The «Genius» II

THE “GENIUS” II

while. I can give excellent references. There doesn’t appear to be anything in the immediate neighborhood of the shop.”

“It is rather isolated there,” replied the old minister, studying Eugene carefully. “I have often wondered how all those men like it, traveling so far. None of them live about here.” He looked at Eugene solemnly, taking in his various characteristics. He was not badly impressed. He seemed to be a reserved, thoughtful, dignified young man and decidedly artistic. It struck him as very interesting that he should be trying so radical a thing as day labor for his nerves.

“Let me see,” he said thoughtfully. He sat down in his chair near his table and put his hand over his eyes. “I don’t think of anyone just at the moment. There are plenty of families who have room to take you if they would, but I question very much whether they would. In fact I’m rather sure they wouldn’t. Let me see now.”

He thought again.

Eugene studied his big aquiline nose, his shaggy grey eyebrows, his thick, crisp, grey hair. Already his mind was sketching him, the desk, the dim walls, the whole atmosphere of the room.

“No, no,” he said slowly. “I don’t think of anyone. There is one family – Mrs. Hibberdell. She lives in the – let me see – first, second, third, tenth house above here. She has one nephew with her at present, a young man of about your age, and I don’t think anyone else. I don’t know that she would consider taking you in, but she might. Her house is quite large. She did have her daughter with her at one time, but I’m not sure that she’s there now. I think not.”

181

THEODOR DREISER

He talked as though he were reporting his own thoughts to himself audibly.

Eugene pricked up his ears at the mention of a daughter. During all the time he had been out of New York he had not, with the exception of Frieda, had a single opportunity to talk intimately with any girl. Angela had been with him all the time. Here in New York since he had been back he had been living under such distressing conditions that he had not thought of either youth or love. He had no business to be thinking of it now, but this summer air, this tree-shaded village, the fact that he had a position, small as it was, on which he could depend and which would no doubt benefit him mentally, and that he was somehow feeling better about himself because he was going to work, made him feel that he might look more interestedly on life again. He was not going to die; he was going to get well. Finding this position proved it. And he might go to the house now and find some charming girl who would like him very much. Angela was away. He was alone. He had again the freedom of his youth. If he were only well and working!

He thanked the old minister very politely and went his way, recognizing the house by certain details given him by the minister, a double balconied veranda, some red rockers, two yellow jardinières at the doorstep, a greyish white picket fence and gate. He walked up smartly and rang the bell. A very intelligent woman of perhaps fifty-five or sixty with bright grey hair and clear light blue eyes was coming out with a book in her hand. Eugene stated his case. She listened with keen interest, looking him over the while. His appearance took her fancy, for she was of a strong intellectual and literary turn of mind.

182

THE “GENIUS” II

“I wouldn’t ordinarily consider anything of the kind, but I am alone here with my nephew and the house could easily accommodate a dozen. I don’t want to do anything which will irritate him, but if you will come back in the morning I will let you know. It would not disturb me to have you about. Do you happen to know of an artist by the name of Deesa?”

“I know him well,” replied Eugene. “He’s an old friend of mine.”

“He is a friend of my daughter’s, I think. Have you enquired anywhere else here in the village?”

“No,” said Eugene.

“That is just as well,” she replied. He took the hint.

So there was no daughter here. Well, what matter? The view was beautiful. Of an evening he could sit out here in one of the rocking chairs and look at the water. The evening sun, already low in the west was burnishing it a bright gold. The outline of the hill on the other side was dignified and peaceful. He could sleep and work as a day laborer and take life easy for a while. He could get well now and this was the way to do it. Day laborer! How fine, how original, how interesting. He felt somewhat like a knight-errant reconnoitring a new and very strange world.

183

CHAPTER XX

The matter of securing admission to this house was quickly settled. The nephew, a genial, intelligent man of thirty-four, as Eugene discovered later, had no objection. It appeared to Eugene that in some way he contributed to the support of this house, though Mrs. Hibberdell obviously had some money of her own. A charmingly furnished room on the second floor adjoining one of the several baths was assigned him, and he was at once admitted to the freedom of the house. There were books, a piano (but no one to play it), a hammock, a maid-of- all-work, and an atmosphere of content and peace. Mrs. Hibberdell, a widow, presumably of some years of widowhood, was of that experience and judgment in life which gave her intellectual poise. She was not particularly inquisitive about anything in connection with him, and so far as he could see from surface indications was refined, silent, conservative. She could jest, and did, in a subtle understanding way. He told her quite frankly at the time he applied that he was married, that his wife was in the West and that he expected her to return after his health was somewhat improved. She talked with him about art and books and life in general. Music appeared to be to her a thing apart. She did not care much for it. The nephew, Davis Simpson, was neither literary nor artistic, and apparently cared little for music. He was a buyer for one of the larger

