Henry Is Twenty: A Further Episodic History of Henry Calverly, 3rd

by Samuel Merwin

3

The sound that caused Humphrey to start up in surprise was the first outbreak of profanity he had ever heard from the lips of Henry Calverly.

Henry was sitting up stiffly, holding last week's Voice with hands that distinctly trembled. When Humphrey first looked, he was white, but after a moment the colour began flowing back to his face and continued flowing until his face was red. His lips were clamped tight, as if the small verbal explosion that had just passed them had proved even more startling to himself than to Humphrey. 'What is it?' asked the editor.

Henry stared at the outspread paper.

'This!' he got out. 'This—this!'

'What's the matter, Hen?'

'Don't you know?'

'Oh, your picnic story! Yes—but—what on earth is the matter with you?'

'You know, Hump! You never told me!'

'You mean the cuts?'

'Oh—yes!' This 'Oh' was a moan of anguish.

'Good heavens, Hen—you didn't for a minute think we could print it as you wrote it?' Henry's facial muscles moved, but he got no words out. Humphrey, touched, went on. 'I don't mind telling you—between ourselves—that the thing as you wrote it, every word, is the best bit of descriptive writing I've seen this year. But you wrote the real story, boy. You painted the whole Simpson Street bunch as they are—every wart. It's a savage picture. Why, we'd have dropped seventy per cent, of our advertising between Saturday and Monday! And the queer little picture of Charlie Waterhouse out behind the lemonade stand—— Why, boy, that's enough to bust open the town!

With Bob McGibbon gunning for Charlie and demanding an accounting of the town money! Gee!'

Henry seemed hardly to hear this.

'Who—who re-wrote it?'

'I did some. The old man polished it off himself.'

'It's ruined!'

'Of course. But it brought you a raise to twelve a week. That's something.'

'You don't understand. It was my work. And it was true. I wrote the truth.'

'That's why.'

'Then they don't want the truth?'

'Good lord—no!'

Henry considered this, bent over as if to read further, twisted his flushed face as if in pain, then abruptly sprang up.

'What's become of it—the piece I wrote?'

'Well, Hen—I didn't feel that we had a right to destroy the thing. Too dam good! In a sense, it's the old man's property; in another sense, it's yours——'

'It's mine!'

'In a sense. At any rate, I took it on myself to have a copy made confidentially. Then I turned the original over to Mr Boice. He doesn't know.'

'Where's the copy?'

'Here in my desk.'

'Give it to me!'

'Just hold your horses a minute, Hen——'

'You give it——'

Humphrey threw up a hand, then opened a drawer. He handed over the typewritten manuscript.

'Who made this?'

'Gertie Wombast. I warned her to keep her mouth shut.'

'How much did it cost?'

'Oh, see here, Hen—I won't talk to you! Not till you get over this excitement.'

'I'm not excited. Or, at least——'

Humphrey gave a shrug. Henry, gripping the roll of manuscript, started out.

'Wait a minute, Hen! What do you think you're going to do?'

'What do you s'pose? Only one thing I can do!'

'Going after the old man?'

'Of course! You would yourself, if——'

'No, I wouldn't. Not in any such rush as that. It's upsetting to have your good work pawed over and cut to pieces, but twelve a week is——'

'Oh, Hump, it's everything! He's made it impossible for me. I could stand some of it, but not all this. He ain't fair! He wants to make it hard for me! He's just thinking up ways to be mean. And he's spoiled my work—best thing I've ever done in my life! And now people will never know how well I can write.'

'Oh, yes, they will!'

'No, they won't. I'll never feel just that way again. It's a feeling that comes. And then it goes. You can't do anything about it. It was Corinne and the way I felt about her. And a lot o' things. Seemed to make me different. Lifted me up. I was red-hot.' He reached out and struck the paper from the table to the floor. 'You bet I'll go to old Boice! 'I'll tell him a thing or two I He'll know something's happened before he gets through with me. I've had something to say to him for a good while. Going to say it now. Guess he don't know I'll be twenty-one in November. Have a little money then. He can't put it over me. I'll buy his old paper. Or start another one. I'll make the town too hot for him. Thinks he owns all Sunbury. But he don't!'

'Hen,' said Humphrey bravely, when the irate youth paused for breath, 'you simply must not try to talk to him while you're mad as this.'

'But don't you see, Hump,' cried Henry, his face working with vexation, tears close to his eyes; 'it's just the time! When I'm mad. If I wait, I'll never say a word.'

He rolled the manuscript tightly in his hand, bit his lip, then abruptly rushed out.

'Look here,' cried Humphrey. 'Don't you go showing that——'

But the only reply was the noisy slam of the screen door.

Face set, eyes wild behind their glasses, Henry hurried down Simpson Street toward the post-office.

Miss Hemple, at the money-order window, said that Mr Boice was having a talk with Mr Waterhouse in the back office and wasn't to be disturbed.

Henry turned away. For a little time he studied the weather-chart hanging on the wall. He went to the wide front window and gazed out on the street. His determination was already oozing away. He found himself slouching and straightened up. Repeatedly he had to do this. Four times he went back to the money-order window; four times Miss Hemple smiled and shook her head.

Martha Caldwell walked by with the two Smith girls. He thought she saw him. If so, she carefully avoided a direct glance. They still weren't speaking. At least, Martha wasn't. And to think that during three long years, except for another episode now and than, she had been his girl!

Heigh-ho! No more girls! He was through!

The Ames's carriage rolled fly. Mary Ames was in it. And—apparently, unmistakably—the new girl. The girl of the Sunbury House veranda. She was chatting brightly. She was pretty.

He turned mournfully away. She was not for him. Once it might have been possible—back in his gay big days. But not now. Not now.

He approached the window for the sixth time. For the sixth time, Miss Hemple shook her head.

He wandered out to the door.

His chance had passed. If the old man should, at this moment, and alone, come walking out, he would say meekly, 'Good-afternoon, Mr Boice,' and hurry away. He would even try to look busy and earnest. There was shame in the thought. His mouth was drooping at the corners. All of him—body, mind, spirit—was sagging now. He moved, slowly down toward the tracks, entered the little lunch-counter place there and ate a thick piece of lemon-meringue pie. Which was further weakness. He knew it. It completed his depression.

He felt that he must think. He ordered another piece of pie. He wished he hadn't said so much to Humphrey. Would he ever learn to control the spoken word? Probably not. He sighed. And ate. He couldn't very well go back to the office. Not like this—in defeat. All that work, too I Life, work, friendship, all the realities seemed to be slipping from his grasp. His thoughts were drifting off into a haze. It was an old familiar mood. It had come often during his teens. Not so much lately; but he was as helpless before it as he had been at eighteen, when he finally drifted aimlessly out of his class at the high school.

In those days, it had been his habit to wander along the beach, sit on a breakwater, let life and love and duty drift by beyond his reach. Thither he headed now by a back street. Too many people he knew along Simpson Street. Besides, he might be thrown face to face with the old man.

At the corner of Filbert Avenue he met the editor and proprietor of the Gleaner. He inclined his head with unconscious severity and would have passed on.

But Robert A. McGibbon came to a halt, smiled in a thin strained fashion, and glanced curiously from Henry's face to the tightly rolled manuscript in his hand and back to the face.

'Well,' he remarked, 'how's things?'

Henry wanted to be let alone. But he had never deliberately snubbed anybody in his life. He couldn't. So he, too, came to a stop.

'Oh, pretty good,' he replied.