in the mind. Thirdly, that they are never set
- 1:39:15Speaker 1: forth as the objects of ridicule but detestation. Fourthly, that
- 1:39:20Speaker 1: they are never the principal figure at that time on
- 1:39:23Speaker 1: the scene. And lastly, they never produce the intended evil.
- 1:39:28Speaker 1: Henry Fielding, chapter thirteen. Joki Johnson walking down the silent
- 1:39:35Speaker 1: street with his arm around the little Indian's shoulder. The
- 1:39:38Speaker 1: big Indian walking along beside them, the cold night, the
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: shuttered houses of the town, the little Indian who has
- 1:39:46Speaker 1: lost his artificial arm, the big Indian who is also
- 1:39:50Speaker 1: in the war, Jogi Johnson, who is in the war too,
- 1:39:54Speaker 1: The three of them walking, walking walking, Where were they going?
- 1:40:00Speaker 1: Where could they go? What? Was their left. Suddenly under
- 1:40:04Speaker 1: a street light that swung on its drooping wire above
- 1:40:07Speaker 1: a street corner, casting its light down on the snow.
- 1:40:11Speaker 1: The big Indian stopped walking. No get us nowhere, he grunted, walking,
- 1:40:16Speaker 1: No good, Let white chief speak? Where we go? White
- 1:40:20Speaker 1: Chief Yoki Johnson did not know. Obviously, walking was not
- 1:40:25Speaker 1: the solution of their problem. Walking was all right in
- 1:40:28Speaker 1: its way. Coxey's army a horde of men seeking work,
- 1:40:32Speaker 1: pressing on toward Washington. Marching men, Yogi thought, marching on
- 1:40:36Speaker 1: and on, And where were they getting nowhere? Yogi knew
- 1:40:40Speaker 1: it only too well, nowhere, No damn where at all?
- 1:40:45Speaker 1: White chiefs speak up? The big Indian said, I don't know.
- 1:40:49Speaker 1: Yogi said, I don't know at all? Was this what
- 1:40:52Speaker 1: they had fought the war for? Was this what it
- 1:40:55Speaker 1: was all about? It looked like it. Yogi standing under
- 1:40:59Speaker 1: the street light, Yogi thinking and wondering. The two Indians
- 1:41:03Speaker 1: in their mackinaw coats, one of the Indians with an
- 1:41:06Speaker 1: empty sleeve, all of them wondering. White Chief, no speak,
- 1:41:11Speaker 1: The big Indian asked, No, what could Yogi say? What
- 1:41:16Speaker 1: was there to say? Red brothers speak? Asked the Indian speak? Out,
- 1:41:22Speaker 1: Yogi said. He looked down at the snow. One man's
- 1:41:25Speaker 1: as good as another. Now, white chief, ever, go to
- 1:41:29Speaker 1: Brown's beanery, asked the big Indian, looking into Yogi's face
- 1:41:33Speaker 1: under the arc leg No, Jogi fell all in. Was
- 1:41:38Speaker 1: this the end? A beanery well, a beanery as well
- 1:41:42Speaker 1: as any other place. But a beanery well? Why not?
- 1:41:45Speaker 1: These Indians knew the town. They were ex service men.
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: They both had splendid war records. He knew that himself.
- 1:41:52Speaker 1: But a beanery, white chief come with red brothers. The
- 1:41:57Speaker 1: tall Indian put his arm under Yogi's arm. The little
- 1:42:00Speaker 1: Indian fell into step forward to the vinery. Jogi spoke quietly.
- 1:42:06Speaker 1: He was a white man, but he knew when he
- 1:42:07Speaker 1: had enough. After all, the white race might not always
- 1:42:10Speaker 1: be supreme. This Moslem revolt, unrest in the east, troubled
- 1:42:15Speaker 1: in the west, things looked black in the south. Now
- 1:42:19Speaker 1: this condition of things in the north, where was it
- 1:42:22Speaker 1: taking him? Where did it all lead? Would it help
- 1:42:25Speaker 1: him to want a woman? Would spring ever come? Was
- 1:42:28Speaker 1: it worth while? After all? He wondered? The three of
- 1:42:33Speaker 1: them striding along the frozen streets of Pataski, going somewhere
- 1:42:37Speaker 1: now en route Heisman wrote that it would be interesting
- 1:42:41Speaker 1: to read French. He must try it some time. There
- 1:42:45Speaker 1: was a street in Paris named after Heisman's, right around
- 1:42:48Speaker 1: the corner from where Gertrude Steine lived. Ah, there was
- 1:42:52Speaker 1: a woman? Where were her experiments and words bleeding her?
- 1:42:56Speaker 1: What was at the bottom of it? All that in Paris?
- 1:42:59Speaker 1: On Paris? Well? For was it to Paris now? Paris
- 1:43:03Speaker 1: in the morning, Paris in the evening, Paris at night,
- 1:43:07Speaker 1: Paris in the morning, again, Paris at noon? Perhaps? Why not?
