The Turmoil (22 page)

He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating—little regarding the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside. His throat rumbled thunderously; the words came with stormy bitterness. “You think this is a time for young men to be lyin’ on beds of ease? I tell you there never was such a time before; there never was such opportunity. The sluggard is despoiled while he sleeps—yes, by George! if a may lays down they’ll eat him before he wakes!—but the live man can build straight up till he touches the sky! This is the business man’s day; it used to be the soldier’s day and the statesman’s day, but this is OURS! And it ain’t a Sunday to go fishin’—it’s turmoil! turmoil!— and you got to go out and live it and breathe it and MAKE it yourself, or you’ll only be a dead man walkin’ around dreamin’ you’re alive. And that’s what my son Bibbs has been doin’ all his life, and what he’d rather do now than go out and do his part by me. And if anything happens to Roscoe—”

“Oh, do stop worryin’ over such nonsense,” Mrs. Sheridan interrupted, irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment. “There isn’t anything goin’ to happen to Roscoe, and you’re just tormentin’ yourself about nothin’. Aren’t you EVER goin’ to bed?”

Sheridan halted. “All right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. “Let’s go up.” And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy glow of the fire.

“Did you speak to Roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her drowsiness. “Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?”

“No. I will to-morrow.”

But Roscoe did not come down-town the next day, nor the next; nor did Sheridan see fit to enter his son’s house. He waited. Then, on the fourth day of the month, Roscoe walked into his father’s office at nine in the morning, when Sheridan happened to be alone.

“They told me down-stairs you’d left word you wanted to see me.”

“Sit down,” said Sheridan, rising.

Roscoe sat. His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and then walked away, smiling bitterly. “Boh!” he exclaimed. “Still at it!”

“Yes,” said Roscoe. “I’ve had a couple of drinks this morning. What about it?”

“I reckon I better adopt some decent young man,” his father returned. “I’d bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. I would!”

“Better do it,” Roscoe assently, sullenly.

“When’d you begin this thing?”

“I always did drink a little. Ever since I grew up, that is.”

“Leave that talk out! You know what I mean.”

“Well, I don’t know as I ever had too much in office hours—until the other day.”

Sheridan began cutting. “It’s a lie. I’ve had Ray Wills up from your office. He didn’t want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him, and he came through. You were drunk twice before and couldn’t work. You been leavin’ your office for drinks every few hours for the last three weeks. I been over your books. Your office is way behind. You haven’t done any work, to count, in a month.”

“All right,” said Roscoe, drooping under the torture. “It’s all true.”

“What you goin’ to do about it?”

Roscoe’s head was sunk between his shoulders. “I can’t stand very much talk about it, father,” he said, pleadingly.

“No!” Sheridan cried. “Neither can I! What do you think it means to ME?” He dropped into the chair at his big desk, groaning. “I can’t stand to talk about it any more’n you can to listen, but I’m goin’ to find out what’s the matter with you, and I’m goin’ to straighten you out!”

Roscoe shook his head helplessly.

“You can’t straighten me out.”

“See here!” said Sheridan. “Can you go back to your office and stay sober to-day, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple o’ huskies to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o’ your hand if they see you tryin’ to take it?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” said Roscoe, looking up with a faint resentment. “I’m not drinking because I’ve got a thirst.”

“Well, what have you got?”

“Nothing. Nothing you can do anything about. Nothing, I tell you.”

“We’ll see about that!” said Sheridan, harshly. “Now I can’t fool with you to-day, and you get up out o’ that chair and get out o’ my office. You bring your wife to dinner to-morrow. You didn’t come last Sunday—but you come to-morrow. I’ll talk this out with you when the women-folks are workin’ the phonograph, after dinner. Can you keep sober till then? You better be sure, because I’m going to send Abercrombie down to your office every little while, and he’ll let me know.”

Roscoe paused at the door. “You told Abercrombie about it?” he asked.

“TOLD him!” And Sheridan laughed hideously. “Do you suppose there’s an elevator-boy in the whole dam’ building that ain’t on to you?”

Roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out.

“WHO looks a mustang in the eye? Changety, chang, chang! Bash! Crash! BANG!”

