The Turmoil, A Novel

B >> Booth Tarkington >> The Turmoil, A Novel

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"No, but I'm sorry you didn't tell me you felt it."

Sheridan was puzzled by his son's tone. "Why are you 'sorry'?" he asked,
curiously.

"Because I had the building inspector up there, this noon," said Bibbs, "and I
had him condemn both those buildings."

"What?"

"He'd been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us--afraid you'd see he
lost his job. But he can't un-condemn them--they've got to come down now."

Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows.
Finally he said, "How long did they give you on that option to convince me?"

"Until two o'clock to-morrow afternoon."

"All right," said Sheridan, not relaxing. "I'm convinced."

Bibbs jumped up. "I thought you would be. I'll telephone the Krivitch agent.
He gave me the option until to-morrow, but I told him I'd settle it this
evening."

Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his expression
did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that startled his wife.
It had been a long time since she had heard anything resembling a chuckle from
him, and this sound--although it was grim and dry--bore that resemblance.

She brightened eagerly. "Looks like he was startin' right well, don't it,
papa?"

"Startin'? Lord! He got me on the hip! Why, HE knew what I wanted-- that's
why he had the inspector up there, so 't he'd have me beat before we even
started to talk about it. And did you hear him? 'Can't reasonably defend
SENTIMENT!' And the way he says 'Us': 'Took an option for Us'! 'Stuff piled
up on Us'!"

There was always an alloy for Mrs. sheridan. "I don't just like the way he
looks, though, papa."

"Oh, there's got to be something! Only one chick left at home, so you start
to frettin' about IT!"

"No. He's changed. There's kind of a settish look to his face, and--"

"I guess that's the common sense comin' out on him, then," said Sheridan.
"You'll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I expect."

"Well, and he don't have as good color as he was gettin' before. And he'd
begun to fill out some, but--"

Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to her,
patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being still heavily
bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling. "That's the way it is with you,
mamma--got to take your frettin' out one way if you don't another!"

"No. He don't look well. It ain't exactly the way he looked when he begun to
get sick that time, but he kind o' seems to be losin', some way."

"Yes, he may 'a' lost something," said Sheridan. "I expect he's lost a whole
lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin' poetry
and--"

"No," his wife persisted. "I mean he looks right peakid. And yesterday, when
he was settin' with us, he kept lookin' out the window. He wasn't readin'."

"Well, why shouldn't he look out the window?"

"He was lookin' over there. He never read a word all afternoon, I don't
believe."

"Look, here!" said Sheridan. "Bibbs might 'a' kept goin' on over there the
rest of his life, moonin' on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did one big
thing, anyway. It woke him up out of his trance. Well, he had to go and bust
clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin' over there, and it stopped
his poetry, but I reckon he's begun to get pretty fair pay for what he lost.
I guess a good many young men have had to get over worries like his; they got
to lose SOMETHING if they're goin' to keep ahead o' the procession
nowadays--and it kind o' looks to me, mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a
considerable long way ahead. Why, a year from now I'll bet you he won't know
there ever WAS such a thing as poetry! And ain't he funny? He wanted to stick
to the shop so's he could 'think'! What he meant was, think about something
useless. Well, I guess he's keepin' his ming pretty occupied the other way
these days. Yes, sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his
trance, but it certainly did the business." He patted his wife's shoulder
again, and then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke into a boisterous
laugh.

"Honest, mamma, he works like a gorilla!"

And so Bibbs sat in the porch of the temple with the money-changers. But no
One came to scourge him forth, for this was the temple of Bigness, and the
changing of money was holy worship and true religion. The priests wore that
"settish" look Bibbs's mother had seen beginning to develop about his mouth
and eyes--a wary look which she could not define, but it comes with service at
the temple; and it was the more marked upon Bibbs for his sharp awakening to
the necessities of that servicce.

He did as little "useless" thinking as possible, giving himself no time for
it. He worked continuously, keeping his thoughts still on his work when he
came home at night; and he talked of nothing whatever except his work. But he
did not sing at it. He was often in the streets, and people were not allowed
to sing in the streets. They might make any manner of hideous uproar--they
could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the thunder, deafen the deaf,
and kill the sick with noise; or they could walk the streets or drive through
them bawling, squawking, or screeching, as they chose, if the noise was
traceably connected with business; though street musicians were not tolerated,
being considered a nuisance and an interference. A man or woman who went
singing for pleasure through the streets--like a crazy Neopolitan--would have
been stopped, and belike locked up; for Freedom does not mean that a citizen
is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head. The streets
were dangerous enough, in all conscience, without any singing! and the Motor
Federation issued public warnings declaring that the pedestrian's life was in
his own hands, and giving directions how to proceed with the least peril.
However, Bibbs Sheridan had no desire to sing in the streets, or anywhere. He
had gone to his work with an energy that, for the start, at least, was bitter,
and there was no song left in him.

