The Boy Grew Older

CHAPTER I

"Your son was born ten minutes ago," said the voice at the other end of the wire.

"I'll be up," replied Peter Neale, "right away."

But it wasn't right away. First he had to go upstairs to the card room and settle his losses. Indeed he played one more pot for when he returned to the table his deal had come around again. He felt that it was not the thing to quit just then. The other men might think he had timed his departure in order to save the dollar ante. He dealt the cards and picked up four spades and a heart. Eventually, he paid five dollars to draw and again he had four spades and a heart. Nevertheless, he bet ten dollars but it was no go. His hands shook as he dropped the two blue chips in the centre of the table. The man with a pair of jacks noticed that and called. Peter threw his cards away.

"I've got nothing – a busted flush. I want to cash in now. I owe for two stacks. That's right, isn't it? I haven't any chips left. If somebody'll lend me a fountain pen I'll make out a check. I guess I need a check too. Any kind'll do. I can cross the name off."

"Why are you quitting so soon?" asked the banker as Peter waved the check back and forth to let it dry. "We're all going to quit at seven o'clock."

"Two rounds and a consolation pot," corrected somebody across the table.

Peter was curiously torn between reticence and an impulse to tell. He felt a little as if he might begin to cry. When he spoke his voice was thick. "I've got to go up to see my son," he said. "He's just been born."

He shoved the check over to the banker and was out of the room before anybody could say anything.

He thought that the banker said, "Congratulations," as he slammed the door behind him, but he could not be certain of it.

All the way up in the taxi he worried. The hospital was half a mile away. He wished that the nurse had said, "A fine boy," but he remembered it was just, "Your son was born ten minutes ago."

"If anything had been wrong," he thought, "she wouldn't have said it over the telephone."

"Is everything all right?" was his first question when a nurse came to the door of the small private hospital and let him in. "My name's Peter Neale," he explained. "My son's just been born half an hour ago."

"Everything's fine, Mr. Neale," she said and she smiled. "The baby weighs nine pounds. Mrs. Neale is fine too. You can see them both, but she's asleep now. You can't really see her today, but I think they'll let you have a good look at your son. He's a little darling."

Peter was reassured but irritated. Formula was all over the remark, "He's a little darling." He thought she ought not to use it until she had learned to do it better. Some place or other he had read that babies were fearfully homely. Still it didn't look so bad when he came into the room. Black was smudged all around the eyes which gave the child a rakish look.

"Miss Haine," said the nurse who brought him in, "this is Mr. Neale."

"Mr. Neale," she added, "meet your son." Then she went out.

"Is he all right, Miss Haine?" was Peter's first question as soon as the door closed. After all, the other woman was just supposed to answer the bell. Miss Haine might know more about it.

"He's a cherub," said Miss Haine.

"How did his eyes get blacked?" Peter wanted to know.

"Oh that's just the silver nitrate. We always put that on a baby's eyes to make sure – Look what a fine head he has."

Peter bent closer. The baby was not nearly so red as he had expected. As for the head he didn't see why it was fine. He had no notion of just what made a head fine anyway. The child kept wrinkling up its face, but it was not crying. There was nothing about his son to which Peter could take specific exception, but somehow he was disappointed. When he had said down at the New York Newspaper Club, "I've got to go up and see my son," the phrase "my son" had thrilled him. But this wasn't "my son." It was just a small baby. It seemed to him as distant as a second cousin.

"He is sweet," remarked Miss Haine.

"Yes," said Peter, but he felt that any extension of the discussion would merely promote hypocrisy on both sides. "Can I see my wife?" he asked.

"Come this way," said Miss Haine. "You can only stay a second. I'm pretty sure she's asleep."

Maria was asleep and snoring hard. Miss Haine took up one arm which was flung outside the cover and found the pulse of the sleeping girl and as she felt it she smiled reassuringly. "Yes," she said, "she's doing fine."

"And now," she added, "I'm going to bundle you off. There really isn't anything around here for a father to do. This isn't your job, you know. I'm going to let you come back in the morning, but not before ten."

