O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 by Various

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

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Tobey lay in his bed, asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from
the fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped
down on his face with its expression of peaceful childhood.

"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell
faster.

"Huh!" He sat up, blinking at her.

"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said.

He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize
upon him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed
and began to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful
and wondering glances in her direction.

She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no
one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe
that Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account
for the blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken
chain. But if Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill,
and if he hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man
they claimed he had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head
whirled. Some place fate, destiny, something had blundered. She
wrung her knotted hands together.

Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand
was shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she
led him toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every
step was an effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to
turn it. But turn it she did and opened the door.

"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on
his shoulder.

"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just
a boy!"

Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see
how it is. Things look pretty black for him."

He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said,
"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along."

Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder.

"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon?
All afternoon?"

"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself.

"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?"

He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly.

"I dunno," he said.

Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other
shoulder.

"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch,
the pretty watch that was in your box?"

He blinked at her.

"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?"

His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile.

"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on
his face.

"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks.

He shook his head. "I dunno."

Mrs. Brenner would not give up.

"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly.

He nodded.

"Where'd you see him?" she breathed.

He frowned. "I--saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud
that covered him.

"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half rose, her head
thrust forward on her shrivelled neck.

Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said.

"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the
axe--" she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the axe to bring
home?"

Tobey caught at the word. "The axe?" he cried. "The axe! Ugh! It
was all sticky!" He shuddered.

"Did pa give you the axe?"

But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he
repeated his feeble denial.

Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to
come along with us."

Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have
penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't
want to."

Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm.
"Come along," he urged.

Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned
to run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still,
his head lowered in his shoulders.

"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!"

He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted,
terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew.

"Ma! Please, Ma!"

Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they
drew him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing
every corner of the room.

They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could.
The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her
son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air.

Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when
Tobey had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run.
She looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light
breath seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest.

Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her
hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse.

"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his
lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars,
eh?"

"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!"

Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a
lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the
table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins.

"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He
turned toward her again.

Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big
bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings.

Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed
her face with a velvety softness.

Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm
upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a
gleam of light showed.

"You devil!" she said, in a whispering voice. "You killed that man!
You gave Tobey the watch and the axe! You changed shoes with him!
You devil! You devil!"

He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him,
trying to smile.

"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running!
And if you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll
tell him what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got
all that money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church mice.
How you going to explain what you got?"

"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed
with venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it
where I'm going to put it!"

The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of
exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you,
Mart!" she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you
for Tobey! You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you!
You're trapped, I tell you! And I done it!"

She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank
window with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the
unseen. He couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw
that he was wet with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage
him. She counted on that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury.
She leaned toward him, inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the
torch that will make their pile of fagots a blazing bier.

He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion
that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid
fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained
consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet
achieved that for which she was fighting.

The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood
drove the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering
feet. Her rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only
friend she recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across
the table. She stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment.
Then with a thin wail, "He's killing her!" she ran around them and
gained the door.

With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face,
swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her
almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman.

"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!"

The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the
door and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It
came to Mart that the woman running through the night with the wail
of terror was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw
his look of sick terror. He started to spring after the mad woman,
forgetful of the half-conscious creature on her knees before him.

But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion,
forced strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she
sprawled herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for
the table, and fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a
near-by chair. Olga raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at
him. Minute after minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long
ten minutes ticked itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely
see. Then Mart opened his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet.

Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled
forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He
struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her
twining arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung,
fastening her misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore!
And he became panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make
lunges toward the distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her
clinging body with him at every move, that body which drew him back
one step for every two forward steps he took, at last he reached the
wall. He clutched it, and as his hand slipped along trying to find a
more secure hold he touched the cold iron of a long-handled pan
hanging there.

With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and
brought it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically
and fell flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken.
And a low whimper came from her bleeding lips.

Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of
knowing how long this unequal fight had been going on.

But he was free. The way of escape was open. He laid his hand on the
door.

There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody
figure on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy.

As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow
with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly.
"And the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!"

Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of
relief crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open
to a tide of men.

The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to
rest on her narrow, sunken breast.

