 27 Mrs. Sheridan, in a wrapper, noiselessly opened the door of her husband's room at daybreak the next morning and peered within the darkened chamber. At the old house they had shared a room, but the architect had chosen to separate them at the new, and they had not known how to formulate an objection, although to both of them something seemed vaguely reprehensible in the new arrangement. Sheridan did not stir, and she was withdrawing her head from the aperture when he spoke. Oh, I'm awake, come in if you want to, and shut the door. She came and sat by the bed. I woke up thinking about it, she explained, and the more I thought about it, the sureer I got, I must be right, and I knew you'd be tormenting yourself if you was awake, so, well, you got plenty other troubles, but I'm just sure you ain't going to have the worry with Bibbs, it looks like. You bet I ain't, he grunted. Look how biddable he was about going back to the works, she continued. He's a right good-hearted boy, really, and sometimes I honestly have to say he seems right smart, too. Now and then he'll say something sounds right-right. Of course, most always it doesn't, and a good deal of the time when he says things why, I have to feel glad we haven't got company, because they think he didn't have any gumption at all. Yet, look at the way he did when Jim, when Jim got hurt. He took right hold of things. Of course, he'd been sick as self, so much and all, and the rest of us never had much, and we were kind of green about what to do in that kind of trouble. Still, he did take hold, and everything went off all right. You'll have to say that much, Papa, and Dr. Gurney says he's got brains, and you can't deny, but with the doctor's right, considerable of a man. He acts sleepy, but that's only because he's got such a large practice. He's a pretty wide awake kind of man, some ways. Well, what he says last night about Bibbs himself being asleep, and how much he amount to if he ever woke up. That's what I got to thinking about. You heard him, Papa. He says, Bibbs will be a bigger business man than what Jim and Roscoe was put together if he ever wakes up, he says. Wasn't that exactly what he says? I suppose so, said Sheridan, without exhibiting any interest. Gurney's crazier in Bibbs, but if he wasn't, if what he says was true, what of it? Listen, Papa, just suppose Bibbs took it in his mind to get married. You know where he goes all the time. Oh, Lord, yes, Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall, leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair. You better go back to sleep. He runs over there. Every minute she'll let him, I suppose. Go back to bed. There's nothing in it. Why ain't there, she urged. I know better there is too. You wait and see. There's just one thing in the world that'll wake up the sleepiest young man alive. Yes, and make him jump up. I don't care who he is or how sound asleep it looks like he is. That's what it takes into his head to pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and children of his own. Then I guess he'll go out after the money. You'll see. I've known dozens of cases and so have you, Mooney, no counting young men, all notions and talk, going to be ministers, maybe here's something. And there's just this one thing takes it out of him and brings him right down to business. Well, I never could make out just what it is Bibbs wants to be. Really, doesn't seem he wants to be a minister exactly. He's so far away you can't tell and he never says, but I know this is going to get him right down to common sense. Now, I don't say that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet or else he wouldn't be talking that full talk about $9 a week being good enough for him to live on. But it's coming papa and he'll jump for whatever you want to hand him out. He will and I can tell you this much too. He'll want all the salary and stock he can get hold of and he'll hustle to keep getting more. That girl's the kind that a young husband just goes crazy to give things to. She's pretty and fine looking and things look nice on her and I guess she'd like to have them about as well as the next. And I guess she isn't getting many these days either and she'll be pretty ready for the change. I saw her with her sleeves rolled up at the kitchen window the other day and Jackson told me yesterday they're cooked left two weeks ago and they haven't tried to hire another one. He says her and her mother have been doing the housework a good while and now they're doing the cooking too. Of course Bibbs wouldn't know that unless she's told them and I reckon she wouldn't. She's kind of stiffish looking and Bibbs is too up in the clouds to notice anything like that for himself. They've never asked him to a meal in the house but he wouldn't notice that either. He's kind of innocent. Now I was thinking you know I don't suppose we've hardly mentioned the girl's name at table since Jim went but it seems to me maybe if Sheridan flung out his arms uttering a sound half grown half yawn you're barking up the wrong tree go back to bed mama why am I she demanded crossley why am I barking up the wrong tree because you are there's nothing in it I'll bet you she said rising I'll bet you he goes to church with her this morning what do you want to bet go back to bed he commanded I know what I'm talking about there's nothing in it I tell you she shook her head perplexedly you think because Jim was running so much with her it wouldn't look right no nothing to do with it then do you know something about it that you ain't told me yes I do he grunted now go on maybe I can get a little sleep I ain't had any yet well she went to the door her expression downcast I thought maybe but she coughed perfect early oh papa something else I wanted to tell you I was talking to Roscoe over the phone last night when the telegram came so I forgot to tell you but well Sybil wants to come over this afternoon Roscoe says she has something she wants to say to us it'll be the first time she's been out since she was able to sit up and I reckon she wants to tell us she's sorry for what happened they expect to get off by the end of the week and I reckon she wants to feel she's done what she could to kind of make up anyway that's what he said I phoned him again about eat up and he said it wouldn't disturb Sybil because she'd been expecting it she was sure all along it was going to happen and besides I guess she's got all that foolishness pretty much out of her being so sick but what I thought was no use being rough with her papa I expect she's suffered a good deal and I don't think we ought to be on Roscoe's account you'll be kind oh polite to her won't you papa he mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had pulled over his head what she said timidly I was just saying I hoped you'd treat Sybil all right when she comes this afternoon you will won't you papa he threw the coverlet off furiously I presume so he roared she departed guiltily but if he had accepted her pro offered wager that bibs would go to church with Mary virtuous that morning mrs. Sheridan would have lost nevertheless bibs and Mary did certainly set out from mr. virtuous's house with the purpose of going to church that was their intention and they had no other they meant to go to church but it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation as they came to the church and though Mary was looking to the right and bibs was looking to the left bibs's leftward glance converged with Mary's rightward glance and neither was looking far beyond the other at this time it also happened that though they were a little jostled among groups of people in the vicinity of the church they passed this somewhat prominent edifice without being aware of their proximity to it and they had gone an incredible number of blocks beyond it before they had discovered their error however feeling that they might be embarrassingly late if they returned they decided that a walk would make them as good it was a windless winter morning with an inch of crisp snow over the ground so they walked and for the most part they were silent but on their way home after they had turned back at noon they began to be talkative again Mary said bibs after a time am i a sleepwalker she laughed a little then looked grave does your father say you are yes when he's in a mood to flatter me other times other names he has quite a list you mustn't mind she said gently he's been getting some pretty severe shocks what you've told me makes me pretty sorry for him bibs i've always been sure he's very big yes big and blind he's like a hercules without eyes and without any consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow stronger stronger for what for nothing are you sure bibs it can't be for nothing it must be stronger for something even though he doesn't know what it is perhaps what he and his kind are struggling for is something so great they couldn't see it so great none of us could see it no he's just like some blind unconscious thing heaving underground till he breaks through and leaps out into the daylight she finished for him cheerily into the smoke said bibs look at the powder of coldest already dirtying the decent snow even though it's sunday that's from the little pigs the big ones aren't so bad on sunday there's a flick of soot on your cheek some pigs sent it out into the air he might as well have thrown it on you it would have been braver for then he'd have taken his chance of my whooping in for it if i could is there soot on my cheek bibs or were you only saying so rhetorically is there is there there are soot on your cheeks mary a flick on each one landed since i mentioned the first she halted immediately giving him her handkerchief and he succeeded in transferring most of the black from her face to the cambrick they were entirely matter of course about it an elderly couple at chance had been walking behind bibs and mary for the last block or so and passed ahead during the removal of the soot there said the elderly wife you're always wrong when you begin guessing about strangers those two young people aren't honeymooners at all they've been married for years a blind man could see that i wish i did know who threw that soot on you said bibs looking up at the neighboring chimneys as they went on they arrest children for throwing snowballs at the street cars but but they don't arrest the street cars for shaking all the pictures in the houses crooked every time they go by nor for the upward they make i wonder what's the cost and nerves the noise of the city each year yes we pay the price for living in a growing town whether we have money to pay or none who is it gets the pay said bibs not i she laughed nobody gets it there isn't any pay there's only money and only some of the men downtown get much of that that's what my father wants me to get yes she said smiling to him and nodding and you don't want it and you don't need it but you don't think i'm a sleepwalker mary he had told her of his father's new plans for him though he had not described the vigor and pictureseness of their setting forth you think i'm right a thousand times she cried there aren't so many happy people in this world i think and you say you found what makes you happy if it's a dream keep it the thought of going down there into the money shuffle i hate it as i never hated the shop he said i hate it and the city itself the city that the money shuffle has made just look at it look at it in the winter the snows tried hard to make the ugliness bearable and the ugliness is winning it's making the snow hideous the snow's getting dirty on top and it's foul underneath with the dirt and diseases of the unclean street and the dirt and the ugliness and the rush and the noise aren't the worst of it it's what the dirt and ugliness and rush and noise mean that's the worst the outward things are insufferable but they're only the expression of a spirit a blind embryo of a spirit not yet a soul oh just greed and this go-ahead nonsense i didn't all to be a fellowship i shouldn't want to get ahead if i could i'd want to help the other fellow to keep up with me i read something the other day and remembered it for you said mary it was something burn jones said of a picture he was going to paint in the first picture i shall make a man walking in the street of a great city full of all kinds of happy