Peter learned later that one of the strongest factors in Maria's resentment against having a baby was that he was implicated in the affair so slightly. He tried to tell her that she ought to blame biology and not him, but she said there was nothing in the scheme of creation which arranged that fathers should be playing cards when their sons were born. It had an air of reckless indifference about it which maddened her. Peter knew that he could not explain to her that he had not been free in spirit during the afternoon. He simply could not bear to stay out of a single pot. Hour after hour he kept coming in on middle straights and three flushes. Never before had he done anything like that. But she knew so little about poker that there was no use in telling her any of this. Indeed he realized that he had made a mistake in venturing his one answer. Maria was in nowise pacified when he said, "But I lost fifty dollars."

CHAPTER II

Peter saw Maria only once after that and then for a few minutes. Most of the time she wept. "She's getting along splendidly," said Dr. Clay. "Her nervous condition isn't good," he added as an afterthought. "Somehow or other she doesn't take much interest in the baby. You would almost think she didn't like it. She'll get over that. The maternal urge is bound to have its effect in time."

Of course Peter could not know that this urge, of which the bearded doctor spoke so confidently, might be tardy. That was something which he was to learn later for two days after the baby was born he went to Goldfield for the big fight. He had made the stipulation with the managing editor that somebody else should cover the story in case his son was not yet born. The consent had been somewhat grudging and so he had no inclination to call for another respite now that the baby had actually arrived. It would have embarrassed him to say to the managing editor, "I don't want to go away now because Maria – that's my wife – doesn't like the baby." Anyhow Dr. Clay had said she was getting along splendidly except for her nerves and the maternal urge would attend to that.

And so Peter went to Goldfield and when he came back two weeks later they told him at the hospital that Maria had gone leaving the baby behind her. They were slightly apologetic. Miss Haine had been a little careless. Twelve days after Peter started for the fight Maria had dressed and walked out. Nobody around the hospital knew anything more than that about it. She had left a note and Dr. Clay had taken the extreme liberty of reading it. Medically speaking, he could not say that it indicated anything more than a highly neurotic condition. The woman was rational. He could not see his way clear to sending out a general alarm. After all he did not suppose that there was any legal way of making the young woman come back. She said she was going to sail for Paris and he supposed she had. Dr. Clay offered sympathy and some observations gleaned in twenty years of practice about the Latin temperament.

Peter said nothing in reply. He did not want to discuss it. He felt lost and gone but not altogether startled. Now that it had happened he realized that he should have known that Maria might do something just like that. It was an altogether silly arrangement that she should have had a baby.

"The youngster's fine," said Dr. Clay. "It must be a comfort to you to know that you've still got him. I believe he's having his bath now. Wouldn't you like to come up and see him. It's quite an exciting event I can assure you."

Peter didn't want to be excited and it didn't appeal to him as a sporting event anyhow. Would Dr. Clay allow him to lie down on his couch for a little while. Later he'd come up and talk about what to do with the baby. He supposed the hospital didn't want it very much longer anyway. After Clay had gone he cried a little. That didn't necessarily mean much. Only the Thursday before he had cried at the ringside in Goldfield when Battling Nelson knocked out Joe Gans. Then it had been partly rage because thousands around him had shouted "Knock his block off. Kill the nigger." And he had seen someone very beautiful slowly crumple up before a slab-sided, bristling, little man who had no quality of skill or grace. Nelson had just kept coming in and in. He never stepped back. Often he took a blow in the face rather than bother to stop for an instant from swinging his own short arms at the brown belly in front of him. The victory had seemed altogether mechanical. Gans had not been knocked out so much as clawed to pieces by a threshing machine. And it was Gans Peter had thought of two years ago when he first saw Maria Algarez dance. She had that same amazing suddenness of movement. When he first saw her she was standing still in the middle of the huge stage. And then everything about her had come to life. There was never any feeling that she was thinking about what to do. No roll call was carried on in her mind before she kicked or leaped, or flung an arm above her head. The left jab of Joe Gans was like that too.

