# Peewee/Chapter 9

Peewee never had known any room which anyone had called his, and he had never slept anywhere indoors except where numbers of other people were sleeping, or had anything of his own except those small objects which boys acquire and carry in their pockets. To be left alone in the room gave him a feeling of possession which he had never had before, even though he did not fully accept the assurance that it was his. But he would have been more interested in the room if he had not been so much interested in the old man.
If the old man was the only person besides servants in the house, and had power to give Peewee a room in it, it appeared evident that the old man owned the house. It seemed an immense house for one man. Its front windows ​looked across the Drive and out upon the lake where white-tipped waves were chasing each other against the esplanade; its rear windows, he knew, having come in that way, looked only at the backs of other houses. Four blocks to north of it and three to west, as nearly as he could figure, was his father's house, which had amazed him by its luxury until he had seen this one.
He went from room to room on the second floor, looking into them and examining excitedly the beautiful things he found. The room which pleased him most was at the front of the house and apparently was a woman's room. Its furnishings were all exquisitely delicate, and there were articles monogrammed in fine tracery upon the dresser, and several small portraits in gold frames. One was of a woman whom he recognized; she was the one whose picture he had seen with Mrs. Markyn's at the newspaper office. What had her name been? Mrs. Arthur Cord. Another was of a man and his pulse quickened as he looked at it. He picked it up and held it so that he could see himself in the mirror while ​he looked at it. He and the man had the same distinctive, regular features and the same black hair, which grew in the same way upon their necks and temples. Was it his father? The man was handsome, but he had not the strong, determined look of the fierce old man downstairs.
After examining these things, Peewee went downstairs and looked in at the old man from the hall.
The old man showed no resentment at this inspection, and, after hestating, Peewee went into the room so that he could see him better. The old man returned his survey curiously.
"Had a bad time to get along?" he asked with interest.
"Yes, sir," Peewee admitted.
"Not much to eat lately?"
"No, sir."
"You look it. It's a hard town and you have to be hard yourself to beat it. Very different town from when I came here. Bigger and harder. I was ten then, but I'd been two years alone in Buffalo. Ran away from home when ​I was eight. I'd saved some money even then. Have you?"
"No, sir," Peewee replied.
"Time to begin. Save your money and put it out to work for you; then you don't have to work yourself. That's one rule. Another is don't let people deceive you. Did the boy that brought you here lie to you?"
"Yes, sir," said Peewee.
"What did you do to him?"
"Nothing."
"Know what to do when a boy lies to you?"
"No, sir."
"Hit him in the eye."
Peewee regarded him reflectively. It was probable the old man did not know that the other boy had been larger than himself, but the subject interested him.
"People don't care what happens to you, do they?" the old man asked.
Peewee considered; very few people, indeed, had ever cared. "No, sir," he agreed.
"You care what happens to them?"
"Yes, sir."
​"Why should you, if they don't care about you? Know how they do about that on the Board of Trade?"
"No, sir."
"They don't care what happens to the other fellow. I've known of many a man sitting in his office—broke; don't know how to pay his rent; don't know how to feed his wife and kids; thinks he'll kill himself. On the Floor they throw up their hats; slap each other on the back; all join hands and dance around because they've broke him. Understand?"
"No, sir," said Peewee.
"Understand about the boys, though, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
Who was the old man? He looked, Peewee thought, as though he too might be a "builder of Chicago." He had at least built this house, or someone had built it for him. It occurred to Peewee that he might be the first of the Jeffrey Markyns, the one who had no number to his name. His age made this appear likely, and his talk about the Board of Trade.
​There were, however, contrary considerations. The spoon with which Peewee had eaten his preserves and the knife with which the servant had spread the butter had been marked with the letter "B." There had been "B" in the lace coverlets upon the beds and on the back of the toilet articles. Peewee started to ask the man his name, but when he saw the cold, hard eyes staring at him he was afraid. He backed to the door and, when he felt the opening behind him, backed out through it.
He halted in the hall, considering. Would the servants tell him who the man was if he asked? Would the man's name be on his front door? As he moved toward the door to open it and look, he saw upon his right the library with its shelves of books. In schools, he recalled, boys wrote their names in their books. Perhaps the old man had written his name in his. There seemed a great many of them for him to have written his name in. He went in and opened one of the books, which were all new, as though no one had ever read them, and he found a picture pasted in the front with letters under​neath. "Ex Libris," he spelled out. This, he decided, had no meaning, but there was a name below. He spelled it: "Matthew Beman."
The old man, it was clear, was Mrs. Markyn's grandfather, the one who made the feud—whatever that might be—with the first Jeffrey Markyn about a "corner." But Peewee forgot this temporarily in thinking excitedly how often Mrs. Markyn must come to her grandfather's house. What would she think of him when she saw him in his new clothes and with shoes which had no holes in them? She might hardly know him. He went to the window to look out along the street in the direction which he thought that she might come, but she did not come that day.
