The American Short Story. A Chronological History: Volume 7 - Sinclair Lewis to Robert E Howard

By Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Wolfe and Robert E Howard

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Sep 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781803540597

Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American author and playwright. As a child, Lewis struggled to fit in with both his peers and family. He was much more sensitive and introspective than his brothers, so he had a difficult time connecting to his father. Lewis’ troubling childhood was one of the reasons he was drawn to religion, though he would struggle with it throughout most of his young adult life, until he became an atheist. Known for his critical views of American capitalism and materialism, Lewis was often praised for his authenticity as a writer. With over twenty novels, four plays, and around seventy short stories, Lewis was a very prolific author. In 1930, Sinclair Lewis became the first American to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, setting an inspiring precedent for future American writers.

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The American Short Story

A Chronological History

Volume 7 – Sinclair Lewis to Robert E Howard

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation.

From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own.

America prides itself on liberty, on justice for all and, if you are a wealthy white man, that is essentially true.  It is a marketing banner that it holds as the beacon of its destiny.

Sadly, many other segments of society find it difficult to feel or become part of this endeavour.

Within this chronological history of the American short story, that prejudice has helped shape the borders of those two endless questions about any anthology.  Why that story? Why that Author?

We made some hard choices.  We start with Uriah Derrick Dárcy, an unlikely American name and, to all intents, it appears to be a pseudonym, about whom little is known or can be verified. He leads our literary parade.  What could be more unusual than a story with poetry about a Black Vampyre?  From here leviathans appear on a regular basis; Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Twain but also note how many women are here and not just Stowe, Alcott and Chopin.  Women’s status as writers is often neglected or undervalued, predominantly due to their second-class social status throughout much of history but their stories, their angles of approach to writing are both expertly crafted and refreshing. 

Another stain on the social and cultural fabric of American has been that of Race.  Black people were harshly and unfairly treated as a matter of course.  The Civil War may have opened the door but in reality little changed.  The majority of the stories included here written by black authors are disturbing in the wrongs they were accused of, and the burdens they were forced to carry.  This eye-opening literature enables us to once more take stock and applaud and bring some glimmers of recognition to their struggles and their art. Stories, in their words, illuminate in different ways, explain on deeper levels. 

There are some authors, liberally sprinkled throughout, both male and female who may previously have escaped your attention.  Enjoy them.  Adore them.  Make them part of your everyday reading and listening.  These forgotten voices are fine examples both of their craft, their art, and their take on society as it was then.

One question that is often heard is why are there so many pieces of writing that I might have missed.  In the period we cover from the late 18th Century, around the time of the American Revolution, up until the catastrophe of World War 2, the printing press was creating a market to share words.  With industrialization and a large swathe of people eager to be distracted from hard working lives, a plethora of magazines and periodicals shot up, all clamoring for works to publish, to share those words, to introduce new ideas and explain how some of us view ourselves and each other.  Some of these authors were only published that way, one story wonders—hitched to the fading star of a disposable periodical. 

And, of course, the elephant in the room was the English.  In its early days US copyright law was non-existent and didn’t recognise anyone else’s.  Publishers were free to take the talents of Dickens, Trollope and anyone else and freely print it without permission or coin.   Competing against that, gave you a decided disadvantage.

Within these stories you will also find very occasional examples of historical prejudice.  A few words here and there which in today’s world some may find inappropriate or even offensive.  It is not our intention to make anyone uncomfortable but to show that the world in order to change must reconcile itself to the actual truth rather than put it out of sight.  Context is everything, both to understand and to illuminate the path forward.  The author’s words are set, our reaction to them encourages our change.

Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: The American short story Literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.  Which is here.

