The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  Following the two little girls, Jimmie eventually passed into that suburb of Whilomville which is called Oakland Park. At his heels came a badly battered retainer. Oakland Park was a somewhat strange country to the boys. They were dubious of the manners and customs, and of course they would have to meet the local chieftains, who might look askance upon this invasion.

  Jimmie’s girl departed into her home with a last backward glance that almost blinded the thrilling boy. On this pretext and that pretext, he kept his retainer in play before the house. He had hopes that she would emerge as soon as she had deposited her schoolbag.

  A boy came along the walk. Jimmie knew him at school. He was Tommie Semple, one of the weaklings who made friends with the fair sex. “Hello, Tom,” said Jimmie. “You live round here?”

  “Yeh,” said Tom, with composed pride. At school he was afraid of Jimmie, but he did not evince any of this fear as he strolled well inside his own frontiers. Jimmie and his retainer had not expected this boy to display the manners of a minor chief, and they contemplated him attentively. There was a silence.

  Finally Jimmie said: “I can put you down.” He moved forward briskly. “Can’t I?” he demanded.

  The challenged boy backed away. “I know you can,” he declared, frankly and promptly.

  The little girl in the red hood had come out with a hoop. She looked at Jimmie with an air of insolent surprise in the fact that he still existed, and began to trundle her hoop off toward some other little girls who were shrilly playing near a nursemaid and a perambulator.

  Jimmie adroitly shifted his position until he too was playing near the perambulator, pretentiously making mincemeat out of his retainer and Tommie Semple.

  Of course little Abbie had defined the meaning of Jimmied appearance in Oakland Park. Despite this nonchalance and grand air of accident, nothing could have been more plain. Whereupon she of course became insufferably vain in manner, and whenever Jimmie came near her she tossed her head and turned away her face, and daintily swished her skirts as if he were contagion itself. But Jimmie was happy. His soul was satisfied with the mere presence of the beloved object so long as he could feel that she furtively gazed upon him from time to time and noted his extraordinary prowess, which he was proving upon the persons of his retainer and Tommie Semple. And he was making an impression. There could be no doubt of it. He had many times caught her eye fixed admiringly upon him as he mauled the retainer. Indeed, all the little girls gave attention to his deeds, and he was the hero of the hour.

  Presently a boy on a velocipede was seen to be tooling down toward them. “Who’s this comin’?” said Jimmie, bluntly, to the Semple boy.

  “That’s Horace Glenn,” said Tommie, “an’ he’s got a new velocipede, an’ he can ride it like anything.”

  “Can you lick him?” asked Jimmie.

  “I don’t—I never fought with ’im,” answered the other. He bravely tried to appear as a man of respectable achievement, but with Horace coming toward them the risk was too great. However, he added, “Maybe I could.”

  The advent of Horace on his new velocipede created a sensation which he haughtily accepted as a familiar thing. Only Jimmie and his retainer remained silent and impassive. Horace eyed the two invaders.

  “Hello, Jimmie!”

  “Hello, Horace!”

  After the typical silence Jimmie said, pompously, “I got a velocipede.”

  “Have you?” asked Horace, anxiously. He did not wish anybody in the world but himself to possess a velocipede.

  “Yes,” sang Jimmie. “An’ it’s a bigger one than that, too! A good deal bigger! An’ it’s a better one, too!”

  “Huh!” retorted Horace, sceptically.

  “ ’Ain’t I, Clarence? ’Ain’t I? ’Ain’t I got one bigger’n that?”

  The retainer answered with alacrity: “Yes, he has! A good deal bigger! An’ it’s a dandy, too!”

  This corroboration rather disconcerted Horace, but he continued to scoff at any statement that Jimmie also owned a velocipede. As for the contention that this supposed velocipede could be larger than his own, he simply wouldn’t hear of it.

  Jimmie had been a very gallant figure before the coming of Horace, but the new velocipede had relegated him to a squalid secondary position. So he affected to look with contempt upon it. Voluminously he bragged of the velocipede in the stable at home. He painted its virtues and beauty in loud and extravagant words, flaming words. And the retainer stood by, glibly endorsing everything.

