The Sign And Seal

: Still Jim

"The river forever flows yet she sees no farther than I who

am forever silent, forever still."



MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.





"Jim Manning, you've no right to speak to me that way," said Penelope.



Jim returned her look clearly. "You are to stay here, Pen," he repeated

slowly.



"You've got your nerve, Still!" ex laimed Sara. "Pen's as much my

company as she is yours. Quit trying to start something. Pen, come

along."



Jim did not stir for a moment, then he jerked his head toward the bath

house. "Go ahead and get into your suit, Sara. Penelope and I will wait

here for you."



Sara had seen Jim in this guise before, on the football field. For a

moment he scowled, then he shrugged his shoulders. "You old mule!" he

grunted. "All right, Pen. You pacify the brute and I'll be back in a few

minutes."



Pen did not yield so gracefully. She sat down in the sand with her back

half turned to Jim and he, with his boyish jaw set, eyed her

uncomfortably. She did not speak to him until Sara appeared and, with

an airy wave of the hand, waded into the water.



"I think Sara looks like a Greek god in a bathing suit," she said.

"You'd know he was going to be a duke, just to look at him."



Jim gave a good imitation of one of Uncle Denny's grunts and said: "He

isn't a duke--yet--and he's gone in too soon after eating."



"And he's got beautiful manners," Pen continued. "You treat me as if I

were a child. He never forgets that I am a lady."



"Oh, slush!" drawled Jim.



Pen turned her back, squarely. Sara did not remain long in the water but

came up dripping and shivering to burrow in the hot sand. Pen

deliberately sifted sand over him, patting it down as she saw the others

do, while she told Sara how wonderfully he swam.



Sara eyed Jim mischievously, while he answered: "Never mind, Pen. When

I'm the duke, you shall be the duchess and have a marble swimming pool

all of your own. And old Prunes will be over here coaching Anthony

Comstock while you and I are doing Europe--in our bathing suits."



Penelope flushed quickly and Sara's halo of romance shone brighter than

ever.



"The Duchess Pen," he went on largely. "Not half bad. For my part, I

can't see any objection to a girl as pretty as you are wearing a bathing

suit anywhere, any time."



Pen looked at Sara adoringly. At sixteen one loves the gods easily. Jim,

with averted face, watched the waves dumbly. It had been easy that

morning to toss speech back and forth with the boat crowd. But now, as

always, when he felt that his need for words was dire, speech deserted

him. Suddenly he was realizing that Pen was no longer a little girl and

that she admired Saradokis ardently. When the young Greek strolled away

to dress, Jim looked at Pen intently. She was so lovely, so rosy, so

mischievous, so light and sweet as only sixteen can be.



"Cross patch. Draw the latch! Sit by the sea and grouch," she sang.



Jim flushed. "I'm not grouchy," he protested.



"Oh, yes you are!" cried Pen. "And when Sara comes back, he and I are

going up for some ice cream while you stay here and get over it. You can

meet us for supper with Aunt Mary and Uncle Denny."



Jim, after the two had left, sat for a long time in the sand. He wished

that he could have a look at the old swimming hole up at Exham. He

wished that he and Uncle Denny and his mother and Pen were living at

Exham. For the first time he felt a vague distrust of Sara. After a time

he got into his bathing suit and spent the rest of the afternoon in and

out of the water, dressing only in time to meet the rest for supper.



After supper the whole party went to one of the great dancing pavilions.

Uncle Denny and Jim's mother danced old-fashioned waltzes, while Sara

and Jim took turn about whirling Penelope through two steps and

galloping through modern waltz steps. The music and something in Jim's

face touched Pen. As he piloted her silently over the great floor in

their first waltz, she looked up into his face and said:



"I was horrid, Still Jim. You were so bossy. But you were right; it was

no place for me."



Jim's arm tightened round her soft waist. "Pen," he said, "promise me

you'll shake Sara and the rest and walk home from the boat with me

tonight."



