During the whole course of that last October — the last October he would spend at home — he was waiting day by day with a desperation of wild hope for a magic letter — one of those magic letters for which young men wait, which are to bring them instantly the fortune, fame, and triumph for which their souls thirst and their hearts are panting, and which never come.

Each morning he would get up with a pounding heart, trembling hands, and chattering lips, and then, like a man in prison who is waiting feverishly for some glorious message of release or pardon which he is sure will come that day, he would wait for the coming of the postman. And when he came, even before he reached the house, the moment that Eugene heard his whistle he would rush out into the street, tear the mail out of his astounded grasp, and begin to hunt through it like a madman for the letter which would announce to him that fortune, fame, and glittering success were his. He was twenty-two years old, a madman and a fool, but every young man in the world has been the same.

Then, when the wonderful letter did not come, his heart would sink down to his bowels like lead; all of the brightness, gold, and singing would go instantly out of the day and he would stamp back into the house, muttering to himself, sick with despair and misery and thinking that now his life was done for, sure enough. He could not eat, sleep, stand still, sit down, rest, talk coherently, or compose himself for five minutes at a time. He would go prowling and muttering around the house, rush out into the streets of the town, walk up and down the main street, pausing to talk with the loafers before the principal drug store, climb the hills and mountains all around the town and look down on the town with a kind of horror and disbelief, an awful dreamlike unreality because the town, since his long absence and return to it, and all the people in it, now seemed as familiar as his mother’s face and stranger than a dream, so that he could never regain his life or corporeal substance in it, any more than a man who revisits his youth in a dream, and so that, also, the town seemed to have shrunk together, got little, fragile, toy-like in his absence, until now when he walked in the street he thought he was going to ram his elbows through the walls, as if the walls were paper, or tear down the buildings, as if they had been made of straw.

Then he would come down off the hills into the town again, go home, and prowl and mutter around the house, which now had the same real-unreal familiar-strangeness that the town had, and his life seemed to have been passed there like a dream. Then, with a mounting hope and a pounding heart, he would begin to wait for the next mail again; and when it came, but without the letter, this furious prowling and lashing about would start all over again. His family saw the light of madness in his eyes and in his disconnected movements, and heard it in his incoherent speech. He could hear them whispering together, and sometimes when he looked up he could see them looking at him with troubled and bewildered faces. And yet he did not think that he was mad, nor know how he appeared to them.

Yet, during all this time of madness and despair his people were as kind and tolerant as anyone on earth could be.

His mother, during all this time, treated him with kindness and tolerance, and according to the law of her powerful, hopeful, brooding, octopal, and web-like character, with all its meditative procrastination, never coming to a decisive point, but weaving, reweaving, pursing her lips, and meditating constantly and with a kind of hope, even though in her deepest heart she really had no serious belief that he could succeed in doing the thing he wanted to do.

Thus, as he talked to her sometimes, going on from hope to hope, his enthusiasm mounting with the intoxication of his own vision, he would paint a glittering picture of the fame and wealth he was sure to win in the world as soon as his play was produced. And his mother would listen thoughtfully, pursing her lips from time to time, in a meditative fashion, as she sat before the fire with her hands folded in a strong loose clasp above her stomach. Then, finally, she would turn to him and with a proud, tremulous, and yet bantering smile playing about her mouth, such as she had always used when he was a child, and had perhaps spoken of some project with an extravagant enthusiasm, she would say:

“Hm, boy! I tell you what!” his mother said, in this bantering tone, as if he were still a child. “That’s mighty big talk — as the sayin’ goes,”— here she put one finger under her broad red nose-wing and laughed shyly, but with pleasure —“as the sayin’ goes, mighty big talk for poor folks!” said his mother. “Well, now,” she said in a thoughtful and hopeful tone, after a moment’s pause, “you may do it, sure enough. Stranger things than that have happened. Other people have been able to make a success of their writings — and there’s one thing sure!” His mother cried out strongly with the loose, powerful and manlike gesture of her hand and index finger which was characteristic of all her family —“there’s one thing sure! — what one man has done another can do if he’s got grit and determination enough!” His mother said, putting the full strength of her formidable will into these words —“Why, yes, now!” she now said, with a recollective start, “Here, now! Say!” she cried —“wasn’t I reading? — didn’t I see? Why, pshaw! — yes! just the other day — that all these big writers — yes, sir! Irvin S. Cobb — there was the very feller!” cried his mother in a triumphant tone —“Why, you know,” she continued, pursing her lips in a meditative way, “— that he had the very same trials and tribulations — as the sayin’ goes — as everyone else! Why, yes! — here he told it on himself — admitted it, you know — that he kept writin’ these stories for years, sendin’ them out, I reckon, to all the editors and magazines — and having them all sent back to him. That’s the way it was,” she said, “and now — look at him! Why, I reckon they’d pay him hundreds of dollars for a single piece — yes! and be glad of the chance to get it,” said his mother.

