Harry Leon Wilson

“ A world once considered of enduring stability had crashed fearsomely about the ears of Winona Penniman and Wilbur Cowan. After this no support was to be trusted, however seemingly stout. Old foundations had crumbled, old institutions perished, the walls of Time itself lay wrecked. They stared across the appalling desolation with frightened eyes. What next? In a world to be ruined at a touch, like a house of cards, what vaster ruin would ensue? ”

“ Penniman's aprons, crowding folds of it inside his neckband. Then with stern orders to hold his head still the rite was consummated with a pair of shears commandeered from plain and fancy dressmaking. Loath himself to begin the work, the judge always came to feel, as it progressed, a fussy pride in his artistry; a pride never in the least justified by results. To Wilbur, after these ordeals, his own mirrored head was a strange and fearsome apparition, the ears appearing to have been too carelessly affixed and the scanty remainder of his hair left in furrows, with pallid scalp showing through. ”

“ Newbern was coming on, even as boys were coming on from bare feet to shoes on week-days. Ever and again there were traffic jams on River Street, a weaving turmoil of farmers' wagons, buggies, delivery carts, about a noisy, fuming centre of motor vehicles. High in the centre would be the motor truck of Trimble Cushman, loaded with cases and nursed through the muddle by a cool, clear-eyed youth, who sat with delicate, sure hands on a potent wheel. Never did he kill or maim either citizen or child, to the secret chagrin of Judge Penniman. ”

“ To the opening in the church wall came a nurse. She walked with short, uncertain steps and leaned against the ragged edge of the wall, with one arm along its stone for support. Her face was white and drawn, and for a moment she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the dust-laden air. The fat private on the stone, a score of feet away, studied her approvingly. She was slight of form and her hair beneath the cap was of gold, a little tarnished. He waited for her eyes to open, then hailed her genially as he waved at a tangle of camions and ambulances now blocking the bridge. ”

“ Great moments are vouchsafed only to those souls fortified to survive them. To one who had tamed the proud spirit of Sharon Whipple's hellion it was but lightsome child's play to guide this honest and amiable new bus. To the Mansion he returned in triumph with a load of passengers, driving with zest, and there receiving from villagers inflamed by tales of his prowess an ovation that embarrassed him with its heartiness. He hastened to remove the refulgent edifice, steering it prudently to its station in the stable yard. Then he went to find the defeated Starling Tucker. ”

“ It stirred Winona beyond the calm that should mark people of the better sort. She forgot that a gentleman should make no noise and that a lady is serene; forgot utterly. She waved a hand—timidly at first—to a cluster of young heads at a car window, and was a little dismayed when they waved heartily in return. She recovered and waved at another group—less timidly this time. Again the response was instant, and a malign power against which she strove in vain carried Winona to the train's side. ”

“ On the porch, behind the morning-glory vine, Judge Penniman in his wicker chair languidly fanned himself, studying a thermometer held in his other hand. He glanced up sharply.
"Well, come back, did you?"
"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, and sat on the top step to fan himself with his hat. "Warm, isn't it?"
The judge brightened.
"Warm? Warm ain't any name for it! We been having a hot spell nobody remembers the like of, man nor boy, for twenty years. Why, day before yesterday—say, I wish you'd been here! Talk about suffering! ”

“ Harvey Whipple would have been less shocked by this disclosure, momentous though it was, had not Merle betrayed a conviction that his life work would now be to uphold the wavering touch of civilization.
This brought the thing home to Harvey D. Merle, heading his valiant little band of thinkers, would light a pure white flame to flush America's spiritual darkness. He would be a vital influence, teaching men and women to cultivate life for its own sake. ”

“ Winona rejoiced at these evidences of an awakening soul. The boy might after all some day become one of the better sort. She felt sure of this when he sought her of his own free will and awkwardly invited her to beautify his nails. He who had aforetime submitted to the ordeal under protest; who had sworn she should never again so torture him! Surely he was striving at last to be someone people would care to meet.
Poor Winona did not dream that a great love had come into Wilbur Cowan's life ”

