Thomas Wolfe - Thomas Wolfe - Of Time and the River, You Can't Go Home Again & Look Homeward, Angel

Mrs. Morgan said nothing. Her tar-black eyes glittered in fireflame.

“Have you got any money?” said Eliza.

“No’m,” said Mrs. Morgan.

Eliza stood solidly, enjoying the warmth, pursing her lips. “When do you expect to have your baby?” said Eliza suddenly.

Mrs. Morgan said nothing for a moment. She kept on rocking.

“In less’n a month now, I reckon,” she answered.

She had been getting bigger week after week.

Eliza bent over and pulled her skirt up, revealing her leg to the knee, cotton-stockinged and lumpily wadded over with her heavy flannels.

“Whew!” she cried out coyly, noticing that Eugene was staring. “Turn your head, boy,” she commanded, snickering and rubbing her finger along her nose. The dull green of rolled banknotes shone through her stockings. She pulled the bills out.

“Well, I reckon you’ll have to have a little money,” said Eliza, peeling off two tens, and giving them to Mrs. Morgan.

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Morgan, taking the money.

“You can stay here until you’re able to work again,” said Eliza. “I know a good doctor.”

“Mama, in heaven’s name,” Helen fumed. “Where on earth do you get these people?”

“Merciful God!” howled Gant, “you’ve had ’em all — blind, lame, crazy, chippies and bastards. They all come here.”

Nevertheless, when he saw Mrs. Morgan now, he always made a profound bow, saying with the most florid courtesy:

“How do you do, madam?” Aside, to Helen, he said:

“I tell you what — she’s a fine-looking girl.”

“Hahahaha,” said Helen, laughing in an ironic falsetto, and prodding him, “you wouldn’t mind having her yourself, would you?”

“B’God,” he said humorously, wetting his thumb, and grinning slyly at Eliza, “she’s got a pair of pippins.”

Eliza smiled bitterly into popping grease.

“Hm!” she said disdainfully. “I don’t care how many he goes with. There’s no fool like an old fool. You’d better not be too smart. That’s a game two can play at.”

“Hahahahaha!” laughed Helen thinly, “she’s mad now.”

Helen took Mrs. Morgan often to Gant’s and cooked great meals for her. She also brought her presents of candy and scented soap from town.

They called in McGuire at the birth of the child. From below Eugene heard the quiet commotion in the upstairs room, the low moans of the woman, and finally a high piercing wail. Eliza, greatly excited, kept kettles seething with hot water constantly over the gas flames of the stove. From time to time she rushed upstairs with a boiling kettle, descending a moment later more slowly, pausing from step to step while she listened attentively to the sounds in the room.

“After all,” said Helen, banging kettles about restlessly in the kitchen, “what do we know about her? Nobody can say she hasn’t got a husband, can they? They’d better be careful! People have no right to say those things,” she cried out irritably against unknown detractors.

It was night. Eugene went out on to the veranda. The air was frosty, clear, not very cool. Above the black bulk of the eastern hills, and in the great bowl of the sky, far bright stars were scintillant as jewels. The light burned brightly in neighborhood houses, as bright and as hard as if carved from some cold gem. Across the wide yard-spaces wafted the warm odor of hamburger steak and fried onions. Ben stood at the veranda rail, leaning upon his cocked leg, smoking with deep lung inhalations. Eugene went over and stood by him. They heard the wail upstairs. Eugene snickered, looking up at the thin ivory mask. Ben lifted his white hand sharply to strike him, but dropped it with a growl of contempt, smiling faintly. Far before them, on the top of Birdseye, faint lights wavered in the rich Jew’s castle. In the neighborhood there was a slight mist of supper, and frost-far voices.

Deep womb, dark flower. The Hidden. The secret fruit, heart-red, fed by rich Indian blood. Womb-night brooding darkness flowering secretly into life.

Mrs. Morgan went away two weeks after her child was born. He was a little brown-skinned boy, with a tuft of elvish black hair, and very black bright eyes. He was like a little Indian. Before she left Eliza gave her twenty dollars.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’ve got folks in Sevier,” said Mrs. Morgan.

She went up the street carrying a cheap imitation-crocodile valise. At her shoulder the baby waggled his head, and looked merrily back with his bright black eyes. Eliza waved to him and smiled tremulously; she turned back into the house sniffling, with wet eyes.

Why did she come to Dixieland, I wonder? Eugene thought.

Eliza was good to a little man with a mustache. He had a wife and a little girl nine years old. He was a hotel steward; he was out of work and he stayed at Dixieland until he owed her more than one hundred dollars. But he split kindling neatly, and carried up coal; he did handy jobs of carpentry, and painted up rusty places about the house.

She was very fond of him; he was what she called “a good family man.” She liked domestic people; she liked men who were house-broken. The little man was very kind and very tame. Eugene liked him because he made good coffee. Eliza never bothered him about the money. Finally, he got work at the Inn, and quarters there. He paid Eliza all he owed her.

Eugene stayed late at the school, returning in the afternoon at three or four o’clock. Sometimes it was almost dark when he came back to Dixieland. Eliza was fretful at his absences, and brought him his dinner crisped and dried from its long heating in the oven. There was a heavy vegetable soup thickly glutinous with cabbage, beans, and tomatoes, and covered on top with big grease blisters. There would also be warmed-over beef, pork or chicken, a dish full of cold lima beans, biscuits, slaw, and coffee.

But the school had become the centre of his heart and life — Margaret Leonard his spiritual mother. He liked to be there most in the afternoons when the crowd of boys had gone, and when he was free to wander about the old house, under the singing majesty of great trees, exultant in the proud solitude of that fine hill, the clean windy rain of the acorns, the tang of burning leaves. He would read wolfishly until Margaret discovered him and drove him out under the trees or toward the flat court behind Bishop Raper’s residence at the entrance, which was used for basketball. Here, while the western sky reddened, he raced down toward the goal, passing the ball to a companion, exulting in his growing swiftness, agility, and expertness in shooting the basket.

Margaret Leonard watched his health jealously, almost morbidly, warning him constantly of the terrible consequences that followed physical depletion, the years required to build back what had once been thrown carelessly away.

“Look here, boy!” she would begin, stopping him in a quiet boding voice. “Come in here a minute. I want to talk to you.”

Somewhat frightened, extremely nervous, he would sit down beside her.

“How much sleep have you been getting?” she asked.

Hopefully, he said nine hours a night. That should be about right.

“Well, make it ten,” she commanded sternly. “See here, ‘Gene, you simply can’t afford to take chances with your health. Lordy, boy, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve had to pay the price, I tell you. You can’t do anything in this world without your health, boy.”

“But I’m all right,” he protested desperately, frightened. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You’re not strong, boy. You’ve got to get some meat on your bones. I tell you what, I’m worried by those circles under your eyes. Do you keep regular hours?”