Light came and went and came again, the booming strokes of three o'clock beat out across the town in thronging bronze from the courthouse bell, light winds of April blew the fountain out in rainbow sheets, until the plume returned and pulsed, as Grover turned into the Square. He was a child, dark-eyed and grave, birthmarked upon his neck-- a berry of warm brown-and with a gentle face, too quiet and too listening for his years. The scuffed boy's shoes, the thick-ribbed stockings gartered at the knees, the short knee pants cut straight with three small useless buttons at the side, the sailor blouse, the old cap battered out of shape, perched sideways up on top of the raven head, the old soiled canvas bag slung from the shoulder, empty now, but waiting for the crisp sheets of the afternoon-these friendly, shabby garments, shaped by Grover, uttered him. He turned and passed along the north side of the Square and in that moment saw the union of Forever and of Now.
Light came and went and came again, the great plume of the fountain pulsed and winds of April sheeted it across the Square in a rainbow gossamer of spray. The fire department horses drummed on the floors with wooden stomp, most casually, and with dry whiskings of their clean, coarse tails. The street cars ground into the Square from every portion of the compass and halted briefly like wound toys in their familiar quarter-hourly formula. A dray, hauled by a boneyard nag, rattled across the cobbles on the other side before his father's shop. The courthouse bell boomed out its solemn warning of immediate three, and everything was just the same as it had always been.
He saw that haggis of vexed shapes with quiet eyes-- that hodgepodge of ill-sorted architectures that made up the Square, and he did not feel lost. For "Here," thought Grover, "here is the Square as it has always been-and papa's shop, the fire department and the City Hall, the fountain pulsing with its plume, the street cars coming in and halting at the quarter hour, the hardware store on the corner there, the row of old brick buildings oil this side of the street, the people passing and the light that comes and changes and that always will come back again, and everything that comes and goes and changes in the Square, and yet will be the same again. And here," the boy thought, "is Grover with his paper bag. Here is old Grover, almost twelve years old. Here is the month of April, 1904. Here is the courthouse bell and three o'clock. Here is Grover on the Square that never changes. Here is Grover, caught upon this point of time."
It seemed to him that the Square, itself the accidental mason many years, the chance agglomeration of time and of disrupted strivings, was the center of the universe. It was for him, in his soul's picture, the earth's pivot, the granite core of changelessness, the eternal place where all things came and passed, and yet abode forever and would never change.
He passed the old shack on the corner-the wooden fire-trap where S. Goldberg ran his wiener stand. Then he passed the Singer place next door, with its gleaming display of new machines. He saw them and -admired them, but he felt no joy. They brought back to him the busy hum of housework and of women sewing, the intricacy of stitch and weave, the mystery of style and pattern, the memory of women bending over flashing needles, the pedaled tread, the busy whir. It was women's work: it filled him with unknown associations of dullness and of vague depression. And always, also, with a moment's twinge of horror, for his dark eye would always travel toward that needle stitching up and down so fast the eye could never follow it. And then he would remember how his mother once had told him she had driven the needle through her finger, and always, when he passed this place, he would remember it and for a moment, crane his neck and turn his head away.
He passed on then, but had to stop again next door before the music store. He always had to stop by places that had shining perfect things in them. He loved hardware stores and windows full of accurate geometric tools. He loved windows full of hammers, saws, and planing boards. He liked windows full of strong new rakes and hoes, with unworn handles, of white perfect wood, stamped hard and vivid with the maker's seal. He loved to see such things as these in the windows of hardware stores. And he would fairly gloat upon them and think that some day he would own a set himself.
Also, he always stopped before the music and piano store. It was a splendid store. And in the window was a small white dog upon his haunches, with head cocked gravely to one side, a small white dog that never moved, that never barked, that listened attentively at the flaring funnel of a horn to hear "His Master's Voice"-- a horn forever silent, and a voice that never spoke. And within were many rich and shining shapes of great pianos, an air of splendor and of wealth.
And now, indeed, he was caught, held suspended. A waft of air, warm, chocolate-laden, filled his nostrils. He tried to pass the white front of the little eight-foot shop; he paused, struggling with conscience; he could. not go on. It was the little candy shop run by old Crocker and his wife. And Grover could not pass.
"Old stingy Crockers!" he thought scornfully. "I'll not go there any more. But--" as the maddening fragrance of rich cooking chocolate touched him once again-- "I'll just look in the window and see what they've got." He paused a moment, looking with his dark and quiet eyes into the window of the little candy shop. The window, spotlessly clean, was filled with trays of fresh-made candy. His eyes rested on a tray of chocolate drops. Unconsciously he licked his lips. Put one of them upon your tongue and it just melted there, like honeydew. And then the trays full of rich homemade fudge. He gazed longingly at the deep body of the chocolate fudge, reflectively at maple walnut, more critically, yet with loning, at the mints, the nougatines, and all the other dainties.
"Old stingy Crockers!" Grover muttered once again, and turned to go. "I wouldn't go in there again."
And yet he did not go away. "Old stingy Crockers" they might be; still, they did make the best candy in town, the best, in fact, that he had ever tasted.
He looked through the window back into the little shop and saw Mrs. Crocker there. A customer had gone in and had made a purchase, and as Grover looked he saw Mrs. Crocker, With her little wrenny face, her pinched features, lean over and peer primly at the scales. She had a piece of fudge in her clean, bony, little fingcrs, and as Grover looked, she broke it, primly, in her little bony hands. She dropped a morsel down into the scales. They weighted down alarmingly, and her thin lips tightened. She snatched the piece of fudge out of the scales and broke it carefully once again. This time the scales wavered, went down very slowly, and came back again. Mrs. Crocker carefully put the reclaimed piece of fudge back in the tray, dumped the remainder in a paper bag, folded it and gave it to the customer, counted the money carefully and doled it out into the till, the pennies in one place, the nickels in another.
Grover stood there, looking scornfully. "Old stingy Crocker-- afraid that she might give a crumb away!"
He grunted scornfully and again he turned to go. But now Mr. Crocker came out from the little partitioned place where they made all their candy, bearing a tray of fresh-made fudge in his skinny hands. Old Man Crocker rocked along the counter to the front and put it down. He really rocked along. He was a cripple. And like his wife, he was a wrenny, wizened little creature, with bony hands, thin lips, a pinched and meager face. One leg was inches shorter than the other, and on this leg there was an enormous thick-soled boot, with a kind of wooden, rocker-like arrangement, six inches high at least, to make up for the deficiency. On this wooden cradle Mr. Crocker rocked along, with a prim and apprehensive little smile, as if he were afraid he was going to lose something.
"Old stingy Crocker!" muttered Grover. "Humph! He wouldn't give you anything!"
And yet-he did not go away. He hung there curiously, peering through the window, with his dark and gentle face now focused and intent, alert and curious, flattening his nose against the glass. Unconsciously he scratched the thick-ribbed fabric of one stockinged leg with the scuffed and worn toe of his old shoe. The fresh, warm odor of the new-made fudge was delicious. It was a little maddening. Half consciously he began to fumble in one trouser pocket, and pulled out his purse, a shabby worn old black one with a twisted clasp. He opened it and prowled about inside.
