Broken to the Plow. Charles Caldwell Dobie
gate which opened upon the garden that had smiled upon his mother's wooing, he determined once and for all to establish his position in life … Did he belong to the middle class, and, granting the premises, was it a condition from which one could escape or a fixed heritage that could neither be abandoned nor denied? In a country that made flamboyant motions toward democracy, he knew that the term was used in contempt, if not reproach. Had the class itself brought on this disesteem? Did it really exist and what defined it? Was it a matter of scant worldly possessions, or commonplace brain force, or breeding, or just an attitude of mind? Was it a term invented by the crafty to dash cold water upon the potential unity of a scattered force? Was it a scarecrow for frightening greedy and resourceful flocks from a concerted assault upon the golden harvests of privilege? … The questions submerged him in a swift flood. He did not know … he could not tell. Unaccustomed as he was to thinking in the terms of group consciousness, he fell back, naturally, upon the personal aspects of the case. He was sure of one thing—Hilmer's contempt and scorn. In what class did Hilmer place himself? Above or below? … But the answer came almost before it was framed—Hilmer looked down upon him. That almost told the story, but not quite. Had Hilmer climbed personally to upper circles or had the strata in which he found himself embedded been pushed up by the slow process of time? Had the term "middle class" become a misnomer? Was it really on the lowest level now? Perhaps it was … perhaps it always had been … But so was the foundation of any structure. Foundation? … The thought intrigued him, but only momentarily. Who wanted to bear the crushing weight of arrogant and far-flung battlements?
He retraced his steps, his thoughts still busy with Hilmer. Here was a typical case of what America could yield to the nature that had the insolence to ravish her. America was still the tawny, primitive, elemental jade who gave herself more readily to a rough embrace than a soft caress. She reserved her favors for those who wrested them from her … she had no patience with the soft delights of persuasion. It was strange how much rough-hewn vitality had poured into her embrace from the moth-eaten civilization of the Old World. Starratt was only a generation removed from a people who had subdued a wilderness … he was not many generations removed from a people who wrestled naked with God for a whole continent—that is, they had begun to wrestle; the years that had succeeded found them still eager and shut-lipped for the conflict. They had abandoned the struggle only when they had found their victory complete. Naturally, soft days had followed. Was eternal conflict the price of strength? Starratt found himself wondering. And was he a product of these soft days, the rushing whirlwinds of Heaven stilled, the land drowsy with the humid heat of a slothful noonday? He had never thought of these things before. Even when he had thrilled to the vision of line upon line of his comrades marching away to the blood-soaked fields of France he had surrendered to a primitive emotion untouched by the poetry of deep understanding. He thrilled not because he knew that these people were doing the magnificent, the decent thing … but because he merely felt it. He had his faiths, but he had not troubled to prove them … he had not troubled even to doubt them.
His disquiet sharpened all of his perceptions. He never remembered a time when the cool fragrance of the night had fallen upon his senses with such a personal caress. He had come out into its starlit presence flushed with narrow, sordid indignation … smarting under the trivial lashes which insolence and circumstance had rained upon his vanity. His walk in the dusky silence had not stilled his restlessness, but it had given his impatience a larger scope … and as he stood for one last backward glimpse at the twinkling magnificence of this February night he felt stirred by almost heroic rancors. The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle prophecies of summer.
His exaltation persisted even after he had turned the key in his own door to find the light still blazing, betraying the fact of Helen's wakeful presence. He dallied over the triviality of hanging up his hat.
She was reading when he gained the threshold of the tiny living room. At the sound of his footsteps she flung aside the magazine in her hand. Her thick brows were drawn together in insolent impatience.
"Oh," he exclaimed, inadequately, "I thought you'd be asleep!"
"Asleep?" she queried, in a voice that cut him with its swift stroke. "You didn't fancy that I could compose myself that quickly … after everything that's happened to-night … did you? I've been humiliated more than once in my life, but never quite so badly. Uncalled for, too … that's the silly part of it."
He stood motionless in the doorway. "I'm sorry I forgot the money," he returned, dully. "But it's all past and gone now. And I think the Hilmers understood."
"Yes … they understood. That's another humiliating thing." She laughed tonelessly. "It must be amusing to watch people like us attempting to be somebody and do something on an income that can't be stretched far enough to pay a sloppy maid her wages."
It was not so much what she said, but her manner that chilled him to sudden cold anger. "Well … you know our income, down to the last penny … You know just how much I've overdrawn this month, too. Why do you invite strangers to dinner under such conditions?"
She rose, drawing herself up to an arrogant height. "I invite them for your sake," she said, with slow emphasis. "If you played your cards well you might get in right with Hilmer. He's a big man."
"Yes," he flung back, dryly, "and a damned insolent one, too."
"He has his faults," she defended. "He's not polished, but he's forceful." She turned a malevolent smile upon her husband. "When he told that drunken servant girl to go, she went!"
Starratt could feel the rush of blood dyeing his temples. "That's just in his line!" he sneered. "He's taken degrading orders, and so he knows how to give them … He may have money now, but he hasn't always been so fortunate. I've been short of funds in my day, but I never fought with a dirk for a half loaf of bread … You've heard the story of his life … What has he got to make him proud?"
"Just that … he's pulled himself out of it. While we … Tell me, where are we? Where will we be ten years from now? … Twenty? Why aren't you doing something? … Everybody else is."
He folded his arms and leaned against the doorway. "Perhaps I am," he said, quietly. "You don't know everything."
She made a movement toward him. He stepped aside to let her pass.
"What can you do?" she taunted as she swept out of the room.
He stood for a moment dazed at the sudden and unexpected budding of her scorn. He heard her slam the door of the bedroom. He went over to the chair from which she had risen and dropped into it, shading his eyes.
The clock in the hallway was chiming two when the bedroom door opened again.
"Aren't you coming to bed?" he heard his wife's voice call with sharp irritation.
"No," he answered.
CHAPTER III
It was extraordinary how wide awake Fred Starratt felt next morning. He was full of tingling reactions to the sharp chill of disillusionment. At the breakfast table he met his wife's advances with an air of tolerant aloofness. In the past, the first moves toward adjusting a misunderstanding had come usually from him. He had an aptitude for kindling the fires of domestic harmony, but he had discovered overnight the futility of fanning a hearthstone blaze when the flue was choked so completely. Before him lay the task of first correcting the draught. Temporary genialities had no place in his sudden, bleak speculations. Helen shirred his eggs to a turn, pressed the second cup of coffee on him, browned him a fresh slice of toast … he suffered her favors, but he was unmoved by them. They did not even annoy him. When he kissed her good-by he felt the relaxation of her body against his, as she stood for a moment languishing in provocative surrender. He put her aside sharply. Her caress had a new quality which irritated him.
Outside,