IN ALL the years which had passed since the famous day when brother John had not come home from school, brother John had never come home at all. He wrote often, in a strangely mature, far-off way, but the various ships in which he lived and labored were far-off ships, which carried the Stars and Stripes into far-off spicy seas. When it became possible he left the navy and shipped on a merchantman.
The navy, he wrote, was not acareer. To begin with, it wasn't a navy, just the same old square-riggers left over from the Civil War. He had hoped to find a ship which was bound for New York, but he had fallen in with a skipper who was bound the other way who had offered to make a second mate of him . . .
It was fine that Ruth was going to be married—it didn't matter about there being so much money—if only Armitage was a straight, honest young fellow.
Please give his best regards to the young couple. He was sending Ruth a Philippine shawl.
"No, Dear Mother," he wrote, "I don't. You have asked the question a good many times and I've ducked out of answering. But I'll answer now. I don't goto church. We had services in the navy and of course I attended. But in the merchant marine it's different. Some men read their Bibles and some don't. I don't read mine, first because I haven't got one and second because I was brought up in such a way that I know the Good Book inside out and I remember that nearly every statement in it contradicts some other statement . . . Shore leave is short, and the best thing that a sailor boy can do is to make it sweet—music and singing, and color, and pretty girls to dance with—sweet and not wicked . . .
"No. I am not glad that Mark is going into the church. I used to know Mark pretty well and he didn't seem to be cut out for that kind of a career. Is it his own irrevocable decision, or has somebody been telling him what he 'ought' to do and what he 'wants' to do until, well, he's decided to fire ahead, no matter what the consequence to him, so as not to give pain and disappointment to others?"
It was true that Mark, constantly worked upon since John's running away, and all his powers of individuality and self-determination and resistance worn down by Dear Mother's well known and unrelenting ways of bringing pressure to bear, had determined to be a minister of the Lord and to preach His gospel. He was to start work at a divinity school in the autumn and in the meanwhile his school days had come to a creditable ending. In June Ruth had been married and had sailed for Europe, and he had had the whole summer in which to consider his fate and to wriggle out of it if he could.
The girls' room, the second best room in the house, had been made over for him. Dear Mother had put a very large Bible on the table at the head of his bed, and over the bed itself had hung a cross of palm leaves. She had filled a whole bookcase with volumes of sermons and religious poetry. He had a writing table and a reading lamp, and there was an order that when Mr. Mark had shut himself into his room he was not to be disturbed.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Eaton kept an all-seeing eye upon the future clergyman's comings and goings and his deportment in general.
He was very acquiescent. Resistance, he felt, had got him nowhere and it never would. He was fond of violent exercise, of profuse sweatings and cold plunges, but his Dear Mother believed that violence except in the reproof of sinners and in the spreading of the Christian system had no place in the life of one dedicated to the service of God.
Mrs. Eaton, being a mid-Victorian, had read many books which described clerical life in England and as exercise for her boy she was inclined to believe in long solitary walks. Young Englishmen, preparing for the clergy, often "did the Continent" on foot, carrying "their things" upon their backs in knapsacks. For Mark's sake she actually found herself wishing that the Continent was just a little more accessible to Bartow-on-the-Sound.
For a little while Mark Eaton enjoyed the distinction of having the second best room in the house, and being set a little apart as one whose clay was going to be turned into something rather superior to the clay of which the ordinary people are made; but the restraints and restrictions soon made a havoc of his nervous system, and when he shut himself up in his fine room it was less often to improve his understanding of religion than to sulk and bemoan his fate.
One night, immediately after dinner, when he had thus retired to sulk, he was presently aware of a knocking on his door, and of his father's voice asking permission to enter.
"Hope I'm not interrupting anything important, Mark," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton, "but I've been thinking that you haven't been quite yourself lately and—well, the truth is I haven't been quite myself lately . . . It's rather peaceful up here, isn't it?"
Mark was fond of his father and was without any particular awe of him. Father never nagged a fellow or preached at him.
"Your mother," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton, "said that if you were working I mustn't interrupt you."
"I'm not," said Mark hastily. "I don't come up here to work, anyway. Take this chair. It's the best I've got."
"Thanks," said Mr. Eaton, and he seated himself in a leisurely way, and at the same time he nodded in his son's direction a couple of times and smiled mischievously. "I've sometimes pretended that I was working behind closed doors, just so as to be let alone . . . I've nibbled through a good many novels that way . . . Do you know, there's one thing I hold in common with the Catholics, and that's confession—owning up. Now, I can't very well go to a priest, but I might very well go to a son of my own who was going to be a preacher and own up to something that for the present I'd rather that nobody else should know."
Mark felt at once flattered and puzzled.
"It's about your brother John," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton. "Do you remember the day he didn't come home and I posted off to find him?"
"And you found him just after he had enlisted in the navy and it was too late?"
Mr. Eaton shook his head. "No," he said, "and this is where my confession comes in. I found him just before he enlisted in the navy and I didn't stop him. I didn't try to stop him. I encouraged him."
There was quite a long silence. Finally Mark said: "I guess you know what I think about it?"
"I'd like to be sure."
"I think you were the best friend to John that he ever had."
Mr. Eaton sighed and then laughed. "But your mother wouldn't think so, would she? And so I didn't tell her . . . Mark, I didn't dare tell her."
"I'm glad you told me."
"I'm going to tell you something else if you don't mind. Perhaps it's more serious, perhaps not . . . Mark, I don't like being a preacher. I never wanted to be one. I was hounded into it by my mother. I have never liked being one. I do my best to escape my own charges of hypocrisy, but if I only teach the things that I myself believe, the pickings are so small that without repetition and redundancy I can't for the life of me compose a thirty minute sermon . . . I came to tell you this, and ask you if your heart is really set on your being a preacher."
"Father," said Mark with feeling, "if you don't know that I'm being hounded into the thing just the the way you were then you're blind."
"I'm not," said his father. "I know. But I thought it polite to ask."
"I'm no more fitted to be a preacher," said Mark, "than young Edward is fitted to train lions. And I no more want to be a saint than I want to be a devil."