Index of Contents

Speed by Sinclair Lewis

The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner

The Hoodoo by Martha Gruening

The Tattooed Leg by John Chilton

The Rats in the Walls by H P Lovecraft

In No Strange Land by Katharine Butler

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F Scott Fitzgerald

The City of Refuge by Rudolph Fisher

A Cullenden of Virginia by Thomas Wolfe

Grist in the Mill by William Thurman

The Moaning Lily by Emma Vane

Stars in the Skulls by Robert E Howard

Speed by Sinclair Lewis

At two in the morning, on Main Street of a Nebraska prairie town that ought to have been asleep since ten, a crowd was packed under a lone arc-light, chattering, laughing, and every moment peering down the dim street to westward.

Out in the road were two new automobile tires, and cans of gasoline, oil, water. The hose of a pressure air-pump stretched across the cement sidewalk, and beside it was an air-gauge in a new chamois case. Across the street a restaurant was glaring with unshaded electric lights; and a fluffy-haired, pert-nose girl alternately ran to the window and returned to look after the food she was keeping warm. The president of the local motor club, who was also owner of the chief garage, kept stuttering to a young man in brown union overalls, Now be all ready—for land’s sake, be ready. Remember, gotta change those casings in three minutes. They were awaiting a romantic event—the smashing of the cross-continent road-record by a Mallard car driven by J. T. Buffum.

Everyone there had seen pictures of Buffum in the sporting and automobile pages of the Lincoln and Kansas City papers; everyone knew that face, square, impassive, heavy-cheeked, kindly, with the unsmoked cigar between firm teeth, and the almost boyish bang over a fine forehead. Two days ago he had been in San Francisco, between the smeared gold of Chink dens and the tumult of the Pacific. Two days from now he would be in distant New York.

Miles away on the level prairie road a piercing jab of light grew swiftly into two lights, while a distant drum-roll turned into the burring roar of a huge unmuffled engine. The devouring thing burst into town, came fulminating down on them, stopped with a clashing jerk. The crowd saw the leather-hooded man at the mighty steering wheel nod to them, grinning, human, companionable—the great Buffum.

Hurray! Hurray! came the cries, and the silence changed to weaving gossip.

Already the garage youngster, with his boss and three men from another garage, was yanking off two worn casings, filling the gas tank, the oil well, the radiator. Buffum stiffly crawled from the car, stretched his shoulders, his mighty arms and legs, in a leonine yawn. Jump out, Roy. Eats here, he muttered to the man in the passenger seat. This man the spectators did not heed. He was merely Buffum’s mechanic and relay driver, a poor thing who had never in his life driven faster than ninety miles an hour.

The garage owner hustled Buffum across to the lunchroom. The moment the car had stormed into town the pretty waitress, jumping up and down with impatience, had snatched the chicken from the warming oven, poured out the real coffee, proudly added real cream. The lunch and the changing of casings took three and a quarter minutes.

The clatter of the motor smote the quiet houses and was gone. The town became drab and dull. The crowd yawned and fumbled its way home.

Buffum planned to get in two hours of sleep after leaving this Nebraska town. Roy Bender, the relay driver, took the wheel. Buffum sat with his relaxed body swaying to the leaping motion, while he drowsily commented in a hoarse, slow shout that pushed through the enveloping roar: Look out for that hill, Roy. Going to be slippery.

How can you tell?

I don’t know. Maybe I smell it. But watch out, anyway. Good night, little playmate. Wake me up at four-fifteen.

That was all of the conversation for seventy-two miles.

It was dawn when Buffum drove again. He was silent; he was concentrated on keeping the speedometer just two miles higher than seemed safe. But for a mile or so, on straight stretches, he glanced with weary happiness at the morning meadows, at shimmering tapestry of grass and young wheat, and caught half a note of the song of a meadowlark. His mouth, so grimly tight in dangerous places, rose at the corners.

Toward noon, as Buffum was approaching the village of Apogee, Iowa, the smooth blaring of the motor was interrupted by a noise as though the engine was flying to pieces.

He yanked at the switch; before the car had quite halted, Roy and he had tumbled out at opposite sides, were running forward to lift the hood. The fan-guard, a heavy wire soldered on the radiator, had worked loose and bent a fan-blade, which had ripped out a handful of honeycomb. The inside of the radiator looked as though it had been hacked with a dull knife. The water was cascading out.

