“Ayee! Ayee! Ayee!” suddenly screamed the lieutenant. “You have blinded me! You have blinded me!”
“Hold him tight,” said the doctor. “He is in much pain. Hold him very tight.”
[1]
This story was published in a rather technical book called Death in the Afternoon, which sold, or rather was offered for sale, at $3.50. It is reprinted here in case any one not caring to spend that appreciable sum for a rather technical book should care to read it.
[2]
The reader’s indulgence is requested for this mention of an extinct phenomenon. The reference, like all references to fashions, dates the story but it is retained because of its mild historical interest and because its omission would spoil the rhythm.
WINE OF WYOMING
It was a hot afternoon in Wyoming; the mountains were a long way away and you could see snow on their tops, but they made no shadow, and in the valley the grain-fields were yellow, the road was dusty with cars passing, and all the small wooden houses at the edge of town were baking in the sun. There was a tree made shade over Fontan’s back porch and I sat there at a table and Madame Fontan brought up cold beer from the cellar. A motor-car turned off the main road and came up the side road, and stopped beside the house. Two men got out and came in through the gate. I put the bottles under the table. Madame Fontan stood up.
“Where’s Sam?” one of the men asked at the screen door.
“He ain’t here. He’s at the mines.”
“You got some beer?”
“No. Ain’t got any beer. That’s a last bottle. All gone.”
“What’s he drinking?”
“That’s a last bottle. All gone.”
“Go on, give us some beer. You know me.”
“Ain’t got any beer. That’s a last bottle. All gone.”
“Come on, let’s go some place where we can get some real beer,” one of them said, and they went out to the car. One of them walked unsteadily. The motor-car jerked in starting, whirled on the road, and went on and away.
“Put the beer on the table,” Madame Fontan said. “What’s the matter, yes, all right. What’s the matter? Don’t drink off the floor.”
“I didn’t know who they were,” I said.
“They’re drunk,” she said. “That’s what makes the trouble. Then they go somewhere else and say they got it here. Maybe they don’t even remember.” She spoke French, but it was only French occasionally, and there were many English words and some English constructions.
“Where’s Fontan?”
“Il fait de la vendange. Oh, my God, il est crazy pour le vin.”
“But you like the beer?”
“Oui, j’aime la bière, mais Fontan, il est crazy pour le vin.”
She was a plump old woman with a lovely ruddy complexion and white hair. She was very clean and the house was very clean and neat. She came from Lens.
“Where did you eat?”
“At the hotel.”
“Mangez ici. Il ne faut pas manger à l’hôtel ou au restaurant. Mangez ici!”
“I don’t want to make you trouble. And besides they eat all right at the hotel.”
“I never eat at the hotel. Maybe they eat all right there. Only once in my life I ate at a restaurant in America. You know what they gave me? They gave me pork that was raw!”
“Really?”
“I don’t lie to you. It was pork that wasn’t cooked! Et mon fils il est marié avec une américaine, et tout le temps il a mangé les beans en can.”
“How long has he been married?”
“Oh, my God, I don’t know. His wife weighs two hundred twenty-five pounds. She don’t work. She don’t cook. She gives him beans en can.”
“What does she do?”
“All the time she reads. Rien que des books. Tout le temps elle stay in the bed and read books. Already she can’t have another baby. She’s too fat. There ain’t any room.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“She reads books all the time. He’s a good boy. He works hard. He worked in the mines; now he works on a ranch. He never worked on a ranch before, and the man that owns the ranch said to Fontan that he never saw anybody work better on that ranch than that boy. Then he comes home and she feeds him nothing.”
“Why doesn’t he get a divorce?”
“He ain’t got no money to get a divorce. Besides, il est crazy pour elle.”
“Is she beautiful?”
“He thinks so. When he brought her home I thought I would die. He’s such a good boy and works hard all the time and never run around or make any trouble. Then he goes away to work in the oil-fields and brings home this Indienne that weighs right then one hundred eighty-five pounds.”
“Elle est Indienne?”
“She’s Indian all right. My God, yes. All the time she says sonofabitsh goddam. She don’t work.”
“Where is she now?”
“Au show.”
“Where’s that?”
“Au show. Moving pictures. All she does is read and go to the show.”
“Have you got any more beer?”