"What do you want to be?"
"A farmer." A look of real surprise came into Mr. Eaton's face. Mark laughed. "I mentioned it to mother once, years ago. She didn't like the idea. She didn't think that it was 'quite nice' for a clergyman's son to go into farming. So I never said anything more about it—just for the sake of peace. . . If I had a choice I'd go West and farm. But mother is set on this church business, and you know how she is."
"For the sake of an argument," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton, "I will admit that I do. And I know that when an irresistible force bumps up against a mere man . . . But don't let us discuss your mother . . . She doesn't interfere much with John."
The poison slowly settled into Mark's mind.
"No," he said, "not with John . . . He is too far off."
"Exactly," said Mr. Eaton. He rose and stretched himself. "Do you know, there is a very interesting history of Westchester County in the library. It's in two long volumes, and it's pompous. But it's worth skimming. If I had the time and opportunity I'd put a knapsack on my back and go for a six weeks' walking tour. I'd look the County over from one end to the other . . . There's a lot of beautiful farming country here and there . . . Now I don't want to suggest anything, but as a matter of fact your mother strongly approves of pedestrianism for the righteous . . ."
"Wait a minute, father. You know how mother is; if I refuse to go to the church I can't hang around here afterward. Oh, I don't know why I should be afraid of my own mother! But you know how she is."
"There was a notion in the minds of the wise men who founded this nation," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton, "that every man has in the last analysis a duty to himself. They thought that every man is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
"But isn't a child's first duty to his parents, father?"
"Yes," said the Reverend Mr. Eaton, "of course it is, but only in the case of a child that deliberately asked to be born." Mark breathed deeply. "And in the case of my own children, I don't recall that any one of them had anything to say in the matter."
Edward recalls that on a certain night his father went upstairs to see his brother Mark, and that they came downstairs together, looking very cheerful, and that they went to one of the bookcases and pulled therefrom a couple of heavy volumes. He recalls that Dear Mother looked up from a tablecloth already heavy with violently colored pansies and morning glories and asked what book they were looking at, and that his father answered:
"It's the County history. There is an interesting account of the founding of St. Peter's Church in Westchester. Mark thinks that he would like to look it over."
Edward recalls that a day or two later Mark remarked across the breakfast table that if he only owned a saddle horse he would like to ride all over Westchester County, visiting the different points of interest, and writing down his impressions in a book. At the mention of the saddle horse, Dear Mother snorted and told Mark that he was a lazy fellow.
"The best way to travel," she said, "is on foot, unless the distances are prohibitive. In that way one sees much more than one would ever see from the back of a horse."
With the precedents of all those dear young English clergymen who tramped the Continent ever in mind, Mrs. Eaton was not long in determining that Mark should go for a tour of Westchester County whether he very much wanted to or not.
And one morning with a knapsack containing a change of clothes, and a small sum of money in his pocket, Mark actually set out. He seemed a little reluctant—rather as one who is going upon a long and perhaps a dangerous journey than as one who is merely off for a short and quiet lark.
It was noticed that he ate little breakfast. He seemed to have difficulty in swallowing. And when he actually set out it was suddenly. He jumped suddenly to his feet and said, "Well, Dear Mother, I'm off," kissed her swiftly, and with an awkward wave of the hand for the rest of the assembled family, went hurriedly out of the house.
Edward went with him to the gate and a little beyond. Here a strange thing happened. Mark stopped short and said:
"Don't come any farther, Eddie. I'm going to cut loose from here on and walk like Hail Columbia."
Then suddenly Mark lifted Edward in his arms and gave him a great bear hug and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he turned and made off with very long swift strides and his head very high in the air.
Twice Mark sent brief words concerning his progress and his whereabouts. Then there came a long letter for Dear Mother which sent her into a cold and merciless rage with everyone, and Edward gathered that brother Mark was a scapegrace, unfilial son, who had broken Dear Mother's heart and gone West to be a farmer. He had, it seemed, written that under modern conditions it was impracticable to walk in the steps of Christ. And that a man ought not preach what a man wasn't willing to do. He believed that the next best thing to helping people to be good was to help feed them. He had always, ever since he was a little boy, wanted to be a farmer, and to make a long story short he had answered an advertisement, and there was no time to consult anybody, it was a case of jumping at what looked like a golden opportunity or missing it, and he had jumped. Dear Mother would be disappointed and he was afraid she would be angry. He was sorry. He had to be what he was fitted to be, and not what somebody else thought he ought to be fitted to be.
The Reverend Mr. Eaton may or may not have been shocked by Mark's letter. But he bore up surprisingly well. It tickled his pride to know that he had sons who were willing to adventure greatly. He believed them to be good boys at heart and morally sound . . . But he wasn't sure of James.
Neither was Mrs. Eaton. She had never, for instance, looked at James and sighed and hoped that he would one day hear the call of the church. She made allowances for James which she never made for the other boys. If it looked as if some little domestic crime were about to be traced to James, further inquiries were usually suspended. That he might ever have been hounded into such an affair as that of the Dresden china urn was unthinkable.
If James had expressed the wish to become a sailor or a farmer he would have been listened to with toleration and even respect. But James had no particular wish to become anything or anyone in particular. At school he had a number of intimates but was not generally liked. He and his intimates thought a good deal about clothes and appearances. With regards to the ordinary schoolboy sports they affected a certain cynicism. Their conversation was largely given to grown-up topics. They took a precocious interest in sex. If their humor had been original it would have been Rabelaisian.
But Mrs. Eaton, who of course did not know the whole of James' shortcomings, made much of him, and so far as it was possible for a disciplinarian of her egotism, spoiled him. The secret was not hard to come at. James was in no way effeminate, but being a sensualist in the making, he was not without feminine qualities. He loved clothes and took note of them, and could describe them afterwards. He loved textures and colors and music. He was more popular with girls at dancing school than with the boys at Mr. Harrington's.
He had a very easy, knowing way of dancing. And he could whisper things to his partners that made them blush and giggle without offending them. In those old days the thought of kissing a girl was shameful to the average schoolboy, but to James it was a pleasant thought. A good deal of the time he imagined himself to be in love.
