Victor Appleton - "Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle"

Alfred Elwes - "The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too"

Sewell Ford - "Torchy"

James Mark Baldwin - "The Story of the Mind"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Torchy

S >> Sewell Ford >> Torchy




Refined conversation is Piddie's strong hold. It bubbles out of him like
steam out of the oatmeal kettle. Sounds that way, too. You know these
mush eaters, with their, "Ah, I'm su-ah, quite su-ah, doncher know"?
He's got that kind of lingo down to an art. I'll bet he could talk it in
his sleep. I've heard 'em before; but I never looked to hold a sit.
under one.

It's a privilege, though, bein' so close to Piddie. If I don't forget
all the things he tells me, and follows 'em, I'll be made over new in a
month more. He begins with my name. Torchy don't fit right with him. It
might do for some places he didn't mention, but not for the home offices
of the Corrugated Trust.

"Maybe you'd like Reginald better!" says I.

"But--er--aw--is that your baptismal name, my boy?" says he.

"Nix," says I. "I'm no Baptist. And, anyway, I couldn't give up my real
name, cause I'm travelin' incog., and me noble relatives would be
shocked if they knew I was really workin'. You can call me Torchy, or
Reginald, whichever you think of first, and if you be careful to say it
real nice maybe I'll come."

Every time I throws a jolt like that into J. Hemmingway, he looks kind
of stunned and goes off to chew it over. But he gets even all right.
Sometimes he'll take a whole forenoon to dig up somethin' he thinks is
goin' to give me the double cross.

Most of his spare time, though, he puts in tellin' me about how I'm to
behave when Mr. Robert comes back. For the first few days I had an idea
Mr. Robert was the pulley that carried the big belt, and that when he
stopped there was a general shut down. I got nervous watchin' for him.
Then I rounds up the fact that he's Bob Ellins, who cuts more ice in the
society columns than he does in the Wall Street notes.

Piddie has him down for a little tin god, all right, and that wa'n't
such a fool move of Piddie's, either. Some day Hickory Ellins will have
to quit and take the hot baths regular, and then Mr. Robert will get
acquainted with an eight o'clock breakfast. See where Piddie comes in?
He's takin' out insurance on his job. He needs it bad enough. If I ever
get to think as much of a job as Piddie does of his, I'll have some one
nail me to the office chair.

Rule No. 1 on my card was never to let anyone through the brass gate
unless they belonged inside or had a special permit. Piddie wants to
know if I've ever had any experience with that kind of work.

"Say, where do you think I've been!" says I. "Why, I did that trick for
six months, shuntin' dopes away from the Sunday editor's door, and there
was times when nothin' but a club would keep some of 'em out. Back to
the bridge, Piddie! When I'm on the gate it's just as good as though
you'd set the time lock."

Well, I'd been there over one payday and halfway to the next, when one
mornin' about ten-thirty the door comes open with a bang, and in steps a
husky young gent, swingin' one of these dinky, leather-covered canes,
and lookin' like money from the mint. He didn't make any play to draw a
card, same's they generally does; but steers straight for the brass
gate, full tilt. I never says a word; but just as he reaches over to
spring the catch and break in, I shoves my foot out and blocks it at the
bottom, bringin' him up all standin'.

"Say, this ain't no ferryhouse," says I.

"Hello!" says he. "A new one, eh?"

"I ain't any Fourth-ave. antique," says I; "but I'm over seven. Was you
wantin' to see anyone special?"

He seems to think that's a joke. "Why," says he, "I am Mr. Ellins."

"G'wan!" says I. "You ain't half of him."

That reaches his funnybone, too. "You're perfectly right, young man,"
says he; "but I happen to be his son. Now are you satisfied?"

"Nope," says I. "That bluff don't go either. If you was Mr. Robert I'd
have been struck by lightnin' long 'fore this. You've got one more
guess."

