The Torrents of Spring

by Ernest Hemingway

  “Your foreman’s the first Australian I’ve ever met,” Scripps said.

  “Oh, he’s not an Australian,” Yogi said. “He was just with the Australians once during the war, and it made a big impression on him.”

  “Were you in the war?” Scripps asked.

  “Yes,” Yogi Johnson said. “I was the first man to go from Cadillac.”

  “It must have been quite an experience.”

  “It’s meant a lot to me,” Yogi answered. “Come on and I’ll show you around the works.”

  Scripps followed this man, who showed him through the pump-factory. It was dark but warm inside the pump-factory. Men naked to the waist took the pumps in huge tongs as they came trundling by on an endless chain, culling out the misfits and placing the perfect pumps on another endless chain that carried them up into the cooling room. Other men, Indians for the most part, wearing only breech-clouts, broke up the misfit pumps with huge hammers and adzes and rapidly recast them into axe heads, wagon springs, trombone slides, bullet moulds, all the by-products of a big pump-factory. There was nothing wasted, Yogi pointed out. A group of Indian boys, humming to themselves one of the old tribal chanties, squatted in a corner of the big forging room shaping the little fragments that were chipped from the pumps in casting, into safety razor blades.

  “They work naked,” Yogi said. “They’re searched as they go out. Sometimes they try and conceal the razor blades and take them out with them to bootleg.”

  “There must be quite a loss that way,” Scripps said.

  “Oh, no,” Yogi answered. “The inspectors get most of them.”

  Upstairs, apart in a separate room, two old men were working. Yogi opened the door. One of the old men looked over his steel spectacles and frowned.

  “You make a draft,” he said.

  “Shut the door,” the other old man said, in the high, complaining voice of the very old.

  “They’re our two hand-workers,” Yogi said. “They make all the pumps the manufactory sends out to the big international pump races. You remember our Peerless Pounder that won the pump race in Italy, where Franky Dawson was killed?”

  “I read about it in the paper,” Scripps answered.

  “Mr. Borrow, over there in the corner, made the Peerless Pounder all himself by hand,” Yogi said.

  “I carved it direct from the steel with this knife.” Mr. Borrow held up a short-bladed, razorlike-looking knife. “Took me eighteen months to get it right.”

  “The Peerless Pounder was quite a pump all right,” the high-voiced little old man said. “But we’re working on one now that will show its heels to any of them foreign pumps, aren’t we, Henry?”

  “That’s Mr. Shaw,” Yogi said in an undertone. “He’s probably the greatest living pump-maker.”

  “You boys get along and leave us alone,” Mr. Borrow. said. He was carving away steadily, his infirm old hands shaking a little between strokes.

  “Let the boys watch,” Mr. Shaw said. “Where you from, young feller?”

  “I’ve just come from Mancelona,” Scripps answered. “My wife left me.”

  “Well, you won’t have no difficulty finding another one,” Mr. Shaw said. “You’re a likely-looking young feller. But take my advice and take your time. A poor wife ain’t much better than no wife at all.”

  “I wouldn’t say that, Henry,” Mr. Borrow remarked in his high voice. “Any wife at all’s a pretty good wife the way things are going now.”

  “You take my advice, young feller, and go slow. Get yourself a good one this time.”

  “Henry knows a thing or two,” Mr. Borrow said. “He knows what he’s talking about there.” He laughed a high, cackling laugh. Mr. Shaw, the old pump-maker, blushed.

  “You boys get along and leave us get on with our pump-making,” he said. “Henry and me here, we got a sight of work to do.”

  “I’m very glad to have met you,” Scripps said.

  “Come on,” Yogi said. “I better get you started or the foreman will be on my tail.”

