In a Little Town Part 5

Her other hand came forward and embraced his wrist.

"And another time you found me cryin'. I was a little older, and I'd studied hard and tried to get my lessons good; but I failed in the exam'nations, and I was goin' to tie a rock round my neck and jump in the pond. But you said: 'Aw, don't you care, Eddie! I didn't pa.s.s in mine, either!'

"And when I wanted to go to college, and Uncle Loren wouldn't send me, I didn't cry outside, but I cried inside; and I told you and you said: 'Don't you care! I don't get to go to boardin'-school myself.'

"And when I was fool enough to think I liked that no-account Luella Thickins, and thought I'd go crazy because her wax-doll face wouldn't smile for me, you said: 'Don't you care, Eddie! You're much too good for her. I think you're the finest man in the country.'

"And when the baby didn't come and I acted like a baby myself, you said: 'Don't you care, Eddie! Ain't we got each other?'

"Seems like ev'ry time I been ready to lay down and die you've been there with your old 'Don't you care! It's going to be all right!'

"Just last night I had a turrible dream. I didn't tell you about it for fear it would upset you. I dreamed I got awful sick at the office. I couldn't seem to add the figures right and the old desk wabbled. Finally I had to leave off and start for home, though it was only a quarter of twelve; and I had to set down on Doc Noxon's horse-block and on Holdredge's wall to rest; and I couldn't get our gate open. And you run out and dragged me in, and got me up-stairs somehow, and sent Delia around for the doctor.

"Doc Noxon made you have a trained nurse, but I couldn't stand her; and I wouldn't take medicine from anybody but you. I don't suppose I was dreamin' more 'n a few minutes, all told; but it seemed like I laid there for weeks, till one day Doc Noxon called you out of the room. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard you let out one horrible scream, and then I heard sounds like he was chokin' you, and you kept sayin': 'Oh no! No! No!'

"I tried to go and help you, but I couldn't lift my head. By and by you come back, with your eyes all red. Doc Noxon was with you and he called the nurse over to him. You come to me and tried to smile; and you said:

"'Well, honey, how are you now?'

"Then I knew what the doctor had told you and I was worse scared than when the black dawg jumped at me. I tried to be brave, but I never could seem to be. I put out my hands to you and hollered:

"'Pheeny, I'm goin' to die! I know I'm goin' to die! Don't let me go!

I'm afraid to die!'"

Now the hands clenched his with a frenzy that hurt--but beautifully.

And he kissed the wedding-ring as he finished:

"And you dropped down to me on the floor by the bed and took my hands--just like that. And you whispered: 'Don't you care, honey! I'll go with you. Don't you care!'

"And the fever seemed to cool out of me, and I kind of smiled and wasn't afraid any more; and I turned my face to you and kissed you--like this, Pheeny.

"Why, you've been cryin', haven't you? You mustn't cry--you mustn't! All those girls I been tellin' you about are the girl I kiss when I kiss you, Pheeny. There couldn't be anybody as beautiful as you are to me.

"I ain't 'mounted to much; but it ain't your fault. I wouldn't have 'mounted to anything at all if it hadn't been for you, Pheeny; and I been the happiest feller in all this world--or I have been up to now.

I'm awful lonedsome just now. Don't you s'pose you could spare me a kiss?"

She spared him one.

Then the cook pounded on the door and called through in a voice that threatened to warp the panels: "Ain't you folks ever comin' down to dinner? I've rang the bell three times. Everything's all cold!"

But it wasn't. Everything was all warm.

POP

I

They made a handsome family group, with just the one necessary element of contrast.

Father was the contrast.

They were convened within and about the big three-walled divan which, according to the fas.h.i.+on, was backed up against a long library-table in what they now called the living-room. It had once been the sitting-room and had contained a what-isn't-it and a sofa like an enormous bald caterpillar, crowded against the wall so that you could fall off only one side of it.

It was a family reunion and unexpected. Father was not convened with the rest, but sat off in the shadow and counted the feet sticking out from the divan and protruding from the chairs. He counted fourteen feet, including his wife's and excluding his own. All the feet were expensively shod except his own.

Three of the children had come home for a visit, and father, glad as he was to see them, had a vague feeling that they had been brought in by some other motive than their loudly proclaimed homesickness. He was willing to wait until they disclosed it, for he had an idea what it was and he was always glad to postpone a payment. It meant so much less interest to lose. Father was a business man.

Father was also dismally computing the addition to the grocery bills, the butchery bills, and livery bills, and the others. He was figuring out the added expense of the dinner, with roast beef now costing as much as peac.o.c.ks' tongues. He had raised a large family and there was not a dyspeptic in the lot--not even a banter.

They had been photographed together the day before and the proof had just come home. Father was not in the picture. It was a handsome picture. They admitted it themselves. They had urged father to come along, but he had pleaded his business, as usual. As they studied the picture they would glance across at father and realize how little the picture lost by his absence. It lost nothing but the contrast.

