City Boy (28 page)

One remark more feeble than the rest: this was the course Herbie was sliding down, having taken his false position. He thrashed around for a straw to arrest his tumble.

“Boy, do I love wienies! I really love 'em. Wienies! Yum!”

“I like marshmallows better,” replied Lucille.

“Not me. Shucks, I'd rather eat one roasted wienie than dance for a million years. And fires an' everything. I can't hardly wait for tomorrow night.”

“Fires!” said the girl scornfully. “Fires are for babies.”

Now, the word “baby” among adults is a pleasant, even an endearing term. But in the present company it was the ultimate printable insult. Herbie found nothing more to say.

“Well,” said the little red-headed beauty after a graceless silence, “I gotta go back to my counselor. G'by.”

“See you at the wienie roast?” said Herbie as she turned away.

Lucille halted, and stood fingering the starched hem of her blouse.

“I told you, Herbie, I just don't like wienies. I'd rather stay in bed than go to a rotten old wienie roast. So I guess I'll go to the dance. 'By.”

“Yeah,” jeered Herbie at her retreating back, “just 'cause Lennie Krieger'll be there.”

Lucille turned on him swiftly.

“That's right, smarty, 'cause Lennie'll be there. What did you do that was so wonderful today, that you have the right to make fun of Lennie? If you wanna know something, he
asked
me to go, with ten other girls standing around—some of them Seniors. An' I didn't even say I would, 'cause I was waiting to see if you were going. But as long as you're being such a baby I
will
go. There now. And I hope you eat so many wienies that you bust.”

And off she flounced, or came as near flouncing as anyone can in blue bloomers.

There was a mournful hush in Bunk Thirteen that night after taps, in place of the usual pleasant whispering. Lennie's bed was empty; the young man of Character was spending the night in the infirmary. Herbie had ample cause for misery, but he wondered a little at the silence of his bunkmates. At last Ted said hoarsely, “Hey, guys, ain't ol' Gauss a real bag o' hot air?”

“You bet! An' how! What a stinker!” came a husky chorus in reply.

“All that boloney about a victory,” said Ted. “We got skunked. Who was he kiddin'?”

“Them Penobscots murdered us,” said one boy in the darkness.

“I'd like to murder Yishy Gabelson,” said another.

“Character!” hissed Ted. “Lennie played swell ball today, but he's still the guy that don't make his bed and picks on guys smaller'n him.”

“Aw, Lennie's O.K.,” said Herbie.

“That movie stunk, too,” observed Eddie Bromberg irrelevantly.

Silence again, except for thunderous music from the crickets. The duty counselor crunched by on the gravel outside, flashed a beam of light through the screen door, said, “Why is this camp so blasted quiet tonight, anyhow?” and could be heard walking away.

“You know what, guys?” whispered Eddie. “I'm sick of camp. I wish to heck the summer was over.”

“Who doesn't?” said Ted. “If I had a home, I'd wish I was home. But even boardin' school's better'n this.”

Herbie said, “I got a home, an' by God I wish I was there.”

And on this note the evening's conversation ended, and the lads tossed and fidgeted until one by one they dropped asleep. Poor boys! The trouble with a Gaussian victory is that its aftertaste is so miserable. Honest defeat honestly swallowed is a bitter dose but a clean brief one. Why will adults never understand that, bad as castor oil may be, castor oil diluted with orange juice is twice as horrible?

H
erbie said he had a headache next evening, and asked to be excused from the festivities. Uncle Sid was alarmed. He did not imagine that any ailment short of apoplexy could keep a boy from a feast of frankfurters. With some difficulty, Herbie convinced the counselor that he was not mortally ill, and received permission to go to bed early.

The sun was still sending pallid rays across the lake when Herbie undressed and climbed into his cot, while his bunkmates clad themselves in holiday whites. All of them were going to the dance to try out their newly learned art, except Ted. He roundly declared that he had yet to meet the girl who could give him as much pleasure as a frankfurter. The other boys hooted at him.