NO FLOWERS

BY GORDON ARTHUR SMITH

From _Harper's Monthly Magazine_

Steve Dempsey was a conspicuously ingenious chief machinist's
mate--one of the most ingenious in the Naval Aviation Forces,
Foreign Service, and he was ingenious not only with his hands, but
with his tongue. That is why I cannot guarantee the veracity of what
follows; I can but guarantee that he guaranteed it.

Steve had had a varied and highly coloured career, and I think that
the war, or so much of it as he was permitted to see, seemed to him
a comparatively tame affair--something all in the year's work. When
he was fifteen years old he was conducting his father's public
garage in a town not far from Denver; at that age he knew as much
about motors as the men who built them, and he had, moreover, the
invaluable knack of putting his finger immediately on a piece of
erring mechanism and, with the aid of a bit of wire and a pair of
pliers, setting it to rights. Given enough wire and a pair of pliers,
I believe that he could have built the Eiffel Tower.

Becoming restless in the garage, he determined to make his fortune
quickly, and accordingly went out prospecting in the vicinity of the
Little Annie mine. He bought himself a small patch of promising
ground and he and another fellow shovelled away until they had no
money left. So then he took up aviation.

He was one of the pioneers of the flying-men in this country. He
used to fly at country fairs in an old ramshackle bus of the Wright
model--a thing of sticks and canvas and wires precariously hung
together. But he flew it. And he rehabilitated his finances.

When war was declared he enlisted as a gob and was sent on sea duty.
He knew, of course, nothing of sea duty, but lack of knowledge of a
subject had never daunted him, for he had the faculty of learning
things quickly by himself and for himself. His mechanical ability
asserting itself, he was made a machinist's mate, second class, and
transferred over to the Aviation. When I knew him he had proved so
valuable at the various air stations that he had been advanced to
chief machinist's mate and was an assistant in the Technical Division
at Paris headquarters.

He was a very friendly soul, always respectful enough, even when
outspoken, and no more in fear of an admiral than of--well, he
would have said than of a marine. During his year of service, you see,
he had absorbed most of the navy traditions. He spoke the navy
speech like an old-timer, and undoubtedly amplified the regular navy
vocabulary with picturesque expressions of his own. Of course he was
very profane....

Sunday morning at headquarters was apt to be a slack morning, with
not much work to do; but in intervals of idleness one could always
be certain of finding something of interest to see or hear in
Steve's office. Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board
working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a
self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying _through_
the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet
to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on
its girders, were two of his pet projects.

On a Sunday in August of 1918 there were assembled around his
drafting-board an interested and receptive audience of four--Peters,
an ensign attached to the "lighter-than-air" section; Madden, a
pilot on his way up from Italy to the Northern Bombing Group; Erskine,
a lieutenant in the Operations Division; and Matthews, a chief yeoman.

"Yes," Dempsey was saying, "I'm _beaucoup_ sorry for these here
frawgs. They're just bein' massacred--that's all it is--_massacred_.
And there don't anybody take much notice, either. Say, somebody was
tellin' me the other day just how many the French has lost since the
beginnin' of the war. Just about one million. I wouldn't believe it,
but it's straight. It was a French colonel that was tellin' me out
to the Hispano factory day before yesterday, and he'd oughta know
because he was through the battle of the Marne and the Soam, and
everything."

"Did he tell you in French?" inquired Ensign Peters, meaningly, for
Dempsey's French was admittedly limited.

"Pardon?" said Dempsey, and then, grasping the innuendo: "No, sir,
he did _not_. Why, he talks English as good as you and me. That's
another thing about these frawgs--they can all _parlez-vous_ any
language. I never yet seen a Frenchie I couldn't talk to yet."

"Did you ever see anybody you couldn't talk to yet, Steve?"
suggested the chief yeoman.

"Here, you, how d'ya get that way? Who was it I seen th' other night
out walking in the Boy de Bullone with a skirt? And I guess you
wasn't talkin'--why, you was talkin' so fast you had to help out
with your hands, just like a frawg.... No, as I say, I feel sorry
for these French in more ways than one."

"Just how do you display that sorrow?" asked Ensign Madden.

Dempsey hesitated an instant, scratched his head, and very carefully
drew a line on the tracing-paper in front of him.

"Well, sir," he said, finally, "I displayed it last Sunday."

Then he relapsed into silence, and resumed work on the drawing. But
as he worked he grinned quietly--a provocative grin which inspired
curiosity.

"What did you do last Sunday?" prodded Peters.

