City Boy (37 page)

A
nd so it was that Herbie's Ride came into being after all. Four days ago it had been a cloudy notion in a small boy's mind, a ridiculous dream of a rowboat on wheels coasting downhill. Now, real and working, the slide dominated the landscape of the girls' camp. Elmer added a handsome frill: an archway at the top, bearing the words “HERBIE's RIDE” cut out of a semicircular frame of cardboard in letters a foot high, with bright red electric lights behind it. Delighted with his handiwork, he drove hastily into town and returned with an electric interrupter switch which he attached to the lights. When dusk fell and the boys and girls turned out in gay costumes for the Mardi Gras, this sign, flashing on and off, on and off, was a striking sight. It was the first thing visitors saw, driving into the camp or crossing from the boys' grounds to the girls' lawn. There was nothing as splendid anywhere else in Manitou. When the other booths, games, rides, and entertainments had hardly been visited, a line of twenty children and adults already stretched before the Ride.

Directly under the archway stood Herbie in Elmer's sailor cap and blouse. The cap tended to drop down over his ears, and the blouse was loose enough to have held Cliff inside it, too, but the nautical effect was fine nevertheless. At first Herbie made a few efforts in the way of a cry: “Step right up, folks, best ride you ever been on! Slip down the slide on the slippery slope for only a quarter, twenty-five cents, the fourth part of a dollar,” and so forth. But within a few minutes, with two dozen paid passengers waiting their turns, more coming each moment, and a large crowd watching the Ride and exclaiming in admiration, the cry seemed unnecessary, and he gave it up.

Thereafter the night was one of swimming pleasure for him. Money and congratulations poured in. Many passengers came up the hill from their first ride and walked into line for another. The Ride went smooth as oil. Ted and Felicia stayed in the rowboat, paddling it back to shore. Cliff and Clever Sam accomplished recovery with more and more ease as the evening wore on. Herbie collected fares and stored them in a cigar box, and tied up and released the boat with a slipknot, as Elmer had taught him. All four children felt the luxurious pride of participation in a great success, and even Clever Sam was in mellow good humor, and accepted much petting and light thwacks from the onlookers with friendly rolls of the eyes.

In this hour of exalted happiness Herbie's conscience packed up and departed. He amassed fifty dollars in less than two hours. The “borrowing” episode would be erased from the Book of Sins in the morning. The curse was forgotten. All was well. “Boy, you win Skipper sure!” was said to him perhaps a hundred times. Vision and enterprise had carried the day. Heaven had decided mercifully that stealing wasn't really stealing sometimes, and had suspended the Eighth Commandment for Herbie Bookbinder's benefit. What a wonderful old world it was, to be sure!

Yes, and even Lucille came around. Herbie's triumph had been in swing for three hours, and he was quite drunk with praise and profits, when he felt a timid tug at his oversize sleeve.

“Congratulations, Herbie,” said a caroling voice.

The boy looked round at a beautiful little red-headed pirate dressed in a ragged gold shirt, a crimson sash, and short black trousers carefully torn at the bottom. She carried a little dagger and wore a black silk patch over one eye, but the other eye shone with enough admiration and love for two. Herbie, who had thought yesterday he was cured of his romantic affliction, suddenly wondered if he really was. Lucille, the radiant Lucille, was humbling herself to him, and it was a sweet sensation.

“'Lo, Lucille. 'Scuse me a minute.”

He made change for a batch of eight passengers as they boarded the boat, and flourished the cigar box so that Lucille had a long look at its overflowing green and silver contents. Then he pulled the rope with careless ease, and the boat thundered away down the slope.

“Gosh, Herbie.” The girl's voice was awed, crushed. “However did you think up such a thing? You're wonderful!”

“Aw, Elmer Bean an' Cliff done it all. I ain't so hot,” said Herbie. He paused, glanced at her and, as it were, took aim. Then he slowly added, “
I can't even dip.
”

The pirate's cheeks all at once became the color of her sash. She pulled the patch off her face, evidently judging she needed both eyes for the work at hand, and said softly, looking at him with innocent appeal, “Herbie, I'm sorry I been so bad to you. You know what, I haven't even talked to Lennie all night. Except once he wanted to take me on your ride, an' I said I wanted to go alone.”

