Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Part 16

Blount smacked his hands down on the counter. They were warm and meaty and rough. 'Beer. And one of them little packages of cheese crackers with peanut b.u.t.ter in the inside.'

'That's not what I meant,' Biff said. 'But well come around to it later.'

The man was a puzzle. He was always changing. He still drank like a crazy fish, but liquor did not drag him down as it did some men. The rims of his eyes were often red, and he had a nervous trick of looking back startled over his shoulder. His head was heavy and huge on his thin neck. He was the sort of fellow that kids laughed at and dogs wanted to bite. Yet when he was laughed at it cut him to the quick--he got rough and loud like a sort of clown. And he was always suspecting that somebody was laughing. Biff shook his head thoughtfully. 'Come,' he said. 'What makes you stick with that show? You can find something better than that. I could give you a part-time job here.'

'Christamighty! I wouldn't park myself behind that cash box if you was to give me the whole d.a.m.n place, lock, stock, and barrel.'There he was. It was irritating. He could never have friends or even get along with people. Talk sense,' Biff said. 'Be serious.' A customer had come up with his check and he made change. The place was still quiet. Blount was restless. Biff felt him drawing away. He wanted to hold him. He reached for two A-1 cigars on the shelf behind the counter and offered Blount a smoke. Warily his mind dismissed one question after another, and then finally he asked: 'If you could choose the time in history you could have lived, what era would you choose? ' Blount licked his mustache with his broad, wet tongue. 'If you had to choose between being a stiff and never asking another question, which would you take? ' 'Sure enough,' Biff insisted. 'Think it over.' He c.o.c.ked his head to one side and peered down over his long nose. This was a matter he liked to hear others talk about. Ancient Greece was his. Walking in sandals on the edge of the blue Aegean. The loose robes girdled at the waist. Children. The marble baths and the contemplations in the temples. 'Maybe with the Incas. In Peru.' Biff's eyes scanned over him, stripping him naked. He saw Blount burned a rich, red brown by the sun, his face smooth and hairless, with a bracelet of gold and precious stones on his forearm. When he closed his eyes the man was a good Inca. But when he looked at him again the picture fell away. It was the nervous mustache that did not belong to his face, the way he jerked his shoulder, the Adam's apple on his thin neck, the bagginess of his trousers. And it was more than that. 'Or maybe around 1775.'

'That was a good time to be living,' Biff agreed. Blount shuffled his feet self-consciously. His face was rough and unhappy. He was ready to leave. Biff was alert to detain him. 'Tell me--why did you ever come to this town anyway? ' He knew immediately that the question had not been a politic one and he was disappointed with himself. Yet it was queer how the man could land up in a place like this.' It's the G.o.d's truth I don't know.' They stood quietly for a moment, both leaning on the counter. The game of dice in the corner was finished. The first dinner order, a Long Island duck special, had been served to the fellow who managed the A. and P. store. The radio was turned halfway between a church sermon and a swing band. Blount leaned over suddenly and smelled Biff's face. 'Perfume? ' 'Shaving lotion,' Biff said composedly. He could not keep Blount longer. The fellow was ready to go. He would come in with Singer later. It was always like this. He wanted to draw Blount out completely so that he could understand certain questions concerning him. But Blount would never really talk--only to the mute. It was a most peculiar thing. 'Thanks for the cigar,' Blount said. 'See you later.'

'So long.' Biff watched Blount walk to the door with his rolling, sailor-like gait. Then he took up the duties before him. He looked over the display in the window. The day's menu had been pasted on the gla.s.s and a special dinner with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs was laid out to attract customers. It looked bad. Right nasty. The gravy from the duck had run into the cranberry sauce and a fly, was stuck in the dessert.

'Hey, Louis!' he called. 'Take this stuff out of the window. And bring me that red pottery bowl and some fruit.' He arranged the fruits with an eye for color and design. At last the decoration pleased him. He visited the kitchen and had a talk with the cook. He lifted the lids of the pots and sniffed the food inside, but without heart for the matter. Alice always had done this part. He disliked it. His nose sharpened when he saw the greasy sink with its sc.u.m of food bits at the bottom. He wrote down the menus and the orders for the next day. He was glad to leave the kitchen and take his stand by the cash register again. Lucile and Baby came for Sunday dinner. The little Md was not so good now. The bandage was still on her head and the doctor said it could not come off until next month. The binding of gauze in place of the yellow curls made her head look naked.

