Listen to that, won’t you?”
There was behind his scowling quiet eyes, something strange and fierce and unequivocal that frightened them: besides, he had secured for himself the kind of freedom they valued most — the economic freedom — and he spoke as he felt, answering their virtuous reproof with fierce quiet scorn.
One day, he stood, smelling of nicotine, before the fire, scowling darkly at Eugene who, grubby and tousled, had slung his heavy bag over his shoulder, and was preparing to depart.
“Come here, you little bum,” he said.
“When did you wash your hands last?”
Scowling fiercely, he made a sudden motion as if to strike the boy, but he finished instead by retying, with his hard delicate hands, his tie.
“In God’s name, mama,” he burst out irritably to Eliza, “haven’t you got a clean shirt to give him?
You know, he ought to have one every month or so.”
“What do you mean?
What do you mean?” said Eliza with comic rapidity, looking up from a basket of socks she was darning.
“I gave him that one last Tuesday.”
“You little thug!” he growled, looking at Eugene with a fierce pain in his eyes.
“Mama, for heaven’s sake, why don’t you send him to the barber’s to get that lousy hair cut off?
By God, I’ll pay for it, if you don’t want to spend the money.”
She pursed her lips angrily and continued to darn.
Eugene looked at him dumbly, gratefully.
After Eugene had gone, the quiet one smoked moodily for a time, drawing the fragrant smoke in long gulps down into his thin lungs.
Eliza, recollective and hurt at what had been said, worked on.
“What are you trying to do with your kid, mama?” he said in a hard quiet voice, after a silence.
“Do you want to make a tramp out of him?”
“What do you mean?
What do you mean?”
“Do you think it’s right to send him out on the streets with every little thug in town?”
“Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about, boy,” she said impatiently.
“It’s no disgrace for a boy to do a little honest work, and no one thinks so.”
“Oh, my God,” he said to the dark angel.
“Listen to that!”
Eliza pursed her lips without speaking for a time.
“Pride goeth before a fall,” she said after a moment.
“Pride goeth before a fall.”
“I can’t see that that makes much difference to us,” said he.
“We’ve got no place to fall to.”
“I consider myself as good as any one,” she said, with dignity.
“I hold my head up with any one I meet.”
“Oh, my God,” Ben said to his angel.
“You don’t meet any one.
I don’t notice any of your fine brothers or their wives coming to see you.”
This was true, and it hurt.
She pursed her lips.
“No, mama,” he continued after a moment’s pause, “you and the Old Man have never given a damn what we’ve done so long as you thought you might save a nickel by it.”
“Why, I don’t know what you’re talking about, boy,” she answered.
“You talk as if you thought we were Rich Folks.
Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Oh, my God,” he laughed bitterly.
“You and the Old Man like to make out you’re paupers, but you’ve a sock full of money.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said angrily.
“No,” he said, with his frequent negative beginning, after a moody silence, “there are people in this town without a fifth what we’ve got who get twice as much out of it.
The rest of us have never had anything, but I don’t want to see the kid made into a little tramp.”
There was a long silence.
She darned bitterly, pursing her lips frequently, hovering between quiet and tears.