Buffum speculated: Apogee next town. Can’t get radiator there. None nearer ‘n Clinton. Get this soldered. Here! You!

The Here! You! was directed at the driver of an ancient roadster. Got to hustle this boat into next town. Want you to haul me in.

Roy Bender had already snatched a tow-rope from the back of the racing car, was fastening it to the front axle of the Mallard, the rear of the roadster.

Buffum gave no time for disputes. I’m J. T. Buffum. Racin’ ‘cross continent. Here’s ten dollars. Want your machine ten minutes. I’ll drive. He had crowded into the seat. Already, with Roy steering the Mallard, they were headed for Apogee.

A shouting crowd ran out from house and store. Buffum slowly looked them over. Of a man in corduroy trousers and khaki shirt, who had plumped out of a garage, he demanded: Who’s the best solderer in town?

I am. Good as anybody in Iowa.

Now, wait! Know who I am?

Sure! You’re Buffum.

My radiator is shot to thunder. Got to be soldered. I want six hours’ work done in one hour, or less. How about the hardware store? Isn’t there a solderer there that’s even better than you?

Yes, I guess maybe old Frank Dieters is.

Get him, and get the other good man, and get busy. One of you work on each side. Roy Bender here will boss you. Already Roy was taking down the radiator. One hour, remember. Hurry! Plenty of money in it—

Oh, we don’t care anything about the money!

Thanks, old man. Well, I might as well grab a little sleep. Where’ll I get a long-distance connection? he yawned.

Across the street at Mrs. Rivers’. Be less noise than in the garage, I guess.

Over the way was a house that was a large square box with an octagonal cupola on the mansard roof. It was set back in a yard of rough grass and old crabapple trees. At the gate were a smallish, severe woman, in spectacles and apron, and a girl of twenty-five or—six. Buffum looked at the girl twice, and tried to make out what it was that distinguished her from all the other women in the crowd that had come pushing and giggling to see the famous car.

She was sharply individualized. It was not that she was tall and blazing. She was slight—and delicate as a drypoint etching. Her chin was precise though soft; she had a Roman nose, a feminized charming version of the Roman nose. The thing that made her distinctive, Buffum reflected, was her poise. The girl by the gate was as quietly aloof as the small cold moon of winter.

He plodded across the road. He hesitated before speaking.

I hope there hasn’t been an accident, she murmured to him.

No, just a small repair.

But, why does everyone seem so much concerned?

Why, it’s—it’s—I’m J. T. Buffum.

Mr.—uh—Buffum?

I reckon you never heard of me.

Why, uh—should I have? Her eyes were serious, regretful at discourtesy.

No. You shouldn’t. I just mean—Motor-fans usually have. I’m a racer. I’m driving from San Francisco to New York.

Really? It will take you—ten days?

Four to five days.

In two days you will be in the East? See the—the ocean? Oh!

In her voice was wistfulness. Her eyes saw far-off things. But they came back to Apogee, Iowa, and to the big, dusty man in leather, with a penitent: I’m ashamed not to have heard of you, but I—we haven’t a car. I hope they will make your repair quickly. May Mother and I give you a glass of milk or something?

I’d be glad if you’d let me use your telephone. So noisy at—

Of course! Mother, this is Mr. Buffum, who is driving across the country. Oh—my name is Aurilla Rivers.

Buffum awkwardly tried to bow in two directions at once. Then he followed Aurilla Rivers’ slender back. He noticed how smooth were her shoulder-blades. They were neither jagged nor wadded. It seemed to him that the blue silk of her waist took life from the warm and eager flesh beneath. In her studied serenity she had not lost her youth.

As he drew away from the prying crowd and the sound of hasty hammers and wrenches, he was conscious of clinging peace. The brick of the walk was worn to a soft rose, shaded by gently moving branches of lilac bushes. At the end was a wild-grape arbor and an ancient bench. The arbor was shadowy, and full of the feeling of long and tranquil years. In this land of new houses and new red barns and blazing miles of wheat, it seemed mysterious with antiquity.