- 1:43:12Speaker 1: Jogi Johnson striding on his mind, never still, all three
- 1:43:17Speaker 1: of them striding on together, the arms of those that
- 1:43:20Speaker 1: had arms linked through each other's arms, red men and
- 1:43:23Speaker 1: white men walking together. Something had brought them together? Was
- 1:43:28Speaker 1: it the war? Was it fate? Was it accident? Or
- 1:43:31Speaker 1: was it just chance? These questions struggled with each other
- 1:43:35Speaker 1: in Jogi Johnson's brain. His brain was tired, He'd been
- 1:43:39Speaker 1: thinking too much lately. On still they strode, Then abruptly
- 1:43:43Speaker 1: they stopped. The little Indian looked up at the sign
- 1:43:47Speaker 1: it shone in the night outside the frosted windows at
- 1:43:50Speaker 1: the beanery. Best by test, make him heap big tests.
- 1:43:55Speaker 1: The little Indian grunted, what man's beanery got heap fine
- 1:43:59Speaker 1: teep on steak. The tall Indian grunted, take it from
- 1:44:03Speaker 1: red brother. The Indian stood a little uncertainly outside the door.
- 1:44:08Speaker 1: The tall Indian turned to Yogi. White Chief got dollars, Yes,
- 1:44:12Speaker 1: I've got money. Yogi answered, he was prepared to go
- 1:44:15Speaker 1: the route. It was no time to turn back. Now.
- 1:44:18Speaker 1: The feat's on me boys, White Chief, nature's noblemen. The
- 1:44:23Speaker 1: tall Indian grunted, White Chief, rough diamond. The little Indian agreed,
- 1:44:29Speaker 1: you'd do the same for me. Yogi deprecated. After all,
- 1:44:33Speaker 1: perhaps it was true, was a chance he was taking.
- 1:44:36Speaker 1: He'd taken a chance in Paris once Steve Brody had
- 1:44:39Speaker 1: taken a chance, Or so they said. Chances were taken
- 1:44:43Speaker 1: all over the world every day in China, Chinamen were
- 1:44:47Speaker 1: taking chances in Africa, Africans in Egypt, Egyptians in Poland,
- 1:44:52Speaker 1: Poles in Russia, Russians in Ireland, Irish in Armenia, Armenians.
- 1:44:59Speaker 1: No take chance. The tall Indian grunted quietly. He had
- 1:45:03Speaker 1: voiced Yogi's unspoken doubt. They were a canny folk, these
- 1:45:07Speaker 1: red men, not even in the rug game. Red Brother
- 1:45:12Speaker 1: think not the Indians said his tones carried conviction to Yogi.
- 1:45:16Speaker 1: Who were these Indians? There was something back of all
- 1:45:19Speaker 1: of this. They went into the beanery. Author's note to reader.
- 1:45:24Speaker 1: It was at this point in the story, Reader, that
- 1:45:27Speaker 1: mister f Scott Fitzgerald came to our home one afternoon, and,
- 1:45:31Speaker 1: after remaining for quite a while, suddenly sat down in
- 1:45:34Speaker 1: the fireplace and would not, or was it could not, Reader,
- 1:45:37Speaker 1: get up, and let the fire burn something else so
- 1:45:40Speaker 1: as to keep the room warm. I know, Reader, that
- 1:45:43Speaker 1: these things sometimes do not show in the story, but
- 1:45:47Speaker 1: just the same they are happening. And think what they
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: mean to chaps like you and me in the literary game.
- 1:45:53Speaker 1: Few should think this part of the story is not
- 1:45:55Speaker 1: as good as it might have been. Remember, Reader, that
- 1:45:58Speaker 1: day in and day out, all over the world world,
- 1:46:00Speaker 1: things like this are happening. Need I add, Reader, that
- 1:46:03Speaker 1: I had the utmost respect for mister Fitzgerald, and let
- 1:46:06Speaker 1: anybody else attack him, and I would be the first
- 1:46:09Speaker 1: to spring to his defense, and that includes you too, Reader.
