John-no-Brawn

Front matter

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Chapter I

T he sun sets on October the third in Louis¬ ville, Kentucky, about forty minutes after five. At five minutes after five on October the third, 1916, John Brawn stood at the corner of Second and Jefferson streets and debated whether or no he would yield to a peculiar sentimental streak of the moment and go a couple of blocks out of his way for the mere purpose of giving some old chords in his memory a chance to revibrate. There was desultory traffic about Second and Jefferson streets; an automobile whisked by, careless of responsibility, for there was no traffic policeman stationed there; a street car had jumped its trolley pole on the curve and the conductor was strain¬ ing at the rope and looking upward, head thrown back as though angling for some sort of aerial game. There was a mingled aroma of fish and rotting vege¬ tables in the air and a gust of wind sent an eddy of trash, in which was caught an old newspaper or two, whirling out the centre of Second Street. But a mo¬ mentary rift in the clouds allowed a deep gold to stream through in a wide band, part of which splashed with its luminance the shiny round bald head of an old Negro who was spasmodically reining in his dispirited steed. The latter buckled in his shafts and vainly tried to shift the irritating bit to a lesc tender part of his mouth. The Negro turned with the reins clutched tightly to his breast and regarded the retreat¬ ing cloud of trash and newspapers in whose wake was rolling merrily his hat. And then he painfully clamb¬ ered down from his wagon and started after it, muttering to himself. There was not much of romantic suggestion in the scene. But there was a softness in the air and not so far above the blackened chimney pots there pressed down a blue haze that carried a touch of Tyrian purple and up to its under side a goldish mist seemed rising, dust particles merely, touched with a passing glory. And John Brawn turned and went eastward along Jefferson Street.

At the corner he paused again and looked out First Street. In this direction the scene changed quite ab¬ ruptly, though not materially for the better. First Street, south of Jefferson, was a street devoted to leisure and the pursuits of pleasure. On each of the four corners stood, waiting, grog shops with well-worn thresholds and swinging lattice doors that were grimed by the touch of countless hands.

Against the even gray of the eastern sky was a line of gently sloping roofs that came down to the house fronts like hat brims pulled down over the eyes. And there was a dull, listless, waiting air about the dingy windows that bespoke hopeless old age. The houses w^ere grimy and battered and they made no pretence of being other than what they appeared, but in some magic fashion they seemed to Brawn to be clothed in a mist of romance. For he looked, not as normal pedestrians along the normal line of vision, but upward toward where roofs and sky came together, and the yeast of imagination was stirring and mixing with his perceptions. Here had been the Louisville of the ’sixties. Those windows, once curtained with soft drapes and chintzes, had been the outlook from a glamorous and highly coloured existence. Very faint¬ ly they suggested crinolines and shawls and billowing skirts and gallantry and high spirit and danger. Then had been a more subtle mingling of freedom and con¬ vention. Now it was on the outskirt of a metallic, a machine-made, civilization. The thought of his task just completed contrasted strongly with the tone of his mind. He was a lawyer. He had been investigating the facts of an accident for an insurance company which he represented. He had come into this other world with a stereotyped questionnaire and the results of his investigation were in the leather case in his hand. Fancy a lawyer of the ’sixties or ’seventies proceeding in such manner! But then in the ’sixties produce men did not run motor trucks to the endangerment of the public, nor was there the complex machin¬ ery of defence built up against the natural hazards of business. Nowadays a young lawyer was nothing but a glorified clerk. Any one with the ability to read and write could have done what he had just finished doing. The sunlight flashed for a moment obliquely across an opaque pane of glass in a top window like a sulphurous flame on a metallic pool and then winked off again, and the window stared forth as blankly as before. Brawn started and slowly crossed the street and turned south.

