The Open Boat and Other Stories
of the redoubtable Stimson.
When the Merry-Go-Round was closed and the two girls started for the
beach, he wandered off aimlessly in another direction, but he kept
them in view, and as soon as he was assured that he had escaped the
vigilance of Stimson, he followed them.
The electric lights on the beach made a broad band of tremoring
light, extending parallel to the sea, and upon the wide walk there
slowly paraded a great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes
colliding. In the darkness stretched the vast purple expanse of the
ocean, and the deep indigo sky above was peopled with yellow stars.
Occasionally out upon the water a whirling mass of froth suddenly
flashed into view, like a great ghostly robe appearing, and then
vanished, leaving the sea in its darkness, from whence came those bass
tones of the water's unknown emotion. A wind, cool, reminiscent of the
wave wastes, made the women hold their wraps about their throats, and
caused the men to grip the rims of their straw hats. It carried the
noise of the band in the pavilion in gusts. Sometimes people unable
to hear the music, glanced up at the pavilion and were reassured upon
beholding the distant leader still gesticulating and bobbing, and the
other members of the band with their lips glued to their instruments.
High in the sky soared an unassuming moon, faintly silver.
For a time the young man was afraid to approach the two girls; he
followed them at a distance and called himself a coward. At last,
however, he saw them stop on the outer edge of the crowd and stand
silently listening to the voices of the sea. When he came to where they
stood, he was trembling in his agitation. They had not seen him.
"Lizzie," he began. "I----"
The girl wheeled instantly and put her hand to her throat.
"Oh, Frank, how you frightened me," she said--inevitably.
"Well, you know I--I----" he stuttered.
But the other girl was one of those beings who are born to attend
at tragedies. She had for love a reverence, an admiration that was
greater the more that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing
of it. This couple, with their emotions, awed her and made her humbly
wish that she might be destined to be of some service to them. She was
very homely.
When the young man faltered before them, she, in her sympathy, actually
over-estimated the crisis, and felt that he might fall dying at their
feet. Shyly, but with courage, she marched to the rescue.
"Won't you come and walk on the beach with us?" she said.
The young woman gave her a glance of deep gratitude which was not
without the patronage which a man in his condition naturally feels for
one who pities it. The three walked on.
Finally, the being who was born to attend at this tragedy, said that
she wished to sit down and gaze at the sea, alone.
They politely urged her to walk on with them, but she was obstinate.
She wished to gaze at the sea, alone. The young man swore to himself
that he would be her friend until he died.
And so the two young lovers went on without her. They turned once to
look at her.
"Jennie's awful nice," said the girl.
"You bet she is," replied the young man, ardently.
They were silent for a little time.
At last the girl said--
"You were angry at me yesterday."
"No, I wasn't."
"Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me once all day."
"No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on."
Though she had, of course, known it, this confession seemed to make her
very indignant. She flashed a resentful glance at him.
"Oh, were you, indeed?" she said with a great air.
For a few minutes she was so haughty with him that he loved her to
madness. And directly this poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth
lamely in fragments.
When they walked back toward the other girl and saw the patience of
her attitude, their hearts swelled in a patronizing and secondary
tenderness for her.
They were very happy. If they had been miserable they would have
charged this fairy scene of the night with a criminal heartlessness;
but as they were joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea, the
yellow stars, the changing crowds under the electric lights could be so
phlegmatic and stolid.
They walked home by the lake-side way, and out upon the water those gay
paper lanterns, flashing, fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a
chorus of red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic bands of
the future.
One day, when business paused during a dull sultry afternoon, Stimson
went up town. Upon his return, he found that the popcorn man, from his
stand over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the cashier's cage, and
that nobody at all was attending to the wooden arm and the iron rings.
He strode forward like a sergeant of grenadiers.
"Where in thunder is Lizzie?" he demanded, a cloud of rage in his eyes.
The popcorn man, although associated long with Stimson, had never got
over being dazed.
"They've--they've--gone round to th'--th'--house," he said with
difficulty, as if he had just been stunned.
"Whose house?" snapped Stimson.
"Your--your house, I 'spose," said the popcorn man.
Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already
formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his
anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his
wife convulsive and in tears.
"Where's Lizzie?"
And then she burst forth--"Oh--John--John-they've run away, I know they
have. They drove by here not three minutes ago. They must have done
it on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her hand sad-like;
and then, before I could get out to ask where they were going or what,
Frank whipped up the horse."
Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
"Get my revolver--get a hack--get my revolver, do you hear--what the
devil----" His voice became incoherent.
He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of
infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to
spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a
shrill appeal.
"Oh, John--not--the--revolver."
"Confound it, let go of me," he roared again, and shook her from him.
He ran hatless upon the street. There were a multitude of hacks at the
summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he
charged it like a bull.
"Uptown," he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat.
The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced
a large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused
such contortions by the little hatless man.
It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed
across the calm grey expanse and recognized a colour in a bonnet and
a pose of a head. A buggy was travelling along a highway that led to
Sorington. Stimson bellowed--"There--there--there they are--in that
buggy."
The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation.
He struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin
of excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its
drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to
awaken, to become animated and fleet. The horse ceased to ruminate on
his state, his air of reflection vanished. He became intent upon his
aged legs and spread them in quaint and ridiculous devices for speed.
The driver, his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched
each motion of this rattling machine down before him. He resembled
an engineer. He used the whip with judgment and deliberation as the
engineer would have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly upon
the macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of the vehicle wheezed and
groaned.
Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that
comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the
battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came
to his face and he howled--
"Go it--go it--you're gaining; pound 'im! Thump the life out of 'im;
hit 'im hard, you fool." His hand grasped the rod that supported the
carriage top, and it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue.
Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with speed, as from
realization of the menace in the rear. It bowled away rapidly, drawn
by the eager spirit of a young and modern horse. Stimson could see
the buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like an eye, was a
derision to him. Once he leaned forward and bawled angry sentences. He
began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old
man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with
wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth's pace; it was
swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two
children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he
understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly
into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his
bones must be laid in the earth. The dust rose easily from the hot road
and stifled the nostrils of Stimson.
The highway vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of
intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that
Stimson could no longer see the derisive eye.
At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and turned to look at
Stimson.
"No use, I guess," he said.
Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage, despair. As the
hackman turned his dripping horse about, Stimson sank back with the
astonishment and grief of a man who has been defied by the universe. He
had been in a great perspiration, and now his bald head felt cool and
uncomfortable. He put up his hand with a sudden recollection that he
had forgotten his hat.
At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any rate he was not
responsible.
A DETAIL
The tiny old lady in the black dress and curious little black bonnet
had at first seemed alarmed at the sound made by her feet upon the
stone pavements. But later she forgot about it, for she suddenly came
into the tempest of the Sixth Avenue shopping district, where from the
streams of people and vehicles went up a roar like that from headlong
mountain torrents.
She seemed then like a chip that catches, recoils, turns and wheels, a
reluctant thing in the clutch of the impetuous river. She hesitated,
faltered, debated with herself. Frequently she seemed about to address
people; then of a sudden she would evidently lose her courage.
Meanwhile the torrent jostled her, swung her this and that way.
At last, however, she saw two young women gazing in at a shop-window.
They were well-dressed girls; they wore gowns with enormous sleeves
that made them look like full-rigged ships with all sails set. They
seemed to have plenty of time; they leisurely scanned the goods in the
window. Other people had made the tiny old woman much afraid because
obviously they were speeding to keep such tremendously important
engagements. She went close to the girls and peered in at the same
window. She watched them furtively for a time. Then finally she said--
"Excuse me!"
The girls looked down at this old face with its two large eyes turned
towards them.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I can get any work?"
For an instant the two girls stared. Then they seemed about to exchange
a smile, but, at the last moment, they checked it. The tiny old lady's
eyes were upon them. She was quaintly serious, silently expectant.
She made one marvel that in that face the wrinkles showed no trace of
experience, knowledge; they were simply little, soft, innocent creases.
As for her glance, it had the trustfulness of ignorance and the candour
of babyhood.
"I want to get something to do, because I need the money," she