184

THE “GENIUS” II

department stores, a slight, dapper, rather dandified type of man, with a lean, not thin but tight-muscled face, and a short black mustache, and he appeared to be interested only in the humors of character, trade, baseball and methods of entertaining himself. The things that pleased Eugene about him were that he was clean, simple, direct, good-natured and courteous. He had apparently no desire to infringe on anybody’s privacy, but was fond of stirring up light discussions and interpolating witty remarks. He liked also to grow flowers and to fish. The care of a border of flowers which glorified a short gravel path in the back yard received his especial attention evenings and mornings.

It was a great pleasure for Eugene to come into this atmosphere after the storm which had been assailing him for the past three years, and particularly for the past ninety days. He was only asked to pay eight dollars a week by Mrs. Hibberdell, though he realized that what he was obtaining in home atmosphere here was not ordinarily purchasable at any price in the public market. The maid saw to it that a little bouquet of flowers was put on his dressing table daily. He was given fresh towels and linen in ample quantities. The bath was his own. He could sit out on the porch of an evening and look at the water uninterrupted or he could stay in the library and read. Breakfast and dinner were invariably delightful occasions, for though he rose at five-forty-five in order to have his bath, breakfast, and be able to walk to the factory and reach it by seven, Mrs. Hibberdell was invariably up, as it was her habit to rise thus early, had been so for years. She liked it. Eugene in his weary mood could scarcely understand this. Davis came to the table some few moments before he would be leaving. He in-

185

THEODOR DREISER

variably had some cheery remark to offer, for he was never sullen or gloomy. His affairs, whatever they were, did not appear to oppress him. Mrs. Hibberdell would talk to Eugene genially about his work, this small, social centre of which they were a part and which was called Riverwood, the current movements in politics, religion, science and so forth. There were references sometimes to her one daughter, who was married and living in New York. It appeared that she occasionally visited her mother here. Eugene was delighted to think he had been so fortunate as to find this place. He hoped to make himself so agreeable that there would be no question as to his welcome, and he was not disappointed.

Between themselves Mrs. Hibberdell and Davis discussed him, agreeing that he was entirely charming, a good fellow, and well worth having about. At the factory where Eugene worked and where the conditions were radically different, he made for himself an atmosphere which was almost entirely agreeable to him, though he quarreled at times with specific details. On the first morning, for instance, he was put to work with two men, heavy clods of souls he thought at first, familiarly known about the yard as John and Bill. These two, to his artistic eye, appeared machines, more mechanical than humanly self-directive. They were of medium height, not more than five feet, nine inches tall and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds each. One had a round, poorly modeled face very much the shape of an egg, to which was attached a heavy yellowish mustache. He had a glass eye, complicated in addition by a pair of spectacles which were fastened over his large, protruding red ears with steel hooks. He wore a battered brown hat, now a limp shapeless mass. His name was Bill

186

THE “GENIUS” II

Jeffords and he responded sometimes to the sobriquet of “One Eye.”

The other man was John alias “Jack” Duncan, an individual of the same height and build with but slightly more modeling to his face and with little if any greater intelligence. He looked somewhat the shrewder – Eugene fancied there might be lurking in him somewhere a spark of humor, but he was mistaken. Unquestionably in Jeffords there was none. Jack Stix, the foreman-carpenter, a tall, angular, ambling man with red hair, a red mustache, shifty, uncertain blue eyes and noticeably big hands and feet, had suggested to Eugene that he work with these men for a little while. It was his idea to “try him out,” as he told one of the associate foremen who was in charge of a gang of Italians working in the yard for the morning, and he was quite equal to doing it. He thought Eugene had no business here and might possibly be scared off by a little rough work.

“He’s up here for his health,” he told him. “I don’t know where he comes from. Mr. Brooks sent him up here with orders to put him on. I want to see how he takes to real work for awhile.”

“Look out you don’t hurt him,” suggested the other. “He don’t look very strong to me.”

“He’s strong enough to carry a few spiles, I guess. If Jimmy can carry ‘em, he can. I don’t intend to keep him at it long.”

