Eugene believed in the glory and the gold.
He lived more at Dixieland now. He had been more closely bound to Eliza since he began at Leonard’s. Gant, Helen, and Luke were scornful of the private school. The children were resentful of it—a little jealous. And their temper was barbed now with a new sting. They would say:
“You’ve ruined him completely since you sent him to a private school.” Or, “He’s too good to soil his hands now that he’s quit the public school.”
Eliza herself kept him sufficiently reminded of his obligation. She spoke often of the effort she had to make to pay the tuition fee, and of her poverty. She said, he must work hard, and help her all he could in his spare hours. He should also help her through the summer and “drum up trade” among the arriving tourists at the station.
“For God’s sake! What’s the matter with you?” Luke jeered. “You’re not ashamed of a little honest work, are you?”
This way, sir, for Dixieland. Mrs. Eliza E. Gant, proprietor. Just A Whisper Off The Square, Captain. All the comforts of the Modern Jail. Bisquits and homemade pies just like mother should have made but didn’t.
That boy’s a hustler.
At the end of Eugene’s first year at Leonard’s, Eliza told John Dorsey she could no longer afford to pay the tuition. He conferred with Margaret and, returning, agreed to take the boy for half price.
“He can help you drum up new prospects,” said Eliza.
“Yes,” Leonard agreed, “that’s the very thing.”
Ben bought a new pair of shoes. They were tan. He paid six dollars for them. He always bought good things. But they burnt the soles of his feet. In a scowling rage he loped to his room and took them off.
“Goddam it!” he yelled, and hurled them at the wall. Eliza came to the door.
“You’ll never have a penny, boy, as long as you waste money the way you do. I tell you what, it’s pretty bad when you think of it.” She shook her head sadly with puckered mouth.
“O for God’s sake!” he growled. “Listen to this! By God, you never hear me asking anyone for anything, do you?” he burst out in a rage.
She took the shoes and gave them to Eugene.
“It would be a pity to throw away a good pair of shoes,” she said. “Try ’em on, boy.”
He tried them on. His feet were already bigger than Ben’s. He walked about carefully and painfully a few steps.
“How do they feel?” asked Eliza.
“All right, I guess,” he said doubtfully. “They’re a little tight.”
He liked their clean strength, the good smell of leather. They were the best shoes he had ever had.
Ben entered the kitchen.
“You little brute!” he said. “You’ve a foot like a mule.” Scowling, he knelt and touched the straining leather at the toes. Eugene winced.
“Mama, for God’s sake,” Ben cried out irritably, “don’t make the kid wear them if they’re too small. I’ll buy him a pair myself if you’re too stingy to spend the money.”
“Why, what’s wrong with these?” said Eliza. She pressed them with her fingers. “Why, pshaw!” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with them. All shoes are a little tight at first. It won’t hurt him a bit.”
But he had to give up at the end of six weeks. The hard leather did not stretch, his feet hurt more every day. He limped about more and more painfully until he planted each step woodenly as if he were walking on blocks. His feet were numb and dead, sore on the palms. One day, in a rage, Ben flung him down and took them off. It was several days before he began to walk with ease again. But his toes that had grown through boyhood straight and strong were pressed into a pulp, the bones gnarled, bent and twisted, the nails thick and dead.
“It does seem a pity to throw those good shoes away,” sighed Eliza.
But she had strange fits of generosity. He didn’t understand.
A girl came down to Altamont from the west. She was from Sevier, a mountain town, she said. She had a big brown body, and black hair and eyes of a Cherokee Indian.
“Mark my words,” said Gant. “That girl’s got Cherokee blood in her somewhere.”
She took a room, and for days rocked back and forth in a chair before the parlor fire. She was shy, frightened, a little sullen—her manners were country and decorous. She never spoke unless she was spoken to.
Sometimes she was sick and stayed in bed. Eliza took her food then, and was extremely kind to her.
Day after day the girl rocked back and forth, all through the stormy autumn. Eugene could hear her large feet as rhythmically they hit the floor, ceaselessly propelling the rocker. Her name was Mrs. Morgan.
One day as he laid large crackling lumps upon the piled glowing mass of coals, Eliza entered the room. Mrs. Morgan rocked away stolidly. Eliza stood by the fire for a moment, pursing her lips reflectively, and folding her hands quietly upon her stomach. She looked out the window at the stormy sky, the swept windy bareness of the street.
“I tell you what,” she said, “it looks like a hard winter for the poor folks.”
“Yes’m,” said Mrs. Morgan sullenly. She kept on rocking.
Eliza was silent a moment longer.
“Where’s your husband?” she asked presently.
“In Sevier,” Mrs. Morgan said. “He’s a railroad man.”
“What’s that, what’s that?” said Eliza quickly, comically. “A railroad man, you say?” she inquired sharply.
“Yes’m.”
“Well, it looks mighty funny to me he hasn’t been in to see you,” said Eliza, with enormous accusing tranquillity. “I’d call it a pretty poor sort of man who’d act like that.”
Mrs. Morgan said nothing. Her tar-black eyes glittered in fireflame.
“Have you got any money?” said Eliza.
“No’m,” said Mrs. Morgan.
Eliza stood solidly, enjoying the warmth, pursing her lips. “When do you expect to have
