The Steadfast Heart/Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was noon next day when Angus Burke and Dave Wilkins arrived at their destination—the mid-Ohio village of Emporia. During their waking hours there had been little conversation between them— but it seemed to Dave Wilkins that the boy’s eyes never left his face.
“Angus,” he said, as they drew near the town, “this is going to be just as if you were born all over again; do you understand? As if you were somebody else. You’re going to be on an equal footing with other boys and have an equal chance…. I want you to forget all about Rainbow.”
It was a moment before Angus replied, “I—don’t want to fergit…. I want to remember—you.”
“Yes, Angus,” Dave said, “you are to remember me.”
The boy showed no curiosity when they alighted. He did not look about him as the ordinary boy would have done upon entering a new town; rather, he pressed closer to Dave’s side, and kept his eyes on the walk as they proceeded. His manner was that of one who dreads to be seen.
“It’s not a private school you’re going to,” Dave said. “It’s a regular public school…. It seemed best to try that kind. Because I want you to be like other boys…. I want you to know and to play with them, Angus—I hope you’ll find some boy to be your chum.”
“Chum?” Angus asked, and pondered over it. “Was Bishwhang a chum?”
“Why—I suppose he was.”
Angus nodded, but there was a peculiar expression on his face. Dave understood it to be a promise he would try. He also understood it to mean that Angus would have nobody else occupy the place Bishwhang had held.
Presently they stopped at a small, white, gardened house which was to be Angus’s home for years to come. A stout, white-haired woman opened the door.
“Careful of the cat. Wouldn’t have him stepped on fer a dozen new-laid eggs. This is Mr. Wilkins, ain’t it? And this is the boy. Come right in. Soon’s I heard the train whistle I fixed a snack, knowin’ what boys’ appetites is.” All this before Wilkins had a chance to say good morning.
“Angus,” he said, “this is Mrs. Bassett. You’re going to live with her.”
“And we’re goin’ to git on splendid—hain’t had no boys around for forty year—goin’ to be almos’ like havin’ the grandson I never got. I woke up las’ night, Mr. Wilkins, would you believe it, out of a dream where me’n your boy got on so well together he come to call me Grandma—right this way—front room—snack’s waitin’ for you.”
Angus watched her curiously, then looked at Dave’s face to read what Dave thought of the situation. Dave seemed gratified.
When they were in Angus’s room with the door closed, the boy stood in the middle of the room looking straight before him. He was thinking, and Dave waited.
“She wants me here,” said Angus. It was a miracle, a condition never before experienced by him.
“Yes, Angus. Everybody will want you here. Some day everybody will want you everywhere.”
“No,” said Angus, the old fear dulling his eyes, “they—wouldn’t never want me—not in Rainbow.”
Mrs. Bassett bustled and mothered over Angus, not a little to his bewildered embarrassment.
“Hain’t much of a talker, be you? Kind of strange yit. Wear off. You’n me’s goin’ to take a sight of comfort together. How you figger you’re goin’ to like it?”
“I—I’d like it if he was goin’ to be here.”
“I s’pose he’ll be startin’ right in to school. Um…. The’s good boys here, but mischievous. Just you lemme tell you, Angus, the startin’ makes a heap sight of difference. Don’t you go lettin’ nobody bully you. Show right at the start you kin look out fer yourself and stand up for yourself without fear or favor….”
There it was again, the exhortation to stand up for himself. Angus looked quickly at Dave, who nodded. Mrs. Bassett already was going on:
“I call to mind how my boy come a-runnin’ home once with another boy a-chasin’ him. Bigger boy. ‘Henry,’ I called out to him from the gate, ‘you stop where you be. Don’t come runnin’ in here. You stop stock-still and give that boy a lickin’—or I calc’late to give you one myself when you git in.’ Well, Henry he sailed in pell-mell and I stood by till the job was done…. Lesson he couldn’t ’a’ learned in school.”
“I’ve got to stick up for myself,” said Angus….
That was the auspicious beginning of that phase of Angus Burke’s life which lay in the village of Emporia, of that period of education, of development, of adventures in human nature, in which he discovered that people were not necessarily enemies, and that there existed a wonderful occupation by the name of play.
School was an experience for Angus—when his first fear wore off and experience proved to him that nobody knew who or what he was. Strange boys made advances to him. The teacher was kind. She watched him with experienced eye and called him to her desk.
“You’re lonesome,” she said.
For a moment Angus made no reply. Then he said, “He had to go back.” That explained everything.
“He? Who?”
“Mr. Wilkins.”
“Who is Mr. Wilkins?”
Angus pondered this a moment. He didn’t know exactly who Mr. Wilkins was—except that—he fumbled for a reply.
“There ain’t anybody but Mr. Wilkins,” he said.
“And he left you here alone?”
