The Boy Grew Older. Heywood Hale Broun
to lie down on his couch for a little while. Later he'd come up and talk about what to do with the baby. He supposed the hospital didn't want it very much longer anyway. After Clay had gone he cried a little. That didn't necessarily mean much. Only the Thursday before he had cried at the ringside in Goldfield when Battling Nelson knocked out Joe Gans. Then it had been partly rage because thousands around him had shouted "Knock his block off. Kill the nigger." And he had seen someone very beautiful slowly crumple up before a slab-sided, bristling, little man who had no quality of skill or grace. Nelson had just kept coming in and in. He never stepped back. Often he took a blow in the face rather than bother to stop for an instant from swinging his own short arms at the brown belly in front of him. The victory had seemed altogether mechanical. Gans had not been knocked out so much as clawed to pieces by a threshing machine. And it was Gans Peter had thought of two years ago when he first saw Maria Algarez dance. She had that same amazing suddenness of movement. When he first saw her she was standing still in the middle of the huge stage. And then everything about her had come to life. There was never any feeling that she was thinking about what to do. No roll call was carried on in her mind before she kicked or leaped, or flung an arm above her head. The left jab of Joe Gans was like that too.
Peter went to the stage door and thought he had made up his mind to stop her and speak to her. He found that he hadn't. She came out slowly and when he stared at her she looked straight at him and almost smiled. He could not be quite sure of it because that was the very moment something inside rapidly wheeled him about and sent him all but running out of the alley. Later he was more enterprising. The dramatic critic at his request introduced him to the press agent of "Adios" and the press agent introduced him to Maria Algarez. She had just finished her dance. Peter was standing in the wings and people were telling him not to.
"Perhaps Mlle. Algarez will take us up to her dressing-room," said the press agent.
"It is not mine," said Maria, "I am not a star. The eight Bandana Sisters dress with me. But never mind. Here they come. It is now their turn on the stage. You will have to climb two flights of stairs, Mr. Neale. You do not mind? Yes?"
"I do," said the press agent. "But that scores for you. You're the one he wants to see."
And so Peter found himself alone in one corner of the long dressing-room of Maria Algarez and the eight Bandana Sisters. All sorts of clothes were scattered over the room. Maria sat down on a chair and stretched out her feet. There was another chair nearby but somebody's stockings were on it. Peter stood up. Maria looked at him and smiled with no particular merriment. She was tired. Peter shifted from one foot to another through a long pause.
"Are they really sisters?" he asked.
"Just two," said Maria. "Vonnie is the sister to Boots. The rest they are all mixed. It could not be that there should be eight such bad dancers in the one family."
"I think you're the greatest dancer I ever saw."
Maria nodded. "Yes, I am the great dancer. It is smart for you to know that. The others they do not know. When Boots was sick, Mr. Casey – he is our stage manager – he wanted me to go on in her place. He said he would give me $5 a week more. He is stupid Mr. Casey. I do not dance like that. It is not for me."
"We'll be miss, miss, missed in Mississip," she hummed and made a face. "One, two, three, four, lie down on the stomach and kick first the right leg and then the left leg and then kick both legs. That was what he wanted Maria Algarez to do. How is it you know? It is so smart. Here throw down those stockings on the floor and take the chair. I want to hear you say more about why I am so great a dancer."
Peter lifted the stockings as if they had been little kittens and placed them on the long shelf under the electric lights.
"I don't know why," he said. "It just seems so easy when you do things. And the thing you dance to; I think that's the best tune in the show."
Maria was merry now for the first time. "Again you are smart. It is 'The Invitation to the Waltz' of Weber. 'Miss, Miss, Missed' is not so good. That is right. And some time you will tell about me in your newspaper and say that I am a great dancer?"
"I can't," said Peter. "I don't write about the theatre. I only write about sports. Baseball, you know and football and prizefights and things like that."
"Never mind, you and I know, it will be our secret. We will tell none of the others."
Up the stairs there came a tramping and shouting and all eight Bandanas rushed into the room approximately at the same time.
"I'm going," said Peter jumping up hastily.
"Don't you mind us Bandanas," shouted Vonnie across the room. "We don't take off anything for half an hour."
"Goodbye," said Peter. "Excuse me, ladies."
Maria held his hand for one and two thirds seconds. "You must come again. I want that you should tell me more about our secret."
Vonnie held the door open for Peter. "You come when we're all here," she said. "There isn't a nickle's worth of harm in the lot of us. But that Maria there is a vamp, a baby Spanish vamp. Will you remember that."
"I'll remember."
As Peter went down the stairs he was trying to see if he could hum the thing that Maria said was "The Invitation to the Waltz" by Weber. He wasn't good at it. And besides it was all mixed up and racketing around in his head with, "We'll be miss, miss, missed in Mississip."
Peter went to the show the next night and after that the alley. He stood scrunched up against a wall for a time but he felt too conspicuous. He was afraid that somebody would come up to him suddenly and say, "What are you hanging around here for?" It didn't make much difference who said it, the door man, a stage hand, a scrub woman, anyone would have sufficient authority to terrify him. His mind leaped beyond that and he had a vision of a policeman laying a hand upon his shoulder and saying, "I arrest you on the charge of mashing." After that would come the trial and the sentence. Peter moved out of the alley. He had no notion of just what were the fixed post rights of anybody waiting at a stage door to see an actress. Walking seemed safer and he took up a beat along the side street which ran at right angles to the alley.
His pace was brisk and he succeeded pretty well in developing the air of a man bent upon getting to some important engagement five or six miles away. Of course, every time he passed the alley it was possible to sweep it with a glance over his shoulder. Even a man in a hurry has a right to notice a tributary of chorus girls, musicians and actors sweeping into his street. First came the musicians. Then one girl. Then two and presently the flood. Peter did not dare to be too detached any more. Fortunately he found the window of a cigar store just at the corner where the alley turned into the street. By pretending an interest in the special sale of genuine imported English briar pipes Peter was able to keep close watch upon everyone who came from the stage door and at the same time seem not quite a prominent clubman. But one of the pipes, possibly the calabash cut to $2.21, must have commanded more than fictitious interest, for Peter was suddenly startled by a clutch at his left arm. He tugged away and turned at the same moment.
"Unhand me, woman," said Vonnie, but she immediately took his arm again. "I knew you'd come," she said. "It was that look you threw at me over your shoulder when you went out yesterday."
"I haven't come," said Peter. "I just happened to be going by."
"But you are glad to see me?"
"Of course I am."
"And you'll walk home with me to keep me from being unprotected on the streets of a great city at night. It's only about twelve blocks. You don't need to take a taxi."
"Honest, I can't. I wish I could. I'm awful sorry."
Vonnie began to laugh. "I wonder why it is that when they come big they haven't got any sense. 'I knew I could rule you the day we were wed,' she hummed, 'for thick in the middle is thick in the head.'"
"What did I do that was stupid? And I'm not thick in the middle."
"Well, that's a fact. I don't know your name but your figure is grand. I guess you find being so handsome you don't need any sense."
"I have so too got sense. What have I done?"
"Well, you're just