- 1:46:13Speaker 1: Though I hate to speak out bluntly like this and
- 1:46:16Speaker 1: take the risk of breaking up a friendship of the
- 1:46:18Speaker 1: sort that ours has gotten to be. P s to
- 1:46:22Speaker 1: the Reader. As I read that chapter over, Reader, it
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: doesn't seem so bad. You may like it. I hope
- 1:46:29Speaker 1: you will. And if you do like it, Reader, and
- 1:46:32Speaker 1: the rest of the book as well, will you tell
- 1:46:34Speaker 1: your friends about it and try and get them to
- 1:46:36Speaker 1: buy the book, just as you have done. I only
- 1:46:39Speaker 1: get twenty cents on each book that is sold, and
- 1:46:41Speaker 1: while twenty cents is not much nowadays, still it will
- 1:46:45Speaker 1: mount up to a lot. If two or three hundred
- 1:46:47Speaker 1: thousand copies of the book are sold, they will be
- 1:46:51Speaker 1: too if every one likes the book as much as
- 1:46:53Speaker 1: you and I do. Reader, and listen, Reader, I meant
- 1:46:57Speaker 1: it when I said I would be glad to read
- 1:46:58Speaker 1: anything you wrote. That wasn't just talk. Bring it along
- 1:47:02Speaker 1: and we will go over it together. If you like,
- 1:47:04Speaker 1: I'll rewrite bits of it for you. I don't mean
- 1:47:07Speaker 1: that in any critical sort of way either. There is
- 1:47:10Speaker 1: anything you do not like in this book, just write
- 1:47:13Speaker 1: to mister Scribner's sons at the home office. They'll change
- 1:47:16Speaker 1: it for you, or if you would rather, I will
- 1:47:18Speaker 1: change it myself. You know what I think of you, Reader,
- 1:47:22Speaker 1: and you're not angry or upset about what I said
- 1:47:24Speaker 1: about Scott Fitzgerald either, are you? I hope not. Now
- 1:47:28Speaker 1: I'm going to write the next chapter. Mister Fitzgerald is gone,
- 1:47:32Speaker 1: and mister dos Passov's had gone to England, And I
- 1:47:35Speaker 1: think I can promise you that it will be a
- 1:47:37Speaker 1: fully chapter. At least it will be just as good
- 1:47:40Speaker 1: as I can write it. We both know how good
- 1:47:43Speaker 1: that can be. If we read the blurbs eh Reader,
- 1:47:47Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen. Inside the beanery. They are all inside the beanery.
- 1:47:53Speaker 1: Some do not see the others. Each are intent on themselves.
- 1:47:57Speaker 1: Red men are intent on redmen. White and are intent
- 1:48:00Speaker 1: on white men or on white women. There are no
- 1:48:04Speaker 1: red women? Are there no squaws any more? What has
- 1:48:07Speaker 1: become of the squaws? Have we lost our squaws in America? Silently,
- 1:48:12Speaker 1: through the door which she had opened, a squaw came
- 1:48:15Speaker 1: into the room. She was clad only in a pair
- 1:48:17Speaker 1: of worn moccasins. On her back was a papoose. Beside
- 1:48:21Speaker 1: her walked a husky dog. Don't look, the drummer shouted
- 1:48:26Speaker 1: to the woman at the counter. Here, get her out
- 1:48:28Speaker 1: of here, the owner of the beanery shouted. The squaw
- 1:48:31Speaker 1: was forcibly ejected by the Negro cook. They heard her
- 1:48:34Speaker 1: thrashing around in the snow outside. Her husky dog was barking,
- 1:48:39Speaker 1: My god, what might that have led to? Scrips? O'Neill
- 1:48:42Speaker 1: mopped his forehead with a napkin. The Indians had watched
- 1:48:46Speaker 1: with him passive faces. Yoki Johnson had been unable to move.
- 1:48:50Speaker 1: The waitresses had covered their faces with napkins or whatever
- 1:48:54Speaker 1: was handy. Missus Gripps had covered her eyes with the
- 1:48:57Speaker 1: American mercury scrips. O'Neill was feeling faint and shaken. Something
- 1:49:02Speaker 1: had stirred inside him, some vague primordial feeling. As the
- 1:49:06Speaker 1: squaw had come into the room. Wonder where that squaw
- 1:49:09Speaker 1: came from? The drummer asked her, my squaw. The little
- 1:49:13Speaker 1: Indian said, good God, man, can't you clothe her? Scrips?
- 1:49:16Speaker 1: O'Neil said, in a dumb voice. There was a note
- 1:49:19Speaker 1: of terror in his words, for no light clothes, The
- 1:49:23Speaker 1: little Indian explained her woods Indian Jogi Johnson was not listening.
- 1:49:28Speaker 1: Something had broken inside of him, something had snapped. As
- 1:49:32Speaker 1: the squaw came into the room. He had a new feeling,
- 1:49:35Speaker 1: a feeling he thought had been lost, forever lost, for
- 1:49:38Speaker 1: always lost, gone permanently. He knew not was a mistake.
- 1:49:43Speaker 1: He was all right now, by the merest chance he
- 1:49:46Speaker 1: had found it out. What might he not have thought
- 1:49:49Speaker 1: if that squaw had never come into the beanery? What
- 1:49:52Speaker 1: black thoughts he had been thinking. He had been on
- 1:49:55Speaker 1: the verge of suicide, self destruction, kill himself hearing this
- 1:49:59Speaker 1: bean What a mistake that would have been. He knew
- 1:50:02Speaker 1: now what a botch he might have made of life,
- 1:50:05Speaker 1: killing himself. Let spring come, now, let it come. It
- 1:50:08Speaker 1: couldn't come fast enough. Let spring come. He was ready
- 1:50:12Speaker 1: for it. Listen, he said to the two Indians, I
- 1:50:16Speaker 1: want to tell you about something that happened to me
- 1:50:18Speaker 1: in Paris. The two Indians leaned forward. White Chief got
- 1:50:23Speaker 1: the floor. The tall Indian remarked, what I thought was
- 1:50:27Speaker 1: a very beautiful thing happened to me in Paris. Yoki began,
- 1:50:31Speaker 1: You Indians know Paris, good will. It turned out to
- 1:50:34Speaker 1: be the ugliest thing that ever happened to me. The
- 1:50:37Speaker 1: Indians grunted. They knew their Paris was the first day
- 1:50:41Speaker 1: of my leave. I was walking along the Boulevard Maler.