Thus, if there were to be another clergyman in the family it would have to be Edward. And toward that end Mrs. Eaton began to bring pressure to bear upon him. This pressure at first consisted in mournful and reproachful references to the cruel and undutiful conduct of John and Mark. Ought a mother, such a good mother as everybody said she was, and as indeed she acknowledged herself to be, to have all her pains and sacrifices go for nothing merely because her children did not know what was best for them?
In telling of her pains and sacrifices she became almost confidential. And this change in her attitude flattered the little boy and made him anxious to please.
For a time the strong mind gained an ascendency over Edward. He began to imagine himself a clergyman. The authority exercised by his father over the choir, the gentlemen who passed the plate and the congregation in general, appealed to Edward. It would be pleasant, he thought, to give out a text and lay down the law, and to be for such long stretches of time the most conspicuous figure among many. And so it will be seen that the call of the church to Edward was by no means spiritual.
He wished to be a clergyman presiding over a church in the same way that he wished to be a drum-major leading a band, or a conductor managing a train.
Then one day he got hold of Paul Du Chaillu's first African book, and thereafter a real and desperate longing took root in his breast. There was still a lordship and a dominion in the longing. Hordes of naked savages would follow him about like so many puppy dogs, and they would love him as children love a kind and indulgent father. Of course, his authority over them would be absolute, but he would always have their welfare at heart and it would be at once their privilege and their passion to obey. They would follow him upon mighty explorations through forests where the sun never shone, they would be in with him at the death of strange and mighty beasts.
But how was a little boy to make a start at exploring and big-game hunting when his Dear Mother had decided that it was best for him to enter the church and preach sermons and take up collections? And when she told visitors that she believed it more than likely that one day her "Darling Edward" would go into the church—"he is curiously spiritual for a child"—what could her Darling Edward say or do?
It was never wise to make an issue of anything with Dear Mother. If he told her point-blank—and especially before visitors—that he was now bent on being an explorer and going about armed to the teeth, and no longer cared a fig for vestments or rituals and the saving of people's souls, there would be an awful row. It was best to let her think what she liked to think and to keep the knowledge that her thoughts were running on the wrong track entirely to himself. That way lay peace, and endless opportunities to peruse the African book, which he had had the cleverness to hide in a little attic over an outhouse.
But one day Dear Mother wanted to know why Edward was always disappearing into the said outhouse and remaining so long hidden therein.
She feared that he might be up to some mischief, and she let him see that it was her intention some fine day to pay him a sudden and unsuspected visit and see for herself.
And so she did.
She climbed the attic stair so quickly that Edward didn't hear her, and what she saw delighted her so that she withdrew her face and presence without saying a word.
The little hypocrite had made an altar of a soap box, and on the wall above it he had hung two sticks of wood nailed in the form of a cross, and, prayer book in hand, and murmuring the words very softly, he was conducting a church service.
Edward had no notion that he was committing a sacrilege. He only knew that in order to keep the peace with a mother like his mother, a little boy cannot afford to stop at anything.
An event was the return of the Armitages from their honeymoon in Europe. Bruce was his old natural self, but somehow he seemed to be a less important and gilded personage than formerly. Ruth was the important member of the union. Her body had gained weight and her voice had gained authority. The fact that she was a married woman seemed more important to her than the characteristics and character of the particular man she happened to have married. Almost any man of twenty-seven with ten thousand a year would have done as well.
Well, it seemed that the plans for the future with which the hopeful young people had returned from Europe were altogether different from the plans with which they had gone abroad. These old discarded plans had been of Bruce's conception. And the fact that up to the day of her marriage and for a few weeks thereafter Ruth had seemed to approve of them with enthusiasm did not mean that she had ever intended to help him carry them out.
It will be remembered that Bruce had married Ruth for the following reasons: First, because he loved her. Second, because he loved children and thought that she did. Third, because he loved to live in the country and thought that she did; and fourth, fifth and sixth, because he loved her. It will be remembered also that he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and that he had no sympathy with men who slave for money when already they have enough.
A few months of marriage and Europe had wrought mighty and revolutionary changes.
But to listen to Ruth you would have thought that she had had less than nothing to do with them.
The very night of their arrival she flung across the dinner table an astonished:
"Oh, but Mother Dear, we are not going to live in Westchester! Surely I wrote you that Bruce had changed his mind about that! We are going to have a little house on Fifteenth Street and Bruce is going to read law. He feels that he would be ashamed to vegetate in the country and live on his income. The city has its disadvantages, but I don't feel that a woman's innate dislike of dust, hard sidewalks and crowds should ever be allowed to interfere with her husband's career. Personally I think only that my husband is ambitious and not content to be an idler, and I rejoice at it . . . At least we shall be away from the mud in the spring break-up."
It was not at once easy to think of Bruce Armitage in any sympathetic relationship with city sidewalks and the study of the law. But Mrs. Eaton beamed, with her shelf of upper teeth in the middle of the beaming, and swelled like a pigeon. If there had been a battle between the young people, Ruth had won, as women, especially Mrs. Eaton's daughters, should and would. A young man, full of life and good nature, was being forced to live a life that he did not wish to live, and to learn and thereafter practise a profession for which he was unsuited and in which he never could take much interest. There was a triumph for you! And after such a short while of being married, too! What a splendid thing for Armitage's character!
At the news that the Armitages were to live in the city, the Reverend Mr. Eaton had smiled nervously, to hide a sudden and painful contraction in the region of his heart. Beginning with his own, he had seen so many decent men's lives spoiled by their women, and other lives, like those of his two runaway boys, which had been horribly threatened. It was too bad! "I never could quite understand," he said feebly, "why a man who has sufficient money should want to live in the city and work for more."
"That is a fine doctrine to preach in the presence of unformed boys!" exclaimed Mrs. Eaton. "Work is as necessary for a man as brushing his teeth. A man who does not work can hardly be said to be clean. Idle hands get into mischief."
