Still Jim, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  JIM FINDS SARA AND PEN

  "Since time began Indians have climbed my back and have cried their joys and sorrows to the sky. I wonder who has heard!"

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  Mr. Dennis laughed. He still was holding Jim's hand "May I ask her?" hesaid to Jim.

  Jim nodded, though his eyes were startled. Suddenly Mr. Dennis droppedJim's hand and threw his arm across the boy's shoulders. The two stoodfacing Mrs. Manning.

  "Mrs. Manning," began the Irishman, "I think you feel that I admire andrespect you. I am a lonely man. I asked Jim if I could ask you to marryme, earlier in the evening. He said, No! No one should take his father'splace. I told him you and I had lived through too much to dream offalling in love again, but that old age was a lonely thing. I need youand when Jim finishes school and goes, you'll need me, Mrs. Manning. Ican send Jim through college and give him a right start. Will you marryme, say in a day or two, without any fuss, Mrs. Manning?"

  The little widow's face was flushed. "What made you change, Jim?" sheexclaimed. "I couldn't love anyone but your father."

  Jim nodded. "I didn't realize then that my work would take me away fromyou. You know a man's job is very important, Mama. I want to get someoneto take care of you while I build bridges, for I've _got to build them_.I can send you money but I want a man to be looking out for you."

  Mr. Dennis' eyes twinkled but he waited.

  "It's only a year since your father died. I never could care for anyoneelse," said Mrs. Manning.

  "It's ten years since Mrs. Dennis and the babies died," said Dennis. "Inever could love anyone as I did the three of them. But you and I suiteach other comfortably, Mrs. Manning. We'd be a great comfort to eachother and we can do some good things for Still Jim. You must try to givehim his chance. It's a sad boyhood he's having, Mrs. Manning. Let's givehim the chance he can't have unless you marry me."

  Mrs. Manning looked at Jim. His face still was eager but there were darkrings around his eyes that came from nerve strain. He was too thin andshe saw for the first time that his shoulders were rounding. Mr. Dennisfollowed up his advantage.

  "Look at his hands, Mrs. Manning. Hard work has knocked them up too muchfor his age. He should have his chance to play if he's to do good bodyand brain work later. Let's give his father's son a chance! Don't youthink his father would approve?"

  "Oh, but I'm going to keep on working and supporting myself!" cried Jim."I just wanted you to look out for Mama."

  "Well, I guess not!" cried Mrs. Manning, vehemently. "You'll comestraight out of that foundation tomorrow. You are going to have yourchance. Oh, Jim dear! I hadn't realized how little happiness you've beenhaving!"

  Jim shook his head. "I can support myself."

  Mrs. Manning sniffed. "How can you be a good engineer out in that awfulrough country unless you have the best kind of a physical foundation?Use sense, Jimmy."

  This was a master stroke. Jim wavered, then caught his left ankle in hishand and hopped about like a happy frog.

  "Gee whiz!" he cried. "I'll enter the try-out squad the first thing. Ibet I can make school quarter back."

  Mr. Dennis cut in neatly. "It might just as well take place tomorrow andthe three of us can take a month at the seashore. I'll bet Jim hassighed for the old swimming hole lately."

  The little widow looked at Mr. Dennis long and keenly, then she rose andheld out her hand while she said very deliberately:

  "You are a good man, Michael Dennis. I thank you for me and mine andI'll be a comfort to you as you are being to me. I'm not going topretend I'd do this if it wasn't for Jim. I can't love you, but you loveJim and that's enough for me."

  And so Jim was given his chance.

  He spent the rest of the summer at the shore and entered school in thefall with a new interest. With the unexpected lift of the money burdenfrom his shoulders, Jim began to make up for his lost play. Football andtrack work, debating societies and glee-clubs straightened his roundshoulders and found him friends. Most important of all, he ceased tobrood for a time over his Exham problems.

  Jim's stepfather, whom the boy called Uncle Denny, took a pride andinterest in the boy that sometimes brought the tears to his mother'seyes. It seemed to her that the warm-hearted Irishman gave to Jim allthe love that the death of his family had left unsatisfied. And Jim, inhis undemonstrative way, returned Mr. Dennis' affection. He shared withhis Uncle Denny his growing ideals on engineering. He rehearsed hisdebating society speeches on his Uncle Denny, who endured them withenthusiasm. He and his Uncle Denny worked out some marvelous footballtactics when Jim as a senior in the high school became captain of theschool team. Often of an evening Jim's mother would come upon the two inthe library, flat on their backs before the grate in a companionshipthat needed and found no words.

  At such times she would say, "Michael, you didn't marry me. You marriedJim."

  And Dennis would look up at her with a smile of understanding that shereturned.

