His Smile

HIS SMILE 1

By SUSAN GLASPELL
(From The Pictorial Review)

T AURA stood across the street waiting for the people
to come out from the picture-show. She couldn’t
have said just why she was waiting, unless it was that
she was waiting because she could not go away. She was
not wearing her black; she had a reason for not wearing
it when she came on these trips, and the simple lines of
her dark-blue suit and the smart little hat Howie had
always liked on her, somehow suggested young and happy
things. Two soldiers came by; one of them said, 4 4 Hello,
there, kiddo,” and the other, noting the anxiety with
which she waited, assured her, “ You should worry."
She looked at them, and when he saw her face the one
who had said, “You should worry," said, in sheepish
fashion, “ Well, I should worry," as if to get out of the
apology he didn't know how to make. She was glad they
had gone by. It hurt so to be near the soldiers.

The man behind her kept saying, “ Pop -corn! Pop - com
right here." It seemed she must buy pop-corn if she stood
there. She bought some. She tried to do the thing she
was expected to do — so she wouldn’t be noticed.

Then the people came pushing out from the theater.
They did it just as they did it in the other towns. A new
town was only the same town in a different place; and all
of it was a world she was as out of as if it were passing
before her in a picture. All of it except that one thing
that was all she had left! She had come so far to have it
tonight. She wouldn't be cheated. She crossed the street,
and as the last people were coming out of the theater she
went in.

1 Copyright, 1921, by The Pictorial Review Company, Inc.

Copyright, 1922, by Susan Glaspell Cook.

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SUSAN GLASPELL

195

A man, yawning, was doing something to a light. He
must belong to the place. His back was to her, and she
stood there trying to get brave enough to speak. It had
never been easy for her to open conversations with
strangers. For so many years it was Howie who had
seemed to connect her with the world. And suddenly
she thought of how sorry Howie would be to see her wait-
ing around in this dismal place after every one else had
gone, trying to speak to a strange man about a thing that
man wouldn’t at all understand. How well Howie would
understand it! He would say, “ Go on home, Laura.”
“ Don’t do this, sweetheart.” Almost as if he had said
it, she turned away. But she turned back. This was her
wedding anniversary.

She went up to the man. “ You didn’t give all of the
picture tonight, did you?” Her voice was sharp; it
mustn’t tremble.

He looked round at her in astonishment. He kept
looking her up and down as if to make her out. Her
trembling hands clutched the bag of pop-corn and some
of it spilled. She let it all fall and put one hand to her
mouth.

A man 'came down from upstairs. “ Lady here says
you didn’t give the whole show tonight,” said the first
man.

The young man on the stairs paused in astonishment.
He, too, looked Laura up and down. She took a step back-
ward.

“ What was left out wasn’t of any importance, lady,”
said the man, looking at her, not unkindly, but puzzled.

“ I think it was! ” she contended in a high, sharp voice.
They both stared at her. As she realized that this could
happen, saw how slight was her hold on the one thing she
had, she went on, desperately, “ You haven’t any right
to do this! It’s — it’s cheating .”

They looked then, not at her, but at each other — as
the sane counsel together in the presence of what is
outside their world. Oh, she knew that look! She had
seen her brother and his wife doing it when first she knew
about Howie.

44 Now I’ll tell you, lady,” said the man to whom she

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HIS SMILE

had first spoken, in the voice that deals with what has
to be dealt with carefully, “ you just let me give you your
money back, then you won’t have the feeling that you’ve
been cheated.” He put his hand in his pocket.

“ I don’t want my money back! ” cried Laura. “I —
want to see what you left out! ”

“ Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” proposed the young
man, taking his cue from the older one. 11 I’ll tell you just
exactly what happened in the part that was left out.”

“ I know exactly what happened,” cut in Laura. “I —
I want to see — what happened.”

It was a cry from so deep that they didn’t know what
to do.

“ Won’t you do it for me? ” she begged of the young
man, going up to him. “ What you left out — won’t
you show it for me — now? ”

He just stood there staring at her.

“ It means — ! It ” But how could she tell them

what it meant? She looked from one to the other, as if
to see what chance there was of their doing it without
knowing what it meant. When she couldn’t keep sobs
back, she turned away.