Pen hesitated. She would rather have walked home with Sara, but she was

very contrite over Jim's lonely afternoon, so she promised. Sara left

the boat at the Battery to get a subway train home. When the others

reached 23rd street, it was not difficult for Jim and Pen to drop well

behind Uncle Denny and Jim's mother. Jim drew Pen's arm firmly within

his own. This seemed very funny to Penelope and yet she enjoyed it.

There had come a subtle but decided change in the boy's attitude toward

her that day, that she felt was a clear tribute to her newly acquired

young ladyhood. So, while she giggled under her breath, she enjoyed

Jim's sedulous assistance at the street crossings immensely.



But try as he would, Jim could say nothing until they reached the old

brownstone front. He mounted the steps with her slowly. In the dimly

lighted vestibule he took both her hands.



"Look up at me, Pen," he said.



The girl looked up into the tall boy's face. Jim looked down into her

sweet eyes. His own grew wistful.



"I wish I were ten years older," he said. Then very firmly: "Penelope,

you belong to me. Remember that, always. We belong to each other. When

I have made a name for myself I'm coming back to marry you."



"But," protested Pen, "I'd much rather be a duchess."



Jim held her hands firmly. "You belong to me. You shall never marry

Saradokis."



Pen's soft gaze deepened as she looked into Jim's eyes. She saw a light

there that stirred something within her that never before had been

touched. And Jim, his face white, drew Penelope to him and laid his soft

young lips to hers, holding her close with boyish arms that trembled at

his own audacity, even while they were strong with a man's desire to

hold.



Penelope gave a little sobbing breath as Jim released her.



"That's my sign and seal," he said slowly, "that kiss. That's to hold

you until I'm a man."



The little look of tragedy that often lurked in Pen's eyes was very

plain as she said: "It will be a long time before you have made a name

for yourself, Still Jim. Lots of things will happen before then."



"I won't change," said Jim. "The Mannings don't." Then with a great sigh

as of having definitely settled his life, he added: "Gee, I'm hungry! Me

stomach is touching me backbone. Let's see if there isn't something in

the pantry. Come on, Pen."



And Pen, with a sudden flash of dimples, followed him.



It was not long after Pen's birthday that the college year ended and Jim

and Sara went to work. Jim had spent his previous vacations with the

family at the shore. Saradokis was planning to become a construction

engineer, with New York as his field. He wanted Jim to go into

partnership with him when they were through college. So he persuaded Jim

that it would be a good experience for them to put in their junior

vacation at work on one of the mighty skyscrapers always in process of

construction.



They got jobs as steam drillmen. Jim liked the work. He liked the mere

sense of physical accomplishment in working the drill. He liked to be a

part of the creative force that was producing the building. But to his

surprise, his old sense of suffocation in being crowded in with the

immigrant workman returned to him. There came back, too, some of the old

melancholy questioning that he had known as a boy.



He said to Sara one day: "My father used to say that when he was a boy

the phrase, 'American workman' stood for the highest efficiency in the

world, but that even in his day the phrase had become a joke. How could

you expect this rabble to know that there might be such a thing as an

American standard of efficiency?"



Sara laughed. "Junior Economics stick out all over you, Still. This

bunch does as good work as the American owners will pay for."



Jim was silent for a time, then he said: "I wonder what's the matter

with us Americans? How did we come to give our country away to this

horde?"



"'Us Americans!'" mimicked Saradokis. "What is an American, anyhow?"



"I'm an American," returned Jim, briefly.



"Sure," answered the Greek, "but so am I and so are most of these

fellows. And none of us knows what an American is. I'll admit it was

your type founded the government. But you are goners. There is no

American type any more. And by and by we'll modify your old Anglo-Saxon

institutions so that G. Washington will simply revolve in his grave.

We'll add Greek ideas and Yiddish and Wop and Bohunk and Armenian and

Nigger and Chinese and Magyar. Gee! The world will forget there ever was

one of you big-headed New Englanders in this country. Huh! What is an

American? The American type will have a boarding house hash beaten for

infinite variety in a generation or so."



The two young men were marching along 23rd street on their way to Jim's

house for dinner. At Sara's words Jim stopped and stared at the young

Greek. His gray eyes were black.



"So that's the way you feel about us, you foreigners!" exclaimed Jim.

