Part 50 (1/2)
His voice caught in a tight knot of strangulation; he was dithering and palsied.
”To-night--you--you got to know!”
A sudden trembling took Mrs. Binsw.a.n.ger.
”For G.o.d's sakes, know what, Julius--know what?”
”I'm done for! I'm gone under! Till it happened you wouldn't believe me.
Two years I seen it coming, two years I been fightin' and fightin'--fightin' it by myself! And now for yourselves you look in the papers two weeks from to-morrow, the first of March, and see--I'm done for--I'm gone under, I--”
”Julius--my G.o.d, you--you ain't, Julius, you ain't!”
His voice rose like a gale.
”I'm gone under--I ain't got twenty cents on the dollar. I'm gone, Becky. Beat up! To-morrow two weeks the creditors, they're on me! My last extension expires, and they're on me. I been fightin' and fightin'.
Twenty cents on the dollar I can't meet, Becky--I can't, Becky, I can't!
I been fightin' and fightin', but I can't, Becky--I--can't! I'm gone!”
”Pa.”
”Julius, Julius, for G.o.d's sakes, you--you don't mean it, Julius--you--don't--mean it--you're fooling us--Julius!”
Small, cold tears welled to the corners of his eyes.
”I'm gone, Becky--and now he--he wants the s.h.i.+rt off my back--he can have it, G.o.d knows. But--but--_ach_, Becky--I--I wish I could have saved _you_--but that a man twice so strong as his father--_ach, Gott_, what--what's the use? I'm gone, Becky, gone!”
Mr. Isadore Binsw.a.n.ger swung to his feet and regarded his parent with the dazed eyes of a sleepwalker awakening on a perilous ledge.
”Aw, pa, for--for G.o.d's sake, why didn't you tell a fellow? I--we--aw, pa, I--I can knuckle down if I got to. Gee whiz! how was a fellow to know? You--you been cuttin' up about everything since--since we was kids; aw, pa--please--gimme a chance, pa, I can knuckle down--pa--pa!”
He approached the racked form of his father as if he would throw himself a stepping-stone at his feet, and then because his voice stuck in his throat and ached until the tears sprang to his eyes he turned suddenly and went out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
The echo hung for a moment.
Miss Binsw.a.n.ger lay whitely in her chair, weakened as if the blood had flowed out of her heart. From the granitoid square at the base of the air-shaft came the rattle of after-dinner dishes and the babble of dialect. Mr. Binsw.a.n.ger wept the tears of physical weakness.
”I--I'm gone, Becky. What you want for Poil I can't do. I'm gone under.
We got to start over again. It was the interurban done it, Becky. I needed new capital to meet the new compet.i.tion. I--I could have stood up under it then, Becky, but--but--”
”_Ach_, my husband--for myself I don't care. _Ach_, my husband.”
”I--I'm gone, Becky--gone.”
He rose to his feet and shambled feebly to his bedroom, his fingers feeling of the furniture for support, and his breath coming in the long wheezes of dry tears. And in the cradle of her mother's arms Miss Binsw.a.n.ger wept the hot tears of black despair; they seeped through the showy lace yoke and scalded her mother's heart.
”Oh, my baby! _Ach_, my husband! A good man like him, a good man like him!”
”Don't cry, mamma, don't--cry.”