Page 2 of Obscure Destinies

so quietly and graciously over so much open country. On his cap

  and shoulders, on the horses' backs and manes, light, delicate,

  mysterious it fell; and with it a dry cool fragrance was released

  into the air. It meant rest for vegetation and men and beasts, for

  the ground itself; a season of long nights for sleep, leisurely

  breakfasts, peace by the fire. This and much more went through

  Rosicky's mind, but he merely told himself that winter was coming,

  clucked to his horses, and drove on.

  When he reached home, John, the youngest boy, ran out to put away

  his team for him, and he met Mary coming up from the outside cellar

  with her apron full of carrots. They went into the house together.

  On the table, covered with oilcloth figured with clusters of blue

  grapes, a place was set, and he smelled hot coffee-cake of some

  kind. Anton never lunched in town; he thought that extravagant,

  and anyhow he didn't like the food. So Mary always had something

  ready for him when he got home.

  After he was settled in his chair, stirring his coffee in a big

  cup, Mary took out of the oven a pan of kolache stuffed with

  apricots, examined them anxiously to see whether they had got too

  dry, put them beside his plate, and then sat down opposite him.

  Rosicky asked her in Czech if she wasn't going to have any coffee.

  She replied in English, as being somehow the right language for

  transacting business: "Now what did Doctor Ed say, Anton? You

  tell me just what."

  "He said I was to tell you some compliments, but I forgot 'em."

  Rosicky's eyes twinkled.

  "About you, I mean. What did he say about your asthma?"

  "He says I ain't got no asthma." Rosicky took one of the little

  rolls in his broad brown fingers. The thickened nail of his right

  thumb told the story of his past.

  "Well, what is the matter? And don't try to put me off."

  "He don't say nothing much, only I'm a little older, and my heart

  ain't so good like it used to be."

  Mary started and brushed her hair back from her temples with both

  hands as if she were a little out of her mind. From the way she

  glared, she might have been in a rage with him.

  "He says there's something the matter with your heart? Doctor Ed

  says so?"

  "Now don't yell at me like I was a hog in de garden, Mary. You

  know I always did like to hear a woman talk soft. He didn't say

  anything de matter wid my heart, only it ain't so young like it

  used to be, an' he tell me not to pitch hay or run de corn-

  sheller."

  Mary wanted to jump up, but she sat still. She admired the way he

  never under any circumstances raised his voice or spoke roughly.

  He was city-bred, and she was country-bred; she often said she

  wanted her boys to have their papa's nice ways.

  "You never have no pain there, do you? It's your breathing and

  your stomach that's been wrong. I wouldn't believe nobody but

  Doctor Ed about it. I guess I'll go see him myself. Didn't he

  give you no advice?"

  "Chust to take it easy like, an' stay round de house dis winter. I

  guess you got some carpenter work for me to do. I kin make some

  new shelves for you, and I want dis long time to build a closet in

  de boys' room and make dem two little fellers keep dere clo'es hung

  up."

  Rosicky drank his coffee from time to time, while he considered.

  His moustache was of the soft long variety and came down over his

  mouth like the teeth of a buggy-rake over a bundle of hay. Each

  time he put down his cup, he ran his blue handkerchief over his

  lips. When he took a drink of water, he managed very neatly with

  the back of his hand.

  Mary sat watching him intently, trying to find any change in his

  face. It is hard to see anyone who has become like your own body

  to you. Yes, his hair had got thin, and his high forehead had deep

  lines running from left to right. But his neck, always clean

  shaved except in the busiest seasons, was not loose or baggy. It

  was burned a dark reddish brown, and there were deep creases in it,

  but it looked firm and full of blood. His cheeks had a good

  colour. On either side of his mouth there was a half-moon down the

  length of his cheek, not wrinkles, but two lines that had come

  there from his habitual expression. He was shorter and broader

  than when she married him; his back had grown broad and curved, a

  good deal like the shell of an old turtle, and his arms and legs

  were short.