“ The Merle twin sped to the quiet nook where Jonas Whipple had been put away in 1828, and sped away from there as soon as he had the pails. Not even did he bend a moment above the little new-made grave where lay a part of all that was mortal of Patricia Whipple. He disliked graveyards on principle, and he wished his reward.
Wilbur Cowan kept his quick way down Fair Street. He had been lifted to pecuniary eminence, and incessantly the new wealth pressed upon his consciousness. The markets of the world were at his mercy. ”

“ A succeeding number of the New Dawn let out the horrid truth about the war, telling it in simple words that even Wilbur Cowan could understand. Having sold munitions to the warring nations, we must go in to save our money. In short, as the New Dawn put it: "The capitalistic ruling classes tricked the people into war." It was to be a war waged for greed. Young America, not yet perusing in large enough numbers the New Dawn, was to be sent to its death that capital might survive—the dollar be still enthroned. But the New Dawn was going to see about that. Young America would be told the truth. ”

“ The way you used to tell me I didn't have any form in golf. You people are all gesture; you can get up on a platform and take perfect practice swings at a government, but you can't hit the ball. You used to take bully practice swings at golf, but you couldn't hit the ball because you didn't have any ideal. You were a good shadow golfer, like a shadow boxer that can hit dandy blows when he's hitting at nothing. Shadow stuff, shadow ideals, shadow thinkers—that's what you people are—spoiled children pretending you're deep thinkers."
Merle turned wearily to a sheaf of papers at his hand. ”

“ He went to the front room, where the bar was, and the Wilbur twin expectantly followed. He had learned that these good people produced all manner of delights. But this was nothing to eat. The light from the lamps shone over the partition between back room and front, and there in a spacious cage beside the wall was a monkey, a small, sad-eyed creature with an aged, wrinkled face all but human. ”

“ It was the kind of landscape he had viewed yesterday with a rising distaste; land that had tricked people from their right to wander; to go places on a train when they would.
He brought his eyes back from the treacherous vista and turned them down to the face of the sleeping girl. A pale scarf was wound about her head, and he could see but little beyond it but the tip of her nose, a few scattered, minute freckles on one cheek. She was limp, one bare hand falling inertly over the edge of the seat between them. He looked out again at the checkerboard of farms. ”

“ German guns began to feel a way to Paris. The earth rocked in a gentle rhythm under a rain of shells. Shrapnel and gas lent vivacity to the assault. Guns to their utmost reach swept the little valley like a Titan's sickle. Private Cowan nestled his cheek against the earthen side of his little slit trench and tried to remember what she had worn that last night in Newbern. Something glistening, warm in colour, like ripe fruit; and a rusty braid bound her head. ”

“ The Wilbur twin at this moment frankly rejoiced in the infirmity of poor Ellis Bristow. It was sweet relief not to have him stop and stare and point. If given the power at this juncture he would have summarily blinded all the eyes of Newbern Center.
Up shaded streets they progressed, leaving a wake of purest joy astern. But at last they began the ascent of West Hill, that led to the Whipple New Place, leaving behind those streets that came alive at their approach. For the remainder of their dread progress they would elicit only the startled regard of an occasional adult farmer. ”

“ Dave was saying brightly; "off and over the edge of the world, all foot-loose and free as wind, going over strange roads and lying by night under the stars."
"What?" demanded Juliana sharply.
She studied the fellow's face for the first time. He was preening his yellow moustache and flashing a challenge to her from half-shut eyes.
"Small-towners bound to feel it," he continued, unconscious of any sharpness in Juliana's "What!" "They want to be off and over the edge of things, but they don't dare—haven't the nerve. You'd like to, but you don't dare. You know you don't!" ”

“ So Wilbur had gone to the store that afternoon, and for many succeeding afternoons, to learn the fascinating new game in a shed that served McCarron as storeroom. The new hero had here certain paraphernalia of his delightful calling—a punching bag, small dumb-bells, a skipping rope, boxing gloves. Here the neophyte had been taught the niceties of feint and guard and lead, of the right cross, the uppercut, the straight left, to duck, to side-step, to shift lightly on his feet, to stop protruding his jaw in cordial invitation, to keep his stomach covered. ”

