When knighthood was in flower?
“Look at that old lady,” whispered Malvin Bowden.
“You can TELL she’s a lady,” said Max Isaacs.
“I bet she’s never turned her hand over.”
“An old family,” said Eugene gently.
“The Southern aristocracy.”
An old negro came by, fringed benevolently by white whiskers.
A good old man — an ante-bellum darkey.
Dear Lord, their number was few in these unhappy days.
Eugene thought of the beautiful institution of human slavery, which his slaveless maternal ancestry had fought so valiantly to preserve.
Bress de Lawd, Marse!
Ole Mose doan’ wan’ to be free niggah.
How he goan’ lib widout marse?
He doan’ wan’ stahve wid free niggahs.
Har, har, har!
Philanthropy.
Pure philanthropy.
He brushed a tear from his een.
They were going across the harbor to the Isle of Palms.
As the boat churned past the round brick cylinder of Fort Sumter, Malvin Bowden said:
“They had the most men.
If things had been even, we’d have beaten them.”
“They didn’t beat us,” said Max Isaacs.
“We wore ourselves out beating them.”
“We were defeated,” said Eugene, quietly, “not beaten.”
Max Isaacs stared at him dumbly.
“Aw!” he said.
They left the little boat, and ground away toward the beach in a street-car.
The land had grown dry and yellow in the enervation of the summer.
The foliage was coated with dust: they rattled past cheap summer houses, baked and blistered, stogged drearily in the sand.
They were small, flimsy, a multitudinous vermin — all with their little wooden sign of lodging.
“The Ishkabibble,”
“Seaview,”
“Rest Haven,”
“Atlantic Inn,”— Eugene looked at them, reading with weariness the bleached and jaded humor of their names.
“There are a lot of boarding-houses in the world,” said he.
A hot wind of beginning autumn rustled dryly through the long parched leaves of stunted palms.
Before them rose the huge rusted spokes of a Ferris Wheel.
St. Louis.
They had reached the beach.
Malvin Bowden leaped joyously from the car.
“Last one in’s a rotten egg!” he cried, and streaked for the bathhouse.
“Kings! I’ve got kings, son,” yelled Max Isaacs.
He held up his crossed fingers.
The beach was bare: two or three concessions stood idly open for business.
The sky curved over them, a cloudless blue burnished bowl.
The sea offshore was glazed emerald: the waves rode heavily in, thickening murkily as they turned with sunlight and sediment to a beachy yellow.
They walked slowly down the beach toward the bathhouse.
The tranquil, incessant thunder of the sea made in them a lonely music.
Seawards, their eyes probed through the seething glare.