Peter went to the stage door and thought he had made up his mind to stop her and speak to her. He found that he hadn't. She came out slowly and when he stared at her she looked straight at him and almost smiled. He could not be quite sure of it because that was the very moment something inside rapidly wheeled him about and sent him all but running out of the alley. Later he was more enterprising. The dramatic critic at his request introduced him to the press agent of "Adios" and the press agent introduced him to Maria Algarez. She had just finished her dance. Peter was standing in the wings and people were telling him not to.

"Perhaps Mlle. Algarez will take us up to her dressing-room," said the press agent.

"It is not mine," said Maria, "I am not a star. The eight Bandana Sisters dress with me. But never mind. Here they come. It is now their turn on the stage. You will have to climb two flights of stairs, Mr. Neale. You do not mind? Yes?"

"I do," said the press agent. "But that scores for you. You're the one he wants to see."

And so Peter found himself alone in one corner of the long dressing-room of Maria Algarez and the eight Bandana Sisters. All sorts of clothes were scattered over the room. Maria sat down on a chair and stretched out her feet. There was another chair nearby but somebody's stockings were on it. Peter stood up. Maria looked at him and smiled with no particular merriment. She was tired. Peter shifted from one foot to another through a long pause.

"Are they really sisters?" he asked.

"Just two," said Maria. "Vonnie is the sister to Boots. The rest they are all mixed. It could not be that there should be eight such bad dancers in the one family."

"I think you're the greatest dancer I ever saw."

Maria nodded. "Yes, I am the great dancer. It is smart for you to know that. The others they do not know. When Boots was sick, Mr. Casey – he is our stage manager – he wanted me to go on in her place. He said he would give me $5 a week more. He is stupid Mr. Casey. I do not dance like that. It is not for me."

"We'll be miss, miss, missed in Mississip," she hummed and made a face. "One, two, three, four, lie down on the stomach and kick first the right leg and then the left leg and then kick both legs. That was what he wanted Maria Algarez to do. How is it you know? It is so smart. Here throw down those stockings on the floor and take the chair. I want to hear you say more about why I am so great a dancer."

Peter lifted the stockings as if they had been little kittens and placed them on the long shelf under the electric lights.

"I don't know why," he said. "It just seems so easy when you do things. And the thing you dance to; I think that's the best tune in the show."

Maria was merry now for the first time. "Again you are smart. It is 'The Invitation to the Waltz' of Weber. 'Miss, Miss, Missed' is not so good. That is right. And some time you will tell about me in your newspaper and say that I am a great dancer?"

"I can't," said Peter. "I don't write about the theatre. I only write about sports. Baseball, you know and football and prizefights and things like that."

"Never mind, you and I know, it will be our secret. We will tell none of the others."

Up the stairs there came a tramping and shouting and all eight Bandanas rushed into the room approximately at the same time.

"I'm going," said Peter jumping up hastily.

"Don't you mind us Bandanas," shouted Vonnie across the room. "We don't take off anything for half an hour."

"Goodbye," said Peter. "Excuse me, ladies."

Maria held his hand for one and two thirds seconds. "You must come again. I want that you should tell me more about our secret."

Vonnie held the door open for Peter. "You come when we're all here," she said. "There isn't a nickle's worth of harm in the lot of us. But that Maria there is a vamp, a baby Spanish vamp. Will you remember that."

"I'll remember."

As Peter went down the stairs he was trying to see if he could hum the thing that Maria said was "The Invitation to the Waltz" by Weber. He wasn't good at it. And besides it was all mixed up and racketing around in his head with, "We'll be miss, miss, missed in Mississip."

Peter went to the show the next night and after that the alley. He stood scrunched up against a wall for a time but he felt too conspicuous. He was afraid that somebody would come up to him suddenly and say, "What are you hanging around here for?" It didn't make much difference who said it, the door man, a stage hand, a scrub woman, anyone would have sufficient authority to terrify him. His mind leaped beyond that and he had a vision of a policeman laying a hand upon his shoulder and saying, "I arrest you on the charge of mashing." After that would come the trial and the sentence. Peter moved out of the alley. He had no notion of just what were the fixed post rights of anybody waiting at a stage door to see an actress. Walking seemed safer and he took up a beat along the side street which ran at right angles to the alley.