  He put Scripps to work collaring pistons in the piston-collaring room. There Scripps worked for almost a year. In some ways it was the happiest year of his life. In other ways it was a nightmare. A hideous nightmare. In the end he grew to like it. In other ways he hated it. Before he knew it, a year had passed. He was still collaring pistons. But what strange things had happened in that year. Often he wondered about them. As he wondered, collaring a piston now almost automatically, he listened to the laughter that came up from below, where the little Indian lads were shaping what were to be razor blades. As he listened something rose in his throat and almost choked him

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  That night, after his first day in the pump-factory, the first day in what was or were to become an endless succession of days of dull piston-collaring, Scripps went again to the beanery to eat. All day he had kept his bird concealed. Something told him that the pump-factory was not the place to bring his bird out in. During the day the bird had several times made him uncomfortable, but he had adjusted his clothes to it and even cut a little slit the bird could poke his beak out through in search of fresh air. Now the day’s work was over. It was finished. Scripps on his way to the beanery. Scripps happy that he was working with his hands. Scripps thinking of the old pump-makers. Scripps going to the society of the friendly waitress. Who was that waitress, anyway? What was it had happened to her in Paris? He must find out more about this Paris. Yogi Johnson had been there. He would quiz Yogi. Get him to talk. Draw him out. Make him tell what he knew. He knew a trick or two about that.

  Watching the sunset out over the Petoskey Harbor, the lake now frozen and great blocks of ice jutting up over the breakwater, Scripps strode down the streets of Petoskey to the beanery. He would have liked to ask Yogi Johnson to eat with him, but he didn’t dare. Not yet. That would come later. All in good time. No need to rush matters with a man like Yogi. Who was Yogi, anyway? Had he really been in the war? What had the war meant to him? Was he really the first man to enlist from Cadillac? Where was Cadillac, anyway? Time would tell.

  Scripps O’Neil opened the door and went into the beanery. The elderly waitress got up from the chair where she had been reading the overseas edition of The Manchester Guardian, and put the paper and her steelrimmed spectacles on top of the cash register.

  “Good evening,” she said simply. “It’s good to have you back,”

  Something stirred inside Scripps O’Neil. A feeling that he could not define came within him.

  “I’ve been working all day long”—he looked at the elderly waitress—”for you,” he added.

  “How lovely!” she said. And then smiled shyly. “And I have been working all day long—for you.”

  Tears came into Scripps’s eyes. Something stirred inside him again. He reached forward to take the elderly waitress’s hand, and with quiet dignity she laid it within his own. “You are my woman,” he said. Tears came into her eyes, too.

  “You are my man,” she said.

  “Once again I say: you are my woman.” Scripps pronounced the words solemnly. Something had broken inside him again. He felt he could not keep from crying.

  “Let this be our wedding ceremony,” the elderly waitress said. Scripps pressed her hand. “You are my woman,” he said simply.

  “You are my man and more than my man.” She looked into his eyes. “You are all of America to me.”

  “Let us go,” Scripps said.

  “Have you your bird?” asked the waitress, laying aside her apron and folding the copy of The Manchester Guardian Weekly. “I’ll bring The Guardian, if you don’t mind,” she said, wrapping the paper in her apron. “It’s a new paper and I’ve not read it yet.”

  “I’m very fond of The Guardian,” Scripps said. “My family have taken it ever since I can remember. My father was a gr
eat admirer of Gladstone.”

  “My father went to Eton with Gladstone,” the elderly waitress said. “And now I am ready.”

  She had donned a coat and stood ready, her apron, her steel-rimmed spectacles in their worn black morocco case, her copy of The Manchester Guardian held in her hand.

  “Have you no hat?” asked Scripps.

  “No.”

  “Then I will buy you one,” Scripps said tenderly.

  “It will be your wedding gift,” the elderly waitress said. Again there were tears shone in her eyes.

  “And now let us go,” Scripps said.

  The elderly waitress came out from behind the counter, and together, hand in hand, they strode out into the night.

  Inside the beanery the black cook pushed up the wicket and looked through from the kitchen. “Dey’ve gone off,” he chuckled. “Gone off into de night. Well, well, well.” He closed the wicket softly. Even he was a little impressed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Half an hour later Scripps O’Neil and the elderly waitress returned to the beanery as man and wife. The beanery looked much the same. There was the long counter, the salt cellars, the sugar containers, the catsup bottle, the Worcestershire Sauce bottle. There was the wicket that led into the kitchen. Behind the counter was the relief waitress. She was a buxom, jolly-looking girl, and she wore a white apron. At the counter, reading a Detroit paper, sat a drummer. The drummer was eating a T-bone steak and hashed-brown potatoes. Something very beautiful had happened to Scripps and the elderly waitress. Now they were hungry. They wished to eat.