Angus comprehended a veiled criticism and resented it. There came a flash in his eyes, an alertness upon his face which quite transfigured him.
“He had to,” said Angus.
The teacher’s curiosity was stirred. Yet, looking at Angus, she knew it would be useless to question him. Her experience with boys had been wide, yet here was one whom she could not comprehend, and who interested her…. It was not strange. Who could comprehend Angus but one who knew his story?
“Angus,” she said presently, “I’m hired to teach you reading and writing and arithmetic and geography—but I want to teach you, and all my boys and girls, more than that, if I can. I want to teach them how to live, and how to get the best out of life. You, Angus, are here alone. Maybe you will want somebody to talk to—about things. Maybe you will have troubles, or puzzles…. I hope you will let me help you. Remember, I want to be your friend.”
It was all confusing, startling. Instead of antagonism, cold avoidance, open jeers, terrifying hostility, he was meeting on every hand, even from the pupils, welcome and companionship. He did not know what to do with these commodities. It was a new condition of life to which it would be difficult to adapt himself. He was embarrassed.
“Will you remember?” the teacher said.
“Yes,” said Angus.
“Now run along and play. You’ll find the boys about yet. They’ll be glad to play with you.”
Glad to play with him! It was a condition he had never imagined. Play! He, Angus Burke, to play with boys. Never had he imagined such a state of affairs to be possible—simply it had never occurred to him….
As he passed down the school walk he saw half a dozen lads sitting under a tree. His impulse was to make a wide detour, avoiding them as if they were wild beasts and dangerous—but he restrained it, walked straight ahead.
“Hello,” called a boy.
Angus paused, uncertain what to do or say.
“Goin’ to live here?”
“Yes.”
“Whereabouts? I hain’t seen any fam’ly movin’ in.”
“He's livin’ with Mis’ Bassett. Ma told me,” a second boy volunteered.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Michigan.”
“Good thing you come to Ohio. It's got Michigan beat forty ways.”
Angus held no brief for his former place of abode, so remained silent.
“We’re gittin’ up a ball team. What d’you play?”
Angus shook his head.
“Don’t you play nothin’? Not pitch or field or nothin’?”
“No.”
“Why? Don’t you like baseball?”
“I—I’m goin’ to learn. I got to.”
The boy who had first spoken turned to his fellows. “We kin use him out in right field. He won’t git many flies there.”
This seemed satisfactory, and Angus was made a member of the team which, after much argument, was named the “White Wings,” and the athletes sought a field to commence practice.
Then, for the first time in his life, Angus Burke played—played with other boys as an equal; was addressed by them familiarly, carelessly. He began dimly to understand the meaning of the word “play,” and, unaccustomed as he was, phlegmatic as he was, he was lifted out of himself by the exhilaration of it. Perhaps he was not as noisy as the rest, for it was his nature to be silent. Clumsy he was and without skill, but he went at the thing doggedly, intensely. It was clear to everybody he was doing the best he could, “tryin’ every minnit,” as they said, and they were pleased with him….
That night he wrote Dave Wilkins:
“I went to school. I was not afraid of anybody. Not of the teacher. Nobody called me anything. It is all right for me to be there. I played ball. I couldn’t play good. The boys called me Feet because I fell down. I didn’t care because they called me Feet. I liked it, kind of. I would like it here if you was here, and Jake and Bishwhang. Tell them I showed the watch. Nobody but me had a watch.”
Dave read the letter to Jake and Dishwhang, and showed it to Craig Browning. Jake swore profoundly and learnedly; Bishwhang grinned and wriggled. Craig Browning shook hands silently with Dave….
The first six months of Angus’ life in Emporia saw little change in him outwardly; but a great alteration inwardly. To recreate a human being is not the work of hours, but Angus was on the highway to a new identity. His movements were freer, less clumsy. He could smile. Fear had lifted from his shoulders—he was beginning to forget as only youth can forget—and that was the first great step in the process. His study was characterized by a dogged persistence; he learned slowly, demanding reasons. His was not a mind fitted for short cuts, and always he must take the slow, certain, laborious way—but when he arrived at his answer it was usually correct—and he could state his reason for every step in the process…. He was growing.
One friend he made deliberately, one individual he sought out, and that was the proprietor of the Emporia Banner, Peter Waite by name. One Saturday Peter looked up from his case, for Peter was of the old-time editorial brotherhood who composed and “stuck” his editorials at one and the same time, to see a boy leaning on the stone watching him hungrily.
“Hello, Bub,” said Peter. “What can I do for you?”
“Nothin’,” said Angus.
“Um…. Hain’t got any of it. Anythin’ else do as well?”
Angus could imagine no possible reply to this, so he remained silent, sniffing in the odors of the shop as if they were frangipanni or frankincense. Peter regarded him briefly from time to time. Angus did not move. Presently Peter addressed him again.