While they were engaged each in that most fascinating of employments--studying one's own photograph--they were all waiting for the dining-room maid to appear like a black-and-white sketch and crisply announce that dinner was served. They had not arrived yet at having a man. Indeed, that room could still remember when a frowsy, blowsy hired girl was wont to stick her head in and groan, "Supper's ready!"

In fact, mother had never been able to live down a memory of the time when she used to put her own head in at a humbler dining-room door and call with all the anger that cooks up in a cook: "Come on! What we got's on the table!" But mother had entirely forgotten the first few months of her married life, when she would sing out to father: "Oh, honey, help me set the table, will you? I've a surprise for you--something you like!"

This family had evolved along the cycles so many families go through--from pin feathers to paradise plumes--only, the male bird had failed to improve his feathers or his song, though he never failed to bring up the food and keep the nest thatched.

The history of an American family can often be traced by its monuments in the names the children call the mother. Mrs. Grout had begun as--just one Ma. Eventually they doubled that and progressed from the accent on the first to the accent on the second ma. Years later one of the inarticulate brats had come home as a collegian in a funny hat, and Mama had become Mater. This had lasted until one of the brattines came home as a collegienne with a swagger and a funny sweater. And then her Latin t.i.tle was Frenchified to _Mere_--which always gave father a shock; for father had been raised on a farm, where only horses' wives were called by that name.

Father had been dubbed Pop at an early date. Efforts to change this t.i.tle had been as futile as the terrific endeavors to keep him from propping his knife against his plate. He had been browbeaten out of using the blade for transportation purposes, but at that point he had simply ceased to develop.

Names like Pappah, Pater, and _Pere_ would not cling to him; they fell off at once. Pop he was always called to his face, whether he were referred to abroad as "the old man," "the governor," or "our dear father."

The evolution of the Grout family could be traced still more clearly in the names the parents had given the children. The eldest was a daughter, though when she grew up she dropped back in the line and became ever so much younger than her next younger brothers. She might have fallen still farther to the rear if she had not run up against another daughter who had her own age to keep down.

The eldest daughter, born in the grim days of early penury, had been grimly ent.i.tled Julia. The following child, a son, was soberly called by his father's given and his mother's maiden names--John Pennock Grout, or Jno. P., as his father wrote it.

A year or two later there appeared another hostage. Labeling him was a matter of deep concern. John urged his own father's name, William; but the mother wafted this away with a gesture of airy disgust. There was a hired girl in the kitchen now and mother was reading a good many novels between st.i.tches. She debated long and hard while the child waited anonymous. At length she ventured on Gerald. She changed that two or three times and the boy had a narrow escape from Sylvester. He came perilously near to carrying Abelard through an amused world; but she harked back to Gerald--which he spelled Jerrold at times.

Then two daughters entered the family in succession and were stamped Beatrice--p.r.o.nounced Bay-ah-treat-she by those who had the time and the energy--and Consuelo, which Pop would call Counser-eller.

By this time Julia had grown up and was beginning at finis.h.i.+ng-school.

She soon saw that Julia would never do--never! She had started with a handicap, but she caught up with the rest and pa.s.sed them gracefully by ingeniously altering the final _a_ to an _e_, and p.r.o.nouncing it Zheelee.

Her father never could get within hailing distance of the French _j_ and _u_, and teetered awkwardly between Jilly and Jelly. He was apt to relax sickeningly into plain Julia--especially before folks, when he was nervous anyway. Only they did not say "before folks" now; the Grouts never said "before folks" now--they said, "In the presence of guests."

By the time the next son came the mother was shamelessly literary enough to name him Ethelwolf, which his school companions joyously abbreviated to Ethel, overlooking the wolf.

Ethelwolf was the last of the visitors. For by this time _Mere_ had acc.u.mulated so many absolutely unforgivable grievances against her absolutely impossible husband that she felt qualified for that crown of comfortable martyrhood, that womanly ideal, "a wife in name only"--and only that "for the sake of the children."

By this time the children, too, had acquired grievances against Pop. The more refined they grew the coa.r.s.er-grained he seemed. They could not pulverize him in the coffee-mill of criticism. He was as hopeless in ideas as in language. It was impossible to make him realize that the best is always the cheapest; that fine clothes make fine people; that petty economies are death to "the larger flights of the soul"; and that parents have no right to have children unless they can give them what other people's children have.

If John Grout complained that he was not a millionaire the younger Grouts retorted that this was not their fault, but their misfortune; and it was "up to Pop" to do the best he could during what _Mere_ was now calling their "formative years." The children had liberal ideas, artistic and refined ideals; but Pop was forever talking poor, always splitting pennies, always dolefully reiterating, "I don't know where the money is coming from!"

It was so foolish of him, too--for it always came from somewhere. The children went to the best schools, traveled in Europe, wore as good clothes as anybody--though they did not admit this, of course, within father's hearing, lest it put false notions into his head; and the sons made investments that had not yet begun to turn out right.