But Armitage did not look troubled or put upon. He seemed to be very happy and very much in love. His eyes constantly came to rest on Ruth's comely face. It was obvious that until his love for her cooled he would not know what was being done to him.
During dinner Ruth did most of the talking. She talked about picture galleries and palaces. They had seen Queen Victoria—"not a beauty, Dear Mother, but every inch a Queen." What a pity Albert had died! No really nice people in London ever mentioned the Prince of Wales. How terrible to think that such parents should have such a child! . . .
"Poor dear Bruce," she said. "Switzerland was such a disappointment to him. And he was a lamb about it. We had counted on doing the Mer de Glace and Mont Blanc—and crack went my wretched back so that the least little uphill work was too much for me. . . . Bruce made me go to a great specialist in Lausanne—such a dear, wise man—Doctor Schminnelpfenning. He said that a woman's back is one of the greatest mysteries of creation—one of the most delicate and subtle of all mechanisms. . . . But it was very disappointing—very. He said that there was nothing to be done . . . I'll always have it—the trouble, I mean. It may not come on me for months at a time—or I might have a crick in the next five minutes . . . The maddening thing is that it is not really serious—just painful and upsetting. But Bruce and I are not going to let it make any difference in our lives, are we?"
"Of course not," said Bruce with loyal adoration. "But it kills me to see her suffer."
"When I have an attack," said Ruth, "Bruce is so gentle that you might think I was a basket of eggs."
"In Rome," said Bruce, "she fainted dead away!"
"I'll never forget," said Ruth. "When I was better Bruce rushed right out of the hotel and came back with this wonderful Roman gold necklace that I am wearing tonight."
"Whenever we went anywhere," said Bruce, "you should have seen the way people looked at Ruth. I picked up enough French and Italian to know what they were saying. They'd say: 'Look! Look! The beautiful American.'"
"Silly!" said Ruth. But in her heart she was pleased that of a thousand memories her husband should have picked upon this particular one for exploitation.
Ruth laid down the law about Europe, its manners, customs and arts, and her mother agreed with her on every point.
As for the Reverend Mr. Eaton, he did not follow the conversation any further than the subject of Ruth's back. His reflections on this subject were rather those of a cynical philosopher than of an agitated parent.
Frankly, he did not believe in Ruth's back. He doubted if these mysterious attacks would ever interfere with anything which she herself wanted particularly to do. He had known wives who had controlled husbands by headaches and spells of dizziness. By his readings he judged that not fifty years had passed since in England women had been in the habit of swooning at the slightest difference of opinion.
The newlyweds remained at the rectory for a number of days. All Westchester called and was called upon.
One day the Ruggles family called—Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles and Alice. It was an unexpected call. If Mrs. Eaton had been prepared it is possible that she would have sent the servant with the message that "the ladies were not at home." But she was caught half-way down the front stairs. The Ruggleses could see her through the front doorway, and Mrs. Ruggles, who was an impulsive and affectionate little creature, called out: "How do you do, Mrs. Eaton!"
Mrs. Eaton was obliged to descend the remaining stairs, to invite the Ruggleses into the parlor, and to admit that she did very well.
Ruth sent word that she would be down presently; Edward, learning that Alice was in the house, felt his heart give a great thump and made a shy advance upon the parlor from the kitchen end of the house.
Tea was served; Mr. Eaton and Bruce came in from the study accompanied by a vague smell of pipe smoke. Alice and Edward were given a large piece of cake apiece, and retired to a far corner to eat it, to whisper and giggle and to listen to what their elders and betters had to say and to giggle still more.
Mrs. Eaton was on her mettle. There were atheists in the house, and people who believed in the descent or ascent of man from a monkey. Obviously such beliefs were no fault of Mrs. Ruggles. You could always look for a man at the bottom of blasphemy and free thinking. For Mrs. Ruggles, therefore, Mrs. Eaton had something the attitude which a condescending but sympathetic woman might have for a delicate sister woman who through no fault of her own was constantly exposed to contagious and fatal fevers.
Toward Mr. Ruggles she affected an air of complacent pity.
"Yes," she said, "it is a sweet old house. What I chiefly love about it is the sense of peace and security which it gives me. Many wise and godly men and women have lived in this house and left a certain something of their own righteousness and strong Christianity. Nothing so unites a family as a common belief—faith."
Even Mrs. Eaton felt that what she had said was a little forced and at the same time a little mixed. There was a short silence, which Mr. Ruggles broke with a most innocent expression on his face.
"What," he said, "do you hear from John—and—er—Mark?"
Mrs. Eaton could have killed him. Mr. Ruggles might with no less insult have said, "If your family is as united as all that, why did the two older boys run away?"
"They are well," said Mrs. Eaton solidly. "We are looking forward to seeing them in the holidays."
This was Mr. Eaton's opportunity to make a fool of himself.
"You don't mean it!" he said excitedly. "You have had letters?"
Mrs. Eaton gave him a look which froze his marrow. "Yes," she said, "I have had letters."
Meanwhile the children in the far corner were taking stock of all that had happened since their last meeting.
"Is it true," said Alice, "that you are going to be a clergyman like your father?"
"So mother says."
"But when the time comes you'll run away like your brother did?"
Edward wriggled uncomfortably.
"Promise you will and maybe I'll run away with you."
"You wouldn't!"
"Dare me?"
Edward nodded.
"Then I will," said Alice. "We'll go to the South Seas."
"Why?" asked Edward.
Alice quoted from a more famous Alice. "'Why not?'" she said.
This floored Edward completely and also delighted him so that he burst out laughing and received a reproving glance from his mother.
She had interrupted the conversation in which she was engaged, signaling peremptorily for silence in order that the reproving glance might be the more telling. She turned to Mr. Ruggles and said with a certain reproachfulness:
"At least, Mr. Ruggles, you will agree with me that some of the old sayings still hold water; as for instance, 'Little children should be seen and not heard.'"
"Bless me," said Mr. Ruggles—the agnostic—"I don't know which I'd rather give up—looking at the children or listening to them. I like to do both."
"Our children," said Mrs. Eaton, "will have to take up the burden of civilization where we leave off. That is where good training will tell."
