The Little Blue Devil/Tony Learns Things

Dogs and boys have a wonderful power of recuperation, and Tony was of the light, tough terrier-build that is hard to kill; the open-air life of Paranui had strengthened him into the bull-terrier type, but that was no disadvantage. He tramped southward in the cold, and found the world a fairly decent place. The first few days he often felt weak and ill, but when he was exhausted he would go to sleep anywhere by the roadside and rise refreshed. At least he had nothing to fear.

His experiences during the next three months were not pleasant, but he never felt them a nightmare like the reign of Baldwin. He was at a timber camp for a little time; the men there were mostly large, blond Scandinavians, very good-natured when they were sober, but when they got drink into the camp they were of a crude brutality which exceeded anything Tony had ever seen. But they never bothered to bully him with their tongues, and he could stand a good deal if only his mind were left alone.

He went on to a cattle station in the hill country. They took him on out of kindness, he so obviously needed a job, but there was no work for a boy there, and Tony found to his silent rage that he could not keep up with the men. It was a station with a standard of hard, swift work, and at that time of year the cold was fiendish. The sleet cut their faces as they rode over the black mountains, and their numbed hands slipped on the bridle. He only stayed a little while; the sense of being a failure was strong on him; and then it struck him that he had spent a longer time ​in New Zealand than in any other country since he was born. He thought he was “due for somewhere else.”

So he worked his way back to Dunedin and used all the magnetism that was in him to be taken on board a Union boat on its way to Sydney. They did take him on, as a favour (how sick Tony was of favours!), and he worked in the galley. It was a short, dreary passage, and he was glad to leave New Zealand behind for the present.

Some months afterwards he wrote to Robertson for the first time since leaving Paranui.

“Dear Mr. Robertson,

“I have not written to you for a long time, there was nothing settled to say. I hope you are quite well, I wonder when you came back.

“I left N.Z. more than six months ago, when I went away from Paranui I went down South to a timber camp. It was very interesting, but I did not stay long, then I got taken on at a cattle station in the hill country called Tupa Tupa, there are good men there and the mountains look as if they were too big to fit into the world. But it is beastly cold there in winter. I was there in winter. Then I came over here in the Moeraki round by the Bluff helping the Stewards, I would not be a Steward for something, I would rather be me.

“I began to write tidily but it all goes to seed if I don’t watch the whole blessed time. Here I went droving with a man called Hooker, he is a real good sort, he swears more than anybody I ever met which is saying a lot, so many New Zealanders and Australians swear very well. That is not why I like him though, he is Good, he taught me how to box, he used to be middleweight champion of Australia, but he was knocked out a long time ago and then the drink ​knocked him out more, he says that himself so it is not Tellings. But he can still teach, he says I shape well, he didn’t say that till we said Goodbye but I think he means it he is a very honest person, he was furieux because I said in fun that I hadn’t learnt anything from him so I was going to George Seale because he teaches better (He does not).

“I like droving, even in wet weather, and you get well paid too ₤3 a week, that is not bad. I did not get that at first of course but afterwards I was alone with Bill and he gave me the same as a man. I am spending it now. It is nearly all gone, when I came to Sydney again I made arrangements and I have been going out in a sailing boat in the daytime and to a night school in the evenings, now I have signed on the Minnie S. Garland, she sails for Frisco next Thursday, if you write to the Post Office there I shall get the letter, please write, we shall have a slow voyage. There is to be one other boy on her. I got it through a Parson here who belongs to the Seamen’s Mission.

“I have been going out with some boys here, in the boat, larrikins I suppose they are. Someday I am coming back to see you. I dont forget.

“Yours faithfully

“Antony St. Croix.”

He was nearly fourteen now, and Australia had been good to him; he felt strong and very fit. He would not have written to Robertson if he had not had cheerful news to tell. When he looked back on the months of droving they seemed sheer pleasure, long days and wakeful nights all melted into one warm dream. Even the weeks before Bill Hooker picked him up had not been bad, though he was tramping bush-tracks and living even more than usual from hand to mouth. It was spring-time; the air was full of ​scent and sound, and the gum trees were all topped with glistening cherry-coloured leaves. Everything felt so young and cheerful, he knew that something must be going to turn up! And then Bill came along, and things were arranged with a quickness that bewildered even Tony, not unused to having the course of his life decided in ten minutes.

It had been a most satisfactory experiment, and he would never forget Bill, who had treated him as a man; but when the second trip was over he came down to Sydney to spend his money and “learn things”—that was never long out of his thoughts—and then the sea drew him again. He found that he rather liked books, though he would not willingly have gone to school if it had not represented future power to him.

The voyage to ’Frisco was long, slow, and on the whole pleasant; Tony found the work comparatively easy and he got on well because he never shirked. How could he, when the chief object of his life was to prove that he was worth as much as a man? As the Minnie S. Garland drew near California he found himself thinking often of Robertson’s possible letter, especially at night. It almost kept him from feeling lonely.

