Thomas Wolfe: Of Time and the River, You Can't Go Home Again & Look Homeward, Angel. Thomas Wolfe
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“Yes’m,” he promised, easily. “I’ll try.” Say not the struggle naught availeth.
She smiled at his high mettled prancing nervousness.
“In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin’,” she said gently. “Get out of here.”
He bounded away from the nunnery of the chaste breast and quiet mind.
As he leaped down the stairs into the yard he heard Dirk Barnard’s lusty splashing bathtub solo. Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song. Tyson Leonard, having raked into every slut’s corner of nature with a thin satisfied grin, emerged from the barn with a cap full of fresh eggs. A stammering cackle of protest followed him from angry hens who found too late that men betray. At the barnside, under the carriage shed, “Pap” Rheinhart tightened the bellyband of his saddled brown mare, swinging strongly into the saddle, and with a hard scramble of hoofs, came up the hill, wheeled in behind the house, and drew up by Eugene.
“Jump on, ‘Gene,” he invited, patting the mare’s broad rump. “I’ll take you home.”
Eugene looked up at him grinning.
“You’ll take me nowhere,” he said. “I couldn’t sit down for a week last time.”
“Pap” boomed with laughter.
“Why, pshaw, boy!” he said. “That was nothing but a gentle little dog-trot.”
“Dog-trot your granny,” said Eugene. “You tried to kill me.”
“Pap” Rheinhart turned his wry neck down on the boy with grave dry humor.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’ll teach you how to ride a horse.”
“Much obliged, Pap,” said Eugene ironically. “But I’m thinking of using my tail a good deal in my old age. I don’t want to wear it out while I’m young.”
Pleased with them both, “Pap” Rheinhart laughed loud and deep, spat a brown quid back over the horse’s crupper, and, digging his heels in smartly, galloped away around the house, into the road. The horse bent furiously to his work, like a bounding dog. With four-hooved thunder he drummed upon the sounding earth. Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.
At the two-posted entry, by the bishop’s boundary, the departing students turned, split quickly to the sides, and urged the horseman on with shrill cries. “Pap” bent low, with loose-reined hands above the horse-mane, went through the gate like the whiz of a cross-bow. Then, he jerked the mare back on her haunches with a dusty skid of hoofs, and waited for the boys to come up.
“Hey!” With high bounding exultancy Eugene came down the road to join them. Without turning, stolid Van Yeats threw up his hand impatiently and greeted the unseen with a cheer. The others turned, welcoming him with ironical congratulation.
“‘Highpockets,’” said “Doc” Hines, comically puckering his small tough face, “how’d you happen to git out on time?” He had an affected, high-pitched nigger drawl. When he spoke he kept one hand in his coat pocket, fingering a leather thong loaded with buckshot.
“J. D. had to do his spring plowing,” said Eugene.
“Well, if it ain’t ole Handsome,” said Julius Arthur. He grinned squintily, revealing a mouthful of stained teeth screwed in a wire clamp. His face was covered with small yellow pustulate sores. How begot, how nourished?
“Shall we sing our little song for Handsome Hal?” said Ralph Rolls to his copesmate Julius. He wore a derby hat jammed over his pert freckled face. As he spoke he took a ragged twist of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a large chew with a rough air of relish.
“Want a chew, Jule?” he said.
Julius took the twist, wiped off his mouth with a loose male grin, and crammed a large quid into his cheek.
He brought me roots of relish sweet.
“Want one, Highpockets?” he asked Eugene, grinning.
I hate him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch me out longer.
“Hell,” said Ralph Rolls. “Handsome would curl up and die if he ever took a chew.”
In Spring like torpid snakes my enemies awaken.
At the corner of Church Street, across from the new imitation Tudor of the Episcopal church, they paused. Above them, on the hill, rose the steeples of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. Ye antique spires, ye distant towers!
“Who’s going my way?” said Julius Arthur. “Come on, ‘Gene. The car’s down here. I’ll take you home.”
“Thanks, but I can’t,” said Eugene. “I’m going up-town.” Their curious eyes on Dixieland when I get out.
“You going home, Villa?”
“No,” said George Graves.
“Well, keep Hal out of trouble,” said Ralph Rolls.
Julius Arthur laughed roughly and thrust his hand through Eugene’s hair. “Old Hairbreadth Hal,” he said. “The cutthroat from Saw–Tooth Gap!”
“Don’t let ’em climb your frame, son,” said Van Yeats, turning his quiet pleasant face on Eugene. “If you need help, let me know.”
“So long, boys.”
“So long.”
They crossed the street, mixing in nimble horse-play, and turned down past the church along a sloping street that led to the garages. George Graves and Eugene continued up the hill.
“Julius is a good boy,” said George Graves. “His father makes more money than any other lawyer in town.”
“Yes,” said Eugene, still brooding on Dixieland and his clumsy deceptions.
A street-sweeper walked along slowly uphill, beside his deep wedge-bodied cart. From time to time he stopped the big slow-footed horse and, sweeping the littered droppings of street and gutter into a pan, with a long-handled brush, dumped his collections into the cart. Let not Ambition mock their useful toil.
Three sparrows hopped deftly about three fresh smoking globes of horse-dung, pecking out tidbits with dainty gourmandism. Driven away by the approaching cart, they skimmed briskly over to the bank, with bright twitters of annoyance. One too like thee, tameless, and swift, and proud.
George Graves ascended the hill with a slow ponderous rhythm, staring darkly at the ground.
“Say, ‘Gene!” he said finally. “I don’t believe he makes that much.”
Eugene thought seriously for a moment. With George Graves, it was necessary to resume a discussion where it had been left off three days before.
“Who?” he said, “John Dorsey? Yes, I think he does,” he added, grinning.
“Not over $2,500, anyway,” said George Graves gloomily.
“No — three thousand, three thousand!” he said, in a choking voice.
George Graves turned to him with a sombre, puzzled smile. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“O you fool! You damn fool!” gasped Eugene. “You’ve been thinking about it all this time.”
George Graves laughed sheepishly, with embarrassment, richly.
From the top of the hill at the left, the swelling unction of the Methodist organ welled up remotely from the choir, accompanied by a fruity contralto voice, much in demand at funerals. Abide with me.
Most musical of mourners, weep again!
George Graves turned and examined the four large black houses, ascending on flat terraces to the church, of Paston Place.
“That’s a good piece