- 1:50:45Speaker 1: A car passed me, and a beautiful woman leaned out.
- 1:50:48Speaker 1: She called to me, and I came. She took me
- 1:50:50Speaker 1: to a house, a mansion rather and a distant part
- 1:50:54Speaker 1: of Paris, and there a very beautiful thing happened to me. Afterwards,
- 1:50:59Speaker 1: some one took me out different door than I had
- 1:51:01Speaker 1: come in by The beautiful woman had told me that
- 1:51:04Speaker 1: she would never that she could never see me again.
- 1:51:07Speaker 1: I tried to get the number of the mansion, but
- 1:51:09Speaker 1: it was one of a block of mansions, all looking
- 1:51:11Speaker 1: the same. From then on, all through my leave, I
- 1:51:15Speaker 1: tried to see that beautiful lady. Once I thought I
- 1:51:18Speaker 1: saw her in the theater, it wasn't her. Another time
- 1:51:21Speaker 1: I caught a glimpse of what I thought was her
- 1:51:23Speaker 1: in a passing taxi and leaped into another taxi and followed.
- 1:51:27Speaker 1: I lost the taxi. I was desperate. Finally, on the
- 1:51:31Speaker 1: next to the last night of my leave, I was
- 1:51:33Speaker 1: so desperate and dull that I went with one of
- 1:51:36Speaker 1: those guides that guarantee to show you all of Paris.
- 1:51:39Speaker 1: We started out and visited various places. Is this all
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: you've got, I asked the guide. There is a real place,
- 1:51:47Speaker 1: but it's very expensive. The guide said. We compromised anna price. Finally,
- 1:51:53Speaker 1: and the guide took me. It was in an old mansion.
- 1:51:57Speaker 1: You looked through a slit in the wall. All around
- 1:51:59Speaker 1: the world wall where people looking through slits. There, looking
- 1:52:03Speaker 1: through slits could be seen the uniforms of men of
- 1:52:05Speaker 1: all the Allied countries, and many handsome South Americans in
- 1:52:09Speaker 1: evening dress. I looked through a slit myself for a while.
- 1:52:13Speaker 1: Nothing happened. Then a beautiful woman came into the room
- 1:52:16Speaker 1: with a fine British officer. She took off her long
- 1:52:20Speaker 1: fur coat and her hat and threw them into a chair.
- 1:52:23Speaker 1: The officer was taking off his sand brown belt. I
- 1:52:26Speaker 1: recognized her. It was the lady whom I'd been with
- 1:52:29Speaker 1: when that beautiful thing happened to me. Jogi Johnson looked
- 1:52:32Speaker 1: at his empty plate of beans. Since then, he said,
- 1:52:36Speaker 1: I've never wanted a woman. How I have suffered, I
- 1:52:39Speaker 1: cannot tell. But I've suffered, boys, I've suffered. I blamed
- 1:52:43Speaker 1: it on the war. I blamed it on France. I
- 1:52:46Speaker 1: blamed it on the decay of morality in general. I
- 1:52:49Speaker 1: blamed it on the younger generation. I blamed it here,
- 1:52:53Speaker 1: I bleamed it there. Now I am cured. Here's five
- 1:52:56Speaker 1: dollars for you, boys. His eyes were shining. Hit more, eat,
- 1:53:00Speaker 1: take a trip somewhere. This is the happiest day of
- 1:53:03Speaker 1: my life. He stood out from the stool before the counter,
- 1:53:07Speaker 1: shook the one Indian impulsively by the hand, rested his
- 1:53:10Speaker 1: hand for a minute on the other Indian's shoulder, opened
- 1:53:13Speaker 1: the door of the beanery, and strode out into the night.
- 1:53:17Speaker 1: The two Indians looked at one another. White Chief heap
- 1:53:20Speaker 1: nice fellow observed the big Indian think him was in
- 1:53:24Speaker 1: the war, asked the little Indian, me wonder, the big
- 1:53:27Speaker 1: Indian said, White Chief said he'd buy me new artificial arm.
- 1:53:32Speaker 1: The little Indian grumbled, Maybe you get more than that.
- 1:53:35Speaker 1: The big Indian said, me wonder, the little Indian said.
- 1:53:40Speaker 1: They went on eating the other end of the counter
- 1:53:43Speaker 1: of the beanery. A marriage was coming to an end.
