“He’s too good to soil his hands now that he’s quit the public school.”
Eliza herself kept him sufficiently reminded of his obligation.
She spoke often of the effort she had to make to pay the tuition fee, and of her poverty.
She said, he must work hard, and help her all he could in his spare hours.
He should also help her through the summer and “drum up trade” among the arriving tourists at the station.
“For God’s sake! What’s the matter with you?” Luke jeered.
“You’re not ashamed of a little honest work, are you?”
This way, sir, for Dixieland.
Mrs. Eliza E.
Gant, proprietor.
Just A Whisper Off The Square, Captain.
All the comforts of the Modern Jail.
Biscuits and home-made pies just like mother should have made but didn’t.
That boy’s a hustler.
At the end of Eugene’s first year at Leonard’s, Eliza told John Dorsey she could no longer afford to pay the tuition.
He conferred with Margaret and, returning, agreed to take the boy for half price.
“He can help you drum up new prospects,” said Eliza.
“Yes,” Leonard agreed, “that’s the very thing.”
Ben bought a new pair of shoes.
They were tan.
He paid six dollars for them.
He always bought good things.
But they burnt the soles of his feet.
In a scowling rage he loped to his room and took them off.
“Goddam it!” he yelled, and hurled them at the wall.
Eliza came to the door.
“You’ll never have a penny, boy, as long as you waste money the way you do.
I tell you what, it’s pretty bad when you think of it.”
She shook her head sadly with puckered mouth.
“O for God’s sake!” he growled.
“Listen to this!
By God, you never hear me asking any one for anything, do you?” he burst out in a rage.
She took the shoes and gave them to Eugene.
“It would be a pity to throw away a good pair of shoes,” she said.
“Try ’em on, boy.”
He tried them on.
His feet were already bigger than Ben’s.
He walked about carefully and painfully a few steps.
“How do they feel?” asked Eliza.
“All right, I guess,” he said doubtfully.
“They’re a little tight.”
He liked their clean strength, the good smell of leather.
They were the best shoes he had ever had.
Ben entered the kitchen.
“You little brute!” he said.
“You’ve a foot like a mule.”
Scowling, he knelt and touched the straining leather at the toes.
Eugene winced.
“Mama, for God’s sake,” Ben cried out irritably, “don’t make the kid wear them if they’re too small.
I’ll buy him a pair myself if you’re too stingy to spend the money.”