“What are jacks?”
“Gracious dont you know what jackstones are? Wait till James comes back, wont he laugh!”
“I know Jack roses. Mother used to like them better’n any other kind.”
“American Beauties are the only roses I like,” announced Maisie flopping into a Morris chair. Jimmy stood on one leg kicking his heel with the toes of the other foot.
“Where’s James?”
“He’ll be home soon. … He’s having his riding lesson.”
The twilight became leadensilent between them. From the trainyards came the scream of a locomotivewhistle and the clank of couplings on shunted freight cars. Jimmy ran to the window.
“Say Maisie, do you like engines?” he asked.
“I think they are horrid. Daddy says we’re going to move on account of the noise and smoke.”
Through the gloom Jimmy could make out the beveled smooth bulk of a big locomotive. The smoke rolled out of the stack in huge bronze and lilac coils. Down the track a red light snapped green. The bell started to ring slowly, lazily. Forced draft snorting loud the train clankingly moved, gathered speed, slid into dusk swinging a red taillight.
“Gee I wish we lived here,” said Jimmy. “I’ve got two hundred and seventytwo pictures of locomotives, I’ll show em to you sometime if you like. I collect em.”
“What a funny thing to collect. … Look Jimmy you pull the shade down and I’ll light the light.”
When Maisie pushed the switch they saw James Merivale standing in the door. He had light wiry hair and a freckled face with a pugnose like Maisie’s. He had on riding breeches and black leather gaiters and was flicking a long peeled stick about.
“Hullo Jimmy,” he said. “Welcome to our city.”
“Say James,” cried Maisie, “Jimmy doesn’t know what jackstones are.”
Aunt Emily appeared through the blue velvet curtains. She wore a highnecked green silk blouse with lace on it. Her white hair rose in a smooth curve from her forehead. “It’s time you children were washing up,” she said, “dinner’s in five minutes. … James take your cousin back to your room and hurry up and take off those ridingclothes.”
Everybody was already seated when Jimmy followed his cousin into the diningroom. Knives and forks tinkled discreetly in the light of six candles in red and silver shades. At the end of the table sat Aunt Emily, next to her a rednecked man with no back to his head, and at the other end Uncle Jeff with a pearl pin in his checked necktie filled a broad armchair. The colored maid hovered about the fringe of light passing toasted crackers. Jimmy ate his soup stiffly, afraid of making a noise. Uncle Jeff was talking in a booming voice between spoonfuls of soup.
“No I tell you, Wilkinson, New York is no longer what it used to be when Emily and I first moved up here about the time the Ark landed. … City’s overrun with kikes and low Irish, that’s what’s the matter with it. … In ten years a Christian wont be able to make a living. … I tell you the Catholics and the Jews are going to run us out of our own country, that’s what they are going to do.”
“It’s the New Jerusalem,” put in Aunt Emily laughing.
“It’s no laughing matter; when a man’s worked hard all his life to build up a business and that sort of thing he dont want to be run out by a lot of damn foreigners, does he Wilkinson?”
“Jeff you are getting all excited. You know it gives you indigestion. …”
“I’ll keep cool, mother.”
“The trouble with the people of this country is this, Mr. Merivale” … Mr. Wilkinson frowned ponderously. “The people of this country are too tolerant. There’s no other country in the world where they’d allow it. … After all we built up this country and then we allow a lot of foreigners, the scum of Europe, the offscourings of Polish ghettos to come and run it for us.”
“The fact of the matter is that an honest man wont soil his hands with politics, and he’s given no inducement to take public office.”
“That’s true, a live man, nowadays, wants more money, needs more money than he can make honestly in public life. … Naturally the best men turn to other channels.”
“And add to that the ignorance of these dirty kikes and shanty Irish that we make voters before they can even talk English …” began Uncle Jeff.
The maid set a highpiled dish of fried chicken edged by corn fritters before Aunt Emily. Talk lapsed while everyone was helped. “Oh I forgot to tell you Jeff,” said Aunt Emily, “we’re to go up to Scarsdale Sunday.”
“Oh mother I hate going out Sundays.”
“He’s a perfect baby about staying home.”
“But Sunday’s the only day I get at home.”
“Well it was this way: I was having tea with the Harland girls at Maillard’s and who should sit down at the next table but Mrs. Burkhart …”
“Is that Mrs. John B. Burkhart? Isn’t he one of the vicepresidents of the National City Bank?”
“John’s a fine feller and a coming man downtown.”
“Well as I was saying dear, Mrs. Burkhart said we just had to come up and spend Sunday with them and I just couldn’t refuse.”
“My father,” continued Mr. Wilkinson, “used to be old Johannes Burkhart’s physician. The old man was a cranky old bird, he’d made his pile in the fur trade way back in Colonel Astor’s day. He had the gout and used to swear something terrible. … I remember seeing him once, a redfaced old man with long white hair and a silk skullcap over his baldspot. He had a parrot named Tobias and people going along the street never knew whether it was Tobias or Judge Burkhart cussing.”
“Ah well, times have changed,” said Aunt Emily.
Jimmy sat in his chair with pins and needles in his legs. Mother’s had a stroke and next week I’ll go back to school. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday. … He and Skinny coming back from playing with the hoptoads down by the pond, in their blue suits because it
