City Boy (41 page)

“Who's Lennie? I'm Nurse Geiger, dearie,” Lennie twittered. “That little fat Skipper next to you appointed me, dincha, Skipper Garbage?”

Cliff took his arm from Clever Sam's neck and walked close to Lennie. The watching boys became quiet. Several counselors were on the outskirts of the group now, but none interfered.

“All right, Lennie. You're gonna come with me and clean off that horse.”

“Why, Uncle Sandy,” said Lennie in falsetto, “I'm a nurse. I treat human beings, not horses.”

Cliff sprang at Lennie, wrapping his arms around him, and toppled him to the ground, falling on top of him. In a moment he was seated astride Lennie, pinning his arms with his knees.

“You gonna clean that horse?”

Lennie, astounded at being on his back, but not at all cowed, said, “Dear me, Uncle Sandy, how rough you play!”

A ringing slap across his face followed. Cliff's expression was peculiarly solemn, except at the instant of the slap, when he bared his teeth.

“Now you gonna clean that horse?”

Lennie heaved his body upward and threw Cliff off him. Both boys sprang to their feet. Lennie raised his fists in fighting position and danced angrily.

“Jump a guy when he ain't lookin' for it, huh?” he growled. “O.K., Cousin Garbage, come an' get murdered!”

One of the counselors shouted, “Uncle Sandy, shall I stop it?”

Uncle Sandy, still leaning in the doorway of Bunk Twelve only a few feet away, said, “If you mean me, my name is Cliff until five o'clock. Looks like Uncle Sandy's trying to maintain discipline in this camp by force. He'd better make it stick.”

Lennie punched Cliff lightly in the chest. Cliff put up his hands awkwardly and stood with legs spread wide apart. Three times more Lennie hit him, none very hard blows, and at last Cliff countered with a long swing that missed Lennie by a foot. The pugilist in the nurse's uniform laughed aloud and punched Cliff's head with all his might. Cliff staggered, and then jumped on Lennie and bore him to the dirt exactly as he had done before. Seated on top of him he began cuffing the athlete's face with echoing slaps that could have been heard in the near-by hills.

“Will you clean that horse? Will you clean that horse?
Will
you clean that horse?”

Lennie struggled and squirmed, but could not unseat his foe. Cliff's eyes were bloodshot and he made the same painful face each time he hit Lennie, as though an aching tooth were giving him twinges. Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Lennie made two supreme efforts to throw off his tormentor, arching his back and twisting, but Cliff clung to his seat. Slap! Slap! Lennie flattened to the ground.

“I'll clean him!” came a muffled shout from the model of Character.

At once Cliff stood, helped Lennie to his feet, and put out his hand to him.

“Friends, Lennie?” he said.

The athlete's gown was more black than white, and crumpled and torn. His hair hung in his eyes, and his cheeks showed fiery marks from the persuasion he had undergone. He glanced at Cliff from under contracted brows, looked around at the spectators, then touched Cliff's hand with his own and ran into his bungalow.

“I'm bringin' the horse to the stable,” Cliff called after him. “Come on up with me.”

“I'll come when I'm good and ready,” a surly voice answered from the bungalow.

Cliff pointed at one of the counselors in boys' clothes. “You, Peanuts Wishnik. If he ain't at the stable in ten minutes, you bring him up, please.”

“Sure, Uncle Sandy,” came the grinning reply.

But Lennie arrived at the stable under his own power only a minute or two after the cousins and the dispirited horse. Cliff had already begun to scrub Clever Sam with a large brush and a bucket of soapy warm water. He passed these implements to Lennie without a word, and while the athlete glumly set about erasing his mischief, Cliff walked to the head of the horse and embraced him.

“You'll be O.K. now, Clever Sam,” he said. “Well, so long. Good luck.” He patted the animal's nose and walked out of the stable.

Herbie hurried after him, exclaiming, “Holy cats, ain't you gonna say no more good-by to the horse than that?”

Cliff regarded his cousin with dulled eyes. “What else should I say?”

“Well, I thought you liked that horse.”

“Well, I do.”