Then for a space his mother sat looking at the fire, while she slowly and reflectively pursed her lips.

“Well,” she said slowly at length, “you may do it. I hope you do. Stranger things than that have happened. — Now, there’s one thing sure,” she said strongly, “you have certainly had a good education — there’s been more money spent upon your schoolin’ than on all the rest of us put together — and you certainly ought to know enough to write a story or a play! — Why, yes, boy! I tell you what,” his mother now cried in the old playful and bantering tone, as if she were speaking to a child, “if I had YOUR education I believe I’d try to be a writer, too! Why, yes! I wouldn’t mind getting out of all this drudgery and house-work for a while — and if I could earn my living doin’ some light easy work like that, why, you can bet your bottom dollar, I’d do it!” cried his mother. “But, say, now! See here!” his mother cried with a kind of jocose seriousness — “maybe that’d be a good idea, after all! Suppose you write the stories,” she said, winking at him — “and I tell, you what I’ll do! — Why, I’ll TELL ’em to you! Now, if I had your education and your command of language,” said his mother, whose command of language was all that anyone could wish —“I believe I could tell a pretty good story — so if you’ll write ’em out,” she said, with another wink, “I’ll tell you what to write — and I’ll BET you — I’ll BET you,” said his mother, “that we could write a story that would beat most of these stories that I read, all to pieces! Yes, sir!” she said, pursing her lips firmly, and with an invincible conviction —“and I bet you people would buy that story and come to see that play!” she said. “Because I know what to tell ’em and the kind of thing people are interested in hearing,” she said.

Then for a moment more she was silent and stared thoughtfully into the fire.

“Well,” she said slowly, “you may do it. You may do it, sure enough! Now, boy,” she said, levelling that powerful index finger toward him, “I want to tell you! Your grandfather, Tom Pentland, was a remarkable man — and if he’d had your education he’d a-gone far! And everyone who ever knew him said the same! . . . Oh! stories, poems, pieces in the paper — why, didn’t they print something of his every week or two!” she cried. “And that’s exactly where you get it,” said his mother. “— But, say, now,” she said in a persuasive tone, after a moment’s meditation, “I’ve been thinkin’— it just occurred to me — wouldn’t it be a good idea if you could find some work to do — I mean, get you a job somewheres of some light easy work that would give you plenty of time to do your writin’ as you went on! Now, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know!” his mother said in the bantering tone, “— and you might have to send that play around to several places before you found the one who could do it right for you! So while you’re waitin’,” said his mother persuasively, “why, wouldn’t it be a good idea if you got a little light newspaper work, or a job teachin’ somewheres — pshaw! you could do it easy as falling off a log,” his mother said contemptuously. “I taught school myself before I got married to your papa, and I didn’t have a bit of trouble! And all the schoolin’ I ever had — all the schoolin’ that I ever had,” she cried impressively, “was six months one time in a little backwoods school! Now if I could do it, there’s one thing sure, with all your education you ought to be able to do it, too! Yes, sir, that’s the very thing!” she said. “I’d do it like a shot if I were you.”

He said nothing, and his mother sat there for a moment looking at the fire. Suddenly she turned, and her face had grown troubled and sorrowful and her worn and faded eyes were wet with tears. She stretched her strong rough hand out and put it over his, shaking her head a little before she spoke:

“Child, child!” she said. “It worries me to see you act like this! I hate to see you so unhappy! Why, son,” his mother said, “what if they shouldn’t take it now! You’ve got long years ahead of you and if you can’t do it now, why, maybe, some day you will! And if you don’t!” his mother cried out strongly and formidably, “why, Lord, boy, what about it! You’re a young man with your whole life still before you — and if you can’t do this thing, why, there are other things you can do! . . . Pshaw! boy, your life’s not ended just because you find out that you weren’t cut out to be a playwriter,” said his mother, “There are a thousand things a young man of your age could do! Why, it wouldn’t bother me for a moment!” cried his mother.