"Don't you think it is a pity, Mrs. Eaton, that we should have allowed civilization to become such a burden? We have been reading Herman Melville's 'Typee' out loud. It's all about the South Sea Islands. The people in those islands eat and swim and laugh and wear garlands of flowers. They are very sweet-natured. I find myself envying them. Out of such civilization as they have they have made a game."
"They live in darkness," said Mrs. Eaton, "except such as have been converted."
"But it wouldn't seem dark," said Mr. Ruggles, "if one didn't know that it was dark, would it, Mrs. Eaton?"
"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Ruggles, unless you mean that ignorance is bliss."
"I think that is just what I do mean, Mrs. Eaton. Yes, that is just what I do mean. And I go a step further. I believe that where ignorance is bliss it is folly to be wise."
"I shan't argue with you, Mr. Ruggles. I see that you are far better used to sophistry and hairsplitting than I am. I am an old-fashioned woman. And I daily thank God that this should be so."
Meanwhile Alice in the far corner: ". . . And you pick your bread and meat off the trees and when you bathe you simply go and stand under a waterfall, and if you've got an almanac with you and can predict an eclipse of the sun or of the moon they all beat their heads on the ground and make you king . . . But I'd be the queen."
Edward: "How'd we get there?"
Alice: "In a boat, silly. They're islands."
Edward: "My brother John has been to some of them. He says in some places the mosquitoes are worse than in Westchester. And he says the natives are dying off from drinking whisky and smallpox."
Alice: "I know that, but that isn't everywhere. That's only in the islands where they've taught them to be Christians. Father says that drunkenness and disease follow the Cross . . . How do you suppose we would like it if they came over here and beat their religion into us?"
Edward: "I could stand it all right. But . . ."
Here the two children glanced at Mrs. Eaton. A thought had struck them in common. The notion of Mrs. Eaton's being converted to some other religion than her own by a sudden rush of naked savages was rather appalling. Alice giggled.
Edward: "Is it true that they eat people?"
Alice: "Some of them do sometimes. But we wouldn't go to those islands. They call it Long Pig. When there are too many babies they bury them alive."
Edward: "Last year when there was so many tent caterpillars mother burned whole nests of them with a torch. She said she'd teach them."
Alice: "Probably that's just what they say to the babies."
Among their elders, and in some instances perhaps betters, the brunt of the conversation had fallen upon Mrs. Eaton and Mr. Ruggles. Mr. Ruggles being always plausible and amiable, it would have been difficult for anyone less opinionated and belligerent than Mrs. Eaton herself to have conversed with him for five minutes without agreeing with everything he said. Neither Mr. Eaton nor Bruce Armitage cared to agree with Mr. Ruggles or appear to approve of him in Mrs. Eaton's presence. The consequences, after Mr. Ruggles's departure, would have been disagree able. Ruth did not wish to exert herself for the benefit of persons whom she considered her social inferiors, and nothing was expected of persons so young as James and Sarah.
James pretended to himself that he was watching a game of tennis. When his mother spoke he looked at her as if she were the player who had just struck the ball, and when Mr. Ruggles spoke James looked at him in the same way. At a rapid interchange his head got to swinging so fast that Sarah, who had been watching him for some time, snickered and was promptly reproved by Mrs. Eaton.
"It's James, mother," whispered Ruth. "He can't keep his head still. He keeps waggling it."
Not wishing to scold her favorite, Mrs. Eaton suggested that the children go outside and play.
James jumped to his feet and crossed the room to where Edward and Alice were sitting.
"Hello, Alice," said he. "We haven't shaken hands yet . . . Come along out . . . I'll show you some baby rabbits . . ."
Then James, always sophisticated and at his ease, pulled Alice's hand through his arm and, followed by Edward and Sarah, marched gaily from the room.
During the next half-hour Edward experienced his first symptoms of jealousy. James, perhaps because he wished to tease Edward, perhaps because he had been suddenly attracted by the child's prettiness, took entire charge of Alice and proceeded to ingratiate himself with her. He treated her as if she had been grown up. He said he liked the way she did her hair and said that he couldn't make out if her eyes were blue-black or purple. Anyway, she could go around telling herself that nobody else had a pair like them. Did she really want to see the baby rabbits? Well, they lived in a hole back of the big oak tree. They were wild rabbits, only they weren't wild.
James dipped his hand into the hole and pulled out the three baby rabbits by their ears. Alice hugged them, and laughed at their frightened eyes, and felt their hearts beat. When the rabbits had been returned to their nest, James suggested a game of hide and seek in the dusk.
"I'll count out," he said, "and see who's it."
Pointing rapidly to each of the children in succession, he repeated the old counting-out verse:
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, Briar, Limber, Lock,
Three geese in a flock.
One flew east and one flew west
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest.'"
Sarah was the—Alice was cuckoo's, and Edward was nest. Edward was therefore It. He was stood with his face to the big oak tree, and put upon his honor to keep his eyes shut until he had counted a hundred.
At the first count Sarah fled in one direction and James and Alice in another.
It took the little boy a long time to count an honorable hundred, and when he had finished, the dusky woods back of the rectory were empty and silent. Edward ran hopefully to the nearest tree and looked behind it. Then he ran to the next tree.
He hunted everywhere. Twenty minutes passed. Once he thought that he heard James and Alice giggling at him. His heart grew heavy and bitter. It wasn't fair to leave him all alone like that and to hide where you couldn't be found. You were supposed to hide in easy places so that one person wouldn't have to be It all the time.
Then Ruth appeared at the back door and called, "Where's Alice, Eddie?"
"I don't know," he shouted back in a mournful voice. "Why?"
"They're going home."
At that, from almost directly above Edward's head there was a sound of giggling. Then James dropped lightly to the ground from the lower limbs of a tree and turning caught Alice in his arms as she half slid and half dropped. He held her there a moment with her feet clear of the ground.
"Give us a kiss," he said, "and I'll put you down."
Alice laughed and kissed him. And Edward's heart became very heavy in his breast.