“There ought to be one,” he thought. “There will be one—unless he has forgotten all about me. I wonder if he has? He liked me, but—I have no hold. . . . Bill likes me . . . I’m glad I met Bill. He was funny when he got on to the subject of women!—‘Never let them see you with buttons off or holes in your socks, or they’ll grab you and mend them an’ never let you go—keep clear of women anyhow, an’ go straight. . . .’ Well, the men I’ve known who weren’t straight with women weren’t very good specimens—my father, for instance. (I hope to God I’m not going to grow up like him!)—Not much danger—I do more work in a month than he has done in his whole ​life, and it doesn’t leave much time for fooling round. . . . Funny! I haven’t spoken to what you’d call a lady since I was on the India with Mr. Robertson; that was three years ago. I've hardly spoken to any woman much, for the matter of that. I s’pose it’s easier for a boy than for a man. I’m not the size they want to kiss now-(more by token, I’m growing out of these clothes, and they were new in Sydney). . . . Well, Gaston Ste. Croix was tall. Now, I wonder how tall? He looked a giant to me, but I was such a little rat then. . . . Mother was tall too, but she was never strong. . . . And the last time I was in America she was here too, before we went over to Japan—Oh, my God! Oh—Mummy dear. . . .”

There would come a long pause, during which he did not think at all, and then he would pull himself together to face some such thoughts as these.

“If she had lived I’d be with them still. He’d never have dared to turn me out—she was always more afraid of him than I was, but she wouldn’t have let him. . . . Perhaps it’s as well she did die. He made her life just plain hell; she’s better where she is. If it was true that dead people could see what you’re doing, then I’d pray for her to be asleep all that Cairo time and the last year in New Zealand. . . . I’m so much older now that it doesn’t matter. . . .”

Once when he had been thinking about Bill he found himself saying, “It was good work—I liked it, but I’m going to be more than a drover—” and was startled at finding that he had waked a queer, long-unused echoing chord. He groped after its meaning, but without much success. “Now what on earth made me think that? I know. He said It would belong to me, but I can’t remember any name. My grandfather’s place—a house—a big house in England—with a rose-garden, mother often told me—But—how funny! Supposing I really had something of ​my own all the time . . . it makes things feel different. It’s all rather mixed, but I know he did say something about my being a disgrace to them. (I wish I could remember the name and my grandfather was alive when He spoke of him last.) He said he hoped they’d like taking me out of the gutter—or something like that—Sweet father I have Wonder if he’s still alive? He was going pretty hard when we parted—I should think he’d be about there by now! I’d like to meet him again, some time when I’m flush. I used to want to kill him . . . I don’t now. I’d like to hurt him worse than that, only he’s hard to get at, he’s so disgustingly selfish—and shameless. If I thought I was like him I’d kill myself. But I’m not, except to look at. . . .” (Nothing so far had been able to convince Tony that he was anything but an unpleasant object, he detested his father’s features so much.) Now he stretched himself, with a long unguarded yawn that showed his strong white teeth. Five days more to a letter from Robertson—which, of course, might not be there. . . .

It was not there; Robertson had been away from Paranui when Tony’s letter came, and his answer had unavoidably missed several mails. In other ways also Tony’s memories of San Francisco are not agreeable. A specially violent form of influenza was raging there just then; he got it rather badly, and the Minnie S. Garland had to go on without him. When he came out of hospital he was startlingly weak, and work was hard to get. He thought he would make his way across to New York, but he had not realised the distance. Seven years ago he had seemed to go so quickly! But now—“I’ll die of old age if I try to hoof it all the way,” he thought. It was harder—and more dangerous—to get free train journeys here than it had been in France. Tony “jumped the rattler” more than once, but it is a feat that needs a quick eye and a cool head; it could not be attempted too often after he had ​spent his last cent, in the days when meals grew casual and shelter was a thing for which to be very thankful. Tony was thankful; he fought his way out of the West to the Middle West, doing “chores,” odd jobs, from ranch to farm, from farm to town. His only steady work was on a dairy farm in California for a month. He hated cows ever after that.

In Denton, Illinois, he was taken on in a box factory. He was glad to get the work, but he stayed less than a month. Even with better pay and shorter hours the life would have been intolerable to him, used as he was to the open air. The factory was badly managed, ill-ventilated, and dirty. Tony did not mind “outdoor dirt,” but this sickened him. He went on, growing more desperate every day. Somehow he had not seemed to make any friends here—not that he was ever an effusive person, but he felt lonelier than he had since leaving New Zealand. He could work, and nobody wanted him.

He reached Philadelphia by the night mail; he needed that lift, having walked the soles from his boots. He had no money at all, and he at once began the weary search for work. It was growing hopeless now, and a savage feeling was beginning to stir in his heart—a suggestion that it would really be much easier to steal. Oddly enough the idea of begging, for choice, had not occurred to him. He had virtually begged many times in the last four or five years, when there was no other way of getting food or travelling facilities, but it always stuck in his throat to ask, even now.

There was no luck the first day. He slept in an empty tank that lay in a vacant lot, and began the next day without any breakfast. When he came to the busy part of the town again the traffic half dazed him; he felt rather faint. It had been some time since he had had a really good meal, and it was longer since he had been in a large town. He ​tried to cross the street, saw a car coming, lost his head for a moment and turned. He felt a queer dull blow—not a bit hard—and then he knew vaguely that he was lying on the ground and that people were talking.

And after that he knew nothing at all.