Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Pacifism -- Fiction; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction
The Inger sat silent, but in his face came light, as if back upon him
were that which she had kindled there in the hut, by her trust in him,
and as if it were not again to darken. The train began to move, and he
sat there and did not heed it.
“Good-bye—oh, good-bye!” she said. “We’re going!”
“Yes,” he said, “we’re going! I donno what you’ll say—I got me a
ticket too.”
V
IT was black dawn when Lory and the Inger reached Chicago. Not the gray
dawn that he had sometimes known slipping down the sides of the cañons;
not the red dawn that had drawn him to his hut door to face upward to
the flaming sky, and had sent him naked and joyous, into the pool of
the mountain stream; and not the occasional white dawn, which had left
him silent on his shelf of Whiteface, staring at the flare of silver
in the east, and afterward letting fall into his skillet bacon and
dripping—but without thinking of bacon and dripping at all.
There in the railway sheds this Chicago dawn had no red, no white, no
gray. It was merely a thinning of the dark, so that the station lamps
began to be unnecessary. In this strange chill air of day, the men and
women dropped from the Overland, and streamed steadfastly away, each
in an incredible faith of destination. And from invisible sources there
came those creeping gases which are slaves to man, but fasten upon his
throat like hands, and press and twist, and take their toll of him.
Lory looked up at the Inger questioningly:
“Had it ought to be like this,” she asked, “or is something happening?”
“Seems as if something must be happening,” he answered.
They went into the street, and the Inger took from her the slip of
paper on which was written her aunt’s address. He held it out to the
first man he saw, to the second, to the third, and each one answered
him with much pointing, in a broken tongue which was indistinguishable,
and hurried on. Lory looked at the stream of absorbed, leaden faces of
those tramping to their work, heard their speech as they passed, and
turned a startled face to the Inger:
“I never thought of it,” she said. “Mebbe they don’t talk American,
East?”
“They won’t stop for us,” said the Inger. “That’s all.”
From one or two others they caught “South,” “Kedzie,” “Indiana Avenue.”
Some frankly shook their heads with “From th’ old country.” No officer
was in sight, and it occurred to neither of them to look for one. They
merely instinctively threw themselves on the stream of those others
whom they took to be like themselves.
Abruptly the Inger set down his pack in the middle of the walk, and
advanced upon the first man whom he saw. On both shoulders of this one
he brought down his hands with the grasp of a Titan. Also he shook him
slightly:
“You tell me how to get to where I’m goin’ or I’ll lamm the lights out
of you!” he roared.
The man—a young timekeeper whose work took him out earlier, so to
speak, than his station—regarded the Inger in alarm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account