  The little company heeded him, and he passed on vociferously from extravagance to utter impossibility. Horace was very sick of it. His defense was reduced to a mere mechanical grumbling: “Don’t believe you got one ’tall. Don’t believe you got one ’tall.”

  Jimmie turned upon him suddenly. “How fast can you go? How fast can you go?” he demanded. “Let’s see. I bet you can’t go fast.”

  Horace lifted his spirits and answered with proper defiance. “Can’t I?” he mocked. “Can’t I?”

  “No, you can’t,” said Jimmie. “You can’t go fast.”

  Horace cried: “Well, you see me now! I’ll show you! I’ll show you if I can’t go fast!” Taking a firm seat on his vermilion machine, he pedaled furiously up the walk, turned, and pedaled back again. “There, now!” he shouted, triumphantly. “Ain’t that fast? There, now!” There was a low murmur of appreciation from the little girls. Jimmie saw with pain that even his divinity was smiling upon his rival. “There! Ain’t that fast? Ain’t that fast?” He strove to pin Jimmie down to an admission. He was exuberant with victory.

  Notwithstanding a feeling of discomfiture, Jimmie did not lose a moment of time. “Why,” he yelled, “that ain’t goin’ fast ’tall! That ain’t goin’ fast ’tall! Why, I can go almost twice as fast as that! Almost twice as fast! Can’t I, Clarence?”

  The loyal retainer nodded solemnly at the wide-eyed group. “Course you can!”

  “Why,” spouted Jimmie, “you just ought to see me ride once! You just ought to see me! Why, I can go like the wind! Can’t I, Clarence? And I can ride far, too—oh, awful far! Can’t I, Clarence? Why, I wouldn’t have that one! ’Tain’t any good! You just ought to see mine once!”

  The overwhelmed Horace attempted to reconstruct his battered glories. “I can ride right over the curbstone—at some of the crossin’s,” he announced, brightly.

  Jimmie’s derision was a splendid sight. “ ‘Right over the curbstone’! Why, that wouldn’t be nothin’ for me to do! I’ve rode mine down Bridge Street Hill. Yessir! ’Ain’t I, Clarence? Why, it ain’t nothin’ to ride over a curbstone—not for me! Is it, Clarence?”

  “Down Bridge Street hill? You never!” said Horace, hopelessly.

  “Well, didn’t I, Clarence? Didn’t I, now?”

  The faithful retainer again nodded solemnly at the assemblage.

  At last Horace, having fallen as low as was possible, began to display a spirit for climbing up again. “Oh, you can do wonders!” he said laughing. “You can do wonders! I s’pose you could ride down that bank there?” he asked, with art. He had indicated a grassy terrace some six feet in height which bounded one side of the walk. At the bottom was a small ravine in which the reckless had flung ashes and tins. “I s’pose you could ride down that bank?”

  All eyes now turned upon Jimmie to detect a sign of his weakening, but he instantly and sublimely arose to the occasion. “That bank?” he asked, scornfully. “Why, I’ve ridden down banks like that many a time. ’Ain’t I, Clarence?”

  This was too much for the company. A sound like the wind in the leaves arose; it was the song of incredulity and ridicule. “O—o—o—o—o!” And on the outskirts a little girl suddenly shrieked out, “Storyteller!”

  Horace had certainly won a skirmish. He was gleeful. “Oh, you can do wonders!” he gurgled. “You can do wonders!” The neighborhood’s superficial hostility to foreigners arose like magic under the influence of his sudden success, and Horace had the delight of seeing Jimmie
persecuted in that manner known only to children and insects.

  Jimmie called angrily to the boy on the velocipede, “If you’ll lend me yours, I’ll show you whether I can or not.”

  Horace turned his superior nose in the air. “Oh no! I don’t ever lend it.” Then he thought of a blow which would make Jimmie’s humiliation complete. “Besides,” he said, airily, “ ’tain’t really anything hard to do. I could do it—easy—if I wanted to.”

  But his supposed adherents, instead of receiving this boast with cheers, looked upon him in a sudden blank silence. Jimmie and his retainer pounced like cats upon their advantage.