The grin widened as Steve glanced up from the board. He laid aside
his instruments, tilted back in his chair, and said: "Well, it
wasn't very regular, what I done last Sunday, but I'll tell you if
you don't have me up before a court.... You remember last Sunday
was a swell day? Spring in the air, I guess, and everything, and
everybody was out walking like Matthews, here, with a Jane. I 'ain't
got a Jane, of course----"

"What!" roared Matthews.

"I 'ain't got a Jane, of course, so I decides to take a little look
around all by myself. Well, I goes down the Chomps-Eleezy feelin'
pretty good and sorta peppy and lookin' for trouble. I see all them
army heroes--the vets and the dentists and the S O S--each with a
skirt, and I passes Matthews, here, with _his_ skirt clingin' to him
like a cootie."

"Cut it out, you big stiff," interposed Matthews.

"Like a cootie," continued Steve, "and I got sorta de-pressed. So I
sez, me for the quiet, unfrequented streets over acrost the river.
Well, sir, I was just passin' the Loover--that big museum, or
whatever it is--when I see a hearse comin' in the opposite direction.
It was a pretty sick-lookin' hearse, too. It had a coupla animals
hitched to it that was probably called horses when they was young,
and that didn't have a steak minoot left on 'em. But they was all
covered with mangy black plumes and tassels and things--you know, the
way they rig 'em up when the corpse is takin' his last drive. And
there was an old bird sittin' up on the box-seat with a hat like
Napoleon One.

"Well, at first it looked to me like it was just the regular frawg
funeral, and I didn't pay no special attention, only I give it the
salute when I got opposite. Then I see that there weren't no flowers
nor tin wreaths on the coffin--except there was one little buncha
pinks, and they was a pretty sad-lookin' buncha pinks, too, sir.
Then I see that there weren't no procession walkin' along
behind--except there was one little old woman all in black and
lookin' sorta sick and scared. Yes, sir, there she was walkin' all
by herself and lookin' lonelier 'n hell.

"So I sez to myself: 'It's all wrong, Steve, it's all wrong. Here's
a poor dead frawg, the only son of his mother and her a
widow'--that's Bible stuff, sir--'goin' out to be planted with none
of the gang around. It's tough,' I sez. 'I'll say it is.' Well, I
told you I didn't have nothin' much to do, so I sez, 'Laffyette,
cheeri-o,' and steps up beside the old lady. That makes two mourners,
anyhow.

"Well, the old lady give me the once over and seen Mr. Daniels's
uniform and the rooster on my sleeve, and I guess decides that I'm
eligible to the club. Anyway, she sorta nodded at me and pretty soon
begun to snuffle and look for her handkerchief. It wasn't no use,
though, for she didn't have any.

"Meanwhile we was crossin' one of them bridges--just crawlin' along
like one of the motors had quit and the other was hittin' only on
three. If we'd been in the air we'd stalled sure and gone into a
tail-spin. All the time I was thinkin' how to say 'Cheer up' to the
old dame in French, but all I could think of at first was 'Bravo'
and '_Vous-ate tray jolee_!' Still it was sorta stupid walkin' along
and no conversation, so I guess I musta had an inspiration or
something, and I sez, pointing ahead at the coffin, '_Mort avec mon
Dieu_.' The old lady lost her step at that, because I suppose she
was surprised by a Yank speakin' good French, most of 'em relyin',
like Matthews here, on the sign language, although I'll say that
Matthews gets plenty far enough with that. Why, they're four girls
and a widow at home that if they knew how far Matthews was gettin'
with the sign language they'd be gray-headed to-day.... Aw, well,
Matthews, quit spoilin' this drawin'. Do you wanta get me and
Admiral Sims into trouble with the department?"

"Go ahead with your funeral, Steve," said Lieutenant Erskine--"unless
your power of invention has failed you."

Dempsey looked up with a hurt and innocent expression on his face.

"Oh, lootenant," he exclaimed, "what I'm tellin' is gospel. It's as
true--it's as true as the communikays."

"All right," said Erskine, "issue another, then."

"Well," Steve continued, "where was I? Oh yes, we was on the bridge
and I'd just told the old lady that the dead soldier was in heaven
by now."

"Soldier?" repeated Erskine. "What made you believe he was a soldier?"

"Why, ain't every frawg a soldier now, sir."

"How did you know, even, that it was a male frog?"

