The Trumpeter Swan

CHAPTER V

LIT­TLE SIS­TER

I

It is one thing, how­ev­er, to fling a chal­lenge to the hills, and an­oth­er to live up to the high mo­ment. Look­ing at it af­ter­wards in cold blood, Randy was forced to ad­mit that his chances of beat­ing George Dal­ton in a race for Becky were small.

There seemed some slight hope, how­ev­er, in the fact that Becky was a Ban­nis­ter and ought to know a gen­tle­man when she saw one.

“And Dal­ton's a--a bound­er,” said Randy to Nel­lie Custis.

Nel­lie Custis, who was as blue-​blood­ed as any Ban­nis­ter, cocked a sym­pa­thet­ic ear. Cock­ing an ear with Nel­lie was a weighty mat­ter. Her ears were big and un­man­age­able. When she got them up, she kept them there for some time. It was a rather in­trigu­ing habit, as it gave her an air of ea­ger at­ten­tion which wooed con­fi­dence.

“He's a bound­er,” said Randy as if that set­tled it.

But it did not set­tle it in the least. A man with an Apol­lo head may not be a gen­tle­man un­der his skin, but how are you to prove it? The world, spurn­ing Judy O'Grady, sanc­tions the Colonel's la­dy, and their sis­ter­hood be­comes so­cial­ly neg­li­gi­ble. Randy should have known that he could not sweep George Dal­ton away with a word. Per­haps he did know it, but he did not care to ad­mit it.

He and Nel­lie Custis were in the garage. It had once been a barn, but the board­ers had bought cars, so there was now the smell of gaso­line where there had once been the sweet scent of hay. And in­ter­mit­tent­ly the air was rent with puffs and snorts and shrieks which drowned the mu­sic of that liv­ing cho­rus which has been sung in sta­bles for cen­turies.

There were three cars. Two of them have noth­ing to do with this sto­ry, but the third will play its part, and mer­its there­fore de­scrip­tion.

It was not an ex­pen­sive car, but it was new and shin­ing, and had a perky snub-​nosed air of be­ing ready for any­thing. It be­longed to the ge­nial gen­tle­man who used it with­out mer­cy, and thus the lit­tle car wove back and forth over the hills like a shut­tle, do­ing its work stur­di­ly, com­ing home some­what nois­ily, and even at rest, seem­ing to ask for some­thing more to do.

The ge­nial gen­tle­man was very proud of his car. He talked a great deal about it to Randy, and on this par­tic­ular morn­ing when he came out and found young Paine sit­ting on a wheel­bar­row with Nel­lie Custis lend­ing him a cocked ear, he grew elo­quent.

“Look here, I've been think­ing. There ought to be a lot of cars like this in the coun­ty.”

To Randy the en­thu­si­asms of the ge­nial gen­tle­man were a con­stant source of amaze­ment. He was al­ways want­ing the world to be glad about some­thing. Randy felt that at this mo­ment any as­sump­tion of glad­ness would be a hol­low mock­ery.

“Any man,” said the ge­nial gen­tle­man, rub­bing a cloth over the enam­el of the lit­tle car, “any man who would start sell­ing this ma­chine down here would make a for­tune.”

Randy pricked up his ears.

“How could he make a for­tune?”

“Sell­ing cars. Why, the ba­bies cry for them----” he chuck­led and rubbed hard­er.

“How much could he make?” Randy found him­self say­ing.

The ge­nial gen­tle­man named a sum, “Easy.”

Randy got up from the wheel­bar­row and came over. “Is she re­al­ly as good as that?”

“Is she re­al­ly? Oh, say----” the ge­nial gen­tle­man for the next ten min­utes dealt in su­perla­tives.

To­wards the end, Randy was fir­ing ques­tions at him.

“Could I own a car while I was sell­ing them?”

“Sure--they'd let you have it on in­stall­ments to be paid for out of your com­mis­sions----”

“And I'd have an open field?”

“My dear boy, in a month you could have cars like this run­ning up and down the hills like ants af­ter sug­ar. They speak for them­selves, and they are cheap enough for any­body.”

“But it is a horse-​rid­ing coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly back in the hills. They love horse-​flesh, you know.”

“Oh, they'll get the gaso­line bug like the rest of us,” said the ge­nial gen­tle­man and slapped him on the back.

Randy winced. He did not like to be slapped on the back. Not at a mo­ment--when he was sell­ing his soul to the dev­il----

For that was the way he looked at it.

“I shall have to per­jure my­self,” he said to Ma­jor Prime lat­er, as they talked it over in the School­house, “to go through the coun­try telling mine own peo­ple to sell their hors­es and get cars.”