“Shucks, tell him you're sorry you're leavin' him, an' you'll miss him, an' all that. Hey, didn't you ever read that poem, ‘An Arab's Farewell to His Steed’? I bet it's fifteen stanzas long. That guy really says good-by to the horse.”

Cliff said, “Yeah, we read it in 6B. That's just a poem.” He looked at the ground for a few moments. Then he added, “Herb, do me a favor, huh? Go down an' tell Uncle Sandy that I wanna be excused. You can give the orders from now on. There's only a coupla more hours, anyhow.”

He turned on his heel and walked back to the stable. Herbie stood irresolutely for a while, but curiosity overcame him. He went to the door and peeped in. Lennie was drying his hands on some old newspapers and walking toward the door with a surprised smile. And Cliff, with a much happier smile, was lovingly, silently washing Clever Sam.

It has been said already that Mr. Gauss was in the habit of vanishing for the duration of Campers' Day. The explanation he gave to himself and the counselors was that much as he regretted missing the fun, it was inconsistent with his “symbolic prestige” to join in horseplay.

Mr. Gauss made a great thing of his symbolic prestige. In his speech to the counselors at the start of each season he always trotted out the phrase and delivered a painstaking exposition of it. The gist of his annual remarks was that in his position of director he was not merely Mr. Gauss the man but a symbol of Camp Manitou, and as such he had to behave, and had to ask the counselors to behave, in ways that would constantly maintain his symbolic prestige. In coarse English this meant that the counselors were to show respect for him even if they didn't feel it. It was a sound administrative rule, and may be met with in all walks of life. Now, the truth is that Mr. Gauss's disappearance on Campers' Day was not entirely a matter of symbolic prestige. He could not swim and had a strong natural fear of the water, consequently he dreaded a ducking. This fact, however, was not mentioned.

The camp owner was lounging on his bed in the guest house, propped up with pillows, clad only in the inevitable khaki shorts, peacefully sipping iced coffee, and leafing through a four-week-old Sunday book-review section of the New York
Times.
Mr. Gauss was fond of book-review sections. In his weary pursuit of small monetary gains he found no time for reading, yet as an educator he was obliged to have some knowledge of current literature. The reviews gave him an acquaintance with titles and authors that served to work the necessary grace into his conversation. He was impressing his memory with the plot of a now-forgotten novel, which the reviewer compared favorably to the works of Dickens and Fielding, when there came a knock at the door. He glanced at his clock. It lacked an hour of five, when Campers' Day would end and it would be safe for him to sally forth.

“Who is it?” he called crossly.

The voice of the handy man said, “Mrs. Gloster just drove in with her chauffeur. He's parkin' the car an' she's sittin' on the veranda. Thought you'd like to know.”

Mr. Gauss leaped off the bed exclaiming, “Thanks, Elmer. Tell her I'll be right down, will you?”

“Um,” said the voice.

Mrs. Gloster was the mother of the unfortunate Daisy, and also of four girls, all of whom were campers. She was the richest of all the Manitou parents, and her patronage had brought in its wake perhaps a dozen children. This may explain why Mr. Gauss began dressing with a comical haste that would seriously have injured his symbolic prestige, had there been any onlookers. He flung on his best white flannel trousers, and a snowy short-sleeved shirt, and white socks, and freshly chalked white shoes that he had been saving for the homeward journey. He hastily combed his few strands of hair, crouching to see his image in the tilted mirror of the cheap dresser, and ran out of the room, snatching his green sun glasses from a shelf as he passed through the door.

Mrs. Gloster, a thin, small, bright-eyed lady wearing a smart gray traveling suit, sat in a wicker armchair on the veranda, smoking a cigarette and tapping her foot. Each year it was her practice to drive up to camp and take her children home by automobile to save them from the dirty, stuffy train ride which all the other children endured. She dropped the cigarette and crushed it with her toe as the camp owner approached.

“My dear Mrs. Gloster, how do you manage to keep so young? I declare you look more like one of my counselors than the mother of five wonderful children.”

Mrs. Gloster beamed. Her husband, immersed in the textile trade, paid her a huge allowance but no compliments.