'Say h.e.l.lo to Uncle Biff, Hon,' Lucile prompted. Baby bridled fretfully.

'h.e.l.lo to Unca Biff Hon,' she ga.s.sed. She put up a struggle when Lucile tried to take off her Sunday coat.

'Now you just behave yourself,' Lucile kept saying. 'You got to take it off or you'll catch pneumonia when we go out again.. Now you just behave yourself.'

Biff took the situation in charge. He soothed Baby with a ball of candy gum and eased the coat from her shoulders. Her dress had lost its set in the struggle with Lucile. He straightened it so that the yoke was in line across her chest He retied her sash and crushed the bow to just the right shape with his fingers. Then he patted Baby on her little behind. 'We got some strawberry ice cream today,' he said.

'Bartholomew, you'd make a mighty good mother.

'Thanks,' Biff said. 's a compliment' We just been to Sunday School and church. Baby, say the verse from the Bible you learned for your Uncle Biff.'

The kid hung back and pouted. 'Jesus wept,' she said finally. The scorn that she put in the two words made it sound like a terrible thing.

'Want to see Louis?' Biff asked. 'He's back in the kitchen.'

'I wanna see Willie. I wanna hear me play the harp.'

'Now, Baby, you're just trying yourself,' Lucile said impatiently. 'You know good and well that Willie's not here. Willie was sent off to the penitentiary.'

'But Louis,' Biff said. 'He can play the harp, too. Go tell him to get the ice cream ready and play you a tune.'

Baby went toward the kitchen, dragging one heel on the floor.

Lucile laid her hat on the counter. There were tears in her eyes. 'You know I always said this: If a child is kept clean and well cared for and pretty then that child will usually be sweet and smart. But if a child's dirty and ugly then you can't expect anything much. What I'm trying to get at is that Baby is so shamed over losing her hair and that bandage on her head that it just seems like it makes her cut the buck all the time. She won't practice her elocution--she won't do a thing. She feels so bad I just can't manage her.'

'If you'd quit picking with her so much she'd be all right.'

At last he settled them in a booth by the window. Lucile had a special and there was a breast of chicken cut up fine, cream of wheat, and carrots for Baby. She played with her food and spilled milk on her little frock. He sat with them until the rush started. Then he had to be on his feet to keep things going smoothly.

People eating. The wide-open mouths with the food pushed in.

What was it? The line he had read not long ago. Life was only a matter of intake and alimentation and reproduction. The place was crowded. There was a swing band on the radio.

Then the two he was waiting for came in. Singer entered the door first, very straight and sw.a.n.k in his tailored Sunday suit.

Blount followed along just behind his elbow. There was something about the way they walked that struck him. They sat at their table, and Blount talked and ate with gusto while Singer watched politely. When the meal was finished they stopped by the cash register for a few minutes. Then as they went out he noticed again there was something about their walking together that made him pause and question himself.

What could it be? The suddenness with which the memory opened up deep down in his mind was a shock. The big deaf mute moron whom Singer used to walk with sometimes on the way to work. The sloppy Greek who made candy for Charles Parker. The Greek always walked ahead and Singer followed. He had never noticed them much because they never came into the place. But why had he not remembered this? Of all times he had wondered about the mute to neglect such an angle. See everything in the landscape except the three waltzing elephants. But did it matter after all? Biff narrowed his eyes. How Singer had been before was not important. The thing that mattered was the way Blount and Mick made of him a sort of home-made G.o.d. Owing to the fact he was a mute they were able to give him all the qualities they wanted him to have. Yes. But how could such a strange thing come about? And why? A one-armed man came hi and Biff treated him to a whiskey on the house. But he did not feel like talking to anyone.

Sunday dinner was a family meal. Men who drank beer by themselves on weeknights brought their wives and little kids with them on Sunday. The highchair they kept in the back was often needed. It was two-thirty and though many tables were occupied the meal was almost over. Biff had been on his feet for the past four hours and was tired. He used to stand for fourteen or sixteen hours and not notice any effects at all. But now he had aged. Considerably. There was no doubt about it.