- 1:53:46Speaker 1: Scrips O'Neill and his wife sat side by side. Missus
- 1:53:50Speaker 1: Scripps knew now she couldn't hold him. She'd tried and failed,
- 1:53:54Speaker 1: She'd lost. She knew it was a losing game. There
- 1:53:57Speaker 1: was no holding him now. Mandy was to talking again, talking, talking,
- 1:54:02Speaker 1: always talking, that interminable stream of literary gossip that was
- 1:54:06Speaker 1: bringing her Diana's marriage to an end. She couldn't hold him.
- 1:54:10Speaker 1: He was going, going, going away from her. Diana sitting
- 1:54:14Speaker 1: there in misery, scripts listening to Mandy talking, Mandy talking, talking, talking,
- 1:54:21Speaker 1: the drummer and old friend. Now that the drummer sitting
- 1:54:24Speaker 1: reading his Detroit news, she couldn't hold him. She couldn't
- 1:54:28Speaker 1: hold him, She couldn't hold him. The little Indian got
- 1:54:31Speaker 1: up from his stool at the beanery counter and went
- 1:54:34Speaker 1: over to the window. The glass on the window was
- 1:54:37Speaker 1: covered with thick, rimy frost. The little Indian breathed on
- 1:54:41Speaker 1: the frozen windowpane, rubbed the spot bare with the empty
- 1:54:44Speaker 1: sleeve of his mackinaw coat, and looked out into the night.
- 1:54:49Speaker 1: Suddenly he turned from the window and rushed out into
- 1:54:51Speaker 1: the night. The tall Indian watched him go leisurely, finished
- 1:54:56Speaker 1: his meal, took a toothpick, placed it between his and
- 1:55:00Speaker 1: then he too, followed his friend out into the night.
- 1:55:05Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen. They were alone in the beanery now Scrips
- 1:55:09Speaker 1: and Mandy and Diana. Only the drummer was with him,
- 1:55:13Speaker 1: who was an old friend now, but his nerves were
- 1:55:15Speaker 1: on edge to night. He folded his paper abruptly and
- 1:55:19Speaker 1: started for the door. See you all later, he said.
- 1:55:22Speaker 1: He went out into the night. It seemed the only
- 1:55:24Speaker 1: thing to do. He did it. Only three of them
- 1:55:28Speaker 1: in the beanery, now, Scrips and Mandy and Diana. Only
- 1:55:32Speaker 1: those three. Mandy was talking, leaning on the counter and
- 1:55:35Speaker 1: talking Scrips with his eyes fixed on Mandy. Diana making
- 1:55:39Speaker 1: no pretense of listening. Now she knew it was over.
- 1:55:43Speaker 1: It was all over now, but she would make one
- 1:55:46Speaker 1: more attempt, one more last gallant try. Perhaps she still
- 1:55:50Speaker 1: could hold him. Perhaps it had been all just a dream.
- 1:55:53Speaker 1: She steadied her voice, and then she spoke, Scrips, dear,
- 1:55:58Speaker 1: she said. Her voice shook a lot. She steadied it.
- 1:56:02Speaker 1: What's on your mind? Scrips asked abruptly. There it was
- 1:56:05Speaker 1: that horrid clips speech again. Scripts, Dear, wouldn't you like
- 1:56:10Speaker 1: to come home? Diana's voice quavered. There's a new Mercury.
- 1:56:15Speaker 1: She changed from the London Mercury to the American Mercury,
- 1:56:18Speaker 1: just to please Scripts. It just came. I wish you
- 1:56:21Speaker 1: felt like coming home. Scripts. There is a splendid thing
- 1:56:24Speaker 1: in this Mercury. Do come home, Scripts. I've never asked
- 1:56:28Speaker 1: anything of you before. Come home? Scripts, Well, won't you
- 1:56:31Speaker 1: come home? Scripts looked up. Diana's heart beat faster perhaps
- 1:56:36Speaker 1: he was coming, Perhaps she was holding him, holding him,
- 1:56:40Speaker 1: holding him. Do come, Scripts, dear, Diana said softly, there's
- 1:56:44Speaker 1: a wonderful editorial in it by Mencin that chiropractors. Scrips
- 1:56:49Speaker 1: looked away. Won't you come, scripts, Diana pleted, No. Scrips said,
- 1:56:55Speaker 1: I don't give a damn about Mencin anymore. Diana dropped
- 1:56:59Speaker 1: her Oh, scrip, She said, oh, scrips, this was the end.
- 1:57:05Speaker 1: She had her answer. Now she'd lost him, lost him,
- 1:57:10Speaker 1: lost him. It was over finished, done for. She sat
- 1:57:13Speaker 1: crying silently. Man he was talking again. Suddenly, Diana straightened up.
