Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (431 page)

“I think it’s
beautiful,
Baby.”

“Oh, I know you don’t. But Daddy, I thought I’d get tinfoil at the five-and-ten and make the whole room silver, like a room in the
House Beautiful.
But it rumpled. And now it won’t come
off
— no matter what I do makes it worse!”

During Washington’s Birthday vacation she repainted her furniture. The man from the Cleaning and Dyeing Company looked aghast at the rug he was expected to restore. And that evening at dancing school mothers warned their children away from the violent rashes on her arms — and were appalled — no understatement is possible — by the clearly leprous quality of the green or purple patches that glared like menacing eyes — dull and sinister eyes — from her hair. There had been nothing to do about it; hair is not washed in tears. The patches remained, remained indeed for weeks. After a fortnight they took on a not unattractive hue — attractive, that is to say, to anyone but Jo — of the roofs of many European villages washed down by an avalanche. And mingled. Thoroughly mingled.

The catastrophe discouraged Jo so much that she no longer wanted to go to the Beacon’s Barn dancing class.

Jason argued for it — it was not expensive.

“But there’s no
use
,” she said, “ — now I don’t go to Tunstall any more. They have secrets. I like a lot of people at school now.”

“You’d better,” her father said.

“Why do you say I’d
better
?”

In their new isolation these two talked and fought against each other like adults, almost the old sempiternal dispute of man and wife.

Jason hated that it should be that way, hated her to see him in moments of discouragement.

*****

“Let’s go out to the farm,” he said one Saturday at breakfast. “You’ve never been there.”

“Can we afford to run the car?”

“Jo, can’t you forget for a minute that I’m poor? I’ve explained; in the textile business there’re only three or four accounts that pay commissions. That’s like interest. You said you understood that.”

“Yes.”

“And the brokers who have them are naturally hanging on — they had them before I came here. As long as I have to sell second-class merchandise to — “

“Let’s forget it and like the ride.”

“It certainly can go fast, Daddy. Can we really afford to run it?”

“It’s cheaper running fast. I want to get there before they finish making the first batch of sausage.”

It was seventy miles between fields of frosty rubble, between the ever-dividing purple shoulders of the Appalachians, between villages he had never wanted to ask the names of, so much did he cherish the image of them in his heart…

But Jo’s heart was still in France. She was less regarding than thinking.

“Daddy — why couldn’t we just make a lot of money out of the farm? Like grandmother did. And just live on that. And get rich.”

“But there isn’t any farm any more, I tell you. There’s just a —  — just a large pig-sty!”

He retreated from his coarseness as he saw her face contract.

“It isn’t quite all that, Baby. Young Seneca does a little truck farming — “

“Who’s Young Seneca?”

“There was an Old Seneca and now there’s a Young Seneca — “

“When it was a big farm how big was it, Daddy?”

“As far as you can see.”

“Far as the mountains?”

“Not quite.”

“It was a big farm, wasn’t it?”

“It was good and big — even for these parts,” he answered, falling into the vernacular.

After a time Jo asked:

“How do they make the sausage, Daddy?”

“I kind of forget. I think — let’s see — I think the formula is sixteen pounds of lean meat and sixteen of fat meat. And then they grind it all together. Then they knead in the seasoning — nine tablespoons of salt, nine pepper, nine sage — “

“Why
nine
?”

“That’s what your grandmother did.”

 —  — Jason had fed Jo’s insatiable curiosity with as much as he remembered of the process as they turned into the washed-out lane that led to the farm.

Young Seneca, plunged into work, hurried over to greet them.

“How goes?” Jason asked.

“Just startin’, Mr. Davis. We butchered last night. Then a couple of boys thought they had a right to sleep all day. Have I got to pay ‘em for that time? They just keep the dogs off.”

“The
dogs
?” Jo demanded.

He acknowledged her presence.

“That’s right, Missy. Dogs down here are up to anything. We say: ‘It’s a poor dog that can’t keep his own self.’“

Getting out of the car they walked toward the smokehouse.

