User:Phe/test

14

The plum-tree, black and brittle, rocks stiffly in winter wind. Her million little twigs are frozen in spears of ice. But in the Spring, lithe and heavy, she will bend under her great load of fruit and blossoms. She will grow young again. Red plums will ripen, will be shaken desperately upon the tiny stems. They will fall bursted on the loamy warm wet earth; when the wind blows in the orchard the air will be filled with dropping plums; the night will be filled with the sound of their dropping, and a great tree of birds will sing, burgeoning, blossoming richly, filling the air also with warm-throated plum-dropping bird-notes.

The harsh hill-earth has moistly thawed and softened, rich soaking rain falls, fresh-bladed tender grass like soft hair growing sparsely streaks the land.

My Brother Ben’s face, thought Eugene, is like a piece of slightly yellow ivory; his high white head is knotted fiercely by his old man’s scowl; his mouth is like a knife, his smile the flicker of light across a blade. His face is like a blade, and a knife, and a flicker of light: it is delicate and fierce, and scowls beautifully forever, and when he fastens his hard white fingers and his scowling eyes upon a thing he wants to fix, he sniffs with sharp and private concentration through his long pointed nose. Thus women, looking, feel a well of tenderness for his pointed, bumpy, always scowling face: his hair shines like that of a young boy—it is crinkled and crisp as lettuce.

Into the April night-and-morning streets goes Ben. The night is brightly pricked with cool and tender stars. The orchard stirs leafily in the short fresh wind. Ben prowls softly out of the sleeping house. His thin bright face is dark within the orchard. There is a smell of nicotine and shoe leather under the young blossoms. His pigeon-toed tan shoes ring musically up the empty streets. Lazily slaps the water in the fountain on the Square; all the firemen are asleep—but Big Bill Merrick, the brave cop, hog— jowled and red, leans swinishly over mince-pie and coffee in Uneeda Lunch. The warm good ink-smell beats in rich waves into the street: a whistling train howls off into the Springtime South.

By the cool orchards in the dark the paper-carriers go. The copper legs of negresses in their dark dens stir. The creek brawls cleanly.

A new one, Number 6, heard boys speak of Foxy:

“Who’s Foxy?” asked Number 6.

“Foxy’s a bastard, Number 6. Don’t let him catch you.”

“The bastard caught me three times last week. In the Greek’s every time. Why can’t they let us eat?”

Number 3 thought of Friday morning—he had the Niggertown route.

“How many—3?”

“One hundred and sixty-two.”

“How many Dead Heads you got, son?” said Mr. Randall cynically. “Do you ever try to collect from them?” he added, thumbing through the book.

“He takes it out in Poon-Tang,” said Foxy, grinning, “A week’s subscription free for a dose.”

“What you got to say about it?” asked Number 3 belligerently. “You’ve been knocking down on them for six years.”

“Jazz’em all if you like,” said Randall, “but get the money. Ben, I want you to go round with him Saturday.”

Ben laughed silently and cynically into the air:

“Oh, my God!” he said. “Do you expect me to check up on the little thug? He’s been knocking down on you for the last six months.”

“All right! All right!” said Randall, annoyed. “That’s what I want you to find out.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Randall,” said Ben contemptuously, “he’s got niggers on that book who’ve been dead for five years. That’s what you get for keeping every little crook that comes along.”

“If you don’t get a move on, 3, I’ll give your route to another boy,” said Randall.

“Hell, get another boy. I don’t care,” said Number 3, toughly.