 CHAPTER VII Mrs. Virtries sat up for her daughter, Mr. Virtries having retired after a restless evening, not much soothed by the society of his landseers. Mary had taken a key, insisting that he should not come for her, and seeming confident that she would not lack for escort. Nor did the sequel prove her confidence unwarranted. But Mrs. Virtries had a long vigil of it. She was not the woman to make herself easy, no servant had ever seen her in a wrapper, and with her hair and dress and her shoes just what they had been when she returned from the afternoon's call, she sat through the slow night hours in a stiff little chair under the gaslight in her own room, which was directly over the front hall. There, book in hand, she employed the time in her own reminiscences, though it was her belief that she was reading Madame de Remusat's. Her thoughts went backward into her life and into her husband's, and the deeper into the past they went, the brighter the picture they brought her. And there is tragedy. Like her husband she thought backward because she did not dare think forward definitely. What thinking forward this troubled couple ventured took the form of a slender hope which neither of them could have borne to hear put in words. And yet they had talked it over, day after day, from the very hour when they heard Sheridan was to build his new house next door. For so quickly does any ideal of human behavior become an antique, their youth was of the innocent old days, so dead, of breeding and gentility, and no craft had been more straightly trained upon them than that of talking about things without mentioning them. Herein was marked the most vital difference between Mr. and Mrs. Virtries and their big new neighbor. Sheridan, though his youth was of the same epic, knew nothing of such matters. He had been chopping wood for the morning fire in the country grocery while they were still dancing. It was after one o'clock when Mrs. Virtries heard steps and the delicate clinking of the key in the lock. And then with the opening of the door, Mary's laugh and, yes, if you aren't afraid, tomorrow. The door closed and she rushed upstairs, bringing with her a breath of cold and bracing air into her mother's room. Yes, she said before Mrs. Virtries could speak, he brought me home. She let her cloak fall upon the bed and, drawing an old red velvet rocking chair forward, sat beside her mother after giving her a light pat upon the shoulder and a hearty kiss upon the cheek. Mama, Mary exclaimed, when Mrs. Virtries had expressed the hope that she had enjoyed the evening and had not caught cold. Why don't you ask me? This inquiry obviously made her mother uncomfortable. I don't, she faltered. Ask you what, Mary? How I got along in what he's like. Mary! Oh, it isn't distressing, said Mary, and I got along so fast. She broke off to laugh, continuing then. But that's the way I went at it, of course. We are in a hurry, aren't we? I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Virtries insisted, shaking her head plaintively. Yes, said Mary, I'm going out in his car with him tomorrow afternoon and to the theatre the next night. But I stopped it there. You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while you pretend to run away. My dear, I don't know what to make of anything, Mary finished for her. So that's alright. Now I'll tell you all about it. It was gorgeous and deafening and tea total. We could have lived a year on it. I'm not good at figures, but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie Annette and the station wagon in the Victoria, we could manage at least twice as long on the cost of the housewarming. I think the orchids alone would have lasted us a couple of months. There they were before me, but I couldn't steal them and sell them, and so, well, so I did what I could. She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother. It seemed to be a success what I could, she said, clasping her hands behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic accompaniment to a narrative. The girl Edith and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Rasko Sheridan, were too anxious about the effective things on me. The father is worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it. He's what he is. I like him. She paused reflectively, continuing, Edith's interested in that lambhorn boy. He's good-looking and not stupid, but I think he's... She interrupted herself with a cheery odd cry. Oh, I mustn't be calling him names. If he's trying to make Edith like him, I ought to respect him as a colleague. I don't understand a thing you're talking about, Mrs. Vertree's complained. All the better. Well, he's a bad lot, that lambhorn boy. Everybody's always known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybody's that know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Rasko Sheridan. She's like those people you wondered about at the theater the last time we went, dressed in ball gowns, bound to show their clothes and jewels somewhere. She flatters the father. And so did I for that matter. But not that way. I treated him outrageously. Mary. That's what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment of us follow him all over the house while he lectured like a guide on the Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole billon of them listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present of the house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing, and that Bay of Naples panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing, bathrooms and everywhere else, and then he made us look at the Bay of Naples. He said it was 111 feet long, but I think it's more. And he led us all into the ready-made library to see a poem Edith had taken a prize with at school. They had it printed in gold letters and framed in Mother of Pearl. But the poem itself was rather simple and wistful and nice. He read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him. She was modest about it and said she'd never written anything else. And then after a while Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street to her house with them. Her husband and Edith and Mr. Lambhorn and Jim Sheridan. Mrs. Vertries was shocked. Jim, she exclaimed. Mary, please. Of course, said Mary, I'll make it as easy for you as I can, Mama. Mr. James Sheridan, Jr. We went over there and Mrs. Roscoe explained that the men were all dying for a drink. Though I noticed that Mr. Lambhorn was the only one near Death's door on that account. Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I'd been bored at the dinner. They were objectionably apologetic about it. And they seemed to think, now we were going to have a good time to make up for it. But I hadn't been bored at the dinner. I'd been amused. And the good time at Mrs. Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid. But Mary, her mother began, is, is, and she seemed unable to complete the question. Never mind, Mama, I'll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Jr. stupid? I'm sure he's not at all stupid about business. Otherwise, oh, what right have I to be calling people stupid because they're not exactly my kind? On the big dinner table they had enormous icing models of the Sheridan building. Oh, no, Mrs. Bertrie's cried. Surely not. Yes. And two other things of that kind I don't know what. But after all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I'd been at a dinner at a palace in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I shouldn't have felt superior. I'd have thought it picturesque and stately. I'd have been impressed. And what's the real difference? The icing is temporary. And that's much more modest, isn't it? And why is it vulgar to feel important more on account of something you've done yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides, if we go back a few generations, we've all got such hundreds of ancestors that seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of ourselves about. Well, then, Mama, I managed not to feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan, Jr., because he didn't see anything out of place in the Sheridan building in sugar. Mrs. Bertrie's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion of this lively bit of analysis. And she shook her head gravely. My dear, dear child, she said, seems to me it looks I'm afraid. Say as much of it as you can, Mama, said Mary, encouragingly. I can get it if you'll just give me one key word. Everything you say, Mrs. Bertrie's began timidly, seems to have the air of it is as if you were seeking to make yourself, oh, I see. You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like him? Not exactly, Mary. That wasn't quite what I meant, said Mrs. Bertrie's speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness, but you said that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs. Sheridan's unentertaining. And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I. And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished. Mrs. Bertrie's nodded, and though both the mother and the daughter understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite. Well, she asked gravely, is there anything else I can do? You and Papa don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is the only thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to let it distress me. That's all there is about it, isn't it? But nothing must distress you, the mother cried. That's what I say, said Mary cheerfully, and so it doesn't. It's all right. She rose and took her cloak over her arm as if to go to her own room. But on the way to the door she stopped and stood leaning against the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet. Mother, you've told me a thousand times that it doesn't really matter whom a girl marries. No, no, Mrs. Bertrie's protested. I never said such a—no, not in words. I mean what you meant. It's true, isn't it, that marriage really is not a bed of roses, but a field of battle. To get right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she? One man as well as another. Oh, my dear, I'm sure your father and I—yes, yes, said Mary indulgently. I don't mean you and Papa, but isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people say so. There must be something in it. Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that, and Mrs. Bertrie's lifted pleading eyes to her daughter, eyes that beg to be spared. It sounds almost reckless. Mary caught the appeal, came to her and kissed her gaily. Never fret, dear, I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do. I've always been too thorough going a little pig, and if it is propinquity that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more than that. How could there be any more propinquity than the very house next door? She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob. Oh, the one that caught me looking in the window, Mama, the youngest one. Did he speak of it? Mrs. Bertrie's asked, apprehensively. No, he didn't speak at all, that I saw to anyone. I didn't meet him, but he isn't insane, I'm sure, or if he is, he has long intervals when he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived at home when he was well enough, and it may be he's only an invalid. He looks dreadfully ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if one were in the Sheridan family, she laughed a little ruefully. He might be interesting to talk to sometimes, when there was too much stocks and bonds. I didn't see him after dinner. There must be something wrong with him, said Mrs. Bertrie's. They'd have introduced him if there wasn't. I don't know. He's been ill so much, and away so much. Sometimes, people like that just don't seem to count in a family. His father spoke of sending him back to a machine shop, or some sort. I suppose he meant when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr. Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me. And he was pathetic looking enough before that. But the most tragic change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table. You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place? Yes. Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling. No, said Mary thoughtfully. I don't think he is, but he might be uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy just then. I'm afraid I'll keep remembering. I wouldn't, Mrs. Vertries smiled faintly, and in her smile there was the remotest ghost of a gentile roguishness. I'd keep my mind unpleasanter things, Mary. Mary laughed and nodded. Yes, indeed. Plenty pleasant enough, and probably if all were known. Too good, even for me. And when she had gone, Mrs. Vertries drew a long breath, as if a burden were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Term Oil This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Istivizio. The Term Oil Volume 1 of the Growth Trilogy by Booth Tarkington Chapter 8 Edith glancing casually into the ready-made library stopped abruptly, seeing bibs there alone. He was standing before the pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem usingly inspecting it. He read it. Fugitive I will forget the things at Sting. The lashing look, the barbed word. I know the very hands that fling the stones at me had never stirred to anger, but for their own scars. They've suffered so. That's why they strike. I'll keep my heart among the stars where none shall hunt it out. Oh, like these wounded ones I must not be, for wounded I might strike in turn. So none shall hurt me, far and free, where my heart flies no one shall learn. Bibs Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she came into the room. Proceeded by a scent of violets much more powerful than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her coat. Bibs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed by the poem. Pretty young, isn't it? he said. There must have been something about your looks that got the prize, Edith. I can't believe the poem did it. She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a low voice. I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all, Bibs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't want them to frame it, and I wished to goodness papa'd quit talking about it. But here, that night after the dinner, didn't he go and read it aloud to the whole crowd of them? And then they all wanted to know what other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more. And if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought I'd die of shame? You could tell him you had writer's cramp, Bibs suggested. I couldn't tell him anything. I just choked with mortification every time anybody speaks of the thing. Bibs looked grieved. Poem isn't that bad, Edith. You see, you were only seventeen when you wrote it. No hush up, she snapped. I wish it had burnt my fingers the first time I touched it. Then I might have had some sense to leave it where it was. I had no business to take it, and I'd been ashamed. No, no, he said, comfortingly. It was the very most flattering thing ever happened to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the machine shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to. But I don't like it, she exclaimed. I don't even understand it. And Papa made so much fuss over it's getting the prize. I just hate it. The truth is I never dreamed he'd get the prize. Maybe the expected father to endow the school, Bibs murmured. Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a line. I hate poetry anyhow. And Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how I keep my heart among the stars. He makes it seem such a mushy kind of thing when he says it. I hate it. You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another name you might find. Oh, hush up. I'll hire someone to steal it and burn it the first chance I get. She turned away, petulantly, moving to the door. I'd like to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die. Edith, he called as she went into the hall. What's the matter? I want to ask you, do I really look better or have you just got used to me? What on earth do you mean, she said, coming back as far as the threshold? When I first came, you couldn't look at me, Bibs explained in his impersonal way. But I've noticed you look at me lately, and I wondered if I'd... Well, it's because you look so much better, she told him cheerfully. This month you've been here has done you no end of good. It's the change. Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium. The change. You look worse than most anybody I ever saw, said Edith, with Supreme Candor. But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say. But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You had a kind of whiteness that... Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose, but you've got more just ordinarily pale, not that ghastly look. Anybody could look at you now, Bibs, not getting... Sick. Well, almost that, she laughed. And you're getting better color every day, Bibs, you really are. You're getting along splendidly. I'm afraid so, he said, roofily. Afraid so? Well, if you weren't the queerest. I suppose you mean Father might send you back to the machine shop if you get well enough. I heard him say something about it the night a... The jingle of a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. Bobby Lambhorn. I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country. Afternoon, Bibs. When she had gone, Bibs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf, his eye wandering among the titles of the books. The library consisted almost entirely of handsome uniform editions. Irving, Poe, Cooper, Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon, Prescott, Thackery, Dickens, de Musée, Balzac, Gautier, Fulbert, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of famous classics, of Oriental masterpieces, of masterpieces of oratory, and more shelves of selected libraries of literature, of the drama, and of modern science. They made an effective decoration for the room, all these big expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace. But Bibs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them considered them a relief, and that Whitejacket considered them a burden of dust, and that nobody else considered them at all. Himself he disturbed not one. There came a chime of bells from a clock at another part of the house, and Whitejacket appeared beamingly in the doorway bearing furs. "'Already, Mr. Bibs,' he announced. You must say, wrap up one for your ride, and she can't go with you today, and not forget to see your pot four o'clock. Already so.' He equipped Bibs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded, and in the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the hall they passed the moor, and Bibs paused before it while Whitejacket opened the door with a flourish, and waved condescendingly to the chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway. "'It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this statue when I first came home,' George said Bibs thoughtfully. "'What did you tell me?' "'Yes, sir,' George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for someone known reason Bibs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the moor. "'You asked me when you first came home, and you asked me next day and might in every day all time you've been here, and last Sunday you asked me twice.' He shook his head solemnly. "'Look to me must be something mighty Lamedal about that statue.' "'Mighty what?' "'Mighty Lamedal,' George burst out laughing. "'What did that word mean, Mr. Bibs? "'It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?' "'I never did hear it,' said George. "'I just sitting there thinking of myself and she popping my head, Lamedal, just like that. And she sounds so good. Seems like she gotta mean something.' "'Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something.' "'Why yes.' "'Do she?' cried George. "'What she mean?' "'It's exactly the word for the statue,' said Bibs, with conviction as he climbed into the car. "'It's a Lamedal statue.' "'Yeah,' George exalted. "'Man, man, listen.' "'Well, sir, she mighty Lamedal statue, but Lamedal statue heap of trouble to dust.' "'I expect she is,' said Bibs as the engine began to churn, and a moment later he was swept from sight. George turned to Mr. Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in the hallway. "'Same he always say, Mr. Jackson, I expect she is. "'Every day he try and get me to talk about Lamedal statue "'and always, last thing he say, I expect she is.' "'You know, Mr. Jackson, if he get well, "'that young man's gonna be the pride of the family, Mr. Jackson. "'Yes, sir, right now I'd pick him for first money.' "'Look, I would know that money, George,' Jackson warned the enthusiast white folks in this house, "'now I'm a heap longer than you, and you're the only man "'betting on him.' "'I'll brisket,' cried George merrily. "'I put her all on now, every cent. "'That boy's gonna be the flower of the flock.' "'This singular prophecy founded somewhat recklessly "'upon gratitude for the meaning of Lamedal, "'different radically from another prediction concerning Bibs, "'set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor "'some twenty minutes later.' "'Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town "'with Mary Vertrice beside him, in his own swift machine, "'encountered the invalid upon the high road. "'The two cars were going in opposite directions, "'and the occupants of Jims had only a swaying glimpse "'of Bibs sitting alone on the back seat. "'His white face startlingly white against cap and collar "'of black fur.' "'But he flashed into recognition as Mary bowed to him. "'Jim waved his left hand carelessly. "'It's Bibs taking his constitutional,' he explained. "'Yes, I know, Sid Mary. "'I bowed to him, too, though I've never met him. "'In fact, they've only seen him once, no, twice. "'I hope you won't think I'm very bold bowing to him.' "'I doubt if he noticed it,' said honest Jim. "'Oh, no,' she cried. "'What's the trouble?' "'I'm almost sure people noticed it when I bowed to them. "'Oh, I see,' said Jim. "'Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibs is funny.' "'Is he?' "'How?' she asked. "'He strikes me as anything but funny.' "'Well, I'm his brother,' Jim said deprecatingly, "'but I don't know what he's like. "'And to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I was his brother, "'the way I do Roscoe. "'Bibs never did seem more than half alive to me. "'Of course Roscoe and I are older, "'and when we were boys, we were too big to play with him, "'but he never played anyway with boys' own age. "'He'd rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself. "'Nobody could ever do that. "'Nobody could ever get him to do anything. "'You can't get him to do anything now. "'He never had any life in him, and honestly, "'if he is my brother, I must say I believe Bibs Sheridan "'is the laziest man God ever made.' "'Father put him in the machine shop over at the Pump Works. "'Best thing in the world for him, "'and he was just playing no account. "'It made him sick. "'Nobody could ever get him to do anything. "'You can't get him to do anything now. "'He never had any life in him, "'and honestly, if he is my brother, "'I must say I believe Bibs Sheridan "'is the laziest man God ever made.' "'Father put him in the machine shop over at the Pump Works. "'Best thing in the world for him, "'and he was just playing no account. "'It made him sick. "'And if he'd had the right kind of energy, "'the kind fathers got, for instance, or Roscoe either, "'why wouldn't it made him sick?' "'And suppose it was either of them, yes or me either. "'Do you think any of us would have stopped if we were sick? "'Not much. I hate to say it, "'but Bibs Sheridan will never amount to anything "'as long as he lives.'" Very thoughtful. "'Is there any particular reason why he should?' she asked. "'Gracious,' he exclaimed. "'You don't mean that, do you? "'Don't you believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt "'no matter how much money his father's got? "'Hasn't the business of this world got to be carried on "'by everybody in it? "'Are we gonna lay back on what we've got "'and see other fellows get ahead of us? "'If we've got big things already, "'isn't it every man's business to go ahead "'and make them bigger? "'Isn't it his duty? "'Don't we always want to get bigger and bigger? "'Yes, I don't know. "'But I feel rather sorry for your brother. "'He looks so lonely and sick.'" He's getting better every day, Jim said. Dr. Gurney says so. There's nothing much to the matter with him, really. It's nine-tenths imaginary. Nerves. People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous diseases because they don't have time to imagine them. You mean his trouble's really mental? "'Oh, he's not a lunatic,' said Jim. "'He's just queer. "'Sometimes he'll say something right bright, "'but half the time what he says is way up the subject, "'or else there isn't any sense to it at all.' "'For instance, the other day I heard him talking "'to one of the darkies in the hall. "'The darkie asked him what time he wanted the car "'for his drive, and anybody else in the world "'would have just said what time they did want it, "'and that would have been all there was to it. "'But here's what Bibb says, "'and I heard him with my own ears. "'What time do I want the car?' he says. "'Well, now, that depends. "'That depends,' he says. "'He talks slow like that, you know. "'I'll tell you I want the car, George,' he says. "'If you'll tell me what you think of that statue.' "'That's exactly his words. "'Ask the darkie what he thought of that Arab "'eated the mother bought for the hall.' "'Mary pondered upon this. "'He might have been in fun, perhaps,' she suggested. "'Ask