Even in her room at the hotel she had to try to keep
from crying. She could hear the man moving around in
the next room — so he, of course, could hear her, too.
It was all as it was in the pictures — people crowded
together, and all of it something that seemed life and
really wasn’t. Even that — the one thing, the one moment
— really wasn’t life. But it was all she had! If she let
herself think of how little that all was — it was an empti-
ness she was afraid of.

The people who had tried to comfort her used to talk
of how much she had had. She would wonder sometimes
why they were talking on her side instead of their own.
For if you have had much — does that make it easy to
get along with nothing? Why couldn’t they see it? That
because of what Howie had been to her — and for ten
years! — she just didn’t know any way of going on living
without Howie!

Tonight made fresh all her wedding anniversaries —
brought happiness to life again. It almost took her in.

SUSAN GLASPELL

197

And because she had been so near the dear, warm things
in which she had lived, when morning came she couldn’t
get on the train that would take her back to that house
to which Howie would never come again. Once more it
all seemed slipping from her. There must be something.
As a frightened child runs for home, she turned to that
place where — for at least a moment — it was as if Howie
were there.

She went to the telegraph office and wired the com-
pany that sent out “ The Cross of Diamonds,” asking
where that film could be seen. She had learned that this
was the way to do it. She had known nothing about such
things at first; it had been hard to find out the ways of
doing. It was a world she didn’t know the ways of.

When she got her answer, and found that the place
where “ The Cross of Diamonds ” would be shown that
night was more than a hundred miles away — that it
meant going that much farther away from home — she
told herself this was a thing she couldn’t do. She told
herself this must stop — that her brother was right in
the things he said against it. It wouldn’t do. He hadn’t
said it was crazy, but that was what he meant — or
feared. She had told him she would try to stop. Now
was the time to do it — now when she would have to go
so much farther away. But — it was going farther away
— this glimpse of Howie — all that was left of Howie
was moving away from her! And after the disappoint-
ment of the night before — She must see him once more!
Then — yes, then she would stop.

She was excited when she had decided to do this. It
lifted her out of the nothingness. From this meager thing
her great need could in a way create the feeling that she
was going to meet Howie. Once more she would see him
do that thing which was so like him as to bring him back
into life. Why should she turn from it? What were all
the other things compared with this thing? This was one
little flash of life in a world that had ceased to be alive.

So again that night, in the clothes he had most liked,
she went for that poor little meeting with her husband
■ — so pitifully little, and yet so tremendous because it
was all she would ever have. Again she sat in a big,

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noisy place with many jostling, laughing people — and
waited to see Howie. She forgot that the place had ugly
red walls and sickly green lights; she could somehow sepa-
rate herself from harsh voices and smells — for she was
here to meet Howie!

She knew just the part of the house to sit in. Once she
had sat where she couldn't see him as he passed from sight!
After that she had always come very early. So she had
to sit there while other people were coming in. But she
didn’t much mind that; it was like sitting in a crowded
railway station when the person you love is coming soon.

But suddenly something reached over that gulf between
other people and her. A word. A terrible word. Behind
her some one said 14 munitions.” She put her hand to
her eyes and pressed tight. Not to see. That was why
she had to keep coming for this look at Howie. She had
to see him — that she might shut out that — the picture
of Howie — blown into pieces.

She hated people. They were always doing something
like this to her. She hated all these people in the theater.
It seemed they were all, somehow, against her. And
Howie had been so good to them! He was so good to
people like the people in this theater. It was because he
was so good and kind to them that he was — that he
was not Howie now. He was always thinking of people’s
comfort — the comfort of people who had to work hard.
From the time he went into his father’s factory he had
always been thinking up ways of making people more
comfortable in their work. To see girls working in uncom-
fortable chairs, or standing hour after hour at tables too
low or too high for them — he couldn’t pass those things
by as others passed them by. He had a certain inventive
faculty, and his kindness was always making use of that.
His father used to tell him he would break them all up
in business if his mind went on working in that direction.
He would tell him if he was going to be an inventor he
had better think up some money-making inventions.
Howie would laugh and reply that he’d make it all up
some day. And at last one of the things he had thought
out to make it better for people was really going to make
it better for Howie. It was a certain kind of shade for