Midway in the next block there stood an incongru¬ ous structure of yellow pressed brick. It was younger than its fellows but dingy from the same causes. It was like a man in a dirty, high white collar standing in a crowd of workmen in flannel shirts. It boasted of a cupola of nondescript architecture, new plate-glass windows, and a pair of double doors flush with the sidewalk. It was the museum, the last resting place of the old fire-fighting equipment that had escaped a ruthless scrap heap. Just what had stood on the site of this new building Brawn could not for the moment remember, but then his mind was drifting about in a maze of uncoordinated sensations. Thither he bent his steps as though moved by a fixed purpose.

He passed four or five of the old houses. They were all very much alike. From the pavement to the front door of each ran a flight of wooden steps, paral¬ lel with the street and flanked by a single lattice railing, to a sort of stoop or balcony whence one entered the house. This left a recess beneath which, by means of a couple of steps downwards, one entered the basement or servants’ quarters, now invariably dark and greasy and very smelly. In the past years these stoops with their wood railings had doubtless been proud symbols of high life and on summer evenings in star-light been linked with the soft rustle of skirts and clinging scents and light laughter. Now they were empty, all save the middle one, whose railing supported the full-blown body of a young Negress with slumbering eyes and full, red lips and an unspeakably dirty, greasy wrapper that rather frankly revealed her native, corporeal charms. She leaned across the railing with her elbows propped comfortably beneath her and watched her world. Brawn gave her a passing glance. And then he pulled up short, with a start.

In his abstraction he had been walking along with his head in the clouds and had not noticed where he was going. And he barely escaped running over a small black body that was squirming on the pavement. Brawn stepped over it and then paused and looked down. An incredibly small Negro baby was sprawled on top of a wiggling, dirty, woolly dog that was reach¬ ing out a pink tongue to lick the baby’s face, and with some success. Two bare, wiry, brown legs curved behind it in a perfect bow; about its middle was draped a very dirty rag, and up under its arm pits the skirt of its smock was rolled, leaving it practically naked.

“Sam!” called a rich languorous voice. “Git up outen de street. Ain’ you know white folks ap’ to run oveh you?”

Brawn glanced toward the voice. The woman had not moved but was gazing at him, elbows on the rail¬ ing, quite inscrutable but with just the trace of a lan¬ guid though brazen amusement in the depths of her eyes. The baby raised its head and stared at him and then scuttled for the steps, using its hands for propel¬ lers, and with its legs dragging out behind like some mortally wounded animal.

Brawn turned and proceeded on his way.

He came to the door of the engine house, paused, and then pushed it open and went in. For a moment he stood, an intruder in the silence of the place and then called out:

“Hi there, Mr. McBurney. Coin’ to work all day?”

Back in a far corner of the narrow room a face looked up from a desk and then some one got up slowly and came toward him. It was a little old man with spectacles and derby hat, coatless and wearing a vest that hung open, its pockets crammed with pencils and pen holders, pocket rules and spectacle cases, and a heavy, pendulous gold watch chain. “Hey?” he said. “Better light up. Hey?”

“Never mind the lights. It’s Brawn. John Brawn. You ought to knock off for the day anyway. Ruin your eyes and your health.” Brawn laughed with patroniz¬ ing heartiness and went over and took hold of the old man’s arm. It had been a stock joke with him to twit the old fellow about his industry, which was of as tenuous a quality as possible still to deserve the name. Mr. McBurney was the secretary of the association and his duty was to keep the minutes and the rolls and send out the bills for the dues. The association having dwindled to less than a dozen members gave its secre¬ tary a minimum of duties, but in addition to keeping the records he had the added one of keeping up the fire in the little stove in the corner on chill days and locking up the place when the day’s business was over. He looked up into Brawn’s face with the eyes that were very dim and rheumy and then recognition slowly dawned.

“Hey? John Brawn? Sure. John Brawn. Course I know you. Come set down.” And he seized the young man by the wrist, then peered intently at the floor to make sure of his footing and then made great show of dragging his victim back into his lair. “Set right down. Set right down. I wuz wonderin’ what had become of you.”