So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen because of the noise of the machinery. He had discovered long ago that the uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the afternoon of the fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the swing and clash of the metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling improvisations of his own among them, and mocking the zinc-eater’s crash with vocal imitations:

Fearless and bold, Chang! Bash! Behold! With a leap from the ground to the saddle in a bound, And away—and away! Hi-YAY! WHO looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang! WHO cares a dash how you bash and you crash? NIGHT’S on the way EACH time I say, Hi-YAY! Crash, chang! Bash, chang! Chang, bang, BANG!

The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the air was thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually; everything was implacably in motion—nowhere was there a rest for the dizzied eye. The first time he had entered the place Bibbs had become dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea to faintness. But he felt neither now. “ALL DAY LONG I’LL SEND MY THOUGHTS TO YOU. YOU MUST KEEP REMEMBERING THAT YOUR FRIEND STANDS BESIDE YOU.” He saw her there beside him, and the greasy, roaring place became suffused with radiance. The poet was happy in his machine-shop; he was still a poet there. And he fed his old zinc-eater, and sang:

Away—and away! Hi-YAHa ! Crash, bash, crash, bash, CHANGa ! Wild are his eyes, Fiercely he dies! Hi-YAH! Crash, bash, bang! Bash, CHANG! Ready to fling Our gloves in the ring—

He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen. Their great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him standing with Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs. Sheridan nodded to those nearest him—he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of them—but he kept his attention upon his son. Bibbs worked steadily, never turning from his machine. Now and then he varied his musical programme with remarks addressed to the zinc-eater.

“Go on, you old crash-basher! Chew it up! It’s good for you, if you don’t try to bolt your vittles. Fletcherize, you pig! That’s right —YOU’LL never get a lump in your gizzard. Want some more? Here’s a nice, shiny one.”

The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to Gurney’s ear and shouted fiercely: “Talkin’ to himself! By George!”

Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.

Bibbs returned to song:

Chang! Chang, bash, chang! It’s I! WHO looks a mustang in the eye? Fearless and bo—

His father grasped him by the arm. “Here!” he shouted. “Let ME show you how to run a strip through there. The foreman says you’re some better’n you used to be, but that’s no way to handle—Get out the way and let me show you once.”

“Better be careful,” Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.

“Careful? Boh!” Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box. “What you talkin’ to yourself about? Tryin’ to make yourself think you’re so abused you’re goin’ wrong in the head?”

“‘Abused’? No!” shouted Bibbs. “I was SINGING—because I ‘like it’! I told you I’d come back and ‘like it.’”

Sheridan may not have understood. At all events, he made no reply, but began to run the strip of zinc through the machine. He did it awkwardly—and with bad results.

“Here!” he shouted. “This is the way. Watch how I do it. There’s nothin’ to it, if you put your mind on it.” By his own showing then his mind was not upon it. He continued to talk. “All you got to look out for is to keep it pressed over to—”

“Don’t run your hand up with it,” Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.

“Run nothin’! You GOT to—”

“Look out!” shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang forward. But Sheridan’s right hand had followed the strip too far, and the zinc-eater had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers. He swore vehemently, and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops over himself and Bibbs, but Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:

“Come out of here. Come over to the lavatory in the office. Bibbs, fetch my bag. It’s in my machine, outside.”

And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor still grasping Sheridan’s wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin. Sheridan had lost color, and temper, too. He glared over his shoulder at his son as the latter handed the bag to Gurney.

“You go on back to your work,” he said. “I’ve had worse snips than that from a pencil-sharpener.”

“Oh no, you haven’t!” said Gurney.

“I have, too!” Sheridan retorted, angrily. “Bibbs, you go on back to your work. There’s no reason to stand around here watchin’ ole Doc Gurney tryin’ to keep himself awake workin’ on a scratch that only needs a little court-plaster. I slipped, or it wouldn’t happened. You get back on your job.”

“All right,” said Bibbs.

“HERE!” Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door. “You watch out when you’re runnin’ that machine! You hear what I say? I slipped, or I wouldn’t got scratched, but you—YOU’RE liable to get your whole hand cut off! You keep your eyes open!”