life children and lovers walking and ladies leaning from the windows all down great lengths of a street leading to the city walls and there the gates are wide open letting in a space of green field and cornfield and harvest and all around his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing from a little walled graveyard and if i painted bibs returned i'd paint a lady walking in the street of a great city full of all kinds of abhorious and futile life children being taught only how to make money and lovers hurrying to get richer and ladies who'd given up trying to wash their windows clean and the gates of the city wide open letting in slums and slaughterhouses and freight yards and all around this lady's head a great rain of swirling soot he paused adding thoughtfully and yet i believe i'm glad that soot got on your cheek it was just as if i were your brother the way you gave me your handkerchief to rub it off for you still edith never didn't she said mary as he paused again no and i he contended himself with a shaking his head instead of offering more definite information then he realized that they were passing the new house and he sighed profoundly mary our walks almost over she looked as blank so it is bibs they said no more until they came to her gate as they drifted slowly to a stop the door of roscoe's house opened and roscoe came out with cybil who was startlingly pale she seemed little enfeebled by her illness however walking rather quickly at her husband's side and not taking his arm the two crossed the street without appearing to see mary and her companion and entering the new house were lost to sight mary gazed after them gravely but bibs looking at mary did not see them mary he said you seem very serious is anything bothering you no bibs and she gave him a bright quick look that made him instantly unreasonably happy i know you want to go in he began no i don't want to i mustn't keep you standing here and i mustn't go in with you but i just wanted to say i've seemed very stupid to myself this morning grumbling about soot and all that while all the time i mary i think it's been the very happiest of all the hours you've given me i do and i don't know just why but it seemed to me that it was one i'd always remember and you he added falteringly you look so so beautiful today it must have been the soot on my cheek bibs mary will you tell me something he asked i think i will it's something i've had a lot of theories about but none of them ever just bits you used to wear furs in the fall but now it's so much colder you don't you never wear them at all anymore why don't you her eyes fell for a moment and she grew red then she looked up gaily bibs if i tell you the answer will you promise not to ask me any more questions yes why did you stop wearing them because i found i'd be warmer without them she caught his hand quickly in her own for an instant laughed into his eyes and ran into the house and of chapter 27 chapter 28 of the turmoil this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by lynn carroll the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter 28 it is the consoling attribute of unused books that their decorative warmth will so often make even a ready-made library the actual living room of a family to whom the shelved volumes are indeed sealed thus it was with sheridan who read nothing except newspapers business letters and figures who looked upon books as he looked upon bric-a-brac or crocheting when he was at home and not a bed or eating he was in the library he stood in the many-colored light of the stained-glass window at the far end of the long room when broscoe and his wife came in and he exhaled a solemnity his deference to the sabbath was manifest as always in the length of his coat and the closeness of his saturday night shade and his expression to match this religious pomp was more than sabbatical but the most dismaying of his demonstrations was his keeping his hand in his sling sybil advanced to the middle of the room and halted there not looking at him but down at her muff in which it could be seen her hands were nervously moving broscoe went to a chair in another part of the room there was a deadly silence but sybil found a shaky voice after an interval of gulping though she was unable to lift her eyes and the darkling lids continued to veil them she spoke hurriedly like an ungifted child reciting something committed to memory but her sincerity was nonetheless evident for that father charadin you and mother charadin have always been so kind to me and i would hate to have you think i don't appreciate it from the way i acted i've come to tell you i am sorry for the way i did that night and to say i know as well as anybody the way i behaved and it will never happen again because it's been a pretty hard lesson and when we come back someday i hope you'll see that you've got a daughter-in-law you never need be ashamed of again i want to ask you to excuse me for the way i did and i can say i haven't any feelings toward edith now but only wish her happiness and good in her new life i thank you for all your kindness to me and i know i made a poor return for it but if you can overlook the way i behaved i know i would feel a good deal happier and i know roscoe would too i wish to promise not to be as foolish in the future and the same error would never occur again to make us also unhappy if you can be charitable enough to excuse it this time he looks steadily at her without replying and she stood before him never lifting her eyes motionless save where the moving fur proved the agitation of her hands within the month all right he said at last she looked up then with vast relief though there was a revelation of heavy tears when the eyelids lifted thank you she said there's something else about something different i want to say to you but i want mother charidan to hear it too she's upstairs in a room said charidan roscoe civil interrupted she had just seen bibs pass through the hall and began to ascend the stairs and in a flash she instinctively perceived the chance for precisely the effect she wanted no let me go she said i want to speak to her a minute first anyway and she went away quickly gaining the top of the stairs in time to see bibs enter his room and close the door civil knew that bibs in his room had overheard her quarrel with edith in the hall outside for bitter edith thinking the more to shame her had subsequently informed her of the circumstance civil had just remembered this and with the recollection there had flashed the thought out of her own experience that people are often much more deeply impressed by words they overhear than by words directly addressed to them civil intended to make it impossible for bibs not to overhear she did not hesitate her heart was hot with the old sore and she believed holy in the justice of her cause and in the truth of what she was going to say fate was virtuous at times it had delivered into her hands the girl who had affronted her mrs. Sheridan was in her own room the approach of civil and roscoe had driven her from the library for she had miscalculated her husband's mood and she felt that if he used his injured hand as a mark of emphasis again in her presence she would as she thought of it have a fit right there she heard civil step and pretended to be putting a touch to her hair before a mirror I was just coming down she said as the door opened yes he wants you to said civil it's all right mother Sheridan he's forgiven me mrs. Sheridan sniffed instantly tears appeared she kissed her daughter in lost cheek then in silence regarded the mirror afresh wiped her eyes and applied powder and I hope edith will be happy civil added inciting more applications of mrs. Sheridan's handkerchief and powder yes yes murmured the good woman we mustn't make the worst of things well there was something else I had to say and he wants you to hear it too said civil we better go down mother Sheridan she led the way mrs. Sheridan following obediently but when they came to a spot close by bibs's door civil stop I want to tell you about it first she said abruptly it isn't a secret of course in any way it's something the whole family has to know and the sooner the whole family knows it the better it's something it wouldn't be right for us all not to understand and of course father sheridan most of all but I want to just kind of go over it first with you it'll kind of help me to see I got it all straight I haven't got any reason for saying it except the good of the family and it's nothing to me one way or the other of course except for that I ought to behave the way I did that night and it seems to me if there's anything I can do to help the family I ought to because it would help show I felt the right way well what I want to do is to tell this so as to keep the family from being made full of I don't want to see the family just made use of and twisted around her finger by somebody that's got no more heart than so much ice and just as sure to bring troubles in the long run as as Edith's mistake is well then this is the way it is I'll just tell you how it looks to me and see if it don't strike you the same way within the room bibs much annoyed tapped his ear with his pencil he wished they wouldn't stand talking near his door when he was trying to write he had just taken from his trunk the manuscript of a poem begun the preceding Sunday afternoon and he had some ideas he wanted to fix upon paper before they maliciously seized the first opportunity to vanish for they were but gossamer bibs was pleased with the beginnings of his poem and if he could carry it through he meant to dare greatly with it he would venture it upon an editor for he had his plan of life now he could think of his friend and he could think in cadences for poems to the crashing of the strong machine and if his father turned him out of home and out of the works he would work elsewhere and live elsewhere his father had the right and it mattered very little to bibs he faced the prospect of a working man's lodging house without trepidation he could find a wash stand to write upon he thought and every evening when he left Mary he would write a little and he would write on holidays and on Sundays on Sundays in the afternoon in a lodging house at least he wouldn't be interrupted by his sister-in-laws choosing the immediate vicinity of his door for conversations evidently important to herself but merely disturbing to him he frowned plaintively wishing he could think of some polite way of asking her to go away but as she went on he started violently dropping manuscript and pencil upon the floor i don't know whether you heard it mother Sheridan she said but this old vertry's house next door had been sold on foreclosure and all they got out of it was an agreement that let some live there a little longer roscow told me and he says he heard mr vertry's has been up and down the streets more in two years trying to get a job he could call a position and couldn't land it you heard anything about it mother Sheridan well i did know they've been doing their own housework a good while back said mrs. Sheridan and now they're doing the cooking too civil sent forth a little titter with a sharp edge i hope they find something to cook she sold her piano mighty quick after jim died bibs jumped up he was trembling from head to foot and he was dizzy of all the real things he could never have dreamed in his dream the last would have been what he heard now he felt that something incredible was happening and that he was powerless to stop it it seemed to him that heavy blows were falling on his head and upon mary's it seemed to him that he and mary were being struck and beaten physically and that something hideous impended he wanted to shout to civil to be silent but he could not he could only stand swallowing and trembling what i think the whole family ought to understand is just this said civil sharply those people were so hard up that this mess vertry started after bibs before they knew whether he was insane or not they got a notion he might be from his being in a sanitarium and mrs. vertry's asked me if he was insane the very first day bibs took the daughter out auto riding she paused a moment looking at mrs. Sheridan but listening intently there was no sound from within the room no explained mrs. Sheridan it's the truth civil declared