Shaking the Nickel Bush by Ralph Moody Page A

stay in my room.
    All the time I’d worked at the munitions plant I’d had a roommate who worked in the designing department. He was only a few years older than I, but before the war he’d been one of the better sculptors in New York City and had taught in one of the art schools. The reason I’d moved in with him was because he’d seen me whittling a horse’s head one noon after a bunch of us had eaten our lunches in the shade of a powder shed. Ivon had been sitting five or six feet up the line from me, but when the man beside me got up he came over and took the vacant place. He watched me for maybe ten minutes, then asked, “Where did you learn that?”
    â€œI didn’t,” I told him. “I’ve whittled horses ever since I was a little kid.”
    â€œEver model them in clay?” he asked.
    â€œI’ve tried to,” I told him, “but it’s no good. With clay the legs aren’t strong enough to hold the bodies up.”
    â€œDon’t you know how to make an armature?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t even know what one is,” I said.
    â€œIf you’d like to come up to my room after supper, I’ll show you,” he told me.
    While I was telling him I’d like to come the whistle blew, so he scribbled down his address and room number on a card and we both hurried back to our jobs.
    That evening when I went hunting for the address I found it to be one of the best apartment houses in Wilmington, with a beautiful lobby and an elevator. When I asked the elevator boy where I’d find the room number, he said, “Oh, that’s the artist—top floor in the rear.”
    As I walked down the carpeted hall I felt about as much out of place as a catfish in a goldfish bowl. I hadn’t expected to find the man living in so fancy a place, so I hadn’t bothered to put on my good suit before coming. Even after I’d reached the door I had to stop a minute to decide whether to rap or to go back to my little eight-dollar-a-week room and put on my good suit. I was sure that any room in that building would be furnished like a palace, and I’d look like a ninny coming into it in my old working clothes. I’d just made up my mind to go back and change when the door opened and Ivon stood there in a dirty linen smock, holding a letter in his hand.
    â€œOh,” he said, “there you are! Go on in while I drop this letter down the chute. Should have sent it away last night.”
    I couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d stepped through a doorway and found myself on the moon. The floor, about fifteen feet square, was covered with sheathing paper, splashed with plaster, and pockmarked with bits of stepped-on clay. Instead of the fancy furniture I had expected, the room was bare except for a big worktable in the center, a cluttered tool bench at one side, an easel, and a couple of plaster-spattered chairs. Standing here and there were a dozen or so pedestals, some with plaster heads or busts on them, and some that were covered over with pieces of damp cloth. On a shelf under the worktable were plaster hands, arms showing the overlapping and twisting muscles as though the skin had been peeled away, a broken foot, and three or four bas-reliefs.
    I was still standing just inside the doorway, looking around, when Ivon said from behind me, “This is my shop; I live in the other room. Come, toss your hat into the bedroom, and we’ll see what we can do about an armature.”
    As Ivon spoke we walked part way down along the wall, and he opened the door to a bedroom that was as spick-and-span as the shop was messy. There was a thick carpet on the floor, pictures on the walls, and all the furniture was dark, satiny mahogany. “How good a shot are you?” he asked as he pointed toward a post on the nearest twin bed. “I don’t go in from the shop without changing my shoes. Fortunately, I have another door from