What he found was not inspiring-- a nickel and two pennies and -he had forgotten them-the stamps. He took the stamps out and unfolded them. There were five twos, eight ones, all that remained of the dollar-sixty-cents' worth which Reed, the pharmacist, had given him for running errands a week or two before.
"Old Crocker," Grover thought, and looked somberly at the grotesque little form as it rocked back into the shop again, around the counter, and up the other side. "Well-" again he looked indefinitely at the stamps in his hand-- "he's had all the rest of them. He might as well take these."
So, soothing conscience with this sop of scorn, he went into the shop and stood looking at the trays in the glass case and finally decided. Pointing with a slightly grimy finger at the fresh-made tray of chocolate fudge, he said, "I'll take fifteen cents' worth of this, Mr. Crocker." He paused a moment, fighting with embarrassment, then he lifted his dark face and said quietly, "And please, I'll have to give you stamps again."
Mr. Crocker made no answer. He did not look at Grover. He pressed his lips together primly. He went rocking away and got the. candy scoop, came back, slid open the door of the glass case, put fudge into the scoop, and, rocking to the scales, began to weigh the candy out. Grover watched him as he peered and squinted, he watched him purse and press his lips together, he saw him take a piece of fudge and break it in two parts. And then old Crocker broke two parts in two again. He weighed, he squinted, and he hovered, until it seemed to Grover that by calling Mrs. Crocker stingy he had been guilty of a rank injustice. But finally, to his vast relief, the job was over, the scales hung there, quivering apprehensively, upon the very hair-line of nervous balance, as if even the scales were afraid that one more move from Old Man Crocker and they would be undone.
Mr. Crocker took the candy then and dumped it in a paper bag and, rocking back along the counter toward the boy, he dryly said: "Where are the stamps?" Grover gave them to him. Mr. Crocker relinquished his clawlike hold upon the bag and set it down upon the counter. Grover took the bag and dropped it in his canvas sack, and then remembered. "Mr. Crocker-" again he felt the old embarrassment that was almost like strong pain-- "I gave you too much," Grover said. "There were eighteen cents in stamps. You -you can just give me three ones back."
Mr. Crocker did not answer. He was busy with his bony little hands, unfolding the stamps and flattening them out on top of the glass counter. When he had done so, he peered at them sharply for a moment, thrusting his scrawny neck forward and running his eye up and down, like a bookkeeper who totes up rows of figures.
When he had finished, he said tartly: "I don't like this kind of business. If you want candy, you should have the money for it. I'm not a post office. The next time you come in here and want anything, you'll have to pay me money for it."
Hot anger rose in Grover's throat. His olive face suffused with angry color. His tarry eyes got black and bright. He was on the verge of saying: "Then why did you take my other stamps? Why do you tell me now, when you have taken all the stamps I had, that you don't want them?"
But he was a boy, a boy of eleven years, a quiet, gentle, gravely thoughtful boy, and he had been taught how to respect his elders. So he just stood there looking with his tar-black eyes. Old Man Crocker, pursing at the mouth a little, without meeting Grover's gaze, took the stamps up in his thin, parched fingers and, turning, rocked away with them down to the till.
He took the twos and folded them and laid them in one rounded scallop, then took the ones and folded them and put them in the one next to it. Then he closed the till and started to rock off, down toward the other end. Grover, his face now quiet and grave, kept looking at him, but Mr. Crocker did not look at Grover. Instead he began to take some stamped cardboard shapes and fold them into boxes.
In a moment Grover said, "Mr. Crocker, will you give me the three ones, please?"
Mr. Crocker did not answer. He kept folding boxes, and he compressed his thin lips quickly as he did so. But Mrs. Crocker, back turned to her spouse, also folding boxes with her birdlike hands, muttered tartly: "Hm. I'd give him nothing!"
Mr. Crocker looked up, looked at Grover, said, "What are you waiting for?"
"Will you give me the three ones, please?" Grover said.
"I'll give you nothing," Mr. Crocker said.
He left his work and came rocking forward along the counter. "Now you get out of here! Don't you come in here with any more of those stamps," said Mr. Crocker.
"I should like to know where he gets them-that's what I should like to know," said Mrs. Crocker.
She did not look up as she said these words. She inclined her head a little to the side, in Mr. Crocker's direction, and continued to fold the boxes with her bony fingers.
"You get out of here!" said Mr. Crocker. "And don't you come back here with any stamps.... Where did you get those stamps?" he said.
"That's just what I've been thinking," Mrs. Crocker said. "I've been thinking all along."
"You've been coming in here for the last two weeks with those stamps," said Mr. Crocker. "I don't like the look of it. Where did you get those stamps?" he said.
"That's what I've been thinking," said Mrs. Crocker, for a second time.
Grover had got white underneath his olive skin. His eyes had lost their luster. They looked like dull, stunned balls of tar. "From Mr. Reed," he said. "I got the stamps from Mr. Reed." Then he burst out desperately: "Mr. Crocker-Mr. Reed will tell you how I got the stamps. I did some work for Mr. Reed, he gave me those stamps two weeks ago."
"Mr. Reed," said Mrs. Crocker acidly. She did not turn her head. "I call it mighty funny."
"Mr. Crocker," Grover said, "if you'll just let me have three ones-"
"You get out of here!" cried Mr. Crocker, and he began rocking forward toward Grover. "Now don't you come in here again, boy! There's something funny about this whole business! I don't like the look of it," said Mr. Crocker. "If you can't pay as other people do, then I don't want your trade."
"Mr. Crocker," Grover said again, and underneath the olive skin his face was gray, "if you'll just let me have those three-"
"You get out of here!" Mr. Crocker cried, rocking down toward the counter's end. "If you don't get out, boy-"
"I'd call a policeman, that's what I'd do," Mrs. Crocker said.
Mr. Crocker rocked around the lower end of the counter. He came rocking up to Grover. "You get out," he said.
He took the boy and pushed him with his bony little hands, and Grover was sick and gray down to the hollow pit of his stomach.
"You've got to give me those three ones," he said.
"You get out of here!" shrilled Mr. Crocker. He seized the screen door, pulled it open, and pushed Grover out. "Don't you come back in here," he said, pausing for a moment, and working thinly at the lips. He turned and rocked back in the shop again. The screen door slammed behind him. Grover stood there on the pavement. And light came and went and came again into the Square.
The boy stood there, and a wagon rattled past. There were some people passing by, but Grover did not notice them. He stood there blindly, in the watches of the sun, feeling this was Time, this was the center of the universe, the granite core of changelessness, and feeling, this is Grover, this the Square, this is Now.
But something had gone out of day. He felt the overwhelming, soul-sickening guilt that all the children, all the good men of the earth, have felt since Time began. And even anger had died down, had been drowned out, in this swelling tide of guilt, and "This is -the Square"--thought Grover as before-- "This is Now. There is my father's shop. And all of it is as it has always been, save I."
