When Dr. Lavendar left David at the Stuffed Animal House, he didn't
feel, somehow, like going home; the Rectory would be so quiet. It
occurred to him that, as he was on the hill, he might as well look in
on Benjamin Wright.
He found the old gentleman in his beaver hat and green serge
dressing-gown, tottering up and down the weedy driveway in front of his
veranda, and repeating poetry.
"O great corrector of enormous times, Shaker of o'er rank states, thou
grand decider Of dusty and old titles, that healest with blood--Hello!
'Bout time you came to see me. I suppose you want to get some money out
of me for something?"
"Of course; I always want money out of somebody for something. There's
a leak in the vestry roof. How are you?"
"How do you suppose I am? At eighty-one, with one foot in the grave!
Ready to jump over a five-barred gate?"
"I'm seventy-two," said Dr. Lavendar, "and I played marbles yesterday."
"Come in and have a smoke," the older man said, hobbling on to the
veranda, where four great white columns, blistered and flaked by time,
supported a roof that darkened the shuttered windows of the second
story.
He led the way indoors to the dining-room, growling that his nigger,
Simmons, was a fool. "He _says_ he closes the shutters to keep the
flies out; makes the room as dark as a pocket, and there ain't any
flies this time of year, anyhow. He does it to stop my birds from
singing; he can't fool me! To stop my birds!" He went over to one of
the windows and pushed the shutters open with a clatter; instantly a
twitter ran from cage to cage, and the fierce melancholy of his old
face softened. "Hear that?" he said proudly.
"I ought to come oftener," Dr. Lavendar reproached himself; "he's
lonely."
And, indeed, the room with its mammoth sideboard black with age and its
solitary chair at one end of the long table, was lonely enough. On the
walls, papered a generation ago with a drab paper sprinkled over with
occasional pale gilt medallions, were some time-stained engravings:
"The Destruction of Nineveh"; "The Trial of Effie Deans"; "The
Death-bed of Washington." A gloomy room at best; now, with the shutters
of one window still bowed, and the faint twitter of the canaries, and
that one chair at the head of the table, it was very melancholy.
"Sit down!" said Benjamin Wright. Still in his moth-eaten high hat, he
shuffled about to fetch from the sideboard a fat decanter with a silver
chain and label around its neck, and two tumblers.
"No," said Dr. Lavendar; "I'm obliged to you."
"What, temperance?" snarled the other.
"Well, I hope so," Dr. Lavendar said, "but not a teetotaler, if that's
what you mean. Only I don't happen to want any whiskey at five o'clock
in the afternoon."
At which his host swore softly, and lifting the decanter poured out two
good fingers.
"Mr. Wright," said Dr. Lavendar, "I will be obliged if you will not
swear in my presence."
"You needn't talk to me," cried Benjamin Wright, "I despise this damned
profanity there is about; besides, I am always scrupulously particular
in my language before females and parsons. Well;--I wanted to see you,
because that jack-donkey, Sam, my grandson, is causing me some anxiety."
"Why, Sam is a good boy," Dr. Lavendar protested.
"Too good. I like a boy to be human at twenty-three. He doesn't know
the wickedness of the world."
"Thank God," said Dr. Lavendar.
"Dominie, ignorance ain't virtue."
"No; but it's a fair substitute. I wouldn't want one of my boys to be
able to pass an examination on wrong-doing."
"But you want him to recognize it when he sees it, don't you?"
"If he knows goodness, you can trust him to recognize the other thing.
Teach 'em goodness. Badness will label itself."
"Doesn't follow," Benjamin Wright said. "But you're a parson; parsons
know about as much as females--good females. Look here! I have reasons
for saying that the boy ought to get out of Old Chester. I want your
assistance."
"Get out of Old Chester!--to see how wicked the world is?"
Mr. Wright shook his head. "No; he could see that here--only the puppy
hasn't got his eyes open yet. A little knocking about the world, such
as any boy ought to have, will open 'em. Living in Old Chester is
narrowing; very narrowing. Besides, he's got--well, he's got some truck
he's written. It isn't entirely bad, Lavendar, and he might as well try
to get it published, or, maybe, produced in some theatre. So let him go
and hunt up a publisher or a manager. Now, very likely, his--his
_mother_ won't approve. I want you to urge--her, to let him go."
