Tramping on Life Part 58

I threw my few belongings together.

Everybody, in saying good-bye, gave me a warm hand-clasp of friendship (excepting Pfeiler), including Spalton, who a.s.sured me--

"Razorre, you'll be back again ... despite its faults, they all come back to Eos."

"Yes," I responded, sweeping him off his feet by the unexpectedness of my reply, "yes, in spite of all, Eos is a wonderful place ... it has given me something ... in my heart ... in my soul ... which no other place in the world could have given ... and at the time I needed it most ... a feeling for beauty, a fellowship--"

"Razorre," he cut in, moved, "we all have our faults,--G.o.d knows _you_ have--mutual forgiveness--" he murmured, pressing my hand warmly again; his great, brown eyes humid with emotion ... whether he was acting, or genuine ... or both ... I could not tell. I didn't care. I departed with the warmth of his benediction over my going.

This time I did not freight it. I paid my fare to New York.

My father ... I must pay him a visit, before lifting my nose in the air like a migrating bird. Where I would go or what I would do that spring and summer, I hadn't the vaguest idea....

It seemed but the day before that I had left Haberford. The fat policeman who leaned against the iron railing of the small park near the station was there in the same place. The same young rowdies pushed each other about, and spat, and swore, near the undertaker shop and the telegraph office.

But as I walked past the Hartman express office--the private concern which Hartman, the thin, wiry shock-haired Swede, had built up through arduous struggle, beginning with one wagon--

Hartman saw me through the window, and beckoned vigorously for me to step in....

"--just got home from another hobo-trip, Johnny?"

"You're almost right, Mr. Hartman."

"A pause....

"--been to see your father yet?"

"No, sir, I'm on the way there now ... just arrived this minute, on the train from New York."

"I'm glad I caught sight of you, then, to prepare you." A longer pause ... mysteriously embarra.s.sing, on his part.

"I have something to tell you about him ...--guess you're old enough to stand plain talk ... sit down!"

I took a chair.

"You see, it's this way," and he leaned forward and put his hand on my knee.. "it's women--a woman" ... he paused, I nodded to him to go on, feeling very dramatic and important....

"It's Mrs. Jenkins, the widow, that has her hooks in him ... around where he boards ... and, to be frank with you, he's going it so strong with her that he's sick and rundown ... and not so right, at times, _up here_!" and Hartman tapped his forehead with his forefinger significantly....

"Now, you're the nearest one to him around here," he went on, "and I'll tell you what we were going to do ... his lodge, of which I'm a member, was going to give him a trip, to separate him from her, and cure him ...

you come back just pat....

"Has your daddy any relatives that can afford to entertain him, out in the West, where you came from?"

"Yes, one of my uncles, his brother, is very well off, and would be glad to take him in ... in fact any of the folks back home would," my voice sounded hollow and far off as I answered.

"You're a pretty smart lad ... do you want to go back with him when he goes?"

"No, Mr. Hartman."

"Well, we can tip the porter to take care of him ... but why don't you want to go with him, we will foot your expenses?"

"I have other things to do," I answered vaguely.

He gave a gesture of impatience....

There was a hush in the house, as I stepped softly up the stairs. The catch of the front door was back....

First I went to my room and found all my books intact ... in better condition even, than when I was home with them ... there was not a speck of dust anywhere. Evidently my father was not too sick to keep the place clean ... but then, I meditated he would attend to that, with his last effort.

My books were my parents, my relatives. I had been born of them, not of my own father and mother. My being born in the flesh was a mere accident of nature. My father and mother happened to be the vehicle.

But the place was so quiet it perturbed me.

"Pop!" I called, going toward his bed-room.

The door leading into it slowly opened. The little, dark widow was in there with him.

"Hush! your father is asleep."

A hatred of both him and her shot up quick in my heart. I sensed their abandonment to the sheerly physical, till it took in their whole horizon. It was utterly ign.o.ble. I had a vision of all humanity, living, for the most part, merely for food and s.e.x, letting art and poetry and beauty and adventure pa.s.s by, content if they only achieved the bare opportunity of daily wallowing in their mire.

I was bad and mean enough, but the conception of a single poem in my brain, till it found birth on paper, was, I swore, bigger and finer than all this world-mess at its best. Also there was in me somewhat the thwarted, sinister hatred of the celibate....

"You mustn't bother your father now," little Mrs. Jenkins interposed, as I started in, "you must let him rest for awhile, and not wake him."

Through the door, half open, I caught a glimpse of a hollow, wax-white face ... he looked as if all the blood had been let out of his body, little by little. The little, pretty, dark woman looked like a crafty animal ... there was a beady shine of triumph, which she could not conceal, in her eyes, as she opposed my entering. I smelt the pungent smell of her physical womanhood. There was a plumpness about her body, a ruddiness to her lips, that gave me the phantasy that, perhaps, the moment before, she had drunk of my father's blood, and that she was preventing me from going in to where he lay till a certain tiny, red puncture over his jugular vein had closed.

"You forget, Mrs. Jenkins, that he is my father."

"You shan't go in ... please, Johnnie ... let him sleep just a little longer ... as soon as he wakes he asks for another drink!"

"And who put him in this state?" I charged directly, vividly remembering what Hartman had said....

"What, you don't mean to insinuate?"--she gasped.

"I mean nothing, only that I have come home to take care of my father, till his lodge takes charge of him, and that, for the present, I want you to please leave me alone with him."