Just then I hears a gurgle, like some one's bein' choked with a chicken
bone, and I squints around behind. There was Piddie, lookin' like the
buildin' was fallin' down and tryin' to uncork some remarks.

"Ah, Piddie!" says the gent. "Perhaps you will introduce me to your new
sentry and give me the password."

Well, Piddie did. He almost got on his hands and knees doin' it. And
say, blamed if the duck wa'n't Mr. Robert, after all!

"Gee!" says I, "that was a bad break."

That didn't soothe Piddie, though. He used up the best part of an hour
tryin' to tell me what an awful thing I'd gone and done.

"This ends you, young man!" he says. "You're as good as discharged this
very moment."

"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured
on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't
you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without
it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me,
my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie!
Maybe they'll let you pick out somethin' that suits you better next
time."

He couldn't get over it, though. Along about lunch time he comes out to
me, as solemn as though he's servin' a warrant for homicide, and says
that Mr. Robert will attend to my case now.

"Piddie," says I, givin' him the partin' grip, "you've been a true
friend of mine. When you hear me hit the asphalt, send out for a
chocolate ice cream soda and drown your sorrow."

Then I turns down a page in "Old Sleuth's Revenge" and goes to the
slaughter.

Mr. Robert has just talked about three cylinders full of answers to the
letters that's piled up while he's been gone, and as the girl goes out
with the records he whirls around in the mahogany easy-chair and takes a
good long look at me.

"If it comes as hard as all that," says I, "I'll write out my
resignation."

"Mr. Piddie's been talking to you, I suppose?" says he.

"He's done everything but say mass over me," says I.

"Piddie is a good deal of an----" then he pulls up. "Where the deuce
did he find you?"

"It wasn't him found me," says I; "it was a case of me findin' him; but
if it hadn't been for your old man's buttin' in, that's all the good it
would have done me."

"Ah!" says he. "That explains the mystery. By the way, son, what do they
call you?"

"Guess," says I, and runs me fingers through it. "Just Torchy, and it
suits me as well as Percival or Montgomery."

"Torchy is certainly descriptive," says he. "How long have you been
doing office work?"

"Ever since I could lift a waste basket," says I.

"Are you ambitious?" says he.

"Sure!" says I. "I'm waitin' for some bank president to adopt me."

"You came in here expecting to be discharged, I presume?" says he.

"What, me?" says I. "Nah! I thought you was goin' to ask me over to the
Caffy Martang for lunch."

For a minute or so after that he looks me straight in the eye, and I
gives him the same. And say, for the kind, he ain't so worse. Course, I
wouldn't swap him for Mr. Belmont Pepper, who's the only boss I ever had
that I calls the real thing; but Mr. Robert would get a ratin'
anywhere.

"Torchy," says he after a bit, "I'm inclined to think that you'll do.
Have a chair."

"Don't I get the blue ticket, then?" says I.

"No," says he, "not until you do something worse than obey orders.
Besides you're the cheekiest youth that has ever graced the offices of
the Corrugated Trust, and once in awhile we have use for just such a
quality. For instance, I am tempted to send you on a very important
errand of my own. Wait a moment while I think it over."

"Time out!" says I.

Well say, I didn't know what was comin', he took so long makin' up his
mind. But Mr. Robert ain't one of the kind to go off half cocked. He's
got somethin' on his shoulders besides tailor's paddin', and when he
sets the wheels to movin' you can gamble that he's gettin' somewhere.
After awhile he slaps his knee and says:

"No, there isn't another person around the place who would know how to
go about it. Torchy, I'm going to try you out!"

It wasn't anything like I'd ever been up against before. He hands me an
express receipt and says he wants me to go over to Jersey City and get
what that calls for without landin' in jail.

"You'll see a bundle done up in burlap somewhere around the express
office," says he, "a big bundle. It looks like a side of veal; but it
isn't. It's a deer, one that I shot four days ago up north. Torchy, did
you know that it was illegal to shoot deer during certain months of the
year?"

"You can be pinched for shootin' craps any time," says I.

