The Turmoil, Booth Tarkington [best english novels for beginners .txt] 📗

she wouldn’t; she’s kind o’ stiffish-lookin’, and Bibbs is too up in the clouds to notice anything like that for himself. They’ve never asked him to a meal in the house, but he wouldn’t notice that, either⁠—he’s kind of innocent. Now I was thinkin’⁠—you know, I don’t suppose we’ve hardly mentioned the girl’s name at table since Jim went, but it seems to me maybe if⁠—”

Sheridan flung out his arms, uttering a sound half-groan, half-yawn. “You’re barkin’ up the wrong tree! Go on back to bed, mamma!”

“Why am I?” she demanded, crossly. “Why am I barkin’ up the wrong tree?”

“Because you are. There’s nothin’ in it.”

“I’ll bet you,” she said, rising⁠—“I’ll bet you he goes to church with her this morning. What you want to bet?”

“Go back to bed,” he commanded. “I know what I’m talkin’ about; there’s nothin’ in it, I tell you.”

She shook her head perplexedly. “You think because⁠—because Jim was runnin’ so much with her it wouldn’t look right?”

“No. Nothin’ to do with it.”

“Then⁠—do you know something about it that you ain’t told me?”

“Yes, I do,” he grunted. “Now go on. Maybe I can get a little sleep. I ain’t had any yet!”

“Well⁠—” She went to the door, her expression downcast. “I thought maybe⁠—but⁠—” She coughed prefatorily. “Oh, papa, something else I wanted to tell you. I was talkin’ to Roscoe over the phone last night when the telegram came, so I forgot to tell you, but⁠—well, Sibyl wants to come over this afternoon. Roscoe says she has something she wants to say to us. It’ll be the first time she’s been out since she was able to sit up⁠—and I reckon she wants to tell us she’s sorry for what happened. They expect to get off by the end o’ the week, and I reckon she wants to feel she’s done what she could to kind o’ make up. Anyway, that’s what he said. I phoned him again about Edith, and he said it wouldn’t disturb Sibyl, because she’d been expectin’ it; she was sure all along it was goin’ to happen; and, besides, I guess she’s got all that foolishness pretty much out of her, bein’ so sick. But what I thought was, no use bein’ rough with her, papa⁠—I expect she’s suffered a good deal⁠—and I don’t think we’d ought to be, on Roscoe’s account. You’ll⁠—you’ll be kind o’ polite to her, won’t you, papa?”

He mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had pulled over his head.

“What?” she said, timidly. “I was just sayin’ I hoped you’d treat Sibyl all right when she comes, this afternoon. You will, won’t you, papa?”

He threw the coverlet off furiously. “I presume so!” he roared.

She departed guiltily.

But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to church with Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs. Sheridan would have lost. Nevertheless, Bibbs and Mary did certainly set out from Mr. Vertrees’s house with the purpose of going to church. That was their intention, and they had no other. They meant to go to church.

But it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation as they came to the church; and though Mary was looking to the right and Bibbs was looking to the left, Bibbs’s leftward glance converged with Mary’s rightward glance, and neither was looking far beyond the other at this time. It also happened that, though they were a little jostled among groups of people in the vicinity of the church, they passed this somewhat prominent edifice without being aware of their proximity to it, and they had gone an incredible number of blocks beyond it before they discovered their error. However, feeling that they might be embarrassingly late if they returned, they decided that a walk would make them as good. It was a windless winter morning, with an inch of crisp snow over the ground. So they walked, and for the most part they were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned back at noon, they began to be talkative again.

“Mary,” said Bibbs, after a time, “am I a sleepwalker?”

She laughed a little, then looked grave. “Does your father say you are?”

“Yes⁠—when he’s in a mood to flatter me. Other times, other names. He has quite a list.”

“You mustn’t mind,” she said, gently. “He’s been getting some pretty severe shocks. What you’ve told me makes me pretty sorry for him, Bibbs. I’ve always been sure he’s very big.”

“Yes. Big and⁠—blind. He’s like a Hercules without eyes and without any consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow stronger. Stronger for what? For nothing.”

“Are you sure, Bibbs? It can’t be for nothing; it must be stronger for something, even though he doesn’t know what it is. Perhaps what he and his kind are struggling for is something so great they couldn’t see it⁠—so great none of us could see it.”

“No, he’s just like some blind, unconscious thing heaving underground⁠—”

“Till he breaks through and leaps out into the daylight,” she finished for him, cheerily.

“Into the smoke,” said Bibbs. “Look at the powder of coal-dust already dirtying the decent snow, even though it’s Sunday. That’s from the little pigs; the big ones aren’t so bad, on Sunday! There’s a fleck of soot on your cheek. Some pig sent it out into the air; he might as well have thrown it on you. It would have been braver, for then he’d have taken his chance of my whipping him for it if I could.”

“Is there soot on my cheek, Bibbs, or were you only saying so rhetorically? Is there?”

“Is there? There are soot on your cheeks, Mary⁠—a fleck on each. One landed since I mentioned the first.”

She halted immediately, giving him her handkerchief, and he succeeded in transferring most of the black from her face to the cambric. They were entirely matter-of-course about it.

An elderly couple, it chanced, had been walking behind Bibbs and Mary for the last block or so, and passed ahead during the removal of the soot.