was purely manual. What! Run a machine, lay bricks, learn to be a
carpenter, or a plasterer, or plumber, when boys no better than
himself were clerks and druggists' assistants and bookkeepers and
assistants in banks and real estate offices and such! Wasn't it
menial, as miserable as the life he had thus far been leading, to
wear old clothes and get up so early in the morning and do all the
commonplace things such people had to do?
For Clyde was as vain and proud as he was poor. He was one of
those interesting individuals who looked upon himself as a thing
apart--never quite wholly and indissolubly merged with the family
of which he was a member, and never with any profound obligations
to those who had been responsible for his coming into the world.
On the contrary, he was inclined to study his parents, not too
sharply or bitterly, but with a very fair grasp of their qualities
and capabilities. And yet, with so much judgment in that
direction, he was never quite able--at least not until he had
reached his sixteenth year--to formulate any policy in regard to
himself, and then only in a rather fumbling and tentative way.
Incidentally by that time the sex lure or appeal had begun to
manifest itself and he was already intensely interested and
troubled by the beauty of the opposite sex, its attractions for him
and his attraction for it. And, naturally and coincidentally, the
matter of his clothes and his physical appearance had begun to
trouble him not a little--how he looked and how other boys looked.
It was painful to him now to think that his clothes were not right;
that he was not as handsome as he might be, not as interesting.
What a wretched thing it was to be born poor and not to have any
one to do anything for you and not to be able to do so very much
for yourself!
Casual examination of himself in mirrors whenever he found them
tended rather to assure him that he was not so bad-looking--a
straight, well-cut nose, high white forehead, wavy, glossy, black
hair, eyes that were black and rather melancholy at times. And yet
the fact that his family was the unhappy thing that it was, that he
had never had any real friends, and could not have any, as he saw
it, because of the work and connection of his parents, was now
tending more and more to induce a kind of mental depression or
melancholia which promised not so well for his future. It served
to make him rebellious and hence lethargic at times. Because of
his parents, and in spite of his looks, which were really agreeable
and more appealing than most, he was inclined to misinterpret the
interested looks which were cast at him occasionally by young girls
in very different walks of life from him--the contemptuous and yet
rather inviting way in which they looked to see if he were
interested or disinterested, brave or cowardly.
And yet, before he had ever earned any money at all, he had always
told himself that if only he had a better collar, a nicer shirt,
finer shoes, a good suit, a swell overcoat like some boys had! Oh,
the fine clothes, the handsome homes, the watches, rings, pins that
some boys sported; the dandies many youths of his years already
were! Some parents of boys of his years actually gave them cars of
their own to ride in. They were to be seen upon the principal
streets of Kansas City flitting to and fro like flies. And pretty
girls with them. And he had nothing. And he never had had.
And yet the world was so full of so many things to do--so many
people were so happy and so successful. What was he to do? Which
way to turn? What one thing to take up and master--something that
would get him somewhere. He could not say. He did not know
exactly. And these peculiar parents were in no way sufficiently
equipped to advise him.
Chapter 3
One of the things that served to darken Clyde's mood just about the
time when he was seeking some practical solution for himself, to
say nothing of its profoundly disheartening effect on the Griffiths
family as a whole, was the fact that his sister Esta, in whom he
took no little interest (although they really had very little in
common), ran away from home with an actor who happened to be
playing in Kansas City and who took a passing fancy for her.
The truth in regard to Esta was that in spite of her guarded up-
bringing, and the seeming religious and moral fervor which at times
appeared to characterize her, she was just a sensuous, weak girl
who did not by any means know yet what she thought. Despite the
atmosphere in which she moved, essentially she was not of it. Like
the large majority of those who profess and daily repeat the dogmas
and creeds of the world, she had come into her practices and
imagined attitude so insensibly from her earliest childhood on,
that up to this time, and even later, she did not know the meaning
of it all. For the necessity of thought had been obviated by
advice and law, or "revealed" truth, and so long as other theories
or situations and impulses of an external or even internal,
character did not arise to clash with these, she was safe enough.
Once they did, however, it was a foregone conclusion that her
religious notions, not being grounded on any conviction or
temperamental bias of her own, were not likely to withstand the
shock. So that all the while, and not unlike her brother Clyde,
her thoughts as well as her emotions were wandering here and there--
to love, to comfort--to things which in the main had little, if
anything, to do with any self-abnegating and self-immolating
religious theory. Within her was a chemism of dreams which somehow
counteracted all they had to say.
Yet she had neither Clyde's force, nor, on the other hand, his
resistance. She was in the main a drifter, with a vague yearning
toward pretty dresses, hats, shoes, ribbons and the like, and
super-imposed above this, the religious theory or notion that she
should not be. There were the long bright streets of a morning and
afternoon after school or of an evening. The charm of certain
girls swinging along together, arms locked, secrets a-whispering,
or that of boys, clownish, yet revealing through their bounding
ridiculous animality the force and meaning of that chemistry and
urge toward mating which lies back of all youthful thought and
action. And in herself, as from time to time she observed lovers
or flirtation-seekers who lingered at street corners or about
doorways, and who looked at her in a longing and seeking way, there
was a stirring, a nerve plasm palpitation that spoke loudly for all
the seemingly material things of life, not for the thin
pleasantries of heaven.
And the glances drilled her like an invisible ray, for she was
pleasing to look at and was growing more attractive hourly. And
the moods in others awakened responsive moods in her, those
rearranging chemisms upon which all the morality or immorality of
the world is based.