“If you don't do it, some­body else will.”

“But a man can't be con­vinc­ing if he doesn't be­lieve in a thing.”

“No, of course. But you've got to look at it this way, the world moves, and hors­es haven't had an easy time. Per­haps it is their mo­ment of eman­ci­pa­tion. And just for the sake of a sen­ti­ment, a tra­di­tion, you can't af­ford to hold back.”

“I can't af­ford to lose this chance if there is mon­ey in it. But it isn't what I had planned.”

As he sat there on the step and hugged his knees, ev­ery drop of blood in Randy seemed to be urg­ing “Hur­ry, hur­ry.” He felt as a man might who, run­ning a race, finds an­oth­er rid­er neck and neck and strains to­wards the fin­ish.

To sell cars in or­der to win Becky seemed ab­surd on the face of it. But he would at least be do­ing some­thing to­wards solv­ing the prob­lem of self-​sup­port, and to­wards in­creas­ing the mea­sure of his own self-​re­spect.

“What had you planned?” the Ma­jor was ask­ing.

“Well of course there is the law---- And I like it, but there would be a year or two be­fore I could earn a liv­ing---- And I've want­ed to write----”

“Write what? Books?”

“Any­thing,” said Randy, ex­plo­sive­ly, “that would make the world sit up.”

“Ev­er tried it?”

“Yes. At school. I talked to a teach­er of mine once about it. He said I had bet­ter in­vent a--pill----”

The Ma­jor stared, “A pill?”

Randy nod­ded. “He didn't quite mean it, of course. But he saw the mod­ern trend. A po­et? A poor thing! But hats off to the pill­mak­er with his mul­ti-​mil­lions!”

“Stop that,” said the Ma­jor.

“Stop what?”

“Blam­ing the world for its sor­did­ness. There is beau­ty enough if we look for it.”

“None of us has time to look for it. We are too busy try­ing to sell cars to peo­ple who love hors­es.”

II

In the end Randy got his car. And af­ter that he, too, might have been seen run­ning shut­tle-​like back and forth over the red roads. Nel­lie Custis was usu­al­ly be­side him on the front seat. She took her new hon­ors se­ri­ous­ly. For gen­er­ations back her for­bears had loped with flap­ping ears in the lead of a hunt­ing pack. To be sit­ting thus on a leather seat and whirled through the air with no need of legs from morn­ing un­til night re­quired some read­just­ment on the part of Nel­lie Custis. But she had al­ways fol­lowed where Randy led. And in time she grew to like it, and watched the road ahead with ea­ger eyes, and with her ears per­pet­ual­ly cocked.

Now and then Becky sat be­side Randy, with Nel­lie at her feet. The dif­fer­ence be­tween a ride with Randy and one with George Dal­ton was, Becky felt, the dif­fer­ence a not un­pleas­ant com­mon­place and the stuff that dreams are made of.

“It is rather a duck of a car,” she had said, the first time he took her out in it.

“Yes, it is,” Randy had agreed. “I am get­ting tremen­dous­ly fond of her. I have named her 'Lit­tle Sis­ter.'”

“Oh, Randy, you haven't.”

“Yes, I have. She has such con­fid­ing ways. I nev­er be­lieved that cars had hu­man qual­ities, Becky.”

“They are not hors­es of course.”

“Well, they have in­di­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics. You take the three cars in our barn. The Packard re­minds one of that stal­lion we owned three years ago--blood­ed and off like the wind. The Franklin is a gray­hound--and Lit­tle Sis­ter is a--duck----”

“Mr. Dal­ton's car is a--sil­ver ship----”

“Oh, does he call it that?” grim­ly.

“No----”

“Was it your own--po­et­ic--idea?”

“Yes.”

“And you called Lit­tle Sis­ter a duck,” he groaned. “And when my lit­tle duck swims in the wake of his sil­ver ship, and he laughs, do you laugh, too?”

There was a dead si­lence. Then she said, “Oh, Randy----”

He made his apol­ogy like a gen­tle­man. “That was hate­ful of me, Becky. I'm sor­ry----”

“You know I wouldn't laugh, Randy, and nei­ther would he.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Dal­ton.”

“Wouldn't what?”

“Laugh.”

He hat­ed her de­fense of young Apol­lo--but he couldn't let the sub­ject alone.

“You nev­er have any time for me.”

“Randy, are you go­ing to scold me for the rest of our ride?”

“Am I scold­ing?”

“Yes.”

“Then I'll stop it and say nice things to you or you won't want to come again.”

Yet af­ter that when he saw her in Dal­ton's car, her words would re­turn to him, and grad­ual­ly he be­gan to think of her as sail­ing in a sil­ver ship far­ther and far­ther away in a fu­ture where he could not fol­low.