him a darkie what he thought of a piece of statuary, "'of a work of art. "'Where on earth would be the fun of that? "'Now, you're just kind-hearted, "'and that's the way you ought to be, of course.' "'Thank you, Mr. Sheridan,' she laughed. "'See here,' he cried, "'isn't there any way for us to get over "'this Mr. and Miss thing? "'A month's got thirty-one days in it. "'I've managed to be with you part of pretty near all the thirty-one, "'and I think you know how I feel by this time.' She looked panic-stricken immediately. "'Oh, no,' she protested quickly. "'No, I don't. "'Yes, you do,' he said, and his voice shook a little. "'You couldn't help knowing.' "'But I do,' she denied hurriedly. "'I do help knowing. "'I mean, oh, wait, what for? "'You do know how I feel, and you... "'Well, you certainly wanted me to feel that way, "'or else pretended.' "'Now, now,' she lamented, "'you're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon.' "'Spoiling it,' he slowed down the car "'and turned his face to her squarely. "'See here, Miss Fatrice, haven't you... "'Stop, stop the car a minute.' "'And when he had complied, she faced him as squarely "'as he evidently desired her to face him. "'Listen, I don't want you to go on today.' "'Why not?' he asked sharply. "'I don't know.' "'You mean it's just a whim?' "'I don't know,' she repeated, "'her voice low and troubled and honest, "'and she kept her clear eyes upon his. "'Will you tell me something? "'Almost anything. "'Have you ever told any man who loved him?' "'And at that, though she laughed, "'she looked a little contentious. "'No,' she said, "'and I don't think I ever shall tell any man that "'or ever know what it means. "'I'm an earnest, Mr. Sheridan.' "'Then you've just been flirting with me.' Poor Jim looked both furious and crestfallen. "'Not one bit,' she cried. "'Not one word, not one syllable. "'I've meant every single thing. "'I don't...' "'Of course you don't,' she said. "'Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the car. "'Now.' "'Thank you. "'Slowly till I finish what I have to say. "'I have not flirted with you. "'I have deliberately courted you. "'One thing more, and then I want you to take me straight home, "'talking about the weather all the way. "'I said that I do not believe that I shall ever care for any man, "'and that is true. "'I doubt the existence of the kind of caring we hear about "'in poems and plays and novels. "'I think it must be just a kind of emotional talk, "'most of it. "'At all events, I don't feel it. "'Now, if we can go faster, please.' "'Just where does that let me out?' he demanded. "'How does that excuse you put?' "'It isn't an excuse,' she said, gently, "'and gave him one final look, holy desolate. "'I haven't said I should never marry.' "'What?' Jim gasped. "'She inclined her head at a broken sort of acquiescence, "'very humble, unfathomably sorrowful. "'I promise nothing,' she said faintly. "'You needn't,' shouted Jim, radiant and exalted. "'You needn't, by George. "'I know you're square, and that's enough for me. "'You wait and promise whenever you're ready. "'Don't forget what I asked,' she begged him. "'Talk about the weather? "'I will. God bless the old weather,' cried the happy Jim.' End of chapter eight. Chapter number nine of The Term Oil. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jonathan Burchard. April 2009. The Term Oil. Volume one of the growth trilogy by Booth Tarkington. Chapter nine. Through the open country, bibs was born flying between brown fields and sun-flecked groves of gray trees to breathe in the rushing clean air beneath a glorious sky. That sky so despised in the city, and so maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May, it was impossible for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead. Upon each of bibs' cheeks, there was a hint of something almost resembling a pinkishness, not actual color, but undeniably its phantom. How largely this apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his face it is difficult to calculate. For beyond a doubt, it was partly the result of a lady's bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than the circumstances of his having caught her looking into his window a month before. She had bowed definitely. She had bowed charmingly, and it seemed to bibs that she must have meant to convey her forgiveness. There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to his experience, and he rode the warmer for it, nor did he lack the impression that he would long remember her as he had just seen her, her veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind, and that look of gay friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival. By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed and tacked and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the smoke. Far before him, bibs saw the great smudge upon the horizon, that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine shrouded in its own steam. But to bibs, who had now to go to the very heart of it for a commanded interview with his father, the distant cloud was like an implacable genius issuing thunderously in smoke from his enchanted bottle, and irresistibly drawing bibs nearer and nearer. They passed from the farmlands and came in the amber light of November late afternoon to the farther-most outskirts of the city, and here the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray. The smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there nevertheless, impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon, dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already rich and vile with grime. The sky had become only a dingy thickening of the soiled air, and a roar and clanger of metals beat deafeningly on bibs' ears. And now the car passed two great blocks of long brick buildings, hideous in all ways possible to make them hideous, doorways showing dark one moment and lurid the next with the leap of some virulent interior flame, revealing black and giants, half naked, in passionate action, struggling with formless things in the hot illumination. And big as these shops were, they were growing bigger, spreading over a third block where two new structures were mushrooming to completion in some hasty cement process of a stability not over reassuring. Bibs pulled the rug closer about him, and not even the phantom of color was left upon his cheeks as he passed this place, for he knew it too well. Across the face of one of the buildings, there was an enormous sign Sheridan Automatic Pump Company incorporated. Thence, they went through streets of wooden houses, all grime'd, and adding their own grime from many a suri chimney, flimsy wooden houses of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from one another, bad neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch some night when the right wind blew. They were only waiting for that wind and a cigarette, and then they would all be gone together. A pinch of incense burned upon the tripod of the god. Along these streets, there were skinny shade trees, and here and there, a forest elm or walnut had been left, but these were dying. Some people said it was the scale, some said it was the smoke, and some were sure that asphalt and improving the streets did it, but bigness was in too big a hurry to bother much about trees. He had telegraph poles and telephone poles and electric light poles and trolley poles by the thousands to take their places. So he let the trees die and put up his poles. They were hideous, but nobody minded that, and sometimes the wires fell and killed people, but not often enough to matter at all. Thence onward, the car bore bibs through the older parts of the town where the few solid old houses not already demolished were in transition. Some, with their fronts torn away, were being made into segments of apartment buildings. Others had gone up proriously into trade, brazenly putting forth show windows on their first floors, seeming to mean it for a joke. One or two with unaltered facades peeped humorously over the tops of temporary office buildings of one story erected in the old front yards. Altogether, the town here was like a boarding house hash the Sunday after Thanksgiving. The old ingredients were discernible. This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary and now bibs reached the roaring holy of holies itself. The car must stop at every crossing while the dark-garbed crowds enveloped in maelstroms of dust hurried before it. Magnificent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of feet above him. Nearer ones, more magnificent were rising behind them, rising higher. Old buildings were coming down. Middle-aged buildings were coming down. The streets were laid open to their entrails and men worked underground between palisades and overhead in metal cobwebs like spiders in the sky. Trolley cars and long interurban cars built to split the wind-like torpedo boats clanged and shrieked their way around swarming corners. Motor cars of every kind and shape known to man babbled frightful warnings and frantic demands. Hospital ambulances clamored wildly for passage. Steam whistles signaled the swinging of titanic tentacle and claw, riveters rattled like machine guns, the ground shook to the thunder of gigantic trucks, and the conglomerate sound of it all was the sound of earthquake playing accompaniments for battle and sudden death. On one of the new steel buildings, no work was being done that afternoon. The building had killed a man in the morning and the steel workers always stopped for the day when that happens. And in the hurrying crowds, swirling and sifting through the robed Ignatian camp of iron and steel, one saw the camp followers and the pagan women. There would be work today and dancing tonight. For the Puritans drive voices but the crackling of a leaf underfoot in the Russian roar of the coming of the New Egypt. Bibs was on time. He knew it must be to the minute or his father would consider it an outrage. And the big chronometer in Sheridan's office marked four precisely when Bibs walked in. Coincidentally, with his entrance, five people who had been at work in the office under Sheridan's direction walked out. They departed upon no visible or audible suggestion and with a promptness that seemed ominous to the newcomer. As the massive door clicked softly behind the elderly stenographer, the last of the procession, Bibs had a feeling that they all understood that he was a failure as a great man's son. A disappointment, the queer one of the family and that he had been summoned to judgment. A well-founded impression, for that was exactly what they understood. Sit down, said Sheridan. It is frequently an advantage for deans, school masters and worried fathers to place delinquents in the sitting posture. Bibs sat. Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of silence and walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it. His big hands loosely hooked together by the thumbs behind his back. They were soiled as were all other hands downtown except such as might be still damp from a basin. Well, Bibs, he said at last, not altering his attitude. Do you know what I'm going to do with you? Bibs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon the ceiling. I heard you tell Jim, he began in his slow way. You said you'd send him to the machine shop with me if he didn't propose to miss vertries. So I suppose that must be your plan for me, but but what, said Sheridan irritably as the son paused. Isn't there somebody you'd let me propose to? That brought his father sharply round to face him. You beat the devil, Bibs. What is the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else? Liver maybe, said Bibs gently. Bah! Even old Doc Gurney says there's nothing wrong with you organically. No, you're a dreamer, Bibs. That's what's the matter. And that's all the matter. Oh, not one of those big dreamers that put through their big deals. No, sir, you're the kind of dreamer that just sets out on the back fence and thinks about how much trouble there must be in the world. That ain't the kind that builds the bridges, Bibs. It's the kind that borrows 15 cents from his wife's uncle's brother-in-law to get 10 cents worth of plugged tobacco and a nickel's worth of quinine. He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort and turned again to the window. Look out there, he baited his son. Look out of that window. Look at the life and energy down there. I should think any young man's blood would tingle to get into it and be part of it. Look at the big things young men are doing in this town. He swung about, coming to the mahogany desk in the middle of the room. Look at what I was doing at your age. Look at what your own brothers are doing. Look at Roscoe. Yes, and look at Jim. I'm a Jim President of the Sheridan Realty Company last New Years with charge of every inch of ground and every brick and every shingle and