The Living is Easy

by Dorothy West

  Cleo thought a moment. “It was sort of a compromise. He took the forty-five dollars, but I owe him five dollars more. He wanted fifty the first month, and if we’re satisfactory tenants, he’ll take forty-five thereafter.”

  Bart considered that. “Seems fair enough. No reason we shouldn’t be satisfactory tenants. I guess he was thinking about children being destructive. But Judy’s good as gold. Isn’t as if we had a boy,” he added rather regretfully.

  “Cleo promised me a little boy to play with,” Judy piped.

  Miss Muldoon coughed agitatedly and stole a look at Cleo’s figure. Chris’s smile widened, for he knew how much Bart wanted a son to follow him in business.

  But Bart knew better. At least he thought he did. Or did he? A wild hope began to pound in his heart. It was foolish, of course. He could count on one hand, and have fingers to spare, the number of times that Cleo had let him approach her. But perhaps that last time — though he certainly didn’t see how it was possible, with Cleo’s rigidity turning his blood to ice. Still, God worked in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. And out of the mouths of babes — Judy was God’s messenger, bearing good tidings.

  “I didn’t exactly promise,” Cleo corrected Judy. “I just said maybe.” She looked a little flustered. She didn’t want Judy to give the show away. She intended to lead Mr. Judson by degrees and duplicity.

  Bart saw the betraying look of confusion. “Don’t bother your mother, Judy,” he said. “And don’t lean against her. You’re heavy.” He regarded Cleo with awe and tenderness.

  She was aware that Miss Muldoon and Mr. Christianson were looking at her in a special way, too. Mr. Christianson’s eyes were full of gentle concern, and Miss Muldoon was staring disapprovingly at her stomach.

  She gave a little gasp of horror, then her whole Rabelaisian soul shook with silent laughter. These three poor gaping fools thought she was pregnant. Where in the world did Mr. Judson think babies came from? And what were Miss Muldoon and Mr. Christianson sticking their noses in her business for? Mr. Judson was going to have more babies than he’d bargained for, but none of them would bear him the slightest resemblance.

  Suddenly Bart said, “Oh, Great Scott!” and slapped his hands together. Worry lines wrinkled his forehead. What now, thought Cleo in exasperation, wondering if he’d been doing some figuring and was going to air the disappointments of his private life in public.

  Bart was disturbed by quite another matter. “I’m sorry now you rented that place. It’ll be too much care. I wouldn’t be easy here all day with you in a big house breaking your back. I got a good mind to call that man and tell him we’ve changed our minds.”

  Cleo thought of the pickings in her purse, and of her sisters, who were waiting, unknowingly, to be sent for.

  “No,” she said violently. “You can’t bear to let money go, can you, Mr. Judson? You’d use any excuse to get forty-five miserable dollars back.”

  Chris flagged Bart an urgent eyebrow that asked, Oughtn’t you to humor them when they’re expecting? Miss Muldoon was appalled and intrigued at the prospect of a scene, and made little sounds of disaster in her throat.

  “Take it easy, Cleo,” Bart said soothingly. “No need to fly off the handle. You got your heart set on that house. It suits me you’re satisfied. I just don’t want you overworking. Tell you what.” He paused. Slowly he scratched his bald spot. A great upheaval was going on inside him. “Tell you what,” he repeated as if it were wrung out of him, “you could hire a girl to help you. It’d kill two birds with one stone. She could take full charge of the roomers’ rooms, and help in our part of the house. If you get a young girl, you could pay her next to nothing. Or maybe a lonesome widow lady would work for room and board.”

  “I know the very woman,” Cleo said quickly. Bart had played into her hand, and she was ready with her trump card. “She might as well be a lonesome widow. Her husband’s never home. Leaves her alone night after night. She’d do the work of a dozen to be free of him for good. She’s got a little girl, and I hate to think of that poor child with a father who’ll never be worth any more than he is right now. She’s around Judy’s age. And poor little Judy told me not an hour ago how she wished she had someone to play with. That mother would go down on her knees if you gave her child shelter. You’d be snatching them both from the jaws of despair.”

