it was after he had spent the first ten dollars he drew from his fund in new york that tom felt the impulse to tell honey of the way in which he was becoming involved with maisie danker. the ten dollars had melted. in signing the formalities for drawing the amount, he expected to have enough to carry him along till spring, when maisie's visit was to end. he dreaded its ending, and yet it would have this element of relief in it; he would be able to keep his money. at a pinch he could spare ten dollars, though he couldn't spare them very well. more than ten dollars....
and before he knew it the ten dollars had vanished as if into air. once maisie knew what he had done her caprices multiplied. to her as to him ten dollars to "blow in"—she used the airy expression too—was a small fortune. it was only their instincts that were different. his was to let it go slowly, since the spending of a penny was against the protests of his conscience; hers to make away with it. if tom could "draw the juice" for a first ten, he could draw it for a second, and for a third and a fourth after that. it was not extravagance that whipped her on; it was joy of life.
tom's impulse to tell honey was not acted on. it was not acted on after he drew the second ten; nor
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after he drew the third. after he had drawn the fourth his unhappiness became so great that he sought a confidant.
and yet his unhappiness was not absolute; it was rather a poisoned bliss. had maisie been content with what he could afford, the winter would have been like one in paradise. but almost before he himself was aware of the promptings of thrift, she vanquished them with her ridicule.
"there's nothing i hate so much as anything cheap. if a fella can't give me what i like, he can keep away."
time and time again tom swore he would keep away. he did keep away, for a day, for two or three days in succession. then she would meet him in the dark hallway, and, twining her arms around his neck without a word, would give him one of those kisses on the lips which thrilled him into subjection. he would be guilty of any folly for her then, because he couldn't help himself. ten, twenty, thirty, forty dollars, all the hoarded inheritance from the martin quidmore who was already a dim memory, would be well thrown away if only she would kiss him once again.
he lost the healthy diversion which might have reached him through the ansleys because they had taken the fat boy to florida. tom learned that from little miss ansley a few days after the return of the father and mother from new york. one afternoon as both were coming from their schools they had met on their way toward louisburg square. even in her outdoor dress, she was quaintly grown-up and
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cambodian. a rough brown tweed had a little gold and a little red in it; a brown turban not unlike a fez bore on the left a small red wing tipped with a golden line. maisie would have emphasized the red; she would have been vivid, eager to be noticed. this girl didn't need that kind of advertisement.
seeing her before she saw him, he wondered whether she would give him any sign of recognition. at harfrey the girls whom he saw at the tollivants, and who proclaimed themselves "exclusive," always forgot him when they met him on the street. this had hurt him. he waited in some trepidation now, fearing to be hurt again. but when she saw him she nodded and smiled.
"guy's better," she said, without greeting, "and we're all going off to florida to-morrow. guy and i don't want to go a bit; but mother's afraid of his catching cold, and father has to be in washington, anyhow. so we're off."
though he walked by her side for no more than a few yards, tom was touched by her friendliness. she was the first girl of that section of the world for which he had only the term "society" who had not been ashamed to be seen with him in a street. little miss ansley even paused for a minute at the foot of her steps while they exchanged remarks about their schools. she went to miss winslow's. she liked her school. she was sorry to be going away as it would give her such a lot of back work to make up. she might go to radcliffe when guy went to harvard, but so far her mother was opposed to it. in these casual observations she seemed to tom to
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lose something of her air of being a woman of the world. on his own side he lost a little of his awe of her.
the snuffing out of this interest threw him back on the easing of his heart by confidence. it was not confidence alone; it was also confession. he was deceiving honey, and to go on deceiving honey began to seem to him baser than dishonor. had honey been his father, it would have been different. fathers worked for their sons as a matter of course, and almost as a matter of course expected that their sons would play them false. there was no reason why honey should work for him; and since honey did work for him, there was every reason why he who reaped the benefit should be loyal. he was not loyal. he had even reached the point, and he cursed himself for reaching it, at which honey was an old man of the sea fastened on his back.
he told himself that this was the damnedest ingratitude; and yet he couldn't tell himself that it wasn't so. it was. there were days when honey's way of speaking, honey's way of eating, the smell of honey's person, and the black patch on his eye, revolted him. here he was, a great lump of a fellow sixteen years of age, and dependent for everything, for everything, on a rough dock laborer who had been a burglar and a convict. it was preposterous. had he jumped into this situation he would not have borne it for a week. but he had not jumped into it; it had grown. it had grown round him. it held him now as if with tentacles. he couldn't break away from it.
and yet honey and he were bound to grow apart.