  He was fifteen years older than Mary, but she had hardly ever

  thought about it before. He was her man, and the kind of man she

  liked. She was rough, and he was gentle,--city-bred, as she always

  said. They had been shipmates on a rough voyage and had stood by

  each other in trying times. Life had gone well with them because,

  at bottom, they had the same ideas about life. They agreed,

  without discussion, as to what was most important and what was

  secondary. They didn't often exchange opinions, even in Czech,--it

  was as if they had thought the same thought together. A good deal

  had to be sacrificed and thrown overboard in a hard life like

  theirs, and they had never disagreed as to the things that could

  go. It had been a hard life, and a soft life, too. There wasn't

  anything brutal in the short, broad-backed man with the three-

  cornered eyes and the forehead that went on to the top of his

  skull. He was a city man, a gentle man, and though he had married

  a rough farm girl, he had never touched her without gentleness.

  They had been at one accord not to hurry through life, not to be

  always skimping and saving. They saw their neighbours buy more

  land and feed more stock than they did, without discontent. Once

  when the creamery agent came to the Rosickys to persuade them to

  sell him their cream, he told them how much money the Fasslers,

  their nearest neighbours, had made on their cream last year.

  "Yes," said Mary, "and look at them Fassler children! Pale,

  pinched little things, they look like skimmed milk. I'd rather put

  some colour into my children's faces than put money into the bank."

  The agent shrugged and turned to Anton.

  "I guess we'll do like she says," said Rosicky.

  III

  Mary very soon got into town to see Doctor Ed, and then she had a

  talk with her boys and set a guard over Rosicky. Even John, the

  youngest, had his father on his mind. If Rosicky went to throw hay

  down from the loft, one of the boys ran up the ladder and took the

  fork from him. He sometimes complained that though he was getting

  to be an old man, he wasn't an old woman yet.

  That winter he stayed in the house in the afternoons and

  carpentered, or sat in the chair between the window full of plants

  and the wooden bench where the two pails of drinking-water stood.

  This spot was called "Father's corner," though it was not a corner

  at all. He had a shelf there, where he kept his Bohemian papers

  and his pipes and tobacco, and his shears and needles and thread

  and tailor's thimbl
e. Having been a tailor in his youth, he

  couldn't bear to see a woman patching at his clothes, or at the

  boys'. He liked tailoring, and always patched all the overalls and

  jackets and work shirts. Occasionally he made over a pair of pants

  one of the older boys had outgrown, for the little fellow.

  While he sewed, he let his mind run back over his life. He had a

  good deal to remember, really; life in three countries. The only

  part of his youth he didn't like to remember was the two years he

  had spent in London, in Cheapside, working for a German tailor who

  was wretchedly poor. Those days, when he was nearly always hungry,

  when his clothes were dropping off him for dirt, and the sound of a

  strange language kept him in continual bewilderment, had left a

  sore spot in his mind that wouldn't bear touching.

  He was twenty when he landed at Castle Garden in New York, and he

  had a protector who got him work in a tailor shop in Vesey Street,

  down near the Washington Market. He looked upon that part of his

  life as very happy. He became a good workman, he was industrious,

  and his wages were increased from time to time. He minded his own

  business and envied nobody's good fortune. He went to night school

  and learned to read English. He often did overtime work and was

  well paid for it, but somehow he never saved anything. He couldn't

  refuse a loan to a friend, and he was self-indulgent. He liked a

  good dinner, and a little went for beer, a little for tobacco; a

  good deal went to the girls. He often stood through an opera on

  Saturday nights; he could get standing-room for a dollar. Those

  were the great days of opera in New York, and it gave a fellow

  something to think about for the rest of the week. Rosicky had a

  quick ear, and a childish love of all the stage splendour; the

  scenery, the costumes, the ballet. He usually went with a chum,

  and after the performance they had beer and maybe some oysters

  somewhere. It was a fine life; for the first five years or so it

  satisfied him completely. He was never hungry or cold or dirty,

  and everything amused him: a fire, a dog fight, a parade, a storm,

  a ferry ride. He thought New York the finest, richest, friendliest

  city in the world.