And the Square reeled drunkenly around him, light went in blind gray motes before his eyes, the fountain sheeted out to rainbow iridescence and returned to its proud, pulsing plume again. But all the brightness had gone out of day, and "Here is the Square, and here is permanence, and here is Time-and all of it the same as it has always been, save I."
The scuffed boots of the lost boy moved and stumbled blindly. 'The numb feet crossed the pavement-reached the cobbled street, reached the plotted central square-the grass plots, and the flower beds, so soon to be packed with red geraniums.
"I want to be alone," thought Grover, "where I cannot go near him.... Oh God, I hope he never hears, that no one ever tells him-"
The plume blew out, the iridescent sheet of spray blew over him.
He passed through, found the other side and crossed the street, and-"Oh God, if papa ever hears!" thought Grover, as his numb feet started up the steps into his father's shop.
He found and felt the steps-the width and thickness of old lumber twenty feet in length. He saw it all-the iron columns on his father's porch, painted with the dull anomalous black-green that all such columns in this land and weather come to; two angels, flyspecked, and the waiting stones. Beyond and all around, in the stonecutter's shop, cold shapes of white and marble, rounded stone, the languid angel with strong marble hands of love.
He went on down the aisle, the white shapes stood around him. He went on to the back of the workroom. This he knew-the little cast-iron stove in the left-hand corner, caked, brown, heat-blistered and the elbow of the long stack running out across the shop; the high and dirty window looking down across the Market Square toward Niggertown; the rude old shelves, plank-boarded, thick, the wood not smooth but pulpy, like the strong hair of an animal; upon the shelves the chisels of all sizes and a layer of stone dust; an emery wheel with pump tread; and a door that let out on the alleyway, yet the alleyway twelve feet below. Here in the room, two trestles of this coarse spiked wood upon which rested gravestones, and at one, his father at work.
The boy looked, saw the name was Creasman: saw the carved analysis of John, the symmetry of the s, the fine sentiment that was being polished off beneath the name and date: "John Creasman, November 7, 1903."
Gant looked up. He was a man of fifty-three, gaunt-visaged, mustache cropped, immensely long and tall and gaunt. He wore good dark clothes--heavy, massive-save he had no coat. He worked in shirt-sleeves with his vest on, a strong watch chain stretching across his vest, wing collar and black tie, Adam's apple, bony forehead, bony nose, light eyes, gray-green, undeep and cold, and, somehow, lonely-looking, a striped apron going up around his shoulders, and starched cuffs. And in one hand a tremendous rounded wooden mallet like a butcher's bole; and in his other hand, a strong cold chisel.
"How are you, son?"
He did not look up as he spoke. He spoke quietly, absently. He worked upon the chisel and the wooden mallet, as a jeweler might work on a watch, except that in the man and in the wooden mallet there was power too.
"What is it, son?" he said.
He moved around the table from the head, started up on "J" once again.
"Papa, I never stole the stamps," said Grover.
Gant put down the mallet, laid the chisel down. He came around the trestle.
"What?" he said.
As Grover winked his tar-black eyes, they brightened, the hot tears shot out. "I never stole the stamps," he said.
"Hey? What is this?" his father said. "What stamps?"
"That Mr. Reed gave me, when the other boy was sick and I worked there for three days. . . . And Old Man Crocker," Grover said, "he took all the stamps. And I told him Mr. Reed had given them to me. And now he owes me three ones-and Old Man Crocker says he don't believe that they were mine. He says-he says-that I must have taken them somewhere," Grover blurted out.
"The stamps that Reed gave you-hey?" the stonecutter said. "The stamps you had-" He wet his thumb upon his lips, threw back his head and slowly swung his gaze around the ceiling, then turned and strode quickly from his workshop out into the storeroom.
Almost at once he came back again, and as he passed the old gray painted-board partition of his office he cleared his throat and wet his thumb and said, "Now, I tell you-"
Then he turned and strode up toward the front again and cleared his throat and said, I tell you now-" He wheeled about and started back, and as he came along the aisle between the marshaled rows of gravestones he said beneath his breath, "By God, now-"
He took Grover by the hand and they went out flying. Down the aisle they went by all the gravestones, past the fly-specked angels waiting there, and down the wooden steps and across the Square. The fountain pulsed, the plume blew out in sheeted iridescence, and it swept across them; an old gray horse, with a peaceful look about his torn lips, swucked up the cool mountain water from the trough as Grover and his father went across the Square, but they did not notice it.
They crossed swiftly to the other side in a direct line to the candy shop. Gant was still dressed in his long striped apron, and he was still holding Grover by the hand. He opened the screen door and stepped inside.
"Give him the stamps," Gant said.
Mr. Crocker came rocking forward behind the counter, with, the prim and careful look that now was somewhat like a smile. "It was just-" he said.
"Give him the stamps," Gant said, and threw some coins down, on the counter.
Mr. Crocker rocked away and got the stamps. He came rocking back. "I just didn't know-" he said.
The stonecutter took the stamps and gave them to the boy. And Mr. Crocker took the coins.
"It was just that-" Mr. Crocker began again, and smiled.
Gant cleared his throat: "You never were a father," he said. "You never knew the feelings of a father, or understood the feelings of a child; and that is why you acted as you did. But a judgment is upon you. God has cursed you. He has afflicted you. He has made you lame and childless as you are-and lame and childless, miserable as you are, you will go to your grave and be forgotten!"
And Crocker's wife kept kneading her bony little hands and said imploringly, "Oh, no-oh don't say that, please don't say that."
The stonecutter, the breath still hoarse in him, left the store, still holding the boy tightly by the hand. Light came again into the day.
"Well, son," he said, and laid his hand on the boy's back. "Well son," he said, "now don't you mind."
They walked across the Square, the sheeted spray of iridescent light swept out on them, the horse swizzled at the water-trough, and "Well, son," the stonecutter said.
And the old horse sloped down, ringing with his hoofs upon the cobblestones.
"Well, son," said the stonecutter once again, "Be a good boy."
And he trod his own steps then with his great stride and went back again into his shop.
The lost boy stood upon the Square, hard by the porch of his father's shop.
"This is Time," thought Grover. "Here is the Square, here is my father's shop, and here am I."
And light came and went and came again-but now not quite the same as it had done before. The boy saw the pattern of familiar shapes and knew that they were just the same as they had always been. But something had gone out of day, and something had come in again. Out of the vision of those quiet eyes some brightness had, gone, and into their vision had come some deeper color. He could not say, he did not know through what transforming shadows life had passed within that quarter hour. He only knew that something had been lost-something forever gained.
Just then a buggy curved out through the Square, and fastened to the rear end was a poster, and it said "St. Louis" and "Excursion" and "The Fair."
As we went down through Indiana-you were too young, child, to remember it-but I always think of all of you the way you looked that morning, when we went down through Indiana, going to the Fair. All of the apple trees were coming out, and it was April; it was the beginning of spring in southern Indiana and everything was getting green. Of course we don't have farms at home like those in Indiana. The childern had never seen such farms as those, and I reckon, kidlike, they had to take it in.