“You look splendid yourself, Mr. Gauss. I can't understand how the responsibility for so many children agrees with you, but evidently it does. May I see Raymond now?” (Raymond was Daisy's name in the outside world.)

Mr. Gauss peeked apprehensively through a window of the veranda. The wall clock in the camp office read four-twenty.

“Ah—wouldn't you like to see the girls first? They're right here, you know. Then a little later—perhaps after dinner—a visit to the boys' camp?”

The wealthy lady made no objection. Mr. Gauss summoned a passing girl counselor and sent her flying to call the Gloster girls. Four squealing, giggling children came tumbling up the veranda steps a few minutes later. Unluckily for Mr. Gauss, all they could talk about was Raymond's comic appearance as the camp doctor. Poor Daisy had thrown heart and soul into the impersonation, which gave him something to do at last, and had caused a near riot of hilarity in the girls' camp by bursting in on the lunch hour brandishing a stethoscope and a hypodermic needle, and trying to inoculate everyone against “Gaussitis.” This description of her son in such fettle doubled Mrs. Gloster's anxiety to see him at once.

“Oh, it must be a perfect scream. Do let's go down the hill now, Mr. Gauss,” she said.

Mr. Gauss looked through the window again. Twenty minutes to five.

“I'll be delighted, of course, to escort you down to the boys' camp. Just let's have a nice refreshing cup of tea first. You've been through a long, hot drive—”

“Better hurry, Ma,” broke in one of the girls. “Campers' Day is over five o'clock.”

The mother said, “Why, Mr. Gauss, let's just skip the tea,” but Mr. Gauss was already dancing backward through the entrance.

“It won't take a minute, not a minute,” he insisted archly, wagging a finger at her as he disappeared. Nevertheless, he hoped it would take twenty. He told the cook, a weary, gray-haired woman in a white smock, to serve tea for two on the veranda, and came outside again, confident of the usual delay of a quarter of an hour. But it happened that the cook was brewing some for herself, and, impatient at the interruption, hurried to bring out the tea so as to be able to drink her own at leisure. Mr. Gauss was flabbergasted to see a tray, tea service for two, and the cook emerge from the door some forty seconds after himself. The mother gulped her tea in a few moments and set down her cup and saucer with a meaningful clink. Mr. Gauss dawdled. Mrs. Gloster curtly sent her daughters scampering off to their bungalows. She stood, straightened her skirt, pulled in her belt, and walked to the steps of the veranda. Still Mr. Gauss sipped and sipped. And well he might. It lacked twelve minutes to five.

“You know,” he sighed, “I wonder sometimes whether lovely ladies of social position like yourself, Mrs. Gloster, don't miss some of the quiet pleasures of life as you dash through the mad whirl. Now, a cup of tea, with me, is a ritual.”

“Mr. Gauss, you may teach manners to my children, but I'm a little old for correction. Your ritual is taking an awfully long time.”

The camp owner perceived that he had blundered. He clattered the cup and saucer to the table and rose. “My dear Mrs. Gloster, by all means let us go. I had no idea—really, you quite misunderstood me. I wish all our parents had one-tenth the polish and gracefulness of yourself. If I made an unfortunate choice of language I regret it, but what I meant—” He smoothed the path down the hill with many apologies and blandishments.

The camp was empty of boys, and silent. The slant afternoon sun cast parallel rays between the walls of the bungalows across the deserted gravel street.

“Why, Mr. Gauss, where can the boys be?”

“Ah—down at the waterfront, I believe.”

Said the mother with a delighted cry, “Oh, they're ducking Uncle Sandy!” (The girls had told her about it.) “Come, come, we must see that!”

She took the camp owner's arm and dragged him along the path. When they came to the shore, they saw a group of Seniors and Super-seniors marching up the dock, carrying the horizontal limp form of Uncle Sandy high in the air, and chanting,

“In the water he must go,

He must go,

He must go.

In the water he must go,

My fair Sandy.”

The rest of the campers lined the beach in disorder, cheering and laughing. Herbie Bookbinder, in green glasses and feather headdress, stood at the end of the dock with folded arms. The Seniors brought Uncle Sandy before him. Yishy cried, “What'll we do with him, Skipper?”