The Warriors (65 page)

He bounced on the soles of his cracked boots, the small package concealed behind his back. “Got a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” She jumped up, smoothing her stained skirt. “Is that where you went after you woke up? To buy something we can’t afford?”

“Didn’t cost me all that much,” he fibbed. “You’ll have to pay for it, though.”

Eleanor scampered to him and tugged the leg of his heavy corduroy trousers. “Papa, will you sing?” He slipped a hand around her head, fondling her hair.

“In a minute. First your mama and I must make a little exchange.”

He rattled the paper with his other hand. He leaned forward and kissed Margaret, then revealed the parcel and bellowed a kind of fanfare.

Margaret looked increasingly pained. “Whatever it is, we definitely can’t afford it. I’ll return it.”

“Impossible. I already got my kiss. You have to take it.”

He pressed the parcel into her red-knuckled hands and picked up his daughter. She giggled while he pulled out the chair and plumped her on his knee.

“Any favorites, Miss Eleanor?”

Arms around his neck, the little girl continued to wriggle. “‘Yellow Rose.’”

“Fair enough.” He began to jog her up and down in rhythm as he sang in a strong baritone.

“Where the Rio Grande is flowing,

And the starry skies are bright—”

Eleanor joined in, her voice clear and sweet:

“She walks along the river

In the quiet summer night.”

Eleanor jumped down, planted her fists on her hips and hopped from foot to foot—her version of dancing. Gideon clapped and kept singing.

“She thinks if I remember

When we parted long ago,

I promised to return,

And not to leave her so!”

Booming the last words, he seized Eleanor’s waist and hugged her so hard she squealed.

“For heaven’s sake don’t encourage her!” Margaret said. “Ever since three, she’s been the most incurable show-off I’ve ever seen.”

“You told me children always show off at age three.”

“It’s supposed to stop.”

Gideon had to admit his daughter was unusually outgoing. He said wryly, “Perhaps the Lord sent us an actress who’ll support us in style when we’re old.”

“An
actress?
I hope not! I want no child of mine in a scandalous profession like—”

“Margaret, I’m teasing.”

“What’s an actress?” Eleanor wanted to know. She had no difficulty with the word; she’d learned to handle complex words and sentences long before most children of a comparable age. “Is it something nice?”

“An actress is a disreputable person who displays herself and—never you mind!”

“Go ahead and open the present,” Gideon prompted.

Still looking perturbed, Margaret unwrapped the brown paper. She uttered a little gasp of delight when she discovered a small, wrinkled lemon and a large brown egg.

“Gideon, how much did you pay for these?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Margaret gazed at the purchases as if trying to decide whether to continue the discussion of cost or just enjoy the unexpected gift. She did the latter, bending down and tapping Eleanor’s cheek.

“Stand aside and let me kiss him again, miss.”

She put her head between her daughter’s and Gideon’s and pressed her mouth to his. “You’re a foolish spendthrift. But I love you for it.”

“Well, God—uh, heaven knows”—he corrected as Eleanor clapped a hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes—“a woman who works as hard as you deserves something nice once in a while. The
Tribune
says all the fancy young ladies whose broughams dash up and down Fifth Avenue beautify themselves with egg and lemon. If it’s proper for society girls, it’s proper for you, Mrs. Kent.”

“I’ve read it truly does work wonders,” Margaret said, carefully placing the egg and lemon between Gideon’s plate and a book lying on top of a copy of
Leslie’s Illustrated Weekly.
A subscription to the popular periodical had been one of Jephtha’s and Molly’s Christmas presents.

“Softens the skin,” she added. “I could use that. The cold weather makes mine rough as bark.”

“Always feels fine to me.” Gideon grinned. He stuffed a frayed napkin into his collar and began to eat. “I wanted you to have something for yourself.”

“Even though we haven’t the money.”

“Let me worry about the money. Time in this life is short, Margaret. I’ve been thinking a lot about Augie Kolb—”

“Is that what kept you standing like a statue in the bedroom?”

He nodded. “I wondered if Augie had ever bought his wife a present. He should have. Now he’s crippled, and he’ll never earn another half-dime—” He flung his fork on the plate. “It’s damned unjust. Augie sweated eight years for the Erie. But now that he can’t work, Mr. Louis Kent and the rest of the muckamucks have forgotten him. Something should be done to remind them.”

