Turns about Town Part 20

As, at that hour which sets the weary toiler free, in the gathering dusk Keyes stood on the curb amid the hurrying throng homeward bound,--oh!

how he longed for that establishment in the eyes of men which the success of his story would bring him. Oh, when would he hear! As he bowled along in the crowded trolley the thought stole through him, until it amounted almost to a conviction, that the great letter awaited him at home now. He could hardly bear the tedium of the short journey.

Restlessly he turned his evening paper.

In him had developed of late a great interest in authors; he peered between the pages, a little sheepishly, at the column, "Books and Their Makers." He read that Mr. So and So, the author of "This and That," was a young man thirty years of age. Instantly he reflected that he himself was but twenty-seven. This was encouraging! He had formed a habit recently of contrasting at once any writer's age with his own. If he learned that Mr. Galsworthy, whose books were much advertised but which he had not read, was forty-something, he wanted to know how old he had been when he wrote his first book. Then he counted up the number of books between that time--comparing his age at that time with his own--and now. He was absorbed in the literary gossip of the day. That Myra Kelly had been a schoolteacher, that Gertrude Atherton lived in California, that Mr. Bennett had turned thirty before he published his first book, that such a writer was in Rome, or that some other one was engaged on a new work said to be about the Russian Jews,--he found very interesting. He read in his newspaper the publishers' declaration that Maurice Hewlett's new creation recalled Don Quixote, Cyrano, d'Artagnan, Falstaff, Bombastes Furioso, Tartarin, Gil Blas. His notions concerning the characters of this company were somewhat vague; but he was stirred with an ambition to create some such character, too.

On leaving the car whom should he see but Dr. Nevens. They walked along together. Dr. Nevens inquired about the business. A bad year, he surmised, for trade. Trade! Keyes felt his heart thumping with the temptation to confide the adventures of his literary life; which, indeed, he had found exceedingly difficult to keep so much to himself.

But his position gave him clairvoyance: he divined that no sort of ambition receives from people in general so little respect, by some curious idiosyncrasy of the human mind, as literary aspiration. With what coa.r.s.e and withering scorn had an intimation--which had escaped him--that he had sought to give some artistic articulation to his ideas been met by Pimpkins the other day at the office!

The personality of Dr. Nevens, however, suggested a more sympathetic att.i.tude, by reason of the dentist's cultivation. Dr. Nevens was spoken of as a "booklover." He had a "library"--it was, he implied, his bachelor foible--the cornerstone of which was a set of the Thistle edition of Stevenson that he had bought by subscription from an agent.

(Keyes had thought it odd one day that Dr. Nevens had not cut the leaves.) And "the doctor" was fond of speaking familiarly of d.i.c.kens, and gained much admiration by his often saying that he should like--had he time--to read through "Esmond" once every year. Here, Keyes felt, would be spiritual succor.

But Keyes quickly learned that he was quite in a different case from the author of "Esmond." Dr. Nevens was kind, but pitying.

"Only one out of hundreds, thousands," he said, "ever comes to anything."

It did not occur to him, Keyes thought, as within the range of remotest possibility that he, Keyes, _might_ be one of these. Then came the doctor's reason.

"You do not know anything," he said paternally, "anything at all."

Keyes realized, with some bitterness, that this world is not an inst.i.tution existing for the purpose of detecting and rewarding inner worth. He had known enough to write his story, he guessed. With some flare of rage, he felt that simply unsupported merit is rather frowned upon, as tending by comparison to cast others possibly not possessing so much of it somewhat into the shade. He had a savage thought that when he was Dr. Nevens's age he would not be a country dentist. He saw the intense egoism of mankind.

Dr. Nevens was determined to show a young man who had betrayed a consciousness of superiority of grain, his place--economically and socially. The selfish jealousy of the world!

His letter had not come. There was only a package from Louise--a copy of "Book Talk," containing a marked article on "Representative American Story Tellers"; from this, after dinner, Keyes imbibed most of the purported facts about Booth Tarkington. Then he went to bed to sleep through the hours until the return of the postman.

The next evening still there was no letter. Keyes's spirit was troubled.

He sought the solace of solitude in the quiet, shadowed streets. A reaction was succeeding his rosy complacency! Doubts pierced his dissolving confidence. Was his story so good, after all? Somehow, as he looked back at it now, it seemed much less strong than it had before. He felt a sort of sinking in his stomach. A sickening suspicion came to him that, perhaps, it was absurd. Maybe it was very silly. In a disconnected way certain remarks and pa.s.sages in it came back to him now as quite questionable. Yes, they sounded pretty maudlin. He squirmed within with mortification as a recollection of these pa.s.sages pa.s.sed through his mind. He hoped his story would never get into print. A fear that it might nauseated him. Then he was suffused with a sensation of how little he amounted to. He felt, with a sense of great weakness, the precariousness of his job. A horror came over him that he might lose it.