"Really?" says he.

Then he goes on with his tale, givin' me all the partic'lars, so I
wouldn't make any batty moves. And say, they can think up some queer
stunts, hangin' around the club of an afternoon and lookin' out at
Fifth-ave. through the small end of a glass. This was one of them real
clubby dreams. It started by Mr. Robert countin' himself in on a debate
that he didn't know the beginning of.

"When they asked me if I could do it, I said, 'Of course I can,'" says
he, "and then I asked what it was."

The bunch had been gassin' about an old gun hangin' over the fireplace.
It was one of these old-timers, like they tell about Daniel Boone's
havin', in the Nickel Libr'ies, the kind you load with a stove poker.
Flintlocks--that's it! They was wonderin' if there was anyone left that
could take a relic like that out in the woods and hit anything besides
the atmosphere. And the first thing Mr. Robert knows he has been joshed
into bettin' a hatful of yellowbacks that he can take old Injun killer
out and bring back enough deer meat to feed the crowd--and him knowin'
no more about that sort of act than a one-legged man does about skatin'!
They gives him two weeks to do it in.

That wa'n't the worst of it, though, accordin' to him. They passes the
word around until everyone that knows him is on the broad grin. The joke
is handed across billiard tables between shots, and is circulated around
the boxes at the opera. It's the best ever; for Mr. Robert has never
hunted anything livelier than a Welsh rabbit, after the show.

He's a boy that likes to make good, though. He never makes a brag; but
he boxes up that old shootin' iron and drops out of sight. 'Way up in
the woods somewhere he digs up an old b'gosh artist that was brought up
with one of them guns in his hand, and he takes a private course. After
he's used up a keg of powder shootin' at tin cans they start out to find
where the deers roost. They find 'em, too. Mr. Robert is so rattled that
he misses the one he aims at; but he bores a tunnel through another in
the next lot.

Course, he thinks he's got a cinch then. He hustles to the nearest flag
station and spends eight dollars sendin' telegrams to the bunch,
invitin' 'em to a venison feed at the club. Then he has his game sewed
up neat in meal bags and expressed to John Doe, Jersey City. See how
cute he was? He'd heard about the game laws by that time; so he lays his
plans to duck any trouble. But he hadn't counted on that gang tippin'
off the Jersey game wardens, nor on their trailin' the baggage and
express bundles with huntin' dogs.

"The dogs had smelled it out just as I came in to claim it," says he;
"so all I could do was to keep my mouth closed, standing around and
looking foolish until I got tired and came away. And that, Torchy, is
the situation up to the present moment. My venison is under guard over
in Jersey City, and if it isn't delivered at the club by six o'clock
to-night I shall not only lose my bet, but have my life made miserable
from cheap jokes for months to come. It occurred to me that if your wits
were as bright as the hair that covers them, you might be able to help
me out. What do you think?"

"Chee!" says I, scratchin' me bonfire, "I guess I'm down the coal chute.
I've rescued locked-in typewriter girls from fire escapes, and lied the
boss out of a family row; but I never tried my hand at kidnappin' enough
meat for a dinner party. How about buyin' off the game sleuth?"

"He has been bought by the other side," says Mr. Robert. "He wouldn't
dare to sell them out."

Well, I thunk some more thinks just as punky as that, and then we
settles it that I'm to hike over and take a squint, anyway. I gets him
to give me a line on what kind of a looker the warden was, and he throws
me a couple of tens for campaign expenses. I was just stowin' away the
green stuff as I goes through the outside office, and Piddie's eyebrows
go up.

"They're goin' to let me finish out the week," says I. "Ain't they the
gentle things?"

Then I skips out for the 23d-st. boat, leavin' Piddie with his mouth
open, and Mr. Robert wrapped up with the idea that, some way or other,
I'm goin' to talk that game cop into a dope dream and rescue the roast.