  When Jim was a freshman in Columbia, he acquired a chum. It was not achum who took the place of Phil Chadwick. Nothing in after life everfills the hollow left by the first friendship of childhood and Phil washallowed in Jim's memory along with all the beauties of the swimminghole and the quiet elms around the old Exham mansions.

  But Jim's new chum gave him his first opportunity at hero-worship, whichis an essential step in a boy's growth. The young man's name was GeorgeSaradokis. His mates called him Sara. His mother was a Franco-American,his father was a Greek, a real estate man in the Greek section of NewYork. Sara confided to Jim, early in their acquaintance, that his fatherwas the disinherited son of a nobleman and that he, the grandson, wouldbe his grandfather's heir. The glamour of this possible inheritance didnot detract at all from the romance of the new friendship in Jim'scredulous young eyes.

  Sara was halfback on the freshman football team, while Jim playedquarterback. The two were of a height, six feet, but Jim still wasslender. Sara was broad and heavy. He was very Greek--that is, modernGreek, which has little racially or temperamentally in common with theancient Greek. He was a brilliant student, yet of a commerciality ofmind that equalled that of any Jewish student in the class.

  Both the boys were good trackmen. Both were good students. Both wereplanning to be engineers. But, temperamentally, they were as far apartas the two countries whence came their father's stock.

  Uncle Denny did not approve fully of Saradokis, but finally he decidedthat it was good for Jim to overcome some of his New England prejudiceagainst the immigrant class and he encouraged the young Greek to come tothe house.

  It was when Jim was a freshman, too, that Penelope came from Colorado tolive with her Uncle Denny. Her father, Uncle Denny's brother, hadmarried a little Scotch girl and they had made a bare living from asmall mine, up in the mountains, until a fatal attack of pneumoniaclaimed them both in a single month. Penelope stayed on at a girl'sschool in Denver for a year. Then, Jim's mother urging it, Mr. Dennissent for her. Jim, absorbed in the intricate business of being afreshman, did not give much heed to the preparations for her coming.

  One spring evening he sauntered into the library to wait for the dinnerbell. As he strolled over to the fireplace, he saw a slender young girlsitting in the Morris chair.

  "Oh, hello!" said Jim.

  "Hello!" said the young girl, rising.

  The two calmly eyed each other. Jim saw a graceful girl, three or fouryears younger than himself, with a great braid of chestnut hair hangingover one shoulder. She had a round face that ended in a pointed chin, agenerous mouth, a straight little nose and a rich glow of color in hercheeks. These details Jim noted only casually, for his attention wasfocused almost immediately on her eyes. For years after, whenever Jimthought of Penelope, he thought of a halo of chestnut hair about eyes ofa deep hazel; eyes that were large, almost too large, for the littleround face; eyes that were steady and clear and black sometimes withfeeling or with a fleeting s
hadow of melancholy that did not belong toher happy youth.

  Penelope saw a tall lad in a carefully dressed Norfolk suit. He had along, thin, tanned face, with a thick mop of soft hair falling acrosshis forehead, a clear gaze and a flashing, wistful, fascinatingly sweetsmile as he repeated:

  "Hello, Penelope!"

  "Hello, Still Jim!" replied the girl, while her round cheeks showeddimples that for a moment made Jim forget her eyes.

  "Uncle Denny's been busy, I see," said Jim.

  Then he was speechless. He had not reached the "girl stage" as yet.Penelope was not disturbed. She continued to look Jim over, almostunblinkingly. Then Jim, to his own astonishment, suddenly found histongue.

  "I'm glad you've come," he said abruptly. "I'm going to think a lot ofyou, I can see that."

  He held out his hand and Penelope slipped her slender fingers into hishard young fists. Jim did not let the little hand go for a minute. Thetwo looked at each other clearly.

  "I'm glad I'm here," said Penelope. Then she dimpled. "And I'm gladyou're nice, because Uncle Denny told me that if I didn't like you I'dshow myself no judge of boys. When I giggled, I know he wanted to slapme."

  Jim's smile flashed and Penelope wondered what she liked best about it,his white teeth, his merriness or his wistfulness.

  "There's the dinner bell!" exclaimed Jim. "As Uncle Denny says, I'm sohungry me soul is hanging by a string. Come on, Penelope."

  Penelope entered Jim's life as simply and as easily as Saradokis did.

  Sara charmed both Jim and Penelope. His physical beauty alone was athing to fascinate far harsher critics than these two who grew to be hisspecial friends. His hair was tawny and thick and wavy. His eyes wereblack and bright. His mouth was small and perfectly cut. His cleft chinwas square and so was his powerful jaw. He carried himself like anIndian and his strength was like that of the lover in Solomon's song.

  Added to this was the romance of his grandfather. This story enthralledlittle Pen, who at fourteen was almost bowled over by the thought thatsome day Sara might be a duke.