At dark the negro, Burtin, came and got him and took him downstairs to eat. He ate at a table with the servants, sitting next to Burtin, and regarding the old colored man reflectively between his bites.
"What is a corner?" he inquired at last.
The negro considered in surprise. "A cohneh?"
"I thought you knew about Mr. Beman."
​"Indeedy yes, Ah does!"
"Didn't Mr. Beman ever make a comer?"
Burtin appeared to comprehend. "Mistah Beman he done made many cohnehs."
"He made the Markyn-Beman comer," Peewee observed.
"Dats too long ago for you-all to know about it—yeh, dat's long ago."
"Then tell me about it."
Burtin seemed to consider this request and to decide that it was not anything he need refrain from telling.
"Mistah Beman an' Mistah Mahkyn, dey wuz pahtnahs—dis yer Mistah Mahkyn's gran' fathah," he asserted. "One tahme befoh dey wuz reg'lah pahtnahs, dey onct boff of 'em wuz buyin' oats. Mistah Mahkyn he comes to Mistah Beman an' he says: "Oats am goin' up; de longah we hol' ouah oats, de highah up dey'll go. We-all 'll hold ouahs an' when dey gits so-high, we-all 'll sell ouahs, but not befoh dey gits so-high." "Aw right," says Mistah Beman. But Mistah Mahkyn, he ups an' sells his oats befoh dey gits so-high, and never said nothin' to Mr. Beman 'bout ​it, 'cause he thought de mahket wouldn't buy so many oats. So Mistah Mahkyn, he made money because Mistah Beman held his oats, but his sellin' made dem oats go down and Mistah Beman, he didn' make nothin'. You undahstan'?"
Peewee did not understand, but he comprehended that if he admitted that he might not hear anything more. "Sure," he prevaricated.
"Den long tahme afteh—yeahs afteh—Mistah Beman and Mistah Mahkyn dey comes to be pahtnahs. But Mistah Beman, he didn't neber fohgit 'bout dem oats; he remembahs an' remembahs, an' remembahs. An' Mistah Beman an' Mistah Mahkyn dey stahted out to cohneh wheat. Dey done bought an' bought an' bought till Mistah Mahkyn he done thought dey had all de wheat into a cohneh. But dey wahn't no cohneh, because Mistah Beman he wuz sellin' all de tahme he wuz buyin', but Mistah Mahkyn he didn' know dat. So in de end, Mistah Beman had all de money and Mistah Mahkyn, he wah ruined.
This was not very plain, Peewee thought, but the result was clear: Mr. Markyn had been "broke" and had sat, probably, alone in his of​fice not knowing how to feed his wife and kids.
"Did Mr. Beman throw up his hat upon the floor?" he asked.
"Ah wouldn't wondah. 'Dat's like what you-all done to me about dem oats,' he said to Mistah Mahkyn; and afteh dat dey never spoke again, and de two fambiles didn't till Miss Marion mahried Mistah Waltah Mahkyn."
Peewee knew about that.
Burtin, when he took him to bed, would have helped him undress, but he would not submit to this indignity. He recalled, as he snuggled into the cool, smooth sheets, in the pleasant room, after the negro had left him, the cement bags among which he had slept the night before, but he thought with more excitement about Matthew Beman.
Beman had been, at one time, no different from Peewee himself, and had perhaps at some time crept in under a tarpaulin and shifted his feverish body through the night among cement bags. He had, it is almost certain, slept in cellars and had eaten unhealthy food from his dirty fingers in alleys and areaways, and had ​had no place to go except the streets. But now Beman had this wonderful house and had servants to get him everything he wanted. He had preserves and other food, and good clothes and motor cars, and knives and spoons and bedclothes which had his initial on them.
Certain doubts had occasionally assailed Peewee as to whether, when he was grown up, he actually would be able to do all the things he contemplated—to have a house larger than his father's and to be a "city-builder" like Jeffrey, Second—but the fact that Beman had been a street boy like himself had silenced all these doubts. Beman had begun when he was eight years old, he had told Peewee, to save money. Peewee resolved that when he got any money again he would save it. He expanded also his ideas of the house that he would have so that it became not merely larger than his father's but larger even than Beman's. He would have a room in it like the one where he had seen the pictures, but finer still, if that was possible, and this room would be for Mrs. Markyn. He decided to tell her of these plans.
​He dressed hurriedly in the morning, so as to be ready to tell her when she came, and after breakfast he sat by the window watching for her, but she did not come. He wandered about the house and looked at things, and several times he went to the room where Beman had been the day before, but there was no one in it.
Late in the afternoon Burtin took him to the library. Beman was waiting for him there.
"Come here," Beman commanded.
Peewee approached uneasily.
"Can you read?"
"I can spell."
"Spell this then—spell it out loud."
