‘Oh muddy.’ He stands up and kisses her on the chin. ‘What lots of people muddy.’
‘That’s on account of the Fourth of July.’
‘What’s that man doing?’
‘He’s been drinking dear I’m afraid.’
From a little stand draped with flags a man with white whiskers with little red garters on his shirtsleeves is making a speech. ‘That’s a Fourth of July orator… He’s reading the Declaration of Independence.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the Fourth of July.’
Crang!… that’s a cannon-cracker. ‘That wretched boy might have frightened the horse… The Fourth of July dear is the day the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 in the War of the Revolution. My great grandfather Harland was killed in that war.’
A funny little train with a green engine clatters overhead.
‘That’s the Elevated… and look this is Twentythird Street… and the Flatiron Building.’
The cab turns sharp into a square glowering with sunlight, smelling of asphalt and crowds and draws up before a tall door where colored men in brass buttons run forward.
‘And here we are at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.’
Icecream at Uncle Jeff’s, cold sweet peachy taste thick against the roof of the mouth. Funny after you’ve left the ship you can still feel the motion. Blue chunks of dusk melting into the squarecut uptown streets. Rockets spurting bright in the blue dusk, colored balls falling, Bengal fire, Uncle Jeff tacking pinwheels on the tree outside the apartmenthouse door, lighting them with his cigar. Roman candles you have to hold. ‘Be sure and turn your face away, kiddo.’ Hot thud and splutter in your hands, egg-shaped balls soaring, red, yellow, green, smell of powder and singed paper. Down the fizzing glowing street a bell clangs, clangs nearer, clangs faster. Hoofs of lashed horses striking sparks, a fire engine roars by, round the corner red and smoking and brassy. ‘Must be on Broadway.’ After it the hookandladder and the firechief’s high-pacing horses. Then the tinkletinkle of an ambulance. ‘Somebody got his.’
The box is empty, gritty powder and sawdust get under your nails when you feel along it, it’s empty, no there are still some little wooden fire engines on wheels. Really truly fire engines. ‘We must set these off Uncle Jeff. Oh these are the best of all Uncle Jeff.’ They have squibs in them and go sizzling off fast over the smooth asphalt of the street, pushed by sparkling plumed fiery tails, leaving smoke behind some real fire engines.
Tucked into bed in a tall unfriendly room, with hot eyes and aching legs. ‘Growing pains darling,’ muddy said when she tucked him in, leaning over him in a glimmering silk dress with drooping sleeves.
‘Muddy what’s that little black patch on your face?’
‘That,’ she laughed and her necklace made a tiny tinkling, ‘is to make mother look prettier.’
He lay there hemmed by tall nudging wardrobes and dressers. From outside came the sound of wheels and shouting, and once in a while a band of music in the distance. His legs ached as if they’d fall off, and when he closed his eyes he was speeding through flaring blackness on a red fire engine that shot fire and sparks and colored balls out of its sizzling tail.
The July sun pricked out the holes in the worn shades on the office windows. Gus McNiel sat in the morrischair with his crutches between his knees. His face was white and puffy from months in hospital. Nellie in a straw hat with red poppies rocked herself to and fro in the swivel chair at the desk.
‘Better come an set by me Nellie. That lawyer might not like it if he found yez at his desk.’
She wrinkled up her nose and got to her feet. ‘Gus I declare you’re scared to death.’
‘You’d be scared too if you’d had what I’d had wid de railroad doctor pokin me and alookin at me loike I was a jailbird and the Jew doctor the lawyer got tellin me as I was totally in-cap-aciated. Gorry I’m all in. I think he was lyin though.’
‘Gus you do as I tell ye. Keep yer mouth shut an let the other guys do the talkin’.’
‘Sure I wont let a peep outa me.’
Nellie stood behind his chair and began stroking the crisp hair back from his forehead.
‘It’ll be great to be home again, Nellie, wid your cookin an all.’ He put an arm round her waist and drew her to him.
‘Juss think, maybe I wont have to do any.’
‘I don’t think I’d loike that so well… Gosh if we dont git that money I dunno how we’ll make out.’
‘Oh pop’ll help us like he’s been doin.’
‘Hope to the Lord I aint going to be sick all me loife.’
George Baldwin came in slamming the glass door behind him. He stood looking at the man and his wife a second with his hands in his pockets. Then he said quietly smiling:
‘Well it’s done people. As soon as the waiver of any further claims is signed the railroad’s attorneys will hand me a check for twelve thousand five hundred. That’s what we finally compromised on.’
‘Twelve thousand iron men,’ gasped Gus. ‘Twelve thousand five hundred. Say wait a second… Hold me crutches while I go out an git run over again… Wait till I tell McGillycuddy about it. The ole divil’ll be throwin hisself in front of a market train… Well Mr Baldwin sir,’ Gus propped himself onto his feet… ‘you’re a great man… Aint he Nellie?’
‘To be sure he is.’
Baldwin tried to keep from looking her in the eye. Spurts of jangling agitation were going through him, making his legs feel weak and trembly.
‘I’ll tell yez what let’s do,’ said Gus. ‘Sposin we all take a horsecab up to old McGillycuddy’s an have somethin to wet our whistles in the private bar… My treat. I need a bit of a drink to cheer me up. Come on Nellie.’
‘I wish I could,’ said Baldwin, ‘but I’m afraid I cant. I’m pretty busy these days. But just give me your signature before you go and I’ll have the check for you tomorrow… Sign here… and here.’
McNiel had stumped over to the desk and was leaning over the papers. Baldwin felt that Nellie was trying to make a sign to him. He kept his eyes down. After they had left he noticed her purse, a little leather purse with pansies burned on the back, on the corner of the desk. There was a tap on the glass door. He opened.
‘Why wouldn’t you look at me?’ she said breathlessly low.
‘How could I with him here.’ He held the purse out to her.
She put her arms round his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth. ‘What are we goin to do? Shall I come in this afternoon? Gus’ll be liquorin up to get himself sick again now he’s out of the hospital.’
‘No I cant Nellie… Business… business… I’m busy every minute.’
‘Oh yes you are… All right have it your own way.’ She slammed the door.
Baldwin sat at his desk biting his knuckles without seeing the pile of papers he was staring at. ‘I’ve got to cut it out,’ he said aloud and got to his feet. He paced back and forth across the narrow office looking at the shelves of lawbooks and the Gibson girl calendar over the telephone and the dusty square of sunlight by the window. He looked at his watch. Lunchtime. He drew the palm of a hand over his forehead and went to the telephone.
‘Rector 1237… Mr Sandbourne there?… Say Phil suppose I come by for you for lunch? Do you want to go out right now?… Sure… Say Phil I clinched it, I got the milkman his damages. I’m pleased as the dickens. I’ll set you up to a regular lunch on the strength of it… So long…’
He came away from the telephone smiling, took his hat off its hook, fitted it carefully on his head in front of the little mirror over the hatrack, and hurried down the stairs.
On the last flight he met Mr Emery of Emery & Emery who had their offices on the first floor.
‘Well Mr Baldwin how’s things?’ Mr Emery of Emery & Emery was a flatfaced man with gray hair and eyebrows and a protruding wedgeshaped jaw. ‘Pretty well sir, pretty well.’