But there were some things that Mrs. Eaton couldn't do to her boys. She couldn't keep them from growing up. And she couldn't keep the two who had run away from home from getting on in the world. This was a terrible cross to her. When John had gone to sea she had made dire prophecies. He would come home like a whipped dog with its tail between its legs and he would think that home was a pretty good place and Dear Mother a very wise woman, and he would be very happy to do exactly as he was told. But nothing like this had happened. And when John did finally come home he was the first mate of a fine three-master, and in love with the sea.
Edward had just passed his thirteenth birthday at the time of John's visit. He had a pimple on his chin and his voice was suffering from tremendous ups and downs. And except for the servants he was alone in the house. James and Sarah were on a visit to dearest grandmother, and Mr. and Mrs. Eaton had driven off in the carriage to condole with some parents who had just lost an imbecile child.
Edward was happiest when he had the house to himself. He had been getting along pretty well with Dear Mother, thanks to a highly developed system of lying and hypocrisy, but Sarah, who knew too much about him and was constantly threatening to tell, made his life miserable. James also chose to be rather horrid to his little brother, snubbing him and sneering at him, and for James, Edward entertained a scantily veiled hatred and contempt, not unmixed with fear. Though James was nineteen and occasionally talked of what he was going to do and be, it was obvious that he had no ambition to do anything worth while or to be anything except what he was. He came and went almost without question and Mrs. Eaton managed somehow or other to keep him fairly well supplied with money. He danced well and was a great ladies' man. Men did not like him.
Mrs. Eaton possessed a thick "Family Medicine" which the children were forbidden to look at, and into which Edward during his mother's absences had managed to read as far as those diseases which begin with an M. At the time of John's visit he had dug this book out of the lower drawer in which Dear Mother kept it hidden and had taken it down to the library, where the sitting was more comfortable than in Dear Mother's room; and he had read as far as, "Mumps—First symptoms of," when suddenly he heard the front door pushed boldly open and a strong merry voice that shouted, "Ship ahoy—ship ahoy!"
Seven years had passed since Edward had seen his big brother. But he had not a moment's doubt as to the owner of that voice. He was a loving child, and as he rushed out into the hall shouting, "John! John!" his heart throbbed wildly.
"My Lord, how you've grown!" exclaimed John.
First he hugged Edward to his breast and then a he held him at arm's length and turned him this way and that.
"You're going to be a bigger man than I am," said John. "Let me feel your chest. It's like a young nail keg . . . Feel the boy's biceps once, will you!"
There was a short silence, during which the two brothers stared affectionately into each other's eyes.
John wore a close-cropped black beard and mustache. His hair was no longer parted in the middle but brushed back in a rough wave with curling tendencies. His eyes glistened, and he was deeply moved.
"But Eddie," he said presently, "what's all this I hear about you? Is it true? Mother writes that you are determined to go into the church when you grow up."
In answering, Edward's chief trouble was with his voice. It kept sinking suddenly to untried depths and rising toward unattainable heights. But he managed to say:
"Mother wants me to, John. She's dead set on it. But I don't want to, and when the time comes I'll get out of it. No use telling her I won't now. You know mother."
John sighed. And he understood perfectly.
"But where is everybody?"
Edward told him. Mother and father would be back before long. James and Sarah weren't expected until tomorrow. Sometimes Bruce and Ruth came up for Sunday, but not so often as foro merly. Ruth didn't like the country.
John knew that. He had called on Ruth and the new brother on his way home. Ruth had patronized him. She had not seemed to think that a brother in the merchant marine was much of a social asset. But Bruce had been fine. Pity to coop a fellow like that up in a city! He would have made a fine sailor.
They went into the parlor, and for a few moments John looked from one familiar object to another. There had been few changes. There were fresh pieces of Dear Mother's handiwork in her favorite reds and purples draped over chair backs and the corners of pictures, and there was a new rug in front of the fireplace. John noted everything. Presently he noticed the family medicine book lying open and face down. He picked it up.
"Mumps," he said, and laughed. Then he handed the book back to Edward and said: "I got as far as Opthalmia. When you read all about the horrible diseases in this book, do you feel as if you were developing all the symptoms? That's the way it made me feel. Does mother still keep this book in the lower drawer? If I were you I'd chase upstairs and put it back before she comes home. I'd hate to see you caught with it almost as much as I would have hated to be caught with it myself."
When Edward returned to the parlor it was to discover John in the act of lighting a short black pipe.
"You'll catch it!" said Edward.
"Nothing like trying," said John. "Ever smoke?"
Edward shook his head.
"It's a good plan not to smoke till you've got your growth, but don't go through life without giving it a trial. It never hurt anybody yet, and it's a lot of comfort."
"Mother says it turns people's lungs black."
"A blackish green, I believe," said John. "And what harm does that do? The sun turns faces brown, and cold weather makes fingers blue and noses red."
"A pipe smells good," said Edward, "don't it?"
John nodded.
"Lots better than some of the perfumes women use. Ruth smells like a drug store. What's the matter with her back, anyway? Is she faking?"
"She does it," said Edward, "to make Bruce feel bad, and then he'll do anything she wants."
A new photograph of James caught John's eye.
"James?" he asked.
"Don't you recognize him?"
"Looks like a lady-killer," said John. "I don't hear of James doing anything very enterprising. Now Mark's different. There's a fine boy. I've gotten in touch with him and we correspond as regularly as the kind of life I lead lets us. Seems funny to think of Mark making two ears of corn grow where only one grew before. What do you want to be?"
"I'd like to explore places. At least, that's what I think I'd like to do. But one rainy day mother let me have the paints she used to paint on china with, and I mixed up a color that looked just like the sky, and I drew the big oak tree and colored it and it looked like it. And I painted every day till the paint was all gone."
"Show 'em to me—the pictures you painted," said John.
Edward ran away to the secret hiding place and returned with his little works of art.
Like all trained seamen, John was an accurate observer. He perceived at once that Edward had the same faculty. The subjects which the little boy had painted were astonishingly well drawn, and here and there the coloring was warm and true.
John made an instant and characteristic decision.
