Read Online The 42nd Parallel by John Dos Passos - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Dos Passos
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milkwhite hand, the palm is hardly clean
But here and there an ugly smutch appears
,
Foh, ’twas a bribe that left it. . . .
“I had great plans for a cooperative enterprise that you are spoiling by your youthful haste and greed . . . but if you must I’ll hand over to you this very night everything due you and more. All right, unhitch the horse and bring me that little package with
Maria Monk
, and
The Popish Plot.”
It was a warm day. There were robins singing round the barn. Everything smelt of sweetgrass and flowers. The barn was red and the yard was full of white leghorns. After he had unhitched the spring wagon and put the horse in a stall, Fainy sat on a rail of the fence looking out over the silvergreen field of oats out back, and smoked a cigarette. He wished there was a girl there he could put his arm round or a fellow to talk to.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Doc Bingham was standing beside him.
“Fenian, my young friend, we are in clover,” he said. “She is alone in the house, and her husband has gone to town for two days with the hired man. There’ll be nobody there but her two little children, sweet bairns. Perhaps I shall play Romeo. You’ve never seen me in love. It’s my noblest role. Ah, some day I’ll tell you about my headstrong youth. Come and meet the sweet charmer.”
When they went in the kitchen door a dimplefaced pudgy woman in a lavender housecap greeted them coyly.
“This is my young assistant, ma’am,” said Doc Bingham, with a noble gesture. “Fenian, this is Mrs. Kovach.”
“You must be hungry. We’re having supper right away.”
The last of the sun lit up a kitchen range that was crowded with saucepans and stewpots. Fragrant steam rose in little jets from round wellpolished lids. As she spoke Mrs. Kovach leaned over so that her big blue behind with starched apronstrings tied in a bow above it stood up straight in the air, opened the oven door and pulled out a great pan of cornmuffins that she dumped into a dish on the dining table already set next the window. Their warm toasted smoke filled the kitchen. Fainy felt his mouth watering. Doc Bingham was rubbing his hands and rolling his eyes. They sat down, and the two blue-eyed smearyfaced children were sat down and started gobbling silently, and Mrs. Kovach heaped their plates with stewed tomatoes, mashed potatoes, beef stew and limabeans with pork. She poured them out coffee and then said with moist eyes, as she sat down herself:
“I love to see men eat.”
Her face took on a crushed pansy look that made Fainy turn away his eyes when he found himself looking at it. After supper she sat listening with a pleased, frightened expression while Doc Bingham talked and talked, now and then stopping to lean back and blow a smoke ring at the lamp.
“While not myself a Lutheran as you might say, ma’am, I myself have always admired, nay, revered, the great figure of Martin Luther as one of the lightbringers of mankind. Were it not for him we would be still groveling under the dread domination of the Pope of Rome.”
“They’ll never get into this country; land sakes, it gives me the creeps to think of it.”
“Not while there’s a drop of red blood in the veins of freeborn Protestants . . . but the way to fight darkness, ma’am, is with light. Light comes from education, reading of books and studies . . .”
“Land sakes, it gives me a headache to read most books, an’ I don’t get much time, to tell the truth. My husband, he reads books he gets from the Department of Agriculture. He tried to make me read one once, on raisin’ poultry, but I couldn’t make much sense out of it. His folks they come from the old country . . . I guess people feels different over there.”
“It must be difficult being married to a foreigner like that.”
“Sometimes I don’t know how I stand it; course he was awful goodlookin’when I married him . . . I never could resist a goodlookin’ man.”
Doc
But here and there an ugly smutch appears
,
Foh, ’twas a bribe that left it. . . .
“I had great plans for a cooperative enterprise that you are spoiling by your youthful haste and greed . . . but if you must I’ll hand over to you this very night everything due you and more. All right, unhitch the horse and bring me that little package with
Maria Monk
, and
The Popish Plot.”
It was a warm day. There were robins singing round the barn. Everything smelt of sweetgrass and flowers. The barn was red and the yard was full of white leghorns. After he had unhitched the spring wagon and put the horse in a stall, Fainy sat on a rail of the fence looking out over the silvergreen field of oats out back, and smoked a cigarette. He wished there was a girl there he could put his arm round or a fellow to talk to.
A hand dropped onto his shoulder. Doc Bingham was standing beside him.
“Fenian, my young friend, we are in clover,” he said. “She is alone in the house, and her husband has gone to town for two days with the hired man. There’ll be nobody there but her two little children, sweet bairns. Perhaps I shall play Romeo. You’ve never seen me in love. It’s my noblest role. Ah, some day I’ll tell you about my headstrong youth. Come and meet the sweet charmer.”
When they went in the kitchen door a dimplefaced pudgy woman in a lavender housecap greeted them coyly.
“This is my young assistant, ma’am,” said Doc Bingham, with a noble gesture. “Fenian, this is Mrs. Kovach.”
“You must be hungry. We’re having supper right away.”
The last of the sun lit up a kitchen range that was crowded with saucepans and stewpots. Fragrant steam rose in little jets from round wellpolished lids. As she spoke Mrs. Kovach leaned over so that her big blue behind with starched apronstrings tied in a bow above it stood up straight in the air, opened the oven door and pulled out a great pan of cornmuffins that she dumped into a dish on the dining table already set next the window. Their warm toasted smoke filled the kitchen. Fainy felt his mouth watering. Doc Bingham was rubbing his hands and rolling his eyes. They sat down, and the two blue-eyed smearyfaced children were sat down and started gobbling silently, and Mrs. Kovach heaped their plates with stewed tomatoes, mashed potatoes, beef stew and limabeans with pork. She poured them out coffee and then said with moist eyes, as she sat down herself:
“I love to see men eat.”
Her face took on a crushed pansy look that made Fainy turn away his eyes when he found himself looking at it. After supper she sat listening with a pleased, frightened expression while Doc Bingham talked and talked, now and then stopping to lean back and blow a smoke ring at the lamp.
“While not myself a Lutheran as you might say, ma’am, I myself have always admired, nay, revered, the great figure of Martin Luther as one of the lightbringers of mankind. Were it not for him we would be still groveling under the dread domination of the Pope of Rome.”
“They’ll never get into this country; land sakes, it gives me the creeps to think of it.”
“Not while there’s a drop of red blood in the veins of freeborn Protestants . . . but the way to fight darkness, ma’am, is with light. Light comes from education, reading of books and studies . . .”
“Land sakes, it gives me a headache to read most books, an’ I don’t get much time, to tell the truth. My husband, he reads books he gets from the Department of Agriculture. He tried to make me read one once, on raisin’ poultry, but I couldn’t make much sense out of it. His folks they come from the old country . . . I guess people feels different over there.”
“It must be difficult being married to a foreigner like that.”
“Sometimes I don’t know how I stand it; course he was awful goodlookin’when I married him . . . I never could resist a goodlookin’ man.”
Doc
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