  “Oh,” they yelled, “you could, eh? Well, let’s see you do it, then! Let’s see you do it! Let’s see you do it! Now!” In a moment the crew of little spectators were gibing at Horace.

  The blow that would make Jimmie’s humiliation complete! Instead, it had boomeranged Horace into the mud. He kept up a sullen muttering: “ ’Tain’t really anything! I could if I wanted to!”

  “Dare you to!” screeched Jimmie and his partisans. “Dare you to! Dare you to! Dare you to!”

  There were two things to be done—to make gallant effort or to retreat. Somewhat to their amazement, the children at last found Horace moving through their clamor to the edge of the bank. Sitting on the velocipede, he looked at the ravine, and then, with gloomy pride, at the other children. A hush came upon them, for it was seen that he was intending to make some kind of ante-mortem statement.

  “I—” he began. Then he vanished from the edge of the walk. The start had been unintentional—an accident.

  The stupefied Jimmie saw the calamity through a haze. His first clear vision was when Horace, with a face as red as a red flag, arose bawling from his tangled velocipede. He and his retainer exchanged a glance of horror and fled the neighborhood. They did not look back until they had reached the top of the hill near the lake. They could see Horace walking slowly under the maples toward his home, pushing his shattered velocipede before him. His chin was thrown high, and the breeze bore them the sound of his howls.

  November, 1899

  [Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 99, pp. 855–860.]

  * Whilomville Stories.

  VIRTUE IN WAR*

  [West Pointer and Volunteer; or, Virtue in War]

  I

  Gates had left the regular army in 1890, those parts of him which had not been frozen having been well fried. He took with him nothing but an oaken constitution and a knowledge of the plains and the best wishes of his fellow officers. The Standard Oil Company differs from the United States Government in that it understands the value of the loyal and intelligent services of good men and is almost certain to reward them at the expense of incapable men. This curious practice emanates from no beneficient emotion of the Standard Oil Company, on whose feelings you could not make a scar with a hammer and chisel. It is simply that the Standard Oil Company knows more than the United States Government and makes use of virtue whenever virtue is to its advantage. In 1890 Gates really felt in his bones that, if he lived a rigorously correct life and several score of his classmates and intimate friends died off, he would get command of a troop of horse by the time he was unfitted by age to be an active cavalry leader. He left the service of the United States and entered the service of the Standard Oil Company. In the course of time he knew that, if he lived a rigorously correct life, his position and income would develop strictly in parallel with the worth of his wisdom and experience, and he would not have to walk on the corpses of his friends.

  But he was not happier. Part of his heart was in a barrack, and it was not enough to discourse of the old regiment over the port and cigars to ears which were polite enough to betray a languid ignorance. Finally came the year 1898, and Gates dropped the Standard Oil Company as if it were hot. He hit the steel trail to Washington and there fought the first serious action of the war. Like most Americans, he had a native State, and one morning he found himself major in a volunteer infantry regiment whose voice had a peculiar sharp twang to it which he could remember from childhood. The colonel welcomed the West Pointer with loud cries of joy; the lieutenant colonel looked at him with the pebbly eye of distrust; and the senior major, having had up to this time the best battalion in the regiment, strongly disapproved of him. There were only two majors, so the lieutenant colonel commanded the first battalion, which gave him an occupation. Lieutenant colonels under the new rules do not always have occupations. Gates got the third battalion—four companies commanded by intelligent officers who could gauge the opinions of their men at two thousand yards and govern themselves accordingly. The battalion was immensely interested in the new major. It thought it ought to develop views about him. It thought it was its blankety-blank business to find out immediately if it liked him personally. In the company streets the talk was nothing else. Among the non-commissioned officers there were eleven old soldiers of the regular army, and they knew—and cared—that Gates had held commission in the “Sixteenth Cavalry”—as Harper’s Weekly says. Over this fact they rejoiced and were glad, and they stood by to jump lively when he took command. He would know his work and he would know their work, and then in battle there would be killed only what men were absolutely necessary, and the sick list would be comparatively free of fools.