- 1:57:20Speaker 1: She had one last request, to make one thing she
- 1:57:23Speaker 1: would ask of him, only one. He might refuse her,
- 1:57:26Speaker 1: he might not grant it, but she would ask him. Scrip,
- 1:57:30Speaker 1: She said, what's the trouble? Scrips turned in irritation. Perhaps
- 1:57:34Speaker 1: after all he was sorry for her, He wondered, Can
- 1:57:38Speaker 1: I take the bird? Scrips. Diana's voice broke, sure, said, Scrips,
- 1:57:43Speaker 1: why not. Diana picked up the bird cage. The bird
- 1:57:48Speaker 1: was asleep, perched on one leg, as on that night
- 1:57:51Speaker 1: when they had first met. What was it? He was like, ah, yes,
- 1:57:56Speaker 1: like an old osprey, an old old osprey from her
- 1:58:00Speaker 1: own late country. She held the cage to her tightly.
- 1:58:03Speaker 1: Thank you, Scrips, she said, thank you for this bird.
- 1:58:07Speaker 1: Her voice broke, and now I must be going quietly, silently,
- 1:58:13Speaker 1: gathering her shawl around her, clutching the cage with a
- 1:58:16Speaker 1: sleeping bird and the copy of the Mercury to her breast.
- 1:58:20Speaker 1: With only a backward glance, the last glance at him
- 1:58:23Speaker 1: who had been her Scrips, she opened the door of
- 1:58:26Speaker 1: the beanery and went out into the night. Scrips did
- 1:58:30Speaker 1: not even see her go. It was intent on what
- 1:58:32Speaker 1: Mandy was saying. Mandy was talking again that bird she
- 1:58:37Speaker 1: just took out. Mandy was saying, oh, did she take
- 1:58:40Speaker 1: a bird out? Scrips asked, go on with the story.
- 1:58:44Speaker 1: You used to wonder what sort of bird that was.
- 1:58:46Speaker 1: Mandy went on, that's right. Scrips agreed, well, that reminds
- 1:58:50Speaker 1: me of a story about Gus and the Marquess of Buke.
- 1:58:53Speaker 1: Mandy went on, tell it, Mandy, tell it, Scrips urged her.
- 1:58:58Speaker 1: It seems a great friend of mine Ford, you've heard
- 1:59:01Speaker 1: me speak of him before, was in the Marquess's castle
- 1:59:04Speaker 1: during the war. His regiment was billeted there. And the Marquess,
- 1:59:08Speaker 1: one of the richest, if not the richest man in England,
- 1:59:11Speaker 1: was serving in Ford's regiment as a private. Ford was
- 1:59:14Speaker 1: sitting in the library one evening. The library was a
- 1:59:17Speaker 1: most extraordinary place. The walls were made of bricks of
- 1:59:21Speaker 1: gold set into tiles or something. I forget exactly how
- 1:59:25Speaker 1: it was. Go on, scrip surge, it doesn't matter anyhow.
- 1:59:29Speaker 1: In the middle of the wall of the library was
- 1:59:31Speaker 1: a stuffed flamingo in a glass case. They understand interior decorating.
- 1:59:37Speaker 1: These English scrips said, your wife was English, wasn't she
- 1:59:41Speaker 1: asked Mandy from the Lake Country. Scrips answered, go on
- 1:59:45Speaker 1: with the story. Well, anyway, Mandy went on. Ford was
- 1:59:48Speaker 1: sitting there in the library one evening after mess when
- 1:59:51Speaker 1: the butler came in and said, the Marquess of Buck's
- 1:59:54Speaker 1: compliments and mighty show the library to a group of
- 1:59:57Speaker 1: friends with whom he has been dining. They used to
- 2:00:00Speaker 1: let him dine out, and sometimes they let him sleep
- 2:00:03Speaker 1: in the castle. Ford said quite, and in came the
- 2:00:06Speaker 1: mark was in his private's uniform, followed by Sir Edmund
- 2:00:09Speaker 1: Goss and professor what's his name? I forget it. For
- 2:00:13Speaker 1: the moment from Oxford. Gos stopped in front of the
- 2:00:16Speaker 1: stuffed flamingo in the glass case and said, what have
- 2:00:19Speaker 1: we here, Buke, it's a flamingo. Sir Edmond the Marquis answered,
- 2:00:24Speaker 1: that's not my idea of a flamingo. Goss remarked, no, Gus,
- 2:00:28Speaker 1: that's God's idea of a flamingo. Professor. What's his name? Said?
- 2:00:32Speaker 1: I wish I could remember his name. Don't bother Scripps said.
- 2:00:36Speaker 1: His eyes were bright. He leaned forward. Something was pounding
- 2:00:41Speaker 1: inside of him, something he could not control. I love you,
- 2:00:45Speaker 1: Mandy said, I love you. You are my woman. The
- 2:00:49Speaker 1: thing was pounding away inside of him. It would not stop.