“I can dance as good as any of you,” he retorted to the jeers. “All I know is, you eat a wienie and you've ate a wienie. You dance with a girl and how are you better off?”

Time went merrily until the bugle sent the disputants scurrying out to assembly. The bedridden invalid heard Uncle Sandy bellow through a megaphone the standard warnings about conduct in the presence of girls. Then came the spirited tread of feet marching off to revelry. Herbie remained the lone living creature on Company Street, excepting, of course, those with six or more legs, who were present in their usual multitudes.

Now, there was a certain young miser in Bunk Eleven who owned a precious thing, a bright red copy of the newest Tarzan book,
Tarzan and the Men from Mars.
Herbie had palpitated for weeks to read this epic, but its owner had obstinately declined to lend it to anybody or even to permit the applicants to read snatches of it in his bungalow. He was a skinny, unhappy little rich boy called Daisy, an embittered failure in athletics and in day-today life with his fellows, who, finding he had something at last that was wanted, revenged himself on the world by denying it to everyone.

As soon as the sound of the march died away, Herbie leaped from his bed, dressed, took a flashlight, and went to Bunk Eleven. Daisy's treasure was there, on a shelf above his cot. He took the book, caressed its bright binding, and settled down to read it on Daisy's trunk, leaning his back against the foot of the bed. He felt no scruples. Had Daisy written the tale, that he had the right to withhold it from anyone? The fat boy would never have pilfered the book itself, but instinct told him that the rule of property stopped short in the domain of literature. All who had eyes had the right to read. The author of
Tarzan
probably would have supported Daisy's view in the matter, preferring that every boy buy a new copy of the book. But authors are a hungry, surly lot, anyway.

Whether conscience was gnawing away at Herbie's unconscious mind, or whether a procession of astral frankfurters was dancing across the pages, the boy soon discovered that he was not enjoying the book very much. Tarzan was brawny and heroic as ever, and the men from Mars proved to be fine, gruesome fellows with immense heads, green skins, eight spidery arms, and transparent bodies; but despite these literary charms, Herbie's attention kept wandering.

He had planned this evening's activity as a defiance of the temptations of the flesh. Wienies and Lucille alike were going to be proven matters of indifference to Herbie Bookbinder, the ascetic scholar. But this was more easily resolved upon than executed. Jealousy mocked him with images of Lucille floating daintily on Lennie's good arm. Hunger, after a while, caused him to smell the odor of roasting frankfurters as plainly as if the campfire were next door, though in fact Herbie was a quarter of a mile from the scene of the grilling, and upwind. Meantime, Tarzan was slaying the Martians with fine fury as they swarmed from their rocket ship; they fell beneath his knife oozing a horrid yellow blood; but Herbie followed these great exploits only listlessly.

A pleasant fancy intruded itself on his imagination, causing Tarzan to fade away in mid-combat. It occurred to him that his bunk-mates would tell Lucille of his illness. She would be smitten with remorse. She would realize that his health was breaking under her neglect. Surely when she understood the depths of such devotion she would sneak away from the dance, visit him in his fallen state, and beg his forgiveness with sweet words and tears. As he dwelled on this attractive picture it came to seem such a strong likelihood that he put the book on its shelf, went back to his bunk, and actually undressed, and lay in his cot, waiting for his beloved to appear.

The sunset faded, the darkness deepened, and presently it was black outside, for there was no moon. It soon became more and more evident that there would be no Lucille, either. Herbie's mood shifted slowly from expectancy to impatience, then to exasperation, then to rage—mostly at himself for his sheep-headed folly. He perceived after a while that his imagination had tricked him again—conjured up a mirage out of his own wishes, and made him believe in it. Strains of Uncle Sid's clodhopping jazz piano came down the night breeze. Lucille was there at the social hall hugely enjoying herself, and was no more likely to stumble out into the dark, against all rules, to visit him on the boys' grounds, than she was apt to flap her arms and fly to him. He rose and dressed again, struggling with his clothes in the gloom and grumbling various uncomplimentary remarks at himself such as, “Hurry up, stupid,” and “Why don't you just go out and drown yourself?” and “Any girl'd hafta be loony to like a dope like you.” In this low frame of mind he stole to the social hall, and peeked in through a window.