So all of them kept running up and down the aisle-well, no, except fo'r you and Grover. You were too young, Eugene. You were just three, I kept you with me. As for Grover-well, I'm going to tell you about that.
But the rest of them kept running up and down the aisle and from one window to another. They kept calling out and hollering to each other every time they saw something new. They kept trying to look out on all sides, in every way at once, as if they wished they had eyes at the back of their heads. It was the first time any of them had ever been in Indiana, and I reckon that it all seemed strange and new.
And so it seemed they couldn't get enough. It seemed they never could be still. They kept running up and down and back and forth, hollering and shouting to each other, until-- "I'll vow! You childern! I never saw the beat of you!" I said. "The way that you keep running up and down and back and forth and never can be quiet for a minute beats all I ever saw," I said.
You see, they were excited about going to St. Louis, and so curious over everything they saw. They couldn't help it, and they wanted to see everything. But-- "I'll vow!" I said. "If you childern don't sit down and rest you'll be worn to a frazzle before we ever get to see St. Louis and the Fair!"
Except for Grover! He-no, sid not him. Now, boy, I want to tell you--I've raised the lot of you-and if I do say so, there wasn't a numbskull in the lot. But Grover! Well, you've all grown up now, all of you have gone away, and none of you are childern any more. . . . And of course, I hope that, as the fellow says, you have reached the dignity of man's estate. I suppose you have the judgment of grown men.... But Grover! Grover had it even then!
Oh, even as a child, you know-at a time when I was almost afraid to trust the rest of you out of my sight-- I could depend on Grover. He could go anywhere, I could send him anywhere, and I'd always know he'd get back safe, and do exactly what I told him to!
Why, I didn't even have to tell him. You could send that child to market and tell him what you wanted, and he'd come home with twice as much as you could get yourself for the same money!
Now you know, I've always been considered a good, trader. But Grover!-- why, it got so finally that I wouldn't even tell him. Your papa said to me: "You'd be better off if you'd just tell him what you want and leave the rest to him. For," your papa says, "damned if I don't believe he's a better trader than you are. He gets more for the money than anyone I ever saw."
Well, I had to admit it, you know. I had to own up then. Grover, even as a child, was a far better trader than I was. . . . Why, yes, they told it on him all over town, you know. They said all of the market men, all of the farmers, knew him. They'd begin to laugh when they saw him coming-they'd say: "Look out! Here's Grover! Here's one trader you're not going to fool!"
And they were right! That child! I'd say, "Grover, suppose you run uptown and see if they've got anything good to eat today"-- and I'd just wink at him, you know, but he'd know what I meant. I wouldn't let on that I wanted anything exactly, but I'd say, "Now it just occurs to me that some good fresh stuff may be coming in from the country, so suppose you take this dollar and just see what you can do with it."
Well, sir, that was all that was needed. The minute you told that child that you depended on his judgment, he'd have gone to the ends of the earth for you-and, let me tell you something, he wouldn't miss, either!
His eyes would get as black as coals-- oh! the way that child would look at you, the intelligence and sense in his expression. He'd say: "Yes, ma'am! Now don't you worry, mama. You leave it all to me-and I'll do good!" said Grover.
And he'd be off like a streak of lightning and-- oh Lord! As your father said to me, "I've been living in this town for almost thirty years," he said-"I'vve seen it grow up from a crossroads village, and I thought I knew everything there was to know about it-but that child--" your papa says---"he knows places that I never heard of!"... Oh, he'd go right down there to that place below your papa's shop where the draymen and the country people used to park their wagons-or he'd go down there to those old lots on Concord Street where the farmers used to keep their wagons. And, child that he was, he'd go right in among them, sir-Grover would!-- go right in and barter with them like a grown man!
And he'd come home with things he'd bought that would make your eyes stick out.... Here he comes one time with another boy, dragging a great bushel basket full of ripe termaters between them. "Why, Grover!" I says. "How on earth are we ever going to use them? Why they'll go bad on us before we're half way through with them .... .. Well, mama," he says, "I know-" oh, just as solemn. Oh, I told him, you know. I came right out with it. I made no bones about it. And I tell you what-- I wish you could have seen his face. It was a study.
"Well," he says, at last, "you've got to admit this, haven't you he was the brightest boy you had, now wasn't he?"
I just looked at him a moment. I had to tell the truth. I couldn't fool him any longer. "No," I says. "He was a good, bright boyI got no complaint to make about him on that score-but the brightest boy I had, the one that surpassed all the rest of them in sense, and understanding, and in judgment-the best boy I had-the smartest boy I ever saw-- was-- well, it wasn't Eugene," I said. "It was another one."
He looked at me a moment, then he said, "Which boy was that?"
Well, I just looked at him, and smiled. I shook my head, you know. I wouldn't tell him. "I never brag about my own," I said. "You'll have to find out for yourself."
But-- I'll have to tell you-and you know yourself, I brought the whole crowd up, I knew you all. And you can take my word for it-- the best one of the lot was-- Grover!
And when I think of Grover as he was along about that time, I always see him sitting there, so grave and earnest-like, with his nose pressed to the window, as we went down through Indiana in the morning, to the Fair.
All through that morning we were going down along beside the Wabash River-the Wabash River flows through Indiana, it is the river that they wrote the song about-so all that morning we were going down along the river. And I sat with all you childern gathered about me as we went down through Indiana, going to St. Louis, to the Fair.
And Grover sat there, so still and earnest-like, looking out the window, and he didn't move. He sat there like a man. He was just eleven and a half years old, but he had more sense, more judgment, and more understanding than any child I ever saw.
So here he sat beside this gentleman and looked out the window. I never knew the man--I never asked his name-but I tell you what! He was certainly a fine-looking, well-dressed, good, substantial sort of man, and I could see that he had taken a great liking to Grover. And Grover sat there looking out, and then turned to this gentleman, as grave and earnest as a grown-up man, and says, "What kind of crops grow here, sir?" Well, this gentleman threw his head back and just hah-hahed. "Well, I'll see if I can tell you," says this gentleman, and then, you know, he talked to him, they talked together, and Grover took it all in, as solemn as you please, and asked this gentleman every sort of question-what the trees were, what was growing there, how big the farms were-all sorts of questions, which this gentleman would answer, until I said: "Why, I'll vow, Grover! You shouldn't ask so many questions. You'll bother the very life out of this gentleman."
The gentleman threw his head back and laughed right out. "Now you leave that boy alone. He's all right," he said. "He doesn't bother me a bit, and if I know the answers to his questions I will answer him. And if I don't know, why, then, I'll tell him so. But he's all right," he said, and put his arm round Grover's shoulders. "You leave him alone. He doesn't bother me a bit."
And I can still remember how he looked that morning, with his black eyes, his black hair, and with the birthmark on his neck-so grave, so serious, so earnest-like-- as he sat by the train window and watched the apple trees, the farms, the barns, the houses, and the orchards, taking it all in, I reckon, because it was strange and new to him.
It was so long ago, but when I think of it, it all comes back, as if it happened yesterday. Now all of you have either died or grown up and gone away, and nothing is the same as it was then. But all of you were there with me that morning and I guess I should remember how the others looked, but somehow I don't. Yet I can still see Grover just the way he was, the way he looked that morning when we went down through Indiana, by the river, to the Fair.
