Short Stories for English Courses

V >> Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.) >> Short Stories for English Courses

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

Then Aunt Lucretia pointed one long bony finger at me, and hissed
out with a true feminine disregard of grammar:

"That ain't HIM!"

"David," said Aunt Lucretia, impressively, "had only one arm. He
lost the other in Madagascar."

I was too dumfounded to take in the situation. I remember
thinking, in a vague sort of way, that Madagascar was a curious
sort of place to go for the purpose of losing an arm; but I did
not apprehend the full significance of this disclosure until I
heard my wife's distressed protestations that Aunt Lucretia must
be mistaken; there must be some horrible mistake somewhere.

But Aunt Lucretia was not mistaken, and there was no mistake
anywhere. The arm had been lost, and lost in Madagascar, and she
could give the date of the occurrence, and the circumstances
attendant. Moreover, she produced her evidence on the spot. It was
an old daguerreotype, taken in Calcutta a year or two after the
Madagascar episode. She had it in her hand-bag, and she opened it
with fingers trembling with rage and excitement. It showed two men
standing side by side near one of those three-foot Ionic pillars
that were an indispensable adjunct of photography in its early
stages. One of the men was large, broad-shouldered, and handsome--
unmistakably a handsome edition of Aunt Lucretia. His empty left
sleeve was pinned across his breast. The other man was, making
allowance for the difference in years, no less unmistakably the
Uncle David who was at that moment walking to and fro under our
windows. For one instant my wife's face lighted up.

"Why, Aunt Lucretia," she cried, "there he is! That's Uncle David,
dear Uncle David."

"There he is NOT," replied Aunt Lucretia. "That's his business
partner--some common person that he picked up on the ship he first
sailed in--and, upon my word, I do believe it's that wretched
creature outside. And I'll Uncle David HIM."

She marched out like a grenadier going to battle, and we followed
her meekly. There was, unfortunately, no room for doubt in the
case. It only needed a glance to see that the man with one arm was
a member of my wife's family, and that the man by his side, OUR
Uncle David, bore no resemblance to him in stature or features.

Out on the lawn Aunt Lucretia sailed into the dear old gentleman
in the five overcoats with a volley of vituperation. He did not
interrupt her, but stood patiently to the end, listening, with his
hands behind his back; and when, with her last gasp of available
breath, Aunt Lucretia demanded:

"Who--who--who ARE you, you wretch?" he responded, calmly and
respectfully:

"I'm Tommy Biggs, Miss Lucretia."

But just here my wife threw herself on his neck and hugged him,
and cried:

"You're my own dear Uncle David, ANYWAY!"

It was a fortunate, a gloriously fortunate, inspiration. Aunt
Lucretia drew herself up in speechless scorn, stretched forth her
bony finger, tried to say something and failed, and then she and
her hand-bag went out of my gates, never to come in again.

When she had gone, our aromatic uncle--for we shall always
continue to think of him in that light, or rather in that odor--
looked thoughtfully after her till she disappeared, and then made
one of the few remarks I ever knew him to volunteer.

"Ain't changed a mite in forty-seven years."

Up to this time I had been in a dazed condition of mind. As I have
said, my wife's family was extinct save for herself and Aunt
Lucretia, and she remembered so little of her parents, and she
looked herself so little like Aunt Lucretia, that it was small
wonder that neither of us remarked Uncle David's unlikeness to the
family type. We knew that he did not resemble the ideal we had
formed of him; and that had been the only consideration we had
given to his looks. Now, it took only a moment of reflection to
recall the fact that all the members of the family had been tall
and shapely, and that even between the ugly ones, like Aunt
Lucretia, and the pretty ones, like my wife, there was a certain
resemblance. Perhaps it was only the nose--the nose is the brand
in most families, I believe--but whatever it was, I had only to
see my wife and Aunt Lucretia together to realize that the man who
had passed himself off as our Uncle David had not one feature in
common with either of them--nor with the one-armed man in the
daguerreotype. I was thinking of this, and looking at my wife's
troubled face, when our aromatic uncle touched me on the arm.

"I'll explain," he said, "to you. YOU tell HER."