He wished he did not know Louise, who expected things of him. He felt how awkward it was so to fail her. In the position he had got himself into with her, how he had laid himself open to humiliating exposure! Oh, why had he ever sought her? He wished he did not know anybody well. He was an a.s.s and he would never come to anything. He felt the futility of his life. Why could he not slink away somewhere and live out his feeble existence un.o.bserved? As he got into bed he felt that very easily he could cry.

The August FAVORITE MAGAZINE This number contains The Great Prize Story by BENJAMIN CECIL KEYES GET IT!!

... Keyes stood before a downtown news-stand. Hurrying pedestrians b.u.mped into him. An irascible character or two, thus impeded, glared back at him--what was the matter with the fellow! Did he think there was n.o.body but himself in the world?

B. C. Keyes walked home to the sound of a great orchestra reverberating through him. He could not tolerate the thought of subduing himself to the confinement of a car. He needed movement and air.

It had come, his great letter, a few weeks before. At his sitting down to dinner his mother had given him the envelope. _The Favorite Magazine_--these words had seemed to him to be printed in the upper left-hand corner; it had struck him that perhaps the strain on his nerves of late had so deranged his mind that he now saw, as in a mirage, what was not. "Benjamin C. Keyes, Esq."--so ran the address.

Keyes in his dizziness noted this point: people had not customarily addressed him as _esquire_. Then, for the first time in his life, he held in his hand a substantial check payable to his own name--wealth!

Courteous and laudatory typewritten words danced before his burning eyes.

He felt, though in a degree an hundred times intensified, as though he had smoked so much tobacco, and drunk so much coffee, he could not compose himself to eat, or read a paper, or go to bed, or stay where he was; but must rush off somewhere else and talk hysterically. He got through his meal blindly. He could not explain--just yet--to his mother: he felt he could not control the patience necessary to begin at the beginning and construct a coherent narrative.... He must go to Louise who already understood the preliminary situation.

It had occurred to Keyes on his hurried, stumbling way thither that the whole thing was unbelievable, and that he must be quite insane. After he had pushed the bell, an interminable time seemed to elapse before his ring was answered. As he stood there on the porch he felt his flesh palpitating. A terrible fear came over him that Louise might not be at home.... Louise said, when her frenzy had somewhat abated, that she had always known that he "had it in him." She told him there was now "a future" before him.... Keyes had determined to go on about his business as though nothing unusual had occurred; then when the story appeared, to accept congratulations with retiring modesty. Before noon the next day he had told three people; by night, seven.

So, going over it all again, Keyes arrived at home, to learn that--"What do you think?" His mother said "a reporter" had been at the house; an occurrence--quite unprecedented in Mrs. Keyes's experience--which had thrown her into considerable agitation. This public official she had a.s.sociated in her confusion with a policeman. He had, however, treated her as a personage of great interest. He told her "there was nothing to be ashamed of." He drew from her trembling lips some account of her son's life, and requested a photograph.

Next day the dean of local newspapers, vigilant in patriotism, printed an extended article on the "state's new writer." And in an editorial ent.i.tled "The Modern Athens" (which referred to Keyes only by implication) the paper affirmed again that Andiena was "by general consent the present chief centre of letters in America." It recapitulated the names of those of her sons and daughters whose works were on the counters of every department store in the land. It concluded by saying: "The hope of a people is in its writers, its chosen ones of lofty thought, its poets and prophets, who shall dream and sing for it, who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm." Keyes read this, as he took it to be, moving and eloquent tribute to his prize story with feelings akin to those experienced, very probably, by Isaiah.

Keyes received an ovation at "the office." The humility of Pimpkins's admiration was abject. Keyes perceived the commanding quality of ambition--when successful. Miss Wimble, the hollow-breasted cas.h.i.+eress, regarded him with sheep's-eyes. Even Mr. Winder, in pa.s.sing, congratulated him upon his "stroke of luck."

Wonders once begun, it seemed, poured. Two letters awaited him that evening. One from the editor of _The Monocle Magazine_. _The Monocle Magazine_, as Louis said, "think of it!" The editor of this distinguished inst.i.tution spoke of his "pleasure" in reading Mr. Keyes's "compelling" story; he begged to request the favor of the "offer" of some of Keyes's "other work." By way of a fraternal insinuation he mentioned that he was a native of Andiena, himself. "Most of us are,"

was his sportive comment. The "Consolidated Sunday Magazines, Inc.,"

wrote with much business directness to solicit "ma.n.u.script," at "immediate payment on acceptance at your regular rates for fiction of the first cla.s.s."

