Showin' Off : Whilomville Stories IV

  Crane, Stephen. “Whilomville Stories: IV.—‘Showin’ Off.’”

  Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 99 (Nov. 1899): 855-860.

  JIMMIE TRESCOTT’S new velocipede had the largest front wheel of any velocipede in Whilomville. When it first arrived from New York he wished to sacrifice school, food, and sleep to it. Evidently he wished to become a sort of a perpetual velocipede-rider. But the powers of the family laid a number of judicious embargoes upon him, and he was prevented from becoming a fanatic. Of course this caused him to retain a fondness for the three-wheeled thing much longer than if he had been allowed to debauch himself for a span of days. But in the end it was an immaterial machine to him. For long periods he left it idle in the stable.

  One day he loitered from school toward home by a very circuitous route. He was accompanied by only one of his retainers. The object of this detour was the wooing of a little girl in a red hood. He had been in love with her for some three weeks. His desk was near her desk at school, but he had never spoken to her. He had been afraid to take such a radical step. It was not customary to speak to girls. Even boys who had school-going sisters seldom addressed them during that part of a day which was devoted to education.

  The reasons for this conduct were very plain. First, the more robust boys considered talking with girls an unmanly occupation; second, the greater part of the boys were afraid; third, they had no idea of what to say, because they esteemed the proper sentences should be supernaturally incisive and eloquent. In consequence, a small contingent of blue-eyed weaklings were the sole intimates of the frail sex, and for it they were boisterously and disdainfully called “girl-boys.”

  But this situation did not prevent serious and ardent wooing. For instance, Jimmie and the little girl who wore the red hood must have exchanged glances at least two hundred times in every school-hour, and this exchange of glances accomplished everything. In them the two children renewed their curious inarticulate vows.

  Jimmie had developed a devotion to school which was the admiration of his father and mother. In the mornings he was so impatient to have it made known to him that no misfortune had befallen his romance during the night that he was actually detected at times feverishly listening for the “first bell.” Dr. Trescott was exceedingly complacent of the change, and as for Mrs. Trescott, she had ecstatic visions of a white-haired Jimmie leading the nations in knowledge, comprehending all from bugs to comets. It was merely the doing of the little girl in the red hood.

  When Jimmie made up his mind to follow his sweetheart home from school, the project seemed such an arbitrary and shameless innovation that he hastily lied to himself about it. No, he was not following Abbie. He was merely making his way homeward through the new and rather longer route of Bryant Street and Oakland Park. It had nothing at all to do with a girl. It was a mere eccentric notion.

  “Come on,” said Jimmie, gruffly, to his retainer. “Let’s go home this way.”

  “What fer?” demanded the retainer.

  “Oh, b’cause.”

  “Huh?”

  “Oh, it’s more fun—goin’ this way.”

  The retainer was bored and loath, but that mattered very little. He did not know how to disobey his chief. Together they followed the trail of red-hooded Abbie and another small girl. These latter at once understood the object of the chase, and looking back giggling, they pretended to quicken their pace. But they were always looking back. Jimmie now began his courtship in earnest. The first thing to do was to prove his strength in battle. This was transacted by means of the retainer. He took that devoted boy and flung him heavily to the ground, meanwhile mouthing a preposterous ferocity.

  The retainer accepted this behavior with a sort of bland resignation. After his overthrow he raised himself, coolly brushed some dust and dead leaves from his clothes, and then seemed to forget the incident.

  “I can jump farther’n you can,” said Jimmie, in a loud voice.

  “I know it,” responded the retainer, simply.

  But this would not do. There must be a contest.

  “Come on,” shouted Jimmie, imperiously. “Let’s see you jump.”

  The retainer selected a footing on the curb, balanced and calculated a moment, and jumped without enthusiasm. Jimmie’s leap of course was longer.

  “There!” he cried, blowing out his lips. “I beat you, didn’t I? Easy. I beat you.” He made a great hubbub, as if the affair was unprecedented.

  “Yes,” admitted the other, emotionless.

  Later, Jimmie forced his retainer to run a race with him, held more jumping-matches, flung him twice to earth, and generally behaved as if a retainer was indestructible. If the retainer had been in the plot, it is conceivable that he would have endured this treatment with mere whispered, half-laughing protests. But he was not in the plot at all, and so he became enigmatic. One cannot often sound the profound well in which lie the meanings of boyhood.

  Following the two little girls, Jimmie eventually passed into that suburb of Whilomville which is called Oakland Park. At his heels came a badly battered retainer. Oakland Park was a somewhat strange country to the boys. They were dubious of the manners and customs, and of course they would have to meet the local chieftains, who might look askance upon this invasion.