Can you remember, Eugene, how Grover used to look? I mean the birthmark, the black eyes, the olive skin. The birthmark always showed because of those open sailor blouses kids used to wear. But I guess you must have been too young when Grover died. . . . I was looking at that old photograph the other day. you know the one I mean-that picture showing mama and papa and all of us children before the house on Woodson Street. You weren't there, Eugene. You didn't get in. You hadn't arrived when that was taken.... You remember how mad you used to get when we'd tell you that you were only a dishrag hanging out in Heaven when something happened?
You were the baby. That's what you get for being the baby. You don't get in the picture, do you? ... I was looking at that old picture just the other day. There we were. And, my God, what is it all about? I mean, when you see the way we were-Daisy and Ben and Grover, Steve and all of us-and then how everyone either dies or grows up and goes away-and then-look at us now! Do you ever get to feeling funny? You know what I mean-do you ever get to feeling queer-when you try to figure these things out? You've been to college and you ought to know the answer-and I wish you'd tell me if you know.
My Lord, when I think sometimes of the way I used to be-the dreams I used to have. Playing the piano, practicing seven hours a day, thinking that some day I would be a great pianist. Taking singing lessons from Aunt Nell because I felt that some day I was going to have a great career in opera.... Can you beat it now? Can you imagine it? Me! In grand opera! Now I want to ask you. I'd like to know.
My Lord! When I go uptown and walk down the street and see all these funny-looking little boys and girls hanging around the drug store-do you suppose any of them have ambitions the way we did? Do you suppose any of these funny-looking little girls are thinking about a big career in opera? ... Didn't you ever see that picture of us? I was looking at it just the other day. It was made before the old house down on Woodson Street, with papa standing there in his swallow-tail, and mama there beside him-- and Groveri and Ben, and Steve, and Daisy, and myself, with our feet upon our bicycles. Luke, poor kid, was only four or five. He didn't have a bicycle like us. But there he was. And there were all of us together.
Well, there I was, and my poor old skinny legs and long white dress, and two pigtails hanging down my back. And all the funny looking clothes we wore, with the doo-lolley business on them. But I guess you can't remember. You weren't born.
But, well, we were a right nice-looking set of people, if I do say so. And there was "86" the way it used to be, with the front porch, the grape vines, and the flower beds before the house-and "Miss Eliza" standing there by papa, with a watch charm pinned upon her waist. . . . I shouldn't laugh, but "Miss Eliza"-- well, mama was a pretty woman then. Do you know what I mean? "Miss Eliza" was a right good-looking woman, and papa in his swallowtail was a good-looking man. Do you remember how he used to get dressed up on Sunday? And how grand we thought he was? And how he let me take his money out and count it? And how rich we all thought he was? And how wonderful that dinkey little shop on the Square looked to us? ... Can you beat it, now? Why we thought that papa was the biggest man in town and-- oh, you can't tell me! You can't tell me! He had his faults, but papa was a wonderful man. You know he was!
And there was Steve and Ben and Grover, Daisy, Luke, and me lined up there before the house with one foot on our bicycles. And I got to thinking back about it all. It all came back.
Do you remember anything about St. Louis? You were only three or four years old then, but you must remember something. ... Do you remember how you used to bawl when I would scrub you? How you'd bawl for Grover? Poor kid, you used to yell for Grover every time Id get you in the tub.... He was a sweet kid and he was crazy about you-he almost brought you up.
That year Grover was working at the Inside Inn out on the Fair Grounds. Do you remember the old Inside Inn? That big old wooden thing inside the Fair? And how I used to take you there to wait for Grover when he got through working? And old fat Billy Pelham at the newsstand-how he always used to give you a stick of chewing gum?
They were all crazy about Grover. Everybody liked him.... And how proud Grover was of- you! Don't you remember how he used to show you off? How he used to take you around and make you talk to Billy Pelham? And Mr. Curtis at the desk? And how Grover would try to make you talk and get you to say "Grover"? And you couldn't say it-you couldn't pronounce the "r." You'd say "Gova." Have you forgotten that? You shouldn't forget that, because-you were a cute kid, then-- Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho-- I don't know where it's gone to, but you were a big hit in those days.... I tell you, boy, you were Somebody back in those days.
And I was thinking of it all the other day when I was looking at that photograph. How we used to go and meet Grover there, and how he'd take us to the Midway. Do you remember the Midway? The Snake-Eater and the Living Skeleton, the Fat Woman and the Chute-the-chute, the Scenic Railway and the Ferris Wheel? How you bawled the night we took you up on the Ferris Wheel? You yelled your head off-- I tried to laugh it off, but I tell you, I was scared myself. Back in those days, that was Something. And how Grover laughed at us and told us there was no danger.... My Lord! poor little Grover. He wasn't quite twelve years old at the time, but he seemed so grown up to us. I was two years older, but I thought he knew it all.
It was always that way with him. Looking back now, it sometimes seems that it was Grover who brought us up. He was always looking after us, telling us what to do, bringing us somethingsome ice cream or some candy, something he had bought out of the poor little money he'd gotten at the Inn.
Then I got to thinking of the afternoon we sneaked away from home. Mama had gone out somewhere. And Grover and I got on the street car and went downtown. And my Lord, we thought that we were going, Somewhere. In those days, that was what we called a trip. A ride in the street car was something to write home about in those days.... I hear that it's all built up around there now.
So we got on the car and rode the whole way down into the business section of St. Louis. We got out on Washington Street and walked up and down. And I tell you, boy, we thought that that was Something. Grover took me into a drug store and set me up to soda water. Then we came out and walked around some more, down to the Union Station and clear over to the river. And both of us half scared to death at what we'd done and wondering what mama would say if she found out.
We stayed down there till it was getting dark, and we passed by a lunchroom-an old one-armed joint with one-armed chairs and people sitting on stools and eating at the counter. We read all the signs to see what they had to eat and how much it cost, and I guess nothing on the menu was more than fifteen cents, but it couldn't have looked grander to us if it had been Delmonico's. So we stood there with our noses pressed against the window, looking in. Two skinny little kids, both of us scared half to death, getting the thrill of a lifetime out of it. You know what I mean? And smelling everything with all our might and thinking how good it all smelled.... Then Grover turned to me and whispered: "Come on, Helen. Let's go in. It says fifteen cents for pork and beans. And I've got the money," Grover said. "I've got sixty cents."
I was so scared I couldn't speak. I'd never been in a place like that before. But I kept thinking, "Oh Lord, if mama should find out!" I felt as if we were committing some big crime.... Don't you know how it is when you're a kid? It was the thrill of a lifetime.... I couldn't resist. So we both went in and sat down on those high stools before the counter and ordered pork and beans and a cup of coffee. I suppose we were too frightened at what we'd done really to enjoy anything. We just gobbled it all up in a hurry, and gulped our coffee down. And I don't know whether it was the excitement--I guess the poor kid was already sick when we came in there and didn't know it. But I turned and looked at him, and he was white as death.... And when I asked him what was the matter, he wouldn't tell me. He was too proud. He said he was all right, but I could see that he was sick as a dog.... So he paid the bill. It came to forty cents-- I'll never forget that as long as I live. ... And sure enough, we no more than got out the door-he hardly had time to reach the curb-before it all came up.
