“Oh sure, that,” he said. “Anybody can do that. But I never do it. It looks dumb.”
“I like it. Let's dip.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, I say.”
“Oh, come on, you're mean.”
“Dipping,” said Herbie desperately, “is only for babies.”
“Babies? You're crazy. Look, Uncle Nig and Aunt Bernice just dipped.”
“Well, let 'em. I ain't gonna.”
“Herbie Bookbinder, you're such a liar. You know you can't dip.”
“Oh I can't, can't I? All right, then, here goes.” Blindly, like a horse ridden over a cliff to its doom, Herbie dipped. He leaned back much too far, tried to straighten up again, failed, grabbed both Lucille's shoulders in panic, and fell flat on his back, pulling the girl on top of him. The thud shook the floor. A ring of couples formed around them, giggling. The music stopped. Lucille jumped to her feet, tears of shame and rage in her eyes. Herbert sat up stupidly, his head ringing from the concussion. With perhaps two dozen boys and girls listening for his words, he had the hard luck to say, “I told you I didn't like to dip.”
There was a shout of laughter, of course. Lucille glared around and ran out through the door. Herbie picked himself up and followed her. Uncle Sid, seeing that no great harm had been done, resumed his music, and the couples promptly forgot the incident and returned pair by pair to their own pursuit of happiness.
“Go away,” snarled Lucille at Herbie as he drew near her with hanging head in the half-gloom outside the door.
“I—I'm sorry, Lucille,” stammered the boy.
She looked at him with the narrowed eyes of contempt. “Go eat wienies.”
Herbie caught her hand. “Lucille, remember what you said in the museum? You said you'd be my girl at camp.”
“That was then.” She pulled her hand away.
As long as the world lasts, there will be no other reply to the plaint of the discarded lover than the words: “That was then.” They will always seem a sufficient answer to the person who says them, and a meaningless one to the person who hears them. And so it will go, on and on, the piteous question and the short answer, until the sun will dim, the earth will freeze, and lovers' quarrels will die away—probably the last human sounds to be heard on the icy wind.
“Gosh, Lucille, just 'cause I slipped and fell down once—”
“Oh, will you go away? You make me tired—General Garbage!”
It was the first time he had heard the epithet from those pretty lips. By all the rules he should have collected what was left of his dignity and stalked off. But instead he wavered for a moment and then whined, “Aw, please, let's go back and dance some more. We were having fun.”
The girl turned away, nose in air. “I'm going back in by myself. And don't you dare follow me. I'm here with Lennie.” And she was gone.
Not knowing or caring what he was doing, Herbie stumbled off into the blackness, in the direction of the lake. The emotional ups and downs of the evening had exhausted his young spirit and left him as numb as a gray old man, and as hopeless about the future. As he trudged senselessly through dewy weeds and bushes toward the glow of the campfire, he weighed himself in the balance. He was a clown, a small fat boy, superfluous in baseball, incapable of dipping, habituated to telling lies transparent as glass which always shattered and lacerated him, and aged a paltry eleven and a half years. None of these conditions seemed likely to improve, not even his age. He felt he would be eleven and a half for ever.
He had come to the beach. Peering through the last fringe of bushes he saw that the wienie roast was over. The boys and girls stood around the dying fire in a huge circle, their arms raised over their heads. Mr. Gauss stood by the embers, wearing an Indian feathered headdress, his arms stretched heavenward. It was the moment of the final Indian prayer that closed each campfire Mr. Gauss began lowering his arms stiffly before him. The children followed his movements, and chanted in a weird tune:
“Wakoo dow dowse doo
Weepee dad—oh tone hee.”
They repeated the mournful chant three times, raising and lowering their arms each time. It had been taught to them as meaning: “Great Spirit, a humble Indian asks your blessing, I am he.” Herbie could hear most of the boys singing the traditional villainous parody which almost, but not quite, blended with the chant:
“What could old Gauss do
If he had no money?”