  Moreover, he had what he called a happy home life. Very near the

  tailor shop was a small furniture-factory, where an old Austrian,

  Loeffler, employed a few skilled men and made unusual furniture,

  most of it to order, for the rich German housewives up-town. The

  top floor of Loeffler's five-storey factory was a loft, where he

  kept his choice lumber and stored the odd pieces of furniture left

  on his hands. One of the young workmen he employed was a Czech,

  and he and Rosicky became fast friends. They persuaded Loeffler to

  let them have a sleeping-room in one corner of the loft. They

  bought good beds and bedding and had their pick of the furniture

  kept up there. The loft was low-pitched, but light and airy, full

  of windows, and good-smelling by reason of the fine lumber put up

  there to season. Old Loeffler used to go down to the docks and buy

  wood from South America and the East from the sea captains. The

  young men were as foolish about their house as a bridal pair.

  Zichec, the young cabinet-maker, devised every sort of convenience,

  and Rosicky kept their clothes in order. At night and on Sundays,

  when the quiver of machinery underneath was still, it was the

  quietest place in the world, and on summer nights all the sea winds

  blew in. Zichec often practised on his flute in the evening. They

  were both fond of music and went to the opera together. Rosicky

  thought he wanted to live like that for ever.

  But as the years passed, all alike, he began to get a little

  restless. When spring came round, he would begin to feel fretted,

  and he got to drinking. He was likely to drink too much of a

  Saturday night. On Sunday he was languid and heavy, getting over

  his spree. On Monday he plunged into work again. So he never had

  time to figure out what ailed him, though he knew something did.

  When the grass turned green in Park Place, and the lilac hedge at

  the back of Trinity churchyard put out its blossoms, he was

  tormented by a longing to run away. That was why he drank too

  much; to get a temporary illusion of freedom and wide horizons.

  Rosicky, the old Rosicky, could remember as if it were yesterday

  the day when the young Rosicky found out what was the matter with

  him. It was on a Fourth of July afternoon, and he was sitting in

  Park Place in the sun. The lower part of New York was empty. Wall

  Street, Liberty Street, Broadway, all empty. So much stone and

  asphalt with nothing going on, so many empty windows. The

  emptiness was intense, like the stillness in a great factory when

  the machinery stops and the belts and bands cease running. It was

  too great a change, it took all the strength out of one. Those

  blank buildings, without the stream of life pouring through them,

  were like empty jails. It struck young Rosicky that this was the

  trouble with big cities; they built you in from the earth itself,

  cemented you away from any contact with the ground. You lived in

  an unnatural world, like the fish in an aquarium, who were probably

  much more comfortable than they ever were in the sea.

  On that very day he began to think seriously about the articles he

  had read in the Bohemian papers, describing prosperous Czech

  farming communities in the West. He believed he would like to go

  out there as a farm hand; it was hardly possible that he could ever

  have land of his own. His people had always been workmen; his

  father and grandfather had worked in shops. His mother's parents

  had lived in the country, but they rented their farm and had a hard

  time to get along. Nobody in his family had ever owned any land,--

  that belonged to a different station of life altogether. Anton's

  mother died when he was little, and he was sent into the country to

  her parents. He stayed with them until he was twelve, and formed

  those ties with the earth and the farm animals and growing things

  which are never made at all unless they are made early. After his

  grandfather died, he went back to live with his father and

  stepmother, but she was very hard on him, and his father helped him

  to get passage to London.