But, say, I didn't need to look twice at that snoozer to see that no
line of hot air I had in stock would soften him up. He had an undershot
jaw, a pair of eyes that saw both sides of the street at once, and a
head like a choppin' block. He was sittin' right alongside of that
burlap bundle, waitin' to spring his tin badge on some one.

"Do they send such things as that through without cratin'?" says I to a
guy behind the chicken wire, jerkin' me thumb at Mr. Sleuth. "What's the
label on him?"

"That's Mr. Hinkey Tolliver, special officer," says he. "Better look
out or he'll break a hand grenade on that still alarm of yours."

"Ah, back to the blotter!" says I. "Who gave you any license to make
funny cracks on my Mrs. Leslie Carter disguise?"

We swapped a few more like that, while I sizes up Hinkey, tryin' to map
out a way to brace him. But it was a losin' proposition. He has one of
them eyes nailed to what I wanted to take away and the other trained on
the door, and you could tell by the way he held his jaw that nothin'
short of an earthquake would jar him loose.

It was too much for me. If it hadn't been that Mr. Robert had put it up
to me so flat, I'd have quit then. But I couldn't lay down with just a
look; so I takes a turn around into the passenger waitin' room, battin'
my head for a new line.

I guess it was kind of second sight that steers me over into the corner
where there is an A. D. T. branch. I wa'n't lookin' for anyone I knew,
seein' it's been so long since I wore the cap; but who should I pipe
off, sittin' on the call bench, but Hunch Leary! And, say, between the
time I'd give him the nod to come out, and his askin' how it was I'd
shook the red stripe, I'd framed up the whole scheme. First I goes over
to the girl under the blue bell and rings up Mr. Robert.

"Hello," says I, "this is Torchy."

"Good!" says he. "Have you got it?"

"Got nothin'!" says I. "You must think I'm a writ of habeas corpus. I
want to know who was the gent that most likely tipped off your warden
friend."

When I'd got that I asks the time of the next uptown boat, and makes a
deal with one of them ferry hawks to back his chariot up near the
express office door and be ready to make a swift move for the gangplank.

Then me and Hunchy fakes up this little billy ducks to Mr. Hinkey
Tolliver, tellin' him to chase to the nearest 'phone and call up the
gent that Mr. Robert had put me wise to.

It was worse'n playin' a three-ball combination for the side pocket, and
I holds my breath while Hunch pokes his book at him and waits to see if
there's any answer. Tolliver, he reads it over two or three times, first
with one eye and then the other. One minute I thought he was goin', and
the next he settles back like he'd made up his mind to balk. He squints
at the burlap package, and then at the message, and all of a sudden he
makes a break for the 'phone.

He hadn't begun movin' before I was up to the window with my receipt,
callin' for 'em to get a hustle on, as Mr. Doe had run out of veal and
had to have it in a hurry. Ever try to poke up one of them box
jugglers? They took their time about it--and me lookin' for trouble
every tick of the clock! But I got an O. K. on it after awhile, and for
a quarter I hired a wagon helper to drag the bundle out and chuck it
into the hansom. Then I climbs in and we made the boat just as the bell
rang. She was pullin' out of the slip when Tolliver rushes out about as
calm as a bulldog chasin' a tramp.

"Say," says the driver, climbin' down to take a look at the baggage,
"who you got sewed in the sack!"

"Get on your perch!" says I. "Ain't you makin' extra money on this? And
when you fetch up at the club, do it like you was used to stoppin' at
such places."

It was a great ride that me and the deer meat had across town and up
Fifth-ave. I'd stopped once to put Mr. Robert next; so he was waitin'
for me out in front of the club, wearin' a grin that was better'n a
breakfast food ad.

But that wa'n't anything to the look on Piddie when Mr. Robert shows up
next mornin' and pats me on the back like I was one of his old Hasty
Puddin' chums.

"Piddie," says I, "look what it is to be born handsome and lucky, all in
one throw!"