This was one of the most happy jests of Manitou life, but tonight it brought no mirth to him. He turned heavily away from the picturesque scene and plodded back up the embankment, along Company Street and into Bunk Thirteen. Soon his whites, damp with dew and dirty in the seat and shoulders where he had made contact with the dance floor, were piled on the foot of his bed, and the boy was huddled under the coarse brown blankets. He sank into sleep at once. So ended a truly grim evening for Herbie Bookbinder.
Two days later, on Friday, Mr. and Mrs. Bookbinder visited Camp Manitou. They stayed at the guest house, with its attractive view of the girls' lawn. They ate an excellent dinner, and were enchanted by the spectacle of the boys and girls in white rows on the lawn at sun set services. During visiting hours next day they toured the bungalows and playing fields, which were still natty from their polishing for the Penobscot invasion. That night they attended the dramatic show, and were proud and happy to see their son raising much laughter with a comic performance as a fat old lady. Sunday morning they watched a baseball game for the championship between the Lucky Strikes and the Marlboros, and marveled at the intensity of excitement among the children on the sidelines. Their pleasure was completed when Herbie made an appearance for the Lucky Strikes in right field, a novelty which bewildered the boy and the team (it was diplomatically arranged between Uncle Sandy and the Lucky Strike mentor, Uncle Peewee). Before the parents left on Sunday afternoon they spent an hour with Felicia and Herbie on the cool veranda of the guest house. Ice cream was always served Sunday afternoon on the veranda.
In short, the parents chugged off in their old automobile to return to the city that evening, persuaded that their offspring were enviably privileged creatures.
“I'll say one thing,” said Jacob Bookbinder, as the car swung out through the ramshackle wooden gate of the camp, “they both look wonderful. Sunburned, well fed—”
“I should say so,” said his wife. “It was lovely to see them that way.”
They drove down the dirt road for a while, turning over in their minds the pleasant pictures they had seen.
“Did you notice,” said the father, “that they both somehow seemed quieter than before? Herbie, especially.”
“Of course. Their manners have improved beautifully. I think it's lovely.”
Jacob Bookbinder was ninety-eight per cent satisfied with this explanation of his son's subdued air, the one odd fact he had observed. Wishing to believe the best, he soon decided to let it pass for one hundred per cent, and forgot about it. Nor was he far wrong. There was nothing really the matter with Herbie.
A broken spirit is merely a state of mind.
NINETEEN
Herbie's Ride—I
Herbie eventually recovered, but his way out of humiliation had an important drawback. It led him into crime.
Boys enter upon this planet as free wild animals, and have to be tamed. Respect for the law comes, but slowly. The sweetest mollycoddle will swipe an apple from a fruit stand—if only once; the saintliest choir boy will “borrow” a quarter from his mother's purse—if only once. What makes them all behave at last is partly upbringing, partly what Mr. Gauss calls Character, and partly the invisible barbed wire of Law, which sooner or later gives nearly every boy a nasty raking—if only once.
It was the last week of camp, and everyone was in the doldrums. Uncle Sandy's schedule was exhausted. Pepsodents, Cadillacs, Lucky Strikes, and Greta Garbos had enjoyed their brief triumph and had been dissolved. The giant struggle between the Yellows and the Reds, with one
half of the camp pitted against the other for three racking days, had also passed into history, a Yellow victory.
This “color war,” as it was called, had been fought in the early years of Manitou during the last three days of the season, but the arrangement developed weaknesses which caused Mr. Gauss to change it. First of all, it sent half the camp in a mood of embitterment which no amount of talk about a Gaussian victory could heal (the defeated team always won a tremendous Gaussian victory, according to the camp owner). Second, it returned victors and losers alike to their homes worn out, nervous, and often battered. Mr. Gauss had therefore issued another of his unpopular decrees, advancing the date of the color war a week and leaving seven days for the recuperation and fattening of his campers. The price was heavy: a week of anti-climax and boredom. But Mr. Gauss, caught in the old dilemma of expediency versus the children's desires, had gone his usual way.