Or maybe matured was the word. Not aged--certainly not-yet. The waves of sound in the room swelled and subsided against his ears. Matured. His eyes smarted and it was as though some fever in him made everything too bright and sharp.

He called to one of the waitresses: 'Take over for me will you, please? I'm going out.'

The street was empty because of Sunday. The sun shone bright and clear, without warmth. Biff held the collar of his coat close to his neck. Alone in the street he felt out of pocket.

The wind blew cold from the river. He should turn back and stay in the restaurant where he belonged. He had no business going to the place where he was headed. For the past four Sundays he had done this. He had walked in the neighborhood where he might see Mick. And there was something about it that was not quite right. Yes. Wrong. He walked slowly down the sidewalk opposite the house where she lived. Last Sunday she had been reading the funny papers on the front steps. But this time as he glanced swiftly toward the house he saw she was not there. But tilted the brim of his felt hat down over his eyes. Perhaps she would come into the place later. Often on Sunday after supper she came for a hot cocoa and stopped for a while at the table where Singer was sitting. On Sunday she wore a different outfit from the blue skirt and sweater she wore on other days. Her Sunday dress was wine-colored silk with a dingy lace collar. Once she had had on stockings--with runs in them. Always he wanted to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only a sundae or some sweet to eat--but something real. That was all he wanted for himself--to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt. Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name. On the way home Biff found a penny lying half concealed by rubbish in the gutter. Thriftily he picked it up, cleaned the coin with his handkerchief, and dropped it into the black pocket purse, he carried. It was four o'clock when he reached the restaurant. Business was stagnant. There was not a single customer in the place. Business picked up around five. The boy he had recently hired to work part time showed up early. The boy's name was Harry Minowitz. He lived in the same neighborhood with Mick and Baby. Eleven applicants had answered the ad in the paper, but Harry seemed to be best bet. He was well developed for his age, and neat. Biff had noticed the boy's teeth while talking to him during the interview. Teeth were always a good indication. His were large and very clean and white. Harry wore gla.s.ses, but that would not matter in the work. His mother made ten dollars a week sewing for a tailor down the street, and Harry was an only child.

'Well,' Biff said. 'You've been with me a week, Harry. Think you're going to like it?'

'Sure, sir. Sure I like it.' Biff turned the ring on his finger. 'Let's see. What time do you get off from school?'

'Three o'clock, sir.'

'Well, that gives you a couple of hours for study and recreation. Then here from six to ten. Does that leave you enough time for plenty of sleep? ' 'Plenty. I don't need near that much.'

'You need about nine and a half hours at your age, son. Pure, wholesome sleep.' He felt suddenly embarra.s.sed. Maybe Harry would think it was none of his business. Which it wasn't anyway. He started to turn aside and then thought of something.

'You go to Vocational?'

Harry nodded and rubbed his gla.s.ses on his shirtsleeve.

'Let's see. I know a lot of girls and boys there. Alva Richards--I know his father. And Maggie Henry. And a kid named Mick Kelly--' He felt as though his ears had caught afire. He knew himself to be a fool. He wanted to turn and walk away and yet he only stood there, smiling and mashing his nose with his thumb. 'You know her?' he asked faintly.

'Sure, I live right next door to her. But in school I'm a senior while she's a freshman.'

Biff stored this meager information neatly in his mind to be thought over later when he was alone. 'Business will be quiet here for a while,' he said hurriedly. Til leave it with you. By now you know how to handle things. Just watch any customers drinking beer and remember how many they've drunk so you won't have to ask them and depend on what they say. Take your time making change and keep track of what goes on.'

Biff shut himself in his room downstairs. This was the place where he kept his files. The room had only one small window and looked out on the side alley, and the air was musty and cold. Huge stacks of newspapers rose up to the ceiling. A home-made filing case covered one wall. Near the door there was an old-fashioned rocking-chair and a small table laid with a pair of shears, a dictionary, and a mandolin. Because of the piles of newspaper it was impossible to take more than two steps in any direction. Biff rocked himself in the chair and languidly plucked the strings of the mandolin. His eyes closed and he began to sing in a doleful voice: I went to the animal fair.