"I'm comin' to that, sir," replied Steve. "That comes next. You see,
once the old lady knew I could _parlez-vous_ with the best of 'em,
she continued the conversation and sez, '_Mon pover fees_.' Get that?
'_Mon pover fees_.' Well, that means, translated, 'My poor son.'"

At this revelation of startling linguistic ability Steve paused to
receive felicitations. When they were forthcoming he proceeded.

"So, of course, I know then that the corpse is a dead soldier, and I
decides to see him through until he's made a safe landing somewhere.
Well, just as we was acrost the bridge, the two ex-horses doin' fine
on the down grade, I seen a marine standin' on the corner tellin' a
buncha girls all about Chateau-Teery. Well, I thought that maybe it
'ud be a good thing if he joined the funeral, because, anyway, the
girls could hear all about Chateau-Teery the next marine they saw.
So I yell out at him: 'Hey, you! Come and join the navy and see the
world!'

"Well, he looks around, and, although I guess he didn't much wanta
leave them girls, he decides that he'll come and see what the big
game is. So he salutes the corpse and steps in beside me and whispers,
'Say, chief, what's the idea?'

"'Whadd 'ya think, you poor cheese?' I sez. 'D'ya think it's a
weddin'? Get in step. We're goin' to bury a French _poiloo_.'

"'Is that so?' he sez."

"'Yes, that's so,' I sez. 'Get over acrost on the other side of the
widowed mother and say somethin' cheerful to her in French--if you
know any.'"

"'If I know any!' sez he. 'Wasn't I at Chateau-Teery?'"

"'Well,' I sez, 'don't tell her about that. Tell her somethin' she
ain't heard already.'"

"'You go to blazes!' he sez, and crosses over like I told him. And
pretty soon I seen him gettin' all red and I knew he was goin' to
shoot some French at the old lady, and, sure enough, out he come with,
'_Madame je swee enchantay_.'"

"Well, sir, I like to 've died tryin' to keep from laughin' at that,
because what it means translated is, 'Madam, I'm deelighted.' Trust
them marines to say the right thing at the wrong time--I'll say they
do."

"By the time I get under control we're opposite the French Aviation
Headquarters--you know, the Service Technique on the Bullyvard
Saint-Germain. Well, there was a lot of doughboys hangin' around
there wastin' time, and I see one on a motor-cycle with a sergeant
sittin' in the side-car. So I step out of the ranks and sez to the
sergeant, 'What ya doin'?' And he sez, 'Waitin'--but there's nobody
home at all, at all.' So I sez: 'Well, you and your side-car is
commandeered for this funeral. We're buryin' a frawg and we need
some more mourners. The old lady is his widowed mother, and the
corpse, he's her only son and her a widow.' He sez: 'Shure, Oi'll
come, an' Oi'll be afther gettin' some o' thim other divvles to jine.
Me name is Roilly.' 'Right-o, old dear,' I sez. 'I didn't think it
was Moses and Straus.'"

"Well, sir, Reilly was a good scout, and inside of a minute he had
six doughboys lined up behind the hearse and him bringin' up the
rear in the side-car. The side-car kept backfirin', and it sounded
like we was firin' salutes to the dead all the way to the park.

"I wanta tell ya, that old lady was tickled. Why, there we was
already ten strong, with more to come, because I drafted three gobs
at the Bullyvard Raspail. They wasn't quite sober, but I kep' my eye
on 'em and they behaved fine. I sez to them: 'You drunken bums, you!
You join this funeral or I'll see you're put in the brig to-night.'
But to make sure they'd not disgrace Mr. Daniels's uniform I put 'em
right behind the widow and the marine and me.

"Well, it appears that one of 'em talks French good--real good, I
mean, sir--like a frawg waiter or a coacher."

"Or a what?" interjected Erskine.

"Or a coacher," repeated Steve, with dignity. "The fact is, he
talked it so good that--well, never mind that yet. He's a smart
fellow, though, Mr. Erskine, by the name of Rathbone. Well, never
mind--only he's a good fellow and 'ud be pretty useful here, with
his French and everything.

"Well, anyway, I begun to wonder after a while where that fellow
driving the hearse was takin' us to. We'd gone out the old Bullyvard
Raspail a deuce of a way, and Napoleon One showed no signs of
stoppin' them horses, and I didn't see no cemetery.

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