3stalwarts (92 page)

“That’s right, at that.”

“Yeanh. It makes life a tough proposition, all right.— Well, I guess I could take you up to Wheaden’s wharf. It ain’t in use and it’s just above the Six Day. Suit you?”

“Surely,” said Dan.

“Ged-dup!” The driver cracked his whip at the mules. “You ain’t got no certificates. I’ll leather the tar out of you.”

They tied up. Dan went into the cabin to get his coat, and when he left he locked the door after him. Utica again. Though he had been there only once before, the basin had a pleasantly familiar feel.

He walked with the driver behind the mules as far as the Michigan Six Day office, where he signed a receipt for service rendered.

“You ain’t the man that paid for this,” remarked the clerk, comparing signatures.

“That’s all right,” the driver said, contemptuously. “Weaver’s sick. How the hell could he sign?”

“Then you’d ought to put ‘per— whatever your initials is,’ ” said the clerk. “Anybody’d ought to know that.”

“Aw, spit over your chin,” said the driver, and he led Dan out, shook hands, and disappeared into the stables.

Dan idly watched the loading and unloading boats, and the boats passing through, the din of voices like a mist beyond his ears. He wondered what he ought to do. He did not know anybody in Utica to whom to go for advice.

After a while he started walking up into the city, eyeing shop fronts as he passed. He did not stop until, in one of the poorer quarters, he came to a store with black curtains at the windows, and a neat sign, white letters on black:—

Lester Cushman Funeral Director

Dan jerked the bell pull and heard, way back in the house, a single soft bell like the stroke of a clock. In a moment the door was opened, and he was confronted by a tall pale man wearing a sober black coat and black cotton gloves and carrying a clean handkerchief in his right hand.

“Step in,” said the man, in a cool, soft voice.

Dan found himself in a dark hall, with stairs leading up from the back and a door on either side. On one of the doors was printed in white letters:—

Bereavement Parlor

“Walk into the parlor,” the man in black said quietly. “No, not there, young gentleman,— not yet,— the door across the hall, if you please.”

He held open the door. Dan walked stiffly into the room, which was fitted out with grey curtains and black haircloth furniture.

“Sit down,” said the man in black, and he took a chair himself, carefully pulling his coat tails over his knees as he did so. Dan sat down and placed his hat beside his feet and took out his handkerchief to wipe his face.

“Too bad,” said the man in black, scarcely above a whisper. “High and low, it finds us all; better so, perhaps.”

“I guess that’s right,” said Dan. “I’d like to see Mr. Cushman.”

The man in black made a slight, stiff bow.

“I am Mr. Cushman, at your service, Mister—?”

“Harrow,” said Dan. “Dan Harrow.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harrow. I shall do my best for you. I have a very creditable name in this city, I assure you.”

“I guess that’s right,” said Dan, swallowing.

“Too bad. Just tell me where and I shall take everything off your hands. Details are hard to mind in a case such as this is.”

“Yeanh,” said Dan. “That’s what I come to you for.”

“Yes, yes, Mr. Harrow, and that is what I am here for, to relieve sorrow of its burdens.”

“I’m afraid,” Dan began.

“Certainly, certainly, I shall be glad to suit your needs. Something economical, simple, but dignified. Plain pine, perhaps. Pine, stained, looks very well. And is inexpensive, relatively speaking. Not cheap. At such a time we do not want cheapness, do we? I can show you some very nice coffins if you would care to see them— about twenty-five dollars, say, lined nicely in white satin?”

“No,” said Dan. “It wouldn’t do.”

Mr. Cushman regarded him for an instant out of cold, fortified eyes.

“No,” he agreed. “Such things are trying. Sister, might I ask?”

“No,” said Dan. “It’s a man.”

“Dear me, a friend. Very hard.”

“Well, I’ve known him four days,” said Dan, “but he was all right.”

He looked down at his shoes, his cheeks flushed.

“Mr. Cushman, I come in to get advice. He’s a boater, name of Samson Weaver, who I hired on to in Albany and he died just outside of Utica. He’s down on the basin on his boat, and he ain’t got any kin, and I ain’t got any money, and I come to see what I ought to do about it, and I thought maybe you could tell me, and I guess that’s the whole of it.”

Mr. Cushman coughed and took off his gloves.

“What did he die of?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say. He was scared of cholera. There’s been a scare.”

