The men who had lifted the Swede in after the blast raised him again, and laid him on the bed in Emma’s room.
III.
THE BLAST RITE.
“Sometimes if you make ready for bad luck it doesn’t come.”
No one in Soot City was surprised at a funeral for a man yet in the flesh. Such rites were a custom in the terrible, black little town, where the birds flew low for the damp of steam and the prevalence of soot in the air, and where any fine man who took life eagerly in the morning might be blasted at the noontide snack.
The Scandinavian labourers gave a tone to all the customs of the town, as the Polacks gave an intensity to all its dissipations. The drink of expatriated Poland is crude alcohol and water, and their drunkenness is a restless insanity that would be murderous in a less childish people. One idea that is directly referable to the Swede minds is that which gave rise to the blast rites. Their feeling had become general that a man might “get beyond the blast”—that is, get over its scorch and shock—if only his friends could be brought to behave as if he were really dead.
Emma was more than Norse in her superstitious observances. She would put a handful of soil from her bit of garden into her wedding shoes, just like any tow-headed bride in the Swede quarter. This was called “getting the favour of home.” It was very solemn, and often followed by hysterics.
But the circumstances of Jarlsen’s mishap favoured the idea of complete death. He had left a paper with his landlord, “Wavering Jim,” providing for Emma in case of “death, accident, or blast.” It wasn’t a legalized proceeding, but the ignorance of Soot City respected writing beyond most things, and no one would dispute a paper with names signed to it. The three hundred dollars coming thus yearly to Emma would mean a great deal of comfort to her.
The blast rite was to be at Emma’s house, as Jarlsen’s body was as much an essential to it as if there could have been a sequent interment. The men came in and out a good deal and whispered as to how to tell Emma of her legacy, for every one felt it would be unbecoming to force the news on her. The way in which they broke it to her would have been tactful even for gentlemen.
Wavering Jim came down the tracks in an ore car that sided by the Buttes’s gate every night. He didn’t get out of it, but waved his hand to her. Emma guessed that he wanted to say something in private, and went to the gate to hear it. “Well,” he said, “the weather ain’t stopped bein’ fine, cert’in’y.” Emma knew it must be something very important to call for a preamble as ornate as this remark about the weather.
Jim paused and looked about him. “Quarry ain’t in,” said Emma instinctively. “Emma,” he said, “I’m stone sure you’re frettin’ yourself into a terrible chafe ’bout gettin’ Mr. Jarlsen proper accommodations, regardin’ soup, soft victual, and invalid’s board generally.”