He began to know his active fellow-citizens. Here and there among them he
found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period of neighborliness,
"pioneer stock," usually; and there were men--particularly among the merchants
and manufacturers--"so honest they leaned backward"; reputations sometimes
attested by stories of heroic sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some
instances of generosity even nobler. Here and there, too, were book-men, in
their little leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men. And these, with the
others, worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake
and for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the
beneficence and glory of their god.

To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in life,
except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the dangerous
illness of a wife or child. In the way of "relaxation" some of the servers
took golf; some took fishing; some took "shows"--a mixture of infantile and
negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took an occasional debauch; some
took trips; some took cards; and some took nothing. The high priests were
vigilant to watch that no "relaxation" should affect the service. When a man
attended to anything outside his business, eyes were upon him; his credit was
in danger--that is, his life was in danger. And the old priests were as
ardent as the young ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the
thousand; seventy was as busy as seventeen. They stove mightily against one
another, and the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the
most dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these--he must wear a
thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed!

And outside the temple itself were the pretenders, the swarming thieves and
sharpers and fleecers, the sly rascals and the open rascals; but these were
feeble folk, not dangerous once he knew them, and he had a good guide to point
them out to him. They were useful sometimes, he learned, and many of them
served as go-betweens in matters where business must touch politics. He
learned also how breweries and "traction" companies and banks and other
institutions fought one another for the political control of the city. The
newspapers, he discovered, had lost their ancient political influence,
especially with the knowing, who looked upon them with a skeptical humor,
believing the journals either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else
striving to forward the personal ambitions of their owners. The control of
the city lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of
negroes gin-money, and by other largesses. The revenues of the people were
then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men who had
assisted the winning side. Names and titles of offices went with many of the
prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to present a busy
appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did work honestly and
faithfully.

Bibbs had been very ignorant. All these simple things, so well known and
customary, astonished him at first, and once--in a brief moment of forgetting
that he was done with writing--he thought that if he had known them and
written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation of them must have
seemed! Strangest of all to him was the vehement and sincere patriotism. On
every side he heard it--it was a permeation; the newest school-child caught
it, though just from Hungary and learning to stammer a few words of the local
language. Everywhere the people shouted of the power, the size, the riches,
and the growth of their city. Not only that, they said that the people of
their city were the greatest, the "finest," the strongest, the Biggest people
on earth. They cited no authorities, and felt the need of none, being
themselves the people thus celebrated. And if the thing was questioned, or if
it was hinted that there might be one small virtue in which they were not
perfect and supreme, they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what
the critic said was true, but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him, for
they were sensitive. So Bibbs, learning their ways and walking with them,
harkened to the voice of the people and served Bigness with them. For the
voice of the people is the voice of their god.

Sheridan had made the room next to his own into an office for Bibbs, and the
door between the two rooms usually stood open--the father had established that
intimacy. One morning in February, when Bibbs was alone, Sheridan came in,
some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his hand.

"Bibbs," he said, "I don't like to butt in very often this way, and when I do
I usually wish I hadn't--but for Heaven's sake what have you been buying that
ole busted inter-traction stock for?"

Bibbs leaned back from his desk. "For eleven hundred and fifty-five dollars.
That's all it cost."

"Well, it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty-five cents. You ought to know
that. I don't get your idea. That stuff's deader 'n Adam's cat!"

"It might be worth something--some day."

"How?"

"It mightn't be so dead--not if We went into it," said Bibbs, coolly.

"Oh!" Sheridan considered this musingly; then he said, "Who'd you buy it
from?"

"A broker--Fansmith."

"Well, he must 'a' got it from one o' the crowd o' poor ninnies that was
soaked with it. Don't you know who owned it?"

"Yes, I do."

"Ain't sayin', though? That it? What's the matter?"

"It belonged to Mr. Vertrees," said Bibbs, shortly, applying himself to his
desk.

"So!" Sheridan gazed down at his son's thin face. "Excuse me," he said.
"Your business." And he went back to his own room. But presently he looked
in again.

"I reckon you won't mind lunchin' alone to-day"--he was shuffling himself into
his overcoat--"because I just thought I'd go up to the house and get THIS over
with mamma." He glanced apologetically toward his right hand as it emerged
from the sleeve of the overcoat. The bandages had been removed, finally, that
morning, revealing but three fingers-- the forefinger and the finger next to
it had been amputated. "She's bound to make an awful fuss, and it better
spoil her lunch than her dinner. I'll be back about two."