And he sat there in front of her invincible strength, hope, and fortitude and her will that was more strong than death, her character that was as solid as a rock; he was as hopeless and wretched as he had ever been in his life, wanting to say a thousand things to her and saying none of them, and reading in her eyes the sorrowful message that she did not believe he would ever be able to do the thing on which his heart so desperately was set.

At this moment the door opened and his brother entered the room. As they stared at him with startled faces, he stood there looking at them out of his restless, tormented grey eyes, breathing his large and unhappy breath of unrest and nervousness, a harassed look on his handsome and generous face, as with a distracted movement he thrust his strong, impatient fingers through the flashing mop of his light brown hair, that curled everywhere in incredible whorls and screws of angelic brightness.

“Hah?” his mother sharply cried, as she looked at him with her white face, the almost animal-like quickness and concentration of her startled attention. “What say?” she said in a sharp startled tone, although as yet his brother had said nothing.

“W-w-w-wy!” he began in a distracted voice, as he thrust his fingers through his incredible flashing hair and his eyes flickered about absently and with a tormented and driven look, “I was just f-f-f-finkin’—” he went on in a dissonant and confused tone; then, suddenly catching sight of her white startled face, he smote himself suddenly and hard upon his temple with the knuckle of one large hand, and cried out “Haw!” in a tone of such idiotic exuberance and exultancy that it is impossible to reproduce in words the limitless and earthly vulgarity of its humour. At the same time he prodded his mother stiffly in the ribs with his clumsy fingers, an act that made her shriek out resentfully, and then say in a vexed and fretful tone:

“I’ll vow, boy! You act like a regular idiot! If I didn’t have any more sense than to go and play a trick like that — I’d be ash-a-a-med — ash-a-a-a-med,” she whispered, with a puckered mouth, as she shook her head at him in a movement of strong deprecation, scorn, and reproof. “I’d be ASHAMED to let anyone know I was such a fool,” his mother said.

“Whah! WHAH!” Luke shouted with his wild, limitlessly exuberant laugh, that was so devastating in its idiotic exultancy that all words, reproaches, scorn, or attempts at reason were instantly reduced to nothing by it. “Whee!” he cried, prodding her in her resentful ribs again, his handsome face broken by his huge and exuberant smile. Then, as if cherishing something secret and uncommunicably funny in its idiotic humour, he smote himself upon the forehead again, cried out, “Whah — WHAH!” and then, shaking his grinning face to himself in this movement of secret and convulsive humour, he said: “Whee! Go-o-d-damn!” in a tone of mincing and ironic refinement.

“Why, what on earth has got into you, boy?” his mother cried out fretfully. “Why, you’re actin’ like a regular simpleton, I’ll vow you are!”

“Whah! WHAH!” Luke cried exultantly.

“Now, I don’t know where it comes from,” said his mother judicially, with a deliberate and meditative sarcasm, as if she were seriously considering the origin of his lunacy. “There’s one thing sure: you never got it from me. Now, all my people had their wits about them — now, say what you please,” she went on in a thoughtful tone, as she stared with puckered mouth into the fire, “I never heard of a weak-minded one in the whole crowd —”

“Whah — WHAH!” he cried.

“— So you didn’t get it from any of my people,” she went on with deliberate and telling force —“no, you didn’t!” she said.

“WHAH-H!” he prodded her in the ribs again, and then immediately, and in a very earnest tone, he said:

“W-w-w-wy, I was just f-f-f-finkin’ it would be a good idea if we all w-w-w-went for a little ride. F-f-f-frankly, I fink it would do us good,” he said, looking at Eugene with a very earnest look in his restless and tormented eyes. “I fink we need it! F-f-f-frankly, I fink we do,” he said, and then added abruptly and eagerly as he thrust his clumsy fingers through his hair: “W-w-w-wy, what do you say?”