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199

the eyes. It had been a relief to the girls in their little
factory, and it was being tried out elsewhere. It was
even being used a little in one of the big munition plants.
Howie was there seeing about it. And while he was

there He went in there Howie. There wasn’t even

anything to carry out. )

The picture had begun. She had to wait until almost
half of it had passed before her moment came. The story
was a tawdry, meaningless thing about the adventures of
two men who had stolen a diamond cross — a strange
world into which to come to find Howie. Chance had
caught him into it — he was one of the people passing along
a street which was being taken for the picture. His
moment was prolonged by his stopping to do the kind of
thing Howie would do, and now it was as if that one
moment was the only thing saved out of Howie’s life.
They who made the picture had apparently seen that the
moment was worth keeping — they left it as a part of
the stream of life that was going by while the detective
of their story waited for the men for whom he had laid
a trap. The story itself had little relation to real things

— yet chance made it this vehicle for keeping something
of the reality that had been Howie — a disclosing moment
captured unawares.

She was thinking of the strangeness of all this when
again the people seated back of her said a thing that
came right to her. They were saying “ scrap-heap.”
She knew — before she knew why — that this had some-
thing to do with her. Then she found that they were
talking about this film. It was ready for the scrap-heap.
It was on its last legs. They laughed and said perhaps
they were seeing its “ last appearance.”

She tried to understand what it meant. Then even this
would cease to be in the world. She had known she ought
to stop following the picture around, she had even told
herself this would be the last time she would come to see
it — but to feel it wouldn’t any longer be there to be seen

— that even this glimpse of Howie would go out — go
out as life goes out — scrap-heap! She sat up straight and
cleared her throat. She would have to leave. She must
get air. But she looked to see where they were. Not far

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now. She might miss Howie! With both hands "she took
hold of the sides of the seat. She was not going to fall
forward! Not suffocating. Not until after she had seen
him.

Now. The detective has left the hotel — he is walking
along the street. He comes to the cigar-store door, and
there steps in to watch. And there comes the dog! Then
it was not going to be cut out tonight! Along comes the
little dog — pawing at his muzzle. He stops in distress
in front of the cigar-store. People pass and pay no
attention to the dog — there on the sidewalk. And then
— in the darkened theater her hands go out, for the door
has opened — and she sees her husband! Howie. There.
Moving as he always moved! She fights back the tears
that would blur him. That dear familiar way he moves!
It is almost as if she could step up and meet him, and
they could walk away together. >

He starts to go the other way. Then he sees the dog.
He goes up to him; he is speaking to him, wanting to know
what is the matter. She can fairly hear the warmth and
kindness of his voice as he speaks to the little dog. He
feels of the muzzle — finds it too tight ; he lets it out a
notch. Dear Howie. Of course he would do that. No
one else had cared, but he would care. Then he speaks to
the dog — pats him — tells him he is all right now.
Then Howie turns away.

But the dog thinks he will go with this nice person!
Howie laughs and tells him he can't come. A little girl
has come across the street. Howie tells her to keep the
dog from following him. Then again he turns to go. But
just before he passes from sight the child calls something
to him, and he looks back over his shoulder and smiles.
She sees again the smile that has been the heart of her
life. Then he passes from sight.

And he always leaves friends behind him — just as he
always did leave friends behind him. There will be little
murmurs of approval ; sometimes there is applause.
Tonight a woman near Laura said, “ Say, I bet that’s an
awful nice fellow.”

She never left her seat at once, as if moving would
break a spell. For a little iwhile after she had seen it, his

is

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201

smile would stay with her. Then it would fade, as things
fade in the motion pictures. Somehow she didn’t really
have it. That was why she had to keep coming — con-
stantly reaching out for something that was not hers to
keep.

When her moment had gone, she rose and walked down
the aisle. It was very hard to go away tonight. There
had been all the time the fear that what happened the
night before would happen again — that she would not ;
see Howie, after all. That made her so tense that she was
exhausted now. And then “ munitions ” — and “scrap-
heap.” Perhaps it was because of all this that tonight
her moment had been so brief. Only for an instant
Howie’s smile had brought her into life. It was gone now.

It had passed.