"We blazed the trail for you fellows in this country and called you over

here to use it. And you've suffocated us and you are glad of it. Good

God! Dad and the Indians!"



"What did you call us over here for but to make us do your dirty work

for you?" chuckled the Greek. "Serves you right. Piffle! What's an

American want to talk about my race and thine for? There's room for all

of us!"



Jim did not answer. All that evening he scarcely spoke. That night he

dreamed again of his father's broken body and dying face against the

golden August fields. All the next day as he sweated on the drill, the

futile questionings of his childhood were with him.



At noon, Sara eyed him across the shining surface of a Child's

restaurant table. Each noon they devoured a quarter of their day's wages

in roast beef and baked apples.



"Are you sore at me, Still?" asked Sara. "I wasn't roasting you,

personally, last night."



Jim shook his head. Sara waited for words but Jim ate on in silence.



"Oh, for the love of heaven, come out of it!" groaned Sara. "Tell me

what ails you, then you can go back in and shut the door. What has got

your goat? You can think we foreigners are all rotters if you want to."



"You don't get the point," replied Jim. "I don't think for a minute that

you newcomers haven't a perfect right to come over here. But I have race

pride. You haven't. I can't see America turned from North European to

South in type without feeling suffocated."



The young Greek stared at Jim fixedly. Then he shook his head. "You are

in a bad way, my child. I prescribe a course at vaudeville tonight. I

see you can still eat, though."



Jim stuck by his drill until fall. During these three months he pondered

more over his father's and Exham's failure than he had for years. Yet he

reached no conclusion save the blind one that he was going to fight

against his own extinction, that he was going to found a family, that he

was going to make the old Manning name once more known and respected.



It was after this summer that the presence of race barrier was felt by

Jim and Sara. And somehow, too, after Pen's birthday there was a new

restraint between the two boys. Both of them realized then that Pen was

more to them than the little playmate they had hitherto considered her.

Jim believed that the kiss in the vestibule bound Pen to him

irretrievably. But this did not prevent him from feeling uneasy and

resentful over Sara's devotion to her.



Nothing could have been more charming to a girl of Pen's age than Sara's

way of showing his devotion. Flowers and candy, new books and music he

showered on her endlessly, to Mrs. Manning's great disapproval. But

Uncle Denny shrugged his shoulders.



"Let it have its course, me dear. 'Tis the surest cure. And Jim must

learn to speak for himself, poor boy."



So the pretty game went on. Something in Sara's heritage made him a

finished man of the world, while Jim was still an awkward boy. While

Jim's affection manifested itself in silent watchfulness, in

unobtrusive, secret little acts of thoughtfulness and care, Saradokis

was announcing Pen as the Duchess to all their friends and openly

singing his joy in her beauty and cleverness.



For even at sixteen Pen showed at times the clear minded thoughtfulness

that later in life was to be her chief characteristic. This in spite of

the fact that Uncle Denny insisted on her going to a fashionable private

school. She read enormously, anything and everything that came to hand.

Uncle Denny's books on social and political economy were devoured quite

as readily as Jim's novels of adventure or her own Christina Rossetti.

And Sara was to her all the heroes of all the tales she read, although

after the episode of the Sign and Seal some of the heroes showed a

surprising and uncontrollable likeness to Jim. Penelope never forgot the

kiss in the vestibule. She never recalled it without a sense of loss

that she was too young to understand and with a look in her eyes that

did not belong to her youth but to her Celtic temperament.



She looked Jim over keenly when the family came up from the shore and

Jim was ready for his senior year. "You never were cut out for city

work, Jimmy," she said.



"I'm as fit as I ever was in my life," protested Jim.



"Physically, of course," answered Pen. "But you hate New York and so

it's bad for you. Get out into the big country, Still Jim. I was brought

up in Colorado, remember. I know the kind of men that belong there. I

love that color of necktie on you."



"Have you heard about the Reclamation Service?" asked Jim eagerly. Then

he went on: "The government is building big dams to reclaim the arid

west. It puts up the money and does the work and then the farmers on the

Project--that's what they call the system and the land it waters--have

ten years or so to pay back what it cost and then the water system

belongs to them. They are going to put up some of the biggest dams in

the world. I'd like to try to get into that work. Somehow I like the

idea of working for Uncle Sam. James Manning, U.S.R.S.--how does that

sound?"