“We pay those hands well,” Jason said. “They still get the chitlings and cracklings and hogs’ heads?”

“They gets the regular, Mr. Davis. Even them ditchers work right hard. You take now Aunt Rose that worked for your mother-and-law — she’s been kneadin’ that seasoning till her arms like to fall off.”

The Negress in question greeted them cheerfully.

“Day! Mr. Davis. Day! young lady.”

She left her job momentarily to inspect the child, wiping her hands of the sharp spices on a big old kitchen towel.

“And
don’t
you look like your mother did?”

Jo wandered into the smokehouse. She passed barrels of flour, salt, lard — of brown sugar, of cut sugar, of sugar granulated. Coming out she ran into a colored girl with a bucket of milk on her head.

“I’m sorry.”

Without losing a bit of her balance the young woman laughed hilariously.

“Don’t need to be sorry. There’s chits been threatnin’ to push me down three years, and none ov’em ever do it.”

…Jo emerged from the smokehouse to find her father in argument with Young Seneca, who broke off from time to time to call instructions to his helpers.

“That there’s a flour sifter you’re using, Aunt Jinnie. You ought to use a cornmeal sifter for getting out them sage stems.”

Jo’s interest was divided between the sausage grinding and her father’s conversation with Young Seneca.

“We’re not making a cheap sausage and listen to this.”

He took a letter from his pocket and read aloud: “‘We cannot undertake to distribute your product any longer because of the cancellations.’ Now I can’t believe that’s just hard times. This used to be the best-known stuff of its kind in the East. It’s fallen off in quality. So where’s your pride, man? They didn’t use to be able to keep up with the orders. Something’s missing.”

“Sure I don’t know what it is, Mr. Davis.”

When they started back a hickory fire flamed against the white sycamores and it was cold.

“Daddy, if the farm was mine I’d try to find out what’s the matter about the sausage.”

Every day Jo lost a little faith in her father. Father had been “wonderful” once, and she went on, because she had been correctly tuned to the idea that duty is everything. She had been early made to put her back and wrists into that great realization — work isn’t all enthusiasm, though that is an essential part of it — in the long stress and strain of life it is more often what one doesn’t want to do any longer.

III

At high school Jo was behind in some subjects but in language classes her only difficulty was to bring her accent down to the level of the rest; her weak spot was Ancient History, which she had never studied — her remark that Julius Caesar was King of Egypt, remembered vaguely from a quick reading of
Anthony and Cleopatra,
became a teacher’s legend in the school. She made only a few friends at school; she was at the age of existing largely in her imagination.

*****

On Jason’s part it was no help in the dull late winter to know that Jo was losing faith in him. Her right to security and to special privilege as well — this, that was as much a part of her as her sense of responsibility — made a friction between them. But something was gone — Jo’s respect for the all-wise, all-just, all-providing.

He tried to keep up his morale with exercise, and with ceaseless pursuit of better textile accounts. His thin stream of commission money scarcely sufficed to keep his head above water. With one of the big ones he would be on safe ground; for he was favorably known here. Well disposed wholesalers tried to slant in his direction, but they were prevented by a class of merchandise they did not care to carry.

*****

There came the black day when he cracked — the blue black, the purple black, the green black of those unused to it. In the morning the grocer’s wife came; she said loud in the living room that she and her husband did not care to carry the account any longer.

“Be quiet!” Jason warned her. “Wait till the little girl gets off to school.”

“Your little girl! What about mine. One hundred ten dollar — “

Jo’s feet sounded on the stairs.

“Morning Daddy. Oh! Morning Mrs. Deshhacker.”

“Good morning.”

Temporarily, Jo’s imperturbability disarmed Mrs. Deshhacker, but after she had gone into the dining room, she delivered her ultimatum more firmly. Jason could only say:

“I’ll try… Middle of next week… Anyhow a partial payment.”