Lit­tle Sis­ter was a great com­fort in those days. She gave him oc­cu­pa­tion and she gave him an in­come. He was nev­er to for­get his first sale. He had not found it easy to cry his wares. The Paines of King's Crest had nev­er asked fa­vors of the coun­try-​folk, or if they had, they had paid gen­er­ous­ly for what they had re­ceived. To go now among them say­ing, “I have some­thing to sell,” car­ried a sting. There had been noth­ing prac­ti­cal in Randy's ed­uca­tion. He had no equip­ment with which to meet the sor­did ques­tions of bar­gain and sale.

He had thought of this as he rode over the hills that morn­ing to the house of a young farmer who had been sug­gest­ed by the ge­nial gen­tle­man as a good prospect. He turned over in his mind the best method of ap­proach. It was a queer thing, he pon­dered, to vi­su­al­ize him­self as a sales­man. He won­dered how many of the oth­er fel­lows who had come back looked at it as he did. They had dreamed such dreams of val­or, their eyes had seen vi­sions. To Randy when he had en­list­ed had come a singing sense that the days of chival­ry were not dead. He had gone through the war with a laugh on his lips, but with a sense of the sa­cred­ness of the cru­sade in his heart. He had re­turned--still dream­ing--to sell snub-​nosed cars to the coun­try­side!

Why, just a year ago----! He re­mem­bered a black night of storm, when, hood­ed like a fal­con--he had rid­den with­out a light on his mo­tor­cy­cle, car­ry­ing dis­patch­es from the Ar­gonne, and even as he had rid­den, he had felt that high sense of hero­ic en­deav­or. On the suc­cess of his mis­sion de­pend­ed oth­er lives, the sav­ing of na­tions--vic­to­ry----!

And now he, with a mil­lion oth­ers, was faced by the prob­lem of the day's work. He won­dered how the oth­ers looked at it--those gal­lant young knights in kha­ki who had fol­lowed the gleam. Were they, too, grasp­ing at any job that would buy them bread and but­ter, pay their bills, keep them from liv­ing on the boun­ty of oth­ers?

He felt that in some way the thing was all wrong. There should have been big things for these boys to do. There seemed some­thing in­sen­sate in a civ­iliza­tion which would per­mit a man who wore medals of hon­or to sell rib­bon over a counter, or weigh out beef at a butch­er's. Yet he sup­posed that many of them were do­ing it. In­deed he knew that some of them were. The butch­er's boy, who brought the meat over ev­ery morn­ing to King's Crest, wore two dec­ora­tions, and when Randy had stopped for break­fast sup­plies, the hero of Bel­leau Woods had cut off sausages as calm­ly as he had once bay­onet­ted Huns.

Randy won­dered what the butch­er's boy was feel­ing un­der that ap­par­ent­ly stol­id sur­face. Was his hori­zon bound­ed by beef and sausages, or did his soul ex­pand with mem­ories of the shoul­der-​to-​shoul­der march, the com­rade­ship of the trench­es, the laugh­ter and songs? Did his puls­es thrill with the thought of the big things he might yet do in these days of peace, or was he con­tent to play safe and snip sausages?

Randy felt that he was not con­tent. It was not that he loved war. But he loved the vi­sions that the war had brought him. There had seemed no lim­it then to Amer­ica's achieve­ment. She had been a lag­gard--he thanked God that he had not been a par­ty to that de­lay. But when she had come in, she had come in with all her might and main. And her young men had fought and the fu­ture of the whole world had been in their hands, and since peace had come the fu­ture of the world must still be reck­oned in the terms of their glo­ri­ous youth.

And now, some­thing with­in Randy be­gan to sing and soar. He felt that here were things to be put on pa­per--the ques­tions which he flung at him­self should be writ­ten for oth­er men to read. That was what men need­ed--ques­tions. Ques­tions which de­mand­ed an­swers not on­ly in words but in deeds. This was a mo­ment for men of high thoughts and high pur­pos­es.

And he was sell­ing cars----!

Well, some day he would write. He was writ­ing a lit­tle now, at night. In his room at the top of the School­house. Yet the things that he had writ­ten seemed triv­ial as he thought of them. What he want­ed was to strike a ring­ing note. To have the fel­lows say when they read it, “If it is true for him it is true for me.”

Yet when one came to think of it, there were re­al­ly not any “fel­lows.” Not in the sense that it had been “over there.” They were scat­tered to the four winds, dis­persed to the sev­en seas--the A. E. F. was ex­tinct--as ex­tinct--as the Trum­peter Swan!