  Jimmie’s girl departed into her home with a last backward glance that almost blinded the thrilling boy. On this pretext and that pretext, he kept his retainer in play before the house. He had hopes that she would emerge as soon as she had deposited her school-bag.

  A boy came along the walk. Jimmie knew him at school. He was Tommie Semple, one of the weaklings who made friends with the fair sex. “Hello, Tom,” said Jimmie. “You live round here?”

  “Yeh,” said Tom, with composed pride. At school he was afraid of Jimmie, but he did not evince any of this fear as he strolled well inside his own frontiers. Jimmie and his retainer had not expected this boy to display the manners of a minor chief, and they contemplated him attentively. There was a silence. Finally Jimmie said,

  “I can put you down.” He moved forward briskly. “Can’t I?” he demanded. The challenged boy backed away.

  “I know you can,” he declared, frankly and promptly.

  The little girl in the red hood had come out with a hoop. She looked at Jimmie with an air of insolent surprise in the fact that he still existed, and began to trundle her hoop off toward some other little girls who were shrilly playing near a nurse-maid and a perambulator.

  Jimmie adroitly shifted his position until he too was playing near the perambulator, pretentiously making mince-meat out of his retainer and Tommie Semple.

  Of course little Abbie had defined the meaning of Jimmie’s appearance in Oakland Park. Despite this nonchalance and grand air of accident, nothing could have been more plain. Whereupon she of course became insufferably vain in manner, and whenever Jimmie came near her she tossed her head and turned away her face, and daintily swished her skirts as if he were contagion itself. But Jimmie was happy. His soul was satisfied with the mere presence of the beloved object so long as he could feel that she furtively gazed upon him from time to time and noted his extraordinary prowess, which he was proving upon the persons of his retainer and Tommie Semple. And he was making an impression. There could be no doubt of it. He had many times caught her eye fixed admiringly upon him as he mauled the retainer. Indeed, all the little girls gave attention to his deeds, and he was the hero of the hour.

  Presently a boy on a velocipede was seen to be tooling down toward them. “Who’s this comin’?” said Jimmie, bluntly, to the Semple boy.

  “That’s Horace Glenn,” said Tommie, “an’ he’s got a new velocipede, an’ he can ride it like an
ything.”

  “Can you lick him?” asked Jimmie.

  “I don’t—I never fought with ‘im,” answered the other. He bravely tried to appear as a man of respectable achievement, but with Horace coming toward them the risk was too great. However, he added, “Maybe I could.”

  The advent of Horace on his new velocipede created a sensation which he haughtily accepted as a familiar thing. Only Jimmie and his retainer remained silent and impassive. Horace eyed the two invaders.

  “Hello, Jimmie!”

  “Hello, Horace!”

  After the typical silence Jimmie said, pompously, “I got a velocipede.”

  “Have you?” asked Horace, anxiously. He did not wish anybody in the world but himself to possess a velocipede.

  “Yes,” sang Jimmie. “An’ it’s a bigger one than that, too! A good deal bigger! An’ it’s a better one, too!”

  “Huh!” retorted Horace, sceptically.

  “‘Ain’t I, Clarence? ‘Ain’t I? ‘Ain’t I got one bigger’n that?”

  The retainer answered with alacrity:

  “Yes, he has! A good deal bigger! An’ it’s a dindy, too!”

  This corroboration rather disconcerted Horace, but he continued to scoff at any statement that Jimmie also owned a velocipede. As for the contention that this supposed velocipede could be larger than his own, he simply wouldn’t hear of it. Jimmie had been a very gallant figure before the coming of Horace, but the new velocipede had relegated him to a squalid secondary position. So he affected to look with contempt upon it. Voluminously he bragged of the velocipede in the stable at home. He painted its virtues and beauty in loud and extravagant words, flaming words. And the retainer stood by, glibly endorsing everything.

  The little company heeded him, and he passed on vociferously from extravagance to utter impossibility. Horace was very sick of it. His defense was reduced to a mere mechanical grumbling: “Don’t believe you got one ‘tall. Don’t believe you got one ‘tall.” Jimmie turned upon him suddenly. “How fast can you go? How fast can you go?” he demanded. “Let’s see. I bet you can’t go fast.”

  Horace lifted his spirits and answered with proper defiance. “Can’t I?” he mocked. “Can’t I?”

  “No, you can’t,” said Jimmie. “You can’t go fast.”

  Horace cried: “Well, you see me now! I’ll show you! I’ll show you if I can’t go fast!” Taking a firm seat on his vermilion machine, he pedalled furiously up the walk, turned, and pedalled back again. “There, now!” he shouted, triumphantly. “Ain’t that fast? There, now!” There was a low murmur of appreciation from the little girls. Jimmie saw with pain that even his divinity was smiling upon his rival. “There! Ain’t that fast? Ain’t that fast?” He strove to pin Jimmie down to an admission. He was exuberant with victory.