To assuage the postwar dullness he invented a couple of holidays: Manitou Mardi Gras, which was held two days before the season ended, and Campers' Day, which followed it. The boy who was judged to have invented the best diversion of the Mardi Gras—whether it was a costume, an act, or a display—was acclaimed “Skipper for a Day.” He ruled the camp, appointed boys to supplant all the counselors (the counselors became those boys), and all in all won an enviable amount of glory. Uncle Sandy and Mr. Gauss usually managed to give the award to one of the more sober Super-seniors, who could be counted on to keep Campers' Day from becoming an orgy of hazing of the counselors.
It was a good idea. The boys consumed several mornings and afternoons preparing for the Mardi Gras, which usually became a gay sort of carnival. Campers' Day gave them a chance to release the grudges of a whole season in horseplay. The climax of the festivity was always the throwing of Uncle Sandy into the lake by the Seniors, in the presence of the whole camp. This happy event in itself reconciled large numbers of the boys to life at Manitou, and made them look forward to next year when they could see it done again. Every summer there were elaborate conspiracies to throw Mr. Gauss into the water, too, but the plots had never come off. He always seemed to vanish at the critical time.
“What th' heck does Mardigrass mean, anyhow?” said Lennie, addressing a circle of boys sitting on the grass around him. Bunks Twelve and Thirteen were having a period of horseback riding again, which meant, as usual, that Cliff gave Clever Sam a workout for an hour while the others lolled and gossiped.
“Hey, Lennie, is it Mardigrass or Mardigrah?” said one of the boys. “Uncle Gussie keeps sayin' ‘Mardigrah.’”
“Shucks, dincha see the big sign they got stretched across Company Street?” said Lennie. “It says ‘Mardigrass Saturday,’ don't it? Mardigrass with a s.”
“Uncle Gussie says it's French.”
“Maybe, but I ain't no Frenchman.”
This caused a burst of laughter. Lennie had solidified his position as a hero during the color war by winning a couple of crucial games for the Yellows. Everything about a hero is magnified, and a joke uttered by him is much funnier than if it comes from ordinary flesh and blood. Encouraged by the laugh, Lennie added, “Maybe Uncle Gussie is French. He always sounds like he's been eatin' frogs.”
This was considered pricelessly humorous, and several of the boys rolled on the grass in merriment.
“That still don't answer what it means, though,” said Lennie.
The boys sobered, and tried to think of an explanation.
“Maybe,” said Ted, “it has somethin' to do with grass. This is grass-cuttin' time, for makin' hay, ain't it? O.K., maybe in French Mar-di-grass means ‘Cut the grass.’”
The circle all looked to Lennie for his opinion. The hero wrinkled his brow judiciously and said, “Sounds right. I bet that's it.”
Everyone else nodded now, except Herbie, and one boy said, “Pretty smart, Ted, figuring it out like that.”
“Er—I looked it up in the dictionary,” Herbie put in diffidently. “It means ‘Fat Tuesday.’”
“What!” Lennie's tone hovered between amazement and scorn.
Herbie was at low ebb in his own esteem and everyone else's. He had been of no use at all to the Reds in the color war. His usual good spirits had been lacking since the night of the fateful dance, and Lucille had avoided his presence and even his glance since that time.
“Well, I know it sounds funny,” he faltered. “But—but Fat Tuesday is what it says.”
Murmurs of resentment were heard.
“General Garbage, the only thing you can do good is lie,” said Lennie. “If we'd of had a lying contest, the Reds would of won the color war.”
“Haw! Haw! Haw!” from the chorus.
Then a rapid fire of wit:
“How could they have a Fat Tuesday on a Saturday?”
“You sure it wasn't Skinny Wednesday?”
“Or Pot-Bellied Friday?”
“Or Bowlegged Sunday?”
“Haw! Haw! Haw! Fat Tuesday!”
“I know what he means, guys,” exclaimed Lennie. “He means he's fat Tuesday and every other day.”
The hilarity which followed this epigram was so prolonged that Uncle Sid broke away from a conversation with Elmer Bean and inquired what the joke was.
“Herbie says,” Lennie gasped between guffaws, “that Mardigrass means ‘Fat Tuesday.’”
“You pronounce it ‘Mardigrah,’ and it does mean ‘Fat Tuesday.’ It's the name of an ancient religious holiday,” answered the counselor, and walked away.
