The Web and The Root (5 page)

It is a kind of torpid stagnancy of life, it is a hopelessness of hope, a dull, numb lifelessness of life! It is like looking at a pool of stagnant water in the dull torpor of the light of three o’clock. It is like being
where no green is, where no cool is, where there is no song of unseen birds, where there is no sound of cool and secret waters, no sound of rock-bright, foaming waters; like being where no gold and green and sudden magic is, to be called out to do
little
things at three o’clock.

Ah, Christ, could we make speech say what no speech utters, could we make tongue speak what no tongue says! Could we enlighten their enkitchened lives with a revealing utterance, then they would never send us out to do a
little
thing at three o’clock.

We are a kind that hate clay banks in afternoon, the look of cinders, grimy surfaces, old blistered clapboard houses, the train yards and the coaches broiling on the tracks. We loathe the sight of concrete walls, the fly-speckled windows of the Greek, the strawberry horror of the row of lukewarm soda-pop. At this hour of the day we sicken at the Greek’s hot window, at his greasy frying plate that
fries
and oozes with a loathsome sweat in the full torpor of the sun. We hate the row of greasy frankfurters that
sweat
and
ooze
there on the torpid plate, the loathsome pans all oozing with a stew of greasy onions, mashed potatoes, and hamburger steaks. We loathe the Greek’s swart features in the light of three o’clock, the yellowed pock-marked pores that sweat in the hot light. We hate the light that shines on motor cars at three o’clock, we hate white plaster surfaces, new stucco houses, and most open places where there are no trees.

We must have coolness, dankness, darkness; we need gladed green and gold and rock-bright running waters at the hour of three o’clock. We must go down into the coolness of a concrete cellar. We like dark shade, and cool, dark smells, and cool, dark, secret places, at the hour of three o’clock. We like cool, strong smells with some cool staleness at that hour. Man smells are good at three o’clock. We like to remember the smells of all things that were in our father’s room: the dank, cool pungency of the plug of apple tobacco on the mantelpiece, bit into at one end, and struck with a bright red flag; the smell of the old mantelpiece, the wooden clock, the old calf bindings of a few old books; the smell of the rocking chair, the rug, the walnut bureau, and the cool, dark smell of clothing in the closet.

At this hour of the day we like the smell of old unopened rooms, old packing cases, tar, and the smell of the grape vines on the cool side of the house. If we go out, we want to go out in green shade and gladed coolnesses, to lie down on our bellies underneath the maple trees and work our toes down into the thick green grass. If we have to go to town we want to go to places like our uncle’s hardware store, where we can smell the cool, dark cleanliness of nails, hammers, saws, tools, T-squares, implements of all sorts; or to a saddle shop where we can get the smell of leather; or to our father’s brick and lumber yard where we can get the smells of putty, glass, and clean white pine, the smell of the mule-teams, and the lumber sheds. It is also good to go into the cool glade of the drug store at this hour, to hear the cool, swift slatting of the wooden fans, and to smell the citrus pungency of lemons, limes, and oranges, the sharp and clean excitements of unknown medicines.

The smell of a street car at this hour of day is also good—a dynamic smell of motors, wood work, rattan seats, worn brass, and steel-bright flanges. It is a smell of drowsy, warm excitement, and a nameless beating of the heart; it speaks of going somewhere. If we go anywhere at this hour of day, it is good to go to the baseball game and smell the grandstand, the old wooden bleachers, the green turf of the playing field, the horsehide of the ball, the gloves, the mitts, the clean resilience of the ash-wood bats, the smells of men in shirt-sleeves, and the sweating players.

“And if there is work to do at three o’clock—if we must rouse ourselves from somnolent repose, and from the green-gold drowsy magic of our meditations—for God’s sake give us something
real
to do. Give us great labors, but vouchsafe to us as well the promise of a great accomplishment, the thrill of peril, the hope of high and spirited adventure. For God’s sake don’t destroy the heart and hope and life and will, the brave and dreaming soul of man, with the common, dull, soul-sickening, mean transactions of these
little
things!