stick of wood we own. And it's an example to any young man or old man either the way he took a hold of it. Last July we found out we wanted two more big warehouses at the Pump Works. Wanted them quick. Contractors said it couldn't be done. Said nine or ten months at the soonest. Couldn't see it any other way. What did Jim do? Took the contract himself. Found a fellow with a new cement and concrete process. Kept men on the job night and day and stayed on it night and day himself. And by George we begin to use them warehouses next week. Four months and a half and every inch fireproof. I tell you Jim's one of these fellas that make miracles happen. Now I don't say every young man can be like Jim because there's mighty few got his ability but every young man can go in and do his share. This town is God's own country and there's opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and an ounce of gumption. I tell you these young businessmen I watched just do my heart good. They don't set around on the back fence no sir. They take enough exercise to keep their health and they go to a baseball game once or twice a week in summer maybe and they're raising nice families with sons to take their places sometime and carry on the work because the works got to go on. They're putting their life flood into it I tell you and that's why we're getting bigger every minute and why they're getting bigger and why it's all going to keep on getting bigger. He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm and then observing that bibs remained in the same impassive attitude with his eyes still fixed upon the ceiling in a contemplation somewhat plaintive. Sheridan was impelled to groan. Oh Lord he said this is the way you always were. I don't believe you understood a darn word I've been saying. You don't look as if you did by George it's discouraging. I don't understand about getting about getting bigger said bibs bringing his gains down to look at his father placatively. I don't see just what? Sheridan leaned forward resting his hands upon the desk and staring across it incredulously at his son. I don't understand exactly what you want it all bigger for. Great God shouted Sheridan and struck the desk a blow with his clenched fist. A son of mine asks me that you go out and ask the poorest day laborer you can find ask him that question I did once bibs interrupted when I was in the machine shop I what did he say? He said oh hell answered bibs mildly yes I reckon he would Sheridan swung away from the desk I reckon he certainly would and I got plenty sympathy with him right now myself it's the same answer then bibs voice was serious almost tremulous damn nation Sheridan roared did you ever hear the word prosperity you ninny did you ever hear the word ambition did you ever hear the word progress? he flung himself into a chair after the outburst his big chest surging his throat tumultuous with guttural incoherences now then he said huskily when the anguish had somewhat abated what do you want to do sir what do you want to do I said taken by surprise bibs stammered what what do I want what if I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for what would you do bibs looked startled then timidity overwhelmed him a profound shyness he bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his shoe which he moved to and fro upon the rug like a culprit called to the desk in school what would you do loaf no sir bibs voice was almost inaudible and what little sound it made was unquestionably a guilty sound I suppose I I well I suppose I try to to write right what nothing important just poems and essays perhaps that all yes sir I see said his father breathing quickly with the restraint he was putting upon himself that is you want to write but you don't want to write anything of any account you think Sheridan got up again I take my hat off to the man that can write a good ad he said it fatically the best writing talent in this country is right spang in the ad business today you buy a magazine for good writing look on the back of it let me tell you I pay money for that kind of writing maybe you think it's easy just try it I've tried it and I can't do it I tell you an ads got to be written so it makes people do the hardest thing in the world to get him to do it's got to make him give up their money you talk about poems and essays I tell you when it comes to the actual skill of putting words together so as to make things happen R.T. Bloss right here in this city knows more in a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life you you may be bibs said indistinctly the last word smothered in a cough of course I'm right and if it ain't just like you to want to take up with the most out of date kind of writing there is poems and essays my lord bibs that's women's work you can't pick up a newspaper without having to see where Mrs. Rumskittle read a paper on Jane Eyre or East Lynn at the God knows what club and poetry why look at Edith I expect that poem of hers would set a pretty high watermark for you young man and it's the only one she's ever managed to write in her whole life when I wanted her to go on and write some more she said it took too much time said it took months and months and Edith's a smart girl she's got more energy in her little finger than you ever gave me a chance to see in your whole body bibs now look at the facts say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you could turn out maybe two that medal she got was worth about $15 so there's your income $30 a year that's a fine success to make of your life I'm not saying a word against poetry I wouldn't take $10,000 right now for that poem of Edith's and poetry's all right enough in its place but you leave it to the girls a man's got to do a man's work in this world he seated himself in a chair at his son's side and leaning over tap bibs confidentially on the knee this city's got the greatest future in America and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they're going to have a mighty fair share of it a mighty fair share I love this town it's God's own footstool and it's made money for me every day right along I don't know how many years I love it like I do my own business and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family it's a beautiful town look at our wholesale district look at any dristics we want to look at the park system we're putting through and the boulevards and the public statuary and she grows God how she grows he'd become intensely grave he spoke with solemnity now bibs I can't take any of it nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor bonds away with me and my shroud when I have to go but I want to leave my share in it to my boys I've worked for it I've been a builder and a maker and two blades of grass have grown where one grew before whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed them to grow I've built big and I want the building to go on and when my last hour comes I want to know that my boys are ready to take charge that they're fit to take charge and go on with it bibs when that hour comes I want to know that my boys are big men ready and fit to hold of big things bibs when I'm up above I want to know that the big share I've made mine here below is growing bigger and bigger in the charge of my boys he leaned back deeply moved there he said huskily I've never spoken more what was in my heart in my life I do it because I want you to understand and not think me a mean father I never had to talk that way to Jim and Roscoe they understood without any talk bibs I see said bibs but at least I think I do but wait a minute Sheridan raised his hand if you see the least bit in the world then you understand how it feels to me to have my son said here and talk about poems and essays and such like fulleries and you must understand to what it meant to start one of my boys and have him come back on me the way you did and have to be sent to a sanitarium because he couldn't stand work now let's get right down to it bibs I've had a whole lot of talk with old Doc Gurney about you one time another and I reckon I understand your case just about as well as he does anyway now here I'll be frank with you I did the other boys and that was for your own good because I saw you needed to be shook up more than they did you were always kind of moody and mope-ish and you needed work that'd keep you on the jump now why did it make you sick instead of brace you up and make a man of you the way it ought to have done I pinned old Gurney down to it I says look here ain't it really because he's just plain hated it yes he says that's it if he'd enjoyed it it wouldn't have heard him he loaths it and that affects his nervous system the more he tries it the more he hates it and the more he hates it the more injury it does him that ain't quite his words but it's what he meant and that's about the way it is yes said bibs that's about the way it is well then I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it but to make you like it bibs shivered and he turned upon his father a look that was almost ghostly I can't he said in a low voice I can't can't go back to the shop no can't like it I can't Sheridan jumped up his patients gone to his own view he had reasoned exhaustively had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father should only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious stubbornness which had been bibs baffling characteristic from childhood by George you will he cried you'll go back there and you'll like it Gurney says it won't hurt you if you like it and he says it'll kill you if you go back and hate it so it looks as if it was about up to you not to hate it well Gurney's a fool hate and work doesn't kill anybody and this isn't going to kill you whether you hate it or not I've never made a mistake in a serious matter in my life and it wasn't a mistake my sending you there in the first place and I'm going to prove it I'm going to send you back there and vindicate my judgment Gurney says it's all mental attitude well you're going to learn the right one he says in a couple more months this fool thing that's been the matter with you will be disappeared completely and you'll be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever went into the shop and right then is when you begin over right in that same shop nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father I do the best I can for my children and I take full responsibility for bringing my sons up to be men now so far I've failed with you but I'm not going to keep on failing I never tackled a job yet I didn't put through and I'm not going to begin with my own son I'm going to make a man of you by God I am bibs rose and went slowly to the door where he turned you say you give me a couple of months he said Sheridan pushed a bell button on his desk Gurney said two months more would put you back where you were you go home and begin to get yourself in the right mental attitude for those two months are up goodbye goodbye sir said bibs meekly end of chapter 9 recording by Jonathan birchard April 2009 chapter 10 of the turmoil this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jonathan birchard May 2009 the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by Booth Tarkington chapter 10 bibs room that knee department for transience to which the Lamedal George had shown him upon his return still bore the appearance of temporary quarters possibly because bibs had no clear conception of himself as a permanent incumbent however he had set upon the mantle piece the two photographs that he owned one a group 20 years old his father and mother with Jim and Roscoe as boys and the other a cabinet of Edith at 16 and upon the table where the books he had taken from his trunk Sartor Risartis virginibus Piresque Huckleberry Finn and after while's there were some other books in the trunk a large one which remain unremoved at the foot of the bed adding to the general impression of transiency it contained nearly all the possessions as well as the secret life of bibs Sheridan and bibs sat beside it the day after his interview with his father raking over a small collection of manuscripts in the top tray some of these he glanced through dubiously finding little comfort in them but one made him smile then he shook his head ruefully indeed and ruefully began to read it it was written on paper stamped hood sanitarium and bore the title Leisure a man may keep a quiet heart at 70 miles an hour but not if he is running the train nor is the habit of contemplation a useful quality in the stoker of a foundry furnace it will not be found to recommend him to the approbation of his superiors for a profession adapted solely to the pursuit of happiness and thinking I would choose that of an invalid his money is time and he may spend it on Olympus it will not suffice to be an amateur invalid to my way of thinking the perfect practitioner must be to all outward purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect enjoyment of life his serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of recovery he must lie serene in his long chair in the sunshine the world must be on the other side of the wall and the wall must be so thick and so high that he cannot hear the roaring of the furnace fires and the screaming of the whistles peace having read so far as the word peace bibs suffered an interruption interesting as a coincidence of contrast high voice is sounded in the hall just outside his door and it became evident that a woman's quarrel was in progress the parties to it having begun it in Edith's room and continuing it vehemently as they came out into the hall yes you better go home bibs heard his sister vociferating shrilly you better go home and keep your mind a little more on your husband Edie Edie he heard his mother remonstrating as peacemaker you see here this was civil and her voice was both accurate and tremulous don't you talk to me that way I came here to tell mother Sheridan what I'd heard and to let her tell father Sheridan if she thought she ought to go and I did it for your own good yes you did and Edith's jiving laughter to did loudly yes you did you didn't have any other reason oh no you don't want to break it up between bobby lambhorn and me because Edie Edie now now oh hush up mama I'd like to know then if she says her new friends tell her he's got such a reputation that he ought to come here what about is not going to her house how I've explained that to mother Sheridan Sibble's voice indicated that she was descending the stairs married people are not the same some things shielded from a young girl this seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith shielded from a young girl she shrilled you seem pretty willing to be the shield you look out Roscoe doesn't notice what kind of a shield you are Sibble's answer was inaudible but Mrs. Sheridan's flurried attempts at pacification were renewed now Edie Edie she means it for your good and you aren't oh hush up mama and let me alone if you dare tell papa now today and maybe you've got to promise never to tell him the girl cried passionately well we'll see you just come back in your own room and will know I won't talk it over stop pulling me let me alone and Edith flinging herself violently upon Bibb's door jerked it open swung around it into the room and slam the door behind her and through herself face down upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no perception of Bibb's presence in the room gasping and sobbing in a passion of tears she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched fists sneak she babbled aloud sneak snake in the grass cat Bibb's saw that she did not know he was there and he went softly toward the door hoping to get away before she became aware of him but some sound of his movement reached her and she sat up startled facing him Bibb's I thought I saw you go out a while ago yes I came back though I'm sorry did you hear me quarrelling with Sibyl only what you said in the hall you lie down again Edith I'm going out No don't go she applied a handkerchief to her eyes emitted a sob and repeated her request don't go I don't mind you you're quiet anyhow Mama's so fussy and never gets anywhere I don't mind you at all but I wish you'd sit down go ahead and cry all you want Edith you said no harm in that Sibyl told Mama Oh she began choking Mary virturies had Mama and Sibyl and I to tea one afternoon two weeks or so ago and she had some women there that Sibyl's been crazy to get in with and she just laid herself out to make a hit with them and she's been running after him ever since and now she comes over here and says they say Bobby lamb horn is so bad that even though they like his family none of the nice people in town would let him in their houses in the first place it's a falsehood and I don't believe a word of it and in the second place I know the reason she did it and what's more she knows I know it I won't say what it is not yet because papa and all of you would think I'm as crazy as she is snaky and Roscoe such a fool he'd probably quit speaking to me but it's true just you watch her that's all I ask just you watch that woman you'll see as it happened bibs was literally watching that woman glancing from the window he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old house next door she stood a moment in deep thought and walked quickly up the path to the door undoubtedly with the intention of calling but he did not mention this to a sister who after delivering herself of a rather vague Jeremiah upon the subject of her sister and lost treacheries departed to her own chamber leaving him to his speculations the chief of these concerned the social elasticities of women Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene she had suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering with resentment and yet she elected to be take herself to the presence of people whom she knew know more than formally bibs marveled surely he reflected some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl's face or in her manner she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or four minutes it took her to reach the vertries door and in this he was not mistaken for Mary vertries was at that moment wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to master but Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a casual collar she was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose that brought her and she was no more self conscious than she was finally intelligent for Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type scriptural in its antiquity she was merely the idle who may and does delude men of course and the best and dullest of her own sex as well finding invariably strong supporters among these latter it is a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought greater save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women and by its own lack of perspective for it is a type that never sees itself Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question it was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback she had not even the instinct to stop and consider her effect if she wished to make a certain impression she believed that she made it she believed that she was believed my mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come down Mary said when they were seated Sibyl ran the scale of of a cooing simulance of laughter which she had been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after remark addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms it was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an impression of sweetness just thought I'd fly in a minute she said continuing the cooing to relieve the last out of her gentility I thought I'd just behave like real country neighbors we are almost out in the country so far from downtown aren't we and it seems such a lovely day I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that afternoon you see coming here a bride and never having lived here before I've had to depend on my husband's friends almost entirely and I've really known scarcely anybody has been so engrossed in business ever since he was a mere boy why of course she paused with the air of having completed an expert explanation of course said Mary sympathetically accepting it yes I've been seeing quite a lot of the kidders be since that afternoon civil went on they're really delightful people indeed they are yes she stopped with unconscious subruptness her mind plainly wandering to another matter and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite errant moreover a tensing of symbols eyelids in that moment of abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess indicated that the Aaron was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of cheerful ease there was a restlessness of breathing a restlessness of hands mrs. kidders be and her daughter were chatting about some to the people here in town the other day said civil repeating the cooing and protracting it they said something that took me by surprise we were talking about our mutual friend mr. robert lambhorn mary interrupted her promptly do you mean mutual to include my mother and me she asked why yes the kidders bees and you and all of us shared ends I mean no said mary we shouldn't consider mr. lambhorn a friend of ours to her surprise civil nodded eagerly as if greatly pleased that's just the way mrs. kidders be talked she cried with the vehemments that made mary stare yes and I hear that's the way all you old families here speak of him mary looked aside but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure I had the impression he was a friend of yours she said adding hastedly and your husbands oh yes said the caller absently he is certainly a man's reputation for a little gay he ought to make a great difference to married people of course it's where young girls are in question then it may be very very dangerous there are great many things safe and proper for married people that might be awfully imprudent for a young girl don't you agree ms. for trees I don't know return the frank mary do you mean that you intend to remain a friend of mr. lamb horns but disapprove of ms. Sheridan's doing so that's it exactly was the naive and ardent responsive civil what I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn't it all suitable for Edith and the family ought to be made to understand it I tell you if she cried with a sudden access of vehemence her father ought to put his foot down her eyes flashed with the green spark something seemed to leap out and then retreat but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it as one might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back into hiding under a bush of course said civil much more composedly I hardly need say that it's entirely on Edith's account that I'm worried about this I'm as fond of Edith as if she was really my sister and I can't help fretting about it it would break my heart to have Edith's life spoiled this tune was off the key to Mary's ear civil tried to sing with path us but she flattered and when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal there is not uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other one clear and the other flawed in this case particularly Sibyl had an imperfect consciousness of Mary the Mary virtues that she saw was merely something to be chosen to her frantic purpose a Mary virtues who was incapable of penetrating that purpose Sibyl sat there believing she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to project never dreaming that with every word every look and every gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to the clear eyes of Mary and the Sibyl that Mary saw dressed woman in manner half rustic and in mind as shallow as a pan but possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong perhaps even violent what those emotions were Mary had not guessed but she began to suspect and Edith's life would be spoiled Sibyl continued it would be a dreadful thing for the whole family she's the very Apple of Father Sheridan's eye and he's as proud of her as he is of Jim and Rosco it would be a horrible thing for him to have her Mary a man like Robert Lambhorn but he doesn't know anything about him and if somebody doesn't tell him what I'm most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent and hurry on the wedding before he finds out and then it would be too late you see Ms. Vertries it's very difficult for me to decide just what it's my duty to do I see said Mary looking at her thoughtfully does Miss Sheridan seemed to to care very much about him he's deliberately fascinated her return the visitor beginning to breathe quickly and heavily oh she wasn't difficult she knew she wasn't in right in this town and she was crazy to meet the people that were and she thought he was one of them but that was only the start that made it easy for him and he didn't need it he could have done it anyway Sybil was launched now her eyes were furious and her voice shook he went after her deliberately the way he does everything he's as cold blooded as a fish all he cares about is his own pleasure and lately he's decided it would be pleasant to get a hold of a piece of real money and there was Edith and he'll marry her nothing in earth can stop him unless he finds out she won't have any money if she marries him and the only person that could make him understand that is father Sheridan somehow that's got to be managed because lamb horn is going to hurry and on as fast as he can he told me so last night he said he was going to marry her the first minute he could persuade her to do it and little Ediths already to be persuaded Sibyl's eyes flashed green again and he swore he'd do it she panted he swore he'd marry Edith Sheridan and nothing on earth could stop