But he calculated the time of his arrival at the New House so accurately that
Mrs. Sheridan's lunch was not disturbed, and she was rising from the lonely
table when he came into the dining-room. He had left his overcoat in the
hall, but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets.

"What's the matter, papa?" she asked, quickly. "Has anything gone wrong? You
ain't sick?"

"Me!" He laughed loudly. "Me SICK?"

"You had lunch?"

"Didn't want any to-day. You can give me a cup o' coffe, though."

She rang, and told George to have coffee made, and when he had withdrawn she
said querulously, "I just know there's something wrong."

"Nothin' in the world," he responed, heartily, taking a seat at the head of
the table. "I thought I'd talk over a notion o' mine with you, that's all.
It's more women-folks' business than what it is man's, anyhow."

"What about?"

"Why, ole Doc Gurney was up at the office this morning awhile--"

"To look at your hand? How's he say it's doin'?"

"Fine! Well, he went in and sat around with Bibbs awhile--"

Mrs. Sheridan nodded pessimistically. "I guess it's time you had him, too. I
KNEW Bibbs--"

"Now, mamma, hold your horses! I wanted him to look Bibbs over BEFORE
anything's the matter. You don't suppose I'm goin' to take any chances with
BIBBS, do you? Well, afterwards, I shut the door, and I an' ole Gurney had a
talk. He's a mighty disagreeable man; he rubbed it in on me what he said
about Bibbs havin' brains if he ever woke up. Then I thought he must want to
get something out o' me, he go so flattering--for a minute! 'Bibbs couldn't
help havin' business brains,' he says, 'bein' YOUR son. Don't be surprised,'
he says--'don't be surprised at his makin' a success,' he says. 'He couldn't
get over his heredity; he couldn't HELP bein' a business success--once you got
him into it. It's in his blood. Yes, sir' he says, 'it doesn't need MUCH
brains,' he says, 'an only third-rate brains, at that,' he says, 'but it does
need a special KIND o' brains,' he says, 'to be a millionaire. I mean,' he
says, 'when a man's given a start. If nobody gives him a start, why, course
he's got to have luck AND the right kind o' brains. The only miracle about
Bibbs,' he says, 'is where he got the OTHER kind o' brains--the brains you
made him quit usin' and throw away.'"

"But what'd he say about his health?" Mrs. Sheridan demanded, impatiently, as
George placed a cup of coffee before her husband. Sheridan helped himself to
cream and sugar, and began to sip the coffee.

"I'm comin' to that," he returned, placidly. "See how easy I manage this cup
with my left hand, mamma?"

"You been doin' that all winter. What did--"

"It's wonderful," he interrupted, admiringly, "what a fellow can do with his
left hand. I can sign my name with mine now, well's I ever could with my
right. It came a little hard at first, but now, honest, I believe I RATHER
sign with my left. That's all I ever have to write, anyway--just the
signature. Rest's all dictatin'." He blew across the top of the cup
unctuously. "Good coffee, mamma! Well, about Bibbs. Ole Gurney says he
believes if Bibbs could somehow get back to the state o' mind he was in about
the machine-shop--that is, if he could some way get to feelin' about business
the way he felt about the shop--not the poetry and writin' part, but--" He
paused, supplementing his remarks with a motion of his head toward the old
house next door. "He says Bibbs is older and harder 'n what he was when he
broke down that time, and besides, he ain't the kind o' dreamy way he was
then--and I should say he AIN'T! I'd like 'em to show ME anybody his age
that's any wider awake! But he says Bibbs's health never need bother us again
if--"

Mrs. Sheridan shook her head. "I don't see any help THAT way. You know
yourself she wouldn't have Jim."

"Who's talkin' about her havin' anybody? But, my Lord! she might let him LOOK
at her! She needn't 'a' got so mad, just because he asked her, that she won't
let him come in the house any more. He's a mighty funny boy, and some ways I
reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the Bible, but Gurney kind o'
got me in the way o' thinkin' that if she'd let him come back and set around
with her an evening or two sometimes--not reg'lar, I don't mean--why--Well, I
just thought I'd see what YOU'D think of it. There ain't any way to talk
about it to Bibbs himself--I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow--but I thought
maybe you could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a
little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land lays,
and ask her --"

"ME!" Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. "No." She shook
her head decidedly. "It wouldn't do any good."

"You won't try it?"

"I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house. Some way, that's what I
believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I CAN'T--and,
what's more, it 'd only make things worse. If people find out you're runnin'
after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as much for you as
if you let 'em alone. I don't believe it's any use, and I couldn't do it if
it was."

He sighed with resignation. "All right, mamma. That's all." Then, in a
livelier tone, he said: "Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this
morning. All healed up. Says I don't need 'em any more."

"Why, that's splendid, papa!" she cried, beaming. "I was afraid--Let's see."

