University of Virginia Library

18. TO THE NEW GOD

Jim closed the door of the little shed-room with a bang, and stood listening a moment to the sobs inside.

"`Until death do us part,' Kiddo!" he laughed grimly.

He turned back into the room and saw Nance standing at the opposite entrance between the calico curtains, an old, battered, flickering lantern in her hand. A white wool shawl was thrown over the gray head and fell in long, filmy waves about her thin figure. Her deep-sunken eyes were exaggerated in the dim light of lantern and candle. She smiled wanly.

He stopped short at the apparition; a queer shiver of superstitious fear shook him. The white form of Death suddenly and noiselessly appearing from the darkness could not have been more uncanny. He had wondered vaguely while the quarrel with his wife was progressing, what had become of his

mother. As the fight had reached its height, he had forgotten her.

She looked at him, blinking her eyes and trying to smile.

"Where the devil have you been, old gal?" he asked nervously.

"Nowhere," she answered evasively.

"You've been mighty quiet on the trip anyhow. I see you've brought something back from nowhere."

Nance glanced down at the jug she carried in her left hand and laughed.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothin' — "

"Nothin' from nowhere sounds pretty good to me when I see it in a brown jug on Christmas Eve. You're all right, old gal! I was just going to ask if you had a little mountain dew. You're a mind reader. I'll bet the warehouse you keep that stored in is some snug harbor — eh?"

"They ain't never found it yit!" she giggled.

"And I'll bet they won't — bully for you!"

She took down a tin cup from a shelf and placed it beside the jug.

"Another glass, sweetheart — "

The old woman stared at him in surprise, walked to the shelf and brought another tin cup.

"What do ye want with two?" she asked in surprise.

Jim moved toward the stool beside the table.

"Sit down."

"Me?"

"Sure. Let's be sociable. It's Christmas Eve, isn't it?"

"Yeah!" Nance answered cheerfully, taking her seat and glancing timidly at her guest.

Jim seized the jug, poured out two drinks of corn whiskey, handed her one and raised his:

"Well, here's lookin' at you, old girl."

He paused, lowered his cup and smiled.

"But say, give me a toast." He nodded toward the shed-room. "I'm on my honeymoon, you know."

His hostess laughed timidly and glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. She wished to be sociable and make up as best she could for her rudeness on their arrival.

"I ain't never heard but one fur honeymooners," she said softly.

"Let's have it. I've never heard a toast for honeymooners in my life. It'll be new to me — fire away!"

Nance fumbled her faded dress with her left hand and laughed again.

"'May ye live long and prosper an' all yer troubles be little ones!'"

She laughed aloud at the old, worm-eaten joke and Jim joined.

"Bully! Bully, old girl — bully!"

He lifted his cup and drained it at one draught and Nance did the same.

He seized the jug and poured another drink for each.

"Once more — "

He leaned across the table.

"And here's one for you." He squared his body and lifted his cup:

"To all your little ones — no matter how big they are!"

Jim drained his liquor without apparently noticing her agitation, though he was watching her keenly from the corner of his eye.

The cup she held was lowered slowly until the whiskey poured over her dress and on the floor. Her thin figure drooped pathetically and her voice was the faintest sob:

"I — I — ain't got — none!"

"I heard you had a boy," Jim said carelessly.

The drooping figure shot upright as if a bolt of lightning had swept her. She stared at him in tense

silence, trying to gather her wits before she answered.

"Who told you anything about me?" she demanded sternly.

"A fellow in New York," Jim continued with studied carelessness — "said he used to live down here."

"He lived down here?" she repeated blankly.

"Yep — come now, loosen up and tell us about the kid."

"There ain't nuthin' ter tell — he's dead," she cried pathetically.

"He said you deserted the child and left him to starve."

"He said that?" she growled.

"Yep."

He was silent again and watched her keenly.

She fumbled her dress and glanced nervously across the table as if afraid to ask more. Unable to wait for him to speak, she cried nervously at last:

"Well — well — what else did he say?"

"That he took the little duffer to New York and raised him."

"Raised him?"

She fairly screamed the words, springing to her feet trembling from head to foot.

"Till he was big enough to kick into the streets to shuffle for himself."

"The scoundrel said he was dead."

Her voice was far away and sank into dreamy silence. She was living the hideous, lonely years again with a heart starved for love.

Jim's voice broke the spell:

"Then you didn't desert him?" The man's eyes held hers steadily.

She stared at him blankly and spoke with rushing indignation:

"Desert him — my baby — my own flesh and blood? There's never been a minute since I looked into his eyes that I wouldn't 'a' died fur him."

She paused and sobbed.