"Travelling might be good for Sam," said Dr. Lavendar; "I admit
that--though not to learn the wickedness of the world. But I don't know
that it would be worth while to take a journey just on account of his
writing. He could put it in an envelope and mail it to a publisher;
he'd get it back just as soon," Dr. Lavendar said chuckling. "Look
here, what's the matter? I can see you're concerned about the boy."
"Concerned?" cried Benjamin Wright, pounding the table with his tumbler
and chewing orange-skin rapidly. "I'm damned concerned."
"I will ask, sir, that you will not swear in my presence."
Mr. Wright coughed. "I will endeavor to respect the cloth," he said
stiffly.
"If you will respect yourself, it will be sufficient. As for Sam, if
there's anything wrong, his father ought to know it."
"Well then, tell his--_mother_, that there is something wrong."
"What?"
Mr. Wright got up, and clasping his hands behind him, shuffled about
the room. Instantly one of the canaries began to sing. "Stop that!" he
said. The bird quivered with shrill music. "Stop! You! ... There's no
such thing as conversation, with these creatures about," he added in a
proud aside. "Did you ever hear such singing?"
Dr. Lavendar, unable to make himself heard, shook his head.
"If you don't stop," said Mr. Wright, "I'll wring your neck!" and as
the bird continued, he opened the door. "Simmons! You freckled nigger!
Bring me the apron." Then he stamped, and cursed the slowness of
niggers. Simmons, however, came as fast as his old legs could carry
him, bearing a blue gingham apron. This, thrown over the cage, produced
silence.
"There! Now, perhaps, you'll hold your tongue? ... Lavendar, I prefer
not to say what is wrong. Merely tell Sam's--_mother_, that he had
better go. If she is too mean to provide the money, I will."
"Sam's father is not too mean to do anything for Sam's welfare; but of
course, a general accusation is not convincing; should not be
convincing--Why!" said Dr. Lavendar, interrupting himself, "bless my
heart! I believe you mean that the boy is making sheep's-eyes at your
neighbor here on the hill? Is that it? Why, Benjamin, the best way to
cure that is to pay no attention to it."
"Sir," said Mr. Wright, sinking into his chair breathlessly, and
tapping the table with one veined old finger; "when I was a young man,
it was not thought proper to introduce the name of a female into a
discussion between gentlemen."
"Well," Dr. Lavendar admitted, "maybe not--when you were young. But all
of us young folks in Old Chester know perfectly well that Sam is
smitten, and we are ignoring it."
"What! His--_mother_ knows it?"
"His father knows it perfectly well," said Dr. Lavendar smiling.
Mr. Wright got up again, his fingers twitching with impatience.
"Lavendar," he began--another bird trilled, and snarling with
annoyance, he pulled the blue apron from the first cage and threw it
over the second. "These creatures drive me distracted! ... Lavendar, to
get Sam out of Old Chester, I might almost consent to see
his--_mother_, if there was no other way to accomplish it."
At that Dr. Lavendar stopped smiling. "Benjamin," he said solemnly, "if
any foolishness on the part of the boy brings you to such wisdom, the
hand of the Lord will be in it!"
"I don't want to see--his relations!" cried Benjamin Wright; "but Sam's
got to get away from this place for a while, and if you won't persuade
his--_mother_ to allow it, why I might be driven to seeing--her. But
why shouldn't he try to get his truck published?"
Dr. Lavendar was very much moved. "If you'll only see your son," he
said, "this other business will straighten itself out somehow. But--"
he paused; "getting Sam's play published isn't a very good excuse for
seeing him. I'd rather have him think you were worried because the boy
had an attack of calf-love. No; I wouldn't want you to talk about
theatrical things," Dr. Lavendar ended thoughtfully.
"Why not?"
"Well, the fact is, Samuel has no sympathy with dramas or playhouses. I
do not myself approve of the theatre, but I am told respectable persons
have adopted the profession. Samuel, however, can't find any good in
it."
"He can't, can't he? Well, well; it was efficacious--it was
efficacious!"
"What was efficacious?"
Benjamin Wright laughed loudly. "You--don't know? He never told you?"