“My God, yes. Sure. You come and eat with us tonight.”
“All right. What should I bring?”
“Don’t bring anything. Nothing at all. Maybe Fontan will have some of the wine.”
That night I had dinner at Fontan’s. We ate in the dining-room and there was a clean tablecloth. We tried the new wine. It was very light and clear and good, and still tasted of the grapes. At the table there were Fontan and Madame and the little boy, André.
“What did you do today?” Fontan asked. He was an old man with small mine-tired body, a drooping gray mustache, and bright eyes, and was from the Centre near Saint-Etienne.
“I worked on my book.”
“Were your books all right?” asked Madame.
“He means he writes a book like a writer. Un roman,” Fontan explained.
“Pa, can I go to the show?” André asked.
“Sure,” said Fontan. André turned to me.
“How old do you think I am? Do you think I look fourteen years old?” He was a thin little boy, but his face looked sixteen.
“Yes. You look fourteen.”
“When I go to the show I crouch down like this and try to look small.” His voice was very high and breaking. “If I give them a quarter they keep it all but if I give them only fifteen cents they let me in all right.”
“I only give you fifteen cents, then,” said Fontan.
“No. Give me the whole quarter. I’ll get it changed on the way.”
“Il faut revenir tout de suite après le show,” Madame Fontan said.
“I come right back.” André went out the door. The night was cooling outside. He left the door open and a cool breeze came in.
“Mangez!” said Madame Fontan. “You haven’t eaten anything.” I had eaten two helpings of chicken and French fried potatoes, three ears of sweet corn, some sliced cucumbers, and two helpings of salad.
“Perhaps he wants some kek,” Fontan said.
“I should have gotten some kek for him,” Madame Fontan said. “Mangez du fromage. Mangez du crimcheez. Vous n’avez rien mangé. I ought have gotten kek. Americans always eat kek.”
“Mais j’ai rudement bien mangé.”
“Mangez! Vous n’avez rien mangé. Eat it all. We don’t save anything. Eat it all up.”
“Eat some more salad,” Fontan said.
“I’ll get some more beer,” Madame Fontan said. “If you work all day in a book-factory you get hungry.”
“Elle ne comprend pas que vous êtes écrivain,” Fontan said. He was a delicate old man who used the slang and knew the popular songs of his period of military service in the end of the 1890’s. “He writes the books himself,” he explained to Madame.
“You write the books yourself?” Madame asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Oh!” she said. “Oh! You write them yourself. Oh! Well, you get hungry if you do that too. Mangez! Je vais chercher de la bière.”
We heard her walking on the stairs to the cellar. Fontan smiled at me. He was very tolerant of people who had not his experience and worldly knowledge.
When André came home from the show we were still sitting in the kitchen and were talking about hunting.
“Labor day we all went to Clear Creek,” Madame said. “Oh, my God, you ought to have been there all right. We all went in the truck. Tout le monde est allé dans le truck. Nous sommes partis le dimanche. C’est le truck de Charley.”
“On a mangé, on a bu du vin, de la bière, et il y avait aussi un français qui a apporté de l’absinthe,” Fontan said. “Un français de la Californie!”
“My God, nous avons chanté. There’s a farmer comes to see what’s the matter, and we give him something to drink, and he stayed with us awhile. There was some Italians come too, and they want to stay with us too. We sung a song about the Italians and they don’t understand it. They didn’t know we didn’t want them, but we didn’t have nothing to do with them, and after a while they went away.”
“How many fish did you catch?”
“Très peu. We went to fish a little while, but then we came back to sing again. Nous avons chanté, vous savez.”
“In the night,” said Madame, “toutes les femmes dort dans le truck. Les hommes à côté du feu. In the night I hear Fontan come to get some more wine, and I tell him, Fontan, my God, leave some for tomorrow. Tomorrow they won’t have anything to drink, and then they’ll be sorry.”
“Mais nous avons tout bu,” Fontan said. “Et le lendemain il ne reste rien.”
“What did you do?”
“Nous avons pêché sérieusement.”
“Good trout, all right, too. My God, yes. All the same; half-pound one ounce.”
“How big?”
“Half-pound one ounce. Just right to eat. All the same size; half-pound one ounce.”
“How do you like America?” Fontan asked me.
“It’s my country, you