  Sara's keen mind, his commercial cleverness had a strong hold on Jim,who lacked the money-making instinct. Jim quoted Sara a good deal atfirst to Uncle Denny, whose usual comment was a grunt.

  "Sara says it's a commercial age. If you don't get out and rustle moneyyou might as well get off the earth."

  A grunt from Uncle Denny.

  "Well, but Uncle Denny, you can't deny he's right."

  The Irishman's reply was indirect. "Remember, me boy, that the chiefvalue of a college education is to set your standards, to make yourideals. These four years are the high-water mark of your life'sidealism. You never'll get higher. Anything else you are taught incollege you'll have to learn over another way after you get out to buckreal life."

  Jim thought this over for a time, then he said: "Do you ever talk to Penlike you do to me? It would do her good."

  Uncle Denny sniffed. "Don't you worry about Pen's ideas. She's got thebest mind I ever found in a girl. When she gets past the giggling age,you'll learn a few things from her, me boy."

  Penelope chummed with the two boys impartially as far as Dennis or Jim'smother could perceive. The girl with her common sense and herfoolishness and her youthfulness was an inexpressible joy to Jim'smother, who always had longed for a daughter. She had dreams about Jimand Pen that she confided to no one and she looked on Penelope'simpartiality with a jealous eye.

  Until Pen was sixteen the boys were content to share her equally. Theywere finishing their junior year when Pen's sixteenth birthday arrived.It fell on a Saturday, and Jim and Sara cut Saturday morning classes andinvited Penelope to a day at Coney Island. Uncle Denny and Jim's motherwere to meet the trio for supper and return with them.

  It was a June morning fit to commemorate, Sara said, even Pen'sbirthday. The three, carrying their bathing suits, caught the 8 o'clockboat at 129th street, prepared to do the weather and the occasion fulljustice. The crowd was not great on this early boat until the Batterywas reached. Then all the world rushed up the gang plank; Jew andGentile crowded for the best places. Italian women, with babies, draggedafter husbands with lunch baskets. Stout Irish matrons looked with scornon the "foreigners" and did great devastation in claiming camp stools.Very young Jewish girls and boys were the most conspicuous element inthe crowd, but there were groups of gentle Armenians, of Syrians, ofChinese and parties of tourists with field glasses and cameras.

  "And every one of them claims to be an American," said Jim.

  Penelope nudged Sara. "Look at Jim's New England nose," she chuckled. "Idon't see how he can see anything but the sky."

  Jim did not heed Pen's remarks. Pen and Sara laughed. They were thrilledby the very cosmopolitan aspect of the crowd. They responded to a senseof world citizenship to which Jim was an utter alien.

  "Make 'em a speech, Jim!" cried Sara, as the boat got under way again."Make the eagle scream. It's a bully place for a speech. The poor devilscan't get away from you."

  Jim grinned. Pen, her eyes twinkling, joined in with Sara. "He's toolazy. He's a typical American. He'll roast the immigrants but he won'tdo anything. It's a dare, Jim."

  Sara shouted, "It's a dare, Still! Go to it! Pen and I dare you to makethe boat a speech."

  Jim was still smiling but his eyes narrowed. The old boyhood code stillheld in college. The "taker" of a dare was no sportsman. And there wassomething deeper than this that suddenly spoke; the desire of his raceto force his ideas on others, the same desire that had made his fathertalk to the men in the quarry at Exham. With a sudden swing of his longlegs he mounted a pile of camp chairs and balanced himself with a handon Sara's shoulder.

  "Shut up!" he shouted. "Everybody shut up and listen to me!"

  It was the old dominating note. Those of the crowd that heard his voiceturned to look. It was a vivid group they saw; the tall boy, with thin,eager face, fine gray eyes and a flashing wistful smile that caught theheart, and with a steadying arm thrown round Jim's thighs, the Greeklad, with his uncovered hair liquid gold in the June sun, his beautifulbrown face flushed and laughing, while crowded close to Sara was thepink-cheeked girl, her face upturned to look at Jim.

  "Hey! Everybody! Keep still and listen to me!" repeated Jim.

  In the hush that came, the chatter in the cabin below and the rear decksounded remote.

  "I've been appointed a committee of one to welcome you to America!"cried Jim. "Welcome to our land. And when you get tired of New York,remember that it's not in America. America lies beyond the Hudson. Enjoyyourselves. Take everything that isn't nailed down."

  "Who gave the country to you, kid?" asked a voice in the crowd.

  "My ancestors who, three hundred years ago, stole it from the Indians,"answered Jim with a smile.

  A roar of laughter greeted this. "How'd you manage to keep it so long?"asked someone else.

  "Because you folks hadn't heard of it," replied the boy.

  Another roar of laughter and someone else called, "Good speech. Take upa collection for the young fellow to get his hair cut with."