“Sure,” said Mr. Cushman. “I heard about it.”

Dan gave him the details.

Mr. Cushman took off his coat and hung it over a chair. His sleeves were rolled up, showing strong forearms, light-colored from indoor work. He unbuttoned a pair of cuffs.

“Hmmm,” he said. “Hmmm. It sure wasn’t cholera. So you don’t know what to do, eh?”

“No,” said Dan. “That’s what I come in here for. I can’t pay for no funeral, but I’d ought to get a certificate of death.”

“That might be arranged.”

He glanced sideways at Dan.

“You and I might do a dicker on him. He wasn’t a close friend, you say.”

“No, I wouldn’t say he was; but there wasn’t anything I had against him.”

“Well, I know a doctor that might want to take him. Sometimes I’ve been able to supply him with a specimen. Suppose I saw to the certificate, et cetera, and took him off your hands, would ten dollars do?”

“I ain’t got even that much.”

“Ten dollars paid to you,” said Mr. Cushman.

“Why, I don’t know that that’s right,” said Dan.

“Why not? He won’t know anything about it.”

“I guess that’s right.”

“He’ll be serving a useful end of science.”

“Surely.”

“Then he goes on the books as buried in the public grounds. It’s all very proper when you look at it correctly. Where’s the boat?”

“Wheaden’s wharf. It’s the Sarsey Sal, a brown one.”

Mr. Cushman rubbed his hands dryly together.

“Well, you can look out for me about eight.” …

Dan stopped in at a waterside bar and had a drink. There were no familiar faces there, so he walked back to the boat. Once in the cabin, he began to worry about Samson Weaver. The boater’s presence was about him, vaguely. The tobacco box, and the charred clay pipe on the shelf with the clock; the clock itself, black marble, a prized possession of Weaver’s, with a small silver horse prancing on the top. Once, at the beginning of the haul from Albany, he had said to Dan, “When I hear the tickin’ it sounds like he was galloping out the time; and when it strikes, then I think he’s crossed a bridge.” But the most bothersome thing was his suit of Sunday clothes. Dan could see one elbow of the coat between the curtain and the wall, a dark green cloth with a red hair stripe, if you looked at it closely.

A fly buzzed along one of the windowpanes. Dan watched it idly. He wanted something to smooth him down; he looked at the pipe and tobacco, Warnick and Brown Tobacco, made for boaters. He had smoked some once, heavy, sweet, soothing stuff. He got up suddenly and filled the pipe and lighted it. It tasted good. A blue cloud of it floated up to the wall and the fly came buzzing through it to dart for the other side of the cabin.

But the Sunday coat kept catching Dan’s eye, and little by little the smoke began to lose its flavor.

“Cripus!” he exclaimed after a while. “It ain’t right.”

He got up, knocked out the pipe, and went into the sleeping cuddy. When he returned to the cabin it was so dark that he had to light the lamp. The clock struck six.

He sat down again under the lamp and pulled the boater’s Bible from its shelf. For an hour he thumbed the pages, reading here and there, but the Book did not hold his interest. The cabin hemmed him in. On the wharf outside, sounds of passers-by became less frequent. A boat passed occasionally, but the voice of the driver was dim.

Dan replaced the Bible and went into the sleeping cuddy and fumbled in his bag. When he returned, he had the volume of Shakespeare’s plays the peddler had given him on the road from Tug Hill.

He opened it haphazard and began to read, ” ‘A made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom child. ‘A parted even just between twelve and one… .” He did not understand it all; but the old man lay before him, plucking the sheets and calling, “God, God, God!” and he knew at once that it was real… .

It seemed no time at all before he heard a man thumping on the deck.

“Gol,” he said, and sighed, and shut the book.

Mr. Cushman came in, dressed in a pair of overalls and a flannel shirt, and accompanied by a sharp-faced little man with red hair.

“Evening, Harrow. This is my friend, Mr. Nidds. Where’s the body?”

Dan pointed his thumb.

They went in. “All curled up,” said Nidds. “The doctor likes ‘em straight.”

“We only promise delivery,” Cushman reminded him. “Wrap him up.”

He came out to Dan. “Here’s the money, Harrow. All right?”

“Yeanh,” said Dan, fumbling the bills.

“All right, then. Any fuss, refer them to Lester Cushman. Ready, Nidds?”

“Sure. He weighs like cement, What’s he all dressed up for?”

Dan mumbled.