The birds and the beasts were there, And the old baboon by the light of the moon Was combing his auburn hair.

He finished with a chord from the strings and the last sounds shivered to silence in the cold air.

To adopt a couple of little children. A boy and a girl. About three or four years old so they would always feel like he was their own father. Their Dad. Our Father. The little girl like Mick (or Baby?) at that age. Round cheeks and gray eyes and flaxen hair. And the clothes he would make for her--pink crepe de Chine frocks with dainty smocking at the yoke and sleeves. Silk socks and white buckskin shoes. And a little red-velvet coat and cap and m.u.f.f for winter. The boy was dark and black-haired. The little boy walked behind him and copied the things he did. In the summer the three of them would go to a cottage on the Gulf and he would dress the children in their sun suits and guide them carefully into the green, shallow waves. And then they would bloom as he grew old. Our Father. And they would come to him with questions and he would answer them.

Why not? Biff took up his mandolin again. 'Tum-ti-tim-ti-tee, ti-tee, the wedding of the painted doll' The mandolin mocked the refrain. He sang through all the verses and wagged his foot to the time. Then he played 'K-K-K-Katie,' and 'Love's Old Sweet Song.' These pieces were like the Agua Florida in the way they made him remember. Everything. Through the first year when he was happy and when she seemed happy even too. And when the bed came down with them twice in three months. And he didn't know that all the time her brain was busy with how she could save a nickel or squeeze out an extra dime. And then him with Rio and the girls at her place. Gyp and Madeline and Lou. And then later when suddenly he lost it. When he could lie with a woman no longer. MotheroG.o.d! So that at first it seemed everything was gone.

Lucile always understood the whole setup. She knew the kind of woman Alice was. Maybe she knew about him, too. Lucile would urge them to get a divorce. And she did all a person could to try to straighten out their messes.

Biff winced suddenly. He jerked his hands from the strings of the mandolin so that a phrase of music was chopped off. He sat tense in his chair. Then suddenly he laughed quietly to himself. What had made him come across this? Ah, Lordy Lordy Lord! It was the day of his twenty-ninth birthday, and Lucile had asked him to drop by her apartment when he finished with an appointment at the dentist's. He expected from this some little remembrance--a plate of cherry tarts or a good shirt. She met him at the door and blindfolded his eyes before he entered. Then she said she would be back in a second. In the silent room he listened to her footsteps and when she had reached the kitchen he broke wind. He stood in the room with his eyes blindfolded and pooted. Then all at once he knew with horror he was not alone. There was a t.i.tter and soon great rolling whoops of laughter deafened him. At that minute Lucile came back and undid his eyes. She held a caramel cake on a platter. The room was full of people. Leroy and that bunch and Alice, of course. He wanted to crawl up the wall. He stood there with his bare face hanging out, burning hot all over. They kidded him and the next hour was almost as bad as the death of his mother--the way he took it.

Later that night he drank a quart of whiskey. And for weeks after--MotheroG.o.d! Biff chuckled coldly. He plucked a few chords on his mandolin and started a rollicking cowboy song. His voice was a mellow tenor and he closed his eyes as he sang. The room was almost dark. The damp chill penetrated to his bones so that his legs ached with rheumatism. .

At last he put away his mandolin and rocked slowly in . the darkness. Death. Sometimes he could almost feel it in the room with him. He rocked to and fro in the chair. What did he understand? Nothing. Where was he headed? Nowhere. What did he want? To know. What? A meaning. Why? A riddle.

Broken pictures lay like a scattered jigsaw puzzle in his head.

Alice soaping in the bathtub. Mussolini's mug. Mick pulling the baby in a wagon. A roast turkey on display. Blount's mouth. The face of Singer. He felt himself waiting. The room was completely dark. From the kitchen he could hear Louis singing.

Biff stood up and touched the arm of his chair to still its rocking. When he opened the door the hall outside was very warm and bright. He remembered that perhaps Mick would come. He straightened his clothes and smoothed back his hair.

A warmth and liveliness returned to him. The restaurant was in a hubbub. Beer rounds and Sunday supper had begun. He smiled genially to young Harry and settled himself behind the cash register. He took in the room with a glance like a la.s.so.

