Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

Success and Artie Cherry-1

Success and Artie Cherry––––––––

“Artie Cherry’s home," they told one another. "Artie Cherry! Seen him?"

He appeared on the village main street early that evening, and from the bank corner to the d**g corner held a reception.

"Land! Artie Cherry," they said, "with his hat turned back like he had corn to sell."

No such hat had been shown in the village—fine straw, black-banded, its brim lightly lifted. He wore gray clothes, a color avoided by the village because "it spots." He wore a white waistcoat which the village called a boiled vest. And as for his soft shirt, silk—"I declare, don't it look like a lady's?"

So intimate is the secret knowledge of villages that the thought of every one now flew to Mis' Cherry, the widow, who sold the Household Brand of everything—cleaning-powder, cold cream, glue. Hers was a difficult way and lonely, though from the time that her son Artie went off to the city he had sent her little presents—a gilt clock, a pink fan, beads, a pickle-dish, all kept in the parlor and exhibited. How she would flush and sparkle over them, the small, gray widow, with asthma and one high shoulder, and stumpy hands which now trembled a bit. What would she be saying when, for the first time in fifteen years, Artie had come home?

"Mis' Cherry she'll be near beside of herself," the village said.

And because the secret knowledge of villages runs even deeper, the thought of many turned to Lulu Merrit, clerking "in at Ball's," the druggist. There had been "something" between Lulu and Artie; a few knew that Lulu had "mittened" him—the word still survives—because he refused a job in his cousin Hazleton's factory at the county-seat and went adventuring off to the city instead. But Lulu had never looked at a man since, and if Artie Cherry had married, no one had ever heard of it from his mother.

"And, anyway," said every one, "he couldn't be married—not and dress like that."

Artie Cherry strolled up the main street that night, executing the sensation which he had so long projected, and glorying. Only he who has lived for fifteen years in a hall bedroom and dined at lunch-counters, only he who has spent his life upon the footstool of occasion, only he who, in short, has been the principal unknown figure in a great city of great persons and has returned to be abruptly the center of a little world, can know how Artie Cherry gloried.

Wooden Kiefer, grocer's assistant, brown, long, and curved, strode from a store and pumped at Artie's arm. "Swipes!" cried Wooden. "Howrye? Good thing! What's your trade?"

For this Artie had been waiting. Others were listening. He answered, negligently:

"Me? Oh, I'm still with the Duckbury plant. Grand old concern—yeah, the bicycle folks."

There was a pause, which Artie may be said to have fostered.

"Makin'—makin' bicycles, are you?" asked Wooden.

"Oh, well," said Artie, "yes—you might say so. I'm in charge of the works."

"Good enough!" exploded Wooden. "Lord! Your age, too, boy! Good enough!"

"In charge of the Duckbury works." The word flew before him. There was no need for any to ask: "What's your business?" "In some commercial proposition, are you?" They all knew swiftly—Artie Cherry had charge of the Duckbury bicycle concern. Well! Wooden followed Artie admiringly; and Artie, with a lordly air of the casual, bade him to a cigar. And though he knew that old story about Lulu and Artie, the good Wooden, neither able to resist exhibiting his friend to Lulu nor able to resist a chance to see her himself, led Artie to the place of Ball, the druggist, where Miss Lulu Merrit clerked. Only to see Wooden's seeking eyes as he crossed the threshold told how all was in Wooden's heart.

Lulu was "at the toilet goods." As the two men entered she was ranging colored perfumes along the edge of the glass case—a red, a pink, a purple, uniform, tasteful, tall. But she varied it. Sometimes the bottles were indented, now two, now three, now one.

Lulu looked up and saw the two enter. To one she nodded and the other she noted. She did not recognize him, but instantly she caught his air of town. Indeterminately she was pleased that neither Ball nor the boy was in the store, that it was she who must cross to the cigar-case and minister.

As she crossed she glanced in the mirror on the post, at her small head with neck stiffly held, her fine face, still pretty but a bit flat and shadowed, and her white waist with crocheted insertion. She stirred her flat hair and wished that she had put on her crepe blouse after supper.

"I'd ought to know enough—" she concluded.

Wooden Kiefer waited until Lulu faced them across the cigar-case. Then he said:

"Lulie, you remember Artie Cherry, I guess, don't you? Sure! Lulie Merrit, Art!"

Long, long had Artie Cherry dreamed this minute, to its obscurest second. But he never had dreamed it quite as it now eventuated. For what he did was merely to take the hand of Lulu, to laugh heartily, and to turn a long, slow red. Really, Lulu had the moment for her own. For, though the pink came to her face and she, too, laughed enjoyably, it was she who managed the time, "Glad to see you, I'm sure," she said, and asked what brand. All the main street had done him homage. It took Lulu to take him for granted.

This Wooden Kiefer obscurely resented. He found in himself a divided loyalty. Lulu he had long adored, of late with faint hope, not to say expectation; but here was Artie back, and praise was his due.

"Whatje s'pose?" said Wooden. "Our friend Art he's general manager the Duckbury bicycle works."

"No, no!" Artie protested "I don't own the works, you know, Wood. I'm only in charge of 'em."

"Same thing," said Wooden. "Ain't it, Lulie? Can you beat it?"

"I heard he was," said Lulu, separating heavies from lights.

"You did!" Artie Cherry looked startled and interrogatory. "I never knew anybody here thought about me," he recovered.