Herbie's congealed affections were melting in the warmth of her voice, low, musical, almost whispering. But he called up the memory of his injuries and said indifferently, “Wanna ride now?”

“Yes, Herbie.”

“O.K. You kin go free. An' you don't hafta wait on line.”

The flashing sign showed surprise, darkness, disappointment, darkness, then a winsome smile that remained on the girl's face through several flashes. “Won't you come with me?”

“Heck, no, Lucille. See, I gotta take care o' the finances.”

“Oh. Maybe after a while you'll come to the dancing at the social hall. I'd like to dance with you.”

“Maybe.”

Lucille fell silent, and watched Clever Sam towing the rowboat back to the top. Herbie made a great show of counting the money—there was a hundred seven dollars now—and wished Lucille would grovel a little more; but she didn't. So he said at last, “How's the rest of the Mardigrass, Lucille? I ain't had a chance to see it.”

“Terrible. Everybody says your ride is the only good thing.”

“How's Yishy's freak show?”

The girl sniffed contemptuously in answer.

“What's Lennie doing?”

“Oh, he's got a baseball suit on with ‘New York Yankees’ on it, an' a pillow in his stomach, an' goes around saying he's Babe Ruth. What a dumb idea!”

Herbie silently compared this inspiration with his own, and concluded that there were rare moments when brawn did not automatically rule the world. It did not occur to him that Lennie, at least, had not stolen the baseball suit.

The rowboat came creaking to the top of the slide. Herbie lashed it to the stake as Cliff freed Clever Sam. Then he gallantly handed Lucille into the boat, while several boys and girls waiting in line squealed a protest. Felicia, sitting in the bow, looked around, and said, “Humph! Starting all over again.” She threw down her paddle and stepped out of the boat.

“Hey, Fleece, where you goin'?” said Herbie.

“As long as we're getting romantic again,” snapped his sister as she stalked away, “I'm going to dance for a while at the social hall.”

“Never mind, Herbie.” Ted spoke up from the stern. “I can handle it myself.”

“Thank you for the ride, Herbie. I hope I'll see you later,” said Lucille demurely. Now the other passengers piled in, thrusting money at the boy. Lucille all the while gazed up at him worshipfully. Herbie felt foolish and happy and warm, and at the pinnacle of life and time. It was with reluctance that he tripped the rope and sent the boat rumbling downhill with its lovely burden.

Not long afterward three prolonged blasts of Uncle Sandy's whistle echoed through the camp, signaling the end of the Mardi Gras. Grumbling, a line of about a dozen passengers disbanded, all of them campers awaiting a second or third ride, except for a stout lady from the village with a dismal white-headed child. Herbie counted the receipts again while Ted beached the boat and Cliff returned the horse to the stable. Felicia came up from the dance in a glowing, happy mood. When all the colleagues were gathered again under the flashing sign, Herbie announced gaily the income from their labors: a hundred thirteen dollars and fifty cents.

“Holy smoke, we're rich,” said Ted.

“How do we divvy it?” said Felicia.

“First of all I owe seventy-five bucks for materials,” said Herbie. The others nodded. “That still leaves almost forty bucks, or ten bucks apiece.”

Mr. Gauss appeared out of the darkness, smiling broadly. He was carrying half a dozen cigar boxes similar to the one in Herbie's hands.

“Well, well, the gold mine,” he said cheerfully. “Let me have your box, Herbie. I'll keep it in the safe overnight for you. I'm doing the same for all the boys that made any real money.”

“Gee, thanks, Mr. Gauss,” said Herbie, huddling the box protectingly against his side, “but I can take care of it O.K.”

“Nonsense, my boy. We don't want to tempt sneak thieves, you know.” He grasped the box firmly and pried it out of Herbie's arms. “The safe is the only place for so much money as you made. I'll send for you first thing in the morning and return it to you. Congratulations, all of you!” He walked off toward the guest house.

