The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane

  The last substantial body of short fiction by Crane are the fourteen pieces that make up Whilomville Stories (1900). Though most contemporary critics look upon them as second-rate, they are highly significant. They prove that even though Crane was debt-ridden and dying of tuberculosis, he had control of his writing gifts to the very end. In these stories he returns to the boyish exuberance and the pranks of The Sullivan County Sketches, but there is a great difference. Here his aim is to recollect the days of childhood for an adult audience. Like The Sullivan County Sketches and the New York sketches, these tales are intended as a series of scenes or views of small town life, with children playing the major roles. The theme and design of the collection is stated in “His New Mittens” (which was not included in Whilomville Stories): “They [the boys] sang these lines to cruel and monotonous music which is as old perhaps as American childhood, and which it is the privilege of the emancipated adult to completely forget.” What Crane does is to bring to life the adult’s former boyhood world, with all of its cruelty, pity, and humor. These stories, then, are meant for the adult reader, not for children. The pattern of each story is suggested by a remark Crane once made about children. They were, he said, “like breakers on a beach. They do something and that is all there is in it.” Each story has this rhythm of movement. And with his acute psychological insight, Crane touches the “innards of the actual boy” in these stories.

  From the very beginning of his career, Crane was fascinated by the actions and reactions of children. He used child imagery in his adult works, like The Red Badge. Here are a few examples: “A mounted officer displayed the furious anger of a spoiled child”; “He was like a babe which, having wept its fill, raises its eyes and fixes them upon a distant toy.” To understand the pressures of adult conflict, Crane often went to the child’s world of innocence, where he could see openly revealed the full gamut of human emotions usually masked by adults. At the end of his career, Crane returned to the child’s world and studied it from an adult’s perspective.

  The best of the Whilomville Stories are “His New Mittens,” “The Knife,” and “Shame.” Again, as in Wounds in the Rain, Crane is no longer straining for effects, and the cleverness, the bombast, and the rhetorical flights of his early writings are missing. He is natural and unaffected, direct and subdued as he transcribes the conflicts in the small town. With his remarkable ear for the speech patterns of children and their romantic nonsense (reminiscent of Tom Sawyer’s antics), Crane with careful control recreates the delicate feelings, the insults, the injuries, the comedy, and the pathos of childhood and rural life. While he often draws upon sentimental materials—puppy love, social ostracization—Crane maintains a cool and detached tone.

  Crane’s most ambitious stories, and at the same time his greatest, are Greek—Greek in the sense of being like classical tragic drama. These stories include “The Open Boat,” “The Blue Hotel,” “The Monster,” and “Death and the Child.” All are struggles of endurance, where man tests himself and his meaning against his environment, chance, fate, and nature. Like Greek tragedy, these stories begin in order and end in chaos or death. And the major characters (not always heroic) are pitted against an epiclike background, where they dramatize the clash of man’s primitive instincts and his civilized ideals. To Crane, man is lost, but he can find meaning in brotherhood (“The Open Boat”) and in courage (“The Monster”). But there is terror and absurdity in Crane’s vision also. In “Death and the Child,” Peza’s horror and isolation are symbolized by the choric child who says: “Are you a man?” In “The Blue Hotel” there is the fearsome and grinding power of inevitability and destruction. Crane’s earlier group scenes of camping life, war, New York life, and country life are now transformed and expanded onto an epic canvas. Besides this, Crane uses his poetic skills—symbolism, imagery, incremental repetitions, and variations on a theme—to poetize his stories. His impressionistic style and his cinematic and dramatic gifts are at their peak, as well as his tragic vision. Here was Crane’s best forte, and it was between 1897 and 1900.