him and then Mary understood her lips parted and she stared at the babbling creature incredulously a sudden vivid picture in her mind a canvas of unconscious Sibyl's painting Mary beheld it with pity and horror she saw Sibyl clinging to Robert lamb horn raging in a whisper perhaps or servants might have heard she saw Sibyl in treating beseeching threatening despairingly and lamb horn tired of her first evasive then brutally letting her have the truth and at last infuriating swearing to marry her rival if Sibyl had not babbled out the word swore it might have been less plain the poor woman blundered on wholly unaware of what she had confessed you see she said more quietly whatever's going to be done went over and told mother Sheridan what I'd heard about lamb horn oh I was open and above board I told her right before Edith I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness because nobody can say it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend would do but mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb and she's afraid to ever come right out with anything father Sheridan's different Edith can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary indulgence but when it comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel rock if it's a question of his will against anybody else's he'd make his will rule if it killed him both now he'd never in the world let lamb horn come near the house again if he knew his reputation so you see somebody's got to tell him it isn't a very easy position for me is it Ms. Vertries No said Mary gravely well to be frank said Sibyl smiling that's why I've come to you to me Mary frowned there isn't anybody ever made such a hit with Father Sheridan in his life as you have and of course we all hope you're not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the family this Sally with another and louder effective laughter and if it's my duty why in a way I think it might be thought yours too no no exclaimed Mary sharply listen said Sibyl now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this story and Edith says it's not true suppose she says lamb horn has a good reputation and that I'm repeating irresponsible gossip or suppose what's most likely she loses her temper and says I invented it then what am I going to do Father Sheridan doesn't know Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter and they're out of the question anyway but suppose I could say all right if you want proof ask Miss Vertries she came with me and she's waiting in the next room now to know know said Mary quickly you mustn't listen she was on easy ground now to her mind and had no doubt of her success you naturally don't want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel but if you take part in it it won't be one you don't know yourself what weight you carry over there and no one would have the right to say you did it except out of the purest kindness don't you see that Jim and his Father would admire you all the more for that Miss Vertries listen don't you see we ought to do it you and I do you suppose Robert Lamhorn cares a snap of his fingers for her do you suppose a man like him would look at Edith Sheridan if it wasn't for the money and again Sybil's emotion rose to the surface I tell you he's after nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's money pile over there next door he'd marry anybody to do it Mary Edith she cried I tell you he'd marry their nigger cook for that she stomped afraid at the wrong time that she had been to vehement but a glance at Mary and Sybil decided that she had produced the effect she wished Mary was not looking at her she was staring straight before her at the wall her eyes wide and shining she became visibly a little paler as Sybil looked at her after nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's money pile over there next door the voice was vulgar the words were vulgar and the plain truth was vulgar how it rang in Mary Virtry's ears the clear mirror had caught its own image and the flawed one at last Sybil put forth her best bidge to clench the matter she offered her bargain now don't you worry she said suddenly about this setting Edith against you she'll get over it after a while anyway but if she tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in over there or manage so as to sort of leave you out why I've got a house and Jim likes to come there I don't think Edith would be that way she's too crazy to have you make her around with a smart crowd but if she did you needn't worry and another thing I guess you won't mind Jim's own sister in law speaking of it of course I don't know just how matter stand between you and Jim but Jim and Roscoe are about as much alike as two brothers could be and Roscoe was very slow making up his mind sometimes I used to think he actually never would now what I mean is sisters in lock and do lots of things to help matters on like that there's lots of little things can be said and lots she's stopped puzzled Mary virtrice had gone from pale to scarlet and now still scarlet indeed she rose without a word of explanation or any other kind of word and walk slowly to the open door and out of the room Sibyl was a little taken a back she's supposed Mary had remembered something neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant and that she would return in a moment but it was rather a rude excessive absent mindedness not to have excused yourself especially as her guest was talking and Mary's return being delayed Sibyl found time to think this unprefaced exit odder and ruder than she had first considered it there might have been more excuse for it she thought had she been speaking of matters less important offering to do the girl all the kindness in her power too Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently she examined the soul of her shoe she decided on a new shape of heel she made an inventory of the furniture of the room of the rugs of the wallpaper and engravings then she looked at her watch and frowned went to a window and stood looking out upon the brown lawn then came back to the chair she had abandoned and sat again there was no sound in the house a strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her face and slowly she grew as Scarlett as Mary Scarlett to the ears she looked at her watch again and 25 minutes had elaps and she had looked at it before she went into the hall glanced over her shoulder oddly then she let herself softly out of the front door and went across the street to her own house Roscoe met her upon the threshold gloomily saw you from the window he explained you must find a lot to say to that old lady what old lady Mrs. Fertries I've been waiting for you for a long time and I saw the daughter come out 15 minutes ago and post a letter and then walk on up the street don't stand out on the porch she said crossly come in here there's something it's come time I'll have to talk to you about come in but as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father's house and started he lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun staring fixedly something's the matter over there he muttered and then more loudly as alarm came into his voice he said what's the matter over there bibs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its highest speed she saw Roscoe he made a gesture singularly eloquent of calamity and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street Edith had followed part of the way down the drive and it could be seen that she was crying bitterly she lifted both arms to Roscoe summoning him by George gasped Roscoe I believe somebody's dead and he started for the new house at a run end of chapter 10 chapter 11 of this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit Libervox dot org recording by Bologna Times the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth Tarkington chapter 11 Sheridan had decided to conclude his day's work early that afternoon and at about two o'clock he left his office with a man of affairs from foreign parts who had traveled far for a business conference with Sheridan and his colleagues Herr Favre in spite of his French name was a gentleman of Bavaria it was his first visit to our country and Sheridan took pleasure in showing him the sights of the country's finest city they got into an open car at the main entrance of Sheridan building and were driven first slowly and momentously through the wholesale district and the retail district then more rapidly they inspected the packing houses and stockyards then skirmished over the park system and boulevards and after that whizzed through the residence section on their way to the factories and foundries Oh, Cray! observed Herr Favre smiling Cray! I called Sheridan I don't know what you mean Cray! No light said Herr Favre with a wave of his hand toward the long rows of houses on both sides of the street No white-less window curtains Oh, Cray! less window curtains Oh, I see Sheridan laughed indulgently You mean Cray! No, they ain't They're white I never saw any gray ones Herr Favre shook his head Much amused There are no white ones said There is no white anything in your city No white window curtains No white house No white people He pointed upward Smoke! Then he sniffed the air and clasped his nose between forefinger and thumb Smoke! Smoke everywhere! Smoke in your insides He tapped his chest Smoke in your lungs Oh! Smoke! Sheridan cried with gusto drawing in a deep breath and patently finding it delicious You bet we got smoke Exbencif! said Herr Favre Runes foliage Runes fabrics Maybe in summer it is not so bad But I wonder your wife's will bear it Sheridan laughed uproariously Oh! Ha! Ha! Ha! They know it means new spring hats from They must need many too said visitor No hats No all things But nothing white In Munchen We could not do it We are a saving people Where's that? In Munchen You say Munich Well, I've never been to Munich But I took in the Mediterranean trip and I tell you outside of some right good scenery all I saw was mighty dirty and mighty shiftless and mighty run down at the hill Now coming right down to it Mr. Favre Wouldn't you rather live here in this town than in Munich? I know you got more enterprise up there than the part of the old country I saw and I know you're a live businessman and you're associated with others like you but when it comes to living in a place wouldn't you keep rather be here than over there? For me said Herr Favre No yet I should not think I was leaving It would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work Nothing else We got a good many good citizens here from your part of the world They like it Oh yes and Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly The first generation they bring them Germany with them Then after that they are Americans like you He tapped his house big knee genuinely You are a patriot so are they? Well I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself Mr. Favre Sheridan exclaimed gaily You certainly stand up for your own town If you stick to saying you'd rather live there than you would here Yes sir You sure are some patriot to say that after you've seen our city It ain't reasonable in you But I must say I kind of admire you for it Every man ought to stick up for his own Even when he sees the other fellows got the goods on him Yet I expect way down deep in your heart Mr. Favre You'd rather live right here than any place else in the world if you had your choice Man alive This is God's country Mr. Favre and a blind man couldn't help seeing it You couldn't stand where you do in a business way and not see it Soho boy Here we are This is the big works and I'll show you something now that'll make your eyes stick out The head arrived at the pump works and for an hour Mr. Favre was personally conducted and personally instructed by the founder and president the buzzing queen bee of those buzzing hives Now I'll take you for a spin in the country said Sheridan When at last they came out to the car again We'll take a breather But with his foot on the step he paused a hell of a neat young man who came out of the office smiling a greeting Hello young fellow Sheridan said heartily On the job, are you Jimmy? Ha They don't catch you off of it very often I guess Though I do hear you go automobile riding in the country sometimes with a mighty fine looking girl setting up beside you He roared with laughter clapping his son on the shoulder That's all right with me if it is with her So Jimmy well when we gonna move into your new warehouses Monday Sunday if you want to said Jim No cried his father delighted Don't tell me you're gonna keep your word about dates That's no way to do contracting Never heard of a contractor yet didn't want more time They'll be all ready for you on the minute said Jim I'm going over both of them now with links and Sherman from foundation to roof I guess they'll pass inspection too Well then When you get through