The extraordinary turn of events in Keyes's life brought him visitors as well as letters. Dr. Nevens called, benignly smiling appreciation. His impression appeared to be that he had not been mistaken in giving Keyes his support. Of more constructive importance, however, was the turning up of Mr. Tate, who had been Keyes's instructor in "English" at the Longridge High School. A slender, pale, young man, with a bald, domed forehead "rising in its white ma.s.s like a tower of mind," Mr. Tate was understood to nourish a deep respect for literature. He had contributed one or two very serious and painstaking "papers" on the English of Chaucer (not very well understood by Keyes at the time), to "Poet-Lore"; and had edited, with notes, several "texts"--one of "The Lady of the Lake," with an "introduction," for school use. He reverenced, he now made evident, the "creative gift," as he designated it; which, he realized, had been denied him. He had come to pay homage to a vessel of this gift, his former pupil, now ill.u.s.trious.

With the hand of destiny Mr. Tate touched a vital chord. Self-a.s.sertion; to be no longer an unregarded atom in the ma.s.s of those born only to labor for others; to find play for the mind and the pa.s.sion which, by no choice of his own, distinguished him from the time slave: this was now Keyes's smouldering thought. Mr. Tate, from his conversancy with the literary situation, reported that there never was in the history of the world such a demand for fiction as now, and that "the publishers"

declared there was not an overproduction of good fiction. Editors, Mr.

Tate said, were eager to welcome new talent. He strongly encouraged Keyes to adopt what he spoke of as the "literary life." In fact, he seemed to consider that there was no alternative. And, indeed, already in Keyes's own idea of his future he saw himself eventually settled somewhere amid the Irvin-Cobbs, the Julian-Streets, the Joseph-Hergesheimers, and other clever people whose society would be congenial to him.

For the present he cultivated his ego, as became a literary light; and now, with Mr. Tate's a.s.sistance, he began to devote the time at his command to preparation for his life's work, to study. Mr. Tate was ardent to be of service; he felt that he had here connected himself with literary history in the making. The great need for Keyes, he felt, was education. The creative genius, Mr. Tate said, could not be implanted; but he felt that this other he could supply. He recommended the patient study of men and books. He thought that what Keyes needed in especial was "technical" knowledge; so he went at that strong. Maupa.s.sant, Mr.

Tate said, was the great master of the short story. Keyes began his evening studies in English translations of Maupa.s.sant.

The galling yoke of his business life was becoming well-nigh unbearable.

His soul was in ferment. If only he did not have to get up to hurry every morning down to that penitentiary, there to waste his days, he could get something done. That sapped his vitals. And he was tortured by a flame--to do, to read, study, create, grow, accomplis.h.!.+ He was expanding against the walls of his environment. G.o.d! could he but burst them asunder, and leap out!

Mr. Tate had a high idea of a thing which he spoke of as "style." In elucidation of this theme he suggested perusal of essays and treatises by DeQuincey, Walter Pater, and Professor Raleigh, He felt also that the "art of fiction" should be mastered by his protege. So Keyes pitched into examinations of this recondite subject by Sir Walter Besant, Marion Crawford, R. L. Stevenson, and Anthony Trollope. Keyes realized that he had _not_ realized before what a lot there was _to_ writing. Mr. Tate purchased out of his slender means as a present, "Success in Literature," by G. H. Lewes. He unearthed a rich collection in t.i.tles of books the consumption of which literature would be invaluable to one in training for the literary profession. An admirable bibliography, this list, of the genre which was Keyes's specialty:--"The Art of Short Story Writing," "Practical Short Story Writing," "The Art of the Short Story," "The Short Story," "Book of the Short Story," "How to Write a Short Story," "Writing of the Short Story," "Short Story Writing,"

"Philosophy of the Short Story," "The Story-Teller's Art," "The Short Story in English," "Selections from the World's Greatest Short Stories,"

"American Short Stories," "Great English Short-Story Writers." In the reading room of the public library Keyes followed a series of articles in "Book Talk" on the "Craftsmans.h.i.+p of Writing." He advanced in literary culture, under Mr. Tate's zealous lead, to consideration of "the novel," its history and development. And, too, to the drama, its law and technique. His head was filled with the theory of denouements, "moments," rising actions, climaxes, suspended actions, and catastrophes. At times he had an uneasy feeling that all these things did not much help him to think up any new stories of his own. But Mr.

Tate said "that" would "come."

And wealth and fame were even now at hand. The promoters of the great prize contest advertising dodge had not been at fault in business ac.u.men; the winning story returned ample evidence of its popular appeal.