She was so worn that when, at the door, her brother
Tom stepped up to her she was not much surprised or
even angry. Tom had no business to be following her
about. She had told him that she would have to manage
it her own way — that he would have to let her alone.
Now here he was again — to trouble her, to talk to her
about being brave and sane — when he didn’t know —
when he didn’t have any idea what he was talking about!
But it didn’t matter — not tonight. Let him do things
— get the tickets — and all that. Even let him talk to
her. That didn’t matter either.

But he talked very little. He seemed to think there
was something wrong with her. He looked at her and
said, “ O, Laura! ” reproachfully, but distressed.

“ I thought you weren’t going to do this any more,
Laura,” he said gently, after they had walked a little
way.

44 How did you know I was here? ” she asked listlessly.

44 They sent me word you had left home. I traced
you.”

44 I don’t see why you should trace me,” she said, but
not as if it mattered.

44 O, Laura! ” he said again. 44 Well, I must say I don’t
think Mrs. Edmunds was much of a friend! ”

It was Mrs. Edmunds who had told Laura thatUhere
was this glimpse of her husband in 44 The Cross of Dia-

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monels.” She had hesitated about telling her, but had
finally said it was so characteristic and beautiful a moment
she felt Laura should see it.

From the first Tom had opposed her seeing it, saying
it would be nothing but torture to her. Torture it was,
but it was as if that torture were all there was left of
life.

Tonight everything was as a world of shadows. She
knew that her brother was taking her to his home instead
of back to her own.. He had wanted to do this before,
but she had refused. There was nothing in her now that
could refuse. She went with him as if she were merely
moving in a picture and had no power of her own to get
out of it.

And that was the way it was through the next few
weeks. Tom and his wife would talk to her about trying
to interest herself in life. She made no resistance, she
had no argument against this; but she had no power to
do it. They didn’t know — they didn’t know how it had
been with her and Howie.

She herself had never been outgoing. It was perhaps a
habit of reserve built out of timidity, but she had been a
girl whose life did not have a real contact with other
fives. Perhaps there were many people like that — per-
haps not; she did not know. She only knew that before
Howie came the fife in her was more as a thing unto itself
than a part of the fife of the world.

Then Howie came! Howie, who could get on with any
one, who found something to like in every one; and in
the warmth and strength of his feeling for people he
drew her into that main body of fife where she had not
been before. It had been like coming into the sunshine!

Now he was gone; and they asked her to be alone what
she had been through him. It was like telling one to go
into the sunshine when the sun is not shining.

And the more these others tried to reach her, the more
alone she felt, for it only made her know they could not
reach her. When you have lived in the sunshine, days of
cold mist may become more than you can bear. After
a long struggle not to do so, she again went to the
long-distance telephone to find out where that picture

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203

was being shown — that picture into which was caught
one moment of Howie's life as he moved through the
world.

Worn by the struggle not to do what she was doing,
and tormented by the fear that she had waited too long,
that this one thing which was left to her might no
longer be , she had to’ put every bit of her strength into
establishing this connection with the people who could
tell her what she must know. Establishing the connection
with living was like this. She was far off and connected
only by a tenuous thing which might any moment go
into confusion and stop.

At the other end some one was making fun of her.
They doubted if 4 4 The Cross of Diamonds ” could be
seen anywhere at all. 44 The Cross of Diamonds ” had
been double-crossed. Wasn't it too much of a cross,
anyway, to see 44 The Cross of Diamonds " ?

Finally another man came to the phone. 44 The Cross
of Diamonds " could be seen at a certain town in Indiana.
But she'd better hurry! And she’d better look her last
look. Why did she want to see it — might he ask? But
Laura hung up the receiver. She must hurry!

All the rest of it was a blur and a hurry. Through the
unreal confusion drove the one idea — she must get there
in time! And that whole life of the world seemed pitted
against her — it was as if the whole of that main body of
life was thrown in between her and Howie. The train
was late. It was almost the hour for pictures to begin
when she got down at that lonely, far-away station. And
the town, it seemed, was a mile from the station! There
was a bus she must take. Every nerve of her being was
hurrying that bus on — until that very anxiety made it
seem it was Howie himself she would see if only she could
get there in time.

