AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY. Theodore Dreiser

gone on a visit to some of my relatives back in Tonawanda. That won’t be the truth, exactly, but then we don’t know where she is or what the truth is — and she may come back. So we must not say or do anything that will injure her until we know.”

      “Yes, praise the Lord!” called Asa, feebly.

      “So if any one should inquire at any time, until we know, we will say that.”

      “Sure,” put in Clyde, helpfully, and Julia added, “All right.”

      Mrs. Griffiths paused and looked firmly and yet apologetically at her children. Asa, for his part, emitted another “Tst! Tst! Tst!” and then the children were waved to bed.

      At that, Clyde, who really wanted to know what Esta’s letter had said, but was convinced from long experience that his mother would not let him know unless she chose, returned to his room again, for he was tired. Why didn’t they search more if there was hope of finding her? Where was she now — at this minute? On some train somewhere? Evidently she didn’t want to be found. She was probably dissatisfied, just as he was. Here he was, thinking so recently of going away somewhere himself, wondering how the family would take it, and now she had gone before him. How would that affect his point of view and action in the future? Truly, in spite of his father’s and mother’s misery, he could not see that her going was such a calamity, not from the GOING point of view, at any rate. It was only another something which hinted that things were not right here. Mission work was nothing. All this religious emotion and talk was not so much either. It hadn’t saved Esta. Evidently, like himself, she didn’t believe so much in it, either.

      Chapter 4

       Table of Contents

      The effect of this particular conclusion was to cause Clyde to think harder than ever about himself. And the principal result of his thinking was that he must do something for himself and soon. Up to this time the best he had been able to do was to work at such odd jobs as befall all boys between their twelfth and fifteenth years: assisting a man who had a paper route during the summer months of one year, working in the basement of a five-and-ten-cent store all one summer long, and on Saturdays, for a period during the winter, opening boxes and unpacking goods, for which he received the munificent sum of five dollars a week, a sum which at the time seemed almost a fortune. He felt himself rich and, in the face of the opposition of his parents, who were opposed to the theater and motion pictures also, as being not only worldly, but sinful, he could occasionally go to one or another of those — in the gallery — a form of diversion which he had to conceal from his parents. Yet that did not deter him. He felt that he had a right to go with his own money; also to take his younger brother Frank, who was glad enough to go with him and say nothing.

      Later in the same year, wishing to get out of school because he already felt himself very much belated in the race, he secured a place as an assistant to a soda water clerk in one of the cheaper drug stores of the city, which adjoined a theater and enjoyed not a little patronage of this sort. A sign —“Boy Wanted”— since it was directly on his way to school, first interested him. Later, in conversation with the young man whose assistant he was to be, and from whom he was to learn the trade, assuming that he was sufficiently willing and facile, he gathered that if he mastered this art, he might make as much as fifteen and even eighteen dollars a week. It was rumored that Stroud’s at the corner of 14th and Baltimore streets paid that much to two of their clerks. The particular store to which he was applying paid only twelve, the standard salary of most places.

      But to acquire this art, as he was now informed, required time and the friendly help of an expert. If he wished to come here and work for five to begin with — well, six, then, since his face fell — he might soon expect to know a great deal about the art of mixing sweet drinks and decorating a large variety of ice creams with liquid sweets, thus turning them into sundaes. For the time being apprenticeship meant washing and polishing all the machinery and implements of this particular counter, to say nothing of opening and sweeping out the store at so early an hour as seven-thirty, dusting, and delivering such orders as the owner of this drug store chose to send out by him. At such idle moments as his immediate superior — a Mr. Sieberling — twenty, dashing, self-confident, talkative, was too busy to fill all the orders, he might be called upon to mix such minor drinks — lemonades, Coca–Colas and the like — as the trade demanded.

      Yet this interesting position, after due consultation with his mother, he decided to take. For one thing, it would provide him, as he suspected, with all the ice-cream sodas he desired, free — an advantage not to be disregarded. In the next place, as he saw it at the time, it was an open door to a trade — something which he lacked. Further, and not at all disadvantageously as he saw it, this store required his presence at night as late as twelve o’clock, with certain hours off during the day to compensate for this. And this took him out of his home at night — out of the ten- o’clock-boy class at last. They could not ask him to attend any meetings save on Sunday, and not even then, since he was supposed to work Sunday afternoons and evenings.

      Next, the clerk who manipulated this particular soda fountain, quite regularly received passes from the manager of the theater next door, and into the lobby of which one door to the drug store gave — a most fascinating connection to Clyde. It seemed so interesting to be working for a drug store thus intimately connected with a theater.

      And best of all, as Clyde now found to his pleasure, and yet despair at times, the place was visited, just before and after the show on matinee days, by bevies of girls, single and en suite, who sat at the counter and giggled and chattered and gave their hair and their complexions last perfecting touches before the mirror. And Clyde, callow and inexperienced in the ways of the world, and those of the opposite sex, was never weary of observing the beauty, the daring, the self-sufficiency and the sweetness of these, as he saw them. For the first time in his life, while he busied himself with washing glasses, filling the ice-cream and syrup containers, arranging the lemons and oranges in the trays, he had an almost uninterrupted opportunity of studying these girls at close range. The wonder of them! For the most part, they were so well-dressed and smart-looking — the rings, pins, furs, delightful hats, pretty shoes they wore. And so often he overheard them discussing such interesting things — parties, dances, dinners, the shows they had seen, the places in or near Kansas City to which they were soon going, the difference between the styles of this year and last, the fascination of certain actors and actresses — principally actors — who were now playing or soon coming to the city. And to this day, in his own home he had heard nothing of all this.

      And very often one or another of these young beauties was accompanied by some male in evening suit, dress shirt, high hat, bow tie, white kid gloves and patent leather shoes, a costume which at that time Clyde felt to be the last word in all true distinction, beauty, gallantry and bliss. To be able to wear such a suit with such ease and air! To be able to talk to a girl after the manner and with the sang-froid of some of these gallants! what a true measure of achievement! No good-looking girl, as it then appeared to him, would have anything to do with him if he did not possess this standard of equipment. It was plainly necessary — the thing. And once he did attain it — was able to wear such clothes as these — well, then was he not well set upon the path that leads to all the blisses? All the joys of life would then most certainly be spread before him. The friendly smiles! The secret handclasps, maybe — an arm about the waist of some one or another — a kiss — a promise of marriage — and then, and then!

      And all this as a revealing flash after all the years of walking through the streets with his father and mother to public prayer meeting, the sitting in chapel and listening to queer and nondescript individuals — depressing and disconcerting people — telling how Christ had saved them and what God had done for them. You bet he would get out of that now. He would work and save his money and be somebody. Decidedly this simple and yet idyllic compound of the commonplace had all the luster and wonder of a spiritual transfiguration, the true mirage of the lost and thirsting and seeking victim of the desert.

      However, the trouble with this particular position, as time speedily proved, was that much as it might teach him of mixing