with that said his father You go and take your girl out riding by George you've earned it You tell her you stand high with me He stepped into the car waving a waggish farewell and when the wheels were in motion again he turned upon his companion a broad face literally shining with pride That's my boy Jimmy he said Find young man Yes said her father I got two of the finest boys said Sheridan I got two of the finest boys God ever made and that's a fact Mr. Farver Jim's the oldest and I tell you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch him in bed My other boy Roscoe he's always to the good too but Jim's a wizard He saw them two new process warehouses just about finished Well Jim build them I'll tell you about that Mr. Farver and he recited this history describing the new process at length in fact he had such pride in Jim's achievement that he told her father all about it more than once Find young man Yes repeated the good munch three quarters of an hour later they were many miles out in the open country by this time He is that said Sheridan adding as if confidentially I got a fine family Mr. Farver fine children I got a daughter now You take her and put her anywhere you please and she'll shine up with any of them There's culture and refinement and society in this town by the carload and here lately she's been getting right in the thick of it her and my daughter-in-law both I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law Mr. Farver I'm going to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town and you'll see and we'll serve from all I hear two of them been holding their own with the best myself I and the wife never had much time for much of that kind of doings but it's all right good for the children and my daughter she's always kind of taken to it I'll read you a poem she wrote when I get you up at the house she wrote it in school and took the first prize for poetry with it I tell you they don't make him any smarter than that girl Mr. Farver yes sir take us all around we're a pretty happy family yes sir Roscoe hasn't got any children yet and I haven't ever spoke to him and his wife about it it's kind of a delicate matter but it's about time the wife and I saw some grandchildren growing up around us I certainly do hanker for about four or five little curly head rascals take them on me boys I hope of course that's only natural Jim's got his eye on a mighty splendid looking girl Liz right next door to us I expect you heard me josh and him about it yonder she's one of the old blue bloods here and I guess it was a mighty good stock to raise her she's one of these girls that stand right up and look at you and pretty she's the prettiest thing you ever saw good size too good health and good sense Jim will be just right if he gets her I must say it tickles me to think of the way that boy took a hold of that job back yonder four months and a half yes sir he expanded this thing once more and thus he continued to entertain the stranger throughout the long drive darkness had fallen before they reached the city on their return and it was after five when Sheridan allowed her father to descend at the door of his hotel where boys were shrieking extra additions of the evening paper now good night Mr. Farber said Sheridan leaning from the car to shake hands with his guest don't forget I'm going to come around and take you up to go on go on away boy and his boy had thrust himself almost between them yelling X tree second X tree X tree all about the horrible accident X tree get out laugh Sheridan who wants to read about accidents get out the boy moved away philosophically X tree X tree he shelled three men killed X tree millionaire killed two other men killed X tree X tree don't forget Mr. Farber Sheridan completed his interrupted farewells I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner I'll be here for you about half past five tomorrow afternoon hope you enjoyed the drive much as I have good night good night Elaine back speaking to the chauffeur now you can take me around to the central city barbershop boy I want to get a shave before I go up home X tree X tree screamed the news boys zigzagging among the crowds like bats in the desk X tree all about the horrible accident X tree it struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many extras they printed extras for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties it was a mistake he decided critically crying wolf too often wouldn't sell the goods it was bad business the papers would make more in the long run he was sure that they published an extra only when something of real importance happened X tree all about the horrible accident X tree a boy squawked under his nose as he descended from the car go on away said Sheridan gruffly though he smiled he let to see the youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world but as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant glass doors of the barbershop a second news boy grabbed the arm of the one who had thus fried his wares say Yalam said the second horse with awe and she know who that is who it's Sheridan cheese cried the first staring insanely at about the same hour four times a week Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday Sheridan stopped at the shop to be shaved by the head barber the barbers were Negroes he was their great man and it was their habit to give him a reception his entrance being always the signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality followed by general excesses of briskness and gaiety but it was not so this evening the shop was crowded copies of the extra were being read by men waiting and by men in the latter stages of treatment extras lay upon vacant seats and showed from the pockets of hanging coats there was a loud chatter between the practitioners and the recumbent patients a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened the door his name seemed to fizz in the air like the last buttering of a firework the barbers stopped shaving and clipping lathered men turned their prostrate heads to stare and there was a moment of amazing silence in the shop the head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau his left hand held stretch between thumb and forefinger an elastic section of his helpless customer's cheek while his right hand hung poised over it the razor motionless and then, roused from trance by the door's closing he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence the barber remembered that there are no circumstances in life or just after it under which a man does not need to be shaved he stepped forward profoundly grave I'll be through with this man in the chair one minute, Mr. Sheridan he said in a hushed tone yes, son and of a solemn negro youth who stood by gazing stupidly you go and resign he demanded in a fierce undertone you go and take Miss Sheridan's coat he sent an angry look around the shop and the barbers, taking his meaning averted their eyes and fell to work the murmur of subdued conversation buzzing from chair to chair you sit down one minute, Miss Sheridan said the head barber gently I fixed a nice chair for you to wait in never mind, said Sheridan go on, get through with your man yes, son and he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe followed by Sheridan's puzzled gaze something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently Sheridan did not know what to make of it ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand for the meaning of the mystery but an inexplicable silence had been imposed upon him by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd look every man in the shop had bent upon him vaguely disquieted he walked to one of the seats in the rear of the shop and looked up and down the two lines of barbers catching quickly shifted furtive glances here and there he made this brief survey after wondering if one of the barbers had died suddenly that day or the night before but there was no vacancy in either line the seat next to his was unoccupied but someone had left a copy of the extra there and frowning he picked it up and glanced at it the first of the swollen display lines had little meaning to him fatally faulty new process roof collapses wearing capitalist death with inventor seven escape when crash comes death claims thus forehead he read when a thin hand fell upon the paper covering the print from his eyes and looking up he saw bibs standing before him pale and gentle immeasurably compassionate I've come for you father said bibs here's the boy with your coat and hat put them on and come home and even then sharon did not understand so secure was he in the strength and bigness of everything that was his he did not know what calamity had befallen him but he was frightened without a word he followed bibs heavily out through the still shop but as they reached the pavement he stopped short and grasping his son's sleeve with shaking fingers swung him around so they stood face to face what what his mouth could not do him the service he asked of it he was so frightened x tree screamed of newsboys straight in his face young north side millionaire instantly killed x tree not jim said sharon bibs caught his father's hand in his own and you come to tell me that sharon did not know what he said but in those first words and in the first anguish of the big stricken face bibs understood the unuttered cry of accusation why wasn't it you end of chapter eleven chapter number twelve of the turmoil this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for information or to volunteer please visit w w w dot libervox dot org recording by jonathan birchard may two thousand nine the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter twelve standing in the black group under gaunt trees the cemetery three days later bibs unwillingly let an old old thought become definite in his mind the sickly brother had buried the strong brother and bibs wondered how many million times that had happened since men first made a word to name the sons of one mother almost literally he had buried his strong brother for sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead son he had nothing to help him meet the shock neither definite religion nor philosophy definite or indefinite he could only beat his forehead and beg over and over to be killed with an axe while his wife was helpless except to entreat him not to take on herself adding a continuous lamentation edith weeping made truce with civil and sought to it that the morning garments were beyond criticism roscoe was dazed and he shirked justifying himself curiously by saying he had never had any experience in such matters so it was bibs the shy outsider who became during this dreadful time the master of the house for a strange the thing is that sometimes may be the result of a death he met the relatives from out of town at the station he set the time for the funeral and the time for the meals he selected the flowers and he selected jim's coffin he did all the grim things and all the other things jim had belonged to an order of nights who lengthened the rights with a picturesque ceremony of their own and at first bibs wished to avoid this but upon reflection he offered no objection he divined that the nights and their service would be not precisely a consolation but a satisfaction to his father so the nights led the procession with their band playing a dirge part of the long way to the cemetery and then turned back after forming in two lines plume hats sympathetically in hand to let the hearse and the carriages pass between mighty fine-looking men said Sheridan brokenly they all all liked him he was his breath caught in a sob and choked him he was a grand supreme herald bibs had to find a right dust to dust said the minister under the gaunt trees and at that Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot all of the black group shivered except bibs when it came to dust to dust bibs stood passive for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a familiar neighbor he had been close upon dust himself for a long long time and even now he could prophesy no protracted separation between himself and dust the machine shop had brought him very close and if he had to go back it would probably bring him closer still so close as doctor gurney predicted that no one would be able to tell the difference between dust and himself and Sheridan if bids read him truly would be all the more determined to make a man of him now that there was a man less in the family to bibs knowledge no one and nothing had ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans once he had determined upon them and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any plan of his would not work out according to his calculations his nature unfitted him to accept failure he had the gift of terrible persistence and with unflect confidence that his way was the only way he would hold to that way of making a man of