CHAPTER III

MEETING UP WITH THE GREAT SKID


Next time you nabs me writin' a form sheet on any unknown, you can hang
out the waste paper sign and send me to the scows. Look at the mess I
makes of this here Mallory business! Why, first off I has him billed for
a Percy boy that had strayed into the general office from the drygoods
district. He had a filin' job in the bond room, and when he drew his
envelope on Saturdays it must have set the Corrugated Trust back for as
much as twelve D.

Course, I didn't pay no attention to him, until one noon I finds him in
the next chair at the dairy lunch. He's got his mug of half white and
half black, and his two corned beef splits, with plenty of mustard, and
he's just squarin' off for a foodfest, when I squats down with two hunks
of pie and all the cheese I could get at one grab.

"Hello, Algy!" says I. "Where's the charlotte russe and the cup of tea?"

"Beg pardon," says he; "were you speaking to me?"

"Sure," says I. "You didn't think I was makin' that crack at the
armchair, did you? Maybe we ain't been introduced; but we're on the same
payroll."

"Oh, yes," says he, "I remember now. You're the--the----"

"Go on, say it," says I. "I don't mind if it is red, and I lets anybody
call me Torchy that wants to, even Willies."

"Well, now, that's nice of you," says he, sidetrackin' a bite to look me
over. Then he grins.

Say, it was that open face movement that made me suspicious maybe he
wa'n't one of the Algernon kind, after all. But he had most of the
points, from the puff tie to the way he spoke. It wa'n't the hot potato
dialect Piddie uses; but it leaned that way. If he'd been a real Willie
boy, though, he'd gone up in the air, and maybe I'd got slapped on the
wrist. His springin' that grin was a hunch for me to hold the decision.

"How long you been keepin' Corrugated stocks from goin' below par?" says
I.

That stuns him for a minute, and then a light breaks. He throws another
grin. "Oh, about a year," he says.

"Chee!" says I. "And they ain't put you on the board of directors yet?"

"I've managed to keep off so far," says he.

"Get a lift every quarter, though, I suppose?" says I.

"I'm getting the same salary I began with, if that's what you mean,"
says he, tacklin' another sandwich that had got past the meat
inspectors.

"Yours must be fatter'n most of the Saturday prize packages they hand
out in the general office, or you wouldn't have kept satisfied so long,"
says I.

He thinks that over for awhile, like it was a new proposition, and then
he says, quiet and easy, "I'm not at all sure, you see, that I am
satisfied."

"Why not chuck it then and make another grab?" says I. "It's good luck
sometimes to shake the bag."

He swings his shoulders up at that,--and say, he's got a good pair, all
right!--but he don't say a word.

"Ain't married the job, have you?" says I. "Or have you lost your
nerve?"

"Perhaps it's a lack of nerve, as you suggest," says he, more as if he
was talkin' to himself than anything else.

"Don't think you could connect with another, eh?" says I.

He shakes his head. "I'm not exactly proud of the fact," says he; "but I
don't mind telling you in confidence that it required the combined
efforts of my entire family and all my friends to get me into this job."

"Honest?" says I. "Chee! They picked a pippin for you, didn't they?"

"It's a star," says he.

"So's a swift kick from the bottom of a well," says I.

With that I shakes off the pie crumbs and takes a chase up around the
Flatiron, to watch the kids collectin' cigar coupons and take a look at
the folks from the goshfry-mighty belt shiverin' in the rubberneck
buggies. Say, I never feel quite so much to home in this burg as when I
watch them jays from the one-night stands payin' their coin to see
things that I shut my eyes on every day.

When I gets back on the gate I tries to figure out this Mallory gent;
but I can't place him. He's no Willie, and he's no dope, I can see that.
With his age and general get-up, though, he ought to be pullin' out
fifty or so a week. What's he been at all this time?

