The unwelcome man

by Waldo David Frank

Quincy sat on a rock that formed part of a stone fence. About him were briars of blackberry in bloom. It was May. Before him, the brow of the hill rose gently a half hundred feet. And above that was the falling sun. Its golden glow flushed the green stretch; little innumerable shadows, greyish purple, were in those depths of the grass where the sun could not enter. A single tree—an elm—stood between the skyline and Quincy’s fence, just to the left of the sun. The wind skimmed up the hill and turned the elm-leaves silver. Below Quincy’s back, through a thick fringe of elder and maple bushes, was a collaret of locust trees. And in the valley was a little town. Its murmurs rose and mingled with the trill of the trees. A subtle counterpoint met Quincy’s ears—a fugue of leaf and whistle and children’s voices; of a motor-horn and a girl’s laugh and a raven’s crow; of an infant’s cry and a wagon’s crunch and a cricket....

Meantime, the sun went down for Quincy. In the village, it was still day,—and on the hill-top.

Quincy descended to the railroad station. But by that time, of course, it was evening everywhere.

He took a train back to the City. He had been in country only for the day. He wore a smart straw hat. A faint moustache composed the tremorous length of his mouth. His eyes gleamed like pale lights in a hollow. Under them were rings of grey. His cheeks were drawn. His head seemed longer than it had been. He had a gaunt and dry look for one who had been in converse with the May sun. There seemed little fire in him. Even his eyes appeared to catch their color from the dark grey that went about them.

Quincy preferred these little lonely trips to the duty-calls on Frondham mansion. He preferred them always. And when, like this day, his mood was strong, even a monthly visit home would have been unbearable.

He left the train, swept toward the exit like a half-floating thing among light jetsam upon a rapid current. This occurred to him. For, though he did not associate the thought, he said to himself:

“Most people succeed in America, not because they have brains or shrewdness or luck, but because the current is too strong to let them sink.”

Then, he struck across town toward his little flat. As he passed Sixth Avenue, the conjoined noises of the cars, the elevated trains, the trucks, the motors, the newsboys and the surging, shuffling crowds rose, of a sudden, to a terrifying climax—thundered, trembled, crashed. Quincy clenched his fists.

“Good God!” he cried aloud. But the woman with a shawl over her greasy hair, who passed so near as to brush his hand, heard not a word.

Quincy’s head had been empty of thought. He reached the sidewalk. He needed some cigarettes. There was a store at that corner. A fire automobile, painted red, added the clangor of its bell to the general din. Quincy watched it swerve and swing and dodge through the maze of traffic. With his eyes on its twisting thread of crimson, he walked toward the shop and passed the threshold. Next to the tobacco-store there was a pawn-shop. He had entered this, by error.