  “Such a shame, such a shame,” Miss Muldoon murmured sympathetically. She felt very sorry for colored women, and it annoyed her that she could never feel sorry for Mrs. Judson.

  “Does the brute beat her?” Chris wanted to know. In the American movies that he had seen, Negro men were brutish creatures. He was glad that Mrs. Judson gave every evidence of good treatment, because he did not want to think of Bart as one of the animal Negroes.

  All that was sentimental in Bart’s nature responded to the unhappy woman’s plight. That a man could abuse the tender beings that God had given him to cherish struck him as monstrous, and such a man deserved no better than having them torn from his bosom.

  “Who is this poor woman?” he asked belligerently.

  “My sister Lily,” said Cleo.

  Bart was astounded, and both Miss Muldoon and Chris were dismayed and embarrassed that Bart’s brother-in-law was a worthless scoundrel.

  “Your sister Lily!” Bart repeated in disbelief. “First I ever heard tell that her husband was mean to her.”

  “There are some things,” said Cleo stoutly, “that I try to keep from you, so you won’t worry about my family’s troubles.”

  “Well, this’ll never do,” said Bart distractedly, remembering the bridal picture of Lily, looking young and small and scared beside a big man with what he now thought of as a mean expression. “I’ll give you some money before you leave here, and you write that poor girl our home is hers as long as she has need of it.”

  “And since she’s my sister, will you pay her a little something for helping me?” Cleo asked gently. “It would keep her from feeling like a poor relation. You wouldn’t have to give it to her yourself. She might be bashful about taking it. It could come from me.”

  “Well, it won’t be much, but I won’t see her ragged. Just don’t you worry about your sister. I don’t want you worrying about anything.”

  “You’ve taken a load off my mind,” Cleo said thankfully. She added, almost ashamedly, “You’re a good man, Mr. Judson.”

  “Well, I feel good,” Bart said expansively. “God’s walking by my side. I was telling Miss Muldoon and Chris when you came in. My luck’s running high. And that isn’t a guess. I got that straight from heaven. And that isn’t all I got. I got two cars of bananas coming here bright and early tomorrow from New York and Philadelphia. I had Pennywell wiring and telephoning all morning. I want you all to witness what I say. The Lucy Evelyn has foundered. Tomorrow won’t be a soul in the Market but me got a single stem of bananas.”

  “I believe you, Bart,” Chris said quietly. “You have a way of knowing. God knows where you get it.” He smiled. “Unless you do get it from God.” He crossed to Bart quickly and put his arm around his shoulder. “I wish I had your faith instead of my unbelief. You expect the best. I expect the worst.”

  “I try to live right,” Bart said simply. “I had my faith tried once by God. When He destroyed my Springfield stores. No need for Him to test me again. He knows my faith is rock-ribbed. He’s been showering blessings on me ever since. What you think you see ahead?”

  Chris leaned against the wall. He made a futile gesture with his hands. He looked Old World and weary. “There is a war in Europe. It is a little war. But I am a European. I know how war spreads. We have many entangling alliances. Germany will be involved and may be at this minute. Then England will get into it. And if America should aid her English cousin, the seas will be unsafe for merchant shipping.”

  Bart thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. “This is July in the year of our Lord nineteen-fourteen. I’m willing to lay you a bet that England will never g
o to war. Wasn’t nothing happened in those two little queer-named countries to put her back up. And should it happen — though I say it won’t — that England does decide to fight, it’d take a long time before America could get worked up enough to follow suit. We’re for peace in this country. We got a peace-minded President. And no war between two little old dots on a map would last long enough in a civilized world to bring America into it.”

  “I won’t take your bet because I want to believe you,” Chris said wryly.

  “And you can believe me, doubting Thomas,” Bart said, with a smile. “Because I’m not claiming I got this from God. I’m just talking plain common sense.”

  Judy tugged at Cleo and whispered in her ear. Bart saw her and grinned. “Come on, girls. I want to show you the stock.”