And then one day, as she was coming home from school, a youth of
that plausible variety known as "masher" engaged her in
conversation, largely because of a look and a mood which seemed to
invite it. And there was little to stay her, for she was
essentially yielding, if not amorous. Yet so great had been her
home drilling as to the need of modesty, circumspection, purity and
the like, that on this occasion at least there was no danger of any
immediate lapse. Only this attack once made, others followed, were
accepted, or not so quickly fled from, and by degrees, these served
to break down that wall of reserve which her home training had
served to erect. She became secretive and hid her ways from her
parents.
Youths occasionally walked and talked with her in spite of herself.
They demolished that excessive shyness which had been hers, and
which had served to put others aside for a time at least. She
wished for other contacts--dreamed of some bright, gay, wonderful
love of some kind, with some one.
Finally, after a slow but vigorous internal growth of mood and
desire, there came this actor, one of those vain, handsome, animal
personalities, all clothes and airs, but no morals (no taste, no
courtesy or real tenderness even), but of compelling magnetism, who
was able within the space of one brief week and a few meetings to
completely befuddle and enmesh her so that she was really his to do
with as he wished. And the truth was that he scarcely cared for
her at all. To him, dull as he was, she was just another girl--
fairly pretty, obviously sensuous and inexperienced, a silly who
could be taken by a few soft words--a show of seemingly sincere
affection, talk of the opportunity of a broader, freer life on the
road, in other great cities, as his wife.
And yet his words were those of a lover who would be true forever.
All she had to do, as he explained to her, was to come away with
him and be his bride, at once--now. Delay was so vain when two
such as they had met. There was difficulty about marriage here,
which he could not explain--it related to friends--but in St. Louis
he had a preacher friend who would wed them. She was to have new
and better clothes than she had ever known, delicious adventures,
love. She would travel with him and see the great world. She
would never need to trouble more about anything save him; and while
it was truth to her--the verbal surety of a genuine passion--to him
it was the most ancient and serviceable type of blarney, often used
before and often successful.
In a single week then, at odd hours, morning, afternoon and night,
this chemic witchery was accomplished.
Coming home rather late one Saturday night in April from a walk
which he had taken about the business heart, in order to escape the
regular Saturday night mission services, Clyde found his mother and
father worried about the whereabouts of Esta. She had played and
sung as usual at this meeting. And all had seemed all right with
her. After the meeting she had gone to her room, saying that she
was not feeling very well and was going to bed early. But by
eleven o'clock, when Clyde returned, her mother had chanced to look
into her room and discovered that she was not there nor anywhere
about the place. A certain bareness in connection with the room--
some trinkets and dresses removed, an old and familiar suitcase
gone--had first attracted her mother's attention. Then the house
search proving that she was not there, Asa had gone outside to look
up and down the street. She sometimes walked out alone, or sat or
stood in front of the mission during its idle or closed hours.
This search revealing nothing, Clyde and he had walked to a corner,
then along Missouri Avenue. No Esta. At twelve they returned and
after that, naturally, the curiosity in regard to her grew
momentarily sharper.
At first they assumed that she might have taken an unexplained walk
somewhere, but as twelve-thirty, and finally one, and one-thirty,
passed, and no Esta, they were about to notify the police, when
Clyde, going into her room, saw a note pinned to the pillow of her
small wooden bed--a missive that had escaped the eye of his mother.
At once he went to it, curious and comprehending, for he had often
wondered in what way, assuming that he ever wished to depart
surreptitiously, he would notify his parents, for he knew they
would never countenance his departure unless they were permitted to
supervise it in every detail. And now here was Esta missing, and
here was undoubtedly some such communication as he might have left.
He picked it up, eager to read it, but at that moment his mother
came into the room and, seeing it in his hand, exclaimed: "What's
that? A note? Is it from her?" He surrendered it and she
unfolded it, reading it quickly. He noted that her strong broad
face, always tanned a reddish brown, blanched as she turned away
toward the outer room. Her biggish mouth was now set in a firm,
straight line. Her large, strong hand shook the least bit as it
held the small note aloft.
"Asa!" she called, and then tramping into the next room where he
was, his frizzled grayish hair curling distractedly above his round
head, she said: "Read this."
Clyde, who had followed, saw him take it a little nervously in his
pudgy hands, his lips, always weak and beginning to crinkle at the
center with age, now working curiously. Any one who had known his
life's history would have said it was the expression, slightly
emphasized, with which he had received most of the untoward blows
of his life in the past.
"Tst! Tst! Tst!" was the only sound he made at first, a sucking
sound of the tongue and palate--most weak and inadequate, it seemed
to Clyde. Next there was another "Tst! Tst! Tst!", his head
beginning to shake from side to side. Then, "Now, what do you
suppose could have caused her to do that?" Then he turned and
gazed at his wife, who gazed blankly in return. Then, walking to
and fro, his hands behind him, his short legs taking unconscious
and queerly long steps, his head moving again, he gave vent to
another ineffectual "Tst! Tst! Tst!"
Always the more impressive, Mrs. Griffiths now showed herself
markedly different and more vital in this trying situation, a kind
of irritation or dissatisfaction with life itself, along with an
obvious physical distress, seeming to pass through her like a
visible shadow. Once her husband had gotten up, she reached out
and took the note, then merely glared at it again, her face set in
hard yet stricken and disturbing lines. Her manner was that of one
who is intensely disquieted and dissatisfied, one who fingers
savagely at a material knot and yet cannot undo it, one who seeks
restraint and freedom from complaint and yet who would complain
bitterly, angrily. For behind her were all those years of
religious work and faith, which somehow, in her poorly integrated
conscience, seemed dimly to indicate that she should justly have
been spared this. Where was her God, her Christ, at this hour when