And the poor kid was so scared and so ashamed. And what scared him so was not that he had gotten sick, but that he had spent all that money and it had come to nothing. And mama would find out.... Poor kid, he just stood there looking at me and he whispered: "Oh Helen, don't tell mama. She'll be mad if she finds out." Then we hurried home, and he was still white as a sheet when we got there.
Mama was waiting for us. She looked at us-you know how "Miss Eliza" looks at you when she thinks you've been doing something that you shouldn't. Mama said, "Why, where on earth have you two children been?" I guess she was all set to lay us out. Then she took one look at Grover's face. That was enough for her. She said, "Why, child, what in the world!" She was white as a sheet herself.... And all that Grover said was-- "Mama, I feel sick."
He was sick as a dog. He fell over on the bed, and we undressed him and mama put her hand upon his forehead and came out in the hall-she was so white you could have made a black mark on her face with chalk-and whispered to me, "Go get the doctor quick, he's burning up."
And I went chasing up the street, my pigtails flying, to Dr. Packer's house. I brought him back with me. When he came out of Grover's room he told mama what to do but I don't know if she even heard him.
Her face was white as a sheet. She looked at me and looked right through me. She never saw me. And oh, my Lord, I'll never forget the way she looked, the way my heart stopped and came up in my throat. I was only a skinny little kid of fourteen. But she looked as if she was dying right before my eyes. And I knew that if anything happened to him, she'd never get over it if she lived to be a hundred.
Poor old mama. You know,. he always was her eyeballs-you know that, don't you?-- not the rest of us!-- no, sir! I know what I'm talking about. It always has been Grover-- she always thought more of him than she did of any of the others. And-poor kid!he was a sweet kid. I can still see him lying there, and remember how sick he was, and how scared I was! I don't know why I was so scared. All we'd done had been to sneak away from home and go into a lunchroom-but I felt guilty about the whole thing, as if it was my fault.
It all came back to me the other day when I was looking at that picture, and I thought, my God, we were two kids together, and I was only two years older than Grover was, and now I'm forty-six. ... Can you believe it? Can you figure it out-- the way we grow up and change and go away? ... And my Lord, Grover seemed so grown-up to me. He was such a quiet kid-- I guess that's why he seemed older than the rest of us.
I wonder what Grover would say now if he could see that picture. All my hopes and dreams and big ambitions have come to nothing, and it's all so long ago, as if it happened in another world. Then it comes back, as if it happened yesterday.... Sometimes I lie awake at night and think of all the people who have come and gone, and how everything is different from the way we thought that it would be. Then I go out on the street next day and see the faces of the people that I pass.... Don't they look strange to you? Don't you see something funny in people's eyes, as if all of them were puzzled about something? As if they -ere wondering what had happened to them since they were kids? Wondering what it is that they have lost? ... Now am I crazy, or do you know what I mean? You've been to college, Gene, and I want you to tell me if you know the answer. Now do they look that way to you? I never noticed that look in people's eyes when I was a kid-- did you?
My God, I wish I knew the answer to these things. I'd like to find out what is wrong-what has changed since then-and if we have the same queer look in our eyes, too. Does it happen to us all, to everyone? ... Grover and Ben, Steve, Daisy, Luke, and meall standing there before that house on Woodson Street in Altamont-- there we are, and you see the way we were-and how it all gets lost. What is it, anyway, that people lose?
How is it that nothing turns out the way we thought it would be? It all gets lost until it seems that it has never happened-that it is something we dreamed somewhere.... You see what I mean? ... It seems that it must be something we heard somewhere-that it happened to someone else. And then it all comes back again.
And suddenly you remember just how it was, and see again those two funny, frightened, skinny little kids with their noses pressed against the dirty window of that lunchroom thirty years ago. You remember the way it felt, the way it smelled, even the strange smell in the old pantry in that house we lived in then. And the steps before the house, the way the rooms looked. And those two little boys in sailor suits who used to ride up and down before the house on tricycles . . . . And the birthmark on Grover's neck. . . . The Inside Inn .... St. Louis and the Fair.
It all comes back as if it happened yesterday. And then it goes away again, and seems farther off and stranger than if it happened in a dream.
"This is King's Highway," the man said.
And then Eugene looked and saw that it was just a street. There were some big new buildings, a large hotel, some restaurants and "bar-grill" places of the modern kind, the livid monotone of neon lights, the ceaseless traffic of motor cars-all this was new, but it was just a street. And he knew that it had always been just a street, and nothing more--but somehow-- well, he stood there looking at it, wondering what else he had expected to find.
The man kept looking at him with inquiry in his eyes, and Eugene asked him if the Fair had not been out this way.
"Sure, the Fair was out beyond here," the man said. "Out where the park is now. But this street you're looking for-don't you remember the name of it or nothing?" the man said.
Eugene said he thought the name of the street was Edgemont, but that he wasn't sure. Anyhow it was something like that. And he said the house was on the corner of that street and of another street.
Then the man said: "What was that other street?"
Eugene said he did not know, but that King's Highway was a block or so away, and that an interurban line ran past about half a block from where he once had lived.
"What line was this?" the man said, and stared at him.
"The interurban line," Eugene said.
Then the man stared at him again, and finally, "I don't know no interurban line," he said.
Eugene said it was a line that ran behind some houses, and that there were board fences there and grass beside the tracks. But somehow he could not say that it was summer in those days and that you could smell the ties, a wooden, tarry smell, and feel a kind of absence in the afternoon after the car had gone. He only said the interurban line was back behind somewhere between the backyards of some houses and some old board fences, and that King's Highway was a block or two away.
He did not say that King's Highway had not been a street in those days but a kind of road that wound from magic out of some dim and haunted land, and that along the way it had got mixed in with Tom the Piper's son, with hot cross buns, with all the light that came and went, and with coming down through Indiana in the morning, and the smell of engine smoke, the Union Station, and most of all with voices lost and far and long ago that said "King's Highway."
He did not say these things about King's Highway because he looked about him and he saw what King's Highway was. All he could say was that the street was near King's Highway, and was on the corner, and that the interurban trolley line was close to there. He said it was a stone house, and that there were stone steps before it, and a strip of grass. He said he thought the house had had a turret at one corner, he could not be sure.
The man looked at him again, and said, "This is King's Highway, but I never heard of any street like, that."
Eugene left him then, and went on till he found the place. And so at last he turned into the street, finding the place where the two corners met, the huddled block, the turret, and the steps, and paused a moment, looking back, as if the street were Time.
For a moment he stood there, waiting-for a word, and for a door to open, for the child to come. He waited, but no words were spoken; no one came.
Yet all of it was just as it had always been, except that the steps were lower, the porch less high, the strip of grass less wide, than he had thought. All the rest of it was as he had known it would be. A graystone front, three-storied, with a slant slate roof, the side red brick and windowed, still with the old arched entrance in the center for the doctor's use.