And being late, the downstairs at the theater was full.
44 Balcony only,” said a man as she came in. 44 Oh, won't
you find me a good seat? ” Laura besought him. 44 Like
to know how I’ll find you a seat when there ain't no seat,”
was the answer — the whole big life of the world in
between her and Howie!

Upstairs, too, it was hard to find a place. And all

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those people seated there — for them it meant only a few
hours' silly entertainment!

But after a moment a man directed her to a seat.
There was another place beside it, and just as Laura was
being seated a woman came along with two children.
“ We can’t all sit together,” she was saying, “ so you just
sit in here, Mamie. You sit right in here — beside the
nice lady.”

The mother looked at Laura, as if expecting her to wel-
come her child. Laura did nothing. She must be alone.
She was there to be with Howie.

She was not as late as she had feared. There would be
time for getting ready — getting ready for Howie! She
knew this would be the last time she would see Howie
as he had moved through the world. For the last time
she would see his face light to a smile. If she did not
reach him tonight, she would never reach him. She had
a feeling that she could reach him, if only something in
her — if only something in her —

She could not finish that; it brought her to a place
into which she could not reach, but as never before she
had a feeling that he conld be reached. And so when
the little girl beside her twisted in her seat and she knew
that the child was looking up at her she tried not to know
this little girl was there — tried not to know that any
of those people were there. If only she could get them
all out of the way — she could reach into the shadow and
feel Howie near!

But there was one thing she kept knowing — try her
best not to know it! The little girl beside her, too young
to be there, was going to sleep. When it came right up
to the moment for her to see Howie, she was knowing
that that little girl had fallen asleep in' an uncomfortable
position. Her head had been resting on the side of the
seat — the side next Laura — and as she fell asleep it
slipped from its support in a way that— Could she
help it if this child was not comfortable? Angry, she
tried to brush this from her consciousness as we brush
dust from our eyes. This was her moment with Howie
— her chance .

But when her moment came, a cruel thing happened.

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205

Something was wrong with the machine that was showing
the picture. At just that moment — of all the moments!
— the worn-out film seemed to be going to pieces before
her eyes. After the little dog came along, and just as
Howie should come out from the cigar-store, there was a
flash — a blur — a jumble of movements. It was like an
earthquake — it looked like life ceasing to be life. “ No! ”
she gasped under her breath. “ No! ” The people around
her were saying things of a different sort. “ Cut it! ”
“ What you givin’ us? ” “Whoa, boy! ” They laughed.
They didn’t care. It got a little better; she could make
out Howie bending down to fix the dog’s muzzle — but
it was all dancing crazily — and people were laughing.
And then — then the miracle! It was on Howie’s smile
the picture steadied — that smile back over his shoulder
after he had turned to go. And, as if to bring to rights
what had been wrong, the smile was held, and it was as
if Howie lingered, as if in leaving life he looked back over
his shoulder and waited — waited for his smile to reach
Laura. Out of the jumble and blur — out of the wrong
and meaningless — Howie’s beautiful steady smile making
it all right .

She could not have told how it happened. As Howie
passed, she turned to the little girl beside her whose head
was without support and, not waking her, supported the
child’s head against her own arm. And after she had done
this — it was after she had done it that she began to know,
as if doing it let down bars.

Now she was knowing. She had wanted to push people
aside and reach into the shadows for Howie. She began
to see that it was not so she would reach him. It was in
being as he had been — kind, caring — that she could
have a sense of him near. Here was her chance — among
the people she had thought stood between her and her
chance. Howie had always cared for these people. On
his way through the world with them he had always
stopped to do the kind thing — as he stopped to make it
right for the badly muzzled dog. Then there was some-
thing for her to do in the world. She could do the kind
things Howie would be doing if he were there! It would
somehow — keep him. It would — fulfill him. Yes,

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fulfill him. Howie had made her more alive — warmer
and kinder. If she became as she had been before —
Howie would have failed. She moved so that the little
girl who rested against her could rest the better. And as
she did this — it was as if Howie had smiled. The one
thing the picture had never given her — the sense that
it was hers to keep — that stole through her now as the
things come which we know we can never lose. For the
first moment since she lost him, she had him. And all
the people in that theater, and all the people in the
world — here was the truth! It cleared and righted as
Howie’s smile had righted the picture. In so far as she
could come close to others she would come closer to him.