There was the silver: Certain pieces were inviolate — the Supreme Court Bowl, the Lee spoons with the crest of his grandfather —

Jason had seen the sign many times. Mr. Cale would take any security — was most generous, most reliable.

“How do you do, sir?”

With the infallible good manners of the Marylander, even of the humbler denominations, he stood waiting. His venality scarcely showed through his mask.

Jason mumbled something with a shamed face. Mr. Cale was used to that and stopped him.

“You want to raise some money?”

“Yes — on some silver.”

“What kind?”

“Table silver. Some goblets that have been a long time — “ He broke off — the indignity was intolerable — “and a coffee set.”

“Well naturally you have to show me.”

“Of course. There may be other things — some furniture. A few pieces — I’ll redeem them in a month or so.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will.”

Big chance he will, he added from his own experience…

At the hospital Jason was stopped in the hall and made to sit down by the floor nurse. Doctor Keyster was finishing his rounds and wanted to talk to him before he went into his wife’s room.

“About what?”

“He didn’t say.”

“She’s
worse
?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Davis. He just wants to talk to you — “

She was cleaning thermometers as she talked.

*****

Half an hour later in a little reception room Dr. Keyster spoke his mind.

“She doesn’t respond. There’s nothing before her but years of rest, that’s all I can say — years of rest. We’ve all got fond of her here but there’d be no service to you in kidding you.”

“She’ll never get well?”

“Probably never.”

“You don’t think she’ll ever be well?” Jason asked again.

“There
have
been cases — “

……Then the spring was gone out of life, April, May and June. That was all gone.

…April when she came to him like a rill of sweetness. May when she was a hillside. June when they held each other so close that there was nothing more except the lashes flicking on their eyes…

Dr. Keyster said:

“You might as well make up your mind to it, Mr. Davis.”

Going home once more from one of the many pietas to his love, Jason’s taxi passed through an agitated meat market; a labor agitator was addressing the crowd; when he saw Jason in his taxi he shifted the burden of his discourse to him.

“Here is one! And here
we
are! We’ll turn them upside down and shake them till the dimes and quarters roll out!”

Jason wondered what would roll out of him. He had just enough to pay the taxi.

*****

Up in his bedroom he felt for the third time the balance of the thirty-eight revolver —  — life insurance all paid up.

“Help me to kill myself!” he prayed. “No fooling now. Put it in the mouth.”

 —  — The phone rang sharp and he tossed the gun onto the empty twin bed.

A woman’s voice said: “Is this Mr. Davis? This is Principal McCutcheon’s secretary. Just one moment.”

Then came a man’s voice, level and direct.

“This is Mr. McCutcheon at the High School. It’s an unfortunate matter, Mr. Davis. We have to ask you to withdraw your daughter Josephine from school.”

Jason’s tense breath caught in his throat.

“I thought you’d rather know before she reached home. I tried your office. We’re compelled, much against our sensibilities, to expel three of the girls for conduct that can’t be condoned. When a pupil falls below the tone of the school the individual must be sacrificed to the good of the majority. I called a committee of teachers, Mr. Davis, and they saw eye-to-eye with me.”

“What was the nature of the offense?”

“That I don’t care to go into on the phone, Mr. Davis. I shall be glad to see you by appointment any afternoon except Thursday between two and four. I must add that we were more than surprised to find Josephine linked up to this matter. She’s held herself — well, I must say, a little aloof; she hasn’t ingratiated herself with her teachers, but — well, there we are.”

“I see,” Jason said dryly.

“Good afternoon, sir.”

Jason reached for the revolver and began taking the cartridges out of the magazine.

 —  — I’ve got to stick around — a little longer, he thought.

*****

Jo arrived in half an hour, her usually mobile mouth tight and hard. There were dark strips of tears up and down her cheeks.

“Hello.”

“Hel
lo
, darling.” He had been waiting for her downstairs; he waited till she had taken off her coat and hat.