It was akin to the minds of the "peepul." _The Favorite Magazine_ was sold during August by enterprising newsboys _on trolley cars_. That great public whose literature is exclusively contemporaneous,--whose world of letters is the current _Sat.u.r.day Mail-Coach_, the _All-people's Magazine_, the _Purple Book_, the _Nothing-But-Stories_, the _Modiste, The Swift Set, Jones's--the Magazine that Entertains, Brisk Stories, Popularity_, and the _Tip-Top_,--discussed the big features on front porches. Keyes's story even attracted the interest of those _who seldom read anything_. A number of letters from persons of that impulsive cla.s.s which communicates its inward feelings to authors personally unknown were forwarded to Keyes from his publishers. A young lady resident in St. Joe, Michigan, wrote to say that she thought the scene where the boat upsets was the "_grandest thing_ ever written."

Imagine a man like Keyes sitting his days away on an office stool. His mother, however, could not "see" his resigning his position. His "father had always" ... and so forth. Keyes foamed within. What a thing--woman's maddening narrowness! At the office Keyes's situation grew, in subtle ways, more and more oppressive. His position appeared to become equivocal. Mr. Winder seemed to make a point of increasing exactness. Keyes felt a disposition in authority to put down any subordinate uppishness of feeling possibly occasioned by doings outside the line of business. And he became conscious, too, of a curious estrangement from his a.s.sociates there. They, on their side, Pimpkins in especial, seemed to feel that he felt he was too good for them. And, in truth, he did. The mundane aims of those around him got on his nerves.

Their commonplace thoughts irritated him. They were _common_ natures.

But, with fierce secret joy, Keyes knew that an event was approaching which promised, would command, deliverance from it all.

Fall came. And the Favorite Publis.h.i.+ng Company bound up the prize story as a "gift book" for the holiday trade. Claud Clarence Chamberlain, the well-known ill.u.s.trator and creator of the famous "Picture-Hat Girl," was commissioned to make the decorations. These were done with much dash in highly colored crayon and popular sentiment. One was printed on the paper jacket of the book, with the t.i.tle in embossed letters. The advertis.e.m.e.nt p.r.o.nounced the work altogether "an exquisite piece of book-making." It declared the production the "daintiest gift of the season," and reminded "people of culture and refinement" that there was "no present like a book."

Indeed a hero is not without fame in his own country. The Stanton-Merritt bookstore on Capital Street arranged a window display of about a ton of "Will Rockwell Makes Good," with one of Mr. Chamberlain's original ill.u.s.trations, framed, in the centre. A monster advertising banner was flung across the front of the store above the entrance and windows. Just inside, a pyramid breast-high was built of the books, beneath an artistic piece of work--a hanging board upon which was burned in old English letters: "'A good book is the precious life blood of a Master Spirit'--Milton." A lady who informed the salesman that she thought "books" were "just fine," bought twenty copies for holiday distribution. She inquired if there was not a discount on that number purchased.

Drugged with triumph, they returned together Sat.u.r.day night from the exhibition "down town"; and, in the now historic little parlor again, Louise wept upon the shoulder of her affianced. Yes; they were formally engaged. Keyes was not without a sensation that the situation was rather chaotic. But destiny seemed to close in on him and bear him on.

The reviewers got on the job. And they were there with the goods.

Statements from a few typical press notices follow. "An absorbing story," said the Topeka _Progressive_, "throbbing with optimism." "Mr.

Keyes strikes a new note in this unusual production; vivid, dramatic,"--San Francisco _Lookout_. "A story of vivid and compelling interest," one critic declared. "A delightful story, rich in heart throbs," was one good one. One reviewer said, "Here we have a real love story, a tale of love, tender and true, delightfully narrated. There are so many fine, tender pa.s.sages in the episode of these two, who live just for each other, that reading the little book is like breathing strong, refres.h.i.+ng air." "The creator of 'Will Rockwell," said one paper, "has here written a new idyl of America." "An inspiring picture," said another. One very fine critique said: "Once in awhile, possibly once in a lifetime, there arises before us a writer of fiction whose genius is undeniable the instant it greets us." When Keyes read this, quoted in his publisher's latest newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nt, he knew that he had found his work in the world. And reasoning from his experience, he saw before him a calling that would be ever a n.o.ble intoxication of the soul, a kind that would know naught of headaches or remorse.

But perhaps the best of all the critical dicta was this: "Written," it declared, "with blood and tears and fire." Very impressive was the number of times that were used such adjectives as "big," "vital,"

"absorbing," "compelling," "remarkable," "insistent," and "virile."