O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 Part 17

Adam came back and nodded: "Light's out. Any key to that room?"

"No."

"I can always think better when I'm eatin'," he confessed, and lifted down the plate of spiced cookies, rejected them as too fresh, and pounced on a covered dish of apple sauce.

This he absorbed in stillness, wriggling his toes on the oilcloth.

Mrs. Egg felt entirely comfortable and real. She could hear the cook snoring. Behind her the curtain of the pantry window fluttered. The cool breeze was pleasant on her neck. Adam licked the spoon and said, "Back in a minute, Mamma," as he started for the veranda door.

Mrs. Egg reposed on the ice chest thinking about Adam. He was like Egg, in that nothing fattened him. She puzzled over to-morrow's lunch.

Baked ham and sweet potatoes, sugared; creamed asparagus; hot corn m.u.f.fins. Dessert perplexed her. Were there any brandied peaches left?

She feared not. They belonged on the upper shelf nearest the ice chest. Anxiety chewed her. Mrs. Egg climbed the lid by the aid of the window sill and reached up an arm to the shelf.

Adam said, "Here y'are, Mamma."

The pantry door shut. Mrs. Egg swung about. Adam stood behind a shape in blue pajamas, a hand locked on either of its elbows. He grinned at Mrs. Egg over the mummer's shoulder. As the woman panted sulphur entered her throat. The lamp threw a glare into the dark face, which seemed paler.

"Go on, Frisco," said Adam, about the skull, "tell Mamma about her father."

A sharp voice answered, "Let go my arms. You're killin' me!"

"Quit kiddin'," Adam growled. "Go on!"

"He ran a joint in San Francisco and gave me a job after I got out the Navy. Died last fall. I kind of nursed him. Told me to burn all these books--diaries. I read 'em. He called himself Peterson. Left all his money to a woman. She shut the joint. I looked some like him so I took a chance. Leggo my arms, Egg!"

"He'd ought to go to jail, Dammy," said Mrs. Egg. "It's just awful! I bet the police are lookin' for him right now."

"Mamma, if we put him in jail this'll be all over the county and you'll never hear the end of it."

She stared at the ape with loathing. There was a star tattooed on one of his naked insteps. He looked no longer frail, but wiry and snakelike. The pallor behind his dark tan showed the triangles of black stain in his cheeks and eye sockets.

"He's too smart to leave loose, Dammy."

"It'll be an awful joke on you, Mamma."

"I can't help it, Dammy. He----"

The prisoner figure toppled back against Adam's breast and the mouth opened hideously. The lean legs bent.

"You squeezed him too tight, Dammy. He's fainted. Lay him down."

Adam let the figure slide to the floor. It rose in a whirl of blue linen. Mrs. Egg rocked on the chest.

The man thrust something at Adam's middle and said in a rasp, "Get your arms up!"

Adam's face turned purple beyond the gleaming skull. His hands rose a little and his fingers crisped. He drawled,

"Fact. I ought have looked under your duds, you----"

"Stick 'em up!" said the man.

Mrs. Egg saw Adam's arms tremble. His lower lip drew down. He wasn't going to put his arms up. The man would kill him. She could not breathe. She fell forward from the ice chest and knew nothing.

She roused with a sense of great cold and was sitting against the shelves. Adam stopped rubbing her face with a lump of ice and grinned at her.

He cried, "By gee, you did that quick, Mamma! Knocked the wind clear out of him."

"Where is he, Dammy?"

"Dunno. Took his gun and let him get dressed. He's gone. Say, that was slick!"

Mrs. Egg blushed and asked for a drink. Adam dropped the ice into a mug of pear cider and squatted beside her with a shabby notebook.

"Here's somethin' for October 10, 1919." He read: "'Talked to a man from Ilium to-day in Palace Bar. Myrtle married to John Egg. Four children. Egg worth a wad. Dairy and cider business. Going to build new Presbyterian church.' That's it, Mamma. He doped it all out from the diary."

"The dirty dog!" said Mrs. Egg. She ached terribly and put her head on Adam's shoulder.

"I'll put all the diaries up in the attic. Kind of good readin.' Say, it's after two. You better go to bed."

In her dreams Mrs. Egg beheld a bronze menacing skeleton beside her pillow. It whispered and rattled. She woke, gulping, in bright sunlight, and the rattle changed to the noise of a motor halting on the drive. She gave yesterday a fleet review, rubbing her blackened elbows, but felt charitable toward Frisco Cooley by connotation; she had once sat down on a collie pup. But her bedroom clock struck ten times. Mrs. Egg groaned and rolled out of bed, reaching for a wrapper.

What had the cook given Adam for breakfast? She charged along the upper hall into a smell of coffee, and heard Adam speaking below. His sisters made some feeble united interjection.

The hero said sharply: "Of course he was a fake! Mamma knew he was, all along, but she didn't want to let on she did in front of folks.

That ain't dignified. She just flattened him out and he went away quiet. You girls always talk like Mamma hadn't as much sense as you.

She's kind of used up this morning. Wait till I give her her breakfast, and I'll come talk to you."

A tray jingled.

Mrs. Egg retreated into her bedroom, awed. Adam carried in her breakfast and shut the door with a foot.

He complained: "Went in to breakfast at Edie's. Of course she's only sixteen, but I could make better biscuits myself. Lay down, Mamma."

He began to b.u.t.ter slices of toast, in silence, expertly. Mrs. Egg drank her coffee in rapture that rose toward ecstasy as Adam made himself a sandwich of toast and marmalade and sat down at her feet to consume it.

THE VICTIM OF HIS VISION

By GERALD CHITTENDEN

From _Scribner's_

I

"There's no doubt about it," said the hardware drummer with the pock-pitted cheeks. He seemed glad that there was no doubt--smacked his lips over it and went on. "Obeah--that's black magic; and voodoo--that's snake-worship. The island is rotten with 'em--rotten with 'em."

He looked sidelong over his empty gla.s.s at the Reverend Arthur Simpson. Many human things were foreign to the clergyman: he was uneasy about being in the _Arequipa's_ smoke-room at all, for instance, and especially uneasy about sitting there with the drummer.