The Green Jacket/Chapter 3
III
And in the down-town office, Milly, sitting in a large chair drawn up before a table, was confronting a thick-set, clumsily built man—a Dane, it might be, from his speech.
"I got-to go, Miss Newberry!" he was saying stolidly. "My woman she say, all time, 'You take job.' . . . She don't know I can't go new place." He stared at her almost resentfully, yet with a kind of deference in the slouching shoulders.
"Where is it, Mr. Bergman?" asked Milly quietly.
"Milwaukee," said the man. "Good work—big pay! My wife's brother, he say, 'Come quick—you lose big job!' He don't know I can't go Milwaukee. . . . I got-to go, Miss Newberry!" The big hands that had been shifting his old hat through nervous fingers gripped it suddenly, and his eyes lifted themselves to her face with a dumb look of insistence.
She returned the look thoughtfully. "How long has it been?" she asked.
"Ten months," said the man quickly.
"And you have been reporting to me every two weeks for ten months?"
He nodded with a hopeless gesture.
"And if you went to Milwaukee"
He started. A gleam came into his blue eyes. "I be good man," he said. "I keep straight. I work hard! Big pay. I strong man." He stretched out his great arm.
"Yes, I know you're strong. If you hadn't been strong, you wouldn't have laid out Sergeant McKay with one blow."
"I didn't know he police," interpolated the man eagerly. "I just hit—anybody—all round!" He waved his great arm dramatically. It swung past Milly's head and the hand descended with a thud on the table between them.
"You know I good man," he said impressively.
Milly nodded. "But you struck down the sergeant."
"Ye-s-s." The blue eyes dropped an instant. Then they raised themselves trustfully to her. "When you drunk, you hit—all round!" he explained simply.
"So I understand," returned Milly with a smile. "Now suppose you get drunk in Milwaukee—and hit all round—and are arrested again?"
The man started a little.
"Yes," said Milly quietly, "and then—when you break jail and escape, and they catch you again—in Milwaukee—it means prison, six months, a year perhaps. . . . Isn't it better to stay here, and report to me every other week—better than being in prison in Milwaukee, and no one to earn money for the children? How is Karl?" she asked abruptly.
The man's face was suffused with a quick glow of pride. "He do grand!" he said. "He bring home praise-card. They say Karl make fine boy!"
"He hasn't had to stay out of school for nearly a year now," commented Milly. "But when his father gets drunk and goes to jail, or prison, and Karl has to stay out to earn money, he can't be the fine boy you want him to be. . . . Wasn't that what you came to America for, Mr. Bergman—for the sake of the children?" She asked it slowly, watching his face.
The blue eyes were studying the floor. He was like a great overgrown boy, his sturdy figure standing erect before her. But when he raised the blue eyes shrewdly and looked at her with straight glance, they suggested Viking days and the strength of battle; and the Danish forebears whose blood raced in his veins seemed trying to speak in the broken words that crowded to the clumsy lips.
"I stop drink, Miss Newberry. I begin new man, Milwaukee. When they say, 'Have a drink,' I shake head. I go 'way off. My boy he stay school. My wife she have nice shawl!" He leaned forward with eager gaze. "I try hard!" he said simply.
Milly's gaze was non-committal.
"Why do you want to drink, Mr. Bergman?" she asked. "Why is it so hard for you to stop? Is it the taste of it you want?"
His eyes sought the corners of the room for answer, and his hand turned the old felt hat. His neck raised itself a little from the blue shirt-band.
"I don't like it—that stuff!" he announced.
"No?"
"Bad stuff!" he went on slowly. "Bad—in here!" He placed an appropriate hand.
"You drink it because you're bored, I believe," said Milly, looking at him shrewdly.
He turned a grateful glance.
"Yes—" He heaved a sigh. "I get up. I go work. I work hard. I mean be good man. But all time I feel bad—in here! I want laugh. I want sing. I want something happen. I say: 'Go take drink’"
"And then things happen," said Milly dryly. "Listen, Mr. Bergman. I am going to put you on a long parole—for six months. You are to go to Milwaukee and take this job." He started eagerly. She held up a hand. "At the end of six months, if you have been drunk—even once—you are to come back and report to me here."
The man's gaze was thoughtful. "That take big money!" he said.
"It will take bigger money to get drunk, won't it?" said Milly curtly. "I may have to be in Milwaukee. If I am, you can report to me there. If not, you will come to me here."
The man looked at it a long minute. He sighed heavily. "Thank you, miss." Then, after another minute, "I don't get drunk!" he said.