Brawn followed him, laughing. “How’d your oil stock pan out?” he called. Mr. McBurney was not strictly deaf, but his attention being hard to get and still harder to keep made this method seem at least the most probably effective one.

The old man turned and grasping the back of a chair thrust it forward. “Oil stock. Hey?— Set down. Oil stock?—Dunno. They wrote me they had started to drill a month ago. An’ then they wrote as how they’d struck sand and then another letter that things were lookin’ mighty good. But here lately I ain’t never had a word. ’Pears like it takes a powerful time to get down to see where they ’re at. Powerful slow.”

John Brawn sat down in the proffered chair. “Think they’re on the level, Mr. McBurney?”

Mr. McBurney looked up. “Hey?—On the level? —Don’t know. How’d I know? All the boys took stock. Sam Baron’s boy. Know Sam Baron? He’s promotin’ it. Sam’ us always square.” He turned to his desk and fished around in the pigeon holes.

“How much you put in it?”

Mr. McBurney looked back at him reflectively. “How much?—Hey? Ten dollars. Each of us put in ten dollars.—All except Jurney Bishop. He ain’t seed ten dollars fer fifty years.”

Brawn laughed softly and gazed up at the wall above the desk. In a plain oak frame was a long parchment strip with two columns of names—the or¬ ganization roll. And after each name, all save a very few, there stood a letter “X” in broad tremulous lines, signifying for the name it stood after the distinction of having passed faithfully on. It was very quiet—the noise of the city seemed as remote as though of another life—and through the window Brawn could see a high brick wall around a small square of grass, and a gray patch of sky. In the front of the room, out in the larger hallway, loomed the shadowy bulk of the old machine with here and there the dull gleam of polished brass. Life had paused here for a moment before plunging on.

“So you haven’t heard from them lately,” resumed Brawn at length in a musing tone. “Tell you what, Mr. McBurney. Next time, you see me before you invest your money.” The old man had turned again to the desk and was still rummaging in the drawers.

“By the way,” said Brawn. “I was wondering if you folks might want some old things of the governor s :

Mr. McBurney looked up momentarily.

“There’s an old silver trumpet and a helmet and a couple of red shirts and some papers—rolls and things.”

“Keep ’em yourself,” said Mr. McBurney. “Ain’t they worth nothin’ to you?”

“That isn’t it. You see, my aunt Mamie died last week. And they’re selling the old stuff. Haven’t any place to keep ’em. Had to find me a place to live. There isn’t any room where I’m stopping.”

“Hey?” said Mr. McBurney.

“I say there isn’t any room where I am. T^iought maybe the association might want ’em.”

Mr. McBurney pivoted round in his chair, a look of finality on his face. “Can’t find the blamed thing anywhere—Say your aunt Mamie died?—Too bad. Too bad.” He seemed to be arranging his thoughts in the back of his head and with some difficulty. “Maybe I took it home. Well, never mind.—So you had to move.”

“Yes,” said Brawn. “I’m at Mrs. Melton’s. Out on Compton Street.”

“Hey? —Out on Compton Street?”

Brawn rose slowly to his feet. “I just thought I’d drop in and see if you wanted any of his old trophies. —For the room, you know. You’ve got a lot of stuff like it there on the shelves,” looking off indefinitely into the dim hallway. And then he started toward the door.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” said Mr. McBurney.

“Have to.—I’ve an engagement to-night. I thought I’d drop in on you and see.”

Mr. McBurney followed him slowly through the silent room. They came to the door and Brawn opened it. Twilight was beginning to settle and it was warm and soft and provocative. There was an odour of frying in the air and to the northwest above the cornices there peeped the edge of a rosy cloud.

“So you’ve moved,” said Mr. McBurney. “How’s the law?”

The question startled with its definiteness. “Oh, pretty good.—Little slow at first.”

“Son of Judge Brawn oughtn’t to have any trouble gettin’ started.”