  The elderly waitress looking at Scripps. Scripps looking at the elderly waitress. The drummer reading his paper and occasionally putting a little catsup on his hashed-brown potatoes. The other waitress, Mandy, back of the counter in her freshly starched white apron. The frost on the windows. The warmth inside. The cold outside. Scripps’s bird, rather rumpled now, sitting on the counter and preening his feathers.

  “So you’ve come back,” Mandy the waitress said. “The cook said you had gone out into the night.”

  The elderly waitress looked at Mandy, her eyes brightened, her voice calm and now of a deeper, richer timbre.

  “We are man and wife now,” she said kindly. “We have just been married. What would you like to eat for supper, Scripps, dear?”

  “I don’t know,” Scripps said. He felt vaguely uneasy. Something was stirring within him.

  “Perhaps you have eaten enough of the beans, dear Scripps,” the elderly waitress, now his wife, said. The drummer looked up from his paper. Scripps noticed that it was the Detroit News. There was a fine paper.

  “That’s a fine paper you’re reading,” Scripps said to the drummer.

  “It’s a good paper, the News,” the drummer said. “You two on your honeymoon?”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Scripps said; “we are man and wife now.”

  “Well,” said the drummer, “that’s a mighty fine thing to be. I’m a married man myself.”

  “Are you?” said Scripps. “My wife left me. It was in Mancelona. “

  “Don’t let’s talk of that any more, Scripps, dear,” Mrs. Scripps said. “You’ve told that story so many times.”

  “Yes, dear,” Scripps agreed. He felt vaguely mistrustful of himself. Something, somewhere was stirring inside of him. He looked at the waitress called Mandy, standing robust and vigorously lovely in her newly starched white apron. He watched her hands, healthy, calm, capable hands, doing the duties of her waitresshood.

  “Try one of these T-bones with hashed-brown potatoes,” the drummer suggested. “They got a nice T-bone here.”

  “Would you like one, dear?” Scripps asked his wife.

  “I’ll just take a bowl of milk and crackers,” the elderly Mrs. Scripps said. “You have whatever you want, dear.”

  “Here’s your crackers and milk, Diana,” Mandy said, placing them on the counter. “Do you want a T-bone, sir?”

  “Yes,” Scripps said. Something stirred again within him.

  “Well done or rare?”

  “Rare, please.”

  The waitress turned and called into the wicket: “Tea for one. Let it go raw!”

  “Thank you,” Scripps said. He eyed the waitress Mandy. She had a gift for the picturesque in speech, that girl. It had been that very picturesque quality in her speech that had first drawn him to his present wife. That and her strange background. England, the Lake Country. Scripps striding through the Lake Country with Wordsworth. A field of golden daffodils. The wind blowing at Windermere. Far off, perhaps, a stag at bay. Ah, that was farther north, in Scotland. They were a hardy race, those Scots, deep in their mountain fastnesses. Harry Lauder and his pipe. The Highlanders in the Great War. Why had not he, Scripps, been in the war? That was where that chap Yogi Johnson had it on him. The war would have meant much to him, Scripps. Why hadn’t he been in it? Why hadn’t he heard of it in time? Perhaps he was too old. Look at that old French General Joffre, though. Surely he was a younger man than that old general. General Foch praying for victory. The French troops kneeling along the Chemin des Dames, praying for victory. The Germans with their “Gott mit uns.” What a mockery. Surely he was no older than that French General Foch. He wondered.

  Mandy, the waitress, placed his T-bone steak and hashed-brown potatoes on the counter before him. As she laid the plate down, just for an instant, her hand touched his. Scripps felt a strange thrill go through him. Life was before him. He was not an old man. Why were there no wars now? Perhaps there were. Men were fighting in China, Chinamen, Chinamen killing one another. What for? Scripps wondered. What was it all about, anyway?