  Notwithstanding a feeling of discomfiture, Jimmie did not lose a moment of time. “Why,” he yelled, “that ain’t goin’ fast ‘tall!” That ain’t goin’ fast ‘tall! Why, I can go almost twice as fast as that! Almost twice as fast! Can’t I, Clarence?”

  The royal retainer nodded solemnly at the wide-eyed group. “Course you can!”

  “Why,” spouted Jimmie, “you just ought to see me ride once! You just ought to see me! Why, I can go like the wind! Can’t I, Clarence? And I can ride far, too—oh, awful far! Can’t I, Clarence? Why, I wouldn’t have that one! ‘Tain’t any good! You just ought to see mine once!”

  The overwhelmed Horace attempted to reconstruct his battered glories. “I can ride right over the curb-stone—at some of the crossin’s,” he announced, brightly.

  Jimmie’s derision was a splendid sight. “‘Right over the curb-stone!’ Why, that wouldn’t be nothin’ for me to do! I’ve rode mine down Bridge Street hill. Yessir! ‘Ain’t I, Clarence? Why, it ain’t nothin’ to ride over a curb-stone—not for me! Is it, Clarence?”

  “Down Bridge Street hill? You never!” said Horace, hopelessly.

  “Well, didn’t I, Clarence? Didn’t I, now?”

  The faithful retainer again nodded solemnly at the assemblage.

  At last Horace, having fallen as low as was possible, began to display a spirit for climbing up again. “Oh, you can do wonders!” he said, laughing. “You can do wonders! I s’pose you could ride down that bank there?” he asked, with art. He had indicated a grassy terrace some six feet in height which bounded one side of the walk. At the bottom was a small ravine in which the reckless had flung ashes and tins. “I s’pose you could ride down that bank?”

  All eyes now turned upon Jimmie to detect a sign of his weakening, but he instantly and sublimely arose to the occasion. “That bank?” he asked, scornfully. “Why, I’ve ridden down banks like that many a time. ‘Ain’t I, Clarence?”

  This was too much for the company. A sound like the wind in the leaves arose; it was the song of incredulity and ridicule. “O- -o—o—o—o!” And on the outskirts a little girl suddenly shrieked out, “Story-teller!”

  Horace had certainly won a skirmish. He was gleeful. “Oh, you can do wonders!” he gurgled. “You can do wonders!” The neighborhood’s superficial hostility to foreigners arose like magic under the influence of his sudden success, and Horace had the delight of seeing Jimmie persecuted in that manner known only to children and insects.

  Jimmie called angrily to the boy on the velocipede, “If you’ll lend me yours, I’ll show you whether I can or not.”

  Horace turned his superior nose in the air. “Oh, no! I don’t ever lend it.” Then he thought of a blow which would make Jimmie’s humiliation complete. “Besides,” he said, airily, “‘tain’t really anything hard to do. I could do it—easy—if I wanted to.” But his supposed adherents, instead of receiving this boast with cheers, looked upon him in a sudden blank silence. Jimmie and his retainer pounced like cats upon their advantage.

  “Oh,” they yelled, “you could, eh? Well, let’s see you do it, then! Let’s see you do it! Let’s see you do it! Now!” In a moment the crew of little spectators were gibing at Horace. The blow that would make Jimmie’s humiliation complete! Instead, it had boomeranged Horace into the mud. He kept up a sullen muttering:

  “‘Tain’t really anything! I could if I wanted to!”

  “Dare you to!” screeched Jimmie and his partisans. “Dare you to! Dare you to! Dare you to!”

  There were two things to be done—to make gallant effort or to retreat. Somewhat to their amazement, the children at last found Horace moving through their clamor to the edge of the bank. Sitting on the velocipede, he looked at the ravine, and then, with gloomy pride, at the other children. A hush came upon them, for it was seen that he was intending to make some kind of an ante-mortem statement.

  “I—” he began. Then he vanished from the edge of the walk. The start had been unintentional—an accident.

  The stupefied Jimmie saw the calamity through a haze. His first clear vision was when Horace, with a face as red as a red flag, arose bawling from his tangled velocipede. He and his retainer exchanged a glance of horror and fled the neighborhood. They did not look back until they had reached the top of the hill near the lake. They could see Horace walking slowly under the maples toward his home, pushing his shattered velocipede before him. His chin was thrown high, and the breeze bore them the sound of his howls.

 

 

  Stephen Crane, "Showin' Off": Whilomville Stories IV

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