The best short stories of 1917, and the yearbook of the American short story
General
The best short stories of 1917, and the yearbook of the American short story
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories -- 20th century -- Bibliography; Short stories -- 20th century -- Indexes; Short stories, American
Larry lay with closed eyes, his face ominously white.
Dan crept clumsily to the berth and put his big hand on Larry's
shoulder.
"It's me, Mouse. They wouldn't leave me come no sooner."
Larry's head moved slightly; his faded eyes opened.
Dan stooped in awkward embarrassment until his face was close to Larry.
"I come to ask you--" Dan stopped. The muscles of his thick neck moved
jerkily--"to ask you, Mouse, before--to forgit the damn mean things--I
done to you, Mouse."
Larry made no answer; he kept his failing sight fixed on Dan.
After a long wait Sullivan spoke again.
"An' to think you done it, Mouse, for me!"
A light sprang to Larry's eyes, flooding his near-sighted gaze with
sudden anger.
"For you!" The cry came from his narrow chest with jarring force. "You!
_You!_" he repeated in rising voice. "It's always of yourself you're
thinkin', Dan Sullivan!" He stopped, his face twitching in pain; then
with both hands clenched he went on, his breast heaving at each word
hurled at Dan:
"Do you think I followed you from ship to ship, dragged you out of every
rum-hole in every port, for your own sake!"
He lay back exhausted, his chest rising and falling painfully, his
eyelids fluttering over his burning eyes.
Dan stepped back, and, silenced, stared at the dying man.
Larry clung to his last moments of life, fighting for strength to
finish. He struggled, and raised himself on one elbow.
"For you!" he screamed. "No, for Mary! For Mary, my own flesh and
blood--Mary, the child of the woman I beat when I was drunk an' left to
starve when I got ready!"
Through the stateroom door the sun's flat rays struck full on Larry's
inspired face. He swayed on his elbow; his head fell forward. By a final
effort he steadied himself. His last words came in ringing command.
"Go back! Go--" he faltered, gasping for breath--"go home sober to Mary
an' the child that's comin'!"
The fire of anger drifted slowly from Larry's dying gaze. The little man
fell back. The Bunker Mouse went out, all man, big at the end.
RAINBOW PETE[13]
[Note 13: Copyright, 1917, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1918, by Richard Matthews Hallet.]
BY RICHARD MATTHEWS HALLET
From _The Pictorial Review_
In pursuance of a policy to detain us on the island at Sick Dog until
the arrival of his daughter, Papa Isbister thought fit to tell us the
fate of Rainbow Pete, of whose physical deformity and thirst for gold we
knew something already. Rainbow Pete had come to Mushrat Portage,
playing his flute, at a time when preparations were being made to blast
a road-bed through the wilderness for the railroad.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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