His pace was brisk and he succeeded pretty well in developing the air of a man bent upon getting to some important engagement five or six miles away. Of course, every time he passed the alley it was possible to sweep it with a glance over his shoulder. Even a man in a hurry has a right to notice a tributary of chorus girls, musicians and actors sweeping into his street. First came the musicians. Then one girl. Then two and presently the flood. Peter did not dare to be too detached any more. Fortunately he found the window of a cigar store just at the corner where the alley turned into the street. By pretending an interest in the special sale of genuine imported English briar pipes Peter was able to keep close watch upon everyone who came from the stage door and at the same time seem not quite a prominent clubman. But one of the pipes, possibly the calabash cut to $2.21, must have commanded more than fictitious interest, for Peter was suddenly startled by a clutch at his left arm. He tugged away and turned at the same moment.

"Unhand me, woman," said Vonnie, but she immediately took his arm again. "I knew you'd come," she said. "It was that look you threw at me over your shoulder when you went out yesterday."

"I haven't come," said Peter. "I just happened to be going by."

"But you are glad to see me?"

"Of course I am."

"And you'll walk home with me to keep me from being unprotected on the streets of a great city at night. It's only about twelve blocks. You don't need to take a taxi."

"Honest, I can't. I wish I could. I'm awful sorry."

Vonnie began to laugh. "I wonder why it is that when they come big they haven't got any sense. 'I knew I could rule you the day we were wed,' she hummed, 'for thick in the middle is thick in the head.'"

"What did I do that was stupid? And I'm not thick in the middle."

"Well, that's a fact. I don't know your name but your figure is grand. I guess you find being so handsome you don't need any sense."

"I have so too got sense. What have I done?"

"Well, you're just so serious I can't go on kidding you. Don't you suppose I knew you were waiting for Maria? And I know a lot more than that. You keep looking at that girl the way you did yesterday afternoon and all of a sudden you'll find rice in your ears."

"All right," said Peter, "I guess I can stand that."

"Here comes the bride – watch your step," and Vonnie went up the street as Maria came around the corner.

"Hello," said Maria, "what was it you talked about to Vonnie?"

"She thinks we're going to get married."

"And what is it you think?"

"I'd like it."

"Because I am the great dancer you think I ought to be the wife. So? It is funny. But it is not so funny. We can talk about it again. Now I am so tired that I just want to hear you say one thing and that is about the dancing and me."

"I think you were just fine," said Peter.

CHAPTER III

Maria was right. They did talk about it again and largely because Peter surprised himself and her with enterprise. It was raining hard that night when she came out into the alley. Peter grown bold was standing not more than two feet away from the stage door at a spot where a projecting fire escape offered some shelter from the rain. A big puddle lay all the way across the alley.

"Here," said Peter, almost casually and he picked Maria up and carried her across.

"Thank God, there's no winding staircase," Vonnie shouted after them.

Still it was an entirely natural and easy thing to keep one arm around Maria when they got into the taxicab. She rested her head against his shoulder. Peter realized then that he ought to kiss her. After all he had known her three weeks. It seemed the conventional thing to do. Besides he wanted to. She said nothing until the second time.

"I like the quiet ones better, Peter, my hermit. It is nice to lean against you. With you the taxi does not jounce so much. Part of my tiredness it goes into your arm."

"Won't you marry me?" asked Peter.

"Because we have kissed? And I have put my head on your shoulder? You would make me the honest woman?"

"I want to marry you."

"First we must have some supper. Maybe it is that you are just hungry. It is not upon an empty stomach to talk about getting married."

Maria would not take the table which the headwaiter offered. "No that other. The little one in the corner."

After they had ordered Maria took up a long bread stick and began breaking it into little pieces in her hand.

"Peter," she said, "I must make you very sad. Maybe I will be a little sad. You do not think I am good?"

Peter stared at her.