“Yes, sir.” And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.

Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him outside, where conversation was possible. “I sent him home, Bibbs. He’ll have to be careful of that hand. Go get your overalls off. I’ll take you for a drive and leave you at home.”

“Can’t,” said Bibbs. “Got to stick to my job till the whistle blows.”

“No, you don’t,” the doctor returned, smothering a yawn. “He wants me to take you down to my office and give you an overhauling to see how much harm these four days on the machine have done you. I guess you folks have got that old man pretty thoroughly upset, between you, up at your house! But I don’t need to go over you. I can see with my eyes half shut—”

“Yes,” Bibbs interrupted, “that’s what they are.”

“I say I can see you’re starting out, at least, in good shape. What’s made the difference?”

“I like the machine,” said Bibbs. “I’ve made a friend of it. I serenade it and talk to it, and then it talks back to me.”

“Indeed, indeed? What does it say?”

“What I want to hear.”

“Well, well!” The doctor stretched himself and stamped his foot repeatedly. “Better come along and take a drive with me. You can take the time off that he allowed for the examination, and—”

“Not at all,” said Bibbs. “I’m going to stand by my old zinc-eater till five o’clock. I tell you I LIKE it!”

“Then I suppose that’s the end of your wanting to write.”

“I don’t know about that,” Bibbs said, thoughtfully; “but the zinc-eater doesn’t interfere with my thinking, at least. It’s better than being in business; I’m sure of that. I don’t want anything to change. I’d be content to lead just the life I’m leading now to the end of my days.”

“You do beat the devil!” exclaimed Gurney. “Your father’s right when he tells me you’re a mystery. Perhaps the Almighty knew what He was doing when He made you, but it takes a lot of faith to believe it! Well, I’m off. Go on back to your murdering old machine.” He climbed into his car, which he operated himself, but he refrained from setting it immediately in motion. “Well, I rubbed it in on the old man that you had warned him not to slide his hand along too far, and that he got hurt because he didn’t pay attention to your warning, and because he was trying to show you how to do something you were already doing a great deal better than he could. You tell him I’ll be around to look at it and change the dressing to-morrow morning. Good-by.”

But when he paid the promised visit, the next morning, he did more than change the dressing upon the damaged hand. The injury was severe of its kind, and Gurney spent a long time over it, though Sheridan was rebellious and scornful, being brought to a degree of tractability only by means of horrible threats and talk of amputation. However, he appeared at the dinner-table with his hand supported in a sling, which he seemed to regard as an indignity, while the natural inquiries upon the subject evidently struck him as deliberate insults. Mrs. Sheridan, having been unable to contain her solicitude several times during the day, and having been checked each time in a manner that blanched her cheek, hastened to warn Roscoe and Sibyl, upon their arrival at five, to omit any reference to the injury and to avoid even looking at the sling if they possibly could.

The Sheridans dined on Sundays at five. Sibyl had taken pains not to arrive either before or after the hand was precisely on the hour; and the members of the family were all seated at the table within two minutes after she and Roscoe had entered the house.

It was a glum gathering, overhung with portents. The air seemed charged, awaiting any tiny ignition to explode; and Mrs. Sheridan’s expression, as she sat with her eyes fixed almost continually upon her husband, was that of a person engaged in prayer. Edith was pale and intent. Roscoe looked ill; Sibyl looked ill; and Sheridan looked both ill and explosive. Bibbs had more color than any of these, and there was a strange brightness, like a light, upon his face. It was curious to see anything so happy in the tense gloom of that household.

Edith ate little, but gazed nearly all the time at her plate. She never once looked at Sibyl, though Sibyl now and then gave her a quick glance, heavily charged, and then looked away. Roscoe ate nothing, and, like Edith, kept his eyes upon his plate and made believe to occupy himself with the viands thereon, loading his fork frequently, but not lifting it to his mouth. He did not once look at his father, though his father gazed heavily at him most of the time. And between Edith and Sibyl, and between Roscoe and his father, some bitter wireless communication seemed continually to be taking place throughout the long silences prevailing during this enlivening ceremony of Sabbath refection.