Peewee/Chapter 6

In a drug store at Division Street and State Peewee got his dollar converted into small change. Experience had taught him that, if he proffered so large a coin to spend, it might prove too great a temptation to the seller and he might get nothing back, but a boy asking for change had the air of one merely doing an errand. He exchanged three of his pennies at the alley door of a lunchroom for as large a piece of stale bread as they would buy, and moved on, eating it. He was still speculating as to what she could have been told.

He turned west at Chicago Avenue and his step quickened with decision. At this hour of the day and in summer he was not likely to be molested by agents of justice or charity, so he had the freedom of the streets. He caught the tailboard of an express wagon traveling in his ​direction, and at Halsted Street dropped again to the pavement. He crossed the long viaducts and bridges until he came to Fulton Street, and turned again and halted finally after a long walk.

Across the street from him trucks entered and came out of a dingy, low building, lettered, "Markyn Transfer Company Stable No. 1." As he crossed to one of the wide doors and looked in, the large men who moved about their affairs within, in a smell of gasoline and oil, paid no attention to him. There was, he knew, no risk of meeting here any member of the Markyn family; these people were underlings. He went in guardedly, expectant of being ordered out, but reached the door of the cage-like office unchallenged and looked in. He saw two clerks inside busy with papers. He stepped in and sat down upon the bench inside the door and watched the clerks and the drivers who passed in and out with their reports. When he had sat for half an hour, he noted that one of the clerks was becoming oppressed by his continued presence.

​"What you waiting for, kid?" the man inquired.

"I'm waiting for Lampert."

"No one of that name here."

He observed in the second clerk an awakening of interest. "Used to be barn boss at Stable Three," the second clerk told the first one, "but the old man fired him. Get out, kid; no use."

Peewee had known he would not find Lampert here. "They said I'd find him here," he insisted craftily.

He sat hopefully a quarter hour more, noting that he was wearing out the patience of the second clerk.

"Where does Ben Lampert live?" the clerk finally asked one of the drivers.

The man did not know. Peewee passed five expectant minutes. A man then put his head in at the door. "You asking where Lampert lives?" he inquired of the clerk. He gave a number on South State Street.

"There was a kid stuck here waiting for him."

Peewee saw over his shoulder the clerk look about for him and fail to find him; he had ​slipped out behind the man at the door as soon as he had heard the number. He moved south to Twenty-second Street, then east to State. There began to be, as he progressed toward his destination, more colored people on the sidewalks and standing in the doorways. He spelled out on the store windows signs advertising porters' supplies. The building corresponding to the address which he had heard was large and dingy; there were entrances leading to apartments along its front and there were also, as he could see through a long narrow hall which had no doors, apartments in the rear. He followed this hall, which led him into an evil-smelling court littered with rubbish. Both white and colored people lived here, and exterior stairways led upward from the court to their small apartments.

Each person, the Greek had said, had two grandfathers, and Lampert, Peewee comprehended, being his mother's father, bore that relation to him. He assumed from the contrast between the dismal room where his mother had died and fine house where his father lived, that ​his mother's father would live in one of the smaller apartments at the rear of the building rather than in one of the better ones in front. But he could not determine which apartment it was without inquiries which he did not dare to make. He had no definite plan regarding Lampert, but was curious about him because his name had been connected with whatever Mrs. Markyn had been told. Was it Lampert who had told her? After studying the apartments a long while from the court, he went out again into the street.

By ten o'clock he had wandered as far as Thirty-first Street, and was begining to think about a place where he could sleep. He turned into a wide street and, in its darkest spot, stopped and put two of his pennies in a separate pocket; then he carefully wrapped the remaining ninety-five cents in a rag which he had picked up and put them inside his shirt. He followed a passageway between two buildings and knocked at a basement door. An unkempt old woman, in return for his two pennies, admitted him into a darkened, musty cellar. He followed her ​across the floor where numerous figures, some large, some small, were already stretched in sleep, and lay down in the corner which she pointed out.

In the morning, when the uncomfortable forms about Peewee began to stir, he got up and went out. It was just beginning to be light. He followed an alley to the north and, in the damp chill of morning, sat down against a stable door to wait. He had learned by now the methods of the flower business. The opposing door, which he was watching, was a florist's. It was unlocked after a time, as the neighborhood began to awaken, and was left standing open. He could see the florist inside, sorting his stock. The man threw the most faded flowers away, put the fresh ones back, and put aside those which were not fresh enough for sale but were still not quite faded. As soon as he had finished, Peewee went in and bargained for a handful of carnations of the last sort. He wrapped them carefully in a newspaper and went along the alley and the streets, crossing the railroad tracks to the lake, where he sat down ​on the narrow strip of beach. He picked the most faded leaves from his flowers and broke off the dead ends of their stems. Then he dug a hole with his fingers in the sand, and the bottom of the hole filled at once with water. He laid the flowers round the hole with their stems in the water, and covered them with his newspaper.