loudly oh of course we were all crazy about that girl at first we were pretty green when we moved up here and we thought she'd get us in but it didn't take me long to read her her family were down and out when it came to money and they had to go after it one way or another somehow so she started for rusko but she found out pretty quick he was married and she turned right around to jim and she landed him there's no doubt about it she had jim and if he'd lived you'd had another daughter-in-law before this as sure as i stand here telling you that god's truth about it well when jim was left in the cemetery she was waiting out there to drive home with bibs jim wasn't cold and she didn't know whether bibs was insane or not but he was the only one of the rich sheridan boys left she had to get him the texture of what was the truth made an even fabric with what was not in civil's mind she believed every word that she uttered and she spoke with the rapidity and vehemence of fierce conviction what i feel about it is she said it oughtn't be allowed to go on it's too mean i like poor bibs and i don't want to see him made such a fool of and i don't want to see the family made such a fool of i like poor bibs but if he'd only stop to think a minute himself he'd have to realize he isn't the kind of man any girl would be apt to fall in love with he's better looking lately maybe but you know how he was just kind of a long white rag in good clothes and girls like men with some so to him some sort of dashingness anyhow nobody ever looked at poor bibs before and neither she no sir not till she'd tried both roscoe and jim first it was only when her and her family got desperate that she bibs whiter than when he came from the sanitarium opened the door he stepped across its threshold and stood looking at her both women screamed oh good heavens cried civil were you in there oh i wouldn't she seized mrs charidan's arm pulling her toward the stairway come on mother charidan she urged and as the befuddled and confused lady obeyed civil left a trail of noisy exclamations good gracious oh i wasn't too bad i didn't dream he was there i wouldn't hurt his feelings not for the world of course he had to know sometime but good heavens she heard his door close as she and mrs charidan reached the top of the stairs and she glanced over her shoulder quickly but bibs was not following he had gone back into his room he he looked oh terrible bad stammered mrs charidan i i wish still it's a good deal better he knows about it said civil i shouldn't wonder it might turn out the very best thing could happen come on and completing their descent to the library the two made their appearance to roscoe and his father civil at once gave a full and truthful account of what had taken place repeating her own remarks and omitting only the fact that it was through her design that bibs had overheard them but as a tow mother charidan she said in conclusion it might turn out for the very best that he did hear just that way don't you think so father charidan he merely grunted and replied and sat rubbing the thick hair on the top of his head with his left hand and looking at the fire he had given no sign of being impressed in any manner by her exposure of very vertris's character but his impassivity did not dismay civil it was bibs whom she desired to impress and she was content in that matter i'm sure it was all for the best she said it's over now and he knows what she is in one way i think it was lucky because just hearing a thing that way a person can tell it's so and he knows i haven't got any axe to grind except his own good and the good of the family mrs charidan went nervously to the door and stood there looking toward the stairway i wish i wish i knew what he was doing she said he did look terrible bad it was like something had been done to him that was i don't know what i never saw anybody look like he did he looked so queer it was like you'd she called down the hall george yes i'm were you up in mr bibs room just now yes i'm he ring bell told me make him fire in his grave i done bill him nice fire i reckon he ain't feeling so well yes i'm he departed what do you expect he wants a fire she asked turning toward her husband the house is warmest can be i do wish i oh quit fretting said charidan well i i kind of wish you hadn't said anything civil i know you meant it for the best and all but i don't believe it would been so much harm if mother charidan you don't mean you want that kind of a girl in the family why she i don't know i don't know the troubled woman quavered if he liked her it seems kind of a pity to spoil it he's so queer and he hasn't ever taken much enjoyment and besides i believe the way it was there was more chance of him being willing to do what papa wants him to if she wants to marry him charidan interrupted her with a hooting laugh she don't he said you're barking up the wrong tree civil she ain't that kind of a girl but father charidan didn't she he cut her short that's enough you may mean all right but you guessed wrong so do you mama civil cried out oh but just look how she ran after jim she did not he said curtly she wouldn't take jim she turned him down cold but that's impossible it's not i know she did civil looked flatly incredulous and you needn't worry he said turn into his wife this won't have any effect on your idea because there wasn't any sense to it anyhow do you think she'd be very likely to take bibs after she wouldn't take jim she's a good-hearted girl and she lets bibs come to see her but if she'd ever given him one sign of encouragement the way you women think he wouldn't have acted the stubborn fool he has he'd have been at me long ago begging me for some kind of a job he could support a wife on there's nothing in it and i've got the same old fight with him on my hands i've had all his life and the lord knows what he won't do to balk me what's happened now probably only make him twice as stubborn but mrs charidan still in the doorway lifted her hand that's his step he's coming downstairs she shrank away from the door as if she feared to have bibs see her i i wonder she said almost in a whisper i wonder what he's going to do her temerousness had its effect upon the others charidan rose frowning but remained standing beside his chair and roscoe moved toward civil who stared uneasily at the open doorway they listened as the slow steps descended the stairs and came toward the library bibs stopped upon the threshold and with sick and haggard eyes looked slowly from one to the other until at last his gaze rested upon his father then he came and stood before him i'm sorry you've had so much trouble with me he said gently you won't anymore i'll take the job you offered me charidan did not speak he stared astounded and incredulous and bibs had left the room before any of his occupants uttered a sound though he went as slowly as he came mrs charidan was the first to move she went nervously back to the doorway and then out into the hall bibs had gone from the house bibs's mother had a feeling about him then that she had never known before it was indefinite and vague but very poignant something in her mourned for him uncomprehendingly she felt that an awful thing had been done to him though she did not know what it was she went up to his room the fire george had built for him was almost smothered under thick charred ashes of paper the lid of his trunk stood open and the large upper tray which she remembered to have seen full of papers and notebooks was empty and somehow she understood that bibs had given up the mysterious vocation he had hoped to follow and that he had given it up forever she thought it was the wisest thing he could have done and yet for an unknown reason she sat upon the bed and wept a little before she went downstairs so charidan had his way with bibs all through end of chapter 28 chapter 29 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 Kate Adams the term oil volume one of the growth trilogy by Booth Tarkington chapter 29 as bibs came out of the new house a sunday trio was in course of passage upon the sidewalk an ample young woman placid of face a black clad thin young man whose expression was one of habitual anxiety habitual weariness and habitual eagerness he propelled a perambulator containing the third and all three were newly cleaned sunday fide and made fit to dine with the wife's relatives how do you like for me to be that young fellow mama the husband whispered he's one of the sons and there ain't but two left now the wife stared curiously at bibs well i don't know she returned he looks to me like he had his own troubles i expect he has like anybody else said the young husband but i guess we could stand a good deal if we had his money well maybe if you keep on the way you've been baby will be fixed as well as the charitans you can't tell she glanced back at bibs who had turned north he walks kind of slow and stooped over like so much money in his pockets it makes him sag i guess said the young husband with bitter admiration mary happening to glance from a window saw bibs coming and she started clasping her hands together in a sudden alarm she met him at the door bibs she cried what's the matter i saw something was terribly wrong when i you look she paused and he came in not lifting his eyes to hers always when he crossed that threshold he had come with his head up and his wistful gaze seeking hers oh poor boy she said with the gesture of understanding and pity i know what it is he followed her into the room where they always sat and sank into a chair you needn't tell me she said they've made you give up your father's one you're going to do what he wants you've given up still without looking at her he inclined his head in affirmation she gave a little cry of compassion and came and sat near him bibs she said i can be glad of one thing though it's selfish i can be glad you came straight to me it's more to me than even if you'd come because you are happy she did not speak again for a little while then she said bibs dear could you tell me about it do you want to still he did not look up but in a voice shaken and husky he asked her a question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood his words marry he said could you marry me what did you say bibs she asked quietly his tone and attitude did not change will you marry me both of her hands leaped to her cheeks she grew red and then white she rose slowly and moved backward from him staring at him at first incredulously then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous in her wide eyes it was like a spoken question the room filled with strangeness in the long silence the two were so strange to each other at last she said what made you say that he did not answer bibs look at me her voice was loud and clear what made you say that look at me he could not look at her and he could not speak what was it that made you she said i want you to tell me she went closer to him her eyes even brighter and wider with that intensity of wonder you've given up to your father she said slowly and then you came to ask me she broke off bibs do you want me to marry you yes he said just audibly no she cried you do not then what made you ask me what is it that's happened nothing wait she said let me think it's something that happened since our walk this morning yes since you left me at noon something happened that she stopped abruptly with a tremulous murmur of amazement and dawning comprehension she remembered that sible had gone to the new house bibs swallowed painfully and contrived to say i do i do want you to marry me if if you could she looked at him and slowly shook her head bibs do you her voice was as unsteady as his little more than a whisper do you think i'm in love with you no he said somewhere in the still air of the room there was a whispered word it did not seem to come from mary's parted lips but he was aware of it why i've had nothing but dreams bibs said desolately but they weren't like that sible said no girl could care about me he smiled faintly though he still did not look at mary and when i first came home edith told me sible was so anxious to marry that she'd have married me she meant it to express sible's extremity you see but i hardly needed either of them to tell me i hadn't thought of myself as well not as particularly captivating oddly enough mary's pallor changed