bibs who understood very well in his passive and impersonal fashion that it was a way which might make not a man but dust of him but he had no shutter for the thought he had no shutter for that thought or for any other thought the truth about bids was in the poem which edith had adopted he had so thoroughly formed the over sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that no doubt he had forgotten by this time where he had put some of them especially those which concern himself but he had not hidden his feelings about his father where they could not be found he was strange to his father but his father was not strange to him he knew that Sheridan's plans were conceived in the stubborn belief that they would bring about a good thing for bibs himself and whatever the result was to be the son had no bitterness far otherwise for as he looked at the big woeful figure shaking and tortured and almost unbearable pity laid hands upon bibs' throat Roscoe stood blinking his lip quivering edith wept audibly Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half-collapsed against her husband but bibs knew that his father was the one who cared it was over men and overall stepped forward with their shovels and bibs nodded quickly to Roscoe making a slight gesture toward the line of waiting carriages Roscoe understood bibs would stay and see the grave filled the rest were to go the groups began to move away over the turf wheels creaked on the graveled drive and one by one the carriages filled and departed the horse is setting off at a walk bibs gazed steadfastly at the workman he knew that his father kept looking back as he went toward the carriage and that was the thing he did not want to see but after a little while there were no sounds of wheels or hoofs on the gravel and bibs glancing up saw that everyone had gone a coupe had been left for him the driver dozing patiently the workman placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about it and bibs altered the position of one or two of these then stood looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming hillock beneath the darkening November sky it's too bad he half whispered his lips forming the words and his meaning was that it was too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go for this was his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertree standing all alone on the other side of the drive she had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a slope where the tombs were many and behind her rose a multitude of the barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards urn crown columns and stone drape obelisks shop-carved angels and shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts all lifting in unthoughtful pathos their blind stoniness toward the sky against such a background bibs was not incongruous with his figure in black so long and slender and his face so long and thin and white nor was the undertaker's coupe out of keeping with the shabby driver dozing on the box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without hope and without regret but for Mary Vertree's here was a grotesque setting she was a vivid living creature of a beautiful world and a graveyard is not the place for people to look charming she also looked startled and confused but not more startled and confused than bibs in Edith's poem he had declared his intention of hiding his heart among the stars and in his boyhood one day he had successfully hidden his body in the coal pile he had been no comrade of other boys or of girls and his acquaintances of a recent period were only a few fellow invalids and the nurses at the hood sanitarium all his life bibs had kept himself to himself he was but a shy onlooker in the world nevertheless the startled gaze he bent upon the unexpected lady before him had causes other than his shyness and her unexpectedness for Mary Vertree's had been a shining figure in the little world of late given to the view of this humble and elusive outsider and spectators sometimes find their hearts beating faster than those of the actors in the spectacle thus with bibs now he started and stared he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness his fingers fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim Mr. Sheridan said Mary I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with you she stopped not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own why yes bibs stammered I'll be... won't you get in in that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words then Mary without more ado got into the coupe and bibs followed closing the door you're very kind she said somewhat breathlessly I should have had to walk and it's beginning to get dark it's three miles I think yes said bibs it is beginning to get dark I noticed that I ought to tell you I Mary began confusedly she bit her lip sat silent a moment then spoke with composure it must seem odd no no bibs protested earnestly not in the in the in the least it does though said Mary I had not intended to come to the cemetery Mr. Sheridan but one of the men in charge at the house came and whispered to me that the family wished me to I think your sister sent him so I came but when we reached here I oh I felt that perhaps I bibs nodded gravely yes yes he murmured I got out on the opposite side of the carriage she continued I meant I mean opposite from from where all of you were and I wandered off over in the other direction and I didn't realize how little time it takes from where I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving at least I didn't notice them but when I got back just now you were the only one here I didn't know the other people in the carriage I came in and of course they didn't think to wait for me that's why yes said bibs I and that seemed all he had to say just then Mary looked out through the dusty window I think we'd better be going home if you please she said yes bibs agreed not moving it will be dark before we get there she gave him a quick little glance I think you must be very tired Mr. Sheridan and I know you have reason to be she said gently if you'll let me I'll and without explaining her purpose I opened the door on her side of the coupe and leaned out bibs started in blank perplexity not knowing what she meant to do driver she called in her clear voice loudly driver we'd like to start please driver stop at the house just north of Mr. Sheridan's please the wheels began to move and she leaned back beside bibs once more I noticed that he was asleep when we got in she said I suppose they have a great deal of night work bibs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice I've never been able to apologize quickly he said with his accustomed slowness because if I try to I stammer my brother Roscoe whipped me once when we were boys for stepping on his slate pencil it took me so long to tell him it was an accident he finished before I did Mary Virtries had never heard anything quite like the drawing gentle voice or the odd implication that he was not noticing the motionless state of their vehicle was an accident she had formed a casual impression of him not without sympathy but at once she discovered that he was unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings of him and suddenly she saw a picture he had not intended to paint for sympathy a sturdy boy hammering a smaller sickly boy and the sickly boy unresentful not that picture alone others flashed before her instantaneously she had a glimpse of bibs's life and into his life she had a queer feeling new to her experience of knowing him instantly it startled her a little and then with some surprise she realized that she was glad he had sat so long after getting into the coupe before he noticed that it had not started what she did not realize however was that she had made no response to his apology and they passed out of the cemetery gates neither having spoken again bibs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was silence the dusk, gathering in their small enclosure was filled with a rich presence for him and presently it was so dark that neither of the two could see the other nor did even their garments touch but neither had any sense of being alone the wheels creak steadily rumbling presently on paved streets there were the sounds as from a distance of the plod-plod of the horses and sometimes the driver became audible coughing asthmatically or saying, you Joe! with a spiritless flap of the whip upon an unresponsive back oblongs of light from the lamps at street corners came swimming into the interior of the coupe and thinning rapidly to lances passed utterly leaving greater darkness and yet neither of these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral broke the silence it was Mary who perceived the strangeness of it too late abruptly she realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of her companion and not talking to him Mr. Sheridan, she began not knowing what she was going to say but impelled to say anything as she realized the queerness of this drive Mr. Sheridan, I the coupe stopped you Joe! said the driver reproachfully and climbed down and opened the door what's the trouble, Bibbs inquired lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan sir Mary was incredulous she felt that it couldn't be true and that it mustn't be true that they had driven all the way without speaking what? Bibbs demanded we're there sir said the driver sympathetically next house north of Mr. Sheridan's Bibbs descended to the curb why yes he said yes you seem to be right and while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front windows of Mr. Vertrie's house Mary got out unassisted let me help you said Bibbs stepping toward her mechanically and she was several feet from the coupe when he spoke oh no she murmured I think I can she meant that she could get out of the coupe without help but perceiving that she had already accomplished this feat she decided not to complete the sentence you Joe! cried the driver angrily climbing to his box and he rumbled away at his team's best pace a snails thank you for bringing me home Mr. Sheridan said Mary stiffly she did not offer her hand good night good night Bibbs said in response and turning with her walked beside her to the door Mary made that a short walk she almost ran realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her beginning to shock her she stepped aside from the light that fell through the glass panels of the door and with held her hand as it touched the old fashioned bell handle I'm quite safe thank you she said with a little emphasis good night good night said Bibbs and went obediently when he reached the street he looked back but she had vanished within the house moving slowly away he caremed against two people who were turning out from the pavement to cross the street they were Roscoe and his wife where are your eyes Bibbs demanded Roscoe sleepwalking as usual but Sybil took the wanderer by the arm come over to our house for a while Bibbs she urged I want to no I'd better yes I want you to your father's gone to bed and they're all quiet over there all worn out just come for a minute he yielded and when they were in the house she repeated herself with real feeling all worn out well if anybody is you are Bibbs and I don't wonder you've done every bit of the work of it you mustn't get down sick again I'm going to make you take a little brandy he let her have her own way following her into the dining room and was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the decanters on the sideboard Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much heavier libation in a larger glass and the two men sat while Sybil leaned against the sideboard reviewing the episodes of the day and recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths she pressed Bibbs to remain longer and then as he persisted she went with him to the front door he opened it and she said Bibbs you were coming out of the virturies house when we met you how did you happen to be there I had only been to the door he said good night Sybil wait she insisted we saw you coming out I wasn't he explained moving to depart I just brought Miss virturies home what she cried yes he said and stepped out upon the porch that was it good night Sybil wait she said following him across the threshold how did that happen I thought you were going to wait while those men filled the she paused but moved near him insistently I did wait Miss virturies was there he said reluctantly she had walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were leaving when she came back the coupe waiting for you one left Sybil regarded him with dilating eyes she spoke with a slow breathlessness and she drove home from Jim's funeral with you without warning she burst into laughter clapped her hand ineffectually over her mouth and ran up roriously into the house hurling the door shut behind her end of chapter 12