Our Mister Wren Read online

  speech. Tim, the hatter, was a loud-talking weakling, under

  Pete's domination. Tim wore a dirty rubber collar without a

  tie, and his soul was like his neckware.

  McGarver, the under-boss, was a good shepherd among the men,

  though he had recently lost the head foremanship by a spree

  complicated with language and violence. He looked like one of

  the _Merian_ bulls, with broad short neck and short curly hair

  above a thick-skinned deeply wrink led low forehead. He never

  undressed, but was always seen, as now, in heavy shoes and

  blue-gray woolen socks tucked over the bottoms of his overalls.

  He was gruff and kind and tyrannical and honest.

  Wrennie shook and drew his breath sharply as the foghorn yawped

  out its "Whawn-n-n-n" again, reminding him that they were

  still in the Bank fog; that at any moment they were likely to be

  stunned by a heart-stopping crash as some liner's bow burst

  through the fo'c'sle's walls in a collision. Bow-plates

  buckling in and shredding, the in- thrust of an enormous black

  bow, water flooding in, cries and---- However, the horn did at least

  show that They were awake up there on the bridge to steer him

  through the fog; and weren't They experienced seamen? Hadn't

  They made this trip ever so many times and never got killed?

  Wouldn't They take all sorts of pains on Their own account as

  well as on his?

  But--just the same, would he really ever get to England alive?

  And if he did, would he have to go on holding his breath in

  terror for nine more days? Would the fo'c'sle always keep

  heaving up--up--up, like this, then down--down--down, as though

  it were going to sink?

  "How do yuh like de fog-horn, Wrennie?"

  Pete, the tough, spit the question up at him from a corner of

  his mouth. "Hope we don't run into no ships."

  He winked at Tim, the weakling hatter, who took the cue and

  mourned:

  "I'm kinda afraid we're going to, ain't you, Pete? The mate was

  telling me he was scared we would."

  "Sures' t'ing you know. Hey, Wrennie, wait till youse have to

  beat it down-stairs and tie up a bull in a storm. Hully gee!

  Youse'll last quick on de game, Birdie!"

  "Oh, shut up," snapped Wrennie's friend Morton.

  But Morton was seasick; and Pete, not heeding him, outlined

  other dangers which he was happily sure were threatening them.

  Wrennie shivered to hear that the "grub 'd git worse." He

  writhed under Pete's loud questions about his loss, in some

  cattle-pen, of the gray-and-scarlet sweater-jacket which he had

  proudly and gaily purchased in New York for his work on the

  ship. And the card-players assured him that his suit-case,

  which he had intrusted to the Croac ship's carpenter, would

  probably be stolen by "Satan."

  Satan! Wrennie shuddered still more. For Satan, the gaunt-jawed

  hook-nosed rail-faced head foreman, diabolically smiling when

  angry, sardonically sneering when calm, was a lean human

  whip- lash. Pete sniggered. He dilated upon Satan's wrath at

  Wrennie for not "coming across" with ten dollars for a bribe

  as he, Pete, had done.

  (He lied, of course. And his words have not been given

  literally. They were not beautiful words.)

  McGarver, the straw-boss, would always lie awake to enjoy a good

  brisk indecent story, but he liked Wrennie's admiration of him,

  so, lunging with his bull- like head out of his berth, he snorted:

  "Hey, you, Pete, it's time to pound your ear. Cut it out."

  Wrennie called down, sternly, "I ain't no theological student,

  Pete, and I don't mind profanity, but I wish you wouldn't talk

  like a garbage-scow."

  "Hey, Poicy, did yuh bring your dictionary?" Pete bellowed to

  Tim, two feet distant from him. To Wrennie, "Say, Gladys, ain't

  you afraid one of them long woids like, t'eological, will turn

  around and bite you right on the wrist?"

  "Dry up!" irritatedly snapped a Canadian.

  "Aw, cut it out, you----," groaned another.

  "Shut up," added McGarver, the straw-boss. "Both of you."