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it was in the nature of the case that it should be so. always of a texture finer than honey's, schooling, association, and habits of mind were working together to refine the grain, while honey was growing coarser. his work, tom reasoned, kept him not only in a rut but in a brutalizing rut. loading and unloading, unloading and re-loading, he had less use for his mind than in the days of his freebooting. then a wild ass of the desert, he was now harnessed to a dray with no relief from hauling it. from morning to night he hauled; from night to morning he was stupefied with weariness. in on this stupefaction tom found it more and more difficult to break. he was agog with interests and ideas; for neither interests nor ideas had honey any room.
nor had he, so far as tom could judge, any room for affection. on the contrary, he repelled it. "don't you go for to think that i've give up bein' a socialist because i got a soft side. no, sir! that wouldn't be it at all. what reely made me do it was because it didn't pay. i'd make big money now and then; but once i'd fixed the police, the lawyers, and nine times out o' ten the judge, i wouldn't have hardly nothink for meself. if out o' every hundred dollars i was able to pocket twenty-five it'd be as much as ever. this 'ere job don't pay as well to start with; but then it haven't no expenses."
self-interest and a vague sense of responsibility were all he ever admitted as a key to his benevolence. "it's along o' my bein' an englishman. you can't get an englishman 'ardly ever to be satisfied a'mindin' of his own business. ten to one he'll do that and
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mind somebody else's at the same time. a kind o' curse that's on 'em, i often thinks. once when i was doin' a bit—might 'a been at sing sing—a guy come along to entertain us. recited poetry at us. and i recolleck he chewed to beat the band over a piece he called, 'the white man's burden.' well, that's what you are, kid. you're my white man's burden. i can't chuck yer, nor nothink. i just got to carry yer till yer can git along without me; and then i'll quit. the old bunch'll be as glad to see me back as i'll be to go. there's just one thing i want yer to remember, kid, that when yer've got yer eddication there won't be nothink to bind me to you, nor—" he held himself very straight, bringing out his words with a brutal firmness—"nor you to me. yer'll know i'll be as glad to go the one way as you'll be to go the t'other, so there won't be no 'ard feelin' on both sides."
it was a sunday night. tom had taken his troubles to bed with him, because he had nowhere else to take them. in bed you struck a truce with life. you suspended operations, at least for a few hours. you could sleep; you could postpone. he slept as a rule so soundly, and so straight through the night, that, hunted as he was by care, he had once in the twenty-four hours a refuge in which the fiendish thing couldn't overtake him.
it had been a trying sunday because maisie had tempted him to a wilder than usual extravagance. there was enough snow on the ground for sleighing. she had been used to sleighing in nashua. the sing
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ing of runners and the jingling of bells, as a sleigh slid joyously past her, awakened her longing for the sport. by coaxing, by teasing, by crying a little, and, worst of all, by making game of him, she had induced him to find a place where he could hire a sleigh and take her for a ride.
snow having turned to rain, and rain to frost, the landscape through which they drove was made of crystal. every tree was as a tree of glass, sparkling in the sun. a deep blue sky, a keen dry wind, a little horse which enjoyed the outing as briskly as maisie herself, made the two hours vibrant with the ecstasy of cold. all tom's nerves were taut with the pleasure of the motion, of the air, of the skill, acquired chiefly at bere, with which he managed the spirited young nag. the knowledge of what it was costing him he was able to thrust aside. he would enjoy the moment, and face the reckoning afterward. when he did face the reckoning, he found that of his fourth ten dollars he had spent six dollars and fifty-seven cents. only three days earlier he had had the crisp clean bill unbroken in his hand....
he had been hardly able to eat his supper, and after supper the usual two hours of study to which he gave himself on sunday nights were as time thrown away. luckily, honey's consideration left him the room to himself. honey was like that. if tom had to work, honey effaced himself, in summer by sitting on the doorstep, in winter by going to bed. much of tom's wrestling with virgil was carried on to the tune of honey's snores.
this being sunday evening, and honey less tired
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than on the days on which he worked, he had gone to "chew the rag," as he phrased it, with a little jew tailor, who lived next door to mrs. danker. tom was aware that behind this the motive was not love for the jew tailor, but zeal that he, tom, should be interfered with as little as possible in his eddication. tom's eddication was as much an obsession to honey as it was to tom himself. it was an overmastering compulsion, like that which sent peary to find the north pole, scott to find the south one, and livingstone and stanley to cross africa. what he had to gain by it had no place in his calculation. a machine wound up, and going automatically, could not be more set on its purpose than lemuel honeybun on his.