  Mandy, the buxom waitress, leaned forward. “Say,” she said, “did I ever tell you about the last words of Henry James?”

  “Really, dear Mandy,” Mrs. Scripps said, “you’ve told that story rather often.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Scripps said. “I’m very interested in Henry James.” Henry James, Henry James. That chap who had gone away from his own land to live in England among Englishmen. Why had he done it? For what had he left America? Weren’t his roots here? His brother William. Boston. Pragmatism. Harvard University. Old John Harvard with silver buckles on his shoes. Charley Brickley. Eddie Mahan. Where were they now?

  “Well,” Mandy began, “Henry James became a British subject on his death-bed. At once, as soon as the king heard Henry James had become a British subject he sent around the highest decoration in his power to bestow—the Order of Merit.”

  “The O. M.,” the elderly Mrs. Scripps explained.

  “That was it,” the waitress said. “Professors Gosse and Saintsbury came with the man who brought the decoration. Henry James was lying on his death-bed, and his eyes were shut. There was a single candle on a table beside the bed. The nurse allowed them to come near the bed, and they put the ribbon of the decoration around James’s neck, and the decoration lay on the sheet over Henry James’s chest. Professors Gosse and Saintsbury leaned forward and smoothed the ribbon of the decoration. Henry James never opened his eyes. The purse told them they all must go out of the room, and they all went out of the room. When they were all gone, Henry James spoke to the nurse. He never opened his eyes. ‘Nurse,’ Henry James said, ‘put out the candle, nurse, and spare my blushes.’ Those were the last words he ever spoke.”

  “James was quite a writer,” Scripps O’Neil said. He was strangely moved by the story.

  “You don’t always tell it the same way, dear,” Mrs. Scripps remarked to Mandy. There were tears in Mandy’s eyes. “I feel very strongly about Henry James,” she said.

  “What was the matter with James?” asked the drummer. “Wasn’t America good enough for him?”

  Scripps O’Neil was thinking about Mandy, the waitress. What a background she must have, that girl! What a fund of anecdotes! A chap could go far wit
h a woman like that to help him! He stroked the little bird that sat on the lunch-counter before him. The bird pecked at his finger. Was the little bird a hawk? A falcon, perhaps, from one of the big Michigan falconries. Was it perhaps a robin? Pulling and tugging at the early worm on some green lawn somewhere? He wondered.

  “What do you call your bird?” the drummer asked.

  “I haven’t named him yet. What would you call him?”

  “Why not call him Ariel?” Mandy asked.

  “Or Puck,” Mrs. Scripps put in.

  “What’s it mean?” asked the drummer.

  “It’s a character out of Shakespeare,” Mandy explained.

  “Oh, give the bird a chance.”

  “What would you call him?” Scripps turned to the drummer.

  “He ain’t a parrot, is he?” asked the drummer. “If he was a parrot you could call him Polly.”

  “There’s a character in ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ called Polly,” Mandy explained.

  Scripps wondered. Perhaps the bird was a parrot. A parrot strayed from some comfortable home with some old maid. The untilled soil of some New England spinster.

  “Better wait till you see how he turns out,” the drummer advised. “You got plenty of time to name him.”

  This drummer had sound ideas. He, Scripps, did not even know what sex the bird was. Whether he was a boy bird or a girl bird.

  “Wait till you see if he lays eggs,” the drummer suggested. Scripps looked into the drummer’s eyes. The fellow had voiced his own unspoken thought.

  “You know a thing or two, drummer,” he said.

  “Well,” the drummer admitted modestly, “I ain’t drummed all these years for nothing.”

  “You’re right there, pal,” Scripps said.

  “That’s a nice bird you got there, brother,” the drummer said. “You want to hang onto that bird.”

  Scripps knew it. Ah, these drummers know a thing or two. Going up and down over the face of this great America of ours. These drummers kept their eyes open. They were no fools.