City Boy (43 page)

“I like you a million times better'n anybody—'cept my father an' mother.”

These declarations might have seemed to a cold onlooker to be deficient in poetry, but they were musically sweet and thrilling to both sweethearts. A delicious silence ensued, and Herbie, forgetting the guilt and misery of his recent money transactions, felt that the world was an almost unbearably lovely and happy place.

The train, bouncing suddenly as it rounded a curve, cracked Herbie's nose against the window with much force, bringing sincere tears to his eyes to reinforce the pumped-up ones. The lake scene disappeared under the impact of pain and would not come back into his imagination. He tried to recapture the solemn awe of the passing of time which he had felt as he lay on his cot in the darkness listening to the wailing bugle notes of the last taps, but this effort was a failure, too. He was all cried out. Regretfully he passed a handkerchief over his eyes and turned his face back to the crowded, noisy car.

“Say, Herb,” said Cliff promptly—he had been waiting for his cousin to pull himself together—“what are you gonna do about the money?”

This was the reality that Herbie had been avoiding with his eyes turned to the romantic past. An ill, ugly feeling came over him. The train was carrying him to face his father. Only a few hours intervened before that dreaded meeting.

“What can I do?”

“Gonna tell your father?”

Herbie slouched and mumbled, “Dunno.”

“You shouldn't of let Gauss talk you outta that money.”

“I know I shouldn't of.”

“Rotten ol' Gauss.”

“Aw, why blame him? I shouldn't of stole it, that's all.”

“Well, heck, you didn't think it was stealing.”

“I was crazy.”

The train was speeding through forests and fields, but the city seemed close to Herbie. He could almost smell asphalt, auto fumes, and the acrid electric air of the subway. He fished a cardboard box out of his pocket and opened it. A little rose-colored lizard looked out at the boys with bulging, steady eyes. The pouch under its throat palpitated.

“He's cursin' you,” said Cliff.

“He's cursin' because he's goin' to the city.”

“I like the city.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I dunno. I just like it. You can play ball when you feel like it, not when some counselor says so, and there's good movies and everythin'.”

“Yeah-and school.”

“Well, school is pretty awful,” Cliff admitted.

The lizard reached up one claw and made a half-hearted attempt to get out of the box. Herbie pushed it back, shut the lid, and returned the box to his pocket.

“He'll be dead when you get home, Herbie.”

“Naw, he'll be O.K. I'll put him in a goldfish bowl. I want somethin' to remind me of the country.”

Uncle Sandy's whistle blew, loud and out of place in the narrow car.

“All Gooferdusters report to the lounge!”

The cousins rose, self-conscious in the extreme newness of their distinction, and walked down the aisle and through the dusty green curtains into the lounging room. The black leather seats were already filled with Manitou nobility. A few boys were perched on the edge of the metal washbasins. Uncle Sandy leaned against a mirror on the wall, smoking his pipe.

The Gooferdusters consisted of a few of the younger counselors who had once been eminent campers, also all the leading athletes like Yishy, Gooch Lefko, and Lennie, and a few boys like Herbie and Cliff who had won unusual attention in one way or another. For example there was Willie Sutro, who was an Intermediate of the most ordinary sort, except that he came from Toledo, Ohio. Since everybody else in camp was from New York, Willie enjoyed a sort of geographical glamour that had won him speedy election to the Gooferdusters.

It is impossible to describe how wonderful it was considered at Manitou to be a Gooferduster, and luckily it is not necessary. There is no community, no walk of life, no age group without its Gooferdusters, and every reader knows exactly how fine it is to be in the elect circle, and how sad it is to be out. No matter what they are called—circles, clubs, societies, sororities, or what you please—they are all Gooferdusters, and their virtue lies in this, that they enable a few people to come together and agree solemnly among themselves that they are better than other people. Such is the power of positive assertion, this verdict is usually accepted by the unlucky outsiders. At the last judgment all this shall pass away, and we shall every one of us become Gooferdusters.

Uncle Sandy put away his pipe, drew himself up, and raised his right hand with the two middle fingers bent under the thumb, and the index and little fingers standing up like horns.