"I can't help you to explore places, Eddie," he said. "I wouldn't know how to go about it. But it'll be three or four years before you know what you really want to do. Whatever that is, if it's decent and honest, you do it. Promise?"
Edward promised.
"If it's painting, I'll help. I'll have a ship of my own then, and out of my pay I'll manage to keep you somewhere where you can get good instruction and learn all about it. Paris, I guess. But you'd be pretty young to be paddling your own canoe, and I wouldn't want to take the responsibility unless you'd make me some solemn promises and keep 'em—not to drink or smoke until you were twenty-one—the red and white wine you'd get in the Latin Quarter wouldn't count—that's good for people. And—I don't know how much you know about life . . . Men and women and all that?"
Edward turned a slow red, thus indicating that like most American boys of thirteen he was pretty well posted.
" . . . And I'd want you to promise not to get mixed up with any woman, either . . . Eddie, every trouble I've run across in this world or heard tell about has had a woman at the bottom of it. It's always either what the world calls a bad woman, or else it's what the world calls a good woman . . . How's father?"
"He's all right."
"Don't ever forget," said John with sudden vehemence, "that father is the best father that anybody ever had."
John was able to remain at home for nearly a week. And all Westchester with the exception of a few families who had begun to imagine themselves people of fashion called to see how the minister's black sheep had turned out.
Westchester discovered that the black sheep had turned into an honest, straightforward and widely traveled young man. He had found time to read, and sea life, instead of roughening him, had made him very quiet in speech and fastidiously neat and clean.
But Dear Mother insisted on mourning over him. She felt that he had sunk pretty low in this world for a minister's son and that he would sink still lower in the next. A fine reverence for the created world and all that is beyond the reach of man's understanding, and conduct which closely resembled that outlined in the Golden Rule, could not pass for Christianity in Mrs. Eaton's eyes, and when one morning at breakfast John told Edward that there didn't seem to be very much doubt that man had descended from some kind of an ape, and that the ape in turn had descended from some kind of an oyster, she felt that he was indeed lost.
"Nice ideas, I must say," she said, "to put into the head of an innocent child who is destined to go into the church."
But John smiled and said:
"You do believe that the world is getting better, don't you, mother?"
"Through faith and prayer, yes."
"And that if it keeps on getting better and better it's bound to be perfect in the end?"
"That will take a long time, I fear."
"But you admit that it's bound to happen if we keep on improving?"
Mrs. Eaton admitted that.
"And you feel, mother, don't you, that even the best people alive today are far from perfect?"
Mrs. Eaton admitted this very readily.
"Then you believe in evolution," said John. "Father's the best man I know, but I believe there's more difference between father and a perfect man than there is between the highest type of ape and father."
"Man," asserted Mrs. Eaton sweepingly, "has a soul. That is what makes the difference."
John smiled very sweetly at his mother, and gave up. There was no arguing with her, or with Sarah, for that matter. Sarah snubbed him continually and tried to make him feel that he had slipped socially.
On the afternoon of that preceding John's departure, a young woman called at the rectory and asked for James. As luck would have it, it was the housemaid's afternoon out, and John, who happened to be passing through the hall when the bell rang, opened the door.
The young woman, who was pretty but fragile looking, did not speak at once.
"Did you wish to see Mrs. Eaton?" John asked. "Because, I'm sorry, she's off visiting."
"I came to see young Mr. Eaton," said the young woman. "Mr. James Eaton."
John could not have explained why this simple statement should give him a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, but it did.
"Well, you can leave any message with me," he said slowly. "I am John Eaton—a brother."
"He isn't here?"
John shook his head.
"I could wait."
"Yes. But there's no telling when he'll be home. Not before tea time, I imagine."
The young woman's face hardened.
"I've walked all the way from Westchester village," she said, and then her eyes brightened a little. "You don't remember me, but I remember you. Father had a harness shop. You used to pass twice a day going to school and coming home."
"I remember your father. I broke my belt once, and he mended it for me and wouldn't take any money. He's well, I hope?"
She shook her head. "Father's dead," she said. "Your brother heard about it and came to see us. He was very kind and helped mother with money for the funeral."
"I'm glad to hear that about James."
The young woman shrugged her shoulders.
"Better come in," said John, "and rest. You've had a long walk."
She moved a little as if she were in a trance, and John finally led the way into the parlor, as he found difficulty in getting her to precede him. When she was seated he looked at her carefully, smiled suddenly but not very merrily and said:
"Why do you want to see my brother?"
She did not answer at once. But after quite a long silence she said: "I've got to see him."
"I wish you'd be frank with me and tell me why."
But she wouldn't be frank, at first. She set her lips in a straight line and stared past John at a picture on the wall. Her reticence, however, amounted to communication. And John's speculations were of an exasperated and unpleasent nature. He hoped that he would be able to get rid of this young woman before his mother's return.
"I'm sorry," he said after a while, "very sorry that James isn't here. I'm afraid you've had your long walk for nothing."
"I think," she said, "that I'd better wait till he comes. I've written him five times to come and see me and he hasn't even answered." She paused and added with deliberation, "He doesn't want to see me."
John had been trying hard to remember the old harness maker's name. He recalled it now—Jackson.
"You're Miss Jackson," he smiled. "I've just managed toremember. Tell me. Is it money you need?"
She jumped to her feet with her reticence broken and a sudden energy of revelation.
"I do need money like anything," she said. "And—surely you must have guessed—I need my name changed. It's got to be changed to Mrs. James Eaton and it's got to be changed quick. There, I've told you. And I don't care what you think of me."
John stepped suddenly forward and turned the girl to the light. His face was hard and set. For some moments he looked into her eyes, and she met the look without flinching.
"I believe you," he said, and smiled reassuringly. "And it's what I think about James that counts now . . ."
"He helped us after father's death," said Miss Jackson, "and I thought he was our friend and meant everything he said . . ."
"You don't need to tell me. I've guessed what kind of a boy he is. It's in his face. And now he wants to cut and run . . . But you want him to marry you? Well and good. He shall. But if I were you I'd face any disgrace or any poverty sooner than be married to James. Do you love him?"
"I thought I did. But I'm so mad with him now I don't know."