  How did Crane find his best self—his Greek manner? It was an erratic and cumulative process. For as he was writing his finest achievements between 1897 and 1900 he was still turning out mediocre work. A turning point in Crane’s career was his New York phase. At this time he was struggling with form and substance. His own romantic notions of life and his dependence on earlier writers frustrated his own native development. Temporarily lost in clever parody, he gradually received his shock of recognition and broke away from the dead materials of the past. The present reality of slum life clashed with his romantic ideals and produced his original New York sketches. The same process was repeated in his other work. With The Red Badge and The Little Regiment, he was straining to bring to life a world he had never seen; he was too dependent on earlier legends and tales. And though the fabric of all his fiction was created by the contrast and combat of his romantic illusions with the grim reality, Crane had to wait for reality in order to write freely and naturally. Crane continually sought “the real thing,” and when he found it in New York, Greece, and Cuba, he found his artistic independence. Gradually, he also refined and blended the poetic, cinematic, symbolic, dramatic, impressionistic, and tragic techniques which appear in his best work. Finally, as Crane focused on man and his struggles with the forces surrounding him, he slowly moved away from static portrayals and created the image of man in larger and more human terms; and as he controlled his preachings he showed, like Tolstoy, that he was devoted to the religion of man in spite of the enigma of the universe.

  Stephen Crane’s place in American literature may be secure, but it is not to be envied. The literary historians have labeled him pioneer, herald, precursor, harbinger, and forerunner of naturalism and modernism. But this makes one view Crane in the past tense only. His great stories are as modern as ever. His themes and his art are as living as those of Ernest Hemingway, who was deeply influenced by him. His talents in the short story field are more far-ranging than most American authors. While he was a student of war, Crane dealt with love, death, childhood, nature, the small town, city life, the American West, the international scene, philosophy (through his fables), and the universe. He was satirist, folk humorist, fabulist, social critic, painter, epic poet, and tragedian. Though he is still called a realist, naturalist, symbolist, impressionist, and existentialist, Crane cannot truly be labeled. Like John Steinbeck, he continually experimented and sought new techniques, new styles, and new themes as he moved from one phase of his career to another. In the end, Stephen Crane is—now—an original and vibrant talent and one of America’s greatest short story writers.

  SKETCHES FROM LIFE:

  UNCLE JAKE AND THE BELL HANDLE*

  Uncle Jake was called a good, old soul. In fact, there was not a better, kinder man in the whole county than old Uncle Jake and when he was going to the city to sell his turnips and buy any amount of sugar, molasses, starch and such things, he promised his twenty-eight-year-old niece that she should go down to the city with him and he would “take her round,” he said, in a lordly way. This, considering that he had only been to the city once before himself, was a very generous offer and Sarah was very glad to have an uncle who was so worldly minded and knew all about the big cities and all that.

  So the next day at sunrise Uncle Jake dressed himself in his best suit of black clothes and Sarah arrayed her angular form in her best calico gown, and put on her cotton mitts and the lilac sunbonnet with the sunflowers on it. After surveying his niece with a good deal of pride and some misgivings about the city men, whom he thought might be likely to steal such a lovely creature, he kissed his wife good-bye as if he were going to Europe for ten years, clambered upon the high seat of his wagon, pulled Sarah up beside him as if she had been a bundle of straw, flourished his whip, smiled blandly and confidently upon his wife, the two hired men and a neighbor’s boy, and drove away.

  The two large fat horses walked up hill and trotted down dale and
Uncle Jake’s white beard blew about in the wind, first over one cheek and then over the other, as he sat upon the high seat with his legs braced, pulling the horses’ heads this way and that. As the sun commenced to get warm, Sarah put up the big cotton umbrella over the lilac sunbonnet with the sunflowers, the dusty wheels rattled, the turnips in the wagon bobbed and rolled about as if each one was possessed of a restless devil, and Uncle Jake, and Sarah, and the turnips and the sunbonnet rode gaily toward the city.

  Soon the houses began to appear closer together, there were more tin cans and other relics strewn about the roadside, they began to get views of multitudes of backyards, with wet clothes on the lines; grimy, smoky factories; stockyards filled with discordant mobs of beasts; whole trains of freight cars, standing on side tracks; dirty children, homeless dogs and wandering pigs. To Uncle Jake’s experienced eye, this denoted that they were entering the city.