- 2:00:53Speaker 1: That's all right, Mandy answered, I've known you were my
- 2:00:56Speaker 1: man for a long time. Would you like to hear
- 2:00:59Speaker 1: another story speaking of woman. Go on Scrip said, you
- 2:01:04Speaker 1: must never stop, Mandy. You are my woman now. Sure,
- 2:01:07Speaker 1: Mandy agreed. The story is about when Newt Hampson was
- 2:01:11Speaker 1: a street car conductor in Chicago. Go On Scrip said,
- 2:01:15Speaker 1: you are my woman now, Mandy. He repeated the phrase
- 2:01:19Speaker 1: to himself, my woman, my woman, You are my woman.
- 2:01:23Speaker 1: She is my woman. It is my woman, my woman.
- 2:01:27Speaker 1: But somehow he was not satisfied. Somewhere, somehow there must
- 2:01:31Speaker 1: be something else, something else, my woman. The words were
- 2:01:36Speaker 1: a little hollow now into his mind, though he tried
- 2:01:39Speaker 1: to thrust it out. Here came again the monstrous picture
- 2:01:42Speaker 1: of the squaw as she strode silently into the room,
- 2:01:46Speaker 1: that squaw. She did not wear clothes because she did
- 2:01:49Speaker 1: not like them, hardy braving the winter nights. What might
- 2:01:53Speaker 1: not the spring bring? Mandy was talking, Mandy talking on
- 2:01:58Speaker 1: in the beanery, man telling her stories. It grows late
- 2:02:02Speaker 1: in the beanery. Mandy talks on, she is his woman,
- 2:02:06Speaker 1: now he is her man? But is he her man?
- 2:02:10Speaker 1: In Script's brain, that vision of the squaw, the squaw
- 2:02:14Speaker 1: that strode unannounced into the beanery, the squaw who had
- 2:02:17Speaker 1: been thrown out into the snow. Mandy talking on, telling
- 2:02:22Speaker 1: literary reminiscences, authentic incidents. They had the ring of truth.
- 2:02:27Speaker 1: But were they enough? Scripts wondered, She was his woman?
- 2:02:32Speaker 1: But for how long? Scripts wondered Mandy talking on in
- 2:02:35Speaker 1: the beanery, Scripts listening, But his mind strang away, straying away,
- 2:02:41Speaker 1: stray away, where was it straying out into the night,
- 2:02:45Speaker 1: out into the night, Chapter sixteen, Night in patusky. Long
- 2:02:52Speaker 1: past midnight inside the beanery, a light burning, the town
- 2:02:57Speaker 1: asleep under the northern moon of the north. The tracks
- 2:03:01Speaker 1: of the g R and I railroad running far into
- 2:03:03Speaker 1: the north. Cold tracks stretching north toward Mackinaw City and
- 2:03:08Speaker 1: Saint Ignas, cold tracks to be walking on at this
- 2:03:12Speaker 1: time of night, north of the frozen little Northern town.
- 2:03:16Speaker 1: A couple walking side by side on the tracks. It
- 2:03:20Speaker 1: is Joki Johnson walking with the squaw. As they walk,
- 2:03:24Speaker 1: Joki Johnson silently strips off his garments. One by one.
- 2:03:28Speaker 1: He strips off his garments and cast them beside the track.
- 2:03:32Speaker 1: In the end, he is clad only in a worn
- 2:03:34Speaker 1: pair of pump maker's shoes. Joki Johnson naked in the moonlight,
- 2:03:39Speaker 1: walking north beside the squaw. The squaw striding along beside him.
- 2:03:44Speaker 1: She carries the papoose on her back in his bark cradle.
- 2:03:49Speaker 1: Jogi attempts to take the papoose from her. He would
- 2:03:52Speaker 1: carry the papoose. The husky dog whines and looks at
- 2:03:55Speaker 1: Joki Johnson's ankles. No, the squaw would carry the papoose
- 2:03:59Speaker 1: herself on. They stride into the north into the northern light.
- 2:04:04Speaker 1: Behind them come two figures sharply etched in the moonlight.
- 2:04:08Speaker 1: It is the two Indians, the two woods Indians. They
- 2:04:12Speaker 1: stoop and gather up the garments. Yogi Johnson is cast away.
- 2:04:16Speaker 1: Occasionally they grunt to one another, striding softly along in
- 2:04:20Speaker 1: the moonlight, their keen eyes do not miss a single
- 2:04:23Speaker 1: cast off garment. When the last garment has been cast off,
- 2:04:26Speaker 1: they look and see far ahead of them the two
- 2:04:28Speaker 1: figures in the moonlight. The two Indians straighten up. They
- 2:04:32Speaker 1: examine the garments. White Chief, snappy dresser. The tall Indian remarks,
- 2:04:37Speaker 1: holding up an initialed shirt. White Chief, go and get
- 2:04:41Speaker 1: pretty cold, small Indian remarks. He hands a vest to
- 2:04:45Speaker 1: the tall Indian. The tall Indian rolls all the clothing,
- 2:04:49Speaker 1: all the cast off garments, into a bundle, and they
- 2:04:52Speaker 1: start back along the tracks to the town. Better keep
- 2:04:56Speaker 1: clothes for White Chief or Selum Salvation army as the
- 2:05:00Speaker 1: short Indian better Selim Salvation Army. The tall Indian grunts,
- 2:05:05Speaker 1: White Chief, maybe never come back, White Chief come back
- 2:05:08Speaker 1: all right, grunted the little Indian. Better Selim Salvation Army anyway, grunts.