John pulled out his watch. "There's a train from Bartow Station in twenty minutes. You can just make it. I'll give you the money for the ticket. You want James to marry you. He shall. Don't be afraid. Don't worry . . . James and I will come to your house tomorrow at eleven o'clock."
"I believe you," she said simply.
"But I want you to promise me one thing—that the marriage will be secret until James is on his feet and can support you. You wouldn't like living here. My mother would make you unhappy."
During dinner John was unusually gay and vivacious. After dinner he invited James to go for a stroll. Edward begged to be allowed to go too, but John laughed him off.
"There's something particular and peculiar and private that I am going to ask James to do for me," he said, "and nobody else can do it."
So the two brothers, tall strapping fellows, started off into the starlight, through swarms of twinkling fireflies, and became lost to view in the shadows of Pelham Wood.
James had not especially wanted to go for a walk with John, whom he did not like, but being easy-going and prone to follow all lines of least resistance, he had found difficulty in refusing.
"At sea," said John, when he had gotten his pipe going, "when you can't break a man to discipline by straight square dealing you sometimes find it necessary to lay him out with a belaying pin . . . This afternoon, James, the Jackson girl came to see you."
From a state of bored good nature James turned instantly to one of the liveliest anxiety and foreboding.
"She told me," continued John, "how after her father's death you came—and played the good angel."
John's voice was noncommittal, and from this fact James gathered a momentary hope. But this was to be instantly dashed.
"She needs money," said John, "and she needs your name. And for my part I don't choose to go to sea and leave behind me a niece or a nephew that hasn't any name."
"How do you know," said James in a truculent way, "that it is your—your relation?"
"It was obvious," said John, "that she was speaking the truth. What do you propose to do?"
"What do I propose to do? Well, I propose to think that out for myself, thanks." James's ugly streak was trying to show. "You paddle your own canoe and I'll paddle mine."
"You will marry her, of course," said John.
"Why should I? A lot you know about women. It was as much her fault as it was mine."
"I have often wondered," said John, "from whom you inherit your exquisite chivalry . . . Oh, James," he exclaimed, "shame on you! You have only one life to live. Don't you even want to start it right? Where are your fine clothes and your wheedling ways going to get you?—to what port will they bring you? There must be a streak of decency and manliness in you somewhere. Marry this girl—you've got to do that anyway—and then come to sea with me. She can manage somehow on what you can give her from your pay. I'll chip in. You don't like me. But the sea will make a man of you and you'll thank me and we'll be friends."
"I dislike the sea intensely," said James.
"What do you like—the land—business? You've got to support your wife somehow."
"I'm not married yet, you know," said James. "If you knew a little more about the world . . . Why, that girl would be like a millstone around my neck."
James may have known a lot about the "world" but he knew very little about his brother. John stopped short, knocked the ashes from his pipe with deliberation and returned it to his pocket. Then he drew a deep breath, clenched his right fist and drove it with a sudden demoniac force and fury into that part of James's anatomy which, after the famous fight between Corbett and Fitzsimmons at Carson City, received a tremendous publicity under its rightful Latin name of solar plexus.
And for a long time thereafter, in the heart of Pelham Wood, James Eaton lay unconscious at the feet of his brother John.
The first words that James managed to speak were: "You dirty coward!" Then he struggled to a sitting position and was sick.
John refilled his pipe and lighted it and waited. Then he said: "I hit you in the stomach so as not to mark your head. I don't want mother to know that we've been quarreling . . . If you want any more I'll give it to you in the same place."
"What did you come home for, anyway?" cried James angrily. "Nobody wanted you."
"Get up," said John, "and don't talk like a woman. You ought to have been a girl. But you aren't and we've got to make a man of you."
James got to his feet with difficulty, and without another word turned and started slowly back toward the house. John followed at the same pace, but when they had thus proceeded for some two hundred yards he quickened his steps, caught up with James and laid his hand on his shoulder.
James shook his shoulder to free it, much as a petulant child might have done.
"Before we go back to the house," said John, "I want your word that you'll marry the girl and come away to sea with me. That would be the easiest. Nobody need know about the marriage—least of all mother—if that's what you are afraid of." James made no answer. "I promised the girl that we would be at her house tomorrow at eleven and that you would marry her."
"If you're so interested in her, why don't you marry her yourself?" exclaimed James. "And besides, I thought you had to go back to your ship tomorrow."
"I can take the five o'clock train," said John. "That will get me to Boston by midnight. But I'll start right after breakfast as I always intended, and you'll come with me to see me off. And we'll simply stop off at Westchester to do the right thing and then you'll send back word from the city that I've persuaded you to make a voyage with me . . . It's to the Old World. You'd like that . . . We'll take a cargo of claret in Bordeaux and while it's loading we'll be able to run up to Paris for a day or two . . . When we come back if you find that you don't like the sea you can try something else. But it won't hurt you to give it a trial."
"Look here," said James, "I'm not going to marry that girl and I'm not going to sea with you. So what are you going to do about it?"
John's voice had been very kind and tolerant. But a stern note now leaped into it.
"What am I going to do about it?" he said. "Why, the best I know how—according to my lights."
And suddenly and once more in the region of the solar plexus he struck James a terrific blow.
This time James, who had not lost consciousness but thought that he had been killed, thrashed about on the ground like a newly landed salmon and gasped horribly to recover some of the air which had been knocked out of him.
When they reached the house at last he was a sick boy, but he had promised to do as John wished.
The next morning when John had dressed and was about to go down to breakfast he perceived a sheet of paper which must have been pushed under his door during the night. He picked it up and held it close to his face, for the light was bad, and read the following:
To John Eaton:
Promises made under force don't count, you dirty bully. I am going to vanish for a few days and you can go to hell.
John walked to the narrow dormer window and looked out over the tree tops. He might have known better than to have trusted a man whose mind worked like a woman's. He was very angry—but with himself.
"A nice mess I've got myself into," he thought, "making promises that I can't keep to a girl I'm not under any obligations to, and trusting to the word of a dirty rat like that James. I wonder where the skunk is hiding."