Harbor (9781101565681) (47 page)

“How do you look at this, Joe?” I asked him. “What do you think they'll do to you?”

“I don't know.” Again he smiled slightly and wearily. “And I can't say I
care
a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact,” he added, “I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll let us all off with light sentences. Of course the murder charge can't hold. . . . By the way,” he added, smiling, “I hear they got you, too.”

“Yes,” I answered, smiling back. “The Judge fined me ten dollars and let me go. He said he hoped this would be a lesson.”

Joe looked at me curiously:

“How much of a lesson, Kid, do you think this strike has been to you?”

“Quite a big one, Joe,” I said.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I haven't decided.”

“How is Eleanore taking it all?”

“She's not saying much and neither am I. We're both doing some thinking before we talk.”

“You're a quiet pair,” J. K. remarked. “I shouldn't wonder if you'd nose along quite a distance before you get through—I mean in our direction.”

“That's what we're thinking about,” I replied. Again he turned to me curiously:

“You two can think together—without talking—can't you?”

“Yes—sometimes we can.”

“I never got that far with Sue.” All at once he came closer, his whole manner changed: “Say, Bill—tell her all I've said—will you? I'm sorry! Honest Injun! Make her feel how damnably sorry I am that I ever let her in for this!”

When I left him I went off for a walk, for I wanted to be alone awhile. I wondered just how sure Joe felt about his fast approaching trial. It seemed to me that he had a good chance of going where Sue had pictured him.

That evening I learned that my father was worse, and I spent the next day by his bedside. He had had a stroke in the morning and was not expected to live through the night.

I found him mumbling fast to himself and making slight, restless efforts to move. At last he grew quiet, and presently his half-open gnarled right hand came groping out over the covers. I took it in mine, and at once I felt it close on mine with a quick, convulsive strength. His hand was moist, his eyes saw nothing. I sat there thus for a long time. Then suddenly,

“Good boy,” he muttered thickly. “Good boy—good—always good to your mother!” He kept repeating this over and over, with pauses between, then again with an effort, fiercely, as though from a distance his mind were set on getting this message over to me, over from an age that was dying into an age that was coming to life, a last good-by to hold me back.

Soon he was only mumbling figures, names of ships and distant ports, freight consignments. Now and then his finger would go to his lips, as he turned phantom pages in feverish haste. Again, in gasping whispers, he would break out into arguments for the protection of Yankee sails.

“Protection!” he would whisper. “Damn fools not to see it! Discriminating tariffs! Subsidies! A Navy! . . . Don't forget the Navy! Remember War of 1812! . . . Nothing without fighting!”

“Nothing without fighting.” He had been learning this all his life—and after he had said it now, he stopped speaking and grew still. Little by little his movements grew weaker. Finally he lay like a log, and the doctor said he would be so until dead.

I went up to my old bedroom and sat down by the open window. It was a beautiful night. From the garden below, where long ago I had felt such shivers over the ocean and heathen lands, a graceful poplar rose. Behind it from the river the huge, dim funnel of a steamer rose over the roof of the warehouse. Overhead to the right swept the Great Bridge of my childhood. But behind it were other bridges now, and off across the river the buildings of Manhattan loomed in loftier masses to their apex in the tower of lights. How changed it all was since I was a boy. And yet how like. On the harbor still the hurrying lights, yellow, blue and green and red. The same deep, restless hum of labor. And from the waterfront below the same puffs and coughs of engines, the same sharp toots and treble pantings, the same raucous whine of wheels.

There came a rough salt breeze from the sea, and it made me think of billowy sails and the days of my father's boundless youth, and of the harbor of long ago that had so gripped and molded him—as I felt mine now molding me. And for what? I asked. To what were we both adventuring—out of these little harbors of ours?

Toward dawn a tramp came down the river. Dimly as she passed below I could see how old she was, how worn and battered by the waves. A desolate and lonely craft, the smoke draggled out of her funnel. I watched her steam into the Upper Bay and pass around Governor's Island. I watched till in the first raw light of day I could see only her smoke through the Narrows. Then even this became but a blur, which crept away in that strange dawn light out into the wide ocean.

A few hours later my father died.

One by one, from different parts of the port, the queerest old men came into our house on the day of my father's funeral—men who still believed in American ships, still thrilled to the dream of the Stars and Stripes wherever there is an ocean breeze; men who still believed in ships that had sails and moved along with the force of the winds; who still believed that cabin boys could rise by the sheer force of their wills to be powers in the ocean world; men who had for the common crowd only the iron discipline, the old brute tyranny of the sea. These strange old men stood with their white heads bowed, a little group, looking down into my father's grave.

“He was a magnificent fighter,” I heard one of them say as we left. “He wrecked his own business for what he believed in. How many of us would go that far?”

 

From the grave Sue came to our apartment. Eleanore had packed her trunk.

“Sue must keep out of that dreary old house,” she told me. “Luckily she has a friend out of town whom she's going to visit. When she comes back we must have the house closed, and I hope she'll live with us for a while.”

We talked of this that evening, for Sue seemed to want to talk. We stayed up until late and planned and planned. Many different kinds of work for Sue were taken up and discussed by us all. She surprised me by the brave effort she made.

“I've got to want something—that's sure,” she said. “I can't just yet. I've wanted so many things so hard, one after the other for nearly eight years, that now I feel as though I'd used up all the wanting that I've got. But of course I haven't. If I have I'm a back number—and I'd a great deal rather be dead. So don't you people worry. Depend upon it, in less than a year I'll be all wrapped up in something new. I'll be tremendously enthused,” she ended, smiling wearily.