Brawn stepped over to the wall and inspected a lurid print. It was a picture of a large structure engulfed in flames. Forms could be seen at the windows and up the ladders firemen swarmed. The sky above the burning building was glaring red and in the street in the foreground a number of people were dashing along madly, women with streaming hair, men waving arms aloft. And in one corner a little group was opcrating an old hand engine, hanging on to the sidebars with both arms and pumping for dear life.

“Those were the days,” said Brawn softly.

Mr. McBurney warmed to such appreciation and came and stood beside him.

“They sure were. And your pappy was there with the best of ’em.” He leaned over and peered into the picture. “That’s the old Hope Number Five.—I remember as how Asa Brawn saved her from smashin’ to pieces on the Portland Bridge.” His tone became deep and mellow and reflective and John Brawn, scent¬ ing a tale and a delay, turned to the door and looked furtively out. But the old man was not to be denied. He came and stood beside him in the doorway and the noise of passing machines lent a curious background to his voice.

“It was in August sixty-nine, I remember,” he went on, “on a Thursday night. It had been awful dry and hot for a week or so and everybody was settin’ out in front along on their porches in their white dresses and things.—About nine o’clock the bells began to ring.—I was settin’ in front of Musgrove’s paint shop, up on Market Street then, and three or four of the boys was with me. Well, we all jumped up and ran to the engine house and pulled the old machine out onto the street. That was her—in the picture there—the old Hope Number Five, and she cost nine hundred dollars.

“By the time we got her on the street there was a crowd; Bill Jordan, Aleck Smith, Asa Brawn—all the gang. And then somebody called out, ‘It’s* in Port¬ land,’ and we were off. I’ll never forget that run. It was about two mile, straight down Main Street, and

JOHN-NO-BRAWN ii

dusty!—and behind us all the way we could hear the crowd with the Reindeer yellin’ and callin’ not fifty yards behind us. You know it always was a race between us and the Reindeer and we usually got the best of it.”

John Brawn looked helplessly off at the dimming sky.

“When we come to Twenty-eighth Street where the road branches off to the right and goes down to the New Albany Bridge—it’s quite a steep hill—some one calls out, ‘There she is!’ and we all looked and sure enough there was the fire all right but it was over across the river—over in Albany.—Well, that lets us out. And we were all slackin’ up when Asa Brawn yells, ‘Let’s go to her anyhow, boys.’—And we did, although it weren’t any of our affair. New Albany havin’ a fire department of her own.”

Mr. McBurney paused and drew forth an ancient quill toothpick from a vest pocket and reflectively picked his teeth.

“You ain’t ever been down that Twenty-eighth Street hill, have you?”

Brawn admitted he had not.

“Well, I reckon that was before your time. It’s all built up now. Well—none of us realized what a grade that was down to the bridge, that is not till we got to rollin’. We hadn’t got more nor fifty feet be¬ fore we realized it. I had a holt on the rope up near the head and on the right side. And directly the boys commenced to drop off. The pace was too hot for ’em. There was about thirty with the old Hope that night. About halfway down the hill I says to myself, ‘Reckon you can keep up with the machine so’s she won’t run over you?’ For we were goin’ pretty near as fast as a horse can run and gamin’ every minute.— And then all of a sudden I saw the lights of the bridge ahead and I done some quick thinkin’. You see the bridge was divided in two parts—a right and left— and in the middle were a stone buttress dividin’ the two sides so’s nobody could make a mistake of drivin’ on the wrong side. And over to the right the banks of the river looked mighty black and mighty deep. And the space for us to run through was mighty slim— looked like we would ’a’ had a close squeak. And behind me I heard the boys a-shoutin’ and a-yellin’ and the drag rope was a-draggin’ on the ground behind me, and I could hear the old Hope rollin’ and bumpin’ along. And I says to myself, ‘Here’s where you drops • out’ And I gave a run and a jump and lit in the bushes on the side of the road. And just as I looked up I see the old Hope go swingin’ past, with her tongue dippin’ up and down just like she was a-scoopin’ up sand.” The old man paused a moment for breath and John Brawn waited silently for him to go on.

