Youth Challenges Part 34

He ate his lunch from the top of a tall stool. It was not the sort of food he was accustomed to, and the coffee was far from being the sort that had been served to him in his home or in his club--but he hardly noticed it. When he was through he walked back across the street and stood awkwardly among his mates. He knew none of them.

An oldish, smallish man looked at him and at his overalls, and grinned.

"New man?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Thought them overalls wasn't long off the shelf. You done a good job, though, considerin'."

Bonbright blushed.

"Where you been workin'?"

How was Bonbright to answer? He couldn't tell the truth without shaming himself in this man's eyes, and all at once he found he greatly desired the good opinion of this workingman and of the other workingmen about him.

"I--The last place I worked was Bonbright Foote, Incorporated," he said, giving his father's inst.i.tution its full name.

"Urn.... Strikin', eh?"

Bonbright nodded. He had struck. Not with a union, but as an individual.

"'Bout over, hain't it, from all I hear tell?"

"I think so," said Bonbright.

"Bad business.... Strikes is always bad--especially if the men git licked. Unions hain't no business to call strikes without some show of winnin'..... The boys talk that this strike never had no chance from the beginnin'.... I don't think a heap of that Foote outfit."

"Why?"

"Rotten place to work, I hear. A good machinist can't take no pleasure there, what with one thing and another. Out-of-date machines, and what not.... That young Foote, the cub, is a h.e.l.l winder, they say. Ever see him?"

"I've seen him."

"His father was bad enough, by all accounts. But this kid goes him one better. Wonder some of them strikers didn't git excited and make him acquainted with a brick. I've heard of fightin' strikes hard--but never nothin' like this one. Seems like this kid's a hard one. Wants to smash h.e.l.l out of the men just to see them smash.... How'd he strike you?"

"I was sorry for him," said Bonbright, simply.

"Sorry?... What's the idea?"

"I--I don't believe he did what people believe. He didn't really have anything to do with the business, you know. He didn't count.... All the things that he was said to do--he didn't do at all. His father did them and let the men think it was his son."

"Sounds fishy--but if it's so somebody ought to lambaste the old man.

He sure got his son in bad.... What's this I hear about him marryin'

some girl and gettin' kicked out?"

"That's true," said Bonbright.

"Huh!... Wonder what he'll do without his pa. Them kind hain't much good, I notice.... Maybe he's well fixed himself, though."

"He hasn't a cent," said Bonbright.

"Appears like you know a heap about him.... Maybe you know what he's doin' now?"

"Working."

"Friends give him a soft job?"

"He's working in a--machine shop," said Bonbright.

"G'wan," said the man, incredulously. Then he looked sharply at Bonbright, at his new overalls, back again at his face.

"What's your name?" he asked, suspiciously.

"Foote," said Bonbright.

"HIM?"

"Yes," said Bonbright.

The man paused before he spoke, and there was something not kindly that came into his eyes. "Speakin' perty well of yourself, wasn't you?" he said, caustically, and, turning his back, he walked away. ... That action cut Bonbright more deeply than any of the few affronts that had been put upon him in his life had cut. He wanted to call the man back and demand that he listen to the truth. He wanted to explain, to set himself right. He wanted that man and all men to know he was not the Bonbright Foote who had brought on the strike and fought it with such vindictive ruthlessness. He wanted to prove that he was innocent, and to wring from them the right to meet and to be received by his fellow laborers as one of themselves....

He saw the man stop beside a group, say something, turn, and point to him. Other men turned and stared. Some snickered. Bonbright could not bear it. He jostled his way through the crowd and sought refuge in the shop.

The morning had been a happy one; the afternoon was dismal. He knew he was marked. He saw men pointing at him, whispering about him, and could imagine what they were saying. In the morning he had been received casually as an equal. n.o.body had welcomed him, n.o.body had paid particular attention to him. That was as it should be. He was simply accepted as another workman.... The att.i.tude of the men was quite the opposite now. He was a sort of museum freak to them. From a distance they regarded him with curiosity, but their manner set him apart from them. He did not belong. He felt their hostility.... If they had lined up and jeered him Bonbright would not have felt the hurt so much, for there would have been something to arouse his fighting spirit.

One remark he overheard, which stood aptly for the att.i.tude of all.

"Well, he's gettin' what's comin' to him," was the sentence. It showed him that the reputation his father had given him was his to wear, and that here he would find no friends, scant toleration, probably open hostility.... He got no pleasure that afternoon from watching his cake of metal move backward and forward with the planer-bed.

When the whistle blew again he hurried out, looking into no man's face, avoiding contacts. He sneaked away.... And in his heart burned a hot resentment against the father that had done this thing....

CHAPTER XXIII

Such pretense as Bonbright's and Ruth's is possible only to the morbid, the eccentric, or the unhealthy. Neither of them was morbid, neither eccentric, both abundantly well. Ruth saw the failure of it days before Bonbright had even a hint. After Dulac burst in upon her she perceived the game must be brought to an end; that their life of make-believe was weighted with danger for her. She determined to end it--but, ironically enough, to end it meant to enter upon another make-believe existence far harder to live successfully than the first. One can make believe to love on the stage, uttering skillfully the words of an author and carrying out the instructions of a stage director. An audience may be taken in.... A play is brief. But to begin a spurious love scene which is to last, not twenty minutes, but for a lifetime, is a matter of quite different color. She determined to begin it....

But with the sound of Bonbright's footfall on the stairs her resolution vanished. "To-morrow," she whispered to herself, with sudden dread.

"To-morrow...." And so she put it off from day to day.

In the beginning Bonbright had been optimistic. He had seen her reluctance, her reserves, vanishing in a few days. But they did not vanish. He found himself no nearer his wife than he had been at the beginning. Optimism became hope, hope dwindled, became doubt, uneasy wonder. He could not understand, and it was natural he should not understand. At first he had believed his experience was the experience of all bridegrooms. Days taught him his experience was unique, unnatural. Ruth saw him often now, sitting moodily, eyes on the floor--and she could read his thoughts. Yet he tried to bolster up the pretense. He had given his promise, and he loved Ruth. He could not, would not do as most men would have done.... What neither of them saw was that pretense had made a sudden change to reality impossible....

Bonbright was unhappy at home, unhappy at work. Just as he was outside his wife's real life, so he was excluded from the lives of the men he worked with. He was not, to them, a fellow laborer; he was Bonbright Foote VII. But he made no complaint or appeal to Malcolm Lightener....

He did not know how unnecessary an appeal to Lightener would be, for Lightener kept himself well acquainted with the facts, watched and waited, and the satisfaction of the automobile king grew and increased.

"He's no squealer," he said to his daughter. "He's taking his medicine without making a face."

"What's the good, dad? It's mean.... Why don't you take him into the office?"