She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket. "Wait
a minute," he said, smiling. "Now it may give you just a teeny bit of a
shock, but the fact is--well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl came over
here and made all that fuss about nothin'--it was the day after I got tired o'
that statue when Edith's telegram came--"

"Let me see your hand!" she cried.

"Now wait!" he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand. "The
truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning, when you
wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office--he'd told me to, you
see--and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything." And he held out, for her
inspection, the mutilated hand. "You see, these days when it's all dictatin',
anyhow, nobody 'd mind just a couple o'--"

He had to jump for her--she went over backward. For the second time in her
life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.

It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own room,
still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat that the
"fuss" she was making irked him far more than his physical loss. He permitted
her to think that he meant to return directly to his office, but when he came
out to the open air he told the chauffeur in attendance to await him in front
of Mr. Vertrees's house, whither he himself proceeded on foot.

Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as manna in the
wilderness; it came from heaven--by what agency he did not particularly
question. The broker informed him that "parties were interested in getting
hold of the stock," and that later there might be a possible increase in the
value of the large amount retained by his client. It might go "quite a ways
up" within a year or so, he said, and he advised "sitting tight" with it. Mr.
Vertrees went home and prayed.

He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own again.
It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and his wife shared
his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her piano, and as for
furs--spring was on the way, she said. But they paid the butcher, the baker,
and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook once more. It was this servitress
who opened the door for Sheridan and presently assured him that Miss Vertrees
would "be down."

He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed and
beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the cook. She had
a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second, but it vanished at
the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes by a soft brilliance,
while color rushed in her cheeks.

"Don't be surprised," he said. "Truth is, in a way it's sort of on business I
looked in here. It 'll only take a minute, I expect."

"I'm sorry," said Mary. "I hoped you'd come because we're neighbors."

He chuckled. "Neighbors! Sometimes people don't see so much o' their
neighbors as they used to. That is, I hear so--lately."

"You'll stay long enough to sit down, won't you?"

"I guess I could manage that much." And they sat down, facing each other and
not far apart.

"Of course, it couldn't be called business, exactly," he said, more gravely.
"Not at all, I expect. But there's something o' yours it seemed to me I ought
to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it myself and explain
how I happened to have it. It's this--this letter you wrote my boy." He
extended the letter to her solomnly, in his left hand, and she took it gently
from him. "It was in his mail, after he was hurt. You knew he never got it,
I expect."

"Yes," she said, in a low voice.

He sighed. "I'm glad he didn't. Not," he added, quickly--"not but what you
did just right to send it. You did. You couldn't acted any other way when it
came right down TO it. There ain't any blame comin' to you--you were
above-board all through."

Mary said, "Thank you," almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed low.

"You'll have to excuse me for readin' it. I had to take charge of all his
mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it all-- once I
got started."

"I'm glad you did."

"Well"--he leaned forward as if to rise--"I guess that's about all. I just
thought you ought to have it."

"Thank you for bringing it."

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might have
something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this glance, and sat
with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

"Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office," he said, rising
desperately. "I told--I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock, and I
guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind time. I got
to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days--with THAT fellow keepin'
tabs on me!"

Mary rose with him. "I've always heard YOU were the hard driver."

He guffawed derisively. "Me? I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine. You
couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end o'
the job. I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some day, and
run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is--once he goes AT a
thing!"

"No," she smiled. "I didn't know you had a partner. I'd always heard--"

He laughed, looking away from her. "It's just my way o' speakin' o' that boy
o' mine, Bibbs."

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of careless
geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, "How IS Bibbs?"
but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the silence became
embarrassing.

"Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there," he said, at last. "He might
worry."

"Good-by--and thank you," said Mary.

"For what?"

"For the letter."

"Oh," he said, blankly. "You're welcome. Good-by."

Mary put out her hand. "Good-by."

"You'll have to excuse my left hand," he said. "I had a little accident to
the other one."

She gave a pitying cry as she saw. "Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!"

"Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow." He laughed jovially.
"Did anybody tell you how it happened?"

"I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how."

"It was this way," he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down again.
"You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the youngest o' my
boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes, after Jim--that is, I
mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner; and the truth is that's
what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o' these days--if his health
holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I had him on a machine over at a
plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o' sneak in there and see how he was
gettin' along. Take a doctor with me sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so
robust, you might say. Ole Doc Gurney--I guess maybe you know him? Tall,
thin man; acts sleepy--"

"Yes."

"Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook to show
Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I wouldn't listen,
and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs
how to do something he knew how to do and I didn't. Made me so mad I just
wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney
had to take kind o' radical measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too.
Don't you think so, Miss Vertrees?"

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