"He had such pretty eyes, stranger. They looked like your'n — only they wuz puttier and bluer."

She lifted her faded dress, brushed the tears from her cheeks and went on rapidly:

"When I found his drunken brute of a daddy was a liar and had another wife, I wouldn't live with him. He tried to make me but I kicked him out of the house — and he stole the boy to get even with me." Her voice broke, she dropped her head and choked back the tears. "He did get even with me, too — he did," she sobbed.

Jim watched her in silence until the paroxysm had spent itself.

"You think you'd know this boy now if you found him?"

She bent close, her breath coming in quick gasps.

"My God, mister, do you think I could find him?"

"He lives in New York; his name is Jim Anthony."

"Yes — yes?" she said in a dazed way. "He called hisself Walter Anthony — he wuz a stranger from the North and my boy's name was Jim." She paused and bent eagerly across the table. "New York's an awful big place, ain't it?"

"Some town, old gal, take it from me."

"Could I find him?"

"If you've got money enough. You said you'd know him. How?"

"I'd know him!" she answered eagerly. "The last quarrel we had was about a mark on his neck. He wuz a spunky little one. You couldn't make him cry. His devil of a daddy used to stick pins in him and laugh because he wouldn't cry. The last dirty trick he tried was what ended it all. He pushed a live cigar agin his little neck until I smelled it burnin' in the next room. I knocked him down with a chair, drove him from the house and told him I'd

kill him if he ever put his foot inside the door agin.

He stole my boy the next night — but he'll carry that scar to his grave."

"You'd love this boy now if you found him in New York as bad as his father ever was?" Jim asked with a curious smile.

"Yes — he's mine!" was the quick, firm answer.

Jim watched her intently.

"I looked Death in the face for him," she went on fiercely. "I'd dive to the bottom o' hell to find him if I knowed he wuz thar — But what's the use to talk; that devil killed him! I've waked up many a night stranglin' with a dream when I seed the drunken brute burnin' an' beatin' an' torturin' him to death. The feller you've heard about ain't him. 'Tain't no use to make me hope an' then kill me — "

"He's not dead, I tell you. I know."

Jim's voice rang with conviction so positive the old woman's breath came in quick gasps and she smiled through her eager tears.

"And I might find him?"

"If you've got money enough! Money can do anything in this world."

He opened the black bag, thrust both hands into it and threw out a handful of yellow coin which he

allowed to pour through his fingers and rattle into a tin plate which had been left on the table.

Her eyes sparkled with avarice.

"It's your'n — all your'n?" she breathed hungrily.

"I'm taking it down South to invest for a fool who thinks" — he stopped and laughed — "who thinks it's bad luck to keep money that's stained with blood — "

Nance started back.

"Got blood on it?"

Jim spoke in confidential appeal.

"That wouldn't make any difference to you, would it?"

She shook her gray locks and glanced at the pile of yellow metal, hungrily.

"I — I wouldn't like it with blood marks!"

He lifted a handful of coin, clinked it musically in his hands and held it in his open palms before her.

"Look! Look at it close! You don't see any blood marks on it, do you?"

Her eyes devoured it.

"No."

He seized her hand, thrust a half-dozen pieces into it and closed her thin fingers over it.

"Feel of it — look at it!"

Her hands gripped the gold. She breathed quickly, broke into a laugh, caught herself in the middle of it, and lapsed suddenly into silence.

"Feels good, don't it?" he laughed.

Nance grinned, her uneven, discolored gleaming ominously in the flicker of the candle.

"Don't it?" he repeated.

"Yeah!"

He lifted another handful and threw it in the air, catching it again.

"That's the stuff that makes the world go 'round. There's your only friend, old girl! Others promise well — but in the scratch they fail."

"Yeah — when the scratch comes they fail!" Nance echoed.

"Money never fails!" Jim continued eagerly. "It's the god that knows no right or wrong — "

He touched the pile in the plate and drew the bag close for her to see.

"How much do you guess is there?"

Nance gazed greedily into the open bag and looked again at the shining heap in the plate.

"I dunno — a million, I reckon."

The man laughed.

"Not quite that much! But enough to make you rich for life — if you had it."

The old woman turned away pathetically and shook her gray head.

"I wouldn't have to work no more, would I?"

Her thin hands touched the faded, dirty dress.

"And I could buy me a decent dress," her voice sank to a whisper, "and I could find my boy."

"You bet you could!" Jim exclaimed. "There's just one god in this world now, old girl — the Almighty Dollar!"

He paused and leaned close, persuasively:

"Suppose now, the man that got that money had to kill a fool to take it — what of it? You don't get big money any other way. A burglar watches his chance, takes his life in his hands and drills his way into a house. He finds a fool there who fights. It's not his fault that the man was born a fool, now is it?"