"Too lovely for anything. I'm crazy about it. Sounds like Kipling and

the pyramids and Sahara, somehow."



"Will you come out there after I get a start, Pen?" asked Jim.



"Gee! I should say not! About the time you're beginning your second dam,

I'll be overwhelming the courts of Europe," Pen giggled. Then she added,

serenely: "You don't realize, Still, that I'm going to be a duchess."



"Aw, Pen, cut out that silly talk. You belong to me and don't you ever

think your flirtation with Sara is serious for a minute. If I thought

you really did, I'd give up the Reclamation idea and go into partnership

with Sara so as to watch him and keep him from getting you."



"You and Sara would never get along in business together," said Pen,

with one of her far-seeing looks. "Sara would tie you in a bowknot in

business, and the older you two grow the more you are going to develop

each other's worst sides."



"Nevertheless, Sara shall never get you," said Jim grimly.



Penelope gave Jim an odd glance. "Sara is my fate, Still Jim," she said

soberly.



"Oh, pickles!" exclaimed Jim.



Pen tossed her head and left him.



It was in the spring of their senior year that Jim and Sara ran the

Marathon. It was a great event in the world of college athletics. Men

from every important college in the country competed in the tryout. For

the final Marathon there were left twenty men, Sara and Jim among them.



The course was laid along Broadway from a point near Van Cortlandt Park

to Columbus Circle, ten long, clean miles of asphalt. Early on the

bright May morning of the race crowds began to gather along the course.

At first, a thin line of enthusiasts, planting themselves on camp stools

along the curb. Then at the beginning and end of the course the line,

thickened to two or three deep until at last the police began to

establish lines. Mounted police appeared at intervals to turn traffic.

The crowd as it thickened grew more noisy. Strange college yells were

emitted intermittently. Street fakirs traveled diligently up and down

the lines selling college banners. At last, Broadway lay a shining black

ribbon, bordered with every hue of the rainbow, awaiting the runners.



Uncle Denny had an elaborate plan for seeing the race. He and Jim's

mother and Penelope established themselves at 159th street, with a

waiting automobile around the corner. After the runners had passed this

point, the machine was to rush them to the grand stand at Columbus

Circle for the finish.



The three stood on the curb at 159th street, waiting. It was

mid-afternoon when to the north, above the noise of the city, an

increasing roar told of the coming of the runners. Pen, standing between

Uncle Denny and Jim's mother, seized a hand of each. Far up the shining

black asphalt ribbon appeared a group of white dots. The roar grew with

their approach.



Suddenly Penelope leaned forward. "Sara! Sara! Jim! Jim!" she screamed.



Four men were leading the Marathon. A Californian, a Wisconsin man, Jim

and Sara. Sara led, then Jim and the Californian, then the Wisconsin man

with not a foot between any two of them.



Jim was running easier than Sara. He had the advantage of less weight

with the same height. Sara's running pants and jersey were drenched with

sweat. He was running with his mouth dropped open, head back, every

superb line of his body showing under his wet clothes. His tawny hair

gleamed in the sun. No sculptured marble of a Greek runner was ever more

beautiful than Sara as he ran the Marathon.



Jim was running "with his nerves," head forward, teeth clenched, fists

tight to his side, long, lean and lithe. His magnificent head outlined

itself for an instant against the sky line of the Hudson, fine, tense,

like the painting of a Saxon warrior. Pen carried this picture of him in

her heart for years.



The moment the boys had passed, Uncle Denny made a run for the machine.

The three entered the grand stand just as the white dots appeared under

the elevated tracks at 66th street. There was a roar, a fluttering of

banners, a crash of music from a band and a single runner broke from the

group and staggered against the line. Saradokis had won the race.



Jim was not to be seen. Uncle Denny was frantic.



"Where's me boy?" he shouted. "He was fit to finish at the Battery when

he passed us. Give me deck room here. I'm going to find him!"