  Raging: "Gwan to bed, Pete, or I'll beat your block clean off.

  I mean it, see? _Hear me?_"

  Yes, Pete heard him. Doubtless the first officer on the bridge

  heard, too, and perhaps the inhabitants of Newfoundland. But

  Pete took his time in scratching the back of his neck and

  stretching before he crawled into his berth. For half an hour

  he talked softly to Tim, for Wrennie's benefit, stating his belief

  that Satan, the head boss, had once thrown overboard a Jew much

  like Wrennie, and was likely thus to serve Wrennie, too.

  Tim pictured the result when, after the capsizing of the steamer

  which would undoubtedly occur if this long sickening motion kept up,

  Wrennie had to take to a boat with Satan.

  The fingers of Wrennie curled into shape for strangling some one.

  When Pete was asleep he worried off into thin slumber.

  Then, there was Satan, the head boss, jerking him out of his

  berth, stirring his cramped joints to another dawn of

  drudgery--two hours of work and two of waiting before the daily

  eight-o'clock insult called breakfast. He tugged on his shoes,

  marveling at Mr. Wrenn's really being there, at his sitting in

  cramped stoop on the side of a berth in a dark filthy place that

  went up and down like a freight elevator, subject to the orders

  of persons whom he did not in the least like.

  Through the damp gray sea-air he staggered hungrily along the

  gangway to the hatch amidships, and trembled down the iron

  ladder to McGarver's crew 'tween-decks.

  First, watering the steers. Sickened by walking backward with

  pails of water he carried till he could see and think of nothing

  in the world save the water-butt, the puddle in front of it, and

  the cattlemen mercilessly dipping out pails there, through

  centuries that would never end. How those steers did drink!

  McGarver's favorite bull, which he called "the Grenadier," took

  ten pails and still persisted in leering with dripping gray

  mouth beyond the headboard, trying to reach more. As Wrennie

  was carrying a pail to the heifers beyond, the Grenadier's horn

  caught and tore his overalls. The boat lurched. The pail

  whirled out of his hand. He grasped an iron stanchion and

  kicked the Grenadier in the jaw till the steer backed off, a

  reformed character.

  McGarver cheered, for such kicks were a rule of the game.

  "Good work," ironically remarked Tim, the weakling hatter.

  "You go to hell," snapped Wrennie, and Tim looked much more

  respectful.

  But Wrennie lost this credit before they had finished feeding

  out the hay, for he grew too dizzy to resent Tim's remarks.

  Straining to pitch forkfuls into the pens while the boat rolled,

  slopping along the wet gangway, down by the bunkers of coal,

  where the heat seemed a close-wound choking shroud and the

  darkness was made only a little pale by light coming through

  dust-caked port-holes, he sneezed and coughed and grunted till

  he was exhausted. The floatin
g bits of hay-dust were a thousand

  impish hands with poisoned nails scratching at the roof of his

  mouth. His skin prickled all over. He constantly discovered

  new and aching muscles. But he wabbled on until he finished the

  work, fifteen minutes after Tim had given out.

  He crawled up to the main deck and huddled in the shelter of a

  pile of hay-bales where Pete was declaring to Tim and the rest

  that Satan "couldn't never get nothing on him."

  Morton broke into Pete's publicity with the question, "Say, is

  it straight what they say, Pete, that you're the guy that owns

  the Leyland Line and that's why you know so much more than the

  rest of us poor lollops? Watson, the needle, quick!" [Applause

  and laughter.]

  Wrennie felt personally grateful to Morton for this, but he went

  up to the aft top deck, where he could lie alone on a pile of

  tarpaulins. He made himself observe the sea which, as Kipling

  and Jack London had specifically promised him in their stories,

  surrounded him, everywhere shining free; but he glanced at it

  only once. To the north was a liner bound for home.

  Home! Gee! That _was_ rubbing it in! While at work, whether

  he was sick or not, he could forget--things. But the liner,

  fleeting on with bright ease, made the cattle-boat seem about

  as romantic as Mrs. Zapp's kitchen sink.