“You must want somethin’. Everybody does. What did you come here for, anyhow?”
“Because,” said Angus simply, “I wanted to be here.”
“Come of your own free will and accord?”
“Yes-sir.”
“What made you want to come?”
“I—was walkin’ by—and the door was open—and I—”
“You smelled printers’ ink,” shouted Peter, recognizing a brother in the craft.
“Yes,” said Angus.
“Here,” said Peter, holding out the printer’s stick, “set while I dictate.”
Jake had taught him the case, taught by thorough methods known to the old printer, and Angus took the stick eagerly. Peter dictated slowly while Angus’ hand flew about the case nimbly, snatching the type, automatically feeling the notch, and clicking it into the stick. It was a labor of love. Peter Waite had vanished, and he was working for Dave!… When Peter was done and had struck a proof, he regarded Angus with interest.
“Whoever taught you knew his business…. Pa a printer?”
“No.”
“Boy that boards with Mis’ Bassett, ain’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Um…. Pretty lonesome for a sniff of it, wa’n’t you?” asked Peter, waving his hand about the shop.
“Yes.”
“Come whenever you please, and go whenever you please. Grab whatever you can handle. By Golly, I know the feelin’ myself. Shake.”
Peter was mistaken. It was not the smell of printer’s ink that called to Angus, but the fact that Dave Wilkins loved that smell, lived in that smell, carried it about upon his garments. Angus came then, and daily afterward because the place was a constant reminder of Dave Wilkins, and—somehow—when Angus busied himself about the place, he was able to imagine he was working for Dave—preparing himself to work for Dave…. Six months before such a flight of imagination would have been impossible for him.
From that day forth Angus missed few Saturdays at the printing office, and on many other afternoons was there—especially Thursdays when the paper went to press. The ninth or tenth Saturday, Peter stopped Angus and offered him fifty cents. Angus took it in his palm, regarded it slowly and shook his head.
“No,” he said slowly, tendering back the coin, “I ain’t—workin’ for—you.”
“What’s that?” demanded Peter in astonishment.
“I’m workin’ for him,” said Angus.
“Who?” asked Peter, but Angus shook his head, nor could Peter induce him to utter Dave Wilkins’ name. The boy never uttered it, seemed to hold it in a sort of reverence as a thing not to be spoken in the ears of strangers and common men.
“By Golly, Bub. I’ll make a printer out of you. I’ll do more than that—I’ll make a newspaper man out of you,” promised Peter, and during the years which came, he was as good as his word. Painstakingly, lovingly, as a sculptor hewing his Moses from Parian marble, Peter Waite labored with Angus, teaching him not only the mechanics but the ethics of the business, instructing him in its ideals and higher functions, demanding that Angus equip himself as for a mission. “Bub,” he said, “you’ve got to learn to be a prophet in Israel. You’ve got to learn not only how to stand up for yourself, but how to stand up for the rights, and fight down the wrongs of the whole community.”
Here was an extension of Angus’s creed—to stand up for himself. To that he now added the proposition of the necessity of standing up for the rights of others. Herein Peter Waite laid a foundation which, one day, was to bear a finished structure.
Under the tutelage and solicitude and friendship of three persons, Peter Waite, his teacher, and Mrs. Bassett, Angus grew inwardly and physically. But all the labor expended upon him was as nothing when set beside the miracle wrought by the lifting of fear, by companionship and friendship casually tendered, as though such things were his right, by the realization that, save on the little corner of Earth’s surface occupied by Rainbow, he could stand on his merits, be received according to his deserts, and hope for any position to which his abilities entitled him…. Anywhere in the world—save that one black spot—Rainbow!
Rainbow impended over him always, overshadowed him, intimidated him. Ceaselessly, in remote recesses of his mind was a dread, a nightmare dread of a possible necessity of returning to Rainbow…. It was a foreboding. He felt he would be driven back—drawn back—for was not Dave Wilkins there?
Eight years passed. Angus was graduating from high school—a young man eighteen years of age—a young man vitally, miraculously different from the boy whom Dave Wilkins had taken from the courtroom to the little cubicle over his printing office—yet he was the same, basically the same…. The ten years which had culminated in that courtroom had left upon him indelible traces, traces which must descend with him into the grave.
It was spring. He was looking forward to his graduation as to an accomplishment, proud, because Dave would be proud—that Dave whom he had seen half a dozen times a year. He was almost happy.
Then a postman delivered a letter at Mrs. Bassett’s door, a letter for Angus Burke in a handwriting he had never before seen. He opened it, read it to the signature at the end—and the signature was that of Lydia Canfield!
That night, secretly and without good-byes—lest kindness prevent his departure, he boarded a train for Rainbow. In his heart resided fear such as he had never known, and dread, dread of the town toward which his face was turned….