Transformation of Martin Burney

by O. Henry

　　

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In behalf of Sir Walter's soothing plant let us look into the case ofMartin Burney.They were constructing the Speedway along the west bank of the HarlemRiver. The grub-boat of Dennis Corrigan, sub-contractor, was moored to atree on the bank. Twenty-two men belonging to the little green islandtoiled there at the sinew-cracking labour. One among them, who wrought inthe kitchen of the grub-boat was of the race of the Goths. Over them allstood the exorbitant Corrigan, harrying them like the captain of a galleycrew. He paid them so little that most of the gang, work as they might, earned little more than food and tobacco; many of them were in debt tohim. Corrigan boarded them all in the grub-boat, and gave them good grub,for he got it back in work.Martin Burney was furthest behind of all. He was a little man, allmuscles and hands and feet, with a gray-red, stubbly beard. He was toolight for the work, which would have glutted the capacity of a steamshovel.The work was hard. Besides that, the banks of the river were humming withmosquitoes. As a child in a dark room fixes his regard on the pale lightof a comforting window, these toilers watched the sun that brought aroundthe one hour of the day that tasted less bitter. After the sundown supperthey would huddle together on the river bank, and send the mosquitoeswhining and eddying back from the malignant puffs of twenty-three reekingpipes. Thus socially banded against the foe, they wrenched out of thehour a few well-smoked drops from the cup of joy.Each week Burney grew deeper in debt. Corrigan kept a small stock ofgoods on the boat, which he sold to the men at prices that brought him noloss. Burney was a good customer at the tobacco counter. One sack whenhe went to work in the morning and one when he came in at night, so muchwas his account swelled daily. Burney was something of a smoker. Yet itwas not true that he ate his meals with a pipe in his mouth, which hadbeen said of him. The little man was not discontented. He had plenty toeat, plenty of tobacco, and a tyrant to curse; so why should not he, anIrishman, be well satisfied?One morning as he was starting with the others for work he stopped at thepine counter for his usual sack of tobacco."There's no more for ye," said Corrigan. "Your account's closed. Ye area losing investment. No, not even tobaccy, my son. No more tobaccy onaccount. If ye want to work on and eat, do so, but the smoke of ye hasall ascended. 'Tis my advice that ye hunt a new job.""I have no tobaccy to smoke in my pipe this day, Mr. Corrigan," saidBurney, not quite understanding that such a thing could happen to him."Earn it," said Corrigan, "and then buy it."Burney stayed on. He knew of no other job. At first he did not realizethat tobacco had got to be his father and mother, his confessor andsweetheart, and wife and child.For three days he managed to fill his pipe from the other men's sacks, andthen they shut him off, one and all. They told him, rough but friendly,that of all things in the world tobacco must be quickest forthcoming to afellow-man desiring it, but that beyond the immediate temporary needrequisition upon the store of a comrade is pressed with great danger tofriendship.Then the blackness of the pit arose and filled the heart of Burney.Sucking the corpse of his deceased dudheen, he staggered through hisduties with his barrowful of stones and dirt, feeling for the first timethat the curse of Adam was upon him. Other men bereft of a pleasure mighthave recourse to other delights, but Burney had only two comforts inlife. One was his pipe, the other was an ecstatic hope that there wouldbe no Speedways to build on the other side of Jordan.At meal times he would let the other men go first into the grub-boat, andthen he would go down on his hands and knees, grovelling fiercely upon theground where they had been sitting, trying to find some stray crumbs oftobacco. Once he sneaked down the river bank and filled his pipe withdead willow leaves. At the first whiff of the smoke he spat in thedirection of the boat and put the finest curse he knew on Corrigan -- onethat began with the first Corrigans born on earth and ended with theCorrigans that shall hear the trumpet of Gabriel blow. He began to hateCorrigan with all his shaking nerves and soul. Even murder occurred tohim in a vague sort of way. Five days he went without the taste oftobacco -- he who had smoked all day and thought the night misspent inwhich he had not awakened for a pipeful or two under the bedclothes.One day a man stopped at the boat to say that there was work to be had inthe Bronx Park, where a large number of labourers were required in makingsome improvements.After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the river bank away from themaddening smell of the others' pipes. He sat down upon a stone. He wasthinking he would set out for the Bronx. At least he could earn tobaccothere. What if the books did say he owed Corrigan? Any man's work wasworth his keep. But then he hated to go without getting even with thehard-hearted screw who had put his pipe out. Was there any way to do it?Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of the race of Goths, whoworked in the kitchen. He grinned at Burney's elbow, and that unhappyman, full of race animosity and holding urbanity in contempt, growled athim: "What d'ye want, ye -- Dago?"Tony also contained a grievance -- and a plot. He, too, was a Corriganhater, and had been primed to see it in others."How you like-a Mr. Corrigan?" he asked. "You think-a him a nice-a man?""To hell with 'm," he said. "May his liver turn to water, and the bonesof him crack in the cold of his heart. May dog fennel grow upon hisancestors' graves, and the grandsons of his children be born withouteyes. May whiskey turn to clabber in his mouth, and every time he sneezesmay he blister the soles of his feet. And the smoke of his pipe -- may itmake his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass that his cows eat andpoison the butter that he spreads on his bread."Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties of this imagery, hegathered from it the conviction that it was sufficiently anti-Corrigan inits tendency. So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he sat byBurney upon the stone and unfolded his plot.It was very simple in design. Every day after dinner it was Corrigan'shabit to sleep for an hour in his bunk. At such times it was the duty ofthe cook and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noise mightdisturb the autocrat. The cook always spent this hour in walkingexercise. Tony's plan was this: After Corrigan should be asleep he (Tony)and Burney would cut the mooring ropes that held the boat to the shore.Tony lacked the nerve to do the deed alone. Then the awkward boat wouldswing out into a swift current and surely overturn against a rock therewas below."Come on and do it," said Burney. "If the back of ye aches from the lickhe gave ye as the pit of me stomach does for the taste of a bit of smoke,we can't cut the ropes too quick.""All a-right," said Tony. "But better wait 'bout-a ten minute more.Give-a Corrigan plenty time get good-a sleep."They waited, sitting upon the stone. The rest of the men were at work outof sight around a bend in the road. Everything would have gone well --except, perhaps, with Corrigan, had not Tony been moved to decorate theplot with its conventional accompaniment. He was of dramatic blood, andperhaps he intuitively divined the appendage to villainous machinations asprescribed by the stage. He pulled from his shirt bosom a long, black,beautiful, venomous cigar, and handed it to Burney."You like-a smoke while we wait?" he asked.Burney clutched it and snapped off the end as a terrier bites at a rat.He laid it to his lips like a long-lost sweetheart. When the smoke beganto draw he gave a long, deep sigh, and the bristles of his gray-redmoustache curled down over the cigar like the talons of an eagle. Slowlythe red faded from the whites of his eyes. He fixed his gaze dreamilyupon the hills across the river. The minutes came and went."'Bout time to go now," said Tony. "That damn-a Corrigan he be in thereever very quick."Burney started out of his trance with a grunt. He turned his head andgazed with a surprised and pained severity at his accomplice. He took thecigar partly from his mouth, but sucked it back again immediately, chewedit lovingly once or twice, and spoke, in virulent puffs, from the cornerof his mouth:"What is it, ye yaller haythen? Would ye lay contrivances against theenlightened races of the earth, ye instigator of illegal crimes? Would yeseek to persuade Martin Burney into the dirty tricks of an indecent Dago?Would ye be for murderin' your benefactor, the good man that gives ye foodand work? Take that, ye punkin-coloured assassin!"The torrent of Burney's indignation carried with it bodily assault. Thetoe of his shoe sent the would-be cutter of ropes tumbling from his seat.Tony arose and fled. His vendetta he again relegated to the files ofthings that might have been. Beyond the boat he fled and away-away; hewas afraid to remain.Burney, with expanded chest, watched his late coplotter disappear. Thenhe, too, departed, setting his face in the direction of the Bronx.In his wake was a rank and pernicious trail of noisome smoke that broughtpeace to his heart and drove the birds from the roadside into the deepestthickets.

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