"It has been a long time," said Lulu. " 'S right." She accepted his silver without looking at him. She recrossed, the store to the toilet goods and embarked on the sale of talcum to a charming creature who had changed to her crêpe blouse.

The two men went into the street.

And when the charming creature had gone away, appeased, Lulu turned back to the mirror on the post and stared at it, and stirred her flat hair.

"In charge of the works," she thought. "In charge of 'em. ..."

Of course she had never heard of this until that night.

Artie Cherry went home early that evening, not yet having had with his mother that which she called "a rill talk."

As he neared her cottage, something unexpected came to meet him. He felt glad, and in some tide of well-being which had little to do with his importance. Yet all that he saw was her house in the trees, all that he heard was the loose porch board creaking as she rocked and waited for him. And he could smell the petunias in the bed around the martin-house, but he did not know what they were.

"Artie," said his mother, "Mis' Kiefer was just in here—Wooden's ma. She says he told her you was general manager them bicycle works. Ain't folks crazy?'

Artie sat on the top step and dropped his arm upon his mother's knee. For a minute he was still.

"What 'd you tell her?" he asked, at length.

"Me?" She laughed, and kept patting his hand. "I said you'd ought to been, long ago. Are you general manager, Artie?"

"No, no, ma," he said, "I'm only in charge—I told 'em that. They like to talk big—" He broke off abruptly.

"In charge of 'em? You never told me so!" she said.

She was deeply excited, and bounced a bit in her chair. Gradually he explained to her all—the size, the wealth, the importance of the firm, the number of employees, the output.

"And you a-runnin' it!" She grasped that much. "Oh, Artie! It's just wonderful!"

"Me in charge," he gently corrected her.

He sat silent, looking into the dark of the maples. She entered upon an account of her days. When Artie said, "I seen Lulu Merrit," and seemed to like to talk about it, she sighed. If only Artie and Lulie could have ... and settled down here to home.

"Say," said Artie, "what smells so extra?"

"Might be mint," said his mother. "Might be sweetbrier. Might be my rose geranium. ..."

He was beset by quiet emotions which he could not classify or express.

"Say!" was the way he put it, and sniffed luxuriously.

They sat quiet for a time.

"I s'pose this seems awful tame after the city," she said, at length.

"Don't, ma!" Artie Cherry unexpectedly bade her.

It was toward ten o'clock next morning that she came hurrying to his room. He was still easefully abed, but watching a mother robin close to the upper sash, to which a grape-vine had almost mounted. He was thinking about Lulu Merrit.

"Seliin' cigars—say! And, honest, she kind of looks like that robin." So his thoughts ran.

"What do you think?" his mother cried at his door, standing sociably ajar to the ingrain-carpeted passage where a little yapping clock lived. Artie let his eye dwell fondly on her brown morning housework dress, too short for anything but home wear. It was so—with "What do you think?" that they had been wont to announce to each other the simple good tidings of their little history—decent standings in school, a fine catch of fish, or a fat mince pie cooling on the sill. It was nice, he thought, his mother saying that. And then the robin. And the clock. ...

"Cousin Hazleton 'll be here to-night," she announced, eyebrows high, lips left parted. And, "Ain't that luck?" she wanted to know.

Artie frowned up at her. "Luck!" he said.

Cousin Hazleton was the one prosperous member of the Cherry family. Cousin Hazleton owned a knitting-factory at the county-seat. Cousin Hazleton employed forty men. But he had never given token of the slightest interest in Artie's welfare since that unfortunate and early incident of Artie's preference for the city and the world, as over against the county-seat and fifty cents a day, even with the will-o'-the-wisp of "more later." At that period Cousin Hazleton had washed his hands of Artie. "Your smart son," he always called Artie, with a sarcasm unconsciously nasal.

"Luck!" said Artie now. "I wish 't I wasn't here. I wish 't he'd stay home. I wish 't—"

"What you talkin'?" his mother demanded. "And you looking so nice in your suit and all, and showing how you can succeed, with none of his old factory doing it!"

Here was a point, and Artie saw it. When he descended to breakfast he was planning to meet Cousin Hazleton and to dazzle him.

His mother had a fresh suggestion ripening in her eyes. "Artie," she said, "let's have Lulu Merrit over for tea to-night."

"But Cousin Hazleton 'll be here," he protested.

"Yes," she said, reasonably. "The one company supper 'll do for both of them."

So Lulu—in her crêpe blouse, which, it seemed, she had remembered that next day to put on in the forenoon itself—Lulu at the toilet goods, was invited by Mis' Cherry; and, "What hour?" Lulu asked, breathlessly, lest there should not be time to press out first.

"I'm going to have supper sharp half past six," Mis' Cherry said, "but come earlier if you want to."

Toward five o'clock, when the "through" was due, Artie Cherry once more paced the main street, immaculate, almost lustrous, and now swinging a stick. To this stick he gave little flourishes, forward and aft, as if he were making scroll designs about himself, for a finish. His elbow went rhythmic, in and out.

Cousin Hazleton was sixty, and crumpled. Hair, beard, clothes, and nerves were crumpled. And when, alighting from the crowded "through" and faring down the hot platform, he was accosted by the magnificent and leisurely Artie, pressed and shining (among the scrolls), Cousin Hazleton stopped, with an air of arresting many processes, regarded Artie's outstretched hand, and inquired:

"Who the devil are you?"