The place was crowded and humming with noise. The bowl of fruit in the window was a genteel, artistic display. He watched the door and continued to examine the room with a practiced eye. He was alert and intently waiting. Singer came finally and wrote with his silver pencil that he wanted only soup and whiskey as he had a cold. But Mick did not come.

SHE never even had a nickel to herself any more. They were that poor. Money was the main thing. All the time it was money, money, money. They had to pay through the nose for Baby Wilson's private room and private nurse. But even that was just one bill. By the time one thing was paid for something else always would crop up. They owed around two hundred dollars that had to be paid right away. They lost the house. Their Dad got a hundred dollars out of the deal and let the bank take over the mortgage. Then he borrowed another fifty dollars and Mister Singer went on the note with him.

Afterward they had to worry about rent every month instead of taxes. They were mighty near as poor as factory folks. Only n.o.body could look down on them.

Bill had a job in a bottling plant and made ten dollars a week.

Hazel worked as a helper in a beauty parlor for eight dollars.

Etta sold tickets at a movie for five dollars. Each of them paid half of what they earned for their keep. Then the house had six boarders at five dollars a head. And Mister Singer, who paid his rent very prompt. With what their Dad picked up it all came to about two hundred dollars a month--and out of that they had to feed the six boarders pretty good and feed the family and pay rent for the whole house and keep up the payments on the furniture.

George and her didn't get any lunch money now. She had to stop the music lessons. Portia saved the leftovers from the dinner for her and George to eat after school. All the time they had their meals in the kitchen. Whether Bill and Hazel and Etta sat with the boarders or ate in the kitchen depended on how much food there was. In the kitchen they had grits and grease and side meat and coffee for breakfast. For supper they had the same thing along with whatever could be spared from the dining-room. The big kids griped whenever they had to eat in the kitchen. And sometimes she and George were downright hungry for two or three days.

But this was in the outside room. It had nothing to do with music and foreign countries and the plans she made. The winter was cold. Frost was on the windowpanes. At night the fire in the living-room crackled very warm. All the family sat by the fire with the boarders, so she had the middle bedroom to herself. She wore two sweaters and a pair of Bill's outgrown corduroy pants. Excitement kept her warm. She would bring out her private box from under the bed and sit on the floor to work.

In the big box there were the pictures she had painted at the government free art cla.s.s. She had taken them out of Bill's room. Also in the box she kept three mystery books her Dad had given her, a compact, a box of watch parts, a rhinestone necklace, a hammer, and some notebooks. One notebook was marked on the top with red crayon--PRIVATE. KEEP OUT. PRIVATE--and tied with a string.

She had worked on music in this notebook all the winter. She quit studying school lessons at night so she could have more time to spend on music. Mostly she had written just little tunes--songs without any words and without even any ba.s.s notes to them. They were very short. But even if the tunes were only half a page long she gave them names and drew her initials underneath them. Nothing in this book was a real piece or a composition. They were just songs in her mind she wanted to remember. She named them how they reminded her--'Africa' and 'A Big Fight and The Snowstorm.'

She couldn't write the music just like it sounded in her mind.

She had to thin it down to only a few notes; otherwise she got too mixed up to go further. There was so much she didn't know about how to write music. But maybe after she learned how to write these simple tunes fairly quick she could begin to put down the whole music in her mind.

In January she began a certain very wonderful piece called 'This Thing I Want, I Know Not What' It was a beautiful and marvelous song--very slow and soft. At first she had started to write a poem along with it, but she couldn't think of ideas to fit the music. Also it was hard to get a word for the third line to rhyme with what. This new song made her feel sad and excited and happy all at once. Music beautiful as this was hard to work on. Any song was hard to write. Something she could hum in two minutes meant a whole week's work before it was down in the notebook--after she had figured up the scale and the time and every note.

She had to concentrate hard and sing it many times. Her voice was always hoa.r.s.e. Her Dad said this was because she had bawled so much when she was a baby. Her Dad would have to get up and walk with her every night when she was Ralph's age. The only thing would hush her, he always said, was for him to beat the coal scuttle with a poker and sing 'Dixie.'