Mr. McBurney then looked up into the young man’s face impressively. “There weren’t but one man left on that whole machine.—And that man were—Asa Brawn.—He had holt of the tongue by the ring, on the right side and he were runnin’ along, leapin’ and slidin’ and I could see him watchin’ the road. And I hollers to him to keep to the right as fur as possible, cause the road just naturally tipped a bit the other way, and he was gone, a-windin’ down the road. And I set there and I waited. And I waited and I listened but I didn’t hear no crash. And directly some of the boys came a-runnin’ up, breathin’ hard and askin’ a thousand excited questions. And when I got my breath I went on down the road and out on the bridge. And there weren’t no signs of a wreck, but I tell you it were a narrer squeak, for the road were mighty narrer and the old Hope goin’ so fast. And by and by we came on Asa Brawn a-settin’ on the edge of the bridge with his feet hangin’ over above the water, and he were abreathin’ heavy, and when we come up he turned and grinned at us, like. And down a little further on, the old Hope stood just as quiet as a wind-broken horse.”

John Brawn smiled. “Well,” he said. “That’s a new one. I never heard that one before.”

“That were just like Asa Brawn. Not afraid of nothin’. Up to all sorts of deviltry.—He were a good man.” He shook his head slowly.

They stood there in silence, together, with the twi¬ light slipping down into the street, and the wisps of smoke curling slowly upward into the steely blue-gray of the sky and the hum of the city about them, and the years seemed to slip away, roll back and leave the city misty and glamorous in its youth, waiting, expectant, for life. A rising eagerness came to John Brawn, a quickening of pulse, a warming about the heart, a little flame of high resolve. He turned and laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder.

“Thank you for telling me that story,” he said and then he turned to go. And there crashed upon his senses a sudden medley of sounds, dispelling the glam¬ our. There was a shout, a great screaking noise, and then a woman’s piercing cry. He turned automatically to look, at the shout. And,it all took place before his eyes, impersonal, vague, like the action on a movie screen. He saw a big car come swerving to the curb and stop. He saw a little bunch of something caught up and rolled like a bundle of rags. He saw a man clamber out of the car and come around in front of it and then he saw a woman come running across the pavement and throw herself upon the man, screaming hideously.

Instantly the street seemed swarming with people and above the excited chatter he could hear the scream¬ ing of the woman:

“Lemme at him. Lemme at him. My Gawd, my baby!” And directly two men dragged her back out of the little crowd, and her dress was torn from the upper half of her body. The smooth brown flesh shone like silk in the soft evening light. Her eyes were wild and staring and tears streamed like dry things down her cheeks and her hands clutched convulsively in the air as she was drawn away. Brawn saw her face as she passed. It was the Negress of the balcony, she of the languid, impersonal regard. And then directly some one came out of the crowd holding out a little form away from his body like an unclean thing. It was quite limp and one little leg dangled all askew, and its head hung away. Quite impersonal, too, it seemed. Sam had got too much under foot.

Then there came a man, it was a youngish man, only a boy really, with a very white face and wild-eyed and dishevelled and he asked ceaseless questions in a very dry, hard, shrill voice. And a big man in shirt sleeves and black linen cap held him tightly by the arm.—It all passed before his eyes. And then he felt something tugging away at his arm. As from a great distance he turned and gave heed. Mr. McBurney W'as whispering to him, a sharp gleam in his eyes. “Go give ’em your name,” he was saying. “Go give ’em your name.”

He vaguely heard and understood not at all. Rather impatiently he shook off the hand.

“You’re the first on the ground. It’ll make a good case. We saw it with our own eyes.—Go on in there and take holt.” The old man was tremulously eager.

Brawn’s throat went dry and there was a hard, cold lump in his chest. The excited stir of the crowd, the straining, eager faces, the buzz of voices and back in the hollow of the grimy house the muffled, staccato screaming of a woman—became suddenly revolting. “It’s not in my line,” he said at length and his voice sounded very thin and without conviction.—“Well— I’ll bring you those things some day next week.—I must be off.” He shouldered his way through the crowd and started off briskly southward along First Street.