  The commander of the second battalion had been called by an Atlanta paper “Major Rickets C. Carmony, the commander of the second battalion of the 307th——, when at home one of the biggest wholesale hardware dealers in his State. Last evening he had ice cream, at his own expense, served out at the regular mess of the battalion, and after dinner the men gathered about his tent, where three hearty cheers for the popular major were given.” Carmony had bought twelve copies of this newspaper and mailed them home to his friends.

  In Gates’s battalion there were more kicks than ice cream, and there was no ice cream at all. Indignation ran high at the rapid manner in which he proceeded to make soldiers of them. Some of his officers hinted finally that the men wouldn’t stand it. They were saying that they had enlisted to fight for their country—yes, but they weren’t going to be bullied day in and day out by a perfect stranger. They were patriots, they were, and just as good men as ever stepped—just as good as Gates or anybody like him. But, gradually, despite itself, the battalion progressed. The men were not altogether conscious of it. They evolved rather blindly. Presently there were fights with Carmony’s crowd as to which was the better battalion at drills, and at last there was no argument. It was generally admitted that Gates commanded the crack battalion. The men, believing that the beginning and the end of all soldiering was in these drills of precision, were somewhat reconciled to their major when they began to understand more of what he was trying to do for them, but they were still fiery untamed patriots of lofty pride, and they resented his manner toward them. It was abrupt and sharp.

  The time came when everybody knew that the Fifth Army Corps was the corps designated for the first active service in Cuba. The officers and men of the 307th observed with despair that their regiment was not in the Fifth Army Corps. The colonel was a strategist. He understood everything in a flash. Without a moment’s hesitation he obtained leave and mounted the night express for Washington. There he drove Senators and Congressmen in span, tandem and four-in-hand. With the telegraph he stirred so deeply the governor, the people, and the newspapers of his State that whenever on a quiet night the President put his head out of the White House he could hear the distant vast commonwealth humming with indignation. And as it is well known that the Chief Executive listens to the voice of the people, the 307th was transferred to the Fifth Army Corps. It was sent at once to Tampa, where it was brigaded with two dusty regiments of regulars, who looked at it calmly and said nothing. The brigade commander happened to be no less a person than Gates’s old colonel in the “Sixteenth Cavalry”—as Harper’s Weekly says—and Gates was cheered. The old man’s rather solemn look brightened when he saw Gates in the 307th. There was a great deal of battering and po
unding and banging for the 307th at Tampa, but the men stood it, more in wonder than in anger. The two regular regiments carried them along when they could, and when they couldn’t waited impatiently for them to come up. Undoubtedly the regulars wished the volunteers were in garrison at Sitka, but they said practically nothing. They minded their own regiments. The colonel was an invaluable man in a telegraph office. When came the scramble for transports the colonel retired to a telegraph office and talked so ably to Washington that the authorities pushed a number of corps aside and made way for the 307th, as if on it depended everything. The regiment got one of the best transports, and after a series of delays and some starts and an equal number of returns, they finally sailed for Cuba.

  II

  Now Gates had a singular adventure on the second morning after his arrival at Atlanta to take his post as a major in the 307th.

  He was in his tent, writing, when suddenly the flap was flung away and a tall young private stepped inside.

  “Well, Maje,” said the newcomer, genially, “how goes it?”

  The major’s head flashed up, but he spoke without heat.

  “Come to attention and salute.”

  “Huh!” said the private.

  “Come to attention and salute.”

  The private looked at him in resentful amazement, and then inquired: “Ye ain’t mad, are ye? Ain’t nothin’ to get huffy about, is there?”

  “I— Come to attention and salute.”

  “Well,” drawled the private, as he stared, “seein’ as ye are so darn perticular, I don’t care if I do—if it’ll make yer meals set on yer stummick any better.”

  Drawing a long breath and grinning ironically, he lazily pulled his heels together and saluted with a flourish.

  “There,” he said, with a return to his earlier genial manner. “How’s that suit ye, Maje?”

  There was a silence which to an impartial observer would have seemed pregnant with dynamite and bloody death. Then the major cleared his throat and coldly said: “And now, what is your business?”