[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
that John had stood out from them all, as the figure best embodying that great fierce hunger for a full life, and
as the link connecting, the one who slowly year by year had emerged from her greater family and come into
her small one. And last of all he thought of John as his own companion, his only one, in the immense
adventure on which he was so soon to embark.
A few moments later he stood by John's bed.
"Pretty hard, Johnny?" he gently asked.
"Oh, not so bad as it might be, I guess--"
"You'll soon feel better, they tell me, boy." John shut his eyes.
"Yes," he muttered.
"Can you stand my talking, just a minute?"
"Sure I can," John whispered. "I'm not suffering any now. He's given me something to put me to sleep. What
is it you want to talk about? Business?"
CHAPTER XLIII 161
"Not exactly, partner. It's about the family. You've got so you're almost one of us. I guess you know us pretty
well."
"I guess I do. It's meant a lot to me, Mr. Gale--"
"But I'll tell you what you don't know, John," Roger went on slowly. "I had a son in the family once, and he
died when he was three months old. That was a long time ago--and I never had another, you see--to take his
place--till you came along." There fell a breathless silence. "And I've been thinking lately," Roger added
steadily. "I haven't long to live, you know. And I've been wondering whether--you'd like to come into the
family--take my name. Do you understand?"
John said nothing. His eyes were still closed. But presently, groping over the bed, he found Roger's hand and
clutched it tight. After this, from time to time his throat contracted sharply. Tears welled from under his
eyelids. Then gradually, as the merciful drug which Allan had given did its work, his clutch relaxed and he
began breathing deep and hard. But still for some time longer Roger sat quietly by his side.
The next night he was there again. Death had come to the huddled form on the bed, but there had been no
relaxing. With the head thrown rigidly far back and all the features tense and hard, it was a fighting figure
still, a figure of stern protest against the world's injustice. But Roger was not thinking of this, but of the
discovery he had made, that in their talk of the night before John had understood him--completely. For upon
a piece of paper which Allan had given the lad that day, these words had been painfully inscribed:
"This is my last will and testament. I am in my right mind--I know what I am doing--though nobody else
does--nobody is here. To my partner Roger Gale I leave my share in our business. And to my teacher
Deborah Baird I leave my crutches for her school."
CHAPTER XLIII
After John had gone away the house was very quiet. Only from the room upstairs there could be heard
occasionally the faint clear cry of Deborah's child. And once again to Roger came a season of repose. He was
far from unhappy. His disease, although progressing fast, gave him barely any pain; it rather made its presence
felt by the manner in which it affected his mind. His inner life grew uneven. At times his thoughts were as in a
fog, again they were amazingly clear and vistas opened far ahead. He could not control his thinking.
This bothered him at the office, in the work he still had to do. For some months he had been considering an
offer from one of his rivals, a modern concern which wished to buy out his business together with that of three
other firms and consolidate them all into one corporation. And Roger was selling, and it was hard; for the
whole idea of bargaining was more distasteful than ever now. He had to keep reminding himself of Edith and
her children.
At last it was over, his books were closed, and there was nothing left to be done. Nor did he care to linger.
These rooms had meant but little to him; they had been but a place of transition from the old office far
downtown, so full of memories of his youth, to the big corporation looming ahead, the huge impersonal
clipping mill into which his business was to merge. And it came to his mind that New York was like that--no
settled calm abiding place cherishing its memories, but only a town of transition, a great turbulent city of
change, restlessly shaking off its past, tearing down and building anew, building higher, higher, higher,
rearing to the very stars, and shouting, "Can you see me now?" What was the goal of this mad career? What
dazzling city would be here? For a time he stared out of his window as into a promised land. Slowly at last he
rose from his desk. Clippings, clippings, clippings. He looked at those long rows of girls gleaning in items
large and small the public reputations of all kinds of men and women, new kinds in a new nation seething
with activities, sweeping on like some wide river swollen at flood season to a new America, a world which
Roger would not know. And yet it would be his world still, for in it he would play a part.
CHAPTER XLIII 162
"In their lives, too, we shall be there--the dim strong figures of the past."
From his desk he gathered a few belongings. Then he looked into John's small room, with the big gold motto
over the desk: "This is no place for your troubles or mine." On the desk lay that small album, John's parting
gift to Deborah's boy. Roger picked it up and walked out of the office. He had never liked good-byes.
In the elevator he noticed that his shoes needed shining, and when he reached the street below he stopped at
the stand on the corner. The stocky Greek with bushy black hair, who had run the stand for many years, gave
him a cheery greeting; for Roger had stopped there frequently--not that he cared about his shoes, but he had
always liked to watch the crowds of people passing.
"No hurry, boss?"
"None," said Roger.
"Then I give a fine shine! Polish, too?"
"Yes, polish, too." And Roger settled back to watch.
"And put in new shoe strings," he added, with a whimsical smile.
Men and women, girls and boys by thousands passed him, pushing, hurrying, shuffling by. Girls tittering and
nudging and darting quick side glances. Bobbing heads and figures, vigorous steps and dancing eyes. Life
bubbling over everywhere, in laughter, in sharp angry tones, in glad expectant chatter. Deborah's big family.
Across the street was a movie between two lurid posters, and there was a dance hall overhead. The windows
were all open, and faintly above the roar of the street he could hear the piano, drum, fiddle and horn. The
thoroughfare each moment grew more tumultuous to his ears, with trolley cars and taxis, motor busses, trucks
and drays. A small red motor dashed uptown with piles of evening papers; a great black motor hearse rushed
by. In a taxi which had stopped in a jam, a man was kissing a girl in his arms, and both of them were
laughing. The smart little toque of blue satin she wore was crushed to one side. How red were her lips as she
threw back her head....
"Silk or cotton, boss? Which you like?" Roger glanced at the shoe strings and pondered.
"Silk," he grunted in reply. Idly for a moment he watched this busy little man. From whence had he come in
far away Greece? What existence had he here, and what kind of life would he still have through those many
years to come? A feeling half of sadness crept into Roger's heavy eyes as he looked at the man, at his smiling
face and then at other faces in the multitudes sweeping past. The moment he tried to single them out, how
doubly chaotic it became. What an ocean of warm desires, passions, vivid hopes and worries. Vaguely he
could feel them pass. Often in the midst of his life, his active and self-centered life, Roger had looked at these
crowds on the street and had thought these faces commonplace. But now at the end it was not so.
A woman with a baby carriage stopped directly in front of him and stood there anxiously watching for a
chance to cross the street. And Roger thought of Deborah. Heavily he climbed down from his seat, paid the
man and bade him good-night, and went home to see Deborah's baby.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]