  Jim tossed the hair out of his eyes and gravely pointed back to themarvelous outline of the statue of Liberty, black against the sky. "Takea collection and drink hope to that, my friends. It is the mostmagnificent experiment in the world's history, and you have taken it outof our hands."

  There was a sudden hush, followed by hand clapping, during which Jimslipped down. Sara gave him a bear hug. "Oh, Still Jim, you're the lightof my weary eyes! Did he call our bluff, Pen, huh?"

  There was something more than laughter in Pen's eyes as she replied:

  "I'm never sure whether Still was cut out to be an auctioneer or apolitician."

  "Gosh!" exclaimed Jim, "let's get some ginger ale."

  The day rushed on as if in a wild endeavor to keep up with the June windwhich beat up and down the ocean and across Coney Island, urging thetrio on to its maddest. They shot the chutes until, maudlin withlaughter, they took to a merry-go-round. When they were ill
fromwhirling, Sara led the way to the bucking staircase. This was a style ofseveral steps arranged to buck at unexpected intervals. The movement sobefuddled the climber that he consistently took a step backward forevery step forward until at last, goaded by the huge laughter of thewatching crowd, he fairly fell to the opposite side of the staircase.

  It was before this seductive phenomenon that the three paused. The crowdwas breathlessly watching the struggles of a very fat, very red-headedwoman who chewed gum in exact rhythm with the bucking of the staircase,while she firmly marked time on the top of the stairs.

  Sara gave a chuckle and, closely followed by Jim and Pen, he mounted thestile. He was balked by the red-headed woman who towered high above him.Sara reached up and touched her broad back.

  "Walk right ahead, madam," he urged. "You're holding us back."

  The fat woman obediently took a wild step forward, the stair bucked andshe stepped firmly backward and sat down violently on Sara's head. Penand Jim roared with the crowd. The red-headed woman scrambled to thetopmost stair again, then turned and shook her fist in Sara's face.

  "Don't you touch me again, you brute!" she screamed. Then she summonedall her energies and took another dignified step upward. Again thestairs bucked. Again the fat woman sat down on Sara's hat. Again theonlookers were overwhelmed with laughter. Pen and Jim feebly supportedeach other as they rode up and down on the lower step. Sara pushed thewoman off his head and again she turned on him.

  "There! You made me swallow my gum! And I'll bet you call yourself agentleman!"

  Sara, red-faced but grinning, took a mighty step upward, gripped thewoman firmly around the waist and lifted her down the opposite side ofthe stile. Pen and Jim followed with a mad scramble. For a moment itlooked as if the red-headed woman would murder Sara. But as she lookedat his young beauty her middle-aged face was etched by a gold-toothedsmile.

  "Gee, that's more fun than I've had for a year!" she exclaimed and shemelted into helpless laughter.

  Coney Island is of no value to the fastidious or the lazy. Coney Islandbelongs to those who have the invaluable gift of knowing how to befoolish, who have felt the soul-purging quality of huge laughter, therevivifying power of play. Lawyers and pickpockets, speculators andlaborers, poets and butchers, chorus girls and housewives at ConeyIsland find one common level in laughter. Every wholesome human beingloves the clown.

  Spent with laughing, Pen finally suggested lunch, and Jim led the way toan open-air restaurant.

  "Let's," he said with an air of inspiration, "eat lunch backward. Beginwith coffee and cheese and ice cream and pie and end with clam chowderand pickles."

  "Nothing could be more perfect!" exclaimed Pen enthusiastically, and asnothing surprises a Coney Islander waiter, they reversed the menu.

  When they could hold no more, they strolled down to the beach and sat inthe sand. The crowd was very thick here. Nearly everyone was in abathing suit. Women lolled, half-naked in the sand, while their escorts,still more scantily clad, sifted sand over them. Unabashed couplesembraced each other, rubbing elbows with other embracing pairs. The windblew the smell of hot, wet humans across Jim's face. He looked at Pen'ssweet face, now a little round-eyed and abashed in watching theunashamed crowd. It was the first time that Mrs. Manning had allowed Pento go to Coney Island without her careful eye.

  Jim said, with a slow red coming into his cheeks, "Let's get out ofhere, Sara."

  "Why, we just got here," replied Sara. "Let's get into our suits andhave some fun."

  "Pen'll not get into a bathing suit with these muckers," answered Jim,slowly.

  Pen, who had been thinking the same thing, immediately resented Jim'stone. "Of course I shall," she replied airily. "You can't boss me, Jim."

  "That's right, Pen," agreed Sara. "Let old Prunes sit here and swelter.You and I will have a dip."

  Pen rose and she and Sara started toward the bath house. Jim took a longstride round in front of the two.

  "Sara, do as you please," he drawled. "Penelope will stay here withme."