Don’t break our heart, our hope, our ecstasy, don’t shatter
irrevocably some brave adventure of the spirit, or some brooding dream, by sending us on errands which any stupid girl, or nigger wench, or soulless underling of life could just as well accomplish. Don’t break man’s heart, man’s life, man’s song, the soaring vision of his dream with—“Here, boy, trot around the corner for a loaf of bread,”—or “Here, boy; the telephone company has just called up—you’ll have to trot around there…”—Oh, for God’s sake, and
my
sake,
please
don’t say ‘
trot
around’—“…and pay the bill before they cut us off!”

Or, fretful-wise, be-flusteredlike, all of a twitter, scattered and demoralized, fuming and stewing, complaining, whining, railing against the universe because of things undone
you
should have done yourself, because of errors
you
have made yourself, because of debts unpaid
you
should have paid on time, because of things forgotten
you
should have remembered—fretting, complaining, galloping off in all directions, unable to get your thoughts together, unable even to call a child by his proper name—as here:

“Ed, John, Bob—pshaw, boy!
George
, I mean!…”

Well, then for God’s sake,
mean
it!

“Why, pshaw!—to think that that fool nigger—I could wring her neck when I think of it—well, as I say now….”

Then, in God’s name,
say
it!

“…why, you
know
…”

No! I do
not
know!

“…here I was dependin’ on her—here she told me she would come—and all the work to be done—and here she’s sneaked out on me after dinner—and I’m left here in the lurch.”

Yes, of course you are; because you failed to pay the poor wench on Saturday night the three dollars which is her princely emolument for fourteen hours a day of sweaty drudgery seven days a week; because “it slipped your mind,” because you couldn’t bear to let it go in one gigantic lump—
could
you?—because you thought you’d hang on to the good green smell of money just a
little
longer, didn’t you?—let it sweat away in your stocking and smell good just a
little
longer—didn’t
you?—break the poor brute’s heart on Saturday night just when she had her mind all set on fried fish, gin, and f——g, just because you wanted to hold on to three wadded, soiled, and rumpled greenbacks just a
little
longer—dole it out to her a dollar at a time—tonight a dollar, Wednesday night a dollar, Friday night the same…and so are left here strapped and stranded and forlorn, where my father would have
paid
and
paid at once
, and kept his nigger and his nigger’s loyalty. And all because you are a woman, with a woman’s niggard smallness about money, a woman’s niggard dealing towards her servants, a woman’s selfishness, her small humanity of feeling for the dumb, the suffering, and afflicted soul of man—and so will fret and fume and fidget now, all flustered and undone, to call me forth with:

“Here, boy!—Pshaw, now!—To think that she would play a trick like this!—Why as I say, now—child! child!—I don’t know what I shall do—I’m left here all alone—you’ll have to trot right down and see if you can find someone at once.”

Aye! to call me forth from coolness, and the gladed sweetness of cool grass to sweat my way through Niggertown in the dreary torpor of the afternoon; to sweat my way up and down that grassless, treeless horror of baked clay; to draw my breath in stench and sourness, breathe in the funky nigger stench, sour wash-pots and branch-sewage, nigger privies and the sour shambles of the nigger shacks; to scar my sight and soul with little snot-nosed nigger children fouled with dung, and so bowed out with rickets that their little legs look like twin sausages of fat, soft rubber; so to hunt, and knock at shack-door, so to wheedle, persuade, and cajole, in order to find some other sullen wench to come and sweat her fourteen hours a day for seven days a week—and for three dollars!

Or again, perhaps it will be: “Pshaw, boy!—Why to think that he would play me such a trick!—Why, I forgot to put the sign out—but I thought he knew I needed twenty pounds!—If he’d only asked!—but here he drove right by with not so much as by-your-leave, and here there’s not a speck of ice in the refrigerator—and ice cream and iced
tea to make for supper.—You’ll have to trot right down to the icehouse and get me a good ten-cent chunk.”

Yes! A good ten-cent chunk tied with a twist of galling twine, that cuts like a razor down into my sweaty palm; that wets my trouser leg from thigh to buttock; that bangs and rubs and slips and cuts and freezes against my miserable knees until the flesh is worn raw; that trickles freezing drops down my bare and aching legs, that takes all joy from living, that makes me curse my life and all the circumstances of my birth—and all because
you
failed to “put the sign out,” all because
you
failed to think of twenty pounds of ice!