In the early afternoon he gathered up his flowers and went back to Thirty-first Street. By dark, the flowers which he had not sold were so faded that when he offered them people only laughed; and he was back close to the building where Lampert lived. He had decided now, with reference to Lampert, that he would merely go into the court and wait. People would be passing in and out, perhaps Lampert among them, and something might occur to point him out to him.

With dusk a fog had come in from the lake, which turned to water on the stair-rails and the eaves and dripped into the court. In the mist and darkness which filled the badly lighted court, he could not tell much about the people passing ​except as they entered or left the long hall. He had been watching there an hour when he saw come into the court the colored girl who had been his mother's maid—dressed in expensive clothes which did not fit her and teetering as she walked on her high-heeled shoes. He got up nervously. She might not recognize him. He had no specific reason for fearing her if she did, but he watched her anxiously. She crossed the court, passing him, and hesitated at the foot of the stairs. She turned back then, repassing him, and faced him from the entrance to the court.

"What you doin' in here, honey?"

"Nothin'."

What her recognition might signify as regarded himself, he did not know. There was, he appreciated, no means of exit from the court except the hall. He approached her watchfully, depending upon his quickness to dodge past, but she was too quick for him and seized him by the arm.

"This here," she exulted, "must be my lucky night!"

​He had ceased struggling as soon as he had tested the firmness of her grasp. Whatever she might mean to do with him could not be frustrated by physical action on his part; experience long before had taught him the futility of such struggles with grown-ups. His short legs could hardly keep pace with her, as she hurried him up one of the long stairs and into a dark hall, where she knocked upon a door.

There came a challenge from within.

"It's Mignon," she replied.

The door opened, blinding him with light, and he staggered forward as she pushed him violently into the room.

"Here is the boy," he heard her say.

It was, as he perceived as he stood blinking, a small room, poorly furnished and lighted by a lamp. A similarly lighted connecting room made up the apartment. A table with an oilcloth cover stood in its middle; there was a couch plainly used for sleeping. He saw staring curiously at him an elderly woman, a younger woman in unsuitably expensive clothes and ​wearing rings, and a big man with a red-veined face.

Peewee never had seen any of them before and he did not at once speculate as to who these people might be, but looked at them belligerently, determined that he would not be afraid. The man came forward and took hold of him and turned him to the light.

He exploded an oath of astonishment.

The reason for his astonishment did not appear to be plain to the colored girl. The man took Peewee's small hand in his immense one and opened the fingers which held the faded flowers; he did this roughly.

"What were you doing with these?" he asked. "Selling them?"

Peewee swallowed. "Yes."

The man swore again and threw the flowers against the wall. He turned to the colored girl and seemed about to say something, but checked himself. He went to the younger of the two other women and spoke to her, but Peewee could not hear what he said. Then he came back, and led the boy into the small connecting bedroom.

​"You'd just as leave stay in here a little while," he said. "There ain't anybody going to hurt you, you know. You understand that, don't you?"

Peewee gulped nervously. "Yes, sir."

"All right, then."

He closed the door, while Peewee stared at him uneasily. Who were these people? What did they mean to do with him? He looked questioningly around the room. There was an open trunk in it, besides the bed and the one chair. The trunk's contents of rich-looking dresses, but torn and spotted, were scattered on the open lid and hung upon its sides. Peewee's breathing tightened queerly as he caught the faint perfume which came from the clothing and filled the room, and he moved closer, looking at the things. The scent was unmistakable and unforgettable as he touched the dresses; his mother's bedroom had been heavy with this strong perfume on the day she died. Were these his mother's things?

He could hear voices in the other room—the man's voice, the colored girl's voice, then the ​voice of the younger of the two women. They spoke in low tones and he could not distinguish what they said. The door opened and the elder woman came in. She pulled about the dresses in the trunk, took one and went out again, reclosing the door. The voices began again. Had they put him in here in order that he might not hear what was said? Finally the door was opened and the younger woman entered.

She sat down upon the bed and drew him to her. "What do you call yourself?" she asked.

He told her: "Peewee."

"That's not a real name. You know it ain't that, don't you?"

"Yes'm."

"What is your real name?"

He was silent; he had never accepted any other name. He was regaining confidence; her manner reassured him.

"You remember the day you saw your mother?"

"Yes'm."

"What did she call you?"

He replied after an instant: "Walter."

​"Then that is your real name, ain't it?"

He thought it best to agree with her. "Yes'm."

"Then if anybody asked you, you'd tell them that?"

"Yes'm." He kept unexpressed a mental reservation.

"What did you think of your mother?"

He could not reply; he had no opinion of his mother. His silence seemed to satisfy the woman, and his gaze went to the rings upon her hands, one of which, distinctly unforgettable, recalled his dead mother's thin hands stretched stiffly on the coverlet.

"You have her ring," he said.

She laughed. "That's right," she assented. "She was the bad one; I was the good one. Now I wear her things."

Comprehension was coming to him; he had thought that the man must be Lampert and now he was sure.