There was a tree in front, and a lamp post; and behind and to the side, more trees than he had known there would be. And all the slatey turret gables, all the slatey window gables, going into points, and the two arched windows, in strong stone, in the front room.
It was all so strong, so solid, and so ugly-- and all so enduring and so good, the way he had remembered it, except he did not smell the tar, the hot and caulky dryness of the old cracked ties, the boards of backyard fences and the coarse and sultry grass, and absence in the afternoon when the street car had gone, and the twins, sharp-- visaged in their sailor suits, pumping with furious shrillness on tricycles up and down before the house, and the feel of the hot afternoon, and the sense that everyone was absent at the Fair.
Except for this, it all was just the same; except for this and for King's Highway, which was now a street; except for this, and for the child that did not come.
It was a hot day. Darkness had come. The heat rose up and hung and sweltered like a sodden blanket in St. Louis. It was wet heat, and one knew that there would be no relief or coolness in the night. And when one tried to think of the time when the heat would go away, one said: "It cannot last. It's bound to go away," as we always say it in America. But one did not believe it when he said it. The heat soaked down and men sweltered in it; the faces of the people were pale and greasy with the heat. And in their faces was a patient wretchedness, and one felt the kind of desolation that one feels at the end of a hot day in a great city in America-when one's home is far away, across the continent, and he thinks of ail that distance, all that heat, and feels, "Oh God! but it's a big country!"
And he feels nothing but absence, absence, and the desolation of America, the loneliness and sadness of the high, hot skies, and evening coming on across the Middle West, across the sweltering and heat-sunken land, across all the lonely little towns, the farms, the fields, the oven swelter of Ohio, Kansas. Iowa, and Indiana at the close of day, and voices, casual in the heat, voices at the little stations, quiet, casual, somehow faded into that enormous vacancy and weariness of heat, of space, and of the immense, the sorrowful, the most high and awful skies.
Then he hears the engine and the wheel again, the wailing whistle and the bell, the sound of shifting in the sweltering yard, and walks the street, and walks the street, beneath the clusters of hard lights, and by the people with sagged faces, and is drowned in desolation and in no belief.
He feels the way one feels when one comes back, and knows that he should not have come, and when he sees that, after all, King's Highway is-- a street; and St. Louis-- the enchanted name-- a big, hot, common town upon the river, sweltering in wet, dreary heat, and not quite South, and nothing else enough to make it better.
It had not been like this before. He could remember how it would get hot, and how good the heat was, and how he would lie out in the backyard on an airing mattress, and how the mattress would get hot and dry and smell like a hot mattress full of sun, and how the sun would make him want to sleep, and how, sometimes, he would go down into the basement to feel coolness, and how the cellar smelled as cellars always smell-- a cool, stale smell, the smell of cobwebs and of grimy bottles. And he could remember, when you opened the door upstairs, the smell of the cellar would come up to you-cool, musty, stale and dank and dark-and how the thought of the dark cellar always filled him with a kind of numb excitement, a kind of visceral expectancy.
He could remember how it got hot in the afternoons, and how he would feel a sense of absence and vague sadness in the afternoons, when everyone had gone away. The house would seem so lonely, and sometimes he would sit inside, on the second step of the hall stairs, and listen to the sound of silence and of absence in the afternoon. He could smell the oil upon the floor and on the stairs, and see the sliding doors with their brown varnish and the beady chains across the door, and thrust his hands among the beady chains, and gather them together in his arms, and let them clash, and swish with light beady swishings all around him. He could feel darkness, absence, varnished darkness, and stained light within the house, through the stained glass of the window on the stairs, through the small stained glasses by the door, stained light and absence, silence and the smell of floor oil and vague sadness in the house on a hot mid-afternoon. And all these things themselves would have a kind of life: would seem to wait attentively, to be most living and most still.
He would sit there and listen. He could hear the girl next door practice her piano lessons in the afternoon, and hear the street car coming by between the backyard fences, half a block away, and smell the dry and sultry smell of backyard fences, the smell of coarse hot grasses by the car tracks in the afternoon, the smell of tar, of dry caulked ties, the smell of bright worn flanges, and feel the loneliness of backyards in the afternoon and the sense of absence when the car was gone.
Then he would long for evening and return, the slant of light, and feet along the street, the sharp-faced twins in sailor suits upon their tricycles, the smell of supper and the sound of voices in the house again, and Grover coming from the Fair.
That is how it was when he came into the street, and found the place where the two corners met, and turned at last to see if Time was there. He passed the house: some lights were burning, the door was open, and a woman sat upon the porch. And presently he turned, came back, and stopped before the house again. The corner light fell blank upon the house. He stood looking at it, and put his foot upon the step.
Then he said to the woman who was sitting on -the porch: "This house-- excuse me-but could you tell me, please who lives in this house?"
He knew his words were strange and hollow, and he had not said what he wished to say. She stared at him a moment, puzzled.
Then she said: "I live here. Who are you looking for?"
He said, "Why, I am looking for-"
And then he stopped, because he knew he could not tell her what it was that he was looking for.
"There used to be a house-" he said.
The woman was now staring at him hard.
He said, "I think I used to live here."
She said nothing.
In a moment he continued, "I used to live here in this house," he said, "when I was a little boy."
She was silent, looking at him, then she said: "Oh. Are you sure this was the house? Do you remember the address?"
"I have forgotten the address," he said, "but it was Edgemont Street, and it was on the corner. And I know this is the house."
"This isn't Edgemont Street," the woman said. "The name is Bates."
"Well, then, they changed the name of the street," he said, "but this is the same house. It hasn't changed."
She was silent a moment, then she nodded: "Yes. They did change the name of the street. I remember when I was a child they called it something else," she said. "But that was a long time ago. When was it that you lived here?"
"In 1904."
Again she was silent, looking at him. Then presently: "Oh. That was the year of the Fair. You were here then?"
"Yes." He now spoke rapidly, with more confidence. "My mother had the house, and we were here for seven months. And the house belonged to Dr. Packer," he went on. "We rented it from him."
"Yes," the woman said, and nodded, "this was Dr. Packer's house. He's dead now, he's been dead for many years. But this was the Packer house, all right."
"That entrance on the side," he said, "where the steps go up, that was for Dr. Packer's patients. That was the entrance to his office."
"Oh," the woman said, "I didn't know that. I've often wondered what it was. I didn't know what it was for."
"And this big room in front here," he continued, "that was the office. And there were sliding doors, and next to it, a kind of alcove for his patients-"
"Yes, the alcove is still there, only all of it has been made into one room now-and I never knew just what the alcove was for."
"And there were sliding doors on this side, too, that opened on the hall-and a stairway going up upon this side. And half-way up the stairway, at the landing, a little window of colored glass-and across the sliding doors here in the hall, a kind of curtain made of strings of beads."
She nodded, smiling. "Yes, it's just the same-we still have the sliding doors and the stained glass window on the stairs. There's no bead curtain any more," she said, "but I remember when people had them. I know what you mean."