  Cleo, returning from her hurried trip with Judy, found Bart waiting at the rear of the store. His face lighted up at sight of them. She could see that he was bursting with pride to show them the world he had made for them out of his talent for buying the best and bringing it to perfection. She had seen the store too often to be moved in any way. He had seen sixteen years in these rooms, but when he turned his key in the lock at dawn of every morning, he felt a great joy that all of this was his.

  “Let’s go,” he said eagerly, clapping and rubbing his hands as he did when excited. In a way he was going to show his store to his son.

  Cleo looked bored and bit her lip. “Judy hasn’t had lunch.”

  He said quickly, apologetically: “I won’t keep you long. And I’ll give you the money to take Judy to lunch in the best restaurant in Boston.” He heard the expensive echo of that in his ears. “Though there’s some nice clean places right here in the Market, and she won’t have to go far before she eats. I’d take you myself, but I’m due at an auction. Big shipment of grapes and onions from Spain. Be a crowd at inspection. I want to get there with the early bird.”

  “Don’t you bid too high,” she said fretfully, seeing the milling men throwing money away with the flick of a hand.

  “You worry your head about woman affairs. I’ll do the rest of the worrying,” he said paternally.

  “In other words, don’t meddle with your money,” she snapped.

  “It’s the child’s money,” he answered soberly, “and should God bless us with another, it’s for them both. Everything I do is to secure the future. No one of mine will ever want when I’m not here to take care of them.”

  “Let’s get going,” she said impatiently, for he was talking about saving again, and she was sick of the subject.

  Suddenly he swept Judy up in one arm and caught Cleo close to him with the other. His devotion to his wife and child was like an aura around them. Cleo felt her throat contract with a strange compassion, and she could not bear the emotion that made her see his singleness of heart. She tore herself away from him lest she reveal her understanding and return his tenderness.

  “You show Judy the store,” she said shakily. “I’ll go ask Miss Muldoon for a piece of paper to write to Lily. The quicker she gets word from me, the quicker she’ll take heart.”

  She turned and fled from his love.

  The horn of plenty had poured its harvest into every available foot of space in the store. Three of the four big rooms ran over with produce, and the fourth would be filled with Jamaican bananas when the freight cars rolled into the yards the next morning. From the ceiling in the banana room depended a thousand hooks from which swung the knotted ropes that held the heavy stems. The long middle section of the store, off which these storage and ripening rooms opened, was piled high with crates and barrels and boxes ready for shipment to various cities in New England and Canada.

  The murmurs and movements of the six Greek helpers were continuous. Three of them were year-round helpers, the three others were hired when the earth’s yield was richest and the daily turnover was tremendous. They respected the black man who was their exacting boss because he could do any one of their tasks, from making a crate to sizing fruit for the count, with more speed and efficiency than any one of them. As Bart and Judy walked past them, they lifted their peasant faces. They had the same look of earth and toil as Bart.

  In the office Cleo wrote busily, while Chris checked accounts with Miss Muldoon in a low voice so that he would not disturb her. Every once in a while Cleo raised her head to peep at them suspiciously, but she never caught either one of them toying with the till.

  She signed her scrawl to Lily and read it.

  Dear Lily,

  I will not write a long letter. There is nothing to say but to beg you to come as soon as you can get yourself and Victoria together. I am enclosing your fare, so there won’t be any holdup while Victor hems and haws. I know how you hate to travel, so you know I would not send for you if I could straighten things out without your help. I am moving to a new address. Things will be brighter there. It will seem like a different life. Mr. Judson didn’t want me to go, but I couldn’t stand it any longer. Write at once to my old address what day to expect you, and I will meet your train.

  Hastily,

  CLEO

  She smiled with satisfaction. Lily would think she was leaving Mr. Judson. Since Lily, along with poor misguided Serena and Charity, was such a firm believer in the bonds of matrimony, she would brave the iron monster to shepherd her sister back into the marriage fold.

  This speculation produced a natural sequel in Cleo’s wily mind. She released a quiet chuckle, then touched the tip of her pencil with her tongue and began to scribble furiously on a second sheet of paper. Things got done if you did them without thinking. If you thought, your scruples stopped you. It was always better to do today what your conscience might not let you do tomorrow.