  Why, he wondered-- "why had he been a chump? Him a wanderer?

  No; he was a hired man on a sea-going dairy-farm. Well, he'd get

  onto this confounded job before he was through with it, but

  then--gee! back to God's Country!"

  While the _Merian_, eleven days out, pleasantly rocked through

  the Irish Sea, with the moon revealing the coast of Anglesey,

  one Bill Wrenn lay on the after-deck, condescending to the

  heavens. It was so warm that they did not need to sleep below,

  and half a dozen of the cattlemen had brought their mattresses

  up on deck. Beside Bill Wrenn lay the man who had given him

  that name--Tim, the hatter, who had become weakly alarmed and

  admiring as Wrennie learned to rise feeling like a boy in early

  vacation-time, and to find shouting exhilaration in sending a

  forkful of hay fifteen good feet.

  Morton, who lay near by, had also adopted the name "Bill

  Wrenn." Most of the trip Morton had discussed Pete and Tim

  instead of the fact that "things is curious." Mr. Wrenn had been

  jealous at first, but when he learned from Morton the theory

  that even a Pete was a "victim of 'vironment" he went out for

  knowing him quite systematically.

  To McGarver he had been "Bill Wrenn" since the fifth day, when

  he had kept a hay-bale from slipping back into the hold on the

  boss's head. Satan and Pete still called him "Wrennie," but he

  was not thinking about them just now with Tim listening

  admiringly to his observations on socialism.

  Tim fell asleep. Bill Wrenn lay quiet and let memory color the

  sky above him. He recalled the gardens of water which had

  flowered in foam for him, strange ships and nomadic gulls, and

  the schools of sleekly black porpoises that, for him, had

  whisked through violet waves. Most of all, he brought back the

  yesterday's long excitement and delight of seeing the Irish

  coast hills--his first foreign land--whose faint sky fresco had

  seemed magical with the elfin lore of Ireland, a country that

  had ever been to him the haunt not of potatoes and politicians,

  but of fays. He had wanted fays. They were not common on the

  asphalt of West Sixteenth Street. But now he had seen them

  beckoning in Wanderland.

  He was falling asleep under the dancing dome of the sky, a happy

  Mr. Wrenn, when he was aroused as a furious Bill, the cattleman.

  Pete was clogging near by, singing hoarsely, "Dey was a skoit

  and 'er name was Goity."

  "You shut up!" commanded Bill Wrenn.

  "Say, be careful!" the awakened Tim implored of him.

  Pete snorted: "Who says to `shut up,' hey? Who was it, Satan?"

  From the capstan, where he was still smoking, the head foreman

  muttered: "What's the odds? The little man won't say it again."

  Pete stood by Bill Wrenn's mattress. "Who said `shut up'?"

  sounded ominously.

  Bill popped out of bed with what he regarded as a vicious

  fighting-crouch. For he was too sleepy to be afraid. "I did!

  What you going to do about it?" More mildly, as a fear of his

  own courage began to form, "I want to sleep."

  "Oh! You want to sleep. Little mollycoddle wants to sleep,

  does he? Come here!"

  The tough grabbed at Bill's shirt-collar across the mattress.

  Bill ducked, stuck out his arm wildly, and struck Pete, half by

  accident. Roaring, Pete bunted him, and he went down, with Pete

  kneeling on his stomach and pounding him.

  Morton and honest McGarver, the straw-boss, sprang to drag off

  Pete, while Satan, the panther, with the first interest they had

  ever seen in his eyes, snarled: "Let 'em fight fair. Rounds.

  You're a' right, Bill."

  "Right," commended Morton.

  Armored with Satan's praise, firm but fearful in his rubber

  sneakers, surprised and shocked to find himself here doing this,

  Bill Wrenn squared at the rowdy. The moon touched sadly the

  lightly sketched Anglesey coast and the rippling wake, but Bill

  Wrenn, oblivious of dream moon and headland, faced his

  fellow-bruiser.