"I don't believe you will," replied Milly. "If I thought you would, I shouldn't let you go. . . . You have kept straight nearly a year now—with no excitement except coming to see me once in two weeks." Her eye twinkled a little. "You won't have that excitement now. And I am going to tell you what to do."
He looked at her trustingly.
"You are to plan every day something different—to do."
"Something different?" said the man vaguely. He looked helplessly about the room.
"What I plan?" he asked.
She shook her head. "Don't ask me. You must think. That will help you forget the drinking. Listen—" She leaned forward a little. "You are going to have more money in Milwaukee’"
"Big pay!" said the man expansively.
"Yes— Well, you must spend some of the money for good times."
"Good times?" He scratched his head. Then he shook it—without enthusiasm.
"For all of you," said Milly. "Things for the children—and for your wife. Every day be planning something to do when you get home—or for Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Make a garden for them, or take them on a picnic. Think of things!" she said energetically.
He gazed at her humbly. "You think that good way?" he asked doubtfully.
"I know it is," said Milly. "You keep thinking about the children. Make them happy and well, and you won't want to drink!"
She rose and held out her hand. "Good-by," she said quietly. "I don't think you will come to see me again."
Something like regret was in the man's face, striving to touch the thick lips; and Milly looked at it with eyes that held a quick light—as if some joy came to her.
"Good-by," she said. "Write to me some day about the children. I shall want to hear about them."
He took the hand awkwardly, and dropped it and moved to the door. At the door he looked back.
"Good-by," he said.
"You'll write to me," said Milly, "about the children."
He held up a clumsy hand and looked at it. "I don't know it—to write," he said slowly. "But Karl he write. He learn in the school already." He looked at her, as if the words were shaping in a deep place and groping toward her. "I thank you," he said slowly. "You make good man for me. I thank you."
She nodded, and a little quick mist seemed to come between her and the clumsy figure passing through the door and closing it with careful hand. . . . The man had kept straight for ten months. She had little fear for him now. And something passed with him, out through the door, a kind of grim will to keep straight that she had been watching shape itself for ten months. He was stronger than he knew! She turned with a little sigh and gathered up a handful of papers from the table and went out. She had suddenly remembered Tom Corbin in the up-town office—probably chafing and fuming at delay!
She went quickly toward the entrance of the building, thinking only of Tom waiting in the office, and Tom's impatience. But in the revolving outer door she paused.
A young man in the opposite compartment had smiled to her and touched his hat. They both moved forward, and the door swung round and he was still in the opposite compartment, begging her, with a little gesture, to wait for him.
She stepped back into the hall, and when the door swung round, bringing him to her side, she greeted him with a smile.
"Did you want to see me?"
"I thought you wanted to see me," he said half-whimsically. His shoulders straightened a little as he said it, and he looked down at her. "It's my last day, isn't it?" he suggested with a quiet look.
"So it is!" Her face lighted. "I am sorry— But some one is waiting for me in the up-town office. I can't ask you to come again, of course." She held out her hand. "So thank you, and good luck to you!"
He took her hand slowly. "Thank you," he said, looking down at her a little quizzically. "But you don't cheat me out of a visit, like that! I shall come again." The words were deliberate and there was a quiet intentness in his face.
"You want to come?" she asked. A little flush seemed to travel across her grayness.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world!" he replied. The quiet glance did not leave her face.
A little look of reserve touched its flitting color, and she spoke half-doubtingly.
"I am not sure when I"
But he brushed it aside. "Oh—you can't put me off! When a man has been calling on you, regularly, for at least a year, he has some rights, surely!" There was something almost grave in the laughing protest of the words, and she met it with a long, quiet look.
"Very well." She consulted the tablet-slip that she took from her green purse, and he took a step forward, looking down at her and at the slip almost with an air of proprietorship.
"Put it up, please, Miss Newberry," he said quickly. "I am not going to trouble a busy woman like you with whims. . . . Perhaps you will let me call on you some evening?" He was looking at her intently, and she returned the look, the flush flitting again in her face.
"Why, of course!" she said cordially. "I shall be glad to see you any time. . . . Only—" She paused a moment. "I am often away from home, you know."
"Then I shall come again—if I find you out. You will not get rid of me so easily—with an excuse!" And he touched his hat and moved away through the swinging door.
Her eyes followed the tall figure passing into the crowd. At the edge of the sidewalk he turned and looked back and raised his hat gravely to her, before he disappeared in the crowd. There was something almost significant in the gesture, and with a little sigh she replaced the tablet in the green silk purse and snapped it thoughtfully. . . . Then suddenly she remembered again Tom Corbin, waiting in the office up-town—and she hurried out.