Free Look Homeward, Angel - Thomas Wolfe by Thomas Wolfe Page A

cheerful loyalty. "There's no place like Altamont."
    They went to the station in the street-car: Ben and
Grover gleefully sat together, guarding a big luncheon hamper. 
Helen clutched nervously a bundle of packages.  Eliza glanced
sharply at her long straight legs and thought of the half-fare.
    "Say," she began, laughing indefinitely
behind her hand, and nudging Gant, "she'll have to scrooch up,
won't she?  They'll think you're mighty big to be under twelve,"
she went on, addressing the girl directly.
    Helen stirred nervously.
    "We shouldn't have done that," Gant
muttered.
    "Pshaw!" said Eliza.  "No one
will ever notice her."
    He saw them into the train, disposed comfortably by
the solicitous Pullman porter.
    "Keep your eye on them, George," he said,
and gave the man a coin. Eliza eyed it jealously.
    He kissed them all roughly with his mustache, but he
patted his little girl's bony shoulders with his great hand, and
hugged her to him.  Something stabbed sharply in Eliza.
    They had an awkward moment.  The strangeness,
the absurdity of the whole project, and the monstrous fumbling of all
life, held them speechless.
    "Well," he began, "I reckon you know
what you're doing."
    "Well, I tell you," she said, pursing her
lips, and looking out the window, "you don't know what may come
out of this."
    He was vaguely appeased.  The train jerked, and
moved off slowly. He kissed her clumsily.
    "Let me know as soon as you get there," he
said, and he strode swiftly down the aisle.
    "Good-by, good-by," cried Eliza, waving
Eugene's small hand at the long figure on the platform. 
"Children," she said, "wave good-by to your papa." 
They all crowded to the window.  Eliza wept.
 
 
    Eugene watched the sun wane and redden on a rocky
river, and on the painted rocks of Tennessee gorges: the enchanted
river wound into his child's mind forever.  Years later, it was
to be remembered in dreams tenanted with elvish and mysterious
beauty.  Stilled in great wonder, he went to sleep to the
rhythmical pounding of the heavy wheels.
    They lived in a white house on the corner. 
There was a small plot of lawn in front, and a narrow strip on the
side next to the pavement.  He realized vaguely that it was far
from the great central web and roar of the city--he thought he heard
some one say four or five miles.  Where was the river?
    Two little boys, twins, with straight very blond
heads, and thin, mean faces, raced up and down the sidewalk before
the house incessantly on tricycles.  They wore white
sailor-suits, with blue collars, and he hated them very much. 
He felt vaguely that their father was a bad man who had fallen down
an elevator shaft, breaking his legs.
    The house had a back yard, completely enclosed by a
red board fence.  At the end was a red barn.  Years later,
Steve, returning home, said:  "That section's all built up
out there now."  Where?
    One day in the hot barren back yard, two cots and
mattresses had been set up for airing.  He lay upon one
luxuriously, breathing the hot mattress, and drawing his small legs
up lazily.  Luke lay upon the other.  They were eating
peaches.
    A fly grew sticky on Eugene's peach.  He
swallowed it.  Luke howled with laughter.
    "Swallowed a fly!  Swallowed a fly!"
    He grew violently sick, vomited, and was unable to
eat for some time.  He wondered why he had swallowed the fly
when he had seen it all the time.
    The summer came down blazing hot.  Gant arrived
for a few days, bringing Daisy with him.  One night they drank
beer at the Delmar Gardens.  In the hot air, at a little table,
he gazed thirstily at the beaded foaming stein: he would thrust his
face, he thought, in that chill foam and drink deep of happiness. 
Eliza gave him a taste; they all shrieked at his bitter surprised
face.
    Years later he remembered Gant, his mustache flecked
with foam, quaffing mightily at the glass: the magnificent gusto, the
beautiful thirst inspired in him the desire for emulation, and he
wondered if all