  After that Fourth of July day in Park Place, the desire to return

  to the country never left him. To work on another man's farm would

  be all he asked; to see the sun rise and set and to plant things

  and watch them grow. He was a very simple man. He was like a tree

  that has not many roots, but one tap-root that goes down deep. He

  subscribed for a Bohemian paper printed in Chicago, then for one

  printed in Omaha. His mind got farther and farther west. He began

  to save a little money to buy his liberty. When he was thirty-

  five, there was a great meeting in New York of Bohemian athletic

  societies, and Rosicky left the tailor shop and went home with the

  Omaha delegates
to try his fortune in another part of the world.

  IV

  Perhaps the fact that his own youth was well over before he began

  to have a family was one reason why Rosicky was so fond of his

  boys. He had almost a grandfather's indulgence for them. He had

  never had to worry about any of them--except, just now, a little

  about Rudolph.

  On Saturday night the boys always piled into the Ford, took little

  Josephine, and went to town to the moving-picture show. One

  Saturday morning they were talking at the breakfast table about

  starting early that evening, so that they would have an hour or so

  to see the Christmas things in the stores before the show began.

  Rosicky looked down the table.

  "I hope you boys ain't disappointed, but I want you to let me have

  de car tonight. Maybe some of you can go in with de neighbours."

  Their faces fell. They worked hard all week, and they were still

  like children. A new jack-knife or a box of candy pleased the

  older ones as much as the little fellow.

  "If you and Mother are going to town," Frank said, "maybe you could

  take a couple of us along with you, anyway."

  "No, I want to take de car down to Rudolph's, and let him an' Polly

  go in to de show. She don't git into town enough, an' I'm afraid

  she's gettin' lonesome, an' he can't afford no car yet."

  That settled it. The boys were a good deal dashed. Their father

  took another piece of apple-cake and went on: "Maybe next Saturday

  night de two little fellers can go along wid dem."

  "Oh, is Rudolph going to have the car every Saturday night?"

  Rosicky did not reply at once; then he began to speak seriously:

  "Listen, boys; Polly ain't lookin' so good. I don't like to see

  nobody lookin' sad. It comes hard fur a town girl to be a farmer's

  wife. I don't want no trouble to start in Rudolph's family. When

  it starts, it ain't so easy to stop. An American girl don't git

  used to our ways all at once. I like to tell Polly she and Rudolph

  can have the car every Saturday night till after New Year's, if

  it's all right with you boys."

  "Sure it's all right, Papa," Mary cut in. "And it's good you

  thought about that. Town girls is used to more than country girls.

  I lay awake nights, scared she'll make Rudolph discontented with

  the farm."

  The boys put as good a face on it as they could. They surely

  looked forward to their Saturday nights in town. That evening

  Rosicky drove the car the half-mile down to Rudolph's new, bare

  little house.

  Polly was in a short-sleeved gingham dress, clearing away the

  supper dishes. She was a trim, slim little thing, with blue eyes

  and shingled yellow hair, and her eyebrows were reduced to a mere

  brush-stroke, like Miss Pearl's.

  "Good evening, Mr. Rosicky. Rudolph's at the barn, I guess." She

  never called him father, or Mary mother. She was sensitive about

  having married a foreigner. She never in the world would have done

  it if Rudolph hadn't been such a handsome, persuasive fellow and

  such a gallant lover. He had graduated in her class in the high

  school in town, and their friendship began in the ninth grade.

  Rosicky went in, though he wasn't exactly asked. "My boys ain't

  goin' to town tonight, an' I brought de car over fur you two to go

  in to de picture show."

  Polly, carrying dishes to the sink, looked over her shoulder at

  him. "Thank you. But I'm late with my work tonight, and pretty

  tired. Maybe Rudolph would like to go in with you."

  "Oh, I don't go to de shows! I'm too old-fashioned. You won't

  feel so tired after you ride in de air a ways. It's a nice clear

  night, an' it ain't cold. You go an' fix yourself up, Polly, an'

  I'll wash de dishes an' leave everything nice fur you."

  Polly blushed and tossed her bob. "I couldn't let you do that, Mr.

  Rosicky. I wouldn't think of it."