  Dear Charity [her pencil scratched hurriedly]

  Lily is coming to see me. I guess she’s written you time and again how she hates to travel. So it must be a serious matter to get her on a train. It is my guess she’s planning to stay. She’s been eight years making up her mind to make the trip to Boston. It will take a power of persuasion to get her back to New York. That is where you come in. We sisters don’t turn our backs on each other in time of trouble. I’m enclosing fare for you and Penny. As soon as I get my hands on more money, I’m sending for Serena. Don’t try to write Lily. Victor might get hold of the letter and make it hard for her. Tell Ben not to expect you until we’ve straightened Lily out and sent her back to her husband. Write me by return mail what day you can come, and I will meet your train.

  Hastily,

  CLEO

  She inserted her composition in one of Bart’s envelopes, leaving it unsealed until she could include a money order. If Mr. Judson was giving her Lily’s train fare, she had the means for Charity’s.

  She heard Bart and Judy approaching and thrust the second letter in her purse. As they entered, she held up her letter to Lily.

  “It’s finished. I left it open so I could put in the money.”

  Bart nodded approval, then turned to Miss Muldoon. “How much cash can we spare?”

  She opened the till. “How much do you want?”

  He calculated rapidly. “Five dollars for that landlord, about fifty dollars to send my wife’s sister. Don’t want her and the child coming here naked. And five dollars for Cleo to fritter away.” He turned to her. “Does that fit the bill?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly. She was piling up a surplus at such a rapid rate that even she could not ask for more.

  “And we’ll see about furniture whatever day you feel like shopping for it. And, oh, Miss Muldoon, better add another five dollars. And, Cleo, I want you to go by the doctor’s before you go home.”

  Miss Muldoon counted out sixty-five dollars, with Cleo watching carefully to see if she palmed a bill.

  “You’d better send Lily a money order,” Bart advised. “I wouldn’t put too much cash in a letter.”

  “Neither would I,” said Cleo.

  She rose to go. Bart walked with her and Judy to the sidewalk.
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  He suddenly remembered something. “Was there anything special you came for? Anything you want?”

  “I came to ask you for some money,” she said truthfully. The bank roll that Bart had had last night had worried her all morning. It had been her plan to shame him into parting with some more of it to avert a family spat before Miss Muldoon and Chris. “I sort of wanted to go to a sale,” she explained, with a show of diffidence. “But after all you’re doing for Lily, I wouldn’t be telling you if you hadn’t asked me.”

  “Never mind about what I’m doing for Lily. You know I don’t want you or the child to go without as long as I’m able to see that you don’t. You know it’s my pride to be a good provider.” He dug in his pocket and produced some crumpled bills. “I paid a big bill this morning, but I’ll give you all I’ve got. This ought to buy some sensible thing you see.”

  She stuffed the money in her plump purse and smiled up at the bright blue sky. “It’s one beautiful day,” she said peacefully.

  She caught Judy’s hand and walked away, and it seemed to her that behind her walked all the Jerichos, following her lead.

  CHAPTER 8

  AT TWO O’CLOCK, Cleo climbed the stairs of a fine old brownstone dwelling. Judy wearily plodded after her, taking the steep steps one at a time and wanting sympathy for her bruised shank. A ribbon had come untied and dangled dismally down her back. A brown begrimed knee emerged from a hole in her stocking. The patent-leather toes of her buttoned shoes were badly scuffed, and a button had wrenched off one cloth upper in the disgraceful fall that followed her race with Cleo to a closing elevator door.

  Cleo stood on the top stair and eyed her daughter with disapproval. She hoped that Judy was not going to be a careless dresser when she grew up. Judy returned her frosty stare with a look of such solemn reproach that Cleo blushed a little and gave her a guilty smile. There were times when she was thoroughly disconcerted by the fact that her child was a separate being with independent emotions. To her a child was a projection of its mother, like an arm which functioned in unison with other component parts and had no will that was not controlled by the head of the woman who owned it.