We dismissed the carriage, went into the house, and sat down. The
old gentleman was perfectly cool and collected, but he lit his
clay pipe, and reflected for a good five minutes before he opened
his mouth. Then he began:

"Finest man in the world, sir. Finest BOY in the world. Never
anything like him. But, peculiarities. Had 'em. Peculiarities.
Wouldn't write home. Wouldn't"--here he hesitated--"send things
home. I had to do it. Did it for him. Didn't want his folks to
know. Other peculiarities. Never had any money. Other
peculiarities. Drank. Other peculiarities. Ladies. Finest man in
the world, all the same. Nobody like him. Kept him right with his
folks for thirty-one years. Then died. Fever. Canton. Never been
myself since. Kept right on writing, all the same. Also"--here he
hesitated again--"sending things. Why? Don't know. Been a fool all
my life. Never could do anything but make money. No family, no
friends. Only HIM. Ran away to sea to look after him. Did look
after him. Thought maybe your wife would be some like him. Barring
peculiarities, she is. Getting old. Came here for company. Meant
no harm. Didn't calculate on Miss Lucretia."

Here he paused and smoked reflectively for a minute or two.

"Hot in the collar--Miss Lucretia. Haughty. Like him, some. Just
like she was forty-seven years ago. Slapped my face one day when I
was delivering meat, because my jumper wasn't clean. Ain't changed
a mite."

This was the first condensed statement of the case of our aromatic
uncle. It was only in reply to patient, and, I hope, loving,
gentle, and considerate, questioning that the whole story came
out--at once pitiful and noble--of the poor little butcher-boy who
ran away to sea to be body-guard, servant, and friend to the
splendid, showy, selfish youth whom he worshipped; whose
heartlessness he cloaked for many a long year, who lived upon his
bounty, and who died in his arms, nursed with a tenderness
surpassing that of a brother. And as far as I could find out,
ingratitude and contempt had been his only reward.

I need not tell you that when I repeated all this to my wife she
ran to the old gentleman's room and told him all the things that I
should not have known how to say--that we cared for him; that we
wanted him to stay with us; that he was far, far more our uncle
than the brilliant, unprincipled scapegrace who had died years
before, dead for almost a lifetime to the family who idolized him;
and that we wanted him to stay with us as long as kind heaven
would let him. But it was of no use. A change had come over our
aromatic uncle which we could both of us see, but could not
understand. The duplicity of which he had been guilty weighed on
his spirit. The next day he went out for his usual walk, and he
never came back. We used every means of search and inquiry, but we
never heard from him until we got this letter from Foo-choo-li:

"DEAR NEPHEW AND NIECE: The present is to inform you that I am
enjoying the Health that might be expected at my Age, and in my
condition of Body, which is to say bad. I ship you by to-day's
steamer, Pacific Monarch, four dozen jars of ginger, and two dozen
ditto preserved oranges, to which I would have added some other
Comfits, which I purposed offering for your acceptance, if it were
not that my Physician has forbidden me to leave my Bed. In case of
Fatal Results from this trying Condition, my Will, duly attested,
and made in your favor, will be placed in your hands by Messrs.
Smithson & Smithson, my Customs Brokers, who will also pay all
charges on goods sent. The Health of this place being unfavorably
affected by the Weather, you are unlikely to hear more from,

"Dear Nephew and Niece,

"Your affectionate
"UNCLE."

And we never did hear more--except for his will--from Our Aromatic
Uncle; but our whole house still smells of his love.

QUALITY

BY

JOHN GALSWORTHY

Here the emphasis is upon character. The plot is negligible--
hardly exists. The setting is carefully worked out because it is
essential to the characterization. By means of the shoemaker the
author reveals at least a part of his philosophy of life--that
there is a subtle relation between a man and his work. Each reacts
on the other. If a man recognizes the Soul of Things and strives
to give it proper expression, he becomes an Artist and influences
for good all who come into contact with him.

QUALITY

[Footnote: From "The Inn of Tranquillity," by John Galsworthy.
Copyright, 1912, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my
father's boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops
let into one, in a small by-street--now no more, but then most
fashionably placed in the West End.

That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign
upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family--merely his
own German name of Gessler Brothers: and in the window a few pairs
of boots. I remember that it always troubled me to account for
those unvarying boots in the window, for he made only what was
ordered, reaching nothing down, and it seemed so inconceivable
that what he made could ever have failed to fit. Had he bought
them to put there? That, too, seemed inconceivable. He would never
have tolerated in his house leather on which he had not worked
himself. Besides, they were too beautiful--the pair of pumps, so
inexpressibly slim, the patent leathers with cloth tops, making
water come into one's mouth, the tall brown riding boots with
marvellous sooty glow, as if, though new, they had been worn a
hundred years. Those pairs could only have been made by one who
saw before him the Soul of Boot--so truly were they prototypes
incarnating the very spirit of all foot-gear. These thoughts, of
course, came to me later, though even when I was promoted to him,
at the age of perhaps fourteen, some inkling haunted me of the
dignity of himself and brother. For to make boots--such boots as
he made--seemed to me then, and still seems to me, mysterious and
wonderful.