Eugene knew nothing of this, but when he was told to “come along, new man” and shown a pile of round, rough ash trunk cutting six inches in diameter and eight feet long, his courage failed him. He was suffered to carry some of these to the second floor, how many he did not know.

187

THEODOR DREISER

“Take ‘em to Thompson up there in the corner,” said Jeffords dully.

Eugene grasped one uncertainly in the middle with his thin, artistic hands. He did not know that there were ways of handling lumber just as there were ways of handling a brush. He tried to lift it but could not. The rough bark scratched his fingers cruelly.

“Yah gotta learn somepin about that before yuh begin, I guess,” said Jack Duncan, who had been standing by eyeing him narrowly.

Jeffords had gone about some other work.

“I suppose I don’t know very much about it,” replied Eugene shamefacedly stopping and waiting for further instructions.

“Lemme show you a trick,” said his associate. “There’s tricks in all these here trades. Take it by the end this-a-way, and push it along until you can stand it up. Stoop down now and put your shoulder right next the middle. Gotta pad under your shirt? You oughtta have one. Now put your right arm out ahead o’yuh, on the spile. Now you’re all right.”

Eugene straightened up and the rough post balanced itself evenly but crushingly on his shoulder. It appeared to grind his muscles and his back and legs ached instantly. He started bravely forward straining to appear at ease but within fifty feet he was suffering agony. He walked the length of the shop, however, up the stairs and back again to the window where Thompson was, his forehead bursting with perspiration and his ears red with blood. He fairly staggered as he neared the machine and dropped the post heavily.

188

THE “GENIUS” II

“Look what you’re doin’,” said a voice behind him. It was Thompson, the lathe worker. “Can’t you put that down easy?” “No, I can’t,” replied Eugene angrily, his face tinged with a faint blush from his extreme exertion. He was astonished and enraged to think they should put him to doing work like this, especially since Mr. Haverford had told him it would be easy. He suspected at once a plot to drive him away. He would have added “these are too damn heavy for me,” but he restrained himself. He went down stairs wondering how he was to get up the others. He fingered about the pole gingerly hoping that the time taken this way would ease his pain and give him strength for the next one. Finally he picked up another and staggered painfully to the loft again. The foreman had his eye on him but said nothing. It amused him a little to think Eugene was having such a hard time. It wouldn’t hurt him for a change, would do him good. “When he gets four carried up let him go,” he said to Thompson, however, feeling that he had best lighten the situation a little. The latter watched Eugene out of the tail of his eye noting the grimaces he made and the strain he was undergoing, but he merely smiled. When four had been dropped on the floor he said: “That’ll do for the present,” and Eugene, heaving a groan of relief, went angrily away. In his nervous, fantastic, imaginative and apprehensive frame of mind, he imagined he had been injured for life. He feared he

had strained a muscle or broken a blood vessel somewhere. “Good heavens, I can’t stand anything like this,” he thought.

“If the work is going to be this hard I’ll have to quit. I wonder what they mean by treating me this way. I didn’t come here to do this.”

189

THEODOR DREISER

Visions of days and weeks of back-breaking toil stretched before him. It would never do. He couldn’t stand it. He saw his old search for work coming back, and this frightened him in another direction. “I mustn’t give up so easily,” he counseled himself in spite of his distress. “I have to stick this out a little while anyhow.” It seemed in this first trying hour as though he were between the devil and the deep sea. He went slowly down into the yard to find Jeffords and Duncan. They were working at a car, one inside receiving lumber to be piled, the other bringing it to him.

“Get down, Bill,” said John, who was on the ground looking up at his partner indifferently. “You get up there, new man. What’s your name?”

“Witla,” said Eugene.

“Well, my name’s Duncan. We’ll bring this stuff to you and you pile it.”

It was more heavy lumber, as Eugene apprehensively observed, quarter cut joists for some building – “four by fours” they called them – but after he was shown the art of handling them they were not unmanageable. There were methods of sliding and balancing them which relieved him of a great quantity of labor. Eugene had not thought to provide himself with gloves though, and his hands were being cruelly torn. He stopped once to pick a splinter out of his thumb and Jeffords, who was coming up, asked, “Ain’t cha got no gloves?”

“No,” said Eugene, “I didn’t think to get any.”

“Your hands’ll get pretty well bunged up, I’m afraid. Maybe Joseph’ll let you have his for to-day, you might go in and ask him.”

“Where’s Joseph?” asked Eugene.

190