“ He confided impressively to this boy that when the last paper was printed the bronze eagle would flap its wings three times and scream as a signal for beer to be brought from Vielhaber's. The boy widened eyes of utter belief upon him, and Wilbur Cowan once more felt all his years. But he was still lamentably indecisive about his future, and when a new printer looked in upon the Advance he stepped aside. Whatever he was going to make of himself it wouldn't be someone who had to sit down indoors. He would be slave to no linotype until they were kept in the open. ”

“ He lifted the hood on one side and with a pair of pliers manipulated what Sharon was never to know as anything but her gizzard, though the surgeon, as he delicately wrought, murmured something about platinum points.
"Try her!" Sharon tried her.
"Now she excites!" he exploded, gleefully, as the hum of the motor took up the shrill whir of the self-starter. He stopped the thing and bent a reproachful gaze upon Wilbur.
"Every one else leaving me—even that Elihu Titus. I never thought you would, after the way we've stood together in this town. I had a right to expect something better from you. ”

“ Now the keen eyes of young America, by aid of the magnifying lens supplied by Emmanuel Schilsky, would detect the land of the free to be in fact a land of greedy and unscrupulous tyrants; the home of the brave a home of economic serfs. Young America, which fights for the sanctity of life, solid and alive with virile beauty, would revolt and destroy the walls of the capitalistic state, sweeping away the foul laws that held private property sacred. ”

“ She was much like Winona, except that certain professional touches of colour at waist, neck, and wrists made her appear, in spirit at least, the younger woman. There were times when Winona suffered herself to doubt her mother's seriousness; times when the woman appeared a slave to levity. She would laugh at things Winona considered no laughing matters, and her sympathy with her ailing husband had come to be callous and matter of fact, almost perfunctory. She longed, moreover, to do fancy dressmaking for her child; and there was the matter of the silk stockings. ”

“ They were silent for the most of this drive.
"You don't talk much," said Sharon when the roan slowed for the ascent of West Hill and the music of the bells became only a silver murmur of chords. The boy was silent, even at this, for while he was trying to think of a suitable answer, trying to think what Winona would have him reply, Sharon flicked the roan and the music came loud again. There was no more talk until Sharon pulled up in the village, the boy being too shy to volunteer any speech while this splendid hospitality endured. ”

“ It amounted to nothing less, she gathered, than that her charge had formed a sinister alliance with a degraded prize-fighter, a low bully who for hire and amid the foulest surroundings pandered to the basest instincts of his fellowmen by disgusting exhibitions of brute force. As if that were not enough, this low creature had fallen lower in the social scale, if that were possible, by tending bar in the unspeakable den of Pegleg McCarron. It was of no use for Wilbur to explain to her that his new hero chose this humble avocation because it afforded him leisure for training between his fights ”

“ They would seek a cure for the falsehood of modern life in a return to Nature, a return to the self where truth ever is. They would war with the privilege and ascendancy of the group over the individual conscience. Already the exploiting class, as it neared the term of its depleted life, was but a mass of purulence. Society was rotten, the state a pious criminal, the old truths tawdry lies. Everywhere the impotence of senility—except in young America. We faced the imminence of a vast breaking-up. The subtlest oligarchy of modern times was about to crumble. ”

“ But probably they have to be natural rainbows; probably you don't get anything out of one you make yourself. Even as he looked, the shining omen vanished, somewhere shut off by an unseen power.
"This way, please," called Miss Juliana, cordially, and he followed her guiltily up the steps to the shaded porch.
The girl had preceded her. The Merle twin lingered back of them, shocked, austere, deprecating, and yet somehow bland withal, as if these little affairs were not without their compensating features.
The bowed Wilbur twin was startled by a gusty torrent of laughter. ”

“ Winona rejoiced a year later when golf promised, at least for a summer, to snatch Wilbur Cowan from the grimy indistinction of a mechanic's career. For thriving and aspiring Newbern had eased one of its growing pains with a veritable golf course, and the whilom machinery enthusiast became smitten with this strange new sport. Winona rejoiced, because it would bring him into contact with people of the better sort, for of course only these played the game. Her charge, it is true, engaged in the sport as a business, and not as one seeking recreation, but the desired social contact was indubitable. ”