“
Sinai,
Gooferdusters,” he intoned.

“
Sinai,
Goofermaster,” responded the others, imitating his salute.

The head counselor dropped his hand, and with it his priestly attitude, and became casual.

“Now, fellows, you know it's the ancient Gooferduster custom to meet for the last time on the train. The old members tell the new members who were elected this year the great secret—the real meaning of the password
‘Sinai.’
I suppose you neophytes all think it means the same as Mount Sinai, in the Bible.” Uncle Sandy grinned knowingly.

The new members looked abashed, and the old members exchanged glances of superior wisdom.

“Well, it doesn't. It's spelled S-Y-N-Y. Sinai, S-Y-N-Y. … And now the Gooferdusters will whisper the real meaning to the neophytes.”

Gooch Lefko pulled Herbie toward him by an arm, bent, and enunciated hoarsely in his ear, “S-Y-N-Y. See You Next Year. Syny!”

“Syny!” Herbie whispered in return, feeling that this was expected of him. But his heart wasn't in the ritual, and the disclosure of the awful mystery gave him no thrill. Cliff's unpleasant reminder of the stolen money was haunting him.

“O.K., fellows,” said Uncle Sandy. “Now, remember, this is a secret that will never be mentioned again until the train ride home next year, on your honor, now. Well, boys, you're the cream of Manitou and it's been a great season, hasn't it? It sure has. So thanks again for your swell co-operation and—SYNY!” He gave the homed salute once more, and all the Gooferdusters responded with the gesture and the password.

Herbie looked around at the cream of Manitou. A week ago he had had no more thought of being included in this high caste than of becoming President. These superior beings who ran, jumped, swam, and threw balls so well were the giants of the earth, and he was of the stunted herd. Now, in their city clothes, crowded into this lounge, they looked very much like a group of trolley-car riders after school hours. Once off the grounds of Manitou, the glitter of the Gooferdusters was fading remarkably.

Uncle Sandy paused in stepping through the curtains and said, “You Gooferdusters have exclusive use of the lounge for the next quarter hour. Then break it up.” He went out. One of the counselors offered cigarettes around; two of the Super-seniors accepted them and puffed awkwardly. The athletes began talking about the Senior girls in sniggering tones. Somebody twitted Yishy about Felicia. He made a sullen answer, and Herbie felt his face grow hot.

“Let's get outta here, Cliff.”

The cousins were the first to leave the aristocratic meeting. As they walked down the swaying aisle to their seats, friendly jokes and greetings were thrown at them, for their exploits were fresh in the campers' minds. But Herbie found little pleasure in the popularity. The campers were beginning to look different. He was used to seeing these faces on brown, half-naked bodies. Overdressed, muffled in voluminous city clothes, choked up with clean collars and dangling ties, they wore a new aspect. Herbie was not the only one to sense the change. Throughout the car conversation had lost the free, bantering tone of summer days and had become uneasy, bashful, or too loud. The common fate which had bound the boys was dissolving. Transition from comradeship to strangeness was taking place rapidly. Abuse of Mr. Gauss was the last subject that could bring warmth into the chatter, and even that once infinite resource was running low, because freedom was so near.

“I wish to heck this ride was over,” said Herbie, dropping into the seat heavily.

“So do I,” said Cliff. “Gee, it was such fun comin' out, too.”

Herbie leaned back on the head cushion and dozed. It was not a refreshing nap, but a sickly half-sleeping, half-waking condition wherein he dreamed a dozen times of the stern face of his father listening to his confession.

“Lunch, Herbie.”

The boy opened his eyes and saw Uncle Sid standing in the aisle, holding a wrapped sandwich and a container of milk toward him. Cliff was already removing the paper from his sandwich. Herbie took the food and thanked the counselor. Looking out of the window, he saw by the landscape that they were much nearer the city. There was no wilderness any more. Highways with well-tended shrubbery and groups of houses or entire villages, neat and civilized, were moving quickly across the view. A clutching fear killed his appetite. He bit the sandwich once and laid it aside. He managed to sip most of the milk, but each swallow was an effort.