  Beer saloons commenced to loom up occasionally with men standing in front of them who wore their hats over their right eyes, or their left eyes, or their ears, or whichever member they deemed it proper, as gentlemen of leisure and of sporting proclivities. Old Uncle Jake nodded benignly at these gentlemen, whom he doubtless thought had heard he was coming to town and had “knocked off” work to see him go past, while the gentlemen nearly swallowed their tobacco in their amazement at the white-haired old “duck” but recovering themselves winked bleared eyes and bowed red noses at the lilac bonnet with the sunflowers but that was immediately focussed on somebody’s wash line in the backyard opposite, where, it seemed half of the men of the family were given over to wearing red nether garments and the other half were partial to white, thereby imparting a picturesque and lurid appearance to the line of clothes dangling in the breeze. They reached the Main Street of the town and Uncle Jake sold his turnips to a dealer who beat the old man down considerably by lying to him about “market prices”. They spent the morning in going about to the different stores buying their supplies. Uncle Jake would take his niece by the hand and enter a store, calling the first clerk he saw “Mr. Jones and Co.” or whatever name he saw on the sign board. After cordially shaking him by the hand, he would introduce his little niece Miss Sarah Bottomley Perkins and announce that she “was only twenty-eight years, seven months and—how many days Saree? Don’t know? Well, never mind. Well, sir, crops was never better than this year, by George, sir.” Had Mr. Jones and Co. noticed the amazin’ manner in which cucumber pickles grew this year or the astounding manner in which early pumpkins came up? No? Well, well, he hoped he would see Mr. Jones and Co. in a year or two. But he couldn’t say. His wife, poor critir, had the most astonishing case of plumbago that had been in Green County since ’58 when old Bill William’s wife’s second cousin took down with it. Well, he supposed he must be going. The best of friends must part. If Mr. Jones and Co. ever kim out in Green County he knew he had a place at old Jake Perkinses board: “Good-bye, my boy. Heaven bless you.”

  Then the old gentleman would buy three yards of calico or seven pounds of brown sugar maybe, and bidding an affectionate good-bye to the clerk, take his niece by the hand and leave, waving his hand back at the store, while in sight to the eminent danger of a collision between the fat horses and the street cars.

  Uncle Jake spent the morning this way. Some of the clerks, understanding the old man and being gentlemen, listened politely and deferentially to his ramblings, while others who were not troubled that way, snickered behind his back at the other clerks, and pointed their fingers at him, while the old man beamed a world of peace and good will toward all men through the glasses of his spectacles.

  At noon, they put up the fat horses at a livery stable whose proprietor charged Uncle Jake fifty cents more than he did anyone else, merely on principle. They went to a hotel and were ushered into the parlor to await the summons of the dinner gong.

  Uncle Jake and his niece walked about the spare hotel parlor and were both filled with amazement at what they deemed its magnificence. Uncle Jake’s curiosity was immense. He wandered about the room, running his hands over the picture frames and feeling of the upholstery of the chairs.

  In an evil hour, he came upon the bell handle.

  It was an old-fashioned affair arranged in a sort of brass scoop or cup from which projected the long handle. He looked at it for some time and wondered what it was for. He pressed on it and no tap commenced to flow ginger-pop. Finally he pulled it.

  Now it came to pass that, at precisely that moment, a waiter of the hotel made a terrific onslaught on a gong that was sure to make any horses in the vicinity run away and awaken all the late sleepers for blocks around.

  Uncle Jake’s pull on the bell handle and the sound of the gong were identical.

  “Good Lord! what have I did? Holy Mackerel! I have gone and done it!”

  With these words, Uncle Jake sank, pale-faced, back on a chair like a man who has been stricken down with a stuffed club. The old man’s hair stood on end. He was “done up,” as he expressed it. His manner conveyed a sense of terror to his niece who seemed inclined to fill the air with her lamentations but suppressed herself enough to cry “Oh! uncle! uncle! what have you done,” asking him the same momentous question he had asked himself a moment before.

  “Done, Sarah? Done? Oh, sufferin’ Susan, that I should live to see this day! Done! I’ve called out the fire department, or the police force or the ambulance corps or something else that’s awful! Oh! miserable man! maybe it’s the insurance agents or the Board of Health and this poor old carcass will never get home alive.” His violent agitation made the innocent maiden still more bent on howling but her uncle stopped her as before.

  “S-s-s-h! Sar-ee! S-s-s-h! My pore girl, you now see your old uncle as a fergitive from justice, a critir hounded by the dogs of the law! S-s-s-h! Make no sound er they’ll be down on us like a passel of wolves!”