Or is it a thimble, or a box of needles, or a spool of thread that
you
need now! Is it for such as
this
that I must “trot around” some place for baking powder, salt or sugar, or a pound of butter, or a package of tea!

For God’s sake thimble me no thimbles and spool me no spools! If I must go on errands send me out upon man’s work, with man’s dispatch, as my father used to do! Send me out with one of his niggers upon a wagon load of fragrant pine, monarch above the rumps of two grey mules! Send me for a wagon load of sand down by the river, where I can smell the sultry yellow of the stream, and shout and holler to the boys in swimming! Send me to town to my father’s brick and lumber yard, the Square, the sparkling traffic of bright afternoon. Send me for something in the City Market, the smell of fish and oysters, the green, cool growth of vegetables; the cold refrigeration of hung beeves, the butchers cleaving and sawing in straw hats and gouted aprons. Send me out to life and business and the glades of afternoon; for God’s sake, do not torture me with spools of thread, or with the sunbaked clay and shambling rickets of black Niggertown!

“Son, son!…Where has that fool boy got to!…Why, as I say now, boy, you’ll have to trot right down to….”

With baleful, brooding vision he looked towards the house. Say me no says, sweet dame: trot me no trots. The hour is three o’clock, and I would be alone.

So thinking, feeling, saying, he rolled over on his belly, out of sight,
on the “good” side of the tree, dug bare, luxurious toes in cool, green grass, and, chin a-cup in his supporting hands, regarded his small universe of three o’clock.

“A
LITTLE CHILD
, a limber elf”—twelve years of age, and going on for thirteen next October. So, midway in May now, midway to thirteen, with a whole world to think of. Not large or heavy for his age, but strong and heavy in the shoulders, arms absurdly long, big hands, legs thin, bowed out a little, long, flat feet; small face and features quick with life, the eyes deep-set, their look both quick and still; low brow, wide, stick-out ears, a shock of close-cropped hair, a large head that hangs forward and projects almost too heavily for the short, thin neck—not much to look at, someone’s ugly duckling, just a boy.

And yet—could climb trees like a monkey, spring like a cat; could jump and catch the maple limb four feet above his head—the bark was already worn smooth and slick by his big hands; could be up the tree like a flash; could go places no one else could go; could climb anything, grab hold of anything, dig his toes in anything; could scale the side of a cliff if he had to, could almost climb a sheet of glass; could pick up things with his toes, and hold them, too; could walk on his hands, bend back and touch the ground, stick his head between his legs, or wrap his legs around his neck; could make a hoop out of his body and roll over like a hoop, do hand-springs and cut flips—jump, climb, and leap as no other boy in town could do. He is a grotesque-looking little creature, yet unformed and unmatured, in his make-up something between a spider and an ape (the boys, of course, call him “Monk”)—and yet with an eye that sees and holds, an ear that hears and can remember, a nose that smells out unsuspected pungencies, a spirit swift and mercurial as a flash of light, now soaring like a rocket, wild with ecstasy, outstripping storm and flight itself in the aerial joy of skyey buoyancy; now plunged in nameless, utter, black, unfathomable dejection; now bedded cool in the reposeful grass beneath the maple tree, remote from time and brooding on his world of three
o’clock; now catlike on his feet—the soaring rocket of a sudden joy—then catlike spring and catch upon the lowest limb, then like a monkey up the tree, and like a monkey down, now rolling like a furious hoop across the yard—at last, upon his belly in cool grass again, and bedded deep in somnolent repose at three o’clock.

Now, with chin cupped in his hands and broodingly aware, he meditates the little world before him, the world of one small, modest street, the neighbors, and his uncle’s house. For the most part, it is the pleasant world of humble people and small, humble houses, most of them worn, shabby, so familiar: the yards, the porches, swings, and railings, and the rocking chairs; the maple trees, the chestnuts and the oaks; the way a gate leans open, half ajar, the way the grass grows, and the way the flowers are planted; the fences, hedges, bushes, and the honeysuckle vines; the alleyways and all the homely and familiar backyard world of chicken houses, stables, barns, and orchards, and each one with its own familiar hobby, the Potterham’s neat back-garden, Nebraska Crane’s pigeon houses—the whole, small, well-used world of good, small people.