- 2:05:15Speaker 1: The tall Indian White Chief need new clothes anyhow. When
- 2:05:19Speaker 1: spring comes. They walk down the tracks toward town. The
- 2:05:23Speaker 1: air seemed to soften. The Indians walked uneasily now through
- 2:05:28Speaker 1: the tamaraks and cedars. Beside the railway tracks, a warm
- 2:05:31Speaker 1: wind is blowing. The snow drifts are melting. Now. Beside
- 2:05:35Speaker 1: the tracks. Something stirs inside the two Indians, some urge,
- 2:05:39Speaker 1: some strange pagan disturbance. The warm wind is blowing. The
- 2:05:44Speaker 1: tall Indian stops, moistens his finger and holds it up
- 2:05:47Speaker 1: in the air. The little Indian watches chinnook. Yes, heep, Chinnook.
- 2:05:53Speaker 1: The tall Indian says. They hurry on toward town. The
- 2:05:57Speaker 1: moon is blurred now by clouds carried by the warm
- 2:06:00Speaker 1: chunook wind that is blowing. Want to get in town
- 2:06:04Speaker 1: before rush, The tall Indian grunts. Red brothers won't be
- 2:06:08Speaker 1: well up in line. The little Indian grunts anxiously. Nobody
- 2:06:12Speaker 1: work in factory now. The tall Indian grunted, better hurry.
- 2:06:17Speaker 1: The warm wind blows inside. The Indian's strange longings were stirring.
- 2:06:22Speaker 1: They knew what they wanted. Spring at last was coming
- 2:06:25Speaker 1: to the frozen little northern town. The two Indians hurried
- 2:06:29Speaker 1: along the track. The end Author's final note to the reader. Well, reader,
- 2:06:36Speaker 1: how did you like it? It took me ten days
- 2:06:38Speaker 1: to write it. Has it been worth it? There's just
- 2:06:41Speaker 1: one place I would like to clear up. You remember
- 2:06:44Speaker 1: back in the story where the elderly waitress Diana tells
- 2:06:47Speaker 1: about how she lost her mother in Paris and woke
- 2:06:50Speaker 1: up to find yourself with a French general in the
- 2:06:52Speaker 1: next room. I thought perhaps you might be interested to
- 2:06:56Speaker 1: know the real explanation of that. What actually happened was
- 2:07:00Speaker 1: that her mother was taken violently ill with the bubonic
- 2:07:03Speaker 1: plague in the night, and the doctor who was called
- 2:07:05Speaker 1: diagnosed the case and warned the authorities. Was the day
- 2:07:09Speaker 1: the Great Exposition was to be open, and think what
- 2:07:12Speaker 1: a case of bubonic plague would have done for the
- 2:07:14Speaker 1: exposition is publicity. So the French authority simply had the
- 2:07:18Speaker 1: woman disappear. She died toward morning. The general, who was
- 2:07:23Speaker 1: summoned and who then got into bed in the same
- 2:07:25Speaker 1: room where the mother had been, always seemed to us
- 2:07:28Speaker 1: like a pretty brave man. He was one of the
- 2:07:30Speaker 1: big stockholders in the Exposition. Though I believe anyway, reader,
- 2:07:35Speaker 1: as a piece of secret history, it always seemed to
- 2:07:38Speaker 1: me like an awfully good story, and I know you
- 2:07:41Speaker 1: would rather have me explain it here than drag an
- 2:07:43Speaker 1: explanation into the novel, where, really, after all, it has
- 2:07:47Speaker 1: no place. It is interesting to observe, though, how the
- 2:07:51Speaker 1: French police hushed the whole matter up, and how quickly
- 2:07:54Speaker 1: they got a hold of the koifure and the cab driver.
- 2:07:57Speaker 1: Of course, what it shows is that when you're traveling
- 2:07:59Speaker 1: abroad alone or even with your mother, you simply cannot
- 2:08:02Speaker 1: be too careful. I hope it is all right about
- 2:08:06Speaker 1: bringing this in here, but I just felt I owed
- 2:08:08Speaker 1: it to your reader to give some explanation. I do
- 2:08:12Speaker 1: not believe in these protracted good byes any more than
- 2:08:14Speaker 1: I do in long engagements, so I'll just say a
- 2:08:17Speaker 1: simple farewell and godspeed, reader, and leave you now to
- 2:08:21Speaker 1: your own devices. End of Part four, end of The
- 2:08:26Speaker 1: Torrents of Spring by Ernest Hemingway