"Mebbe not — "

"Of course not. A burglar kills but one to get his pile, and then only because he must, in self-defence. A big gambling capitalist corners wheat, raises the price of bread and starves a hundred thousand children to death to make his. It's not stained with blood. Every dollar is soaked in it! Who cares?"

"Yeah — who cares?" Nance growled fiercely.

Jim smiled at his easy triumph.

"It's dog eat dog and the devil take the hindmost now!"

"That's so — ain't it?" she agreed.

"You bet! Business is business and the best man's the man that gets there. Steal a hundred dollars, you go to the penitentiary — foolish! Don't do it. Steal a million and go to the Senate!"

"Yeah!" Nance laughed.

"Money — money for its own sake," he rushed on savagely — "right or wrong. That's all there is in it today, old girl — take it from me!"

He paused and his smile ended in a sneer.

"Man shall eat bread in the sweat of his brow? Only fools sweat!"

Nance turned her face away, sighed softly, glancing back at Jim furtively.

"I reckon that's so, too. Have another drink, stranger?"

She poured another cup of whiskey and one for herself. She raised hers as if to drink and deftly threw the contents over her shoulder.

Jim seized the jug and poured again.

"Once more. Come, I've another toast for you. You'll drink this one I know."

He lifted his cup and rose a little unsteadily. Nance stood with uplifted cup watching him.

"As the poet sings," he began with a bow to the old woman:

"France has her lily, England the rose,

Everybody knows where the shamrock grows —

Scotland has her thistle flowerin' on the hill,

But the American Emblem — is a One Dollar Bill!"

He broke into a boisterous laugh.

"How's that, old girl?"

"That's bully, stranger!"

He lifted high his cup.

"We drink to the Almighty Dollar!"

"To the Almighty Dollar!" Nance echoed, clinking her cup against his."

He drained it while she again emptied hers over her shoulder.

"By golly, you're all right, old girl. You're a good fellow!" he cried jovially.

"Yeah — have another?" she urged.

She filled his cup and placed it on his side of the table. His eye had rested on the gold. He ignored the invitation, lifted a handful of gold and dropped it with musical clinking into the plate.

"Blood marks — tommyrot!" he sneered.

"Yeah — tommyrot!" she echoed. "That's what I say, too!"

Jim wagged his head sagely:

"Now you're talking sense, old girl!"

He leaned across the table and pointed his finger straight into her face.

"And don't you forget what I'm tellin' ye tonight — get money, get money!"

He stopped suddenly and a sneer curled his lips.

"Oh I Get it `fairly' — get it `squarely' — but whatever you do — by God! — Get it!"

His uplifted hand crashed downward and gripped the gold. His fingers slowly relaxed and the coin clinked into the plate.

Nance watched him eagerly.

"Yeah, that's it — get it," she breathed slowly.

Jim lifted his drooping eyes to hers.

"If you've got it, you're a god — you can do no wrong. Nobody's goin' to ask you how you got it; all they want to know is have you got it!"

"Yeah, nobody's goin' to ask you how you got it, Nance repeated, "they just want to know have you got it! Yeah — yeah!"

"You bet!"

Jim's head sank in the first stupor of liquor and he dropped into the chair.

The old woman leaned eagerly over the plate of gold and clutched the coin with growing avarice.

Her fingers opened and closed like a bird of prey. She touched it lovingly and held it in her hands a long time watching Jim's nodding head with furtive glances. She dropped a handful of coin into the plate and watched its effect on the drooping head.

He looked up and his eyes fell again.

"Bed-time, I reckon," Nance said.

"Yep — pretty tired. I'll turn in."

The old woman glided sidewise to the table near the kitchen door, picked up the lantern and started to feel her way backwards through the calico curtains.

"See you in the mornin', old gal," Jim drawled — "Christmas mornin' — an' I got somethin' else to tell ye in the mornin' — "

Again his head sank to the table.

"All right, mister — good night!" Nance answered, slowly feeling her way through the opening, watching him intently.

Jim lifted his head and nodded heavily for a moment. His hand slipped from the table and he drew himself up sharply and rose, holding to the table for support.

He picked up the plate of coin, poured it back in the bag, snapped the lock and walked with the bag unsteadily to the couch. He placed the bag under

the pillow and pressed the soft feathers down over it, turned back to the table and extinguished the candle by a quick, square blow of his open palm on the flame.

He staggered to the couch, pushed the coats to the floor, dropped heavily, drew the lap-robe over him and in five minutes was sound asleep.