Late in April they argued the motion for a new trial, and on the last day of the term Sharlow announced his decision, overruling the motion, and entered judgment in Koerner's favor. Though Marriott knew that Ford would carry the case up on error, he had, nevertheless, won a victory, and he felt so confident and happy that he decided to go to Koerner and tell him the good news. The sky had lost the pale shimmer of the early spring and taken on a deeper tone. The sun was warm, and in the narrow plots between the wooden sidewalks and the curb, the grass was green.
The trees wore a gauze of yellowish green, the first glow of living color they soon must show. A robin sprang swiftly across a lawn, stopping to swell his ruddy breast. Marriott made a short cut across a commons, beyond which the spire of a Polish Catholic church rose into the sky. The bare spots of the commons, warmed by the sun, exhaled the strong odor of the earth, recalling memories of other springs. Some shaggy boys, truants, doubtless, too wise to go to school on such a day, were playing a game of base-ball, writhing and contorting their little bodies, raging and screaming and swearing at one another in innocent imitation of the profanity of their fathers and elder brothers.
Koerner, supported by one crutch, was leaning over his front gate. He was recklessly bareheaded; his white, disordered hair maintained its aspect of fierceness, and, as Marriott drew near, he turned on him his great, bony face, without a change of expression.
"Well, Mr. Koerner, this is a fine day, isn't it?" said Marriott as he took the old man's hand. "I guess the spring's here at last."
Koerner took his constant pipe from his lips, raised his eyes and made an observation of the heavens.
"Vell, dot veat'er's all right." As he returned the amber stem to his yellow teeth, Marriott saw that the blackened bowl of the pipe was empty. The old man let Marriott in at his gate, then swinging about, went to the stoop, lowered himself from his crutches and sat down, with a grunt at the effort.
"Aren't you afraid for your rheumatism?" asked Marriott, sitting down beside him.
"Vot's up now again, huh?" demanded Koerner, ignoring this solicitude for his health.
"Nothing but good news this time," Marriott was glad to say.
"Goodt news, huh?"
"Yes, good news. The judge has refused the motion for a new trial."
"Den I vin for sure dis time, ain't it?"
"Yes, this time," said Marriott.
"I get my money now right avay?"
"Well, pretty soon."
The old man turned to Marriott with his blue eyes narrowed beneath the white brush of his eyebrows.
"Vot you mean by dot pretty soon?"
"Well, you see, Mr. Koerner, as I explained to you,"--Marriott set himself to the task of explaining the latest development in the case; he tried to present the proceedings in the Appellate Court in their most encouraging light, but he was conscious that Koerner understood nothing save that there were to be more delays.
"But we must be patient, Mr. Koerner," he said. "It will come out all right."
Koerner made no reply. To Marriott his figure was infinitely pathetic.
He looked at the great face, lined and seamed; the eyes that saw nothing--not the little yard before them where the turf was growing green, not the blackened limbs of a little maple tree struggling to put forth its leaves, not the warm mud glistening in the sun, not the dirty street piled with ashes, not the broken fence and sidewalk, the ugly little houses across the street, nor the purple sky above them--they were gazing beyond all this. Marriott looked at the old man's lips; they trembled, then they puckered themselves about the stem of his pipe and puffed automatically. Marriott, hanging his head, lighted a cigarette.
"Mis'er Marriott," Koerner began presently, "I been an oldt man. I been an hones' man; py Gott! I vork hardt efery day. I haf blenty troubles.
I t'ink ven I lose dot damned oldt leg, I t'ink, vell, maybe I get some rest now bretty soon. I say to dot oldt leg: 'You bin achin' mit der rheumatiz all dose year, now you haf to kvit, py Gott!' I t'ink I get some rest, I get some dose damages, den maybe I take der oldt voman undt dose childer undt I go out to der oldt gountry; I go back to Chairmany, undt I haf some peace dere. Vell--dot's been a long time, Mis'er Marriott; dot law, he's a damn humpug; he's bin fer der railroadt gompany; he's not been fer der boor man. Der boor man, he's got no show. Dot's been a long time. Maybe, by undt by I die--dot case, he's still go on, huh?"
The old man looked at Marriott quizzically.
"Vell, I gan't go out to der oldt gountry now any more. I haf more drouble--dot poy Archie--vell, he bin in drouble too, and now my girl, dot Gusta--"
The old man's lips trembled.
"Vell, she's gone, too."
A tear was rolling down Koerner's cheek. Marriott could not answer him just then; he did not dare to look; he could scarcely bear to think of this old man, with his dream of going home to the Fatherland--and all his disappointments. Suddenly, the spring had receded again; the air was chill, the sun lost its warmth, the sky took on the pale, cold glitter of the days he thought were gone. He could hear Koerner's lips puffing at his pipe. Suddenly, a suspicion came to him.
"Mr. Koerner," he asked, "why aren't you smoking?"
The old man seemed ashamed.
"Tell me," Marriott demanded.
"Vell--dot's all right. I hain't--chust got der tobacco."
The truth flashed on Marriott; this was deprivation--when a man could not get tobacco! He thought an instant; then he drew out his case of cigarettes, took them, broke their papers and seizing Koerner's hand said:
"Here, here's a pipeful, anyway; this'll do till I can send you some."
And he poured the tobacco into Koerner's bare palm. The old man took the tobacco, pressed it into the bowl of his pipe, Marriott struck a match, Koerner lighted his pipe, and sat a few moments in the comfort of smoking again.
"Dot's bretty goodt," he said presently. He smoked on. After a while he turned to Marriott with his old shrewd, humorous glance, his blue eyes twinkled, his white brows twitched.
"Vell, Mis'er Marriott, you nefer t'ought you see der oldt man shmokin'
cigarettes, huh?"
Marriott laughed, glad of the relief, and glad of the new sense of comradeship the tobacco brought.
"Now tell me, Mr. Koerner," he said, "are you in want--do you need anything?"
Koerner did not reply at once.
"Come on now," Marriott urged, "tell me--have you anything to eat in the house?"
"Vell," Koerner admitted, "not much."
"Have you anything at all to eat?"
Koerner hung his head then, in the strange, unaccountable shame people feel in poverty.
"Vell, I--undt der oldt voman--ve hafn't had anyt'ing to eat to-day."
"And the children?"
"Ve gif dem der last dis morning alreadty."
Marriott closed his eyes in the pain of it. He reproached himself that he who argued so glibly that people in general lack the cultured imagination that would enable them to realize the plight of the submerged poor, should have had this condition so long under his very eyes and not have seen it. He was humbled, and then he was angry with himself--an anger he was instantly able to change into an anger with Koerner.
"Well, Mr. Koerner," he said. "I don't know that I ought to sympathize with you, after all. You might have told me; you might have known I should be glad to help you; you might have saved me--"
He was about to add "the pain," but he recognized the selfishness of this view, and paused.
"I'll help you, of course," he went on. "My God, man, you mustn't go hungry! Won't the grocer trust you?"