Strange, how the aspect of a building could change in twenty-four hours. Last night the social hall had seemed to Herbie an ugly barn; tonight it was a place of splendor. Nothing was different—there were not even any decorations—and the same Uncle Sid banged at the same piano in the same corner. But tonight Herbie was outside, looking in at a dance. Not many events on this earth appear more heavenly than a dance seen through a window by someone who cannot join it. We can go to a hundred dances and know them for the hot, shoving, boisterous, and banal affairs that they are. Then we pass by a place where there are twirling couples and music, and we press our noses to the glass and seem to be looking in on Paradise. This feeling struck Herbie all the more strongly because it was new to him, and because his girl was one of the dancers. Small wonder that magic invested the social hall! And who is to say on which night he was more nearly correct? His viewpoint had changed. Viewpoint is everything.

Quite as Herbie had imagined, Lucille was dancing with Lennie. The hero's right arm was out of its sling though still bandaged, and sufficiently healed to enable him to hug his smiling partner. The sight hurt Herbie. His throat swelled, his stomach knotted, and all appetite and good will passed from him. He could not have eaten the most succulent roasted wienie in the world; no, nor even a frap. It was the day of Mortimer Gorkin all over again, and greatly more painful, for this time he had lost his love not to a stranger but to his old enemy.

Herbie was so plunged in misery that he heard the sound of feminine sniffling near by for several seconds before it struck him as a thing requiring investigation. The noise was coming from around the corner of the social hall. He walked cautiously along the wall to the end of the building and peered past the edge. Sitting on the rickety steps that came down from the locked stage door was the dim form of a girl, her head bowed, her hair falling over her face. Before he thought, he said, “Hello, what's the matter?” The girl looked up. It was his sister Felicia.

“Herbie! I thought you were in bed!”

“I sneaked out. I feel O.K. now. Why you cryin', Fleece?”

“I'm not crying. Don't be silly. I just came out for some fresh air.”

“I heard you cry.”

“You didn't hear anything. Oh, yes, I guess I was blowing my nose.” Hereupon she drew out a fresh handkerchief and made a noise into it, not in the least resembling the sounds Herbie had just heard. “I caught a little cold today swimming.”

Herbie was too dejected by his own trouble to hound down the lie. Felicia might have been sniffling for any one of a hundred silly girls' reasons. What did it matter, after all?

“You havin' fun at the dance, Fleece?”

“Fun!” said the girl bitterly. “It's the rottenest dance that ever was. Nothing but babies, babies, babies, crowding all over the floor. Why didn't they have a separate dance for Seniors? I wish I could go back to my bunk and go to bed.”

“I just been doin' that,” said Herbie. “That's even worse.”

Brother and sister became silent, each communing with private grief. The picture of Lennie dancing with Lucille haunted Herbie in bright colors. It brought along a vague idea about his sister's distress.

“Hey, you danced with Lennie yet, Fleece?”

“I wouldn't dance with that stuck-up baby,” burst out the girl, “if he begged me on his knees.
On his knees!
Only babies dance with babies.”

This made it plain to Herbie that his guess was correct. He had always suspected that Felicia, for all her superior airs, admired Lennie. It was beneath her to admit it, because she was half a year older. Now he saw that she was suffering over the model of Character even as he was over the faithless redhead.

He felt only moderately sorry for her, for he knew the depth of her pain could not equal his. Furthermore, she had the consolation of the epithet “baby.”

Differences in age serve much the same useful function among children that differences in income do among adults. They offer a permanent, simple scale of snobbery. The scorn of age thirteen for age eleven is equaled only by the disdain of a hundred dollars a week for fifty dollars a week. In both cases superiority rests on the unshakable basis of numbers which everybody can grasp and nobody can deny. Unluckily for Herbie, Lennie was older than he and Lucille was practically the same age; otherwise he would certainly have taken solace, as Felicia did, in an arithmetical sneer.