Part 22 (1/2)

Hawkins came and stood silently beside him as a boy removed the tire.

It was a solemn occasion. They stood there on the pavement, thoughtful, intently watching the operation. Hawkins was coatless; he had pink elastics holding up his sleeves and his hair stood up in a solemn pompadour and his high stiff collar had a spot of grease on it.

”What was the idea of the question you asked me last night, Hawkins?”

There was a moment's silence. Then Hawkins looked up and smiled queerly. ”Oh, nothing particular.”

Joe was not satisfied. ”Is there any reason why I shouldn't be runnin'

around in that crowd? What's the matter? Aren't they--isn't she--all right?”

There was a quick, sudden turning of the slim hatchet face and Hawkins looked hard into his eyes. ”It isn't that,” he said brusquely. ”I'm engaged to marry her.”

”Oh, yes,” replied Joe.

The boy wrenched loose the tire and was rolling it into the shop.

Slowly they followed him. Hawkins proceeded to the desk and picked up a pad of repair forms and started to scribble something on the top sheet. Joe watched his narrow, bent shoulders under the sleazy s.h.i.+rt.

There was something pathetic in the proud crest of hair above his forehead and the pucker of lines in his brows.

”How long have you been the lucky man?”

Hawkins looked up from his paper. Faint surprise was written in his face. ”Oh, a little over three years. Want to wait for this tube or will you come back for it? Man can put on your spare.”

”I'll come hack for it Monday,” said Joe.

A few moments later he drove away.

For an hour he drove without thought of where he was going. Detail after detail of the affair presented itself to his mind in endless repet.i.tion. It had been a humiliating experience. The old woman's vulgarity; Macomber's stolid, iron hand clearing the air, like brus.h.i.+ng trash from his doorstep; the consciousness of prying eyes at that upstairs window! ”I've been a feeble cuckoo,” he thought. ”Mighta supposed two years in the army would have taught me better'n that.

Played me for a good thing as long as it lasted and then the old lady called a showdown. Hawkins must stand in with the old lady. Poor Hawkins!”

He discovered that he was rolling along on the Bloomfield pike about two miles from town.

”Funny how these hard-workin' folks sink all their money in a b.u.t.terfly like that. Bet she uses up the meat bill every month. And look what she gets out of it. Bet she's twenty-six if she's a day. And all she got was Hawkins. I must have looked good to her for a day or two.”

Bitterly he waited at the grade crossing while ”Number Twenty-seven”

went lumbering by. It shrieked a high, exasperating whistle as it pa.s.sed, exulting in its trembling, shaking twenty-five miles per hour.

On he drove. Hot blasts of air came crus.h.i.+ng about him, with the sunlight s.h.i.+mmering white hot on the bare, dry pike. There was much dust from countless automobiles hurrying by in both directions. He was constantly churned up in clouds of fine white particles thrown back at him by pa.s.sing tires, hurrying on in a mad drive to get somewhere. He was suddenly unbearably hot. But he drove on blindly.

About five miles out he came to a shady lane. It ran like a cool brown gash between arching trees, off from the pike to the right. Away in the distance the fields dipped and rose to the skyline, a golden waste with here and there a patch of withering green. The lane was irresistible. He swung suddenly into it and was caught in a s.h.i.+fting, squirming quagmire of fine yellow sand. For a hundred yards he struggled on, with the car careening back and forth across the road and with much churning and slipping of tires. His shoulders began to ache and he wearied of the effort. It was a useless waste of energy.

Spying a huge tree standing on the fence line on up ahead, he drew up to it and stopped in its shade. There was barely room for any one to pa.s.s on the other side of him.

For a moment he sat and dully stared out across the landscape. Then he got out of the car, climbed over the fence and threw himself down on the ground in the shade of the big tree.

A stupor seemed to have come over him. There was the splotchy edge of shade just beyond his feet; there stretched a parched and drying furrow. Withered stubs of corn-stalks poked up forlorn heads at intervals in an endless row. Beyond them were more rows, and all about him lay the scarred and cracking earth in yellow heaps and clods, with the wind twisting fine spirals of dust from its rest and spewing it broadcast. In the air was a drone of drab creatures being happy in their drabness, rejoicing in the waste, thoughtless of the future.

That was it, the whole field, unkept, idle, lazying, was thoughtless of the future. There stood the dead stubble, blackening and hopeless.

Winter might come with its frost. Here was no worry over failing crops. One year's work had done for two. And the gra.s.shoppers and the midges and the gnats and the flies were likewise quite content.