She lay on her stomach on the cold floor and thought. Later on--when she was twenty--she would be a great world-famous composer. She would have a whole symphony orchestra and conduct all of her music herself. She would stand up on the platform in front of the big crowds of people. To conduct the orchestra she would wear either a real man's evening suit or else a red dress spangled with rhinestones. The curtains of the stage would be red velvet and M.K. would be printed on them in gold. Mister Singer would be there, and afterward they would go out and eat fried chicken. He would admire her and count her as his very best friend. George would bring up big wreaths of flowers to the stage. It would be in New York City or else in a foreign country. Famous people would point at her. Carole Lombard and Arturo Toscanini and Admiral Byrd.

And she could play the Beethoven symphony any time she wanted to. It was a queer thing about this music she had heard last autumn. The symphony stayed inside her always and grew little by little. The reason was this: the whole symphony was in her mind. It had to be. She had heard every note, and somewhere in the back of her mind the whole of the music was still there just as it had been played. But she could do nothing to bring it all out again. Except wait and be ready for the times when suddenly a new part came to her. Wait for it to grow like leaves grow slowly on the branches of a spring oak tree.

In the inside room, along with music, there was Mister Singer.

Every afternoon as soon as she finished playing on the piano in the gym she walked down the main street past the store where he worked. From the front window she couldn't see Mister Singer. He worked in the back, behind a curtain. But she looked at the store where he stayed every day and saw the people he knew. Then every night she waited on the front porch for him to come home. Sometimes she followed him upstairs. She sat on the bed and watched him put away his hat and undo the b.u.t.ton on his collar and brush his hair. For some reason it was like they had a secret together. Or like they waited to tell each other things that had never been said before.

He was the only person in the inside room. A long time ago there had been others. She thought back and remembered how it was before he came. She remembered a girl way back in the sixth grade named Celeste. This girl had straight blonde hair and a turned-up nose and freckles. She wore a red-wool jumper with a white blouse. She walked pigeon-toed. Every day she brought an orange for little recess and a blue tin box of lunch for big recess. Other kids would gobble the food they had brought at little recess and then were hungry later--but not Celeste. She pulled off the crusts of her sandwiches and ate only the soft middle part. Always she had a stuffed hard boiled egg and she would hold it in her hand, mashing the yellow with her thumb so that the print of her finger was left there.

Celeste never talked to her and she never talked to Celeste.

Although that was what she wanted more than anything else.

At night she would lie awake and think about Celeste. She would plan that they were best friends and think about the time when Celeste could come home with her to eat supper and spend the night. But that never happened.

The way she felt about Celeste would never let her go up and make friends with her like she would any other person. After a year Celeste moved to another part of town and went to another school.

Then there was a boy called Buck. He was big and had pimples on his face. When she stood by him in line to march in at eight-thirty he smelled bad--like his britches needed airing. Buck did a nose dive at the princ.i.p.al once and was suspended. When he laughed he lifted his upper lip and shook all over. She thought about him like she had thought about Celeste. Then there was the lady who sold lottery tickets for a turkey raffle. And Miss Anglin, who taught the seventh grade.

And Carole Lombard in the movies. All of them.

But with Mister Singer there was a difference. The way she felt about him came on her slowly, and she could not think back and realize just how it happened. The other people had been ordinary, but Mister Singer was not The first day he rang the doorbell to ask about a room she had looked a long time into his face. She had opened the door and read over the card he handed her. Then she called her Mama and went back in the kitchen to tell Portia and Bubber about him. She followed him and her Mama up the stairs and watched him poke the mattress on the bed and roll up the shades to see if they worked. The day he moved she sat on the front porch banisters and watched him get out of the ten-cent taxi with his suitcase and his chessboard. Then later she listened to him thump around in his room and imagined about him. The rest came in a gradual way. So that now there was this secret feeling between them. She talked to him more than she had ever talked to a person before. And if he could have talked he would have told her many things. It was like he was some kind of a great teacher, only because he was a mute he did not teach. In the bed at night she planned about how she was an orphan and lived with Mister Singer--just the two of them in a foreign house where in the winter it would snow. Maybe in a little Switzerland town with the high glaciers and the mountains all around. Where rocks were on top of all the houses and the roofs were steep and pointed.

Or in France where the people carried home bread from the store without its being wrapped. Or in the foreign country of Norway by the gray winter ocean.