  They circled. Pete stuck out his foot gently. Morton sprang

  in, bawling furiously, "None o' them rough-and-tumble tricks."

  "Right-o," added McGarver.

  Pete scowled. He was left powerless. He puffed and grew dizzy

  as Bill Wrenn danced delicately about him, for he could do

  nothing without back-street tactics. He did bloody the nose of

  Bill and pummel his ribs, but many cigarettes and much whisky

  told, and he was ready to laugh foolishly and make peace when,

  at the end of the sixth round, he felt Bill's neat little fist

  in a straight -- and entirely accidental -- rip to the point of

  his jaw.

  Pete sent his opponent spinning with a back-hander which awoke

  all the cruelty of the terrible Bill. Silently Bill Wrenn

  plunged in with a smash! smash! smash! like a murderous savage,

  using every grain of his strength.

  Let us turn from the lamentable luck of Pete. He had now got the

  idea that his supposed victim could really fight. Dismayed, shocked,

  disgusted, he stumbled and sought to flee, and was sent flat.

  This time it was the great little Bill who had to be dragged

  off. McGarver held him, kicking and yammering, his mild

  mustache bristling like a battling cat's, till the next round,

  when Pete was knocked out by a clumsy whirlwind of fists.

  He lay on the deck, with Bill standing over him and demanding,

  "What's my name, _heh?_"

  "I t'ink it's Bill now, all right, Wrennie, old hoss--Bill, old

  hoss," groaned Pete.

  He was permitted to sneak off into oblivion.

  Bill Wrenn went below. In the dark passage by the fidley he

  fell to tremorous weeping. But the brackish hydrant water that

&nb
sp; stopped his nose-bleed saved him from hysterics. He climbed to

  the top deck, and now he could again see his brother pilgrim,

  the moon.

  The stiffs and bosses were talking excitedly of the fight.

  Tim rushed up to gurgle: "Great, Bill, old man!

  You done just what I'd 'a' done if he'd cussed me. I told you

  Pete was a bluffer."

  "Git out," said Satan.

  Tim fled.

  Morton came up, looked at Bill Wrenn, pounded him on the shoulder,

  and went off to his mattress. The other stiffs slouched away,

  but McGarver and Satan were still discussing the fight.

  Snuggling on the hard black pile of tarpaulins, Bill talked to

  them, warmed to them, and became Mr. Wrenn. He announced his

  determination to wander adown every shining road of Europe.

  "Nice work." "Sure." "You'll make a snappy little ole

  globe-trotter." "Sure; ought to be able to get the slickest

  kind of grub for four bits a day." "Nice work," Satan

  interjected from time to time, with smooth irony. "Sure.

  Go ahead. Like to hear your plans."

  McGarver broke in: "Cut that out, Marvin. You're a `Satan' all

  right. Quit your kidding the little man. He's all right. And

  he done fine on the job last three- four days."

  Lying on his mattress, Bill stared at the network of the

  ratlines against the brilliant sky. The crisscross lines made

  him think of the ruled order-blanks of the Souvenir Company.

  "Gee!" he mused, "I'd like to know if Jake is handling my work

  the way we--they--like it. I'd like to see the old office again,

  and Charley Carpenter, just for a couple of minutes. Gee!

  I wish they could have seen me put it all over Pete to-night!

  That's what I'm going to do to the blooming Englishmen if they

  don't like me."

  The S.S. _Merian_ panted softly beside the landing-stage at

  Birkenhead, Liverpool's Jersey City, resting in the sunshine

  after her voyage, while the cattle were unloaded. They had

  encountered fog-banks at the mouth of the Mersey River. Mr.

  Wrenn had ecstatically watched the shores of

  England--_England!_--ride at him through the fog, and had panted

  over the lines of English villas among the dunes. It was like

  a dream, yet the shore had such amazingly safe solid colors,

  real red and green and yellow, when contrasted with the fog-wet

  deck unearthily glancing with mist- lights.

  Now he was seeing his first foreign city, and to Morton,