to an angry flush those two she exclaimed sharply and then with thoroughgoing contempt lamb horn that's like them she turned away went to the bare little black mantle and stood leaning upon it presently she asked when did mrs roscow share it and say that no girl could care about you today mary drew a deep breath i think i'm beginning to understand a little she bit her lip there was anger in good truth in her eyes and in her voice answer me once more she said bibs do you know now why i stopped wearing my furs yes i thought so your sister in law told you didn't she i i heard her say i think i know what happened now mary's breath came fast and her voice shook but she spoke rapidly you heard her say more than that you heard her say that we were bitterly poor and on that account i tried first to marry your brother and then but now she faltered and it was only after a convulsive effort that she was able to go on and then that i tried to marry you you heard her say that and you believe that i don't care for you and that no girl could care for you but you think that i'm in such an extremity as civil was that you and so not wanting me and believing that i could not want you except for my extremity you took your father's offer and then came to ask me to marry you what had i shown you of myself that could make you suddenly she sank down kneeling with her face buried in her arms upon the lap of a chair tears overwhelming her mary mary he cried helplessly oh no you you don't understand i do though she sobbed i do he came and stood beside her you kill me he said i can't make it plain from the first of your loveliness to me i was all self it was always you that gave an eye that took i was the dependent i did nothing but lean on you we always talked of me not of you it was all about my idiotic distresses and troubles i thought of you as a kind of wonderful being that had no mortal or human suffering except by sympathy you seemed to lean down out of a rosy cloud to be kind to me i never dreamed i could do anything for you i never dreamed you could need anything to be done for you by anybody and today i heard that that you you heard that i needed to marry someone anyone with money she sobbed and you thought we were so so desperate you believe that i had no he said quickly i didn't believe you'd done one kind thing for me for that no no no i knew you'd never thought of me except generously to give i said i couldn't make it plain he cried despairingly wait she lifted her head and extended her hands to him unconsciously like a child help me up bibs then when she was once more upon her feet she wiped her eyes and smiled upon him roofily and faintly but reassuringly as if to tell him in that way that she knew he had not meant to hurt her and that smile of hers so lamentable but so faithfully friendly missed it his own eyes for his shame facetness lowered them no more let me tell you what you want to tell me she said you can't because you can't put it into words they are too humiliating for me and you're too gentle to say them tell me though isn't it true you didn't believe that i'd tried to make you fall in love with me never never for an instant you didn't believe i'd tried to make you want to marry me no no no i believe it bibs you thought that i was fond of you you knew i cared for you but you didn't think i might be in love with you but you thought that i might marry you without being in love with you because you did believe i had tried to marry your brother and mary i only knew for the first time that you that you were were desperately poor she said you can't even say that bibs it was true i did try to make jim want to marry me i did and she sank down into the chair weeping bitterly again bibs was agonized mary he groaned i didn't know you could cry listen she said listen till i get through i want you to understand we were poor and we weren't fitted to be we never had been and we didn't know what to do we'd been almost rich it was plenty but my father wanted to take advantage of the growth of the town he wanted to be richer but instead well just about the time your father finished building next door we found we hadn't anything people say that sometimes meaning that they haven't anything in comparison with other people of their own kind but we really hadn't anything we hadn't anything at all bibs and we couldn't do anything you might wonder why i didn't try to be a stenographer and i wonder myself why when a family loses its money people always say the daughters ought to go and be stenographers it's curious as if a wave of the hand made you into a stenographer no i've been raised to be either married comfortably or a well-to-do old maid if i chose not to marry the poverty came on slowly bibs but at last it was all there and i didn't know how to be a stenographer i didn't know how to be anything except a well-to-do old maid or somebody's wife and i couldn't be a well-to-do old maid then bibs i did what i'd been raised to know how to do i went out to be fascinating and to be married i did it openly at least and with a kind of decent honesty i told your brother i had meant to fascinate him and that i was not in love with him but i let him think that perhaps i meant to marry him i think i did mean to marry him i had never cared for anybody and i thought it might be there really wasn't anything more than a kind of excited fondness i can't be sure but i think that though i did mean to marry him i never should have done it because that sort of a marriage is it sacrilege something would have stopped me something did stop me was your sister-in-law civil she meant no harm but she was horrible and she put what i was doing into such horrible words and they were the truth oh i saw myself she was proposing a miserable compact with me and i couldn't breathe the air of the same room with her though i'd so cheap into myself that she had a right to assume that i would but i couldn't i left her and i wrote to your brother just a quick scroll i told him just what i'd done i asked his pardon and i said i would not marry him i posted the letter but he never got it that was the afternoon he was killed that's all bibs now you know what i did and you know me she pressed her clenched hands tightly against her eyes leaning far forward her head bowed before him bibs had forgotten himself long ago his heart broke for her couldn't you isn't there won't you he stammered mary i'm going with father isn't there some way you could use the money without without she gave a choked little laugh you gave me something to live for he said you kept me alive i think and i've hurt you like this no not you oh no you could forgive me mary oh a thousand times her right hand went out in a faltering gesture and just touched his own for an instant but there's nothing to forgive and you can't you can't can't what bibs you couldn't marry you she said for him yes no no no she sprang up facing him and without knowing what she did she set her hands upon his breast pushing him back from her a little i can't i can't don't you see mary no no and you must go now bibs i can't bear anymore please mary never never never she cried in a passion of tears you mustn't come any more i can't see you dear never never never somehow in helpless stumbling obedience to her beseeching gesture he got himself to the door and out of the house end of chapter 29 recording by kate adam's south bend chapter 30 of the turmoil this is a libervox recording all libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org recording by lynn carroll the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter 30 cybil and rusko were upon the point of leaving when bibs returned to the new house he went straight to cybil and spoke to her quietly but so that the others might hear when you said that if i'd stopped to think i'd realize that no one would be apt to care enough about me to marry me you were right he said i thought perhaps you weren't and so i asked miss for trees to marry me it proved what you said of me and disproved what you said of her she refused and having thus spoken he quitted the room as straightforwardly as he had entered it he's so queer mrs sheridan gasped who on earth would thought of his doing that i told you said her husband grimly you didn't tell us he'd go over there and i told you she wouldn't have him i told you she wouldn't have jim did not cybil was all together taken aback do you suppose it's true do you suppose she wouldn't he didn't look exactly like a young man that had just got things fixed up fine with his girl said sheridan not to me he didn't but why would i told you he interrupted angrily she ain't that kind of a girl if you got to have proof well i'll tell you and get it over with though i pretty near just as soon not have to talk a whole lot about my dead boy's private affairs she wrote to jim she couldn't take him and it was a good straight letter too it came to jim's office he never saw it she wrote it the afternoon he was hurt i remember i saw her put a letter in the mailbox that afternoon said roscow don't you remember cybil i told you about it i was waiting for you while you were in there so long talking to her mother it was just before we saw that something was wrong over here and either came and called me cybil shook her head but she remembered and she was not cast down for although some remnants of perplexity were left in her eyes they were dimmed by an increasing glow of triumph and she departed after some further fragmentary discourse visibly elated after all the guilty had not been exalted and she perceived vaguely but nonetheless surely that her injury had been copiously avenged she bestowed a contended glance upon the old house with the cupola as she and roscow crossed the street when they had gone mrs. sheridan indulged in reverie but after a while she said uneasily papa you think it would be any use to tell bibs about that letter i don't know he answered walking moodily to the window i've been thinking about it he came to a decision i reckon i will and he went up to bibs's room well you're going back on what you said he inquired bruskley as he opened the door you're going to take it back and lay down on me again no said bibs well perhaps i didn't have any call to accuse you of that i don't know as you ever did go back on anything you said exactly though the lord knows you've laid down on me enough you certainly have sherdon was baffled this was not what he wished to say but his words were unmanageable he found himself unable to control them and his querulous abuse went on in spite of him i can't say i expect much of you not from the way you always been up to now unless you turn over a new leaf and i don't see any encouragement to think you're going to do that if you go down there and show a sparkle real get up i reckon the whole office will fall in a faint but if you're ever going to show any you better begin right at the beginning and begin to show it tomorrow yes i'll try you better if it's in you sherdon was surely non-plussed he had always been able to say whatever he wished to say but his tongue seemed to be witched he had come to tell bibs about mary's letter and to his own angry astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold like a drudge driver you better come down there with your mind made up to hustle harder than the hardest working man that's under you or you'll not get on very good with me i tell you the way to get ahead and you better set it down in your books the way to get ahead is to do 10 times the work of the hardest worker that works for you but you don't know what work is yet all you've ever done was just stand around and feed a machine a child could handle and then come home and take a bath and go calling i tell you you're up against a mighty different proposition now and if you're worth your salt and you never showed any signs of it yet not any signs that stuck out enough to bang somebody on the head and make them sit up and take notice well i want to say right here and now you better listen because i want to say just what i do say i say he meandered to a full stop his mouth hung open and his mind was a hopeless blame bibs looked up patiently an old old look yes father i'm listening that's it said sheridan frowning heavily that's all i came to say and you better seat to remember it he shook his head warningly and went out closing the door behind