I remember well my shy remark, one day, while stretching out to
him my youthful foot:

"Isn't it awfully hard to do, Mr. Gessler?"

And his answer, given with a sudden smile from out of the sardonic
redness of his beard: "Id is an Ardt!"

Himself, he was a little as if made from leather, with his yellow
crinkly face, and crinkly reddish hair and beard, and neat folds
slanting down his cheeks to the corners of his mouth, and his
guttural and one-toned voice; for leather is a sardonic substance,
and stiff and slow of purpose. And that was the character of his
face, save that his eyes, which were gray-blue, had in them the
simple gravity of one secretly possessed by the Ideal. His elder
brother was so very like him--though watery, paler in every way,
with a great industry--that sometimes in early days I was not
quite sure of him until the interview was over. Then I knew that
it was he, if the words, "I will ask my brudder," had not been
spoken; and that, if they had, it was his elder brother.

When one grew old and wild and ran up bills, one somehow never ran
them up with Gessler Brothers. It would not have seemed becoming
to go in there and stretch out one's foot to that blue iron-
spectacled glance, owing him for more than--say--two pairs, just
the comfortable reassurance that one was still his client.

For it was not possible to go to him very often--his boots lasted
terribly, having something beyond the temporary--some, as it were,
essence of boot stitched into them.

One went in, not as into most shops, in the mood of: "Please serve
me, and let me go!" but restfully, as one enters a church; and,
sitting on the single wooden chair, waited--for there was never
anybody there. Soon, over the top edge of that sort of well--
rather dark, and smelling soothingly of leather--which formed the
shop, there would be seen his face, or that of his elder brother,
peering down. A guttural sound, and the tip-tap of bast slippers
beating the narrow wooden stairs, and he would stand before one
without coat, a little bent, in leather apron, with sleeves turned
back, blinking--as if awakened from some dream of boots, or like
an owl surprised in daylight and annoyed at this interruption.

And I would say: "How do you do, Mr. Gessler? Could you make me a
pair of Russia leather boots?"

Without a word he would leave me, retiring whence he came, or into
the other portion of the shop, and I would continue to rest in the
wooden chair, inhaling the incense of his trade. Soon he would
come back, holding in his thin, veined hand a piece of gold-brown
leather. With eyes fixed on it, he would remark: "What a beaudiful
biece!" When I, too, had admired it, he would speak again. "When
do you wand dem?" And I would answer: "Oh! As soon as you
conveniently can." And he would say: "To-morrow fordnighd?" Or if
he were his elder brother: "I will ask my brudder!"

Then I would murmur: "Thank you! Good-morning, Mr. Gessler."
"Goot-morning!" he would reply, still looking at the leather in
his hand. And as I moved to the door, I would hear the tip-tap of
his bast slippers restoring him, up the stairs, to his dream of
boots. But if it were some new kind of foot-gear that he had not
yet made me, then indeed he would observe ceremony--divesting me
of my boot and holding it long in his hand, looking at it with
eyes at once critical and loving, as if recalling the glow with
which he had created it, and rebuking the way in which one had
disorganized this masterpiece. Then, placing my foot on a piece of
paper, he would two or three times tickle the outer edges with a
pencil and pass his nervous fingers over my toes, feeling himself
into the heart of my requirements.

I cannot forget that day on which I had occasion to say to him:
"Mr. Gessler, that last pair of town walking-boots creaked, you
know."

He looked at me for a time without replying, as if expecting me to
withdraw or qualify the statement, then said:

"Id shouldn'd 'ave greaked."

"It did, I'm afraid."

"You goddem wed before dey found demselves?"

"I don't think so."

At that he lowered his eyes, as if hunting for memory of those
boots, and I felt sorry I had mentioned this grave thing.

"Zend dem back!" he said; "I will look at dem."

A feeling of compassion for my creaking boots surged up in me, so
well could I imagine the sorrowful long curiosity of regard which
he would bend on them.

"Zome boods," he said slowly, "are bad from birdt. If I can do
noding wid dem, I dake dem off your bill."