“You sound like one of those trade unionists.”

He looked away hastily, fearful his face would reveal his guilt.

“Thinking of Louis just about ruins my appetite. Don’t let it ruin the present.”

“It couldn’t! Oh, Gideon—” Her eyes misted a little. “You
are
utterly foolish sometimes. But I can’t get angry with you.” She touched the lemon. “I’ll try this tonight. You’re supposed to scoop the pulp out, then beat the egg white and let the lemon peel sit in it. The oils mix. The lemony white whisks away all the wrinkles.”

Quietly: “I’m giving you those a lot faster than you deserve. I’ve forced you to live like this.”

She squeezed his hand. “You know I never quarrel with anything you decide after we talk it over.”

“Including the decision not to ask Father for money?”

“Yes, including that. You make me very happy, Gideon.” She leaned closer, her breast touching his arm and creating a familiar, comfortable warmth. “Especially when you indulge that Virginia gentleman’s temperament and buy presents.”

She kissed him again, her lips lingering. Eleanor sighed and let her attention wander elsewhere.

Gideon forked a chunk of boiled potato toward his mouth. “I know I didn’t make you happy by taking the yard job.”

“I only fret when the weather’s bad. You told me most of the other men never show up on a night like this. You could stay home.”

“Shades of Richmond! ‘Don’t ride off with old Jeb, Gideon.’”

She flushed. “I’m sorry.”

Soberly, he said, “I didn’t mean to tease so hard. Truth is, I’d like to stay home. But I’d have to say I was under the weather, and I’ve never been much good at lying. Besides, we need the money.”

Perched on a stool, Eleanor was rubbing her bare toes together. “What about the book, Papa? I want to hear some of the book.”

“Oh, dear!” Margaret exclaimed. “I got so excited over the present, I forgot the child’s feet—”

She rushed to the bedroom and returned with coarse woolen stockings. Gideon listened to the whine of the wind. The cottage creaked. A roof shingle tore loose and went rattling away. An arduous twelve hours lay ahead.

But before he left, he still had the pleasure of the evening ritual.

Margaret finished forcing the stockings on Eleanor. The little girl looked eagerly at her father. She didn’t understand half the words during a reading, but they fascinated her because they fascinated him.

“All right.” Gideon smiled. “We’ll have the book in just a minute.”

Margaret brought him a hot cup of coffee from the claw-footed stove. Jephtha and Molly had ordered the stove installed as a surprise present when the couple moved to Jersey City.

While Gideon sipped, Eleanor raced to a corner to pick up a wire carpet beater. She pretended to capture imaginary insects in an imaginary net. Margaret emptied the woodbox and fed the kindling into the stove.

When he picked up the book he noticed the
Leslie’s
cover engraving for the first time. The engraving was a composite of three oval portraits. One of the men pictured, squint-eyed and narrow-lipped, was considerably older than the others. A decorative ribbon beneath his picture identified him as
Drew.

The plump, sleepy fellow with the luxuriant mustache was
Fisk.
The third, sporting a fan-shaped beard so large it concealed his cravat, was
Gould.
The cover was captioned:

AT WAR WITH VANDERBILT—THE ERIE TRIUMVIRS

Gideon had never seen likenesses of the men who were part owners of the line for which he worked. He studied them avidly. He was especially fascinated by Gould. If the portrait was accurate, it created a deceptive impression. The infamous Mr. Gould looked about as dangerous as a poverty-stricken clerk.

Margaret finished at the stove and sat down. Eleanor swatted another invisible insect. She fixed her luminous brown eyes on her mother, who turned to a page marked with a slip of lace.

“Oh,” Margaret said abruptly, “you mustn’t forget to tell Daphnis what we discovered about his name.”

Gideon nodded. “I won’t.”

She began to read aloud from the collection of President Johnson’s public speeches. The book came from Jephtha’s parsonage library.

“‘The tendency of the legislation in this country is to build up monopolies—’” She glanced at her husband. “Monopolies?”