And now his thoughts ran fast, and faster. Here was his theme. Where was that glo­ri­ous com­pa­ny of young men who had once sound­ed their trum­pets to the world? Gone, as the swans were gone--leav­ing the mem­ory of their white­ness--leav­ing the mem­ory of their beau­ty--leav­ing the mem­ory of their--song----

He want­ed to turn back at once. To drive Lit­tle Sis­ter at break­neck speed to­wards pen and pa­per. But some in­stinct drove him dogged­ly to­wards the mat­ter on hand. One might write mas­ter­pieces, but there were cars to be sold.

He sold one----; quite strange­ly and un­ex­pect­ed­ly he found that the trans­ac­tion was not dif­fi­cult. The man whom he had come to see was on the front porch and was glad of com­pa­ny. Randy ex­plained his er­rand. “It is new busi­ness for me. But I've got some­thing to of­fer you that you'll find you'll want----”

He found that he could say many things truth­ful about the mer­its of Lit­tle Sis­ter. He had a con­vinc­ing man­ner; the young farmer lis­tened.

“Let me take you for a ride,” Randy of­fered, and away they went along the coun­try roads, and through the main streets of the town in less time that it takes to say--“Jack Robin­son.”

When they came back, the chil­dren ran out to see, and Randy took them down the road and back again. “You can car­ry the whole fam­ily,” he said, “when you go----”

The man's wife came out. She re­fused to ride. She was afraid.

But Randy talked her over. “My moth­er felt like that. But once you are in it is dif­fer­ent.”

She climbed in, and came back with her face shin­ing.

“I am go­ing to buy the car,” her hus­band said to her.

Randy's heart jumped. Some­how he had felt that it would not re­al­ly hap­pen. He had had lit­tle faith in his qual­ities as sales­man. Yet, af­ter all, it had hap­pened, and he had sold his car.

Rid­ing down the hill, he was con­scious of a new sense of achieve­ment. It was all very well to dream of writ­ing mas­ter­pieces. But here was some­thing tan­gi­ble.

“Nel­lie,” he said, “things are pick­ing up.”

Nel­lie laid her nose on his knee and looked up at him. It had been a long ride, and she was glad they were on the home­ward stretch. But she wagged her tail. Nel­lie knew when things were go­ing well with her mas­ter. And when his world went wrong, her sky dark­ened.

III

The sale of one car, how­ev­er, does not make a for­tune. Randy re­al­ized as the days went on that if he sold them and sold them and sold them, Dal­ton would still out­dis­tance him fi­nan­cial­ly.

There re­mained, there­fore, fame, and the sto­ry in the back of his mind. If he could lay a thing like that at Becky's feet! He had the lover's urge to­wards some heav­en-​kiss­ing act which should ex­alt his mis­tress---- A book for all the world to read--a pic­ture paint­ed with a flam­ing brush, a stat­ue carved with a mag­ic in­stru­ment. It was for Becky that Randy would work and strive hop­ing that by some di­vine chance he might draw her to him.

He worked at night un­til the Ma­jor fi­nal­ly re­mon­strat­ed.

“Do you ev­er go to bed?”

Randy laughed. “Some­times.”

“Are you writ­ing?”

“Try­ing to.”

“Hard work?”

“I like it,”--suc­cinct­ly.

The Ma­jor smoked for a while in si­lence. Then he said, “I sup­pose you don't want to talk about it.”

It was a star­ry night and a still one. The younger board­ers had gone for a ride. The old­er board­ers were in bed. The Ma­jor was stretched in his long chair. Randy sat as usu­al on the steps.

“Yes,” he said, “I'd like to talk about it. I have a big idea, and I can't put it on pa­per.”

He hugged his knees and talked. His young voice thrilled with the majesty of his con­cep­tion. Here, he said, was the idea. Once up­on a time there had been a race of won­der­ful swans, with plumage so white that when they rest­ed in flocks on the riv­er banks they made a blan­ket of snow. Their flight was a mar­vel­lous thing--they flew so high that the eye of man could not see them--but the sound of their trum­pets could be heard. The years passed and the swans came no more to their old haunts. Men had hunt­ed them and killed them--but there were those who held that on still nights they could be heard--sound­ing their trum­pets----

“I want to link that up with the A. E. F. We were like the swans--a white com­pa­ny which flew to France---- Our ide­al­ism was the song which we sound­ed high up. And the world lis­tened--and caught the sound---- And now, as a body we are ex­tinct, but if men will lis­ten, they may still hear our trum­pets--sound­ing----!”