but to-night his absenting of himself was of no help to tom in giving his mind to the translation from english into latin on which he was engaged. when he found himself rendering the expression "in the meantime" by the words in turpe tempore, he pushed books and paper away from him, with a bitter, emphatic, "damn!"
though it was only nine, there was nothing for it but to go to bed. in bed he would sleep and forget. he always did. putting out the gas, and pulling the bedclothes up around his ears, he mentally waved the white flag to his carking enemy.
but the carking enemy didn't heed the white flag; he came on just the same. for the first time in his life tom whitelaw couldn't sleep. rolling from side to side, he groaned and swore at the refusal of relief to come to him. he was still wide awake when about
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half past ten honey came in and re-lit the gas, surprised to see the boy already with his face turned to the wall. not to disturb him, honey moved round the room on tiptoe.
tom lay still, his eyes closed. he loathed this proximity, this sharing of one room. in the two previous years he hadn't minded it. but he was older now, almost a man, able to take care of himself. not only was he growing more fastidious, but the self-consciousness we know as modesty was bringing to the over-intimate a new kind of discomfort. long meaning to propose two small separate rooms as not much dearer than the larger one, he had not yet come to it, partly through unwillingness to add anything to their expenses, and partly through fear of hurting honey's feelings. but to-night the lack of privacy gave the outlet of exasperation to his less tangible discontents.
he rolled over on his back. one gas jet spluttered in the antiquated chandelier. under it a small deal table was heaped with his books and strewn with his papers. beside it stood an old armchair stained with the stains of many lodgers' use, the entrails of the seat protruding horribly between the legs. two small chairs of the kitchen type, a wash-stand, a chest of drawers with a mirror hung above it, two or three flimsy rugs, and the iron cots on which they slept, made a setting for honey, who sat beneath the gaslight, sewing a button on his undershirt. turned in profile toward tom, and wearing nothing but his drawers and socks, he bent above his work with the patience of a concentrated mind. he was really a fine
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figure of a man, brawny, hairy, spare, muscled like an athlete, a rodin's thinker all but the thought, yet irritating tom as the embodiment of this penury.
so not from an impulse of confession, but to ease the suffering of his nerves, tom told something about maisie danker. it was only something. he told of the friendship, of the dancing lessons, of the movies, of the sleigh-ride that afternoon, of the forty dollars drawn from the bank. he said nothing of their kisses, nor of the frenzy which he thought might be love. honey pulled his needle up through the hole, and pushed it back again, neither asking questions nor looking up.
"i guess we'll move," was his only comment, when the boy had finished the halting tale.
this quietness excited tom the more. "what do you want to move for?"
"because there's dangers what the on'y thing you can do to fight 'em is to run away."
"who said anything about danger? do you suppose ...?"
in sticking in his needle honey handled the implement as if it were an awl. "do i suppose she's playin' the dooce with yer? no, kid. she don't have to. you're playin' the dooce with yerself. it's yer age. sixteen is a terr'ble imagination age."
"oh, if you think i'm framing the whole thing...."
"no, i don't. yer believes it all right. on'y it ain't quite so bad as what yer think. it don't do to be too delikit with women. got to bat 'em away as if they was flies, when they bother yer too much.
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once let a woman in on yer game and yer 'and can be queered for good."
"did i say anything about letting a woman in on my game?"
"no, yer on'y said she'd slipped in. it's too late now to keep her out. she's made the diff'rence."
"what difference?"
honey threaded his needle laboriously, held up the end of the thread to moisten it with his lips, and tied a knot in it. "the diff'rence in you. yer ain't the same young feller what yer was six months ago. you and me has been like one," he went on, placidly. "now we're two. been two this spell back. couldn't make it out, no more'n billy-be-damned; and now i see. the first girl."
tom lashed about the bed.
"it was bound to come; and that's why—yer've arsked me about it onst or twice, so i may as well tell yer—that's why i never lets meself get fond o' yer. could'a did it just as easy as not. when a man gits to my age a young boy what's next o' kin to him—why, he'll seem like as if 'twould be his son. but i wouldn't be ketched. 'honey,' i says to meself, 'the first girl and you'll be dished.'"
"oh, go to blazes!"
having finished his button, honey made it doubly secure by winding the thread around it. "not that i blame yer, kiddy. i ain't never led no celebrant life meself, not till i had to take you on, and cut out all low company what wouldn't 'a been good for you. but i figured it out that we might 'a got yer through college before yer fell for it. well, we ain't. maybe
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now we'll not git yer to college at all. but we'll make a shy at it. we'll move."
"if you think that by moving you'll keep me from seeing her again...."
