bringing a discussion around to the point where he could put the question casually enough.
“How was it… do you think, that all these things…” he gestured widely with his hands, “how was it that the world happened to be made?”
The answer came quickly. Weston was the spokesman, although apparently any of the children could have answered: “Why, the
Ish caught his breath. Yet, immediately, he saw how the idea had arisen. After all, if a child asked who made the houses or the streets or the canned food, any of the older ones would have said naturally that the Americans did. He followed up with another question.
“And the Americans—what about them?”
“Oh, the Americans were the old people.”
This time Ish found it a little harder to adjust quickly. In “the old people” he sensed not merely a reference to time, but also something close to superstition. “The old people”—that had once meant fairies, people of the Other-world. That might be its meaning now again. Here was something he should work to counteract.
“I was…” He began simply. Then he paused and corrected himself, seeing no reason to use the past tense.
When he spoke, though they were the simplest of words, he had a curious feeling of pride come over him, as if flags were flying and bands playing. It had been a great thing, in those Old Times, to be an American. You had been deeply conscious of being one of a great nation. It was no mere matter of pride, but also there went with it a profound sense of confidence and security in life, and a comradeship of millions. Yet now he had hesitated to speak in the present tense.
In the silence of his pause he saw the children looking at him, and then suddenly he sensed that his explanation had missed fire. He had merely been trying to explain that there was nothing supernatural in those old people who had been the Americans. He had tried merely to say, “Look at me, I’m Ish, father of some of you, granddad of one. I’ve rolled on the floor with you. You’ve mussed my hair. Yes, I’m only Ish. And now when I say, ‘I’m an American,’ I mean that there is nothing supernatural about Americans. They were only people too.”
This was what he had thought they would understand, but it had gone the other way round. When he had said, “I am an American,” they had nodded inwardly, interpreting, “Yes, naturally, you are an American. You have many strange knowledges which we simple ones do not have. You teach us reading and writing. You tell tales about the world being round. You talk about numbers. You carry the hammer. Yes, it is plain that people like you made all the world, and you are merely one who lingers over from the Old Times. You
As he looked about, almost wildly at this new thought, the silence was deep, and he saw Joey smiling at him. It was a knowing smile, as if Joey was saying, “We two have something in common. I am like one of the Old People who has been left over. I can read; I understand those things. Without being hurt, I carry the hammer.”
Ish was glad that he had the foresight to ask his question just before noon. There was nothing he could muster now, either for question or reply. “School dismissed,” he said.
Chapter 6
One late afternoon Ish was talking with Joey, or actually they were continuing Joey’s education by means of playschool. Ish had collected some money, and was teaching Joey a little about history and the old economics. Joey liked the bright jingly nickels with the figure of the strange humped animal. As a young child would have done even in the Old Times, he preferred the nickels to the uninteresting bills with their picture of a bearded man who looked something like Uncle George. Ish was trying to find ways to explain.
Just as he thought he had put the point across, he heard a strange and yet old and familiar sound. He lifted his head and waited tensely, mouth open to listen. It came again, much closer—the
“Hey, Em!” he yelled. “They’re back!” He jumped up, letting the bills scatter from his hand to the floor.
He and Em and the children all came rushing out, and there was a universal running and yapping of dogs, just as the jeep came down the road. It was dirty and travel-worn and banged-about, but it had got through. Ish had still a moment of tension. Then the boys jumped out, yelling loudly, obviously alive and well. A sudden sense of profound relief let him know how much he had really been worrying about them.
The boys stood there, surrounded by a little mob of yelling children. Ish held back, almost diffident. Then his eyes caught another movement. There must be someone else in the jeep. Yes, now the person was starting to get out. Ish had a sharp sensation of alarm, of resentment, at the intruder.
First, as the head was thrust out from the low door, Ish saw a bald crown and a brown beard, which would have been handsome if it had not been stained with tobacco and dirty-looking, and scraggly around the edges where it had been haggled with scissors. The man stepped out, and slowly straightened up.
Ish, almost in panic, appraised him. A big fellow—tall and large-framed and heavy! He was powerful, and yet there had been little vigor in his movement as he straightened up. Yes, powerful, but with some inner trouble, and too heavy! The pudgy fat of the thick-featured face had squeezed in upon the eyes, narrowing them.
“Pig-eyes!” thought Ish, still in resentment.
The children were milling around, and the man stood in their midst, just as he had stepped down from the car. He looked up, and saw Ish, and their glances met. The man’s little fat-encroached eyes were bright blue. He smiled at Ish.
Ish smiled back, though he raised the corners of his mouth only by conscious effort. “Should have smiled first,” he was thinking. “He put me at my ease. I should have done it with him. He’s powerful, even though his fat looks soft and unhealthy.”
Ish broke up the situation by striding forward to grasp Bob’s hand. But even as he did so, the newcomer was still in his mind—“About my age,” he was thinking. Now Bob was making the introduction.
“This is our friend Charlie!” he said simply, and he slapped Charlie on the back.
“Glad to see you!” Ish managed to say, but even the old meaningless words did not slide out naturally. He looked straight at the narrow blue eyes, and in the tenseness of his look there was perhaps a conscious defiance. No, those others were not pig-eyes. Boar’s eyes! Strength and ferocity behind the baby-blue. As they shook hands, Ish felt his own grasp the weaker. The other could have squeezed and hurt him if he had wished.
Now Bob had taken Charlie away, to introduce him to the others. Ish felt his resentment growing, not decreasing. “Careful!” he thought.
But he had imagined the return as a reunion with no discordant elements.
And here was Charlie!
Handsome, no doubt—in a way! A good companion—so the actions of the boys seemed to testify! But—yes —Charlie was dirty. That thought gave a background of rationality to the unreasoning dislike. Charlie was dirty, and from inner reaction Ish felt himself going on to think that Charlie must be in some way dirty inside, through and through, as well as outside.
Dirt—the ever-present dirt of the earth—that was something which bothered Ish no more than it bothered anyone else these days. But the impression of dirt that Ish gained from Charlie was something different. Perhaps, he analyzed quickly, it was the clothes. Charlie was wearing what had in late years become a rarity, a business suit. He was even wearing the vest, because the afternoon was cold with low-drifting clouds. But the suit seemed greasy, and you would have said that it was egg-spotted, if there had been possibility of a man’s having had eggs to eat recently.
They all went trooping up to the house suddenly, Ish with them, not leading. The living-room was jammed. The two boys, and Charlie, held the center. The children looked marveling at the boys, as explorers returned from a far expedition, and they eyed Charlie with as much wonder, because they were unused to seeing any stranger. It was one of the biggest occasions that anyone could well imagine. Ish thought to himself it was a time to open champagne, if he had any ice. Then he wondered why the idea seemed ironic.
“Did you make it?” everyone was asking at once. “How far did you get? What about that big city—what’s its