In the morning the first thing she would think of him. Along with music. When she put on her dress she wondered where she would see him that day. She used some of Etta's perfume or a drop of vanilla so that if she met him in the hall she would smell good. She went to school late so she could see him come down the stairs on his way to work. And in the afternoon and night she never left the house if he was there.

Each new thing she learned about him was important. He kept his toothbrush and toothpaste in a gla.s.s on his table. So instead of leaving her toothbrush on the bathroom shelf she kept it in a gla.s.s, also. He didn't like cabbage. Harry, who worked for Mister Brannon, mentioned that to her. Now she couldn't eat cabbage either. When she learned new facts about him, or when she said something to him and he wrote a few words with his silver pencil, she had to be off by herself for a long time to think it over. When she was with him the main thought in her mind was to store up everything so that later she could live it over and remember.

But in the inside room with music and Mister Singer was not all. Many things happened in the outside room. She fell down the stairs and broke off one of her front teeth. Miss Minner gave her two bad cards in English. She lost a quarter in a vacant lot, and although she and George hunted for three days they never found it This happened: One afternoon she was studying for an English test out on the back steps. Harry began to chop wood over on his side of the fence and she hollered to him. He came and diagrammed a few sentences for her. His eyes were quick behind his horn rimmed gla.s.ses. After he explained the English to her he stood up and jerked his hands in and out the pockets of his lumberjack. Harry was always full of energy, nervous, and he had to be talking or doing something every minute. 'You see, there's just two things nowadays,' he said. He liked to surprise people and sometimes she didn't know how to answer him. 'It's the truth, there's just two things ahead nowadays.'

'What?'

'Militant Democracy or Fascism.'

'Don't you like Republicans?'

'Shucks,' Harry said. 'That's not what I mean.'

He had explained all about the Fascists one afternoon. He told how the n.a.z.is made little Jew children get down on their hands and knees and eat gra.s.s from the ground. He told about how he planned to a.s.sa.s.sinate Hitler. He had it all worked out thoroughly. He told about how there wasn't any justice or freedom hi Fascism. He said the newspapers wrote deliberate lies and people didn't know what was going on in the world.

The n.a.z.is were terrible--everybody knew that. She plotted with him to kill Hitler. It would be better to have four or five people in the conspiracy so that if one missed him the others could b.u.mp him off just the same. And even if they died they would all be heroes. To be a hero was almost like being a great musician.

'Either one or the other. And although I don't believe in war I'm ready to fight for what I know is right'

'Me too,' she said. 'I'd like to fight the Fascists. I could dress up like a boy and n.o.body could ever tell. Cut my hair off and all.'

It was a bright winter afternoon. The sky was blue-green and the branches of the oak trees in the back yard were black and bare against this color. The sun was warm. The day made her feel full of energy. Music was hi her mind. Just to be doing something she picked up a ten-penny nail and drove it into the steps with a few good wallops. Their Dad heard the sound of the hammer and came out in his bathrobe to stand around awhile. Under the tree there were two carpenter's horses, and little Ralph was busy putting a rock on top of one and then carrying it over to the other one. Back and forth. He walked with his hands out to balance himself. He was bowlegged and his diapers dragged down to his knees. George was shooting marbles. Because he needed a haircut his face looked thin.

Some of his permanent teeth had already come--but they were small and blue like he had been eating blackberries. He drew a line for taw and lay on his stomach to take aim for the first hole. When their Dad went back to his watch work he carried Ralph with him. And after a while George went off into the alley by himself. Since he shot Baby he wouldn't buddy with a single person.

'I got to go,' Harry said. 'I got to be at work before six.'

'You like it at the cafe? Do you get good things to eat free?'

'Sure. And all kinds of folks come in the place. I like it better than any job I ever had. It pays more.'

'I hate Mister Brannon,' Mick said. It was true that even though he never said anything mean to her he always spoke in a rough, funny way. He must have known all along about the pack of chewing-gum she and George swiped that time. And then why would he ask her how her business was coming along--like he did up in Mister Singer's room? Maybe he thought they took things regular. And they didn't. They certainly did not. Only once a little water-color set from the ten-cent store. And a nickel pencil-sharpener.

'I can't stand Mister Brarmon.'