“Why, yes!” his mother responded with an instant alacrity as she got up from her chair. “That’s the very thing! A little breath of fresh air is just the thing we need — as the feller says,” she said, turning to Eugene now and beginning to laugh slyly, and with pleasure, passing one finger shyly underneath her broad red nose-wing as she spoke — “as the feller says, it costs nothin’ and it’s Nature’s sovereign remedy, good for man and good for beast! — So let’s all get out into the light of open day again,” she said with rhetorical deliberation, “and breathe in God’s fresh air like He intended we should do — for there’s one thing sure,” his mother went on in tones of solemn warning, which seemed directed to a vast unseen audience of the universe rather than to themselves, “there’s one thing sure — you can’t violate the laws of God or nature,” she said decisively, “or you’ll pay for it — as sure as you’re born. As sure as you’re born,” she whispered. “Why, yes, now!”— she went on, with a start of recollective memory —“Here now! — Say! — Didn’t I see it — wasn’t I readin’? — Why, here, you know, the other day,” she went on impatiently, as if the subject of these obscure broken references must instantly be clear to everyone —“why, it was in the paper, you know — this article written by Doctor Royal S. Copeland,” his mother said, nodding her head with deliberate satisfaction over his name, and pronouncing the full title sonorously with the obvious satisfaction that titles and distinctions always gave her — “that’s who it was all right, sayin’ that fresh air was the thing that everyone must have, and that all of us should take good care to —”

“Now, M-m-m-m-mama,” said Luke, who had paid no attention at all to what she had been saying, but had stood there during all the time she was speaking, breathing his large, weary, and unhappy breath, thrusting his clumsy fingers through his hair, as his harassed and tormented eyes flickered restlessly about the room in a driven but unseeing stare:—“Now, M-m-m-mama!” he said in a tone of exasperated and frenzied impatience, “if we’re g-g-g-going we’ve g-g-g-got to get started! N-n-n-now I d-d-don’t mean next W-w-w-w-Wednesday,” he snarled, with exasperated sarcasm, “I d-d-d-don’t m-m-m-mean the fifteenth of next July. But — NOW— NOW— NOW,” he muttered crazily, coming to her with his large hands lifted like claws, the fingers working, and with a look of fiendish madness in his eyes.

“Now!” he whispered hoarsely. “This week! Today! This afternoon! A-a-a-a-at once!” he barked suddenly, jumping at her comically; then thrusting his hand through his hair again, he said in a weary and exasperated voice:

“M-m-m-mama, will you please get ready? I b-b-b-beg of you. I beseech you — PLEASE!” he said, in tortured entreaty.

“ALL right! ALL right!” his mother replied instantly in a tone of the heartiest and most conciliatory agreement. “I’ll be ready in five minutes! I’ll just go back here and put on a coat over this old dress — so folks won’t see me,” she laughed shyly, “an’ I’ll be ready before you know it! — Pshaw, boy!” she now said in a rather nettled tone, as if the afterthought of his impatience had angered her a little, “now you don’t need to worry about MY being ready,” she said, “because when the time comes — I’ll be THERE!” she said, with the loose, deliberate, man-like gesture of her right hand and in tones of telling deliberation. “Now you worry about yourself!” she said. “For I’ll be ready before YOU are — yes, and I’m never late for an appointment, either,” she said strongly, “and that’s more than YOU can say — for I’ve seen you miss ’em time an’ time again.”

During all this time Luke had been thrusting his fingers through his hair, breathing heavily and unhappily, and pawing and muttering over a mass of thumbed envelopes and papers which were covered with the undecipherable scrawls and jottings of his nervous hand: “T-t-t-Tuesday,” he muttered, “Tuesday . . . Tuesday in Blackstone — B-b-b-b-Blackstone — Blackstone — Blackstone, South Car’lina,” he muttered in a confused and distracted manner, as if these names were completely meaningless to him, and he had never heard them before. “Now — AH!” he suddenly sang out in a rich tenor voice, as he lifted his hand, thrust his fingers through his hair, and stared wildly ahead of him —“meet Livermore in Blackstone Tuesday morning — see p-p-p-p-prospect in G-g-g-g-Gadsby Tuesday afternoon about — about — about — Wheet!”— here he whistled sharply, as he always did when he hung upon a word —“about a new set of batteries for his Model X— Style 37 — lighting system — which the cheap p-p-p-penny-pinching South Car’lina bastard w-w-w-wants for nothing — Wednesday m-m-m-morning b-b-b-back to Blackstone — F’ursday . . . w-w-w-wy,” he muttered pawing clumsily and confusedly at his envelopes with a demented glare —“F-f-f-f-f’ursday — you — ah — j-j-j-jump over to C-c-c-Cavendish to t-t-t-try to persuade that ignorant red-faced nigger-Baptist son of a bitch that it’s f-f-f-for his own b-b-b-best interests to scrap the-the-w-w-w-wy the d-d-d-decrepit pile of junk he’s been using since S-s-s-Sherman marched through Georgia and b-b-b-buy the new X50 model T Style 46 transmission —