"When we were here," he said, "we used the doctor's office for a parlor-except later on-the last month or two-and then we used it for-- a bedroom."
"It is a bedroom now," she said. "I run the house-- I rent rooms all of the rooms upstairs are rented-but I have two brothers and they sleep in this front room."
Both of them were silent for a moment, then Eugene said, "My brother stayed there too."
"In the front room?" the woman said.
He answered, "Yes."
She paused, then said: "Won't you come in? I don't believe it's changed much. Would you like to see?"
He thanked her and said he would, and he went up the steps. She opened the screen door to let him in.
Inside it was just the same-the stairs, the hallway, the sliding doors, the window of stained glass upon the stairs. And all of it was just the same, except for absence, the stained light of absence in the afternoon, and the child who once had sat there, waiting on the stairs.
It was all the same except that as a child he had sat there feeling things were Somewhere--and now he knew. He had sat there feeling that a vast and sultry river - was somewhere-and now he knew! He had sat there wondering what King's Highway was, where it began, and where it ended-now he knew! He had sat there haunted by the magic word "downtown"!--now he knew!and by the street car, after it had gone-and by all things that came and went and came again, like the cloud shadows passing in a wood, that never could be captured.
And he felt that if he could only sit there on the stairs once more, in solitude and absence in the afternoon, he would be able to get it back again. Then would he be able to remember all that he had seen and been-the brief sum of himself, the universe of his four years, with all the light of Time upon it-that universe which was so short to measure, and yet so far, so endless, to remember. Then would he be able to see his own small face again, pooled in the dark mirror of the hall, and peer once more into the grave eyes of the child that he had been, and discover there in his quiet three years, self the lone integrity of "I," knowing: "Here is the House and here House listening; here is Absence, Absence in the afternoon; and here in this House, this Absence, is my core, my kernel -here am I! "
But as he thought it, he knew that even if he could sit here alone and get it back again, it would be gone as soon as seized, just as it had been then-first coming like the vast and drowsy rumors of the distant and enchanted Fair, then fading like cloud shadows on a hill, going like faces in a dream-coming, going, coming, possessed and held but never captured, like lost voices in the mountains long ago-and like the dark eyes and quiet face of the dark, lost boy, his brother, who, in the mysterious rhythms of his life and work, used to come into this house, then go, and then return again.
The woman took Eugene back into the house and through the hall. He told her of the pantry, told her where it was and pointed to the place, but now it was no longer there. And he told her of the backyard, and of the old board fence around the yard. But the old board fence was gone. And he told her of the carriage house, and told her it was painted red. But now there was a small garage. And the backyard was still there, but smaller than he thought, and now there was a tree.
"I did not know there was a tree," he said. "I do not remember any tree."
"Perhaps it was not there," she said. "A tree could grow in thirty years." And then they came back through the house again and paused at the sliding doors.
"And could I see this room?" he said.
She slid the doors back. They slid open smoothly, with a rolling heaviness, as they used to do. And then he saw the room again. It was the same. There was a window at the side, the two arched windows at the front, the alcove and the sliding doors, the fireplace with the tiles of mottled green, the mantle of dark mission wood, the mantel posts, a dresser and a bed, just where the dresser and the bed had been so long ago.
"Is this the room?" thewoman said. "It hasn't changed."
He told her that it was the same.
"And your brother slept here where my brothers sleep?"
"This is his room," he said.
They were silent. He turned to go, and said, "Well, thank you. I appreciate your showing me."
She said that she was glad and that it was no trouble. "And when you see your family, you can tell them that you saw the house," she said. "My name is Mrs. Bell. You can tell your mother that a Mrs. Bell has the house now. And when you see your brother, you can tell him that you saw the room he slept in, and that you found it just the same."
He told her then that his brother was dead.
The woman was silent for a moment. Then she looked at him and said: "He died here, didn't he? In this room?"
He told her that it was so.
"Well, then" she said, "I knew it. I don't know how. But when you told me he was here, I knew it."
He said nothing. In a moment the woman said, "What did he die of?"
"Typhoid."
She looked shocked and troubled, and said involuntarily, "My two brothers-"
"That was a long time ago," he said. "I don't think you need to worry now."
"Oh, I wasn't thinking about that," she said. "It was just hearing that a little boy-your brother-- was-- was in this room that my two brothers sleep in now-"
"Well, maybe I shouldn't have told you then. But he was a good boy-and if you'd known him you wouldn't mind."
She said nothing, and he added quickly: "Besides, he didn't stay here long. This wasn't really his room-but the night he came back with my sister he was so sick-they didn't move him."
"Oh," the woman said, "I see." And then: "Are you going to tell your mother you were here?"
"I don't think so."
"I-- I wonder how she feels about this room."
"I don't know. She never speaks of it."
"Oh. . . . How old was he?"
"He was twelve."
"You must have been pretty young yourself."
"I was not quite four."
"And-you just wanted to see the room, didn't you? That's why you came back."
"Yes.
"Well--" indefinitely-- "I guess you've seen it now."
"Yes, thank you."
"I guess you don't remember much about him, do you? I shouldn't think you would."
"No, not much."
The years dropped off like fallen leaves: the face came back again-the soft dark oval, the dark eyes, the soft brown berry on the neck, the raven hair, all bending down, approaching-the whole appearing to him ghost-wise, intent and instant.
"Now say it-- Grover!"
"Gova."
"No-- not Gova-- Grover! ... Say it!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h-- you didn't say it. You said Gova. Grover-now say it!"
"Gova."
"Look, I tell you what I'll do if you say it right. Would you like to go down to King's Highway? Would you like Grover to set you up? All right, then. If you say Grover and say it right, I'll take you to King's Highway and set you up to ice cream. Now say it right! Grover!"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. You're the craziest little old boy I ever did see. Can't you even say Grover?"
"Gova."
"Ah-h, you-u. Old Tongue-Tie, that's what you are.... Well, come on, then, I'll set you up anyway."
It all came back, and faded, and was lost again. Eugene turned to go, and thanked the woman and said good-bye.
"Well, then, good-bye," the woman said, and they shook hands. "I'm glad if I could show you. I'm glad if--" She did not finish, and at length she said: "Well, then, that was a long time ago. You'll find everything changed now, I guess. It's all built up around here now-- and way out beyond here, out beyond where the Fair Grounds used to be. I guess you'll find it changed."
They had nothing more to say. They just stood there for a moment on the steps, and then shook hands once more.
"Well, good-bye."
And again he was in the street, and found the place where the corners met, and for the last time turned to see where Time had gone.
And he knew that he would never come again, and that lost magic would not come again. Lost now was all of it-the street, the heat, King's Highway, and Tom the Piper's son, all mixed in with the vast and drowsy murmur of the Fair, and with the sense of absence in the afternoon, and the house that waited, and the child that dreamed. And out of the enchanted wood, that thicket of man's memory, Eugene knew that the dark eye and the quiet face of his friend and brother-poor child, life's stranger, and life's exile, lost like all of us, a cipher in blind mazes, long ago-the lost boy was gone forever, and would not return.
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