Once (once only) I went absent-mindedly into his shop in a pair of
boots bought in an emergency at some large firm's. He took my
order without showing me any leather, and I could feel his eyes
penetrating the inferior integument of my foot. At last he said:

"Dose are nod my boods."

The tone was not one of anger, nor of sorrow, not even of
contempt, but there was in it something quiet that froze the
blood. He put his hand down and pressed a finger on the place
where the left boot, endeavoring to be fashionable, was not quite
comfortable.

"Id 'urds you dere," he said. "Dose big virms 'ave no self-
respect. Drash!" And then, as if something had given way within
him, he spoke long and bitterly. It was the only time I ever heard
him discuss the conditions and hardships of his trade.

"Dey get id all," he said, "dey get id by adverdisement, nod by
work. Dey dake it away from us, who lofe our boods. Id gomes to
this--bresently I haf no work. Every year id gets less--you will
see." And looking at his lined face I saw things I had never
noticed before, bitter things and bitter struggle--and what a lot
of gray hairs there seemed suddenly in his red beard!

As best I could, I explained the circumstances of the purchase of
those ill-omened boots. But his face and voice made so deep
impression that during the next few minutes I ordered many pairs.
Nemesis fell! They lasted more terribly than ever. And I was not
able conscientiously to go to him for nearly two years.

When at last I went I was surprised to find that outside one of
the two little windows of his shop another name was painted, also
that of a bootmaker--making, of course, for the Royal Family. The
old familiar boots, no longer in dignified isolation, were huddled
in the single window. Inside, the now contracted well of the one
little shop was more scented and darker than ever. And it was
longer than usual, too, before a face peered down, and the tip-tap
of the bast slippers began. At last he stood before me, and,
gazing through those rusty iron spectacles, said:

"Mr.--, isn'd it?"

"Ah! Mr. Gessler," I stammered, "but your boots are really TOO
good, you know! See, these are quite decent still!" And I
stretched out to him my foot. He looked at it.

"Yes," he said, "beople do nod wand good boods, id seems."

To get away from his reproachful eyes and voice I hastily
remarked: "What have you done to your shop?"

He answered quietly: "Id was too exbensif. Do you wand some
boods?"

I ordered three pairs, though I had only wanted two, and quickly
left. I had, I do not know quite what feeling of being part, in
his mind, of a conspiracy against him; or not perhaps so much
against him as against his idea of boot. One does not, I suppose,
care to feel like that; for it was again many months before my
next visit to his shop, paid, I remember, with the feeling: "Oh!
well, I can't leave the old boy--so here goes! Perhaps it'll be
his elder brother!"

For his elder brother, I knew, had not character enough to
reproach me, even dumbly.

And, to my relief, in the shop there did appear to be his elder
brother, handling a piece of leather.

"Well, Mr. Gessler," I said, "how are you?"

He came close, and peered at me.

"I am breddy well," he said slowly; "but my elder brudder is
dead."

And I saw that it was indeed himself--but how aged and wan! And
never before had I heard him mention his brother. Much shocked, I
murmured: "Oh! I am sorry!"

"Yes," he answered, "he was a good man, he made a good bood; but
he is dead." And he touched the top of his head, where the hair
had suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor
brother, to indicate, I suppose, the cause of death. "He could nod
ged over losing de oder shop. Do you wand any boods?" And he held
up the leather in his hand: "Id's a beaudiful biece."

I ordered several pairs. It was very long before they came--but
they were better than ever. One simply could not wear them out.
And soon after that I went abroad.

It was over a year before I was again in London. And the first
shop I went to was my old friend's. I had left a man of sixty, I
came back to one of seventy-five, pinched and worn and tremulous,
who genuinely, this time, did not at first know me.

"Oh! Mr. Gessler," I said, sick at heart; "how splendid your boots
are! See, I've been wearing this pair nearly all the time I've
been abroad; and they're not half worn out, are they?"

He looked long at my boots--a pair of Russia leather, and his face
seemed to regain steadiness. Putting his hand on my instep, he
said:

"Do dey vid you here? I 'ad drouble wid dat bair, I remember."

I assured him that they had fitted beautifully.

"Do you wand any boods?" he said. "I can make dem quickly; id is a
slack dime."

I answered: "Please, please! I want boots all round--every kind!"

"I will make a vresh model. Your food must be bigger." And with
utter slowness, he traced round my foot, and felt my toes, only
once looking up to say:

"Did I dell you my brudder was dead?"

To watch him was painful, so feeble had he grown; I was glad to
get away.