“M-m-m-mama!” he cried suddenly, turning toward her with a movement of frenzied and exasperated entreaty. “Will you PLEASE kindly have the g-g-g-goodness and the m-m-m-mercy to do me the favour to b-b-b-begin to commence — w-w-w-w-wy — to start — to make up your mind — to get ready,” he snarled bitterly. “W-w-w-w-wy sometime before midnight — I b-b-b-beg of you . . . I beseech you . . . I ask it of you p-p-p-PLEASE! for MY sake — for ALL our sakes — for GOD’S sake!” he cried with frenzied and maddened desperation.

“ALL right! ALL right!” his mother cried hastily in a placating and reassuring tone, beginning to move with an awkward, distracted, bridling movement that got her nowhere, since there were two doors to the parlour and she was trying to go out both of them at the same time. “ALL right!” she said decisively, at length getting started toward the door nearest her. “I’ll just go back there an’ slip on a coat — and I’LL BE WITH YOU in a jiffy!” she said with comforting assurance.

“If you PLEASE!” Luke said with an ironic and tormented obsequiousness of entreaty, as he fumbled through his mass of envelopes. “If you PLEASE! W-w-w-wy I’d certainly be m-m-m-m-much obliged to you if you would!” he said.

At this moment, however, a car halted at the curb outside, someone got out, and in a moment more they could hear Helen’s voice, as she came towards the house, calling back to her husband in tones of exasperated annoyance:

“All RIGHT! Hugh! All RIGHT! I’m coming!”— although she was really going toward the house. “Will you KINDLY leave me alone for just a moment? Good heavens! Will I never get a little peace? All right! All right! I’m coming! For God’s sake, leave me ALONE for just five minutes, or you’ll drive me crazy!” she stormed, and with a high-cracked note of frenzied strain and exasperation that was almost like hysteria.

“All right, Mr. Barton,” she now said to her husband in a more good-humoured tone. “Now you just hold your horses for a minute and I’ll come on out. The house is not going to burn down before we get there.”

His lean, seamed, devoted face broke into a slow, almost unwilling grin, in which somehow all of the submission, loyalty and goodness of his soul was legible, and Helen turned, came up on the porch, opened the hall door, and came into the parlour where they were, beginning to speak immediately in a tone of frenzied and tortured exacerbation of the nerves and with her large, gaunt, liberal features strained to the breaking point of nervous hysteria.

“My GOD!” she said in a tone of weary exasperation. “If I don’t get away from them soon I’m going to lose my mind! . . . From the moment that I get up in the morning I never get a moment’s peace! Someone’s after me all day long from morn to night! Why, good heavens, Mama!” she cried out in a tone of desperate fury, and as if Eliza had contradicted something she had said, “I’ve got troubles enough of my own, without anyone else putting theirs on me! Have they got no one else they can go to? Haven’t they got homes of their own to look after? Do I have to bear the burden of it all for everyone ALL my life?” she stormed in a voice that was so hoarse, strained and exasperated now that she was almost weeping. “Do I have to be the goat ALL my life? Oh, I want a little peace,” she cried desperately, “I just want to be left alone by myself once in a while! — The rest of you don’t have to worry!” she said accusingly. “You don’t have to stand for it. You can get away from it!” she cried. “You don’t know — you don’t KNOW!” she said furiously, “what I put up with — but if I don’t get away from it soon, I’m going all to pieces.”

During all the time that Helen had been pouring out her tirade of the wrongs and injuries that had been inflicted on her, Luke had acted as a kind of dutiful and obsequious chorus, punctuating all the places where she had to pause to pant for breath, with su............