She agreed with me that the house be sold, and after she had left us I made every effort to sell it at once. I found it was heavily mortgaged now, but when at last I made a sale there was enough to clear off all debts and leave about two thousand dollars for Sue. She would have at least something to start on.

As we set about to dismantle the house, various things thickly covered with dust came out of closets, drawers and shelves. And these objects brought near again to me my mother's life and that hunger of hers for the things that were “fine,” that hospitable door which had waited for friends from the handsome old homes all around us. These homes all along the street had now lost their quiet dignity. Some were empty and marked for sale, others that had already been sold were cheerless boarding houses. The most handsome home of all, with its ample yard where I used to play, was gone, and in its place rose an apartment building which made the old houses all seem dwarfs.

Her world and his were both slipping away. Her life and his, her creed and his, were little now but memories—memories which in Sue and in me must take their chance with the warm, new feelings, the cravings, hopes, loves, doubts and dreams of this absorbing world of our own. For the harbor was still molding lives.

How anxious Eleanore seemed to be though, I thought a little bitterly.

But Eleanore had good reason. When at last the house had been closed, back at home one evening she told me what she had known for weeks but had kept to herself until I should be free from other things. We were to have another child.

The news was a shock, it frightened me. “Where's the money to come from?” flashed into my mind. In an instant it had passed and I was holding her tight in my arms. But she must have caught that look in my face, for I could feel her trembling.

“The same funny old world, my dearest one,” she whispered, “with its same old trick of starting out. But oh my dear, in spite of it all—or because of it all—how good it is to be alive! More than ever—a hundred times!”

“You darling girl,” I whispered back, “you're the bravest one of all!”

 

Her father came to us the next night, and after Eleanore went to bed he and I talked long together. He looked worn and tired, but the same quiet affection was in his eyes.

“Let's see where we are,” he said, “and what we've got to go on. To begin with, thank God, you and I are still friends. Then there's Eleanore and your small son and the smaller one that's coming. We're just starting in on a long, hot summer. She must of course be got out of town. How much have you in the bank?”

“Thirty-seven dollars,” I said.

He looked thoughtfully at his cigar.

“You've never yet taken money from me,” he continued, after a moment. “Still, you'd do it if you had to—because this is
our
affair. But unluckily, just at present, I'm nearly as high and dry as yourself. The men who have backed my harbor work have lost so heavily in the strike that they feel now they must recoup. I've already proposed to them a plan which they have as good as accepted. They'll provide enough money to pay the rent of a smaller office. I can borrow enough to pay half my men. The rest I'll have to let go for a time.”

“And
your
salary?” I ventured.

“Is left out,” he answered. “I mean it is if I stay here. I want to stay here, I want to put through this job if I can, you see it has taken six years of my life. And besides,” he added wistfully, “in a very few weeks they'll finish the work at Panama—and the ships of the world will begin to crowd into a harbor that isn't ready here—we haven't even completed our plans. It's not a good time to stop our work. But of course if you and Eleanore get into a hole that is serious—as I said before and you'll agree, you'd have to let me help you—even if to do it I should have to give up my work for a while and take up something that will pay.”

“No sir!”

“Yes sir,” he replied. “Unless you can earn enough money yourself.”

We looked at each other a moment.

“You know how to bring pressure, don't you?” I said.

“Yes, I'm bringing pressure. I want to see you go on as before.”

“That won't be easy,” I remarked.

“Shall we talk it over a little?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” he said. “Since that talk we had together the day Eleanore's first child was born, what a splendid start you made in your writing. You were not only earning big pay, you were doing fine work, work that was leading somewhere. I could see you learning to use your tools, getting a broad, sane view of life—and of yourself—training yourself and building yourself. You were right on the threshold of big results. But then your friend Kramer came along. He had not built himself, he had chucked himself over, neglected himself, his health included. So he took typhoid and came to your home. His being there was a drain on your pocket and a heavy strain on your nerves. He got you unsettled. Then came the strike. And what has it done? It has taken your time, health, money. It has left two good workmen stranded—you and me. And I don't see that it's done the crowd any good. What has the strike given you in return for all it has taken away?”

“A deeper view of life,” I said. “I saw something in that strike so much bigger than Marsh or Joe or that crude organization of theirs—something deep down in the people themselves that rises up out of each one of them the minute they get together. And I believe that power has such possibilities that when it comes into full life not all the police and battleships and armies on earth can stop it.”

The look in Dillon's eyes was more anxious than impatient.

“Billy,” he said, “I've lived a good deal closer than you have to the big jobs of this world. And I know those jobs are to get still bigger, even more complex. They're to require even bigger men.” I smiled a bit impatiently.

“Still the one man in a million,” I said.

“Yes,” said Dillon, “his day isn't over, it has only just begun. He may have his bad points—I'll admit he has—but compared to all the little men his vision is wide and it goes deep. And if they'll only leave him alone and give him a chance, he'll take me and the other engineers, and the chemists and doctors and lawyers, and he'll make a world—he's doing it now—where ignorance and poverty will in time be wiped completely out.”

“They're not going to leave him alone,” I said. “I'm sure of that now. Whether he grafts or whether he's honest won't make any difference. The crowd is going to pull him down. Because it's not democracy. The trouble with all your big men at the top is that they're trying to do for the crowd what the crowd wants to do for itself. And it may not do it half so well—but all the time it will be learning—gathering closer every year—and getting a spirit compared to which your whole clean clear efficiency world is only cold and empty!”