I was just curious enough to stroll over and take a look at him. He has
his coat off, pluggin' away on the job and doin' the kind of work that I
could learn to play with any time I had a day off. Not that I'm lookin'
for it. Bein' head office boy suits me down to the ground. That's bein'
somethin', even if they do pay you off with a five and a one. But if
you're a live one you'll get tipped as much more. And you don't have
cold chills up the spine every time the boss lugs down an after
breakfast grouch.

Course, a duck like Mallory can't get in any such game; so he's got to
dig away at the filin' case and wear his last summer's suit until
Christmas. Diggin' and keepin' quiet seemed to be his only play. Just as
though he'd ever win any medals by the way he stacked papers away in
little pasteboard boxes!

He wins somethin' else, though. One day the general manager rushes into
Mallory's corner after somethin' he wanted in a hurry, and by the time
he'd found it he'd pied things from one end of the coop to the other.
Mallory was just tryin' to straighten out the mess, when along comes
Piddie, with that pointed nose of his in front. Piddie don't ask any
questions; he throws a fit. Why, he had Mallory on the carpet for forty
minutes by the clock, givin' him the grand roast, and the only time
Mallory opens up to tell him how it was he shuts him off with a, "That
is sufficient, Mr. Mallory! I am here to get results, not excuses. Is
that quite clear?"

"Yes, sir," says Mallory.

Say, but he did it well! He looks that peanut headed snipe straight in
the eye all the time after that and takes what's comin' to him without
turnin' a hair. It was "Yes, Mr. Piddie," and "No, Mr. Piddie"; but
nothin' else. And the cooler and politer he was, the wilder Piddie got.
When I hears him tell Mallory that another such break will cost him his
job, I was achin' to throw the letterpress at him and break him in two.
I couldn't hardly wait for Mallory to shut the door before I let loose.

"Say, Piddie," says I, "if you don't think you'll sleep easy to-night
unless you give some one the bounce, why not fire me? Go on, now; I'll
make out a case for you. Tell 'em I said you howled around like a pup
with a sore ear."

Piddie turns white and gives me the glassy eye--that's all. I couldn't
tease a fire out of him with a box of matches.

But that didn't make up for the way he'd roughed Mallory. I was still
sore over it at closin' time; so I lays for Mallory and asks him why he
didn't risk the job and take a crack at Piddie's jaw.

He just laughs. "Oh," says he, "I couldn't pay him that compliment."

Was that a joke, yes? Blamed if I could tell. Anyway, it wa'n't sense.
And there's where I had the front to put it straight up to Mallory about
his bein' stranded in a place where he had to take such pin jabbin' as
that.

"Say," says I, "is it hard luck, or a late start, or what?"

"I fancy a late start would cover it," says he.

"Not college?" says I.

"That's it," says he.

"Aw, fudge!" says I. "Honest, I didn't take you for one of them rah-rah
boys. Well, if it's that ails you, you're up against it. I don't wonder
you had to be jammed into a job with a flyin' wedge. Chee!"

I was sorry for him, though. Maybe it was somethin' he couldn't duck.
Some of 'em I've known of couldn't. Oh, I've seen bunches of 'em, just
turned out. Didn't we have more'n a dozen unloaded on us when me and Mr.
Marshall was gettin' out the Sunday edition? And we didn't do a thing to
'em, either!

But it's a tough deal, after puttin' in all that time dodgin' the fool
killer at some one else's expense, to be chucked into the grub game with
nothin' but a lot of siss-boom yells for experience. I wouldn't have
believed Mallory was that sort. Nice young feller, too. Never slung any
of his Greek at me, nor flashed his college pins. Seemed to kind of like
chinnin' to me at lunch; so I let him. You know how you'll get to
gassin' and tellin' each other the story of your life. I lets out about
Belmont Pepper and the minin' stocks he gave me, and Mallory drops hints
about mother and sister, that was livin' off in Washington or somewhere
with a brother that was in better luck. Mallory, he was doin' the hall
bedroom act, livin' on that twelve per and keepin' out of sight of
everyone he'd ever known until he'd made good. Guess he found it kind of
a lonesome deal.

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