Oddly enough, there was nothing for him to fear. Jacob Bookbinder did not know of his deed, and would surely give him an affectionate welcome. But Herbie felt the strongest possible aversion to the prospect of looking his father in the face. Jumping up from his seat, he walked to the rear platform of the car and paced back and forth in the roaring, drafty space, ransacking his brain for a way out of the trap which was closing on him.

Mingled with the frantic search for an escape was wonderment at his own criminal foolishness for running into this dead end. The midnight trip to the city, the robbery, the triumph of the Ride, all seemed more fantastic, less substantial now than many dreams he could remember. Could it all have happened? Could he, Herbie Bookbinder, Class 8B-3, have done these things? He had nothing to show for them. All had vanished, leaving a tortured conscience and the certainty that, after all, fifty dollars had been taken from the safe of the Place—taken by him. He turned hither and yon like a scared mouse, alone there on the platform, and beat his forehead with his fists.

A half hour passed and he returned to his seat, pallid and gloomy.

“Know what, Cliff?” he said.

“What?” said Cliff, looking up from a tattered copy of
Weird Tales,
in which he was happily perusing a narrative entitled, “Blood-Drinkers of the Sepulcher.”

“I figured out what I'm gonna do about the money.”

“Oh, what?” said Cliff, laying the magazine aside and looking at his cousin with interest.

“I'm gonna pay it back,” said Herbie dramatically.

“Yeah, but how?”

“I know what yer gonna say. I ain't got the money. Well, I'm gonna save it. I figure I get about a quarter a week for candy an' sodas. Well, I don't have to eat 'em, do I? A quarter a week is thirteen dollars a year. In four years I'll have fifty-two dollars. Then I'll walk up to my pop and give him the money an' tell him everything that happened.”

Cliff said at once, “You mean you ain't gonna tell your father for four years?”

“I just explained to you,” said Herbie in exasperation, “that I wanna punish myself an' pay back the money. Maybe I can go without movies, too, an' save it up in three an' a half years. But I wanna pay it back, see? It don't do no good to tell without payin' it back, does it?”

Cliff was silent.

“Well, whaddya think?” said Herbie, after waiting half a minute.

“Well, it's an easy way out,” said his cousin.

Herbie grew very angry. “What's so easy about it?” he snapped. “Goin' without candy or a soda for four years! You call that easy?”

“Yeah, but meantime you don't have to tell your father,” said Cliff. “That's what you want, ain't it?”

“O.K., smart guy. Tell me this. What would
you
do if you was me?”

Cliff considered the question. “I dunno. I think maybe I'd just forget the whole thing.”

“Aha!” said Herbie with vast sarcasm. “I suppose that ain't an easy way out!”

“Sure. It's a lot easier'n your way. If I was too scared to tell, why should I fool around with skippin' candy an' sodas? That don't make it right.”

“But I
am
gonna tell—after four years,” said Herbie, almost in a frenzy at Cliff's stupidity.

“O.K., Herbie. If you think yer doin' right, maybe you are. I don't know nothin'. Me, I'd either tell or shut up, that's all.”

“Honest, Cliff, if you can't understand that what I'm doin' is right you're dumb. Just plain, thick dumb. Dumb!”

“I never said I was as smart as you,” Cliff answered without rancor.

“You make me sore. 'Scuse me, I'm gonna sit somewheres else.”

Herbie rose, stalked to a narrow empty half seat in the back of the car, pushed a tennis racket off it, and sat, fuming at the denseness of his cousin. The scheme he had evolved seemed to him to have every conceivable merit. It was noble. It was self-sacrificing. It required four years of spectacular saintliness. And it spared him the distressing necessity of confessing the robbery an hour from now. If Cliff had said aloud what both boys knew in their hearts—that Herbie would gradually forget about the four-year plan once the first meeting with his father was safely passed—Herbie could have shouted him down. As it was Cliff had spoiled the charm of the scheme, leaving Herbie to wrestle with the question and arrive at no conclusion. At this hour Herbie almost hated his cousin. He did not speak to him during the rest of the ride.