“Well, they’re too big for me, anyways,” said Nidds.

They pushed their way up the stairs, the sack between them scraping on the steps and bunting the sides. As they dropped it on deck to catch their breaths, there was a click of breaking clay.

“Must’ve been a pipe on him somewheres,” said Nidds. “That’s too bad. I needed a pipe.”

Dan put out the lamp and followed them.

“Get along,” said Cushman.

They carried it out to the dock and heaved it into the back of a light wagon. There was no one to notice them. The watchman was way down the wharf under a door lamp, whittling a toothpick.

“See you again some day, maybe,” Cushman said good-naturedly to Dan.

Dan raised his hand. The wagon clattered ahead and turned down a street. When it disappeared, Dan drew in his breath. The air was freer now that Samson had gone to see the doctor.

The Cooks’ Agency

Later in the same evening Dan walked through the doors of Bentley’s Bar. The big room was full of boaters sitting at the tables, the hubbub of their voices striking his ear heavily. But he had no intention of drinking.

“How do I get to see Mrs. Cashdollar?” he asked one of the keeps.

The keep pointed to a door at the end of the bar.

“Right through there, mister. Turn right down the hall and go up one flight. It’s the door right opposite the stairs.”

“Thanks,” said Dan.

He followed the keep’s directions. The hall was lighted only by a small lamp set on a corner shelf halfway up the stairs. The boards under his feet creaked; there was a smell of oldness in the walls; and as he climbed Dan could hear the whisper and stir of rats behind the lathes. An old spotted tomcat, who was watching a hole in the corner of one of the treads, glanced up at him with a harassed expression.

At the top of the stairs, a door opened into the front wall. A card was tacked to the centre panel. It was smudged by fingers which had traced the painstaking printing.

Mrs. Lucy Cashdollar

COOKS AGENCY

FOR BACHELLOR BOATERS

KNOCK

Dan took off his hat and knocked.

“Come right in,” said a woman’s voice beyond the door.

Dan found himself in a large bedroom, colorfully got up in wallpaper patchings of red and blue, yellow curtains at the window, and green rag rugs on the floor. On his left stood a monumental walnut bed, with medallions of fruit in high relief on the head and foot boards; on his right was a Franklin stove bearing a copper kettle which purred lazily, a glass with a spoon in it, and half a lemon. The air smelled sharply of the lemon and heavily of rum. Before the snapping fire a plump woman, rather pretty, in a scarlet Mother Hubbard and a bright yellow wig, stretched scarlet stocking feet to the warmth. She was smoking a large meerschaum pipe, the stem of which lay along her breast, and blowing smoke rings at the toe of her right foot, which was curled back through a hole in the stocking.

“Set down, young man,” she said, motioning to another chair beside the stove.

Dan sat down, holding his hat with both hands. The warmth of the fire beat upon his face and showed it flushed. The plump woman gazed at him with a quiet smile. Her face was high-colored, and the edges of her broad nostrils were red, as though rum noggins were a habit.

“Well,” she said, “what can I do for you, young man?”

“I come to see if Molly Larkins was here,” Dan said.

“What’s your name?”

“Dan Harrow.”

“So you’re the lad! Well, I ain’t surprised,” she said, looking him over carefully. “You’re a well-set-up young man. If I was as young as I used to be, I might want a job with you myself.”

Dan felt the blood in his face.

“She said she’d be with you if she was in Utica,” he mumbled.

“That’s right, Mr. Harrow. She’s staying here.”

“She ain’t gone?”

“No. But she ain’t in now. She will be later.”

Dan’s hands squeezed his hat, and a slow smile came over his face. The corners of Mrs. Cashdollar’s eyes crinkled; she smiled back at him.

“Feeling strong about her?”

“Kind of,” said Dan.

“I don’t blame you. I can’t say as I blame you at all. She’s real pretty. I made two good commissions on to her. Fat ones.”

Dan looked puzzled.

“Oh, you won’t have to pay none. She’s been expecting you. She was going to stay another week. I’d hate to charge you any, anyhow. It ain’t often I can fix up such a pair. When I can, most generally I charges light— for old time’s sake.”

She settled her wig on with both hands and sighed.

“Yes. Old times. I was as pretty as she was, once; not so long ago, at that. Yeller hair and a tidy figure. Men would look around on the street when I laughed. Oh, well, the world goes by a person and they get left after a while.”