Mr. McBurney watched his retreating figure with an odd look of question on his face.

Chapter II

B y the time Brawn had reached Compton Street the fogs of depression had pretty well scattered. It had likewise got pretty late. Ordinarily he was the sort to take a street car even for short distances, but to-night his perceptions which had been slow to respond persisted in continuing to vibrate and received frequent stimuli from his imagin¬ ation. On First Street, about two blocks south of Green where the accident had occurred, it had come to him that to make a fight on reckless driving, dangerous traffic of any sort, would be worthy of the most starved ambition. And the raw edge of his nerves lent vigour to that dawning determination, in an excess of mobile feeling. He was working himself up. At Broadway he was vacillating between high resolve and practical discomfort. If it had not been five long blocks back to the scene which would not be dispelled from his memory; if it had not been so late—too late perhaps to find any of the chief actors still upon the scene; if it had not been that such action would have stamped him as a procrastinator with decision, especially in the eyes of his friend Mr. McBurney, he would have turned back and hurled himself relentlessly into the struggle on the side of justice. It was this last reason, really, that held him. His was not a procrastinat¬ ing nature. On the contrary it responded facilely to

i6 the impulse of the moment. And so when he came to Broadway, he turned west instead of back. And just then a woman waved to him from a stealthy elec¬ tric that slipped past, around a corner and out of sight. It was just the shadow of a wave, a mere raising of the hand. But then there was the interesting outline of a small head and a small hat, momentarily visible against an uncertain background, a suggestion of ele¬ gance, refinement, charm and mystery. For he had not recognized the woman nor the car. And he caught himself standing hat in hand and staring after a shadow, in a quick flash of pleasure. The traffic crusade was forgotten. Traffic presented such a multitude of phases. He continued west on Broad¬ way.

When he opened the door at 517 Compton Street the clock struck the half hour. A woman’s figure glided across the orange oblong of'an open door, and a draught of air, sucked outward as he closed the door behind him, carried a blend of subtle odours of unfami¬ liar cookery. “You’re pretty late,” came in a thin, tremulous voice.

Brawn went to the door, hat and brief case in hand, and stood smiling. “Smells mighty good. Something smells mighty good. Ummmm!—What is it, Mrs. Melton?”

Mrs. Melton looked up over her shoulder from where she stooped before the sideboard and peered at him over her glasses. “If you don’t hurry, supper will be all cold, and you can’t eat just the smell.”

A touch of sharpness in the adjuration checked the light in Brawn’s face and he turned to go. “I’ll be right down. I’ll be right down. Won’t take me five minutes. Won’t take me three minutes.” He bounded up the steps two at a time, went back along a narrow hall to a rear chamber, opened the door and threw on the light.

On a little table just inside the door was a pile of mail. He picked it up, tucking his hat and portman¬ teau under his arm. He ran through it cursorily. Then he broke open the first envelope. It contained a bill from a florist. He let it fall upon the floor. He opened the second. It disclosed an engraved announce¬ ment of the coming marriage of a Miss Elise Bainbridge to a Mr. Baker of Toledo. He let it fall after the first. Then came a statement from a haberdasher with the epigram, “To account rendered”; then a bill from a candy shop, another from the Louisville Taxi¬ cab Company which followed its predecessors with an impatient fluttering, and finally a more serious-looking document of much greater promise. Brawn opened it reflectively. It was a brief statement from his club advising him that he had been posted.

Brawn walked slowly over to a desk, laid his hat upon it carefully, and then stepped over to a far wall and hung his brief case on a hook there. Trouble darkened his face. “Wonder what they sent that for?” he said aloud and then stared at the ceiling with knitted brows. “Twenty-four fifty, twelve, and five —that makes—only forty-one—they’re wrong,” he added with decision. And then he walked over to his dresser and stared at himself in the glass.