"That is too bad. I am not good, not very good. You know what I mean. You have heard the actress in the play say, 'I am a good woman?' Maria is not. I do not know why I tell you but I will. First it was three years ago in Paris. He was married and I knew that. I do not even like him much but I go. It was wrong. It was not so wrong another time because that boy I like a little. Now it was Mr. Casey, our manager, I told you he was a fool. That I could not help. He is such a fool. I try to get the job and he does not say you can dance. He say to me, 'I am a nice man and you are a nice girl.' What is there for me to say except 'yes.' About the dance he does not know anything. What is the use for me to say, 'No, I am not the nice girl, I am the great dancer.' Even if he would watch me dance he would not know. And so for the week-end at Long Beach I was the nice girl. I cannot help it that people are fools. It does not make me sad, but I am sad because now you are unhappy."

But Peter was not exactly unhappy. He knew that by all the rules he should be broken-hearted or raging. He wondered why he had no impulse to shoot Casey. As a matter of fact he could think of nothing more silly. His mind kept turning back to a play he had seen once called "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray." In that the heroine had confessed in the first act to the man she was going to marry. It was thrilling Peter found to have somebody confessing to him. Maria the dancer was romantic, but Maria the adventuress was a whole leap beyond that into the realm of fantasy. He stole a glance around the long room and everywhere he saw men and women talking. Some were laughing and some were earnest. "But," he thought to himself, "probably this is the only table in the room where anybody is making a confession."

And besides all the dramatic values of the situation, he was not quite unconscious of the comic ones. There sat Maria, at least five feet high and looking about ten years old, gravely lifting up one corner of life a little gingerly to spare the feelings of Peter Neale, the best known sporting writer in America. But every other impression was swept away by the sudden feeling that it was extraordinarily honest for Maria to tell him all this. It was more than that. It was like cheering when the Yale captain got up again. It was sportsmanship.

Peter reached across the table and patted her hand. "I'm not sad, Maria. I think it was awfully white of you to tell me. I'm not exactly a good man myself. Anyhow things are different with you. Those things you said are nothing. You know the way I feel is that you're an artist and it's nobody's business what you do. We don't have to talk about that any more. There's something else. You remember what we were saying in the taxicab. You've had two pieces of bread now and a glass of water. Won't you marry me?"

"Yes," said Maria, "I'm going to marry you."

Peter was surprised the day they went down to get the license to discover that Maria was twenty-three. He was only twenty-six himself. Maria had seemed a child. Nineteen would have been his guess.

"Maybe," she said, "you will not want me because I am so old."

"You could be a hundred," Peter answered.

They were to be married the next day but when he met her at the theatre in the evening she told him that Dolly Vance was ill and that Mr. Casey wanted her to take over four of the sick girl's numbers. "I have to come to the theatre at ten o'clock and rehearse all the day."

"Then we'll get married at nine. I'm not going to take a chance like that. I've read about it in books. The whole house will be cheering you and then you'll ask for waivers on me. I want to get you signed up."

"Pooh, for me they will not cheer. These are the jazz dances. They are not for me. And Peter, oh, Peter, I must sing."

"Can you sing?"

"Yes, my hermit, I am almost so good a singer as a dancer. And I could play the piano if there was any one smart enough to know. You see I bring you the dowry."

A very bored Alderman said that they were man and wife, but there was some excitement when they came out of the City Hall and two newspaper photographers took their pictures. Peter was proud of the fact that both the camera men made a point of treating him as a person of a good deal of importance. "You see," he said, "I'm somebody in my business."

"The paper you work on what is the name?"

"It's called the Bulletin."

"And what is it they pay you?"

"Well, with my share of the syndicate and all that it amounts to about $100 a week."

"One hundred dollars a week! That is funny. My pay it is $50. I have caught a millionaire. Peter, why do they pay you $100 a week?"

"I don't know, Maria – "

"One hundred dollars a week to write about the baseball game! Fifty dollars a week to Maria Algarez. My God, what a country! I do not like that, Peter. Still, it does not matter so much. Maybe I am glad that you are rich. You can buy me a piano and I will show you that I know how to play Chopin. You would like that."