Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

Then when they were finally back safely with the tusks after all the things that had happened and the tusks were propped against the wall of the stick and mud house, leaning there with their points touching, the tusks so tall and thick that no one could believe them even when they touched them and no one, not even his father, could reach to the top of the bend where they curved in for the points to meet, there when Juma and his father and he were heroes and Kibo was a hero’s dog and the men who had carried the tusks were heroes, already slightly drunk heroes and to be drunker, his father had said, “Do you want to make peace, Davey?”

“All right,” he said because he knew this was the start of the never telling that he had decided on.

“I’m so glad,” his father said. “It’s so much simpler and better.”

Then they sat on old men’s stools under the shade of the fig tree with the tusks against the wall of the hut and drank beer from gourd cups that were brought by a young girl and her younger brother, the servant of heroes, sitting in the dust by the heroic dog of a hero who held an old cockerel, newly promoted to the standing of the heroes’ favorite rooster. They sat there and drank beer while the big drum started and the ngoma began to build.

Part III

Previously Unpublished Fiction

“A Train Trip” represents the first four chapters of an unfinished and untitled Lardneresque novel. These scenes form a fine short story in the vein of “The Battler” and “Fifty Grand.”

A Train Trip

MY FATHER TOUCHED ME AND I WAS awake. He stood by the bed in the dark. I felt his hand on me and I was wide awake in my head and saw and felt things but all the rest of me was asleep.

“Jimmy,” he said, “are you awake?”

“Yes.”

“Get dressed then.”

“All right.”

He stood there and I wanted to move but I was really still asleep.

“Get dressed, Jimmy.”

“All right,” I said but I lay there. Then the sleep was gone and I moved out of bed.

“Good boy,” my father said. I stood on the rug and felt for my clothes at the foot of the bed.

“They’re on the chair,” my father said. “Put on your shoes and stockings too.” He went out of the room. It was cold and complicated getting dressed; I had not worn shoes and stockings all summer and it was not pleasant putting them on. My father came back in the room and sat on the bed.

“Do the shoes hurt?”

“They pinch.”

“If the shoe pinches put it on.”

“I’m putting it on.”

“We’ll get some other shoes,” he said. “It’s not even a principle, Jimmy. It’s a proverb.”

“I see.”

“Like two against one is nigger fun. That’s a proverb too.”

“I like that one better than about the shoe,” I said.

“It’s not so true,” he said. “That’s why you like it. The pleasanter proverbs aren’t so true.” It was cold and I tied my other shoe and was finished dressing.

“Would you like button shoes?” my father asked.

“I don’t care.”

“You can have them if you like,” he said. “Everybody ought to have button shoes if they like.”

“I’m all ready.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going a long way.”

“Where to?”

“Canada.”

“We’ll go there too,” he said. We went out to the kitchen. All the shutters were closed and there was a lamp on the table. In the middle of the room was a suitcase, a duffel bag, and two rucksacks. “Sit down at the table,” my father said. He brought the frying pan and the coffee pot from the stove and sat down beside me and we ate ham and eggs and drank coffee with condensed cream in it.

“Eat all you can.”

“I’m full.”