The Shoulders of Atlas | Page 2

lantern hung on a peg. He also did what odd
jobs he could for neighbors. He picked up a little extra money in that
way, but he worked very hard. Sometimes he told Sylvia that he didn't
know but he worked harder than he had done when the shop time was
longer. However, he had been one of the first to go, heart and soul, with
the union, and he had paid his dues ungrudgingly, even with a fierce
satisfaction, as if in some way the transaction made him even with his
millionaire employers. There were two of them, and they owned houses

which appeared like palaces in the eyes of Henry and his kind. They
owned automobiles, and Henry was aware of a cursing sentiment when
one whirred past him, trudging along, and covered him with dust.
Sometimes it seemed to Henry as if an automobile was the last straw
for the poor man's back: those enormous cars, representing fortunes,
tyrannizing over the whole highway, frightening the poor old country
horses, and endangering the lives of all before them. Henry read with
delight every account of an automobile accident. "Served them right;
served them just right," he would say, with fairly a smack of his lips.
Sylvia, who had caught a little of his rebellion, but was gentler, would
regard him with horror. "Why, Henry Whitman, that is a dreadful
wicked spirit!" she would say, and he would retort stubbornly that he
didn't care; that he had to pay a road tax for these people who would
just as soon run him down as not, if it wouldn't tip their old machines
over; for these maniacs who had gone speed-mad, and were
appropriating even the highways of the common people.
Henry had missed the high-school principal, who was away on his
spring vacation. He liked to talk with him, because he always had a
feeling that he had the best of the argument. Horace would take the
other side for a while, then leave the field, and light another cigar, and
let Henry have the last word, which, although it had a bitter taste in his
mouth, filled him with the satisfaction of triumph. He loved Horace
like a son, although he realized that the young man properly belonged
to the class which he hated, and that, too, although he was manifestly
poor and obliged to work for his living. Henry was, in his heart of
hearts, convinced that Horace Allen, had he been rich, would have
owned automobiles and spent hours in the profitless work-play of the
golf links. As it was, he played a little after school-hours. How Henry
hated golf! "I wish they had to work," he would say, savagely, to
Horace.
Horace would laugh, and say that he did work. "I know you do," Henry
would say, grudgingly, "and I suppose maybe a little exercise is good
for you; but those fellers from Alford who come over here don't have to
work, and as for Guy Lawson, the boss's son, he's a fool! He couldn't

earn his bread and butter to save his life, except on the road digging
like a common laborer. Playing golf! Playing! H'm!" Then was the time
for Horace's fresh cigar.
When Henry came in sight of the cottage where he lived he thought
with regret that Horace was not there. Being in a more pessimistic
mood than usual, he wished ardently for somebody to whom he could
pour out his heart. Sylvia was no satisfaction at such a time. If she
echoed him for a while, when she was more than usually worn with her
own work, she finally became alarmed, and took refuge in Scripture
quotations, and Henry was convinced that she offered up prayer for him
afterward, and that enraged him.
He struck into the narrow foot-path leading to the side door, the
foot-path which his unwilling and weary feet had helped to trace more
definitely for nearly forty years. The house was a small cottage of the
humblest New England type. It had a little cobbler's-shop, or what had
formerly been a cobbler's-shop, for an ell. Besides that, there were three
rooms on the ground-floor--the kitchen, the sitting-room, and a little
bedroom which Henry and Sylvia occupied. Sylvia had cooking-stoves
in both the old shop and the kitchen. The kitchen stove was kept well
polished, and seldom used for cooking, except in cold weather. In
warm weather the old shop served as kitchen, and Sylvia, in deference
to the high-school teacher, used to set the table in the house.
When Henry neared the house he smelled cooking in the shop. He also
had a glimpse of a snowy table-cloth in the kitchen. He wondered, with
a throb of joy, if possibly Horace might have returned before his
vacation was