And on the doorstep was the bleached vertebra of a whale. Buffum was confused. He traveled so much and so swiftly that he always had to stop to think whether he was East or West, and now—Yes, this was Iowa. Of course. But that vertebra belonged to New England.

And to New England belonged the conch shell and the mahogany table in the wide hall with its strip of rag-carpet down which Miss Rivers led him to the telephone—an old-fashioned wall instrument. Buffum noticed that Miss Rivers conscientiously disappeared through the wide door at the end of the hall into a garden of pinks and pansies and sweet William.

Please get me long distance.

I’m long distance and short distance and—

All right. This is Buffum, the transcontinental racer. I want to talk to Detroit, Michigan—Mallard Motor Company—office of the president.

He waited ten minutes. He sat on the edge of a William and Mary chair, and felt obese, clumsy, extremely dirty. He ventured off his chair—disapproving of the thunder of his footsteps—and stood at the door of the parlor. The corner by the bow window seemed to be a shrine. Above a genuine antediluvian haircloth sofa were three pictures. In the center was a rather good painting of a man who was the very spirit of 1850 in New England—burnsides, grim white forehead, Roman nose, prim triangle of shirt-front. On the right was a watercolor of a house, white doored, narrow eaved, small windowed, standing out against gray sand and blue water, with a moored motor-dory beyond. On the woodshed end of the pictured house was nailed up the name-board of a ship—Penninah Sparrow.

On the left of the portrait was a fairly recent enlarged photograph of a man somewhat like the granther of 1850, so far as Romanness of nose went, but weaker and more pompous, a handsome old buck, with a pretentious broad eyeglass ribbon and hair that must have been silvery over a face that must have been deep-flushed.

By the sofa was a marble-topped stand on which were fresh sweet peas.

Then central called, and Buffum was talking to the president of the Mallard Motor Company, who for two days and nights had sat by the ticker, watching his flashing progress.

Hello, chief. Buffum speaking. Held up for about an hour. Apogee, Iowa. Think I can make it up. But better move the schedule up through Illinois and Indiana. Huh? Radiator leak. ‘By!

He inquired the amount of toll, and rambled out to the garden. He had to hurry away, of course, and get some sleep, but it would be good for him to see Aurilla Rivers again, to take with him the memory of her cool resoluteness. She was coming toward him. He meekly followed her back through the hall, to the front steps. There he halted her. He would see quite enough of Roy Bender and the car before he reached New York.

Please sit down here a moment, and tell me—

Yes?

Oh, about the country around here, and uh—Oh! I owe you for the telephone call.

Please! It’s nothing.

But it’s something. It’s two dollars and ninety-five cents.

For a telephone call?

He caught her hand and pressed the money into it. She plumped down on the steps, and he discreetly lowered his bulk beside her. She turned on him, blazing;

You infuriate me! You do things I’ve always wanted to—sweep across big distances, command men, have power. I suppose it’s the old Yankee shipmasters coming out in me.

Miss Rivers, I noticed a portrait in there. It seemed to me that the picture and the old sofa make a kind of shrine. And the fresh flowers. She stared a little before she said:

Yes. It’s a shrine. But you’re the first one that ever guessed. How did you—

I don’t know. I suppose it’s because I went through some California missions a few days ago. Tell me about the people in the pictures.

You wouldn’t—Oh, some day, perhaps.

Some day! Now, you see here, child! Do you realize that in about forty minutes I’ll be kiting out of here at seventy miles an hour? Imagine that I’ve met you a couple of times in the bank or the post office, and finally after about six months I’ve called here, and told your mother I like pansies. All right. All that is over. Now, who are you, Aurilla Rivers? Who and what and why and how and when?

She smiled. She nodded. She told.

She was a school teacher now, but before her father had died—well, the enlarged photograph in there was her father, Bradley