him with a crash however no sound of footsteps indicated his departure he stopped just outside the door and stood there a minute or more then abruptly he turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead liberally covered with perspiration look here he said crossley that girl over yonder wrote jim a letter i know said bibs she told me well i thought she didn't feel so much upset about it the door closed on his voice as he withdrew but the conclusion of the sentence was nevertheless audible if you knew she wouldn't have jim either and he stamped his way downstairs to tell his wife to quit her fretting and not bother him with any more fools errands she was about to inquire what bibs said but after a second thought she decided not to speak at all she merely murmured a wordless assent and verbal communication was given over between them for the rest of that afternoon bibs and his father were gone when mrs sheridan woke the next morning and she had a dreary day she missed edith woefully and she worried about what might be taking place in the sheridan building she felt that everything depended on how bibs took hold and upon her husband's return in the evening she seized upon the first opportunity to ask him how things had gone he was non-committal what could anybody tell by the first day he'd seen plenty go at things well enough right at the start and then blow up pretty near anybody could show up fair the first day or so there was a big job ahead this material such as it was bibs in fact had to be broken in to handling the work roscoe had done and then at least as an overseer he must take jim's position in the realty company as well he told her to ask him again in a month but during the course of dinner she gathered from some disjointed remarks of his that he and bibs had lunched together at the small restaurant where it had been sheridan's custom to lunch with jim and she took this to be an encouraging sign bibs went to his room as soon as they left the table and her husband was not communicative after reading his paper she became an anxious spectator of bibs progress as a man of business although it was a progress she could glimpse but dimly and only in the evening through his remarks and his father's at dinner usually bibs was silent except when directly addressed but on the first evening of the third week of his new career he offered an opinion which had apparently been the subject of a previous argument i'd like you to understand just what i meant about those storage rooms father he said as jackson placed his coffee before him amber crumby agreed with me but you wouldn't listen to him you can talk if you want to and i'll listen sheridan returned but you can't show me that jim ever took up with a bad thing the roof fell because it hadn't had time to settle and on account of weather conditions i want that building put just the way jim planned it you can't have it said bibs you can't because jim planned for the building to stand up and it won't do it the other one the one that didn't fall is so shot with cracks we haven't dared use it for storage it won't stand wait there's only one thing to do get both buildings down as quickly as we can and build over brick's the best and cheapest of the long run for that type sheridan looked sarcastic fine what are we going to do for storage rooms while we're waiting for those few bricks to be laid rent bibs returned promptly we'll lose money if we don't rent anyhow they were waiting so long for you to give the warehouse matter your attention after the roof fell you don't know what an amount of stuff they've got piled up on us over there we'd have to rent until we could patch up those process perils and the krivich manufacturing company's plant is empty right across the street i took an option on it for us this morning sheridan's expression was queer look here he said sharply did you go and do that without consulting me it didn't cost anything said bibs it's only until tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock i undertook to convince you before then oh you did sheridan's tone was sardonic well just suppose you couldn't convince me i can though and i intend to sit bibs quietly i don't think you understand the condition of those buildings you won't patched up now see here said sheridan with slow emphasis suppose i had my mind set about this gem thought they'd stand and suppose it was well kind of a matter of sentiment with me to prove he was right bibs looked at him compassionately i'm sorry if you have a sentiment about it father he said but whether you have or not can't make a difference you'll get other people hurt if you trust that process and that won't do and if you want a monument to gem at least you want one that will stand besides i don't think you can reasonably defend sentiment in this particular kind of affair oh you don't no but i'm sorry you didn't tell me you felt it sheridan was puzzled by his son's tone why are you sorry he asked curiously because i had the building inspector up there this noon said bibs and i had him condemn both those buildings what he'd been afraid to do it before until he heard from us afraid you'd see he lost his job but he can't uncondemn them they've got to come down now sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows finally he said how long did they give you on that option to convince me until two o'clock tomorrow afternoon all right said sheridan not relaxing i'm convinced bibs jumped up i thought you would be i'll telephone the privates agent he gave me the option until tomorrow but i told him i'd settle it this evening sheridan gazed after him as he left the room and then though his expression did not alter in the slightest a sound came from him that startled his wife it had been a long time since she had heard anything resembling a chuckle from him and this sound although it was grim and dry bore that resemblance she brightened eagerly looks like he was starting right well don't it papa starting lord he got me on the hip why he knew what i wanted that's why he had the inspector up there so he'd have me beat before we even started to talk about it and did you hear him can't reasonably defend sentiment and the way he says us took an option for us stuff piled up on us there was always an alloy from his sheridan i don't just like the way he looks though papa oh there's got to be something only one chick left at home so you start to threaten about it no he's changed there's kind of a setish look to his face and i guess that's the common sense coming out on him then said sheridan you'll see symptoms like that in a good many businessman i expect well and he don't have as good color as he was getting before and he'd begun to fill out some but sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle and going around the table to her padded her upon the shoulder with his left hand his right being still heavily bandaged though he no longer wore a sling that's the way it is with you mama got to take your threaten out one way if you don't another no he don't look well it ain't exactly the way he looked when he begun to get sick that time but he kind of seems to be losing some way yes he may have lost something said sheridan i expect he's lost a whole lot of foolishness besides his god-forsaken notions about writing poetry and no his wife persisted i mean he looks right peeked and yesterday when he was sitting with us he kept looking out the window he wasn't reading well why shouldn't he look out the window he was looking over there he never read a word all afternoon i don't believe look here said sheridan bibs might have kept going on over there the rest of his life moon and on and on but what he heard symbol say did one big thing anyway it woke him up out of his trance well he had to go and bust clean out with a bang and that stopped his going over there and it stopped his poetry but i reckon he's begun to get pretty fair pay for what he lost i guess a good many young men have had to get over worries like his they got to lose something if they're going to keep ahead of the procession nowadays and it kind of looks to me mama like bibs might keep quite a considerable long way ahead why a year from now i'll bet you he won't know there ever was such a thing as poetry and ain't he funny he wanted to stick to the shop so as he could think what he meant was think about something useless well i guess he's keeping his mind pretty occupied the other way these days yes sir it took a pretty fair size shock to get him out of his trance but it certainly did the business he patted his wife's shoulder again and then without any prefectory symptoms broke into a boisterous laugh honest mama he works like a gorilla end of chapter 30 chapter 31 of the turmoil this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org recording by debora lin the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter 31 and so bibs sat in the porch of the temple with the money changers but no one came to scourge him forth for this was the temple of bigness and the changing of money was holy worship and true religion the priests wore that seddish look bibs's mother had seen beginning to develop about his mouth and eyes a wary look which she could not define but it comes with service at the temple and it was the more marked upon bibs for his sharp awakening to the necessities of that service he did as little useless thinking as possible giving himself no time for it he worked continuously keeping his thoughts still on his work when he came home at night and he talked of nothing whatever except his work but he did not sing at it he was often in the streets and people were not allowed to sing in the streets they might make any manner of hideous uproar they could shake buildings they could out thunder the thunder deafen the deaf and kill the sick with noise or they could walk the streets or drive through them balling squawking or screeching as they chose if the noise was traceably connected with business those street musicians were not tolerated being considered a nuisance and an interference a man or woman who went singing for pleasure through the streets like a crazy neapolitan would have been stopped and be liked locked up for freedom does not mean that a citizen is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head the streets were dangerous enough in all conscience without any singing and the motor federation issued public warnings declaring that the pedestrian's life was in his own hands and giving directions how to proceed with the least peril however bibs shared and had no desire to sing in the streets or anywhere he had gone to his work with an energy that for the start at least was bitter and there was no song left in him he began to know his active fellow citizens here and there among them he found a leisurely kind soul a relic of the old period of neighborliness pioneer stock usually and there were men particularly among the merchants and manufacturers so honest they leaned backward reputations sometimes attested by stories of heroic sacrifices to honor nor were there lacking some instances of generosity even nobler here and there too were bookmen in their little leisure and among the Germans music men and these with the others worshiped bigness and the growth each man serving for his own sake and for what he could get out of it but all united in their faith and the beneficence and glory of their god to almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in life except on occasion of some such vital brief interregnum as the dangerous illness of a wife or child in the way of relaxation some of the servers took golf some took fishing some took shows a mixture of infantile and negroid humor stockings and tin music some took an occasional debauch some took trips some took cards and some took nothing the high priests were vigilant to watch that no relaxation should affect the service when a man attended to anything outside his business eyes were upon him his credit was in danger that is his life was in danger and the old priests were as ardent as the young ones the million was as eager to be bigger as the thousand 70 was as busy as 17 they strove mightily against one another and the old priests were the most wary the most plausible and the most dangerous bibs learned he must walk terribly among these he must wear a thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed and outside the temple itself were the pretenders the swarming thieves and sharpers and fleecers the sly rascals and the open rascals but these were feeble folk not dangerous once he knew them and he had a good guide to point them out to him they were useful sometimes he learned and many of them served as go-betweens in matters where business must touch politics he learned also how breweries and traction companies and banks and other institutions fought one another for the political control of the city the newspapers he discovered had lost their ancient political influence especially with the knowing who looked upon them with a skeptical humor believing their journals either to be retained partisans like lawyers or else striving to forward the personal ambitions of their owners the control of the city lay not with them but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of negroes gin money and by other largesse the revenues of the people were then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men who had assisted the winning side names and titles of offices went with many of the prizes and most of these title holders were expected to present a busy appearance at times and indeed some among them did work honestly and faithfully bibs had been very ignorant all these simple things so well known and customary astonished him at first and once in a brief moment of forgetting that he was done with writing he thought that if he had known them and written of them how like a satire the plainest relation of them must have seemed strangest of all to him was the vehement and sincere patriotism on every side he heard it it was a permeation the newest school child caught it though just from hungry and learning to stammer a few words of the local language everywhere the people shouted of the power the size the riches and the growth of their city not only that they said that the people of their city were the greatest the finest the strongest the biggest people on earth they cited no authorities and felt the need of none being themselves the people thus celebrated and if the thing was questioned or if it was hinted that there might be one small virtue in which they were not perfect and supreme they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what the critic said was true but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him for they were sensitive so bibs learning their ways and walking with them hearkened to the voice of the people and served bigness with them for the voice of the people is the voice of their god charadin had made the room next to his own into an office for bibs and the door between the two rooms usually stood open the father had established that intimacy one morning in february when bibs was alone charadin came in some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his hand bibs he said i don't like to butt in very often this way and when i do i usually wish i hadn't but for heaven's sake what have you been buying that old busted interaction stock for bibs leaned back from his desk for eleven hundred and fifty five dollars that's all it cost well it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty five cents you want to know that i don't get your idea that stuff's deader and adam's cat you might be worth something someday how it might not be so dead not if we went into it said bibs coolly oh charadin considered this musingly then he said who'd you buy it from a broker fan smith well he must have got it from one of the crowd of poor ninnies that was soaked with it don't you know who owned it yes i do ain't saying though that it what's the matter it belonged to mr virtries said bibs shortly applying himself to his desk so charadin gazed down at his son's thin face excuse me he said your business and he went back to his own room but presently he looked in again i reckon you won't mind luncheon alone today he was shuffling himself into his overcoat because i just thought i'd go up to the house and get this over with mama he glanced apologetically toward his right hand as it emerged from the sleeve of the overcoat the bandages had been removed finally that morning revealing but three fingers the four finger and the finger next to it had been amputated she's bound to make an awful fuss and better to spoil her lunch than her dinner i'll be back about two but he calculated the time of his arrival at the new house so accurately that mrs charadin's lunch was not disturbed and she was rising from the lonely table when he came into the dining room he had left his overcoat in the hall but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets what's the matter papa she asked quickly has anything gone wrong you ain't sick me he laughed loudly me sick you had lunch didn't want any today you can give me a cup of coffee though she rang and told george to have coffee made and when he had withdrawn she said quarellously i just know there's something wrong nothing in the world he responded hardly taking a seat at the head of the table i thought i'd talk over a notion of mine with you that's all it's more women folks business than what it is man's anyhow what about my old doc green he was up at the office this morning a while to look at your hand how does he say it's doing fine while he went in and sat around with bibs a while mrs charadin nodded pessimistically i guess it's time you had him too i knew bibs now mama hold your horses i wanted him to look bibs over before anything's the matter you don't suppose i'm going to take any chances with bibs do you well afterwards i shut the door and i know gurney had a talk he's a mighty disagreeable man he rubbed it in on me what he said about bibs having brains if he ever woke up then i thought he must want to get something out of me he goes so flattering for a minute bibs couldn't help having business brains he says being your son don't be surprised he says don't be surprised at his making a success he says he couldn't get over his hereditary he couldn't help being a business success once you got him into it it's in his blood yes sir he says it doesn't need much brains he says and only third rate brains at that he says but it does need a special kind of brains he says to be a millionaire i mean he says when a man's given a start if nobody gives him a start why of course he's got to have luck in the right kind of brains the only miracle about bibs he says is where he got the other kind of brains the brains you made him quit using them throw away but what did he say about his health mrs charidan demanded impatiently as george placed a cup of coffee before her husband charidan helped himself to cream and sugar and began to sip the coffee i'm coming to that he returned placidly see how easy i managed this cup with my left hand mama you've been doing that all winter what did it's wonderful he interrupted admiringly what a fellow can do with his left hand i can sign my name with mine now well as i ever could with my right it came a little hard at first but now honest i believe i rather sign with my left that's all i ever have to write anyway just the signature rests all dictatin he blew across the top of the cup unctuously good coffee mama well about bibs old gurney says he believes if bibs could somehow get back to the state of mind he was in about the machine shop that is if he could some way get to feeling about business the way he felt about the shop not the poetry and writing part but he paused supplementing his remarks with the motion of his head towards the old house next door he says bibs is older and harder than what he was when he broke down that time and besides he had the kind of dreamy way he was then and i should say he ain't i'd like him to show me anybody his age that's any wider awake but he says bibs's health never need bother us again if missus shared and shook her head i don't see any help that way you know yourself she wouldn't have jim who's talking about her having anybody but my lord she might let him look at her she needed a got so mad just because he asked her that she won't let him come in the house anymore he's a mighty funny boy in some ways i reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the bible but gurney kind of got me in the way of thinking that if she'd let him come back and sit around with her an evening or two sometimes now regular i don't mean why well i just thought i'd see what you'd think of it there ain't any way to talk about it to bibs himself i don't suppose he'd let you anyhow but i thought maybe you could kind of slip over there someday and sort of fix up to have a little talk with her and kind of hint around until you see how the land lays and ask her me missus shared and look both helpless and frightened no she shook her head decidedly it wouldn't do any good you won't try it i won't risk her turning me out of the house some way that's what i believe she did to sable from what rasko said once no i can't and what's more it'd only make things worse if people find out you're running after them they think you're cheap and then they won't do as much for you as if you let them alone i don't believe it's any use and i couldn't do it if it was he sighed with resignation all right mama that's all then in a livelier tone he said oh gurney took the bandages off my hand this morning all healed up says i don't need them anymore well that's splendid papa she cried beaming i was afraid let's see she came toward him but he rose still keeping his hand in his pocket wait a minute he said smiling now it may give you just a teeny bit of a shock but the fact is while you remember that sunday when sable came over here and made all that fuss about nothing it was the day after i got tired of that statue when edith telegram came let me see your hand she cried now wait he said laughing and pushing her away with his left hand the truth is mama that i kind of slipped out on you that morning when you wasn't looking and went down to ol gurney's office he told me to you see and well it doesn't amount to anything and he held out for her inspection the mutilated hand you see these days when it's all dictate and anyhow nobody'd mind just a couple of he had to jump for her she went over backward for the second time in her life this is shared and fainted end of chapter 31 chapter 32 of the turmoil this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit libra vox dot org recording by jonathan birchard july 2009 the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter 32 it was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own room still lamenting intermittently though he assured her with heat that the fuss she was making irked him far more than his physical loss he permitted her to think that he meant to return directly to his office but when he came out to the open air he told the chauffeur in attendance to await him in front of mr vertry's house whether he himself proceeded on foot mr vertry's had taken the sale of half his worthless stock as mana in the wilderness it came from heaven by what agency he did not particularly question the broker informed him that parties were interested in getting hold of the stock and that later there might be a possible increase in the value of the large amount retained by his client it might go quite a ways up within a year or so he said and he advised sitting tight with it mr vertry's went home and prayed he rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own again it was more than a mere grasp of temporary relief with him and his wife shared his optimism but mary would not let him buy back her piano and as for furs spring was on the way she said but they paid the butcher the baker and the candlestick maker and hired a cook once more it was this servetress who opened the door for sheridan and presently assured him that mr vertry's would be down he was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it and he flushed and beamed as he as mary made her appearance almost upon the heels of the cook she had a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second but it vanished at the side of him and its place was taken in her eyes by a soft brilliance while color rushed in her cheeks don't be surprised he said truth is in a way it's sort of on business i looked in here it'll only take a minute i expect i'm sorry said mary i hoped you'd come because we're neighbors he chuckled