  Impressed by her uncle’s manner, Sarah kept quiet while the old man went about the room on his tiptoes, peering out the window in momentary expectation of seeing the police force, the ambulance corps, and the fire department come up the street.

  “Thank goodness, Sar-ee, that the militia can’t be called out on such short notice and they’ll have time to find out that it is a mistake. To see this innocent country plunged in to er civil war by the hand of an ignorant old man would be terr’ble.” The old man peeped out the door and says “Come Sar-ee! S-s-sh! The minions of the law may be on our track any minute!”

  Out they went into the street, hand in hand, giving cautious glances about and starting at any sudden sound. Every eye seemed to them to be full of suspicion. When they would see a policeman, they would turn up an alley or a side street. The city was very quiet and the blue buttons were out in full force, so the “fergitive from justice” and his companion went around a good many corners. When they arrived at the livery stable, their route from the hotel, if it could be mapped, would look like a brain-twisting Chinese puzzle. They hurried the hostlers and Uncle Jake’s hand shook the reins up and down as if he were knocking flies off the fat horses.

  They drove down byways until they reached their road home, where the fat horses were surprised into making the exertion of their lives.

  Uncle Jake and Sarah cast many fearful glances behind them until they were safe in the shelter of the old barnyard.

  There with fat horses breathing heavily beside him, the cows looking solemnly over the fence and all the delights of his old heart about him, he made a vow never again to touch “no bell handles nor pull out no plugs agin, as long as I live, bein’s as how my gray hairs were like to be lowered in sorrer this blessed day.”

  1885

  [Bulletin of the New York Public Library,

  Vol. 64 (May, 1960), pp. 275–278.]

  * By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Hitherto unpublished in book form.

  THE KING’S FAVOR

  The lives of all musicians do not glide on in a quiet flow of melody and unpaid music bills. It is popularly supposed that
a musician is a long-haired individual who does nothing more exciting than fall in love with his loveliest pupil, dine on mutton chops and misery all his life; and finally become famous as a composer, after the name on his tombstone has been nearly obliterated by the moss and mold of years.

  Mr. Albert G. Thies, a prominent New York tenor, proves by his history that such is not always the case. He has had adventures in many strange lands. The crowned heads of Europe and the furred backs of Africa have both taken a hand in chasing him from their dominions; the first, as an alleged political conspirator; the second, as a choice morsel of diet. He has sung before crowned heads and before heads in dilapidated old hats; before the gilded, tasseled boots of the German hussar and the ponderous, wooden sabots of the Hollandese peasant. In fact, he has had as varied an existence as a soldier of fortune. The frozen ice fields of the North have made him cold and the scorched sands of the desert have made iced lemonade an absolute necessity.

  About four years ago, Mr. Thies was giving a series of evenings of song in the principal cities of the British colonies in South Africa. In the height of a successful season, he was told that old King Cetewayo, the famous Zulu chief, had sent a request for a private musicale. The king was then a prisoner in the hands of the British. His dark-skinned impis had gone down, the red and purple of the waving plumes had fallen beneath the Enfield rifles of the scarlet-coated visitors from the sea. Cetewayo’s captors did all in their power to make his captivity as comfortable as possible. He, with his wives, occupied a large and commodious farmhouse, and was dealt out liberal allowances of provisions and supplies by the government. They even possessed a piano, though of course, it was of no use except as a means of recreation and wholesome amusement to the fair Mursala, one of the king’s wives. She was very muscular; she was six feet two inches high; and she played the piano by main strength. The hand-organ grinders of America, playing different tunes in chorus, would have felt insignificant if they could have listened to Mrs. Cetewayo. Hermode of amusement caused some discomfort in the family circle. If the three others had shown a like propensity for contrasting their dark fingers with the ivory keys, I fear there would have been direful murder done in that household. But the king had paid sixteen cows for Mursala, so she was a valuable piece of property; she had an intrinsic worth; a face value, although the last would never be noted except by a Zulu in an advanced stage of barbarism. And she must be allowed to disturb the entire vicinity without reproach, or she might take herself off to the dim recesses of her native jungle; and her dark fingers never more mingle in the wool of her imperial lord and master; and he be at a dead loss in cows.