Peewee took the written slip of paper which Beman handed him. The first words were his mother's name—Helen Lampert. "Born in Chicago," he then spelled out, "age thirty, never employed, associate of various men in Chicago, New York and Seattle, known also as Helen Howse and Heloise Labell, of late frequenter of West Side cafes."
"What do you think of your mother?" Beman inquired. "Not much, if you're wise."
​"She's dead," Peewee offered hopefully. This appearance of hopefulness concealed an immense anxiety. Beman had not known who Peewee was on the day before; now he knew more about him than Mrs. Markyn did.
"I know she's dead," Beman retorted. "You there when she died?"
"Yes, sir." He had no idea how much Beman knew, and he was afraid to lie.
"Anybody else there?"
"The nurse."
"No one else?"
"No, sir."
"Anybody come there while you were there?"
"No, sir."
"Not a tall men; blue eyes—very blue, like yours; black hair like yours?"
"No, sir." His heart constricted anxiously. Beman, it appeared, knew who his father was.
"Sure about that?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mother did not tell you about any man?"
"No, sir," Peewee lied desperately. Whatever else Beman might know, he could not ​know what had been told him by his mother. They had been quite alone when, with her hot hands covered with their glistening rings, she clutched him down against her and held him while she made him write down his father's name.
"Don't know anything about this then?" Beman held out to him a second paper; this one was a printed clipping.
"'Reward,'" Peewee spelled out. "'For information as to the whereabouts of H. Seabury, approximately eight years old, formerly inmate of St. Anthony's Orphan Asylum and the following boys' homes.'" There was then a list of several homes. It was not signed with a name but merely "Room —, 100 Washington St."
Peewee looked up at Beman with combative eyes. He suspected that Beman might be inclined to claim the reward that was being offered for him.
"Ever see that ad. before?" Beman inquired.
"No, sir."
"Know that address?"
"No, sir."
​"Don't know of any lawyer at that address? Lots of lawyers in that building. Might be one of them, you know."
It was exactly that, Peewee felt certain. He watched Beman's eyes and they showed that Beman knew it was a lawyer. "I don't know," he replied.
"Don't know who's advertising, you mean?"
"No, sir," Peewee iterated determinedly. He had, considering his youth, a disproportionate knowledge of lawyers; they had apparently no business of their own, therefore they were forced to occupy their time with other people's business. The authorities would not be advertising for Peewee through a lawyer. It must be, then, either Lampert or his father that this lawyer represented. Peewee hoped that it was not his father. He was more unwilling to deal with his father than with Lampert. The uneasiness which made him almost sure that it was his father, provoked a dispiriting anxiety. It appeared likely that Beman, knowing who Peewee was and who his father was, would deliver Peewee over to his father.
​"All right; that's all," Beman asserted.
Peewee backed, anxiously, toward the door. "No; wait!" Beman commanded. "Sit over there." He pressed the bell and waited for the servant. When the man appeared he gave him some instructions which Peewee could not hear and then looked at his watch. These signs seemed to indicate that Beman was expecting someone.
Peewee, from the chair to which he had been assigned, watched the old man apprehensively. Who was he expecting? Minutes passed.
Presently the doorbell rang. The servant crossed the hall; the outer door opened and closed. The servant appeared at the door of the library, evidently in accordance with the instruction she had received, and stood aside to let the visitor enter.
Peewee, seeing behind the servant the man whose picture he had looked at in the room upstairs, sidled off his chair in preparation for either flight or battle. The man's likeness to himself was more evident in his person than it had been merely in the picture. Peewee's throat ​closed up, but he recollected that he had told Beman that he did not know his father.
"Come in, Markyn," Beman invited.
Markyn stood looking from the door and not yet seeing Peewee.
"I'd like to know why you sent for me," he began.
When he had got as far as this, he suddenly perceived Peewee. His gaze quickened with surprise, then inquiry. His lips set to a straight line; he whitened and then flushed suddenly and angrily.
"Got a little guest here," Beman explained. "Name H. Seabury." He did not smile; his mouth and eyes had an unpleasant expression.
"Come here, boy," he directed. Peewee in spite of his determination to refuse, went to him.
"This is Mr. Walter Markyn," Beman observed. He was watching Markyn, not Peewee. "Shake hands with him."
Peewee, keeping carefully in mind that he had told Beman that he did not know his father, put out his hand. Walter Markyn turned pale and did not take it.
​"Suit yourself," Beman remarked. Then he looked to the servant. "All right; take the boy away," he directed. "See that he stays upstairs."
Peewee, staring at them determinedly over his shoulder, went to the servant, who led him into the hall and to the stairs.
"You heard what he said," the servant instructed him. "You're to stay upstairs."
"Yes, sir."
He went upstairs while the servant stood watching him. His worst apprehensions, he perceived, had been confirmed. Beman, wanting to protect his granddaughter, was going to turn Peewee over to his father, and they were consulting in the library as to the best way of getting rid of him.