OF TIME AND THE RIVER. Thomas Wolfe
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boy said, “that’s Luke. I’m Eugene.”
“Oh,” Mr. Flood said heavily. “I reckon you’re the youngest one.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered.
“Well,” said Mr. Flood with an air of finality, “I didn’t know which one you were, but I knew you were one of them. I knew I’d seen you somewhere.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered. He was about to go on, hesitated for a moment, and suddenly blurted out: “I used to carry a route on The Courier when you owned it. I guess that’s how you remembered me.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Flood stupidly, “you did? Yes, that’s it, all right. I remember now.” And he continued to look at the boy with his bulging stare of comic stupefaction and for a moment there was silence save for the pounding of the wheels upon the rail.
“How many of you boys are there?” The swarthy and important-looking man who had previously been addressed as Emmet now spoke curiously: “There must be five or six in all.”
“No,” the boy said, “there’s only three now. There’s Luke and Steve and me.”
“Oh, Steve, Steve,” the little man said with an air of crisp finality, as if this was the name that had been at the tip of his tongue all the time. “Steve was the oldest, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, sir,” said the boy.
“Whatever became of Steve, anyway?” the man said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen him in ten or fifteen years. He doesn’t live at home any more, does he?”
“No, sir,” the boy said. “He lives in Indiana.”
“Does he for a fact?” said the little man, as if this was a rare and curious bit of information. “What’s Steve doing out there? Is he in business?”
For a moment the boy was going to say, “No, he runs a pool room and lives up over it with his wife and children,” but feeling ashamed to say this, he said:
“I think he runs some kind of cigar store out there.”
“Is that so?” the man answered with an air of great interest. “Well,” he went on in a moment in a conciliatory tone, “Steve was always smart enough. He had brains enough to do almost anything if he tried.”
Emmet Wade, the man who had asked the boy all these questions, was a quick, pompous little figure, corpulently built, but so short in stature as to be almost dwarfish-looking. His skin was curiously and unpleasantly swarthy, and save for a fringe of thin black hair at either side, his head was completely bald. In that squat figure, the suggestion of pompous authority and mountainous conceit was so pronounced that even in repose, as now, the whole man seemed to strut. He was, by virtue of that fortuitous chance and opportunity which has put so many small men in great positions, the president of the leading bank of the community. Even as he sat there in the smoking compartment, with his short fat legs crossed, the boy could see him sitting at his desk in the bank, swinging back and forth in his swivel chair thoughtfully, his pudgy hands folded behind his head as he dictated a letter to his obsequious secretary.
“Where’s old Luke? What’s he doing, anyway?” another of the men demanded suddenly, beginning to chuckle even as he spoke. The speaker was the florid-faced, somewhat countrified-looking man already noted, who wore the string neck-tie and spoke with the rhetorical severity of the small-town politician. He was one of the town commissioners and in his hearty voice and easy manner there was a more genial quality than any of the others had. “I haven’t seen that boy in years,” he continued. “Some one was asking me just the other day what had become of him.”
“He’s got a job selling farm machinery and lighting equipment,” the boy answered.
“Is that so?” the man replied with this same air of friendly interest. “Where is he located? He doesn’t get home very often, does he?”
“No, sir,” the boy said, “not very often. He comes in every two or three weeks, but he doesn’t stay home long at a time. His territory is down through South Carolina and Georgia — all through there.”
“What did you say he was selling?” said Mr. Flood, who had been staring at the boy fixedly during all this conversation with his heavy expression of a slow, intent and brutal stupefaction.
“He sells lighting systems and pumps and farm equipment and machinery — for farms,” the boy said awkwardly.
“That’s Luke — who does that?” said Mr. Flood after a moment, when this information had had time to penetrate.
“Yes, sir. That’s Luke.”
“And he’s the one that stutters?”
“Yes, sir.”
“The one that used to have the agency for The Saturday Evening Post and did all that talking when he sold ’em to you?”
“Yes, sir. That’s Luke.”
“And what d’you say he’s doing now?” said Mr. Flood heavily. “Selling farm machinery?”
“Yes, sir. That’s what he’s doing.”
“Then, by God,” said Mr. Flood, with a sudden and explosive emphasis which, after his former attitude of heavy, brutal stupefaction, was startling, “he’ll do it!” The other men laughed and Mr. Flood shook his ponderous, crimson head slowly from side to side to emphasize his conviction in the matter.
“If any one can sell ’em, he’ll do it,” he said positively. “That boy could sell Palm Beach suits to the Esquimaux. They’d have to buy ’em just to keep him from talking them to death.”
“I’ll tell you what I saw him do one time,” said the politician, shifting his weight a little in order to accommodate himself more comfortably to the motion of the train. “I was standing in front of the post office one day talking to Dave Redmond about some property he owned out on the Haw Creek Road — oh, it must have been almost fifteen years ago — when here he comes hustling along, you know, with a big bundle of his papers under his arm. Well, he sails right into us, talking about a mile a minute and going so fast neither of us had a chance to get a word in edgeways. ‘Here you are, gentlemen,’ he says, ‘hot off the press, just the thing you’ve been waiting for, this week’s edition of The Saturday Evening Post, five cents, only a nickel, the twentieth part of a dollar.’ By that time,” said Mr. Candler, “he had the thing all opened up and shoved up right under Dave Redmond’s nose, and he was turning the pages and telling him all about the different pieces it had in it and who wrote them and what was in them, and what a bargain it was for five cents. ‘W-w-w-why,’ he says, ‘if you b-b-b-bought it in a book, why it’d cost you a d-d-d-dollar and a half and then,’ he says, ‘it wouldn’t be half as good.’ Well, Dave was getting sort of red in the face by that time,” Mr. Candler said, “and I could see he was sort of annoyed at being interrupted, but the boy kept right on with his spiel and wouldn’t give up. ‘I don’t want it,’ says Dave, ‘I’m busy,’ and he tries to turn away from him, but Luke moves right around to the other side and goes after him about twice as hard as before. ‘Go on, go on,’ says Dave. ‘We’re busy! I don’t want it! I can’t read!’ he says. ‘All right,’ says Luke, ‘then you can look at the p-p-p-pictures. Why, the pictures alone,’ he says, ‘are w-w-w-worth a half a dollar. It’s the b-b-b-bargain of a lifetime,’ he says. Well, the boy was pressing him pretty hard and I guess Dave lost his temper. He sort of knocked the magazine away from him and shouted, ‘Damn it, I told you that I didn’t want it, and I mean it! Now go on! We’re busy.’ Well,” said Mr. Candler, “Luke didn’t say a word for a moment. He took his magazine and put it under his arm again, and he just stood there looking at Dave Redmond for a moment, and then he said, just as quiet as you please, ‘All right, sir. You’re the doctor. But I think you’re going to regret it!’ And then he turned and walked away from us. Well, sir,” said Mr. Candler, laughing, “Dave Redmond’s face was a study. You could see he felt pretty small to