“Good-by, hundred thirteen bucks,” croaked Ted, loud enough for the camp owner to hear him, but Mr. Gauss padded obliviously away.

“G'wan,” said Herbie. “He wouldn't take that money for himself.”

“He couldn't!” said Felicia.

Cliff said, “Even Mr. Gauss ain't that low. He'll give us some back, anyway.”

“O.K., O.K.,” said Ted. “I been at this camp a long time. If we see a nickel o' that dough again, it'll be a miracle.”

“He's
gotta
gimme back the seventy-five bucks for material!” said Herbie. “I owe it.”

“Don't be silly,” exclaimed Felicia fretfully. “What are you boys talking about? He's got to give us back
all
of it. You talk as though there was a question about it. Is he a robber? It's our money, not his. How can he possibly keep a penny of it?”

Ted looked sidelong at her out of one eye, like a rooster. “This is my sixth year at Manitou,” he said. “Inside that box is money, an' outside that box is Mr. Gauss. All there is between 'em is a lid. It ain't enough.… Well, it was fun anyhow.” He shrugged. “More fun than I ever had in this hellhole. Thanks for lettin' me in on it, Herb.”

“Aw, yer crazy, Ted,” Herbie began, but the bugle sounded retreat, and on this foreboding note of Ted's they were compelled to part.

A few minutes later the boys of Bunk Thirteen sat around on their cots in pajamas, awaiting Uncle Sandy's announcement of the Skipper-for-a-Day.

“Who you gonna appoint for Uncle Sandy, Herb?” said Lennie deferentially.

“Heck, Lennie, I ain't won yet.”

“You won. Nobody else can possibly win.”

The other boys voiced a chorus of assents to this. They were proud of Herbie now. Boys from other bunks were shouting congratulations through the screen.

“Well, let's wait till he announces it, anyhow,” said Herbie.

Uncle Sid said, “I'm proud of you, Herbie, I really am. What you did was remarkable. You have a great future.” He puffed anxiously at a forbidden cigarette held in the hollow of his hand. Poor Uncle Sid was actually tense and nervous on Herbie's behalf. It is a strange thing that happens to these harassed adults and near-adults called counselors. Submerged in a children's world for the sake of a few dollars and a summer in the country, they come to take the events of that world with unsmiling earnestness. After all, the matters which people regard seriously in adult life are seldom less trivial, or indeed very different in kind, from the concerns of the boys at Manitou—the quest for success, the rivalries of cliques, the pursuit of pleasure, the evasion of irksome rules; where are the grownups whose years are not spent in those ways?

A preliminary blast of Uncle Sandy's unmistakable whistle came from outer darkness, and cut dead all conversation. His voice boomed out of a megaphone.

“Now the announcement you've all been waiting for. The judges—Aunt Tillie, the Skipper, and myself—had a tough time deciding among the many excellent entries, two in particular that you all know about.

“The Skipper of the Day is”—a long, agonizing pause; then hurriedly—“Yishy Gabelson for his freak show, with special honorable mention to Herbie Bookbinder for his excellent ride. That's all.”

But that was not all. Cries from every bungalow along Company Street tore the night.

“Boo!”

“Gyps!”

“Robbers!”

“General Garbage won!”

“Crooks!”

The whistle blew furiously several times and quieted the din.

“Now, cut that out!” roared the head counselor. “You're not at home yet, you're still in camp. It isn't what you want, it's what we decide that goes here!”

This was a provocative announcement that Uncle Sandy might have spared himself. But he was angry, and feeling guilty, too, to tell the truth, so he acted with poor judgment.

“Yah!”

“Boo!”

“Ssss!”

“You bet it ain?'t what we want!”

“It ain't
never
what we want!”

“Let's hang Uncle Gussie to a sour-apple tree!”

These and forty other insolent cries were flung through the screens. Confused and at a loss, Uncle Sandy stepped back into his tent. Meantime, Ted in Bunk Thirteen jumped from his bed and seized a tin pan and spoon from his hiking pack.

“Don't worry, General,” he grated to the dumfounded, pallid Herbie. “This is one time Uncle Gussie don't get away with it.”