"You mean what you and he quarrelled about? No; he never told me."
"He was a fool."
"Benjamin, if you were not a fool at twenty-four; you missed a good
deal."
"And now he objects to theatrical things?"
"He objects so intensely," said Dr. Lavendar, "that, anxious as I am to
have you meet and bring this foolish and wicked quarrel to an end, I
should really hesitate to have you do so, if you insisted on discussing
that subject."
Benjamin Wright lifted one trembling fist. "It was efficacious!"
"And you would give your right hand to undo it," said Dr. Lavendar.
The very old man lowered his shaking right hand and looked at it; then
he said sullenly, "I only wanted his own good. You ought to see that--a
parson!"
"But you forget; I don't know what it was about."
Mr. Wright's face twitched. "Well," he said spasmodically, "I'll-tell
you. I--"
"Yes?"
"I--" his voice broke, then he coughed, then he tried to laugh. "Simple
enough; simple enough. I had occasion to send him to Mercer. He was to
come back that night." Mr. Wright stopped; poured some whiskey into his
glass, and forgetting to add any water, drank it at a gulp, "He didn't
come back until the next afternoon."
"Yes. Well?"
"In those days I was of--of somewhat hasty temper."
"So I have heard," said Dr. Lavendar,
Benjamin Wright glared. "When I was young, listening to gossip was not
thought becoming in the cloth. When he came, I learned that he had
stayed over in Mercer--without my consent, mark you--_to go to the
theatre!_"
"Well?" said Dr. Lavendar. "He was twenty-four. Why should he have your
consent?"
Mr. Wright waved this question aside. "When he came home, I spoke with
some severity."
"This quarrel," said Dr. Lavendar, "is not built on such folly as that."
Benjamin Wright shook his head, and made a careless gesture with his
trembling hand. "Not--entirely. I reproved him, as I say. And he was
impertinent. Impertinent, mind you, to his father! And I--in those days
my temper was somewhat quick--I--"
"Yes?"
But Mr. Wright seemed unable to proceed, except to say again,
"I--reproved him."
"But," Dr. Lavendar protested, "you don't mean to tell me that Samuel,
just for a reproof, an unkind and unjust reproof, would--why, I cannot
believe it!"
"It was not unjust!" Benjamin Wright's melancholy eyes flamed angrily.
"I know, Samuel," said Dr. Lavendar. "He is obstinate; I've told him so
a hundred times. And he's conceited--so's everybody, more or less; if
in nothing else, we're conceited because we're not conceited. But he's
not a fool. So, whether he is right or not, I am sure he thinks he had
something more to complain of than a good blowing-up?"
"In a way," said the old man, examining his ridgy finger-nails and
speaking with a gasp, "he had. Slightly."
Dr. Lavendar's stern lip trembled with anxiety. "What?"
"I--chastised him; a little."
"You--_what_?"
Benjamin Wright nodded; the wrinkled pouches under his eyes grew dully
red. "My God!" he said plaintively; "think of that--a hasty moment!
Thirty-two years; my God! I--spanked him."
Dr. Lavendar opened his lips to speak, but found no words.
"And he was offended! Offended? What right had he to be offended? _I_
was the offended party. He went to a low theatre. Apparently you see
nothing wrong in that? Well, I've always said that every parson had the
making of an actor in him. It's a toss-up--the stage or the pulpit.
Same thing at bottom. But perhaps even you won't approve of his staying
away all night? Smoking! Drinking! He'd been drunk. He confessed it.
And there was a woman in it. He confessed that. Said they'd all 'gone
to supper together.' Said that he was 'seeing the world'--which a man
('_man_,' if you please!) of his years had a right to do. Well; I
suppose you'd have had me smile at him, and tuck him up in bed to sleep
off his headache, and give him a stick of candy? That wasn't my way. I
reproved him. I--chastised him. Perfectly proper. Perhaps--unusual. He
was twenty-four, and I laid him across my knee, and--well; I got over
it in fifteen minutes. I was, perhaps, hasty My temper in those days
was not what it is now. But I forgave him in fifteen minutes; and he
had gone! He's been gone--for thirty-two years. My God!"
He poured out another finger of whiskey, but forgot to drink it. A
canary-bird chirped loudly, then lapsed into a sleepy twitter.