neighbors sometimes people don't see so much of their neighbors as they used to that is i hear so lately you'll stay long enough to sit down won't you oh i guess i could manage that much and they sat down facing each other and not far apart of course it couldn't be called business exactly he said more gravely not at all i expect but there's something of yours it seemed to me i ought to give you and i just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain how i happened to have it it's this this letter you wrote my boy he extended the letter to her solemnly in his left hand and she took it gently from him it was in his mail after he was hurt you knew he never got it i expect yes she said in a low voice he sighed i'm glad he didn't not he added quickly not but what you did just right to send it you did you couldn't act it any other way when it came right down to it there ain't any blame coming to you you were above board all through mary said thank you almost in a whisper and with her head bowed low you'll have to excuse me for reading it i had to take charge of all his mail and everything i didn't know the hand writing and i read it all once i got started i'm glad you did well he leaned forward as if to rise i guess that's about all i just thought you ought to have it thank you for bringing it he looked at her hopefully as if he thought and wished that she might have something more to say but she seemed not to be aware of this glance and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor well i expect i better be getting back to the office he said rising desperately i told i told my partner i'd be back at two o'clock and i guess you'll think i'm a poor businessman if he catches me behind time i got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days with that fellow keeping tabs on me mary rose with him i've always heard you were the hard driver he guffawed derisively me i'm nothing to that partner of mine you couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end of the job i shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce someday and run the whole circus by himself you know how he is once he goes at a thing no she smiled i didn't know you had a partner i'd always heard he laughed looking away from her it's just it's just my way of speaking of that boy of mine bibs he stood then expectant staring out into the hall with an air of careless geniality he felt that she certainly must at least say how is bibs but she said nothing at all though he waited until the silence became embarrassing well i guess i'd better be getting down there he said it last he might worry goodbye and thank you said mary for what for the letter oh he said blankly you're welcome goodbye mary put out her hand goodbye you'll have to excuse my left hand he said i had a little accident to the other one she gave a pitying cry as she saw oh poor mr chariden nothing at all dictate everything nowadays anyhow he laughed jovially did anybody tell you how it happened i heard you hurt your hand but no not just how it was this way he began and both as if unconsciously sat down again you may not know it but i used to worry a good deal about the youngest of my boys the one that used to come to see you sometimes after jim that is i mean bibs he's the one i spoke of as my partner and the truth is that's what it's just about going to amount to one of these days if his health holds out well you remember i expect i had him on a machine over at a plant mine and sometimes i'd kind of sneak in there and see how he was getting along take a doctor with me sometimes because bibs never was so robust you might say old doc gurney i guess you maybe you know him tall thin man ex-sleepy yes well one day i and old doc gurney we were in there and i undertook to show bibs how to run his machine he told me to look out but i wouldn't listen and i didn't look out and that's how i got my hand hurt trying to show bibs how to do something he knew how to do and i didn't made me so mad i just wouldn't even admit it to myself i was hurt and so by and by old doc gurney had to take kind of radical measures with me he's a right good doctor too don't you think so miss virtries yes yes he is so sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and gossip with all day on his hands take him on bibs case i was talking about bibs case with him this morning well you'd laugh to hear the way old doc gurney talks about that of course he is just as much a friend as he is doctor and he takes as much interest in bibs as if he was in the family he says bibs isn't anyways bad off yet and he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it well this is what had made you laugh if you'd been there miss virtries honest it would he paused to chuckle and stole a glance at her she was gazing straight before her at the wall her lips were parted and visibly she was breathing heavily and quickly he feared that she was growing furiously angry but he had led to what he wanted to say and he went on determined now to say it all he leaned forward and altered his voice to one of confidential friendliness though in it he still maintained a tone which indicated that old doc gurney's opinion was only a joke he shared with her yes sir you certainly would have laughed well that old man thinks you got something to do with it you'll have to blame it on him young lady if it makes you feel like starting out to whip somebody he's actually got this theory he says bibs got to getting better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept him cheered up and feeling good and he says if you could manage to just stand hanging around him a little maybe not much but just sometimes again he believed it to do bibs a mighty lot of good of course that's only what the doctor said me i don't know anything about that but i can say this much i never saw any such a mental improvement in anybody in my life as i have lately in bibs i expect you'd find him a good deal more entertaining than what he used to be and i know it's a kind of embarrassing thing to suggest after the way he piled in over here that day to ask you to stand up before the preacher with him but according to old doc gurney he's got you on his brain so bad mary jumped mr sheridan she exclaimed he sighed profoundly there i noticed you were getting mad i didn't no no no she cried but i don't understand and i think you don't what is it you want me to do he sighed again but this time with relief well well he said you're right it'll be easier to talk plain i ought to know i could with you all the time i just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you sometimes once more could you you don't understand she clasped her hands together in a sorrowful gesture yes we must talk plain bibs heard that i'd tried to make your oldest son care for me because i was poor and so bibs came and asked me to marry him because he was sorry for me and i can't see him anymore she cried in distress i can't sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably you mean because he thought that about you no no what he thought was true well you mean he was so much in you mean he thought so much of you the words were inconceivably awkward upon sheridan's tongue he seemed to be in doubt even about pronouncing them but after a ghastly pause he bravely repeated them you mean he thought so much of you that you just couldn't stand him around no he was sorry for me he cared for me he was fond of me and he'd respected me too much in the finest way he loved me if you'd like and he'd have done anything on earth for me as i would for him and as he knew i would it was beautiful mr sheridan she said but the cheap bad things one has done seems always to come back they and pull you down when you're happiest bibs found me out you see and he wasn't in love with me at all he wasn't well it seems to me he gave up everything he wanted to do it was full stuff but he certainly wanted it mighty bad he just threw it away and walked right up and took the job he swore he never would just for you and it looks to me as if a man that had do that must think quite a heap of the girl he does it for you say it was only because he was sorry but let me tell you there's only one girl he could feel that sorry for yes sir no no she said bibs isn't like other men he wouldn't do anything for anybody sheridan grinned perhaps not so much as you think nowadays he said for instance i got kind of a suspicion he doesn't believe in sentiment in business but that's neither here nor there what he wanted was just plain and simple for you to marry him well i was afraid he's thinking so much of you had kind of sickened you of him the way it does sometimes but from the way you talk i understand that ain't the trouble he coughed and his voice trembled a little now here miss virtries i don't have to tell you because you see things easy i know i got no business coming to you like this but i had to make bibs go my way instead of his own i had to do it for the sake of my business and on his account too and i expect you got some idea how it hurt him to give up well he's made good he didn't come in half-hearted or mean he came in all the way but there isn't anything in it for him you can see he's just shut his teeth on it and going ahead with dust in his mouth you see one way of looking at it he's got nothing to work for and it seems to me like it cost him your friendship and i believe honest that's what hurt him the worst now you said we'd talk plain why can't you let him come back she covered her face desperately with her hands i can't he rose defeated and looking at well i mustn't press you he said gently at that she cried out and dropped her hands and let him see her face oh he was only sorry for me he gazed at her intently mary was proud but she had a fatal honesty and it confessed the truth of her now she was helpless it was so clear that even charidan marveling and amazed was able to see it then a change came over him gloom fell from him and he grew radiant don't don't she cried you mustn't i won't tell him said charidan from the doorway i won't tell anybody anything end of chapter 32 chapter 33 of the turmoil this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington chapter 33 there was a heavy town fog that afternoon a smoke mist densest in the sanctuary of the temple the people went about in it busy and dirty thickening their outside and inside linings of coal tar asphalt sulfurous acid oil of vitriol and the other familiar things the men liked to breathe and to have upon their skins and garments and upon their wives and babies and sweethearts the growth of the city was visible in the smoke and the noise and the rush there was more smoke than there had been this day of february a year earlier there was more noise and the crowds were thicker yet quicker in spite of that the traffic policemen had a hard time for the people were independent they retained some habits of the old market town period and would cross the street anywhere and anyhow which not only got them killed more frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings but kept the motormen the chauffeurs and the truck drivers in a stew of profane nervousness so the traffic policemen led harried lives they themselves were killed of course with a certain periodicity but their main trouble was that they could not make the citizens realize that it was actually and mortally perilous to go about their city it was strange for there were probably no citizens of any length of residents who had not personally known either someone who had been killed or injured in an accident or someone who had accidentally killed or injured others and yet perhaps it was not strange seeing the sharp preoccupation of the faces the people had something on their minds they could not stop to bother about dirt and danger mary fair trees was not often downtown she had never seen an accident until this afternoon she had come upon errands for her mother connected with a timorous refurbishment and as she did these in and out of the department stores she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan building from the street anywhere it was almost always in sight like some monstrous geometrical shadow murk colored and rising limitlessly into the swimming heights of the smoke mist it was gaunt and grimy and repellent it had nothing but strength and size but in that consciousness