The ritual reading had begun two years earlier, prompted by Gideon’s desire to familiarize himself with America’s history and the flow of political and economic thought to the present day. It was Margaret who’d first suggested that she read aloud in the evening. She’d pointed out that Andrew Johnson had learned the same way. In his tailor shop in Tennessee, he’d paid men fifty cents an hour to read to him while he cut cloth and stitched seams.

She’d begun with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Her patience and good humor had eased him through the first weeks in which many of the concepts made only a dim kind of sense. Now he’d progressed far enough so that he enjoyed the challenge of a question, and the chance to show his mastery of an idea.

“Monopolies are groups—small groups—controlling a type of business.”

Margaret nodded encouragement.

“They usually agree privately to fix their pricing.”

“What do you call a man who does that?”

Gideon rubbed his forehead. God, there was so much to know. He dredged up the answer.

“Monopolist?”

“Yes.” Her smile heartened him. “The practice itself is monopolism.”

“Ism,” he repeated. He smiled. “As in Vanderbiltism.”

She laughed. “I don’t think it’s in the dictionary, but it’s apt.” She returned to the book. “Build up monopolies—here we go. ‘The tendency of legislation is to build up the power of money. To concentrate it in the hands of the few. The tendency is
for
classes, and
against
the great mass of the people.’ ”

“Sure is true of the Erie,” he observed. “The directors run it for themselves, not the passengers. Workers don’t count for a hoot either. The directors should remember what happened to old King George.”

“But the law doesn’t provide for railroad passengers to have any voice in running a line. Or laboring men, for that matter.”

“Maybe the law’s wrong. Maybe the Erie directors see to it. Maybe things should be changed.”

Margaret was staring at him in a curious way.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“Nothing. You just sound like one of those trade unionists again.”

He realized she was right. It disturbed him. “Shoot, I was only thinking out loud.”

He started at the sound of a fist hammering on the back door. He opened the door to admit Daphnis Miller and a blast of wintry air.

Eleanor let out a screech as the air hit her. Miller lurched as Gideon slammed the door. Gideon’s neighbor was bundled in a patched Union Army overcoat. A woolen cap covered his ears and forehead. A scarf was tied around the lower half of his face.

“You’re early, Daphnis,” Gideon said. Closing the book, Margaret looked almost as disappointed as her husband.

The scarf muffled Miller’s voice. “Gonna be a hard tramp to the yards. Sleet’s been comin’ down like sixty for the last fifteen minutes.”

Miller flicked droplets of water from his gray brows. He weaved to the range, extending hands encased in several pairs of mittens. “Real bitch of a night—oops. Beg your pardon, ladies.”

Gideon started into the bedroom. He smelled the beer with which his neighbor had fortified himself.

“Maybe they’ll cancel most of the runs, Daphnis,” Margaret said.

“Not unless she drifts too bad. Gid, you better fetch an extra pair of mittens if you got ’em.”

“I haven’t,” he called, returning with the ragged Confederate greatcoat he’d brought home from Fort Delaware. He put it on, donned his forage cap, stretched a muffler over the top of his head, and knotted it under his chin. Margaret raised on tiptoe to kiss him.

“Don’t take any needless chances.”

He patted her arm. “I won’t.” He was concerned about Miller, who had apparently continued to imbibe after coming home from the Lager Palace. In Miller’s household, necessities were often sacrificed to pay for alcohol. Gideon religiously avoided drinking before going to work. Beer or spirits slowed response time. To survive in the yards, you had to be quick.

“Bolt the doors when I leave,” he said to Margaret.

“I thought I’d go over and help Flo with her laundry.”

“Mighty kind of you,” Miller mumbled. “Those four youngsters can sure dirty a bale of clothes.”

“Take Eleanor with you,” Gideon advised. “And when you come back, lock up again. There are too many men out of work wandering around.”

Bristling a bit, Margaret said, “Gideon Kent, I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself!”

He grinned. “I know. I keep forgetting. See you in the morning.”

“Either that,” Miller wheezed, “or a representative of the Erie will bring condolences.”

Margaret flared. “That’s a poor joke, Daphnis!”

He looked wearily contrite. Gideon hustled him to the door, then bent down to hug Eleanor. As he straightened, Margaret flung an arm around his neck.

“Be very careful.”

“Will be. Promise.” To Eleanor, he said, “Whose girl are you?”