"I was well rid of him! To make a quarrel out of a thing like that--a
joke, as you might say. I laughed, myself, afterwards, at the thought
of it. A fellow of twenty-four--spanked! Why didn't he swear and be
done with it? I would have reproved him for his profanity, of course.
Profanity in young persons is a thing I will not tolerate; Simmons will
tell you so. But it would have cleared the air. If he had done that,
we'd have been laughing about it, now;--he and I, together." The old
man suddenly put both hands over his face, and a broken sound came from
behind them.
Dr. Lavendar shook his head, speechlessly.
"What's the matter with you?" cried Benjamin Wright, pulling off his
hat and banging it down on the table so fiercely that the crown
collapsed on one side like an accordion. "Good God! Can't you see the
tomfoolery of this business of thirty-two years of hurt feelings?"
Dr. Lavendar was silent.
"What! You excuse him? When I was young, parsons believed in the Ten
Commandments; 'Honor thy father and thy mother--'"
"There is another scripture which saith, 'Fathers, provoke not your
children to wrath.' And when it comes to the Commandments, I would
commend the third to your attention. As for Samuel, you robbed him."
"Robbed him?"
"You took his self-respect. A young man's dignity, at twenty-four, is
as precious to him as a woman's modesty. You stole it. Yes; you robbed
him. Our Heavenly Father doesn't do that, when He punishes us. We lose
our dignity ourselves; but He never robs us of it. Did ye ever notice
that? Well; you robbed Samuel. My--my--_my!_" Dr. Lavendar sighed
wearily. For, indeed, the matter looked very dark. Here was the moment
he had prayed for--the readiness of one or the other of the two men to
take the first step towards reconciliation. Such readiness, he had
thought, would mean the healing of the dreadful wound, whatever it was;
forgiveness on the father's part of some terrible wrong-doing,
forgiveness on the son's part of equally terrible hardness of heart.
Instead he found a cruel and ridiculous mortification, made permanent
by thirty-two unpardoning years. Here was no sin to command the
dreadful dignity of repentance, with its divine response of
forgiveness. The very lack of seriousness in the cause made the effect
more serious. He looked over at the older man, and shook his head....
How could they pay their debts to each other, this father and son?
Could Benjamin Wright return the self-respect he had stolen away? Could
Samuel offer that filial affection which should have blessed all these
empty years? A wickedly ludicrous memory forbade the solemnity of a
reconciliation: below any attempt the father might make, there would be
a grin, somewhere; below any attempt the son might make, there would be
a cringe, somewhere. The only possible hope was in absolute, flat
commonplace. Play-writing, as a subject of conversation, was out of the
question!
"Benjamin," he said with agitation, "I thank God that you are willing
to see Samuel; but you must promise me not to refer to Sam's play. You
must promise me this, or the last end of the quarrel will be worse than
the first."
"I haven't said I was willing to see him," Mr. Wright broke out; "I'm
_not_ willing! Is it likely that I would hanker after an interview? All
I want is to get the boy away from Old Chester; to 'see the world.'
His--father ought to sympathize with that! Yes; to get him away, I
would even--But if you will tell his--relatives, that in my judgment,
he ought to go away, that is all that is necessary."
"No! You must urge it yourself," Dr. Lavendar said eagerly. "Put it on
the ground of calf-love, if you want to. I'll tell Samuel you want to
get Sam out of town because you're afraid he's falling in love with
Mrs. Richie; and you'd like to consult him about it."
But the old man began a scrabbling retreat. "No! No!" he said, putting
on his hat with shaking hands. "No, don't tell anybody anything. I'll
find some other way out of it. Let it go. Seeing his--relatives is a
last resource. If they are so virtuous as to object to plays, I'll try
something else. Object?" he repeated, "Gad-a-mercy! My discipline was
successful!" He grinned wickedly.
Dr. Lavendar made no reply. The interview had been a strain, and he got
up a little feebly. Benjamin Wright, as he saw him to the door, swore
again at some misdemeanor on the part of Simmons, but was not rebuked.
The old minister climbed into his buggy, and told Goliath to "g'long."
As he passed the Stuffed Animal House, he peered through the little
dusty window of the hood; but David was not in sight.