of Mary's the great structure may have partaken of beauty Sheridan had made some of the things he said emphatic enough to remain with her she went over and over them and they began to seem true only one girl he could feel that sorry for gurney says he's got you on his brain so bad the man's clumsy talk began to sing in her heart the song was begun there when she saw the accident she was directly opposite the Sheridan building then waiting for the traffic to thin before she crossed though other people were risking the passage darting and halting and dodging parlessly two men came from the crowd behind her talking earnestly and started across both were black one was tall and broad and thick and the other was taller but noticeably slender and Mary caught her breath for they were bibs and his father they did not see her and she caught a phrase in bibs mellow voice which had taken a crisper ring sixty eight thousand dollars not sixty eight thousand buttons it startled her clearly and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for the first time a resemblance to his father she watched them in the middle of the street bibs had to step ahead of his father and the two were separated but the reckless passing of a truck beyond the second line of rails frightened a group of country women who were in course of passage they were just in front of bibs and shoved backward upon him violently to extricate himself from them he stepped back directly in front of a moving trolley car no place for absent mindedness but bibs was still absorbed in thoughts concerned with what he had been saying to his father there were shrieks and yells bibs looked the wrong way and then Mary saw the heavy figure of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the car with absolute disregard of his own life he hurled himself at bibs like a football player shunting off an opponent and to marry it seemed that they both went down together but that was all she could see automobiles trucks and wagons closed in between she made out that the trolley car stopped jerkily and she saw a policeman breaking his way through the instantly condensing crowd while the traffic came to a standstill and people stood up in automobiles or climbed upon the hubs and tires of wheels not to miss a chance of seeing anything horrible Mary tried to get through it was impossible other policemen came to help the first and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again the crowd became pliant dispersing there was no figure upon the ground and no ambulance came but one of the policemen was detained by the clinging and beseeching of a gloved hand what is the matter lady where are they Mary cried who old man Sheridan I reckon he wasn't much hurt his son was that who the other one was I seen him knock him oh he's not bad off I guess lady the old man got him out of the way all right the fenders shoved the old man around some but I reckon he only got shook up they both went on in the Sheridan building without any help excuse me lady Sheridan and Bibbs in fact were at that moment in the elevator ascending whisk broom up in the office Sheridan was saying you got to look out on those corners nowadays I tell you I don't know I got any call to blow though because I tried to cross after you did that's how I happened to run into you well you want to remember to look out after this we were talking about mertries asking sixty eight thousand flat for that ninety nine year lease it's his look out if he'd rather take it that way and I don't know but no said Bibbs emphatically as the elevator stopped he won't get it not from us he won't and I'll show you why I can convince you in five minutes he followed his father into the office anti room and convinced him then having been diligently brushed by a youth of color Bibbs went into his own room and closed the door he was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive and his side was sore where Sheridan had struck him he desired to be alone he wanted to rub himself and for once to do some useless thinking again he knew that his father had not happened to run into him he knew that Sheridan had instantly and instinctively proved that he held his own life of no account whatever compared to that of his son and air Bibbs had been unable to speak of that or to seem to know it for Sheridan just as instinctively had swept the matter aside as of no importance since all was well reverting immediately to business Bibbs began to think intently of his father he perceived as he had never perceived before the shadowing of something enormous and indomitable and lawless not to be daunted by the will of nature's very self laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation conquering irresistible and blindly noble for the first time in his life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man's son he would be the more truly his son henceforth though as Sheridan said Bibbs had not come downtown with him meanly or half-heartedly he had given his word because he had wanted the money simply for marry for trees in her need and he shivered with horror of himself thinking how he had gone to her to offer it asking her to marry him with his head on his breast and shameful fear that she would accept him he had not known her the knowing had lost her to him and this had been his real awakening for he knew now how deep had been that slumber wherein he dreamily celebrated the superiority of friendship the sleepwalker had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and life finding himself a failure in both he had made a burnt offering of his dreams and the sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to marry all that was left for him was the work he had not chosen but at least he would not fail in that though it was indeed no more than dust in his mouth if there had been anything to work for he went to the window raised it and let in the uproar of the streets below he looked down at the blurred hurrying swarms and he looked across over the roofs with their panting jets of vapor into the vast foggy heart of the smoke dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly against it chattering with steel on steel and screeching in steam while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky buildings would overtop the Sheridan bigness was being served but what for the old question came to bibs with a new despair here where his eyes fell had once been green fields and running brooks and how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured the pioneers had begun the work but in their old age their orators had said for them that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity might live in peace and wisdom enjoying the fruits of the earth well their posterity was here and there was only turmoil where was the promised land it had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars it had been promised to this generation by the pioneers but here was the very posterity to whom it had been promised toiling and risking and sacrificing in turn for what the harsh roar of the city came in through the open window continuously beating upon bibs ear until he began to distinguish a pulsation in it a broken and irregular cadence it seemed to him that it was like a titanic voice discordant horse rustily metallic the voice of the god bigness and the voice summoned bibs as it summoned all its servants come and work it seemed to yell come and work for me all men by your youth and your hope i summon you by your age and your despair i summon you to work for me yet a little with what strength you have by your love of home i summon you by your love of woman i summon you by your hope of children i summon you you shall be blind slaves of mine blind to everything but me your master and driver for your reward you shall gaze only upon my ugliness you shall give your toil and your lives you shall go mad for love and worship of my ugliness you shall perish still worshiping me and your children shall perish knowing no other god and then as bibs closed the window down tight he heard his father's voice booming in the next room he could not distinguish the words but the tone was exultant and there came the thump thump of the maimed hand bibs guessed that charidan was bragging of the city and of bigness to some visitor from out of town and he thought how truly charidan was the high priest of bigness but with the old old thought again what for bibs caught a glimmer of far faint light he saw that charidan had all his life struggled and conquered and must all his life go on struggling and inevitably conquering as part of a vast impulse not his own charidan served blindly but was the impulse blind bibs asked himself if it was not he who had been in the greater hurry after all the kiln must be fired before the vase is glazed and the acropolis was not crowned with marble in a day then the voice came to him again but there was a strain in it as of some high music struggling to be born of the turmoil ugly i am it seemed to say to him but never forget that i am a god and the voice grew in sonorousness and indignity the highest should serve but so long as you worship me for my own sake i will not serve you it is man who makes me ugly by his worship of me if man would let me serve him i should be beautiful looking once more from the window bibs sculptured for himself in the vague contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs a gigantic figure with feet pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders disappearing in the clouds a colossus of steel and wholly blackened with soot but bibs carried his fancy further for there was still a little poet lingering in the back of his head and he thought that up over the clouds unseen from below the giant labored with his hands in the clean sunshine and bibs had a glimpse of what he made there perhaps for a fellowship of the children of the children that were children now a noble and joyous city unbelievably white it was the telephone that called him from his vision it rang fiercely he lifted the thing from his desk and answered and as the small voice inside it spoke he dropped the receiver with a crash he trembled violently as he picked it up but he told himself he was wrong he had been mistaken yet it was a startlingly beautiful voice startlingly kind too and ineffably like the one he hungered most to hear who he said his own voice shaking like his hand mary he responded with two hushed and incredulous words is it there was a little thrill of pathetic half laughter in the instrument bibs i wanted to just to see if you yes mary i was looking when you were so nearly run over i saw it bibs they said you hadn't been hurt they thought but i wanted to know for myself no no i wasn't hurt at all mary it was father who came near it he saved me yes i saw but you had fallen i couldn't get through the crowd until you had gone and i wanted to know mary would you have minded he said there was a long interval before she answered yes then why yes bibs i don't know what to say he cried it's so wonderful to hear your voice again i'm shaking mary i i don't know i don't know anything except that i am talking to you it is you mary yes bibs mary i've seen you from my window at home only five times since i since then you looked oh how can i tell you it was like a man chained in a cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky mary mary won't you let me see you again near i think i could make you really forgive me you'd have to i did then no not really or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me anymore that wasn't the reason the voice was very low mary he said even more tremulously than before i can't you couldn't mean it was because you can't mean it was because you care there was no answer mary he called huskily if you mean that you let me see you wouldn't you and now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all but if it did the words were yes bibs dear but the voice was not in the instrument it was so gentle and so light so almost nothing it seemed to be made of air and it came from the air slowly and incredulously he turned and glory fell upon his shining eyes the door of his father's room had opened mary stood upon the threshold the end end of chapter 33 read by carish allenberg www.kray.org and this is the end of the turmoil volume one of the growth trilogy by booth tarkington