O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 15

"Yes," Mrs. Egg drawled, "and ain't feelin' well and don't need comp'ny. Be obliged if you'd tell folks that. He's kind of sickly. So they've got Dammy in a picture. It's about time!" The tremor ran down her back. She said "Good-night, dearie," and rang off.

The old man was standing in the hall doorway, his head a vermilion ball in the crossed light of the red sunset.

"Feel better, Papa?"

"As good as I'm likely to feel in this world again. You look real like your mother settin' there, Myrtle." The whisper seemed likely to ripen as a sob.

Mrs. Egg answered, "Mamma had yellow hair and never weighed more'n a hundred and fifty pounds to the day of her death. What'd you like for supper?"

He walked slowly along the room, his knees sagging, twitching from end to end. She had forgotten how tall he was. His face constantly wrinkled. It was hard to see his eyes under their long lashes. Mrs.

Egg felt the pity of all this in a cold way.

She said, when he paused: "That's Adam, there, on the mantelpiece, Papa. Six feet four and a half he is. It don't show in a picture."

"The Navy's rough kind of life, Myrtle. I hope he ain't picked up bad habits. The world's full of pitfalls."

"Sure," said Mrs. Egg, shearing the whisper. "Only Dammy ain't got any sense about cards. I tried to teach him pinochle, but he never could remember none of it, and the hired men always clean him out shakin'

dice. He can't even beat his papa at checkers. And that's an awful thing to say of a bright boy!"

The old man stared at the photograph and his forehead smoothed for a breath. Then he sighed and drooped his chin.

"If I'd stayed by right principles when I was young----"

"D'you still keep a diary, Papa?"

"I did used to keep a diary, didn't I? I'd forgotten that. When you come to my age, Myrtle, you'll find yourself forgettin' easy. If I could remember any good things I ever did----"

The tears dripped from his jaw to the limp breast of his coat. Mrs.

Egg felt that he must be horrible, naked, like a doll carved of coconut bark Adam had sent home from Havana. He was darker than Adam even. In the twilight the hollows of his face were sheer black. The room was gray. Mrs. Egg wished that the film would hurry and show something brightly lit.

The dreary whisper mourned, "Grain for the grim reaper's sickle, that's what I am. Tares mostly. When I'm gone you lay me alongside your mamma and----"

"Supper's ready, Mis' Egg," said the cook.

Supper was odious. He sat crumbling bits of toast into a bowl of hot milk and whispering feeble questions about dead folk or the business of the vast dairy farm. The girls had been too kind, he said.

"I couldn't help but feel that if they knew all about me----"

"They're nice sociable girls," Mrs. Egg panted, dizzy with dislike of her veal. She went on: "And they like a good cry, never havin' had nothin' to cry for."

His eyes opened wide in the lamplight, gray brilliance sparkled. Mrs.

Egg stiffened in her chair, meeting the look.

He wailed, "I gave you plenty to cry for, daughter." The tears hurt her, of course.

"There's a picture of Dammy in the movies," she gasped. "I'm goin' in to see it. You better come. It'll cheer you, Papa."

She wanted to recall the offer too late. In the car she felt chilly.

He sank into a corner of the tonneau like a thrown laprobe. Mrs. Egg talked loudly about Adam all the way to town and shouted directions to the driving farmhand in order that the whisper might not start. The manager of the theatre had saved a box for her and came to usher her to its discomfort. But all her usual pleasure was gone. She nodded miserably over the silver-gilt rail at friends. She knew that people were craning from far seats. Her bulk and her shadow effaced the man beside her. He seemed to cower a little. At eight the show began, and Mrs. Egg felt darkness as a blessing, although the shimmer from the screen ran like phosphorus over the bald head, and a flash of white between two parts of the advertis.e.m.e.nt showed the dark wrinkles of his brow.

"Like the pictures, Papa?"

"I don't see well enough to take much pleasure in 'em, Myrtle."

A whirling globe announced the beginning of the weekly. Mrs. Egg forgot her burdens. She was going to see Adam. She took a peppermint from the bag in her hand and set her teeth in its softness, applauded a view of the President and the arrival of an amba.s.sador in New York.

Then the greenish letters declared: "The fleet leaves Guantanamo training ground," and her eyes hurt with staring. The familiar lines of anch.o.r.ed battleships appeared with a motion of men in white on the gray decks. The screen showed a race of boats which melted without warning to a ma.s.s of white uniforms packed about the raised square of a roped-in Platform below guns and a turret clouded with men. Two tanned giants in wrestling tights scrambled under the ropes. There was a flutter of caps.

"Oh!" said Mrs. Egg. "Oh!"

She stood up. The view enlarged. Adam was plain as possible. He grinned, too; straight from the screen at her. The audience murmured.

Applause broke out, Adam jerked his black head to his opponent--and the view flicked off in some stupid business of admirals. Mrs. Egg sat down and sobbed.

"Was that Adam, daughter? The--the big feller with black hair?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Egg; "yes." She was hot with rage against the makers of pictures who'd taken him from her. It was a shame. She crammed four peppermints into her mouth and groaned about them, "As if people wouldn't rather look at some good wrestlin' than a lot of captains and stuff!"

"How long's the boy been in the Navy, Myrtle?"

"April 14, 1917."

The whisper restored her. Mrs. Egg yawned for an hour of nonsense about a millionaire and his wife who was far too thin. Her father did not speak, although he moved now and then. The show concluded. Mrs.

Egg lumbered wearily out to her car in the dull street and vaguely listened to the whisper of old age. She couldn't pay attention. She was going home to write the film company at length. This abuse of Adam was intolerable. She told the driver so. The driver agreed.

He reported, "I was settin' next to Miss Webb."

"That's Dammy's girl, Papa. Go on, Sam. What did Edie say?"

"Well," said the driver, "she liked seein' the kid. She cried, anyhow."

Mrs. Egg was charmed by the girl's good sense. The moon looked like a quartered orange over the orchard.

She sighed, "Well, he'll be home Wednesday night, anyhow. Edie ain't old enough to get married yet. Hey, what's the house all lit up for?

Sadie ought to know better."

She prepared a lecture for the cook. The motor shot up the drive into a babble and halted at the steps. Someone immense rose from a chair and leaped down the s.p.a.ce in one stride.

Adam said, "H'lo, Mamma," and opened the car door.

Mrs. Egg squealed. The giant lifted her out of her seat and carried her into the sitting room. The amazing muscles rose in the flat of his back. She thought his overshirt ripped. The room spun. Adam fanned her with his cap and grinned.

"Worst of radiograms," he observed; "the boys say Papa went on to meet me. Well, it'll give him a trip. Quit cryin', Mamma."

"Oh, Dammy, and there ain't nothin' fit to eat in the house!"

Adam grinned again. The farmhands dispersed at his nod. Mrs. Egg beat down her sobs with both hands and decried the radio service that could turn Sunday into Tuesday. Here was Adam, though, silently grinning, his hands available, willing to eat anything she had in the pantry.

Mrs. Egg crowed her rapture in a dozen bursts.

The whispering voice crept into a pause with, "You'll be wantin' to talk to your boy, daughter. I'll go to bed, I guess."