After a short silence conversation was resumed on other topics. No more jokes were made about Fat Tuesday. Herbie was noticeably shouldered out of the talk. He had committed that breach of manners, unforgivable among adults as well as among boys: he had known more than the leader.
When the group started down the hill for the swimming period, Herbie got permission to remain behind with Cliff and Elmer Bean while they unsaddled Clever Sam.
Elmer Bean was regarded by Herbie as an oracle on camp matters. The rough young handy man gave straight answers, uncolored by contempt or satire, and he seemed to have a fuller understanding of the ways of Mr. Gauss than anybody. Also, unlike a counselor, he did not stand in opposition to boys in the nature of his duty.
“Say, Elmer,” said Herbie, as he watched Cliff and the handy man fussing with the horse's girths, “has a Intermediate got a chance to become Skipper-for-a-Day?”
Elmer paused in his work, and regarded Herbie with a twinkling eye. “Why? You figger on bein' it?”
“Well, no,” said Herbie, “'course not. But still a guy likes to know if he got a chance.”
“Nobody but a Super-senior ain't got it yet, Herb. Mr. Gauss likes to make sure, see, that the thing don't get to be all hog-wild.”
“O.K. That's all I wanted to know.”
Cliff swung the saddle off Clever Sam's back and stood holding it. “Why, Herbie?” he said. “You got a good idea for the Mardigrass?”
“Pretty fair, I thought. But it don't make no difference.”
“What's the idea?” said Elmer Bean.
“Aw, just a ride.”
“What kind of ride?”
“It's—it's hard to explain. Anyway, I might as well forget it.”
Elmer took the horse's bridle and led him toward the barn. “Come on, talk up, Herb,” he said. “What's yer big idea? Maybe you might be the first Intermediate to make Skipper.”
“Well,” Herbie began, following Elmer, “I figure this Mardigrass is kind of like Coney Island, ain't it? Well, my pop took me to Coney Island once. The most fun I had was on a thing they called the Devil's Slide. It was a big boat that slid down into a tank of water. Boy, oh boy, when that thing hit the water—zowie!”
Cliff said, “I been on that. You ain't figuring to build no Devil's Slide out here, are you, Herbie? Heck, that would take a year.”
“It's all built, Cliff!” Herbie answered excitedly. “Don't you see? The doggone girls' lawn slants right down to the lake, don't it? All right. All you gotta
do is put a rowboat on wheels, see, an' bang! You got the Devil's Slide!”
“How,” said Elmer dryly, “do you steer this rowboat on wheels an' keep it from runnin' into a bench or Aunt Tillie?”
Herbie's face fell. “I never thought of that.”
Cliff said, “Heck, you could steer it with ropes or somethin'.”
“A heavy rowboat fulla people barrelin' down a hill? Son, you need wire cables and Samson pullin' 'em to steer that.”
They were in the tumbledown stable now, redolent faintly of straw and strongly of Clever Sam. Elmer backed the horse into his stall and closed the door. Clever Sam leaned against the wall and closed his eyes with a peaceful sigh.
“I tell you what,” said Herbie. “What's the matter with layin' a couple of rails down the hill just like they had it in Coney? The boat could slide down the rails. All you need's a few boards.”
“You mean greased boards,” said Elmer.
“Of course greased boards,” replied Herbie, although it hadn't occurred to him that the boards would have to be greased.
“Hm. Four hundred feet of two-by-fours and twenty gallons of axle grease wouldn't hardly begin to do it.”
“O.K.,” said Herbie dejectedly. “I said forget about it.”
“An' after the boat gets down in the water once, how do you git it back up the hill?”
“O.K., O.K., Elmer.”
“An' anyway, what keeps the boat from flyin' clean off the greased boards halfway down the hill 'an roostin' up in a tree?”
“Heck, Elmer, do you have to poke fun at me? It was a crazy idea, that's all. I'll go to the lousy Mardigrass dressed like a old lady or somethin'. You said I couldn't win, anyhow.” He sat on a perilous old chair with one leg missing, tilted it against the horse's stall, and slouched.