As he spoke the air seemed to throb with the pas­sion of his phras­es. His face was up­lift­ed to the sky. The Ma­jor re­mem­bered a pic­ture in the cor­ri­dor of the Li­brary of Congress--the Boy of Winan­der---- Oh, the boys of the world--those won­der­ful boys who had been drawn out from among the rest, set apart for a time, and in whose hands now rest­ed the fate of na­tions!

“It is epic,” he said, slow­ly. “Take your time for it.”

“It's too big,” said Randy slow­ly, “and I am not a ge­nius---- But it is my idea, all right, and some day, per­haps, I shall make it go.”

“You must make it clear to your­self. Then you can make it clear to oth­ers.”

“Yes,” Randy agreed, “and now you can see why I am sit­ting up nights.”

“Yes. How did you hap­pen to think of it, Paine?”

“I've been turn­ing a lot of things over in my mind----; what the oth­er fel­lows are do­ing about their jobs. There's that boy at the butch­er's, and a lot of us went over to do big things. And now we have come back to the lit­tle things. Why, there's Dal­ton's valet--Kemp--tak­ing or­ders from that--cad.”

His scorn seemed to cut in­to the night. “And I am sell­ing cars---- I sold one to-​day to an old dark­ey, and I felt my grand­sires turn in their graves. But I like it.”

The Ma­jor sat up. “Your lik­ing it is the biggest thing about you, Paine.”

“What do you mean?”

"A man who can do his day's work and not whine about it, is the man that counts. That butch­er's boy may have a soul above weigh­ing meat and wrap­ping sausages, but at the mo­ment that's his job, and he is do­ing it well. There may be a di­vine dis­con­tent, but I re­spect the man who keeps his mouth shut un­til he finds a rem­edy or a raise.

“I don't of­ten speak of my­self,” he went on, “but per­haps this is the mo­ment. I am as thirsty for Cal­ifor­nia, Paine, as a man for drink. It is the dry sea­son out there, and the hills are brown, but I love the brown, and the pur­ple shad­ows in the hol­lows. I have rid­den over those hills for days at a time,--I shall nev­er ride a horse over them again.” He stopped and went on. "Oh, I've want­ed to whine. I have want­ed to curse the fate that tied me to a chair like this. I have been an ac­tive man--out-​of-​doors, and oh, the out-​of-​doors in Cal­ifor­nia. There isn't any­thing like it--it is the sense of space, the clear-​cut look of things. But I won't go back. Not till I have learned to do my day's work, and then I will let my­self play a bit. I'd like to take you with me, Paine--you and a good car--and we'd go over the hills and far away----

“I haven't told you much of my life. And there's not a great deal to tell. Fif­teen years ago I mar­ried a lit­tle girl and thought I loved her. But what I re­al­ly loved was the thought of do­ing things for her. I had mon­ey and she was poor. It was pleas­ant to see her eyes shine when I gave her things---- But mon­ey hasn't any­thing to do with love, Paine, and that is where we Amer­ican men fall down. When we love a wom­an we be­gin to tell her of our pos­ses­sions and to tempt her by them. And the thing that we should do is to show her our­selves. We should say, 'If I were stripped of all my world­ly goods what would there be in me for you to like?' My lit­tle wife and I had not one thing in com­mon. And one day she left me. She found a man who gave her love for love. I had giv­en her cars and flow­ers and box­es of can­dy and di­amonds and furs. But she want­ed more than that. She died--two years ago. I think she had been hap­py in those last years. I nev­er re­al­ly loved her, but she taught me what love is--and it is not a ques­tion of barter and sale----”

He seemed to be think­ing aloud. Randy spoke af­ter a si­lence. “But a man must have some­thing to of­fer a wom­an.”

“He must have him­self. Oh, we are all crooked in our val­ues, Paine. The best that a man can give a wom­an is his courage, his hope, his as­pi­ra­tion. That's enough. I learned it too late. I don't know why I am say­ing all this to you, Paine.”

But Randy knew. It was on such nights that men showed their souls to each oth­er. It was on such nights that his com­rades had talked to him in France. Un­der the moon they had seemed self-​con­scious. But be­neath a sky of stars, the words had come to them.

As he sat at his desk lat­er, he thought of all that the Ma­jor had said to him: that pos­ses­sions had noth­ing to do with love; that the test must be, “What would there be in me to like if I were stripped of all my world­ly goods?”

Well, he had noth­ing. There were on­ly his hopes, his dreams, his as­pi­ra­tion--him­self.

Would these weigh with any wom­an in the bal­ance against George Dal­ton's splen­did trap­pings?

The dawn crept in and found him still sit­ting at his desk. He had not writ­ten a dozen lines. But his thoughts had been the long, long thoughts of youth.