"no, son, not no more'n i could keep yer from cuttin' yer throat by lockin' up yer razor. yer could git another razor. i know that. all the same, it'd be up to me, wouldn't it, not to leave no razors layin' round the room, where yer could put yer 'and on 'em?"
this settling of his destiny over his head angered tom especially.
"i can save you the trouble of having me on your mind any more. to-morrow i'll be out on my own. i'm going to be a man."
"sure, you're going to be a man—in time. but yer ain't a man yet."
"i'm sixteen. i can do what any other fellow of sixteen can do."
"no fella of sixteen can do much."
"he can earn a living."
"he can earn part of a livin'. how many boys of sixteen did yer ever know that could swing clear of home and friends and everythink, and feed and clothe and launder theirselves on what they made out'n their job?"
"well, i can try, can't i?"
"oh, yes, yer can try, kid. but if you was me, i wouldn't cut loose from nobody, not till i'd got me 'and in."
tom raised himself on his elbow, his eyes, beneath
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their protruding horizontal eyebrows, aglitter with the wrath which puts life and the world out of focus.
"i am going to cut loose. i'm going to be my own master."
"are you, kid? how much of yer own master do yer expect to be, on the ten or twelve per yer'll git to begin with—if yer gits that?"
"even if it was only five or six per, i'd be making it myself."
"and what about college?"
"college—hell!"
the boy fell back on his pillow. feeling he had delivered his ultimatum, he waited for a reply. but honey only stowed away his sewing materials in a little black box, after which he pulled off the articles of clothing he continued to wear, and set about his toilet for the night. at the sound of his splashing water on his face tom muttered to himself: "god, another night of this will kill me."
honey spoke through the muffling of the towel, while he dried his face. "isn't all this fuss what i'm tellin' yer? the minute a girl gits in on a young feller's life there's hell to pay. that's why i'd like yer to steer clear of 'em as long as yer can hold out."
tom shut his eyes, buried his face in the pillow, and affected not to hear.
"they don't mean to do no harm; they're just naterally troublesome. seems as if they was born that way, and couldn't 'elp theirselves. there's a lot of 'em as is never satisfied till they've got a man like a jumpin'-jack, what all they need to do is to pull
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the string to make him jig. this girl is one o' them kind."
tom continued to hold his peace.
"i've saw her. pretty little thing she is all right. but give her two or three years. lord love you, kid, she'll be as washed out then as one of her own ribbons after a hard rain. and yet them is the kind that most young fellers'll run after, like a pup'll run after a squirrel."
tom was startled. the figure of speech had been used to him before. he could hear it drawled in a tired voice, soft and velvety. it was queer what conclusions about women these grown men came to! quidmore had thought them as dangerous as honey, and warned him against them much as honey was doing now. mrs. quidmore had once been what maisie was at that minute, and yet as he, tom, remembered her.... but honey was going on again, spluttering his words as he brushed his teeth.
"it can be awful easy to git mixed up with a girl, and awful hard to git unmixed. she'll put a man in a hole where he can't help doin' somethink foolish, and then make out as what she've got a claim on him. there's a lot o' talk about women bein' the prey o' men; but for one woman as i've ever saw that way i've saw a hundred men as was the prey o' women. now when a girl of eighteen gits a young boy like you to spend the money as he's saved for his eddication...."
the boy sprang up in bed, hammering the bedclothes. "don't you say anything against her. i won't listen to it."
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with that supple tread which always made tom think of one who could easily slip through windows, honey walked to the closet where he kept his night-shirt. "'tain't nothink agin her, kid. was on'y goin' to say that a girl what'll git a young boy to do that shows what she is. and yer did spend the money a-takin' her about, now didn't yer?"
tom fell back upon his pillow. putting out the gas, honey threw himself on his creaking cot.
"you're a free boy, kiddy," he went on, while arranging the sheet and blanket as he liked them. "if yer wants to beat it to-morrer, beat it away. don't stop because yer'll be afraid i'll miss yer. wasn't never no hand for missin' no one, and don't mean to begin. what i'd 'a liked have been to fill yer up with eddication so that yer could jaw to beat the best of 'em, if yer turned out to be the whitelaw baby."
tom had almost forgotten who the whitelaw baby was. not since that sunday afternoon nearly three years ago had honey ever mentioned him. the memory having come back, he made an inarticulate sound of impatience, finally snuggling to sleep.
he tried to think of maisie, to conjure up the rose in her cheeks, the laughter in her eyes; but all he saw, as he drifted into dreams, was the quaint cambodian face of little hildred ansley. only once did honey speak again, muttering, as he too fell asleep:
"we'll move."
