O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

V >> Various >> O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920

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The room where the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was
tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread
yellow butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to
the black rafters overhead.

Olga Brenner herself was no less tragic than her family. On her face,
written in the acid of pain, was the history of the blows and
cruelty that had warped her active body. Because of her crippled foot,
her entire left side sagged hopelessly and her arm swung away, above
it, like a branch from a decayed tree. But more saddening than her
distorted body was the lonely soul that looked out of her tired,
faded eyes.

She was essentially a village woman with a profound love of its
intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighbourliness. The horror
with which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner,
was an eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor,
witless son, the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present
fear of Mart. She had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that
some day some one might come to the house in one of Mart's long,
unexplained absences and sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea.
She put away the feeble hope again as she turned back into the dim
room and closed the door behind her.

"Must have been that bit of wind," she meditated. "It plays queer
tricks sometimes"

She went to the mantel and lighted the dull lamp. By the flicker she
read the face of the clock.

"Tobey's late!" she exclaimed uneasily. Her mind never rested from
its fear for Tobey. His childlike mentality made him always the same
burden as when she had rocked him hour after hour, a scrawny mite of
a baby on her breast.

"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered.

"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove.
Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac
eyes met hers.

Mrs. Brenner threw her shrivelled and wizened mother-in-law an angry
and contemptuous glance.

"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever
say--blood!"

The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But
the tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands!
Red! Dripping! I see blood!"

Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she
complained.

The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering.
Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them.
Mrs. Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to
the clock and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog
pressed heavily into the very room.

Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle
crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan
from the dozing old woman! It was a scream, a long, piercing scream,
so intense, so agonized that it went echoing about the room as
though a disembodied spirit were shrieking under the rafters! It was
a scream of terror, an innocent, a heart-broken scream!

"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid.

The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling, "Blood!
Blood on his hands! I see it."

"That was on the hill," said Mrs. Brenner slowly, steadying her voice.

She put her calloused hand against her lips and stood listening with
agonized intentness. But now the heavy, foggy silence had fallen
again. At intervals came the long, faint wail of the fog-horn. There
was no other sound. Even the old woman in the shadowy corner had
ceased her mouthing.

Mrs. Brenner stood motionless, with her hand against her trembling
lips, her head bent forward for four of the dull intervals between
the siren-call.

Then there came the sound of steps stumbling around the house.
Mrs. Brenner, with her painful hobble, reached the door before the
steps paused there, and threw it open.

The feeble light fell on the round, vacant face of her son his
inevitable pasteboard box, grimy with much handling, clutched close
to his big breast, and in it the soft beating and thudding of
imprisoned wings.

Mrs. Brenner's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but
it rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you been? What was that scream?"

Tobey stumbled past her headlong into the house, muttering,
"I'm cold!"

She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood
shaking himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers.

"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough
fingers as she waited for his answer.

"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself
forward, baby-fashion.

"Where you been?" she persisted.

As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell Ma.
Where you been?"

"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this
time," with an air of triumph.

"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly.

He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull
voice.

A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on
his knees before the open oven-door.

"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid
her hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded.
"You mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked."

She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered,
"and I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag."

"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the
floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in
there makes me cold."

"You spoil all your pa's shoes that a-way," said Mrs. Brenner, her
head bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet
with 'em any more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees
your shoes. I'll have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home.
Anyways," with a breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red
clay from the hill. That never comes off."

The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents
of his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its
fluttering contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a
crow of triumph the boy shut the lid.

"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an
awful hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma,"
the boy urged. She shook her head.

"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get
these shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll
get a awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad.
Better get into bed."

"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen Pa already. I want my supper out here!
I don't want to go to bed!"

Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was Pa?" she asked.

But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he
muttered.

Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly.

"Go get in bed," she said.

"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded.
Two big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded
world he had learned one certain fact. He could almost always move
his mother with tears.

But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him.
"Mebbe if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And
I'll try to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took
the grimy box from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand,
pulled him to his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom.

When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the
box on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something
on her hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye
and she straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light
from the shelf caught it.

"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It
must 'a' been on those lacings of Tobeys."

The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched.
"Olga! Blood on his hands!"

Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her
hand quickly on her dirty apron and held it up again to see the cut.
But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from?
From Tobey's shoes?

And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself
enwrapped in a mist of puzzling doubts.

She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But
the wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the
slimy water-weeds of the beach clung to them.

Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she
became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door
and held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing
lights of torches. A voice carried down to her.

"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these
trees. And right there I found his body!"

"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice.

"Stone-dead!'"

Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately.
She stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring
eyes glazing.

Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had
hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had
seen him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further.
But little subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and
feared his father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his
half-witted son. What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had
occurred, Tobey had not been on the hill. His shoes bore mute
testimony to that. And the scream had been on the slope. She frowned.

Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove
and laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to
the rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again
the sound of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not
stumble. They were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the
shoes, gathered them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings
caught on a nail on the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail,
and the jerking loosened her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter
they fell at her feet.

In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice,
and evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His
shaggy head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike,
hung almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his
rough, bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture.

"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you,
didn't I?"

He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering
terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril,
that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left
a wet track on the rough floor.

"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please,
Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on
the beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em."

Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into
herself, waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the
probable blow. Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered,
she stared at him in a dull silence.

"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she
stretched out her hand.

"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud
off."

Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling.

"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still
tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room.

Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his
black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability.
Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears
to listen.

A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey,
no muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her
husband came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He
stopped and looked intently at his own muddy tracks.

"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off."

As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put
out a long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled
again.

She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the
wet ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a
compassionate moment as she thought how wet and
cold his feet must be.

"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em."

Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp
knock followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair
close to the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's
there!" he ordered.

She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step,
the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she
recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the
village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them;
young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers.

"Well?" she asked ungraciously.

"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said.

She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling
off their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the centre of the
room.

Her husband reluctantly stood up.

"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?"

"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked."

Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast.

"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some,"
she urged.

The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment
Munn said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner."

"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her
meagre stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls.

"Set down?" suggested Mart.

Munn sat down with a sign, and his companions followed his example.
Mart resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into
the capacious black maw of the oven.

"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy
jocularity.

Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach
all afternoon."

"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn
spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the
thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the
air.

Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became
fixed on the tracks of red clay.

"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside tonight, for the
bay was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly.

"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn
persisted.

"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?"

"Oh--nothing," said Munn.

Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the
table.

Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished
his soup before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As
Munn finished the last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a
wicked-looking black pipe, crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it.

Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired,
"Been any strangers around to-day?"

Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon.
He was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till
the sun come out. I don't know whether he did or not."

"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?"

Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass
nobody."

The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours
still catching butterflies?" he asked presently.

Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their
floods of butterflies. But he did not answer.

"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He
puffed several times before he spoke again.

"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?"

Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced ringers
locking themselves.

"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart
said carelessly.

"Yes." Her voice was a breath.

"Was your boy out to-day?"

Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno."

Munn's glance came to the wife.

"Yes."

"How long ago did he come in?"

"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless.

"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent.

Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!"
she said in a defiant tone.

Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his
face. He still wore his peculiar affable smile.

"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?"

Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner.

"What's that to you?" she flared.

She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones. "Now, now,
Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who
made these tracks."

"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of
a falling trap.

Mart smiled still more broadly.

"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now.
Tell the gentlemen who made those tracks."

She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she
asked him.

The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her
corner.

"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!"

In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously
toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative
stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances,
said roughly. "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you
bothering us for?"

Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the
arm. There was something touching in her frightened old face.

"A man--a stranger was killed up on the hill," Munn told her.

"What's that got to do with us?" she countered.

"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure
where every man in the village was this afternoon."

Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness
of Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did
not miss the tremor in her eyes.

"Where was your son this afternoon?"

She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach."

"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed
door.

"That's Tobey's room," said his mother.

"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks,
Mrs. Brenner?"

"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he
came in. He went into Tobey's room!"

"How about it, Brenner?"

Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?"

"Is it true?"

Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree
with her," he said.

"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?"

Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for
Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine
them.

"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead,

Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor.

"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were
made in red clay. How do you account for that?"

"Tobey wears my shoes,'" said Brenner.

Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn.

"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded.

Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked. "Did you hear a
scream this afternoon?"

"Yes," she answered.

"How long after the screaming did your son come in?"

She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she
tried to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said.

"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?"

A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once,"
he said.

"I mean how long after Tobey?"

"I dunno," said Mart.

"How long, Mrs. Brenner?"

She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen
minutes, I guess," she said.

Suddenly she burst out passionately. "What you hounding us for? We
don't know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the
rest of the folks in the village like you are after us. Why you
doing it? We ain't done nothing."

Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door,
and opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He
was holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see
what it was.

"You chop your wood with a short, heavy axe, don't you, Brenner?"
said Munn.

Brenner nodded.

"It's marked with your name, isn't it?"

Brenner nodded again.

"_Is this the axe_?"

Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, even the
handle marked with bloody spots, the axe was theirs.

Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that
axe went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded, "This afternoon
before I went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the
hill. But the axe was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and
couldn't find it, I gave it up."

"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless
as a baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!"

"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the
hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor."
Munn spoke kindly.

"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you
that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might
befall her.

Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that
I'd change into shoes as wet as these?"

"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically.

"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your axe
not far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill."
Munn's eyes were grave.

The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble!
Blood and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga!
Blood!"

"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried,
above the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home.
He said he did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's
shoes. Before God I'm telling you the truth."

Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn.
Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's."

Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude.

"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her
face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it
might swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof!
More proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence!

She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn.

"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph.
"He was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?"

"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn.

"Well, Tobey did. Here they are," Mrs. Brenner held out the box.
Munn took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment
he turned it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The
room went swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had
forgotten the blood on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart
came home. Suppose the blood had been on the box.

The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden,
fluttered up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and
turned to Mrs. Brenner.

"Call your son," he said.

"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin'
to do to him?"

"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner."

"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was
chalky white.

"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who
was killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in
his buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off_"

Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was
all of a heart's anguish and despair.

"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded.

Mart's face was inscrutable.

Munn rose. The other men got to their feet.

"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to
Mrs. Brenner.

With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him
about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her
seamed face.

"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed
anybody! He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her
arms, "Oh, my God! My God!"

Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on
so," he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to
your boy. It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him.
The village is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get
kind of upset if they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and
get him, Mrs. Brenner."

As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid.
Nothing'll happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular
criminal. The most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place
where he can't do himself nor no one else any more harm."

But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change.

After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to
Tobey's door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the
latch, her eyes searching the faces of the men in the room. With a
gesture of dreary resignation she opened the door and entered,
closing it behind her.

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