I had given those boots up, when one evening they came. Opening
the parcel, I set the four pairs out in a row. Then one by one I
tried them on. There was no doubt about it. In shape and fit, in
finish and quality of leather, they were the best he had ever made
me. And in the mouth of one of the town walking-boots I found his
bill. The amount was the same as usual, but it gave me quite a
shock. He had never before sent it in till quarter day. I flew
downstairs, and wrote a check, and posted it at once with my own
hand.

A week later, passing the little street, I thought I would go in
and tell him how splendidly the new boots fitted. But when I came
to where his shop had been, his name was gone. Still there, in the
window, were the slim pumps, the patent leathers with cloth tops,
the sooty riding boots.

I went in, very much disturbed. In the two little shops--again
made into one--was a young man with an English face.

"Mr. Gessler in?" I said.

He gave me a strange, ingratiating look.

"No, sir," he said, "no. But we can attend to anything with
pleasure. We've taken the shop over. You've seen our name, no
doubt, next door. We make for some very good people."

"Yes, yes," I said; "but Mr. Gessler?"

"Oh!" he answered; "dead."

"Dead! But I only received these boots from him last Wednesday
week."

"Ah!" he said; "a shockin' go. Poor old man starved 'imself."

"Good God!"

"Slow starvation, the doctor called it! You see he went to work in
such a way! Would keep the shop on; wouldn't have a soul touch his
boots except himself. When he got an order, it took him such a
time. People won't wait. He lost everybody. And there he'd sit,
goin' on and on--I will say that for him--not a man in London made
a better boot! But look at the competition! He never advertised!
Would 'ave the best leather, too, and do it all 'imself. Well,
there it is. What could you expect with his ideas?"

"But starvation--!"

"That may be a bit flowery, as the sayin' is--but I know myself he
was sittin' over his boots day and night, to the very last. You
see I used to watch him. Never gave 'imself time to eat; never had
a penny in the house. All went in rent and leather. How he lived
so long I don't know. He regular let his fire go out. He was a
character. But he made good boots."

"Yes," I said, "he made good boots."

And I turned and went out quickly, for I did not want that youth
to know that I could hardly see.

THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT

BY EDITH WHARTON

This is a mystery plot in which the supernatural furnishes the
interest. In dealing with the supernatural Mrs. Wharton does not
allow it to become horrible or grotesque. She secures plausibility
by having for its leading characters practical business men--not a
woman, hysterical or otherwise, really appears--and by placing
them in a perfectly conventional setting. The apparition is not
accompanied by blood stains, shroud, or uncanny noises. Sometimes
the writer of the supernatural feels that he must explain his
mystery by material agencies. The effect is to disappoint the
reader who has yielded himself to the conditions imposed by the
author, and is willing, for the time at least, to believe in
ghosts. Mrs. Wharton makes no such mistake. She does not spoil the
effect by commonplace explanation.

In characterization Mrs. Wharton reveals the power not only to
analyze subtly temperaments and motives, but also to describe
vividly with a few words. This phrasal power is illustrated when
she says of Faxon that he "had a healthy face, but dying hands,"
and of Lavington that "his pinched smile was screwed to his blank
face like a gaslight to a whitewashed wall."

THE TRIUMPH OF NIGHT

[Footnote: From Scribner's Magazine, August, 1914.]

I

It was clear that the sleigh from Weymore had not come; and the
shivering young traveller from Boston, who had so confidently
counted on jumping into it when he left the train at Northridge
Junction, found himself standing alone on the open platform,
exposed to the full assault of nightfall and winter.

The blast that swept him came off New Hampshire snow fields and
ice-hung forests. It seemed to have traversed interminable leagues
of frozen silence, filling them with the same cold roar and
sharpening its edge against the same bitter black and white
landscape. Dark, searching, and sword-like, it alternately muffled
and harried its victim, like a bullfighter now whirling his cloak
and now planting his darts. This analogy brought home to the young
man the fact that he himself had no cloak, and that the overcoat
in which he had faced the relatively temperate airs of Boston
seemed no thicker than a sheet of paper on the bleak heights of
Northridge. George Faxon said to himself that the place was
uncommonly well named. It clung to an exposed ledge over the
valley from which the train had lifted him, and the wind combed it
with teeth of steel that he seemed actually to hear scraping
against the wooden sides of the station. Other building there was
none: the village lay far down the road, and thither--since the
Weymore sleigh had not come--Faxon saw himself under the immediate
necessity of plodding through several feet of snow.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28